THE 11TH HOUR APPROACHES: THE FATE OF OUR COUNTRY RESTS IN THE BALANCE

In a few weeks, the U.S. may expect someone to be inaugurated President of the United States. Who will that “someone” be? Most Americans expect the empty-headed, corrupt Joseph Biden will be that person. And many Americans look forward to that event even as they fail to realize they have been hoodwinked, believing that a Biden/Harris Administration to be a godsend for the Nation, rather than the calamity it really portends for the Nation and its people.Even now, the mainstream seditious media continues its incessant, endless, badgering of Trump. His reasonable demands for a serious investigation into the most flagrant, deceitful, reprehensible acts of elections fraud and electoral process manipulation ever to occur in our Nation go unchecked, unanswered.The President can’t even make a telephone call without the Press and the Democrat Party leadership screaming yet again, ever again for his impeachment—doing so with automatic, repetitive, rote, vacuous sameness, no less so than the mad Red Queen in Louis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” as she constantly rages: “off with his head; off with his head; off with his head. . . .”The President’s legitimate concerns are continually, consistently met with haughty disdain as the seditious mainstream media reiterates with noxious regularity an empty denunciation of Trump’s reasonable demands for a detailed accounting of and audit of the 2020 election.The Press perfunctorily dismisses rather than troubles itself to admit or, at least, to investigate, incontrovertible proof of massive elections fraud; and, through it all, has the audacity to expect the public to accept the simplistic unsupported assertion that the 2020 election was aboveboard and honest despite a wealth of damning evidence to the contrary.Is not the Press, THIS PRESS, an enemy of the people rather than its guardian? The Press insists on playing the public for fools. The pity of it is that so many Americans are willing to play along with this; indeed, all too many even believe the idiocy. That helps explain why our Country is in the dire state it finds itself now, at this 11^th Hour.

INTER ARMA ENIM SILENT LEGES (“IN TIMES OF WAR, THERE ARE NO LAWS”)

This Country, our Nation, is in a state of war—a war as immediate and emphatic as the war fought by our founding fathers to secure independence from tyranny. An illegal takeover of our Government is about to take place and it is occurring in plain sight.With the U.S. Supreme Court and the Department of Justice having capitulated to secretive, powerful, ruthless forces that have made clear their refusal to permit Trump a second term in Office—and with the ability of these extraordinarily powerful and inordinately wealthy forces to control the mass apparatus of the Press, the courts, the vast military, police, and intelligence apparatuses, they have made abundantly clear, that they intend to destroy our free Constitutional Republic. It is now up to a few courageous members of Congress and for average Americans to prevent this.If ruthless elements both here at home and abroad do secure essentially complete control of our Government, sitting their senile puppet, Joseph Biden, in the White House, then the only thing that will remain of a once great Nation-State and a sovereign people will be but the trappings. The mere skeletal outline of a free Constitutional Republic will remain—for a time—kept merely to fool some and to appease others who remain restless, restive and suspicious.And even the trappings of a free Constitutional Republic will eventually be dispensed with as no longer necessary as the American people will have been completely subdued.We will see the Country quietly, inexorably, and quickly merged into a one world system of governance—a new world order that the neoliberal globalist statists Henry Kissinger and the late U.S. President, George H.W. Bush, and the late U.S. Senator, John McCain, talked glowingly, lovingly about and predicted would occur.The empty-headed Joseph Biden is a mere, and temporary, placeholder for powerful ruthless interests who will use him to consolidate final and complete control over the machinery of Government. And then they will dispense with him, perhaps even in before his first term ends, and he will be happy to go, having dutifully played his part.In his stead they will place Kamala Harris, as a new puppet, ostensibly to placate the Radical Left Marxists and Anarchists.These Marxists and Anarchists share at least one thing with the globalist statist elites: the intention to destroy the Country in its present form as an independent sovereign Nation-state, and a desire to eradicate a Constitution that includes a Bill of Rights perceived as a codification of natural rights bestowed on man by the Divine Creator: rights that exist intrinsically in man; rights that therefore exist wholly beyond the power of Government to lawfully modify, abrogate or ignore.Evidence of the intent of the neoliberal globalist elites and of the Radical Left Marxists and Anarchists is all around us.In the last several months, we have seen:

The desecration and destruction of our Nation’s monuments
Insolent, insensitive, disrespectful denigration of our founding fathers
Presumptuous and Contemptuous attacks on Christianity and on our Judeo-Christian ethic
Artificial attempts to reconstruct the English Language and to control English usage
Naked attempts to sow dissension, divisiveness, and discord among ethnic groups and races
Censoring evidence of Beijing’s massive espionage operations in our Country and cloaking Beijing’s responsibility in the handling of the COVID plague
Undertaking an extensive campaign of historical revisionism
Inculcating a false sense of guilt in the psyche of the target (White) population
Demeaning the Black population by treating Blacks as victims and then raising victimhood to the status of a virtue
Deliberately inducing fear in the public consciousness and volatility in the public domain by emptying prisons and jails of hardened, dangerous criminals and emptying mental institutions of severely disturbed individual

If the Great Imposter Joseph Biden does ascend to the U.S. Presidency, then further degradation of and subjugation of the American citizenry will proceed apace, and the Country will suffer further dissipation and ruination.With the billionaire neoliberal globalists firmly entrenched in power, we will see, the floodgates opened to tens of millions more of illegal aliens. Included in their ranks will be members of dangerous drug cartels and sex traffickers.The powerful elites of society will amass further wealth and monopolistic power at the expense of hundreds of millions of average Americans, the latter of whom will be reduced to abject poverty, becoming completely dependent on Government to provide for basic physical needs. This will all be by design.Education will be dummied down for the mass of Americans. They will be taught to blindly accept authority. The critical faculties of Americans will atrophy. And this, too, will be by design.The Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution will wither and die. Freedom of Speech and thought, and freedom of association and assembly will be strictly controlled.Civilian ownership and possession of firearms will be severely constrained.Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures will cease to exist as dossiers will be kept on every American from the moment of birth until the moment of death. Surveillance of every American will be the norm; privacy will become essentially nonexistent.Even the concept of private property, except for the ruling class, will be imperiled as the concept of ‘private property’ is inconsistent with the tenets of Collectivism.The notion of personhood, of selfhood will also wither and die as the sanctity of the individual will give way to the imperative of the Collective.If anyone believes these outcomes are too fantastical to be realized, one should understand they are already coming to pass. And the defilers of our Nation have the gall to tell us that it is we, Americans and President Trump whom we elected, who are the threats to democracy.The question is, what are we prepared to do to prevent these trends from becoming so pronounced, so entrenched that it is impossible to reverse them?It will be easier, far easier, to preempt these trends if Trump retains control of the Presidency for a second term. After all, it is he who won the 2020 election and who has sought to enshrine the words, “Make America Great Again,”—words that are an obscenity to the globalist elites and to the Radical Left Marxists and Anarchists.To think that it was the insincere, corrupt, and feeble Joe Biden who hardly can speak sensibly who pulled this thing off without a dollop of fraud and criminal machinations here and there to assist him, defies common sense. And the evidence shouts out the lie of a legitimate win for this Great Imposter, Joseph Biden.Our Country will lose its soul if Joseph Biden is installed as U.S. President in Trump’s stead. And with the Democrat lackeys in control of the House and a hairbreadth away of control of the U.S. Senate (as this article goes to print), the Republic may very well be breathing its last.One must wonder and ponder if the present situation is not the very sort of situation for which the framers of the U.S. Constitution codified the natural rights of free speech and the right of the people to keep and bear arms.____________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

