CHRISTIAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN UTILIZED AS CANNON FODDER AND AS A PLOT DEVICE IN AN “ASSAULT WEAPON” HORROR FILM PSYCHODRAMA, AIMED AT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC

School shootings are rare events. But they need not happen, and should not happen. But they do happen. And the reason why is no secret. And, NO, the reason for school shooting incidents has nothing to do with too many “GUNS” in society.The reason for school shootings, as with shootings anywhere else in the Country, has nothing to do with the quantity of guns or the types of guns circulating in America, notwithstanding the fuss and furor of Anti-Second Amendment forces in Government, in the Press, or in the greater public. The reason why is simple:Guns, of themselves, “DON’T CAUSE” violence.“GUNS DON’T CAUSE ANYTHING” because, like any other implement, “GUNS CAN’T CAUSE ANYTHING.” A FIREARM IS AN INANIMATE OBJECT, NOT A SENTIENT AGENT.A firearm, be it an antique black powder musket, or modern assault rifle or submachine gun—or “assault weapon” qua “weapon of war” (expressions concocted by propagandists and subject to constant fluctuation and expansion)—have no will of their own.These implements might sit for a million years in a military armory or in one’s private abode, and, left alone, nothing would happen. They won’t sprout legs and arms and go off on a shooting spree because they aren’t sentient beings. They have no “will” to act and no ability to act. Only sentient agents CAN ACT, are capable of action, for good or naught.Yet, to hear Joe Biden, for one, go on about guns, one would think that guns are the seminal cause of criminal violence in our schools and elsewhere around the Country—A “SCOURGE” OF THE COUNTRY AND OF “GUN VIOLENCE” he has long said—as if this AWFUL “SCOURGE” is independent of the SENTIENT AGENTS, the PSYCHOPATHS and LUNATICS that use guns, or any other implement, to commit their unspeakable acts. “Get rid of Guns,” so the illogical messaging goes, “and peace and harmony will reign throughout the Land.” Nothing could be further from the truth.And, THE TRUTH IS THIS:The overwrought, pensive, incessant dwelling on “GUNS” would dissolve into nothingness like the chimera it is and ever was if Government would spend less time, money, dwelling on guns, and spend more time, money, and effort “RIDDING SOCIETY OF PSYCHOPATHIC CRIMINALS AND DANGEROUS LUNATICS”—placing and then keeping serial violent criminals in prison and placing and keeping dangerous lunatics in asylums. Then, there would be no issue about guns as a “SCOURGE” on society.But, the SCOURGE IS NOT GUNS. It is, rather, the crazed individuals permitted, even encouraged, to run amok in our Nation to terrorize innocent Americans at will.This should be obvious. The Anti-Second Amendment Biden Administration and the Legacy Press prostrate themselves to “THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR IN SOCIETY,” (those elements of no use to society and of little, if any, use to themselves) who intrude upon and trample the natural law rights of the “THE HIGHEST COMMON DENOMINATOR IN SOCIETY: tens of millions of responsible, rational, ethically minded citizens, who are the most significant part of the polity.In fact, given the present state of affairs, in this strange cultural milieu of DEI, CRT, SEL, ESG, and LGBTQIA+, the public sees the community police departments themselves handcuffed and in leg irons, underfunded or defunded, and often demoralized, and unable to provide a modicum of protection for their communities. In such a society that America, under the Biden Administration, has become, the import of the natural law right to armed self-defense is unmistakable, becoming more acute, insistent, and emphatic with each passing day.And Americans DO FIND themselves compelled to resort to armed self-defense more frequently, and they do successfully ward off the threat to life, and often without having to fire a shot because the display of a firearm is enough to deter a hardened but by no means dull-witted criminal.If an aggressor is hopped up on illegal narcotics, and undeterred by the mere presence of a firearm, a couple of well-placed gunshots renders the most maniacal assailant compliant, whereas a whistle, or pepper spray (diluted for civilian use), or a stun gun marketed for civilians, or a rap on the head with a baseball bat, or a firm command (“stay the f**k away from me”) would only tend to enrage the assailant more.Yet, the Press deliberately underreports the utility of the firearm for self-defense, notwithstanding statistical evidence to support it. See, e.g., the August 10, 2022 article by John R. Lott, Jr., titled, “The ‘Good Guys With Guns’ the FBI Stats Omit,” on RealClear Investigations.See also the March 31, 2023 in Americangunfacts. These statistics don’t lie, but, also they don’t fit the narrative of the Anti-Second Amendment Biden Administration and its friends in the Press, so these statistics are never mentioned.But, when a lunatic goes into a schoolhouse and murders children, the Government and media perk up their ears. They zero in on it, magnify it, and talk endlessly and vociferously about it.But does the Government—this Biden Administration—do this because it really cares about the plight of school children? No! The Biden Administration doesn't care about the plight of the children.Rather, a school shooting incident is the kind of event the Biden Administration exuberantly awaits and yearns for. Regardless of what the Administration says, the lives of children are not sacred and inviolate to the Administration. The public takes from the words of Joe Biden what it wants to hear, and wishes to believe, but the public is naive. The words are empty; worse they are lies.Children are viewed by the Administration as CANNON FODDER, THEATER PROPS, a PLOT DEVICE to be utilized in service to an agenda: illegal confiscation of semiautomatic weapons—weapons that are in common use by and for millions of average, responsible, rational Americans. And these Americans utilize these weapons for many lawful uses—principally, among them—for self-defense and in defense of one's family against rabid, violent assault.The Biden Administration and news organs use psychological conditioning techniques to create in the psyche of Americans a phobic reaction toward GUNS—treating the entire sordid event—Childrens’ violent deaths at the hands of a Lunatic intent on destroying innocent life, and the Lunatic, in turn, meeting a violent death through the same mechanism of destruction—are cast as a singular horrific event to overload the mind.This is the sort of event the Biden Administration and other foes of the natural law right to armed self-defense salivate over because the overarching focus and central aim is to constantly constrain and eventually eliminate civilian citizenship ownership and possession of firearms, commencing with semiautomatic firearms, encapsulated in the inflammatory, political expression, “assault weapons.” Remember Emmanuel Rahm’s Law: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”That IS the mantra of the Biden Administration. And it WAS the mantra of the Pelosi's House of Representatives.The Government and the Press prey on the horror of innocent lives lost—the lives of children lost.This type of event helps them spin a narrative of the evils of “THE GUN” as the DESTROYER of innocent life rather than as PRESERVER of innocent life. There is something archetypal in this.The Biden Administration does not permit the American public to see firearms in a positive light. The KILLER and the WEAPON become “ONE ENTITY,” inextricably linked and bound: a SINGLE instrument of Death.The matter of news reporting of the recent tragedy that occurred in a small, private, Christian elementary school, “The Covenant School” in Nashville, Tennessee, demonstrates how news coverage has evolved into an elaborate theatrical production.

THE NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL THEATRICAL PSYCHODRAMA HORROR SHOW UNFOLDS

In the film, presented to the public, through carefully drawn video vignettes and an accompanying film script, the perpetrator of the violence, the psychotic maniac, Audrey (“Aiden”) Elizabeth Hale and her “assault weapons” serve as a “TROPE,” a thematic storytelling device that drives the plot forward.The INANIMATE OBJECT, THE “ASSAULT WEAPON” bound to the ANIMATE SUBJECT, an emotional wreck of a human Being, are, together, presented as the “CENTRAL ANTAGONIST” in a carefully scripted and presented horror psychodrama.Photographs of both the person and the weaponry are presented.See March 28, 2023 article in Newsweek with sharp graphics of the firearms Hale carried into and utilized in carrying out the murders. and in Independent.co.uk.The New York Post, on March 23, 2023, shows “stills” and video of Hale shooting out the doors of the schools and walking the corridors with rifle at the ready.And see articles published in nytimes.com, independent.co.uk and cbsnews.com.The rhetorical talking points are all in service to an agenda, creating a false narrative about “guns,” using the murder of innocent children as a “plot device” to achieve a goal: Gaining Public Support for A Wholesale Ban On “Assault Weapons.”And, like all good theater, there must be a CLIMAX TO THE FILM. And there is one, here.The Nashville Metro Police provided detailed bodycam footage of the search for and takedown of Hale by an officer (a Metro SWAT Team member, perhaps?) as he methodically removes his assault rifle from the trunk of his squad car, racking the slide of the rifle as he walks determinedly, if curiously not particularly hurriedly, up to the entrance to the school, and waits patiently as an unknown party opens the door with a key. Upon entering the school other officers lead him (to clear?) several rooms of the school, all of which are devoid of the shooter, students, and staff. Apparently, children and staff had been previously shepherded out of the school.As he (and we, the audience) hear shots fired at an upper level of the school building, the officer double-times up a couple flights of stairs where yet other officers guide him to a large lobby area. It is here that he confronts the shooter, Audrey Hale, and takes the shooter out. We are not privy to the shooting itself (due to careful post-production editing of the body camera footage, ostensibly to garner a PG Rating for the film).A second officer (another METRO SWAT Team member, perhaps?) performs the coup de grâce, shooting Audrey Hale four more times, with his handgun, while standing over the fallen shooter. The actual shooting scene, too, is cut, post-production.A final “still” shows the fallen ANTAGONIST, with head deliberately obscured, body visible and contorted on the floor.The entire video camera sequence does appear to have a refined, staged look.The two officers, as with the ANTAGONIST, are demonstrably and inextricably linked with the weapons they bear (one wielding a presumably “selective fire assault rifle,” and the second officer wielding a semiautomatic handgun). See, e.g., video provided by CNN.The two police officers, Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, the two PROTAGONISTS in this news PSYCHODRAMA, who had neutralized the shooter, are hailed as heroes. And that’s, that! Or is it?Dis Collazo need to kill Hale? Was she already mortally wounded from Engelbert’s shots? In any event, she no longer appeared as a viable threat.Would it not have been preferable to keep Hale alive, if possible, once incapacitated. She would have some explaining to do, and better to hear directly from her, her motivations, than try to glean them from a diary or journal, news organizations pretentiously refer to as the killer’s ‘manifesto.’ See Newsweek article for one.Collazo could have kicked her rifle away from her hands if she were still grasping it.Reuters recounts the following:“‘Shots fired, shots fired, move,’ Collazo says before joining Engelbert and the other officer in confronting the shooter.With the perpetrator on the floor, Collazo presses forward to take the final four shots, exhorting the shooter to ‘stop moving!’There is no response from the mortally wounded assailant, as Collazo says, ‘suspect down, suspect down.’” “‘Shots fired, shots fired, move,’ Collazo says before joining Engelbert and the other officer in confronting the shooter.With the perpetrator on the floor, Collazo presses forward to take the final four shots, exhorting the shooter to ‘stop moving!’ (all the while he simultaneously appears to be shooting her).There is no response from the mortally wounded assailant, as Collazo says, ‘suspect down, suspect down.’”We now come to the narrative epilogue that lays bare the purport of the film:The rhetorical talking points are all in service to an agenda, creating a false narrative about “guns,” using the murder of innocent children as a “PLOT DEVICE” to achieve a goal: GAINING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR A BAN ON “ASSAULT WEAPONS.”But the public is left with a seemingly daunting incompatible view of “ASSAULT WEAPONS”:THEY ARE BOTH GOOD (OR NEUTRAL) AND EVIL, DEPENDING ON THE CAMERA’S VANTAGE POINT—THE PARALLAX:ASSAULT WEAPONS IN THE HANDS OF AVERAGE CITIZENS ARE AN EVIL THAT MUST NOT BE TOLERATED; INVARIABLY LEADING TO DEATH, DESTRUCTION, AND UNMITIGATED HORROR FOR EVERYONE; BUT,ASSAULT WEAPONS IN THE HANDS OF AGENTS OF THE GOVERNMENT, POLICE OFFICERS, ARE PERCEIVED AS “GOOD” (OR, PERHAPS, AS “NEUTRAL”) PROMOTING THE PRESERVATION OF INNOCENT LIFE AND DEATH (BUT ONLY IN EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES, AS FOR EXAMPLE WHEN AN OFFICER GOES TO THE ASSISTANCE OF SCHOOL CHILDREN, THREATENED BY A KILLER.Thus, resolution of the incompatibility of “ASSAULT WEAPON” (EVIL) VERSUS “ASSAULT WEAPON (GOOD OR OTHERWISE, AT LEAST, NEUTRAL) demands a magician’s trick, a feat of legerdemain.The messaging conveyed in the Coventry School Psychodrama is subtle—below the threshold of conscious awareness, residing in the subconscious mind.It is that GUNS qua “ASSAULT WEAPONS” are an EVIL, sometimes unadulterated, pure evil—at such time when “THE SENTIENT AGENT (A MANIACAL KILLER) murders children.But, GUNS qua “ASSAULT WEAPONS” are a (GOOD (OR AT LEAST NEUTRAL)) “NECESSARY EVIL” where another SENTIENT AGENT (THE TRAINED, CAPABLE, AND DETERMINED POLICE OFFICER) uses his WEAPON to KILL the KILLER.In other words, it takes a “SHOOTER” TO KILL A SHOOTER.” But isn’t that what armed self-defense is all about? And, if that is a commendable act for a police officer, why should that act be any less commendable if performed by the average civilian in defense of his or her life and that of one’s family?The Head of The Covenant School in Nashville, Katherine Koonce, whom one news account attributes with saving the lives of many of the school children, but at the cost of her own, as she ran directly toward the killer, Audrey Hale, had undertaken, according to the source, “active shooter training,” but the nature of that training was not provided. The author of the article, Billy Hallowell, writing for faithwire.com said he “cannot” (or would not) provide details.

THE ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND THE ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT DEMOCRAT-PARTY ESTABLISHMENT THAT INCLUDE THE LEGACY PRESS ARE FIXATED ON DENYING AMERICANS’ NATURAL LAW RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE

The Biden Administration and other Anti-Second Amendment elements treat the common people as random bits of energy that, at any time, can go off the deep end, and their tendency for violence, i.e., “GUN VIOLENCE,” must therefore be constrained.The notorious American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a politically connected organization tightly aligned with the Biden Administration, posits:“A diagnosis of mental illness does not predict gun violence,”—a true statement—but the AFT, then uses that statement to declare, “Gun control can help prevent gun violence,” implying that, because no can know for certain who will one day go off on a killing spree, the better course of action dictates disarming the public, beginning with a ban on “ASSAULT WEAPONS”—i.e., all semiautomatic firearms.Recall that Biden’s first nominee to head the ATF, David Chipman “. . . believes those tens of millions of semi-automatic rifles should be reclassified as machine guns, which would require registration with the government and the payment of a $200.00 tax stamp for every legally purchased and possessed firearm, with the potential of a 10-year federal prison sentence for those who simply kept their guns without registering them under the National Firearms Act.” See the article in bearingarms.com, posted on May 21, 2021.

WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON HERE?

