PROGRESSIVE GAME PLAN: NEUTRALIZE THE SUPREME COURT AND DISARM THE CITIZENRY

The recent scurrilous attack on Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is part and parcel of the Political “Progressives”* attempt to neutralize the independence of the Third Branch of Government, the Judiciary, and its most ardent supporter of an armed citizenry.On April 9, 2021, two years ago to this day of posting this article on the Arbalest Quarrel, Joe Biden issued an executive order, forming the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, “to examine the Court’s role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court’s case selection, rules, and practices.”The key phrase in this executive order is “the Court’s role in the Constitutional system.”The Commission’s purpose may seem benign. It is anything but benign. Almost a hundred and thirty years earlier, Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted the same thing. Both sought to sideline and neutralize the U.S. Supreme Court.Fortunately, for the Nation, the efforts of Roosevelt and Biden came to naught.But the Biden Administration’s Progressive Globalist agenda is more extravagant and elaborate than anything dreamed up by Roosevelt and the fabricators of the “New Deal.”The Progressives’ goal of a neo-feudalistic global empire requires neutralizing the High Court and erasing America’s armed citizenry.The U.S. Supreme Court remains the only Branch of the Federal Government today that recognizes the importance of an armed citizenry to resist tyranny.In three seminal case law decisions—Heller, McDonald, and Bruen—coming down in the last fifteen years, the conservative wing majority, led by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia, made patently clear the right to armed self-defense is an individual right and a natural law right, the core of which Government is forbidden to interfere with.But these decisions are at loggerheads with the Progressives’ desire to neuter the right of the people to keep and bear arms.In a report on “progressivism,’ published on July 18, 2007, the Heritage Foundation has described the nature of and the aims of the political, social, and cultural transformation of the Nation, using the word, ‘Revolution,’ to describe it.Progressives have since made substantial strides in undermining the Constitution and transforming America beyond all recognition.But use of the word, ‘Revolution,’ to describe this transformation is inaccurate. Rather, this extraordinary and extensive push to remake American society, is not properly a Revolution because we had our Revolution—the American Revolution of 1776—when America’s first Patriots defeated the British empire.These Patriots constructed a free Constitutional Republic, unlike anything the world has seen before or since.Having thrown off the yoke of tyranny, the framers of the U.S. Constitution, created a true Republican form of Government.This “Federal” Government is one with limited and carefully delineated powers and authority. And those powers and authority are demarcated among three co-equal Branches.The Government comes to be not by Divine Right nor by Right claimed for itself by itself. Rather, it comes into existence only by grace of the American people, who are and remain sole sovereign.Since the people themselves created the Government, they retain the right to dismantle it when that Government serves its interests to the detriment of the people, devolving into tyranny.The natural law right to armed self-defense, a right that shall not be infringed, is the instrument of last resort through which the American people maintain and retain both the legal and moral right to resist tyranny that Progressives impose on Americans. See AQ article, posted on October 1, 2021.Progressivism is a thing openly hostile to and antithetical to the tenets and precepts of Individualism upon which the U.S. Constitution rests. See, e.g., article AQ article, posted on October 6, 2018.Adherents of this political and social ideology perceive Government as sovereign over the people, turning the Constitution on its head.Progressivism is an evil perpetrated on the American people, coming into being without the consent of the governed. It seeks a Globalist “Counterrevolution” in counterpoise to the morally good and successful “American Revolution.” See AQ article posted on October 26, 2020.It is in this that the arrogant and ludicrous attack on Justice Thomas comes plainly into view.Representative Ocasio-Cortez, a Progressive Democrat, has recently brought up the subject of impeachment against Clarence Thomas pertaining to “luxury trips and outings on yachts and private jets owned by Dallas businessman Harlan Crow, according to an investigation by ProPublica . . . .” See the article published in thehill.com.She adds, in her typical hyperbolic, rhetorical fashion,“‘Barring some dramatic change, this is what the Roberts court will be known for: rank corruption, erosion of democracy, and the stripping of human rights.’” Id.Impeachment of a sitting Justice does fall within the purview of Congressional authority, but it is impractical and almost unheard of in the annals of history.The House of Representatives impeached Associate Justice Samuel Chase, in 1804. He was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in 1805 and served on the High Court until his death in 1811. Another Associate Justice, Abe Fortas, resigned under threat of impeachment, in 1969. See the article posted in history.com.Impeaching Justice Thomas in a Republican-controlled House won’t happen.Progressives try a different tack.“Sixteen lawmakers led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., sent a letter to Roberts on Friday requesting an investigation into ‘allegations of unethical, and potentially unlawful, conduct.’” See the article in Foxnews.com.Asking the Chief Justice to launch an investigation of his brethren is pompous, absurd, lame, and bogus.Roberts will do no such thing. And this will rankle Progressives.The Third Branch of Government remains constantly, aggravatingly, tantalizingly beyond the ability of Progressives to tamper with.Unable at present to sit more mannequins like Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Court, they continue to probe for weaknesses. As a last resort, these Democrat Progressives challenge the Court’s importance, independence, and role.Progressives employ like-minded attorneys to undercut the authority of the High Court.One such attorney is Barry P. McDonald, Law Professor at Pepperdine University. In an essay, posted on The New York Times, on May 26, 2016, McDonald writes,“The Supreme Court today is both political and powerful in ways that would be unrecognizable to the framers of the Constitution. They penned a mere five sentences creating a ‘supreme Court’ and defining its jurisdiction. The judicial branch was something of an afterthought for them, because they believed that in a democracy the elected branches would be responsible for governing the country.Judicial review, in its modern sense, did not exist. As the framers envisioned it, the justices appointed to the Supreme Court would mainly interpret and apply federal law when necessary to resolve disputes involving the rights of individuals. And though the framers’ views on the court’s role in interpreting and enforcing the Constitution are the subject of debate, it seems most likely that when disputes required determining whether a federal law comported with the Constitution, the court’s interpretation was supposed to bind only the parties in the particular case — not the legislative and executive branches generally.Over time, however, and especially from the mid-20th century on, the court’s vision of its role in our democratic system changed, from dispute resolver to supreme arbiter of all matters of constitutional law, so that elected branches of government at federal and state levels were bound to accept its interpretations. The American people largely went along with this accretion of power. But they surely never anticipated that eventually, many politically charged and contestable questions — for example, whether the Constitution guarantees the right to possess guns, to have an abortion, to allow gay couples to marry, or to allow corporations to spend money to help elect our political representatives — would be decided by one unelected justice who straddled political voting blocs on the court.This is democratic folly.”And, in a follow-up article posted in the Times, on October 11, 2018, Barry McDonald, writes,“When the founders established our system of self-government, they didn’t expend much effort on the judicial branch. Of the roughly three and a half long pieces of inscribed parchment that make up the Constitution, the first two pages are devoted to designing Congress. Most of the next full page focuses on the president. The final three-quarters of a page contains various provisions, including just five sentences establishing a ‘supreme court,’ any optional lower courts Congress might create and the types of cases those courts could hear.”McDonald claims the founders relegated the U.S. Supreme Court to a subservient role in our Three-Branch Governmental structure. This is not only an uncommon viewpoint among scholars, and legally odd; it is demonstrably false.In the Federalist Papers Alexander Hamilton made patently clear that, on matters of Constitutional authority, the Legislative Branch must yield to the Judiciary.“No legislative act . . . contrary to the Constitution can be valid.  To deny this would be to affirm that . . . men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.  If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions of the Constitution. . . . . It is more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.”– Excerpt from Federalist Paper No. 78, written by Alexander Hamilton and published in 1788, part of the founding era’s most important documents explaining to the people the nature of the Constitution then under consideration for ratification. See the article in constitutionalcenter.org. The article also cites to one of the Barry McDonald articles for comparison and contrast.Hamilton’s essay in Federalist Paper No. 78 is an outright repudiation of  McDonald’s remarks about the U.S. Supreme Court. See citations, supra.U.S. Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall was certainly aware of Alexander Hamilton’s remarks in the Federalist, when he drafted his opinion in Marbury vs. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803). The case is a mainstay of Constitutional Law, taught to first-year law students and one of the most important cases in American jurisprudence.The case lays out clearly and categorically the vital role played by the U.S. Supreme Court in our Three-Branch Federal Governmental system.In no uncertain terms, John Marshall, made definitely and definitively clear that it is for the Judiciary, not the Legislature, to determine the constitutionality of Congressional Statutes. We cite below a portion of  Justice Marshall’s erudite opinion.“If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution.Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that, in using it, the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?

This is too extravagant to be maintained.”

Progressives pretend the U.S. Constitution is capable of shapeshifting. It isn’t.That doesn’t bother them, though, because they intend to eliminate the Constitution. Referring to it now, as they must, just to destroy it, and creating something novel, more to their liking—a thing subordinated to international law or edict, and subject to change as whim or chance dictates—that's what they they have in mind.In the interim, they force it to cohere to their precepts, agenda, and goals, all of which are antithetical and anathema to the Constitution, as written.In the naked attempt to knead the Constitution as if it were a lump of clay, they show their hand.Trivializing the role of the Court because they can’t easily control it and going after a U.S. Supreme Court Justice they don’t like because he defends a natural law right they don’t agree with, Progressives proclaim to all the world their shameless contempt for Nation, Culture, History, Heritage, Constitution, Ethos, Ethic, and People.They dare disparage us. Yet, it is we, true American Patriots, who rightfully ought to visit derision on them.______________________________________________*The expression ‘Progressive’ as with the expression, ‘Liberal,’ (less so with the expressions, ‘Marxist,’ ‘Neo-Marxist,’ or ‘Classical Marxist’) do not have precise and rigid definitions, due in part, perhaps, to the ubiquity and popularity of the first two terms in the Democratic Party vernacular.Most Democrats, it is here presumed, prefer use of ‘liberal’ as applied to them. And some no doubt prefer the term ‘Progressive,’ as an acknowledged more extreme version of ‘Liberal,’ and they take the label as a note of pride. See article on the website, thisnation.com.But most, if not all, Democrats avoid the appellation ‘Marxist,’ at least publicly, even if that label is most in line with their ideological beliefs, social, political, and economic, and demonstrated in their actions. They might use that expression amongst themselves even if they dare not refer to themselves as ‘Marxist’ in public and would deny the description vehemently if the label is thrust on them by an outsider. For this article, we are staying with the expression, ‘Progressive,’ as it aligns most closely with the theme of the article and apropos of references made in it.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK’S SULLIVAN ACT OFFENDS THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND MUST BE STRUCK DOWN

