A CONGRESSIONAL ACT CALLING THE AR-15 RIFLE THE NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES IS A SENSELESS GESTURE, HAVING NOTHING TO COMMEND IT AND MUCH TO FAULT IT, ON MANY LEVELS

DISCUSSION OF H.R. 1095

PART THREE

In our initial article on H.R. 1095, Part One, posted on the AQ website, on February 26, 2023, and reposted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News on February 28, 2023, we pointed generally to problems with H.R. 1095, a bill declaring the “AR-15 Rifle the National Gun of the United States.” In Part Two, posted on the AQ website, on March 2, 2023, we looked at flaws with this bill from a basic pragmatic/practical perspective.In this article and in the final article, we deal in depth with flaws in the bill, from three other perspectives: logical, legal, and Congressional procedural/mechanical.In this article, Part Three, we look at the principal problem with the bill from a logical standpoint.By “logical” we mean both “reasonable/rational” in a layman's sense, as well as “logical” in the academic, philosophical sense. From the reasonable/rational, commonsensical standpoint, does the bill have any positive feature or features to commend it? And, if so, do those positive features outweigh the negative aspects? And, what are those negative aspects? What works against it? Many things.Some comments by Ammoland readers of our first article on H.R. 1095 suggest there is nothing wrong with a bill declaring the AR-15 to be the National Gun of the United States and, that, if nothing else, the bill serves as “pushback” against those elements in our Country that rail against guns and bemoan the ubiquity of the AR-15 and bemoan the popularity of semiautomatic weapons generally among Americans.  Undoubtedly, the sponsor and co-sponsors of H.R. 1095, fed up with this endless assault on guns, and sanctimony, sought, through this bill, to goad these antigun fanatics.Anti-Second Amendment propagandists, providing fodder for members of the Press and leftist media sites and leftist Cable and Broadcast news anchors and commentators, incessantly and uniformly refer to the AR-15 as “a weapon of war,” an “assault weapon,” a “military-style rifle,” “a weapon having no use in a civilized society”—and so on and so forth. Constantly parroting each other, the public gets a daily dose of the same simplistic, noxious message, droning on endlessly, hypnotically. Public policy propagandists and psychologists create and then drill these viral memes deep into the psyche of Americans. These engineers of mind control hope to inculcate into the psyche of most Americans a pathological fear of firearms, a rabid abhorrence of them, and contempt toward those Americans who exercise their natural law right to keep and bear them. It is in this climate that Americans who are inured to the seduction that has worked its charm on so many, wish to fight back. But, is H.R. 1095 an effective mechanism upon which to resist? Is it not akin to lobbing ping-pong balls back at those who throw grenades?  Another Ammoland reader asserts in his comment to our article of February 28, “The sponsor of the AR bill [Representative Moore] was simply making the statement that the AR is here to stay! Because there’s plenty of people that seem to think it’s temporary.”Those are two points raised by some readers as criticism of our article. But, there is a third, not mentioned, although it might have been raised as a rebuke to our criticism of H.R. 1095.We had hazarded a guess that Moore didn't just happen to come up with the idea for H.R. 1095 out of the blue but probably got the idea from articles appearing in the January and February issues of America’s 1^st Freedom, an NRA publication we refer to in an earlier article on H.R, 1095, posted on AQ on February 26, 2023. Id., supra. If so, isn't this a good thing—an argument favoring the enactment of H.R. 1095? No, it isn't.The authors of the articles mentioning the popularity and utility of the AR-15 among Americans in their NRA essays didn’t assert, or suggest the need for a Congressional Statute, declaring the “AR-15” the National Gun of the United States.One is therefore left to ponder whether the authors would favor such a Congressional Declaration if they were asked. The bill does nothing tangible to strengthen the Second Amendment. It simply enrages those on “the Left” who detest firearms and who visit contempt on those who cherish the natural law right to armed self-defense, codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights.And if the bill enrages those who hate guns, inviting retribution, then that is hardly a constructive reason to introduce a bill.Further, if the bill is merely innocuous, not inviting attention good or bad, then why waste time, money, and effort on it?This bill isn’t a good idea, and it isn’t simply innocuous. It is deleterious to the import and purport of the natural law right to armed self-defense.It was a bad idea in the inception. It was worse yet when Representative Barry Moore introduced it in the House.The bill spurred the