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.

GUN GRABBERS DELIVER FALSE MESSAGE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

PART ONE

OPPRESSIVE ANTIGUN MEASURES DO NOT PROMOTE PUBLIC SAFETY

"Increasing public safety almost always means restricting liberties." ~ Charles Krauthammer

Removal of guns from society won't promote public safety. It never has; never will. See, e.g., academic article, "The Failed Experiment, Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales," Public Policy Sources (Number 71, November 2003), by Gary A. Mauser. And, if, perchance,  someone could prove, by argument, it did, it would never be worth the price of sacrificing our sacred rights and liberties. But, they can't prove that draconian gun control measures will ever make the individual, or that of society as whole, for that matter, any safer. Antigun politicians should know that. Some don't. Many probably do, but pretend otherwise. It fits the narrative transmitted to the public. The reasoning is flawed; the statistical evidence patchy at best. So antigun proponents squash debate, offering simplistic slogans in lieu of facts; in lieu of sound reasoning. They expect the public to accept the lies as gospel, self-evident truths. They shouldn’t expect this; but they do. Lying to the public is reprehensible. Their lies know no bounds. They have done it so often, lying has become reflexive. Many Americans fall into their trap. Many Americans want to believe the lies. Cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias kicks in to assist the gun grabbers' false messaging. That makes their nefarious work easy. 

Antigun zealots reduce discussion to two simple, basic declarations, one the corollary of the other: arms expansion endangers the public; arms reduction promotes public safety. Americans hear the message often. Through vehement exhortation and constant repetition the gun grabbers imprint their message on the public psyche. Their comrades in the media provide the vehicle to disseminate this mental garbage.Antigun zealots in Congress, in State Legislatures, in Hollywood, in radical Leftist groups, and in the media grab attention and headlines. They proselytize. They pontificate. They deliver their polemic to the public pompously, with rhetorical flourish, smug complacency, and abandon. Their sermon deceives and confuses; inflames and angers. It doesn’t inform and educate. It is a ploy; simple political artifice, devoid of import and substance. But that's all right for them. Accomplishing their goal is important: destruction of the Second Amendment.The clarion call for mass arms reduction demands submission to governmental authority. Antigun proponents impel the public to rebel against their own best interests; to abandon a sacred right. They promise societal tranquility and serenity, if Americans but heed their call.The suggestion is both monstrous and absurd, but it appeals to many. It resounds with enchantment and charm for some. But, for those not seduced, the gun grabbers employ a different tactic. They chastise and condemn; they scorn and ridicule. They crush dissent. A sacred right for them is an object of scorn, emblematic of a “gun culture.”Can you recall when this Nation had a serious, reasoned debate on the issue of Second Amendment gun rights versus gun control? Indeed, can you recall when we had a serious, reasoned debate on any issue impacting American's fundamental rights and liberties; on any issue involving our Nation's security; on any matter involving the Nation's core values? Remember Governor Andrew Cuomo's rancorous, insulting message to Americans? Back in 2014 the New York Post reported:“'Their problem isn’t me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves,'” the governor said on Albany’s The Capitol Pressroom radio show. Who are they? Right to life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay — if that’s who they are, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.'"Governor Cuomo hasn't changed, mellowing with time, and age, becoming more compassionate, more reasonable, more respectful of our Nation's fundamental rights and liberties, more appreciative and supportive of the sanctity of human life and of the autonomy of the individual American citizen. He's gotten worse--much worse; and that is reflected now in New York's new reprehensible abortion law, that Cuomo has championed, along with New York's new antigun measures that he continues to push for.

ANTIGUN MEASURES TARGET AVERAGE LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN; NOT THE VIOLENT CRIMINAL

Millions of law-abiding, rational Americans cherish the fundamental, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms. And millions of these Americans choose to exercise that right. These citizens don’t cause gun violence. If they did, Americans would see carnage on a scale beyond that unleashed by psychopaths, terrorists, drug cartel members, and garden-variety criminals, living among us. Antigun politicians should deal with these violent elements. They don’t.Hundreds of antigun federal and State Statutes, and many more local codes, rules, regulations, and procedures have done little to curb gun violence. That isn't surprising. After all, such measures target millions of average, law-abiding, rational Americans, who don’t commit gun violence.  Antigun measures do significantly less to target the fringe element of society, that does commit gun violence. The idea that fewer firearms in the hands of everyone will reduce gun violence is erroneous. It is mere pretense and subterfuge. But antigun proponents make the argument, anyway. For many people, the argument has an aura of plausibility, as so many wrong theories do. Consider instances of violent crime in the EU, and in Mexico and Central American Countries. The citizenry of these Nations has suffered, notwithstanding strict regulation of firearms.Still the gun grabbers bellow. They do so incessantly, disingenuously, albeit with seeming conviction and unrestrained animus toward those Americans who disagree with them; who dare to assert otherwise; who dare to suggest that perhaps--just maybe--the gun grabbers have it wrong. No matter. The narrative continues, unabated. And, no matter how many restrictive gun measures exist, it is never enough. The gun grabbers won't be satisfied until the unalienable right embodied in the Second Amendment ceases to exist.Antigun politicians call for ever more restrictive gun legislation. They direct antigun legislation to the law-abiding, rational American citizen. They maintain the pretense that once no law-abiding, rational American citizen has access to firearms, every law-abiding, rational American will be the better for it; will be safe and secure. But the gun grabbers don’t desire to control misuse of firearms by irrational sociopathic, criminal, and similar types in society; not really.  Otherwise, legislators would separate the dangerous among us; from us. They don’t. "Feel-good" politicians release these deviant, incorrigible types into society, instead of keeping them from society--in prisons and mental institutions where they belong. That sensible action would protect millions of law-abiding, sane members of society, reducing gun violence dramatically.But, antigun politicians don’t concern themselves with dangerous elements in society. Not really. These elements live among us. They prey upon us. But their violent crimes do serve a purpose. They serve as the impetus for imposing ever more oppressive, repressive gun measures on the rest of us. The gun grabbers trust that oppressive and repressive gun laws will induce such stress in average law-abiding gun owners, that they will capitulate; that they will forsake their firearms.It is the mass of citizenry that antigun politicians seek to control; even if they state it is the criminal, the sociopath, the lunatic they seek to constrain and restrain. The extent and nature of antigun legislation bears this out. Deviant types wouldn’t conform to firearms’ measures anyway. They never do.The gun grabbers direct their attention and efforts to the law-abiding citizen. And, the reason they do so  is clear. They seek to control the citizenry because they are distrustful of it.This distrust in the Nation's citizenry, in whom ultimate authority and power resides, consistent with the will of the founders of a free Republic, the founders of an indestructible Constitution, is endemic among those who espouse a collectivist agenda, reflected in totalitarian societies that have forever espoused strong Government control over the actions, and even thoughts, of the citizenry. Societies structured on the precepts of Socialism, Communism, and Fascism exemplify this. Despite the subtle differences in economic and political ideology of these various totalitarian systems, they are all grounded on the notion of Collectivism—consisting of a set of precepts, completely at odds with those that define Individualism. It was through application of the latter set of precepts, those grounded on Individualism, not the former, those grounded on Collectivism, that our founders drafted a Constitution upon which our Nation was founded and on which a great Nation has long stood. The new radical Left in this Country, slowly taking control of the Democratic Party, seeks to turn on its head all that our founders have accomplished. We cannot permit these Leftists to succeed in their aims._______________________________________________________

PART TWO

COLLECTIVISM VERSUS INDIVIDUALISM: TWO DOCTRINES AT ODDS WITH EACH OTHER.