8/16/20 8/16/20

THE SAVAGING OF AMERICA: FORGET ABOUT BIDEN; IT’S GOING TO BE TRUMP VERSUS HARRIS

MOBOCRACY VERSUS REPUBLICAN DEMOCRACY

PART ONE

Marcus Antonius spoke, thus, “And Caesar’s spirit, raging for revenge,With Hate by his side come hot from hell,Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voiceCry, “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war, That this this foul deed shall smell above the earth With Carrion men, groaning for burial. Citation from Shakespeare’s historical play, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1War is upon us. Make no mistake about it. Be prepared to arm up. The survival of our Republic is at stake!The sad thing is very few people will acknowledge this, even as some do embrace it, want it, even demand it. Many deny it, scoff at the idea of it, but most everyone, at some level, feels it.All that we Americans have seen and heard in the last few months compels our acceptance of it, the hard, cold realization of it; and what it means for us.But is this a modern American “civil war”—a race war—a clash between purported do-gooders demanding an accounting for people of color and privileged white oppressors, as the hordes of mindless Radicals endlessly shout and as a seditious Press echoes?No! this is not a “race war” and never was, and calling it so, doesn’t make it so.This is mere artifice, a stratagem concocted by the Nation’s Destructor Antagonists—the discontented Marxists, Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Neoliberal Billionaire Globalists who have lost patience with the American electorate—an electorate that threw a wrench in their plans for world domination; an electorate that audaciously voted into Office an outsider, a businessman, who sought merely to return the Country to its rightful heirs: the American citizenry.The Antagonist Destructors of our Nation see this and won’t allow it; won’t permit President Trump to serve a second term in Office. They plan to defeat Trump in the coming election by chicanery and unlawful acts if they can; by brute force if they cannot. They haven’t disguised their intentions. They really cannot. This is their last chance and they know it.They have brainwashed many; hoodwinked many others. The Nation is in their grasp: November 3, 2020 is the date set for the Governmental coup d’état.These ruthless forces both here and abroad have embraced a strategy to destroy the U.S. Constitution itself, the very fabric of our Nation. Once accomplished they will go to work immediately to disassemble a free Constitutional Republic.They will do so by executive fiat. They will rewrite our Constitution; eradicate our God-given sacred rights and liberties; open our borders to tens of millions of the world’s dregs; bankrupt our Nation; subject our citizenry to conformity in thought and uniformity in behavior; reduce the populace to dependency on Government largess for its existence. They will erase our Nation’s history, heritage, culture, and Judeo-Christian Ethic: all of it must go. Our Nation, in the form the founders bequeathed to us, will effectively cease to exist.And these Antagonists, these would-be Destructors, will proceed forthwith, with blinding speed once they have taken over the reins of Government. They have legions of stooges and toadies to assist them—those who have assisted them since Day One of the Trump Presidency.

A ONE-DAY CIVIL WAR-(COUNTER-REVOLUTION): NOVEMBER 3, 2020

The nature of the present major conflict facing Americans has aspects of both a civil war and revolution, creating a unique hybrid.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CIVIL WAR AND A REVOLUTION?

T here is a distinction to be drawn between the expression, 'civil war,' and the expression, 'revolution.'“The word revolution is derived from the Latin ‘revolutio’, meaning ‘a turn-around’. Revolution results in a mutational change in organizational structure quite amazingly in a short period of time. Revolution brings about a change in the power too.Revolutions took place through history. It is interesting to note that apart from the change in power, revolution brings about change in cultural and economical situations as well of a country or a region. Socio-political scenario gets completely changed by a revolution.It is interesting to note that the term revolution is used to indicate changes that take place outside the political arena. Culture, philosophy, society and technology have undergone marked transformations by these revolutions.A civil war is defined as a war that takes place between two organized groups within the same nation state. In short it can be described as a war between factions in the same country. One of the best examples of a civil war is the American Civil War (1861-1865). It is otherwise called the War Between the States that took place as a civil war in the United States of America.It is important to know that the two organized groups that take part in the civil war are normally bent upon creating their own governments and having organized military. The most important difference between a revolution and a civil war is that civilians directly revolt against the government in a revolution whereas factions wage a war against each other in a civil war.”The American Revolution established freedom from tyranny and the creation of a new Nation-State.The founders of this Nation-State, the framers of the U.S. Constitution determined that the Nation would exist as a free Constitutional Republic. Theirs was no easy task. But they accomplished it. The founders of the new Nation designed a central, “Federal” Government of three co-equal Branches; each Branch keeping the other in check through carefully delineated, demarcated, limited powers.The people would retain sovereignty over Government, not by dint of faith that the servants of the people would not usurp power, but through the realization that these servants of the people would, as is human nature, attempt to do so. To prevent that from happening the founders incorporated into the U.S. Constitution, a Bill of Rights—a codification of fundamental, God-given, natural, unalienable, immutable, illimitable rights, including, first and foremost, the right of the people to speak their own mind and the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Thus, would unlawful usurpation of power by the servant of the people be kept in check. Our Nation is founded on the tenets of Individualism: a recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of the individual and the import of the integrity of Self.Even during the horror of the American Civil War, neither side, not the Union nor Confederacy, questioned the tenets of Individualism; never questioned the veracity and venerableness of the Bill of Rights. It was never in doubt.But, today, though, there are forces that do not accept the tenets of Individualism and forsake the primacy of the Bill of Rights. These are the proponents of the tenets of Collectivism; those who will not suffer individual expression nor abide a sovereign, well-armed citizenry. They believe in uniformity of thought, conformity in behavior. Their model of societal perfection is that of the beehive or the ant colony; order maintained through the destruction of the human spirit. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively about the differences between Individualism and Collectivism. See, e.g., our article, posted October 6, 2018, titled, “A Modern American Civil War: A Clash of Ideologies.”Today, forces both inside the Nation and outside it, utilizing the vehicle of the Democratic Party, along with the acquiescence of many within the Republican Party, have engineered a counter-revolution.They envision a greatly expanded and expansive Federal Government with vast, virtually unlimited powers. To keep Americans in check they have been outspoken in their call for substantial constraints on free speech and the elimination of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. These counter revolutionaries intend to use our Constitution against us. Once in power the Constitution will be erased.Although not carefully distinguished between two military camps—the Blue and the Gray—of the American Civil War, the clash of ideas is very much a bright line: Individualists versus Collectivists, and a mighty physical confrontation may yet emerge.The Collectivists have, to date, failed to unseat the Individualists’ candidate, Donald Trump. Americans elected Donald Trump to preserve a free Constitutional Republic, thereby securing the Nation the founders bequeathed to us through the difficult war they fought and won: the American Revolution. And President Donald Trump has done a commendable job, despite unimaginable obstacles to preserve the Nation in the form the founders gave to us.The Collectivists have one last card to play: one which they had hoped to avoid: the U.S. Presidential election of 2020. The outcome may be the endgame for one side or the other. Or it may very well be the opening salvo of a Modern American Civil War qua Counter-Revolution to undercut the American Revolution.______________________________________________________