Press and Anti-Second Amendment politicians, such as New York Governor Kathy Hochul, to use it as a cudgel against the Second Amendment, proclaiming the bill to be an “insult to those people killed and wounded in mass shootings and their families.” See the article in Newsday.See also the article by Steve Benen, MSNBC Columnist, and producer of the Rachel Maddow Show. One need only look to bills that Anti-Second Amendment Congressional Democrats fashion to see what a properly tailored bill includes.The recent House bill, H.R. 698, “Assault Weapons Ban of 2023,” introduced by David Cicilline, Democrat, Rhode Island, on February 1, 2023, provides an example.This bill has one, a stated purpose and rationale; two, a definition, explaining precisely what the sponsors and co-sponsors of H.R. 698, intend to ban; and three, a description of where it is to be placed in the United States Code if the bill were enacted into law.Then there is H.R. 1095. It is vacuous. If the sponsor and co-sponsors of H.R. 1095 intended to enact a law to counter the Democrats’ push to ban “Assault Weapons,” (Semiautomatic Weapons”), H.R. 1095 doesn’t do that.It has no text, and Barry Moore, the sponsor of it, evidently never intended for the bill to include text. It is a naked, empty declaration. What clarification could he give? What content could there be that might otherwise give weight to a bill that serves merely as a declaration of something that Americans already know: that the AR-15 rifle, particularly, and semiautomatic weapons generally, are in “common use.”On cursory musing, a person knows that semiautomatic weapons are a national emblem of a sort. No Congressional declaration of that is required to make emphatic something that is common knowledge.Had Representative Moore introduced a bill that sanctions, approves, entitles, and “legalizes” civilian citizen use of semiautomatic weapons, including the AR-15, or, had Moore introduced a bill that excludes all semiautomatic firearms from State and Federal regulation, such a bill would have a substantive, positive effect.Such a bill would be a marked improvement over a banal declaration that does nothing to secure Americans’ right to use such weaponry but merely taunts Anti-Second Amendment proponents and fanatics. If that were the intention of the sponsor and co-sponsors, they succeeded in the endeavor.But the H.R. 1095 makes light of the legislative process. The bill is bratty and puerile if all that its sponsor and co-sponsors expected it to do, and if all that its sponsor and co-sponsors intended for this bill to do, was to provoke, goad, and tease supercilious legislators on the other side of the aisle, along with a dementia-riddled President and his arrogant Cabinet, members of the legacy Press and of leftist cable and broadcast news shows. And that is the only thing, as written, that this bill is capable of doing. And the sponsor and co-sponsors of it appear remiss in not giving this bill more thought before putting pen to paper and affixing their names thereto. Better it would be had they done nothing.Neither H.R. 1095 nor Democrats’ H.R. 698, though, has any chance of passage, anyway. But that is beside the point. H.R. 1095 is senseless, whether enacted or not, but H.R. 698 is dangerous to the sanctity of the natural law right to armed self-defense if enacted.But suppose both did pass the House. Is that theoretically possible? It is. That points to a logical flaw in the bill from an academic standpoint.Logically, BOTH bills can exist side-by-side. They can both be given effect: one as a declaration the AR-15 Rifle is the National Rifle of the United States—a blanket and bold assertion with no impact—and the other positing a ban on civilian citizen ownership and possession of that rifle, a bill that, if enacted, would have a decisive and negative impact on the sanctity and inviolability of the Bill of Rights.The enactment of a wholesale Congressional ban on AR-15 rifles is consistent with the enactment of a law declaring the AR-15 to be the National Gun of the United States.So, calling the AR-15 Rifle the National Gun of the United States does not mean the “gun is here to stay” contrary to the assertion of one Ammoland reader.One can yell it till the cows come home, and all the while there could still be enacted a bill, or ATF ruling, or, perhaps, an executive decree that no civilian citizen can lawfully own or possess an AR-15 Rifle. So, a mere declaration that the AR-15 is the National Gun of the United States does not mean that the AR-15 is here to stay. That is false even if H.R. 1095 was passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the U.S. President. And, that illustrates the vacuousness of asserting or acknowledging the AR-15 is the National Gun of the United States. It comes to naught.A declaration to that effect, enacted into law, is a meager reward to those who cherish the fundamental, unalienable right codified in the Second Amendment. And it is no reward at all, if, at the end of the day, Americans cannot lawfully own and possess that rifle.

