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NEW YORK’S SULLIVAN ACT OFFENDS THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND MUST BE STRUCK DOWN
POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS
MULTI SERIES
PART TWENTY-THREE
SUBPART A
NEW YORK HAS ENACTED MANY GUN MEASURES FOR WELL OVER A CENTURY, BUT THERE IS ONLY ONE GUN LAW: THE SULLIVAN ACT OF 1911
For well over a century, ever since the enactment of the notorious Sullivan Act of 1911, the New York Government has successfully weathered all challenges to it.Since then, New York has enacted many laws directed at guns and gun possession, but these laws, properly understood, are not standalone gun laws. They are all revisions or amendments to the archaic Sullivan Act.This means that, while New York has MANY “gun laws” (lower case), the State truly has only ever had ONE “GUN LAW” (upper case).It is important to understand this. As long as the Sullivan Act exists, Americans residing or working in New York who desire to exercise their fundamental natural law right to armed self-defense will face constant obstacles and hurdles, and even Government harassment that negatively impacts their enjoyment of the Second Amendment guarantee.The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case NYSRPA vs. Bruen did nothing to diminish the impact of the Sullivan Act in practice. New York’s GUN LAW is as dictatorial and as oppressive now, as it was prior to Bruen.This became apparent once the New York State Legislature passed, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law, a new package of amendments to the Sullivan Act, titled, “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” of 2022, more often referred to by the acronym “CCIA.”The CCIA pays lip service to the Bruen rulings insofar as, and only to the extent that, the GUN LAW sheds the verbiage “PROPER CAUSE” from the Sullivan Act. That is the only concession made. Other than that, the GUN LAW is no less burdensome than before the passage of the CCIA, and in one major respect, worse.For, even with “PROPER CAUSE” struck from the GUN LAW, the “MAY ISSUE/GOOD CAUSE” requirement remains unscathed.The Government simply subsumed “PROPER CAUSE” into “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER.” The new standard is as subjective as the old one.Present holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses must comply with a new set of requirements to carry a handgun in New York. They are placed in the same boat as new applicants.New York gun owners were not fooled by the CCIA. Challenges to the Constitutionality of the amendments came within days of the Government's passage of it. Those cases are ongoing.The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on this and will stay on this. Readers are invited to peruse our comprehensive blog posts. And Ammoland Shooting Sports News has kindly reposted our articles. See, e.g., articles posted on January 20, 2023, January 9, 2023, January 6, 2023, January 5, 2023, and December 28, 2022—just to name a few.Unconscionable constraints on the exercise of the right to armed self-defense under the Kathy Hochul Government are no more relaxed than under the Government of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, and remain a top priority for her administration. The Sullivan Act of 1911 makes this possible.Suppression of the right of the people to keep and bear arms in New York continues unabated, with the infusion of more and more restrictive, repressive gun measures, inexorably whittling away at the natural law right to armed self-defense.Nothing will stop this juggernaut unless or until either one of two things occurs: The State Legislature repeals the Sullivan Act, or the New York Federal or State Courts strike the Sullivan Act down.Neither one of these two actions will occur as long as the New York Government and the New York State and Federal Courts retain a mindset abhorrent of firearms and antithetical to civilian citizen ownership and possession of firearms. Neither the New York Government nor the U.S. Supreme Court has any illusion about this.The problem rests with the concept of “LICENSING OF HANDGUNS,” spawned by the Sullivan Act well over a century ago. The Sullivan Act introduced the formal handgun licensing scheme to New York.The New York Government knows that, as long as handgun licensing remains ostensibly “lawful,” the Government can and will continue to make incursions on the Second Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court knows this, too.“The current handgun laws of New York State and New York City trace their origin to the state Sullivan Dangerous Weapons Act of 1911. Proposed by Democratic State Senator and Tammany Hall leader Timothy D. ‘Big Tim’ Sullivan, who represented the slums of lower Manhattan, the Act made it a misdemeanor to possess a handgun without a permit and a felony to carry a concealed weapon in public. Whereas the Act designated judges as the licensing officers in much of the state, it gave the New York City police commissioner sole authority to grant or deny licenses in New York City, an arrangement that persists to this day. At least part of the motivation behind the Sullivan Act was a desire to keep firearms out of the hands of recent immigrants from Italy and Southern Europe—perceived to be prone to violence—by giving the New York Police Department (NYPD) the power to grant or deny permits. The NYPD's Licensing Division still handles all handgun license applications in the city. Today, it remains illegal to possess a handgun anywhere in New York State without a license. Section 265.01(1) of the New York Penal Law makes possession of a handgun an automatic class A misdemeanor, unless a person can qualify for one of the exceptions listed in section 265.20. For ordinary citizens, the only exemption that applies is possession with a license issued under section 400.00. . . . Today, it remains illegal to possess a handgun anywhere in New York State without a license. . . . As has been the case since the passage of the Sullivan Act, obtaining a license under Penal Law section 400.00 is the only lawful way for civilians in New York State to possess a handgun. . . .” “Pursued by a ‘Bear’? New York City's Handgun Laws in the Wake of Heller and McDonald,” 46 Colum. J.L. & Soc. Probs. 