When you aim at something, do you hit it?

Most of us don't, at least not all the time.

Things don't turn out quite the way we expected.

The result doesn't match our intentions.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, said Field Marshal Helmuth von Volta.

Or as Robert Burns put it,

the best-laid schemes of mice and men ganged aftergly. Lawmakers are no different.

A significant part of First Amendment law is about policing how laws intended to address one kind of speech might be used to punish another.

That's exactly what led to what may be the most important First Amendment case of the 21st century so far.

A case most people have never even heard of.

It's what happened when Congress aimed at videos showing women in high heels crushing small animals,

but instead hit Robert J. Stevens, who made videos about pit bulls.

In the process, the Supreme Court made a crucial ruling about how we decide what sort of speech is outside the protection of the First Amendment.

I'm Ken White, and this is Make No Law, the First Amendment podcast from popat.com, brought to you on the Legal Talk Network.

This is episode five, Crush. I'm I'm I'm The

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The Members of Congress love a nice, clean, uncontroversial win.

They're always looking for a vote that will make everybody happy, the proverbial

We Love Kittens Act of 2018.

In 1999, Representative Elton Gallagley, a Republican from California, found it.

Here's how he described the problem facing America that he wanted to fix.

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