NRA’S DOUG HAMLIN IS RIGHT: ARMED SELF-DEFENSE EXTENDS TO ALL OTHER RIGHTS
This post is authored by Stephen L. D’Andrilli, Co-Founder of The Arbalest Quarrel.
On May 20, 2024, the NRA’s Board of Directors elected Doug Hamlin the “NRA's new Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President.” Doug Hamlin recognizes the stakes.
In his first message to NRA members, posted in the July 2024 issue of “America’s 1st Freedom,” Hamlin stated clearly and forcefully,
We are resolute. We know our mission. We are all in this together . . . There has never been a more important time for us to get back on our feet than right now. The American people want their freedom. No, they demand their freedom. And now the NRA has righted its course . . . Now is the time to come together. Now is the time to be bold.”
The Executive Vice President’s address to NRA members stuck a chord with me, especially his statement— “Now is the time to be Bold.” Those words prompted me to respond.
The NRA posted my letter in the “Mail Call” section of the October 2024 issue of America’s 1st Freedom, where I cited the remark, “Now is the time to be bold,” along with Hamlin’s remarks that “We need to vote and make sure all gun owners vote. If we do, we will retain our freedom.”
My business partners and I are in complete agreement with the Executive Vice President’s remarks. If we do not heed them, all is lost, forever.
Freedom and Liberty hard fought for in 1776 and won, have been under constant assault in the centuries since. Ruthless, powerful forces intend to wrest our Republic from us.
These past four years, the unelected ruling forces behind the scenes crafting policy for the Biden-Harris Administration have come very close to accomplishing their objective: The creation of a Marxist Dictatorship, to be merged, eventually, into a Marxist empire, spanning the globe.
Had Trump emerged victorious in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, the Marxist aims would have been crushed. Our Republic would have been preserved. Yet, the Destroyers of our Nation, in a frenzy over Trump’s win in 2016, could and would not abide that. They pulled out all the stops to ensure a Biden-Harris victory in 2020.
Even so, gun owners could have prevented a Democrat Party victory in 2020 if they had troubled themselves to vote.
Apart from rampant unethical and outright illegal stratagems devised by Democrat Party leaders and implemented by legions of Party operatives that gave Joe Biden an edge in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, gun owners didn’t do Donald Trump, or themselves, a favor by withholding their vote in that Election.
Had all those gun owners cast their ballot for Trump, instead of sitting out the race, the Election would likely have gone to Trump instead of Biden because ten million more votes cast for Trump would have amounted to an election “to big to rig.”
Likely, those gun owners who refrained from voting in the 2020 General Election are the same individuals who have planned to sit out the 2024 race as well. We know that because they have not registered to vote in the upcoming Election. If they don’t register and vote, that would be a major, and more—fatal—mistake.
See the Arbalest Quarrel article reposted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News on September 5, 2024.
Rarely does a person get a second chance to undo a past horrible mistake. We, Americans, do have that chance now. But this 2024 Election cycle will be the last chance available to us, to turn this Country around from a path leading inexorably, inevitably, and irrevocably to Despotism.
Don’t expect a third opportunity to come along in 2028. It won’t.
In our recent article, posted on the Arbalest Quarrel website, on September 28, 2024, we laid out in detail what is in store for all Americans if Democrats retain the U.S. Presidency.
What these past four years have wrought will pale in significance to what the next four years will bring under a Harris/Walz Presidency.
The goal of a Marxist Dictatorship will come to fruition. There will be no reprieve, NO RETURN for any of us. The damage done to our Republic will be devastating, complete. The Constitution will be rewritten; our sacred Bill of Rights eviscerated. All of this is avoidable, BUT ONLY WITH TRUMP IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
For a comprehensive overview of and detailed analysis of the stakes involved in the upcoming U.S. Presidential Election, America’s True Patriots are encouraged to read Dick Morris’ Book, “The Return,” published in 2022 by Humanix Books, and should also take a look at three other books by the same Book publisher: Jody Hice’s book “Sacred Trust,” published in 2024, and two books authored by David Horowitz, “Dark Agenda,” published in 2018, and “Final Battle,” published in 2022.
This coming U.S. Presidential election is as tight as a drum and that worries Democrats and their wealthy benefactors. They have plenty to worry about, as we, the people, can dash their plans for a Marxist Dictatorship. But then, we, as well, have plenty to worry about—the loss of our Free Republic to that Marxist Dictatorship.