145, Winter 2012, by Matthew Bridge, J.D. Candidate 2013, Columbia Law.”New York holders of valid handgun licensees may not be immediately aware of an important fact. The handgun license acquired does not belong to the holder of it. The license is and remains the property of the licensing authority. Moreover, the conditions set by the licensing authority are terse, categorical, and blunt. For example, the holder of a handgun license issued by the New York City Police Department must surrender the license upon demand of the Police Department. That means his firearms must be vouchered as well. The reverse side of the license issued by the NYPD sets forth the following:“This license is revocable at any time. Upon demand of a police officer, a licensee must immediately surrender his/her license and handguns. Lost, stolen, confiscated, or surrendered handguns must be reported to the License Division immediately at 646-610-5560 or 646-610-5154.” [see discussion of NYPD handgun licensing procedures in AQ article, posted on October 19, 2015]The CCIA doesn't address this. But one should assume that such language will be incorporated in such new handgun licenses that a New York license authority happens to issue.When the High Court handed down the Bruen decision on June 23, 2022, the Court knew it was tinkering around the edges of a beast. It should have struck down the Sullivan Act, at that time, but it didn’t.Possibly, Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have done just that. The Court certainly had an opportunity to attack the Sullivan Act head-on when the Court took up for review the New York Second Amendment case, NYSRPA vs. City of New York, 140 S. Ct. 1525 (2020). Little came of that.__________________________________
SUBPART B
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAD TWO OPPORTUNITIES TO CONFRONT NEW YORK’S NOTORIOUS SULLIVAN ACT HEAD-ON BUT IN BOTH INSTANCES THE COURT PUNTED
Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the liberal wing of the Court would have none of that. They allowed the City of New York and past Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, to sidestep the unconstitutionality of the Sullivan Act, by amending both the New York City gun regulations and the New York State Gun Law to ostensibly cohere with the dictates of the Second Amendment.Justice Brett Kavanaugh, adding an odd Concurring Opinion, attempted to split hairs, writing,“I agree with the per curiam opinion’s resolution of the procedural issues before us—namely, that petitioners’ claim for injunctive relief against New York City’s old rule is moot and that petitioners’ new claims should be addressed as appropriate in the first instance by the Court of Appeals and the District Court on remand.I also agree with Justice Alito’s general analysis of Heller and McDonald. Post, at 1540-1541; see Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F. 3d 1244, 399 U.S. App. D.C. 314 (CADC 2011) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting). And 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.”Justice Alito joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch saw the game the New York Government had played on New York’s gun licensees.The Chief Justice and other Justices permitted this. Perhaps they were pleased with it. But Associate Justices Alito and Thomas and Gorsuch would not stand for it. He set forth in detail his awareness of it, and his justified anger over it:“By incorrectly dismissing this case as moot, the Court permits our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced. Twelve years ago in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), we held that the Second Amendment protects the right of ordinary Americans to keep and bear arms. Two years later, our decision in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010), established that this right is fully applicable to the States. Since then, the lower courts have decided numerous cases involving Second Amendment challenges to a variety of federal, state, and local laws. Most have failed. We have been asked to review many of these decisions, but until this case, we denied all such requests.On January 22, 2019, we granted review to consider the constitutionality of a New York City ordinance that burdened the right recognized in Heller. Among other things, the ordinance prohibited law-abiding New Yorkers with a license to keep a handgun in the home (a ‘premises license’) from taking that weapon to a firing range outside the City. Instead, premises licensees wishing to gain or maintain the ability to use their weapons safely were limited to the seven firing ranges in the City, all but one of which were largely restricted to members and their guests.In the District Court and the Court of Appeals, the City vigorously and successfully defended the constitutionality of its ordinance, and the law was upheld based on what we are told is the framework for reviewing Second Amendment claims that has been uniformly adopted by the Courts of Appeals. One might have thought that the City, having convinced the lower courts that its law was consistent with Heller, would have been willing to defend its victory in this Court. But once we granted certiorari, both the City and the State of New York sprang into action to prevent us from deciding this case. Although the City had previously insisted that its ordinance served important public safety purposes, our grant of review apparently led to an epiphany of sorts, and the City quickly changed its ordinance. And for good measure the State enacted a law making the old New York City ordinance illegal.Thereafter, the City and amici supporting its position strove to have this case thrown out without briefing or argument. The City moved for dismissal ‘as soon as is reasonably practicable’ on the ground that it had ‘no legal reason to file a brief.’ Suggestion of Mootness 1. When we refused to jettison the case at that early stage, the City submitted a brief but ‘stress[ed] that [its] true position [was] that it ha[d] no view at all regarding the constitutional questions presented’ and that it was “offer[ing] a defense of the . . . former rul[e] in the spirit of something a Court-appointed amicus curiae might do.” Brief for Respondents 2. A prominent brief supporting the City went further. Five United States Senators, four of whom are members of the bar of this Court, filed a brief insisting that the case be dismissed. If the Court did not do so, they intimated, the public would realize that the Court is ‘motivated mainly by politics, rather than by adherence to the law,’ and the Court would face the possibility of legislative reprisal. Brief for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse et al. as Amici Curiae 2-3, 18 (internal quotation marks omitted).Regrettably, the Court now dismisses the case as moot. If the Court were right on the law, I would of course approve that disposition. Under the Constitution, our authority is limited to deciding actual cases or controversies, and if this were no longer a live controversy—that is, if it were now moot—we would be compelled to dismiss. But if a case is on our docket and we have jurisdiction, we have an obligation to decide it. As Chief Justice Marshall wrote for the Court in Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264, 6 Wheat. 264, 404, 5 L. Ed. 257 (1821), “[w]e have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given.”Thus, in this case, we must apply the well-established standards for determining whether a case is moot, and under those standards, we still have a live case before us. It is certainly true that the new City ordinance and the new State law give petitioners most of what they sought, but that is not the test for mootness. Instead, “a case ‘becomes moot only when it is impossible for a court to grant any effectual relief whatever to the prevailing party.’” Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U. S. 165, 172, 133 S. Ct. 1017, 185 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2013) (emphasis added). “‘As long as the parties have a concrete interest, however small, in the outcome of the litigation, the case is not moot.’” Ibid. (emphasis added).Respondents have failed to meet this ‘heavy burden.’ Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Slater, 528 U. S. 216, 222, 120 S. Ct. 722, 145 L. Ed. 2d 650 (2000) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted). This is so for two reasons. First, the changes in City and State law do not provide petitioners with all the injunctive relief they sought. Second, if we reversed on the merits, the District Court on remand could award damages to remedy the constitutional violation that petitioners suffered.”See also AQ two articles analyzing the “Gun Transport Case” posted on our website on April 27, 2020, and on May 8, 2020. Our April 27, 2020 article was reposted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News, on that same April 27 date. See also the AQ article posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports news on April 26, 2021. In that article, we remarked with satisfaction that the U.S. Supreme Court had agreed to take up a second New York gun case. In that case, captioned, NYSRPA vs. Corlett, 141 S. Ct. 2566 (2021), the High Court granted certiorari:“Petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit 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.”The public would come to know this case as NYSRPA vs. Bruen, once Kevin P Bruen, the new Superintendent of the New York State Police replaced his predecessor, Keith M. Corlett.The matter discussed in NYSRPA vs. Bruen was of an order of magnitude greater than the earlier case, NYSRPA vs. City of New York, insofar as the Bruen case dealt more directly with the Sullivan Act—the Act that required Americans to obtain a license to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.Yet, as impactful as the Bruen case WAS and IS, the High Court didn’t strike down the core of the Sullivan Act.Chief Justice Roberts, and the liberal wing of the Court evidently realizing the possibility of this, consciously limited the issue on review.The Bruen rulings, handed down on June 23, 2022, although potent and compelling, nonetheless provided the Hochul Government a modicum of wiggle room. That wiggle room allowed the Government to slither around the rulings through the enactment of a plethora of amendments to the Sullivan Act.As implausible and unconvincing a response to the Bruen rulings, as these amendments are, they served a purpose: to waylay the full impact of Bruen. And that is exactly what Hochul and the State Government in Albany did._____________________________________
SUBPART C
NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL KNEW THE BRUEN RULINGS WOULD BE DAMAGING TO THE STATE’S GUN LAW, THE SULLIVAN ACT, BUT SHE WOULD NOT ALLOW BRUEN TO GET IN THE WAY OF HER AGENDA
Challenges to the amendments to the Sullivan Act, i.e., the CCIA, came at once. This wasn’t unexpected.The Hochul Government knew this would occur since the Government’s amendments didn’t alleviate New York gun owners’ justified concerns over the exercise of the right to armed self-defense. The measures Hochul signed into law weren’t meant to do that. Hochul’s attack on the Second Amendment continued unabated and, in fact, intensified.The Government had planned to proceed with its agenda to restrain and constrain the exercise of a Divine Natural Law Right ever since New York enacted its “GUN LAW.”Heller and McDonald didn’t stop New York and other similar jurisdictions from continuing to constrain the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. And Bruen wasn’t going to constrain New York and these other jurisdictions, either.The Hochul Government hoped the Courts would dismiss the challenges to the CCIA.After all, the New York State and Federal Courts had more often than not acquiesced to the Government in the many years and decades since the passage of the Sullivan Act, and the Hochul Government had no reason to expect the Courts wouldn’t do so now.Striking the expression, “PROPER CAUSE” from the GUN LAW served as mere window dressing.The Government knew exactly what it was doing when Albany passed the CCIA and Kathy Hochul signed the CCIA into law, as did the Plaintiffs, who brought suit against the Government, intent on preventing the Hochul Government from defying Bruen.Placing the requirement of “PROPER CAUSE” into another fixture of the Sullivan Act, “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER,” that the High Court didn’t address, apparently seemed to both Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany, a convenient way to avoid the strictures of Bruen.Hochul and Albany simply had to convince the New York Courts to go along with the charade.But the lower U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York—the first Court called upon to deal with the CCIA—didn’t play along. This obviously surprised and puzzled and concerned the Hochul Government. The Federal trial Court imposed a stay on enforcement of the CCIA by granting the Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, during the pendency of the Plaintiffs’ suit on the merits.The Hochul Government immediately appealed the decision of the New York District Court to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the higher Court provided Hochul with some breathing room.The Plaintiff New York concealed handgun carry licensees weren't going to take this lying down. They appealed the adverse Second Circuit Court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.The High Court deemed the case important enough to review a non-final interlocutory order, a rare occurrence.The High Court didn’t lift the stay imposed by the Second Circuit on the Plaintiff New York Concealed Carry Handgun licensees, but the result wasn't a complete win the Hochul Government might have wished for, either. The Hochul Government is able to breathe a sigh of relief, for a time at least. But the High Court made clear it will be watching closely to determine whether either the Second Circuit or the Government is dragging its feet on this. A day of reckoning is coming for the New York Government. And the Sullivan Act’s head is in the guillotine.Having grown visibly tired of seeing Heller, McDonald, and now Bruen waylaid by stubborn State Governments and their Courts, and by their brethren on the High Court as well, Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito will insist on attacking unconstitutional Government laws directly, and strenuously. With a no-nonsense legal mind like Amy Coney Barrett on