THE U.S. SUPREME COURT DESERVES ACCOLADES FOR THE BRUEN DECISION, BUT NEW YORK’S CHANGES TO ITS CONCEALED HANDGUN LAW MAKE CLEAR THERE IS NO CAUSE YET FOR JUBILATION

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 TO DESTROY EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT

MULTISERIES

PART SEVEN

NEW YORK’S HANDGUN LAW WAS ALWAYS A MESS—AND IT CONTINUES TO BE A MESS!

The Amendments to the New York State handgun regime are a “mess.” That one word is the best descriptor of them and for them, and for the entire State handgun licensing regime. These Amendments do nothing to alleviate the past difficulties an individual has had attempting to secure an unrestricted handgun carry license. These Post-Bruen Amendments merely substitute one ludicrous arbitrary and subjective, and vague handgun licensing standard, “Proper Cause”/ “Demonstration of Extraordinary Need,” for another nonsensical subjective and vague handgun licensing standard, “Demonstration of Good Moral Character.”The present New York Government, referring here to Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany, have manufactured a response to the Bruen rulings that is a sham, a dissembling, a pretense at satisfying the dictates of the Court—one that isn’t at all subtle.Implementation of the new handgun licensing standard makes it decidedly and decisively more difficult, not less so, for the average, responsible, rational, law-abiding civilian citizen, to obtain an unrestricted concealed handgun license. In fact, implementation of the new standard makes it more difficult for the average New Yorker to obtain even a restrictive home and/or business premise handgun license.The New York Government has brazenly defied, not obediently complied with, the Court’s Bruen rulings, thereby vitiating the import of Bruen, and violating the Court’s Article 3 Constitutional authority.In her words and actions, Hochul has made her feelings known, and the New York State Senate Majority Leader has echoed those sentiments.Contemptuous of the High Court’s rulings and reasoning, the New York State Senate Majority Leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, hurled a stream of invective, at the High Court. She regurgitated the same tiresome, disingenuous, and caustic rhetoric of Anti-Second Amendment fanatics and Neo-Marxist Cultists, proclaiming that the New York Nanny State knows what’s best for the people, not the U.S. Supreme Court. And so, the New York Government informs the Court that New York has no intention of complying with the Court’s rulings. In her Senate Majority Press Release, Andrea Stewart-Cousins retorts——“In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, implying that guns are more important than lives in this country, we are passing legislation to ensure that New York State has safe and responsible gun laws. States are the last line of defense, which is why we are stepping up to protect New York from being easily flooded with concealed weapons and keeping firearms out of the wrong hands. These measures, in addition to the previous anti-gun violence legislation we passed, are vital in a time when there are more guns than people in America. New York will continue to prioritize people’s safety and lives, and I thank my conference, Speaker Heastie, and Governor Hochul for their partnership.” ~New York State Senate Majority leader’s remarks after the NY Senate in Albany passed amendments to the State’s handgun licensing statute in response to the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the State’s concealed handgun carry law.The implication of Stewart-Cousins’ remarks is that the Government's changes to the handgun statute are designed to make it more difficult, not less difficult, for the average civilian citizen to exercise his or her right to armed self-defense in New York, thus necessitating the filing of further time-consuming and expensive lawsuits on the part of the citizen to obtain redress for Government's unconscionable, unconstitutional behavior.It is evident that the goal of the New York Government is to make the process of obtaining a New York handgun carry license—that one requires to lawfully possess a handgun in New York—so difficult, so onerous, so expensive, so time-consuming, so oppressive that one’s desire to exercise his or her natural law right to keep and bear arms is snuffed out, and the individual concedes defeat, and gives up further attempt to secure the right. Of course, some individuals will remain undeterred, and that is to be expected as long as the Second Amendment remains, de jure law, in the Bill of Rights—a thing that angers and frustrates the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxist internationalists to no end. For, as long as the Second Amendment remains explicit in the Constitution, the sovereignty of the American people cannot be disturbed, and United States, as a free Constitutional Republic, and independent Nation-State cannot be dismantled and its remains inserted into the “international rules-based neo-feudalistic, neoliberal empire,” a.k.a. “new world order,” a.k.a. “Open Society,” that the Destroyers of independent nation-states have long yearned and aimed and planned for.   New York's handgun regime is where the Globalists/Marxists are focusing their energies. If they can defeat the Second Amendment there, they also defeat the power and authority of the U.S. Supreme Court. So, the puppet-masters have given their puppets, Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany, their marching orders. The Amendments to New York's handgun law are no less draconian than what stood before. The New York Government assumes that many people who had hoped to obtain an unrestricted handgun carry license easily, Post-Bruen, now realizing the hopelessness of the task, will simply capitulate, surrender the effort to obtain one.And, as the Government has included, in the Amendments, many more restrictions pertaining to places where, henceforth, it will be unlawful for the holder of a valid unrestricted license to carry a handgun in public, that, too—the Government hopes—will dampen whatever residual desire a civilian citizen may have to carry a handgun for self-defense. Obtaining a coveted handgun license will be, at best, at long-last, nothing more than a Pyrrhic Victory—hardly worth the effort.And, so, a recalcitrant, intransigent New York Government pushes hard against those citizens who intend to exercise their Second Amendment right regardless of the obstacles the New York Government places in their path. This means citizens must continue to expend earnest effort filing more expensive, more lengthy, more time-consuming lawsuits against Hochul and her Government. And the Government knows that, given the nature of the legal process, and of the effort, and time, and money involved, all those factors work to the Government’s advantage—not that of the citizen.Hochul's message is clear: “the New York handgun regime is here to stay, and any person who doesn’t like New York’s handgun regime, better have a deep pocket to file another lawsuit like Bruen, and they better have the time and energy and will power to follow through on it. They will need it.”Or, in the alternative, Americans can simply leave New York. Kathy Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew Cuomo—creator of and champion of the notorious New York Safe Act of 2013—has made abundantly clear that members of the GOP who hold “extreme views,” in Cuomo’s mind, are persona non grata. As he says, “you don’t belong in New York.’” See article in New York Post.So, then what? “Just leave?” And to be sure, many American Patriots have left New York. They have also left Illinois and California. But many other Americans, true Patriots, too, have stayed and they intend to fight for their fundamental rights and liberties in their State, their home.After all, many good Americans were born and raised in New York, in Illinois, and in California. These Americans consider those States to be their home. And those States are their home. So, why, then, should they leave? Let the corrupters of those States, like Cuomo and Hochul, and DeBlasio and Eric Adams leave New York. Let corruptors like Pritzker and Lightfoot leave Illinois. Let corruptors like Newsome, and Garcetti, and Breed, and Schaaf leave California, as well they all should. But where do Americans go if the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxist cultists take over the entire Country—which is occurring apace? The Biden Administration allows CCP China and the Billionaire, Bill Gates, to buy up vast tracts of land—and to what end? The Administration uses tens of billions of American tax-dollars against the interests of Americans and politicizes Government departments, agencies, and bureaus for its own nefarious ends. The military and police are demoralized and weakened. Our founders are denigrated. Our monuments and statues are defaced, removed, and desecrated.    The Biden Administration has done much to destroy this Country’s economy, infrastructure, and its resources, and its military preparedness and prowess. That is its sole reason for being. It is the sole reason, money, and time, and effort, and massive corruption of the electoral process was expended in getting Donald Trump out and getting Joe Biden and legions of lackeys into positions of power that they may damage the Republic irreparably.It has all paid off for the Corruptors of the Country. The Nation’s vitality is on the wane. This is not due to accident or mere happenstance; nor can it be explained as a product of gross incompetence. It is intentional. It is all part of an elaborate, sophisticated plan; carefully conceived and orchestrated; and methodically carried out.Yet, there are limits to the harm a feeble-minded and physical wreck of a man can inflict on this Country even though Joe Biden is but a titular Chief Executive. But, if California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom, should run for President, and secure the Democrat Party’s nomination for President in 2024, and, horror of horrors, if he became the 47^th U.S. President, what then becomes of the Country.? Newsom’s California will be replicated across the 50 States. Where might Americans run to, then? What State shall be able to operate—may operate—consistent with the Nation’s Constitution and Bill of Rights, once tyranny cements itself firmly in the Nation, and reigns unchallenged, supreme over Constitution, Nation, and People?For what Americans have experienced, especially, in the last 19 months, one must conclude the American Revolution of 1776 was less a hard-fought war, won, than it remains a war yet ongoing, with battles Americans must continue to fight against its own Federal and State Governments. For these Governments adamantly refuse to acknowledge and accept the sovereignty of the American people, as first conceptualized by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution and then as actualized through the fact of our Nation's well-armed citizenry. But can America's Patriots prevail against such powerful, malevolent, and tenacious forces that dare to suppress our Nation’s fundamental rights and liberties and to oppress our people until they capitulate—every one of us—to a world-wide feudalistic empire whose central offices one shall find in Brussels, Belgium?As we have seen, even simple recognition of the sacred natural law right of armed self-defense is not to be found everywhere in our Nation, but only in scattered spots here and there. A tyrannical Federal Government and several more tyrannical State Governments, blotting the National landscape, refuse to countenance such basic right—the cornerstone of our free Republic and of the sovereignty of the American people over Government. Our Constitution demands that Government pay homage to the will of the American people through recognition of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. No other Government on Earth allows such. Most other Governments mock the very idea of it. But not here. Yet, today, our Government, this Federal Government, and many State Governments and regional and municipal governments have become like so many others; corrupt, and jealous, and guarded of their powers: a blight on a Free Republic. These Governments demand the American people pay homage to them; not they to the American people!The forces that crush have made substantial inroads into achievement of their goal: the demoralizing, destabilizing, and dismantling of our free Republic. They have corrupted every institution of our Country. They have denigrated our history, heritage, culture, ethos, and Christian ethic. And, they are stripping our Nation of its strength, and will, and fortitude. Only the sovereignty of the Nation’s people remains, albeit attenuated, as our fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable, and eternal rights and liberties are being inexorably, and swiftly, eroded before our very eyes. _____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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

