UNDER THE PRETEXT OF KEEPING THE RESIDENTS OF HER STATE SAFE, NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL DEFIES U.S. SUPREME COURT BRUEN RULINGS

MULTIPART SERIES ON POST-BRUEN CASE ANALYSIS

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

PART TWENTY-FIVE

THE TYRANT EVER DISTRUSTS THE ARMED CITIZEN

New York Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany designed amendments to the State Handgun Law to avoid compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in Bruen and thus avoid the categorical dictates of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights. There is no question about this, no tenable away around this. To believe otherwise is a delusion.Hochul makes the case herself. There are numerous accounts detailing this: Press accounts and Press Releases abound. Consider one example: In August 2023, Hochul said this, as presented on the Governor's website:“‘In response to the Supreme Court's decision to strike down New York's century-old concealed carry law, we took swift and thoughtful action to keep New Yorkers safe,’ . . . . ‘I refuse to surrender my right as Governor to protect New Yorkers from gun violence or any other form of harm. In New York State, we will continue leading the way forward and implementing common sense gun safety legislation.’”In other words, Governor Kathy Hochul, in her role as Tyrant Nanny of New York, keeping her wayward children, residents of New York, and citizens of the United States, safe and sound from all those dangerous, nasty firearms, will ignore the fundamental, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms, etched in stone in the Second Amendment of the Nation’s Bill of Rights, and will defy the Article III authority of the U.S. Supreme Court.Hochul had unconscionably harsh words for the High Court, calling the Bruen decision “reckless and reprehensible.” See the article in NCPR.One thing motivates Governor Hochul’s actions and others like her who have, through the passing years, decades, and centuries, enacted laws to cut the Bill of Rights to ribbons:INCOMPARABLE LUST FOR POWER, INORDINATE WEALTH, AND SELF-AGGRANDIZEMENT—ALL AT THE EXPENSE OF THE COMMON MAN. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN SO.The history of civilization illustrates an unfathomable and unquenchable desire of sociopathic/psychopathic individuals to wield control over their respective tribe, nation, or empire, or other political, social, economic, and juridical structure.These ill-begotten men desire to thrust their will, their reality, onto everyone else.The Articles of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of this Nation—of this Nation alone—were drafted with the aim to at least forestall, if not, prevent the perpetuation of this theme from happening here: the urge to dominate and rule.Of course, the presence of power-hungry misfits in the world is nothing new.Some who have succeeded in wielding control over the life, well-being, and happiness of the populace create the illusion they exercise power by virtue of Divine Right. Through time that odd idea becomes embedded in the public psyche. The public comes to accept this and accepts, too, that the rule over others by Divine Right is in the natural order of things, that it has always been thus.Rule by Divine Right—the wielding of near absolute power over others—is sometimes disguised.In our Nation, a free Constitutional Republic, the sociopaths, and psychopaths who lust for power, wealth, for personal aggrandizement and who have the wherewithal, knack, and tenacity to bend the mechanisms of power to their will, to their liking, must resort to deceptive messaging to woo the public, to lull them into dull complacency to accept the messaging conveyed to them by the deceivers and fabricators to mislead them into thinking that curtailment of their God-Given Rights is for their own good. But the truth is other than what is conveyed to the public.The Nation’s Bill of Rights is a check on the power of Tyrants. These Rights, especially the first two Rights are the final fail-safe to keep would-be Tyrants in check.The First Amendment codifies, inter alia, the right of Free Speech, i.e., the Right to Dissent; the Right to Personal Autonomy; the Right of the Individual TO BE and to Remain Individual, against public pressure, at the behest of the Tyrant to compel compliance to his edicts. Those edicts demand uniformity of thought, of conduct, of action. The idea is to force submission of one’s will to the will of the State, the Greater Society, the “Hive,” the Tyrant.The Right of the people to keep and bear arms is the vehicle through which the Individual prevents the Tyrant from forcing submission. This was meant to be so. Americans, millions of individuals, discrete souls, retain sovereignty over the Tyrant by force of arms and thus prevent usurpation of their will to that of the Tyrant.The Tyrant knows this. Many in our Country do not. They are denied THE TRUTH. Each American should know the TRUTH:The preservation of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, a right to be exercised by the common man, serves as a counterweight to the usurpation of the sovereign power of the people over the power of the Tyrant. The Tyrant seeks to restrict and constrict this right as the Tyrant cannot continue to wield power and cannot accrue more power at the expense of the people so long as they are armed. Thus——The common man cannot be controlled, corralled, nor subjugated so long as he bears arms. That he does so constitutes a threat to the Tyrant. The Tyrant knows this even if the polity does not, and the Tyrant utilizes the organs of a corrupt Press to prevent the people from recognizing the slow disintegration of their basic, core Rights, bestowed on them by the Divine Creator, and not by Government.Corruption of  Government proceeds from corruption existent in the Tyrant himself. Corruption of Government and concomitant corruption of every facet of society and of our institutions are recognized in decay, in the destabilization of society, and in the demoralization and degradation of the common man who resides within it. The physical manifestation of destruction is mirrored in the corrupt soul of the Tyrant. On a macro level, one sees this in the immolation of a once great Nation, and of its institutions, culture, ethos, and people.On the micro level one sees this corruption in the immolation of major cities and in the degradation of the lives of the people who reside in them, run by a host of petty tyrants.The salient purpose of armed Self-Defense is to prevent the onset of Tyranny of Government. If you, the reader, don’t see this, take a look at the Second Treatise of Government by the English Philosopher, John Locke. Our Constitution is constructed from the well-reasoned political philosophical remarks of John Locke.Do you need further proof: Take a look, once again, at the U.S. Supreme Court cases District of Columbia vs. Heller and McDonald vs. City of Chicago.The Tyrant knows that the exercise of the right to armed self-defense must be constrained else he cannot wield and maintain power and control over the commonalty, but he doesn’t say this. The Tyrant makes a different argument, directed to denizens of a free Republic.The argument against the exercise of the right to armed self-defense in this Country is that the Second Amendment is archaic and that the proliferation of guns in this Country causes “Gun Violence.”More recently, consistent with absurd political dogma, the Tyrant claims that the roots of the Second Amendment are racist. And a seditious Press echoes those sentiments.But then, ask yourself: Where is this disorder, this violence manifested? Is it in the actions of tens of millions of average, rational, responsible, American citizens—the commonalty that happens to possess firearms?When was the last time you heard that the common rational, responsible gun owner committed a crime through the use of a firearm or through the use of any other implement? When was the last you heard of an average gun owner who went on a shooting spree? How many of those occur in our Country anyway? How might they be prevented? Has not an armed citizen, in the midst of a “mass shooting, often prevented many deaths because he was able to stop the killer? If more people were armed, would they not be able to secure their life and that of others?Where does this so-called “Gun Violence” emanate and predominate?Is not the escalation of  “Criminal Violence” in the Country and especially in the major urban areas, the deliberate result of Government policy that allows the criminal element and the occasional lunatic to run amok?Why should curtailment of the basic natural law right to armed self-defense proceed from Government’s failure, oft deliberate, TO CONSTRAIN THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR of society: the foul, drug-addled lunatic; the monstrous, murderous gang member; and the opportunistic criminal—all of whom are devoid of empathy for the innocent person.Why should curtailment of a basic natural law right to armed self-defense proceed from instituting strict control over the natural law right of THE HIGHEST COMMON DENOMINATOR: tens of millions of average Americans?And, if those tens of millions of average Americans were to surrender their firearms to the Tyrant, how might that prevent the criminal and lunatic from engaging in less mayhem? Might not that encourage more illicit behavior and leave the common man absolutely defenseless, dependent completely on the goodwill of the Tyrant to dispel threat?But isn’t that really the point of disarming the citizenry: to leave the common man, the sole sovereign over Government, defenseless, powerless against the Tyrant, lest the common man rises up against the usurper?The New York Handgun Law and related laws as codified in the Consolidated Laws of New York, illustrate the Tyrant’s irrationality, arrogance, and lust for power over the citizens of the Country, residents of New York. But in the Gun Law and in other laws peppered throughout the breadth and depth of the Laws of New York, one sees, if one but reflects on those laws, a raw fear exposed. The Tyrant fears the common man.New York’s Handgun Law, the Sullivan Act, was enacted in 1911. It was predicated on fear of the common man—at the time, those were construed as new Italian immigrants to New York.The Sullivan Act was grounded on a lie at the outset: based on the idea that Italians were by nature, criminals, and their conduct in public had to be forcibly restrained lest they commit untold crimes throughout the State. This meant keeping firearms out of the hands of Italians. The form of the argument may have seemed valid to many. The premises were false, laughably so.The idea of converting a fundamental, unalienable right into a privilege is mystifying and disconcerting.Did the New York Government issue handgun licenses to Italians, recent naturalized citizens, residing in New York? One must wonder. If the idea behind the Sullivan Act, seemingly content neutral on its face, was to keep Italians from exercising their right, as citizens, to keep and bear arms, the law makes perfect sense.Yet the Sullivan Act came to be, and it survived, and thrived.The Sullivan Act requires all individuals who seek to carry a handgun in public to first obtain a handgun license from the Government to lawfully exercise their natural law right to armed self-defense.So then, the New York Government insists on inserting itself between the natural law right to armed self-defense, as codified in the Second Amendment, and one's exercise of that right, free of Government interference.The Handgun Law expanded exponentially to include further restraints, to encompass many more groups of people—the common man en masse—and to make the acquisition of a handgun carry license more expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating. That was the point.Many New Yorkers conceded defeat. They threw in the towel. They gave up the effort to obtain a license. The Handgun Law worked THAT well.Through time, the Handgun Licensing Statute became more elaborate. It developed into a cumbersome Handgun Licensing Regime. The challenges were many. But none succeeded in toppling the unconstitutional construct. And, then came the Heller case.The U.S. Supreme Court had for years stood idly by while State Government Tyrants and the Tyrant Federal Government road roughshod over the absolute right of the people to armed self-defense.In the 21^st Century, some Justices on the High Court had had enough. It was clear that Two Branches of the Federal Government, the Executive and the Legislative, and many State Governments, including the District of Columbia, were not going to adhere to the strictures of the Bill of Rights, especially the dictates of the Second Amendment to the Constitution.Associate Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito set matters aright.With the indomitability of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, and assisted by two able Associate Justices, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, and, having convinced or perhaps cajoled the Chief Justice, John Roberts, and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy to climb on board, the Court agree to review a case where the District of Columbia had enacted a law banning, outright, civilian citizen possession of handguns for self-defense, in the District.Since the District of Columbia law was predicated on the notion that the right to keep and bear arms was a collective right, not adhering to the individual, an erroneous notion, the Court Majority held clearly, concisely, and categorically that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right—one unconnected with association with a militia. And, having enunciated the clear, plain meaning of the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment, the High Court struck down the D.C. law.The anti-Second Amendment States were appalled and argued that Heller applied only to the Federal Government. That led to another challenge, this time from Plaintiff gun owners in Illinois, who argued that the right of the people to keep and bear arms applies with equal force to the States. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed. Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the Majority Opinion said, the right of the people to keep and bear arms applies with equal efficacy to the States through the application of the Fourteenth Amendment.Further challenges to States that refused to adhere to the rulings of Heller and McDonald went unreviewed by the Court, until a good ten years after McDonald.The High Court agreed to hear r a challenge to New York’s Handgun Law in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, et.al. vs. The City Of New York, 140 U.S. S. Ct. 1525 (2020)—the first major assault on the Sullivan Act to be heard by the High Court. In that case, Petitioner holders of valid restrictive handgun premise licenses sought to be able to transport their handguns to target ranges outside the City. The Rules of the City of New York forbade that.the narrow issue in the City of New York case dealt with the Second Amendment rights of holders of highly restrictive New York premise licenses. Yet, the case implicated broad Second Amendment questions impacting Heller and McDonald.Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, feared a decision on the merits of that case would open up a serious challenge to the core and mainstay of the State’s Sullivan Act, pertaining to the carrying of handguns in public.He could not, must not, allow a decision on the merits that would render the Sullivan Act vulnerable to further challenges that might eventually lead to the decimation of Handgun Licensing in New York.The Cuomo Administration weathered the storm by amending the State’s Gun Law. Those amendments required the City of New York to amend its own Gun Rules, pertaining to the transportation of handguns outside the home, by holders of New York City handgun premise licenses.The amendments satisfied Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice  Brett Kavanaugh. Those two votes, together with the votes of the liberal wing of the Court, sufficed to avoid the substantive merits of the case from review.With changes made to both the State Handgun Law and to New York City’s Handgun Licensing Regulations, the High Court dismissed the case, ruling the Plaintiffs’ claims moot.Associate Justice Alito thought otherwise. In his dissent, he argued there was no legal justification for a finding of mootness. Justice Alito laid out his arguments comprehensively and convincingly.Justice Kavanaugh without addressing the mootness matter, mentioned, in a separate Concurring Opinion,“I share Justice Alito’s concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald. The Court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.”Kavanaugh’s point came to fruition with Bruen, two years later, and in a major way, vexatious to the liberal wing of the Court, and likely so to the Chief Justice as well, and, no less so, the gravest fear of Governor Cuomo.But the conservative wing—now with Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the Bench—would no longer be constrained by foes of the Second Amendment who would erase the exercise of the right altogether if they had their way. Vindication of the Heller and McDonald rulings was at hand.The Hochul Government and Kathy Hochul, especially, weren’t pleased.If the City of New York case gave her predecessor, Governor Andrew Cuomo, a trifling headache, the Bruen case gave Hochul and Albany a full-on migraine.Bruen involved a challenge to the core of the State’s Handgun Law: the Constitutionality of predicating issuance of concealed handgun carry licenses on demonstration of “Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need.”Bruen struck down “Proper Cause.” And that required Hochul and the State Legislature in Albany to strike the phrase from the Handgun Law. There was no way around that.But Hochul and Albany had no intention of complying with a ruling that would tear the guts out of a handgun Law that existed for well over a century and that, through time, grew increasingly elaborate and more oppressive.So Governor Hochul and Albany brushed the rulings aside, concocting the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) of 2022 that gives lip service to Bruen and is, at once, consistent with the State’s end goal to transform the State, eventually, into one massive “Gun Free Zone.” Likely Hochul and Albany were working on the CCIA once the oral argument had concluded on November 3, 2021, having anticipated the High Court intended to shred the core of the Sullivan Act.The Hochul Government was prepared. The High Court issued its decision on June 23, 2022. Ten days later the State Senate enacted the “CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY IMPROVEMENT ACT” (CCIA). Hochul signed it into law on the same day, July 3, 2022.That word, ‘Improvement,’ as it appears in the title of the Act is incongruous, even incoherent. For what is it the Act improves? Certainly not the right of the American citizen, residing and/or working in New York, and the Act did not comply with the Bruen rulings.The CCIA was a cleverly, cunningly drawn evasion tactic that strengthened the Handgun Law, consistent with an age-old plan.This plan, this agenda, involved the methodical, evisceration of gun rights—a plan going back over a century ago. The Hochul Government did not design the CCIA to comply with the rulings, except on a superficial level. The Court did not like the words, “PROPER CAUSE,” so the Government would strike those words from the Sullivan Act.Since the Hochul Government still had to contend with the salient ruling that the right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense is not confined to one’s home but extends to the public arena, the State would slither around the ruling. That was the intent of the Hochul Government, and the CCIA well reflected that intention. They did that through the creation of a new construct: “SENSITIVE PLACE” restrictions, and through a bold reconfiguration of an old one, “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER.”Through the CCIA Hochul and her cohorts in Albany laid bare their objective: Erosion of the civilian citizen’s right to armed self-defense outside the home, notwithstanding the import of the Bruen decision: recognition of the right to armed self-defense outside the home, no less than inside it.The CCIA was to take effect on September 1, 2022. The Act's challengers wouldn’t wait for that to happen.The ink had not yet dried on the CCIA document Kathy Hochul signed when the Plaintiffs came forward to challenge the amendments to the Gun Law. There would be others—most of them in New York, but several across the Country as well, challenging similar Gun Laws, the language of which is contrary to the Bruen rulings.Several New York cases, including the main one, i.e., Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli, presently sit on review at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.Fully briefed, the Court conducted oral hearings for each of them, on March 20, 2023. Expect final orders during the summer months.

“SENSITIVE PLACE” AND “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER”

As we stated supra, two provisions of the CCIA stand out as they serve as the basis of the State’s defiance of the Second Amendment and the Bruen rulings: “SENSITIVE PLACE” and “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER.”The “Sensitive Place” provision is new. There is no correlation with it in the prior version of the Law or in any previous version, hearkening back to the commencement of handgun licensing in 1911 with the enactment of the Sullivan Act. Much has been said about the “Sensitive Place” provision and challenges to the CCIA invariably point to it.The “Good Moral Character” requirement, on the other hand, is not new.Little is said about it in the prior version of the Handgun Law. And, apart from mentioning it in Bruen, the High Court had nothing to say about it.As applied to applications for restrictive handgun premise licenses—and a multi-tiered Handgun structure remains in the New York Gun Law—there is no change from the prior Law.However, as applied to applications for concealed handgun carry licenses, the State Legislature added substantial and significant provisions—a massive transformation from what had existed before.A major distinction between the two provisions, “Sensitive Place” and “Good Moral Character,” needs to be mentioned and discussed before we proceed to a comprehensive analysis of the latter provision.