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART TWENTY-THREE

SUBPART A

NEW YORK HAS ENACTED MANY GUN MEASURES FOR WELL OVER A CENTURY, BUT THERE IS ONLY ONE GUN LAW: THE SULLIVAN ACT OF 1911

For well over a century, ever since the enactment of the notorious Sullivan Act of 1911, the New York Government has successfully weathered all challenges to it.Since then, New York has enacted many laws directed at guns and gun possession, but these laws, properly understood, are not standalone gun laws. They are all revisions or amendments to the archaic Sullivan Act.This means that, while New York has MANY “gun laws” (lower case), the State truly has only ever had ONE “GUN LAW” (upper case).It is important to understand this. As long as the Sullivan Act exists, Americans residing or working in New York who desire to exercise their fundamental natural law right to armed self-defense will face constant obstacles and hurdles, and even Government harassment that negatively impacts their enjoyment of the Second Amendment guarantee.The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case NYSRPA vs. Bruen did nothing to diminish the impact of the Sullivan Act in practice. New York’s GUN LAW is as dictatorial and as oppressive now, as it was prior to Bruen.This became apparent once the New York State Legislature passed, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law, a new package of amendments to the Sullivan Act, titled, “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” of 2022, more often referred to by the acronym “CCIA.”The CCIA pays lip service to the Bruen rulings insofar as, and only to the extent that, the GUN LAW sheds the verbiage “PROPER CAUSE” from the Sullivan Act. That is the only concession made. Other than that, the GUN LAW is no less burdensome than before the passage of the CCIA, and in one major respect, worse.For, even with “PROPER CAUSE” struck from the GUN LAW, the “MAY ISSUE/GOOD CAUSE” requirement remains unscathed.The Government simply subsumed “PROPER CAUSE” into “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER.” The new standard is as subjective as the old one.Present holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses must comply with a new set of requirements to carry a handgun in New York. They are placed in the same boat as new applicants.New York gun owners were not fooled by the CCIA. Challenges to the Constitutionality of the amendments came within days of the Government's passage of it. Those cases are ongoing.The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on this and will stay on this. Readers are invited to peruse our comprehensive blog posts. And Ammoland Shooting Sports News has kindly reposted our articles. See, e.g., articles posted on January 20, 2023, January 9, 2023, January 6, 2023, January 5, 2023, and December 28, 2022—just to name a few.Unconscionable constraints on the exercise of the right to armed self-defense under the Kathy Hochul Government are no more relaxed than under the Government of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, and remain a top priority for her administration. The Sullivan Act of 1911 makes this possible.Suppression of the right of the people to keep and bear arms in New York continues unabated, with the infusion of more and more restrictive, repressive gun measures, inexorably whittling away at the natural law right to armed self-defense.Nothing will stop this juggernaut unless or until either one of two things occurs: The State Legislature repeals the Sullivan Act, or the New York  Federal or State Courts strike the Sullivan Act down.Neither one of these two actions will occur as long as the New York Government and the New York State and Federal Courts retain a mindset abhorrent of firearms and antithetical to civilian citizen ownership and possession of firearms. Neither the New York Government nor the U.S. Supreme Court has any illusion about this.The problem rests with the concept of “LICENSING OF HANDGUNS,” spawned by the Sullivan Act well over a century ago. The Sullivan Act introduced the formal handgun licensing scheme to New York.The New York Government knows that, as long as handgun licensing remains ostensibly “lawful,” the Government can and will continue to make incursions on the Second Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court knows this, too.“The current handgun laws of New York State and New York City trace their origin to the state Sullivan Dangerous Weapons Act of 1911. Proposed by Democratic State Senator and Tammany Hall leader Timothy D. ‘Big Tim’ Sullivan, who represented the slums of lower Manhattan, the Act made it a misdemeanor to possess a handgun without a permit and a felony to carry a concealed weapon in public. Whereas the Act designated judges as the licensing officers in much of the state, it gave the New York City police commissioner sole authority to grant or deny licenses in New York City, an arrangement that persists to this day. At least part of the motivation behind the Sullivan Act was a desire to keep firearms out of the hands of recent immigrants from Italy and Southern Europe—perceived to be prone to violence—by giving the New York Police Department (NYPD) the power to grant or deny permits. The NYPD's Licensing Division still handles all handgun license applications in the city. Today, it remains illegal to possess a handgun anywhere in New York State without a license. Section 265.01(1) of the New York Penal Law makes possession of a handgun an automatic class A misdemeanor, unless a person can qualify for one of the exceptions listed in section 265.20. For ordinary citizens, the only exemption that applies is possession with a license issued under section 400.00. . . . Today, it remains illegal to possess a handgun anywhere in New York State without a license. . . . As has been the case since the passage of the Sullivan Act, obtaining a license under Penal Law section 400.00 is the only lawful way for civilians in New York State to possess a handgun. . . .” “Pursued by a ‘Bear’? New York City's Handgun Laws in the Wake of Heller and McDonald,” 46 Colum. J.L. & Soc. Probs. 145, Winter 2012, by Matthew Bridge, J.D. Candidate 2013, Columbia Law.”New York holders of valid handgun licensees may not be immediately aware of an important fact. The handgun license acquired does not belong to the holder of it. The license is and remains the property of the licensing authority. Moreover, the conditions set by the licensing authority are terse, categorical, and blunt. For example, the holder of a handgun license issued by the New York City Police Department must surrender the license upon demand of the Police Department. That means his firearms must be vouchered as well. The reverse side of the license issued by the NYPD sets forth the following:“This license is revocable at any time. Upon demand of a police officer, a licensee must immediately surrender his/her license and handguns. Lost, stolen, confiscated, or surrendered handguns must be reported to the License Division immediately at 646-610-5560 or 646-610-5154.” [see discussion of NYPD handgun licensing procedures in AQ article, posted on October 19, 2015]The CCIA doesn't address this. But one should assume that such language will be incorporated in such new handgun licenses that a New York license authority happens to issue.When the High Court handed down the Bruen decision on June 23, 2022, the Court knew it was tinkering around the edges of a beast. It should have struck down the Sullivan Act, at that time, but it didn’t.Possibly, Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have done just that. The Court certainly had an opportunity to attack the Sullivan Act head-on when the Court took up for review the New York Second Amendment case, NYSRPA vs. City of New York, 140 S. Ct. 1525 (2020). Little came of that.__________________________________

SUBPART B

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAD TWO OPPORTUNITIES TO CONFRONT NEW YORK’S NOTORIOUS SULLIVAN ACT HEAD-ON BUT IN BOTH INSTANCES THE COURT PUNTED

Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the liberal wing of the Court would have none of that. They allowed the City of New York and past Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, to sidestep the unconstitutionality of the Sullivan Act, by amending both the New York City gun regulations and the New York State Gun Law to ostensibly cohere with the dictates of the Second Amendment.Justice Brett Kavanaugh, adding an odd Concurring Opinion, attempted to split hairs, writing,“I agree with the per curiam opinion’s resolution of the procedural issues before us—namely, that petitioners’ claim for injunctive relief against New York City’s old rule is moot and that petitioners’ new claims should be addressed as appropriate in the first instance by the Court of Appeals and the District Court on remand.I also agree with Justice Alito’s general analysis of Heller and McDonald. Post, at 1540-1541; see Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F. 3d 1244, 399 U.S. App. D.C. 314 (CADC 2011) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting). And I share Justice Alito’s concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald. The Court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.”Justice Alito joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch saw the game the New York Government had played on New York’s gun licensees.The Chief Justice and other Justices permitted this. Perhaps they were pleased with it. But Associate Justices Alito and Thomas and Gorsuch would not stand for it. He set forth in detail his awareness of it, and his justified anger over it:“By incorrectly dismissing this case as moot, the Court permits our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced. Twelve years ago in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783,   171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), we held that the Second Amendment protects the right of ordinary Americans to keep and bear arms. Two years later, our decision in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010), established that this right is fully applicable to the States. Since then, the lower courts have decided numerous cases involving Second Amendment challenges to a variety of federal, state, and local laws. Most have failed. We have been asked to review many of these decisions, but until this case, we denied all such requests.On January 22, 2019, we granted review to consider the constitutionality of a New York City ordinance that burdened the right recognized in Heller. Among other things, the ordinance prohibited law-abiding New Yorkers with a license to keep a handgun in the home (a ‘premises license’) from taking that weapon to a firing range outside the City. Instead, premises licensees wishing to gain or maintain the ability to use their weapons safely were limited to the seven firing ranges in the City, all but one of which were largely restricted to members and their guests.In the District Court and the Court of Appeals, the City vigorously and successfully defended the constitutionality of its ordinance, and the law was upheld based on what we are told is the framework for reviewing Second Amendment claims that has been uniformly adopted by the Courts of Appeals. One might have thought that the City, having convinced the lower courts that its law was consistent with Heller, would have been willing to defend its victory in this Court. But once we granted certiorari, both the City and the State of New York sprang into action to prevent us from deciding this case. Although the City had previously insisted that its ordinance served important public safety purposes, our grant of review apparently led to an epiphany of sorts, and the City quickly changed its ordinance. And for good measure the State enacted a law making the old New York City ordinance illegal.Thereafter, the City and amici supporting its position strove to have this case thrown out without briefing or argument. The City moved for dismissal ‘as soon as is reasonably practicable’ on the ground that it had ‘no legal reason to file a brief.’ Suggestion of Mootness 1. When we refused to jettison the case at that early stage, the City submitted a brief but ‘stress[ed] that [its] true position [was] that it ha[d] no view at all regarding the constitutional questions presented’ and that it was “offer[ing] a defense of the . . . former rul[e] in the spirit of something a Court-appointed amicus curiae might do.” Brief for Respondents 2. A prominent brief supporting the City went further. Five United States Senators, four of whom are members of the bar of this Court, filed a brief insisting that the case be dismissed. If the Court did not do so, they intimated, the public would realize that the Court is ‘motivated mainly by politics, rather than by adherence to the law,’ and the Court would face the possibility of legislative reprisal. Brief for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse et al. as Amici Curiae 2-3, 18 (internal quotation marks omitted).Regrettably, the Court now dismisses the case as moot. If the Court were right on the law, I would of course approve that disposition. Under the Constitution, our authority is limited to deciding actual cases or controversies, and if this were no longer a live controversy—that is, if it were now moot—we would be compelled to dismiss. But if a case is on our docket and we have jurisdiction, we have an obligation to decide it. As Chief Justice Marshall wrote for the Court in Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264, 6 Wheat. 264, 404, 5 L. Ed. 257 (1821), “[w]e have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given.”Thus, in this case, we must apply the well-established standards for determining whether a case is moot, and under those standards, we still have a live case before us. It is certainly true that the new City ordinance and the new State law give petitioners most of what they sought, but that is not the test for mootness. Instead, “a case ‘becomes moot only when it is impossible for a court to grant any effectual relief whatever to the prevailing party.’” Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U. S. 165, 172, 133 S. Ct. 1017, 185 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2013) (emphasis added). “‘As long as the parties have a concrete interest, however small, in the outcome of the litigation, the case is not moot.’” Ibid. (emphasis added).Respondents have failed to meet this ‘heavy burden.’ Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Slater, 528 U. S. 216, 222, 120 S. Ct. 722, 145 L. Ed. 2d 650 (2000) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted). This is so for two reasons. First, the changes in City and State law do not provide petitioners with all the injunctive relief they sought. Second, if we reversed on the merits, the District Court on remand could award damages to remedy the constitutional violation that petitioners suffered.”See also AQ two articles analyzing the “Gun Transport Case” posted on our website on April 27, 2020, and on May 8, 2020. Our April 27, 2020 article was reposted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News, on that same April 27 date. See also the AQ article posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports news on April 26, 2021. In that article, we remarked with satisfaction that the U.S. Supreme Court had agreed to take up a second New York gun case. In that case, captioned, NYSRPA vs. Corlett, 141 S. Ct. 2566 (2021), the High Court granted certiorari:“Petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted limited to the following question: Whether the State's denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.”The public would come to know this case as NYSRPA vs. Bruen, once Kevin P Bruen, the new Superintendent of the New York State Police replaced his predecessor, Keith M. Corlett.The matter discussed in NYSRPA vs. Bruen was of an order of magnitude greater than the earlier case, NYSRPA vs. City of New York, insofar as the Bruen case dealt more directly with the Sullivan Act—the Act that required Americans to obtain a license to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.Yet, as impactful as the Bruen case WAS and IS, the High Court didn’t strike down the core of the Sullivan Act.Chief Justice Roberts, and the liberal wing of the Court evidently realizing the possibility of this, consciously limited the issue on review.The Bruen rulings, handed down on June 23, 2022, although potent and compelling, nonetheless provided the Hochul Government a modicum of wiggle room. That wiggle room allowed the Government to slither around the rulings through the enactment of a plethora of amendments to the Sullivan Act.As implausible and unconvincing a response to the Bruen rulings, as these amendments are, they served a purpose: to waylay the full impact of Bruen. And that is exactly what Hochul and the State Government in Albany did._____________________________________

SUBPART C

NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL KNEW THE BRUEN RULINGS WOULD BE DAMAGING TO THE STATE’S GUN LAW, THE SULLIVAN ACT, BUT SHE WOULD NOT ALLOW BRUEN TO GET IN THE WAY OF HER AGENDA