The United States has this—an Armed Citizenry—both a FACT and an IDEA. The FACT and the IDEA are A Reality: insistent, resilient, and tenacious, not easily ignored or dismantled.Getting guns out of the hands of the citizenry is a physical matter—difficult enough. But, to force the public to forfeit an idea requires the Biden Administration to get inside the mind of Americans and, once inside the American psyche, to reshape it in such a way, that the psyche would willingly turn away from and forsake its natural law, eternal rights.Self-preservation is innate in all living creatures. Americans have a strong desire to protect “self” and to protect one’s offspring. Self-defense is a natural law, fundamental, eternal right. And armed self-defense is not a difference in kind. The natural law right to armed self-defense simply means that an individual has the unalienable right to utilize the most effective means available to ensure his or her life. And for hundreds of years the best means of ensuring one’s life is with a firearm.The propagandists working with and through both the Biden Administration, the Legacy Press, social media, and galvanizing a base of supporters, seduced by the fallacious rhetoric, have devised a stratagem to cajole more and more Americans to turn away from the natural law right to armed self-defense.The stratagem involves psychically weakening, fracturing the idea of “GUNS” as a mechanism for one’s self-preservation by focusing on the murder of young children by gun-wielding maniacs.But the stratagem embodies a fatal flaw that undermines one’s confidence in the seriousness of the effort.If the Biden Administration’s concern for the life and well-being of children, while attending school were truly forthright, earnest, and sincere, then the Administration would be duty-bound to encourage implementation of all measures that would best ensure the physical safety of the children while in school.What would that mean? It means the Biden Administration would encourage officials of public and private schools to harden their schools against armed attack. There are specific measures that, once implemented, would prevent an aggressor from entering a school, and possibly deter that aggressor from contemplating an attack on a hardened school. This isn’t a supposition. It’s fact.The New York Post reported that,“Police said Hale was equipped with at least two assault weapons and a handgun, and in searching her family home in Nashville, officers found detailed maps and a manifesto of the attack.‘We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this day,’ Nashville Metropolitan Police Chief John Drake said about the discovery.He added that Hale was ‘prepared to do more harm than was actually done,’ and that she had drawn up plans to attack another school in the area, but backed out of them because the school was too secure.” See also article in Newsweek.“Drake told reporters that ‘there was another location that was mentioned, but because of threat assessment by the suspect, too much security, they decided not to.’”Drake also said, as reported in newsweek,“. . . that Hale had come with ‘multiple rounds of ammunition’ and ‘prepared to do more damage than was actually done,’ having been stopped from carrying out further bloodshed after being fatally shot by responding officers.”We can infer from these synopses, that Audrey Hale had meticulously planned out her murder of children, and that she considered and deliberately avoided attempting to penetrate any school that she knew as secured against assault.The Police Chief points out that the quick actions of his Officers had prevented Audrey Hale from murdering more children. But, that raises the question: “Suppose well-armed resource officers, or off-duty or retired police officers, had been employed to patrol the Coventry School corridors and school grounds, would utilization of armed personnel not have prevented the killer from gaining entrance to the School, or, would they not, otherwise have stopped the would-be killer immediately had she succeeded in gaining entry into the School?Did Joe Biden get the message? Apparently not. He never mentioned the need to harden schools. It wasn’t on his radar, not in this instance or in any prior instance. And so school shooting recur. There is an immense and disconcerting disconnect between Biden's ostensible concern over school shootings, as seen through the florid language he employs, and a resolute stance AGAINST implementing measures to curtail these horrific school shootings from reoccurring from time-to-time, as inevitably they do. After the Coventry School tragedy, Biden said this, as reported in usnews.com.“It’s sick. It's heartbreaking . . . a family's worst nightmare,’ Biden said in brief remarks at the White House before beginning a planned event on women-owned small businesses.‘We have to do more to protect our schools so they’re not turned into prisons. You know, a shooter in this situation reportedly had two assault weapons and a pistol, two AK-47. So I call on Congress again to pass my assault weapons ban.’”Apart from the gaffe pertaining to “two AK-47”, Biden’s point about not turning schools into prisons alludes directly to his absolute refusal (and that of his Administration) to entertain securing schools from armed attack. (Biden doesn't know a damn thing about firearms but he would ban all of them if he could). The words, “We have to do more to protect our schools” are both telling and vacuous. They are telling because the term, ‘children,’ is noticeably absent from the declaration. It is children that need protecting, and hardening the schools against attack, serves to protect the lives and well-being of the children. And Biden's declaration is hollow and vacuous because he isn't serious about protecting children. His concern, and the concern of his Administration is directed solely to confiscation of firearms from the hands of millions, nay tens of millions, of Americans, the commoners. That one-dimensional view of school shootings is the beginning and the end of the matter for Biden and his Administration. And he rails against Congress. The Hill reports, on March 3, 2023,“President Biden on Tuesday argued that he can’t do much more to curb gun violence other than plead with Congress to act, blaming lawmakers for their lack of legislation to ban assault weapons following another deadly school shooting — this time in Nashville.”The Biden Administration won't even give lip service to hardening schools against aggressive armed assault. The Administration vehemently opposes that. And, such vehement opposition to securing schools against armed attack is particularly alarming, because securing schools against armed attack does work. In fact, as noted supra, the Nashville, Tennessee Police Chief, John Drake, pointedly asserted that Audrey Hale intentionally avoided attempting entry at another school, after consideration, precisely because she was aware that this second school was impenetrable. She was a homicidal maniac, sure. But, unlike Joe Biden, and the other puppets in his Administration, she wasn't a colossal idiot.“In Thursday's White House press briefing, Karine Jean-Pierre made the Biden administration's clearly partisan position clear regarding legislation aimed at making schools and students safer: Biden won't consider anything other than a ban on ‘assault weapons.’As Townhall reported earlier on Thursday, Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee introduced the SAFE Act, a $900 million grant program to help public and private schools harden their physical security and hire veterans and former law enforcement officers as additional security and as a deterrent to assailants.But the White House, according to Karine Kean-Pierre, isn't interested in taking steps to make schools safer for the students who attend them by making it more difficult for assailants to enter the premises, introduce trained individuals who could defend schools and the students within them, or create more deterrents that could dissuade a would-be assailant from targeting schools in the first place.” See townhall.com.And there you have it: “Biden won't consider anything other than a ban on ‘assault weapons.’” This means either that Joe Biden and his Administration don't give a damn about the life of an innocent child while in school, as that child is completely dependent on a school's administration to provide for that child's physical safety and well-being, OR that Joe Biden and his Administration see that the death of a child HAS UTILITY — THAT IT Serves a useful purpose.COLDLY AND CALLOUSLY INDIFFERENT TO THE LIFE OF AN INNOCENT CHILD, OR COLDLY AND CALLOUSLY CALCULATING, PERCEIVING THE DEATH OF AN INNOCENT CHILD AS USEFUL TO SECURING AN OBJECTIVE: GAINING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR A WHOLESALE CIVILIAN CITIZEN BAN ON "ASSAULT WEAPONS," I.E., A WHOLESALE BAN ON SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS—IN FURTHERANCE OF A GOAL: SUBJUGATION OF THE AMERICAN CITIZENRY AND DESTRUCTION OF A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC TO PAVE THE WAY FOR A NEO-FEUDALISTIC WORLD EMPIRE.THE ONE POSSIBILITY IS HORRIBLE AND HORRENDOUS TO CONTEMPLATE. AND THAT IS BAD ENOUGH. BUT, THE SECOND IS MIND-NUMBINGLY HORRIFIC, THE VERY CRUCIFIXION OF SANITY, AS THE SANCTITY AND INVIOLABILITY OF THE LIFE OF A CHILD AND THE LIFE OF ANY AMERICAN IS CONSIDERED TO BE WORTHLESS. Logically, one or the other position is the case. There is no getting around this, given WHAT JOE BIDEN AND HIS ADMINISTRATION SAYS AND WHAT THEY DO!SUCH IS THE MINDSET OF THE COLLECTIVIST—AN ACOLYTE OF AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS COMPLETELY ANTITHETICAL TO THE TENETS OF INDIVIDUALISM UPON WHICH THE BLUEPRINT OF OUR NATION, THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, IS CONSTRUCTED.This refusal to even consider hardening schools is inexplicable if Biden and his Administration are serious about protecting a child’s life. But, THEY AREN'T. That fact is clear and inescapable.The lack of empathy for the life of an innocent child is an inference to be derived from present and previous assertions made by both Biden and his Press Secretary, and those assertions put the lie to any claim that anyone who supports Trump might say: that he cares one whit about the the death of children and the heartbreak that the death of a child causes parents.The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively both about this and about the basic strategies that schools can and should implement to protect their students and staff.  See, e.g., AQ articles posted on March 13, 2018, November 17, 2022, January 30, 2023, February 9, 2023, and February 23, 2023.Biden only talks about banning firearms—those, by the way, “in common use”—those held by millions of average, responsible, and level-headed Americans. It is these firearms he refers to by the false pejorative, “weapons of war.”And from yahoo.com, we have this,“President Joe Biden said Tuesday in the wake of the latest US school shooting that most Americans think owning the types of military style rifles regularly used to carry out such massacres is ‘bizarre.’‘The majority of the American people think having assault weapons is bizarre, it's a crazy idea. They're against that,’ he told reporters at the White House when asked how to respond to the incident in Nashville, where a heavily armed former student gunned down three children and three staff before being killed by police.”What is this “majority” of Americans is Biden talking about? The only thing “bizarre” here is Biden’s comment about “AR-15 Style Rifles.” See article in Business Insider.“Around 19.8 million AR-15 style rifles are in circulation in the US, a nationwide tally that's surged from around 8.5 million since a federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004.The more recent estimate comes from a November 2020 statement by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. In the statement, its President and CEO Joseph Bartozzi called the AR-15 the ‘most popular rifle sold in America’ and a ‘commonly-owned firearm.’”See also article in Forbes. Even an attempt at a ban is ludicrous on many levels.Perhaps Biden would like to see a little Civil War? The attempt to institute a comprehensive ban on semiautomatic rifles would do just that.But more to the point, apart from this fixation of “GUNS,” why does Biden oppose securing the schools? A desire to ban firearms in the general population, while ludicrous, is not inconsistent with securing schools from an armed lunatic desirous of gaining entry for the purpose of murdering children. Yet, Biden opposes securing schools. What can possibly explain this?We can draw only one inference—one that is horrific to consider but the only plausible one that is consistent with a single-minded FIXATION ON A NATIONWIDE “ASSAULT WEAPON” BAN and “ABSOLUTE REFUSAL TO COUNTENANCE SECURING SCHOOLS FROM ARMED AGGRESSION.”Joe Biden, and his Administration and the Press, and the Democrat-Party machinery see school children as useful cannon fodder in support of an agenda: the destruction of a free Constitutional Republic and a sovereign people. And exclaiming that loss of children to “GUN VIOLENCE” is awful, but relishing the utility of their death in service to their agenda makes their disingenuous words even more noxious.The Biden Administration and other Anti-Second Amendment interests know that nothing stokes the public more and tugs at the heartstrings than the senseless death of a young child. If anything can encourage more Americans to get onboard with mass confiscation of a popular firearm for self-defense, it is the senseless death of a child from a lunatic who murders a child with the instrument the Government wants to preclude the common man from possessing.The cold and callous Biden Administration knows this and uses the public's moral conscience against itself. School shootings will therefore continue because the Administration wants them to continue. The Administration is fixated on only one thing: disbanding the Armed Citizenry, the one mechanism that alone can ably resist Tyranny. Until it gets what it wants, a wholesale civilian citizen ban on semiautomatic weaponry, the Biden Administration will allow for, even encourage, school shootings to continue. The Biden Administration will do nothing to curtail school shootings. Killers get the message and willingly, gleefully, oblige Joe Biden and his Administration.And why is the Biden Administration so fixated on “semiautomatic weapons?”The Administration is fixated on those weapons precisely because they are popular with the public — See article ingunsandammo.com, — and they are useful instruments, in fact, highly effective tools for the purpose of self-defense, against creature, against an aggressor, and, most importantly (in the mindset of the Biden Administration), against Government Tyranny.The Armed Citizenry will never permit a free Constitutional Republic to fall. The Armed Citizenry has both the means and the will to resist a Government, this Government, from destroying the sovereignty of the American people over Government. That fact makes this caretaker Government and the secretive agency behind it apoplectic with rage.The life of an individual, child or adult means nothing to a TYRANT. A Tyrant’s goal is the accumulation of power in HIM or ITSELF. An armed citizenry is the bane of all Tyrants.Is the Biden Administration A Tyrant? No. Biden and those making up his Cabinet and other high offices are too stupid, inept, and craven to be considered a Tyrant. They aren't TYRANTS themselves, but they are compliant, base, and corrupt, and lust for the trappings of power, while not actually wielding power. Biden and the rest are compliant, obedient, servile tools in the employ of formidable, powerful, wealthy, malevolent, forces that are the true TYRANT.The Biden Administration is in league with these secretive, powerful, ruthless interests, operating both here and abroad. And Biden and his Administration pay homage to these forces and swear allegiance only to them.The Biden Administration is best perceived as a Governor-General in service to powerful interests that utilize the Administration, as their willing servant, to gain control/mastery over the Republic and the American people. These ruthless interests control the currency of the Nation, and are intent on confiscating the weaponry of the citizenry. With the collapse of the economy and the Nation's institutions, a new neo-feudalistic world empire can emerge. The empire envisioned has many names. The ones recently utilized are the “Liberal Rules-Based International Order,” which Anthony Blinken has referred to, and the (SOROS) “Open-Society.” If there is doubt about any of this, just focus on the recent and most formidable, disheartening, and alarming outrage:THE IMPENDING CRIMINAL INDICTMENT OF DONALD TRUMP, PAST UNITED STATES PRESIDENT, AND FRONT-RUNNER IN A 2024 SECOND-TERM BID.  A GEORGE SOROS-CONTROLLED TOADY, ALVIN BRAGG, A CRASS AND CRAVEN OPPORTUNIST WHO LIKELY HAS BEEN PROMISED THE NEW YORK GOVERNOR’S MANSION FOR SERVICES RENDERED TO HIS SECRET WEALTHY BENEFACTORS HAS BROUGHT PSEUDO-CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST TRUMP. BUT IT IS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, THE TRUE PATRIOTS, WHO ARE, BY EXTENSION, PERCEIVED AS CRIMINALS, WITH TRUMP.THE CRIME? FAILURE TO FORSAKE THEIR CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS, AND SOVEREIGNTY OVER GOVERNMENT, AND WILLINGLY ACCEDE TO THE REALITY OF A POST-NATION-STATE WORLD. ____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHY DO SOME STATE GOVERNMENTS AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BLATANTLY DEFY SECOND AMENDMENT RULINGS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT?

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

MULTI SERIES

PART FOURTEEN

WHY DO SOME STATE GOVERNMENTS AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BLATANTLY DEFY SECOND AMENDMENT RULINGS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT?

Scarcely eight years had passed since ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788 when the question of the power and authority of the U.S. Supreme Court came to a head in the famous case of Marbury versus Madison. The High Court made its authority felt in a clear, cogent, categorical, and indisputable language in this seminal 1803 case.The facts surrounding the case are abstruse, generating substantial scholarly debate. But what some legal scholars discern as having little importance to the logical and legal gymnastics the Court at the time had to wrestle with, and upon which legal scholars, historians, and logicians have directed their attention today, has become a cause célèbre today:“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity, expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. . . . This is of the very essence of judicial duty.” Marbury vs. Madison, 5 U.S. 137; 2 L. Ed. 60; Cranch 137 (1803)Article 3, Section Two of the U.S. Constitution establishes the powers of the Court:“The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution. . . .” The Constitution’s Framers sought to make the import of the articles and amendments to it as plain and succinct. And they did a good job of it.Even so, ruthless, powerful individuals in the Federal Government and in the States ever strive to thwart the plain meaning and purport of the U.S. Constitution in pursuit of their own selfish interests, imputing vagaries to language even where the language is plain and unambiguous to serve their own selfish ends to the detriment of both Country and people. And that ruthlessness extends to those who, with vast sums of money at their disposal, influence these “servants of the people,” in pursuit of and to achieve their own nefarious interests and goals.Back then, over two centuries ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Marbury vs. Madison, the Court deftly side-stepped the delicate political and legislative issues of the day that gave rise to the case and carved out the Court’s own territory.The High Court made two points abundantly clear:One, the U.S. Supreme Court does not answer to either the Executive or Legislative Branch. It is not to be perceived as a poor stepchild of either of those two Branches. It is a Co-Equal Branch of the Federal Government.Two, on matters impacting the meaning and purpose of the U.S. Constitution, neither the U.S. President nor Congress can lawfully ignore the Court’s rulings. This means that, where the Court has spoken on challenges to unconstitutional laws, finding particular laws of Congress to be unconstitutional, Congress has no lawful authority to ignore and countermand those rulings, or circumvent those rulings by enacting new laws that purport to do the same thing as the laws that the Court has struck down. Nor can the U.S. President cannot override the Constitutional constraints imposed on his actions.The States, too, are forbidden to ignore Supreme Court rulings, striking down unconstitutional State enactments. Nor are the States permitted to repurpose old laws or create new laws that do the same thing—operate in violate of the U.S. Constitution.  Jump forward in time to the present day.The Federal Government and all too many State and municipal Governments routinely defy the High Court’s rulings, engaging in unconstitutional conduct.But this defiance and even contempt of the High Court rulings leaves an American to ponder, “why?”Even cursory reflection elucidates the answer to that question. The answer is as plain as the text of Article Three, Section 2 of the Constitution, itself.The High Court has neither power over “the purse” that Congress wields, nor power over the Nation’s “standing army” the Chief Executive controls.Yet, the fact remains the U.S. Supreme Court is the only Branch of Government with ultimate say over the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, as Marbury made clear, well over two hundred years ago. To say what the Constitution means, when conflict or challenge to that meaning arises is within the sole province of the High Court.Unfortunately, without the capacity to withhold funds over the operation of Government, nor power to enforce its judgments by force of arms, the Court’s rulings are all too often, blatantly ignored or cavalierly dismissed.As if this weren’t bad enough, the mere fact of the Court’s authority is now actively contested.Audaciously, some individuals in Government, in the Press, and in academia, have recently argued the U.S. Supreme Court’s authority to say what the law is, should not be vested in the High Court, regardless of the strictures of Article Three, Section Two of the U.S. Constitution.Consider, an Op-Ed, titled, “Should the Supreme Court Matter So Much?” The essay appeared in The New York Times, and not that long ago, in 2018, written by Barry P. McDonald, an attorney and Law Professor no less who exclaims:“When the founders established our system of self-government, they didn’t expend much effort on the judicial branch. Of the roughly three and a half long pieces of inscribed parchment that make up the Constitution, the first two pages are devoted to designing Congress. Most of the next full page focuses on the president. The final three-quarters of a page contains various provisions, including just five sentences establishing a ‘supreme court,’ any optional lower courts Congress might create and the types of cases those courts could hear.Why was the judicial branch given such short shrift? Because in a democracy, the political branches of government — those accountable to the people through elections — were expected to run things. The courts could get involved only as was necessary to resolve disputes, and even then under congressional supervision of their dockets.It was widely recognized that the Supreme Court was the least important of the three branches: It was the only branch to lack its own building (it was housed in a chamber of Congress), and the best lawyers were seldom enthusiastic about serving on it (John Jay, the Court’s first chief justice, resigned within six years and described the institution as lacking ‘energy, weight and dignity’).When disputes came before the Supreme Court, the justices were expected to ensure that Americans received ‘due process’ — that they would be ruled by the ‘law of the land’ rather than the whims of ruling individuals. In short, the Court was to play a limited role in American democracy, and when it did get involved, its job was to ensure that its judgments were based on legal rules that were applied fairly and impartially.What about the task of interpreting the Constitution? This question is the subject of some debate, but the founders most likely believed that each branch of government had the right and duty to determine for itself what the Constitution demanded, unless the Constitution was clearly transgressed. If the Constitution was clearly transgressed, the Supreme Court had a duty to hold Congress or the president accountable — but only in the case before it. The founders almost certainly did not envision a roving mandate for the Supreme Court to dictate to Congress, the president or state governments what actions comported with the Constitution (unless they were a party to a case before it).” The question of interpreting the Constitution is the subject of some debate? Really? Apparently, this Law Professor, Barry McDonald, has wholly forgotten the import of Marbury versus Madison, a case burnt into the mind of every first-year law student. His remarks are eccentric, disturbing, and disheartening.If the Framers of the U.S. Constitution really had such a low opinion of the High Court, they would not have constructed a Government with a Third Branch but would have subsumed it into one of the first two? Obviously, the Framers thought enough about the singular importance of the U.S. Supreme Court, to include it in the framework of the Federal Government, and as a co-equal Branch of that Government.It is one thing to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings because of an antipathy toward those rulings and claim the Court can’t do anything about it anyway because the Court hasn’t power to enforce its rulings. That is bad enough. But it is quite another thing to argue the Court has no reason to exist, ought not to exist, and thereupon rationalize doing away with the Third Branch of Government or otherwise reducing its authority to render rulings to a nullity by Executive Branch or Legislative Branch edict.Application of alien predilections, predispositions, and ideology to the Nation’s governance is a path to abject tyranny; to dissolution of the Republic; defilement of the Nation’s culture and history and heritage; destruction of societal order and cohesion; and abasement and subjugation of a sovereign people. The Nation is on a runaway train, running full throttle, about to make an impact with a massive brick wall.The New York Times just loves to publish articles by credentialed individuals who hold views well beyond the pale of those held by their brethren if those views happen to conform to, and strengthen, and push the socio-political narrative of the newspaper’s publishers and editorial staff.Use of such dubious, fringe views to support a viewpoint is a classic example of “confirmation bias,” an informal fallacy.There are dozens of informal fallacies. And the American public is force-fed ideas that routinely exemplify one or more of them.This defiance of State and Federal Government actors to adhere to the Court’s rulings and even to contest the authority of the Court is most pronounced, most acute, and, unfortunately, most prevalent, in matters pertaining to the import of fundamental, unalienable rights and liberties of the American people—and none more so than the citizen’s right of armed self-defense.Consider——In the first decade of the 21st Century, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled clearly and unequivocally in Heller versus District of Columbia that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, unconnected with one’s service in a militia. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia penned the majority opinion.Among its other rulings in Heller, the High Court held the District of Columbia’s blanket ban on handguns impermissibly infringes the core of the Second Amendment. It thereupon struck down the D.C. ban on handguns as unconstitutional.And the Court also held a person has a right to immediate access to a handgun in one’s self-defense. Not surprisingly, Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions disliked these rulings and were intent on disobeying them, and arrogantly defied the Court.Looking for an excuse to defy Heller, these jurisdictions argued that Heller applies only to the Federal Government, not to them. That led to an immediate challenge, and the High Court took up the case in McDonald vs. City of Chicago.Here, Justice Alito writing for the majority, opined the Heller rulings apply with equal force to the States, through operation of the Fourteenth Amendment.Did the Anti-Second Amendment States abide by the Court’s rulings, after McDonald? No, they did not!They again defied the Court, conjuring up all sorts of reasons to deny to the American citizen his unalienable right to keep and bear arms in his self-defense.The States in these Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions claimed that, even if a person has a right to armed self-defense inside his home, the right to do so does not extend to the carrying of a handgun outside the home.The State and Federal Courts in these jurisdictions conveniently misconstrued the Supreme Court’s test for ascertaining the constitutionality of Government action infringing exercise of the right codified in the Second Amendment. These Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions also placed bans on semiautomatic weapons, fabricating a legal fiction for them; referring to them as “assault weapons.”  American citizens challenged the constitutionality of all these issues. And many of these cases wended their way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, only to be thwarted because the Court could not muster sufficient support among the Justices to deal with the flagrant violation of Second Amendment Heller and McDonald rulings and reasoning.One of these cases was the 2015 Seventh Circuit case, Friedman versus City of Highland Park, Illinois.The liberal wing of the Court didn’t want the case to be heard. That was no surprise.But, apparently, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy didn’t want to hear the case either.Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia were furious and said so in a comprehensive dissenting opinion.Had the Court taken up the Friedman case, Americans would have been spared this nonsense of “assault weapon” bans. The Court would have ruled these bans unconstitutional on their face, in which event the Federal Government and Anti-Second Amendment State governments would be hard-pressed to make a case for wasting valuable time and taxpayer monies dealing with an issue the High Court had ruled on. Unfortunately, the Friedman case and many others were not taken up by the Court.Americans are compelled to continue to spend considerable time and money in challenging a continuous stream of unconstitutional Second Amendment Government action. And often, this is a futile expenditure of time, money, and effort, albeit a noble and necessary one all the same._________________________________________

NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL UNFAZED BY CHALLENGES TO NEW YORK GUN LAW: “GO FOR IT,” SHE RETORTS!

One of the most persistent and virulently Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions, that has spurred numerous challenges to unconstitutional and unconscionable constraints on the Second Amendment through the decades, is New York.In 2020, four years after Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died, under disturbingly suspicious circumstances, and shortly after Justice Anthony Kennedy retired from the Bench, and the U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s first nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, to a seat on the High Court, the Court took up the case, NYSRPA vs. City of New York—often referred to colloquially as the “NY Gun Transport” case. An extensive explication of that case is found in a series of AQ articles posted on our website. See, e.g., our article posted on April 27, 2020, and reposted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News on the same date. A second U.S. Supreme Court case, coming out of New York, NYSRPA versus Bruen, officially released on June 23, 2022, ruled New York’s “proper cause” requirement unconstitutional.New York Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany thereupon struck the words “proper cause” from the State’s Gun Law, the Sullivan Act, codified in Section 400.00 of the State’s Penal Code. But, doing so served merely as a blind.Had the Hochul Government refrained from tinkering with the rest of the text of the Statute and other Code sections, it might well have avoided further constitutional challenges from justifiably irate New Yorkers. It did not.Hochul and Albany did not stop with the striking of “proper cause” from the Gun Law. It went well beyond that. Her Government and Albany wrote a detailed set of amendments to the Gun Law. The package of amendments, titled the “Concealed Carry Law Improvement Act,” “CCIA,” do not conform to the Bruen rulings but, rather, slither all around them. On a superficial level, deletion of the words “proper cause” might be seen by some, as Hochul and Albany had perhaps hoped, to forestall legal challenge. But, if challenge came, time would be, after all, on the Government’s side. And Hochul knew this.The Government has money enough to fight a protracted Court battle. The challenger, more likely, does not. Even finding a suitable challenger takes considerable time, exorbitant sums of money to file a lawsuit, and substantial time to take a Second Amendment case to the U.S. Supreme Court. And it is far from certain the Court will review a case even if a petition for hearing is filed, for the Court grants very few petitions.For well over a century the New York Government has inexorably whittled away at the right of armed self-defense in New York. And it has successfully weathered all attacks all the while. The New York Government wasn’t going to let the U.S. Supreme Court now, in the Bruen case, to throw a wrench into attaining its end goal: the elimination of armed self-defense in New York. Much energy went into the creation of the CCIA. It is a decisive and defiant response to the U.S. Supreme Court and furthers its goal to constrain armed self-defense in the public sphere.Likely, given the length, breadth, and depth of the CCIA, the Government saw Bruen coming, long before the case was filed, and had ample time to draft the contours of the CCIA a couple of years ago. A clue that another U.S. Supreme Court case, challenging New York’s Gun Law, would loom, presented itself in Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.  Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch had made known their strong disapproval of the way the “Gun Transport” case was handled, after the Chief Justice and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh cast their lot with the Anti-Second Amendment liberal wing of the Court, allowing the case to be unceremoniously and erroneously shunted aside, sans review of the merits of the case. A day of reckoning with New York’s insufferable Gun Law was coming. The Government of New York could not reasonably doubt that. The core of the Gun Law would be challenged, and the U.S. Supreme Court would hear that challenge. The Government likely worked up a draft response to an antagonistic U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the core of the Gun Law in 2020, shortly after the New York “Gun Transport” case ruling came down. That draft response would become the CCIA.The Government likely completed its draft of the CCIA well before Bruen was taken up by the High Court. The Government had only to fine-tune the CCIA immediately after oral argument in early November 2021. And the Government did so. Hochul almost certainly received advance notice of the text of the majority opinion within days or weeks after the hearing before the New Year had rung in. Nothing else can explain the speed at which Albany had passed the CCIA and Hochul had signed it into law: July 1, 2022, just eight days after the Court had released the Bruen decision, June 23, 2022.The CCIA amendments to the Gun Law integrate very nicely with and into other recent New York antigun legislation, passed by Albany and signed into law by Hochul. Thus, contrary to what the Governor’s website proclaims, the amendments were not “devised to align with the Supreme Court’s recent decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen.” Rather these amendments were devised to align with other New York antigun legislation. What does this portend for New Yorkers? Those New Yorkers who had hoped to be able to obtain a New York concealed handgun carry license with relative ease will now find procuring such a license no less difficult than before the enactment of the CCIA.Most hard-hit are those present holders of New York City and New York County unrestricted concealed handgun carry licenses. The “proper cause” hoop that present holders of such concealed handgun carry licenses were able to successfully jump through is of no use to them now. These renewal applicants must now satisfy a slew of new requirements—more draconian than the original ones they had previously successfully navigated. All New York concealed handgun carry applicants are now in the same boat. And meeting the new requirements are exceedingly difficult. Despite the clear intent of the Bruen rulings, to make it easier for more Americans to obtain a New York concealed handgun carry license, it is now harder. Likely, very few individuals will be able to successfully pass through the hurdles necessary to obtain a New York license the CCIA requires. Thus, getting a license will remain a coveted prize, difficult to gain as previously, and likely even more so.And the few individuals who do happen to secure a valid New York concealed handgun carry license will find themselves in a precarious situation for all the troubles they had in getting it.These new license holders will find exercise of the right of armed self-defense outside one’s home or place of business, in the public realm, full of traps and snares that did not previously exist. And there is something more alarming.The mere act of applying for a concealed carry license—whether the license is issued or not—now requires the applicant to divulge a wealth of highly personal information that, hitherto, an applicant never had to divulge, and the licensing authority had never asked an applicant to divulge. And, if a person fails to secure a license, his personal data will remain in his State police file, indefinitely, and will likely be turned over to the DOJ, DHS, ATF, IRS, and/or to a slew of State or Federal mental health agencies. All manner of harm may be visited upon the person that otherwise would not have occurred had the individual not bothered to apply for a New York concealed handgun carry license in the first place. To apply for a New York concealed handgun carry license, an applicant may unwittingly be alerting both the New York Government and the Federal Government that he is a “MAGA” supporter, and therefore a potential “Domestic Terrorist.” And, if so, he is then targeted for special treatment: surveillance, harassment, exploitation, or extortion. And he cannot claim a violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures because he voluntarily relinquished that right when he applied for a concealed handgun carry license.If one thinks this is farfetched, consider the excesses committed by the Biden Administration directed to average Americans in the last several months.We explore these troubling matters, in connection with the application requirements for a New York concealed handgun carry license, in the next few articles.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK’S GOVERNOR HOCHUL REFUSES TO ACCEPT THE BRUEN DECISION — “IT’S LIKE DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN,” IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF YOGI BERRA

POST BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT

MULTISERIES

PART TWO

“I reiterate: All that we decide in this case is that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding people to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense and that the Sullivan Law, which makes that virtually impossible for most New Yorkers, is unconstitutional.” ~ Closing paragraph of Part One of Justice Alito’s Concurring Opinion in BruenThere are two key components of Bruen. One involves the test that Federal, and State Courts must employ when they are called upon to review Governmental actions that impact the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The second involves the matter of “proper cause”/ “may issue” that is at the heart of the gun licensing regime of New York and that was the central topic of concern at oral argument in Bruen. And Bruen impacts other jurisdictions around the Country that have similar handgun licensing structures. As we all know, the High Court in Bruen struck down the foundation of the New York's concealed handgun carry license regime—the salient constituent of which is the unrestricted concealed handgun carry license component. Few people in New York "are privileged" to hold such valued and rare licenses, as those that have them can rely on handguns for self-defense in the public sphere, i.e., outside the home as well as inside it—a right denied to most all New York residents.First things first. We deal with the test that reviewing Courts must use when reviewing Governmental actions impacting 2A. The U.S. Supreme Court did articulate in Heller the test to be utilized by the Federal and State Courts when reviewing Governmental actions impacting the Second Amendment, but all too many Courts demonstrated a barely disguised antipathy toward it, or otherwise exhibited a tired apathy apropos of it. In either case such jurisdictions resorted to their own case precedent.The appropriate test to be employed—the Heller test—involves a two-step process.The first step is easy or should be easy if a reviewing Court doesn’t make what is a simple matter difficult.A reviewing Court first ascertains whether the Governmental action conflicts with the plain meaning of the Second Amendment. This means simply that the Court looks to see if the Governmental action affects the Second Amendment at all. If the Governmental action impacts on the individual right to keep and bear arms, then, the first part of the test is met. The Government action is presumed unconstitutional and the burden to prove that the action is constitutional rests on the Government, not on the individual asserting the right to be exercised—the right of the people to keep and bear arms.Thus, in the second part of the test, the Government must prove that the action is consistent with the historical tradition of firearm’s regulation. If the Government fails to establish historical precedent, then the regulation must be struck down.Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, said this:“We reiterate that the standard for applying the Second Amendment is as follows: When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’”Pay close attention to the phrase, “we reiterate” as utilized by Justice Thomas in the main Majority Opinion and as also utilized by Justice Alito in his Concurring Opinion. In colloquial parlance, the word, ‘reiterate’ means ‘to say something again or several times, typically for emphasis or clarity, and often alluding to a feeling of weariness for having to do so.’ Such is the reason for the term’s appearance in Bruen and such is the profound frustration apparent in the Majority Opinion. By using the word, ‘reiterate,’ in Bruen, the High Court expressed its disdain with the lower Courts for continually failing to heed Heller. This may be due to antipathy, even spite toward the Heller decision. Or it may be due to ignorance, apathy or sloppiness, or philosophical leanings, or stubborn adherence to lower Court precedence. That it happens at all is a dreadful thing—thus the need for Bruen—and, still, we see the Federal Government and State Governments and State and Federal Courts contending with Heller and with McDonald, and intending now to contend with Bruen, as well. How many cases must the U.S. Supreme Court hear before Government gets the message: that the right codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution is a natural law right: fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable, eternal, and absolute?Heller laid out the test and the Majority Opinion stated that fact explicitly. —The point being that the High Court wasn’t positing a new standard of review of Second Amendment cases in Bruen, but it was merely confirming the test as promulgated in Heller that all too many lower Courts had heretofore failed to apply. And in that failure, the lower Courts were jeopardizing the sanctity of the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms, as an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia.Justice Thomas, writing for the Court Majority, was telling those lower Federal and State Courts that had heretofore applied a ‘means-test analysis’ in Second Amendment cases—a test also referred to as an ‘interest-balancing approach’ or ‘interest-balancing inquiry,’ or, in Court vernacular, an ‘intermediate scrutiny test’ in testing the Constitutionality of a Governmental action—that those Courts had gotten it all wrong! Those lower Courts were giving their imprimatur to Governmental actions that all was well and good when nothing was well and good with those actions as they infringed the clear intent of the Second Amendment. The Courts should have struck those actions down. They didn’t. And in affirming the constitutional correctness of unconstitutional acts those Courts compounded their sin against the people and against the Divine Creator. For the Divine Creator had bestowed on man and in man the right of self-defense. And the general sacred right of self-defense subsumes armed self-defense, which is but a species of the Divine Right of personal survival of body, mind, and spirit against those people or Government that would dare to destroy or subjugate body, mind, or spirit to another’s will or to the will of the State over the Self.There are several examples of this failure to heed Heller, but the starkest example is Friedman vs. Highland Park, 784 F. 3d, 406 (7th Cir. 2015), cert denied, 577 U.S. 1039 (2015). The Friedman case is particularly noteworthy, especially today, because the Court had the opportunity to deal head-on with the issue whether so-called “assault weapons” fall within the core of Second Amendment protection. Had the Court taken that case up, it would have ruled that “assault weapons” do fall within Second Amendment protection, and that would have saved the American people a lot of aggravation and heartache that is at present heaped on them by a treacherous and obstructionist Biden Administration, a treacherous, obstinate Democrat Party-controlled Congress, an obstreperous, perfidious legacy Press, and a painfully passive, acquiescent, obsequious, worthless Republican Party.Of course, the expression, ‘assault weapon,’ is a fiction. That’s all it ever was. It isn’t a military term of art, and never was a military term of art; and it isn’t and wasn't ever used in the arms industry as such either.Propagandists devised the term for politicians and a seditious Press for its effect on gullible members of the American public who allow the Government and the Press to do their thinking for them—seducing them through emotive words and images to sacrifice their God-Given Rights for nothing but an illusion of or false hope of security if they would but place their faith in the State to protect them, but from what is never made clear. What is clear is that the State wishes to protect itself from the armed citizenry, as it is the end goal of the State to oppress the citizenry, not provide for the citizenry's succor, much less its salvation. For salvation can only come from the Divine Creator anyway, not from the State—a false god, a fake, cardboard god.Propagandists originally meant to ascribe the expression, 'assault weapon,' to some but not all semiautomatic handguns, rifles, and shotguns. But, of late, especially with the latest Texas school shooting incident—with the Biden Administration, riding a wave of public anxiety and anger over public school shootings—the Administration has chosen to exasperate public anxiety rather than allay it, seeking to ban all semiautomatic weapons or placing them under the purview of the NFA and that means under the heavy hand of the ATF. And this is as we at AQ had predicted long ago.But this would all be a non-issue if the U.S. Supreme Court had a chance to rule on “assault weapons” in the years following the Heller decision. The Court certainly had the chance to do so in the Friedman case. And, God knows, Justice Thomas for one wanted to deal with this matter, but obviously could not get support from the liberal wing of the Court or from the Chief Justice, John Roberts, or from Justice Kennedy both of whom had no stomach for establishing clearly and categorically the salient reason for the Second Amendment: which is that Government was created to serve the American people, not the other way around.An armed citizenry signals to Government that the people are Sovereign over Government and over their Nation, and that firearms provide the means by which Government must bow to the will and sovereignty of the people, whether Government reluctantly agrees to do so or not.It is a curious thing that the supporters of tyranny constantly complain about the firepower of modern semiautomatic weaponry, emphasizing in a hysterical way that such weapons are designed for the military—the standing army of the Federal Government. To be sure, that weaponry of the American citizen is supposed to be military weaponry, designed for just such a cataclysm: to prevent an unrestrained Government and its standing army, and its militarized police, and its vast intelligence apparatus that seeks to bend the citizenry to its will. The right of the people, and the duty of the people, and the ability of the people to resist Government oppression and subjugation is only feasible where the citizenry is armed, and armed to the hilt, and armed with military weapons. In fact, it is not just the semiautomatic weapons that Americans have a fundamental right to possess then; it is the selective fire weapons and fully automatic personnel weapons that Americans have a God-Given right to wield. Of course, a tyrannical Government would attempt to prevent the citizenry from having access to just that sort of weaponry by which the people might succeed in resisting tyranny. The NFA should be repealed; no question about that. Instead, the Harris-Biden Administration wants to extend its purview over semiautomatic weaponry and, of course, eventually over all weapons. A dire confrontation between the citizenry and the Government is inevitable if the Executive and Legislative Branches do not soon come to their senses and acknowledge that those that serve in those Branches of Government owe their allegiance to the U.S. Constitution as written, and to the American people they have a duty to serve. It is not the American people that must bow down or defer to these Government servants, much less deify them. It is they, the smug, sanctimonious, self-righteous servants of Government that need to be put in their place, and that place may well be the chopping block.______________________________________

THE “ASSAULT WEAPON” TEST CASE: WILL NEW YORK REVERT TO “INTEREST-BALANCING” AFTER BRUEN TO SAFEGUARD AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL HANDGUN LICENSING REGIME?

