NOTHING IS MORE CONSEQUENTIAL TO THE PRESERVATION OF OUR NATION AND THE WORLD THAN IMMEDIATE DE-ESCALATION OF TENSION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES/NATO AND RUSSIA!

In the midst of the present crisis in Europe, some Americans do retain perspective.We, at the Arbalest Quarrel, a website started in 2014 to cut through the chatter, fluff, hyperbole, outright nonsense, and disingenuousness of the usual news coverage and of news commentary, see well that the present conflict between Russia and Ukraine didn’t start yesterday, but can be traced to many upheavals in the past: some quite recent, going back to 2014; some earlier, to the first years of the 21^st Century; others going back thirty years, to the early 1990s; and some going back much further in time; a century ago, to the period of the first world war.A couple of things about Russia and Ukraine are clear:

• Ukraine is a region that has always suffered political and social convulsions; and
• Russia’s ties to and interests in Ukraine have been ever apparent, always unbroken, profoundly earnest and acute, and inherently inextricable.

Russia’s incursion into Crimea in 2014, and more recently a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, is the direct result of conscious decisions of political leaders in Ukraine and Brussels, and of the United States as well.Those decisions resulted in a sequence of events, some planned for and anticipated; others not.Mishaps arose from those decisions; some not envisioned perhaps, but, as they materialized, definitely not wanted.The oratory of politicians, echoed in many major news organs of late, casts the present conflict, as it casts all conflicts, in overly simplistic, deceptive Manichean terms: A battle between good and evil.Unfortunately, many Americans fall prey to Manichaeism, having been psychologically conditioned to do so.Through seductive messaging, selective dissemination of information, and carefully crafted and tempered narratives, many Americans acquiesce to policies that have a deep, negative, long-term effect on their lives, and, by extension, on the lives of the rest of us who are not so easily prone to psychic manipulation.This is nothing new. Many members of the public have previously succumbed to such deceptive messaging of Government leaders and its echo chamber: the legacy Press.Consider America’s misadventure in the Middle East.The consequences of the U.S.-Mideast conflict, at once familiar and disturbing, were predictable: destabilization of the region; disruption, displacement, and senseless loss of civilian life and of the life of our soldiers; the squandering of the Nation’s wealth and resources; not insignificant economic harm; and attendant weakening of our own national security.The same inevitability of outcomes due to geopolitical machinations of Brussels and the United States is apparent in the current situation in Ukraine.The Press bombards the public daily with talk and imagery of the brutishness of Vladimir Putin; of the valor of Volodymyr Zelensky; of the heroic struggle of the Ukrainian people against the onslaught of Russian military; and of the coming oppression of the Ukrainian people under Putin/Russian rule.But little if any mention is made of the political interests of and plight of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, who represent a substantial minority of the population. And no mention is made of political and social upheaval that has plagued Ukraine in the last twenty or thirty years, or of Russia’s close political ties to the Country during that same period, and well before.And there is no mention of Brussel’s own expansionism eastward and of the concomitant impact on Putin’s expansionist impulses westward, driven in part no doubt by not unreasonable concerns over attenuation of Russia’s territorial security interests.Yet, the Biden Administration and the Press analogize this conflict simplistically and insufferably to a schoolroom situation, describing it in sharp dualistic terms of a “bad guy,” Russia, who bullies a weak, innocent, “good guy,” Ukraine. In doing this, the Administration and the Press treat the public like kindergarteners or as outright idiots.Consider Kamala Harris explanation of the Ukrainian crisis:“So Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong.” ~ from the “Daily Wire” To whom is Harris addressing this polemic? One might reasonably wonder, ponder, and posit, and ask: “who, really, should wear the ‘dunce cap?’”Is Harris behaving deliberately condescendingly? Or, is she simply a moron, a person who has little if any comprehension and appreciation of world affairs and of European history, and discloses that fact painfully, if unintentionally?But the Press echoes the same frivolous, vacuous message; vociferously, stridently, and inelegantly, with each passing day.Because of this simplistic, silly messaging, many Americans—all too many, who do little reflection—have once again acquiesced to the seductive call: to protect Ukrainian people who yearn for democracy against an evil oppressor, Russia. That, anyway, is the message. That is what Americans are told, and it has had the desired effect.Americans inculcate the meme that Russia and Putin are evil, and that, apparently, is all they need to know about Russia. And the expression, ‘democracy,’ overused in discourse and never defined by either the Press or Government officials, has lost whatever import and purport it once had. The expression has devolved into banality.But to the matter at hand: to what end is the United States called upon to render aid to Ukraine? How far is American assistance to Ukraine, expected to go? And most importantly, how does Russia perceive the United States Government’s insertion into Ukrainian-Russian affairs and what will Russia’s response to America be?Somewhere in the American psyche, there is a justifiable wariness, despite the constant drumbeat by the Press and by some in Congress who call for more action, including military action against Russia. It is fortunate that most Americans resist that. But some people do not.At least one person, the irrepressible Lindsey Graham, a Republican U.S. Senator no less, has called for Putin’s assassination. That absurd, reprehensible remark alludes unmistakably to a call for “regime change.” And what, after all, is this thing, “regime change?” It is a bit of American Governmental argot; an utterance at once peculiar, presumptuous, loathsome, and anachronistic.  Not to be outdone by Graham, the obsequious and droll GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger has called for a U.S. enforced a no-fly zone over Ukraine. He goes on to explain that no one should worry, that this does not portend incursion of American troops in Russia. Oh, really? Is not the call for a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine a transparently blatant threat and challenge directed to Russia?If the Biden Administration were, in fact, to institute such a U.S. enforced no-fly zone in a Russian military zone of operation, i.e., Ukraine, the mere issuance of the order, whether acted upon or not, would amount to a declaration of war by the U.S. against Russia. That isn’t supposition. That is a fact.Such statements by Graham and Kinzinger are both unconscionable and moronic. How might Putin react to them, coming from members of the United States Congress?So absurd are they, one could only hope that Putin would be amused rather than enraged by them, delivered as they are by a couple of buffoons who would do well to perform where they can do no harm: in a circus, perhaps, or in an asylum for the criminally insane, but not in the halls of the U.S. Congress.Fortunately, the Biden Administration isn’t taking advice from either Graham or Kinzinger, and the Administration absolutely should not.Yet, the Biden Administration should be forceful in pointing out the need for forbearance by both members of Congress and the Press in reining in their strident calls for vengeance against Russia. The Administration has not done that. Remarks from his communications’ people to date are dry, laconic, perfunctory.Russia cannot and should not be likened to a Country in the Middle East or to one in Africa or to one in South America; nor, to any other Country in the world, apart from CCP China.Russia, like the U.S. and China, has a massive nuclear arsenal. And Putin is not one to bluff. He is prepared to use it.The present crisis is really one that should be allowed to play out between Russia and Ukraine. But America’s blatant insinuation of itself into this drama has grave ramifications and portents we should not ignore.There are two crises playing out today. One is between Russia and Ukraine. That crisis is overt—war. Everyone knows that.But there is another crisis. This other one is tacit. It is one that ought to be of much greater concern to the American people and to the world. A latent crisis between two superpowers, Russia and the U.S., is where serious tension rests. That is where the focus should be directed and concerted efforts to reduce tension should be made.CCP China, which will be venturing into Taiwan—that is a foregone conclusion—is watching closely the U.S. Government’s reaction to the present crisis unfolding in Europe. The American public, though is not; too caught up as it is, attending to irrelevant rhetorical flourishes, pontifications, fallacious moralistic polemics, and irreverent ramblings from the Press, social media, cable and broadcast news and from Congress—some involving Russia and Ukraine, and others relegated to superficial asides, boiled down to one imbecilic bromide, the new dogma of the Neo-Marxist movement in America: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”This dogma, utilized by masters of brainwashing, originated in United Nations’ pacts, treaties, and position papers, where it is found, albeit with some effort, buried here and there, in seemingly erudite but deliberately abstruse, and muddled language, to hide ignoble intentions.Codified as a single imperative, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” persistently relentlessly repeated, it is a mantra designed to rot out the brain, down to the core of one’s being; infecting every institution of America; permeating every facet and layer of American society.This mantra, a thing designed to induce a trance in every American, is also a policy directive, worming its way into every policy aim of the Biden Administration. The infusion of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” into the psyche of people, superimposed over reason and sanity, heralds an improbable and absurd world reality.How, then, can Americans be expected to think clearly? Obviously, they cannot. Indoctrination teams train them to react, not to think. To perform like trained seals, not to reason, deduce, and conceptualize as human beings.Should Americans, then, be surprised that this Nation and the world fall perilously and precipitously close to nuclear war?The failure of the American people to appreciate that the world stands at the precipice of a nuclear conflagration is disheartening and disconcerting. Of what is America to gain from vacuous, political rhetoric and pseudo-moralistic sophistry pertaining to the fate of Ukraine in the face of incipient nuclear annihilation of the planet. Some people argue that Putin will push beyond the boundaries of Ukraine. But do we know that for certain? They conceive failure to stop Putin’s advance in Ukraine is a thing to be likened to Neville Chamberlain’s lame responses to Hitler’s advances in Europe. But there were no nuclear missiles in existence back in the 1930s. What should be of concern to us, at the moment, is an appreciation of the nuclear arsenals present in Russia and the United States. And we should be mindful of Russia’s historical ties to Ukraine. Ukraine isn’t the place for either the United States or NATO to establish a red line against Russian military advancement. Russia fears justifiable containment fears by the EU, NATO, and the United States. It doesn’t want the EU or NATO on its doorstep anymore than the United States wanted or would permit the Soviet Union on its doorstep, in Cuba.The use of even one tactical nuclear bomb in Ukraine or any instance of, or perception of, direct U.S. military involvement in Ukraine against Russia on behalf of Ukraine, will lead inevitably, irrevocably to global thermonuclear war. That brute and dire fact should not be lost on anyone.Armed conflict is messy. Anything can happen. There are too many variables. Even a computer algorithm cannot catalog them all or decipher the myriad patterns at play. History tells us that war gets out of hand and messy very quickly, tactically and strategically. And, both the war and America’s conduct in it should give one pause.  On the front page of The New York Times, Sunday, March 6, 2022, a reporter writes,“President Vladimir V. Putin warned on Saturday that crippling economic sanctions imposed by the West were ‘akin to a declaration of war,’ as the Russian military pummeled civilian targets and continued shelling near the first protected routes intended to allow besieged Ukrainians to flee, apparently violating a cease-fire that had been agreed to only hours earlier.” So, here the New York Times acknowledges Russia’s warning to the U.S. and to the EU and NATO to stay clear of interfering with the conflict, but then the Times reverts to form with a rabble-rousing remark intended to incite hatred in the minds of America toward Russia, despite Putin’s clear warning.In the same article, the Times writes,“Mr. Putin, in his first extended remarks since the start of the war, threatened to fully absorb Ukraine, the former Soviet republic of nearly 44 million people that declared its independence 30 years ago.‘The current leadership needs to understand that if they continue doing what they are doing, they risk the future of Ukrainian statehood,’ he said. Mr. Putin added that Moscow would view any Western attempts to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine as ‘participating in the armed conflict’ against Russia.As Mr. Putin doubled down on his threats against Ukraine and the West, Mr. Zelensky spoke with more than 300 members of the United States Congress on Saturday. He implored them to impose a no-fly zone and to send military jets to his country, according to lawmakers on the call.”The words, “current leadership” that Putin refers to may seem vague, but definitely includes Brussel’s EU, NATO, and the U.S. Government, and it doesn’t appear that they are listening.Concurrently with the posting of the Times article, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken informs the public, as reported in the Daily Mail that,“Ukraine's government has a contingency plan in place if President Volodymyr Zelensky is killed during the Russian invasion, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed on Sunday. Zelensky survived three assassination attempts by Russian-backed groups just this week, the Times reported on Friday. During an interview with CBS News' Face the Nation on Sunday, Blinken was asked if Russian leader Vladimir Putin would face 'consequences' for Zelensky's murder?’ host Margaret Brennan added.Blinken first praised Zelensky and other Kyiv officials as ‘the embodiment of this incredibly brave Ukrainian people.'‘The Ukrainians have plans in place—that I’m not going to talk about or get into any details on—to make sure that there is what we would call ‘continuity of government’ one way or another. And let me leave it at that,’ he answered.”  Blinken’s use of the phrase, ‘continuity of government’ is mystifying and troubling in two respects.First, Blinken is hinting that the United States, EU, and NATO will not permit Putin to take control of Ukraine, even as it is eminently clear that Putin intends to do just that. So, there it is, a bright red line. The U.S./EU/NATO intends to clash head-on with Russia, over Ukraine even though Ukraine is not a member of either the EU or NATO, and notwithstanding that Ukraine is of no practical security concern for the United States and never was.Second, the expression, ‘continuity of government’ is an expression utilized by the U.S. Government in connection with imminent catastrophe, primarily, nuclear war. One official White House Government website is devoted to just that subject, with the specific heading “Continuity of Government.” In pertinent part, the website lays out that:“Since the days of the Cold War, the United States has had a plan in place to continue the operation of the government following a catastrophic attack on the nation’s capital. The 2007 ‘National Security Presidential Directive 51’ directs the geographic dispersion of leadership, staff, and infrastructure in order to maintain the functions of the United States Government in the event the nation’s capital is “decapitated” by a terrorist attack.Buried deep within the 102-page National Continuity Plan is the strategy for the mass evacuation and relocation of every federal government agency including The White House and the military in response to an exceptional catastrophic event within the National Capital Region. Each agency is required to have a detailed Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) in place.Following a catastrophic national emergency, the President, or his successor can authorize the establishment of a temporary ‘Shadow government’ to maintain control of the essential functions of the Federal Government. President Bush activated the shadow government on September 11, 2001, shortly after the second attack on the World Trade Center.Every federal agency has designated key individuals to be part of an ‘Emergency Relocation Group’. These ERGs are assigned to an alternate secure location on a rotating basis and are ready to take over the duty of supporting the National Essential Functions of this nation in an emergency.”Most unsettling, issuance of the “Continuity of Government” order includes “Supplanting the United States Constitution” and by logical implication, that means suspension of fundamental rights, including the most important natural law right of all, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”On reflection, one can see the puppetmasters, who control the Biden Administration, utilizing both the Ukraine crisis and the Freedom Convoy, making its way to D.C., as pretexts to invoke “COG” here at home. If that should occur, the American people will come to understand—must come to the realization, horrible and ugly, but indisputable as it is—that they have lost their Country; that Joe Biden is nothing more than, and never was anything more than, the titular head of a Government.This senile, abjectly corrupt “President of the United States.” He serves as a convenient placeholder and caretaker for the Nation. That is all he is and ever was: merely the custodian for a Nation that no longer belongs to the American people; a Nation no longer deemed to be a free Constitutional Republic.The western Globalists who control Brussels and NATO intend to supplant the sovereignty of the American people over the Federal Government, along with the overt de facto dissolution of the United States as an independent sovereign Nation-State. See article in unlimited hangout.“Though often discussed in relation to nuclear war or a similarly chaotic scenario, ‘Continuity of Government’ plans can be triggered even by popular, nonviolent opposition to an unpopular war abroad. It exists solely to keep the current system in place, regardless of the cost [and it includes “Main Core”] ‘A database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.’ ” Secretary of State Blinken’s use of the phrase ‘Continuity of Government’ (COG) isn’t accidental. Even as Blinken uses that phrase in connection with Ukraine, the import of his remarks implicates the United States as well, for U.S./NATO confrontation with Russia is implicit in his remarks.The similarity of the Ukrainian-Russian crisis of 2022 to the Cuban-Missile crisis of 1962 is clear and categorical and ought not to be casually dismissed or cavalierly denied.But, for that one very public and very brief episode, the world stood at the brink of nuclear annihilation. Never since have Russia, China, or the U.S. confronted each other militarily. Military confrontation and challenges were conducted obliquely through minor proxies only, and for good reason. Dire outcomes were to be avoided and they were avoided. This was understood by all three major nuclear powers.If the American Press ever juxtaposes the 1962 Cuban-missile crisis with the 2022 Ukrainian crisis, we have yet to see it, and why is that? Only Russia has done so and, although the words of Russia’s deputy foreign minister were measured, the message conveyed by those words was clear and unequivocal and clearly directed to the United States Government.“Russia’s deputy foreign minister has compared Moscow’s standoff with the West over a possible invasion of Ukraine to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tense 1962 confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union that led the world to the brink of nuclear war.Asked if he was exaggerating by comparing the Ukraine situation to the stalemate over the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba, Sergei Ryabkov said, ‘No, not too much,’ Russian media reported Monday.” ~ from the New York Post.And Vladimir Putin himself has purportedly said words to the effect that “a world without Russia would be no world at all.” The language might be cryptic. Its import is not.Whatever political, geopolitical, or economic interest the EU or the U.S. may have or think it has in Ukraine, nothing—absolutely nothing—is more consequential to the preservation of this Nation and the world than immediate de-escalation of tension between the U.S./NATO/EU and Russia.We do not see this happening, but it should; indeed, it must.If there are back channels between the U.S. Government and Russia, the public should gain some intimation of this; some assurance that the United States and Russia are in constant communication. But it is apparent the two are not. The U.S. and NATO intend to repel Russia from Ukraine. And Russia intends to press forward, claiming Ukraine as Russian territory or, at least, as a Russian-controlled region/orbit that serves as a buffer to inhibit EU expansion into Eastern Europe. Both the U.S./NATO alliance and Russia are headed on a collision course.The controlling issue in Ukraine is one of power and who controls the landmass of Ukraine.Given the stakes involved—the possibility of a nuclear conflagration—one must infer this has nothing to do with “democracy” and the sovereign independence of Ukraine. The Ukrainian people, and Zelensky, too, are nothing more than pawns. Their welfare is only a pretext for U.S./NATO/EU expansionism in the East. The two mighty powers, the U.S./NATO/EU on the one hand and Russia on the other are in a contest for control over Eastern Europe. It is anyone’s guess where CCP China stands in relation to this.Under Trump’s tutelage, it is unlikely Russia would have ventured into Ukraine. And if it had done so, Trump would have let the American public and, hence, the world know, and in no uncertain terms, that there would be no military confrontation between Russia and the U.S. over the fate of Ukraine—ever.  Trump sought to reconfirm and cement the United States standing as a true independent, sovereign Nation-State, in a world controlled by powerful, wealthy Neo-Globalist/Neo-Marxist elites whose aim is the dissolution of all western nation-states. They seek no less than the destruction of the very concept of ‘citizenship’ and of the concept of independent sovereign nation-state construct.The end goal of these secretive global “elites” is to see the establishment of a universal, transnational, multicultural, neo-feudalist corporate/financial/political/social empire, sans all geographical boundaries.Trump sought to spare the Nation from that fate. But Trump is no longer President of the United States. Powerful interests have seen to that. This Nation now has Joe Biden; a mentally weak, effete, ineffectual leader, if one can use the descriptor ‘leader’ in any meaningful sense. And the absence of Trump and the ensconcing of Biden into the Executive Branch of Government as titular head of the Nation has made all the difference. The fate of the Country is now in the hands of powerful interests who intend to destroy it.Whatever is going on behind the scenes, Joe Biden is the face of America projected to the world. And, to a lesser extent, his understudy, Kamala Harris, is also the face of America projected to the world.But what it is that is projected does not warrant respect nor engender confidence.Such things as strength, reason, stability, and integrity are sorely lacking here. And that noticeable lack justifiably frightens at least some of us and does so on many levels. It should frighten all of us._____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.  

A LACKLUSTER NYC MAYOR AND NYPD’S BRASS THAT WON’T SHINE

PART ONE

NYC MAYOR DE BLASIO’S RECIPE FOR DISASTER

Crime is rampant in New York City today. A rational person would expect the Mayor of the City, Bill de Blasio, to work diligently with the Commissioner of Public Safety to develop and implement a comprehensive, concrete plan to deal expeditiously and effectively with this public disorder. Instead, the Mayor remonstrates against the police and essentially orders the police to stand down. This suggests either that the Mayor doesn’t comprehend the severity of the problem affecting the City and is incompetent or he is intentionally inviting anarchy to reign in the City, and the man is insane.In a City as large as NYC the Mayor’s failure to take charge and deal with the mounting violence and chaos amounts, at the very least, to a serious dereliction of duty. Perhaps the Mayor thinks violence and chaos will sort itself out by itself. It won’t; it never does. A person must be dull-witted to think otherwise. Something must be done. Consider——New York City, with a population of over 8.7 million people, is the largest City in the Country,  and among the largest in the world.Moreover, NYC has the highest density of any major U.S. City, with over 27,000 people per square mile. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/planning-level/nyc-population/population-facts.page.But does population density itself have an impact on crime? If so, does population density tend to increase the crime rate, or reduce it?In 2011, the Radical Left publication “The Atlantic,” writing about population density and crime rates,said this:“To offer a policy observation, higher density helps reduce street crime in an urban environment in two ways. One is that in a higher density city, any given street is less likely to be empty of passersby at any given time. The other is that if a given patch of land has more citizens, that means it can also support a larger base of police officers. And for policing efficacy both the ratio of cops to citizens and of cops to land matters. Therefore, all else being equal a denser city will be a better policed city.” The Atlantic’s first observation, that higher population density reduces street crime in an urban environment, is false.Professor Keith Harries, Department of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, posted, in an academic publication—“International Journal of Criminal Justice”—his study that deals with the issue of population density and crime rates and refutes the Atlantic’s conclusion. The Professor’s article serves as a well-reasoned, scientifically supported counterpoint to the Atlantic’s assertion.In the opening abstract to the study, published in July 2006, Harries states that——“The role of population density in the generation or suppression of crime has been the subject of debate for decades. The classic argument is that high density offers opportunities for property crimes, given that it is a surrogate for the distribution of private property, much of which offers attractive targets to thieves. On the other hand, densely populated areas offer natural surveillance that has the effect of inhibiting violent crimes in so far as witnesses are more abundant and events are more likely to be reported to police. In this analysis, property and violent crimes were selected from a database of over 100,000 crimes reported in Baltimore County, Maryland, U.S.A., in the year 2000. Densities of population and of property and violent crimes were calculated for city blocks. Blocks with population densities above the mean of all blocks were then retained for further consideration.” Professor Harries concludes—— Analysis demonstrated that both property and violent crimes were moderately correlated with population density, and these crimes largely affected the same blocks. It was concluded that at the block level of geography, no evidence of a differential between property and violent crimes based on population density could be detected.” So, contrary to The Atlantic’s naked, unsupported remarks, the size of population and density do correlate with both property crime and violent crime; and they do so directly, not inversely, which means that, as population density increases in a given “block level of geography,” both property crime and violent crime increase as well.The Atlantic’s second observation is that, as the size of a community grows, a community’s police force also grows and, concomitant with a larger police force, “all else being equal a denser city will be a better policed city.”That observation, true once, perhaps, in all jurisdictions, is true no longer—not today—and certainly not in the jurisdictions comprising the Radical Left’s bizarro world.

DESTRUCTION OF A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC IS THE END GOAL OF THE RADICAL LEFT

Radical Left mayors, taking their cue from domestic terrorist organizations like Black Lives Matter and Antifa, have defunded their police or are seriously considering doing so. They have substantially reduced the number of police—despite or, perhaps, in arrogant defiance of the continuous, rampant violence afflicting their cities, and notwithstanding the absence of a corresponding decrease in population size—or have seriously considered doing so.These Mayors have also hamstrung those police remaining in their community—those who have not been summarily let go or who have otherwise voluntarily, and certainly understandably, resigned or who have taken early retirement—and in droves.After all why should police officers, honorable citizens, subject to the same feelings and emotions of any other law-abiding American citizen, wish to remain in service to a community when a city’s leadership prevents those officers from effectively performing their duties to preserve and protect the residents of their community and to maintain public order, civility, and decorum; when a city’s leadership refuses to prosecute crime; when a city’s leadership establishes policies that do nothing to constrain or curtail crime, and actually endanger the lives and well-being of police officers; and when a city’s leadership castigates and demoralizes the police, by continually railing and remonstrating against them, and, at once, extolling as virtuous the very rabble that seeks to tear down a community—a community that is the home of the police officers themselves.In fact, some Radical Left mayors have even considered eliminating police departments from their communities. The result is, as any reasonable person would expect, utter chaos, wanton destruction of public and private property, contempt for both the police and the criminal justice system; and willful and horrific violence directed against both police and innocent people.Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago represent,  for the political and social scientist, pertinent case studies of what happens when a City is rudderless and law and order break down; when politicians and the Press, too, deny the fact of and the scale of the horror that besets a nation; when public leaders act like irresponsible children, falling in line with a seemingly popular but misguided clique of sanctimonious, pretentious do-gooders who have nothing beneficial to offer the American people except venom, vitriol, and spite.The police are not society’s enemies. America’s police departments are the guardians of society. The Radical Left knows this. Anarchy reigns if the police are not permitted to function. They know this too. That is why they attack the very concept of  the ‘community police department.’ They know that, once the police go, society goes with it—down the drain. That is what they want: The United States, a free Constitutional Republic eradicated; erased; the vision of the founders forgotten. That is the aim of the Neoliberal Globalists and of the Radical Left of all stripes: A Counter-Revolution to reconstitute America into a thing utterly alien: a hideous, despondent, depleted mutant creature.New York City—as with Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and Minneapolis—is metastasizing into just such an abhorrent creature; and, if uncontained and unconstrained, it can bring down the rest of the Country with it.The burning question: With a huge and heterogenous population, the City requires an equally massive police force—one capable of quelling riots, suppressing crime, and maintaining peace and public order. But is New York up to the task? It is possible, but not with a Marxist Nihilist City Mayor like Bill de Blasio at the helm.___________________________________________________

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO STANDS IN THE WAY OF A SAFER NEW YORK

PART TWO

AN AMERICAN CITY REQUIRES BOTH A COMMUNITY POLICE FORCE TO MAINTAIN THE PEACE AND TO PROMOTE PUBLIC ORDER, AND A WELL ARMED CITIZENRY TO PROTECT PERSONAL LIFE AND PROPERTY AND TO GUARD AGAINST TYRANNY. UNDER DE BLASIO NYC HAS NEITHER ONE

America’s cities, as components of the Nation—a free Constitutional Republic—require both a community police force to maintain peace and to promote public order, and a well-armed citizenry to protect personal life and property and to guard against tyranny. Each component lends to peace, prosperity, and liberty. They each work in tandem, for the benefit of all Americans.Through time, how well has New York City faired in the matter of maintaining a capable, efficient, effective police force and in recognizing the right of the people to keep and bear arms? Let us see.

IS THE NYPD UP TO THE TASK TO PERFORM ITS DUTIES IN A MAMMOTH, HIGHLY CONCENTRATED AND DIVERSE POPULATION?

On its website, this is what the NYPD tells us—“The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is the largest and one of the oldest municipal police departments in the United States. . . . The NYPD was established in 1845, and today, is responsible for policing an 8.5-million-person city, by performing a wide variety of public safety, law enforcement, traffic management, counterterror, and emergency response roles.” The NYPD adds this comment on its website: “In the past 25 years, the department has achieved spectacular declines in both violent and property crime, ensuring that New York City has the lowest overall rate of major crimes in the 25 largest cities in the country.” Does this statement ring true? Well, it was once true.Under former City Mayors, Rudolf Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, crime was in fact brought under control. And it in fact took 25 years to do so—to repair the carnage wrought to the City under the stewardship of David Dinkins, a Democrat, who served as Mayor for one term: from January 1, 1990 through December 31, 1993.The public had had enough of Dinkins. He was defeated by a Republican, Giuliani, in 1994.We compliment Giuliani and Bloomberg on what they did right, improving the City’s economy and taking a hard stance on crime. But their consistent attack on the fundamental, natural right of armed self-defense is indefensible.A WELL-EQUIPPED, WELL ORGANIZED, WELL-FUNDED, COMMUNITY POLICE DEPARTMENT IS NECESSARY TO FIGHT CRIME, TO MAINTAIN ORDER, AND TO KEEP THE PEACE IN INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITIES; BUT A POLICE DEPARTMENT DOES NOT STAND AS, AND CANNOT STAND AS, A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE ARMED CITIZENRY, AS ONLY AN ARMED CITIZENRY CAN ADEQUATELY PROVIDE FOR, AND HAS THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROVIDE FOR ITS OWN DEFENSE AND TO SERVE AS THE BEST DETERRENT OF AND THE FINAL FAIL-SAFE TO THWART THE ONSET OF TYRANNY; THEREFORE IT IS WELL SAID AND HAS BEEN ETCHED IN STONE THAT “A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA BEING NECESSARY FOR THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE, THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.”The maintenance of public safety and order, to preserve and protect a community, is, and always has been, the frontline duty of a community’s police force. That is why the modern police department exists and has existed in our cities since at least the first third of the 20th Century, although the institution of policing existed much earlier, going back to the colonial days.But the duty to preserve and protect one’s own life and that of one’s family is personal, and the duty to ensure the security of and continuity of a free state and the immutable, illimitable sovereignty of the American people over Government remains forever in the hands of the people themselves; never in a standing army; nor in a federal or state or local police force; nor in the Nation’s massive intelligence apparatus, nor even in the Nation’s system of laws, which are, as has been disturbingly, depressingly shown, especially in the matter of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, susceptible to flagrant abuse; nor, as it has come to pass, in a Press that has misused its freedom, selling out our Country and our Nation’s people. And, of late, the Press has done so with wild abandon: officiously, audaciously: sermonizing endlessly, and sanctimoniously, and condescendingly to the American citizenry, as if the citizenry were merely an ignorant flock of sheep that must be constantly herded lest it go astray.Only through force of arms does the raw and awesome power of the American citizenry ring true. Only through force of arms can the American citizenry maintain the security and continuity of a free State as against those—be they inside or outside the Nation—who would dare usurp ultimate authority from the citizenry in whom that authority and sovereignty rightfully belong. Only through the force of arms can those who would dare hobble the American spirit be effectively constrained and contained and learn well that Americans are not to be toyed with.Apparently, neither New York City mayors nor New York State governors have gotten the message. Or, if they have, they have failed to heed it, and must be reminded of it.And it isn’t the duty of the police to provide for one’s personal safety; nor is it the duty of the police to guarantee the security of a free State, and never was. That duty rests solely, as it always has, as it always must, and as it was always meant to rest, in the people themselves.Yet, the City’s mayors have invariably, and grievously, and notoriously mistaken the duties, and functions, and responsibilities of the one with the duties, and functions, and responsibilities of the other; ultimately conflating the two; inferring, whether erroneously or disingenuously, that the police are fully capable of and should alone be tasked with the duties, functions, and responsibilities that the founders, in their wisdom recognized, and mandated must rest, as the Divine Creator intended, in full accord with the natural order of things, solely on the individual.The founders codified that natural law in the U.S. Constitution. More than two centuries have past since ratification of the U.S. Constitution. The Nation has adhered to natural law. Natural law is the foundational strength upon which the Constitution, the blueprint of our Nation, rests: the Nation's Bill of Rights. And through no accident, our Country has become the happiest, most productive, most  prosperous, most powerful, and most beneficent Nation on Earth.Now, though, we see cracks, deep fissures forming in our beautiful, wondrous blueprint. Why is that? How did that come about? There are sinister, ruthless, and jealous forces at work who are hell-bent on destroying the foundational principles of our Nation. Although these forces have actually been at work to tear down our Nation since the moment it came to fruition, in 1788, with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. But only recently has the full nature of and fury of these malevolent, malignant forces come to light. Americans are seeing unnatural, loathsome elements taking control of many major urban centers. And the Democrat Party—or, rather, what the Democrat Party, controlled by their own Globalist puppet-masters, has devolved into—is using these abhorrent hordes in a bid to take complete control over the reins of Government. These rabid, mindless hordes are operating with near complete abandon in several major urban centers. If the Democrats take control of Government in November, this rancid mob of malcontents will be unleashed, infecting all Cities, townships, and villages. Armageddon will ensue across the Nation.

THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS WAS CODIFIED IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO PREVENT THE NATION’S ANNIHILATION: THE VERY THREAT PRESENTED TODAY

Most States recognize the transcendent soundness of the Nation’s Bill of Rights and have adopted its language in their own State Constitutions, mirroring the Nation’s Constitution, including, most importantly, the language of the Second Amendment. But seven States have demurred, thinking they know better. One of those seven States is New York.THE SECOND AMENDMENT PRESERVES THE COUNTRY’S STABILITY; ITS LACK WILL END ITThe language of the Second Amendment appears nowhere in the State’s Constitution. Rather, the Second Amendment language, taken verbatim from the U.S. Constitution, but for the substitution of the  word 'shall' for 'cannot'—“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed,”—appears in the Consolidated laws of New York, Article 2 (Bill of Rights) of the Civil Rights Law, along with certain other “Rights” but notably, not in THE Bill of Rights, Article 1 of the State Constitution itself.This means New York considers the right of the people to keep and bear arms to be statutory, not fundamental, and, hence, debased to the status of a privilege, not a true right, subject, then, to constant modification and tinkering, which of course it has been.The 2008 U.S. Supreme Court Heller case made clear what sensible Americans always knew; that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not tied to one’s service in a militia, and the subsequent 2010 U.S. Supreme Court McDonald case held that the right of the people to keep and bear arms applies to the States as well as to the Federal Government. No matter: New York, and several other jurisdictions routinely and contemptuously ignore those clear, adamant U.S. Supreme Court holdings. And New York’s residents pay the price for the New York judiciary’s insolence and contentiousness. Rampant destruction, understandable fear among the polity, and needless, senseless loss of life follow where armed self-defense ceases to exist.

NEW YORK CITY, A MAJOR URBAN CENTER, PROVIDES AN OBJECT LESSON IN THE TRAPS AND SNARES OF WRONGHEADED, PIGHEADED MAYORAL LEADERSHIP, COMMENCING WITH THE LUDICROUS IDEA THAT AN ARMED CITIZENRY ENDANGERS THE SAFETY AND SECURITY OF THE CITY, RATHER THAN ENHANCING THE CITY’S SAFETY AND SECURITY

The NYPD doesn’t comprise legions of personal bodyguards to serve millions of New York City residents. It has neither the resources nor, under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the legal responsibility to do so. And, pretending that the NYPD can fulfill that function—a function, duty, and responsibility of the average citizen residing in New York—has had disastrous consequences for the City.Truth to tell, the constant danger posed to average, innocent citizens residing in New York requires both a massive police presence to provide public order and safety and an armed citizenry to promote armed vigilance and safeguard one’s personal life and well-being. It isn’t an either/or consideration. See Arbalest Quarrel article, posted on November 21, 2019, titled, “Can We, As Individuals, Rely On The Police To Protect Us?” 

THE IMPLOSION OF NEW YORK CITY OCCURRED ONCE, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, UNDER DAVID DINKINS; UNDER DE BLASIO IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN, ONLY WORSE!

The Former New York City Commissioner of Public Safety (Police Commissioner), Bernard Kerik, recently and accurately pointed out, in newsmax, that,“Twenty-five years ago, New York City was about to implode.Violent crime and murder rates were the worst in the United States, tourism was declining, real estate values were plummeting, and economic development was in regression.There were close to 1.6 million people on welfare, and neighborhoods of color looked like the remnants of war-torn Beirut.City streets and highways were cluttered with stolen and abandoned cars.As Rudolph W. Giuliani focused on his second attempt to become New York’s mayor, most New Yorkers believed that New York City was just too filthy, corrupt, and violent to manage.Giuliani possessed a different view: He was adamant that no one wants to live, work, visit, or go to school in a place where they're not safe.For every percentage point he reduced violent crime, we witnessed increases in economic development, rising real estate values; and all-time highs in tourism. As he walked out of City Hall on his last day, there was close to 800,000 less people on welfare.New York City had become the safest large city in America.Over the next 12 years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly carried on Giuliani’s anti-crime strategies, both achieving continued reductions in violent crime and murder.Mayor Bloomberg used that success to trumpet New York City as America’s economic and business capital of the world, which opened the floodgates for thousands of new companies and jobs.By 2014, New York City was one of the cleanest, safest, and fastest growing cities globally.Then came Mayor Bill de Blasio.” What happened next?Bill de Blasio single-handedly undid all the positive work of Giuliani and Bloomberg in rebuilding the City and making the City a safe place to live and to work. This hasn’t gone unnoticed; not least of all by police officers themselves. Retired NYPD sergeant, Joseph Giacalone, points out:“There have been more shootings so far this year in New York City than in all of 2019. . . . ‘“It only gets worse from here,” warned Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.’”The NYPD would do well to update its website to reflect the stratospheric rise in crime under the stewardship of Mayor Bill de Blasio. The Mayor, taking his cue from the domestic terrorist organization, Black Lives Matter, has completely hobbled the police, but, at one and the same time continues to resist recognition of the citizen’s right of “armed self-defense.”The right of the people to keep and bear arms continues to be a persistent bugaboo of all New York mayors. It is all the worse, today, in the topsy-turvy City of New York where a Marxist Mayor treats gang bangers, common criminals, dangerous lunatics, and Marxist rioters with kid gloves while at one and the same time castigates the police and spurns the public safety needs of ordinary citizens. The result——Bill de Blasio has single-handedly turned a once safe and thriving City into utter chaos, giving the green light to criminals and rioters and endangering the lives of average, law-abiding people.Quite an accomplishment! And de Blasio seems pleased with himself. His continuous obsequious behavior toward and grotesque relationship with Black Lives Matter demonstrates the toxic brew this creates, and the danger that such a coupling of Radical Left political leaders and domestic terrorist organizations poses to the stability of our Nation.The New York Post recently reported de Blasio as saying,“It was exactly the right thing to do to paint that mural and we’re going to keep sending that message constantly that Black Lives Matter in New York City, . . .”Marxist organizations—like Black Lives Matter—only matter to de Blasio. It is the organization, after all, that matters, and not actual Black lives.And, of course, de Blasio regularly denounces the NYPD. He has disbanded successful anticrime units; has demoralized the rank and file; has placed police officers in personal danger with his new policies; and he has advocated for the defunding of the entire Department.In having aligned himself with a domestic terrorist organization, Mayor de Blasio had apparently forgotten how he had not that long ago heralded the NYPD. Once, a little over a year ago, when Bill de Blasio hoped to secure his Party’s nomination for U.S. President, to take on Donald Trump—a long-shot bid if ever there was one—he realized that, to make headway, against a large field, he would have to take a major risk. He agreed to appear on Fox News, to be interviewed by Sean Hannity. The question of “gun control” came up.“Bill de Blasio defended his stance on gun control during an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity.De Blasio, the mayor of New York City, claimed New York is the safest large American city and that the police are the best outlet to keep people safe, on Wednesday’s ‘Hannity.’‘You’re in the safest big city in America. . . with the finest police force in America,’ he said.‘We keep people safe. Crime’s gone down for the last six years on my watch.’‘I believe right now what’s wrong in this country is not that people have rights around guns, it’s there are no gun safety measures like background checks.’” Of course, this exchange took place well before de Blasio hopped into the sack with Black Lives Matter. He has since forsaken the NYPD. Like many politicians, de Blasio is routinely dismissive of his audience, surmising wrongly, that the public is either too stupid or too gullible to notice the inherent inconsistencies and hypocrisies manifested in his bombastic utterings. See Arbalest Quarrel article, “NYC: The New Badlands,” posted on July 27, 2020.But, even if some Americans are oblivious to the pompous and vacuous assertions of this Mayor, they certainly cannot ignore what they see taking place; changes occurring at lightning speed; emphatic, insistent, and none of it pleasant: a City in turmoil; declining property values; the City’s economy shot-to-hell; skyrocketing crime; people leaving in droves; a Paradise to some—masochists and nihilists, likely—a vision of Hell to most; New York transformed into Venezuela.Governor Cuomo and Bill de Blasio continually bicker and snipe at each other, and blame their own failings on racism, Trump, Russia, or on anything or anyone else but for themselves. But they are of one mind when it comes to their Collectivist Dystopian vision. A Biden-Harris Presidency will see that Nihilist vision come true for the entire Nation.______________________________________________________

NYC MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE NOW

PART THREE

New York City cannot tolerate Bill de Blasio for the duration of his term. He must be removed before the City turns into the New Badlands. See, supra, Arbalest Quarrel article, titled, “NYC: The New Badlands,” posted on July 27, 2020.

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THIS MAYOR?

Most New York City residents desire stability and cherish the free Constitutional Republic our founders placed their life on the line to give us. These New Yorkers do not much appreciate or accept the Mayor’s policies. They reflect his Marxist principles and philosophy, antithetical to their own. And the negative impact is plain: a once safe, secure, vibrant, and economically thriving City drained of all vitality.Can the Mayor do whatever the hell he wants and get away with it? No!Mayor de Blasio may think his policies are a step in the right direction even as peace and public order have been shot to hell. Any normal, rational person, though, would say the Mayor has utterly failed at his job.This brings up a pressing question: what are the Mayor’s duties, after all? New York law spells this out.

A MATTER OF LAW AND THE RULE OF LAW IN NEW YORK

In the reign of Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York City, the City’s residents would do well to peruse New York law. It says much regarding the duties and responsibilities of the Mayor who is supposed to serve them, but isn’t.NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 54 (Duties of the Mayor) sets forth that,“It shall be the duty of the mayor to see that the city officers and departments faithfully perform their duties; to maintain peace and good order within the city; to take care that the laws of the state and the ordinances of the common council are executed and enforced within the city. . . .”Further, NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 57 (Additional powers and duties) sets forth:“The mayor shall have such other powers and perform such other duties as may be prescribed in this chapter or by other laws of the state or by ordinance of the common council, not inconsistent with law. In case of riot, conflagration or other public emergency requiring it, the mayor shall have power to call out the police and firefighters; he or she shall also have power to appoint such number of special police officers as he or she may deem necessary to preserve the public peace. Such special police officers shall be under the sole control of the regularly appointed and constituted officers of the police department. They have shall have power to make arrests only for disorderly conduct or other offenses against peace or good order. In case of riot or insurrection, he or she may take command of the whole police force, including the chief executive officer thereof.”Do you think the Mayor is complying with NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 54? Clearly not!Mayor de Blasio has done nothing to end riot, conflagration, and public emergency. To the contrary, he has stoked it. He should be removed from Office. But can he be?The short answer is, “yes;” the Mayor can be removed from Office, prior to election. The process in New York isn’t quick and it isn’t easy, but it can be done.Unfortunately, New York doesn’t have a recall procedure, unlike other cities. Removing the Mayor from Office through the electoral process, prior to the general election, isn’t open to New York City’s citizens. And the next regular election won’t take place until November 2021. So, removing de Blasio, sooner, barring death, must be done, if at all, through the Courts.But can the Mayor be taken to Court? He can if he is considered an “officer” under New York State law, who has committed crimes under color of law.Under New York law, the Mayor is an officer of the City: an ‘elected officer,’NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 11 (Elected officers) provides that:“There shall be elected by the qualified electors of the city, a mayor, comptroller, treasurer, president of the common council and four assessors. There shall be elected by the qualified electors of each ward of the city an alderman and a supervisor. There shall also be elected by the qualified electors of the city and of the wards thereof such other officers as may be provided by law.”State law sets forth the grounds for removal of city officers. The mayor comes under the purview of NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 20 (Charges against city officers): “An officer of the city . . . shall be removed only upon charges, such charges shall be for disability for service or neglect or dereliction of official duty or incompetency or incapacity to perform his official duties or some delinquency materially affecting his general character or fitness for the office unless otherwise specifically provided by law.” The follow-up question is this: Has there been “disability for service or neglect or dereliction of official duty, or incompetency or incapacity to perform his official duties” sufficient to support a legal basis to remove de Blasio from Office?As an avowed and devoted Marxist, de Blasio operates in accord with the tenets and strictures of Marxist Collectivism. His supporters might argue he’s faithfully carrying out official duties, consistent with his ideological bent, namely, to promote Marxism. And many City residents seem satisfied with that, having voted him into Office in the first place.But there is a specific act de Blasio has undertaken that is inconsistent with his duties as Mayor, rendering the matter of his political and social philosophy and posture irrelevant.The Mayor is a trustee of the public’s property. Under NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 22, the Mayor, no less than any other officer of the City, whether elected or appointed, including members of the common council,“are hereby declared trustees of the property, funds and effects of said city respectively, so far as such property, funds and effects are or may be committed to their management or control, and every taxpayer residing in said city is hereby declared to be a cestui que trust in respect to the said property, funds and effects respectively; and any co-trustee or any cestui que trust shall be entitled as against said trustees and in regard to said property, funds and effects to all the rules, remedies and privileges provided by law for any co-trustee or cestui que trust; to prosecute and maintain an action to prevent waste and injury to any property, funds and estate held in trust; and such trustees are hereby made subject to all the duties and responsibilities imposed by law on trustees, and such duties and responsibilities may be enforced by the city or by any co-trustee or cestui que trust aforesaid. The remedies herein provided shall be in addition to those now provided by law.”Bill de Blasio has made clear his intention to defund the police to the tune of one billion dollars. But those funds are police funds, part of the budget necessary to maintain public order. His intention to take money away from the police is prima facie inconsistent with the Mayor’s principal duty “to maintain peace and good order within the City.” Doing so, during a period of rising crime—indeed, a stratospheric increase in crime—amounts to an act in flagrante delicto.The Mayor’s dislocation of valuable police resources, including disbanding anticrime units, hamstringing police operations, rewriting police policy to cohere with Marxist objectives that are wholly inconsistent with traditional and accepted police practice, destroying cohesion within the ranks of the police, and misappropriation of public funds necessary to the proper functioning police operations, demonstrate clear evidence of massive dereliction of official duties and incompetency, demanding de Blasio’s immediate removal from office.Of course, a lawsuit against de Blasio might not, and probably would not, succeed—as Radical Left forces along with a seditious Press would be marshalled against such a lawsuit—but it would send a clear and stark message, to both de Blasio and to those who support a Radical Left insurgency, nonetheless; a message that reverberates throughout the Country, that, yes, Radical Left political leaders can be prosecuted for their crimes, too.

WHAT OTHER ACTION MIGHT BE TAKEN TO CONSTRAIN A RENEGADE MAYOR?

Lawsuits against public officers are an expensive and time-consuming process. Can something expeditiously be done to curb de Blasio’s actions?As a stopgap, the present Police Commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, can try, at least, to keep the Mayor’s power in check, refusing to implement policies that endanger public order and safety. But would Shea even want to?Remember, Mayor de Blasio appointed Shea. He did so obviously because they share a similar political and social philosophy. In fact, The New York Times quoted de Blasio as saying he selected Shea “because he is a ‘proven agent’ of change.”And we know what kind of change de Blasio has in mind for the City: Marxist Collectivism.But even Shea realizes de Blasio is operating erratically, as the Times pointed out in that same August 3 article. “[Shea’s] criticism of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s law enforcement policies was stinging.” Apart from publicly criticizing the Mayor, Shea seems reluctant to go any further than that; he is unlikely to take action to countermand the Mayor’s policies concerning police operations. If he were to do that, Shea would jeopardize his own position because de Blasio would likely fire him. It is the Mayor’s prerogative to do so since the Police Commissioner is appointed by the Mayor. Shea knows that.In New York, as in many jurisdictions, the Police Commissioner, i.e., the “Commissioner of Public Safety,” isn’t elected by the people, so he isn’t directly answerable to the people. He is answerable to the Mayor who appointed him.NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 12 (Appointive officers) provides that,“There shall be appointed by the mayor a corporation counsel, city engineer, commissioner of public works, commissioner of public safety, commissioner of public welfare and sealer of weights and measures.”Perhaps New York law should be changed to enable the residents to elect their police commissioner directly, as they do their mayor. If so, the police commissioner wouldn’t be answerable to the mayor, but directly to the people who elected him. That might help.But, in the interim, unless a party with standing—who also has the time, money, the moral fiber and strength of spirit—to file a lawsuit to remove a recalcitrant, intransigent de Blasio from Office, the public is stuck with him until the next mayoral election in November 2021.What kind of shape do you suppose the City will be in fifteen months from now with de Blasio still in office? Can the residents of New York City afford to wait that long? The prognosis isn’t good.Representative Lee Zeldin (R-NY) told Fox News, bluntly:“ ‘I don’t believe New York City is going to survive the remainder of Mayor de Blasio’s term in office,’ he told Fox News. ‘Certainly there are individuals who live in New York City who will not literally survive without any type of a change in the way New York City approaches policing, law and order, safety and security.’” _______________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHAT DOES A BIDEN PRESIDENCY MEAN TO AMERICANS?

PART ONE

Electing Donald Trump to a second term this November is as critical to our Nation’s preservation as the outcome of the American Revolution was to our Nation’s creation.Some Americans, though, who intend to vote for Joe Biden—assuming the DNC doesn’t pull the plug on him and selects someone else to run against Trump in his stead if Biden’s cognitive decline worsens precipitously between now and the day of the Election—don’t see the election as a watershed moment. They see the coming U.S. Presidential election as they see all Presidential elections: political pendulum oscillations from left to right to center, ever back and forth, analogous to the natural tendency of the stock market to self-correct when discordant fluctuations in the market due to panic selling or exuberant buying inevitably drive stock market valuations back to a more sensible level.Periodically, or so these members of the electorate assume, a pendulum swings too far in one direction. When that occurs, a political course correction is necessary. The pendulum must be brought back to the center: to stability, to normalcy, to stasis, to a point of equilibrium in all matters political, social, cultural, and economic. But, if so, this presumes that Trump's 2016 victory represents a radical shift away from political equilibrium rather than, itself, a self-corrective step toward equilibrium from the irrationality of the Clinton/Bush/Obama eras that saw the Nation moving ever further away from its traditional roots. Of course,  the movement away from our Nation's roots, our Nation's core values, has taken place gradually, imperceptibly, over decades. The American public had been mostly unaware of the shift. Yet, perhaps on a subconscious level, many Americans did come to suspect something awry and that would suggest why the electorate voted Trump into Office. Rather than an anomaly, the election of Trump represents, then, a return back to the political mean; a return to sanity, and not a rocket trajectory away from it that the mainstream media has painted ever since Trump took the Oath of Office.Be that as it may, many Americans, poisoned by media propaganda, truly see Joe Biden as the political “moderate,”  someone who will bring the Nation back to a moderate political, social, cultural, and economic stance; back to normalcy; back to equilibrium. This idea is to us either wishful thinking or delusional, but it explains why the DNC, including the RINOs, believes an otherwise weak candidate like Biden has the best shot at beating Trump in November 2020.The also-ran Democrat Party candidates—charismatic, articulate, and/or merely youthful—fell by the wayside because the DNC concluded they were not well known or were perceived by the DNC and the Democrat Party leadership as politically too far afield for the majority of the electorate, or, as in the case of Tulsi Gabbard, perceived as too mainstream: center-right, or dead center, and therefore distasteful to Democrats who, having grown, through time, so radicalized, cannot stomach Tulsi Gabbard even if she, unlike any of the other Democrat Party candidates, might be more palatable to Americans outside the Party. So, Joe Biden, the most inept candidate of all, becomes the default Party candidate.Many in the electorate see Joe Biden’s obvious mental deficiencies as de minimis, of little concern, or even de rigueur, obligatory: a cognitively impaired, uncharismatic, stumbling, bumbling, rambling, fool—just the sort of person to bring this Nation back to its senses and to a sense of decorum, as this shell of a man cedes authority to the Bureaucratic Deep State. But ceding authority to the Bureaucracy is something Trump would never do; has never done; and, in fact, ought never to do, as no U.S. President should ever do, since the President of the United States is the only person under and pursuant to Article II, who wields Article II authority. But, Trump is so loathed by the “establishment”—that the alternative to a continuation of the Trump Administration, is an Administration grounded on obsolescence and decrepitude, as the “establishment” considers that to be preferable to an Administration run by a President who would actually wield Article II powers that the Constitution provides for him; that the Constitution demands from him; and that the voters who elected Trump to Office expect of him. But, the Democrats and RINOs, these Destructors, want none of that. They wan,t from the person who serves as  President, someone who obediently, willingly, happily, answers to those who are supposed and expected to answer to him: the Federal Bureaucracy. No better person to symbolize that obsolescence, decrepitude, and inanity of the Presidency the “establishment”  seeks to install in lieu of Trump than the frail, feeble, fragile, senile, hopelessly lost, unqualified, and ill-equipped shell of a man, Joe Biden. What better man is there to enfeeble the Nation itself than Joe Biden, the weakest, most feeble, infirm, debilitated man ever to run for political office?Other Americans who plan on voting for Joe Biden in November, assuming he does in fact run against Trump, have, as well, no illusions about Biden’s incapacity for Office. They, too, perceive Joe Biden’s infirmities and deficiencies as a “plus,” an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. These people doubt that Biden, if elected, would serve out one term, let alone two, and that is what they want. Indeed, that is what they are banking on. And there will be no placid course correction to the political center if Biden does emerge victorious in November.Even now The New York Times gloats over the fact that Sanders and Biden are, together, formulating the Radical Left agenda, nothing like it ever seen in our Nation's history: an agenda directed to erasing our Nation's history, setting it up for inclusion in a Global world State. Seeing the political pendulum swinging and sending the political pendulum back to center isn’t what those on the radical left of the political spectrum have in mind. For they have no intention of bringing the Country back to the political, social, economic, and cultural centrist midpoint. They plan to use Biden as a surrogate for Sanders, the latter of whom failed to secure the Democrat Party nomination in two election cycles, throwing his supporters into a tantrum, to send the political pendulum to such an extreme position on the left, that it remains frozen there in perpetuity.