• The AR-15 is the National Gun of the United States. [Republican sponsored Statute]; and
• The AR-15 is banned. No civilian citizen can lawfully own and possess the AR-15. [Democrat-sponsored Statute]

So, then, the AR-15 remains the National Gun of the United States and IT IS still outlawed. Wonderful. What, then, is one to make of the claim that the AR-15 Rifle is our “National Gun?”  Side by side, with the two bills enacted into law, the silliness of H.R. 1095 becomes painfully obvious. Anti-Second Amendment Democrats would get a good chuckle over that. In fact, that might be reason enough for Democrats to urge Biden to sign the thing into law just to illustrate the idiocy of a declaration that becomes a National joke if, at the end of the day, no civilian citizen can legally own and possess this “National Gun of the United States.”  Now, suppose Congressional Republicans had drafted H.R. 1095 as the obverse of H.R. 698. That means only one or the other bill would pass and could be given effect. The one is incompatible with the other, as a matter of ice-cold logic.A Congressional Statute that proscribes, i.e., makes illegal ownership and possession of the AR-15 Rifle contradicts a Congressional Statute that prescribes, i.e., legalizes the ownership and possession of the AR-15 Rifle.Of course, at the moment, fortunately for a free Constitutional Republic, no federal ban on ownership and possession of the AR-15 Rifle, or of any other semiautomatic firearm exists.And this is so even as several States do ban ownership and possession of AR-15 Rifles and/or many other kinds of semiautomatic handguns, rifles, or shotguns, or otherwise, stringently regulate civilian citizen possession of such weapons.But, if Republicans did control both Houses of Congress and the U.S. Presidency, then Americans could see a law passed by Congress and signed into law by a Republican President, sanctioning civilian citizen ownership of all semiautomatic firearms.Such a law would prevent States from banning ownership/possession of such weapons.Congress would have to repeal such a statute as a condition precedent to a ban on ownership/possession of such weapons.The point of our remarks here is that Congressional Republicans should carefully think through their actions before spending time, effort, and tax-payer dollars on fruitless enterprises and escapades that do nothing to preserve our free Constitutional Republic and that fail to strengthen our Nation’s Bill of Rights. That didn't happen with this bill.What remains of H.R. 1095 is something that seems, at first glance, to offer gun owners some comfort, but, on balance, doesn’t have a pretense of that either.H.R.1095 does nothing from a practical/pragmatic standpoint or from a logical/reasonableness standpoint to commend it.In our concluding article, we look at the procedural/mechanical problems of H.R.1095, and, most importantly, its legal flaws.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

THE “AR-15 NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES” BILL IS A BAD IDEA FROM THE GET-GO

