2nd Amendment: 1 – Injustice: 0

Well, I guess chalk one up for America…

Or, to be more accurate, score one for the U.S. Constitution – and we’re not talking about Old Ironsides here.

Recently came across an article where a California man, who posted racial epithets, calling to “shoot” Barack Obama on a chat site, has been found innocent of making threats against a major presidential candidate back during the 2008 presidential elections.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Walter Bagdasarian’s conviction Tuesday, saying that while his posts were “particularly repugnant”, they weren’t criminal in nature as a reasonable person wouldn’t have taken them as a genuine threat.

Free speech, you gotta love it.

The panel, while divided, ruled that Badasarian was engaging in constitutionally protected free speech, overturning his criminal conviction…

And agree with them – 100%.

It all comes down to intent.

Did Walter Bagdasarian really call for the assassination of a presidential candidate?

Or was he merely “blowing off steam”?

The court believed the later, thus overturning this man’s conviction…

But I think there is something more to this story that we, as free citizens, should consider…

While I’ll agree that the President of the United States, no matter who holds the mantle, has a much more significant role in our world than many of us…

But in the eyes of God, is his life any more valuable than anyone else’s?

What I mean to say is this…

I think that if the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service are scanning the internet for possible death threats against the President, V.P. or anyone else in the “ruling class”…

Shouldn’t they be looking for any serious threats against regular citizens?

I could be way off here, but in my eyes, a serious death threat is a serious death threat.

Would it take so much time out of their day to contact local authorities to investigate such dangers?

I know what you’re thinking…

“But Shawn, you just said that we won one for free speech, now you’re calling for individual investigations? Make up your mind!”

Again, it all comes down to intent.

It isn’t hard to discern the difference between somebody verbalizing their anger and somebody planning to actual cause bodily harm or death to another individual.

You can scan an email in less than a minute…

A Twitter or Facebook post in half that time.

I’m just saying if you’re going to take some threats seriously, why not all that they come across?

Is one person’s life that much more valuable than others, that they can’t take a few minutes to contact a local authority?

Just food for thought really…

I am glad this man’s freedoms are now restored, but I’m even more glad that his threat wasn’t serious.

Because if it were, there’s more wrong with our country than we’d like to admit…

Especially if somebody wants to kill another person simply for having a different philosophical view.

That’s a world I don’t want to live in…