PART THREE

As explained by the Seventh Circuit in Friedman, “The City of Highland Park has an ordinance (§136.005 of the City Code) that prohibits possession of assault weapons or large-capacity magazines (those that can accept more than ten rounds).” See AQ article published May 1, 2018, for further explication of Government failure to recognize the Constitutionality of civilian ownership and possession of semiautomatic weapons, derogatorily and erroneously referred to as “assault weapons.” The High Court in Heller ordered Courts not to utilize interest-balancing when reviewing the constitutionality of a Governmental action impacting the Second Amendment. That was explicit. The Seventh Circuit used that test anyway and found the ordinance did not violate the Second Amendment. That was hardly surprising. Whenever a reviewing Court uses interest-balancing to test the constitutionality of a Governmental action impacting the Second Amendment, the Court invariably finds an unconstitutional act to not violate the Constitution. That is why the U.S. Supreme Court dispensed with interest-balancing. When a Court uses that test, it gives the illusion that the Court is truly balancing the interests between the State action and the individual right. But the individual right always loses to the State action. That is inevitable. To add insult to injury, the Seventh Circuit was using the very test that Justice Breyer championed in Heller, and which he referred to again, in Bruen. But Breyer was writing a dissenting opinion in Heller, and he stuck with it in Bruen. A dissenting opinion isn't the Court's holding. But many jurisdictions wanted the dissenting opinion to operate as a holding in Second Amendment cases. And so, they pretend the dissenting opinion in Heller was the majority ruling opinion. It is incredible. Such rulings of lower Courts utilizing a test that the majority in Heller did not countenance and explicitly and emphatically refuted, would rely on that test, interest-balancing, anyway.In Friedman, the Seventh Circuit decided to go with the dissent’s reasoning rather than with the law as propounded by the Majority in Heller. Justice Thomas was justifiably furious. And he took the Seventh Circuit to task, and, by extension, tacitly chastised those members of the High Court who did not want to hear the case. Given its importance to the reasoning and ruling in Bruen we cite at length the comment of Justice Thomas in the Friedman case which the High Court refused to grant hearing on. Justice Thomas said, in substantial and pertinent part—with the late, eminent Justice Scalia joining him, “Based on its crabbed reading of Heller, the Seventh Circuit felt free to adopt a test for assessing firearm bans that eviscerates many of the protections recognized in Heller and McDonald. The court asked in the first instance whether the banned firearms ‘were common at the time of ratification’ in 1791. But we said in Heller that ‘the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.’ The Seventh Circuit alternatively asked whether the banned firearms relate ‘to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.’  The court concluded that state and local ordinances never run afoul of that objective, since ‘states, which are in charge of militias, should be allowed to decide when civilians can possess military-grade firearms.’ But that ignores Heller’s fundamental premise: The right to keep and bear arms is an independent, individual right. Its scope is defined not by what the militia needs, but by what private citizens commonly possess Moreover, the Seventh Circuit endorsed the view of the militia that Heller rejected. . . .The Seventh Circuit alternatively asked whether the banned firearms relate ‘to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.’  The court concluded that state and local ordinances never run afoul of that objective, since ‘states,  which are in charge of militias, should be allowed to decide when civilians can possess military-grade firearms.’ But that ignores Heller’s fundamental premise: The right to keep and bear arms is an independent, individual right. Its scope is defined not by what the militia needs, but by what private citizens commonly possess. The Seventh Circuit ultimately upheld a ban on many common semiautomatic firearms based on speculation about the law’s potential policy benefits.  The court conceded that handguns — not ‘assault weapons’ — ‘are responsible for the vast majority of gun violence in the United States.’  Still, the court concluded, the ordinance ‘may increase the public’s sense of safety,’ which alone is ‘a substantial benefit.’  Heller, however, forbids subjecting the Second Amendment’s ‘core protection . . . to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach. . . .’ There is no basis for a different result when our Second Amendment precedents are at stake. I would grant certiorari to prevent the Seventh Circuit from relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right [citations omitted; passim].”

THE HELLER TEST

Justice Thomas spent considerable time in Bruen outlining the Heller test so that there would be no doubt as to the standard of review lower Federal and State Courts must employ when a Government action impinges upon the Second Amendment. He said:“The test that we set forth in Heller and apply today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding. . . .”“In Heller, we began with a ‘textual analysis’ focused on the ‘normal and ordinary’ meaning of the Second Amendment’s language. That analysis suggested that the Amendment’s operative clause—‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed’—‘guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation that does not depend on service in the militia. From there, we assessed whether our initial conclusion was ‘confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. . . .’ We looked to history because ‘it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment . . . codified a pre-existing right.’ The Amendment ‘was not intended to lay down a novel principle but rather codified a right inherited from our English ancestors.” After surveying English history dating from the late 1600s, along with American colonial views leading up to the founding, we found ‘no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms.’ We then canvassed the historical record and found yet further confirmation. That history included the ‘analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed adoption of the Second Amendment’ and ‘how the Second Amendment was interpreted from immediately after its ratification through the end of the 19th century,” . . . . When the principal dissent charged that the latter category of sources was illegitimate ‘post enactment legislative history’. . . . We clarified that ‘examination of a variety of legal and other sources to determine the public understanding of a legal text in the period after its enactment or ratification’ was “a critical tool of constitutional interpretation. . . .’”This boils down to the following:First, look at the plain meaning of the Second Amendment: The right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right. The militia clause sets forth simply a rationale for it—to inhibit the incursion of Tyranny in Government—which therefore emphasizes the need for the American people—as individuals—to keep Tyranny in check through the best means available: force of arms. In fact, this is the only way to keep Tyranny in check. And we see this now. Tyranny now exists in Government. Sadly, there’s no question about it.It is more than mere wish that drives Anti-Second Amendment usurpers to deny Americans their right to keep and bear arms. It is abject fear, even panic, which motivates them to openly defy the transparent and categorical meaning of the Second Amendment.Among many Americans who had placed their faith in Government but who hadn't succumbed to Government's new religious dogma of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”—upon which the Destroyers of our Nation, and of our Constitution, and of a free and sovereign people insidiously cloaked their aims to dismantle the Republic so that they may thrust the remains into the “NWO” a.k.a. “Neoliberal World Order” a.k.a. “International World Order,” a.k.a. the “Open Society,”—the truth is becoming known. Even the most obtuse of American sees that the Federal Government and that the Soros-funded State and local Governments are moving this Nation perilously close to destruction and oblivion. And it is much too late for these ruthless creatures that seek the demise of a free Constitutional Republic and a Sovereign American people over Nation and Government to disguise that fact.The Bruen decision establishes the stakes for the American people. It is a zero-sum game. There is no compromise. There can be no compromise with a Tyrant. Americans have a fundamental God-Given unalienable right of armed self-defense against predatory beast, predatory man-beast, and predatory Government, i.e., tyranny. Heller and McDonald made this Truth plain. The Federal Government and many States refused to listen. So, the U.S. Supreme Court reiterated the right of armed self-defense. Will the Federal Government and the States listen? Judging by what we see from the actions of New York, the State Government intends to do war with Americans. Far from complying with Bruen, Governor Hochul and the New York Legislature in Albany have no intention of complying with Bruen, any more than New York did with Heller and McDonald. In fact, Bruen makes gun ownership in New York worse, much worse, especially for those that wish to secure an unrestricted concealed handgun carry license.The New York Government has told the U.S. Supreme Court plainly "to go to Hell," and they mean the same for those citizens who reside in New York who wish to exercise their God-Given right of armed self-defense. The danger to the security of a free State is currently very much in doubt. That is why we are spending considerable time on Bruen and will continue to do so in the next several installments, leading up to the critical Midterm Elections in November._________________________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT IS A PROTECTOR OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT, BUT FOR HOW LONG?

When recounting the import of U.S. Supreme Court case holdings, especially pertaining to our Nation’s fundamental rights and liberties—the most important of which is codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights—one must be reminded that the Third Branch of Government is not a distant poor cousin of the other two and is not to be treated as if it were such. Yet, it is often denigrated as such, especially when some case decisions, like those in the recent Bruen and Dobbs cases, happen to throw some people into a fit of rage, threatening the Court and threatening the life of some Justices within it, and threatening the viability and “legitimacy” of the High Court.Two co-equal Branches of the Federal Government, the Executive and Legislative, along with assistance from the legacy Press, do nothing to curb this insult and danger to the third co-equal Branch. Instead, these two Branches, along with the Press, either remain silent, or actively, avidly encourage the disassembling of the Third. Hence the concerted effort to “tame” the Court through the device of “court-packing,” a thing the Biden Administration looked to accomplish through creation of a commission for just that purpose.  Fortunately, that came to naught. Still, these are the sort of antics of Americans come to expect from the Harris- Biden Administration. And we see these antics from a bloated, rancid, unelected, and unaccountable Administrative Deep State; and from an obstreperous, preening, arrogant Congress; and from a seditious, treacherous Press; and even from some academicians whose essays exhibit an unrestrained, radical Marxist/Neoliberal Globalist oriented socio-political bent.Americans see a treacherous Federal Government, a seditious Press, and large multinational conglomerates uniting in a collective effort to erode the underpinnings of a free Republic and eventually eradicate it. And it does so because a free Constitutional Republic doesn’t address their wants and desires—as if it ever should have been so.The present Administration does nothing to prevent a vicious, vile mob from attacking the Court, but remains painfully silent. And members of Congress go further, even inciting a mob to violence. Schumer, who should know better, as a Harvard educated lawyer—although he never practiced law—threatens a Justice at the steps of the High Court, and a would-be assassin eventually tries to oblige.  And Maxine Waters, a sociopath and lunatic if there ever was one, marches with a mob to the doors of the U.S. Supreme Court, shrieking: “The hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them.”More restrained in his remarks belittling the Court, but no less dangerous because of the nature of them, a Law Professor at Pepperdine University, one, Barry P. McDonald argues the founding fathers had intended to relegate the Supreme Court to second-class status. But, if true, the impact of that inference has dangerous repercussions not only for the Government itself but for the peoples’ right to check the power of that Government through force of arms. The Constitution to this scholar is nothing more than an amorphous, shapeless lump of clay to be reshaped and remolded at will or whim, not unlike a potterer producing a clay pot on a ceramic pottery wheel, changing the design as his fancy suits him, as the wheel goes round and round. McDonald’s essay was published as an Op-Ed in the NY Times, a few days after the Senate voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as an Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Obviously, Professor McDonald disapproved of the confirmation, no less so than The New York Times that sought him out as a credentialed college professor to give weight to its own abhorrence of the Court and of the confirmation of Kavanaugh to sit on it as Justice Kavanaugh. McDonald wrote, in principal part,“When the founders established our system of self-government, they didn’t expend much effort on the judicial branch. Of the roughly three and a half long pieces of inscribed parchment that make up the Constitution, the first two pages are devoted to designing Congress. Most of the next full page focuses on the president. The final three-quarters of a page contains various provisions, including just five sentences establishing a ‘supreme court,’ any optional lower courts Congress might create and the types of cases those courts could hear.Why was the judicial branch given such short shrift? Because in a democracy, the political branches of government — those accountable to the people through elections — were expected to run things. The courts could get involved only as was necessary to resolve disputes, and even then under congressional supervision of their dockets.It was widely recognized that the Supreme Court was the least important of the three branches: It was the only branch to lack its own building (it was housed in a chamber of Congress), and the best lawyers were seldom enthusiastic about serving on it (John Jay, the court’s first chief justice, resigned within six years and described the institution as lacking ‘energy, weight and dignity’).When disputes came before the Supreme Court, the justices were expected to ensure that Americans received ‘due process’ — that they would be ruled by the ‘law of the land’ rather than the whims of ruling individuals. In short, the court was to play a limited role in American democracy, and when it did get involved, its job was to ensure that its judgments were based on legal rules that were applied fairly and impartially.What about the task of interpreting the Constitution? This question is the subject of some debate, but the founders most likely believed that each branch of government had the right and duty to determine for itself what the Constitution demanded, unless the Constitution was clearly transgressed. If the Constitution was clearly transgressed, the Supreme Court had a duty to hold Congress or the president accountable — but only in the case before it. The founders almost certainly did not envision a roving mandate for the Supreme Court to dictate to Congress, the president or state governments what actions comported with the Constitution (unless they were a party to a case before it).” So, we are to believe that the founders thought less of the High Court because of the Building they were housed in, or because they devoted a few lines to the Judicial Branch in Article 3 of the Constitution, or because we are to accept Professor McDonald’s on faith that the founders expected each Branch to decide for itself the expansiveness of its powers? And where, in all of that jockeying for power among the servants of the people in Government does that leave the people of the United States, who are the true and sole sovereign over Government? To give credence to this odd notion that the High Court is relegated to a humble position in the Federal Governmental structure, Professor McDonald intimates that John Jay resigned from the Court because he thought the Court lacked “energy, weight and dignity.”Professor McDonald fails to cite anything to support the inference or provide context for it.  The actual letter, where that phrase appears, a letter from John Jay to President Adams is available for viewing on the founders' archives website.  It is clear from a perusal of Jay’s letter to President John Adams, declining the President’s invitation to serve once again as Chief Justice of the High Court, that John Jay’s declination was not tied to a belief, contrary to what Professor McDonald intimates, that the framers must have had a low expectation for the Court and that, therefore, John Jay no longer wanted to be a part of the Court. Such an idea is absurd; yet McDonald places significant reliance on it for his thesis. But, if John Jay had such misgivings about the Court, he would not have served as Chief Justice of it, in the first place, nor stayed on the Court for as long as he did. The facts are as follows: “In 1789, after Jay declined George Washington's offer of the position of Secretary of State, the president offered him the new opportunity of becoming Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, which Jay accepted. He was unanimously confirmed on September 26, 1789 and remained on the bench until 1795. As this was an inaugural position, many of Jay's duties involved establishing rules, procedure, and precedents.” So, Justice John Jay, a founding father, did much to develop the federal judicial system and resigned, when elected Governor of New York. See article in NYCourts.gov.  A few years later, John Adams, the second President offered John Jay the Chief Justice position once again. He declined the offer but did so not because he thought the Supreme Court had been accorded no real power under the Constitution, but, rather, because he felt the Executive Branch of Government would not allow the Court to exercise its Article 3 powers as the Constitution intended, dismissing the Court’s authority and power out-of-hand. This early power grab by the Executive Branch came to a head in the famous case of Marbury vs. Madison, when Chief Justice, John Marshall, asserted the Court’s rightful powers that the Executive Branch had chosen to ignore. And in that struggle it was Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. President, who acceded to Marshall, acknowledging, if only reluctantly, the Supreme Court’s Article 3 authority that the Executive Branch sought to ignore.The Federal Government was just in its infancy, but, even then, the three Branches had started to jockey for power. Even so, usurpation of power is patently contrary to the dictates of the Constitution which delineates the powers and authority of each Branch, thereby establishing the parameters for the exercise of powers so delineated for each Branch. No Branch is permitted to transgress the Constitutional boundaries of power set for it. Had the framers of the Constitution sought to place the High Court under the auspices of another Branch as in the English Parliamentary System, the framers would have plainly provided for that. They did not.There were many possible Governmental forms and many permutations within any Governmental form to choose from.  The framers of the Constitution considered many configurations of Government and rejected all but one: A tripartite co-equal Branch Republican form of Government in which each Branch would be accorded its own set of limited, clearly articulated, and demarcated powers and authority. Thus, the Framers constructed one form of Government they hoped would be the least susceptible to insinuation of tyranny. Still the framers of the U.S. Constitution harbored doubt that their best efforts to establish a Government of three co-equal Branches would be sufficient to forestall the insinuation of  tyranny into the Government. Their concerns were justified.They knew that such is the nature of Government that no Governmental form would suffice to prevent the inevitable and inexorable tendency of a centralized Government with a standing army to resist the irresistible tug, and urge, and itch, to gather ever more power for itself.Since the Federal Government was constructed to be the servant of the people, the founders made certain that the American people would bear arms to secure their freedom and liberty from tyranny and they understood that the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms would rest—must rest—beyond the power of Government to toy with. For it is only through an armed citizenry that Government—especially one that is hell-bent in exercising absolute power and concomitantly oppressing the citizenry—can be kept from usurping the sovereignty of the American people and subjugating them in the process.Exercise of Governmental Power has shifted between and among the Branches through the decades, as they jockey for power and this is inconsistent with the plain text of the Constitution that demarcates the power and authority of each Branch; the power and authority that each Branch was allowed to wield, and not intrude on the domain of another Branch.The American people as the sole sovereign over Government would check the insinuation of tyranny—a given—through exercise of the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms. And that would remain an immutable “constant,” irrespective of the machinations of the Three Branches of Government.And it is the stubborn constancy of the Second Amendment continues to rankle Big Government and its supporters to no end becoming more noticeable as the Government continues to devolve ever further into tyranny.  Today, we see the coalescing and merging of the Executive Branch and Legislative Branches. And we see attempts to bring the Judicial Branch into the fold.  And none of this bodes well for the American people. This means the right of the people to keep and bear arms grows more insistent. Consider——The Biden Administration, with a compliant Senate, has barreled through confirmation the first of a new kind of Supreme Court Justice: one who has no regard for the rights and liberties of the American people. This person, Ketanji Brown Jackson, is a person of mediocre talents at best, according to a National Review report. She was selected by the Administration’s shadowy puppetmasters, precisely because she is a dutiful proponent of the Marxist dogma of “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion.” Did the National Review provide support for her nomination? One reporter did. See an article in the Federalist about this, chastising the National Review because of this. This nomination and confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson and more like her would not bode well for the independence of the Court.Imagine the fate of Americans today if Congress could legislate away exercise of the fundamental rights as codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights and if the Executive Branch could do much the same through DOJ/FBI and ATF misuse of its Administrative Rulemaking authority.And, does anyone doubt for a moment that five Justices—the faux Conservative-wing Originalist, Chief Justice Roberts, and four liberal-wing Associate Justices, Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor, plus Garland, wouldn’t have overturned the rulings of the seminal Second Amendment Heller and McDonald cases, using the Bruen case for just that purpose, apart from affirming the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, for the Respondent City of New York, against the Petitioners. In a nightmare world that could have happened, and, indeed, would have happened. And, here in reality, the Neo-Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists are more than annoyed at the outcome of Bruen and Dobbs, that their dream of negating the Second Amendment did not happen. They are absolutely apoplectic over that. Just look at how this obsequious, fawning head of the DOJ, unlawfully but dutifully targets Americans for special treatment at the behest of the Biden Administration and at the behest of other radical groups like the National School Board Association.    The framers of the U.S. Constitution would not be pleased but not all that surprised at the Government’s turn toward tyranny. As the framers wrestled with and finally settled on a Republican form of Government, consisting of three co-equal Branches, they also created a “failsafe” to offset the tendency of Government toward tyranny. Government would serve at the behest of the American people, the true and sole sovereign of Government and Nation but only if that Government is kept in check by an armed citizenry, whom, Constitutionally, it has no control over as it is prohibited from infringing the natural law right of the people to be armed.  Thus, the cause of frustration of those forces that seek to usurp the sovereignty of the American people by controlling their possession of and access to arms and ammunition.The British Empire sought to do this once and failed. Much more insidiously, the Government of the United States, today, seeks to do the same thing and this Government has been busily at work, especially in the 20^th Century and to the present day, to dispossess the American people of their firearms and stocks of ammunition and, further, to destroy their will to resist.Imagine the fate of Americans today if Congress could legislate away exercise of the fundamental rights as codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights and if the Executive Branch could do much the same through ostensible DOJ/FBI and ATF Administrative Rulemaking authority. Not to be long forestalled by the inconvenience of the U.S. Constitution, the Nation’s Tyrannical Government has attempted to do just that. The first major Federal legislation infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms was in the 1930s with enactment of the appalling National Firearms Act of 1934 and Congress added to that infringement with the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the “Gun Violence Prevention Act of 1994.” And the threat continues to this day. These enactments conflict with the primacy and supremacy of the Second Amendment to ward off the threat of tyranny and are prima facie proof of the Government’s embrace of Tyranny. Yet——Historical events demonstrating the fact of Government usurpation of powers and authority that belong alone to the American people become of themselves legal justification for controverting the dictates of the Constitution.But Government action that erodes fundamental Rights and Liberty should not operate as prima facie evidence of the lawfulness of those actions merely because they occurred. But that is what we have. Historical events demonstrating unequivocal illegal Government action infringing Americans’ fundamental rights manifest, paradoxically—like a conjurer’s sleight of hand—as self-justifying evidence for the legality and propriety of the actions—a kind of historical necessity: “it happened, so it must be right and proper.” The historical antecedent event thus transforms as a transcendental moral truth.That is the argument the Biden Administration makes for corralling the Second Amendment. And that over-reliance on history and on the appeal to history as part of the Court’s standard of review of the legality of laws impinging on the Second Amendment point to a serious flaw in Bruen. Justices Alito, Thomas, and Amy Coney-Barrett must know this.In fact, Justice Amy Coney-Barrett specifically points to the problem of utilizing history as a standard by which to ascertain whether a particular Governmental action unconstitutionally infringes the Second Amendment. In a short concurring opinion which, curiously no one joined, she says, in part, this: “I write separately to highlight two methodological points that the Court does not resolve. First, the Court does not conclusively determine the manner and circumstances in which postratification practice may bear on the original meaning of the Constitution. . . . Scholars have proposed competing and potentially conflicting frameworks for this analysis, including liquidation, tradition, and precedent. . . . The limits on the permissible use of history may vary between these frameworks (and between different articulations of each one). To name just a few unsettled questions: How long after ratification may subsequent practice illuminate original public meaning? . . . . What form must practice take to carry weight in constitutional analysis? . . . . And may practice settle the meaning of individual rights as well   as structural provisions? . . . The historical inquiry presented in this case does not require us to answer such questions, which might make a difference in another case. . . . Second and relatedly, the Court avoids another ‘ongoing scholarly debate on whether courts should primarily rely on the prevailing understanding of an individual right when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868’ or when the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. . . . Here, the lack of support for New York’s law in either period makes it unnecessary to choose between them. But if 1791 is the benchmark, then New York’s appeals to Reconstruction-era history would fail for the independent reason that this evidence is simply too late (in addition to too little). Cf. Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, 591 U. S. ___, ___-___ (2020) (slip op., at 15-16) (a practice that ‘arose in the second half of the 19th century . . . cannot by itself establish an early American tradition” informing our understanding of the First Amendment). So today’s decision should not be understood to endorse freewheeling reliance on historical practice from the mid-to-late 19th century to establish the original meaning of the Bill of Rights. On the contrary, the Court is careful to caution ‘against giving postenactment history more weight than it can rightly bear [citations omitted].’” We discuss this problem of history as a component of a new standard of review in Second Amendment cases in future articles analyzing Bruen._________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved   

