A California judge disagreed with a San Diego man’s argument that his violent online rants against people of color are protected under the First Amendment.
And now Timothy Caruthers has been ineligible to buy or own a gun for at least two years, San Diego County Supreme Court Judge Richard Whitney ruled last week.
“The Court concludes that the purchase of a semi-automatic pistol, combined with evidence of highly egregious racial threats, advocating violence against minority groups, vulgar speech, speech promoting the killing of other minority groups, is not considered constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment to the US Constitution,” the court ordered.
Among the social media the “Liberal Terminator” covers, Caruthers made threats against black people, Latinos, Muslims, Jewish people, the LGBTQ community and women, prosecutors said.
“Essentially anyone who is non-white except liberals,” deputy city attorney Joshua Kay said, according to CBS8 San Diego.
Kay added that Caruthers expressed his desire to kill black people and idolized white nationalist Dylann Roof — who killed nine people in a 2015 church shooting in Charleston.
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In one post, Caruthers is said to have said, “All n—–s must be dead. I don’t know how much longer I can hold my rage. I want a race war to start so I can kill black people. … I don’t even care a joke.”
According to court minutes, Caruthers wrote in another message: “I want to kill all that is n—-s. I want to torture and beat them to death and watch them gargle and spit in their own blood. … You should always have your keep a belt handy if you’re within 10 miles of a –r.’
In July 2021, police said they had found an illegally concealed gun and loaded magazine in Caruthers’ car. Because of its violent functions, the San Diego Caruthers Police Department has issued a restraining order for gun violence, according to CBS8.
“So all these threats against black people, Hispanics and Muslims, with a combination of buying this firearm and ammunition, are a recent threat to others,” Kay argued according to court minutes.
“It’s not like someone is trying to say you can’t say what you want, or that you can’t do what you want. It says if you’re going to say these things and carry a gun in your car, that’s not the kind of person who should probably own a gun,” Kay added.
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Caruthers had filed a motion against the July 2021 injunction banning him from possessing a gun, claiming his social media posts should have been protected by the First Amendment, CBS8 San Diego reported. Caruthers’ defense team argued that “the Internet is entitled to the highest level of First Amendment protection.”
Similar to the print media, similar to online hate speech, it receives as much protection as hate speech pamphlets distributed by the Ku Klux Klan, the defense lawyers said. “If the Ku Klux Klan can go out and make statements, why aren’t they in this courtroom for a restraining order on gun violence?”
Suzy Moore, Caruthers’ mother and one of his attorneys, said her son initially bought his gun after being harassed over a pro-Trump sticker on his car, CBS8 reported.
“It’s all protected — anything you say on the internet, as long as there’s no identifiable victim and as long as there’s no imminent threat,” Moore said in a civil court hearing earlier in March. “There was no imminent threat. There were no identifiable victims. That’s the standard you have to meet to have a real threat, so it goes outside of the First Amendment protections.”
The restraining order for gun violence will remain in effect against Caruthers until July 2023, two years after the original filing date.
The Caruthers legal team did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
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