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PRIORITIZING CHILDRENS’ SAFETY WHILE IN SCHOOL SHOULD BE THE AIM OF ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS, BUT IT ISN’T
CHILDREN ARE PAWNS IN A DANGEROUS GAME PLAYED BY THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND BY MANY STATE GOVERNMENTS*
MULTISERIES ON THE ISSUE OF SCHOOL SAFETY
PART THREE
SUBPART ONE
The Nation’s public schools exist for one salient purpose: to sharpen logical-thinking skills in our Nation’s youths so they become confident in their abilities and productive members of society.Something hinders the effectuation of that purpose: school shootings.Board members, administrators, teachers, support staff, and children cannot concentrate on the core purpose of education when they fear the next school shooting incident.There were four major, widely reported tragic school shooting incidents (K-12) in the past 20+ years:**Columbine in 1999, Sandy Hook in 2012, Stoneman Douglas in 2018, and, most recently, Robb Elementary in 2022.These incidents were devastating, profoundly affecting both the children and adults directly involved and the Nation.Each incident is unacceptable. Yet, all were preventable.What are the States doing about this? Some States are doing much; many others little to prevent the next school shooting. See the ecs.org report. States generally, but not invariably, delegate the responsibility for developing and implementing school security plans to the school districts and many have enacted statutes dictating policy in that regard. Id.There are 13,349 School Districts in the Country, and 731 are in New York.The largest School District in New York and in the Nation is the New York City School District, and it has an enrollment of 1,007,610 (K-12 Public Schools) as of June 30, 2021. The New York City School District has 1,400 schools, one-third of all the public schools in the State. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is the sole bargaining agent for teachers, non-supervisory educators, and paraprofessionals for the City School District. A rational person would think that given the size of the NYC School District (the City is divided into 32 geographic districts and 2 Citywide districts), and given the severity of violent crime in the City, and a host of related societal problems, the District would be a leader in “hardening,” (fortifying) schools against armed attack. But that isn’t true. See articles in the New York Post, the Washington Times, and the National Review.The UFT, taking its cue from the Biden Administration and from the National Education Association (NEA), adamantly opposes implementing the “hardening” of schools, claiming that it doesn’t work. Yet, this notion is at loggerheads with the position of the New York State Legislature that passed, in 2018, a bill funding schools specifically to use armed personnel “To strengthen security and help keep students safe.” The view of the Huntington School District, on Long Island, aligns with that of the State’s Legislators in Albany. The view of the UFT does not.See the Arbalest Quarrel companion article, posted on January 30, 2023. The Huntington School District has implemented a school safety program that makes use of armed staff to protect children, teachers, and staff. See the article in Newsday, and wshu public radio. The use of armed guards has stoked resistance even though such use of armed guards is authorized “on school grounds” but not “in the school.” That has done nothing to placate deep-seated antipathy on the part of some parents and teachers who oppose all use of armed guards, notwithstanding that the armed school resource officers (SROs), not police officers.But what explains this strong resistance? There is a reluctance, even a hysterical reaction, to the use of armed police or armed school resource officers (“SROs”) at schools even as their effectiveness in protecting students, teachers, and administrative officials from aggressive armed assault is clear. See the article from the rand corporation. This is a disturbing trend. And it is illustrated both in the New York City School District, and some of the other largest school districts in other areas of the Country.This reluctance must be attributed to a concerted attack on “guns” generally, by groups always opposed to guns, and a hyped-up fear of armed police and armed school resource personnel, particularly.Although the UFT is adamantly opposed to any armed personnel in the City's schools, apparently the District cannot prohibit NYPD from entering the schools in pursuit of their lawful police functions. This has led the ACLU to provide guidance to students when interacting with the police, suggesting a strained relationship from the get-go. See the article, titled, “How to Interact with the Police in New York City Public Schools.”The Legacy Press, itself, abhorring guns and contemptuous of those who choose to exercise their natural law right to keep and bear them, does nothing to alleviate the public’s phobic reaction toward guns. Instead, the Press exacerbates that irrational fear, exploiting shooting incidents—especially those taking place inside schools or outside, on school grounds, involving harm to children. Stoking fear of and concomitant hatred of guns furthers a political agenda. It is an agenda aimed at weakening and eventually eliminating the fundamental, unalienable, natural law right of the