BIDEN WILL NEVER DEBATE TRUMP, HARRIS WILL

PART TWO

TRYING TO PLAY AMERICANS FOR FOOLS FAILED ONCE; DEMOCRATS WILL NOT PERMIT THAT TO HAPPEN AGAIN

“ ‘Clinton’s dream also includes a Western Hemispheric common market, like the European common market that is dissolving in chaos, fear and debt. . . .’ ‘If that is indeed her dream, then she dreams the internationalist dream that would end America.In a 2013 speech to the National Multi-Housing Council [Clinton] said, ‘I mean, politics is like sausage being made. If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the backroom discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So you need both a public and a private position.’Which is an excellent example of hypocrisy — a Hillary Clinton trait.American voters don’t want open borders or anything akin to a European Union common market. But Hillary Clinton does.Hillary Clinton would tear America down. She is totally unfit to be president.Donald Trump is the anti-establishment candidate. He’s not politically correct, and he’s not running for saint. He’s running to Make America Great Again. Elect him and he will.”~Pastiche from a story, titled, “Playing us for Fools,” published in the Carteret County News Times, one month before the 2016 Trump versus Clinton U.S. Presidential electionThe forces that seek to crush Americans into submission failed had a wrench thrown into their well-oiled machine. They thought Hillary Clinton could hold her own against Trump in a match-up against him. They were wrong, dead wrong.Do you honestly think these sinister, ruthless forces will make that mistake a second time by allowing Biden—infinitely less mentally sharp than Clinton—to debate Trump? Not a chance!The doddering, confused, senile Cardboard character, Joe Biden, has played his role for these Antagonist Disruptor Destructors of our Nation. He is no longer needed and will soon be dispensed with.Biden has previously stated a desire to serve one-term only, exemplifying his lack of desire in the Presidency. In some dim part of his addled brain, he must have known he is wholly unqualified to lead the Nation.As reported in The Hill, back in December 2019,“Former Vice President Joe Biden has reportedly signaled that he would only serve one term in the White House if elected in 2020 as the top-tier Democratic candidate faces questions about his age. Four people who regularly speak with the 77-year-old Biden told Politico that it is unlikely he would run for reelection in 2024, when he would be in his 80s.‘If Biden is elected,’ an adviser to the campaign told the news outlet, ‘he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.’‘He’s going into this thinking, “I want to find a running mate I can turn things over to after four years, but if that’s not possible or doesn’t happen then I’ll run for reelection.” But he’s not going to publicly make a one-term pledge,’ another adviser reportedly said.”

IS IT JUST AGE THAT HAS INFORMED BIDEN’S DECISION TO SERVE JUST ONE TERM, OR IS IT WEAKNESS IN MIND AND BODY?