the High Court, New York gun owners and Americans around the Country may finally see their efforts through the years and decades finally bearing fruit.Hochul and Albany know the Sullivan Act’s days are numbered. A gun licensing regime clearly designed to subvert the fundamental natural law right to armed self-defense is a thing that, long ago, should have been repealed by the State Legislature or struck down by the New York Courts, buried, and never again resurrected.Instead, this thing has not only lingered but has through time grown appreciably stronger. It is an affront to the Nation’s history and heritage, and inconsistent with our Nation's core beliefs, grounded as they are on the sanctity and inviolability of the individual Self over Government. New York's Sullivan Act is inconsistent with the import and purport of the Bill of Rights and contrary to the natural sovereignty of the American citizenry over the Government.The New York Safe Act of 2013, signed into law by Andrew Cuomo, and the Concealed Carry Improvement Act of 2022, signed into law by Cuomo’s successor, Kathy Hochul, are not to be perceived as models of a new era in America, but, rather as relics of an earlier time—a much earlier age—one harkening back to medieval feudalism.The U.S. Supreme Court must strike down the Sullivan Act. That will serve to send a strong message to the States that have similar Anti-Second Amendment regimes, and that will also serve to send a strong message to the Biden Administration, too.These so-called “elites” who machinate for a world empire in their meetings held in Davos and in the Government offices of Brussels and in the clandestine meetings of the Bilderberg Group and in other such secretive enclaves dispersed throughout the world are all throwbacks to and should be perceived as nothing more or other than throwbacks to medieval Europe.These “elites” seek a return to the world of the Middle Ages, a world of empire, consisting of legions of abjectly penurious serfs, the “preterite,” and a minute number of extravagantly wealthy and powerful royalty and nobility, the “elect.”The empire this new royalty and nobility envisions, and which is taking shape, is designed to embrace all of Europe, the British Commonwealth Nations, and the United States as well.Craven toadies like Hochul and Newsome and the brain-addled, corrupt Biden, have made clear that their interests are not our Nation’s interests nor those of our people. And their allegiances are not to our Nation, nor to our Constitution, nor to our people.Their aim is to incite ill will among the American people and to destabilize our cities, counties, states, and the entire Union, so that the whole may weaken and fall. These destructive forces then intend to merge the remains of our Country and its people into a grandiose neo-feudalistic world order that serves the interests and goals of their foreign, alien masters, not their Countrymen.Americans should resist all efforts, seductive or forceful, aimed to compel compliance.We can begin by making clear that we will not relinquish our Bill of Rights.We will not relinquish our duty and our ability to resist tyranny.We will not relinquish our natural law God-Given right to keep and bear arms.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.
ARMED SELF-DEFENSE UNDER ATTACK IN THE U.S.
Is armed self-defense a basic human right? The question may seem rhetorical, even nonsensical to a rational mind. “Of course armed self-defense is a basic human right,” you would say. Or is it?In the countries of the EU, it isn’t; nor is armed self-defense acknowledged and accepted as a fundamental human right in the countries that comprise the British Commonwealth.Forget about those Countries of the British Commonwealth and the EU. They are lost.But, what about the United States? Do Americans have a right to armed self-defense?The natural law right codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights makes plain that Americans do have a natural law right of armed self-defense. And the seminal Second Amendment holdings in Heller, McDonald, and, most recently, in Bruen explicitly assert that. So, why does that remain a question for us? But a question for us it is, disturbing as it is.The Neoliberal Globalist elite puppet-masters and the Neo-Marxist internationalists do not acknowledge—in fact do not recognize—the right.Of course, it should not matter what these creatures think. But so long as Americans vote their proxies into public office, the right of armed self-defense remains, in practice an open question in many jurisdictions across the Country, despite the clear meaning of the Second Amendment and irrefutable U.S. Supreme Court precedent.The fact remains that in the U.S. the natural law right of armed self-defense is not to be denied, ignored, dismissed, or abrogated.The right of armed self-defense is itself subsumed in the broader category of the right of self-defense, i.e., the natural law right of a person to defend him or herself against predatory attack whether from predatory four-legged beast, two-legged beast, or predatory Government.Armed self-defense simply means that a person has the natural law right to possess the best means for ensuring both his physical survival and his autonomy of self against those forces that dare crush body, mind, or spirit. For centuries that best means of self-defense was a firearm. And so, it remains.And, as the forces that crush have garnered more sophisticated weapons to destroy body, mind, and spirit, so, too, have the commonalty of the United States acquired the weaponry and technology necessary to repel attack.Through the years, we have written extensively on this. See e.g., article of December 2, 2021, titled, “Tyranny, Fundamental Rights, and the Armed Citizen.”See also article in Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy.In a world moving closer and closer to Armageddon, in the form of transnational tyranny, and as CCP China and western neoliberal Globalist overseers carve up the world between them, the U.S. as a free Constitutional Republic cannot long remain separate and apart from the emergence of a one-world neofeudalistic governmental empire unless the American people assert their sovereign authority over Government. This should not be difficult but, through time, it has become so, for many Americans. Why is that? It is for these major reasons, among others:
- Consolidation of information organs into one massive organ of propaganda, targeting the public on an industrial scale;
- Incessant, noxious surveillance of the movements of the mass population;
- Consolidation of federal police, military, intelligence apparatuses into one uniform command structure;
- Merging of Federal Executive and Legislative Branch functions; and attempts to merge the Judicial Branch into the fold; and
- Governmental Social Engineering and Psychological Conditioning Campaigns aimed at confusing, and demoralizing, and inducing fear and hysteria in the polity.