Challenges to the amendments to the Sullivan Act, i.e., the CCIA, came at once. This wasn’t unexpected.The Hochul Government knew this would occur since the Government’s amendments didn’t alleviate New York gun owners’ justified concerns over the exercise of the right to armed self-defense. The measures Hochul signed into law weren’t meant to do that. Hochul’s attack on the Second Amendment continued unabated and, in fact, intensified.The Government had planned to proceed with its agenda to restrain and constrain the exercise of a Divine Natural Law Right ever since New York enacted its “GUN LAW.”Heller and McDonald didn’t stop New York and other similar jurisdictions from continuing to constrain the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. And Bruen wasn’t going to constrain New York and these other jurisdictions, either.The Hochul Government hoped the Courts would dismiss the challenges to the CCIA.After all, the New York State and Federal Courts had more often than not acquiesced to the Government in the many years and decades since the passage of the Sullivan Act, and the Hochul Government had no reason to expect the Courts wouldn’t do so now.Striking the expression, “PROPER CAUSE” from the GUN LAW served as mere window dressing.The Government knew exactly what it was doing when Albany passed the CCIA and Kathy Hochul signed the CCIA into law, as did the Plaintiffs, who brought suit against the Government, intent on preventing the Hochul Government from defying Bruen.Placing the requirement of “PROPER CAUSE” into another fixture of the Sullivan Act, “GOOD MORAL CHARACTER,” that the High Court didn’t address, apparently seemed to both Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany, a convenient way to avoid the strictures of Bruen.Hochul and Albany simply had to convince the New York Courts to go along with the charade.But the lower U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York—the first Court called upon to deal with the CCIA—didn’t play along. This obviously surprised and puzzled and concerned the Hochul Government. The Federal trial Court imposed a stay on enforcement of the CCIA by granting the Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, during the pendency of the Plaintiffs’ suit on the merits.The Hochul Government immediately appealed the decision of the New York District Court to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the higher Court provided Hochul with some breathing room.The Plaintiff New York concealed handgun carry licensees weren't going to take this lying down. They appealed the adverse Second Circuit Court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.The High Court deemed the case important enough to review a non-final interlocutory order, a rare occurrence.The High Court didn’t lift the stay imposed by the Second Circuit on the Plaintiff New York Concealed Carry Handgun licensees, but the result wasn't a complete win the Hochul Government might have wished for, either. The Hochul Government is able to breathe a sigh of relief, for a time at least. But the High Court made clear it will be watching closely to determine whether either the Second Circuit or the Government is dragging its feet on this. A day of reckoning is coming for the New York Government. And the Sullivan Act’s head is in the guillotine.Having grown visibly tired of seeing Heller, McDonald, and now Bruen waylaid by stubborn State Governments and their Courts, and by their brethren on the High Court as well, Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito will insist on attacking unconstitutional Government laws directly, and strenuously. With a no-nonsense legal mind like Amy Coney Barrett on the High Court, New York gun owners and Americans around the Country may finally see their efforts through the years and decades finally bearing fruit.Hochul and Albany know the Sullivan Act’s days are numbered. A gun licensing regime clearly designed to subvert the fundamental natural law right to armed self-defense is a thing that, long ago, should have been repealed by the State Legislature or struck down by the New York Courts, buried, and never again resurrected.Instead, this thing has not only lingered but has through time grown appreciably stronger. It is an affront to the Nation’s history and heritage, and inconsistent with our Nation's core beliefs, grounded as they are on the sanctity and inviolability of the individual Self over Government. New York's Sullivan Act is inconsistent with the import and purport of the Bill of Rights and contrary to the natural sovereignty of the American citizenry over the Government.The New York Safe Act of 2013, signed into law by Andrew Cuomo, and the Concealed Carry Improvement Act of 2022, signed into law by Cuomo’s successor, Kathy Hochul, are not to be perceived as models of a new era in America, but, rather as relics of an earlier time—a much earlier age—one harkening back to medieval feudalism.The U.S. Supreme Court must strike down the Sullivan Act. That will serve to send a strong message to the States that have similar Anti-Second Amendment regimes, and that will also serve to send a strong message to the Biden Administration, too.These so-called “elites” who machinate for a world empire in their meetings held in Davos and in the Government offices of Brussels and in the clandestine meetings of the Bilderberg Group and in other such secretive enclaves dispersed throughout the world are all throwbacks to and should be perceived as nothing more or other than throwbacks to medieval Europe.These “elites” seek a return to the world of the Middle Ages, a world of empire, consisting of legions of abjectly penurious serfs, the “preterite,” and a minute number of extravagantly wealthy and powerful royalty and nobility, the “elect.”The empire this new royalty and nobility envisions, and which is taking shape, is designed to embrace all of Europe, the British Commonwealth Nations, and the United States as well.Craven toadies like Hochul and Newsome and the brain-addled, corrupt Biden, have made clear that their interests are not our Nation’s interests nor those of our people. And their allegiances are not to our Nation, nor to our Constitution, nor to our people.Their aim is to incite ill will among the American people and to destabilize our cities, counties, states, and the entire Union, so that the whole may weaken and fall. These destructive forces then intend to merge the remains of our Country and its people into a grandiose neo-feudalistic world order that serves the interests and goals of their foreign, alien masters, not their Countrymen.Americans should resist all efforts, seductive or forceful, aimed to compel compliance.We can begin by making clear that we will not relinquish our Bill of Rights.We will not relinquish our duty and our ability to resist tyranny.We will not relinquish our natural law God-Given right to keep and bear arms.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

IF THE SECOND AMENDMENT FALLS, THE NATION FALLS, AND NEW YORK IS DOING ITS PART TO MAKE SURE THAT HAPPENS

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART NINETEEN

SUBPART ONE OF PART NINETEEN

A NATION ON THE PRECIPICE OF RUINATION

As one more year draws rapidly to a close in these first three decades of the 21^st Century, the United States stands precariously at the edge of an abyss.One Branch of the Federal Government, the U.S Supreme Court, at least, recognizes the danger, and has prevented the Country from falling over the precipice.After a century of sidestepping the issue, the U.S. Supreme Court established, in three precedential case law decisions, what had been visibly plain in the language of the Second Amendment itself all along, if one would only look.All three cases were handed down in the first three decades of the 21^st Century. They include:District of Columbia vs. Heller in 2008, McDonald vs. City of Chicago in 2010 and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association vs. Bruen in 2022.These three cases, together, stand for the following propositions, now black letter law:

• The right of armed self-defense is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia
• The right of armed self-defense is a universal right, applicable to both the States and the Federal Government.
• The right of armed self-defense applies wherever a person is, inside the home or outside it.

These three legal axioms are, together, the singular Law of the Land. But for this Law, the Republic would have fallen into ruin, this Century.There would be nothing to rein in a rogue Congress, a rogue Biden Administration, or rogue jurisdictions like those around the Country: New York, Illinois, California, Washington State, Washington D.C., Oregon, Hawaii, and several others.The rot from those State jurisdictions and from the Federal Government would eventually infect many other States.Forces inside the Government and outside it, both here and abroad—wealthy and powerful, malevolent and malignant—machinate constantly to destroy the right to armed self-defense.These forces will not tolerate an armed citizenry.The existence of an armed citizenry contradicts their end goal of a neo-feudalistic world government. The armed citizenry precept deviates from their plan of world conquest.Their goal for the 21st Century is a return to the political, social, and economic feudalistic construct operating in the world of the 5th through 15th Centuries—the Middle Ages.These ruthless elements have declared——

• The United States can no longer continue as a free Constitutional Republic;
• The American people must be subjugated; and
• Any thought of an armed citizenry must be erased from the collective memory of the American people.

The ashes of a once powerful, respected, sovereign, independent United States are to be commingled with the ashes of other western nations.The EU and the British Commonwealth Nations are a step in the direction of that world empire.The neoliberal democratic world order is conceived as——

• One devoid of defined geographical borders,
• One absent national governments; and
• One bereft of any defining history, heritage, culture, ethos, or Judeo-Christian ethic by which the people of one nation may easily distinguish themselves from any other.

Will the U.S. fall victim to totalitarianism as have the nations of the EU and British Commonwealth; as have India and China; and as have most all countries in the Middle East? Let us hope not.The U.S. need not fall victim.The U.S. has something all other nations lack: a true Bill of Rights.Our Bill of Rights consists of a set of natural laws: fundamental, unalienable, unmodifiable, immutable, illimitable, and eternal.Within this Country’s Bill of Rights rests a Cardinal Truth. And, of this Truth——

• The Founders were aware of it.
• The Republic they founded is grounded on it.
• The strength and power of our Country and the staying power of our Constitution is a testament to it.

All Americans should imprint this Truth on their collective memory:“What isn’t created by man cannot lawfully be taken from man by other men, nor by any temporal artifice of man: Government, for the sanctity, inviolability of man’s Selfhood, his Soul, and his Spirit do not belong to the Government; they cannot be bestowed on man by Government; and they cannot be severed from man by Government.Government is a dangerous enterprise.Our Federal Government is no longer reliable. It has gone rogue. It has forgotten the people whose interests it was created to serve. It serves special interests that fill campaign coffers and it serves wealthy, powerful foreign agencies of whom the public has no inkling.

• With this Federal Government, the American people have got “a tiger by the tail.” It is difficult to hold onto, but one daren’t let it go, lest it bite the people. Best to destroy it if we can no longer hold onto it.
• That “Tiger,” our Federal Government, is a creation of the American people and exists only to serve the people—the true and sole sovereign over the Federal Government.
• The presence of an armed citizenry serves as both evidence of its sovereignty over the Government, and the mechanism by which it may lawfully constrain it contain it, or curtail it if the Government loses its way and turns against the people.
• The Right to Armed Self-Defense is Natural Law, a God-given right, bestowed on man by the Divine Creator.
• Government cannot lawfully modify Natural Law, Ignore it, Rescind it, or formally Repeal it.
• Since armed self-defense is a Natural Law Right, the U.S. Supreme Court—in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen—didn’t make new law. The rulings of the three seminal High Court cases simply make explicit what is tacit in the language of the Second Amendment.

Unfortunately, many jurisdictions have failed to recognize, or otherwise have failed to acknowledge and accept, the strictures of the Second Amendment.That necessitated the intervention of the High Court. In one Second Amendment case after another—from Heller to McDonald, and then to Bruen—the Court has ordered States to uphold the strictures of the Second Amendment. Yet, many refuse to do so.Indeed, many jurisdictions reject Heller, McDonald, and Bruen outright. But no jurisdiction does so more emphatically, and contemptuously, and openly, than New York. We turn to a look at the status of recent litigation in New York.__________________________________