Americans would have no doubt about the danger posed to our Country, our people, and our sacred fundamental, unalienable, eternal Rights, if they would but observe and reflect on what has transpired but for a temporary reprieve and brief return to sanity under the tutelage of Donald Trump:
Four Years suffering under the weight of the Biden/Harris Administration
Eight Years languishing under the ghastly Obama/Biden Administration, and
Eight Years enduring the awful Obama/Cheney Administration that crafted the mammoth and monstrous Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), ushering in the massive Surveillance State, and a Shadow Government that has dogged and harassed and prosecuted and persecuted Trump and “MAGA” supporters ever since.
THE NATION IS DIVIDED INTO TWO FACTIONS——ONE ADHERES TO THE PRINCIPLES OF INDIVIDUALISM THAT HAS ITS GREATEST EXPRESSION IN THE SUCCESS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION; AND ANOTHER FACTION ADHERES TO THE PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVISM THAT HAS ITS GREATEST EXPRESSION IN GLOBAL-MARXISM THAT SEEKS A COUNTERREVOLUTION TO OVERTHROW OUR FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC
Two mutually exclusive visions of America’s future are on the table. Each is the inverse of the other. Only one can prevail. Doug Hamlin understands this well.
His remarks to the NRA membership, that I quoted supra—that we, American gun owners, must vote to retain our freedom—serve as both a plea to cast our ballot for Trump, and a warning if we fail to do so. This is our chance—our second and last chance—to turn this Country around. It would be criminal for us not to take it.
Don’t expect a THIRD CHANCE to retake the White House in 2028. That will be a pipedream. Whatever Americans do this November will mark the fate of America, henceforth, forever.
WILL DEMOCRATS WITH THEIR MASSIVE WAR CHEST AND A SEDITIOUS PRESS AND SOCIAL MEDIA AT THEIR BECK AND CALL SUFFICE TO HAUL A DECIDEDLY WEAK AND PUERILE, SUPERCILIOUS, SUPERFICIAL IMPOSTER OVER THE FINISH LINE NEXT MONTH?
The Democrats and their backers thought they had the coming election in the bag. They thought that dropping Biden and inserting a new puppet in his stead— a fresh face and one that, unlike Joe Biden, EMBRACES, IN THE VERY CORE OF HER BEING, IDEOLOGICAL MARXISM, including the TWIN DOGMAS of “IDENTITY POLITICS” and “DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION.” engrained in her since her childhood—would ensure their victory.
Their overconfidence may prove their undoing—but only if gun owners, with their vast numbers, come out in force to vote for Trump.
Sitting this election out—merely hoping that Trump wins—is not a tenable option. We must make sure he wins in November. If every gun owner does his part, a very easy task, casting his or her vote for Donald Trump, he will emerge victorious. He will serve out a second term that was wrongly denied him in 2020. He will become the 45th/47th U.S. President.
Once Trump takes the Oath of Office in January 2025, he will return the Federal Government and the Nation back to its rightful owners— The American People. Our rights will be secure.
If, however, gun owners fail to vote, in force, this will result in a disastrous replay of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. But what will ensue for us this go-around will be much more unpleasant than what has transpired these past four years.
A full-fledged Marxist toady occupying the seat of power, Kamala Harris, would ensure that the Destroyers of our Nation—having firm control of the most powerful Branch of Government—will effectively merge the other two Branches, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, into one massive Executive Branch. Our Free Republic will collapse into Despotism and Tyranny.
The Sovereign American People, Master over Government, will become the Slave of it. The Country will be transformed, overnight, into a Totalitarian State.
The resulting Dictatorship will see the completion of the process that had started in January 2021——
The Harris/Walz Administration will inject Marxist Dogma into every institution of the Country, and into the psyche of every American.
Government agents will force the people to comply to new Government edicts. And Americans will learn quickly that they either conform to those edicts or face the dire consequences for refusing to do so.
No American will escape the clutches of this Tyrannical Government.
Doug Hamlin recognizes the threat. His is a powerful voice that meets the threat head-on.
In that same October 2024 issue of America’s 1st Freedom, he posted what must be taken to be the most important message to NRA Members. Everything NRA has warned its members about previously, is but a prelude to his message today. He writes in pertinent part,
“In this election—Nov. 5—your freedom is unequivocally on the ballot. It is therefore critical.”
