WHAT EXPLAINS NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL’S HOSTILITY TOWARD THE BRUEN DECISION ON CONCEALED CARRY AND HER BELLIGERANCE TOWARD THE U.S. SUPREME COURT?

MULTIPART ESSAY SERIES ON POST-BRUEN CASE ANALYSIS

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

PART TWENTY-SIX

QUOTATION FROM NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL’S OFFICIAL WEBSITE

“This is not about the Second Amendment, the Founding Fathers' murky protection of firearms. It's no more absolute than the First Amendment is. Rights have limits; they may be indistinct and subject to interpretation, but they exist, regardless of the braying of absolutists.What this is about is priorities: public safety vs. the right to own any kind of weapon; children's lives vs. the right to carry firearms designed for mass murder. In New York, there is a willingness to take facts into account, while in Texas, the compulsion, apparently irresistible, is to ignore such facts no matter how much blood is spilled or how young the victims.” From a Buffalo News editorial, reposted on Governor Hochul’s Official Website, on May 24, 2022, reflecting where the Governor’s sympathies, rest, apropos of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Note: this editorial appeared one month prior to publication of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022)and conceivably in anticipation of it: Hochul’s opening salvo directed against the High Court, taunting the Court and ridiculing, in insulting language, those Americans who support the exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense.

WHAT EXPLAINS NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL’S HOSTILITY TOWARD THE BRUEN DECISION ON CONCEALED CARRY AND HER BELLIGERANCE TOWARD THE U.S. SUPREME COURT?

NEW YORK: THE STANDARD-BEARER FOR THOSE FORCES INTENT ON DESTROYING THE NATURAL LAW RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE CODIFIED IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

To say the Bruen rulings directed primarily to New York’s Handgun Law were not to Hochul’s liking, nor to the liking of her friends in the State Legislature in Albany, is an understatement.Hochul was apoplectic with rage—or perhaps not. And, if not, she must, at least, appear so: feigning all sorts of righteous indignation during her Press conferences or when distributing her official Press Releases.Hochul had expected an adverse decision from the High Court, surely, and was undoubtedly prepared for it, but she had to set the stage for what would come after, the imposition of a new set of highly restrictive handgun licensing measures, building on all that came before.Those amendments were already written—the Legislature must have drafted the amendments well in advance of the publication of the Bruen decision, given the breadth of detail in them and the scale of them—well before the Bruen rulings came down. They only needed to be finalized.To that end, Hochul’s temper tantrum directed to the Court upon publication of Bruen was obviously meant to pave the way for legislation designed to cohere with related contemporaneous Anti-Second Amendment legislation, apart from, but complementing, the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (CCIA) and operating seamlessly with it.The Press Release, dated June 6, 2022, on the Governor’s website, sports the headline: “Governor Hochul Signs Landmark Legislative Package to Strengthen Gun Laws and Protect New Yorkers.” The “Ten-Bill Package” includes:“Legislation S.9458/A.10503 Bars Purchase of Semiautomatic Rifles by Anyone Under Age 21 by Requiring a LicenseLegislation S.9407-B/A.10497 Prohibits Purchase of Body Armor with Exception of Those in Specified ProfessionsLegislation S.9113-A./A.10502 Expands List of People Who Can File Extreme Risk Protection Orders and Requires Law Enforcement to File ERPOs Under Specified Set of CircumstancesPackage Also Strengthens Crime Reporting; Closes ‘Other Gun’ Loophole; Requires Microstamping of New Semiautomatic Pistols; Eliminates Grandfathering of High-Capacity Feeding Devices; Requires Social Media Companies to Improve Response to and Reporting of Hateful Content.”Approximately one month later, on July 1, 2022, scarcely one week after the publication of the Bruen decision, i.e., on June 23, 2022, and again, on the Governor’s official website, and, under the bold, brash, impertinent headline, “Governor Hochul Signs Landmark Legislation to Strengthen Gun Laws and Bolster Restrictions on Concealed Carry Weapons in Response to Reckless Supreme Court Decision,” Hochul lays out a series of amendments to the Handgun Law itself, ostensibly responding to the Bruen rulings:“Legislation (S.51001/A.41001) Restricts the Carrying of Concealed Weapons in List of Sensitive LocationsInstitutes a Default of No Concealed Carry on Private Property and Businesses Unless Deemed Permissible by Property OwnersEstablishes New Eligibility Requirements and Expands Disqualifying Criteria for Those Seeking Concealed Carry PermitsEnhances Safe Storage Requirements, Extends Requirements to VehiclesRequires Backgrounds Checks for All Ammunition PurchasesAmends Body Armor Purchase Ban to Include Hard Body Armor Used by Suspect in Buffalo Shooting.”Again, given the depth and breadth of these amendments to New York’s Handgun Law, this new package of amendments, “The Concealed Carry Improvement Act” MUST HAVE BEEN DRAFTED WELL IN ADVANCE OF PUBLICATION OF THE COURT’S OPINION IN BRUEN.At most, the Hochul Administration and Albany had merely to tidy up some of the provisions in the CCIA—perhaps striking the words, ‘PROPER CAUSE,’ from the Handgun Law if the High Court were to demand that much from Kathy Hochul’s Government—which Governor Hochul and Albany did. And that assumes, of course, that Hochul didn’t receive an advance copy of the decision from leakers at the Court. Hochul was probably kept apprised about what to expect from Bruen (probably from the same people on the Court that illegally released a draft of the Dobbs decision).On the matter of “PROPER CAUSE,” the Court ruled that, since the words were tied inextricably to the requirement that the applicant for a concealed handgun carry license must demonstrate “EXTRAORDINARY NEED” to carry, apart from and above basic self-defense, when in the public domain, the New York Handgun Law, apropos of concealed carry, was inherently illegal and unconstitutional.This was a mere annoyance. The Hochul Government could dispense with it and concoct ways around it, making the Handgun Law no less severe than before Bruen. Kathy Hochul didn’t try to hide that from the Press or from the Court.After all, Hochul used the phrase in one of her Press Releases, “LANDMARK LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE TO STRENGTHEN GUN LAWS.” See supra. And she rationalized that message of defiance directed at the Court, by adding that her Government had designed these amendments “TO PROTECT NEW YORKERS.”Did Hochul presume the High Court did not wish to protect New Yorkers? The phrase is not only troubling but also insulting. Yet it plays into a running narrative that MORE GUNS ON THE STREET EQUALS MORE CRIME ON THE STREETS—A platitude held by Progressives, but false.How many average, responsible, rational, law-abiding gun owners have turned to crime, and further, how much of this presumed bad seed committed a crime with a gun? Hardly or nary a one, notwithstanding there are millions of Americans who lawfully carry a handgun for self-defense. See the article on Gun Facts.By striking ‘PROPER CAUSE’ from New York’s Handgun Law, and then repurposing the “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER” requirement along with a host of other ludicrous Anti-Second Amendment laws, the Government could and has accomplished much the same thing: DISCOURAGING AND FRUSTRATING, CONFOUNDING APPLICANTS WHO SEEK A NEW YORK CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY LICENSE.The Hochul Government had scripted its entire response to Bruen. It would be ready to play out with the official publication of the case. And, on the very day, it was published and through successive days and weeks, Hochul would never miss a beat. She would constantly harangue and berate both the rulings of the Court and, unforgivably, the Justices themselves.The Hochul Government would make the High Court out to be the Antagonist in a play, and the State, with the Government, as Protagonist Hero.Hochul would present herself as the Defender of New York residents, desiring only to protect and serve the residents of New York against an uncaring U.S. Supreme Court.How incredibly presumptuous of Hochul and those behind the scenes, in her Administration, and in Albany, working on her behalf to make the High Court into an Evildoer and “Fall Guy.”Once the U.S. Supreme Court came down with the Bruen decision on June 23, 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul went to work, wasting no time in publicly slamming both the Court and its decision.But would the public buy it? Could the public be so easily manipulated? Some obviously would, most, from her perspective, hopefully. Hochul knew that, in her messaging, she was addressing not merely New York, but the Country at large, and the Biden Administration, and many in Congress too, her compatriots.But to say her words and conduct toward the Court are disrespectful and that her response to the Bruen rulings amounts to evasion, not compliance, is to trivialize the seriousness of the actions of this Governor.Necessary as it was to set the groundwork for defiance of the High Court, Hochul was playing a dangerous game. She could not do this unless she felt she could rely on powerful interests both seen and unseen that would have her back on this.For, the Governor’s actions border on contempt of Court, and all the worse was it that she would vent with unrestrained, unconscionable fury against the Highest Court of the Land; railing against a Court exercising its own proper, legitimate Article III authority under the U.S. Constitution, to interpret the meaning of the Bill of Rights which was and is within the Court’s prerogative, alone, not that of Congress, nor that of the President, nor that of the Executive or Legislative components of State Governments.Hochul didn’t care, and she didn’t mince words. She called the Court’s rulings not only “reckless” but “reprehensible.” See the article in Spectrum Local News.The word, ‘RECKLESS’ means ‘THOUGHTLESS.’The word, ‘REPREHENSIBLE’ means ‘DISGRACEFUL.’In other words, Kathy Hochul tells the Court that it is worthy of her contempt toward it and she would not abide by the Court’s rulings. At most, she would give lip service to it. And that is what both she and Albany did.Upon the conclusion of the oral argument, on November 3, 2021, in the third landmark Second Amendment case, NYSRPA vs. Bruen, the New York State Government, under Governor Kathy Hochul, wasted no time in concocting a scheme to waylay the rulings that they knew were coming down the pike. And as a precursor to that she stated in no uncertain terms, in her Press Briefings—clearly directed to the Court—what she intended to do, castigating the Court for daring to involve itself in New York law.The amendments to the State’s Handgun Law (referred to, as a package, as the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (CCIA)), are the visible manifestation of the disdain she displayed toward the Court, in her Press Releases.On July 1, 2022, about one month after signing the CCIA into law, Governor Hochul, in a provocative move proclaimed the New York Government would not abide by the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Bruen, and in fact would defy the Court, continuing the process laid down by her predecessors of eradicating exercise of the right to armed self-defense in New York.The Headline of her Press Release, posted on the Governor’s official website, on that date, set forth in bold San Serif typeface, proclaimed:“Governor Hochul Signs Landmark Legislation to Strengthen Gun Laws and Bolster Restrictions on Concealed Carry Weapons in Response to Reckless Supreme Court Decision.”Hochul’s defiance and contemptuous attitude toward the High Court could not have been on more audacious display. The CCIA exemplifies her brashness and brazenness.These are the highlights of the CCIA that appear on her website that she has reiterated during the period of time since the publication of the case as challenges to the CCIA were filed immediately.“Legislation (S.51001/A.41001) Restricts the Carrying of Concealed Weapons in List of Sensitive LocationsInstitutes a Default of No Concealed Carry on Private Property and Businesses Unless Deemed Permissible by Property OwnersEstablishes New Eligibility Requirements and Expands Disqualifying Criteria for Those Seeking Concealed Carry PermitsEnhances Safe Storage Requirements, Extends Requirements to VehiclesRequires Backgrounds Checks for All Ammunition PurchasesAmends Body Armor Purchase Ban to Include Hard Body Armor Used by Suspect in Buffalo Shooting”Anticipating the Hochul Government might attempt to turn broad swaths of the State, especially, Manhattan Island, into a massive Gun-Free zone, and to forestall that, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the Majority in Bruen, opined:“Although we have no occasion to comprehensively define ‘sensitive places’ in this case, we do think respondents err in their attempt to characterize New York’s proper-cause requirement as a ‘sensitive-place’ law. In their view, ‘sensitive places’ where the government may lawfully disarm law-abiding citizens include all ‘places where people typically congregate and where law-enforcement and other public-safety professionals are presumptively available.’ It is true that people sometimes congregate in ‘sensitive places,’ and it is likewise true that law enforcement professionals are usually presumptively available in those locations. But expanding the category of ‘sensitive places’ simply to all places of public congregation that are not isolated from law enforcement defines the category of ‘sensitive places. far too broadly. Respondents’ argument would in effect exempt cities from the Second Amendment and would eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense that we discuss in detail below. . . . Put simply, there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a ‘sensitive place’ simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department.” [Case Documentation omitted]What did Hochul do? She and Albany concocted an elaborate nightmare of new requirements for those individuals applying for a concealed handgun carry license under the CCIA.And, notwithstanding, the High Court’s warning to the Hochul Government, the Governor, and Albany proceeded to transform much of New York into a massive “SENSITIVE PLACE” Jurisdiction anyway—in direct defiance of the High Court’s warning.Manhattan Island, which Justice Thomas specifically warned the Government about, would become a huge “SENSITIVE PLACE” restricted zone anyway.The Government had spent substantial time on this, transforming the State into a confusing patchwork quilt of SENSITIVE LOCATIONS.Most curiously, the very words, SENSITIVE PLACE,’ never before appeared in the Handgun Law prior to Bruen. That would change.Here the New York Government was deliberately using that phrase to antagonize the Court, making the ‘SENSITIVE PLACE’ prohibition a major fixture of the “CONCEALED CARRY IMPROVEMENT ACT.”Were Kathy Hochul and Albany taunting the Court by choosing to utilize the very terminology the Court had expressed concern over but had not ruled explicitly against using?Prior to the effective date of September 1, 2022, the date when the CCIA took effect, there was no mention of ‘Sensitive Place’ in Section 19 of the amended Handgun Law (NY CLS Penal § 400.00 (19)), which reads:“Prior to the issuance or renewal of a license under paragraph (f) of subdivision two of this section, issued or renewed on or after the effective date of this subdivision, an applicant shall complete an in-person live firearms safety course conducted by a duly authorized instructor with curriculum approved by the division of criminal justice services and the superintendent of state police, and meeting the following requirements: (a) a minimum of sixteen hours of in-person live curriculum approved by the division of criminal justice services and the superintendent of state police, conducted by a duly authorized instructor approved by the division of criminal justice services, and shall include but not be limited to the following topics: (i) general firearm safety; (ii) safe storage requirements and general secure storage best practices; (iii) state and federal gun laws; (iv) situational awareness; (v) conflict de-escalation; (vi) best practices when encountering law enforcement; (vii) the statutorily defined sensitive places in subdivision two of section 265.01-e of this chapter and the restrictions on possession on restricted places under section 265.01-d of this chapter; (viii) conflict management; (ix) use of deadly force; (x) suicide prevention; and (xi) the basic principles of marksmanship; and (b) a minimum of two hours of a live-fire range training course. The applicant shall be required to demonstrate proficiency by scoring a minimum of eighty percent correct answers on a written test for the curriculum under paragraph (a) of this subdivision and the proficiency level determined by the rules and regulations promulgated by the division of criminal justice services and the superintendent of state police for the live-fire range training under paragraph (b) of this subdivision. Upon demonstration of such proficiency, a certificate of completion shall be issued to such applicant in the applicant’s name and endorsed and affirmed under the penalties of perjury by such duly authorized instructor. An applicant required to complete the training required herein prior to renewal of a license issued prior to the effective date of this subdivision shall only be required to complete such training for the first renewal of such license after such effective date.”Once the CCIA took effect, the expression, ‘Sensitive Place’ suddenly appears and, for those new holders of “Concealed Handgun Carry Licenses,” and for those renewing their licenses, Section 19 of the amended Handgun Law (NY CLS Penal § 400.00 (19)) presently sets, forth:“Prior to the issuance or renewal of a license under paragraph (f) of subdivision two of this section, issued or renewed on or after the effective date of this subdivision, an applicant shall complete an in-person live firearms safety course conducted by a duly authorized instructor with curriculum approved by the division of criminal justice services and the superintendent of state police, and meeting the following requirements: (a) a minimum of sixteen hours of in-person live curriculum approved by the division of criminal justice services and the superintendent of state police, conducted by a duly authorized instructor approved by the division of criminal justice services, and shall include but not be limited to the following topics: (i) general firearm safety; (ii) safe storage requirements and general secure storage best practices; (iii) state and federal gun laws; (iv) situational awareness; (v) conflict de-escalation; (vi) best practices when encountering law enforcement; (vii) the statutorily defined sensitive places in subdivision two of section 265.01-e of this chapter and the restrictions on possession on restricted places under section 265.01-d of this chapter; (viii) conflict management; (ix) use of deadly force; (x) suicide prevention; and (xi) the basic principles of marksmanship; and (b) a minimum of two hours of a live-fire range training course. The applicant shall be required to demonstrate proficiency by scoring a minimum of eighty percent correct answers on a written test for the curriculum under paragraph (a) of this subdivision and the proficiency level determined by the rules and regulations promulgated by the division of criminal justice services and the superintendent of state police for the live-fire range training under paragraph (b) of this subdivision. Upon demonstration of such proficiency, a certificate of completion shall be issued to such applicant in the applicant’s name and endorsed and affirmed under the penalties of perjury by such duly authorized instructor. An applicant required to complete the training required herein prior to renewal of a license issued prior to the effective date of this subdivision shall only be required to complete such training for the first renewal of such license after such effective date.”And where are these“Sensitive Place” restricted areas? A new provision of the New York Penal Code, Penal Code, 265.01-e, recites them.NY CLS Penal § 265.01-e(2) provides,“2. For the purposes of this section, a sensitive location shall mean:(a) any place owned or under the control of federal, state or local government, for the purpose of government administration, including courts;(b) any location providing health, behavioral health, or chemical dependance care or services;(c) any place of worship, except for those persons responsible for security at such place of worship;(d) libraries, public playgrounds, public parks, and zoos, provided that for the purposes of this section a “public park” shall not include (i) any privately held land within a public park not dedicated to public use or (ii) the forest preserve as defined in subdivision six of section 9-0101 of the environmental conservation law;(e) the location of any program licensed, regulated, certified, funded, or approved by the office of children and family services that provides services to children, youth, or young adults, any legally exempt childcare provider; a childcare program for which a permit to operate such program has been issued by the department of health and mental hygiene pursuant to the health code of the city of New York;(f) nursery schools, preschools, and summer camps; provided that for the purposes of this section, nothing shall prohibit the activity permitted under subdivisions seven-c, seven-d, and seven-e of section 265.20 of this article where such activity occurs at a summer camp in accordance with all applicable local, state, and federal laws, rules, and regulations;(g) the location of any program licensed, regulated, certified, operated, or funded by the office for people with developmental disabilities;(h) the location of any program licensed, regulated, certified, operated, or funded by office of addiction services and supports;(i) the location of any program licensed, regulated, certified, operated, or funded by the office of mental health;(j) the location of any program licensed, regulated, certified, operated, or funded by the office of temporary and disability assistance;(k) homeless shelters, runaway homeless youth shelters, family shelters, shelters for adults, domestic violence shelters, and emergency shelters, and residential programs for victims of domestic violence;(l) residential settings licensed, certified, regulated, funded, or operated by the department of health;(m) in or upon any building or grounds, owned or leased, of any educational institutions, colleges and universities, licensed private career schools, school districts, public schools, private schools licensed under article one hundred one of the education law, charter schools, non-public schools, board of cooperative educational services, special act schools, preschool special education programs, private residential or non-residential schools for the education of students with disabilities, and any state-operated or state-supported schools;(n) any place, conveyance, or vehicle used for public transportation or public transit, subway cars, train cars, buses, ferries, railroad, omnibus, marine or aviation transportation; or any facility used for or in connection with service in the transportation of passengers, airports, train stations, subway and rail stations, and bus terminals;(o) any establishment holding an active license for on-premise consumption pursuant to article four, four-A, five, or six of the alcoholic beverage control law where alcohol is consumed and any establishment licensed under article four of the cannabis law for on-premise consumption;(p) any place used for the performance, art entertainment, gaming, or sporting events such as theaters, stadiums, racetracks, museums, amusement parks, performance venues, concerts, exhibits, conference centers, banquet halls, and gaming facilities and video lottery terminal facilities as licensed by the gaming commission;(q) any location being used as a polling place;(r) any public sidewalk or other public area restricted from general public access for a limited time or special event that has been issued a permit for such time or event by a governmental entity, or subject to specific, heightened law enforcement protection, or has otherwise had such access restricted by a governmental entity, provided such location is identified as such by clear and conspicuous signage;(s) any gathering of individuals to collectively express their constitutional rights to protest or assemble;(t) the area commonly known as Times Square, as such area is determined and identified by the city of New York; provided such area shall be clearly and conspicuously identified with signage.Police officers and other designated categories are exempted.”Failure to abide by the ‘Sensitive Place’ Restriction requirement is a Class E Felony, as specified under NY CLS Penal § 265.01-d (1)”“A person is guilty of criminal possession of a weapon in a restricted location when such person possesses a firearm, rifle, or shotgun and enters into or remains on or in private property where such person knows or reasonably should know that the owner or lessee of such property has not permitted such possession by clear and conspicuous signage indicating that the carrying of firearms, rifles, or shotguns on their property is permitted or by otherwise giving express consent.”But Note: Subsequent to Plaintiff Appellants’ Motion for a Stay pending Appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, granted the Motion in Part. In a short opinion, the Court stated, in pertinent part, in Antonyuk vs. Hochul , 2022 U.S. App LEXIS 36240 (2nd Cir, December 7, 2022): “Appellants request a stay pending appeal of the district court's order dated November 7, 2022 (N.D.N.Y. 22-cv-986, doc. 78), enjoining Appellants from enforcing certain aspects of New York's Concealed Carry Improvement Act (‘CCIA’). Having weighed the applicable factors . . . we conclude that a stay pending appeal is warranted. . . . To the extent that the district court's order bars enforcement of the CCIA's provisions related to persons who have been tasked with the duty to keep the peace at places of worship, airports, and private buses, such categories are excepted from this order. Appellees' motion to expedite the resolution of the matter is granted.”Governor Kathy Hochul’s displeasure with the Bruen decision and anger toward the Court Majority was expected, was never a secret, and, so, isn’t at all surprising.  Yet, her hostility toward the Court, amounting to a rabid denunciation of the rulings and of the Justices themselves, is of another order of magnitude, and cannot be condoned, and ought not to be tolerated.The New York Government has detested the idea of civilian citizen possession of firearms for well over a century (actually for substantially longer (see author’s comments supra and infra)).Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, author of the Majority Opinion in Bruen, made the point, tacitly, at the outset of the Court’s argument, when discussing the State’s long-standing efforts to constrain, through overzealous regulation, the carrying of handguns.“New York State has regulated the public carry of handguns at least since the early 20th century. In 1905, New York made it a misdemeanor for anyone over the age of 16 to ‘have or carry concealed upon his person in any city or village of [New York], any pistol, revolver or other firearm without a written license . . . issued to him by a police magistrate.’ 1905 N. Y. Laws ch. 92, §2, pp. 129-130; see also 1908 N. Y. Laws ch. 93, §1, pp. 242-243 (allowing justices of the peace to issue licenses). In 1911, New York’s ‘Sullivan Law’ expanded the State’s criminal prohibition to the possession of all handguns—concealed or otherwise—without a government-issued license. See 1911 N. Y. Laws ch. 195, §1, p. 443. New York later amended the Sullivan Law to clarify the licensing standard: Magistrates could ‘issue to [a] person a license to have and carry concealed a pistol or revolver without regard to employment or place of possessing such weapon’ only if that person proved “good moral character”  and ‘proper cause.’ 1913 N. Y. Laws ch. 608, §1, p. 1629.”

THE SYSTEMATIC EROSION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURAL LAW RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE IN NEW YORK SNOWBALLED THROUGH TIME.

The systematic erosion of a fundamental, immutable, illimitable, eternal, and unalienable right—the most basic of all RIGHTS and NEEDS, that of “SELF PRESERVATION”—commenced, in New York, as a result of a reluctance by the New York Government to acknowledge the right of the people to keep and bear arms in the State, notwithstanding the State did eventually ratify both the U.S. Constitution and the subsequent Bill of Rights component to it, which included a prohibition on the Federal Government to infringe that right.The nascent threat to the civilian citizens’ right to keep and bear arms in New York itself, had always existed, in fact, PRECEDED Ratification of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights which would suggest a schizophrenia on the part of the New York Government, concerning its actions toward exercise of the Right.

NEW YORK RATIFIED THE BILL OF RIGHTS FOR THE UNITED STATES BUT ORIGINALLY REJECTED A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR ITSELF; AND IT CONSCIOUSLY AVOIDED ADDING A RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS TO MIRROR THE RIGHT CODIFIED IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, ONCE THE STATE DECIDED ON INCORPORATING A BILL OF RIGHTS INTO A LATER VERSION OF ITS STATE CONSTITUTION

ALTHOUGH NEW YORK WOULD EVENTUALLY ACKNOWLEDGE A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, IT DID SO ONLY STATUTORILY, NOT CONSTITUTIONALLY

Consider:New York is one of only a handful of States that currently does not have a fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms in its State Constitution. And it never did.“. . . The states without rights to bear arms enshrined in their state constitutions are: California, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York. Citizens of these states must rely on the federal Constitution and statutory regulation of arms. See, e.g., N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 4 (McKinney 2012) (‘A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed.’).”“Symposium: ‘Gun Control and the Second Amendment: Developments and Controversies in the Wake of District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago’: Article: ‘The (New) New Judicial Federalism: State Constitutions and the Protection of the Individual Right to Bear Arms,’ 39 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1449, October 2012, Michael B. de Leeuw*See also, “Shocking the Second Amendment: Invalidating States’ Prohibitions On Taser With The District Of Columbia v. Heller,’ 20 Alb. L.J. Sci. & Tech. 159 (2010) By Ron F. Wright.“Ratified in 1909, New York’s right-to-bear arms provision differs from the latter provisions in that it is a statutory rather than constitutional grant. While its language is similar to the Second Amendment, contemporaneous sources carry strong undertones of keeping and bearing arms for strictly militia purposes. Looking first to New York’s treatment of the phrase ‘the people’ in its Civil Rights Law, we note that other than its right-to-bear arms provision the phrase refers to a right only one other time: the individual right to be free from unreasonable search and seizures. Furthermore, in the other appearances where the phrase ‘the people’ appears not a single instance refers to an actual right, express or implied.”In fact, in the original iteration of the State Constitution, New York did not incorporate a Bill of Rights. Later renditions did include a State Bill of Rights, but originally, involved procedural matters rather than substantive rights. The Bill of Rights of New York’s Constitution evolved sporadically over time.But New York always intended to whittle away at the natural law right to armed self-defense. Half-heartedly, or grudgingly at best, it eventually placed the right of the people to keep and bear arms in its Civil Rights Statutory scheme.NY CLS Civ R § 4 (Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms), says,“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed.” [underlining added]Note, the substitution of the words, ‘SHALL NOT’ as they appear in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, with the word, ‘CANNOT,’ in Section 4 of the Civil Right Law of New York.The word, ‘CANNOT,’ means ‘TO BE UNABLE TO DO OTHERWISE THAN.’ It isn’t a legal term of art. The words, ‘SHALL NOT’ however have a specific meaning in law: “THE ELEMENT OR ACTION IS PROHIBITED.” Is this change of major significance? Surely, the alteration of the language of the Right, in the Consolidated Laws of New York wasn’t an inadvertent oversight but made with intention.The New York Legislature made sure that “CANNOT BE INFRINGED” does not mean the Legislature has no authority to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. On the contrary, the suggestion is that no person or entity but the New York Government itself can infringe the right for the Government here establishes that it has created the right, i.e., statutorily. The Right, then, is neither something the people of New York create nor that of a Divine Being.Use of a nonlegal word establishes and avoids any foreseeable problem that might arise from a citizen contesting Government infringement of a Right that “CANNOT” be infringed. At least that is the obvious rationale for the change in construction.Providing only statutory recognition of a right to bear arms, the State could not easily be constrained from hobbling the exercise of the right. And both New York State and the State and Federal Courts were complicit in supporting each outrageous Government action, through regulation, of the “RIGHT” THAT “CANNOT BE INFRINGED.”New York's Executive Branch and Legislative Branch constantly invented ways to erode the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms and, in so doing, to sever the people’s connection with their fundamental right—ultimately creating a permanent estrangement.Overzealous regulation coupled with a lengthy, industrious campaign of psychological conditioning, affected the mind. “Gun Possession” became identified with and equated with “Gun Violence.” Many New Yorkers didn’t mind this. In fact, they fanatically embraced the viral memes planted in their minds.The latest developments in psychological conditioning and in technology that allows for rapid dissemination of information, affecting millions of people simultaneously, made this possible.Instead of dealing with crime and criminals, the Government would instead go after average Americans, creating a nightmare for those citizens who were not taken in by the contortions and distortions of the New York Government and who insisted on exercising their natural law right to self-defense that the Government was loathed to recognize or allow.What eventually emerged in New York was an elaborate, expensive, time-consuming, and confounding licensing regime that New Yorkers would be required to navigate through. The questions no one in Government dared to consider and that a Press, sympathizing with the Government, would never ask are these:“Why should it be so difficult for me to exercise a fundamental, unalienable right?”“Why should I be compelled to navigate my way through a mass of confusing firearms regulations, and then once failing to gain State permission to defend my life with the most effective means available, I am thrown to the winds and compelled to navigate through a cesspool of criminals and lunatics that dot the landscape of New York?“Why is it the New York Government constrains my right to defend myself against depraved criminals and lunatics, and, at the same time, refuses to use my tax dollars to protect me against those elements that incessantly threaten the life, safety, and well-being of millions of average, rational, law-abiding, responsible citizens like me?”“By what inductive or deductive reasoning does the New York Government and Kathy Hochul presume to reduce the highest denominator of society with the lowest, refusing to allow me to defend myself against predators, arguing that, on the matter of firearms, I can no more be trusted to responsibly keep and bear them than would the common criminal, the psychopathic murderous gang member, or the raving drug-addled lunatic?With the enactment of the Sullivan Act in 1911—a law that introduced handgun licensing to the State—the New York Government would, through the years and decades, enact more laws, aimed at frustrating those Americans residing or working in New York who merely wish to exercise the fundamental right to keep and bear arms as is their natural law right to do so?The Sullivan Act of 1911 would serve as the New York Government’s answer, exemplifying their disdain for the average citizen. And the Government did not stop with the enactment of that. Introducing handgun licensing to New York was merely a precursor to and an inkling of what was yet to be.The Sullivan Act of 1911 served, then, merely as a stepping stone in a lengthy inexorable process, whittling away at the citizens’ exercise of their unalienable right to armed self-defense.Whether by conscious intent or by unconscious conditioned reflex, the State had effectively placed a New Yorker on a medieval torture rack, tormenting those individuals who insisted on—dared to—exercise the right that the New York Government did not wish for New Yorkers to exercise.Once on that rack, the State slowly tightened the screws, enacting more constraints on a person’s exercise of the right, through time, frustrating those New Yorkers who demanded that Government not interpose itself between the right of the people to keep and bear arms as bestowed on man by the Divine Creator, not Government, and the exercise of that right that the founders of a free Constitutional Republic recognized and insisted on.And the process of whittling away at the natural law right to armed self-defense gained speed over time, frustrating the desire of anyone who simply wished to exercise his basic right of self-preservation with the most effective means available: A handgun.Hochul’s predecessor, New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, had added extensive amendments to the Handgun Law and to related New York Statutes, affecting all firearms and possession of them. through the enactment of the New York Safe Act of 2013.Cuomo rammed that through the State Senate in the dead of night, and, once it had passed the Senate, he immediately signed it into law, on January 15, 2013.Hochul’s“Concealed Carry Improvement Act” of 2022 doesn’t ease the dire impact of the Safe Act on those who seek to keep and bear arms. One might rationally expect that the CCIA would ease the exercise of the fundamental right, consistent with Bruen. Rather, the CCIA builds upon the earlier Act and is part and parcel of several other Anti-Second Amendment laws that Hochul signed into law on or about the same date she signed the CCIA into law.Bruen changed nothing. NY Safe and the CCIA continue a process that began not with the passage of the Sullivan Act of 1911, but over a hundred years earlier—in fact earlier yet—much earlier.In fact, New York’s antipathy toward the natural law right to armed self-defense always existed, going back prior to the founding of the Republic itself, through the ratification of the U.S. Constitution on July , 1788.“The first New York Constitution was adopted by the Convention of Representatives of the State of New York on April 20, 1777,” 15 months before ratification of the U.S. Constitution that New York, among other States that existed at the time, agreed to. See Historical Society of the New York Courts and content infra.What began as a concern and annoyance over the exercise ofthe right of the people to keep and bear arms in New York, evolved, over the centuries, into distress and disgust, and anxiety over the citizens’ keeping and bearing of arms.That distress, disquiet, and disgust grew into trepidation and panic, coupled with a rabid abhorrence over the notion a person should possess firearms at all.Today, Governor Hochul proclaims her anger over the Bruen decision. Worse, she articulates a visible contempt for the Court.But, how much of that anger is grounded on true and firm belief and how much is mere political rhetoric, playing to a “woke” audience?A decade ago, Hochul, ever the consummate politician, evinced a different position toward the Second Amendment. See the article in Bearing Arms. What caused a transformation in her thought—a complete 180-degree turn?It matters not. If Hochul is duplicitous and is behaving theatrically, her present words and actions must be taken at face value, not minimized. No one should attempt to explain them away as mere emoting as if to suggest her words are not to be taken seriously. They are TO BE TAKEN MOST SERIOUSLY.Hochul’s words, both their insolent tone and the detrimental impact on those who wish to exercise their natural law right to armed self-defense at home or in public, cannot be assigned simply to fabrication or theatrics. The intent behind those words, seen in the legislation enacted, which Hochul has signed into law—a flurry of new restrictive Anti-Second Amendment legislation—has real-world impact and dire consequences for New Yorkers.Regardless of what Hochul the politician really believes the fact remains that New Yorkers, especially the politically progressive denizens of New York City, and Hochul’s wealthy, Neoliberal Globalist benefactors, have long held to a New York tradition antithetical to and wholly destructive of the Second Amendment right. And Hochul, the politician, through her present words and actions, mirrors the predilection of her base, millions of New Yorkers, most of whom reside in NYC.Attuned to her supporters’ beliefs, she rails incessantly against “guns,” “gun owners,” and that thing the Anti-Second Amendment wordsmiths had recently concocted to push their narrative against the right to armed self-defense on the public: “Gun Violence.”Long-standing New York tradition contra recognition of the basic right to armed self-defense overpowers any thought of compliance and obeisance to the dictates of “shall not be infringed,” much less acquiescence and adherence to High Court rulings on the matter.As noted, supra, several years before New York ratified the U.S. Constitution, on July 26, 1788, and, later, when New York ratified the Nation’s Bill of Rights, on March 27, 1790, the Revolutionary Convention of the Representatives of New York (see New York Archives) prepared the groundwork for a State Constitution:“In August 1776, the revolutionary Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York appointed a committee to draft a state constitution and a bill of rights. Despite this command, the constitution eventually produced did not contain a separate bill of rights. Robert Yates, a member of the drafting committee, later explained that advocates of a bill of rights thought in terms of an instrument by which ‘the power of the rulers ought to be circumscribed,’ modeled after the 1628 Petition of Right and the 1689 Bill of Rights. The committee, however, took the view that the American Revolution placed the people ‘in a state of nature’ such that the new fundamental instrument the people themselves created, the constitution ‘would operate as a bill of rights.’ This view was not uncommon in revolutionary America. John Jay, for instance, a principal drafter of the 1777 federal constitution, used the same argument when objecting to the adoption of a federal bill of rights in 1788.  The constitution adopted by the New York Convention in April 1777, did contain certain clauses guaranteeing basic rights, such as might be found in a bill of rights: all power derived from the people, right to counsel in criminal trials, freedom of religion and abolition of religious establishments, and trial by jury and prohibition of attainder (to take effect after the war). In addition, on the motion of Gilbert Livingston (later a radical antifederalist), the Convention added to the constitution a clause guaranteeing due process. In the face of Loyalist threats to the existence of the new government, the Convention refrained, however, from adding to the constitution any further assertions of fundamental rights that would hinder efforts to suppress counter-revolutionary activity.” “New York’s Statutory Bill of Rights: A Constitutional Coelacanth,” 19 Touro L. Rev. 363, 366-367 Winter / Spring, 2003, by  Robert Emery. “The New York legislature adopted the original version of the statutory bill of rights, ‘an Act concerning the rights of the citizens of this State,’ in January 1787.” Id. at 368. There was no mention of a right of the people to keep and bear arms in the first rendition of the New York Constitution, nor would there be any future version of the State Constitution. There certainly was no serious consideration for that.“New York has adopted four constitutions (1777, 1821, 1846, and 1894) and held eight constitutional conventions (1801, 1821, 1846, 1867, 1894, 1915, 1938, and 1967). The Constitution of 1894, revised in 1938 and amended over 200 times, remains in place today. As provided in this document, the state legislature can propose a constitutional convention at any time, subject to approval by the electorate.  However, the state constitution also mandates that the question of whether to hold a convention be submitted to the electorate every twenty years.” In a climate openly hostile to the very thought of relaxation of New York’s Gun Law—having placed more and more restrictions on the exercise of the right to armed self-defense through 112 years of the Sullivan Act—it stands to reason the Hochul Government wouldn’t be dissuaded from continuing its concerted, single-minded march toward achieving the goal of Dissolution of the right to armed self-defense in New York or, if not able to that, grudgingly, at least, getting damned close to attaining it.Notwithstanding the State had recognized the right of the people to keep and bear arms at the National level, having ratified the Nation’sBill of Rights in 1790, it felt no compunction to do so at the State level, believing, apparently, that, whatever negative impact the Second Amendment on the Federal Government, its application would pose no hardship on the States and would not limit the State’s ability to do away with the entirety of it if it wished. Was the State Government being disingenuous? Was it holding disparate, inconsistent beliefs that defy rational explanation? Who can say what the State Government's motivations were at the time?Prior to the McDonald decision, and for those theorists who mistakenly held to a “collective rights-only” notion of the Second Amendment, (and many still do), the early New York Government felt it need not worry about the Second Amendment. The State would have its Police Powers and could deny all residents of the State and those who work there the keeping and bearing of arms. And, for a time, it would seem the State could get away with its perfunctory dismissal of the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms.And, even with the McDonald decision in 2010 (McDonald vs. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 130 S. Ct. 3020 (2010)), New York would continue to evince schizophrenia toward the Second Amendment, as would a few other jurisdictions around the Country. They would all pretend that, whatever McDonald happened to say about a State’s obligation to adhere to and respect the citizenry's exercise of the right codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, through the application of the Fourteenth Amendment, those States could regulate the exercise of the right to an effective nullity. That is what such State Governments presumed to think and that is how they acted.State licensing is the vehicle that drives the impetus for State arrogance toward the natural law right to armed self-defense.Prior to Bruen, Federal and State Courts in New York held an incongruous position, when rubber-stamping what is clearly illegal New York Government action.These Courts acknowledged that, while a person has a fundamental, unalienable right to keep and bear arms, that person must still obtain a valid State handgun license to exercise his fundamental right.The New York Courts had heretofore preposterously argued that, since having a license to exercise one’s Second Amendment right is, one, a condition precedent to the exercise of one’s fundamental right, and that, two, since the issuance of a handgun license is a prerogative of the State, a completely discretionary act and that, further, since the acquisition of a State issued handgun license is a privilege, not a right, be that right fundamental or not, the State can lawfully deny a person exercise of his fundamental, unalienable right to keep and bear arms. New York Courts’ ruling considered this reasoning as valid and sound law, “black letter law” in New York, and, as expected, especially for those who sought to obtain a New York concealed handgun carry license, the acquisition of those coveted licenses to exercise a fundamental right was very few in number. Such was true before Bruen. And now, after? Will there be many more issuances of concealed handgun carry licenses? And of those that are issued, will they truly work as intended by Bruen, to enable the licensee to truly exercise armed self-defense? This all remains to be seen.The Hochul Government did not assert—it felt it wouldn’t have to—that 225 years of refusal to countenance a citizen’s natural law right to armed self-defense as it saw fit was argument enough to continue to constrain the exercise of the right and to require much from those individuals who had the fortitude to demand what they should not have had to demand: an exercise of their unrestrained right to armed self-defense. Long-standing State tradition would circumvent any argument about the purported supremacy of the natural law right to armed self-defense over the State's authority to deny a citizen's exercise of that right.New York’s negative attitude toward the Second Amendment, coupled with a firm belief, taken as self-evident true for well over two hundred years—that New York Government police regulatory authority supersedes an American citizen’s exercise of his fundamental, illimitable, immutable, eternal natural law rights and would always remain so and hold sway over a U.S. Supreme Court decision to rule or hold otherwise, is soon to be tested. It must be tested.Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, together, apparently do not operate, in the mind of the New York Government, as a formidable force, powerful enough to overcome the New York Government’s belief in its own legal and moral invincibility. New York continues to go its own way.How many U.S. Supreme Court decisions must, then, come down the pike before jurisdictions like New York accept the Article III authority of the Third Branch of Government—the authority of the High Court to say what the Law Is? But is it just New York that is rebelling against the authority of the High Court?Clearly, there are dangerous, ominous stirrings afoot, suggesting the actions of shadowy, ruthless forces both here and abroad that have set wheels in motion to destroy a free Constitutional Republic and a sovereign American citizenry. It all bespeaks tyranny at the highest levels of Federal and many State Governments. What we are doing here is looking at the manifestation of those wheels set in motion, as pertaining to the incremental, continuous, devastating erosion of the Bill of Rights, and the blatant misuse of authority by Federal and State Governments to control the life, safety, well-being, and personal autonomy of the American citizen.One need only reflect carefully and honestly on the manner in which Governments are shredding the Bill of Rights slowly, methodically, and inexorably to understand the mortal danger facing our free Constitutional RepublicLooking at the New York Government’s actions despicable actions toward the U.S. Supreme Court is explanation enough that something more is afoot than imbecilic behavior by Governor Hochul and the Democrat-Party-controlled Legislature in Albany.The New York Government would not have dared to contend against the High Court unless they knew that powerful interests and forces stood behind them to protect them. The New York Government's insolent maneuverings are not emanating solely from the Government. The masterminds of the treachery against our Nation stand well above Government agent toadies. They are merely the faces the public sees; that the public is permitted to see. All we can do here is try to convey to our kind readers the legal, logical, and Constitutional weaknesses of New York’s actions. And we must remain content with accomplishing that. It is more than enough work for us, a small voice supporting our Constitution as the founders of our Republic intended.With this groundwork laid as an explanation for New York’s recalcitrance in obeying a direct High Court ruling, we will, in the next few articles of this series draw our attention to the deceitfulness at work through the operation of the “Good Moral Character” provision of the CCIA the Hochul Government has repurposed to operate like the past “Proper Cause” Requirement, to frustrate the applicant. The New York Government continues on the path it had first set for itself centuries ago, at the dawn of New York's statehood. Hochul and her Government intend to restrict the issuance of New York concealed handgun carry licenses, now, as then, and to constrain the use of those licenses for those individuals who happen to be among the few to acquire them.________________________________________*A decade after this article came out, Iowa amended its Constitution to include “a right to bear arms.” In a news article posted November 8, 2022, The Des Moine Iowa Register reported that,“Iowa voters have adopted an amendment to the Iowa Constitution to add the right ‘to keep and bear arms,’ adding language that goes beyond the protections contained in the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, according to unofficial results.Iowa will become the fourth state with ‘strict scrutiny’ language to protect gun rights in its state constitution, achieving a longtime goal of Republicans in the Iowa Legislature. . . .The language of the amendment states: ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right. Any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.’The amendment described the right to keep and bear arms as ‘a fundamental individual right,’ requiring any restrictions on gun rights to survive ‘strict scrutiny.’Strict scrutiny is the highest legal hurdle for legislation to clear. It requires any restrictions on gun rights to be narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest.”Two weeks after Iowans voted to amend their Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court held oral argument in Bruen, and the Court published its decision seven months later. Much of the Majority Opinion clarified the test that Courts must follow in deciding whether State Government action conforms with or offends the core of the Second Amendment when a Government action is challenged.But twelve years before Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down means-test scrutiny, in favor of a historical test. Although the late eminent Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia, writing for the Majority, in Heller, had specifically mentioned defects in the lowest standard of means-test scrutiny, “Rational Basis,” it was clear from the decision that the Court had scrapped the entirety of means-test analysis in Second Amendment cases, including, then, “Intermediate” and “Strict” Scrutiny, in favor of historical analysis. The vast majority of Courts failed to get the message or otherwise chose to ignore it. Although many Courts, prior to Bruen may have utilized a historical analysis, in analyzing the constitutionality of State action impinging on the Second Amendment right, they went impermissibly further, unable or unwilling to disavow means-test scrutiny altogether. But nothing in Heller suggests the High Court retained so much as an iota of means-test scrutiny. Moreover, the Majority in Bruen explicitly states that the Court wasn’t creating a new methodology. Bruen merely clarifies what Heller asserts. Associate Justice Thomas, writing for the Majority in Bruen, said this:“Since Heller and McDonald, the Courts of Appeals have developed a ‘two-step’ framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny. The Court rejects that two-part approach as having one step too many. Step one is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support a second step that applies means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Heller’s methodology centered on constitutional text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny, and it expressly rejected any interest-balancing inquiry akin to intermediate scrutiny.”This brings us back to Iowa’s amendment to its State Constitution. Since the Amendment refers explicitly to the use of “strict scrutiny,” the Amendment is unconstitutional. The irony is that supporters of the Amendment sought not only to cast in stone the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms for Iowans but to preclude the State Legislature and the State Federal and Appellate Courts from employing any test that might henceforth weaken the exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense. The supporters of the Iowan Amendment thought that strict scrutiny in Second Amendment cases would prevent unconstitutional State action from infringing the core of the right. The U.S. Supreme Court had no such illusion, as a Strict Scrutiny means-test methodology suffers from the same defect as all means-test (weight analysis) methodology. There exists a tendency of Courts to find, almost invariably, in favor of a Government’s action, denying a challenge of unconstitutional infringement. This is one reason, and probably the salient one, why the Court struck down means-test scrutiny altogether, in Heller.Can the Iowa Legislature amend the verbiage of the Constitutional amendment to cohere with Heller and Bruen? Probably not since that would involve statutory reconstruction of a Constitutional amendment, which in the action would defeat, even if the intention were honest, the force and efficacy of the State Constitution, either subordinating the State Constitution to State Statute or placing the State’s Constitution on the same footing as State Statute. Neither possibility is acceptable.It appears Iowans will have to undertake another round of voting, first to repeal the unconstitutional amendment, and second to vote on a redraft of the amendment first voted on, that omits the “strict scrutiny” language.The Des Moines Register article, supra, also refers to four other States that have employed the language of strict scrutiny in their own constitutions:“Iowa will become the fourth state with ‘strict scrutiny, language to protect gun rights in its state constitution, achieving a longtime goal of Republicans in the Iowa Legislature.”If true, those States as well must amend their constitutions to cohere to the rulings and reasoning of Heller (District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008)) and Bruen, (N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022)).___________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

IT IS HIGH TIME THE HIGH COURT DEALT WITH GOVERNMENT HANDGUN LICENSING REGIMES HEAD-ON

MULTIPART SERIES ON POST-BRUEN CASE ANALYSIS

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

PART TWENTY-FOUR

“MAY ISSUE” VERSUS “SHALL ISSUE” A HANDGUN LICENSE ISN’T OF SALIENT IMPORTANCE. GOVERNMENT HANDGUN LICENSING, PER SE, IS.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s “May Issue” concealed handgun carry license “Proper Cause” requirement in New York on June 23, 2022, in the third landmark Second Amendment case, NYSRPA vs. Bruen. That much is known among both friends and foes of the Second Amendment alike. And the Democrat Party legislative machinery in Albany, at the behest of New York Governor Kathy Hochul, did strike “Proper Cause” from the State’s Handgun Law, the Sullivan Act.But a comprehensive set of amendments to the Law did nothing to weaken the import of the Act.Hochul and Albany simply rejiggered it, leading immediately, and unsurprisingly, to a new round of challenges.But what accounts for this brazenness of the New York Government? And why is it fair to say the recent set of Amendments to New York’s Handgun Law (the Sullivan Act) is no less in conflict with the right codified in the Second Amendment, after Bruen, than before the Bruen decision?As we argue, the Amendments to the Handgun Law, “The Concealed Carry Improvement Act” of 2022 (“CCIA”), negatively impact not only the Second and Fourteenth Amendments but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Bill of Rights as well.Moreover, for holders of valid New York concealed carry licenses prior to Bruen, the Amendments to the Handgun Law do not secure acquiring a renewal of their concealed handgun carry license any easier, but create new hurdles for those licensees, no less so than for new applications for concealed carry licenses.And, for those individuals who do acquire a valid New York concealed handgun carry license under the CCIA, its usefulness is jeopardized.Prior to Bruen, the State had established two tiers of concealed handgun carry licenses: Restricted and Unrestricted. That distinction no longer exists. The CCIA collapses the two tiers. Henceforth, all concealed handgun carry licenses are now, in effect, “Restricted.”What is going on here? How has the New York Government come about?One must dig deep into Bruen for an answer, and that analysis must extend to Heller and McDonald. For the three landmark Second Amendment cases operate in tandem.