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

PART ONE

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

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

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

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

PART TWO

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

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

PART THREE

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

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

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

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

PART FOUR

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

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

PART FIVE

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

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

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

PART SIX

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

WHY ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT FORCES ABHOR AND FEAR HELLER

PART SEVEN

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

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

PART EIGHT

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

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

PART NINE

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

THE SAVAGING OF AMERICA: FORGET ABOUT BIDEN; IT’S GOING TO BE TRUMP VERSUS HARRIS

MOBOCRACY VERSUS REPUBLICAN DEMOCRACY

PART ONE

Marcus Antonius spoke, thus, “And Caesar’s spirit, raging for revenge,With Hate by his side come hot from hell,Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voiceCry, “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war, That this this foul deed shall smell above the earth With Carrion men, groaning for burial. Citation from Shakespeare’s historical play, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1War is upon us. Make no mistake about it. Be prepared to arm up. The survival of our Republic is at stake!The sad thing is very few people will acknowledge this, even as some do embrace it, want it, even demand it. Many deny it, scoff at the idea of it, but most everyone, at some level, feels it.All that we Americans have seen and heard in the last few months compels our acceptance of it, the hard, cold realization of it; and what it means for us.But is this a modern American “civil war”—a race war—a clash between purported do-gooders demanding an accounting for people of color and privileged white oppressors, as the hordes of mindless Radicals endlessly shout and as a seditious Press echoes?No! this is not a “race war” and never was, and calling it so, doesn’t make it so.This is mere artifice, a stratagem concocted by the Nation’s Destructor Antagonists—the discontented Marxists, Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Neoliberal Billionaire Globalists who have lost patience with the American electorate—an electorate that threw a wrench in their plans for world domination; an electorate that audaciously voted into Office an outsider, a businessman, who sought merely to return the Country to its rightful heirs: the American citizenry.The Antagonist Destructors of our Nation see this and won’t allow it; won’t permit President Trump to serve a second term in Office. They plan to defeat Trump in the coming election by chicanery and unlawful acts if they can; by brute force if they cannot. They haven’t disguised their intentions. They really cannot. This is their last chance and they know it.They have brainwashed many; hoodwinked many others. The Nation is in their grasp: November 3, 2020 is the date set for the Governmental coup d’état.These ruthless forces both here and abroad have embraced a strategy to destroy the U.S. Constitution itself, the very fabric of our Nation. Once accomplished they will go to work immediately to disassemble a free Constitutional Republic.They will do so by executive fiat. They will rewrite our Constitution; eradicate our God-given sacred rights and liberties; open our borders to tens of millions of the world’s dregs; bankrupt our Nation; subject our citizenry to conformity in thought and uniformity in behavior; reduce the populace to dependency on Government largess for its existence. They will erase our Nation’s history, heritage, culture, and Judeo-Christian Ethic: all of it must go. Our Nation, in the form the founders bequeathed to us, will effectively cease to exist.And these Antagonists, these would-be Destructors, will proceed forthwith, with blinding speed once they have taken over the reins of Government. They have legions of stooges and toadies to assist them—those who have assisted them since Day One of the Trump Presidency.

A ONE-DAY CIVIL WAR-(COUNTER-REVOLUTION): NOVEMBER 3, 2020

The nature of the present major conflict facing Americans has aspects of both a civil war and revolution, creating a unique hybrid.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CIVIL WAR AND A REVOLUTION?

