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10  NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA v. VULLO 

Opinion of the Court 

the publishers, holding that the commission violated their 
free-speech rights by coercing the distributor to stop selling 
and displaying the listed publications.

The Court explained that the First Amendment prohibits
government officials from relying on the “threat of invoking
legal sanctions and other means of coercion . . . to achieve 
the suppression” of disfavored speech.  Id., at 67.  Although
the  commission  lacked  the  “power  to  apply  formal  legal 
sanctions,”  the  distributor  “reasonably  understood”  the 
commission  to  threaten  adverse  action,  and  thus  the  dis-
tributor’s  “compliance  with  the  [c]ommission’s  directives 
was not voluntary.”  Id., at 66–68.  To reach this conclusion, 
the Court considered things like: the commission’s coordi-
nation with law enforcement and its authority to refer mat-
ters  for  prosecution;  the  notices  themselves,  which  were 
“phrased  virtually  as  orders”  containing  “thinly  veiled 
threats to institute criminal proceedings” if the distributor
did not come around; and the distributor’s reaction to the 
notices and followup visits.  Id., at 68. 

Since Bantam Books, the Courts of Appeals have consid-
ered  similar  factors  to  determine  whether  a  challenged
communication  is  reasonably  understood  to  be  a  coercive
threat.  Take the decision below, for example.  The Second 
Circuit purported to consider: “(1) word choice and tone; (2)
the  existence  of  regulatory  authority;  (3)  whether  the 
speech  was  perceived  as  a  threat;  and,  perhaps  most  im-
portantly,  (4)  whether  the  speech  refers  to  adverse  conse-
quences.”  49 F. 4th, at 715 (citations omitted).4  Other Cir-
cuits  have  taken  similarly  fact-intensive  approaches, 

—————— 

4 The  NRA  posits  a  three-factor  test  that  looks  to:  (1)  the  actor’s  au-
thority; (2) the content and purpose of the actor’s communications; and 
(3) the reactions of the recipient.  Brief for Petitioner 26.  The NRA con-
cedes,  however,  that  its  test  is  the  same  as  the  Second  Circuit’s,  as  it 
considers the fourth factor in the Second Circuit’s test of “ ‘whether the 
speech refers to adverse consequences’ ” to be an “aspect of the inquiry
into the content and purpose of the communication.”  Id., at 27, n. 8.