THE NUANCES OF “SENSITIVE PLACE” RESTRICTIONS

“Sensitive Place” restrictions affect holders of State concealed handgun carry licenses only, not those holders of highly restrictive premise handgun licenses —a point seemingly trivial. It isn’t.A holder of a premise license cannot lawfully utilize a handgun for self-defense outside the home or place of business, notwithstanding instances of dire threats to life presenting themselves outside the home or one’s place of business.The lawful use of a handgun for self-defense begins and ends within the confines of the walls of the structure.As if to emphasize the point, the holder of a home or business license, who wishes to transport his handgun outside the home, lawfully, must keep the handgun in a handgun case, not in a holster on his person. Ammunition must be kept in the case as well and separate from the handgun itself.This means that, if the holder of a restricted premise license were confronted by a deadly threat while out in public, the handgun won’t be readily accessible. And that is the point. And that is concerning for two reasons.First, a handgun case is easily identifiable as such.If the licensee is in a subway, say, on the way to a New York City target range, a determined and highly aggressive thief can strongarm the case away from the owner.In that event, the owner must immediately notify the NYPD of the fact of the theft, and he will likely be required to surrender his premise handgun license during the investigation. If the police fail to recover the handgun, the owner will likely be denied issuance of a replacement license, which is a condition precedent to lawful receipt of a new handgun. And to add insult to injury, the owner will likely be blamed for the theft having occurred. The police report will indicate that the owner had lost possession of the case, suggesting that, if the owner had been deficient in protecting the property, and, perhaps, should haven’t taken the handgun outside the home or place of business in the first instance.Second, if the licensee were threatened with violence to self and were able to access the handgun and successfully avert a tragedy to self by incapacitating the aggressor by shooting him, the licensee would lose his license. There is no question about that.Worse, the licensee would be prosecuted for misuse of the handgun.Worst of all, the aggressor would likely be charged with criminal assault and wrongful possession of a handgun, for the premise license doesn’t lawfully allow the licensee to wield a handgun in public. As if to emphasize this point, Governor Hochul made patently clear that Bruen doesn’t authorize a person to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. In other words, New York remains a Handgun Licensing State Par Excellence among Anti-Second Amendment fanatics.Further, if the aggressor died of his wounds, the licensee would be indicted for manslaughter or murder. That outcome isn’t merely likely. It is certain and inevitable.Under New York Law self-defense may be a perfect defense to a charge of manslaughter or murder if one didn’t initiate the aggressive act, but “armed” self-defense isn’t if the person appealing to it happens to use a handgun in the absence of a valid State issued concealed handgun carry license.This is true even if the perpetrator himself is armed and threatens to kill the innocent person.The idea that an innocent person cannot defend him or herself but for use of a handgun and would suffer indictment for unlawful homicide notwithstanding, is ludicrous. But that is the nature of New York law.Isn’t that the tacit point of a fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms? And isn’t that the central point of the Bruen rulings?Raw abhorrence of firearms precludes rational debate over the right to armed self-defense in the face of imminent violent assault against self.In fact, even if the licensee does hold a valid concealed handgun carry license, that may not protect him from a charge of manslaughter or murder. The best that can be said about this is that at least the licensee is alive when he would otherwise be dead. But the ramifications of armed self-defense reflect the sad truth about living and working in New York.The Hochul Government’s aversion toward firearms and civilian citizen gun ownership is so strong that the New York Government begrudges the issuance of handgun licenses at all.And it gets worse. Of late, even where a handgun isn’t employed in self-defense, any use of self-defense that results in harm or death to an assailant may still result in a felony indictment. Recall the recent incident involving a retired Marine whom Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, brought a charge of manslaughter against. See, e.g., the article in Reuters. Even as violent crime escalates around the Country, especially in the major cities run by Democrat-Party administrations, the right to self-defense, armed or not, is under assault.The irony of an increasingly dangerous society, a wary, tentative police force post-Floyd George, and the incessant Government attack on Americans who would logically wish to carry a handgun for self-defense—since it is the most effective means available to defend one’s life—is both a disheartening and disorienting fact of life for those living or working in New York and in similar jurisdictions across the Country. That is what they must contend with.As if reading the minds of New Yorkers, the Hochul Government issued a reminder (actually a warning) to all New York residents, on June 24, 2022, one day after the Bruen decision came out, that New Yorkers should take care not to carry a handgun in public without a valid concealed handgun carry license, that Bruen hasn’t changed anything.“Governor Kathy Hochul today issued a reminder to gun owners that the U.S. Supreme Court's Thursday decision to strike down New York's concealed carry law does not mean New York State's licensure processes and rules do not need to be followed. It does not automatically give current residential permit owners the ability to carry guns outside the home. Gun owners are required by law to follow current restrictions.” Hochul made these remarks on June 24, 2023, one day after the publication of the Bruen decision.Hochul would have known that most of the amendments to the Handgun Law were already drafted and coming down the pike, momentarily. That meant the nuances and peculiarities of multi-tier Gun licensing Statutes would remain.And that raises the question, post-Bruen: Why would a person seek to acquire a restricted New York handgun premise license in lieu of a concealed handgun carry license? After all, didn’t the elimination of the “Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need” requirement make the acquisition of a concealed handgun carry license easier? Not really.Sure, the Hochul Government struck “Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need” from the Sullivan Act. But she remains stubborn and undeterred.Hochul continues to place roadblocks in the path of those individuals who wish to exercise their natural law right to armed self-defense. A plethora of sensitive place restrictions on lawful carry and use of a handgun for self-defense now plague holders of concealed handgun carry licenses: both new applications and renewals.The inclusion of the “Sensitive Place” provision and the “Good Moral Character” requirement in the CCIA operate essentially as stand-ins for “Proper Cause.”If the Hochul Government must acknowledge the right to armed self-defense outside the home no less than inside it, then the New York Government will place a plethora of obstacles in the path of those whom the State issues licenses to carry.The holder of such a license now finds himself constrained in the act of lawful carrying of a handgun and, therefore, constrained from lawfully using a handgun for self-defense in places that heretofore had no such restrictions.New York State, and New York City, especially, has become a patchwork quilt of places where the carrying of a handgun for self-defense—and therefore the use of it for self-defense—is illegal, notwithstanding the issuance of a concealed handgun carry license.Pre-Bruen, the only place restrictions pertained to were school zones and Federal and State Government buildings. The licensee knew that and avoided carrying a handgun in those areas and buildings. Now, the holder of a valid concealed handgun carry license must play a child’s game of  “Hopscotch”—kept mentally off-balance not precisely aware whether he and his handgun and the concealed handgun license he carries, are situated in a prohibited “Sensitive Place.” Did he miss a marker? What if he has to walk through or drive through a designated “Sensitive Place” to arrive at his destination? Must he detour around the area?The concealed handgun carry licensee must also keep in mind that “Sensitive Locations” are subject to revision. New restricted areas may be listed, and he must keep assiduously abreast of all amendments to those“Sensitive Place” restrictions.So then, “full carry” UNRESTRICTED handgun licenses no longer exist in New York. Under the CCIA, such “full carry” licenses, are constrained by numerous rigidly enforced place restrictions—which the Government may add to at any time.New York UNRESTRICTED “FULL CARRY” CONCEALED HANDGUN LICENSES are for all intents and purposes now reduced to RESTRICTED “LIMITED CARRY” CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY LICENSES, most notably, on Manhattan Island.

NUANCES OF THE “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER” REQUIREMENT

The “Good Moral Character” requirement operates differently from the State’s “Sensitive Place” provision.The idea behind amendments to “Good Moral Character” as applied to applications for New York concealed handgun carry licenses is to dissuade an applicant from going through the hurdles of obtaining one.That is a strong inducement for the applicant to forego attempting to acquire such a license, opting instead for a restrictive premise license. That is why the Hochul Government has maintained the confounding multi-tiered handgun licensing structure post-Bruen.While there would appear, at first glance, no rational reason for a person to opt for a HIGHLY RESTRICTED New York premise handgun license Post-Bruen, the Hochul Government there are more than enough hurdles in place, making the acquisition of a RESTRICTED concealed handgun carry license no assured proposition, and the detailed information the CCIA mandates might cause a conscientious person to wish to refrain from divulging substantial details of his private life to the Government. In that case, a person might wish to forego the intricate, confusing, and intrusive process to obtain a concealed carry license and accept, instead, a New York premise handgun license.

INDIVIDUALS PURSUING A NEW YORK CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY LICENSE MUST BE WILLING TO WAIVE THEIR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT OF PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND PRIVACY, ALLOWING THE NEW YORK GOVERNMENT TO INTRUDE MERCILESSLY INTO EVERY ASPECT OF THEIR LIFE

For the individual undeterred in his quest to acquire a concealed handgun carry license, he must willingly accept Government interference with his fundamental right to privacy and autonomy.Application of this bolstered “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER” provision has a chilling effect on the First Amendment Freedom of Speech clause and on tacit Freedom of Association, and on the Fourth Amendment right of a person to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. An Applicant must now waive those rights if he wishes to pursue the acquisition of a concealed handgun carry license.“GOOD MORAL CHARACTER” also butts up against one’s right to due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment—the very reason the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the“PROPER CAUSE” requirement.As applied to applicants for either highly restricted or restrictive premise handgun licenses only, the 2023 version of New York’s Handgun Law does not change anything. The CCIA reads as the prior version of the Gun Law read:NY CLS Penal §400.00(1):“Eligibility. 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. No license shall be issued or renewed except for an applicant (a) twenty-one years of age or older, provided, however, that where such applicant has been honorably discharged from the United States army, navy, marine corps, air force or coast guard, or the national guard of the state of New York, no such age restriction shall apply; (b) of good moral character, which, for the purposes of this article, shall mean having the essential character, temperament and judgement necessary to be entrusted with a weapon and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself or others (c) who has not been convicted anywhere of a felony or a serious offense or who is not the subject of an outstanding warrant of arrest issued upon the alleged commission of a felony or serious offense; (d) who is not a fugitive from justice; (e) who is not an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance as defined in section 21 U.S.C. 802; (f) who being an a noncitizen (i) is not illegally or unlawfully in the United States or (ii) has not been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa subject to the exception in 18 U.S.C. 922(y)(2); (g) who has not been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions; (h) who, having been a citizen of the United States, has not renounced his or her citizenship; (i) who has stated whether he or she has ever suffered any mental illness; (j) who has not been involuntarily committed to a facility under the jurisdiction of an office of the department of mental hygiene pursuant to article nine or fifteen of the mental hygiene law, article seven hundred thirty or section 330.20 of the criminal procedure law or substantially similar laws of any other state, section four hundred two or five hundred eight of the correction law, section 322.2 or 353.4 of the family court act, has not been civilly confined in a secure treatment facility pursuant to article ten of the mental hygiene law, or has not been the subject of a report made pursuant to section 9.46 of the mental hygiene law; (k) who has not had a license revoked or who is not under a suspension or ineligibility order issued pursuant to the provisions of section 530.14 of the criminal procedure law or section eight hundred forty-two-a of the family court act.”The above requirements apply to the issuance of all New York handgun licenses: the highly restrictive premise home or business license and the concealed handgun “full carry” license.Note that the requirements set forth in the aforesaid section of the Handgun Law mirror the requirements of Federal Law, 18 USCS § 922, but also, in some instances, as illustrated in the State law, go well beyond what counts as a disability under Federal law. But understand——

FEDERAL LAW DISQUALIFIERS FOR POSSESSING A FIREARM DO NOT INCLUDE A GOOD MORAL CHARACTER REQUIREMENT. NEW YORK LAW DOES.

The requirement is both inherently vague and markedly, nakedly subjective.How does a licensing officer determine an applicant has “the essential character, temperament, and judgment necessary to be entrusted with a weapon and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself or others”? If the individual falls into a Federal disability—for example, the individual has been involuntarily committed to a mental asylum, has a felony conviction, or having served in the military, has received a dishonorable discharge—the licensing officer will point to the disability and likely add the applicant lacks the necessary character to be trusted with possession of a handgun or with the possession of any firearm. But then, a claim of lack of proper character and temperament adds nothing to a notice of denial to issue a handgun license. THE REQUIREMENT IS REDUNDANT.But, if the licensing officer does not specify a disability in the notice of denial apart from the assertion that, in the licensing officer’s opinion, the applicant lacks proper character and temperament, then, in the absence of a factual basis for such a finding, other than mere recitation of subjective, personal opinion, a Court of competent jurisdiction would likely find the decision to be arbitrary and capricious.But an applicant would have to go through the lengthy, arduous, and costly process of filing a New York “ARTICLE 78” action, challenging the licensing officer’s decision, to obtain relief from a Notice of Denial to Issue a License.That has always been a problem with the use of a Character requirement in the Handgun Law. But, prior to the enactment of the CCIA, the requirement never posed a viable problem.The licensing officer wouldn’t point to the absence of proper character and temperament EXCEPT if the denial were grounded on an objective disability. Recitation of the disability would suffice to deny the issuance of a handgun license. But, of itself, recitation of lack of proper character would not suffice to support a notice of denial to issue a handgun license. Lack of Good Moral Character was, heretofore, in New York, neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to obtaining a license.The Licensing Officer might append his Notice of Denial with a finding that the applicant lacks proper temperament and character, but its inclusion would not add anything portentous to the Notice of Denial.An Article 78 judicial action challenging the Notice of Denial would address the license officer’s litany of disabilities—discrete and specific matters. For, it would be on the basis of the disabilities that character objectively comes into play. Still, one might make the case that severe mental illness, severe enough to require institutionalization is not of itself demonstrative of “BAD MORAL CHARACTER,” any more than a person having a serious heart condition, or cancer, should be considered to have “BAD MORAL CHARACTER” due to illness.Where a person has committed a serious crime due to mental illness (for example, a person is found not guilty by reason of insanity), a case may or not be made out that such a person has “BAD MORAL CHARACTER.” It is a gray area. But, in any event, the New York licensing officer would refuse to issue a handgun license to that person. The issue of “GOOD” or “BAD” MORAL CHARACTER is really irrelevant in that case.Moreover, by itself, the issue of “CHARACTER” counts for nothing. And yet, for those individuals now applying for a concealed handgun carry license, this elusive and illusive provision becomes a new highly ramped-up basis to deny issuance of a handgun license. It is even more subjective, and just as arbitrary, as New York’s old “Proper Cause” requirement.Like the multi-tier structure of handgun licensing, the inclusion of a character requirement in the Handgun Law has itself developed into a complex multi-tier structure.The requirement for those applying for a concealed handgun carry license, the “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER” requirement established for application for a highly restricted handgun carry license is now merely the first step in a two-step process to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the licensing authority, that the applicant has the proper character to be issued a concealed handgun carry license.Post-CCIA, NY CLS Penal §400.00(1)(o):“for a license issued under paragraph (f) of subdivision two of this section the applicant shall meet in person with the licensing officer for an interview and shall, in addition to any other information or forms required by the license application submit to the licensing officer the following information: (i) names and contact information for the applicant’s current spouse, or domestic partner, any other adults residing in the applicant’s home, including any adult children of the applicant, and whether or not there are minors residing, full time or part time, in the applicant’s home; (ii) names and contact information of no less than four character references who can attest to the applicant’s good moral character and that such applicant has not engaged in any acts, or made any statements that suggest they are likely to engage in conduct that would result in harm to themselves or others; (iii) certification of completion of the training required in subdivision nineteen of this section; (iv) a list of former and current social media accounts of the applicant from the past three years to confirm the information regarding the applicants character and conduct as required in subparagraph (ii) of this paragraph; and (v) such other information required by the licensing officer that is reasonably necessary and related to the review of the licensing application.”It isn’t clear whether only one, or two, or all five requirements listed above all fall into the sphere of “Good Moral Character” and we must wend our way through the thicket to get a handle on this.To begin, it is odd to require more than one standard of proper character in the State’s Handgun Law.Logically, if a person cannot be deemed to have sufficient good character to possess a handgun at all, what does it mean and why should it matter to require more of one’s character to carry a handgun in public?Surely, if a “Character” requirement is going to be posited at all, then it follows that a person either has the proper character and temperament to possess a handgun or does not. This is not to suggest that a person should be required to demonstrate special Character traits. Indeed a person can have bad character, but, unless he is a blatant threat to others, a licensing authority should not wield one’s Character as a sword against him.The problem here rests with the Government licensing of handguns. The multi-tier handgun scheme that New York has constructed around which the Government creates ridiculous requirements to justify, or rationalize, the need for such a tiered structure, only makes the entire notion of “CHARACTER” more ridiculous. But, to employ a “CHARACTER” provision in a licensing scheme at all is just “nuts.”Government creates handgun licensing schemes and then interjects requirements that beg the question of whether Government should be in the game of licensing exercise of a fundamental right at all.Sure, a person requires a license to practice law or to practice medicine, but, while a person does enjoy a basic (we would argue an unenumerated Ninth Amendment) right to make a living, and, in fact, has a duty to provide for himself and for his family, so as not to be a burden on himself and on society, a person does not have a Constitutional right to practice law or medicine.And the professions, not the Government, regulate whether one has the proper character to practice law or medicine, anyway. If a professional Board sitting on review of a person’s character does not believe a candidate has the proper character, the Board will not allow a person to sit for the Bar Exam or, in the case of the medical profession, to sit for the Medical Licensing Examinations. These exams are necessary conditions precedent to acquire a State License to practice law or medicine.But the inclusion of a “Good Moral Character” requirement as a condition precedent to obtaining a license to exercise the fundamental right to armed self-defense is bizarre, and, in practice, application of the requirement adds nothing substantive, definitive, or even rational to the process. Application of the requirement merely reflects the personal bias of the licensing authority.And there never was anything substantive about it. It is just a makeweight, and wholly subjective.The Federal grounds for disqualification are sufficient,* as they are, for the most part, objective and tend to preclude the insinuation of personal bias, conscious or not, into the process of adducing whether one can or cannot possess a firearm. The instant background check undertaken at a firearms dealer is enough.The mindset of the Hochul Government is crucial in analyzing and evaluating these new requirements in the CCIA.We will delve into this in the next article, beginning with whether New York makes use of this thing, in other State Statutes. It does. And we will take a look at how other States that have such a provision, utilize it, and lay out our arguments in support of the remarks made herein that there is no justification for employment of “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER” in New York’s Handgun Law.____________________________________*We must stress, consistent with prior statements made in previous articles, that our position is that, despite the seeming contradiction, the natural law right to armed self-defense is absolute.

But does this mean that all individuals should possess a firearm if they wish? The term ‘absolute,’ means ‘unqualified,’ and ‘without restriction.’ This logically entails the proposition that the natural law right to armed self-defense is an unqualified right of man, hence a right, without restriction.

But refer back to the word, ‘should,’ in the afore-referenced question, “Should all individuals possess a firearm if they wish? Further to the point, should there be some limitation on who possesses a firearm?

The word ‘should’ changes a proposition into a normative, moral statement that does not readily fall into the basic “true”/“false” paradigm. Our position is that pragmatic considerations require tough choices when it comes to who “should” “be allowed” to possess a firearm. That ultimately means some people, for pragmatic reasons, “should not” be permitted to possess guns.

Murderous psychopaths and psychotic maniacs fall into categories of individuals who should not possess firearms because their use of firearms is not limited to self-defense or for such benign purposes as hunting, target practice, or sport, such as skeet or trap-shooting, or Olympic events. And, recall the codification of the natural law right to armed self-defense (subsumed into “self-defense”/“self-preservation”) as the core predicate of the right, eliminating, then, use of firearms to commit murder or to threaten murder or other violence.

Federal Law also prohibits “illegal aliens” from possessing firearms. And that is right and proper. The United States is a Nation State, with physical geographical borders, comprised of citizens, whose allegiance, whether they accept it or not, is to the Nation—its Constitution, history, heritage, culture, ethos, and core ethical values.

By definition, an ‘illegal alien,’ is a person who intentionally defies our National geographical Integrity, our Constitutional integrity, and our Laws. His allegiance is not to our Country, nor to our Constitution. Therefore he, like a murderer, is a threat to our natural law right to self-defense, and therefore is prohibited from possessing a firearm, and, from a normative perspective, “ought” rightfully to be prohibited from possessing a firearm.

“Mental Defectives” are another category of individuals that are not in a position to be trusted with a gun as a very young child, as they pose a threat to others if they have access to a firearm. And as for those members of the armed forces who have been dishonorably discharged, they have brought dishonor on their Nation and on themselves and have demonstrated an inability to be trusted with a firearm, as, by definition, they pose a danger to the Nation, People, and Constitution.

But how far should these pragmatic bases to deny possession of firearms extend? The Government itself exists to preserve and protect the Constitution and provide for the common welfare of the citizens.

But Government is naturally inclined—given the power it wields—to subvert those ends, usurping the sovereignty of the American people.

The Biden Administration has disdainfully, unabashedly usurped the sovereignty of the American people and has deliberately, and maliciously failed to faithfully serve and protect the Nation, and has intentionally, malevolently, and spitefully, ignored enforcement of the Laws of the Land. And the Administration has gone further yet: coldly, callously, designing and implementing policy for the purpose of subverting and sabotaging the Laws of the Land.

It is not by accident this Administration has deliberately thwarted the citizenry's exercise of their Bill of Rights. The Administration has designed and implemented policy systematically designed to weaken the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

The Biden Administration is hell-bent determined to dismantle the institutions of our Country, to destroy our history, heritage, culture, and Judeo-Christian ethical values, fully embracing a Tyranny to thrust upon the Nation. And Democrat Party-controlled State Governments across the Country have taken the policy positions and messaging of the Biden Administration to heart: zealously following in the Administration’s footsteps, designing and implementing similar policies, all with the aim of destabilizing society, destroying the economy, demoralizing the people, and promoting all matter of vices against God, Country, and People.

It is but an understatement to assert that neither the Federal Government nor many State Governments are the best arbiter to decide how or whether the natural law right to armed self-defense is to be exercised.

As we see most clearly today, Government tends, through time, to institute more and more restrictions on who may “lawfully” possess firearms, and places ever more draconian restrictions on the types, kinds, and quantity of firearms and ammunition one may possess, and on the component parts and paraphernalia a person may “lawfully” keep.

The Arbalest Quarrel has discussed this notion of ‘Tyranny’ in some depth, in previous articles and we will have much more to say about it and will do so in future articles. We will also deal at length with the notion of ‘absoluteness’ of our natural law rights and lay out further how that concept can be seen to cohere with a seeming logical inconsistency of ‘limitation’ placed on absoluteness in the exercise of natural law rights, utilizing “pragmatic realism” and “normative principles” to secure the Bill of Rights for all time, notwithstanding the strong desire and goal of the Neo-Marxist Internationalists and Neoliberal Globalist Empire Builders that insist the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights is archaic, unworkable, and, therefore, must eventually be eliminated, as part of their major overhaul of this Nation’s  Constitution.

