A COUNTRY HAS NO ETHICAL RIGHT TO EXIST IF IT WILL NOT PROTECT ITS PEOPLE FROM HARM AND AT ONCE PREVENT ITS PEOPLE FROM PROTECTING THEMSELVES
“When a strong man fully armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: Luke: 11:21 King James
“The first right of individuals and countries is self-preservation.” See the article titled “The Functions of Government” on the website Digital Encyclopedia Britannica.*
No one can reasonably doubt the truth of the natural law right to self-preservation, i.e., the right to self-defense, of which the natural law right to armed self-defense is no more than an affirmation of the salient right to self-defense.
This means the right of a man to secure his personal survival from all threats, presumptively implies the fundamental, eternal right to employ the best means available to secure his life and safety and well-being from those threats.
Let’s explore this idea.
At first, a man had nothing more than the use of his body to protect himself from all threats, but he found that of little use against powerful beasts of prey and against other physically stronger men.
But, through the invention of knives, swords, and armor, and a willingness and ability to utilize those implements effectively, men found themselves more on an equal footing when combatting animals and other men who threatened their lives and safety.
Centuries later, with the advent of the firearm, every man had a fighting chance to best preserve his life against aggressive threats. That is clear enough.
But what does the afore-referenced second part of the quotation from Brittanica mean: that the first right of COUNTRIES, as WITH MEN, is SELF-PRESERVATION?
Is that notion to be construed as distinct from a right of self-preservation of each denizen of the Country? No!
Consider—what IS a country, but the people who comprise it?
Some may protest, pointing out that a Country and its Governance are certainly MORE than the sum of the people in it.
They would say——
There are laws, history, culture, heritage, ethos, core values, an ethical milieu, and an economic, political, and social foundation. Surely, then, a country and its governance is more than the sum of its people.
And all of that is true, of course.
But what purpose would all that be, and what might all of that amount to if there were no people in it?
In the manner in which one poses the question, doubt arises.
It is always in the manner a question is posed that a person finds himself constrained in how to proceed in framing a response to it.
So, let us rephrase the question: “Why is it, and how did it come about that countries formed in the first place?
We may assume that countries didn’t spontaneously emerge from the aether. Their emergence was a slow and steady process.
People likely banded together first in a family and did so to best provide for the protection of their mate and their offspring.
One can infer that was true when men first came on the scene tens of thousands of years ago.
Still, the elemental AND one indivisible unit is THE INDIVIDUAL MAN himself.
The second elemental unit is THE FAMILY.
And, unless a person is a proverbial “LONER,” truly unconnected to an immediate family, the imperative of the FAMILY UNIT remains each country's salient elemental, functional unit today, and it retains its resilience.
The import of the “FAMILY UNIT” retains its premier status in any community in any part of the world and exists in any socio-political construct.
Given this fact, is it not strange to see forces at work today, especially in our own Country, that seek to destroy this functional fundamental societal unit of a country?
The development of ever-expanding societal units did not erode the functional importance and imperative of the basic family unit. But the NUCLEAR FAMILY UNIT realized that ever-present enemies required the banding together of larger familial units to repel enemies effectively and ensure a family’s safety and well-being.
Through time, families—while still retaining their imperative as the core unit for survival—realized that where enemies grew in number and were near or had taken to roving to harass families—it made sense for families to band together into larger, extended units, often referred to as ‘clans’ to enhance chances for their mutual survival against marauding, aggressive and dangerous foes.
Clans eventually merged into tribes and tribes into city-states. The concept of a complex ‘SOCIETAL COMMUNITY’ arose.
City-states eventually developed into countries. And the size of political-societal structures often did not stop there.
Some countries merged into empires. A few, such as the Roman Empire, proved successful and lasted nearly a thousand years. Most empires did not survive. They tended to collapse in upon themselves from their own weight.
We see this occurring in real-time with the European Union—an empire in the making that is collapsing in on itself after several decades because the populations of the respective countries comprising this bizarre confederation realize the rulers of that empire-in-the-making aren’t interested in providing for the safety, security, and well-being of the populations of countries of the European Union.
The European Union (EU ) operates against the interests and well-being of the populations of the countries that comprise it through the EU’s Government in Brussels. The EU Government in Brussels is amassing powers, usurping the powers retained by the respective countries, and destroying the culture, history, and heritage of those countries in the process.
WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP, FUNCTION, AND PURPOSE OF ‘GOVERNMENT’ TO A ‘COUNTRY’ AS A LARGE COMMUNITY—I.E., AS A POLITCO-SOCIAL ORGANIZATION?
Government is simply a mechanism through which a social organization provides for the safety and well-being of its people. That is true of local governments in this Country, and that is true of State governments and of the Federal Government. At least, that is what Government, at all levels, is supposed to do. And, if it cannot or will not perform that basic function, then it has no purpose for existing.
The people then must either form a new government within the existing societal structure or split off and reform itself, forming into a smaller socio-political group or several smaller socio-political groups and creating a new government.
The aim of the reconstruction or reformation of a new societal structural framework is to fulfill the fundamental function of all social communities: To provide for the physical safety and well-being of the individuals within it—that which the former societal framework had either never truly failed to provide for adequately or had since failed to provide for.
Since a country is a complex community, a country constructs a government to serve as the mechanism through which it provides for the protection of its people. See the article on the website, “USHistory.”
Governments almost certainly originated with the need to protect people from conflicts and to provide law and order. . . . governments first evolved as people discovered that protection was easier if they stayed together in groups and if they all agreed that one (or some) in the group should have more power than others. This recognition is the basis of Sovereignty, or the right of a group (later a country) to be free of outside interference. A country, then, needs to not only protect its citizens from one another, but it needs to organize to prevent outside attack.