SUBPART TWO OF PART NINETEEN

SUB-SUBPART A

NEW YORK’S GUN LAW: STATUS OF THE ANTONYUK CASE GOING FORWARD*

The New York Government, under Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-led Legislature in Albany, have declared outright war on the precepts of Individuality upon which the U.S. Constitution rests.Hochul’s Government crafted a comprehensive set of amendments to New York’s Gun Law, the Sullivan Act.These amendments specifically and negatively affect N.Y. Penal Law § 400.00(2)(f). That’s the concealed handgun carry license section of the State’s Sullivan Act.The amendments are referred to collectively as the “CCIA.” Hochul signed the amendments into law on July 1, 2022. This was scarcely a week after the High Court published the Bruen decision, on June 23, 2022.A flurry of lawsuits followed. Plaintiff gun owners filed the first one, Antonyuk vs. Bruen (Antonyuk I), on July 11.The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York dismissed that case without prejudice on August 23.The Court ruled one of the Plaintiffs, Gun Owners of America and its affiliates, lacked standing to sue.Ivan Antonyuk, the captioned Plaintiff individual of Antonyuk I, refiled his lawsuit against Defendant Kevin Bruen, Superintendent of State Police, on September 20. Five additional Party Plaintiffs, all individuals, joined him in the lawsuit. The Plaintiffs added eight additional Defendants. Governor Kathy Hochul was one of those Defendants. The Defendants were all State, County, or City Government Officials. All of them were sued in their official capacities. The New York Courts refer to this second case as Antonyuk II. The case was formally recaptioned, Antonyuk vs. Hochul. On September 22, the Plaintiffs filed their Emergency Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order, and on September 28, they added a Motion for Preliminary Injunction (“PI”).The Oral Hearing was held on September 29.On October 6, the U.S. District Court issued its order, granting the TRO in part, and denying it in part.One month later, on November 7, the District Court ruled on the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction, granting it in part, and denying it in part.The Court also dismissed out Governor Hochul as a Party Defendant, ruling that, “Plaintiffs have not alleged or shown how Defendant Hochul could be properly found to have the specific legal duty to enforce the CCIA.”In addition, Steven Nigrelli was named the new Superintendent of the State Police, replacing Kevin Bruen, as Party Defendant.With both Hochul and Bruen out of the picture, the case, Antonyuk II, was recaptioned, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli. With the granting of the Preliminary Injunction, the TRO was mooted, and the Parties jointly agreed to dismiss the TRO.On November 8, 2022, the New York Gubernatorial race was held. On that same date, the Government appealed, to the Second Circuit, the District Court’s granting of the PI in Antonyuk II.On November 15, 2022, the Second Circuit issued a terse stay of the PI, pending its ruling on the Government’s Motion requesting relief from the District Court’s granting of the PI.The Second Circuit November 15 Order reads:“Defendants-Appellants, seek a stay pending appeal, and an emergency interim stay, of the Preliminary Injunction issued by the District Court on November 7, 2022.It is hereby ordered that a temporary stay is granted, pending the panel’s consideration of the motion.”The Second Circuit obliged the Government, overturning the U.S. District Court’s grant of the PI stay.This means Hochul’s Government can enforce the CCIA during the Second Circuit’s review of the PI.Time is therefore on the side of the Government.Hochul Government now has what it wants—the ability to enforce the CCIA against New York’s Gun Law during the Second Circuit’s review of the PI.Plaintiffs and all other holders of valid concealed handgun carry licenses as well as those who wish to obtain a New York concealed handgun carry license must now contend with the CCIA.Present holders of a valid New York concealed handgun carry license like the Plaintiffs in Antonyuk II, are particularly negatively affected by this Order.Plaintiffs understandably were not happy about the Second Circuit’s November 15 Order, lifting the stay of the CCIA imposed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.So, four days after the issuance of the Second Circuit’s November 15 Order, the Plaintiffs, on November 19,  filed their response to the Government’s stay of the PI pending the Circuit Court’s review of it.The Plaintiffs took the Government to task, stating,“In their Motion, Appellants generally malign the district court’s preliminary injunction, but fail to note that the CCIA is no ordinary law–breathtaking in both its scope and its blatant unconstitutionality. The district court was correct to enjoin enforcement of many of the CCIA’s patently unconstitutional provisions, and this Court should (i) decline Appellants’ invitation to be the first circuit court to bless a statute specifically enacted to defy Bruen, (ii) vacate its improvidently granted administrative stay, and (iii) deny Appellants’ Motion.”Whether to enforce the operation of the CCIA during litigation or stay its enforcement turns on a four-factor test created by the Second Circuit. The Plaintiffs addressed the four-factor test in their Opposition to the Government’s Motion, stating— “The relevant factors to be considered are ‘[i] the applicant’s strong showing that [they are] likely to succeed on the merits, [ii] irreparable injury to the applicant in the absence of a stay, [iii] substantial injury to the nonmoving party if a stay is issued, and [iv] the public interest.’ A stay ‘is not a matter of right, even if irreparable injury might otherwise result;’ rather ‘it is an exercise of judicial discretion, and [t]he party requesting a stay bears the burden of showing that the circumstances justify an exercise of that discretion.” Finally, where (as here) an applicant is ‘totally lacking’ a strong showing of likelihood of success, ‘the aggregate assessment of the factors bearing on issuance of a stay pending appeal cannot possibly support a stay.’ Appellants fail all four factors. . . . The district court’s order will cause no harm to Appellants, as many of the CCIA’s provisions – which have been in effect barely over two months – are entirely novel in New York law, as well as lacking any historical analogue. . . . The sky did not fall prior to the CCIA’s enactment, and the sky is not falling now. Rather, the PI merely returns the state of the law to what it was just over two months ago.”Responding to the Plaintiffs’ Opposition to the stay of enforcement of the CCIA, the Second Circuit issued an amended Order on December 7, 2022.The new Order reads:“Appellants request a stay pending appeal of the district court's order dated November 7, 2022 (N.D.N.Y. 22-cv-986, doc. 78), enjoining Appellants from enforcing certain aspects of New York's Concealed Carry Improvement Act (‘CCIA’). Having weighed the applicable factors, see In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 503 F.3d 167, 170 (2d Cir. 2007), we conclude that a stay pending appeal is warranted.  Accordingly, upon due consideration, it is hereby Ordered that the motion for a stay pending appeal is Granted and the district court's Nove1nber 7 order is Stayed pending the resolution of this appeal. To the extent that the district court's order bars enforcement of the CCIA's provisions related to persons who have been tasked with the duty to keep the peace at places of worship, airports, and private buses, such categories are excepted from this order. Appellees' motion to expedite the resolution of the matter is Granted.”What this new Order means is this:The Second Circuit allows the Government to enforce the amendments to the State’s Gun Law during its review of the Preliminary Injunction, subject to a minor exception.The Second Circuit said the stay does not affect the “Sensitive Location” prohibitions to airports, places of worship, and private buses.This is hardly a concession to the Plaintiffs.Airports fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, not the State.No civilian may carry a firearm in airports, anyway.And houses of worship and private buses are the only private entities, that the Second Circuit says can devise their own rules for the carrying of firearms.All other CCIA “Sensitive Location” provisions remain operative during the Second Circuit’s review of the PI.But the Second Circuit’s treatment of the “four-factor test,” in the recent Order is both curious and disturbing. Recall the lower District Court had meticulously applied the Four-Factor test as it is required to do when first granting the Plaintiffs’ TRO, and subsequently granting the Plaintiffs’ PI. But why did the Second Circuit reject the findings of the District Court?In lifting the PI stay, the Second Circuit never explained its reasoning for doing so.The Court cites a case that is inapposite. And it is one that neither the Plaintiffs nor Defendants cite in any of their filings. The Court merely says it has weighed the factors and tacitly finds for the Government.This is all contrary to the findings and cogent reasoning of the lower District Court.It suggests the Court will overturn the PI, thus jeopardizing the attack on the constitutionality of the CCIA and further reducing the chance of eventually securing a Permanent Injunction against enforcement of the CCIA.This all suggests what New Yorkers have lost in failing to seat Zeldin in the Governor’s mansion.Had Lee Zeldin prevailed in the Gubernatorial race against Kathy Hochul, Plaintiffs and all other New York gun owners holding valid New York restricted or unrestricted handgun carry licenses would likely be in a different and better place.As Governor, Lee Zeldin could request the dismissal of Antonyuk. All other pending challenges to the CCIA would be mooted. The CCIA would have no effect.This would entail reverting to the originalN.Y. Penal Law § 400.00(2)(F). That would benefit those present holders of New York concealed handgun carry licenses who had complied with the “proper cause” requirement of the older Gun Law.Eventually, Zeldin, as New York Governor, could work with the State Legislature in Albany to rescind the entire licensing structure. Alas, that will never be. Four years of Hochul in Office will mean further restrictions on the Second Amendment, as the CCIA and other New York Gun laws clamp down ever tighter on a citizen’s exercise of his or her Second Amendment right to armed self-defense.________________________________

SUBPART TWO OF PART NINETEEN

SUB-SUBPART B

AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE APPLICATION OF THE FOUR-FACTOR TEST IN ANTONYUK VS. NIGRELLI

A perusal of the Four-Factor test demonstrates why the lower U.S. District Court for the Northern District Court of New York was correct in granting the Plaintiffs’ PI, and why the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was wrong in staying the PI, during the Court’s resolution of it.

• The likelihood that Plaintiffs would prevail on the merits.

The District Court, in its opinions, both in Antonyuk I and Antonyuk II laid out a comprehensive argument supporting a finding that the CCIA is unconstitutional and that Plaintiffs would likely prevail in their suit on the merits against the Government.This first factor, therefore, works to the benefit of the Plaintiffs, supporting the granting of the PI.

• Irreparable injury to the Plaintiffs in absence of a stay of enforcement of the CCIA.

The District Court pointed out that, by carrying their handgun in public, the Plaintiffs would engage in behavior lawful under the original NY Gun Law but, under the “Sensitive Location” clause of the CCIA, now unlawful in many locations in New York.Thus, the CCIA operates perversely to restrict an already restrictive Gun Law the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional on the “proper cause” issue in Bruen. If current holders of a valid NY handgun carry license continue to carry under the CCIA, they will have committed a crime if they carry that handgun in a “Sensitive Location.”If arrested while carrying a handgun in public, in a “Sensitive Location,” they will lose their license to carry because the valid New York concealed handgun license they presently have is invalid if carrying a firearm in a “Sensitive Location.” The CCIA overrides the concealed handgun carry license in those locations.If arrested, the licensee will also be forced to surrender their handgun to the appropriate police authority, along with any other firearms they may have possession of in New York.Further, they will now have a criminal record on file, jeopardizing their acquisition of a license anew in New York. This will also jeopardize their ability to exercise their Second Amendment right in many other jurisdictions they may happen to work in or relocate to, thereafter.To avoid the possibility of arrest, these licensees must voluntarily relinquish carrying a handgun in public for self-defense. But doing so endangers their life, which was the reason these licensees applied for a concealed handgun carry license, in the first place.Remember, licensing officers had determined these license holders do face extraordinary risk, thus warranting issuance of a license under the original “proper cause” standard that the respective New York licensing authorities established, consistent with the original New York Gun Law.Plaintiffs are therefore in a bind. If they carry a handgun in a “Sensitive Location”, they risk arrest, loss of their license, loss of their handgun, and a criminal record to boot. If they do not carry a handgun for self-defense, they endanger their life.That is a  Hobson's choice; the idea that present holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses have here; no acceptable choice, and evidence of irreparable harm to the Plaintiffs.To give Hochul’s blatant refusal to abide by the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court in NYSRPA vs. Bruen a leg to stand on, she attempts to give the public a sense that she cares deeply about the safety concerns of New Yorkers; that her amendments to the State’s Gun Law are designed to effectuate that end. What she delivers to the public is nothing more than an elaborate promo, an infomercial proffered to sell a product. The product she is selling is simply a more tortuous, and torturous version of the Sullivan Act enacted over one hundred years ago. And, like all promos and infomercials, it is meant to make a profit off a person’s gullibility. In the instant case, the Sullivan Act, a noose around the necks of free citizens, squeezed ever tighter. The Sullivan Act endangers the life of New Yorkers under the guise of securing life. It is all charade and theater.This second factor, therefore, works to the Plaintiffs' advantage, supporting the PI.

• Substantial injury to the nonmoving party. 

This is the mirror image of the previous factor. This is where the Government, the “non-moving” party, must demonstrate that the New York public faces irreparable injury if the Government is enjoined from enforcing the CCIA and that the harm to the public outweighs the harm to the Plaintiffs.That is what the Government says. The assertion is patently ridiculous.If the public was under no grave threat before the enactment of the CCIA, with stringent restrictive gun measures already in place, then it follows logically the public cannot be under a graver threat of injury now if the Second Circuit affirms the stay of enforcement of the CCIA,  pending resolution of the PI. But that’s what the Government wants. It wants the Second Circuit to lift the stay of the PI. This means the Government wants the Second Circuit to deny giving effect to the PI during the Second Circuit's resolution of the merits of it, thereby authorizing the Hochul Government to enforce the CCIA.The New York Attorney General Letitia James, arguing the case for the Government, asserted, in the Government's Opposition to the PI, that “Exposing eighteen million New Yorkers to a heightened risk of gunfire severely outweighs any prejudice to plaintiffs here from a stay.”This is ludicrous. It is nothing more than a snapshot of the imbecilic remarks of Hochul delivered to “CBS This Morning” on Friday, June 24, 2022, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in NYSRPA vs. Bruen, setting up what would come shortly after; the awful amendments to New York's Gun Law. The Daily Caller recites Hochul's tirade against the High Court, in its article, titled, “NY Gov. Hochul Says Law-Abiding Gun Owners Make People Feel Very Unsafe”:“Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday morning law abiding gun owners make people feel ‘unsafe’ just one day after the Supreme Court overturned a more than century old gun law.Speaking on CBS This Morning, Hochul said the right to carry outside the home makes individuals feel ‘unsafe’ and seemed to insinuate it should not be allowed.‘Everybody in America recognizes that there is a problem with gun violence and the people who cheer this, what they say, what they see is, ‘Look there is a problem with gun violence and I, as a law-abiding citizen, want to be able to hold a gun on my person so that I feel safer.’ What do you say to that individual?” the host asked Hochul.‘I say that makes everyone else feel very unsafe. We don’t know if you’re provoked, you know, you’re in a bar and someone looks at your girlfriend or your boyfriend the wrong way. There are so many triggers. If someone wants to have a legal gun, licensed protection in their home, that is their domain, they can do that, we’ve always allowed that, or for hunting and other purposes,’ Hochul said.’‘But to think someone would be able to do this on a subway, in a crowded, tense situation during rush hour? No, we have a right to protect our citizens, not take away your right to own, that’s fine, but where you take it and the ability to conceal it, that’s just going to make things so much more complicated for law enforcement and others.’”

CIVILIANS DO NOT CARRY HANDGUNS OPENLY IN NEW YORK. THERE IS NO “OPEN CARRY”

First, it bears mentioning, but, apparently, only to morons like Hochul, that a holder of concealed handgun carry license does not ever carry his or her handgun openly, in New York, for all the world to see. The Gun Law itself recites the lawful carrying of a handgun, “concealed,” i.e., not openly by those issued concealed handgun carry licenses.In fact, no one in New York is permitted to carry a handgun openly apart from uniformed New York police officers, or other uniformed personnel who fall under specific provisions of the State's Gun Law.How, then, can any law-abiding member of the public honestly feel a sense of foreboding that another law-abiding member of the public who happens to possess a concealed handgun carry license is someone to be feared? The only creature that could realistically understandably “feel unsafe” is a psychopathic criminal who would dare to threaten an innocent member of the public. More than a few criminals and lunatics have met their untimely demise by threatening harm to an undercover police officer or off-duty officer, or to a holder of a valid concealed handgun license. In fact, for a career criminal—who isn't otherwise a psychotic maniac who wouldn't care whether a target of his lunacy is armed or not, as his reasoning organ is shot—he would never know for certain who is lawfully carrying a handgun concealed and who is not, if many more members of the New York public were to begin carrying, concealed, a handgun, as is their natural law right. And, he would think twice before targeting, at random, an innocent victim who is merely going about his business. Hence, it is reasonable to infer that the garden variety criminal, who has some sense of self-preservation would be less inclined to take the chance to attack a member of the public who may very well be armed. This fact would result in a precipitous drop in violent crimes of opportunity.

“TRIGGERS” ANYONE?