There is a distinction to be drawn between the expression, 'civil war,' and the expression, 'revolution.'“The word revolution is derived from the Latin ‘revolutio’, meaning ‘a turn-around’. Revolution results in a mutational change in organizational structure quite amazingly in a short period of time. Revolution brings about a change in the power too.Revolutions took place through history. It is interesting to note that apart from the change in power, revolution brings about change in cultural and economical situations as well of a country or a region. Socio-political scenario gets completely changed by a revolution.It is interesting to note that the term revolution is used to indicate changes that take place outside the political arena. Culture, philosophy, society and technology have undergone marked transformations by these revolutions.A civil war is defined as a war that takes place between two organized groups within the same nation state. In short it can be described as a war between factions in the same country. One of the best examples of a civil war is the American Civil War (1861-1865). It is otherwise called the War Between the States that took place as a civil war in the United States of America.It is important to know that the two organized groups that take part in the civil war are normally bent upon creating their own governments and having organized military. The most important difference between a revolution and a civil war is that civilians directly revolt against the government in a revolution whereas factions wage a war against each other in a civil war.”The American Revolution established freedom from tyranny and the creation of a new Nation-State.The founders of this Nation-State, the framers of the U.S. Constitution determined that the Nation would exist as a free Constitutional Republic. Theirs was no easy task. But they accomplished it. The founders of the new Nation designed a central, “Federal” Government of three co-equal Branches; each Branch keeping the other in check through carefully delineated, demarcated, limited powers.The people would retain sovereignty over Government, not by dint of faith that the servants of the people would not usurp power, but through the realization that these servants of the people would, as is human nature, attempt to do so. To prevent that from happening the founders incorporated into the U.S. Constitution, a Bill of Rights—a codification of fundamental, God-given, natural, unalienable, immutable, illimitable rights, including, first and foremost, the right of the people to speak their own mind and the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Thus, would unlawful usurpation of power by the servant of the people be kept in check. Our Nation is founded on the tenets of Individualism: a recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of the individual and the import of the integrity of Self.Even during the horror of the American Civil War, neither side, not the Union nor Confederacy, questioned the tenets of Individualism; never questioned the veracity and venerableness of the Bill of Rights. It was never in doubt.But, today, though, there are forces that do not accept the tenets of Individualism and forsake the primacy of the Bill of Rights. These are the proponents of the tenets of Collectivism; those who will not suffer individual expression nor abide a sovereign, well-armed citizenry. They believe in uniformity of thought, conformity in behavior. Their model of societal perfection is that of the beehive or the ant colony; order maintained through the destruction of the human spirit. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively about the differences between Individualism and Collectivism. See, e.g., our article, posted October 6, 2018, titled, “A Modern American Civil War: A Clash of Ideologies.”Today, forces both inside the Nation and outside it, utilizing the vehicle of the Democratic Party, along with the acquiescence of many within the Republican Party, have engineered a counter-revolution.They envision a greatly expanded and expansive Federal Government with vast, virtually unlimited powers. To keep Americans in check they have been outspoken in their call for substantial constraints on free speech and the elimination of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. These counter revolutionaries intend to use our Constitution against us. Once in power the Constitution will be erased.Although not carefully distinguished between two military camps—the Blue and the Gray—of the American Civil War, the clash of ideas is very much a bright line: Individualists versus Collectivists, and a mighty physical confrontation may yet emerge.The Collectivists have, to date, failed to unseat the Individualists’ candidate, Donald Trump. Americans elected Donald Trump to preserve a free Constitutional Republic, thereby securing the Nation the founders bequeathed to us through the difficult war they fought and won: the American Revolution. And President Donald Trump has done a commendable job, despite unimaginable obstacles to preserve the Nation in the form the founders gave to us.The Collectivists have one last card to play: one which they had hoped to avoid: the U.S. Presidential election of 2020. The outcome may be the endgame for one side or the other. Or it may very well be the opening salvo of a Modern American Civil War qua Counter-Revolution to undercut the American Revolution.­­­­­­­­­­­­______________________________________________________

BIDEN WILL NEVER DEBATE TRUMP, HARRIS WILL

PART TWO

TRYING TO PLAY AMERICANS FOR FOOLS FAILED ONCE; DEMOCRATS WILL NOT PERMIT THAT TO HAPPEN AGAIN

“ ‘Clinton’s dream also includes a Western Hemispheric common market, like the European common market that is dissolving in chaos, fear and debt. . . .’ ‘If that is indeed her dream, then she dreams the internationalist dream that would end America.In a 2013 speech to the National Multi-Housing Council [Clinton] said, ‘I mean, politics is like sausage being made. If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the backroom discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So you need both a public and a private position.’Which is an excellent example of hypocrisy — a Hillary Clinton trait.American voters don’t want open borders or anything akin to a European Union common market. But Hillary Clinton does.Hillary Clinton would tear America down. She is totally unfit to be president.Donald Trump is the anti-establishment candidate. He’s not politically correct, and he’s not running for saint. He’s running to Make America Great Again. Elect him and he will.”~Pastiche from a story, titled, “Playing us for Fools,” published in the Carteret County News Times, one month before the 2016 Trump versus Clinton U.S. Presidential electionThe forces that seek to crush Americans into submission failed had a wrench thrown into their well-oiled machine. They thought Hillary Clinton could hold her own against Trump in a match-up against him. They were wrong, dead wrong.Do you honestly think these sinister, ruthless forces will make that mistake a second time by allowing Biden—infinitely less mentally sharp than Clinton—to debate Trump? Not a chance!The doddering, confused, senile Cardboard character, Joe Biden, has played his role for these Antagonist Disruptor Destructors of our Nation. He is no longer needed and will soon be dispensed with.Biden has previously stated a desire to serve one-term only, exemplifying his lack of desire in the Presidency. In some dim part of his addled brain, he must have known he is wholly unqualified to lead the Nation.As reported in The Hill, back in December 2019,“Former Vice President Joe Biden has reportedly signaled that he would only serve one term in the White House if elected in 2020 as the top-tier Democratic candidate faces questions about his age. Four people who regularly speak with the 77-year-old Biden told Politico that it is unlikely he would run for reelection in 2024, when he would be in his 80s.‘If Biden is elected,’ an adviser to the campaign told the news outlet, ‘he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.’‘He’s going into this thinking, “I want to find a running mate I can turn things over to after four years, but if that’s not possible or doesn’t happen then I’ll run for reelection.” But he’s not going to publicly make a one-term pledge,’ another adviser reportedly said.”

IS IT JUST AGE THAT HAS INFORMED BIDEN’S DECISION TO SERVE JUST ONE TERM, OR IS IT WEAKNESS IN MIND AND BODY?

Consider: Bernie Sanders is one year older than Biden. The old Socialist is as sharp as a tack and never asserted or even suggested he would serve only one term in Office if elected.Donald Trump, too, was 70 years old when he assumed Office, the oldest person to serve as President on the day of his inauguration as reported by Business Insider. But age has never impacted his physical strength or mental alertness. He has always demonstrated boundless energy and keen mental acuity; a sharp understanding of policy and what it is he wishes to accomplish, in accordance with his duties as President and consistent with his promises to the American people. He never so much as intimated a desire to serve only one term in Office.Trump has weathered a withering stream of vile, vicious, vindictive personal attacks against him, against his staff, even against his family. Through it all he has remained steadfast, never doubting himself, never wilting. To the contrary, he has become stronger, frustrating those who have attempted to aggrieve him, turning their arrows back on them. He has shown his mettle; the true mark of a leader.Can one imagine Biden standing up against the same ceaseless, remorseless violent onslaught? Would Biden not have crumpled years ago; drained, emotionally and physically. Indeed, can one imagine any other politician able to repel the violent personal attacks that President Trump has ably withstood for the past four years and, through it all, still manage to accomplish many of his policy objectives?Biden, in comparison, stands alone as the single figure in American history, coming up with lame excuses to mask his obvious mental and physical infirmities, all the while boasting that he can lead this great Nation. And there is the Press, for example, the Washington Post, always at the ready, to give Biden an assist, writing specious reports to cover his blaring inane remarks, or to attempt to counter justifiable concerns pertaining to his health. See, e.g., a U.S. News.com report The Press says Biden would give Kamala Harris substantial power as his VP if elected President. That is all the more surprising since, as also reported FP Insider Access, the two have had a rocky relationship, which raises the question whether Biden did choose Harris as his running mate or if, more likely, the DNC foisted Harris on him.But don’t be surprised to find Biden stepping down a few weeks before the election, not a few days, or weeks or months into a first term in Office, let alone upon completing one full term. He must. Why? It isn’t that his handlers can’t control Biden. They can. They already have. That is plain, and Biden doesn’t have a problem with that. Still, there is a problem. Biden’s handlers cannot be certain he can defeat Trump, regardless of what the polls say. Certainly not if a dimwit’s obvious dimwittedness becomes apparent as it would during a U.S. Presidential debate, were he to debate. After all, who would be on hand to lend Biden a hand if he were to become befuddled over a moderator’s question or shows his ineptitude in parrying a death-dealing verbal thrust to the heart?So, the Destructors of our Nation are faced with a conundrum. And that dilemma rests with the nature of our Presidential Debates.The public expects them. But only the U.S. Presidential candidate of one Party can debate the candidate, or incumbent, of the other Party.It would look awfully strange to see Biden’s VP, Harris, debating Trump, as Biden’s VP, instead of Biden, himself. It would be unprecedented.Of course, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t require Presidential debates. Americans, though, would be annoyed and suspicious, even outraged if denied a debate, especially given the present deeply polarized Nation. A match-up is highly anticipated.In the recent Arbalest Quarrel article, “Debate This,” published on August 6, 2020, we said,“U.S. Presidential elections are never small matters. But, this coming Presidential election, less than three months away, takes on inordinate importance—more so than any other Presidential election in our Nation’s history. For, depending on the outcome, Americans will either preserve their history, along with their sacred heritage, culture, and Christian ethos, or they will lose all of it. Recent events bear this out.The continuation of our Nation in the form our founders established for the American people, a free Constitutional Republic, and a sovereign people rests in the fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable rights bestowed on them and in them by the loving Divine Creator—rights codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights: most importantly, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and the right of free speech.”Biden has shown, during the few times his handlers have allowed him to speak at all, that he has trouble expressing a coherent thought. He would collapse if he had to face Trump one-on-one in a debate.Even with assistance from friendly debate moderators, Trump would eviscerate him, and Biden’s handlers know this. The bottom line: Biden will not debate Trump.