The Arbalest Quarrel discusses at length, on our weblog, the principles grounding two incompatible philosophical systems. See, “The Modern Civil War: Collectivism vs. Individualism,” posted in October 2018. The framers of the U.S. Constitution, the founders of our free Republic, structured a Nation on the principles of Individualism, not those of Collectivism. The Radical Left, brazenly attempting to take over our Country, as it is gaining control over the Democratic Party, seeks to exercise absolute control over public discussion and discourse--presumptuously, sanctimoniously, presuming to be the voice of both sanity and morality. The mainstream media follows suit, indoctrinating the public in the new social, economic, political, and legal order, predicated on the principles of Collectivism. Collectivism and Individualism are at odds with each other, wholly incompatible. And, in the words and actions of the Collectivists, we see a Nation they seek to create--one divested of its laws, customs, traditions, history, and Judeo-Christian ethic--a Nation, in fact, that is divested of its very identity and soul. These Collectivists seek to subsume our Nation into a supranational organization of Western States. The differences between Collectivism and Individualism are stark.Let us be clear. Democratic Party candidates entering the race for U.S. President espouse a political, economic, social, financial, and legal system grounded on the precepts of Collectivism, not Individualism. The Nation they conceive cannot be squared with the U.S. Constitution as it exists. And, no one should be surprised that these Collectivists would call, shrilly and audaciously, for several changes to be made to it. Contenders, recently announcing their candidacy, namely, Kristen Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker unabashedly declare radical Socialist positions. Each tries to outdo the other. Beto O’Rourke the Radical Left Democratic Party candidate is also pondering a run. These politicians espouse political, social, economic, and financial positions far to the left of Joseph Biden; and even to the left of Bernie Sanders—difficult as it is too believe. Not surprisingly, these people show no reluctance in both misconstruing and attacking our Constitution.Among the radical views expressed by these contenders, vying for the Democratic Party crown, we see: Constraints on the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association; Constraints on Freedom of Religion; Abrogation of the Second Amendment; an End to Habeas Corpus; an End to Freedom from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures; Abrogation of the Electoral College; Vast Expansion of the House of Representatives, promising outsize representation of California, in Congress; Continued Politicization of our Bureaucratic Institutions; Radical Expansion of the Federal Government; Absolute Federal Control over Public Education; Porous Geographical Borders, permitting free flow of non-citizens both into and out of our Country; the granting of voting rights to non-citizens, and career felons; a curious tolerance for crimes committed by illegal aliens, including drug cartels, against our Nation's citizens; and, through it all, the desire to close all debate on their radical agenda.Where would this all lead? The citizenry would inevitably witness the dismantling of our Nation State; renouncement of the U.S Constitution. Arguably, we would see the integration of our Nation into a pan-North, Central, and Southern American Confederation, eventually connected politically, socially, economically, and legally to the EU.Socialist precepts, beliefs, and desires have run amok in our Nation. Any vestige of a Nation as conceived by our founders may very well draw to a close if Democrats take control of the U.S. Presidency in 2020. The Democratic Party is no longer--if it ever truly was--the Party of Moderate political and social thought and discourse.The Democratic Party leadership takes its cue now from new radical members. The Leftist agenda is seeing a dangerous re-emergence and resurgence in America—not seen since the early Twentieth Century. The Socialist and Communist belief system, grounded on the precepts of Collectivism, is naturally accepted among the poorly educated illegal aliens among us, as they are familiar with it, and have most to gain from it. They are steeped in it. And, their ranks grow every year.More disturbingly, we see this strange belief system of Collectivism, adopted by a younger generation of Americans. This may be due to radical, doctrinaire changes to our Nation’s public education system. The political, social, economic, financial, and legal fabric of our Nation is at risk. It is all being questioned, criticized, reevaluated. Nowhere is that more in evidence than in the matter of firearms' ownership and possession in this Country. Will our Nation survive, in the form our Founders structured it, as a free Republic? The question of the future of firearms' ownership and possession in this Country is central to that question. How the gun issue dynamic shapes up in 2019 and beyond, into the 2020 Presidential Primary Season, will likely impact the ultimate question facing our Nation:Is our Bill of Rights to be perceived as codification of natural law, sacrosanct and inviolate, as understood by our Founders, who believed in the principles underlying Individualism, or is it to be perceived as nothing more than a compendium of man-made law, as accepted by the proponents of Collectivism--which we see in other Nations, whose populations conceive their laws as ever malleable, subject to reworking or repeal, not unlike those of our own man-made Congressional Statutes?This question goes to the heart of what it means to be an American citizen. And, because this question, tacit though it be, nonetheless underscores what is at stake in the coming U.S, Presidential election, as our Nation stands at a crossroads, a critical juncture in our Nation's history, it is not exaggeration to assert that the American citizenry is facing a monumental crisis in 2020. There have only existed a few others.Our forefathers fought George III and the might of the British empire. That was our first mighty struggle. We prevailed.The founders of our Republic then debated the form our Nation should take. That was our second mighty struggle. The founders came to agreement with ratification of the United States Constitution, and, so, succeeded in their effort.We then faced major wars and depressions, and the might of the Soviet Union. These calamitous events combined, constituted, together, our third major struggle. We overcame them all, our Nation and its Constitution surviving, intact.We are now facing internal conflict as radical elements in our society, organized and supported by foreign internationalist groups and individuals, seek to undermine our Constitution, our people, our Republic, and our fundamental rights and liberties—and doing so callously, insidiously, seditiously—deliberately creating dissension among us, dividing each of us, one from the other, to accomplish their monstrous aims.The dangers we face as a Nation today are caused less from a disruption and explosion from outside, and more from implosion within. It is the work of a massive Fifth Column, actively at work, in our Country. It is marked by its insinuation into and control over the Democratic Party machinery. But it operates at many other levels of our Government as well. And it operates in our communities; and in the various sectors of business, finance, and media; and even within the legal profession. Nothing is left untouched. This fourth major battle has been waging for the last thirty years. And this new danger is unique for the diabolical approach it employs to destroy our Nation. The ruptures in our Nation, seeded by the machinations of this Fifth Column are now bearing poisonous fruit.But, the Fifth Column struggle for dominance over our Nation and its Countrymen isn’t over. But what we see is dire. We will know soon enough, whether the disruptors of our Nation, these purveyors of lies, succeed. The outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election will do much to decide whether our Nation survives in the manner our founders have bequeathed it to us or falls under the weight of those who seed dissension and discord from within.If a Democratic Party candidate should gain control of the U.S. Presidency, and the Fifth Column that controls it continues to extend its tentacles into, around, and through every organ of our Nation, slowly squeezing the life out of our Nation--we will, indeed, have lost, and those who have fought and died to create a Great, unique Nation and those who have since fought and died to preserve it, will have done so in vain. For, nothing will remain of our Nation but an empty shell. All vestige of what we once were as a great Nation and a great People will be lost forever.__________________________________________

PART THREE

THE RESHAPING OF AMERICAN ATTITUDES TOWARD FIREARMS

“What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that's not cool, that it's not acceptable, it's not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitudes about cigarettes. . . . One thing that I think is clear with young people, and with adults as well, is that we just have to be repetitive about this. . . . We need to do this every day of the week, every school, at every level, and just really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.” ~ A young Eric Holder, speaking to the Woman’s National Democratic Club in 1995, as televised on CSPAN in 1995—fourteen years before President Barack Obama appointed him as Attorney General, in Obama’s Administration.” Among the critical rights codified in the Bill of Rights, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is the only truly tenable check against tyranny in our Nation. That, of course, explains the ferocity of the Collectivist attack on the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. For, after all, it isn't tyranny that concerns them. In fact, the unchecked, unchallenged growth of Government is the clearest manifestation of tyranny; it is something they have designed and are working to accomplish--the enslavement of the American people, much as the populations of the EU are becoming enslaved. Our Nation, though, is not so easily susceptible to tyranny, unlike the Nations comprising the EU, as our Constitution provides for several "failsafe" mechanisms that serve to preclude, forestall or, at least, to deter the onset of tyranny. And that makes the effort of the Collectivists, both here and abroad, who seek to "soften up" our Nation, and ultimately to destroy it—that it may be subsumed eventually into a massive transnationalist union, which is the Collectivist dream of a new world order, comprising the remains of what had once been distinct, independent, sovereign nation states—so extraordinarily difficult. The last of the "failsafe" mechanisms that the framers of our free Republic built into our Constitution to preserve its existence and to preserve the existence of a free, autonomous citizenry in whom ultimate authority resides, and was meant to reside, is also the most effective failsafe mechanism: the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights.For proponents of Collectivism, the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms--and the emphatic assertion that this sacred right shall not be infringed--creates a serious problem for the Collectivists in this Nation--those Collectivists like Eric Holder and Barack Obama. And it creates, as well, a problem for the Collectivist overseers--those both here and abroad--who support and who have orchestrated the Collectivist agenda and who are working to implement the items in it. Much more so than even the First Amendment guarantee of Freedom of Speech--which, too, not surprisingly, is also under attack today--the Collectivists cannot and will not abide the Second Amendment to our Nation's Bill of Rights. Tyranny cannot take root and prevail--indeed it cannot even exist--in the presence of an armed, capable, determined citizenry, poised to resist tyranny. Thus it is that those who seek to destroy us--the Collectivists both here and abroad--those intent on to breaking the back of our free Republic and on breaking the will of the American citizenry, no longer even pretend to support the Second Amendment. We see this as they call for more gun control laws--gun control laws they refer to, disingenuously, as "sensible."These Collectivists, who vehemently denounce our Second Amendment, have long considered it an anathema. Of late, these ruthless creatures who have sought to impose ever more restrictive gun laws upon us no longer even keep up the pretense of supporting the Second Amendment, as they once had done so when prefacing their remarks slyly, duplicitously, with the phrase--"but of course we support the Second Amendment"--when really they didn't. The Collectivists who have always seen the Second Amendment as intolerable, are now making overt claims of their abhorrence of it. They now assert it to be inconsistent with modern Western civilization; archaic; a relic of a bygone age--bizarre remarks to say the least, and remarks all the more disturbing when they emanate from a jurist.Firearms in the hands of millions of citizens are perceived as senseless to those who espouse the ideology of Collectivism. But then Collectivism demands absolute obedience to subservience to Government and reliance on Government. A person isn't prepared to be obsequious to Government if that person insists on being armed. That fact informs Government that a person isn't prepared to place his or her trust in Government. But, some people are prepared to do just that. And, for them, firearms are considered unnecessary. In return for forsaking one's firearms, Government promises to fulfill one's basic needs and wants and even happiness. But, for others, that price, is much too high. For, the mere act necessitates that one place blind trust in Government. That is something one should never do, and we, for our part, never will. And, we have history to resort to as proof in support of our reluctance to do so. Government's promises are designed merely to soothe and placate the public, who are urged to view the false promises as true and proper and desirable.For the ignorant, for the shallow, for the gullible, and for the weak among us, who readily "buy into" these false promises--and who believe in, who are compelled to feel the need to believe in mere words--that seems to be enough. Like children, such people wish to believe. It is easy to deceive those for whom faith in false prophets comes easy. Those who seek comfort in Government to coddle, protect, and nourish them, the Collectivists' promises are tranquil pipedreams. And for these sorry souls, "the big tall wish"--this seeming pleasant pipedream--is enough. But they will  learn too late what they have lost--and what they will have lost is everything of consequence. They will learn too late, much too late, that happiness--true happiness--can be achieved only if the individual remains "individual”--true to him or herself. Happiness is not something that Government is capable of bestowing on the individual, notwithstanding the Radical Left’s suggestion to the contrary._________________________________________________

