The Knox Report
From the Firearms Coalition
First Doesn’t Apply to Second in Phoenix
By Chris & Jeff Knox
(Phoenix, AZ, November 01, 2010) The City of Phoenix, Arizona apparently doesn’t think the First Amendment protections of free speech do not apply to speech related to the Second Amendment. The City recently tore down a number paid advertisements which encouraged firearms safety training. The move came after the signs, sponsored by a coalition of firearms trainers and other responsible gun owners, had been up in area bus shelters for a little more than a week. The outrageous order to tear down the signs was attributed to a Assistant City Attorney Ted Mariscal who claimed that the messages on the signs did not meet the city’s criteria for public service announcements – even though the messages were commercial advertising, not public service announcements.
Our friend Alan Korwin, the force behind GunLaws.com and the Gun Owner’s Guide book series, is also a key player in a new project called TrainMeAZ.com. The project is a coalition of members of the Arizona firearms training industry, rights activists, and concerned citizens. The focus of TrainMeAZ.com is to honor the state’s firearms heritage by encouraging gun owners, prospective gun owners, and other interested persons to get proper training in the use of arms, to make sure that the kids they contact – and who might come into contact with guns – also receive appropriate training, and to provide an easy means of finding quality training services.
The group formed in the wake of passage of Arizona’s constitutional carry law, which makes the state permitting and mandatory training process for carrying a concealed weapon optional. Even though lifting government mandated training requirements is detrimental to the training industry, the majority of Arizona’s firearms trainers supported it. In an effort to maintain their businesses many of them banded together to form TrainMeAZ.com and promote proper firearms training as a civic obligation and responsible thing to do.
The groups bought advertising that started appearing on Phoenix bus shelters and freeway billboards in October. The campaign had barely kicked off when, without notice or process, the City, which owns the bus shelter locations, violated their contract with the advertising company and took the signs down.
“The Phoenix attorney’s office claimed these were public service announcements, and those are banned,” said Korwin. “It’s a bogus excuse,” he continued, “they know full well we’re an LLC and not a non-profit. The commercial sponsors, shooting ranges and trainers on the website expect to attract customers. The ads are aimed at parents, so they can teach gun safety and the values of marksmanship to their kids,” he said. “We’re promoting a culture of marksmanship, where everyone learns to shoot and understands gun safety.”
Assistant Phoenix city attorney Ted Mariscal claimed in a conference call with Mr. Korwin and CBS Outdoor, the city’s advertising contractor, 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, referring instead to a 12-year-old 9th Circuit court case concerning a religious group (Children of the Rosary) and abortion ads. CBS is designing new art to please the city, but without guidelines of what’s acceptable, there’s no way to predict the result, and the TrainMeAZ campaign isn’t exactly keen on this approach.
The banning of the ads attracted attention from Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts who compared the ads to another – unbanned – campaign publicizing a suicide prevention hotline run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Columnist Roberts quoted city spokesperson Marie Chapple who said that the VA ads were commercial, soldiers being “employees of the Veterans Administration.”
I called the city and also talked with Ms. Chapple who gave a somewhat more refined version of the same argument. Ms. Chapple said that bus and bus shelter advertising has to make a commercial appeal. I questioned whether the tagline “Not all wounds are visible” on a suicide prevention ad was commercial. She asserted it was since the service was only open to veterans and was a benefit arising from employment. I pressed the question since it might also be an invitation to the general public to understand the plight of a psychologically scarred veteran. Ms. Chapple held her ground insisting that the VA ads were commercial and focused on a specific employment benefit while the TrainMeAZ.com ads open a discussion, particularly with the ad copy text that appears below the logo in the ads (high-resolution versions of the ads appear on the TrainMeAZ.com web site under the “Billboards” link).
Ms. Chapple pointed out that city buses routinely carry gun show ads. She says it is city policy not to accept public service announcements or political advertising and insisted that the city is not censoring the ads on the basis of gun rights.
That may be, but the city has behaved poorly on at least three points. First, the take-down order was sudden by any standard. Second, the “no debate” rule of the contract was not highlighted and the interpretation seems to be arbitrary. Finally, the city accepted the ads in the first place. The order to take the ads down allegedly came after a member of the public complained. Some members of the public seem to have an impressive grasp of the fine points of city advertising policies.
CBS Outdoor, the city’s agent for advertising sales, might have been more helpful, but appear to be making amends. CBS has agreed to cover the cost of replacing the ads and to help with new copy that won’t be considered “debate”
Is the Phoenix city government grinding an anti-gun axe? Maybe some elements within the city government would like to. It would be consistent with some of the city’s moves over the years, including erecting an atrocious piece of sculpture made of seized guns. Yet Phoenix also went to some effort to suspend the liquor license of the Phoenix Convention Center during the 2009 NRA convention in order to keep the convention floor a legal area for open carry. The result was the most well-armed NRA convention I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen many – and also one of the lowest crime weekends in years.
It’s possible that the in-your-face ads provoked an over-reaction. The over-reaction has called even more attention to the campaign, and allowed TrainMeAZ.com to crank the outrage up to maximum volume. So perhaps some gratitude is owed the reactionary elements that complained. The main thing is that Arizona, the leading state in gun-freedom, establish a culture of responsibility to go along with our culture of freedom.
Permission to reprint or post this article in its entirety is hereby granted provided this credit and link is included. Text is available at www.FirearmsCoalition.org. To receive The Firearms Coalition’s bi-monthly newsletter, The Knox Hard Corps Report, write to PO Box 3313, Manassas, VA 20108.
Copyright © 2010 Neal Knox Associates – The most trusted name in the rights movement.