PRESIDENT TRUMP OVERSTEPPED HIS AUTHORITY IN BANNING BUMP STOCKS.

PART ONE

THE PRETEXT FOR TRUMP’S CALL FOR A BAN ON BUMP STOCK DEVICES.

Following the devastating, unconscionable attack by the maniac, Stephen Paddock, on innocent concertgoers, attending a concert in Las Vegas, Nevada, on the evening of October 1, 2017, the gun grabbers wasted little time in turning their attention on what they depicted as the salient culprit of the carnage: a little device called a “bump stock.” It is a device that investigators found attached to semiautomatic rifles Paddock used in his murderous assault.

Antigun groups and antigun politicians immediately called for a ban on the device. But, oddly and sadly, it is President Donald Trump, the seemingly indefatigable champion of the Second Amendment—not the Democratic Party leadership—who gave the gun grabbers what they want: a ban on “bump stocks.”

DONALD TRUMP MAY ACT RASHLY ON SOME MATTERS AND AVOID REPERCUSSIONS; NOT SO, WHEN HE BLATANTLY ATTACKS THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

The Arbalest Quarrel has been an early and avid supporter of Trump’s bid for the U.S. Presidency—first during his campaign for the Republican Party nomination, and then during the turbulent first two years in Office, as he was buffeted and roiled on all sides by various factions that sought and still seek to destroy his Presidency. It is alarming, though, when Trump seems to disregard those who support him. Trump had made several promises to the American electorate. Among the most important he promised to build “a wall,” an effective physical structure to keep the multitude of illegal aliens from cavalierly crossing our Nation’s borders, and audaciously claiming the same rights, liberties, and protections that accrue only to American citizens. Trump realizes now, a bit late in the day, that his thoughts of a second term in Office, in 2020, will be undone if he fails to deliver on that oft repeated promise. Just as importantly, Trump made abundantly clear, during his campaign, that he is a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment. But, what has Trump done to merit his supporters’ continued devotion? So far, two years into his four-year term in Office, we see nothing concrete.

Trump normally “trumpets” his actions, consistent with the importance of, and his belief in, Governmental transparency. That’s a good thing and to be applauded. It is something his predecessor in Office, Barack Obama, said he would do but rarely if ever did, preferring to cloak his own actions in secrecy. The insidious, reprehensible “Operation Fast and Furious” is a case in point; an oblique attempt to undermine the fundamental right codified in the Second Amendment. But, as for the architects of the policy, neither the Attorney General—at the time, Eric Halder—nor President Obama, was ever called to account for it. Yet, it is Donald Trump now, not Barack Obama, who has deviously and insidiously undermined the Second Amendment, and he is doing so through an aggressive, unconscionable, unconstitutional, unilateral executive act.

Remember what Trump said about national concealed handgun carry?

“The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That’s why I have a concealed carry permit and why tens of millions of Americans do too. That permit should be valid in all 50 states. A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.” ~ Donald J. Trump on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Were these just vacuous words, delivered merely to appease supporters at a singular moment in time, and then to be dispensed with once the U.S. Presidency had been secured and when political expediency seemingly required? Apparently, so. After the Parkland, Florida tragedy, the Washington Examiner reported that,

“President Trump told Republicans on Wednesday they should not include a measure that allows people with concealed carry permits in one state to carry across state lines in a comprehensive gun bill.

‘I think that maybe that bill will one day pass, but it should pass separate,’ Trump said during a bipartisan meeting at the White House. “If you’re going to put concealed carry between states into this bill, we’re talking about a whole new ball game. I’m with you, but let it be a separate bill.”

The President weaseled, giving only lukewarm support for national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation. Obviously this wasn’t a high priority for him. Is it, then, any surprise that, apart from a push by the Republican controlled House in 2017—evidently in spite of the President, not because of him—Congressional action ultimately failed to deliver? Congress got the message. Since preservation and strengthening of the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms is apparently a low priority for the U.S. President, it was a low priority for Congress—certainly for the Republican-controlled Senate.

A full Roll-Call vote on the Senate Floor was necessary even if the Senate failed to secure 60 votes necessary for passage of national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation since the American public would know who, among both Democrats and Republicans, voted in favor of the measure and those who did not; those Senators, then, who support our sacred Second Amendment right and those who, clearly, do not. 

But, Mitch McConnell never called for a Floor vote, though he could have done so. We will remember McConnell’s disservice to the American people for failing to hold a full Senate Floor vote. And we will remember Trump for failing to make national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation a priority goal. Republicans controlled the Congress—both Houses—along with the U.S. Presidency, from 2016 through 2018. Republicans have now lost the U.S. House of Representatives. The Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms took a backseat to both health care and taxes. It should not have, but it did. 

We face a Democratic Party majority-controlled House whose leadership has a decidedly and decisively different, and ominous agenda in store for the American people. It is a safe bet that Gun control and the general weakening of the Second Amendment will not be secondary issues for the Democratic Party leadership once they assume control of the House on January 3, 2019—unlike strengthening the Second Amendment was, obviously and unfortunately, a secondary issue for Republicans.*

The Arbalest Quarrel has written several articles on this critical matter, posting those articles on our website; and on Ammoland Shooting Sports News; and on “The Truth About Guns.” Ammoland posted our latest one, titled, “National Concealed Handgun Carry Reciprocity – Last Chance to Act,” on November 27, 2018. In that article, we urged Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, to call for a Senate Floor vote on the House he could have done so. There was time before the year-end adjournment. If the Senate did clear the 60 vote threshold, the bill could have been sent immediately to President Trump for his signature. And Trump would have had to sign it even if he were reluctant to do so. For, it would have been, as he insisted, in his remarks to Republicans, that it must be “a separate bill,” subsumed in no other Congressional bill, as it was a separate bill. But, now, we will never know. The bill that passed the House, the “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017,” 115 H.R. 38, will automatically die—as unfinished business of the old Congress—once the new Congress commences work on January 3, 2019.

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PART TWO

TRUMP IGNORES HIS PLEDGE TO THOSE OF US WHO SUPPORTED HIM; CAPITULATING COMPLETELY TO THE ANTIGUN CROWD, ONCE HE CALLED FOR A BAN ON BUMP STOCKS.

As if the Republican controlled Senate’s failure to enact national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation and President Trump’s failure to push forward a pro-Second Amendment agenda during his first two years in Office weren’t bad enough—a serious failure of omission on the part of both the U.S. Senate and the President—Trump’s ban on “bump stocks”—an act of commission—is even worse. By foolishly, impetuously, acting to ban “bump stocks,” the President demonstrates a dangerous naïvety and ineptitude, along with a disturbingly blithe lack of concern for the well-being of the fundamental, immutable, unalienable, inviolate right of the American  people to keep and bear arms. Trump is obviously oblivious to the deleterious impact his unilateral action shall have—not simply may have—on the Second Amendment itself.

President Trump’s failure to cajole Congress to action, to strengthen our most cherished and important right, is unacceptable. That failure deserves our condemnation. But undermining our most cherished right is alarming and unforgivable. That deserves our lasting contempt. With the radical Left urging Democratic Party House members to impeach Trump, upon issuance of the Special Counsel’s, Robert Mueller’s, report that is due out at any time now, the President can ill afford to antagonize his own base; but Trump has done just that with his flagrant attack on the Second Amendment.

Trump should have left the matter of bump stocks to Congress. Congress, acting through its Article 1 legislative power, can, conceivably, lawfully, take such action to ban them, if it sought to do so, assuming—a big “if”—that the law, depending on the matter of its statutory construction, does not run afoul of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But it is not for the President to take that action upon himself under any set of circumstances. We have a system of checks and balances in our Country, and for good reason.

Congress makes the law. That power is within the province of Congress, not the President. The President’s duty is to faithfully execute the laws Congress enacts. Under our Constitution, the President has no authority to make binding law, in lieu of Congress. Unlike Great Britain and Australia, the Chief Executive has no authority to self-execute laws. The President does not serve as both Chief Executive and "Legislator in Chief."

We have seen how Obama has shown a marked, carefree proclivity to ignore the federal Government’s system of “checks and balances” that the founders of our Republic wisely conceived of and assiduously placed into our Constitution. As Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4, makes crystal clear, it is the province of Congress to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Obama, as President, and, no less a lawyer and academician, knows this. Yet, that did not prevent him from unlawfully promulgating and implementing his infamous, illegal “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA), policy, along with the concomitant mess it left for his successor, President Trump. 

What was Obama’s motive for DACA? As he says, as reported to the Leftist media echo chamber, CNN:  “. . . for years while I was President, I asked Congress to send me such a bill. That bill never came. . . . “Let’s be clear: the action taken today isn’t required legally. It’s a political decision, and a moral question.” Obama proselytizes to Americans, talking down to us as if we were children, suggesting that it is he, Obama,“the Great Father,” who shall teach us all what we ostensibly need to know about law, politics, and morality too, audaciously exclaiming that, as Congress didn’t give Obama what he wants—he—Barack Obama, will make law himself!

Obama’s remarks are a textbook example of propaganda, disseminated to the public by an insincere Press. It is bombastic, simplistic, perfunctory rhetoric; absolute drivel. Obama certainly knows it; but so should the Press. This smug, duplicitous attitude on the part of both Obama and the Press serves to make Obama’s remarks and the mainstream media’s reporting of them all the more diabolical and reprehensible.

One salient, critical duty of the Chief Executive of the Nation, set down in Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The laws the President is duty-bound to faithfully execute are the laws Congress enacts. The President has no power to issue personal edicts, suggesting they have the force of Congressional law when in fact they don’t; and cannot ever have. As Article 1, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution makes abundantly and absolutely clear: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” There is nothing in Article 1 or in any other Article of the U.S. Constitution reciting that legislative powers, of some sort or another, also vest in the President. Such powers do not invest in the President; only in Congress.

THE U.S. CONSTITUTION CONSISTS OF FUNDAMENTAL PRECEPTS; NOT SIMPLE PLATITUDES.

Trump, as with Obama before him, has begun to demonstrate a disturbing propensity to ignore precepts of the U.S. Constitution, when he wishes to do so, unmoved by the dictates of either the Constitution or his conscience. His unilateral action banning bump stocks was a calculated move. It is obvious why he took this action. He evidently felt the general public supported it—more of those in favor of it than not. He caved to public pressure to deliver something to the public, because of the worst mass shooting ever to occur in our Nation and an unthinkable tragedy that happened to occur on his watch. That may appear as reason enough to act, by some, but Trump should not have fallen prey to the frenzy of the moment, and with such apparent alacrity, abandon, and smug self-assurance.

The continued existence of the natural, fundamental rights set forth in the Bill of Rights are not properly to be left to public whim, anyway, and never have been. Public opinion is easily manipulated and ever changeable. The founders of our Republic didn’t intend for the fundamental rights and liberties of the American people to be weakened by mere heat and rancor of a given moment in time. That ought to be clear enough to most Americans if they stop to consider this. It should be clear enough to Congress. And it should be clear enough to the President, too; but apparently it wasn’t. And, having taken the action to ban bump stocks devices, President Trump did nothing to make this Nation safer. Having bowed to political pressure--something he is, often and admirably enough, not ordinarily inclined to do, but did so in this instance--he reneged on a salient campaign promise he made to millions of Americans, namely that he, like they, fervently and reverently hold the Nation’s Second Amendment in the highest regard, and that he will do his best to preserve and strengthen it. Yet, a ban on bump stock devices does no such thing. Rather, it makes a mockery of Trump’s promise to the American people. Worse, taking the action he did to usurp Congressional authority and prerogative to make law, Trump did much more than simply undermine a campaign pledge; he undermined the very Constitution he swore an oath to preserve and to protect. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8 of the Constitution makes plain that,

“Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:—‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’”

Trump does not faithfully execute the office of President of the United States by making up his own law as he goes. He doesn’t preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States when he takes upon himself--as did his predecessor Barack Obama--the role the framers of the Constitution reserved alone to Congress, namely the authority to make law. And, Trump certainly doesn't preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, when he undermines the fundamental, immutable, unalienable rights and liberties of the American people as codified in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution. 