___________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WITHOUT AN ARMED CITIZENRY THE PEOPLE REMAIN AT THE MERCY OF THE STATE

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 THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

WITHOUT AN ARMED CITIZENRY THE PEOPLE REMAIN AT THE MERCY OF THE STATE

MULTISERIES

PART TWELVE

HELLER, MCDONALD, AND BRUEN ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

New York Governor Kathy Hochul and the Anti-Second Amendment Legislators in Albany were in a bind. The U.S. Supreme officially published its decision in NYSRPA vs. Bruen on June 23, 2022. Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-Controlled State Legislature in Albany had reason enough to expect, and every reason to fear, that Bruen would be a momentous decision—and for Hochul and the Democrat Party Legislators in Albany—a disastrous decision, directly and potentially fatally, impacting the State’s century-old Gun Law, the Sullivan Act, long since codified in the State’s Penal Code, NY CLS Penal § 400.00, et. seq. It would take Hochul and the Legislators, and their respective lawyers considerable time to concoct a scheme that would salvage the Sullivan Act, creating the illusion—if ultimately unconvincingly—of complying with the High Court’s rulings. The Anti-Second Amendment Hochul Administration and the Legislators in Albany had nothing but contempt for the High Court. Hochul, herself, did not so much as try to hide this. On the Governor’s website, the public sees this announcement:“ ‘While the Supreme Court's appalling decision to strike down New York State's concealed carry law has potentially vast and far-reaching implications, it does not activate any immediate changes to State gun license and permit laws, nor does it allow residential permit owners to carry their weapons outside their homes. . . . “As the case returns to lower court, we encourage responsible gun owners to continue to follow their current restrictions, and always put safety first. While we are disappointed with the Supreme Court's reckless disregard for the safety of our communities, we are prepared to fight. And the Lieutenant Governor, Antonio Delgado, added this to Governor Hochul’ statement.“‘Yesterday, the Supreme Court sent us backwards in our efforts to protect families and prevent gun violence by striking down a NY law that limits who can carry concealed weapons. While the implications are not immediate, New York is committed to taking action and enacting a new set of laws that will work around this ruling. . . . If the Supreme Court and federal government won't act to keep our children safe, then New York will.’” Id.Hochul likely had received abundant advance notice of the content of the Bruen decision “on the QT,”  judging by how quickly her Government came out with a comprehensive set of amendments to the State’s Gun Law. The Arbalest Quarrel has taken an in-depth look at the Bruen decision along with the Hochul Government’s response to it. There is a lot of material to digest, and we will continue to do this as nothing—absolutely nothing—is more critical to the preservation of a free Constitutional Republic, than the right of the people to keep and bear arms.All the rambunctious talk of “the need to get rid of guns” for the sake of public safety and public order for everyone serves as deflection. The message translates as: “constraining law-abiding citizens’ access to firearms for self-defense. The argument presented for doing so is specious on its face and, worse, it is corrosive of the fundamental truth that tyranny looms in the absence of an armed citizenry. Tyranny of Government looms in New York. And, as New York is a microcosm of the Nation, what transpires there has a ripple effect across the Nation: crime is rampant and intractable; the criminal justice system casts a blind eyed to the safety of the public, and the public is denied the right to defend itself against the danger presented. It is a recipe for societal collapse. The U.S. Supreme Court could see this even if the New York Government does not. The Court could not compel the New York Government to protect its citizens, but it could require New York to adhere to the core principles of the Bill of Rights. That means New York cannot lawfully prevent the citizen from protecting itself. The Bill of Rights boils down to these Divine absolutes: the sanctity and inviolability of Selfhood; and the fundamental, immutable, unalienable, and incontrovertible natural law right of survival against aggression, howsoever that aggression manifests itself: from predatory creature, or predatory man, or a predatory Government.Yet, as violent crime goes unchecked, and the criminal justice system itself remains constrained, the Hochul Government provides excuses. Yet, as to the matter of armed self-defense, the Hochul Government has much to say.It couldn’t dismiss U.S. Supreme Court rulings out-of-hand without admitting that it cares not for the Article 3 authority of the Court. So it came up with a workaround to salvage the Sullivan Act. It was as ingenious as it was diabolical. The Government pretends to give free rein to the law-abiding citizen to carry a handgun concealed for self-protection. And a seditious Press and the Hochul Government denounce the U.S. Supreme Court for turning New York into a “wild west.”  The Press and the Hochul Government should reflect on that a bit. New York City and other jurisdictions, including those several on the west coast, and jurisdictions inland, including Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and many others, are already in the throes of the “wild west.” In the name of the new secular religious dogma of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” and with Soros's money raining down on jurisdictions that support his Dystopian Nightmare of the “Open Society,” Cities across the Country are collapsing. Incompetence can’t alone explain this. It has to be deliberate.The degradation of society invariably follows in the wake of and must therefore be construed as a function of systematic denigration of the Second Amendment by governments in all of those jurisdictions. Congress and the Biden Administration have done little if anything to prevent wholescale annihilation of the exercise of armed self-defense, and much to promote it.And so it is left to the province of the U.S. Supreme Court to reinvigorate the Bill of Rights that the Federal Government and those of many States and cities have disdainfully ignored or actively dismantled.

DOWN MEMORY LANE: THE VIOLATION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT OF THE NATION’S BILL OF RIGHTS

The U.S. Supreme Court had done with playing games with New York and with all other State Governments that had heretofore played fast and loose with the natural law right of armed self-defense. New York and other similar Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions had withstood the impact of Heller and McDonald through feats of judicial legerdemain. And New York itself had weathered the storm of the predecessor to the Bruen case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association vs. the City of New York, 140 S. Ct. 1525 (2020); often referred to informally as the “New York City Gun Transport” case.In both NYSRPA vs. Bruen and NYSPRA vs the City of New York, the U.S. Supreme Court began to zero in on a long-standing nemesis to the Second Amendment, New York, just as it had zeroed in on the District of Columbia and on Illinois, several years earlier. All three of these jurisdictions were notorious for systematically treating the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as the bane of Collectivist orthodoxy that seeks to Government absolute control over the thoughts and actions of the masses. And that requires suppression of basic freedoms and liberties—most notably that of speech, privacy, and the right to armed self-defense.The U.S. Supreme Court was one remaining Branch of the Federal Government that had had enough of the immolation of basic natural law rights: most concerning to some Justices on the Court: armed self-defense.If Congress and the U.S. President would not take concrete steps to preserve the natural law right of armed self-defense, several Justices on the High Court would do so. And, after years of noncompliance to High Court rulings in Heller and McDonald, two Associate Justices, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, would not be denied any longer. NYSRPA vs. the City of New York provided an opportunity to prevent the New York Government from continuously weakening the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The Court’s rulings would course through the rest of the Country, impacting those States that had enacted similar unconscionable, unconstitutional constraints on the exercise of the right codified in the Second Amendment.

NYSPRA vs. THE CITY OF NEW YORK: DECISION ON THE MERITS AVOIDED

In the Gun Transport case, Petitioners challenged a New York City rule preventing holders of restricted handgun premise licenses from transporting their firearms outside the confines of the City.  Petitioners claimed the rule violated the Second Amendment and sought both declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement of the rule insofar as the rule prevented their transport of firearms to a second home or shooting range outside of the city. The District Court and the Court of Appeals rejected Petitioners’ claim and they took the case up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The liberal wing of the Court, and likely Chief Justice John Roberts as well, were not keen on reviewing the case. They had no desire to take up any Second Amendment case they felt would serve, from their ideological perspective, of expanding the people's exercise of the natural law right of armed self-defense.Of course, Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch—Trump’s first nominee to the High Court, after the untimely death and, some would add, dubious circumstances surrounding that death—do not view Second Amendment cases as irrational or unreasonable attempts by Americans to expand the natural law right of armed self-defense. Rather, these Justices perceive Second Amendment challenges to Government actions constraining the exercise of a natural law right as opportunities to preclude the Government from constraining the exercise of a supernal right. It is the unconstitutional actions of the Government that demand adjudication by the High Court—a task that should be unnecessary and would be unnecessary if the States and the Federal Government would acknowledge the Bill of Rights instead of continually frustrating Americans’ exercise of their fundamental, unalienable rights.Although the Gun Transport case wasn’t the ideal case to adjudicate, as many others had wended their way to the Court years before, yet could not garner enough votes for review, this case was the best that could be achieved at the time.The Petitioners sought to have the case decided on the merits. They argued that, notwithstanding that they held a restrictive premise handgun license, they still had a fundamental right under the Second Amendment to carry a firearm to a target range outside the City limits. Had the case been decided on the merits, the Court could have taken the opportunity to rule restrictive handgun carry licenses as presumptively unlawful. The liberal wing and Chief Justice Roberts would have none of that, and, likely, Roberts cajoled the newest member of the High Court, at that time, Brett Kavanaugh, to vote with him to forsake the opportunity the case gave them.The case didn’t just bother several members of the Court, it concerned Andrew Cuomo and other Anti-Second Amendment politicians who had made it their life’s work to make New York a veritable Gun-Free jurisdiction. And, Cuomo saw an escape route, and most of the Justices saw a pretext to avoid dealing with the case on the merits.Since the issue in the Gun Transport case pertained only to holders of restricted handgun licenses who, under New York law, could not lawfully carry a handgun outside one’s home for self-defense, there was the concern that the Court could come embroiled with the issue of armed self-defense outside the home. If so, that would impinge on the Sullivan Act itself. Neither the liberal wing of the High Court nor the Chief Justice, John Roberts wanted to deal with this. And Andrew Cuomo, the Governor at the time, and a virulent hater of the Second Amendment intended to do all in his power to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court from reviewing a case that could very expand the right of all law-abiding civilian citizens in New York to carry a concealed handgun in the public realm for self-defense, thus imperiling the century-old Sullivan Act at its core. Better, then, Cuomo realized, simply to redraft the State Gun Law and the Rules of the City of New York, to allow a holder of a restricted premise license to carry a handgun outside the environs of the City, albeit, in a locked container, with ammunition separated from the firearm. This would still preclude the use of the handgun for self-defense in public if the need arose, and the Sullivan Act would remain intact. Cuomo and the other Anti-Second Amendment zealot power brokers don’t like to weaken their own gun laws, but they could do so here, as it wouldn’t have a disastrous impact on the core of the Gun Law—inhibiting the vast majority of law-abiding New Yorkers from lawfully relying on a firearm for self-defense.New York City changed its Rules and the State reconfigured the law to avoid a direct threat to the Sullivan Act. The last thing anti-Second Amendment forces want is a high Court opinion that strengthens the Second Amendment. The City’s gambit paid off. In a 6 to 3 vote, the Supreme Court held that, since the City changed the old rule, the case is moot, because Petitioners can now lawfully transport their handgun to a second home or shooting range outside the City. But can they really? What will New York City do in the future to restrict the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms? This will almost certainly embolden New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. And there is nothing to prevent the New York Government from countermanding the law once the High Court dismisses it. The Petitioners made these points and Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch concurred, but they were two votes shy of reviewing the case on the merits. So, for a time, at least, the Sullivan Act was spared direct confrontation. The reprieve for Anti-Second Amendment zealots, both in New York, and elsewhere, was short-lived. Everything changed with Bruen.

NYSRPA vs. BRUEN: DECISION ON THE MERITS UNAVOIDABLE

Unlike the NYC Gun Transport case, the constitutionality of armed self-defense outside the confines of one’s home was now squarely before the High Court. Reconfiguring New York law to avoid a showdown was out of the question. There was no way the Hochul Government could finesse the Gun Law to avoid a High Court review of the case on the merits. And with three certain votes in favor of striking down the Sullivan Act, and with both Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kavanaugh compelled to add a fourth and fifth vote, the High Court had a majority, necessary to defeat the Liberal wing of the Court. Chief Justice Roberts would look more the fool for siding with the liberal wing now, even if he likely wanted to. For to do so would be demonstrably inconsistent with his pro-Second Amendment votes in Heller and McDonald, and, as Chief Justice, he would prefer not to be situated with the losing side on any occasion, but certainly not on a case of this magnitude.And Kavanaugh would be compelled to side with the majority as he said as much in his concurring opinion in the NYC Gun Transport case. He made clear the Court would have ample opportunity to hear a Second Amendment case on the merits in the future, which he would support, and that day had come, even if he would prefer not to see it.Hochul and Albany were therefore on their own to devise a strategy to salvage the Sullivan Act. And, it would have to come after the fact once the case was decided on the merits. And since Bruen dealt squarely with State law, as it no longer had anything to do with New York City Rules, Mayor Adams would have done well to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t. Ever the lackey, under the thumb of Neo-Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists, and discerning that it would be best for him not to disappoint Kathy Hochul, he would do what was expected of him; and that meant concurring with whatever the Governor had in mind. His own Press Release reflected that. On the official NYC website, Adams echoed the sentiments of both Hochul and of the State Senate Majority Leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins. In so doing, Adams made clear and indisputable, if ever there were any doubt, that he vehemently disapproves of the civilian citizen's right to armed self-defense. He declared, “Put simply, this Supreme Court ruling will put New Yorkers at further risk of gun violence. We have been preparing for this decision and will continue to do everything possible to work with our federal, state, and local partners to protect our city. Those efforts will include a comprehensive review of our approach to defining ‘sensitive locations’ where carrying a gun is banned, and reviewing our application process to ensure that only those who are fully qualified can obtain a carry license. We will work together to mitigate the risks this decision will create once it is implemented, as we cannot allow New York to become the Wild West. One thing is certain: We will do whatever is in our power, using every resource available to ensure that the gains we’ve seen during this administration are not undone, to make certain New Yorkers are not put in further danger of gun violence. This decision may have opened an additional river feeding the sea of gun violence, but we will do everything we can to dam it.” See also the article posted on the website, Reason, on November 10, 2021, a week after the Oral Argument in Bruen.“Before he was elected mayor of New York City . . . , Eric Adams raised some eyebrows by saying he would carry a handgun to protect himself and any houses of worship he might visit. While those remarks were controversial, the real scandal is that ordinary New Yorkers cannot legally carry guns for self-defense—a privilege that Adams takes for granted as a former police officer.That double standard came into focus last week, when the Supreme Court considered a constitutional challenge to New York's carry permit law. Unlike the vast majority of states, which allow residents to carry guns in public if they meet a short list of objective criteria, New York gives local officials broad discretion to decide whether an applicant has ‘proper cause’ to exercise a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment.Former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, speaking on behalf of the law's opponents, emphasized that applicants cannot pass the state's amorphous test by expressing a general desire to protect themselves against criminal assault. ‘In order to exercise a constitutional right that New York is willing to concede extends outside the home,’ he noted, ‘you have to show that you have an atypical need to exercise the right that distinguishes you from the general community.’That situation, Clement said, ‘describes a privilege’ rather than ‘a constitutional right.’ Most of the justices seemed inclined to agree.”Six Justices did agree—two of them, Roberts and Kavanaugh, likely reluctantly—the flipside of what occurred a couple of years earlier, where it was 6 to 3 that voted against the NYSRPA and individual gun owners in the disastrous “Gun Transport” case.

A SCHEME IS HATCHED!

Hochul and the Democrats in Albany, with their band of attorneys, conceived and executed a plan to salvage the Sullivan Act, which meant, by logical implication, sabotaging the Bruen holdings, albeit without appearing overtly that they were doing just that. Hochul and the other conspirators in her Government had ample time to plot a way around Bruen, notwithstanding the clarity and conciseness of the case, delivered in the first sentence of the Opinion. Obviously, someone alerted Hochul as to what to expect. Could it have been the same law clerk who had presumptuously and illegally released an early copy of the Dobbs decision to the Press? In aPress Release, dated May 3, 2022, printed in full by the Washington Examiner, the Chief Justice said he has “directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.” Did the Chief Justice find the leaker? If so, he hasn’t reported it, which belies the sense of importance that he says he had placed upon it. See the article in the Federalist concerning it:“More than 100 days have passed since the infamous leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s majority draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and Americans are still no closer to finding out the identity of the leaker than the day the draft decision was published.”Deception and contrivance and false reporting and hiding findings seem to be the modus operandi of this Federal Government.But, concerning the Second Amendment—the importance the founders of the Republic, the framers of the Constitution, had placed on it is a matter always front in center. It is a matter as important to a tyrant who is as wary of the armed citizenry as the armed citizenry is wary of the tyrant. The matter of firearms is not a topic easily dismissed or swept under the rug. Tangible weapons in the hands of criminals and in the hands of a tyrant’s standing army—that may be used or have been used, or continue to be used, or will be used against the people—require arms in the hands of the people to counter the threat.Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party controlling majority in Albany see the law-abiding citizenry as a greater threat to themselves than the criminal element that is tearing down the community they are sworn to protect but do not. It is their design then, through their policies, to destroy society, just as on a National level it is the aim of the Democrat Party-controlled Congress and the Biden Administration to do the same to the Country. The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court places a damper on both. It impacts New York immediately and directly, but it has a ripple effect across the Nation. Hochul and Albany meant to throw a wrench into the Bruen rulings.The scheme wasn’t perfect, and it really fooled no one—certainly not anyone who spends sufficient time to pour over the elaborate contrivance. But, it was the best they could muster, given the clear exposition of Bruen.Associate Justice Thomas, writing for the Court majority, opined:“In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010), we recognized that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right of an ordinary, law-abiding citizen to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense. In this case, petitioners and respondents agree that ordinary, law-abiding citizens have a similar right to carry handguns publicly for their self-defense. We too agree, and now hold, consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”The holding was concise, unambiguous, and categorical. But would it suffice to prevent a New York Government, that had a long tradition of constraining the natural law right of armed self-defense, from devising an end run around the holding, while ostensibly complying with the dictates of it? Apparently, in anticipation of just that possibility—and with Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett in agreement, and with two others, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the Chief Justice, John Roberts, in tow, if only reluctantly—Justice Thomas set forth an additional holding in the second paragraph of the opinion. He wrote, in pertinent part:“The parties nevertheless dispute whether New York’s licensing regime respects the constitutional right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense. . . . Because the State of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.”It would seem clear enough at least to a casual observer that the U.S. Supreme Court had covered two critical bases—seemingly sufficient to forestall Kathy Hochul and her compatriots in Albany from circumventing Bruen.Boiled down to its essence the Court’s first two holdings set forth in the first two paragraphs of the Opinion, established the following:

• The right of a law-abiding citizen to possess a handgun for self-defense exists beyond the confines of one’s home as well as in it; and
• New York’s Gun Law, requiring a person to justify a special need to carry a handgun for armed self-defense outside the home, is unconstitutional.