people to armed self-defense. The Press uses the alarmist expression “epidemic of mass shootings” to stoke public anger and rage toward guns, suggesting, falsely, that “mass shootings” are commonplace. They are not. See the article in the City Journal. And the term ‘epidemic’ when tied to shootings falsely alludes to a public health emergency. It is not.Criminal conduct involves public safety, not public health. The implement used by a sociopath, or psychopath, or lunatic to commit mayhem doesn’t define the event. A sentient agent’s use of a gun to commit a crime does not convert that act, a public safety matter, into a public health matter. Similarly, an epidemic or pandemic, like the outbreak of the Spanish Flu, the Bubonic Plague, or the recent CCP Chinese Coronavirus (COVID-19) doesn’t transform a public health matter into a public safety matter. Society doesn’t place a “virus” on trial for a crime. And Society doesn’t place the “gun” in a hospital because it, “the gun,” is deemed “ill.” That is discordant. Yet, the public doesn’t stop to think about the irrationality of the messaging so caught up it is in the cacophony on display.Publications like Time show no reluctance in treating a criminal matter as a health issue when that criminal matter involves guns. See the article in Time.One would think the medical community wouldn’t fall for this. Not so. Many medical practitioners and medical organizations are happy to shoehorn the misuse of guns, a public safety issue, into a presumptive public health issue, and even a public health epidemic. How can this be? Many in the medical community, apparently, are blinded by their own loathing of guns and therefore fail to perceive the irrationality of the presumption. Still, some medical practitioners, realizing the problem, try to make a case, nonetheless:“Advocates believe a public health approach is warranted not only because of the aggregate numbers of death and injuries, but also because epidemiological analysis suggests gun violence may share features with communicable diseases; exposure to gun violence can predict other incidents, and gun violence often diffuses like a contagion through connected social networks. Physicians also are being asked to step up. Various medical groups including the AMA and the American Academy of Pediatrics have issued policy statements calling for greater physician involvement in combating gun violence.” “Physicians’ Elusive Public Health Duties,” 99 N.C.L. Rev. 923, May, 2021, by Richard S. Saver, Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor, UNC School of Law; Professor (Secondary Appointment), UNC School of MedicineThis is sophistry. The author of the above article equates “gun violence” with “communicable disease” or “contagion” because he mistakes his metaphor for a literal representation. If “gun violence” were really “like” a “communicable disease,” then this would mean that guns, as “viruses,” or “contagions,” would transform all people who happen to come into contact with a gun as having within them the seed of pathological criminal violence. That’s not only patently false, it’s also nonsensical. But, in fact, many in the medical community ascribe to this. And politicians and the legacy Press run with it. Many in the medical community, therefore, contribute to this hysteria over guns, rather than being a voice of reason. And a half-hearted debate over the matter does nothing to allay the tendency to hysteria. See Tulane University article.The desire to treat “guns” per se as a health matter informs all subsequent discussions on the matter. The result is disastrous public policy decisions. Fortunately, not all members of the medical community have jumped on the bandwagon. They do not treat “gun violence” as a public health matter, let alone a public health emergency. They perceive this notion as wrongheaded and illogical. See the website Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership.On the matter of guns, the Press, politicians, and many in the medical community are not serving the best interests of the Nation, least of all the best interests of and safety of our children.Children have become useful pawns, sacrificial lambs, in a high-stakes game, where the survival of the Nation as a free Constitutional Republic is at stake.____________________________
A GENERAL ANTIPATHY TOWARDS GUNS MEANS TREATING CRIMINAL USE OF GUNS AND LAWFUL CIVILIAN CITIZEN USE OF GUNS FOR SELF-DEFENSE AS A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE
SUBPART TWO
The refusal of many school districts to consider utilizing police or armed resource officers as a necessary part of an effective school safety plan arises from both an antipathy toward guns, culminating in an outright phobic reaction toward “guns.” An irrational abhorrence toward guns has pervaded the Country. It has not come about by chance. It is all part of an elaborately conceived and orchestrated campaign aimed at disarming the American public. In this effort to affect the desired outcome, a child is viewed as a useful pawn, whose life is deliberately placed in mortal danger. This says everything an American need to know about the value the legacy Press, and many school districts, including the New York City School District and the Biden Administration place on the life of our Nation’s children. It is just a matter of time before another tragedy that need not occur will occur in a school. The