“THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS”: STEPHEN HALBROOK’S NEW BOOK IS A MUST-READ!

By Stephen L. D’Andrilli, President,Arbalest Group LLC.The title of Stephen P. Halbrook’s new book is the very question at issue in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett, which the United States Supreme Court recently decided it would hear in its next term. The timing and importance of both the book and this case couldn’t have been better! See Arbalest Quarrel article on the Corlett case, titled, “Supreme Court to Take Up New York Second Amendment Case At Last!” In Corlett, the applicant for a concealed carry handgun license was denied a license for lacking “good cause” – a purely subjective requirement established by New York State’s highly discretional firearms licensing scheme. The decision, in this case, could strike down, as unconstitutional, Government infringement on a fundamental right – both in New York and in other “may-issue” states throughout the Country where similar practices prevail. What happened in Corlett could happen to you, too!It has been over a decade since the High Court ruled on a major Second Amendment case.In 2008, in District of Columbia vs. Heller, “held that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”The judicial interpretative methodology used by the Court’s majority was based on “text, history, and tradition” and the Court’s majority rejected the judge-empowering interest-balancing inquiry, too often used by liberals, which defers to legislatures to decide if various interests outweigh recognition of a Constitutional right.Two years later, in McDonald vs. City of Chicago, “the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protected the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense and that the Second Amendment was fully applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.” The Court also made clear that this right is deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition.The High Court rejected out-of-hand the City’s argument that the Court, “in effect . . . treat the right recognized in Heller as a second-class [“watered down”] right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees that we have held to be incorporated into the Due Process Clause. The Court also, as it did in Heller, “expressly rejected the argument that the scope of the Second Amendment right should be determined by judicial interest balancing.”It’s mind-boggling that some federal and state courts resist these Supreme Court holdings and render conflicting decisions, dismissing fundamental rights that are plainly stated in the Constitution, while inventing others that do not exist in the Constitution.Halbrook’s book serves as a literary weapon in support of our Second Amendment right by clearly identifying what the Second Amendment means and requires.The Corlett case and Halbrook’s book comes to us at a time when the Bill of Rights in its entirety – all ten of them – are on trial!The very soul of our Nation and the meaning of what it is to be “an American” is constantly and relentlessly challenged by well-organized and well-funded Progressive Left-Wing and outright Marxist and Anarchist groups such as BLM and Antifa.These groups promulgate and agitate for “Wokeness” and “Cancel Culture.” They demand the Nation’s institutions implement fictional doctrines such as “Critical Race Theory,” and “the 1619 Project.” They attack dissenting viewpoints with insulting claims of “White Extremism” and “White Supremacy.” They create “Defund the Police” and “Dismantle Police” campaigns. They have gone as far as infiltrating our military with their “patriot extremism.” This threatens our Country. If they weaken our military, we are undone. And they deliberately sow discord and suspicion among Americans to weaken the Country to further their Radical Left agenda.Crime is not only on the rise and has reached historical proportions in major cities across our Country. True as that is, Americans were always mistaken in their belief that they can rely on the police to protect them. The police have no duty to provide protection for individuals, except in rare circumstances.The salient function of the police is to provide general protection for the communities they serve, not to guarantee the safety of individuals within the community. They aren’t personal bodyguards for average Americans.See the following three Arbalest Quarrel articles on the role of the police and the role of the citizen on the matter of personal safety, published on Ammoland Shooting Sports News:“Can We, As Individuals, Rely On The Police To Protect Us,” referencing an article co-authored by Stephen L. D’Andrilli and David Kopel B. Kopel, titled, “Personal Safety: Individual Responsibility,” that is as relevant today as it was when it appeared over thirty years ago, in the May 1989 issue of “Women and Guns;” and, two,“Police Have No Duty To Secure The Life Of Americans From Threat Of Physical Harm;” and, three,“The Government Cannot Protect You! You Must Protect Yourself!”But now, with calls made to defund the police and reduce the number of police, the public cannot even rely on the police to provide even a modicum of general protection for the community, which is and always has been their main function. It is the police who are “handcuffed,” not the criminal element.This means that now, more than ever, people must assume responsibility for their own safety and well-being. And many more Americans recognize this, and they want to own a firearm for personal protection.This turn of events disturbs Radical Left politicians and fanatical Radical Left-wing groups as they intend to prevent average Americans from exercising their Second Amendment right of self-defense to carry a handgun, the best means available for ensuring one’s life.Radical Left-wing politicians and groups obviously don’t care about the life and well-being of individuals. That idea is, after all, contrary to the tenets of Marxism. All they care about is furthering their agenda and wielding increasingly more power and control over the American people — a desire that is insatiable.And this comes at a time when Radical Left Soros funded “prosecutors” refuse to prosecute even the most violent criminals, and release more and more of them out on the streets to prey on innocent Americans. But this, too, is part of the Radical Left agenda. It is all designed to keep the public off guard, in a constant state of bewilderment and fear, as the fabric of society unravels.Meanwhile, the police are constrained from providing even minimal community protection, given draconian policy directives and for fear, not unreasonable, that Radical Left politicians will second-guess their every move and treat them as the criminal element rather than as society’s protector.Since Radical Left politicians fear an armed citizenry more than they do hardened criminals, the public is left essentially defenseless. This is contrary to the Nation’s history and heritage, which Stephen Halbrook lays out in a comprehensive, scholarly manner.He explains clearly and convincingly the import of the right to bear arms and its practice, from its origins in England – going back as far as the early 1300’s – through colonial America, and then through ratification of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, up to the present day. His thorough analysis includes references to and explanations of important state and federal court cases.Given the danger presented to the Nation due to a rampaging Radical Marxist agenda, permeating society from the highest levels of the Federal Government to the local government level, and given dramatic increases in violence on our streets, the Nation’s need for Stephen Halbrook’s book is pressing. The material presented directs the public’s attention back to where that attention needs to be directed: toward an understanding of and appreciation of our Nation’s historical roots.The information provided in Halbrook’s book should be shared by everyone – regardless of political or ideological persuasion – all who truly value and appreciate the freedom, liberties, and rights we enjoy in America.Buy a copy and read it now!____________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE ABSURDITY OF BIDEN’S CALL FOR NATIONAL UNITY

As this article goes to post on the Arbalest Quarrel, we are only a few hours away from the beginning of the New Year. We would like to say that this New Year, 2021, would see President Trump sworn in on January 20, 2021, for his second term in Office, where he would work further on behalf of the Nation to cement his “America First” Legacy for future generations of Americans to come.As we say, we would like to see this, but it is becoming increasingly evident that we won’t see this even though we should see this.If one but looks at mountains of evidence of elections fraud it has become increasingly apparent to everyone, but the most obtuse among us, that Trump did indeed win the election. But the ruthless, powerful, well-organized, inordinately wealthy and eternally secretive and insufferable neoliberal globalist elites have, with the assistance of the media and Press that they control and with the active assistance of the courts that they oversee, clamped down hard on all attempts to bring this evidence out into the light of day to ensure the integrity of our electoral process, the sanctity of the Constitution and the preservation of a free Constitutional Republic. If anyone harbors doubt about the truth of this conclusion, one need only look at the recent actions of the highest law enforcement official in the Land, Attorney General William Barr, and of the action of the highest Court in the Land, the U.S. Supreme Court.On December 1, 2020, The Associated Press reported Barr as saying that “the U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.”Let’s take a closer look at this remark. It suggests the Justice Department did find evidence of voter fraud, but Barr refuses to elaborate on the nature of that evidence; how that evidence was gathered; who did the investigating, and the extent of the investigation. And Barr says nothing about releasing a report on that investigation. Moreover, even if it were true that such evidence that was uncovered would not change the outcome of the election, that still begs the question as to the integrity of the 2020 election.Barr’s assertion is nothing more than an oblique attempt to hide from public scrutiny a matter the importance of which goes to the future of our Country as an independent sovereign Nation State. The seditious Press was satisfied with Barr's action. It would be. Not one to investigate the matter of wholesale elections fraud itself, and having taken an active role in ridiculing evidence of fraud, the seditious Press certainly wouldn't take kindly to a DOJ and FBI investigation that put the lie to the Press narrative. Shortly, after Barr made his 0ffhand remark to the AP, Barr submitted his resignation as AG. One cannot  but wonder: Was Barr threatened, compromised? His perfunctory remarks to the AP are wholly out of character. Barr is not the sort of person who would willingly surrender on a matter of such monumental importance — a thing that decidedly and decisively impacts the future of our Country; indeed, a thing that portends the end of our Country as a free Constitutional Republic if it is Biden who in fact takes the Oath of Office on January 20, 2021, and not Donald Trump.Then there is the U.S. Supreme Court. Here we have three perspicacious Justices—Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett—silently going along with Roberts, who must have made clear to the three junior Associate Justices that under no circumstance must the Texas case, Texas vs. Pennsylvania, 592 U.S. ____ (December 11, 2020) be entertained. Yet, who but the U.S. Supreme Court could allow a State versus State case to proceed?Article 3, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution sets forth in clear terms:“In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”In a brief, perfunctory Order, the Court Majority dismissed the case,  asserting that Texas does not have standing to sue. Really?For the Supreme Court to  assert that Texas did not have standing to bring action against another State on the matter of how a state conducts its elections, the Court cavalierly skirted the underlying question at stake: whether the matter in which Pennsylvania conducted the election for the United States President did in fact unconstitutionally negatively impact how Texas and other States conduct their own election. The framers of the Constitution made certain that the Constitution would give, indeed must give, to the Highest Court in the Land original jurisdiction in a State versus State lawsuit precisely because no lower Federal or State Court could ever have the authority to hear a legal dispute between one sovereign State and another sovereign State.And so, we have the prospect that the Great Pretender, Joseph Biden, the Manchurian Candidate and the Neoliberal Globalist elites’ Candidate for U.S. President will become the U.S. President, and thereupon make a mockery of the U.S. Constitution. In administering the Oath of Office to Joseph Biden, Americans will bear witness to the final touch of farce. We may be seeing John Roberts, himself, as having played an active role in the takeover of our Nation, an elaborate hoax, the greatest tragedy to ever beset our Nation as the elevation of the Grand Imposter, Joe Biden, to the highest elected Office in the Land will mark the nadir of the United States. The U.S. will become a Dictatorship, where a consortium of ruthless powerful individuals and groups behind the scenes, along with Xi Jinping's Communist China, operating as the true rulers, utilizing their puppets, Biden and Harris and lesser Government figures, to institute a radical transformation of the Nation, an “inverted totalitarian regime,” to be immersed in and absorbed into a one world system of governance.

JOE BIDEN, THE GREAT UNIFIER?

Joe Biden’s call for “unity” is as nonsensical and as farcical as anything else that comes out of his mouth.Likely, Biden never came up with the idea for he lacks both intellect and imagination. But a vast coterie of Democrat Party handlers, speech writers, political consultants, acting coaches, and image makers apparently thought it would be good thing to utilize; something to wrap this listless, inept, empty vessel in, at once proclaiming this stooge to be a savior that he would deign, or dare, to save Americans from themselves.Have him yap long enough and often enough about unity, cooperation, solidarity, and togetherness and perhaps the American public will warm up to him, come around to accept him as a leader of the Nation, as the leader of the Nation: the Great Unifier, the Grand Unifier, the High Lord muck-a-muck of Civility and Propriety in contrast to that awful Disuniter—that brusque, uncouth, Racist, Misogynist a.k.a. Donald Trump.The mega billionaire neoliberal Globalist elites of the world must take Americans for fools; either that, or they take Americans for complete idiots.Don’t they realize the word ‘unity,’ apropos of a Nation’s people, only makes sense in the context OF A NATION, which, under a Biden Presidency would be a shaky and murky proposition at best. The Billionaire Globalists, along with the Marxist unionists, the Globalist elites’ foot soldiers, want none of that. Their goal is to merge our Nation with those of other western nations into a single world, transnational union—encompassing geographical regions, spread out across the Earth—comprising billions of people, a heterogeneous glob that shares neither common values and culture, nor unifying traditions and histories.If one can sensibly talk of a grand unity at all, it is something the destroyers of our Nation want; what it is the mega-Billionaire neoliberal Globalist corporatists and the rabid, Globalist Marxists and Anarchists both want; and what it is both are intent on delivering to Americans: A Collectivist vision of the world finally realized, a veritable nightmare in which the populations of the developed countries are dragged down to the level of third world countries. Trump’s “Make America Great Again”—perceived by the Globalist elite and by the Marxists as a veritable obscenity agenda to be recast as and transmogrified into “Make America.”Both billionaire neoliberal globalists and trans-global Marxists and Anarchists find common ground on that score, if little else. But their goal of a one world order requires the demolishing of a free Constitutional Republic.The puppet masters’ marionettes, Biden and Harris, will happily assist them in this task, no less so than had Barack Obama, the Bushes, and Bill Clinton before Biden and Harris.But the Collectivist vision of a one world government is not what most Americans want, and it certainly isn’t something they need. It is decidedly and decisively what most of us don’t want and what anyone of us would need about as much as the plague sent to us courtesy of the Chinese Communist Government.The Collectivist vision of a one world government is wholly inconsistent with what our free Constitutional Republic demands: preservation of the Nation’s Constitution, grounded on the tenets of Individualism; an independent sovereign Nation-State where the American people themselves are the ultimate sovereign authority.How can two mutually exclusive visions of political and social reality cohere? Quite simply, they can’t. Still, there are some who talk glowingly of a unifying American spirit that seemingly transcends differing visions of the Nation, of the world, and of reality. But sober reflection demonstrates how preposterous such an idea is.Back in March 2020 the former Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal wrote an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal. In that Op-Ed Jindal acknowledged the deep divide in America but claimed a unifying American spirit, reflected in his pronouncement, “there’s a real voter appetite for moderation and compromise.”Jindal wrote in significant part,“America’s current political polarization seems to favor candidates like Mr. Trump and Bernie Sanders, who mobilize their respective bases. The most committed conservative and progressive activists find common ground in their celebration of partisanship. They see fierce competition between principled partisans in the marketplace of ideas as benefiting the nation.Despite their deep ideological differences, they share a grudging respect for their political combatants, preferring them to be ‘cold or hot,’ in contrast with their ‘lukewarm’ fellow partisans. These activists view bipartisan compromises—from the Clinton-era crime and welfare reforms to the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act and Medicare expansion—as capitulations.Yet Mr. Biden’s decisive victory in South Carolina suggests there’s a real voter appetite for moderation and compromise. He may be wrong about many policies, but he’s right to try to include the other side and to denounce the growing hostility across ideological and partisan divides. Bipartisanship is built on recognizing differences, but also on recognizing that what unites Americans is stronger than what divides us.It is built on humility—on the recognition that the other side has value. Conservatives dedicated to limited government should be grateful for liberals ensuring society considers the needs of the poor. Liberals dedicated to powerful and expansive government should be grateful for conservatives ensuring that society generates prosperity and protects individual liberty.”Bobby Jindal ends his Op-Ed asserting,“A driving force behind today’s polarization is a combination of arrogance and insecurity. Liberals talk confidently of the coming demographic wave—growing numbers of female, young, college-educated, minority, urban and secular voters they believe guarantee them a majority sooner or later. They are impatient for conservatives to convert or die. Many conservatives view their plans as blessed by divine providence. Yet both sides act with a desperate urgency that belies their stated confidence, as if losing the next election could permanently endanger their beliefs.The path to civility requires both parties to display the humble belief that the other side consists of good, patriotic Americans with valuable insights, as well as the confident determination that their own beliefs are enduring and can eventually emerge victorious. That may prove a winning message for Mr. Biden.”Well, if this were Biden’s message it certainly isn’t a winning one.Sure, a few Americans might have viewed Jindal’s March 2020 article, at the time of posting, as conveying a message of hope and yearning for reconciliation.But jump ahead to the post 2020 election—an election result that, on its face, is so statistically anomalous and one that is so laden with criminal fraud and deceit, as to understandably generate and provoke anger and resentment in a vast majority of Americans as they see a free Republic literally wrenched from them.In retrospect, Jindal’s Op-Ed comes across as quaint and flowery, wistful, naïve, and syrupy at best, and, at worst, a thing trite, banal, nonsensical, even insulting.In fact, Jindal apparently realized the flaws in his earlier Op-Ed, for, in August 2020, he recalibrated his remarks. Gone was any message of hope and trust for a better future for our Country. Jindal saw things as they truly are, as manifesting uncomfortably in front of him. He wrote,“Rather than making the traditional move to the center after he secured the nomination, Mr. Biden has continued to move left. He seems more worried about persuading Mr. Sanders’s supporters to turn out than convincing Mr. Trump’s voters to consider a moderate alternative.Mr. Biden embraced identity politics by promising to name a female running mate. Anticipating a sweep of Congress, Democrats have announced their support for abolishing the Senate filibuster and pay-as-you-go rules. Democrats covet these new powers for the majority not to pursue moderate bipartisan policies. They would likely try to expand the courts, grant statehood to the District of Columbia, restrict gun ownership, give unions more power, and ease immigration restrictions and their enforcement.”How much further have we come since Jindal’s August 2020 Op-Ed, on the cusp of a new year, January 1, 2021. In Biden’s staged remarks, and in the selection of his Cabinet, we are witnessing the marshalling of forces to finally cement complete and lasting victory for the adherents of the Counter-revolution: the neoliberal Globalist elites and the transnational Marxists and Anarchists.Newfangled and singularly bizarre concepts of identity politics, critical race theory, intersectionality—mindless neologisms, concocted by and perpetuated by Marxists, all with the blessing of billionaire Globalist elites—have become Biden’s guiding principles, as perceived in Biden’s cabinet selection.In the Collectivist vision of the world, Trump’s “Make America Great Again” imperative, which embraces the notion of “America First,” has no place. Well beyond New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s disdainful remark, delivered in a 2018 speech, that “America was never that great,”—alluding to and mocking Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan and at once contemptuous of our Nation’s traditions, history, heritage, and core values—we now have in Biden’s choice for Secretary of State, the neocon Anthony Blinken who, in a Biden Administration, is a man who eschews the notion of “America First,” whose foreign policy methodology marks a return to multilateral consensus building with western world leaders, all of whom acquiesce to a belligerent Communist China.If Biden does in fact ascend to the U.S. Presidency on January 20, 2021, and that appears to be more and more certain now, those Americans who adhere to their sacred values, traditions, and heritage, must not succumb to the idea that, come 2022, they will hold onto the Senate and retake the House, and that, in 2024, they will have an opportunity to revive a free Constitutional Republic along with their sacred, natural rights by reelection of Donald Trump as U.S. President. That is wishful thinking in the extreme.A Biden/Harris Presidency will move quickly to reverse all Trump’s gains and will plow ahead on many fronts to dismantle our Constitution, and our Nation-State. A free Constitutional Republic is breathing its last.We, Americans, stand to lose everything that truly defines us as Americans, as the concept of ‘American’ would be understood by our founding fathers; not as Neoliberal Globalist power brokers and Globalist Marxists and Anarchists twist and warp the concept out of any semblance of coherent, historical meaning and context.Once lost—our sacred rights and freedoms, our individuality, our existence as a true sovereign, independent Nation—those things that we cherish most are not coming back. The Globalist elites and their Marxist and Anarchist foot soldiers will see to it that they don’t._________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.