The implication of the first holding is that the right of armed self-defense, unconstrained by place, time, or circumstance, follows from the plain meaning of the Second Amendment for there is nothing in the language of the Second Amendment to suggest an American’s right of armed self-defense is limited.The implication of the second holding is that a showing of special need to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home is inconsistent with the natural law right of armed self-defense. A claim of simple self-defense is sufficient and that simple claim need not be stated, for it is logically implied in the language of the Second Amendment. To require one to assert self-defense to justify the issuance of a concealed handgun carry license would be redundant.Did Justice Thomas, et. al., adequately cover their bases? Apparently, they didn’t realize just how cunning Hochul and  Albany could be, and how advanced notice of the decision gave her Government ample time to defuse the import of the holdings.Even with the Court’s acute legal minds and an unshakeable desire and resolve to preserve the citizen’s natural law right of armed self-defense—a right both fundamental and immutable, unalienable and eternal—Justices Thomas and Alito, in particular, might not have foreseen the lengths to which Kathy Hochul’s Government was prepared to go to protect a 100 plus old Gun Law, the Sullivan Act of 1911, and the diabolical cleverness of the Government’s scheme to override Bruen even as her Government created the illusion of complying with it, by striking the phrase, “proper cause” from the Sullivan Act. She could work around that and has done so. The “Good Moral Character,” of little importance given the “proper cause” requirement, has been re-engineered to function much like the “proper cause” requirement.Thus, it may well be that Justices Thomas and Alito did know or did suspect that New York would disobey the rulings of the Third Branch of Government. For, did they not have firsthand knowledge of how lower State and Federal Courts, including those of New York had hitherto disobeyed the clear rulings of Heller and McDonald?That Bruen was needed at all to rectify the matter of prolific disobedience to Heller and McDonald serves as proof of the tenacity of Anti-Second Amendment State Governments as well as the tenacity of the Biden Administration and the Democrat-Party Controlled Congress, at the Federal level, to arrogantly dismiss the U.S. Constitution out-of-hand, even as it pretends to cohere to it, with its ludicrous claims of adhering to the Rule of Law and of claiming it is a steadfast defender of Democracy.It is interesting to behold that Democrats like to throw out terminology without ever bothering to define what they mean by it as if expressions like the ‘Rule of Law’ and ‘Democracy’ are self-explanatory. They aren’t. But, by referring to these phrases, ad nauseum, and positing undying faith and passion in them, Democrats presume the American public will take them at their word, reflexively, like a sneeze or cough, as if they care deeply about the well-being of the Nation and the American people. They don’t. And that is exemplified by policies systematically designed to wreck the economy, demoralize the citizenry, weaken the Nation militarily and geopolitically, dismantle our institutions, and shatter the cohesiveness and stability of society. Nothing better exemplifies the danger wrought by the Destructors of our Nation and its Constitution, who pretend to be Defenders of both, than the inexorable disintegration of our Nation’s Bill of Rights, especially that of the Second Amendment.Consider——The Heller case of 2008 reaffirmed what all rational minds know: the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia. That the prefatory “militia clause” might mean the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a collective right flies in the face of the very purpose of the Bill of Rights. Apart from the dictates of the Tenth Amendment, referencing the doctrine of federalism underlying the relationship of the Federal Government to the States, the first Nine Amendments of the Bill of Rights codify the natural law rights of the individual and the Second Amendment is no exception.The militia clause—a dependent clause under the rules of English grammar—is not a thing that can, or does, stand-alone, for dependent clauses are not complete sentences: they don’t convey a complete thought.* The late Justice Antonin Scalia, who penned the majority opinion in Heller, explained the prefatory, dependent clause, “a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State,” does not assert a limitation on the independent clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Rather, the prefatory clause provides a rationale for the independent clause that follows. Justice Scalia explained that the drafters of the Second Amendment knew that nothing less than a well-armed citizenry would serve as the best deterrent to tyranny emerging in the Federal Government. This was of great concern, especially to the Antifederalists, among the framers. They were justifiably wary of establishing a strong central government with its own standing army. Thus, an independent citizen army, unbeholden to a federal government, would have both the means and the frame of mind to deter tyranny if such should come to pass.Oddly, many academicians today ignore this or dismiss this. They argue that the Constitution’s framers could not have intended to create, in the Second Amendment, a mechanism through which the commonalty could overthrow their own Government. Therefore, any right to keep and bear arms had to be tied to a militia—but one that was constrained by the Federal Government itself. One academician says that the Federalists, among the framers of the Constitution—those who supported a strong centralized Government and a strong standing arming—intended for armed citizens, as part of a militia, to function under federal control. Can that be true? They write,“In the eyes of the Federalists, the past had proven that the militia, to be effective, had to be federalized. The discipline of militia members, in particular, was of paramount concern.  Federal authority over the militia would also create uniformity in arms and training. But of the two means of military power recognized by the document, a standing army and a militia, both were put under federal control.” Of course, today, militias as such, are under firm State and/or Federal control. These militias have transformed into ‘national guards.’” “The Inconvenient Militia Clause Of The Second Amendment: Why The Supreme Court Declines To Resolve The Debate Over The Right To Bear Arms,” 16 St. John's J.L. Comm. 41(Winter, 2002), by Robert Hardaway, Professor of Law at the University of Denver College of Law; and Elizabeth Gormley and Bryan Taylor, graduates of University College of Law 2001The writers go on to say, in support of the idea the Second Amendment must, on logical as well as legal grounds, only be construed as conferring a collective right to keep and bear arms:“One of the most commonly made arguments by the broad individual rights advocates is that the Second Amendment embodies some sort of right of insurrection. This is a difficult argument to sustain given the numerous, and sometimes explicit, provisions against insurrection in the Constitution. Perhaps the most obvious constitutional prohibition against insurrection is the treason clause which forbids making war against the United States. Armed insurrection obviously is making war on the United States. Therefore, far from embodying a right of insurrection, the Constitution explicitly criminalizes the act. Further, the militia clauses themselves deny any right of insurrection. One of the constitutional functions of the militia is to suppress insurrection. It strains credulity to believe that the same institution would be empowered with the right to engage in insurrection and the duty to suppress them. As one writer expresses, the Constitution cannot view the militia both as a means by which government can suppress insurrection and as an instrument for insurrection against the government. It must be one or the other. ‘The Militia Clauses make clear which one it is.’ Lastly, the militia was intended to implement the guarantee clause. This provision reflects Madison's desire to expressly guarantee the ‘tranquility of the states against internal as well as external dangers.’ The primary concern underlying the provision was to secure the ability to put down insurrections such as Shay's Rebellion. Taken together, these clauses ‘make it overwhelmingly clear that the Constitution was framed to forbid, prevent, and punish insurrection against its own laws - as, indeed, any constitution that claims legitimate authority must do.’ To assert a constitutional right of insurrection is fundamentally illogical. The Constitution could not embrace the means of its own destruction. As Lincoln said in his first inaugural address, ‘it is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination . . . it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.’ The right of insurrection inheres intrinsically in all people, regardless of the government under which they live; it does not derive its sanction from a disputed interpretation of an amendment with an altogether different purpose.’” Id.It might be noted that the afore referenced law review article came out seven years before the Heller decision. AQ mentions this not to suggest that, perhaps, the writers would admit they were wrong in their thesis. Rather AQ mentions this because the writers would likely maintain they are correct and it's the U.S. Supreme Court authors of the majority opinion who are wrong. The entire thesis begins with the assumption that the antecedent dependent militia clause controls the import of the following independent clause and serves as a defining limitation of the right of that clause, i.e., that the people to keep and bear arms operates only as long as one serves in a State militia; and, as the notion of a 'state militia' has essentially been superseded by 'state national guard units.' The writers say, in that regard: “Of course, today, militias as such, are under firm State and/or Federal control. These militias have transformed into ‘national guards.’” The import of these assertions is not to be taken lightly. For, the writers allude to the idea that, since militias don't exist any longer, at least as they like to understand the meaning of the term, 'militia,' the Second Amendment is essentially nugatory, which means that it serves no function and, so, should be repealed. This is also the thesis of retired Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, and that of Justice Steven Breyer as well, although Breyer did well to refrain from mentioning that position in his dissenting opinion in Bruen. But there is more at stake here. The argument made has disturbing implications impacting the relationship between the American people and the Federal Government. The writers of the afore referenced article claim that the framers of the U.S. Constitution could not and would not under any circumstance conceive of a situation where the citizenry would have the right and obligation to dismantle the Federal Government.The argument made begs the salient question, of whether “insurrection” qua revolt or rebellion against tyranny is not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when penning the Second Amendment. After all, didn’t these men once take up arms against a Tyrant, the British Empire? The writers of the above article would rather not deal with the implications of their own thesis and the attendant, and very serious consequences of that thesis. They merely dismiss out of hand that there could exist any moral, and legal, justification for the American people taking it upon themselves to dismantle an unjust Federal Government, i.e., a tyrannical Government, and bringing the servants of that tyranny to justice. These writers, so careful in positing an argument against what they refer to as insurrection, slither around how it is, or whether, the American people could rightly, legally, dismantle a Government that no longer serves the interests of the American people, and, in fact, operates contrary to the interests of the American people. But, let us here take a closer look at that thesis and consider the legal and logical consequences of it. We begin by asking——  Would the founders of our Republic be so naïve as to believe that the “Federal Government” they were devising could not itself—even with their best efforts to constrain a powerful, centralized Government—one day devolve into tyranny? And, if so, would not the American people have a right and obligation, then, to take up arms against that tyranny just as they had once taken up arms against tyranny? The Federalists, among the framers of the U.S. Constitution, who supported a strong centralized Government, would certainly be well aware of the threat to life, and liberty, and well-being of the American people, as were the Antifederalists who emphasized their concern and who emphatically demanded inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution to prevent such an event occurring. And the Federalists relented realizing the obvious truth. The Antifederalists would not leave it as a matter of faith that Government servants would adhere to the express limitations on the exercise of Governmental power set forth in the Articles of the Constitution.It hardly takes much imagination to recognize that the founders of our Republic and framers of our Constitution would be appalled, indeed horrified, to observe the powers that Government now wields—powers that go well beyond the strictures permitted by the Constitution, and this Federal Government doesn't deny it; in fact, perfunctorily acknowledges it and operates with abandon. And our Government is well on the road to tyranny if it hasn't already swung over into it.So, yes, the founders of the Republic did recognize and would agree that the American people would have a right to revolt against a tyrant. To argue otherwise is to infer that the people do not have a right to rebel against tyranny. The writers of the afore referenced law review article must have known the logical implications of their argument but felt it better not to acknowledge the flaw in their reasoning. It is one that Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito made clear in Heller:Of course, Americans have the moral and the legal right—a sacred right and duty—to rebel against tyranny.But then, if the American people have both a right and a duty to revolt against tyranny, is that not to say that a Government that turns against its own people, has committed unforgivable violence against its people—a cardinal transgression against the Divine Creator as well. For tyranny of Government manifests as oppression and subjugation of a people and that destroys the sanctity and inviolability of the Human Soul. And that, in turn, amounts to sin against the Creator.Such violence, therefore, amounts to treason against the people. Is not the crime of high treason a two-way street, then? If Americans who rebel against a just and fair Government are justifiably, rightly to be roundly condemned and deemed traitors, and if they are to suffer the consequences merited for their egregious crime, is it not also so that an unjust Government that betrays its people should not be similarly deemed traitor against the people, and rightly rebuked for it? And would not that just rebuke include the dismantling of that Government and trial and punishment of those servants of the people who have—through their treachery and licentious betrayal of Oath to Country, and to Constitution, and to People—brought the Nation to ruin, and brought Constitution and people to harm? And ought not those disloyal servants suffer severely for their crimes, lest to forgo punishment serve to condone it. And if a Government is not to be considered a traitor to its own people, is that not to say the people are less to be regarded than the Government? But, in our Nation, it is the people who are Sovereign over Nation and Government and it is not the case that Government is Sovereign over Nation and people. If so, and if one remark that high treason is to be regarded as a crime against the sovereign, then wherefore is the argument to be made that no action of the Federal Government toward its people shall work as treason against them? What then is to be made of the assertion that the American people are sole Sovereign over the Government of the United States and that Government owes its existence and continued presence only by the will and consent of the Governed—the people who had created that Government to serve them. How is it that the servant, owing its existence and its duty to the people—the one true Sovereign—should entertain for itself that the people serve Government and the Government can do with the people as it pleases, even to oppress and subjugate them. Of what use is an electoral process at that point? To whom is it that the people can turn to as their elected representatives when those representatives are all of the same cloth—united against the people? Of what greater urgency and need exists then for armed revolt?Is not the tyranny of Government against its people, treachery of Government toward its people? If so, is not ‘tyranny’ then but equivalent to the term ‘treachery of Government’ and should not the term ‘traitor’ not apply with equal and bold force to that Government, any less so than to a person who would revolt against a just Government? Is not a “tyrant” but a “traitor’ to the people—certainly a people whom the founders pointedly ascribe the term “Sovereign” to, whom they could not and did not ascribe that term to when speaking of a tyrant who was Sovereign, namely, the King of England?Tyrants of course are the last sorts that would acknowledge that they are tyrants and would continue to deny that even as they are led to the gallows. Is it any wonder that tyrants such as those in the Biden Administration and in some State Governments would be oblivious to their own acts of treason against the people? Is it not curious that the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, would proclaim that Americans who belong to “militias”—bands of armed citizens who are not connected with the “national guard”—are the greatest threat to the Nation? But is it not they, some of these servants of the people, rather than we, the People, who are the greater and graver threat to the Nation—to the Security of a free State?As can be seen through dissenting opinions in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, these Justices do not recognize the right of the people, as individuals, to keep and bear arms. Given the opportunity, these three cases would be overturned, marking the quickest reversal of U.S. Supreme Court thought in American jurisprudential history.At the State level, too, people like Kathy Hochul and those in control of the State Senate and Assembly in Albany, view the armed citizen as a graver threat to the State than common criminals and even well-armed and well-funded international criminal cartels. Strange that, but true nonetheless. Otherwise, her Government would have taken measures to bring these psychopaths and lunatics to justice. They don't! Ant that is telling. Thus, it is no surprise to see Hochul and Albany caustically attacking the High Court, with affected pieties, and insincere demonstrations of acquiescence to the Supreme Court's rulings. Who, indeed, has dangerous impulses here?Is it so beyond the pale for Americans to demand their right to armed self-defense against predatory creature, predatory man, and predatory Government? The High Court rightly admonishes Government actors who do not abide by the Constitution. The Court rightly ruled against the New York Government.Here, in New York, we see a Governor who claims by the power she exerts—as did her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo—justification to exert that power, as she pleases. It is all circular reasoning, albeit with real-world, not mere academic consequences. Hochul fails to recognize that she is expected to serve the interests of the people of New York, consistent with the State and Federal Constitutions. Affected pieties don't serve as an adequate substitution for serving the interests of the people of the State.Kathy Hochul’s Government, like several others, ignored Heller. And they were prepared to ignore McDonald too, until the High Court made clear that the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms applies to the States, no less so than to the Federal Government, through the application of the Fourteenth Amendment. In New York, it is the Hochul Administration and the controlling Democrat Party Legislature in Albany that is acting the part of an unfettered out-of-control Tyrant.With the attitude of a tyrant—the Hochul Government and Legislature—behave with customary indignation at any authority that would dare dictate to them. But, the U.S. Supreme Court has done just that, dictating to the New York Government, that its Gun Law is inconsistent with the import of the Second Amendment, having found Petitioner’s case to have merit. Hochul and Albany aren't concerned about armed civilian citizens per se. Rather, they are concerned about what that armed self-defense represents: a threat to the Government itself. The New York Government has long abided lawlessness in New York, such coming from the criminal element. That lawlessness the Government will tolerate, perhaps even encourage. That criminal element poses no tenable threat to the Government. It is something the Government understands for that Government, too, like the omnipresent and ferocious and voracious criminal element, has become a law unto itself, unbeholden to New York's own Constitution and to its laws and to the Constitution and Laws of the United States Government. It has become lawless. A Government that refuses to recognize that it is the people whom it exists to serve, and not the other way around is a danger to the people and must be taken to task. The U.S. Supreme Court has done so. And New York isn't alone in its distrust of and its disdain for the common people.Somewhere in the last 250 years of our Nation’s existence, Governments at all levels forgot the fact of and the meaning of the American Revolution.Government tyranny has become the very thing the people must fight against. The Federal Government and many of the State Governments do not represent the will of the people, and care not at all for their needs; not anymore. These Governments, ironically, defer to the foreign dictators whom our Founders fought a successful war against. Back then, it was the mighty British Empire funded by the fabulously wealthy Rothschild financial clan. Today, it is much the same threat, albeit now restructured, reconstituted, as one even more powerful: the European Union and various supra-national constructs like the United Nations whom we are told do not wield any authority, but only advice. How is it then that the Biden Administration adheres to the pacts and tracts and treaties emanating from the United Nations that our Nation never signed, nor even discussed?The money behind these monstrous global entities belongs now, as in the past, to the powerful Rothschild family. The Rothschild clan and other mega-billionaires are working together to complete a transnational neo-feudalistic empire spanning the world, to replace all present western nation-states. The world of the 21st Century is shapingThe Rothschild family and its minions have extended their reach—through the vehicle of the central banking system—throughout the world. A world comprising two powers: a western neo-feudal empire and CCP China. A strong, vigorous, independent sovereign United States doesn't factor in that equation. It is in the process of disassembling.New York is its own little fiefdom—a Baron that owes allegiance to a Lord that doesn’t even reside in our Country.The purpose of  New York’s Gun Law, the Sullivan Act, was designed then as now, to constrain, and—as can be seen through further attempts by the Government, through time, to constrict and restrict the right of the law-abiding civilian citizens of New York to keep and bear arms ever further—eventually to curtail the exercise of the right, altogether. In her Press Release, upon official publication of the Bruen case decision, Governor Hochul made clear a passion to constrain the inherent right of armed self-defense, regardless of the rulings of the High Court. In both her tone and in the content of her messaging, Hochul conveyed a contemptuous attitude toward the High Court and made no attempt to disguise her contempt of the Court. Likely she is taking her talking points from others who pay for her campaign, and those who formulate her policies. She is essentially a messenger, and she is paid handsomely for doing the work of her benefactors, just as Biden takes his share of wealth from a shadowy network of benefactors. He has no compunction against selling out the Country. He has had plenty of decades of practice; nor does he mind mouthing platitudes, if he understands at all what it is he is asked to recite. So he informs the public that all is well and that he means well and everything will be just fine. He doesn't believe that he is capable of coherent thought any longer anyway. And the propagandists that feed him and his Administrators their lines, don't sound convincing, and it is not necessary that they do sound convincing to the public. The Federal Government is long past caring what the polity thinks anyway. It is only necessary that they obey. Meanwhile, the Country goes to Hell in a Handbasket.Further litigation and armed revolt are to be avoided. New York has an opportunity, through the electoral process, to throw out the petty tyrants, and vote into office people who respect the Constitution and the fundamental natural law rights of man. A vote for Lee Zeldin for Governor of New York is the most obvious way and the easiest way to turn the State back to its historical roots. So many people in New York and throughout the Country have been so conditioned to deny the truth before their eyes that they continue to reflexively vote into Office the same tyrants who do nothing to promote the well-being of the people and society. The Country was well on its way to recovering its security under Trump: economically, geopolitically, militarily, and societally. But the airwaves are now filled with negativity and our own tax dollars are being used against us. Americans must wake up to the truth and confront the lies and liars head-on. It just takes a little common sense and a leap of faith.It is far easier and much less time-consuming and expensive to prevent a petty tyrant from serving in Office in the first place than it is to attempt to remove a tyrant after the fact. California provides several textbook examples of what is to be avoided. New York should learn from this. How much more damage can New Yorkers be expected to take? How is it that so many people have taken leave of their senses—always believing that a better, safer, New York is just around the corner even as the truth illustrates something else entirely? And the not picture isn't an attractive one. And it won't become any more attractive if people keep electing the wrong people to Office. At some point, even the electoral process may well be denied to the citizenry. New Yorkers already have a good taste of Kathy Hochul and her brand of politics and politicking. It is no different than that of Andrew Cuomo. She shares the same set of beliefs; she conveys the same messaging, and she is backed by the same Globalist money. It isn't the average New Yorker that informs her policies and decisions. On crime, the right to armed self-defense, on abortion, Hochul packages her policies as candy; telling the voting public what she thinks the public would like to hear, but not what the public needs to hear. Between Kathy Hochul and Lee Zeldin, there is a world of difference. Each New York resident should ask: which world would he or she prefer to live in? ___________________________________ *Every child learns this, or, at one time, had learned this. That was before the lunatics took control of public education and proclaimed the dogmas of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” “Critical Race Theory,” and “Transgender Doctrine,” more important to the structural formation of young minds than developing a child’s own critical thinking processes, by teaching the core traditional subjects, like “reading, writing, and arithmetic,” and those subjects that instill in our youth a love of and an appreciation for our history, heritage, and ethical system of justice through which our Nation can continue to survive and thrive: a free Constitutional Republic.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

TYRANNY, FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS, AND THE ARMED CITIZEN

