What words make up a true threat?

As the COVID-19 crisis stretches on, we’re seeing more conflict, more protests and particularly more online rancor in the debate over how — and if — public officials should “open up” society or government restraints on gatherings, from bowling leagues and bars to religious services and retail stores.

The First Amendment’s protection for free speech covers most of what we may say, whether it’s impolite, insulting, biased or uplifting, even commentary or forcefully expressed opinions that most of us would find repulsive or repugnant.

But one area not protected as free speech is called a “true threat,” words that cause a person to fear for their safety or life. In a crisis, we may find things we say are taken in a different context by police, prosecutors and juries than at other, less stressful times.

Unfortunately for those trying to measure their own remarks, setting out a precise definition for what constitutes a true threat has flummoxed even the U.S. Supreme Court.

The result is a division of opinion in federal and state courts across the country.

Toss in the new machinations of social media, which remove the element of face-to-face confrontation, but also provide a degree of anonymity — and lack of restraints — and the lines dividing protected and unprotected speech blur even more.

Speech threatening bodily harm made to a specific person standing in front of you while you have a weapon — for example, holding a knife and saying “I have a knife and I’m going to cut your throat” — leaves little doubt that it’s a true threat.

But what if the person at whom those same words are directed isn’t nearby when the remark is made, but sees it hours or days later on social media?

For many years, evidence that a statement could be judged as putting any “reasonable person” in fear was enough to support a conviction in many courts. But in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Elonis v. United States, focused on the intent of the person making the statement, effectively saying that consideration was important — and perhaps essential — when deciding if the speaker was indeed issuing a “true threat.”

But the high court didn’t set out any means of measuring intent, leaving things hanging.

All of that leaves many of us subject to state laws that don’t include a requirement to consider what we might mean when we say it, just how a “reasonable person” would feel about our words.

Case in point: According to Kentucky’s Lexington Herald Leader, Louisville lawyer James Gregory Troutman, 53, was charged April 22 with “terroristic threatening” for two Facebook posts directed at Gov. Andy Beshear.

“Maybe some should ask Beshear in a press conference about his thoughts on William Goebel,” Troutman was reported by police to have said in a post, “For those of you who don’t know the history … it’s a good read.” Goebel, shot to death in 1900, in is the only serving U.S. governor ever assassinated.

Police said Troutman also later posted, in a Facebook exchange about Beshear ordering photos to be taken of license plates of churchgoers flouting social distancing orders, “With any luck the gov will be the one at whom the shooting will be directed.”

Police said Troutman was “threatening to commit a crime likely to result in death or serious physical injury to the Kentucky governor.” But Troutman’s lawyer said the man “didn’t say he was going to kill him.”

From armed protestors confronting state police officers in the Michigan capitol building to armed revelers at a Texas bar arrested in a SWAT raid, from angry crowds outside a number of gubernatorial residences to violent words on social media, the potential for threating actions and actual violence today is higher than ever.

So how to judge whether your words, expressive conduct (such as marching with signs or weapons) or violent social media posts are protected speech?

Colleagues at the Freedom Forum’s education unit provide a lesson plan — for free — to help you navigate those First Amendment “true threat” waters: In “You Can’t Say That?!” you will learn about restrictions to freedom of speech in public life and the court cases that determined when and why those limits apply.

Bottom line: In the U.S., the First Amendment certainly protects your right to speak.

But there’s no absolute protection from the effects of what you say — particularly when those words may put a specific person in fear of injury or death.