THE SENATE HAS ONE WEEK REMAINING TO APPROVE HOUSE BILL ON CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY RECIPROCITY AND SEND IT TO THE PRESIDENT.

IF THE BILL DIES, WHO IS TO BLAME?

We were never so close to realizing the right of the American people to defend their lives and well-being with a firearm as we were with the passage of national concealed handgun carry reciprocity by the Republican controlled House in December 2017. Upon passage of 115 H.R. 38 in the House, the bill was immediately sent to the Senate. With the Senate’s vote of approval and with President Trump’s signature, nationwide concealed handgun reciprocity would have become a reality. As of yet, that hasn’t happened. The Senate has had over one year to act on this, and we have, to date, seen—nothing. National concealed handgun carry reciprocity was in our grasp. And it is slipping away.

We can speculate all we want as to why the Senate has not acted on this, but there is no time for that. The point is that the Senate must act. We cannot take, “no,” for an answer. National concealed handgun carry reciprocity can yet become a reality if enough Americans—millions of us—make clear to the Senate that this is what Americans, need; this is what Americans want; and we want this now, not later. We want no excuses. We want to see action. With a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican President, the lack of action on the House bill is absolutely unacceptable.

If we don’t get the Senate to act, we have only ourselves to blame for the shortfall. And, any chance of seeing another national concealed carry reciprocity bill in the next two years will be next to impossible as the Democrats will hold a majority in the House of Representatives and the Party leadership’s agenda does not call for strengthening the Second Amendment. The agenda calls for weakening the Second Amendment and weakening it quickly and drastically.

It is therefore absolutely imperative that the American people—millions of gun owners, not simply a few dozen of us—inform their representatives in the Senate that they, who were sent to the United States Capitol, to work on our behalf, have no greater obligation to this Nation than the safeguarding of the fundamental, unalienable, natural and immutable rights and liberties of the American people. That would fully accord with the intention of the framers of our Constitution.

Of those fundamental rights and liberties, none is more important than the sacred right of the people to keep and bear arms. That singular right, more than any other, makes clear the basic precept that the life and safety and well-being of each American citizen is sacred and inviolate and that no American should be denied the right of self-defense with the best means available—a firearm. Further, the right of self-defense does not stop at the doorstep of one’s home. That basic right extends throughout the Nation and the Nation’s territories. Further, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is the ultimate defense against tyranny—ever present—a thing the founders of our Republic knew full well and, given that great concern, became the impetus for codification of the right in the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

It therefore falls on the American people themselves, as ever it must, as ever it did, to take action, when necessary, as now, and make their voices heard over the cacophony produced by the media lords and ladies. How long must we endure this? How long must we, true Americans left remaining–those of us who believe in the sanctity and autonomy of the individual, who believe in a Nation as conceived by our founders–tolerate the beseeching, syrupy proselytizing of the purveyors of lies; the destroyers of our Republic; those who besmirch our sacred rights and liberties; these perverse, sanctimonious zealots of collectivism who call for ever more gun laws, and ever fewer guns, and ever fewer people “entitled” to own and possess guns, and ever more restrictions placed on the use of guns by those few of us remaining, among the common folk who are entitled to keep firearms at all, but only so long as they are locked up and tucked away—all of course for our own good, for “the collective good” of the people.

Some of you believe that the right to keep and bear arms will always prevail in some States of the Union, even if it is denied in others. But, that is a dangerous, false belief. And we should recognize it. Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Montana—States that have traditionally revered the Bill of Rights and extolled as a virtue the notion of the independent, self-reliant, individual—are slowly falling to prey to those who sing a  different tune: one that has less regard for our sacred rights and liberties and for the autonomy of the individual, and for our history, our traditions, our Judeo-Christian ethic.

Consider: what sort of Americans would send to Congress people such as the newly elected Left-wing Arizona Senator, Kyrsten Sinema, and the 20-year old self-described Socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, representing New York’s 14^th District? These are people who obviously loathe our Nation’s history, who question our traditions and our core values. Do these people respect the Nation’s Bill of Rights? Do these people revere the First Amendment’s right of free speech, and the Second Amendment’s right of the people to keep and bear arms? Hardly. After all, how would the exercise of these fundamental rights, and others, fit into their Leftist Globalist, Collectivist agenda?

If we are going to strengthen the Second Amendment, it must be done now, and quickly. Don’t think that there will be time enough for passage of national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation when the new Congress takes over on January 3, 2019. We need this legislation now, because any firearms’ bills coming out of the House of Representatives, with its Democratic Party majority, will be nothing remotely like the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017. You can be assured of that.

_________________________________________________

Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.