HARRIS WILL RUN AGAINST TRUMP, NOT BIDEN. SO, IT IS HARRIS WHO MUST DEBATE TRUMP, NOT BIDEN.

If only one Presidential debate is held, Harris will debate Trump. That means Harris will be the Democrat’s nominee for U.S. President, not Biden.The puppet masters will not risk losing an election by allowing Biden on the National and, hence, world stage, making a jackass of himself, for all to see, and, thereby making a true, not merely symbolic “jackass” of the Party. That helps to explain why the puppet masters have scheduled the first debate at the end of September, not the beginning, contrary to what Trump and many Americans wanted and expected.Having a debate scheduled one month prior to the election buys the DNC time for the media image makers to shape the image of Harris they expect the public to buy: an impression that Harris is indeed the pragmatic moderate the script calls for and not the selfish, shallow, callow, opportunist she in fact is: simply a simulacrum of Hillary Clinton. They have only a few weeks to prop this stick figure up, allowing it to take hold on the public, to gel in the public psyche. Harris is giddy with expectation and delight, barely able to contain herself.So, as the days march on, Americans will see less and less of Biden and more and more of Harris, but precious little of both. Little will come out of either one’s mouth; and a sympathetic Press won’t “press” them to discuss their policy prescriptions.And then something untoward will happen to Biden. Expect this.The Democrats and the Billionaire Globalist puppet masters would trust the public won’t be shocked—if a trifle dismayed, and the Radical left positively gleeful—when Harris steps into Biden’s shoes at the last moment even as that moment is unprecedented.But neither one, Biden nor Harris, will do much talking to the Press before the Presidential debates, when it comes to pass that Harris faces off against Trump.It is either that or the DNC will have to conjure up a plausible explanation why there won’t be a Presidential debate at all. That scenario is unlikely. The public would feel cheated, and rightfully so.

HOW WILL THE BIDEN-HARRIS SWITCHEROO TAKE PLACE?

Prior to the debates, the DNC will declare, through the Press, that Biden has suffered a heart attack or a stroke; something or other, health-wise, not altogether implausible. After all Biden has had medical problems beyond incipient dementia and that isn’t a secret. There will be little explanation, and a sympathetic Press won’t probe. But obviously his lack of mental acuity will be the reason for it. Even the Washington Post, the Radical Left newspaper of the centi-billionaire Jeff Bezos speculated that Biden suffers from dementia.It is highly unlikely that a major supporter of the Democrats, and a man obviously “in the know,” Jeff Bezos, would allow his editorial staff to so much as intimate Biden’s unsuitability for the highest public Office in the Land, unless something major was afoot. So, quietly, surreptitiously, his tabloid, the Washington Post, has alerted the public to the possibility of the big switch.The DNC will have to scramble to appoint a VP for Harris. Likely, the DNC already has a VP in the wings: another woman no doubt, and conceivably another woman of color.So, the public will be fed a lie and that lie will suffice, must suffice, to get Biden out of the way before the first scheduled debate lest he make a fool of himself in front of the Nation and the world, and therein scotch the entire scheme of the Globalists and Marxists to take over the Government and the Country—just a few weeks prior to the most important election in modern times.________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

UNLEASHED AND UNCHECKED, FAKE NEWS MEDIA PROPAGANDA WILL DESTROY AMERICA

PART FOURTEEN

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP STANDS AS A LONE BUT POWERFUL VOICE AND BULWARK AGAINST A SOCIALIST TAKE-OVER OF OUR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC AND OUR FREEDOMS!

What we, Americans, are witnessing today is the incestuous union of technology, the Federal Bureaucracy and of radical, hateful elements in Congress, in the social media and in the Press, working in concert, at the behest of Billionaire Neoliberal transnationalists, in a naked, reprehensible bid to destroy our Great Nation and a free people, and all in an attempt to usher into existence a new system of governance—one devoid of once powerful Nation States—a neo-feudalistic New Monstrous Collectivist World Order, one comprising a few ruling “Elect Elites” on the one hand, and a multitude of serfs, hundreds of millions of citizens, including those of our own Country, citizens stripped of their citizenship and of their fundamental rights and liberties; reduced to abject servitude and misery, namely, the new Preterite (the Damned), the new denizens of the New World Order.This is the vision of Radical Left Marxists and Antifa Anarchists—their notion of a paradise on Earth; but really a hell-world they wish to bring to fruition, into actuality. This is their vision of a new transformative America that they would bequeath to us in lieu of that bequeathed to us by the Founders of our Great Nation.And insidiously, outrageously these Radical Left Marxists and Anarchists use the very power inherent in our Constitution and the very power of a free market economy upon which our Constitutional Republic exists, against that very Republic, and against the citizenry of this Nation. In so doing, these Radical elements would dare rob the American people of their birthright; all the while proclaiming that this a good thing; that this should happen; that this must occur to bring about equality and equanimity and justice; that this the way things ought to be—reducing us all to squalor, unrelenting malaise and poverty. It is happening before our very eyes, gathering increasing momentum. And the words and actions and methods of these Radical Left elements and Anarchists in Government, in the Press, in social media, in the entertainment business, in the information technology sector, and among the citizenry itself are becoming more and more outrageous, more and more bizarre, more and more acute.Every day we see the worst excesses engaged in by those malevolent forces bent on destroying all that most Americans, the silent majority, hold most dear and sacred. And, only, we, the American people, can prevent it from playing out to its disastrous end, an end which means the destruction of our Nation’s Constitution; the loss of our people’s personal identity, history, culture and personal autonomy; the end of the independence and sovereignty of our Nation State, the end of our centuries old system of laws, and justice, and jurisprudence: all of it gone; and that this supposed to be a good thing! The end of the exercise of our own Free Will!

HERE, BELOW, ARE DELINEATED, A FEW OF THE SCHEMES RADICAL LEFT MARXISTS AND ANARCHISTS HAVE DEVISED AND UTILIZED TO UNDERCUT THE CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF THE UNITED STATES, AS AN INDEPENDENT, FREE REPUBLIC.