THE NEW YORK GOVERNMENT HAS EXPLOITED WEAKNESSES IN THE BRUEN DECISION

The New York Government has exploited weaknesses in the rulings and reasoning of Bruen and in the parent Heller and McDonald cases.Consistent with our prior analyses, we continue to delve deeply into U.S. Gun Law.In this and subsequent articles, we unpack and decipher the language of the three seminal 21^st Century Second Amendment cases to gain an understanding of the weaknesses and flaws that have allowed State Government foes of the Second Amendment to flaunt the High Court rulings.Sometimes these Government schemes demonstrate adroitness and cunning. At other times the schemes show ineptitude, appearing crude and amateurish. No matter. Foes of the Second Amendment illustrate, through their actions, unmitigated Government contempt for theArticle III power of the Third Branch of Government, a marked disdain for the natural law right to armed self-defense, and outright hatred toward Americans who exhibit a marked intention to keep and bear arms, consistent with the right guaranteed to them by eternal, immutable Divine Law, albeit contrary to transitory, ever-changing international norms.  High Court rulings do not and cannot transform innate and open hostility toward the Second Amendment, harbored by and exhibited by the legacy Press; a plethora of native Anti-Second Amendment interest groups; the Biden Administration and its toady functionaries; Democrat Party-Controlled State Governments; International Marxist-Communist, and Neoliberal Globalist influences; the fixtures of the EU and UN; the Nation's Political liberals, Progressives, and Radicals among the polity; and international-sponsored NGOs.Reason doesn't factor into the equation. Those forces hostile to the very existence of the Second Amendment remain so. The hostility is attributed to and engendered by the agenda of the Globalist Billionaire Class the goal of which is to bring to fruition a neo-feudalistic corporatist Globalist economic, and financial empire, around which a one-world socio-political Government is to be constructed, through which the Hoi Polloi of the world, amorphous billions, are to be ruled with an iron fist, keeping them corralled and constrained.Constitutions of individual nation-states, especially those of the U.S. that embrace God-Given natural law, beyond the lawful authority of any Government to tamper with, are antithetical to The Globalist end-game. And, so, the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are deemed both dangerous and irrelevant.Yet, the salient job of the U.S. Supreme Court is to preserve the import and purport of the U.S. Constitution by interpreting the plain meaning of it as drafted, and, in so doing, constrain malevolent or opportunistic forces that would manipulate the Constitution to serve an agenda at odds with it, whose unstated goal, as has become increasingly apparent, amounts to the wholesale destruction of a free Republic and the Nation’s sovereign people. It need hardly be said, let alone argued, that decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are not and ought not to be determined by popular opinion. Inferring the plain meaning of the Constitution, the decisions of the Court are not to be shunted aside due to the fervor of the moment. In any event, public opinion is fickle; easily manipulated. The public, much of it, is easily roused to anger. Now a mob, it is whipped into a frenetic, frenzied rage through the launching of industry-wide propaganda campaigns— elaborate psychological conditioning programs, blanketing the entire Nation. It is in this climate of induced fear and rage toward firearms and toward those of us who intend to exercise our fundamental, unalienable, immutable, eternal right to armed self-defense that the U.S. Supreme Court operates and must navigate in and through, never losing sight of one axiomatic principle enunciated by John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, over two centuries ago in the landmark case Marbury vs. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 1 Cranch 137 (1803). All first-year law students come to know this case.

“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. 

So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.”

See also, the article, The Court and Constitutional Interpretation, on the High Court's website:

“When the Supreme Court rules on a constitutional issue, that judgment is virtually final; its decisions can be altered only by the rarely used procedure of constitutional amendment or by a new ruling of the Court. However, when the Court interprets a statute, new legislative action can be taken.Chief Justice Marshall expressed the challenge which the Supreme Court faces in maintaining free government by noting: ‘We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding . . . intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.’” This suggests the High Court should never be tentative, circuitous, or vague in its opinions, especially when dealing with the Bill of Rights.Alas, that normative commandment is less objective practice and more unattainable goal. The elusiveness of it is due more likely to stormy conditions in the Court itself, among the Justices, that require them,  at times, to pull their punches.

THE PROBLEM WITH BRUEN RESTS NOT WITH THE RULINGS BUT WITH A  LACK OF CLARITY DUE POSSIBLY TO THE MACHINATIONS OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE (?)

The problems attendant to Bruen rest not with the rulings themselves, but with abstruseness; a lack of clarity. The authors of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, could have closed the loopholes. They didn’t.But the fault does not lie with the late, eminent Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the Heller Majority Opinion, nor with Justice Samuel Alito, author of the McDonald Majority Opinion, nor with Justice Clarence Thomas, author of the Bruen Majority Opinion.The fault, more likely than not, rests with Chief Justice Roberts. Conscious of the political headwinds, and desirous to establish a modicum of common ground between the two wings of the Court, he likely had demanded watered-down versions of the Majority Opinions.Were Justices Scalia, Alito, and Thomas given free rein, they would have denied to State Government actors and their compliant Courts, an escape route, however narrow, allowing these foes of the Second Amendment to concoct mechanisms to skirt the Heller, McDonald, and Bruen rulings and reasoning that supports those rulings.

A CONUNDRUM RESTS AT THE HEART OF BRUEN AND HELLER AND MCDONALD

On a few major findings, the three landmark cases were patently clear.Heller held firmly that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, unconnected with service in a militia, and the Federal Government is prevented from disturbing that right. McDonald made clear the rulings and reasoning of Heller applied with equal force to the States. Bruen made clear the individual right to armed self-defense isn’t confined to one’s home but extends to the public domain.At each step, the three LandmarkSecond Amendment cases strengthened, in turn, an aspect of the plain meaning of the natural law right to armed self-defense, drawing upon and building upon and then clarifying a central plank of the predecessor case.The foes of these Landmark cases contested findings of law and fact. The arguments invariably began with a false premise: that the U.S. Supreme Court has impermissibly expanded the right embodied in the Second Amendment. The High Court did no such thing. It expanded nothing.The High Court simply laid out what exists in the language of the Second Amendment but that some State Governments fail to recognize or know but fail to acknowledge. And, in their actions, these Governments contort and distort, and inexorably weaken the clear, concise, and categorical meaning of the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment.The central thesis of the latest Landmark case, Bruen is this:

WHETHER AT HOME, OR IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE, A PERSON HAS A FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO DEFEND ONE’S LIFE WITH THE FUNCTIONALLY BEST MEANS AVAILABLE, A FIREARM, A FACT TRUE CENTURIES AGO, AND NO LESS TRUE TODAY.

And, yet there exists a conundrum, a problem, a painful shard embedded in the heart of Bruen—a  carryover from Heller—that begs for resolution in a fourth Second Amendment case that likely is coming down the pike: Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli, another New York case.That case is the progeny of an earlier case, Antonyuk vs. Bruen—the first major challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court case, NYSRPA vs. Bruen.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, amenable to the allegations made attacking the legality and Constitutionality of New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act, dismissed the case without prejudice, tacitly, but unsubtly, encouraging the Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk to refile the case.New York Governor Hochul, apparently oblivious to the fact that the dismissal of Antonyuk vs. Bruen did not mean the Court found the CCIA Constitutional, pompously reported the District Court’s action as a win. She should have saved her breath. She would have looked less the fool.The Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, promptly filed a new complaint, and five other holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses joined him as Party Plaintiffs. During the litigation of the case, the Parties filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction to stay enforcement of the CCIA, and the District Court granted the Motion.The Hochul Government appealed the Injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Appellate Court reversed the District Court’s granting of the stay, and the Plaintiffs filed an interlocutory appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. In an unconventional request for a response from the Government to the Plaintiffs’ appeal, the Hochul Government filed its opposition to the lifting of the stay of enforcement of the CCIA case—eventually, recaptioned Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli—and the High Court, in deference to the Second Circuit, did lift the stay, permitting the Government to enforce the CCIA while the Second Circuit rules on the Preliminary Injunction.Having received what it wanted from the High Court and knowing or suspecting the core of the CCIA would likely be overturned on appeal of a final Order of the Second Circuit, the Hochul Government would have every reason to dawdle.The High Court, aware of this, cautioned the Government against this, in its Order, stating that that the Government must proceed apace with the case, and explicitly asserting that Plaintiffs can appeal to the High Court if the Government deliberately drags its feet.Yet, months later, the case, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli, still sits at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

A TENSION EXISTS BETWEEN THE DICTATES OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND LANDMARK RULINGS OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT ON THE ONE HAND, AND, ON THE OTHER HAND, THE INTENT OF THOSE STATE GOVERNMENTS, THAT ABHOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT, TO OPERATE IN DEFIANCE OF THE DICTATES OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND LANDMARK RULINGS OF THE U.S. SUPREME

State Governments—like New York and others—that abhor exercise of the right embodied in the Second Amendment—will continue to enact Statutes spurning the High Court’s rulings until the Court deals with this conundrum.The central premise of Bruen is that the right to armed self-defense, inherent in the language of the Second Amendment, is not bounded in space or time.A person need not, then, present a reason to carry a handgun for self-defense in public. Self-defense is reason enough, and that reason is presumed in a person’s application for a carry license.It was the presumption of “May Issue” jurisdictions that an applicant for a handgun carry license must show the need for a handgun carry license that the U.S. Supreme Court attacked head-on.Justice Thomas, writing for the Majority in Bruen, said this:  “New York is not alone in requiring a permit to carry a handgun in public. But the vast majority of States—43 by our count—are shall issue’ jurisdictions, where authorities must issue concealed-carry licenses whenever applicants satisfy certain threshold requirements, without granting licensing officials discretion to deny licenses based on a perceived lack of need or suitability. Meanwhile, only six States and the District of Columbia have ‘may issue’ licensing laws, under which authorities have discretion to deny concealed-carry licenses even when the applicant satisfies the statutory criteria, usually because the applicant has not demonstrated cause or suitability for the relevant license. Aside from New York, then, only California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey have analogues to the ‘proper cause’ standard. All of these ‘proper cause’ analogues have been upheld by the Courts of Appeals, save  for the District of Columbia’s, which has been permanently enjoined since 2017. Compare Gould v. Morgan, 907 F. 3d 659, 677 (CA1 2018); Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F. 3d 81, 101 (CA2 2012); Drake v. Filko, 724 F. 3d 426, 440 (CA3 2013); United States v. Masciandaro, 638 F. 3d 458, 460 (CA4 2011); Young v. Hawaii, 992 F. 3d 765, 773 (CA9 2021) (en banc), with Wrenn v. District of Columbia, 864 F. 3d 650, 668, 431 U.S. App. D.C. 62 (CADC 2017).” [Bruen, Majority Opinion]Justice Thomas says Appellate Courts have upheld “May Issue” in six which include New York and the District of Columbia. What Justice Thomas doesn’t say but suggests is that “May Issue” is henceforth unconstitutional in all those jurisdictions because those jurisdictions embrace a“Proper Cause” schema even if the precise phrase, ‘Proper Cause,’ isn’t used in those “May Issue” in the handgun laws of those jurisdictions.Moreover, insofar as the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in those jurisdictions have heretofore held “May Issue” Gun Laws Constitutional, the holdings of those Courts are henceforth overruled to the extent they conflict with Bruen. That means the reasoning in conjunction with and supporting those holdings is to be given no effect.A showing of “Extraordinary Need” is the mainstay of “Proper Cause”/“May Issue.” But, as to what had heretofore constituted this “Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need” was never defined in New York Statute. So, then, what is this thing, “Proper Cause?” How does New York define ‘Proper Cause’ since the Legislature never defined it?“No New York statute defines ‘proper cause.’ But New York courts have held that an applicant shows proper cause only if he can “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.” E.g., In re Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d 256, 257 (1980). This ‘special need’ standard is demanding. For example, living or working in an area “‘noted for criminal activity’” does not suffice. In re Bernstein, 85 App. Div. 2d 574, 445 N. Y. S. 2d 716, 717 (1981). Rather, New York courts generally require evidence ‘of particular threats, attacks or other extraordinary danger to personal safety.’ In re Martinek, 294 App. Div. 2d 221, 222, 743 N. Y. S. 2d 80, 81 (2002); see also In re Kaplan, 249 App. Div. 2d 199, 201, 673 N. Y. S. 2d 66, 68 (1998) (approving the New York City Police Department’s requirement of “‘extraordinary personal danger, documented by proof of recurrent threats to life or safety’” (quoting 38 N. Y. C. R. R. §5-03(b))).’”It was, then, left up to the various Licensing Authorities in New York to construct operational rules for “Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need.”The expression, ‘Proper Cause,’ means ‘Special Need.’ And the expression, ‘Special Need’ means that an applicant for a concealed carry license must establish a reason for carrying beyond simple ‘self-defense.’A demand that a prospective concealed carry licensee convince the licensing authority that his need arises from an “Extraordinary Need,” i.e., a need beyond that faced by most people is what New York and similar “May Issue” jurisdictions demand. And it is this the U.S. Supreme Court finds both incongruous and repugnant under both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.Justice Thomas points out that “May Issue”/“Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need”—all allude to the fact that the Government licensing authority may exercise discretion in issuing a handgun license. This wasn’t a feature of New York’s Handgun Law Licensing Statute when the State Legislature enacted the Sullivan Act in 1911. “Magistrate” (i.e., Government Authority) discretion in issuing a carry license came about a couple of years later.“In 1911, New York’s ‘Sullivan Law’ expanded the State’s criminal prohibition to the possession of all handguns—concealed or otherwise—without a government-issued license. See 1911 N. Y. Laws ch. 195, §1, p. 443. New York later amended the Sullivan Law to clarify the licensing standard: Magistrates could ‘issue to [a] person a license to have and carry concealed a pistol or revolver without regard to employment or place of possessing such weapon’ only if that person proved “good moral character” and ‘proper cause.’ 1913 N. Y. Laws ch. 608, §1, p. 1629.” [Bruen, Majority Opinion] Through the passing years and decades, New York added more requirements, further constraining the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.The history of New York’s Sullivan Act illustrates a consistent and systematic course of action by foes of the Second Amendment to frustrate efforts by those individuals who desire to exercise their fundamental right to armed self-defense.  Eventually, as the trend toward ever more elaborate, convoluted, and oppressive amendments continued, the Handgun Law came to embrace several categories or tiers of handgun licensing and became increasingly difficult to decipher.New York’s Courts stamped their imprimatur on these Government actions, opining disingenuously, ludicrously that New York Law did indeed recognize a right of the people to keep and bear arms, but that exercise of that right required the acquisition of a license, and applicants had no right to demand a license of the Government. The Courts stated the obvious—that issuance of a license is a privilege, not a right, and one the New York Government reserved, to itself, the right to bestow or not, and to rescind once bestowed, as a matter of right.Americans who resided or worked in New York had had enough and challenged the legality and constitutionality of the State’s handgun law.  The process of obtaining a New York concealed handgun carry license is especially difficult demonstrating the Government’s callousness toward gun owners and its utter disdain for those civilian citizens who deign to exercise their natural law right to armed self-defense.“A license applicant who wants to possess a firearm at home (or in his place of business) must convince a ‘licensing officer’—usually a judge or law enforcement officer—that, among other things, he is of good moral character, has no history of crime or mental illness, and that ‘no good cause exists for the denial of the license.’ §§400.00(1)(a)-(n) (West Cum. Supp. 2022). If he wants to carry a firearm outside his home or place of business for self-defense, the applicant must obtain an unrestricted license to ‘have and carry’ a concealed ‘pistol or revolver.’ §400.00(2)(f ). To secure that license, the applicant must prove that ‘proper cause exists’ to issue it. Ibid. If an applicant cannot make that showing, he can receive only a ‘restricted’ license for public carry, which allows him to carry a firearm for a limited purpose, such as hunting, target shooting, or employment. See, e.g., In re O’Brien, 87 N. Y. 2d 436, 438-439, 663 N. E. 2d 316, 316-317, 639 N.Y.S.2d 1004 (1996); Babernitz v. Police Dept. of City of New York, 65 App. Div. 2d 320, 324, 411 N. Y. S. 2d 309, 311 (1978); In re O’Connor, 154 Misc. 2d 694, 696-698, 585 N. Y. S. 2d 1000, 1003 (Westchester Cty. 1992).” [Bruen Majority Opinion]Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that demonstration of “extraordinary need” for carrying a handgun in public for self-defense, heretofore inextricably tied to “Proper Cause”/“May Issue”,  is unconstitutional. The Court articulated this point clearly and categorically. But, having taken this action, the Court stopped. It did not take the next logical step. It did not deal with the issue of “May Issue” Handgun Licensing itself.And that is why Bruen leaves us with a disheartening quandary; a diluted, seemingly equivocal opinion, as also occurred in Heller. The Hochul Government recognized this as a weakness in Bruen, and her Government ran with it.This must have frustrated Justice Clarence Thomas, author of the Bruen Majority Opinion, along with Justice Samuel Alito, author of the McDonald Majority Opinion.No doubt the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the Majority Opinion in the parent Heller case would register his own frustration and indignation at repeated attempts by some on the High Court, to inhibit the citizenry’s exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense.The basic problem with the Bruen decision, and the source of the quandary, goes to the High Court’s handling of “May Issue” licensing.The Justices must have known that lukewarm handling of “May Issue” would provide the Hochul Government with a loophole—just enough, perhaps—to allow the Government to slither around the fundamental right of the people to armed self-defense at home and in the public arena.Drilling down the problem with“May Issue,” we proceed to the legitimacy of handgun licensing itself.

IS STATE GOVERNMENT “MAY ISSUE” HANDGUN LICENSING CONSTITUTIONAL?

Is the practice of “May Issue” handgun licensing constitutional? This is the source of our inquiry here. It is a question that the U.S. Supreme Court must at some point contend with. We hope it does so, and in short order, in the next major Second Amendment case to come before it.In Bruen, the Court Majority doesn’t deal head-on with the matter of the legitimacy, legality, and Constitutionality of Government “May Issue” Licensing of firearms generally and with handguns particularly. The Court touches upon it, tentatively acknowledging the problem, noting that very few States, including New York, and the District of Columbia, are “May Issue” jurisdictions, but does not pursue it. This, to our mind, is a major failing of the case.That failing, a major and pervasive one, and one longstanding, going back fifteen years to Heller, has provided jurisdictions like New York, and others, with a path through which they not only are able to salvage draconian handgun licensing schemes but to strengthen them—all this despite the prominence and impact of Heller and Bruen that would seem at first glance to have closed all loopholes, demanding compliance.It is curious that obtaining a New York “restricted” handgun license for, say, hunting or target practice, is a relatively easy endeavor, at least in comparison to the hoops a person has had to jump through to acquire a concealed handgun “FULL CARRY” License. New York may be construed as a “SHALL ISSUE” jurisdiction apropos of restricted home or business premise licenses. In other words, so long as the applicant does not fall under a disability established in Federal Law, 18 USCS § 922, (and the State embellishes those, making it even more difficult to overcome the disability provisions set forth in the Penal Code), the State licensing authority would issue a restricted handgun premise license. Generally, if the applicant did not meet the State's stringent “PROPER CAUSE”/“EXTRAORDINARY” (“SPECIAL”) NEED” requirement, sufficient to acquire a restricted or unrestricted concealed handgun carry license, the licensing authority would inquire of the applicant if he would accept a highly restrictive handgun premise license in its stead. That would, at least, avoid the need for the applicant to go through substantial time, effort, and expense necessary to reapply for a premise handgun license. And THAT would be the extent of the New York Government's concession to a person who wishes to exercise his right to armed self-defense under the Second Amendment. The only requirement for one to obtain a limited use premise license is that a person isn’t under a disability which would entail automatic denial from legally possessing a firearm at all.Acceding to issue HIGHLY RESTRICTED, LIMITED USE HANDGUN LICENSES amounts to a booby prize. To this day, notwithstanding the Bruen rulings, New York remains a “MAY ISSUE” jurisdiction.The New York State Legislature has made the acquisition of a concealed carry license an extraordinarily difficult endeavor traditionally, and so it remains today. New York disincentivizes the acquisition of concealed handgun carry licenses post-Bruen, as it has done pre-Bruen. The process is lengthy, costly, and time-consuming. That doesn’t bother Associate Justice Steven Breyer. He feels acquisition of a handgun carry license should remain difficult, the reason articulated predicated on the prevalence of violent crime in society.He reminds the target audience of a connection between handguns and violent crimes that he and other foes of the Second Amendment invariably draw:“Consider, for one thing, that different types of firearms may pose different risks and serve different purposes. The Court has previously observed that handguns, the type of firearm at issue here, ‘are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home.’ District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). But handguns are also the most popular weapon chosen by perpetrators of violent crimes. In 2018, 64.4% of firearm homicides and 91.8% of nonfatal firearm assaults were committed with a handgun. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, G. Kena & J. Truman, Trends and Patterns in Firearm Violence, 1993-2018, pp. 5-6 (Apr. 2022).” [Breyer, Dissenting Opinion in Bruen]What is interesting about this argument—one routinely made by foes of the notion of civilian citizen armed self-defense—is the implication derived therefrom.The implication is that the lowest common denominator of society—inhabited by the common criminal opportunist, the psychopathic killer, and the psychotic maniac (all of whom Democrat-Party-Controlled Governments allow to run amok), and at times, here and there, the atypical, careless, irresponsible, but otherwise law-abiding, rational adult—should dictate firearms’ policy negatively impacting exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense for the rest of us: tens of millions of the common people, i.e., responsible, sane, trustworthy, law-abiding Americans. Who are these Americans? Roughly a third of the Country, over 80 million Americans. See, e.g., American Gun Facts.There are proven ways to deal with the lowest common denominator of society. Get them off the streets and into prisons or institutions for the criminally insane. But those Americans who consider themselves “Liberals” or “Progressives” and who are, as a group, antagonistic toward the very notion of a natural law right to armed self-defense, focus their energies on curbing or curtailing the right to armed self-defense of the vast commonalty—using a sledgehammer rather than a surgical knife to deal with violent crime posed by a small but virulent element of society.This suggests that intractable violent crime is but a pretext for the accomplishment of a goal: disarming the citizen. One wonders: Is it a pervasive violent crime that motivates Anti-Second Amendment sentiment among those who seek to eliminate the exercise of the right to armed self-defense, or is it something else, something much different: the threat that the armed citizenry poses to an Authoritarian Government? Is it not the latter, rather than the former that motivates and drives the Government to disarm the American public en masse?Justice Scalia, writing for the majority in Heller, discussed tyranny but there is nothing in that discussion to cement as a rationale for the “individual right to keep and bear arms” holding—what Justice Scalia points out to be the key point of the Second Amendment for the framers of the Constitution—that the Second Amendment is the final “fail-safe” to prevent or, at least, to forestall the onset of tyranny. Rather, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is tied to a notion of armed self-defense against the criminal element. Thus, the Heller rulings operate as a counterweight to the dissenting opinions' arguments that guns should be removed from civilian citizens precisely because they are often utilized by criminals and lunatics, suggesting erroneously, that the way to prevent Gun Violence from thousands of psychopathic criminals and psychotic maniacs, whom the political and progressive elements in society are loathed to deal effectively with, is to remove guns from the hands of everyone else: approximately a third of the Nation, one hundred million law-abiding, rational, responsible, American citizens. But then, it is this armed citizenry—upward of one hundred million Americans—whom the Anti-Second Amendment contingent of the Country and one-world-government proponents are really targeting.Tyranny is what the world empire builders have sought for decades and what they intend to accomplish, for that is what a world government means. And the armed citizenry—that which is nonexistent in CCP China and Russia, the EU and in the British Commonwealth Nations, and in almost every other nation or political grouping of nations on Earth, save for Switzerland and Israel—is the one definitive preventive medicine to Tyranny. Our Constitution’s framers knew that. They fought a war over it. And, but for the force of arms, this Nation today would still, more likely than not, still be under British rule, a part of the British Commonwealth.  With the truth of this as a given, all talk of “Gun Violence” is to be perceived as a deflection—a “dodge,” irrelevant. True “Criminal Violence”—if there is any import to the expression equates with “Tyranny.” Armed self-defense against predatory animal and man is understood and need not be stated.The Second Amendment directs one’s attention to the threat to a free people as a whole—a dire threat, posed by Predatory Government. Justice Scalia undoubtedly recognized it. And, in Heller, he surmised that future scholars of U.S. case law would see in the Heller decision that the case is a doctrinal essay on the rationale for the Second Amendment, and, thus, for the central holding—the individual right of the people to keep and bear arms, qua the armed citizenry, as necessary for the security of a Free State: Tyranny Thwarted only through the continued existence of the armed American citizenry.It is that idea that is both repugnant to and frightening too and therefore intolerable to those forces both within this Country and outside it, who understand, in these three cases, Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, a direct assault on their goals and initiatives. Those goals and initiatives are directed at eliminating, not safeguarding, preserving, and strengthening the Bill of Rights—especially the natural law right to armed self-defense.This natural law right to armed self-defense is tied to the right of free speech, i.e., the right of the individual TO BE individual: the natural law right of the individual to dissent from Government dictates and mob rule and societal pressures that compel uniformity in thought and conduct; that demand obedience; demand the surrender of one’s will to the will of the “Greater Society,” to the will of “The Hive.”  Those forces that crush entire nations and populations into submission view the U.S. Supreme Court’s 21^st Century Second Amendment rulings in Heller, McDonald, and now Bruen, as an unacceptable and intolerable assault on what they wish to achieve: a Neoliberal Globalist empire. These forces perceive the Nation’s Bill of Rights as anachronistic, antagonistic, and antithetical to that goal. Individual thought and an armed citizenry cannot coexist in such a reality. Thus, the goals and policy initiatives in vogue today are employed to drive a wedge between the American people and their history and heritage, culture, and ethos. The aims of these forces are directed at eliminating, not preserving and strengthening, the Bill of Rights—especially the natural law right to dissent and to armed self-defense. The New York Government has long resided in the camp of these Globalist, world empire builders.The New York Government under Governor Kathy Hochul—and before her, Andrew Cuomo—is virulently opposed to civilian citizens carrying handguns in the public domain for personal defense.The New York Government, with the assistance of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, weathered the previous challenge to the Sullivan Act and New York City handgun rules, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, et.al. v. The City Of New York, 140 U.S. S. Ct. 1525 (2020), but that case dealt only with the constitutionality of certain restrictions on the use of a restricted New York City premise license. The State and the City modified the Handgun Statute and the City modified the Rules of the City of New York to avoid a possible attack on the core of the Sullivan Act, involving the carrying of a handgun concealed in New York. The core of the Sullivan Act, though could not be avoided in Bruen. For, the legitimacy, the legality, the constitutionality of the core of the Sullivan Act was at issue.The Hochul Administration and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany attempted an end-run around Bruen by complying with a superficial aspect of the Bruen holding. The High Court held that,“New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.”So, then, if the High Court found “Proper Cause” to be problematic, the Government would strike the words, “Proper Cause” from the Sullivan Act—which turned out to be a superficial genuflection. The Hochul Government thereupon bolstered the “Good Moral Character” requirement of the Gun Law that the High Court mentioned in a cursory fashion in Bruen but did not remonstrate against because “Good Moral Character” had not functioned as anything more than a makeweight. It did not factor substantively into the equation whether the New York Handgun Licensing Authority would issue a person a concealed handgun carry license. What does that mean? How does the Licensing Authority process an application for a concealed handgun carry license in New York? The process of issuing a concealed carry license in New York, prior to Bruen, involved a two-step process. First, the licensing official determined whether the applicant falls under a disability that precludes that person from possessing a firearm at all.If the applicant falls into a category of disability as set forth in the “Crimes and Criminal Procedure” Section of Federal Law, Title 18, Part I (“Crimes”) Chapter 44 (“Firearms”), then that person is incapable of legally possessing any firearm.18 USCS § 922 sets forth:“(g) It shall be unlawful for any person—(1) who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;(2) who is a fugitive from justice;(3) who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802));(4) who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution;(5) who, being an alien—(A) is illegally or unlawfully in the United States; or(B) except as provided in subsection (y)(2), has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa (as that term is defined in section 101(a)(26) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(26)));(6) who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions;(7) who, having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced his citizenship;(8) who is subject to a court order that—(A) was issued after a hearing of which such person received actual notice, and at which such person had an opportunity to participate;(B) restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child; and(C)(i) includes a finding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child; or(ii) by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury; or(9) who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce; [and](n) It shall be unlawful for any person who is under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce any firearm or ammunition or receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.”In the letter of denial, the licensing officer will state the basis for denial and add that in the License Officer’s judgment the individual does not satisfy the “Good Moral Character” requirement. The words, “Good Moral Character” do not add anything pertinent to the letter of denial. For, whether mentioned or not, the applicant cannot lawfully possess a firearm under federal law, once the licensing officer sets forth the ground or grounds of federal disability and/or the State's own grounds, which build on the Federal grounds of disability. For example, the New York Handgun Licensing Officer in New York City, i.e., the NYPD License Division, has routinely denied the issuance of handgun license, whether for an unrestricted concealed handgun carry license or a restricted premise license if a person has an arrest record, even without conviction and even if the arrest or arrest and conviction occurred while the applicant was a juvenile, and the arrest or conviction record would likely be under seal, or if the individual has a history of mental illness whether or not the applicant had been institutionalized.It should be noted the NYPD License Division, for one, always denied a person’s application for any kind of handgun license if the individual had an arrest record, even sans conviction, although the denial in that circumstance could often—depending on the nature of the prior arrest or arrests, but not invariably—be overcome through an Administrative Hearing.Assuming the applicant did not fall into an 18 USCS § 922(g) or (n) category and the applicant did not seem, to the licensing officer, to have an “objective” flaw such as an arrest record, or history of mental illness, AND the applicant sought a concealed carry license, the officer would proceed to the second step, to ascertain whether that person satisfied the “Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need” requirement. This, traditionally, was difficult for the average applicant to satisfy, as noted, supra.Since the U.S. Supreme Court saw no Constitutional flaw in the “Good Moral Character” requirement of the Handgun Law—and as the Plaintiffs in Bruen did not, apparently object to it—the High Court did not find fault with it either, apart from mentioning it in the Bruen Majority Opinion. It was never seen as an issue demanding resolution.The Hochul Government immediately perceived the “Good Moral Character” as a useful mechanism to maintain the “May Issue” prerogative and jumped on it.After the publication of the Bruen decision, the Hochul Government went to work to transform the “Good Moral Character” Requirement into a de facto “Proper Cause”  requirement. It did this by demanding that the applicant for a concealed handgun carry license comply with a host of new requirements that had not heretofore existed in the Handgun Law.Now, under the Amendments to the Handgun Law, “current through 2023,” NY CLS Penal § 400.00(1),“. . . for a license issued under paragraph (f) of subdivision two of this section, the applicant shall meet in person with the licensing officer for an interview and shall, in addition to any other information or forms required by the license application submit to the licensing officer the following information: (i) names and contact information for the applicant’s current spouse, or domestic partner, any other adults residing in the applicant’s home, including any adult children of the applicant, and whether or not there are minors residing, full time or part time, in the applicant’s home; (ii) names and contact information of no less than four character references who can attest to the applicant’s good moral character and that such applicant has not engaged in any acts, or made any statements that suggest they are likely to engage in conduct that would result in harm to themselves or others; (iii) certification of completion of the training required in subdivision nineteen of this section; (iv) a list of former and current social media accounts of the applicant from the past three years to confirm the information regarding the applicants character and conduct as required in subparagraph (ii) of this paragraph; and (v) such other information required by the licensing officer that is reasonably necessary and related to the review of the licensing application.”Requirements (i), (iii), (iv), and (v) are problematic on grounds of legality and constitutionality, and vagueness. Each one is a potential stumbling block—and this is by design.We will delve into each of these in a forthcoming article. In our analysis, we will also attempt to discern the reasoning behind each.But, for now, concerning the new “Good Moral Character” requirements (i), (iii), (iv), and (v), let it suffice to say that, since these requirements were not mandated before the Bruen decision, there is no legitimate rationale for mandating them now other than to maintain “May Issue” through the creation of a new set of hurdles to replace the loss of the “Proper Cause” requirement.These points are important. If true, this would strongly suggest, as applied to New York, that the mere act of striking the words ‘Proper Cause’ from New York’s Handgun Law doesn’t alter the subjective nature of the “May Issue” standard through which a New York licensing authority may, in its discretion, deny issuance of a concealed handgun carry license. That discretion continues to exist under the CCIA.The Legislature in Albany basically transformed the “Good Moral Character” requirement that, prior to Bruen, was essentially redundant—which is why Plaintiffs did not claim fault with it—into a new “Proper Cause” requirement with a litany of new subjective criteria that a New York handgun licensing authority has as its disposal to confound the applicant and through which that licensing authority can effectively deny issuance of a concealed handgun carry license.Although the Hochul Government was astute enough to refrain from tying this bolstered “Good Moral Character” with “Extraordinary Need,”  “May Issue” a concealed handgun carry license remains. And that is problematic.The CCIA “Good Moral Character” requirement and the “Sensitive Place” restriction provisions are two principal bases of challenge that have generated, to date, at least two dozen lawsuits in New York. Again, this could have been avoided. Apart from finding New York’s “Proper Cause” requirement Unconstitutional, Justices Thomas and Alito, along with Trump’s nominees, Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett might have made an unequivocal pronouncement that “May Issue” handgun licensing statutes are per se illegal and unconstitutional because “May Issue” jurisdictions allow for improper use of Government discretion. But they forbore doing so.That failure led to the enactment of New York's Concealed Carry Improvement Act and gave New York handgun licensing authorities the tools to continue to deny an applicant, not under a disability, from exercising his fundamental, unalienable right to keep and bear arms. The Justices must have been aware of the problem, and they must have seen this coming. They probably realized the New York Government would recognize the weakness in the High Court’s rulings just as they did. In fact, Justice Thomas, alluded to the problem, when, he said, as we iterated, supra,“New York is not alone in requiring a permit to carry a handgun in public. But the vast majority of States—43 by our count—are shall issue’ jurisdictions, where authorities must issue concealed-carry licenses whenever applicants satisfy certain threshold requirements, without granting licensing officials discretion to deny licenses based on a perceived lack of need or suitability. Meanwhile, only six States and the District of Columbia have ‘may issue’ licensing laws, under which authorities have discretion to deny concealed-carry licenses even when the applicant satisfies the statutory criteria, usually because the applicant has not demonstrated cause or suitability for the relevant license. [Bruen Majority Opinion].So, “MAY ISSUE”/“PROPER CAUSE”/“EXTRAORDINARY” (“SPECIAL”) NEED” lives on—unconditional, unalloyed, absolute Government Discretion to continue to refuse to issue concealed handgun carry licenses, contrary to the right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense in the public domain as well as in one's home.Did Chief Justice Roberts tie the hands of Justices Thomas and Alito in Bruen, just as both he and Justice Kennedy tied the hands of Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, in the Heller case?Unfettered Government discretion reduces an intrinsic, unalienable, right into a mere privilege: To be bestowed on one or not at the whim of Government, and just as easily rescinded, if once bestowed.New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul and her Democrat Party supporters in the State Legislature in Albany have taken advantage of the weaknesses and vagaries in Bruen, to launch a scheme to keep the core structural scheme of the Sullivan Act.The Hochul Government concocted a set of unconstitutional amendments to the Sullivan Act, referred to, collectively, as the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”). Together with a series of other oppressive Anti-Second Amendment Statutes, the State’s Gun Law is as potent and as noxious, and as illegal as it was prior to Bruen. And so, a flurry of new lawsuits ensued.The essence of the problem here isn’t ‘May Issue’ versus ‘Shall Issue’ a handgun carry license. The essence of the problem rests with the very act of requiring a license to exercise a fundamental right in the first instance.There is something deeply disturbing and discordant with State Government requiring licensing as a condition precedent to exercising a fundamental, unalienable right.Drilling down to the bedrock, the question is:  “Is the Act of Government Handgun Licensing Legal and Constitutional, at all?” The majority of States recognize inherent Constitutional problems with licensing, and as of January 2023, most States have established “permitless carry.”The U.S. Supreme Court did not address the issue of whether Government licensing of a fundamental, unalienable right is legal and Constitutional. The Court alluded to it fifteen years ago in Heller, and once again in Bruen, last year, but that is as far as the Court went, as far as it was willing to go.But that doesn’t mean the Court condones Government firearms licensing regimes. And so, the legitimacy of State Government handgun licensing remains an open question. And jurisdictions like New York have taken advantage of the Court's failure to take firm and categorical action on this.,The tentativeness of the High Court to address this issue directly and the seeming elusiveness of the conjecture have led some jurisdictions to infer, erroneously, that gun licensing is a legitimate prerogative of the State. It is not, but that doesn’t stop foes of the Second Amendment from making the claim, anyway. And New York has made such a claim.In the New York’s “Brief in Opposition to Emergency Application for Relief and to Vacate Stay of Preliminary Injunction” in Antonyuk versus Nigrelli, pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Letitia James, Attorney General, representing the New York Government, made the blanket statement,“Indeed, this Court in Bruen endorsed shall-issue licensing regimes [citing Bruen at 2138 n.9; and Kavanaugh’s concurring at 2161-62.”But is that true? What DID the Court really say?Footnote 9 of Bruen reads, verbatim:“To be clear, nothing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality of the 43 States’ ‘shall-issue’ licensing regimes, under which ‘a general desire for self-defense is sufficient to obtain a [permit].’ Drake v. Filko, 724 F. 3d 426, 442 (CA3 2013) (Hardiman, J., dissenting). Because these licensing regimes do not require applicants to show an atypical need for armed self-defense, they do not necessarily prevent ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens’ from exercising their Second Amendment right to public carry. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 635, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). Rather, it appears that these shall-issue regimes, which often require applicants to undergo a background check or pass a firearms safety course, are designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.’ Ibid. And they likewise appear to contain only ‘narrow, objective, and definite standards’ guiding licensing officials, Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147, 151, 89 S. Ct. 935, 22 L. Ed. 2d 162 (1969), rather than requiring the “appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion,” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 305, 60 S. Ct. 900, 84 L. Ed. 1213 (1940)—features that typify proper-cause standards like New York’s. That said, because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.”Letitia James is wrong. Moreover, her remarks are insulting.The High Court HAS NOT endorsed the notion that Government licensing of handguns is Constitutional. To the contrary, the Court acknowledges only that licensing regimes in 43 “Shall Issue” Jurisdictions will be tolerated so long as they do not offend the core of the Second Amendment right. And even there, the Court said, “we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes.”That IS NOT an endorsement of licensing. Furthermore, the Court’s remarks, in dicta, categorically exclude “May Issue” regimes such as New York, which led to the Court’s review of New York’s licensing regime in Bruen, in the first place.Justice Kavanaugh’s remark on page 2162 of Bruen, which James also cites, reiterates the points appearing in FN 9 of the Majority Opinion.A complete analysis of the three seminal Second Amendment cases requires a perusal of Justice Scalia’s remarks in Heller.Scalia made clear that concessions made to State regulation of the Second Amendment do not mean the Court acknowledges an unbridled State right to license the exercise of a fundamental right.Scalia said this:“Apart from his challenge to the handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement respondent asked the District Court to enjoin petitioners from enforcing the separate licensing requirement ‘in such a manner as to forbid the carrying of a firearm within one's home or possessed land without a license.’  App. 59a.  The Court of Appeals did not invalidate the licensing requirement, but held only that the District ‘may not prevent [a handgun] from being moved throughout one's house.’ . . . Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not ‘have a problem with . . . licensing’ and that the District's law is permissible so long as it is ‘not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner.’  Tr. of Oral Arg. 74-75.  We therefore assume that petitioners' issuance  of a license will satisfy respondent's prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement.”Keep in mind the last sentence: “We . . . do not address the licensing requirement.” In other words, the issue of the constitutionality of handgun licensing, per se, remains unsettled. It is certainly important, in fact vital. By pointing to it, Scalia suggests the issue will be taken up at a later time. That time is now.The Court cannot continue to evade the central issue: Is State Government licensing of a fundamental, unalienable, right Constitutional? This issue must be addressed and must be addressed soon, and it must be addressed clearly, comprehensively, and emphatically.Foes of the Second Amendment in the States and in the Federal Government are pressing ahead with their agenda aimed at eliminating the exercise of the right to armed self-defense before the 2024 U.S. Presidential election.It no longer behooves the U.S. Supreme Court to simply review this or that provision of a State handgun law. Doing so does not get to the heart of the matter. It only results, as we have seen, in countless more brazen attempts by State Governments to intrude on one’s exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense against animals, predatory men, and, worst of all, the predatory, tyrannical Government.The Founders of the Republic, the Framers of the Constitution, did not envision the kind of wholesale unconscionable intrusion into the sovereign citizens’ exercise of their fundamental right to keep and bear arms that Americans witness and suffer today. And they certainly wouldn't endorse this idea of Government licensing prior to exercising a fundamental right, that is prevalent in many jurisdictions.These unconstitutional, unconscionable actions by State actors must stop here and must stop now.The case Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli, which the Government and the Second Circuit are presently sitting on, in defiance of Justice Samuel Alito’s admonishment to the Government to avoid delay, is likely, at some point, to be reviewed by the High Court.If or when the Court does so, it should not quibble or equivocate any longer on the salient issue of the day but should deal directly with the constitutionality of handgun licensing.That is the only way to impede the inexorable erosion of our Nation’s most important Right—the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms—in the absence of which preservation of a free Constitutional Republic is impossible, and Tyranny in all its horror is inevitable and unavoidable.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

PROGRESSIVE GAME PLAN: NEUTRALIZE THE SUPREME COURT AND DISARM THE CITIZENRY

The recent scurrilous attack on Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is part and parcel of the Political “Progressives”* attempt to neutralize the independence of the Third Branch of Government, the Judiciary, and its most ardent supporter of an armed citizenry.On April 9, 2021, two years ago to this day of posting this article on the Arbalest Quarrel, Joe Biden issued an executive order, forming the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, “to examine the Court’s role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court’s case selection, rules, and practices.”The key phrase in this executive order is “the Court’s role in the Constitutional system.”The Commission’s purpose may seem benign. It is anything but benign. Almost a hundred and thirty years earlier, Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted the same thing. Both sought to sideline and neutralize the U.S. Supreme Court.Fortunately, for the Nation, the efforts of Roosevelt and Biden came to naught.But the Biden Administration’s Progressive Globalist agenda is more extravagant and elaborate than anything dreamed up by Roosevelt and the fabricators of the “New Deal.”The Progressives’ goal of a neo-feudalistic global empire requires neutralizing the High Court and erasing America’s armed citizenry.The U.S. Supreme Court remains the only Branch of the Federal Government today that recognizes the importance of an armed citizenry to resist tyranny.In three seminal case law decisions—Heller, McDonald, and Bruen—coming down in the last fifteen years, the conservative wing majority, led by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia, made patently clear the right to armed self-defense is an individual right and a natural law right, the core of which Government is forbidden to interfere with.But these decisions are at loggerheads with the Progressives’ desire to neuter the right of the people to keep and bear arms.In a report on “progressivism,’ published on July 18, 2007, the Heritage Foundation has described the nature of and the aims of the political, social, and cultural transformation of the Nation, using the word, ‘Revolution,’ to describe it.Progressives have since made substantial strides in undermining the Constitution and transforming America beyond all recognition.But use of the word, ‘Revolution,’ to describe this transformation is inaccurate. Rather, this extraordinary and extensive push to remake American society, is not properly a Revolution because we had our Revolution—the American Revolution of 1776—when America’s first Patriots defeated the British empire.These Patriots constructed a free Constitutional Republic, unlike anything the world has seen before or since.Having thrown off the yoke of tyranny, the framers of the U.S. Constitution, created a true Republican form of Government.This “Federal” Government is one with limited and carefully delineated powers and authority. And those powers and authority are demarcated among three co-equal Branches.The Government comes to be not by Divine Right nor by Right claimed for itself by itself. Rather, it comes into existence only by grace of the American people, who are and remain sole sovereign.Since the people themselves created the Government, they retain the right to dismantle it when that Government serves its interests to the detriment of the people, devolving into tyranny.The natural law right to armed self-defense, a right that shall not be infringed, is the instrument of last resort through which the American people maintain and retain both the legal and moral right to resist tyranny that Progressives impose on Americans. See AQ article, posted on October 1, 2021.Progressivism is a thing openly hostile to and antithetical to the tenets and precepts of Individualism upon which the U.S. Constitution rests. See, e.g., article AQ article, posted on October 6, 2018.Adherents of this political and social ideology perceive Government as sovereign over the people, turning the Constitution on its head.Progressivism is an evil perpetrated on the American people, coming into being without the consent of the governed. It seeks a Globalist “Counterrevolution” in counterpoise to the morally good and successful “American Revolution.” See AQ article posted on October 26, 2020.It is in this that the arrogant and ludicrous attack on Justice Thomas comes plainly into view.Representative Ocasio-Cortez, a Progressive Democrat, has recently brought up the subject of impeachment against Clarence Thomas pertaining to “luxury trips and outings on yachts and private jets owned by Dallas businessman Harlan Crow, according to an investigation by ProPublica . . . .” See the article published in thehill.com.She adds, in her typical hyperbolic, rhetorical fashion,“‘Barring some dramatic change, this is what the Roberts court will be known for: rank corruption, erosion of democracy, and the stripping of human rights.’” Id.Impeachment of a sitting Justice does fall within the purview of Congressional authority, but it is impractical and almost unheard of in the annals of history.The House of Representatives impeached Associate Justice Samuel Chase, in 1804. He was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in 1805 and served on the High Court until his death in 1811. Another Associate Justice, Abe Fortas, resigned under threat of impeachment, in 1969. See the article posted in history.com.Impeaching Justice Thomas in a Republican-controlled House won’t happen.Progressives try a different tack.“Sixteen lawmakers led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., sent a letter to Roberts on Friday requesting an investigation into ‘allegations of unethical, and potentially unlawful, conduct.’” See the article in Foxnews.com.Asking the Chief Justice to launch an investigation of his brethren is pompous, absurd, lame, and bogus.Roberts will do no such thing. And this will rankle Progressives.The Third Branch of Government remains constantly, aggravatingly, tantalizingly beyond the ability of Progressives to tamper with.Unable at present to sit more mannequins like Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Court, they continue to probe for weaknesses. As a last resort, these Democrat Progressives challenge the Court’s importance, independence, and role.Progressives employ like-minded attorneys to undercut the authority of the High Court.One such attorney is Barry P. McDonald, Law Professor at Pepperdine University. In an essay, posted on The New York Times, on May 26, 2016, McDonald writes,“The Supreme Court today is both political and powerful in ways that would be unrecognizable to the framers of the Constitution. They penned a mere five sentences creating a ‘supreme Court’ and defining its jurisdiction. The judicial branch was something of an afterthought for them, because they believed that in a democracy the elected branches would be responsible for governing the country.Judicial review, in its modern sense, did not exist. As the framers envisioned it, the justices appointed to the Supreme Court would mainly interpret and apply federal law when necessary to resolve disputes involving the rights of individuals. And though the framers’ views on the court’s role in interpreting and enforcing the Constitution are the subject of debate, it seems most likely that when disputes required determining whether a federal law comported with the Constitution, the court’s interpretation was supposed to bind only the parties in the particular case — not the legislative and executive branches generally.Over time, however, and especially from the mid-20th century on, the court’s vision of its role in our democratic system changed, from dispute resolver to supreme arbiter of all matters of constitutional law, so that elected branches of government at federal and state levels were bound to accept its interpretations. The American people largely went along with this accretion of power. But they surely never anticipated that eventually, many politically charged and contestable questions — for example, whether the Constitution guarantees the right to possess guns, to have an abortion, to allow gay couples to marry, or to allow corporations to spend money to help elect our political representatives — would be decided by one unelected justice who straddled political voting blocs on the court.This is democratic folly.”And, in a follow-up article posted in the Times, on October 11, 2018, Barry McDonald, writes,“When the founders established our system of self-government, they didn’t expend much effort on the judicial branch. Of the roughly three and a half long pieces of inscribed parchment that make up the Constitution, the first two pages are devoted to designing Congress. Most of the next full page focuses on the president. The final three-quarters of a page contains various provisions, including just five sentences establishing a ‘supreme court,’ any optional lower courts Congress might create and the types of cases those courts could hear.”McDonald claims the founders relegated the U.S. Supreme Court to a subservient role in our Three-Branch Governmental structure. This is not only an uncommon viewpoint among scholars, and legally odd; it is demonstrably false.In the Federalist Papers Alexander Hamilton made patently clear that, on matters of Constitutional authority, the Legislative Branch must yield to the Judiciary.“No legislative act . . . contrary to the Constitution can be valid.  To deny this would be to affirm that . . . men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.  If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions of the Constitution. . . . . It is more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.”– Excerpt from Federalist Paper No. 78, written by Alexander Hamilton and published in 1788, part of the founding era’s most important documents explaining to the people the nature of the Constitution then under consideration for ratification. See the article in constitutionalcenter.org. The article also cites to one of the Barry McDonald articles for comparison and contrast.Hamilton’s essay in Federalist Paper No. 78 is an outright repudiation of  McDonald’s remarks about the U.S. Supreme Court. See citations, supra.U.S. Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall was certainly aware of Alexander Hamilton’s remarks in the Federalist, when he drafted his opinion in Marbury vs. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803). The case is a mainstay of Constitutional Law, taught to first-year law students and one of the most important cases in American jurisprudence.The case lays out clearly and categorically the vital role played by the U.S. Supreme Court in our Three-Branch Federal Governmental system.In no uncertain terms, John Marshall, made definitely and definitively clear that it is for the Judiciary, not the Legislature, to determine the constitutionality of Congressional Statutes. We cite below a portion of  Justice Marshall’s erudite opinion.“If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution.Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that, in using it, the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?