The present government of the United States, in the hands of the Biden Administration, has demonstrated a lack of interest in providing for the American people's interests.
It has endangered the life, safety, and well-being of the citizens of the Country. Most electorate members suspected this would be true, and many knew this to be true, but many voted for Biden anyway, and some would still vote for him in 2024.
Conditioned psychologically through the systematic, incessant use of highly efficient state-of-the-art propaganda campaigns—delivered to the masses across the vast expanse of the Country—many Americans suspend their reasoning and vote against their own best interests.
In so doing, whether consciously or not, they have assisted those ruthless manipulators of the electoral process to take down the rest of the citizenry who, themselves, remain inured to the brainwashing.
Given the sheer scope of and severity of the damage the Biden Administration has done to this Country and to its citizenry, this has to be more a product of callous, calculated design and less the result of mere incompetence and ineptitude.
Many states and their localities serviced by Radical Left “WOKE” Politicians and mesmerized by the bizarre and overtly absurd secular religious dogma of “DIVERSITY, EQUITY and INCLUSION” that has metastasized across both our Country and many other Western countries around the world have come to realize that these political bodies have little or no interest or incentive in securing the life, safety, and well-being of the citizenry, which should be and IS the first order of business of any society.
See the article in the Washington Examiner, posted in October 2022.
What does this mean for our Country? It means that the citizenry cannot rely on Government to protect them.
It means the Government is not only NOT providing for the physical safety and well-being of Americans, it is decisively, avidly, disconcertingly, working against the safety and well-being of Americans. It is doing this to bring about the very dissolution of a COUNTRY AND PEOPLE the founders had created to serve and protect them from TYRANNY and THREATS emanating at HOME and abroad. The nature of that societal-political construct is:
A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.
This Government does not operate within the parameters set for it. This Government has grown perverse, corrupt, and perverted.
Police, Law Enforcement, and Justice at the Federal Level (FBI and DOJ) operate against the well-being of the American people. And this is clear from policy actions—even if the policies themselves are not expressly articulated or are deliberately and deviously disguised.
Those federal policies have filtered down to several states and many more localities. And that means community police can no longer provide for or even deign to provide a modicum of security for their communities.
It means that most Americans, now aware of the truth about their Federal Government and of their State and local governments, realize they are on their own and must provide for their personal life, safety, and well-being.
A large-scale, complex Governmental structure has failed to provide for its people, contrary to the rationale and purpose for its existence.
Once again, the public realizes something that man realized instinctually at the dawn of existence: THAT IT FALLS TO EACH INDIVIDUAL TO PROVIDE FOR HIS OWN SELF-PRESERVATION AND THAT OF HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY. The complexity of society does not change this singular IMPERATIVE.
PERSONAL SURVIVAL IS THE FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS AS IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE.
Americans are arming themselves, and in droves—THIS—notwithstanding the Government’s myriad and continuous attempts to disarm the citizenry and to dissuade Americans from owning firearms.
See, e.g., New York Post article, December 4, 2023, titled, “NYC bodega owners, grocers arming themselves with guns amid violent thefts plaguing Big Apple.”
Hundreds of Big Apple supermarket and bodega owners are arming themselves as the epidemic of violent theft continues to plague their businesses.
Over the past year, the United Bodegas of America and the Bodega and Small Business Group said they’ve helped at least 230 store owners apply for their gun licenses, connecting them with concealed-carry classes required by the state to obtain a permit.
The National Supermarket Association, which represents roughly 600 independent grocers, estimated a quarter of its members in the city are packing heat, compared to 10% pre-pandemic.
‘You see the necessity because the city is getting out of hand with the crime rate,’ said one supermarket owner, who purchased a 9mm SIG Sauer handgun two months ago, after thieves cut a hole in the roof of his Ridgewood, Queens, store to steal $3,000 and smash up the registers and camera system.
‘I feel safer having a . . . weapon with me,’ the 50-year-old said, especially when going to the bank.
The gun-toting grocer said he hasn’t had to use his firearm, but practices once a week for the worst-case scenario where he needs to defend himself and his staff.
‘I don’t know who is coming in, what I’ll confront, on my way in, on my way out,’ he said.
Radhames Rodriguez, who owns several bodegas in the Bronx, said he purchased a 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol after obtaining his concealed-carry license two months ago ‘If I see somebody coming to me and I’m going to lose my life because somebody’s got a gun aimed at me, a knife, I need to protect myself and my family,’ said Rodriguez, 60, who is also the UBA president.
Rodriguez said he previously had a ‘premises’ gun permit to protect his business during the crime-ridden ’80s, but as the city cleaned up under the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations, he let the license lapse.
With the recent wave of violence, ‘it started looking like in the ‘80s, the ‘90s,’ he said. ‘That’s why I applied [for my new gun license], and this is why I have it.’
Many grocers have felt an increasing need to arm themselves partly because of slower police responses to their emergency calls, according to retired NYPD Sgt. Johnny Nunez, who leads 18-hour courses covering gun safety and live firearm training that are required by New York State for obtaining a concealed-carry permit. ‘They recognize that there’s less cops on the street, they’re attending all these rallies, and [they] have to defend [themselves],’ said Nunez, whose classes have been attended by many bodega and supermarket owners.
In an article titled, “NBC Poll: Record Number of American Voters Report Having a Gun in Their Home,” posted on November 21, 2023, on the website, “Reload,” the author, Jake Fogleman, had this to say:
More than half of the nation’s voters now live in a gun-owning household.