WHAT IS THE COMING 2020 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION REALLY ABOUT?

This general election and the one preceding it isn’t an election between “Republicans and Democrats.” In fact, the terms ‘Republican’ and ‘Democrat’ have long ago lost whatever meaning they originally had.From a political, social, cultural, juridical standpoint, the coming election is one between adherents of the tenets of Collectivism and the adherents of Individualism. It is about those who support the Bill of Rights—and the one fundamental right that preserves all other rights along with the sovereignty of the American people, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—and those who abhor, absolutely loathe, the very notion of the supremacy of the individual over that of the Collective, and who intend to erase free speech, free association, and the ability of the American citizen TO BE his own person, individual; to see Government amass unlimited power, usurping the natural sovereignty of the people. These radical Marxists and Billionaire Globalists do not intend to leave the American citizen alone, but to subjugate the citizen, reduce the citizen to penury, and to keep the American citizen in a constant state of fear. We see the plans of these Destructors of our Nation playing out today, even before the General election. These Destructors of our Nation are providing the American citizenry a foretaste of what it can expect, what it will experience if the Destructors do secure complete control over the Federal Government. They will never permit the individual TO BE individual. They will never leave the individual alone. They will control all thought and conduct. And to avoid revolt, they will never sanction the citizenry's ownership of and possession of firearms and ammunition. Guns and ammunition will be the first things they will confiscate. They will reconfigure the Country, turning it from one where Government is the servant of the people to one where the people are the servants of Government, a Government to be merged into a new world order.Supporters of Individualism are fighting back against this push of Destructors both here and abroad who intend to wrest the Nation from the citizenry. Supporters of Individualism wish to preserve our Nation as the founders presented it to us, as set forth in the Nation’s blueprint, the U.S. Constitution; as the framers of our Constitution intended for our Nation to remain: a free Constitutional Republic, in which the people, themselves, are sovereign. Supporters of Collectivism want to eradicate our Nation’s history, culture, and core Christian values. They intend to create an entirely new and alien economic, political, social, cultural, and juridical construct, grounded on an expansive, powerful, centralized governmental authority through which the lives, thoughts, and actions of individuals are strictly controlled and modulated, according to a uniform standard, permitting no deviancy in thought, action, or conduct.Nothing better exemplifies the vast irreconcilable differences between those who adhere to the tenets of Individualism and those who adhere to the tenets of Collectivism than in the manner each perceives the Bill of Rights. Individualists perceive the Nation’s Bill of Rights as codifications of natural law bequeathed to man by the Divine Creator. The Bill of Rights are fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable rights, and liberties that rest outside the lawful power of the State to modify, abrogate, or ignore. It is through the exercise of these basic, God-given rights that the American citizenry retains its authority, power, and sovereignty over Government; and this is deemed a good thing; the way things ought to be.Collectivists perceive the Nation’s Bill of Rights as nothing more than codifications of man-made laws that arise with the creation of a State. Collectivists perceive the Bill of Rights as auxiliary laws of man, created by man, bestowed on man by other men; laws that therefore fall within the prerogative of men to modify, abrogate, or ignore at will. They perceive the Bill of Rights, not as permanent ineradicable fixtures, but as an insufferable obstacle to their usurpation of authority. They see the Bill of Rights as no more than a collection of antiquated, obsolete alienable man-made rules, unacceptable constraints on and restraints against their accumulation of Government power; as an unacceptable restraint and constraint on their own unconscionable, unlawful usurpation of authority from and unlawful grasp of the sovereignty of the American people; an unlawful grasp of authority, power, and sovereignty that belongs solely to and rests solely with the American people, themselves, not with Government; not with the usurpers in Government.The Collectivists slowly, inexorably encroach on individual freedom and autonomy; they attack the very integrity of selfhood. They see the average American as intractable, requiring constant guidance and control no less than a wayward child. Thus, Collectivists refuse to accept, cannot even comprehend the idea that, within man's nature, within his very being, exist God-given unalienable rights, intrinsic to man's very being. Collectivists see the Bill of Rights only as mutable privileges, not immutable rights. They perceive the Bill of Rights not as illimitable and expansive in their reach but limited, transitory, to be exercised by the citizenry, if at all, solely by the grace of Government, subject to carefully circumscribed parameters when exercised, at all; privileges that are capable of rescission at any time. These differences in perception of the Divine nature of man and of the relationship of man to Government have more than philosophical import. They have real-world consequences for every American. See the Arbalest Quarrel article on "The Modern American Civil War: A Clash of Ideologies."Collectivists do not perceive the Bill of Rights as sacred and inviolate but as obstacles to control over the citizenry; and they are correct in their observation that the Bill of Rights does operate as an intolerable, insufferable, frustrating obstacle to those in Government who desire to wield absolute control over the thoughts, actions, and conduct of the citizenry, as of course, the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent. This is as the framers of the Constitution intended so that the sovereignty of the Nation would always rest in the hands of the citizenry, not in the hands of Government, and it is this idea, crystallized in the soul of the American psyche, indefatigable, tenacious notion that Americans will not so easily relinquish, that Biden and his handlers, as with all those who adhere to the tenets of Collectivism, intend to wrench from the American citizen. But to accomplish this, the Destructors of our Nation must corral the Bill of Rights; they must turn the Constitution on its head. And they are making headway: shaming Americans, humiliating them; creating victims of us all.______________________________________________

TO CONTROL AMERICANS, DEMOCRATS MUST CONTROL SPEECH AND FIREARMS

PART TWO

Collectivists are sly, deceitful creatures. They erode our fundamental rights under the cloak of morality and pragmatism, hoping that few Americans will notice.Consider the Biden campaign’s war on the fundamental right of free speech. Recently, Biden and other Collectivists argue that free speech ought not to extend to “hate speech.” Superficially, that may seem reasonable to some Americans. But is it? What constitutes “hate speech?” Indeed, what constitutes “speech” as free expression under the Constitution? Does Flag Burning constitute “speech” protected under the First Amendment? Does the display of firearms at rallies constitute “speech” protected under the First Amendment? Is the latter an expression of “hate speech and not the former? If so, how does one make that determination?As one academic writer aptly said: “Hate speech is a vague concept with varying definitions. Generally, it includes speech that is abusive, offensive, or insulting that targets an individual's race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin.” “Verbal Poison—Criminalizing Hate Speech: A Comparative Analysis and a Proposal for the American System,” 50 Washburn L.J. 445, Winter 2011, by Thomas J. Webb, J.D. Candidate, Washburn University School of Law. The author continues, “Regulating hate speech in the United States is problematic because of the value the nation places on free speech. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that, ‘Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . . .’” The author adds, “There are three prominent justifications for protecting free speech: (1) it acknowledges human autonomy and dignity, (2) it promotes the marketplace of ideas, and (3) it is an effective tool of democracy.”But, the Collectivist Democrats and other Collectivists of all stripes—Marxists, Communists, Socialists, Globalists, Anarchists, and others—will have none of that.But, assuming that Congress could devise an operational definition of ‘hate speech,’ would such statute prohibiting such speech still conflict with the First Amendment? Yes! The U.S. Supreme Court has made this point clear, succinct, and categorical, opining, in Snyder V. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 131 S. Ct. 1207 (2011): “Such [hate] speech cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt. ‘If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.’ Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414, 109 S. Ct. 2533, 105 L. Ed. 2d 342 (1989). Indeed, ‘the point of all speech protection . . . is to shield just those choices of content that in someone’s eyes are misguided, or even hurtful.’ Hurley v. Irish-American  Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U.S. 557, 574, 115 S. Ct. 2338, 132 L. Ed. 2d 487 (1995).But Collectivists don’t give a damn about the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause; nor do they give a damn about the High Court’s interpretation of it. As a prime example of what this means, what this entails, consider the Collectivists' seamy, degenerate attacks on Zuckerberg's social media vehicle, Facebook. The Collectivists’ have recently vented their fury on Zuckerberg’s Facebook. And, the toady and mentally deficient, presumptive Democrat Party nominee for U.S. President, Joe Biden, in whose name the Collectivists present their aims to the American public, doesn't really have a clue what is going on all around him; how it is the Collectivist puppet masters are playing him for the fool he is and parading him, now and then, before the public.Of course, Biden’s policy planks, marching ever leftward toward a cliff, are and must be coextensive with those of the Collectivists, who are feeding Biden his lines; his messages. They have simply stepped in his shoes, and, in his dim-witted muddled mind, Biden accepts whatever his handlers require of him, understanding nothing, and caring little, if at all, of the clown he has become; his words meaningless jabber, both to him and everyone else. The website, Reason, says,“After being asked by the Times about previous comments Biden has made regarding Facebook's refusal to remove negative ads targeting his campaign, the Democratic front-runner attacked both the social media platform and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.‘I've never been a fan of Facebook,’ Biden says. ‘I've never been a big Zuckerberg fan, I think he's a real problem.’Biden and Facebook have been feuding for months, as Reason has previously covered. In an October letter to Facebook, Biden's campaign called on the social media site to reject political ads containing ‘previously debunked content’—like a Trump campaign ad linking Biden and his son, Hunter, to corruption in Ukraine. Shortly afterwards, Zuckerberg said the company's policies were ‘grounded in Facebook’s fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is.’Zuckerberg is correct, but that didn’t sit well with Biden. In a CNN town hall event in November, Biden said he would be willing to rewrite the rules for all online platforms in order to force social media companies to ‘be more socially conscious.’”The Collectivists have gone to task on Zuckerberg. On July 9, 2020, as reported in the NY Times, Facebook’s “auditors,” said, “the prioritization of free expression over all other values such as equality and nondiscrimination is deeply troubling.”Deeply troubling to whom? The Collectivist censors? Apparently, these Facebook auditors aren’t familiar with the critical importance of the First Amendment in a free Constitutional Republic.“Free expression” isn’t a mere “value,” it’s a fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable, natural right, bestowed on man by the Divine Creator, and its meaning is straightforward. The expressions, ‘equality,’ and ‘non-discrimination,’ though, are vague concepts and apply to aspirations, not fundamental rights.In the absence of explication, expressions such as 'equality' and 'non-discrimination,' that the Facebook auditors mention, do not, however, denote “rights,” fundamental or secondary. Equality for whom and in what sense? And, non-discrimination in terms of what? People as individuals are decidedly unequal. Some have been blessed with one or more gifts such as intelligence, or beauty, or athletic ability, or business acumen. Others do not have such gifts. In terms of talents, abilities, physical features, and even with respect to motivations and drives, people are decidedly and decisively unequal. Yet, even in physical, mental, and emotional attributes, Collectivists strive to force commonality on everyone, destroying that especial aspect of a person that defines the individual soul. This generalized, nebulous concept of 'equality' the Collectivists allude to has nothing to do with equal protection under the law as guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.But, apropos of “free speech,” everyone has an “equal” right to say their mind. If someone’s words hurt me, then all the worse for me. If my words hurt another, then all the worse for him. But all the worse for both of us and our Nation if the Collectivist censors determine what either of us can assert verbally or in writing, thereby denigrating and curbing the force of the free speech clause of the First Amendment.Similarly, people discriminate all the time: in terms of their interests, their proclivities, their passions, the people with whom they choose to associate or not, and in terms of their political and social and religious preferences; and, while the law prohibits discrimination, as for example, on the basis of race, color, age, or sex, and as, for another example, in employment, and in restaurant or hotel accommodations, anti-discrimination laws are statutory constructs, not fundamental rights.But, Collectivists subsume aspirations to the level of fundamental rights. They raise secondary man-made rights, such as ‘abortion,’ to the level of fundamental rights. And, they dismiss out-of-hand rights that are natural, fundamental, God-given, such as the right of the people to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment.Biden and his handlers have made clear that preservation of the Second Amendment does not factor into their Party plank. While some Collectivists, like retired Associate Justice John Paul Stevens would strike the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights altogether, Biden and the Democrats are, at the moment at least, circumspect about their intentions, couching the denial of the right of the people to keep and bear arms in terms of a desire to curb “gun violence” and a desire to end what they refer to as a “gun culture” existent in America. See: “The Biden Plan To End Our Gun Violence Epidemic.”And, keep in mind how the Biden gun safety plank insinuates the First Amendment into the Second Amendment, and observe how the Destructors of our Nation don't attack the Second Amendment head-on, but obliquely:“Close the ‘hate crime loophole.’ Biden will enact legislation prohibiting an individual ‘who has been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, or received an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias in its commission’ from purchasing or possessing a firearm.” This “hate crime loophole” would add another criterium to the Federal Penal Code, denying a person the right to possess firearms for “thought” crimes. Eventually, the Collectivists wouldn’t even bother to use the excuse of a misdemeanor conviction to deny an American the right to keep and bear arms. If one’s speech is construed as “hate speech,” that would be enough to deny a person the right to own and possess firearms, expanding the domain of those not permitted to own firearms, exponentially. Would Collectivists argue that merely to desire to own and possess a firearm is tantamount to “hate speech” on its face? Considering how far the Radical Left Collectivists have come since Charlottesville—defacing the monuments of Confederate War Heroes—to arguing for the removal of monuments to the Father of our Nation, George Washington, and to the other Founders, there is no limit to the extravagant outrageous, laws, rules, regulations, ordinances, and executive orders that will come down the pike if the Collectivists take control over all three Branches of Government.But if Radical Left Marxist control of all thought, deed, and action is what you fancy, then feel free to give a sawbuck or two to Biden’s campaign at “Can you donate to Elect Joe Biden?” I’m sure he would appreciate it.___________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.  

ASSAULT ON SECOND AMENDMENT CAN ONLY BRING DESTRUCTION TO OUR NATION AS A FREE REPUBLIC.

PART SIXTEEN

AMERICANS MAY FORESTALL ALL ATTACKS ON THEIR FREEDOM BUT FOR ONE: LOSS OF THEIR RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.

There is ample evidence of sinister work afoot to tear down the fabric of this Nation that the founders of our Republic fought so hard to create and preserve. The creation of both the Federal Reserve System and the IRS that have sucked the lifeblood of Americans’ toil are two clear instances of attempts by rapacious forces from both within the U.S. and outside the U.S. to undermine the integrity of the U.S. as an independent and sovereign Nation State; to weaken our Nation’s institutions; and to enfeeble our Nation’s citizenry so that it might be more easily disciplined and controlled.Understand there is nothing in the Constitution that either requires or mandates the creation of an independent privately owned Federal Reserve System or that requires or mandates the creation of a governmental structure, the IRS, within the U.S. They are both artificial constructs. The framers of our Constitution did not place them in that sacred Document. Yet, they exist, and both have done much to harm both this Nation and this Nation’s citizenry, up to the present moment in time. Just as insidiously, we have seen, for decades, attempts to destroy the independence and sovereignty of our Nation by thrusting the U.S. into economic unions with other Nations. These economic pacts and treaties serve as a diabolical backdoor through which the internationalist Rothschild clan and its minions dare insinuate themselves into the political, social, cultural, and legal fabric of our Nation, quite apart from the economic fabric, benefiting multinational cartels to the detriment of our Nation’s workers and small business owners.Recall the creation of NAFTA and CAFTA. Have these economic pacts served well our Nation and its workers and our small business entrepreneurs? Hardly! Just ask them! And, through further, subterfuge, past Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former U.S. President Barack Obama, along with the transnationalist cartels, sought to undermine the sovereignty and independence of our Nation; subordinating our Constitution, system of laws and jurisprudence, to the will of multinational corporations, one-world Government transnationalists, neoliberal economic Globalists, and transnationalist multiculturalists.Consider the infamous, rapacious, diabolical Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreements that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama helped to formulate, through secret machinations and connivance with other Governments and with multinational corporations, and through which they sought to bind our Nation. The TPP and TTIP, as envisioned, would have been horrific mechanisms of control through which this Nation’s economic, political, and legal independence and sovereignty would have been jeopardized, vanquished, had they been implemented, as Barack Obama intended, and as Hillary Clinton would certainly have followed through with, had she become U.S. President, notwithstanding her statements to the contrary, during the 2016 Democratic Party debates.President Trump made clear his opposition to these monstrous plans to undermine our Nation, and, true to his word, he successfully derailed them through Executive Order, one of his first acts as U.S. President.

BUT THE MOST DIABOLICAL ASSAULT ON OUR NATION AND ON A FREE PEOPLE IS THIS: DESTRUCTION OF THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.

More recently, within the last few years especially—and never far from the Collectivists’ desire to eradicate our free Republic—we see the destroyers of our Nation attempting, now and again, to undermine, indeed erase, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. With the U.S. Presidential election drawing ever nearer, we are seeing renewed attacks on the Second Amendment. In fits and starts, the Democratic Party—now a refuge for Radical Leftists of all stripes: Marxists, Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists—inevitably and invariably returns to its signature platform and policy goal: the weakening and eventual eradication of the Second Amendment. But why is that? Why would the Democratic Party Leadership and its Radical Left contingent want this? For this reason: An armed citizenry is absolutely anathema to their plans for a massive increase in the size of Government, and, concomitantly, for a powerful centralized Government exercising control over the Nation’s citizenry’s every thought and action. And so, understandably, albeit, unconscionably, we see the American citizenry’s exercise of its Second Amendment fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms under insistent, incessant, omni-present, strenuous attack.The Progressive and Radical Left toadies and hangers-on in our State and Federal Governments will never be content with simply weakening the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They must attack firearms and firearms’ ownership and possession at the root level, doing so fervently, unashamedly, unabashedly. They seek to make the very idea of gun ownership and possession passé, a notion that has outlived its usefulness, if, in their mind, ever had any. They intend to make the American citizen's the very idea of exercising one's right to keep and bear arms an aberration of nature. There is even a name for it now: hoplophobia. Will this new phobia eventually be included in a new “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM), even as such clear deviancy as Gender Dysphoria is removed, due to the operation of the imbecilic notion of “Political Correctness,” hawked by supercilious “Thought Police” of the Radical Left?And Progressive and Radical Left Legislators and Government Bureaucrats have friends to assist them in their endeavor to wreak havoc on the Second Amendment: friends and cohorts found in finance and in the technology sectors; in academia; entertainment, the Press; and even in our Courts. All have a strong, irrepressible, obsessive desire to weaken the Second Amendment irreversibly; many calling for outright repeal of it. Along the way they orchestrate schemes to neutralize the efficacy of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.But, what is the rationale for the incessant, virulent attack on the Second Amendment? Is it really predicated on a desire, ever expressed, to curb “gun violence” as the Public is told? No! That is mere pretext. Were it otherwise, then those who truly claim a desire to curb violence with guns, would direct their attention to those elements in society—namely gang members, common criminals, and terrorists—who misuse firearms. But, they don’t direct their attention to these elements of society. Instead, these Radical Left elements direct their attention to the firearm itself, and they direct their attention on the tens of millions of average Americans: rational, law-abiding citizens who wish only to exercise their fundamental right to keep and bear arms, uninhibited, unrestrained, and unconstrained by Government.Consider the media’s incendiary attacks on guns and gun ownership whenever a lunatic goes off half-cocked: most recently, as we see in newspaper accounts of two recent mass shooting incidents. The New York Times proclaims on a banner headline, on August 5, 2019, in its digital format paper that: “Shootings Renew Debate Over How to Combat Domestic Terrorism.” And in the Newspaper’s home edition, the banner headline reads: “One Shooting Massacre Follows Another, Shaking a Bewildered Nation to its Core.” In the fourth paragraph of the article, the Times reports, “Democrats urged Congress to take action and pass stricter gun laws.”In other words, the Democratic Party Leadership and the Radical Left deem it perfectly acceptable to utilize the lowest common denominator in society to destroy the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms. But, even on that score the antigun zealots in the Press cannot claim even a modicum of consistency. Where was The New York Times’ outrage when the lunatic and Antifa fanatic, Willem Van Spronsen, attacked an immigration detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, on July 13, 2019, with an aim toward murdering federal police officers? That outrage was nowhere to be seen. The Times reported dryly, matter-of-factly, indeed deceptively, that:"the man [Willem Van Spronsen], who was armed with a rifle, was throwing unspecified 'incendiary devices' at the Northwest Detention Center, according to a police statement. . . . Police have not established a motive for the attack, but The Seattle Times reported that a longtime friend of Mr. Van Spronsen’s, Deb Bartley, believed he had intended to provoke a fatal conflict.”No motive for the attack on ICE Officials and on the Northwest Detention Center that can be deduced? Really? New York Times reporters couldn't undertake an investigation? Conducting independent investigations--isn't that what Newspaper Reporters do; what it is they are supposed to do, expected to do, to get to the bottom of a story? And, couldn't the story's news reporters hazard an educated guess, at the very least, as to a possible motive, given that Spronsen did, after all, leave a "manifesto" which he obviously intended for the public to read?The conservative Washington Times, having investigated the would-be killer, Spronsen, unlike the Left-wing New York Times--that, it seems, decided to forego investigating the motives of Spronsen--found no difficulty at all in ascribing a motive to Willem Spronsen's actions, and the Washington Times found reason aplenty for so informing the public of its findings, writing:Willem Van Spronsen, 69, declares early on in his manifesto that ‘evil says concentration camps for folks deemed lesser are necessary. the handmaid of evil says the concentration camps should be more humane,’ using a term usually reserved for Nazi Germany’s death camps, but introduced in the border-security debate last month by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.He also mocked people criticizing Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for intellectual sloppiness, referring to ‘these days of highly profitable detention/concentration camps and a battle over the semantics.’Van Spronsen, armed with an AR-15 assault weapon that his manifesto encouraged others to acquire to bring about a revolution, attacked the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma around 4 a.m. Saturday. He threw ‘incendiary devices’ and set vehicles before officers shot him to death as he was trying to ignite a propane tank. In his manifesto, he called the detention facility ‘an abomination’ and that he was ‘not standing by’ as it operated.‘i really shouldn’t have to say any more than this. i set aside my broken heart and i heal the only way i know how- by being useful. i efficiently compartmentalize my pain. . . and i joyfully go about this work,’ he wrote.He indicated that he intended the attack as a suicide mission, writing that ‘i regret that i will miss the rest of the revolution. thank you for the honor of having me in your midst. giving me space to be useful.’Antifa activists declared him useful, too.Seattle Antifascist Action called him ‘our good friend and comrade Willem Van Spronsen’ and said he ‘became a martyr who gave his life to the struggle against fascism.’The group went on to call for more such attacks in memory of Van Spronsen.‘We cannot let his death go unanswered . . . May his death serve as a call to protest and direct action,’ the group wrote on its Facebook page.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was asked Monday by the Daily Wire whether she would denounce antifa and whether she was to any degree responsible for the attack, since Van Spronsen repeatedly used her “concentration camp” language.She ignored the reporter.BREAKING: Ocasio-Cortez refuses to condemn the far-left terrorist attack on the ICE facility in Tacoma, WashingtonThe terrorist used Ocasio-Cortez’s rhetoric in his manifesto pic.twitter.com/t1priIPAiW.Apparently The New York Times missed these little details about Spronsen that the Washington Times felt pertinent enough to inform the public about. Or, perhaps New York Times Editors, unlike the Washington Times Editors, felt that Spronsen’s motives, clearly amounting to domestic terrorism were either inscrutable or irrelevant; therefore falling outside the parameters of what the Times concludes is "All the News That’s Fit to Print." One is left to suspect that there is, in fact, contrary to adherence to its motto, much "News That IS Fit to print," but that The New York Times would rather not print even though such news is really and truly fit to print; preferring to leave the public in the dark in those instances where the news doesn't happen to fit the paper's personal ends: one directed to indoctrinating the public to accept a certain line of thought, rather than merely and essentially informing the public, so that the public might draw its own conclusion. And, there you have it!

PART SEVENTEEN

ENDING GUN VIOLENCE ISN’T AN AIM OF ANTIGUN RADICAL LEFTISTS; IT IS A MERE TALKING POINT TO DESTROY EXERCISE OF THE CITIZEN'S FUNDAMENTAL, NATURAL, AND UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMSDUPLICITY AND HYPOCRISY ABOUNDS AMONG THE RADICAL LEFTIf it were the case that those who claim a desire to curb gun violence truly meant what they say, they would be compelled, at one and the same time, to draw a clear and categorical distinction between proper, appropriate use of firearms and improper, inappropriate, criminal use of firearms, acknowledging the fact that millions of law-abiding, sane American citizens, do exercise their right to keep and bear arms for legitimate purposes, millions of time every year, namely, and most notably, for self-defense; thereby proclaiming the legitimacy of firearms’ use for self-defense. But, antigun zealots don’t wish to recognize self-defense as a legitimate reason for owning and possessing firearms, and, so, won't acknowledge self-defense as a legitimate basis for owning and possessing firearms, even if they were to do so only grudgingly.Further, a rational person would expect these same antigun zealots to condemn vociferously any and all acts of criminal violence even if they are reluctant to admit lawful purposes and uses for firearms. But, while it has always been the case that antigun zealots seek, first and foremost, to disarm the citizenry, albeit under the guise of protecting the public from gun violence, even that platitude has lost efficacy, for, as we have seen, Radical Left antigun zealots do, indeed, support use of firearms and bombs for use in some acts of domestic terrorism, namely those acts—such as attacking and murdering police and Federal ICE officials and destroying Government facilities—that happen to cohere with the Collectivist, Anarchist Marxist/Socialist/Communist agenda, as evidenced by the Spronsen incident, pointed out in this article, supra, citing the Washington Times news story, titled, “Antifa lauds ‘martyr’ who attacked ICE detention center as manifesto circulates.”We see mainstream Left-wing newspapers, such as The New York Times, deliberately refraining from calling out some acts of domestic terrorism, illustrating clearly enough, then, that many media organizations are clearly in lockstep with the sympathies of the Radical Left who operate both in this Country and abroad.

WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON HERE?

Of course exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense, is a perfectly legitimate purpose, as made plain in the 2008 Heller decision. But, for antigun zealots who, at once, invariably sympathize with the goals and agenda of the Radical Left, such an admission weakens their argument, false as it is, that guns are the salient cause of violence in society.Moreover, as some acts of domestic terrorism are tolerated or condoned, and even applauded and encouraged, as we see with the Willem Van Spronsen incident, it is now becoming impossible to deny—as the fact of the matter is becoming ever clearer, day-by-day—that the Radical Left intends to destroy the very fabric of American society as conceived by the founders of our free Republic. The Radical Left seeks to jettison our culture, our system of laws, our Constitution, our Judeo-Christian ethos—all of it—in the name of multicultural pluralism, utilizing the newly concocted political devices of identity politics, intersectionalism, and virtue signaling; and promoting as a morally superior idea, a culture of victimhood--all in an attempt to prepare the citizens of this Nation for a life of subjugation, as the Nation is subsumed into a new one-world Government, where the very concept of the ‘Nation State’ and ‘Citizen of the United States’ both cease to exist; where a once proud Nation is reduced to obscurity, insignificance--a mere cog in the machinery of a new one-world system of governance--where a once free, proud, and unique People is reduced to abject servitude and penury.Can the U.S. Supreme Court, as the guardian of the U.S. Constitution, prevent this, even if Congress and the Executive Branch of the Federal Government cannot? Clearly, the U.S. Supreme Court can, which is why the Radical Left seeks to pack the Court with individuals who have no love for our Constitution--who have little to no compunction about subordinating our Constitution to that of the laws of other Nations and to so-called international norms, thereby paving the way for insinuation of the U.S. into the EU, as precursor to a one-world system of governance, which necessitates loss of our National sovereignty and independence, and subordination of our laws, Constitution, and jurisprudence to an artificial transnational world construct. Not surprisingly, then, antigun zealots ignore the reasoning of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that contradict their goals and agenda. Hence, they ignore or condemn outright, the reasoning of the Heller Majority along with the high Court’s rulings in that case—viewing Heller as an aberration, if they are asked about Heller at all.

IN WHAT DOES THE THREAT TO THE COLLECTIVIST GOAL FOR EFFECTIVE REPEAL OF THE SACRED, FUNDAMENTAL, INVIOLATE, UNALIENABLE, NATURAL RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS REALLY AND TRULY REST?

It cannot be overstated that, while the Second Amendment entails the natural right of self-defense—as dealt with at length in Heller—the import of the Second Amendment is directed, first and foremost, to prevent tyranny from arising in this Country—a point also made in Heller. That being so, it is therefore a curious thing that antigun politicians, along with the usual media types, continually scoff at the notion that the American people need to be armed to ward off tyranny—even though it is self-evident, true, that no better check against tyranny exists than the presence of a well-armed citizenry. The founders of our Nation certainly knew this to be so, but few Legislators today bother to acknowledge that fact. Not surprisingly, the Radical Left in this Country, now attack the founders of our Nation even as these same Leftist elements dare claim, disingenuously, inconsistently, and oddly, that they respect our Nation’s laws and Constitution. Perhaps they should take a close look at Heller. And, they would do well to take a close look, as well, at Constitutional Law expert, David Kopel’s article, “Why the anti-tyranny case for the 2nd Amendment shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly,” that appeared, three years ago—and curiously enough—in the progressive weblog, Vox. Disemboweling the Bill of Rights—particularly the Second Amendment—is the principal aim of Progressive and Radical Leftists. Those that hew to the tenets of Collectivism—disreputable elements, both inside this Country as well as outside it—seek to destroy a proud and free people, and a free Republic.To accomplish their loathsome end, it is indicative of the unsavory proponents of Collectivism—those who seek to create a new system of governance, eschewing the continued existence of the concept of the Nation State—to work toward denying to the citizens of our Nation their natural, unalienable, immutable, and inviolate right to keep and bear arms. For, a one-world Government that subjugates entire populations is impossible to accomplish in any Nation where that Nation’s citizenry has, readily available to it, access to firearms.At ground, the salient and critical purpose of the Second Amendment, as the founders of our Constitutional Republic in their wisdom, did foresee and ever maintained, is to secure the authority and sovereignty of the American people from those who would dare usurp the ultimate, premier authority from wherein it alone belongs: in the American people themselves. Prevention of tyranny is the true, undeniable, and salient, essential purpose of the Second Amendment. And that core purpose is inconsistent with and anathema to the tenets of Collectivism.Collectivist tenets of Marxism, Socialism, Communism, upon which the Leftist agenda absolutely depends, requires, for its success, the subjugation of the American citizenry. This is a matter impossible for the Internationalist Collectivists to accomplish as long as the Second Amendment of our Nation's Bill of Rights remains, in all its glory: preserved, robust, strong, absolute, as the founders of our Nation, the creators of our free Republic, a Constitutional Republic—one comprising an autonomous, powerful, armed citizenry—had unequivocally intended.__________________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

U.S. PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY CANDIDATES SEEK TO DESTROY NATION'S BILL OF RIGHTS AND TO UNLEASH A SOCIALIST REVOLUTION

PART TWELVE

The Democratic Party is in a bind. This is the inference to be drawn after the first two recently aired Democratic Party Debates. And no less a source of Radical Left, Marxist hate-filled proselytizing and propaganda-filled garbage than The New York Times newspaper recognizes this indisputable fact; and, recognizing it, laments it, but for a very specific reason--one that may not be apparent to the casual reader.In two recent stories—one, an Op-Ed, appearing in the Saturday, June 29, 2019 edition of the newspaper, and the other, a news story appearing on the front page of the Sunday, June 30, 2019 edition of the newspaper—two NY Times reporters in a news story, and one NY Times columnist in an Op-Ed, express concern, even consternation over the style, tone and mood of the two recent Democratic Party debates. Several of the candidate hopefuls were falling all over themselves in their call for radical change for the Nation—calling for no less than a Marxist Revolution. Their exuberance was on clear display for all to see. The problem was that these Radical Left candidates for the Democratic Party nomination were much too exuberant; much too honest in setting forth their agenda for our Nation in the 21st Century. For, what they are calling for, what they are pushing for, what they seek to accomplish is the dissolution of our Country as an independent Sovereign Nation.President Trump has made clear, consistent with his policy objectives, that our Nation is not to be  beholding to or subordinated to any other Nation, Group of Nations, or any new social and political transnational Governmental world order. The Country had been in danger of losing its National Sovereignty and independence during the Administration of Barack Obama, through his duplicitous, seditious machinations.And work toward accomplishing that awful, horrific, nefarious objective would have continued under the Administration of Hillary Clinton. That is what the Radical Left wants, and the Democratic Party hopefuls were delivering that message to their base during the recent debates. They would attempt to accomplish immediately what Obama and Clinton had sought to accomplish slowly, incrementally. That's what the Radical Left wanted to hear, and hear that message, they did.Well, the message delivered at the Debates may be all well and good for the Radical Left base. It never tires of hearing how the United States Constitution ought to be shredded, commencing with the Bill of Rights; getting rid of the Second Amendment outright, and restraining and constraining the right of free speech of the First Amendment, on the other. And, the Radical Left never tires of hearing how our unique history, traditions, culture, and ethos are to be relegated unceremoniously to the dustbin.Yet, the message of the Radical Left means something patently horrific to everyone else—the vast majority of Americans, the silent majority in our Nation that happened to tune in on the debates. The silent majority does not ascribe to a new international world order, predicated on open borders, mass surveillance, loss of fundamental, natural, and unalienable rights and liberties, and who do not place their confidence in the firm and callous hand of Government, that seeks to control all action, thought and conduct of the American populace.The plans expressed by these Democratic Party U.S. Presidential candidate hopefuls may sound appealing to Progressives, to Marxists, and to Antifia anarchists and nihilists who seek to tear this Nation apart; who seek to create an entirely new system of Governance, one predicated on Socialist, Communist, and Marxist principles. And, the Democratic-Socialist agenda will, of course, certainly sound appealing to the millions of uneducated, or, at best, poorly educated, unskilled illegal aliens (who have no legal right to be in our Country in the first place). For, what it is that these functionally illiterate illegal aliens find most appealing about our Country has nothing to do with our natural, fundamental, unalienable rights and liberties; and it has nothing to do with the Governing principles and precepts upon which our Constitutional Republic rests and which they know little if anything about, and care not at all to know about.What these functionally illiterate illegal aliens find most appealing about our Country, what it is they are really looking for, and what it is that brought them here and which continues to bring, in droves, hundreds of thousands more of their ilk to our Nation, is the promise of U.S. Government and tax-payer assisted largess: free housing; free medical care; free education for their offspring, of which they have a multitude; and access to abundant welfare aid and programs and massive public assistance. These aliens and hundreds of thousands more of them—waves of them—illegally crossing our borders every month, have no concept of our fundamental rights and liberties and they have no desire of exercising such rights anyway because of the attendant personal responsibility attached. Yet, Americans are expected to obliterate their Constitution and dismantle a free Republic and to do so to cater to the riffraff of the world and to cater to the proponents and zealots of Marxist Collectivist ideology and Marxist social engineering who bemoan the very existence of sovereign, independent Nation States, and who seek not the preservation of, but the utter annihilation of our rich and unique national history and heritage* and ethos.The fact of the matter is that for millions of Americans who tuned in to hear the recent Democratic Party “Debates” and who listened to the Radical Dead Souls, calling for nothing less than a Marxist Revolution, were less than enthralled with the message delivered. In fact, the majority of Americans were positively alarmed at the tone, mood, and bravado of these individuals who would have the audacity to serve as U.S. President, seemingly on behalf of a Nation and its citizenry whom they really couldn’t care less about, as they seek to destroy the one and to reduce the other to servitude, penury, and misery, serving their lives out in a Socialist Collectivist nightmare of reality.Whether the Democratic Party candidates are cocksure that one of them—whoever it may be—will prevail over Donald Trump in the coming U.S. Presidential General Election, or they are are simply misguided in presuming that a Socialist or “Democratic-Socialist” will occupy the White House in 2020, they behaved, in the Debates, as if the success of their Political Party is assured and that a Marxist Collectivist Revolution is at hand and, that the implementation of their vision for a one-world Government is a foregone conclusion.They certainly didn’t restrain themselves in projecting the most outrageous social and political policy positions and in providing the American public with their prospects for our Country. In that, these Democratic Party U.S. Presidential candidate hopefuls, were clear and categorical about the agenda they are hell-bent on setting for the Nation: a transitional path forward to ultimate subsumption of our Country, our Nation, into a transnational, trans-global political, financial, economic, social, cultural, and legal system of governance. That would indeed mark the end of our rights and liberties; the end of the supremacy of our laws; an end to our history; an end to the very idea of a United States existing as a distinct Nation State as it is subordinated to and subsumed into a new transnational Political, Social, Economic, Legal, and Cultural construct.A disaster in the making is, apparently, what these Radical Leftists of the new Democratic Party want, indeed, what they are banking on; what, in fact, they are calling for: reducing the Nation’s citizenry to abject poverty and servitude, to the point where the citizenry cannot ably resist the dismantling of their Nation’s Constitution and subsumption of the Nation into a new international system of governance, where our Nation’s laws are no longer the supreme Law of the Land; where the United States can no longer reasonably, rationally be considered an independent sovereign Nation; and where the people of the United States are no longer deemed citizens but, rather, subjects within a new and vast world order.But, unlike the Democratic Party candidates, who demonstrated remarkable, if bizarre, exuberance and giddiness at the thought of seeing their vision of a Collectivist Marxist World realized, The New York Times, no less a proponent for the Marxist overthrow of the natural order of things, exhibited a note of caution and wariness over the alacrity with which the Democratic Party candidates for U.S. President laid bare their plans for the Country if any one of them were able to defeat Trump and actually assume the Office of Chief Executive of the Nation.In the June 30 article, the NY Times reporters made this comment in the opening paragraph of their news account:“The Democratic debates this past week provided the clearest evidence yet that many of the leading presidential candidates are breaking with the incremental politics of the Clinton and Obama eras, and are embracing seeping liberal policy changes on some of the most charged public issues in American life, even at the risk of a political backlash. Vowing to eliminate private health insurance, decriminalize illegal immigration and provide government health care benefits to undocumented migrants, high profile contenders like Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are wagering that they can energize voters eager to dismantle President Trump’s hard line policies.”Donald Trump’s hard line policies? Since when has it become hard line for a U.S. President to seek to protect and maintain the integrity of our Nation’s geographical borders; to work toward preservation of our Capitalist, free market economy; to faithfully execute the laws of our Nation—and that means, all of our laws—including, then, our immigration laws; and how is a U.S. President to help “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” if that means squandering our Nations limited funds and resources on government health care benefits and welfare to millions of illegal aliens? The New York Times’ sentiments are clearly in line with the most radical of Democratic-Socialist goals, and always have been; but, obviously, the Times, unlike the Democratic Party Candidates vying for their Party's nomination in the run-up to the General Election, is not convinced the American public is itself behind the Democrats, ready to jump on their bandwagon. In fact, the vast majority of Americans, the silent majority, couldn’t agree less with the aims and wishes of this neo-Democratic-Socialist Party. For the Party’s agenda and policy goals are a recipe for National disaster.In a June 29, 2019 Op-Ed, the NY Times Columnist Brett Stephens, seemingly grudgingly acknowledges that the Democratic Party agenda is well beyond the pale of anything acceptable to the vast majority of Americans, as he tellingly recounts the message of the Democratic Party candidates, as perceived by the vast majority of Americans. Stephens’ asserts, in pertinent part:“In this week’s Democratic debates, it wasn’t just individual candidates who presented themselves to the public. It was also the party itself. What conclusions should ordinary people draw about what Democrats stand for, other than a thunderous repudiation of Donald Trump, and how they see America, other than as a land of unscrupulous profiteers and hapless victims?Here’s what: a party that makes too many Americans feel like strangers in their own country. A party that puts more of its faith, and invests most of its efforts, in them instead of us.They speak Spanish. We don’t. They are not U.S. citizens or legal residents. We are. They broke the rules to get into this country. We didn’t. They pay few or no taxes. We already pay most of those taxes. They willingly got themselves into debt. We’re asked to write it off. They don’t pay the premiums for private health insurance. We’re supposed to give up ours in exchange for some V.A.-type nightmare. They didn’t start enterprises that create employment and drive innovation. We’re expected to join the candidates in demonizing the job-creators, breaking up their businesses and taxing them to the hilt.That was the broad gist of the Democratic message, in which the only honorable exceptions, like Maryland’s John Delaney and Colorado’s John Hickenlooper, came across as square dancers at a rave.On closer inspection, the message got even worse.Promising access to health insurance for north of 11 million undocumented immigrants at a time when there’s a migration crisis at the southern border? Every candidate at Thursday’s debate raised a hand for that one, in what was surely the evening’s best moment for the Trump campaign.Calling for the decriminalization of border crossings (while opposing a wall)? That was a major theme of Wednesday’s debate, underlining the Republican contention that Democrats are a party of open borders, limitless amnesty and, in time, the Third World-ization of America.Switching to Spanish? Memo to Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker: If you can’t speak the language without a heavy American accent, don’t bother. It just reminds those of us who can that the only thing worse than an obnoxious gringo is a pandering one.Eliminating private health insurance, an industry that employs more than 500,000 workers and insures 150 million? Elizabeth Warren, Bill de Blasio, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris support it (though the California senator later recanted the position). Since Democrats are already committed to destroying the coal industry and seem inclined to turn Silicon Valley into a regulated utility, it’s worth asking: Just how much of the private economy are they even willing to keep?”Keep in mind Brett Stephen’s account of what he perceives as the fears of “ordinary Americans” does hit the mark. It isn’t really hyperbole even if his intention was to be sarcastic. For, the fears of a Collectivist-Marxist Revolution in this Country are for us "ordinary Americans" very real, and we do in fact have good and justifiable reason to dread such a Revolution even if Brett Stephen and other New York Times contributors, reporters, editors, and the Times' publisher do not and are, in fact, active proponents of just such a Revolution, seeing it as a positive thing, as do the Progressive elements and the Radical Left in this society.So the sentiments expressed by the Democratic Party candidate hopefuls are those exulted by The New York Times and by other mainstream media organizations. Brett Stephens' concern and that of The New York Times staff is not that a true Collectivist-Marxist vision cannot be realized--for they fervently wish for it to happen--but that it will not transpire if the Democratic Party U.S. Presidential Candidates are too vocal about their plans for our Country, as they certainly were during the first two Debates. Far from alleviating the fears of the vast majority of Americans the candidates exacerbated those fears; and that would only ensure Trump's reelection to a Second Term in Office.Of course, the Democratic Party and The New York Times, along with the rest of the mainstream media have been articulating the goals and desires of the Democratic Party for a long time—in fact, ever since Donald Trump took the Oath of Office.What the NY Times finds objectionable, apparently, is that the Democratic Party U.S. Presidential candidates have, for the first time, in the Debates, articulated their message directly and forcefully to the American people--too forcefully; thereby threatening to lose, not gain or buttress a substantial portion of the Electorate to their cause, approving of a Collectivist-Marxist vision for the Nation.The Radical Left base certainly agrees with the creation of a Marxist regime, as do the millions of illegal aliens. The vast majority of the American citizenry, however, does not. The Radical Left base hopes for an end to the United States as an independent Sovereign Nation State, thereby finally realizing the Communist aim of a one-world Government. And the millions of illiterate, ignorant, and uneducated or poorly educated illegal aliens, for their part, are simply hoping that, with a Democratic-Socialist in Office, they can remain in the U.S.; even gain citizenship, and then be assured of a constant, consistent supply of handouts, subsidized by the American taxpayer. 