Second, The notion that a person would go off half-cocked is a “Fever Dream” of the Anti-Second Amendment crowd. They would like to believe this myth. The Government thrusts all sorts of horrors on the public to rationalize ending the fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense. But their wax museum of horrors coming to life is just entertainment, nothing more. It isn't grounded in truth. It's merely a fabrication, it's propagandist; a fictional horror film designed like many such films, i.e., to create a jump scare. Only the gullible and ignorant Americans would fall for it. If New York holders of handgun carry licenses were such a threat to public safety and order, how is it that we never hear Governor Hochul talking about instances of criminal acts of violence committed by these licensees? She can’t talk about this because there is no instance of this that she can drum up.  All such talk of an armed New York citizenry posing a threat to the Government's notion of public safety and public order in their well-ordered society is sheer unadulterated speculation, bordering on delirium.

“IF SOMEONE WANTS TO HAVE A LEGAL GUN, LICENSED PROTECTION IN THEIR HOME, THAT IS THEIR DOMAIN, THEY CAN DO THAT, WE'VE ALWAYS ALLOWED THAT.” ISN'T HOCHUL NICE?

Third, Hochul says, the Government has always allowed someone “a legal gun in their home.” But wait a minute? Is keeping and bearing arms a Government bestowed privilege or a God-Given Right? And didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court rule that the right to armed self-defense extends beyond the domain of one’s house, consistent with the meaning of the fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense? Does New York law take precedence over the Second Amendment and the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court? Hochul demonstrates incredible arrogance. How did she get elected to Office anyway?If New York holders of handgun carry licenses were such a threat to public safety and order, how is it that we never hear Governor Hochul talking about instances of criminal acts of violence committed by these licensees? She can’t talk about this because there is no instance of this that she can drum up.  All such talk of an armed New York citizenry posing a threat to their notion of public safety and public order in their well-ordered society is sheer unadulterated speculation, bordering on delirium. The “why” of the attack on the armed citizenry is as pressing as the “how”—the strategies devised and employed to undermine the right of the people to keep and bear arms. And it all goes back to Government's lust for “power” and “control” over the common people. And, the fear of the Tyrant is always that the common people will revolt against the Tyrant's Tyranny. The Neoliberal Globalists and their puppets in Government treat people like random bits of energy that require a firm hand lest common people get “out of hand.” The fear of the Tyrant is always the common people. Government exists primarily to control the populace. Our Federal Government, though, was constructed to serve the people. Everything in our Constitution points to that fact. The people are sovereign, not Government. But, like all Governments, our Federal Government has succumbed to tyranny. That tyranny is mirrored and multiplied in the Governments of many States. New York is one of those States. The “sticky wicket” for the Globalists is the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It serves, one, as evidence of the sovereignty of the American people over their Government, Federal, State, or local, and serves, two, as a mechanism to thwart the rise of tyranny. The Second Amendment, unlike the First, or any other Amendment in the Bill of Rights has a tenacity that, when unleashed, a ferocity, that scares the dickens of the proponents of a world empire and world domination. In this second half of the Biden Administration regime, we are seeing more and more emphasis placed on reining in the armed citizenry. And State Governments under Democrat Party leadership, such as that of New York, are fully on board with this. Expect to see more of this, much more, in the weeks and months ahead.

“A HEIGHTENED RISK OF GUNFIRE”?

“Exposing eighteen million New Yorkers to a heightened risk of gunfire severely outweighs any prejudice to plaintiffs here from a stay.” ~ Letitia JamesFourth, apropos of Letitia James' argument, on behalf of Defendant-Appellant New York Government officials, appealing the U.S. District Court's granting of Plaintiff-Appellees' Preliminary Injunction, where is this “heightened risk of gunfire” supposed to come from?The argument presented by Attorney General Letitia James and by Governor Kathy Hochul in support of the CCIA boils down to these two propositions:

• People are afraid of guns and of average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners who keep and bear them.
• Average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners pose an imminent threat to public safety and order.

The reader will note that nothing is said about career criminals, murderous gangbangers, and drug-addled lunatics who may happen to get hold of a firearm. The reason is that the Hochul Government, and other Governments like hers—reflecting the beliefs and aims of the present Federal Government, aren't concerned about the behavior of the dregs of society. Government is concerned only over the rational responsible American who will not suffer tyranny. And it is tyranny that these Governments, local, regional, State, and Federal are selling. Criminals and lunatics serve their end. The breakdown of law and order is what these Governments want so that they can institute their own brand of crime on a national/industrial scale. The aim is the destruction of the mind, the Soul, and the Spirit. The sanctity and inviolability of the individual were once important to our Nation, worth preserving, things to be cherished. And the idea was threaded through our Nation's Constitution, and, especially, through our Nation's Bill of rights. That once was so, but no longer. The Federal Government makes a mockery of our Country now and of our sacred precepts and principles. We see it in the weakening of our economy, and our military. We see it in incredible profligate spending at a time when we must hold onto the monetary reserves and ascertain that our Nation's monies are spent carefully and wisely for purposes that benefit our Nation and its people, and not squandered on foreign escapades or lavishly squandered on special interests that benefit the few, including foreign entities and individuals that hate us. We see the weakening of our Country in the Government's obsequious behavior toward China and Brussels. And, we see it in the debauched, and degenerate, and mentally unbalanced individuals placed in high Government Office. Most Americans are appalled at these spectacles. And Government knows this and worries about it. Government is afraid of Americans who keep and bear arms, who clutch them ever tighter, for many of us there are who see well enough the mindless absurdity of a rogue, and dangerous, and patently deranged Government that threatens to engulf the Nation and its citizenry in horrific destruction. And, so, Government turns on Americans; sets one American against the other so as to short-circuit organization against a Government that no longer serves the Nation's best interests and, in fact, no longer goes through the pretense of doing so.The Biden Administration and the Hochul Government don't talk of their own fear of the armed citizenry. Instead, they project that fear on the populace at large both as a defense mechanism and as a strategy to divert attention away from themselves rather than upon themselves, where attention should be directed. The idea is that eviscerating the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms is done, not as a contemptuous assault on natural law that they have no lawful right to attack, but ostensibly as an act of mercy on behalf of the people who, as they argue, would benefit from a purgation only possible through the confiscation of guns in the hands of tens of millions of Americans. The Tyrant says——People are afraid of guns and of average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners who keep and bear them.Concerning this proposition, propounded by Kathy Hochul, if many Americans should happen to fear guns and fear those who exercise their fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense—indeed, if any American should happen to register such fears—those fears aren't the product of something innate in a person, but, rather, are the result of an elaborate, concerted well-coordinated, and executed plan, at once deceitful and horrendous, to instill in the American citizen a phobic reaction to firearms and a phobic reaction to those Americans who choose to keep and bear them. The question of why such psychologically damaging programs would be initiated by and ceaselessly and vigorously propagated by the Government against the entire civilian population has nothing to do with a desire on the part of the Government to secure the life, health, safety, and well-being of Americans. Rather, it has everything to do with the carrying out of a secret plot focused on the demise of a free Constitutional Republic, the only one like it in existence; the dissolution of our Constitution; and the subjugation of our people to the dictates of a new order of reality: the rise of a neo-feudalistic global empire. AQ has written extensively on this. In fact, it is a theme that runs through the depth and breadth of our articles. Nothing else, to our knowledge, comes close to explaining well the dogged, and consistent, and insistent effort on the part of so many heterogenous agents and agencies both inside and outside this Country to destroy our Nation's Bill of Rights; to destroy our history, heritage, culture, our Nation's ethos, our Judeo-Christian ethic; and to launch a psychopathological reaction upon the citizenry the manner of which and the extent of which has no precedent in our Nation's history or, for that matter, in all of recorded history.The Hochul Government’s attack on the U.S. Supreme Court Bruen case is really a component part of a much larger mosaic, as evidenced by a concerted effort to undermine the Second Amendment.And so confident is Hochul in her own power, that she does this brazenly and contemptuously, attacking not just the Second Amendment but also the Justices of the Highest Court in the Land, whose sin, in her mind, is that they give a fundamental natural law right the respect it is due. Hochul intends to shred it and she is doing just that.Thus, it isn't that New Yorkers or any American has an innate fear of firearms or those who keep and bear them. It is that the Government in New York and the Governments of several other States, and the Federal Government under the Biden Administration, have induced fear where none before existed, all in support of aims that are antithetical to our most sacred precepts and values and antithetical to the common good.Thus, Americans aren't afraid of firearms or those who possess them, but Hochul and others, beholden to the same ruthless, Globalist, and Marxist interests, create the illusion that this IS something inherent in people. IT ISN'T. It is only something inserted into the unwary mind: a meme, a mental virus, damaging to the psyche no less than a physical viral pathogen is damaging to the body.The Tyrant also says——Average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners pose an imminent threat to public safety and order.Concerning this second proposition, propounded by Kathy Hochul, as manifest in her statements to the Press and in the Government's legal documents—that average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners pose an imminent threat to public safety and order—this is a naked assumption cast as a self-evident truth, presented in lieu of any supporting evidence, for the purpose, one, to buttress amendments to the State's Gun Law that are inherently unconstitutional as the District Court had made poignantly clear through cogent argument, both in Antonyuk I and in Antonyuk II, and, two, to urge the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to stay the lower Court's granting of Plaintiff-Appellees Motion for Preliminary Injunction against the enforcement of Hochul's CCIA.Meanwhile, the law-abiding New York taxpayer daily faces rampant violent crime because of the abject failure of the New York Justice system to deal effectively with criminals and raving lunatics that constantly prey on the public.And the police are contemporaneously prevented from engaging in effective policing activities that protect the community. In addition, the police are leaving New York in droves. Who will replace them?And, even if the Hochul Government provided the public with a modicum of community policing and a justice system that didn’t kowtow to lunatics and criminals, the fact remains that the New York police departments have no obligation to guarantee the life and safety of individual members of the public.The police never had that obligation. And the New York public is under a misconception to think otherwise. Yet, the Government continues to keep the public in the dark about this, never troubling itself to inform the public that self-defense against threats of violence rests on each member of the public, not on the State. See, e.g., the AQ article posted here, on this site, on November 21, 2019. See also AQ article posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News on August 6, 2020.A well-trained, responsible, rational, law-abiding adult need not rely on the police, and cannot legally place that burden on the police. The responsibility for preserving one’s life and well-being rests solely on the individual.This was the salient point of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen. Armed self-defense is ultimately the responsibility and prerogative of the individual.The Hochul Government knows or should know that armed self-defense is the best defense against aggressive armed assault. The failure to acknowledge this or even attempt to proffer evidence to refute this is a fatal weakness in the Government’s argument against Plaintiff-Appellees PI.The Government simply erroneously assumes the well-armed citizen threatens the community.This is a central theme pervasive in the New York Government, and it is a thread woven into the very fabric of New York’s draconian gun measures that go back over one hundred years when the licensing of handguns was first enacted.Yet the Government takes this bald assumption as a self-evident truth. It isn’t. But it serves the narrative, and their end goal is to disarm the public.The Government’s remark begs the very question at issue:Does the rational, responsible, law-abiding citizen who wishes to exercise his natural law right of armed self-defense pose a risk to the public? There is something off in the sheer idea incessantly and vociferously proselytized to the public that the armed citizen poses a threat to public safety.This notion is contrary to fact. It is also contrary to the import of the Second Amendment:It is the natural law right of the American citizen to arm him or herself against assault by predatory man, predatory creature, and predatory Government.Heller, McDonald, and Bruen reiterate this point constantly:The individual has the right to armed self-defense. The corollary to that proposition is this: The armed citizen enhances public safety. This is the antithesis of the Hochul Government’s position that the armed citizen endangers public safety.In their response to the Government’s Motion for a stay of the Preliminary Injunction, pending appeal, the Plaintiffs said this apropos of public safety:“Even if Appellants had demonstrated some actual public safety benefit, it would come at the cost of disarmament of law-abiding gun owners, an unacceptably high cost, as “[t]he right to keep and bear arms . . . is not the only constitutional right that has controversial public safety implications.” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 783 (2010). Such enumerated rights cannot be balanced away by legislators, or judges, because “the Second Amendment is . . . the very product of an interest balancing by the people . . . it [] elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense. . . .” D.C. v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 635 (2008).Nor can Appellants plausibly claim irreparable harm from temporarily halting enforcement of an unconstitutional law: ‘the public consequences in employing the extraordinary remedy of [injunctive relief]’ are not just the vindication of constitutional rights but also the prevention of their egregious curtailment. Indeed, it is always in the public interest to enjoin an unconstitutional law. The government has no ‘interest in the enforcement of an unconstitutional law.’”This third factor, harm to the non-moving party, does not outweigh the harm to the Plaintiffs. Thus, this third factor in support of the PI works to the Plaintiffs’ advantage.

• The Public Interest. The last factor a Court must consider in determining whether to issue a PI is whether the public is best served by its issuance.

