This was written prior to the Charlottesville tragedy. I wonder if using a vehicle for manslaughter is the sort of thing the framers had in mind when they crafted the "right to kill" legislation in North Dakota ....
Over the first six months of the Trump presidency, a number of states have put forth laws restricting people's right to protest. According to an article by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 20 state legislatures drafted bills to do so. That's just under one-half of all states that have set about trying to restrict people's right to protest their government - or at least to criminalize such activity. As of the end of June this year (2017), 12 bills had died, 3 were still under consideration, and 4 had passed (North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee).
According to our Constitution, we the people have the right to peaceably protest our government. And there are plenty of existing laws on the books giving local governments the ability to arrest people for obstructing cars or pedestrians, as well as for trespassing on private property. So, there doesn't seem to be an urgent need for more laws to help law enforcement do their job.
“Prohibits Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.”
I can see how people in North Dakota might be tired of the massive protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline, and of the disruption it causes to their lives. But are legal protections for drivers who "accidentally" injure, hit, or kill a protestor really the answer? How can you not be "guilty of an offense" if you drive your car into someone in a road, regardless of what they are doing there?
In Arizona, participating in - or organizing - a legal protest that turns into a “riot” would have become a criminal racketeering offense and would have allowed for seizing the assets of anyone involved in the protest, even if not involved in the riot.
Since the election, there have been quite a number of protests across the country. Unfortunately, the main response by Republican legislators has simply been to try and limit people's ability to protest, rather than try to help find a solution to the issue at hand. Or at the very least, to find ways of making it safer for people to use their constitutionally protected right to protest that also minimizes the inconvenience to those living in the pathway. It's the tendency of Republicans to try and clamp down, to somehow restrict people, that is so troubling. After all, our government is supposed to be working for the people, not against the people.