This is too extravagant to be maintained.”

Progressives pretend the U.S. Constitution is capable of shapeshifting. It isn’t.That doesn’t bother them, though, because they intend to eliminate the Constitution. Referring to it now, as they must, just to destroy it, and creating something novel, more to their liking—a thing subordinated to international law or edict, and subject to change as whim or chance dictates—that's what they they have in mind.In the interim, they force it to cohere to their precepts, agenda, and goals, all of which are antithetical and anathema to the Constitution, as written.In the naked attempt to knead the Constitution as if it were a lump of clay, they show their hand.Trivializing the role of the Court because they can’t easily control it and going after a U.S. Supreme Court Justice they don’t like because he defends a natural law right they don’t agree with, Progressives proclaim to all the world their shameless contempt for Nation, Culture, History, Heritage, Constitution, Ethos, Ethic, and People.They dare disparage us. Yet, it is we, true American Patriots, who rightfully ought to visit derision on them.______________________________________________*The expression ‘Progressive’ as with the expression, ‘Liberal,’ (less so with the expressions, ‘Marxist,’ ‘Neo-Marxist,’ or ‘Classical Marxist’) do not have precise and rigid definitions, due in part, perhaps, to the ubiquity and popularity of the first two terms in the Democratic Party vernacular.Most Democrats, it is here presumed, prefer use of ‘liberal’ as applied to them. And some no doubt prefer the term ‘Progressive,’ as an acknowledged more extreme version of ‘Liberal,’ and they take the label as a note of pride. See article on the website, thisnation.com.But most, if not all, Democrats avoid the appellation ‘Marxist,’ at least publicly, even if that label is most in line with their ideological beliefs, social, political, and economic, and demonstrated in their actions. They might use that expression amongst themselves even if they dare not refer to themselves as ‘Marxist’ in public and would deny the description vehemently if the label is thrust on them by an outsider. For this article, we are staying with the expression, ‘Progressive,’ as it aligns most closely with the theme of the article and apropos of references made in it.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHO IS SHERIFF RICHARD GIARDINO AND HOW IS HE DEALING WITH NEW YORK’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY LAW?

[NOTE TO OUR READERS: THIS ARTICLE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AND WILL BE EDITED AND EXPANDED UPON IN THE DAYS AHEAD]

MULTIPART SERIES

PART ONE

FULTON COUNTY SHERIFF RICHARD GIARDINO STANDS FIRM AGAINST NEW YORK’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL HANDGUN SCHEME

In the March 2023 issue of the NRA publication, “America’s 1^st Freedom,” the Arbalest Quarrel, in its daily review of publications, came across an article titled, “Shooting Straight with Sheriff Richard Giardino,” by Frank Miniter, Editor in Chief of the magazine.The NRA published the article in the form of a straightforward question-answer interview.The NRA contacted Sheriff Giardino to get his take on a pressing matter affecting law enforcement in New York: the impact of the Hochul Government’s amendments to New York’s Handgun Law, the deceptively named “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”), and its impact on policing.That was what NRA’s Frank Miniter wanted to know. That is what we wanted to know.The NRA said this about Sheriff Giardino:“As an elected official, Sheriff Giardino doesn’t mind being in front of the cameras. But I [the NRA Editor in Chief, Frank Miniter] also found him to be a serious and humble official. He listens. He thinks of the people first. He next thinks of his deputies and the other employees he manages. Finally, he responds based on his long experience. And he does have a lot of legal experience. Sheriff Giardino graduated in 1984 from Albany Law School. While in college and law school, he served as a part-time police officer. After law school, he was hired as an assistant district attorney in Nassau County, N.Y. In 1986, he returned to Fulton County as an assistant district attorney and, in 1991, he was elected to be the second-youngest district attorney in the state. In 1996, he was appointed by New York’s governor to be a county court judge. In this role, he was a local licensing official for concealed-carry permits in what was then a ‘may-issue’ state, but he behaved as if he was in a “shall-issue” state. He served 18 years as a judge. In that time, he tried over 200 cases, including over 40 murder or attempted-murder cases.Of course, as with anyone we interview, Sheriff Giardino’s opinions are his own. I [Frank Miniter] point this out because, as he is a county sheriff in a state run by a governor who sees the Second Amendment as a problem, Giardino does find himself in some uncomfortable legal positions. He has to abide by the state laws, but he also raised his right hand and swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and lately—again, thanks to officials such as Gov. Hochul—those two things have come into conflict. This conundrum puts him—as well as many other law-enforcement officials and citizens who simply want to exercise their rights in various states and jurisdictions around the country—in some legally problematic situations.”The “Leader-Herald” newspaper, in a January 23, 2023 article, added this about Sheriff Giardino:“Giardino, a 64-year-old Republican, first ran for countywide office in 1991. He is the only person in New York state history to have served as a county district attorney, county judge and county sheriff, having won eight consecutive countywide elections.” These articles by the NRA and the Leader Herald newspaper whet our appetite to learn more about this intriguing, and highly learned man. And so, we got in touch with Sheriff Giardino.Thinking that we intended to employ a basic question/answer interview approach, as the NRA did, we instead pointed out that we wished to engage Sheriff Giardino in an informal, open-ended conversation, as that would be less constraining and, we felt, more productive.We spent substantial time talking to him, gaining insightful knowledge from the perspective of a man who deals, on a daily basis, with the practical problems associated with the CCIA and with the problems attendant to policing.This article segment and the segments to follow are a distillation of our talks with Sheriff Giardino, presented in the context of our own work, apropos of the Arbalest Quarrel’s raison d’être: to preserve, protect, and defend the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution from all threats to it from forces both here and abroad aligned against the sovereignty of the American people.We learned a lot about and from this man, and he, in turn, learned a lot about and from us at the Arbalest Quarrel.Sheriff Giardino’s philosophy pertaining to the import and purport of the Bill of Rights, and his socio-political attitude and stance apropos of the threats that face our Country today, are on all fours with our own.Sheriff Giardino’s adoration for our Constitution—especially for the natural law right to armed self-defense as codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights is the cornerstone of a Free Constitutional Republic, the foundation of the sovereignty of the American people over Government, and the source of our Nation’s greatness, strength.Through what the NRA and the Leader Herald newspaper say, we add a point derived from our own conversations with Sheriff Giardino.The Sheriff’s service to the Fulton County community means service to the U.S. Constitution. And what Sheriff Giardino means by “service to the U.S. Constitution” is no small matter.Service to the U.S. Constitution is what his job is all about. And the Rights contained in it are not to be dismissed.Those Rights are not—as many politicians argue, and as the legacy Press echoes—to be construed as some sort of archaic, mutable appendix to the Articles, to be constrained, modified, abrogated, or ignored because, to some, those rights don’t cohere with the current fad or fashion.The Bill of Rights is a codification of natural law.The Rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution are not man-made constructs. These Rights are not subject to modification, alteration, abrogation, obliteration, or perfunctory dismissal. These Rights are not attendant to a particular time and place. They are eternal, and they reside in man, as bestowed on man by the Divine Creator. That is how the framers of the Constitution understood them and that, in fact, is what they are.That is our position and that is Sheriff Giardino’s position.It is the very sanctity, strength, and enduring power of the Bill of Rights that drives the would-be Destroyers of our Country to mount an incessant and aggressive campaign against it. Without the exercise of these cherished rights and liberties, our free Republic would cease to exist. But then, that is the aim of those ruthless forces that intend to eliminate their exercise of them: to dismantle a free Constitutional Republic and the sovereignty of the people. These malevolent forces intend to create a completely different sort of socio, political, economic, and juridical framework—one antithetical to the Government the framers of the U.S. Constitution created for themselves and for their descendants. It is one where the people are seen as subservient to the Government, not the masters of and over the Government.Of all the fundamental, unalienable rights, the right of the people to keep and bear arms—the right to armed self-defense against lowly creatures, aggressive men, and tyrannical Government—is absolutely essential to the preservation of a free Constitutional Republic and the supremacy of the American citizenry over Government.Without the force of arms, this Country, as an independent, sovereign Nation-State and free Republic, could not exist; nor can our Republic persist through time if the citizen is denied access to firearms and ammunition.The conservative wing of the U.S. Supreme Court knows this to be true. Sheriff Giardino knows this to be true. And we know this to be true. Yet, many Americans in the Federal and State Governments, including the New York State Government do not know this to be so, or, otherwise, choose to ignore Truth, because it is counter to their running narrative and to their agenda. They, therefore, deny the TRUTH, outright.And, that has placed Sheriff Giardino and others in law enforcement, in a bind: Either uphold recent law that contradicts the Bill of Rights or uphold the Truth of the Bill of Rights and incur the wrath of “woke” leadership.This isn’t an academic matter. It is playing out now, and most acutely, in New York.The Hochul Government has placed Sheriff Giardino like his fellow Sheriffs in a difficult position.How does law enforcement chart a course between a transitory, ill-conceived man-made handgun law, the CCIA on the one hand, with man’s fundamental, unalienable, unalterable, eternal, immutable, natural law right to armed self-defense, codified in the Second Amendment?How does Sheriff Giardino “square that circle.” That question was the focus of our conversation with him, and it raised a host of questions and concerns that we dealt with in depth during our conversations with him.___________________________________________

“DISCRETION” IS THE MECHANISM NEW YORK FULTON COUNTY SHERIFF RICHARD GIARDINO UTILIZES TO DEAL WITH NEW YORK’S INTRACTABLE CONCEALED CARRTY IMPROVEMENT ACT (“CCIA”)

PART TWO

The CCIA is the Hochul Government’s response to the June 23, 2022, U.S. Supreme Court decision in NYSRPA vs. Bruen.The Hochul Government fabricated the CCIA to defy and defeat the High Court rulings in Bruen that reinforce the natural law right to armed self-defense.How does a law enforcement officer square enforcement of the CCIA when that enforcement conflicts with the language of the Second Amendment and U.S. Supreme Court rulings?This is what we wanted to obtain Sheriff Giardino’s thoughts on, as did NRA’s Editor in Chief of the NRA publication, “America’s 1st Freedom,” that preceded our own conversations with Sheriff Giardino. What we learned from the interview that NRA’s Editor in Chief conducted with Sheriff Giardino became the springboard for further explication of the Sheriff’s thoughts on the CCIA, the U.S. Constitution and Second Amendment, U.S. Supreme Court rulings, attacks on police, and violent crime in New York.In his interview with Sheriff Giardino, NRA’s Frank Miniter asked the Sheriff point blank: “Will you enforce New York’s concealed carry restrictions?”Without pause and in no uncertain terms, the Sheriff responded, “I raised my right hand to uphold the constitution. Now the governor of New York wants me to break that oath. Law enforcement has been placed in an untenable position of enforcing laws that we might believe are unconstitutional. As a former judge and district attorney, I still have my law license. My legal experience tells me that many provisions of this new gun-control law are unconstitutional. So, given all of that, I see the law here in a state of flux and we have a tremendous amount of discretion as to what we enforce. So, we’re going to use our discretion. We’re not going to just arrest someone who carries concealed into a barbershop he has been going to his entire life. We’ll inform the person what the law [CCIA] now says, and then we’ll focus our resources on actual criminals.”The issue of police “discretion” is something the NRA glossed over, perhaps given time constraints or publishing restrictions. Yet, to our mind, the point of “discretion” in light of the CCIA is of paramount importance to a consideration of the daily dilemma law enforcement officers are confronted with, especially when they must make a split-second decision.The NRA interviewer did not pursue what Sheriff Giardino meant by   “discretion” and Andrew Waite, a columnist for the Daily Gazette newspaper, whom Sheriff Giardino also spoke with, misconstrued what Sheriff Giardino meant by the term.The use of discretion in policing does not give carte blank authority to law enforcement. And Sheriff Giardino is not saying here or implying that he can do whatever he wants.The columnist for the Daily Gazette, Andrew Waite, incorrectly interpreted Sheriff Giardino as inferring, erroneously, that,“The sheriff is absolutely entitled to choose how to enforce just about any rule.”No! Sheriff Giardino is not saying or suggesting that. Rather, he is pointing to a confounding box the CCIA places him in and the way—the only way—he can extricate himself from it without offending the U.S. Constitution. Sheriff Giardino took an oath to enforce the U.S. Constitution. He did not take an oath to enforce the CCIA.The CCIA is codified in State Statute, Section 400. That is the State's handgun law. It is therefore a component of the Consolidated Laws of New York.A State Statute is not in any manner to be construed as part of the U.S. Constitution. In fact, a State Statute doesn’t stand on the same footing as a State Constitution.The New York State Constitution stands above State Statute in prominence and authority. And, the U.S. Constitution stands above both State Statute and State Constitution, except where the doctrine of Federalism gives the States complementary power or powers that reside exclusively with the States that the Federal Government is not permitted to intrude upon.Sheriff Giardino is told to enforce New York law, but he must also enforce the Constitution of the United States, consistent with his oath. And where the two collide, the U.S. Constitution dictates his actions. That is an unalterable, inescapable TRUTH.Where the CCIA conflicts with the U.S. Constitution, Sheriff Giardino says he must adhere to the Constitution.Where the CCIA doesn’t make clear his duties or where there doesn’t seem to be a clear conflict with the Constitution, then he will use his discretion to chart a proper course, guided, all the while, by the Second Amendment guarantee.That is the import of Sheriff Giardino’s assertion, that——“I see the law [the CCIA] here in a state of flux and we have a tremendous amount of discretion as to what we enforce.”The CCIA is a logical, legal, and logistical mess, a quagmire, manufactured by the Hochul Government to serve an agenda, one antagonistic to the right of the people to keep and bear arms, a right that shall not be infringed. And, since all or part of the CCIA will, at some point in time be overturned either by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit or by the U.S. Supreme Court, as litigation is ongoing at this time, that is the “state of flux” that Sheriff Giardino is referring to.Law enforcement officials, like Sheriff Giardino, cannot extricate themselves easily from this morass but must contend with it.The application of “broad discretion” to deal effectively with a multiplicity of contingencies and complexities is necessitated by the inherent illegality of the salient portions of the CCIA. Further, the inscrutability of some of its sections, and internal inconsistencies along with inconsistencies with other portions of New York law and inconsistencies with the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, apart from the CCIA’s inherent inconsistency with the Second, abound. That is why we call the CCIA a mess.Sheriff Giardino’s actions must therefore be nuanced. But, where conflict is clear, i.e., where illegal constraints on the exercise of armed self-defense are acute and blatant, then he will enforce the U.S. Constitution, not the CCIA.As Sheriff Giardino says,“The fact that there are currently more than a dozen State and Federal Lawsuits at various stages in the litigation process in New York, over the new CCIA, can be very confusing, especially to those people who presently hold valid concealed handgun carry licenses.* And this confusion will continue to exist until, ultimately, the US Supreme Court decides, supports, and defends my decision to exercise broad discretion in favor of law-abiding citizens.”Adding to this awful burden there is a bitter irony.Sheriff Giardino points out that “on any given weekend, criminals, who can’t lawfully possess firearms, use firearms and, especially handguns, to commit dozens of robberies, murders, and attempted murders. Bear in mind that the chances that a holder of a valid concealed handgun carry license will use that handgun or any firearm in a crime is less than 1/6 of 1%, based on national studies.” So, ask yourself: ‘how many criminals will be adhering to Hochul’s new CCIA?” And to add insult to injury, Sheriff Giardino exclaims, “‘The Concealed Carry Improvement Act’ criminalizes conduct that, under the original New York handgun law, the law in place prior to September 1, 2022, the day the CCIA took effect, was legal.”The CCIA is simply a clever ruse——

• The CCIA is a scheme designed to further the Government agenda while giving lip service to the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Bruen.
• The CCIA further constrains the average law-abiding, responsible, rational citizen, who happens to reside and/or work in the State, from exercising his natural law right to armed self-defense.
• The CCIA does nothing to curb the misuse of firearms by the psychopathic criminal element running amok throughout the State, most noticeably in New York City.

The Daily Gazette columnist Andrew Waite doesn’t weigh in on any of this because he doesn’t truly understand the nature of the issues, or, otherwise, he doesn’t even begin to perceive a problem.Like most newspaper reporters and columnists, Waite sees “gun rights” vs. “gun control”/“gun safety” as a legitimate issue because politicians and news people manufacture that issue. But it has no substance. It is a fabrication, an illusion, a makeweight.There is the natural law right to armed self-defense. That is a fact. But those who abhor firearms and who fear and detest Americans who keep and bear them and who wish firearms and the right to keep and bear them would just go away, perpetrate and perpetuate a phantom issue, and thrust that specter on the public.These same people also deny the existence of natural law rights. They see the Bill of Rights as man-made artifices, no different than any other law, and therefore subject to modification or abrogation like any other law when whim dictates.They see people like Sheriff Giardino as driving a wedge between those Americans who desire to exercise their natural law right to armed self-defense and those who wish to severely constrain the exercise of the right or eliminate it.Yet, Sheriff Giardino is doing no such thing.Andrew Waite infers, oddly, that application of police discretion is less the result of a failure of the Government to acknowledge the right of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of self and in defense of innocent others, and to guard against the tyranny of Government, and more a personal predilection that causes consternation among those who abhor firearms and who hold disdain toward those Americans who do choose to exercise their natural law right.He says, in his article, supra: “But even gun-rights advocates who support Giardino’s positions on this issue should be worried about the ways in which a local sheriff’s discretion may only serve to further drive us apart.”Who are these “gun-rights advocates” that Waite refers to? Waite doesn’t say.Anyway, his remark is irrelevant, even discordant.It’s a logical red herring, introduced by unscrupulous politicians, and echoed by those in the legacy Press and social media, whether knowingly or not, to confound the public.Andrew Waite is right in the groove, reflexively singing a refrain piped into his psyche and then transmitted to millions of Americans.It is all projection, the product of an elaborate campaign of psychological conditioning, disbursed on an industrial scale, touching every part of the Country.Waite’s remark also shows a misunderstanding of the salient duty of all law enforcement officers.As Sheriff Giardino stated clearly, succinctly, and categorically in the Daily Gazette article, and as he has reiterated for those who do not understand:The duty of a law-enforcement officer is to “uphold the constitution.” That is the oath law enforcement officers swear to. That is and must be the predicate basis for and guiding principle for all his conduct in the field.Yet, in a Nation where the U.S. Constitution is routinely ignored, dismissed, deliberately misread, or even slammed and denigrated, there is, in that, for many, explanation enough explanation.That is how something as poisonous as New York’s “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” comes to be conceived, drafted, passed, and signed into law, and then, exalted as a fine, proper, and good thing.In a Country turned upside down and inside out, law enforcement officers like Sheriff Giardino must perforce contend with a situation that Government throws him into. It isn’t one of his own makings, but that of Hochul and the Democrat-Party-controlled Legislature in Albany, and the secretive powers behind both that have engineered the destruction of our Country.Is Andrew Waite even aware of this?The reporter for the Daily Gazette falls into the very trap that many reporters and columnists fall into, viewing fundamental, immutable natural law rights as a matter of public opinion and failing to grasp that some rights are not a matter of natural law, but are merely man-made constructs.The public’s reaction to the Dobbs “abortion” case is a prime example of this.Andrew Waite writes,“With diametrically opposed laws and individualized interpretations of how to enforce those laws, it can be hard to know which way is up, and which way is down. Amid the confusion and the divergent standards, we become even more divided, and our positions can become even more extreme.”A person becomes lost when he is unaware of or fails to follow the proper guideposts. Such is the case presented above.In the matter of fundamental rights, a person’s guide is the U.S. Constitution. It has always been thus, and must always be so.The Dobbs case is inapposite because “abortion” isn’t a fundamental right. It isn’t natural law. It is a man-made artifice, a judge-made right, fabricated as a matter of convenience, because the U.S. Supreme Court was, at the time, apparently, too afraid to acknowledge that the issue of abortion is not a Federal Constitutional issue. It is merely a matter for public debate, and as such, it should be left to the States to determine how each wishes to treat abortion. And, no the U.S. Supreme Court has done just that. It leaves the matter to the States to work out.But many Americans don’t see this. The Press doesn’t allow them to see this, but, disreputably, stirs up conflict as does Congress. The public gets caught up in a maelstrom of confusion, anxiety, and rage deliberately fomented by politicians and vociferously magnified by the Press, relying on incessant sloganeering and messaging, at once vacuous and malevolent.Many Americans fall for the garbled nonsense visited upon them by unscrupulous politicians, and then amplified through social media and the Press. The results are dangerous, reverberating throughout the Nation, causing discord, social instability, and violence, none of which is unanticipated, but all calibrated to attain the end goal:The annihilation of an independent sovereign Nation, a free Republic, and a free and sovereign citizenry.____________________________________*The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on both the parent U.S. Supreme Court case, NYSRPA vs. Bruen, and on Post-Bruen New York cases and we are keeping track of the progress of the litigation. To date, we have published over 40 articles on these cases.See, e.g., our article, posted on the AQ website on October 22, 2022, pertaining to the New York Government's interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting the High Court to lift the Stay on enforcement of the CCIA during the pendency of the lawsuit in Antonyuk vs. Hochul.The Antonyuk case was subsequently recaptioned, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli when the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York dismissed Governor Hochul from the lawsuit.Steven Nigrelli is the new “Acting” Superintendant of the New York State Police, appointed by Governor Hochul. Steven Nigrelli replaces both the Governor and Kevin Bruen, as the principal named Party Defendant, the latter of whom was the previous Superintendant of the New York State Police, appointed by Kathy Hochul's predecessor, Governor Andrew Cuomo.  See the AQ article posted on January 2, 2023.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

A CONGRESSIONAL ACT CALLING THE AR-15 RIFLE THE NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES IS A SENSELESS GESTURE, HAVING NOTHING TO COMMEND IT AND MUCH TO FAULT IT, ON MANY LEVELS

DISCUSSION OF H.R. 1095

PART THREE

In our initial article on H.R. 1095, Part One, posted on the AQ website, on February 26, 2023, and reposted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News on February 28, 2023, we pointed generally to problems with H.R. 1095, a bill declaring the “AR-15 Rifle the National Gun of the United States.” In Part Two, posted on the AQ website, on March 2, 2023, we looked at flaws with this bill from a basic pragmatic/practical perspective.In this article and in the final article, we deal in depth with flaws in the bill, from three other perspectives: logical, legal, and Congressional procedural/mechanical.In this article, Part Three, we look at the principal problem with the bill from a logical standpoint.By “logical” we mean both “reasonable/rational” in a layman's sense, as well as “logical” in the academic, philosophical sense. From the reasonable/rational, commonsensical standpoint, does the bill have any positive feature or features to commend it? And, if so, do those positive features outweigh the negative aspects? And, what are those negative aspects? What works against it? Many things.Some comments by Ammoland readers of our first article on H.R. 1095 suggest there is nothing wrong with a bill declaring the AR-15 to be the National Gun of the United States and, that, if nothing else, the bill serves as “pushback” against those elements in our Country that rail against guns and bemoan the ubiquity of the AR-15 and bemoan the popularity of semiautomatic weapons generally among Americans.  Undoubtedly, the sponsor and co-sponsors of H.R. 1095, fed up with this endless assault on guns, and sanctimony, sought, through this bill, to goad these antigun fanatics.Anti-Second Amendment propagandists, providing fodder for members of the Press and leftist media sites and leftist Cable and Broadcast news anchors and commentators, incessantly and uniformly refer to the AR-15 as “a weapon of war,” an “assault weapon,” a “military-style rifle,” “a weapon having no use in a civilized society”—and so on and so forth. Constantly parroting each other, the public gets a daily dose of the same simplistic, noxious message, droning on endlessly, hypnotically. Public policy propagandists and psychologists create and then drill these viral memes deep into the psyche of Americans. These engineers of mind control hope to inculcate into the psyche of most Americans a pathological fear of firearms, a rabid abhorrence of them, and contempt toward those Americans who exercise their natural law right to keep and bear them. It is in this climate that Americans who are inured to the seduction that has worked its charm on so many, wish to fight back. But, is H.R. 1095 an effective mechanism upon which to resist? Is it not akin to lobbing ping-pong balls back at those who throw grenades?  Another Ammoland reader asserts in his comment to our article of February 28, “The sponsor of the AR bill [Representative Moore] was simply making the statement that the AR is here to stay! Because there’s plenty of people that seem to think it’s temporary.”Those are two points raised by some readers as criticism of our article. But, there is a third, not mentioned, although it might have been raised as a rebuke to our criticism of H.R. 1095.We had hazarded a guess that Moore didn't just happen to come up with the idea for H.R. 1095 out of the blue but probably got the idea from articles appearing in the January and February issues of America’s 1^st Freedom, an NRA publication we refer to in an earlier article on H.R, 1095, posted on AQ on February 26, 2023. Id., supra. If so, isn't this a good thing—an argument favoring the enactment of H.R. 1095? No, it isn't.The authors of the articles mentioning the popularity and utility of the AR-15 among Americans in their NRA essays didn’t assert, or suggest the need for a Congressional Statute, declaring the “AR-15” the National Gun of the United States.One is therefore left to ponder whether the authors would favor such a Congressional Declaration if they were asked. The bill does nothing tangible to strengthen the Second Amendment. It simply enrages those on “the Left” who detest firearms and who visit contempt on those who cherish the natural law right to armed self-defense, codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights.And if the bill enrages those who hate guns, inviting retribution, then that is hardly a constructive reason to introduce a bill.Further, if the bill is merely innocuous, not inviting attention good or bad, then why waste time, money, and effort on it?This bill isn’t a good idea, and it isn’t simply innocuous. It is deleterious to the import and purport of the natural law right to armed self-defense.It was a bad idea in the inception. It was worse yet when Representative Barry Moore introduced it in the House.The bill spurred the Press and Anti-Second Amendment politicians, such as New York Governor Kathy Hochul, to use it as a cudgel against the Second Amendment, proclaiming the bill to be an “insult to those people killed and wounded in mass shootings and their families.” See the article in Newsday.See also the article by Steve Benen, MSNBC Columnist, and producer of the Rachel Maddow Show. One need only look to bills that Anti-Second Amendment Congressional Democrats fashion to see what a properly tailored bill includes.The recent House bill, H.R. 698, “Assault Weapons Ban of 2023,” introduced by David Cicilline, Democrat, Rhode Island, on February 1, 2023, provides an example.This bill has one, a stated purpose and rationale; two, a definition, explaining precisely what the sponsors and co-sponsors of H.R. 698, intend to ban; and three, a description of where it is to be placed in the United States Code if the bill were enacted into law.Then there is H.R. 1095. It is vacuous. If the sponsor and co-sponsors of H.R. 1095 intended to enact a law to counter the Democrats’ push to ban “Assault Weapons,” (Semiautomatic Weapons”), H.R. 1095 doesn’t do that.It has no text, and Barry Moore, the sponsor of it, evidently never intended for the bill to include text. It is a naked, empty declaration. What clarification could he give? What content could there be that might otherwise give weight to a bill that serves merely as a declaration of something that Americans already know: that the AR-15 rifle, particularly, and semiautomatic weapons generally, are in “common use.”On cursory musing, a person knows that semiautomatic weapons are a national emblem of a sort. No Congressional declaration of that is required to make emphatic something that is common knowledge.Had Representative Moore introduced a bill that sanctions, approves, entitles, and “legalizes” civilian citizen use of semiautomatic weapons, including the AR-15, or, had Moore introduced a bill that excludes all semiautomatic firearms from State and Federal regulation, such a bill would have a substantive, positive effect.Such a bill would be a marked improvement over a banal declaration that does nothing to secure Americans’ right to use such weaponry but merely taunts Anti-Second Amendment proponents and fanatics. If that were the intention of the sponsor and co-sponsors, they succeeded in the endeavor.But the H.R. 1095 makes light of the legislative process. The bill is bratty and puerile if all that its sponsor and co-sponsors expected it to do, and if all that its sponsor and co-sponsors intended for this bill to do, was to provoke, goad, and tease supercilious legislators on the other side of the aisle, along with a dementia-riddled President and his arrogant Cabinet, members of the legacy Press and of leftist cable and broadcast news shows. And that is the only thing, as written, that this bill is capable of doing. And the sponsor and co-sponsors of it appear remiss in not giving this bill more thought before putting pen to paper and affixing their names thereto. Better it would be had they done nothing.Neither H.R. 1095 nor Democrats’ H.R. 698, though, has any chance of passage, anyway. But that is beside the point. H.R. 1095 is senseless, whether enacted or not, but H.R. 698 is dangerous to the sanctity of the natural law right to armed self-defense if enacted.But suppose both did pass the House. Is that theoretically possible? It is. That points to a logical flaw in the bill from an academic standpoint.Logically, BOTH bills can exist side-by-side. They can both be given effect: one as a declaration the AR-15 Rifle is the National Rifle of the United States—a blanket and bold assertion with no impact—and the other positing a ban on civilian citizen ownership and possession of that rifle, a bill that, if enacted, would have a decisive and negative impact on the sanctity and inviolability of the Bill of Rights.The enactment of a wholesale Congressional ban on AR-15 rifles is consistent with the enactment of a law declaring the AR-15 to be the National Gun of the United States.So, calling the AR-15 Rifle the National Gun of the United States does not mean the “gun is here to stay” contrary to the assertion of one Ammoland reader.One can yell it till the cows come home, and all the while there could still be enacted a bill, or ATF ruling, or, perhaps, an executive decree that no civilian citizen can lawfully own or possess an AR-15 Rifle. So, a mere declaration that the AR-15 is the National Gun of the United States does not mean that the AR-15 is here to stay. That is false even if H.R. 1095 was passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the U.S. President. And, that illustrates the vacuousness of asserting or acknowledging the AR-15 is the National Gun of the United States. It comes to naught.A declaration to that effect, enacted into law, is a meager reward to those who cherish the fundamental, unalienable right codified in the Second Amendment. And it is no reward at all, if, at the end of the day, Americans cannot lawfully own and possess that rifle.

• The AR-15 is the National Gun of the United States. [Republican sponsored Statute]; and
• The AR-15 is banned. No civilian citizen can lawfully own and possess the AR-15. [Democrat-sponsored Statute]

So, then, the AR-15 remains the National Gun of the United States and IT IS still outlawed. Wonderful. What, then, is one to make of the claim that the AR-15 Rifle is our “National Gun?”  Side by side, with the two bills enacted into law, the silliness of H.R. 1095 becomes painfully obvious. Anti-Second Amendment Democrats would get a good chuckle over that. In fact, that might be reason enough for Democrats to urge Biden to sign the thing into law just to illustrate the idiocy of a declaration that becomes a National joke if, at the end of the day, no civilian citizen can legally own and possess this “National Gun of the United States.”  Now, suppose Congressional Republicans had drafted H.R. 1095 as the obverse of H.R. 698. That means only one or the other bill would pass and could be given effect. The one is incompatible with the other, as a matter of ice-cold logic.A Congressional Statute that proscribes, i.e., makes illegal ownership and possession of the AR-15 Rifle contradicts a Congressional Statute that prescribes, i.e., legalizes the ownership and possession of the AR-15 Rifle.Of course, at the moment, fortunately for a free Constitutional Republic, no federal ban on ownership and possession of the AR-15 Rifle, or of any other semiautomatic firearm exists.And this is so even as several States do ban ownership and possession of AR-15 Rifles and/or many other kinds of semiautomatic handguns, rifles, or shotguns, or otherwise, stringently regulate civilian citizen possession of such weapons.But, if Republicans did control both Houses of Congress and the U.S. Presidency, then Americans could see a law passed by Congress and signed into law by a Republican President, sanctioning civilian citizen ownership of all semiautomatic firearms.Such a law would prevent States from banning ownership/possession of such weapons.Congress would have to repeal such a statute as a condition precedent to a ban on ownership/possession of such weapons.The point of our remarks here is that Congressional Republicans should carefully think through their actions before spending time, effort, and tax-payer dollars on fruitless enterprises and escapades that do nothing to preserve our free Constitutional Republic and that fail to strengthen our Nation’s Bill of Rights. That didn't happen with this bill.What remains of H.R. 1095 is something that seems, at first glance, to offer gun owners some comfort, but, on balance, doesn’t have a pretense of that either.H.R.1095 does nothing from a practical/pragmatic standpoint or from a logical/reasonableness standpoint to commend it.In our concluding article, we look at the procedural/mechanical problems of H.R.1095, and, most importantly, its legal flaws.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

THE “AR-15 NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES” BILL IS A BAD IDEA FROM THE GET-GO

DISCUSSION OF H.R. 1095

PART TWO

FOR PRAGMATIC REASONS ALONE, THERE IS REASON TO VIEW H.R. 1095 AS AN AWFUL BILL

We always read with interest comments of readers that spend time reviewing, thinking about, and responding to our articles. And we take readers’ comments to heart. This is in reference to our article posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News on February 28, 2023.We surmised that some readers might disagree with our position on H.R. 1095, a bill introduced on February 17, 2023, by Representative Barry Moore, Republican, Alabama, and co-sponsored, originally, by three other Republicans, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and George Santos of New York. See the article in Forbes.Marjorie Taylor Greene subsequently added her name to the bill as the fourth co-sponsor.Had we thought H.R. 1095 simply unproductive but benign, we wouldn’t have written about it. But we feel the bill isn’t merely unproductive and benign. It does harm, and on both pragmatic grounds and legal and logical ones.In this article, we look at the harm this bill does to the cause of preservation of the Second Amendment, on pragmatic grounds.First, in the mere assertion of the AR-15 as the National Gun of the United States the bill undercuts, if unintentionally, our natural law, God-Given right to armed self-defense.The bill is harmful to the preservation of our Second Amendment because it merely offers the public a slogan, nothing more. The slogan gains unwarranted gravitas as a bill.It would do better service as a bumper sticker. H.R. 1095 trivializes the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms.Second, the bill alludes to something we believe untrue and harmful to the sanctity of the right: namely the false notion of America as a “Gun Culture.”One source attributes the creation of the phrase ‘Gun Culture’ to the American historian Richard Hofstadter, who wrote an article for the periodical “American Heritage,” titled, “American As a Gun Culture.” That was back in October 1970. See also articles in Boston Review, genius.com, and compass.The phrase, ‘Gun Culture,’ has since dominated Anti-Second Amendment literature and Anti-Second Amendment activism, along with expressions such as, ‘Gun Violence,’ ‘Gun Control,’ and ‘Gun Safety.’ Messaging is a major component of social conditioning.Third, a bill that would talk about this or that “gun” as the “National Gun” of the United States gives Anti-Second Amendment proponents and fanatics another reason to demonize and ridicule Americans who cherish their natural law right to armed self-defense.We do not need to give ammunition to those who abhor firearms and who demonize, ridicule, and heap contempt on those Americans who insist on exercising their God-Given right to keep and bear them.Fourth, the bill directs the public’s attention to firearms generally, and to semiautomatic weapons, particularly.The armed citizenry is as much needed today as the armed colonists were needed back at the dawn of our Nation’s birth. Back then, the first Patriots fought against tyranny to create a free Constitutional Republic, one devoid of noblemen and kings where the common man was deemed sovereign over his Government and sole master of his fate.Today, America’s armed Patriots are needed as a counterweight to those people in service to a new tyranny, one that seeks to destroy our Nation, selling the remains off to interests that aim to create a world empire. Yet, the empire envisioned today is vaster and more treacherous, and more dangerous than that of the British Empire under George III and of the nascent Rothschild Banking Dynasty.Fifth, Americans don’t need a bill to declare this or that firearm to be a National Gun. It isn’t “The Gun” per se that is the source of our Nation’s FREEDOM AND LIBERTY. A firearm is just a tool. It is, rather, the notion of the SANCTITY and INVIOLABILITY of the INDIVIDUAL and of the importance of the COMMON MAN who wields that firearm: the “ARMED CITIZEN.” It is the wielder of a firearm, then, not the firearm itself, that is the foundation OF FREEDOM AND LIBERTY. And it is in the COMMON MAN’S WILL and of his ability, THROUGH FORCE OF ARMS, to resist THE TYRANT who would dare crush his mind, body, and spirit, that our Nation’s GREATNESS derives and thrives.Sixth, A bill to enact a law that simply denotes something as a “NATIONAL SYMBOL” is unnecessary.Such symbols often become the target of aggression when attention is directed at them.Recall flag-burnings. Does this Country need or want to see the mass destruction of “GUNS” if this or that GUN is designated a national symbol?Yet, to raise the AR-15 to the status of “NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES” merely taunts Anti-Second Amendment fanatics, nudging them to do just that: a call for the destruction of all AR-15 Rifles.Do we really want to see H.R. 1095 serving as the catalyst for public displays of the destruction of firearms across the Country?Just undertake some cost/benefit analysis. What is gained from this bill? A trifle? Anything? And what is the cost? Much!Further, national symbols have historical roots. If some Congressional Republicans wish to raise a particular firearm to recognition as a ‘national symbol’ we have better candidates: namely those that hearken back to the American Revolution.There is the “BROWN BESS” smoothbore flintlock musket. It would serve us better. First, it draws attention, but in a good way, to our great history—something the Neo-Marxist Internationalists and the Neoliberal Globalists loathe and wish to erase.The “BROWN BESS” is connected to the American Revolution. If we are going to draw out a debate, then let us compel these ruthless forces to call out the American Revolution as a bad thing, if they dare.Let us talk about our Nation's history and point to the ARMED CITIZEN to whom we owe our FREEDOM and LIBERTY.So, far, those who would destroy us, only tinker around the edges, using ANTIFA and BLM, and many unthinking college students as storm troops to burn buildings, deface art, and destroy statues and monuments.But it would be very difficult for the Federal Government to attack our history and artifacts directly: our HISTORICAL BATTLE FLAGS for example, even as the Government attempts to do just that, obliquely—claiming that those who cherish our history and its emblems are “MAGA” REPUBLICANS, “WHITE SUPREMACISTS” “CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS,”—presumptively, all of us “HINTERLAND HICKS.”If Republicans want to draw the ire of the Anti-Second Amendment fan base in an uproar, we don’t need to give these fanatics another reason to go after firearms by taunting them with this nonsensical bill. And that is all this bill does. It is meant as a colossal tease. But it is, rather, a colossal blunder.Seventh, H.R. 1095 does nothing concrete. The bill’s title says everything a person needs to know about it. And, while there are those who support it, (note very few Republicans have signed on to it), there are many people and interests in this Country that do not.And those who do not are especially irate over civilian citizen ownership and possession of firearms they refer to as “ASSAULT WEAPONS,” like the AR-15 Rifle. And they voice their anger vociferously, vehemently, endlessly, tying the “AR-15” to “mass shootings,” particularly at schools.“The AR-15 was used by the school shooter last year in Uvalde, Texas, to massacre 19 elementary school children and two teachers. It was used during the 2019 shooting in Parkland, Florida, to murder 17 students and educators. Of the roughly 24 guns that the 2017 Las Vegas shooter brought to the deadliest mass shooting in modern history, in which he massacred 60 people and injured hundreds, over a dozen were AR-15s.The effects of AR-15 style guns are brutal. The AR-15 is a weapon built for war, designed and manufactured to shred human flesh. During the Vietnam War, the AR-15 left bodies of Vietnamese fighters looking as though they had been hit with an explosive, much like the bodies of the children killed in Uvalde, some of whom first-hand witnesses said were only identifiable through the clothing left intact on their ripped-apart flesh.The bill [H.R. 1095] is the latest Republican display of the party’s worship of guns and its attempts to normalize the violence the right is often associated with.” See the article on the radical left website, truthout.org. No, contrary to the remark of the author of the above yellow journalism article, those who cherish the right codified in the Second Amendment do not worship guns. Those Americans worship the Divine Creator. But they recognize the utility of “guns” for self-defense and to resist tyranny.But, that is how the H.R. 1095 comes across: AS WORSHIPING GUNS, IN ADORATION TO A “GUN CULTURE.” In a nutshell, that explains why this bill is wrong-headed.Consider the remarks of New York Governor Kathy Hochul:“‘The governor, a Democrat, told Newsday in an interview Thursday that Santos' proposal is an insult to those people killed and wounded in mass shootings and their families.‘That is so abhorrent,’ Hochul said, ‘especially from a representative from New York, especially from a representative from Long Island, which is home to one of the victims of the Parkland shooting.’” See the article in Newsday.Hochul is not entirely wrong. We wouldn't say H.R. 1095, is “abhorrent,” but it is absurd. It was not well thought out.The aforementioned news and media reports prove our point. The bill is a bad idea because it draws volatile and unnecessary attention to the Second Amendment. The bill stirs up a hornet’s nest but does nothing to strengthen the Second Amendment. The only thing it does is give those who detest the Second Amendment, another reason for eliminating the exercise of the right in it.Perhaps that was the sponsor's salient purpose in drafting the bill up, and then introducing it in the House.* Perhaps that was the only purpose for the bill. If so, the sponsor and co-sponsors of it accomplished their aim. They got their wish.But, if it doesn’t strengthen the right of the people to keep and bear arms, then why bother with it if all it does is simply antagonize the opposition, drawing unnecessary attention to a firearm? It surely does nothing positive to secure the right, without which this Republic is well lost.In the next article in this series, we look at the legal and logical flaws associated with H.R. 1095.____________________________________*It is odd that many news reports tie H.R. 1095 to George Santos. He isn't the sponsor of the bill. He is only one of four co-sponsors. Perhaps it is that Santos generates so much antipathy among so many people, that they blindly tie a poorly drafted and poorly considered House bill with a sorry excuse of a person, an inveterate liar.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.  

AMERICANS DON'T NEED A LAW DECLARING THE “AR-15” THE “NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES.”

DISCUSSION OF H.R. 1095

PART ONE

CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS CAN DO BETTER THAN ENACT A LAW DECLARING THE AR-15 RIFLE THE NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES. RATHER THE NATION NEEDS RECOGNITION OF THE RIGHT TO CARRY A HANDGUN, FOR SELF-DEFENSE, THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES.

Readers of Ammoland Shooting Sports News are probably aware of a House of Representatives Bill (H.R. 1095) introduced by Representative Barry Moore (Republican, Alabama) that “seeks to declare that an “AR-15 style rifle chambered in a .223 Remington round or a 5.56x45mm NATO round . . . the National Gun of the United States,” according to a summary of the legislation.” See New York Post article, published February 23, 2023.American Military News, in an article also published on February 23, 2023, adds this:“The bill’s [two] Republican co-sponsors include Georgia Rep. Lauren Boebert and New York Rep. George Santos. AR-15s and similar rifles are the most popular in the U.S., with more than 24.4 million in circulation, according to trade group data reported by The Reload. The rifles are often targets for gun control because they have been increasingly used in mass shootings over the last decade, as reported by USA Today.”‘The anti-Second Amendment group won’t stop until they take away all your firearms,’ Moore said in a statement reported by Al.com. ‘One rule to remember: any government that would take away one right would take away them all.’After bringing forward the bill for the AR-15’s national recognition last week, Moore stopped at a gun shop in Troy, Alabama on Tuesday to make the case for its passage. He said the AR-15 has been ‘a cornerstone of American culture for over 60 years,’ according to video taken at the event.’”Moore introduced the bill on the Floor of the House on February 17, 2023. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Introduction of a bill and referral to the bill are the first two actions in the legislative process, turning a bill into a Congressional statute. See the article in congress.gov, discussing this process.Often a bill languishes in Committee. This occurs when the House Speaker—or, if a bill is introduced in the Senate, the Senate Majority Leader—intends to kill it.Recall the ill-fated bill, H.R. 38, “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017,” “a bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to provide a means by which nonresidents of a State whose residents may carry concealed firearms may also do so in the State.”An amended version of the bill passed the House after two Roll Call votes, on December 6, 2017, and went on to the Senate for action. Paul Ryan was the Speaker of the House, at that time. We were hopeful.Americans had their best shot at the passage of this bill since, at the time, Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and the Executive Branch under U.S. President Donald Trump. But our wishes were soon dashed when we saw the bill languishing in a Senate Committee.In an AQ article posted on November 28, 2018, we wrote,“Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC) introduced the bill [H.R. 38] on January 3, 2017. The bill passed the House by Roll Call Vote of 231-198, on December 6, 2017. It was sent to the Senate one day later, where it was read twice and then referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. President Trump supports it. The NRA supports it. And rank and file law enforcement officers support it too. But there has been to date no further action on it. The bill sits in limbo. Its prospect of passage is, at present, low. Why is that?What is the U.S. Senate waiting for?”In answer to our own question, we learned the reason for the wait. Mitch McConnell wanted the bill to die in Committee. And it did die there. McConnell deliberately killed it. We had a window of opportunity. And that window is gone.With fortitude but little fanfare the author of the 2017  “constitutional carry” bill, Richard Hudson reintroduced the bill on January 4, 2021. Nothing came of it.That, incidentally, was sixteen days before the forces that Crush entire Countries placed the irredeemably corrupt and spineless, dementia-riddled, emotional and physical wreck of a man, the Great Betrayer of our Nation, Joe Biden, in the Oval Office. He has all the hallmarks of a useful puppet. He is someone who would obediently serve them, not us, the American people, accountable only to them, and not us. And, so, the puppet masters pushed him on the public and, having manipulated both the public psyche and the electoral process, making sure that he, Joe Biden, and not Donald Trump, would bear and wear the title, “Chief Executive.” The bill went nowhere.  It was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, on March 1, 2021, And there it died.On February 20, 2023, the “constitutional carry bill” was “re-reintroduced,” and, this time, in the Senate. John Cornyn sponsored it. Press coverage of it is sparse, essentially nonexistent. But, a trade group NSSF did reference and commend it. Yet, the bill is a dead letter in a Senate led by New York Democrat Chuck Schumer. In contradistinction to the “Constitutional Carry” bill of 2023, the “AR-15 National Gun” bill has received a lot of Press attention, most of it negative.There is a curious thing about the mechanics of the legislative process concerning that bill, though. The bill’s text has yet to be published. News accounts report this, but none of them hazard a guess as to why there is no accompanying text. Usually, if not invariably, a text immediately accompanies an announcement of a bill. One would expect a text for a bill. Right? Apparently, there wasn't one for H.R. 1095, though. And why might that be? Why would H.R. 1095 be introduced in Congress, sans text? Probably for the reason that there is nothing to be said about it that isn’t in the title of it.Be that as it may, there is nothing in the title that would suggest the bill accomplishes anything. H.R. 1095 is a vacuous exercise in conception, having no purpose other than to rile Anti-Second Amendment members of Congress, the Press, the Biden Administration, Governor Kathy Hochul of New York, and many others that loathe firearms and Americans' exercise of their right to keep and bear them. The bill has no useful purpose that we can see. It is counterproductive, the conception of it shallow and superficial, and the sponsor and co-sponsors of it, callow, thinking they are accomplishing something worthwhile through the presentment of it. They aren't.As explained on the senate.gov website:“Bills deal with domestic and foreign issues and programs, and they also appropriate money to various government agencies and programs.Public bills pertain to matters that affect the general public or classes of citizens, while private bills affect just certain individuals and organizations.”But what does this bill [H.R 1095] do beyond a vacuous declaration, whether true, in some sense, or not, to ascribe to the notion that the “AR-15 is [or should be designated] the National Gun of America?” Nothing positive that we can see. And in the blanket declaration, what does it accomplish? Nothing to strengthen the Second Amendment guarantee if the bill were somehow to become law, and much to harm it. And it is in the harm caused by the mere introduction of it in Congress, that there exists the principal problem with it.As a cursory note, the idea implicit in the bill—the notion of a declaration of a “NATIONAL GUN,” isn’t even original. The sponsor and co-sponsors of it likely didn't even come up with the idea.The sponsor and the co-sponsors of the bill likely didn’t brainstorm this but got the idea after perusing recent issues of the NRA publication, “America’s 1^st Freedom.” We perused those issues too. The idea is prominently displayed on the covers of both the January 2023 and February 2023 magazines.The cover story of the January 2023 issue is “This is My Rifle,” subtitled, “AR-15 is America’s Rifle,” by Serena Juchnowski. The cover story of the February 2023 issue is emblazoned, “America’s Rifle,” and it is subtitled, “What the Gun-Control Crowd Doesn’t Want You To Know About AR-Type Rifles,” by the Constitutional Law expert, and author of several seminal textbooks on the Second Amendment, Stephen P. Halbrook. The articles and Stephen's books are well worth a read.One thing implicit in both articles is the fact that Americans have an unalienable right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, close friends, and family, and they have a right to keep and bear arms in defense of the security of a free state, from the tyranny of Government.But, there is nothing in either account of the two lead stories in the NRA that suggests the need for a Statute declaring, or that it would be a good idea to declare, the AR-15 rifle, “the National Gun of the United States.”  The reason why is plain.Americans do not need an Act of Congress to tell them the AR-15 rifle or any other kind of firearm should be designated “THE NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES.” Even the construction of the language of the bill is faulty.The use of the phrase “United States” in the bill alludes clearly and unmistakably to the Nation’s “standing army,” not to the civilian citizenry. Of course, the military doesn't use the AR-15 Rifle, anyway. The military versions today are the M4 and M16 assault rifles, which should be available to the sovereign armed citizenry as the final fail-safe against tyranny.And the word ‘Gun’ is a poor choice of terminology as it is a colloquialism and a slang word for ‘Firearm’ or ‘Weapon.’The drafters of the bill would have done better to use language such as, “AR-15 IS THE WEAPON OF CHOICE OF THE AMERICAN CITIZENRY.” This phraseology is preferred as it avoids ambiguity and a negative characterization that the informal verbiage of the actual bill, H.R. 1095 conveys. But this is quibbling. The bill is patently unnecessary at best and, at worse, it weakens the natural law right to armed self-defense that exists intrinsically in man. It isn't the sort of thing that Government bestows on man. Therefore, it isn’t the sort of thing that Government can rescind, or deny to man.The bill was wrong-headed from the get-go, for many reasons. Worse than unnecessary, the mere introduction of it is counterproductive. The passage of it, unlikely though that is, would do nothing to secure our fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense were passage of it to occur.We discuss the many serious failings and shortcomings of this bill in the next article.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.  