usual cast of characters will piously declare how horrific that is and why it is that civilian citizen possession of guns must be drastically curtailed. This will do nothing to prevent another mass shooting incident to occur in a school or outside it. In fact, the contrary will ensue. A mass shooting incident is guaranteed to occur, demonstrating once again, ever again, that the goal of ending criminal violence with guns is not, and never was about guns.Consider the ubiquity of the hyper-alarmist expression “gun violence.”New York Governor Kathy Hochul incessantly goes on about this thing “gun violence” and “hypes” her package of restrictive gun legislation to “fight gun violence epidemic.” See the article on her website. But few people stop to reflect on her lengthy, convoluted package of gun legislation. They should. The legislation has nothing to do with stopping criminal conduct. It has everything to do with repressing the ability of average, responsible, rational, law-abiding Americans to own and possess a firearm—the only truly effective means available to safeguard one’s life against a violent, vicious aggressor. Such random, unprovoked attacks have increased exponentially in recent years, in New York, as reported by the New York Daily News, and the City Journal Magazine. Violent Crime is surging in major Cities, including New York, as reported by the New York Post. Back in January 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared, “Gun violence is a public health crisis that continues to threaten every corner of our city” and he claimed to have the plan to deal with it.Do you remember: “The Blueprint to End Gun Violence.”How well is that working? Strange, the Mayor has said little to nothing about it since he rolled it out with great fanfare early last year.The answer to violent crime, as the legacy Press and the politicians explain is to constrain and eventually curtail the natural law right of the citizen to provide for his own defense. That is their answer. That is their only response. And why is that? Apparently, the law-abiding citizen gun owner is an easy target and a useful one. And, the Press and politicians point to the many guns in the hands of the law-abiding citizen. So? So, what?Conflating guns held by law-abiding gun owners with those held by violent criminals, the seditious Press and duplicitous politicians make a pretense of serving society, while stepping all over the Bill of Rights. Gun owners are perceived as “the other”—not representative of true law-abiding Americans.Although not expressly stated, the rationale, is this——Restricting the exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense of the former, the average law-abiding citizen, will serve to distract from the problem of misuse of guns by the latter, the rampaging psychopathic and psychotic killer.Through this sleight of hand, the Destroyers of a free Constitutional Republic can methodically whittle away at the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment. This, of course, is and was their primary aim all along: erase the natural law right to armed self-defense ostensibly for the well-being of the greater society. It is all a ruse. But, it plays well.Thus, the more often that violent crimes occur—preferably through the use of guns—the more likely the public will be to embrace a policy whose end goal is a “Gun-Free” America. That is to say, the elimination of the lawful possession of firearms by civilian citizens. That, of course, has no impact on the criminal. But, witnessing the casual way in which many City Governments treat crimes and criminals today, tackling crime isn’t a matter of concern for them; disarming the average, honorable, rational, responsible civilian citizen is._____________________
A GENERAL ANTIPATHY TOWARDS GUNS MEANS TREATING CRIMINAL USE OF AND LAWFUL CIVILIAN CITIZEN USE OF GUNS FOR SELF-DEFENSE AS A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE
SUBPART THREE
All this focus on guns has affected the way much of the Country views the discussion of and treatment of guns, including, most despicably, how many school districts treat their charges. A life that has value only as a commodity in service to a higher aim: But the refusal even to consider a school safety policy using armed resource officers may place the lives of children, while in school, in mortal danger. Is not the lack of a truly effective school safety policy stark evidence of the lack of value that the Government, today, places on the life of a child—the lack of value that the Government places on the life of the average American citizen in our Country?But the refusal even to consider a school safety policy using armed resource officers may place the lives of children, while in school, in mortal danger. We had pointed this out in an Arbalest Quarrel article, posted on November 17, 2022, writing about this stubborn attitude of the New York City School District, we said,“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.” Less than two months after we wrote this, our prognostication, unfortunately, came true. A Charter School in New York City, East-Williamsburg in Brooklyn was the site of a shooting incident. The New York Post writes,“Three people — two of them students — were shot outside a Brooklyn high school on Wednesday afternoon, police and law enforcement sources said.Bullets flew just past the 2 p.m. dismissal time after a fight erupted outside the Williamsburg Charter High School at 198 Varet Street, cops said.A 15-year-old girl was shot in the right leg and a 17-year-old boy was shot in the left thigh, cops said. A 37-year-old man — a security guard at the school — suffered a graze wound to the neck, according to police.The students were taken to Bellevue Hospital, and the staffer to Elmhurst General, all in stable condition.This started as a dispute, a physical fight,” down the block from the school, near White Street, NYPD spokesperson Lt. Paul Ng said in a press briefing.About 15 men got into the melee, and one of them whipped out a 2×4 stick — which is when the shooter opened fire, according to Ng.”We would be remiss not to point out that, although Williamsburg Charter High School is located in New York City, it does not come under the purview of the New York City School District and the UFT.The Guide to Charter Schools in New York State, says, in part,“Charter schools are completely independent of district school boards. What allows a charter school to provide education to the public is a “charter,” a type of contract, between the school’s board of trustees and a chartering entity (also known as an authorizer). According to the terms of the charter, a school agrees to meet rigorous academic, operational, financial, and legal standards. The authorizer oversees each charter school to ensure it is meeting the terms of its charter.”Yet, despite their independence from district school boards, “charter schools must follow the same health and safety, ci rights, and student assessment requirements as other public schools, but they are exempt from all other laws and regulations, except for Article 56 of the Education Law. v 6” Id.The Safety program appears to be one-dimensional, though, essentially limited to the use of metal detectors to scan for weapons. And “School Safety Agents” appear to be limited to being versed in the use of scanning techniques. Nonetheless, the school safety program falls under the auspices of the NYPD. But, there is nothing that we can decipher from the material we perused to suggest that NYPD officers or armed safety personnel are utilized.In a document involving “A Collaboration Between the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the New York City Department of Education,” effective July 21, 2016, school safety seems directed to and limited to scanning for weapons coming into the school:“Since the late 1980’s, metal detectors have been used in New York City public schools in order to maintain a safe and secure school environment and prevent weapons from being brought into the schools. The scanning program continues to be a vital security initiative and significant deterrent to weapons and violence. Furthermore, when weapons are found, schools can implement appropriate supports, interventions and follow up measures to reduce the chance of recurrence and address underlying factors that affect the safety and security of the school community. In accordance with established procedures and protocols, including Chancellor’s Regulation A-432 on Search and Seizure and the NYPD Patrol Guide 215-18 on Search Protocols for School Safety Agents, all students and visitors entering a school facility where scanning takes place are subject to scanning. School staff may enter the building at a non- scanning entrance designated by the principal/designee, which is monitored by school safety agents. NYPD personnel who conduct the scanning are trained to respect students’ rights and to ensure that scanning occurs in the least intrusive and most respectful manner possible. A principal or his/her designee must be present whenever scanning occurs. Scanning is only conducted at High Schools or Middle Schools which includes grade levels 6 through 12. When an Elementary School is present in a Middle School or High School where scanning occurs, a separate entrance will be provided for Elementary level students to enter the building without being scanned. . . .The Role of School Safety Agent School Safety Agents are trained to treat all individuals entering a school facility with courtesy, professionalism and respect. School Safety Agents overseeing scanning in a school must: • Properly set up/dismantle equipment and test the scanning equipment daily to ensure it is in proper working condition. • Greet students and provide them with clear, concise instructions in a professional manner • Be aware and alert to the walk-through metal detector signals and correctly utilize the hand-held metal detector while carefully observing, interpreting, and reviewing the x-ray machine screen for any suspicious objects Conduct sweeps (searches) for weapons, contraband, and other prohibited items periodically throughout scanning operations each day on the perimeter of the school site. • Adhere to the established methodology for scanning procedures . . . .”Obviously, the shooting incident that occurred on Wednesday, February 8, 2023, involving multiple shots fired and several individuals being shot, on the school grounds of Williamsburg Charter School, suggests serious deficiencies in security, on many levels. That incident may be replicated in any other school in New York City and could lead to more severe consequences. It is just a matter of time.______________________________
THE VALUE OF THE LIFE OF AN AVERAGE AMERICAN IS NOW REDUCED TO ZERO! WELCOME TO “THE NEW LIBERAL WORLD ORDER”!