DISCUSSION OF H.R. 1095

PART TWO

FOR PRAGMATIC REASONS ALONE, THERE IS REASON TO VIEW H.R. 1095 AS AN AWFUL BILL

We always read with interest comments of readers that spend time reviewing, thinking about, and responding to our articles. And we take readers’ comments to heart. This is in reference to our article posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News on February 28, 2023.We surmised that some readers might disagree with our position on H.R. 1095, a bill introduced on February 17, 2023, by Representative Barry Moore, Republican, Alabama, and co-sponsored, originally, by three other Republicans, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and George Santos of New York. See the article in Forbes.Marjorie Taylor Greene subsequently added her name to the bill as the fourth co-sponsor.Had we thought H.R. 1095 simply unproductive but benign, we wouldn’t have written about it. But we feel the bill isn’t merely unproductive and benign. It does harm, and on both pragmatic grounds and legal and logical ones.In this article, we look at the harm this bill does to the cause of preservation of the Second Amendment, on pragmatic grounds.First, in the mere assertion of the AR-15 as the National Gun of the United States the bill undercuts, if unintentionally, our natural law, God-Given right to armed self-defense.The bill is harmful to the preservation of our Second Amendment because it merely offers the public a slogan, nothing more. The slogan gains unwarranted gravitas as a bill.It would do better service as a bumper sticker. H.R. 1095 trivializes the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms.Second, the bill alludes to something we believe untrue and harmful to the sanctity of the right: namely the false notion of America as a “Gun Culture.”One source attributes the creation of the phrase ‘Gun Culture’ to the American historian Richard Hofstadter, who wrote an article for the periodical “American Heritage,” titled, “American As a Gun Culture.” That was back in October 1970. See also articles in Boston Review, genius.com, and compass.The phrase, ‘Gun Culture,’ has since dominated Anti-Second Amendment literature and Anti-Second Amendment activism, along with expressions such as, ‘Gun Violence,’ ‘Gun Control,’ and ‘Gun Safety.’ Messaging is a major component of social conditioning.Third, a bill that would talk about this or that “gun” as the “National Gun” of the United States gives Anti-Second Amendment proponents and fanatics another reason to demonize and ridicule Americans who cherish their natural law right to armed self-defense.We do not need to give ammunition to those who abhor firearms and who demonize, ridicule, and heap contempt on those Americans who insist on exercising their God-Given right to keep and bear them.Fourth, the bill directs the public’s attention to firearms generally, and to semiautomatic weapons, particularly.The armed citizenry is as much needed today as the armed colonists were needed back at the dawn of our Nation’s birth. Back then, the first Patriots fought against tyranny to create a free Constitutional Republic, one devoid of noblemen and kings where the common man was deemed sovereign over his Government and sole master of his fate.Today, America’s armed Patriots are needed as a counterweight to those people in service to a new tyranny, one that seeks to destroy our Nation, selling the remains off to interests that aim to create a world empire. Yet, the empire envisioned today is vaster and more treacherous, and more dangerous than that of the British Empire under George III and of the nascent Rothschild Banking Dynasty.Fifth, Americans don’t need a bill to declare this or that firearm to be a National Gun. It isn’t “The Gun” per se that is the source of our Nation’s FREEDOM AND LIBERTY. A firearm is just a tool. It is, rather, the notion of the SANCTITY and INVIOLABILITY of the INDIVIDUAL and of the importance of the COMMON MAN who wields that firearm: the “ARMED CITIZEN.” It is the wielder of a firearm, then, not the firearm itself, that is the foundation OF FREEDOM AND LIBERTY. And it is in the COMMON MAN’S WILL and of his ability, THROUGH FORCE OF ARMS, to resist THE TYRANT who would dare crush his mind, body, and spirit, that our Nation’s GREATNESS derives and thrives.Sixth, A bill to enact a law that simply denotes something as a “NATIONAL SYMBOL” is unnecessary.Such symbols often become the target of aggression when attention is directed at them.Recall flag-burnings. Does this Country need or want to see the mass destruction of “GUNS” if this or that GUN is designated a national symbol?Yet, to raise the AR-15 to the status of “NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES” merely taunts Anti-Second Amendment fanatics, nudging them to do just that: a call for the destruction of all AR-15 Rifles.Do we really want to see H.R. 1095 serving as the catalyst for public displays of the destruction of firearms across the Country?Just undertake some cost/benefit analysis. What is gained from this bill? A trifle? Anything? And what is the cost? Much!Further, national symbols have historical roots. If some Congressional Republicans wish to raise a particular firearm to recognition as a ‘national symbol’ we have better candidates: namely those that hearken back to the American Revolution.There is the “BROWN BESS” smoothbore flintlock musket. It would serve us better. First, it draws attention, but