Thus, the forces that crush slowly whittle away at the integrity of the United States as an independent sovereign Nation and slowly soften the resolve of vast swaths of the polity that would otherwise enable the polity to ably resist both the inexorable march toward tyranny and usurpation of the peoples’ sovereignty over Government.The founders of our Nation fought against one tyranny, a long time ago, and, despite insurmountable odds against the British empire—through the titular monarchic head, King George III, and via the true head of Government, the Bank of England, run by the Rothschild banking family—won their freedom from despotism.The Rothschild clan and their henchmen have, through the ensuing years, decades, and centuries, fought to take back what they had lost to what they perceived as merely a ragtag band of colonists.With the aid of technology and advances in the art and science of mass social engineering and psychological conditioning, their despicable efforts have been made appreciably easier. And these Obstructors and Destructors have made vast strides in corrupting the Nation from within, eschewing use of military, at least for the moment; operating surreptitiously; slyly; always in the shadows.In a feudalistic nation that America is becoming, devolving into, the common man—today’s serf—counts for naught.How does one come to see this, to know this? He does so by realizing that the average citizen can no longer, as a matter of natural law right, exercise that natural law right of armed self-defense or, for that matter, self-defense at all. Armed self-defense is not a privilege to be bestowed on one by the grace of Government. It is a natural law right bestowed on and in man by the Divine Creator. It is a right intrinsic to one's very Being. See recent Arbalest Quarrel article published on June 16, 2022, when we discuss this matter at length.The natural law right of self-defense, armed or not, is under attack by a tyrannical Government and by a compliant, obedient legacy Press. This failure to recognize the natural personal right of self-defense and, indeed, to attack the very idea of it, is not happenstance. It is consistent with anti-natural law philosophy as long promoted by and that is a mainstay of the UN, the EU, and of the Council of Europe and which the Biden Administration wholeheartedly complies with, adheres to and endorses, as is clear from the Administration's words and policies. It would be futile to look for any mention of a personal right of self-defense, let alone any mention of a personal right of armed self-defense in the writings of the UN, EU, and Council of Europe. There is none. See Arbalest Quarrel articles on this, especially, our article of December 2, 2021, titled, “Tyranny, Fundamental Rights, and the Armed Citizen,” cited supra; article of February 23, 2022, titled, “Martial Law in Canada; Can it happen in the United States?”; and article posted on March 4, 2022, and article posted on May 1, 2020.A transnationalist, post-nation-state world view—manifesting as a unified global technocratic, corporatist, neofeudalistic empire embracing the world, where the populations of the world are reduced to servitude and must comport with uniform and rigid standards of thought and conduct—is incompatible with the precepts of Individualism, upon which the United States, as a free Constitutional Republic is grounded. Thus, the Biden Administration, as the Obama and the Bush Administrations before it, must be circumspect and devious in devising and implementing policies and initiatives that are antithetical to the strictures of the United States Constitution, and, especially, those of the Bill of Rights—that component of the Nation's Constitution upon which the sanctity and inviolability of Selfhood and personal autonomy is predicated and guaranteed, and upon which the sole sovereignty of the American people over Government is promised and upon which that sovereignty rests.But as the Rothschild henchmen in control of the levers of the Federal Government and of the Press and of the multinational corporations have sown the seeds of our Nation’s destruction—even impacting the States, through the efforts, and money, and organizational acumen of the Henchman in Chief, George Soros, who has, alone, done much damage sowing the seeds of our Nation’s destruction down to the regional and even local levels—there will come a time, which is rapidly approaching, where the puppet-masters, through their legions of pawns, will make known and transparent, the elaborate plans and machinations heretofore prepared in secret, feeling, perhaps concluding, that stealth and concealment is no longer necessary and, in fact, is no longer possible.Consider the circumstances surrounding the prosecution—more to the point, the persecution—of a young American Patriot, Kyle Rittenhouse. Here is a man who sought merely to protect a small corner of society from destruction; such instability, and violence, and destruction that the Neoliberal Globalist Billionaires and Neo-Marxist internationalist Obstructors and Corrupters of our society concocted, funded, organized, and promoted; and then, through command of their "attack dogs," an assortment of dangerous, fanatical, and deranged agitators, unleashed on American society to create fear, and chaos. And, of course, the Kenosha police stood on the sidelines, but they did so because they wanted to let radical Marxist psychopaths tear down the City? No! Their training and instincts would be to protect the City and its residents from riots spawned by the Government lackeys of the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxist puppet masters who needed a pretext for a controlled political riot, consistent with their aim to destabilize society and to demoralize the polity. Fox News laid this all out. See Fox News Commentator, Tucker Carlson, explaining the circumstances that led to the riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the news account titled, "Tucker Carlson: Why did the people in charge let Kenosha be destroyed?" The news story was published on November 17, 2021.Carlson says, in pertinent part:“So it's worth pausing for a moment to ask, how did we get here? Well, here's one summary that caught our eye. Today, a Hill staffer called Billy Gribbin summed it up in the following way, 'We're waiting to see if riots break out because of media lies about a case from a riot that happened because of media