He sums up the stakes of the upcoming election with this:
. . . [E]nemies of our freedom truly hate the Second Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights because it acts as a keystone to our freedom. A keystone (or capstone) is the wedge-shaped stone at the apex of a masonry and it is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, allowing the arch (in this case the Constitution to bear the weight). This natural right enshrines in the U.S. Constitution, by its very nature, also protects other elements of our individual rights that extend above government. Without the individual ability to defend our lives and our loved ones, none of the other rights are usable. That is what is at stake in this election.
I, and my business partners, agree with Hamlin’s stark but honest points. They should resonate with all Americans.
Yet some people, including, unfortunately, those within the Board of Directors of the NRA, apparently have reservations about Hamlin’s message—a message that conveys the transcendent importance of the Second Amendment.
This suggests that Hamlin’s detractors don’t understand the singular importance of our Second Amendment in securing a Free Constitutional Republic. Or they disagree with it. Or perhaps the Executive Vice President’s detractors feel obliged to soften and qualify the Executive Vice President’s remarks, reframing his remarks in a way more palatable to them: emphasizing the importance of the First Amendment Freedom of Speech, and deemphasizing the importance of the Second Amendment Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms.
One of these apparent detractors is NRA Board Member, John C. Sigler.
While acknowledging that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” is an important right, Sigler claims the First Amendment right of free speech, and the other panoply of rights set forth in the First Amendment, precede, in importance, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, a right that “shall not be infringed”.
In an article posted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News on October 7, Sigler writes,
“There is a reason the First Amendment is listed first in the Bill of Rights – it is listed first because the rights contained in the First Amendment are the bedrock upon which individual freedom is built and that make democracy possible. The Founders knew that that is why it is listed as ‘the First Amendment.’”
No, Mr. Sigler! You are wrong!
The First Amendment, while important to the existence of a Free Democratic Republic, (the right to Dissent, the Right to Express one’s Thoughts), ISN’T the bedrock upon which individual freedom is built. And it ISN’T the bedrock which makes democracy possible (when perceived, as it almost invariably is, as a right distinct from the right codified in the Second Amendment). [see discussion infra].
To the contrary, it is the Second Amendment that is the bedrock upon which individual freedom is built (what Doug Hamlin describes as the “keystone” to our freedom).
I, along with my business partners in the Arbalest Quarrel, acknowledge and defend Sigler’s right to express his personal opinion (and we note, the disclaimer at the end of his article, establishing that “The opinions expressed . . . are those of the author [John Sigler] and do not necessarily represent those of any person or organization with whom he may be affiliated”).
A person has the right to express his thoughts subject to narrow exceptions—including, prominently, threatening physical harm to another, as posited by the United States Supreme Court. Still, John Sigler’s association with the NRA is clear.
He must know that his words carry weight even with the disclaimer, as posted at the end of his article. They are clearly at odds with the Executive Vice President’s remarks. They are clearly at odds with my own thoughts and that of my business partners at the Arbalest Quarrel.
Thus, notwithstanding the disclaimer accompanying Sigler’s words, as posted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News, the fact they come as they do at a critical time with the U.S. Presidential election just around the corner, his words tend to blunt the import of Doug Hamlin’s words, as posted in the July issue of “America’s 1st Freedom. A reader of the article must wonder, then, did Sigler intend to do that?
If so, then what is he doing on the Board of Directors of the NRA. If it was not his intention to weaken Hamlin’s message, then he is naïve. Clearly, Sigler has strong views about the importance of the First Amendment which color and diminish his views about the Second.
If Sigler felt compelled to write about the importance of the First Amendment—for that is the salient theme of his entire article—he should have refrained from laying out his personal beliefs until after the November 5 election. Failing in tact, he has opened himself up to justified criticism, my own and that of my business partners.
By emphasizing, in no uncertain terms, that the First Amendment is “the bedrock upon which individual freedom is built,” Sigler lets it be known that, as he sees it, the Second Amendment plays a subordinate role to the First in the scheme of our Bill of Rights. I couldn’t disagree with that assumption more. The assumption is nothing new and lends nothing constructive and beneficial to any discussion of our fundamental God-given Natural Law, eternal rights.
