A bill heading to the finish line in the Louisiana Legislature that vetoes a heckler’s veto not only will protect law enforcement officers from abuse but also will increase the safety of the abusers.
HB 132 by Republican state Rep. Brian Glorioso would add a third part to the state’s definition of battery, joining using intentional force on another and throwing a poison or noxious liquid on another: directing sound at an injurious volume reasonably knowing that at somebody else. It only has to garner a favorable Senate vote to head to GOP Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk.
Free expression should have maximum latitude, when possible, but the judiciary recognizes limits to this First Amendment right. Colloquially called “time, place, and manner” restrictions, as long as a government restriction is content neutral, narrowly-tailored serving a significant government interest, and permits alternative communication channels, courts don’t perceive this as a constitutional violation.
This bill fits the bill. Volume, not content, is limited. Government has a significant interest in preserving the health and safety of all involved, and there exists plenty of alternative avenues of great breadth and depth for protest.
Glorioso sees the bill principally as an assist to law enforcement when undergoing abuse by protesters using sonic means, but it works all ways. Increasingly, leftist protesters have taken to using sound as a harassment technique by amplifying sounds like guttural expressions, whistles, and profane language directed in close proximity to law enforcement officers, while trying to hide under the skirts of the First Amendment.
Obviously, they are trying primarily to disrupt and make life unpleasant for those on the job, not really trying to convey a message. Note that just singing without loudspeakers in the ears of law enforcement can move mountains – if, of course, you have the right message, which almost always isn’t the case with today’s left.
Knowing that they have lost the battle of ideas infuriates the most wound-up of them, as they see their views translated into public policy as a divine right (assuming, which many don’t, that they believe in a divinity). Thus, they conclude, by any means necessary they must veto policy emanating from the ideas that won in the marketplace of expression, through harassment.
Believing themselves because of their presumed unimpeachably sanctified ideas to have a special aura of protection that exempts them from not only laws that apply to all but even from the vagaries of human nature, behaving in this fashion can bring danger. Perhaps the most recent example came during protests at the beginning of the year in Minneapolis against officers trying to enforce immigration laws. One of the protesters, with a concealed firearm, who frequently practiced forms of harassment (if not actual assaults) including sonic, at one point had to be sprayed with pepper, the gun came into view and (possibly accidentally) discharged, which led to his shooting death by agents. Such a law also protects those who get this lathered up by discouraging them from abusing others that makes an intense situation even more volatile.
Fortunately, Louisiana since the election of Landry has gotten serious about dealing with the entitlement view of the most overheated protesters. Putting this bill into to law is another example of that which brings greater civility to public expression and prevents a minority from tyrannizing the public square.
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