THE MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY SHOOTING INCIDENT DIDN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN. HERE'S WHY!

ANOTHER “MASS SHOOTING” BECAUSE THOSE WHO “HATE GUNS” REMAIN PERENNIALLY BLIND TO THE OBVIOUS ANSWER TO THESE TRAGEDIES

MULTISERIES ON THE ISSUE OF SCHOOL SAFETY

PART FOUR

Mass shootings need not happen but continue to happen because of ineffective security measures.Video footage shows the assailant, Anthony McRae, walking through an unlocked door with a handgun.Yet, security officers didn't stop him.  A “mop-up” operation occurred after the fact, much too late to save lives.Mass shooting incidents don’t occur at our airports or in federal courts and office buildings because they are “hardened” against criminal violence.But the Biden Administration and the “woke” community oppose “hardening” schools and universities. Instead, they focus attention on futile gestures, like trying to discern a lunatic’s motive and decrying “guns,” “gun violence,” “far-right extremism,” and the Second Amendment.Such topics satisfy the predilections of some. They also deflect discussion away from solving a root problem and direct it toward reinforcing a narrative—one in service to an agenda. And the agenda is aimed at achieving a long-sought goal: erasing the exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense.The Country is not served well by this. The MSU tragedy was senseless but, unfortunately, predictable.Places of learning remain both “soft targets” and desirable targets. Sadly, “mass shootings” will recur. That is a dead certainty.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

ANTONYUK VS. NIGRELLI (ANTONYUK II): IS THIS CASE DESTINED TO BE THE FOURTH SEMINAL U.S. SUPREME COURT PRONOUNCEMENT ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS?

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IMPORTANT NOTE TO OUR READERS: THE ARTICLE  POSTED YESTERDAY UNDER THE TITLE, "THE MEANING OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS CLEAR, AND THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS SPOKEN, BUT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND NEW YORK GOVERNOR HOCHUL HAVE OTHER PLANS," HAS UNDERGONE A SUBSTANTIAL REWRITE, TO SUCH AN EXTENT, THAT WE FELT IT BEST TO POST THIS NEW ONE AS A DISTINCT ARTICLE, AND WITH AND UNDER A NEW BANNER. WE HAVE KEPT THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE, AS POSTED, TO BE FAIR TO ALL OUR READERS. YOU MAY WISH TO COMPARE THE TWO. BUT, IF YOU FIND DISCREPANCIES IN POINTS MADE, BE ADVISED THAT THIS INSTANT ARTICLE CONTROLS. IT REPRESENTS OUR SOLE POSITION AND PERSPECTIVE ON THE MATTERS DISCUSSED. THANK YOU.

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POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART TWENTY

SUBPART ONE OF PART TWENTY

THE MEANING OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS CLEAR, AND THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS SPOKEN, BUT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND NEW YORK GOVERNOR HOCHUL HAVE OTHER PLANS

PART ONE{INTRODUCTORY QUOTATION}“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their arms.” ~Samuel Adams, American Statesman and Founding FatherThe importance of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen cannot be overstated. These cases, together, establish the Court’s recognition of, one, the immutable, eternal right of the people to keep and bear arms, two, that this right shall not be infringed, and, three, that the armed citizenry is necessary to the security of a free State.The existence of and maintenance of a free Constitutional Republic is impossible without a well-armed citizenry.To understand where we are, at the start of a new year, we must retrace our steps back to 2020.Biden and the Democrat Party will up the ante in their attack on the Second Amendment. That is indisputable.In 2022, this assault on the right to armed self-defense against the predatory beast, predatory man, and, worst of all, predatory Government, became manifest.In early February 2021, we pointed out, in our article, titled, “The Biden Plan for the Political and Social Remaking of the American Landscape,” that——“During his first two weeks in Office, Joe Biden signed over 40 executive orders or similar executive edicts. And he isn’t done. A few days into February and we can expect to see 50 or more Presidential executive orders and other edicts.” This is unheard of.For comparison, we pointed to a news report published in February 2021, positing that,“President Donald Trump signed four in his first week in 2017; President Barack Obama signed five in 2009; President George W. Bush signed none in his first week in 2001; and President Bill Clinton signed one in 1993.”Apparently, Biden and the puppet masters who control him would waste no time reversing the gains Trump had made in setting the Nation back on course, consistent with the aims of the founders of our Nation: To maintain a strong and independent, sovereign Nation-State, and free Constitutional Republic.The Neoliberal Globalists have reverted to their agenda, set in motion by George Bush and Barack Obama, aimed at dismantling a free Republic and eliminating the exercise of Americans’ natural law rights through which the citizenry maintains its lawful sovereign authority over the Nation and Federal Government, and over its own destiny.Also, in that February 2021 article, the reporter pointed out that——“The twin issues of ‘guns’ and ‘gun violence’ will be much discussed in the weeks and months ahead. That much is certain.Will Biden sign an executive order banning assault weapons’ and will he sign a flurry of other antigun laws as well, not bothering to wait for Congressional enactments?Don’t think this is improbable. In fact, with all the banter of gun-toting ‘white supremacists’ and right-wing ‘domestic terrorists’ and with thousands of National Guard troops camped out in the U.S. Capital, and with the constant denigration of and growing suppression of conservative dissent, something is definitely afoot. In fact, the Democrat Party propaganda machine is in overdrive. The propagandist newspaper, NY Times, for one, has laid the groundwork for an assault on ‘guns.’”Our remarks and those in the news article were prescient.In June 2022, due to Congressional Democrats and scurrilous Congressional Republicans, Biden “signed into law into law the first major federal gun reform in three decades, days after a decision he condemned by the Supreme Court expanding firearm owners’ rights.” See the article in Reuters.Dutifully, compliantly obeying the orders of his Administrative nursemaids and caretakers, who themselves take orders from shadowy, sinister forces from on high, the Biden puppet also took aim at the millions of civilian citizens who own and possess semiautomatic weaponry and components of the weapons.But what is especially important here is a remark Biden conveyed to the Press, as reported by Reuters, in that same June 2022 article.“‘The Supreme Court has made some terrible decisions.’” The demented fool probably didn’t know what specific U.S. Supreme Court cases his caretakers ordered him to refer to. No matter. All Americans should know. And America’s Patriots do know.One was Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health. The other was NYSRPA vs. Bruen. Both decisions are important. But, of the two, the latter is much more important. The latter case pertains directly to the security of a free State. The former does not.NYSRPA vs. Bruen is the latest in a Supreme Court jurisprudential “trilogy” of seminal Second Amendment cases. Yet, the Biden Administration and some State Governments have openly defied the U.S. Supreme Court, and, worse, have openly demonstrated visible contempt for the High Court.At both the Federal Level and State Levels, powerful malevolent and malignant forces have directed their assault on America’s Second Amendment. Biden and New York Governor Kathy Hochul are the public faces behind shadowy orchestrators, passing along orders surreptitiously to their puppets.Our Free Constitutional Republic is in dire jeopardy.New York State Government and actions of other States since Bruen demonstrate all the fervor, ferocity, and audacity of those State governments to go their own way, blatantly disregarding Bruen as they disregarded Heller and McDonald. This has resulted in a plethora of new litigation against the States by Americans who desire only to exercise their natural law right to armed self-defense.The number of cases filed and progression of post-Bruen case law decisions in New York, alone, point to Americans’ adoration of the natural law right to armed self-defense and to the extraordinary lengths they will go to compel rogue States to adhere to both the plain meaning of the Second Amendment and to those U.S. Supreme Court rulings cementing the Second Amendment in the American psyche.This points to a tremendous disconnect between the Country Americans know and love, and an alien, monstrous non-nation the Biden Administration and many States, in league with the Biden Administration, wish to thrust on Americans, against their will.__________________________________________

A TREMENDOUS CLASH IS AT HAND BETWEEN THE U.S. SUPREME COURT RULINGS IN BRUEN AND THE NEW YORK GOVERNMENT’S REPUDIATION OF BRUEN

SUBPART TWO

{INTRODUCTORY QUOTE}“It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or of any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce their essential natural rights.” ~ Samuel Adams, American Statesman, and Founding FatherOnce the U.S. Supreme Court published the Bruen decision, the Hochul Government, anticipating the decision, was prepared for it. It had been prepared for the Bruen decision for months. The State Senate in Albany quickly enacted amendments to its Gun Law, designed to operate in defiance of the rulings and to further constrain the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and Governor Hochul immediately signed the amendments into law. Holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licensees reviewed the amendments as quickly as Hochul had signed them into law. They were not amused. And they were the first out of the gate, in any jurisdiction, to challenge the constitutionality of those lengthy amendments to the New York Gun Law, which, as a body, were referred to as the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”).The Bruen decision came down on June 23, 2022. Hochul signed the CCIA into law on July 1, 2022. And Plaintiffs filed their case, Antonyuk vs. Bruen (Antonyuk I) on July 11, 2022.Since then, both Antonyuk I and a plethora of other cases wended their way through New York’s Federal Courts. But none are more important than that first case, as it is the first one to make its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the first one to receive a response from the U.S. Supreme Court since its rulings in NYSRPA vs. Bruen.After the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York dismissed Antonyuk I, without prejudice, Plaintiff Ivan Antonyuk and other holders of valid New York handgun carry licenses filed a new case, on September 20, 2022 (Antonyuk II). That case was recaptioned Antonyuk vs. Hochul. And, after the Court dismissed Hochul out as a Party Defendant, and, after a new Superintendent of the New York State Police, Steven Nigrelli, took over from the previous Superintendent of the New York State Police, Kevin Bruen, the Plaintiffs’ recaptioned the case, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction, staying the execution of Hochul’s CCIA on November 7, 2022.One day later, coincidentally, the date of the Midterm Elections, November 8, 2022, the New York Government filed its Motion to the U.S. Court of Appeals, seeking relief from the PI, and the Second Circuit granted the relief the Government sought, on November 15, 2022, staying the PI, allowing execution of the CCIA during the pendency of the merits of the PI. Four days later, the Plaintiffs, NY concealed handgun carry licensees filed their own response to the lifting of the Stay.After the Second Circuit issued its ruling reversing the District’s granting of the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction. The Second Circuit modified its order minimally. The PI remained, stayed. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, posted on December 14, 2022, for details.The Plaintiffs appealed the Second Circuit’s ruling, requesting relief from the U.S. Supreme Court.As pointed out by John Crump, in an article posted on Ammoland on December 28, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court, on December 27, 2022, demanded a response from the Second Circuit.Justice Sotomayor issued a short “request.” Note: the term ‘request’ means the High Court isn’t ordering Hochul’s Government to respond to the Plaintiff’s Application for Relief, but a “request,” having been made, obviously encourages the Government to respond.Sotomayor’s directive reads:“Response to application (22A557) requested by Justice Sotomayor, due by 4 p.m. (EST), Tuesday, January 3, 2023.”Sotomayor’s Order is in reference to the Plaintiffs’ filing of December 21, 2022, titled,“Emergency Application For Immediate Administrative Relief And To Vacate Stay Of Preliminary Injunction Issued By The United States Court Of Appeals For The Second Circuit.”In their filing, the Plaintiffs assert,“Without providing any analysis or explanation, the Second Circuit has stayed a preliminary injunction issued by a federal district court in New York that was carefully designed to limit New York’s enforcement of a sweeping gun control statute, enacted as retaliation against New York gun owners for having prevailed in this Court’s decision in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022). The district court’s injunction was supported by a detailed 184-page opinion, meticulously tailored to follow this Court’s framework established in Bruen. In contrast, the Second Circuit’s stay pending appeal was issued based only on a single conclusory assertion, yet with the effect of indefinitely suspending the protections afforded New Yorkers by the Second Amendment and affirmed by this Court in Bruen. The Second Circuit’s stay should be vacated in order to uphold the right of New Yorkers to keep and bear arms, as well as to vindicate the authority of this Court over the circuit courts. This Court’s Opinion in Bruen was issued on June 23, 2022. Only hours later, New York Governor Hochul promised to ‘fight back’:We just received some disturbing news . . . the Supreme Court . . . has stripped away the State of New York’s right and responsibility to protect its citizens . . . with a decision . . . which is frightful in its scope of how they are setting back this nation. . . . This decision is not just reckless, it’s reprehensible. It’s not what New Yorkers want, and we should have the right of . . . what we want to do in terms of gun laws in our state. . . . [O]ur governor has a moral responsibility to do what we can . . . because of what is going on, the insanity of the gun culture that has now possessed everyone up to the Supreme Court. . . . We’ve been ready for this . . . We’ve been working with a team of legal experts . . . I’m prepared to call the legislature back into session. . . . We are not going to cede our rights that easily, despite the best efforts of the politicized Supreme Court. . . . No longer can we strike the balance. . . Shocking. They have taken away our rights. . . . This is New York. We don’t back down. We fight back. . . . I’m prepared to go back to muskets. . . . We’re just getting started here. Just eight days later on July 1, 2022, the New York Legislature responded to Governor Hochul’s call to defy this Court’s authority and resist Bruen’s protection of Second Amendment rights, enacting the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (“CCIA”). After extensive briefing, a hearing, and oral argument, the district court enjoined portions of the CCIA in a 184-page opinion. Shortly thereafter the Second Circuit, without providing any reasoning or analysis, granted New York’s request first for a temporary administrative stay, and then a stay pending appeal, allowing New York’s repudiation of Bruen back into effect without so much as a brief explanation.”The key to the Plaintiffs’ argument supporting relief from the Second Circuit’s perfunctory decision is the lack of reasoning of the Second Circuit for overriding the District Court’s analysis of the“Four-Factor” test, and the High Court is requesting the Government, and, obliquely, the Second Circuit itself, for an explanation of its reasoning behind the lifting of the PI stay of execution of the CCIA.In its comprehensive Opinion, the District Court determined the Plaintiff New York Concealed Handgun Carry Licensees proved that awarding the PI is warranted.The U.S. Supreme Court is of course well versed in the District Court’s comprehensive rulings, supporting its granting of Plaintiffs’ PI. And the High Court is well aware of the Second Circuit’s curt reversal of the lower Court’s decision.The U.S. Supreme Court’s unusual “request,” directed to the New York Government, is also aimed at the Second Circuit. The High Court is asking the Government, essentially a surrogate for the Second Circuit, here, to explain why the District Court’s comprehensive, logical, rational opinion, supporting its granting of the Preliminary Injunction, should be considered erroneous.Since the Second Circuit’s reversal of the District Court’s well-reasoned opinion granting the PI, is cryptic or, otherwise, meaningless, the U.S. Supreme Court has asked the Government to step in and explain why the U.S. District Court’s granting of the PI, staying enforcement of the CCIA should not be reinstated.This request mirrors the Plaintiffs’ Application to the Second Circuit, requesting an explanation for its curt reversal of the District Court’s granting of the Plaintiffs’ PI, sans any reason for lifting the Stay of the CCIA, imposed by the District Court.See our article titled, “New York’s Gun Law: A History Of & Present Status Of The Antonyuk Case,” posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News, posted on December 28, 2022.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York issued a Preliminary Injunction against enforcement of the CCIA because,

• The Plaintiff New York State Concealed Handgun Carry Licensees are likely to succeed on the merits.
• The Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable injury absent a stay of the
• The Government is unlikely to incur substantial injury through a stay of enforcement of the CCIA during the review of the merits of the Plaintiffs' case against the New York Government.
• The public interest is so great and so grave that enforcement of the Government’s CCIA should be stayed pending the resolution of the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction.

That the Second Circuit lifted the stay not only allows enforcement of the CCIA, before the merits of the case are decided but disturbingly suggests the Second Circuit will ultimately find for the Government. This means, at first glance, at least, that the Second Circuit won’t issue a permanent injunction against enforcement of the CCIA but will find the CCIA Constitutional when it isn’t. But this is unlikely. We explain why in a subsequent article.One thing is clear. The New York Government, and, by extension, the Second Circuit—one through weak argument, and the second through a lame judicial order—have admitted they detest the Second Amendment, and are contemptuous of both the rulings in Bruen. And, further, that Governor Hochul, to her everlasting shame, expressed her personal disdain for the Court Majority that issued the rulings, thereby exhibiting her defiance of the U.S. Constitution, her contempt for the Nation, as an independent sovereign Nation-State and free Constitutional Republic, and her loathing of the people who happen to cherish their God-Given fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable, unmodifiable, and eternal, and absolute right to armed self-defense.But let Hochul rant and rave. The New York State Government and the Second Circuit are behind the eight-ball, now.The U.S. Supreme Court knows there is no logical and legal reason to allow for the enforcement of an unconstitutional Gun Law. And the High Court is nudging the Government to admit that fact.The Government need not respond to Justice Sotomayor’s unusual directive, as it is a “request,” not an order. But, obviously, Justice Sotomayor has encouraged the Government to respond, as failure to respond serves as a silent affirmation of the unconstitutionality of the CCIA.We consider in our next article the options open to the Government and the ramifications of their action, or non-action. The New York Government’s response—if there is one—must be filed by late afternoon, Tuesday, January 3, 2023. ___________________________________

THE NEW YORK STATE GOVERNMENT MUST EXPLAIN ITSELF TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: THE FATE OF MILLIONS OF NEW YORK GUN OWNERS HANGS IN THE BALANCE, AND THE CLOCK IS TICKING

SUBPART THREE

{INTRODUCTORY QUOTE}“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous, they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to first external or internal invader.”~ Samuel Adams, American Statesman, and Founding FatherThe Plaintiff holders of New York handgun carry licenses requested clarification of the Second Circuit’s terse and vacuous, perfunctory order that overturned the U.S. District Court’s granting of their Preliminary Injunction, staying enforcement of the Government’s Concealed Carry License Improvement Act (CCIA).Concerned with an unsatisfactory order lacking any decipherable explanation for its decision staying the Preliminary Injunction, allowing enforcement of Hochul’s amendments to New York’s Gun Law during the pendency of Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli, the Plaintiffs brought their grievance to the U.S. Supreme Court.The High Court accepted the Plaintiffs’ Application for Relief. The Government has precious little time to offer a response, although it need not do so. But, the Second Circuit has provided the New York Government until 4.00 PM, Tuesday, January 3, 2023, to issue its response if it wishes to do so.The procedural tool the Plaintiffs used to secure U.S. Supreme Court intervention here is called the “All Writs Act,” codified in 28 USCS § 1291. And the application of it is often a tortuous mess. The High Court didn’t rule on its efficacy of it here, but it served its purpose.As one legal writer said of the “All Writs Act,”“The prevailing doctrinal landscape is principally a product of two mid-twentieth-century judicial innovations: (1) the collateral order doctrine, which expands the meaning of the term ‘final decision’ for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1291; and (2) appellate mandamus, which allows the federal courts of appeals to review interlocutory orders by issuing writs of mandamus under the All Writs Act, The current system has been subject to much criticism: ‘hopelessly complicated,’  ‘legal gymnastics,’ ‘dazzling in its complexity,’ ‘unconscionable intricacy’ with ‘overlapping exceptions, each less lucid than the next,’ ‘an unacceptable morass,’ ‘dizzying,’ ‘tortured,’ ‘a jurisprudence of unbelievable impenetrability,’ ‘helter-skelter,’ ‘a crazy quilt, ‘a near-chaotic state of affairs,’ a ‘Serbonian Bog,’ and ‘sorely in need of limiting principles.’ In the face of such criticism, the prevailing doctrine on appellate jurisdiction has proven to be surprisingly immune from reform.” “Reinventing Appellate Jurisdiction,” 48 B.C. L. Rev. 1237, November 2007, by Adam N. Steinman, Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati, College of Law, J.D. Yale Law School.” The High Court didn't rule on the applicability of the “All Writs Act,” thereby tacitly accepting jurisdiction to handle the matter set forth in the Plaintiffs' Application for Relief. And the High Court sent a clear message to the New York Government and, by extension, a silent message to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well.The stakes are high, for everyone, Plaintiff New York Concealed Handgun Carry Licensees and Defendant New York Government Officials and Officers, and the matters involved impact the entire Nation, both the American People and other State Governments, and the Federal Government, too. You can bet that Justice Sotomayor’s Order placed a damper on New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day Holiday festivities. And Hochul’s Attorney General, Letitia James, and her staff of lawyers could not have been any happier.Although, as we pointed out, supra, the Defendant New Y0rk Government need not respond to Justice Sotomayor’s directive as it is only a “request” for a response, not an “order” demanding a response, unusual as this “request” is, it would be remiss of the Government to ignore this request. The issuance of even a seemingly benign request, any item coming from the U.S. Supreme Court is to be taken seriously, and in some cases, as here, cause for alarm. And Hochul's Government would be wise to respond to it, even if it isn't required to do so, as the New York Handgun license scheme licensing in place for well over one hundred years is on the line even if it doesn’t appear at the moment to be in jeopardy. It most definitely is.Whether the Government responds or not, however, various scenarios play out. We start with these three observations:First, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York realized the CCIA was not only blatantly unconstitutional but, as it is the Government’s response to the NYSRPA vs. Bruen, the CCIA operates as a blatant slap in the face to the High Court.Second, Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany basically told the U.S. Supreme Court to go to Hell. And while the District Court had no intention of playing that game of kowtowing to the New York Government any longer, the Second Circuit did so, lifting the PI Stay, but with an inadequate explanation because, obviously, there isn't one to be made.Third, The persistent problem for both the New York Government and the Second Circuit, is that the District Court’s findings were not wrong, which is why the District Court granted the PI. That fact also explains why the Second Circuit issued a perfunctory order, not dealing directly with the District Court’s findings. The Second Circuit could not rationally explain how the District Court’s application of the “Four-Factor” test was erroneous, but it didn’t want to rule against the Government. So, it issued a lame order.The Government and the Second Circuit might have expected the Plaintiffs would appeal the adverse action of the Second Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it probably felt the High Court would not accept the Plaintiffs’ application, inferring that there is no tenable basis for the High Court to entertain an interlocutory order here. Indeed, the Plaintiffs probably struggled to find a jurisdictional basis. The best thing, apparently the only thing, the Plaintiffs could come up with was the “All Writs Act” which is a wild stab at getting the U.S. Supreme Court’s attention. But it worked. The High Court wasn't going to stand on ceremony here. And, some credible basis could be made, if the High Court wished to deal with the applicability of the “All Writs Act,” jurisprudentially and jurisdictionally, as the application of it has expanded exponentially through time (so why not here?), the issues are so compelling that the High Court cut to the chase. The implication of the importance of Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli is clear from the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order qua “request” at all, on an interim, interlocutory matter. The New York Government and the Second Circuit felt smug. They both knew or would have, at least, surmised that the Plaintiffs would file their Application for Relief from the Second Circuit's Order, but both apparently, believed, erroneously, that the High Court would reject the Plaintiffs’ Application out of hand. They were wrong if they held such notions.The U.S. Supreme Court didn’t rule on the application of the All Writs Act. It did an end run around it, simply “requesting,”—inviting, but not demanding—the New York Government to respond to the Plaintiffs’ Application for Relief from the Second Circuit’s stay of the Preliminary Injunction. That the High Court has at least invited the Government to respond is bad enough for the Government.What will Hochul’s Government do?The Government need not do anything. The High Court isn’t demanding a response from the Government. It only “requests” a response.Suppose the Government refrains from responding to Justice Sotomayor’s “request,” and takes its chances, relying on the decision of the Second Circuit that reversed the District Court, allowing enforcement of the CCIA during pendency —essentially doubling down on the Second Circuit’s weak Order.This would not bode well for the Government. The High Court could have remained aloof. It could have rebuffed the Plaintiffs’ application for relief from the Second Circuit’s Order. In that event, the High Court would have denied the Application outright. The CCIA would remain in force, and the PI stayed during the pendency. But the High Court didn’t do that.In requesting a response from the Government, the High Court had, in a non-positive way, manifested an interest in the Plaintiffs’ arguments, suggesting that the Plaintiffs’ arguments, supporting its Application for relief from the Second Circuit’s decision staying the PI, have merit. So the Government is obliged to respond.But then, why didn’t the High Court formally take the case up and issue an interlocutory order reversing the Second Circuit’s decision, sua sponte, i.e., on its own motion, affirming the District’s decision, and granting the PI? In that event, enforcement of the CCIA would be stayed, pending resolution of the merits, after which the losing party, having in hand a final order, could appeal a final decision to the U.S. Supreme Court for a full hearing of the Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli case, on the merits. Perhaps, the U.S. Supreme Court, at the moment, at least, wishes to be tactful, and diplomatic. And, so, the Government is tactically compelled to respond. It must take the High Court’s “request” as at least a tacit demand for a response, and for good reason.For, if the Government fails to respond, the High Court will likely, ipso facto, reverse the Second Circuit’s decision. The Government is, then, just asking for trouble by cavalierly failing to respond to the “request.”The Government, from years of experience, would have reason to expect the Second Circuit would kowtow to it, rubber-stamping the most outrageous Government actions, even as the lower Federal District Court made clear it was no longer going to play that game. This came as a surprise to Hochul. And she continually misconstrues the District Court's intent, refusing to acknowledge that the Court's orders mean what they say. This became blatantly clear in Hochul's remarks to the public after the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York dismissed Antonyuk vs. Bruen (Antonyuk I), inferring, wrongly, that the dismissal of the case, without prejudice, constituted an outright win for the Government. Hochul apparently failed to peruse, or, otherwise, she dismissed the reasoning of the Court. The Court made abundantly clear that the major, substantive portions of the CCIA are patently illegal, inconsistent with the plain meaning of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and inconsistent with the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court in NYSRPA vs. Bruen. No matter. The District Court dismissed the case. And for Kathy Hochul that is ALL THAT MATTERED to Hochul. Had she spent a little time reflecting on the content of the Opinion, she would know the Court had dismissed the case due to a standing issue of one of the Party Plaintiffs, and that matter could be rectified by simply filing a new case setting out the same allegations. Thus, the District Court tacitly encouraged the Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, in the Plaintiffs' capacity as an injured individual, to file a new case against the New York Government. And Ivan Antonyuk did just that. That case, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli (Antonyuk II), has come to bite Hochul, like an angry tiger, on her behind, and that tiger is not letting go.It is one thing for Governor Hochul to expect the New York Courts to kowtow to the New York Government on Second Amendment matters, as it has consistently done through the many years and decades. And the Second Circuit has done so, and the District Court has not, even if Hochul wishes to delude herself to think otherwise OR otherwise expect, as, at the moment, has panned out, that the higher U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will override the lower U.S. District Court's rulings. But, it is quite another thing entirely to expect the U.S. Supreme Court to do the same, to kowtow to the Government, knowing that Justice Sotomayor, along with a couple of other Associate Justices, is a diehard liberal-wing Justice, sharing the same ideology, abhorring the Second Amendment no less so than the New York State Government and the Second Circuit, and will therefore keep the High Court Conservative wing in check. No! Where, as here, the institution of the U.S. Supreme Court is threatened, the Justices will band together to preserve the sanctity of the High Court. That was true up to the present time. But with Biden's nominee to the High Court, now confirmed and sitting on the High Court, Ketanju Brown Jackson, it may very well be that a long-standing venerable institution is in danger of losing its integrity upon which it has heretofore remained a truly independent Branch of Government.Therefore, as for the matter at hand, Justice Sotomayor is not about to take action in a manner blatantly inconsistent with the U.S. Supreme Court Bruen rulings, even if she, along with a few other Justices, tends, ideologically, to be sympathetic to the Government's position on the Second Amendment.Thus, the Parties to the action here will be placed in the same position they were in before the Second Circuit’s action. The Second Circuit will be compelled to review the merits of the PI with enforcement of the CCIA stayed during the pendency of a decision on the merits of the case. Nonetheless, the New York Government ought to respond and, it is our prediction, will respond to Justice Sotomayor's “request.”  It must respond or incur the wrath of the U.S. Supreme Court that will take a non-response as yet one more personal slight, adding to a plethora of previous indignities that the miscreant, Kathy Hochul, showered on the Court.   As this article goes to posting, at the end of the business day, January 3, 2023, the New York Government has filed its response to Justice Sotomayor's “request,” pulled up from the U.S. Supreme Court docket. The filing is viewable as a PDF.AQ will study it shortly. Given the short time that the Government had available to it, to respond to Justice Sotomayor's, “request,”  the Government has probably reiterated the points made in its original response to the District Court’s decision, granting the PI, staying enforcement of the Government’s CCIA, and will hope for the best. What happens now?We consider the possibilities in depth, in the next article.______________________

NEW YORK GOVERNOR HOCHUL IS CAUGHT BETWEEN A ROCK AND HARD PLACE AND SHE HAS NO ONE TO BLAME FOR THIS BUT HERSELF

SUBPART FOUR

{INTRODUCTORY QUOTE}“The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors.” ~ Samuel Adams, American Statesman, and Founding FatherNow that New York Governor Kathy Hochul has responded to Justice Sotomayor’s “Response to application (22A557) requested by Justice Sotomayor, due by 4 p.m. (EST), Tuesday, January 3, 2023,” which has just been filed, viewable on the SCOTUS docket, the question is, what happens now? What will the U.S. Supreme Court do?This much we surmise:Justice Sotomayor will act, but she won’t act on her own. Likely, she can’t act on her own. The entire Court must resolve the matter, and it will resolve the matter.The High Court will review and analyze both the Plaintiffs' Application for Relief, previously filed, and titled, “Emergency Application For Immediate Administrative Relief And To Vacate Stay Of Preliminary Injunction Issued By The United States Court Of Appeals For The Second Circuit”, and the Defendant New York Government's Response to the Plaintffs' Application for Relief, titled, “Brief For Respondents In Opposition To Emergency Application For Immediate Administrative Relief And To Vacate Stay Of Preliminary Injunction Issued By The U.S. Court Of Appeals For The Second Circuit.” In rendering its decision, the High Court will likely utilize New York’s own “Four-Factor” standard, devised by the New York Federal Courts to ascertain if a Preliminary Injunction (PI) is warranted or not.Applying New York’s own test, the High Court will determine whether to lift the stay or retain the stay on enforcement of the CCIA during the pendency of a final decision on the PI. The case will then be returned to the Second Circuit for the ultimate resolution of the PI.AQ anticipates that the High Court will waste little time on this, and will render a decision within the next few days or within a week or two at the latest.Likely the High Court will find the District Court’s ruling, granting the Plaintiffs’ PI, warranted and will order the Second Circuit to stay execution of the CCIA while the Second Circuit hashes out the substantive merits of the case.One might think the Second Circuit would find against the Plaintiffs, on the merits, given the Court’s animosity toward the Second Amendment as illustrated in its decision on the District Court’s granting of the Preliminary Injunction. But will it do this? Suppose it does. What then? Plaintiffs will immediately appeal the adverse decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. And the U.S. Supreme Court would take the case up. There is no doubt about that. The U.S. Supreme Court would take the case up because Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli directly affects the High Court’s earlier decision in NYSRPA vs. Bruen. That is something neither the New York Hochul Government, nor the Second Circuit would want. For, the High Court would find that the CCIA, either in full or in substantial part, does not comply with the High Court’sBruen rulings. The High Court would thereupon strike the CCIA down.This would place Hochul Government in a much worse position than it was in when theBruen rulings first came down on June 23, 2022. Hochul should not have toyed with the High Court, pretending to comply with the Court’s Bruen rulings, all the while machinating to further constrain and constrict the exercise of the citizen’s right to armed self-defense. But Hochul thought she knew better. She didn’t. Instead, she stuck her foot well down her throat, and there it remains.And, once the High Court finds theCCIA unconstitutional, it could go one step further, finding the entire New York concealed handgun carry licensing structure unconstitutional. This is something it avoided in NYSRPA vs. Bruen. But, given Hochul’s contemptuous attitude toward the High Court, the gloves are off. The Court could and will take the Hochul Government to task. Strategically, then, to assist the Government, the Second Circuit would do well to find for the Plaintiffs, issuing a Permanent Injunction against enforcement of theCCIA. The Hochul Government wouldn’t dare appeal a seemingly adverse decision. That would be disastrous not only for New York, but for many other jurisdictions around the Country, including New Jersey, Illinois, California, Oregon, and Washington State, among others. Ultimately New York will have to revert to the original Gun Law, in substantial part, albeit without the “Proper Cause” requirement and without the other mischief it devised in constructing the CCIA. The Government will be compelled to issue a lot more concealed handgun carry licenses. It would be a bitter pill for the Government to swallow. But, at least, the Hochul Government will be able to keep intact some semblance of the State handgun licensing scheme, which it desires to preserve at all costs.Can Hochul do anything else, if not juridically, then politically to constrain New Yorkers from exercising their Second Amendment right? She can rant and rave to the Press, of course, which she will do anyway, and she can take her complaint to the Grand Harlequin in Chief, Joe Biden. But what the Hell can Biden do for her? Not a damn thing unless his Administration is prepared to declare martial law, arguing the U.S. Supreme Court and the Bill of Rights are now both defunct. This would lead to armed conflict throughout the Country. That is a dead certainty. The Administrative State, although powerful, isn’t omnipotent even if it thinks it is and even if many of the brainwashed legions of Americans think so, too.For, here, in our Country, unlike in the EU, in the Commonwealth Nations, or in CCP China, Americans are well-armed, tens of millions of Americans, and Americans have substantial ammunition to prevent a Neoliberal Globalist/Neo-Marxist Counterrevolution from overturning the American Revolution of 1776.History, morality, and law would all be on the side of America’s Patriots to take up arms against forces intent on thrusting a Neoliberal Globalist/Neo-Marxist Counterrevolution on the Nation.A declaration of martial law where no legitimate reason exists for invoking it—and there is none—irrefutably points to immoral and unlawful tyranny of Government.The Biden Administration would be openly guilty of this: launching tyranny of Government in the form of an illegal oligarchic conspiratorial takeover of the Government against the American people.Recall that Justin Trudeau declared martial law in Canada, for a short time. Canada has nothing remotely like a true Bill of Rights to secure freedom and liberty for common Canadians, but even that jackass was forced to back down, given a backlash in the Canadian Parliament. But he has learned from his earlier mistakes. He has since insinuated martial law in Canada incrementally, insidiously, beginning with a total ban on civilian possession of handguns. Further actions against liberty and freedom will be forthcoming. Wait and see. So much for Canada. And lots of luck with that, you Canadians!But for us, Americans, we should focus on Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli. Where is that case headed in the immediate future?The High Court will issue its order, sending the case back to the Second Circuit, but likely reaffirming the District Court’s grant of the PI, staying enforcement of the CCIA during the pendency of the case. That is our prediction. And that benefits Plaintiffs from the get-go. Time is on their side. However long the Second Circuit takes, the CCIA will remain suspended. We also predict as we stated, supra, that the Second Circuit will affirm the District Court’s findings on the Plaintiffs’ PI and convert it to a Permanent Injunction against enforcement of the CCIA, in full or in substantial part. The Second Circuit will take that seemingly paradoxical action to salvage for the Hochul Government what it can of New York’s concealed handgun licensing structure. Otherwise, if the Second Circuit were to find against the Plaintiffs, overturning the PI, ruling the CCIA constitutional, that would serve as a final appealable order just begging for the High Court's review of the case on the substantive merits with disastrous consequences for Hochul’s Government. So, the Hochul Government is, ultimately, in a quagmire it cannot extricate itself from. And Hochul herself can’t do a damn thing about it except beat her chest, screech, and howl to the winds. And, she has only herself to blame for this. She should not have toyed with the Bruen rulings, nor should she have poured salt on an open wound, contemptuously deriding the Court for its rulings, in the process, as she openly defied the Court.So, then, the Plaintiffs are in a strong position here to secure and strengthen the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment even if that isn’t immediately evident.The Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists both here and abroad will also moan and thrash about in impotent rage as the Republic may yet survive. The question is: Will the Biden Administration dare impose martial law on the Country in the next couple of years? Not likely. Not that it wouldn’t love to do just that.But, for all the myriad ways that the Biden Administration has deliberately weakened this Country, in the first two years of its reign, reversing Trump’s triumphs, as he has strengthened our Nation, and has secured it from threats posed by obvious foes and by dubious friends, the Biden Administration would be out of its mind to attempt confiscation of arms and ammunition on an industry-wide scale. What argument could the Biden Administration rationally conjure up? Can it rationally claim national security concerns, demanding that stringent measures be taken against those gun-toting “MAGA” Americans, and claiming a desire to protect the public from this thing, “Gun Violence,” even as the Government allows, even encourages, psychopathic criminals and lunatics to run amok, preying at will on innocent Americans?Spouting endless harangues against guns and the tens of millions of Americans who cherish their natural law right to keep and bear arms is one thing. Americans are inured to that. It is nothing more than water rolling off a duck’s back. But, to demand that average Americans forsake their firearms or face the wrath of the Federal Government is something else again. That is a recipe for civil war, the likes of which this Nation hasn’t seen since the War between the Blue and Gray. And it is the Federal Government itself that would bear sole responsibility for lighting that powder keg, unleashing a new horror on the Country for which History would forever justifiably excoriate.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

THE MEANING OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS CLEAR, AND THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS SPOKEN, BUT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND NEW YORK GOVERNOR HOCHUL HAVE OTHER PLANS

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART TWENTY

SUBPART ONE OF PART TWENTY

{INTRODUCTORY QUOTATION}“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their arms.” ~Samuel Adams, American Statesman and Founding FatherThe importance of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen cannot be overstated. These cases, together, establish the Court’s recognition of, one, the immutable, eternal right of the people to keep and bear arms, two, that this right shall not be infringed, and, three, that the armed citizenry is necessary to the security of a free State.The existence of and maintenance of a free Constitutional Republic is impossible without a well-armed citizenry.To understand where we are, at the start of a new year, we must retrace our steps back to 2020.Biden and the Democrat Party will up the ante in their attack on the Second Amendment. That is indisputable.In 2022, this assault on the right to armed self-defense against the predatory beast, predatory man, and, worst of all, predatory Government, became manifest.In early February 2021, we pointed out, in our article, titled, “The Biden Plan for the Political and Social Remaking of the American Landscape,” that——“During his first two weeks in Office, Joe Biden signed over 40 executive orders or similar executive edicts. And he isn’t done. A few days into February and we can expect to see 50 or more Presidential executive orders and other edicts.” This is unheard of.For comparison, we pointed to a news report published in February 2021, positing that,“President Donald Trump signed four in his first week in 2017; President Barack Obama signed five in 2009; President George W. Bush signed none in his first week in 2001; and President Bill Clinton signed one in 1993.”Apparently, Biden and the puppet masters who control him would waste no time reversing the gains Trump had made in setting the Nation back on course, consistent with the aims of the founders of our Nation: To maintain a strong and independent, sovereign Nation-State, and free Constitutional Republic.The Neoliberal Globalists have reverted to their agenda, set in motion by George Bush and Barack Obama, aimed at dismantling a free Republic and eliminating the exercise of Americans’ natural law rights through which the citizenry maintains its lawful sovereign authority over the Nation and Federal Government, and over its own destiny.Also, in that February 2021 article, the reporter pointed out that——“The twin issues of ‘guns’ and ‘gun violence’ will be much discussed in the weeks and months ahead. That much is certain.Will Biden sign an executive order banning assault weapons’ and will he sign a flurry of other antigun laws as well, not bothering to wait for Congressional enactments?Don’t think this is improbable. In fact, with all the banter of gun-toting ‘white supremacists’ and right-wing ‘domestic terrorists’ and with thousands of National Guard troops camped out in the U.S. Capital, and with the constant denigration of and growing suppression of conservative dissent, something is definitely afoot. In fact, the Democrat Party propaganda machine is in overdrive. The propagandist newspaper, NY Times, for one, has laid the groundwork for an assault on ‘guns.’”Our remarks and those in the news article were prescient.In June 2022, due to Congressional Democrats and scurrilous Congressional Republicans, Biden “signed into law into law the first major federal gun reform in three decades, days after a decision he condemned by the Supreme Court expanding firearm owners’ rights.” See the article in Reuters.Dutifully, compliantly obeying the orders of his Administrative nursemaids and caretakers, who themselves take orders from shadowy, sinister forces from on high, the Biden puppet also took aim at the millions of civilian citizens who own and possess semiautomatic weaponry and components of the weapons.But what is especially important here is a remark Biden conveyed to the Press, as reported by Reuters, in that same June 2022 article.“‘The Supreme Court has made some terrible decisions.’” The demented fool probably didn’t know what specific U.S. Supreme Court cases his caretakers ordered him to refer to. No matter. All Americans should know. And America’s Patriots do know.One was Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health. Dobbs. The other was NYSRPA vs. Bruen. Both decisions are important. But the latter is much more important. The latter case pertains directly to the security of a free State. The former does not.NYSRPA vs. Bruen is the latest in a Supreme Court jurisprudential “trilogy” of seminal Second Amendment cases. Yet, the Biden Administration and some State Governments have openly defied the U.S. Supreme Court, and, worse, have openly demonstrated visible contempt for the High Court.At both the Federal Level and State Levels, powerful malevolent and malignant forces have directed their assault on America’s Second Amendment. Biden and New York Governor Kathy Hochul are the public faces behind shadowy orchestrators, passing along orders surreptitiously to their puppets.Our Free Constitutional Republic is in dire jeopardy.New York State Government and actions of other States since Bruen demonstrate all the fervor, ferocity, and audacity of those State governments to go their own way, blatantly disregarding Bruen as they disregarded Heller and McDonald. This has resulted in a plethora of new litigation against the States by Americans who desire only to exercise their natural law right to armed self-defense.This points to a tremendous disconnect between the Country Americans know and love, and an alien, monstrous non-nation the Biden Administration and many States, in league with the Biden Administration wish to thrust on Americans, against their will.The number of cases filed and progression of post-Bruen case law decisions in New York, alone, point to Americans’ adoration of the natural law right to armed self-defense and to the extraordinary lengths they will go to compel rogue States to adhere to both the plain meaning of the Second Amendment and to those U.S. Supreme Court rulings cementing the Second Amendment in the American psyche.The High Court directed its Bruen rulings to New York’s “May Issue” gun law language, apropos of the State’s “Proper Cause” requirement. But the Court’s rulings apply to other States with similar language in their Gun Laws.As one might expect, holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licensees were the first out of the gate, in any jurisdiction, to challenge the constitutionality of amendments to the New York Gun Law, the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”). The Bruen decision came down on June 23, 2022. Hochul signed the CCIA into law on July 1, 2022. And Plaintiffs filed their case, Antonyuk vs. Bruen (Antonyuk I) on July 11, 2022.Since then, both Antonyuk I and a plethora of other cases wended their way through New York’s Federal Courts. But none are more important than that first case, as it is the first one to make its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the first one to receive a response from the U.S. Supreme Court since its rulings in NYSRPA vs. Bruen.After the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York dismissed Antonyuk I, without prejudice, Plaintiff Ivan Antonyuk and other holders of valid New York handgun carry licenses filed a new case, on September 20, 2022 (Antonyuk II). That case was recaptioned Antonyuk vs. Hochul. And, after the Court dismissed Hochul out as a Party Defendant, and, after a new Superintendent of the New York State Police, Steven Nigrelli, took over from the previous Superintendent of the New York State Police, Kevin Bruen, the Plaintiffs’ recaptioned the case, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction, staying the execution of Hochul’s CCIA on November 7, 2022.One day later, coincidentally, the date of the Midterm Elections, November 8, 2022, the New York Government filed its Motion to the U.S. Court of Appeals, seeking relief from the PI, and the Second Circuit granted the relief the Government sought, on November 15, 2022, staying the PI, allowing execution of the CCIA during the pendency of the merits of the PI. Four days later, the Plaintiffs, NY concealed handgun carry licensees filed their own response to the lifting of the Stay.After the Second Circuit issued its ruling reversing the District’s granting of the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction. The Second Circuit modified its order minimally. The PI remained, stayed. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, posted on December 14, 2022, for details.The plaintiffs appealed the Second Circuit’s ruling, requesting relief from the U.S. Supreme Court.As pointed out by John Crump, in an article posted on Ammoland on December 28, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court, on December 27, 2022, demanded a response from the Second Circuit.Justice Sotomayor issued a terse “request.” Note: the term ‘request’ means the High Court isn’t ordering Hochul’s Government to respond to the Plaintiff’s Application for Relief, but a “request,” having been made, obviously encourages the Government to respond.Sotomayor’s directive reads:“Response to application (22A557) requested by Justice Sotomayor, due by 4 p.m. (EST), Tuesday, January 3, 2023.”Sotomayor’s Order is in reference to the Plaintiffs’ filing of December 21, 2022, titled,“Emergency Application For Immediate Administrative Relief And To Vacate Stay Of Preliminary Injunction Issued By The United States Court Of Appeals For The Second Circuit.”In their filing, the Plaintiffs assert,“Without providing any analysis or explanation, the Second Circuit has stayed a preliminary injunction issued by a federal district court in New York that was carefully designed to limit New York’s enforcement of a sweeping gun control statute, enacted as retaliation against New York gun owners for having prevailed in this Court’s decision in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022). The district court’s injunction was supported by a detailed 184-page opinion, meticulously tailored to follow this Court’s framework established in Bruen. In contrast, the Second Circuit’s stay pending appeal was issued based only on a single conclusory assertion, yet with the effect of indefinitely suspending the protections afforded New Yorkers by the Second Amendment and affirmed by this Court in Bruen. The Second Circuit’s stay should be vacated in order to uphold the right of New Yorkers to keep and bear arms, as well as to vindicate the authority of this Court over the circuit courts. This Court’s Opinion in Bruen was issued on June 23, 2022. Only hours later, New York Governor Hochul promised to ‘fight back’:We just received some disturbing news . . . the Supreme Court . . . has stripped away the State of New York’s right and responsibility to protect its citizens . . . with a decision . . . which is frightful in its scope of how they are setting back this nation. . . . This decision is not just reckless, it’s reprehensible. It’s not what New Yorkers want, and we should have the right of . . . what we want to do in terms of gun laws in our state. . . . [O]ur governor has a moral responsibility to do what we can . . . because of what is going on, the insanity of the gun culture that has now possessed everyone up to the Supreme Court. . . . We’ve been ready for this . . . We’ve been working with a team of legal experts . . . I’m prepared to call the legislature back into session. . . . We are not going to cede our rights that easily, despite the best efforts of the politicized Supreme Court. . . . No longer can we strike the balance. . . Shocking. They have taken away our rights. . . . This is New York. We don’t back down. We fight back. . . . I’m prepared to go back to muskets. . . . We’re just getting started here. Just eight days later on July 1, 2022, the New York Legislature responded to Governor Hochul’s call to defy this Court’s authority and resist Bruen’s protection of Second Amendment rights, enacting the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (“CCIA”). After extensive briefing, a hearing, and oral argument, the district court enjoined portions of the CCIA in a 184-page opinion. Shortly thereafter the Second Circuit, without providing any reasoning or analysis, granted New York’s request first for a temporary administrative stay, and then a stay pending appeal, allowing New York’s repudiation of Bruen back into effect without so much as a brief explanation.”The key to the Plaintiffs’ argument supporting relief from the Second Circuit’s perfunctory decision is the lack of reasoning of the Second Circuit for overriding the District Court’s analysis of the “Four-Factor” test, and the High Court is requesting the Government, and, obliquely, the Second Circuit itself, for an explanation of its reasoning behind the lifting of the PI stay of execution of the CCIA.In its comprehensive Opinion, the District Court determined the Plaintiff Handgun Licensees proved that awarding the PI is warranted.The U.S. Supreme Court be versed in the District Court’s comprehensive rulings, supporting its granting of Plaintiffs’ PI. And the High Court would be versed in the Second Circuit’s reversal of the lower Court’s curt decision, dismissive of the District Court’s findings.The U.S. Supreme Court’s unusual “request,” directed to the New York Government, is also aimed at the Second Circuit. The High Court is asking the Government, essentially a surrogate for the Second Circuit, to explain why the District Court’s comprehensive, logical, rational opinion, supporting its granting of the Preliminary Injunction, should be considered erroneous.Since the Second Circuit’s reversal of the District Court’s well-reasoned opinion granting the PI, is cryptic or, otherwise, meaningless, the U.S. Supreme Court has asked the Government to step in and explain why the U.S. District Court’s granting of the PI, staying enforcement of the CCIA should not be reinstated.This request mirrors the Plaintiffs’ Application to the Second Circuit, requesting an explanation for its curt reversal of the District Court’s granting of the Plaintiffs’ PI, sans any reason for lifting the Stay of the CCIA, imposed by the District Court.See our article titled, “New York’s Gun Law: A History Of & Present Status Of The Antonyuk Case,” posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News, posted on December 28, 2022.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York issued a Preliminary Injunction against enforcement of the CCIA because,

• The Plaintiff handgun licensees are likely to succeed on the merits.
• The Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable injury absent a stay of the CCIA.
• The Government is unlikely to incur substantial injury through a stay of enforcement of the CCIA during the review of the merits of the Plaintiffs' case against the New York Government.
• The public interest is so great and so grave that enforcement of the Government’s CCIA should be stayed pending the resolution of the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction.