THE BILL OF RIGHTS WOULD BE IN SERIOUS JEOPARDY IF A DEMOCRAT DOES DEFEAT PRESIDENT TRUMP IN THE GENERAL ELECTION

The vast majority of Americans do not wish to see their Bill of Rights constrained or abrogated. The vast majority of Americans do not wish to see their history rewritten; nor the founders slandered. The vast majority of Americans do not wish to see their legal system subordinated to foreign laws and tribunals, and their Nation subsumed into transnational system of governance. Brett Stephens and Andrew Cuomo, and Eric Swalwell are not those people.What people like Stephens, Cuomo, and Swalwell fear is an armed citizenry that through its very existence would fight to prevent and would be fully capable of preventing a Marxist-Collectivist takeover of the Country. Thus, they seek to disarm the public. Recall that Cuomo and his henchmen were the architects of the New York Safe Act that places a ban on the very firearms with which the American people can ward off the inception of tyranny. And Recall Swalwell's intention to confiscate all semiautomatic firearms in the hands of law-abiding, rational, average Americans.And, recall that NY Times Columnist Brett Stephens, on two occasions, has called for repeal of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In an October 5, 2017 Times Op-Ed, published a few days after the psychotic killer, Stephen Paddock, went on a shooting rampage, Brett Stephens didn’t mince words as he went about viciously attacking guns and gun ownership  and possession, making clear what it is he wants. The very title of his Op-Ed made clear his fervent wish: “Repeal the Second Amendment.”  He said, in part:“I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment. . . . the more closely one looks at what passes for ‘common sense’ gun laws, the more feckless they appear. Americans who claim to be outraged by gun crimes should want to do something more than tinker at the margins of a legal regime that most of the developed world rightly considers nuts. They should want to change it fundamentally and permanently.There is only one way to do this: Repeal the Second Amendment.Repealing the Amendment may seem like political Mission Impossible today, but in the era of same-sex marriage it’s worth recalling that most great causes begin as improbable ones. Gun ownership should never be outlawed, just as it isn’t outlawed in Britain or Australia. But it doesn’t need a blanket Constitutional protection, either. The 46,445 murder victims killed by gunfire in the United States between 2012 and 2016 didn’t need to perish so that gun enthusiasts can go on fantasizing that “Red Dawn”** is the fate that soon awaits us.”And, if Americans didn’t get the message in Stephen’s first Times Op-Ed, he reiterated the message in a second Op-Ed, titled, “To Repeat: Repeal the Second Amendment,” that was published in The New York Times on February 16, 2018, after the Parkland High School tragedy.Stephen’s argument against gun ownership and possession is nothing new. Americans have heard the same tiresome message  countless times before, albeit delivered with more sense of urgency and ferocity, immediately after a tragedy involving firearms in the hands of psychotic or psychopathic killers: namely that society must get rid of guns, but that those Americans who wish to own and possess firearms need not fear, because it isn’t the intention of Stephens, and Cuomo, and Swalwell, and any of the other Radical Left elements in our Nation to take away all guns from citizens. They just want to take away some of them--and they want to add a little more scrutiny on those who really wish to possess them. And, eventually, these people want to confiscate most firearms from the American citizenry; and, eventually, they seek to confiscate all firearms, so that no one may own or possess a firearm lawfully without first obtaining a valid license, issued by the appropriate Government authority--rendering the Second Amendment de facto repealed, as gun ownership and possession would devolve into mere privilege; no longer a right. And those who possess them--the wealthy, powerful, "Elite" of society would--then, alone, have lawful access to firearms, rendering firearms' ownership a "status" symbol, like owning a Ferrari, but even rarer, as money alone would not be sufficient to own and possess firearms. Since a person would need to acquire a valid license, one would have to show that he has the appropriate Marxist political connections.So, we go back to the Radical Left's desire to effectively repeal the Second Amendment,  which Brett Stephens would like to do outright, as he expressly, blatantly calls for, and that Cuomo, Swalwell, and other antigun zealots at the moment themselves call for, but tacitly.In other words, no American citizen, according to people like Stephens, Cuomo and Swalwell, should own or possess firearms as a matter of right, but only as a matter of Government license and Government beneficience (granted to a very few) to the wealthy and powerful “elites” in society who have the correct attitude. Americans’ autonomy and self-determination comes to end once Government restrains the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That is not conjecture. That is ice-cold fact._____________________________*It should come as little surprise, if at all, to anyone, that the Radical Left's push to remove the Statues and emblems of the Confederacy and their desecration of war memorials and symbols--all of which are a important component of our Nation's rich cultural history and heritage, and deserving of our respect--would not stop at that point.Now, it has come to light, on the eve of our sacred July 4 Holiday, celebrating our Nation's Declaration of Independence from tyranny, that further symbols of our heritage are denounced and denigrated. The footwear Company, Nike, that had  sought to honor our Nation by manufacturing a tennis shoe with a historical American Flag, consisting of Thirteen Stars, representing the original Thirteen American colonies, has scrubbed that effort.Why? The Company has done so because Colin Kaepernick--yes, that Colin Kaepernick who took a knee while our National Anthem was played just before commencement of the Super Bowl in January 2012--told the Company to do so, and Kaepernick who is on the Company payroll, doing Advertisements for Nike, apparently has the clout to compel Nike to do his bidding. Kaepernick claims that the Thirteen Starred Flag represents racism. It does?One may find evil in the most innocuous of things if one has the mind to do so. According to a spokeswoman for Nike, as reported by The New York Times, in its Wednesday, July 3, 2019 newspaper:"Nike had made the decision to 'halt distribution' of the [commemorative Fourth of July] sneaker 'based on concerns that it could unintentionally offend and detract from the nation's patriotic holiday.'"That is an incredibly odd and duplicitous remark. How can an emblem of our Nation's history possibly detract from the "nation's patriotic holiday." There is obviously much more at play here. The Marxists and Anarchists among us slowly but incessantly and inexorably chisel away at our Nation's sacred symbols, emblems, and memorabilia. And, they attack honorable men, not just General Robert E. Lee and others who happened to represent the South during the American Civil War, but also our Nation's founders, not least of which include the Nation's First U.S. President, George Washington, and the Nation's Third U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson.Ostensibly, the attack on people and symbols of our Nation's history is grounded on issues of morality. That may sound plausible to some, if at first and cursory glance, but, there is something much more sinister taking place here. For the Radical Left and the Anarchists have a sordid, devious, and diabolical game plan that rests at the heart of their actions and antics, well beyond the stated concern of forcing "political correctness" on the public merely for its own sake.By denigrating historical personages, symbols and emblems and successfully seeking their removal from public spaces and eradication from our history books, these reprobates seek to induce amnesia in the mind and psyche of the American public, erasing all memory of our Nation's rich cultural history and heritage. Thus, they mean to destroy our Nation and its Constitution. The U.S is to become, then, to be perceived, not as an independent and Sovereign Nation State, but as little more than a geographical region of space, subsumed into a vast transnational, trans-global political, social, economic, cultural, and legal sphere of governance and influence. That goal becomes easier to accomplish once a Nation loses its National identity and ancestral memory. The overseers of the EU are attempting to exert control of the populations of the quasi-independent member Nation States, deliberately, diabolically attempting to undermine National identity, along with a Nation's sense of culture and history, unique to itself; substituting National identity with an amorphous identity with the EU, notwithstanding differences in language and historicity, going back centuries. And Brussels is suffering a backlash as a result. The Radical Left is copying the EU's playbook, by attempting to scrub clean our ancestral memory, inducing collective amnesia on the Nation. One major problem for the Radical Left is the existence of our Nation's unique Bill of Rights. A Marxist Revolution cannot succeed unless the Bill of Rights is destroyed. Thus, the Radical Left attacks it, sometimes subtly, sometimes not.It is, for example, much easier to constrain free speech if one forgets that, once upon a time, people were able to speak their minds, freely, openly, without threat of physical attack and verbal condemnation. And, it is easier to disarm the public if the public is induced to forget that, once upon a time, the right of the people to keep and bear arms was not and could not be infringed. The Progressives, Socialists, Communists, Marxists, and Anarchists, intend to reduce the sum total of our Nation's history and rich cultural heritage to mere legend. In time, that legend will become myth; eventually fairy tale, and ultimately completely erased from all memory. That is what they want. That is the real import and purport of their desire to destroy symbols, artifacts, emblems, and accounts of our Nation's great founders, leaders, and military officers. For, once erased, their vision of a New World Order can finally take shape and be realized. If a people cannot recall what they once were, they cannot fret over and dwell over what they have lost. And, they become more amenable to change, believing whatever it is that they are told to believe--and accepting their new world as right, and just, and proper. This becomes far, far easier to accomplish with children, as they need not be induced to forget a past they had never known. Their heads can be filled with the dry rot of Collectivist precepts at the get-go of their primary school education. **The original movie, titled, “Red Dawn,” released in 1984, and starring Patrick Swayse, Charlie Sheen, and Lea Thompson, concerns an invasion of the U.S. by Soviet forces, supported by unnamed Central and/or South American and possibly Mexican Communist military forces. The protagonists are high school students in some generic area of rural America, who, operating as a well-armed partisan, guerrilla force, attack the invaders. It is odd, though, that Brett Stephens would refer to the 1984 movie as some sort of fantasy wish. Why would any American in their right mind look forward to the invasion of our Nation simply so they have an opportunity to engage in warfare on the home front. That would hardly amount to play acting.Actually, the greater threat to this Nation, as the Arbalest Quarrel, has made patently clear, as a central theme in its articles, is not the threat of Russian, or even Chinese interference in our elections. The true threat derives from within the Nation, and through a seditious Press, and through political and Grassroots elements taking their cue from and monies from wealthy, powerful Globalists within the EU (our Allies?) who seek to weaken our Constitution and to destroy our National Sovereignty, in order to drive us into the throes of a Global Conglomerate, controlled, politically, economically, socially, culturally and legally by a hidden power elite. What we face is a new world order; what the writer Sheldon S. Wolin, in his in his sociological and political science work on  titled,“Democracy, Inc.,” refers to as “Inverted Totalitarianism” which, as he says, consists of a “blend of powers,” wielded by a small group of “elite” forces; at once impenetrable, secluded, unapproachable, faceless and omnipotent, answerable to no one but themselves; operating in accordance with their own personal trans-global, neoliberal economic interests and in support of their own inscrutable and pathological supranational political, social, cultural, and militaristic goals; altogether at odds with the precepts of our Constitutional Republic, and oblivious to the concerns and interests of the American citizenry.______________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

ANDREW CUOMO SEEKS TO IMPOSE NEW YORK'S RESTRICTIVE GUN LAWS ON THE ENTIRE NATION

In November 2018 an elated New York Times reported that Andrew M. Cuomo had secured a third term in Office as Governor of New York. The newspaper asserted, with typical exuberance and fanfare, that:“In defeating Marcus J. Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive, Mr. Cuomo, 60, soaked up the vast majority of votes in New York City, mirroring his success in the September primary, in which he defeated Cynthia Nixon, the actress and education advocate. The race was called by The Associated Press shortly after polls had closed at 9 p.m.Addressing a crowd gathered at a Midtown hotel, Mr. Cuomo said that his victory symbolized the liberal ways of New York, which he called the ‘progressive capital’ of the nation and a fortress against the policies of Donald Trump, a New Yorker himself."Andrew Cuomo—never one to exercise humility and restraint either in words spoken or in actions taken—has shaped and molded New York into his own image, a bastion of Left-wing ideology, increasingly out-of-touch with the Nation at large, and a slap-in-the-face to the vision our founders had for the Nation. Yet, what he has wrought upon the people of New York, he would dare impose on the entire Nation.In the last few months since the election, Cuomo has become increasingly emboldened. And, why shouldn’t he be emboldened? After all, as the Democratic Party has lurched ever Leftward, openly extolling the tenets of Socialism and Communism, and exhorting the Nation to follow suit, Cuomo has made abundantly clear that his own star must continue to rise.Indeed, The New York Times suggested, in its Sunday March 10, 2019 edition, titled, “Centrist Democrats Squirm as Rivals Swerve left in Presidential Race,” that Andrew Cuomo may be one of two logical choices to wear “the moderate mantle” as Democratic Party Presidential hopeful, now that former mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has bowed out of the race, and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden presently remains undecided.Yet, if Andrew Cuomo can reasonably be considered a political moderate or centrist, it goes to show just how far off the deep end the Democratic Party has fallen. Or, perhaps, The New York Times simply seeks to create the impression that Cuomo is a stalwart, solid, and stolid political moderate or centrist, knowing that an outright Socialist such as Bernie Sanders would not likely pull-off a victory against Trump in 2020.The fact remains that Andrew Cuomo is no less a Left-wing radical than is Bernie Sanders or Cory Booker, or Kamala Harris, or Kristen Gillibrand. Andrew Cuomo is as radical in his politics and in his policy choices as they are. He is as radical as they come. Simply look at the New York policy measures that Cuomo campaigned for and that he signed into law. Consider: Cuomo was instrumental in signing into law, in February 2019, an abortion measure that literally sanctions murder. Even pro-choice Americans look askance at late term abortions, much less abortions at the moment of birth, but not Andrew Cuomo.Keep in mind that the very word, ‘abortion,’ has literally been written out of New York’s Penal Code. Given that fact, it follows from this action, both logically and legally, that abortion at any time, up to and including the moment of birth, is now in effect lawful, even if apologists for the law, insist that isn’t the case at all. It is. Since no penalty is exacted from the perpetrator of an abortion, effectively, then, no crime exists upon which the perpetrator of the act can be indicted. This New York law that Cuomo gloats over is hardly representative of a political moderate or political centrist.But if you were to ask him, Andrew Cuomo would likely tell you that he is a political moderate. He would tell you, consistent with his belief—or, if not, then, consistent, at least, with his claim, hoping you would believe him—that his political views and policy objectives are clearly within the mainstream of the Country even if they really aren’t. And, of course, they aren’t. New York’s abortion law is a prime example. Take another: Cuomo’s continued assault on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.In 2018, during his campaign for a third term as Governor of New York, Cuomo, made clear that the New York Safe Act—what he and others would claim as his true signature achievement—was not the endgame; not by a longshot. It is but a mere skirmish in Cuomo’s ongoing campaign to weaken the Second Amendment, and eventually to obliterate it. He would if he could do so in New York, and he would relish doing the same well beyond the borders of New York, namely, throughout the Nation.The weblog, Spectrum Local News reported that, during his campaign for a third term in Office, “Cuomo has not just defended his staunch support for gun control, he’s pledging to expand the existing law.” If anyone were to think this was an empty campaign pledge, think again. It wasn’t. Cuomo was deadly serious. In January of 2019, as reported by Hudson Valley 360, Cuomo, “announced plans . . .  to increase gun control within the first 100 days of the new legislative session,” and he further chortled, “‘New York already has the strongest gun safety laws in the nation, and we are taking additional steps to make our laws even stronger and keep our communities, and our schools, safe. Together, we will pass this common sense legislation and send a clear message to Washington that gun violence has no place in our state or nation.’”To some, this may be viewed as a hopeful promise. But, to the vast majority of the Nation's citizenry this is a singular, dire threat that must be taken seriously and fought ferociously against.Now that Democrats control both the New York Assembly and the New York State Senate, Governor Cuomo is able to make good on that frightful promise. But, one may well ask: why would Cuomo do so; why would he think it necessary to do so? What would that really accomplish other than making it increasingly onerous, if not impossible, for the average law-abiding New York resident and citizen of the United States to exercise his or her fundamental right, under the Second Amendment? But, then, is not that really the point? Is not that really Cuomo’s ultimate objective: the dissolution of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? And, Is not that a primary goal of all radical Leftists?Of course no one can, with a straight face, argue that New York’s present gun laws are lenient, relaxed, or sensible. New York's gun laws--especially those in New York City, and in a couple of New York's Counties--are anything but lenient and relaxed; And those gun laws are anything but ‘sensible’—to use a common appellation of antigun zealots, in reference to their constant call for ever more “sensible gun control” measures. No! New York has long had the most restrictive and oppressive firearms’ laws in the Nation. Antigun groups revel in that fact. Apparently, Cuomo and others of his ilk do not think that New York’s restrictive gun laws are oppressive and repressive enough. They look forward to building upon the NY Safe Act, devising ever further ways in which to confound, antagonize, and demoralize law-abiding citizens who wish merely to be left alone; free to exercise their right to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed to the Nation's citizenry in the Nation's Bill of Rights.

THE NEW YORK SAFE ACT IS A TRAVESTY.

Recall that, in 2013, Cuomo machinated behind closed doors, to instigate enactment of the reprehensible New York Safe Act, which otherwise certainly would not have been enacted. For the NY Safe Act could not have been enacted—likely would not have been enacted—if it had seen the light of day. The Act should have been debated in open session by all Legislators, Republican and Democrat, and the public should have been able to review it and comment on it. After all, isn’t that how democracy is supposed to work? But, what we see in the New York Safe Act is reprehensible. It is inconsistent with the import and purport of the Second Amendment and inconsistent with the very idea of the sanctity and autonomy of the individual American citizen. Cuomo and those who detest the Second Amendment knew that the NY Safe Act could not, likely, survive legislative and public scrutiny. Subterfuge was necessary for NY Safe to be enacted.But, subterfuge is not the way to enact law. That is not how a Constitutional Republic is supposed to operate. But, that is how the Governor of New York operates and that is how his henchmen in Albany operate. And, to add insult to injury, the Governor and his henchmen in Albany rejoice in their ability to circumvent the law, to attain the aims they wish to attain, the public be damned. To this day the Governor and his comrades in Albany boast of their ability to operate within the periphery of the legislative process to get done those things they want to get done. And, the mainstream media, the echo chamber of these radical Leftist elements, gloats along with them.The New York Times gleefully writes: “The governor successfully corralled recalcitrant Senate Republicans into supporting the so-called Safe Act that expanded the state’s ban on assault weapons, tightened certification requirements, increased criminal penalties for illegal guns and closed private sale loopholes.”  And, so, the NY Safe Act, 2013 Bill Text NY S.B. 2230,was spawned; enacted in Albany, as an “emergency measure,” and signed into law by Cuomo, during his second term as New York Governor, on January 15, 2013.With passage of the New York Safe Act in 2013, New York’s already restrictive gun laws became more restrictive as more and more firearms were classified as illegal ‘assault weapons.’ The Safe Act also imposed new restrictions on ammunition magazine capacity. But that’s not all. The Safe Act did not limit its reach to restrictions to firearms and ammunition.The Act imposed ominous disclosure requirements on health care professionals, impinging uncomfortably on the privilege of confidentiality existent between medical doctor and patient. The Safe Act even imposed new obligations on the Courts, taking judicial discretion away from the Courts on matters involving revocation and suspension of firearms’ licenses and rifle and shotgun permits. And, new, stringent penalties were imposed on law-abiding gun owners who failed to comply with the convoluted new antigun laws, permeating through the Consolidated Laws of New York.Cuomo and the antigun crowd in Albany are fully enamored with themselves. And, with each success, in robbing Americans of their birthright, they consider yet other and more devious ways to divest the public of their sacred right to keep and bear arms, as they escalate their war on the Second Amendment. With Democrats now holding majorities in the New York Assembly and in the State Senate, the State’s antigun Legislators have unleashed a flurry of antigun measures in the first month of 2019:As reported by The Evening Sun newspaper, on January 29, 2019,“The Democrat-controlled New York Legislature is set Tuesday to pass several bills aimed at making the state’s already tough gun laws even stricter. At least eight measures are expected to pass the Assembly and Senate, including legislation to prohibit schools from allowing teachers and other school employees to carry guns in schools.” While Cuomo muscles through his antigun legislation in Albany, he suffers not any attempt by Republican Legislators to enact legislation that might throw a wrench into his policy objectives; he suffers not any attempt by those in Albany who seek to strengthen the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 2017 the liberal weblog, Politico, reported that State Representative Chris Collins, a Republican from Buffalo, New York, attempted to do just that. He introduced legislation to curtail Cuomo’s Safe Act in its entirety. Governor Cuomo was petulant, stating:“‘If they try to overrule the state of New York, we will sue, because the state has rights, too,’ Cuomo said. ‘And especially with this federal government, it’s very important that the states represent their rights and assert their rights. And I will assert my right to the fullest extent of the law, because I am diametrically opposed and the people of my state are diametrically opposed to much of what this federal government is trying to do.’” Undeterred, Representative Collins fired back,“‘The 10th Amendment respects state’s rights until they violate another amendment,’ Collins said at a press conference, flanked by several state legislators. ‘We’re not going to let them stomp on our right to the Second Amendment.’”State Representative Collins is right. He might also have reminded the Governor that the Second Amendment is an individual right. The U.S. Supreme Court made that point abundantly clear in the seminal Heller case, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). And, in the subsequent McDonald case, McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 749-750, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010), the high Court held that the individual right of the people to keep and bear arms, embodied in the Second Amendment, applies to the States too. That means the Second Amendment applies to New York. Cuomo apparently doesn’t think so, or would rather that it did not because, if Cuomo is aware of that the Second Amendment applies to New York, he couldn’t care less. He will not allow a fundamental right of the people get in the way of his policy objectives.

COULD A TENTH AMENDMENT LEGAL GAMBIT WORK TO SECURE THE NY SAFE ACT AGAINST A SUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO REPEAL THE ACT LEGISLATIVELY?

Cuomo’s threat to kill an attempt to waylay the New York Safe Act via a Tenth Amendment challenge could not succeed were Representative Collins successful in repealing the New York Safe Act. Perhaps, Cuomo knows this. But, apart from Cuomo’s Tenth Amendment challenge, it was Collin’s remarks, alone, that Cuomo took particular exception to. Cuomo didn’t like what he heard. Cuomo could not stomach what he perceived to be Collins’ audacious assault on the Governor’s signature gun policy achievement. And, Cuomo didn’t like the tacit idea expressed in Representative Collins’ remarks, namely, that a cause supportive of the Second Amendment might be seen by the public as a noble effort.Cuomo finds most disconcerting that he cannot obliterate the Second Amendment at once, but must do so incrementally. Yet, Republican Legislators and Second Amendment groups are, as well, left, at best, to attempt to defeat an oppressive, unconstitutional Act through piecemeal efforts, tinkering around the Act’s edges to weaken a swollen monstrosity, even as Cuomo and fellow antigun zealots seek to add to an already bloated set of repressive anti-Second Amendment measures that, together, constitute, the New York Safe Act.To date, Republican actions have yielded little positive result, as the bulk of the NY Safe Act remains untouched, seemingly impervious to assault. And Cuomo, for his part, with Democratic Party majorities in both the Assembly and in the State Senate, are better situated to enact further oppressive and repressive antigun laws.But, contrary to Cuomo’s assertions, States cannot justifiably claim a general right under the Tenth Amendment to strip the fundamental right existent in each individual citizen, as codified in the Second Amendment. State Representative Collins correctly and unambiguously points out, a Tenth Amendment States’ rights claim does not trump the Second Amendment right existent in each American citizen. Collins is absolutely correct on that score.  Furthermore, the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not simply refer to States’ rights. It also refers to rights held by the people. The Tenth Amendment sets forth: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.  Like all too many politicians, Andrew Cuomo demonstrates a proclivity toward duplicity and incongruity, along with a barely concealed tendency to exact revenge, through the power of his Office, against those he perceives have offended him. And, so it is that Cuomo dares to threaten a lawsuit against State Legislators who would take action to repeal a State law that Cuomo happens to champion.In threatening a Tenth Amendment States’ rights challenge against State Representative Collins and anyone else who would dare repeal the New York Safe Act, Cuomo is also relying on, albeit tacitly, the doctrine of federalism that demarcates power between the Federal Government and the States. But does the doctrine of federalism apply here? No, it doesn’t. Federalism doesn’t apply because Representative Collins isn’t operating at the behest of the Federal Government in challenging the Constitutionality of the New York Safe Act. He is acting as a State Legislator, on behalf of those American citizens who happen to be New York residents, and he is representing the interests of the residents of the City of Buffalo, who elected him to represent their interests.So, in challenging the constitutionality of NY Safe, Representative Collins is operating within the confines of the State to protect citizens who reside in New York, in order to protect their Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms. Andrew Cuomo’s Tenth Amendment threat directed against New York Representative Collins is both wrong and wrongheaded.The States’ rights aspect of the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply here since, one, the Tenth Amendment protects the right of the people too, not merely rights of the States, and, two, because States’ rights do not, in any event, supersede the fundamental right embodied in the Second Amendment. And, the doctrine of federalism isn’t applicable here, either, because NY Safe does not apply to the Nation at large. It applies only to the residents of New York, and it as an unconstitutional Governmental action against the residents of New York, alone, whom the Act targets, and it is interests of New York residents that that Representative Collins’ has sought, then, to protect and vindicate.Governor Cuomo, for his part, though, doesn’t bother to consider all the negative ramifications of the Tenth Amendment that work against him and he doesn’t consider the negative ramifications of the doctrine of Federalism when it comes to expanding NY Safe to the entire Nation. Cuomo has been quite vocal and blunt on this. The State of Politics weblog, points to Cuomo’s position on this:“The rest of the country should take up legislation similar to the SAFE Act gun control measure approved in 2013 in New York.” “In the aftermath of Sandy Hook, New York did more than send our thoughts and prayers,” Cuomo said in a statement. “‘We stepped up to pass the strongest gun safety legislation in the nation. The SAFE Act didn’t affect sportsmen, hunters or legal gun owners—but it reduced the risk to our children, to our families and to our communities. It banned assault weapons like AR-15s and kept guns out of the hands of dangerously mentally ill people. It’s far past time that the rest of the nation follows suit.’Cuomo has previously urged Democrats in Congress to take a more truculent stance on the issue of gun control.” So, even as Andrew Cuomo dares threaten a States’ rights Tenth Amendment challenge against Representative Chris Collins, Andrew Cuomo seems curiously blasé about a true States’ rights challenge that any other State could raise against Congress were Congress to attempt to impose the New York Safe Act on every other State, which is precisely what Congress and Cuomo would like to do. Cuomo is hardly the States’ right advocate he pretends to be when it is his intention to impose New York law, especially, the New York Safe Act, on everyone else.

ANDREW CUOMO "PROJECTS" HIS PERSONAL FAILINGS ONTO OTHERS.

The psychological defense mechanism of projection comes into play when one looks to the Governor Cuomo’s chicanery and antics. Cuomo constantly projects his own moral deficiencies onto those whom he happens to disagree with.The weblog, “The Rant” reports that,“Cuomo has used the gun control issue to knock Republicans.‘They have a different world view of America. They are systemically trying to impose their world view on this country,’ said Cuomo.”

WHO IS IMPOSING WHAT ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?

Cuomo is wrong about Republicans. Republicans aren’t trying to impose a world view of America at all. Republicans—many of them at least—simply seek to adhere to the vision of America as conceived by the founders of our Republic, as set down in the blueprint of our Nation, our Constitution. It is Cuomo and other extremists in the Democratic Party, both in Congress, and in States such as New York, who are hellbent on imposing their world view on the rest of us, in contradistinction to the dictates of the United States Constitution. What they seek is a world view at loggerheads with the will of the majority of the Nation’s citizenry and one singularly at odds with the traditions of our forebears.The recent antigun legislation coming out of the Democratic Party controlled House is a prime example of the Democrats’ rancor toward our Nation’s history, our Nation’s traditions, and our Nation’s core values. Consider the outrageous: For the People Act of 2019, 116 H.R. 1. A perusal of the Act, aptly illustrates just how out-of-touch the Democratic Party is with the American citizenry. Fortunately, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, stated that the For the People Act of 2019, 116 H.R. 1, is dead on arrival in the Senate, as is the House antigun, Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, H.R. 8.But the Democratic Party controlled House isn’t done. The public can expect to see a plethora of unconstitutional laws oozing out of Congress in the months ahead, along with unconstitutional laws emanating from Democratic Party controlled State Governments, such as New York. The U.S. Senate will likely kill all or most Congressional bills coming out of the House. And, those that do make it out of Congress will surely see a Trump veto. But, for State Legislatures that hold Democratic Party majorities, and where the Governor of the State is also a Democrat—as is the case in New York—the people of those States will continue to suffer the evisceration of their fundamental rights.

WILL THE BILL OF RIGHTS TRULY CONTINUE TO EXIST, AND WILL THE UNITED STATES CONTINUE TRULY TO EXIST AS THE NATION’S FOUNDERS ENVISIONED IT, AS A FREE REPUBLIC, OR WILL THE NATION EXIST MERELY WITH THE TRAPPINGS OF A FREE REPUBLIC AND WITH MERELY THE TRAPPINGS OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES EXISTENT IN THE PEOPLE?

As the Late Eighteenth-Early Nineteenth Century French Philosopher and Diplomat, Joseph de Maistre, said, “Every Nation Gets the Government, It deserves.”  This means the people of a Nation ultimately decide on the form of their Government, and must accept the result of a bad choice.The founders of our Nation carefully considered various models for Government. They created a Constitutional Republic. They realized that Government is best that serves the people, and not the other way around. They fought to overthrow an oppressor,George III of Great Britain.They were successful. But, in creating a new Nation, they did not wish to substitute one oppressor for yet another. So, they established a federal Government with limited, circumscribed powers; and they incorporated into the Constitution, a Bill of Rights, codifying fundamental, natural, unalienable rights and liberties upon which Government cannot, must not tread. The Bill of Rights makes clear that ultimate authority rests with the people, not Government. Thus, was the framework for a new Nation established.But, there are ruthless, inordinately wealthy, very well-organized, and extremely powerful forces at work today, both here and abroad, that look on our Nation and its people with jealous eyes. They seek to destroy the very concept of the ‘Nation State’ that the President, Donald Trump was elected, by the people, to preserve, and which he has worked tirelessly to preserve even as there are those hell-bent to destroy both him and his Administration.What we see occurring in the EU can unfold here in the U.S. There are powerful ruthless forces at work that seek to insert the U.S. eventually into a unified trans-world government. They realize that the United States, with the most powerful military apparatus in the world and with its mighty economic clout, must submit to this new trans-world government, if they are to succeed in their effort to consolidate power in a one world Government. They cannot succeed unless they bring the U.S. into its fold. These ruthless forces have control over our Press that actively misleads the people, distorting the news, creating false narratives, and they have their flunkies in Congress and in the vast Government Bureaucracy.The American people are becoming indoctrinated; are becoming predisposed to elect the kinds of people in both Congress and in State Government, who seek nothing less than the dismantling of our Constitutional Republic; who see our Constitution, with its predominant Bill of Rights, as a relic of a bygone age; and they seek to radically alter our Constitution, and, in so doing, radically alter the foundation of a free Republic.We see this through blatant efforts to rewrite the Constitution; attempts to weaken the unalienable right of free Speech as codified in the First Amendment; attempts to obliterate the unalienable right of the people to keep in bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment; attempts to weaken the unalienable right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures as codified in the Fourth Amendment; and attempts to defeat the very concept of ‘private property,’ as embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.We see attempts by these new representatives in Congress, and in the States, as echoed by a compliant Press, to admit into the ranks of the citizenry, millions of illegal aliens who have no understanding of a Constitutional Republic, who cannot assimilate, and who are not meant to assimilate. They are people who mystifyingly claim a right to reside in our Nation in defiance of our laws. These are people who seek Government largess in return for their vote and the radical Left that has infiltrated the Democratic Party is ever willing to give them tokens in return for their unswerving loyalty.We see attempts to do away with the electoral college as set forth in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. And, we see attempts to rewrite Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, of the Constitution, with an aim to increase the number of representatives in left leaning States. Were these efforts to come to fruition, the Constitutional Republic as conceived by the founders of our Nation, would cease to exist. Yet, the public is led to believe that all this is for their own benefit; that it is all for their own good; that it is for the well-being of society as a whole; that it is for the welfare of the collective, even as it comes to the detriment of the individual.But, a Government created to serve the people would mushroom into the overseer of the people. And this would be explained to the people as a good thing. The world is complex, they say. The people need guidance. Government must not be constrained. The Government can provide the best care for the people. People must simply be willing to give up a few of their rights and liberties—no big thing!Is there a price high enough that a person would willingly sell their soul? Some would do so. More and more members of the public are becoming hoodwinked.Until the electorate in our Nation comes to its senses, expect to see individuals like Andrew Cuomo and many others contorting this Nation into their vision of a proper world; proper for Cuomo and other radical Leftists, perhaps, but a living Hell for most everyone else: a Hell world as conceived in the radical Left’s own tortured, warped souls, and in their own feverish minds; a world they would force everyone else to live in.It is too late for Andrew Cuomo, and for people like him: people like Eric Swalwell and Chuck Schumer, and Bernie Sanders; and for people like Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden. And it is much too late for such arrogant, hateful, spiteful, surly creatures like Senator Krysten Sinema, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and for radical Muslim hatemongers such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.It is, not, however, too late for the rest of us, but it soon will be as we are rapidly approaching the Eleventh Hour. If we do not act to vote these aforesaid individuals, and many like them, out of Office, and if we fail to support U.S. President Trump, we will indeed acquire the Government we deserve—tyranny and servitude.  ______________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

U.S SUPREME COURT TO HEAR NEW YORK GUN CASE; MAINSTREAM MEDIA VISIBLY WORRIED

“FREE” PRESS FLAILS WILDLY AS HIGH COURT TAKES UP RESTRICTIVE GUN MEASURE.

Much to the consternation of antigun proponents the U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear a Second Amendment case. On Tuesday the high Court granted the petition in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York, 883 F.3d 45 (2nd Cir. 2018), cert. granted, 2019 U.S. LEXIS 734 (U.S. Jan. 22, 2019) (No. 18-280). This marks the first time the high Court has granted a petition in a straightforward Second Amendment case since handing down its rulings in the seminal cases, District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010).The central issue, as presented on The Supreme Court’s weblog, is “whether New York City’s ban on transporting a licensed, locked and unloaded handgun to a home or shooting range outside city limits is consistent with the Second Amendment, the commerce clause and the constitutional right to travel.” The City’s restriction is not only inconsistent with the high Court rulings in Heller and McDonald, it is patently ludicrous. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit should have struck down the measure. Instead, the Second Circuit affirmed the lower U.S. District Court’s decision, finding for the City, ignoring the Heller and McDonald case rulings and legal standards for review of Second Amendment cases. In finding for the City, against Plaintiffs, the Second Circuit, as with several other Circuit, fell back on the age-old disturbingly familiar and empty shibboleth: “public safety concerns” in ruling for the City against Petitioners. This "interest balancing" approach is precisely what the Court's Majority in Heller and McDonald, frowned upon and cautioned against. Clearly, several members of the U.S. Supreme Court were not impressed with the Second Circuit ruling, and granted Petitioners' writ of certiorari to review the Second Circuit decision. At long last, the high Court has accepted the challenge of those lower Federal Circuit Courts that have openly defied United States Supreme Court precedent.In requesting the U.S. Supreme Court to grant the writ for certiorari, Petitioners made a compelling case, stating in pertinent part:“New York City flatly prohibits its residents from removing their lawfully purchased and duly registered handguns from the city limits, even to transport them (unloaded, and locked up) to second homes at which they are constitutionally entitled to possess them, or to out-of-city shooting ranges or competitions at which they are constitutionally entitled to hone their safe and effective use. That prohibition does not even make sense on its own terms. It has the perverse consequences of forcing New Yorkers to leave their handguns behind in their vacant residences whenever they leave the city for an extended period of time. And far from achieving the City’s professed interest in decreasing the amount of time that its residents spend transporting their locked and unloaded firearms to and from shooting ranges (an activity that the City made no serious effort to demonstrate poses any meaningful safety risk), the ban actually forces New Yorkers to spend more time traveling to the paucity of inconvenient in-city shooting ranges. Indeed, the only plausible theory under which the City’s novel transport ban could be understood to further its professed public safety interest in decreasing the transport of unloaded, locked-up firearms is if the ban discourages people from transporting their handguns to shooting ranges at all. But it would be utterly irrational for the City to enact a restriction for the express purpose of making it harder for individuals to gain proficiency in the use of the handguns that the Constitution entitles them to possess. More to the point, a restriction that is expressly designed to make it harder to exercise core Second Amendment rights cannot  plausibly withstand any level of constitutional scrutiny. Courts would not countenance for one moment a prohibition on leaving city limits to get an abortion—and certainly not if there were only seven locations in a city of 8.5 million people at which to obtain one. A prohibition on leaving city limits to exercise core Second Amendment rights should fare no better.”Respondent, New York City, was furious the high Court would dare second guess the Constitutionality of the City’s firearms’ measures. The Supreme Court never did so before, and the City didn’t want the Court to do so now. It didn’t take long for antigun proponents’ echo chamber, the mainstream media, to offer its own concerns; issue its rebuke of the high Court; and present, to the public, its dire prognostications.The New York Times, quoting one antigun activist, Michael Waldman, reported:“This is the first case but not the last case where at least four justices open the way to a major ruling that could limit gun safety laws.”And, in that same NY Times article, the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio chimed in, as well, essentially chastising the high Court's for its seeming presumptuousness in daring even to consider that perhaps--just maybe--the New York City's gun regulations do not meet Constitutional muster.“Mayor Bill de Blasio, responding to a reporter’s question about the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case, said at a news conference on Tuesday that the city would vigorously defend its law.“We, every single day, are working to make this the safest big city in America,” he said. “We need the laws that we have that protect against guns being on our streets and we will fight to protect ourselves, that’s the bottom line.”Bill de Blasio offers mere claptrap. The New York City regulation bars the average, law-abiding and rational U.S. citizen from transporting their firearms--in a case, ammunition separated from firearm--to a firing range in another locality. Bill de Blasio has the audacity to characterize this with misuse of guns by that of the common criminal. And, who is it that Bill de Blasio thinks he is protecting residents of New York from? When considered beyond the ludicrous rhetoric, Bill de Blasio is describing nothing more than a bizarre belief that the New York City gun transport regulations protect average, law-abiding New York City residents and citizens of the United States from other average law-abiding, rational New York City residents and American citizens--those citizens who simply seek to exercise their God-given right to keep and bear arms, as etched in stone in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The absurdity of the Mayor's remarks and, hence, the absurdity of New York City's gun transport regulations, is plain, painfully so.In that article, The New York Times also cites a Constitutional law professor, Adam Winkler who, as with Mayor Bill de Blasio, clearly shows his animus to and strong aversion against, the Second Amendment. The NY times closed the article with Winkler’s sarcastic comment: “The Second Amendment is alive and well in the Roberts court.”Reading comments from antigun zealots, one might think a negative ruling by the high Court would cause mass gun play on the streets of the City. Antigun zealots avoid drawing a bright line distinction between criminal access to and misuse of firearms, on the one hand, and the free exercise of the right to keep and bear arms by law-abiding citizens, on the other. This is borne out by the proliferation of antigun laws in this Country and the speciousness of the arguments made in support of them.USA Today, quoting from Respondent City’s Brief, notes:“Unlike golf clubs and musical instruments, firearms present public safety risks that the city has a legitimate interest in protecting against. . . . ‘Limiting their possession and use in public minimizes the risk of gun violence.’”Now really! Bringing up “golf clubs” and “musical instruments”? What does a driving iron or a saxophone or bassoon have to do with the best recognized means of self-defense, a firearm? The incongruity of the comparison is glaring. Further, the descriptor, ‘public safety,’ through overuse, is mere cliché. It has lost all import. The phrase continues more as rhetorical flourish, than as part and parcel of considerate, well-thought through articulate political opinion and journalistic commentary as presented to the public; and it exists as unsound argument, when appearing in legal Briefs presented to the Courts. Over reliance on the phrase, 'public safety,' in public statements, political commentary, and in legal argument defends the most flagrant abuse of Governmental authority, and does a disservice to the citizenry of this Country who honor our sacred Second Amendment. Those who rely essentially or solely on “public safety concerns” to make the case for restrictive gun measures demonstrate intellectual laziness. It is mere makeweight, in the absence of explication and rigorous argument. Reliance on it to support draconian gun measures is intended to appeal less to one's reason and more to one's passions. The goal of most restrictive gun legislation is to separate law-abiding citizens from their firearms. Restrictive gun measures, targeting millions of law-abiding gun owners, do not enhance public safety. These gun measures make the public decidedly less safe—defenseless in the face of ever more crime.Such reprehensible, irresponsible Governmental action is directed to destroying the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But now the City and antigun proponents around the Country are worried, as they contemplate U.S. Supreme Court review of the New York City firearms’ transport measure. They know this draconian measure cannot survive high Court scrutiny. So, the media sounds the alarm with inaccurate, exaggerated reports of danger if the City's firearms' transport measure is struck down.Even the conservative, staid, Wall Street Journal report is misleading. The reporter, Jess Bravin, taking his cue from The New York Times, suggests the case will radically expand Heller and McDonald. It won’t. But, that doesn't stop the reporter from claiming that it does. Jess Bravin says:“The case, a review of New York City regulations that curtail the transportation of guns, offers the court’s newly bolstered conservative majority an opportunity to expand the constitutional right to bear arms beyond a pair of decisions that, beginning in 2008, found the Second Amendment allows individuals to keep handguns in the home for self-defense.”  These remarks are false. A reversal of the Second Circuit decision would mean only that the City's firearms’ transportation rules contradict high Court precedent, on core Second Amendment matters, and, for that reason, must be struck down. The Wall Street Journal does not, though, see it that way. To bolster the point, the Wall Street Journal, like The New York Times, quotes the same source, Adam Winkler. In that WSJ article, Winkler says, “At issue is ‘the right to have a gun in public. It’s the biggest open question in Second Amendment law today.’” These remarks, cited in the Wall Street Journal, article are false; flagrantly so; and, not so subtly, inflammatory. For, Striking down an unconstitutional firearms’ measure isn’t equivalent to expanding a Constitutional right. Rather, an unconstitutional restriction on an enumerated right, unduly impairs the fair exercise of the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms. The striking down of an unconstitutional firearm's measure would do no more than operate as an expression of what the plain language of the Second Amendment says; no more and no less. Transporting a firearm, in public, in a locked case, ammunition separated from firearm, is hardly the same as carrying a firearm at the ready, anyway. So, Winkler is wrong. At issue, here, is not the right to have a gun in public. Transporting a firearm in a locked container is not what is meant by having a firearm in public, namely, at the ready. Winkler erroneously conflates the two notions.But, transporting a firearm in a case, in public, does present a peculiar danger of its own: one of theft of a firearm. Such a requirement is also strange and unsettling as the City of New York would permit a licensee the use of a firearm for self-defense at home, but preclude the holder of a restricted “premises” license access to the best means available for self-defense when outside the home. Why should a law-abiding American citizen be limited to location where a firearm may be available for self-defense?  Why must our Nation's citizenry suffer the presence of "Second [and First] Amendment free zones?" Would the framers of our Bill of Rights tolerate this? Indeed, it is often in public, especially in urban areas, where a person is more exposed to danger. It is in an urban environment where a person’s life and safety is more, and conceivably, most at risk. It will be interesting to see whether the high Court broaches these matters in its opinion in this critical Second Amendment case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York, 883 F.3d 45 (2nd Cir. 2018), cert. granted, 2019 U.S. LEXIS 734 (U.S. Jan. 22, 2019) (No. 18-280).The Arbalest Quarrel will stay abreast of the New York City case and offer detailed analyses of the arguments presented in forthcoming articles. And, we will also stay attuned to media accounts. We expect the Governor of New York, the architect of the awful New York Safe Act, the smugly self-assured and virulent opponent of the Second Amendment, Andrew Cuomo--a person never at a loss for words, especially when seeking to appear well-meaning and pious before the public--will, himself, sound off at some point on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York. Especially on matters of firearms ownership and possession, the Governor of New York is ever before the cameras!As New York has always led the assault on the fundamental, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms, it is only fitting for the U.S. Supreme Court to take New York to task. For far too long, people like Andrew Cuomo, Michael Bloomberg, Bill DeBlasio, and others--in New York's Government Offices,  in Congress, and in Governments around the Country--have held sway over the American citizen’s most sacred right; a right intrinsic to one’s being; a right endowed in man the by the Creator. These politicians dare to relegate a sacred right to mere privilege—a privilege Government may grant at its discretion and revoke at will--as if they themselves have created the right.Government officials have not created the right of the people to keep and bear arms, but continue the pretense that they have. These Government officials continue to infringe a sacrosanct and inviolate right, contrary to and an affront to the Creator's dictate that they should not and must not do so.New York’s myriad, loathsome firearms’ laws, codes, rules, regulations, and procedures must, then, all be scrutinized by the high Court. That is something neither the City of New York, nor the State wants. Neither the City nor the State wishes its draconian firearms laws--ever more onerous with time--to be viewed under magnifying glass of legal scrutiny. But it is happening, nonetheless. It must happen. New York City, a bastion of the new Left ideology has turned away from the principles reflected in the Nation’s Bill of Rights, and must be called to account.The Times Ledger reports—and it is mystifying to consider in light of the Leftist leaning of the City today—that New York City was, for five years, from 1785 through 1790, the seat of the Nation’s Capital. It was here in 1789 that the Nation’s first President, George Washington, swore an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States and to safeguard the fundamental, unalienable rights and liberties of the American people, embodied in that sacred document.But, a new, alien, radical, virulent Socialist belief system and agenda has taken over the City, insinuating itself inexorably and insidiously in the lives of the City’s inhabitants. Socialist ideas and precepts--grounded on inherent distrust of the American citizenry--are painfully evident in the City’s myriad, convoluted, restrictive, unconstitutional firearms’ codes, rules, regulations, and procedures, and in the State’s draconian firearms’ laws. Leftist propaganda is proselytized to the residents of New York, daily. But, a day of reckoning is at hand, both for New York City and for jurisdictions like it, around the Country. It’s about time!________________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

DEMOCRATS TRY AN ELEVENTH HOUR ATTACK ON JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH’S CONFIRMATION TO THE HIGH COURT.

“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,Is the immediate jewel of their souls:Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;But he that filches from me my good nameRobs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.” ~ William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 3, Scene 3_____________________________“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”  ~ Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,” May 4, 1979 through November 28, 1990_____________________________

CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA MAKE A MOCKERY OF A SOLEMN PROCESS FOR CONFIRMING A PERSON TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURT AND, WORST OF ALL, DARE ATTEMPT DESTRUCTION OF A MAN'S GOOD NAME--FOR NO PURPOSE BUT THEIR OWN MISBEGOTTEN AND SELFISH POLITICAL END.

The American public’s patience with the Democratic Party and with the Democratic Party’s echo chamber, the mainstream news media, must be wearing thin, and rightly so. In a disgraceful, 11^th Hour attempt to derail the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democratic Party member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, brought to the attention of Chairman Grassley and to other Republicans sitting on the Committee, uncorroborated accusations impugning the Judge’s character.The accusations against Judge Kavanaugh came to Senator Feinstein, last July. No explanation has been, to date, forthcoming from the Senator, as to her reason or reasons for holding onto the contents of the letter for over two months, but we can reasonably surmise that one major reason Senator Feinstein held onto the contents of the letter has to do with the political usefulness of it in attempting to derail or, at least, holding up a Senate vote on the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court until after the 2018 Midterm elections, when the Democrats hope to gain control of the House and even the Senate. Senator Feinstein, and other Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee knew, full well, of the difficulty, if not the empirical impossibility, of holding up the confirmation of a person admirably qualified to sit on the high Court Justice unless she had a card, an “Ace,” up her sleeve that would rally Leftists in this Country. And, apparently, she did have an “Ace” up her sleeve. In a last minute attempt to throw a wrench into the entire Confirmation process, Senator Feinstein dropped a bomb shell on Chairman Grassley and on other Senate Republicans, sitting on the Judiciary Committee. The bomb shell took the form of an allegation against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, ostensibly referring to an event that, if it occurred at all and if it involved Judge Kavanaugh, happened literally decades ago, when both the Brett Kavanaugh and the accuser were teenagers, in high school.The accusation came to the Senator in a letter she received from a person who, apparently, and not surprisingly, made clear to the Senator, at the time she contacted the Senator, last July, that the accuser wished to remain anonymous. From details of the letter that Senator Feinstein only made known to Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee just days before a Roll-Call vote of the Senate was planned, Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser cast a pernicious and potentially libelous accusation on Judge Kavanaugh. One can surmise the accuser’s motives and she should explain them to the American public. But, assuredly, the accuser, and Senate Democrats, sought to create doubt upon and to impugn the Judge’s good name, character, and reputation, and that is certainly the impact Democrats, through their echo chamber, the mainstream media, are attempting to invoke in the psyche of the American public. If their campaign of deception to cast doubt on the character of Judge Kavanaugh is successful, Senate Democrats will prevent confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh as the new Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. That is what they want and that is the reason Senate Democrats have implemented an last minute smear campaign. They have nothing else. Thus, they engage in the most despicable act of all: an attempt at character assassination. It is for this reason that Senate Republicans must remain firm in their own commitment to confirm Judge Kavanaugh as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and without delay, and not allow a false flag smear campaign against Judge Kavanaugh to gain traction. Now, it isn't clear whether Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and other Congressional Democrats really aware of the content of the letter in Senator Feinstein's possession before releasing it to Chairman Grassley and to other Senate Republicans. Were other Senate Democrats aware of the contents of the damning letter? And, if so, who, and when did they learn about the contents of the letter? Did they know of the contents before the Confirmation Hearing even took place. After all, Senator Feinstein had the letter in her possession for several weeks, prior to the Hearing. Senator Feinstein could certainly have questioned Judge Kavanaugh about the letter's contents, discretely, when she met with him privately; or she could have brought the matter up at the Hearing, albeit, an attack on a person's character is hardly a matter that should be the subject of a Senate Hearing on the Confirmation of a Judge to the U.S. Supreme Court, as the subject of one's character and integrity and reputation should not even be in question. Judge Kavanaugh has served admirably as a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for several years. Impugning a Judge's character serves only to degrade the entire Confirmation process and denigrates, too, the dignity of everyone present, Senators as well as the nominee himself.But, we have to ask: Were other Congressional Democrats—especially Democratic Party members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Senators Patrick Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, Amy Klobuchar, Christopher Coons, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Mazie Hirono—also aware, last July, of the contents of the letter that had landed on Senator Feinstein’s desk? If so, they aren’t saying, and no one in the mainstream media seems to be interested in asking. But, they have lent their voices to impugning the character and good name of Judge Kavanaugh merely on the basis of an uncorroborated, unsupported damning barefaced, written accusation.*As Senator Feinstein certainly intended, Congressional Democrats, along with the assistance of the  mainstream media, launched an immediate, vigorous, aggressive attack against Judge Kavanaugh, shamelessly smearing and besmirching his name and character across the National landscape.Obviously, Democrats intend to squash the confirmation of the President’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court by whatever means available, however dubious and shameful those means may be.

THE IDENTITY OF THE PERSON WHO HAS ATTACKED JUDGE KAVANAUGH’S CHARACTER, COMES TO LIGHT.

Eventually the identity of the accuser came to light—by whom it is not clear.  Conceivably, Democrats, themselves, leaked the name of the accuser. Democrats had certainly become aware that a damning, barefaced anonymous accusation would not delay a Senate Confirmation vote; nor should it. They had to attach a name and face to the accuser, and that would have been their motive, then, for releasing the identity of Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser to the public.The letter to Senator Feinstein, the Nation has learned, came from a middle-aged lady by the name of Christine Blasey Ford, a resident of California, and a Psychology Professor at Palo Alta University. Of note: Fox News reports that, “Ford is a registered Democrat who has given small monetary donations to political causes, according to The Washington Post.” As a registered Democrat, that fact would certainly supply a motive for the Professor having contacted Senator Feinstein.Christine Blasey Ford alleges, in her letter, as relayed to the mass media by Senator Feinstein, that the U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, assaulted—or attempted to assault the woman (it isn’t clear which, nor is it even clear if the assault or attempted assault was in fact of a sexual nature)—when the two were in high school, an event that would have occurred, if it occurred at all, well over thirty ago. Notably, the accuser is short on critical details, such as when the alleged assault occurred, where the assault occurred, and, for that matter, what it is, exactly, the accuser claims, had occurred, but which, the American public is to believe, has festered in the mind of Christine Blasey Ford for decades.The problem, of course, is that there does not appear to be anyone around who is able to corroborate the accusation. Senate Republican Committee members attempted to find someone, anyone, who might be able to corroborate Judge Kavanaugh's accuser's story. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, for his part, categorically denies the accusation. No matter, Democrats, sitting on the Judiciary Committee, have presented the accusation, and continue to present the accusation to the public as gospel, however sketchy the details. Other, more reasonable, rational individuals, including Republican members, sitting on the Judiciary Committee, are not so obliging; nor should they be; no one should.

A WOMAN LODGES A BAREFACED, UNSUPPORTED, SERIOUS, HEINOUS, IF NOT ALTOGETHER SPURIOUS, ALLEGATION AGAINST A RESPECTED AND RESPECTABLE JURIST DESCRIBING AN EVENT THAT, IF THERE IS ANYTHING TRUTHFUL ABOUT IT AT ALL, REFERS TO A MATTER OCCURRING DECADES AGO; AND THE ACCUSER HONESTLY BELIEVES DOING SO WOULD NOT LEAD TO PERSONAL REPERCUSSIONS FOR HERSELF, HAVING PROFFERED IT? HOW CAN A MIDDLE-AGED, PRESUMABLY RESPONSIBLE, RATIONAL ADULT—REMEMBER WE ARE NOT DEALING WITH A CHILD HERE—WHO HAS HAD MANY LIFE EXPERIENCES, AND WHO HAS EARNED A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEGREE IN PSYCHOLOGY, WHO TEACHES PSYCHOLOGY AT AN ACCREDITED UNIVERSITY IN CALIFORNIA, AND WHO IS, THEN, OBVIOUSLY INTELLIGENT, BE SO CALLOUS, SO HEARTLESS, SO SELF-CENTERED, AND, AT ONE AND THE SAME TIME, SO NAÏVE AS TO BRING UP A PERSONAL MATTER THAT DOES LITTLE, IF ANYTHING--CONTRARY TO WHAT SOME MAY BELIEVE--TO BUTTRESS HER OWN NAME, CHARACTER, AND REPUTATION?