Whether operating through grandiose self-delusion or blatant deceit, a Chief Executive, who fails to adhere to the limitations on his authority, as our Constitution dictates and mandates, significantly threatens the continued well-being of a free Republic. Under no set of circumstances can suspension or abrogation of our Constitution ever be justified. 

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PART THREE

TRUMP’S UNILATERAL ACTION, BANNING BUMP STOCKS, IS UNLAWFUL.

Although Trump could have and should have left the matter of “bump stocks” to Congress, Trump’s unilateral action, banning civilian ownership and possession of bump stocks is unlawful. That isn’t an open question. The answer to that question, under Constitutional law, is clear and categorical. Trump cannot lawfully do so. But, he took that action anyway. The danger we now face, given Trump’s rash action, goes well beyond the relative merit or utility of bump stocks, themselves.

Trump’s action calls into immediate question the import of Congressional legislation and the weight to be given to U.S. Supreme Court pronouncements on matters of law. If Trump’s action withstands legal challenge and scrutiny—and David Codrea’s article posted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News points to several formal complaints that have been recently been filed contesting the constitutionality of the ban—the ‘rule of law’ becomes mere shallow and hollow rhetoric; legislation becomes mere ad hoc artifice, subject to the vicissitudes of fate; and the Bill of Rights loses its inviolability and immutability.

THE DOJ-ATF RULE BANNING “BUMP STOCKS” IS PATENTLY UNLAWFUL.

Two major websites, Ammoland Shooting Sports News and The Truth About Guns, have posted several fine articles on the issue of bump stocks. The Arbalest Quarrel provides its own take on this subject, including an analysis of the law regarding administrative decision-making.

We reach a disturbing but irrefutable conclusion: if the Courts do not strike down Trump’s action, we will continue to see the inexorable whittling away of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, leading inevitably to the demise of civilian ownership and possession of all semiautomatic firearms, not simply to the demise of firearms pejoratively called “assault weapons.”

We begin our analysis with the language of Trump’s Memorandum, issued on February 20, 2018. The Memorandum is titled “Application of the Definition of Machine gun to ‘Bump Fire’ Stocks and Other Similar Devices.” 3 CFR Memorandum of 2/20/18. This Executive Office Memorandum placed the Justice Department on notice of the President’s intent to promulgate a rule criminalizing possession of bump stock devices--all of them, regardless of the nature of operation of any one manufacturer's version of the device--and further ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to promulgate a rule, banning those devices. The Memorandum directed to the Attorney General, and signed by Donald Trump, reads:

“After the deadly mass murder in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 1, 2017, I asked my Administration to fully review how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulates bump fire stocks and similar devices.

Although the Obama Administration repeatedly concluded that particular bump stock type devices were lawful to purchase and possess, I sought further clarification of the law restricting fully automatic machine guns.

Accordingly, following established legal protocols, the Department of Justice started the process of promulgating a Federal regulation interpreting the definition of ‘machine gun’ under Federal law to clarify whether certain bump stock type devices should be illegal. The Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published in the Federal Register on December 26, 2017. Public comment concluded on January 25, 2018, with the Department of Justice receiving over 100,000 comments.

Today, I am directing the Department of Justice to dedicate all available resources to complete the review of the comments received, and, as expeditiously as possible, to propose for notice and comment a rule banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns.

Although I desire swift and decisive action, I remain committed to the rule of law and to the procedures the law prescribes. Doing this the right way will ensure that the resulting regulation is workable and effective and leaves no loopholes for criminals to exploit. I would ask that you keep me regularly apprised of your progress.

You are authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.”

[signed] Donald Trump

____________________________________

There are four points to ponder here. First, through this Memorandum, Trump attempts to make law, not simply execute laws Congress enacted because Congress hasn’t enacted a law banning bump stocks. So there is no law for the President to faithfully execute under Article 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. His remark—“I remain committed to the rule of law”—is what we hear all the time from Democrats. It is a remark he expects the public to accept on blind faith. Politicians make use of it often enough. But, the remark invariably comes across as hollow, flaccid, and pathetic; a useless appendage, demonstrating a lack of conviction at its very utterance, as the action taken belies the seeming veracity of the sentiment underlying it. 

The fact remains: absent express Congressional authorization the Executive Branch of Government cannot lawfully promulgate rules to effectuate the will of Congress if there is no will of Congress to effectuate. And, there is none here.Trump has blatantly exceeded his authority under the Constitution.

Second, the Memorandum—a directive to the DOJ—is logically inconsistent. Trump says, at the outset, he simply seeks “further clarification of the law restricting fully automatic machine guns,” but then makes clear that it isn’t mere clarification he seeks at all. He tells the DOJ “to propose for notice and comment a rule banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns.”  Trump is kidding no one. He is illegally attempting to promulgate law.

Third, the Memorandum calls for a drastic measure. There is nothing in the Memorandum allowing for the grandfathering of bump stocks in the hands of American citizens. Consider: even the infamous federal assault weapons ban act of 1994 (that expired in 2004) made abundantly clear it did not apply to possession or transfer of any semiautomatic assault weapon a citizen happened to lawfully possess before enactment of the Congressional legislation.

The new ATF Rule, though, is far more ambitious than even Congressional legislation that banned new purchases of “assault weapons.” For, under the ATF Rule, Americans who fail to surrender bump stocks or who otherwise fail to render them inoperable are subject to criminal prosecution. There is no exception, and no grandfathering of devices that, before implementation of the Rule, had been lawfully purchased.

Fourth, Trump takes the position—as is clear from the language of the Memorandum—that he can get around the Statutory legal hurdle by claiming to operate within  it; but he does so by tortuously toying with the definition of ‘machine gun’ to include ‘bump stocks.’ Trump does not succeed and he is wrong in his endeavor in attempting to do so. He is unlawfully expanding upon and redefining the clear, concise and precise definition of 'machine gun' as codified by Congress in Federal Statute. Further, Trump's attempt to get around the hurdle of a clear concept of ‘machine gun’ is unnerving. It would have been better—although still legally indefensible--had he simply sought to ban “bump stocks” outright, without the semantic convolutions, gyrations, and machinations.

Trump attempts to convince the public that "bump stock devices" do convert semiautomatic firearms into machine guns. Trump simply pretends to be on a sound legal, logical, and grammatical footing. He isn't. The reason Trump contrives to win over the public is plain. Congress has specifically defined the expression, 'machine gun,'  in Statute; and it has defined the expression explicitly and unambiguously.

In 26 USCS § 5845, titled "definitions," “the term ‘machine gun’ means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun, and any combination of parts from which a machine gun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.” 

If ever the language of a Congressional Statute were straightforward and readily understood by a firearm's expert or by a lay person, 26 USCS § 5845 is such a Statute. If an agency of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government can undermine Federal law so blatantly, as Trump attempts to do so here, then no Federal Statute is safe from abrogation by Executive edict by those in Government who would dare trifle with our Nation's Constitution and laws.

Unless, the concept of ‘bump stock’ falls within the meaning of ‘machine gun,’—and it doesn’t—the Justice Department cannot lawfully promulgate a rule that extends the legal definition beyond the parameters mandated by Congressional Statute. Yet, it has dared to do just that, even as it insists that it has not. Trump has audaciously ordered DOJ to promulgate an illegal rule, and the DOJ, through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), has obliged.

THE NEW ATF RULE: A CATEGORICAL BAN ON BUMP STOCK DEVICES

In the Federal Register, 83 FR 13442, the DOJ, through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), has proposed a rule change to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), specifically, 27 CFR Parts 447, 478, and 479.

The proposed Rule, reads: “The Department of Justice (Department) proposes to amend the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regulations to clarify that ‘bump fire’ stocks, slide-fire devices, and devices with certain similar characteristics (bump-stock-type devices) are "machine guns" as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) and the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), because such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger. Specifically, these devices convert an otherwise semiautomatic firearm into a machine gun by functioning as a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism that harnesses the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm in a manner that allows the trigger to reset and continue firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter. Hence, a semiautomatic firearm to which a bump-stock-type device is attached is able to produce automatic fire with a single pull of the trigger. With limited exceptions, primarily as to government agencies, the GCA makes it unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machine gun unless it was lawfully possessed prior to the effective date of the statute. The bump-stock-type devices covered by this proposed rule were not in existence prior to the GCA's effective date, and therefore would fall within the prohibition on machine guns if this Notice of Proposed Rule making (NPRM) is implemented. Consequently, current possessors of these devices would be required to surrender them, destroy them, or otherwise render them permanently inoperable upon the effective date of the final rule.”

The ATF has now finalized the proposed rule, amending the first sentence to read:

“The Department of Justice is amending the regulations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). . . .”

As a final Agency Rule, it is ripe for judicial review, if challenged; and it is rightfully being challenged.

THE ATF’S REASONING ON BUMP STOCK DEVICES IS FLAWED.

The critical problem with the ATF Rule is this: bump stocks are not machine guns; nor are they accessories for machine guns; and saying they are machine guns, as the ATF categorically and brazenly does say, doesn’t make them so. The rule seemingly complies with federal Statute by iterating the critical point that “. . . such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger." But, the assertion is false, and the Rule must be struck down on that ground alone. The Rule is also a noxious affront to the natural, fundamental, and unalienable right etched in stone in the Second Amendment. The ATF Rule cannot be allowed to stand without doing a disservice to the purport of our Nation’s Bill of Rights.

Without amnesty for those who lawfully possessed bump stock devices, prior to implementation of the new DOJ-ATF Rule, 83 FR 13442, a wholesale ban on bump stocks place those of us who possess the devices in clear legal jeopardy. Keep in mind the last line of the Rule: Consequently, current possessors of these devices would be required to surrender them, destroy them, or otherwise render them permanently inoperable upon the effective date of the final rule.” This retrospective application to existing lawful owners of bump stock devices is outrageous, and, apart from other serious Constitutional issues attendant to 83 FR 13442, the Rule may also amount to a violation of Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which says clearly and succinctly: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”  The Arbalest Quarrel will look into a possible violation of Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3 in a future article.

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PART FOUR

THE ATF’S ASSERTION THAT BUMP STOCKS CONVERT SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLES INTO MACHINE GUNS IS BOTH LOGICALLY AND LEGALLY FAULTY.

Let’s take a moment to reassess.

What is a ‘bump stock,’ really? Who invented it? How long has it been on the market? Why the uproar over it? Is it really the awful object that antigun zealots and the President, too, claim it is? And, most importantly, does a ban on bump stocks place those of us who possess semiautomatic weapons--millions of law-abiding American citizens--in legal jeopardy?

A LITTLE HISTORY ON BUMP STOCKS—

Who Invented the “Bump Stock?”

Four days, after the Las Vegas concert tragedy, The New York Times looked into this mechanical device called a “bump stock,” reporting, with typical tabloid flourish:

“Gun enthusiasts looking for an extra thrill have long found makeshift ways to replicate the exhilaration of using an automatic weapon — the thrill of the noise and the jolt of rapid-fire rounds — while bypassing the legal hassle and expense of getting one.

They contrived devices using pieces of wood, belt loops and sometimes even rubber bands, to mimic the speed of a fully automatic weapon — even if it meant sacrificing accuracy.

Then came Jeremiah Cottle with an answer. A Texas farm boy turned Air Force veteran, he figured he could do better. He sank $120,000 of his savings into the development of a high-end bump stock, a device that harnessed a rifle’s recoil to fire hundreds of rounds a minute.

He began selling bump stocks in 2010 with the help of his wife and grandparents in Moran, Tex., his small hometown of fewer than 300 residents. His company, Slide Fire Solutions, won approval from federal firearms regulators, and the business moved from a portable building that had once been a dog kennel into a much larger space on the Cottle family farm. Sales exceeded $10 million and 35,000 units in the first year.”

HOW DOES A BUMP STOCK OPERATE?

Antigun groups, along with the Press provide their impressions of “bump stocks”—offering descriptions from the deceptive and simplistic to the florid and patently absurd.

Following up on the October 2017 story, the NY Times, on February 18, 2018 said this says about the device’s operation:

“A ‘bump stock’ replaces a rifle’s standard stock, which is the part held against the shoulder. It frees the weapon to slide back and forth rapidly, harnessing the energy from the kickback shooters feel when the weapon fires. The stock “bumps” back and forth between the shooter’s shoulder and trigger finger, causing the rifle to rapidly fire again and again. The shooter holds his or her trigger finger in place, while maintaining forward pressure on the barrel and backward pressure on the pistol grip while firing.”

The NY Times' animation aptly illustrates that one shot, and one shot only, is fired through a single  pull of the trigger. A successive pull of the trigger is required each time in order to initiate an additional shot. 

The Progressive weblog “Trace,” says, “A bump stock is a foot-long piece of plastic capable of transforming a semiautomatic rifle into a weapon functionally indistinguishable from a machine gun. That means a gun fitted with a bump stock can fire up to 800 rounds per minute.” 

This is more than simple hyperbole. The problem with the remark is that the expression, 'machine gun' is defined in federal statute by manner of operation, and not, as the weblog Trace, argues, by rate of fire. Antigun proponents do not, however, appear to concern themselves over, or allow themselves to be constrained by, niceties of law. They are only interested in political results. 

Not to be outdone the NY Times or by the weblog, Trace, Gabby Gifford’s antigun group chimed,  

“In the absence of immediate action by Congress, I urge ATF to finalize its proposed rule clarifying that bump fire stocks, along with other “conversion devices” that enable semiautomatic weapons to mimic automatic fire, qualify as “machine guns” under the National Firearms Act. And then Congress must act as well—to ensure that manufacturers cannot continue to endanger public safety by designing devices that imitate machine guns and subvert the law. The continued presence of these dangerous devices puts all of our communities at risk, and both Congress and ATF must take action quickly to address this threat."

Whether modification of a semiautomatic rifle, incorporating a bump stock, serves "to mimic automatic fire" is, from the legal standpoint, absolutely irrelevant because this kind of modification does not convert a semiautomatic rifle into a machine gun. One pull of the trigger yields one shot and one shot only, not successive shots.

These remarks by Gifford’s organization are purposely incendiary and patently ridiculous. Indeed, even the progressive website, “Vox,” citing an AP News report—albeit claiming that bump stocks offer a "way around the law [pertaining to machine guns]"—felt compelled to admit, if only reluctantly, that bump stock modifications to semiautomatic rifles do not convert those rifles into machine guns.

“The device basically replaces the gun’s shoulder rest, with a “support step” that covers the trigger opening. By holding the pistol grip with one hand and pushing forward on the barrel with the other, the shooter’s finger comes in contact with the trigger. The recoil causes the gun to buck back and forth, “bumping” the trigger.

Technically, that means the finger is pulling the trigger for each round fired, keeping the weapon a legal semi-automatic.”

One pull of the trigger yields one shot and one shot only, not successive shots. So, whether modification of a semiautomatic rifle, incorporating a bump stock, serves to "mimic" automatic fire, as Gifford's antigun group, and others like it, claim, is, from the legal standpoint, absolutely irrelevant because this kind of modification does not convert a semiautomatic rifle into a machine gun. And, there’s the rub!

EXPERT OPINION EXISTS TO SUPPORT THE CONCLUSION THAT BUMP STOCKS MODIFICATIONS TO SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLES DO NOT CONVERT THOSE SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLES INTO MACHINE GUNS, SUBJECT TO FEDERAL REGULATION UNDER THE GUN CONTROL ACT OF 1968 OR THE NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT.

One individual or Company (name and address redacted) contacted the ATF, requesting a formal opinion on whether its device, an “AR-15 Type ‘Bump Fire Stock,’” fell within the federal legal definition of a ‘machine gun’, that “would be regulated by the provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) or the National Firearms Act (NFA).”

A firearms’ expert, Michael R. Curtis, Chief, Firearms Technology Industry Services Branch, reviewed the device. He responded, on April 17, 2017, to the query (about six months before Paddock went on his rampage in Las Vegas). In principal part, Michael Curtis said this,

“Your bump fire grip device consists of the following:

One AR-style pistol grip that it attached to and adjustable butt stock by a flat metal bar bent to contour to the buttstock. The pistol grip has two plastic pieces attached by small screws, one is the extension for resting your finger on while firing and the other is a shield to prevent the pistol grip from pinching  the  grip  fingers  of  the  firing  hand.

Your stock is designed to allow an AR-type semiautomatic rifle mounted to it to reciprocate back and forth in a linear motion. The absence of an accelerator spring or similar component in the submitted device prevents it from operating automatically.  When operated, forward pressure must be applied with the support hand to the forward hand guard fore-end of the AR-type rifle mounted to  your stock, bringing  the  receiver assembly  forward  to  a  point  where  the  trigger  can be pulled by the firing hand. If sufficient forward pressure is not applied to the hand guard with the support hand, the rifle can be fired in a conventional, semiautomatic manner since the reciprocation of the receiver assembly is eliminated.

The  FTISB  examination of the  submitted device indicates that if as a shot is fired   and a suU/dent[?] amount of pressure is applied to the hand guard/gripping surface with the shooter's support hand—the AR-type rifle assembly will come forward until the trigger re-contacts the Shooter’s stationary firing-hand trigger finger: Re-contacting allows the firing of a subsequent shot. In this manner, the shooter pulls the receiver assembly forward to fire each shot, each succeeding shot firing with a  single trigger function. . . .

Moreover; we should point out that the addition of an accelerator spring or any other non-manual source of energy which allows this device to operate automatically will result in the manufacture of a ‘machine gun’ as defined in the NFA, 5845(b).”