NBC News unveiled the results of its latest national survey on Tuesday. The poll found that 52 percent of registered voters say they or someone in their household owns a gun. That’s the highest-ever percentage of voters who acknowledge being in a gun-owning household since the outlet began tracking the question in 1999.
‘In the last ten years, we’ve grown [10 points] in gun ownership,’ Micah Roberts, who works for the poll’s creator Public Opinion Strategies, told NBC News. ‘That’s a very stunning number. By and large, things don’t change that dramatically that quickly when it comes to something as fundamental as whether you own a gun.”
The poll results provide the latest empirical evidence of a surge in American gun ownership rates. The chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent bouts of civil unrest, and a sharp uptick in violent crime led 2020 and 2021 to set a series of gun sales records. Industry survey data suggests that first-time gun buyers made up an unprecedented share of the sales spike over that time. The NBC survey departs from earlier polls that have shown only modest increases in gun ownership since 2019 and provides more evidence that industry accounts have been accurate.
The outlet noted that the last time it polled gun ownership, before the pandemic in 2019, 46 percent of Americans reported living in a gun-owning household. In February 2013, the survey found that the share was 42 percent.
The poll also found evidence of another phenomenon the industry and previous polling have pointed at during the past few years: a rise in minority gun ownership. NBC found that 41 percent of Black voters now say they or someone they live with owns a gun, up 17 percentage points from 2019. White voters continue to be most likely to report living in a gun-owning household at 56 percent. But that number increased by just 3 points from 2019.”
See also the article in NBC News, posted on November 21, 2023.
Back in 2007 only 33% of Democrats said they owned a gun. In 2023, that number has jumped to 41%.
‘In the last ten years, we've grown [10 points] in gun ownership. That's a very stunning number,’ said Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm that co-conducted the poll with members of the Democratic polling firm Hart Research.
‘By and large, things don't change that dramatically that quickly when it comes to something as fundamental as whether you own a gun,’ Roberts added.
But, note the discrepancy with Pew Research data on Democrat percentages, cited in a September 13, 2023 article.
Even so, news report accounts suggest, from these statistics, that Americans of all political stripes no longer accept the claptrap spouted by the news and social media propaganda mill, nor the efforts of the Biden Administration and myriad Soros-state and local governmental leaders and officials, misdirecting concerns over personal safety.
These Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists attempt to deflect attention away from the soaring VIOLENT CRIME infecting and impacting the Country incessantly and toward discussion over and criticism of ARMED SELF-DEFENSE.
These forces bent on the destruction of a free Constitutional Republic know well of the profound, emphatic effectiveness of firearms in preserving one’s life and securing one’s physical safety and well-being from threats posed by violent aggressors. They also know that THE WELL-ARMED CITIZENRY is the best defense against the TYRANNY of GOVERNMENT.
But these ruthless forces that crush entire countries—hell-bent on the destruction of the United States as the only TRULY free Country in the world—rail constantly and vehemently on their singular and fundamental obsession, apprehension, and dread: MILLIONS OF ARMED AMERICANS (THE “COMMON MAN”) who can thwart their TYRANNY. And why is that?
Instances of VIOLENT CRIME serve the purpose of TYRANTS as they must disrupt and ruin a FREE REPUBLIC to usher in their TOTALITARIAN REGIME. But they talk of none of this. They don’t even suggest this. CRIMINAL VIOLENCE IS MERGED INTO “GUN VIOLENCE.” AND PROPAGANDISTS REFRAIN FROM DRAWING A DISTINCTION BETWEEN WHO IT IS THAT WIELDS GUNS AND THE PURPOSE FOR KEEPING AND BEARING ARMS.
It is for this reason the FORCES THAT CRUSH inculcate a fear of firearms in the minds of the public and, at once, attempt their damnedest to dispel and dissipate concern over skyrocketing crime.
This topsy-turvy reconstruction of needs, concerns, and fears serves the agenda, aims, and interests of those who seek to demoralize and confound the public and topple society.
They attempt to distract the COMMON MAN. But it isn’t working.
The COMMON MAN isn’t buying any of the irrational, simplistic narratives any longer—not when reality sets in with clarity: THE LIFE, SAFETY, AND WELL-BEING OF THE COMMON MAN ARE IN JEOPARDY, AND THE GOVERNMENT IS OBLIVIOUS TO THAT FACT OR, OTHERWISE, RUTHLESSLY, AND DELIBERATELY, AND ACTIVELY AND AVIDLY ENDANGERING THEIR LIVES.
See the November 29, 2023 article from the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal published in the paper's print edition, titled “Opinion: Many More Voters With Guns.” The Editorial Board pointed out that “Black households with firearms have gone up 17 points since 2019.” This is a stunning statistic, especially since Blacks remain an especial target of Neo-Marxist and political Progressive proselytizing and propagandizing that try incessantly and vociferously to dissuade innocent Blacks from arming themselves against violent attack. Blacks are not buying this. While all Americans are less safe due to escalating violent crime across America, urban City Blacks feel the brunt of this more so than any other ethnic group.
The WSJ Editorial Board reports that,
The share of voters with a firearm in the household is 52%, up from 46% in 2019 and 42% in 2013. A partisan split is evident. Gun households now include 66% of Republicans, 45% of independents, and 41% of Democrats. This is no surprise, in part because rural areas tilt right, and that’s where hunting is a family event and bears might be prowling the woods.
Notable, though, is that the numbers are increasing the fastest on the left side of the aisle. In 2019, 64% of Republican voters reported that their household had a firearm, compared with 33% of Democrats. The figure for Republicans has risen two points over four years, compared with eight for Democrats.
