THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT PROTECT YOU! YOU MUST PROTECT YOURSELF!

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

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

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

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

ASSAULT ON SECOND AMENDMENT CAN ONLY BRING DESTRUCTION TO OUR NATION AS A FREE REPUBLIC.

PART SIXTEEN

AMERICANS MAY FORESTALL ALL ATTACKS ON THEIR FREEDOM BUT FOR ONE: LOSS OF THEIR RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.

There is ample evidence of sinister work afoot to tear down the fabric of this Nation that the founders of our Republic fought so hard to create and preserve. The creation of both the Federal Reserve System and the IRS that have sucked the lifeblood of Americans’ toil are two clear instances of attempts by rapacious forces from both within the U.S. and outside the U.S. to undermine the integrity of the U.S. as an independent and sovereign Nation State; to weaken our Nation’s institutions; and to enfeeble our Nation’s citizenry so that it might be more easily disciplined and controlled.Understand there is nothing in the Constitution that either requires or mandates the creation of an independent privately owned Federal Reserve System or that requires or mandates the creation of a governmental structure, the IRS, within the U.S. They are both artificial constructs. The framers of our Constitution did not place them in that sacred Document. Yet, they exist, and both have done much to harm both this Nation and this Nation’s citizenry, up to the present moment in time. Just as insidiously, we have seen, for decades, attempts to destroy the independence and sovereignty of our Nation by thrusting the U.S. into economic unions with other Nations. These economic pacts and treaties serve as a diabolical backdoor through which the internationalist Rothschild clan and its minions dare insinuate themselves into the political, social, cultural, and legal fabric of our Nation, quite apart from the economic fabric, benefiting multinational cartels to the detriment of our Nation’s workers and small business owners.Recall the creation of NAFTA and CAFTA. Have these economic pacts served well our Nation and its workers and our small business entrepreneurs? Hardly! Just ask them! And, through further, subterfuge, past Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former U.S. President Barack Obama, along with the transnationalist cartels, sought to undermine the sovereignty and independence of our Nation; subordinating our Constitution, system of laws and jurisprudence, to the will of multinational corporations, one-world Government transnationalists, neoliberal economic Globalists, and transnationalist multiculturalists.Consider the infamous, rapacious, diabolical Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreements that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama helped to formulate, through secret machinations and connivance with other Governments and with multinational corporations, and through which they sought to bind our Nation. The TPP and TTIP, as envisioned, would have been horrific mechanisms of control through which this Nation’s economic, political, and legal independence and sovereignty would have been jeopardized, vanquished, had they been implemented, as Barack Obama intended, and as Hillary Clinton would certainly have followed through with, had she become U.S. President, notwithstanding her statements to the contrary, during the 2016 Democratic Party debates.President Trump made clear his opposition to these monstrous plans to undermine our Nation, and, true to his word, he successfully derailed them through Executive Order, one of his first acts as U.S. President.

BUT THE MOST DIABOLICAL ASSAULT ON OUR NATION AND ON A FREE PEOPLE IS THIS: DESTRUCTION OF THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.

More recently, within the last few years especially—and never far from the Collectivists’ desire to eradicate our free Republic—we see the destroyers of our Nation attempting, now and again, to undermine, indeed erase, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. With the U.S. Presidential election drawing ever nearer, we are seeing renewed attacks on the Second Amendment. In fits and starts, the Democratic Party—now a refuge for Radical Leftists of all stripes: Marxists, Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists—inevitably and invariably returns to its signature platform and policy goal: the weakening and eventual eradication of the Second Amendment. But why is that? Why would the Democratic Party Leadership and its Radical Left contingent want this? For this reason: An armed citizenry is absolutely anathema to their plans for a massive increase in the size of Government, and, concomitantly, for a powerful centralized Government exercising control over the Nation’s citizenry’s every thought and action. And so, understandably, albeit, unconscionably, we see the American citizenry’s exercise of its Second Amendment fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms under insistent, incessant, omni-present, strenuous attack.The Progressive and Radical Left toadies and hangers-on in our State and Federal Governments will never be content with simply weakening the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They must attack firearms and firearms’ ownership and possession at the root level, doing so fervently, unashamedly, unabashedly. They seek to make the very idea of gun ownership and possession passé, a notion that has outlived its usefulness, if, in their mind, ever had any. They intend to make the American citizen's the very idea of exercising one's right to keep and bear arms an aberration of nature. There is even a name for it now: hoplophobia. Will this new phobia eventually be included in a new “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM), even as such clear deviancy as Gender Dysphoria is removed, due to the operation of the imbecilic notion of “Political Correctness,” hawked by supercilious “Thought Police” of the Radical Left?And Progressive and Radical Left Legislators and Government Bureaucrats have friends to assist them in their endeavor to wreak havoc on the Second Amendment: friends and cohorts found in finance and in the technology sectors; in academia; entertainment, the Press; and even in our Courts. All have a strong, irrepressible, obsessive desire to weaken the Second Amendment irreversibly; many calling for outright repeal of it. Along the way they orchestrate schemes to neutralize the efficacy of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.But, what is the rationale for the incessant, virulent attack on the Second Amendment? Is it really predicated on a desire, ever expressed, to curb “gun violence” as the Public is told? No! That is mere pretext. Were it otherwise, then those who truly claim a desire to curb violence with guns, would direct their attention to those elements in society—namely gang members, common criminals, and terrorists—who misuse firearms. But, they don’t direct their attention to these elements of society. Instead, these Radical Left elements direct their attention to the firearm itself, and they direct their attention on the tens of millions of average Americans: rational, law-abiding citizens who wish only to exercise their fundamental right to keep and bear arms, uninhibited, unrestrained, and unconstrained by Government.Consider the media’s incendiary attacks on guns and gun ownership whenever a lunatic goes off half-cocked: most recently, as we see in newspaper accounts of two recent mass shooting incidents. The New York Times proclaims on a banner headline, on August 5, 2019, in its digital format paper that: “Shootings Renew Debate Over How to Combat Domestic Terrorism.” And in the Newspaper’s home edition, the banner headline reads: “One Shooting Massacre Follows Another, Shaking a Bewildered Nation to its Core.” In the fourth paragraph of the article, the Times reports, “Democrats urged Congress to take action and pass stricter gun laws.”In other words, the Democratic Party Leadership and the Radical Left deem it perfectly acceptable to utilize the lowest common denominator in society to destroy the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms. But, even on that score the antigun zealots in the Press cannot claim even a modicum of consistency. Where was The New York Times’ outrage when the lunatic and Antifa fanatic, Willem Van Spronsen, attacked an immigration detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, on July 13, 2019, with an aim toward murdering federal police officers? That outrage was nowhere to be seen. The Times reported dryly, matter-of-factly, indeed deceptively, that:"the man [Willem Van Spronsen], who was armed with a rifle, was throwing unspecified 'incendiary devices' at the Northwest Detention Center, according to a police statement. . . . Police have not established a motive for the attack, but The Seattle Times reported that a longtime friend of Mr. Van Spronsen’s, Deb Bartley, believed he had intended to provoke a fatal conflict.”No motive for the attack on ICE Officials and on the Northwest Detention Center that can be deduced? Really? New York Times reporters couldn't undertake an investigation? Conducting independent investigations--isn't that what Newspaper Reporters do; what it is they are supposed to do, expected to do, to get to the bottom of a story? And, couldn't the story's news reporters hazard an educated guess, at the very least, as to a possible motive, given that Spronsen did, after all, leave a "manifesto" which he obviously intended for the public to read?The conservative Washington Times, having investigated the would-be killer, Spronsen, unlike the Left-wing New York Times--that, it seems, decided to forego investigating the motives of Spronsen--found no difficulty at all in ascribing a motive to Willem Spronsen's actions, and the Washington Times found reason aplenty for so informing the public of its findings, writing:Willem Van Spronsen, 69, declares early on in his manifesto that ‘evil says concentration camps for folks deemed lesser are necessary. the handmaid of evil says the concentration camps should be more humane,’ using a term usually reserved for Nazi Germany’s death camps, but introduced in the border-security debate last month by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.He also mocked people criticizing Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for intellectual sloppiness, referring to ‘these days of highly profitable detention/concentration camps and a battle over the semantics.’Van Spronsen, armed with an AR-15 assault weapon that his manifesto encouraged others to acquire to bring about a revolution, attacked the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma around 4 a.m. Saturday. He threw ‘incendiary devices’ and set vehicles before officers shot him to death as he was trying to ignite a propane tank. In his manifesto, he called the detention facility ‘an abomination’ and that he was ‘not standing by’ as it operated.‘i really shouldn’t have to say any more than this. i set aside my broken heart and i heal the only way i know how- by being useful. i efficiently compartmentalize my pain. . . and i joyfully go about this work,’ he wrote.He indicated that he intended the attack as a suicide mission, writing that ‘i regret that i will miss the rest of the revolution. thank you for the honor of having me in your midst. giving me space to be useful.’Antifa activists declared him useful, too.Seattle Antifascist Action called him ‘our good friend and comrade Willem Van Spronsen’ and said he ‘became a martyr who gave his life to the struggle against fascism.’The group went on to call for more such attacks in memory of Van Spronsen.‘We cannot let his death go unanswered . . . May his death serve as a call to protest and direct action,’ the group wrote on its Facebook page.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was asked Monday by the Daily Wire whether she would denounce antifa and whether she was to any degree responsible for the attack, since Van Spronsen repeatedly used her “concentration camp” language.She ignored the reporter.BREAKING: Ocasio-Cortez refuses to condemn the far-left terrorist attack on the ICE facility in Tacoma, WashingtonThe terrorist used Ocasio-Cortez’s rhetoric in his manifesto pic.twitter.com/t1priIPAiW.Apparently The New York Times missed these little details about Spronsen that the Washington Times felt pertinent enough to inform the public about. Or, perhaps New York Times Editors, unlike the Washington Times Editors, felt that Spronsen’s motives, clearly amounting to domestic terrorism were either inscrutable or irrelevant; therefore falling outside the parameters of what the Times concludes is "All the News That’s Fit to Print." One is left to suspect that there is, in fact, contrary to adherence to its motto, much "News That IS Fit to print," but that The New York Times would rather not print even though such news is really and truly fit to print; preferring to leave the public in the dark in those instances where the news doesn't happen to fit the paper's personal ends: one directed to indoctrinating the public to accept a certain line of thought, rather than merely and essentially informing the public, so that the public might draw its own conclusion. And, there you have it!

PART SEVENTEEN

ENDING GUN VIOLENCE ISN’T AN AIM OF ANTIGUN RADICAL LEFTISTS; IT IS A MERE TALKING POINT TO DESTROY EXERCISE OF THE CITIZEN'S FUNDAMENTAL, NATURAL, AND UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMSDUPLICITY AND HYPOCRISY ABOUNDS AMONG THE RADICAL LEFTIf it were the case that those who claim a desire to curb gun violence truly meant what they say, they would be compelled, at one and the same time, to draw a clear and categorical distinction between proper, appropriate use of firearms and improper, inappropriate, criminal use of firearms, acknowledging the fact that millions of law-abiding, sane American citizens, do exercise their right to keep and bear arms for legitimate purposes, millions of time every year, namely, and most notably, for self-defense; thereby proclaiming the legitimacy of firearms’ use for self-defense. But, antigun zealots don’t wish to recognize self-defense as a legitimate reason for owning and possessing firearms, and, so, won't acknowledge self-defense as a legitimate basis for owning and possessing firearms, even if they were to do so only grudgingly.Further, a rational person would expect these same antigun zealots to condemn vociferously any and all acts of criminal violence even if they are reluctant to admit lawful purposes and uses for firearms. But, while it has always been the case that antigun zealots seek, first and foremost, to disarm the citizenry, albeit under the guise of protecting the public from gun violence, even that platitude has lost efficacy, for, as we have seen, Radical Left antigun zealots do, indeed, support use of firearms and bombs for use in some acts of domestic terrorism, namely those acts—such as attacking and murdering police and Federal ICE officials and destroying Government facilities—that happen to cohere with the Collectivist, Anarchist Marxist/Socialist/Communist agenda, as evidenced by the Spronsen incident, pointed out in this article, supra, citing the Washington Times news story, titled, “Antifa lauds ‘martyr’ who attacked ICE detention center as manifesto circulates.”We see mainstream Left-wing newspapers, such as The New York Times, deliberately refraining from calling out some acts of domestic terrorism, illustrating clearly enough, then, that many media organizations are clearly in lockstep with the sympathies of the Radical Left who operate both in this Country and abroad.

WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON HERE?

Of course exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense, is a perfectly legitimate purpose, as made plain in the 2008 Heller decision. But, for antigun zealots who, at once, invariably sympathize with the goals and agenda of the Radical Left, such an admission weakens their argument, false as it is, that guns are the salient cause of violence in society.Moreover, as some acts of domestic terrorism are tolerated or condoned, and even applauded and encouraged, as we see with the Willem Van Spronsen incident, it is now becoming impossible to deny—as the fact of the matter is becoming ever clearer, day-by-day—that the Radical Left intends to destroy the very fabric of American society as conceived by the founders of our free Republic. The Radical Left seeks to jettison our culture, our system of laws, our Constitution, our Judeo-Christian ethos—all of it—in the name of multicultural pluralism, utilizing the newly concocted political devices of identity politics, intersectionalism, and virtue signaling; and promoting as a morally superior idea, a culture of victimhood--all in an attempt to prepare the citizens of this Nation for a life of subjugation, as the Nation is subsumed into a new one-world Government, where the very concept of the ‘Nation State’ and ‘Citizen of the United States’ both cease to exist; where a once proud Nation is reduced to obscurity, insignificance--a mere cog in the machinery of a new one-world system of governance--where a once free, proud, and unique People is reduced to abject servitude and penury.Can the U.S. Supreme Court, as the guardian of the U.S. Constitution, prevent this, even if Congress and the Executive Branch of the Federal Government cannot? Clearly, the U.S. Supreme Court can, which is why the Radical Left seeks to pack the Court with individuals who have no love for our Constitution--who have little to no compunction about subordinating our Constitution to that of the laws of other Nations and to so-called international norms, thereby paving the way for insinuation of the U.S. into the EU, as precursor to a one-world system of governance, which necessitates loss of our National sovereignty and independence, and subordination of our laws, Constitution, and jurisprudence to an artificial transnational world construct. Not surprisingly, then, antigun zealots ignore the reasoning of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that contradict their goals and agenda. Hence, they ignore or condemn outright, the reasoning of the Heller Majority along with the high Court’s rulings in that case—viewing Heller as an aberration, if they are asked about Heller at all.

IN WHAT DOES THE THREAT TO THE COLLECTIVIST GOAL FOR EFFECTIVE REPEAL OF THE SACRED, FUNDAMENTAL, INVIOLATE, UNALIENABLE, NATURAL RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS REALLY AND TRULY REST?

It cannot be overstated that, while the Second Amendment entails the natural right of self-defense—as dealt with at length in Heller—the import of the Second Amendment is directed, first and foremost, to prevent tyranny from arising in this Country—a point also made in Heller. That being so, it is therefore a curious thing that antigun politicians, along with the usual media types, continually scoff at the notion that the American people need to be armed to ward off tyranny—even though it is self-evident, true, that no better check against tyranny exists than the presence of a well-armed citizenry. The founders of our Nation certainly knew this to be so, but few Legislators today bother to acknowledge that fact. Not surprisingly, the Radical Left in this Country, now attack the founders of our Nation even as these same Leftist elements dare claim, disingenuously, inconsistently, and oddly, that they respect our Nation’s laws and Constitution. Perhaps they should take a close look at Heller. And, they would do well to take a close look, as well, at Constitutional Law expert, David Kopel’s article, “Why the anti-tyranny case for the 2nd Amendment shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly,” that appeared, three years ago—and curiously enough—in the progressive weblog, Vox. Disemboweling the Bill of Rights—particularly the Second Amendment—is the principal aim of Progressive and Radical Leftists. Those that hew to the tenets of Collectivism—disreputable elements, both inside this Country as well as outside it—seek to destroy a proud and free people, and a free Republic.To accomplish their loathsome end, it is indicative of the unsavory proponents of Collectivism—those who seek to create a new system of governance, eschewing the continued existence of the concept of the Nation State—to work toward denying to the citizens of our Nation their natural, unalienable, immutable, and inviolate right to keep and bear arms. For, a one-world Government that subjugates entire populations is impossible to accomplish in any Nation where that Nation’s citizenry has, readily available to it, access to firearms.At ground, the salient and critical purpose of the Second Amendment, as the founders of our Constitutional Republic in their wisdom, did foresee and ever maintained, is to secure the authority and sovereignty of the American people from those who would dare usurp the ultimate, premier authority from wherein it alone belongs: in the American people themselves. Prevention of tyranny is the true, undeniable, and salient, essential purpose of the Second Amendment. And that core purpose is inconsistent with and anathema to the tenets of Collectivism.Collectivist tenets of Marxism, Socialism, Communism, upon which the Leftist agenda absolutely depends, requires, for its success, the subjugation of the American citizenry. This is a matter impossible for the Internationalist Collectivists to accomplish as long as the Second Amendment of our Nation's Bill of Rights remains, in all its glory: preserved, robust, strong, absolute, as the founders of our Nation, the creators of our free Republic, a Constitutional Republic—one comprising an autonomous, powerful, armed citizenry—had unequivocally intended.__________________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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

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

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