NRA Board member Sigler undermines the import of Hamlin’s urgent message to the membership base. This cannot be condoned.
To say that the Second Amendment protects the other fundamental rights is true, but trivially so. The previous Executive Vice President of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre—whom, one must wonder whether he ever truly believed the remarks he made—happened to make that remark more for effect than out of conviction, as it rankles Progressive and Marxist politicians and the Press. More to the point, to claim that the Second Amendment exists, primarily or exclusively, to protect all of the other Rights—and principally the First—implicitly denigrates the importance of the Second as fundamentally important in its own right, and also undercuts the crucial point Hamlin makes.
Hamlin’s remarks to the NRA membership, underscore the very reason for NRA’s existence and of the many other organizations devoted to protection of our right to keep and bear arms, namely——
TO PROTECT OUR FREE REPUBLIC AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FROM GOVERNMENT USURPATION OF THEIR ULTIMATE SOVEREIGNTY OVER GOVERNMENT.
WORDS EXPRESSIVE OF OUR FREE REPUBLIC OR DESTRUCTIVE OF THAT FREE REPUBLIC ARE BOTH PROTECTED UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT AS THEY OUGHT TO BE, AS THEY MUST BE.
But reality sets in quickly when those forces that seek to destroy freedom and liberty (as a composite good)—and claim a need to do so disingenuously and disdainfully in the name of protecting it—may do just that but for force of arms of the COMMON MAN which equates with FREEDOM AND LIBERTY, independently of words. That is to say——
THE ARMED CITIZENRY IS IN ITSELF THE VISIBLE AND OBJECTIVE MANIFESTATION OF AND EMBODIMENT OF THAT FREEDOM AND LIBERTY
Sigler’s message going on about the singular importance of the natural law rights embodied in the First Amendment is unsound from a logical perspective, and the temerity of his having expressed it at this critical time has no practical value that I can see.
Concerning the analytical failings of this Board member’s remarks, consider——
Of what worth has a thing if it happens to exist at a singular moment in time but fails to persist over time? Would our Free Republic exist at all without the will and the weapons to make that happen? And if successful in overthrowing tyranny and creating a Republic free of tyranny, would that Republic continue to exist through the passing years, decades and centuries if the citizenry did not remain armed?
Clearly, it is the Right to Armed Self-Defense that makes a Free Republic possible, in the first instance, and it is THAT Right that enables a Free Republic to continue and to grow ever stronger over time.
IN THE ABSENCE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE, OUR COUNTRY GROWS MORE ATTENUATED, AS THE NATURAL PROPENSITY OF GOVERNMENT—THIS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT—TO BECOME TYRANNICAL COMES TO FRUITION. We see this occurring now, and with rapidity. It is impossible to ignore. It is impossible to deny.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH—THE FREEDOM TO EXPRESS ONESELF, TO DISSENT —ISN’T DISTINCT FROM ARMED SELF-DEFENSE, A THING UNTO ITSELF. RATHER, THE TWO ARE INTERRELATED, INEXTRICABLY BOUND TO EACH OTHER.
THE EXERCISE OF ARMED SELF-DEFENSE IS FREE EXPRESSION IN ITS MOST EMPHATIC FORM. IT IS THE ESSENCE OF SPEECH, NOT DERIVATIVE OF IT OR SUBORDINATE TO IT. THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS IS AN IMPERATORIAL RIGHT, WITHOUT WHICH NO OTHER RIGHT IS SECURE.
The exercise of one’s right to armed self-defense is THE ASSERTION to anyone who would dare intrude on one’s sanctum—anyone who would dare intrude on one’s Will TO BE, TO REMAIN WHOLE, in Body and Mind, and in Soul and Spirit, and who would intrude on one’s external domain, one’s private property—that no one may thrust his will on another or take possession of that which belongs to oneself and claim it as his own, and NO “THING” (i.e., GOVERNMENT) can force obeisance from a FREE MAN.
The armed citizen sends a powerful message to government, and it is a message that is meant to be heeded by a grasping, selfish, government—a government bent on obtaining and maintaining control over the people.
It is a message to be heeded by THIS Federal Government, poised to wield and impose absolute power over Americans. Two-thirds of the Nation’s people are armed. But how many of them realize the tenuousness of their exercise of that Right. This Right is not a thing to take for granted. Yet, the Government’s skilled propagandists have successfully seduced many Americans into inculcating false beliefs, noxious dogma, that psychically injure them. They have become an army of mindless drones of the Government, turned loose on other Americans who are not susceptible to noxious psychological conditioning.