Consider: Bernie Sanders is one year older than Biden. The old Socialist is as sharp as a tack and never asserted or even suggested he would serve only one term in Office if elected.Donald Trump, too, was 70 years old when he assumed Office, the oldest person to serve as President on the day of his inauguration as reported by Business Insider. But age has never impacted his physical strength or mental alertness. He has always demonstrated boundless energy and keen mental acuity; a sharp understanding of policy and what it is he wishes to accomplish, in accordance with his duties as President and consistent with his promises to the American people. He never so much as intimated a desire to serve only one term in Office.Trump has weathered a withering stream of vile, vicious, vindictive personal attacks against him, against his staff, even against his family. Through it all he has remained steadfast, never doubting himself, never wilting. To the contrary, he has become stronger, frustrating those who have attempted to aggrieve him, turning their arrows back on them. He has shown his mettle; the true mark of a leader.Can one imagine Biden standing up against the same ceaseless, remorseless violent onslaught? Would Biden not have crumpled years ago; drained, emotionally and physically. Indeed, can one imagine any other politician able to repel the violent personal attacks that President Trump has ably withstood for the past four years and, through it all, still manage to accomplish many of his policy objectives?Biden, in comparison, stands alone as the single figure in American history, coming up with lame excuses to mask his obvious mental and physical infirmities, all the while boasting that he can lead this great Nation. And there is the Press, for example, the Washington Post, always at the ready, to give Biden an assist, writing specious reports to cover his blaring inane remarks, or to attempt to counter justifiable concerns pertaining to his health. See, e.g., a U.S. News.com report The Press says Biden would give Kamala Harris substantial power as his VP if elected President. That is all the more surprising since, as also reported FP Insider Access, the two have had a rocky relationship, which raises the question whether Biden did choose Harris as his running mate or if, more likely, the DNC foisted Harris on him.But don’t be surprised to find Biden stepping down a few weeks before the election, not a few days, or weeks or months into a first term in Office, let alone upon completing one full term. He must. Why? It isn’t that his handlers can’t control Biden. They can. They already have. That is plain, and Biden doesn’t have a problem with that. Still, there is a problem. Biden’s handlers cannot be certain he can defeat Trump, regardless of what the polls say. Certainly not if a dimwit’s obvious dimwittedness becomes apparent as it would during a U.S. Presidential debate, were he to debate. After all, who would be on hand to lend Biden a hand if he were to become befuddled over a moderator’s question or shows his ineptitude in parrying a death-dealing verbal thrust to the heart?So, the Destructors of our Nation are faced with a conundrum. And that dilemma rests with the nature of our Presidential Debates.The public expects them. But only the U.S. Presidential candidate of one Party can debate the candidate, or incumbent, of the other Party.It would look awfully strange to see Biden’s VP, Harris, debating Trump, as Biden’s VP, instead of Biden, himself. It would be unprecedented.Of course, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t require Presidential debates. Americans, though, would be annoyed and suspicious, even outraged if denied a debate, especially given the present deeply polarized Nation. A match-up is highly anticipated.In the recent Arbalest Quarrel article, “Debate This,” published on August 6, 2020, we said,“U.S. Presidential elections are never small matters. But, this coming Presidential election, less than three months away, takes on inordinate importance—more so than any other Presidential election in our Nation’s history. For, depending on the outcome, Americans will either preserve their history, along with their sacred heritage, culture, and Christian ethos, or they will lose all of it. Recent events bear this out.The continuation of our Nation in the form our founders established for the American people, a free Constitutional Republic, and a sovereign people rests in the fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable rights bestowed on them and in them by the loving Divine Creator—rights codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights: most importantly, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and the right of free speech.”Biden has shown, during the few times his handlers have allowed him to speak at all, that he has trouble expressing a coherent thought. He would collapse if he had to face Trump one-on-one in a debate.Even with assistance from friendly debate moderators, Trump would eviscerate him, and Biden’s handlers know this. The bottom line: Biden will not debate Trump.

HARRIS WILL RUN AGAINST TRUMP, NOT BIDEN. SO, IT IS HARRIS WHO MUST DEBATE TRUMP, NOT BIDEN.

If only one Presidential debate is held, Harris will debate Trump. That means Harris will be the Democrat’s nominee for U.S. President, not Biden.The puppet masters will not risk losing an election by allowing Biden on the National and, hence, world stage, making a jackass of himself, for all to see, and, thereby making a true, not merely symbolic “jackass” of the Party. That helps to explain why the puppet masters have scheduled the first debate at the end of September, not the beginning, contrary to what Trump and many Americans wanted and expected.Having a debate scheduled one month prior to the election buys the DNC time for the media image makers to shape the image of Harris they expect the public to buy: an impression that Harris is indeed the pragmatic moderate the script calls for and not the selfish, shallow, callow, opportunist she in fact is: simply a simulacrum of Hillary Clinton. They have only a few weeks to prop this stick figure up, allowing it to take hold on the public, to gel in the public psyche. Harris is giddy with expectation and delight, barely able to contain herself.So, as the days march on, Americans will see less and less of Biden and more and more of Harris, but precious little of both. Little will come out of either one’s mouth; and a sympathetic Press won’t “press” them to discuss their policy prescriptions.And then something untoward will happen to Biden. Expect this.The Democrats and the Billionaire Globalist puppet masters would trust the public won’t be shocked—if a trifle dismayed, and the Radical left positively gleeful—when Harris steps into Biden’s shoes at the last moment even as that moment is unprecedented.But neither one, Biden nor Harris, will do much talking to the Press before the Presidential debates, when it comes to pass that Harris faces off against Trump.It is either that or the DNC will have to conjure up a plausible explanation why there won’t be a Presidential debate at all. That scenario is unlikely. The public would feel cheated, and rightfully so.

HOW WILL THE BIDEN-HARRIS SWITCHEROO TAKE PLACE?

Prior to the debates, the DNC will declare, through the Press, that Biden has suffered a heart attack or a stroke; something or other, health-wise, not altogether implausible. After all Biden has had medical problems beyond incipient dementia and that isn’t a secret. There will be little explanation, and a sympathetic Press won’t probe. But obviously his lack of mental acuity will be the reason for it. Even the Washington Post, the Radical Left newspaper of the centi-billionaire Jeff Bezos speculated that Biden suffers from dementia.It is highly unlikely that a major supporter of the Democrats, and a man obviously “in the know,” Jeff Bezos, would allow his editorial staff to so much as intimate Biden’s unsuitability for the highest public Office in the Land, unless something major was afoot. So, quietly, surreptitiously, his tabloid, the Washington Post, has alerted the public to the possibility of the big switch.The DNC will have to scramble to appoint a VP for Harris. Likely, the DNC already has a VP in the wings: another woman no doubt, and conceivably another woman of color.So, the public will be fed a lie and that lie will suffice, must suffice, to get Biden out of the way before the first scheduled debate lest he make a fool of himself in front of the Nation and the world, and therein scotch the entire scheme of the Globalists and Marxists to take over the Government and the Country—just a few weeks prior to the most important election in modern times.________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

7/31/20 7/31/20

THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT PROTECT YOU! YOU MUST PROTECT YOURSELF!

REMARKS OF ARBALEST QUARREL FOUNDER, STEPHEN L'DANRILLI, ON STEPHEN HALBROOK ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN AUGUST 2020 NRA PUBLICATION, AMERICA'S 1ST FREEDOM

As a NYPD veteran police officer, and Adjunct Professor/Lecturer of Police Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, National Rifle Association Certified Firearms Instructor (pistol, rifle, and shotgun), and Training Counselor, and active member of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, and lifetime resident of New York City, I have dedicated my life to the preservation and strengthening of our cherished Second Amendment. This is no easy task, especially today, as we see constant, concerted, vigorous attacks on the fundamental right of personal defense with firearms.So, it was with more than a little interest I read Stephen Halbrook’s article, “How Does New York City Get Away With This,” published in the August 2020 edition of NRA’s publication, “America’s 1^st Freedom.”Stephen Halbrook is a Second Amendment Constitutional law expert and a prolific writer and author who has argued and won several important Second Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.In his article he provides a brief history of restrictive handgun licensing in New York City. He correctly observes that “[i]t all started with the Sullivan Act of 1911, the first law in any state (other than the slave codes) to require a license for mere possession of a pistol even in the home.” Toward the end of the article, he makes the point that:“Nothing has changed since 1911 when [an Italian-American] Mario Rossi carried a pistol for protection against the Black Hand, for which he was sentenced to a year in prison.” It is of course disturbingly, depressingly, frustratingly true that, indeed, nothing has changed in New York City since 1911, insofar as the City continues to require a valid license to lawfully possess a handgun.Still, in a few important respects, much has changed, and for the worse, since enactment of the unconscionable and unconstitutional Sullivan Act.In the 109 years since handgun licensing began, New York City’s laws have become more extensive, more oppressive and repressive, and confoundingly difficult to understand. These laws are a labyrinthine maze of ambiguity and vagueness, and they are singularly bizarre.Unlike many other States that wisely preempt the field of gun regulation, as failure to do so invariably promotes and leads to confusion and inconsistencies across a State, the York State Government, in Albany, has not preempted the field. The New York Legislature gives local governments wide discretion in establishing their own firearms rules as long as local government enactments don’t conflict with basic State law mandates.Albany traditionally allows, and even encourages, local governments to devise their own, often numerous and extremely stringent, firearms rules. New York City has done so, and with glee, devising an extraordinarily complex and confusing array of rules directed to the ownership and possession of all firearms: rifles, shotguns, and handguns.New York State law, NY CLS Penal § 400.00 (1) sets forth the basic handgun licensing scheme, applicable to all New York jurisdictions, making clear that possession of handguns falls within the province of the police and that,“No license shall be issued or renewed pursuant to this section except by the licensing officer, and then only after investigation and finding that all statements in a proper application for a license are true.” NY CLS Penal § 400.00 (3)(a) provides that,“Applications shall be made and renewed, in the case of a license to carry or possess a pistol or revolver, to the licensing officer in the city or county, as the case may be, where the applicant resides, is principally employed or has his or her principal place of business as merchant or storekeeper.”New York City builds upon State Statute, establishing a mind-numbing set of tiers of handgun licensing, mandating the extent to which New York residents may exercise the privilege, not the right, to possess a handgun for self-defense.The Rules of the City of New York, specifically 38 RCNY 5-01, has established, at the moment, at least, no less than 6 different categories of handgun licenses:

Premises License—Residence or Business
Carry Business License
Limited Carry Business License
Carry Guard License/Gun Custodian License
Special Carry Business License
Special Carry Guard License/Gun Custodian License

New York City’s tiered handgun licensing scheme is not only inconsistent with the Second Amendment, but it also promotes unlawful discrimination under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and invites both abuse by and corruption in the City’s Licensing Division. In fact, the City’s insufferable and puzzling handgun licensing scheme is, from a purely logical standpoint, apart from a legal standpoint, internally inconsistent and incoherent.Premise residence and business handgun licenses place considerable restraints on a licensee’s right of self-defense. Unrestricted handgun carry licenses, on the other hand, are issued only to a select few people who satisfy arbitrary “proper cause,” requirements. Of course, powerful, wealthy, politically-connected “elites” are exceptions, routinely obtaining rare and coveted unrestricted handgun carry licenses, unavailable to the average citizen, residing in the City.And criminals don’t obey handgun licensing rules or any other State law or City code, rule, or regulation pertaining to firearms. So they don’t care what the laws say. And this hasn’t changed.But it is deeply troubling, indeed mind-boggling, to believe New York City’s harsh, brutal, even despotic handgun licensing scheme continues to escape Constitutional scrutiny, a point Stephen Halbrook makes at the outset of his August 2020 NRA article, when he says,“‘Under New York law, it is a crime to possess a firearm’, held the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in U.S. vs. Sanchez-Villar (2004). This ruling was based on the state’s ban on the possession of an unlicensed handgun. This prohibition did not offend the Second Amendment, said this ruling, because ‘the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right.’ Later rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court—D.C v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010—begged to differ. . . . But the Second Circuit must not have gotten the memo. . . .”Stephen Halbrook makes clear that the New York licensing scheme is unlawful on its face because the very concept of licensing is grounded on the erroneous idea that gun possession is a privilege and not a fundamental right, a notion that is completely at odds with the Second Amendment and with High Court rulings. And I agree with Stephen Halbrook’s assessment.The Arbalest Quarrel has pointed out the Constitutional flaws inherent in gun licensing schemes over and over again, through the years, commencing with our first series of articles on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s draconian and inane New York Safe Act of 2013.We called the Governor out on New York’s unconstitutional licensing scheme. See, e.g., our April 30, 2014 article where we concluded with this: “To suffer bad law is unfortunate. But, forced submission to State law that infringes a fundamental right is sinful.” New York City residents have been forced to submit to unconstitutional firearms laws since 1911. New York’s gun control laws were and continue to be enacted to disarm the honest citizen and to discourage personal self-defense.If a person insists on possessing a handgun for self-defense, New York insists on one’s first obtaining permission from the police department to do so, through the acquisition of a license, issued by the police.Yet, the imposition of stringent handgun license requirements is inconsistent with the import of the fundamental right to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Redress is necessary. It’s about time.Still, Anti-Second Amendment proponents and zealots interject that every State requires that a motorist obtain an operator’s license to lawfully operate a motor vehicle on public streets, and they ask, “why should gun possession be any different?” But in posing the question, these Anti-Second Amendment activists demonstrate an intention to reduce the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms to the status of mere privilege, which, in fact, is what a motorist’s license is; merely a privilege to drive an automobile on public roadways. It is logically and legally wrong to view and to treat a fundamental right as a mere privilege.New York attempts to skirt addressing the inherent unconstitutionality of the entire firearms’ licensing scheme through pompous, imbecilic assurances that a person doesn’t need a handgun to defend him or herself because Government, protects a person. That is patently false and, in any event, it is wholly beside the point, as the Arbalest Quarrel made clear in an article posted on our site on November 21, 2019. That article was reprinted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News on November 26, 2019, although in a different format with some editing.As we said, under the ‘doctrine of