in a good way, to our great history—something the Neo-Marxist Internationalists and the Neoliberal Globalists loathe and wish to erase.The “BROWN BESS” is connected to the American Revolution. If we are going to draw out a debate, then let us compel these ruthless forces to call out the American Revolution as a bad thing, if they dare.Let us talk about our Nation's history and point to the ARMED CITIZEN to whom we owe our FREEDOM and LIBERTY.So, far, those who would destroy us, only tinker around the edges, using ANTIFA and BLM, and many unthinking college students as storm troops to burn buildings, deface art, and destroy statues and monuments.But it would be very difficult for the Federal Government to attack our history and artifacts directly: our HISTORICAL BATTLE FLAGS for example, even as the Government attempts to do just that, obliquely—claiming that those who cherish our history and its emblems are “MAGA” REPUBLICANS, “WHITE SUPREMACISTS” “CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS,”—presumptively, all of us “HINTERLAND HICKS.”If Republicans want to draw the ire of the Anti-Second Amendment fan base in an uproar, we don’t need to give these fanatics another reason to go after firearms by taunting them with this nonsensical bill. And that is all this bill does. It is meant as a colossal tease. But it is, rather, a colossal blunder.Seventh, H.R. 1095 does nothing concrete. The bill’s title says everything a person needs to know about it. And, while there are those who support it, (note very few Republicans have signed on to it), there are many people and interests in this Country that do not.And those who do not are especially irate over civilian citizen ownership and possession of firearms they refer to as “ASSAULT WEAPONS,” like the AR-15 Rifle. And they voice their anger vociferously, vehemently, endlessly, tying the “AR-15” to “mass shootings,” particularly at schools.“The AR-15 was used by the school shooter last year in Uvalde, Texas, to massacre 19 elementary school children and two teachers. It was used during the 2019 shooting in Parkland, Florida, to murder 17 students and educators. Of the roughly 24 guns that the 2017 Las Vegas shooter brought to the deadliest mass shooting in modern history, in which he massacred 60 people and injured hundreds, over a dozen were AR-15s.The effects of AR-15 style guns are brutal. The AR-15 is a weapon built for war, designed and manufactured to shred human flesh. During the Vietnam War, the AR-15 left bodies of Vietnamese fighters looking as though they had been hit with an explosive, much like the bodies of the children killed in Uvalde, some of whom first-hand witnesses said were only identifiable through the clothing left intact on their ripped-apart flesh.The bill [H.R. 1095] is the latest Republican display of the party’s worship of guns and its attempts to normalize the violence the right is often associated with.” See the article on the radical left website, truthout.org. No, contrary to the remark of the author of the above yellow journalism article, those who cherish the right codified in the Second Amendment do not worship guns. Those Americans worship the Divine Creator. But they recognize the utility of “guns” for self-defense and to resist tyranny.But, that is how the H.R. 1095 comes across: AS WORSHIPING GUNS, IN ADORATION TO A “GUN CULTURE.” In a nutshell, that explains why this bill is wrong-headed.Consider the remarks of New York Governor Kathy Hochul:“‘The governor, a Democrat, told Newsday in an interview Thursday that Santos' proposal is an insult to those people killed and wounded in mass shootings and their families.‘That is so abhorrent,’ Hochul said, ‘especially from a representative from New York, especially from a representative from Long Island, which is home to one of the victims of the Parkland shooting.’” See the article in Newsday.Hochul is not entirely wrong. We wouldn't say H.R. 1095, is “abhorrent,” but it is absurd. It was not well thought out.The aforementioned news and media reports prove our point. The bill is a bad idea because it draws volatile and unnecessary attention to the Second Amendment. The bill stirs up a hornet’s nest but does nothing to strengthen the Second Amendment. The only thing it does is give those who detest the Second Amendment, another reason for eliminating the exercise of the right in it.Perhaps that was the sponsor's salient purpose in drafting the bill up, and then introducing it in the House.* Perhaps that was the only purpose for the bill. If so, the sponsor and co-sponsors of it accomplished their aim. They got their wish.But, if it doesn’t strengthen the right of the people to keep and bear arms, then why bother with it if all it does is simply antagonize the opposition, drawing unnecessary attention to a firearm? It surely does nothing positive to secure the right, without which this Republic is well lost.In the next article in this series, we look at the legal and logical flaws associated with H.R. 1095.____________________________________*It is odd that many news reports tie H.R. 1095 to George Santos. He isn't the sponsor of the bill. He is only one of four co-sponsors. Perhaps it is that Santos generates so much antipathy among so many people, that they blindly tie a poorly drafted and poorly considered House bill with a sorry excuse of a person, an inveterate liar.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.  