ENCOURAGE AMERICAN CITIZENS TO ABORT THEIR BABIES, REDUCING THE POPULATION OF EDUCATED AMERICANS, INCULCATED WITH A KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR CONSTITUTION AND OF THEIR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIESENCOURAGE UNSKILLED, ILLITERATE ITINERANTS TO EMIGRATE ILLEGALLY TO THE U.S., THEREBY FOSTERING A NEW POPULATION OF DRONES, CONDITIONED TO SERVITUDE AND IGNORANT OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT AND OBLIVIOUS TO AND UNCONCERNED ABOUT THE IMPORT AND PURPOSE OF OUR NATION’S FUNDAMENTAL, NATURAL, UNALIENABLE AND IMMUTABLE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIESENCOURAGE THE AMERICAN PUBLIC TO FORSAKE AND FORGET ITS UNIQUE HISTORY, HERITAGE, AND CORE CHRISTIAN VALUES, THROUGH MEDIA USE OF PROPAGANDA; AND THROUGH CENSORSHIP OF ALTERNATIVE VIEWPOINTS TO SUPPRESS ALL DISSENT; AND THROUGH NOXIOUS, INCESSANT, REPETITIOUS CONDEMNATION OF AND EVEN ASSERTIONS OF HATRED, ABHORRENCE DIRECTED TOWARD OUR NATIONAL EMBLEMS, AND THROUGH ASSERTIONS OF LOATHING DIRECTED TOWARD OUR NATION’S INSTITUTIONS, AND THROUGH ATTACKS AGAINST OUR NATION’S WELL-DEVELOPED AND HONORED SYSTEM OF LAWS AND JURISPRUDENCE THAT HAS WELL STOOD THE TEST OF TIME; AND--AS IF ALL THAT WERE NOT HORRENDOUS ENOUGH--THROUGH INCESSANT ASSAULTS DIRECTED AGAINST OUR NATION’S ILLUSTRIOUS, LOVING FOUNDING FATHERS—AS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA OUTRAGEOUSLY QUESTIONS WHETHER THE FOUNDING FATHERS, THE FRAMERS OF OUR SACRED CONSTITUTION, EVEN DESERVE OUR CONTINUED REVERENCE AND DEVOTIONSUBVERT AND SUBORDINATE THE SUPREMACY OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND STATUTES THROUGH ATTEMPTS TO BIND OUR NATION TO SECRETIVE INTERNATIONAL PACTS AND TREATIES, IN ORDER TO UNDERMINE OUR NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AND INDEPENDENCE AND TO UNDERCUT THE PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF OUR NATION, GROUNDED ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL: OF INDIVIDUAL AUTONOMY AND INTEGRITY AND SANCTITY OF SELFDIVIDE THE NATION AGAINST ITSELF THROUGH THE MECHANISM OF IDENTITY POLITICSRAISE THIS IDEA OF VICTIM-HOOD TO THE LEVEL OF A VIRTUE AND HOLY PRINCIPLE, INSERTING THIS FALSE IDEA INTO THE MIND AND PSYCHE OF THE AMERICAN CITIZEN; TO CREATE IN THE AMERICAN PUBLIC A SENSE OF COLLECTIVE GUILT, THEREBY WEAKENING THE RESOLVE OF OUR NATION’S CITIZENRY TO THWART ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY A CITIZENRY’S PRIDE IN SELF AND NATIONINDOCTRINATE THE YOUTH OF OUR NATION TO ACCEPT COLLECTIVIST TENETS AND MARXIST POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES AS SUPERIOR TO THE TENETS OF INDIVIDUALISM UPON WHICH OUR NATION'S CONSTITUTION RESTS  AND UPON THE NOTIONS OF PERSONAL PROPERTY AND OF FREE MARKET CAPITALISM, THAT ALONE ARE CONSISTENT WITH THE IMPORT AND PURPORT OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND OF THE STRUCTURE OF A FREE REPUBLIC REEDUCATE THE ADULT POPULATION OF OUR NATION TO ACCEPT THE PRECEPTS OF COLLECTIVISM, TO CREATE A SENSE OF DEPENDENCY OF THE POPULATION ON GOVERNMENT TO SATISFY THE POPULATION’S NEEDS AND WANTSTO CRUSH THE INDIVIDUAL INTO SUBMISSION BY INCULCATING IN THE POPULATION A DESIRE TO BELONG TO THE GROUP THROUGH PRE-PROGRAMMED BEHAVIOR—DEFINED BY AGENCIES OF GOVERNMENT—THEREBY THWARTING THE PUBLIC TO RISE UP AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF GOVERNMENT.DISARM AMERICAN CITIZENS TO PREVENT THOSE WHO DO NOT COMPLY WITH THE NEW COLLECTIVIST PHILOSOPHY FROM SECURING FOR THEMSELVES THE MEANS TO HOLD GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE TO THE PEOPLEA compliant propaganda-laden Press, sold on the idea of a Marxist style one world Government—a vision of global domination of all Western Nation States, contemplating the end of the very notions of ‘nation state’ and ‘citizen of a nation state’—has demonstrated an ecstatic willingness and resolve to work on behalf of and to take its marching orders from the Marxist enterprise that the Democratic Party has slowly, inexorably, and inevitably devolved into. And, this Political Party, in turn, in all likelihood, takes its marching orders from our ostensible “allies” in Europe, in whom the Party shares common cause.And, what is that common cause? It is nothing less than the destruction of the sovereignty and independence of all Western Nations, along with the subjugation of the polity of those Nation States, including the citizenry of the United States.And, who are these purported allies of the Democratic Party? They include the innately and highly secretive, extraordinarily powerful, inordinately wealthy, inherently corrupt, abjectly ruthless, hedonistic and amoral, and insufferably decadent Rothschild clan and the clan's minions, most infamously, George Soros—whom, curiously, Fox News has just begun to mention on its nightly news programs. And, how long shall it be before the Fox News media organization demonstrates the moral courage to mention the name, Rothschild, itself—the Centuries old family, inbred, through the ages, with the royalty of Europe—in whom plans were first drawn up for domination of the nations of the world, and that remains today the principal architect of plans for the dissolution of the Nation States of Europe and of the United States.Simply witness the impact that implementation of their plans have had on the citizenry of the Nations of the European Union. The creation of the EU just didn’t happen by accident. The Blueprint for its construction began long ago, actually centuries ago, with the creation of the diabolical and horrific Central Banking System through which wealthy financiers, commencing with the ruthless Rothschild clan would be able to, were in fact able to, and were desirous of controlling the destines of Nations. And, the descendants of  the family Patriarch, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, have been machinating to bring their schema for a trans-global political, social, economic, financial, legal, and cultural system of Governance—the New World Order—to fruition.What Americans are witnessing occurring in their own Country, and what native populations of the Nations of the EU are now witnessing occurring in Europe, is the gathering storm of disaster for European and U.S. citizens alike—a cascading sequence of events—a horrific, cataclysmic reconfiguration of the entirety of Western Civilization into something out of science fiction--a Dystopian nightmare reality, for the populations of of Europe, and for the citizenry of the United States, from which no one can awaken. _____________________________________________

PART FIFTEEN

THE GREAT THREAT TO OUR NATION’S SURVIVAL COMES NOT FROM RUSSIA OR CHINA, BUT FROM RADICAL ELEMENTS HERE AT HOME, FED BY SO-CALLED “ALLIES” FROM ABROAD.