ARMED SELF-DEFENSE AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT

PART ONE

Is armed self-defense a basic human right? That is the crux of an ongoing debate for many people in the United States. It shouldn’t be but it is.The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution makes clear that armed self-defense is a fundamental human right. If anyone harbors doubt about that, the United States Supreme Court settled the question in 2008, in the seminal Second Amendment case, Heller vs. District of Columbia.The late eminent Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, opined “the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right.”This means armed self-defense is not to be perceived as a thing apart from the broader notion of self-defense, but, rather, is subsumed in it. The sole issue in Heller was “whether a District of Columbia prohibition on the possession of usable handguns in the home violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution.”In ruling that an outright ban on the use of a handgun for self-defense in one’s home does violate the core of the Second Amendment right, the majority also held that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia. This ruling is consistent with and is implied in the Court’s ruling on the salient issue.Moreover, the High Court made patently clear that Government didn’t create the right of armed self-defense but simply codified it, for the right of armed self-defense exists intrinsically in one’s being.The Court said,“Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment like the First and Fourth Amendments codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed.’”The recent Kyle Rittenhouse case is a textbook study of the utility of a firearm in effective defense of self against aggressive predatory attack.But this idea doesn’t sit well with Anti-Second Amendment proponents:“Gun rights are not human rights.”So says “democracy and human rights advocate,” Rukmani Bhatia who had served in the Obama Administration.Her assertion is posited not as a thesis to be proved but as an assumption to be accepted as self-evident, true, notwithstanding the plain meaning of the Second Amendment and the High Court’s rulings in Heller.No matter——Bhatia makes the assertion in a “Report” published by the George Soros funding Marxist think tank, “Center for American Progress,” on August 12, 2020.The Report is titled, “Untangling the Gun Lobby’s Web of Self-Defense and Human Rights,” and is subtitled, “Peddling False Rights, Profiting Off Fear.” Bhatia writes, in pertinent part,“Today, alongside this rights-based narrative, a parallel narrative exists that is perpetuated by the U.S. gun industry as part of a multifaceted effort to increase gun sales. This so-called gun-rights narrative manipulates the ideals of human rights to establish not only an inalienable right to life but also an unfettered right to armed self-defense to protect oneself from any perceived threat of harm. This narrative hinges on fear and the need to defend oneself and loved ones from unknown but ever-present threats through whatever means necessary and without regard to the rights of others. It is grounded by the false claim that the most effective means of self-preservation involves using a firearm.”From her remarks, dubious and outlandish as they are, one detects a note of irritation and frustration, borne of a deep-seated ethical or aesthetic abhorrence of guns and of the citizen’s right to keep and bear them. But there is more to be gleaned from this account.The Marxist antagonism directed to armed self-defense, as reflected in Bhatia’s “Report,” hides a sinister agenda.It is an agenda at loggerheads with the sanctity and inviolability of personal selfhood and one inconsistent with the preservation of the United States as a free Constitutional Republic.Grounded on the tenets and precepts of Collectivism (See e.g., Arbalest Quarrel article on the differences between Collectivism and Individualism), the Marxist intends to thrust their vision of reality on the entire Nation. Most Americans find that vision disagreeable if not thoroughly reprehensible and repugnant.The Marxist isn't unaware of this and resorts to artifice and chicanery to seduce the polity. The Marxist relies on the legacy Press and social media to assist in making it palatable to the public policy goals designed to transform a free Republic into a Marxist Dictatorship.Marxists mask their disdain for the dignity of man by disingenuously claiming to venerate it.At the outset of her Center for American Progress Report, Bhatia cites Article 1 of “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (“UDHR”) a document crafted by the United Nations, where, citing Article 1 of the UDHR and then expanding on the sentiments of it, Bhatia writes,“Every human life has inherent value and dignity, and every person has the right to life, liberty, and personal security. These truths are codified in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR was historic, with nations coming together to explicitly recognize the need to protect and preserve these fundamental rights, structuring constitutions to explicitly defend their citizens’ human rights, and particularly their rights to life, freedom, and security. The protection of human rights continues to be a defining pillar to secure a stable, peaceful liberal world order. But in the United States, some groups—such as the gun lobby—are seizing upon this rights-based narrative to justify, dangerously, the right to bear, carry, and use firearms.”The United Nations says this about the development of the UDHR:“Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and. . . is widely recognized as having inspired, and paved the way for, the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties, applied today on a permanent basis at global and regional levels. . . .” Extolling the sentiments of the UDHR, as Rukmani Bhatia does in her Center for Progress Report, is all well and good. But how is one expected to effectively confront an aggressive, vicious attack that emanates from the predatory beast, predatory man, or the tyrannical, predatory Government if not through armed self-defense? The Marxist, Bhatia, doesn’t say, which begs the very question at issue in her Report. Is Bhatia not aware of this? Perhaps, she is aware of this but consciously chooses to slither around it, hoping no one perceives the gaping hole that she has left open in her Report.In an attempt to avoid dealing with the question, head-on, Marxists, like Bhatia, simply take the easy way out. They deny the essence of the problem, claiming, as Bhatia does, and as she argues, that the threat of harm isn’t real, was never real, but is and always was grounded in an unwarranted fear of harm.But the threat is real, and the fear isn’t unwarranted, and Americans are witnessing all of it. And it is painfully evident through the inaction and empty posturing of effete and impotent Federal and State Governments to the harm generated.Either the Marxist-controlled Federal Government and similar Marxist-controlled State and local Governments are simply inept and incompetent and, so, wholly unable to deal with the harm, or they welcome, even encourage, the attendant harms to the citizen and society alike. Likely it is a combination of both.The framers of the United States Constitution had the answer to the threat of harm caused by predatory beast, predatory man, or predatory Government, an unwelcome one for these Marxists, to be sure, as they aim to break apart American society and culture so that they can rebuild society in accordance with the strictures of Marxism.The answer rests in the Nation’s Bill of Rights (BOR), specifically in the citizen's exercise of his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. This, more than anything else, is the answer to the bedlam and mayhem wrought by those that seek the Country’s undoing. Small wonder, then, that these Marxists desire to destroy the Right._______________________________________________

THE UNITED NATIONS IGNORES ARMED SELF-DEFENSE AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT; THE UNITED STATES EMBRACES IT

PART TWO

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations crafted a document, titled “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The document is a litany of 30 Rights (“Articles”) that ostensibly proclaims the dignity of the human being and his right to life, liberty, and security.The Preamble of the United Nations’ UDHR sets forth: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,Now, therefore,The General Assembly,Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.” These are all noble sentiments, as articulated, of course. But there is a major problem the UDHR fails to address: How is a human being supposed to secure these lofty ideals for him or herself? The drafters of the United Nations’ UDHR fail to say.In the litany of over two dozen fundamental rights set forth in the UDHR’s “Articles,” there is no mention whatsoever of a right of armed self-defense. In fact, there is no mention in the UDHR of a right of self-defense, armed or otherwise.By failing to acknowledge self-defense, and its corollary armed self-defense, as basic human rights, the United Nations’ UDHR undercuts “the inherent dignity and . . . equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” that it claims pompously to venerate.The UDHR is intentionally deceptive; a ploy of international Marxism and Neoliberal Globalism. It is designed to seduce nations into forsaking their independence and sovereignty, reducing both nation and population to misery and servitude, all the while claiming to promote the “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” But note: even in this seemingly clear, unambiguous exposition, there is a sinister uncurrent. The UDHR speaks of purported inalienable rights to be enjoyed by the human family in a group capacity, that is to say, as a collective. There is no suggestion, no intimation these rights are to be enjoyed by human beings in an individual capacity. 

WHERE ARMED SELF-DEFENSE IS ABSENT, TYRANNY OF GOVERNMENT IS UNAVOIDABLE

The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”)  mentions, in its Preamble, that “it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”The American public hears much about the importance of  “the Rule of Law” from Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists. The EU also makes much use of this phrase, as does the UN in reference to human rights as noted supra.Supposedly Government’s application of “the Rule of Law” operates as a hedge against encroaching tyranny. But does it? Vainglorious are those who make constant reference to it—U.S. politicians in particular. But, what does ‘rule of law’ really mean? The appeal to it is subterfuge, dissembly.In the absence of a useful definition, the expression, ‘Rule of Law’ is vacuous. And, that is just the way politicians want to keep it. Don’t ask them to define the expression. They have no idea what it means and would be thunderstruck if anyone were to ask them to provide a definition. A declaration of human rights that avails itself of the words “Rule of Law” as the primary or sole check against the tyranny of Government is devoid of substance.The UN’s UDHR is deceptive. The claim of sanctifying human rights is belied by the emptiness of the gesture. How are human rights to be actualized or, if need be, how are they to be vindicated? In the “Rule of Law?” Really? How is one to understand this “Rule of Law?” And, from whom is one to receive “Rule of Law” relief from tyranny? From that very Government that imposes tyranny on the populace?Yet, the United Nation’s UDHR relies on the ‘Rule of Law’ as the check on tyranny. That is all one obtains from the UDHR; that is all the UN delivers to “the human family” that it claims to care so deeply about.The United States’ BOR, unlike the UDHR, doesn't expect the citizen to place his reliance on arcane nomenclature to provide a check on the tyranny of Government. A check on the tyranny of Government rests in the physicality of the armed citizenry, not on empty pompous verbiage.The framers of the Constitution wouldn’t waste ink on ‘Rule of Law’ when preparing the Bill of Rights. The framers of the BOR did not expect the ‘Rule of Law’ to protect them from the tyranny of George III of England. They placed their faith in the force of arms, not in arcane, abstruse concepts to release them from tyranny. And they would place the future security of a free Republic in nothing less than dint of arms.The only functional check against the tyranny of Government is the physicality of “armed self-defense.” Armed self-defense is what worries, even terrifies, the Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist, and with good reason. For the aim of these internationalists is to create a top-down autocratic Government, that is to say, “Tyranny.” But Tyranny is not able to gain a foothold in a nation where the citizenry is armed.The Tyrant fears Tyrannicide at the hands of the armed Citizenry and, so, demands that the Citizenry surrender its arms to the Tyrant. The Citizenry fears Democide at the hands of the Tyrant's agents, and, so, refuses to surrender its arms to the Tyrant.The United States, as a free Republic, must never forsake the sacred right embodied in the Second Amendment. To do so would be tantamount to the destruction of the Republic and enslavement of the populace.The American people must never for one moment trust the Government or its propagandists who proclaim that for the public harmony, safety, and order it is in the best interests of the polity to surrender its firearms. The day the citizen does so will be the day the citizen should be prepared to sacrifice his autonomy, his dignity, his soul, and his life.___________________________________________

THE CITIZEN MUST BE EVER ON GUARD OF GOVERNMENT THAT PROMISES HARMONY, SAFETY, AND TRANQUILITY IF HE BUT SURRENDER ALL ARMS TO THE STATE

PART THREE

Unlike the United Nations that doesn’t mention a natural right of armed self-defense in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), our Nation embraces it.The States ratified the Nation’s Bill of Rights (BOR) on December 15, 1791.The BOR predates the UDHR by over one hundred and fifty years even as the UN heralds its own UDHR as “a milestone.”  In codifying the right of armed self-defense in the BOR, the Framers of it at once proclaimed the sanctity of Personal Selfhood and provided a rationale for it: the need for the citizen to remain wary of the tyranny of Government.The Second Amendment provides both a stark warning to the Government and a categorical prohibition on Government apropos of it.The people need not and must not abide by the tyranny of Government, and Government is prohibited from tampering with this perfect fail-safe mechanism by which the American people may effectively resist the inception of tyranny.The language of the Second Amendment to thwart tyranny is self-executing. In fact, the clearest indication of the Government’s slide into tyranny is through the unlawful attempt to eradicate the American citizenry’s exercise of the right embodied in it.The only reason the Government would dare to take such action to eradicate the exercise of the right of armed self-defense would be to preclude the citizenry from exercising the means by which it is well capable of repelling the insinuation of tyranny on the citizenry.The danger of ever-present tyranny is manifest in the prefatory clause of the Second Amendment—pointing to “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State.” And the subsequent independent clause of the Second Amendment provides the ultimate fail-safe mechanism of which the citizen shall avail himself if Government devolves into tyranny: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”The framers of the Bill of Rights recognized that man cannot secure his life, safety, and well-being from the predatory beast, predatory man, or predatory government in the absence of an effective means to do so—as only a firearm provides.Superficially, the United Nations’ UDHR and the BOR may seem similar, as both documents point to and allude, in their language, to the higher aspirations and Rights of man.But, on the crucial matter of self-defense, the principal difference between the two is laid bare.The United Nations doesn’t presume or countenance individuals as having the wherewithal or even the right and responsibility to provide for the defense of Self.The United Nations only makes reference to ‘self-defense’ in its Charter, signed on June 26, 1945. And in its Charter, self-defense is referenced only in one of its Articles, and, then, only in relation to the rights of nations, not in respect to the populations of those nations.Article 51 of the UN Charter says,“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”Self-defense remains a prerogative and responsibility of the UN apropos of nations, whether in an individual or collective capacity. The UN does not recognize “Self-defense” as a right intrinsic to individual human beings, whether in an individual or in a collective capacity.Moreover, the rights promulgated in the UDHR, noble aspirations though they may appear to be, as articulated, are understood by their crafters, to be man-made constructs. Thus, they do not even operate in the UDHR as true fundamental rights. The suggestion is mere pretense. And that is another major failing with the UDHR. Fundamental Rights are Natural preexistent Rights—existing intrinsically in man. They aren’t creations of man.The “Articles” qua Rights, delineated in the UDHR, are considered mutable and limitable. They are not to be perceived as—and were never intended to be perceived as—independent of the dictates of the United Nations, but were, in their creation, considered subordinate to the UN's dictates.This is evident from a perusal of Clauses 2 and 3 of Article 29 of the UDHR:“In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.”“These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”Article 29 demonstrates the vacuity of the entire enterprise.Unlike the Rights codified in the U.S. Constitution’s BOR, the Rights delineated in the UDHR remain subordinate to the crafters of it, who retain ultimate and exclusive authority over it: to keep it, modify it, or erase it, as they wish.Yet, a declaration of purported human rights that cannot stand on its own, independent of the sanctioning authority that created it, is an edifice built on sand.The Bill of Rights, unlike the UDHR, is the genuine article, not a vacuous simulacrum of noble aspirations.The Nation’s Bill of Rights is to be understood as a codification of natural law rights, not man-made conventions. That point is significant.The framers took as axiomatic that natural law rights are fundamental, unalienable, immutable, and illimitable. As such, they are not lawfully subject to modification, abrogation, or abandonment by the Government; nor can Government perfunctorily dismiss them.The implication of this is clear: ultimate power, authority, and sovereignty rest solely in the American people, not in the Federal Government.Any attempt by the Government to limit, abrogate, or deny to the American people the unalienable exercise of their fundamental Rights amounts to an unlawful intrusion on and unlawful usurpation of power belonging solely to the American people, and an unlawful encroachment on the sovereignty of the people over Government.An assault by the Government on the sovereignty of the American people over Government constitutes Tyranny of Government. Tyranny of Government is Treachery of Government. And, Treachery of Government is Treason by Government directed against its own people.Armed self-defense is the best hedge against the most serious danger to a free man: the predatory, tyrannical Government. In dicta, the Heller majority acknowledged this, citing for support, The Federalist 29: “when able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist tyranny.”Since the Marxist vision of Government and the citizen’s relationship to it requires subordination of the will of the citizen to Government, Marxists abhor the very notion of the “armed citizen.”Not by accident, then, is there any mention of “self-defense,”—armed or otherwise—in the UDHR. A laundry list of Rights (“Articles”) never so much as alludes to one’s unalienable right of armed self-defense or even of a general right of self-defense.But, if a man isn’t allowed the exercise of the fundamental right of armed self-defense—if in fact, the very notion of self-defense is not to be perceived of as a basic human right—wherein, then, shall a man look to secure the “inherent value and dignity” of his life that the UN crafters of the UDHR talk so floridly about? In Government? In the new “liberal world order” qua “new world order” that Neo-Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists proclaim to be a good thing? Please!The American people must resist subtle and overt coercion by these Neo-Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists who urge them to forsake their elemental right of armed self-defense. To do so will imperil both their own lives and well-being and that of a free Constitutional Republic.______________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM IN AMERICA—PAVED WITH NOT-SO-GOOD INTENTIONS

WHEN DO AMERICANS BEGIN TO REALIZE THEIR COUNTRY NO LONGER BELONGS TO THEM?

PART FIVE

Take a moment to ponder a portion of President Donald Trump’s last State of the Union Address. Consider his most important remarks to the Nation, as reported on, and poignantly elucidated by Rebecca Walser of Fox News Business, on February 19, 2020, eleven months before the corrupt, senile store-window manikin, Joseph Biden, was sworn in as the 46^th President of the United States:“Who would have ever thought that any president of these United States of America would have to stand before Congress—and before the American people—and publicly declare that the United States is a free country, standing for liberty.In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Trump made an unequivocal pronouncement against the multiplying cries for socialism in America.‘Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country,’ the president said. ‘America was founded on liberty and independence—not government coercion, domination and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will NEVER be a socialist country.’ [Emphasis added.]Unsurprisingly, many on the Democratic side of the chamber did not stand in unison to agree, nor did they even clap. No, no, they have the wheels of the socialism freight train started now, and they will give not an inch to stop it in its tracks.Free lunch? Yes please, that sounds nice. Hmm, how about a free education with a side of free health care?  Why don’t we even throw in student loan forgiveness, free housing, a guaranteed job, or forget the job, and let’s just give – you guessed it – free universal basic income while we are at it.America’s unique origin in escaping an overbearing, oppressive and overly-taxing government is likely the reason we have historically supported more freedoms, including economic freedoms, than our European cousins. But that is undeniably changing now.The shifting political winds are reflective of an underlying new positive attitude toward socialism in America. A recent Reuters poll found that 70 percent of Americans support Medicare-for-all, which includes a majority of Republicans. (A new poll released by the Kaiser Family Foundation found support drops, however, when participants were told the plan could lead to higher taxes.) . . . .This is our failure America, in not holding our government accountable. They have been allowed for too long to fake it, to spend money that we do not have to pay for services we cannot afford on a sustainable basis.For the last three decades, we have spent significantly more than we have collected in tax revenues resulting in a federal debt of $22 trillion.This has been carried out for the last 30-plus years such that the American people have been lulled into believing that we can spend without end, without the pain of an European tax scheme (40 percent to more than 60-plus percent). So why shouldn’t we add Medicare-for-all, free college education and even UBI – universal basic income?But it is all an illusion. . . .Others say that you can just print more money, but inflating our way out of this economic hole is a non starter, since both Social Security and Medicare make inflation-adjusted payments. This means that if we try to inflate our way out, the costs of our biggest social programs just go up proportionally—solving nothing.Economic equality comes at the heavy price of freedom (yours). People logically act in their own self-interest even if it is to their long-term detriment, like a bug sucking its host dry. Most will take advantage of the government’s offer for "free" anything – thus the reason the road to America is packed while the road to Venezuela is empty.But let’s be clear – ‘free’ is not free to our country. The great Roman empire imploded and collapsed under the weight of their own debt and extreme taxation. Are we determined to go down that same road?Let us have renewed hope today that President Trump stands to say no.”Unfortunately, eleven months after this story and analysis broke, Trump is no longer President. The Neoliberal Globalist “elites” along with their sidekick, the Neo-Marxists, that together share achieving their common goal of a one-world, uniform Super-State governmental scheme, with the U.S. to be unceremoniously merged into it and consumed by it, made sure that Donald Trump would never serve a second term in Office, and, more to the point, would never be permitted to serve a second term in Office, which might also explain why powerful Neoliberal Globalists have continued to attack him and to attack over a third of the Nation that had voted for him in the 2020 General Election. And the prognostications of Rebecca Walser as laid out in her 2019 Fox Business Report, have eerily, and uncannily, and no less dishearteningly, come to fruition.The American people are disillusioned and disenchanted. And the U.S. is well on its way to becoming a Socialist Country, despite Trump’s remarks to the contrary.So, then, was Trump wrong in his assertion—at once a sacred promise to Americans and a pronouncement of defiance to the Neo-Marxists of all stripes among the Democrats—even as Pelosi in a choreographed fit of pique, rips up her copy of the President’s address, thereby demonstrating her utter contempt for the U.S. President, the Country, the American people, and the Constitution.No, Trump wasn’t wrong. Yet, there is an unintended, unplanned, unforeseen irony in Trump’s assertion “that America will never be a socialist Country,” insofar as the Country is headed in that direction under a Neoliberal Globalist and Marxist-Controlled Congress and a Neoliberal Globalist controlled Executive Branch. The U.S. is in fact turning inexorably, and possibly inevitably and irrevocably toward Socialism. But if that should happen, if that would befall our Country, then the COUNTRY WILL NO LONGER BE AMERICA, for our Country will no longer be a free Constitutional Republic, and so THE COUNTRY WILL CEASE TO BE.Indeed, the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists don’t even refer to our Nation as a free Constitutional Republic; never did. Back in 2018, Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, did say, of course, that:“We’re capitalists, and that’s just the way it is” which makes the Neoliberal Globalist “capitalist” monopolists happy to hear, who, for all that, eschew true competitive capitalism.But, has Pelosi ever been heard to reaffirm our Country as a “free Constitutional Republic?” In fact, has the infirm, corrupt, senile Joe Biden or the vacuous, opportunist Kamala Harris ever reaffirmed our Country as a “free Constitutional Republic? Has anyone in Biden’s Cabinet or Administration affirmed our Nation as a “free Constitutional Republic?”It stands to reason that the current crop of Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists in control of two Branches of Government have little if any regard for the Constitution. At best they give lip service to it, as they go about operating in the denigration of it. And no one in the legacy Press calls them to account for their abject failure to heed to the dictates of it. And we, Americans, are all the worse for it.________________________________________

HOW MANY AMERICANS APPREHEND THAT THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND?