PART FOUR

THE MYTH OF THE BENEVOLENT GOVERNMENT AND OF SOCIETAL PERFECTION THROUGH GOVERNMENTAL IMPOSED AND SANCTIONED ORDER

Ultimately, each individual must depend on him or herself for sustenance and for providing for one's needs, wants, and desires, and happiness. That is as it should be. This requires less Government control over the citizenry--as little control as possible--not more control over the citizenry. Government, whatever its configuration is not benign, and it is not benevolent and reliance upon it to create a utopia for its denizens is a cruel hoax, even as the Collectivists tell us otherwise. A recent Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal bears out the hollow, empty pipedreams that Collectivists shower on the masses, like so much fairy dust--sparkling gold that inevitably turns to gray soot and ashes in the  sharp, clear, rationality of the morning.Barton Swaim, who writes political book reviews for the Wall Street Journal aptly points out the shallowness and emptiness of the Collectivists' drives, aspirations and goals. Published in the Wall Street Journal on February 11, 2019, Swaim's article, sarcastically titled, "All You Need is a Congress, And A Dream," writes of the bizarre aims of the Democratic Party Collectivists--new members of the Party and old--whose goals, if implemented, would fracture, irreparably, our free Republic and its free People. It is worthwhile quoting Swaim's article at length. He says:"The [Democratic Party's] Green New Deal is an expression of dreams, but that doesn't make it pointless or merely comical. Take it seriously, not literally. Much of it reads like a leftist manifesto from half a century ago--I thought of the Port Huron Statement, issued by the founders of Students for a Democratic Society [invariably referred to, at the time, by the initials "SDS"] in 1962, which crammed scores of hopelessly vague and muddled objectives in a single document for the purpose of movement cohesion [that is to say, for their own benefit and not for the benefit of the American citizenry or for the benefit of the Nation] not 'the economy itself is of such social importance that is major resources and means of production should be open to democratic participation and subject to democratic social regulation' and so on. . . . The imperturbable Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wasn't offended by the word, 'dream.' I don't consider that to be a dismissive term,' she said. 'I think it's a great term.' It's certainly an apt one, and makes sense of the resolution's weirdly vatic language. Mr. Marky, sounding a little like the prophet Isaiah, said: 'We will save all of creation by engaging in massive job creation.'The word 'dream' almost always has a happy connotation in American politics. To dream is to desire worthy and noble ends. Sometimes the ends really are worthy and noble. . . . But, mostly they are not. Communism was always a dream, always a future state toward which its adherents had to struggle. I recall the haunting line of the political philosopher Michael Oakeshott: 'The conjunction of dreaming and ruling generates tyranny.'American progressives are fond of the word 'democracy' but it is not democracy they want, because democracy is messy. What they want--and it is Mr. Trump's strange genius to make them say it--is the noumenal perfection of a dream."The dream of the “perfect” society is difficult enough to conceptualize, and impossible to realize. To begin, how do we define this word, ‘perfection,’ as applied to a social, political, economic, and legal construct? Carrying out such a scheme would be empirically, if not logically, impossible--one fraught with considerable difficulty and peril from the get-go, even if theoretically possible.Assuming arguendo, that a workable definition could rationally be developed, how would one go about implementing the creation of this seemingly 'perfect society?' And, once implemented, how might this ‘perfect society’ be maintained? One is  reminded of the futility of the enterprise, as one reads Voltaire’s satire, "Candide."Yet that doesn't stop the Collectivists in this Country from daring to thrust their notion of the 'perfect society' on the rest of us. Indeed, the thing they envision is grounded on a precept, taken as axiomatic, that very few in our Country would agree with. It is that a strong, centralized Government, unfettered by rights and liberties of its citizenry, imposing edicts on the rest of us, is the way forward toward creating this 'perfect society'. These Collectivists accept as self-evident that a strong, central Government of unfettered power is the appropriate vehicle through which the 'perfect society' might one day be realized. But, the idea is less ambitious than it is foolhardy, and presumptuous, and pretentious, and dangerous. Consider: what does the Collectivists' blueprint for their ostensibly perfectly ordered, perfect society, entail? It entails no less than the dissolution of our Constitution; the dismantling of our free Republic; and the debasement, defilement, and subjugation of the American people. The Collectivists' blueprint for their ostensibly perfectly ordered, perfect societydemands that the American citizenry forsake their fundamental, unalienable rights and liberties, and--adding insult to injury--therein proclaim that the American citizenry would be all the better for having done so. The Collectivists' blueprint for their ostensibly perfectly ordered, perfect society presumes that some people--namely and particularly, the Trillionaire Rothschild clan, residing safely in their lofty, sequestered, protected abodes, removed from and safely tucked away from the hoi polloi, who toil away in the lower realms of the world, along with the Billionaire Globalist Technocrats, through whom the radical Left elements in Congress and in the Government Bureaucracy receive their marching orders--be permitted to rule with dictatorial power and abandon over the rest of us, bound not by legal constraint or by ethical maxim, or by convention, or by compunction of custom, or by simple common decency as they, after all, know what is in our best interests. Oh, but how imperfect this perfect world they envision and how imperfect this seeming perfect world they would make and thrust on all Americans.The founders of our Republic would likely take a very dim view of this, the Collectivists' most perfect of all perfect worlds and of this, the Collectivists' vision: that of a  meticulously crafted and implemented, presumptively and pretentiously presented, pompously ordained, perfect well-ordered society that the few "Elite Elect" in the world ordain for rest of us, the Condemned and Damned, to toil in, underfoot, for their benefit, on their behalf. _____________________________________________

PART FIVE

A STRONG FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS AN INHERENT DANGER TO A FREE PEOPLE, REQUIRING OUR CONSTITUTION’S BILL OF RIGHTS TO DETER THE THREAT POSED TO OUR LIBERTY

THE FOUNDERS OF OUR REPUBLIC, THE FRAMERS OF OUR CONSTITUTION, WERE WELL AWARE THAT, EVEN AS THEY RECOGNIZED THE NEED FOR A "FEDERAL" GOVERNMENT, THEY SAW THE INHERENT DANGER IN ITS CREATION--AS IT WOULD INVARIABLY AMOUNT TO A DANGEROUS DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD.

The founders of our Republic, the framers of our Constitution, dismissed out-of-hand the idea that Government, through unfettered power and authority, is capable of serving the best interests of the citizenry. The members of the new radical Left in our Nation, would—if given a free hand—destroy the very underpinnings of our Nation, and consider themselves none the worse for having done so. But, then, this should come as no surprise to anyone, as the Radical Left clearly demonstrates its utter contempt for the founders' vision of a Free Republic and of the founders' understanding of the sanctity of the individual. The members of this new Radical Left have exhibited their absolute disdain for and disregard of the fundamental rights and liberties of the American people--those natural rights and liberties cemented in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. They perceive the Constitution, not as containing the inviolate principles they are constrained to work within, but, rather, as an inconvenient impediment they feel smugly confident they can and should be permitted to work around or skate happily beyond or through.Through a strong central Government, the Nation would be in the best possible position to thwart dangers posed to the Nation from forces outside the territorial boundaries of the Nation. But, by the same token, a strong, central Government, would also pose the greatest, gravest threat to the freedom and autonomy of the Nation's citizenry. The founders of our Nation, the framers of our Constitution, knew all this, of course. They weren't naïve.The founders knew full well of the inherent danger existent in a strong, central Government--especially one with unfettered power. The founders knew full well what would occur if Governmental power were allowed to grow unrestricted, unhampered, unchecked. To prevent this or, at least, to forestall, the danger to a free people, through unfettered, unrestrained growth of Government, the founders created a Government of limited power. Further, to preclude accumulation of power in Government, the founders of our free Republic, devised three co-equal Branches of Government, legislative, executive, and judicial. And the founders divided the powers that Government would wield, among those three co-equal Branches. But would this be enough? The founders of our Nation, of our free Republic, pondered this, and many of them--those referred to as the antifederalists--were unsatisfied; were vexed and wary. They concluded, and rightfully so as it has come to pass, that even a Government of limited power--power distributed among three co-equal Branches--might yet not prevent a push by those in Government, the servants of the people, to seek ever more power, to seek power well beyond that power permitted in the Constitution the founders envisioned.Since ultimate power would remain, must remain, in the American people themselves--a point axiomatic for both the Federalists and Antifederalists, an argument ensued among them as to the manner of ensuring that ultimate power would always remain in the American citizenry. For the Federalists, it was necessary and sufficient for to articulate clearly and categorically those specific and limited powers Government shall have. The Antifederalists were not convinced that this would be enough to maintain supremacy of authority and power in the American people themselves. To guarantee that ultimate power would forever reside in and remain in the American people, thereby preventing Government encroachment on the preserve of the American citizenry, the Antifederalists demanded that a Bill of Rights  be incorporated into the very structure of the Constitution.  Those among the founders, belonging to the Federalist camp, did not, for their part, feel it incumbent upon them, much less mandatory, to incorporate a Bill of Rights into the fabric of the Constitution. For the Federalists, it was enough for the Constitution to consist of the core Articles. Since Government as conceived and structured, by both Federalists and Antifederalists alike, would have limited power, the Federalists felt that inclusion of a document codifying the rights and liberties of the American people into the Constitution, would simply be redundant. Further, a few among the Federalists, thought that a Bill of Rights, consisting in salient part of enumerated rights, would work against itself, endangering a free people, as its existence might imply that delineation of specific rights and liberties would operate as a limitation on the American people and detract from the principle of ultimate authority residing in the American people.The Federalists reasoned that, if a Bill of Rights were incorporated into the Constitution, this would mean that the American people would have only those rights and liberties specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights, and no others. Even worse, some Federalists speculated that incorporation of a Bill of Rights into the Constitution, would operate in a matter wholly inconsistent with the principle that ultimate power and authority must reside in the people, not in Government. Thus, some Federalists inferred that inclusion of a Bill of Rights into the final product would be tantamount to saying that ultimate authority did not, would not, and could not reside in the American people, but must, then, reside, by default, in the Federal Government, notwithstanding that the Articles would speak of a Government with limited powers. Thus the Federalists were much convinced that inclusion of a Bill of Rights would actually operate to the detriment of the American people, nullifying ultimate authority residing in the American people, contrary to the deep set desires and wishes and understanding of all the founders.The Antifederalists, though, insisted a Bill of Rights be included in the final product as this alone would ensure that ultimate power and authority would invariably--for all time, as it should and must--reside in and remain with the American people themselves, and not in and with Government. Otherwise the new and free Republic would be a travesty, no better than that of Great Britain, ruled by a Monarch. After all did not the founders, and other Americans, fight a bloody war to throw off the yoke of just such a totalitarian Government--apart from those Colonists, the Tories, who had thrown their lot with George III? So it was that the Antifederalists, among the founders of a free Republic, vehemently disagreed with the Federalists. The Antifederalists felt that it could only be through inclusion of a Bill of Rights that ultimate power and authority would remain with the American people. And they were adamant. Perhaps they foresaw that, whatever reservations the Federalists had in incorporating a Bill of Rights into the Constitution, the dangers posed by the federal Government to the citizenry would be greater and graver by far were a Bill of Rights omitted from the Constitution. We, now with clear hindsight, realize the Antifederalists with their prescient foresight, were  correct in their observations, and that the Federalists were wrong. Much worse would we, Americans, be today, had the founders forsaken inclusion of a Bill of Rights in our Constitution. And we, the founders descendants, realizing that a Bill of Rights was needed, would attempt too late to rectify the matter. Better we are by far, as we see those despicable groups among us, the Collectivists, who complain bitterly over the existence of our Bill of Rights--who dare call for  constraints on the First Amendment and on the Fourth Amendment, and on the Fifth Amendment; and who call for de facto or de jure repeal of the Second Amendment. Let those who ascribe to the precepts of Collectivism be, as they are, in the more difficult and, in fact, in the untenable position to dare attempt destruction of an indestructible document than for us, who, like the founders before us--ascribe to the philosophical precepts of Individualism, but who would be in the most difficult position of all, proclaiming the need for adoption of a Bill of Rights had the Federalists held sway over the Antifederalists--and ratification of our Constitution proceeded without inclusion of our sacred Bill of Rights. ______________________________________________________

PART SIX

NO RELIEF FROM LIES, INCESSANT LIES, AND DAMNABLE LIES!