That the Second Circuit lifted the stay not only allows enforcement of the CCIA, before the merits of the case are decided but disturbingly suggests the Second Circuit will ultimately find for the Government. This means the Second Circuit likely won’t issue a permanent injunction against enforcement of the CCIA but will find the CCIA constitutional when it isn’t.The New York Government, and, by extension, the Second Circuit, albeit tacitly, must now admit they both detest the Second Amendment, and they are contemptuous of Bruen.Both the Government and the Second Circuit are behind the eight-ball.The U.S. Supreme Court knows there is no logical and legal reason to allow the enforcement of an unconstitutional gun law. And the High Court is nudging the Government to admit that fact.The Government need not respond to Justice Sotomayor’s unusual directive, as it is a “request” not an order. But, obviously, Justice Sotomayor has encouraged the Government to respond, as failure to respond serves as a silent affirmation of the unconstitutionality of the CCIA.We consider in our next article the options open to the Government and the ramifications of their action, or non-action, in our next article. The New York Government’s response—if there is one—must be filed by Tuesday, January 3, 2023.___________________________________

THE NEW YORK STATE GOVERNMENT MUST EXPLAIN ITSELF TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: THE FATE OF MILLIONS OF NEW YORK GUN OWNERS HANGS IN THE BALANCE AND THE CLOCK IS TICKING

SUBPART TWO

{INTRODUCTORY QUOTE}“It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or of any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce their essential natural rights.”“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous, they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to first external or internal invader.”~ Two Quotes from  Samuel Adams, American Statesman, and Founding FatherThe Plaintiff holders of New York handgun carry licenses requested clarification of the Second Circuit’s terse, vacuous, perfunctory order that overturned the U.S. District Court’s granting of their Preliminary Injunction, staying enforcement of the Government’s Concealed Carry License Improvement Act (CCIA).Concerned with an unsatisfactory order lacking any decipherable explanation for its decision staying the Preliminary Injunction, allowing enforcement of Hochul’s amendments to New York’s Gun Law during the pendency of Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli, the Plaintiffs brought their grievance to the U.S. Supreme Court.The High Court accepted the Plaintiffs’ Application for Relief. The Government has precious little time to offer a response, although it need not do so. The Second Circuit has provided the New York Government until 4.00 PM, Tuesday, January 3, 2023, to issue its response if it wishes to do so.The procedural tool the Plaintiffs used to secure U.S. Supreme Court intervention here is called the “All Writs Act,” codified in 28 USCS § 1291. And the application of it is often a tortuous mess. As one legal writer said of the “All Writs Act,”“The prevailing doctrinal landscape is principally a product of two mid-twentieth-century judicial innovations: (1) the collateral order doctrine, which expands the meaning of the term ‘final decision’ for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1291; and (2) appellate mandamus, which allows the federal courts of appeals to review interlocutory orders by issuing writs of mandamus under the All Writs Act, The current system has been subject to much criticism: ‘hopelessly complicated,’  ‘legal gymnastics,’ ‘dazzling in its complexity,’ ‘unconscionable intricacy’ with ‘overlapping exceptions, each less lucid than the next,’ ‘an unacceptable morass,’ ‘dizzying,’ ‘tortured,’ ‘a jurisprudence of unbelievable impenetrability,’ ‘helter-skelter,’ ‘a crazy quilt, ‘a near-chaotic state of affairs,’ a ‘Serbonian Bog,’ and ‘sorely in need of limiting principles.’ In the face of such criticism, the prevailing doctrine on appellate jurisdiction has proven to be surprisingly immune from reform.” “Reinventing Appellate Jurisdiction,” 48 B.C. L. Rev. 1237, November 2007, by Adam N. Steinman, Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati, College of Law, J.D. Yale Law School.” The stakes are high. You can bet that Justice Sotomayor’s Order placed a damper on New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day Holiday festivities. And Hochul’s Attorney General, Letitia James, and her staff of lawyers could not have been any happier.Although the Government need not respond to Justice Sotomayor’s directive as it is only a “request” for a response, not an “order,” it is still a cause for alarm. And the Government would be wise to respond to it as the New York Handgun license scheme licensing in place for well over one hundred years is on the line.Whether the Government responds or not, various scenarios play out. John Crump has pointed to a couple of possible scenarios. See, once again, his article in Ammoland Shooting Sports News. We expand on those, and we start with these three observations:First, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York realized the CCIA was not only blatantly unconstitutional but, as it is the Government’s response to the NYSRPA vs. Bruen, the CCIA operates as a blatant slap in the face to the High Court.Second, Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany basically told the U.S. Supreme Court to go to Hell. And while the District Court had no intention of playing that game any longer, kowtowing to the New York Government, the Second Circuit did so, lifting the PI Stay, but with an inadequate explanation.Third, The persistent problem for both the New York Government and the Second Circuit, is that the District Court’s findings were not wrong, which is why the District Court granted the PI. That fact also explains why the Second Circuit issued a perfunctory order, not dealing directly with the District Court’s findings.  resulted in the Plaintiffs’ appeal of an interlocutory order directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Second Circuit could not justify rationally how the District Court’s application of the “Four-Factor” test was erroneous, but it didn’t want to rule against the Government. So it issued a lame order.The Government and the Second Circuit might have expected the Plaintiffs would appeal the adverse action of the Second Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it probably felt the High Court would not accept the Plaintiffs’ application, inferring that use of the All Writs Act is a wild stab at getting the U.S. Supreme Court to accept a jurisdictional basis that doesn’t apply here.Perhaps that is why the Government and the Second Circuit felt smug, believing, erroneously, that the High Court would not grant the All Writs Act, compelling the New York Government to make its case for staying the PI. But the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t rule on the application of the All Writs Act. It did an end run around it, simply “requesting,”—inviting, but not demanding—the New York Government to respond to the Plaintiffs’ Application for Relief from the Second Circuit’s stay of the Preliminary Injunction. That the High Court has at least invited the Government to respond is bad enough for the Government.What will Hochul’s Government do?The Government need not do anything. The High Court isn’t demanding a response from the Government. It only “requests” a response.Suppose the Government refrains from responding to Justice Sotomayor’s “request,” and takes its chances, relying on the decision of the Second Circuit that reversed the District Court, allowing enforcement of the CCIA during pendency —essentially doubling down on the Second Circuit’s weak determination.This would not bode well for the Government. The High Court could have remained aloof. It could have rebuffed the Plaintiffs’ application for relief from the Second Circuit’s Order. In that event, the Court High Court would have denied the Application outright. The CCIA would remain in force, and the PI stayed during the pendency. But the High Court didn’t do this.In requesting a response from the Government, the High Court had, in a non-positive way, manifested an interest in the Plaintiffs’ arguments, suggesting that the Plaintiffs’ arguments, supporting its Application for relief from the Second Circuit’s decision staying the PI, have merit.But then, why didn’t the High Court formally take the case up and issue an interlocutory order reversing the Second Circuit’s decision, affirming the District’s decision, and granting the PI? In that event, enforcement of the CCIA would be stayed, pending resolution of the merits, after which the losing party, having in hand a final order, could appeal a final decision to the U.S. Supreme Court for a full hearing of the Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli case, on the merits.The Government is nonetheless tactically compelled to respond. It must take the High Court’s “request” as a demand for a response, and for good reason.For, if the Government fails to respond, the High Court will likely reverse the Second Circuit’s decision. The Government is just asking for trouble by cavalierly failing to respond to the “request.” The Government may from years of experience, expect that the Second Circuit will kowtow to it, rubber-stamping the most outrageous Government actions. But, it is another thing again to expect the U.S. Supreme Court to do so, even if Justice Sotomayor is a diehard liberal-wing Justice, who abhors the Second Amendment no less than the New York State Government. Justice Sotomayor is not about to take an action inconsistent with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, even if she, along with a few other Justices, tends to be sympathetic to the Government's position on the Second Amendment. Thus, the Parties will be placed in the same position they were in before the Second Circuit’s action. Thus, the Second Circuit will be compelled to review the merits of the PI with enforcement of the CCIA stayed during the pendency of a decision on the merits of the case. This is why the New York Government must respond and will respond to Justice Sotomayor's “request.”  It must respond or incur the wrath of the U.S. Supreme Court. But, given the short time available to it, now imminent as this article goes to publication, the Government will probably simply reiterate the points made in its original response to the District Court’s decision, granting the PI, staying enforcement of the Government’s CCIA. What happens then?Justice Sotomayor won’t act on her own. Likely, she can’t act on her own. The entire Court must resolve the matter.And, utilizing New York’s own “Four-Factor” standard, devised by the New York Federal Courts to ascertain if a PI should be granted or not, the High Court will determine whether to lift the stay or retain the stay on enforcement of the CCIA during the pendency of a final decision on the PI. In either event, the case will be returned to the Second Circuit for ultimate resolution.If the Second Circuit finds for the Plaintiffs, which is doubtful, given the Court’s animosity toward the Second Amendment as illustrated in its decision on the District Court’s granting of the Preliminary Injunction, the Second Circuit will deny the preliminary injunction, and rule the CCIA constitutional. With the denial of a preliminary injunction, the decision will have the effect of a final judgment on the merits. The Second Circuit will have determined that the CCIA is constitutional. The Plaintiffs will return to the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting a formal review of the case on the merits.And the U.S. Supreme Court will take the case up. There is no doubt about that. Since the case directly affects its earlier decision in NYSRPA vs. Bruen, the Court will determine whether the CCIA complies with the High Court’s Bruen rulings or doesn’t. Unless the composition of the High Court changes, the Court will find the CCIA unconstitutional in full or in part. Likely the result will bode ill for the Government. The entire concealed handgun carry license scheme will now be on the line. And the decision will result in severely weakening if not upending the entire New York handgun licensing scheme.This places the Hochul Government in a worse position than it was when the Bruen rulings came down on June 23, 2022. She should not have toyed with the High Court, pretending to comply with the Court’s Bruen rulings, all the while constricting the exercise of the right to armed self-defense ever tighter.The Second Circuit would know this from the get-go. Rightfully fearing reversal of an appeal if it denies the preliminary injunction, effectively finding the CCIA Constitutional, the Second Circuit may throw in the towel. In that event, the Court will grant the Preliminary Injunction, finding it meets the New York “Four-Factor” standard, and thence convert it into a Permanent Injunction. That means the CCIA will remain unenforceable forever. Thus, even if the Constitutionality of it isn’t decided, the net effect is to reduce its impact to nullity.What happens then? The Government can appeal an adverse decision to the High Court. It won’t do that. For if it did so, the High Court will take the appeal up and affirm the decision of the Second Circuit.The High Court may even go one step further, holding the CCIA unconstitutional. Conceivably the High Court could go two steps further, finding the entire New York concealed handgun carry licensing structure unconstitutional. Looking at the Government’s attitude toward the Court, as exemplified by its actions, the Court could take the Hochul Government to task. That is possible.Therefore, if the Second Circuit finds for the Plaintiffs, issuing a Permanent Injunction against enforcement of the CCIA, the Hochul Government won’t dare appeal a decision. That would result be disastrous not only for New York, but for many other jurisdictions around the Country, including New Jersey, Illinois, California, Oregon, and Washington State, among others.The best that Hochul can hope for, and the Biden Administration, too, is that, in the next two years, they have an opportunity to get seat another Anti-Bill of Rights person on the High Court. Don’t be surprised to see Biden nominating his Attorney General, Merrick Garland to a seat. Democrats have waited a long time, and they have never forgiven Trump, nor McConnell for denying Garland a Confirmation Hearing which would have seen him on the Court anyway. If that had occurred, Bruen would never have been decided favorably. More likely, the High Court likely would never have reviewed the Bruen case. And Heller and McDonald would be in jeopardy of being overturned. And with the loss of Heller and McDonald, the Country would be that much closer to seeing the end of days for a free Constitutional Republic and a sovereign American citizenry.Can Hochul do anything else, politically, since she is foreclosed from doing anything more juridically? She can rant and rave in the Press, and she can take her complaint to the Grand Harlequin in Chief, Biden. But what the Hell can Biden do for her? Not a damn thing unless his Administration is prepared to declare martial law, arguing the U.S. Supreme Court is now defunct. This happens in Banana Republics. It doesn’t happen in honest-to-God Constitutional Republics. This would lead to armed conflict. The Administrative State, although powerful, isn’t omnipotent even if it thinks it is and even if many Americans think so, too.For, here, in our Country, unlike in the EU, in the Commonwealth Nations, or in CCP China, Americans are well-armed, tens of millions, and Americans have substantial ammunition to prevent a Neoliberal Globalist/Neo-Marxist Counterrevolution from prevailing. That fact isn’t to be taken lightly by this Nation's rogue Federal Government and by rogue State Governments like that of New York. And Americans would have a good case, morally, historically, and legally, for taking up arms against those forces intent on entertaining a Neoliberal Globalist/Neo-Marxist  Counterrevolution.A declaration of martial law where no legitimate reason exists for invoking it manifestly demonstrates tyranny of Government.The Biden Administration would be openly admitting this through its actions: Tyranny of Government in the form of an illegal oligarchic conspiratorial takeover of the Government against the American people.Recall that Justin Trudeau declared martial law in Canada, for a short time. Canada has nothing remotely that can honestly be considered a true Bill of Rights, and even that jackass was forced to back down, given a backlash in the Canadian Parliament.So where is Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli headed?The High Court will issue its order, and it will shoot down the Second Circuit. That is our prediction. It means the CCIA will remain unenforceable during the pendency of the Plaintiffs’ lawsuit, and the PI will remain effective. And neither the Second Circuit nor Hochul can do a damn thing about it except beat their chest, screech, and wail to the winds.But, even if the High Court affirms the decision of the Second Circuit or, through its inaction, remains silent on the Second Circuit’s decision, allowing the decision to stand, the Hochul Government is, ultimately, in a quagmire it cannot extricate itself from.If the Second Circuit finds against the Plaintiffs on the merits, the Plaintiffs will appeal an adverse decision to the High Court. And the Court will take up the case. There is no question about that. And, the CCIA will be struck down, as it is untenable. It contradicts the plain meaning of the Second Amendment and the Bruen rulings. And once the CCIA is struck down, that will severely damage the entire handgun licensing structure of New York, as the illegality of the entire structure, and the illegal machinations of the Government that created it will be crystal clear.And, if the Second Circuit finds for the Plaintiffs and issues a permanent injunction against the Government on enforcement of the CCIA, that will effectively strike the death knell for the CCIA, setting the stage for the eventual dismantling of the entire handgun licensing structure as it was untenable, legally, historically, and morally, at its inception, as the Sullivan Act, 112 years ago.The Government can appeal from a Second Circuit Court ruling against it, but it won’t do that. It has nothing to gain, and it has everything to lose were it to do so. For, the last thing New York needs is a fourth seminal Second Amendment case that not only effectively destroys the entire handgun licensing structure of the State but will effectively be disastrous for all other jurisdictions that have draconian “may issue” concealed handgun carry license laws in place.Either way, we see the Plaintiffs in a good position here to secure and strengthen the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment even if that isn’t immediately evident.The Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists both here and abroad will thrash about in impotent rage as the Republic may yet survive. The question is: Will the Biden Administration dare impose martial law on the Country?For all the myriad ways that the Biden Administration has deliberately weakened this Country, the Government would be out of its mind to attempt confiscation of arms and ammunition on a wide scale, claiming that national security concerns demand that stringent measures be taken against these gun-toting “MAGA” Americans. Spouting harangues against guns and tens of millions of Americans who cherish their natural law right to keep and bear arms is one thing. Demanding Americans to forsake their firearms is something else again.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

IF THE SECOND AMENDMENT FALLS, THE NATION FALLS, AND NEW YORK IS DOING ITS PART TO MAKE SURE THAT HAPPENS

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART NINETEEN

SUBPART ONE OF PART NINETEEN

A NATION ON THE PRECIPICE OF RUINATION

As one more year draws rapidly to a close in these first three decades of the 21^st Century, the United States stands precariously at the edge of an abyss.One Branch of the Federal Government, the U.S Supreme Court, at least, recognizes the danger, and has prevented the Country from falling over the precipice.After a century of sidestepping the issue, the U.S. Supreme Court established, in three precedential case law decisions, what had been visibly plain in the language of the Second Amendment itself all along, if one would only look.All three cases were handed down in the first three decades of the 21^st Century. They include:District of Columbia vs. Heller in 2008, McDonald vs. City of Chicago in 2010 and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association vs. Bruen in 2022.These three cases, together, stand for the following propositions, now black letter law:

• The right of armed self-defense is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia
• The right of armed self-defense is a universal right, applicable to both the States and the Federal Government.
• The right of armed self-defense applies wherever a person is, inside the home or outside it.

These three legal axioms are, together, the singular Law of the Land. But for this Law, the Republic would have fallen into ruin, this Century.There would be nothing to rein in a rogue Congress, a rogue Biden Administration, or rogue jurisdictions like those around the Country: New York, Illinois, California, Washington State, Washington D.C., Oregon, Hawaii, and several others.The rot from those State jurisdictions and from the Federal Government would eventually infect many other States.Forces inside the Government and outside it, both here and abroad—wealthy and powerful, malevolent and malignant—machinate constantly to destroy the right to armed self-defense.These forces will not tolerate an armed citizenry.The existence of an armed citizenry contradicts their end goal of a neo-feudalistic world government. The armed citizenry precept deviates from their plan of world conquest.Their goal for the 21st Century is a return to the political, social, and economic feudalistic construct operating in the world of the 5th through 15th Centuries—the Middle Ages.These ruthless elements have declared——

• The United States can no longer continue as a free Constitutional Republic;
• The American people must be subjugated; and
• Any thought of an armed citizenry must be erased from the collective memory of the American people.

The ashes of a once powerful, respected, sovereign, independent United States are to be commingled with the ashes of other western nations.The EU and the British Commonwealth Nations are a step in the direction of that world empire.The neoliberal democratic world order is conceived as——

• One devoid of defined geographical borders,
• One absent national governments; and
• One bereft of any defining history, heritage, culture, ethos, or Judeo-Christian ethic by which the people of one nation may easily distinguish themselves from any other.

Will the U.S. fall victim to totalitarianism as have the nations of the EU and British Commonwealth; as have India and China; and as have most all countries in the Middle East? Let us hope not.The U.S. need not fall victim.The U.S. has something all other nations lack: a true Bill of Rights.Our Bill of Rights consists of a set of natural laws: fundamental, unalienable, unmodifiable, immutable, illimitable, and eternal.Within this Country’s Bill of Rights rests a Cardinal Truth. And, of this Truth——

• The Founders were aware of it.
• The Republic they founded is grounded on it.
• The strength and power of our Country and the staying power of our Constitution is a testament to it.

All Americans should imprint this Truth on their collective memory:“What isn’t created by man cannot lawfully be taken from man by other men, nor by any temporal artifice of man: Government, for the sanctity, inviolability of man’s Selfhood, his Soul, and his Spirit do not belong to the Government; they cannot be bestowed on man by Government; and they cannot be severed from man by Government.Government is a dangerous enterprise.Our Federal Government is no longer reliable. It has gone rogue. It has forgotten the people whose interests it was created to serve. It serves special interests that fill campaign coffers and it serves wealthy, powerful foreign agencies of whom the public has no inkling.

• With this Federal Government, the American people have got “a tiger by the tail.” It is difficult to hold onto, but one daren’t let it go, lest it bite the people. Best to destroy it if we can no longer hold onto it.
• That “Tiger,” our Federal Government, is a creation of the American people and exists only to serve the people—the true and sole sovereign over the Federal Government.
• The presence of an armed citizenry serves as both evidence of its sovereignty over the Government, and the mechanism by which it may lawfully constrain it contain it, or curtail it if the Government loses its way and turns against the people.
• The Right to Armed Self-Defense is Natural Law, a God-given right, bestowed on man by the Divine Creator.
• Government cannot lawfully modify Natural Law, Ignore it, Rescind it, or formally Repeal it.
• Since armed self-defense is a Natural Law Right, the U.S. Supreme Court—in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen—didn’t make new law. The rulings of the three seminal High Court cases simply make explicit what is tacit in the language of the Second Amendment.

Unfortunately, many jurisdictions have failed to recognize, or otherwise have failed to acknowledge and accept, the strictures of the Second Amendment.That necessitated the intervention of the High Court. In one Second Amendment case after another—from Heller to McDonald, and then to Bruen—the Court has ordered States to uphold the strictures of the Second Amendment. Yet, many refuse to do so.Indeed, many jurisdictions reject Heller, McDonald, and Bruen outright. But no jurisdiction does so more emphatically, and contemptuously, and openly, than New York. We turn to a look at the status of recent litigation in New York.__________________________________

SUBPART TWO OF PART NINETEEN

SUB-SUBPART A

NEW YORK’S GUN LAW: STATUS OF THE ANTONYUK CASE GOING FORWARD*

The New York Government, under Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-led Legislature in Albany, have declared outright war on the precepts of Individuality upon which the U.S. Constitution rests.Hochul’s Government crafted a comprehensive set of amendments to New York’s Gun Law, the Sullivan Act.These amendments specifically and negatively affect N.Y. Penal Law § 400.00(2)(f). That’s the concealed handgun carry license section of the State’s Sullivan Act.The amendments are referred to collectively as the “CCIA.” Hochul signed the amendments into law on July 1, 2022. This was scarcely a week after the High Court published the Bruen decision, on June 23, 2022.A flurry of lawsuits followed. Plaintiff gun owners filed the first one, Antonyuk vs. Bruen (Antonyuk I), on July 11.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York dismissed that case without prejudice on August 23.The Court ruled one of the Plaintiffs, Gun Owners of America and its affiliates, lacked standing to sue.Ivan Antonyuk, the captioned Plaintiff individual of Antonyuk I, refiled his lawsuit against Defendant Kevin Bruen, Superintendent of State Police, on September 20. Five additional Party Plaintiffs, all individuals, joined him in the lawsuit. The Plaintiffs added eight additional Defendants. Governor Kathy Hochul was one of those Defendants. The Defendants were all State, County, or City Government Officials. All of them were sued in their official capacities. The New York Courts refer to this second case as Antonyuk II. The case was formally recaptioned, Antonyuk vs. Hochul. On September 22, the Plaintiffs filed their Emergency Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order, and on September 28, they added a Motion for Preliminary Injunction (“PI”).The Oral Hearing was held on September 29.On October 6, the U.S. District Court issued its order, granting the TRO in part, and denying it in part.One month later, on November 7, the District Court ruled on the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction, granting it in part, and denying it in part.The Court also dismissed out Governor Hochul as a Party Defendant, ruling that, “Plaintiffs have not alleged or shown how Defendant Hochul could be properly found to have the specific legal duty to enforce the CCIA.”In addition, Steven Nigrelli was named the new Superintendent of the State Police, replacing Kevin Bruen, as Party Defendant.With both Hochul and Bruen out of the picture, the case, Antonyuk II, was recaptioned, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli. With the granting of the Preliminary Injunction, the TRO was mooted, and the Parties jointly agreed to dismiss the TRO.On November 8, 2022, the New York Gubernatorial race was held. On that same date, the Government appealed, to the Second Circuit, the District Court’s granting of the PI in Antonyuk II.On November 15, 2022, the Second Circuit issued a terse stay of the PI, pending its ruling on the Government’s Motion requesting relief from the District Court’s granting of the PI.The Second Circuit November 15 Order reads:“Defendants-Appellants, seek a stay pending appeal, and an emergency interim stay, of the Preliminary Injunction issued by the District Court on November 7, 2022.It is hereby ordered that a temporary stay is granted, pending the panel’s consideration of the motion.”The Second Circuit obliged the Government, overturning the U.S. District Court’s grant of the PI stay.This means Hochul’s Government can enforce the CCIA during the Second Circuit’s review of the PI.Time is therefore on the side of the Government.Hochul Government now has what it wants—the ability to enforce the CCIA against New York’s Gun Law during the Second Circuit’s review of the PI.Plaintiffs and all other holders of valid concealed handgun carry licenses as well as those who wish to obtain a New York concealed handgun carry license must now contend with the CCIA.Present holders of a valid New York concealed handgun carry license like the Plaintiffs in Antonyuk II, are particularly negatively affected by this Order.Plaintiffs understandably were not happy about the Second Circuit’s November 15 Order, lifting the stay of the CCIA imposed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.So, four days after the issuance of the Second Circuit’s November 15 Order, the Plaintiffs, on November 19,  filed their response to the Government’s stay of the PI pending the Circuit Court’s review of it.The Plaintiffs took the Government to task, stating,“In their Motion, Appellants generally malign the district court’s preliminary injunction, but fail to note that the CCIA is no ordinary law–breathtaking in both its scope and its blatant unconstitutionality. The district court was correct to enjoin enforcement of many of the CCIA’s patently unconstitutional provisions, and this Court should (i) decline Appellants’ invitation to be the first circuit court to bless a statute specifically enacted to defy Bruen, (ii) vacate its improvidently granted administrative stay, and (iii) deny Appellants’ Motion.”Whether to enforce the operation of the CCIA during litigation or stay its enforcement turns on a four-factor test created by the Second Circuit. The Plaintiffs addressed the four-factor test in their Opposition to the Government’s Motion, stating— “The relevant factors to be considered are ‘[i] the applicant’s strong showing that [they are] likely to succeed on the merits, [ii] irreparable injury to the applicant in the absence of a stay, [iii] substantial injury to the nonmoving party if a stay is issued, and [iv] the public interest.’ A stay ‘is not a matter of right, even if irreparable injury might otherwise result;’ rather ‘it is an exercise of judicial discretion, and [t]he party requesting a stay bears the burden of showing that the circumstances justify an exercise of that discretion.” Finally, where (as here) an applicant is ‘totally lacking’ a strong showing of likelihood of success, ‘the aggregate assessment of the factors bearing on issuance of a stay pending appeal cannot possibly support a stay.’ Appellants fail all four factors. . . . The district court’s order will cause no harm to Appellants, as many of the CCIA’s provisions – which have been in effect barely over two months – are entirely novel in New York law, as well as lacking any historical analogue. . . . The sky did not fall prior to the CCIA’s enactment, and the sky is not falling now. Rather, the PI merely returns the state of the law to what it was just over two months ago.”Responding to the Plaintiffs’ Opposition to the stay of enforcement of the CCIA, the Second Circuit issued an amended Order on December 7, 2022.The new Order reads:“Appellants request a stay pending appeal of the district court's order dated November 7, 2022 (N.D.N.Y. 22-cv-986, doc. 78), enjoining Appellants from enforcing certain aspects of New York's Concealed Carry Improvement Act (‘CCIA’). Having weighed the applicable factors, see In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 503 F.3d 167, 170 (2d Cir. 2007), we conclude that a stay pending appeal is warranted.  Accordingly, upon due consideration, it is hereby Ordered that the motion for a stay pending appeal is Granted and the district court's Nove1nber 7 order is Stayed pending the resolution of this appeal. To the extent that the district court's order bars enforcement of the CCIA's provisions related to persons who have been tasked with the duty to keep the peace at places of worship, airports, and private buses, such categories are excepted from this order. Appellees' motion to expedite the resolution of the matter is Granted.”What this new Order means is this:The Second Circuit allows the Government to enforce the amendments to the State’s Gun Law during its review of the Preliminary Injunction, subject to a minor exception.The Second Circuit said the stay does not affect the “Sensitive Location” prohibitions to airports, places of worship, and private buses.This is hardly a concession to the Plaintiffs.Airports fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, not the State.No civilian may carry a firearm in airports, anyway.And houses of worship and private buses are the only private entities, that the Second Circuit says can devise their own rules for the carrying of firearms.All other CCIA “Sensitive Location” provisions remain operative during the Second Circuit’s review of the PI.But the Second Circuit’s treatment of the “four-factor test,” in the recent Order is both curious and disturbing. Recall the lower District Court had meticulously applied the Four-Factor test as it is required to do when first granting the Plaintiffs’ TRO, and subsequently granting the Plaintiffs’ PI. But why did the Second Circuit reject the findings of the District Court?In lifting the PI stay, the Second Circuit never explained its reasoning for doing so.The Court cites a case that is inapposite. And it is one that neither the Plaintiffs nor Defendants cite in any of their filings. The Court merely says it has weighed the factors and tacitly finds for the Government.This is all contrary to the findings and cogent reasoning of the lower District Court.It suggests the Court will overturn the PI, thus jeopardizing the attack on the constitutionality of the CCIA and further reducing the chance of eventually securing a Permanent Injunction against enforcement of the CCIA.This all suggests what New Yorkers have lost in failing to seat Zeldin in the Governor’s mansion.Had Lee Zeldin prevailed in the Gubernatorial race against Kathy Hochul, Plaintiffs and all other New York gun owners holding valid New York restricted or unrestricted handgun carry licenses would likely be in a different and better place.As Governor, Lee Zeldin could request the dismissal of Antonyuk. All other pending challenges to the CCIA would be mooted. The CCIA would have no effect.This would entail reverting to the originalN.Y. Penal Law § 400.00(2)(F). That would benefit those present holders of New York concealed handgun carry licenses who had complied with the “proper cause” requirement of the older Gun Law.Eventually, Zeldin, as New York Governor, could work with the State Legislature in Albany to rescind the entire licensing structure. Alas, that will never be. Four years of Hochul in Office will mean further restrictions on the Second Amendment, as the CCIA and other New York Gun laws clamp down ever tighter on a citizen’s exercise of his or her Second Amendment right to armed self-defense.________________________________

SUBPART TWO OF PART NINETEEN

SUB-SUBPART B

AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE APPLICATION OF THE FOUR-FACTOR TEST IN ANTONYUK VS. NIGRELLI

A perusal of the Four-Factor test demonstrates why the lower U.S. District Court for the Northern District Court of New York was correct in granting the Plaintiffs’ PI, and why the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was wrong in staying the PI, during the Court’s resolution of it.

• The likelihood that Plaintiffs would prevail on the merits.

The District Court, in its opinions, both in Antonyuk I and Antonyuk II laid out a comprehensive argument supporting a finding that the CCIA is unconstitutional and that Plaintiffs would likely prevail in their suit on the merits against the Government.This first factor, therefore, works to the benefit of the Plaintiffs, supporting the granting of the PI.

• Irreparable injury to the Plaintiffs in absence of a stay of enforcement of the CCIA.

The District Court pointed out that, by carrying their handgun in public, the Plaintiffs would engage in behavior lawful under the original NY Gun Law but, under the “Sensitive Location” clause of the CCIA, now unlawful in many locations in New York.Thus, the CCIA operates perversely to restrict an already restrictive Gun Law the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional on the “proper cause” issue in Bruen. If current holders of a valid NY handgun carry license continue to carry under the CCIA, they will have committed a crime if they carry that handgun in a “Sensitive Location.”If arrested while carrying a handgun in public, in a “Sensitive Location,” they will lose their license to carry because the valid New York concealed handgun license they presently have is invalid if carrying a firearm in a “Sensitive Location.” The CCIA overrides the concealed handgun carry license in those locations.If arrested, the licensee will also be forced to surrender their handgun to the appropriate police authority, along with any other firearms they may have possession of in New York.Further, they will now have a criminal record on file, jeopardizing their acquisition of a license anew in New York. This will also jeopardize their ability to exercise their Second Amendment right in many other jurisdictions they may happen to work in or relocate to, thereafter.To avoid the possibility of arrest, these licensees must voluntarily relinquish carrying a handgun in public for self-defense. But doing so endangers their life, which was the reason these licensees applied for a concealed handgun carry license, in the first place.Remember, licensing officers had determined these license holders do face extraordinary risk, thus warranting issuance of a license under the original “proper cause” standard that the respective New York licensing authorities established, consistent with the original New York Gun Law.Plaintiffs are therefore in a bind. If they carry a handgun in a “Sensitive Location”, they risk arrest, loss of their license, loss of their handgun, and a criminal record to boot. If they do not carry a handgun for self-defense, they endanger their life.That is a  Hobson's choice; the idea that present holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses have here; no acceptable choice, and evidence of irreparable harm to the Plaintiffs.To give Hochul’s blatant refusal to abide by the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court in NYSRPA vs. Bruen a leg to stand on, she attempts to give the public a sense that she cares deeply about the safety concerns of New Yorkers; that her amendments to the State’s Gun Law are designed to effectuate that end. What she delivers to the public is nothing more than an elaborate promo, an infomercial proffered to sell a product. The product she is selling is simply a more tortuous, and torturous version of the Sullivan Act enacted over one hundred years ago. And, like all promos and infomercials, it is meant to make a profit off a person’s gullibility. In the instant case, the Sullivan Act, a noose around the necks of free citizens, squeezed ever tighter. The Sullivan Act endangers the life of New Yorkers under the guise of securing life. It is all charade and theater.This second factor, therefore, works to the Plaintiffs' advantage, supporting the PI.

• Substantial injury to the nonmoving party. 

This is the mirror image of the previous factor. This is where the Government, the “non-moving” party, must demonstrate that the New York public faces irreparable injury if the Government is enjoined from enforcing the CCIA and that the harm to the public outweighs the harm to the Plaintiffs.That is what the Government says. The assertion is patently ridiculous.If the public was under no grave threat before the enactment of the CCIA, with stringent restrictive gun measures already in place, then it follows logically the public cannot be under a graver threat of injury now if the Second Circuit affirms the stay of enforcement of the CCIA,  pending resolution of the PI. But that’s what the Government wants. It wants the Second Circuit to lift the stay of the PI. This means the Government wants the Second Circuit to deny giving effect to the PI during the Second Circuit's resolution of the merits of it, thereby authorizing the Hochul Government to enforce the CCIA.The New York Attorney General Letitia James, arguing the case for the Government, asserted, in the Government's Opposition to the PI, that “Exposing eighteen million New Yorkers to a heightened risk of gunfire severely outweighs any prejudice to plaintiffs here from a stay.”This is ludicrous. It is nothing more than a snapshot of the imbecilic remarks of Hochul delivered to “CBS This Morning” on Friday, June 24, 2022, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in NYSRPA vs. Bruen, setting up what would come shortly after; the awful amendments to New York's Gun Law. The Daily Caller recites Hochul's tirade against the High Court, in its article, titled, “NY Gov. Hochul Says Law-Abiding Gun Owners Make People Feel Very Unsafe”:“Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday morning law abiding gun owners make people feel ‘unsafe’ just one day after the Supreme Court overturned a more than century old gun law.Speaking on CBS This Morning, Hochul said the right to carry outside the home makes individuals feel ‘unsafe’ and seemed to insinuate it should not be allowed.‘Everybody in America recognizes that there is a problem with gun violence and the people who cheer this, what they say, what they see is, ‘Look there is a problem with gun violence and I, as a law-abiding citizen, want to be able to hold a gun on my person so that I feel safer.’ What do you say to that individual?” the host asked Hochul.‘I say that makes everyone else feel very unsafe. We don’t know if you’re provoked, you know, you’re in a bar and someone looks at your girlfriend or your boyfriend the wrong way. There are so many triggers. If someone wants to have a legal gun, licensed protection in their home, that is their domain, they can do that, we’ve always allowed that, or for hunting and other purposes,’ Hochul said.’‘But to think someone would be able to do this on a subway, in a crowded, tense situation during rush hour? No, we have a right to protect our citizens, not take away your right to own, that’s fine, but where you take it and the ability to conceal it, that’s just going to make things so much more complicated for law enforcement and others.’”

CIVILIANS DO NOT CARRY HANDGUNS OPENLY IN NEW YORK. THERE IS NO “OPEN CARRY”

First, it bears mentioning, but, apparently, only to morons like Hochul, that a holder of concealed handgun carry license does not ever carry his or her handgun openly, in New York, for all the world to see. The Gun Law itself recites the lawful carrying of a handgun, “concealed,” i.e., not openly by those issued concealed handgun carry licenses.In fact, no one in New York is permitted to carry a handgun openly apart from uniformed New York police officers, or other uniformed personnel who fall under specific provisions of the State's Gun Law.How, then, can any law-abiding member of the public honestly feel a sense of foreboding that another law-abiding member of the public who happens to possess a concealed handgun carry license is someone to be feared? The only creature that could realistically understandably “feel unsafe” is a psychopathic criminal who would dare to threaten an innocent member of the public. More than a few criminals and lunatics have met their untimely demise by threatening harm to an undercover police officer or off-duty officer, or to a holder of a valid concealed handgun license. In fact, for a career criminal—who isn't otherwise a psychotic maniac who wouldn't care whether a target of his lunacy is armed or not, as his reasoning organ is shot—he would never know for certain who is lawfully carrying a handgun concealed and who is not, if many more members of the New York public were to begin carrying, concealed, a handgun, as is their natural law right. And, he would think twice before targeting, at random, an innocent victim who is merely going about his business. Hence, it is reasonable to infer that the garden variety criminal, who has some sense of self-preservation would be less inclined to take the chance to attack a member of the public who may very well be armed. This fact would result in a precipitous drop in violent crimes of opportunity.

“TRIGGERS” ANYONE?

Second, The notion that a person would go off half-cocked is a “Fever Dream” of the Anti-Second Amendment crowd. They would like to believe this myth. The Government thrusts all sorts of horrors on the public to rationalize ending the fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense. But their wax museum of horrors coming to life is just entertainment, nothing more. It isn't grounded in truth. It's merely a fabrication, it's propagandist; a fictional horror film designed like many such films, i.e., to create a jump scare. Only the gullible and ignorant Americans would fall for it. If New York holders of handgun carry licenses were such a threat to public safety and order, how is it that we never hear Governor Hochul talking about instances of criminal acts of violence committed by these licensees? She can’t talk about this because there is no instance of this that she can drum up.  All such talk of an armed New York citizenry posing a threat to the Government's notion of public safety and public order in their well-ordered society is sheer unadulterated speculation, bordering on delirium.

“IF SOMEONE WANTS TO HAVE A LEGAL GUN, LICENSED PROTECTION IN THEIR HOME, THAT IS THEIR DOMAIN, THEY CAN DO THAT, WE'VE ALWAYS ALLOWED THAT.” ISN'T HOCHUL NICE?

Third, Hochul says, the Government has always allowed someone “a legal gun in their home.” But wait a minute? Is keeping and bearing arms a Government bestowed privilege or a God-Given Right? And didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court rule that the right to armed self-defense extends beyond the domain of one’s house, consistent with the meaning of the fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense? Does New York law take precedence over the Second Amendment and the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court? Hochul demonstrates incredible arrogance. How did she get elected to Office anyway?If New York holders of handgun carry licenses were such a threat to public safety and order, how is it that we never hear Governor Hochul talking about instances of criminal acts of violence committed by these licensees? She can’t talk about this because there is no instance of this that she can drum up.  All such talk of an armed New York citizenry posing a threat to their notion of public safety and public order in their well-ordered society is sheer unadulterated speculation, bordering on delirium. The “why” of the attack on the armed citizenry is as pressing as the “how”—the strategies devised and employed to undermine the right of the people to keep and bear arms. And it all goes back to Government's lust for “power” and “control” over the common people. And, the fear of the Tyrant is always that the common people will revolt against the Tyrant's Tyranny. The Neoliberal Globalists and their puppets in Government treat people like random bits of energy that require a firm hand lest common people get “out of hand.” The fear of the Tyrant is always the common people. Government exists primarily to control the populace. Our Federal Government, though, was constructed to serve the people. Everything in our Constitution points to that fact. The people are sovereign, not Government. But, like all Governments, our Federal Government has succumbed to tyranny. That tyranny is mirrored and multiplied in the Governments of many States. New York is one of those States. The “sticky wicket” for the Globalists is the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It serves, one, as evidence of the sovereignty of the American people over their Government, Federal, State, or local, and serves, two, as a mechanism to thwart the rise of tyranny. The Second Amendment, unlike the First, or any other Amendment in the Bill of Rights has a tenacity that, when unleashed, a ferocity, that scares the dickens of the proponents of a world empire and world domination. In this second half of the Biden Administration regime, we are seeing more and more emphasis placed on reining in the armed citizenry. And State Governments under Democrat Party leadership, such as that of New York, are fully on board with this. Expect to see more of this, much more, in the weeks and months ahead.

“A HEIGHTENED RISK OF GUNFIRE”?

“Exposing eighteen million New Yorkers to a heightened risk of gunfire severely outweighs any prejudice to plaintiffs here from a stay.” ~ Letitia JamesFourth, apropos of Letitia James' argument, on behalf of Defendant-Appellant New York Government officials, appealing the U.S. District Court's granting of Plaintiff-Appellees' Preliminary Injunction, where is this “heightened risk of gunfire” supposed to come from?The argument presented by Attorney General Letitia James and by Governor Kathy Hochul in support of the CCIA boils down to these two propositions:

• People are afraid of guns and of average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners who keep and bear them.
• Average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners pose an imminent threat to public safety and order.

The reader will note that nothing is said about career criminals, murderous gangbangers, and drug-addled lunatics who may happen to get hold of a firearm. The reason is that the Hochul Government, and other Governments like hers—reflecting the beliefs and aims of the present Federal Government, aren't concerned about the behavior of the dregs of society. Government is concerned only over the rational responsible American who will not suffer tyranny. And it is tyranny that these Governments, local, regional, State, and Federal are selling. Criminals and lunatics serve their end. The breakdown of law and order is what these Governments want so that they can institute their own brand of crime on a national/industrial scale. The aim is the destruction of the mind, the Soul, and the Spirit. The sanctity and inviolability of the individual were once important to our Nation, worth preserving, things to be cherished. And the idea was threaded through our Nation's Constitution, and, especially, through our Nation's Bill of rights. That once was so, but no longer. The Federal Government makes a mockery of our Country now and of our sacred precepts and principles. We see it in the weakening of our economy, and our military. We see it in incredible profligate spending at a time when we must hold onto the monetary reserves and ascertain that our Nation's monies are spent carefully and wisely for purposes that benefit our Nation and its people, and not squandered on foreign escapades or lavishly squandered on special interests that benefit the few, including foreign entities and individuals that hate us. We see the weakening of our Country in the Government's obsequious behavior toward China and Brussels. And, we see it in the debauched, and degenerate, and mentally unbalanced individuals placed in high Government Office. Most Americans are appalled at these spectacles. And Government knows this and worries about it. Government is afraid of Americans who keep and bear arms, who clutch them ever tighter, for many of us there are who see well enough the mindless absurdity of a rogue, and dangerous, and patently deranged Government that threatens to engulf the Nation and its citizenry in horrific destruction. And, so, Government turns on Americans; sets one American against the other so as to short-circuit organization against a Government that no longer serves the Nation's best interests and, in fact, no longer goes through the pretense of doing so.The Biden Administration and the Hochul Government don't talk of their own fear of the armed citizenry. Instead, they project that fear on the populace at large both as a defense mechanism and as a strategy to divert attention away from themselves rather than upon themselves, where attention should be directed. The idea is that eviscerating the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms is done, not as a contemptuous assault on natural law that they have no lawful right to attack, but ostensibly as an act of mercy on behalf of the people who, as they argue, would benefit from a purgation only possible through the confiscation of guns in the hands of tens of millions of Americans. The Tyrant says——People are afraid of guns and of average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners who keep and bear them.Concerning this proposition, propounded by Kathy Hochul, if many Americans should happen to fear guns and fear those who exercise their fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense—indeed, if any American should happen to register such fears—those fears aren't the product of something innate in a person, but, rather, are the result of an elaborate, concerted well-coordinated, and executed plan, at once deceitful and horrendous, to instill in the American citizen a phobic reaction to firearms and a phobic reaction to those Americans who choose to keep and bear them. The question of why such psychologically damaging programs would be initiated by and ceaselessly and vigorously propagated by the Government against the entire civilian population has nothing to do with a desire on the part of the Government to secure the life, health, safety, and well-being of Americans. Rather, it has everything to do with the carrying out of a secret plot focused on the demise of a free Constitutional Republic, the only one like it in existence; the dissolution of our Constitution; and the subjugation of our people to the dictates of a new order of reality: the rise of a neo-feudalistic global empire. AQ has written extensively on this. In fact, it is a theme that runs through the depth and breadth of our articles. Nothing else, to our knowledge, comes close to explaining well the dogged, and consistent, and insistent effort on the part of so many heterogenous agents and agencies both inside and outside this Country to destroy our Nation's Bill of Rights; to destroy our history, heritage, culture, our Nation's ethos, our Judeo-Christian ethic; and to launch a psychopathological reaction upon the citizenry the manner of which and the extent of which has no precedent in our Nation's history or, for that matter, in all of recorded history.The Hochul Government’s attack on the U.S. Supreme Court Bruen case is really a component part of a much larger mosaic, as evidenced by a concerted effort to undermine the Second Amendment.And so confident is Hochul in her own power, that she does this brazenly and contemptuously, attacking not just the Second Amendment but also the Justices of the Highest Court in the Land, whose sin, in her mind, is that they give a fundamental natural law right the respect it is due. Hochul intends to shred it and she is doing just that.Thus, it isn't that New Yorkers or any American has an innate fear of firearms or those who keep and bear them. It is that the Government in New York and the Governments of several other States, and the Federal Government under the Biden Administration, have induced fear where none before existed, all in support of aims that are antithetical to our most sacred precepts and values and antithetical to the common good.Thus, Americans aren't afraid of firearms or those who possess them, but Hochul and others, beholden to the same ruthless, Globalist, and Marxist interests, create the illusion that this IS something inherent in people. IT ISN'T. It is only something inserted into the unwary mind: a meme, a mental virus, damaging to the psyche no less than a physical viral pathogen is damaging to the body.The Tyrant also says——Average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners pose an imminent threat to public safety and order.Concerning this second proposition, propounded by Kathy Hochul, as manifest in her statements to the Press and in the Government's legal documents—that average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners pose an imminent threat to public safety and order—this is a naked assumption cast as a self-evident truth, presented in lieu of any supporting evidence, for the purpose, one, to buttress amendments to the State's Gun Law that are inherently unconstitutional as the District Court had made poignantly clear through cogent argument, both in Antonyuk I and in Antonyuk II, and, two, to urge the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to stay the lower Court's granting of Plaintiff-Appellees Motion for Preliminary Injunction against the enforcement of Hochul's CCIA.Meanwhile, the law-abiding New York taxpayer daily faces rampant violent crime because of the abject failure of the New York Justice system to deal effectively with criminals and raving lunatics that constantly prey on the public.And the police are contemporaneously prevented from engaging in effective policing activities that protect the community. In addition, the police are leaving New York in droves. Who will replace them?And, even if the Hochul Government provided the public with a modicum of community policing and a justice system that didn’t kowtow to lunatics and criminals, the fact remains that the New York police departments have no obligation to guarantee the life and safety of individual members of the public.The police never had that obligation. And the New York public is under a misconception to think otherwise. Yet, the Government continues to keep the public in the dark about this, never troubling itself to inform the public that self-defense against threats of violence rests on each member of the public, not on the State. See, e.g., the AQ article posted here, on this site, on November 21, 2019. See also AQ article posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News on August 6, 2020.A well-trained, responsible, rational, law-abiding adult need not rely on the police, and cannot legally place that burden on the police. The responsibility for preserving one’s life and well-being rests solely on the individual.This was the salient point of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen. Armed self-defense is ultimately the responsibility and prerogative of the individual.The Hochul Government knows or should know that armed self-defense is the best defense against aggressive armed assault. The failure to acknowledge this or even attempt to proffer evidence to refute this is a fatal weakness in the Government’s argument against Plaintiff-Appellees PI.The Government simply erroneously assumes the well-armed citizen threatens the community.This is a central theme pervasive in the New York Government, and it is a thread woven into the very fabric of New York’s draconian gun measures that go back over one hundred years when the licensing of handguns was first enacted.Yet the Government takes this bald assumption as a self-evident truth. It isn’t. But it serves the narrative, and their end goal is to disarm the public.The Government’s remark begs the very question at issue:Does the rational, responsible, law-abiding citizen who wishes to exercise his natural law right of armed self-defense pose a risk to the public? There is something off in the sheer idea incessantly and vociferously proselytized to the public that the armed citizen poses a threat to public safety.This notion is contrary to fact. It is also contrary to the import of the Second Amendment:It is the natural law right of the American citizen to arm him or herself against assault by predatory man, predatory creature, and predatory Government.Heller, McDonald, and Bruen reiterate this point constantly:The individual has the right to armed self-defense. The corollary to that proposition is this: The armed citizen enhances public safety. This is the antithesis of the Hochul Government’s position that the armed citizen endangers public safety.In their response to the Government’s Motion for a stay of the Preliminary Injunction, pending appeal, the Plaintiffs said this apropos of public safety:“Even if Appellants had demonstrated some actual public safety benefit, it would come at the cost of disarmament of law-abiding gun owners, an unacceptably high cost, as “[t]he right to keep and bear arms . . . is not the only constitutional right that has controversial public safety implications.” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 783 (2010). Such enumerated rights cannot be balanced away by legislators, or judges, because “the Second Amendment is . . . the very product of an interest balancing by the people . . . it [] elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense. . . .” D.C. v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 635 (2008).Nor can Appellants plausibly claim irreparable harm from temporarily halting enforcement of an unconstitutional law: ‘the public consequences in employing the extraordinary remedy of [injunctive relief]’ are not just the vindication of constitutional rights but also the prevention of their egregious curtailment. Indeed, it is always in the public interest to enjoin an unconstitutional law. The government has no ‘interest in the enforcement of an unconstitutional law.’”This third factor, harm to the non-moving party, does not outweigh the harm to the Plaintiffs. Thus, this third factor in support of the PI works to the Plaintiffs’ advantage.