Twenty-four percent of black voters were in gun households in 2019. Today it’s 41%, up 17 points. Over the same period, the number for white voters rose three points, to 56% from 53%. Could this increase in black ownership be related to self-defense concerns amid the runup in urban crime? The survey doesn’t delve into the reasons, but it’s a reasonable guess.
The NBC survey includes 1,000 registered voters, and the margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 points. But it fits other evidence, and the trend is hard to miss. The Second Amendment protects Americans who want to own firearms for self-defense, and lately millions more people have availed themselves of that right.
Radical Left political organizations don’t deny high crime rates across America, especially in the large, confined urban areas run by Soros-supported political leaders. They run with it. See, e.g., the articles posted in “Cap 20” (American Progress), Brady United, and the Alliance For Gun Responsibility.
But these Leftist organizations duplicitously merge the notion of ‘CRIMINAL VIOLENCE’ (which they never mention overtly) into the notion of ‘GUN VIOLENCE’ (which they recite ad nauseam).
They do this intentionally to dissuade Americans from arming themselves against ENDEMIC VIOLENT CRIME, which they have no intention of dealing with.
The Radical Left mob attempts, insidiously, to create in the mind of the public an internal phobia toward an inanimate object, THE GUN, and thereby deflect attention away from where attention belongs: the violent psychopathic criminals and dangerous lunatic elements, terrorizing the public.
The Marxists and the “Goody-Goody” Progressive “elites” construct false narratives, propagated by a seditious Press and social media, about a socialist utopia they wish to construct for the seeming betterment of all mankind. But, they must destroy free Republic to do that. And one aspect of their agenda is to incentivize criminals and lunatics, urging them to run amok to demoralize the public, harm businesses, and destabilize society.
Those hitherto mesmerized public members have begun to see through the thick gauze of deceit.
Those previously docile sheep have begun to see that——
The answer to curbing high incidences of violent crime in Black communities is simple: get criminals and lunatics off the streets and encourage the public to arm themselves.
BUT THIS REQUIRES A CHANGE IN MINDSET—AWAY FROM PRIOR COMPLACENT, MINDLESS, SENSELESS ACQUIESENCE TO NONSENSICAL, IRRATIONAL PROPAGANDA PROPAGATED AND DISSEMINATED BY COMPLICIT NEWS—TOWARD USE OF ONE’S CRITICAL REASONING FACULTIES.
If there are any decent, honest, moral, incorruptible Politicians, they must understand that the criminal justice system and codes must be utilized vigorously to bring criminals to justice. They are not to be utilized for mollycoddling. And the police are to be utilized to protect their communities from the frightful impact of criminal violence instead of handcuffing and straitjacketing them.
These Politicians must come to recognize and acknowledge that while “PUBLIC SAFETY” is and remains the purview of the Police and the Criminal Justice System, “PERSONAL SAFETY”—i.e., “PERSONAL ARMED SAFETY”—goes hand-in-hand with “PUBLIC SAFETY.”
Most Americans—regardless of ethnicity—know this and always knew this to be true—and those having previously fallen prey to constant, industrial-strength brainwashing have slowly come to their senses. See the November 22, 2023, posted in “The Hill,” reiterating and emphasizing the import of the NBC poll.
More than half of American voters, a record-high number, say they or someone in their household owns a gun, a new NBC News poll found.
According to the survey, which has polled voters since 1999 about U.S. household gun ownership, 52 percent of respondents this year said they or someone in their home owns a gun.
The number is up from 46 percent in 2019, according to an NBC News and Wall Street Journal poll. More than a decade ago in February 2013, the share of U.S. households that owned a gun was 42 percent.
‘In the last 10 years, we’ve grown [10 points] in gun ownership. That’s a very stunning number,’ Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, who co-conducted the poll with Hart Research, told NBC News. “By and large, things don’t change that dramatically that quickly when it comes to something as fundamental as whether you own a gun.
The survey found that gun ownership falls along partisan lines, as it has for years.
While Republican respondents have always surpassed Democrats in gun ownership, the survey shows that more Democrats own guns than ever before.
Since 2004, Republican gun ownership has increased incrementally. Nearly 20 years ago, 57 percent of GOP respondents owned a gun compared to 66 percent who said they do now.
Democrats also have seen increases. According to the survey, 33 percent of Democrats in 2004 said they or someone in their household owned a gun. This year, 41 percent said the same.
The poll found that white voters tended to own guns at higher rates than voters of color, but gun ownership among Black voters has “jumped in recent years.”
The survey found that voters were split about how to view government intervention regarding gun ownership: 48 percent said they are concerned the government will not do enough to regulate access to firearms and 47 percent said they think the government will go too far in restricting gun rights, NBC News reported.
The NBC News survey was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and members of Hart Research from Nov. 10-14 among 1,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
So, even as the Press and broadcast and cable news and social media spout their nonsense about the dangers of guns, and even as they continue to bemoan the armed American citizen, and even as they thrust their “WOKE” policies on the populace, and even as they claim that ‘WOKENESS” is THE FUTURE of THE WHOLE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, the fact remains that most Americans aren’t buying any of it.
A preponderance of “Independents” and, truth to tell, even a growing number of Democrats have come to see the error of their ways in having voted for such false “Moderate Politicians” as the corrupt, dementia-riddled, feeble Joe Biden and Soros-sponsored state and municipal political officials.
Yet these Progressive and Marxist state governments, along with a corrupt, deceitful, and seditious Biden Administration, continue on their way—heedless of the public’s legitimate concerns, contemptuous of the public’s needs, and oblivious to Government’s duties, responsibilities, and obligations to the citizenry, and to the Country, and to the Constitution of the United States.