SUBPART FOUR
What is evident today in New York City in the mammoth New York City School District and in many School Districts across the Country that develop deficient school safety protocols grounded on the biases of the Biden Administration and the NEA are disasters in the making. The crassness is quite remarkable. We reported on this before, in our AQ article posted on November 17, 2022, and it bears repeating: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.One is left to ponder the forces at work in this Country who have little if any regard for the life and well-being of the average American: whether man, woman, or child. The Biden Administration is merely a reflection of the monstrous claim that these shadowy, powerful forces have over our Country and its people.The goal of these forces with their toadies in the Biden Administration and in several State Governments across the Country is control over the Country and over the American citizenry. Gaining control over the Country and its people requires capturing the weaponry of Americans to affect absolute control over the populace. Propaganda plays a critical role in that endeavor. Capturing weaponry in this Country requires first capturing the minds of the majority of the people. The lives of Americans, and especially children, count for nothing to these ruthless forces. Rather, loss of life, through criminal misuse of guns, plays a central part in that effort. Regardless of what the politicians and the organs of the Press and media spout, it is control over thought and control over firearms that is essential to the dissolution of a Sovereign, Independent, Nation-State; essential to the dissolution of our Free Constitutional Republic; and essential to the subjugation of a sovereign and proud people. That is the endgame.The Biden Administration and much of Congress, and many of those in State Governments, have no reason for existing other than to carry out the will of their benefactors. And those benefactors have lavished money and power on their toadies to secure their compliance and their loyalty. And they have served their masters well. And what of we, the commoners, the sovereign people of a once Great Nation? We are destined for the yoke if we don't demand an accounting, long past due, of those scoundrels who have sold us out. For the sake of our children, for the founders of our Republic, the first Patriots, and for the many Americans, down through the years, decades, and centuries, who placed their lives at risk, and for those who paid the ultimate price to secure our freedoms, we owe it to all of them to make a stand. Otherwise, all that came before was in vain.___________________________________*This article updates and complements our article posted on January 30, 2023.____________________________________**AQ has corrected an earlier account of school shooting incidents where we stated that there were four school shooting incidents in the past thirty years. We wish to clarify that remark. An astute reader of this article explained to us, on February 9, 2022, that the assertion is inaccurate. We stand by the salient point but acknowledge its vagueness. Therefore, we add this clarification: There were four major, i.e., widely reported school shooting incidents (K-12), from 1999 through 2022; one from the last decade of the Twentieth Century, then two through the first two decades of the Twenty-First Century, and, at this moment in time, one during the third decade of the Twenty-First. The website, Statista, does report many more “mass shootings,” overall, from the time frame, of 1982 through January 24, 2023. Also, we note that the site Statista does not formally define the phrase, ‘mass shooting,’ saying only that “Mass shootings happen when there are several injuries or deaths from a firearm-related violence.” Id. What, then, is a “mass shooting”? The newspaper, USA Today, which has a clear Anti-Second Amendment left-wing bias, writing about it in an article published on June 11, 2022, and that is upfront concerning its abhorrence of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, calling for the outright repeal of it in a subsequent article, published one month later, on July 11, 2022, allows itself, unbidden, to proffer its own non-legal definition: “There's no single consensus on the definition.The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group, defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter. In contrast, Everytown currently defines it as a shooting in which four or more people are shot and killed, again excluding the shooter – but Burd-Sharps noted that they are moving toward expanding the definition to also include four or more injuries in the future.The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn't have a mass shooting definition. Instead, the FBI defines "mass murder" as an incident where four or more people are killed, which can include gun violence.USA TODAY defines a mass shooting as an incident where at least four people are hit with gunfire, even if there are no fatalities. Mass killing refers is an incident in which at least four people are killed.”The organization, The National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center (NMVVRC), whose mission, as stated, is directed to serving victims of “mass violence” points to a plethora of definitions for similar expressions, in an article, “Definitions of Mass Violence Crimes.” AQ refuses to be pigeonholed, focused on terminology cunningly devised by propagandists. The use of argot designed by propagandists ensnares a person, traps him, and compels him to adopt a particular viewpoint, even a philosophy through which to view the world. Expressions, like ‘assault weapon,’ ‘gun violence,’ ‘gun culture,’ and ‘mass shootings,’ to name a few, direct a person to view firearms and anything associated with them, including, and most especially, the fundamental, unalienable, natural law right codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to a particular and decidedly peculiar way of thinking, a way of thinking at once antithetical to our Nation's history, heritage, cultural ethos, national identity, and to the philosophical underpinnings of a free Constitutional Republic.____________________________________**This article updates and complements our article posted on January 30, 2023.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 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.
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH TO PRESERVE THE SECOND AMENDMENT; THE GREATER EFFORT RESTS, AS IT ALWAYS HAS, WITH THE PEOPLE
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 TO DESTROY EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS
MULTISERIES
PART EIGHT (REWORKED)
IT HAS BEEN A LONG HARD BATTLE TO SECURE THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. AND YET MORE BATTLES REMAIN TO BE FOUGHT
Bruen has been an arduous, time-consuming, expensive, uphill battle for New Yorkers who simply wish to exercise their natural law right of armed self-defense. It will continue to be so. Bruen hasn’t changed a damn thing—at least in New York—and matters will remain the same until or unless New Yorkers say they have had enough of the specious nonsense spouted from the New York Governor, Kathy Hochul and others like her. She is cut from the same cloth as her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo. They claim they care about the life and well-being of New Yorkers, even as innocent residents fear for their safety and well-being, as they have good reason to do. But they simply don’t care, And New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, is no different. They are on the same page, each a carbon copy of the other, especially in matters involving their singular abhorrence of guns and antipathy toward the civilian citizen owning and possessing them. That fact is engrained in their brains. They won’t change. Those New Yorkers who continue to elect to office the same politicians who continue to harp on the evils of guns, and who continue to defy the plain meaning of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, are doing themselves, and all other residents in New York, a disservice. These politicians, Kathy Hochul and Eric Adams, aren't wise and New York isn't safe. And, unfortunately, New York isn't alone. Politicians and Courts in other jurisdictions will pay lip service to the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court in Bruen, just as they have paid lip service to the rulings in Heller and McDonald, for over a decade.New York politicians, and politicians in several other jurisdictions, with the same mindset, have handcuffed the police. Yet, at one and the same time, they continue to prevent members of the public from obtaining access to the best means available for protecting themselves, a handgun. Yet, all the while, they exclaim, disingenuously, a concern for “gun violence,” that plagues their cities.But “gun violence” is simply a species of general “criminal violence.” New York’s Hochul and Adams deliberately mislead the public into believing that “gun violence” is the only source of violence committed against innocent people, or, otherwise, that “gun violence” is the only kind of violence in the community that matters. They stubbornly refuse to accept the obvious. Criminals will always find a way to obtain guns illegally or will use other means if guns are not readily available to them, and that guns in the hands of average, innocent, rational, and responsible Americans do a better job of preventing the commission of violent crimes than do fewer guns in the hands of those Americans. And to those Anti-Second Amendment zealots who contend that guns have no place in a civilized society, one need only point out that no society, today, is truly civilized. Predatory animal, and predatory man, and predatory government are ever with us. In a million years man may truly become “civilized.” And, at that point, the presence or absence of firearms will be irrelevant. But, until that time, the innocent man will require effective means to protect his life and well-being. And, to date, only a firearm provides that. Denying the omnipresent need for a firearm in the hands of the innocent man does not make that fact go away. It only welcomes violence against that innocent man by predator animal on four legs, predator animal on two legs, or, worst of all, predatory Government, a monster with multiple heads—the Hydra beast, a thing most tenacious, wildly destructive, and difficult to control, let alone kill.
ABSURD BELIEFS HAVE ODD STAYING POWER WHEN CONSTANTLY REPEATED
Anti-Second Amendment proponents continually go on about how guns are the source of violence and those that possess them are prone to violence, be whoever they are and wherever situated. That is patently ridiculous. Yet that message is stated insistently and emphatically by Anti-Second Amendment politicians. It is echoed loudly and incessantly by a compliant, sympathetic legacy Press. And it is further exploited by many in the medical community. The message is taken as self-evidently true, without need for proof, even though the claim is patently ridiculous.And New Yorkers know it is hopeless to ask for assistance from Governor Hochul or from the police, especially in a situation where the need is both dire and immediate. See, e.g., Arbalest Quarrel article, titled, "Can We, as Individuals, Rely on the Police to Protect Us" and reposted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News. And, police response to emergencies has only gotten worse in this Post-George Floyd era. Even where refunding of community police departments has displaced the defunding the Police the BLM hysteria, the Neo-Marxist "racism" hysteria remains a potent and debilitating force yet to be reckoned with. Police response times along with the general ineffectiveness of community policing, due in great part to demoralization in the police ranks, understandable and justified, remains. Thus the effectiveness of community policing is worse than in the Pre-George Floyd era. It is especially bad in large Democrat Party run municipalities, like NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, Minneapolis, LA, San Francisco, just to name a few. These City Governments are hopelessly tied to the Neo-Marxist Racism craze or are held hostage to Marxist cultists and/or derive funding/guidance/control/advice from one or more of a plethora of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) that have direct or indirect connection to the George Soros "Open Society Initiative. See, e.g., a delineation of these organizations on the website "Jellyfish." The tentacles of this "Open Society" takeover of western civilization are in fact worldwide, as readily acknowledged.With all this in mind, it is important for one to keep fervently in mind that the matter of self-defense remains—especially today—a personal responsibility. Police Departments have no legal duty—contrary to what many erroneously believe—to come to the assistance of anyone anyway. And they never did. The impact of this fact has grown acute and is now transparent to any American who will stop to look. The Arbalest Quarrel has published much content about the doctrine of sovereign immunity apropos of the police.See, especially, as noted, supra, AQ article, titled, “Can We, as Individuals, Rely on the Police to Protect Us?”, published on November 21, 2019; AQ article, titled, “The Government Cannot Protect You! You Must Protect Yourself”, published on July 31, 2020; and AQ article, titled “NYC Mayor Eric Adams Has His Own Armed Protection; What About The Rest Of Us?, published on March 30, 2022.New Yorkers are simply asking—in fact, demanding, as they have every right to do—that the Government not deny to the people exercise of the natural law right of personal armed self-defense. But, in New York it is too much to ask of the Government that the people be allowed to arm themselves in their own defense against predators—as if they should be required to ask Government for such permission, when they should not; when Bruen, in fact, says they need not, as the right of armed self-defense is implicit in the Second Amendment guarantee, as a natural law, Divine Right.For, even with the Divine Creator’s own imprimatur on this—the plain words “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”—codified in the Second Amendment of our Nation’s Bill of Rights, and even with the U.S. Supreme Court’s strictures, commanding the New York Government, to comply with the fundamental, unalienable natural law right of the people, the NY Government does not acquiesce. It will not relent. It won’t adhere to or even deign to make an iota of concession to the people of New York. This New York Government doubles down on invoking the Sullivan Act. And, with 112 years of existence and further refinement, the Sullivan Act has been cemented in the psyche of the New York Government and in the psyche of the public as well.And so, this emblem of New York Government defiance to God, to the Constitution, and to the people of New York—one Kathy Hochul—declares openly and pompously that the Government of New York, and not the U.S. Supreme Court, will continue to decide what is in the best interests of the people; that the Government not the High Court has the best interests of the people of New York at heart; and that allowing law-abiding, responsible, rational civilian citizens to carry a concealed weapon in New York endangers everyone. This is the height of arrogance and conceit. Thus, the Governor of New York gives carte blanche to psychopaths and lunatics that they may continue to prey on the innocent, with abandon. See recent AQ article on this as posted on our site, and as reposted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News. But, even in that—allowing law-abiding, responsible, rational civilian citizens to carry a concealed weapon in New York endangers everyone—the Hochul Government is wrong. The Daily Wire blows that myth out of the water. See also article in “Bearing Arms,” and in NSSF. No less than the progressive cable station, CNN, dares mention of a crime wave in Mayor Eric Adams’ New York City. The criminal is, always was, and ever remains the problem. It isn’t “the gun,” and never was “the gun.” See also article in the NY Post. Bloomberg News tries to spin this massive increase in crime, explaining the crime rates were much worse in the Eighties and early Nineties. But who were the Mayors of NYC at the time? It was the Democrat, Ed Koch, from 1978 through 1989, and it was Democrat David Dinkins, from 1990 until 1993. Crime rates in NYC only began to drop, and to drop dramatically, under Republican Rudy Giuliani, the NYC Mayor from 1994 through December 2001. Giuliani instituted a tough on crime policy, referred to as “Broken Windows.” Crime rates in the Big Apple continued to plummet under the Democrat, Michael Bloomberg, who continued Giuliani’s “Broken Windows” policy. But, once that tough on crime policy was revoked by the Democrat, Bill de Blasio, crime rates began to spike once again and to spiral completely out of control. And, de Blasio, true to form like most politicians, blamed the massive spike in crime in NYC, not on himself and his soft on crime policies, but on the Courts. See NY Post article.The present NYC Mayor, Eric Adams is playing the same “Blame Game” as de Blasio—casting blame on the Courts for crime in the City that continues unchecked. See CBS News Report here and here, CBS News report. New Yorkers—never a group to exhibit patience—are becoming impatient with Eric Adams. Remember, Eric Adams told the public he wouldn’t continue de Blasio’s lenient on crime policy measures. But, as reported by the Washington Examiner, Adams’ has done just that, notwithstanding the unveiling of his “Blueprint To End Gun Violence,” delivered with great fanfare to the City back in January 2022. But no one hears anything about that anymore. Does anyone really wonder why? Adams “Blueprint to End Gun Violence” was never anything other than a publicity stunt and a poor one at that. And its failure is alluded to in the very title of the Adams’ plan for the City.This thing ‘Gun Violence’ is, like the phrase, ‘assault weapon,’ nothing more than a stratagem, a neologism manufactured for a specific purpose. Leftist propagandists developed it, and the ever obedient and indulgent legacy Press, ran with it. The fabricators of the phrase, ‘Gun Violence,’ have used the phrase to deflect justifiable public criticism, for the massive waves of criminal violence afflicting our Nation, onto “the gun” and away from the Democrats and other Obstructors and Destructors of our free Republic. People like Hochul and Adams attribute the surge of violent crime on “guns” and thereby shift discussion onto an inanimate object and away from themselves. A firearm is a convenient scapegoat. It is incapable of proffering a