• The Public Interest. The last factor a Court must consider in determining whether to issue a PI is whether the public is best served by its issuance.

The Plaintiff-Appellees assert: “The public interest is best served by ensuring the constitutional rights of persons within the United States are upheld.” We are dealing here after all with a natural law right.That the public is better served by curtailing a right the founders felt imperative to the Security of a free State and to ensure the sanctity and inviolability of one’s Selfhood, goes against the Judeo-Christian ethic upon which our free Constitutional Republic was founded, and without which a sovereign people and a free Constitutional Republic cannot continue to survive.The New York State Government’s philosophy of the relationship of Government to the people is a distortion of all this Country holds dear and holy.This fourth factor also works to the Plaintiff-Appellees' advantage, supporting maintaining the PI during the Second Circuit's resolution of the merits of it.

IN SUMMARY

The New York Government places itself above the sovereign authority of the American people.This notion unfortunately is reflected in several other jurisdictions across the Country, and it is also present in the thinking of the Biden Administration and in the thinking of Democrats in Congress and by more than a few Republicans.Let us hope and pray the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, ultimately, doesn’t betray the U.S. Constitution too.Unfortunately, the recent December 7, 2022, Second Circuit order doesn’t give New York gun owners much reason for hope, much less jubilation—nothing more, really, than a wing and a prayer of success.If such is the case, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli is destined for resolution by the High Court.Justices Thomas and Alito would see that the case is heard, as the CCIA is a direct affront to the Second Amendment and to the rulings of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen.In the immortal words of that late, great comic, Arte Johnson (a.k.a. the “German Soldier” routine), the Antonyuk case, and a slew of other post-Bruen cases wending their way through the Courts in New York and elsewhere in the Country are becoming “Very Interesting.” _______________________________*For those readers interested, a comprehensive (complete) discussion of the history of the date of filings of Court documents in the second Antonyuk case, (Antonyuk II), as recited by Plaintiff-Appellees (holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses) against Defendant-Appellants (New York Government officials) in Plaintiff-Appellees “Response In Opposition To Defendants-Appellants’ Motion For A Stay Pending Appeal And An Administrative Stay Pending Resolution Of The Motion,” filed on November 19, 2022, appears below:This case involves a challenge to New York’s most recent attempt to infringe the Second Amendment rights of its residents. In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent vindication of the right to keep and bear arms in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), the state hastily enacted a poorly named and ineptly drafted statute called the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”). Rather than following Bruen and respecting the Second Amendment’s mandate, the CCIA defied the Supreme Court, making concealed carry of firearms far more restrictive, and the licensing process far more onerous, than before the Supreme Court’s decision. Plaintiffs-Appellees (“Appellees”) filed suit seeking to enjoin many of the CCIA’s patently unconstitutional provisions, seeking both a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction. Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (“Complaint”), ECF #1 (Sept. 20, 2022); Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (“Motion for TRO”), ECF #6 (Sept. 22, 2022). After providing Defendants-Appellants (“Appellants”) the opportunity to submit briefing and to participate in oral argument, the district court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining certain parts of the CCIA, while allowing others to remain in effect, and granting Appellants’ request for a three-business-day stay to seek review by this Court. Response in Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order, ECF #18 (Sept. 28, 2022); Transcript of Proceedings, ECF #23 (Sept. 29, 2022); Decision and Temporary Restraining Order (“TRO”), ECF #27 (Oct. 6, 2022). Appellants sought from this Court (1) a stay pending appeal of the district court’s decision, along with (2) what they styled an “emergency . . . interim . . . administrative stay” while the Court considered their motion. Docket No. 22-2379, Motion for a Stay, Doc. #16 at 1. On October 11, 2022, Appellees filed a Response explaining, inter alia, that appeal of a TRO is improper, and the district court’s forthcoming decision on Plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction would render the appeal moot. Opposition to Motion, Doc. #22. On October 12, 2022, Judge Lee granted Appellants’ request for “an interim stay of the Temporary Restraining Order pending decision by the motions panel.” Order, Doc. #39. The case continued in district court, with Appellants filing their Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction on October 13, 2022. Response in Opposition, ECF #48. On October 22, 2022, Appellees filed their Reply. Reply to Response, ECF #69. On October 25, 2022, the district court heard oral argument on Appellees’ Motion. Transcript of Proceedings, ECF #72. On November 7, 2022, the district court issued a limited preliminary injunction (“PI”), supported by a 184-page opinion. Decision and Preliminary Injunction, ECF #78 (“Op.”). The district court’s opinion denied Appellants’ request for a three-day stay, and the PI took effect immediately. Their TRO appeal mooted, Appellants, with Appellees’ consent, withdrew that appeal on November 9, 2022. Stipulation of Voluntary Dismissal, Doc. #74 (Docket No. 22-2379). On November 8, 2022, Appellants appealed the district court’s grant of the PI, and on November 12, 2022, filed a similar motion in this Court, seeking a stay pending appeal and an “administrative stay” pending resolution of their Motion. Docket No. 22-2908, Motion to Stay (“Motion”), Doc. #18. Although having requested three days in which to seek a stay from this Court, Appellants waited five days to file this Motion. While the cover sheet (Form T-1080) describes Appellants’ filing as a “motion for emergency interim stay,” their motion is not captioned as an “Emergency Motion,” nor does it use the word “emergency” at all. Nor does it comply with this Court’s rule requiring that it “state the date by which the movant believes the court must act.” See L.R. 27.1(d)(2) and (4). Cf. Appellants’ filing in Docket No. 22-2379, Motion for a Stay, ECF #16, cover sheet (“request that an interim administrative stay be granted by the end of the day on Tuesday (10/11).”). Nor does Appellants’ motion provide any explanation of “the nature of the emergency and the harm that the movant will suffer if the motion is not granted” (L.R. 27.1(d)(3)), alleging only that the district court’s order “risks substantial harm.” Motion at 15. Cf. Docket 22-2379, Motion for a Stay at 2, 3, 20 (alleging “serious risk of irreparable harm,” “substantial risks to public safety,” and “imminent risk to public safety.”). Despite those deficiencies, a three-judge panel of this Court – without response from or notice to Appellees – granted a “temporary stay” on November 15, 2022. Doc. #32. Problematically, that Order provides Appellants broader relief than they sought, granting a “temporary stay … of the preliminary injunction issued by the district court.” Id. In contrast, Appellants’ Motion made clear that they are not seeking to stay every part of the district court’s injunction. See Motion at 13 n.5 (seeking a stay for churches “except as to persons who have been tasked with the duty to keep the peace,” “Appellants do not seek a stay as to airports” and “private buses.”) (emphasis added). This Court’s administrative stay was issued notwithstanding that undersigned counsel inquired on November 14, 2022 as to whether the Court would be treating Appellants’ Motion as an “emergency” motion, and notwithstanding the fact that there was no mention of any emergency in the body of Appellant’s actual Motion. Contrast treatment of this motion with the prior “emergency” request from Appellees (22-2379) where, within hours of filing, the Clerk’s office contacted undersigned counsel on a federal holiday (October 10, 2022) and requested that Appellees file a response by noon that next day (October 11, 2022), so the Court would have Appellees’ response prior to deciding the administrative stay. No such instruction was given to Appellees in this appeal, and undersigned’s voicemail was not returned. Rather than waiting to hear from Appellees, the Court sua sponte stayed injunctive relief even as to matters where no stay was requested. Moreover, in issuing this broad administrative stay, this Court altered the status quo in New York (see Motion at 14), allowing non-appealed provisions of the CCIA back into effect thereby causing the very harm of which Appellants complain. See id. at 2 (alleging “confusion . . . resulting from the frequent changes in the applicable provisions of law. . . .”). Appellees oppose both stays sought by Appellants (including the administrative stay already issued), and ask this Court to deny Appellants’ Motion in its entirety. In their Motion, Appellants generally malign the district court’s preliminary injunction, but fail to note that the CCIA is no ordinary law – breathtaking in both its scope and its blatant unconstitutionality. The district court was correct to enjoin enforcement of many of the CCIA’s patently unconstitutional provisions, and this Court should (i) decline Appellants’ invitation to be the first circuit court to bless a statute specifically enacted to defy Bruen, (ii) vacate its improvidently granted administrative stay, and (iii) deny Appellants’ Motion. ____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

HOW TO GUARANTEE FUTURE SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

AN ESSAY BY STEPHEN L. D'ANDRILLI, CEO AND PRESIDENT OF ARBALEST GROUP, LLC.

MULTISERIES ON THE ISSUE OF SCHOOL SAFETY

PART ONE

The Nation’s public schools exist for one purpose: to educate our children to become productive members of society. Something hinders that: school shootings.But public school shootings need not happen and should not happen. Yet, these incidents do happen. And that says something odd and disturbing about our politicians and prominent groups, like the powerful teachers’ unions, that let these incidents happen.When they happen, our nation suffers, and that suffering extends to every American: man, woman, and child. So, then, why do they happen and who is to blame?There were four major school shootings in the past three decades: Columbine in 1999, Sandy Hook in 2012, Stoneman Douglas in 2018, and, most recently, Robb Elementary in 2022. Each of these incidents is unacceptable. All were preventable. What do these shootings tell us?Too many elected officials, school boards, and teachers’ union leaders propose solutions that don’t work.They aren’t interested in listening to parents who, increasingly, have little voice in the matter of their children’s education and no voice in the matter of their children’s personal safety while in school.Their solution to school shootings proposed boils down to one thing: “Get Rid of the Guns.” A simplistic Democratic Party slogan becomes a societal policy stance, that endangers the most innocent of Americans, our children.“Get Rid of the Guns” is what the public hears. It is the universal solution provided and the solitary message conveyed.It’s a National trend. Federal, State, and affiliated Union officials all espouse it, including the powerful United Federation of Teachers (“UFT’) that represents nearly 200,000 dues-paying members.The UFT publishes a newsletter, called, “New York Teacher,” that keeps its members apprised of union policies, positions, and news.As a dues-paying retired NYC teacher, I receive copies of the newsletter.On May 25, 2022, one day after the Uvalde, Texas incident, the UFT published its “Resolution to stand against gun violence.” In form, this “Resolution” presumes a consensus reached by UFT members.The last sentence of the UFT’s “Resolution” elucidates where the UFT expends its energy —— “RESOLVED, that the union supports Governor Hochul’s measures in New York, reaffirms its longstanding support for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, as well as other gun safety laws, and will work with the American Federation of Teachers at the national level both to overcome the obstacles to these commonsense safety measures and to organize other means of harnessing the power of our local and national organizations to confront and end this ongoing national tragedy.”One month later, on June 16, the UFT published a follow-up article titled, “Delegates decry deadly school shooting,” where it expanded on its “Resolution to end gun violence.”I was both troubled and angered by this one-sided news reporting and pontificating.Reference to “Gun Violence” in the title of the “Resolutions” establishes the theme of the UFT leaders’ sole approach to dealing with school shootings.The word ‘Gun Violence’ is a narrative tool, a Democratic Party establishment talking point, recited and reiterated constantly, and echoed by the legacy Press.The UFT’s leaders buy into this, regurgitating the same tiring refrain. This is deliberate and it isn’t benign.The use of the expression “Gun Violence” promotes a dangerous way of thinking, encouraging bad policy choices.The Nation’s decision-makers divert scarce taxpayer resources away from the implementation of effective measures to secure our public schools and direct those resources into measures that make schools less safe.The UFT leadership has become a useful pawn of the Biden Administration’s bad policy.It has learned nothing from the tragedies that have befallen other school districts around the Country so  caught up as it is in the fiction of “Gun Violence.” Dwelling on that fiction prevents consideration of and implementation of constructive solutions to school shootings.I could not sit idly by, allowing the UFT’s remarks to go unchallenged. I wrote a letter to the editor explaining my concern, suggesting concrete ways it could secure the City’s school system.The UFT published my letter on November 3, 2022, adding the title, “Where is the school security plan?”But the editor made changes to the letter I did not authorize, involving a fundamental idea made, thereby undercutting the import of the salient point I sought to convey:An effective solution to school shootings requires the “hardening” of schools against aggressive armed assault.The editor struck the word, ‘hardening’ from my letter. That was no accident. But why did the editor do this? That single word encapsulates the basic strategy for securing school buildings from armed assault.Hardening physical structures against armed assault isn’t a novel idea. Federal and State Governments have applied it to airport terminals and courthouses around the Country for many years.Security in these buildings is extraordinarily tight. Protocols are assiduously enforced. That explains why shootings in these structures are extremely rare or nonexistent.Hardening structures against aggressive armed attacks do work.Seeing this success, many school districts have adopted hardening protocols to thwart school shootings. Those that do and that see to the enforcement of those protocols, do not experience the tragedies that afflict districts that don’t use them.Why aren’t these protocols universally applied given their obvious effectiveness?How can any rational mind fail to apply them? They should, but don’t. The UFT doesn’t and isn’t about to. Why is that?Both I and my business partner Roger J. Katz, an attorney, and a former public school teacher himself, have written extensively about this, posting our articles on our website, the Arbalest Quarrel.And, Ammoland Shooting Sports News, the web’s leading Shooting Sports News Service for the Second Amendment, Firearms, Shooting, and Hunting and Conservation communities republished five AQ articles: January 25, 2016; June 15, 2016; February 26, 2018; March 17, 2018; and May 26, 2022.By “hardening” our school buildings we protect the life and safety of our children, teachers, and staff.This isn’t difficult. A lot of the work has already been done on this. There is no guesswork for any of it.It takes only the desire to do it and the fortitude to follow through on it.I propose seven measures as basic to securing schools and safeguarding students, teachers, and staff within them, therefore “hardening” them. These include establishing:(1)  A Designated Entrance and Exit,(2)  A Vestibule and Video Surveillance,(3)  Positioning of Metal Detectors at Entry Points,(4)   Photo ID,(5)  Security Desk and Visitor Escorts,(6)  Trained and Armed Personnel (including Plainclothes, and/or Uniformed Personnel), and(7)  Periodic Testing and Strict Adherence to all Policies and Protocols.Implementation of this 7-Point Strategy in New York’s schools would deter an armed assailant from insinuating himself into a school building.The use of trained and armed resource officers is imperative.The UFT isn’t interested in hardening the City’s schools. And it is particularly resistant to employing trained and armed resource officers in the schools.This stubborn stance is an ominous sign of bad things to come. This lax attitude invites school shooting incidents. It may be only a matter of time before a New York City school suffers this horror.I hope it never happens but, given the sheer size of the NYC school district and given the amount of criminal violence afflicting New York City, coupled with a casual attitude toward crime, demonstrated by New York Governor, Kathy Hochul, and New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, I am fearful that it is just a matter of time before a tragedy, at the hands of an armed lunatic, visits a City school. The Biden Administration bears singular responsibility for enabling this violence.In a May 2022 Press Briefing, reported in the New York Post, prompted soon after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Biden’s Press Secretary pointedly said:“ ‘I know there’s been conversation about hardening schools, that is not something he [Joe Biden] believes in,’ Jean-Pierre told reporters at a White House press conference. ‘He believes that we should be able to give teachers the resources to be able to do their job.’” This wasn’t a mistake by the Press Secretary. The next month, on June 2, 2022, as reported in Breitbart, Joe Biden, himself, confirmed he doesn’t support hardening school buildings.“President Joe Biden delivered a 20-minute prime-time address about gun violence on Thursday in which he mentioned a litany of gun control policies without mentioning the need for hardening school security . . .” [and] nowhere throughout his speech did he mention the need to place armed security guards on school campuses or bettering school security overall.”Since the Biden Administration is adamantly opposed to the use of armed security officers in public schools and explicitly discourages the application of any steps to harden school buildings to protect children, this serves to dissuade the UFT leadership from pursuing “hardening” as a solution for New York City schools. And, many other school systems across the Country follow the Biden Administration's policy. Why do you suppose that is?A person might be tempted to conclude the Biden Administration WANTS school shootings to occur. But that can’t be true, can it? No one, in their right mind, would dare use, or even think of using, children as sacrificial lambs simply to gain public sympathy and support for a radical agenda positing the disarming of Americans, would they?After all, to be adamantly opposed to the application of measures that do work to protect children is both irrational and seemingly inexplicable. And no Government agenda can justify sacrificing the life, safety, and well-being of the children to carry out an agenda. Yet, isn't that what we are seeing? Isn't this in fact occurring: a cold, calculated, plan that to be accomplished requires an extraordinary sacrifice: our Nation's children?Nah! Ridiculous!Ridiculous, Indeed! But, hasn't the advent of the brain-addled Biden and his psychopathic Administration demonstrated a proclivity for instituting policy prescriptions illustrating an absolute lack of concern for the life and well-being of Americans? Reflect on the hasty, ill-conceived, and horribly executed withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the needless deaths of thirteen American soldiers. Ponder the infusion into our Land of over five million illegal aliens, none of whom were carefully vetted, and many of whom pose a direct threat to the security of our Nation and its citizenry, and all of whom constitute a substantial monetary burden on the taxpayer, as these "migrants" require housing, food, medical care, and education for their offspring. And consider the dire threat of Global Thermonuclear War posed by the Biden Administration's cavalier attitude toward Russia that his Ukrainian/Russian policy has placed us in.

ALLOWING CRIMINALS AND LUNATICS TO KILL CHILDREN TO DEMONSTRATE A NEED TO GET RID OF GUNS IN CIVILIAN HANDS TO STOP VIOLENCE DOESN'T DEMONSTRATE A CONCERN ABOUT VIOLENCE. NO! IT DEMONSTRATES INSTEAD BLATANT DISREGARD FOR THE LIFE AND WELL-BEING OF AMERICANS, TO ACCOMPLISH AN END: ONE THAT HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH ENHANCING THE SAFETY AND WELL-BEING OF AMERICANS. THE GOAL IS THE SUBJUGATION OF THE COMMONALTY: ABSOLUTE GOVERNMENT CONTROL OVER ALL THOUGHT AND ACTIONS—IN OTHER WORDS—THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF TYRANNY.

A fixation on the notion of guns as the root cause of criminal violence not only diverts precious monetary and manpower resources away from the implementation of effective solutions to school shootings, such fixation goes further. It prevents the very consideration of viable solutions to the specific problem of school shootings. This is unconscionable, but that is precisely the intention of a rogue Federal Government.The expression, ‘Gun Violence,’ like those of ‘Gun Culture’ and ‘Assault Weapon,’ are intentionally designed to focus the public's attention on things the Biden Administration wants the public to focus its attention on. But these expressions are fabrications. These expressions refer to nothing concrete. Yet, the public is led, nonetheless, to believe, erroneously, they denote, real, and negative, things.These fabrications do serve a purpose.Propagandists utilize these expressions to compel a specific response in the target audience: the American public. And the response sought is one of anger and rage toward guns and those who wish to exercise their natural law right to keep and bear them. So the public relinquishes their firearms to Government overseers and then what? Is the public any safer? Of course not. In fact, the public is considerably less safe. The public couldn't be in a worse position: facing danger from predatory criminals and lunatics, which is bad enough, and, worse, facing imminent, danger from a predatory Government.Words, thus, do carry weight. They are often emotionally laden.Propagandists know this. They employ verbiage that sways public opinion in the direction they want, and they refrain from utilizing verbiage that sways public opinion in a direction they don’t want.The public, whipped into a frenzied mob, operates through rabid emotional instinct; their higher faculties of refined, calm, deliberative thought and reflection are anesthetized.With the public intellect effectively hijacked, the propaganda mill persuades the public that “Gun Violence,” a “Gun Culture,” and a Nation “awash” in “Assault Weapons” are the cause of criminal violence. They aren’t. They aren’t even the effect of criminal violence.What are they, then?They are rhetorical flourishes, red herrings, manufactured by propagandists to draw attention away from the true causes of “violent crime”—the criminals and lunatics who commit it, together with the perversity of Biden Administration officials and many State and local Government officials who refuse to deal with the fact of it.Through time, these “red herrings” evolve into viral memes. They get inserted into the public psyche, where they become lodged and difficult to remove.The public obligingly conforms its belief system to Government policy promulgated by Biden officials. And, through ongoing, vociferous broadcasts by the legacy Press, radio, broadcast and cable news, and social media, the public grows amenable to that policy, begins to support it, and eventually becomes enthusiastic about it, even though it is contrary to the public’s interests and needs, and does not address the problems claimed: schools infiltrated by armed lunatics and growing violence in society as a whole.“Getting rid of guns” means, literally, confiscating guns presently in the hands of tens of millions of average, law-abiding, responsible, rational citizenry.  “Getting rid of guns” is presented as a panacea to armed killers stalking schools, and to violent crime generally—or so the public is told. The policy, “Getting rid of guns,” becomes the “Battle Cry” of the Biden Faithful.The Biden Administration, Congressional Democrats, and State and local governments, along with their friendly travelers in the legacy Press, cable and broadcast news networks, and social media, constantly and consistently utilize verbiage like ‘Guns,’ ‘Gun Violence,’ and ‘Assault Weapons’ to support their narrative to accomplish their objectives, and they assiduously avoid the use of other verbiage that undercuts their running narrative.Expressions like ‘hardening,’ ‘school security, ‘armed resource officers’ and ‘armed self-defense’ are a few of the main ones the propagandists avoid.Such latter expressions reinforce the need for effective security in schools and in the greater society; the former does not. To make the illusion work, the use of expressions like ‘hardening,’ ‘school security, ‘armed resource officers,’ and ‘armed self-defense’ must be scrupulously avoided in Government sponsored messaging. The public too is discouraged from using those expressions in public discourse.What is advantageous to schools and to society as a whole is an anathema to the present Administration and antithetical to the Administration's policy pertaining to firearms and the Second Amendment.A profound quelling of dissent is fostered, unlike anything seen before in America. A fog settles over the public psyche. This is as intended. The First Amendment freedom of speech is severely constrained.Many organizations obey the guidelines for discourse set by the Biden Administration and establish policies of their own consistent with those of the Biden regime, even though Biden's policy directives are contrary to the welfare of the Nation and destructive of the fundamental, unalienable rights of the people protected by the U.S. Constitution.The UFT is in league with Biden Administration policy, and actively and avidly assists the Administration in complying with the Administration's duplicitous schemes. And it wields considerable influence over its members.Many teachers who should be attuned to the dangers of manipulation of public thought become ensnared by it. Worse, what impacts them also affects their charges.This sad result is emblematic of New York City public school education.And, so, the Public school buildings remain unsecured. And, yet, New York Governor Hochul and the UFT would likely disagree with this observation.On June 23, 2022, following the Uvalde, Texas shooting incident, Hochul signed a school security bill, named in honor of a student who was a victim of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School shooting tragedy. An announcement on the Governor's website proclaimed——“Governor Kathy Hochul today signed Alyssa's Law (S.7132B/A.10018), requiring schools to consider the use of silent panic alarm systems when conducting review and development of their school safety plans. . . . ‘I am proud of the work we have done to pass a nation-leading bill package to crack down on the scourge of gun violence, but this is an ongoing fight and we cannot stop there,’ Governor Hochul said. ‘We will continue to take aggressive action until every child in New York is safe to pursue an education without the fear of senseless tragedy. That's why I am proud to put pen to paper on Alyssa's Law, a real and meaningful piece of legislation that will require school districts to evaluate systems that can save precious minutes—and lives—in the event of an active shooter situation.’This bill requires that schools consider their usefulness when developing their district-level school safety plans and expressly authorize their inclusion within building level safety plans. The panic alarm systems themselves can cost just a few thousand dollars to purchase, and can be implemented in the classroom as a smartphone app.”Notably absent from the hoopla surrounding the signing of this law is any mention of the use of armed resource officers to take down an “active shooter” while students, teachers, and staff anxiously await the arrival of police. How much damage can this “active shooter” do and how much harm can he inflict on children during those seconds and minutes before the police arrive? Significant damage; horrific harm!That absence of armed resource officers leaves children vulnerable to and helpless in the face of physical violence, in the precious seconds and minutes they must await the arrival of the NYPD Special Operations Bureau officers. But is it better a child should die, sacrificed for the greater good of society that enshrines the precept that “Guns are Bad” and develops school security policy around that idea?And children themselves—those that survive armed assault—are indoctrinated in the precept that “Guns are Bad.”Consistent with the intent behind that precept is the idea that those who commit violence are simply mentally ill, not inherently evil; ergo they aren't responsible for their acts. Hence, the moral imperative: blame the object, “the Gun,” for the act of “Gun Violence”, and refrain from blaming the agent, the “active shooter,” who happened to use the Gun to commit an unspeakable horror on an innocent child. No less is a child's innocent mind endangered—and by implicit Federal Government commands that many State and local governmental authorities and teacher's unions obey. A child's innocent mind is left open—accessible to, receptive to, and, inevitably, held captive to a slew of corrupting influences. These corrupting influences produce in the child, a phobia towards firearms and a disinterest in or abject hatred toward the Nation's natural law rights, including the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of Self and family, and against the armed predator, and to preserve the security of a free state against the predatory Government. The schools indoctrinate the child at an early age to focus his attention on the object, i.e., the Gun, and not on the sentient agent who misused a gun to harm another. The child is subconsciously infused with the ethical precepts of consequential utilitarianism, eschewing the moral culpability of the sentient agent, and looking at the concepts of good and evil in terms solely of utility: Do the consequences of an act maximize utility for society or reduce utility? As guns are deemed deleterious to the well-ordered society, any act involving them is deemed inherently bad by definition and altogether destructive to the well-being of the well-ordered society. As perceived by the predatory Government, the mere presence of guns in society reduces utility. Therefore the predatory Government must rid society of guns; all guns that are in the hands of the civilian citizenry. The Biden Administration is attempting to do just that, in incremental steps. The attack on so-called “assault weapons,” a.k.a. “weapons of war” is a major step in that direction. “Assault weapon,” refers to any semiautomatic handgun, rifle, or shotgun.  The Biden Administration intends to rid the Country of all of them—this—the most prevalent category of firearms in the Country. Tens of millions of American citizens keep and bear semiautomatic firearms. No matter. The Biden Administration intends to collect all of them. And the citizen should expect as much from a predatory Government.The predatory Government views a well-ordered society in terms of its own well-being, and not in terms of the well-being of the citizen. An armed citizen represents an inherent threat to the predatory Government. Therefore the citizen must be disarmed—this—ostensibly for the benefit of the well-ordered society qua the well-being of the predatory Government.Perpetuating the fiction of “Gun Violence” serves as an effective vehicle to de facto nullify the right codified in the Second Amendment, and eventually dismantle the free Constitutional Republic. A true republic cannot long stand in a land devoid of its armed citizenry. The Biden Administration intends to make it so.Americans bear witness to the inexorable dissolution of their Republic toward authoritarianism, and eventually totalitarianism, and the subordination of the American people to the State. The armed citizen is equated with Gun Violence.” No allowance is made for the law-abiding gun owner. The law-abiding armed citizen and the law-breaking psychopathic criminal and the rampaging lunatic are all subsumed in the same category: illicit gun-toting destructive elements, albeit the criminal and lunatic, serve the predatory Government's purpose to dismantle a free Republic. Criminals and lunatics are therefore allowed to run amok as they accelerate the destabilization of society, allowing authoritarianism to settle in. The predatory Government perceives the law-abiding gun owner as the graver threat, in fact, the gravest  “security” threat to that Government.Apropos of schools, the ill effects of the application of “Gun Violence” policy objectives become too blatant to ignore. Any attempt “to harden” school buildings against armed aggression is met with firm resistance. This is plain from the UFT “Resolution to end gun violence,” as posted in the UFT newsletter, and in the mangling of my letter to the editor in response to the “Resolution to end gun violence,” and to the UFT follow-up article, “Delegates decry deadly school shooting.” The editor deleted my reference to the “hardening” of schools to protect children against armed invasion, while in school. This import of doing this is important. The UFT would does not support the hardening of schools against violent armed assault. This endangers a child's safety. The UFT and the Hochul Government feel this is an acceptable risk, as it is consistent with the philosophy embodied in establishing a “Gun Free” environment. This means the UFT and the Hochul Government forbid schools from utilizing armed resource officers as a security measure to protect children. Thus, a necessary component of school security hardening to thwart infiltration of New York City schools by an armed intruder is unavailable. Why would the UFT and the Hochul Government take this stance?The reason is this——The implementation of school security “hardening” proposals, while of benefit to the child, would be harmful to the Biden Administration's goal of nullifying the natural law right of armed self-defense, as codified in the Second Amendment. The Hochul Government and the UFT will not implement school security strategies that are inconsistent with Biden's anti “Gun Violence” policy directives directed to the eventual de facto nullification of the Second Amendment.Thus, a child's life is effectively subordinate to the dictates of Biden's tacit policy directive. That directive has infected the policies of many school districts, the effects of which are painfully visible.How do the UFT and the Hochul Government respond to this——Through a feat of legerdemain, the Biden Administration, Governor Hochul, and the UFT deflect criticism of deficiencies in school defenses against armed invasion by focusing the public's attention maximally on guns and on those law-abiding citizens who keep and bear them and focusing minimally on the “active shooter.” School shootings serve as a useful pretext to advance the Biden Administration's goal of reducing the impact of the right guaranteed in the Second Amendment to a nullity.This failure to effectively harden schools against armed assault is replicated in school districts around the Country. This is sad and profoundly disturbingBut, the ripple effect extends beyond issues pertaining to school security measures.The vehement incessant attack on guns and on the natural law right of armed self-defense compromises: one, the safety, security, and well-being of one's physical self; two, the sanctity and inviolability of one's Spirit and Soul; three, the preservation of the U.S. Constitution along with preservation of a free Constitutional Republic; and four, the sovereignty of the American people over Government. All of this is in danger of rupture—and more so today than ever before in our Nation's history.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE NEW YORK’S GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE?

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART EIGHTEEN

THE NEW YORK HOCHUL ADMINISTRATION'S PROBLEMS ARE OF ITS OWN MAKING. IT WOULD RATHER SPEND ITS ENERGIES AND TAX-PAYER MONIES  FIGHTING LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS, RATHER THAN FIGHTING CRIME. NEW YORKERS CAN EXPECT MUCH MORE OF THIS IN THE FUTURE, FOUR YEARS OF IT.

On June 23, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court came out with its third seminal case law rulings, following Heller in 2008 and McDonald in 2010. The three cases, taken together, hold the right of armed self-defense is a natural law right embodied in the Second Amendment.These three cases don’t sit well with State and local jurisdictions that abhor both guns and the notion of the right of civilian citizens to keep and bear them. And they have weaseled around the Heller and McDonald cases for over a decade—well before Bruen.Bruen arose as a direct challenge to one of the most restrictive Gun Law regimes in the Nation: codified in N.Y. Penal Law § 400.00 et. seq. The foundation of New York’s Gun Law is its draconian licensing requirement. All handgun licensing interposes the Government between the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms and the Government that intrudes upon the exercise of that right.New York’s handgun licensing scheme is among the most intrusive in the Country.Prior to Bruen, a person who sought to carry a handgun had to demonstrate “proper cause” to do so. But the State Government held armed self-defense against a visible threat in public as de facto insufficient “proper cause” justification for issuance of a license to carry.The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed.In Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the right of armed self-defense applies equally outside the home and in it. This ruling isn’t a Court based legal fiction, as Anti-Second Amendment proponents maintain. The right of armed self-defense is embodied in the Second Amendment.The Court in Bruen, and in Heller before it, simply illuminated and elucidated upon what the language of the Second Amendment asserts. It did not make new law.The Court thereupon struck down New York’s “may issue” “proper cause” requirement for those people applying for a concealed handgun carry license. Armed self-defense is de jure sufficient reason to carry, and it is presumptive in any application for a license. Therefore the applicant need not be required to expressly assert it.To be sure, New York Federal and State Courts never directly attacked the inherent right of the people to keep and bear arms because that was irrefutable natural law, cemented in the U.S. Constitution. And, if the Courts harbored the belief that the right, though fundamental, applied only to one’s service in a militia, the Heller case settled the matter, cadit quaestio.Even so, New York Courts routinely affirmed licensing officials’ denial of handgun carry licenses. The Courts reasoned that, even if a person has a fundamental, unalienable right to keep and bear arms, the person must have a valid handgun license to exercise the right, and acquiring one is a privilege, not a right, a privilege bestowed upon one by the grace of the State, and a privilege easily revoked. And, because the license serves as a condition precedent to exercising the right, the New York Government effectively created a proverbial “Catch 22.”Thus, Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions could continue to offend the Second Amendment guarantee while pretending to pay homage to it.New York’s handgun licensing scheme interferes with the exercise of a natural law right on an elementary level. There’s no doubt about that. That fact is clear, categorical, unequivocal, and irrefutable.The Court simply tinkered gingerly around the edges.But, by failing to strike down the New York handgun licensing, as unconstitutional, it remains rigid, unscathed.Justices Thomas and Alito knew that the Bruen rulings were faulty, that the rulings did not go far enough, and they could not have been happy about that.They would have struck down the entirety of the licensing structure if given a free hand, but Chief Justice Roberts, and possibly Justice Kavanaugh, too, likely prevented them from doing so if they were to obtain their votes.In Heller, the late eminent Justice Antonin Scalia, along with Justices Thomas and Alito, had to make concessions to Roberts and to Associate Justice Kennedy to get their votes.Now, in Bruen, Justices Thomas and Alito had to make concessions once again. That meant they must leave Government licensing of handguns alone.And that was all that New York Governor Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany needed to know. It gave them the edge they needed to slither around the Bruen rulings.The Anti-Second Amendment New York Government machine did strike the words, “Proper Cause,” from State Statute, but that meant nothing. They simply inserted “Proper Cause” into the “Good Moral Character” requirement of the State’s Gun Law. And the High Court in Bruen never struck down that latter requirement from the Gun Law.The “Good Moral Character” Requirement had hitherto existed as an unnecessary appendage to New York Gun Law, affixed to a licensing official’s denial of an application for any kind of handgun license.A licensing officer might for example refer to a person’s past arrest record in denying issuance. In the denial letter, the licensing officer would point to the arrest record as the basis for refusal, adding the redundant phrase that such past arrest record shows the applicant lacks Good Moral Character to possess a handgun.In the package of amendments, referred to as the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” or “CCIA,” the Hochul Administration’s “Good Moral Character” Requirement serves now as the salient basis for denying one a handgun license of any kind: restricted premise or unrestricted carry license.The applicant for a New York handgun license must now produce a volume of information, demonstrating his internal thought processes, especially his political and social ones.Given the depth and breadth of the Amendments to the Gun Law, the Hochul Government likely had the amendments prepared well in advance of the U.S. Supreme Court rulings—their passage in the Senate and Hochul’s signing them into law operating as a mere formality, taking place scarcely a week after the Court came down with its decision.The challenges to those amendments came just as hurriedly.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York dismissed the original suit filed against enforcement of the CCIA, without prejudice. But the Court had dismissed the case for administrative, not substantive failings, in the lawsuit. The Court made clear its concern with the law, tacitly encouraging the Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, holder of a valid New York handgun carry license, to refile his complaint.Hochul, as the scurrilous politician she is, took the dismissal as a win and said in a statement on her website that the Court agreed with the constitutionality of the CCIA. It did not.The original Plaintiff, Antonyuk, along with several other holders of New York handgun carry licenses filed a new lawsuit.This time, they named Governor Hochul as a Party Defendant, along with several other New York officials, including the Attorney General of the State.And this time the same U.S. District Court that heard and dismissed the original suit, granted the Plaintiffs a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO).Hochul was furious and her Attorney General immediately filed an emergency appeal of the District Court’s order, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Not unexpectedly, the Second Circuit did not act on the Appeal, probably because the Midterm Elections were around the corner, and the Court may have wished to wait to see whether Hochul was elected Governor although that should not factor into their decision.The Midterms are now over, and, whether Hochul won the election by hook or crook, she is York’s Governor, and the residents of the State must suffer her for at least four years. And that means, among other things, that she will fervently defend New York’s amendments to its Gun Law. And she has plenty of time to do so. And that raises the question:What will the Second Circuit do? Will it overturn the TRO or allow it to continue? If the TRO were the only matter before the Court, the Second Circuit would remand the case to the District Court that had issued it.The Second Circuit could issue its order keeping the stay in place while the District Court decides the substantive issues. That would benefit the Plaintiffs. Time would be on their side because Hochul could not lawfully enforce the CCIA during discovery and trial, however long that takes. Or the Second Circuit could lift the stay. That would benefit Hochul, as she would be free to enforce the CCIA while the District Court hears the Constitutional challenges to it. That would benefit Hochul and her Administration. They would likely prolong a final resolution of the case as the District Court had made known its antipathy toward the CCIA in lengthy Court opinions.But, as Hochul’s appeal of the TRO order remains still to be acted on by the Second Circuit, the District Court that ordered a TRO against Hochul’s enforcement of the CCIA had recently ruled on Plaintiffs Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, filed on September 2022. The case is Antonyuk vs. Hochul, (Antonyuk II), 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 201944 (N.D.N.Y. November 7, 2022)Contributing Ammoland writer John Crump wrote about this in his article posted on Ammoland, on November 7, 2022.The District Court’s impetus for this new ruling on a Preliminary Injunction though might render the TRO moot.Why did the District Court rule on the Preliminary Injunction before the Second Circuit ruled on the TRO?This might be due to the actions of Hochul’s Government, itself.In a caustic, strident, YouTube video, a new Acting Superintendent of State Police, Steven Nigrelli, replacing Kevin Bruen, threatened New York gun owners. The District Court wasn’t amused. In its comprehensive detailed opinion, the Court commented on Nigrelli’s outburst, saying this:“. . . unlike Superintendent Kevin Bruen in Antonyuk I, here Defendant Nigrelli has been shown to have threatened a ‘zero tolerance’ enforcement of the CCIA. On August 31, 2022, Defendant Nigrelli stated as follows in a YouTube video:‘We ensured that the lawful, responsible gun owners have the tools now to remain compliant with the law. For those who choose to violate this law . . . Governor, it's an easy message. I don't have to spell it out more than this. We'll have zero tolerance. If you violate this law, you will be arrested. Simple as that. Because the New York State Troopers are standing ready to do our job to ensure . . .  all laws are enforced.’Of course, here, Defendant Nigrelli did not limit his YouTube message to Plaintiffs. . . . However, five of the six Plaintiffs were members of the specific group of citizens (concealed-carry license holders) in New York State that was orally and visibly threatened by Defendant Nigrelli on August 31, 2022. The fact that the oral and visible threat occurred by video rather than in person fails to serve as a material distinction here, in the Court's view. For example, the fact that Nigrelli did not personally know yet of Defendant Mann's existence (as he does now) appears of little consequence, given that Defendant Nigrelli's 3,500 State Troopers were ‘standing ready’ to investigate and discover the violators. Indeed, the fact that the threat occurred by video actually increases the potency of it, due to its ability to be replayed. And Plaintiff Mann heard the message. It is difficult to see how one could fairly say that Defendant Nigrelli did not expressly direct his threat, in part, at Plaintiff Mann. In this way, Defendant Nigrelli's statement on August 31, 2022, was more than (as the State Defendants argue) a ‘generalized statement[] made . . . in the press.’ Rather, his statement specifically referenced arrest and was made in a YouTube video aimed specifically at license holders such as Plaintiff Mann who were considering violating Sections 4 or 5 of the CCIA.  As a result, the Court finds that Defendant Nigrelli has been charged with, and/or has assumed, the specific duty to enforce the CCIA.Finally, the Court finds that these threats of arrest and prosecution, or even mere citation and/or seizure of his handgun, are enough to show that Plaintiff Mann faces a credible threat of enforcement of Section 4 of the CCIA, which is fairly traceable to Defendants Hilton, Oakes and Nigrelli [Court documents and Case Citations omitted].”The Court opined that the Government’s message is demonstrative of the Plaintiffs’ concern they would be arrested for carrying a handgun in public—this notwithstanding the fact the Plaintiffs currently hold valid New York handgun carry licenses.The CCIA severely restricts where holders of New York handgun licenses can carry licenses.The Court’s granting of the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction in substantial part, introduces a new wrinkle in what has grown into a complicated legal matter, and all due to Kathy Hochul’s stubborn refusal to comply with U.S. Supreme Court rulings, along with her contemptuous attitude toward law-abiding American citizens who simply wish to exercise their fundamental, natural law right of armed self-defense.Hochul’s team will file a response to the District Court’s November 7, 2022, Preliminary Injunction ruling. No doubt the AG’s Office is working on it at this moment, and it will submit it to the Second Circuit in a few days.Hochul may ask the Second Circuit to suspend a ruling on the TRO in view of the District Court’s new ruling on the Plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction.The Second Circuit may itself, on its own motion, sua sponte, suspend a ruling on the TRO or, render the TRO matter given the District Court’s ruling on the Preliminary Injunction.The District Court ruling may have the effect of a final order on the merits. If so, this means the Second Circuit itself might render a final decision on at least a portion of the substantive merits of the issues on the constitutionality of the CCIA.If the Second Circuit affirms the Preliminary Injunction and, further, treats it like a Permanent Injunction that will render those portions of the CCIA affected by the Injunction permanently unenforceable.At that point, the administration's options will be limited. Hochul’s Government could appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but she likely wouldn’t do that. Of course, the High Court need not hear the case. The problem is that it probably would, and that would be dangerous for both New York and all Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions.The Court could grant review and use the opportunity to strike down the entirety of the New York handgun licensing structure. The Court would likely be in the frame of mind to do so, given Hochul’s contemptuous attitude toward the Court.The Hochul Administration could also ask for an en banc Second Circuit Court hearing. That means the entire Second Circuit would be empaneled to hear the case. Hochul would prefer that option, as the safest strategy. But the Second Circuit need not grant her a hearing of the full Bench. As with the U.S. Supreme Court, an appellant cannot demand a hearing of the full Bench, as a matter of right.There are more wrinkles in this Post-Bruen morass than on a Shar Pei.We’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.The natural law right of armed self-defense is coming to an ultimate showdown. At present that showdown is being fought in the Courts. Hopefully, it will not have to be fought in the streets. It need not come to that. Let us all hope it doesn’t.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK’S KATHY HOCHUL DOES NOT SEE PHYSICAL SURVIVAL AS A BASIC HUMAN INSTINCTUAL NEED, NOR SELF-DEFENSE AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT. WHY IS THAT?

The most basic instinct of every living thing, from the lowliest creature in God’s creation to the Divine Creator’s loftiest, man, is that of physical survival.No amount of prodding can convince any lowly creature otherwise. And man understands this as well on a basic instinctual level, apart from any reflecting he might do upon it.The act of self-defense is the natural response to a threat to life.All creatures understand this instinctively, as does man. But man understands self-defense also as a normative ethical prerogative, apart from the raw, innate instinct of any living creature to defend itself from mortal danger to the physical self, whether that danger comes from a creature, from another man, or from the tyranny of Government—the last of which poses the gravest danger to physical self and to Selfhood for members of a community.Yet, man, for all his intellect and, oddly enough, because of it, is oddly susceptible to denying the right to self-defense and, thence, denial of the instinctual urge to self-preservation.The framers of the U.S. Constitution engendered to extoll the absolute right of individual self-defense, knowing that the strength and fortitude of a Nation come from recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of each individual over that of the collective group. Once a Nation loses recognition of the singular importance of the right of the individual to be individual, the Nation has, then, within itself, the seeds of its own demise.The Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, unlike such document of rights that other nations might have, recognizes the singular importance of the individual over the group.The framers of the U.S. Constitution sought mightily to avoid any intimation of the United States as akin to an ant colony or beehive, where commonalty counts for naught, where only the life of the ruler, King or Queen, and the lives of the immediate entourage of that ruler are sacrosanct and inviolate. The framers conceived the United States as a free Constitutional Republic, in the purest sense, not as a meaningless jumble of words. In our free Constitutional Republic, Government serves the people.The American people themselves are sovereign rulers over the Government. But this idea is anathema to those transforming our Nation to tyranny. Unsurprisingly the agents of the Nation’s destruction have implemented policies designed to curb the exercise of natural law rights, especially those that pertain directly to the recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of Self.The adoration of “Selfhood” in the United States embodies the sanctity of one’s physical self, to be sure, but includes and transcends that basic right to the sanctity of one’s inner Self: his Psyche, Spirit, and Soul. That is consistent with the love the Divine Creator bestowed on man.But, the Destroyers of our Nation will have none of that. They do not accept. this. Such is their disdain for the Divine Creator and his Creation that they dare impose Godhead upon themselves and demand that Americans worship them, a false idol.The right of armed self-defense, in the United States, through the codification of the natural law right in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the Nation’s Constitution, is not of a different species from the general notion of self-defense, but recognition of, and acknowledgment that the Government cannot lawfully deny to a person the best means available to preserve his life and well-being. The natural law right of armed self-defense also embodies the natural law right of Selfhood—THE RIGHT OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO BE INDIVIDUAL.The two rights—the right of free speech and the right of the people to keep and bear arms work in tandem to exemplify the sovereignty of the American citizen over the State. The expression of those ideas, i.e., the exercise of them, is the source of our Nations’ strength and success.The attempt to emasculate these rights serves only to weaken the Country from within.Ruthless, malevolent, forces at work today both in our Federal Government and in many State and local governments, and through their agents in the private sector have attempted to dampen and restrain the exercise of the right of expression of thought and the right of armed self-defense. The reason to do so is plain: to weaken the Country.And the policy decisions giving rise to the slow strangulation of this Country are not difficult to ascertain. The results are prevalent and unmistakable:Destabilization of Society and Confusion and Demoralization of the American People.To deny an American citizen the natural law right to defend Self is to deny both the sanctity of the American’s Life, Spirit, and Soul, and to break down the Security of a Free State.Rampant crime in our major urban areas is endangering both.Unfortunately, the jurisdictions with the worst possible violent and property crime problems are also those that do not recognize the right to armed self-defense. This means, by logical extension, such jurisdictions do not acknowledge one’s instinct for the unalienable right to self-preservation, individuality, and the safety and security of the community. This should be self-evident. But, it isn't.How far removed is this radical Collectivist Federal Government and the radical Collectivist State and local governments that adhere to and proselytize to the masses an alien set of tenets, precepts, and principles—antithetical to those expressed in our Constitution? Truly beyond all imagining. But through the application of destructive policies, incrementally, many Americans are oblivious to the true extent of the destruction of our Nation.The Biden Administration, along with the Democrat-Party-controlled Congress, and Democrat-Party-controlled State and local governments, following the Administration’s lead, fail utterly to acknowledge or even to recognize the natural law right to self-defense, neither armed nor unarmed, and they even constrain the police from providing a modicum of protection for the community.A radical Democrat Party-controlled Federal Government and Democrat Party-controlled state and local governments have as a matter of policy chastised, handcuffed, shunned, demoralized, discredited, and even debased community police forces and traditional community policing. As a result, police have left in droves, in cities around the Country, and their ranks, are difficult to fill.Those police officers who remain on active duty can do little, to protect the community, given the policy and legal constraints now infecting traditional policing.The police often are not permitted to arrest lawbreakers who commit property crimes and even violent crimes. And when or if they do, the criminal justice system immediately releases these miscreants. That frustrates the police and endangers the community.As for the psychopathic criminal element and the psychotic maniacs who perpetrate violence, they have taken notice of the Governmental policy changes that not only tolerate destructive behavior but actively encourage it. The results are immediate and dire, impacting not only major urban areas but surrounding suburban communities as well.Take New York City. The present Democrat Mayor, Eric Adams, is ineffectual. But those New York City residents who voted for him bear responsibility now that he is in office and remains there. But every New York City resident pays the price for that.And then there is New York State. The unelected Democrat Lieutenant Governor, Kathy Hochul, who took over the reins of Government when the Democrat powerbrokers had tired of Governor Andrew Cuomo, forcing him to resign, bears singular responsibility for the carnage occurring throughout the State. Yet, she is dismissive of it and disparaging of those who dare call her out for it. The results are not surprising.New York State and its largest City, the Financial Capital of the Country, has hemorrhaged residents, 1.4 million people since 2010, and has, concomitantly, lost substantial tax revenue, further compounding the problems of servicing the State. See spectrum news article.And the website, the center square, reports:“The Internal Revenue Service this week released more troubling data for New York, with the federal agency showing more high-earning taxpayers leaving the state.Tracking returns filed in 2019 and 2020 showed that 479,826 people left New York for another state or country in those years. Over the same timeframe, just 231,439 people moved to the state. That means the state suffered a net loss of 248,387 residents.And, of course, those people took their money with them. The IRS figures show the moves generated an economic exodus of more than $19.5 billion.”This loss of population and concomitant revenue did not bother Andrew Cuomo.Back in 2014, Cuomo exclaimed, as reported by the New York Post, that he——“. . . has a message for conservative Republicans—you don’t belong in New York.Cuomo said Friday that members of the GOP with ‘extreme’ views are creating an identity crisis for their party and represent a bigger worry than Democrats such as himself.’‘Their problem isn’t me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves,’ the governor said on Albany’s The Capitol Pressroom radio show.‘Who are they? Right to life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay — if that’s who they are, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.’”But, even at that time, well before the ravages the CCP China COVID pandemic unleashed on the Country and the world, severely weakened the world’s economies, Cuomo carefully, added, at the end of his 2014 diatribe,“. . . moderate Republicans, such as those in the state Senate, ‘have a place in their state.’Cuomo hammered Republican activists whose views he said were out of step with the majority of New Yorkers and said the party has to back moderates to have any hope of winning seats in this fall’s elections.‘You have a schism within the Republican Party,’ Cuomo observed. ‘They’re searching to define their soul. That’s what’s going on . . . It’s a mirror of what’s going on in Washington.’” Id.Andrew Cuomo was mindful of his words and the threat of lost revenue if many took him seriously and left the State. So, he carefully avoided ostracizing Republicans simply for being Republican.But eight years later, Democrats now see all Republicans as beyond the pale, after the Party threw Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney into the dustbin.Liz Cheney is someone best left to memory. She will always be remembered for serving as a flunky, on behalf of Democrats, for Pelosi’s absurd and nauseating January 6 Panel. See recent October 23, 2o22 Washington Times article. Romney, though, is more dangerous. And, he recently, infuriated Senate Republicans for refusing to endorse Mike Lee’s reelection bid in 2022. This could jeopardize a Republican Senate majority in November. See the article in Breitbart. Romney supports the faux Republican, Ed McMullin, running against Mike Lee. See the article in the Federalist.Apparently seeing that Republicans are not going to play “pretend Democrats,” Hochul, taking her cue from the Neoliberal Globalists, treats all Republicans now as persona non grata, and, in so doing, forsakes Andrew Cuomo’s simulacrum of tact and commonsense.With Eric Adams standing next to her, as a crutch, she unleashes a torrent of invective and contempt against those New Yorkers whom she cannot influence and therefore does not trust—every Republican. She will not take her cue from Cuomo, who attempted to distinguish, even if only for show, the so-called “moderate” and therefore “good” Republicans, from the immoderate bad Republicans whom Biden refers to as “MAGA” Republicans. See the article in the New York Post.“Gov. Kathy Hochul, who hasn’t proven shy about issuing orders, had one for the state’s Republicans this week — all 5.4 million of them: ‘Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?’ she said. ‘You are not New Yorkers.”If you can move beyond the frankly disgusting political partisanship and intolerance, her message is fiscally irresponsible, even dangerous. The governor probably already knows this, but the state’s extensive public sector is heavily reliant on personal income taxes paid by residents, and with nearly $14 billion in projected budget gaps over the next five years, it can’t afford to lose any taxpayers, let alone 5.4 million of them.The Empire State has already lost 1.5 million residents in the past decade, and there’s no sign of that trend letting up. In fact, more than 350,000 New Yorkers relocated during the 12 pandemic-plagued months leading up to July 1, 2021.”Florida will be more than willing to oblige Hochul. Her loss is Florida’s gain, both in American citizens and in revenue. See the article in the center square.“New Jersey and Florida were the biggest beneficiaries. More than 84,500 people moved from New York to New Jersey and took $5.3 billion. By contrast, only 37,127 New Jersey residents moved to New York and brought $2.2 billion in income.The numbers were even starker between New York and Florida. Over the two years, 71,845 New Yorkers flocked to the Sunshine States and took $6.4 billion. Meanwhile, 26,902 former Floridians moved up north. Those individuals had a combined income of $1.2 billion.”Hochul would rather lose votes and retain her status as a puppet for the Neoliberal Globalists who fund her campaign for Governor against Republic Lee Zeldin than admit that maybe she should think more for her State and for the Country than for her own personal lust for power, kowtowing to interests that don’t cohere with those of the Country and the citizenry.If Hochul spent more time doing something productive about the out-of-control property and violent crime problem and acknowledged the fundamental and unalienable right to armed self-defense, she might garner millions of votes that she now has irretrievably lost, endangering what, months ago, she took for granted, have assumed her victory at the polls a sure-thing, a done deal.New York City, unfortunately, must contend with Eric Adams for three more years. But New York residents need not suffer Hochul. They can send her packing on November 8, and, for the sake of the State and the Country, let’s hope she goes. That will place Mayor Eric Adams in an unenviable position. Governor Lee Zeldin won’t be in his corner.

