Gun Control & RKBA

Since its founding during a period of anti-communist paranoia in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has served as a reliable line of defense for those who find their constitutional freedoms under threat.

Sometimes, that means fighting for liberal causes: ACLU lawyers were involved in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the two supreme court victories that underpinned women’s right to abortions in modern America. ANd the ACLU was the only major U.S. organization to speak out against the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

But sometimes, the group has decided to defend people that its liberal supporters find less palatable. In a 1934 pamphlet, entitled Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis in America? the group defended its choice to stand up for German-American Nazis who wanted to hold meetings in the U.S. “Is it not clear that free speech as a practical tactic, not only as an abstract principle, demands the defense of all who are attacked in order to obtain the rights of any ?” its justification read.

In modern America, the ACLU finds itself in a similar bind. With far-right groups like neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan more visible, and white nationalists grouping under its self-defined banner of the "alt-right," it must decide whether it will defend the rights of such groups to demonstrate and spread their often hateful views.

http://www.newsweek.com/free-speech-hate-speech-aclu-civil-liberties-donald-trump-652050