sovereign immunity’ the police are not, as a general rule, legally obligated to protect and guarantee the life and safety of any individual, and they cannot be held legally liable for failing to do so. Courts have routinely so held, including New York Courts. But many Americans fail to realize this because the seditious Press and politicians routinely lie to them.The purpose of a community police department is to protect the society-at-large, nothing more. I had pointed this out 30 years ago, in an article I co-authored with Second Amendment scholar, David Kopel. And that basic doctrine has not changed since.But, very recently, something has changed and drastically.Radical Left State and local governments are no longer even allowing their police departments to provide a modicum of protection for their community. This follows from the unrestrained actions and antics of volatile Marxist and Anarchist groups whom they kowtow to. They have called for the defunding of and disbanding of community police departments across the Country and some jurisdictions have done so. In New York City the Radical Left Mayor, Bill de Blasio, has slashed $1 Billion from the NYPD budget. This comes at a critical time when soaring crime and daily riots demand more funding for police, not less.This is a major change because the average American can, now, no longer depend on the police to provide even general protection to the community.It must be noted, too, that there are attempts by Marxists and Anarchists to rewrite the laws on sovereign immunity, to hold police accountable for harming citizens. But this is not for the purpose of securing more police protection and for making the police more accountable to the law-abiding public at large.To the contrary, the purpose of overturning police sovereign immunity rulings is to provide the public with less protection and, at once, to allow lawless rioters, looters, arsonists, and assailants to engage in attacks on the police and on innocent people without having to fear justifiable retribution for their lawless acts.So, in some ways, matters have changed. Radical Left Governments are leaving communities less safe by preventing the police from promoting law and order, and they are even prevented from protecting themselves as lawlessness occurs all around them, rendering them powerless to engage lawbreakers.The public sees the disturbing results: demoralized officers and less safe communities as police are not permitted to provide communities with even a modicum of safety. This obviously is not for the better.Moreover, even as Radical Left Government leaders restrain and constrain the police, they continue to resist recognition of the fundamental, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms for their own defense. These Marxist leaders demonstrate their contempt for the very sanctity of human life, even as they claim disingenuously to care about human life. They don’t care and they never did. Theirs is a recipe for disaster: for a complete breakdown of law and order in society.But a breakdown of society is precisely what these Radical Left Governments want. They wish to tear down the Nation, so they can reconfigure it in a manner completely at odds with the preservation of the free Constitutional Republic our founders gave us.Yet, despite the intentions of the Radical Left Collectivists, they can’t subvert the dictates of natural law. Natural law dictates that the right and responsibility of self-defense rests today, as it always did, on the individual.Americans must not listen to the seditious Press and duplicitous politicians who claim that defunding or eliminating the police is necessary and, who claim, at one and the same time, the necessity for curbing the personal right of armed self-defense as well; that taking these actions will improve society. That is not only false, it is absurd. The seditious Press and Radical Left politicians don’t have, and never did have, the best interests of the Nation or its people at heart. This is now transparent and, given the present state of affairs afflicting our Country, this fact is irrefutable.Although I have always been a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, I never advocated that everyone should get a gun. I did support and continue to support freedom of choice in owning and possessing firearms. But now, it is time for every law-abiding American citizen to be armed. Learn how to properly use a gun and how to safeguard it.Our Country is at a crossroads. We stand to lose everything near and dear to us if we don’t pay to heed to the threats directed against us, bearing down relentlessly on all of us.It is the responsibility of all citizens to safeguard their own life and safety and that of their families, and to preserve our Republic as the founders intended; to protect it from the insinuation of tyranny that the Radical Left would dare impose on Americans.Stephen L. D'Andrilli________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.