lies.'Well, that's nicely put and it's totally true. The August 2020 riot in Kenosha wasn't really a riot in the way that we understand riots. It was an outbreak of political violence. It began three days after the Democratic convention. That was the context for it. It was, in fact, one of many riots that summer across the country, all of which were explicitly supported by the leadership of the Democratic Party. We're not making this up. Look it up. What was the point of these riots? Big picture, the point was to unseat Donald Trump. In the specific case of Kenosha, we know exactly the chain of events that led to where we are today. A man called Jacob Blake was shot by the police. Immediately, the media and the Democratic politicians they serve lied about what happened. So they told us that a cop shot Jacob Blake in the back for no apparent reason – and by the way, Jacob Blake was unarmed, he was helpless, they just pulled him out of a lineup and shot him because that's what America is like.Based on the first false stories from the news media told intentionally, our leaders suggested that these riots in Kenosha were somehow justified and then allowed them to continue. So this is what Kenosha looked like the night that Kyle Rittenhouse arrived to help defend local businesses. You can't allow that because if you do allow that, people get killed – as they did. But local police, you should know, did virtually nothing to stop any of the things you just saw. From the very top of the power structure, the state of Wisconsin, the word was let it happen. Various scenes of vandalism, looting, arson and riotingWell that's not a civil rights protest, that's not people fighting back against oppression, systemic racism. That's just people destroying things they didn't build. That's people wrecking our civilization. In no normal country would that be allowed, it would be put down immediately with force. That's why we have police. “The governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, turned down an offer from Washington to send federal officers in order to help get Kenosha under control, to save the city. That was a shockingly irresponsible decision, it was an immoral decision. But Tony Evers still defends it, 'I have no regrets.'” Really? That's because he doesn't live in Kenosha. Downtown Kenosha burned. It will never be rebuilt. Talk about a city that doesn't deserve any of this. Kenosha is just a town of 100,000 people, many of them Hispanic, if that even matters. But it's true, they're not rich people who live there.Kenosha is far past its prime. It was part of the industrial base that built this country that built the modern world. Now it's suffering even more than it was before the riots because a bunch of entitled antisocial lunatics broke things for no reason. Because our leaders allowed them. A city official estimates the damage from last summer's riots at about $50 million. That's a lot in Kenosha, in fact it's about more than half the entire municipal budget for the city of Kenosha.” Only Fox News bothered to delve into the circumstances of the riot. The seditious legacy Press, on the other hand, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, along with major Cable News organizations including CNN and MSNBC never did bother to ask why the Police had allowed rampant disorder to occur in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It wasn't the fault of the police. The fault rests solely on the State Government and specifically on the Governor, who, after the fact, brazenly. incomprehensibly asserted that he has 'no regrets.'The Governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, a Democrat, ordered the police to stand down and refrained from accepting assistance that the Government in Washington, D.C.,Evers not only allowed a City in Wisconsin to burn and allowed residents of the City to be terrorized. He condoned it. In fact, he enabled it. He wanted this to happen.A rational person must therefore conclude that it wasn't mere incompetence that led to the destruction of a City. It was a deliberate act on the part of Government to allow for this; to enable this; to want this to happen, as Governor Evers was aware of the imminence of the danger to citizens and to businesses in Kenosha.So, it was left to an armed citizen to take upon himself the responsibility that the police, whose duty, and obligation it was to preserve and protect public order in the community, had instead consciously, deleteriously, and unconscionably relinquished, surrendering meekly, abjectly to a psychopathic and psychotic mob.For his troubles—this American Horatius, guarding "The Bridge" in Kenosha, Wisconsin—Kyle Rittenhouse, was charged with several felony counts; the most serious involved his shooting of the psychotic animal, Joseph Rosenbaum. Video evidence alone made clear beyond a reasonable doubt to the public and to the jurors who sat in judgment of Kyle's actions, a case for justifiable homicide, grounded on the legal right of self-defense—a long held in law and well-recognized—defense to threat against one's life, and an absolute defense, when the individual asserting the right is not the aggressor. And, despite the imbecilic prosecution of Kyle in which the prosecutors sought to treat Kyle, inter alia, as the aggressor, rather than the victim, the jury saw through the prosecution's ruse and wouldn't buy into it. The incident occurred back in 2020.Yet, the puppet-masters demanded the head of Kyle Rittenhouse because Rosenbaum and others were, consciously or not, tearing down the fabric of American society in furtherance of the nightmarish Soros/Rothschild goal to destroy the Nation. For, once that was accomplished, the remains of the United States may be merged effortlessly and seamlessly into a greater neoliberal international world order a.k.a. new world order a.k.a. the Soros “Open Society.” The puppet-masters had to make an example of Kyle Rittenhouse. When the puppet-masters order the destruction of Towns and Cities in America, those who attempt to defend against the destruction of those American Towns and Cities are the criminals—not the psychopathic and psychotic destroyers of the Towns and Cities—for they are the tools of the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxist puppet-masters, doing the bidding of them and for them. None of those rioters were ever charged with a crime, and Wisconsin' s Governor was never called out for greasing the