These governments continue to defy the natural law right to armed self-defense.
They disregard and disdain the High Court’s Heller, McDonald, and Bruen rulings.
They design and implement a constant stream of illegal policies and enact scores of unconstitutional laws, which require the filing of expensive lawsuits to counter them.
And the seditious Leftist Press, Cable and Broadcast news organs, and social media companies continue to support the passage of these unlawful, abjectly absurd laws, proselytizing, pontificating on, and reiterating their fanciful fairy tales about a plague of “Mass Shootings” infecting America. They do all this to separate the common man from his firearms and ammunition, to leave him abjectly defenseless, completely and helplessly and hopelessly dependent on a Government that has no desire to provide for his physical safety and couldn’t care less about his life and well-being.
A seditious Government controlled by Radical Leftists go on about the pervasiveness of “Assault Weapons” and all those “Large Capacity Magazines” and of the existence of “Gun Violence” and the persistence of a “Gun Culture,” making the erection of a presumed “civilized” well-ordered, well-engineered “Democratic Socialist Society impossible.
The American public would, wisely, have none of it and demand that the Government acknowledge, honor, and respect the fundamental, unalienable, illimitable, unmodifiable, eternal right to armed self-defense and of the covenant made between the Government and the American people at the inception of the Republic. The horrors wrought by the Biden Administration—and all those wrongs perpetrated by that corrupt Administration on the American people—have unfortunately seen replication in a frightful number of Soros-backed State and local governments.
Having had enough of New York’s consistent failure to abide by the Heller and McDonald Rulings for well over a decade, and sick and tired of a century of illegal New York handgun licensing that, through the decades, had become increasingly more repressive, leaving New Yorkers increasingly defenseless due to increasing violent crime and through negative actions and pitiful inaction of an uncaring, unresponsive, and irresponsible State Government, New Yorkers challenged New York’s Hochul Government in Federal Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court Bruen case came about as a specific challenge to the “Proper Cause” requirement of New York’s concealed handgun carry license law.
The Hochul Government likely worked for months, anticipating a negative ruling, and then concocted new ways to get around the ruling. It devised a “sensitive location” requirement, added a training requirement, and incorporated new standards for its “good moral character” requirement, among other things.
None of this is surprising, but it is all reprehensible because the actions of the Hochul Government demonstrate overt disdain for the Judiciary, i.e., the U.S. Supreme Court (the Third Branch of the Federal Government), and demonstrate, too, a continued defiance of the natural law right to armed self-defense, which is the cornerstone our Nation’s heritage. As a Natural Law Right, it is important for the American citizen to understand today, as the as Americans understood at the founding of our Republic, that the right propounded in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution is not to be perceived of as an invention of man, but is, a preexisting, illimitable, unmodifiable, eternal right that therefore precedes the existence of a Country and a Country’s Government.
No other Country on Earth professes to understand this, accept it, and abide by the stricture of it, even as a few of them, at least, do make allowance for it by permitting some citizens, at least, to keep and bear arms for their personal defense.
But for those Countries that do, such as Switzerland and Israel, those Countries perceive the right as emanating from the State, from the Government, and not as a natural right emanating from the Divine Creator.
But such “RIGHT” bestowed onto man by the grace of the State is not truly a “RIGHT” at all but only a “PRIVILEGE,” one subject to suspension, revocation, or rescission at any time.
This is the position of New York’s Hochul Government. If there is any doubt about this in the mind of a person seeking to possess a handgun in New York, that person might well reflect on why it is and how it came to be that he must acquire a handgun license as a condition precedent to the lawful exercise of a fundamental, unalienable, eternal right. And, he might well note the language on the back of his License that sets forth in clear and succinct language that the Government declares its right to revoke the license at any time.
It is discordant to hear from Governor Hochul that the State has a duty to provide for “PUBLIC SAFETY” and that the High Court’s Bruen rulings make that duty difficult through the very idea that a person might wish to provide for his “PERSONAL SAFETY” by arming himself against the very real possibility of violent assault by an aggressor.
WHY SHOULD THE ONE OBLIGATION —THE OBLIGATION OF GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY (A DUTY THE GOVERNMENT DOES A HORRIBLE JOB OF PROVIDING FOR ANYWAY) OVERRIDE OR SEEMINGLY MAKE REDUNDANT ONE’S RIGHT TO PROVIDE FOR HIS PERSONAL SAFETY? THE BRUEN RULINGS DON’T SO MUCH AS SUGGEST THAT ONE’S RIGHT TO PROVIDE FOR ONE’S PERSONAL SAFETY MAKES REDUNDANT A DUTY OF GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE AND PROVIDE FOR THE SAFETY OF THE COMMUNITY GENERALLY.
MOREOVER——
THE HIGH COURT IN BRUEN DIDN’T DEIGN TO CREATE A NEW RIGHT. IT DID NO MORE THAN REAFFIRM ONE’S NATURAL LAW RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE AND, SO, ADMONISHED THE NEW YORK GOVERNMENT FOR UNCONSTITUTIONALLY AND UNCONSCIONABLY CONSTRAINING THE EXERCISE OF THAT RIGHT.
HOWEVER, THE COURT DID NOT SUGGEST THAT NEW YORK WAS HENCEFORTH PROHIBITED FROM UNDERTAKING THE STATE’S RIGHT AND DUTY TO PROVIDE FOR THE COMMUNITY’S SAFETY.
Hochul’s assertions about “Public Safety” are duplicitous, insulting, and justifiably anger the public.
