The “gun problem” is really an issue with shit like social services and safety nets, not guns per se.

If you talk to a criminal defense attorney and ask what the gov’t could do that would see the biggest drop in gun crime, most of them will answer without hesitation: end the war on drugs. If you decriminalize and legalize drugs, you end fights over money and territory in a single fell swoop, because you don’t see convenience stores shooting each other up, do you?

…Then pit both of them against someone that goes to a monthly IDPA or USPSA match.

(My point is, if you want to be able to use a gun when you’re under a lot of pressure to perform well, you gotta practice under pressure too.)

And this is covered by freedom of the press.

Their freedom of the press isn’t what’s in question. Their ownership is. They are welcome to continue operating as long as they are not owned by a Chinese company based in China and subject to Chinese national security laws.

But, even if it’s really, truly, a 1A issue, no rights are absolute. You can not, for instance, publish classified information, and then claim that it’s a free speech issue. National security interests can, and do, outweigh individual and especially corporate rights to free speech.

especially when the justification seems to be about the speech on that app

But that’s not the justification. The justification is first, access to data, and second, manipulation of that data. The gov’t is arguing that TT is hoovering up massive amounts of data on users, and then is manipulating the content that is shown to them in order to unjustly influence international policy, and all done with no transparency at all. It’s on-par with Russian election interference, although perhaps a little longer lasting and more subtly done.

The Constitution doesn’t only protect American citizens, it protects everyone

Uh, no. It doesn’t protect everyone, not by a long shot. The US constitution doesn’t guarantee Chinese citizens, living in China, the right to freedom of the press.

…And this isn’t about which speech they’re allowing. This is about who controls the platform, and how they respond to gov’t inquiries. If TikTok is divested from ByteDance, so that they’re no longer based in China and subject to China’s laws and interference, then there’s no problem. There are two fundamental issues; first, TikTok appears to be a tool of the Chinese gov’t (this is the best guess, considering that large parts of the intelligence about it are highly classified), and may be currently being used to amplify Chinese-state propaganda as well as increase political division, and second, what ByteDance is doing with the enormous amounts of data it’s collection, esp. from people that may be in sensitive or classified locations.

As I stated, if TikTok is sold off so that they’re no longer connected to China, then they’re more than welcome to continue to operate. ByteDance is refusing to do that.