AMERICANS DON'T NEED A LAW DECLARING THE “AR-15” THE “NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES.”

DISCUSSION OF H.R. 1095

PART ONE

CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS CAN DO BETTER THAN ENACT A LAW DECLARING THE AR-15 RIFLE THE NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES. RATHER THE NATION NEEDS RECOGNITION OF THE RIGHT TO CARRY A HANDGUN, FOR SELF-DEFENSE, THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES.

Readers of Ammoland Shooting Sports News are probably aware of a House of Representatives Bill (H.R. 1095) introduced by Representative Barry Moore (Republican, Alabama) that “seeks to declare that an “AR-15 style rifle chambered in a .223 Remington round or a 5.56x45mm NATO round . . . the National Gun of the United States,” according to a summary of the legislation.” See New York Post article, published February 23, 2023.American Military News, in an article also published on February 23, 2023, adds this:“The bill’s [two] Republican co-sponsors include Georgia Rep. Lauren Boebert and New York Rep. George Santos. AR-15s and similar rifles are the most popular in the U.S., with more than 24.4 million in circulation, according to trade group data reported by The Reload. The rifles are often targets for gun control because they have been increasingly used in mass shootings over the last decade, as reported by USA Today.”‘The anti-Second Amendment group won’t stop until they take away all your firearms,’ Moore said in a statement reported by Al.com. ‘One rule to remember: any government that would take away one right would take away them all.’After bringing forward the bill for the AR-15’s national recognition last week, Moore stopped at a gun shop in Troy, Alabama on Tuesday to make the case for its passage. He said the AR-15 has been ‘a cornerstone of American culture for over 60 years,’ according to video taken at the event.’”Moore introduced the bill on the Floor of the House on February 17, 2023. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Introduction of a bill and referral to the bill are the first two actions in the legislative process, turning a bill into a Congressional statute. See the article in congress.gov, discussing this process.Often a bill languishes in Committee. This occurs when the House Speaker—or, if a bill is introduced in the Senate, the Senate Majority Leader—intends to kill it.Recall the ill-fated bill, H.R. 38, “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017,” “a bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to provide a means by which nonresidents of a State whose residents may carry concealed firearms may also do so in the State.”An amended version of the bill passed the House after two Roll Call votes, on December 6, 2017, and went on to the Senate for action. Paul Ryan was the Speaker of the House, at that time. We were hopeful.Americans had their best shot at the passage of this bill since, at the time, Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and the Executive Branch under U.S. President Donald Trump. But our wishes were soon dashed when we saw the bill languishing in a Senate Committee.In an AQ article posted on November 28, 2018, we wrote,“Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC) introduced the bill [H.R. 38] on January 3, 2017. The bill passed the House by Roll Call Vote of 231-198, on December 6, 2017. It was sent to the Senate one day later, where it was read twice and then referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. President Trump supports it. The NRA supports it. And rank and file law enforcement officers support it too. But there has been to date no further action on it. The bill sits in limbo. Its prospect of passage is, at present, low. Why is that?What is the U.S. Senate waiting for?”In answer to our own question, we learned the reason for the wait. Mitch McConnell wanted the bill to die in Committee. And it did die there. McConnell deliberately killed it. We had a window of opportunity. And that window is gone.With fortitude but little fanfare the author of the 2017  “constitutional carry” bill, Richard Hudson reintroduced the bill on January 4, 2021. Nothing came of it.That, incidentally, was sixteen days before the forces that Crush entire Countries placed the irredeemably corrupt and spineless, dementia-riddled, emotional and physical wreck of a man, the Great Betrayer of our Nation, Joe Biden, in the Oval Office. He has all the hallmarks of a useful puppet. He is someone who would obediently serve them, not us, the American people, accountable only to them, and not us. And, so, the puppet masters pushed him on the public and, having manipulated both the public psyche and the electoral process, making sure that he, Joe Biden, and not Donald Trump, would bear and wear the title, “Chief Executive.” The bill went nowhere.  