PART SIX

It may be remarked—nay, must be proclaimed loudly, passionately, continuously as all too many Americans lose sight of the fact—that the Supreme Law of the Land is the U.S. Constitution. This isn’t mere supposition. It is fact.Neoliberal Globalist “elites” know this to be true, but they have no use for the Constitution as it intrudes upon their ability to consolidate economic power for themselves across the globe, at the expense of the economic well-being of the American people and at the expense of the well-being of the Country.And the sworn enemies of the U.S. Constitution and of a sovereign American people, America’s transnational Neo-Marxists, know this to be true as well because the U.S. Constitution is grounded on the tenets of Individualism, embracing the core notions of personal freedom and liberty—tenets and precepts and principles antithetical and anathema to those of Collectivism, upon which classic Marxism, and the spawn and shades of Marxism spring from. But they all come from one cloth, and they are all vehemently opposed to Individualism.For the tenets, precepts, and principles of Individualism, alone form the foundation of the U.S. Constitution, and they are inconsistent with and in clear contradistinction to those of Collectivism that insist on the subordination of the human will, soul, and spirit to and that demand obsequious devotion to and subservience of the individual to the State. That explains why the callous, caustic, fabulously wealthy Neoliberal Globalists and the idiosyncratic, cold-hearted Neo-Marxists are both of one mind in their stated objective to rid themselves of it.And so, with Trump out of the way, and as the Neoliberal Globalists and as America’s Neo-Marxists have brazenly, audaciously taken over the institutions of Government and of the Press and of much of society, they have begun in earnest to consolidate their power over the Nation and over the citizenry, in defiance of the plain import of the Constitution.And now they feel that the political and social and economic climate of the Country has changed to such an extent in their favor, that they feel no reticence in openly questioning the continued need for it. They have even gone further than that, questioning the very legality of it, and withal, cloaking their anathema to it and animosity for it, rebelling vociferously against it—the academia especially expounding through more and more rhetorical flourish and through sophistry, posing as a sound erudite argument, their naked abhorrence of it.See, e.g., the 2013 Article, in Harper’s Magazine, titled, “Constitution in Crisis;” and an article in The Atlantic, titled, “The U.S. Needs a New Constitution—Here’s How to Write It.” And, in a lengthy New York Times’ Op-Ed, the paper has tacked together several essays by various legal scholars who propose amending the Constitution’s Bill of Rights and Articles. A simple web search keying in the words, “do we need a constitution,” brings up a plethora of articles challenging the continued need for the U.S. Constitution—the blueprint of a free Republic that ceases to exist the moment the Constitution ceases to be.The reader should note that all or virtually all these articles arose in the most recent decade of the 21^st Century, and several of them within the last few weeks or months.But what explains this flurry of articles, and essays coming to the fore now? This cannot be accidental. Indeed, it isn’t.If the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists thought the Constitution was simply irrelevant, they likely would have given little thought to it, would simply ignore it, and in the actions of the Harris-Biden Administration, the American people have witnessed just that: the blatant failure of Biden to faithfully execute the laws of the United States as required of him, spurning his Presidential duty under the “take care clause” of Article 1, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. This failure goes beyond an arguable difference of opinion as to the President’s duty, or to incompetence of which Biden has more than an ample supply. It is much more than that.Biden’s actions amount to outright subversion and sedition. And the Neoliberal Globalists and International Neo-Marxists are perfectly content with this. They have expected it of Biden. More, they have demanded it of him. And, he has delivered, doing all that his handlers expect of him, even as he makes a fool of himself during the few times his handlers allow him, albeit reluctantly, to appear before the public, hewing to script—at least to the extent that a person suffering from dementia can.Perfunctorily dismissing Congressional enactments such as the Nation’s immigration law, in direct defiance of the Legislature’s Article 1 authority, see irli.org, and dismissing out-of-hand U.S. Supreme Court rulings on evictions, demonstrating his contempt of High Court Article 3 authority on questions of law, if he ever thought about it, to the extent he is capable of coherent thought at all. See article in christianaction.org and article in theweek.com. Biden has not only defied the authority of two other co-equal Branches of Government, he has also spurned his own duties under the “take care clause” of Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution.But there’s more to the Constitution than the Articles demarcating and limiting the authority and powers of the three co-equal Branches of the Federal Government, critical as those Articles are to the foundation of a free Constitutional Republic.Even as few give little thought to it, there is one set of laws that preside even over that of the Supreme Law of the Land, the U.S. Constitution. It is Law bestowed on man by the Divine Creator. It is the Law of Natural Rights, and there is no inconsistency in averring the authority of and the awesome power of natural law above even the U.S. Constitution. The framers of that great document, the Constitution of the United States, conceded as much, through the codification of Ten Amendments to it thereby embracing and enshrining Divine Law within it, an integrated part of it, inextricably bound to it, so there is no inconsistency between the import of Divine Law and ofthe U.S. Constitution’s deference to Divine Law.

THE PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

The Bill of Rights is of paramount importance to, and a singularly critical component of the U.S. Constitution, both shaping the nature of a free Republic, and establishing the role of Government vis a vis the American people, subordinating Government to the people.It is the Bill of Rights, especially, that has provided the U.S. Constitution with its true staying power; and that has allowed the Country to survive and thrive as a free Republic. The Bill of Rights is one feature of the U.S. Constitution that cannot be readily ignored or dismissed out of hand by the Neoliberal Globalists and the Neo-Marxists, much as they wish to do; much as they try to do.The Nation, as a free Constitutional Republic can, truth to tell, continue to exist, at least for a time, even where a corrupt Executive Branch and a corrupt Legislative Branch give little heed to limitations built into their own authority and duties under the Constitution. And, that is true of the Third Branch of Government, the Judiciary, as well.The Bill of Rights, though, exists and operates on another plane; another order of magnitude; well beyond even the Articles, a human construct, and well beyond such man-made procedural Amendments that came thereafter. For, the Bill of Rights codifies Divine Law.The contents of the Bill of Rights isn’t a human construct because it isn’t a mere compilation of man-made law even though some there are who might perceive it to be such, namely the Neoliberal Globalist corporatist “elites,” and the transnational Neo-Marxists, and other Collectivists who, all of them, deny this, of course. Even to describe the Ten Amendments of the Bill of Rights as little more than an elucidation of and edification of man’s greater potential fails to hit the mark as to their true significance and purpose. For, it is only by the grace of Divine Providence that man can, a priori, recognize the Creator’s gifts to him, bestowed on man by the Creator as the supernal omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and morally perfect Being. These God-given Rights and Liberties, Natural Law, preexist within man, exist, then, prior to the creation of Government by man.It is not given to man, by mere experience, a posteriori, through man’s five sense organs, that man comes to know of his true Nature made in God’s own image but, through man’s non-physical Spirit that the fact of and nature of the fundamental, immutable, illimitable, unalienable Rights come to be apparent to man. How, then, can man’s nature be lawfully subordinated and subjugated to State control and dominance, since Government is a man-made construct, and such manmade device offends and subverts the will of the Supreme Creator, where man’s will, and soul, and spirit are quelled and suppressed?Such a Government transgresses God’s will and such Government that dares to subvert the integrity and sanctity of man’s spirit and soul is heresy, and this heresy is the goal of this new, obscene non-American Governmental scheme that has begun to take root in the Country, and it is growing apace, to be merged into a new world order, to bring man low. Americans must fight the attempt with all the power they can muster. The way they can do this is to insist that their fundamental rights are not subject to negotiation or compromise. That which is given to man by the Divine Creator cannot lawfully be revoked by the State, and cannot be contracted or purloined away.______________________________________

AS LONG AS AMERICANS ARE ABLE TO EXERCISE THEIR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS, SOCIALISM CANNOT TAKE ROOT.

PART SEVEN

Only through exercise of the peoples’ fundamental rights can the citizenry hope to withstand the onslaught from those disparate evil forces consisting, inter alia, of a heterogenous assortment of Neoliberal Globalists, Corporatist Monopolists, Internationalist Neo-Marxists, Government Neoconservatives, liberal Progressive and Marxist members of Congress and of the Federal Bureaucracy, the seditious legacy Press, and Marxist elements in academia, all hell-bent on disassembling the United States, transforming the Country from its root structure as a free Constitutional Republic and independent sovereign Nation-State into an autocratic lackey of a larger autocratic super-structure, embracing the entire world.On some level the combined power of these terrible, ruthless, amoral and immoral forces operating both inside the United States and outside it, Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists alike, adopting a common Collectivist ideology, an ideology incompatible with the tenets, precepts, and principles of Individualism upon which the U.S. Constitution is grounded, driven by a singular lust for amassing wealth and power—of benefit to themselves at the expense of the American polity—continue to plot, connive, conspire, and machinate toward realization of a similar goal: the creation of a one-world transnational super State; a mammoth transformative political, social, economic, and juridical construct; a global totalitarian regime embracing and subsuming all present western nation-states; erasing all geographical boundaries; eliminating and eventually erasing from the memory of the polity any sense of a once-shared national identity, a once-shared history and heritage, a once-shared civic culture, a once-shared Christian ethos and a once-shared Judeo-Christian ethic. It would all cease to exist. Yet, for the U.S. to become merged into this transnational one-world, totalitarian Super-State, it is essential that the U.S. Constitution first be abrogated, and that means abrogation of the citizens’ Fundamental Rights and Liberties. All of it must go. But there is a tenaciousness to the Constitution, especially that part of it that speaks to the fundamental, unalienable Rights and Liberties of the citizenry: the Nation’s Bill of Rights.Even with vast sums of money spent behind a massive propaganda campaign to denigrate the Nation’s revered history, heritage, and culture, and to challenge the inviolability of God-bestowed Rights and Liberties, set in stone in Nation's the Bill of Rights, most Americans maintain and exhibit a deep attachment to and devotion to their Country and to their fundamental Rights and Liberties upon which the sovereignty of the American people over Government is preserved. And, on some level all American citizens understand that God-given Rights and Liberties cannot be simply ignored and dismissed out-of-hand, if the Nation is to survive as a free Constitutional Republic; and the American people will not long abide usurpers in Government who betray their Oath to the United States Constitution, whether it be the President of the United States who betrays the Oath of Office he is required to take, pursuant to Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8 of the Constitution, to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States;”whether it be those in Congress who betray the Oath they are required to take, pursuant to Article 6, Clause 3 of the Constitution, to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States; or whether it be those in the Civil Service or uniformed services of Government who betray the Oath they are required to take, to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;” pursuant to 5 U.S.C.S. § 3331. The solemnity of the Oaths of those sworn to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution are not to be taken lightly. And, if these betrayers of their Oath think there will be no accounting for an act of betrayal to the Constitution of the United States, the American people shall demand an accounting, as they are the sovereign rulers of the Nation as established by the U.S. Constitution. Those who serve in Government are the servants, not the masters of the American people, and the ultimate enforcement power that the American people wield over Government is made abundantly clear not in the electoral system through which the American people have a say only in the vote they cast for this or that servant of the citizenry, but in one especial fundamental, immutable, illimitable, unalienable Right: the inviolate Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms.______________________________________________

THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS CANNOT BE LAWFULLY APPROPRIATED OR COMMANDEERED  BY THE STATE; AND IT ISN’T FOR SALE!

PART EIGHT

The Bill of Rights cannot be easily supplanted, ignored, dismissed out-of-hand, as the fundamental rights and liberties are engrained deep in the psyche of most American citizens and they are loathed to surrender their sacred God-bestowed Rights and Liberties, knowing that, to do so, means the loss not only of their Country but of their own Soul.One natural, God-given right, in particular, the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, as Divine Law, codified in the Bill of Rights as “the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms,” is Divine Law that happens to have been codified into law by man. More to the point, this Divine Law is written into man's Spirit. That is what makes the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, Divine Law, and not mere man-made law. This Divine Law serves to prevent the takeover of the Nation’s Country by tyrants. The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, as Divine Law, isn't for sale!The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, as Divine Law, is subsumed in a more elemental Divine law: The Right of Personal Self-Defense, against a predatory animal, whether that predatory animal hops on two legs or runs on four, and against a predatory, tyrannical Government. Further, the Natural God-bestowed Right of Personal Self-Defense is itself subsumed in the God-bestowed Right of Personal Autonomy, for it is through Self-Defense that man is able to preserve and has the solemn duty and cardinal responsibility to preserve and secure from harm not only his physical well-being but his psychological and spiritual well-being; his individuality; the sanctity of Self-hood; the inviolability of his Soul, sanctified by the Divine Creator.If unable to exercise the God-bestowed Right of Self-Defense, of which the firearm is the most efficient means of Self-Defense, man cannot effectively persevere against those forces that would dare crush his will and spirit into submission; would not be able to effectively defend against those forces at work in society today that compel uniformity and conformity in all thought and conduct; would not be able to resist evil forces that insist on transforming a Nation of individual Souls into a collection of mindless, senseless drones, an obsequious, obedient, formless glob—a monstrosity, a thing created by evil forces in clear defiance to the Creator's will. For the Creator intended for man to be noble, that he might, through his individual Soul, be a demi-Creator in his own right, set out on his own path, realize his full potential as an independent creative Spirit; for he is made in God's Image.Yet, it is a thing strange that, given the plain meaning of the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, codified in clear, precise, concise words in the U.S. Constitution, it would come to pass that an American citizen would find it necessary to petition the Judiciary to secure for him a God-given Right that Government or private enterprise interests—artificial constructs of man—would dare deny him. Yet for decades, before the seminal Second Amendment Heller case was heard, ignoble forces were at work to subvert the plain meaning of the Divine Law, arguing that the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms was not an Individual Right at all, and certainly was not to be perceived as a Natural Right, but one bound up in service to a collective, a militia. This idea is false on its face, and, when one realizes that the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, codified in the Second Amendment, isn't a man-made law at all, but Natural Law, of Divine Origin, pertaining to the Individual Self, to the Individual Soul, to one’s personal autonomy, then any notion that the Right is to be understood as, to be taken as, something that applies to and has meaning only in the context of groups, to a collective, falls apart of its own weight as a matter of logic, as well as of law. One comes to realize that the mistake of law and logic that arises from the conclusion that the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms has meaning and purport in the context of one's service in a militia, in the context, then, of one's service in a group, is due to problematic, false assumptions. The mistake of law and logic that some academic scholars as well as the lay public fall prey to commences from an assumption, taken as axiomatic, as self-evident, that the Bill of Rights, is simply a creation of man, an artificial construction of the government, an arbitrary formulation by State actors in Government, not unlike the Articles of the Constitution, or later procedural amendments to it, and not unlike other man-made common or codified law. In that case, grounded on acceptance of false assumption and illogical reasoning, one draws the illogical conclusion that fundamental rights are no more than privileges to be bestowed onto this one or that one, or to this group or to that group by the grace of the State, and, just as readily, rescinded by the State, as the sole creator of the Right. Through acceptance of the false assumption that the Bill of Rights is really a set of State created privileges, all sorts of inanities arise therefrom, such as the idea that the Ten Amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights can readily be amended no less so than the Articles of the Constitution or the procedural amendments subsequently ratified and added to the Constitution or just as readily repealed. But, the Bill of Rights is no mere collection of Rights and Liberties, for they were not created by man. They are codifications of Divine Law. As such, they existed prior to any artificial governmental construct of man. As Divine Law, not man-made law the Bill of Rights cannot be lawfully amended, modified, abrogated, or ignored. The Rights codified in the Bill of Rights exist internally in and eternal in man. They aren't creations of the State, of Government, of man. This fact, the Neoliberal Globalist and Neo-Marxist Counterrevolutionaries both inside Government and outside it, will not accept—indeed cannot accept—for the idea that some Rights exist beyond the lawful power of the Government to whittle away at, to reinterpret the import and purport of, or to nullify outright, frustrates these evil forces to no end, as that idea makes impossible the realization of their goal of a one-world transnational governmental regime in which man is subjugated to the dictates of Government, as the State, alone, to these Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists, is to be perceived as god, having power of life or death over the men they rule.__________________________________________