A serious allegation has been lodged against a man whom dozens of other individuals, male and female professionals, know well. Individuals have come forward, pointing to a sensitive, caring person, with impeccable character and reputation; a person having a brilliant legal mind, honed through many years of service to the Nation as a Judge sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. So, if one person’s deprecating comments against Judge Kavanaugh are to be given honest consideration, as both the accuser and Democrats hope—as there are, to date, no negative remarks from those individuals who know Judge Kavanaugh either personally or professionally—then it stands to reason this person must come forward and explain herself to the Nation.We know, however, that Christine Blasey Ford, did not wish to come forward, and does not wish to come forward and that, through her attorney, Debra Katz,** she has made and continues to make many outrageous demands, frustrating, and, obviously, deliberately so, the patience of Senate Republicans, sitting on the Judiciary Committee.One of Christine Blasey Ford’s demands are that Judge Kavanaugh testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, before, Blasey Ford testifies. That is a ludicrous demand to make and it is one contrary to our system of justice and legal procedure.An accuser bears the burden of proof, and must present evidence in support of the accusation so that the accused has an opportunity to hear and view the evidence and has an opportunity to respond to it. It is patently unfair and contrary to our Nation’s judicial practice and procedure and, for that matter, illogical to demand that the accused testify before the accused has had an opportunity to know just what it is the accused is being accused of and has had no opportunity to rebut the accusation made against him or her.The accuser is also demanding that a Senate Confirmation vote be delayed so that she has time to prepare her testimony. But, does Christine Blasey Ford truly require time to prepare? She presented her letter to Senator Feinstein in July. She should have known, ultimately, that she could not simply present a damning accusation, attacking the reputation, character, integrity, and good-name of the man without personally testifying and presenting independent corroborating evidence, to support her accusation, if she has any, that is to say.Christine Blasey Ford’s attorney, probably working closely with Senate Democrats in the shadows, is  attempting to create unnecessary delay when there is no tenable reason to do so. She, and Senate Democrats working with her, are doing this, not because the attorney really needs to prepare her client's testimony before the Senate Committee, even as she says there exists a need to do so, but because they both want to delay a Senate vote on Confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court until after the  2016 Midterm Elections in the hope, once again, that Democrats gain control of both the House and Senate and can then prevent a majority vote in the Senate, in favor of confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. A Senate Democratic Party majority will effectively block Judge Kavanaugh from being confirmed as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, thereby frustrating the President, and also frustrating the people who elected Donald Trump as President of the United States, and who had every reason to expect that the President would nominate a person to the high Court who would preserve the Constitution and the rights and liberties of American citizens, in strict accordance to the plain meaning of the Constitution, as drafted by the framers of it. And, Donald Trump has kept his word. We, who support the President, seek to defend the U.S. Constitution, our legal system, the supremacy of our laws and the continued sovereignty of our Nation. And the best way to do so is to secure jurists on the U.S. Supreme Court and on the lower Courts who would do the same. Activist jurists who legislate from the Bench are precisely what supporters of the U.S. President do not want. That is what Barack Obama has given to the American people, and the American people have seen what that has wrought for Nation, and Americans have had enough of that. Is not the derailing of the Confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, then, the central reason that Christine Blasey Ford, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, contacted Senator Feinstein? And, isn't the presentation of Christine Blasey Ford's barefaced damning allegation, to Senate Republicans and to the Nation--an isolated, solitary, ludicrous allegation attacking a good man's honor, character, good name, and reputation--the purpose of this smear, this attempt at character assassination? Isn't this what Congressional Democrats had planned all along: to deny Judge Kavanaugh a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of his ability and brilliance as a jurist and regardless of his integrity, character, reputation, sensitivity, and decency as a person and American citizen? Isn't this what a last ditch attempt to disrupt the assured confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh is really all about? Of course it is. And, Democrats have nothing else to use in their attempt to derail the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to a seat on the high Court. They can come up with nothing else. So, then, this is what Senate Democrats have allowed themselves to be reduced to, ghoulish wretchedness. They utilize the most despicable of tactics in a last ditch attempt to prevent confirmation of a man eminently suited to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. They resort to character assassination. And, they don't care whether the claims impugning Judge Kavanaugh's character are true or not. Indeed, they are reduced to lauding the truth of barefaced damning, unsupported, and vacuous allegation before the accuser has even testified, turning reason, and logic, and common-sense, and proper due process and procedure and judicial fairness; and simple, plain common decency our the door. Indeed, they claim that Judge Kavanaugh must prove his innocence. And, how in law or logic would he even do that, even assuming, for purpose of argument that the onus is on him to prove his innocence? How does one, anyone, go about proving a negative?For purpose of delay, Christine Blasey Ford’s attorney has also demanded that the FBI conduct an investigation of the charge her client has made against her client. That demand is equally absurd. No individual can demand as a matter of right—and, for that matter, it is even wrong to ask—a police department or agency to conduct a criminal investigation. It is the prerogative of a police agency, whether local, County, State, or Federal, to conduct an investigation if, in the first instance, proper jurisdiction exists and it appears worthwhile to do so, which means that forensic evidence likely exists that a crime actually occurred.In this instance it is particularly absurd for the FBI to conduct a criminal investigation. First, the FBI has no jurisdiction to conduct a criminal investigation. The matter would have been within the jurisdiction of the State where the alleged matter purportedly occurred, as the matter is a State matter, not a federal one. No federal law has been violated. So, jurisdictionally, the FBI cannot investigate the matter as a crime, even if it wanted to. Second, as a possible State crime, the State’s Statute of Limitations on assault, sexual or otherwise, may have expired if a Statute of Limitation exists in the jurisdiction where the alleged assault took place. And, even if a Statute of Limitations does not exist, still, in the absence of forensic evidence and in the absence of witnesses who can corroborate the allegation--both of which are highly unlikely--given the fact that the allegation refers to a matter occurring if it occurred at all, literally decades ago, no competent prosecutor would ever attempt to prosecute such a case, as there would be little, if any, chance of obtaining a conviction.If, third, the accuser is demanding that the FBI investigate the allegation not as a crime, but as an investigation into Judge Kavanaugh’s character, then that demand is pointless if not altogether absurd as well because the FBI has already conducted numerous extremely extensive background investigations on Judge Kavanaugh as he has worked for both the Executive Branch of the Federal Government and for the Judicial Branch of Government, the Federal Judiciary, where he presently serves as a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.There is nothing further to be gained from use of taxpayer funds for the FBI to do another background investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as he has gone through thorough background investigations already, the last one of which would have been required in the Judge’s capacity as President Trump’s nominee to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. If the FBI had come up with anything concrete to cast doubt on the Judge Kavanaugh’s character, to prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the high Court, the Confirmation process would have been short-circuited, at the inception. There would never have been Hearing. FBI background investigations are extremely thorough, and especially so for those individuals who are being considered to hold powerful positions in the Federal Government, as is true here.It strains credulity to believe the FBI would have been unable to obtain evidence of criminal wrongdoing or evidence of anything suggesting a person has character flaws if any such evidence truly exists.  We should not be looking at Judge Kavanaugh at all. Americans, should, rather, be looking at the accuser, Christine Basely Ford; for if her accusation were true, it is difficult to believe that she would not have mentioned the matter to someone, if not the police, then, perhaps, to a friend, or to her pastor, or, if not to one or more of them, then certainly to her parents who themselves would have contacted the police. In this era of the hysterical "Me Too" movement (or #MeToo) with women coming out of the woodwork, many with the most outrageous of claims, reason dictates that a reasonable person be skeptical of claims of moral impropriety or criminal wrongdoing when all that exists is a bare bones allegation.In the instant case, a decades old claim of assault (sexual or not)--and one, at that, coming from a person holding political views antithetical to Republicans, a person who is certainly no supporter of President Trump, and a person who is represented by an attorney who is, herself, a known hard-core left-wing activist--smacks of an orchestrated scheme, a design, a plan, concocted by Democrats and Left-wing agitators to undermine the President at every turn. The American public has certainly seen substantial evidence of that to date. A direct, concerted attack on the President's nominees to sit on Federal Courts, especially the President's nominee to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, when that nominee would create a clear conservative-wing majority on the Court, is something that Democrats and Leftists cannot, it is evident, abide. Indeed, since a Supreme Court Justice holds a lifetime appointment, the power of the high Court, with Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation, would provide the best means possible to preserve: the U.S. Constitution and a free Republic; the supremacy of our laws, and the sovereignty of our Nation; the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizenry, and an  appreciation for the continued autonomy and sanctity of the individual--all of which exists within the framework of our Constitution and system of laws, as established by the founders of our Nation. None of this, Democrats and Leftist groups want to preserve. Their aims and goals require a tortuous reading of the Constitution. They see our Constitution and fallible and malleable. They do not accept the supremacy of our Constitution and laws, but rather as contained within a broader spectrum of international law and pacts and treaties and foreign tribunals, all impacting our Nation and its people. They do not believe in the conception of natural law--that the fundamental rights and liberties of the American citizen exist beyond their lawful power to curtail or eliminate. They believe that all laws, even our natural unalienable rights, codified in our Bill of Rights are merely man-made constructs, and, as such, they see rights and liberties as subject to constant reconfiguration, refinement, regulation, even elimination; and they seek to create new substantive rights that nowhere exist in the Constitution, such as a right to an abortion on demand. These Leftists would destroy our Country, as originally constituted: an independent Sovereign Nation. They would accomplish this by opening up our borders to virtually anyone who wishes to reside within our borders, and they would provide these individuals, these aliens, with all the rights, liberties and privileges attendant to citizens, thereby destroying the very concept of 'citizen,' along with the concept of our Country as an 'independent, Sovereign Nation' in the process. These Leftists would destroy our Nation and its Constitution as assuredly as would a foreign military invasion. In fact, it would be worse, as destruction of our Nation and its Constitution would be completed, quietly, insidiously, from within. We have seen this playing out before, through the actions of the previous President of the United States, Barack Obama. We see this playing out now, even more clearly, only because Donald Trump, rather than Hillary Clinton, secured the Presidency in 2016. And Americans now know, cannot reasonably deny, that Barack Obama, when he held Office, was busy at work, not doing the work of the American people, but, rather, busy at work quietly creating within the federal bureaucracy and within the Judiciary, mechanisms to weaken our Constitution, and our rights and liberties and dismantling our Nation, a free Republic. Much of his disassembling, consisted in part of the placement of individuals in key positions, thousands of them--Leftist ideologues, who have, it is fair to conclude, no love for our Nation, for its Constitution, or for its system of laws--certainly no love for our Nation, for its Constitution, or for its system of laws, as conceived by our founders. President Trump has begun to rectify this. He has attempted and is attempting to reconstitute our Nation in the manner envisioned and implemented by our founders. Democrats and Leftist groups and agitators, and mainstream media newspapers and organizations, perceive what is happening; they see the turnaround, and they are unhappy with it; want none of it. And, we see them fighting back; and they are doing so through means that illustrate their contempt for our Constitution, for our laws, for our jurisprudence, as their methods and actions are patently unlawful. Again, they don't care, as it is their design to dismantle this Nation and to rewrite our Constitution anyway. They have an agenda; it is one that Barack Obama has been following. It is one that Hillary Clinton--had she gained the Office of U.S. President--would have continued. It calls for control of the massive federal bureaucracy. It calls for control of the Press. It calls for control of the Judiciary; it calls for the very destruction of the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizenry. This process was well underway during Barack Obama's terms in Office; and it is still underway, even as President Trump attempts methodically, albeit with great difficulty, to set things right; to set things back to the way they were; to the way they ought to be; to the way our founders intended. And, we see the Press, an organ of this vast bureaucratic and judicial conspiracy--publishers, editors, reporters, commentators, editorialists, commentators--working assiduously, aggressively, ceaselessly  against our Nation, against our Nation's Constitution, and against the best interests of the Nation's citizenry. They strive to force the United States into a trans-nationalist, globalist, world order. That do not deny this. They do not disagree with our assessment. They embrace it, talk lovingly about it. They argue that President Trump has a view of this Nation and its laws that are archaic, that our Nation must enter a new age; that it must become part of a larger community of nations, politically as well as economically. They argue that we must not be insular. That we must embrace multiculturalism, alien ideas, extreme diversity. They argue that we must be willing to relinquish our old jurisprudential standards, along with those  parts of our Constitution that reflect a history, a conception of our Nation and its people, that is no longer,as they see it, useful and relevant, and that is, in fact dangerous to a new conceptual schema, a new political, legal, economic, social, and cultural framework, a new paradigm, as the old ways--the Constitution as originally articulated, the Nation State as originally conceived--all of it is no longer consistent with conception of and aims of a new international world order. The Press is, in fact, correct in its assessment of President Trump of what President Trump is attempting to do. But, the Press is wrong in one critical respect. It is this: the conception of our Nation and of our Nation's laws, and of our Nation's Constitution, as conceived by our founders, is precisely what the American people do wish to preserve. The Press, as the mouthpiece of those elements both in our Nation and abroad that wish to reconfigure our Nation to cohere with the model of the EU, see the design of our Constitution, and see the notion of the sovereignty and independence of our Nation State as old and archaic--reminiscent of  an Order conceived by our founders, that is no longer relevant and, so, no longer worth preserving, no longer worth even remembering. They see our Constitution, as drafted by its framers, and as ratified by the States, as anachronistic. They see our centuries of law and jurisprudence, and of the citizenry's rights and liberties, as codified in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution as reflecting ideas that are no longer relevant or useful. They see the notion of the sanctity of the autonomy of the individual as altogether incompatible--which it is--with the utilitarian concept of "the good" achievable only when people are conceived as and ruled over as "a collective." All that, which the American public sees as timeless and which has preceded us and which the American public sees is worth preserving, and worth remembering, and worthy of adulation, these Democrats and Leftists, see as unimportant, and, in fact, destructive to their goal of incorporating our Nation into a new international, globalist world order, one where our citizens are perceived as no different than the citizens of any other nation of the world--where, in fact, the very notion of 'citizen,' so long pervasive in our society, is now perceived as detrimental to their goal of a one world government, requiring our citizenry to be shoehorned into the populations of the world, reduced to abject servitude. Those things that we see as timeless, permanent, worthy of preserving and, in fact necessary and vital, Democrats and Leftists have been altogether dismissive of. They have quietly, but, of late, vociferously, sought to undermine, our history, our culture, our pride of Nation, our system of laws and jurisprudence, our fundamental rights and liberties. There is a war proceeding now, a war for the soul of our People; for the soul of our Nation; for the soul of our Constitution and four our system of laws. Donald Trump was elected precisely because enough Americans realized--could see--the destruction of a Nation occurring before their very eyes and therefore sought a person to hold high Office who would prevent this, would turn the destructive tendencies, impulses, as well, as design for a new conception of our Nation, for a new conception of our laws and a new conception of our Constitution, completely around. There is a war brewing in this Country. It is a war fought, not, at the moment at least, with bombs, and guns and swords, but with words. But the winds of violence, of strife and turmoil are brewing, ominously on the horizon, as we see Leftist agitators, using violence, more and more: rapidly, incessantly, with more severity; and Democrats and their echo chamber, the mainstream media, the Press, do not condemn this violence. Far from it. They condone it, even encourage it. Democrats and their echo chamber, the mainstream media, the Press, are, therefore, complicit in the incitement of it.The Leftists in this Nation and abroad, who control the media--seek to control the mind, the psyche of the public. They are losing, nonetheless. Thus, they resort to the use of agitators; and they besmirch the character and reputation of those individuals who are not on board with their game plan. This much is clear; this much is obvious; this cannot be denied. As the Democrats and Leftist radicals lose control of the discourse, they become more discouraged, and then disgruntled. By degrees, they become agitated, then enraged, and ever more determined. They thrash about, making ever more ridiculous assertions, devising ever more noxious, disreputable schemes for fighting back. In so doing, they no longer appear like human beings. They take on the wild-eyed look of animals, of beasts. And, the more obstreperous they become, the more the public turns against them, in repugnance, in loathing, as well we should; for, these people, these Democrats, these Leftists, are not the voice of restraint. How can they be? They cannot even restrain themselves. And, so the public turns against them, enraging them even more; and they devise ever more outlandish schemes and make ever more outlandish pronouncements. They are not the voice of reason. Their claims of concern for the health, safety, and welfare of others are empty, vacuous, as the public knows their words are not heartfelt. It is no more than pretense; and not subtle pretense. Their moral tone is a charade, and so it appears to the public, as their outrageous actions belie their words. These Democrats, these Leftists, are not the voice of sanity; they are not the voice of morality, despite their claims to the contrary. They are not the voice of reason. How can they be? Their pronouncements are reduced to gibberish, mere sanctimonious patter, endlessly repeated, by one and then others of them. And, the American public has contempt for them and for good reason, as they are not sincere. The public is disgusted with their empty rhetoric, their bombastic retorts; their bald faced arrogance.These Democrats and Leftists, seeming liberal in outlook as they wish to appear, as they think they appear to others, become more and more radical in bearing, as their tone becomes more strident and either childishly simplistic, or completely incomprehensible. They resort to ever more alarming, ever more irrational assertions, remonstrations, and actions. As  more and more Americans turn against them, as they see the tide of the public turning against them in disgust, these Democrats, these Leftists, become ever more agitated, ever more desperate. They resort to ever more ridiculous, outrageous, and reprehensible assertions and actions; devise ever more insidious, outlandish, and illegal schemes in an attempt to turn the tide--to return to their program, their agenda. They cannot help themselves. They are on a runaway train. They don't even know how ludicrous they look; how clownish they appear; how irrational their actions are; how irrelevant they have become. As conservatives, we American conservatives--conservatives , indeed, in our very restraint, and in our thought and in our behavior and in our deeds, and in our outlook on life--hold more securely to our Constitution, to our Nation as a free Republic, to our system of laws and jurisprudence, to our great history, and to our core values, and to our pride. We see that Democrats in Congress, and Leftist radicals, become ever more radical in presentment of their schemes, and in their protestations, and in their aims; and in their attitudes and behavior toward others. They cannot and will not countenance any view but their own. They will not debate. For, they would lose. Their aims, and goals, and philosophy are nonsensical, completely at odds with our National character. They have lost their sense of balance; of reason. They have lost all semblance of self-control. They are completely forsaken. And, that fact has not been lost anyone.

THE AIMS OF DEMOCRATS AND LEFTIST RADICALS HAVE BECOME INCREASINGLY CLEAR, SELF-EVIDENT: THEY SEEK TO STRIP THIS NATION CLEAN OF ITS HISTORY, ITS HERITAGE, ITS DIGNITY, ITS UNIQUENESS, OF EVERYTHING THAT HOLDS US TOGETHER--EVERYTHING THAT HAS, SINCE OUR NATION'S INCEPTION, BOUND US TOGETHER, AS ONE NATION UNDER THE GUIDANCE AND CARE OF OUR CREATOR.

A Congress controlled by Democrats and Leftists of all stripes, would strip bare the framework of our Nation and reconstruct it as merely a unit within the structure of the European Union. Our Nation would become part of an international world order, unconstrained by traditions or history. Multiculturalism would dominate. Our Nation would become a heterogenous conglomeration of unassimilable people, holding alien ideas to whom our core values, our traditions, our Bill of Rights is simply indecipherable, meaningless. As our societal fabric becomes more tenuous, we will see our Nation, our Constitution, our system of laws fragment. The Nation will be ripe for a takeover by powerful international forces. This new "modern" America would no longer be recognizable. Democrats and leftist groups welcome the change; indeed, they are working for that change; they are working for that very transformation of our Country. And they think that is a good thing; that such transformation is proper; that the old Nation, conceived and established by our founders, no longer adequately "works;" that it no longer represents the values of the modern age; that the founder's "construct" no longer reflects the new age that exists. They see, President Trump's slogan, "America First" as representative of an archaic notion; that it is  anachronistic and, worse, that it is arrogantly defiant. Democrats and Leftist groups argue for a new conception of the way Americans should see themselves, namely that they should see themselves not as citizens of a Nation, the United States, but, rather, that they should see themselves as "citizens of the world,"--an empty concept really, as we, citizens of a new world would be reduced to serfdom, as we fit into a new world feudalistic order, as the European Union is degenerating into.Our Supreme Court, though, our third Branch of Government, that in previous years, the public has been little cognizant of, can prevent this. The public is certainly cognizant of and sees the importance of our high Court now. And, what is it that we want and expect from our Justices? Americans should want and expect Justices who test the lawfulness of Congressional and State action through the Constitution, as it is written, as the framers of it understood it. Such Justices would be a mighty force to be reckoned with even if Democrats to take control of the House after the 2016 Midterm elections. For, a conservative-wing majority on the high Court can withstand a Congress run amok. But, Conservative-wing jurists who defer to and respect the Constitution, who do not legislate from the Bench, will then protect our history; our heritage; our fundamental rights and liberties; the supremacy of our laws; and the sovereignty of our Nation. All that we hold dear would be undone if Democrats are able to prevent competent jurists, such as Judge Kavanaugh, from gaining a seat on the high Court. Yet, the Democrats' tool for thwarting the Confirmation process would be laughable in the contemplation if we did not see it unfolding in practice: a malcontented middle-age woman, holding a decades old grudge. That is what Senate Democrats are using to derail the Senate Confirmation process.One decades old barefaced allegation of wrongdoing, short on details, in the absence of forensic evidence and corroborating witnesses, is hardly a legitimate, rational basis for the FBI to seriously consider launching another background investigation even if they had the authorization to do so.Of course the U.S. President could ask the FBI to undertake an investigation (the seventh?); but one would hardly expect the President to authorize yet another investigation into Judge Kavanaugh's past, as Judge Kavanaugh, after all, is the President’s nominee to serve on the high Court. It would be against the President’ interest to request such an investigation, and there is no suggestion that Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee feel that a further FBI investigation is necessary, anyway.If Senate Republicans wish undertake an investigation of the allegation, let them do so. They have the prerogative to do so; and, likely, they have already quietly undertaken an investigation. For all that, there is nothing to suggest, from one solitary allegation of purported wrongdoing on the part of Judge Kavanaugh--as brought to the attention of Chairman Grassley, at the 11^th Hour by Senator Feinstein--to support an FBI investigation were the President, in fact, inclined to authorize the FBI to do so. The fact of the matter is that any further background investigation would simply delay a Senate confirmation vote and delay a confirmation vote indefinitely—which, of course, is really the point. An investigation into the allegation would be interminable; it would and could never be completed because there is nothing to be undertaken. So, if one considers the entire matter rationally, another FBI background investigation into Judge Kavanaugh's past, would be futile, redundant, and silly, making a mockery of the entire Senate Confirmation process. But, Democrats don't care. They  want to prevent a confirmation vote of Judge Kavanaugh from ever occurring. That is their goal. And, even now, Democrats must be operating in the dark to devise ever more outrageous schemes to prevent Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, if the present "tool" doesn't work. And, they will undoubtedly pull out another"Me Too" tool to use against any person President Trump nominates to the high Court. They will do everything they can to prevent a Conservative-wing Majority on the high Court.

IS JUDGE KAVANAUGH’S CREDIBILITY AND CHARACTER REALLY IN QUESTION HERE? IS IT NOT, REALLY, THE CREDIBILITY, CHARACTER, AND MOTIVATION OF JUDGE KAVANAUGH’S ACCUSER THAT ARE IN QUESTION?

It is not Judge Kavanaugh's credibility and character that are really in question, here, but those of Christine Blasey Ford. Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser’s recollection of the allegation she has lodged against Judge Kavanaugh demands she personally come forward to the Senate Judiciary Committee to offer testimony to support her allegation if she intends for it to be taken seriously.The Judiciary Committee should also question Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser as to her motivations for having brought a damning accusation against Judge Kavanaugh, pertaining to a matter that, if there is anything to it at all, references an event occurring well over thirty years ago. The Judiciary Committee might ask Christine Blasey Ford about the possibility of her having had an hysterical reaction to something unrelated to assault or attempted assault, and the nature of the alleged assault or attempted assault—whether of a sexual nature or not. There is a possibility, perhaps a probability, that Christine Blasey Ford is misremembering critical facts. There are certainly gaps in her account, as the accusation, as presented to the public, as reported in the news, is short on critical details. The Judiciary Committee might ultimately and reasonably infer that the event, in any critical particular, had not really transpired at all.Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser may simply be recalling a bad dream she had as a child or as a teenager, mistakenly, albeit honestly, believing the dream to constitute reality; or if the event described actually happened, she may be mistaken as to the identity of the individual she believes had assaulted her or attempted to assault her. The entire accusation, from what the public has seen, to date, is altogether murky, but Democrats expect the public and Senate Republicans to accept the account as given, as true on its face. That is decidedly irrational.The Judiciary Committee should question Christine Blasey Ford as to her political leanings, as the  motivation for bringing up the matter is definitely relevant. In that regard, would Christine Blasey Ford have sent her damning letter to Senator Feinstein, if the allegation in the letter pointed to a nominee of the U.S. President who happened to be favored by Democrats? If not, would not that mean that the purpose of the letter is not to preclude an individual from being confirmed as a Justice on the high Court because of purported character flaws, but to preclude an individual from serving on the high Court that the accuser, along with Democrats, doesn’t like because of his jurisprudential philosophy and approach to case analysis? And if the accuser and Senate Democrats do not like Judge Kavanaugh, not because of any doubt as to his professional qualifications, but because of negative and baseless presumptions about how, they believe, that Judge Kavanaugh might happen to decide a case; and based on their personal biases toward the Judge, totally apart from and irrespective of his qualifications to decide cases before the Court in a well-reasoned, sensitive manner, consistent with the import of Judicial precedent and with due regard to the plain meaning of words as set forth in the U.S. Constitution and in Statute. If, then, Senate Democrats--with assistance from a compliant Press sympathetic to Democrats' goals, and philosophy, and desires to rewrite the Constitution and to change the very fabric of American society to correspond to a "modern" world, as exemplified in the social and political and legal framework we see in the Nations comprising the European Union--have orchestrated a scheme, have hatched a devious plan, have devised a plot to undermine the Kavanaugh Confirmation process as part and parcel of a greater plan to contain the U.S. President and his policy goals and objectives as he promised, consistent with the will of the American people, to preserve the U.S. Constitution and a free Republic, as the founders of our Nation had intended, then Democrat's  attempt to derail the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to a seat on the high Court has nothing to do with and has never had anything to do with getting to the truth; it has nothing to do with and never had anything to do with the vindication of a woman, Christine Blasey Ford, who claims to have been wronged by Judge Kavanaugh, and who brings up a decades old claim of  wrongdoing on the part of Judge Kavanaugh; for that is nothing but pretext. No! The real reason Senate Democrats seek to delay a Senate Roll Call vote on the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to sit on the high Court is to frustrate President Trump; to frustrate the will of the people. And the attack on Judge Kavanaugh's character and reputation is merely one more tactic, like the Mueller probe. Simply, Judge Kavanaugh is in the way of the agenda that Democrats intend for this Country once they resume power. A conservative wing majority in the high Court would be capable of continuing to frustrate Democrats and Leftists groups in this Country from reconfiguring the Constitution and the institutions and laws of society to conform to their new world view. Hence, they are pulling out all the stops to prevent Judge Kavanaugh from becoming a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, in spite of his good character, solid reputation, impeccable judicial work, intellectual brilliance, and love and respect for our Constitution and system of laws. If, then, the delay in holding a confirmation vote is politically motivated, and not rationally related to the qualifications or character of the President's nominee, as is obvious, Senate Republicans must stand firm, and make clear to their counterparts, Senate Democrats, and to the American people, that they support Judge Kavanaugh fully and that they will not allow Senate Democrats to take control of the Confirmation process, which, unfortunately, as is becoming increasingly obvious, is happening. Senate Republicans are allowing Democrats to do just that.Of course the American public knows this to be the case, but these facts are not supposed to be obvious. Increasingly, though, it is becoming glaringly obvious to the American people that the accusation against Judge Brett Kavanaugh is nothing more than yet one more weapon in the toolbox of Democrats and extreme leftists in this Country, pulled out with no legitimate aim but only to frustrate the will of the American people who elected Donald Trump as President of the United States, in anticipation that, one day, they will regain control of the reins of Government.Judge Kavanaugh for his part is perfectly willing to come forward, once again, before the Committee, to respond to the accusations, to get this matter behind him. He has already categorically denied the truth of Blasey’s accusations. Christine Blasey Ford, an American citizen, has made a damning accusation against another American citizen; and there must be a public accounting for it. After all she made a conscious decision to contact Senator Feinstein, accusing Judge Kavanaugh of a heinous act. Christine Blasey Ford, and her attorney, and Senate Democrats, sitting on the Judiciary Committee apparently believing it unnecessary for Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser to make a personal appearance before the entire Nation, despite smearing Judge Kavanaugh’s character, reputation, and good name before the Nation, and, in the process, potentially, psychologically harming Judge Kavanaugh’s wife, children, and parents. Many on the political left don’t seem to care, including those in the mainstream media. Nonetheless, as of this writing, Christine Blasey Ford, through her attorney has agreed to testify, albeit reluctantly, although the conditions under which and the manner in which Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser testifies, whether openly before the Nation, as she should, or secretly, behind closed doors, as she might, are, apparently, still being hammered out, by the accuser’s attorney and Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, along with other conditions, to be hammered out, patently ridiculous though they be.Chairman Grassley and other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have made clear that, if they are compelled to play the game Democrats demand they play, then, Democrats are not going to make up all the rules as they go, changing them at will. His patience must be running thin, and with good reason. But, one thing is clear. Whatever the facts happen to be, surrounding the allegation that Christine Blasey Ford has brought against Judge Kavanaugh, and whatever her motivations for bringing it, Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser must come forward and testify. She must explain herself. Christine Blasey Ford, her attorney, and Senate Democrats sitting on the Judiciary Committee had thought that Christine Blasey Ford need not testify. They are all profoundly mistaken.

CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD HAS OPENED A PANDORA’S BOX WITH HER BAREFACED ALLEGATION, WHICH, IN THE ABSENCE OF INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE, SUPPORTING THE ALLEGATION, IS VACUOUS. NOW SHE MUST DEAL WITH THE TROUBLES SHE HAS UNLEASHED AND THAT SHE AND SHE ALONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR.

Media accounts refer to the psychological toll the entire matter has had on Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser, with little, if any, regard, shown for the psychological toll this matter has had on Judge Kavanaugh and his family. Why is that? Media accounts proclaim how courageous Christine Blasey Ford is to come forward with her allegation. Really? How much courage does it take to write a letter, attacking and impugning a person’s character, and demanding that and believing that one’s identity remain obscured, hidden in the shadows, and that the accuser’s identity will forever remain anonymous? Christine Blasey Ford is an adult, not a child; and no longer a teenager. She should have known that an intelligent person, as she undoubtedly is, cannot reasonably expect to smear the name of another, publically, especially a highly respected person—presently serving as a Judge on a federal Circuit Court, nominated by the U.S. President to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court—and, yet, expect no personal repercussions to emanate from that smear. Indeed, if the accusation is false, that amounts to the commission of a serious tort. What is clear enough is that this matter has political overtones—political overtones that cannot be denied. Christine Blasey Ford, along with her attorney, and along with Congressional Democrats, seek retribution against Donald Trump for having prevailed in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. They seek retribution against the President’s nominees to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. But, it is retribution on their own heads that they deserve and that they will receive from the American public.It must need be reiterated that no person has come forward, to date, to corroborate Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation. So, who can defend the repugnant claim, apart from the accuser, herself? Apparently they include only those people who would like to believe Christine Blasey Ford and who have become inappropriate stand-ins, in the absence of a witness to the purported event. One stand-in is Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand. Senator Gillibrand, a Democrat sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has her own agenda, which likely includes a run for the U.S. Presidency in 2020. This is what the Senator had to say about the veracity of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against Judge Kavanaugh, as reported by the National Review:“‘I believe Dr. Blasey Ford because she’s telling the truth. You know it by her story. You know it by the fact that she told her therapist five years ago. She told her husband. This is a trauma she’s been dealing with her whole life. She doesn’t want to be in a bedroom that doesn’t have two doors. People knew that about her a long time ago,’ Gillibrand said.”“‘These are the hallmarks of truth, these are the hallmarks of someone who wants to be believed. I believe her because she’s telling the truth. She’s asking the FBI to investigate her claims,’ the senator added. ‘She’s asking for that kind of review, that investigative work, that oversight, that accountability. Someone who is lying doesn’t ask the FBI to investigate their claims.’” From these remarks, a reasonable person can come to two diametrically opposed inferences about Senator Gillibrand: one, either she is omniscient; or, two, she is a moron. It is unlikely that Senator Gillibrand is omniscient. Other Democrats have proclaimed similar ludicrous and imbecilic remarks.Curiously, though, Senator Dianne Feinstein, herself—the Democrat who tactically, but untactfully and disgracefully released Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation, inopportunely, on Chairman Grassley and on other Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, without, at the very least, attempting to investigate the veracity of the accusation before releasing it at all, and then having decided to release the barefaced accusation on the Judiciary Committee, as well as on the Nation, only days before a Senate Roll Call vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation was planned even though Senator Feinstein had received the accusation, in the form of a letter, months earlier—pointed out, as reported by the Washington Times, that: “Ms. Blasey Ford has been ‘profoundly impacted,’ but [Senator Feinstein] added, ‘I can’t say that everything is truthful. I don’t know.’”  Those remarks were the most neutral and most reasonable of remarks that any Democrat has said to date on the matter, coming from any Congressional Democrat. But, perhaps, not unexpectedly, Senator Feinstein backpedaled—no doubt at the urgent behest of other Congressional Democrats as Feinstein had essentially contradicted Senator Gillibrand; for, Senator Feinstein had created a new narrative, with her account of Christine Blasey Ford's accusation--an account not synchronized with the narrative Democrats and the mainstream media had orchestrated for the American public and have been playing incessantly to the public to encourage public support in Democrats' attempt to derail the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the high Court. Democrats and the mainstream media always operate in lockstep with each other, often reciting verbatim, ad nauseum, the same trite talking points.So, then, as reported in the same article by the Washington Times, “Ms. Feinstein . . . later clarified her statement on Twitter. ‘During every step of this process, I’ve found every single piece of information from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford eminently credible, sincere and believable. She knew this would have a huge effect on her life and she was incredibly brave to come forward.’” But, note: Dianne Feinstein’s “clarification” still falls noticeably short on one critical point, and this certainly wasn't accidental. While saying she believed Christine Blasey Ford’s “information” to be “eminently credible, sincere and believable,” the Senator still refrained from asserting a belief that the information is in fact true. Thus, to her credit—and Dianne Feinstein owes the American public that much since it was the Senator who, after all, brought the barefaced allegation, directly impugning the character of an honorable man, to the public’s attention in the first place—Senator Feinstein knows that, however “credible, sincere and believable” the allegation is, it may still be false. Displaying such obvious concern for precision in her remarks--something, by the way, that we do not see from Senator Gillibrand--and from many other Congressional Democrats, who have exhibit no inclination toward the importance of personal integrity and who have no sense of personal honor but only demonstrate concern for results and for the amassing of personal power--it is odd that Senator Feinstein released the accusation prior to undertaking a quiet vetting process, herself, before the fact. Perhaps, though, Senator Feinstein did attempt to conduct a quiet, secretive investigation into the veracity of Christine Basely Ford's allegation against Judge Kavanaugh when the Senator first received the Professor's letter; and, perhaps, Senator Feinstein was unable to obtain independent evidence to corroborate the barefaced allegation. This would not be surprising given the passage of so many years and given the extensive gaps pertaining to the account as related in the accuser's letter, as related to the public by the Press. Conceivably, as we speculate, Senator Feinstein may very well have fretted over all of this, but felt, ultimately, inevitably, calculatedly, and, perhaps, even resignedly, that, if Democrats were to have any appreciable chance at all of derailing, or, at least, delaying the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court--and despite realizing the damage that could and undoubtedly would be done to the Senator's own professional reputation by unilaterally releasing a barefaced, heinous accusation--Senator Feinstein would take the risk of damaging her own reputation anyway; and, so, she released a barefaced, unsupported, uncorroborated, damning allegation, that she knew or had every reason to presume would unfairly impugn the character and integrity of an honorable man and highly respected jurist, as well as doing psychological harm to Judge Kavanaugh's wife and young, impressionable daughters. Having taken this action, probably at the urging of other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Feinstein has done irreparable damage to her own personal and professional reputation, and deservedly so. Perhaps, then, Senator Feinstein’s “clarification” was meant to inform Congressional Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee that she bears some animosity toward those Democrats by having been urged by them to release Christine Blasey Ford's allegation to the Senator Grassley and to other Senate  Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, and to the Nation. That would certainly explain why Senator Feinstein's "clarification" still manages to conflict with Senator Gillibrand’s remark—and the remarks of other Democrats--who exclaimed, unabashedly, that they accept the veracity of the allegation on its face, even though there is no reasonable, rational basis at all to do so.

BELIEFS ARE NOT EQUIVALENT TO KNOWLEDGE

Senator Feinstein acknowledges, subtly, but more than merely impliedly, that one’s belief that a statement is true does not, of itself, make a statement true even if, as with Senator Gillibrand's comment and that of other Congressional Democrats, as a group,  for political reasons, the claim is made that beliefs about truth and factual truth amount to the same thing. Senator Feinstein is correct. They aren't the same thing. She knows that it is ridiculous  to say that because someone believes a statement to be true that that the statement is true.  So, it appears, on some level, at least, that Senator Feinstein continues to insist that she simply doesn’t know if Christine Basely Ford's allegation against Judge Kavanaugh is true. But, as she brought this mess to the attention of the public, Senator Feinstein, more than anyone else, is responsible for the mess she created.No one needs to take courses in formal or informal logic, or in epistemology, to know that beliefs, however sincere do not ipso facto equate with truth. Beliefs that such and such is the case may be false, and often are. Centuries ago most people believed the Earth was flat. They sincerely believed that and, given the number of people who believed that the Earth was flat and that if one travels too far on a flat Earth, one would fall off the Earth, were held to true and credible beliefs, insofar as the majority of the people believed this to be the case. But, scientists, of course have proved, conclusively—indeed Christopher Columbus has shown through his voyage to the "New World"—that the Earth is indeed round. The Earth is a sphere, not a flat disc or plate. The point is that bare beliefs, in the absence of evidence, do not equate with truth. They never did. There is, then, no reason to raise Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s asserted belief in the truth of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation to the level of truth, however sincerely felt that belief may be, if, in fact, Senator Gillibrand does in fact sincerely believe the accusation and is not simply pulling a political stunt. Senator Gillibrand, as with many Democrats, are conjurers, sleight-of-hand artists, who attempt to control the public's perceptions, no less so than an actual stage illusionist, doing seemingly wondrous things, but merely playing tricks, controlling the audience's perceptions. Democrats are doing the same thing, and the mainstream media is merely one of the assistants of the Democrats. The mainstream media is not interested any longer in imparting truth to the public, passively, The mainstream media is, as well, attempting to shape public opinion.As to the matter at hand, we simply don’t know whether the accuser's “information” is true, rather than false. And, contrary to Senator Gillibrand’s remark, the Senator doesn’t know either. She may profess a belief in the truth of the accusation, but, once again, one's belief in the truth of a proposition does not make that belief, true. Beliefs can be and often turn out to be mistaken. Indeed, given the span of time, Christine Blasey Ford’s recollection of the event amounting to an assault may be wholly or partially false. Her recollection may certainly be false or fallible given the passage of time, even if she sincerely believes the account to be true. We simply don’t know in the absence corroborating reports, and forensic evidence—difficult things to collect now, from a decades old allegation. But, always keep in mind: it is not necessary for Judge Kavanaugh to disprove Christine Blasey Ford’s account. This matter does not boil down to a “He said; She said” debate, as some have argued, with due allowance, as some give it, but improperly, to the accuser, for presumptively assuming the truth of the accuser’s claim.In a criminal trial, the burden of proof is always on the accuser, as it should be, as it must be, and, as, under our system of laws and procedure, always is. The burden of proof is always on the prosecution, never on the defendant. The defendant may remain silent and need not present any evidence to support or contradict the accusation. If the accuser’s evidence is insufficient or lacking in all or any important detail, then the prosecution’s case falls flat. The accused therefore has the presumption of innocence, not guilt, as that presumption must be given to the accused, if fairness is to prevail. Now, we are not, of course, faced with a criminal trial here. Still, the methodology of presumption of innocence persists and other important judicial presumptions, consistent with our legal procedure, still hold. If Christine Blasey Ford fails to testify and fails to provide credible evidence to support a bald allegation of wrongdoing on the part of Judge Kavanaugh, then the allegation falls flat, and must be given no force or effect.

SO, WE ASK:

Do those individuals who believe in the veracity of the accusation that Christine Blasey Ford has lodged against Judge Kavanaugh—belief in the accuser’s account, without reservation and without need to hear her testimony, under oath, before the Senate Judiciary Committee and before the American public, and without need to see, and, indeed, to insist on seeing independent evidence that supports the bare allegation—believe the accuser because they happen to know the accuser personally and have, through their own observations, never known the accuser to fabricate a story or to have been subject to a delusion or hallucination, or do they elicit confidence in the truth of the accusation simply because it serves an agenda: namely keeping Judge Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court, and in the process, frustrating the U.S. President, and frustrating the will of the American people, who, in full accord with the Constitution, legitimately elected Donald Trump as 45th President of the United States. If the latter is the case, then these people—Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and in their echo chamber, the mainstream media; and Leftists, supporters of “Planned Parenthood” and the “Me Too” movement and supporters of other Left-wing radicals, among others—evince belief in the truth of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation because they have a political and ideological reason to do so, they have items on a political agenda to see through to fruition. Now, these people and members of left-wing groups may convince themselves, albeit irrationally, that they really do believe the accusation of Judge Kavanaugh's accuser to be true, when, however, in a contemplative, self-reflective moment, they may admit to themselves, that they really do not know, as they have no basis in logic to do so. But, whether they do honestly, sincerely believe the accusation, or not, the belief is not equivalent to truth. Perhaps, as appears likely, they really don't care in the truth. They only care in the spectacle and if the spectacle operates well, according to plan, to derail the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and others may, then, choose to believe whatever they wish to believe, whether sincerely felt or merely presented for political expediency. Whatever the case, that is no reason why anyone else should accept as true what it is that the Senator or others believe to be true and happen to say is true, however fervently and loudly they proclaim their belief to accord with the truth. And, the public must be mindful of an intricate illusion--a magical trick being played upon it.

THERE IS MUCH AT STAKE HERE.

For the sake of preservation of our system of laws and justice, Americans should not accept and should not be expected to accept an uncorroborated accusation as true simply because they would like to believe the accusation to be true. But that is likely what we are seeing here. Our Constitution and our system of laws require that one be circumspect, rational, and diligent.One should not be headstrong, emotional, haphazard, gullible, in accepting as gospel things that one would, perhaps, like to believe are true simply because they fit a particular paradigm of one’s personal reality, of the way one would like things to be, irrespective of rational reflection. Americans should expect no less from a jurist. Americans should want a jurist to be competent and capable, to dispose of cases, carefully, in accordance with law, as it is written, as it is. This is why, after all, Americans should want to see confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh. They should not want a jurist sitting on the high Court who disposes of cases the way a jurist happens to believe the law ought to be. Unfortunately, we see the latter among jurists, at all levels. Judge Kavanaugh, though, is not that kind of jurist.Judge Kavanaugh has the temperament as well as the intelligence to serve on the high Court. He is careful to render decisions that comply clearly, carefully, and narrowly with the original intent of the Constitution, and does not go off half-cocked, as all to many jurists, unfortunately do, rendering decisions that comply with a personal ideological perspective, irrespective of the plain words of the Constitution, of Statute and of high Court precedent. Too many jurists render legal opinions that operate more like personal, rhetorical political tracts than as true legal opinions, demonstrating less the idea of cogent and clear and articulate knowledge and application of  and adherence of the law to the facts, and more like polemics, asserting the jurist's desire for the way he or she would like the world to be, fitfully forcing law to fit a particular factual paradigm. This explains why Democrats are afraid of Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation and why they have made a spectacle of the entire confirmation process. They do not want to see calmness, intelligence, rationality on the high Court; quite the opposite. They want to see someone sitting on the high Court who renders decisions on the basis of emotion, and sentiment, and sentimentality, those things that the Left ascribes to, devoid of sound reason, exhibiting little if any respect for the plain meaning of the Constitution and of our laws, as written. Indeed, haven’t we seen, during the Confirmation Hearing, Democrats exhibiting themselves those very attributes in a jurist that no American should want to see in a jurist: someone who renders opinions emotionally, irrespective of what the law and Constitution say? Haven’t Democrats shown the American people that they want jurists who render decisions beyond the scope of case precedent, beyond the plain meaning of Constitution and Statute? Hasn’t it become clear to all Americans that Democrats want jurists on the high Court who are not afraid to rewrite the Constitution and laws to reflect their view of what they think the law should be, to reflect a Country the way they think the Country ought to look, rather than what the law and the Constitution demand; what the law and the Constitution dictate? Don't Americans, rather, seek to maintain a Country operating coherently and cohesively and consistently as the founders of our free Republic prescribed; as the framers of the Constitution intended?

WHAT IS CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD’S BAREFACED ALLEGATION AGAINST JUDGE KAVANAUGH REALLY, THEN, ALL ABOUT?

The hysteria that is being displayed, deliberately whipped up by the mainstream media, exemplifies the character of the kind of jurist the Left in this Country would like to see sitting on the high Court: a person that mirrors themselves; their personal view of what a “modern” America should look like, completely at odds with the framework the Founders of our Republic established as set forth clearly, categorically, and meticulously, in the U.S. Constitution.Mainstream media newspapers, such as The New York Times, lost little time in posting numerous articles on Christine Blasey Ford, supporting the veracity and efficacy of her remarks in both news articles and editorials, lending a sympathetic voice to the accuser’s concern for her dignity and character and for her safety and that of her family. But, why is there no complementary statements made in the mainstream media for the well-being of Brett Kavanaugh and his family? After all, Judge Kavanaugh’s character has been seriously impugned by bald, sketchy, uncorroborated allegations of one person, purporting to recall an event going back literally decades. Judge Kavanaugh has a family, too, and that family includes a loving, devoted wife, and two young, impressionable daughters. The mainstream media expresses nothing that we have seen to suggest concern for Judge Kavanaugh and his family. Apparently, in the age of the “Me Too” movement, we are to throw out concerns for the harm that this heinous accusation has had on Judge Kavanaugh and his family, for the unstated but obvious purpose of political expediency.

THERE IS MUCH AT STAKE HERE.

Ultimately, Democrats and the mainstream media are not really concerned about the health, safety, and well-being of either Christine Blasey Ford or Judge Brett Kavanaugh. For Democrats, an accusation against Judge Kavanaugh, however weak, constitutes a last ditch effort to prevent the installation of a fifth originalist on the U.S. Supreme Court. Democrats know full well that the high Court has the last word on the constitutionality of State and Federal legislation. Democrats have an agenda and a policy that they seek to implement. It is one that essentially rewrites the U.S. Constitution. Democrats seek to create new “rights” out of whole cloth that don’t exist in the Bill of Rights, and never did. Contrariwise, they seek to constrain fundamental, natural rights, like free speech, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms--rights that are clearly and succinctly etched in stone. They know that any legislation that they enact that fails to comply with the Constitution of this Nation as originally conceived, as plainly set forth in text, will not withstand Constitutional scrutiny and will be struck down, as well it should. Thus, the idea of a jurist who applies rigor and restraint to legal opinions, with proper deference to the written word of the Constitution is not to their liking. The idea of a fifth originalist sitting on the high Court drives those on the political Left to apoplexy, as they see their agenda for a new kind of Country--one envisioned by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a Country uncontained by and unrestrained by the Nation's Constitution, laws, and jurisprudential history--completely undone.Democrats, both moderates and far left progressives, know that, once Judge Kavanaugh sits on the high Court, as the fifth and decisive conservative voice, Constitutional questions will be analyzed and decided utilizing the jurisprudential approaches and methodology championed by the late eminent Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia’s approach serves to preserve and strengthen the Constitution, consistent with the intentions of the framers of it. The Constitution that we have that has served our Country well for over two centuries would be fractured, severing forever the rights and liberties codified in the Bill of Rights, and severing the tenuous checks and balances that the framers carefully put in place as set forth in the Articles of the Constitution, if Democrats are able to sit activists on the high Court, as they would like to do, as Barack Obama has done and would have continued to do had Judge Merrick Garland been confirmed to sit on the high Court, and as Hillary Clinton would certainly have done had she prevailed in the 2016 general election for U.S. President.Leftists in this Country want to see high Court decisions that reflect radical narratives; that display a novel and disjointed view of our Nation; a view that is completely at odds with the Nation, conceived by the founders. The rights and liberties the founders codified in the Bill of Rights and the careful attention they paid to the separation of powers as exemplified in the Articles of the Constitution are in peril if Leftists have their way; for they do not see the Constitution as demonstrative of fundamental, core values, concrete and timeless. They see the U.S. Constitution as something equivocal, temporary, even archaic—subject to the whims of the moment, and to ideas that, if expressed in high Court law, would result in the disruption of our Nation’s core values, the diminution of our natural rights and liberties, and the fracturing of the fragile concept of “separation of powers” that, together with the Bill of Rights, comprise the mainstay of a free Republic. The late Justice Scalia, and the conservative wing of the high Court is careful, in their analyses of cases that come before them, to render opinions, consistent with the plain meaning of our Constitution and laws—opinions designed to preserve and strengthen our core rights and liberties and to maintain a free Republic, as the founders of our Nation intended. Do not expect anything like that from the opinions of the liberal-wing of the high Court, who tend to read the Constitution and laws expansively, to reflect ideas that go far beyond the parameters of text, and who, using their own methodologies, at odds with the methodology of the Conservative wing of the high Court, would, in so doing, destroy the very fabric of the Republic, given the chance if they ever secure a majority.

THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

Take the matter of the fundamental and natural right of the people to keep and bear arms. Liberal Jurists sitting on the U.S. District Courts and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have chiselled away at the holdings in District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), and in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010). The reasoning of the majority in the Heller and McDonald cases has been patently ignored, thereby weakening State Court precedent and destroying jurisprudential history.Second Amendment cases that have, to date, wended their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, to challenge outrageous State gun laws, have failed to secure a fourth vote necessary for a case to be heard. Firearms that are in common use, including many, and eventually, most semiautomatic handguns, rifles, and shotguns, are in danger of being banned outright in many states.Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsuch, and the late Justice Scalia have made clear, in their dissenting comments, in cases that failed to secure a fourth vote necessary to have the cases heard by the Court, their frustration at the failure of the U.S. Supreme Court to hear lower Court cases that directly confront and blatantly attack the import and purport of Heller and McDonald. With Judge Kavanaugh sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, though, those cases will definitely secure the fourth vote necessary for a Second Amendment case, negatively impacting the core of the right, to be heard. Those lower Court cases that permit Government to subvert the rights and liberties of the American citizen, will be overturned. Once overturned, the Supreme Court will assert once and for all, through cases consistent with and building on Heller and McDonald, that which we know: semiautomatic weapons fall within the core of the Second Amendment. States cannot ban such firearms outright under the guise of calling them illegal “assault weapons.” Democrats know this would happen. That worries them. That is why they do not want Judge Kavanaugh sitting on the high Court.Senate Democrats devoted substantial time directing questions to Judge Kavanaugh, during the Confirmation Hearing, concerning the legality of certain firearms. They are aware that Judge Kavanaugh understands and appreciates the precedential import of the Heller and McDonald cases—precedential import and value of cases they don’t share. Democrats want an activist on the Court. They want someone who shares their ideological imperatives; a jurist who does not defer to the plain written word of the Constitution; a jurist who is not afraid to legislate from the Bench. They won’t get that from Judge Kavanaugh or from any Judge that President Trump is likely to nominate. That disturbs Democrats deeply. That is why they have pulled out all the stops in a reprehensible attempt to disrupt the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh.Democrats succeeded in derailing the confirmation of the late Judge Robert Bork to the high Court, and they attempted, fortunately unsuccessfully, to do the same during the Confirmation Hearing of Justice Thomas. They are using the same strategy here. They are attempting to impugn the character of a great man, devoted father, and brilliant Judge who would serve this Nation well once he sits on the U.S. Supreme Court. They will not abide this. They intend to disrupt the confirmation process, as they have done during the Hearing itself. They intend to deny confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the high Court. They may try, but they will not succeed even as they, at the moment, attempt nonetheless to delay a vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the high Court until after the 2018 Midterm elections. Democrats hope they can obtain a majority in the Senate. If that happens, Judge Kavanaugh would not, of course, be confirmed to sit on the high Court. And that is the Party’s wish. That is their goal. That is their fervent desire. Of that, there can be no doubt; but—as to that end—these Democrats, moderates and  Progressives; Socialists and Communists, and Billionaire Globalists and Transnationalists, too, will certainly fail. As their wishes, their goals, their desires, are all immodest and impure; and as their wishes, their goals, their desires are antithetical to the needs, wishes, will, and welfare of the American people; and as their wishes, their goals, their desires, are completely contrary to the application of the laws of our Nation, they will fail. They will fail utterly.There exist forces in this Country that wish to recreate a reality that suits their personal preconceptions of what our Country should look like, based on a personal conviction and certitude that they know what is best for the rest of us. That is a very dangerous attitude to have and one, were it to prevail, absolutely destructive to the continued existence of the U.S. Constitution; altogether inconsistent with and contrary to the rights, liberties, dignity, and continued autonomy of the individual American citizen; altogether incompatible with the continued maintenance of a Constitutional Republic; and wholly inconsistent with the manner in which both our legal and political systems work. Even as these left-wing power brokers claim to follow basic precepts, namely the “rule of law” and “a Nation ruled by laws, not by men,” they mean, in practice, no such thing. These people are the implacable foes of a truly free people and they have silently declared war on the very concept of a free Republic, a Republic and Nation ruled by law, not by men, in accord with the Constitution, as written.To those on the political Left our fundamental legal precepts and, indeed, the words of the Constitution itself are nothing, mere platitudes—things that at the moment are seen as convenient, perhaps, merely to mention; but, in actuality, such lofty legal precepts, to the political Left, are no more than pretext, mere rhetorical verbiage, to be discarded, eventually, like old clothes. To these left-wing power brokers who claim to speak for all Americans, concepts such as ‘Sovereign Nation,’ ‘One Nation under God,’ ‘E Pluribus Unum,’ ‘Bill of Rights,’ ‘Rule of Law,’ ‘Individual Worth and Dignity,’ ‘Individual Liberty,’ ‘U.S. Constitution,’ ‘U.S. Law,’ and ‘U.S. Citizen,’ will simply be discarded when deemed no longer necessary; when the very meaning and purport of these great concepts grow dim in the American psyche, in the Nation’s memory; lost to history, as these left-wing power brokers intend to happen once their vision for a new Country, unconstrained by the U.S. Constitution, unconstrained by our system of laws, and by our core values and history has been realized.These people hold contempt for the President of the United States. They refuse to recognize him as our President and their President, too, duly elected by the people of the United States, in accordance with the Laws of the United States. They are so beset by rage and raw hatred, so motivated and mesmerized by personal lust for power and grandeur, so enamored with themselves and with their personal vision, so convinced of the righteousness and certitude of their personal beliefs, and so assured of their own infallibility, that they do not see themselves as the buffoons they are; the buffoons they demonstrate themselves to be to the American people. These people are blind to their own conceits and pride—to those things that comprise their passions; those things that drive their actions. They reproach, demean, lecture, and scold the American people they pretend to represent—the American people they no longer even pretend to care about; unaware that the public is aware of their deceit; of their feigned concern for the needs of the American people, of the needs of the citizenry of the Country. These left-wing power brokers are oblivious to how sordid and ridiculous they look; and how patently obvious it is, the drivel they spew out.Those forces in this Nation who seek to dismantle the Bill of Rights, to rewrite the U.S. Constitution, and who seek to weaken our Sovereign Nation State and free Republic must not succeed in their endeavor. The American people must not let them. Americans must vote in the 2018 midterm elections to maintain Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress. It is all up to “We, the People” to protect our Sovereign Nation, our Constitution, our sacred Rights and Liberties from the forces that would, if given the chance crush this Nation and its citizenry into submission.________________________________________________________*The New York Times has provided a forum for those who wish to attack the honor and integrity of Judge Kavanaugh, merely on the basis of one bald-faced allegation, referencing an uncorroborated extraordinarily sketchy event that purportedly occurred over three decades ago—an event that Judge Kavanaugh categorically denies ever took place. But it is an event that those on the political “Left” take as self-evident true, nonetheless.In an Op-Ed, published in the NY Times, Saturday, September 22, 2018, titled, “The Case for Impeaching Kavanaugh,” written by a Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr., Professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, Professor Krotoszynski lays out his argument for impeaching Judge Kavanaugh even before the Judge has been confirmed to sit on the high Court. What is this law Professor’s “case” for impeaching Judge Kavanaugh? In his article, Professor Krotoszynski’s argument for impeachment boils down to: (1) a single bald-faced, decades old allegation of sexual misconduct, brought to the attention of Senator Dianne Feinstein, by a middle-aged Professor of Psychology, Christine Blasey Ford, albeit in the absence of any corroborating evidence or independent forensic evidence; and (2) two claims that Judge Kavanaugh committed perjury in giving testimony to the Senate, predicated on “subsequently released emails [that] suggest [Judge Kavanaugh’s] answers were at best misleading and at worst false.” What? Does this make sense?Has Professor Krotosznski made out a decipherable, compelling basis for impeachment of Judge Kavanaugh? We do not think so. Let’s take a close look at the Professor’s stated grounds for impeachment.Professor Krotoszynski argues that impeachment of Judge Kavanaugh is warranted on two grounds, both of which are extraordinarily tenuous. One ground consists of a solitary, bald-faced allegation, extremely short on details, referring to a purported event that, if the accuser is to be believed at all, involved a matter that occurred over one-third of a Century ago. Judge Brett Kavanaugh categorically denies the allegation. Moreover the allegation, apart from the accuser’s recitation of the allegation itself, cannot and is not buttressed by any supporting evidence or argument. Whatever forensic evidence that existed, if any such evidence existed at all, has long since been lost to time; and no one else to date—after Senate Republicans did in fact conduct an investigation of the accusation, although neither Democrats nor the mainstream news media acknowledge as much—offer independent support for accepting the allegation as true. At the very least, the Senate certainly has the right to demand the accuser testify and respond to questions. At the moment, it is not clear, though, when and how exactly the accuser, herself, will proffer testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, if at all. And Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, some of whom are trained attorneys, are asserting, bizarrely, that Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser, should not be required to testify. Imagine what this means. It turns our system of law and justice on its head. For, if all that a person need do is simply accuse another person of a crime without any requirement that the accuser face the accused, testify in the open, in public, present independent evidence to support the accusation, bear the burden of proof, and be subject to cross-examination, then what does that do to the very notion of “due process” in this Country? Yet, Democrats claim the barefaced accusation can and should speak for itself.Granted, the matter here does not involve a formal criminal proceeding. Judge Kavanaugh does not face criminal charges and cannot. Nonetheless, his character has been impugned, and his fate—whether a Senate Roll-Call vote for Confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court is to take place—is placed in jeopardy, at least if Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are to have their way in the Confirmation process. Apparently our system of laws and procedure are to be perceived as infinitely flexible, subject to the whims, and desires, and predilections of those powerful people who seek a predetermined outcome. That would mean reducing our system of laws to nothing more than ad hoc, rules of expediency, never concrete, ever changing; and that would mean no tenable system of laws and judicial procedure would exist in this Country that anyone could rely on. Thus, the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments would have no real effect. Any person could lose his or her life, liberty, or property by the decree of whomever it is that wields power. This is the Country that Democrats would bequeath to the American people; and we see this in the manner in which Democrats seek to use an unsupported allegation of a middle-aged college Professor, purportedly referencing an event that cannot be reasonably proved. Professor Krotoszynski, though, sees this allegation as sufficiently credible that it warrants a full Senate investigation—evidently one that would not be complete until after the 2016 midterm elections. That would be convenient! Obviously, the lack of forensic evidence and the motivations of Christine Blasey Ford are seen as inconsequential factors to Professor Krotoszynski.The second ground amounts, as Professor Krotoszynski acknowledges,—if a person wishes to give the law Professor even that much leeway—to emails that “suggest” perjury. Mere suggestions of perjury though—suggestions that a person would like to believe are true—hardly rise to the level of essential irrefutable, undeniable proof. There is, then, neither a cogent legal nor logical basis upon which to impeach Judge Kavanaugh, were he to be confirmed as Associate Justice to the high Court. But, Professor Krotoszynski would relax standards to allow impeachment to proceed on the flimsiest of reasons, and this what we see.So, then, what is really going on here? Just this: as with the election of Donald Trump to the Office of President of the United States, we see that Democrats and other elements in society—and, as it is becoming increasingly obvious, elements abroad as well—who resist political results they did not expect and cannot and will not abide—have taken it upon themselves to manipulate our Constitution and system of laws to support a reality that they personally want and had, as they felt, every reason to expect, the American public be damned. And, so, they attempt, through an abhorrent, illegal, unjustifiable misapplication of law and irrespective of the import and purport of the Constitution, to reset the clock to a time prior to the 2016 election—to a world they would like to imagine exists and imagine must exist: a world where Hillary Clinton prevailed and who would have, then, appointed two activist jurists to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. One such jurist whom Hillary Clinton would have been likely to nominate to the high Court would have been Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to sit on the high Court, or someone like him, a person who has no qualms about legislating from the Bench. A second activist jurist who Hillary Clinton would nominate to sit on the high Court would no doubt share the same non-orthodox philosophy and jurisprudential methodology of Merrick Garland and of other liberal-wing Justices who presently sit on the high Court. Consider the jurisprudence of retired Justice John Paul Stevens who would, as he has pointed out, rewrite the Bill of Rights to reflect his personal philosophical whims and who believes, as does Justice Breyer, that American Constitutional analysis and decision-making can and should take into account the laws of other Nations, including so-called international law. This jurisprudential methodological approach to case analysis is altogether anathema to that of Justice Thomas, of Justice Alito, of Justice Gorsuch, and to that of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The liberal-wing jurisprudential approach to case analysis that admits of judicial activism and to legislation from the Bench is, as we know, anathema to that approach utilized by Judge Kavanaugh in his judicial opinions, as well. Democrats don’t want jurists sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, or, for that matter, sitting on U.S. District Courts, and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, who do not share their philosophical perspective, requiring, then, that they wish to sit jurists on the high Court who read the U.S. Constitution and Statute expansively, and who would be willing to create new rights that nowhere exist in the Constitution, such as the “right” of a woman to abortion on demand, and who would be just as willing to curtail those fundamental, natural rights that do exist in the Constitution, as clearly codified in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, such as the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, the free exercise of  of religion, and the right of free speech, among other fundamental, natural rights.The mainstream media continues to deluge the public with spurious reports and opinions concerning Christine Blasey Ford's accusation against Judge Kavanaugh. It does so with the clear aim of preventing confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to a seat on the high Court. In the New York Times, we see news reports and accounts written like opinion pieces. Reporters claim that Judge Kavanaugh will not be confirmed. How do they know this? The newspaper also claims that Democrats will secure a majority in the House, and conceivably the Senate; and news accounts of the Christine Blasey Ford spectacle readily assert that the Christine Blasey Ford accusation against Judge Kavanaugh will help Democrats to retake control of Congress. These are odd comments to make in news reports, as they are written as future forecasts--purportedly telling the public what will happen, rather than what has occurred or is presently occurring. They are also laying out the strategy of Democrats and of Leftist groups in this Country for retaking control power. The aim of the mainstream media seems to be to compel the public to believe the forecasts are true, so that Americans will lose faith and hope and acquiesce to the will of Leftists in this Country. Americans should not fall for that. They didn't fall for that by believing prognostications related to the outcome of the 2016 General Election, and they shouldn't for that now. Yet, the mainstream media intends to control the public discourse.It is clear that the wrench Democrats have thrown into the Confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court has utility for Leftists beyond the Confirmation process. Democrats, with the help of the mainstream media, do intend to take control of both Houses of Congress. If they succeed, they will be able, as is also their aim, to contain the President and to frustrate him at every turn. That means, as well, that Democrats, Leftist groups in this Country, "Deep State Bureaucrats" and the mainstream media--all of them, working in lockstep--intend to frustrate the will of the American people too. We must not allow these Left-wing elements to succeed.Americans should make clear they will not permit Democrats and their Leftist compatriots to control the Confirmation process. They must tell Republicans to hold firm. Republicans must not capitulate to Democrats as seems to be happening. Democrats do not now control the Legislative Branch, and "Deep State" Bureaucrats do not control the Executive Branch and the public should not allow Democrats and Deep State Bureaucrats to act like they do. The Judicial Branch, in particular, must remain pure and above the fray. Democrats know that, in terms of long range social policies and goals, the Judicial Branch of Government is the most important Branch. They seek jurists who read the Constitution and federal statute expansively, without concern with the literal word and without proper deference to the Constitution and our laws. What they don't want is the seating of jurists on the federal Courts who would preserve the Constitution as crafted by the framers of it. They seek to place jurists in the Federal Courts--from the U.S. District Court level, through the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, up to the U.S. Supreme Court--with activist jurists who have no reservation in rewriting the Constitution, as they view the Constitution expansively, interpreting the Constitution and laws in a manner that fits personal ideology, not hindered by precedent and demonstrating little if any deference to the plain words of the Constitution and federal statute. Barack Obama has done tremendous damage to the high Court with his placement of two left-wing activists on the high Court. Fortunately, the U.S. Senate was able to prevent Obama from placing a third activist jurist on the high Court, Merrick Garland. So, we know that Republicans can work successfully on the part of the American people to preserve our Nation, our core values, our Constitution if they set their minds to do so. Still, Barack Obama has done extraordinary damage through numerous appointments of left-wing activist jurists to the lower federal Courts--the U.S. District Courts and in U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. We have seen what this has wrought as activist jurists have frustrated the U.S. President's efforts to protect our Nation by enjoining the President from implementing his temporary travel bans. Only through a U.S. Supreme Court decision, secured by the Conservative wing of the high Court, as we have seen, has the President been able to salvage, if temporarily, some vestige of his policy to protect this Country from Mideastern terrorists. Democrats are determined to frustrate the President and the American people at every turn. Nothing less is at stake than the preservation of our Constitution, our core values, even our history, and, as well, the Sovereignty of our Nation, and the supremacy of our laws. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, on the high Court, as Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh can help, immensely, in preserving our Nation, its values, its history, and the rights and liberties of the American people, as the founders of our free Republic intended. Democrats and other Leftists--many on the extreme, radical Left--intend to dismantle our free Republic, curtail or end, altogether, our fundamental rights and liberties, subvert our core values, rewrite our history, and denigrate our Nation, subjecting it to a new Globalist world order where our Nation becomes subordinated to the will of an internationalist body--merely one more spoke in a massive wheel. Simply take a look at the EU, and you can see what Leftists have in store for our Nation and for our citizenry. We must not allow this to happen. It is imperative that Judge Kavanaugh be confirmed to a seat on the High Court. Failure of Republicans to confirm Judge Kavanaugh will serve both to encourage Democrats to continue in their destructive practices of frustrating the President and denying the public the exercise of their Will, and likely preclude a Conservative-wing majority in the U.S. Supreme Court from emerging, thereby endangering our Constitution, endangering our fundamental rights and liberties, and enabling Leftists to dictate the future of our Country, one countenancing a new paradigm, one completely at odds with the framework created by our founders. There is no doubt of this.___________________________________**Debra Katz is a left-wing activist attorney, who was also a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton. Please be advised that, Roger Katz, one of the authors of this AQ article, is not at all related to Debra Katz. We happen to share a common surname, nothing more. The New York Times reports that Judge Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, has added two more attorneys to her legal team: Lisa Banks and Michael Bromwich. Likely, Senate Democrats, with the assistance of Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, have had a hand in this and are, behind the scenes, controlling the Confirmation process. Judge Kavanaugh has retained counsel too, as the Daily Caller reports that Judge Kavanaugh "has retained . . . Beth Wilkinson, to advise and represent him." Recent news accounts mention that Christine Blasey Ford has agreed to testify in open, before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. It isn't clear whether she will be questioned by members of the Judiciary Committee or by an attorney appointed by Republicans on the Committee to question Ford. It does appear, though, that her testimony will be heard prior to the testimony of Judge Kavanaugh, as would be appropriate and consistent with criminal legal procedure. The question we have is why Republicans should allow the charade to go this far. It could only mean that Republicans do not believe that they can be assured of the votes they need to confirm Judge Kavanaugh. The Senate majority is a razor thin. They can survive through no defections. Politico points to several Republicans whose vote in favor of Confirmation is in doubt and who have, apparently, demanded to hear Christine Blasey Ford's testimony. It is these Republican Senators, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, and a couple of others who have, unfortunately played directly into the hands of Democrats. Democrats, for their part, are cohesive. Republicans are not. This would explain why Senator Grassley has agreed to delay a Confirmation vote. It is unfortunate and deeply disturbing that some Republicans can allow themselves to be the instrument of Democrats and Leftists in this Country. The Christine Blasey Ford matter is a trap. Apparently, Democrats, with the aid of Republican Senators Flake and Corker, and with the complicity of a couple of other Republican Senators, are using this "Me Too" movement nonsense to destroy our Constitution. If the Supreme Court secures a liberal-wing majority, all is lost for the preservation of our Constitution, our  natural, fundamental, unalienable rights and liberties, and the continued maintenance of our Country as an independent Sovereign Nation and free Republic. Why would Senators Flake and Corker fall for this? Is their hatred of President Trump so pronounced that they would jeopardize the preservation of our sacred Constitution and the preservation of our cherished history; the preservation of our core rights and liberties; the supremacy of our laws and jurisprudence; and the continued independence and Sovereignty of our Nation, and its continued existence as a free Republic because they happen, simply, personally to abhor the present President of the United States. Apparently so. Their behavior is childish, churlish, disgraceful, altogether unredeemable. No American should expect this kind of behavior from any other American, least of all from a United States Senator. These individuals are not worthy of the status they have. They are not worthy of their station. Americans should well remember them for this if Judge Kavanaugh fails to be confirmed to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, for these people, these Republican Senators, have allowed a charade, a travesty, an illusionist's trick concocted by Democrats and Leftist groups to play out, to hijack our Nation and its Constitution--one so lovingly, carefully created by our founders--our Birthright. They wish to dictate a new Constitution, reflecting ideas alien to those of the framers of it. They will destroy our Constitution, and for what? Personal animosity? A private agenda? And, by what means? Well, we know of one, and we see it playing out in the matter of the Confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.Here we see a disgruntled middle-aged woman, whom, it would seem, has a personal bone to pick with a man, as she tells us, having done harm to her. But did he? This woman concocts a story out of whole-cloth or dredges a story up--if one is to give any credence to this woman's story at all--relating an event that occurred, if "memory" serves her, literally one-third of a Century ago, when the two of them were teenagers. And, because this woman, who is a Leftist whose agenda coheres with that of other Leftists in this Country and with that of Democrats, she allows herself to be used for political purposes, truly unrelated to a matter, long-dead, trivial--one that no prosecutor who has any sense at all would ever dream of prosecuting, and a matter that no police department would ever investigate (how would a police investigator begin to investigate this matter, anyway, with no forensic evidence whatsoever available, the account itself extraordinarily sketchy, with no one at all able to corroborate it, and the accused, the true victim, adamantly denying it). And, why would this woman wait, at this juncture, 30+ years later to smear the reputation of a man she has not seen, or known--assuming that she ever knew him--for over thirty years. Bringing up such a matter in a reprehensible attempt to destroy a brilliant jurist, a devoted husband, and loving father, does nothing to serve  justice, or fairness; nor can it even provide "closure," for this woman. This is a matter of pure vindictiveness, brought to the attention of the entire Country to serve a political end, unrelated to justice or fairness. Christine Blasey Ford is merely a "tool," of ruthless forces that have not her well-being at heart, but a political goal to achieve. She is not even the real victim here. But, there is a victim. It is not the accuser, but the accused, Judge Brett Kavanaugh; and the sad thing here is that Christine Blasely Ford, a college Professor and psychologist, no less, does not seem to realize that she is being used as a tool. She is simply a pawn in an elaborate chess game that Democrats and Leftist groups in this Country are playing and intend to win. Democrats and the Leftist interests they represent have lost power and they want it back; and they intend to get it back by any means, however reprehensible. They have goals for this Country that they intend to implement; that they began to implement with Barack Obama in Office, and which they thought they would continue to implement with Hillary Clinton in Office--Clinton, a felon no less, who only escaped prosecution and assured conviction because she, too, serves those forces that seek to destroy this Nation, its Constitution and the fundamental rights and liberties of its people; but she is a willing pawn too, who sold her soul for money, and influence and power. She is a wretched creature. But, a great switcheroo occurred. Hillary Clinton, lost the U.S. Presidential election.  Her election to the highest Office in the Land was seemingly assured. Horror of Horrors! What went wrong. The public did not play along? They didn't listen to the soundbites; the news accounts; the cajoling. So, what do Democrats and Leftist Groups both here and abroad that sought a Clinton Presidency to do now? Their game plan is not on track. So they plan, they theorize, they brainstorm, they conspire to come up with something, anything, however ridiculous, to contain and restrain the will of the American people who saw what was coming and who fought back. They work behind the scenes in an attempt to destroy the President whom the American people elected, in full and proper accordance with the Constitution. They see in the moronic, so-called "Me Too" sex harassment movement, a useful mechanism to bring low every man, any man who doesn't tow the Leftist line, who presents a danger to their agenda; to the Leftist Internationalist agenda. And, so, we see here an 11th Hour clown's act, entertainment for children and idiots, produced by and directed by Congressional Democrats with the avid assistance and complicity of the Press, and with the connivance of a few, wayward, unthinking Republicans, who have fallen for the spectacle, totally unaware, it would seem to them, what is clear enough to others: that they have been taken for fools. Stupidity of the Highest Order! Truly Incredible. Senate Democrats must be having a quiet chuckle over their successful manipulation of the public and of their brethren on the other side of the political aisle, during their private Happy Hour. Toasts for everyone! The Grand Game continues, as they see themselves as winning._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

UNITED STATES SAFE ACT IN THE MAKING: PENNED AND PENCILED BY ANDREW CUOMO

GUN RIGHTS STAY CENTER STAGE

With the midterm Congressional and Gubernatorial elections just around the corner, those Americans who support a strong Second Amendment must not sit idle, but must vote for Congressional candidates and State Governors who will not only support the right of the people to keep and bear arms but who will actively defend that right against those who dare to destroy it. The gun rights issue is of paramount importance and will take center stage if Cuomo Democrats win control of the House and Senate and if they take control of the States.

DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT REMAINS AT THE TOP OF THE LIST FOR CUOMO DEMOCRATS.

The Arbalest Quarrel has pointed out in our article, posted on August 1, 2018, that, although the immigration issue has been hyped by the mainstream media and by leftist politicians, in recent weeks and months, it is the Second Amendment that remains first and foremost, firmly in the crosshairs of those who seek to undermine our sacred Bill of Rights. And, sure enough, the exercise of gun rights is once again in the antigun zealots’ crosshairs.In recent days, as the Governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, gears up for a third term bid, he has taken direct aim at the oldest Civil Rights Organization in the Country, the NRA. NRA exists to defend the single, most important right of the American people, the right of the people to keep and bear arms—a right critical to the safeguarding of a free Republic, and critical to guaranteeing the autonomy and sanctity of the individual citizen, as the true sovereign authority in and of the United States.The New York Times has taken the lead in shepherding New York residents to elect Cuomo to a third term in Office, making the point of telling the public, in an August 5, 2018 article, titled, “A New Brawl With the N.R.A.? Cuomo Seizes an Opportunity as a Primary Looms”— that “Mr. Cuomo has had a longstanding ideological commitment to gun control. . . [and that] in 2013, Mr. Cuomo successfully fought for passage of the Safe Act, making New York the first state to enact more stringent gun regulations after the Sandy Hook massacre. He has proudly touted his ‘F’ rating from the N.R.A.” Lest there be any doubt where Cuomo’s ultimate ambition lies, the New York Times adds, in that same article, that “he [Cuomo] has also made no secret of his belief that his actions on gun control have made his state a model for the nation—a handy argument for a politician who has garnered some mention as a possible 2020 candidate. ‘Use New York as a test case,’ Mr. Cuomo said in an interview of his gun control measures, including the Safe Act. ‘The state is a laboratory of democracy where I can say: We passed the law five years ago. Come look at our state.’”Come look at New York, indeed! Imagine, if you will, a Nation, where the model for gun control, the New York Safe Act, becomes federal law—thrust on every State in the Union.De Facto, if not outright de jure, repeal of the Second Amendment has been the goal of the Democratic Party for decades. And, Andrew Cuomo will lead the charge on eviscerating the Second Amendment. Long before Democrats changed their position on illegal immigration—calling at an earlier time for curbs on such immigration, but now extolling an open borders policy that would essentially open the floodgates, letting flow, like an angry river into this Country, tens, perhaps even hundreds, of millions of low-skilled migrants, along with a large contingent of criminal gangs and refugees from failed states of the Middle East—Democrats have never wavered but have consistently attacked the sacred, natural right codified in the Second Amendment. They have done so incessantly, unceasingly, vehemently. That single issue is what defines them. That single issue is what motivates them, like no other. For, they know that: once the right of the people to keep and bear arms is destroyed, they--these Cuomo Democrats and other leftists--will do away with other fundamental rights and liberties. In so doing, they contrive and machinate to contort our Nation into a thing unrecognizable, an entity completely alien to the aims and desires of the founders of a Free Republic. These Cuomo Democrats seek to create a quagmire, a geographical "Place," no longer an Independent, Sovereign Nation--but merely a place--overrun by unassimilable alien people. These Cuomo Democrats and other leftists who seek to destroy our Nation--a Nation founded on natural rights and liberties--intend to destroy the very fabric of our Nation: its memory; its history, its values, its culture, its ethos. They intend to wipe the slate clean. And, to assist them in their detestable endeavor, they conspire to bring into our Country, such denizens of other Countries who have no understanding of, no appreciation for and, in fact, no concept, of a Nation that exists under and by the will of the people alone--a Nation whose people are endowed by their Creator with fundamental, natural rights and liberties--rights and liberties intrinsic to their very being: incorruptible, immutable, beyond the power of Government to deny, to ignore, to erase.

CUOMO DEMOCRATS DO NOT PERCEIVE THE BILL OF RIGHTS AS CODIFYING NATURAL RIGHTS BUT AS A CREATION OF MAN THAT CAN, THEREFORE, BE AMENDED OR DELETED AT WILL.

Not surprisingly, Cuomo Democrats and other leftists' disdain for the Second Amendment is reflected in their rebuke of the very notion that the Bill of Rights embodies and codifies a set of basic, natural rights endowed to man by the Creator, intrinsic to man's very being. As Cuomo Democrats and other leftists savagely, mindlessly, mercilessly attack the right of the people to keep and bear arms of the Second Amendment, they have also attacked the right of free speech, codified in the First Amendment, and they have attacked the very notion of private property rights codified in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. They consider these rights trivial, anachronistic to, and an anathema to the "new" Socialist Order they wish to create. In their scheme, these Cuomo Democrats, and these other leftists residing in our Nation, consider the Nation's sacred rights to be merely man-made conventions, capable of excision or rescission, at the stroke of the pen.Thus, these Cuomo Democrats and these other leftists belittle the Nation's Bill of Rights, and belittle, too, and especially, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. At every turn these Cuomo Democrats and these other leftists contrive to undermine the sanctity of our sacred rights. In their insidious design first to trivialize the Nation's fundamental rights--natural rights, codified in the Nation's Bill of Rights by the framers of our Constitution--they seek, second, eventually, to strike these fundamental, natural rights from the Constitution, substituting for them, such man-made rights, they happen to construct for the moment; rights that happen, for the moment, to comprise their wish list, consistent with and commensurate with their plans for a new Socialist Order they intend to impose on Americans.And what are some of these new rights? Investor Business Daily wrote, presciently, in 2016, that: “They [Democrats] talk about the ‘right to affordable health care,’ the ‘right to a college education,’ the ‘right to a livable wage.’ But at the same time, many of these same Democrats have been agitating to restrict or outright repeal existing rights enshrined in the Constitution's Bill of Rights.” 

CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATORS MUST SPEAK OUT!

Conservative commentators must speak out against the perils of a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party, and they must do so continuously. They must emphasize the threat that Cuomo Democrats and other leftists pose to the continued sanctity of and continuity of the Bill of Rights and, especially, the threat they pose to the Second Amendment.Yet, conservative commentators remain, for the most part, reticent. Oddly, even the conservative commentator Sean Hannity fails to mention that Cuomo Democrats would strive to weaken the Second Amendment if they gained control of the House and the Senate. On his nightly Fox news broadcasts, Hannity rightly warns the American public about specific dangers posed by a Democratic Party takeover of Congress, including Democrats’ intention to impeach President Trump and their commitment to an open borders immigration policy, but he says nothing about Cuomo led Democrats’ devious, scurrilous plans to enact restrictive firearms measures, on the National stage, in the event they take over the House, and, possibly, the Senate as well.

IS THE WRITING ON THE WALL?

If Democrats do in fact take over Congress, after the November 2018 midterm elections, and if Andrew Cuomo is elected to a third term as Governor of New York, Cuomo will be taking his plans for a National New York Safe Act to a receptive Congress, where he will lead the pack to destroy the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Of that, there can be no doubt._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE ISSUE OF CURBING VIOLENCE IN OUR SCHOOLS DOES NOT DEVOLVE TO SIMPLY BANNING GUNS. IT IS MORE COMPLEX, ELUSIVE, NUANCED.

PART FIVE

STUDENTS MUST BECOME CRITICAL THINKERS, NOT “PARROTS” OF THOSE WHO HARBOR ULTERIOR MOTIVES.

Peaceful protest isn’t a bad thing. The youth of our Nation, as citizens of the United States, have a Constitutional right to do so as the right of the people to peaceably assemble is a fundamental right, specifically codified in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, along with freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the right to the free exercise of religion. These rights are broad in scope and critical to the maintenance of a free Republic. The danger of protest rests when there exists a hidden agenda behind the protest, unbeknownst to those that take to protest.On March 24, 2018, hundreds of thousands of young people, including adults, turned out to protest violence in our Nation’s schools. The horror that took place in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School served as the impetus for the protest. Last February 2018, a deranged young man, Nikolas Cruz, whom School Officials had expelled for multiple serious disciplinary violations, walked unimpeded into the School, and proceeded to murder 17 students, including teachers, using a semiautomatic long gun, modeled on the “AR-15” platform.Organizers of the March 24 protest on our Nation’s Capital on Saturday, March 24, 2018 called it, “March for Our Lives.” The New York Times banner headline on Sunday, March 25, 2018, says something different however: "With Passion and Fury, Students March on Guns."Students across the Country are furious—and rightfully so—at the failure of Government, to protect them, as students are vulnerable to violence when in school. How it is that a seriously disturbed individual, Nikolas Cruz, who was on the radar of both the FBI and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, and who, on several occasions, had openly expressed a desire to kill, could gain access to a firearm and ammunition, and who then could act on that desire, speaks of gross incompetence and glaring ineptitude, on multiple Governmental levels? Then there is the failure of an armed Broward County Deputy Sheriff—a Resource Officer, assigned to the School, and of other Broward County Deputy Sheriffs, who shortly arrived on the scene—whose actions or, rather, inactions, must be   singled out. Broward County Deputy Sheriff, Scott Peterson, and other Broward County Deputy County Sheriffs failed to confront and stop Nikolas Cruz. They all consciously, intentionally, refrained from entering the School building to confront Nikolas Cruz, even though they heard gunshots in the School, and knew or had every reason to conclude that, every time they heard a gunshot, an innocent person had died. Bald-faced cowardice, cannot be ruled out.Students have a right to ask of Government, that is charged to protect them, why Government failed them. This failure must be addressed and then redressed. Action must be taken to protect our schools with appropriate security. Competent, armed individuals, both physically capable of action and psychologically predisposed to act in a life-threatening situation, must be a component of an effective school security program.

FIREARMS, OF THEMSELVES, DO NOT CAUSE VIOLENCE BECAUSE THEY ARE OBJECTS, NOT AGENTS.

As for the root cause(s) why more violence occurs in our schools, this is a complex issue, with no simple answer or remedy. Unfortunately, in the face of overwhelming horror and tragedy, there is a normal tendency to look for a “quick fix,” and there are those who jump at the chance to funnel through the mainstream media, to the public, a  simple answer—more stringent gun laws, commencing with an outright ban on civilian ownership and possession of all semiautomatic long guns, defined as ‘assault weapons,’ including a ban on large capacity ammunition magazines.Antigun advocacy groups have argued, for decades, for further restrictions on civilian access to semiautomatic firearms, defined as ‘assault weapons.’ Of course, the definition of ‘assault weapon,’ is amorphous, as the phrase is a political invention, not an industry or military term of art. Those jurisdictions that generally ban possession of “assault weapons” in the hands of the American civilian citizenry, have defined the expression, ‘assault weapon,’ in different ways. In fact, under New York law at least one category of weapon, the revolving cylinder shotgun, is defined in law, an ‘assault weapon,’ even though, given the revolving cylinder shotgun’s method of operation, as the name makes plain, the revolving cylinder shotgun isn’t a semiautomatic weapon at all.Antigun advocacy groups have an agenda and that agenda does not necessarily equate with ensuring a safe school environment. In pursuit of that agenda, these groups have successfully harnessed the anger, hurt, frustration, and legitimate concern of students. The “March for Our Lives” didn’t just happen. It happened for a reason: Antigun advocacy groups and other liberal advocacy groups quietly, behind the scenes, harnessed student anger and redirected it. They redirected student anger, hurt, and frustration away from an attack on the failure of some State and local governmental authorities to provide students with a safe and secure environment, where student anger, frustration and hurt should have been focused, or should rightfully have remained, to an attack on "the gun" qua "assault weapon." Thus, instead of encouraging young people to take part in an open, frank, and intelligent discussion on the root causes of violence in our society and how it is and why it is some people erupt into an orgy of horrific violence and how State and local governments, in the interim, may implement reasonable security measures in schools, to protect students, we see antigun advocacy groups, and other advocacy groups in agreement with them, ratcheting up student anger to the point where that anger explodes into a paroxysm of rage launched specifically and solely against an inanimate object.An undertaking of this magnitude requires, money, organization, and coordination well beyond the capacity of young people to engineer. The billionaire Michael Bloomberg, through his antigun advocacy group, “Everytown for Gun Safety,” organized, funded, and coordinated the rally. This isn’t supposition, it is fact, as reported by CNN, and as Bloomberg’s group itself readily admits.

WOULD A WHOLESALE BAN ON SEMIAUTOMATIC LONG GUNS, MODELED ON THE ORIGINAL AR-15 ARMALITE SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLE, PREVENT A RECURRENCE OF GUN VIOLENCE IN OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS?

An outright ban on an entire category of weapons in common use would not prevent further gun violence. A federal ban on so-called ‘assault weapons,’ implemented in 1994, was tried. That ban failed to prevent many mass shootings. The ban expired in 2004 through a sunset provision, and Congress did not reauthorize it. We have seen, since, violent acts committed, not only with so-called “assault weapons,” but with other objects, including, knives, bombs, and even trucks.“Everytown for Gun Safety,” and like-minded antigun advocacy groups argue that violence in our schools, and in public spaces generally, can be prevented or significantly reduced if Government, local, State, and Federal, would simply prohibit civilian access to firearms. Whether these antigun activist groups truly believe that, is unlikely. Their goal, if achieved, would not eliminate or even reduce violence in schools or in the greater society. They must know this. Their goal, if achieved, would have the negative effect of leaving the civilian population of this Country essentially defenseless. The tacit but obvious impetus of these antigun advocacy groups is to effectuate Government control over the citizenry. The goal of these groups is not to promote public safety, express claims to the contrary, notwithstanding.The fact of the matter is that, even if antigun advocates were successful in removing every firearm presently in the possession of honest, law-abiding, average, rational American citizens who desire to exercise their fundamental, inalienable, natural right to keep and bear arms who comprise the vast civilian citizenry of firearms’ owners in this County, that would do nothing to curb violent acts. A simplistic fix that happens, not unsurprisingly, to cohere with the personal agenda of antigun advocacy groups—destruction of the Second Amendment—isn’t the panacea for effectively dealing with a culture of violence endemic in our Nation, contrary to the supposition of antigun activists and contrary to their rhetoric. It is a recipe for disaster. First, the antigun activists’ simplistic fix leaves the American citizenry defenseless. Second, the abridgement of the American citizenry’s fundamental rights and liberties—reflected, first and foremost in an armed citizenry—is inconsistent with the continued conservation and preservation of a free Republic, rooted in our Nation’s history. Third, such abridgement of our fundamental rights and liberties is inconsistent with the basic principle upon which those sacred rights and liberties rests: the sanctity, autonomy, and inviolability of the American citizen.Until Americans, including the youth of our Nation, are willing to look deeply and seriously at the true root causes of violence that infects and infests our Country, rather than excoriating guns as the salient cause of violence and mischief in our Nation in accordance with the dictate of antigun advocacy groups, violence will not appreciably be forestalled or constrained; for violence, ultimately, exists in the heart of individuals, not in such inanimate objects they happen to wield. Any object—a gun, a knife, a vehicle, a chainsaw, or any other tool—can be used by a sentient being for good or ill.Young people, especially, must learn to think through an issue calmly, not rashly. Unfortunately, those individuals and groups that have a personal agenda to serve, have irresponsibly coopted the rightful anger and hurt of young people to assist them in pursuit of a singular goal: divesting the civilian population of this Country of their firearms. The young people must resist the urge to serve antigun groups as their servants or proxies. Antigun groups are very good at coaxing young people to join them in service to a personal agenda: gun control, culminating in gun confiscation. Instead, the young people of our Nation might more effectively use intellectual rigor to explore the root causes of violence in our society. In the interim Government at the federal, State, and local levels, can and must design and implement plans to secure our schools from threats of harm. Violence is, unfortunately, persistent in our Nation. But, violence is endemic in many other Western nations, too, even as those other Western nations have rigidly suppressed individual ownership and possession of firearms.A viable security plan to protect students from harm never existed in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. But other Schools across the Nation that have implemented effective security, have been free from deadly threats to students and to teachers. That means all schools must embrace a proactive, not reactive, stance to threats of violence of any kind. A sound plan to protect students is doable and helpful. Going after guns is not._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

FRONTLINE SOLUTIONS FOR SCHOOL SAFETY: MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL HAD NONE; WHY WAS THAT?

PART ONE

WORKABLE FRONTLINE SOLUTIONS FOR SCHOOL SAFETY ARE ULTIMATELY A STATE AND LOCAL ISSUE AND RESPONSIBILITY.

What are we doing to secure school safety for our communities? Kids are being seriously injured or killed in our schools. Doing something is better than doing nothing and there is, of course no excuse for doing nothing, but we must do the right thing. Innocent lives rest in the balance. All we hear about in the news, though, is accusation and denunciation, all laid at the feet of the usual convenient scapegoats through whom the public is encouraged to vent its frustration and outrage. We see displays of raw anger and antipathy, emotional outbursts, and sanctimonious posturing. And we are proffered feel-good single solution answers that, on careful examination, do nothing at all to protect the lives and well-being of our children, and scarcely mask their true import: to promote a social and political agenda.Those of us who have young children or grandchildren should not have to send them to school where they are not safe. If reasonable safeguards are put into effect in our schools, children will be safe. Think about it. Substantial security already exists at airports, in hospitals, in shopping malls, in corporate and governmental office buildings, in courthouses and banks, and in police stations. You get the idea. And yet, there are schools in America that have no security or, at best, minimal and inadequate security for our children.

THERE WAS VIRTUALLY NO SECURITY AT MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL ON THE DAY OF THE SHOOTING. WHY IS THAT?

There was virtually no security at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School; and what minimal security did exist at the School that the public did hear about—namely the assignment of one Broward County Deputy Sheriff to the School—proved useless in preventing or, for that matter, in even attempting to prevent the tragedy that ensued. In an updated article, titled, “As Gunman Rampaged Through Florida School, Armed Deputy ‘Never Went In’”, The New York Times reports: “The only armed sheriff’s deputy at a Florida high school where 17 people were killed took cover outside rather than charging into the building when the massacre began, the Broward County sheriff said on Thursday. The sheriff also acknowledged that his office received 23 calls related to the suspect going back a decade, including one last year that said he was collecting knives and guns, but may not have adequately followed up. The deputy, Scot Peterson, resigned on Thursday after being suspended without pay after Sheriff Scott Israel reviewed surveillance video.”Matters didn’t improve once other Broward Sheriff’s Deputies arrived, for they, too, did nothing to confront an active shooter. The New York Post reported, in their article, titled, “Four sheriff’s deputies hid during Florida shooting,” “Not one but four sheriff’s deputies hid behind cars instead of storming Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS in Parkland, Fla., during Wednesday’s school shooting, police claimed Friday — as newly released records revealed the Broward County Sheriff’s Office had received at least 18 calls about the troubled teen over the past decade. Sources from Coral Springs, Fla., Police Department tell CNN that when its officers arrived on the scene Wednesday, they were shocked to find three Broward County Sheriff’s deputies behind their cars with weapons drawn.” Broward County Sheriff, Scott Israel, has, for his part, much to answer for as he bears full responsibility for the action, or inaction, of individuals under his command, as well as for his own actions before, during, and after the tragedy. The parents of all the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School—not only the parents of those students who were injured, some seriously, or parents of students whose lives were lost—should ask for a full accounting of Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel’s actions. Parents of these High School students should also ask Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert W. Runcie why the school system had failed to institute even rudimentary security measures to forestall just such a tragedy that had occurred. It could not have been merely a matter of Broward County Public Schools having insufficient funds to pay for premier security for its schools--as if the cost of a child's life should ever devolve into a cost-benefit analysis. After all, Parkland, Florida, where Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is situated--nestled close to Boca Raton and Coral Springs, wealthy communities--is itself a wealthy City.

MANY STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS, ACROSS THE COUNTRY, HAVE IMPLEMENTED SECURITY MEASURES FOR THEIR SCHOOL SYSTEMS. UNFORTUNATELY, OTHERS, LIKE MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL HAD NOT AND, TO DATE, HAVE NOT.

The public must ask: why are so many State and local governmental officials providing no security in and for their schools or are providing their schools with minimal and inadequate security? What are these public officials waiting for? To do nothing only invites another tragedy to occur in schools that have failed to implement even rudimentary security measures.All too many Americans, it seems, are waiting for the Federal Government to legislate a solution. They look for a quick fix. The Federal Government can recommend guidelines, to be sure, and can provide State grants and encourage other types of funding. But, school safety is, ultimately, a State and local matter. This is hard work, but it is doable. Several States and local communities across the Country have acted to institute multilayered security measures in their schools to protect the lives and well-being of their children. Those communities that have not taken action must do so now. They must be proactive, not reactive.

A CONCENSUS FOR CONCERTED ACTION TO MAKE ALL SCHOOLS IN OUR COUNTRY SAFE FROM LIFE-THREATENING VIOLENCE IS POSSIBLE.

We seek to get a consensus on measures that can be immediately implemented in all our schools to provide an initial layer of passive protection. At this juncture, we do not need to get bogged-down in detail.Video surveillance, both internal and external; secured entrances and exits; use of metal detectors; photo identification and written passes with appointment confirmations; and monitored alarm systems that are connected to police departments are all examples of neutral, passive security measures implemented for both business and government and, which, too, have been implemented in schools across the Country. These passive security measures have been shown to work well in real world situations. Had even a few of these security measures been implemented in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, injury and loss of innocent life would doubtless have been prevented or certainly reduced.Again, many communities across the Country have already employed many of these measures and other passive as well as active measures, in their schools. Those communities that haven’t done so should seriously consider doing so if they are truly serious about protecting the lives and well-being of their children._________________________________________

ACTION ALERT: CALL YOUR STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENT!

Find out what your State and local government officials have done to make all the schools in your community—preschool, elementary, middle or junior high school, and high school—safe.This, ultimately, is your responsibility. If your government officials have taken no action or minimal action or are reluctant to discuss the issue with you at all, then you must join with other members of your community to make sure that your government officials are responsive to and do listen to your concerns and that they take immediate action to address the issue of school security if they haven’t already done so. These Government officials owe it to you to make sure that the life and well-being of your child is safe. There is no excuse for delay. Don’t wait for your child to become another statistic!______________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA CONNIVE TO DOWNPLAY IMPORT OF NUNEZ MEMO

PART TEN

A NATION UNDER SIEGE

Once President Trump declassified the House Intelligence Committee “Nunez Memo”, over spurious objections of the FBI, the mainstream media’s propaganda mill, conspiring with Congressional Democrats, went to work, in their wrongful, hurtful, spiteful attempt to make short shrift of it, downplaying the Memo’s significance, and attacking specific portions of the Memo, in minute detail.Minority House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—never one to be lost for words and always giving her “two cents,” if her words were ever worth that much—denounced the Nunez Memo, too, asserting the Memo is “false,” “horrible,” and a “release of distorted intelligence.” The American public can dismiss outright Pelosi’s use of the adjective, ‘horrible,’ since the word is nothing more than a pejorative, devoid of rational significance. Pelosi’s claim that the Memo is “false” and that it amounts to “distorted intelligence” is more problematic and requires clarification. Is Pelosi saying the entirety of the Memo is false or just portions of it? And, if she is claiming that portions of the Memo are false, then which portions is she referring to? And, as for her claim that the Memo amounts to “distorted intelligence,” the American public has a right to ask Pelosi to explain in what way the Nunez Memo distorts intelligence? For all that she has to say about a myriad of subjects, Pelosi has, apparently, nothing noteworthy to say about the Nunez Memo apart from making presumptuous and impertinent claims about it. The mainstream media Press of course, does not ask Pelosi to explicate her remarks. It never does. It simply wishes to give Pelosi a platform for airing them.The New York Times does provide an account of purported failings of the Nunez Memo. But, does The New York Times’ analysis of the Nunez Memo buttress Pelosi’s bald claims? Or, does it simply add to burgeoning media obfuscation to defeat the import and impact of the Memo?

CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA WRONGLY CRITICIZE CHAIRMAN DEVIN NUNEZ FOR FAILING TO REVIEW THE UNDERLYING FBI APPLICATION UPON WHICH THE MEMO IS BASED.

Before, the Arbalest Quarrel begins with its critique of the NY Times’ criticism of the Nunez Memo, we wish to make abundantly clear that Chairman Nunez and other Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee who took part in the drafting of the Memo were assiduous and meticulous in their preparation of it. Further, while Congressional Democrats and the mainstream Press are quick to point out that Chairman Nunez did not himself review the underlying FBI Application upon which the Memo is based, this is but one more lame attempt to discredit the Memo. For, the fact remains that the FBI would not permit every member of the Committee to view the Application through which the FISC issued the warrant permitting surveillance of Carter Page. The Mainstream Press obscures this point.Chairman Nunez appointed Trey Gowdy (R-SC)—a licensed attorney and former Prosecutor, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and who, as with all the members of the Committee—to review the Application, and to report back to Chairman Nunez. Thus, Representative Gowdy’s review of the underlying FISA Application serves as the basis for the Memo.

THE NUNEZ MEMO WAS PREPARED WITH GREAT CARE: TRUTH AND ACCURACY; CLARITY AND COGENCY; FORTHRIGHTNESS; CANDOR; TERSENESS; AND RECITATION OF SALIENT, CRITICAL POINTS, ARE THE KEY FEATURES OF IT.

Before we begin with our analysis of the NY Times’ criticism of the Nunez Memo, keep in mind that Chairman Nunez and other Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee who took part in the drafting of the Memo were assiduous and meticulous in their preparation of it. The DOJ/FBI would not permit every member of the Committee to view the Application upon which the FISC issued the warrant permitting FBI surveillance on Carter Page and which served as the basis for the Nunez Memo.

TREY GOWDY IS LEAVING CONGRESS.

Curiously, Representative Gowdy, an individual, demonstrating both abundant intelligence and integrity, has, inexplicably, announced his retirement from Congress at the end of his term, and that he will be setting up a private law practice. Even more inexplicably, Fox News reported that President Trump offered Gowdy a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, but the Congressman turned the offer down.Federal Judgeships are lifetime, prestigious, coveted appointments. Seats on the United States Appellate Courts are especially rare, prestigious appointments, second only to appointments on the United States Supreme Court. No attorney or jurist turns down an opportunity for a federal Court appointment, especially an opportunity to serve on a United States Circuit Court of Appeals, but Trey Gowdy did so.One cannot but wonder as to Trey Gowdy’s motive or motives: first, for announcing his departure from Congress; and, second, for turning down a U.S. Circuit Court judgeship.On “Face the Nation,” that aired on Sunday, February 4, 2018, Representative Gowdy said that he is a “pretty lousy politician.” That self-deprecating statement is certainly untrue. There are lousy politicians in Congress to be sure, and from both Political Parties. The laundry list is long. But, Trey Gowdy is not one of them. Contrary to this acutely odd, self-effacing statement, Trey Gowdy is one of the best Congressional Representatives this Nation has. The Arbalest Quarrel suspects that much more is going on here. What has Gowdy learned about Government that disturbs him? What does he know and isn’t telling? We may speculate on this, but this much we do know: a war—a secretive war—to gain control over the minds of the American citizenry and, in fact, to gain control over the minds of the populations of Western Nation States generally has been waged at least since—or has been gaining speed since the end of World War II. We may trace this to the first meeting of the so-called “Bilderberg Group” in 1954, which coincided, likely not coincidentally, with the Treaty of Rome in 1957—a singularly critical Treaty that created the European Economic Community (EEC). We can readily infer that the EEC, that, today, we know as the Union (EU), is the master-plan, under the guise of promoting Economic unity. It is the mechanism through which the trans-national, international globalist “elites” intend to control the political processes over all the Nations of Europe and, not incidentally, eventually over the U.S. as well. The European Union is also the vehicle through which these abjectly ruthless, immensely powerful, exorbitantly wealthy, and inherently insidious, secretive forces intend to compromise the Governments of Europe; to compromise the constitutions, and institutions, and social fabric of those Nations; to subvert the core values and culture of the Nations of Europe; to create discord in those Nations through infusion of unassimilable, diffuse races; to disassemble moral, ethical underpinnings of the Nations of Europe; and to belittle the import and purport of the concepts of 'patriotism,' and 'national identity,' and 'citizenship.' The rapacious forces that control the EU intend to exert their control over the United States as well; and we are seeing their influence through the insinuation of the Deep State and Shadow Government into our political processes and through a massive disinformation and misinformation campaign carried out by the mainstream Press.

THE ISSUE OVER THE NUNEZ MEMO AND ITS DETAILING OF MASSIVE CORRUPTION IN THE UPPER ECHELONS OF THE FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMUNITY WILL NOT GO AWAY, EVEN THOUGH REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SCHIFF, THE RANKING DEMOCRATIC PARTY MEMBER ON THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, AND HOUSE MINORITY SPEAKER, NANCY PELOSI, AND SENATE MINORITY LEADER, CHUCK SCHUMER, AND RANK AND FILE CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS, ALONG WITH CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS' FELLOW TRAVELERS IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, WOULD LIKE IT TO GO AWAY.

The battle over the minds of the American citizenry is now being fought in the public square. It is being waged through the liberal social media, and by the liberal “tech” Companies, and through the mainstream Press. And it is being waged in the Halls of Congress. The Nunez Memo, important as it is, serves an even greater need. For the message it conveys to the American citizenry is that this Nation is under siege. The institutions, comprising the federal law enforcement community and the intelligence Community—that Congressional Democrats claim the public must continue to have faith in at all costs—have contemptuously betrayed the trust of the American people. They have betrayed their oath to serve this Nation. They have betrayed their oath to preserve this Nation’s Constitution. So, what ought the American citizenry place their faith in? First and foremost, Americans should place faith in themselves, for it is within the American citizenry that true authority and power exists and has always existed. Second, the American citizenry should place their faith in their sacred rights and liberties as etched in stone in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, by the Nation’s Founders. For, the Bill of Rights long predates the creation of both the FBI and DOJ and long predates the creation of the agencies that comprise the vast, secretive intelligence community, all of which are of relatively recent vintage, and a few of which are of very recent vintage. In the great scheme of things, the Americans’ faith in themselves must not falter; all else is fair game.The Arbalest Quarrel begins its assessment of the NY Times analysis of the Nunez Memo in the next article of this multipart series.

ALERT: CONTACT YOUR REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS

Tell your Congressional Representatives to investigate corruption in the law enforcement and intelligence communities and to bring corrupt officials to justice. Phone: 202-224-3121.______________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA NEW YORK TIMES NEWSPAPER’S NEW “GAG ORDER” POLICY PREVENTS ITS EMPLOYEES FROM EXERCISING THEIR RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH? SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS? GOING, GOING GONE IF THE NEW YORK TIMES WERE TO REWRITE THE CONSTITUTION!

