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

MULTIPART SERIES ON POST-BRUEN CASE ANALYSIS

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

PART TWENTY-FIVE

THE TYRANT EVER DISTRUSTS THE ARMED CITIZEN

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

“SENSITIVE PLACE” AND “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER”

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

THE NUANCES OF “SENSITIVE PLACE” RESTRICTIONS

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

NUANCES OF THE “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER” REQUIREMENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IT IS HIGH TIME THE HIGH COURT DEALT WITH GOVERNMENT HANDGUN LICENSING REGIMES HEAD-ON

MULTIPART SERIES ON POST-BRUEN CASE ANALYSIS

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

PART TWENTY-FOUR

“MAY ISSUE” VERSUS “SHALL ISSUE” A HANDGUN LICENSE ISN’T OF SALIENT IMPORTANCE. GOVERNMENT HANDGUN LICENSING, PER SE, IS.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s “May Issue” concealed handgun carry license “Proper Cause” requirement in New York on June 23, 2022, in the third landmark Second Amendment case, NYSRPA vs. Bruen. That much is known among both friends and foes of the Second Amendment alike. And the Democrat Party legislative machinery in Albany, at the behest of New York Governor Kathy Hochul, did strike “Proper Cause” from the State’s Handgun Law, the Sullivan Act.But a comprehensive set of amendments to the Law did nothing to weaken the import of the Act.Hochul and Albany simply rejiggered it, leading immediately, and unsurprisingly, to a new round of challenges.But what accounts for this brazenness of the New York Government? And why is it fair to say the recent set of Amendments to New York’s Handgun Law (the Sullivan Act) is no less in conflict with the right codified in the Second Amendment, after Bruen, than before the Bruen decision?As we argue, the Amendments to the Handgun Law, “The Concealed Carry Improvement Act” of 2022 (“CCIA”), negatively impact not only the Second and Fourteenth Amendments but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Bill of Rights as well.Moreover, for holders of valid New York concealed carry licenses prior to Bruen, the Amendments to the Handgun Law do not secure acquiring a renewal of their concealed handgun carry license any easier, but create new hurdles for those licensees, no less so than for new applications for concealed carry licenses.And, for those individuals who do acquire a valid New York concealed handgun carry license under the CCIA, its usefulness is jeopardized.Prior to Bruen, the State had established two tiers of concealed handgun carry licenses: Restricted and Unrestricted. That distinction no longer exists. The CCIA collapses the two tiers. Henceforth, all concealed handgun carry licenses are now, in effect, “Restricted.”What is going on here? How has the New York Government come about?One must dig deep into Bruen for an answer, and that analysis must extend to Heller and McDonald. For the three landmark Second Amendment cases operate in tandem.

THE NEW YORK GOVERNMENT HAS EXPLOITED WEAKNESSES IN THE BRUEN DECISION

The New York Government has exploited weaknesses in the rulings and reasoning of Bruen and in the parent Heller and McDonald cases.Consistent with our prior analyses, we continue to delve deeply into U.S. Gun Law.In this and subsequent articles, we unpack and decipher the language of the three seminal 21^st Century Second Amendment cases to gain an understanding of the weaknesses and flaws that have allowed State Government foes of the Second Amendment to flaunt the High Court rulings.Sometimes these Government schemes demonstrate adroitness and cunning. At other times the schemes show ineptitude, appearing crude and amateurish. No matter. Foes of the Second Amendment illustrate, through their actions, unmitigated Government contempt for theArticle III power of the Third Branch of Government, a marked disdain for the natural law right to armed self-defense, and outright hatred toward Americans who exhibit a marked intention to keep and bear arms, consistent with the right guaranteed to them by eternal, immutable Divine Law, albeit contrary to transitory, ever-changing international norms.  High Court rulings do not and cannot transform innate and open hostility toward the Second Amendment, harbored by and exhibited by the legacy Press; a plethora of native Anti-Second Amendment interest groups; the Biden Administration and its toady functionaries; Democrat Party-Controlled State Governments; International Marxist-Communist, and Neoliberal Globalist influences; the fixtures of the EU and UN; the Nation's Political liberals, Progressives, and Radicals among the polity; and international-sponsored NGOs.Reason doesn't factor into the equation. Those forces hostile to the very existence of the Second Amendment remain so. The hostility is attributed to and engendered by the agenda of the Globalist Billionaire Class the goal of which is to bring to fruition a neo-feudalistic corporatist Globalist economic, and financial empire, around which a one-world socio-political Government is to be constructed, through which the Hoi Polloi of the world, amorphous billions, are to be ruled with an iron fist, keeping them corralled and constrained.Constitutions of individual nation-states, especially those of the U.S. that embrace God-Given natural law, beyond the lawful authority of any Government to tamper with, are antithetical to The Globalist end-game. And, so, the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are deemed both dangerous and irrelevant.Yet, the salient job of the U.S. Supreme Court is to preserve the import and purport of the U.S. Constitution by interpreting the plain meaning of it as drafted, and, in so doing, constrain malevolent or opportunistic forces that would manipulate the Constitution to serve an agenda at odds with it, whose unstated goal, as has become increasingly apparent, amounts to the wholesale destruction of a free Republic and the Nation’s sovereign people. It need hardly be said, let alone argued, that decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are not and ought not to be determined by popular opinion. Inferring the plain meaning of the Constitution, the decisions of the Court are not to be shunted aside due to the fervor of the moment. In any event, public opinion is fickle; easily manipulated. The public, much of it, is easily roused to anger. Now a mob, it is whipped into a frenetic, frenzied rage through the launching of industry-wide propaganda campaigns— elaborate psychological conditioning programs, blanketing the entire Nation. It is in this climate of induced fear and rage toward firearms and toward those of us who intend to exercise our fundamental, unalienable, immutable, eternal right to armed self-defense that the U.S. Supreme Court operates and must navigate in and through, never losing sight of one axiomatic principle enunciated by John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, over two centuries ago in the landmark case Marbury vs. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 1 Cranch 137 (1803). All first-year law students come to know this case.

“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. 

So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.”

See also, the article, The Court and Constitutional Interpretation, on the High Court's website:

“When the Supreme Court rules on a constitutional issue, that judgment is virtually final; its decisions can be altered only by the rarely used procedure of constitutional amendment or by a new ruling of the Court. However, when the Court interprets a statute, new legislative action can be taken.Chief Justice Marshall expressed the challenge which the Supreme Court faces in maintaining free government by noting: ‘We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding . . . intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.’” This suggests the High Court should never be tentative, circuitous, or vague in its opinions, especially when dealing with the Bill of Rights.Alas, that normative commandment is less objective practice and more unattainable goal. The elusiveness of it is due more likely to stormy conditions in the Court itself, among the Justices, that require them,  at times, to pull their punches.

THE PROBLEM WITH BRUEN RESTS NOT WITH THE RULINGS BUT WITH A  LACK OF CLARITY DUE POSSIBLY TO THE MACHINATIONS OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE (?)

The problems attendant to Bruen rest not with the rulings themselves, but with abstruseness; a lack of clarity. The authors of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, could have closed the loopholes. They didn’t.But the fault does not lie with the late, eminent Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the Heller Majority Opinion, nor with Justice Samuel Alito, author of the McDonald Majority Opinion, nor with Justice Clarence Thomas, author of the Bruen Majority Opinion.The fault, more likely than not, rests with Chief Justice Roberts. Conscious of the political headwinds, and desirous to establish a modicum of common ground between the two wings of the Court, he likely had demanded watered-down versions of the Majority Opinions.Were Justices Scalia, Alito, and Thomas given free rein, they would have denied to State Government actors and their compliant Courts, an escape route, however narrow, allowing these foes of the Second Amendment to concoct mechanisms to skirt the Heller, McDonald, and Bruen rulings and reasoning that supports those rulings.

A CONUNDRUM RESTS AT THE HEART OF BRUEN AND HELLER AND MCDONALD

On a few major findings, the three landmark cases were patently clear.Heller held firmly that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, unconnected with service in a militia, and the Federal Government is prevented from disturbing that right. McDonald made clear the rulings and reasoning of Heller applied with equal force to the States. Bruen made clear the individual right to armed self-defense isn’t confined to one’s home but extends to the public domain.At each step, the three LandmarkSecond Amendment cases strengthened, in turn, an aspect of the plain meaning of the natural law right to armed self-defense, drawing upon and building upon and then clarifying a central plank of the predecessor case.The foes of these Landmark cases contested findings of law and fact. The arguments invariably began with a false premise: that the U.S. Supreme Court has impermissibly expanded the right embodied in the Second Amendment. The High Court did no such thing. It expanded nothing.The High Court simply laid out what exists in the language of the Second Amendment but that some State Governments fail to recognize or know but fail to acknowledge. And, in their actions, these Governments contort and distort, and inexorably weaken the clear, concise, and categorical meaning of the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment.The central thesis of the latest Landmark case, Bruen is this:

WHETHER AT HOME, OR IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE, A PERSON HAS A FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO DEFEND ONE’S LIFE WITH THE FUNCTIONALLY BEST MEANS AVAILABLE, A FIREARM, A FACT TRUE CENTURIES AGO, AND NO LESS TRUE TODAY.

And, yet there exists a conundrum, a problem, a painful shard embedded in the heart of Bruen—a  carryover from Heller—that begs for resolution in a fourth Second Amendment case that likely is coming down the pike: Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli, another New York case.That case is the progeny of an earlier case, Antonyuk vs. Bruen—the first major challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court case, NYSRPA vs. Bruen.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, amenable to the allegations made attacking the legality and Constitutionality of New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act, dismissed the case without prejudice, tacitly, but unsubtly, encouraging the Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk to refile the case.New York Governor Hochul, apparently oblivious to the fact that the dismissal of Antonyuk vs. Bruen did not mean the Court found the CCIA Constitutional, pompously reported the District Court’s action as a win. She should have saved her breath. She would have looked less the fool.The Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, promptly filed a new complaint, and five other holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses joined him as Party Plaintiffs. During the litigation of the case, the Parties filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction to stay enforcement of the CCIA, and the District Court granted the Motion.The Hochul Government appealed the Injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Appellate Court reversed the District Court’s granting of the stay, and the Plaintiffs filed an interlocutory appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. In an unconventional request for a response from the Government to the Plaintiffs’ appeal, the Hochul Government filed its opposition to the lifting of the stay of enforcement of the CCIA case—eventually, recaptioned Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli—and the High Court, in deference to the Second Circuit, did lift the stay, permitting the Government to enforce the CCIA while the Second Circuit rules on the Preliminary Injunction.Having received what it wanted from the High Court and knowing or suspecting the core of the CCIA would likely be overturned on appeal of a final Order of the Second Circuit, the Hochul Government would have every reason to dawdle.The High Court, aware of this, cautioned the Government against this, in its Order, stating that that the Government must proceed apace with the case, and explicitly asserting that Plaintiffs can appeal to the High Court if the Government deliberately drags its feet.Yet, months later, the case, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli, still sits at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

A TENSION EXISTS BETWEEN THE DICTATES OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND LANDMARK RULINGS OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT ON THE ONE HAND, AND, ON THE OTHER HAND, THE INTENT OF THOSE STATE GOVERNMENTS, THAT ABHOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT, TO OPERATE IN DEFIANCE OF THE DICTATES OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND LANDMARK RULINGS OF THE U.S. SUPREME

State Governments—like New York and others—that abhor exercise of the right embodied in the Second Amendment—will continue to enact Statutes spurning the High Court’s rulings until the Court deals with this conundrum.The central premise of Bruen is that the right to armed self-defense, inherent in the language of the Second Amendment, is not bounded in space or time.A person need not, then, present a reason to carry a handgun for self-defense in public. Self-defense is reason enough, and that reason is presumed in a person’s application for a carry license.It was the presumption of “May Issue” jurisdictions that an applicant for a handgun carry license must show the need for a handgun carry license that the U.S. Supreme Court attacked head-on.Justice Thomas, writing for the Majority in Bruen, said this:  “New York is not alone in requiring a permit to carry a handgun in public. But the vast majority of States—43 by our count—are shall issue’ jurisdictions, where authorities must issue concealed-carry licenses whenever applicants satisfy certain threshold requirements, without granting licensing officials discretion to deny licenses based on a perceived lack of need or suitability. Meanwhile, only six States and the District of Columbia have ‘may issue’ licensing laws, under which authorities have discretion to deny concealed-carry licenses even when the applicant satisfies the statutory criteria, usually because the applicant has not demonstrated cause or suitability for the relevant license. Aside from New York, then, only California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey have analogues to the ‘proper cause’ standard. All of these ‘proper cause’ analogues have been upheld by the Courts of Appeals, save  for the District of Columbia’s, which has been permanently enjoined since 2017. Compare Gould v. Morgan, 907 F. 3d 659, 677 (CA1 2018); Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F. 3d 81, 101 (CA2 2012); Drake v. Filko, 724 F. 3d 426, 440 (CA3 2013); United States v. Masciandaro, 638 F. 3d 458, 460 (CA4 2011); Young v. Hawaii, 992 F. 3d 765, 773 (CA9 2021) (en banc), with Wrenn v. District of Columbia, 864 F. 3d 650, 668, 431 U.S. App. D.C. 62 (CADC 2017).” [Bruen, Majority Opinion]Justice Thomas says Appellate Courts have upheld “May Issue” in six which include New York and the District of Columbia. What Justice Thomas doesn’t say but suggests is that “May Issue” is henceforth unconstitutional in all those jurisdictions because those jurisdictions embrace a“Proper Cause” schema even if the precise phrase, ‘Proper Cause,’ isn’t used in those “May Issue” in the handgun laws of those jurisdictions.Moreover, insofar as the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in those jurisdictions have heretofore held “May Issue” Gun Laws Constitutional, the holdings of those Courts are henceforth overruled to the extent they conflict with Bruen. That means the reasoning in conjunction with and supporting those holdings is to be given no effect.A showing of “Extraordinary Need” is the mainstay of “Proper Cause”/“May Issue.” But, as to what had heretofore constituted this “Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need” was never defined in New York Statute. So, then, what is this thing, “Proper Cause?” How does New York define ‘Proper Cause’ since the Legislature never defined it?“No New York statute defines ‘proper cause.’ But New York courts have held that an applicant shows proper cause only if he can “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.” E.g., In re Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d 256, 257 (1980). This ‘special need’ standard is demanding. For example, living or working in an area “‘noted for criminal activity’” does not suffice. In re Bernstein, 85 App. Div. 2d 574, 445 N. Y. S. 2d 716, 717 (1981). Rather, New York courts generally require evidence ‘of particular threats, attacks or other extraordinary danger to personal safety.’ In re Martinek, 294 App. Div. 2d 221, 222, 743 N. Y. S. 2d 80, 81 (2002); see also In re Kaplan, 249 App. Div. 2d 199, 201, 673 N. Y. S. 2d 66, 68 (1998) (approving the New York City Police Department’s requirement of “‘extraordinary personal danger, documented by proof of recurrent threats to life or safety’” (quoting 38 N. Y. C. R. R. §5-03(b))).’”It was, then, left up to the various Licensing Authorities in New York to construct operational rules for “Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need.”The expression, ‘Proper Cause,’ means ‘Special Need.’ And the expression, ‘Special Need’ means that an applicant for a concealed carry license must establish a reason for carrying beyond simple ‘self-defense.’A demand that a prospective concealed carry licensee convince the licensing authority that his need arises from an “Extraordinary Need,” i.e., a need beyond that faced by most people is what New York and similar “May Issue” jurisdictions demand. And it is this the U.S. Supreme Court finds both incongruous and repugnant under both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.Justice Thomas points out that “May Issue”/“Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need”—all allude to the fact that the Government licensing authority may exercise discretion in issuing a handgun license. This wasn’t a feature of New York’s Handgun Law Licensing Statute when the State Legislature enacted the Sullivan Act in 1911. “Magistrate” (i.e., Government Authority) discretion in issuing a carry license came about a couple of years later.“In 1911, New York’s ‘Sullivan Law’ expanded the State’s criminal prohibition to the possession of all handguns—concealed or otherwise—without a government-issued license. See 1911 N. Y. Laws ch. 195, §1, p. 443. New York later amended the Sullivan Law to clarify the licensing standard: Magistrates could ‘issue to [a] person a license to have and carry concealed a pistol or revolver without regard to employment or place of possessing such weapon’ only if that person proved “good moral character” and ‘proper cause.’ 1913 N. Y. Laws ch. 608, §1, p. 1629.” [Bruen, Majority Opinion] Through the passing years and decades, New York added more requirements, further constraining the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.The history of New York’s Sullivan Act illustrates a consistent and systematic course of action by foes of the Second Amendment to frustrate efforts by those individuals who desire to exercise their fundamental right to armed self-defense.  Eventually, as the trend toward ever more elaborate, convoluted, and oppressive amendments continued, the Handgun Law came to embrace several categories or tiers of handgun licensing and became increasingly difficult to decipher.New York’s Courts stamped their imprimatur on these Government actions, opining disingenuously, ludicrously that New York Law did indeed recognize a right of the people to keep and bear arms, but that exercise of that right required the acquisition of a license, and applicants had no right to demand a license of the Government. The Courts stated the obvious—that issuance of a license is a privilege, not a right, and one the New York Government reserved, to itself, the right to bestow or not, and to rescind once bestowed, as a matter of right.Americans who resided or worked in New York had had enough and challenged the legality and constitutionality of the State’s handgun law.  The process of obtaining a New York concealed handgun carry license is especially difficult demonstrating the Government’s callousness toward gun owners and its utter disdain for those civilian citizens who deign to exercise their natural law right to armed self-defense.“A license applicant who wants to possess a firearm at home (or in his place of business) must convince a ‘licensing officer’—usually a judge or law enforcement officer—that, among other things, he is of good moral character, has no history of crime or mental illness, and that ‘no good cause exists for the denial of the license.’ §§400.00(1)(a)-(n) (West Cum. Supp. 2022). If he wants to carry a firearm outside his home or place of business for self-defense, the applicant must obtain an unrestricted license to ‘have and carry’ a concealed ‘pistol or revolver.’ §400.00(2)(f ). To secure that license, the applicant must prove that ‘proper cause exists’ to issue it. Ibid. If an applicant cannot make that showing, he can receive only a ‘restricted’ license for public carry, which allows him to carry a firearm for a limited purpose, such as hunting, target shooting, or employment. See, e.g., In re O’Brien, 87 N. Y. 2d 436, 438-439, 663 N. E. 2d 316, 316-317, 639 N.Y.S.2d 1004 (1996); Babernitz v. Police Dept. of City of New York, 65 App. Div. 2d 320, 324, 411 N. Y. S. 2d 309, 311 (1978); In re O’Connor, 154 Misc. 2d 694, 696-698, 585 N. Y. S. 2d 1000, 1003 (Westchester Cty. 1992).” [Bruen Majority Opinion]Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that demonstration of “extraordinary need” for carrying a handgun in public for self-defense, heretofore inextricably tied to “Proper Cause”/“May Issue”,  is unconstitutional. The Court articulated this point clearly and categorically. But, having taken this action, the Court stopped. It did not take the next logical step. It did not deal with the issue of “May Issue” Handgun Licensing itself.And that is why Bruen leaves us with a disheartening quandary; a diluted, seemingly equivocal opinion, as also occurred in Heller. The Hochul Government recognized this as a weakness in Bruen, and her Government ran with it.This must have frustrated Justice Clarence Thomas, author of the Bruen Majority Opinion, along with Justice Samuel Alito, author of the McDonald Majority Opinion.No doubt the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the Majority Opinion in the parent Heller case would register his own frustration and indignation at repeated attempts by some on the High Court, to inhibit the citizenry’s exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense.The basic problem with the Bruen decision, and the source of the quandary, goes to the High Court’s handling of “May Issue” licensing.The Justices must have known that lukewarm handling of “May Issue” would provide the Hochul Government with a loophole—just enough, perhaps—to allow the Government to slither around the fundamental right of the people to armed self-defense at home and in the public arena.Drilling down the problem with“May Issue,” we proceed to the legitimacy of handgun licensing itself.

IS STATE GOVERNMENT “MAY ISSUE” HANDGUN LICENSING CONSTITUTIONAL?

Is the practice of “May Issue” handgun licensing constitutional? This is the source of our inquiry here. It is a question that the U.S. Supreme Court must at some point contend with. We hope it does so, and in short order, in the next major Second Amendment case to come before it.In Bruen, the Court Majority doesn’t deal head-on with the matter of the legitimacy, legality, and Constitutionality of Government “May Issue” Licensing of firearms generally and with handguns particularly. The Court touches upon it, tentatively acknowledging the problem, noting that very few States, including New York, and the District of Columbia, are “May Issue” jurisdictions, but does not pursue it. This, to our mind, is a major failing of the case.That failing, a major and pervasive one, and one longstanding, going back fifteen years to Heller, has provided jurisdictions like New York, and others, with a path through which they not only are able to salvage draconian handgun licensing schemes but to strengthen them—all this despite the prominence and impact of Heller and Bruen that would seem at first glance to have closed all loopholes, demanding compliance.It is curious that obtaining a New York “restricted” handgun license for, say, hunting or target practice, is a relatively easy endeavor, at least in comparison to the hoops a person has had to jump through to acquire a concealed handgun “FULL CARRY” License. New York may be construed as a “SHALL ISSUE” jurisdiction apropos of restricted home or business premise licenses. In other words, so long as the applicant does not fall under a disability established in Federal Law, 18 USCS § 922, (and the State embellishes those, making it even more difficult to overcome the disability provisions set forth in the Penal Code), the State licensing authority would issue a restricted handgun premise license. Generally, if the applicant did not meet the State's stringent “PROPER CAUSE”/“EXTRAORDINARY” (“SPECIAL”) NEED” requirement, sufficient to acquire a restricted or unrestricted concealed handgun carry license, the licensing authority would inquire of the applicant if he would accept a highly restrictive handgun premise license in its stead. That would, at least, avoid the need for the applicant to go through substantial time, effort, and expense necessary to reapply for a premise handgun license. And THAT would be the extent of the New York Government's concession to a person who wishes to exercise his right to armed self-defense under the Second Amendment. The only requirement for one to obtain a limited use premise license is that a person isn’t under a disability which would entail automatic denial from legally possessing a firearm at all.Acceding to issue HIGHLY RESTRICTED, LIMITED USE HANDGUN LICENSES amounts to a booby prize. To this day, notwithstanding the Bruen rulings, New York remains a “MAY ISSUE” jurisdiction.The New York State Legislature has made the acquisition of a concealed carry license an extraordinarily difficult endeavor traditionally, and so it remains today. New York disincentivizes the acquisition of concealed handgun carry licenses post-Bruen, as it has done pre-Bruen. The process is lengthy, costly, and time-consuming. That doesn’t bother Associate Justice Steven Breyer. He feels acquisition of a handgun carry license should remain difficult, the reason articulated predicated on the prevalence of violent crime in society.He reminds the target audience of a connection between handguns and violent crimes that he and other foes of the Second Amendment invariably draw:“Consider, for one thing, that different types of firearms may pose different risks and serve different purposes. The Court has previously observed that handguns, the type of firearm at issue here, ‘are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home.’ District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). But handguns are also the most popular weapon chosen by perpetrators of violent crimes. In 2018, 64.4% of firearm homicides and 91.8% of nonfatal firearm assaults were committed with a handgun. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, G. Kena & J. Truman, Trends and Patterns in Firearm Violence, 1993-2018, pp. 5-6 (Apr. 2022).” [Breyer, Dissenting Opinion in Bruen]What is interesting about this argument—one routinely made by foes of the notion of civilian citizen armed self-defense—is the implication derived therefrom.The implication is that the lowest common denominator of society—inhabited by the common criminal opportunist, the psychopathic killer, and the psychotic maniac (all of whom Democrat-Party-Controlled Governments allow to run amok), and at times, here and there, the atypical, careless, irresponsible, but otherwise law-abiding, rational adult—should dictate firearms’ policy negatively impacting exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense for the rest of us: tens of millions of the common people, i.e., responsible, sane, trustworthy, law-abiding Americans. Who are these Americans? Roughly a third of the Country, over 80 million Americans. See, e.g., American Gun Facts.There are proven ways to deal with the lowest common denominator of society. Get them off the streets and into prisons or institutions for the criminally insane. But those Americans who consider themselves “Liberals” or “Progressives” and who are, as a group, antagonistic toward the very notion of a natural law right to armed self-defense, focus their energies on curbing or curtailing the right to armed self-defense of the vast commonalty—using a sledgehammer rather than a surgical knife to deal with violent crime posed by a small but virulent element of society.This suggests that intractable violent crime is but a pretext for the accomplishment of a goal: disarming the citizen. One wonders: Is it a pervasive violent crime that motivates Anti-Second Amendment sentiment among those who seek to eliminate the exercise of the right to armed self-defense, or is it something else, something much different: the threat that the armed citizenry poses to an Authoritarian Government? Is it not the latter, rather than the former that motivates and drives the Government to disarm the American public en masse?Justice Scalia, writing for the majority in Heller, discussed tyranny but there is nothing in that discussion to cement as a rationale for the “individual right to keep and bear arms” holding—what Justice Scalia points out to be the key point of the Second Amendment for the framers of the Constitution—that the Second Amendment is the final “fail-safe” to prevent or, at least, to forestall the onset of tyranny. Rather, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is tied to a notion of armed self-defense against the criminal element. Thus, the Heller rulings operate as a counterweight to the dissenting opinions' arguments that guns should be removed from civilian citizens precisely because they are often utilized by criminals and lunatics, suggesting erroneously, that the way to prevent Gun Violence from thousands of psychopathic criminals and psychotic maniacs, whom the political and progressive elements in society are loathed to deal effectively with, is to remove guns from the hands of everyone else: approximately a third of the Nation, one hundred million law-abiding, rational, responsible, American citizens. But then, it is this armed citizenry—upward of one hundred million Americans—whom the Anti-Second Amendment contingent of the Country and one-world-government proponents are really targeting.Tyranny is what the world empire builders have sought for decades and what they intend to accomplish, for that is what a world government means. And the armed citizenry—that which is nonexistent in CCP China and Russia, the EU and in the British Commonwealth Nations, and in almost every other nation or political grouping of nations on Earth, save for Switzerland and Israel—is the one definitive preventive medicine to Tyranny. Our Constitution’s framers knew that. They fought a war over it. And, but for the force of arms, this Nation today would still, more likely than not, still be under British rule, a part of the British Commonwealth.  With the truth of this as a given, all talk of “Gun Violence” is to be perceived as a deflection—a “dodge,” irrelevant. True “Criminal Violence”—if there is any import to the expression equates with “Tyranny.” Armed self-defense against predatory animal and man is understood and need not be stated.The Second Amendment directs one’s attention to the threat to a free people as a whole—a dire threat, posed by Predatory Government. Justice Scalia undoubtedly recognized it. And, in Heller, he surmised that future scholars of U.S. case law would see in the Heller decision that the case is a doctrinal essay on the rationale for the Second Amendment, and, thus, for the central holding—the individual right of the people to keep and bear arms, qua the armed citizenry, as necessary for the security of a Free State: Tyranny Thwarted only through the continued existence of the armed American citizenry.It is that idea that is both repugnant to and frightening too and therefore intolerable to those forces both within this Country and outside it, who understand, in these three cases, Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, a direct assault on their goals and initiatives. Those goals and initiatives are directed at eliminating, not safeguarding, preserving, and strengthening the Bill of Rights—especially the natural law right to armed self-defense.This natural law right to armed self-defense is tied to the right of free speech, i.e., the right of the individual TO BE individual: the natural law right of the individual to dissent from Government dictates and mob rule and societal pressures that compel uniformity in thought and conduct; that demand obedience; demand the surrender of one’s will to the will of the “Greater Society,” to the will of “The Hive.”  Those forces that crush entire nations and populations into submission view the U.S. Supreme Court’s 21^st Century Second Amendment rulings in Heller, McDonald, and now Bruen, as an unacceptable and intolerable assault on what they wish to achieve: a Neoliberal Globalist empire. These forces perceive the Nation’s Bill of Rights as anachronistic, antagonistic, and antithetical to that goal. Individual thought and an armed citizenry cannot coexist in such a reality. Thus, the goals and policy initiatives in vogue today are employed to drive a wedge between the American people and their history and heritage, culture, and ethos. The aims of these forces are directed at eliminating, not preserving and strengthening, the Bill of Rights—especially the natural law right to dissent and to armed self-defense. The New York Government has long resided in the camp of these Globalist, world empire builders.The New York Government under Governor Kathy Hochul—and before her, Andrew Cuomo—is virulently opposed to civilian citizens carrying handguns in the public domain for personal defense.The New York Government, with the assistance of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, weathered the previous challenge to the Sullivan Act and New York City handgun rules, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, et.al. v. The City Of New York, 140 U.S. S. Ct. 1525 (2020), but that case dealt only with the constitutionality of certain restrictions on the use of a restricted New York City premise license. The State and the City modified the Handgun Statute and the City modified the Rules of the City of New York to avoid a possible attack on the core of the Sullivan Act, involving the carrying of a handgun concealed in New York. The core of the Sullivan Act, though could not be avoided in Bruen. For, the legitimacy, the legality, the constitutionality of the core of the Sullivan Act was at issue.The Hochul Administration and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany attempted an end-run around Bruen by complying with a superficial aspect of the Bruen holding. The High Court held that,“New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.”So, then, if the High Court found “Proper Cause” to be problematic, the Government would strike the words, “Proper Cause” from the Sullivan Act—which turned out to be a superficial genuflection. The Hochul Government thereupon bolstered the “Good Moral Character” requirement of the Gun Law that the High Court mentioned in a cursory fashion in Bruen but did not remonstrate against because “Good Moral Character” had not functioned as anything more than a makeweight. It did not factor substantively into the equation whether the New York Handgun Licensing Authority would issue a person a concealed handgun carry license. What does that mean? How does the Licensing Authority process an application for a concealed handgun carry license in New York? The process of issuing a concealed carry license in New York, prior to Bruen, involved a two-step process. First, the licensing official determined whether the applicant falls under a disability that precludes that person from possessing a firearm at all.If the applicant falls into a category of disability as set forth in the “Crimes and Criminal Procedure” Section of Federal Law, Title 18, Part I (“Crimes”) Chapter 44 (“Firearms”), then that person is incapable of legally possessing any firearm.18 USCS § 922 sets forth:“(g) It shall be unlawful for any person—(1) who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;(2) who is a fugitive from justice;(3) who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802));(4) who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution;(5) who, being an alien—(A) is illegally or unlawfully in the United States; or(B) except as provided in subsection (y)(2), has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa (as that term is defined in section 101(a)(26) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(26)));(6) who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions;(7) who, having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced his citizenship;(8) who is subject to a court order that—(A) was issued after a hearing of which such person received actual notice, and at which such person had an opportunity to participate;(B) restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child; and(C)(i) includes a finding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child; or(ii) by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury; or(9) who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,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; [and](n) It shall be unlawful for any person who is under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce any firearm or ammunition or receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.”In the letter of denial, the licensing officer will state the basis for denial and add that in the License Officer’s judgment the individual does not satisfy the “Good Moral Character” requirement. The words, “Good Moral Character” do not add anything pertinent to the letter of denial. For, whether mentioned or not, the applicant cannot lawfully possess a firearm under federal law, once the licensing officer sets forth the ground or grounds of federal disability and/or the State's own grounds, which build on the Federal grounds of disability. For example, the New York Handgun Licensing Officer in New York City, i.e., the NYPD License Division, has routinely denied the issuance of handgun license, whether for an unrestricted concealed handgun carry license or a restricted premise license if a person has an arrest record, even without conviction and even if the arrest or arrest and conviction occurred while the applicant was a juvenile, and the arrest or conviction record would likely be under seal, or if the individual has a history of mental illness whether or not the applicant had been institutionalized.It should be noted the NYPD License Division, for one, always denied a person’s application for any kind of handgun license if the individual had an arrest record, even sans conviction, although the denial in that circumstance could often—depending on the nature of the prior arrest or arrests, but not invariably—be overcome through an Administrative Hearing.Assuming the applicant did not fall into an 18 USCS § 922(g) or (n) category and the applicant did not seem, to the licensing officer, to have an “objective” flaw such as an arrest record, or history of mental illness, AND the applicant sought a concealed carry license, the officer would proceed to the second step, to ascertain whether that person satisfied the “Proper Cause”/“Extraordinary Need” requirement. This, traditionally, was difficult for the average applicant to satisfy, as noted, supra.Since the U.S. Supreme Court saw no Constitutional flaw in the “Good Moral Character” requirement of the Handgun Law—and as the Plaintiffs in Bruen did not, apparently object to it—the High Court did not find fault with it either, apart from mentioning it in the Bruen Majority Opinion. It was never seen as an issue demanding resolution.The Hochul Government immediately perceived the “Good Moral Character” as a useful mechanism to maintain the “May Issue” prerogative and jumped on it.After the publication of the Bruen decision, the Hochul Government went to work to transform the “Good Moral Character” Requirement into a de facto “Proper Cause”  requirement. It did this by demanding that the applicant for a concealed handgun carry license comply with a host of new requirements that had not heretofore existed in the Handgun Law.Now, under the Amendments to the Handgun Law, “current through 2023,” NY CLS Penal § 400.00(1),“. . . for a license issued under paragraph (f) of subdivision two of this section, the applicant shall meet in person with the licensing officer for an interview and shall, in addition to any other information or forms required by the license application submit to the licensing officer the following information: (i) names and contact information for the applicant’s current spouse, or domestic partner, any other adults residing in the applicant’s home, including any adult children of the applicant, and whether or not there are minors residing, full time or part time, in the applicant’s home; (ii) names and contact information of no less than four character references who can attest to the applicant’s good moral character and that such applicant has not engaged in any acts, or made any statements that suggest they are likely to engage in conduct that would result in harm to themselves or others; (iii) certification of completion of the training required in subdivision nineteen of this section; (iv) a list of former and current social media accounts of the applicant from the past three years to confirm the information regarding the applicants character and conduct as required in subparagraph (ii) of this paragraph; and (v) such other information required by the licensing officer that is reasonably necessary and related to the review of the licensing application.”Requirements (i), (iii), (iv), and (v) are problematic on grounds of legality and constitutionality, and vagueness. Each one is a potential stumbling block—and this is by design.We will delve into each of these in a forthcoming article. In our analysis, we will also attempt to discern the reasoning behind each.But, for now, concerning the new “Good Moral Character” requirements (i), (iii), (iv), and (v), let it suffice to say that, since these requirements were not mandated before the Bruen decision, there is no legitimate rationale for mandating them now other than to maintain “May Issue” through the creation of a new set of hurdles to replace the loss of the “Proper Cause” requirement.These points are important. If true, this would strongly suggest, as applied to New York, that the mere act of striking the words ‘Proper Cause’ from New York’s Handgun Law doesn’t alter the subjective nature of the “May Issue” standard through which a New York licensing authority may, in its discretion, deny issuance of a concealed handgun carry license. That discretion continues to exist under the CCIA.The Legislature in Albany basically transformed the “Good Moral Character” requirement that, prior to Bruen, was essentially redundant—which is why Plaintiffs did not claim fault with it—into a new “Proper Cause” requirement with a litany of new subjective criteria that a New York handgun licensing authority has as its disposal to confound the applicant and through which that licensing authority can effectively deny issuance of a concealed handgun carry license.Although the Hochul Government was astute enough to refrain from tying this bolstered “Good Moral Character” with “Extraordinary Need,”  “May Issue” a concealed handgun carry license remains. And that is problematic.The CCIA “Good Moral Character” requirement and the “Sensitive Place” restriction provisions are two principal bases of challenge that have generated, to date, at least two dozen lawsuits in New York. Again, this could have been avoided. Apart from finding New York’s “Proper Cause” requirement Unconstitutional, Justices Thomas and Alito, along with Trump’s nominees, Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett might have made an unequivocal pronouncement that “May Issue” handgun licensing statutes are per se illegal and unconstitutional because “May Issue” jurisdictions allow for improper use of Government discretion. But they forbore doing so.That failure led to the enactment of New York's Concealed Carry Improvement Act and gave New York handgun licensing authorities the tools to continue to deny an applicant, not under a disability, from exercising his fundamental, unalienable right to keep and bear arms. The Justices must have been aware of the problem, and they must have seen this coming. They probably realized the New York Government would recognize the weakness in the High Court’s rulings just as they did. In fact, Justice Thomas, alluded to the problem, when, he said, as we iterated, supra,“New York is not alone in requiring a permit to carry a handgun in public. But the vast majority of States—43 by our count—are shall issue’ jurisdictions, where authorities must issue concealed-carry licenses whenever applicants satisfy certain threshold requirements, without granting licensing officials discretion to deny licenses based on a perceived lack of need or suitability. Meanwhile, only six States and the District of Columbia have ‘may issue’ licensing laws, under which authorities have discretion to deny concealed-carry licenses even when the applicant satisfies the statutory criteria, usually because the applicant has not demonstrated cause or suitability for the relevant license. [Bruen Majority Opinion].So, “MAY ISSUE”/“PROPER CAUSE”/“EXTRAORDINARY” (“SPECIAL”) NEED” lives on—unconditional, unalloyed, absolute Government Discretion to continue to refuse to issue concealed handgun carry licenses, contrary to the right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense in the public domain as well as in one's home.Did Chief Justice Roberts tie the hands of Justices Thomas and Alito in Bruen, just as both he and Justice Kennedy tied the hands of Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, in the Heller case?Unfettered Government discretion reduces an intrinsic, unalienable, right into a mere privilege: To be bestowed on one or not at the whim of Government, and just as easily rescinded, if once bestowed.New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul and her Democrat Party supporters in the State Legislature in Albany have taken advantage of the weaknesses and vagaries in Bruen, to launch a scheme to keep the core structural scheme of the Sullivan Act.The Hochul Government concocted a set of unconstitutional amendments to the Sullivan Act, referred to, collectively, as the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”). Together with a series of other oppressive Anti-Second Amendment Statutes, the State’s Gun Law is as potent and as noxious, and as illegal as it was prior to Bruen. And so, a flurry of new lawsuits ensued.The essence of the problem here isn’t ‘May Issue’ versus ‘Shall Issue’ a handgun carry license. The essence of the problem rests with the very act of requiring a license to exercise a fundamental right in the first instance.There is something deeply disturbing and discordant with State Government requiring licensing as a condition precedent to exercising a fundamental, unalienable right.Drilling down to the bedrock, the question is:  “Is the Act of Government Handgun Licensing Legal and Constitutional, at all?” The majority of States recognize inherent Constitutional problems with licensing, and as of January 2023, most States have established “permitless carry.”The U.S. Supreme Court did not address the issue of whether Government licensing of a fundamental, unalienable right is legal and Constitutional. The Court alluded to it fifteen years ago in Heller, and once again in Bruen, last year, but that is as far as the Court went, as far as it was willing to go.But that doesn’t mean the Court condones Government firearms licensing regimes. And so, the legitimacy of State Government handgun licensing remains an open question. And jurisdictions like New York have taken advantage of the Court's failure to take firm and categorical action on this.,The tentativeness of the High Court to address this issue directly and the seeming elusiveness of the conjecture have led some jurisdictions to infer, erroneously, that gun licensing is a legitimate prerogative of the State. It is not, but that doesn’t stop foes of the Second Amendment from making the claim, anyway. And New York has made such a claim.In the New York’s “Brief in Opposition to Emergency Application for Relief and to Vacate Stay of Preliminary Injunction” in Antonyuk versus Nigrelli, pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Letitia James, Attorney General, representing the New York Government, made the blanket statement,“Indeed, this Court in Bruen endorsed shall-issue licensing regimes [citing Bruen at 2138 n.9; and Kavanaugh’s concurring at 2161-62.”But is that true? What DID the Court really say?Footnote 9 of Bruen reads, verbatim:“To be clear, nothing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality of the 43 States’ ‘shall-issue’ licensing regimes, under which ‘a general desire for self-defense is sufficient to obtain a [permit].’ Drake v. Filko, 724 F. 3d 426, 442 (CA3 2013) (Hardiman, J., dissenting). Because these licensing regimes do not require applicants to show an atypical need for armed self-defense, they do not necessarily prevent ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens’ from exercising their Second Amendment right to public carry. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 635, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). Rather, it appears that these shall-issue regimes, which often require applicants to undergo a background check or pass a firearms safety course, are designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.’ Ibid. And they likewise appear to contain only ‘narrow, objective, and definite standards’ guiding licensing officials, Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147, 151, 89 S. Ct. 935, 22 L. Ed. 2d 162 (1969), rather than requiring the “appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion,” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 305, 60 S. Ct. 900, 84 L. Ed. 1213 (1940)—features that typify proper-cause standards like New York’s. That said, because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.”Letitia James is wrong. Moreover, her remarks are insulting.The High Court HAS NOT endorsed the notion that Government licensing of handguns is Constitutional. To the contrary, the Court acknowledges only that licensing regimes in 43 “Shall Issue” Jurisdictions will be tolerated so long as they do not offend the core of the Second Amendment right. And even there, the Court said, “we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes.”That IS NOT an endorsement of licensing. Furthermore, the Court’s remarks, in dicta, categorically exclude “May Issue” regimes such as New York, which led to the Court’s review of New York’s licensing regime in Bruen, in the first place.Justice Kavanaugh’s remark on page 2162 of Bruen, which James also cites, reiterates the points appearing in FN 9 of the Majority Opinion.A complete analysis of the three seminal Second Amendment cases requires a perusal of Justice Scalia’s remarks in Heller.Scalia made clear that concessions made to State regulation of the Second Amendment do not mean the Court acknowledges an unbridled State right to license the exercise of a fundamental right.Scalia said this:“Apart from his challenge to the handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement respondent asked the District Court to enjoin petitioners from enforcing the separate licensing requirement ‘in such a manner as to forbid the carrying of a firearm within one's home or possessed land without a license.’  App. 59a.  The Court of Appeals did not invalidate the licensing requirement, but held only that the District ‘may not prevent [a handgun] from being moved throughout one's house.’ . . . Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not ‘have a problem with . . . licensing’ and that the District's law is permissible so long as it is ‘not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner.’  Tr. of Oral Arg. 74-75.  We therefore assume that petitioners' issuance  of a license will satisfy respondent's prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement.”Keep in mind the last sentence: “We . . . do not address the licensing requirement.” In other words, the issue of the constitutionality of handgun licensing, per se, remains unsettled. It is certainly important, in fact vital. By pointing to it, Scalia suggests the issue will be taken up at a later time. That time is now.The Court cannot continue to evade the central issue: Is State Government licensing of a fundamental, unalienable, right Constitutional? This issue must be addressed and must be addressed soon, and it must be addressed clearly, comprehensively, and emphatically.Foes of the Second Amendment in the States and in the Federal Government are pressing ahead with their agenda aimed at eliminating the exercise of the right to armed self-defense before the 2024 U.S. Presidential election.It no longer behooves the U.S. Supreme Court to simply review this or that provision of a State handgun law. Doing so does not get to the heart of the matter. It only results, as we have seen, in countless more brazen attempts by State Governments to intrude on one’s exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense against animals, predatory men, and, worst of all, the predatory, tyrannical Government.The Founders of the Republic, the Framers of the Constitution, did not envision the kind of wholesale unconscionable intrusion into the sovereign citizens’ exercise of their fundamental right to keep and bear arms that Americans witness and suffer today. And they certainly wouldn't endorse this idea of Government licensing prior to exercising a fundamental right, that is prevalent in many jurisdictions.These unconstitutional, unconscionable actions by State actors must stop here and must stop now.The case Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli, which the Government and the Second Circuit are presently sitting on, in defiance of Justice Samuel Alito’s admonishment to the Government to avoid delay, is likely, at some point, to be reviewed by the High Court.If or when the Court does so, it should not quibble or equivocate any longer on the salient issue of the day but should deal directly with the constitutionality of handgun licensing.That is the only way to impede the inexorable erosion of our Nation’s most important Right—the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms—in the absence of which preservation of a free Constitutional Republic is impossible, and Tyranny in all its horror is inevitable and unavoidable.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

PROGRESSIVE GAME PLAN: NEUTRALIZE THE SUPREME COURT AND DISARM THE CITIZENRY

The recent scurrilous attack on Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is part and parcel of the Political “Progressives”* attempt to neutralize the independence of the Third Branch of Government, the Judiciary, and its most ardent supporter of an armed citizenry.On April 9, 2021, two years ago to this day of posting this article on the Arbalest Quarrel, Joe Biden issued an executive order, forming the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, “to examine the Court’s role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court’s case selection, rules, and practices.”The key phrase in this executive order is “the Court’s role in the Constitutional system.”The Commission’s purpose may seem benign. It is anything but benign. Almost a hundred and thirty years earlier, Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted the same thing. Both sought to sideline and neutralize the U.S. Supreme Court.Fortunately, for the Nation, the efforts of Roosevelt and Biden came to naught.But the Biden Administration’s Progressive Globalist agenda is more extravagant and elaborate than anything dreamed up by Roosevelt and the fabricators of the “New Deal.”The Progressives’ goal of a neo-feudalistic global empire requires neutralizing the High Court and erasing America’s armed citizenry.The U.S. Supreme Court remains the only Branch of the Federal Government today that recognizes the importance of an armed citizenry to resist tyranny.In three seminal case law decisions—Heller, McDonald, and Bruen—coming down in the last fifteen years, the conservative wing majority, led by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia, made patently clear the right to armed self-defense is an individual right and a natural law right, the core of which Government is forbidden to interfere with.But these decisions are at loggerheads with the Progressives’ desire to neuter the right of the people to keep and bear arms.In a report on “progressivism,’ published on July 18, 2007, the Heritage Foundation has described the nature of and the aims of the political, social, and cultural transformation of the Nation, using the word, ‘Revolution,’ to describe it.Progressives have since made substantial strides in undermining the Constitution and transforming America beyond all recognition.But use of the word, ‘Revolution,’ to describe this transformation is inaccurate. Rather, this extraordinary and extensive push to remake American society, is not properly a Revolution because we had our Revolution—the American Revolution of 1776—when America’s first Patriots defeated the British empire.These Patriots constructed a free Constitutional Republic, unlike anything the world has seen before or since.Having thrown off the yoke of tyranny, the framers of the U.S. Constitution, created a true Republican form of Government.This “Federal” Government is one with limited and carefully delineated powers and authority. And those powers and authority are demarcated among three co-equal Branches.The Government comes to be not by Divine Right nor by Right claimed for itself by itself. Rather, it comes into existence only by grace of the American people, who are and remain sole sovereign.Since the people themselves created the Government, they retain the right to dismantle it when that Government serves its interests to the detriment of the people, devolving into tyranny.The natural law right to armed self-defense, a right that shall not be infringed, is the instrument of last resort through which the American people maintain and retain both the legal and moral right to resist tyranny that Progressives impose on Americans. See AQ article, posted on October 1, 2021.Progressivism is a thing openly hostile to and antithetical to the tenets and precepts of Individualism upon which the U.S. Constitution rests. See, e.g., article AQ article, posted on October 6, 2018.Adherents of this political and social ideology perceive Government as sovereign over the people, turning the Constitution on its head.Progressivism is an evil perpetrated on the American people, coming into being without the consent of the governed. It seeks a Globalist “Counterrevolution” in counterpoise to the morally good and successful “American Revolution.” See AQ article posted on October 26, 2020.It is in this that the arrogant and ludicrous attack on Justice Thomas comes plainly into view.Representative Ocasio-Cortez, a Progressive Democrat, has recently brought up the subject of impeachment against Clarence Thomas pertaining to “luxury trips and outings on yachts and private jets owned by Dallas businessman Harlan Crow, according to an investigation by ProPublica . . . .” See the article published in thehill.com.She adds, in her typical hyperbolic, rhetorical fashion,“‘Barring some dramatic change, this is what the Roberts court will be known for: rank corruption, erosion of democracy, and the stripping of human rights.’” Id.Impeachment of a sitting Justice does fall within the purview of Congressional authority, but it is impractical and almost unheard of in the annals of history.The House of Representatives impeached Associate Justice Samuel Chase, in 1804. He was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in 1805 and served on the High Court until his death in 1811. Another Associate Justice, Abe Fortas, resigned under threat of impeachment, in 1969. See the article posted in history.com.Impeaching Justice Thomas in a Republican-controlled House won’t happen.Progressives try a different tack.“Sixteen lawmakers led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., sent a letter to Roberts on Friday requesting an investigation into ‘allegations of unethical, and potentially unlawful, conduct.’” See the article in Foxnews.com.Asking the Chief Justice to launch an investigation of his brethren is pompous, absurd, lame, and bogus.Roberts will do no such thing. And this will rankle Progressives.The Third Branch of Government remains constantly, aggravatingly, tantalizingly beyond the ability of Progressives to tamper with.Unable at present to sit more mannequins like Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Court, they continue to probe for weaknesses. As a last resort, these Democrat Progressives challenge the Court’s importance, independence, and role.Progressives employ like-minded attorneys to undercut the authority of the High Court.One such attorney is Barry P. McDonald, Law Professor at Pepperdine University. In an essay, posted on The New York Times, on May 26, 2016, McDonald writes,“The Supreme Court today is both political and powerful in ways that would be unrecognizable to the framers of the Constitution. They penned a mere five sentences creating a ‘supreme Court’ and defining its jurisdiction. The judicial branch was something of an afterthought for them, because they believed that in a democracy the elected branches would be responsible for governing the country.Judicial review, in its modern sense, did not exist. As the framers envisioned it, the justices appointed to the Supreme Court would mainly interpret and apply federal law when necessary to resolve disputes involving the rights of individuals. And though the framers’ views on the court’s role in interpreting and enforcing the Constitution are the subject of debate, it seems most likely that when disputes required determining whether a federal law comported with the Constitution, the court’s interpretation was supposed to bind only the parties in the particular case — not the legislative and executive branches generally.Over time, however, and especially from the mid-20th century on, the court’s vision of its role in our democratic system changed, from dispute resolver to supreme arbiter of all matters of constitutional law, so that elected branches of government at federal and state levels were bound to accept its interpretations. The American people largely went along with this accretion of power. But they surely never anticipated that eventually, many politically charged and contestable questions — for example, whether the Constitution guarantees the right to possess guns, to have an abortion, to allow gay couples to marry, or to allow corporations to spend money to help elect our political representatives — would be decided by one unelected justice who straddled political voting blocs on the court.This is democratic folly.”And, in a follow-up article posted in the Times, on October 11, 2018, Barry McDonald, writes,“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.”McDonald claims the founders relegated the U.S. Supreme Court to a subservient role in our Three-Branch Governmental structure. This is not only an uncommon viewpoint among scholars, and legally odd; it is demonstrably false.In the Federalist Papers Alexander Hamilton made patently clear that, on matters of Constitutional authority, the Legislative Branch must yield to the Judiciary.“No legislative act . . . contrary to the Constitution can be valid.  To deny this would be to affirm that . . . men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.  If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions of the Constitution. . . . . It is more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.”– Excerpt from Federalist Paper No. 78, written by Alexander Hamilton and published in 1788, part of the founding era’s most important documents explaining to the people the nature of the Constitution then under consideration for ratification. See the article in constitutionalcenter.org. The article also cites to one of the Barry McDonald articles for comparison and contrast.Hamilton’s essay in Federalist Paper No. 78 is an outright repudiation of  McDonald’s remarks about the U.S. Supreme Court. See citations, supra.U.S. Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall was certainly aware of Alexander Hamilton’s remarks in the Federalist, when he drafted his opinion in Marbury vs. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803). The case is a mainstay of Constitutional Law, taught to first-year law students and one of the most important cases in American jurisprudence.The case lays out clearly and categorically the vital role played by the U.S. Supreme Court in our Three-Branch Federal Governmental system.In no uncertain terms, John Marshall, made definitely and definitively clear that it is for the Judiciary, not the Legislature, to determine the constitutionality of Congressional Statutes. We cite below a portion of  Justice Marshall’s erudite opinion.“If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration.

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.

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution.Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that, in using it, the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?

This is too extravagant to be maintained.”

Progressives pretend the U.S. Constitution is capable of shapeshifting. It isn’t.That doesn’t bother them, though, because they intend to eliminate the Constitution. Referring to it now, as they must, just to destroy it, and creating something novel, more to their liking—a thing subordinated to international law or edict, and subject to change as whim or chance dictates—that's what they they have in mind.In the interim, they force it to cohere to their precepts, agenda, and goals, all of which are antithetical and anathema to the Constitution, as written.In the naked attempt to knead the Constitution as if it were a lump of clay, they show their hand.Trivializing the role of the Court because they can’t easily control it and going after a U.S. Supreme Court Justice they don’t like because he defends a natural law right they don’t agree with, Progressives proclaim to all the world their shameless contempt for Nation, Culture, History, Heritage, Constitution, Ethos, Ethic, and People.They dare disparage us. Yet, it is we, true American Patriots, who rightfully ought to visit derision on them.______________________________________________*The expression ‘Progressive’ as with the expression, ‘Liberal,’ (less so with the expressions, ‘Marxist,’ ‘Neo-Marxist,’ or ‘Classical Marxist’) do not have precise and rigid definitions, due in part, perhaps, to the ubiquity and popularity of the first two terms in the Democratic Party vernacular.Most Democrats, it is here presumed, prefer use of ‘liberal’ as applied to them. And some no doubt prefer the term ‘Progressive,’ as an acknowledged more extreme version of ‘Liberal,’ and they take the label as a note of pride. See article on the website, thisnation.com.But most, if not all, Democrats avoid the appellation ‘Marxist,’ at least publicly, even if that label is most in line with their ideological beliefs, social, political, and economic, and demonstrated in their actions. They might use that expression amongst themselves even if they dare not refer to themselves as ‘Marxist’ in public and would deny the description vehemently if the label is thrust on them by an outsider. For this article, we are staying with the expression, ‘Progressive,’ as it aligns most closely with the theme of the article and apropos of references made in it.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

TYRANNY HATH COME TO AMERICA: MANY AMERICANS DON’T NOTICE IT OR, WORSE, SEE IT BUT DON’T CARE

PART ONE

ONLY BY FORCE OF ARMS CAN THE PEOPLE EVER HOPE TO THWART AND PREVAIL OVER TYRANNY

{INTRODUCTORY QUOTATION}“There are Virtues & vices which are properly called political. ‘Corruption, Dishonesty to ones Country Luxury and Extravagance tend to the Ruin of States.’ The opposite Virtues tend to their Establishment. But ‘there is a Connection between Vices as well as Virtues and one opens the Door for the Entrance of another.’ Therefore ‘Wise and able Politicians will guard against other Vices,’ and be attentive to promote every Virtue. He who is void of virtuous Attachments in private Life, is, or very soon will be void of all Regard for his Country. There is seldom an Instance of a Man guilty of betraying his Country, who had not before lost the Feeling of moral Obligations in his private Connections. . . . Since private and publick Vices, are in Reality, though not always apparently, so nearly connected, of how much Importance, how necessary is it, that the utmost Pains be taken by the Publick, to have the Principles of Virtue early inculcated on the Minds even of Children, and the moral Sense kept alive, and that the wise Institutions of our Ancestors for these great Purposes be encouragd by the Government. For no People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when Knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. ~ Samuel Adams, a Founding Father of our Free Constitutional Republic; from “The Writings of Samuel Adams,” Volume 1, Chapter 18, Document 6; “Epilogue: Securing the Republic;” compiled and edited, in Four Volumes, by Harry Alonzo Cushing, and published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904 through 1908

TODAY, THE PRINCIPAL THREAT TO OUR LIBERTY COMES FROM INSIDE THE COUNTRY ITSELF, NOT OUTSIDE IT.

THE THREAT COMES ABOUT BECAUSE KNOWLEDGE TODAY IS NOT DISPERSED TO THE PEOPLE AS IT SHOULD BE, AS IT ALWAYS MUST BE IN A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, BUT IS ACTIVELY HIDDEN FROM THEM. AND VIRTUE ISN'T PRESERVED AND SAFEGUARDED. RATHER, IT IS DISREGARDED AND IMPAIRED. THAT WAS SAMUEL ADAM'S WARNING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

THE HIGH INFORMATION AND VIRTUOUS CITIZEN IS SORELY LACKING IN A GOODLY PART OF THE COUNTRY.

AN UNINFORMED ELECTORATE AND A DEBAUCHED CITIZENRY ARE THE PERFECT RECIPES FOR TYRANNY TO GAIN A FOOT AND HANDHOLD. THAT IS SAMUEL ADAMS WARNING TO THE NATION.

DRASTIC REMEDIATION IS NECESSARY. THAT REMEDY REQUIRES TRUE PATRIOTS WHO DEMAND ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE AND WHO MAINTAIN THEIR VIRTUE AND INTEGRITY WHEN SO MANY OTHER AMERICANS HAVE LOST THEIRS.

KNOWLEDGE AND VIRTUE GO HAND-IN-HAND. THEY ARE NECESSARY CONDITIONS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, BUT THEY ARE NOT SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS. MORE IS REQUIRED, MUCH MORE. THAT REQUIREMENT IS FOUND IN THE WELL-ARMED CITIZEN.

THE ARMED CITIZEN MUST REMAIN EVER  VIGILANT, WITH FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION AT THE READY.

MANY AMERICANS KNOW THIS WELL. BUT AN EFFETE, INEFFECTIVE CONGRESS AND A DECEITFUL RUTHLESS, LOATHSOME, TYRANNICAL ADMINISTRATION KNOW THIS WELL TOO. THAT EXPLAINS WHY CONGRESS AND THE PRESENT ADMINISTRATION ARE DEVELOPING NEW METHODOLOGIES AND PROCEDURES AND REVAMPING OLD ONES TO UNLAWFULLY SEVER THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO BEAR ARMS IN DEFENSE OF SELF AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF GOVERNMENT. AMERICANS MUST NOT LET THIS HAPPEN, LEST TYRANNY DESTROY OUR FREE REPUBLIC.

KEEP ALWAYS UPPERMOST IN MIND——It was by dint of firearms in the hands of the Founding Fathers, the Nation’s First Patriots, that Tyranny was bested. And it is only by firearms in the hands of the Nation’s Patriots today that the rogue Federal Government is prevented from strangling the life out of the People.It was by dint of firearms in the hands of the Founding Fathers, the Nation’s First Patriots, that Tyranny was bested. And it is only by firearms in the hands of the Nation’s Patriots today that the rogue Federal Government is prevented from strangling the life out of the People.Yet, the word ‘Tyranny’ is one Americans hear little about today: Not from the Government, the “Press,” the cable and broadcast news and commentary outlets, a myriad of periodical publishers, or the titans of social media and the internet. And why is that?The word was familiar enough to the American colonists back in the Eighteenth Century who suffered under its weight.These colonists felt sore enough over the ill effects of it to fight a war over it. And contending with it was no easy task.That they succeeded at all came at no little cost to themselves in privation and blood. And from the monetary standpoint, the cost of the war against the Crown was no easier. See articles in “All Things Liberty” and “History.com.”America’s Patriots knew the risk of failure: Death by Hanging as “Traitors” to the Crown of England.But so deep was their loathing of tyranny and so great their adoration of and devotion to liberty—tyranny’s opposite—that they were willing to risk everything to secure liberty for themselves, their family, and for those generations of Americans yet unborn.That they succeeded at all, and so well, came much to the surprise of many—certainly to those colonists, who, proclaiming their allegiance to the Crown, accepting of the King’s tyranny, had wished ill of America’s first Patriots. They either desisted from the conflict or took part in it, aiding the Tyrant, King George III, and, by extension, aiding the King’s moneylenders, the notorious Rothschild Clan.See. e.g., articles on the websites “NewsPunch” and on “revolutionary-war.net.”These Tories, British Loyalists, were generally very wealthy colonists, holding important posts in the colonies as representatives of King George III. Surprised, shocked, anxious, and infuriated at the outcome of the conflict they must have been—all of them. And after the war, many fled to Canada, the West Indies, or England to live out the rest of their days.No less did surprise, consternation, and frustration come to the British Monarch, George III, and to the extravagantly wealthy, inordinately arrogant, and singularly rapacious House of the Rothschild Banking Dynasty. It was this Banking Dynasty that funded the Monarch’s campaign to quash the American rebellion against their authority. It is this Dynasty that has funded all major wars and at a substantial profit to and delight for itself, and with concomitant loss and waste and horror for most everyone else. See the article in Insider.Tyranny was and is never far from a nation, any nation, even one founded categorically and unmistakably on Liberty, as is our own.Yet, something happened through the succeeding decades and centuries. We find Americans who should detest the very thought of tyranny seem now to have made their peace with it; have become accepting of it. Yet, many Americans who are conscious of the rise of tyranny in America relish the thought of it. Government cultivates tyranny. And the legacy Press, cable and broadcast news and commentary outlets, and social media and internet companies see to its dissemination.Tyranny waxes and Liberty wanes, permeating every institution of society, albeit masked, half-heartedly, through the ludicrous dogma of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”This comes to light through the shredding of our fundamental, natural law rights and liberties and is seen through Americans' indifference toward their basic rights and liberties that previous generations of Americans fought and died for.We witness the expansion of tyranny in America’s dismissive attitude toward the Fourth Amendment’s Freedom from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures clause.And we see this through Americans’ lack of concern over and even distaste toward the First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and Right of Association clauses.And we see this through Americans’ outright loathing of the Second Amendment’s right of the people to keep and bear arms.How did this come to be? Can it be that many Americans don’t recognize tyranny? But how is that possible? The intimations of tyranny in America were prevalent, especially during the mid-Twentieth Century.But these barely sensate intimations have grown into a cacophony that only a moron could fail to recognize.Might it be that most everyone here does recognize tyranny, doesn’t like what they see, but feels powerless to contend against it? And, so out of fear and resignation, they submit to it? And, at once, there are those Americans that see tyranny as a good and proper thing, even if they don’t use the term to describe the Country they would like to see emerge in their Neoliberal Globalist and Neo-Marxist Counterrevolution.Consider——There are Americans who abhor the right to dissent; who rail against Christianity; who couldn’t care less about their privacy and who live for the day that the civilian citizenry must surrender their firearms, all of them; and must surrender their ammunition—all of it.Thus, tyranny gains a foothold.Many Americans are unfamiliar with the content of our sacred texts and documents.The dangers of Tyranny are explored in the “Federalist Papers,” a series of essays written by three of the Founding Fathers: James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton.Thomas Paine, another Founding Father, explored tyranny as well in his work, “Common Sense.”And the Nation’s Constitution sets forth preventative measures to ward off tyranny.The Articles of the Constitution are a blueprint for minimizing the occurrence of tyranny in the Federal Government by limiting the powers of the Federal Government and demarcating those powers among three co-equal Branches.It was the fervent hope of the framers who hashed out our novel Federal Government—doing so with considerable difficulty after assiduously exploring past designs of Government—that the Nation would ever be spared the occurrence of it.And the Bill of Rights—especially the First and Second Amendments—are presentments of Natural Law, operating as the final fail-safe against a rogue, tyrannical Federal Government.Indeed, the precursor of the Constitution, “The Declaration of Independence,”  is an essay establishing the moral obligation of man to battle against tyranny.And for all the hullabaloo about Donald Trump, our 45th President being called an autocrat, he didn’t “cause” tyranny. In fact, he tried his best to prevent it. For, under the tutelage of Clinton, Bush, and Obama we were drawing perilously close to it. Most Americans saw that right away. They would have none of it. A Hillary Clinton Presidency would have been the last nail in the coffin of Liberty.By commencing a drastic cleaning up of “the swamp,” i.e., the Administrative State, President Trump brought the inexorable slide toward tyranny to a screeching halt. He was undeterred in his effort to protect the gains of the American Revolution from backsliding into Tyranny—the state of the American colonies before the Revolution.See the article in PJ Media.“We can talk about Trump’s successes for days — the wall, the re-writing of NAFTA, low gas prices, etc. But let’s focus on Trump’s most important achievement of them all: he forced the hand of the swamp commies, and now we can see who they are. There was a time when friends of mine would discuss anonymous ‘globalists’ trying to create the ‘new world order.’ They spoke of the new brand of communism trying to take over the planet, all of which sounded like a big bowl of flapdoodle to me. Now I can’t unsee it. Thank you, President Trump.Trump is the president who was never supposed to be. No one else could have beaten Hillary, and everyone on both sides of the aisle knew it. What they didn’t count on was a bull-buster from Queens who didn’t play ‘the game.’Trump scared the hell out of the swamp commies, but they were fairly quiet before he shook the (snow) swamp globe and exposed them. Then they went on the attack.”The Obstructors and Destructors of our Nation went to work. They made certain that Trump would never serve a second term in Office. And with the Biden Puppet figurehead safely ensconced in the Oval Office, the gains Trump had made in reverting the slide toward tyranny commenced once again and with a frenzy.The Destroyers of our Republic never intended for the American people to gain awareness of the loss of their rights and liberty and sovereignty over the Government. But they could not mask the grand deception, as Trump had shone a bright light on their agenda.Thus, these Destroyers of our free Republic could not—and now, don’t even try—to cloak that agenda anymore: the dismantling of a free Constitutional Republic, that it may then be merged into a grandiose neo-feudalistic-corporatist world empire.Instead, they have brought their agenda full into the light of day, manipulating the public to accept the seeming splendor of their entire enterprise. And, of course, they don’t use the word ‘tyranny’ to explain their end goal, the subjugation of Americans.They befuddle the American psyche, constantly invoking, ad nauseum, through their puppets in Government, in the Press, academia, and in Big Tech, Big Finance, and Big Business, the word, ‘Democracy,’ as if the invocation of that one word effectively dispels the horror they have in store for all of us.An able rhetorician can sway a susceptible mob to do his bidding, and that mob will willingly, even gladly, surrender its Liberty and Freedom. We see this happen. It is not to be denied.But for those not so easily swayed and who are not of a mind to willingly forsake their Liberty and Freedom, they can ever hope to retain Liberty and Freedom through vigilance and force of arms.Ruthless men lust for power over other men, and they will rule over all men unless compelled by dint of arms to forbear.It has always been so and shall always remain so. Keep this Truth ever in mind.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

TO WHOM DOES THE COUNTRY BELONG: THE PEOPLE OR THE GOVERNMENT?

PART ONE*

AN ESSAY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FREE SPEECH AND ARMED SELF-DEFENSE IN A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC—A REPUBLIC PERCEIVED BY THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND OTHERS AS OUT-OF-STEP WITH A WORLD MARCHING TOWARD GLOBAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL UNION AND WORLD POLITICAL TYRANNY; A WORLD INTENT ON BRINGING THE UNITED STATES INTO ITS FOLD; A WORLD THAT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, THROUGH BOTH ITS WORDS AND DEEDS HAS SHOWN A MARKED PROCLIVITY FOR; AND IN THOSE ACTIONS, HAS DEMONSTRATED ITS COMPLICITY IN WORKING WITH OUR NATION’S FOES TO MAKE IT SO.

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” “But always – do not forget this, Winston – always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.” ~ two quotations from George Orwell’s Dystopian Novel, “1984”Does this Country, the United States, as a free Constitutional Republic, belong to the people?Trivially, one would answer, “yes, of course.” That’s what the Founders intended. There can be no doubt of that. And that’s what they sought to achieve in fashioning the Nation’s Constitution: their Blueprint for a free Constitutional Republic.But, once again—Does this Country, the United States, as a free Constitutional Republic, belong to the people? Two years under the thumb of the present Biden Administration; a seditious Press; a weak or compliant Congress; the weaponization of the Federal Bureaucracy against its own people; the flagrant miscarriage of justice, targeting innocent Americans in clear violation of their Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights; rampant and escalating violent crime; uninhibited attacks on our Nation’s history, heritage, culture, and ethos; desecration of our monuments, art, and emblems; denigration of our founding fathers; the subversion and perversion of our public education system; the deliberate sabotaging of our Nation’s economy and energy resources; the compromising of our electoral system—all this and more, and one must wonder.So, then, DOES this Country belong to the American people?An American, reflecting on the aforesaid recitation, is now unsure, and answers with an equivocal: “well, maybe; then again, maybe not.” After 245 years, has a fervent wish, hope, and prayer of the Founders degenerated into nostalgic sentiment, bespeaking a fleeting, and misty bygone reality, dead now and buried?Well, not as long as the Bill of Rights remains intact. It is still with us—barely! And, many there are, both here and abroad, that would wish it to be dead and buried, as well, along with the rest of the Constitution.“Not so fast,” say most Americans, but that, sadly, doesn’t include the officials of the present Biden Administration, along with many of those in Congress, who have a lot of control—too much control—over our life and well-being. And, it doesn’t help that the legacy Press is of one mind with the Biden Administration. And we must, unfortunately, add many more people in business, finance, and academia, to that list, who are in agreement.But even as many powerful, ruthless people would have liked long ago to dismantle the Constitution, and, to eradicate, especially, the Bill of Rights component of it, the Founders in their profound wisdom, made it a very difficult thing to do legally, and we can be thankful for that, even as those who hate the Country, would, understandably, take issue with the Founders for that very prescience.  And, although the present Administration has—with its control of the vast Administrative machinery of Government and with assistance from a mostly friendly or otherwise placid Congress, a seditious Press, and other inordinately powerful, ruthless actors, pulling the present Administration’s strings, behind the scenes—found it easy enough to subvert law and Constitution with relative ease, they have not found it so easy to ignore the dictates of the Bill of Rights, even as they have, as one must acknowledge, made considerable inroads in constraining much of it. Such is the power and arrogance wielded by the Destroyers of our Nation that had enabled them to do this and to get away with it.But, for all the damage the Biden Administration, Congress, the Press, and the private sector proxies of the Administration have done to this Country and to its people in just two years—and with two more years remaining to be reckoned with before the demented fool in Office walks out on his own two feet or is otherwise wheeled out—Americans may take some solace in the fact that a modicum of the Founder’s wish for us still remains and, hopefully, the Republic they created will outlast any and all attempts by the Biden Administration and others to harm it further or possibly destroy it.

THE NECESSITY OF OUR NATION’S NATURAL LAW RIGHTS TO FORESTALL, DERAIL, OR PREVENT TYRANNY

What is required to protect a free Republic and the sovereignty of the American people from the thrall of Tyranny of Government? It is the persistence of Americans’ natural law rights, and two in particular: free speech and an armed citizenry. These are necessary conditions to keep a free Constitutional Republic alive and to keep tyranny at bay.These two Rights subsume all the others and are inextricably tied to each other.Both are integral to the functioning of and preservation of the Nation as a free Constitutional Republic.

THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH

The natural law right of free speech entails the right to dissent.This right is essential to the sanctity and inviolability of one’s Soul and it is one of two fundamental natural law rights necessary to keep the tyranny of Government in check.Through the exercise of it, a person expresses his individuality. But erase it, and a person becomes a Zombie, or, in archaic Judaic folklore, a “Golem.”A Zombie or Golem is a creature not of God but of man—a thing of mud and dirt, unfinished—with the makings of a man, and seeming to be a man in rough form, but lacking the Divine Spark, the animating breath of life and Being and Spirit, and Soul, bequeathed to man by the Divine Creator. The Divine Spark comes only from the Divine Creator alone—the source of free will, moral conscience, creative energy, drive, motivation, aesthetic sense, and self-awareness—thus, the idea of Man in the Image of God.A Zombie/Golem is not of God, and, therefore, but a forlorn creature, lacking will, conscience, motivating impulse, aesthetic sense, and self-awareness, NOT a man.That is what the Biden Administration would wish to make of all of us—a thing that doesn’t think, but only reacts to the gospel the Biden Administration preaches, as echoed by the Administration’s vast propaganda organs—a formless mob that does not engage in conscious thought and reflection, and that is incapable of engaging in creative thought or exchange, but simply does as it is told.

THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

The right to keep and bear arms entails the right to self-defense in the broadest sense.The natural law right to armed self-defense is essential to the maintenance of a person’s security and physical well-being, keeping predatory man, predatory animal, and predatory Government at bay.Through the exercise of the right to own and possess firearms, the citizen keeps his sovereignty and dominion over the Government in check, lest it degenerates into worst tyranny.

THE RIGHT TO DISSENT AND THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS ARE BOTH NECESSARY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF A FREE STATE

These two basic rights, Free Speech and the Bearing of Arms are essential fixtures of a free Constitutional Republic, inseparably linked, and fused as one.If Man has the right to dissent from the encroachment of tyranny but lacks access to firearms, he may have the will to resist but he lacks the means to do so.If Man has access to firearms but lacks independence of thought, Man’s mind is adrift. He lacks the will to preserve “the security of a free State.” And his weapons come to naught.Both are required.The government thus binds a free man to its dictates; suppresses man’s creative impulses and drives; insinuates itself into every aspect of man’s life. And in making man’s life miserable, the Government at once makes certain that man cannot fight back against that Government. Its actions become more incessant and more aggressive.Nothing remains private or sacred; nothing remains beyond Government’s all-seeing eye, and nothing remains beyond the power of Government to poison and destroy all good things—all to promote the “Good Society,” i.e., the well-ordered society, the well-behaved society, the conformist society.The government even deadens a person’s instinct for self-preservation: there is no “Self” left to preserve.A person thus comes to view himself as merely an insignificant, lifeless cog, in a lifeless, cold, remorseless machine.AQ has previously pointed out that the natural law right of speech, i.e., independence of thoughts, and the natural law right of self-defense, which logically entails armed self-defense, are inextricably linked. See our article, titled, “The Right To Dissent And The Right To Bear Arms Are A Bulwark Against Tyranny,” posted on this website, on November 21, 2022. In pertinent part, we wrote,“. . . if one is prevented from exercising one’s freedom of speech—the freedom to dissent, the freedom to exercise independence of thought—one’s mind, spirit, and soul is damaged.And, if one is prevented from exercising his freedom to bear arms—one’s right of defense against a predatory beast, predatory man, or predatory government—then the safety and well-being of one’s physical Self are imperiled.The two most basic rights—the right of self-protection and independence of thought—go together. To lose the one is to lose the other.”Autonomy of Selfhood is impossible where the individual is helpless—physically, psychically, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually.But, many would resist and would have the means to do so, as long as one is armed. But our Country is not like those of the EU, or of the British Commonwealth. Our citizenry is armed.But suppose the Government allowed man a modicum of expression, freedom from relentless scrutiny in exchange for paying homage to it. And suppose the cost for that was the loss of his firearms—the thing that can bring down tyranny.Suppose Government could “tease” those who resist mass confiscation of their firearms into surrendering them if the Government promised to them from harassment and the ire of their fellow compliant, docile compatriots.If successful, Government’s tentacles would wrap around the last vestiges of freedom. Nothing would remain to stop the plunge of the Country into totalitarianism. Law, as such, would devolve into ad hoc pronouncements, and edicts of the Tyrant and his minions, that could change at the Tyrant’s whim, without prior notice. The Tyrant would constantly keep the populace confounded, off-balance, and in a state of abject fear, without the means and wherewithal to object. And those few that could still reason at all would rebel against Tyranny if they could, but they cannot because they lack the means, firearms, to do so.Man, lacking the means to ensure his freedom would become wholly dependent on the Government to satisfy his basic needs, his physical survival. His life would be reduced to mere subsistence. And, for those few who stood in the Tyrant’s grace, their life would be carefree, and pleasant enough, but would be purposeless, meaningless, and inane. Each day would be marked by pursuing one pleasure after another, living life in a slothful, languid manner. And, as ever required now and then, showering the Tyrant with flattery, and slavish devotion, for this modern-day courtier could never know when he might fall out of the Tyrant’s grace. One would have to look to the life of serfs and that of the nobility and royalty in the Middle Ages to find a useful comparison for what is in store for mankind in a neo-feudalistic world empire that is in the making.In the absence of the armed citizenry, the tyranny of Government is not only possible. It is inevitable!

THERE IS A REASON  THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, LIKE ITS PREDECESSOR, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, IS APOPLECTIC OVER GUNS AND THE NATION’S THE ARMED CITIZENRY, AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CONCERN FOR PUBLIC SAFETY.

Make no mistake: The government, THIS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, is coming after Americans’ weaponry, doing so, incrementally, in dribs and drabs. Any setback leads immediately to another effort. The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress won’t stop until they have de facto erased the right of the people to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment, and have confiscated millions of firearms from the civilian citizenry. The campaign of confiscation will continue, indefinitely under the dictatorship that this Country is moving toward by leaps and bounds.The Government usurpers are in deathly fear of the armed citizen. That explains their stubborn, all-consuming drive to erase the Second Amendment. But they cannot acknowledge this. They can never acknowledge this. They cannot so much as suggest this.To do so would be to admit their fear and weakness. And it would draw attention to their unlawful acts of usurpation of the citizenry’s sovereignty over them.It would cast light on their unlawful attempts to erase Americans’ natural law rights. The armed citizenry is the one remaining failsafe to keep tyranny from the final triumph over Nation, Constitution, and People.The usurpers of our sovereignty assiduously avoid acknowledging or even intimating their own dread of the armed citizenry. They do so by cleverly deflecting attention away from themselves, from their own fear, and directing public attention on those Americans who abhor firearms and who shun those who exercise their God-given right to keep and bear them.  Thus, the Government creates the myth that it is the armed American citizen who induces fear in all other Americans, and that public safety and order demands that Americans relinquish their firearms. It is all nonsense, of course. The criminal element and homicidal maniac will not be affected, nor deterred by this—not by any of it. Note that the Biden Administration and anti-Second Amendment groups’ efforts are always directed at creating laws targeting the average American citizen, with no mention of the criminal element and little to no mention of the mentally incompetent.This little fact should give discerning Americans pause, as it undercuts the Biden Administration’s contention that its arms control policies to end Gun Violence—their present go-to catchall phrase—are directed at promoting public safety and public order for the benefit of Americans. Given the lack of any coherent Government policy to tackle rampant violent crime, whether criminals use firearms or any other implement at their disposal, the inference that one must draw from this is that the Biden Administration, along with a captive, seditious Press, and Anti-Second Amendment groups, such as the Brady antigun group, and Everytown for Gun Safety, isn’t interested in dealing effectively with violent crime—and never was interested in that. The Administration’s interest and that of the Press and Anti-Second Amendment groups is and always was, on eliminating the armed citizenry. That explains why the focus of their efforts was and is directed almost entirely on going after gun manufacturers, and retail gun dealers, ammunition suppliers and manufacturers, and weaponry in the hands of the average citizen. The aim is to destroy the fact of and the very notion of an armed citizenry as the mainstay to protect the security of a free State. A Tyranny has no use for either a free State or a free people.Curbing instances of violent crime, especially in our Nation’s major urban areas, is rarely if ever mentioned. One only hears the expression Gun Violence or Assault weapon mentioned and those phrases are only mentioned in the context of the average, rational, responsible gun owner, not in the context of the psychopathic criminal element or the drug-addled raving lunatic that is, alone, responsible for violent crime. But, then, these criminal and lunatic elements are serving a purpose, if unconsciously. They are serving the Government by demoralizing and disorienting the public, and by destabilizing society. Defunding police departments, handcuffing their ability thereby hampering their ability to fight crime and to protect their respective communities; banning the popular semiautomatic weapon in common use, that is utilized for self-defense; restricting the public’s use of firearms through the enactment of a multitude of mind-numbing federal and State laws that negatively impact a person’s ability to defend him or herself in a life-threatening situation, criminalizing the right of the people to keep and bear arms—all for the purpose of providing for and promoting public safety—this is difficult to fathom. Claiming a desire to protect the public by leaving it defenseless beggars credulity. How does this work? It operates in this way——The Government, presenting itself as a Guardian of public safety and order pretends to protect the unarmed John Q. Public—not from the criminal element or the homicidal maniac—but from the armed John Q. Public citizen. This is the unstated but constant and consistent theme running throughout Biden’s attack on gun possession and ownership. There are too many guns, i.e., there are too many guns in the hands of too many average Americans.The Government and its propagandists do this by positing that the armed John Q. Public, is, a danger to the public by dint of his desire to exercise his natural law right of armed self-defense, and, so, the claim is that a person who wishes to exercise his God-given right of armed self-defense is, by definition, a violent aggressor and inherent danger to the public by virtue of his keeping and bearing arms; ergo, he is a transgressor of public order and harmony, and of societal norms; that he is “unmutual” and must undergo social conditioning to correct his abnormal behavior and abnormal thought processes.But, what is really going on here is Government Tyranny imposing its will on those who will not accept the imposition of Tyranny upon the Country. But the Government is taking pains to hide that fact. So, by a feat of legerdemain, the Tyrannical Government doesn’t refer to itself as stepping on the head of the American citizen—who seeks only to be left alone and to exercise his God-given rights, free from coercion and harassment. Rather, the Government, THIS Federal Government, i.e., THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, points its finger at those individuals—who happen to be tens of millions of us— who rightfully refuse to conform their thoughts and behavior, their individuality, to unlawful Government edicts and dictates. The Biden Administration claims that it is these Americans who are stepping on “the rights” of their neighbors, namely those people who have abjectly surrendered their Soul, Spirit, and Selfhood to the Government.As this Federal Government, this Biden Administration dismantles our Free Constitutional Republic, some Americans accept this. Some even laud it. But many others realize the danger this Government poses to the well-being of the Republic and to the sanctity and inviolability of their individual Being. And they will have no part of it.The theme presented by the Government’s propagandists is——New Age Remodelers of America, “the Sensible Americans” vs. Old Age Preservers of the Republic, “the Irrational Americans.”Drilled down to its basics, what the perspicacious observer sees is the age-old battle now come back to haunt us, Americans:Tyranny versus Liberty.It is really that simple. And with each passing day, the dynamic playing out throughout the Land is ever clearer. Which shall it be? The “vote” is out on this.

THE GOAL OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS THE GOAL OF THE UN POLICY THINK TANKS, AND OF BOTH THE EU AND OF THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH NATIONS THAT ARE ALREADY HALFWAY THERE: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN NATION-STATE—ALL OF THEM, AND WHAT REMAINS OF EACH OF THEM ARE TO BE MERGED INTO A ONE-WORLD TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENT. THAT IS THE AGENDA. THAT IS THE PLAN. THEY ARE ALL OPERATING OUT OF THE SAME PLAYBOOK, AND IT IS ALL TIED TO THE UN ARMS CONTROL PROTOCOL, TIED TO INTERNATIONAL IDEAS ABOUT GUN OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION.

The goal is this: immersion of all western nation-states, including, and especially, the  United States, into a neo-feudalistic world order. This is to replace all independent sovereign nation-states and, of salient importance, this requires the inclusion of the United States for the postulated tyrannical empire to be successful. The inclusion of the United States into a grand world Totalitarian scheme is required, not only because of its nuclear power capabilities but because of the Nation’s unique Bill of Rights, the only truly free Constitutional Republic in existence since the dawn of civilization. It won’t do for the United States to continue to exist as the one independent sovereign western nation-state holdout, with its free and sovereign citizenry in a world that is ruled by a small tyrannical cadre of royalty and nobility, oppressing humanity through a massive police, military, intelligence, surveillance presence. Waves of oppressed people would attempt to enter the United States, illegally, as they do now, but this would not be in accordance with the present UN agenda to destroy the integrity of a nation’s geographic borders, the unstated goal of which is to pave the way for a tyrannical neo-feudalistic empire, encompassing much of the world. No.This new wave of would-be transplants would try to circumvent the Globalist agenda of a one-world government, resulting in growing unrest among billions of people throughout the world. Such massive unrest would be exceedingly difficult to contain, absent a bloodbath such as the world has never before seen. But, the result of such a bloodbath would lead to further upheaval in the world empire. And that upheaval could not be contained. Fissures would open up throughout the empire, and the empire would collapse from the unsustainable weight of itself, no longer kept in reasonable check through its brutal class of military, para-military police, and intelligence overseers. Consider the problem that CCP China is having with its own disgruntled oppressed population. As large as China is both in landmass and in population, it is nothing on the order of a world empire. Can Xi Jinping’s Government contain the unrest? It would seem so. After all, the Chinese people do not have access to firearms. They cannot easily defy the tyranny they have lived under for so long, especially, in the years of the CCP Coronavirus pandemic, which they still live under. But, fractures are in this tightly controlled society. But, without firearms, a revolution cannot succeed. Thousands of people may be killed, and tens of thousands more could wind up in detention camps. Possession of firearms in CCP China is strictly controlled.“The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Control of Guns,” is lengthy and makes clear that obtaining Government approval to possess a gun legally for the average citizen is highly unlikely and would hardly be worth the effort, even if a person were able legally to obtain one. The Gun Law of CCP China provides in part,“Article 1 This Law is enacted for the purpose of tightening control over guns, preserving public security and order and ensuring public safety.Article 2 This Law applies to control of guns within the territory of the People’s Republic of China.“Article 3 The State establishes strict control over guns. All units and individuals are prohibited to possess, manufacture (alter and assemble included), trade in, transport, lease or loan guns in violation of the provisions of laws.The State shall severely punish any criminal act committed in violation of the control of guns. Every unit and individual has the obligation to inform against any violations against the control of guns. The State shall protect the informant and reward the persons who have rendered meritorious service by informing against criminal acts committed against the control of guns.Article 4 The public security department under the State Council shall be in charge of control of guns throughout the country. Public security organs of the people’s governments at or above the county level shall be in charge of the control of guns in their administrative regions respectively. The public security organs of the people’s governments at higher levels shall exercise supervision over the control of guns by the public security organs of the people’s governments at lower levels.”

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION DOESN’T HAVE AN EASY JOB OF IT TRYING TO CONVINCE AMERICANS THAT GUN POSSESSION IS TO BE CONSIDERED ARCHAIC, OUT OF VOGUE, AND INCONSISTENT WITH MODERN-DAY INTERNATIONAL NORMS OF THOUGHT AND CONDUCT—AS IF AMERICANS SHOULD GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE TYRANNY PREVALENT IN THE EU OR IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH NATIONS ANYWAY, OR THAT NATURAL LAW RIGHTS THAT ARE, OF THEIR NATURE, GOD-GIVEN, AND, SO, FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE, ILLIMITABLE, IMMUTABLE, UNMODIFIABLE, AND ETERNAL ARE THE SORTS OF THINGS THAT CAN EVER BE CONSIDERED OUT OF FASHION.

The Biden Administration, much of Congress, and many Americans, as well, are completely out of touch with the basic precepts, principles, and tenets of the U.S. Constitution, upon which our Nation, a free Republic was founded and upon which it is grounded. Attempting to discuss this matter at all with them is doomed to failure at the outset. There is no common ground upon which a dialog could commence. To try to do so would be like attempting to carry on a conversation with an alien species. There is nothing decipherable between us and them. Neither of us could begin to translate the other’s language. That explains why this Nation is at loggerheads. Biden’s remarks at his inauguration, if one can even accept the propriety of calling it an inauguration, where he talks about unifying the Nation, he was probably being insincere at best. But, even if Biden were, at the time at least, being honest, his attempt at bringing the Nation together was impossible at the get-go. Both he and his Administration operate on a set of postulates nakedly inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution. So, where could an American citizen who cherishes the Constitution, and who cherishes our history, heritage, culture, Judeo-Christian ethic, and Nation’s ethos, even begin a conversation, on any matter with him or with any of the people that serve in his Administration? Biden’s speech to the Nation, on September 1, 2022, was beyond the pale. To make sense of it at all, one must infer that he has declared war on half the Nation. There is nothing else to make of it. There’s not so much as a hint of rapprochement either in the content or tone of that speech, let alone a suggestion of national unity in it. In truth, the speech was nothing more than a harangue, and the backdrop only accentuated that fact. It is not surprising that Biden would be dead-set against Americans’ exercise of their right of armed self-defense. One does not proffer arms to a perceived enemy. One confiscates arms from that enemy. And, so Biden attacks the armed citizenry, incessantly, mercilessly.Aided by a seditious Press, the Biden Administration claims that  Americans who “flaunt” their exercise of the right to keep and bear arms jeopardize all Americans, even as it is really, and only, the Government itself that registers agitation, hatred and dreaded fear of the armed citizenry.In the Sunday, November 26, 2022, NY Times, the author of the piece, Mike, McIntire, exclaims,“Across the country, openly carrying a gun in public is no longer just an exercise in self-defense — increasingly it is a soapbox for elevating one’s voice and, just as often, quieting someone else’s. . . .Armed Americans, often pushing a right-wing agenda, are increasingly using open-carry laws to intimidate opponents and shut down debate. . . . Today, in some parts of the country with permissive gun laws, it is not unusual to see people with handguns or military-style rifles at all types of protests.”Note the author’s recognition of the close nexus between the First Amendment, “Freedom of Speech,” and the Second Amendment, “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”Yet, in that entire Op-Ed essay, posing as a news account, there is not a word mentioned of actual violence occurring by these well-armed Americans protesting the Government; nor is there any mention of fear of violence felt by one American that another American happens to carry a firearm.Apparently, violence is taken as a given, i.e., as axiomatic, without the need for proof. Merely TO BE armed is enough to scare the Tyrant. As well the Tyrant should be frightened. As well all Tyrants should take note of the Tyranny they imposed on their people. And it is both the right and the duty of the American citizen, to point out to the Tyrant that it is the Tyrant’s behavior that promotes violence directed at the Tyrant. That violence does not emanate from the armed without good reason. The Federal Government has nothing to fear from the armed citizenry as long as it acts in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and serves the interests of the American people. THIS IS AS IT SHOULD BE! AND IT IS AS THE FRAMERS OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION INTENDED! Sad it was that Americans once were compelled to take up arms against a Tyrant. And that Tyrant, George III, and the Rothschild Bankers resided across the sea. Worse it is when one’s own Government imposes tyranny on its own people.But invoking fear and anger in the masses is necessary to rationalize restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, for Tyranny cannot prevail in the midst of an omnipresent armed citizenry, and where one Branch of Government, the U.S. Supreme Court, stands guard over the Bill of Rights, as is presently the case. The author of the Times article, supra, was compelled to recognize the seminal Second Amendment Heller case, but since it doesn’t serve the Tyrant Government’s agenda, with whom the Times newspaper is in alliance, the author deliberately misrepresents the import of the case, distorting it to serve the Government Tyrant’s cause.Slithering around the import of Heller, McIntire says that Heller— “. . . made clear that gun rights were not unlimited, and that its ruling did not invalidate laws prohibiting ‘the carrying of firearms in sensitive places.’ That caveat was reiterated in a concurring opinion in the New York case.”The news reporter latches onto the phrase “gun rights were not unlimited.” But that phrase is dicta. It isn’t the law. The phrase has nothing to do with the Heller holdings. So, why is it in Heller at all?Ever mindful of his words, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who penned the majority opinion, would have preferred not to use it. He inserted the phrase into the opinion likely to appease both Chief Justice, John Roberts, and retired Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy to obtain their votes.The phrase was not meant to give carte blanche to States to run roughshod over the Right. But the phrase seems to suggest that the States can do just that, and many States have in fact done just that, which is why the Court was compelled to take up Bruen.What Justice Scalia meant by the phrase, “gun rights were not unlimited” is this, as set forth in the Majority Opinion:“The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”Scalia alluded to the Federal Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) that precludes certain categories of individuals from possessing firearms.In that paragraph, cited supra, Justice Scalia also refers to “sensitive places” but this is merely an observation. Scalia simply mentions the places where, historically, individuals were prohibited from carrying a firearm. But this doesn’t mean a State can designate “sensitive places” willy-nilly.The phrase, “sensitive places” wrongly inspires wrong-headed thinking about the application of the Right. The failure of many jurisdictions to heed the rulings of Heller explains why Bruen came along, thereafter.In striking down the “proper cause” requirement of New York, Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, clearly also warned the New York Government about the misuse of “sensitive place” restrictions. New York Governor Hochul ignored the warning.Hochul’s contemptuous attitude toward the High Court, illustrated in a plethora of amendments to the State’s Gun Law, has led to several legal challenges, pending in Federal District Courts of New York and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.It is in the nature of Government that it inevitably fosters ill-well in the polity it is supposed to serve. In the process, it gives itself expansive powers beyond what Statute and Constitution allow.And what is Government, anyway? It is a creation of man, not a creation of God. It is an artificial construct.Unlike the Divine Creator, perfect and eternal, Government is imperfect and impermanent; flawed and transitory, and dangerous to freedom and liberty.The poet and essayist, Henry David Thoreau, stated, and oft-recited to this day:“That Government is best which governs least.”Of all our Presidents, from the late 20^th Century onward, Ronald Reagan, our 40^th President, knew this best, and his Administration sought to place brakes on the Administrative State to prevent it from doing harm to the public. The website, reagan.com, sets forth,“Anyone curious about the views of Ronald Reagan on big government can consider what he thought were the nine most terrifying words in the English language: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ Reagan stated many times the danger of this seemingly mundane claim, and it came to define many aspects of his presidency, as well as his legacy.”The 45^th President, Donald Trump, to his credit also knew of the danger of “Big Government,” and he emulated Reagan in recognizing this and doing his best to rein Government in. See the msnbc.com article, comparing Trump and Reagan.Americans who wish to preserve the Nation in pristine condition, consistent with the precepts of the Constitution as understood by the framers of it, and those who seek to dismantle the whole of it, both acknowledge and agree with the comparison, although the former laud the sentiment expressed, while the latter condemn it. See msnbc article: Now juxtapose Reagan’s greatest fear for the Country with this from Biden, as mentioned in a Forbes article:“In off-the-cuff remarks at a recent meeting of the Business Roundtable, President Biden said, ‘There’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it.’” The meaning of the remark made at the end of March 2022, when viewed from all that Biden’s Administration has wrought—from the time Biden set foot in the Oval Office, up to the present time—exemplifies Reagan’s worst fears of Government overreach and usurpation of the sovereignty of the American people over Government and the loss of a free Constitutional Republic.Reagan’s fear bespeaks the quandary that the framers felt in constructing a Government for the nascent Country. For, Government suppresses man’s freedom and liberty and oppresses his dignity. That’s the way things are.The seeds of tyranny exist in all governments despite their myriad forms. The culmination of Tyranny, writ large, is that of a world government, which all western nations are moving inexorably and, it appears, irrevocably toward.The citizenry must judge the extent and scope of tyranny and ascertain that point it would no longer abide by tyranny.The framers of this Nation’s Federal Government knew that Government inevitably, invariably turns toward tyranny if left to its own devices, and, so, to slow the inevitable slide toward tyranny, they imposed restraints on the powers the Government can lawfully wield. And they further demarcated Government’s limited powers among three coequal Branches.But the framers also knew that, even with the checks and balances in place, as set down in the Articles of the Constitution, this would not prevent the onset of tyranny.Thus, to check the inexorable and inevitable march of the Federal Government toward tyranny, they delineated and codified, in the Constitution, the Divine Rights of the people, against which Government cannot lawfully tread.Yet, tyranny in the Federal Government is now fully upon us. It cannot be reasonably denied. And it came about due to the inattentiveness of the electorate and to the secretive, ruthless enterprises of powerful and wealthy people, both inside the Federal Government and outside it. And, this tyranny of Government will only worsen, and with rapidity.These are a few of the major outward signs of Tyranny:

• Consolidation of power;
• The Weaponization of Government agencies, bureaus, and departments against the citizenry and against the 45th President;
• Attempts to de facto merge the three Branches;
• The abject failure of the Biden Administration to conform its policies to  Federal Statute and to the U.S. Constitution, and the failure of Congress to take action against Biden for the betrayal of his Oath of Office;
• The lack of robust Congressional Debate;
• Keeping the public in the dark about Government policies and initiatives;
• Wasteful spending, and amassing exorbitant Government debt;
• Government misuse and deliberate lack of use of our Nation’s energy resources, together with disastrous economic policies, driving our Nation and its people to penury;
• Government appropriation of information resources for propagandizing to the public;
• The deliberate dumbing down of our public education system.

There is one other major sign of Tyranny at home, and the gravest:

• The erosion of Americans’ natural law rights.

The erosion of Americans’ God-given natural law rights is taking place contemporaneously with and, in inverse relationship to the explosive and unlawful expansiveness of Governmental power.Knowing what they are doing is wrong, and expecting pushback, the Government has sought to weaken Americans’ ability to constrain tyranny, by curbing the exercise of Americans’ fundamental rights.Speech is routinely censored and dissent quashed. And the right of the people to keep and bear arms suffers constant incursion by the Biden Administration that seeks to constrain and ultimately eliminate the exercise of it. Constant surveillance has withered the unreasonable searches and seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment, and illegal confinement and cruel and unusual punishment of  Dissenters is in defiance of and violation of Rights secured in the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.In face of all of this, how can Americans prevent totalitarianism short of armed rebellion? Is armed rebellion to overturn tyranny even lawful? Does the Second Amendment allow for this? AQ has touched on this in previous articles and will look at this in-depth in future articles.But, apart from armed rebellion, what can one say about our electoral process? Perhaps it is sufficient for dealing effectively with the nascent tyranny of Government. But, how effective is the electoral process for dealing with full-blown tyranny?Must Americans rely on the electoral process alone to right the many Government wrongs? Perhaps, and most likely only where Americans have recognized incipient tyranny and can elect legislators and a U.S. President who have the moral bearing and the fortitude to do so. The 45th U.S. President had the qualities necessary to short-circuit the Nation’s slide toward tyranny. And the public, most of us, at any rate, had faith in the integrity of the electoral process. But the electoral process did not allow Donald Trump to serve a second term. And, why was that? The economy was booming. Trump kept us out of wars. He strengthened our Nation militarily and geopolitically. And he protected our geographical borders. And he turned around the slide of the Nation toward Global world government tyranny. In short, he made the Government work for the interests of the American people and in strict accordance with the U.S. Constitution. One would fully expect he would and should serve a second term. But he lost reelection in 2020? Or did he?If the Nation’s electoral system was fair and above board, then one must accept the results, even if the majority of voters were duped into electing Joe Biden as the 46th U.S. President. But were most of the electorate duped into voting for Joe Biden? Some were, no doubt. But, we think, most Americans were not duped and did not vote for Biden. And that makes Biden, The Great Pretender. And this also means the electoral system did not operate fairly and lawfully.For the electoral system to work, the public must have faith in it. But, for the public to have faith in the electoral system, it must be shown to operate fairly and above board. This is a bit of circular reasoning, we know. The problem is that the machinery of the electoral system as it presently operates is opaque. And that raises suspicion, and justifiably so.The Government and the legacy Press insist that the public must have faith in the electoral process. In fact, the Government and the Press are frantic that the public fervently believes our Nation’s electoral system is fair and above board. The Government, the Press, and the titans of social media brutally censor and ridicule those who say otherwise. But their hysteria over this matter doesn’t quell concern or debate; it only enhances the concern over the propriety and fairness of the electoral process and breeds more suspicion.  Should Americans justifiably place their faith in an electoral system beset with the number and kinds of problems existent with it, as witnessed by all of us who have used it and much of what we learn, with a little digging, about it? Should Americans place their faith in the integrity of an electoral process merely on the say-so of the Government and the Press? Of course not.AQ delves into this matter in the next article.____________________________________*Note to Reader: This updated essay contains additional content.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE NEW YORK’S GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE?

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 EIGHTEEN

THE NEW YORK HOCHUL ADMINISTRATION'S PROBLEMS ARE OF ITS OWN MAKING. IT WOULD RATHER SPEND ITS ENERGIES AND TAX-PAYER MONIES  FIGHTING LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS, RATHER THAN FIGHTING CRIME. NEW YORKERS CAN EXPECT MUCH MORE OF THIS IN THE FUTURE, FOUR YEARS OF IT.

On June 23, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court came out with its third seminal case law rulings, following Heller in 2008 and McDonald in 2010. The three cases, taken together, hold the right of armed self-defense is a natural law right embodied in the Second Amendment.These three cases don’t sit well with State and local jurisdictions that abhor both guns and the notion of the right of civilian citizens to keep and bear them. And they have weaseled around the Heller and McDonald cases for over a decade—well before Bruen.Bruen arose as a direct challenge to one of the most restrictive Gun Law regimes in the Nation: codified in N.Y. Penal Law § 400.00 et. seq. The foundation of New York’s Gun Law is its draconian licensing requirement. All handgun licensing interposes the Government between the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms and the Government that intrudes upon the exercise of that right.New York’s handgun licensing scheme is among the most intrusive in the Country.Prior to Bruen, a person who sought to carry a handgun had to demonstrate “proper cause” to do so. But the State Government held armed self-defense against a visible threat in public as de facto insufficient “proper cause” justification for issuance of a license to carry.The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed.In Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the right of armed self-defense applies equally outside the home and in it. This ruling isn’t a Court based legal fiction, as Anti-Second Amendment proponents maintain. The right of armed self-defense is embodied in the Second Amendment.The Court in Bruen, and in Heller before it, simply illuminated and elucidated upon what the language of the Second Amendment asserts. It did not make new law.The Court thereupon struck down New York’s “may issue” “proper cause” requirement for those people applying for a concealed handgun carry license. Armed self-defense is de jure sufficient reason to carry, and it is presumptive in any application for a license. Therefore the applicant need not be required to expressly assert it.To be sure, New York Federal and State Courts never directly attacked the inherent right of the people to keep and bear arms because that was irrefutable natural law, cemented in the U.S. Constitution. And, if the Courts harbored the belief that the right, though fundamental, applied only to one’s service in a militia, the Heller case settled the matter, cadit quaestio.Even so, New York Courts routinely affirmed licensing officials’ denial of handgun carry licenses. The Courts reasoned that, even if a person has a fundamental, unalienable right to keep and bear arms, the person must have a valid handgun license to exercise the right, and acquiring one is a privilege, not a right, a privilege bestowed upon one by the grace of the State, and a privilege easily revoked. And, because the license serves as a condition precedent to exercising the right, the New York Government effectively created a proverbial “Catch 22.”Thus, Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions could continue to offend the Second Amendment guarantee while pretending to pay homage to it.New York’s handgun licensing scheme interferes with the exercise of a natural law right on an elementary level. There’s no doubt about that. That fact is clear, categorical, unequivocal, and irrefutable.The Court simply tinkered gingerly around the edges.But, by failing to strike down the New York handgun licensing, as unconstitutional, it remains rigid, unscathed.Justices Thomas and Alito knew that the Bruen rulings were faulty, that the rulings did not go far enough, and they could not have been happy about that.They would have struck down the entirety of the licensing structure if given a free hand, but Chief Justice Roberts, and possibly Justice Kavanaugh, too, likely prevented them from doing so if they were to obtain their votes.In Heller, the late eminent Justice Antonin Scalia, along with Justices Thomas and Alito, had to make concessions to Roberts and to Associate Justice Kennedy to get their votes.Now, in Bruen, Justices Thomas and Alito had to make concessions once again. That meant they must leave Government licensing of handguns alone.And that was all that New York Governor Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany needed to know. It gave them the edge they needed to slither around the Bruen rulings.The Anti-Second Amendment New York Government machine did strike the words, “Proper Cause,” from State Statute, but that meant nothing. They simply inserted “Proper Cause” into the “Good Moral Character” requirement of the State’s Gun Law. And the High Court in Bruen never struck down that latter requirement from the Gun Law.The “Good Moral Character” Requirement had hitherto existed as an unnecessary appendage to New York Gun Law, affixed to a licensing official’s denial of an application for any kind of handgun license.A licensing officer might for example refer to a person’s past arrest record in denying issuance. In the denial letter, the licensing officer would point to the arrest record as the basis for refusal, adding the redundant phrase that such past arrest record shows the applicant lacks Good Moral Character to possess a handgun.In the package of amendments, referred to as the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” or “CCIA,” the Hochul Administration’s “Good Moral Character” Requirement serves now as the salient basis for denying one a handgun license of any kind: restricted premise or unrestricted carry license.The applicant for a New York handgun license must now produce a volume of information, demonstrating his internal thought processes, especially his political and social ones.Given the depth and breadth of the Amendments to the Gun Law, the Hochul Government likely had the amendments prepared well in advance of the U.S. Supreme Court rulings—their passage in the Senate and Hochul’s signing them into law operating as a mere formality, taking place scarcely a week after the Court came down with its decision.The challenges to those amendments came just as hurriedly.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York dismissed the original suit filed against enforcement of the CCIA, without prejudice. But the Court had dismissed the case for administrative, not substantive failings, in the lawsuit. The Court made clear its concern with the law, tacitly encouraging the Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, holder of a valid New York handgun carry license, to refile his complaint.Hochul, as the scurrilous politician she is, took the dismissal as a win and said in a statement on her website that the Court agreed with the constitutionality of the CCIA. It did not.The original Plaintiff, Antonyuk, along with several other holders of New York handgun carry licenses filed a new lawsuit.This time, they named Governor Hochul as a Party Defendant, along with several other New York officials, including the Attorney General of the State.And this time the same U.S. District Court that heard and dismissed the original suit, granted the Plaintiffs a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO).Hochul was furious and her Attorney General immediately filed an emergency appeal of the District Court’s order, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Not unexpectedly, the Second Circuit did not act on the Appeal, probably because the Midterm Elections were around the corner, and the Court may have wished to wait to see whether Hochul was elected Governor although that should not factor into their decision.The Midterms are now over, and, whether Hochul won the election by hook or crook, she is York’s Governor, and the residents of the State must suffer her for at least four years. And that means, among other things, that she will fervently defend New York’s amendments to its Gun Law. And she has plenty of time to do so. And that raises the question:What will the Second Circuit do? Will it overturn the TRO or allow it to continue? If the TRO were the only matter before the Court, the Second Circuit would remand the case to the District Court that had issued it.The Second Circuit could issue its order keeping the stay in place while the District Court decides the substantive issues. That would benefit the Plaintiffs. Time would be on their side because Hochul could not lawfully enforce the CCIA during discovery and trial, however long that takes. Or the Second Circuit could lift the stay. That would benefit Hochul, as she would be free to enforce the CCIA while the District Court hears the Constitutional challenges to it. That would benefit Hochul and her Administration. They would likely prolong a final resolution of the case as the District Court had made known its antipathy toward the CCIA in lengthy Court opinions.But, as Hochul’s appeal of the TRO order remains still to be acted on by the Second Circuit, the District Court that ordered a TRO against Hochul’s enforcement of the CCIA had recently ruled on Plaintiffs Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, filed on September 2022. The case is Antonyuk vs. Hochul, (Antonyuk II), 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 201944 (N.D.N.Y. November 7, 2022)Contributing Ammoland writer John Crump wrote about this in his article posted on Ammoland, on November 7, 2022.The District Court’s impetus for this new ruling on a Preliminary Injunction though might render the TRO moot.Why did the District Court rule on the Preliminary Injunction before the Second Circuit ruled on the TRO?This might be due to the actions of Hochul’s Government, itself.In a caustic, strident, YouTube video, a new Acting Superintendent of State Police, Steven Nigrelli, replacing Kevin Bruen, threatened New York gun owners. The District Court wasn’t amused. In its comprehensive detailed opinion, the Court commented on Nigrelli’s outburst, saying this:“. . . unlike Superintendent Kevin Bruen in Antonyuk I, here Defendant Nigrelli has been shown to have threatened a ‘zero tolerance’ enforcement of the CCIA. On August 31, 2022, Defendant Nigrelli stated as follows in a YouTube video:‘We ensured that the lawful, responsible gun owners have the tools now to remain compliant with the law. For those who choose to violate this law . . . Governor, it's an easy message. I don't have to spell it out more than this. We'll have zero tolerance. If you violate this law, you will be arrested. Simple as that. Because the New York State Troopers are standing ready to do our job to ensure . . .  all laws are enforced.’Of course, here, Defendant Nigrelli did not limit his YouTube message to Plaintiffs. . . . However, five of the six Plaintiffs were members of the specific group of citizens (concealed-carry license holders) in New York State that was orally and visibly threatened by Defendant Nigrelli on August 31, 2022. The fact that the oral and visible threat occurred by video rather than in person fails to serve as a material distinction here, in the Court's view. For example, the fact that Nigrelli did not personally know yet of Defendant Mann's existence (as he does now) appears of little consequence, given that Defendant Nigrelli's 3,500 State Troopers were ‘standing ready’ to investigate and discover the violators. Indeed, the fact that the threat occurred by video actually increases the potency of it, due to its ability to be replayed. And Plaintiff Mann heard the message. It is difficult to see how one could fairly say that Defendant Nigrelli did not expressly direct his threat, in part, at Plaintiff Mann. In this way, Defendant Nigrelli's statement on August 31, 2022, was more than (as the State Defendants argue) a ‘generalized statement[] made . . . in the press.’ Rather, his statement specifically referenced arrest and was made in a YouTube video aimed specifically at license holders such as Plaintiff Mann who were considering violating Sections 4 or 5 of the CCIA.  As a result, the Court finds that Defendant Nigrelli has been charged with, and/or has assumed, the specific duty to enforce the CCIA.Finally, the Court finds that these threats of arrest and prosecution, or even mere citation and/or seizure of his handgun, are enough to show that Plaintiff Mann faces a credible threat of enforcement of Section 4 of the CCIA, which is fairly traceable to Defendants Hilton, Oakes and Nigrelli [Court documents and Case Citations omitted].”The Court opined that the Government’s message is demonstrative of the Plaintiffs’ concern they would be arrested for carrying a handgun in public—this notwithstanding the fact the Plaintiffs currently hold valid New York handgun carry licenses.The CCIA severely restricts where holders of New York handgun licenses can carry licenses.The Court’s granting of the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction in substantial part, introduces a new wrinkle in what has grown into a complicated legal matter, and all due to Kathy Hochul’s stubborn refusal to comply with U.S. Supreme Court rulings, along with her contemptuous attitude toward law-abiding American citizens who simply wish to exercise their fundamental, natural law right of armed self-defense.Hochul’s team will file a response to the District Court’s November 7, 2022, Preliminary Injunction ruling. No doubt the AG’s Office is working on it at this moment, and it will submit it to the Second Circuit in a few days.Hochul may ask the Second Circuit to suspend a ruling on the TRO in view of the District Court’s new ruling on the Plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction.The Second Circuit may itself, on its own motion, sua sponte, suspend a ruling on the TRO or, render the TRO matter given the District Court’s ruling on the Preliminary Injunction.The District Court ruling may have the effect of a final order on the merits. If so, this means the Second Circuit itself might render a final decision on at least a portion of the substantive merits of the issues on the constitutionality of the CCIA.If the Second Circuit affirms the Preliminary Injunction and, further, treats it like a Permanent Injunction that will render those portions of the CCIA affected by the Injunction permanently unenforceable.At that point, the administration's options will be limited. Hochul’s Government could appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but she likely wouldn’t do that. Of course, the High Court need not hear the case. The problem is that it probably would, and that would be dangerous for both New York and all Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions.The Court could grant review and use the opportunity to strike down the entirety of the New York handgun licensing structure. The Court would likely be in the frame of mind to do so, given Hochul’s contemptuous attitude toward the Court.The Hochul Administration could also ask for an en banc Second Circuit Court hearing. That means the entire Second Circuit would be empaneled to hear the case. Hochul would prefer that option, as the safest strategy. But the Second Circuit need not grant her a hearing of the full Bench. As with the U.S. Supreme Court, an appellant cannot demand a hearing of the full Bench, as a matter of right.There are more wrinkles in this Post-Bruen morass than on a Shar Pei.We’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.The natural law right of armed self-defense is coming to an ultimate showdown. At present that showdown is being fought in the Courts. Hopefully, it will not have to be fought in the streets. It need not come to that. Let us all hope it doesn’t.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK’S KATHY HOCHUL DOES NOT SEE PHYSICAL SURVIVAL AS A BASIC HUMAN INSTINCTUAL NEED, NOR SELF-DEFENSE AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT. WHY IS THAT?

The most basic instinct of every living thing, from the lowliest creature in God’s creation to the Divine Creator’s loftiest, man, is that of physical survival.No amount of prodding can convince any lowly creature otherwise. And man understands this as well on a basic instinctual level, apart from any reflecting he might do upon it.The act of self-defense is the natural response to a threat to life.All creatures understand this instinctively, as does man. But man understands self-defense also as a normative ethical prerogative, apart from the raw, innate instinct of any living creature to defend itself from mortal danger to the physical self, whether that danger comes from a creature, from another man, or from the tyranny of Government—the last of which poses the gravest danger to physical self and to Selfhood for members of a community.Yet, man, for all his intellect and, oddly enough, because of it, is oddly susceptible to denying the right to self-defense and, thence, denial of the instinctual urge to self-preservation.The framers of the U.S. Constitution engendered to extoll the absolute right of individual self-defense, knowing that the strength and fortitude of a Nation come from recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of each individual over that of the collective group. Once a Nation loses recognition of the singular importance of the right of the individual to be individual, the Nation has, then, within itself, the seeds of its own demise.The Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, unlike such document of rights that other nations might have, recognizes the singular importance of the individual over the group.The framers of the U.S. Constitution sought mightily to avoid any intimation of the United States as akin to an ant colony or beehive, where commonalty counts for naught, where only the life of the ruler, King or Queen, and the lives of the immediate entourage of that ruler are sacrosanct and inviolate. The framers conceived the United States as a free Constitutional Republic, in the purest sense, not as a meaningless jumble of words. In our free Constitutional Republic, Government serves the people.The American people themselves are sovereign rulers over the Government. But this idea is anathema to those transforming our Nation to tyranny. Unsurprisingly the agents of the Nation’s destruction have implemented policies designed to curb the exercise of natural law rights, especially those that pertain directly to the recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of Self.The adoration of “Selfhood” in the United States embodies the sanctity of one’s physical self, to be sure, but includes and transcends that basic right to the sanctity of one’s inner Self: his Psyche, Spirit, and Soul. That is consistent with the love the Divine Creator bestowed on man.But, the Destroyers of our Nation will have none of that. They do not accept. this. Such is their disdain for the Divine Creator and his Creation that they dare impose Godhead upon themselves and demand that Americans worship them, a false idol.The right of armed self-defense, in the United States, through the codification of the natural law right in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the Nation’s Constitution, is not of a different species from the general notion of self-defense, but recognition of, and acknowledgment that the Government cannot lawfully deny to a person the best means available to preserve his life and well-being. The natural law right of armed self-defense also embodies the natural law right of Selfhood—THE RIGHT OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO BE INDIVIDUAL.The two rights—the right of free speech and the right of the people to keep and bear arms work in tandem to exemplify the sovereignty of the American citizen over the State. The expression of those ideas, i.e., the exercise of them, is the source of our Nations’ strength and success.The attempt to emasculate these rights serves only to weaken the Country from within.Ruthless, malevolent, forces at work today both in our Federal Government and in many State and local governments, and through their agents in the private sector have attempted to dampen and restrain the exercise of the right of expression of thought and the right of armed self-defense. The reason to do so is plain: to weaken the Country.And the policy decisions giving rise to the slow strangulation of this Country are not difficult to ascertain. The results are prevalent and unmistakable:Destabilization of Society and Confusion and Demoralization of the American People.To deny an American citizen the natural law right to defend Self is to deny both the sanctity of the American’s Life, Spirit, and Soul, and to break down the Security of a Free State.Rampant crime in our major urban areas is endangering both.Unfortunately, the jurisdictions with the worst possible violent and property crime problems are also those that do not recognize the right to armed self-defense. This means, by logical extension, such jurisdictions do not acknowledge one’s instinct for the unalienable right to self-preservation, individuality, and the safety and security of the community. This should be self-evident. But, it isn't.How far removed is this radical Collectivist Federal Government and the radical Collectivist State and local governments that adhere to and proselytize to the masses an alien set of tenets, precepts, and principles—antithetical to those expressed in our Constitution? Truly beyond all imagining. But through the application of destructive policies, incrementally, many Americans are oblivious to the true extent of the destruction of our Nation.The Biden Administration, along with the Democrat-Party-controlled Congress, and Democrat-Party-controlled State and local governments, following the Administration’s lead, fail utterly to acknowledge or even to recognize the natural law right to self-defense, neither armed nor unarmed, and they even constrain the police from providing a modicum of protection for the community.A radical Democrat Party-controlled Federal Government and Democrat Party-controlled state and local governments have as a matter of policy chastised, handcuffed, shunned, demoralized, discredited, and even debased community police forces and traditional community policing. As a result, police have left in droves, in cities around the Country, and their ranks, are difficult to fill.Those police officers who remain on active duty can do little, to protect the community, given the policy and legal constraints now infecting traditional policing.The police often are not permitted to arrest lawbreakers who commit property crimes and even violent crimes. And when or if they do, the criminal justice system immediately releases these miscreants. That frustrates the police and endangers the community.As for the psychopathic criminal element and the psychotic maniacs who perpetrate violence, they have taken notice of the Governmental policy changes that not only tolerate destructive behavior but actively encourage it. The results are immediate and dire, impacting not only major urban areas but surrounding suburban communities as well.Take New York City. The present Democrat Mayor, Eric Adams, is ineffectual. But those New York City residents who voted for him bear responsibility now that he is in office and remains there. But every New York City resident pays the price for that.And then there is New York State. The unelected Democrat Lieutenant Governor, Kathy Hochul, who took over the reins of Government when the Democrat powerbrokers had tired of Governor Andrew Cuomo, forcing him to resign, bears singular responsibility for the carnage occurring throughout the State. Yet, she is dismissive of it and disparaging of those who dare call her out for it. The results are not surprising.New York State and its largest City, the Financial Capital of the Country, has hemorrhaged residents, 1.4 million people since 2010, and has, concomitantly, lost substantial tax revenue, further compounding the problems of servicing the State. See spectrum news article.And the website, the center square, reports:“The Internal Revenue Service this week released more troubling data for New York, with the federal agency showing more high-earning taxpayers leaving the state.Tracking returns filed in 2019 and 2020 showed that 479,826 people left New York for another state or country in those years. Over the same timeframe, just 231,439 people moved to the state. That means the state suffered a net loss of 248,387 residents.And, of course, those people took their money with them. The IRS figures show the moves generated an economic exodus of more than $19.5 billion.”This loss of population and concomitant revenue did not bother Andrew Cuomo.Back in 2014, Cuomo exclaimed, as reported by the New York Post, that he——“. . . has a message for conservative Republicans—you don’t belong in New York.Cuomo said Friday that members of the GOP with ‘extreme’ views are creating an identity crisis for their party and represent a bigger worry than Democrats such as himself.’‘Their problem isn’t me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves,’ the governor said on Albany’s The Capitol Pressroom radio show.‘Who are they? Right to life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay — if that’s who they are, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.’”But, even at that time, well before the ravages the CCP China COVID pandemic unleashed on the Country and the world, severely weakened the world’s economies, Cuomo carefully, added, at the end of his 2014 diatribe,“. . . moderate Republicans, such as those in the state Senate, ‘have a place in their state.’Cuomo hammered Republican activists whose views he said were out of step with the majority of New Yorkers and said the party has to back moderates to have any hope of winning seats in this fall’s elections.‘You have a schism within the Republican Party,’ Cuomo observed. ‘They’re searching to define their soul. That’s what’s going on . . . It’s a mirror of what’s going on in Washington.’” Id.Andrew Cuomo was mindful of his words and the threat of lost revenue if many took him seriously and left the State. So, he carefully avoided ostracizing Republicans simply for being Republican.But eight years later, Democrats now see all Republicans as beyond the pale, after the Party threw Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney into the dustbin.Liz Cheney is someone best left to memory. She will always be remembered for serving as a flunky, on behalf of Democrats, for Pelosi’s absurd and nauseating January 6 Panel. See recent October 23, 2o22 Washington Times article. Romney, though, is more dangerous. And, he recently, infuriated Senate Republicans for refusing to endorse Mike Lee’s reelection bid in 2022. This could jeopardize a Republican Senate majority in November. See the article in Breitbart. Romney supports the faux Republican, Ed McMullin, running against Mike Lee. See the article in the Federalist.Apparently seeing that Republicans are not going to play “pretend Democrats,” Hochul, taking her cue from the Neoliberal Globalists, treats all Republicans now as persona non grata, and, in so doing, forsakes Andrew Cuomo’s simulacrum of tact and commonsense.With Eric Adams standing next to her, as a crutch, she unleashes a torrent of invective and contempt against those New Yorkers whom she cannot influence and therefore does not trust—every Republican. She will not take her cue from Cuomo, who attempted to distinguish, even if only for show, the so-called “moderate” and therefore “good” Republicans, from the immoderate bad Republicans whom Biden refers to as “MAGA” Republicans. See the article in the New York Post.“Gov. Kathy Hochul, who hasn’t proven shy about issuing orders, had one for the state’s Republicans this week — all 5.4 million of them: ‘Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?’ she said. ‘You are not New Yorkers.”If you can move beyond the frankly disgusting political partisanship and intolerance, her message is fiscally irresponsible, even dangerous. The governor probably already knows this, but the state’s extensive public sector is heavily reliant on personal income taxes paid by residents, and with nearly $14 billion in projected budget gaps over the next five years, it can’t afford to lose any taxpayers, let alone 5.4 million of them.The Empire State has already lost 1.5 million residents in the past decade, and there’s no sign of that trend letting up. In fact, more than 350,000 New Yorkers relocated during the 12 pandemic-plagued months leading up to July 1, 2021.”Florida will be more than willing to oblige Hochul. Her loss is Florida’s gain, both in American citizens and in revenue. See the article in the center square.“New Jersey and Florida were the biggest beneficiaries. More than 84,500 people moved from New York to New Jersey and took $5.3 billion. By contrast, only 37,127 New Jersey residents moved to New York and brought $2.2 billion in income.The numbers were even starker between New York and Florida. Over the two years, 71,845 New Yorkers flocked to the Sunshine States and took $6.4 billion. Meanwhile, 26,902 former Floridians moved up north. Those individuals had a combined income of $1.2 billion.”Hochul would rather lose votes and retain her status as a puppet for the Neoliberal Globalists who fund her campaign for Governor against Republic Lee Zeldin than admit that maybe she should think more for her State and for the Country than for her own personal lust for power, kowtowing to interests that don’t cohere with those of the Country and the citizenry.If Hochul spent more time doing something productive about the out-of-control property and violent crime problem and acknowledged the fundamental and unalienable right to armed self-defense, she might garner millions of votes that she now has irretrievably lost, endangering what, months ago, she took for granted, have assumed her victory at the polls a sure-thing, a done deal.New York City, unfortunately, must contend with Eric Adams for three more years. But New York residents need not suffer Hochul. They can send her packing on November 8, and, for the sake of the State and the Country, let’s hope she goes. That will place Mayor Eric Adams in an unenviable position. Governor Lee Zeldin won’t be in his corner.

HOW IS IT THAT AMERICANS ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE LED BY POLITICIANS WHO SEEK THE DESTRUCTION OF THE REPUBLIC, THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, OUR SOVEREIGNTY, OUR HISTORY, HERITAGE,  CULTURE, AND OUR ETHOS?

Unscrupulous politicians, aided by an army of malicious “loudspeakers” seduce much of the public to deny the horrors they see around them or convince the public that better times are just around the corner.The Destroyers of a free Constitutional Republic know this. They have convinced many Americans they represent all that is good and right and proper for America—all in pursuit of shameless goals: the dissolution of society; the destruction of a sovereign, independent Nation; and subordination of a free and sovereign people, to the dictates of a tyrannical government.In those pursuits they have brought devastation to the Republic:

• The upheaval of our Nation’s institutions;
• Promotion of moral decadence and degradation even unto the Nation’s seed corn;
• The psychical malaise of the public soul and psyche;
• The deliberate inception of physical violence and economic strife;
• The insinuation of alien cultures and influences upon Americans;
• Graft and corruption in the public and private sectors of an unprecedented scale;
• incredible wastefulness of the nation’s tax dollars;
• The physical opening of the Nation’s borders to over five million illegal wayfarers looking for handouts, and with no end in sight as they keep coming—a tidal wave of disease and dependency the American public can ill afford; and,
• Expensive foreign escapades, both extravagantly expensive and extraordinarily dangerous to the well-being of the Nation and the world.

A veritable hailstorm has overtaken this Country. It has progressed subtly at first, but it has gathered steam and it is undeniable. Yet, for all the horror that Democrats have unleashed upon us, and that all too many Republicans have placidly acceded to or even actively conspired in, Americans are contemptuously treated to incomprehensible messaging.The horrors unfolding are dismissed out-of-hand, blatantly denied outright, or extolled as good and proper: the necessary growing pains for a better America and a better world, we are told. It is a damnable lie.Still, Americans are urged to conform actions and thoughts to the dictates of those who would destroy both them and the Country.Too few people remain alive today who would remember the Pied Piper of Hamlin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His Presidency should be studied. He sought to turn the Nation into a Socialist welfare State. How did that come about?Manipulation of public thought existed at that time, no less so than today. And it came by way of a composer’s catchy jingle coupled with a songwriter’s sprightly lyrics, and eloquently sung by a popular jazz singer and soon, as hoped and expected, became a useful campaign slogan: “Happy Days Are Here Again.”The public bought into the lies and voted into Office a man who sought to turn the Nation into a massive socialist enclave.For anyone who cared to notice, the propagandists had demonstrated the effectiveness of mass conditioning on the national stage, notwithstanding that, back then, during the first third of the 20^th Century, the world only had radio and newspapers and a smattering of periodicals to convey the Socialist messaging to a large audience.The Biden Administration's goals for the Country are the same as that of FDR, whom Biden emulates, and has not disguised that fact. See the article in the Hill.But tools for mass psychological conditioning, although in their infancy, along with the means for delivering those devices, although rudimentary by today’s standards, were still effective in seducing the masses.How far we have come. Today’s propagandists have available to them sophisticated tools of neurophysiological and neuropsychological conditioning, and with devices like smartphones, now ubiquitous, they have the means to deliver the messaging to the masses instantaneously.The immolation of American society is at hand, and it is indisputable, but many Americans are blind to it or are otherwise resigned to it. A few, even, are on board with it; relish the extinction of the United States as a free Constitutional Republic, favoring a stateless geographical region, open to millions for the taking. Have they considered what that might do to their own welfare? Or are they too far gone to even care?Rising, raging violent crime, especially in our major urban cities, is emblematic of destruction.How can rational Americans be cavalier about this?How is it that the public allows this to exist?How is it that Americans have a predilection for voting into Office—undoubtedly through the help of massive electoral subterfuge—deceitful leaders: seen in the mayors of cities, governors, and legislators of states, and in the Nation’s Congressional leaders, including a manikin in the highest Office of the Land?At some level, every American must know the Country is dying from within, even as much of that “assistance” is coming from ruthless forces from the outside.Many Americans, resigned to this, accept it. Several others have deluded themselves into the belief that matters will correct themselves of their own accord. And a few soulless types relish the demise of the Country.New York is a testbed of denial. Severe property crime and violent crime are rampant.The New York Governor hopeful, Lee Zeldin, has made the problem of crime a linchpin of his campaign. And notwithstanding all the money at Hochul’s disposal, she must contend with this upstart who is embarking perilously close to her domain.To be sure, New York, and especially New York City, has traditionally supported liberal, left-wing candidates. But the extent and scope of crime are now affecting too many New Yorkers, and even a dollop of wishful thinking is not sufficient to mask the seriousness of it.Hochul is compelled to admit the fact of it, to her dismay, and she is not happy to do so, for that means she plays into Zeldin’s strong suit and in accordance with his rules, his game plan, and that pains her to do so. To do so is also an admission that Zeldin is correct, and that weakens Hochul's campaign, and therefore weakens her standing as the preeminent candidate who should be setting out the pressing issues for consideration. See the article on law enforcement today.The entire House of Cards the Democrats carefully constructed is in danger of collapsing—across the Country. Could it be any other way? Even with their almost total control of messaging and of communication resources across the Country, how can these toadies of the wealthy, powerful, ruthless Neoliberal Globalists and of the out-of-control Neo-Marxist cultists, together with the absurdities of socio-political and economic Collectivist ideology and bankrupt normative ethical systems grounded in utilitarian consequentialism that view morality in terms of group dynamics, instead of individual will, motive, and need, honestly expect Americans to discard the precepts of our Constitution and over two thousand years of Christian deontological ethics extolling the sanctity of each individual human soul, and the self-evident truth of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, morally perfect, and benevolent Divine Being for an irrational belief system—one that, both in logic and in its effects, is contrary to the well-being of Americans and the Nation? It is the height of arrogance and erroneously presumes that mass psychological conditioning will win the day over one's deep, abiding innermost thoughts bespeaking the nature of right and wrong, on an elemental level, and of the inviolability of one's Being as a creation of God.Notwithstanding propagandist control of most communication venues, they have heretofore demonstrated little that can be deemed a success, and have found few converts to their cause and to their way of thinking.  They have constructed narratives and manufactured false issues out of whole cloth: narratives and the issues concerning racism, climate change, abortion, and “green energy.” They have buttressed and magnified these ludicrous narratives and issues and fabricated an equally ludicrous new dogma—a veritable religion—to push these idiotic narratives and false issues to the fore, around which they seek to replace our culture with the new one: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”  They have few takers.Concomitant with this, the Democrat toadies of the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists have also sought to deemphasize issues that are critical to the strength and well-being of the Country and its people. These include the depletion of our energy reserves, runaway inflation, wasteful government spending, engaging our Nation in dangerous, wholly unnecessary military escapades, and systematically dissolving the integrity of the Nation’s geographical borders. But these issues are less policy, per se. Rather they are the accumulated effects of bad policy that beg now for solutions. And the solutions must come from Republicans. There is much work to be done to mend the corruption wrought by the Biden Administration, and by a Democrat-Party-controlled Congress, and by corrupt Democrat-Party-controlled State and municipal governments that have taken their cue from a despicable, despotic Federal Government. The responsible people must be investigated and brought to justice.The profound decay and ruin that has occurred throughout our Nation and on so many levels will take time to rectify. And to do this Americans must understand that the disintegration of our history, heritage, culture, ethos, and strength is not the result of mere ineptitude. Would that it were so. No! The decay and ruin are deliberate. They are the aims and goals of ruthless forces both here and abroad that have taken over the Democrat Party. They have taken over many of the agencies of the Federal and State Governments and many major businesses. They have taken over the Press and many of the Nation's institutions. And they seek to corrupt the minds of Americans: men, women, and even children. No one is safe from the corruption these ruthless, malevolent, malignant forces have perpetrated. Corruption has permeated all of America. Most Americans know this intuitively, innately, as well, and experientially. But, Americans feel powerless to do anything about this. And that, feeling of powerlessness, contributing to societal malaise is also by design. Americans must regain inner strength to do battle with the corrupters of our Nation.Failure of Americans to take charge of their life and national destiny will result in the further crippling of the United States. In a weakened condition, the Nation is inexorably, inevitably, susceptible to complete, and irrecoverable societal collapse. That means the Nation will cease to exist as an independent nation-state. And with that, the remains of the Country can be easily merged into a neo-feudal political, social, and economic world empire, ruled by an “elite “ few who, alone, will benefit from this. That is the endgame. That is what Trump saw, and that is what Americans saw who voted for him. And he sought to prevent the decay; to halt it; and then to turn the Country around. and, for a time, he did. That explains why Democrats, from the corrupt, demented Toady in Chief, Joe Biden, on down, have attacked Americans who supported Trump. That is why Democrats attack the slogan and policy goal, "Make America Great Again." They treat it as if it were an obscenity.Democrats have also sought to erroneously conflate matters that should not be conflated. This is best exemplified in discussions of immigration/naturalization: Illegal excursions into our Country by millions of people around the world. Illegal entry by millions of people is not equivalent to legal immigration. The U.S. already takes in more people legally than any other Country on Earth. And naturalized citizens resent, justifiably so, those millions who get a free ride into the U.S. Democrats. Democrats have consistently faulted Trump for his immigration stance, claiming erroneously that Trump was against immigration. He wasn’t. He never said that. What he did say was that he is against “illegal immigration.” But, for Democrats “illegal entry” into the Country is subsumed in “legal immigration.” That is inconsistent with both logic and law. But no matter. It is also odd to consider that ten to twenty years ago, Democrats, themselves also attacked illegal entry into our Country. That seemingly miraculously changed. What caused this sudden about-face?Democrats' control of the Press and social media gives the illusion of credibility to their narrative fiction. But, the result is devastation to the health of the Country. How do we rid ourselves of millions of illegals in our Country in the space of two years, with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands more pouring into the Nation every month? The short answer is, we can’t. Not easily. And that’s the point. They’re here to stay.And Democrats conflate violent crime, which they tolerate and even enable, with guns. They refuse to accept the fact that the right of the people to keep and bear arms, a natural law fundamental right, that Democrats loathe and wish to eventually outlaw. It is not by mistake that Progressive  or Marxist Democrats, such as the present Governor,  Kathy Hochul, remarks erroneously and absurdly that crime is simply a function of guns; ergo “criminal violence” reduces to “gun violence.” Kathy Hochul and all Democrats routinely, indeed, invariably eschew the phrase “criminal violence” in all of their remarks. They always use the expression “gun violence.” For, it is guns, in the hands of tens of millions of law-abiding citizens whom the Democrats wish to abolish, not criminal violence which serves their end goal to destabilize society, thereby making way for the dismantling of the United States as a free, sovereign, independent, Nation-State. The soci0-political regimes to which they seek to attach the remains of the U.S., merging the remains of the U.S. in an amorphous neo-feudal empire, do not, and never did recognize armed self-defense as a fundamental right. The Progressive, Neo-Marxists, and Neoliberal Globalists intend for our laws, rights, and jurisprudence to mirror the "Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" adopted by the Council of Europe and the loose "EU Charter of Fundamental Rights" as adopted by the European Union. These all reflect and cohere with the "Declaration of Human Rights" promulgated by the United Nations. Notable in its absence in those documents is any reference to the right of the people to keep and bear arms in their own defense and to thwart tyranny. In fact, there is no mention even of a general individual right of self-defense.  position papers of the UN. Any reference to a notion of self-defense is limited to that ascribed only to nations, who have a duty—more in the nature of a prerogative—to protect their native populations. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, dealing with this, titled, "Tyranny, Fundamental Rights and the Armed Citizen," posted on December 2, 2021.The concept of individual rights is reduced to a seemingly noble but, in analysis, vacuous recitation. One wonders if the EU and UN and Council of Nations drafters of these tracts, and documents of ostensible "Human Rights," take seriously the rights their tracts and documents recite. Of what use are these things in the absense of the means for the individual to enforce them? This question is rhetorical. For, the EU and UN and British Commonwealth of Nations, too, do not recognize the sanctity of the individual as an independent singular living Being. The rights espoused belong to the group—to a collective, to the Hive. The criminal element, there as here, understands this all too well, and preys at will on innocent lives. And, they use whatever means Criminals use whatever means they can to commit their crimes. In Democrat-run jurisdictions, in the U.S., the criminal's use of guns in the commission of their crimes is pleaded out, and the remaining felony count is then reduced to a misdemeanor. The criminal is let loose from pretrial detention to create more mayhem before his trial on the first crime even commences.This horrible situation is what New Yorkers face under the Hochul/Adams regime, and it won’t go away if Hochul is elected Governor. Her answer to criminal violence is to take away handguns from the average, responsible, rational, law-abiding adult citizen. She takes as axiomatic that guns as a numerical factor are responsible for the scope and ferocity of criminal behavior, irrespective of whom it is that wields a gun. This idea is flawed on both empirical grounds and as a matter of pure logic. She recites it anyway. Apparently, it makes for good messaging to those who have a phobic aversion to guns. And Hochul, and others of her kind, play and prey on that aversion. It means nothing. Violent crime continues unabated, sometimes through the use of a gun, often, then, by a gangbanger, and, more often by any of a variety of implements, whatever is at hand: knives, axes, baseball bats, hands and feet, hammers, even automobiles.Hochul spent the summer expending her energies, not on dealing with the explosion of violent crime, by working out and implementing crime reduction measures, but, rather, on defying U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the Bruen case, handed down at the end of June 2022. Her target is not violent crime reduction, but on oppressing law-abiding citizens, residents of the State, who merely wish to exercise their God-given right to bear arms in their own defense, as it is plain enough the police can't protect them, notwithstanding that the police do not have a duty to guarantee the life and safety of individuals anyway. But, now, the police in New York, in this post-George Floyd era, are constrained from even protecting the community at large.Like all Democrats, Hochul loathes the idea of implementing a policy that adheres to the natural law right to armed self-defense outside the home as well as inside it. In a jurisdiction that has degenerated into marked lawlessness, by design, it is reprehensible that Hochul would dare defy the U.S. Supreme Court unless she felt she could get away with this. She can’t, and, to date, she hasn’t. And it could well be the end of her after November 8, 2022. One can only hope.And let us hope that the majority of New Yorkers, even those who consider themselves social and political liberals or progressives, will come to their senses and recognize that Hochul does not have a plan to protect New Yorkers. The question is: Does she even care about the life and well-being of New Yorkers? Likely, not. Her actions speak louder than and belie her words. But, to fringe "Neo-Marxist cultists," the life of the individual counts for nothing. A million years of evolution begs to differ. The instinct for Self-Preservation does not abide by odd fads that deny the truth and strength of the instinctual need as pronounced in the actions of the lower animals.And the moral prerogative of self-defense derives as a natural law right baked into the Being of man by a Loving and all-powerful, Creator who created Man in His Own Image. But, the Cultists deny both God and the sanctity of the Individual Soul.The natural law right of armed self-defense is but an aspect of the general natural law right of defense. A person has the right and duty to protect him or herself with the most effective means available. At first, the most effective means available were the knife and sword. And for several hundred years thereafter, and currently, the best means available to protect oneself in imminent extremity, is the firearm, not the social worker. The natural law right to armed self-defense is coextensive with one’s instinct for survival.In an environment that at once eschews police protection for the welfare of the community and denies one the basic right to defend self against violent attack, it is little wonder that many New Yorkers, especially those that have hitherto extolled the Democrat Party tradition against guns, would have second thoughts about voting into Office, for four years, a person whose cavalier attitude toward the life, safety, and well-being is painfully in evidence.Lee Zeldin who sees that freedom from violent crime and the right to armed self-defense are not mutually exclusive but, to the contrary, go hand-in-hand, is in a good position to defeat Kathy Hochul. Hochul is a person who takes for granted that the concerns of a violent criminal or lunatic supersede the concerns of a law-abiding, innocent citizen, and she refuses to acknowledge the right of the individual to armed self-defense, even where an institution no less than the U.S. Supreme Court so ordains, consistent with the plain meaning of the language of the Second Amendment.Hochul’s ideas concerning crime and criminals and her abhorrence of the right of armed self-defense, together with her reluctance to allow the police to engage in traditional policing to defend life and property, cannot be viewed in a vacuum. These ideas, attributable to a faulty ethical system, odd moral imperatives of interest, and a predilection toward defying laws she happens to disagree with would be of interest to scholars in the fields of law and government studies, and in the fields of philosophy and psychology. Unfortunately, Hochul is, at present—and hopefully only for a few more days—the New York Governor. Her personal beliefs have expression in reality. They are not consigned simply to academic literature.Hochul’s ideas concerning crime and criminals and armed self-defense are not, then, mere “ideas.” They are policy choices, and those policy choices affect the nature of the society that a New Yorker must live and work in. They have real-world consequences. And those real-world consequences are not pleasant ones to behold.New Yorkers have taken notice. And they aren’t happy with what they see. This slow turn of events, now gaining in speed, obviously confuses and frustrates both Hochul and her wealthy donors. It shouldn’t but it does. That they are arrogant and jaded makes them sloppy. But, that is a good thing. It makes them easier to defeat.New Yorkers and Americans around the Country have awakened to the illogic of Democrats’ worldview. Democrats treat Americans like children who should not be permitted to think for themselves. Such is the condition of people who live in tyranny.Americans are rebelling against attempts to treat them like wayward children who must be led about. Americans won’t allow themselves to be governed by tyrants, whether those tyrants tend to see themselves as benevolent dictators or not.Since taking over the mantle of Governor in August, New Yorkers have obtained a good look at the New York Hochul envisions for them. Let’s see if enough New Yorkers, in the few days remaining before the election, make plain their displeasure with Hochul, and rid themselves of this petty tyrant, once and for all, at the polls.Those residents of New York who choose not to leave or cannot leave the State for “greener pastures” can turn things around for New York or they can accelerate the pace of societal decay and further endanger their life.The cutesy limerick, “A vote for Hochul is a vote for the same, but a vote for Zeldin is a vote for change to save New York,” is a bearer of a serious, dire message despite its tone.Hochul, who owes her allegiance to her donors, wealthy Neoliberal Globalists bent on destroying New York to satisfy their own interests and insatiable greed, together with the Neo-Marxists who have made no attempt to hide their disgust for the U.S. Constitution, and for the founders of our Free Constitutional Republic, and for our history, our heritage, and for our Christian heritage, and who deny the very concept of natural law rights, have—in Kathy Hochul—an agent to bring about the financial, economic, and social collapse of New York. Just look at the ruin of a once great State she has “accomplished” in the short time, she has been in office. Do New Yorkers want four years of this? If so, New York will be unrecognizable, and not in a good way!___________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

ONCE AMERICANS LOSE THEIR RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS, THEY WILL NEVER AGAIN REGAIN IT

“Another enduring principle is that we need countries to cooperate, now more than ever.  Not a single global challenge that affects your lives can be met by any one nation acting alone – not even one as powerful as the United States. And there is no wall high enough or strong enough to hold back the changes transforming our world.” ~ A slice of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement to the American people and to the world, delivered in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2021, less than five weeks after the Senate confirmed his nomination as a Cabinet Secretary.

CHANGES TRANSFORMING THE WORLD MUST NEVER BECOME THE PRETEXT FOR TRANSFORMING A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC INTO A PAWN OF TYRANTS

SOME TRUTHS ARE ETERNAL, NOT SUBJECT TO CHANGE

The U.S. is the only truly free Constitutional Republic in existence. That is how the framers of the U.S. Constitution designed our Government.Our Federal Government is the only one on Earth that exists solely to serve the interests of the American people. It has no other purpose.The Federal Government is answerable to and subordinate to the people. The American people are supreme sovereign over the Government.Once the servants of the people fail to recognize and acknowledge these aforesaid facts, and then forsake the interests of the people, the Government has descended into Tyranny.The American people have no lawful duty to suffer Tyranny. The Nation was founded on one singular precept, set forth in the Declaration of Independence. It is that our people are a free people and are to ever remain so, and as sole sovereign over their Government and each to him or herself, masters of their own fate, and the final arbiters and deciders of the Nation’s destiny.The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on Tyranny and will continue to do more. See, e.g., our article posted, a little over one year ago, on October 1, 2021. 

HOW DO AMERICANS EXERT THEIR SOVEREIGNTY OVER A GOVERNMENT THAT HAS RAISED THE SPECTER OF TYRANNY?

That the American people are lord and master over the Government, this is to be understood as resting not only in the limited and demarcated powers of Government but, more fundamentally, in the unalienable, illimitable, eternal, and unalterable natural law rights bestowed on man, not by Government or by other men, but by the Divine Creator, and thereupon codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights.The Bill of Rights is an integral and essential part of the U.S. Constitution.By voicing dissent against the encroachment of Tyranny, and through the firearms they bear to thwart its inception and to prevent its entrenchment, the American people have the means not only to stave off Tyranny but both the right and the duty to do so, else they merit the Tyranny they allow to exist by their active or passive failure to resist it.None of this can be reasonably doubted. Yet, somehow, somewhere through the passing years, decades, and centuries, these paramount truisms became eroded, and, for many citizens, they became lost to memory.The forces that crush entire populations and nations, utilizing, in recent years, advances in both psychological conditioning and communication technology, have induced veritable amnesia in the masses of all countries, dulling their mental acuity and deadening their will and spirit. This has done much to dampen the resolve of populations of much of the European Union as well as of the populations of the British Commonwealth of Nations.And the same insidious weakness has now infected the American psyche, brought about by similar, incessant brainwashing programs, introduced into our Country by the same forces that have crushed western Europe and the British Commonwealth Nations. And they have thence directed their toxins against Americans, lessening their resolve, fostering self-doubt, confusion, and outright fear of the very Government that was created to serve them.This Federal Government has betrayed the American people; misused the powers entrusted to it—has turned those powers upon the American people. It has unlawfully brought those powers to bear on its own masters. In so doing the Government has usurped authority that rests not in Government and never did—authority that rests solely in the American people, and always has.Through their many agents, the forces that crush people and nations have gained ascendancy in Government here and have bent much of the private sector to their will. In the process, they have gained substantial control over the thoughts and conduct of a broad swath of Americans.Many Americans have become compliant, empty vessels, unable to escape from the incessant drone of hypnotic messaging, emanating throughout the Country. The messaging has infected all communication resources: smartphones, airwaves, and reading material—insinuating itself firmly into the minds of Americans, seeping poison into one’s reasoning faculties and into the darkest recesses of one’s emotions, where rests one’s fears and feelings of hopelessness.Wherever they may be, the American public has become an oft unwilling, captive audience to the constant dissemination of noxious propaganda.Yet many Americans have resisted indoctrination. Through inner strength of will, they are either immune to or have become inured to this indoctrination. They have effectively walled off the horrific effects of mass psychological indoctrination that have plagued so many others.

SOMETHING FOR AMERICANS TO PONDER WHEN THEY GO TO THE POLLS IN NOVEMBER

As the Midterm elections loom, the Obstructors and Destructors of our Nation have shown no disinclination of easing up on their agenda to corral and control the thoughts and conduct of the American people. On the contrary, they are “doubling down” their efforts.They intend to bring to fruition a global neo-feudalist State. To accomplish that feat requires them to maintain, as a necessary condition, firm control of Congress as well as the Executive Branch of Government.

HOW DID WE AMERICANS GET TO THIS PLACE WHERE OUR FOES HAVE TAKEN OVER CONTROL OF OUR GOVERNMENT, OF OUR PRESS, OF SOCIAL MEDIA, AND OF WEALTHY, POWERFUL CORPORATE AND FINANCIAL CONGLOMERATES?

The slow ossification of the thinking processes of Americans and the slow erosion of Americans’ natural law rights and liberties took time—commencing one hundred years ago—perhaps earlier. But it has rapidly moved ahead only since the turn of the 21^st Century, made possible through major advances in communication and through the consolidation and control over much of the Federal Government and over our Nation’s myriad institutions.In their discourse the Destroyers of our Nation and their toadies endlessly go on about “Democracy,” but rarely do they mention the words, ‘freedom,’ ‘constitution’ and ‘republic.’ And they never mention the phrase ‘Free Constitutional Republic,” in one breath.That phrase—‘Free Constitutional Republic’—is an apt descriptor of our form of Government, and our Free Constitutional Republic has served us well since its founding. Because of it, we have become, in the space of fewer than two hundred years, the most powerful, successful, and wealthiest Nation on Earth—the envy of all other nations, where previous generations came legally to live the “American dream.”But the forces that crush people and nations are many and they are powerful, wealthy, and ruthless, and they are jealous of both the power of our Country, the resilience of its people, and the strength of our natural law rights, and our belief in the Divine Creator—ultimate sovereign over people and government. These forces intend to rend us from these beliefs and crush us.These wreckers of our Nation intend to plunder our Nation’s mineral resources and in the interim make those resources unavailable to the American people. And as they have taken control over the Federal Government’s military, police, intelligence, and judicial apparatuses, they have turned those engines of Government against the American people, as Americans are now beginning to learn.And what these wreckers of our Nation find either unsuitable to or antithetical to their needs, wants, and objectives, they have marked them as Detritus, and have consigned those items—both tangible and intangible—to the Trash Heap.And we all know what those items are:

• The Nation’s Constitution;
• The Idea and Fact of the Sovereignty of the American People over Government
• The Nation’s Natural Law Rights, Codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights;
• The Dismantling of the Nation’s Institutions, History, Heritage, and Culture;
• The Destruction of the Nation’s Emblems and Symbols, and Arts and Artifacts;
• The Erasing of the Nation’s Ethos, Ethics, and Christian Morality;
• The Erosion of the Importance of the Family in American Society;
• Transitioning Americans away from Reliance on Self to Dependency on Government;
• Promoting the Precepts of Collectivism; Denigrating the Precepts of Individualism;
• Infusing Americans with a Conformist Mindset;
• Acclimating Americans to Conditions of Poverty and Minimal Expectations; and
• Dissolution of Concepts such as ‘Nation-State,’ ‘Citizen,’ and ‘Patriotism.’

Many if not most Americans know, if they had heretofore any doubt, that the Nation has undergone a not-so-quiet coup d’état, centered on the Executive Branch of Government, with the investiture of the Grand Harlequin, Joe Biden, inhabiting the Executive Suite of Government. This dementia-ridden, brain-addled, corrupt, and compliant fool serves as a placeholder for the real rulers of the Country: shadowy, sinister, powerful,  ruthless elements bent on the Nation’s ruination. This fool, Joe Biden, who pretends to be the decider of American policy is the disturbing, disgusting public face of America—no more than a messenger boy through whom the dictates of the real rulers of our Country flow. The sinister forces that dictate their destructive policies to this toady in Government must derive a bit of smug satisfaction in that. As they destroy the Nation, they are at one and the same time able to shame it and mock it, as well. This explains why much of the Press and social media on behalf of the Government are more than insistent on getting the American citizenry to accept as legitimate, the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. They are frantic that Americans accept the simplistic narrative they have spun—fervently silencing, denouncing, and discrediting anyone who happens to offer an alternate view, brooking no voice to the contrary but offering no response to a reasonable query.Our Republic is hanging on by a thread.Strength of Will and Dint of Arms is what we have left. Let they be enough, and may we hold fast to both in these trying, dangerous times!___________________________________Copyright © 2022 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.

NEWS ALERT AND CALL FOR ACTION: ALL NEW YORK GUN OWNERS

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

MULTISERIES

SUPPLEMENTAL

NEWS ALERT AND CALL TO ACTION FOR ALL NEW YORK PRESENT HOLDERS OF VALID CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY LICENSES AND APPLICANTS:

YOUR NATURAL LAW RIGHT OF ARMED SELF-DEFENSE IS AT RISK

Effective September 4, 2022, all New York State Gun licensees and prospective Licensees are subject to changes in the Gun Law, NY CLS Penal § 400.00.BEWARE and BE AWARE of these changes and what they mean to you as a gun owner in New York!

THE CHANGES TO THE GUN LAW ARE SUBSTANTIAL IN NUMBER, BROAD IN SCOPE, AND ELABORATE IN DETAIL

These changes affect not only the Gun Law but related laws running throughout the New York Penal Code and they are all tied together in an intricate, inextricable knot.The impact of these laws on your right to armed self-defense is both immediate and dire.The New York Government wasted no time in getting the changes to New York’s Gun Law enacted for fast implementation.CONSIDER——The U.S. Supreme Court officially released the Bruen decision on June 23, 2022.New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the amendments to the Gun law into law on the same day the Legislature passed them, July 1, 2022.Yet not two weeks had elapsed between the official release of Bruen and the enactment of changes to the Gun Law.It is quite a remarkable feat by the New York Government in such a short period; too remarkable to be believed, given the breadth and complexity of the amendments to the Gun Law, the speed at which the work was completed, voted on, passed by the State Senate, and signed into law by the Governor.Hochul must have had substantial advanced notice of the decision, after the oral argument in November 2021, when the Justices were working on their draft opinions.With ample time available to them, a host of Anti-Second Amendment forces, including attorneys, political consultants, and Executive Branch and Legislative staff working for Kathy Hochul and the State Legislators in Albany, must have worked fervently in concert.They had time enough to concoct a scheme to circumvent the Court’s carefully drawn rulings, protecting the core of New York’s Gun Law, in effect since 1911, and all the while pretending to comply with the High Court’s rulings.The amendments to the Gun Law, that the Government devised, are as ingenious as they are diabolical.The amendments collectively, are titled, the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”).ASK YOURSELF——Is the word, ‘IMPROVEMENT,’ as it appears in the CCIA, truly an improvement on New York’s Gun Law? It is surely an odd choice of verbiage.The term ‘improvement’ suggests advances to the Gun Law that operate to benefit someone or something.In what way is the CCIA an improvement over the prior Gun Law and who do they benefit and whose interests does the CCIA truly serve?The short answer to that is this——It certainly doesn’t improve the plight of those seeking to get, for the first time, a New York concealed handgun carry license; nor does the CCIA benefit those who hold a valid concealed handgun license and who seek to renew that license when the license is due for renewal.If it is you who intends to apply for the first time or who already holds a valid license to carry a handgun, the CCIA doesn’t enhance your chances of securing a license. Or, if you hold a license, it doesn’t enhance your ability to exercise your Second Amendment natural law right of armed self-defense outside the home. Rather, it serves the New York Government’s interests to ensure that your chances of securing a handgun carry license for the first time are no greater than they were before the enactment of the CCIA and, in fact, worse. And all handgun carry licenses now operate as “restricted”, not “unrestricted” carry licenses.The term ‘improvement,’ as it appears in the CCIA, is slippery and evasive; deliberately so.The Government doesn’t want average, law-abiding, responsible civilian citizens to carry handguns in public for self-defense, and never did. And the CCIA makes getting a license as difficult as ever. For the few licenses that the licensing authority issues, there are severe constraints on using a handgun for self-defense—much more so than in the past.The CCIA, no less than its progenitor, the original Sullivan Act, that mandated gun licensing well over a century ago, in 1911, places obstacles in the path of anyone who desires to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, especially those who desire to carry a handgun for self-defense in the public arena.The CCIA is the product of Anti-Second Amendment zealots and fanatics. The Bruen rulings mean nothing to them.How bad is the CCIA? It is worse than you can imagine. It all boils down to this:If you believe the New York State Government enacted the CCIA to comply with U.S. Supreme Court rulings in NYSRPA vs. Bruen, you are sorely mistaken. It doesn’t!If you believe the CCIA now makes it easier for you to get an unrestricted New York concealed handgun carry license because the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s “proper cause” Gun Law requirement, you are naïve. It won’t!And if you are one of the few seemingly lucky ones to gain a valid concealed handgun carry license, don’t think you can thereupon use your handgun for self-defense outside the home. A careful analysis of the law shows that you can’t! The CCIA renders a concealed handgun carry license essentially useless.The State Legislature in Albany that passed the CCIA and New York Governor Kathy Hochul who signed it into law have hoodwinked the public into believing a concealed handgun carry license is now much more than it is when, in fact, it is much less than it ever was.There are steps we can take to compel Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature to comply with Bruen.The Arbalest Quarrel has contacted exceptional attorneys; specialists on the Second Amendment and experts on New York Gun laws, who stand ready to sue in Federal District Court to compel the New York Government to comply with the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.You can help us compel Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature to adhere to the Supreme Court rulings in Bruen.To get the ball rolling, two things need to occur—ONE: The lawsuit requires funding.Even a few dollars contributions will help. Please contact Ammoland Shooting Sports News. We will coordinate efforts with them.TWO: We need at least one individual who presently holds a valid New York concealed handgun carry license, or who intends shortly to apply for one, in whose name the attorneys will sue the New York Government, specifically, the New York Police Superintendent, Kevin P. Bruen, in federal District Court. Since the dunderheads in the New York Government, Kathy Hochul, and the Democrat Party-Controlled Legislators in Albany failed to heed the U.S. Supreme Court in NYSRPA vs. Bruen, it is necessary to take further Federal Court action against them. We won't go away.Americans must stop Governor Kathy Hochul’s abominable attack on the Second Amendment.Hochul and other Anti-Second Amendment zealots think they are untouchable and indestructible. They aren't, but they act as if they are.They think they can continue to trash the U.S. Constitution, deny Americans their natural law right of armed self-defense, and treat American citizens like wayward children whom they can boss around as they wish. They can't unless we let them. Their actions are morally reprehensible and legally indefensible.Kathy Hochul is wrong, and the Legislature in Albany is wrong. It is our natural law rights that are immutable, untouchable, and indestructible. Governor Hochul and the Legislature in Albany aren’t. Their actions are morally and legally The American citizenry is sovereign over Nation and Government, not Government officials and legislators. But Anti-Second Amendment people wish to turn this around. And they will do so if the armed citizenry ceases to exist.This is a battle we cannot afford to lose. But it will take money, energy, time, and fortitude to turn things around.Nothing is more sacred to nor more central to the preservation of our Republic than the right of the people to keep and bear arms. And nothing is worth more preserving than the right of the people to keep and bear arms: for ourselves; for our children; and for the memory of those who fought and died to defend our Great Nation—going back to the American Revolution.The U.S. Supreme Court has given the American people ammunition with its rulings in Heller, McDonald, and now Bruen. But the greater effort rests on the American citizenry itself to use the ammunition the High Court has given us.Anti-Second Amendment forces have acted with impunity against the Constitution, the High Court, and the American people, and they will continue to do so until we have lost everything of value: our Country, our Constitution, our sacred rights and liberties—unless we make clear to them they cannot get away with this.Now is not the time to sit back in our chairs, idly. We must meet these destructive forces head-on. To hesitate is to capitulate. And to capitulate is to lose everything.Once lost, our Country, Constitution, and natural law rights are gone forever.We are all in this together. We must all do our active part. And all of us need to help each other in this gargantuan effort. No other endeavor is more important.Please help us preserve our most sacred right of armed self-defense against predatory men and predatory Government.At the very least, if you are a citizen living in New York, please be sure to cast your vote for Lee Zeldin for Governor of New York, in the upcoming November Midterm elections. And please contact Zeldin's campaign, telling him he must be forceful in addressing Hochul's virulent attack on the Second Amendment and on the failure of her Administration to tackle the crime problem and the faulty, criminal justice system in New York City. To let lunatics and psychopaths run amok in New York, terrorizing innocent citizens at random, and at the same time curtailing a citizen's right to armed self-defense, in clear defiance of U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Bruen, is abhorrent to the conscience. No sane person would allow this. And yet, Democrats have such a stranglehold on New York, that insanity reigns in the City and the State. This has to stop!  If you have questions for AQ regarding this alert, we will be happy to answer them and will do so expeditiously. Please forward your queries to Ammoland in the care of AQ.In future segments, AQ will explain specifically how New York’s CCIA impairs the Second Amendment and conflicts with the Bruen rulings.The CCIA is venomous, and in ways you cannot imagine. It enrages us. It will enrage you, too.We have analyzed much of Bruen already and laid out our analysis for you in the last several articles posted here on the Arbalest Quarrel. And Ammoland Shooting Sports News has kindly reposted much of our work. But there is more in the U.S. Supreme Court Bruen case and in New York's response to it we must still work through, and much work is, at the moment, in various stages of completion. We will continue to provide you with our analysis in forthcoming articles, published right here on AQ, and in Ammoland.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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

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

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

MULTISERIES

PART TWELVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

NYSRPA vs. BRUEN: DECISION ON THE MERITS UNAVOIDABLE

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

A SCHEME IS HATCHED!

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

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

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

NEW YORK CITY MAYOR ERIC ADAMS’ “BLUEPRINT TO END GUN VIOLENCE” IS A HOAX

MULTI SERIES ON NEW YORK CITY MAYOR ERIC ADAMS

PART THREE

NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ comprehensive strategy to stem the tide of intractable criminal violence in the City will do nothing of the kind—is doing nothing of the kind. It is a hoax, plain and simple, albeit one well-planned and orchestrated. It is intended to delude the public into placing confidence in his Administration. It is designed to convince the public that the Mayor is doing something concrete to promote public safety. And that is to mean that he has a handle on violent crime. Image is everything, and Mayor Adams maintains vigorous control over that image, carefully overseeing all communications that go out to the Press. See the article in Legal Insurrection, published, on April 4, 2022, titled,  “‘Discipline of Message’: NYC Mayor Adams Wants to Approve All City's Communications.”The “Blueprint,” released with fanfare on the “Official website of the City of New York,” on January 24, 2022, creates an impression, as it was undoubtedly designed to do, that Eric Adams intends to deal head-on with the intractable crime problem—a violent crime wave that continually threatens millions of innocent people in the City, whether they reside there, work there, or are simply visiting.But, how well is this “Blueprint to End Gun Violence” working out? Not so well, it turns out. And that fact is difficult to hide, much as Mayor Adams would like to hide it, regardless of the clampdown on communications from the Mayor’s Office.Even the Radical Left, which supports the Mayor, realizes this and is vocal about it. See MSN.com which cites an article appearing on the website, Slate. The progressive left website, Slate, harbors no illusion about the inherent deficiencies of the Mayor’s “Blueprint,” and expressly asserts its belief about it, referring to the Mayor's plan as a “Trojan Horse.”Be that as it may, “Slate’s” disagreement with Adams’ “Blueprint” has nothing to do with overt concern over incessant crime in the City. Rather, Slate expresses displeasure at the prospect of the Mayor's plan targeting the perpetrators of it, the majority of whom happen to be “non-white” people.Slate posits the plan as racist and, and expresses its indignation and disdain over the implementation, implying that the presence of violent, horrific crime in New York City is preferable to the measures the Mayor intends to invoke to contain it.And violent crime does continue to spiral out of control, as reported on Fox News, on March 2. 2022.See also the article in law enforcement today, posted on April 9, 2022.So, with pushback on Adams’ “Blueprint” coming from polar opposite corners, one wonders if there is a solution to the problem of intractable crime at all.There is a solution, of course. But it’s a solution this Mayor, no less than the previous one, refuses to countenance. For, the perfect solution to incessant, violent crime in the City is one that both Adams, and his predecessor, de Blasio, consider more problematic than runaway horrific violence.And we all know what that solution is: It’s “the armed citizen.”If Eric Adams truly wished to deal effectively with the intractable violent crime problem in the City, he would revise the City’s politically motivated handgun licensing Rules that, on any serious reflection, are absurd. He would have to do this if he were serious about combatting violent crime. And, he doesn’t have to wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to make that decision for him through the Bruen case.But that isn’t a tack that Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul, no less than their predecessors, Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo would ever consider—not in their wildest dreams.In fact, these people have spent considerable time hobbling the average citizens’ access to the most effective means of ensuring their defense against violent crime. Of course, the criminals and lunatics know this too. And that goes far to explain how it is and why it is violent crime in New York continues to increase exponentially. Criminals and lunatics know that it is more likely than not that their targets won’t be armed and therefore need not fear their would-be victims turning the tables on them.From his latest comments, Mayor Adams' posture on the armed civilian citizen is clear enough. And that posture explains why he doesn't refer to armed self-defense at all as a means to deal a blow to violent crime. For, the mainstay of Mayor Adams' approach to curtailing violent crimes involves ramping up police efforts to curb crime. See the recent article in the progressive website Politico published on April 3, 2022.Also see the transcript of April 3, 2022, Face the Nation interview of Eric Adams, and the article in Bearing Arms.Eric Adams refers to himself as the new “face of the Democratic Party,” as reported in the New York Post. But, on reflection, his isn't really a new face at all. It is simply a new mask worn over an old face.It is clear enough, from prior remarks he made, that Mayor Adams is an avid supporter of stringent gun licensing in New York, no less so than the new New York Governor, Kathy Hochul. See February 4, 2021 article in St. Andrews Law Review:“Public officials fear any outcome that curtails their ability to regulate firearms. New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that restricting the state’s ability to regulate weapons will simply instigate violence. Governor Kathy Hochul echoed Adams’ sentiments in similar remarks.” And Arizona State University Crime and Justice News reported this, on Eric Adams' stance on firearms’ licensing, apropos of the Bruen ruling:“The ruling is expected to come down after Eric Adams replaces de Blasio as mayor. Adams, who emphasized public safety as key to the city's recovery during his campaign, said that limiting the state's ability to regulate firearms ‘is a recipe for disaster.’”Thus, Mayor Adams dismisses out-of-hand the most effective means at his disposal. For it is the armed citizen who can, in the final analysis, play an important role in combatting intractable, violent crime in the City.Adams sees, albeit erroneously, the armed citizen as likely aggravating a volatile criminal situation in the City rather than lessening violence. So if New York City is to see any change to the concealed handgun carry licensing Rules, such change will have to come from the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court itself.See the article in The Ticker:“New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Mayor-elect Eric Adams have concerns over this case, primarily from a public safety viewpoint.While safety is certainly a factor that can be used to determine which specific, sensitive public places can prohibit firearms, such as libraries, it cannot be used to serve as a prior restraint to prevent people from being able to defend themselves with firearms outside of their home completely.By the end of the arguments, most of the justices appeared likely to strike down or limit New York’s law.If the court correctly rules in favor of the petitioners, New York could be forced to rewrite its law to allow more citizens to carry firearms in public for self-defense, with clearer criteria and less discretionary hurdles.In addition, New York could become a ‘shall issue’ state, which would compel licensing officers to approve applications if they meet objectively set state requirements, such as meeting the minimum age and having no felony criminal activity.While some advocates will argue that allowing more citizens to carry firearms in public for self-defense will lead to an increase in uncontrolled gun violence, the result would be the opposite.Allowing more good citizens to legally carry guns will lead to more deterrence and a higher likelihood that they will be able to successfully defend their families and themselves against criminals.New York is one of the most restrictive states when it comes to allowing citizens to legally have firearms, yet it declared a statewide gun violence emergency in July ignoring the fact that most of the gun violence is a direct consequence of illegal, not legal, firearms.Most states, both liberal and conservative states included, adopted a ‘shall issue’ system in recent decades, yet they have less violence than in New York.”Also see the article in the Free Republic.New York as with several other jurisdictions around the Country gives great latitude to handgun licensing officials to make the decision whether to issue an unrestricted handgun carry license to the applicant, or not. Yet, it is the States with the most restrictive gun licensing that are plagued by violent crime. You would think that Cities like New York would consider relaxing the rules on the issuance of concealed handgun carry licenses, since nothing else, historically and to date works, effectively to deter violent crime. Yet, nothing is done. Go figure.The governing principle of these jurisdictions—that uniformly abhor the notion of the armed citizen who takes responsibility for his or her personal defense—is the “may issue/proper cause” standard to carry a handgun, concealed. That standard, as applied in New York City, is up for review at the U.S. Supreme Court. And a decision is anticipated in early Summer 2022.How will the U.S. Supreme Court rule in Bruen? It is expected that the Court will rule the NYPD standards for determining the propriety of issuing a concealed handgun carry license to be unconstitutional both as constructed and as applied.To be sure, the entire “may issue” structure for issuing a concealed handgun license in any jurisdiction around the Country is misguided from the get-go because the standards created whatever they may be, are inherently subjective as applied. The entire “may issue” structure is unsound and anathema to the fundamental, unalienable natural law right codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.The very constitutionality of “may issue/proper cause” was at the heart of the Bruen case, pushing well beyond the borders of New York City and New York State, as the issue was promulgated in Plaintiffs Brief to the Court.But Chief Justice John Roberts narrowed the focus of Bruen, thereby forcing the Justices to consider only the constitutionality of the City’s concealed handgun carry Rules. The salient issue of whether “may issue” infringes the core of the Second Amendment is not up for review.By doing this, the issue, as framed for review, takes as a given that “may issue” is sound and valid but that the City’s Rules regarding “may issue” might not be.It will be interesting to see what Justices Thomas and Alito do with this. Consistent with their opinions in the seminal Second Amendment cases, Heller and McDonald, Justices Thomas and Alito may well view the entirety of “may issue/proper cause schemes unconstitutional, notwithstanding the deformation of the issue by Chief Justice Roberts. In that event, their opinions would be relegated to concurrences; not majority rulings, and other “may issue/proper cause” jurisdictions can rest easy that their own draconian handgun carry licensing rules remain untouched by Bruen. This, no doubt, is what Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court had in mind; had certainly intended to do to soften what otherwise would seem to augur yet another landmark Second Amendment case decision.If a handgun licensing scheme is to be retained in New York City at all, it should be simplified, made straightforward, and applied fairly to all applicants. In particular, concealed carry provisions should address the needs of the average law-abiding, responsible citizens who do business in the City and/or reside there. And provision should be made for those law-abiding, responsible citizens who happen to visit the City.The present New York City handgun licensing scheme is deficient on any rational measure. And it isn’t applied in a fair and impartial manner.And woe to any person from another jurisdiction who brings a handgun into the City, and is found possessing a handgun, sans a valid unrestricted handgun carry license issued by the NYPD Licensing Division. At the moment it is that person, and not the gun-wielding rabid lunatic, psychopathic gangbanger, or garden-variety common criminal who will suffer the greatest wrath from the City’s criminal justice system.It has always been thus. And that fact isn’t going to change soon, regardless of the enormity and severity of crime in the City. See the article posted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News, published, August 6, 2015, titled, “Who’s Packing In New York City?” But, even if the Bruen Court strikes down, or otherwise places stringent curbs on the inordinate discretion presently extended to the NYPD Licensing Division in prosecuting applications for concealed handgun carry licenses, it is another question entirely—and a pertinent one—whether the Mayor’s Office will abide by that High Court decision. And that is worrisome.Consider——Back in November 2021, Mayor-Elect Eric Adams specifically addressed Bruen, on MSNBC News, when questioned by the host, Andrea Mitchell:“‘The concealed weapon ruling that’s going to come about is extremely challenging for us,’ says Adams. ‘This is different from a rural county somewhere. And this could have a major impact on our ability to keep our city safe, but we will adjust.’”So, there you have it! In an act of sly casuistry, rather than clarity, the Mayor says, “we will adjust.” He doesn’t say, “we will comply with the rulings of the Court.”  The Mayor's choice of words is telling. For he would rather suffer continuing waves of violent crime than acquiesce to the Constitutional right of all citizens to bear a handgun outside the home or outside their place of business, for their own defense.Even with a U.S. Supreme Court directive that might strike down the entire licensing structure of New York City, the Mayor of New York City and the Governor of the State will—by dictate of the Neoliberal Globalists and Globalist Marxist forces that secretly control them—fanatically resist the reversal of over a century of ever-growing unconstitutional restrictions on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. And we know whereof we speak, based on past practices.We have seen how State, local, and county governments, along with lower Courts have—have, through the last decade—blatantly, arrogantly, and contemptuously dismissed out-of-hand clear and explicit rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court in the seminal Heller and McDonald cases.Can one reasonably expect that the State of New York and its major metropolitan area, New York City, will do an immediate and abrupt about-face toward concealed handgun carry when Bruen, as the third seminal Second Amendment case, comes down the pike with further explicit rulings? Sadly, we have to say: Not likely! The State and City will come up with dubious schemes to avoid taking any action that would do harm to a handgun licensing structure that has been in place for over 110 years.New York City residents should not expect the Mayor to reform the City’s draconian handgun licensing Rules even with clear, categorical rulings from the High Court.Mayor Eric Adams is of the same mindset and holds to the same alien ideology as both his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, and the Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, and boasts the same sympathies of myriads of other Federal, State, and local government flunkies.It would be naïve to think Eric Adams is cut from a different cloth. The secretive powerful interests behind his election are the same as those who thrust de Blasio into Office. These powerful, malevolent interests have made certain that the toadies they place into Office share the same worldview, and that worldview is not amenable to the preservation of a free Constitutional Republic.These forces are intent on replacing a free Republic, and a sovereign people, with an entirely new and ambitious, political, social, economic, financial, juridical, and multicultural construct. It is a paradigm antithetical to the needs and desires and fundamental rights of the American people. This new paradigm or framework goes by many names: “the international order;” “the new world order;” “the global democratic liberal world order;” Kissinger’s “world order,” the “neo-feudal world order,” “liberal internationalism,” and, the “Soros/Open Society.” But, by whatever name, the demise of the United States as a truly sovereign, independent Nation-State, along with the demise of the American citizenry as sole sovereign of their Government and the demise of the very concept of ‘citizen’ are the end goals.To accomplish these ends, the forces that crush are hell-bent on shattering the will, psyche, reasoning capacity, and sanity of the American people.To that end, violent societal upheaval is not to be contained or constrained, but to be encouraged.Americans have in the last few years witnessed violent societal upheaval. They see many of their political leaders embracing, enhancing, aggravating upheaval without care for the horror and misery inflicted on innocent individuals.We have seen this “Democrat Party” tolerating, even coaxing, and encouraging BLM and ANTIFA riots in the Summer of 2020 and the rioting continues today. See, e.g., articles in the Washington Examiner, and The Frontier Post.The vigorous, violent, outrageous assault on the U.S. Constitution and on the American citizenry by the ruthless, powerful, inordinately wealthy, and well-connected forces that crush is plain:

• Conceptualization and Implementation of a coordinated FBI hit job on ordinary American citizens who have justifiably sought a serious, comprehensive investigation of and serious accounting of those shenanigans and machinations involving the 2020 election that improbably ensconced, as titular head of the Executive Branch of Government, an obviously corrupt, emotionally and physically weak, and dementia-ridden shell of a man;

• Outrageous DOJ Persecution of “militia” members and Castigation and Remonstrations against average American parents who simply wish to exercise their fundamental rights of free speech and free association without fear of governmental backlash, interference, and reprisals for harboring ideas and beliefs inconsistent with that of the Administration;

• Endangering the Sanctity and Inviolability of the American Citizenry by unlawfully and brazenly secreting into the Nation hordes of illegal aliens from around the world, including violent criminals—literally millions of them;

• Massive Social Engineering Programs and Social and Psychic Conditioning and Indoctrination of the entire American citizenry: including Adults, Youth, and Children;

• Deliberate Actions aimed at Demoralizing and Weakening the Military and Community Police apparatuses of the Nation;

• Placement of scores of defective, incompetent, easily, malleable people in the highest levels of Government to assist in the dismantling of a free Constitutional Republic

• Consolidation of all the Apparatuses of Government by which the dismantling of a free Constitutional Republic can proceed at a record pace, unconstrained, from within.

And the public is expected to do nothing to prevent the coopting of their Country, but simply acquiesce, sit still, and moronically enjoy the hayride to oblivion. And, for those Americans who refuse to submit, who know what is in store for them and their Country, and who refuse to be mesmerized by the claptrap incessantly spread through the airwaves, legacy newspapers, and the internet, they can expect to be unceremoniously crushed beneath the wheels of the hay wagon.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved

NOTHING IS MORE CONSEQUENTIAL TO THE PRESERVATION OF OUR NATION AND THE WORLD THAN IMMEDIATE DE-ESCALATION OF TENSION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES/NATO AND RUSSIA!

In the midst of the present crisis in Europe, some Americans do retain perspective.We, at the Arbalest Quarrel, a website started in 2014 to cut through the chatter, fluff, hyperbole, outright nonsense, and disingenuousness of the usual news coverage and of news commentary, see well that the present conflict between Russia and Ukraine didn’t start yesterday, but can be traced to many upheavals in the past: some quite recent, going back to 2014; some earlier, to the first years of the 21^st Century; others going back thirty years, to the early 1990s; and some going back much further in time; a century ago, to the period of the first world war.A couple of things about Russia and Ukraine are clear:

• Ukraine is a region that has always suffered political and social convulsions; and
• Russia’s ties to and interests in Ukraine have been ever apparent, always unbroken, profoundly earnest and acute, and inherently inextricable.

Russia’s incursion into Crimea in 2014, and more recently a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, is the direct result of conscious decisions of political leaders in Ukraine and Brussels, and of the United States as well.Those decisions resulted in a sequence of events, some planned for and anticipated; others not.Mishaps arose from those decisions; some not envisioned perhaps, but, as they materialized, definitely not wanted.The oratory of politicians, echoed in many major news organs of late, casts the present conflict, as it casts all conflicts, in overly simplistic, deceptive Manichean terms: A battle between good and evil.Unfortunately, many Americans fall prey to Manichaeism, having been psychologically conditioned to do so.Through seductive messaging, selective dissemination of information, and carefully crafted and tempered narratives, many Americans acquiesce to policies that have a deep, negative, long-term effect on their lives, and, by extension, on the lives of the rest of us who are not so easily prone to psychic manipulation.This is nothing new. Many members of the public have previously succumbed to such deceptive messaging of Government leaders and its echo chamber: the legacy Press.Consider America’s misadventure in the Middle East.The consequences of the U.S.-Mideast conflict, at once familiar and disturbing, were predictable: destabilization of the region; disruption, displacement, and senseless loss of civilian life and of the life of our soldiers; the squandering of the Nation’s wealth and resources; not insignificant economic harm; and attendant weakening of our own national security.The same inevitability of outcomes due to geopolitical machinations of Brussels and the United States is apparent in the current situation in Ukraine.The Press bombards the public daily with talk and imagery of the brutishness of Vladimir Putin; of the valor of Volodymyr Zelensky; of the heroic struggle of the Ukrainian people against the onslaught of Russian military; and of the coming oppression of the Ukrainian people under Putin/Russian rule.But little if any mention is made of the political interests of and plight of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, who represent a substantial minority of the population. And no mention is made of political and social upheaval that has plagued Ukraine in the last twenty or thirty years, or of Russia’s close political ties to the Country during that same period, and well before.And there is no mention of Brussel’s own expansionism eastward and of the concomitant impact on Putin’s expansionist impulses westward, driven in part no doubt by not unreasonable concerns over attenuation of Russia’s territorial security interests.Yet, the Biden Administration and the Press analogize this conflict simplistically and insufferably to a schoolroom situation, describing it in sharp dualistic terms of a “bad guy,” Russia, who bullies a weak, innocent, “good guy,” Ukraine. In doing this, the Administration and the Press treat the public like kindergarteners or as outright idiots.Consider Kamala Harris explanation of the Ukrainian crisis:“So Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong.” ~ from the “Daily Wire” To whom is Harris addressing this polemic? One might reasonably wonder, ponder, and posit, and ask: “who, really, should wear the ‘dunce cap?’”Is Harris behaving deliberately condescendingly? Or, is she simply a moron, a person who has little if any comprehension and appreciation of world affairs and of European history, and discloses that fact painfully, if unintentionally?But the Press echoes the same frivolous, vacuous message; vociferously, stridently, and inelegantly, with each passing day.Because of this simplistic, silly messaging, many Americans—all too many, who do little reflection—have once again acquiesced to the seductive call: to protect Ukrainian people who yearn for democracy against an evil oppressor, Russia. That, anyway, is the message. That is what Americans are told, and it has had the desired effect.Americans inculcate the meme that Russia and Putin are evil, and that, apparently, is all they need to know about Russia. And the expression, ‘democracy,’ overused in discourse and never defined by either the Press or Government officials, has lost whatever import and purport it once had. The expression has devolved into banality.But to the matter at hand: to what end is the United States called upon to render aid to Ukraine? How far is American assistance to Ukraine, expected to go? And most importantly, how does Russia perceive the United States Government’s insertion into Ukrainian-Russian affairs and what will Russia’s response to America be?Somewhere in the American psyche, there is a justifiable wariness, despite the constant drumbeat by the Press and by some in Congress who call for more action, including military action against Russia. It is fortunate that most Americans resist that. But some people do not.At least one person, the irrepressible Lindsey Graham, a Republican U.S. Senator no less, has called for Putin’s assassination. That absurd, reprehensible remark alludes unmistakably to a call for “regime change.” And what, after all, is this thing, “regime change?” It is a bit of American Governmental argot; an utterance at once peculiar, presumptuous, loathsome, and anachronistic.  Not to be outdone by Graham, the obsequious and droll GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger has called for a U.S. enforced a no-fly zone over Ukraine. He goes on to explain that no one should worry, that this does not portend incursion of American troops in Russia. Oh, really? Is not the call for a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine a transparently blatant threat and challenge directed to Russia?If the Biden Administration were, in fact, to institute such a U.S. enforced no-fly zone in a Russian military zone of operation, i.e., Ukraine, the mere issuance of the order, whether acted upon or not, would amount to a declaration of war by the U.S. against Russia. That isn’t supposition. That is a fact.Such statements by Graham and Kinzinger are both unconscionable and moronic. How might Putin react to them, coming from members of the United States Congress?So absurd are they, one could only hope that Putin would be amused rather than enraged by them, delivered as they are by a couple of buffoons who would do well to perform where they can do no harm: in a circus, perhaps, or in an asylum for the criminally insane, but not in the halls of the U.S. Congress.Fortunately, the Biden Administration isn’t taking advice from either Graham or Kinzinger, and the Administration absolutely should not.Yet, the Biden Administration should be forceful in pointing out the need for forbearance by both members of Congress and the Press in reining in their strident calls for vengeance against Russia. The Administration has not done that. Remarks from his communications’ people to date are dry, laconic, perfunctory.Russia cannot and should not be likened to a Country in the Middle East or to one in Africa or to one in South America; nor, to any other Country in the world, apart from CCP China.Russia, like the U.S. and China, has a massive nuclear arsenal. And Putin is not one to bluff. He is prepared to use it.The present crisis is really one that should be allowed to play out between Russia and Ukraine. But America’s blatant insinuation of itself into this drama has grave ramifications and portents we should not ignore.There are two crises playing out today. One is between Russia and Ukraine. That crisis is overt—war. Everyone knows that.But there is another crisis. This other one is tacit. It is one that ought to be of much greater concern to the American people and to the world. A latent crisis between two superpowers, Russia and the U.S., is where serious tension rests. That is where the focus should be directed and concerted efforts to reduce tension should be made.CCP China, which will be venturing into Taiwan—that is a foregone conclusion—is watching closely the U.S. Government’s reaction to the present crisis unfolding in Europe. The American public, though is not; too caught up as it is, attending to irrelevant rhetorical flourishes, pontifications, fallacious moralistic polemics, and irreverent ramblings from the Press, social media, cable and broadcast news and from Congress—some involving Russia and Ukraine, and others relegated to superficial asides, boiled down to one imbecilic bromide, the new dogma of the Neo-Marxist movement in America: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”This dogma, utilized by masters of brainwashing, originated in United Nations’ pacts, treaties, and position papers, where it is found, albeit with some effort, buried here and there, in seemingly erudite but deliberately abstruse, and muddled language, to hide ignoble intentions.Codified as a single imperative, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” persistently relentlessly repeated, it is a mantra designed to rot out the brain, down to the core of one’s being; infecting every institution of America; permeating every facet and layer of American society.This mantra, a thing designed to induce a trance in every American, is also a policy directive, worming its way into every policy aim of the Biden Administration. The infusion of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” into the psyche of people, superimposed over reason and sanity, heralds an improbable and absurd world reality.How, then, can Americans be expected to think clearly? Obviously, they cannot. Indoctrination teams train them to react, not to think. To perform like trained seals, not to reason, deduce, and conceptualize as human beings.Should Americans, then, be surprised that this Nation and the world fall perilously and precipitously close to nuclear war?The failure of the American people to appreciate that the world stands at the precipice of a nuclear conflagration is disheartening and disconcerting. Of what is America to gain from vacuous, political rhetoric and pseudo-moralistic sophistry pertaining to the fate of Ukraine in the face of incipient nuclear annihilation of the planet. Some people argue that Putin will push beyond the boundaries of Ukraine. But do we know that for certain? They conceive failure to stop Putin’s advance in Ukraine is a thing to be likened to Neville Chamberlain’s lame responses to Hitler’s advances in Europe. But there were no nuclear missiles in existence back in the 1930s. What should be of concern to us, at the moment, is an appreciation of the nuclear arsenals present in Russia and the United States. And we should be mindful of Russia’s historical ties to Ukraine. Ukraine isn’t the place for either the United States or NATO to establish a red line against Russian military advancement. Russia fears justifiable containment fears by the EU, NATO, and the United States. It doesn’t want the EU or NATO on its doorstep anymore than the United States wanted or would permit the Soviet Union on its doorstep, in Cuba.The use of even one tactical nuclear bomb in Ukraine or any instance of, or perception of, direct U.S. military involvement in Ukraine against Russia on behalf of Ukraine, will lead inevitably, irrevocably to global thermonuclear war. That brute and dire fact should not be lost on anyone.Armed conflict is messy. Anything can happen. There are too many variables. Even a computer algorithm cannot catalog them all or decipher the myriad patterns at play. History tells us that war gets out of hand and messy very quickly, tactically and strategically. And, both the war and America’s conduct in it should give one pause.  On the front page of The New York Times, Sunday, March 6, 2022, a reporter writes,“President Vladimir V. Putin warned on Saturday that crippling economic sanctions imposed by the West were ‘akin to a declaration of war,’ as the Russian military pummeled civilian targets and continued shelling near the first protected routes intended to allow besieged Ukrainians to flee, apparently violating a cease-fire that had been agreed to only hours earlier.” So, here the New York Times acknowledges Russia’s warning to the U.S. and to the EU and NATO to stay clear of interfering with the conflict, but then the Times reverts to form with a rabble-rousing remark intended to incite hatred in the minds of America toward Russia, despite Putin’s clear warning.In the same article, the Times writes,“Mr. Putin, in his first extended remarks since the start of the war, threatened to fully absorb Ukraine, the former Soviet republic of nearly 44 million people that declared its independence 30 years ago.‘The current leadership needs to understand that if they continue doing what they are doing, they risk the future of Ukrainian statehood,’ he said. Mr. Putin added that Moscow would view any Western attempts to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine as ‘participating in the armed conflict’ against Russia.As Mr. Putin doubled down on his threats against Ukraine and the West, Mr. Zelensky spoke with more than 300 members of the United States Congress on Saturday. He implored them to impose a no-fly zone and to send military jets to his country, according to lawmakers on the call.”The words, “current leadership” that Putin refers to may seem vague, but definitely includes Brussel’s EU, NATO, and the U.S. Government, and it doesn’t appear that they are listening.Concurrently with the posting of the Times article, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken informs the public, as reported in the Daily Mail that,“Ukraine's government has a contingency plan in place if President Volodymyr Zelensky is killed during the Russian invasion, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed on Sunday. Zelensky survived three assassination attempts by Russian-backed groups just this week, the Times reported on Friday. During an interview with CBS News' Face the Nation on Sunday, Blinken was asked if Russian leader Vladimir Putin would face 'consequences' for Zelensky's murder?’ host Margaret Brennan added.Blinken first praised Zelensky and other Kyiv officials as ‘the embodiment of this incredibly brave Ukrainian people.'‘The Ukrainians have plans in place—that I’m not going to talk about or get into any details on—to make sure that there is what we would call ‘continuity of government’ one way or another. And let me leave it at that,’ he answered.”  Blinken’s use of the phrase, ‘continuity of government’ is mystifying and troubling in two respects.First, Blinken is hinting that the United States, EU, and NATO will not permit Putin to take control of Ukraine, even as it is eminently clear that Putin intends to do just that. So, there it is, a bright red line. The U.S./EU/NATO intends to clash head-on with Russia, over Ukraine even though Ukraine is not a member of either the EU or NATO, and notwithstanding that Ukraine is of no practical security concern for the United States and never was.Second, the expression, ‘continuity of government’ is an expression utilized by the U.S. Government in connection with imminent catastrophe, primarily, nuclear war. One official White House Government website is devoted to just that subject, with the specific heading “Continuity of Government.” In pertinent part, the website lays out that:“Since the days of the Cold War, the United States has had a plan in place to continue the operation of the government following a catastrophic attack on the nation’s capital. The 2007 ‘National Security Presidential Directive 51’ directs the geographic dispersion of leadership, staff, and infrastructure in order to maintain the functions of the United States Government in the event the nation’s capital is “decapitated” by a terrorist attack.Buried deep within the 102-page National Continuity Plan is the strategy for the mass evacuation and relocation of every federal government agency including The White House and the military in response to an exceptional catastrophic event within the National Capital Region. Each agency is required to have a detailed Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) in place.Following a catastrophic national emergency, the President, or his successor can authorize the establishment of a temporary ‘Shadow government’ to maintain control of the essential functions of the Federal Government. President Bush activated the shadow government on September 11, 2001, shortly after the second attack on the World Trade Center.Every federal agency has designated key individuals to be part of an ‘Emergency Relocation Group’. These ERGs are assigned to an alternate secure location on a rotating basis and are ready to take over the duty of supporting the National Essential Functions of this nation in an emergency.”Most unsettling, issuance of the “Continuity of Government” order includes “Supplanting the United States Constitution” and by logical implication, that means suspension of fundamental rights, including the most important natural law right of all, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”On reflection, one can see the puppetmasters, who control the Biden Administration, utilizing both the Ukraine crisis and the Freedom Convoy, making its way to D.C., as pretexts to invoke “COG” here at home. If that should occur, the American people will come to understand—must come to the realization, horrible and ugly, but indisputable as it is—that they have lost their Country; that Joe Biden is nothing more than, and never was anything more than, the titular head of a Government.This senile, abjectly corrupt “President of the United States.” He serves as a convenient placeholder and caretaker for the Nation. That is all he is and ever was: merely the custodian for a Nation that no longer belongs to the American people; a Nation no longer deemed to be a free Constitutional Republic.The western Globalists who control Brussels and NATO intend to supplant the sovereignty of the American people over the Federal Government, along with the overt de facto dissolution of the United States as an independent sovereign Nation-State. See article in unlimited hangout.“Though often discussed in relation to nuclear war or a similarly chaotic scenario, ‘Continuity of Government’ plans can be triggered even by popular, nonviolent opposition to an unpopular war abroad. It exists solely to keep the current system in place, regardless of the cost [and it includes “Main Core”] ‘A database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.’ ” Secretary of State Blinken’s use of the phrase ‘Continuity of Government’ (COG) isn’t accidental. Even as Blinken uses that phrase in connection with Ukraine, the import of his remarks implicates the United States as well, for U.S./NATO confrontation with Russia is implicit in his remarks.The similarity of the Ukrainian-Russian crisis of 2022 to the Cuban-Missile crisis of 1962 is clear and categorical and ought not to be casually dismissed or cavalierly denied.But, for that one very public and very brief episode, the world stood at the brink of nuclear annihilation. Never since have Russia, China, or the U.S. confronted each other militarily. Military confrontation and challenges were conducted obliquely through minor proxies only, and for good reason. Dire outcomes were to be avoided and they were avoided. This was understood by all three major nuclear powers.If the American Press ever juxtaposes the 1962 Cuban-missile crisis with the 2022 Ukrainian crisis, we have yet to see it, and why is that? Only Russia has done so and, although the words of Russia’s deputy foreign minister were measured, the message conveyed by those words was clear and unequivocal and clearly directed to the United States Government.“Russia’s deputy foreign minister has compared Moscow’s standoff with the West over a possible invasion of Ukraine to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tense 1962 confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union that led the world to the brink of nuclear war.Asked if he was exaggerating by comparing the Ukraine situation to the stalemate over the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba, Sergei Ryabkov said, ‘No, not too much,’ Russian media reported Monday.” ~ from the New York Post.And Vladimir Putin himself has purportedly said words to the effect that “a world without Russia would be no world at all.” The language might be cryptic. Its import is not.Whatever political, geopolitical, or economic interest the EU or the U.S. may have or think it has in Ukraine, nothing—absolutely nothing—is more consequential to the preservation of this Nation and the world than immediate de-escalation of tension between the U.S./NATO/EU and Russia.We do not see this happening, but it should; indeed, it must.If there are back channels between the U.S. Government and Russia, the public should gain some intimation of this; some assurance that the United States and Russia are in constant communication. But it is apparent the two are not. The U.S. and NATO intend to repel Russia from Ukraine. And Russia intends to press forward, claiming Ukraine as Russian territory or, at least, as a Russian-controlled region/orbit that serves as a buffer to inhibit EU expansion into Eastern Europe. Both the U.S./NATO alliance and Russia are headed on a collision course.The controlling issue in Ukraine is one of power and who controls the landmass of Ukraine.Given the stakes involved—the possibility of a nuclear conflagration—one must infer this has nothing to do with “democracy” and the sovereign independence of Ukraine. The Ukrainian people, and Zelensky, too, are nothing more than pawns. Their welfare is only a pretext for U.S./NATO/EU expansionism in the East. The two mighty powers, the U.S./NATO/EU on the one hand and Russia on the other are in a contest for control over Eastern Europe. It is anyone’s guess where CCP China stands in relation to this.Under Trump’s tutelage, it is unlikely Russia would have ventured into Ukraine. And if it had done so, Trump would have let the American public and, hence, the world know, and in no uncertain terms, that there would be no military confrontation between Russia and the U.S. over the fate of Ukraine—ever.  Trump sought to reconfirm and cement the United States standing as a true independent, sovereign Nation-State, in a world controlled by powerful, wealthy Neo-Globalist/Neo-Marxist elites whose aim is the dissolution of all western nation-states. They seek no less than the destruction of the very concept of ‘citizenship’ and of the concept of independent sovereign nation-state construct.The end goal of these secretive global “elites” is to see the establishment of a universal, transnational, multicultural, neo-feudalist corporate/financial/political/social empire, sans all geographical boundaries.Trump sought to spare the Nation from that fate. But Trump is no longer President of the United States. Powerful interests have seen to that. This Nation now has Joe Biden; a mentally weak, effete, ineffectual leader, if one can use the descriptor ‘leader’ in any meaningful sense. And the absence of Trump and the ensconcing of Biden into the Executive Branch of Government as titular head of the Nation has made all the difference. The fate of the Country is now in the hands of powerful interests who intend to destroy it.Whatever is going on behind the scenes, Joe Biden is the face of America projected to the world. And, to a lesser extent, his understudy, Kamala Harris, is also the face of America projected to the world.But what it is that is projected does not warrant respect nor engender confidence.Such things as strength, reason, stability, and integrity are sorely lacking here. And that noticeable lack justifiably frightens at least some of us and does so on many levels. It should frighten all of us._____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.  

THE UNITED STATES SHALL SURVIVE AS A FREE REPUBLIC IN THE 21ST CENTURY ONLY IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE REMAIN VIGILANT AND ARMED

PART ONE

A MESSAGE FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FOR 2022

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.” ~John Adams, from “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765”Through time immemorial all great nations and empires have had to struggle with stressors, and the United States is no different.Strong nations capably resist hostile outside influences bent on destroying them.The United States has since its inception as a free Constitutional Republic ably weathered all attempts by hostile nations and other antipathetic foreign entities that sought the Nation’s destruction. And the reason for our Nation’s uncommon ability to thwart such attacks is grounded on its exceptional strength, resilience, and fortitude.These essential qualities derive from our Nation’s philosophical, jurisprudential, political, social, and ethical underpinnings, all of which are reflected in its unique Constitution—the foundation of our Nation’s fundamental governing principles. That says much of our Country’s inherent greatness as well as its formidable power.A nation’s governing documents are, after all, the best indices of its health and vitality. A nation’s governing documents are the barometer of a modern nation-state’s ability to weather adversity and to grow ever stronger and more resilient in having overcome adversity.The United States has, since its inception, become the most powerful, resourceful Nation-State on Earth: militarily, economically, financially, technologically, and geopolitically. It has excelled on all indices of National health, well-being, and vigor. It did so through recognition that the strength of the Country ultimately derives from the strength of its citizens: a free, sovereign, independent, and armed people.Our Nation did not see an easy birth, shackled as it was to a powerful empire. Yet, against all odds, it threw off the yoke of tyranny. And it did so, not through wizardry, but through determination, selflessness, resourcefulness, an abundance of courage, firm conviction, and an indomitable will to prevail over oppression and tyranny: the armed American!Yet, the most dangerous perils to impact the continued well-being of an otherwise strong nation, such as the U.S., are those perils emanating inside its geographical boundaries, not outside them—by forces that seek to confuse, cow, frighten, and disarm the American citizenry. A new tyranny is on the rise. And this tyranny is in our midst.Countries sicken and die more often through an inability to deal effectively with attendant institutional weaknesses and treacherous machinations of heinous and loathsome elements residing within them than by antagonistic forces marshaled against them from the outside.The traps and snares that emerge within the nation itself are the most dangerous to a nation’s continued existence because these traps and snares are often masked and cloaked and, so, they go unrecognized. Remaining hidden and unseen, they remain unchallenged, until too late.Destructive forces have seeded their viral plague into our Nation centuries ago. And these forces have bided their time, for they know it takes time to destroy a strong, resilient Nation from within. And these destructive forces and influences existent within the Country supported by and in collusion with formidable forces and influences outside the Country have exhibited infinite patience.They have, through recent years and decades, and with the rapid advances in the technology and the art of social conditioning, slowly, inexorably, surreptitiously, and ever so quietly insinuated themselves into the public psyche, manipulating the thought processes of the American people—creating confusion, anxiety, fear, and a sense of profound hopelessness in the polity. Thus the Destructive forces of a free Constitutional Republic have effectively “softened” the willpower and the spirit of many Americans even as many other Americans remain resolute, able to see through the ruse, and therefore able to contain it.In the last decade of the 20^th Century and at the turn of the 21^st Century, these Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist forces—implacable, intractable foes of Americans—have been bent on transforming the whole of western civilization into a unified transnational globalist empire, sans nation-states and national borders. And they have felt confident enough in their control over Americans and, particularly, over the American psyche, to eventually merge the United States, as their ultimate prize, into their new world order scheme. And, in the first one and a half decades of the 21st Century, they have speeded up their timetable for the dissolution of the United States.Through the sinister machinations of their toadies—Clinton, Bush, and Obama—the citizenry’s ties to their history, heritage, ethos, culture, ethical foundation, and fundamental Christian grounding began to loosen, to fracture.The American belief system founded, first and foremost, on the sanctity and inviolability of the individual has through time been systematically, surreptitiously, and assiduously replaced with an altogether new and alien, fabricated and sinister, belief system.The forces that crush have concocted their false belief system to divide the American people, to prevent them from forming a durable, imperishable defense against the forces amassed against them. These malevolent forces have designed their false belief system to attack the Nation’s traditional belief structures at an elemental, subconscious level. They have designed their counterfeit belief system to engulf and destroy the core precepts, principles, and tenets of a free Republic, predicated as they are on fundamental, unalienable, God-given rights and liberties.Unseen but axiomatic, the sanctity and inviolability of the individual soul rest at the core of this Nation’s strength. The inherent and absolute sovereignty of the American people is grounded on this sacred notion of the sanctity and inviolability of the individual soul. This is the predicate basis of the citizenry's sovereignty over their Government. And the citizenry's sovereignty over Government isn't maintained by blind faith that the Federal Government will abide by the immutable authority of the American citizenry over that Federal Government, but by the fact that the citizenry is armed and will ever remain so.The citizenry’s sovereignty over Government depends on the fact that the citizenry remains armed. Under no situation or circumstance is the Government permitted lawfully to constrain, restrain, abrogate or suspend the right of the people to keep and bear arms. This is a core Truth, and the forces that seek this Nation’s destruction know this.The eternal enemies of the American people know that this core Truth is detrimental and altogether antithetical to the goal of realizing a one-world governmental regime. With cold, callous, calculated determination, these Neo-Marxist internationalists and Neoliberal Globalists have designed and have thrust into the American psyche an entirely new, alien, and fabricated belief system. This system is calibrated to undercut the core sacred Truth upon which the Country absolutely depends for its existence as a free Republic: the nobility and autonomy and sanctity and inviolability of the Individual Soul.______________________________

SEVER THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FROM THEIR OWN PAST AND THEY WILL READILY SURRENDER THEIR WITS, THEIR ARMS, THEIR SOUL

PART TWO

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ~George OrwellA goodly portion of America’s citizenry ably sees through the actions of Neo-Marxist Internationalism and Neoliberal Globalism a design to disembowel the United States. Most Americans see a diabolical design to loosen their ancestral ties and bonds to the Nation and to each other, even if some are oblivious to this,Americans see the breakdown of the family unit. They see the assault on Christianity. They see the attempt to corrupt their Soul and to weaken their faith in the Divine Creator. In 2016, Americans voted into Office a man that promised to set things aright.Not that Donald Trump is worthy of emulation for his personality, but whatever his personal character flaws and motivations, he immediately instituted changes to the Clinton/Bush/Obama Neo-Marxist/Neoliberal Globalist agenda. And that panicked the Nation’s would-be destroyers. Their agenda came to a screeching halt.They pulled out all the stops. They amassed the power of the Press and social media, academia, business and finance, and the Government itself, which they control, to waylay Trump and the tens of millions of Americans who supported the Country and who celebrate the American Revolution of 1776, each July 4^th, that this successful Revolution gave them.In one final act of desperation, in an attempt to secure the success of their own Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist Counterrevolution, these Neo-Marxist/Neoliberal Globalist forces took control over the electoral process and prevented Trump from serving a second term in Office.Through their vast stores of money, influence, organizational ability, and sheer ruthlessness, these monsters succeeded in placing a physically and emotionally effete, corrupt, compliant, decadent, indolent, and senile toady in the highest Office of the Land. Hands down, Joe Biden is the most inept and embarrassing “Chief Executive” the Nation has ever had cause to suffer.Joe Biden serves as an untended but perfect symbol of the disdain and contempt the Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist puppet-masters hold for the Nation and for its people.Biden is nothing but an errand and messenger boy, and in that he fails, as one painfully sees in his mumbling, bumbling, rambling remarks. But the puppet-masters can control him and that is what matters to them. That is all that matters to them.The puppet-masters feel confident that, with their firm control over the Government, the Press and media, business, academia, and finance, the public is powerless to demand a proper accounting; is powerless to remove this pathetic figure that belongs more properly in a nursing home but that inhabits the Oval Office.Both Biden and those other unprincipled lackeys, seeded throughout the Federal Government and through the depth and breadth of local and State Governments across the Land, are the tools upon which and through which the Neo-Marxist Internationalists and Neoliberal Globalists intend to destroy a free Constitutional Republic, merging its remains into a transnational world totalitarian empire.These malevolent forces have coerced through bribes, threats, and intimidation, many other prominent and wealthy individuals holding important positions in business, finance, industry, technology, academia, entertainment, media, and the Press, compelling them to do their bidding if they are not otherwise sympathetic to the new world order agenda. But, unfortunately, all too many of them are.But for all the duplicity and chicanery, the forces that crush may yet fail in their endeavors, and they realize this. Their concern is demonstrated through obviously desperate attempts to frighten, seduce, and deceive the American public.But why should it be so difficult for the puppet-masters to destroy our Republic?That goal is a difficult one for them to achieve because our Nation is unlike no other nation on Earth.Our Nation is grounded on governing principles derived from natural law.The framers of our Constitution recognized that the strength and resilience of the Country and its people rest, ultimately, not in the carefully structured framework of the Federal Government as set forth in the Constitution’s Articles, but rather in the American people themselves: in the firm, clear recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of the human soul.“On June 21, 1788, the Constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America when New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify.” See article in National Constitution Center. But, the foundation of a free Republic didn’t end at that point because the Constitution wasn’t complete.The defining moment for the Country came with the ratification of the Bill of Rights, on December 15, 1791. See Article in Landmark Events. The Nation’s Bill of Rights, consisting of a set of unconditional, illimitable, immutable, and eternal rights of man, are no mere collection of noble sentiments, set down into law by man.The Bill of Rights isn’t manmade law at all. This Document is a codification of Divine Law and, as such, it is understood to be beyond the power of the Federal Government to modify, amend, dismiss, rescind, suspend, abrogate, or ignore.Natural Law is fundamental, unalienable, and absolute.The Nation’s Bill of Rights serves at once as a constant reminder to the servants of Government that the American people are and always remain the one, true, sole, supreme sovereign over Government. It is an emphatic notice of that fact. The Nation’s servants—those serving in Government—serve at the pleasure of and at the behest of the American people; not the other way around.It is the American people who are and remain the masters over their own life and over their Government and over the destiny of their Nation. And the right of the people to keep and bear arms exists to ensure the American people will forever remain master and sovereign over this Government and their Dominion. Let the American people never forget that, lest they lose their Country, their Spirit, and their very Soul._____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

DEVELOPING A DOCTRINE OF TREASON IN AMERICA

MULTI-SERIES ON THE ISSUE OF POSSIBLE TREASON AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT

PART TWO

As we maintained in our first article posted on Ammoland, “Does the Biden Administration’s Assault on the Second Amendment Amount to Treason,” one should be circumspect in the application of ‘TREASON’—this so there is no mistake in our understanding of the import of it, lest we dilute its significance—attaching the dire duo labels of ‘TREASON’ and ‘TRAITOR’ to those who never warranted it, but happened nonetheless to be branded with it, and crucified for it.And we know whereof we speak: Donald Trump, and those closest to him, those who assisted him in his run for the U.S. Presidency, including Cabinet-level Officers; close friends and associates; even members of his own family have branded and crucified the 45^th U.S. President and those connected closely to him. And now with Trump out-of-office—whether the loss of a Second Term was due to a fair and disappointing election outcome, or chicanery of the highest order, those who replaced Donald Trump with a National embarrassment, in the form of a corrupt, placid, flaccid, and senile shell of a man, one, Joseph Biden, must continue with the charade.The forces that crush a Nation and its people into submission now focus their attention on one-third of the population that supported the “MAKE AMERICA GREAT” agenda that sought to reset the Nation’s course back toward the vision of the founders of the Republic.Through an orchestrated program of DEFLECTION, DISTRACTION, DIVERSION, and DIVAGATION, the Nation’s OBSTRUCTORS and DESTRUCTORS who control the legacy Press and social media draw the public’s attention away from Federal Government policies designed to dismantle the Republic in clear violation of and defiance to the U.S. Constitution and to Federal Statute and channel the public’s reasonable, rational concern to the Nation’s DISSENTERS—those Americans who seek to preserve the Nation as a free Constitutional Republic—treating true PATRIOTS as improbable TRAITORS and treating possible TRAITORS as improbable PATRIOTS. And this topsy-turvy elaborate propaganda campaign reflects the FOUNDERS gravest concerns, their most deep-seated fears.The Founders realized, over two hundred years ago that THE BEAST in MAN, such as it is, never changes, and that BEAST would eventually, inevitably bring out THE WORST in MAN. The Founders were deeply concerned that appellations of ‘TREASON,’ ‘TRAITOR,’ ‘BETRAYER,’ and ‘JUDAS’ would be misapplied not to true ENEMIES of the Nation, but to its veritable PATRIOTS, the Nation’s PROTECTORS. The Founders were well aware that unscrupulous, scurrilous, craven, usurpers of the sovereign authority of the American people would damage and disparage and bring to utter ruin the lives and character of innocent people, and do for any of multiple reasons: anger and rage; spite and jealousy, or even for no other reason than political expediency or perceived political exigency.“English treason law influenced America's founding fathers as they crafted the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, America's founders wished to develop a treason doctrine that—unlike English treason doctrine—could not be used to suppress political adversaries.” United States v. Hodges: Developments of Treason and the Role of the Jury, 97 Denver L. Rev. 117, by Jennifer Elisa Chapman, Jennifer Elisa Chapman, Ryan H. Easley Research Fellow, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.

THE STUDY OF TREASON IS THE STUDY OF HISTORY

“The study of treason is really the study of history. No other constitutional provision is as deeply rooted in English history as the Treason Clause. William Blackstone wrote that treason ‘imports a betraying, treachery, or breach of faith.’ Treason Blackstone further noted that treason against the sovereign—termed ‘high treason’—amounts to the ‘highest civil crime.’  Due to the gravity of the offense, the crime of treason must therefore be precisely ascertained. ‘For if the crime of high treason be indeterminate, this alone . . . is sufficient to make the Government degenerate into arbitrary power.’“Treason is the highest crime known to law. It is more serious than even murder: the murderer violates a single person or at most only a few, whereas treason cuts at the welfare and safety of all members of society. And the punishment for treason has always underscored the gravity of the offense.“The delegates to the Constitutional Convention faced a significant dilemma when they met to frame a new system of government. On one hand, the new republic would not last if the government could not demand the loyalty of its citizens; on the other hand, history had shown that broad treason laws led to the suppression of political opposition and free speech. English experience had also shown that leaving the definition of treason to judges left the law open to abuse through ‘constructive treason.’ The Framers therefore took upon themselves the difficult task of fashioning a law that would protect the newly formed government from disloyalty and betrayal, while simultaneously preserving the right of political dissent.” State Treason: The History and Validity of Treason Against Individual States,” 101 Ky. L.J. 281, 2012/2013, by J. Taylor McConkie, Brigham Young University, B.A.; Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. Trial Attorney, United States Department of Justice, Civil Division.The Founders were deeply concerned about the misuse of treason by a rogue Government that would use “TREASON” for unlawful, nefarious purposes.“The Framers’ intent for including the Treason Clause within the Constitution was to immortalize the definition thus preventing a rogue legislature from creating what James Madison called ‘newfangled and artificial’ treasons These judge-made expansions of the common law definition of treason more commonly called ‘constructive treasons were made in order to cover conduct that had never before been known as treasonous. This was a common practice in England and is what prompted the passage of the Statute of Edward III in order to control the definition of treason by the legislature instead of the courts. “Another major concern was that the state could use an undefined definition of treason to punish political dissidents or people who opposed the sovereign’s policies. Based on the freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful political expression, later memorialized in the First Amendment, it was important to limit the definition of treason to only levying war and adhering to enemies of the United States by providing aid and comfort to them.’” “The Revival Of Treason: Why Homegrown Terrorists Should Be Tried As Traitors, 4 Nat'l Sec. L.J. 311, Spring/ Summer, 2016, by Jameson A. Goodell, George Mason University School of Law, Juris Doctor Candidate, May 2017; Virginia Military Institute, B.A., International Studies & Arabic Language and Culture, 2014.It is the purpose of these Arbalest Quarrel articles on the subject of “TREASON” to lay all this out for the reader.For, if there be TREASON in our midst, we must recognize the legal contours and parameters of it in the manner the founders of our Republic intended for it to be used, as elucidated further in case law. Thus, before we apply it, we must be reasonably sure of our case against those we deem to have committed it. And, once assured of the efficacy of our case, proceed forward aggressively forward, to bring those charged with treason to account for their treacherous actions against the Nation and its people.Let us be clear. It is not enough to say, for example, that such individuals in Government that have committed treason should simply resign from their posts or should, if they refuse to resign, then be fired.Several media pundits deplore the actions of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin; White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan; General Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Director of Strategic Plans and Policy on the Joint Staff. And, these media pundits have voiced, vociferously, their anger over the manner in which these individuals handled the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan—a complete debacle. Biden, for his part, not unsurprisingly, stated his support for General Milley and others. Some media pundits in the last couple of days, on Fox News, at least, have even made reference to “treason.” See, e.g., a recent episode on Tucker Carlson. But that is as far as any of the media pundits have, to date, gone and that is, apparently, as far as any of them are will to go. None of them has suggested impeachment of any of Biden's people except, perhaps, in a couple of instances pertaining to Biden, himself, and, even so, no one in the Fox Press Corps, or in any other media organization, that we are aware of, has suggested that Biden himself should be impeached specifically for the crime of “Treason.” And, we can appreciate the circumspection of the Press on that score. For unless a person can articulate the legal basis for impeachment on a charge of treason of Biden, or of impeachment or General Court Martial on a charge of treason of any one else in Biden's Administration, it behooves a person to be very mindful of and careful of what he or she is asserting. Nonetheless, what has taken place in Afghanistan under Biden’s watch, and the many devastating, deadly, horrific repercussions from that debacle which are just beginning to play out in Afghanistan and here in the U.S. and that are having a ripple effect around the globe, cannot be simply wallpapered over through mere resignations or firings of Biden officials even if Biden were to do so.Our adversaries in China, Russia, and Iran as well as our allies have taken due notice of the extent to which this weak-willed, corrupt, compromised, physically ill, and mentally debilitated “U.S. President” has given up all pretense of ability to lead a great Nation. Joe Biden has shown that he has no authority—bullied and pushed this way and that, this Country is going Hell in a Handbasket and taking the rest of the world down with it. In fact, the ineptitude and incompetence of Joe Biden and his Administration—from the instant Biden took Office up to the present moment in time—is so acute and so extensive, that one must wonder if the policy decisions made by Biden or by a secret cabal, operating behind the scenes, can simply be chalked up to a cascading series of unfortunate missteps, a set of deeply unfortunate circumstances and puzzling misadventures that the Harris-Biden Administration could not have reasonably made proper allowances for or contingency plans for because the events that unfolded simply could not have been reasonably foreseen, even as flagrant as those missteps seem to be and even as one remains deeply puzzled that Joe Biden is seen complimenting his advisors for doing a great job. Is he kidding?Anyway, that is one explanation one might conjure up for the disasters confronting our Nation on multiple fronts—disasters that are affecting many countries and that will eventually engulf the entire world. But there is another explanation. It is this:Americans are witnessing precisely what was meant to happen, is meant to happen, a meticulously contrived, calculated, calibrated, and executed series of scenes and acts of a monstrous Shakespearian Play. Be it comedy or tragedy depends on one’s perspective. But it is all preplanned, and prearranged, carried out sequentially, having commenced with a flurry of executive orders and actions designed to unravel the order and stability Trump had brought for our Nation, and, by extension, this order and stability that Trump had brought for the world.The goal of this elaborate, extravagant, carefully choreographed performance that is now unfolding under the auspices of the Harris-Biden Administration is meant to undermine the most powerful, successful, and prosperous Nation on Earth. And with the destruction of the United States as a preeminent world power and stable influence for the world, a whirlwind would materialize to destabilize the entire world and thereby pave the way for a new “INTERNATIONAL WORLD ORDER” that powerful functionaries here and around the world are intimating; a new world order that the late U.S. Senator John McCain happened to mention (see article in the Independent Sentinel, published March 26, 2017) and that the illustrious statesman and regular Bilderberg Group attendee, Henry Kissinger worked tirelessly for and wrote a book about, with the hardly inscrutable and singularly uninspiring if, for some, wistful title, “World Order,” published, on September 9, 2014, during Barack Obama’s reign.We, at the Arbalest Quarrel, are going under the assumption that, whether by sheer ineptitude and incompetence or cold, calculated, callous, caustic, and cruel design, high officials of the Harris-Biden Administration—and this must include Joe Biden himself, and any and all secret handlers that the American public is not privy to if such there be that had a hand in this, and we look at one example here, a real “cluster f**k” that transpired at Kabul airport involving the drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan and the deaths of Americans during that drawdown—DID DO what they intended TO DO even if the consequences of their actions were not what they had in mind, can those policy decisions support a legal finding of TREASON of any one or all of them. And we will look at other policy decisions and the execution of those decisions as well.Through all that we do in the articles to follow, we ask that you etch in your mind the following, for we will be constantly coming back to it:Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1“Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. And, “18 U.S. Code § 2381 – Treason,”“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”The third part of our series on treason follows forthwith.____________________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

DOES THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S ASSAULT ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT AMOUNT TO TREASON?

MULTI-SERIES ON THE ISSUE OF POSSIBLE TREASON AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT

PART ONE

THE MEANING OF 'TREASON'

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” ~Attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator, in a speech he gave to the Roman Senate in 58 BC as ‘Recorded by Sallust’ in the fictional novel 'A Pillar of Iron,’ by Taylor Caldwell (1983), ch. 5. ~The quotation bears resemblance to Cicero's Second Oration in the Cataline war (circa 40 b.c.) Under Biden’s reign, Americans are slowly losing their fundamental rights and liberties. They have already lost any vestige of a fundamental right of privacy as protected under the Unreasonable Searches and Seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment. And the Right of free speech under the First Amendment is, as well, under tremendous assault today.And let us not forget the assault on the right of the people to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment. For without the citizenry's exercise of the fundamental Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, the exercise of all other Rights is tenuous at best or becomes altogether illusory, leading inevitably, inexorably to subjugation.Americans already see that Biden, and his fellow Progressive and Neo-Marxist Democrats in Congress, and legions of unelected bureaucrats of the Administrative Deep State have made substantial inroads curtailing the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But the question is: Do these assaults on sacred Rights truly rise to the level of treason, well beyond the federal crimes of sedition, insurrection, and rebellion, awful as they are?How can the public know? And, if treason does exist, and if the polity shows Republicans in Congress that Biden and/or several of his senior advisors have committed treason, how can Americans persuade their Representatives in the House and their Senators in the U.S. Senate to hold those high-level elected officials and high level unelected military people accountable beyond merely requesting they simply and humbly resign, as some have averred.How can Americans make a cogent argument to legislators so that they will undertake or at least attempt to undertake impeachment of Biden and/or his senior advisors? And for senior officers in the military, how can the public urge that these military advisors be subject to a General Court Martial.The words, ‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ are often cavalierly bandied about. The American public has heard it all before, many times, mostly directed to Donald Trump and, by association, directed to all Americans who voted for him or who supported and who continue to support his “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” agenda.Few people in American history, though, have been charged with “treason” against the United States; fewer still have ever been convicted of it. And no one has been executed for it.* That fact underscores the deadly seriousness of the import of the words despite the oft offhanded use of them, and says much of the true and dire purpose of and hidden motives of those forces that have used the word, ‘treason,’ incessantly against Trump. And many are those who leveled the charge of treason against the 45^th President, Donald Trump. Upon taking the Oath of Office, well-placed operators in the Department of Justice and FBI and in the military and in the intelligence apparatuses of Government, and in Congress, in academia and in the media, and even some individuals closest to Trump in his own Administration went immediately to work to undermine and sabotage and destroy his Presidency from its very inception to the final days. See, e.g., New York Times article.  and an article in The Atlantic.Government, academia, the Press, social media, all operated, in concert—components of an extraordinarily elaborate, well-organized, well-executed series of false flag operations—all designed to bring about Trump’s downfall.And, considering the extent to which these operators plotted to bring about Trump’s downfall, one is led to conclude either that Trump did indeed pose the greatest internal threat ever to befall our Nation, or, like Horatius at the Bridge, protected our Nation, standing alone against the hordes both within the Government and outside it who themselves truly pose the greatest and gravest threat ever to befall our free Constitutional Republic.Calling a person a “traitor” serves as a handy propagandist tool and it is one that is employed for the emotional reaction it is expected to elicit in the American public for the purpose of creating animus toward a person, but often, as well, as a distraction to direct public attention to the innocent person and thereby draw attention away from the real “traitor.”“The crime of treason carries an emotional response unlike any other. Its severity is second to none because one who commits treason aims to support the enemies his government, betray his own nation, and wage war against his own people. Infamous traitors such as Benedict Arnold conjure a near-unanimous feeling of disdain and anger amongst Americans, while others like John Brown do not so easily create the same uniform negative perception. Such is the nature of treason: those convicted of betraying their nation receive the designation of ‘traitor,’ arguably the most severe, polarizing, and stigmatic title law can provide, which may partially explain why the last case of treason occurred in 1952.” ~ from the law review article, “Treason In The Age Of Terrorism: Do Americans Who Join Isis ‘Levy War’ Against The United States?” 9 Am. U. Nat'l Sec. L. Brief 155 (2019) by Stephen Jackson, J.D., Senior Policy Analyst with SAIC.But, when do the words ‘traitor’ and ‘treason’ merely function as expletives and when do they function as true descriptors, indicative of the worst sort of criminal behavior of an American?It is one thing for a person to employ the words ‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ merely as a pejorative. In that case, “You Traitor, You!” is akin to the words, “Damn You, Go to Hell!” or “You Bastard, You!” But it is another thing entirely when the phrase, “You Traitor, You!” is to mean that the targeted person IS TRULY A “TRAITOR,” i.e., a person who commits the crime of ‘TREASON.’ For ‘Treason’ IS a crime.TREASON IS THE MOST SERIOUS OF CRIMES, for Treason is nothing less than BETRAYAL of one’s Country and of one’s people. It is essentially the MURDER of one’s Country and of one’s Countrymen. Betrayal of one’s Nation and one’s Countrymen was considered one of the most heinous crimes going back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Dante Alighieri, in his monumental epic, “The Divine Comedy,” PLACED THOSE GUILTY OF TREACHERY TO NATION IN THE DEEPEST CIRCLE OF HELL.To apply the term, ‘traitor’ to anyone is no small matter and should not be a matter of casual conversation. It is defamatory if untrue.As applied especially to an elected official, no less a personage than the President of the United States, one should practice circumspection before employing it, in the absence of evidence to support the declaration of it. Unfortunately, we do not see this at all. And, it is all quite remarkable, as the denizens of “POLITICAL CORRECTNESS,”—today’s “THOUGHT POLICE”—so keen are they on remaking the English language so as not to offend, do not apply that prime directive across the board, utilizing the worst invective against anyone, everyone, who happens to hold to a different political and philosophical persuasion than that of the “WOKE” crowd to use of their own neologisms.To our Nation’s founders, treason is the most serious crime imaginable. It is not by accident that it is referenced in the U.S. Constitution.Treason is the only crime BOTH MENTIONED AND DEFINED in the U.S. Constitution. But, through overuse and deliberate misuse of the words, ‘treason’ and ‘traitor,’ by various members of Congress and by Government Officials and by the Press, Americans are unable to gain a clear view of and true perspective of actual instances of treason and of the those who commit it when evidence for it abounds.A person needs to cut through the chatter and chaff of those who cavalierly bandy the term about, misapplying it hither and yon to Donald Trump—and, now misapplying it to Trump’s supporters who number one-third to one-half of the population of the Country.The term, ‘treason’ is a legal term of art that has a clear meaning. One need only go to a readily available source, the U.S. Constitution, to determine its import and purport, and from the definition for it, look for instances of it. Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1, sets forth:“Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”Further, ‘treason,’ as with ‘sedition,’ ‘insurrection,’ and ‘rebellion’, is a statutory offense, Congress reiterates the definition of ‘treason,’ of it. “18 U.S. Code § 2381 – Treason,” sets forth:“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”Given the seriousness of the crime, the framers of the Constitution severely limited its application to the commission of either one of two, and only two, kinds of acts. The U.S. Constitution leaves no room for constructive treason and Congress could not and has not undertaken to restrict or enlarge constitutional. The Constitutional, as well as Statutory definition for Treason, involves:

• Levying war against the United States; OR
• Giving the Nation’s enemies aid or comfort.

But what does “levying war against the United States” really mean, and what does the phrase “giving the Nation’s enemies aid or comfort” mean?In the next few Arbalest Quarrel articles we look closely at these phrases. For, once we have a clear operational definition of the phrases, we can ascertain if any one or more actions of Joe Biden and of his senior advisors amount to actionable treason.Few people to date have actually applied the appellation or descriptor of ‘treason’ to Biden and/or to his senior advisors although the abundance of misdeeds leads one to wonder whether one or more of those misdeeds rises to the level of treason. Before the Arbalest Quarrel makes its announcement, it is necessary to see if Biden and other senior advisors have plotted to destroy this Nation. As an aside, there is a question of whether Biden is making policy decisions at all. Given the man's obvious and increasingly severe mental infirmities, this strongly suggests that Biden is incapable of sound judgment and reasoning. If true, that means that  Biden's secret handlers are making policy decisions for him; policies affecting the Nation and the rest of the world. And that raises serious legal questions of its own. But as for ‘treason,’ one can, with a clear operational definition, determine if the elements of the crime apply to the conduct of Harris-Biden Administration senior officials who are the decision-makers. But, what can we say about treason at this point before delving into the details of it?In the broadest sense, “levying war against the United States” and “giving the Nation’s enemies aid or comfort” involves the BETRAYAL of one’s Country and one's Countrymen—TREACHERY so extreme that, if tried and convicted of it, must need send the party guilty of it to prison for a substantial period of time and, perhaps warrants a sentence of DEATH. But, whether a TRAITOR to the Country is actually indicted and tried as such, and convicted of TREASON, such an individual rests well beyond any hope of absolution, dispensation, or redemption—ever.Now, among those who hate Trump, anything the man has said or did, during his tenure in Office, amounts to “treason.” Yet, one would be hard-pressed to distill from any of Trump’s actions anything that amounts to betrayal of Nation and people. Nation’s people. To the contrary, on any reasonable analysis Trump was faithful to the Oath of Office he took on Friday, January 20, 2017.Article II, Section 1, Clause 8:“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.”In retrospect, Trump’s actions were always honorable. But, can the same be said of Biden and his top advisors and handlers?From what the public knows about, Trump, it is clear that he fulfilled or attempted to fulfill to his foreign and domestic policies and initiatives, consistent with the promises he made to the American public in his campaign. Trump forged a stronger Nation from the mess created by his predecessors Barack Obama and George W. Bush.; strengthening the Nation in the broadest sense: economically, geopolitically, militarily, and societally. Disruption arose artificially, concocted by elements inside and outside the Country, intent upon undermining Trump’s achievements. Trump sought to protect the fundamental rights of the people—most importantly the sacred rights of free speech and freedom of religion; the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; and, critically, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Yet, the legacy Press called him an Autocrat and Traitor; but to whom? Not to the U.S. Constitution, but to those who seek to dismantle the Constitution and to dismantle a free Republic. And they installed their puppets, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, corrupt and unscrupulous people to do just that.In eight months, the senile, weak-willed, and corrupt puppet, Joe Biden, likely dutifully obeying the dictates of his secret handlers, unwound all the positive work for the Country that Trump had achieved. And what do Americans now see? Much, and none of it good: Government policies that promote economic instability and societal unrest—all of it manufactured by an Administration intent on disrupting societal harmony and cohesion.And, because the Harris-Biden Administration refuses to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws, Americans see massive waves of destitute illegal aliens, breeching our Southern Border; with tens of thousands more flooding through the Southern Border each month, along with members of international drug cartels and other assorted dangerous riff-raff; and most of them are disbursing throughout the United States. More recently, the Administration has compounded its unlawful immigration actions, having airlifted thousands of unassimilable Afghans to the U.S., disbursing them throughout the Country, without properly vetting them—a lengthy process to screen out the Islamic terrorists among them.Americans see multiple instances of unlawful federal encroachment on the authority of State. The Administration has openly, unabashedly disobeyed rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court; and is exerting unlawful authority over the polity by mandating COVID vaccinations.Through wholesale adoption of the Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist program of “DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION” the Harris-Biden Administration is implementing policies designed to subvert and eradicate our Nation’s culture, history, heritage, and Christian ethos.Given the Administration’s contempt for the Bill of Rights, Americans are witnessing an assault on their basic freedoms, including, critically, the right of free speech and free exercise of religion; the right to peaceably assemble and the right to petition the Government; the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.In the matter of the “Capitol Breach” cases, of January 6, 2021, Americans have witnessed multiple instances of unlawful detention, the suspension of Habeas Corpus, and violations Due Process, and Equal Protection.And the Harris-Biden Administration is quietly, assiduously drawing up Executive Actions and agency rules, to undermine the right of the people to keep and bear arms.And through the implementation of its bizarre and inept military and State Department Middle East Policies, the Harris-Biden Administration has overnight destabilized the Middle East, thereby endangering the security of the United States and the world. Are we looking at mere incompetence here or something ominous: a devious master plan to destabilize society, dismantle the Constitution, destroy a free Constitutional Republic, and reduce the American citizenry to a state of abject penury and misery. Do any of the aforementioned actions by Joe Biden and others arise to the level of actual, indictable treason? In the next few articles, the Arbalest Quarrel will be looking closely at the law of treason with the aim of determining whether any one or more actions of Biden, and of Biden's Cabinet Level Officials, and of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and of Biden’s National Security Council committed actionable treason. ____________________________________________*One academic scholar, and apparently the only one, demurs, asserting that one man was in fact executed for committing treason against the United States. In his book, “On Treason, A Citizen's Guide to the Law” (published September 29, 2020), Carlton F.W. Larson, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of California, Davis, School of Law, avers that Hipolito Salazar, “is the only person ever executed by federal authorities for treason against the United States since the adoption of the Constitution for treason. . . . And the federal government later admitted it had made a terrible mistake—Salazar owed no allegiance to the United States and therefore was not subject to American treason law at all.” (pages 102-103). The execution took place on April 9, 1847, following jury trials “in what was called the ‘District Court of the Territory of New Mexico. ’ Five of the men had been convicted of murder. But, one, . . . Salazar, had been convicted of high treason for levying war against the United States.” (page 102). ____________________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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

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

PART FIVE

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

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

PART SIX

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

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

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

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

PART SEVEN

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

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

PART EIGHT

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

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

PART NINE

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

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

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

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

PART ONE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PART TWO

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

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

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

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

WHAT IS THE TAKEAWAY FROM JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT’S CONFIRMATION HEARING?

AN ARBALEST QUARREL PERSPECTIVE

Liberal and Radical Left media sources made much of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s failure, as they perceived it, to respond candidly and honestly to questions thrown at her by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats during her confirmation hearing.The Progressive news source, The American Independent, for one, said this:“Over the three days of hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Barrett refused to answer 95 questions posed to her by members of the committee.In declining, she repeatedly referred to the words spoken by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during her own confirmation hearing in 1993: ‘A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process.’” Notwithstanding the words of the late liberal-wing leader of the U.S. Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the seditious Press concluded that, while they would gladly dismiss the late Associate Justice’s own reticence, they were loath to absolve Judge Barrett for doing the same, attempting, lamely, to draw a distinction between Justice Ginsburg's justifiable hesitation to discuss the specifics of a particular case, and Judge Barrett's demonstrating a similar restraint.MSN news, had this to say about Judge Barrett’s responses Senate Democrat Committee members’ questions designed to commit Judge Barrett to taking a particular stand on Constitutional issues.“During a nearly 12-hour question-and-answer session, Judge Barrett evaded Democratic senators’ attempts to pin down her views on the Affordable Care Act, abortion rights, gay marriage, and a possible election-related case. She played down her history of taking conservative stances in legal writings and personal statements, arguing that she might view issues differently as a sitting justice. ‘I have not made any commitments or deals or anything like that,’ she told the Senate Judiciary Committee on her second day of confirmation hearings. ‘I’m not here on a mission to destroy the Affordable Care Act. I’m just here to apply the law and adhere to the rule of law.’. . . Judge Barrett’s refusal to discuss specific cases or commit to recusing from particular matters was in line with a decades-old playbook used by Supreme Court nominees to avoid giving substantive answers during confirmation hearings. But her attempts to deflect such questions were more conspicuous than usual, given how explicit Mr. Trump has been about how he would want his nominees to rule.” Huh? Judge Barrett's attempts to deflect questions were more conspicuous than the late Associate Justice Ginsburg's deflecting of questions?The mainstream seditious Press dares to suggest that Judge Amy Barrett’s justifiable wariness to being pinned down—and therefore, thereafter, constrained—were she to give categorical responses to matters of Constitutional dimension amounts to a disturbing lack of candor on her part, if not outright insolence. This is a conscious, unconscionable attempt to malign Judge Barrett.But Judge Barrett needn't assert and, in fact, shouldn’t assert how she would decide legal issues before the fact. Indeed, how could she? Activist jurists, of course, do so all the time as the public knows full well. Reflect, for a moment, if you will, on any one of a plethora of decisions handed down by activist Judges on Second Amendment and immigration matters. Activist judges almost invariably prejudge cases that come before them. They work backward from their decision to the central issue, constructing premises along the way, designed to cohere with the decision they have already made.But a methodical, meticulous, jurist, such as Judge Barrett, is perspicacious, not judgmental.Judge Barrett carefully analyzes a case; draws her inferences therefrom; and comes to a purposeful, informed, well-considered decision, never a spontaneous one. As Judge Barrett has demonstrated through her dissenting opinion in the Second Amendment Kanter case, she applies sound logical reasoning before rendering a decision. See Arbalest Quarrel article. And Judge Barrett complies with, is devoted to, and pays assiduous, diligent, and laborious attention to firmly established jurisprudential doctrinal methodology, a methodology grounded in strict adherence to the import and purport of the U.S. Constitution as written, consistent with and faithful to the intention of the framers of it. In this way—and only in this way—can a jurist know that he or she is protecting the fundamental, natural, rights and liberties and sovereignty of the citizenry, and preserving a free Constitutional Republic.Of course, ruthless elements both here and abroad want none of that. They have made clear an intention to tear down our Republic, erase our history and traditions, destroy our sacred rights and liberties, and undercut our Judeo-Christian ethic and faith in a loving Divine Creator. And they have been assiduously, seditiously at work and, now, openly rewriting the U.S. Constitution to cohere with a weakened Nation, a subjugated, subservient citizenry, and a bloated Government subordinated to the will and dictates of the EU and Xi Jinping's China.These ruthless elements, through their puppets—Democrats sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee—do not want a jurist on the High Court who happens to appreciate, and who esteems, and who cherishes the U.S. Constitution as written. They want a jurist who does the bidding of Democrats in Congress, thereby turning the Court into an adjunct of the Legislature and of the ignorant mobocracy among the polity who obediently obey the commands of their taskmasters as conveyed to them through incessant, noxious propaganda.The Democrat Party lackeys of China and of secretive Billionaire Globalists are, understandably, upset with Judge Barrett, sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court; as she is a person “who will not get with the game plan,” who will not pay homage to them and who will not defer to their wishes. That is something they cannot and will not abide.Judge Barrett has made abundantly clear to all who would pay note, that she is a person of integrity, both in her personal conduct and in her role as a jurist. She has made clear that, as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, she will never interpose her personal predilections in the judicial decision making process. She hasn't done so as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and she would not do so as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. How can the American public be certain of this?It is through the methodology employed in deciding cases that the full measure of a jurist can be accurately, adequately deduced. And, on that score, Judge Barrett has been honest, forthright, and open, and, on the methodology she employs in deciding cases, she has been completely candid. That should give Americans—who, as with Judge Barrett, cherish a free Constitutional Republic, who cherish the U.S. Constitution as written, and who cherish our natural, fundamental rights and liberties, as bestowed on and in man, etched into man's very being by a loving Creator—the necessary, requisite assurances that Judge Barrett qua Associate Justice Barrett will never betray the Constitution and will always remain true to our sacred, natural, fundamental rights and liberties.  This of course drives the Destructors of our Nation into a psychotic rage as they have other plans for our Nation, for our Constitution, and for our people; and they have not been shy about what those plans portend. If these Destructors can deceive enough Americans to vote for the so-called “moderate” Joe Biden and if they are able to take control of the United States Senate, then all is lost. The American electorate must see to it that this doesn’t happen.___________________________________________________________

JUDGE BARRETT'S METHODOLOGY FOR DECIDING CASES EXPLAINED

Unlike activist lower Court Judges and liberal-wing High Court Justices who routinely affirm legislative enactments they find palatable, couching their personal predilections in convoluted legalese, rubber-stamping unconstitutional government action, Judge Barrett—soon to be Justice Barrett if all goes well—stated clearly, unequivocally, and categorically that she does not and would not render judgment on the basis of personal bias for or against a particular statute. And, from the cases she has heard and opined upon as a Judge, sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and from her academic writings, Americans can rest secure in the knowledge that Judge Barrett, will remain true to the written word of the U.S. Constitution and to the sanctity of the Bill of Rights.Judge Barrett grounds her decisions on legal and judicial considerations alone, not on legislative policy considerations that fall within the purview of legislative bodies, outside the purview of courts.She asks: “Is this legislative enactment consistent with the import and purport of the U.S. Constitution, as written?” She frames her analysis accordingly, and her decision follows logically from that analysis. Judge Barrett does not ask, nor should she ask: “Does this legislative enactment cohere with prevailing public whim and fancy, fashion and sentiment, shaped and molded by Progressive ideologues with whom I must adhere?”Through Senate Democrat questioning of Judge Barrett, it becomes abundantly clear that Democrats perceive the U.S. Supreme Court not as an independent Third Branch of Government, but merely as an adjunct of the legislature—a body that has no other purpose than to rubber-stamp Congressional enactments—statutory enactments that cohere with international law and norms, superior to the U.S. Constitution and dismissive of and antithetical to our citizenry’s fundamental rights and liberties. That is what these Democrats want. That is what they desire from a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. But that isn’t what they will get once Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to sit on the High Court as Justice Amy Coney Barrett. And that enrages Democrats. And, so, they threaten “to pack the Court” if they are able to gain control of the Executive Branch of Government, along with control of the U.S. Senate.During the Senate confirmation hearing, Judiciary Committee Chairman, Lindsey Graham, Republican South Carolina, asked Judge Barrett matter-of-factly how she perceives the role of a jurist.Senator Graham's question was a proper and fitting one to ask of a nominee who might sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and Judge Barrett welcomed the opportunity to answer the Senator's question, and she was remarkably candid in her response.Senator Graham likely asked this question of Judge Barrett, first, to impress on members of the public—many of whom probably have little comprehension of the specific and appropriate role of a jurist—what the proper role of a jurist is under our Constitutional and jurisprudential framework. And he likely asked this question of Judge Barrett, second, to impress on Senate Democrats who most certainly do comprehend the proper role of a jurist but who desire to impose an improper role on our jurists, that their insinuation that Judge Barrett must do the bidding of Congress—that she owes her soul to the company store, so to speak—is wrong and wrong-headed, for such a role that Senate Democrats demand of our jurists is: one, antithetical to our Nation's Constitutional framework; two, antithetical to our Nation's jurisprudential traditions; and three, antithetical to the separation of powers doctrine. The desire of Senate Democrats to impose their will on judicial nominees was clearly apparent through their long-winded, generally imbecilic monologues and through their impertinent, often insulting queries directed to Judge Barrett. Senate Democrats' insinuation that the U.S. Supreme Court belongs to Congress, and must do the bidding of Congress, is blasphemous. It is dangerous to the well-being of our Nation. It is arrogant in the extreme, and wholly untenable.In response to Senator Graham, Judge Barrett, explained clearly and succinctly: “I interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn’t change over time and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it.” See, Washington Examiner article, as posted by MSN news.Judge Barrett explained that the framers of our Constitution never meant for the U.S. Supreme Court to operate like Congress, and, more to the point, never intended for the U.S. Supreme Court to take its cue from Congress, advocating for and on behalf of Congress.Congress enacts laws predicated on policy choices. Those policy choices may or may not be consistent with the Constitution. If those policy choices, as reflected in law, are at loggerheads with the textual meaning of the Constitution as the embodiment of the intent of the framers of it, then the Court must step in to overturn the law. That is the solemn duty of an American jurist.That isn’t what activist Judges and Justices do and, so, that isn’t what Senate Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wanted to hear. They want docile, obedient jurists, answerable to Congress. Their frustration with, resentment of, even anger with Judge Amy Coney Barrett, was painfully evident.They remonstrated over Judge Barrett's refusal to take a definitive stand on pending legal issues and on legal issues apt to come before the U.S. Supreme Court in the future. They insisted that she acquiesce to their absurd policy objectives; demanding that she declare categorical, unequivocal, acceptance of and adherence to their pernicious, horrific Collectivist vision for the Country, one that reduces Americans to subservient cattle. This Collectivist vision is characterized by uniformity in thought and conduct among the masses; dependency on Government largess for one's physical needs; and the deliberate inculcation of confusion and fear in the masses, effectuated through a targeted campaign of systematic predation on the polity that is unable to effectively defend itself because firearms will have been universally banned.It was all on constant, ignominious display throughout the hearing. And through it all Judge Barrett remained noticeably and notably calm but alert; courteous; unruffled; even, at times, convivial. And that must have enraged Senate Democrats even more; their vote against confirming Judge Barrett to a seat on the High Court a foregone conclusion, a vote that Senate Republicans, fortunately, do not or ought not need._______________________________________________

ON THE DOCTRINES OF PRECEDENT AND SUPER-PRECEDENT IN U.S. SUPREME COURT CASE LAW

A legitimate, perceptive question for Judge Barrett—one that has been asked of previous nominees but, was not asked of her, during the hearing, or otherwise was not dealt with in any extensive appreciable way—involves the judicial doctrine of case law Precedent, referred to as Stare Decisis. The Cornell Law School website defines ‘Stare Decisis,’ thus:“Stare decisis is Latin for ‘to stand by things decided.’ In short, it is the doctrine of precedent.Courts cite to stare decisis when an issue has been previously brought to the court and a ruling already issued. According to the Supreme Court, stare decisis ‘promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.’ In practice, the Supreme Court will usually defer to its previous decisions even if the soundness of the decision is in doubt.” Democrats on the Senate Judiciary though weren't interested in eliciting profound, insightful responses  from Judge Barrett on that score, which they certainly could have obtained had they bothered to ask her to expound upon the the doctrine of stare decisis. Judge Barrett would certainly have been inclined to elaborate on that matter. But, Democrats weren't interested in that or on any other jurisprudential or juridical subject of any real significance. They were only interested in, or mostly interested in, scoring political points to help them get the feeble, frail Joe Biden over the finish line in November, and in maintaining a majority of Democrats in the House, and taking control of the Senate. If successful, that would give them all the power they would ever need "to pack the High Court" with their lackeys, thereby neutralizing Judge Barrett's seat on the Court.So caught up were Senate Democrats in the frenzy of the moment that, what otherwise could have been a profitable, informative confirmation hearing, devolved, by turns, into, one, a harangue against Trump; two, an annoying, uncalled for, insulting accusation that Judge Barrett must be a pawn of the President; three, a demand that Judge Barrett recuse herself on this, that, or the other case that might happen to come before her once she is seated on the High Court; four, incessant odious, presumptuous, recitations of  Democrat Party policy positions that Judge Barrett was compelled to suffer through; five, insulting innuendoes concerning Judge Barrett's private life and personal religious convictions; and, six, an extended, extensive Democrat Party campaign advert in support of the Harris/Biden ticket.During the hearing, Senate Democrats made manifestly and adamantly clear their fervent desire and their firm intention to raise both abortion on demand and the ACA to the level of fundamental rights, and, as if that weren't enough, they audaciously sought Judge Barrett's imprimatur on abortion and the ACA. They never obtained it. Senate Democrats also made abundantly clear their vehement abhorrence of the right of the people to keep and bear arms and of their deep-seated, enduring wish to reduce a clear illimitable, immutable, unalienable, fundamental, natural right—the right of the people to keep and bear arms—to the status of a mere Governmental privilege, to be bestowed upon and rescinded at the whim of Government bureaucrats.Had someone but troubled to ask Judge Barrett to expound on a paper she had written on the very subject of stare decisis, she would have acknowledged that resolution of Constitutional issues is not always clear-cut, thereby ameliorating, perhaps, some of the harsh criticism leveled against her by Senate Democrats. Then, too, if Senate Democrats devoted more time eliciting critical juridical doctrinal ideas from the nominee and less time delivering heated polemics and exhibiting fits and bursts of histrionics, the confirmation hearing could have been, and likely would have been, much more productive. Alas, they didn't; and, it wasn’t.In her article, written for a symposium on Constitutional disagreement, Judge Barrett laid out her thesis on U.S. Supreme Court precedent, thus:“Over the years, some have lamented the Supreme Court's willingness to overrule itself and have urged the Court to abandon its weak presumption of stare decisis in constitutional cases in favor of a more stringent rule. Stare decisis purports to guide a justice's decision whether to reverse or tolerate error, and sometimes it does that. Sometimes, however, it functions less to handle doctrinal missteps than to mediate intense disagreements between justices about the fundamental nature of the Constitution. Because the justices do not all share the same interpretive methodology, they do not always have an agreed-upon standard for identifying ‘error’ in constitutional cases. Rejection of a controversial precedent does not always mean that the case is wrong when judged by its own lights; it sometimes means that the justices voting to reverse rejected the interpretive premise of the case. In such cases, ‘error’ is a stand-in for jurisprudential disagreement.”A lesser known, quasi-judicial, principle, that of ‘super-precedent,’—was raised by Senate Democrat Amy Klobuchar, but, unfortunately, wasn't pursued. Senator Klobuchar simply brought up the principle to emphasize and to capitalize on a Democrat Party talking point. She wanted to know whether Judge Barrett thought that Roe vs. Wade was so fixed in Supreme Court precedent that it could not or should not be overruled, which is to say that it should be perceived, then, as a super-precedent.Judge Barrett rightfully demurred. The pointed question pertaining to Roe vs. Wade was altogether inappropriate, and Judge Barrett respectfully, but firmly, declined to take the bait.In any event, Roe vs. Wade may be cast in stone as some people see it, but that is no reason to believe its precedential value is beyond reasonable legal dispute.The fact remains that Roe vs. Wade was a bizarre attempt at a judicial “squaring of the circle.” Yet, it was no more than a crude attempt to create a fundamental right out of whole cloth. Still, notwithstanding that some people strenuously and indefatigably, albeit bizarrely, extol that ruling as a thing sacrosanct and inviolate, is not to mean that the ruling carries with it or should carry with it some paramount attribute or weight and must, therefore, never be overruled—only enhanced, if anything, to the point where the murder of a child is lawfully permitted up to the moment of live birth.In fact, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s law on abortion does allow for abortion up to the very moment of birth, contrary to Cuomo’s claims that the new, strengthened, New York law is consistent with Roe vs. Wade. It isn’t. Cuomo is either a liar or ignorant of the import of his own law because the word ‘abortion’ has been excised from the New York Criminal Code. The AQ has explained Cuomo’s duplicity on this issue.On the other hand, in contradistinction to Roe vs. Wade, one might ask if Heller vs. District of Columbia is super-precedent case law. Senate Democrats and other political and social progressives would argue it isn’t, predicated, no doubt, on their abject abhorrence of and repugnance toward firearms and firearms' possession, which raises an aesthetic and/or psychological argument against the Second Amendment, not a pertinent legal one.The critical legal question in Heller was whether the Second Amendment embraces an individual right.The High Court Majority held that the Second Amendment—the Majority Opinion written by the late, eminent Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia—does embrace an individual right; and that it does so on logical, as well as legal, grounds; for were it not so, then the right codified in it would be reduced to a nullity and there would have been no point to it.Heller, unlike Roe vs. Wade, must, then, be construed as a manifestly super-precedent ruling: a ruling that resists overturning lest irreparable damage be done to the Bill of Rights itself and, no less, to the sovereignty of the American people whose sovereignty is only assured through force of arms; the principal bulwark against the inexorable slide toward and inevitable onset of tyranny.But, assuming arguendo that Heller were to be overruled—something well within the realm of possibility if the Democrats make good their threat “to pack the Court” if they gain control of the Executive and of the Senate, and a Second Amendment case then wended its way to the Court. But, for Heller to be overturned, a High Court majority would be compelled to opine that the original holding was wrong, which is tantamount to saying the Second Amendment has no meaning at all. But Democrats wouldn’t have a problem drawing that conclusion anyway. Yet, it is patently absurd to say the Second Amendment has no import. From a logical point of view, apart from the legal certainty, the Second Amendment does embrace and must embrace an individual right. So the Heller ruling that the Second Amendment codifies an individual right is dead-on correct. This brings us to Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat, Illinois, and to his singularly odd remarks during the hearing. For all that he had to say about firearms, it would have been interesting if he had had the wherewithal to broach the import of, and the historical imperative of the Second Amendment, with Judge Barrett—instead of going on about black powder muzzle-loaders as if he had any idea what he was talking about, anyway. But he didn’t. And that is just as well, for Senator Durbin obviously has no comprehensive knowledge of nor appreciation for the technical characteristics of firearms; nor does he care one whit about the sacred, natural, immutable, unalienable right of the American people to keep and bear them._____________________________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT: OUR BEST HOPE OR OUR WORST NIGHTMARE?

IMPACT OF U.S. SUPREME COURT NEW YORK CITY GUN TRANSPORT CASE DECISION ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

PART SIX

CAN AMERICANS TRUST THEIR U.S. SUPREME COURT TO DEFEND OUR SACRED BILL OF RIGHTS?

Of the three Branches of the Federal Government in our federal system, the U.S. Supreme Court is either our best hope for preserving the U.S. Constitution and strengthening the Bill of Rights, or it’s our worst fear realized, if the High Court endangers the Constitution and weakens the Bill of Rights, abandoning the American citizenry to an awful fate.In his concurring opinion in the New York City gun transport case (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. vs. City of New York, New York, 590 U.S ____ (2020)) Justice Kavanaugh asserts, inter alia, “I share Justice Alito’s concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald. The Court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.”If Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion is meant to give Americans a modicum of hope, he failed miserably. He has merely raised suspicion as to his true motivations and jurisprudential leanings apropos of the Bill of Rights generally, and of the Second Amendment, particularly.The word, ‘should,’ that Kavanaugh uses, in his concurring, doesn’t mean ‘shall,’ nor does it even mean ‘may.’ U.S. Supreme Court Justices are extremely careful in their choice of words, as every word has legal import and significance as Supreme Court cases carry a substantial impact on the lives of all Americans, even as it comes to pass how many lower Court jurists blithely, and more, unconscionably ignore U.S. Supreme Court precedent, as we see over and over again, in the way that all too many lower courts, especially federal courts, namely the United States District Courts and United States Circuit Courts of Appeal, routinely render opinions that contradict the rulings and reasoning of the seminal U.S. Supreme Court Second Amendment Heller and McDonald cases, and these lower federal courts do so with crass impunity. It is little wonder, then, that Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and a recent member of the High Court, Neil Gorsuch, are furious over these actions of the lower Courts that constitute no less than mutiny, as serious an offense in the judicial sphere as it is in the military sphere. If one peruses the dissenting comments of these Justices, in those cases infringing the core of the Second Amendment the High Court fails to garner four votes necessary to secure review on, one can detect, also, the conservative wing's frustration with the liberal wing of the Court that routinely votes against hearing Second Amendment cases because the liberal wing does not recognize the right of the people to keep and bear arms as a fundamental right that accrues to the individual, but only to the militia, i.e., the Collective, and doesn't wish to be placed in the position, a predicament for them, to overturn a lower Court Second Amendment case that fails to adhere to U.S. Supreme Court precedent.So, then, what does the word, 'should,' mean? A short English lesson is in order. As one grammar website explains: “After English students learn the four types of conditionals with if-clauses and figure out when to use each one, they are told that there are other words and patterns to indicate the conditional mood, such as unless, even if, and should.” “Students often struggle with the conditional should (also called should-inversion) for a few reasons. First, the pattern differs from other conditional patterns, and second, the meaning is unrelated to should as a modal of advice. It is also quite formal, so students don’t come across it all that often.But much like any grammar target in English, the conditional should can be explained and learned fairly painlessly using patterns and examples.Conditional should and modal should have very different meanings.Students first learn that should is a modal of advice. The meaning of modal should is a suggestion.

• You should pay attention in class.(I suggest that you pay attention in class.)

Conditional should means if and is used for hypothetical situations.

• Should you need anything else, please call this number.(If you need anything else, please call this number.)” 

Justice Kavanaugh's use of the word, 'should,' in his concurring opinion, in the New York City gun transport case, rather than his use of the word, 'shall' or 'will,' or 'must,' or 'may,' is no accident. The use of the word, 'should,' operates, then, as a mere gesture of hope, nothing more. But, by that token, the U.S. Supreme Court should have taken up any of the two dozen cases that came up for review, in the ten years since the McDonald case decision came down. The Court didn't. Kavanaugh seems to be saying that "I would really like for another Second Amendment case to be heard by the Supreme Court." But, Kavanaugh's personal feelings are irrelevant to case analysis. What is relevant is a jurist's decision in a case, and the reasoning the jurist uses to reach a decision--even if such reasoning amounts to simple rationalization--but Kavanaugh doesn't provide any analysis in his concurring in the New York City case. If he were to provide analysis, we would like to see that analysis for deciding to vote with Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court in finding the gun transport matter moot.  Justice Alito, in his dissenting opinion (joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch), explained in depth why, specifically, the New York City gun transport case is NOT moot. One would expect that a Justice who troubles himself to write a concurring opinion at all would have realized the necessity of responding to Justice Alito's highly detailed, precise, unequivocal, unambiguous objections to the Court majority's decision on the mootness issue.  Justice Alito's criticisms of the majority's position of the mootness issue in the New York City gun transport case cry out for a response. There is nothing in the Majority opinion to suggest Justice Alito's objections are incorrect and there is everything in Justice Alito's dissenting opinion that establishes why the majority decision is incorrect. Having specifically responded to the majority's argument, the majority, in turn, should have responded to the Justice Alito's criticism of their decision. There is everything in Justice Alito's meticulous dissent that begs for a reply. But, the majority is silent. And, Associate Justice Kavanaugh who writes a concurring opinion is silent as well. Why bother to write a concurring opinion merely to assert that he agrees with the majority. Having drafted a concurring, why didn't Justice Alito tackle the issue of mootness head-on, if for no other reason than to clarify why he decided to cast his lot with the majority rather than with the dissent? That he failed to address Alito's objections at all is itself revealing. Justice Kavanaugh's concurring opinion bespeaks a man who appears desperately desirous of having Americans believe he unabashedly, resolutely supports the exercise of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, even as he defers to Respondent City. But that does not justify the writing of a concurring opinion. Having done so, Justice Kavanaugh clearly demonstrates a willingness to toy with the Second Amendment, to play with it--going along with a liberal wing that detests the Second Amendment and signing up with the Chief Justice whose own jurisprudential leanings, apropos of the Second Amendment, is muddled or neutral at best, and, at worst, manifestly diverges from the jurisprudential leanings of Associate Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch who strongly adhere to the Founders' adoration of our God-given natural, elemental, immutable, unalienable rights--rights that these Founders lovingly, and with clear conscience and conviction codified in our Bill of Rights, lest Government ever dare attempt to deny or ignore such sacred rights of the American people.Justice Kavanaugh's concurring opinion is not to be taken lightly. No opinion of a United States Supreme Court Justice is to be taken lightly. Nothing a United States Supreme Court Justice asserts in opinion is to be taken lightly. All High Court opinions, be they majority opinions, or concurring opinions, or dissenting opinions are to be taken lightly. All high Court opinions carry weight and they exist in our body of law forever. Sometimes silence is the better avenue to pursue. Chief Justice Roberts realized that. Justice Kavanaugh did not. And, his absurd and vacuous concurring will now remain, forever, as a testament to one Justice's sheepish attempt to shore up support from, and the trust of, the American people. The American people will now remain justifiably in doubt over Associate Justice Kavanaugh's jurisprudential leanings toward the Second Amendment of our Bill of Rights, and, in doubt, indeed, toward the entirety of our Bill of Rights and toward the very sanctity of such things as natural, fundamental, unalienable, immutable rights, bestowed in the very soul of man by the loving, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Divine Creator.Given the reluctance of the High Court to hear any Second Amendment case, even, and especially, those infringing the very core of it, the prospect of the Court actually taking up another Second Amendment case in the near future is more improbable than likely. Why is that, really?

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT REVIEWS VERY FEW CASES

First, the Court has limited time, given the number of cases that come before it during any term. As set forth in the SCOTUS Blog: “In most circumstances, the Supreme Court has discretion whether or not to grant review of a particular case. Of the 7,000 to 8,000 cert petitions filed each term, the court grants certiorari and hears oral argument in only about 80. Granting a cert petition requires the votes of four justices.” Since the High Court reviews only a fraction of the cases brought to it in any given term, and, since the High Court is averse to hearing Second Amendment cases, it will only be on a wing and a prayer that the Supreme Court is likely to take up any Second Amendment case, given the Court’s present composition. And, if it does so at all, it will likely deny review on the heels of the New York City gun transport case, any further Second Amendment case this Term because the Supreme Court Term is effectively over in late June, hardly more than one month from now as of the posting of this article.Note, “A Term of the Supreme Court begins, by statute, on the first Monday in October. . . . The Term is divided between ‘sittings,’ when the Justices hear cases and deliver opinions, and intervening ‘recesses,’ when they consider the business before the Court and write opinions. Sittings and recesses alternate at approximately two-week intervals.” Moreover, as the site, U.S. Courts.gov points out: “The Court is, typically, in recess from late June/early July until the first Monday in October. . . . The Court hears oral arguments in cases from October through April [and] All opinions of the Court are, typically, handed down by the last day of the Court’s term (the day in late June/early July when the Court recesses for the summer). With the exception of this deadline, there are no rules concerning when decisions must be released. Typically, decisions that are unanimous are released sooner than those that have concurring and dissenting opinions. While some unanimous decisions are handed down as early as December, some controversial opinions, even if heard in October, may not be handed down until the last day of the term.  

SUPPOSE THE HIGH COURT DOES SECURE FOUR VOTES NECESSARY TO REVIEW A SECOND AMENDMENT CASE, WHAT THEN?

Second, even if, by some strange happenstance the Supreme Court does grant review in one of the pending Second Amendment cases, in the next few weeks, especially given the impact of the Communist Chinese Coronavirus, one may justifiably ask when will that case be briefed; when will it be argued in oral hearing before the Court; and when might the case be decided? And, most significantly: how will that case be decided?Given that Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kavanaugh both sided with the liberal wing of the High Court on the New York City gun transport case, that fact alone is a matter for deep concern.In any event, all of this—from voting to hear a case, to the releasing of a decision in that case—takes an inordinate amount of time and, with a General U.S. Presidential election coming up in November 2020, an election just around the corner, both the liberal wing and conservative wing of the High Court may have their own good reasons for not taking up another Second Amendment case this Term. Consider the ramifications of the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, both on the eventual composition of the Supreme Court and on the manner in which a Second Amendment case would be decided.Supreme Court Justices, no less than average citizens, do surely manifest deep concern over the outcome of the upcoming U.S. Presidential election. And whom it is that wins the election will be able to actuate one or the other of two alternate, incompatible, radically distinct visions for the Nation.One vision is grounded on the political and social philosophy of Individualism, championed by the Founders of our Free Republic, and actualized in the Constitution that the States, in existence at the time, had ratified. That Constitution is the blueprint of the structure of our Nation, where the people themselves are sovereign: a notion manifest in no other nation in the world despite talk, for example, by the rulers of the EU, holed up in Brussels, who govern the nations comprising the EU. These so-called “elites” talk endlessly, and disingenuously, and deceptively of the EU’s liberal democratic values. But that is nothing more than flimflam and flummery. The second vision is grounded on the political and social philosophy of Collectivism—a term that is wending its way more frequently into political discourse, as the Radical Left talks carefully, non-critically, and often glowingly, about the benefits of life in both the EU and in the Autocratic, Communist Collectivist regime of Xi Jinping of China. See Arbalest Quarrel Article, titled, “The Modern Civil War: A Clash of Ideologies, posted October 6, 2018.” Note: In that article, we point to Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, which, at the time of the posting of the article, had just occurred. Would that we knew then what we know now, having seen Justice Kavanaugh’s insipid, seemingly groveling, duplicitous Concurring Opinion in the New York City Gun Transport case. We said, at the time:“With Brett Kavanaugh now on the High Court, the Individualists’ vision for this Country is now more likely to prevail in the decades ahead than is the vision of the Collectivists. Had Hillary Clinton prevailed in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, and thereupon nominated individuals to the High Court who view the Constitution of the United States as a “Living Document,” susceptible to massive judicial and legislative revision, the direction of this Country would have continued along the path created for it by the Bush and Clinton clans, and by Barack Obama. Americans would have seen the eventual loss of this Country’s independence and sovereignty, and, concomitantly, Americans would have seen the loss of the fundamental, unalienable rights guaranteed to them, as codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights. The losses would have been drastic, and those losses would have been assured. Thankfully, a dire future for this nation and its people is less likely to happen now, as the election of Trump has enabled the Nation to pivot back to the path laid out for us by the founders of the Nation. But there is still much work ahead for the American people. We must remain ever vigilant.”

THE MOST IMPORTANT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF THE LAST TWO CENTURIES IS UPON US

The principles of Collectivism were anathema to the founders of our Nation; and those principles are wholly incompatible with the Constitution the framers designed, predicated on the tenets of Individualism, the foundation of our Nation. The two political and social philosophies, Individualism and Collectivism, cannot be reconciled. And those who wish to implement the principles of Collectivism in our Nation know this. That is why they talk openly of major amendments to the Constitution.Indeed, some Collectivists talk of doing away with the U.S. Constitution altogether, as it would be far easier to draft a new constitution grounded on the principles of Collectivism than to try to reconfigure the original Constitution, grounded as it is on a completely different set of precepts: those of Individualism. And we will be headed in a very disturbing direction if the Collectivists do succeed in taking firm control over the reins of Government._____________________________________________

WITHOUT AN ARMED CITIZENRY EVERY CITIZEN REMAINS AT THE MERCY OF THE STATE

Since an armed citizenry operates as the one true signifier and test of the sovereignty of the people over Government, and the only effective vehicle through which the sovereignty of the people over illegal Government usurpation and accumulation of power is contained, the armed citizenry is truly the sine qua non of a Nation founded on the tenets of Individualism. And in only one such Nation are the people truly sovereign: the United States. Consider: For all the lofty talk of human rights and with all the “rights” delineated in the EU’s “Charter of Fundamental Rights,” as one prime example—and there are over six dozen of them at last count—you would be hard-pressed to find any assertion of the right of the people of the EU to keep and bear arms. There isn’t one. Do you think the omission was an accident? 

THE LIBERAL WING OF THE HIGH COURT EXTOLS THE POLITICAL AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF THE EU, NOT THE U.S.

Several U.S. Supreme Court Justices such as, and particularly, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have little regard for the U.S. Constitution, as they consider it to be as she says, “rather old” and, therefore, archaic, reminiscent of an earlier time and earlier values that they also perceive as archaic, mutable, irrelevant, and even counter to the Collectivist political and social orientation they support or sympathize with. Their vision of this Country does not include the presence of an armed citizenry. Thus, they, understandably, would express reservation, hesitation in voting to grant review of another Second Amendment case at this time: one that truly impacts the very core of it. These liberal wing U.S. Supreme Court Justices are awaiting the installation of a Collectivist as U.S. President, as are all those who espouse the principles and tenets of Collectivism.If the Radical Left Democrats defeat Trump in the upcoming November 2020 general election, might not that embolden Roberts to join the liberal wing of the Court, to take up another Second Amendment case for the express purpose to weaken the central holdings of Heller and McDonald, if not to overturn the central holdings of those cases outright?After all, it only takes one Justice, say, John Roberts, to join the liberal wing, to defeat a Second Amendment case. And, what  Justice Kavanaugh would do with it is anyone’s guess, given his awkward, almost servile, and definitely odd concurring opinion in the recent New York City gun transport case.The liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court Court has made their deep animosity toward the Second Amendment known. The Liberal wing of the High Court therefore fervently relishes the opportunity to overturn Heller and McDonald. Make no mistake about that. The liberal wing of the High Court has made clear its deep hostility toward and its visceral loathing of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That isn’t a secret.This is predicated on the temperament of Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan—a psychological temperament that informs their methodological approach to High Court case analysis; a methodological approach and jurisprudential philosophy that predisposes them to undercut the Second Amendment, always maintaining that the right of the people to keep and bear arms amounts to a collective right if such a right exists at all; conferring no individual right to own and possess firearms.The liberal wing of the High Court long ago opined that both Heller and McDonald were wrongly decided. At the time Heller was decided in 2008, the dissenting Justices included: Breyer, Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg. And, at the time McDonald was decided, the dissenting Justices included: Breyer, Stevens, and Sotomayor.Ostensibly a jurisprudential conservative who retired in 2009, Associate Justice David Souter, nominated by then-President George H.W. Bush, turned out to be a major disappointment. His replacement, Elena Kagan, nominated by Donald Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, would come as no surprise. One needn’t guess her jurisprudential philosophy toward the Second Amendment, all of which is predicated on the temperament of the liberal wing of the High Court that now comprises Associate Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan—a psychological temperament that informs their jurisprudential philosophy and a methodological approach toward case analysis that is wholly unlike that of the late eminent Justice Scalia and that Justices Thomas and Alito.The liberal wing of the Court abhors the very idea that Americans have a fundamental and immutable and unalienable, natural right to own and possess firearms. If they vote to hear a Second Amendment case, it will only be with a view toward undercutting the Second Amendment and they will only vote to hear a Second Amendment case once they feel they have sufficient support to compose the majority opinion on the matter.The New York City gun transport case was the most innocuous of Second Amendment cases for the High Court to take up when compared to other cases that had come before it. Perhaps that was one reason they granted review of the New York City case.Moreover, the New York City case invited the New York City Government to amend the law to encourage the liberal wing of the High Court to avoid deciding the case on the merits.And so, the liberal wing did find the case mooted by a change in the law. No surprise there. And Chief Justice Roberts readily jumped on board. No surprise there either. But the decision of Justice Kavanaugh, joining the liberal wing and Roberts majority rather than the dissenters, Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch—that was a surprise and far, far from a pleasant one.Who is it that Justice Kavanaugh thinks he is fooling? He knows damn well how difficult it is for a Second Amendment case—any Second Amendment case—to be heard. Americans can rest assured that Justice Thomas clued Kavanaugh in on that if Kavanaugh harbored any doubt about that. And Americans are supposed to sit on their hands, and hold their breath waiting for the next Second Amendment case to be taken up by the Court, gaining sustenance from a conjecture tucked away in an absurd Concurring Opinion?Unfortunately, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh isn’t the only person on the High Court infected with St. Vitus Dance, ever meandering, weaseling, tap dancing around the Second Amendment rather than giving it the attention and respect it deserves, dealing squarely with it, to protect the core of it.And the Third Branch of Government isn’t our only concern.Recall how the Republican-controlled House and Senate failed to enact national concealed handgun carry into law. Republicans could easily have enacted 115 H.R. 38 into law if they really wanted to. But they didn’t. Back on November 30, 2018, the Arbalest Quarrel wrote, in our article titled, “As Deadline Draws Near, Supporters Of Second Amendment Demand U.S. Senate Vote On National Concealed Handgun Carry Reciprocity,”“The Senate Judiciary Committee has been sitting on the bill that was sent to Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, last December 2017, when it passed the Republican-controlled House. The version of national concealed handgun carry reciprocity that passed the House is designated, 115 H.R. 38, “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017.” Once Senator McConnell received it, he sent it immediately to the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley, for action. Clearly, no work was done on it; and a year has gone by since the Judiciary Committee had received it.” Nothing was done by the Republican Controlled Congress in 2017, at that time, to strengthen Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. And, now, at this juncture—with the decision of Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kavanaugh, having joined the liberal wing of the High Court, in the New York City gun transport case—nothing yet has been done to preserve and strengthen our sacred Second Amendment right.Do you think, perhaps, that all too many legislators and jurists, adherents of Collectivism, who claim to support the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, really don’t? Is talk of support for the right of the people to keep and bear arms just that: merely talk? Is preservation of our Bill of Rights merely a will-o’-the-wisp, an elaborate play, the purpose of which is to placate a rightfully embittered American electorate, facilitating the slow, inexorable, erasure of the very notion of fundamental, immutable, God-given rights that fall beyond the lawful power of Government to denigrate and eradicate?As we have pointed out in our previous article, some Collectivists in the U.S. suggest that no constitution is necessary. Taking their cue from Great Britain which is said to have an “unwritten constitution” (which really means NO constitution), the Collectivists surmise that changes to Government and changes to the relationship of the people to Government should always be flexible, malleable—subject to change in accordance with the whims of those who wield power. For these rulers, adherents of Collectivism, any constitution is too restrictive and any rights afforded the populace must always be subject to modification or abrogation as the rulers dictate. And, they have made that plain. The Collectivists seek to rewrite portions of the Articles, and they seek to rewrite, or to torturously and tortuously reinterpret, or to abrogate altogether, or simply to ignore portions of our fundamental, unalienable, immutable, natural rights—our Bill of Rights—giving special attention to the Second Amendment that they perceive as the greatest single threat to their illegal, unconscionable usurpation of power.The American people must not let these Radical Left Collectivist insurrectionists succeed.____________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.