skids, enabling for the riot to happen. Only Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with a crime: several crimes, in fact, including the worst of crimes: murder. Defense of self against psychotics and psychopaths intent on killing one count for nothing against a charge of murder, when those psychopaths and psychotics are working on behalf of Government, that itself is the progenitor of destruction of America. It is a topsy-turvy Country, indeed, that we live in when it is innocent 21st Century American Patriots that are the one treated as the scourge of society, rather than the actual would-be destroyers of it.Fortunately, for both Kyle Rittenhouse and for the rest of us, a jury of his peers did not buy into the moronic insult. The jury realized the right of armed self-defense for them, no less than for the man on trial, realizing that all Americans were on trial here. The message is plain: self-defense is not considered a legal defense against a charge of homicide when the perpetrators of violence and the aggressors in a confrontation are treated as the non-aggressive victims, and the true victim is, himself, treated as the violent aggressor.The incident here occurred in 2020. The trial—itself a travesty—demanded by the Neoliberal Globalist puppet-masters—should never have taken place and would never have taken place if the rotten weeds that Soros had planted at the local and regional levels had not taken root. See Arbalest Quarrel article on the Kyle Rittenhouse case, published on November 19, 2021.More recently, an innocent man, a naturalized citizen from the Dominican Republic, Jose Alba, was immediately arrested for killing a vicious predator, a creature with a lengthy rap sheet, Austin Simon.Alba, like Rittenhouse, had successfully defended his life against predatory attack from an unrepentant, serial criminal. See, e.g., article in the New York Post. For his trouble, having had the audacity to defend himself against a psychopath and surviving the vicious attack, found himself, oddly and absurdly, on Riker’s Island, courtesy of a Soros backed and funded prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, Manhattan District Attorney.One cannot but wonder: if the tables were turned, and the psychopath, Austin Simon had killed Jose Alba, would Bragg have sent Simon immediately to Rikers Island? Judging by Bragg’s performance to date, protecting predators, which would never have happened. See article titled, “Self-defense is Now Murder,” in the Daily Sentinel.See also Tucker Carlson’s news coverage and video on Fox News.Bragg’s audacious attack on a citizen who defended himself with a knife makes patently clear that the incessant attack by the legacy Press, by the Democrat Party-controlled Congress, and by the Harris-Biden Administration about “guns” isn’t really about guns at all. The public is recognizing an assault on the natural law right of self-defense itself against predatory man, predatory beast, and, most importantly—for survival of a free Republic—predatory Government. If a man has a lawful, Constitutional right to repel tyranny, that fact vindicates the right of self-defense. But a tyrant can never allow for that, hence the attack on the natural law right of self-defense.Had Alba defended his life with a firearm, rather than a knife, the Manhattan DA’s handling of the case would not have been different. But Bragg and the Press would have inserted the issue of guns into the narrative if they could. In the Alba case, they couldn’t do that, even though in some instances, the seditious legacy Press does interject discussion of guns even if doing so is discordant.But the fact that an instance of self-defense occurred, via knife, and not a firearm in this instance is telling. It points to the fact that Government, be it Federal, State, or municipal—when under the thumb of the ultra-wealthy and powerful Neoliberal Globalists and wild and rabid Neo-Marxists, in league with the Globalists, as they happen to share the common goal of dismantling a free Republic—does not recognize the sanctity of Selfhood, the right of a person to be free from Government intrusion on one's autonomy of Personhood. What better evidence of this invasive, arrogant assault on the inviolability of body, mind, spirit, and soul, than for Government to usurp for itself an individual's natural law right of personal defense and doing so without reference to firearms as a factor in the story's telling. Might the Press not wish to talk now about banning knives? Great Britain has done so because the Nation has already banned guns; so, the next weapon to ban from the commonalty, lest the common people have the mind to rebel against tyranny, must need be the "knife." See article by Thomas Xavier, writing about UK Knife prohibitions and restrictions, citing to the UK website, reciting UK "Knife laws", a draconian over-the-top response—but, more likely, simply a pretext—to "rising knife crime" in the UK.So, knives are the next in a natural progression to keep the public defenseless and fearful in the UK and, just as likely in the U.S. down the road as well, if or when guns are banned. This would require the American public to look only to the Government for succor and safety—succor and safety that is always in short supply in Government and doled out sparingly, in major part to keep the public in a constant state of fear and tension. It isn't a pleasant scenario for the British, and certainly would not be a pleasant scenario for Americans. Neither a ban on guns nor knives should a Country, namely the U.S., conceived in freedom and liberty, wish to emulate of the British subject. But we are moving inexorably and rapidly in that horrible direction. The actions of the Soros installed Alvin Bragg as Manhattan District Attorney, in audaciously arresting Jose Alba, and initially charging him with murder for defending himself against a threat to his life by a psychopathic serial criminal— and the bizarre Courtroom arguments of Kenosha County District Attorney, Thomas Binger, charging Kyle Rittenhouse with serious felonies, including, inter alia, first degree intentional homicide and first degree reckless homicide and prosecuting him for those crimes, despite incontrovertible video evidence supporting a finding of justifiable homicide on the basis of self-defense—are scenarios both pointing to a disturbing development and trend in our Nation's jurisprudence.Americans are witnessing confounding