Antigun proponents proselytize relentlessly, mercilessly, zealously, and sanctimoniously to the masses. A compliant, complicit mainstream “Press” reports every incident of gun violence. And, it does so deliberately, duplicitously, insidiously--exaggerating, magnifying incidents of gun violence in society. The unethical reports become a fictional, grating, narrative: Confiscate firearms from everyone and the problem of criminal and sociopathic misuse of firearms will take care of itself, we are told. No, it won’t. This tactic would simply leave millions of law-abiding Americans defenseless. But some believe the lie.Antigun politicians cajole the public to view gun violence as more prevalent than it is. Since they see firearms in the hands of millions of citizens as senseless, antigun politicians wage a ceaseless, inexorable assault on law-abiding gun owners. They try to instill in the average American a feeling of revulsion and abhorrence of guns.They see the ownership and possession of firearms as uncivilized. They deem firearms aesthetically unpleasant. They find firearms morally objectionable. They perceive the teaching of our youth to enjoy and appreciate the proper use of and respect for firearms to be wrongheaded at best, and altogether unconscionable, at worst. The youth of our Nation are expected to share the raw hatred and fear toward  firearms that the antigun zealots, themselves, have toward them. Young boys that grew up playing "Soldier" and "Cops and Robbers," and "Cowboys and Indians" in the 1950s, are no longer permitted to do so. What once was actively encouraged or, at least accepted, is no longer tolerated. Those children who do play these childhood games--as part of  acclimation to manhood--are chastised for doing so.The radical Left, insinuating itself throughout Government, Business, the media, and even in our institution of law, consider the innocuous games of our youth, dangerous, aberrant behavior that will no longer be tolerated and condoned, much less acquiesced, let alone encouraged. Allowing children to play such games is considered wrongheaded, socially deviant. Antigun zealots and other radical Leftists  believe that the very existence of the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms undermines social cohesion; undercuts the societal collective, and undermines their ability to control the polity. This bespeaks the “hive mentality” they seek to seed, cultivate, in nourish in all Americans--to create a docile and obedient and frightened community, beaten down, and remolded to accept bondage and penury. Yet, they find "reeducating" the adult population difficult--too many adults resist their efforts. So they refocus their efforts on our children. Children are ostracized, today, in our public schools, when they happen to demonstrate a predilection for firearms and who eventually are able to understand, truly understand, and appreciate the critical importance of our Bill of Rights and, especially, the critical importance of the Second Amendment in at least deterring if not preventing the onset of tyranny. Gun ownership and possession is the sine qua non of individuality and autonomy.The new programs for educating our youth--apart from the education of the children of the "elite" who will dominate and rule over the rest of us--do not breed self-assurance and self-confidence, as the curricula are not designed to do that. Instead children are instilled with anxiety and self-doubt, and this is by design. They learn nothing about our core values, traditions, and history. They know nothing about our form of Government and the trials and effort and sacrifice that went into the creation of our Nation, founded and preserved on a unique, sacred, Constitution. Rather, children are instilled with guilt over perceived wrongs of our ancestors and told to behave and toe the line. The youth of our Nation, educated to be docile slaves in a new international world order, will then be easier to control. And the massive waves of ignorant, uneducated, ill-informed illegal aliens--admitted with open arms into our Country by those elements, both here at home and abroad, who see in these millions of hapless individuals a useful tool to undermine our Nation--are intended to supplant Americans.These alien migrants are, after all, nothing but a glob of docile, obedient "worker ants." They know nothing of the importance of personal autonomy and individuality; and they couldn't care less about  the structure of a Constitutional Republic, ruled by law, not by men, even if they could understand and appreciate our Constitution, our history, our traditions, our core values and beliefs. Indeed, The New York Times, in an article titled, "Backlogs Prolong Wait To Become U.S. Citizens," published on February 21, 2019, says--in fact, complains--that "the steep application fee, and the civics and English tests have historically deterred many from naturalizing." Really, now! The fact that people who seek to become citizens of the Greatest Nation on Earth have to pay a steep application fee, and learn to speak English and gather an understanding of our Nation's history, and traditions, our fundamental, sacred rights and liberties and our form of Government is asking to much of them? Did millions of Western and Eastern Europeans quibble and complain about costs, and the demands of learning English and learning about our Constitutional Republic when they emigrated to our Country in the early Twentieth Century? Were these people heard to complain about remitting exorbitant amounts of money just to arrive here by ship, and who had to learn English, and who had to learn about our Constitution, and about our Nation's history, and about our core values. Not at all! They were proud to become citizens, and they realized the importance of inculcating our values and language as they assimilated. Now, we have the MSM making excuses for them, as it is we, Americans who should accept people who have no desire to learn our language, or to learn about our Nation's rich cultural past, and who feel no need to accept the principles under which we live--it is we who must kowtow to them! Many of these people are looking for handouts, and handouts will, of course, be given to them so long as they behave. Thus, the Billionaire Globalist "elites," through their minions, the Radical Left--in Congress, in the media, in business, and even in the Courts--envision a different, bizarre America, one that is hollowed out--one that even precludes the trappings of a once proud, sovereign, independent Nation. Yes, the strength of the military and of the police and intelligence apparatus will continue to exist but will be coopted for use by the rulers of a new transnational system of social, political, cultural, economic, and legal governance, as we are occurring even now. It stands to reason that assimilation is unnecessary if our Nation is doomed to fall anyway as our Nation becomes a mere cog in the grand scheme of the new international world order. It is all false messaging. And most Americans do not fall for it.Most citizens recognize the fallacy of the new messaging and are well aware of the agenda of this Radical Left. The Radical Left desires to create confusion and uncertainty in the public and seeks to instill, in our children, that same confusion and uncertainty. The aims of the Radical Left is insidious. But, it has access to money; lots of it. And the Radical Left is well organized. The ruthless internationalists, who seek to destroy our Nation, orchestrate the radical Left's every move; provide the Radical Left with its talking points; create the Left's agenda, and tick off the items on the agenda, once accomplished. It is all a well-planned, orchestrated subterfuge. It is all a carefully calculated, ruthless scheme to take the Nation from the American people, without the American people even knowing it is happening. _____________________________________________________

PART SEVEN

WILL FIREARMS OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION GO THE WAY OF BUGGIES AND CORSETS AND THE CATHODE RAY TUBE?

Antigun zealots and other Leftist extremists, and radical Leftist Groups, along with the Billionaire Internationalist Class of Overseers who fund them, consider the holding and exhibiting of positive thoughts toward firearms to be outworn and outdated; altogether unfashionable; aberrational; even primeval.And, as they seek to control the thoughts and actions, and word and deed, of average Americans, we see, at once, these antigun zealots, and other Leftists of all stripes, and the billionaire Globalists exhibiting a marked reluctance toward castigating the criminal, sociopathic element in our society for their conduct, in whom reprehensible, aberrational behavior truly resides. This is all according to plan.As for this criminal element of society, antigun zealots, and other Leftists, tell us that society is itself to blame for the aberrant behavior of criminals and of the criminally insane. It is all nonsense. But, the incessant repetitious drone has a nascent effect on some. Thus, the cry goes out to "liberate" the criminal and the lunatic from the institutional setting, even as law-abiding citizens are placed more at risk for their life, safety and well-being in the implementation of such policy. It is they--average law-abiding, rational Americans--who, strangely, find themselves shackled, psychologically for daring to harbor impure thoughts toward gun ownership and possession; all the more so in the event they dare to exercise their Second Amendment right. If they could, antigun zealots, and others of the radical Left, would lock up millions of law-abiding gun owners, to reeducate them. Alas, they cannot, at least for the moment. Once they come into power, who knows?American gun owners extoll the virtues of individual responsibility, autonomy, self-reliance and self-resilience. These virtues are reflected in the desire to keep and bear arms, as is their unalienable right. But these virtues are inconsistent with Government control over the commonalty. Bizarrely, we see attempts to control thought by controlling use of language. Nothing is sacred. Leftists seek to revise how Americans view their fundamental rights and liberties. Indeed, everything—our history, traditions, core values—now demands revisiting for these Collectivists.The existence of enumerated, fundamental, unalienable rights and liberties, intrinsic in each American citizen, guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, presents a formidable problem, a true conundrum for those who ascribe to Collectivism--the harbingers of a one world government. They cannot control a citizenry that has access to guns. That is the insistent, irrefutable truth, and it poses a difficult, significant if not  insurmountable hurdle for them.The Bill of Rights mandates freedom from Governmental restraint. Guns in the hands of the American citizenry guarantees freedom from Governmental restraint. The radical Left can have none of it. But, then, how do Antigun zealots go about separating the American people from their firearms?From a legislative standpoint, Antigun politicians must use a different tack against those of us who exalt the fundamental rights and liberties cherished by the founders of our Free Republic. Antigun politicians cannot change the attitudes of those Americans steeped in an understanding of and deep abiding love and adoration for our unique Constitution and our Bill of Rights. They have tried. They argue, dubiously, that some gun owners see the value of “gun control” and “gun licensing” measures and schemes. But, is that true? And, if it is true, does that mean we all must follow suit? Does that mean “gun owners” who have capitulated are right, and the rest of us are wrong? No!Antigun proponents cannot sway those Americans who visualize a Government of limited authority. Antigun proponents cannot sway those Americans who understand that ultimate authority resides in the people, not in Government; that Government growth must be contained and constrained; that the tendency toward accumulation of Governmental power should be resisted; attenuated; that fundamental rights and liberties, codified in the Bill of Rights, must be preserved and strengthened, at all costs, not weakened, restricted, ignored, or abrogated.Most Americans understand that natural rights—such as the right of Free Speech and Association, the right to be free from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures, and the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms—exist intrinsically in the American citizen; that a loving, all powerful, and omniscient, and benevolent Creator bestowed these rights on us; in us. No man, nor Government entity created these natural rights. So no man, nor any Government can deny the American citizen of these fundamental, unalienable, enumerated rights. For those of us who ascribe to the precepts of Individualism, these sacred, fundamental rights and liberties are not mere statutes. They represent the highest form of moral law—codifications etched in stone in our Constitution; never to be amended, repealed, ignored, or abrogated.Again, since Government did not bequeath these natural, primary rights to man, Government cannot lawfully take those rights from man. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on this. See, for example, our article, posted April 2017,  titled, “Does The Second Amendment Codify Natural Law, Preexistent In The Individual, Or Is The Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms A Man-Made Construct?”  Leftist politicians and those in the polity who espouse an alien ideology understand, if only reluctantly, they cannot erase centuries of traditional American values and teaching. They cannot lawfully abrogate the Bill of Rights. So, they use the force of Government, unethically, even illegally, to thrust their will on those who stubbornly hold to their natural rights and liberties, and who refuse to yield to a new belief system—one requiring the forsaking of such rights and liberties._______________________________________________________

