The Bill of Rights, Explained:

Freedom of Speech means we all have to put up with people who call the president* a pussy-grabbing racist dumbass, and Tomi Lahren, too.

Freedom of the Press means we all have to put up with a world that has porn, and Fox News, too.

Freedom of Assembly means we all have to put up with delays in our trip to the Piggly Wiggly if enough people are angry enough to take to the streets, and the NRA, too.

Freedom of Religion means we all have to put up with Scientologists at our airports and Jehovah’s Witnesses at out front door, and Franklin Graham, too.

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The Fourth Amendment means that, occasionally, people are set free because searches are badly conducted. The Fifth Amendment means they can’t make you rat on yourself, not even if they catch you in the act. The Sixth Amendment means everybody gets a trial no matter what the lawyers on cable news say about their crimes.

And the Second Amendment means, apparently, to its most enthusiastic adherents that we have to live with the now more-than-occasional mass murder in our high schools.

There was another unfortunate exercise of Second Amendment freedoms Friday in a place called Santa Fe in Texas. At least eight people now have been added to the cost of living in a free nation. We have many freedoms in America. Only one evidently requires blood sacrifices.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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