Her Government DOES NOT provide for “PUBLIC SAFETY.” Yet that Government would demand the citizenry refrain from providing for their own PERSONAL SAFETY.
This obstinancy is especially hard to stomach given the following:
First, the State’s peculiar and consistent policy of leniency toward hardened, vicious, psychopathic criminals and dangerous lunatics,
Second, the State’s failure to do anything concrete to turn a dysfunctional Criminal Justice System into an effective, efficient, functioning one,
Third, shackling the police from so much as attempting to provide the community with a modicum of “PUBLIC SAFETY” and,
Fourth, establishing bizarre, absurd priorities such as placing the comforts of illegal aliens over the needs of American citizens and expending scarce taxpayer funds on dubious projects that do not serve the interests of the taxpayer.
One is compelled to infer that Kathy Hochul and her Government have no genuine desire to promote or provide for public safety for New Yorkers.
Hochul’s admission of her open hostility to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen rulings is, therefore, mystifying.
For, if, as is clear, Hochul’s Government has no desire to provide for PUBLIC SAFETY—even if the Government could provide for PUBLIC SAFETY if it wanted to—why would this Governor deny outright an innocent individual’s natural law, unalienable right and prerogative to provide for his own safety and that of his family? The answer is that she doesn’t want the public to provide for its own PERSONAL SAFETY either.
Hochul’s words and actions, reflective of her attitudes and inclinations, are both logically and pragmatically incoherent, ethically indefensible, and overtly absurd.
It is as if psychotic mental asylum patients had taken over the Government.
This sad condition of the State proceeds from and mirrors the policies of its leaders.
If Governor Hochul were truly insane, then one could reasonably forgive the policies she implements. They would be the product of that insanity: the ineptitude and incompetence of a truly discordant mind.
But likely, Governor Hochul is not mentally unfit nor legally insane. In that event, she knows exactly what it is she is doing. Her policies come out of a secretive agenda. They are carefully designed to destabilize society and demoralize the populace. and, in so doing, rend the socio-philosophical fabric of our Nation’s history, heritage, and culture.
Of course, she can’t make her intentions known to the polity. So she cultivates the necessary “spin” to make terrible goals and strategies sound rational—or at least plausible. And our tax dollars are utilized against us. See the article on Fox News.
In June 2022, immediately after the publication of the Bruen, on decision, Hochul began with this announcement to the public and to the Press:
“Good morning, everyone. We just received some very disturbing news from Washington that the Supreme Court of the United States of America has stripped away the state of New York's right and responsibility to protect its citizens with a decision—and which we are still digesting—which is frightful in its scope of how they are setting back this nation and our ability to protect our citizens back to the days of our founding fathers. And the language we're reading is shocking.”
Hochul went to work. She revamped New York’s concealed handgun carry licensing requirements. She made them even more restrictive, in absolute defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen rulings.
In August 2022, Hochul made this further announcement, in seeming defense of those actions:
“In response to the Supreme Court's decision to strike down New York's century-old concealed carry law, we took swift and thoughtful action to keep New Yorkers safe. . . . ‘I refuse to surrender my right as Governor to protect New Yorkers from gun violence or any other form of harm. In New York State, we will continue leading the way forward and implementing common-sense gun safety legislation.”
A challenge to the outrageous, unconstitutional action of the Government came swiftly.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York denied the initial suit, Antonyuk versus Bruen, on procedural grounds, strongly suggesting the Plaintiff should refile as the Plaintiff would likely succeed on the merits.
The Radical Left Attorney General, Letitia James, still claimed a victory, attempting to deceive the public. Her remarks don’t address the substance of the Court decision. Her remarks are simply an advert, through which she reiterates the talking points of the Government’s policies contra Personal Safety and the right of fundamental right of the individual to armed self-defense. The AG bombastically exclaims:
As gun violence continues to impact communities across the country, today’s decision is a victory in our efforts to protect New Yorkers. Responsible gun control measures save lives and any attempts by the gun lobby[?] to tear down New York’s sensible gun control laws will be met with fierce defense of the law [of New York]. We will continue to defend the constitutionality [of our State’s laws] to protect all New Yorkers.
The Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, and several other New York handgun licensees refiled their lawsuit and in the same U.S. District Court. The Court, this time, found for the Plaintiffs, issuing a Temporary Restraining Order, preventing the State from enforcing several pertinent—as the AG Letitia James described them—”integral aspects of New York State’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) . . . .”
See “Memorandum Of Law In Support Of Motion For A Stay Pending Appeal And An Administrative Stay Pending Resolution Of The Motion,” filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by the AG, Letitia James, on behalf of the State, in the case Antonyuk vs. Hochul [Antonyuk II]. The State filed the case on October 10, 2022.
Note: Antonyuk versus Hochul was subsequently recaptioned Antonyuk versus Nigrelli after the Court dismissed Kathy Hochul from the suit, finding the Governor an improper Defendant to the action.
The Second Circuit lifted the TRO, allowing the State to proceed with enforcement of the CCIA during the pendency of the suit.
On the Plaintiffs’ appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the lifting of the stay, The Court, in a rare hearing on an interlocutory order, allowed continued enforcement of the CCIA but did not make any other ruling other than to warn the State not to tarry in the prosecution of the suit.
Once again, the State claimed a victory where there really was none. On January 11, 2023, Hochul issued the same idiotic and false pronouncement in her Press Release.
Keeping New Yorkers safe is my top priority. I'm pleased that this Supreme Court order will allow us to continue enforcing the gun laws we put in place to do just that. We believe that these thoughtful, sensible regulations will help to prevent gun violence, and we will keep working with the New York Attorney General's office on protecting the laws.