HOW IS IT THAT AMERICANS ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE LED BY POLITICIANS WHO SEEK THE DESTRUCTION OF THE REPUBLIC, THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, OUR SOVEREIGNTY, OUR HISTORY, HERITAGE,  CULTURE, AND OUR ETHOS?

Unscrupulous politicians, aided by an army of malicious “loudspeakers” seduce much of the public to deny the horrors they see around them or convince the public that better times are just around the corner.The Destroyers of a free Constitutional Republic know this. They have convinced many Americans they represent all that is good and right and proper for America—all in pursuit of shameless goals: the dissolution of society; the destruction of a sovereign, independent Nation; and subordination of a free and sovereign people, to the dictates of a tyrannical government.In those pursuits they have brought devastation to the Republic:

• The upheaval of our Nation’s institutions;
• Promotion of moral decadence and degradation even unto the Nation’s seed corn;
• The psychical malaise of the public soul and psyche;
• The deliberate inception of physical violence and economic strife;
• The insinuation of alien cultures and influences upon Americans;
• Graft and corruption in the public and private sectors of an unprecedented scale;
• incredible wastefulness of the nation’s tax dollars;
• The physical opening of the Nation’s borders to over five million illegal wayfarers looking for handouts, and with no end in sight as they keep coming—a tidal wave of disease and dependency the American public can ill afford; and,
• Expensive foreign escapades, both extravagantly expensive and extraordinarily dangerous to the well-being of the Nation and the world.

A veritable hailstorm has overtaken this Country. It has progressed subtly at first, but it has gathered steam and it is undeniable. Yet, for all the horror that Democrats have unleashed upon us, and that all too many Republicans have placidly acceded to or even actively conspired in, Americans are contemptuously treated to incomprehensible messaging.The horrors unfolding are dismissed out-of-hand, blatantly denied outright, or extolled as good and proper: the necessary growing pains for a better America and a better world, we are told. It is a damnable lie.Still, Americans are urged to conform actions and thoughts to the dictates of those who would destroy both them and the Country.Too few people remain alive today who would remember the Pied Piper of Hamlin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His Presidency should be studied. He sought to turn the Nation into a Socialist welfare State. How did that come about?Manipulation of public thought existed at that time, no less so than today. And it came by way of a composer’s catchy jingle coupled with a songwriter’s sprightly lyrics, and eloquently sung by a popular jazz singer and soon, as hoped and expected, became a useful campaign slogan: “Happy Days Are Here Again.”The public bought into the lies and voted into Office a man who sought to turn the Nation into a massive socialist enclave.For anyone who cared to notice, the propagandists had demonstrated the effectiveness of mass conditioning on the national stage, notwithstanding that, back then, during the first third of the 20^th Century, the world only had radio and newspapers and a smattering of periodicals to convey the Socialist messaging to a large audience.The Biden Administration's goals for the Country are the same as that of FDR, whom Biden emulates, and has not disguised that fact. See the article in the Hill.But tools for mass psychological conditioning, although in their infancy, along with the means for delivering those devices, although rudimentary by today’s standards, were still effective in seducing the masses.How far we have come. Today’s propagandists have available to them sophisticated tools of neurophysiological and neuropsychological conditioning, and with devices like smartphones, now ubiquitous, they have the means to deliver the messaging to the masses instantaneously.The immolation of American society is at hand, and it is indisputable, but many Americans are blind to it or are otherwise resigned to it. A few, even, are on board with it; relish the extinction of the United States as a free Constitutional Republic, favoring a stateless geographical region, open to millions for the taking. Have they considered what that might do to their own welfare? Or are they too far gone to even care?Rising, raging violent crime, especially in our major urban cities, is emblematic of destruction.How can rational Americans be cavalier about this?How is it that the public allows this to exist?How is it that Americans have a predilection for voting into Office—undoubtedly through the help of massive electoral subterfuge—deceitful leaders: seen in the mayors of cities, governors, and legislators of states, and in the Nation’s Congressional leaders, including a manikin in the highest Office of the Land?At some level, every American must know the Country is dying from within, even as much of that “assistance” is coming from ruthless forces from the outside.Many Americans, resigned to this, accept it. Several others have deluded themselves into the belief that matters will correct themselves of their own accord. And a few soulless types relish the demise of the Country.New York is a testbed of denial. Severe property crime and violent crime are rampant.The New York Governor hopeful, Lee Zeldin, has made the problem of crime a linchpin of his campaign. And notwithstanding all the money at Hochul’s disposal, she must contend with this upstart who is embarking perilously close to her domain.To be sure, New York, and especially New York City, has traditionally supported liberal, left-wing candidates. But the extent and scope of crime are now affecting too many New Yorkers, and even a dollop of wishful thinking is not sufficient to mask the seriousness of it.Hochul is compelled to admit the fact of it, to her dismay, and she is not happy to do so, for that means she plays into Zeldin’s strong suit and in accordance with his rules, his game plan, and that pains her to do so. To do so is also an admission that Zeldin is correct, and that weakens Hochul's campaign, and therefore weakens her standing as the preeminent candidate who should be setting out the pressing issues for consideration. See the article on law enforcement today.The entire House of Cards the Democrats carefully constructed is in danger of collapsing—across the Country. Could it be any other way? Even with their almost total control of messaging and of communication resources across the Country, how can these toadies of the wealthy, powerful, ruthless Neoliberal Globalists and of the out-of-control Neo-Marxist cultists, together with the absurdities of socio-political and economic Collectivist ideology and bankrupt normative ethical systems grounded in utilitarian consequentialism that view morality in terms of group dynamics, instead of individual will, motive, and need, honestly expect Americans to discard the precepts of our Constitution and over two thousand years of Christian deontological ethics extolling the sanctity of each individual human soul, and the self-evident truth of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, morally perfect, and benevolent Divine Being for an irrational belief system—one that, both in logic and in its effects, is contrary to the well-being of Americans and the Nation? It is the height of arrogance and erroneously presumes that mass psychological conditioning will win the day over one's deep, abiding innermost thoughts bespeaking the nature of right and wrong, on an elemental level, and of the inviolability of one's Being as a creation of God.Notwithstanding propagandist control of most communication venues, they have heretofore demonstrated little that can be deemed a success, and have found few converts to their cause and to their way of thinking.  They have constructed narratives and manufactured false issues out of whole cloth: narratives and the issues concerning racism, climate change, abortion, and “green energy.” They have buttressed and magnified these ludicrous narratives and issues and fabricated an equally ludicrous new dogma—a veritable religion—to push these idiotic narratives and false issues to the fore, around which they seek to replace our culture with the new one: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”  They have few takers.Concomitant with this, the Democrat toadies of the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists have also sought to deemphasize issues that are critical to the strength and well-being of the Country and its people. These include the depletion of our energy reserves, runaway inflation, wasteful government spending, engaging our Nation in dangerous, wholly unnecessary military escapades, and systematically dissolving the integrity of the Nation’s geographical borders. But these issues are less policy, per se. Rather they are the accumulated effects of bad policy that beg now for solutions. And the solutions must come from Republicans. There is much work to be done to mend the corruption wrought by the Biden Administration, and by a Democrat-Party-controlled Congress, and by corrupt Democrat-Party-controlled State and municipal governments that have taken their cue from a despicable, despotic Federal Government. The responsible people must be investigated and brought to justice.The profound decay and ruin that has occurred throughout our Nation and on so many levels will take time to rectify. And to do this Americans must understand that the disintegration of our history, heritage, culture, ethos, and strength is not the result of mere ineptitude. Would that it were so. No! The decay and ruin are deliberate. They are the aims and goals of ruthless forces both here and abroad that have taken over the Democrat Party. They have taken over many of the agencies of the Federal and State Governments and many major businesses. They have taken over the Press and many of the Nation's institutions. And they seek to corrupt the minds of Americans: men, women, and even children. No one is safe from the corruption these ruthless, malevolent, malignant forces have perpetrated. Corruption has permeated all of America. Most Americans know this intuitively, innately, as well, and experientially. But, Americans feel powerless to do anything about this. And that, feeling of powerlessness, contributing to societal malaise is also by design. Americans must regain inner strength to do battle with the corrupters of our Nation.Failure of Americans to take charge of their life and national destiny will result in the further crippling of the United States. In a weakened condition, the Nation is inexorably, inevitably, susceptible to complete, and irrecoverable societal collapse. That means the Nation will cease to exist as an independent nation-state. And with that, the remains of the Country can be easily merged into a neo-feudal political, social, and economic world empire, ruled by an “elite “ few who, alone, will benefit from this. That is the endgame. That is what Trump saw, and that is what Americans saw who voted for him. And he sought to prevent the decay; to halt it; and then to turn the Country around. and, for a time, he did. That explains why Democrats, from the corrupt, demented Toady in Chief, Joe Biden, on down, have attacked Americans who supported Trump. That is why Democrats attack the slogan and policy goal, "Make America Great Again." They treat it as if it were an obscenity.Democrats have also sought to erroneously conflate matters that should not be conflated. This is best exemplified in discussions of immigration/naturalization: Illegal excursions into our Country by millions of people around the world. Illegal entry by millions of people is not equivalent to legal immigration. The U.S. already takes in more people legally than any other Country on Earth. And naturalized citizens resent, justifiably so, those millions who get a free ride into the U.S. Democrats. Democrats have consistently faulted Trump for his immigration stance, claiming erroneously that Trump was against immigration. He wasn’t. He never said that. What he did say was that he is against “illegal immigration.” But, for Democrats “illegal entry” into the Country is subsumed in “legal immigration.” That is inconsistent with both logic and law. But no matter. It is also odd to consider that ten to twenty years ago, Democrats, themselves also attacked illegal entry into our Country. That seemingly miraculously changed. What caused this sudden about-face?Democrats' control of the Press and social media gives the illusion of credibility to their narrative fiction. But, the result is devastation to the health of the Country. How do we rid ourselves of millions of illegals in our Country in the space of two years, with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands more pouring into the Nation every month? The short answer is, we can’t. Not easily. And that’s the point. They’re here to stay.And Democrats conflate violent crime, which they tolerate and even enable, with guns. They refuse to accept the fact that the right of the people to keep and bear arms, a natural law fundamental right, that Democrats loathe and wish to eventually outlaw. It is not by mistake that Progressive  or Marxist Democrats, such as the present Governor,  Kathy Hochul, remarks erroneously and absurdly that crime is simply a function of guns; ergo “criminal violence” reduces to “gun violence.” Kathy Hochul and all Democrats routinely, indeed, invariably eschew the phrase “criminal violence” in all of their remarks. They always use the expression “gun violence.” For, it is guns, in the hands of tens of millions of law-abiding citizens whom the Democrats wish to abolish, not criminal violence which serves their end goal to destabilize society, thereby making way for the dismantling of the United States as a free, sovereign, independent, Nation-State. The soci0-political regimes to which they seek to attach the remains of the U.S., merging the remains of the U.S. in an amorphous neo-feudal empire, do not, and never did recognize armed self-defense as a fundamental right. The Progressive, Neo-Marxists, and Neoliberal Globalists intend for our laws, rights, and jurisprudence to mirror the "Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" adopted by the Council of Europe and the loose "EU Charter of Fundamental Rights" as adopted by the European Union. These all reflect and cohere with the "Declaration of Human Rights" promulgated by the United Nations. Notable in its absence in those documents is any reference to the right of the people to keep and bear arms in their own defense and to thwart tyranny. In fact, there is no mention even of a general individual right of self-defense.  position papers of the UN. Any reference to a notion of self-defense is limited to that ascribed only to nations, who have a duty—more in the nature of a prerogative—to protect their native populations. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, dealing with this, titled, "Tyranny, Fundamental Rights and the Armed Citizen," posted on December 2, 2021.The concept of individual rights is reduced to a seemingly noble but, in analysis, vacuous recitation. One wonders if the EU and UN and Council of Nations drafters of these tracts, and documents of ostensible "Human Rights," take seriously the rights their tracts and documents recite. Of what use are these things in the absense of the means for the individual to enforce them? This question is rhetorical. For, the EU and UN and British Commonwealth of Nations, too, do not recognize the sanctity of the individual as an independent singular living Being. The rights espoused belong to the group—to a collective, to the Hive. The criminal element, there as here, understands this all too well, and preys at will on innocent lives. And, they use whatever means Criminals use whatever means they can to commit their crimes. In Democrat-run jurisdictions, in the U.S., the criminal's use of guns in the commission of their crimes is pleaded out, and the remaining felony count is then reduced to a misdemeanor. The criminal is let loose from pretrial detention to create more mayhem before his trial on the first crime even commences.This horrible situation is what New Yorkers face under the Hochul/Adams regime, and it won’t go away if Hochul is elected Governor. Her answer to criminal violence is to take away handguns from the average, responsible, rational, law-abiding adult citizen. She takes as axiomatic that guns as a numerical factor are responsible for the scope and ferocity of criminal behavior, irrespective of whom it is that wields a gun. This idea is flawed on both empirical grounds and as a matter of pure logic. She recites it anyway. Apparently, it makes for good messaging to those who have a phobic aversion to guns. And Hochul, and others of her kind, play and prey on that aversion. It means nothing. Violent crime continues unabated, sometimes through the use of a gun, often, then, by a gangbanger, and, more often by any of a variety of implements, whatever is at hand: knives, axes, baseball bats, hands and feet, hammers, even automobiles.Hochul spent the summer expending her energies, not on dealing with the explosion of violent crime, by working out and implementing crime reduction measures, but, rather, on defying U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the Bruen case, handed down at the end of June 2022. Her target is not violent crime reduction, but on oppressing law-abiding citizens, residents of the State, who merely wish to exercise their God-given right to bear arms in their own defense, as it is plain enough the police can't protect them, notwithstanding that the police do not have a duty to guarantee the life and safety of individuals anyway. But, now, the police in New York, in this post-George Floyd era, are constrained from even protecting the community at large.Like all Democrats, Hochul loathes the idea of implementing a policy that adheres to the natural law right to armed self-defense outside the home as well as inside it. In a jurisdiction that has degenerated into marked lawlessness, by design, it is reprehensible that Hochul would dare defy the U.S. Supreme Court unless she felt she could get away with this. She can’t, and, to date, she hasn’t. And it could well be the end of her after November 8, 2022. One can only hope.And let us hope that the majority of New Yorkers, even those who consider themselves social and political liberals or progressives, will come to their senses and recognize that Hochul does not have a plan to protect New Yorkers. The question is: Does she even care about the life and well-being of New Yorkers? Likely, not. Her actions speak louder than and belie her words. But, to fringe "Neo-Marxist cultists," the life of the individual counts for nothing. A million years of evolution begs to differ. The instinct for Self-Preservation does not abide by odd fads that deny the truth and strength of the instinctual need as pronounced in the actions of the lower animals.And the moral prerogative of self-defense derives as a natural law right baked into the Being of man by a Loving and all-powerful, Creator who created Man in His Own Image. But, the Cultists deny both God and the sanctity of the Individual Soul.The natural law right of armed self-defense is but an aspect of the general natural law right of defense. A person has the right and duty to protect him or herself with the most effective means available. At first, the most effective means available were the knife and sword. And for several hundred years thereafter, and currently, the best means available to protect oneself in imminent extremity, is the firearm, not the social worker. The natural law right to armed self-defense is coextensive with one’s instinct for survival.In an environment that at once eschews police protection for the welfare of the community and denies one the basic right to defend self against violent attack, it is little wonder that many New Yorkers, especially those that have hitherto extolled the Democrat Party tradition against guns, would have second thoughts about voting into Office, for four years, a person whose cavalier attitude toward the life, safety, and well-being is painfully in evidence.Lee Zeldin who sees that freedom from violent crime and the right to armed self-defense are not mutually exclusive but, to the contrary, go hand-in-hand, is in a good position to defeat Kathy Hochul. Hochul is a person who takes for granted that the concerns of a violent criminal or lunatic supersede the concerns of a law-abiding, innocent citizen, and she refuses to acknowledge the right of the individual to armed self-defense, even where an institution no less than the U.S. Supreme Court so ordains, consistent with the plain meaning of the language of the Second Amendment.Hochul’s ideas concerning crime and criminals and her abhorrence of the right of armed self-defense, together with her reluctance to allow the police to engage in traditional policing to defend life and property, cannot be viewed in a vacuum. These ideas, attributable to a faulty ethical system, odd moral imperatives of interest, and a predilection toward defying laws she happens to disagree with would be of interest to scholars in the fields of law and government studies, and in the fields of philosophy and psychology. Unfortunately, Hochul is, at present—and hopefully only for a few more days—the New York Governor. Her personal beliefs have expression in reality. They are not consigned simply to academic literature.Hochul’s ideas concerning crime and criminals and armed self-defense are not, then, mere “ideas.” They are policy choices, and those policy choices affect the nature of the society that a New Yorker must live and work in. They have real-world consequences. And those real-world consequences are not pleasant ones to behold.New Yorkers have taken notice. And they aren’t happy with what they see. This slow turn of events, now gaining in speed, obviously confuses and frustrates both Hochul and her wealthy donors. It shouldn’t but it does. That they are arrogant and jaded makes them sloppy. But, that is a good thing. It makes them easier to defeat.New Yorkers and Americans around the Country have awakened to the illogic of Democrats’ worldview. Democrats treat Americans like children who should not be permitted to think for themselves. Such is the condition of people who live in tyranny.Americans are rebelling against attempts to treat them like wayward children who must be led about. Americans won’t allow themselves to be governed by tyrants, whether those tyrants tend to see themselves as benevolent dictators or not.Since taking over the mantle of Governor in August, New Yorkers have obtained a good look at the New York Hochul envisions for them. Let’s see if enough New Yorkers, in the few days remaining before the election, make plain their displeasure with Hochul, and rid themselves of this petty tyrant, once and for all, at the polls.Those residents of New York who choose not to leave or cannot leave the State for “greener pastures” can turn things around for New York or they can accelerate the pace of societal decay and further endanger their life.The cutesy limerick, “A vote for Hochul is a vote for the same, but a vote for Zeldin is a vote for change to save New York,” is a bearer of a serious, dire message despite its tone.Hochul, who owes her allegiance to her donors, wealthy Neoliberal Globalists bent on destroying New York to satisfy their own interests and insatiable greed, together with the Neo-Marxists who have made no attempt to hide their disgust for the U.S. Constitution, and for the founders of our Free Constitutional Republic, and for our history, our heritage, and for our Christian heritage, and who deny the very concept of natural law rights, have—in Kathy Hochul—an agent to bring about the financial, economic, and social collapse of New York. Just look at the ruin of a once great State she has “accomplished” in the short time, she has been in office. Do New Yorkers want four years of this? If so, New York will be unrecognizable, and not in a good way!___________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

AT WHAT POINT DO NEW YORK VOTERS SAY “NO” TO CRIME AND CORRUPT GOVERNMENT?

NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL IS A GHOUL!

[UPDATED WITH CORRECTIONS REPORTED BY AQ READERS WHO NOTED INCORRECT DATES PERTAINING TO NEW YORK GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO'S RESIGNATION, AND THE DATE UPON WHICH HIS REPLACEMENT, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL, BECAME GOVERNOR, SERVING NOW FOR 14 MONTHS. SHE IS NOW UP FOR ELECTION, FOR THE FIRST TIME, ON NOVEMBER 8, 2022, RUNNING AGAINST LEE ZELDIN, WHOSE ELECTION AS GOVERNOR WOULD MARK THE FIRST TIME NEW YORK WOULD SEE A REPUBLICAN ELECTED GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK IN 20 YEARS. [SEE CHANGES TO THIS ARTICLE IN "GRAY" INK INFRA]The adage “People get the leaders and government they deserve” has increasing relevance today, in America.Cities, States, and the Nation are imploding. This is no accident. It is by design.Consider New York and its largest city.The five Boroughs of New York City are a cesspool of violence. Crime is rampant. It is out of control. And it is affecting the entire State. No one is safe.This is no illusion. It is very real. Politicians and newspapers that deny this are not merely lying to the public, they are insulting the public’s intelligence.This situation is unacceptable, and it need not be. But it happens to be because most of the electorate votes the worst people into Office.Take Kathy Hochul, the present Governor of New York. Hochul, the Lieutenant Governor took over the Governorship after Andrew Cuomo resigned from Office in disgrace. But Hochul is no better than Cuomo. Both embody two of the worst traits of a human being: Arrogance and Piousness.It is bad enough to see these character traits in any person. But society itself is endangered when such people hold public office. For then, these character flaws have free reign. The result is corruption on a vast scale.The impact of corruption is felt on many levels.Corruption in Government is felt on a societal level, as institutions fall apart and, concomitantly, society falls into decay.Corruption in Government is felt on an economic level as businesses, unable to operate in a lawless environment, are forced to leave. Tax revenues then dry up. With Government services attenuated, cities and states fall into a death spiral.And corruption in Government is felt on a basic and raw, physical level, as criminals and lunatics prey at will on millions of innocent men, women, and children. No place is safe: public areas, stores, and shops, schools, houses of worship, even one’s home is susceptible to violence from roving predators.People grow anxious, fearful, and afraid to venture out, day or night. The consequences for victims of violent crime are life-altering.And what do we get from our government leaders: much talk, but no effective action.Kathy Hochul, Lieutenant Governor under Andrew Cuomo was sworn in as New York's Governor on August 24, 2021. Did anyone ever hear of her? Cuomo kept his understudy in mothballs for years. He intended to remain Governor in perpetuity, as New York law allowed, running for re-election every four years for another term. There are no term limits. But the Democrat Neoliberal Globalist powerbrokers had other plans. For whatever reason, likely not the ones that were fed to the public, they wanted him out. The news organs went to work, making much of the sex scandals, that the powerbrokers and the Press had certainly known about for years, but had ignored. In a flood of stories, the Press reported on the sex scandals, and, to a lesser extent, the Press reported on the COVID-19 nursing home deaths that were clearly more important and altogether reprehensible. But as for that latter story, the Press had hitherto, and peculiarly, underreported it, had even been dismissive of it, even though the New York public had always known about it and was justifiably angered by it, as were Americans around the Nation.But now the floodgates were opened. The Press went to work. The powers that be, whom the Democrat Party and the Press serve had tired of Cuomo. Having realized the game was up, and that it would be futile to fight the powers that be, Cuomo reluctantly announced his resignation, on August 10, 2021, to be effective 14 days later, on August 24, 2021. On that same date, August 24, 2021, Kathy Hochul, who Cuomo had kept in mothballs since 2015 when she sat as Lieutenant Governor, took the Oath of Office, See, e.g., articles in Spectrum News NY1 and the article in the AP. Now, Kathy Hochul faces the New York electorate for the first time. The midterm elections take place on November 8, 2022. She is running against Republican, Lee Zeldin, who gave up his U.S. Congressional seat to run for Governor of New York. The race is tight and the liberal media is nervous, frantic, really. See the article in the periodical, Time. Magazine. Democrats have become incautious and arrogant. They thought it would be impossible for a Republican to be elected Governor. The last Republican elected New York Governor was George Pataki, and that was 20 years ago. Pataki had narrowly defeated Andrew Cuomo's father, Mario. That surprised, shocked Democrats. See a 1994 article in the Washington Post. See also the article in The Hill. Will there be another upset in November 2022? One can pray it to be so. If enough voters in New York City have had enough of crime, corruption, and misspent taxpayer monies, they will give Hochul the boot.Fourteen months in Office has given the New York electorate more than an inkling of what to expect from Hochul if she gains the Governorship.Does the public want this person? Since a New York Governor’s term in Office is four years, the scale of the damage she would do to New York, economically and societally, would be enormous, irreparable. Scarcely over one year in Office, Hochul’s Administration is already embroiled in scandal.Last month, September 23, 2022, the New York Post cast light on Hochul’s corruption in a story titled,“‘They did what they did’: Hochul sees $637M ‘pay-to-play’ as no big deal.”  the Post points out:“Gov. Kathy Hochul tried to avoid blame Friday for a spiraling ‘pay-to-play’ scandal in which one of her top political donors scored no-bid contracts that overcharged taxpayers for $637 million in COVID-19 test kits.And she also brushed off the notion anyone in her administration should pay the price for it, telling The Post dismissively, ‘They did what they did.’Asked about the recently revealed deal with Digital Gadgets of New Jersey, whose owner, Charlie Tebeble, and his relatives have contributed about $330,000 to her campaign, Hochul at first repeated her team’s talking points on the simmering scandal.‘My directive to my team was: ‘The only way we’re going to get kids back in schools is to amass as many test kits from wherever you need to get them – just go do it,’ the governor said, when asked to answer for it by The Post at an unrelated event in Lake George.‘That was my only involvement.’New York might have saved as much as $286 million on the tests had the Hochul administration gotten a better price from the company, which the Times Union recently reported charged the state twice as much as other vendors selling the same test.”Hochul is corrupt to the core of her being. And she has made her corruption known both to the public and to those of like kind who are well-heeled. She is duplicitous, unapologetic, and slippery as an eel.The New York Post revelation isn’t a one-off. Hochul is power-hungry and without scruples and the big donors know this. They want her in Office, and they have filled her coffers before she even took the Oath of Office. They lavish favors on Hochul and they expect lavish favors in return. As reported by City and State, New York,“New York has never seen a campaign finance filing quite like Gov. Kathy Hochul’s. She started fundraising in August, days after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he would resign, and she never stopped, bringing in more than $21.6 million in a five month period. Hochul’s campaign touted the haul as ‘the largest contribution total for any single filing period in New York history’ in a press release Tuesday that noted she nearly doubled the $12.8 million raised in 2002 by then-Gov. George Pataki. The windfall further solidifies her position as the front-runner in the 2022 Democratic primary for governor, with her biggest competitors, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi, raising $221,996 and $3.4 million respectively according to the public filings.”And Crain's New York writes,​“Governor Kathy Hochul relied almost exclusively on wealthy donors in the latest campaign fundraising period, which ended in mid-July. The governor received a little more than $2 million, with 46% of her individual contributions exceeding $25,000, according to state campaign finance records.” Does anyone think these big donors give a damn about rampant crime in New York if it doesn’t affect them? Does anyone think they give a damn about anything but their own selfish wants and desires?But more to the point, does Hochul care about the well-being of the State and its cities and of the needs and well-being of the people? The answer is a resounding, “no.”  The New York Post explains:“When it comes to safer mass transit, we’ll take what we can get (as will Mayor Eric Adams). But it’s impossible to see Gov. Kathy Hochul’s offer of some taxpayer cash to support more subway-cop patrols as anything but a panicked gesture.And panic in the face not of the rising violence underground, but of Lee Zeldin’s surging poll numbers.”Many New Yorkers understand that Hochul is deceitful and doesn’t care about New York or its residents. Her tenure in office is all about graft.“When it comes to safer mass transit, we’ll take what we can get (as will Mayor Eric Adams). But it’s impossible to see Gov. Kathy Hochul’s offer of some taxpayer cash to support more subway-cop patrols as anything but a panicked gesture.And panic in the face not of the rising violence underground, but of Lee Zeldin’s surging poll numbers.As Nicole Gelinas notes, the new patrols depend on added overtime, which is nothing like a lasting solution. Cops, like anyone else, can only do so much OT before they’re exhausted — and the city was already expecting to do 61% more street-cop OT than initially budgeted.Plus, NYPD retirements/resignations are on pace to exceed 4,000 this year, the highest since post-9/11. Thanks to no-bail and other ‘criminal-justice reforms’ that Hochul continues to defend and even extend, plus won’t-do-their-jobs DAs like Alvin Bragg (whom she refuses to fire), police morale is through the floor. That means fewer cops, especially fewer experienced ones — yielding a force that’s less effective and more prone to make mistakes that the anti-cop fanatics will seize on to further undermine public safety.Meanwhile, finally getting off her ‘abortion abortion abortion” obsession, the panicked gov just dropped a new ad on crime, with her vowing, ‘You deserve to feel safe, and as your governor, I won’t stop working until you do.’” “You deserve to feel safe”? This can be a useful campaign slogan, but, from the mouth of Kathy Hochul, it is vacuous as hell.This is what Hochul thinks of public safety: It is all “Smoke and mirrors:” Pretend to care about the life of average, honest, hard-working people, but give them nothing but empty promises.Hochul refuses to accept if she ever bothered to consider that——The right to self-defense is axiomatic, self-evident, true. It is a natural law right: an immediate need, at once indisputable, eternal, pre-existent in each human being, immutable, and illimitable, but this natural law right isn’t in Kathy Hochul’s lexicon. And don't expect that Kathy Hochul will proffer New Yorkers police protection.The police don’t operate as personal bodyguards to anyone except political bigshots like the Governor or a mayor of a major city, and, under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the police do not legally have a duty to protect anyone. The public isn't aware of this, and Government has done nothing to explain this to anyone. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively about this.The police force of a community is only under a duty to provide protection for the community as a whole. Unfortunately, in New York, the police do little of that as well, and the fault rests with the Governor, Kathy Hochul and with NYC Mayor Eric Adams.Moreover, with massive cuts in police funding, cashless bail, and the presence of “non-prosecutors” like the George Soros flunky, Alvin Bragg, the need for, and right to armed self-defense in New York—especially in New York City—is acute.But Kathy Hochul perfunctorily dismisses any notion of a natural law right to armed self-defense, even when the U.S. Supreme Court makes abundantly clear to her the right to armed self-defense extends outside the home as well as inside it. Her response to the Bruen rulings makes her antipathy toward the right to armed self-defense crystal clear.Hochul refuses to comply with the High Court’s rulings in the third seminal case, NYSRPA versus Bruen.She conspired with the Democrat-Party majority in the State Legislature to thwart compliance with the rulings of the High Court.Hochul signed into law a set of amendments to the Court’s unconstitutional Gun Law that compound the unconstitutionality and unconscionability of the State’s Gun Law.Unsurprisingly, the package of amendments to the State’s Gun Law, referred to as the “Concealed Handgun Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”) were immediately challenged.Instead of relenting to the challenge, Kathy Hochul squandered taxpayer funds to defend the CCIA.Ultimately, the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York found for the Plaintiff New York gun owners. It issued a TRO, restraining Hochul from enforcing the amendments until trial on the merits of the CCIA.Still, Hochul refused to relent. She appealed the TRO to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where the case remains pending as of the date of this post.Conflating criminal misuse of handguns with the lawful use of handguns for self-defense, Hochul haughtily, contemptuously hides behind propaganda: a false, toxic narrative brew that the proliferation of handguns equates with gun violence.On a superficial level, this may make sense to some people as her proclamation is designed to do. But the true purpose of it is to hide a nefarious agenda: to deny to the law-abiding citizen his or her natural law right to armed self-defense.Hochul’s position is insupportable on legal, logical, and moral grounds. She obviously doesn’t care.If New Yorkers expect a safe and secure New York, they won’t obtain it from a Hochul Administration. Presumptively, any rational person would wish to live in an environment that is safe and would expect its government leaders to value the sanctity and inviolability of the individual.But people like Kathy Hochul care not for the well-being of the individual, but only for her well-being. That is the thinking of a sociopath. That is not the sort of person fit to be a leader.New Yorkers do have an alternative.Congressman Lee Zeldin is running against Kathy Hochul for New York Governor. Congressman Zeldin is the opposite of Hochul. He believes in the sanctity of each living Soul. Hochul does not. Her actions belie her words. Congressman Zeldin is a firm believer in the tenets of Individualism, consistent with the principles of the U.S. Constitution as written, as the framers of our Constitution intended. He is not a Collectivist. Hochul treats New York like a Beehive. She is the Queen Bee, and the average New Yorker, like the average Bee, is expendable! That is the gist of Collectivism.’ The tenets of Collectivism see their true expression and realization in Countries like CCP China. And Trudeau’s Canada is veering in that direction, as is our own Nation, under both the Biden Administration and the Pelosi/Schumer-controlled Congress. And people like Kathy Hochul wish the same for New Yorkers.Congressman Zeldin has stated he will fire Alvin Bragg once elected. Criminals and lunatics will no longer have a “field day.”But Hochul protects this Soros stooge: “Give him some time”; “Cut him some slack,” she retorts! Really? How much slack should New Yorkers give this creep? How much time does he need to prove his ineptitude as a DA? Bragg has since demonstrated his lack of concern for the life and well-being of innocent people. He does not believe in the need for pretrial detention for dangerous low life but immediately throws into the slammer individuals who, to his mind, have the audacity to defend their own life against maniacs.Such is the mindset of people who fail to accept, or even to recognize the natural law right to self-defense.  And rational Americans are expected to live in an insane, nightmarish dreamscape manufactured by these Dr. Frankenstein cousins: Kathy Hochul and Alvin Bragg?Most Americans, though, do not agree and will not accept an America ruled by irrational principles and dogma thrust upon them. Lee Zeldin won't and will not govern under irrational principles and dogma. Zeldin is a proponent of the natural law right of self-defense.He will institute policies that reflect the right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense and he will not kowtow to nor tolerate the antics of lunatics and criminals.Under Zeldin's Governorship New Yorkers need no longer fear the antics of malignant criminals and lunatics; nor the sordid policies of irreverent, irreligious malevolent leaders who give free license to such behavior and herald and rationalize such policies as good and just and right and proper.Congressman Zeldin will be tough on crime and on criminals, unlike Kathy Hochul who literally gives criminals and dangerous lunatics a “get-out-of-jail-free” card. Most importantly, Congressman Zeldin is a man of convictions, and those convictions are consistent with that of the fathers of our Nation. He isn’t a crass opportunist. Kathy Hochul, on the other hand, given the chance, will sell out the State and the people of New York to the highest bidder and, from her present set of actions, she has shown a proclivity to do just that—ransoming the State and the lives of the good people of New York to serve her own selfish ends.New Yorkers should keep uppermost in mind, as should all Americans: voting has its consequences.The future of New York does look bright and will be bright with the team of Lee Zeldin/Alison Esposito. Darkness is and will remain and worsen under the Kathy Hochul Administration—but only if elected.If New Yorkers like to live and work in a perpetual condition of abject fear, unable to defend their own lives with adequate means of protection that only a firearm can provide and unable to rely on the police even to provide a modicum of protection for the community, and if they wish to accept corruption as a normal condition, then by all means, vote for Kathy Hochul for Governor. Hochul has demonstrated she doesn’t give a damn for the physical safety and well-being and welfare of law-abiding American citizens who reside and work in New York; nor for the financial and economic well-being of the State; nor for preserving the tenets and principles of a Free Constitutional Republic, upon which our Country was created and upon which it thrived. For all other New Yorkers—those who do wish to live and work in a State that promotes the safety, well-being, and welfare of American citizens and who do wish to reside in a thriving, vibrant New York—you have an opportunity to do so.Remember: in making your decision, as to whom to vote for, keep in mind the adage invoked at the beginning of this article:Voters get the leaders and government they deserve. Those people become their representatives—the ones THEY elect to office. Ask yourself when you go to the polls to vote: “Do the representatives you vote for truly serve and truly desire to serve your interests or are their words mere artifice as they go about serving their own interests and aims—interests and aims that are altogether at loggerheads with those of you and I, the American people?”___________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

ONCE AMERICANS LOSE THEIR RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS, THEY WILL NEVER AGAIN REGAIN IT

“Another enduring principle is that we need countries to cooperate, now more than ever.  Not a single global challenge that affects your lives can be met by any one nation acting alone – not even one as powerful as the United States. And there is no wall high enough or strong enough to hold back the changes transforming our world.” ~ A slice of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement to the American people and to the world, delivered in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2021, less than five weeks after the Senate confirmed his nomination as a Cabinet Secretary.

CHANGES TRANSFORMING THE WORLD MUST NEVER BECOME THE PRETEXT FOR TRANSFORMING A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC INTO A PAWN OF TYRANTS

SOME TRUTHS ARE ETERNAL, NOT SUBJECT TO CHANGE

The U.S. is the only truly free Constitutional Republic in existence. That is how the framers of the U.S. Constitution designed our Government.Our Federal Government is the only one on Earth that exists solely to serve the interests of the American people. It has no other purpose.The Federal Government is answerable to and subordinate to the people. The American people are supreme sovereign over the Government.Once the servants of the people fail to recognize and acknowledge these aforesaid facts, and then forsake the interests of the people, the Government has descended into Tyranny.The American people have no lawful duty to suffer Tyranny. The Nation was founded on one singular precept, set forth in the Declaration of Independence. It is that our people are a free people and are to ever remain so, and as sole sovereign over their Government and each to him or herself, masters of their own fate, and the final arbiters and deciders of the Nation’s destiny.The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on Tyranny and will continue to do more. See, e.g., our article posted, a little over one year ago, on October 1, 2021. 

HOW DO AMERICANS EXERT THEIR SOVEREIGNTY OVER A GOVERNMENT THAT HAS RAISED THE SPECTER OF TYRANNY?

That the American people are lord and master over the Government, this is to be understood as resting not only in the limited and demarcated powers of Government but, more fundamentally, in the unalienable, illimitable, eternal, and unalterable natural law rights bestowed on man, not by Government or by other men, but by the Divine Creator, and thereupon codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights.The Bill of Rights is an integral and essential part of the U.S. Constitution.By voicing dissent against the encroachment of Tyranny, and through the firearms they bear to thwart its inception and to prevent its entrenchment, the American people have the means not only to stave off Tyranny but both the right and the duty to do so, else they merit the Tyranny they allow to exist by their active or passive failure to resist it.None of this can be reasonably doubted. Yet, somehow, somewhere through the passing years, decades, and centuries, these paramount truisms became eroded, and, for many citizens, they became lost to memory.The forces that crush entire populations and nations, utilizing, in recent years, advances in both psychological conditioning and communication technology, have induced veritable amnesia in the masses of all countries, dulling their mental acuity and deadening their will and spirit. This has done much to dampen the resolve of populations of much of the European Union as well as of the populations of the British Commonwealth of Nations.And the same insidious weakness has now infected the American psyche, brought about by similar, incessant brainwashing programs, introduced into our Country by the same forces that have crushed western Europe and the British Commonwealth Nations. And they have thence directed their toxins against Americans, lessening their resolve, fostering self-doubt, confusion, and outright fear of the very Government that was created to serve them.This Federal Government has betrayed the American people; misused the powers entrusted to it—has turned those powers upon the American people. It has unlawfully brought those powers to bear on its own masters. In so doing the Government has usurped authority that rests not in Government and never did—authority that rests solely in the American people, and always has.Through their many agents, the forces that crush people and nations have gained ascendancy in Government here and have bent much of the private sector to their will. In the process, they have gained substantial control over the thoughts and conduct of a broad swath of Americans.Many Americans have become compliant, empty vessels, unable to escape from the incessant drone of hypnotic messaging, emanating throughout the Country. The messaging has infected all communication resources: smartphones, airwaves, and reading material—insinuating itself firmly into the minds of Americans, seeping poison into one’s reasoning faculties and into the darkest recesses of one’s emotions, where rests one’s fears and feelings of hopelessness.Wherever they may be, the American public has become an oft unwilling, captive audience to the constant dissemination of noxious propaganda.Yet many Americans have resisted indoctrination. Through inner strength of will, they are either immune to or have become inured to this indoctrination. They have effectively walled off the horrific effects of mass psychological indoctrination that have plagued so many others.

SOMETHING FOR AMERICANS TO PONDER WHEN THEY GO TO THE POLLS IN NOVEMBER

As the Midterm elections loom, the Obstructors and Destructors of our Nation have shown no disinclination of easing up on their agenda to corral and control the thoughts and conduct of the American people. On the contrary, they are “doubling down” their efforts.They intend to bring to fruition a global neo-feudalist State. To accomplish that feat requires them to maintain, as a necessary condition, firm control of Congress as well as the Executive Branch of Government.

HOW DID WE AMERICANS GET TO THIS PLACE WHERE OUR FOES HAVE TAKEN OVER CONTROL OF OUR GOVERNMENT, OF OUR PRESS, OF SOCIAL MEDIA, AND OF WEALTHY, POWERFUL CORPORATE AND FINANCIAL CONGLOMERATES?

The slow ossification of the thinking processes of Americans and the slow erosion of Americans’ natural law rights and liberties took time—commencing one hundred years ago—perhaps earlier. But it has rapidly moved ahead only since the turn of the 21^st Century, made possible through major advances in communication and through the consolidation and control over much of the Federal Government and over our Nation’s myriad institutions.In their discourse the Destroyers of our Nation and their toadies endlessly go on about “Democracy,” but rarely do they mention the words, ‘freedom,’ ‘constitution’ and ‘republic.’ And they never mention the phrase ‘Free Constitutional Republic,” in one breath.That phrase—‘Free Constitutional Republic’—is an apt descriptor of our form of Government, and our Free Constitutional Republic has served us well since its founding. Because of it, we have become, in the space of fewer than two hundred years, the most powerful, successful, and wealthiest Nation on Earth—the envy of all other nations, where previous generations came legally to live the “American dream.”But the forces that crush people and nations are many and they are powerful, wealthy, and ruthless, and they are jealous of both the power of our Country, the resilience of its people, and the strength of our natural law rights, and our belief in the Divine Creator—ultimate sovereign over people and government. These forces intend to rend us from these beliefs and crush us.These wreckers of our Nation intend to plunder our Nation’s mineral resources and in the interim make those resources unavailable to the American people. And as they have taken control over the Federal Government’s military, police, intelligence, and judicial apparatuses, they have turned those engines of Government against the American people, as Americans are now beginning to learn.And what these wreckers of our Nation find either unsuitable to or antithetical to their needs, wants, and objectives, they have marked them as Detritus, and have consigned those items—both tangible and intangible—to the Trash Heap.And we all know what those items are:

• The Nation’s Constitution;
• The Idea and Fact of the Sovereignty of the American People over Government
• The Nation’s Natural Law Rights, Codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights;
• The Dismantling of the Nation’s Institutions, History, Heritage, and Culture;
• The Destruction of the Nation’s Emblems and Symbols, and Arts and Artifacts;
• The Erasing of the Nation’s Ethos, Ethics, and Christian Morality;
• The Erosion of the Importance of the Family in American Society;
• Transitioning Americans away from Reliance on Self to Dependency on Government;
• Promoting the Precepts of Collectivism; Denigrating the Precepts of Individualism;
• Infusing Americans with a Conformist Mindset;
• Acclimating Americans to Conditions of Poverty and Minimal Expectations; and
• Dissolution of Concepts such as ‘Nation-State,’ ‘Citizen,’ and ‘Patriotism.’

Many if not most Americans know, if they had heretofore any doubt, that the Nation has undergone a not-so-quiet coup d’état, centered on the Executive Branch of Government, with the investiture of the Grand Harlequin, Joe Biden, inhabiting the Executive Suite of Government. This dementia-ridden, brain-addled, corrupt, and compliant fool serves as a placeholder for the real rulers of the Country: shadowy, sinister, powerful,  ruthless elements bent on the Nation’s ruination. This fool, Joe Biden, who pretends to be the decider of American policy is the disturbing, disgusting public face of America—no more than a messenger boy through whom the dictates of the real rulers of our Country flow. The sinister forces that dictate their destructive policies to this toady in Government must derive a bit of smug satisfaction in that. As they destroy the Nation, they are at one and the same time able to shame it and mock it, as well. This explains why much of the Press and social media on behalf of the Government are more than insistent on getting the American citizenry to accept as legitimate, the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. They are frantic that Americans accept the simplistic narrative they have spun—fervently silencing, denouncing, and discrediting anyone who happens to offer an alternate view, brooking no voice to the contrary but offering no response to a reasonable query.Our Republic is hanging on by a thread.Strength of Will and Dint of Arms is what we have left. Let they be enough, and may we hold fast to both in these trying, dangerous times!___________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL FILES APPEAL OF TRO: WHAT WILL THE U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT DO?