PART EIGHT

AN INCREMENTAL ASSAULT ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

Of the enumerated fundamental, unalienable rights, Leftist politicians know, the one etched in the Second Amendment is most difficult to dislodge. But these politicians are tenacious. This assertion isn’t meant to be a compliment; merely an observation.Strong drives coupled with an equally strong will lead one to act. Actions may be positive or perverse. Here, perverse. Leftists abhor the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, more so than any other elemental right set forth in the Bill of Rights, because, more so than any other sacred,  elemental right, the Second Amendment constitutes the greatest threat to their accumulation of power and their ability to maintain power over the American people. It is impossible for these Leftists, these Collectivists, to implement a new system of governance in our Nation—a system of social, political, and legal governance, altogether contrary to and inconsistent with that designed by the founders of our free Republic. But, these Leftists won’t stop their nefarious, diabolical attempts to impose more and more stringent constraints on the average law-abiding American who, uninhibitedly, dares to exercise the fundamental, unalienable, primordial, enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

THE THREE ANTIGUN PLANKS

Although gun laws enacted by Congress, State Legislatures, and subordinate bodies of the States, are numerous and complex, the strategy undergirding them is simple. That strategy has three primary planks. Each Governmental measure falls into one or more planks, and Leftist, antigun politicians and those echoing their sentiments in mainstream media organizations, in antigun groups, and in other radical Leftist organizations often pursue all three planks simultaneously. These three planks are as follows:One, continually expand the domain of banned firearms, ammunition, and firearms’ components and paraphernalia. Two, continually expand the domain of individuals who cannot lawfully own or possess firearms, ammunition, and firearms’ components and paraphernalia. Three, among those who do not fall within a statutory federal or State disability, and who, then, may continue, at least for the moment, to own and possess firearms, ammunition, firearms' components and complementary firearms' paraphernalia, make the exercise so onerous, so pernicious, so expensive, that few of these individuals will wish to continue to do so.

THE ONSET OF “RED FLAG” LAWS AND GUN LAW BANS

For 2019, the Arbalest Quarrel will be dealing especially with two of the three planks.Pertaining to the first plank, we will see, in 2019, a flurry of activity in both the Democratic Party controlled House of Congress, and in Democratic Party State Legislatures to ban semiautomatic weapons and so-called large capacity magazines; and we will see attempts to ban ammunition and components of firearms.Pertaining to the second plank, we will see efforts to expand the domain of individuals compelled to surrender their firearms. Our next article will look at so-called “Red Flag” laws and bills. These are a new phenomenon. We will explicate the nature of these laws and will zero in on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s success in resurrecting New York’s “Red Flag” measure--several of which were presented in both the New York Senate and in the Assembly, and all of which failed in 2018. However, with Democrats firmly in control of Albany's Legislature, and with Cuomo's clout, several of these measures passed both the Senate and Assembly, as the antigun group, "New Yorkers Against Gun Violence" proclaimed, with boisterous approval, on the group's website, NYAGV. Note: In New York, the "Red Flag" measures are referred to as "Extreme Risk Protection Orders" ("ERPO"). A flurry of other draconian antigun bills have been introduced in and are floating about in both the New York State Assembly and in the State’s Senate. Since Democrats control both Houses in Albany, the State Capital, Cuomo is not sitting back with one success. He is continuing to exert strong pressure on the State Legislature to pass further antigun bills. Keep in mind: Governor Cuomo does not perceive these “Red Flag” laws and other proposed antigun legislation coming down the pipe, as measures distinct from the New York Safe Act, which the State Government passed and which Governor Cuomo signed into law in 2013. Rather, he sees New York's new antigun measures as extensions of the New York Safe Act, enacted in 2013. As Cuomo says, as reported in the weblog, State of Politics, an obvious mouthpiece for Cuomo and a propaganda organ of Cuomo's radical Left Government: "I think the red flag bill adds improvements to the Safe Act." In that same blog post, Governor Cuomo asserts, disingenuously and flippantly, "We have proven that gun safety laws are needed and I think we have also proven that gun safety laws exist without the fear of the slippery slope. . . . Well, they're trying to take away your guns. No one is trying to take away the guns from people who are mentally healthy."No slippery slope, here? Really? And, who, among U.S. citizens residing in New York, is judged to be "mentally healthy." And, is that expression to be construed as a medical or legal term of art?Through it all, there may be a silver lining for those of us who cherish the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. One should remember that, while the Democratic Party leadership in Congress and Democratic Party controlled Legislatures in some States, continue efforts to undermine the Second Amendment, the Conservative-wing on the United States Supreme Court will, it is our fervent hope and belief, continue to review antigun laws that impermissibly impinge on and infringe the Second Amendment, and, acting as a powerful counter-force against antigun efforts carried out in Congress, and in State Legislatures around the Country, and in the media, strike down unconstitutional laws, rules, regulations, codes, and procedures. The U.S. Supreme Court has done remarkably well with the issuance of favorable rulings in the seminal Heller and McDonald cases. While reluctant to take up any Second Amendment case since then, until very recently, the fact that the high Court has now voted, finally, to hear a straightforward Second Amendment case, in the decade since Heller and McDonald, this may very well augur a good sign for things to come, apropos of preservation of our sacred Bill of Rights.In that regard, the Arbalest Quarrel has written on New York City’s firearm transport case that the high Court has accepted for review. See our article, posted recently, titled, “U.S Supreme Court To Hear New York Gun Case; Mainstream Media Visibly Worried.”We will keep tabs on the New York transport case, analyzing, in depth, the arguments of Petitioners, New York residents and gun owners, as well as arguments brought by the Respondent, City of New York, contra Petitioners. There is a lot of work ahead of us, and for you too.We must let Republicans in Congress and in State Government know, and we must let the President know, too, that, notwithstanding the importance of controlling illegal immigration—which has gotten much media attention in the last several weeks—preserving and strengthening the Second Amendment is as critical to the safeguarding of a Free Republic, and the safeguarding of our Nation’s Constitution, and the safeguarding of our Country’s core values, history, and traditions, as is stemming the flow of illegal migrants, refugees, terrorists, criminal gang members, drug cartel members, sex traffickers, contraband, and other assorted flotsam, jetsam, and riffraff  into our Country.________________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE COURTS, NO LESS THAN CONGRESS, IS WHERE ONE WILL FIND THE SECOND AMENDMENT EITHER SAFEGUARDED AND STRENGTHENED OR ENDANGERED AND WEAKENED.

REPUBLICAN CONTROL OF ALL THREE-BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT IS NECESSARY TO MAINTAIN BOTH THE SOVEREIGNTY AND INDEPENDENCE OF OUR NATION STATE, AND THE SUPREMACY OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND OUR SYSTEM OF LAWS.