The Plaintiff-Appellees assert: “The public interest is best served by ensuring the constitutional rights of persons within the United States are upheld.” We are dealing here after all with a natural law right.That the public is better served by curtailing a right the founders felt imperative to the Security of a free State and to ensure the sanctity and inviolability of one’s Selfhood, goes against the Judeo-Christian ethic upon which our free Constitutional Republic was founded, and without which a sovereign people and a free Constitutional Republic cannot continue to survive.The New York State Government’s philosophy of the relationship of Government to the people is a distortion of all this Country holds dear and holy.This fourth factor also works to the Plaintiff-Appellees' advantage, supporting maintaining the PI during the Second Circuit's resolution of the merits of it.

IN SUMMARY

The New York Government places itself above the sovereign authority of the American people.This notion unfortunately is reflected in several other jurisdictions across the Country, and it is also present in the thinking of the Biden Administration and in the thinking of Democrats in Congress and by more than a few Republicans.Let us hope and pray the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, ultimately, doesn’t betray the U.S. Constitution too.Unfortunately, the recent December 7, 2022, Second Circuit order doesn’t give New York gun owners much reason for hope, much less jubilation—nothing more, really, than a wing and a prayer of success.If such is the case, Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli is destined for resolution by the High Court.Justices Thomas and Alito would see that the case is heard, as the CCIA is a direct affront to the Second Amendment and to the rulings of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen.In the immortal words of that late, great comic, Arte Johnson (a.k.a. the “German Soldier” routine), the Antonyuk case, and a slew of other post-Bruen cases wending their way through the Courts in New York and elsewhere in the Country are becoming “Very Interesting.” _______________________________*For those readers interested, a comprehensive (complete) discussion of the history of the date of filings of Court documents in the second Antonyuk case, (Antonyuk II), as recited by Plaintiff-Appellees (holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses) against Defendant-Appellants (New York Government officials) in Plaintiff-Appellees “Response In Opposition To Defendants-Appellants’ Motion For A Stay Pending Appeal And An Administrative Stay Pending Resolution Of The Motion,” filed on November 19, 2022, appears below:This case involves a challenge to New York’s most recent attempt to infringe the Second Amendment rights of its residents. In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent vindication of the right to keep and bear arms in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), the state hastily enacted a poorly named and ineptly drafted statute called the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (“CCIA”). Rather than following Bruen and respecting the Second Amendment’s mandate, the CCIA defied the Supreme Court, making concealed carry of firearms far more restrictive, and the licensing process far more onerous, than before the Supreme Court’s decision. Plaintiffs-Appellees (“Appellees”) filed suit seeking to enjoin many of the CCIA’s patently unconstitutional provisions, seeking both a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction. Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (“Complaint”), ECF #1 (Sept. 20, 2022); Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (“Motion for TRO”), ECF #6 (Sept. 22, 2022). After providing Defendants-Appellants (“Appellants”) the opportunity to submit briefing and to participate in oral argument, the district court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining certain parts of the CCIA, while allowing others to remain in effect, and granting Appellants’ request for a three-business-day stay to seek review by this Court. Response in Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order, ECF #18 (Sept. 28, 2022); Transcript of Proceedings, ECF #23 (Sept. 29, 2022); Decision and Temporary Restraining Order (“TRO”), ECF #27 (Oct. 6, 2022). Appellants sought from this Court (1) a stay pending appeal of the district court’s decision, along with (2) what they styled an “emergency . . . interim . . . administrative stay” while the Court considered their motion. Docket No. 22-2379, Motion for a Stay, Doc. #16 at 1. On October 11, 2022, Appellees filed a Response explaining, inter alia, that appeal of a TRO is improper, and the district court’s forthcoming decision on Plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction would render the appeal moot. Opposition to Motion, Doc. #22. On October 12, 2022, Judge Lee granted Appellants’ request for “an interim stay of the Temporary Restraining Order pending decision by the motions panel.” Order, Doc. #39. The case continued in district court, with Appellants filing their Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction on October 13, 2022. Response in Opposition, ECF #48. On October 22, 2022, Appellees filed their Reply. Reply to Response, ECF #69. On October 25, 2022, the district court heard oral argument on Appellees’ Motion. Transcript of Proceedings, ECF #72. On November 7, 2022, the district court issued a limited preliminary injunction (“PI”), supported by a 184-page opinion. Decision and Preliminary Injunction, ECF #78 (“Op.”). The district court’s opinion denied Appellants’ request for a three-day stay, and the PI took effect immediately. Their TRO appeal mooted, Appellants, with Appellees’ consent, withdrew that appeal on November 9, 2022. Stipulation of Voluntary Dismissal, Doc. #74 (Docket No. 22-2379). On November 8, 2022, Appellants appealed the district court’s grant of the PI, and on November 12, 2022, filed a similar motion in this Court, seeking a stay pending appeal and an “administrative stay” pending resolution of their Motion. Docket No. 22-2908, Motion to Stay (“Motion”), Doc. #18. Although having requested three days in which to seek a stay from this Court, Appellants waited five days to file this Motion. While the cover sheet (Form T-1080) describes Appellants’ filing as a “motion for emergency interim stay,” their motion is not captioned as an “Emergency Motion,” nor does it use the word “emergency” at all. Nor does it comply with this Court’s rule requiring that it “state the date by which the movant believes the court must act.” See L.R. 27.1(d)(2) and (4). Cf. Appellants’ filing in Docket No. 22-2379, Motion for a Stay, ECF #16, cover sheet (“request that an interim administrative stay be granted by the end of the day on Tuesday (10/11).”). Nor does Appellants’ motion provide any explanation of “the nature of the emergency and the harm that the movant will suffer if the motion is not granted” (L.R. 27.1(d)(3)), alleging only that the district court’s order “risks substantial harm.” Motion at 15. Cf. Docket 22-2379, Motion for a Stay at 2, 3, 20 (alleging “serious risk of irreparable harm,” “substantial risks to public safety,” and “imminent risk to public safety.”). Despite those deficiencies, a three-judge panel of this Court – without response from or notice to Appellees – granted a “temporary stay” on November 15, 2022. Doc. #32. Problematically, that Order provides Appellants broader relief than they sought, granting a “temporary stay … of the preliminary injunction issued by the district court.” Id. In contrast, Appellants’ Motion made clear that they are not seeking to stay every part of the district court’s injunction. See Motion at 13 n.5 (seeking a stay for churches “except as to persons who have been tasked with the duty to keep the peace,” “Appellants do not seek a stay as to airports” and “private buses.”) (emphasis added). This Court’s administrative stay was issued notwithstanding that undersigned counsel inquired on November 14, 2022 as to whether the Court would be treating Appellants’ Motion as an “emergency” motion, and notwithstanding the fact that there was no mention of any emergency in the body of Appellant’s actual Motion. Contrast treatment of this motion with the prior “emergency” request from Appellees (22-2379) where, within hours of filing, the Clerk’s office contacted undersigned counsel on a federal holiday (October 10, 2022) and requested that Appellees file a response by noon that next day (October 11, 2022), so the Court would have Appellees’ response prior to deciding the administrative stay. No such instruction was given to Appellees in this appeal, and undersigned’s voicemail was not returned. Rather than waiting to hear from Appellees, the Court sua sponte stayed injunctive relief even as to matters where no stay was requested. Moreover, in issuing this broad administrative stay, this Court altered the status quo in New York (see Motion at 14), allowing non-appealed provisions of the CCIA back into effect thereby causing the very harm of which Appellants complain. See id. at 2 (alleging “confusion . . . resulting from the frequent changes in the applicable provisions of law. . . .”). Appellees oppose both stays sought by Appellants (including the administrative stay already issued), and ask this Court to deny Appellants’ Motion in its entirety. In their Motion, Appellants generally malign the district court’s preliminary injunction, but fail to note that the CCIA is no ordinary law – breathtaking in both its scope and its blatant unconstitutionality. The district court was correct to enjoin enforcement of many of the CCIA’s patently unconstitutional provisions, and this Court should (i) decline Appellants’ invitation to be the first circuit court to bless a statute specifically enacted to defy Bruen, (ii) vacate its improvidently granted administrative stay, and (iii) deny Appellants’ Motion. ____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHY DO SOME STATE GOVERNMENTS AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BLATANTLY DEFY SECOND AMENDMENT RULINGS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT?

POST-BRUEN—WHAT IT ALL MEANS AND WHAT ITS IMPACT IS BOTH FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND CHERISH THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THOSE WHO DO NOT; THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN THE RIGHT BOTH FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

MULTI SERIES

PART FOURTEEN

WHY DO SOME STATE GOVERNMENTS AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BLATANTLY DEFY SECOND AMENDMENT RULINGS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT?