It was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, on March 1, 2021, And there it died.On February 20, 2023, the “constitutional carry bill” was “re-reintroduced,” and, this time, in the Senate. John Cornyn sponsored it. Press coverage of it is sparse, essentially nonexistent. But, a trade group NSSF did reference and commend it. Yet, the bill is a dead letter in a Senate led by New York Democrat Chuck Schumer. In contradistinction to the “Constitutional Carry” bill of 2023, the “AR-15 National Gun” bill has received a lot of Press attention, most of it negative.There is a curious thing about the mechanics of the legislative process concerning that bill, though. The bill’s text has yet to be published. News accounts report this, but none of them hazard a guess as to why there is no accompanying text. Usually, if not invariably, a text immediately accompanies an announcement of a bill. One would expect a text for a bill. Right? Apparently, there wasn't one for H.R. 1095, though. And why might that be? Why would H.R. 1095 be introduced in Congress, sans text? Probably for the reason that there is nothing to be said about it that isn’t in the title of it.Be that as it may, there is nothing in the title that would suggest the bill accomplishes anything. H.R. 1095 is a vacuous exercise in conception, having no purpose other than to rile Anti-Second Amendment members of Congress, the Press, the Biden Administration, Governor Kathy Hochul of New York, and many others that loathe firearms and Americans' exercise of their right to keep and bear them. The bill has no useful purpose that we can see. It is counterproductive, the conception of it shallow and superficial, and the sponsor and co-sponsors of it, callow, thinking they are accomplishing something worthwhile through the presentment of it. They aren't.As explained on the senate.gov website:“Bills deal with domestic and foreign issues and programs, and they also appropriate money to various government agencies and programs.Public bills pertain to matters that affect the general public or classes of citizens, while private bills affect just certain individuals and organizations.”But what does this bill [H.R 1095] do beyond a vacuous declaration, whether true, in some sense, or not, to ascribe to the notion that the “AR-15 is [or should be designated] the National Gun of America?” Nothing positive that we can see. And in the blanket declaration, what does it accomplish? Nothing to strengthen the Second Amendment guarantee if the bill were somehow to become law, and much to harm it. And it is in the harm caused by the mere introduction of it in Congress, that there exists the principal problem with it.As a cursory note, the idea implicit in the bill—the notion of a declaration of a “NATIONAL GUN,” isn’t even original. The sponsor and co-sponsors of it likely didn't even come up with the idea.The sponsor and the co-sponsors of the bill likely didn’t brainstorm this but got the idea after perusing recent issues of the NRA publication, “America’s 1^st Freedom.” We perused those issues too. The idea is prominently displayed on the covers of both the January 2023 and February 2023 magazines.The cover story of the January 2023 issue is “This is My Rifle,” subtitled, “AR-15 is America’s Rifle,” by Serena Juchnowski. The cover story of the February 2023 issue is emblazoned, “America’s Rifle,” and it is subtitled, “What the Gun-Control Crowd Doesn’t Want You To Know About AR-Type Rifles,” by the Constitutional Law expert, and author of several seminal textbooks on the Second Amendment, Stephen P. Halbrook. The articles and Stephen's books are well worth a read.One thing implicit in both articles is the fact that Americans have an unalienable right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, close friends, and family, and they have a right to keep and bear arms in defense of the security of a free state, from the tyranny of Government.But, there is nothing in either account of the two lead stories in the NRA that suggests the need for a Statute declaring, or that it would be a good idea to declare, the AR-15 rifle, “the National Gun of the United States.”  The reason why is plain.Americans do not need an Act of Congress to tell them the AR-15 rifle or any other kind of firearm should be designated “THE NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES.” Even the construction of the language of the bill is faulty.The use of the phrase “United States” in the bill alludes clearly and unmistakably to the Nation’s “standing army,” not to the civilian citizenry. Of course, the military doesn't use the AR-15 Rifle, anyway. The military versions today are the M4 and M16 assault rifles, which should be available to the sovereign armed citizenry as the final fail-safe against tyranny.And the word ‘Gun’ is a poor choice of terminology as it is a colloquialism and a slang word for ‘Firearm’ or ‘Weapon.’The drafters of the bill would have done better to use language such as, “AR-15 IS THE WEAPON OF CHOICE OF THE AMERICAN CITIZENRY.” This phraseology is preferred as it avoids ambiguity and a negative characterization that the informal verbiage of the actual bill, H.R. 1095 conveys. But this is quibbling. The bill is patently unnecessary at best and, at worse, it weakens the natural law right to armed self-defense that exists intrinsically in man. It isn't the sort of thing that Government bestows on man. Therefore, it isn’t the sort of thing that Government can rescind, or deny to man.The bill was wrong-headed from the get-go, for many reasons. Worse than unnecessary, the mere introduction of it is counterproductive. The passage of it, unlikely though that is, would do nothing to secure our fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense were passage of it to occur.We discuss the many serious failings and shortcomings of this bill in the next article.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.