The Arbalest Quarrel has been warning about the threat posed to our Nation and to the Nations of Europe, by the Rothschilds; and we have discussed both the fact of and the nature of the attack by the transnationalist one-world, Government crowd on all that the populations of Europe and Americans, at home. Europe may not be salvaged, given the merciless grip of the Rothschild clan on Europe; but, then, apart from Nationalist fervor, a love of one’s Country, and history, and culture, and language, the citizenry of those Nation States of Europe did not have, and do not have a Bill of Rights to bind Governments and truly protect the rights and liberties of the populations of those Nation States, from tyranny. Americans, however, do have, in their Bill of Rights, that the framers of our Nation, lovingly and wisely gave to us, the means through which the citizenry’s natural, fundamental, unalienable, immutable rights, bequeathed to that citizenry from a Loving, All Powerful Creator—are able to hold fervently and ably onto their individual autonomy. Individual autonomy, secures, for each American citizen, through the Nation's Bill of Rights, in clear, categorical, imperatives, the definitive proclamation of one's right to be left alone; that each individual American citizen has the right as  an individual to truly remain individual.Our Bill of Rights is the living testament to The Creator’s Divine Imperative—that Government cannot, ever, lawfully deny to the American citizen the Integrity of Self-hood; for the Creator gave to each of us an individual living Soul. The Human Soul is a unique marker, defining one's existence as an individual. And the very existence of our Bill of Rights makes that fact plain. The import of Individual Expression and Individual Autonomy succinctly and clearly exemplifies us as Americans.But, how do Americans best protect their Sacred, Inviolate Self, against the evil of Government? By force of arms. For it is only by force of arms that Government, a necessarily corrupt, artificial construct, must forbear, from imposing its will on the individual American citizen. It is only through the codification of the right of the people to keep and bear arms in the Second Amendment that the might of the Federal Government is kept well in check. The Radical Left and the Progressive elements in society know this. And the Transnational Neoliberal Globalists know this. And the Radical Anarchist Group, Antifa—that horrid, disgusting group of malcontents knows this, too.Antifa is beginning to learn about the power of firearms. Not incidentally or accidentally, the Globalists are  arming members of Antifa, with knives and other weapons. The public has recently heard about this from the Radical cable networks, like CNN, that oddly argue that this is a good thing. Likely, Globalists are also beginning to surreptitiously provide Antifa with firearms, teaching them how to use firearms to attack Americans who merely seek to uphold a Constitution and free Republic, in the form the founders gave to the people of our  Nation that we would remain free from the heavy hand of Government control; that Government should know and accept, even if only grudgingly, that each American citizen is an individual, who should be permitted to carve out his own destiny in America, as long as he harms no one else; that the life, well-being, and individual autonomy of each American citizen is sacrosanct, and inviolate. But the transnationalist Globalist elite find that idea offensive, repugnant, even; and, so they find an armed citizenry intolerable, as it upsets their plans for world domination. So it is likely beginning to arm those groups that do its bidding, like Antifa. And the mainstream media, a Seditious, virulent, Press, misusing the power the framers gave to it through the First Amendment, acts as an apt and pompous and singularly duplicitous, hypocritical apologist for the worst excesses carried out by that Group—rationalizing the Antifa’s heavy-handed tactics as just and necessary.And, so, through the medium of “fake news,” the mainstream Press conducts a virulent, vicious, merciless campaign on the Bill of Rights--condemning especially the free exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The Press maliciously, sanctimoniously engages in an incessant reprehensible attack on the sanctity of our Nation’s Constitution and on the supremacy of our Nation’s laws.The mainstream Press engages in a continuous and vicious assault on our Country as an independent Sovereign Nation State. It argues incessantly for open borders, knowing full well that a Nation that cannot and, in fact, is ordered by a corrupt Congress to refrain from defending the integrity of its land, the integrity of its borders, amounts to a wholesale denial of the right of a Nation to exist as a Nation. In fact, the Radical Left, along with Anarchists, openly assert that our Nation has no justification for existing as an Independent Sovereign. And those sentiments are echoed in the mainstream Press. We are to become, then, no more than a geographic region, no longer a Sovereign State. And, were that end to be realized, we would see as well that the very notion of what it means to be a citizen of the United States and the very notion of a what it means for a Country to exist as an independent, Sovereign ‘Nation State,’ would become meaningless concepts.All that we have laid out here as true is now being openly attested to by at least one major news outlet: Fox News, as it rightfully condemns what it sees occurring in our Country; enabled by a vicious, virulent, renegade Press. Thus, the truth of what the Arbalest Quarrel relates to you, our kind reader, is vindicated by a major news source. Yet, it was surprising, to be sure, but both refreshing and wondrous to hear the night show host, Laura Ingraham exclaiming with singular clarity, to the insidiousness and ferocity of the attendant dangers that Collectivists pose to our Nation’s continued existence if, in the next few years, their vision comes to fruition.In case you missed the recent broadcast, here are a few excerpts from the show that caught our attention (and more available at the Fox News website):LAURA INGRAHAM: . . . American identity under assault. That's the focus of tonight's ‘Angle.’The historical purge that we're witnessing all over the country. It's part of a larger agenda to destroy what it means to be American. And it's getting more audacious by the day. In St. Louis Park, Minnesota, the geniuses on the city council there recently decided to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from town meetings. Their reason, to create a more welcoming environment to a diverse community. Welcoming to everybody, but Americans who actually love the pledge. Well, residents were rightly outraged by this insanity and local Patriots turned out and they stood up to the city council.And then in San Francisco, the public defecation capital of the world, taxpayers are going to shell out $600,000 to paint over a George Washington mural that offended a few snowflakes there. So, let me just get this straight. People peeing in the fountains and stepping on dirty needles. That's not offensive. But the first founding father is? Perfect.So, why would anyone after hearing these kinds of stories be surprised when someone like Left, a soccer star Megan Rapinoe who knelt during the national anthem back in 2016 still refuses to respect it today. Or when midfielder, Allie Long drags the American flag on the ground while representing the U.S. on the world stage. And while mugging for the cameras then drops the flag like it's a piece of trash.Thankfully another midfielder, Kelly O'Hara picked it up. And of course, Rapinoe discovered early on though really that you'll win permanent MVP status when you kick Donald Trump. Like when she used foul language nixing any traditional White House visit to the champions and this was before they even won the World Cup. [A REAL HUMAN BEING isn’t she, THAT Rapinoe; and New York gives the TEAM a