Scarcely eight years had passed since ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788 when the question of the power and authority of the U.S. Supreme Court came to a head in the famous case of Marbury versus Madison. The High Court made its authority felt in a clear, cogent, categorical, and indisputable language in this seminal 1803 case.The facts surrounding the case are abstruse, generating substantial scholarly debate. But what some legal scholars discern as having little importance to the logical and legal gymnastics the Court at the time had to wrestle with, and upon which legal scholars, historians, and logicians have directed their attention today, has become a cause célèbre today:“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity, expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. . . . This is of the very essence of judicial duty.” Marbury vs. Madison, 5 U.S. 137; 2 L. Ed. 60; Cranch 137 (1803)Article 3, Section Two of the U.S. Constitution establishes the powers of the Court:“The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution. . . .” The Constitution’s Framers sought to make the import of the articles and amendments to it as plain and succinct. And they did a good job of it.Even so, ruthless, powerful individuals in the Federal Government and in the States ever strive to thwart the plain meaning and purport of the U.S. Constitution in pursuit of their own selfish interests, imputing vagaries to language even where the language is plain and unambiguous to serve their own selfish ends to the detriment of both Country and people. And that ruthlessness extends to those who, with vast sums of money at their disposal, influence these “servants of the people,” in pursuit of and to achieve their own nefarious interests and goals.Back then, over two centuries ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Marbury vs. Madison, the Court deftly side-stepped the delicate political and legislative issues of the day that gave rise to the case and carved out the Court’s own territory.The High Court made two points abundantly clear:One, the U.S. Supreme Court does not answer to either the Executive or Legislative Branch. It is not to be perceived as a poor stepchild of either of those two Branches. It is a Co-Equal Branch of the Federal Government.Two, on matters impacting the meaning and purpose of the U.S. Constitution, neither the U.S. President nor Congress can lawfully ignore the Court’s rulings. This means that, where the Court has spoken on challenges to unconstitutional laws, finding particular laws of Congress to be unconstitutional, Congress has no lawful authority to ignore and countermand those rulings, or circumvent those rulings by enacting new laws that purport to do the same thing as the laws that the Court has struck down. Nor can the U.S. President cannot override the Constitutional constraints imposed on his actions.The States, too, are forbidden to ignore Supreme Court rulings, striking down unconstitutional State enactments. Nor are the States permitted to repurpose old laws or create new laws that do the same thing—operate in violate of the U.S. Constitution.  Jump forward in time to the present day.The Federal Government and all too many State and municipal Governments routinely defy the High Court’s rulings, engaging in unconstitutional conduct.But this defiance and even contempt of the High Court rulings leaves an American to ponder, “why?”Even cursory reflection elucidates the answer to that question. The answer is as plain as the text of Article Three, Section 2 of the Constitution, itself.The High Court has neither power over “the purse” that Congress wields, nor power over the Nation’s “standing army” the Chief Executive controls.Yet, the fact remains the U.S. Supreme Court is the only Branch of Government with ultimate say over the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, as Marbury made clear, well over two hundred years ago. To say what the Constitution means, when conflict or challenge to that meaning arises is within the sole province of the High Court.Unfortunately, without the capacity to withhold funds over the operation of Government, nor power to enforce its judgments by force of arms, the Court’s rulings are all too often, blatantly ignored or cavalierly dismissed.As if this weren’t bad enough, the mere fact of the Court’s authority is now actively contested.Audaciously, some individuals in Government, in the Press, and in academia, have recently argued the U.S. Supreme Court’s authority to say what the law is, should not be vested in the High Court, regardless of the strictures of Article Three, Section Two of the U.S. Constitution.Consider, an Op-Ed, titled, “Should the Supreme Court Matter So Much?” The essay appeared in The New York Times, and not that long ago, in 2018, written by Barry P. McDonald, an attorney and Law Professor no less who exclaims:“When the founders established our system of self-government, they didn’t expend much effort on the judicial branch. Of the roughly three and a half long pieces of inscribed parchment that make up the Constitution, the first two pages are devoted to designing Congress. Most of the next full page focuses on the president. The final three-quarters of a page contains various provisions, including just five sentences establishing a ‘supreme court,’ any optional lower courts Congress might create and the types of cases those courts could hear.Why was the judicial branch given such short shrift? Because in a democracy, the political branches of government — those accountable to the people through elections — were expected to run things. The courts could get involved only as was necessary to resolve disputes, and even then under congressional supervision of their dockets.It was widely recognized that the Supreme Court was the least important of the three branches: It was the only branch to lack its own building (it was housed in a chamber of Congress), and the best lawyers were seldom enthusiastic about serving on it (John Jay, the Court’s first chief justice, resigned within six years and described the institution as lacking ‘energy, weight and dignity’).When disputes came before the Supreme Court, the justices were expected to ensure that Americans received ‘due process’ — that they would be ruled by the ‘law of the land’ rather than the whims of ruling individuals. In short, the Court was to play a limited role in American democracy, and when it did get involved, its job was to ensure that its judgments were based on legal rules that were applied fairly and impartially.What about the task of interpreting the Constitution? This question is the subject of some debate, but the founders most likely believed that each branch of government had the right and duty to determine for itself what the Constitution demanded, unless the Constitution was clearly transgressed. If the Constitution was clearly transgressed, the Supreme Court had a duty to hold Congress or the president accountable — but only in the case before it. The founders almost certainly did not envision a roving mandate for the Supreme Court to dictate to Congress, the president or state governments what actions comported with the Constitution (unless they were a party to a case before it).” The question of interpreting the Constitution is the subject of some debate? Really? Apparently, this Law Professor, Barry McDonald, has wholly forgotten the import of Marbury versus Madison, a case burnt into the mind of every first-year law student. His remarks are eccentric, disturbing, and disheartening.If the Framers of the U.S. Constitution really had such a low opinion of the High Court, they would not have constructed a Government with a Third Branch but would have subsumed it into one of the first two? Obviously, the Framers thought enough about the singular importance of the U.S. Supreme Court, to include it in the framework of the Federal Government, and as a co-equal Branch of that Government.It is one thing to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings because of an antipathy toward those rulings and claim the Court can’t do anything about it anyway because the Court hasn’t power to enforce its rulings. That is bad enough. But it is quite another thing to argue the Court has no reason to exist, ought not to exist, and thereupon rationalize doing away with the Third Branch of Government or otherwise reducing its authority to render rulings to a nullity by Executive Branch or Legislative Branch edict.Application of alien predilections, predispositions, and ideology to the Nation’s governance is a path to abject tyranny; to dissolution of the Republic; defilement of the Nation’s culture and history and heritage; destruction of societal order and cohesion; and abasement and subjugation of a sovereign people. The Nation is on a runaway train, running full throttle, about to make an impact with a massive brick wall.The New York Times just loves to publish articles by credentialed individuals who hold views well beyond the pale of those held by their brethren if those views happen to conform to, and strengthen, and push the socio-political narrative of the newspaper’s publishers and editorial staff.Use of such dubious, fringe views to support a viewpoint is a classic example of “confirmation bias,” an informal fallacy.There are dozens of informal fallacies. And the American public is force-fed ideas that routinely exemplify one or more of them.This defiance of State and Federal Government actors to adhere to the Court’s rulings and even to contest the authority of the Court is most pronounced, most acute, and, unfortunately, most prevalent, in matters pertaining to the import of fundamental, unalienable rights and liberties of the American people—and none more so than the citizen’s right of armed self-defense.Consider——In the first decade of the 21st Century, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled clearly and unequivocally in Heller versus District of Columbia that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, unconnected with one’s service in a militia. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia penned the majority opinion.Among its other rulings in Heller, the High Court held the District of Columbia’s blanket ban on handguns impermissibly infringes the core of the Second Amendment. It thereupon struck down the D.C. ban on handguns as unconstitutional.And the Court also held a person has a right to immediate access to a handgun in one’s self-defense. Not surprisingly, Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions disliked these rulings and were intent on disobeying them, and arrogantly defied the Court.Looking for an excuse to defy Heller, these jurisdictions argued that Heller applies only to the Federal Government, not to them. That led to an immediate challenge, and the High Court took up the case in McDonald vs. City of Chicago.Here, Justice Alito writing for the majority, opined the Heller rulings apply with equal force to the States, through operation of the Fourteenth Amendment.Did the Anti-Second Amendment States abide by the Court’s rulings, after McDonald? No, they did not!They again defied the Court, conjuring up all sorts of reasons to deny to the American citizen his unalienable right to keep and bear arms in his self-defense.The States in these Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions claimed that, even if a person has a right to armed self-defense inside his home, the right to do so does not extend to the carrying of a handgun outside the home.The State and Federal Courts in these jurisdictions conveniently misconstrued the Supreme Court’s test for ascertaining the constitutionality of Government action infringing exercise of the right codified in the Second Amendment. These Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions also placed bans on semiautomatic weapons, fabricating a legal fiction for them; referring to them as “assault weapons.”  American citizens challenged the constitutionality of all these issues. And many of these cases wended their way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, only to be thwarted because the Court could not muster sufficient support among the Justices to deal with the flagrant violation of Second Amendment Heller and McDonald rulings and reasoning.One of these cases was the 2015 Seventh Circuit case, Friedman versus City of Highland Park, Illinois.The liberal wing of the Court didn’t want the case to be heard. That was no surprise.But, apparently, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy didn’t want to hear the case either.Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia were furious and said so in a comprehensive dissenting opinion.Had the Court taken up the Friedman case, Americans would have been spared this nonsense of “assault weapon” bans. The Court would have ruled these bans unconstitutional on their face, in which event the Federal Government and Anti-Second Amendment State governments would be hard-pressed to make a case for wasting valuable time and taxpayer monies dealing with an issue the High Court had ruled on. Unfortunately, the Friedman case and many others were not taken up by the Court.Americans are compelled to continue to spend considerable time and money in challenging a continuous stream of unconstitutional Second Amendment Government action. And often, this is a futile expenditure of time, money, and effort, albeit a noble and necessary one all the same._________________________________________

NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL UNFAZED BY CHALLENGES TO NEW YORK GUN LAW: “GO FOR IT,” SHE RETORTS!

One of the most persistent and virulently Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions, that has spurred numerous challenges to unconstitutional and unconscionable constraints on the Second Amendment through the decades, is New York.In 2020, four years after Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died, under disturbingly suspicious circumstances, and shortly after Justice Anthony Kennedy retired from the Bench, and the U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s first nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, to a seat on the High Court, the Court took up the case, NYSRPA vs. City of New York—often referred to colloquially as the “NY Gun Transport” case. An extensive explication of that case is found in a series of AQ articles posted on our website. See, e.g., our article posted on April 27, 2020, and reposted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News on the same date. A second U.S. Supreme Court case, coming out of New York, NYSRPA versus Bruen, officially released on June 23, 2022, ruled New York’s “proper cause” requirement unconstitutional.New York Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany thereupon struck the words “proper cause” from the State’s Gun Law, the Sullivan Act, codified in Section 400.00 of the State’s Penal Code. But, doing so served merely as a blind.Had the Hochul Government refrained from tinkering with the rest of the text of the Statute and other Code sections, it might well have avoided further constitutional challenges from justifiably irate New Yorkers. It did not.Hochul and Albany did not stop with the striking of “proper cause” from the Gun Law. It went well beyond that. Her Government and Albany wrote a detailed set of amendments to the Gun Law. The package of amendments, titled the “Concealed Carry Law Improvement Act,” “CCIA,” do not conform to the Bruen rulings but, rather, slither all around them. On a superficial level, deletion of the words “proper cause” might be seen by some, as Hochul and Albany had perhaps hoped, to forestall legal challenge. But, if challenge came, time would be, after all, on the Government’s side. And Hochul knew this.The Government has money enough to fight a protracted Court battle. The challenger, more likely, does not. Even finding a suitable challenger takes considerable time, exorbitant sums of money to file a lawsuit, and substantial time to take a Second Amendment case to the U.S. Supreme Court. And it is far from certain the Court will review a case even if a petition for hearing is filed, for the Court grants very few petitions.For well over a century the New York Government has inexorably whittled away at the right of armed self-defense in New York. And it has successfully weathered all attacks all the while. The New York Government wasn’t going to let the U.S. Supreme Court now, in the Bruen case, to throw a wrench into attaining its end goal: the elimination of armed self-defense in New York. Much energy went into the creation of the CCIA. It is a decisive and defiant response to the U.S. Supreme Court and furthers its goal to constrain armed self-defense in the public sphere.Likely, given the length, breadth, and depth of the CCIA, the Government saw Bruen coming, long before the case was filed, and had ample time to draft the contours of the CCIA a couple of years ago. A clue that another U.S. Supreme Court case, challenging New York’s Gun Law, would loom, presented itself in Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.  Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch had made known their strong disapproval of the way the “Gun Transport” case was handled, after the Chief Justice and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh cast their lot with the Anti-Second Amendment liberal wing of the Court, allowing the case to be unceremoniously and erroneously shunted aside, sans review of the merits of the case. A day of reckoning with New York’s insufferable Gun Law was coming. The Government of New York could not reasonably doubt that. The core of the Gun Law would be challenged, and the U.S. Supreme Court would hear that challenge. The Government likely worked up a draft response to an antagonistic U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the core of the Gun Law in 2020, shortly after the New York “Gun Transport” case ruling came down. That draft response would become the CCIA.The Government likely completed its draft of the CCIA well before Bruen was taken up by the High Court. The Government had only to fine-tune the CCIA immediately after oral argument in early November 2021. And the Government did so. Hochul almost certainly received advance notice of the text of the majority opinion within days or weeks after the hearing before the New Year had rung in. Nothing else can explain the speed at which Albany had passed the CCIA and Hochul had signed it into law: July 1, 2022, just eight days after the Court had released the Bruen decision, June 23, 2022.The CCIA amendments to the Gun Law integrate very nicely with and into other recent New York antigun legislation, passed by Albany and signed into law by Hochul. Thus, contrary to what the Governor’s website proclaims, the amendments were not “devised to align with the Supreme Court’s recent decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen.” Rather these amendments were devised to align with other New York antigun legislation. What does this portend for New Yorkers? Those New Yorkers who had hoped to be able to obtain a New York concealed handgun carry license with relative ease will now find procuring such a license no less difficult than before the enactment of the CCIA.Most hard-hit are those present holders of New York City and New York County unrestricted concealed handgun carry licenses. The “proper cause” hoop that present holders of such concealed handgun carry licenses were able to successfully jump through is of no use to them now. These renewal applicants must now satisfy a slew of new requirements—more draconian than the original ones they had previously successfully navigated. All New York concealed handgun carry applicants are now in the same boat. And meeting the new requirements are exceedingly difficult. Despite the clear intent of the Bruen rulings, to make it easier for more Americans to obtain a New York concealed handgun carry license, it is now harder. Likely, very few individuals will be able to successfully pass through the hurdles necessary to obtain a New York license the CCIA requires. Thus, getting a license will remain a coveted prize, difficult to gain as previously, and likely even more so.And the few individuals who do happen to secure a valid New York concealed handgun carry license will find themselves in a precarious situation for all the troubles they had in getting it.These new license holders will find exercise of the right of armed self-defense outside one’s home or place of business, in the public realm, full of traps and snares that did not previously exist. And there is something more alarming.The mere act of applying for a concealed carry license—whether the license is issued or not—now requires the applicant to divulge a wealth of highly personal information that, hitherto, an applicant never had to divulge, and the licensing authority had never asked an applicant to divulge. And, if a person fails to secure a license, his personal data will remain in his State police file, indefinitely, and will likely be turned over to the DOJ, DHS, ATF, IRS, and/or to a slew of State or Federal mental health agencies. All manner of harm may be visited upon the person that otherwise would not have occurred had the individual not bothered to apply for a New York concealed handgun carry license in the first place. To apply for a New York concealed handgun carry license, an applicant may unwittingly be alerting both the New York Government and the Federal Government that he is a “MAGA” supporter, and therefore a potential “Domestic Terrorist.” And, if so, he is then targeted for special treatment: surveillance, harassment, exploitation, or extortion. And he cannot claim a violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures because he voluntarily relinquished that right when he applied for a concealed handgun carry license.If one thinks this is farfetched, consider the excesses committed by the Biden Administration directed to average Americans in the last several months.We explore these troubling matters, in connection with the application requirements for a New York concealed handgun carry license, in the next few articles.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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.