Thus, the would-be destroyers of our Nation don’t rely on Government alone to bring low the Nation’s people.
They turn the American people against themselves, and against each other, and with a sympathetic, seditious Press, hiding behind a mask of “THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS”—that “Fourth Estate” uses its own ostensible freedom to suppress true Freedom and Liberty residing intrinsically in the American people.
The success of a long-standing, vigorous, and expansive campaign of mind control over the populace is evident by the fact that half the Electorate supports an avowedly Marxist Candidate for U.S. President.
The Founders of our Republic would be appalled.
It is up to the other half of the Nation, especially that portion of the Electorate, who unreservedly cherishes the unalienable right to armed self-defense, to see to it that this Marxist candidate, Kamala Harris, and her inordinately wealthy and powerful benefactors do not prevail in the coming Election. For if they prevail, the first order of business will be to develop a bold and brash strategy to confiscate millions of semiautomatic weapons in the possession of the citizenry.
If all gun owners who are not registered to vote in this Presidential election DO REGISTER and then cast a ballot for Trump, there is no way in hell that Democrats and their wealthy benefactors could “fix” this election for Harris/Walz.
That is true today, just as it was true in the 2020 Presidential Election.
We laid this out plainly in our previous article, titled “YOU, THE AMERICAN GUN OWNER, WILL DETERMINE TRUMP’S VICTORY THIS NOVEMBER 2024—BUT ONLY IF YOU VOTE!”
We posted the article on September 28, 2024. We provided substantial evidence that, had all the unregistered gun owners in the Swing States in 2020—which are the same Swing States that will determine who prevails in the 2024 Election—troubled themselves to register and vote for Trump in 2020, the Election, Trump would now be serving his second term instead of Biden/Harris, and the Country and the citizenry would have been spared the horror now unfolding.
Even with massive Democrat Party cheating Trump would have prevailed. That election would have been “too big to rig,” just as the present Election will be, but only if non-registered gun owners do register to vote and then cast their ballot for Trump. This is clear and irrefutable.
Consider——
How many Americans own firearms? Ammo.com conducted a survey. From the survey Ammo.com posits there are 107 million Americans who “personally own” a firearm, almost one-third of the Electorate.
See also the article in Havokjournal.com.
Granted, 20 percent of gun owners present themselves as Democrats, according to a July 2024 report, by the Pew Research Center, but if they think their right to bear arms is secure with Kamala Harris ensconced in the White House, they are delusional.
The Founders of our Nation, the Framers of our Constitution codified THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS——A RIGHT THAT SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED——expressly in THE BILL OF RIGHTS of the U.S. Constitution to keep Government in check and serving both as a reminder to the Federal Government that it exists to serve the people; the people do not exist to serve the interests of a predatory Government. Our Constitution makes that point plain.
And that salient purpose is conveyed in the NRA’s mission statement:
NRA mission statement is “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially with reference to the inalienable right of the individual American citizen guaranteed by such Constitution to acquire, possess, collect, exhibit, transport, carry, transfer ownership of, and enjoy the right to use arms.” The statement emphasizes the difference it makes in the life of the people it serves by ensuring that their rights are not only respected but also enforced. This mission statement by the NRA has the following components:
1. Protection of the U.S. Constitution
2. Granting Americans their rights
In the first component, the NRA (National Rifle Association) comes out as a defender and protector of the supreme document of the land – the United States constitution. By concentrating all its efforts and resources on constitutional matters, the NRA confirms its historical legacy of remaining consistent with its mandate. In fact, it is evident that this body has never erred or abandoned this mission. The second component relates to the first one as it elucidates why NRA remains adamant in the protection of the constitution. The primary reason as shown in this second component is to ensure the American people enjoy their right to own and keep arms for their personal protection without any form of victimization.” [See the article in “Mission Statement Academy”].
See also the article in nra.org.
The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is an American nonprofit whose primary mission is [to] protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. . . especially the right to keep and bear arms. Founded in 1871, the group has informed its members about firearm related bills since 1934, and it has directly lobbied for and against legislation since 1975.”