Antonyuk II remains on the Second Circuit’s docket over one year after the State filed its Memorandum asking the Second Circuit to lift the Stay of the TRO.
On September 2023, two months after the High Court allowed continued enforcement of the CCIA, Hochul sought to remind New Yorkers of her apparent commitment to keeping the public safe.
“As Governor, I took swift action to keep people safe following the Supreme Court's decision in Bruen to strike down our state’s century-old concealed carry law. One year later, we are continuing to lead the nation in the fight against gun violence and saving lives.”
Well, New York isn’t safe from violent crime, be it violence through the use of a gun or through the use of any other implement, including an aggressor’s own limbs and body.
It is all pretense. There is nothing “safe” about New York for its residents. So, any suggestion of caring about public safety is a ruse and isn’t believable. Statistics paint a different picture from the one presented by Hochul.
Both from her words and actions, it is clear Hochul did not ever intend to promote public safety. See criminal justice statistics for the entire State of New York:
See also the articles published in the New York Post:
March 25, 2023, May 24, 2023, July 12, 2023, July 29, 2023, and September 9, 2023. See the article on the crime surge in NYC in 2023, as reported by the City Journal.
Hochul’s pronouncements are no more than empty words. Violent crime continues to soar in New York, especially in the largest City in the State.
Failing to protect the people of New York from the actions of violent criminals is bad enough. Worse is her pretense of protecting people by preventing them from allowing them to protect themselves.
But what is perhaps less noticeable, except through a recitation of the New York Government’s statements about a supposed commitment to protect the public from “Gun Violence” as provided hereinabove for the reader, is the nature of the State’s pronouncements.
It is the same monotonous refrain about public safety and protecting the public from “guns.” The public hears it over and over again.
Is the State Government trying to place the public in a hypnotic trance by droning on endlessly repetitiously, simplistically about an intention to promote PUBLIC SAFETY and by claiming that PUBLIC SAFETY is obtained and maintained by constraining the public’s access to firearms for self-defense?
The message delivered IS CLEAR ENOUGH.
But——
The intention to deliberately deceive and seduce New Yorkers through the systematic use of psychological conditioning—the hypnotic recitation of a couple of key phrases over and over again—MAY NOT BE.
But the desire to brainwash the public into accepting the false belief, one, that the New York Government under both Kathy Hochul and a Democrat-controlled Legislature in Albany honestly desires and intends to promote PUBLIC SAFETY in the State, and, two, that the safety and well-being of the public is a true and pure pursuit of the New York Government, and, three, that public safety can only be attained through the State’s commitment to continually restrict a New York citizen’s exercise of his or her natural law right to armed self-defense, is readily deduced from the State’s messages and messaging apparatus.
And the reader should keep in mind that in the State’s messaging about PUBLIC SAFETY and restraining a natural law right to armed self-defense, nothing at all is said about CRIMINAL VIOLENCE on the streets or of CRIME GENERALLY, such as property crime, of which violence often follows and must be seen as an inevitable byproduct of any crime; nor is there any statement by the Government of a commitment to crack down on a CRIME.
Whenever Kathy Hochul or another Democrat Party politician says anything about crime, it is only to mislead the public or lie outright about the nature of and the scope of crime in the State and, especially, in the City of New York.
Governor Hochul need not remind New Yorkers that PUBLIC SAFETY is a PREROGATIVE of the State.
In fact, PUBLIC SAFETY IS a duty of the Government.
PUBLIC SAFETY IS THE PRIMARY DUTY AND OBLIGATION OF GOVERNMENT.
But it does not follow from the Government’s duty to perform THE PUBLIC SAFETY FUNCTION—one that THIS STATE happens to be notoriously and continuously derelict in—that the GOVERNMENT can lawfully or ethically deny the people their right to defend their own life.
PERSONAL SAFETY precedes PUBLIC SAFETY, for the right to self-preservation is the most basic of all natural law rights, and that right preexists the State and any State function.
And no State function can take over or override one’s natural law proclivity to provide THE defense of that matter most sacred to him: HIS OWN LIFE, HIS OWN SAFETY, and HIS OWN PERSONAL WELL-BEING.
And that NATURAL LAW RIGHT becomes, as well, a personal duty and obligation when it comes to caring for one’s own family.
As so understood, one should infer that the state’s obligation to provide for PUBLIC SAFETY should not be seen as in conflict with or inconsistent with the individual’s natural law right to provide for his own PERSONAL SAFETY. And this is as it must be for: the State is under NO OBLIGATION to provide for and to guarantee anyone’s personal safety except in very narrow, defined circumstances that are exceptions to the general rule of sovereign immunity.
Hochul tacitly claims that PERSONAL SAFETY is subsumed in PUBLIC SAFETY. It isn’t and never was.
See the Arbalest Quarrel article posted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News on April 5, 2022.
The article recites and links to several other AQ articles on both the subject of the role of police and the application of “sovereign immunity” to the Government’s immunity from liability for any harm.
We point to the fact that the Government is not ordinarily liable for loss of life that accrues to a citizen due to a claim of police having failed to protect” an individual from harm. This remains true even in cases where a police department generally asserts it will protect a specific person from physical harm but fails to do so, and the person comes to harm or death from a threat made known to the police beforehand.
However, states do not make this fact known to residents. That is less problematic in those states that do not actively and avidly constrain one’s right to personal armed defense.
But this is problematic in Anti-Second Amendment States such as New York that do actively and avidly constrain the right to armed defense.
The Hochul Government expressly promotes the idea that it provides PUBLIC SAFETY—it doesn’t—at least not effectively and competently and, indeed, not even adequately.