The mandate of a Republican controlled Congress, and of a Republican President and of a federal court system--comprising jurists who recognize the supremacy of our laws and of our Constitution over foreign laws and over the decisions of foreign tribunals and who recognize and appreciate the critical importance of the fundamental rights and liberties of the American people, as codified in the Bill of Rights--is this: to maintain our roots as a unique People; to make certain that our Country continues to exist as a free Republic and as an independent, sovereign Nation, beholden to no other Nation or to any group of Nations; and to keep sacred the supremacy of our Constitution and our system of laws, grounded in the sanctity of the Bill of Rights--a Bill of Rights that has no parallel in any other Nation on this Earth. To succeed in this mandate it is imperative that: one, Congress retain a Conservative Republican majority; two, that Donald Trump remain as U.S. President through two terms in Office; and, three, that the U.S. Supreme Court hold a conservative-wing majority and that the lower federal Courts seat a majority of  jurists who recognize and appreciate the supremacy of our Constitution and of our laws and of our sacred rights and liberties, and who render opinions with that principle omnipresent.Obviously, those malevolent forces that seek to undermine the sovereignty of this Nation, that seek to subvert the will of the American People, that seek to undercut and subordinate our Constitution, our system of laws and our fundamental rights and liberties, are working for the precise opposite. They seek to gain Democratic Party majorities in both Houses of Congress in the midterm elections, and, if they can accomplish that, they will undoubtedly pursue efforts to impeach Trump, using the tenuous, ludicrous, tax-payer funded Mueller investigation, chasing after ghosts, as a springboard to destroy the Trump Presidency. These individuals and groups, bankrolled by a shadowy, secretive, ruthless internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist “elite”, hope, as well, to create a liberal wing majority in the U.S. Supreme Court. To do that, they must win back the White House.Those who seek to destroy the sovereignty of this Nation and to undermine the true import and purport of the Bill of Rights are rankled by two specific events that they cannot, and, obviously, will not abide: one, the failure to usher Hillary Rodham Clinton into the Office of U.S. President, which they thought was an assured bet; and, two, the failure to seat Merrick Garland—the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and President Barack Obama’s nominee—on the U.S. Supreme Court. These critical and monumental failures of the internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist “elite” who bankroll and control the Deep State of the federal Government—the forces that would dare crush this Nation and the American people into submission—have suffered an extraordinary setback in their plans for world domination. To reset the clock in accordance with their global strategy, they have been forced to show their hand. The negative forces that manipulate and control the Government of this Nation and that manipulate and control the Governments of those Nations that comprise the EU have emerged from the shadows and have forced their toadies in this Country to surface from the depths of the Deep State of the federal Government, to undermine, at every turn, the efforts of the duly elected President of the United States, Donald Trump. Not content to undermine and undercut the President's policy objectives, which they attack at every turn through the well-orchestrated media circus they control, they attack the man himself, disrespectfully, caustically, and reprehensibly; and, in so doing, they demonstrate as well their disrespect for this Nation, and  for this Nation’s core values, and for this Nation’s system of laws, and for the people of this Nation who elected Donald Trump, who was then inaugurated the 45^th President of the United States, on January 20, 2017, succeeding Barack Obama.The election of Donald Trump as U.S. President has thrown a wrench into the well-oiled and greased machine of the Deep State of the federal Government of the United States. This singularly important event has thrown the internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist elites, headed by the international Rothschild clan, into a state of consternation, of befuddlement, of rage and turmoil, of chaos. Their well-laid plans for world domination sees the United States as an important cog in an expansive industrial and financial machine comprising the New World Order, for no other Western Nation has as impressive a military and as impressive an intelligence apparatus, and as adept technological capabilities as those of the United States. As the forces that would crush this Nation and its people into submission have suffered a severe and costly set-back, they intend to set matters aright. The American people bear witness to the raw extent of the power and reach of these forces: one, the naked audacity of their actions; two, the evident contempt in which they hold the American people; three, the bald self-assurance and aplomb by which they plan and orchestrate a campaign of deliberate deception—through the mainstream media—a campaign of disinformation and misinformation through which they hope and trust they can manipulate the American people into accepting a bizarre worldview--one inimical to the needs and desires and well-being of the American people; four, the obscene loathing they express toward our Bill of Rights; five, the demonstrative malevolence they have shown toward the U.S. President and toward his Administration; and, six, the abject hatred they display toward this Nation’s Constitution, toward this Nation’s unique history, toward this Nation’s core values, toward this Nation’s system of laws and morals. And through the levers of media and of the Deep-State of Government that they control, they give mere lip-service and lip-homage to those very things Americans hold most dear.The Arbalest Quarrel has done its part. We have worked to help elect Donald Trump as President of the United States and have worked, as well, to defeat the confirmation of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. But our work has not ended. It has, perforce, just begun.We must continue to support President Trump from the forces that, having failed to prevent his electoral success, seek, now, to place obstacles in his path, making it difficult for him to implement the policies he has promised—policies that are at loggerheads with those hostile internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist financial and industrial forces that seek global domination which, in accordance with their plans for world domination, requires the crushing of Western Nation States, including the crushing of our Nation State, the crushing of the sovereignty and independence of our Nation state; and, with that, the subordination of our laws to that of international laws and treaties and the subordination of our Courts to that of foreign Courts and foreign Tribunals; and the undermining of the sacred rights and liberties of the American citizenry. These extremely powerful, extraordinarily wealthy, and abjectly ruthless and cunning globalist forces seek eventually to topple Donald Trump and his administration. They seek also to take back control of the two Houses of Congress. We must therefore work to maintain House and Senate Republican Majorities.Further, we must work toward and anticipation of the confirmation of at least one additional, and, hopefully, two or, better yet, three conservative-wing Justices to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. With the passing of the eminent and brilliant jurist and true American patriot, Justice Antonin Scalia, we have lost a mighty champion of liberty in the vein of the founders of this Nation, the framers of our Constitution. We hope and trust and pray that, before the end of this year, 2018, Justice Anthony Kennedy and/or Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and/or Justice Stephen Breyer will retire. That will pave the way for President Trump to nominate at least one and conceivably two, and optimally three more American jurists, to sit on the high Court who, as with Trump’s nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, hold jurisprudential values and who would apply the same methodology to deciding cases as do Justices Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, which the late Justice Antonin Scalia had set the course. With strong and true conservative-wing Justices on the high Court, who hold a clear majority, we will see the Court agreeing to hear critical Second Amendment cases and, thereupon, rendering decisions that, with the Court’s untarnished and supreme judicial imprimatur, makes clear the import of the natural, fundamental rights and liberties of American citizens as codified in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution in the manner the framers’ intended.

THE ARBALEST QUARREL LOOKS BACK ON WORK COMPLETED IN 2017 AND THEN FORWARD TO OUR TASKS FOR 2018

WHAT WERE SOME OF OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2017?

Let us step back for a moment and look at just a few of the tasks we completed in 2017, and remark briefly on tasks we have set for ourselves in 2018. Much of our work, consistent with the primary purpose of the Arbalest Quarrel involved detailed, comprehensive analyses of critical federal and State Court cases impacting the Second Amendment. One of those cases is Soto vs. Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC., 2016 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2626; CCH Prod. Liab. Rep. P19,932. Soto is an active case. The Soto case arises from the deadly attack that occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when a deranged young adult, Adam Lanza, 20 years old, stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School, fatally shooting twenty children and six adults, before turning a handgun on and killing himself. According to the allegations of the Soto Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint (CM), Adam Lanza murdered these school children and school staff with a Bushmaster AR-15, model XM15-E2S rifle. Defendant Bushmaster prevailed in the lower Superior Court (trial Court), and we analyzed the Superior Court decision in depth. Plaintiffs appealed the adverse decision directly to the Connecticut Supreme Court, bypassing the State Court of Appeals, and the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed to hear argument. We will be analyzing the Briefs of Plaintiffs and Defendants in the case and will also analyze selected amicus (friend of Court) Briefs in that case. Over 50 amicus briefs were filed in that case. We also provided comprehensive analyses in an “assault weapons” 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) ), which we had hoped would be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court—the high Court failing to have granted certiorari in an earlier disastrous “assault weapons” case, Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 6902 (7th Cir. Ill., 2015). Alas, the high Court failed to garner four votes, allowing the case to be heard in the high Court. Had the high Court agreed to hear the case, Americans would see a definitive ruling on whether so-called “assault weapons” fall within the core of the Second Amendment’s protection. Obviously, the liberal wing of the Court and at least two "apparent" conservative wing Justices, likely, Anthony Kennedy and the Chief Justice, John Roberts, did not want to resolve this case, and, so, to date, resolution of “assault weapons” as protected firearms within the core of the Second Amendment remains in abeyance, with liberal Circuit Court of Appeal Judges ruling that semiautomatic "assault weapons" do not fall within the core of the Second Amendment and, so, are not protected.In addition, we looked at two Congressional bills that, if enacted, strengthen the Second Amendment. We looked at national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation, pending in Congress, H.R. 38, and looked at Congressman Chris Collins’ bill, the “Second Amendment Guarantee Act” (H.R. 3576) (“SAGA”) which has been referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, on September 6, 2017 where it presently sits. We also did our part to sidetrack Obama’s attempt to sit Judge Merrick Garland on the U.S. Supreme Court. When we feel it critical that our representatives in Congress be notified of specific and extraordinary dangers presented to our Nation, we have not hesitated to contact them. When, after the passing of the exceptional U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, we have seen that President Barack Obama wasted little time in nominating a person to serve as a new ninth member of the high Court who would, given the opportunity, assist the liberal-wing Justices—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—in unwinding case law that Justice Scalia helped to shape in his many illustrious years on the Bench. That person who President Barack Obama had hoped to see confirmed is Merrick Garland, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Arbalest Quarrel took strong exception to the possibility of seeing Judge Garland sitting on the high Court. We sent a letter to the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Chuck Grassley, requesting the Senator to refrain from allowing a confirmation hearing to proceed. Had a confirmation proceeding been held, that would have resulted in Judge Merrick Garland sitting on the high Court as an Associate Justice. Of that, we have no doubt, as U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch has articulated that point. According to the liberal political commentary website, "New Republic," Senator Hatch said that there was "no question" that Judge Merrick Garland would be confirmed were a confirmation hearing held. The Arbalest Quarrel explained the singular danger Judge Merrick Garland posed to the preservation of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution if Merrick Garland sat on the U.S. Supreme Court. In our letter we took exception to pronouncements of several academicians who had also written a letter to Senator Grassley. Those academicians argued that nothing in the record of Judge Garland’s service as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals suggests that an inference can be drawn concerning Judge Garland’s jurisprudential philosophy toward the Second Amendment. We disagreed with the pronouncements of those academicians. We pointed to specific examples in the judicial record that establish beyond doubt that Judge Merrick Garland holds great and abiding antipathy toward the Second Amendment; and that Judge Garland’s antipathy toward the Second Amendment is very much in evidence in the judicial record, contrary to the pronouncements of those academicians who promote the Judge’s ascendancy to the U.S. Supreme Court. Our concern was not directed to Judge Garland’s ability as a jurist. We have no doubt that Judge Garland has a bright and, conceivably, brilliant legal mind. But, when that brilliance is coupled with a philosophy at loggerheads with the philosophy of another brilliant Justice, Antonin Scalia, then we know that preservation of the natural, substantive fundamental rights of the American citizenry—particularly the right of the people to keep and bear arms—are in jeopardy. In a series of in depth articles, we have written extensively about Judge Garland’s jurisprudential philosophy. We pointed out that Judge Garland’s judicial approach is clearly antithetical to that of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and that Justice Scalia’s illustrious work would be undone were Judge Garland to sit on the high Court. In our letter to Senator Grassley, we provided a link to the Arbalest Quarrel website and encouraged the Senator to peruse our analytical articles on Judge Garland, as the letter only touched upon the matters of concern.

THE MISSION OF THE ARBALEST QUARREL 

The mission of the Arbalest Quarrel is to preserve, protect, and strengthen the Bill of Rights, and, principally, to preserve, protect, and strengthen the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Arbalest Quarrel has written dozens of articles on newsworthy and noteworthy events, impacting the Second Amendment. Many of our articles appear in Ammoland Shooting Sports News. Most of the articles we prepare are comprehensive, extremely detailed, highly analytical expositions on Second Amendment issues. Many of our articles are written as part of lengthy, continuing series. Given the exigencies of time and of new and pressing newsworthy matters, we are often compelled to sidestep continuous work on a series, returning to a series later. Since threats to the Second Amendment are constant and continuous, much of the work that we may have left uncompleted in previous weeks or months is and remains pertinent. Some work that we do, involving analysis of active legal cases, such as the Soto case, cannot, of course, be completed until further action is taken by a Court and, in that event, we must await action before continuing discussion. In other cases, such as Kolbe, where we have commenced work, as part of a series, a higher Court, in this case, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied a writ of certiorari, which means that the ruling or rulings of the second highest Court, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, remains the law in that judicial Circuit. But, as those cases involve an open-ended and critically important issue that the U.S. Supreme Court will, at some point be compelled to tackle, our analysis of lower U.S. District Court and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal decisions are still relevant and, so, hold more than historical value in terms of their impact on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Kolbe, for example, deals directly with the issue whether semiautomatic weapons, defined as ‘assault weapons’ fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment. As antigun groups intend to deny American citizens the right to legally own and possess “assault weapons,” and, as they seek, eventually, to ban civilian ownership and possession of all semiautomatic weapons, it is incumbent upon us and important to consider the legal arguments they present. Thus, at some point in time when the U.S. Supreme Court does deal with the issue as to the extent of or whether semiautomatic weapons defined as ‘assault weapons’ fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment or whether semiautomatic weapons, as a broad category of firearms, fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment--and the high Court will, at some moment in time have to consider the issue--we will have addressed, in depth, all or virtually all of the salient arguments that litigants happen to make. As we look back at the work over the years, we note our article, titled “The Arsenal of Destruction.” Concerning antigun groups efforts to defeat the right of the people to keep and bear arms, what we mentioned in that article is as true then as it is today. We said: Here is what we deemed then, as now, to be the salient methodologies antigun groups use to undercut the Second Amendment. There are probably more; undoubtedly, the antigun groups are busy concocting others even as we publish this list:

• ENACTMENT OF RESTRICTIVE GUN LAWS

• REWRITING/RECONFIGURING/RECONSTITUTING THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO UNDERCUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INDEPENDENT CLAUSE: “THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.”