ticker-tape parade; but for whom, exactly? Whom is it that the TREAM represents? The United States? Even as the TEAM drags our Flag on the ground? A bit discordant, no? Other Nations must have been embarrassed for us].The easiest path to social media stardom today is one where you take cheap swipes at American symbols and traditions and you must understand that the Left truly believes America itself is illegitimate to its core. What am I talking about? Well, its founding was fraudulent. They believe its founding documents meaningless. All because of slavery and the people who were involved in it. Our progress on racial issues is conveniently ignored by cynical actors who are frankly using these past horrors for a power grab and they hope eventually a total reorganization of our society here and a massive wealth confiscation. The phrase white privilege. Well, it's now the preferred weapon of choice and it's used by socialists know nothings to tar their political opponents and avoid real debate. Only guess what? Now even old white Democrats are in the privileged crosshairs.AOC blasts everyone and anyone any time of the day or night on social media. But when the leader of her own party calls her out, she cries foul. No, no Nancy is not a racist, but - well, but President Trump is routinely subjected of course to this kind of attack while his plan to put citizenship that question on the census was roundly derided as racist by Democrats. And today, referring to that issue, he shot back.{VIDEO CLIP} DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: Now, they're trying to erase the very existence of a very important word and a very important thing, citizenship. We must have a reliable count of how many citizens, non-citizens and illegal aliens are in our country.INGRAHAM: Bingo. How is this controversial? Asking about citizens. It's like a question that has nothing to do with race at all. It's about who is American and who is not. [see Stephen D’Andrilli’s UFT article republished, in unabridged format in Ammoland Shooting Sports News]. And by the way, African Americans have been the most directly impacted by the mass flow, massive flow of illegal immigrants in the United States. No wonder polls now show that a majority of both black and Hispanic voters support adding the question to the census. Are racing our history our sense of who we are is making it easier to turn America into just kind of another member of a globalist super state.Europeans sacrificed their identities years ago on the altar of globalism, when they formed the European Union. Look at what it got them.INGRAHAM: Now, we may have masked morons of ANTIFA to deal with. . . . There is a price for surrounding your sovereignty and your identity. And we're going to pay it if we don't defend our history and our traditions. And that's “The Angle.” Joining me now is Victor Davis Hanson, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover's Institution. Victor why can't the Left see the value of symbols and traditions that don't blur the differences or the mistakes we made but that have the effect of binding us together at a time when so much else rips us apart.VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER'S INSTITUTION: I think they feel that if they were to do that Laura, they would not win elections and that they have to change the past and the present, so they can have power in the future. It's a war where demography, it's a war over making residents, the equals of citizens and in their view, the argument that they're advancing as we were so sin, we the Americans were so sin at our origins, we can't be modified, adapted or improved. We have to be dismantled and reconstituted on their agendas, according to their agendas and therefore they're going to have a lot of power and influence in the future.And so when you mentioned all of these incidents of the San Francisco murals or the Nike shoe controversy or the soccer team, this is the trench warfare or these are the soldiers at the front who are fighting for these elites that we see in the Democratic primary who are advocating Medicare or health care for all, who cross borders, who are escorting people illegally into the United States, who are attacking the past, demanding reparations or the New York.Remember the New York Times video op ed where they said we're just OK, we're not really exceptional or what Representative Omar detailed in a recent Washington Post interview where she said, she was very disappointed after leaving a refugee camp to see things weren't too good here in the land of her host.And so, this is the - I don't know the raw side of what the elites are talking about, but it's the same agenda, it's to create a new future by reconstituting or redefining the past and the present. INGRAHAM: And Victor, don't you agree if America herself is illegitimate. Of course, the founding documents and the principles undergirding those documents either have to be completely swept away and rewritten because they were written by a bunch of all racist white guys or many of them old racist white guys. That has to be rewritten, reconstituted, reformed, refounded as something very different. That seems to be where this is going. Because there is no concern for actual historical reference, historical context. It's either evil or good—. . . .HANSON: No, there isn't.INGRAHAM: And everything in the past is evil and everything now and present is good until that becomes evil, I guess.HANSON: Yes, we're not a physical society where we work all day in the field. So, we have the luxury of affluence and security and leisure to think that the world works the way your app does or your smartphone. And we believe that if we're not perfect then we're not good and that the sins of humanity which exists today, sexism, racism in every country to a much greater degree than they do in the United States. Those are uniquely our sins because we should be perfect just like our technology.”A few courageous broadcast networks and commentators, along with our astute and heroic President, Donald Trump, recognize the seriousness of the dangers facing our Nation and to its citizenry and are meeting the forces that would dare crush us into submission, head-on.The real danger to our Nation’s survival as a free Republic is not coming from, and never did come from Russia, or even from China. That was deception—carefully planned and carried out. How could those Nations harm us, fatally, really? Think about that for a moment. The silliness of the notion should be self-evident to all Americans. The public has been played for fools, ever since Trump took the Oath of Office. The true threat to our Nation’s survival as a free Republic is coming from so-called allies of us—the Commonwealth Nations and the EU; from ruthless, corrupt, and powerful Neoliberal Globalists and from those whom those Transnationalists, and Economic and Political Globalists control and fund, and organize and promote, within our Nation: the Radical Left; anarchist Groups, like Antifa, from Left-wing social media Tech Giants; from corrupt politicians and Government bureaucrats; and from a compliant Press. The Rothschild Globalist "Elite," has nurtured dissident elements within in our Nation. years ago, these stooges  of the Rothschild clan and its minions were sold on the idea that the United States must eventually be subsumed into transnational unified World Government, transforming the entirety of the Western Civilization into a neo-Feudalistic construct overseen by a secretive, insular Global Aristocracy.This is the unfortunate but true, insidious nature of the real threat to our survival as a free Republic and a free people: that we might lose all we hold most dear and sacred from forces weakening us from within, fed with the necessary funds and organizational might and expertise from what the mainstream media refers to as our “allies”--those reprehensible, loathsome, ruthless forces from outside the U.S. ______________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS UNDER FIRE