The Hochul Government suggests that New Yorkers need not concern themselves with PERSONAL SAFETY when out and about in public because the State’s duty to provide for PUBLIC SAFETY resolves that matter to mean that the Government CAN AND DOES provide for one’s PERSONAL SAFETY by providing for PUBLIC SAFETY. That is nonsense.
The State provides for neither. And as for the former, it has no obligation to do so even if it does have an obligation to provide for the latter.
The true horror evinced from Hochul’s assertions comes, then, not merely from her failure to provide even a modicum of public safety but that, at one and the same time, she denies residents the right to secure their own personal safety and perfunctorily dismisses any idea that such is necessary.
All the while, Hochul suggests disingenuously that either one’s PERSONAL SAFETY and one’s PUBLIC SAFETY are one and the same thing—that the one merges into or is subsumed by the other—or that there is no such thing as a “Right” to PERSONAL SAFETY anyway, whether “ARMED” or not.
This is seen by the fact the Hochul Government never expressly uses the phrase PERSONAL SAFETY or “PERSONAL ‘ARMED’ SAFETY.”
The Hochul Government is oblivious to the need for PUBLIC SAFETY and PERSONAL ARMED SAFETY.
Her avowed abhorrence toward and strong remonstrations against the natural law right to armed self-defense—especially given the fact of soaring violent crime and her Government’s reluctance to do anything concrete about crime and criminals—points to a failed Government and a society that is falling into ruin.
Hochul is fooling no one with her lies and pretense of piety and concern.
And, for his part, the Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, is taking his cue from both the Governor of the State and from the Biden Administration.
Adams is doing nothing to protect the people who live or work in the City.
But at least Adams isn’t pretending to care about the innocent residents of the City. He points to a budget shortfall that, as he tries to explain it, requires him to reduce the number of police available to protect the residents. But is that true? No, it isn’t.
Adams demonstrates that his priority is seeing to the comfort and well-being of illegal aliens, not the citizens of the United States who reside or work in the City.
One might think this means Adams is suggesting that innocent, average, law-abiding, rational New Yorkers would do well to consider obtaining a handgun for protection, especially when out in public because the crime rate in the City—as horrible as it was during de Blasio’s tenure as Mayor—has undergone no visible significant improvement once Adams took over. But Adams doesn’t mean this at all.
Yet, if the imperative of armed self-defense in a dangerous City like New York was always great, that imperative is of another order of magnitude now with police cuts on the horizon and over a hundred thousand illegal aliens milling aimlessly about, including murderous international cartel members. All of this magnifies exponentially the enormity of the incipient threat to American citizens residing in and/or working in the City.
But Mayor Eric Adams is no more a proponent of the idea of ARMED SELF-DEFENSE than is either New York Governor Kathy Hochul or the Grand Harlequin-In-Chief, the weak-willed, dementia-riddled, corrupt Joe Biden.
So, then, millions of average New Yorkers are left to fend for themselves—but without the effectiveness of a handgun.
And, for those who have obtained a valid New York concealed handgun carry license and can therefore carry a handgun in public for self-defense, it can be of minimal usefulness since much of the City is now considered a “sensitive place” where firearms cannot be lawfully used for self-defense.
‘Sensitive Place Restrictions” are not, of course, an issue for the psychopathic criminal or the crazed lunatic.
The entire City remains under siege.
New Yorkers are not left in a “good place”—THAT PLACE being New York, especially that State’s largest City, home to millions of people.
The Government has failed New Yorkers at both the State and municipal levels. And the Biden Administration has failed the Country at the Federal level.
But, once a government fails its people at a fundamental level—protecting them from harm—no reason exists for that government’s continued existence. The individual is bereft of protection. And it is as if he is residing again in the wild but with one qualifier. In the wild, there is no government to tell the individual that he cannot prevail on himself to provide for his personal protection.
In a failed State, such as the United States is rapidly becoming, that State does not provide for the safety of the community but nonetheless prevails on the citizen to refrain from arming himself to provide for his own protection.
There are all too many public officials at all too many levels of Government who represent an omnipresent danger to the well-being of the people and to the prosperity of the Country. This disturbing fact means the continued existence of our Country as a free Constitutional Republic is very much in doubt.
The continuation of a Democrat Party regime in 2024 is too awful to contemplate.
Even a Republican, other than Donald Trump, cannot save our Republic. We are too far gone.
Much is being made of Nikki Haley.
The fact that Neoliberal Globalist forces are flocking to her and would like to see her as the 47th President of the United States is not cause for celebration. See, e.g., the November 25 article published in the New York Times titled, “Could Haley Really Beat Trump? Big Donors Are Daring to Dream”.
And, if Biden drops dead during the new year or, otherwise, becomes so incapacitated it is impossible to wheel him into a Press Conference even to have him say two words, then whom do the Democrats present: Kamala Harris? Gavin Newsome? Michelle Obama?
The fact remains the only hope to salvage our Republic is to see Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.
This appears probable if one trusts the poll numbers. But the poll numbers can change. And attempts are afoot to try to keep him off the ballot. And, even if those attempts fail, and Donald Trump emerges as the clear primary favorite, can the RNC manipulate the rules at the Convention to nominate someone else? See, e.g., the article in Vox.
Let us pray that Trump retains his fortitude and that even as myriad forces work in front of and behind the scenes to destroy his candidacy or to orchestrate his defeat once again at the ballot box, he will become the 47th President and our free Republic will continue to exist and persist for decades yet to come, after all.
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*The digital encyclopedia, “Brittanica,” is the modern rendition of the comprehensive hard copy reference tomes, Encyclopedia Brittanica, for those old enough to remember.