defense. It cannot point to the fact that it, as an object, not a sentient subject, can neither cause violent crime, nor be the effect of violent crime. But Hochul and Adams attempt, nonetheless, to shunt aside justifiable criticism of them and their administrations. But it is their own incompetence and their own lack of will and foresight to deal with crime head-on, unlike their predecessors Giuliani and Bloomberg had done, that explains the rapidly rising crime rates. But even those Mayors of New York could have gone further to truly bring violent crime to a standstill. They could have taken action to overturn the Sullivan Act. But they would never go so far as that. Disarming the law-abiding New Yorker would never be part of a bold plan to tackle crime at its source: the psychopathic criminal, the violent criminally insane, and the opportunistic hoodlum. See article in “City and State New York.” How these Anti-Second Amendment zealots love to use statistics to deceive the public and to lull it into complacency! Contending with crime, substantively and seriously, won’t happen with the present Administration and Democrat Party-Controlled Legislature in Albany. The main problem with New York is that too many members of the public willingly accept their politicians' manipulation of statistical data, urging the public to deny what they readily observe in day-to-day life in New York. And too many of them have become so enamored with and mesmerized by the new religious dogma of "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion," along with its ludicrous claim of having a lock hold on morality, i.e., of what is right, and proper, and just, that their rational mind is trapped in a hopeless miasma of confusion, subject to its own nightmarish discordant logic.And so, the State Government is, at present, under the thumb of Governor Kathy Hochul and of a Democrat Party-Controlled Legislature that operates with abandon, against the needs and interests of the people of the State.The New York Governor, along with the Democrat Party-Controlled Legislature and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, “who vowed to crack down on crime if elected mayor,” but didn’t, are ever bound to their own dogma and to their own psychological and ideological biases. Add to that the fact that they are held hostage to a Radical Left Marxist internationalist base of voters that despises our Country, and to a shadowy network of Neoliberal Globalist/Neo-Marxist "ruling elite" enforcers that intend to destroy our Country, and you have a situation ripe for corruption of Government, and stagnation in society, and ultimate decay and dissolution of the Republic.So wrapped up are these politicians in their dogma and personal lust for power, that they fail to understand, or choose to ignore, that their cardinal duty is to provide for the general safety, security, and well-being of the public. Saying they care are about the well-being of New York and its denizens, doesn't make it so. It is all just a vacuous exercise—the same verbiage delivered drone-like, hypnotically, unconvincingly. These politicians have done nothing beneficial for New York, and everything that disadvantages New York. Their multiple failures bring discredit and shame to all of them. Time for a change in outlook don't you think? The Governor, the Legislature, the City Mayor adamantly refuse to allow New Yorkers to provide for their own defense. And that is worse than shameful. The conscious refusal to even acknowledge the unalienable, immutable right of armed self-defense is reprehensible, indefensible, and unforgivable. And, with the Soros-funded Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, who operates more like a zealous Public Defender of the criminal element in the City and much less like a zealous Prosecutor of them, on behalf of the populace, as he is supposed to do, New York is on the road to societal disaster at a rapid pace.If change is to come, then, it will have to come from Republicans and Independents. And the best bet for New York is U.S. Congressman, Lee Zeldin, for Governor, in 2022. If Americans are to secure their unalienable right of armed self-defense, it is best they have Government, Federal and State, that work for them, not against them; that honor their natural law rights, rather than attempt to shred those rights. Might Lee Zeldin take steps to dismantle the apparatus of the Sullivan Act? It would be interesting to see. But will the New York voter give him that chance? Better legislation with the right people in Office than spending exorbitant sums of money, time, and aggravation on endless litigation!How much more threat of violence must progressive/liberal-minded New Yorkers suffer before they come to their senses. How many more innocent lives lost for lack of will to try someone new; to try something new?One would think the public would finally come to its senses after the horror of de Blasio as Mayor of NYC and Cuomo as Governor of the State. Too many New Yorkers have not. How much more danger must New Yorkers contend with before they throw people like Hochul and Adams under the bus, instead of positing themselves there, instead? Too many New Yorkers seem willing to accept deception from politicians, even when that deception and the horrific result of that deception is plainly visible and risible.City residents are stuck with Adams for a long while, three more years. But Governor Hochul, who was never elected Mayor, but became Mayor after Cuomo was hounded out of Office by the Democrat Party machinery that had once supported him, will now face her first Gubernatorial race in November 2022.New Yorkers will have a chance as well, to remake the New York State Assembly and Senate. Hopefully, Republicans and Independents and enough intelligent Democrats will turn the tide. They can in November. They can have a safe and secure State if they have the will and do not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by propaganda, flooding the airwaves. It is all up to the people of New York. Give Lee Zeldin and Alison Esposito a chance to turn things around for New York. New York can become a safe, secure, and thriving State once again._____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.