"Why has Phoenix banned gun safety ads?"
Phoenix examiner.com October 22nd, 2010 8:54 am ET.
"The city of Phoenix, in an apparently arbitrary move and without formal legal process, has forced CBS Outdoors to tear down 50 illuminated bus-shelter billboards under contract to promote gun safety training for children and their parents," gun law author Alan Korwin's email alert begins.
The posters were placed by TrainMeAZ.com, a commercial joint-educational effort of the firearms industry in Arizona, and had been up all over the Phoenix metro area for a little over one week before the city acted.
Who (besides rabid anti-gunners who preach denial and avoidance to "feel safe," of course) could be against gun safety training? Especially in a state with so many gun owners carrying openly and concealed?
And who has authority to interfere in freedom of expression this way?
Apparently Assistant Phoenix city attorney Ted Mariscal thinks he does.
[He] claimed in a conference call with Mr. Korwin and CBS Outdoor that the billboards weren't commercial enough, the message was too vague, and then demanded the message be changed to his satisfaction. When pressed for a definition of what is either sufficiently commercial or what defines a public service ad he declined to respond...
A Ninth Circuit abortion ad decision and a city leasing agreement are cited as the authority the city can wield to suppress the ads. The thing is:
No lease agreement has been provided, and the city apparently has no definitions in place, apparently leaving Mr. Mariscal to act on his own unfettered accord. Nothing in the city's advertising guidelines, provided by Mr. Mariscal, appear to justify the censored ads.
This is arbitrary tyranny. It is nothing less than un-American, and Mariscal, who like all public officials took an oath of office attesting his fidelity to the Constitution, ought to be ashamed of himself.
That he's not, that he would even conceive of doing this and then acting on it, shows him unfit for office. As is his boss, City Attorney Gary Verburg, for letting him get away with this outrage, instead of firing him as an example to anyone else in the office who would dare such an outrage.
Securing the blessings of Liberty. Right.
What could be more dangerous to freedom than some unaccountable mandarin deciding which ideas are proper for public dissemination and which must be suppressed through government coercion? Where do these salivating authority-firsters come from?
And where's the ACLU?
Phoenix examiner.com October 22nd, 2010 8:54 am ET.
"The city of Phoenix, in an apparently arbitrary move and without formal legal process, has forced CBS Outdoors to tear down 50 illuminated bus-shelter billboards under contract to promote gun safety training for children and their parents," gun law author Alan Korwin's email alert begins.
The posters were placed by TrainMeAZ.com, a commercial joint-educational effort of the firearms industry in Arizona, and had been up all over the Phoenix metro area for a little over one week before the city acted.
Who (besides rabid anti-gunners who preach denial and avoidance to "feel safe," of course) could be against gun safety training? Especially in a state with so many gun owners carrying openly and concealed?
And who has authority to interfere in freedom of expression this way?
Apparently Assistant Phoenix city attorney Ted Mariscal thinks he does.
[He] claimed in a conference call with Mr. Korwin and CBS Outdoor that the billboards weren't commercial enough, the message was too vague, and then demanded the message be changed to his satisfaction. When pressed for a definition of what is either sufficiently commercial or what defines a public service ad he declined to respond...
A Ninth Circuit abortion ad decision and a city leasing agreement are cited as the authority the city can wield to suppress the ads. The thing is:
No lease agreement has been provided, and the city apparently has no definitions in place, apparently leaving Mr. Mariscal to act on his own unfettered accord. Nothing in the city's advertising guidelines, provided by Mr. Mariscal, appear to justify the censored ads.
This is arbitrary tyranny. It is nothing less than un-American, and Mariscal, who like all public officials took an oath of office attesting his fidelity to the Constitution, ought to be ashamed of himself.
That he's not, that he would even conceive of doing this and then acting on it, shows him unfit for office. As is his boss, City Attorney Gary Verburg, for letting him get away with this outrage, instead of firing him as an example to anyone else in the office who would dare such an outrage.
Securing the blessings of Liberty. Right.
What could be more dangerous to freedom than some unaccountable mandarin deciding which ideas are proper for public dissemination and which must be suppressed through government coercion? Where do these salivating authority-firsters come from?
And where's the ACLU?
