Having a means of defending yourself in a situation that might call for one is just smart. If it wasn't commonplace for protestors to get beat up and shot at by police officers maybe they wouldn't feel a need to defend themselves while using their first amendment rights.
So if the assembly was full of black people armed to the teeth is a getto neighbourhood complaining about police violence. You are still OK...
Get serious, a large group of armed people is a mob and if both sides were armed to the teeth you just need one idiot/nervious person to start a highly violent scence...
Except one side was legal, and stationary. The other traveled to confront them. That makes them the agitators, and instigators and thus; they are responsible for the violence.
When you are hosting an event which is part of your "Month of Hate", and you arrive for your event armed and wearing body armour, you're not there for the hot dogs and beer.
The very existence of these hate groups goes against everything the United States Consititution and the laws of your nation stands for.
Three people died, nearly a dozen are injured, and still the right refuses to denounce the KKK and the Nazis.
Have you read the First Amendment lately?
They, scum that they are, still have the right to free speech, and the freedom to peaceful assembly.
and if you don't like what they say, argue with the Supreme Court.
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From today’s opinion by Justice Samuel Alito (for four justices) in
Matal v. Tam, the “Slants” case:
[The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend … strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”
Opinion | Supreme Court unanimously reaffirms: There is no ‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment