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.

ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT FORCES CONTINUE THEIR PUSH TO ERODE THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

NEW JERSEY SENATE BILL S. 3757 IS ONE MORE SLAP-IN-THE-FACE FOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND HELLER

PART ONE

The Arbalest Quarrel read with interest the NRA-ILA alert concerning New Jersey Senate Bill S. 3757 “that would force gun owners to store their guns and ammo under lock and key or face felony-level penalties.” We also read with interest and agree with Scott Bach’s well-written explication of the bill. Scott points out, “this ill-conceived bill imposes an absurd, one-size-fits-all totalitarian mandate to keep guns unloaded and locked up inside the home and to keep ammunition separately locked up inside the home, except when ‘in use’ – an utterly undefined term that will surely be interpreted to exclude everything except target practice.”As Scott notes, the New Jersey gun bill is absurd. And it is idiotic on logical grounds alone.But there is also a legal matter attendant to the bill. The bill flaunts and raises a disconcerting matter about the law that needs to be addressed.Just how broadly or narrowly is Heller to be read? This idea is not as simple as it may seem.Apart from the clear and categorical holding that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia—ostensibly knocking down once and for all time the erroneous idea often still propounded by some that the Second Amendment refers to a “collective right”—the Court addressed another matter that directly impacts the New Jersey Senate bill.The Heller Court said——“In sum, we hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.” Does the New Jersey Senate bill square with the Heller holding? And, if it doesn’t, what is the impetus for the New Jersey Legislature drafting the thing at all?Let’s take a closer look at the bill as written.A preliminary “Statement” of intent, in the bill, reads in pertinent part as follows:“This bill, titled the ‘New Jersey Safe Storage of Firearms Act,’ establishes penalties for improper storage of a firearm that results in access of the firearm; requires a warning to be issued to firearms purchasers; and requires the Attorney General to establish a public awareness campaign regarding the risk associated with improper storage of a firearm. The bill also repeals the provisions of current law that establish penalties only for a minor's access of an improperly stored firearm, and makes an appropriation.Under current law, there are storage requirements and penalties imposed if a minor accesses a loaded firearm that is not in use. However, there currently are no general requirements for storing firearms when they are not in use.This bill requires a legal owner of a firearm to: (1) store or secure a firearm that is not in use at a premises under the owner's control unloaded, in a gun safe or securely locked box or container; and (2) store ammunition, separately, in a securely locked box or container.Under the bill, if the owner of a firearm fails to store the firearm properly as required under the bill, the owner will, for a first offense, be sentenced to period of community service of not less than 10 hours and not more than 40 hours. For a second or subsequent offense, the owner is guilty of a disorderly persons offense. If an improperly stored firearm is accessed by another person, and the access results in serious bodily injury to or the death of the person who accesses the firearm or another person, the owner is guilty of a crime of the fourth degree. A disorderly persons offense is punishable by up to six months' imprisonment, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. A crime of the fourth degree is punishable by up to 18 months' imprisonment, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.”The language of the bill, proper, says in pertinent part:A legal owner of a firearm shall:

• store or secure a firearm that is not in use at a premises under the owner's control, unloaded, in a gun safe or securely locked box or container; and
• store ammunition, separately, in a securely locked box or container.

The bill also imposes requirements on the firearms dealer: The Superintendent of State Police, in conjunction with the Attorney General, shall adopt guidelines in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act, P.L.1968, c.410 (C.52:14B-1 et seq.), to require each licensed retail firearms dealer in the State, or the retail dealer's employee, to provide to any person who receives, possesses, carries, or uses a firearm, a written warning printed on eight and one-half inches by 11 inches in size paper in not less than 14 point bold point type letters which shall state:“NEW JERSEY STATE LAW REQUIRES THAT ALL FIREARMS MUST BE STORED, UNLOADED, IN A SECURELY LOCKED GUN SAFE OR LOCKED CONTAINER, AND ALL AMMUNITION MUST BE STORED IN A SEPARATE, SECURELY LOCKED GUN SAFE OR LOCKED CONTAINER. FAILURE TO DO SO IS PUNISHABLE BY LAW AND COULD RESULT IN FINES AND IMPRISONMENT.” The written warning provided pursuant to subsection a. of this section shall include the requirements and penalties imposed pursuant to P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill).The superintendent shall provide each licensed retail firearms dealer with a sign to be displayed prominently at a conspicuous place on the dealer's business premises at each purchase counter. The sign shall contain the statutory reference to section 3 of P.L., c. (C.). . . .”Left unsaid in the bill, is how the New Jersey Government is to know whether or how a person stores a firearm in his house.Is a New Jersey police officer to be given carte blanche authority to check on this? If so, would this not violate an individual’s Fourth Amendment Right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures?But the more pressing issue is whether NJ S.B. 3757 is, on its face, patently illegal. Is the bill inconsistent with the Heller holding pertaining to one’s right of immediate access to a firearm in the home for the purpose of self-defense? It would seem so. But there is a problem.Just how broadly, in regard to immediate access to a firearm in one’s home, is Heller to be taken? We look at this in the next segment, and consider the ramifications of Heller, for Bruen.__________________________________________

ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT JURISDICTIONS ROUTINELY AND BLATANTLY IGNORE HELLER AND MCDONALD PRECEDENTS

PART TWO

To both proponents of the Second Amendment and its detractors, Heller is known for its salient holding: that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia. No one has any doubt about that holding whether one accepts the truth of it or not.It is the central holding of Heller and it is a broad ruling; no question about it. This is as it was always meant to be, and the Heller majority opinion says this clearly, succinctly, and categorically. And the Court meant for this holding to have universal application—applicable to every jurisdiction in the Country.Moreover, contrary to what some say or wish to believe, this central holding of Heller is consonant and consistent with the plain meaning of the language of the Second Amendment. The language of the Amendment does nothing more than codify a fundamental, unalienable, illimitable, immutable, natural right that exists intrinsically in every person. The one odd thing about the Heller case is that the High Court would have to point this out at all.Even so—All too many Courts blithely ignore Heller’s holding notwithstanding they are all dutybound to be mindful of and rigorously adhere to the import of it when reviewing government actions that target it. The implication of Heller cuts across and into all government actions directed against the application of the right embodied in the Second Amendment.These Anti-Second Amendment Courts merely rubberstamp unconstitutional government actions when they should be striking down government actions that, on their face, infringe the core of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.But there are other holdings in Heller that Anti-Second Amendment proponents and other “neutral” Americans miss.Unlike Heller’s paramount and broad holding pertaining to the universal nature of the right of the people to keep and bear arms as an individual rather than as a mere collective right, there are other seeming “narrow” holdings in Heller.These additional holdings address the District of Columbia’s actions concerning handguns and the right of the people to have immediate access to them in one’s own home, for the purpose of self-defense.The New Jersey gun bill, S. 3757, if enacted, would preclude a gun owner’s immediate access to a firearm for self-defense in the gun owner’s own home. On its face, NJ S.B. 3757 mirrors the major import and purport of the D.C. law that the Heller Court struck down as unconstitutional. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, said this:“In sum, we hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.” But is this seeming narrow holding, directed as it is to the District of Columbia, truly meant to be confined only to the District? Or, is it a broad-based, universal holding, applicable across the board, to every jurisdiction in the Land even as the High Court addressed the language of a law enacted by the District of Columbia that could only apply to the District?Assume for purpose of argument that this holding is meant to be confined to D.C. This isn’t to suggest that, if the New Jersey’s gun bill were enacted and someone were to challenge its constitutionality on appeal, the High Court would find the New Jersey law to be constitutional when the District’s law wasn’t.With the conservative wing in the majority, New Jersey’s gun bill, if enacted, would be summarily struck down, as patently illegal. No question about it.But who knows if the High Court would ever hear the case? Likely it wouldn’t, presumably because the New Jersey gun bill is similar to the D.C. law that was struck down. The New Jersey Legislature knows this. Very few cases make it to the U.S. Supreme Court for review.The New Jersey bill, as law, would be inconsistent with the D.C. gun bill but would be enforced by New Jersey anyway, unless or until it was struck down.Consider longstanding unconstitutional gun laws such as New York’s notorious “Safe Act”—which, itself, merely expands on unconstitutional laws going back decades. And the New York Legislature still expands upon the “Safe Act” slowly and inexorably engulfing and dissolving the whole of the Second Amendment.The “Safe Act” is, as we have expressly said, not the finalization of the work of Anti-Second Amendment zealots, but a work in progress, building upon the notorious, discriminatory Sullivan Act, enacted over one hundred and ten years ago.And while there have been challenges to New York’s gun laws through the century, following upon enactment of the Sullivan Act of 1911, look how long it took for the U.S. Supreme Court to accept review of a major challenge to New York’s firearms’ licensing scheme. The case is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., vs. Petitioners vs. City Of New York, commonly referred to and known as the New York City Gun Transport case. That case was decided in 2020, and it did not meet expectations.The liberal wing of the Court, along with the ostensibly conservative wing Chief Justice John Roberts—who, it seems, cajoled the Trump nominee Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh to go along with him, adding a crucial fifth vote—emasculated the Gun Transport case. Justices Thomas and Alito were justifiably outraged.The High Court majority refused to review the case on the merits, thus allowing the massive, bloated, convoluted, confusing gun licensing edifice to remain intact.How much more damage can Anti-Second jurisdictions and the Harris-Biden Administration do to the Second Amendment before a decision in Bruen is published? Even today, we can see the stirrings of unrest among the anti-Second Amendment proponents.Using propaganda to focus the public’s attention anew on guns, the corrupt and senile messenger boy for the Marxists and Globalists is attempting to drum up public support for new assaults on the Second Amendment. Resurrecting the Sandy Hook Elementary School incident, Biden said, as reported by The Hill:“‘As a nation, we owe all these families more than our prayers. We owe them action,’ Biden said in a video message released by the White House.He said the Senate needed to quickly pass three House-passed bills, one to extend background checks, another to keep guns out of the hands of abusers and his Build Back Better act that includes a $5 billion investment in community violence prevention and intervention.‘I know our politics are frustrating and can be frustrating and it’s particularly frustrating now. But we can’t give up hope, we can’t stop,’ Biden said.The president mentioned the school shootings in Parkland, Fla., in 2018 and in Oxford, Mich., last week, adding that similar shootings occur in Black and brown communities every day. The White House unveiled a fact sheet on Tuesday on the work the administration has done to combat gun violence, touting executive orders from the president to reduce the proliferation of ghost guns, which are untraceable guns assembled using parts bought online; regulate stabilizing braces used on firearms and help states enact red flag legislation, among other things. It also noted that local governments have used funding from the American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed into law in March, towards community violence intervention and hiring more law enforcement officers.When asked if there are any conversations about a filibuster carve-out to pursue gun legislation, a senior White House official didn’t comment directly.‘I think the president and the direct to camera really speaks to this issue in an impactful way. He shares in the frustration with gun safety advocates regarding the lack of progress made in Congress, and he also talks about the progress made in the past,’ a senior White House official said, referring to the video released on Tuesday. In the video, the president called Sandy Hook, which occurred during the Obama administration when he was vice president, ‘one of the saddest days we were in office. . . . We have to keep up the pressure.’”This is more than just a veiled threat. The Harris-Biden Administration is preparing a major assault on the Second Amendment, in part to deflect attention from Biden’s dismal poll numbers—hoping that most Americans will support a campaign to destroy the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But it is a dangerous gamble that can backfire. The Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalists know this but figure they have no choice given the 2022 Midterm elections that they must prepare for. The economy is in tatters. Foreign and Domestic policy is in complete disarray. Geopolitically, militarily, economically, socially, politically, the Country is in the throes of chaos. This is just as the Destructors of the Marxist/Globalist agenda intend, but they must convince the American public that the Nation is on the right path, “to build back better.”One must wonder who dreamed up that imbecilic slogan. It sounds oddly like the slogan in the old Burger King commercial: “the bigger the burger the better the burger. . . .” And that is what the Destructors of our Nation and their puppets are doing: grinding our Country and its people into hamburger meat._____________________________________

REGARDLESS OF THE IMPACT OF THE BRUEN RULINGS IN NEW YORK, WHAT IMPACT WOULD BRUEN LIKELY HAVE ON OTHER JURISDICTIONS?

PART THREE

A ruling on Bruen likely won’t be handed down until next summer, keeping many New York gun owners and applicants for concealed handgun carry licenses in limbo for months. And it will be months longer still for the State and the New York City Licensing Division to redraft its concealed handgun carry license Rules, assuming a Bruen ruling requires that to happen.And what would be the impact of a ruling on Bruen in all other “may issue” jurisdictions?Would those jurisdictions construe the rulings in Bruen narrowly or broadly: applicable to those jurisdictions as well, or as having no impact on them?Given what we have seen to date, many jurisdictions blatantly ignore Heller whether the Heller holdings and reasoning are construed broadly or not.So, why then would or should one expect other “may issue” jurisdictions to give Bruen any credence?They ought to, of course. The right of armed self-defense, as a natural right, is not to be taken lightly in the United States, even as it goes unrecognized in other western nations, including the Commonwealth Nations and countries of the EU. And it is unrecognized by the UN, as we pointed out in prior articles.The breadth and depth of High Court rulings is not to be considered a matter of academic interest to legal scholars and legal historians only—as rulings to be adhered to or not, or as stringently or not, as this or that lower Federal and State Court wishes.U.S. Supreme Court holdings often do have or should have, real impact on our Nation even as many jurisdictions routinely misconstrue them. But is this inadvertent or not? Do these jurisdictions deliberately twist, contort and distort Second Amendment Heller and McDonald holdings and reasoning they don’t like?Do these jurisdictions alter Heller and McDonald rulings and reasoning to suit their personal fancy about guns and gun possession, thus allowing Anti-Second Amendment agendas can continue to be pursued, unimpeded? It would seem so.And, this, is, unfortunately, a disturbingly familiar occurrence we see with those government actions that infringe the core of the Second Amendment.

ON THE MATTER OF “NARROW” AND “BROAD” U.S. SUPREME COURT HOLDINGS

But what constitutes a narrow or broad U.S. Supreme Court holding, really? What does the expression “narrowly tailored ruling” mean?This often perplexes the Federal Appellate Courts.See, e.g., United States vs. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638 (7th Cir. 2010). The Seventh Circuit opined,“We do not think it profitable to parse [all the] passages of Heller as if they contained an answer to [all] the question[s] [of what] is valid. They are precautionary language. Instead of resolving questions such as the one we must confront, the Justices have told us that the matters have been left open. The language we have quoted warns readers not to treat Heller as containing broader holdings than the Court set out to establish: thatthe Second Amendment creates individual rights, one of which is keeping operable handguns at home for self-defense. What other entitlements the Second Amendment creates, and what regulations legislatures may establish, were left open. The opinion is not a comprehensive code; it is just an explanation for the Court's disposition. Judicial opinions must not be confused with statutes, and general expressions must be read in light of the subject under consideration.”So, if the issue of immediate access to a firearm for self-defense in the home is, as the 7th Circuit says, meant to be broadly construed—then why is it that some jurisdictions routinely choose to ignore Heller?The answer is plain: because they can and because they want to.NJ S.B. 3757 is a blatant example of this practice. The language of this bill is, in its import, essentially a rehash of the original D.C. handgun bill that the High Court struck down as unconstitutional.Many jurisdictions across the Country loathe the Second Amendment. And it is apparent that, given this loathing of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, they pretend Heller and McDonald don’t exist. This blatant dismissal of these two seminal cases enrages Justices Thomas and Alito to no end, and justifiably so.But the U.S. Supreme Court has no enforcement mechanism to see to it that its Heller and McDonald rulings and reasoning are adhered to.Lower Courts are required to adhere to precedential rulings of higher Courts in their jurisdiction. And all Courts, State and Federal, are required to adhere to U.S. Supreme Court rulings. They are obligated to but often do not.Courts, in a very real sense, are merely on the honor system in this regard. They may be roundly chastised for failing to adhere to higher Court rulings, and should be, but, really, the worst that happens is these Court holdings are, simply, overturned on appeal.Jurists who flagrantly fail to adhere to precedential rulings get a pass. They have absolute immunity from liability.And, as we have heretofore pointed out, even if the High Court rulings were truly expansive, it is unlikely that Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions will pay heed to those rulings. They will attempt to find ways around them just as they have done with the rulings in Heller and McDonald; treating them with the same disdain and incredulity; rendering opinions that serve merely to torture and obfuscate the rulings and reasoning of the High Court. Nothing is likely to change as long as the citizenry keeps voting into Office individuals who support the Neo-Marxist/Neoliberal Globalist agenda.Anti-Second Amendment State legislatures that enact laws that violate the core of the Second Amendment continue the practice because they know their Courts will uphold the constitutionality of illegal laws if challenged. Thus, plaintiffs who might otherwise challenge the constitutionality of gun laws that flagrantly defy the Second Amendment and blithely ignore U.S. Supreme Court precedent must think twice before doing so. They know they have an uphill battle.The attendant time wasted for plaintiffs, who challenge unconstitutional government gun regulations, and the attendant monetary costs associated with bringing such actions, are significant, and will usually amount to wasted effort.State and local Governments know this as do Anti-Second Amendment members of Congress.One must appeal to the next higher Court to obtain relief from adverse lower Court decisions. And Appellate Courts will often just rubber-stamp decisions of the Trial Courts. And, appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court for review is, especially, no easy task. It is time-consuming and extremely expensive. And the High Court grants review in a pitifully small number of cases.It would be nice if the High Court could issue orders sua sponte, enjoining Governments from enacting laws that blithely ignore its Second Amendment Heller and McDonald rulings. But the Court cannot do this.Indeed, it would require a separate office within the Court just to keep tabs on all the unconstitutional actions of the State and Federal Governments and of the erroneous rulings coming out of lower Courts.But the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t have the authority even to efficiently monitor unconstitutional actions of government and erroneous rulings of lower Courts that negatively impact the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, even if it had the wherewithal and resources to keep tabs on unconstitutional gun laws.And within the High Court itself, several of the Justices all too often interpose their own philosophical prejudices and biases on the Second Amendment issues to be decided. And those prejudices and biases come into play even in the very construction of the legal issues.This has disturbing implications for Bruen. We discuss this matter in the next segment and in future articles._______________________________________________

THE LIBERAL WING OF THE HIGH COURT WITH THE HELP OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE CONSTRAINS BRUEN

PART FOUR

It is a rather curious thing, when one stops to think about it, that the broad right of self-defense, and the narrower fundamental right contained in it and inextricably bound to it—the fundamental, natural, and unalienable right of armed self-defense—would have to come up for review by the U.S. Supreme at all. After all, the right of self-defense/the right of self-preservation and the concomitant natural right of armed self-defense are axiomatic; self-evident true.One would think that, a Country such as ours, with a rich heritage of cherishing natural rights, would not have to suffer enactment of laws that place so many hurdles in the path of citizens who wish nothing more than to be able to exercise the rights the Bill of Rights guarantees them. The Second Amendment, though, is treated by those jurisdictions, controlled by Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists as an outlier, even an outcast—a thing inconsistent with international norms and, so, something to be mercilessly attacked and eventually abrogated. Will this change?Many people, both proponents of the natural right of armed self-defense and its detractors, expect a decision in Bruen, when handed down next summer, will be expansive and all-encompassing and resurrect the Second Amendment’s status as a cherished right—a right absolutely essential to the maintenance of the Nation as a free Constitutional Republic and for the preservation of the Nation in the form of a free Republic for centuries to come.But, even with an expected Conservative wing majority, a positive decision will likely not be as broad-based and all-encompassing as proponents of the Second Amendment yearn for and expect and as the Amendment’s opponents anticipate and dread.Assume, for purpose of argument, that the High Court does strike down New York City’s notoriously oppressive and repressive “may issue” requirements involving the issuance of concealed handgun carry licenses outright. How will this impact similar statutes in other “may issue” jurisdictions? The answer is clear.The Bruen ruling won’t affect other “may-issue” jurisdictions. It won’t affect the prerogative of State and Local Governments in these other jurisdictions that have, in place, their own may-issue procedures. The Chief Justice and the liberal wing of the Court have seen to that in having reframed the issue, as we explain below.A ruling for Plaintiff Petitioner would probably, at best, only serve to strike down unconstitutional procedures established by the City’s gun Licensing Division. Such a ruling would not logically or legally entail the dissolution of “may issue” regulations. It would just impact the particular procedures the City presently employs when rendering its decision.In order for a Bruen majority opinion ruling to be compelling, it would have to be all-encompassing. This means the Court would have to rule that the very notion of “may issue” concealed handgun carry licenses, instead of “shall issue” concealed handgun carry licenses—in the absence of major failings in a person, including, for example, a felony conviction, a dishonorable discharge from the military, mental incompetence, or illegal alien residency in the Country—are logically inconsistent with the import of the right codified in the Second Amendment regardless of procedures utilized. See, 18 USCS § 922(g).And the Court should render a ruling on this because geographical constraints on the exercise of armed self-defense are absurd.For, if a law-abiding, rational, responsible person has the right to preserve his or her life and safety with a firearm, being no threat to another innocent person, how is one’s life and safety to be adduced more valuable in one locale—one’s home say—but not in another locale, i.e., outside one’s home.The Court should respond to this but won’t do that, and the reason is plain: Built-in constraints due to the framing of the issue before the Court preclude a decisive ruling on the exercise of armed self-defense outside one’s home.That is not to say all the Justices would be pleased by this, for the idea behind “may issue” impacts and infringes the very core of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. “May issue” is an affront to the Second Amendment and logically contradicts the very import and purport of the sacred right.From their writings and musings on the Second Amendment, Justices Alito and Thomas would, if they could, strike down “may issue” gun regulations across the board, both as utilized in the City of New York and around the Country. But they can’t. Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court have seen to this.Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court were keenly aware of the ramifications of a major ruling on New York City’s “may issue” regimen if “may issue” were on the table. These Justices abhor other profound rulings as in Heller and McDonald. The entire legality of “may issue” should have been on the table. It should have been on the table, but it isn’t.Roberts and the liberal wing had thought very carefully through this, and they made sure that “may issue” gun licenses would not be targeted, even as Plaintiff Petitioner brought the very issue of “may issue” to the fore, as the question goes to the heart of whether, or to what extent, there should be limitations on where the right of armed self-defense is to be exercised.There should be no geographical parameters defined apropos of one’s exercise of the right of armed self-defense but there will be.____________________________________________

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS AND THE LIBERAL WING OF THE HIGH COURT DIDN’T LIKE THE ISSUE AS PETITIONERS PRESENTED IT IN BRUEN

PART FIVE

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS AND THE LIBERAL WING DEMANDED THE ISSUE TO BE RESOLVED, BE RECAST, TO MAKE IT PALATABLE TO THEM

The question for review, succinctly but broadly presented by Petitioner in his Brief in Corlett(recaptioned Bruen) was,“Whether the Second Amendment allows the government to prohibit ordinary law-abiding citizens from carrying handguns outside the home for self-defense.”This is a broad-based issue that questions the legality/constitutionality of may issue/atypicality requirements, on any conceivable interpretation.The issue as presented to the Court is meant to question the constitutionality of “may issue” concealed handgun carry regimes not only in New York City but in every jurisdiction in the Land. And that is precisely what Petitioners set out to do.The Bruen Petitioners clearly and concisely challenged the idea of Anti-Second Amendment proponents that an unassailable right of armed self-defense does not extend beyond the doorstep of one’s home.Recall that the Heller Court confined its ruling on the geographical perimeters of armed self-defense to the issue at hand: whether an individual has a right of immediate access to a handgun for self-defense inside one’s home.In answering that question, many jurisdictions interpreted the ruling as applying only to the District of Columbia, when the Court never stated or implied that the ruling on the right of immediate access to a firearm inside one’s home is directed to the District of Columbia gun codes and doesn’t implicate similar gun codes or laws in other jurisdictions. In fact, the implication is that the right of immediate access to a firearm for self-defense in one’s home does apply to all jurisdictions.Many State Governments and State and Federal Courts also interpreted the Heller decision as suggesting that a right of armed self-defense doesn’t extend beyond the doorstep to one’s home, regardless of the jurisdiction, but is to be confined—if there is to be such a recognized right at all—only to one’s home.But that idea is simply wrong. The High Court’s silence on the issue meant only that the issue was not before the Court. So, nothing further was to be presumed or deduced from that ruling.New Jersey’s bill, S. 3757, requiring disassembly of firearms in one’s home erroneously presumes the Heller ruling was meant to apply very narrowly only to the District of Columbia. Either that or the New Jersey Legislature didn’t care if the Heller ruling was meant to apply to other jurisdictions, figuring that, if wrong about its application to other jurisdictions, it didn’t matter. The Legislature knew that, if S. 3757 were enacted, a gun owner, unhappy with the law, would have to challenge its constitutionality in Court to obtain recourse—a time-consuming and expensive ordeal.Yet, one’s right of immediate access to a firearm for self-defense in one’s home is not to be presumed to be locale-specific. The ruling applies to all jurisdictions, albeit tacitly, but still unmistakably, by logical implication. Still, the Heller Court ruling didn’t expressly assert the universality of the ruling. It should have done so. The Court should have articulated clearly and categorically that its ruling on one’s Constitutional right of immediate access to a handgun inside the home, for purpose of self-defense—although directed to the D.C. gun codes—was meant to apply, as a general holding, throughout the Country. But the Court didn’t do that.Likely Associate Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito wanted to make the ruling unambiguous on that score but could not do so if they were to gain a majority. That would require positive votes from Chief Justice Roberts and from Justice Kennedy, and those Justices wanted the ruling to remain narrow and nebulous as to its application in other jurisdictions. The only clearly broad-based holding in Heller is that where the Heller Court held that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected to one’s service in a militia.As to the impact of specific rulings on the D.C. gun codes on other jurisdictions, for one to infer or assume that the rulings on the D.C. gun code rulings do not apply and were not meant to apply outside the District is implausible, but theoretically possible—hence the draft legislation in New Jersey:S. 3757. And that follows from the fact that the Chief Justice and Associate Justice Kennedy wanted to make clear that the Heller ruling was not intended to constrain the right of States to regulate the citizen’s access to guns. That message came out loud and clear and Justice Scalia was compelled to make that assertion explicit, assertingAnd this takes us back to Bruen.On granting the writ for certiorari in Bruen, on April 26, 2021, the Court recast the salient issue very narrowly: “Granted limited to the following question: Whether the State's denial of Petitioners' applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.”Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court “gamed the system,” even though some legal scholars don’t wish to acknowledge this and some patently deny it.Amy Howe, for one, erstwhile preeminent editor and reporter of SCOTUSblog, who regularly covers U.S. Supreme Court cases, and who ostensibly has an inside track on the musings of the High Court, made light of the Court’s recasting of the issue. Howewrites, in part, “After considering the case at three conferences, the justices agreed to weigh in. They instructed the parties to brief a slightly narrower question than the challengers had asked them to decide, limiting the issue to whether the state’s denial of the individuals’ applications to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense violated the Second Amendment. But the case nonetheless has the potential to be a landmark ruling. It will be argued in the fall with a decision expected sometime next year.” But will Bruen lead to a landmark ruling? Is this recasting of the issue in Bruen a big deal? Amy Howe, apparently, doesn’t think it is, or at least, won’t admit it if she harbors any reservation about it. But we do believe the matter is a big deal and are not reticent about asserting this. If this recasting of the issue in Bruen amounted truly to a slightly narrower question, as Amy Howe asserts, then why would the Court bother to reconfigure the issue at all? The answer to this question is alluded in Heller, as we explain in the next segment.____________________________________

WHY CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS AND THE LIBERAL WING OF THE HIGH COURT INSISTED ON RECASTING THE LEGAL ISSUE IN BRUEN

PART SIX

To understand why Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court were adamant that the Bruen issue be recast narrowly and in the form that it was, it is necessary to go back to the reasoning in Heller. It is pertinent to the matter at hand to understand why the Court dealt with the paramount issue of whether the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected to one’s service in a militia because that wasn’t an issue in the case, as framed. In the opening sentences of Heller case, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said:“We consider whether a District of Columbia prohibition on the possession of usable handguns in the home violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The District of Columbia generally prohibits the possession of handguns.  It is a crime to carry an unregistered firearm, and the registration of handguns is prohibited [citations omitted]. Wholly apart from that prohibition, no person may carry a handgun without a license, but the chief of police may issue licenses for 1-year periods [citations omitted]. District of Columbia law also requires residents to keep their lawfully owned firearms, such as registered long guns, ‘unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device’ unless they are located in a place of business or are being used for lawful recreational activities [citation omitted].”The Heller majority opined that the District of Columbia’s total ban on handgun possession in the home along with the requirement of disassembly of all firearms in the home hit at the very heart of the Second Amendment, as the D.C. Government did intend for it to do.But, Justice Scalia, along with Justices Thomas and Alito, knew quite well, that it was impossible logically to rule against the District of Columbia’s draconian gun law without ruling on the ultimate issue—tantalizingly kept at bay since ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791:Does the right of the people to keep and bear arms constitute an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia” or only a collective right, contingent on one’s service in a militia?Of course, to anyone with even a smidgeon of understanding of law and logic, and who is intellectually honest, knows that the import of the right as codified in the Second Amendment is clear on its face.But many academicians and many jurists, too, have for decades, erroneously treated the right as a “collective right” only. And they still maintain that, even after Heller made categorical and irrefutable what was already clear from the plain meaning of the Second Amendment’s language.One’s philosophical or emotional bent often gets in the way of one’s intellectual reasoning faculty.If proponents of the collective right thesis were correct, then any government regulation on gun ownership and possession must be construed as lawful and constitutional so long as a “rational basis” for the government action existed.This means that, while a collective right of the militia to keep and bear arms must be construed as a fundamental right and an action infringing that right would require stringent review of the government’s action, an individual’s right to keep and bear arms would not require such scrutiny. That is bizarre, to be sure, but that is consistent with the “collective right to keep and bear arms” thesis.Taking that thesis as true, arguendo, then an individual challenging the legality of government action, arguing an infringement of his right to keep and bear arms would not invoke stringent court review of the constitutionality of the Court action. A reviewing Court would only have to determine whether the government action bore a reasonable connection to achieving a legitimate State or Federal objective, nothing more. And That is an easy test to meet.Thus, if the Heller Court had not dealt with the underlying issue at the heart of the case—the case would have been decided much differently. The District of Columbia’s total ban on handguns would be ruled legal and Constitutional, as would the government’s requirement that all firearms be disassembled and not available for immediate self-defense use, even in the confines of one’s home. This is tantamount to denying a right to armed self-defense—period.Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito determined that they would not let the opportunity to decide the paramount Second Amendment issue pass. And, given the indomitability of Scalia’s will, and through the power and tenacity of his spirit, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy, reluctantly went along. And, so, the Court majority ruled that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia.But Justice Scalia is no longer with us. Can Justices Thomas and Alito take up the slack? Bruen likely won’t be the next blockbuster case supporting the right of the people to keep and bear arms to the extent that Heller is. And, a decision on the merits, unlike the New York Gun Transport case, will be forthcoming. The New York Government cannot amend the gun licensing scheme in a manner that would keep the entire structure intact as it did in the Gun Transport case.For “may issue” is really at the heart of New York’s licensing regime. If “may issue” goes, the entire New York handgun licensing structure comes crashing down._________________________________________

WHY ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT FORCES ABHOR AND FEAR HELLER

PART SEVEN

The U.S. Supreme Court, knows that the driving mechanism of the right of the people to keep and bear arms rests on the assumption, taken as axiomatic, self-evident true, that the right is grounded on the natural, fundamental right of armed self-defense that itself is inextricably bound to the basic right of self-preservation and personal selfhood, i.e., personal autonomy. The right exists inherently in each person as an individual Soul, as the Divine Creator intended.If the Second Amendment were to be treated as a “collective right,” that is tantamount to saying there is no right at all. The right would be nugatory, because  right would belong solely to the State, not to the person.The framers of the Constitution couldn’t have meant that. They didn’t put pen to paper just to waste ink. Moreover, such an interpretation would conflict with the very import of the Bill of Rights, essentially deflating the import of the entirety of it. For, without a personal right of armed self-defense, man is vulnerable to attack from predatory beast, which is bad; and from predatory man, which is worse; and  from the predatory government, which is worst of all.So, in Heller, Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito took that opportunity—when it finally came around—to pointedly and decisively hold that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, unconnected with one’s service in a militia. This of, course, is plain from the text of the Second Amendment but since many courts and scholars choose to ignore it, pretending that the language of the Second Amendment doesn’t mean what it says, the High Court made the point clear, so that no one can conveniently obfuscate the meaning of the language.Note: the issue as to the meaning of the nature of the right of the people to keep and bear arms was never before the Heller Court. The only two issues before the Court were whether:“the total ban on handguns under D.C. Code §§ 7-2501.01(12), 7-2502.01(a), 7-2502.02(a)(4), as well as the requirement under D.C. Code § 7-2507.02 that firearms be kept nonfunctional, violated exercise of the constitutional right of the people to keep and bear arms.”But, Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito knew that striking down these Statutes would do little to constrain a government that abhors civilian citizen exercise of the Second Amendment right, unless the High Court made clear that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, and not a privilege to be bestowed on a person by government prior to exercising the right.The District of Columbia would continue to enact new laws that did much the same thing as the old laws. Anti-Second Amendment Governments would have to exercise more discretion and creativity in denying Americans their God-given right.Once the right is understood clearly, succinctly, and unambiguously, to be an individual natural right, rather than a Government bestowed privilege, it is easy for reviewing courts to ascertain whether government action constrain exercise of the core individual right.Of course that should happen but didn’t happen. The recent New Jersey bill, for one, is evidence of  rabid disdain of many in Government toward the Second Amendment. It also demonstrates the tenacity of Anti-Second Amendment in continuing to drum up more and more unconstitutional codes, regulations, ordinances, and statutes despite of and in spite of the clear pronouncement in Heller. Resistance to Heller is obdurate.Still, Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito had held out the hope that a clear and categorical pronouncement on the import of the Second Amendment would constrain resistant vocal forces in Government. And, in fact Anti-Second Amendment Courts cannot dismiss the salient holding of Heller out-of-hand, but must remark on it, even as they strain to uphold unconstitutional gun laws, as they continually do.Be that as it may—At least in Heller, with the idea that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a collective right now, finally, laid to rest—and not to be denied out-of-hand the Heller Court could deal effectively with the issue at bar in Heller. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, said,“We turn finally to the law at issue here.  As we have said, the law totally bans handgun possession in the home. It also requires that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock at all times, rendering it inoperable.” But, the impact of Heller on Bruen may be minimal. Even if the High Court finds the New York City Rule to be unconstitutional and strikes it down, this only amounts to a finding simply that the decision on the Plaintiff Petitioners’ applications for an unrestricted concealed handgun carry license was unconstitutional. An answer to the “narrow question” as reframed, only requires that; nothing more.At best, the High Court can, consistent with the rephrasing of the question on review, find the City’s procedures for determining whether an applicant meets the stringent requirements of ‘atypicality’ to be inadequate.If that is to happen, a remand of the case to the trial court would require the trial court to strike down the procedures now in place in New York City, and instruct the Government to promulgate new procedures for handling the licensing of concealed handgun carry licenses. This, unsurprisingly, is what the Respondents have requested. It would be a satisfactory win for them. For the constitutionality of atypicality would go unanswered: The handgun licensing structure of New York would remain intact; and the core issue the Petitioners wanted decided—an unqualified right of armed self-defense outside the home—would remain unresolved.And the redrafting of New York City’s “may issue” procedures would likely be no better than the ones currently in place, because the NYPD License Division would still retain authority to grant or reject applications: an inherently subjective judgment call.Moreover, the ramifications of “may issue” procedures only impact New York—consistent with the issue as restated. Other “may issue” jurisdictions can proceed as they always have.Anyone who questions “may issue” procedures in other jurisdictions would have to file their own challenges. This would necessitate another appeal, by another petitioner, to the High Court, requesting review of another “may issue” procedure of that other Anti-Second Amendment jurisdiction, assuming relief from a lower court is not forthcoming.The ensuing problems for Americans who simply seek to exercise their God-given right to keep and bear arms are endless and intractable. And the Court is not likely to take up a similar issue, leaving forever open the right of armed self-defense.But the most critical point to be made is one that no one else, to our knowledge has even considered. It is  that—The right of the people to keep and bear arms tacitly embraces the right of self-defense which entails the right of personal autonomy——the quintessential right upon which the sanctity and inviolability of one’s own Soul depends.The framers of the Constitution took that most basic of natural rights to be self-evident true. They took this fact to be so obvious that express mention of it was deemed unnecessary—even by the Antifederalist framers who demanded that several of the salient natural rights be codified.Thus, the Second Amendment expressly asserts and emphasizes only the need for the people to always be armed and at the ready to secure a free State, against incursion of tyranny of Government. It is for this reason that the people remain armed that the sanctity of their Selfhood can be free from Government intrusion and free from Government impediment: untouched, unsoiled, untrampled, undiminished.Having successfully fought off one tyrannical government, the founders of the Republic had dire concerns of any strong centralized government. Even with the checks and balances of the Federal Government they constructed, they knew that this Government, too, had within the seeds of it, the danger of tyranny—an unavoidable fact of the worst of human nature. An armed citizenry was the ultimate preventive medicine against that.But, if armed defense is contained and constrained within the confines of one’s home, then the implicit message is that no American has the unalienable right to employ defensive arms against tyranny of Government, for the structures of Government power exist outside one’s home.And containment of the Second Amendment and the panoply of other Rights of the Bill of Rights is just how Neo-Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists presently running the show in Government and throughout the Country intend to keep it at least for the time being, until such time as they consolidate enough control and power to erase all of it.___________________________________

DON’T EXPECT BRUEN TO BE THE DECISIVE PRONOUNCEMENT OF ONE’S SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT AS HELLER AND MCDONALD PROVIDED

PART EIGHT

The issue before the High Court, as reformulated, in Bruen, requires the Court only to determine whether the City’s rules for granting concealed carry handgun licenses are arbitrary and capricious.The Court thus leaves undecided the principal issue that the Petitioner wanted the Court to review, namely whether the right of armed self-defense extends beyond the confines of one’s home, making clear what the Heller Court didn’t rule on: the expansiveness of armed self-defense—beyond the confines of the home—as the founders of a free Republic understood the natural right.After all, what is one to make of saying a person has a right to armed self-defense in some places but not others, other than to reaffirm the right of Government to continue to place unconstitutional restrictions the on exercise of the right of armed self-defense. The idea is absurd on its face, and negatively implicates the very notion of self-defense, armed or otherwise.Of course, Justices Alito and Thomas could write concurring opinions taking the Court to task for not ruling on the most important issue, whether armed self-defense extends everywhere; and probably will do this if one or the other Justice is not assigned to draft the majority opinion. But a concurrence would amount to dicta only, not a Court ruling.The High Court will most likely confine its ruling, or rulings, to addressing New York City’s “may issue” procedure, which is the way Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court had the issue restructured and that is what the Respondents wanted.This smacks of a “cop-out.” And we have seen this before, in the Court’s handling of the previous New York City Gun Transport case. That is what the Respondent City had in fact requested in oral argument. If the City gets that much, then they essentially win, and anti-Second Amendment advocates will breathe a collective sigh of relief. For, the salient issue, as to whether the right of the people to carry firearms for self-defense outside one’s home, which Heller didn’t address and, in fact, painfully avoided—as Roberts and Kennedy likely insisted upon—remained unexamined.And, this would be just as Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court would want to continue to leave it, as this would keep the perceived “damage” ofHeller and McDonald within rigid, narrowly defined contours.Anti-Second Amendment Courts and governments will continue operating as they have been operating all along: pretending Heller and McDonald never existed, and continually pressing for more and more repugnant, restrictive, repressive firearms' laws. And as those seminal Second Amendment cases have routinely been ignored, now one would add Bruen.This must have vexed Justice Scalia. The Chief Justice, John Roberts and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, compelled Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito to soften the impact of Heller, which, at its core made clear that the right of the people to keep and bear arms rests well beyond the lawful ability of Government to abrogate. But tension would remain between the categorical natural right of the people to own and possess firearms and the desire of State Governments to exercise their own police powers to constrain and restrict the right to the point that the right would cease to exist. And, the Federal Government, for its part, would have its own reason to erase the idea of a right of the people to keep and bear arms that rests beyond the lawful power of that Federal Government to erase, modify, abrogate, dismiss, or simply ignore. For an armed citizenry would, in its very existence threaten tyranny. And that is something the Federal Government has always been uneasy with, and all the more so now, with Counterrevolutionary Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists hell-bent on disassembling a free Constitutional Republic and independent, sovereign nation-state that it may be successfully merged into a supra-national, transnational governmental construct.Did the late Justice Antonin Scalia surmise this? Did he see this coming? Did he attempt to prevent it? And did powerful, ruthless forces, beholding to no nation and to no set of laws recognize this, and initiate plans to prevent anyone and anything that might thwart their plans for a new political, social, economic, financial, cultural, and juridical governmental construct: a new world order. In such a scheme the concept of the nation-state is archaic, serving no functional purpose. And the idea of a people as sole sovereign ruling body over Government is particularly dangerous and abhorrent. _________________________________

THE HELLER CASE ILLUSTRATES THE TENSION AT WORK TODAY IN AMERICA, BETWEEN TRUE PATRIOTS WHO WISH TO PRESERVE THE NATION AS A FREE REPUBLIC AND THE TRAITORS INTENT ON DEMOLISHING ALL OF IT

PART NINE

In the last paragraph of the Heller majority opinion, one sees the results of the demand placed on Justice Scalia. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy compelled Scalia to expressly assert the right of States to exert control over the right of the people to keep and bear arms.There is manifest tension here between the right and of the individual to retain sole and absolute possession and control over and enjoyment of use in his firearms as his personal property and the State's opposition to the individual's absolute authority over his personal property rights in his firearms. The State insists on placing constraints on the exercise of the citizen's control over his own firearms, and the citizen insists on repulsing the State. Scalia was forced to make allowance for Government to constrain what is an irrefutable, absolute right. He was compelled to throw a bone to the Anti-Second Amendment Marxists and Globalists by making explicit the reference to “gun violence, they insisted on.But one also sees Scalia’s intention to have the last word, both alluding to and denying that the Second Amendment will not be made extinct—at least not on Scalia’s watch. The pity that this eminent, jurist, who had demonstrated true reverence for our Nation’s Bill of Rights would have no hand in penning an opinion in Bruen. That Justice Scalia is no longer with us, Americans are all the worst without him.For the danger of tyranny of Government is most acute today, and there is no greater need for an armed citizenry today, to thwart tyranny. And Justice Scalia knew this well. He ended the Heller majority opinion with these words: “We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution.  The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns [citation omitted]. But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.  These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem.  That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”Unfortunately for us Americans, the Second Amendment could very well go extinct given the current unhealthy climate in this Country, deliberately worsened through Neo-Marxist/Neoliberal Globalist provocation, driving the Country to a Civil War.Retired Justice John Paul Stevens and Justice Stephen Breyer responded directly to Justice Scalia’s closing remarks in Heller. They caustically remonstrated against him, provoking him by asserting erroneously and absurdly that, to call the right of the people to keep and bear arms an individual right, is to have the Court create a right that doesn’t exist in the Bill of Rights. Really?And, Stevens and Breyer further insulted the late Justice by remarking that it is for Government to define the rights that the people have through the policy choices that Government makes. Justice Stevens and Breyer invoked the tired erroneous claim that whatever right to keep and bear arms exists in the Second Amendment,that right is a collective right, which is to say, a Government sanctioned privilege. In so saying they rebuked Justice Scalia, and Justices Thomas and Alito, casually dismissing out-of-hand, the salient, paramount holding of Heller.In their joined Dissent, Stevens and Breyer write,“Untiltoday, it has been understood that legislatures may regulate the civilian use and misuse of firearms so long as they do not interfere with the preservation of a well-regulated militia.  The Court's announcement of a new constitutional right to own and use firearms for private purposes upsets that settled understanding, but leaves for future cases the formidable task of defining the scope of permissible regulations.  Today judicial craftsmen have confidently asserted that a policy choice that denies a ‘law-abiding, responsible citize[n]’ the right to keep and use weapons in the home for self-defense is ‘off the table.’    Given the presumption that most citizens are law abiding, and the reality that the need to defend oneself may suddenly arise in a host of locations outside the home, fear that the District's policy choice may well be just the first of an unknown number of dominoes to be knocked off the table.”“I do not know whether today's decision will increase the labor of federal judges to the ‘breaking point’ envisioned by Justice Cardozo, but it will surely give rise to a far more active judicial role in making vitally important national policy decisions than was envisioned at any time in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries.” Note, that Breyer, who still serves on the High Court, asserts his fear, in Heller, that the Court might actually proclaim that armed self-defense does exist outside the realm of one’s home.If Justice Scalia were still alive and serving on the Court, he would indeed make clear, in Bruen, that the right of armed self-defense outside the home is within the core meaning of the language of the Second Amendment. But, with Scalia gone, the Bruen case—that would have become the third seminal Second Amendment case—creating a triumphant Second Amendment Triumvirate of seminal cases, sanctifying the Bill of Rights, will not be.The Destroyers, Destructors, and Defilers of our Republic will continue pressing to wear down the American psyche and spirit.The Bruen rulings will likely amount to little more than a bee sting to the Neo-Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists, having little negative impact on New York, and no impact on Anti-Second Amendment Governments across the Nation and no discernible impact on Anti-Second Amendment forces in the Federal Government.The “atypicality” requirement will remain. Just the procedures in granting concealed handgun carry licenses in New York City would change.And nothing would change for other Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions as they will retain their own “atypicality” requirements unless those procedures are successfully challenged in their own Courts of competent jurisdiction.All the problems attendant to the Federal and State Governments’ refusal to recognize the sanctity and inviolability of the right of the people to keep and bear arms will remain unscathed.And, from what we gather coming out of Biden’s maw and that of the illustrious Marxist/Neoliberal Globalist Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, of late, the seeming impenetrable castle walls assiduously built by the Heller and McDonald rulings and reasoning, remain under siege, and in danger of successful breach at the first opportunity._____________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

JUST OUT: SUPREME COURT DENIES WRITS ON ALL PENDING SECOND AMENDMENT CASES

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

PART SEVEN

The U.S. Supreme Court released its orders from the June 11, 2020 conference.  No Second Amendment cases were relisted for consideration. Worse, there will be no Second Amendment cases reviewed this term; all were rejected. The High Court denied certiorari in all of them.This comes as no surprise to the Arbalest Quarrel. We expected this and were making this very point in a comprehensive analysis of the New York City transport gun case we’ve been working feverishly on these last two weeks. Word came down from SCOTUS before we could get our series to print, but we intimated as much in numerous other articles.We realized how important the New York City gun transport case was to the preservation of our sacred Second Amendment right, even if many did not. We knew what a loss meant; and we did lose much, contrary to what some proponents of the Second Amendment may otherwise think. How much we lost is apparent from what just transpired in today’s SCOTUS morning conference.We held little expectation that the High Court would take up any new Second Amendment case, contrary to Justice Kavanaugh’s wimpish suggestion that the Court “should.” And, unfortunately, we were correct.In one of the cases the Court denied cert on, Thomas Rogers, et al. v. Gurbir Grewal, Attorney General of New Jersey, et al. on Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, decided June 15, 2020, Justice Thomas wrote another justified blistering dissenting opinion. Justice Kavanaugh joined Justice Thomas except for Part II of the dissent. We will analyze the dissenting opinion in a forthcoming article. But——

WHY DID KAVANAUGH JOIN THOMAS IN THE GREWAL DISSENT?

Recall Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion in the New York City case. Kavanaugh intimated the High Court would be taking up one of the new Second Amendment cases soon. That was nonsense and we suspect Kavanaugh knew it.The tactics and strategy of U.S. Supreme Court review of Second Amendment cases must not be underestimated. It defines what Second Amendment case is heard and when. As of now, it is clear that the liberal wing of the High Court, along with Chief Justice Roberts, intend to block review of any further Second Amendment case that comes before the Court in which the Heller and McDonald rulings come into play. This is no longer theoretical speculation. This is ice-cold fact.We suspect that had Kavanaugh voted to deny the mootness claim in the New York City case, joining the conservative wing—Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch—then Chief Justice Roberts would have joined Kavanaugh. He would have been forced to, if for no other reason than for the fact that Roberts did, after all, join the majority in the seminal Second Amendment Heller case.If Chief Justice Roberts were to stand with the liberal wing of the Court, alone, wholly apart from the conservative wing, in the first and only Second Amendment case—where the Second Amendment issue had not been altogether side-stepped as the issue was side-stepped in the Voisine case, to the justified frustration and righteous and virtuous indignation of Justice Thomas—would be untoward, unseemly, awkward. Appearances are, after all, important to the Justices. But when appearances become more important than intellectual honesty and logical consistency, then a Justice should not expect to garner and retain the respect of Americans.Chief Justice Roberts, as the Chief Justice, wishes to give the impression of his “supreme” impartiality and conviviality. But, at what cost to his the principles of intellectual honesty and logical consistency, and at what cost to our Bill of Rights?Each Justice votes to grant or deny a writ of certiorari predicated on his jurisprudential and ideological predilections; and those jurisprudential and ideological predilections reside as much on a visceral level as on an intellectual one. They inform a Justice's decisions—influenced, on occasion, by the internal give and take of political maneuvering and jockeying; but that political maneuvering and jockeying should come by sacrificing one's duty toward preserving and strengthening our Bill of Rights. Yes, Chief Justice Roberts sided with the Conservative wing of the Court in Heller and McDonald, but he would go no further—ever. He has made clear his visceral disdain for the Second Amendment, known.The progressive website, Politicus, made known Writing, today, on the results of the SCOTUS morning conference, Politicus reporters said, in an article with a title meant to “sock it to Trump” and to all Americans who happen to venerate our Bill of Rights. Politicus says, “Supreme Court Rejects 10 2nd Amendment Cases As Trump’s Bad Day Gets Worse”: “Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t have an expansive view of the Second Amendment, which means that the odds of the Second Amendment being expanded or local and state gun laws being reversed by the high court is practically zero.”Roberts would prefer not to appear like a liberal wing, Anti-Second Amendment, Anti-Bill of Rights Justice, in the vein of the liberal wing, even if he is one. He would not like to be seen standing alone with the liberal wing on a Second Amendment case. The jig would be up if he were to join the liberal wing of the Court, finding the New York City gun transport case moot, and no non-liberal wing Justice stood with him.Did Roberts pressure Kavanaugh to go along with him? It is not improbable. Perhaps, that explains why Kavanaugh’s really did file his singularly odd concurring opinion in the New York City case after all. It may be that Kavanaugh did agree with the Associate Justices, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch—wanted to join them—but was strongly urged by the Chief Justice not to; was cajoled to side with the liberal wing. Perhaps, as the newest member of the Court, Kavanaugh was reluctant to draw the ire of Chief Justice Roberts.Clearly the liberal wing of the Court did not need Kavanaugh’s vote. Robert’s vote gave the liberal wing the fifth vote needed—a majority—sufficient to prevent the substantive merits of the case from being heard. But, Roberts, standing with the liberal wing of the Court on the mootness issue would make patently clear the Chief Justice’s negative views toward the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and would also make clear the Chief Justice’s jurisprudential leanings and tendencies in matters concerning the Second Amendment: those in line with the liberal wing of the Court, comprising: Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Justice Roberts obviously sought to prevent that perception.By voting with the liberal wing of the Court in the New York City case that ruled the case moot, Kavanaugh gave cover to Roberts, and Roberts also gave cover to Kavanaugh. Who loses? We do, the American people.The New York City gun transport case took a page out of the Heller case playbook, albeit to obtain a negative rather than positive result: weakening the Second Amendment; not strengthening it.We surmise that Chief Justice Roberts, no less than retired Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, had an understanding with the conservative wing. They would agree, both of them, to join the conservative wing or neither of them would. Both of them would join the conservative wing or neither of them would. And if they couldn't both get on board, Heller would have failed and we all know how much worse off we would be now for it.The late eminent Justice Antonin Scalia, who penned the Heller majority, was compelled to mute what otherwise would have been a stronger opinion that he, and Alito, and Thomas had much preferred to write, making a one-point crystal clear.The point is this: Government action infringing the core of the right of the people to keep and bear arms must be struck down. Courts are forbidden to engage in interest-balancing, which is nothing more than a ruse anyway; a ruse created to rationalize and legitimize unconstitutional, unconscionable government action infringing the fundamental, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms. That point was muddied, obfuscated, diluted. It was a concession that Justice Scalia, Justice Alito, and Justice Thomas were forced to make to obtain Chief Justice Roberts acquiescence and Justice Kennedy's acquiescence. To obtain the acquiescence of those two Justices, necessary to obtain a slim, but critical majority, Justice Scalia wrote,“. . . nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession 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.” This assertion has nothing whatsoever to do with the Heller rulings and the majority's reasoning. But it had to be made to appease Kennedy and Roberts. The result was to undermine the efficacy of Heller. We have seen in the years since how Anti-Second Amendment governments rely on the softening of Heller to enact laws that directly and contemptuously attack the right of the people to keep and bear arms; and we see courts using interest-balancing to defend these unconstitutional laws. Heller was meant to rein in both government and courts. But, the language that Justice Scalia was compelled to include in Heller gave Anti-Second Amendment State governments and Anti-Second Amendment courts a way to deviously slither around the impact of the Heller rulings and holdings, even if it is clear to everyone what these governments and courts were doing. In fact, to provide a safe harbor for Anti-Second Amendment State governments and Anti-Second Amendment courts, Justice Scalia had to reiterate the point that these governments may do whatever the hell they want to eviscerate the Second Amendment, notwithstanding the dictates of the Second Amendment. The point was made in the last paragraph of the majority opinion. Compelled to humble themselves before the anti-Second Amendment crowd, Justice Scalia, joined by the conservative wing, wrote:“We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns.” The sickening concession to anti-Second Amendment amici and Anti-Second Amendment governments and Anti-State Courts that the majority was forced to make and which we, Americans are forced to endure has served the Anti-Second Amendment zealots well. Heller and McDonald are routinely ignored.Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the High Court will make damn sure that the rulings of those two seminal Second Amendment cases will never be clarified. That is where we are now and where we will remain unless or until another Justice sits on the High Court who actually honors the oath he takes to the Constitution.

WHAT IS TAKING PLACE IN OUR NATION TODAY IS NOT A PRETTY PICTURE

We are seeing a massive campaign of brainwashing taking place in our Nation at this very moment, and we are getting much more than a foretaste. We are getting a choking mouthful of what the Marxists, Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, and billionaire Neoliberal Globalists have in store for each of us.We are holding onto our Nation by a thread. Make no mistake about that. The puppet masters have brainwashed the mass of Lemmings, and they intend to destroy those of us who are immune to the nonsense spouted.Today we see every monument to our glorious past—our ancestral memory—being wiped out; erased. Tomorrow, we will see the absolute destruction of our Bill of Rights. No question about it.If Trump fails reelection and if the Senate is lost, we will lose everything irreplaceable: but likely not before the “cold” War at home turns “hot.”I know what my next purchase will be; and it won’t be a toy.____________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS UNDER FIRE

“It’s like déjà vu all over again.” ~ Yogi BerraIf you asked your fellow Americans to point to one defining moment in our Nation’s recent history, many would likely mention the attack on our soil in 2001, for obvious reason. Some Americans might point to Barack Obama as U.S. President, but not for anything he carried out—if he carried out anything of benefit to this Nation and its people—but because he served as the Nation’s first African-American President. Some people might mention the recession of 2008, and the bailout of major banks. Still others might point to the result of the general U.S. Presidential election in 2016. Depending on one’s political bent, that result is shocking and dreadful, or surprising and hopeful.But, for those who cherish our natural, fundamental, unalienable rights, the watershed moment came in 2008, with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637. The high Court held, in principal part, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms, asserts an individual right, unconnected with one’s service in a militia. One would think a lengthy Supreme Court interpretation of the Second Amendment would be unnecessary. The text of the Amendment is clear, concise, precise, and categorical.But the high Court’s affirmation does serve a purpose. It lays to rest any pretension the Second Amendment means other, or less, than it says. Sadly, the pretension lingers among many, despite this seminal Second Amendment case.Many defy and denigrate the high Court’s imprimatur: politicians, the mainstream news; entertainers; billionaire globalists both here and abroad; antigun coalitions; myriad Leftist groups; academicians; and jurists. They detest the Second Amendment, and wish to rid the Nation of it.It should not come as a surprise to Americans that the Democratic Party’s leadership, holding most seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, plans to introduce a flurry of antigun bills in the coming months. The most ambitious concerns a ban on those semiautomatic firearms, referred to by the negative expression, “assault weapons.”But this push to ban an entire category of semiautomatic firearms in common use is nothing new. The late U.S Senator, Howard Metzenbaum, a Democrat from Ohio, who died in 2008, introduced a bill to control the sale and use of assault weapons in 1989. That Senate bill, 101 S. 386, failed.The House introduced similar bills that year. They, too, failed.However, in 1994, Congress did enact a semiautomatic firearms' ban, as part of The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The “Assault Weapons Ban” provision was codified in federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922 (v)(1). The law expired in 2004. It wasn’t reauthorized. The House then tried, in 2007, to resurrect a ban on semiautomatic firearms, introducing the “Assault Weapons Ban And Law Enforcement Protection Act Of 2007, 110 H.R. 1022.” That bill failed.After a lull, Democrats ramped up efforts. The 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy served as the pretext to ban an entire category of firearms, once again.Congress, though, often acts slowly. That’s a good thing when proposed legislation impinges on or infringes Constitutional rights and liberties. But, Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, unlike Congress, doesn’t act slowly. He doesn’t have to, and, he doesn’t want to, especially when an opportunity arises to further constrain the right of the people to keep and bear arms.New York’s Constitution provides a Governor the means to push the State Legislature to act quickly if he deems a matter an emergency. Article I, § 14 of the New York State Constitution sets forth:“No bill shall be passed or become a law unless it shall have been printed and upon the desks of the members, in its final form, at least three calendar legislative days prior to its final passage, unless the governor, or the acting governor, shall have certified, under his or her hand and the seal of the state, the facts which in his or her opinion necessitate an immediate vote thereon, in which case it must nevertheless be upon the desks of the members in final form, not necessarily printed, before its final passage. . . .”Governor Cuomo intended to act quickly to further restrict New York’s already draconian gun laws. He pushed for an immediate vote on the New York Safe Act of 2013. His statement to support emergency passage of the NY Safe Act, reads:“Some weapons are so dangerous, and some ammunition devices are so lethal, that New York State must act without delay to prohibit their continued sale and possession in the state in order to protect its children, first responders and citizens as soon as possible. This bill, if enacted, would do so by immediately banning the ownership, purchase and sale of assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition feeding devices. For this reason, in addition to enacting a comprehensive package of measures that further protects the public, immediate action by the Legislature is imperative.”With the clout he wields in Albany, the measure passed, and the Governor signed the Safe Act into law on January 15, 2013. To herald enactment, he created a web page, devoted to glorifying his achievement.Then, on January 24, 2013, hardly a week after Governor Cuomo signed the NY Safe Act into law, Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-California, introduced a federal assault weapons ban, modeled on the Safe Act. Senator Feinstein expected Senator Harry Reid to include the assault weapons ban in the broad Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act Of 2013, 159 Cong Rec S 2699. That didn’t happen. Senator Reid felt its inclusion would reduce chance of passage of the broader gun control act. Senator Feinstein was livid. But, the Act failed on a Floor vote, 40-60, even without Feinstein’s assault weapons provision.Senator Feinstein then released a statement to the Press, barely restraining her anger:“I’m disappointed by today’s vote, but I always knew this was an uphill battle. I believe the American people are far ahead of their elected officials on this issue, and I will continue to fight for a renewed ban on assault weapons.The very fact that we’re debating gun violence on the Senate floor is a step in the right direction, and I hope my colleagues vote their conscience and approve the underlying bill. But I’m certain that in the coming months and years, we will be forced to confront other incidents like Newtown, where innocents are murdered with one of these weapons of war.I will carry on this fight against military-style assault weapons, and I ask of the American people that they continue to pressure their elected officials to take action. It’s long overdue that we take serious steps to remove these dangerous firearms and high-capacity ammunition magazines from society.”In later years, Democrats, in the House and Senate, ever undeterred, tenaciously, rapaciously introduced semiautomatic firearms’ bans, one after the other, despite repeated failures—ever determined to rein in the Second Amendment. these bills included:The Assault Weapons Ban of 2015, 114 H.R. 4269  Imported Assault Weapons Ban of 2016, 114 H.R. 4748The Assault Weapons Ban of 2017, 115 S. 2095The Assault Weapons Ban of 2018, 115 H.R. 5077They all failed. But, the antigun politicians remain undeterred. They aim to destroy the right of the people to keep and bear arms, however long it takes. The recent roll-out is drearily the same: same title, later date. This one is the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019. Many of the usual cast of characters have signed on as co-sponsors. Some are considering a run as Democratic Party nominee for U.S. President in 2020.Not surprisingly, Senator Feinstein is the principal sponsor on this latest “assault weapons” bill, directed to an attack on semiautomatic firearms. Destroying our most sacred right has always been a high priority for Senator Feinstein and she is a prominent figure in all antigun legislation emanating from the U.S. Senate.According to Feinstein’s Press Release, issued January 9, 2019, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019 is an “updated bill to ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.”  The Press Release then lays out the details. The House will likely release the bill shortly. The Arbalest Quarrel will analyze it when the House does release it.

A NATION-WIDE BAN ON SOME SEMIAUTOMATIC FIREARMS IMPERILS ALL SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS.

Antigun zealots desire nothing less than an end to firearms ownership and possession in America. This is not an exaggerated concern for those who cherish the Second Amendment.New York Times contributing columnist commentator, Brett Stephens has called for outright repeal of the Second Amendment. We may dismiss an excessive, incendiary remark from a news commentator. But, when a retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice echoes that sentiment, Americans must take notice. Consider the remarks of retired Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Paul Stevens, as reported in The New York Times:“Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of that amendment, which provides that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Today that concern is a relic of the 18th century.”Retired Associate Justice Stevens always tied the right of the people to keep and bear arms to the militia. Read his dissenting opinion in Heller. But, the majority in Heller rejected Stevens’ premise.Americans should take antithetical remarks attacking the sanctity of the Second Amendment, seriously, especially when coming from powerful and influential people. The attorney, Christopher Keleher, in an academic article, titled, “The Impending Storm: The Supreme Court’s Foray into the Second Amendment Debate,” 69 Mont. L. Rev. 113, 154, (Winter 2008), published just months before the high Court’s decision in Heller, recited a litany of disturbing comments from members of Congress.“United States Senator Dianne Feinstein, commenting on an assault weapons ban, stated  ‘if I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America turn them all in, I would have done it.’ Former United States Senator Howard Metzenbaum complained that the same ban was insufficient, exclaiming, ‘until you ban them all, you might as well ban none. . . . [But, it] will be a major step in achieving the objective that we have in mind.’ United States Congressman William L. Clay proclaimed the 1993 Brady Bill was a ‘minimum step’ that Congress should take in its efforts to restrict firearms. Congressman Clay professed, ‘we need much stricter gun control, and eventually we should bar the ownership of handguns except in a few cases.’ A fellow member of the House of Representatives, Congressman Bobby Rush, was also forthright in his strategy: ‘Ultimately, I would like to see the manufacture and possession of handguns banned except for military and police use. But that’s the endgame.’ Senator Lincoln Chafee was no less bashful when he asserted, ‘I shortly will introduce legislation banning the sale, manufacture or possession of handguns. . . . It is time to act. We cannot go on like this. Ban them!’ The recent tragedy at Virginia Tech prompted Congressman Dennis Kucinich to draft legislation ‘that would ban the purchase, sale, transfer, or possession of handguns by civilians.’ While such views have not garnered a majority of lawmakers, these statements are notable for their stridency and frankness.”Americans should not brush aside these candid remarks as simple bluster. These politicians support their words with direct attacks on the Second Amendment. Anti-Second Amendment politicians despise the Second Amendment. They find it not merely inconvenient and irrelevant, but also unconscionable. They see our Second Amendment as incompatible with an ethical system predicated on utilitarian consequentialism they espouse, but which our founders did not. Antigun politicians find the mere thought of firearms both aesthetically distasteful and morally objectionable.These politicians consider the Second Amendment inconsistent with international legal rules and standards, and incompatible with societal norms of conduct. One or the other must go. For them, it’s the Second Amendment that must go. They feel we, Americans, should adopt and adhere to the new international liberal democratic order they, and those in the European Union, ascribe to.The mainstream media conveys the message of the antigun zealots incessantly, obstreperously, and passionately. The false message delivered to Americans is plain enough: for the welfare of society  you must comply with and adapt to the conventions of the global, liberal, democratic order; and this requires you to forsake the archaic and degenerate desire to own and possess firearms.________________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT PERFORMS A SURPRISE SWITCHEROO TO THE CONSTERNATION OF D.C. GOVERNMENT, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, ANTIGUN GROUPS, AND ANTIGUN LEGISLATORS, IN WRENN CASE

APPELLATE COURT VACATES ORDERS OF LOWER DISTRICT COURT AND REMANDS WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO ENTER PERMANENT INJUNCTIONS AGAINST ENFORCEMENT OF DISTRICT’S “GOOD-REASON” ANTIGUN LAW.

PRELUDE TO COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE D.C. CIRCUIT CASE, WRENN VS. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

The decision handed down very recently, in Wrenn vs. District of Columbia, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 13348 (D.C. Cir. July 25, 2017), supporting the right of the people to keep and bear arms, would not have been possible were it not for the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570; 128 S. Ct. 2783; 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). Justice Antonin Scalia’s glorious and sublime legacy will forever be tied to that one singularly important case: a case that stands as a living testament to Justice Scalia’s service to and his great love for this Nation and for its people. In that singular, seminal case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, Justice Scalia threw down the gauntlet at those malevolent forces that seek to tear down the fabric of our Free Republic as they whittle away at the Nation’s sacred Second Amendment. They shall not have an easy time of it as the Second Amendment now stands front in center in the Nation’s psyche as a meaningful reminder to those who seek to disassemble our Nation and who seek to tear down and reconfigure our Bill of Rights out of all semblance to that as conceived by the framers of it. They will learn: our Bill of Rights and, especially, our Second Amendment, will not be toyed with.Through Heller three points are made abundantly clear. One, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is no longer to be dismissed as a subordinate right. The right expressed is fundamental, second in importance to no other right that comprises the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. Two, the right, as codified in the Second Amendment, is capable of vindication and shall ultimately be vindicated in our Courts of law when Government, whether State or Federal, dares blithely to trample upon it. And, three our Nation stands preeminent above all other Nations on this Earth. The founders of our Nation took great pains to establish that such Government they happen to form shall serve—must serve—at the behest of and at the pleasure of the Nation’s people, responsive to and responsible to the Nation’s people. The founders of our Nation forged that understanding in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights provides the mechanism to make that fact poignantly clear to anyone or any group who might disagree with that idea and who would dare wish to test the resolve of the American people.Tyranny cannot arise where the citizenry stands armed against the imposition of it. Implicit in the language of the Second Amendment is the idea the individual’s existence as an individual, separate and apart from any group affiliation, remains always sacrosanct and inviolate. Any threat to individuality constitutes a threat to the sanctity of one’s personal security and well-being—a threat to one’s personal integrity. Thus, the language of the Second Amendment also implies the right of the individual to take responsibility for his own life, his own protection, his own personal safety and well-being. Government cannot do this, and the law makes clear that it is not Government’s duty or responsibility to do this. It is not Government’s duty or responsibility to protect the security and integrity of the individual, and case law makes this point clear. But, in turn, this means the Government must not intrude on one’s life. Each of us, in this Nation, has the right to be free from Government interference and meddling. Each of us has the right to protect the integrity of his person—of his self—from the tyranny of Government and from threats posed to one’s self by others who would dare do one harm.No other Country will recognize or acknowledge these sacred truths. We know this because no other Country has codified in its own constitution or in any other legal writing of that Country the right of the people to keep and bear arms.Contrary to notions promulgated by propagandists or apologists for restricting the exercise of the fundamental and natural right of the people to keep and bear arms, this right is not archaic. It is not anachronistic. It is not to be construed, as some ignorant or ignoble people may wish perhaps, to convey it, as mere anomaly, or peculiarity, or curiosity, or annoyance. It is the very instantiation of the sovereignty, sanctity, and inviolability of the individual self.The right of the people to keep and bear arms is, therefore, as meaningful and purposeful today as it was in the day the founders of our Nation codified and enshrined this sacred natural, preeminent, fundamental right in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. The founders of our Nation’s federal Government knew that the forces that seek to waylay a Nation’s people—to crush a Nation’s people into submission—lie ominously about—secretly, silently, malevolently. The founders of our Nation therefore sought a mechanism to fervently prevent or, at least, to forestall the subjugation of a Nation’s people—to forestall or prevent the subjugation of a people from the greatest and gravest and most insidious threat existent to our Nation’s people—a threat posed not from outside the Nation—but from the bowels within it. They sought to create an insurmountable hurdle to those secretive, powerful, evil forces that might seek then as now, the creation of a one world government—a government seemingly promoting the well-being of the planet’s people, but intent on crushing everyone, for the benefit of a few. Thus, our Nation’s founders drafted a short but prominent statement reminding those who may seek to destroy the American people, in body, mind, and spirit, and who may seek to dismantle this Nation State, that they will have a difficult time of it—that they will find the implementation of their insidious plan difficult, if not impossible—but certainly, impracticable—precisely because of those words etched in stone, impervious to erasure, that are, forever, our sacred Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.The majority opinion in District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570; 128 S. Ct. 2783; 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), penned by Justice Scalia, made clear, unmistakable, unequivocal, and categorical that the Second Amendment bespeaks an individual right of the people to keep and bear arms and that the right of the people to keep and bear arms logically entails the right of self-defense. In that seminal case, as well, the high Court’s majority made clear, unmistakable, unequivocal, and categorical that Government cannot legally preclude the right of each of us to defend ourselves with a handgun in one’s own home.Does that mean that one’s right of self-defense stops at the doorstep of one’s home? Not at all. Yet, the forces that would crush the American people into submission went quickly and quietly to work to undermine the Heller rulings. They attempted and continue, to this very day, to attempt to undermine Heller. They do this through State Legislatures; through Congress; through mainstream news organizations; through grass root efforts, organized and funded by those despicable, disreputable, but powerful, highly secretive, and incommensurably wealthy overseers who seek to destroy our sacred Bill of Rights; and, most unfortunately, the forces that would crush the American people into submission do this through our Courts.While politicians and media attempt to whittle away at the Heller rulings through pompous oratory and misleading and dubious assertions, their fellow travelers in the Courts attempt to whittle away at Heller through obfuscation and through use of arcane legalese that serves to hide the misapplication of law, and that is designed to hoodwink the lay person, not attuned to the intricacies of legal thought.But, with Heller, the floodgates are open. The right expressed in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution can no longer be simply and summarily dismissed as a subordinate right or, worse, as a dead letter—a meaningless assertion without force or substance.The case handed down by the D.C. Circuit, yesterday, in Wrenn vs. District of Columbia, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 13348 (D.C. Cir. July 25, 2017), is the latest case to deal directly with a core Second Amendment issue. Does the right of use of a handgun in one’s self-defense in one’s home extend to the carrying of a handgun in one’s self-defense—which implies the carrying of a handgun in public—namely, outside the home. If so, defense of self, then, does not stop at the doorstep of one’s home, and Government is enjoined from creating arbitrary standards to restrict one’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.The decision was correctly decided in favor of plaintiffs but it came through a convoluted, circuitous path through the lower District Courts; and the ultimate decision, wasn’t unanimous. One Judge, in the three-Judge panel that decided the case, dissented from the majority opinion.The jurist who wrote the opinion for the Majority, Judge Griffith, began, thus: “Constitutional challenges to gun laws create peculiar puzzles for courts. In other areas, after all, a law’s validity might turn on the value of its goals and the efficiency of its means. But gun laws almost always aim at the most compelling  goal—saving lives—while evidence of their effects is almost always deeply contested. On top of that, the Supreme Court has offered little guidance. Its ‘first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment’ is younger than the first iPhone. District of Columbia v. Heller (Heller I), 554 U.S. 570, 634, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). And by its own admission, that first treatment manages to be mute on how to review gun laws in a range of other cases. See id. at 634. But listening closely to Heller I reveals this much at least: the Second Amendment erects some absolute barriers that no gun law may breach. This lesson will prove crucial as we consider the challenges presented in these cases to the District of Columbia’s limits on carrying guns in public.”Judge Griffith, concluded the Wrenn opinion with this: “To watch the news for even a week in any major city is to give up any illusions about ‘the problem of handgun violence in this country.’  Heller I, 554 U.S. at 570. The District has understandably sought to fight this scourge with every legal tool at its disposal. For that long struggle against gun violence, you might see in today’s decision a defeat; you might see the opposite. To say whether it is one or the other is beyond our ken here. We are bound to leave the District as much space to regulate as the Constitution allows—but no more. Just so, our opinion does little more than trace the boundaries laid in 1791 and flagged in Heller I. And the resulting decision rests on a rule so narrow that good-reason laws seem almost uniquely designed to defy it: that the law-abiding citizen’s right to bear common arms must enable the typical citizen to carry a gun.”Judge Griffith obviously took pains to appease the angry antigun mob with a few sops. But, he made clear, if only tacitly, alluding to Justice Scalia’s assertions in Heller, that Government restrictions on one’s right to keep and bear arms, predicated on securing the safety of society does not invariably take precedent over the individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Clearly, Government restrictions on the sacred right of the people to keep and bear arms, grounded on notions of protecting society as a whole, in order to secure the safety and tranquility of the collective, of the hive, is doubtless false, fatuous. What Government is truly undertaking in restricting the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms is to constrain and control the people—to protect Government and the “elites” from the visible “threat” posed to their own unlawful usurpation of authority. Thus, restrictive gun legislation is contrary to the very import and purport of the Bill of Rights, as envisioned by the framers.As with the Kolbe case (Kolbe vs. O’Malley, 42. F. Supp. 3d 768 (D. Md. 2014); vacated and remanded, Kolbe vs. Hogan, 813 F.3d 160 (4th Cir. 2016); rev’d en banc, Kolbe vs. Hogan, 849 F.3d 114 (4th Cir. 2017) ), that the Arbalest Quarrel will continue to analyze, the Arbalest Quarrel will provide an in-depth analysis of the Wrenn case as well.Keep in mind that both cases, Kolbe and Wrenn, involve two core Second Amendment issues, and those two issues go hand-in-hand.Kolbe involves the issue as to what firearms are protected under the core of the Second Amendment. The Wrenn case involves the issue as to what constitutes good cause or, rather, whether, one must establish cause at all to carry a handgun—to be able, then, lawfully to carry a handgun; and that issue necessarily implicates the notion of where a person may exercise the right: namely, whether the right to defend one’s life with a handgun exists only  inside the home, or outside the home, as well. Plaintiffs in Kolbe have filed for an extension of time for U.S. Supreme Court review of their case. The $1,000,000.00 question in Wrenn is: what will the Defendant, District of Columbia do, now that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit effectively struck down the restrictive District of Columbia handgun carry Statute?This state of affairs is odd to say the least and exasperating for government, for no State government has, in recent times, coming on the heels of Heller, failed to secure a win at the U.S. Court of Appeals level, in spite of the rulings and reasoning of the majority in Heller. Consider: Plaintiffs--namely, those individuals and entities filing complaints alleging government violation of the core of the Second Amendment--who lost at the U.S. Circuit Court level, in those critical cases implicating the core of the Second Amendment. Plaintiffs then filed for U.S. Supreme Court review, but failed to obtain review. Four U.S. Supreme Court Justices must vote to hear a case. We know that Justices Scalia and Thomas had voted to review U.S. Court of Appeals decisions in Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 6902 (7th Cir. Ill., 2015) and in Jackson v. City & County of San Francisco, 746 F.3d 953, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 5498 (9th Cir. Cal., 2014) because Justices Scalia and Thomas wrote scathing comments, indicting the decisions of the U.S. Circuit Courts in those cases and tacitly voiced, vociferously, their disapproval of those jurists--Justices--on the high Court who failed to vote in favor of review of the cases. Likely, Justice Alito cast a third vote in favor of review of the Friedman and Jackson cases, consistent with the votes cast by Justices Scalia and Thomas; but three votes is insufficient to support U.S. Supreme Court review. Recently, the high Court also rejected a writ of certiorari in Peruta v. Cnty. of San Diego, 824 F.3d 919, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 10436 (9th Cir. Cal., June 9, 2016). Justice Thomas wrote a comment, amounting to a vehement denunciation of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal's decision in that case. The comment obviously alluded, as well, to more than slight chastisement of those Justices on the high Court who voted against review of Peruta. Justice Gorsuch, the most recent Justice to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, now joined Justice Thomas in dissenting the denial of the writ of certiorari. In each of those cases--Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 6902 (7th Cir. Ill., 2015), Jackson v. City & County of San Francisco, 746 F.3d 953, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 5498 (9th Cir. Cal., 2014), and Peruta v. Cnty. of San Diego, 824 F.3d 919, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 10436 (9th Cir. Cal., June 9, 2016)--the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal in the Seventh and Ninth Circuits, clearly and, to our minds, unconscionably, revolted against the clear and categorical pronouncements of Heller and, further, deliberately and wrongly failed to heed to U.S. Supreme Court precedent. In so failing to follow high Court precedent, those recalcitrant U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal denigrated our system of laws that relies for its efficacy, efficiency, and consistency on adherence to case law precedent.At this moment it isn't clear what the Defendant, District of Columbia, will do having lost in Wrenn. There are three options. One, the District of Columbia can file its own petition for review of the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the District of Columbia does this, the high Court may very well decide to hear the case as Wrenn's connection to Heller--emanating as it does in the same jurisdiction--begs for a hearing if the District of Columbia dares to take the case up. Two, the District of Columbia can request an en banc review of the adverse decision. While en banc review--that is to say, a hearing of the full complement of U.S. Court of Appeals Judges of the D.C. Circuit to review the decision of the three-Judge panel--is not guaranteed, as an appellant cannot demand en banc review as a matter of right any more than a petitioner can demand that the U.S. Supreme Court accept petitioner's writ of certiorari (in fact, the high Court accepts very few cases for review), there is, we believe, albeit unfortunately, in all likelihood, more than an even chance that the decision of the three-judge panel would be reversed, since the D.C. Circuit, like the Ninth Circuit, has a deep-set aversion to the Second Amendment. Three, the District of Columbia can let the ruling of the three-Judge panel in Wrenn stand. This means the District of Columbia will become a "shall-issue" handgun carry jurisdiction. For supporters of the Second Amendment, as true Americans, faithful to the strictures of the Bill of Rights as defined by and understood by the framers, are, this last scenario is an acceptable situation. For, while the decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals does not constitute binding precedent in other jurisdictions, the decision does constitute support, that sister jurisdictions might adopt.One cautionary note to those individuals who seek to carry a handgun in the District of Columbia on the basis of the Wrenn decision: Be advised that to do so, one must still obtain a license to carry a handgun, issued by the appropriate authorities in the District of Columbia. Do not attempt to carry a handgun in the District of Columbia without first obtaining a valid District of Columbia handgun license! It is a serious offense to do so; and penalties are harsh.One last note: Assuming the decision in Wrenn is not overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, hearing the case en banc, in the event the full complement of Judges decides to hear the case, or, in the alternative, assuming the decision in Wrenn is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, in the event the District of Columbia petitions the high Court for review of the case and the high Court accepts review of Wrenn vs. District of Columbia, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 13348 (D.C. Cir. July 25, 2017), that means one more United States jurisdiction is slowly, if grudgingly, commencing to comply with the rulings of Heller. That also means that we, supporters of full exercise of the right to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment, are one step closer to realization of our goal of National handgun carry reciprocity. It is time for Congress to get off its duff and act to make National handgun carry reciprocity a reality!______________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHERE DOES THE MOST SERIOUS THREAT TO THE PRESERVATION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF AMERICANS REST? FROM CONGRESS? FROM THE PRESS? FROM THE PRESIDENT? FROM ALL THREE TAKEN TOGETHER? THE ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU!

KOLBE VS. HOGAN:

INTERIM REMARKS

The Arbalest Quarrel has been working steadily on a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the Kolbe case. We are taking a short timeout with this segment, subtitled, “Interim Remarks,” to place the substantial time we are devoting to Kolbe in proper perspective. We feel our analysis has singular importance now with the Senate Judiciary Hearings on the Gorsuch confirmation that took place these past few days, and which have concluded. Senate Democrats are now filibustering, to prevent a vote on the confirmation of Judge Gorsuch as Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.The Arbalest Quarrel will continue its comprehensive, analytical exposition of the Kolbe case, considering its negative impact on the Second Amendment and considering, as well, the failure of the Fourth Circuit to take proper note of and abide by the rulings and reasoning of the high Court in the seminal Heller case. The high Court provided clear guidance to the lower Courts for the proper handling of Second Amendment cases where government action attacks the core of the Second Amendment.What is unfortunately abundantly clear now is that lower federal Courts will, at times, ignore rulings and reasoning and guidance of the U.S. Supreme Court if those lower federal Courts do not agree with the methodology, the rulings, the reasoning, and the jurisprudential underpinnings of the law as reflected in specific cases. So it is that we see some United States Circuits ignoring the precepts of Heller. But, regardless of a jurist’s political and social philosophy, precedent must not be ignored. Precedent must never be ignored. All too often as we see, though, judicial precedent is ignored, and it is, not infrequently, ignored in the most important cases: those cases negatively impacting our most sacred rights and liberties.If anything came out of the Neil Gorsuch confirmation hearings —where Judge Gorsuch had to suffer through days of torturous questioning and insufferable pontificating of Senate Democrats sitting on the Judiciary Committee—the public has come to see that Judge Gorsuch believes fervently in the importance of legal precedent as the cornerstone of our system of laws. This is necessary if our system of laws is not to be reduced to a set of discordant, inconsistent body of law, providing no guidance on which Courts may reasonably rely.The public has also seen that Judge Gorsuch gives credence to the law enacted by Congress, as written. Judge Gorsuch does not allow personal feeling to sway his rulings. That seems to bother some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It should, though, give the public hope. For, the public can rest assured that Judge Gorsuch, sitting on the high Court as an Associate Justice, will demonstrate proper restraint—applying the law to the facts as that law exists, and not as he may, perhaps, rather like the law to be.What the law ought to be is subject matter for legal and political philosophical musings set down in essays. When a judge opines on a case before that judge, the jurist is not to render judgment on what the law ought to be but must predicate his or her rulings on what the state of the law is, and elucidate findings of fact and conclusions of law on that basis and on that basis alone. Frankly, all too often we do not see this. The worst and most dangerous example of improper legal judgment is judgment reflected in personal feeling peppered, if only tacitly, but unmistakably, in legal opinions—personal feeling overriding judicial restraint in matters directly impacting the Bill of Rights, not least of which, we see on the continued assault against the clear meaning and purpose of the Second Amendment.The rabid assault on the sanctity of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution continues unabated notwithstanding the clear reasoning of and holdings in the Heller case. But, where do the greatest and gravest threats rest?Contrary to popular opinion on the matter, the greatest threat to our Bill of Rights, generally, and the gravest danger to our Second Amendment, particularly, rests less upon the assertive, pretentious, sanctimonious, noxious rhetorical flourishes and rancor of some elected officials who disdainfully, arrogantly voice their antipathy toward the Second Amendment—even if that rancor is masked through the obligatory assertion, “but of course I support the Second Amendment,” as if, through the addition of that assertion to the official’s polemic, the elected official may effectively hide his or her clear distaste toward the very idea that the average, law-abiding, rational, American citizen—not working as a policeman, or as a soldier, or as a licensed bodyguard, or as a government or private security officer, or in some unknown, secretive governmental capacity, but merely, solely as a civilian—should actually ever be armed with—horror of horrors—a firearm.And, contrary to popular opinion on the matter, the greatest threat to our Bill of Rights, generally, and the gravest danger to our Second Amendment, particularly, rests less upon the loud, vociferous, discordant voice of writers, editors, and owners of mainstream media whose antipathy toward the right of the people to keep and bear arms is well-known by the public, and is at once both longstanding and supremely malevolent.Rather, the greatest threat to our Bill of Rights, generally, and the gravest danger to our Second Amendment, particularly, rests more on the actions of activist Jurists of the federal District and Circuit Courts whose arcane opinions, seemingly well-learned and well-reasoned, merely obscure an intent to defeat the Second Amendment despite clear guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court.The threat posed by an activist Judiciary to the preservation of our basic liberties, as envisioned by the founders of our Free Republic is very real, not to be reasonably denied. And that threat posed to our Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms is ultimately greater than that posed by either a recalcitrant Congress or a derelict Press.The danger posed by an activist Judiciary is greater and graver to our sacred rights and liberties because the Judiciary is the final arbiter of what our law means and, therefore, how the law impacts our lives.As our Constitution sets forth, Congress makes the law we live by. The Executive enforces the law that Congress enacts. But, as the grand interpreter of the law—what the law means and whether the law is consistent with the U.S. Constitution—whether a law shall operate at all, and, if so, the effect it has on our lives—it is for the Judiciary to say. It is not for Congress to say; and it is not for the U.S. President to say; and it is certainly, not for the Press to tell the American people what the law of the Land is.No! The Judiciary, alone, is the final arbiter of what the law is. Some may think the Judiciary wields less power than the two other Branches of Government. After all, the Judiciary does not have the power of the purse, which, along with the unequivocal and singular power to make law, exists in Congress alone. The Judiciary does not wield power over the military, or over the federal police agencies, or over the vast intelligence apparatuses, all of which fall within the direct purview of the Executive. But, as the final arbiter of our law—what the law means and how the law is to be applied—assuming we remain a Nation ruled by law, truly ruled by law, and not by men—no American should underestimate the power the Judiciary wields over our lives.Even the most uninformed citizens among us knows full well the power of the Judiciary in the matter of immigration. That has been on full display. That power can and, most recently has tied the hands of the U.S. President, as Commander in Chief of our Nation, taxed with the singular duty to protect the People of our great Nation from all threats both foreign and domestic.President Donald Trump, promising to do his best to defend this Nation against imminent and serious threat posed by Islamic terrorists —clearly among his most important duties as U.S. President—has been constrained and frustrated in that effort due to the machinations of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and thereafter by the U.S. District Court of Hawaii—Courts that have, through their actions, placed the welfare of this Nation and the physical safety of its citizens at considerable risk as those Courts, through their opinions, demonstrate that the wishes of non-citizens who seek to emigrate to America from failed States are to be given more consideration than are the health and well-being of this Nation and the physical safety of American citizens. And, it doesn’t stop there, with immigration.Activist U.S. District Court and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges express their disdain of the Second Amendment and their continued defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court through decisions that rein in the right of the people to keep and bear arms. They denigrate the import and purport of our Second Amendment through manipulation of legal doctrine.If our pronouncement be undiplomatic, untactful toward the Judiciary, so be it. This is not a time for niceties. For the decisions of the Judiciary—the words expressed in opinions—are proof of political activism that strike at the heart of the health, welfare, and safety of our Nation and at the import and purport of our Bill of Rights.No less has the Fourth Circuit, in our estimate, manipulated legal doctrine, in denigration of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Obscuring opinion in arcane legalese does little to disguise the fact that legal opinions coming out of this Circuit in the recent Kolbe case are antithetical to and involve a misunderstanding—whether consciously deliberate or incautiously but honestly mistaken—of the rulings and reasoning of the Heller Court.The Fourth Circuit relies for support, in part, on similar rulings of its sister Courts, most notably, those of the Second, Third, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits. By relying for support on opinions of their sister Courts, the Fourth Circuit aims, it seems to us, to deflect honest criticism away from itself, thereby suggesting that similar rulings of these other Courts that belie the rulings, reasoning, and clear guidance of the majority opinion, penned by Justice Scalia, in Heller, do somehow demonstrate that the Fourth Circuit does give due consideration to the holdings and reasoning of Heller, rather than contradicting the holdings and reasoning of that seminal Second Amendment case. But that is not the case at all.We firmly believe—as we have explained and will elucidate yet further—the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, en banc, having taken its cue from the U.S. District Court of Maryland and from the opinions of various sister Courts, strained to find a loophole in the Heller case to justify finding Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act to be legal. There isn’t any. So, the Fourth Circuit created one out of whole cloth.The gravest error of the Courts of the Fourth Circuit consists in the application of a standard of review that the Heller Court specifically rejected. Proceeding from an improper footing, an erroneous decision—but one the Fourth Circuit obviously wanted—could not but follow from the application of the wrong standard.Happy the Fourth Circuit would be, as would other United States Circuit Courts that elicit similar sympathies, if Heller were simply overturned. Were Judge Merrick Garland to have sat on the high Court, that pipedream for the antigun movement would come to pass. There is no doubt about that. Clearly, that was one end that Barack Obama had in mind which is why he nominated Merrick Garland to Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was one end that Hillary Clinton would have had in mind were she to have been elected U.S. President. For, she would certainly have been elated to sit Judge Garland on the high Court. Thankfully, neither the previous U.S. President or the one who would be Queen will never get their wish.If Judge Neil Gorsuch is confirmed and he should be and undoubtedly will be—despite a Democratic threat of filibuster of his confirmation which is now unfolding—the Heller case should remain untouched—even if ignored by various Circuit Courts as we see in Kolbe. Heller is the first case that extends—albeit tacitly—the idea that, where the very core of a fundamental right is attacked in a government action—a facial challenge to that governmental action will be given proper consideration.The U.S. Supreme Court made clear enough in Heller, to the surprise and, we are sure, much to the consternation of the D.C. Government and to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, that the U.S. Supreme Court would not shrink from applying facial challenge methodology to an action by government that attacks the core of the Second Amendment even if that had not previously been done. We should see that methodology applied as well in Kolbe if Kolbe or a similar case is heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. We hope and trust and pray that Judge Gorsuch sits on the high Court as the Ninth Justice when this happens.We continue with our analysis of the Kolbe case with Part Five of our multi-series article, to be posted shortly._________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

A STUNNING RULING BY THE SUPREME COURT: HELLER STUNS MASSACHUSETTS HIGH COURT IN CAETANO STUN GUN CASE

No American citizen should take for granted, even for a moment, the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). The high Court made abundantly clear: the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, independent of and unconnected to service in the military. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion for the majority of the Court. The Court’s holding is clear and cogent, categorical and unequivocal.Henceforth, so long as the Heller holding remains intact, no law can be enacted that is inconsistent with and denigrates the individual right of the American citizen to keep and bear arms. Laws enacted before Heller that are inconsistent with and which denigrate the free exercise of the individual right to keep and bear arms will be struck down. On March 21, 2016 the U.S. Supreme Court did just that. The high Court struck down just such a law. The case is Caetano vs. Massachusetts, ______ U.S. ______ (2016), 2016 U.S LEXIS 1862 (March 21, 2016). The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court was unanimous.If you are wondering why the left-wing of the Court, comprising Justices, Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, voted with the conservative wing of the Court, comprising Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy, be advised they did so because they were compelled to do so, not because they truly wished to do so.Heller is precedential authority. Even though the left-wing of the high Court dissented from the decision in Heller, and did so strenuously, the left-wing of the Court was in the minority at the time. The majority rules. So the entire Court must abide by the precedents set by and established by the Court’s majority. This principle of jurisprudence is called stare decisis. It means a Court must abide by and uphold its earlier decisions.What binds the U.S. Supreme Court to legal precedents also binds lesser courts, both State and federal. Furthermore, neither Congress nor the U.S. President can change or ignore U.S. Supreme Court decisions. To do so not only undermines the rule of law; such disregard for U.S. Supreme Court decisions undermines the Separation of Powers Doctrine and destroys the system of checks and balances that exists among the three Branches of Government.Yet, This does not mean that the U.S. Supreme Court cannot, itself, overturn one of its own prior decisions. But, the U.S. Supreme Court is generally loathe to do so, and for good reason. For, to do so undercuts the very integrity of the Court. But, if Judge Merrick Garland, or another Judge with the same legal philosophical bent, ultimately secures a seat on the high Court, the left-wing of the Court – having a clear majority at that point – may very well overturn Heller, given their chance to do so since they never agreed with the conservative wing's majority opinion in Heller in the first place. At present, though, the liberal wing of the high Court cannot muster enough votes. It cannot use Caetano to overturn the precedent setting Heller holding outright at this juncture; so it did not try; and, as it had no alternative, the liberal wing of the high Court was compelled, albeit reluctantly -- but compelled nonetheless -- under the doctrine of stare decisis, to decide Caetano in light of the majority’s holding in Heller. But, the liberal wing sided with the conservative wing of the Court, silently -- that is to say -- sans comment. With the passing of Justice Scalia an uneasy balance now exists between the right-wing and left-wing of the Court: 4 to 4. So, then, what is Caetano all about?

ANALYSIS OF THE CAETANO CASE: FACTS OF THE CASE AND LEGAL ISSUES

In Caetano, the Appellant, a Massachusetts woman, suffered a brutal beating at the hands of her abusive boyfriend, who put her in the hospital. She had obtained numerous restraining orders against her abuser, but they all proved futile, and she constantly feared for her life. She obtained a stun gun from a friend for self-defense. One day, the Appellant’s violent ex-boyfriend paid Appellant a visit. He threatened to harm her once again and, since the abuser outweighed Appellant by 100 pounds, she could not protect herself against another assault except through the use of a weapon. She stood her ground, displayed the stun gun. The abusive ex-boyfriend got scared and left her alone. Unfortunately, for Appellant, possession of a stun gun is illegal under Massachusetts’ law, even though the fact of having it on hand may have saved her life.The police later discovered the weapon and arrested the Appellant.The trial court found her guilty of possessing a contraband weapon under State law, ALM GL ch. 140 § 131J. The State law says, in part, “No person shall possess a portable device or weapon from which an electrical current, impulse, wave or beam may be directed, which current, impulse, wave or beam is designed to incapacitate temporarily, injure or kill. . . .”Federal, State, and local law enforcement officers are exempted from application of the Massachusetts law. The penalty for violation of the law for everyone else is harsh: “Whoever violates this section shall be punished by a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $1,000 or by imprisonment in the house of correction for not less than 6 months nor more than 2½ years, or by both such fine and imprisonment.” Note: under the law, “A law enforcement officer may arrest without a warrant any person whom he has probable cause to believe has violated this section.” The Massachusetts law also shreds the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.The Appellant was found guilty of violation of the Massachusetts Statute. Circumstances surrounding Appellants’ need for the weapon – namely to protect life and limb – were considered by the trial court to be irrelevant. The Appellant appealed the adverse decision to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the highest Court of the State. The Appellant argued that, under the Second Amendment, she was permitted to possess the stun gun. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts disagreed, holding “that a stun gun is not the type of weapon that is eligible for Second Amendment protection.” The Massachusetts high Court reasoned that stun guns are unprotected because they were not in common use at the time of enactment of the Second Amendment and because they fall within the general prohibition against carrying dangerous and unusual weapons.The legal issues the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with in Caetano are straightforward: first, whether a stun gun is an “arm” within the meaning of the Second Amendment; second, whether Massachusetts’ blanket prohibition on the possession of stun guns infringes the right of the people to keep and bear arms in violation of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CAETANO CASE IN RESPECT TO THE SECOND AMENDMENT: DECISION AND REASONING OF THE COURT

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court relying specifically on Heller, held that the Second Amendment extends to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in use at the time of the founding of our Nation.There was no formal majority opinion. That is to say the decision in Caetano was handed down, per curiam. Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, two conservative-wing Justices, did, however, write a concurring opinion. Were he able, Justice Scalia would most certainly have either joined Justice Thomas in Justice Alito’s concurring opinion or would have penned his own. Not surprisingly, as stated, supra, the liberal-wing Justices did not wish to weigh-in with a formal opinion of their own.The left-wing of the high Court is obviously waiting for the day it forms a majority bloc on the high Court. It will then be in the position to overturn Heller when the appropriate Second Amendment case comes before it. If Judge Merrick Garland or someone like him succeeds to Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat, then the day the left-wing of the Court has been anxiously waiting for will have arrived.The Caetano case makes plain that the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms entails the right of self-defense – a right that antigun groups object to and constantly attack.Justices Alito and Thomas Supreme Court took the Massachusetts high Court to task, attacking both the reasoning and decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of the State. In a blistering critique of the Massachusetts high Court, Justices Alito and Thomas admonished the Court, asserting that the Court professed to apply Heller but, actually wholly ignored it. Justices Alito and Thomas castigated the Supreme Judicial Court for its “ill-treatment of Heller.” The Justices said: “We held {in Heller} that the Second Amendment extends to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding. It is hard to imagine language speaking more directly to the point. Yet the Supreme Judicial Court did not so much as mention it.”Justices Alito and Thomas were not done with the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. They added that the issue of dangerousness of a weapon does not apply when a weapon, such as a stun gun, is used for a lawful purpose. The Appellant, Caetano, did in fact use the stun gun for a lawful purpose: self-defense. That is not in dispute. That fact was never in dispute. In emphasizing the point, Justices Alito and Thomas ripped apart another argument the Massachusetts high Court made when affirming the decision of the trial Court, against the Appellant.Justices Alito and Thomas also admonished the Court, and by extension, antigun groups, for assailing those who wish to exercise the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense – a legitimate purpose under the Second Amendment. Justices Alito and Thomas pointed out that some people may have reservations about using deadly force due to moral, religious, or emotional reasons but that such reservations do not and cannot override another person’s desire to exercise his or her right of self-defense, as guaranteed under the Second Amendment.The U.S. Supreme Court thereupon remanded the case to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts with instructions essentially requiring the high Court of Massachusetts to reverse its earlier finding, affirming judgment for the State against Appellant, and enter judgment for the Appellant, Caetano, consistent with the high Court’s holding and reasoning.

DO OTHER JURISDICTIONS CRIMINALIZE POSSESSION OF STUN GUNS?

Yes. Consider just a couple. New York City, for example, criminalizes the mere possession of electronic stun guns, under NYC Administrative Code § 10-135. Violation of this Section of the Code is a Class A Misdemeanor. Under NY CLS Penal § 70.15, a person found guilty of a Class A Misdemeanor can receive a prison sentence of up to one year. In certain situations, as defined in Statute, that prison sentence can be considerably longer.Another jurisdiction in the State of New York, namely, Long Beach, New York, has an ordinance making possession of a stun gun a Class A misdemeanor: Long Beach, New York Code of Ordinances Sec. 63.The Long Beach Ordinance and the NYC code section are both illegal and must be struck down. How many other States and local governing bodies within States have such illegal laws on the books? One can only wonder. But they must be legion; and they are all illegal under Heller – at least so long as Heller remains valid law and is not overturned. If Judge Merrick Garland were to be confirmed, Heller would likely, at some point in time, be overturned. And Justice Scalia’s work would be undone.

AFTER CAETANO THE U.S. SENATE MUST PROTECT THE HELLER CASE AND ITS PROGENY

THE U.S. SENATE HAS DONE ITS JOB: IT HAS DECIDED TO WITHHOLD ITS CONSENT TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THE CONFIRMATION PROCESS OF OBAMA’S NOMINEE TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURT.

The U.S. Senate must not acquiesce to pressure. It must not move forward with a confirmation hearing and floor vote on Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. For, we know that, under any scenario, Judge Garland – as Justice Garland – will provide the left-wing of the Court with the key vote it needs to overturn Heller. Hopefully, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary will hold fast and preclude a formal confirmation hearing and refrain from permitting an up or down vote on the Garland nomination.Under Article 2, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the President nominates individuals to the high Court with the advice and consent of the Senate. The President does not, then, simply, appoint a person to the high Court. The Constitution does not permit that. The U.S. Senate can withhold its consent and it has refused, at this time, to give it, and that is its right.The Senate recognizes the danger to precedential setting cases impacting Americans’ fundamental rights and liberties, such as Heller, if the confirmation process were to proceed. Appropriately, the Senate has decided to exercise vigilance and caution in this matter at this poignant time and given the sensitive circumstances presently facing our Nation.The U.S. Senate has done everything required of it. It has performed its duties under the U.S. Constitution, as it must. The President and his sycophants in the mainstream media don’t like the Senate’s decision. But they would do well, now, to accept it and keep their mouths shut![separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.