_____________________________________________

The juxtaposition of an expert’s opinion on bump stock devices and the wording of the ATF Rule stipulating an outright ban on “bump stock” devices, aptly illustrates the critical differences between well-reasoned opinion on the one hand written by a firearms’ expert, Michael Curtis, and, on the other hand, simplistic verbiage, reflected in the new ATF Rule, crafted, no doubt, by people who are not firearms’ experts. Further, the opinion of Michael Curtis is facially neutral; the ATF Rule, politically motivated as it obviously is, is only seemingly facially neutral.

Michael Curtis considers the technical attributes of and operation of bump stocks, calmly and rationally. His findings demonstrate his technical knowledge, and he draws a conclusion as to the legality of the particular device submitted to him, on the basis of the law, as enacted. In the law, as enacted, Congress defines the expression, ‘machine gun.’ That definition happens to accord with industry use of the expression. There is no embellishment. But that is not what we see in the language of the ATF Rule, as promulgated. The drafters of the Rule were only interested in giving the President what he asked for; what he wanted; what he demanded from them; and they did so.

Those who drafted the ATF Rule clearly did not bother to consider the technical intricacies of “bump stock” operation. The Rule is nothing more than a simplistic, ill-informed, technically deficient, politically motivated and mandated edict, posing as a well-reasoned administrative pronouncement, ostensibly having the force of agency law. It is not. Those who crafted the ATF Rule on bump stock devices made no attempt to distinguish among any of them. Their mandate was to create a Rule to ban them—all of them; anything that might conceivably resemble them. The drafters of this agency Rule, insidiously contrived to craft a rule that, by outward appearance—to those who nothing about firearms’ operation—may seem impressive. But, as is often the case, appearances are deceptive, and that is the case here. Those who crafted this Rule had their "marching orders."  They conspired to give President Trump what he wanted; what he asked for; what he demanded of them. They connived, and contrived, and conspired, when crafting their Rule, to place bump stock devices within the orbit of a firearm's accessory that converts a semiautomatic rifle into a machine gun. If the deception succeeds politically, that is all that matters to the President, and to them; but, as the Rule is logically and legally flawed, it cannot withstand Constitutional scrutiny by the Judiciary, and must be struck down.

Were this Rule to escape Judicial inquiry unscathed, it will invite misuse of Congressional Statute at every turn—merely to achieve a political end, desired by some. Those who crafted this ludicrous Rule meant to deceive the public. Hopefully, the Courts will not allow themselves to be similarly deceived.       

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PART FIVE

APART FROM TRUMP’S RASH, INCORRIGIBLE ACTION, WHAT, IF ANYTHING, HAS CONGRESS DONE TO CURB POSSESSION OF “BUMP STOCKS?”

Curiously, Congress did attempt action to ban “bump stocks,” albeit unsuccessfully. On October 31, 2017, about one month after Paddock’s murderous assault on innocent Americans, Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), sponsored a bill, called, “Closing the Bump-Stock Loophole Act,” 115 H.R. 4168.

The bill had co-sponsors among both Republicans and Democrats. The stated purpose of the bill was “. . . to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to treat in the same manner as a machine gun any bump fire stock, or any other devices designed to accelerate substantially the rate of fire of a semiautomatic weapon.”

The bill, if enacted into law would amend Section 5845(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States Code (USCS) of 1986:

IN GENERAL. Section 5845(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking "and (8)" and inserting the following: "(8) a reciprocating stock, or any other device which is designed to accelerate substantially the rate of fire of a semiautomatic weapon; and (9)".

(b)  Semiautomatic Weapon.—and  Section 5845 [26 USCS § 5845] of such Code is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

"(n) Semiautomatic Weapon.— The term 'semiautomatic weapon' means any repeating weapon that—

"(1); utilizes a portion of the energy of a firing cartridge to extract the fired cartridge case and chamber the next round, and

"(2);requires a separate function of the trigger to fire each cartridge."

The bill went nowhere. But, interestingly, the bill, if enacted, would not have redefined or expanded upon the definition of ‘machine gun,’ in 26 USCS § 5845—something the ATF Rule rashly does—but instead would include a definition for ‘semiautomatic weapon,’ which 26 USCS § 5845, at present, doesn’t have. The bill would then ban devices “. . . designed to accelerate substantially the rate of fire of a semiautomatic weapon.” It would treat bump stocks, “in the same manner as a machine gun,” true, as the language of the bill so states; but that isn’t the same thing as saying that “bump stocks” are “machine guns.” That is an important difference, as the definition of ‘machine gun’ is codified in federal statute. There was nothing in the proposed bill to suggest a Congressional intention to amend or to expand upon the statutory [26 USCS § 5845] definition of ‘machine gun.’

Congress itself obviously had a marked reluctance “to play” with its own definitions, and avoided doing so—a reservation that Trump obviously doesn’t have, when he wholeheartedly took upon himself, the role of both Chief Executive and “Legislator in Chief.”

Still, the Congressional bill was a bad idea at the get-go. Had it passed, antigun zealots could have, and likely would have, used the new law to argue that any new development in semiautomatic weapon technology, as a matter of efficiency, accelerates substantially the rate of fire of the semiautomatic weapon and, so, must be banned. After all, Antigun proponents see little if any difference between semiautomatic firearm on the one hand and machine guns, submachine guns, and selective fire weapons on the other, anyway. To these zealots all semiautomatic firearms are “weapons of war,” having no practical civilian use, asserting they—ultimately all of them—should be banned outright.

Antigun proponents have worked for decades to make their goal a reality; and they continue to work toward this end—all with the avid monetary and organizational assistance of wealthy globalists who seek to subordinate our Constitution, our system of laws, and our jurisprudence to a “one-size fits all” set of international norms. If they succeed in that endeavor, the independence and sovereignty of individual nation states will come to a screeching, halt and catastrophic end. All Western nations will all be corralled into a single, centralized and uniform political, social, cultural, economic, and financial system of governance. The EU is the test bed and the basic framework for this system. Even as the citizenry of the individual nations within the EU, realizing that their nations are moving inexorably to dissolution and are beginning to resist that effort, it may be too late for them. But, it isn’t, as yet, too late for us—so long as our Bill of Rights, and, especially, are Second Amendment remains intact. The DOJ-ATF “Bump Stock” Rule is not a neutral rule. If allowed to stand, unchallenged, it can and will have a devastating impact on the continued well-being of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

THE ATF “BUMP STOCK” RULE THAT WE NOW HAVE IS WORSE THAN THE CONGRESSIONAL BILL WOULD EVER HAVE BEEN.

As bad as Representative Fitzpatrick’s bill  [“Closing the Bump-Stock Loophole Act,” 115 H.R. 4168], was, if enacted, the new ATF Rule, as now finalized, is far worse. Indeed, even Congress was reluctant to subsume the concept of ‘semiautomatic weapon’ into the concept of ‘machine gun.’ President Trump has no such reservations. Trump’s Memo to the DOJ suggests that either he has given little thought to the matter or couldn’t care less about the legal consequences of his actions had he thought about the matter at all. The ATF filled with antigun fanatics, delivered for Trump, with unsurprising, characteristic exuberance.

The ATF has laid the groundwork for subsuming semiautomatic weaponry into the category of ‘machine guns,’ even though a clear bright line between machine guns and semiautomatic firearms exists in Congressional Statute. It is a line that Congress has carefully delineated, and it is one which Congress is loath to tinker with. Yet this sharp, distinction between semiautomatic firearms on the one hand and machine guns on the other is one that Trump has cavalierly, and literally, at the stroke of a pen, erased.

This ATF Rule, if allowed to stand, would severely weaken the Second Amendment. Hopefully, the Gun owners of America, that is challenging the constitutionality of the ATF Rule will prevail. GOA must prevail for the good of the Nation; for the sake of the American citizenry; and for the continued well-being of our Nation’s inviolate rights and liberties.

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PART SIX

THE ATF BUMP STOCK RULE DEMONSTRATES THE DANGERS INHERENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS.

AGENCY RULES MUST BE SCRUTINIZED CAREFULLY BY THE COURTS FOR THEY HAVE A TENDENCY TO OVERRIDE CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATION.

The American public has historically given little thought to the relationship between Congressional legislation and Administrative action. That must change. The new ATF Rule makes clear that the public must become aware of the intricacies of Governmental action lest the American people lose their sacred fundamental rights and liberties. The American people should have learned long ago of the danger posed to a free Republic through the insinuation of so-called “elites” into the political process. What ensues is oft, appropriately referred to, as “the tyranny of experts.”

How has this come about? It has come about due, paradoxically, to the manner in which our Federal Government operates. The only true “checks and balances” in our Nation are those that rest in the enumerated rights and liberties of the American people, and singularly in the right of the people to keep and bear arms. If we lose that basic, inherent right, we have lost everything. That is not hyperbole. That is fact.

Congress makes law, yes. But, in faithfully executing Congressional statute, the Executive Branch must turn Congressional legislation into operational rules. That is the job of Executive agencies.

Congressional legislation provides the mandate through which agencies act. Agencies promulgate rules, allowing for implementation of law. However, that mandate isn’t open-ended. Congressional legislation establishes the parameters beyond which the Executive Branch must not venture. Yet, with disturbing regularity, we see the President, through the Executive agencies he presides over, overstepping his Constitutional authority.

In Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), the U.S. Supreme Court established the standard of Court review of agency interpretation of statute. The case is abstruse. The majority of Americans probably never heard of it. Yet, among legal scholars, the U.S Supreme Court Chevron case is likely the most often cited case. Hundreds of academic articles have been written about it. Hundreds more will probably be written. And our case law is legion with references to it.

In Chevron, the high Court wrestled with the amount of discretion that federal Courts—the Judicial Branch of the Federal Government—should give to administrative agencies when those agencies interpret law to promulgate operational rules through which Congressional acts are effectuated. The question for the Courts turns on whether statutory language is ambiguous. If the language is ambiguous, Courts will defer to the agencies—the experts—to resolve the ambiguity, unless the Courts determine the agency’s interpretation is unreasonable. But, then, the Court is itself interpreting statute: hence the conundrum for the Courts.

But that is not the case here, with the ATF Bump Stock Rule, and that is because the definition of ‘machine gun,’ in Congressional Statute, is clear and unambiguous, certainly as unambiguous as our common language, English, can be. The ATF Rule is particularly exasperating as it blatantly ignores the Congressional Statutory dictate in order to promulgate a rule to cohere to a political goal—thereby making a mockery of our system of laws and the very concept of the “Rule of Law” that politicians love to cite but rarely, if ever, actually adhere to.

The ATF Rule, as promulgated, sets forth that bump stock modifications of semiautomatic rifles convert semiautomatic rifles into machine guns because only one pull of the trigger is required to initiate multiple firing of the weapon. But, that statement is either true or it is false.

If true, then the semiautomatic firearm is, in fact, a machine gun. If not, then, the semiautomatic firearm remains a semiautomatic firearm because it is semiautomatic in operation. Rate of fire is irrelevant. Michael Curtis, supra, points out that, in the absence of an “accelerator spring,” a bump stock device—in its usual form (and keep in mind that the ATF Rule fails to consider and appreciate that bump stocks may have different configurations and operate in different ways)—requires one trigger pull for each successive shot. Performance is not a factor, as NRA clearly and correctly points out; the manner of operation is the only factor that comes into play.

Thus, unless Congress enacts legislation to redefine the expression, ‘machine gun,’—redefining it in a way that is contrary to industry use—the President of the United States, through the DOJ-ATF is not lawfully permitted to do redefine 'machine gun' on its own, which, it audaciously has done, even as the language in the Rule says otherwise. The DOJ-ATF action amounts to ad hoc rule-making; ad hoc rule-making, subject to the whims of political pressure, but presumptuously finalized as enforceable law. The DOJ-ATF Rule is nothing more than illegal Executive Branch edict. Its presence makes a mockery of law. It is a travesty. If allowed to stand, it amounts to the usurpation of our entire system of laws and justice, and legal jurisprudence.

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PART SEVEN

THE NEW ATF RULE BANNING “BUMP STOCKS” PORTENDS A TOTAL BAN ON SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS.

If allowed to stand, this ATF Rule dangerously undermines the Second Amendment because the Rule unlawfully conflates semiautomatic firearms and machine guns. If rapidity of fire becomes the de facto if tacit but clearly salient factor and new rule-made—as opposed to Congressional enacted—definition of ‘machine gun,’ which presently defines the expression,' machine gun,' in terms of manner of operation, not performance, then all semiautomatic firearms will inevitably and invariably be subsumed into the nomenclature of ‘machine gun.’ Indeed, the mainstream media—comprising stooges and political hacks posing as journalists who know nothing about firearms’ operations and who have no desire to gain such knowledge—merely echoes the sentiments of antigun zealots. The mainstream media routinely argues that no appreciable difference exists between machine guns and semiautomatic firearms, anyway. The running narrative of these organizations is directed to motivating the public to demand, of Congress, the annihilation of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The purpose of these “news” organizations has nothing whatsoever to do with news reporting. The Press, today, delivers propaganda masked as news. There is no appreciable distinction anymore between what appears in the Op-Ed sections of these “news” publications or in  what is purportedly presented as “real” news, neutrally presented.

We have seen how antigun zealots create, through the artifice of the ‘assault weapon,’ a useful fiction through which semiautomatic firearms can be ostensibly lawfully banned. President Trump has, consciously or not, but certainly ill-advisedly and uncritically, created, through the DOJ-ATF Bump Stock Rule, a re-branding of semiautomatic firearm as machine gun based, essentially, on performance, albeit deliberately creating vagueness as to whether "bump stocks" necessitate one-trigger pull for every shot or multiple shots with one trigger pull in an attempt to "get around" the lack of any vagueness or ambiguity in the statutory definition of 'machine gun.'

If Trump and the DOJ-ATF are allowed to get away with this subterfuge, then it is but a small step from a total ban on “bump stocks” to a total ban on all semiautomatic firearms, since rate of fire—utilized as the salient and subjective basis for elimination of firearms in the hands of civilians—will now provide the “ammunition” antigun zealots can and will latch onto in their unyielding zeal to continue to weaken the Second Amendment.And it is Trump, now, not Schumer or Pelosi, who has given them a vehicle they can and will use to destroy at once the citizen’s best means of self-defense and destroy, as well, the one truly capable defense in the citizen’s possession, to prevent or at least deter the onset of tyranny.

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*As reported in Ammoland Shooting Sports News, John Crump, NRA instructor, has launched a petition drive to urge President Trump to reverse his position on Bump Stocks. A reversal of Trump’s position requires the rescission of the ATF Bump Stock Rule, which Trump should be able to accomplish. As Chief Executive, the President is sole head of all Departments, bureaus, and agencies of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Trump ordered creation of the rule banning bump stocks. He should be able to demand the rescission of it. Trump can and should assert that, after further consideration, he realizes his Memorandum to the DOJ, requesting a Rule banning bump stocks, was issued in error with little foresight; that the Memorandum he issued is administratively ill-advised, logically flawed, and legally unsupportable, and that, upon reflection, the President realizes the DOJ-ATF Rule does not serve the best interests of the American public, and, further, that the President realizes the Rule is inconsistent with the import and purport of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Arbalest Quarrel supports John Crump’s worthy effort. The founders of the Arbalest Quarrel weblog have added their names to the petition. We urge all Americans who, like us, cherish and exalt our Bill of Rights, and especially our Second Amendment, to do the same. At the moment only a few thousand individuals have signed the petition. That is unacceptable. The petition calls for 100,000 signatures. There are tens of millions of guns owners. Where are their voices? They have not been heard.

Remember this: Nothing serves better to destroy our sacred rights and liberties than public apathy. If those among the public—deluded though they be—are encouraged to yell louder for ever more “gun control” measures than do those who continue to support the right of the people to keep and bear arms, then Congress will deliver the head of the Second Amendment, on a platter, to the destroyers of our sacred rights. And, the framers of our Constitution and founders of our Free Republic will have given their blood in vain. It is up to you!

Let us avoid the ill-fated national concealed handgun carry reciprocity measure. With the Democrats reclaiming control of the House of Representatives on January 3, 2019, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the Democratic Party leadership will be doing everything in its power to weaken the Second Amendment; and we can expect a flurry of anti-Second Amendment bills in the first few months when Congress commences business. We don’t need President Trump assisting them in this effort, whether he is doing so consciously or not.

Once you sign the petition, we also urge you contact the White House. Contact phone numbers are:

1-202-456-1414; (Switchboard)

1-202-456-1111; (Comments)

You may also write to the President. Information may be found at the White House website:

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Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

HEARING OF THE U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY ON NICS REPORTING AND FIREARM ACCCESSORY REGULATION

WHAT IS THE GOAL OF CONGRESS: TO REPAIR AND IMPROVE NICS REPORTING REQUIREMENTS OR TO TURN NICS INTO A MASSIVE FIREARMS REGISTRATION SCHEME?