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

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

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

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.

Subverting the Second Amendment: The Subtle Road to Injustice

Antigun proponents and zealots are quick to qualify their remarks about guns so as not to openly disparage American citizens who cherish their Bill of Rights – all ten of them. “Yes,” the antigun proponents and zealots chant over and over again: “we need ‘commonsense’ gun laws, and of course we respect the Second Amendment.” The obligatory parenthetical remark, “of course we respect the Second Amendment,” hangs at the end of the phrase, “commonsense gun laws,” like a puppy dog’s tail. The gun grabbers “wag it” in our faces as if to suggest that American citizens who wish to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms should be “sensible about guns” – as if we aren’t and, so, must be made to be. Antigun proponents and zealots always have the Second Amendment in the cross-hairs, ready to wound it, eventually to kill it, even as they proclaim no such intention to do so.The fact of the matter is that the antigun movement seeks to end civilian ownership of firearms. The movement’s entire reason for being is focused on that end. Second Amendment adherents know or should know that more “commonsense gun laws” mean, ultimately, nothing more than “total gun confiscation,” except for those individuals who happen to fall into some “small, select, special, trusted, elite class.” The goal of all antigun proponents and zealots is omnipresent; it never changes even as it remains tacit, unspoken. The American public should be under no illusion about that. The antigun mantra – “commonsense gun laws,” – is ultimately meaningless, senseless, and even nonsensical. It echoes hollowly in the void.The gun grabbers use that meaningless, senseless, nonsensical slogan, “commonsense gun laws,” every chance they get. Just recently, as reported by The Associated Press through The New York Times newspaper, President Barack Obama – a staunch advocate for dispossessing Americans of their firearms – also used that familiar, wearisome, tiresome refrain when he spoke to the BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation). Obama apparently does not understand, or simply chooses not to understand or, perhaps, is utterly incapable of understanding the import of the Second Amendment to Americans, which the founders of the Republic bequeathed to Americans, to us – to cherish, to treasure, to hold most dear. The issue of gun control, President Obama says, has left him “the most stymied” . . . [and, he] “tells the BBC he is ‘frustrated’ that the U.S. does not have ‘commonsense gun safety laws,’ even in the face of repeated mass killings.”The BBC is, as most people know, a major British news outlet. Great Britain does not have anything comparable to our Second Amendment. Indeed, Great Britain doesn’t even have one specific document that might be considered a written Constitution, let alone anything remotely like America’s “Bill of Rights.” In a land whose social structure is grounded on class distinctions, well-honed and solidified after hundreds of years of existence, the British royalty and nobility would not trust, and never have trusted the British commonalty, with possession of firearms. Apparently, the British commonalty doesn’t see anything wrong with that. True Americans, however, do. So, Obama preaches to the choir over there. And that choir would like to sing Obama’s praises over here. “What is the problem with Americans, the British ask?” “Why must Americans own and possess firearms at all?” And, if they must possess firearms, what do they have against “commonsense gun safety laws.” The British might reflect on American history before suggesting answers to those questions. And, President Obama, for his part, would have done better to reflect on the import of and impact of his ‘commonsense gun safety laws’ message on Americans before he conveyed that message, strangely as he did, to the British.Without firearms, America would still be under British rule, subservient to and paying homage, today, to the Queen of England; pledging allegiance to the United Kingdom of Great Britain, under the Union Jack, rather than to an independent Democratic Republic under the Stars and Stripes – having nothing to do with the United Kingdom.Clearly, Americans do not need another set of so-called “commonsense” gun laws. And the inclusion, now, of the word, ‘safety,’ into the phrase, doesn’t alter that fact. Thousands of federal and State gun “safety” laws already exist. Why have another slew of them? What does it even mean to think we need more? Indeed, what must it mean to even suggest the need for more restrictive, oppressive, so-called “commonsense” gun “safety” laws but that the Obama Administration and like-minded individuals both inside and outside Government – and like-minded individuals and groups both inside and outside this Country – seek to divest average, law-abiding Americans of their natural right to own and possess firearms as guaranteed to them under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?Lest there be any mistake about the intention of the antigun groups in this Country and those abroad, an article in a recent Sunday Review Section of The New York Times, makes plain the agenda of these groups. Mike McIntire, a reporter for The New York Times, asks, “What Makes a Shooter Do It?” That question – the title of McIntire’s op-ed – is rhetorical. McIntire answers his own question, when, toward the end of his article, he says: “What makes someone seek solace in a spasm of bloodshed is perhaps unknowable.” Because no one knows for certain – because no one can ever really know for certain – who might resort to violence, McIntire is making a not so subtle suggestion that the better approach is to get rid of the guns now, from as many Americans as possible – namely, and particularly, from law-abiding Americans – so that any temptation to commit violence with guns in the future – the mere possibility that a law-abiding American might, even if improbably, commit violence with guns in the future – is substantially lessened, if not altogether removed.What McIntire and those like him are opting for, then, is a “Minority Report” type of society in America.In the film, “Minority Report,” starring Tom Cruise, a police force called “PreCrime” arrests citizens before they commit their crimes of murder. “PreCrime” uses three “Precogs,” quasi-human beings whose dreams predict murders to come, along with the individuals who ostensibly commit them. “PreCrime” then locates, arrests, charges, and sentences those people for crimes of murder they never committed – and, at the time of their arrest, had no inkling they would ever form an intention to commit them – but, apparently, according to the “Precogs,” would have committed murder if they weren’t prevented from doing so in the first place. The people, so apprehended by PreCrime police, are duly and brutally punished, and in a novel and most bizarre fashion, even though they never actually committed crimes of murder.Notwithstanding the problematical philosophical and legal issues of arresting, charging, convicting, and sentencing an individual for a crime before a person develops the very intention to commit the crime, the true import of the film has less to do with drawing attention to the legal and philosophical implications and ramifications of damning a person for commission of a crime before the fact, which is simply a plot device, and more to do with the oppressive control exerted by the Security State over the individual, presumably for the sake of preemption and prevention of violence.Yet, as bad as a “Minority Report” society is, what McIntire and other antigun zealots envision for Americans is just as bad if not worse than a “Minority Report.” Consider: A call for an eventual, total civilian gun ban, which, for gun proponents and zealots is on the horizon, is based on the notion that a person does not ever have to commit an actual crime with a gun to be, in a sense, guilty of having committed a crime with a gun. That is to say, the mere possibility that a sane, rational, responsible, honest, law-abiding American citizen may – at some indefinable point in the future – commit a crime with a gun becomes the justification – the Cause Cèlébre of the antigun proponent and zealot – for denying a person access to a gun in the present. Antigun proponents and zealots seek to remove the logical possibility of a crime ever being committed with a gun. They seek to accomplish that feat by banning, outright, the mechanism for that violence from the vast majority of honest, sane, rational, law-abiding American citizens – millions of average American citizens – who have never acted out a violent crime with a gun and who never would do so.The rationale implicit in the antigun proponents’ and zealots’ call for ever more restrictive gun laws is that every American – including and notably, the average, sane, rational, responsible, honest, trustworthy, law-abiding American citizen – is essentially, mystifyingly, bafflingly, ultimately, a cipher. Since no one can know for certain “who will go off the deep-end” at some indefinable point in the future – so their argument goes – it behooves the Government to suspect everyone of eventually resorting to violence. That, apparently, is the “safer” practice: the Government protecting people from people, themselves, and the Government protecting itself from the people.So, if one can harbor the intention to commit a crime, then one can feasibly act on that intention: preemption and prevention of even the possibility – however remote the possibility – of gun violence demand seizure of all weapons from virtually everyone. This is what the antigun proponents and zealots would decree; what they would ordain. And, this is the misguided philosophy of ethical consequential utilitarianism. The American citizenry would see ever more restrictions and controls placed on its movements, upon its actions. Surveillance becomes ubiquitous. The Government begins the process of dispossessing the American commonalty of its guns. The Government, through the mainstream media, controls the citizen’s thought processes. The mainstream media broadcasts, the same messages over and over again, in a hypnotic tone: “Guns are bad for you!” “You will hurt yourself with a gun!” If you see a gun report that immediately to the police!” If you see a family member or neighbor acting oddly, report that person’s actions immediately to the police!” “Stay tuned as we happily provide you with more commonsense safety laws.” This is a portrait of the “Minority Report” society that the antigun proponents and zealots seek to bring to fruition. This is the kind of society that the antigun proponents and zealots are working day and night on to manifest into Reality. If they succeed, the Bill of Rights, itself, becomes meaningless. It begins to crumble. One Amendment after another is formally repealed. The first Amendment to go is actually the Second, followed by the First. Everything the antigun movement seeks to accomplish in America is illustrative of totalitarianism. What they seek to do is the hallmark of the Security State, and it all boils down to suspicion of and paranoid preoccupation with an entire class of citizenry, virtually the entire citizen population, the commonalty of America. The apparent single-minded quest to quell gun violence hides, then, an insidious agenda: the alteration of our society – converting a free, Democratic Republic into a component of a unified international Socialist World Order. And, it all begins through subtle steps to dispossess the average, rational, sane, responsible, honest, trustworthy, law-abiding American citizen of that citizen’s firearms.But such massive undertaking cannot get traction – nor should it ever get traction in a Democratic Republic such as the United States. And it won’t gain traction, so long as this Country remains a Democratic Republic – a Democratic Republic in fact, not merely in name.At present millions of American citizens own firearms. They are sane, rational, responsible, honest, trustworthy, law-abiding members of society. The number of people who actually resort to violence with guns – who are not, otherwise, from the get-go, either hardened, career criminals on the one hand, or psychopathic or psychotic killers, on the other – is virtually negligible. Yet, the antigun zealots, and the antigun Globalists, and the International Socialist elites – who see no saving grace for Americans’ Second Amendment in a future Socialist World Government – seek to impose ever more restrictive gun laws on millions of sane, rational, responsible, honest, trustworthy law-abiding American citizens. And, if the antigun proponents and zealots, and like-minded groups and individuals such as antigun Globalists and International Socialist elites succeed, the Bill of Rights would be at its end.The Second Amendment is particularly problematic and vexing to antigun proponents and zealots, to antigun Globalists, and to International Socialist elites – to such people and groups both inside this Country and outside it. As they see it, the average, sane, rational, responsible, honest, trustworthy, law-abiding American citizen must be controlled – just as much as the career criminal or the raving lunatic must be controlled if, for no reason, than that there exists millions of them. And, who knows when any one or more of those millions “will turn.”And, so, it is seen as necessary to remove the gun from that average, sane, rational, responsible, honest, trustworthy, law-abiding American citizen American citizen before the fact so that the mere possibility of “acting out” a delusional violent fantasy with a gun – however remote that might be – will be impossible. And, as nothing remotely like America’s Second Amendment exists anywhere in the World today – nothing remotely like it exists that cedes such power to the average, sane, rational, responsible, honest, trustworthy, law-abiding American citizen – that power must be constrained. The Second Amendment must be dismantled. Further, all memory of the Second Amendment must eventually be erased. That Amendment must be consigned to the dustbin of history. And the history behind it must be rewritten.Make no mistake. The dream of the antigun zealots in this Country and their many counterparts elsewhere in this Country and in the world at large would be a nightmare for Americans. If there is anything the law-abiding American citizen ought, rationally, to fear more than hardened criminals getting their hands on guns and harming someone or, if there is anything the law-abiding American citizen ought to fear more than a few paranoid lunatics getting their hands on guns and harming anyone, it is the presence of a powerful, paranoid Government operating without Constitutional restraint, clamping down on an individual’s every thought, action, and deed, imposing its will on everyone.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) and Vincent L. Pacifico (Orca) All Rights Reserved.