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART SEVENTEEN

Just as we anticipated and pointed out in our article posted on both AQ and in Ammoland Shooting Sports news, on October 10, 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s Government wasted no time filing her “Emergency Motion Pending Appeal” with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, after the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted Plaintiffs' request for a TRO staying execution of Hochul’s CCIA in Antonyuk vs. Hochul.Hochul’s Attorney General, Letitia James, filed the Motion along with the Governor’s “Memorandum Of Law In Support Of Motion For A Stay Pending Appeal And An Administrative Stay Pending Resolution Of The Motion,” on October 10, 2022.Apart from the AG’s Press Release of October 6, 2022, coming immediately after the District Court granted a stay of the CCIA, there was a blackout of news coverage on this.Hochul’s AG, James, must have worked around the clock to get Hochul’s motion filed in hopes of protecting the CCIA in the run-up to the Midterm Elections.Upon the filing of the Motion to lift the stay, the AG released a succinct Press Release, detailing the aspects of the CCIA under assault, which Hochul intends to enforce:“The CCIA was passed during an extraordinary session of the Legislature and enacted earlier this summer in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The law strengthens requirements for concealed carry permits, prohibits guns in sensitive places, requires individuals with concealed carry permits to request a property owner’s consent to carry on their premises, enhances safe storage requirements, requires social media review ahead of certain gun purchases, and requires background checks on all ammunition purchases.”The curious thing about this entire episode is the notable absence of Press Coverage, apart from two terse, self-serving Press releases from the AG’s Office. Is this a news blackout? It is! Doesn’t The New York Times think the District Court’s award of a TRO meets the requirement of the Paper’s motto: “All the News Fit to Print”? It doesn’t.The legal ramifications of the TRO are bad enough but the political fall-out is even more compelling, concerning, and disconcerting for Hochul, especially with her Governorship on the line.Congressman Zeldin is breathing down her neck. A staunch supporter of the Second Amendment is in striking distance, closer than anyone thought possible, as the New York Post points out in its October 10, 2022, article, “Polls show Lee Zeldin on track to win — if voters learn the stakes.” Hochul’s image makers want to make the New York Gubernatorial Race about abortion. But the pressing issue is rampant, escalating violent crime in New York City, extending throughout New York. The Governor is either unable or unwilling to deal with that.Hochul never talks about “Criminal Violence.” She only talks about “Gun Violence.” Sounds simple, and, for some, logical: no guns, no “gun violence.” But, what about criminal violence? Doesn't that remain?Hochul’s policy is one-sided: disarm the public, and her CCIA does that.But what about criminal violence? How about removing psychopaths and lunatics from the streets? It is these elements that are responsible for the havoc and chaos and harm to or loss of innocent life.This flotsam and jetsam may use guns, if available, sure; or other items such as knives, blunt objects, and arms and legs and maws. See the FBI statistics report and the breakdown provided by Joslyn Law Firm Report.And New York's cashless bail policy doesn’t help, as the Zeldin Media Center aptly points out.And it doesn’t help that NYC prosecutors routinely drop serious charges against perpetrators of violence. See the article in The New America. And, of course, it is easy to attack the law-abiding citizen.Doing so kills two birds with one stone. Disarm the citizenry so it doesn’t pose a threat to the Tyrant, and create the pretense of promoting public safety. That once was true, but no longer.Now the Hochul Government is beset with a vexing problem: the award of a TRO against enforcement of Hochul’s CCIA.The awarding of a TRO is an extraordinary remedy rarely granted. That a U.S. District Court granted it here, means the District Court finds that the principal provisions of the CCIA are unconstitutional and unconscionable. But Hochul should have seen this coming. She didn't or simply hoped the District Court wouldn't award a TRO. After all, the Federal Courts have hitherto deferred to Government actions targeting New York gun owners.They once did, but no longer, certainly not since NYSRPA vs. Bruen.And Hochul should have gotten a clue when the District Court pointed to the unconstitutionality and outright rapaciousness of the CCIA in the previous case, Antonyuk vs. Bruen when the Court dismissed the case without prejudice due to a technical legal matter.The Court’s lengthy opinion in the first case left no doubt that it encouraged the Plaintiff, Antonyuk, to file a new case. The Court spent considerable ink in explaining, one, why the CCIA is unconstitutional and intolerable and two, how Antonyuk can overcome the standing issue.This is a problem for Hochul. It is one thing when an American citizen and resident of New York argues that the State Government has violated his fundamental, unalienable right to keep and bear arms, consistent with his God-Given natural law right to armed self-defense. That has come to be expected. Hochul doesn’t give a damn about that. It is ho-hum, nothing new. It has happened many times before, going back to 1911 when the State first imposed handgun licensing on New Yorkers, with enactment of the Sullivan Act. And the New York Government has slowly, methodically, inexorably whittled away at the God-Given right of armed self-defense ever since.But it is quite another thing when a Federal Court agrees with the citizen and, more, not only admonishes the Government but excoriates the Government for creating a law that denies a law-abiding citizen the ability to effectively secure his life, health, well-being, and safety with a firearm.The Court’s reaction to the CCIA is damning to the Government’s narrative that it had long assumed the public and the courts would take as axiomatic: that denying a law-abiding citizen the right to armed self-defense is constitutional precisely because doing so promotes public safety. Both propositions are false.Heretofore New York’s Federal Courts have deferred to the Government’s immolation of the Second Amendment guarantee, even acknowledging that armed self-defense is nothing but a privilege, conditioned on the acquisition of a license to engage in that privilege of armed self-defense; and that constraints on the exercise of the privilege are acceptable because a greater good is obtained: public safety.This in a nutshell is the salient tenet of the American Collectivist ethical system of utilitarian consequentialism.The Heller, McDonald, and Bruen rulings upended the idea that the fundamental, unalienable right of armed self-defense is reducible to a mere Governmental privilege. And in controverting that idea, the High Court also uprooted the entire normative ethical system of utilitarianism that denies the existence of natural law rights beyond the power of the Government to modify, dismiss, abrogate, or ignore.But, in failing to strike a State’s handgun licensing statute, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed renegade State Governments to perpetuate the practice of denying the exercise of a natural law right—the most important natural law right—survival of Self, upon which the sanctity and inviolability of one’s being depends. And jurisdictions like New York took advantage of that failure.Collectivism repudiates the idea of the sanctity and inviolability of the individual. The individual counts for nothing. Only the sanctity of “the hive” is important along with the Queen Bee. In human society, the “Queen Bee” includes the few “Elect Elites” of society.Of course, people like Governor Hochul don’t describe the ravaging of the natural law right of armed self-defense in such stark terms, but, their actions bear out they care nothing for the well-being of the common man.But, at least one New York Federal Court in New York has rethought the foundation of Second Circuit law in light of the Bruen rulings, recognizes the flaw, and has done something about it.Presumptive deference to State Government actions denying the right of armed self-defense in New York is becoming a dead letter, erstwhile blackletter law. Let’s see if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agrees with the District Court’s granting of the TRO, and keeps the TRO in place, suspending enforcement of the CCIA until the District Court has had an opportunity to resolve Antonyuk vs. Hochul on the merits and has entered final judgment in the case. It should.NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL’S ARGUMENT TO DISSOLVE THE TRO IN THE ANTONYUK CASE AND ALLOW ENFORCEMENT OF THE CCIAIn the Government's Memorandum, Letitia James, on behalf of Governor Hochul, cites several cases to buttress the Governor’s argument. But those arguments all boil down to one thing: a presumptive legal prerogative of the State that, through time, has devolved into a vacuous rhetorical political talking point, a mere platitude: “public safety.”Letitia James writes,“The serious risk of irreparable harm to public safety and the possibility of regulatory chaos necessitates an immediate appeal. As the data confirm, more guns carried in more places by more people result in more crime, violence, and homicide. In addition, state and local officials have spent significant resources implementing the CCIA and informing New Yorkers about the new law, only to have the Order sow confusion among the public, licensing officials, and law enforcement. The purpose of interim relief is to preserve the status quo, not to create turmoil during the pendency of litigation.”In other words, James is saying: guns are the root of all evil; the CCIA helps eradicate that root; the public good is best served by CCIA enforcement.That’s the gist of the argument, which begs the question why would a District Court not see this? That it did not, the Hochul Government presumes that the District Court is wrong, and she expects the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to rectify the matter, in her favor.So convinced is the Government in its own infallibility, that it doesn’t try to convince the Federal Circuit Court that the District Court’s TRO is legally insupportable. The Government simply assumes the TRO is insupportable and that the Circuit Court should recognize this as plain and self-evident. The AG, on behalf of Governor Hochul, says,“The serious risk of irreparable harm to public safety and the possibility of regulatory chaos necessitates an immediate appeal. As the data confirm, more guns carried in more places by more people result in more crime, violence, and homicide. In addition, state and local officials have spent significant resources implementing the CCIA and informing New Yorkers about the new law, only to have the Order sow confusion among the public, licensing officials, and law enforcement. The purpose of interim relief is to preserve the status quo, not to create turmoil during the pendency of litigation. Second, the Order should be stayed pending this appeal.”The conclusion is presupposed in the premise. Letitia James says,“The [TRO] Order bears the hallmarks of an appealable preliminary injunction, and a stay pending appeal is necessary given the overwhelming balance of equities in favor of appellants and plaintiffs’ failure to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits.”But, the District Court explained through rigorous argument that it was the Plaintiffs, not the Defendant Government Officials, who had established a likelihood of success on the merits. And that is a critical requirement that must be met before a Court can legally issue a TRO. And the District Court has determined the weight of hardship accrues to the Plaintiffs if the TRO is dissolved. For if the TRO is lifted, then the Plaintiffs would be subject to arrest and slapped with a serious misdemeanor or felony for carrying a handgun for self-defense in an area where, prior to the enactment of the CCIA, it was lawful to carry if one had a valid handgun license, which Plaintiffs presently have. The Hochul Government doesn't see this or otherwise simply chooses to ignore it, such contempt it has for gun owners. And The Government claims the TRO, an interlocutory order, is a final appealable order to be treated as an injunction. It isn't. Further, the Government claims it is likely to win on the merits. It can't legally make that claim because, once again, the TRO is an interlocutory order. The claim isn't appealable unless the TRO can be treated as an injunction. The Government here hasn't proffered a cogent argument to support a finding for the Second Circuit to treat the TRO as an injunction. The Government's assertions bespeak arrogance. The Second Circuit should keep the TRO stay in place and remand the case to the District Court to resolve the substantive issues through discovery and trial. And, in the end, the District Court will either issue a preliminary or permanent injunction or, if the Government can prove with the weight of evidence that the CCIA is constitutional, the Court can order enforcement of it. Once the trial has concluded, and the District Court has entered its order, that order becomes a final judgment entry. At that point, the party against whom judgment is entered can appeal that final judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for final resolution of the case, after which the losing Party can then appeal the judgment of the Second Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, which the High Court may or may not agree to review.___________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL DOESN’T LIKE THE FEDERAL COURTS TELLING HER THAT AMERICANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE—AFTER ALL, MOTHER KNOWS BEST!

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART SIXTEEN:  SUBPART A

A BIT OF RECENT HISTORY ON CHALLENGES TO AMENDMENTS TO THE NEW YORK GUN LAW (CCIA)—ANTONYUK VS. BRUEN

Ivan Antonyuk, along with Gun Owners of America (GOA), brought an action to prevent the implementation of New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s amendments (CCIA) to New York’s Gun Law, the Sullivan Act of 1911. That case is captioned, Antonyuk vs. Bruen. It was filed on July 11, 2022, one week after the New York Senate in Albany passed the CCIA and Hochul signed it immediately into law.The  U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York dismissed the case without prejudice, on August 31, 2022. The GOA dropped out of the second lawsuit since it couldn’t’ overcome the standing issue. But Ivan Antonyuk could and did file a new lawsuit.

THE NEW CASE CHALLENGING HOCHUL’S CCIA—ANTONYUK VS. HOCHUL

Antonyuk thereupon filed a new case, captioned, Antonyuk vs. Hochul, on September 20, 2022. He filed suit in the same U.S. District Court that dismissed the original lawsuit. The Court was receptive to it. In the new suit, Governor Kathy Hochul is named and cast as the principal Proper Party Defendant. She is now the leading Party Defendant, as the caption of the CM illustrates. And, once again, Kevin Bruen, the Superintendent of the New York State Police is named and cast as a principal Party Defendant. His name appears second, behind Kathy Hochul, in the new CM. And several other New York Government officials also figure prominently as Party Defendants in Antonyuk's new action.On October 6, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted the Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in the case Antonyuk vs. Hochul. See our previous article on this. The article was reposted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News.What do we know about the Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk?The Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (CM) recites this about the Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, who was the first individual to challenge Hochul's CCIA and to bring a new action against Hochul, in her official capacity as Governor of New York——“Ivan Antonyuk is a natural person, a citizen of the United States and of the State of New York, and resides in Schenectady County, New York. He is a law-abiding person, who currently possesses and has maintained an unrestricted New York carry license since 2009, and who is eligible to possess and carry firearms in the State of New York.”Five other New Yorkers joined Ivan Antonyuk, as Party Plaintiffs, in a new lawsuit, filed directly against Hochul. Five of the six Plaintiffs, including Antonyuk, hold unrestricted concealed handgun carry licenses. One of the six Plaintiffs holds a restricted employment handgun carry license. The New York handgun licenses are all valid.In the CM, the Plaintiffs set forth their justification for filing it, delineating their points as follows——“Governor Hochul (1) has openly criticized and expressed contempt for the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen, (2) took action to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling by ‘merely chang[ing] the nature of th[e] open-ended discretion” from “proper cause” to “good moral character (3) pushed enactment of the CCIA through the legislature and (4) signed the bill into law, and (5) subsequently has acted as the interpreter-in-chief with respect to the CCIA’s provisions. The Governor has opined on the statute’s proper interpretation and provided guidance and instructions to officials throughout the state of New York as to its implementation according to her desires. For example, Governor Hochul (1) has instructed that the CCIA’s new licensing process applies even to those whose carry license applications are already submitted and pending prior to September 1, 2022; (2) has claimed that the ‘good moral character’ activity will involve door-to-door interviews of a person’s neighbors; 4 (3) has claimed that the CCIA’s plain text should not apply to certain parts of the Adirondack Park in contradiction to the wishes of the bill’s sponsors; 5 and (4) has opined that the CCIA’s “restricted locations” provision creates a “presumption . . . that they don’t want concealed carry unless they put out a sign saying “Concealed Carry Weapons Welcome Here.” To be sure, Governor Hochul ‘is not the official to whom the Legislature delegated responsibility to implement the provisions of the challenged statutes’ but, by her actions, she certainly appears to believe that she is. Moreover, and again, the Superintendent [Kevin Bruen] who is tasked with implementing and enforcing various provisions of the CCIA, is the Governor’s underling, making the Governor (whose hand is clearly at work in the Superintendent’s actions) a proper Defendant [citing documents omitted].”In a subsequent Plaintiff Court filing, September 22, 2022, filed two days after the filing of the CM, in a document captioned, “Memorandum Of Points And Authorities In Support Of Plaintiffs’ Motion For A Temporary Restraining Order, Preliminary Injunction, And/Or Permanent Injunction,” the Plaintiffs cogently lay out Governor Hochul’s unconscionable defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in NYSRPA vs. Bruen and the imminent harm that defiance poses to the life and safety of Plaintiffs:“New York continues to infringe the Second Amendment right to bear arms, treating most people as unworthy of the natural right to self-defense. In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent vindication of the People’s rights to keep and bear arms in public in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 2022 U.S. LEXIS 3055 (2022), New York has enacted new restrictions in explicit contravention not only of the Court’s holdings, but also the text of the First, Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. New Yorkers are now facing the reinstitution of discretionary licensing standards, imposition of draconian carry restrictions in a cornucopia of nonsensitive public places, invasion of protected First and Fifth Amendment conduct, a four-and-a-half-times expanded training requirement and accompanying exorbitant costs, and conversion of all private property into de facto “gun-free zones” that “would eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense,” Plaintiffs request that this Court enter a temporary restraining order, followed by a preliminary and/or permanent injunction, to stop the irreparable harm Plaintiffs are suffering and will continue to suffer absent emergency relief.” The Plaintiffs added, these pertinent points in their Memorandum—— “Superintendent Bruen, already found by this Court to be a proper defendant previously, is responsible for the conduct for those under his authority, including threats they make against law-abiding gun owners such as Plaintiffs. Indeed, the First Deputy Superintendent of the State Police, Steven Nigrelli, recently stated the following during a press conference, available on YouTube: ‘For those who choose to violate this law . . .  Governor, it’s an easy message. I don’t have to spell it out more than this. We’ll have zero tolerance. If you violate this law, you will be arrested. Simple as that. Because the New York state troopers are standing ready to do our job to ensure . . . all laws are enforced.’ This statement represents a direct threat to all who violate the CCIA, on all fours with Cayuga Nation’s “announce[ment] [of an] intention to enforce the Ordinance’ a group whose members would be ‘obvious targets of any criminal enforcement of the Ordinance.’ Here, the New York State Police, a law-enforcement entity with statewide jurisdiction and officers stationed across New York, has specifically and expressly stated a clear intent to enforce all aspects of the CCIA, without exception, through arrest and prosecution, in every instance where it is violated [documents and case citations omitted].”The Plaintiffs provided a sound and cogent argument for the issuance of the TRO. The District Court agreed.In its Decision issued on October 6, 2022, the U.S. District Court granted the Plaintiffs’ TRO but stayed its operation for three days to allow the New York Government to file an emergency appeal.The Midterm Elections are looming, and, with her position as New York Governor on the line, Kathy Hochul will waste no time filing an appeal. She doesn’t want this TRO hanging over her head.It is all the worse for Hochul since she’s made much of how the CCIA protects New Yorkers and that the U.S. District Court, as she claims, agreed with her, in the earlier case, Antonyuk vs. Bruen. It didn’t!So gleeful was the Governor when the District Court dismissed the suit against the CCIA in that case, she didn’t bother to recognize or acknowledge that the Court opposed the CCIA and dismissed the suit on a “technicality”: the standing issue.But with the technicality overcome, and the TRO awarded in Antonyuk vs. Hochul, she harrumphed, on her website the same day the District Court released its decision, October 6, 2022:“While this decision leaves aspects of the law in place, it is deeply disappointing that the Judge wants to limit my ability to keep New Yorkers safe and to prevent more senseless gun violence. We are working with the Attorney General's office to review the decision carefully and discuss next steps in an appeal. I will continue to do everything in my power to combat the gun violence epidemic and protect New Yorkers.”Hochul can barely restrain herself. The decision leaves hardly anything of the principal provisions of Hochul’s CCIA in place. Hochul and the other Anti-Second Amendment zealots in her Administration and in the New York State Legislature are fuming. Hochul knows that the guts of the CCIA are to be excised, and both she and her Administration intend to prevent that.Hochul will file an appeal. That is expected. In fact, it’s a dead certainty. And the U.S. District for the Northern District of New York made provision for it. The Court gave Hochul three days to file her “emergency” appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Her people must have been working on it over the weekend.Expect to see news of Hochul’s appeal to the Second Circuit on Monday, October 10, or on Tuesday, October 11, at the latest. _________________________________________________________

THE FEDERAL COURTS OF NEW YORK CAN NO LONGER SHIRK THEIR DUTY TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION THAT MANDATES AND CELEBRATES THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

PART SIXTEEN:  SUBPART B

THE FEDERAL COURTS MUST REIN IN GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL’S OUT-OF-CONTROL NEW YORK GOVERNMENT

On the release of the U.S. District Court’s decision, granting Plaintiffs a TRO in the recent case, Antonyuk vs. Hochul, challenging the CCIA, New York Governor Kathy Hochul retorted she “will continue to do everything in [her] power to combat the gun violence epidemic and protect New Yorkers.” Really? Is that true?The New York Post says,“In New York, where gun violence has plagued the Big Apple and other metro areas, 1 in 5 police departments — 469 of 593 — failed to report any crime data.That includes the largest department in the country, the NYPD, which is often held up as the trendsetter for US law enforcement.A spokesperson said the NYPD was in the process of transitioning to the new reporting system but did not answer questions about its timeline or if it accepted any federal grants to get the system up and running.”Meanwhile, New Yorkers are threatened by continued criminal violence. The Governor and the Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, offer nothing but excuses, platitudes, or outright denials. Yet both the Governor and Mayor continue to make it extraordinarily difficult for average, innocent, responsible, law-abiding New Yorkers to gain access to the most viable means to defend themselves as they walk about in a concrete jungle—a handgun. That, if anything, is contrary to common sense! The Government controls handgun licensing. A Government that mandates licensing and has sole control over licensing prescribes the rules of the game: those few in number who may obtain a handgun license and the manner of use of the handgun for self-defense. It is the citizen who ends up with the short end of the stick. The psychopathic criminal and the lunatic roam freely about, to prey at will on the innocent: men, women, and children. All the while high-ranking City and New York State Government officials such as the Mayor of New York City and the Governor of the State are themselves safe and secure with a team of heavily armed police to protect them day and night.Hochul cares nothing for the life and safety of New Yorkers. All that she and the Democrats in Albany, and other Anti-Second Amendment officials in Hochul’s Government care about is their own hides and the preservation of their program to disarm the common man—an agenda ongoing for well over 110 years—at odds with the natural law right of armed self-defense, codified in the Nation's Bill of Rights.Just as the Sullivan Act of 1911 laid out the basic steps of handgun licensing that started the inexorable process of disarming the citizenry in New York, and just as Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, continued that process through the enactment of the New York Safe Act of 2013, several antigun enactments since, culminating in the CCIA, are designed to further whittle away the natural law right of armed self-defense.As this article goes to publication, Governor Hochul has not yet appealed the District Court decision ordering a TRO preventing enforcement of the CCIA but the filing of her appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is imminent.So, the questions are, first, what will the Second Circuit do with it, once it receives it, and two, how will Hochul react to the Appellate Court’s rulings if those rulings don’t go her way? And the Appellate Court should keep the TRO stay in place.Indeed, the Federal Court of Appeals must keep the TRO stay in place. But it isn’t clear it will do that. But its failure to do so would lead to irreparable harm to the Plaintiffs and to the New York public that cherishes the natural law right of armed self-defense. The State Governor, Kathy Hochul, and the Mayor of the City of New York, Eric Adams, have forsaken the people to whom it is their duty to serve.One thing is patently clear: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit would prefer it didn’t have to contend with this. Anything involving the Second Amendment is a hot potato for the Second Circuit and for the Federal District Courts of New York. They now must deal with the aftermath of decades of complacency and deference toward a State Government whose policies and laws demonstrate abject ruthlessness toward and callous disregard for the life, safety, and well-being of the people of New York.Heller and McDonald created a host of problems for a jurisdiction historically antithetical to Americans’ exercise of the natural law right of armed self-defense. New York’s attack on the natural law right of armed self-defense goes back well over one hundred yearsBut the Bruen rulings might have shaken the Federal Courts of New York out of their stupor, and out of their heretofore typical hands-off approach toward a State Government inexorably whittling away the right of the people to keep and bear arms to a nullity.The Courts may realize their duty is to the U.S. Constitution and not to the officials of the New York State Government who are intent on erasing the natural law right of armed self-defense in New York.With the Bruen decision the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the U.S. District Courts of New York realize they can no longer hide their Anti-Second Amendment opinions and musings behind abstruse legal verbiage and sophistry that contravene High Court rulings, and all for the sake of a State Government that abhors the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights.That makes matters difficult for Governor Hochul. But that won’t prevent her from urging the Second Circuit to embrace and protect her CCIA godchild.So——In her appeal, Hochul may go beyond asking the Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the stay on the CCIA. She may ask the Court to order a permanent injunction against further challenges to the CCIA. It is, however, unlikely the Circuit Court will accede to this as doing so falls beyond its appellate power. But, from this arrogant New York Governor, no less so than from her arrogant predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, one should expect anything.The Plaintiffs will oppose the lifting of the stay, arguing for suspension of the CCIA until the Court rules on the Plaintiffs’ prayer for a preliminary or permanent injunction, enjoining the New York Government from enforcing it.Although the Court of Appeals could, conceivably, although improbably, lift the TRO stay on enforcement, pending trial of the constitutionality of the CCIA, it likely won’t do this.The District Court is no slouch. It gave the Circuit Court every reason to honor the TRO that the District Court had issued.The District Court was careful to provide the Hochul Government with both notice and hearing before the issuance of the TRO. It need not have done so. Court issuance of a TRO doesn’t require prior notice and hearing to the party against whom it is issued.The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals cannot ignore this fact and will take note of it.The Court will point out that it is the Plaintiffs, not the Government, who are likely to prevail in a trial on the merits and that it is the Plaintiffs, not the Hochul Government, who will suffer grievous harm if the Government can continue to enforce the CCIA during discovery and trial.Do not expect the Second Circuit to blithely lift the stay on the TRO.But that raises the question: “how long is the District Court’s TRO stay on enforcement of the CCIA to remain in effect?” And the District Court did not leave that matter hanging open-ended, either. Among its orders in Antonyuk vs. Hochul, the Court said that its——“Temporary Restraining Order shall remain in effect pending a hearing and ruling on Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.”Unless the Second Circuit is as remiss of its duties toward the Constitution and as dismissive of the citizenry as the Hochul Government and Democrat Legislators in Albany clearly are, we anticipate the TRO will remain in place until final resolution.The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the right of armed self-defense extends to the public realm. This is consistent with the language of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, In fact, the natural law right of armed self-defense is embedded in the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The natural law right of armed self-defense against predatory man, beast, or Government is embedded in the Second Amendment, and it follows by logical implication.The High Court did not make new law in NYSRPA vs. Bruen, as many people in the Federal and State Governments wrongly believe; as Hochul wrongly thinks.The High Court simply recited and reiterated what plainly exists in the codification of natural law that Marxists and Globalists find repugnant to their belief system, and antithetical to their Collectivist mindset and to their political and social philosophy, which they intend to thrust on the rest of us.One should reasonably expect the Second Circuit will remand the Hochul case to the District Court.The Federal Appellate Court will likely order the lower District Court to resolve the substantive issues pertaining to the Constitutionality of the CCIA and determine whether to award Plaintiffs with a preliminary or permanent injunction against enforcement of the CCIA. All the while the TRO stay against enforcement of the CCIA should remain in place.Once the District Court issues either a preliminary or permanent injunction against Hochul, the injunction will have the effect of a final appealable order.This raises the question of whether, in the interim, Governor Hochul will abide by a TRO stay of enforcement of the CCIA pending resolution of the Antonyuk vs. Hochul case, or will she defy the Second Circuit Court of Appeals just as she blatantly defied the U.S. Supreme Court on signing the CCIA into law?Hochul might defy the Court’s order and enforce the CCIA. If so, the Plaintiffs will then need to return to the Federal Court of Appeals to get the Second Circuit Court to issue its “Contempt of Court Show Cause Order” against Hochul.If she does defy an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit staying the enforcement of the CCIA, it would be impossible for Hochul to continue, however plausibly or implausibly maintained, to disguise that defiance of a Federal Court order as compliance.Perhaps Hochul doesn’t care.Court Orders and Rulings mean nothing to her if Hochul happens to disagree with them. The CCIA is evidence of that.But would the public care?And would the public demand the Hochul Government comply with an order from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals?The public should care and should demand the Hochul Government’s compliance with Federal Court orders and case rulings, regardless of her dislike for them. Hochul's specious claim that her wish, ostensibly, to protect New Yorkers against harm is neither a sound nor valid moral nor sound nor valid legal argument to support defiance of the United States Supreme Court, and the U.S. District Court, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. And, her not-so-tacit assumption that the Courts don't care about the life and well-being of New Yorkers is not only false it is absurd.Will the New York electorate embrace or reject Kathy Hochul? The Midterm Election will tell the story. The result depends on the electorate’s justified outrage toward an obstinate Governor that claims she knows or pretends to know what is in the best interests of the people of New York, or their active or passive support of her words and actions.The reprobates in New York will, of course, support Hochul. But they look forward to the destruction of our free Constitutional Republic anyway, relishing the coming of the Soros “Open Society” in which the U.S. is just another cog in a grotesque, monstrous machine, and its people, hapless, vanquished subjects.These Neo-Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists are beyond the pale and are beyond redemption. Forget about debating them. Love for God, Country, and Family, and for the continuation of a free Constitutional Republic that the founding fathers bestowed on us mean nothing to them. Their ideology is grounded in the tenets, principles, and precepts of Collectivism and they have concocted a new mechanism to promote it, a vehicle through which the public is enmeshed in it, internalizes it, and becomes vested in it: the gospel of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,”   now, adopted and pushed by the Federal Government, no less, and codified in an Executive Order. Many other New Yorkers will passively accept whatever befalls them even if they happen to disagree with Hochul’s abject defiance of the Courts, and that is most unfortunate. Passivity and sloth are killers. Forget about them, too. These people are asleep and cannot be roused from their slumber.The fact remains that a handgun is the only viable means to effectively counteract random, intractable criminal violence that threatens the life and safety of innocent people as they go about their day-to-day activities in New York. Plaintiffs in the Antonyuk vs. Hochul made that point poignantly clear to the U.S. District Court. They also made patently clear to the Court that the CCIA is, in large part, unconscionable and unconstitutional. That was the reason for the Court’s issuance of the TRO stay in the first place.If Hochul refuses to adhere to Court orders and rulings, it is up to these members of the public remaining, the true Patriots in New York, to hold Hochul’s feet to the fire. May they prevail and preserve the success of the American Revolution of 1776 for both themselves and for future generations of Americans!*___________________________________________*Hochul is apparently afraid that the Midterms will see her out of office. She would like to purge all Republicans from the State. An August 2022 New York Post article is worth a read:“Gov. Kathy Hochul, who hasn’t proven shy about issuing orders, had one for the state’s Republicans this week — all 5.4 million of them: ‘Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?’ she said. ‘You are not New Yorkers.’”___________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE NEW YORK ANTONYUK CASE: “BRUEN II” IN THE MAKING?

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART FIFTEEN

NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL HAS HER HANDS FULL: THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK JUST THREW A WRENCH IN HER UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND UNCONSCIONABLE AMENDMENTS TO THE NEW YORK GUN LAW SUSPENDING ENFORCEMENT OF HER DRACONIAN CHANGES TO THE NEW YORK CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY LICENSE REQUIREMENTS*

The ink wasn’t yet dry on Bruen when New York Governor Kathy Hochul, commanded the State Legislature to place the final touches on amendments to the New York Gun Law and to do so quickly. Clearly, Hochul had substantial early warning of the decision and had made ample provision for it. She had, or so she thought, figured out an ingenious way around so that it would not waylay the ongoing agenda to strip New Yorkers of their natural law right to bear arms in their own defense against predators lurking all over the place.Just as quickly as Hochul signed the amendments to New York’s unconstitutional and unconscionable Gun Law, an American citizen and resident of New York, Ivan Antonyuk, along with Gun Owners of America, Inc., and two sister organizations, filed their challenge to it.The case is Antonyuk vs. Bruen, 2202 Lexis 15784 (N.D.N.Y. Aug. 31, 2022).It is important to keep this case in mind, for the U.S. Supreme Court will deal with it. It will become Bruen II.The TRO suspends the operation of the “Good Moral Character” requirement and the “Sensitive Location” requirement of the CCIA, effectively gutting it. But why did the District Court grant the TRO? To understand why the Court did this, it helps to have a context for it. And, for context, it helps to have some understanding of the history of Antonyuk.It behooves one to reflect on the fact that the District Court denied the Plaintiffs’ original Complaint and Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Hochul made much of that, gloating over it.

A TIMELINE OF STEPS LEADING UP TO THE DISTRICT COURT'S FIRST RULING IN ANTONYUK

On July 11, 2022, Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, along with Gun Owners of America, filed their complaint, claiming that the CCIA (the collective name for the most recent package of amendments to New York's Gun Law, the Sullivan Act) violates the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 of the Civil Rights Statute of 1871.On July 20, 2022, the Plaintiffs filed their motion for a preliminary injunction, seeking to suspend the CCIA immediately, before trial on the substantive issues, which could take months. A long wait was unacceptable since the CCIA was due to become effective in early September 2022.On August 15, 2022, Defendant, the New York Government, filed its opposition to the motion. On September 1, 2022, the Court issued its ruling dismissing the complaint on the Court’s own motion and denying the Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction as moot.Upon dismissal of the Complaint and denial of the Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, on September 1, 2022, Kathy Hochul triumphantly boasted——“The court dismissed the case and denied the motion for a preliminary injunction. It is a just and right decision, and our smart, sensible gun laws will go into effect as planned tomorrow on September 1 to keep New Yorkers safe.” ~ See the Statement by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, posted on her website, on August 31, 2022, one day before the official release of the decision, having obviously received advance notice of the decision. Hochul’s boast would come back to haunt her.Hochul thought the Court’s dismissal of the Complaint and denial of the Motion signaled vindication for the CCIA.It didn’t, not by a long shot!Governor Kathy Hochul failed to mention in her remarks to New Yorkers that the Federal Court dismissed the Complaint and denied the Motion for Preliminary Judgment, “without prejudice.”This is important. It means the Plaintiffs were free to refile their case. Apparently, Hochul didn’t consider that possibility and what it might portend.In dismissing the case without prejudice the District Court did not merely permit the refiling of the case, the Court, in this instance, avidly encouraged the continuation of the case.And, the Plaintiffs did just that.One should not, then, view the U.S. District Court decision on September 1, 2022, as merely a perfunctory dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the CCIA. It was much more than that.The opinion was 101 pages long and highly detailed. It was a roadmap designed for the Plaintiffs.And the Plaintiffs followed that roadmap to the letter.In the September 1 opinion, the District Court lacerated Hochul's CCIA. She made no mention of the content of the opinion, nor did she even allude to it in her remarks.The Court showed its outrage not only for the breadth and depth of the New York Government's defiance toward the U.S. Supreme Court's Bruen rulings—no less so than for its contemptuous attitude toward the Court itself—but also at the insouciance with which Governor Hochul and the New York Legislature in Albany had acted to undercut the High Court's rulings and attempted now to extend that heedlessness and callousness toward the U.S. District Court.The amendments to New York's Gun Law make getting a New York concealed handgun carry license more difficult, not less so than prior to the enactment of the CCIA. And for those few individuals willing to sacrifice a severe invasion of their privacy, as the bitter price to pay for a New York State concealed handgun carry license, they will find it affords them little practical benefit for all the trouble it took them to gain it.The U.S. District Court saw right through Hochul's charade and would not suffer it: not for the American people, nor for itself, as a component of the Third Branch of Government, the U.S. Supreme Court. But, one cannot fully appreciate the District Court's justified anger toward Hochul and toward the New York Legislature in Albany unless one reviews the original District Court opinion.AQ is doing the analysis and will provide the results to our readers and will forward our analysis to the publisher of Ammoland Shooting Sports News for consideration, for Ammoland's readers. Those articles are being prepared now for publication soon.

A TIMELINE OF THE ANTONYUK CASE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE DISMISSAL OF BOTH THE ORIGINAL COMPLAINT AND MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

On September 22, 2022, Ivan Antonyuk, the original Party Plaintiff, and five additional individuals filed their Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Motion for a Preliminary Injunction. Gun Owners of America and its sister organizations dropped out as Party Defendants to the new action for a TRO because the District Court had determined in the earlier case, Antonyuk vs. Bruen, that Gun Owners of America lacked legal standing and could not overcome the standing issue. The Defendants in the TRO action now included a slew of State and various County Government officials. And the first-named principal Defendant was now none other than the New York Governor Kathy Hochul, herself, in her Official Capacity, as Governor. Kevin Bruen still appears as a Party Defendant, in his Official Capacity as Superintendent of the New York Police, but is now relegated to second-named Defendant. However, Bruen remains a fixture in the Antonyuk and he was, of course, the principal Defendant in the “Granddaddy” U.S. Supreme Court case, NYSRPA vs. Bruen. Hochul, though, is now raised to the status of principal ignominious antagonist in the epic tragedy she had orchestrated and which she has inflicted on herself and on all New Yorkers. She has no one to blame for the mess but herself.On September 28, 2022, the State Defendants and the Oswego County Defendants submitted their briefs in opposition to the Plaintiffs’ motion for a Temporary Restraining Order.On September 29, 2022, the Court conducted an oral argument. At the end of the oral argument, the Court reserved the decision and stated that its decision would follow. On October 6, 2022, the Court decided the TRO, granting it in part and denying it in part.For a Court to grant a TRO is no mean accomplishment. Getting a Court to grant a TRO is even more difficult than getting a Court to grant a Motion for Preliminary Injunction, which is itself difficult.For a Court to grant a TRO, a plaintiff must, show: one, that the case presents a “sufficiently serious question,” two, a likelihood of success on the merits, and, three, that the public interest would not be “dis-served” by proffering the relief requested. The Court determined that all those factors were met.For the Hochul Government, an award of a TRO immediately throws a wrench into both the operation of the CCIA and the Government's broad agenda to eviscerate the exercise of Americans' natural law right of armed self-defense.The Hochul Government is climbing a wall in rage. And, Hochul herself must be no less happy at the prospect of appearing as a jackass for having claimed complete vindication after the District Court had dismissed the Complaint and denied the Preliminary Injunction back on September 1, 2o22.Hochul was too quick on the draw, her exaltation at the dismissal of the case in September was premature. Did she even bother herself to read the District Court's decision? Did she honestly think the Plaintiffs wouldn't continue to seek redress and that they would not likely prevail on a subsequent Court filing, especially when the Court had encouraged the Plaintiffs to refile and went further, explaining how Plaintiffs can overcome the procedural problem of “standing” that had flawed the original Complaint and Motion for Preliminary Injunction?Had Hochul taken a more cautious stance and reasoned tone in her remarks on September 1, 2022, she would not now come across as a complete buffoon. But, she couldn’t help herself. And her image makers did her no service. The one constant and ineradicable character flaw of all social and political Progressives, Neo-Marxists, and Neoliberal Globalists both here in the United States and in the world at large is their unbelievable, irrepressible arrogance.The question at the moment is: “what will Hochul and her Government do now?”The Hochul Government will almost certainly file an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, seeking a reversal of the U.S. District Court decision. But that appeal will probably fail. And the appeal will probably fail for this reason:“Because a TRO is interlocutory and is not technically an injunction, it is ordinarily not appealable.” Romer v. Green Point Sav. Bank, 27 F.3d 12, 15 (2d Cir. 1994).Hochul cannot weasel her way around the TRO. This means that the case will go to trial, and that takes time. And, with the TRO in place, time is no longer on her side, but on the side of those New Yorkers who cherish the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The granting of the TRO means that the Bruen rulings stay in place.Hochul cannot weasel her way around the TRO. This means that the case will go to trial, and that takes time. And, with the TRO in place, time is no longer on her side, but, rather, on the side of those New Yorkers who cherish the right of the people to keep and bear arms. This also means, one, the Bruen rulings stay in place, and, two, the Hochul Government cannot lawfully make use of a fortified and bloated “Good Moral Character” requirement along with the imbecilic “sensitive location” requirement to defy the High Court and curtail the right of armed self-defense. The principal provisions in the CCIA are suspended!Kathy Hochul's Government must adhere to the High Court's Bruen rulings! The Antonyuk case will proceed to trial, and that will take time!Hochul cannot defy the High Court. And she cannot, by legerdemain, curtail the right of armed self-defense.Kathy Hochul's Government must adhere to the High Court's Bruen rulings! The Antonyuk case will proceed to trial and that will take time.This is a definite win-win outcome for New Yorkers. But, for Hochul and her Government, this is a no-win situation and it could not come at a worse time.Perhaps Hochul will ignore the District Court’s order outright just as she defied the High Court. We wouldn’t put it past her. But, with the Midterm Elections fast approaching and her Governorship on the line, would Hochul dare to defy “the rule of law” that Democrats make so much of in their oratory and yet care so little about as evidenced in their actions and policies? How will Hochul's political consultants and image makers play this? It will be interesting to see.___________________________________* This is an important update to the previous version of this article. AQ has corrected the recitation of the named Party Plaintiffs and the named Party Defendants.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY LICENSE HOLDERS BEWARE: NEW ILLEGAL HANDGUN CARRY ZONES — HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE, THROUGHOUT NEW YORK

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTISERIES

PART THIRTEEN

FRUSTRATED NEW YORKER GUN OWNERS CHALLENGE AMENDMENTS TO NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL'S AMENDMENTS TO THE STATE'S GUN LAW AFTER BRUEN

NEW YORKERS CHALLENGE AMENDMENTS TO NEW YORK'S GUN LAW

Few Americans may know about a very recent New York Gun Case challenging amendments to New York’s Gun Law. But all Americans who cherish their God-given right to keep and bear arms should be mindful of it. The case is Antonyuk vs. Bruen, 2202 Lexis 15784 (N.D.N.Y. Aug. 31, 2022).Ivan Antonyuk, along with the NYSRPA, Plaintiff in the third major U.S. Supreme Court case, sued in federal court a few days after New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed New York’s Gun Law amendments into law, ostensibly in response to the Bruen rulings.The Hochul Government did not change the New York Gun Law, NY CLS Penal § 400.00 et. seq., to comply with the High Court’s rulings in Bruen, but drafted the amendments to constrain and eliminate lawful concealed handgun carry throughout the State, consistent with her Government’s plans to negate exercise of the fundamental, unalienable natural law right codified in the Second Amendment. Hochul would like the public to believe that the amendments comply with the Bruen rulings. They do not. It is all a sham. But, to machinate such an elaborate hoax to waylay the U.S. Supreme Court and hoodwink the public takes time, money, effort, and cunning and Kathy Hochul must have had all of that, suggesting she surreptitiously received an advance copy of the decision after November 3, 2021, Oral Argument. This is reminiscent of the illegal unveiling of a draft opinion of the Dobbs abortion case weeks before the Court released the final and official version of the decision, albeit without the hoopla—which is just the way Hochul would want it.The breadth and depth of the amendments to the Gun Law are substantial. They are all collected under the vague, ambiguous, and deceptive title Concealed Carry Improvement Act (“CCIA”). The title doesn’t illuminate, it deliberately hides and obscures. Yes, the New York Government deleted the offending words “proper cause” from New York’s Gun Law, NY CLS Penal § 400.00, but doing so changes nothing apropos of compliance with the Bruen rulings. The CCIA is worse, much worse than the Gun Law had been with the offensive verbiage intact.The CCIA leaves present holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses in a nebulous and precarious position. And the CCIA makes it no less difficult for those seeking to get a New York handgun carry license for the first time.Recall——Bruen held clearly and categorically the State’s “proper cause” requirement is unconstitutional, and inconsistent with the exercise of one’s natural law right of armed self-defense outside the home. Kathy Hochul and Albany remain undeterred. The State Legislature merely substituted “proper cause” with other verbiage that accomplishes the same thing, and, disturbingly, goes beyond the old and problematic “proper cause” requirement. And CCIA maintains the multiple-tier handgun licensing structure.Those who at present hold a valid New York handgun license, whether “unrestricted” or “restricted,” or hold a highly restrictive home or business premise license, under the original licensing scheme, should have known what was coming. On June 6, a few weeks before the official release of Bruen, Hochul signed a ten-bill antigun package into law. Both Albany and the Hochul Administration had no intention of allowing the U.S. Supreme Court to throw a wrench into the Government’s plan that had, heretofore, been going to plan to reduce lawful armed self-defense to a nullity.Recall that Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, had successfully fast-tracked into enactment of the notorious New York Safe Act of 2013. The enactment of the NY Safe Act was a harbinger of things to come. At the time Governor Cuomo signed the Act into Law, we at AQ had correctly pointed out that no one should construe the NY Safe Act as the end goal of the Anti-Second Amendment Government’s effort to constrain lawful possession and ownership of firearms. NY Safe Act is a work in progress, as we stated in an article posted in AQ, on February 18, 2020. And right, we were. The NY Safe Act and CCIA, and a plethora of other Anti-Second gun laws, are grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the New York Government's plan to constrain civilian citizen exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The genesis of that plan was hatched well over 100 years. It was the Sullivan Act of 1911. The Sullivan Act ushered handgun licensing into the State.Through each successive incarnation, the Sullivan Act became progressively worse, progressively constricting, and inhibiting the exercise of the natural law right of armed self-defense. And with each successive enactment, the Anti-Second Amendment Government became more emboldened; enacted more and more dubious and extravagant antigun laws. On June 24, 2022, just one day after the release of Bruen, Hochul issued a stern warning, albeit couched as a mild “reminder, to gun owners that the U.S. Supreme Court's Thursday decision to strike down New York's concealed carry law does not mean New York State's licensure processes and rules do not need to be followed. It does not automatically give current residential permit owners the ability to carry guns outside the home. Gun owners are required by law to follow current restrictions.” So said the Governor. And she did not bother to hide her bitter anger over the rulings, her hatred of the Second Amendment, her resentment of the U.S. Supreme Court, and her disgust toward those citizens who would dare to exercise their natural law right, codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Calling the Bruen rulings “appalling”, Hochul responded to them with affected piety, as she simultaneously rebuked the Court that issued them:“‘As the case returns to the lower court, we encourage responsible gun owners to continue to follow their current restrictions, and always put safety first. While we are disappointed with the Supreme Court's reckless disregard for the safety of our communities, we are prepared to fight. I am planning for a special session of the legislature where we will explore a wide range of legislative options that will keep us in compliance with this ruling, while also creating a thorough and strict permitting process that prioritizes the safety of our communities. I look forward to working with the legislature, local and county government leaders, and legal experts, and will stop at nothing to protect New Yorkers.’” Id. So said, Governor Hochul.The Governor’s remarks are glaringly, blatantly inconsistent. In one sentence in the afore-recited passage, she expressly contradicts herself. Hochul says she and the Legislature in Albany “will explore a wide range of legislative options that will keep us in compliance with this ruling, while also creating a thorough and strict permitting process. . . .” Let’s analyze that.Hochul is saying she will comply with the Bruen rulings by making it more difficult to gain a concealed handgun carry license. In other words, “I, Kathy Hochul, will comply with the Bruen rulings by not complying with them.” Huh! Governor Hochul has just squared the circle. Quite an achievement.How does that work? If she can get away with this, it doesn't bode well for those expecting to now be able to exercise their right of armed self-defense in New York, unimpeded.Nonetheless, one is expected to take Hochul and Albany at their word, that they drafted the CCIA to comply with the Bruen rulings and allow for armed self-defense in the public realm, even as they clamp down even harder on one's right to armed self-defense outside the home as well as in it. Her arguments are nonsensical, and her actions were outrageous.Hochul intends to take from innocent New Yorkers the only effective means of self-defense available for them, bestowed on them by the Divine Creator, and guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution, while doing nothing to protect New Yorkers against the horde of lunatics and psychopaths allowed to prey, at will, upon them. If it is this thing “Gun Violence” that so concerns her, Hochul will do well to implement a robust law and order system—and leave the law-abiding citizen who wishes to exercise his natural law right of armed self-defense, alone. She won't do either. The CCIA ostensibly allows some people—still very few—to get a concealed handgun carry license. But even for the seemingly lucky ones, it comes at a severe cost. They must sacrifice other fundamental Rights, the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to get their prize: a New York concealed handgun carry license, and, ultimately, for all that time, money, and effort, the value of it comes to naught. It means nothing. The language of the CCIA is sufficiently vague, to support the conclusion that a person isn't permitted to use a handgun for self-defense outside the home, even with a valid concealed handgun license in tow. And, in many areas of the State, and especially in the Five Boroughs that comprise New York City, one definitely cannot use a handgun for self-defense, notwithstanding one's valid concealed handgun carry license.In the most dangerous areas of New York, effectively the entirety of Manhattan Island, the Governor and Albany have created a patchwork quilt of “sensitive locations” where the holder of a New York handgun carry license cannot lawfully carry a handgun.Consider what that means:Step in one block of the City and it is lawful to carry a handgun if you have a valid license, albeit you still may not lawfully use it if needed. But step into another block, and you have broken the law, for not only are you not permitted to use a handgun for self-defense, but it's also unlawful even to have it on your person in that area.Carry a handgun in the wrong area, and you have committed a Class E Felony. That means loss of your handgun license, the loss of your handgun, and any other firearm you may own and possess, and a felony record to boot. So what good is this license, for all the trouble that one must go through to get it? And few will ultimately be able to gain one, anyway.A valid New York concealed handgun carry license provides you no protection. Under the CCIA, it is more a liability than an asset. It is not a god-send but a booby-trap. That Class E Felony violation is created especially for law-abiding citizens, and expressly for holders of concealed handgun carry licenses. New York has codified that felony violation in a new code section: NY CLS Penal § 265.01-e. The tacit implication of this is plain: don't apply for a New York concealed handgun carry license. And for those who have a valid concealed handgun carry license, don't bother to renew it; and for peace of mind, the Hochul Government suggests surrendering the license to the police authorities because one always risks violating NY CLS Penal § 265.01-e. The CCIA has traps throughout the length and breadth of it for the concealed handgun carry licensee.Do you recall the playground game, hopscotch, a perennial favorite of young girls? If so, now imagine Manhattan Island as a mammoth hopscotch board with safe and non-safe squares. One who has a valid handgun license and carries a handgun has much to fear from Hochul’s hopscotch inspectors, no less so than from the myriad lunatics and psychopaths that do not need a license to carry a gun as they hunt for prey throughout the City. The no-bail policy gives predators free rein if they are caught by the police, for they are out on the streets again in no time. You, however, don't fare as well. A felony conviction here doesn't help the law-abiding citizen.This is what Hochul and Albany are——Petty Tyrants who adamantly defy both the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights and clear and emphatic rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. And this is what Hochul and Albany have wrought—— A climate of fear where the armed citizen is perceived as a latent threat to the Government, and a potential transgressor of State law. And that is how he is treated by the Hochul Government.And yet no graver threat to both the Security of a free State and the supreme sovereignty of the American people exists than upon the failure of the Federal Government and those State Governments that refuse to abide by the strictures of the U.S. Constitution, and the rulings of the Third Branch of the U.S. Government, and that sin against the natural law rights of man as bestowed upon him by the Divine Creator.New Yorkers were therefore compelled to file a new lawsuit once again, ever again, against an arrogant, defiant, recalcitrant, intransigent State Government. In the immortal words of the Great Sage, Yogi Berra:“It’s Déjà vu All Over Again.”—And it’s all because our Federal Government, and this New York Government, and all too many other State Governments, refuse to humble themselves to the strictures of the U.S. Constitution and refuse to accept the supreme sovereignty of the American people over Government and their Nation; and who even dare refuse the American citizen the right to exercise his unalienable natural law right to armed self-defense.We continue with our analysis of Antonyuk in the next several articles.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.