In protecting the Constitution, and particularly, the Second Amendment, the NRA’s tacit purpose is to protect our Free Constitutional Republic from the throes of Tyranny.
That purpose has remained constant since the formation of the NRA in 1871, making the NRA the oldest Civil Rights organization in the Country. Hamlin seeks to revitalize the NRA’s core mission.
Those Americans who wish to preserve our Free Constitutional Republic as the Founders intended, but have forgotten how that was achieved, should keep in mind that,
America’s First Patriots did not gain their independence by simply holding books and pamphlets aloft in defiance as the British Monarch’s army descended upon them to annihilate them.
The Declaration of Independence got the English Monarch’s attention, to be sure. But those First Patriots only gained their independence from Tyranny by effective use of musket and cannon against a Despot. Weaponry in the hands of the citizenry is the one thing all Tyrants dread.
The Democrat Party Leadership and its benefactors—a shadowy network of inordinately wealthy and powerful financial global empire builders who are intent on destroying our Free Republic—know full well the awesome power of America’s armed citizenry. That explains——
THEIR ABHORRENCE OF TENS OF MILLIONS OF FIREARMS CIRCULATING IN THE UNITED STATES
THEIR RAW FEAR OF THE ARMED AMERICAN CITIZENRY
THEIR SINGLE-MINDED FOCUS ON DISARMING THE ARMED CITIZENRY
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AND IMPLEMENTATION OF POLICIES DIRECTED AT CHANGING AMERICANS’ ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTIONS TOWARD FIREARMS—PERVERSE POLICIES DIRECTED AT INDUCING (THROUGH PROGRAMS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONING), PATHOLOGICAL FEAR OF FIREARMS IN THE PSYCHE OF AMERICANS, AND STRONG FEELINGS OF CONTEMPT TOWARD THOSE AMERICANS WHO OWN AND POSSESS THEM
THE CONTINUOUS CRAFTING OF NEW—AND REINTRODUCTION OF OLD —ANTIGUN SCHEMES AND STRATEGIES TO FRUSTRATE AND CONFOUND AND HARASS THOSE AMERICANS WHO INSIST ON EXERCISING THEIR RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS
THE EXECUTION OF INCREASINGLY AGGRESSIVE AND EXPANSIVE STATE CONFISCATORY STRATEGEMS TO DISARM THE CITIZENRY
ATTEMPTS TO INDUCE IN THE PSYCHE OF THE CITIZENRY, THE IDEA THAT GOVERNMENT NOT THE INDIVIDUAL, HAS SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR PROVIDING FOR THE WELFARE AND SAFETY OF THE CITIZENS IN THE STATE, THEREBY BRINGING ABOUT A CONDITION OF DEPENDENCE ON AND DEEP RELIANCE ON THE GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE FOR ALL ITS NEEDS
All this horror will come to pass if Harris and the Democrats win the White House.
America will have fallen to Despotism and Tyranny and what remains of it will exist in perpetual stagnant stasis.
This is plain. Why, then, would anyone doubt the singular importance of an armed citizenry?
The right to armed self-defense is a necessary precondition for the existence of a truly Free Republic and, but for the retention of an armed citizenry in perpetuity, a free Republic could not and would not continue but would lapse and fall into our Republic’s logical opposite and there remain in THAT STATE in perpetuity.
John Siegler claims that the Freedom of Speech is the principal safeguard of a Democratic Republic, even as this Government through its proxies in the Press and in and in Broadcast and Cable “news,” and in social media and Big Tech, have shredded the Freedom of Speech. But it is plain that Freedom of Speech IS NOT the principal safeguard of a Democratic Republic, as our Democratic Republic is falling quickly into Tyranny. So, Freedom of Speech cannot secure our Republic. And “Freedom of the Press”—which isn’t a Natural Law Right at all but a societal construct—has simply been tacked onto Freedom of Speech because some of the Framers of the First Amendment believed that the Press—as an institution—would keep the other institution, Government in check. The Founders were wrong on that score. The Formal institution of the Press has become merely an adjunct of a corrupt, Tyrannical Government.
The Arbalest Quarrel is a small voice in the storm as are many non-formal voices. But the destroyers of our Republic would eventually turn their attention on us too, if they succeed in sitting their latest stooge, Kamala Harris, in the White House.
Where then would the First Amendment as the salient protector of Freedom and Liberty be found, if the Tyrant prevents all dissident speech?