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." ~ Thomas Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774—1776On Wednesday, December 6, 2017, the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, presided over by Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-IA, held a three-hour Hearing on firearms, titled, “Firearm Accessory Regulation and Enforcing Federal and State Reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).” The full Committee attended. That included the Ranking Democratic Member of the Committee, and virulent opponent of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.  CSPAN televised the Hearing.Two panels convened. The first one included senior officials of the ATF, FBI, the Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, and the Inspector General of Department of Defense. The second panel convened included, inter alia, a survivor of the Las Vegas mass shooting tragedy, Heather Gooze, who was the first to speak; two Second Amendment legal experts, David Kopel and Stephen Halbrook; and the Montgomery County Chief of Police and Major Cities Chiefs Association President, J. Thomas Manger.The two mass shooting incidents—one occurring during the Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 1, 2017 and the second occurring at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, roughly one month later, on November 5, 2017—served, evidently, as the impetus for and the backdrop for this Hearing. The Senate Judiciary Committee focused its questioning of the first panel on: one, the mechanics of criminal and mental health reporting requirements, two, the sharing of data or lack of sharing of data between State and federal police agencies, and, three, the failure of Governmental agencies, both federal and State, to maintain accurate, reliable, and complete databases on those individuals who are not permitted to possess firearms. The Senate Judiciary Committee focused questioning of the second panel on firearms—semiautomatic rifles—that the killers, Stephen Paddock and Devin Patrick Kelley allegedly utilized to murder innocent people.The purpose of this article is not to delve into the interstices and intricacies of the Senate Hearing but to inform the American public of the fact of it and the specific concerns addressed during it that cast in high relief the dangers posed to preserving the sacred right embodied in the Second Amendment.Antigun proponents, through their Congressional representatives—Senate Democratic Party members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including ranking Democratic Party member, Dianne Feinstein, and her principal cohorts, Patrick Leahy, Richard Blumenthal, Dick Durbin, and Sheldon Whitehouse, among others—wish to move the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and other criminal and mental health databases into an efficient and massive and broad digital firearms registration scheme, embracing more and more individuals and incentivizing the military and the States to add comprehensive criminal and mental health data into NICS and other databases. Through this Hearing, and through recent comments of antigun proponents in news broadcasts, we see renewed efforts by antigun proponents, stoked by the recent mass shooting incidents—to weaken the Second Amendment beyond past efforts. Emboldened, we see efforts afoot by antigun proponents to transform NICS and other federal and State databases into a comprehensive digital firearms’ registration scheme, wrapping it into a more restrictive, draconian criminal and mental health background check scheme.If successful, these efforts by the antigun movement would infringe not only the basic, natural and fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms, embodied in the Second Amendment, but would also infringe the fundamental right embodied in the unreasonable searches and seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment, and infringe, too, the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. And, the antigun movement does not stop there. Not content to ban some semiautomatic firearms—that Federal Statute (the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB)) at one time, defined certain semiautomatic firearms as ‘assault weapons,’ until the AWB expired in 2004, and which several States, with their own assault weapon ban statutes, in full force, presently prohibit—the antigun movement now seeks to ban all semiautomatic firearms.There are efforts afoot to enact federal law not unlike the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). Under the NFA, the ATF heavily regulates civilian ownership and possession of from possessing fully automatic machine guns and submachine guns and selective fire assault rifles. And, the civilian population is prohibited altogether from owning newly manufactured fully automatic weapons.So, even as the House in recent days passed the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 (H.R. 38), a bill that strengthens the Second Amendment, which now goes to the U.S. Senate for consideration, we see--in stark contrast and contradistinction to pro-Second Amendment efforts to strengthen the right of the people to keep and bear arms--efforts by antigun Legislators mobilizing and gearing up to dispossess American citizens of semiautomatic firearms—all semiautomatic firearms, not merely those bizarrely categorized as ‘assault weapons.’ Antigun proponents evidently feel that they can hoodwink the American public, given the recent mass shooting incidents—which they use to their advantage—as they work unceasingly toward their ultimate goal to dispossess all Americans, eventually, of their firearms.During the questioning of the first panel, senior Officials of the Federal Government admitted that the NICS system was incomplete and faulty. The reason for this is that the military, especially, but also the States, have been remiss in entering data pertaining to individuals convicted of crimes that preclude these individuals from possessing firearms. Senator Ted Cruz, in his opening remarks, also made the pertinent point that individuals who falsify information to obtain a firearm have violated federal law, but that these crimes are rarely prosecuted and, so, all too often go unpunished.Falsifying information to obtain a firearm when an individual is not permitted to possess a firearm is a serious crime. 18 USCS § 922(a)(6), titled, “Unlawful acts” sets forth clearly, categorically, and unequivocally that: “it shall be unlawful for any person in connection with the acquisition or attempted acquisition of any firearm or ammunition from a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector, knowingly to make any false or fictitious oral or written statement or to furnish or exhibit any false, fictitious, or misrepresented identification, intended or likely to deceive such importer, manufacturer, dealer, or collector with respect to any fact material to the lawfulness of the sale or other disposition of such firearm or ammunition under the provisions of this chapter.” Senator Cruz was making the point, albeit tacitly, that laws that have no legal consequences do not amount to laws at all. Enforcement of federal firearms laws is lackadaisical at best, a point often made by NRA and a point perfunctorily ignored by antigun proponents whose real goal, after all, is to go after the millions of law-abiding gun owners, even as they profess to express concern over those individuals, alone, who are absolutely prohibited by law “to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign  commerce.” See United States Code, 18 USCS § 922(g) and 18 USCS § 922(n), titled, “Unlawful Acts,” as set forth in Title 18, “Crimes and Criminal Procedure,” of Part I, “Crimes,” of Chapter 44, “Firearms.”During the hearing, Legislators on the Judiciary Committee uniformly expressed concern over faulty federal NICS record-keeping and they requested, from the panel of senior Government officials, an explanation for the failure of these Government Offcials to keep the criminal databases up-to-date. But, it is one thing to repair the NICS record-keeping system; it is quite another to contemplate dumping ever more people into it, essentially, eventually, encapsulating minutia of mental health details of every American, along with details of every infraction committed by every American during every period of his or her life—every spat between husband wife or boyfriend and girlfriend, and an accounting of every instance, every bout of depression or anxiety an American citizen at one time or another may have had. Democratic Party members of the Judiciary Committee—alluded to expanding NICS and other criminal and mental health databases into a comprehensive and permanent digital—as opposed to merely manual—database of every firearm’s transaction and tying that to and in tandem with a universal background check schema.Clearly, the aim of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee is, then, more ambitious and grandiose than merely repairing a faulty NICS system. We are headed toward a universal registration system if antigun proponents have their way. Every firearm owner becomes suspect. Hence, every American, who owns a firearm must be carefully screened, and those licensed and therefore “privileged” to own and possess a firearm, will be carefully and continuously observed for signs of anti-social behavior, predicated on subjective standards of assessment. The implication of a universal criminal and mental health background check system tied into a permanent NICS databases are dire from the standpoint of Constitutional privacy concerns.Then, there are the firearms themselves. During the questioning of the second panel, it became clear that it wasn’t Stephen Paddock or Devin Patrick Kelley who were being castigated for the horror they caused. Rather, it was the semiautomatic weapons that were the target of and the focus of the Senators' ire--those Democratic Party members who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee.One speaker on the second panel, who was the first to speak, was a young woman named Heather Gooze. She detailed her personal experiences during the Las Vegas shooting episode and resulting carnage. This survivor’s anguished account of holding and attempting to aid and comfort a dying stranger, who had been shot by Paddock, was poignant, graphic, heart-rending, heartfelt, and deepfelt, as it was meant to be—but, for all that, it was also irrelevant. The fault for the tragedy in Las Vegas was not laid at the feet of the maniac, Stephen Paddock, the sole cause of the carnage—assuming there were no others that abetted Paddock. No! The fault for the crime is laid on inanimate objects—the weapons Paddock used in the commission of his heinous acts. But, if civilian access to an entire category of weapons, semiautomatic rifles, in common use by millions of law-abiding, sane, responsible Americans, is to be curtailed, then, those who would ban civilian possession of semiautomatic weapons  must propound sound legal and logical arguments in support of their case. Arguments amounting to emotional rhetoric, however endearing and heartfelt and honest they may be, are not rational substitutes for sound reasoning.What was on display during the Hearing, was unabashed grief and anger. That is what we heard from the young woman, Heather Gooze: a plaintive and soulful, if tacit, cry for a universal ban on semiautomatic weapons, and that is what the Senators on the Judiciary Committee got from her. This appeal to sympathy for one's cause, derived from heartfelt pain, is representative of a common fallacy. It's one an undergraduate college student learns about in a course on informal and formal symbolic logic. The Latin expression for this informal fallacy is argumentum ad misericordiam (argument from pity or sympathy or misery, or compassion). The fallacy of argumentum ad misericordiam is committed when pity, or sympathy, or compassion, or misery is appealed to for the sake of getting someone to accept a conclusion predicated on emotion, alone, sidestepping the salient issue.Appealing to pity, compassion, or sympathy, or misery avoids dealing with the pertinent legal questions. The pertinent legal question here is this: do semiautomatic weapons fall within the core of the Second Amendment’s protection? Antigun proponents use the argument from pity incessantly to sidestep this legal issue—the real issue—because they do not wish to hit the issue head-on. Appealing to sympathy or pity, or misery, or anger operates as a convenient substitute for cogent and sound legal and logical reasoning. It is unfortunate that the U.S. Supreme Court has, at least twice, decided not to take up the issue whether semiautomatic weapons do fall within the core of the Second Amendment’s protection, as appellants in the cases failed to garner four votes necessary to secure high Court review. See, Friedman vs. City of Highland Park, Illinois, 784 F.3d 406 (7th Cir. 2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 447, 193 L. Ed.2d 483 (2015); and, recently, Kolbe vs. Hogan, 813 F.3d 160 (4th Cir. Md., 2016), cert. denied, 2017 LEXIS 7002. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on both these cases.The legal and logical weaknesses of the antigun proponent’s position, apropos of semiautomatic weapons, would be all too apparent were they to try to evince an argument. The public is hit with emotional rhetoric and pious sentiments, instead. Such emotional outrage has clout, even as it is devoid of substance. Heather Gooze used it to good effect during the Hearing. Her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee was as much a plea for action from the public as it was a plea for action from the Senate. No doubt, that was the reason she was invited to speak before the Committee at this public Hearing.Antigun proponents invariably take the argumentum ad misericordiam out of their sack of tricks whenever a tragedy involving the misuse of firearms occurs. They know that tragic events tug at the heartstrings of anyone who has a modicum of compassion in his or her heart, which are the majority of us—and which do not include psychopaths, who have no inkling of and therefore have absolutely no understanding of the concept of compassion. And, these individuals, who lack a modicum of compassion include, as well, common criminals who might understand the concept but simply don’t care since a consideration of compassion during the commission of a crime interferes with their personal selfish ends.Appealing to sympathy as an argument to dispossess millions of law-abiding firearms owners of their firearms operates as a useful makeweight, a convenient scapegoat, for antigun proponents, allowing antigun proponents to avoid factoring in the complex legal, logical, historical, cultural, and ethical ramifications of taking firearms away from millions of sane, rational, honest Americans. Essentially the antigun proponent’s argument, in various forms and permutations, boils down to this:“semiautomatic ‘assault weapons’ are weapons of war and have no legitimate use in civilian hands other than to commit murder and to do so on a large scale. And, manufacturers market these weapons to the entire civilian population which includes, then, mentally ill individuals and criminals who should not have them. These weapons have incredible firepower and no legitimate civilian use. Just look at what happens when a poor, deluded person gets hold of this ‘weapon of war.’ Just look at the harm he calls. Anyone who has a heart at all should see that semiautomatic assault weapons will only cause bad things to happen and will cause good people to do bad things. If you don’t want to see an innocent child, a vulnerable woman, a weak old man harmed—and what caring, compassionate human being does—then you will agree with us that there is no place for these ‘weapons of war’ in a civilized society, and you will write or call your Congressman or Senator, asking your Legislator to enact legislation that permanently bans these awful weapons of war, to ban them for the good of society so that no other person will ever suffer the needless tragedy that these weapons of war cause.” Well, if there is a sound reason for banning semiautomatic weapons from civilians, this isn’t it. Apart from appealing solely to one’s emotions, the argument embraces false assumptions, hyperbole, and irrelevant considerations. And, if you think our illustration of the fallacy of argumentum misericordiam amounts itself to a fallacy—the straw man fallacy, as some, who challenge our position, may claim—it does not. The remarks, concerning semiautomatic weapons as ‘assault weapons’ and ‘weapons of war,’ “weapons that have no legitimate civilian use,” and the notion that firearms manufacturers market these “weapons of war” to criminals and to the mentally ill are not suppositions the Arbalest Quarrel has invented to illustrate an argumentum misericordiam, for the purpose simply to knock down a straw man. No! These remarks are not our invention at all. These remarks, purporting to be arguments against civilian possession of firearms, are utilized constantly, incessantly by antigun proponents. And, more to the point, these remarks, as set forth in our example, comprise, in part, allegations taken from an actual formal legal pleading—namely and specifically the First Amended Complaint of the Soto Plaintiffs, in Soto vs. Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC., 2016 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2626; CCH Prod. Liab. Rep. P19,932. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on this case and continues to write articles about it. See, for example, our in-depth article, titled, “Soto vs. Bushmaster: Antigunners Take Aim at Gun Manufacturers.” We also wish to point out that a detailed account of one’s personal experiences, as related to the reader or listener—those of Heather Gooze, during the Senate Hearing—amount to a series of declarations that have no appreciable epistemic value. In other words, her account of the tragedy in Las Vegas, that occurred during the Harvest Music Festival, is not the sort of thing that one can reasonably challenge, or that need be challenged, or is expected by anyone to be challenged, as false.The Arbalest Quarrel accepts the account of Heather Gooze, as related at the Senate Hearing, as true, and does not quarrel with it. There is no reason to. There is no reason to consider her personal account as false. We say this because the remarks of Heather Gooze have no concrete epistemic value on the salient issue whether semiautomatic weapons fall within the core of the Second Amendment. Her remarks or declarations of events as she experienced them at the Harvest Music Festival do not serve as a sound reason for banning semiautomatic weapons from the millions of average, law-abiding, rational, responsible American citizens who own and possess them, notwithstanding that the Democratic Party Senators on the Judiciary Committee happen to believe the account of Heather Gooze to be relevant to the issue whether semiautomatic weapons are the sorts of firearms that properly belong in the hands of the average, rational and responsible American citizen. The remarks of Heather Gooze simply attest, at best, to a matter that everyone can agree with: that criminals, psychopaths, Islamic terrorists, and other assorted lunatics—the flotsam and jetsam of society—should not have access to any firearm. One might by the same token argue that the worst elements of society should not have access to anything that can feasibly be used to cause great harm to others and to many individuals at one time. Consider for example: a knife, an automobile or truck, or chainsaw. What we are getting at here is that common criminals, and members of drug cartels and criminal gangs, and psychopaths, and Islamic terrorists, and other assorted lunatics and maniacs and riffraff who pose a danger to others, as these individual do, should be removed from our society. It is not the firearm that should be removed from American society.That common criminals, terrorists, psychotics, or psychopaths may happen to get their hands on a semiautomatic rifle or on any other firearm to harm others does not serve as a sound legal or logical reason for banning semiautomatic weapons en masse from millions of average, law-abiding, responsible, rational American citizens. And, make no mistake, Senator Dianne Feinstein and the other Democratic Party members of the Senate Judiciary Committee do seek to ban and do work feverishly to ban all semiautomatic weapons, just as fully automatic weapons and selective fire weapons have been essentially banned from civilian possession, since 1934, with passage of the National Firearms Act (NFA). In fact, Senator Dianne Feinstein would accomplish this feat through enactment of a very devious bit of legislation, which was referred to during the Senate Hearing.Roughly two months ago, on October 4, 2017, Senator Feinstein introduced the following bill in the U.S. Senate:Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, This Act may be cited as the "Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act".POSSESSION OF CERTAIN FIREARM ACCESSORIES. Chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-   in section 922, by inserting after subsection (u) the following:   "(v)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), on and after the date that is 180 days after the date of enactment of this subsection, it shall be unlawful for any person to import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, a trigger crank, a bump-fire device, or any part, combination of parts, component, device, attachment, or accessory that is designed or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle but not convert the semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun.   This subsection does not apply with respect to the importation for, manufacture for, sale to, transfer to, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof."; and   in section 924(a)(2), by striking ", or (o)" and inserting "(o), or (v)". Attorneys David Kopel and Stephen Halbrook, sitting on the second panel, and testifying at the Senate Hearing—were acutely aware of this Senate bill. David Kopel pointed out that the language of Feinstein’s bill, the "Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act," makes very clear that any change at all to any semiautomatic weapon—lightening the trigger pull, for example, or even cleaning a firearm—can effectively serve to increase the rate of fire of the weapon. Thus, any semiautomatic rifle can, were Feinstein’s bill enacted, serve as the basis to ban outright all semiautomatic rifles. When faced with David Kopel’s critical, astute remarks, Senator Feinstein demurred, seemed agitated and, evidently, perplexed, asserting, disingenuously, that the bill was drafted by capable attorneys, suggesting, perhaps, or, then again, perhaps not, that her bill only targets certain types of accessories or components for semiautomatic weapons, such as the “bump-fire device” (“bump stock”) that are specifically mentioned, and not, ipso facto, all semiautomatic weapons. But, that doesn't seem to be the case; and, if that is not the case, then this would suggest that the drafters of Feinstein’s bill either know very little about the operation of semiautomatic rifles or know the operation of semiautomatic weapons all too well. If the former supposition is true, then the bill has unintended consequences: positive consequences for antigun proponents; negative consequences for everyone else. This means that all semiautomatic rifles can and eventually would be banned. This is consistent with the plain meaning of the bill. If the latter supposition is true, then, given the plain meaning of the bill, the bill is a subterfuge. This would mean that those who drafted Feinstein's bill intended, all along, not merely to suggest that only some accessories for semiautomatic rifles would be banned, but that, in fact, all semiautomatic weapons would be banned, as this is what antigun proponents want and have wanted all along and this is what the bill says: no semiautomatic weapons in the hands of American citizens qua civilians. Either way, Senator Feinstein would derive from her bill, if enacted, exactly what she had long sought—a universal ban on semiautomatic weapons defined as ‘assault weapons’—meaning, of course, that all semiautomatic weapons would be banned because all semiautomatic weapons are, ipso facto, ‘assault weapons,’ as Senator Feinstein sees it.Never underestimate the deviousness of antigun proponents and never trust them when they assert that they do not seek to defeat the right of the people to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment. These antigun groups, and antigun legislators, and their billionaire benefactors, and their fellow travelers in the mainstream media and in Hollywood, will not rest easy until each and every average American citizen qua civilian—apart from the so-called “elites” in society, like Senator Feinstein, herself—is prohibited, by law, from owning and possessing any kind of firearm._________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.