Protesting with guns and conflating the First and Second Amendments: The case of the Bundys

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the legal discourse surrounding two armed anti-government confrontations – at Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014, and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016 – to understand how the public makes sense of the relationship between First and Second Amendment rights. Using the concept of non-judicial precedents and drawing on legal scholarship following District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), we find that public meaning-making mirrors concerns raised by legal scholars about using First Amendment logics to understand Second Amendment rights, conflating the two in meaning and practice. Discourse surrounding these armed confrontations focused on whether guns were needed to protect speech rights, the rhetoric of patriotism, and the contested constitutional primacy of speech versus guns. We argue that this case study demonstrates the need for communication scholars to problematize the logics that intertwine the First and Second Amendments, especially as the nation confronts the normalization of the use of guns in political protest, conflict, and insurrection.