LOOKING BACKWARD TO HELLER AND MCDONALD AND FORWARD TO THE UPCOMING BRUEN (CORLETT) CASE

PART NINE

The late, eminent Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, announced in Heller, what was always patently clear, but often denied: that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right. The clear language of the Right should have been enough to evince the Omni-expansiveness of it; the elemental inalienability, immutability, and illimitability implicit in it. Yet, from the inception of Heller, there was hesitancy and arrogance among many academicians and Government functionaries that compelled them to disavow the plain import and purport of the Right, grounded most likely on jealousy to concede the obvious import of the Right, having no desire to admit that sovereignty over Government is not a shared power or one that belongs only to those who serve in Government, but is sovereignty that rests solely with the American people. The servants of Government exercise such limited authority that the Constitution provides for and that authority is exercised only with the consent of the citizenry. That consent can be withdrawn. And the servants of Government well aware of the limitations inherent in their power constantly seek to constrain the sovereignty of the American people and they have been at work, enacting countless laws, rules, codes, regulations, and ordinances to constrict and restrict the right of the people to keep and bear arms notwithstanding the reaffirmation of the import of the right as categorically stated in Heller.And Anti-Second Amendment State Governments, as well as the Federal Government, are always looking for a way to avoid the import of Heller to affirm the legality and Constitutionality of State Action infringing the core of the Right protected. The first major attack against Heller took shape in the Anti-Second Amendment jurisdiction of Chicago, Illinois, with the City pointedly arguing that the Heller rulings pertaining to the right of Americans to utilize handguns for self-defense in their own homes, only operates as a constraint on the Federal Government, not on the States. Justice Alito who penned the majority opinion in the second major Second Amendment case, McDonald vs. City of Chicago, set forth at the outset of his remarks, the nature of and extent of Chicago’s defiant stance on the matter:“Two years ago, in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, this Court held that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense and struck down a District of Columbia law that banned the possession of handguns in the home. Chicago (hereinafter City) and the village of Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, have laws effectively banning handgun possession by almost all private citizens. After Heller, petitioners filed this federal suit against the City. . . . They sought a declaration that the ban and several related City ordinances violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. Rejecting petitioners' argument that the ordinances are unconstitutional, the court noted that the Seventh Circuit previously had upheld the constitutionality of a handgun ban, that Heller had explicitly refrained from opining on whether the Second Amendment applied to the States, and that the court had a duty to follow established Circuit precedent.”The McDonald case made clear the rulings in Heller applied to the States too. In pertinent part, Justice Alito, wrote:“. . . we must decide whether the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty. . . .Our decision in Heller points unmistakably to the answer. Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day, and in Heller, we held that individual self-defense is ‘the central component’ of the Second Amendment right.  Explaining that ‘the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute in the home . . . we found that this right applies to handguns because they are 'the most preferred firearm in the nation to 'keep' and use for protection of one's home and family. . . . ‘[T]he American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon’). Thus, we concluded, citizens must be permitted ‘to use [handguns] for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.”Heller makes it clear that this right is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition. . . . Heller explored the right's origins, noting that the 1689 English Bill of Rights explicitly protected a right to keep arms for self-defense, and that by 1765, Blackstone was able to assert that the right to keep and bear arms was “one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen.’Blackstone's assessment was shared by the American colonists. As we noted in Heller, King George III's attempt to disarm the colonists in the 1760's and 1770's ‘provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms.’The right to keep and bear arms was considered no less fundamental by those who drafted and ratified the Bill of Rights.In Heller, we held that the protects the right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self-defense. Unless considerations of stare decisis counsel otherwise, a provision of the Bill of Rights that protects a right that is fundamental from an American perspective applies equally to the Federal Government and the States. We therefore hold that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.”Yet, the apparatus of Anti-Second Amendment forces in Government remained undeterred. These forces continued their efforts to find ways around Heller and McDonald through more and more comprehensive and Government licensing schemes.State and local Government firearms’ licensing schemes became progressively bloated through time, and with that bloat the language of them became increasingly vague and ambiguous; and, in the worst instances, became convoluted, inconsistent, and incoherent. Anti-Second Amendment Courts continually, blatantly misinterpreted the rulings of Heller and McDonald, setting down their imprimatur on unconstitutional Government actions.Perhaps the most voluminous Anti-Second Amendment regime to be constructed and one of the earliest, and one of the most insidious; a regime that was continually expanded and revised through time, is that one emanating from New York.Not surprisingly, the first major case the U.S. Supreme Court accepted for review, almost a decade after the seminal Heller case, was New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, et.al. v. The City Of New York And The New York City Police Department-License Division, commonly and colloquially referred to as the “New York City Gun Transport Case.”The case held a lot of promise for Americans who cherish their right of self-defense and the right of personal autonomy, for having granted Petitioners’ writ of certiorari, these Americans expected quite reasonably that the U.S. Supreme Court would apply its precedents in Heller and McDonald to affirm the unconstitutionality of the constraint on one’s right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, outside the home, at least for the purpose of transporting a handgun to a locale outside the environs of New York City. New York’s Courts had hitherto placed burdensome constraints on transportation of handguns outside the home for those New York residents who held valid but restricted handgun premise licenses.Although some Americans might see the New York Gun Transport case as a win for those who cherish the right of the people to keep and bear arms, it wasn’t. Rather, it was a lost opportunity. Consideration of and a decision on the merits of the case were sidestepped. Now Americans who cherish their Second Amendment right are looking to a second New York case, NYSRPA vs. Corlett (now captioned, NYSRPA vs. Bruen*) on which to pin their hopes for reaffirmation of the significance of the Heller imperative. The case will be heard in November 2021 and decided probably at some point in early summer, 2022.Our concern is whether and to what extent—even with a complement of three new Justices, all Trump nominees, who would seem to adhere to the methodology of the late eminent Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, when analyzing and deciding cases—the Bruen case will be decided in a manner that will reinvigorate and clarify the rulings and holdings and reasoning of Heller and McDonald.To get a good handle on the New York Bruen case, and to assess various outcome scenarios, it is necessary to understand what transpired in the earlier New York Gun Transport case, along with a few major post-Heller D.C. gun cases and others.Our focus going forward will be directed to the elucidation of four matters:

• THE IMPORT OF GOVERNMENT FIREARMS’ LICENSING SCHEMES GENERALLY AND THOSE OF NEW YORK PARTICULARLY
• THE FRAMING OF THE SPECIFIC LEGAL ISSUE BY THE U.S. SUPREME COURT IN THE BRUEN CASE
• STANDARDS OF REVIEW EMPLOYED BY THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURTS AFTER HELLER
• A PERSPECTIVE ON THE JURISPRUDENTIAL APPROACHES OF THE JUSTICES

As for the first bullet point, firearms licensing schemes are a fact, and Heller’s position on them isn’t crystal clear. The mere fact of them and the propensity of Courts to align themselves with Government to stamp their imprimatur upon them are inherently in tension with the import and purport of the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, a tension that Heller did little rectify.As for the second bullet point, the Court has recast the issue for review. This recasting of the issue is critical to the decision to be reached and we will speculate on why the Court recast the issue and analyze what that may portend.As for the third bullet point, many lower Courts have routinely fallen back on judicial standards of review that majority opinion in Heller considered and rejected. The High Court may wish to clarify the standard that should be employed in Second Amendment cases where the Government actions impact the core of the right.As for the fourth bullet point, while the legacy Press constantly refers to the High Court as comprising 6 Conservative-wing Justices and 3 Liberal-wing Justices. That is an incorrect statement by the legacy Press and it is one constantly projected by the Press to express the need, as the Legacy Press sees it, for a contingent of new Justices, in the mold of the late Associate Justice, Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, and in the mold of the three remaining liberal Justices, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. These liberal-wing Justices, as often described by the Press, all ascribe to the view of the U.S. Constitution as a “Living Constitution,” (See, e.g. Acton Institute Article), which really calls for the death of the U.S. Constitution. These liberal-wing Justices' utilize a methodology for deciding cases that looks beyond the original text of the Constitution. These Justices believe in an expansive view of Constitutional analysis that routinely interjects ever-changing international law and international norms into their juridical pronouncements. This analysis is antithetical to and anathema to the methodology employed by the late Justice Antonin Scalia who realized that to interject international law and normative views of foreign countries into judicial decision-making is to denigrate the U.S. Constitution, subordinating the Supremacy of the Constitution and the Sovereignty of the United States to that of a Global initiative and Global objectives, at odds with the preservation of the U.S. Constitution in the manner the framers of it intended. Thus, these liberal-wing Justices find a strict reading of the Bill of Rights, for example, to be inconsistent with international law and norms and, so, rather than reject international law and international norms and standards, they would reject the language of the Constitution. This is most blatantly illustrated in their desire to reduce the fundamental Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms as codified in the Second Amendment, to a nullity. Thus, they seek to undercut the seminal Second Amendment Heller and McDonald case rulings and holdings, and their opinions demonstrate their clear animosity to the methodology employed by the late Justice Scalia in deciding cases: originalism and textualism. Associate Justices Thomas and Alito also adhere to the methodology of originalism and textualism, which demands strict adherence to the plain meaning of the Constitution and especially of that critical component of it: the Bill of Rights.Chief Justice, John Roberts, who wields considerable power as the Chief Justice, is not to be seen as an avid proponent of the Second Amendment, and, apart from Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, whose commitment to the defense of exercise of the Right embodied in the Second Amendment is established beyond doubt through a large body of Supreme Court Opinions, the commitment of the newest members of the Court—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—to the sanctity of the Second Amendment and to the other Nine Bill of Rights is not firmly established. And, as for Justice Kavanaugh, along with Chief Justice John Roberts, their dubious commitment to the preservation of the Second Amendment is manifest from a perusal of their handling of the New York Gun transport case. These latter two Justices demonstrate significantly less commitment to and decidedly less ardor toward the Second Amendment than do Associate Justices Thomas and Alito and as did the late esteemed Associate Justice Scalia. This is expressed in their failure to adhere unerringly to the methodology of originalism and textualism that serves to preserve the Constitution as written, upon which the continued existence of the Nation, as a free Constitutional Republic, necessarily depends.Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kavanaugh do not employ—with the same devotion as do Justices Thomas and Alito, at any rate—the juridical methodologies of textualism and originalism, heralded by the late Justice Scalia; nor do they apply Supreme Court legal doctrines, uniformly and evenhandedly. This is apparent from their handling of the legal doctrine of “mootness,” which led to a less than optimum result in their handling of the New York Gun Transport case as a consideration of and decision on the substantive merits of the case were dispensed with.We discuss these matters in-depth in our upcoming articles._________________________________*When the Corlett case first wended its way up through New York’s Court, the Defendant, Keith M. Corlett, happened to be serving as the Superintendent of the New York State Police, the 16th Superintendent. But at some point, after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up the “Corlett” case for review, Kevin P. Bruen replaced Corlett as the New York State Police Superintendent: the 17th Superintendent of the New York State Police. The case now reflects Bruen as the proper Defendant-Respondent and properly the case should be referred to as the Bruen case even though many journalists who discuss the case continue to refer to the case as originally captioned. See New York State Police website.____________________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHY IS IT THAT THE HARRIS-BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS REALLY WANT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS?

PART ONE

GUN OWNERS; TRUMP SUPPORTERS; ANTI-MARXISTS; ANTI-GLOBALISTS—ARE THESE THE HARRIS-BIDEN “DOMESTIC TERRORISTS?”

The propagandists for the Democrat Party-controlled Government are nothing if not expert in the art of subterfuge, deflection, artifice, and duplicity. Turning the Bill of Rights on its head, they claim the Country will be better off once the American people just accept constraints on the exercise of their fundamental rights and liberties.But for whom would the Country be better off: for the American people or for the Neoliberal Globalists, along with their cousin Marxists, who intend to dismantle a free Constitutional Republic and merge the skeletal remains of the United States into something truly obscene: a transnational new governmental world order akin to the European Union?Already Biden has made overtures to Brussels, resurrecting the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or “T-TIP,” an arrangement that had stalled under the Trump Administration as did the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP.The true, if unstated, purpose of the G-7 Summit was to reassure Brussels that the U.S. was back on track to complete the agenda commenced in earnest thirty years ago—an agenda that had been making substantial headway under Obama, and that would continue under Hillary Clinton. But that agenda came to a screeching halt when Trump was elected U.S. President, to the surprise and shock and consternation of Neoliberal Globalists and Marxists both inside the Country and outside it, and no less to the chagrin of China, as well.But with the mentally debilitated, and easily manipulated Joe Biden firmly ensconced in the Oval Office, the Globalist and Marxist agenda could get back on track. The EU would get what it wants from the U.S.; China would get what it wants from the U.S.; even Russia got what it wanted. And who was left out of the mix? The American people, of course.But then, the Harris-Biden Administration and their cohorts in the Democrat Party controlled Congress, together with the seditious Press and social media and information technology titans haven’t bothered to ask the American people for their perspective on any of this. They really don’t care. They have effectively shunted Trump aside and they are treating tens of millions of American dissenters as potential “Domestic Terrorists” who refuse to go along with the game plan. The Globalists and Marxists will suffer no dissident thought or action. They are intent on stamping out all dissent. And this portends something serious on the horizon for the well-being of the Country and for the well-being of the American people.

WITH A RADICAL DEMOCRAT PARTY-CONTROLLED GOVERNMENT AND A BELEAGUERED, BESIEGED, WEAK REPUBLICAN CONTINGENT IN CONGRESS, AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN BOXED INTO A CORNER AND MUST TAKE MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS TO REGAIN CONTROL OF THEIR COUNTRY?

The secretive powers operating in the Harris-Biden Administration, along with the Democrat Party have forced Americans into a tight corner. The forces that have boxed in Americans know this to be true. They did this intentionally. They have thrown down their gauntlet. They fully expect a backlash. And they fully intend to counter it.The forces that crush have instituted a comprehensive and insidious program designed to contain and constrain dissenting Americans.Their program must have taken shape during the early days of the transition of Government in 2021. And it is now available for all to see. The PROGRAM—really a POGROM—targeting Americans who refuse to get on board with the game plan is contained in a lengthy document, titled: “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.”This Document, recently made available to the public,  serves a dual purpose for the Harris-Biden Administration. It operates, one, as a Declaration setting forth the raison d’être for a Marxist Counterrevolution in this Country to overturn the American Revolution of 1776, and, operates,  two, as an express and brazen threat to the autonomy of the American citizen. Never before in American History has the Federal Government professed to declare war on its own citizens. In that regard, the “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” goes much further than even the infamousU.S. Patriot Act, in presenting a direct threat to an American citizen's fundamental Rights and Liberties. See also the article on the U.S. Patriot Act by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.But who are these “Domestic Terrorists” that the Harris-Biden Administration has declared war against? In the broadest sense, a “Domestic Terrorist” is any American who professes disagreement with the Globalist/Marxist agenda.

ATTEMPTS AT OBFUSCATION DO NOT DISGUISE THE FACT THAT “DOMESTIC TERRORIST” REFERS TO ALL AMERICANS WHO ACTIVELY DISAGREE WITH AND WHO DISSENT FROM THE HARRIS-BIDEN AGENDA.

The expression “Domestic Terrorist” drags in a sizable portion of the American citizenry, at least a third of the Country, that cherishes the Nation's founding, formative Documents—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution’s Articles, and the Bill of Rights—and takes them at face value, in accordance with the plain meaning of the language therein.And, what do these Documents proclaim and prescribe? They proclaim and prescribe the preeminence of liberty and personal autonomy and of the existence of natural, God-given rights that exist intrinsically in each person; rights that precede the formation of nations and of governments and make clear that the American people, themselves, and not the Government they happen to form, are the Sole Sovereign of their Nation, and that they alone have the God-given right to control their own destiny.This presents a conundrum for the Harris-Biden Administration, which is to say, a profound dilemma for those secretive, powerful insiders who are orchestrating and choreographing the Administration’s every move.One thing is clear: Those elements presently in control of the reins of the Federal Government do not perceive themselves as servants of the people but, rather, as master over them.The Harris-Biden Administration, the Democrat Party controlled Congress, the Bureaucratic Deep State, the Legacy Press, and the major social media and technology monopolies have dismissed the founding, formative documents of our Country, out-of-hand, and, in so doing, have effectively declared war on the American people.But, a sizable chunk of the American people, though, cherish and extol the tenets, principles, and precepts contained in the Nation’s sacred Documents. That means the American people pose a threat to Government. They must therefore be brought to heel lest they exert their sovereignty over the Government. Imagine that!The Nation’s founding Fathers—yes, dare we use the expression, “THE FATHERS” of the Nation—understood well that a massively large, powerful centralized Government would, if left to its own devices, eventually, inexorably, inevitably usurp from the people,  that sovereign power belonging only to the people.The Founding Fathers knew that, while a Federal Government with limited powers, assiduously demarcated among three salient Branches—Legislative, Executive, and Judicial—may serve to forestall usurpation of power unto itself, the rise of tyranny would be inevitable. It would only be a matter of time. Only the presence of an armed citizenry could prevent this from happening, as the Founding Fathers well knew; hence the reason for the codification of the right of the people to keep and bear arms in an Amendment to the Constitution.It should come as no surprise to any American that the Destroyers of a Free Constitutional Republic would therefore mount a furious assault on the sacred right of the people to keep and bear arms.Not since the Nation’s inception in 1776, have the Obstructors of the Country come so close transforming it from a free Republic into an Authoritarian State—made all the easier through the use of information technology: technology that is capable of exerting vast control over content creation and dissemination of information, and the censure of it; technology that makes possible, the surreptitious, collection of private information and omnipresent surveillance of the Nation’s citizenry.The pillar of free speech, codified in the First Amendment and the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, codified in the Fourth, are both suffering slow strangulation as a result of the application of technology on a massive scale.The public has little to say about the application of, and has even less control over, technological advances that allow Government to nullify the unreasonable searches and seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment.And powerful Liberal Progressive and Marxist interests in the Federal Government flagrantly violate the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause, operating through major social media monopolies, that share Progressive Left and Marxist sympathies and goals. The result is a blatant, shameless, unethical, illegal censure of speech.These elements in Government and business, operating in concert, have been successful at constraining public discourse, in recent years, to an extent never before countenanced. And they intend to upend this Nation’s Constitutional Republic now and for all time.Concomitant with censure of speech, and contrary to the dictates of the First Amendment, destructive forces in Government and in the technology monopolies have unleashed a campaign of propaganda to turn American against American and to indoctrinate children and adult alike. No institution is free from the onslaught; not even the military.

WITH FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES AND SEIZURES ESSENTIALLY ERADICATED, AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH UNDER CONTINUOUS, RUINOUS, HARASSING ASSAULT, ONLY FREEDOM TO OWN AND POSSESS GUNS REMAINS, OBSTINATELY RESISTANT TO GOVERNMENT ATTEMPTS TO CONSTRAIN EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT.

Only the right of the people to keep and bear arms effectively resists systematic and debilitating attempts by Progressive and Marxist influences to annihilate the exercise of this fundamental Right. But why is that? The reasons are plain. First, Americans recognize that no other Right defines them or the Country they are sovereign masters of, as the Right to own and possess firearms. So, Americans furiously defend that Right—more so than any other. Second, firearms are after all tangible implements, not intangible, digital objects, like words. It is not so easy for Government to purloin away one’s firearms as they have purloined away Americans’ private conversations and private documents and as they have systematically whittled away at the right of free discourse and free association among Americans of like kind.It’s impossible to take physical control over a citizen’s firearms surreptitiously. A person either has possession of them or he does not. And he will not so easily part with them. This angers the would-be Destroyers of a free Constitutional Republic to no end.How does one effectively separate a person from his firearms without causing a bloodbath in the Nation? This isn’t simply a matter of academic exercise for the Destroyers of our Country. They are well aware that the presence of—the continued existence of—armed citizens poses a direct, imminent threat to the installment of a Marxist totalitarian State and submergence of the remains of a free Republic in a Globalist Marxist new world order. But they also know that any attempt at a wholesale round-up of firearms would result in revolt—that is to say, armed revolt!It follows that no compromise on the right of the people to keep and bear arms is logically sensical despite the remonstrations of “antigun” groups carping endlessly over the need for more “commonsense gun laws”—as if they mean only that and nothing more. The idea is absurd on its face. It is all mere rhetoric designed to deceive. Americans have had more than enough of this nonsense.The question is: Now that Americans know the extent to which a free Constitutional Republic is in the crosshairs for destruction, and that the Federal Government has essentially declared war on its own citizens' sacred Rights and Liberties, what are Americans going to do to safeguard their Bill of Rights and their sovereignty over Government?___________________________________

PART TWO

A TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENT CANNOT LONG CONTAIN OR CONSTRAIN AN ARMED CITIZENRY.

