Nevada high school student Noah Christiansen, like so many young Americans right now, is concerned about gun control. He participated in a walkout at his school in a nationwide protest against gun violence. He also called his Republican congressman, Rep. Mark Amodei, to ask him to ban bump stocks and raise the legal age to buy a gun—and then Christiansen got suspended.
Wait … what?
See, on his call to Rep. Amodei’s office, Christiansen used a bad word.
“I just said, ‘I believe bump stocks should be banned, the minimum age should be raised, and Congress people not already asking should get off their f-ing asses and do something about gun control.’ ”
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Funny, I thought Republicans were such lovers of the First Amendment?
Later, a congressional aide phoned the school about Christiansen’s “vulgar language” and Christiansen was subsequently suspended for two days and is now unable to serve as school secretary, a position he won in a student election.
This is a high school student who serves in student government and doesn’t have so much as a detention on his record.
Now the ACLU’s involved.
The ACLU’s letter accuses the congressman’s office of retaliating against the student and restricting his right to free speech. The organization is advocating on the student’s behalf and trying to get his school record cleared, officials said.
“For the sake of all your constituents, I hope you will rectify the situation you created and restore this young man’s school record by withdrawing your complaint with the school and apologizing to him,” Story wrote.
But Rep. Amodei’s not budging.
"I'm not going to apologize to (Christiansen) because he offended somebody he didn't even know," Amodei said. "The ACLU can do whatever it thinks is right."
He also told the Los Angeles Times:
Welcome to the world where words have impact.
The consolation from this story is that Noah Christiansen, along with the rest of the younger generation rallying for lawmakers to do something about gun control, will soon have the right to vote these assholes out.
Fuck you very much, Rep. Amodei.