THE ABSURDITY OF BIDEN’S CALL FOR NATIONAL UNITY

As this article goes to post on the Arbalest Quarrel, we are only a few hours away from the beginning of the New Year. We would like to say that this New Year, 2021, would see President Trump sworn in on January 20, 2021, for his second term in Office, where he would work further on behalf of the Nation to cement his “America First” Legacy for future generations of Americans to come.As we say, we would like to see this, but it is becoming increasingly evident that we won’t see this even though we should see this.If one but looks at mountains of evidence of elections fraud it has become increasingly apparent to everyone, but the most obtuse among us, that Trump did indeed win the election. But the ruthless, powerful, well-organized, inordinately wealthy and eternally secretive and insufferable neoliberal globalist elites have, with the assistance of the media and Press that they control and with the active assistance of the courts that they oversee, clamped down hard on all attempts to bring this evidence out into the light of day to ensure the integrity of our electoral process, the sanctity of the Constitution and the preservation of a free Constitutional Republic. If anyone harbors doubt about the truth of this conclusion, one need only look at the recent actions of the highest law enforcement official in the Land, Attorney General William Barr, and of the action of the highest Court in the Land, the U.S. Supreme Court.On December 1, 2020, The Associated Press reported Barr as saying that “the U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.”Let’s take a closer look at this remark. It suggests the Justice Department did find evidence of voter fraud, but Barr refuses to elaborate on the nature of that evidence; how that evidence was gathered; who did the investigating, and the extent of the investigation. And Barr says nothing about releasing a report on that investigation. Moreover, even if it were true that such evidence that was uncovered would not change the outcome of the election, that still begs the question as to the integrity of the 2020 election.Barr’s assertion is nothing more than an oblique attempt to hide from public scrutiny a matter the importance of which goes to the future of our Country as an independent sovereign Nation State. The seditious Press was satisfied with Barr's action. It would be. Not one to investigate the matter of wholesale elections fraud itself, and having taken an active role in ridiculing evidence of fraud, the seditious Press certainly wouldn't take kindly to a DOJ and FBI investigation that put the lie to the Press narrative. Shortly, after Barr made his 0ffhand remark to the AP, Barr submitted his resignation as AG. One cannot  but wonder: Was Barr threatened, compromised? His perfunctory remarks to the AP are wholly out of character. Barr is not the sort of person who would willingly surrender on a matter of such monumental importance — a thing that decidedly and decisively impacts the future of our Country; indeed, a thing that portends the end of our Country as a free Constitutional Republic if it is Biden who in fact takes the Oath of Office on January 20, 2021, and not Donald Trump.Then there is the U.S. Supreme Court. Here we have three perspicacious Justices—Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett—silently going along with Roberts, who must have made clear to the three junior Associate Justices that under no circumstance must the Texas case, Texas vs. Pennsylvania, 592 U.S. ____ (December 11, 2020) be entertained. Yet, who but the U.S. Supreme Court could allow a State versus State case to proceed?Article 3, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution sets forth in clear terms:“In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”In a brief, perfunctory Order, the Court Majority dismissed the case,  asserting that Texas does not have standing to sue. Really?For the Supreme Court to  assert that Texas did not have standing to bring action against another State on the matter of how a state conducts its elections, the Court cavalierly skirted the underlying question at stake: whether the matter in which Pennsylvania conducted the election for the United States President did in fact unconstitutionally negatively impact how Texas and other States conduct their own election. The framers of the Constitution made certain that the Constitution would give, indeed must give, to the Highest Court in the Land original jurisdiction in a State versus State lawsuit precisely because no lower Federal or State Court could ever have the authority to hear a legal dispute between one sovereign State and another sovereign State.And so, we have the prospect that the Great Pretender, Joseph Biden, the Manchurian Candidate and the Neoliberal Globalist elites’ Candidate for U.S. President will become the U.S. President, and thereupon make a mockery of the U.S. Constitution. In administering the Oath of Office to Joseph Biden, Americans will bear witness to the final touch of farce. We may be seeing John Roberts, himself, as having played an active role in the takeover of our Nation, an elaborate hoax, the greatest tragedy to ever beset our Nation as the elevation of the Grand Imposter, Joe Biden, to the highest elected Office in the Land will mark the nadir of the United States. The U.S. will become a Dictatorship, where a consortium of ruthless powerful individuals and groups behind the scenes, along with Xi Jinping's Communist China, operating as the true rulers, utilizing their puppets, Biden and Harris and lesser Government figures, to institute a radical transformation of the Nation, an “inverted totalitarian regime,” to be immersed in and absorbed into a one world system of governance.

JOE BIDEN, THE GREAT UNIFIER?

Joe Biden’s call for “unity” is as nonsensical and as farcical as anything else that comes out of his mouth.Likely, Biden never came up with the idea for he lacks both intellect and imagination. But a vast coterie of Democrat Party handlers, speech writers, political consultants, acting coaches, and image makers apparently thought it would be good thing to utilize; something to wrap this listless, inept, empty vessel in, at once proclaiming this stooge to be a savior that he would deign, or dare, to save Americans from themselves.Have him yap long enough and often enough about unity, cooperation, solidarity, and togetherness and perhaps the American public will warm up to him, come around to accept him as a leader of the Nation, as the leader of the Nation: the Great Unifier, the Grand Unifier, the High Lord muck-a-muck of Civility and Propriety in contrast to that awful Disuniter—that brusque, uncouth, Racist, Misogynist a.k.a. Donald Trump.The mega billionaire neoliberal Globalist elites of the world must take Americans for fools; either that, or they take Americans for complete idiots.Don’t they realize the word ‘unity,’ apropos of a Nation’s people, only makes sense in the context OF A NATION, which, under a Biden Presidency would be a shaky and murky proposition at best. The Billionaire Globalists, along with the Marxist unionists, the Globalist elites’ foot soldiers, want none of that. Their goal is to merge our Nation with those of other western nations into a single world, transnational union—encompassing geographical regions, spread out across the Earth—comprising billions of people, a heterogeneous glob that shares neither common values and culture, nor unifying traditions and histories.If one can sensibly talk of a grand unity at all, it is something the destroyers of our Nation want; what it is the mega-Billionaire neoliberal Globalist corporatists and the rabid, Globalist Marxists and Anarchists both want; and what it is both are intent on delivering to Americans: A Collectivist vision of the world finally realized, a veritable nightmare in which the populations of the developed countries are dragged down to the level of third world countries. Trump’s “Make America Great Again”—perceived by the Globalist elite and by the Marxists as a veritable obscenity agenda to be recast as and transmogrified into “Make America.”Both billionaire neoliberal globalists and trans-global Marxists and Anarchists find common ground on that score, if little else. But their goal of a one world order requires the demolishing of a free Constitutional Republic.The puppet masters’ marionettes, Biden and Harris, will happily assist them in this task, no less so than had Barack Obama, the Bushes, and Bill Clinton before Biden and Harris.But the Collectivist vision of a one world government is not what most Americans want, and it certainly isn’t something they need. It is decidedly and decisively what most of us don’t want and what anyone of us would need about as much as the plague sent to us courtesy of the Chinese Communist Government.The Collectivist vision of a one world government is wholly inconsistent with what our free Constitutional Republic demands: preservation of the Nation’s Constitution, grounded on the tenets of Individualism; an independent sovereign Nation-State where the American people themselves are the ultimate sovereign authority.How can two mutually exclusive visions of political and social reality cohere? Quite simply, they can’t. Still, there are some who talk glowingly of a unifying American spirit that seemingly transcends differing visions of the Nation, of the world, and of reality. But sober reflection demonstrates how preposterous such an idea is.Back in March 2020 the former Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal wrote an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal. In that Op-Ed Jindal acknowledged the deep divide in America but claimed a unifying American spirit, reflected in his pronouncement, “there’s a real voter appetite for moderation and compromise.”Jindal wrote in significant part,“America’s current political polarization seems to favor candidates like Mr. Trump and Bernie Sanders, who mobilize their respective bases. The most committed conservative and progressive activists find common ground in their celebration of partisanship. They see fierce competition between principled partisans in the marketplace of ideas as benefiting the nation.Despite their deep ideological differences, they share a grudging respect for their political combatants, preferring them to be ‘cold or hot,’ in contrast with their ‘lukewarm’ fellow partisans. These activists view bipartisan compromises—from the Clinton-era crime and welfare reforms to the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act and Medicare expansion—as capitulations.Yet Mr. Biden’s decisive victory in South Carolina suggests there’s a real voter appetite for moderation and compromise. He may be wrong about many policies, but he’s right to try to include the other side and to denounce the growing hostility across ideological and partisan divides. Bipartisanship is built on recognizing differences, but also on recognizing that what unites Americans is stronger than what divides us.It is built on humility—on the recognition that the other side has value. Conservatives dedicated to limited government should be grateful for liberals ensuring society considers the needs of the poor. Liberals dedicated to powerful and expansive government should be grateful for conservatives ensuring that society generates prosperity and protects individual liberty.”Bobby Jindal ends his Op-Ed asserting,“A driving force behind today’s polarization is a combination of arrogance and insecurity. Liberals talk confidently of the coming demographic wave—growing numbers of female, young, college-educated, minority, urban and secular voters they believe guarantee them a majority sooner or later. They are impatient for conservatives to convert or die. Many conservatives view their plans as blessed by divine providence. Yet both sides act with a desperate urgency that belies their stated confidence, as if losing the next election could permanently endanger their beliefs.The path to civility requires both parties to display the humble belief that the other side consists of good, patriotic Americans with valuable insights, as well as the confident determination that their own beliefs are enduring and can eventually emerge victorious. That may prove a winning message for Mr. Biden.”Well, if this were Biden’s message it certainly isn’t a winning one.Sure, a few Americans might have viewed Jindal’s March 2020 article, at the time of posting, as conveying a message of hope and yearning for reconciliation.But jump ahead to the post 2020 election—an election result that, on its face, is so statistically anomalous and one that is so laden with criminal fraud and deceit, as to understandably generate and provoke anger and resentment in a vast majority of Americans as they see a free Republic literally wrenched from them.In retrospect, Jindal’s Op-Ed comes across as quaint and flowery, wistful, naïve, and syrupy at best, and, at worst, a thing trite, banal, nonsensical, even insulting.In fact, Jindal apparently realized the flaws in his earlier Op-Ed, for, in August 2020, he recalibrated his remarks. Gone was any message of hope and trust for a better future for our Country. Jindal saw things as they truly are, as manifesting uncomfortably in front of him. He wrote,“Rather than making the traditional move to the center after he secured the nomination, Mr. Biden has continued to move left. He seems more worried about persuading Mr. Sanders’s supporters to turn out than convincing Mr. Trump’s voters to consider a moderate alternative.Mr. Biden embraced identity politics by promising to name a female running mate. Anticipating a sweep of Congress, Democrats have announced their support for abolishing the Senate filibuster and pay-as-you-go rules. Democrats covet these new powers for the majority not to pursue moderate bipartisan policies. They would likely try to expand the courts, grant statehood to the District of Columbia, restrict gun ownership, give unions more power, and ease immigration restrictions and their enforcement.”How much further have we come since Jindal’s August 2020 Op-Ed, on the cusp of a new year, January 1, 2021. In Biden’s staged remarks, and in the selection of his Cabinet, we are witnessing the marshalling of forces to finally cement complete and lasting victory for the adherents of the Counter-revolution: the neoliberal Globalist elites and the transnational Marxists and Anarchists.Newfangled and singularly bizarre concepts of identity politics, critical race theory, intersectionality—mindless neologisms, concocted by and perpetuated by Marxists, all with the blessing of billionaire Globalist elites—have become Biden’s guiding principles, as perceived in Biden’s cabinet selection.In the Collectivist vision of the world, Trump’s “Make America Great Again” imperative, which embraces the notion of “America First,” has no place. Well beyond New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s disdainful remark, delivered in a 2018 speech, that “America was never that great,”—alluding to and mocking Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan and at once contemptuous of our Nation’s traditions, history, heritage, and core values—we now have in Biden’s choice for Secretary of State, the neocon Anthony Blinken who, in a Biden Administration, is a man who eschews the notion of “America First,” whose foreign policy methodology marks a return to multilateral consensus building with western world leaders, all of whom acquiesce to a belligerent Communist China.If Biden does in fact ascend to the U.S. Presidency on January 20, 2021, and that appears to be more and more certain now, those Americans who adhere to their sacred values, traditions, and heritage, must not succumb to the idea that, come 2022, they will hold onto the Senate and retake the House, and that, in 2024, they will have an opportunity to revive a free Constitutional Republic along with their sacred, natural rights by reelection of Donald Trump as U.S. President. That is wishful thinking in the extreme.A Biden/Harris Presidency will move quickly to reverse all Trump’s gains and will plow ahead on many fronts to dismantle our Constitution, and our Nation-State. A free Constitutional Republic is breathing its last.We, Americans, stand to lose everything that truly defines us as Americans, as the concept of ‘American’ would be understood by our founding fathers; not as Neoliberal Globalist power brokers and Globalist Marxists and Anarchists twist and warp the concept out of any semblance of coherent, historical meaning and context.Once lost—our sacred rights and freedoms, our individuality, our existence as a true sovereign, independent Nation—those things that we cherish most are not coming back. The Globalist elites and their Marxist and Anarchist foot soldiers will see to it that they don’t._________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.