• EFFORTS TO REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT OUTRIGHT

• INDOCTRINATION OF AMERICA’S YOUTH

• MILITARIZATION/FEDERALIZATION OF CIVILIAN POLICE FORCES ACROSS THE COUNTRY THROUGH THE MACHINATIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

• DIRECT MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA ATTACKS ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

• USE OF PROPAGANDA AGAINST THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND INDOCTRINATION OF THE PUBLIC BY MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA GROUPS

• SYSTEMATIC EROSION OF THE RULE OF LAW IN THE UNITED STATES

• DENIAL OF GUN POSSESSION TO ENTIRE GROUPS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS

• ILLEGAL ATTEMPTS BY CITIES AND TOWNSHIPS TO WEAKEN OR OVERRIDE STATE LAWS WHERE SUCH STATE LAWS ARE DESIGNED TO EXTEND SECOND AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS TO THEIR CITIZENS

• CREATING CONFUSION OVER THE CONCEPT OF ‘CITIZEN’ AND CREATING CONFUSION AS TO THE RIGHTS OF A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES

• EXECUTIVE BRANCH OVERREACH/USURPATION OF THE LEGISLATIVE FUNCTION BY THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENT IN CLEAR DEFIANCE OF THE SEPARATION OF POWERS DOCTRINE SET FORTH IN AND THE MAINSTAY OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

• OVERRIDING THE BILL OF RIGHTS THROUGH INTERNATIONAL PACTS, TREATIES, AGREEMENTS, AND CONVENTIONS

• FALLACIOUS REASONING OF ANTIGUN GROUPS AND ANTIGUN GROUP DECEPTION AS TO THEIR ULTIMATE GOAL: DE JURE OR DE FACTO REPEAL OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

• ATTACK ON GUN RIGHTS’ ADVOCATES’ MORAL BELIEFS AND ETHICAL BELIEF SYSTEMS

• BATFE ADOPTION OF ONEROUS REQUIREMENTS FOR GUN DEALERS AND BATFE INTRUSION/ENCROACHMENT ON TRADITIONAL U.S. CONGRESSIONAL LAW MAKING AUTHORITY

• MISAPPLICATION/MISAPPROPRIATION OF THIRD PARTY PRODUCTS LIABILITY LAW AND LEGAL DOCTRINE TO UNFAIRLY TARGET GUN MANUFACTURERS

• FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESTRAINT OF TRADE: COERCING LENDING INSTITUTIONS TO REFRAIN FROM GIVING LOANS TO GUN DEALERS

• MANIPULATION OF THE COMPOSITION OF STATE LEGISLATURES AND OF THE U.S. CONGRESS BY MULTI-MILLIONAIRE/BILLIONAIRE TRANSNATIONAL GLOBALISTS THROUGH THE BANKROLLING OF POLITICIANS—WHO ACQUIESCE TO THEIR WISHES, AND WHO ARE WILLING TO DESTROY THE SECOND AMENDMENT—AND THROUGH THE NAKED, SHAMELESS EXPLOITATION OF ATTACK ADS, TARGETING THE DEFENDERS OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT -- THOSE POLITICIANS WHO REFUSE TO KOWTOW TO THE ANTI-AMERICAN AGENDA OF THE RUTHLESS MULTI-MILLIONAIRE AND BILLIONAIRE TRANSNATIONAL GLOBALISTS.

• GLOBAL CENSORSHIP/CONTROL OF EXPRESSION ON THE INTERNET: UNDERMINING THE SECOND AMENDMENT BY CONTROLLING MESSAGING WITH THE AIM, ULTIMATELY, OF INSIDIOUSLY DESTROYING THE SECOND AMENDMENT THROUGH AN UNCONSCIONABLE INFRINGMENT UPON THE FIRST AMENDMENT: AS CONTEMPT FOR ONE AMENDMENT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS IS SHOWN, SO, AS WELL, IS CONTEMPT FOR THE OTHERS DEMONSTRABLY SHOWN

• DESTRUCTION OF SOVEREIGN NATION STATES AND OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF SOVEREIGN NATION STATES THROUGH THE CREATION OF, ESTABLISHMENT OF AND INEXORABLE EXPANSION OF AN INTERNATIONAL, NEOLIBERAL INSPIRED WORLD ORDER DEDICATED TO AND WORKING TOWARD THE DESTRUCTION OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, THE DESTRUCTION OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTIES, AND THE ERADICATION OF PERSONAL AUTONOMY

We intended to do an article on each of these 21 strategies within the series. We didn’t complete the series, but we did write on several of these strategies and some of the strategies were touched upon in other articles. For example, our most recent article on the NY Times new “gag order” policy preventing its employees from exercising their freedom of free speech on their own time in vehicles other than the New York Times newspaper, actually is a response to two strategies we delineated on in “The Arsenal of Destruction":ONE: GLOBAL CENSORSHIP/CONTROL OF EXPRESSION ON THE INTERNET: UNDERMINING THE SECOND AMENDMENT BY CONTROLLING MESSAGING WITH THE AIM, ULTIMATELY, OF INSIDIOUSLY DESTROYING THE SECOND AMENDMENT THROUGH AN UNCONSCIONABLE INFRINGMENT UPON THE FIRST AMENDMENT: AS CONTEMPT FOR ONE AMENDMENT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS IS SHOWN, SO, AS WELL, IS CONTEMPT FOR THE OTHERS DEMONSTRABLY SHOWN; and,TWO: USE OF PROPAGANDA AGAINST THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND INDOCTRINATION OF THE PUBLIC BY MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA GROUPS.Our principal mission and raison d’etre—as mentioned, supra—is to preserve, protect, and strengthen the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the preservation of, protection of, and strengthening of the Second Amendment all go hand-in-hand. There exist forces both inside and outside this Country that would like to repeal the Second Amendment. Of course, they realize that repealing, de jure, any one of the Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution that comprise the Bill of Rights is virtually impossible. As natural rights, there is no mechanism for repealing these rights and liberties anyway, since no man created them. The Framers of the Constitution merely codified the rights that exist intrinsically in each American citizen. That doesn’t mean that a sacred right cannot be ignored or de facto repealed which effectively reduces the right to a nullity even as the words remain intact. Thus, if the words remain, but the intent behind the words is absent, hollowed out, the right, in essence, ceases to exist. We have seen this before. The fundamental right of Americans to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures has been hollowed out, as Government agencies like the CIA and NSA download and keep digital records on everyone and everything. This is patently illegal, but Federal Government agencies do it anyway. The fundamental right of free speech is beginning to be hollowed out, too, as censorship, in the guise of “political correctness” is taking its toll on free speech. The fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms was dying a slow death until the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court in two seminal cases, District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570; 128 S. Ct. 2783; 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010)), made clear what that right entails. The high Court made poignantly and categorically clear that this right—a right that must be recognized by both federal Government and by the States—is an individual right, a right, then, not connected to one’s service in a militia. Still, those Legislators and Jurists who seek to disembowel the Second Amendment have either ignored the holdings of the U.S. Supreme Court or have actively tinkered with it, working around the edges of the Heller and McDonald holdings to slowly weaken the Second Amendment. But, to weaken the right is tantamount to destroying it; for the rights codified must be understood in the context the framers of the Constitution intended, as absolute imperatives. This doesn’t mean restrictions ought not be enacted that operate as deprivations on some individuals but, this deprivation is justified only if the threat posed by the one threatens the lives of millions of others, or where the threat posed by an individual undermines the sovereignty of this Nation.Consider the Second Amendment. Federal law bars persons adjudged mentally incompetent from owning and possessing firearms. Thus, the absolute right to own and possess firearms infringes the right of a person adjudged mentally incompetent but this is necessary to protect the lives of millions of innocent, law-abiding Americans. Federal law also prohibits illegal aliens from owning and possessing firearms. And, in so doing, we protect the sanctity of the notion of a Nation State comprising a unique citizenry. Antigun groups, though, don’t perceive the Bill of Rights as a set of natural rights, existing intrinsically in the individual, endowed by the Creator to the individual. They see the Bill of Rights in the same vein as do internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist “elites,” as mere man-made creations-- statutes enacted and repealed at the will and the whim of the of the rulers that draft and enact them. As they see nothing positive in the right of the people to keep and bear arms, they see nothing that mandates the preservation and strengthening of that right. So, those who attempt to restrict the right of the people to keep and bear arms do not consider restrictions on the exercise of that right from the standpoint of the restriction's negative impact on the majority of rational, responsible, law-abiding American citizens, who wish to exercise their right, but, rather, see restrictions on the exercise of that fundamental right from the utilitarian consequentialist position. Consistent with utilitarian consequentialism, it is firearms in the hands of law-abiding rational, individual, not the occasional criminal or lunatic, that is perceived as posing the real danger, the real threat. And, what is that threat? It is a threat perceived as directed against society— against an amorphous collective “hive”—a threat perceived, eventually, as one directed against the entirety of the “free” world, a free world constituted as a "New World Order." It is not the criminal or lunatic possessing a firearm that concerns those that hold to the utilitarian consequentialist theory of morality that poses the greater threat to the well-being of society. In a constant flurry of new draconian firearms bills introduced in Congress, we see, in the draft language of these bills, that it is really the average law-abiding individual--the rational, responsible, law-abiding American citizen--against whom restrictive gun measures are really targeted and leveled. These restrictive gun bills are drafted and enacted in clear defiance of the right guaranteed in the Second Amendment.Our mission, our raison d’être, is to call out those disreputable groups and to call out those legislators and to call out those Hollywood film stars and moguls and to call out those mainstream news commentators and journalists and "comedians" and to call out those inordinately wealthy, extraordinarily powerful, extremely secretive, and absolutely ruthless internationalist, trans-nationalist, globalist forces that mean—all of them—to destroy our Nation State and that mean to destroy our Bill of Rights, and that mean to do so all the while claiming their efforts have a rational, ethical basis. But their actions belie their assertions. Their actions belie their true intent. These individuals, these groups, these cold-hearted ruthless internationalist, trans-nationalist, globalist “elites” that control the levers of finance and industry, that control major media organizations, that operate within and control the Deep State of Government within our own Nation mean to destroy the sovereignty and independence of this Nation and they mean to upend and to destroy the supremacy of our laws and of our Constitution.These individuals distort truth; they sow seeds of discord; they confuse and confound the ill-informed masses by challenging the Nation's core values and by interposing false substitutes for those core values. They rail against and dare to rewrite our Nation's history. They attack our Judeo-Christian ethic and our Christian heritage and traditions. They mean to destroy our Nation and our sacred Bill of Rights to pave the way for an antireligious, morally bankrupt trans-global corporate New World Order conglomerate—an amorphous, muddled indistinguishable conglomeration of once proud and unique independent Nation States—a union of populations comprising the entirety of the “free” world, which these internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist financiers and captains of industry plan to rule. We are beginning to see what this portends for the U.S. as they consolidate their power in the EU, with the assistance of their technocrats, their puppets.In their concerted effort to destroy the structure of and the very notion of the sanctity and sovereignty of Nation States, and of the sanctity and sovereignty of our Nation State in particular, we see insidious and perverse attempts by these internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist “elites”—through the mainstream media whom they control and through members of Congress whom they have bought—to play with language—to suggest that the notion, the idea of ‘American,’ of what the word ‘American’ means is simply a matter of personal belief. Why is such a ridiculous notion fostered? It is fostered for a reason. For, if what it means to be an ‘American,’ or, for that matter, what it means to be a Frenchman, or German, or Italian, or Canadian, for example, comes down to personal opinion and belief, then, the bonds between a person and that person’s Country is tenuous, amorphous, fragile, elusive, even illusive, and, ultimately, unimportant. This has serious ramifications for Nation States and repercussions for the people residing in a Nation State. Thus, if a person is to be deemed an American, for example, who simply and essentially believes him or herself to be an American, then, on that basis, alone, may presumptuously presume a right to live in this Country, to emigrate to this Country and to be endowed with all the rights and liberties that the United States Constitution provides.This open-ended concept of what it means to be an ‘American’ is deliberately and unconscionably fostered by those who seek an end to the very notion of a Nation State; who seek to portray people not as citizens of this or that Country but, literally, as “citizens of the world”—who may freely move about as they wish. This “open borders” philosophy is anathema to the concept of the primacy and sovereignty of Nation States which demands that independent, sovereign Nation States have a right and duty and responsibility to maintain and control their borders, and, in so doing, forestall emigration of undesirables to this Country. To allow essentially anyone and everyone to emigrate to this Country, is to denigrate and ultimately destroy the very foundation of the sovereignty and independence of a Nation State. A Nation State’s core ethical and religious and social values are in danger of erosion. That Nation’s historical roots are in danger of erosion. That Nation’s jurisprudential values and core economic principles are in danger of erosion.When educators, along with news organizations and legislators in the United States proclaim that illegal aliens are Americans, the Arbalest Quarrel has stepped in to set the record straight. Co-Founder and President of Arbalest Group, LLC., Stephen L. D’Andrilli wrote a reply to an article written by the Vice President of the United Federation of Teachers that appeared in the Union’s publication. The Arbalest Quarrel's response was published in Ammoland Shooting Sports News. Stephen has penned other cogent responses to the UFT that we, as strong supporters of America’s Bill of Rights, have taken exception with.