Only the armed citizenry will remain, and the Government knows that removing firearms from two-thirds of the public will not be so easy a task as divesting the public of its Right of Free Speech.
But Siegler insists, nonetheless, that the First Amendment Freedom of Speech is first in importance in the Bill of Rights. How so?
Siegler doesn’t say. He simply points to the numbering of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights as proof of the subordination of the Second Amendment to the First Amendment. Is that so?
The claim that the Founders of our Republic considered the First Amendment Freedom of Speech, and the panoply of other Rights codified in that Amendment, as preeminent among all other Rights, as demonstrated by having listed it first, is a widely held belief among many Americans. The belief is false.
An explanation for the ordering of the Ten Amendments is more mundane.
The Bill of Rights has an order, but it has nothing to do with the relative importance of the rights. James Madison, who whittled down the long list of amendments proposed during constitutional ratification, argued that all changes to the Constitution should be incorporated into the text itself rather than tacked on the end. Connecticut’s Roger Sherman disagreed and won the argument, giving us the numbered list of 10 amendments we have today. The order of that list, however, still reflects Madison’s view: They come in the same order as the sections of the Constitution that they would have modified. . . .
The now-sacred First Amendment was originally slated to sit in the far less distinguished third position . . . [T]he First Amendment relates to the powers of the legislature, which come later in the Constitution than does the structure of Congress.” [See the article in Slate Explainer by Brian Palmer].
This matter is explicated fully in a book titled, “Madison's Music: On Reading The First Amendment,” By Burt Neuborne. New York, NY: The New Press, 2015, 272 pages. A review of this book is published 95 Tex. L. Rev. 591 (February 2017), by David A. Anderson. The Reviewer says,
“Madison didn't compose a poem. He didn't envision a First Amendment at all; he wanted to insert the various guarantees that became the First Amendment into Article I, Section Nine, of the original Constitution, between the clause prohibiting bills of attainder and the clause prohibiting direct taxation. [Moreover,] Madison didn't originate the language in his proposal to protect freedom of speech and press; he lifted it almost verbatim from the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1788 . . . [Ultimately], [t]he final language of what became the First Amendment was chosen by a House—Senate conference committee.”
Any Fundamental God-Given Right (and any subordinate, i.e., man-made Right) means little in practice if the citizen cannot exercise it.
So, the Right of Free Speech that Sigler makes much of in his Ammoland article doesn’t mean a damn thing if the Federal Government prohibits the exercise of it, which has occurred with alacrity and speed by the Biden-Harris Administration, and that practice would continue in a Harris Administration.
The treacherous Biden-Harris Administration has surreptitiously, through its proxies—social media, the Press, and all with the blessing of Congressional Democrats—illegally suppressed Free Speech, making significant inroads in denting the exercise of it by policing dissent through censorship and through harassment of those whose words and conduct conflict with the aims of Government.
This Administration no longer attempts to hide its actions but openly defends the purported need to clamp down on speech that it asserts harms the State and the people. [But harms what “people”: Progressives and Marxists? Illegal aliens? The reporters and editors in the seditious Press? Others whom the Tyrant happens to mention as a pretext for its own nefarious ends?]
Free unhampered exercise of Speech operates as an impediment to Government control over the Common Man. The Tyrant must impose conformity in thought and conduct to effectively control the masses lest they rise up and topple the Tyrant. So, the Tyrant must keep exercise of “Speech,” in all its manifestations, in check. That is not easy, but not insurmountable.
But what keeps the Government itself in check is not Speech but the armed citizenry. And it is the armed citizen whom the Government most fears because THAT ARMED CITIZEN has the means to counter the usurpation of power of a Tyrannical Government—BACKING UP HIS WORDS WITH HIS FIREARMS!
Government, as Americans know full well, has attempted, through these passing years and decades, to impose more constraints on the exercise of the Second Amendment than on any of the other fundamental rights.
This is plain from the expansive list of Government laws, executive orders, rules, regulations, and codes existent in Federal, State, local, and regional Government.
And, yet, for all that, the Government at all levels, while placing constraints on the exercise of the Right, and, in the last few years, actually calling for the eradication of it, has failed at every turn.