but irrefutable evidence of Government antipathy toward the sanctity and inviolability of one's Selfhood—too prevalent and too conspicuous to ignore or to perfunctorily dismiss.The recognition that the State doesn't recognize one's natural law right of self-defense logically entails the proposition that the State no longer recognizes and will not acknowledge that one's life is truly one's own. The actions of the Kenosha and Manhattan District Attorneys point to this outrageous and deeply troubling revision of centuries of American jurisprudence and clear renunciation of the central tenet of the Bill of Rights: In America, one's life belongs to the State by tacit State edict, not to oneself, by grace of the Divine Creator. This means that it is the State, and the State alone, not the individual who decides whether one lives or dies; whether one has a right to life or not; and whether the taking of the life of another is to be declared lawful or not. Thus, the Biden Administration that would at once deny an American citizen's right to use a firearm in one's own defense and would, simultaneously, declare that it is the will of the State to decree whether an unborn child has the right to life, substituting its will for that of the Divine Creator. These are incredibly obtuse and pompous ideas.The Rittenhouse case in Kenosha, Wisconsin takes on clarity and renewed importance in view of the recent Jose Alba case, in New York City. The Alba case in the news draws a narrow focus on self-defense sans guns. The issue transcends the matter of armed self-defense, which is subsumed in the more general God-Given Right of Self-Defense itself. The issue of "Right-to-Life" be it the unborn child or the right of one born are equivalents: THE RIGHT TO BE. The core natural law right and legitimacy of self-defense, THE RIGHT TO SURVIVE IN BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT, is at stake, irrespective of the means. The State/Government has fixated on firearms only because the State/Government as the ultimate, dangerous predator recognizes that it is most threatened itself by the armed citizenry. Unarmed individuals pose little threat to THE TYRANT. Numbers by themselves are of little concern to a Tyrant State/Government backed by a massive standing army, equally massive paramilitary police force, a massive intelligence apparatus, and a massive propaganda/media organ. But one hundred million well-armed citizens pose a clear and present danger to the Tyrant' power and control over the citizenry. This explains the constant media attention spent not only on the armed citizenry but on the nature of the firearms, component parts of firearms, and the kinds and extent of the ammunition held by that armed citizenry. There is constant gibberish over "assault weapons," "weapons of war," "large-capacity magazines," 50 caliber ammunition, armor-piercing ammunition, suppressors, body-armor—anything and everything that the State/Government infers to pose an imminent and existential threat to its own vast power and control over the citizenry. Yet, one should stop and think for a minute that the framers of the Constitution intended the armed citizen to be equipped with personnel "weapons of war" precisely to operate as a counterweight to the State/Government precisely because of the tendency of the State/Government to usurp the sovereignty of the American people and become the master rather than the servant of the people. A free Constitutional Republic has nothing to fear from its citizens. A Tyrant, on the other hand, has everything to fear from its citizens, as well it should fear its citizens, in that eventuality.Is it coincidence this present Federal Government has taken a much more concerted stance against the right of the people to keep and bear arms of late? Should the public not prick up its ears at this disturbing series of Government bravado and action?The aim of the Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist push to destroy the Nation from within is insidiously directed to rendering the citizenry helpless while the forces that crush, plot and machinate to devastate the economy, mock America’s Christian faith, and promote societal decay. But total societal collapse cannot occur and will not occur so long as Americans remained armed and armed to the hilt. That is our winning hand: a royal straight flush. And the would-be destroyers of a free Republic know this. A truly free Constitutional Republic as the framers of the Constitution had designed for us need not fear its armed citizenry. In fact, the Federal Government should welcome it, take pride in it. The fact that it does not and openly fears this armed citizenry should tell the citizenry much of where this Government intends to take us. And it is not a good place.The Majority of the U.S. Supreme Court is aware of the dire state of our Republic, and it intends to remind Congress and the Biden Administration and the Corruptors of our Nation that the American people are still sovereign over their Nation and over this Government, and they intend to remain so. The Government and the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxist internationalists don't want to hear this and they are pushing back, they are pushing back hard; doubling down on their efforts to consolidate as much power as they can prior to the November Midterm elections to weaken a Republican Party sweep of Congress.So it is that, even as the right of the people to keep and bear arms gains support through most members of the U.S. Supreme Court, the pawns of the puppet-masters will continue to thwart the citizen’s right to keep and bear arms as long as they can to the extent that they can.One of the puppets, New York Governor Hochul, has made plain that she doesn’t give a damn about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bruen. In fact, New York’s recent enactment of amendments to its concealed handgun carry license structure set forth in Penal Code Section 400.00 now makes it even more difficult to obtain a concealed handgun carry license than before the Bruen ruling.The Governor’s defiance and that of the New York State Legislature in Albany is so blatant, so arrogant, so odious, so all-encompassing as to draw incredulity but for the fact that it is not merely rumor or extravagant musing. It is all etched in stone—and we lay all of that out for you in our next few articles.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.