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOMBARDS THE AMERICAN PUBLIC WITH ‘GROUPTHINK’ AND ‘DOUBLESPEAK: WELCOME TO “1984” IN THE 21^ST CENTURY.

“We are poor little lambs Who have lost our way. Baa! Baa! Baa! We are little black sheep Who have gone astray. Baa! Baa! Baa!” ~ from the Wiffinpoof song, circa 1910; traditional closing number of the Wiffinpoofs, an a cappella group of Yale UniversityAs is our wont, the creators of the Arbalest Quarrel often peruse on Amazon.com—books, on philosophy, politics, science, and law, among various other categories of knowledge to assist us in the work we do for our readers in defense of our most sacred right: the right of the people to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As we write this, we came across a book, serendipitously, and one which we may purchase, titled, “Reasons Why,” by Bradford Skow. The illustration on the book’s cover is whimsical: a platypus seemingly contemplating a strawberry. And, lest one believe the book was written for a child, the answer is decidedly, “no.”Notwithstanding the straightforward, seemingly, superficially simplistic title, the material is decidedly tantalizingly complex. We perused a few pages of the book, on-line, as Amazon sometimes permits. We bring this matter up here because the subject matter of the book, “why questions,” drew us to consider something about the mainstream media that is somewhat mystifying to apprehend and, at once, frightening to contemplate. Mainstream media organizations—comprising major newspapers, radio, television, and internet—are drawn more and more to proselytize to the American public rather than to simply report the news, and this is contrary to the basic import and purport of news organizations. But, what is the purpose of a news organization? We ask:

WHAT IS THE IMPLIED GOAL—THE TRADITIONAL, PRIMARY PURPOSE OF NEWS ORGANIZATIONS? THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF A NEWSPAPER IS TO CONVEY TO THE PUBLIC A RECORD OF THE DAY’S EVENTS: TO REPORT THE NEWS, THEN, AND TO REPORT THE NEWS CLEARLY, ACCURATELY, OBJECTIVELY, WITHOUT EMBELLISHMENT.  IN PROVIDING AN ACCOUNT OF EVENTS IN THE WORLD, A NEWSPAPER MUST REFRAIN FROM WEIGHING IN ON THE EVENTS IT REPORTS ABOUT THE WORLD. FOR, ONCE A NEWSPAPER WEIGHS IN ON EVENTS THAT IT REPORTS, THAT IT DESCRIBES, THE NEWSPAPER, THEN, IS NO LONGER, AND CAN NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED AN OBJECTIVE, NEUTRAL OBSERVER, NAMELY, ONE OPERATING APART FROM THE EVENTS, BUT, RATHER, BECOMES, INSTEAD, AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT IN THE EVENTS—IN THE VERY SHAPING OF EVENTS A NEWSPAPER REPORTS ON. AND, ONCE A NEWSPAPER BECOMES PART OF THE EVENTS, THE OBSERVED, RATHER THAN THE NEUTRAL OBSERVER, THE NEWSPAPER, THEREUPON LOSES ITS OBJECTIVITY—LOSES ALL OBJECTIVITY. BUT, THIS DOES NOT SEEM TO BOTHER MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS IF THEY BOTHER TO CONSIDER THE LOSS OF OBJECTIVITY IN THEIR REPORTING THE NEWS AT ALL. TODAY, MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS, LIKE THE NEW YORK TIMES, ARE NOT CONTENT MERELY TO REPORT THE NEWS, BUT ARE TELLING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HOW THEY ARE EXPECTED TO THINK ABOUT THE NEWS. OBJECTIVITY IS THEREBY COMPLETELY LOST. REPORTERS BECOME MINISTERS OF PRIVATE BENEFACTORS, UNKNOWN TO THE PUBLIC. THEY BECOME PROPAGANDISTS. EVERYTHING REPORTED IS SUSPECT.

MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS ARE NOT OBJECTIVELY, NEUTRALLY, AND DRYLY TELLING THE PUBLIC ABOUT CRITICAL EVENTS IN THE WORLD—AND THEY ARE NOT REPORTING ON ALL THE CRITICAL EVENTS. RATHER, MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS SELECTIVELY REPORT EVENTS AND THEY DO NOT ALLOWTHE AMERICAN PUBLIC TO MAKE UP ITS OWN MIND ABOUT THE EVENTS REPORTED. THESE MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS AND OTHER MAINSTREAM MEDIA NEWS ORGANIZATIONS ARE, AT ONCE, TELLING THE PUBLIC HOW THEY SHOULD REACT TO EVENTS, HOW THEY ARE TO THINK ABOUT THE EVENTS, REPORTED.

Journalists, also referred to as—and, traditionally, more inclined to prefer the term, ‘reporters,’ as the latter expression is narrower, suggesting specifically what these professionals do, namely reporting news events rather than journalizing whatever may come to mind—learn, in college, before commencing work for mainstream news organizations, what reporting of news encompasses and, just as importantly, what it does not. Whether through the written or spoken word, reporters are expected to—well—report the news, nothing more and nothing less. To do their job correctly, appropriately, reporters are expected to report news accounts clearly and dryly, without embellishment, utilizing nouns and verbs, eschewing the use of adjectives and adverbs, to avoid “coloring” their reporting. They are expected to propound propositions that mirror truth, under the epistemic correspondence theory of truth they ascribe to, with the goal of providing the American public with reports on facts--'states of affairs' as philosophers prefer to refer to these “things,” “facts”--about and in the world, rather than propounding subjective  evaluations, about the facts, that is to say, providing extraneous comments about the states of affairs reported on.Reporters answer fundamental ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘where,’ ‘when,’ and, occasionally, ‘how’ questions. It is not the purpose of reporters to ask and to discuss ‘why’ questions, which brings us back to Skow’s book, directed principally to the philosophy of science, as “why” questions set the stage for causal explanations for events. Yet, today, we see mainstream media encroaching more and more on ‘why’ questions. They do so—as they may say—to engage the public in open and lively discussion, and to give context to their news reporting. They attempt to explain the reasons for events and, they proceed, then, to a consideration of changes that they believe should occur for the benefit of society. But that is shifty, deceptive, and not the basic motivation of mainstream news reporters for dealing with “why” questions at all. They provide answers to “why” questions to manipulate thought. They sermonize. Sometimes they do this calmly and collectedly. More often they do this callously and caustically; bombastically and sanctimoniously; stridently and angrily. They do this to cajole the public into accepting the nonsense they spout, attempting to convince the public that their prescriptions for dealing with the many events they report on, that they write about, is right, and proper, and just, and should be acted upon by policy makers. Many Americans—all too many members of the American public, to date, but, increasingly, fortunately, fewer members of the American public, through time—do still accept, unconditionally and uncritically, the presumptuous and vapid claptrap the mainstream media offers up for the American public’s consumption. Indeed, these reporters—now propagandists —working for mainstream newspapers and other mainstream news organizations, attempt to disguise the subjective evaluations they propound about events as true, simple, to-the-point, objective, accurate accounts of the events reported on, when subjective evaluations and objective reports about states of affairs in and of and about the world merge into each other, or where one becomes the other, and the public is left with the impression that it has received bare factual accounts about news events when they are really obtaining subjective appraisals of the events reported on.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA’S DANGEROUS PREOCCUPATION WITH FIREARMS AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT:

One of the favorite topics of the mainstream media involves news about ‘gun crimes,’ which are particularly susceptible to this subterfuge that mainstream news reporters engage in which is to mix objective news accounts into subjective evaluations.  If newspaper and cable networks and radio simply reported instances of ‘gun crimes,’ dryly and matter-of-factly, and left the matter at that, that would be fine. But, then, mainstream newspapers and cable news networks, were they true to their creed, would also report on defensive uses of firearms. Yet, the mainstream newspapers and their affiliates on cable news invariably remain silent on defensive use of guns by law-abiding citizens who forestall gun violence, through use of their own firearm or who use a firearm, as necessary, to defend themselves or to defend other innocent lives. One would think that accurate reporting would require newspaper accounts to strive to report all news events: to report, then, on the use of firearms by ordinary Americans to thwart violent criminal acts, as well as to report gun crimes committed by lunatics, terrorists, criminal gang members, and by your garden-variety common criminal.

SELECTIVE NEWS REPORTING IS DEMONSTRATIVE OF “FAKE NEWS” NO LESS SO THAN FALSE REPORTING OF NEWS

The non-reporting of critical news events constitutes deception no less than the false reporting of news events and no less than the habit of mainstream news reporters of adroitly stirring subjective evaluations into news accounts. The mainstream media, including, prominently, The New York Times—whose motto is, “All the News That’s Fit to Print”—infers, or, more correctly, assumes that defensive use of firearms isn’t news that’s fit to print at all; so, the American public doesn’t see it. But, it is news just the same and, to our mind, this news does fall squarely into the domain of “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” The New York Times refuses to report on instances of defensive uses of guns as that tends to denigrate and weaken the running narrative that guns cause only bad things to happen. Still, if The New York Times stuck to reporting gun violence and refrained from proselytizing about the “evil” of guns, we might accept reporting of those events involving gun violence alone even if the Times’ accounting of “use of guns” is incomplete—as in the case of utilization of firearms for self-defense. Unfortunately, The New York Times and other mainstream news organizations do not and will not stop with reporting the ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘when,’ ‘where,’ and ‘how’ of gun violence. These mainstream news organizations tread dangerously into the realm of the ‘why’.’ They dare to ask, rhetorically, ‘why did the individual commit a violent act with a gun.’ The ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘when,’ ‘where,’ and ‘how’ of gun violence, then, is merely a side-note. It is merely incidental to and serves to buttress their argument for strengthening draconian gun laws and adding ever more to the serried ranks of restrictive federal and State gun laws and local gun ordinances. And, it is these arguments for ever more restrictions on the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms that the mainstream media makes, constantly, ad nauseum: sermonizing, proselytizing to the American public.The reporting of news merely operates, then, as an introduction to what it is that mainstream news organizations really wish to do which to address “the need to get rid of guns in this Country.” So, reporters and editors of mainstream news organizations, like The New York Times, mention instances of gun violence in order that they might proceed with their long-running, never-ending polemic on why gun violence occurs and wherefore gun violence happens and ‘why civilian access to guns is wrong and why, therefore, guns ought to be abolished. And, that is where mainstream news organizations have gone astray. They should protect this Nation, this Free Republic; but they have, instead, hijacked this Nation as they work strenuously, and actively, and insidiously against it, undermining the Nation’s Bill of Rights, all the while masquerading that they are the guardians of it, oblivious to the inherent invidiousness of their pronouncements.Mainstream news Reporters and Editors wrongly assume the role of psychologists, and psychiatrists, and sociologists, and politicians, and ethicists, and attorneys among others. They do not merely report the news, they attempt to explain the news. In so doing, the mainstream media no longer remains the outside, neutral observer of news events, coolly describing events, but insinuates itself into the events themselves, observing itself and thereupon reflecting its own image onto the American public’s psyche, and, in a most contemptuous fashion, proclaiming to the American public how the public ought to see the world and how the world ought to be molded and shaped.And, with that—with attempts to answer “why” questions—these mainstream news organizations carefully construct and carefully calibrate their explanations and use these explanations as springboards to “ought imperatives” such as: ‘no American civilian ought to have access to firearms;’ and ‘this Nation ought to have more stringent, common-sense gun control laws’; and ‘this Country ought to perceive gun ownership and gun possession as unnecessary and dangerous to the well-being of a modern society;’ and ‘Americans should abhor guns like most citizens do who reside in other Western Countries, like those citizens of Nations that comprise the EU do;’ and ‘ everyone has the right of free speech as long as one’s comments do not offend another person’s sensibilities; and ‘employers ought to be able to control their employees thoughts and ideas, whether on the job or off,’ and that ‘censoring of ideas and opinions and beliefs is wrong, except that, sometimes, it could be right.’Not content to declare what it is that happens to be the case—the “thus and so” of a given news event—mainstream news reporters and editorial boards tell us what “ought to be the case.” Now, generally, newspapers have used opinion editorials—“Op-Eds”—as a place where they feel they are at liberty to answer the ‘why,’ the cause of such event, and, therein, to express and expound upon the ‘ought,’ as they see it, from the occurrence of a given event. But this seeming bright-line separation between “news” and “opinion” is no longer perceptible or tenable in the age of mind control and psychological conditioning through various media mechanisms. The one flows seamlessly into the other. But normative ‘ought’ statements—normative prescriptions of the way the world should be, according to mainstream media—do not logically follow from ‘is’ statements—descriptions of the way the world happens to be, notwithstanding that mainstream news Reporters and Editors assume that ought prescriptions can be derived from and deduced from “is” descriptions, and we see, now, that Reporters and Editors of mainstream news organizations commence to operate as if the one can be derived from and deduced from the other. But, they cannot.It is hardly a secret that mainstream newspapers, like The New York Times, vehemently, indeed virulently, oppose possession of firearms by anyone in society, other than law enforcement, and other than the military and--although they won’t admit it--other than by the powerful, ruthless billionaire class that increasingly rules us and that seeks to destroy our free Republic, and that seeks to destroy the sovereignty and independence of our Nation State, and that seeks to destroy our unique and sacred Bill of Rights.Now, even as the owners of mainstream media vehicles will quickly deny—at least in their reporting of events—any specific position toward firearms and the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the fact of the matter is that the owners of these mainstream media news vehicles have, as with any other subject discussed in their media vehicles’ “bag of tricks,” specific opinions that infiltrate, insinuate themselves into, and seep and filter in and through, descriptions of news events. So, the public is not obtaining merely descriptions of news events, but prescriptions about how the public should think about those events and the sorts of actions that should be taken by policy makers from those events. Bad enough that mainstream media is reduced to propagandizing and proselytizing to the public through control of virtually every major form of media apart from a few outlier websites such as the Arbalest Quarrel, but mainstream media seeks, of late, to control the thoughts and actions of their own employees, too.Consider, one mainstream media news organization, The New York Times, goes so far as to control its reporters’ exercise of their personal First Amendment right of Free Speech even when they are not writing specifically for the newspaper. This is reprehensible and, likely would not survive Constitutional muster if challenged and is odd, too, when one considers that The New York Times, and other mainstream media news organizations, vociferously, presumptuously, and hypocritically argue that the President wrongly attacks their First Amendment right of freedom of the Press. Yet, the U.S. President is also a citizen and, as a citizen, he certainly has the right, guaranteed under the free speech clause of the First Amendment to call out “fake news” narratives when he sees it. And, he rightly does so, on behalf of himself and on behalf of those Americans who support him.

GROUPTHINK VERSUS THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH

Lest the reader of this article think that the Arbalest Quarrel has made a false claim about The New York Times controlling its employees’ expression of personal opinion, outside of employment, we point out that the Times, itself, expressly admits as much. On October 16, 2017, a reporter for the New York Times, Jim Rutenberg, writing in the Business Section of the Times newspaper, in an article titled, “Seeing Right Through Tech Chiefs’ Talk of Better ‘Transparency’”, said: “My newspaper [The New York Times] is [when reporting on Tech Companies control of their employees’ opinions], also dealing with the question of how transparent a person should be on social media. On Friday, it announced a new policy for its journalists requiring them to avoid say anything on the platform [that is to say, reporters must avoid saying anything on any and all vehicles, aside from The New York Times, when, on their own time] that they could not say under the banner of The New York Times. At a TimesTalks event in Washington on Thursday night, the Times’ executive editor, Dean Baquet, said that overly opinionated or partisan tweets could undermine the paper’s mission of reporting ‘objectively and clearly.’” Who is Baquet kidding? The assertion is nonsensical and disingenuous to boot. For, it isn’t “objective and clear reporting” that the NY Times newspaper is interested in protecting. It is, rather, a specific “subjective viewpoint” that the owners and Editorial Board of The New York Times seeks to foster and buttress, and it is a subjective viewpoint that the drafters’ of the newspaper’s new policy obviously presume that every employee of the newspaper knows or should know. In fostering and buttressing that viewpoint, the newspaper’s owners and Editorial Board would squelch a reporter’s right of free speech in that reporter’s capacity as an American citizen, even when, on that reporter’s own time, the reporter wishes freely to express his or her own viewpoint on a subject, absent constraints imposed on the reporter in the course of his or her work for the newspaper. Obviously, it isn’t objective facts that the owners and Editorial Board of The New York Times is concerned about protecting—despite what Baquet says; for, after all, the facts can take care of themselves. Rather, it is the running narrative—the “why” and of a story—that The New York Times’ owners and Editorial Board wish to maintain an overarching monopoly on. It is the running narrative, as it were, that they wish to control and that they intend to control, through the Times’ new policy.The newspaper, thereupon, muzzles and censors its own reporters First Amendment free speech rights, through a policy that operates essentially as a “gag order” lest its reporters, and any other employee, working for the newspaper, weaken the running narrative the newspaper’s publisher owners and Editorial Board wish to convey and to maintain clear, categorical, and unequivocal. Consider, too, that, this new policy directive of the New York Times, as issued by the executive editor, Dean Baquet is logically absurd, as well as legally insupportable. For, if a newspaper is simply describing events, objectively and clearly—the ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘when, ‘where,’ and, occasionally, ‘how,’ of the news—an account that “mirrors” a state of affairs in the world, how can such objective description feasibly be subject to subjective analysis? The answer is that it cannot; for such descriptive account of a news event, of a particular state of affairs in the world, can only admit of one accurate descriptive account, not multiple accounts. Only subjective analyses—one’s opinions—of descriptive accounts can admit of and allow for multiple and incompatible propositions about an event. Thus, there can only be one accurate descriptive account about any given actual state of affairs but many subjective opinions about that one descriptive account. If so, then how can one’s opinion about an objective news account, the ‘why’ statements and ‘ought’ statements, “undermine the paper’s mission of reporting ‘objectively and clearly?’” The answer is that opinions cannot undermine a newspaper’s objective reporting of an event.Recall what we said, supra. Normative, prescriptive ‘ought’ statements about the way the world should be do not logically follow from or entail descriptive ‘is’ statements, namely declarative propositions about the way the world happens to be. So, then, take the example of a lunatic, or psychopathic terrorist who kills innocent people with a gun. The newspaper reporter recounts the event in a news story. Likely, the news account will be, as well, laced with inaccurate, suggestive wording regarding the gun incident. Then, suppose that the reporter that wrote the story for the newspaper, writes, on his own time, on a social media site, that he supports the arming of all American citizens, as a method for reducing criminal gun violence. Would that supposition undermine a newspaper’s mission of reporting accurately and objectively? How can it? It cannot. It cannot because logically accurate, objective, clear reporting of an event—that is to say, logically accurate, objective, clear reporting of a state of affairs in and of the world—does not implicate and cannot implicate, anything, intelligible about the way the world—from one perspective or another—ought to be. Yet, you and I both know where this goes. For, assume, then, the newspaper’s editorial board, follows up the descriptive account of a terrorist murdering innocent people with a firearm, with an Op-Ed calling for new restrictive gun laws, impacting law-abiding, rational, responsible American citizens' exercise of the right to keep and bear arms. Clearly, if a reporter working for the newspaper were to argue, contrary to the position of the editorial board, that all law-abiding, sane, responsible Americans ought to be armed and that Congress should enact a national handgun carry reciprocity law, such normative viewpoint on gun ownership and possession would be at loggerheads with the editorial board’s own normative viewpoint on gun ownership and possession--one calling for confiscation of all firearms in the hands of civilians.It is not the descriptive account of a violent gun incident that the newspaper owners and editorial board are concerned about protecting. Rather, it is the normative, prescriptive remarks concerning the buttressing of restrictive gun laws that The New York Times owners and Editorial Board is desirous of protecting. For, the two normative, prescriptive viewpoints—one viewpoint expressing the desire for more restrictive gun laws and the other viewpoint calling for a relaxing of restrictive gun laws—are semantically incompatible and logically inconsistent. The reporter who writes something, on his own time, in another medium, arguing for the arming of civilian population in America could end up receiving a “pink slip” from his employer, a mainstream news organization, for that employee's troubles—and he may receive a very public rebuke as well.Extrapolating from this, to the new policy of the NY Times, it should be evident that the mission of the newspaper is not, contrary to Dean Baquet’s assertions, undermined if the newspaper were only concerned about protecting clear and objective and accurate reporting of news events. It is, rather, something other or, at least, in addition to the protection of objective and accurate reporting of news events. For, the more emphatic, persistent, and ominous mission of The New York Times is one not of reporting news events, it is, rather, one of persuasion—persuading the American citizenry, for example, that civilian gun possession should be radically restrained and constrained, and that the Second Amendment is archaic and should be repealed. And, these normative prescriptions of the way the Nation ought to look, of the way things ought to be are conveyed to the American public constantly, vociferously, incessantly, through the medium of The New York Times. Obviously, a reporter that does not share the normative worldview of the newspaper’s publisher and owners and of the Newspaper’s Editorial Board and who wishes to make his or her contrary thoughts known in another medium, on his or her own time, will be skating on thin ice, for it is this person’s personal opinion that the newspaper’s owners and editors really see as undermining one specific mission of the paper—a mission that is directed to restricting and thereby weakening gun rights, not expanding or strengthening gun rights. The objective reporting of a particular instance of gun violence is not affected by differing opinions concerning the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The matter of restricting or strengthening gun rights has, then, absolutely nothing to do with the mere reporting of a particular incidence of gun violence. Normative, ethical pronouncements have nothing to do with and do not follow from a descriptive accounting of a particular event in the world. But, the newspaper’s owners and editors don’t wish to acknowledge this. They do not wish to be seen as preventing their employees from exercising their fundamental right of free speech. So, they concoct a subterfuge. They come up with a ludicrous rationale for their news policy—a rationale that is tantamount to doing just what they do not wish to be seen as doing: preventing their reporters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak freely, and on their own time, whatever it is that their reporters may wish to say, pertaining to personal opinions about this or that subject, through a medium other than through The New York Times newspaper.The NY Times’ owners thus deny to their employees the free exercise of a fundamental right guaranteed under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a right they, as members of an “aristocratic elite,” as they fashion themselves, garner for themselves. And, of course, these aristocratic “elite” see no inconsistency in reserving for themselves those fundamental rights that they would deny to their employees, as American citizens, and which they would deny to most every other American citizen if they could, whether it be the right of free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that they would like to restrict or the right of the people to keep and bear arms, under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Imagine, for a moment, that the writers of the Arbalest Quarrel happened to work as reporters for the NY Times. Would the Times’ publishers and editors suffer us to write in support of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Not under this new policy as heralded by Dean Baquet, which he, as a spokesperson for The New York Times, sees as a good thing, as a positive thing. But that can only mean The New York Times does not draw a tenable distinction between its opinion articles and its news articles. Objective facts and subjective opinion are conflated. Opinion and Fact are all one and the same for the owners and Editorial Board of The New York Times. Thus, The New York Times owners and Editorial Board, through this incongruous sleight-of-hand, argue that its reporters cannot offer an opinion, even on their own time and through a medium other than the newspaper they work for if that opinion happens to be inconsistent with and therefore is perceived as operating to the detriment of the newspaper owners’ and Editorial Board’s running of an Op-Ed/News narrative. This, though, has nothing to do with protecting objective facts which can very well take care of themselves. It has everything to do with controlling the thought processes of the public. The public is coerced into accepting one line of thought regarding any subject that The New York Times happens to write on and the Newspaper will suffer no viewpoint to the contrary.

THE OWNERS AND EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES ARE HYPOCRITES

The hypocrisy of the NY Times’ owners and Editorial Board toward the First Amendment free speech protection—a right it would retain for itself, as coupled with freedom of the Press, and which it has the audacity to refuse exercise of by the Newspaper’s employees—was not lost on another mainstream newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, no less a mainstream newspaper—a “gatekeeper” ostensibly on “the right” of the political spectrum, but still a mainstream media newspaper just the same, representing the wealthy “nobility” in this Country. William McGurn, writing an Opinion, titled, “The NFL vs. the New York Times,” on Tuesday, October 17, 2017, quoting the NY Times editor, Baquet, at length, which the NY Times itself dared only to touch upon ever so slightly for its readers, noted the hypocrisy and doublespeak and smug self-assurance coming from the Times. “Mr. Baquet says ‘. . . In social media posts, our journalists must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’s journalistic reputation. Our journalists should be especially mindful of appearing to take sides on issues that The Times is seeking to cover objectively. These guidelines apply to everyone in every department of the newsroom, including those not involved in coverage of government and politics. . . . We consider all social media activity by our journalists to come under this policy. . . . While you may think that your Facebook page, Twitter feed, Instagram, Snapchat or other social media accounts are private zones. Separate from your role at The Times, in fact everything we post or ‘like’ online is to some degree public. And everything we do in public is likely to be associated with The Times.” If this is the rationale for gagging a citizen’s right of free speech, it is a poor argument, as it denigrates the very idea inherent in a newspaper—the notion of factual reporting of events. It also denigrates the very notion of free expression, one of the essential legs upon which a free Republic—our free Republic—stands. Indeed, it is the very notion of critical comment and commentary that the American public has a right to demand. The New York Times’ owners and Editorial Board admit their fear of critical comment, commentary, and review. The New York Times’ owners and Editorial Board admit their fear of public consumption of opinions different from and contrary to their own. The New York Times’ owners and Editorial Board fear open and public and lively debate. All this the American public now hears from a newspaper that loudly proclaims the right of a Free Press, codified in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—but, apparently, only so long as there exists one voice—that of the NY Times’ owners and Editorial Board which they would deign the American public to hear. Through this policy The New York Times’ owners and Editorial Board are telling their employees that the purpose of The New York Times goes far beyond the mere reporting of “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” far beyond the recitation of objective facts. The newspaper’s owners and Editorial Board has informed the American public, “clearly and objectively and accurately, that the newspaper engages in influence peddling and, more, that it will suffer no viewpoint on any subject other than its own, as dictated to it by its benefactors: the enclave of  incorrigible, intractable, ruthless, secretive, inordinately wealthy and powerful internationalist, trans-nationalist, globalist “elite,” both here and abroad, who seek to undercut the sovereignty of this Nation, who seek to undermine the supremacy of this Nation’s laws, and who seek to pervert and debase the sanctity of the natural and fundamental rights of this Nation’s citizenry.The New York Times’ new policy goes well beyond the import and purport of the Hatch Act that applies to Federal Government Bureaucrats. The Hatch Act of 1939 prohibits the vast Federal Government Bureaucracy from taking part in political campaign activities, but the Act does not prevent a Government Bureaucrat from expressing his own political or social or philosophical view on social media, on his or her own time, as that would be at loggerheads with the free speech clause of the First Amendment. Yet, the new policy of The New York Times' Editorial Board goes must further. For, here we have a mainstream newspaper, the fervent promoter of and benefactor of the Freedom of Press clause of the First Amendment, that dares to deny of its own employees the right of free speech—which also resides within the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—when those employees wish to exercise, outside of their employment in their capacity as American citizens, the right embodied in the First Amendment. Thus, The New York Times disparages and decries of others what it would monopolize for itself—the right to express an opinion. Clearly the Times Newspaper is not interested in protecting objectivity in reporting. It is only interested in controlling opinion and, when it comes to the Second Amendment, the NY Times intends to control opinion--to control the narrative--completely, even if the exercise of that control amounts to denying--denying of its own employees, in their capacity as citizens of the United States, and denying to those employees, hypocritically, as well as denying to those employees, unlawfully-- the very right of free speech, which it would jealously guard for itself.Apparently, The New York Times is taking its cue from Germany. In an article posted on June 30, 2017, titled, “Delete Hate Speech or Pay Up, Germany Tells Social Media Companies,”  NY Times Reporters, Melissa Eddy and Mark Scott, write:“Social media companies operating in Germany face fines of as much as $57 million if they do not delete illegal, racist or slanderous comments and posts within 24 hours under a law passed on Friday.The law reinforces Germany’s position as one of the most aggressive countries in the Western world at forcing companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter to crack down on hate speech and other extremist messaging on their digital platforms.But the new rules have also raised questions about freedom of expression. Digital and human rights groups, as well as the companies themselves, opposed the law on the grounds that it placed limits on individuals’ right to free expression. Critics also said the legislation shifted the burden of responsibility to the providers from the courts, leading to last-minute changes in its wording.Technology companies and free speech advocates argue that there is a fine line between policy makers’ views on hate speech and what is considered legitimate freedom of expression, and social networks say they do not want to be forced to censor those who use their services. Silicon Valley companies also deny that they are failing to meet countries’ demands to remove suspected hate speech online.Still, German authorities pressed ahead with the legislation. Germany witnessed an increase in racist comments and anti-immigrant language after the arrival of more than a million migrants, predominantly from Muslim countries, since 2015, and Heiko Maas, the justice minister who drew up the draft legislation, said on Friday, that it ensured that rules that currently apply offline would be equally enforceable in the digital sphere.”As a prime example of hypocritical, contradictory “doublespeak,” the Times Reporters, add this remark of Maas:“‘With this law, we put an end to the verbal law of the jungle on the internet and protect the freedom of expression for all,” Mr. Maas said. “We are ensuring that everyone can express their opinion freely, without being insulted or threatened.’“That is not a limitation, but a prerequisite for freedom of expression,” he continued.” What? Taking away a person’s right of free speech is to be equated with giving that person the right of free speech? Unless something was lost in translating the German into English, here, this remark by Heiko Maas is a contradiction in terms and the quintessence of bombastic absurdity. Maas should be ashamed of himself. Apparently, though, The New York Times felt there was something noteworthy in the remarks of Maas to the extent that The New York Times felt that Germany’s new National policy is worthy of adoption by the Times newspaper itself. Incredible! But, the absurdity fostered transcends well beyond the Times itself. As the newspaper reports, major publishing houses are hiring so-called “sensitivity readers”—at the moment directed to the writers of children’s books. In an article, published on December 24, 2017, titled, “In an Era of Online Outrage, Do Sensitivity Readers Result in Better Books, or Censorship?,” by Times reporter, Alexandra Alter, we are told that,“In today’s hair-trigger, hyperreactive social media landscape, where a tweet can set off a cascade of outrage and prompt calls for a book’s cancellation, children’s book authors and publishers are taking precautions to identify potential pitfalls in a novel’s premise or execution. Many are turning to sensitivity readers, who provide feedback on issues like race, religion, gender, sexuality, chronic illness and physical disabilities. The role that readers play in shaping children’s books has become a flash point in a fractious debate about diversity, cultural appropriation and representation, with some arguing that the reliance on sensitivity readers amounts to censorship. . . . Behind the scenes, these readers are having a profound impact on children’s literature, reshaping stories in big and small ways before they reach impressionable young audiences. Like fact checkers or copy editors, sensitivity readers can provide a quality-control backstop to avoid embarrassing mistakes, but they specialize in the more fraught and subjective realm of guarding against potentially offensive portrayals of minority groups, in everything from picture books to science fiction and fantasy novels. . . . Some see a downside to publishers’ growing reliance on sensitivity readers, and warn that it could lead to sanitized books that tiptoe around difficult topics. Skeptics say the heightened scrutiny discourages authors from writing about cultures other than their own, resulting in more homogenized literature. “Can we no longer read ‘Othello’ because Shakespeare wasn’t black?” the novelist Francine Prose wrote recently in an essay about sensitivity readers and censorship in The New York Review of Books."The NY Times' reporters, continue:

"Others have echoed that view, arguing that sensitivity readers might have derailed works like William Styron’s “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” or Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” After the subject was covered in Slate, a writer for National Review fretted that “if ‘sensitivity readers’ are given the freedom to hijack authors’ visions, we’re going to lose some beloved works of art that we could have otherwise enjoyed.”

Is The New York Times’ “gag order” policy anything less than an attempt to censor opinion? Does not The New York Times impose its own sensitivity readers—its Editorial Board—on all ideas expressed. We are seeing, in this Country, an attempt to second-guess every written and spoken word. The American public is not the better but all the worse for it.This attempt by the Deep State and by the mainstream media to control guns, to control thoughts, to control actions is leading to societal upheaval, mass hysteria, pandemonium. Perhaps this is by design—an attempt to create volatility and confusion in order to weaken this Nation, to weaken its resolve, to weaken the Bill of Rights so that we, American citizens, will be ripe for takeover by the powers that seek to crush us into submission.

HOW FAR WILL THE NEW YORK TIMES AND OTHER MAINSTREAM NEWS ORGANIZATIONS GO TO TRAMPLE THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, AS WE ENTER A NEW YEAR?

As this year draws to an end, The New York Times has commenced a series of articles, “The Home Front,” where the newspaper’s Editorial Board is calling for a major transformation of the Lautenberg Amendment, 18 USCS § 921(a)(33)(A)(i). What is the Lautenberg Amendment? Essentially the Lautenberg Amendment of 1996, following in the footsteps of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, makes it unlawful for any person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence to possess a gun. Here we have the NY Times Editorial Board writing an extensive series of articles on a law—subsumed under the Gun Control Act of 1968—that the Editorial Board knows little, if anything about, and seems to care even less of what it may know about, the law, but writes with presumed and presumptuous authority and certitude about a law as if it knows full well whereof it speaks. Yet, it knows nothing. Nonetheless, the NY Times Editorial Board skirts broad discussion of the actual law itself and yet writes extensively and boldly about why the law needs to be strengthened.The NY Times' Editorial Board should not be proselytizing to the American public on matters beyond its professional ability to explain and decipher. Actually, the Editorial Board should not be proselytizing to the American public at all, but certainly not on matters of law, especially those impacting fundamental Constitutional Rights. The Editorial Board, likely, does not include lawyers. Unfortunately, that doesn’t prevent, the Editorial Board from expounding upon the law. That it chooses to do so is illustrative of an overbearing pompous attitude exhibited in discussing legal matters. This pompous attitude adds to, rather than distracts from, this Newspaper’s condescending attitude toward its readers. The Editorial Board apparently believes it can successfully cloak its ineptitude concerning law and legal matters by cultivating an air of moral superiority when pontificating on matters involving firearms and on the exercise of the right to keep and bear them.The Editorial Board of the NY Times suggests—nay, demands—as seen in this series, which has yet to conclude, that the law—the Lautenberg Amendment—ought to be transformed. The Editorial Board would create a monstrosity, denying to millions of Americans their right to own and possess firearms.We will take to task in forthcoming articles on the Lautenberg Amendment in the New Year. We will provide you with the language of the Statute as it exists—something The New York Times will not provide for its readers. We will explain the meaning of the law as drafted and enacted, and will discuss problems with it, in the context of the Second Amendment and in the context of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution as well. The law is poorly drafted. The New York Times would make a poorly drafted law even worse, as it calls on the public to blindly go where the newspaper leads it—to the edge of a cliff.Returning, for a moment, to the Yale a cappella group’s Wiffinpoof Song, consider, in light of the foregoing remarks set down in this essay:

WHO REALLY ARE THESE “BLACK LITTLE SHEEP IN THE WIFFINPOOF SONG WHO HAVE LOST THEIR WAY? ARE THE BLACK LITTLE SHEEP THOSE MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC WHO HOLD TO TRADITIONAL VALUES, MORES, CODES OF CONDUCT, HISTORICAL PURITY—WHO VIEW THIS NATION AS THE FOUNDERS OF THE REPUBLIC, THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION, ESTABLISHED—OR DO THEY INCLUDE THOSE PEOPLE WHO STAFF THE INSTITUTIONS OF THIS NATION: NAMELY AND PARTICULARLY, THOSE PEOPLE WHO STAFF THE  MAINSTREAM MEDIA; VARIOUS MEMBERS OF CONGRESS; THOSE PEOPLE WHO STAFF THE VAST BUREAUCRACY OF GOVERNMENT; AND NOT LEAST, THOSE CONFUSED AMERICANS WHO HAVE BOUGHT INTO THE CAREFULLY PLANNED AND ORCHESTRATED RUSE THAT NATIONALISM IS BAD, THAT OPEN BORDERS ARE GOOD; THAT ANYONE WHO BELIEVES HIM OR HERSELF TO BE AN ‘AMERICAN’ IS AN ‘AMERICAN’ EVEN IF THAT PERSON IS RESIDING HERE ILLEGALLY; THAT GUNS ARE EVIL AND THAT GUN BUYBACKS ARE GOOD; THAT GENDER IS NOT BIOLOGICAL AND ABSOLUTE BUT INFINITELY MALLEABLE, SO THAT A MAN IS A WOMAN AND A WOMAN IS A MAN AS ONE WISHES TO BE; OR, PERHAPS, NEITHER, OR PERHAPS, BOTH AT ONCE; AND THAT WE, AMERICAN CITIZENS, ARE NO LONGER TRULY CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES, BUT, RATHER, CITIZENS OF THE WORLD—ONE BIG, GLORIOUS HAPPY FAMILY, FIXATED ON MATTERS OF IMPORTANCE: SPORTS, ENTERTAINMENT, CLOTHES AND JEWELRY AND COSMETICS—THE DAILY DOSE OF SOMA TO KEEP A PERSON, HAPPY, CONTENTED, AND ASLEEP? PERHAPS, TO SOME EXTENT, BOTH ARE “BLACK LITTLE SHEEP”: AMERICANS WHO SEEK TO HOLD ON TO THEIR BIRTHRIGHT, WHO CHOOSE NOT TO “GET WITH” THE NEW PROGRAM, THE BRAVE NEW WORLD ORDER, ON THE ONE HAND, AND THOSE, ON THE OTHER HAND, WHO SEEK TO DEMOLISH THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES THAT THE FOUNDERS OF THIS NATION, OF THIS REPUBLIC, HAD SO LOVINGLY BEQUEATHED TO US, THE AMERICAN CITIZENRY? PERHAPS THIS NATION AND ITS CITIZENS AND THE IGNORANT, ILL-INFORMED AMONG US AND THE DEMON KIND WHO WISH TO RULE OVER EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING ARE ALL WELL LOST AND HAVE ALL GONE ASTRAY. PERHAPS IT IS MUCH TOO LATE FOR THIS NATION AND MUCH TOO LATE FOR ALL THE DENIZENS IN IT. IF SO, THEN, LET US ALL CHIME IN: “BAA, BAA, BAA!” BUT, WE HOPE ALL IS NOT LOST FOR US, TRUE AMERICANS, WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE OUR NATION AND OUR CONSTITUTION AND OUR CONSTITUTION'S MOST SACRED AND CRITICAL COMPONENT--THE BILL OF RIGHTS--WHO SEEK TO PRESERVE OUR NATION AND OUR CONSTITUTION AS ORIGINALISTS, TO UPHOLD OUR TRADITIONS, OUR VALUES, IN THE MODE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THIS GREAT NATION, IN THE MODE OF THE FRAMERS OF OUR CONSTITUTION. WE MUST CARRY ON; WE MUST PERSEVERE, AND WE MUST BE EVER WARY AND CAUTIOUS OF THOSE WHO TALK ABOUT CHANGING OUR NATION, CHANGING OUR CORE VALUES AND CORE TRADITIONS, CHANGING OUR HISTORY, "TO KEEP UP WITH THE TIMES;" FOR THESE ARE PSEUDO AMERICANS; THEY ARE THE BETRAYERS OF OUR NATION, THEY ARE BETRAYERS OF THE FOUNDERS OF THIS FREE REPUBLIC; THEY ARE BETRAYERS OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND OF OUR SACRED BILL OF RIGHTS. THEY USE AN ODD NOTION OF MORALITY TO CLOAK THEIR DESIRE TO TEAR DOWN THIS NATION STATE; TO DESTROY OUR SOVEREIGNTY; TO DESTROY OUR CONSTITUTION; TO DESTROY OUR NATURAL, FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES--RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES THAT EXIST IN US INTRINSCIALLY AS THEY COME TO US FROM THE CREATOR AND CANNOT THEREFORE BE LAWFULLY TAKEN FROM US BY GOVERNMENT. WE MUST PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN OUR RIGHT TO SPEAK FREELY, TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN OUR RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN OUR RIGHT TO BE FREE FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES AND SEIZURES, TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN OUR PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, TO PRESERVE AND STRENGTHEN OUR RIGHT TO BE LEFT ALONE. ALL THESE NATURAL, FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS ARE UNDER CONCERTED ATTACK BY THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND BY THEIR FELLOW TRAVEVLERS IN CONGRESS AND BY THOSE BUREAUCRATS THAT LURK IN THE SHADOWY CORNERS OF GOVERNMENT, UNSEEN AND UNHEARD, AND BY THE SECRETIVE AND RUTHLESS INTERNATIONALIST, TRANS-NATIONALIST ROTHSCHILD CLAN AND BY THEIR TOADIES IN THE UN AND IN THE WTO, IMF, WORLD BANK AND IN OTHER "INTERNATIONAL" ORGANIZATIONS--EVER SCHEMING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS TO INCORPORATE THIS NATION INTO THE EU AND EVENTUALLY TO DISMEMBER ALL WESTERN NATION STATES, MERGING AND SUBMERGING THEM INTO A NEW WORLD ORDER, PRESIDED OVER BY A COLD-HEARTED WEALTHY AND POWERFUL RULING "ELITE," DICTATING POLICY TO WE, THE NEW SERFS OF THAT NEW WORLD ORDER, WHO HAVE NO RIGHTS, NO LIBERTIES, SAVE THOSE THAT THE RULING "ELITE" DEIGN TO GRANT TO US AND WHO MAY, ON A WHIM, TAKE FROM US.

The Arbalest Quarrel seeks to awaken the American public from its slumber. As always, and most importantly, the Arbalest Quarrel will set the record straight on matters involving this Nation’s most sacred right—the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 2018 we will press for enactment of national handgun carry reciprocity and propose our own language to avoid attempts by some States to ignore the national handgun carry reciprocity if, or, hopefully, when, enacted. We will explore the qualifications of certain individuals we would like to see on the U.S. Supreme Court, and we will continue with our detailed expositions of Federal and State firearms legislation and of Federal and State case law impacting on the Second Amendment. We will return to completing series we had commenced writing on in 2017 and in previous years. We have a lot of work to do, and much to accomplish.Antigun groups and antigun legislators are not sitting idly by. They intend to destroy the Second Amendment. But, like brave Horatio at the Bridge, the Arbalest Quarrel intends to stop these anti-American groups and anti-American people. But, we intend to do much more. We intend to take the fight to them, strengthening the Second Amendment, along with and in conjunction with the critical work NRA does on behalf of Americans.We will never give up our values, our history, our traditions, our Bill of Rights!Our articles and our essays stand as a testament to our commitment in support of our Bill of Rights and, especially, in support of our sacred Second Amendment. Please feel free to explore our site at www.arbalestquarrel.com. We encourage you to join our list of readers. It is easy to add your name to our list. You will receive immediate notification of the posting of our articles. There is no cost to you.We all have our work cut out for us. But, together, taking nothing for granted, and working hard to preserve and strengthen our Bill of Rights, and supporting our President in this effort, we can succeed in holding our Nation together, in the vein the Founders of our Republic intended. Won’t you join us?_________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

SOTO vs. BUSHMASTER: THE NEW YORK TIMES TRUMPETS SANDY HOOK PLAINTIFFS’ ATTACK AGAINST MAKERS OF SEMIAUTOMATIC “ASSAULT WEAPONS”

ANTIGUN PROPONENTS GO AFTER FIREARMS MANUFACTURERS IN CONNECTICUT

NY Times reporters discuss, of late, a lawsuit filed in 2015 in Connecticut Superior Court by individuals, in their own capacity, and by the administrators of the estates of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, in Newtown Connecticut, that occurred on December 14, 2012. The killer, Adam Lanza, age 20, severely mentally disturbed, arguably psychotic, who could not legally own or possess firearms, gained access to his mother’s firearms, murdered her, and then, not content with that murder, sallied forth to a school in Newtown, Connecticut, where--still in fit of murderous rage--continued with a heinous shooting spree, murdering 20 children and six adults, before turning a handgun on himself and ending his own life.As for a motive, don’t try to find one, for there is none. Indeed, there can never exist a rational motive for a decidedly and decisively irrational, reprehensible act, try as criminologists and psychiatrists might to find one. Nonetheless, this tragedy should never have occurred and would not have occurred had Lanza’s mother properly secured her firearms, preventing her deranged son from gaining access to them in the first place. But, as the tragedy did occur, due to the irresponsibility of Lanza’s mother, we see antigun proponents in the State Legislatures and in the United States Congress using the tragedy, as they invariably do, as a pretext for enactment of ever more extraordinarily draconian firearms legislation—legislation directed less to curbing gun violence and directed more—much more—to curtailing the sacred, natural and fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms that millions of ordinary, rational, law-abiding American citizens wish to, and have the right to, exercise for the lawful, legitimate purpose of self-defense.

A TIME LINE AND HISTORY OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’ COVERAGE OF THE CONNECTICUT LAWSUIT AGAINST MANUFACTURERS OF FIREARMS

Roughly one and a half years ago, on June 14, 2016, the New York Times ran a story, titled, “Newtown Victims’ Families Look On as Gun Makers Ask Court to Dismiss Lawsuit.”  The Times’ reporters, Kristin Hussey and Marc Santora explained the case, thus:“At issue is a 2005 federal law, which shields gun companies from lawsuits when guns are used in a crime. This case — brought by 10 families in the 2012 shooting — has already made it further than many experts had predicted and represents one of the most serious legal threats to the industry in years. . . . Following the school massacre, Connecticut lawmakers passed a measure banning the sale of many semiautomatic rifles. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a Second Amendment challenge to the statute.To overcome the broad federal immunity granted by Congress, lawyers for the plaintiffs are arguing that both the manufacturers and distributors of assault rifles modeled on the AR-15, like the Bushmaster that was used at Sandy Hook Elementary School, have been negligent.Such guns are weapons of war, they argue, and they should never have been marketed and sold to civilians.

Near the body of a teacher, Victoria Soto the police found a weapon ‘designed to be used in combat to assault and kill enemies of war, in the fields of Vietnam and in the streets of Falluja,’ said Joshua D. Koskoff, a lawyer for the family members.

‘And there it was lying not on a battlefield but on the floor of Vicki Soto’s first-grade classroom,’ he continued. ‘How did it get there?’

The AR-15, which dates to the 1950s, is one of the most popular weapons in history, with dozens of gun makers issuing their own models and millions having been sold in this country.

James B. Vogts, a lawyer for Remington Arms Company, the maker of the gun used in Newtown, argued that that case was not ‘the place to debate gun laws.’”

As reported by the NY Times, Counsel for Soto Plaintiffs, Joshua Koskoff, explained the impetus for the lawsuit. But, Counsel for Soto Plaintiffs resorted to false remarks and rhetorical flourish--relying on antigun talking points and hyperbole--("[the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle] [is] designed to be used in combat to assault and kill enemies of war"), and relying, too, upon sloganeering ("such guns [the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle] are weapons of war")--rather than applying rational logical and legal discourse, when bringing to the public's attention the purported purpose of the lawsuit. In so doing Koskoff unabashedly and unashamedly targeted the public’s emotions, the lizard brain, not the public's intellect. Counsel’s aim in targeting the public's emotions was, obviously, to seduce, coax, distract, and horrify, not to educate and inform. Attorney for Defendant firearms manufacturer, Remington Arms Company's attorney, James Vogt, on the other hand, made the pertinent point that a debate on gun laws does not belong in a Court of law. Indeed, a critical examination of Soto Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint and its Brief on Appeal to the Connecticut Supreme Court aptly demonstrates Plaintiffs explication of applicable law as Plaintiffs would like it to be, dismissing the law for as it is and for what it says and the manner, then, in which it actually operates. In that respect the Soto case is not unlike other cases brought by antigun proponents. Antigun proponents begin with the assumption that gun ownership and gun possession by American citizens, in a civilian capacity, is simply wrong. They then attempt, inappropriately and deceptively, to shoehorn a utilitarian consequentialist ethical philosophy into legal argument, shunning any discussion of, and ignoring out of hand and displaying a clear lack of concern for, the plain meaning of the law as the drafters intended, and in the context of a fundamental right, which they seek, ultimately, to curtail.The case as presented by Plaintiffs’ Counsel, at the Press conference, fell, then, well short of cogent legal argument and, apart from mentioning the death of Vicki Soto, has no basis in fact, apropos of the semiautomatic AR-15 rifle. Unsurprisingly, Plaintiffs’ attorney sought, in the lawsuit, against the Defendant arms manufacturer, to make the manufacturer of the AR-15 rifle, along with the rifle manufactured, the real culpable parties in the tragedy that unfolded in 2012 in an Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, and, therewith, shied from placing blame, where, alone, blame is due. And, where is blame due? That blame should be placed squarely on the sentient perpetrator of the harm done, Adam Lanza. That name, 'Adam Lanza,' counsel either failed to mention at all at the Press conference or, if he had mentioned it, then the NY Times failed to relay that information to the reader of the Times newspaper. Perhaps the Times’ reporters felt that the name of the killer, Adam Lanza, was not worth mentioning, as the name of the killer would not further the narrative. The narrative is that guns are the singular cause of gun violence, not the perpetrators who use guns to do violence. Adam Lanza's mother also shares blame for the tragedy that ensued through her failure to properly secure the firearms from her severely mentally disturbed son--and paying the price for her failure to take responsibility in the securing of her firearms, through loss of her own life at the hands of her son.On Saturday, October 14, 2017, the New York Times ran a second story titled, “Judge Dismisses Suit Against Gun Maker by Newtown Victims’ Families.” The Times’ reporters, Kristin Hussey and Marc Santora, attempting, ultimately, and unsatisfactorily, to explain the lower Court’s decision, said this:"The judge, Barbara N. Bellis of State Superior Court, had surprised even some of the plaintiffs by allowing the case to move toward trial this year, despite a 2005 federal law that offers firearm manufacturers and sellers broad protection from lawsuits when guns are used in crimes.

But in a decision filed on Friday, Judge Bellis repeatedly cited the law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, as the basis for her reasoning. 'This action falls squarely within the broad immunity provided' by the act, she wrote.

