3 states, including Texas, have pretty much completely done away with the right to organize mass protests within them without committing a civil rights violation.

The SCOTUS declined to hear a case and, by not doing so, pretty much stripped peeps of their right to organize protests in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The case in question is Doe vs. McKesson. McKesson organized a protest in Louisiana during which someone hit and injured a cop, (Doe), with a rock. While everyone seems to agree that McKesson didn't throw the rock, he was still penalized since he organized the protest.

The SCOTUS already heard this case once and by declining to hear it again, allows a lower court, the 5th circuit court, ruling to stand. A ruling that sets protest organizers up for HUGE financial losses if someone does something illegal at their protest.

Want to ruin someone's protest? (And, maybe, them too?) Or at least prevent them from ever organizing another one? Maybe scare potential organizers into abandoning their plans?

Show up at the protest and do something illegal. Throw a rock, shove somebody, litter ... crack open a beer in public. Do something illegal and, BOOM. Organizer gets into all kinds of trouble while you, (probably) walk away. Or just pay a fine which opponents of the protests organizer will probably pay for you.

Seems like it's really that simple, at the moment, which is what makes this so troubling. Our first amendment right allows us to (peacefully) say and protest against anything we wish as long as we follow basic civil laws like, no trespassing, no violence, etc.

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If this is allowed to stand, these 3 states will not have outlawed protests but they will have virtually eliminated them by making people too afraid to hold one in the first place. An indirect but very effective "null and void" stamp on the 1st amendment.

What's next? Wipe out the 2nd amendment because the head of the NRA jaywalked or the organizer of a gun show parked in a loading zone?

I get it, protestors should behave and any troublemakers need to be punished, severely for that matter. Nobody else though, not unless they had a hand in the violent or illegal activity.

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