The American people have, instead, grown more suspicious of Government as Government has grown noticeably more tyrannical. And, as their suspicions have grown, so, too, their defiance toward Government has grown. As the predatory Government’s intrusion on the thoughts and actions of Americans has become more intensive and extensive, Americans—most of us—have grown, justifiably, more resentful of Government, and more defiant toward it. More and more Americans are coming to their senses and understand that one God-given right transcends all the others in keeping an insolent, arrogant Government shackled.
WHAT IS IT THAT KEEPS THE SECOND AMENDMENT SO RESISTENT TO THE MANY ATTEMPTS OF A PREDATORY GOVERNMENT TO CONSTRAIN EXERCISE OF IT, MUCH LESS TO ERASE IT?
The right to bear arms has always been viewed as a ‘fundamental right.’ For example, John Locke maintained that the right to armed self-defense was ‘so necessary to, and closely tied with, a man's preservation, that he cannot part with it but by what he forfeits his preservation and life together.’ Likewise, William Blackstone recognized that the right to bear arms in the English Bill of Rights acknowledged ‘the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.’ One of the most prominent early American commentators, St. George Tucker, described the Second Amendment as equivalent to Blackstone's ‘right of self-defence [which] is the first law of nature.’ Consistent with this view, Federalist No. 28 recognizes an original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government.” “The Second Amendment And The Supreme Court,” 6 Geo. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 591, (Summer 2008), By Douglas G. Smith.
There are many Natural Law Rights. Many are unenumerated, which explains the import behind the Ninth Amendment.
And——
All Natural Law Rights are sacrosanct and inviolate and absolute.
They all go together. In the Mind of God, these Rights are One and Indivisible, as the Divine Creator is One and Indivisible. It is only in the mind of a finite being that they appear separate, perhaps even disparate.
But——
If one wishes to collapse all Natural Law Rights into one single Natural Law Right, the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms is the best descriptor for the whole of them.
All other rights are subsumed in that one right. Many people would dismiss this idea out-of-hand. But on reflection it makes perfectly good sense on reflection.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is more generally understood, as explained supra, as the right to armed self-defense, which is broadly subsumed in a general right of self-defense.
A person’s right to armed self-defense simply speaks to the right of a person to employ the most effective means to protect self and well-being, which for centuries has come to mean the right to bear firearms for one’s personal defense.
Drilling down further, the right to self-defense is synonymous with the right to self-preservation—the most basic of all rights.
The right of self-preservation is inherent in every living thing, down to the simplest one-celled creature.
As for Man, alone, the right of self-preservation extends to the sanctity and inviolability of his mind his psyche, and that of his Soul and Spirit.
The Marxist-Globalist forces wielding increasing power in our Country today have constructed a new mannequin to serve them as the visible representation of their power—the vacuous, soulless, corrupt Kamala Harris.
Marxists accept as axiomatic that the “whole” man is nothing more than Body—that Mind is merely a product of Body, and that the concepts of Soul and Spirit are meaningless constructs of Christianity that have no reality and must be erased from memory. This erasure is taking place in our Nation’s public schools through systematic indoctrination into the core constructs of Marxism.
Marxists seek to constrain thought as they would constrain the body, through radical social engineering. If successful they will have achieved their goal—a world governed solely by the principles concocted centuries ago by Karl Marx (in whose name the horrific socio-political and economic ideology and dogmas thrust on Americans today have come to be).
Marxists believe that a world governed by these principles would amount to the epitome of societal perfection.
Since everything reduces to the physical for adherents of Marxism, they are, understandably enraged by “the sheer physicality of firearms” in the hands of the masses, which to Marxists, is subversive and destructive of the Country and the world they seek to remake.
As I have said and now emphasize: To Keep and Bear Arms is not distinct from Speech.
It IS speech in its most ardent form. It is a form of speech that Marxists find dangerous, abhorrent, for the armed citizen is speaking in a form they know can defeat them—speech they have no control over.
The person who exercises the Right to armed self-defense is stating matter-of-factly to other Men and to the Man-Beast of Government——
“I have the God-Given Right to Exist Whole in Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit. You are Forbidden to Invade or Tamper with any aspect of my life and being and property—under pain of your own destruction.” This is something America’s First Patriots knew, and which today’s Patriots know. It is something that the Marxist-Globalists know as well, and that they dread.
Let us win at the ballot-box in November so that a potential catastrophic effect of a dangerous misstep by an arrogant Government can be avoided.
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