Lawyers for Remington Outdoor, whose AR-15-style Bushmaster rifle was used by Adam Lanza in the attack at the school, in Newtown, Conn., had argued for dismissal of the lawsuit. The complaint also named the wholesaler and a local retailer as defendants.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, who include relatives of nine of the 26 people who were killed in the shooting, as well as a teacher who survived, contended that the law’s exception for cases of negligent entrustment, in which a gun is carelessly given or sold to a person posing a high risk of misusing it, justified the complaint.Judge Bellis ruled that their claims were too broad to fall under negligent entrustment, and said Congress had already deemed the civilian population competent to possess the weapons by the nature of its law.'To extend the theory of negligent entrustment to the class of nonmilitary, nonpolice civilians — the general public — would imply that the general public lacks the ordinary prudence necessary to handle an object that Congress regards as appropriate for sale to the general public,' she wrote. 'This the court is unwilling to do.'"The Times’ reporters seeking to explain the Court’s decision succinctly, skirted over complex issues of law and quoted the Court on less critical points. The result is a simplistic, faulty, and essentially indecipherable accounting of the lower Court’s reasoning, which reasoning, on deep analysis, is thoughtful and flawless. The crux of the Superior Court's sound reasoning is that a claim of negligent entrustment must be grounded in Connecticut law in order to fall within the exception set forth in the applicable federal Statute. One salient point--and the most critical point--underlying the Superior Court's decision, granting Defendant Remington's (Bushmaster's) Motion to Strike Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint is as follows:"Although PLCAA [Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act] explicitly preserves claims that fall within its enumerated exceptions, such as negligent entrustment actions, it does not create them. 15 U.S.C. §7903(5)(A)(ii) and (5)(C) (2012). PLCAA explicitly provides that 'no provision of this chapter shall be construed to create a public or private cause of action or remedy."'15 U.S.C. §7903(5)(C) (2012). By its own terms, therefore, PLCAA cannot be read as creating a cause of action. Accordingly, the court concludes that for a plaintiff's negligent entrustment claim to be permitted under PLCAA. it must arise under state law." Donna L. Soto, Administratrix of the Estate of Victoria L. Soto, Conn. vs. Bushmaster Firearms International, Super Conn. 2016 Conn. Superior Court LEXIS 2626. Thus, to make a sound, cogent claim of negligent entrustment, in order to defeat Defendants' qualified immunity under PLCAA, Plaintiffs must cohere with Connecticut's definition of 'negligent entrustment' under Connecticut law. If the Soto Plaintiffs succeed, then those Plaintiffs can bootstrap that claim into the PLCAA, in which event Defendants' qualified immunity under PLCAA is defeated. In order to prove 'negligent entrustment' under Connecticut law, "entrustment can be considered negligent only if (1) there is actual or constructive knowledge that the entrustee is incompetent or has a dangerous propensity, and (2) the injury resulted from that incompetence or propensity." No one doubts that the entrustee, Adam Lanza, had a dangerous propensity. But, the question falls to whether Defendant manufacturers, the entrustors, knew or should have known of the entrustee's incompetence or dangerous propensity. On the legal principles of actual or constructive knowledge, the Soto Plaintiffs' claim of negligent entrustment fails. That is a fatal flaw in Plaintiff's claim of negligent entrustment. And that flaw is not overridden by a bald claim, unproved--but more to the point, irrelevant--that Defendants marketed the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to the entire civilian population that included, ipso facto, deranged individuals, such as Adam Lanza. Thus, Plaintiffs attempt to make a sound claim of negligent entrustment fails. Defendants' qualified immunity from suit sticks. And the Superior Court properly dismissed the lawsuit.*On Monday, November 13, 2017 the New York Times ran a third story involving the suit against the manufacturer of the weapon that Adam Lanza utilized in his murderous shooting spree, titled, in the print edition of the newspaper, “High Stakes for Gun Companies As Court Weighs Newtown Suit.” A digital copy of the story, titled, “Appeal Offers Hope for Newtown Families in Suit Against Gun Companies,” was posted a day earlier."This week, the families of the victims plan to be in Hartford, listening as lawyers lay out in state Supreme Court their case that the companies that manufactured and sold the military-style assault rifle used by the gunman bear responsibility for the attack in which 26 people, including 20 children, were killed.

They are deploying a novel strategy that the families and their lawyers say could pierce the sweeping shield created by federal law that protects gun companies from litigation and has thwarted countless lawsuits after their weapons were used to commit crimes.

Supporters believe that if the court clears the way for a jury trial, the gun companies’ internal communications — which the companies have fought fiercely to keep private — would surface in discovery, a potentially revealing and damaging glimpse into the industry and how it operates. It could also chart a legal road map for the survivors and relatives of victims in other mass shootings as they pursue accountability."

But, the gun companies' internal communications pertaining to the marketing of its firearms--however trivial, or insightful, or embarrassing, or damning--are altogether irrelevant to a claim of negligent entrustment under PLCAA. That is why the Superior Court dismissed the suit against the Defendant firearms manufacturers. Discovery is therefore unnecessary. To allow the case to proceed to trial would make a mockery of precedential authority, for there exists no basis under Connecticut or Federal Statute, nor under Connecticut case law, upon which Plaintiffs can ground a cogent legal argument to support a claim for damages or injunctive relief against Defendants. The novel strategy that the Times' reporters mention is simply code for an attempt to impose liability out of whole cloth--ad hoc application of law to fit Soto Plaintiffs desire to inflict punishment on Defendants.

The Times newspaper followed up the November 13, 2017  story with another, one day later, on November 14, 2017. The follow-up story is titled, “Connecticut Supreme Court Hears Newtown Families’ Appeal Against Gun Companies." NY Times reporters, Rick Rojas and Kristin Hussey report that:

"The Connecticut Supreme Court heard an appeal on Tuesday brought by relatives of victims in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School who argued that the companies that manufactured and sold the military-style assault rifle used by the gunman should be held responsible for the 2012 attack.

A lawsuit filed by the relatives said that the AR-15-style Bushmaster used to carry out the shooting in Newtown, Conn., that killed 26 people, including 20 first graders, was specifically marketed as a weapon of war, with slogans and product placement in video games invoking the violence of combat. The lawsuit claims that such promotions were a deliberate effort to make the weapon attractive to young men, like Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old gunman.

'Remington may never have known Adam Lanza, but they had been courting him for years,' Joshua D. Koskoff, one of the lawyers representing the families, told the panel of judges, referring to the gun maker that was named in the suit, along with a wholesaler and a local retailer. 'The courtship between Remington and Adam Lanza is at the heart of the case.'

The lawsuit, brought by family members of nine people who were killed and a teacher who was shot and survived, was elevated to the State Supreme Court after years of working its way through the court system. The case started in state court, where it was first filed in 2014, and then it moved to Federal District Court before returning to the state level, where a judge dismissed the suit last year. The families appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the judge’s decision and allow a jury trial.

 The families “have infinite patience to see justice done and utmost faith in the legal system to serve the people it is meant to protect,” Ian Hockley, whose 6-year-old son, Dylan, was killed, said outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday. 'We have not lost one ounce of confidence.'"

Actually, firearms manufacturers have not and do not "court" lunatics and maniacs and criminals. This is merely a bizarre attempt to insinuate actual or constructive knowledge onto Defendant firearms manufacturers through naked allegations that Defendants, entrustors, directed marketing to the civilian population that, in Plaintiffs' mind, included marketing of the AR-15 to Adam Lanza, as a entrustee. But, the AR-15 was not marketed to Adam Lanza or to any other maniac. Moreover, Adam Lanza was not permitted to own or possess firearms under federal or State law, and Plaintiffs have not suggested that Defendants, in any manner, have sought to market firearms to individuals that are not permitted under State or federal law to own and possess them. To suggest that firearms manufacturers, such as Remington, court unstable individuals like Adam Lanza through the marketing of firearms and that such firearms manufacturers should be held liable for misuse of firearms by individuals who were never meant to have them, would be to rewrite both federal law and Connecticut law. In fact, such ad hoc application of law would open other entities to liability. Consider: Hollywood studios would find themselves vulnerable to lawsuits on the ground that they court maniacs to commit violence. It is hardly a secret that Hollywood studios make fortunes selling violence on film through their depiction of violent acts committed with guns, knives, bombs, and so forth. Video game manufacturers could, in the same vein, also be said to court mentally disturbed individuals to commit violence with guns or, for that matter, to commit violence with any other implement, such as with trucks, and bombs, and knives, simply for conveying such imagery to the American public through the marketing of their video games and through the imagery existent in those games. Furthermore, contrary to arguments or suggestions or hypotheses of gun proponents, gun manufacturers do not have absolute immunity from lawsuits. They have qualified immunity under federal law. But Plaintiffs in Soto would dare to make gun manufacturers absolutely liable for the misuse of their products by anyone who misuses their products. If they were to prevail, not only would federal law under PLCAA, and Connecticut law pertaining to negligent entrustment, be patently ignored or given odd and absurd ad hoc treatment, but the entire legal area of products liability would be turned on its head. Antigun proponents obviously don't care. Their interest in the law extends no further than obtaining the results they want even if the end result is a miscarriage of justice and the destruction of the principle of stare decisis--legal precedent in favor of ad hoc treatment, predicated on a plaintiffs' personal normative feelings about the way the law should be rather than the way the law is. If legal precedent goes out the door, then law would become truly chaotic. No one would be able to rely on the clear meaning of Statute or on the large body of case law. Law would be changed "on the fly," which would mean that law, upon which the public could rely, would cease to exist. Law would be reduced to ad hoc decisions predicated on the will of the decider of law and fact who happens to be personally sympathetic to the claims of one party over another and who would decide cases on personal whim and predilection rather than on the law as written. The legal and jurisprudential underpinnings of our system of laws would lose their grounding. Anarchy in law and in society would result.

ANTIGUN PROPONENTS WILL NEVER LET A VIOLENT GUN TRAGEDY GO TO WASTE

The New York Safe Act, signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo on January 15, 2013, coming on the heels of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, became the model for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s new federal assault weapons ban, which, had it been enacted, would have been yet a more ambitious replacement for the 1994 federal assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 and which was never reauthorized. Fortunately, Harry Reid, who, at the time, was the Senate Majority Leader, when Democrats controlled the Senate, did not permit Feinstein’s assault weapon ban provision to be included in the broader antigun bill. Feinstein was livid. Still, even without the assault weapons ban provision, the bill failed miserably. The LA Times reported, on April 17, 2013, in an article titled, "Senate votes down Feinstein's assault weapons ban":“In a final appeal to her colleagues to reinstate an assault weapons ban, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) displayed on the Senate floor Wednesday a New York Daily News front page from the day after her ban was pulled from a broader gun control bill: It shows the photos of the 20 first-graders shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School with the headline: “Shame on U.S.” And then, Feinstein told her colleagues, “Show some guts.” But her attempt to attach the ban to the gun bill failed, drawing just 40 votes, with 60 senators voting against it. That was fewer than the 52 votes she received in 2004 in her unsuccessful effort to renew the now-lapsed 1994 ban." Nonetheless, antigun proponents continue, inevitably and inexorably, to attack the Second Amendment, which they detest, with a vengeance. They reemploy the same strategies against the Second Amendment or concoct new ones through introduction of bills in Congress and in State Legislatures and through assaults on the Second Amendment through the Courts. As with the Hydra of Greek Mythology, lop off one head and another grows to replace the one lost. Antigun proponents never tire of unleashing vindictiveness against inanimate objects and against those law-abiding American citizens who seek to exercise their natural fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms.So it is that, with the latest effort, we see a lawsuit in Connecticut that, prior to the NY Times series of articles, saw little, if any Press coverage. This was probably by design.But, in its stories, the NY Times fails, as the mainstream media is wont to do, to name the Court cases it refers to and to provide citations for them. Nonetheless, the case is Soto vs. Bushmaster, filed in Superior Court of Connecticut, Fairfield County. It is an unreported case, meaning that you cannot obtain the case in a formal legal reporter, but an unreported version may be found, once again, as stated supra at: Donna L. Soto, Administratrix of the Estate of Victoria L. Soto, Conn. vs. Bushmaster Firearms International, Super Conn. 2016 Conn. Superior Court LEXIS 2626, which the Arbalest Quarrel obtained. In the Times' discussion of the case, we reiterate the point that reporters Rojas and Hussey say, namely, that plaintiffs “are deploying a novel strategy that the families and their lawyers say could pierce the sweeping shield created by federal law that protects gun companies from litigation and has thwarted countless lawsuits after their weapons were used to commit crimes. Supporters believe that if the court clears the way for a jury trial, the gun companies’ internal communications — which the companies have fought fiercely to keep private — would surface in discovery, a potentially revealing and damaging glimpse into the industry and how it operates. It could also chart a legal road map for the survivors and relatives of victims in other mass shootings as they pursue accountability.”What this “novel strategy” means is that plaintiffs cannot rely on precedential authority for their case--there is none--and, in fact, Plaintiffs' cause of action is contrary to law. Undeterred with weight of legal authority against them, Soto Plaintiffs are, nonetheless, asking the Connecticut Supreme Court to ignore federal statute that precludes actions against firearms manufacturers who are not in privity with those individuals who misuse their firearms; and Soto Plaintiffs are also asking the Court to ignore the weight of Connecticut case law and State Statute that clearly prohibits relief for the kinds of claims they are bringing, on the allegations that they made. One of the Plaintiffs, David Wheeler, Administrator for the estate of Benjamin Wheeler, stated to the NY Times: “'It doesn’t make any sense at all that these products [referring, apparently, to semiautomatic rifles modeled on the original AR-15 by Armalite, such as one that Adam Lanza brought with him to Sandy Hook Elementary School] are free of liability,' Mr. Wheeler said in a recent interview. 'It’s not a level playing field. It’s not American capitalistic business practice as we know it. It’s just not right.'" The statement, full of emotion, but devoid of legal substance, is, itself, the stuff of nonsense. The Times' reporters do accurately report that: The lawsuit, brought by the families of nine people who were killed and one teacher who was shot and survived, faces significant legal hurdles. The case was elevated to the Connecticut Supreme Court after a lower court judge dismissed the lawsuit last year after she found that the claims it raised fell “squarely within the broad immunity” provided by federal law.” The Times’ reporters refer to the earlier Times article, published on October 14, titled, “Judge Dismisses Suit Against Gun Maker by Newtown Victims’ Families,” supra

HOW DID THE SOTO CASE FIND ITS WAY TO THE CONNECTICUT SUPREME COURT?

One unanswered procedural question concerns the events that led up to the Connecticut Supreme Court hearing the case. Upon a final appealable order, the losing party does, of course, have an opportunity to appeal an adverse decision. Generally, an adverse decision would be appealed to the next higher Court. In Soto, that would mean an appeal to the Connecticut Appellate Court. For some unexplained, inscrutable reason that is difficult to decipher, the case skipped the intermediate Connecticut Appellate Court and wended its way directly to the State Supreme Court. The State Supreme Court granted the appeal, hearing oral argument on the Connecticut Superior Court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ suit, where the Superior Court granted, in its entirety, Defendants’ Motion to Strike the First Amended Complaint. Clearly, Plaintiffs, Soto, and others, want a trial. A trial means that each side may undertake discovery. A motion to strike, in Connecticut, challenges the sufficiency of the allegations of a complaint. In a defendants’ motion to strike, a court has an obligation to take as true the facts alleged in the challenged pleading and then to determine whether those facts, if proven, would support a cause of action. If the Court determines that the allegations do support a cause of action, then the motion to strike is denied. Otherwise, the motion is granted. See Johnson vs. Department of Public Health, 48 Conn. App. 102; 710 A.2d 176; 1998 Conn. App. LEXIS 110. The Soto Plaintiffs, miffed that their desire to undertake discovery was deflected through the dismissal of their suit, fail to appreciate that the Superior Court determined that discovery is irrelevant as there is nothing in the allegations of the First Amended Complaint, which the Superior Court had to take as true, that would support their claims. Thus, there is nothing concrete to support a trial.As was true in Soto, the Superior Court concluded that, even accepting the allegations of the First Amended Complaint as true, the allegations still fail to support a cause of action. The Superior Court therefore properly dismissed the Complaint. Inexplicably, the Connecticut Supreme Court, allowed the Plaintiffs to bypass the Connecticut Appellate Court and agreed to hear arguments on whether Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint did set forth allegations sufficient to support an action, contrary to lower Court's determination that the First Amended Complaint did not. Plaintiffs want to present at trial, through discovery, that Bushmaster and other Defendants marketed the AR-15, extolling its virtues as a military rifle to the civilian population. Plaintiffs then hope to buttress their prayer for damages for wrongful death and to enjoin Defendants from marketing the weapon the AR-15 in Connecticut. The problem with this avenue of attack--apart from the fatal flaw flowing from the fact that there exists no basis in law upon which to ground actual or constructive knowledge on Defendant firearms manufacturers --is that marketing claims are often little more than puffery, utilized to support sale, but are not to be taken seriously. The fact is that the semiautomatic AR-15 is not a military assault rifle and saying that it is a military weapon does not make it so. If Defendants made such claims in their marketing of the rifle, such claims do not thereby turn a non-military weapon into a military weapon. Otherwise, any firearm is deemed a military weapon, and, in fact, those who abhor firearms seek to disarm the American citizenry of all firearms. That is clear enough from a consideration of the actions of antigun proponents--as they attack one category of firearms and then another, until all firearms are banned from the hands of American civilians. But, even if the Plaintiffs are rigThe NY Times, in its stories on the Soto case, gives a superficial treatment of the history of Soto along with a perfunctory, cursory treatment of abstruse issues of law—omitting any discussion of the Superior Court Judge’s well-reasoned opinion in support of dismissal of the case on Defendant Bushmaster’s (et. al.) Motion to Strike Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint. Had the Plaintiffs not appealed the case—which, again, is a costly proposition—that would have been the end of the matter.The case has wended its way to the Connecticut Supreme Court, where, according to the NY Times, the two sides presented oral argument. If Defendants prevail, that will effectively end the matter. If Plaintiffs prevail, the case will be remanded to the trial court, with instructions on how the case is to proceed.

WHY THIS CASE IS IMPORTANT

Although the Plaintiffs in their prayer for relief for wrongful death have demanded monetary damages, punitive damages, Attorneys fees, and Court costs, from Defendant, what Plaintiffs are really after is a complete, total ban, in Connecticut, of all semiautomatic firearms—all semiautomatic rifles that might be subsumed under the fiction, “assault weapons.”  One cannot but wonder if this case is being funded by well-heeled billionaires, like George Soros and Michael Bloomberg, whose antipathy toward the Second Amendment is well known. If such people are funding this lawsuit, the NY Times isn’t saying. In fact, there is a noticeable silence as to the costs of the lawsuit, which must be massive and likely well beyond the ability of Plaintiffs to fund it. If counsel for Plaintiffs are taking the case on contingency, still there are court costs associated with the case as well as the day-to-day work of the counsel to prepare the case. And, as the case lacks precedential support, it is a long-shot at best. So, again, we ask: who is funding this case?Apart from wrongful death claims, seeking damages, Plaintiffs in the Soto case, are praying for injunctive relief. They seek to obtain an order from a Connecticut Court that enjoins Defendants from marketing AR-15 type rifles in Connecticut. If they are successful in that endeavor, antigun proponents will likely bring similar suits against firearms manufacturers in other jurisdictions, and a Democratic Party controlled Congress would then draft a bill and attempt to enact a bill on the federal level, in effect placing semiautomatic rifles in the same position as fully automatic firearms are now placed. This is heinous and particularly dangerous to Americans’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms because a ban on so-called assault weapons would be implemented at the source—the manufacturer—rather than, after the fact of manufacture, through dealers. If Soto and the other Plaintiffs are successful in their endeavor, the impact on the civilian market will be dire. Consider: New production of fully automatic weapons and selective fire weapons are unavailable to civilians, under the National Firearms Act of 1934.  If the Soto Plaintiffs are successful in convincing the State Supreme Court to remand the case to the Superior Court for trial, and if the Soto Plaintiffs prevail, then semiautomatic firearms, namely those semiautomatic rifles defined as ‘assault weapons’ that trace their lineage to the original Armalite AR-15 rifle, will be treated like machine guns are now treated under the National Firearms Act of 1934. This means that, in Connecticut, no citizen who is a civilian, will be able to obtain a pristine, brand new mint AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, newly manufactured, just as no civilian can now obtain a mint condition, newly manufactured machine gun, or selective fire assault rifle, or submachine gun.The tacit goal of the National Firearms Act of 1934 is to make all fully automatic firearms unavailable to the civilian population. Once the present supply of previously manufactured fully automatic firearms or selective fire weapons are depleted, no civilian will be able to obtain one even if that person wishes to obtain one and notwithstanding that a person can obtain one so long as one does not fall within a federal disability that otherwise precludes that person from obtaining a true military, fully automatic machine gun or submachine gun or selective fire assault rifle or any other firearm. Similarly, if manufacturers are precluded from lawfully selling any semiautomatic firearm in the civilian market, they will not manufacture new weapons, and previously manufactured weapons, grandfathered in, would no longer be available to civilians once the present supply is exhausted. And those semiautomatic firearms that are available would be extremely costly to obtain--the prices rising to the stratosphere, as the present supply becomes sparse and finally exhausted.

SHOULD SUPPORTERS OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT BE UNDULY CONCERNED OVER THE SOTO CASE?

Even if the Soto Plaintiffs succeed in having their case remanded for trial to the Superior Court, that does not mean that Plaintiffs are likely to prevail in their case. The Connecticut Supreme Court has to provide the trial Court with guidance as to how the Soto case is to proceed to trial. While Plaintiffs seek a jury trial—a point emphasized by the NY Times--no supporter of the Second Amendment--that would also love to see a jury trial—it is more probable that the case will be decided on motions for summary judgment. Likely, once discovery has concluded, the Bushmaster Defendants will move for summary judgment and the Bushmaster Defendants should, then, prevail on the ground that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that Defendants are entitled to judgment in their favor as a matter of law.Likely, the Soto case will not even be remanded to the Superior Court for trial. We predict that the Connecticut Supreme Court will decide the case in favor of Defendants, affirming the Superior Court’s dismissal of the case. But, suppose the case proceeds to a jury trial and, suppose, further, that Plaintiffs prevail with a verdict in their favor, Defendants may still file a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, asking the Superior Court to set aside the verdict, on the ground that the evidence presented does not support judgment in favor of Plaintiffs. See, the Connecticut Supreme Court case, Labbe v. Hartford Pension Comm'n, 239 Conn. 168, 682 A.2d 490, 1996 LEXIS 340.But, if Plaintiffs ultimately do prevail—a longshot at best, as this would require ignoring Connecticut and federal Statutory law as well as ignoring a body of Connecticut common (case) law—the result only impacts Connecticut. Defendant firearms manufacturers, in Soto, are not precluded from manufacturing semiautomatic rifles of the type that Connecticut happens to ban. The downside is that an adverse decision against firearms manufacturers can have a ripple effect, emboldening similar actions in other States. Soto would be mark the first successful case against a firearms manufacturer, under PLCAA. If the Democratic Party takes over control of both Houses of Congress, it is possible, if highly unlikely, that Congress may enact, or at least propose, legislation similar to the National Firearms Act of 1934 as applied now to the manufacture of semiautomatic firearms. Firearms manufacturers would then be prevented from manufacturing new semiautomatic rifles for the civilian market. That is a worst case scenario but one that antigun groups and antigun legislators, and the mainstream media, are hoping for, if not betting on. If firearms manufacturers are prohibited, by federal Statute, from manufacturing new semiautomatic rifles, then what happens next? A ban on the manufacture of all semiautomatic firearms for the civilian market? A ban on the manufacture of all double action revolvers for the civilian market? A ban on the manufacture of all single action revolvers for the civilian market? A ban on the manufacture of muzzleloaders for the civilian market? Well, you get the picture!_________________________________________________*The Arbalest Quarrel, for its part, will provide a comprehensive discussion of the well written opinion of the Connecticut Superior Court judge, in a separate article, to be posted shortly on the Arbalest Quarrel website, to be followed with an analysis of selected briefs of Plaintiffs and Defendants in the case and a review of a few amicus briefs._________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK TIMES BLAMES GUN FOR LUNATIC’S MURDEROUS RAMPAGE AT BRONX-LEBANON HOSPITAL IN NEW YORK CITY

NEW YORK TIMES BLAMES GUN FOR LUNATIC’S MURDEROUS RAMPAGE AT BRONX-LEBANON HOSPITAL IN NEW YORK CITY

Introduction to multipart series article on New York Times fake news story

“Lux et Veritas”: “Light and Truth.” Don’t expect to find either in the New York Times.

After the tragic incident at the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, on Friday, June 30, 2017, when a lunatic, Henry Bello, an unlicensed, Nigerian-born “doctor” and irate employee of the Hospital—let go for good cause—sexual harassment—went on a shooting spree, killing one person, a physician, and seriously wounding several others before taking his own life, the New York Times wasted no time, casting blame and aspersion on the party the Times holds to be truly responsible for the crimes of murder and attempted murder: a firearm, variously and ineptly described by the newspaper reporters writing the story, Marc Santora and Al Baker, as an “assault rifle”—which it wasn’t or as an “assault weapon,” which it couldn’t be, since there is, really, no such weapon. The expression, ‘assault weapon,’ is nothing more than a legal fiction, drummed up by antigun media sorts, for psychological effect, and used by antigun groups and like-minded politicians to deny Americans their fundamental and natural right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. The firearm—that the “health care provider,” Henry Bello, used to deprive one health care provider, a physician, of her life, and who then seriously injured several more health care providers, attempting to deprive them of their life and well-being—would be described simply but at least accurately as a semiautomatic rifle, and more descriptively and accurately as an AM15 Optic Ready .223/5.56 Caliber M4 AR-15 Rifle, manufactured by Anderson Manufacturing, lawfully modified by a licensed New York gunsmith to conform to New York State law.The Times reporters, Santora and Baker, clearly blame the rifle for the horrific crimes committed by a lunatic, in whom blame really, and solely, rests. The blame that Santora and Baker thrust more on the M4 AR-15 Rifle, and less on Bello, is tacit but nonetheless clear enough, as the reporters argue that, but for the rifle, the tragedy that occurred at the Hospital would not have taken place.Santora and Baker create a fairy tale disguised as a news story to suggest the rifle is the principal perpetrator—not Bello, who pulled the trigger, because Bello couldn’t help himself. You see, Bello is, or rather was—before the rifle turned on him or before Bello turned the rifle on himself—mentally ill.The Times newspaper in a follow-up article to the deadly Bronx-Lebanon shooting, posted on-line, on July 3, 2017, and published, in the print edition of the paper, on July 4, 2017, with the title, “Despite Strict Gun Law, Doctor was able to Buy Assault rifle,” makes abundantly clear that the M4-AR 15 rifle must be perceived as the central character and the main culprit in the incident as the reporters, Santora and Baker, who wrote the story, focus their attention on the rifle, rather than on Bello. That isn’t to say the Times reporters don’t also focus their attention on other culpable players in the tragic incident. For, Santora and Baker mention others who abetted the M4-AR15 rifle—the principal assailant—and who abetted Bello, who was more along for the ride.The reporters cast a wide net. They blame the gunsmith who modified the weapon to conform to the New York Safe Act so that a New York gun dealer could lawfully sell the weapon. They also blame the gun dealer who lawfully sold the modified M4-AM 15 to Bello. And, finally, the Times reporters blame the NY Safe Act, itself, for the tragedy that occurred at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital because, as the Times reporters strongly suggest, the SAFE Act, strict as it is, isn’t strict and restrictive enough—not nearly strict and restrictive enough.The Arbalest Quarrel explains in a series of in depth articles that follow this introduction, previously posted as one, unbroken essay on the Arbalest Quarrel website, and to be posted in multiple parts on Ammoland Sporting Shooting Sports News, how the New York Times’ implicit bias toward and against firearms generally and against civilian possession and ownership of firearms particularly colors its news accounts so that what the public takes to be factual news coverage of specific events, appearing in the news section of the publication, is really an opinion piece, masked as a factual news piece, that really belongs in the editorial section of the newspaper.The New York Times newspaper, as with other mainstream media organizations, makes much of the notion of “fake news,” when vigorously attacking alternative media sources, but never once admits that the Times newspaper, itself, is often a main source of its own “fake news.” Whence cometh "Fake News?"“Fake news” is a thing conceived or contrived by the mainstream media as a device or conceit to attack alternative news and commentary sources, which the mainstream media perceives, and, admittedly and rightly so, as a mechanism to counteract mainstream news media influence over the American public."Fake news" is an expression that has, through overuse, principally by the mainstream news media that first commenced use of it, become nothing more than cliché.  It is the mainstream news media that is truly the perpetrator of "fake news" and has used it to sway public opinion. But, what is this thing, referred to as “fake news," really?”What “fake news” really refers to is fabricated stories. It is not merely false news—in the sense that the reporters or distributors of the news are delivering false news of events inadvertently as they are not aware that the news is false—but a more serious affront to conscience, where the reporters or distributors of the news deliberately conceive and distribute contrived stories—stories that are specifically designed to deceive the target audience--to induce, in the target audience, false perceptions of events—stories designed to mislead the target audience and to sway public opinion in a specific direction, a direction designed to further the aims and goals of mainstream media’s powerful wealthy benefactors—those forces at work, behind the scenes, whose aims are antithetical to the aims of and antithetical to the best interests of this Nation and of its people. The mainstream media has, accordingly, evolved into a propaganda machine—a well-oiled and well-funded tool of those forces that seek to undermine the rights and liberties of the American people—especially the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.While the First Amendment guarantee of Freedom of the Press precludes any attempt by the Government to abridge that Freedom, there is nothing in the First Amendment that precludes the Press from presenting biased reports of the news. But bias in the news is what the American public receives daily from the mainstream media. A prime example of implicit bias in the news is seen in mainstream media’s attempt, to sway public opinion on the matter of civilian ownership and possession of firearms.In the Times article, “Despite Strict Gun Law, Doctor Was Able to Buy Gun,” that we deconstruct, we point to specific factual errors made pertaining to the firearm the Times reporters, Messrs. Santora and Baker,   talk about in the story. To those individuals who might assert that the Arbalest Quarrel is merely quibbling, we point out that factual errors about guns is a serious matter.If the mainstream media attempts to make a case for restrictive gun laws, it should, at the very least, know of what it speaks. But, obviously, the mainstream media knows little about the technical aspects of firearms that it writes about. Worse, it doesn’t care. Worst of all, the mainstream media concocts a mythology about guns that has absolutely no basis in reality and is designed to induce, in the public, fear and loathing toward firearms and to mistrust those who support and respect the right embodied in the Second Amendment that the framers of the U.S. Constitution felt strongly enough about to set in stone.The mainstream media, which includes the NY Times newspaper, apparently believes it can, when it chooses, be sloppy when talking about the news, and the Times is often sloppy. Now, it is one thing for a news source to provide erroneous information about firearms out of ignorance, and we see that constantly in articles about firearms. Sloppiness in news articles may be the result of ignorance or it may be the result of a rush to make a deadline. In either event such ignorance may be forgiven if a correction or retraction is in the offing. However, when a major news source, that reaches millions of Americans, makes the same error over and over, it is reasonable to conclude, and we do conclude, that erroneous remarks about firearms are the result of something more than ignorance or a casual disregard toward reporting on them and about them. What we are seeing is nothing less than a deliberate, callous, deceitful, orchestrated program of conscious deception, to make the public induce Americans to relinquish their fundamental right to keep and bear arms—our birthright.“Truth in reporting” on the news involves more than disgorging statements that ostensibly cohere with or correspond to specific “facts” about the world.A trustworthy news organization should ever be mindful of the subliminal effect the narrative of a story has on the audience because the narrative—the theme of the story—is always inextricably intertwined in and linked to the statements made.Narratives of articles appearing in the news section of a paper should always be functionally neutral. That is not always possible, of course. Still, a reputable news organization should—indeed, must—strive to achieve neutrality in its news accounts. That should always be the goal of any news organization. That is what news organizations and publications, such as the New York Times, will pointedly say that it delivers. But that is a double lie. The Times does not invariably provide accurate news accounts of the events and subjects its reporters write about even if it says it does. And, with mainstream media news accounts pertaining to firearms, the public rarely, if ever, sees accurate, neutral reporting of the news—for that isn’t the aim of the Times or of other mainstream news organizations and publications. We, personally, have never seen neutral accurate reporting about firearms in mainstream media.The Bronx-Lebanon Hospital tragedy is merely the latest, or certainly one of the latest of serious tragedies to occur in this Nation. But, by making the firearm the deceased killer, Henry Bello, used in the shooting, the focus of the story, rather than Henry Bello, himself, the reporters suggest that the firearm has a will of its own. The reporters induce an irrational fear of firearms in the mind of the public.You would think that Times reporters would attempt to alleviate fear of guns—as guns are merely inanimate objects. Instead, the Times Reporters, Messrs. Santora and Baker, magnify that fear, intensify it, suggesting that fear of guns is a healthy response to guns—suggesting that guns have a will of their own and that will—an evil will—is one that influences the wielder of the firearm to commit heinous acts, such as those committed by Henry Bello. It is a ridiculous notion, but one that we see conveyed over and over again in the mainstream media--usually tacitly, but sometimes, bizarrely enough, overtly too.This irrational fear of guns is broadcast in the mainstream media, throughout the Country. Today a child in public school who so much as points a finger at another child, suggestive of a gun, and says, “bang,” is forthwith immediately suspended and that child’s parents are contacted by the School Board officials who then encourage the parents to seek psychiatric care for the child. Really? Who is it that is in dire need of psychiatric care, here? Is it the child? Is it the young child who likes to play “soldier” or “cowboys and Indians” with a toy gun, or is the members of the School Board who have been conditioned and brainwashed by false narratives they see on “news” programs or that they read about in newspapers, such as the New York Times?A retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel, Jeff Cooper, has coined a word to describe this irrational fear of guns—a fear that manifests, in the mind of a susceptible person, that a firearm is a sentient being, harboring evil intentions—that a firearm is a demon. This irrational fear of guns is called, “hoplophobia,” and this fear is not ameliorated by mainstream media news accounts. Rather, mainstream media news accounts deliberately generate this fear. Such behavior by seemingly reputable news organizations is reprehensible, unforgivable.If publications like the New York Times intend to thrust their animosity toward firearms and toward civilian ownership of firearms on the public, then there is a place for the publications to do so. It is called the editorial section of a newspaper. Opinions belong in the editorial section of a newspaper, not in the news section. Reporting on the news and commenting or reflecting on the news are two different things. The New York Times, as with many if not most other mainstream news publications and news broadcasting organizations, is notorious for intermingling and conflating news reporting and news commentary, suggesting, deviously, to the target audience, that, what happens to appear in the news section of its paper, is neutral news report, not opinion, when in fact, the New York Times and others of its ilk are deceiving those members of the public that do not and cannot see the difference—which even for astute communications and propaganda specialists—is not often readily discernible, except through careful analysis. This conflation of news reporting, on the one hand, and news commentary or news opinion, on the other, is by design. And the Times, unfortunately, isn’t the only mainstream news publication that does this. News commentary that appears in the editorial section of a newspaper is understood to be biased. That is fine. That is opinion, and the public knows or should know that opinion equates with implicit bias. Opinion is not expected to be neutral. And, implicit bias, when it isn’t cloaked as such, is acceptable, even welcomed. Public policy is grounded as much on opinion—about what a government should do—as much as by the events in the world that may require the development and implementation of policy to deal with those events. But when news is intertwined with opinion, as we see regularly in mainstream news publications and broadcasts, then news reports are “colored.” What is happening in the world becomes blended with what a particular reporter of the news believes is happening in the world—and that belief is always colored by one’s personal biases and values, and by ones hopes and fears and expectations, and all too often those beliefs are false.When assertions cohere with or correspond with facts, we say assertions are true. When assertions do not cohere with or correspond with facts, we say assertions are false. When assertions, true or not, are blended with value judgments, “ought” statements or “should” statements, such statements or assertions are not about the world. They are, rather, about one’s personal beliefs about the way the world ought to be, not the way the world is.Messrs. Santora and Baker have, in their “news article, made statements, knowingly or not, that are false. Worse, they have taken those false statements, predicated on their own false beliefs about firearms, and have concocted a fairy tale about guns. They have taken events, accurately reported about Bello, and about the NY Safe Act--factually true statements about the world--but, surreptitiously, blended those facts with fiction. They then draw tacit conclusions about reforming the NY Safe Act to make the Act ever more restrictive, consistent with both their personal distaste for firearms and with their false beliefs about them. Thus, they turn what is supposed to be a neutral news story into an opinion piece, but masked as a news story since it appears in the news section of the Times publication instead of in the editorial section of the paper. This is not acceptable, honorable, journalistic behavior, unfitting for any organization that prides itself “on all the news that’s fit to print.”The Arbalest Quarrel explains in detail exactly how Times Reporters Santora and Baker distort the news by inserting or injecting personal biases into their story, and, how, by tacitly arguing for reformation of the SAFE Act, consistent with their biases and false beliefs, they represent powerful interests in this Country and abroad, who seek to undermine the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.The Arbalest Quarrel has attempted to contact Messrs. Santora and Baker, to defend their distortions about firearms. Mr. Bill Frady, host of the famed, “Lock N Load" Radio Show, has invited these two Times reporters to appear on his program. The Arbalest Quarrel would look forward to debating Messrs. Santora and Baker over the manner of their reporting and on assertions they make regarding the particulars of firearms and ammunition that they talk about in their article.If the New York Times wishes to engage in dialogue with us over the “gun” issue, the Arbalest Quarrel will be more than happy to do oblige. We would look forward to an open dialogue about the technical aspects of firearms, and the manner in which false information about firearms is delivered to the public. We would specifically like to engage the New York Times in a frank discussion over their news narratives that we see as no less than editorials and arguments for more restrictive gun laws, disguised as neutral news reports.As of the posting of this article on the Arbalest Quarrel weblog and on Ammoland Shooting Sports News, we have not heard back from the NY Times reporters.______________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.  

NEW YORK TIMES INSINUATES BRONX-LEBANON HOSPITAL SHOOTER, HENRY BELLO, DID NOT ACT ALONE; HE HAD ACCOMPLICES.

NEW YORK TIMES INSINUATES BRONX-LEBANON HOSPITAL SHOOTER, HENRY BELLO, DID NOT ACT ALONE; HE HAD ACCOMPLICES.

NEW YORK TIMES INTIMATES RESPONSIBILITY FOR BRONX-LEBANON HOSPITAL TRAGEDY RESTS WITH THREE PARTIES ALONG WITH HENRY BELLO—ONE OF WHOM IS THE TRUE MASTERMIND BEHIND THE CARNAGE BELLO WROUGHT

By now, anyone who keeps abreast of National news is aware of the tragedy that occurred recently at Bronx Lebanon Hospital in New York City. News accounts point out that a “physician” from Nigeria, Henry Bello, went on a shooting spree after having his limited hospital privileges revoked. Although the Hospital used the appellation “Doctor” to describe Bello’s position with the hospital, Henry Bello did not have the privileges of a medical doctor because Bello did not have a license to practice medicine in New York. The Hospital ultimately terminated Bello’s employment, and it did so for good cause: sexual harassment. Bello, obviously in a rage over the termination of his employment with the Hospital, decided to get even.The matter of sexual harassment, though, ought not have come as a surprise to the Hospital Administrators—which should have given careful thought before they hired Henry Bello—because Bello has a criminal record that includes, among other things, the crime of sexual abuse. Other incidents in his life, as reported through a multitude of news accounts, available to anyone through a simple internet search, point to a mentally unstable person—a person who certainly had no place in a Hospital setting, in the capacity of an employee. Is what had transpired at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital an instance of a theme one sees in a typical Hollywood horror film--i.e., a psychotic patient posing as a staff physician, fooling Hospital staff, visitors, and patients, and then going berserk--killing and injuring people at random, once having fallen into a murderous rage over a perceived wrong. What occurred at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, though, is factual, not a fictional Hollywood script. To make the argument that Hospital Administration hired Henry Bello because the Hospital happened to be short-staffed merely demonstrates desperation substituting for and overriding common-sense. Clearly, there existed, at the Hospital, both security lapses and employee hiring lapses. What actions are Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Administration officials taking to correct these obvious lapses in policy and judgment?Hopefully, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital will give more thought to its hiring practices going forward, since, obviously, the Hospital's past practices are quite sloppy. And, once Hospital Administration reappraises its hiring policies, it should also consider reevaluating its security policies. Bronx-Lebanon Hospital ought to ask how an individual could secret a rifle into the Hospital and why, apparently, the Hospital had no armed security officers at the Hospital’s entrance and at its reception desk. Furthermore, if security officers were present at the Hospital’s reception desk, how is it that none of them managed to discover an assailant walking past them, hiding a bulky weapon—a rifle, not a handgun—under a thin lab coat? In that regard, it appears that this tragic incident was not the first to occur at the Hospital.Mainstream news accounts do not spend time investigating how an individual, once in Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, had sufficient time to murder one person, a physician, and wound several more, stalking the interior of the Hospital. Mainstream media news sources gloss over these matters, at best, or fail to mention them at all. The New York Times, for its part, ultimately turned its attention to and expressed keen interest investigating and reporting on Henry Bello’s accomplices in the crime.

NEW YORK TIMES ALLUDES TO BELLO’S ACCOMPLICES IN THE COMMISSION OF HIS HEINOUS ACTS

You didn’t know that Bello had accomplices, did you? But, it seems that he did, for the New York Times makes abundantly clear Henry Bello did not act alone—that he did not truly act alone—when he went on his murderous shooting rampage at the Hospital, killing one physician and shooting several more people before the carnage ended—with Bello’s principal accomplice turning on Bello, himself.

ABOUT THOSE ACCOMPLICES—

The Times strongly suggests that Henry Bello had one principal accomplice who assisted him in carrying out the multiple crime and two others who abetted him. The name of the principal accomplice—indeed, the master architect of the crimes—is, as can be gleaned from a perusal of a recent NY Times story, none other than what the Times refers to as the "assault weapon," a.k.a., the “assault rifle.”  In a Times story, titled, “Despite Strict Gun Law, Doctor Was Able to Buy Assault Rifle,” published Tuesday, July 4, 2017, Times journalists, Marc Santora and Al Baker, assert that Bello “carried a semiautomatic AM-15, which is Anderson Manufacturing’s version of the AR-15, a civilian rifle, close in design to the M-16.” * A digital version of the story, available to subscribers of the NY Times and non-subscribers of the paper, alike, was posted one day earlier, on July 3, 2017. The digital version of the story is titled slightly differently, through inclusion of the word, ‘Troubled,’ appearing before the word, ‘Doctor’: “Despite Strict Gun Law, Troubled Doctor Was Able to Buy Assault Rifle.” More precisely, the manufacturer of the rifle, Anderson Manufacturing, designates the rifle as the “AM15 Optic Ready .223/5.56 Caliber M4 AR-15 Rifle.”But the New York Times newspaper reporters, Messrs. Santora and Baker, do not, apparently, exhibit an interest in providing the public with those details since it does nothing to move the narrative along--a narrative the newspaper wishes to project on the screen of the American public’s consciousness—namely that guns are evil personified and must, in good conscience, be outlawed.A photograph of the rifle Bello used during his murderous rampage at the Bronx Hospital appears immediately to the left of a photograph of Bello himself on page “A15” of the print edition of the Times newspaper. The photographs carry a strong message. The message is that the fault for the tragedy that occurred rests not merely on Bello but, more particularly, on the rifle.The appearance of the rifle, directly to the left of Bello, in the print edition of the news story graphics—below which the caption reads, in part, “Dr. Bello and the AM-15 that he used,”—is not and should not be considered mere happenstance.Readers of English, as those of other Indo-European language, read, left to right. As advertisers and psychologists know, the eye is trained to emphasize words and graphics that appear to the left of one’s visual gaze and to minimize those that appear to the right of one’s visual gaze, consistent with the way a reader of English or of other Indo-European languages, from an early age, is trained to read. Thus, scanning an image or word is managed and emphasized, “left to right.”By juxtaposing a photograph of the rifle next to and to the left of the photograph of Bello, the editors of the NY Times, responsible for the placement of words and graphics in the Times newspaper, create the impression—whether consciously or not, but probably consciously—that the implement Bello employed in carrying out his crimes—the AM15 Optic Ready .223/5.56 Caliber M4 AR-15 Rifle—is, truly, the real culprit—the main perpetrator, evil doer, and mastermind of the crime—and that Bello, who pulled the trigger, less so—that Bello happened merely to be the toady who pulled the trigger, as commanded by the M4 AR-15 Rifle.Thus, Henry Bello happened simply to be more along for the ride. In this way, the subliminal message conveyed to the reader of the Times story is that both the rifle used to commit horrible crimes and the individual who utilized the rifle are both sentient beings: one of whom is truly evil—the AM15 Optic Ready .223/5.56 Caliber M4 AR-15 Rifle, and the other, who is not, namely, Henry Bello, who is--now, was--simply mentally ill--seriously mentally ill--and therefore, not responsible for his actions. The message: blame the AM15 Optic Ready .223/5.56 Caliber M4 AR-15 Rifle, not the man; place the ill individuals in a mental health facility, and, at once, eradicate firearms.The public is presented with the sad, inevitable, inescapable conclusion, consistent with the subconscious messaging projected, that the rifle, the M4 AR-15 Rifle, is Public Enemy No. 1—a Public enemy beyond redemption, that will ever remain so, but that Henry Bello is not, or, if he had remained alive, not beyond redemption. We are to believe that Henry Bello is—that is to say, was—basically a good man in a bad Karma and that he was brought to do horrific acts—ever more horrific acts because he was a health care provider—through the diabolical machinations of another, the M4 AR-15 Rifle. Had the M4 AR-15 Rifle not turned on Bello, Bello likely would have argued, at trial, in his defense, that the actions of unspeakable savagery, should be ascribed to the M4 AR-15, that made him do it--after all Bello was seriously mentally ill-no question about it--and the Times reporters acknowledge as much. Having commanded Bello to kill himself, rather than to give himself up to the police, the M4 AR-15 has thereupon successfully eliminated the one perpetrator that can effectively cast blame on “him”—“the Rifle”—but the M4 AR-15 Rifle isn’t talking, and isn’t expected ever to cooperate with investigators.Were the Times editors, who created and positioned the graphics that appeared with the print edition of the story, aware of the impression they were creating with the graphics that were used in association with the newsprint edition of the story? Perhaps so, if we give the Times editors credit as psychologists and experts in the field of propaganda.As we know full well, the Times is notorious for creating illusions and allusions about guns: false notions about guns and hints about the “nature” of guns, as if guns have “natures” at all and that they can and do behave like the worst of people amongst us, not unlike any sentient being. The authors of the Times article, Messrs. Santora and Baker, suggest, as well, that there were two additional accomplices to the crimes—those that were not at the scene of  the crimes but who were, nonetheless enablers of the crimes committed by the M4 AR-15 Rifle and by Bello: one, the dealer, who lawfully sold Bello the rifle he used to kill an innocent individual—a medical doctor—and to seriously injure several other innocent people; and, two, the gunsmith—holder of both a valid federal firearms license (“FFL”) and a valid New York State gunsmith license, who lawfully modified the rifle (the “Optic Ready .223/5.56 Caliber M4 AR-15 Rifle”) to conform to New York’s restrictive gun laws that then allowed the dealer to lawfully sell the rifle to an individual, Bello, the killer, who, was not under disability.The Times’ reporters, in a scarcely disguised attempt to implicate and castigate both the gunsmith and the dealer—particularly the dealer, who sold the Rifle to Bello—as we can glean from both the graphic of the dealer’s store and of the dealer’s vehicle--as the graphics, accompanying the story create a distinct and unflattering impression, completely unfair, that the dealer is somewhat of an unsavory individual for being a dealer in firearms at all. To emphasize the point, Messrs. Santora and Baker point to the location of the Gun dealer’s store, adjacent to a used-car dealership, a fact, yes, but a fact completely irrelevant to the story, and yet, at once, suggestive of the idea that a gun dealer and a used car dealer both operate morally dubious and objectionable businesses, not unlike those purveyors of payday loans and pornography.The Times reporters suggest that these two abettors of Bello—the gun dealer and the gunsmith—are definitely morally culpable even if not legally culpable in the matter of Bello’s actions and of the actions of the principal criminal, the M4 AR-15 Rifle—under a philosophical notion and legal theory of causation. In other words, we are to believe that, if the gunsmith had not modified the M4 AR-15 Rifle, to conform to the New York law, the rifle could not have been lawfully sold in the State to average, law-abiding citizens, who are not under disability; and had the dealer who lawfully sold the rifle to Bello, not obtained the rifle from the gunsmith to sell to Bello, then Bello would not have used that rifle to commit the horrific acts he committed. This chain of causation is aptly demonstrated in a child’s nursery rhyme, by "Mother Goose": “This is the House that Jack Built.”What is left unsaid but what is certainly true, though, is that, as long as Bello operated in murderous frenzy mode, he would still have committed his acts of murder and mayhem: if not with the M4 AR-15 Rifle, then, perhaps, with another firearm, or if not with a firearm, then perhaps with a knife, or with a hatchet, or with a bomb, or with anything else at hand. A reasonably intelligent person can devise many effective ways to destroy human life, and destroy human life relatively quickly, if destruction is in the heart and mind of that person.The journalists, Messrs. Santora and Baker are adamant in their insinuation that the gun dealer and the gunsmith ought not to be ignored in the blame game the reporters construct—and Messrs. Santora and Baker do not ignore them, spending substantial time talking about them in their story. Messrs. Santora and Baker apparently consider both the licensed gun dealer and the licensed gunsmith to be participants in Bello’s brutal actions, along with the principal killer, the M4 AR-15 Rifle—passive participants to be sure, but critical players and factors in the equation of violence that occurred, since, as they present in their NY Times story, but for the actions of the gun dealer and the gunsmith, Bello would not have committed the horrific crimes he did commit with the implement he employed—the M4 AR-15 Rifle; and that, but for the very existence of the M4 AR-15 Rifle or any other firearm, there would be no tragedy. But, is that true? Obviously, that statement is not true, and there is no reasonable basis for that tacit conjecture.Bello intended to cause serious harm. If a firearm were not available, he would have found some other implement. No doubt about it--another implement that would have been just as effective--perhaps a butcher knife or an axe. But, Bello did not use a butcher knife or axe to commit horrific crimes. He used a firearm, and since it is firearms that the mainstream media is forever focused on, as the source of many if not most of the major ills in society, the fact that a firearm happened to be utilized by Bello in the death of one individual and in the injury of several others, that fact plays well into the narrative the mainstream media, such as the narrative New York Times newspaper, loves to play into and relishes: namely, that restrictive firearms laws, such as the New York Safe Act, must be made ever more strict. But why is that? What is it about the firearms that creates in the minds of those that perceive “the gun” as the object, the focus of attention when an individual uses it to harm another--the focus of such morbid fascination? The public sees no such focus of attention on the implements employed to harm others when that implement is a knife, or an axe, or an automobile. Mainstream news media sources maintain that “the gun” is an implement that enables a person to kill efficiently, quickly. Yet, a person can in fact kill many people just as efficiently and effectively with a knife, or with an axe, or with an automobile. But, then knives and axes and automobiles are not implements specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. The right of the people to keep and bear arms—referring, specifically to firearms, as the f0unders of a free Republic and the framers of the Constitution intended—is a right specifically, expressly codified in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution—in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. But, the Second Amendment, as with the entirety of the Constitution, is an “old” document. The mainstream media considers the Second Amendment to be outdated, archaic, anachronistic. Reporters, such as Santora and Baker of the New York Times, suggest as much. They take the position that the Second Amendment may have had import and purpose at one time but that it doesn’t any longer and that the Country would be better off were the Second Amendment to be ignored, and, therefore, de facto repealed. Since, then, from their perspective, the right of the people to keep and bear arms has no legitimate, reasonable purpose in this day and age, no one should have expectations that anyone, not under disability, may legitimately, lawfully exercise that right as one will. So, the reporters, Santora and Baker, cast about looking for those individuals, apart from a lunatic and a killer, Henry Bello, in which to place blame for the horrible tragedy that occurred at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital. Messrs Santora and Baker make much of the fact that the gunsmith that modified the M4 AR-15 Rifle that Bello utilized to kill one person and to seriously injure several others at the Hospital was exercising a loophole through which a banned firearm, called variously, an ‘assault weapon’ and ‘assault rifle’—the former expression which is simply a legal fiction, and the latter expression which, as applied to the M4 AR-15 Rifle, manufactured for the civilian market, not for the military or law enforcement, is a misnomer, and , in either case, the two expressions are not synonyms and therefore are not interchangeable—allowed a banned weapon to be sold legally in New York through modifications to the weapon. The idea conveyed by Messrs. Santora and Baker is that the gunsmith who made the modifications that allowed the M4 AR-15 Rifle to be sold lawfully in New York to those individuals, not under disability, as the expression, ‘disability’ is defined in the U.S. Code, 18 USCS § 922(g), and the dealer who lawfully sold the M4 AR-15 Rifle to Bello, ought to be implicated in the crimes, precisely because they utilized loopholes in the New York Safe Act to avoid the import of the Act. But, this is no different than a professional CPA who lawfully uses loopholes in the Federal Tax Code to benefit his or her client. Now, it is not a reasonable response to say that, after all, a CPA lawfully using perceived loopholes in the Federal Tax Code to benefit a client is not harming and cannot harm another human being while a New York gunsmith and a New York gun dealer that use loopholes in the New York State Penal Code to legally sell an otherwise illegal weapon to a person, not under disability, does allow the purchaser of the weapon potentially at least—and, in the Bronx-Lebanon case, actually—to harm or kill another human being. For, the gunsmith that modified the M4 AR-15 Rifle that permitted the weapon to be sold lawfully in New York, and the gun dealer who lawfully sold the M4 AR-15 Rifle to Henry Bello, did not deviously, insidiously, devise schemes to avoid the import of the SAFE Act. Rather, the SAFE Act itself is a devious, insidious, scheme—a massive loophole—to slither around the import and purport of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In fact, it is highly unlikely that the SAFE Act of New York and similar draconian firearms’ Acts presently in force in other jurisdictions would survive U.S. Supreme Court review. But, then, those legislators and jurists who hold nothing but contempt for the Second Amendment see no reason why they cannot treat the natural right, codified in the Second Amendment, with disdain. So, we see politicians and jurists and journalists voicing vociferous distaste for and utter disdain toward the right of the people to keep and bear arms in the legislation drafted, in the opinions reported, and in the articles written, operating as either express or implied attacks on the sanctity of the natural right codified in the Second Amendment.Messrs. Santora and Baker would likely protest that the NY SAFE Act must go further and more must be done to prevent individuals, not under disability, but who, like Henry Bello, present a danger to self and to others when they have access to firearms. That does present a conundrum, but one no different than the dangers posed by those who have no business being behind the wheel of an automobile. We do not see States constantly imposing new requirements on motorists; but, for all that, the right of the people to drive vehicles on public roads is not expressly established in the Bill of Rights, although one might make the claim that such right might be presumed as existing under the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as an unenumerated right. But, such a right would not, in any event, be construed, nor should it be construed, as a right of the same magnitude as that right codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.But, in responding to those who insist that restrictive gun laws must be enacted to prevent those individuals, who, like Henry Bello, present potential problems before the fact, from obtaining firearms, how might that be accomplished? The short answer is that it cannot and ought not be accomplished. The fact is that it is dangerous to presume on past conduct precisely what a person will do in the future. Today, millions of law-abiding citizens, and non-citizens who legally reside in the U.S., possess firearms and pose no danger to themselves or to anyone else. If draconian gun laws are enacted in an attempt to weed out anyone deemed to pose a potential risk to self or others if that person has access to firearms, how do we go about weeding out those individuals? The fact of the matter is that the occasional lunatic, as with the occasional drunkard behind the wheel of a car, will do harm. We know that. But the danger posed is minimal, and minimal as it is, that danger can be reduced yet further--through the arming of more citizens, not disarming them. But if Government is permitted to exert ever more control over the lives of millions of rational, law-abiding citizens in order to successfully weed out the few potential risks, a greater harm to a free Republic and to the rights and liberties codified in the Bill of Rights exists.Neither a State Government nor the federal Government should be permitted to place ever increasing restrictions on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The risk posed by criminal elements in society and by lunatics is far and away less significant than risks posed to the preservation of our Republic and to the preservation of the rights and liberties of Americans.There exist forces in America today that seek to align our values with those of Western European Nations. Social, political, economic, and philosophical constructs, such as liberal democracy, multiculturalism, bilingualism, neoliberalism, globalization, and open borders are not consistent with the rights and liberties codified in our Nation’s Bill of Rights, and, particularly, those social, political, economic and philosophical constructs are not consistent with our Nation’s Second Amendment. No other Nation on Earth has, within its Constitution, anything remotely like our Second Amendment. For, the right of the people to keep and bear arms exists intrinsically and inextricably in the individual. It is not a privilege bestowed on the citizens or subjects of a Country by Government. That such right of the people to keep and bear arms be recognized as residing in the individual, the Second Amendment must not be toyed with. The NY Safe Act is an abomination. The very language of the Statute betrays the unalienable right codified in the Second Amendment and illustrates Government’s distrust of and contempt for the individual. Further restrictions imposed on the right of the people to keep and bear arms demonstrates a profound disconnect between Government and the people governed. There are mechanisms to deal effectively with people like Henry Bello. The answer, once again, is to arm more people, not to disarm them. Tragedies do happen through misuse of firearms, as with misuse of other objects. But, restrictive gun laws that attempt to foreclose the harm caused by a few, foreclose, as well, and worse, the right of the many to have access to firearms for self-defense. Restrictive gun laws are incompatible with our Nation’s Constitution and with the continuation of our Country as an independent sovereign Nation and free Republic.The journalists, Messrs. Santora and Baker are adamant in their insinuation that the gun dealer and the gunsmith ought not to be ignored in the blame game the reporters construct—and Messrs. Santora and Baker do not ignore them, spending substantial time talking about them in their story. Messrs. Santora and Baker apparently consider both the licensed gun dealer and the licensed gunsmith to be participants in Bello’s brutal actions, along with the principal killer, the the M4 AR-15 Rifle—passive participants to be sure, but critical players and factors in the equation since, but for the actions of the gun dealer and the gunsmith, Bello would not have committed the horrific crimes he did commit with the implement he employed—the M4 AR-15 Rifle; and that, but for the very existence of the M4 AR-15 Rifle or any other firearm, there would be no tragedy. But, there is no basis for that tacit conjecture. Bello intended to cause serious harm. If a firearm were not available, he would have found some other implement. No doubt about it--another implement that would have been just as effective--perhaps a butcher knife or an axe. But, Bello did not use a butcher knife or axe to commit horrific crimes. He used a firearm, and since it is firearms that the mainstream media is forever focused on, as the source of many if not most of the major ills in society, the fact that a firearm happened to be utilized by Bello in the death of one individual and in the injury of several others, that fact plays well into the narrative the mainstream media, such as the New York Times newspaper, loves to play into and relishes: namely, that restrictive firearms laws, such as the New York Safe Act, must be made ever more strict.However, that it was that Henry Bello employed an the M4 AR-15 Rifle to kill one individual and to seriously injure a half dozen others and given the Times' particular fascination with blaming firearms for a multitude of sins in society, it is no surprise that the Times reporters would cast a wide net to condemn both the licensed gunsmith who lawfully modified the M4 AR-15 Rifle to conform to New York State gun laws and the dealer who lawfully sold the modified M4 AR-15 Rifle to Henry Bello. Thus, the Times reporters, Santora and Baker, give some  measure of “credit” for the horrific crimes Bello committed with the M4 AR-15 Rifle to the licensed gun dealer and to the licensed gunsmith  even though the New York gun dealer and the new York gunsmith did not know, and could not have known and certainly would not, willingly, have abetted Bello’s criminal actions had they known of Bello’s murderous inclinations and intentions.