If the American people are well-armed, then they can effectively, successfully resist Governmental attempts to control thought and action; they can effectively resist concerted efforts by tyrants to subjugate them; and they will always resist such efforts. But, if the American people are disarmed, they are defenseless before both two-legged predators and a predatory, tyrannical Government. So, the American people must continue to be well-armed. It is that simple.Thus, among those Destructive forces—neoliberal Globalist and international Marxist elements—who strive for firm Government control over the citizenry, the Right of the people to keep and bear arms must not be merely constrained, exercise of the Right must be curtailed. But, because it is immensely difficult to curtail citizen ownership and possession of firearms outright, absent wholesale bloodshed, which is to be avoided, the liberal Progressive Left and Marxists have been forced to undercut the Right of the people to keep and bear arms through a gradual escalating legislative process.The Federal Government’s assault on the Second Amendment started in earnest almost ninety years ago, with the enactment of the National Firearms Act of 1934. As with all antigun legislation, the pretext for the enactment of the NFA was an attempt to prevent criminal gangs from engaging in shooting rampages with certain classes of weapons, primarily fully automatic weapons and so-called short-barreled shotguns and rifles. The impact this law had on crime reduction was and is negligible. Its greatest and gravest impact was on infringing law-abiding American citizens' right to possess those firearms.Apart from actions by several State Americans to continue to enact laws to restrict and constrain the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms, the public was provided with a respite from the enactment of wholesale restrictive Federal firearms legislation for a period of sixty years, when Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. That Act contained a subsection titled innocuously, the “Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act” a.k.a. “Assault Weapons Ban,” the latter descriptor of which is more accurate and to the point.Once again, the public was told that the purpose of an assault weapons Ban was directed to curbing violent crimes committed with a certain category of guns. It did no such thing. It was all a lie, having nothing to do with constraining criminal use of firearms.All the Act succeeded in doing and was designed to do was to target average, law-abiding Americans, not to reduce violent gun crime. The salient if tacit purpose of the Act was to ban lawful ownership and possession of a wide range of popular semiautomatic weapons in the hands of tens of millions of law-abiding Americans. The Act wasn’t designed to prevent gun crimes. And the banned firearms were not even utilized in the vast majority of gun crimes anyway.The law was set to expire ten years later, in 2004. It did expire and not surprisingly, it wasn’t renewed. The public wasn’t deceived and demanded access to semiautomatic firearms.Notwithstanding the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban, that didn’t stop Anti-Second Amendment forces in Congress to try to enact new laws restricting Americans’ access to semiautomatic firearms. They were relentless in their pursuit to curtail the exercise of the right codified in the Second Amendment. And they continued their effort up to the present time. To date, all such attempts have failed, and that has frustrated the forces that seek to destroy this free Constitutional Republic and its sovereign people. It was therefore left to Anti-Second Amendment State Governments to fill the gap and States like New York and California did so, with relish.With the neoliberal Globalist Obama in the Oval Office, to be followed by Hillary Clinton, the Destroyers of an independent sovereign United States felt confident that they could gradually tighten the noose around the neck of the American people so that, by the time the citizenry realized they had lost their Nation, along with their Bill of Rights, it would be much too late for them to do anything about it.But Hillary Clinton didn’t make it into Office. Donald Trump did. And once the sobering reality of that had sunk in for the neoliberal Globalists and the Marxists, they no longer took for granted that they could work leisurely and quietly to reconfigure the institutions of the Nation; disregard the dictates of or redefine the meaning of the Constitution to suit their goals; and implement their plans for a takeover of the Country incrementally.The forces that crush entire nations went to work on our own; frenetically, ceaselessly, assiduously, to sabotage Trump’s policy initiatives; engaging in a virulent media campaign of vicious personal attacks on him, on his family, on campaign officials, and on Americans who voted for and who avidly supported him, who had realized the singular importance of the Trump initiatives and policy goals and promises in getting the Nation back on track to regain its historical roots and sensibilities. Yet, all the efforts to dislodge Trump from Office met with abject failure and Trump was successful in realizing many of his goals.The forces that crush entire nations couldn’t understand Trump’s emotional strength; his resourcefulness, his fortitude; his resilience. The more vociferous and vicious the attacks became, the more implacable did Trump become.The public saw that Trump’s “America First” domestic and foreign policies actually benefitted the American people, Americans of all races. Trump was primed to win a second term in Office.The neoliberal Globalists and international Marxists would have not of that. And they pulled out all the stops to prevent that from happening.So, as a last resort, the enemies of the American people, both within the Republic and outside it, including likely the CCP and the EU Government in Brussels, machinated and conspired to prevent Trump from serving a Second Term. And they succeeded. Now, with Trump out of the way, and with Bush-era Republicans or otherwise meek Republicans offering no meaningful, substantial resistance to the agenda of Marxist Democrats, those Congressional Democrats are wasting no time consolidating their power over the Country and over the American people, before the 2022 midterm elections.

DEMOCRATS' TEN-PART PROGRAM TO CONSOLIDATE POWER AND GAIN CONTROL OVER THE NATION AND ITS CITIZENS

The Democrats' program involves, one, systematically corralling the voices of tens of millions of Americans; two indoctrinating the public in the tenets of Collectivism; three, consolidating control over the military and police; four, continuing to create mass upheaval and volatility in society with the assistance of criminal gangs, and Marxist and Anarchist agitators; five, maintaining dossiers on every person residing in the United States; six, inducing fear in the minds of all Americans that Government may designate them as “Domestic Terrorists” and commence to hound and harass them; seven, asserting Government control over the operation of the entire electoral process in order to control the outcome of elections; eight, continuing, indefinitely, an open borders policy, allowing a continuous deluge of illegal alien migrants and murderous drug cartel gangs to invade our Country, thereby further disrupting society; nine, creating the conditions for hyper-inflation to proceed, to reduce the mass of America to abject penury; and, ten, curtailing exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms so as to preclude the ability of the American people to revolt successfully against the inception of tyranny.Concerning the last item of business, expect to see concerted efforts by the Harris-Biden Administration, to implement executive actions, albeit as a “temporary fix” to restrict the possession of semiautomatic weapons. This is being coordinated with efforts by the Democrat-controlled Congress to shoehorn semiautomatic weapons into the NFA, or, perhaps, to enact new stand-alone legislation, or to enact a ban on possession of semiautomatic firearms through obscure means, by placing a gun ban in some larger omnibus bill.Whatever transpires, the American people should be prepared for a very rocky ride in the months ahead as the economy continues to deteriorate, as social volatility and unrest in society crank up, and as the Second Amendment undergoes an assault in a manner heretofore not seen.____________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

RADICAL LEFT AND PROGRESSIVES FEAR AND HATE AN ARMED CITIZENRY AND WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO DESTROY IT

PART THIRTEEN

THE RADICAL LEFT AND PROGRESSIVE ELEMENTS DON’T ACCEPT EXISTENCE OF BILL OF RIGHTS AS NATURAL RIGHTS AND WANT TO CREATE A NEW SET OF UNNATURAL RIGHTS TO REPLACE OUR NATION'S BILL OF RIGHTS

THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.3. No animal shall wear clothes.4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.5. No animal shall drink alcohol.6. No animal shall kill any other animal.7. All animals are equal.~ George Orwell, “Animal Farm” ((a satire on the duplicity and idiocy of the Communist vision of the perfect world order)(published in 1945)) (quotation from Chapter 2)

THE RADICAL LEFT’S GRAND DESIGN IS CLEAR: THRUST OUR NATION INTO THE EUROPEAN UNION

The Rothschild clan and its minions in the EU are no longer even attempting to disguise their contempt for Western Nation States and for the populations of those Nations States. And, they are no longer attempting to disguise their plans to destroy the Nation States of Europe, along with the Commonwealth Nations—those that embrace Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.  They intend to destroy the independence and sovereignty of all Western Nations, including the destruction of the independence of the United States. These ruthless, diabolical, insufferable transnationalist “elites” have made their contempt of Western Nation States and of the common people of those Western Nation States transparently, poignantly obvious.’Consider the words of the outgoing European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, as reported by the website, Kentucky Hunting:"Ahead of the EU elections, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has blasted 'stupid nationalists,' who dare to 'love their own countries' and dislike migrants. Juncker took to CNN on Wednesday to share his belief the nationalist politicians pose a distinct threat to European unity with their stance on migration.“'These populist, nationalists, stupid nationalists, they are in love with their own countries,'” he said, urging the EU to show 'solidarity' with migrants instead."U.S. legal scholar, Jonathan Turley, perceives the ominous portents existent in the pronouncements of the EU overseers; sees, in fact, the deviousness inherent in the entirety of the EU project, and Turley is not at all amused, as he makes clear in a post  on his website, jonathanturley.org, in May 2019: "We have previously discussed President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and his controversial statements. Juncker for many is the face of the detached and arrogant bureaucracy that dictates policies and practices in various nations. While the EU has long tried to assure people that it is not replacing their national identity or self-determination, Juncker has always been dismissive of such concerns, even with growing anti-EU movements. That dismissive attitude was evident this week when Juncker said on CNN 'These populist, nationalists, stupid nationalists, they are in love with their own countries.'"The notion of people being stupid for being 'in love with their own countries' embodied the fears of critics that the EU was always an effort to erase national identity, as least in governance and policy. He added 'They don’t like those coming from far away, I like those coming from far away. . . we have to act in solidarity with those who are in a worse situation than we are in. . . It’s always easier to mobilize negative forces than to mobilize positive forces.' Of course, Juncker has never mobilized any forces beyond the top European elite. His CNN interview embodies his leadership style of disdainful and cavalier comments. He previously blasted the very notion of national borders.It is remarkably stupid for Juncker to openly maintain such a position when the EU is fighting to dampen calls for exits from the organization."Obviously, arrogant jackasses, like Jean-Claude Juncker of the EU, and such “luminaries” like Andrew Cuomo and Eric Swalwell, and, other similar vultures in the U.S., don’t care what the commonalty of the Nations of Western Europe and of the U.S. think. They pretend to know better. These Radicals are so enamoured with themselves, so convinced that a  single and singular transnational system of governance will succeed, and should succeed, that they now let fly their true feelings toward the peoples of Europe and of the United States—all those who ascribe to the spirit of “Nationalism”—those who profess pride in their own Nation, culture, history, and language.Transnationalists—those pushing for an end to Western Nation States—tend to treat “Nationalists” as close-minded, reactionary elements, who would hold to their unique history and cultural heritage. And, THAT attitude is considered wrong, even outrageous? Apparently so. And so it is that the Radical elements both here and abroad, those seeking to establish, among Western Nations, a new transnational, trans-global political, social, economic, cultural, and legal system of governance, are now ever more open to letting the people of Europe and of the U.S. know the true horrific extent of their aims for Western Civilization. They are convinced that Great Britain will never actually leave the EU; that the Nationalist wave in Europe will burn itself out; and that Donald Trump will never secure a Second Term in Office—perceiving both Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 and Britain’s majority vote to leave the EU, and Nationalist fervor in Europe as no more than momentary anomalies, a temporary setback to their plans for Global domination.So, through the first of a two-prong attack on Western Civilization, the transnationalist Rothschild clan and its minions clamp down hard on Nationalist fervor in the EU and they denigrate and ridicule and rebuff efforts of the populations of the Europe to reassert their National Sovereignty and independence and they place obstacles in the path of the British people who voted to leave the EU.Contemporaneously, through the second of a two-prong attack on Western Civilization, the Rothschild clan and its minions, through their cohorts in the U.S. to denigrate President Trump. They attempt to derail the work of his Administration; to keep Trump preoccupied, fighting endlessly, aimlessly, all efforts to topple him. They seek to frustrate Trump at every turn. They operate in secret, machinating to undermine the U.S. Constitution; particularly, the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. They seek to undercut the U.S. Constitution, because that sacred document does not cohere with the Rothschild plan for a transnational global system of governance. Is it any coincidence, then, that we see heretical speech emanating from Leftist Radicals, and, thence, echoed in the mainstream media Press and in such propaganda media sources as CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, and PBS, becoming ever more strident and bizarre?

THE RADICAL LEFT AND PROGRESSIVE ELEMENTS IN OUR COUNTRY SEEK TO REPLACE OUR FUNDAMENTAL, NATURAL AND UNALIENABLE AND RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES WITH OTHER MAN-CREATED “RIGHTS” OF THEIR OWN CHOOSING

Consider: only in very recent years have Progressive and Radical Left-wing politicians and their friends in the mainstream media dared openly to call for restraints on speech and on freedom of association among the polity; abridgment of the free exercise of religion; abrogation of the right of the people to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; encroachment on the right to own and possess personal property; and outright eradication of the Second Amendment’s right of the people to keep and bear arms—audaciously refusing to accept the simple truth of the right to own and to possess firearms as a fundamental, natural, individual right, notwithstanding the clear and categorical meaning of the right codified in the Second Amendment, and openly contemptuous of the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Heller and McDonald, that set the high Court’s imprimatur on the transparently clear meaning of the Second Amendment, if anyone happened to harbor any misunderstanding of the import and purport of the Second Amendment.Further, these Radical Leftists and Progressives in our midst have called for repeal of the Electoral College; have sought to pack the high Court with individuals who would demonstrate no reluctance in imposing their own Collectivist belief system on the Constitution, when deciding cases. And, it doesn’t stop there. They dare to create out of whole cloth an entirely new set of rights—rights that nowhere exist tacitly or expressly in the U.S. Constitution; In fact, these new “Rights” that the Radical Left and Progressives would impose on the American citizenry are  antithetical to very meaning and purpose of the Constitution that the framers of our Nation bequeathed to us. But, they don’t care. As it is their intention to destroy the Constitution, they have drummed up a “new” set of nonsensical “rights,”—as nonsensical as the “Seven Commandments” that Orwell dreamed up for inclusion in his satire, “Animal Farm.”

THE RADICAL LEFT AND PROGRESSIVE  ELEMENTS HAVE CREATED A NEW SET OF PROTOCOLS FOR A NEW WEAKENED AMERICA TO REPLACE THE NATION’S BILL OF RIGHTS THAT THE FRAMERS IN THEIR WISDOM SAW NEED TO INCORPORATE INTO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

The Protocols that the Radical Left and Progressive Elements envision might very well include the following, preposterous--indeed imbecilic--protocols, as predicated on their own pronouncements:

• Abrogation of the original Bill of Rights
• The right of a pregnant woman to kill her unborn child up to and including the very moment of birth.
• The right of non-citizens to insist the United States grant them asylum
• The right of anyone residing in the United States to obtain free, public-supported higher education
• The right of anyone residing in the United States to access unlimited, free health care
• The right of non-citizens to free housing, free health-care, and unlimited welfare, all at taxpayer expense
• The right of non-citizens and convicted felons to vote in Federal elections
• The right of those groups of people, deemed to be victims in times past, to obtain reparation payments
• The right to receive public assistance, sustenance, and remuneration even if a person doesn’t wish to work
• The right of Government to determine what rights inure to the people and who may enjoy them.
• The right of Government to add to, modify, suspend, or revoke and right as exigency demands.
• Adoption of the European Union's “Convention for the Protection  of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms” *

What is difficult to believe is that the aforesaid protocols are not satire. They are in fact the feverish dream of Radical Left and Progressive politicians, and they are deadly serious about making them a reality. Imagine if these reprobates had their way and could actually substitute their “rights” for those codified in our Nation’s Bill of Rights? If that were to happen, then slowly, inexorably, the U.S. would begin to look much like the EU, and the EU would begin to look increasingly like this new version of the U.S.; and who, then, would be able to tell the difference between us and them?“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” ~ George Orwell, Animal Farm (Chapter 10, last paragraph).How much easier it would be, then, for the U.S. to slip easily into the throes of the New Global World Order. Americans would hardly know it were even happening--until it were much too late to do anything about it!___________________________________________________*There are several important implications that beg to be addressed apropos of the “Convention for the Protection  of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms” and which we must needs consider, as they may not be obvious, but are critical to an understanding of the inherent limitation on “rights” as perceived by the Governmental EU bureaucrats who created these rights at the behest of the silent true rulers: the Rothschild clan and their ilk.First, this set of rights, bespeaks an autonomy that is beyond the member States of the EU to question, once the respective State Governments ratify this Convention. Second, as a corollary to the first point,  these “rights” qua “protocols” take precedence over the laws of the individual member Nations of the EU. Thus, the European Commission and European Parliament and the European Court of Justice, have political, legal, and legislative authority and control over each of the member State Governments. Third, while several of these protocols may seem on their face, at first glance, to be eminently fair—as a few allude to our own fundamental rights as set forth in our Bill of Rights—still, there is a major difference between the EU protocols set forth in the "Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" and the Bill of Rights of the United States; for, every one of the European prootocols comes with conditions attached, as specifically set forth in the Articles, that reduces the protocols to a set of nonsensical rather than commonsensical "rights and freedoms. For, unlike our Nation's Bill of Rights, the protocols of the European Union operate with built-in constraints on the free exercise of such presumed "rights." And, it is through those conditions, which follow the recitation of the purported "rights" that it becomes manifestly clear that the engineers who constructed the "rights" intended them to be understood to be mere man-made creations--subject to modification, suspension, or outright abrogation at the whim and caprice of the overseers of the European Union. Thus, the "rights" (or protocols as they are often referred to) are understood not to be the creation of the Divine Creator, and, therefore, are understood not to be preordained in the people, unlike the rights that comprise our own Nation’s Bill of Rights, which renders them legally incapable of being modified, weakened, suspended, ignored, or altogether abrogated by Government.Unlike the natural, fundamental, primordial, immutable, unalienable rights of the American people, as codified lovingly by the framers of our Constitution into the Bill of Rights, the "rights" referred to in the EU's Convention" are all constructs of Government, subject to the EU Government’s built-in conditions that operate as constraints and as restraints on the exercise of any right or freedom. In that regard, it is incumbent on those who peruse the European Union's Convention for the Protection  of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms to realize, fourth, that the protocols are worthless, even as they seem pertinent and demonstrative of tangible force and efficacy. For the Human Rights the EU speaks of clearly are not to be perceived as a check on or guard against Government encroachment on the lives, thoughts, and actions of the people of the EU, but, rather, as simple Rules of Etiquette as between one person and another. Also, pay close attention to Article 15 of the Protocol, titled, “Derogation in Time of Emergency.”  To wit: “In time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation any High Contracting Party may take measures derogating from its obligations under this Convention to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with its other obligations under international law.”Essentially, Article 15 means that each of the “Rights” set forth in the preceding “Articles 1 through 14” of Section I of the Convention, may be suspended when the overseers of the EU deem suspension of rights to be necessary, namely, when the the EU's overseers then determine what state of affairs operates as a “public emergency.” There is no debate; no appeal by any person or by any member Nation. While, it may be noted that secret (with particular emphasis on the word, ‘secret’) Executive Orders may exist in our own Nation that might serve to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus and other Rights and Liberties of our Bill of Rights when public exigency demands, such secret U.S. Presidential Executive Order—if such does exist (and there may be more than one such secret Order)—is prima facie Constitutionally unlawful, and therefore invalid. See, Ex parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (Circuit Court, D. Maryland) (April 1861, Term).Government--any Government, including our own--may, through dint of power, prevail on subduing the populace, but power to act against the people does not equate with right. In any event, an armed citizenry--our armed citizenry--is the ultimate guard against ("failsafe")  against misuse of power by the Government against the citizenry—and 'misuse of power' here is meant to be used in reference to "misuse of power" by any of the Three Branches of our Government, as against the citizenry. This brings us to the Fifth  and final point pertaining to the EU's Convention for the Protection  of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Not one of the 14 Articles of “Rights” says anything about a right of individual citizens within a Nation of the EU to possess firearms. Fancy that? Was this just an oversight? Obviously, not. For, only an armed citizen can enforce rights that Government would seek to constrain, ignore, or revoke. Article 15 provides for and reserves one very specific right for itself, that it bestows only on itself: the right, as pointed out supra, to suspend or abrogate any of the 14 other purported rights mentioned in the Convention. It would hardly do for the EU to provide for the citizens' right to keep and bear arms--even if only understood as a man-made construct--for an armed citizenry might have much to say about Government that would dare reserve for itself the overriding, ultimate right to suspend or abrogate all of the protocols--Article 1 through 14--of the EU Convention. That would prove exceedingly difficult were the populations of the EU armed. For the populations could then really and truly compel the EU Government, to honor and commit to the rights and freedoms that it so pompously and sanctimoniously presents to the populations of the EU, through the Convention for the Protection  of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. That the EU Government fails, then, to provide for the right of the populations of the EU to keep and bear arms--even if such right as articulated specifically mentioned, as its stated purpose, the right of self-defense--that should tell the populations of the EU all it needs to know about the speciousness of Articles 1 through 14 of the Convention. For, clearly it isn't misuse of firearms by the occasional lunatic or criminal that frightens the EU overseers. It is, rather, the very real power existent in the populations of the EU that the overseers fear if the populations of the EU are armed. The EU, after all, belongs to the Rothschild clan and to the other architects of the EU. Only the police and military, who serve the EU, not the public, will be permitted to have access to firearms. And, the overseers, themselves, will equip themselves with firearms to protect themselves from the public if the public should at long last realize that the EU does not serve the interests of the public; that the EU overlords never intended to serve the interests of the public; that the EU overlords never did serve the interests of the public; that the EU was never  created to serve the public; and that the EU overlords will not, ever, serve the interests of the public. Rather the architects of the EU intended the populations of Europe to serve as mere subjects and serfs of the EU overlords, themselves. And with each passing day, that fact becomes ever clearer. The overlords of the EU operate with impunity. Their power increases. The Government of the EU becomes more entrenched; the lives of the public worsens. Their rights and freedoms--if such ever existed--is a thing of the past. If they truly expect to regain rights and freedoms, they will first have to reclaim their own Nation's sovereignty and independence from the EU puppet masters.______________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.