THE WORK AHEAD FOR THE ARBALEST QUARREL IN 2018

In 2018 we will continue to analyze federal and State gun laws; federal and State gun bills; and federal and State Court cases. We anticipate seeing one and perhaps two openings on the U.S. Supreme Court. It is imperative that President Trump have the opportunity to nominate one or more individuals to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.It is in the Courts, no less than in Congress that our Bill of Rights and, especially, our Second Amendment, will be preserved, strengthened, and expanded. We will otherwise see our Bill of Rights debilitated, weakened, and restricted.The House and, more importantly, the U.S. Senate must remain firmly in the hands of Republicans and, more especially, in the hands of those who espouse a conservative philosophy, reflective of the views and philosophy and sensibilities of the Founders of our Nation, the Framers of our Constitution, the Creators of our Free Republic—not those Centrists like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, who hold to a decidedly globalist philosophy, who demonstrate globalist sympathies, and whose support of our Bill of Rights is lukewarm at best.The Democrats intend to take control of both Houses of Congress and they intend to weaken our Bill of Rights and to weaken especially the First Amendment Freedom of Speech, and the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms. They intend, in league with their internationalist, trans-nationalist, globalist benefactors, to weaken, debase and eventually curtail our natural, fundamental rights and liberties. For they mean to draw us insidiously into the arms of a New World Order. They intend to do this through the vehicle of international pacts and treaties and through mainstream news organizations that condition the American public to accept open borders and to accept an amorphous notion of what it means to be a citizen; and by conditioning the American public to accept the legitimacy of foreign courts to hear cases impacting our fundamental rights; and to condition the American public to accept the supremacy of international law over that of our Constitution, and over our system of laws, and over our jurisprudence; and to condition the public to accept historical revisionism, to accept bizarre, alien notions of morality and gender identity; and to condition the public to accept the dismantling of a Nation that is grounded in Christianity and in notions of self-reliance and initiative, individual responsibility. All these things are on the table, as Democrats and many Centrist Republicans seek to weaken the foundation of a Nation as designed and understood by the Founders of it.

IN CLOSING, WE SET FORTH THE FOLLOWING POINTS AND CAUTIONARY IMPERATIVES FOR OUR READERS:

If the American people are to maintain their unique roots, we must work, first and foremost to keep sacred the Bill of Rights, and that means we must understand the import and purport of the Bill of Rights as the drafters intended, and we must insist that rights and liberties be preserved, protected, and strengthened. We must argue for the continued primacy of this Country as a sovereign, independent Nation State and we must insist that the federal Government’s first order of business, as servants of the American people, is to see to the needs of and well-being of, and security and safety of the American people. And, who are the American people? They are the citizens of this Country and those citizens, the American people, do not include anyone who resides here illegally, whatever that person's motive or circumstance for being here. And, no individual who resides elsewhere has a right to emigrate to this Country simply because that person seeks to live here, for good or for ill; and no one who has entered this Country illegally, whether consciously or through no fault of their own, can demand, as a matter of right, as a matter of law, the right to remain here. For law is not ad hoc. If Congress deigns to allow illegal aliens to remain here, then Congress must refrain from granting such individuals, citizenship. For, to grant citizenship to those who have consciously or not ignored our law, or who claim an exception to law that does not presently exist in law will serve only to destroy our system of laws. To change law or to ignore law on a whim sets a poor precedent and such action, in the seeming moral sense of it, will destroy this Country from within.We must hold to our core values. We must not be seduced into accepting notions of moral and legal relativism and we must not fall prey to historical revisionism. These notions are poisonous, pernicious, debilitating. We are a People with one common language, English. No Nation has remained a separate and distinct Nation State that has inculcated, internalized a notion of bilingualism or multilingualism or that has abided bilingualism or multilingualism.No one, whether inside or outside Government, shall indoctrinate the American people. Each American citizen has a right to free expression and to freely express his or her mind. That an individual may wish to express an idea or to possess a physical item that another individual may personally dislike, or even abhor, so what of it? The founders of our free Republic and the framers of our Constitution did not undertake to institute or to insinuate into the natural and fundamental rights and liberties of the American people a notion of “political correctness.” Such a notion is of modern invention and vintage, designed to serve an ulterior purpose. Indeed, had the founders of our Republic thought of such an absurd concept at all they would undoubtedly have held political correctness to be decidedly politically incorrect. Nothing is more devastating or destructive to the citizenry of this Nation or, for that matter, to the citizenry of any nation state, than the sins of hypocrisy and sanctimony. Unfortunately, both are in abundance in this Nation. We can for that thank the arrogance of mainstream media and of those with power and money and influence, both here and abroad, who wish to dictate a mode of thought the rest of us are obliged to adhere to. The American people should be particularly wary of those legislators and those presumptuous “elites” who bandy about such expressions as “rule of law,” and “living Constitution,” and “open borders,” and “citizen of the world” and “job creator,” and “commonsense gun laws,” and “social Darwinism, and “identity politics,” and “political correctness.” These expressions, and there are others, have become trite and dangerous clichés, shorthand simplistic sloganeering, that are either misunderstood and therefore misused, or are otherwise given to suggest or convey something overtly positive, even exemplary, when, in fact, their utilization is meant to harm the American citizen, meant to harm you! Always be mindful of seemingly noble sounding and high-minded verbiage thrown out to the masses for consumption like so much popcorn and roasted peanuts and cotton candy. Be observant, be cautious, think critically before throwing your lot in with everyone else simply because everyone else is “doing it” or “believing it.” You are no longer in high school. There is no longer any need for you to belong to this or that “clique,” in order to "fit in."The framers of the Constitution glorified the right of the individual to be individual and to accept personal responsibility for one’s actions. Our sacred rights and liberties as codified in the Bill of Rights are a testament to that fact. That is our birthright. The right of free speech; freedom of association; the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; and the right of the people to keep and bear arms. These are not mere platitudes. These are a few of the most important natural rights, codified in the Bill of Rights. They are absolute and unconditional, and they are slowly being eroded. Americans should consider, critically, how the words of a news commentator, or of a Hollywood star, or of a mega-sports star, or of a legislator, or of a financier, or of a government bureaucrat, or of a highly paid comic on nighttime  television meant to cajole or persuade Americans would impinge on or infringe those rights and liberties before you throw your lot in with them. For you may be hoodwinked into giving up everything of real consequence._________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.