AS RESTRICTIVE AS THE NEW YORK SAFE ACT IS,  NEW YORK TIMES REPORTERS, SANTORA AND BAKER ARGUE THAT THE SAFE ACT ISN’T AS STRICT AS IT NEEDS TO BE—THAT IT IS NOT NEARLY AS RESTRICTIVE AS IT OUGHT TO BE.

The Times reporters strongly suggest that the SAFE Act, strict as it is, isn’t strict enough. They are asserting that the SAFE Act has “loopholes” that need to be closed. But, to make that point, the NY Times plays fast and loose with facts concerning so-called assault weapons and would deny access of firearms to millions of law-abiding New York residents based on the reprehensible actions of a few lunatics and psychopathic criminal elements in society. But should restrictions impacting the sacred right of the people to keep and bear arms be drawn based on the lowest common denominator in society? Or, is the call for ever more restrictive gun laws, ostensibly to deal with lunatics and criminal psychopaths, no more than a convenient, seemingly palatable makeweight? Is the desire of  the gun grabbers for more and more restrictive gun laws not really designed to disarm the tens of millions of law-abiding, sane Americans who seek merely to exercise their personal right of self-defense—with the most effective means available, a firearm—against those who would otherwise find it easy to prey upon them.The gun grabbers might respond that they are not attempting to dispossess the average, honest, law-abiding, rational individual of all weapons—only certain kinds of weapons. But, they inevitably, invariably, make a poor show of it by exhibiting their lack of knowledge of both firearms and of ammunition for firearms. And, that lack of knowledge is considerable. Many examples are found in mainstream media news stories, such as the one that is the subject of this article.The Times consistently, erroneously conflates assault weapons with military assault rifles. One sees this in the very title of the July 4 news article, “Despite Strict Gun Law, Doctor Was Able to Buy Assault Rifle,” —substituting one expression, 'assault rifle,' for the other, 'assault weapon,' without rhyme or reason. But assault rifles and so-called assault weapons are not the same thing. They are not functional equivalents and should not be considered functional equivalents. The expression, ‘assault rifle,’ is a military term of art and refers to selective fire weapons. The expression, ‘assault weapon,’ on the other hand, is not a military term of art; nor is it a term of art in the firearms’ industry.“Assault rifles” are selective fire weapons. Selective fire weapons are weapons that can fire in either semiautomatic mode or full automatic mode, through the incorporation of a selective fire lever or switch on the weapon. Such weapons do not fall under the SAFE Act. They fall under the purview of the National Firearms Act of 1934 that bans certain classes of firearms, including machine guns. So-called “assault weapons” are not military assault rifles because assault weapons are not capable of full auto fire. So-called “assault weapons” are not designed by gun manufacturers for the military or law enforcement markets; only for the civilian market, given specific limitations in their application which limitations make them unsuitable for military or for law enforcement work.Such weapons that may happen to look like military weapons are not military weapons. And appearance does not change the functional nature of the weapon. Consider: an automobile designed to look like a Ferrari that has a typical Toyota Corolla engine under the hood may look exotic and sexy, and to some people, perhaps intimidating, frightening, but one only needs to take the car out for a spin to realize something amiss. On the other hand, a Buick Skylark, manufactured during the 1960s might look relatively tame, but, outfitted with a 350-cubic inch V8 engine, the Skylark declared its power once the driver tapped on the accelerator.Similarly, calling a firearm an ‘assault rifle,’ or using the expression ‘assault weapon’ interchangeably with ‘assault rifle’ when the weapon is capable of semiautomatic operation only does not thereby convert the weapon into a military assault rifle; and designing a weapon to look like an assault rifle, does not an assault rifle make.Functionality, not cosmetics, is critical to—and the key—to a weapon’s performance.

“ASSAULT WEAPONS” ARE NOTHING MORE THAN ORDINARY SEMIAUTOMATIC FIREARMS OUTFITTED MERELY TO LOOK INTIMIDATING TO THE UNEDUCATED. REMOVE THE PISTOL GRIP, FOLDING STOCK, AND HANDGUARD, AND THEN FINISH THE WEAPON IN WALNUT, IN LIEU OF POLYMER AND BLACK STAINLESS STEEL, AND, ABRACADABRA, WHAT DO WE HAVE? NO MORE NOR LESS THAN THE SAME WEAPON FOR CIVILIANS AND NOTHING THAT THE MILITARY OR LAW ENFORCEMENT WOULD BE INTERESTED IN FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT OR FOR MILITARY PURPOSES.

The expression, ‘assault weapon,’ isn’t a military term of art; nor is it an industry term. The expression is a political expression, created by antigun groups and utilized as a tool for propaganda. The mainstream media says that such weapons are essentially military weapons, “weapons of war,” as some journalists refer to them in that way. Or, they say that such firearms are “military style weapons,” or that “they are like” military weapons. In fact, phrases such as ‘looks like a military weapon’ or ‘weapons of war’ or ‘military style weapon’ when parsed, don’t mean a damn thing. A weapon either is or isn’t a military weapon—a weapon for military use. The expression, ‘assault weapon,’ is merely a legal fiction to confuse and intimidate the ignorant and unwary.Through that legal fiction antigun legislators create a special category of weapons—a category that includes generally, and almost invariably, many semiautomatic weapons—weapons that, by law, are illegal for the average civilian to own. Semiautomatic weapons that legislators, at their whim, deem to be “assault weapons” are banned unless those weapons happen to be “grandfathered in”  by law. But is that all there is to it? Are those weapons designated as ‘assault weapons’ the only weapons the American public cannot legally own and possess? No; not at all. The problem is that, through time, the gun grabbers seek to place more semiautomatic weapons in the category of banned semiautomatic weapons, until, eventually, all semiautomatic weapons become inextricably linked to “assault weapon” nomenclature. This is by design. This is what the gun grabbers intend to do. For they will not sit contented until all weapons in the hands of civilians are banned.Indeed, the expression ‘assault weapon’ is, now, virtually synonymous with the expression ‘semiautomatic weapon.’ Categorizing this or that weapon as an assault weapon out of whole cloth creates a warrant for ever more weapons to be placed in the domain of banned weapons. Thus, we fall down a slippery slope. But, this is no “slippery slope fallacy." It is an inevitability.Antigun groups and antigun legislators seek, eventually, to ban all semiautomatic weapons. They do this by subsuming ever more weapons and ever more components of weapons under the ‘assault weapon’ designation. Moreover, there is nothing to prevent antigun legislators from subsuming non-semiautomatic firearms under the category, ‘assault weapons,’ too. In fact, we already see this. Consider: Section 37 of the New York Safe Act lays out several definitions of ‘assault weapon': Specific definitions of 'assault weapon' for pistol, rifle, and shotgun. Section 37 is codified in subdivision 22 of Section 265 of the Penal Code of New York.One definition of ‘assault weapon,’ in New York law specifically includes some weapons that aren’t semiautomatic in operation at all. Section 37(D) of the SAFE Act, for example, bans revolving cylinder shotguns, referring to them as “assault weapons” even though revolving cylinder shotguns aren’t semiautomatic in operation.Note, on Governor Cuomo’s New York Safe Act website, he provides an example of a revolving cylinder shotgun, the Armsel Striker-12 Shotgun, via a graphic that, according, to the SAFE Act represents an example of a banned “assault weapon,” because, as the site sets forth, the weapon is “semiautomatic” in operation and has at least one “military characteristic.” The Armsel Striker-12 Shotgun is an assault weapon under the SAFE Act, but the Armsel Striker-12 Shotgun isn’t an assault weapon on the basis of having a military characteristic at all, contrary to the explanation given for including it in the banned 'assault weapon' category. The Armsel Striker-12 Shotgun is designated an ‘assault weapon’ under the SAFE Act precisely and exclusively because it is a revolving cylinder shotgun and, under the SAFE Act, that fact alone is the reason why it is banned as an ‘assault weapon.’ The fact that this shotgun has a “military characteristic” means nothing. It is neither a necessary, nor a sufficient condition for legally ascribing the designation, ‘assault weapon’ to it. Rather, the fact that a shotgun is a revolving cylinder shotgun is both a necessary and sufficient condition for banning it as an assault weapon under the NY Safe Act.But for the existence of Section 37(D) of the SAFE Act, the Armsel Striker-12 Shotgun would not—and in fact could not—legally be designated a banned ‘assault weapon,’ precisely because it isn’t semiautomatic in operation. Why do we say this? We say this because a person must comply with what the law expressly says, and not what one believes the law, erroneously to mean, even if that erroneous belief is held in good faith and even if the person who comes to have a false belief as to which firearm is or is not an assault weapon can point to an official New York State website as the reason for that person’s false belief. For all that, if the Governor expects the public to rely on the accuracy of the very Act that he signed into law, you would think he would make it a point to know what it is that he is talking about and would ascertain that an official New York State website that purports to provide a person with information a person can rely on as true and completely accurate is in fact true and completely accurate.Now, some people might interject that we are quibbling here; for, after all, the Armsel Striker-12 is defined as a banned ‘assault weapon’ under New York law even if the reason provided on the New York State website is not accurate. But, that is sloppy and dangerous thinking. For, suppose, Section 37(D) of the SAFE Act were repealed. In that case, the Armsel Striker-12 Shotgun would be perfectly legal for a person, who is not under disability, to possess in New York. But, given what the NY SAFE Act website says about the weapon, the person who is relying on the website for advice, to comply with the law, would believe that possession of the weapon is prohibited in the State when that would not be the case at all. We say this precisely because the Armsel Striker-12 is not semiautomatic in operation. If Section 37(D) of the Safe Act did not exist, then a shotgun that is not semiautomatic in operation could have any number of so-called military characteristics. Under the New York Safe Act, that shotgun would not be an “assault weapon,” and, then, under New York law, that weapon would not and, thus, could not, legally be banned as an ‘assault weapon’ because the weapon is not, by definition, an ‘assault weapon.’Section 37(D) does proscribe the Armsel Striker-12 but not for the reason the New York State website says. A revolving cylinder shotgun, such as the Armsel Striker-12, represents a special, a unique instance where a weapon is not semiautomatic in operation—which is otherwise a condition precedent for ascribing the designation, ‘assault weapon’ to the firearm, but is defined as an assault weapon due to the fact that it operates through revolving cylinder and that it happens to be a shotgun. Many handguns are designed as revolvers—that is to say, that function through a revolving cylinder, whether double action or single action—and such firearms are not defined as ‘assault weapon.’ So, it all boils down to definition—whatever it is in the feverish mind of the drafter of the legislation.

THE ‘ASSAULT WEAPON’ DESIGNATION IS DEVILISHLY AND CONVENIENTLY CHANGEABLE AS IT CAN MEAN WHATEVER THE LEGISLATOR WISHES FOR IT TO MEAN.

The “assault weapon” attribution is amorphous and nebulous and allows antigun legislators to broaden the scope of banned firearms at will, at their whim—to include anything and everything they wish to include under that designation, as a mark of opprobrium.

NEW YORK TIMES—WHOSE LOGO IS “ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT”--PLAYS FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE TRUTH ON MATTERS PERTAINING TO FIREARMS.

The NY Times inappropriately uses an opinion piece, that belongs in the Op Ed section of the paper, as a news piece because the paper illustrates clearly and forcefully and unmistakably its vehement distaste for firearms in civilian hands. Value judgments belong in the editorial section, not in the news section, of a newspaper. The Times is not, it is clear, invariably, concerned with truth in reporting—certainly not on matters pertaining to firearms as the paper deliberately confuses the public rather than informs the public.The NY Times reporters, Messrs. Santora and Baker, assert that, “the law [NY SAFE] was also aimed at decreasing the damage a gunman could do by limiting the size of a clip to 10 rounds.” But, then, since Henry Bello "carried three of them," as Messrs. Santora and Baker assert, quoting an unnamed law enforcement official: “as a practical matter, Dr. Bello ‘had his 30 rounds.’” What are the Times reporters getting at here? It’s no secret.The NY Times is making a case, in customary oblique fashion that, since semiautomatic weapons generally use clips, it hardly matters how many rounds a clip may hold. An individual can carry several clips at once, easily loading them into the firearm. Thus, the Times is making a not very subtle suggestion that the NY SAFE Act should be amended to ban semiautomatic weapons, along with their component parts, and ammunition for the weapons, altogether.In the same article, the NY Times’ reporters, Messrs. Santora and Baker, play fast and loose with another point, asserting that, “while the weapon [the AM15, that Bello used], did not have some of the features it might have before the SAFE Act was passed, it was just as powerful.”Messrs. Santora and Baker description here is inaccurate. For it is not the weapon itself but, rather, the .223 cartridge that the weapon, the M4 AR-15 Rifle, happens to be chambered for, that the reporters should have referred to when using the adjective, ‘powerful.’ But, we can excuse them imprecision here on that point, as it is understood that the reporters must be referring to the cartridge rather than the weapon when they assert that the weapon Bello used, in the commission of his crimes of murder and intent to commit murder, is “powerful.”The reporters’ quote, for ostensible credibility, a law enforcement official--albeit unnamed--to buttress the claim that the .223 cartridge is a powerful cartridge. Yet, we do not know who this official is other than that he is in the field of law enforcement. But, crucially, is there anything about this law enforcement official’s background to suggest the official is a ballistics and firearms’ expert? No! There is nothing to suggest that.Messrs. Santora and Baker, assert, further, quoting, apparently the same law enforcement official: “‘They [the gun industry] turned an AR-15’s aiming and firepower into a World War II rifle without the bolt action.” This statement is either erroneous or ambiguous and vague. We must ask: what World War II rifle is this law enforcement official referring to? If he is referring to the standard U.S. Army issue rifle issued to troops during World War II, that rifle would be the M1 .30-06 Garand. But, the M1 .30-06 Garand Rifle was semiautomatic in operation, not bolt action, and it did use a high-power cartridge: the .30-06—a cartridge that is still much in wide use today, especially in hunting rifles, for taking down large game, such as deer, moose, antelope, and bear. If the law enforcement official, whom the Times reporters quote, is in fact referring specifically to a standard bolt-action World War II rifle, then that official may be referring to the Model 98 Mauser Rifle, that the Germans referred to as the Gewehr 98. The Gewehr 98 was chambered for the 7.92 millimeter cartridge—essentially equivalent to the U.S. M1 Garand Rifle that is chambered for the .30-06 cartridge. The Gewehr was a standard issue rifle of German Infantry troops during World War II, and it was manufactured for German troops in several configurations, all of which operated by bolt action. They were not semiautomatic in operation, unlike the U.S. Army’s M1 .30-06 Garand.The official, whom Messrs. Santora and Baker quote, also says, wrapping up the Times article: “It was point and shoot for him [Bello] because he was shooting up close, and the lethality here was enhance by the large rounds—the .223 that’s in that weapon—as opposed to a handgun or something else.”The law enforcement official, whom the Times reporters quote, says the .223 cartridge are “large rounds.” But, is the .223 cartridge a large round? What does the expression “large round” mean? Do firearms experts even use expressions “large round” or “small round” to describe cartridges?

AMMUNITION CARTRIDGE BASICS

To weapons experts, cartridges fall into one of three major categories or groups. One group includes handgun cartridges. These are generally the least powerful cartridges. The second group of cartridges is referred to as intermediate cartridges. The third group of cartridges includes high-power cartridges.Within each group of cartridges, experts describe cartridge characteristics. These characteristics break down into discussions of the case; the primer; the propellant; and the projectile. The expression, ‘large round’ or ‘small round’ is inherently vague and therefore essentially meaningless and arms and ballistics experts do not use those words as technical terms.What can we say, generally about these three different groups of cartridges that is still essentially accurate? Handgun cartridges are the “weakest” in terms of power.** The .223 cartridge, a typical ‘assault rifle’ cartridge, falls in the intermediate cartridge range. There is a reason for this. Assault rifles, in full auto mode are difficult to control. That is one salient reason the military uses a round .223 round cartridge for the rifle instead of a high-power cartridge, such as the ,30-06. Incidentally, the .223 cartridge round is essentially identical to the 5.56 cartridge, although experts may wish to argue the intricacies of the point. The 5.56 cartridge is designated in millimeters and is the standard NATO round in use by the military of NATO Countries today.Note: the Anderson Manufacturing AM15 Optic Ready .223/5.56 Caliber M4 AR-15 Rifle can be chambered for both rounds since, once again, they are essentially identical. But the salient point here is that both rounds are not deemed, in the arms industry, to be “powerful” cartridges. The term, “high-power,” as applied to cartridges, is a term of art. It applies to many cartridges, but not to the .223/5.56. High-Power cartridges have no use in selective-fire assault rifles due to control issues in full auto mode.If a military assault rifle were chambered for a typical high-power cartridge such as the .30-06—the round utilized in the semiautomatic M1 Garand Rifle—such round in an assault rifle would be useless for hand-held full auto fire because a soldier would find the weapon extremely difficult to control. This is one salient reason that the intermediate cartridge—the .223—was developed by the military for the assault rifle. In full auto mode, a soldier can fire his weapon effectively, controllably, with this round. The .223 also is an effective round for hunting small varmints, such as ground hogs. But, it is ineffective for taking down larger game, such as deer. That is why, once again, many large game rifles are chambered for the powerful .30-06 cartridge.The .223 also has distinct advantages for civilian defensive use. The cartridge is frangible. That means it is designed to disintegrate when it comes into contact with a hard surface. A .30-06 cartridge, on the other hand, can easily penetrate hard surfaces. So, if the Times writers, Santora and Baker, through the law enforcement official they quote are claiming the .223 cartridge is large and/or powerful—suggesting that it is on par, say, with the firepower of a typical rifle cartridge used to hunt large game—they are simply wrong and, more to the point, the law enforcement officer they rely on, for technical firearms and ballistics information, is himself wrong--feeding the reporters with false information, regarding the AM15 Optic Ready .223/5.56 Caliber M4 AR-15 Rifle and regarding the .223 cartridge. These reporters should have corroborated the claims made by the official with whom they spoke to ascertain if that official was in fact a firearms or ballistics expert. Obviously, that official doesn’t strike us as a firearms or ballistics expert, given his purported remarks. But, if Messrs. Santora and Baker were to insist that the official whom they quote is in fact a firearms or ballistics expert, the official certainly doesn’t come across as such, to us, predicated on what the official says in the Times article. Messrs. Santora and Baker did not, apparently, corroborate what the law enforcement official, whom they quote, had said. If they did attempt to corroborate the points made by the law enforcement official they quote, they would have most certainly found discrepancies. Perhaps the reporters did find discrepancies, but decided to ignore those discrepancies anyway because the truth would not have fit the narrative they sought to present to the public. But, that would suggest they had little regard for the truth in their presentation. As with the fictional “assault weapon” itself that the reporters, Santora and Baker talk about, the article presented is essentially an Op Ed propaganda piece masked as a news story.The New York Times presents false information pertaining to firearms and ammunition, passes that information off as factually true, and uses that information in an Op Ed piece, itself disguised as a factually true and neutral news article. The newspaper does this to buttress a narrative. It is a narrative which the public has seen many times before and, undoubtedly, will see many times to come. It is this: “assault weapons are weapons of war and ought to be banned outright.” The verbiage may change slightly here and there. But, the message is always the same, droning incessantly on and on again ad nauseum. It is a message intended not to educate the American public, engaging the public’s intellectual faculties, but, rather, one designed to stir the emotions of the public—the “lizard” part of the brain.

WHAT IS THE ENDGAME OF THE NEW YORK TIMES ON THE MATTER OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION?

The points made here are not insignificant as they have quite profound social, and political and legal consequences for the right of the people to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and, secondarily, for the credibility of the Times and similar mainstream media news publications. The Times newspaper, in the Santora and Baker news article, is attempting to make the case for restricting the right of the people to keep and bear arms through an ever more restrictive NY Safe Act, but they are making their case through inaccurate statements.Incidentally, hunting rifles that are chambered for the high-power .30-06, do not—presently at least—fall within the domain of ‘assault weapons,’ and are perfectly legal for a person, who is not under disability, to own, in New York. We would like to ask Times reporters, Messrs. Santora and Baker, whether hunting rifles, that are chambered for the .30-06 ought not also to be placed under the category of “assault weapons” since the .30-06 as a high-power cartridge, is certainly much more powerful than the .223, the latter of which is designated as an intermediate cartridge, in terms of power. But, then, we know the answer. A ban on all firearms is the endgame of the gun grabbers. If pressed, Messrs. Santora and Baker would likely admit as much, as would the publisher and editors of the New York Times.

TRUTH IS A RELATIVE CONCEPT FOR MAINSTREAM MEDIA—RELATIVE TO THE NARRATIVE THEY WISH TO CONVEY TO SUSCEPTIBLE MINDS.

For a newspaper that prides itself on the truth, the NY Times demonstrates a considerable lack of it when it comes to an understanding of firearms and ammunition and of firearms’ and ammunition nomenclature. But, then, the NY Times has no desire to inform the reader with facts. The NY Times, as with other mainstream newspapers and like-minded mainstream media outlets, are interested in conveying the same tiresome message—as they always do whenever and wherever a tragedy with firearms occurs. It is that firearms of all sorts should be—must be—banned.The fact that millions of average law-abiding citizens in our Country, unlike those subjects in Australia and those in the nations of Western Europe that comprise the EU, have successfully defended their lives and those of their loved ones against brutal attacks by savage criminals does not, apparently, enter into their equation. But, then, antigun groups, antigun legislators and antigun media types aren’t really concerned about the life of any one individual. They are only interested in the well-being of the hive, of the collective; and that hive—that collective—is well served when it is controlled. Their agenda is not the safeguarding of the Nation’s Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, it is quite the opposite. They seek to destroy this Country’s heritage, along with the Bill of Rights, as the framers of the Constitution understood it to mean, and that meaning is not to be toyed with.Our history is not to be erased, and rewritten to conform to the New World Order--a deeply troubling phrase that Senator John McCain oddly used, and used several times, one Sunday, on Meet the Press, when interviewed by the network host, Chuck Todd. Curiously, Chuck Todd never once asked the Senator to explain his use of that phrase, and McCain, for his part, although emphasizing the expression through repeated use of it, during the Sunday morning show, never bothered to explicate the bizarre, disturbing phrase himself. Yet, he must have realized that the expression has specific negative connotations and associations for Americans who hold our Free Republic and Constitution dear, and he must have given serious thought to use of the expression but never bothered to explicate it or provide a reason for using it at all during the interview. Our Nation is not a product of nor is it to be reformed and transformed, like so much clay, into something completely alien to our founders’ conception of our Nation as a free Republic. We see the forces that crush our Nation and its citizenry through the insidious ideas manifested in non-American conceptual constructs such as: democratic liberalism, multiculturalism, bilingualism, neoliberalism, and globalization.We, Americans, are not and do not ever wish to be construed as “citizens of the world.” We are citizens of the United States and shall forever remain so. We do not seek nor ever wish to gratuitously open our borders up to everyone.We shall maintain the integrity of our Nation’s borders. We shall maintain our Nation’s singular language: English. We shall use our military first and foremost to protect our Nation’s interests and our Nation’s security. And, we will never compromise the right our framers bequeathed to us in our sacred Second Amendment. This is what we must defend at all costs if our Nation is to survive against the insidious currents that seek to deprive us of our birthright—that seek the very end of the concept of the ‘Nation State.’Mainstream media organizations such as the New York Times orchestrate against the preservation of our Nation—against the idea of a free Republic as our founders intended it. They construe our Bill of Rights in a manner alien to our framers’—alien to the meaning inherent in the rights and liberties codified in the Bill of Rights as the framers drafted it.The Second Amendment has no place in the World as the New York Times and other mainstream media organizations envision it, as they would like it to be, as their overseers, the wealthy, secretive group of so-called “elites”—internationalists and trans-nationalists wish to transform it—to remold it—in a way inapposite to the principals laid down by the fathers’ of our Nation.The mainstream media, echoing the interests, concerns, and aims of their internationalist, trans-nationalist overseers and benefactors do not believe in the right of each individual to be individual, to be left alone. So, they do not believe in natural right of the people to keep and bear arms.The New York Times and other mainstream media organizations, at the behest of their internationalist, trans-nationalist overseers, desire no less than absolute control over the individual. That entails destroying the right of the people to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and that means, as well, destroying the right of the people to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Firearms in the hands of the American citizenry are an anathema to those who seek absolute control. Americans are perceived by these “elites,” who owe allegiance to no Country—as no more than a mass of bees that make up a hive. Firearms in the hands of the citizenry do not allow for orderly control and, so, firearms must be eliminated from the hands of the citizenry—from the hands of the multitude of worker bees of the hive.The internationalist, trans-nationalist “elites” are not really concerned about gun violence caused by criminals, by gang members, by terrorists, by the occasional lunatic. No! they are concerned about guns in the hands of the average, rational, law-abiding citizen. It is the average, sane, law-abiding citizen that these “elites” truly fear and that fear is reflected in the restrictive gun laws that exist today. That fear is reflected in ever more restrictive gun laws they seek to see enacted. But, these “elites,” through the New York Times and through similar publications and through other mainstream media outlets say that such restrictions on access to guns and ammunition are ultimately for the good of the people. What they really mean, though, is that such gun restrictions operate for the benefit of the “elites” who seek to clamp down on the American citizenry. They seek to enact restrictive gun laws for their own good, clearly to the detriment of the American people. Restrictive gun laws operate as, and are designed to operate as, constraints on the people. Restrictive gun laws do not operate as and are not designed to operate for and never were designed to operate for the good of the American people. But, these internationalist, trans-nationalist “elites”, through their public loudspeakers, the mainstream media, would not, of course, say that.What these so-called “elites” propose for Americans is the end of all that Americans hold precious, the end of all that Americans hold dear: the end of Americans’ sacred rights and liberties, codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights. The “elites,” see this as necessary. They see this as the way things should be, must be, if their dream of a New World Order is to become a reality. So, they argue that such restrictions and repressions on firearms ownership and possession and such restrictions and repressions on other natural rights and liberties are truly, manifestly, for our own good, of course.What is good, and right, and natural is, they believe, just a matter of perception. Change one’s perceptions and you change one’s reality—you change one’s sense of what is just and proper. And, the forces that crush this Nation and its people into submission intend to do just that: to change our perceptions, to change our attitudes and perceptions toward guns and to change our attitudes and perceptions toward everything else that we hold dear: our history, our heritage, our values. The forces that crush seek to change everything that makes us, uniquely, Americans. The forces that crush seek to change our reality—to change the idea that we, Americans, are unique, and to destroy the notion that our uniqueness is expressed and reflected first and foremost, in the natural right of the people to keep and bear arms.Loss of this one unalienable right—the right of the people to keep and bear arms is sufficient to destroy our Nation’s identity; it is sufficient to effectively disable and disassemble the U.S. Constitution; it is sufficient to break our Nation’s back and our Nation’s spirit. That is what the gun grabbers want. That is what they seek. That is what they have worked and continue to work relentlessly, unceasingly, consistently, and strenuously toward.____________________________*The prefix, “AM,” refers to the manufacturer, Anderson Manufacturing. The prototypical rifle, the “AR-15,” with the prefix, ‘AR,’ does not denote ‘Assault Rifle,’ contrary to what some people might think. Rather the prefix, “AR,” refers, to the manufacturer of that semiautomatic rifle, “ArmaLite.” The original “AR-15” “Assault Rifle,” prototype became the standard arm for the U.S. Army foot soldier during the Vietnam War.The U.S. Army reluctantly adopted the M16 assault rifle as the standard infantry rifle in lieu of the M14 selective-fire rifle it had much preferred—as a replacement for the World War II M1 Garand rifle, that, in design, the M14 superficially resembled.The military M16 “Assault Rifle” had several variants and was chambered for the 5.56 millimeter cartridge. The 5.56 millimeter NATO round, is a cartridge essentially identical to the 2.23 caliber cartridge round that many semiautomatic rifles, manufactured for the civilian market, are chambered for—semiautomatic rifles that continue to be described by the mainstream media, inaccurately, as military “assault rifles” or, otherwise, for political propaganda purposes, described as “assault weapons”—a fictional phrase that has no recognized meaning in military or firearms industry argot. Often the two expressions, ‘assault rifle’ and ‘assault weapon,’ are used interchangeably by the mainstream media, antigun groups, and antigun politicians when talking about semiautomatic rifles manufactured for the civilian market. The two expressions are not synonymous, and the use of the two expressions, interchangeably by mainstream news organizations, does nothing to enlighten the public, and does much to illustrate the ineptitude and sloppiness of journalists and commentators when reporting news.**There do exist handguns chambered for .50 caliber cartridges and there even exist a few exotic handguns chambered for the .60 caliber cartridge —the latter of which are found in atypical, novelty handguns. Handguns that are chambered for the .60 caliber "nitro express" cartridge likely are not designed to be fired at all—given, arguably, the sheer difficulty, if not virtual impossibility, for most individuals to be able to hold onto the weapon, once having fired it, let alone maintaining the ability to shoot such weapons accurately. Such handguns certainly do not have utility in any common real world application, whether for law enforcement, for the military, for hunting or for self-defense. More likely, handguns chambered for such cartridges are "show pieces"--curiosities only, designed for the collector--to be showcased in gun collection displays but not actually to be used. Both cartridges, the .50 caliber and .60 caliber, are more powerful—much more powerful than the intermediate .223 cartridge. But, these cartridge exceptions, in handgun cartridges, do not belie the general rule regarding three major categories of cartridges: handgun rounds (generally, the least powerful cartridge rounds); intermediate assault rifle rounds; and high-power rifle or machine gun (the most powerful) rounds. Even so, the American public should keep in mind that handguns or rifles chambered for the .50 caliber cartridge or for the exotic .60 caliber "nitro express" handgun cartridge round, are not, and never were, designed, and, sensibly, never will be manufactured for use in hand-held full auto fire weapons be those weapons, selective fire assault rifles in full auto mode, or full auto only submachine guns.The .223/5.56 NATO cartridge round was specifically designed for selective fire “assault rifles,” enabling the user of those rifles to fire a round, controllably, in full auto mode. Were a high-power rifle round like the .30-06 caliber, or .50 caliber cartridge chambered for the assault rifle would render the assault rifle uncontrollable in full auto mode. Moreover, for a soldier to have to carry a substantial number of high-power rifle .30-06 caliber cartridge rounds or a substantial number of .50 caliber cartridge rounds would be unduly burdensome due to weight considerations and, too, would lessen the number of rounds the foot soldier might otherwise be able to carry on his person. ______________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE NEW YORK TIMES’ CALL FOR NATIONAL GUN CONFISCATION IS LEGALLY INSUPPORTABLE AND MORALLY INSUFFERABLE

THE NEW YORK TIMES RESURRECTS FEINSTEIN'S MONSTER

The antigun groups have now made clear beyond any doubt their singular goal: remove firearms from the hands of Americans, nationally. In a rare editorial, appearing on the front page of the Saturday, December 5, 2015 edition of The New York Times, titled, “The Gun Epidemic,” the Times editorial staff presents its arguments for massive gun confiscation, at the national level. The New York Times – a vehicle of international socialist and globalist interests – is intent on divesting Americans of their sacred right to keep and bear arms. Simultaneously, the Times is clearly and unconscionably setting the stage for a Clinton Presidency in 2016.The San Bernardino shooting incident, carried out by Islamic extremists – foreign invaders, whose allegiance, as the Times reports, are to the Islamic State – should be a clarion call to arms to all Americans. Instead, the Times uses this despicable attack by the Islamic State on innocent American citizens as a pretext for disarming all Americans. Treating this invasion on our shores as simply one more mass shooting, without regard to the motivation behind it, the Times calls for a massive, gun confiscation program at the national level. The rationale given for this unprecedented call for gun confiscation is reduction of gun violence – the same platitude voiced over and over by those individuals and groups intent on divesting Americans of their natural birthright and denying to Americans the right of self-defense, notwithstanding that the Federal Government either cannot adequately protect Americans from mass shootings -- whether or not these attacks are random or carefully planned and organized -- or the Government simply will not do so, despite constant assertions and assertions to the contrary.Since President Barack Obama refuses, incongruously, to seal our borders despite clear evidence of an attack in our Country by Islamic radicals, and since he continues to allow into our Country those of the Islamic faith, who are impossible to vet, one must wonder whether Obama is intentionally jeopardizing the security of the American people, to keep the American public off-guard, consistent with international globalist and international socialist interests and objectives, in preparation for America’s integration into a unified Socialist State at some point in the not too distant future. If so, the salient reason for the NY Times’ call for a program of massive gun confiscation has little, if anything, to do with reducing gun violence in this Country -- from whatever source -- and has everything to do with destruction of America’s sovereignty and subjugation of its citizenry. A massive gun confiscation program on the national stage would certainly hasten the accomplishment of that goal, paving the way for repeal of America’s Constitution, and, therefore, repeal of a critical portion of the Constitution -- America's Bill of Rights. Thus, would we see the international globalists and socialists smoothing the transition for the Nation's incorporation into a unified mega-international Socialist Order. And, the American people would be given a new constitution sans any mention of a right, existent in the people, to keep and bear arms.To Americans who see the United States as an independent sovereign Nation, beholding to and dependent on no other nation, and who place their faith in their Bill of Rights and, particularly, on the strength of the Second Amendment within the Bill of Rights, such acts of gun violence, committed by criminals, lunatics, and, of late, by Islamic jihadists, there bespeaks a need for a strong citizenry, and that means an armed citizenry, not a disarmed, weakened one. But, a disarmed, weakened citizenry is clearly and specifically what the federal government has in mind for Americans. President Barack Obama has made that point many times and more incessantly -- with an air of urgency in recent days. Lest there be any doubt about this -- about the intention of wealthy, powerful, ruthless interests behind this effort to disarm the American citizenry, who use the mainstream news media to confound Americans and who proclaim that the only answer to this onslaught of gun violence in America is for American citizens to place their blind faith in and allegiance to the federal government, rather than to place faith in themselves and to take personal responsibility for defense of self and family -- suggesting, then, that the federal government -- and only the federal government can and, more to the point, is  warranted and permitted to protect them -- one ought to stop and consider the import of the following two remarks, appearing in the sixth paragraph of the NY Times front page, editorial: “It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.”  The average person may not be quick to catch this, but there is an oblique message in these two assertions – both of which are utterly damning to American sensibilities, to the autonomy of the individual, to the sanctity of Americans’ Second Amendment, and certainly divisive, as the editorial can and is probably meant to tear the public apart, for The New York Times' assertions do most assuredly play to the sentiments of antigun proponents and zealots, even as those same sentiments will anger, and rightly so, every other American. So let us parse those assertions.The NY Times says the language of the Second Amendment is “peculiar.” Yet, the Times’ use of the word, ‘peculiar,’ to describe the language of the Second Amendment, is itself peculiar. The meaning of the independent clause in the Second Amendment – “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” – is straightforward, cogent, clear, and certainly not “peculiar” to the American people. Indeed, that The New York Times would use the word, ‘peculiar,’ to describe the Second Amendment at all, suggests that the newspaper does not reflect America’s interests but, rather, the interests of the international socialists and globalists, intent on dismantling the Second Amendment in particular and dismantling the nine other Amendments, generally, which depend on the Second Amendment, ultimately, for their preservation. For, only to foreign governments whose history is unlike ours and whose constitutions are devoid of any mention of an inalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms would America's Second Amendment possibly look "peculiar." But for an American newspaper to use that adjective to describe the Second Amendment, that should give the public pause.Take a look at the constitution of any other Western nation. Even if a constitution talks about firearms in the hands of the citizenry at all -- and very few constitutions do -- no constitution but that of the United States places that right squarely in the hands of the citizenry itself. In no other nation on this Earth does the right to keep and bear arms reside in the People. Rather, that right resides exclusively in the State. In those Western Countries that the New York Times clearly emulates, namely, France, England, and Norway, which the Times mentions in its editorial, the constitutions of those Countries do not respect the inalienable right of their citizens to keep and bear weapons in their own defense and as a means to secure their individual rights and liberties. Therefore, Countries such as France, England, and Norway, unlike the United States, clearly do not recognize that the citizens, themselves, are the ultimate guardians of their own rights and liberties, and so their citizens do not have the inalienable right to defend themselves with the most effective means available for doing so – that provided by a firearm; nor do those Countries recognize, in their people, the right of their people to secure their own rights and liberties through firearms, if the need should ever arise.Indeed, the Times admits, “that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England, and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes they did.” But, in that very admission, the Times follows up with the singularly bizarre assertion, “But at least those Countries are trying.” Really, “trying?” What are those Countries trying to do through strict gun laws? The Times' assertion is incoherent. If those Countries are trying to provide safe havens for Islamic foreign invaders, and convert their citizenry into a flock of defenseless sheep, then those Countries are certainly succeeding! Must the U.S. follow the lead of those Countries? The New York Times says, unequivocally, “yes.” The language of our Second Amendment, however, manifestly counters the Times’ assertion with an emphatic, “no!”The New York Times also says, “No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.” This, too, is a particularly odd and outrageous remark as it denigrates our jurisprudence.First, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right, expressly set forth in the language of our Country’s Bill of Rights. The New York Times cannot reasonably deny the truth of that assertion. And, as a fundamental right, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is deserving of something more than some protection. As a fundamental right, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is deserving of the strongest possible protection. Second, to say that a fundamental right is not unlimited, namely, absolute, is merely a legal platitude. The Times is incorrect to suggest, as it does, that the Government can employ whatever regulation of the right it wants, whenever it wants, simply because no right, even a fundamental right, is not absolute.Second, the Times says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is subject to “reasonable regulation.” Understand, the New York Times is making a legal pronouncement, here, not merely – as most readers are inclined to see it – a colorful, somewhat innocuous, editorial remark. The Times is tacitly invoking a criterion of judicial review that many State courts use in order to determine whether a State law – regulating gun possession and gun ownership, say -- can withstand judicial scrutiny. The Times is asserting, albeit cryptically, that this standard of judicial review, ‘reasonable regulation,’ should apply, across the board, without exception, to each and every legal challenge a complainant may bring to the constitutionality of a federal or state gun law restriction. But, there is a serious problem with this. The problem is that the criterion of  ‘reasonable regulation’ is a very weak standard, virtually indistinguishable from the ‘rational basis test’ which many State courts, such as those in New York, the home of the New York Times, routinely use to test the constitutionality of their State's own draconian gun laws.Under both the ‘reasonable regulation’ standard and ‘rational basis test,’ State courts simply look to see whether a particular law is rationally related to a particular governmental purpose. In effect, this weak standard of review hamstrings Courts and allows States to impose draconian gun laws on the public. The New York Safe Act, which is one of the most restrictive gun measures in the Nation, when compared to the gun measures of any other jurisdiction in the United States, passes judicial scrutiny in New York precisely because the New York State Government need only assert – and need not argue – that the NY Safe Act is rationally directed to a legitimate government purpose – say, reduction in gun violence. If the New York Safe Act were challenged in a court of competent jurisdiction in New York – and of course various provisions of the Act, as well as the Act in its entirety, have been challenged in New York courts since enactment of the NY Safe Act – that court of competent jurisdiction is only permitted to decide whether the  Safe Act is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose. In applying that standard of judicial review -- rational basis -- a court must give considerable deference to a legislative action. So, unless the law is clearly arbitrary on its face or clearly has no relationship at all to the matter for which it ostensibly was enacted, which is to say, that the government cannot demonstrate that the law is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose, the law will be upheld. So, under either the rational basis test or the reasonable regulation standard, the latter of which the Times makes specific reference to in its front page editorial, a court of competent jurisdiction is prohibited from going further in its scrutiny of the constitutionality of the law or governmental regulation. So, under the rational basis test a law can be very broad in scope and overreach its stated objective. That is of no consequence to the basic question of the constitutionality of it under either the rational basis test or under the essentially identical reasonable regulation standard. And the result is – as the NY Safe Act clearly demonstrates – that extraordinarily draconian gun laws pass constitutional muster. This is perverse. And, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller (2008), the NY Safe Act flies in the face of the high Court’s holding because New York courts continue to use a relaxed standard of review in testing the constitutionality of the NY Safe Act, notwithstanding that the Act has a highly corrosive effect on a fundamental right: the right of the people to keep and bear arms.Gun ownership and gun possession is a fundamental right. Even antigun proponents and zealots cannot reasonably deny the legal certainty of that fact. Legislation that impacts the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms demands extraordinary judicial scrutiny, not weakened, relaxed scrutiny. State courts and federal courts are, under our jurisprudence, expected to utilize the strict scrutiny test where fundamental rights are impacted. Can the New York Safe Act withstand judicial scrutiny under a strict scrutiny criterion? The answer is clearly, “no.” Under a strict scrutiny criterion, the State Government has the burden of showing that the NY Safe Act, which places inordinate restrictions on a citizen’s fundamental right to keep and bear arms, is nonetheless necessary to satisfy a compelling State interest – in this case: the compelling interest of the State to reduce gun violence. But, importantly, under the strict scrutiny test, the constitutionality of the law or governmental regulation under review is not presumed, unlike the constitutionality of a law or governmental regulation would be presumed under the rational basis test, or under that test's functional equivalent, the reasonable regulation standard. Therefore, the burden of proof for the State of New York is a difficult one under strict scrutiny would be exceedingly difficult to overcome. Under either the rational basis test or “reasonable regulation” standard, on the other hand, a court of review in New York is legally required to presume, in the first instance, that a law or regulation is constitutional, hence valid. So, under the rational basis test or “reasonable regulation” standard, the New York State Government is able, very easily, to enact draconian gun laws that, just as easily, pass constitutional muster. This explains why challenges to various provisions of the Safe Act – except in one or two instances – fail, and this explains why challenges to the Safe Act in its entirety have, to date, also failed. And, this explains why draconian gun laws, such as the New York Safe Act, are able to exist and continue to exist at all. And, critically, this also clearly explains why The New York Times expresses a desire for courts of competent jurisdiction to use a relaxed standard of judicial review when testing the constitutionality of a draconian State or federal gun law or governmental regulation.Through application of the rational basis test or reasonable regulation standard, New York, and any other State, and, for that matter, Congress itself, can enact gun laws that infringe the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms, and such laws will still, almost invariably, pass a constitutional challenge. And that is why, traditionally at least, our jurisprudence respects challenges to laws that impact fundamental rights such as the right of the people  to keep and bear arms, requiring State and federal governments to overcome an extremely difficult standard of judicial review if their restrictive gun laws are to be held constitutional and, therefore, to survive challenges to their constitutionality. This means that the burden of proof is on the government to prove that a law or regulation is constitutional. But, under either the rational basis test or "reasonable regulation" standard that the NY Times refers to in its editorial, the burden rests with the challenger, in the first instance, to show that a particular law or governmental regulation is, in fact, unconstitutional. Under strict scrutiny, the burden rests squarely on the government to prove to the satisfaction of the court that the law or regulation is, in fact, constitutional. That is a crucial difference and explains why the New York Times not only asks for enactment of extremely restrictive gun laws on the national stage but, as well, explains why the Times would mandate use of a relaxed standard of review once the laws were challenged in federal court, and the constitutionality of those laws would be challenged. Under a relaxed standard of judicial review, such draconian gun laws would very likely survive a court challenge, testing the laws' constitutionality. Thus, the Times calls for use of the "reasonable regulation" standard of judicial review.But, if a New York State or New York federal court of competent jurisdiction applies strict scrutiny, say, to the New York Safe Act, for example, as it should, in lieu of the rational basis test, the New York State Government must prove to the Court’s satisfaction that the NY Safe Act furthers a compelling government interest. But that doesn’t end the inquiry. Strict scrutiny embraces a two-part test. Assuming the Government can prove to the satisfaction of the court that the New York Safe Act does serve a compelling State interest, the State Government must then show that the NY Safe Act is narrowly tailored to meet that objective – say, reduction of gun violence. That means the Government must prove to the satisfaction of the court, that the NY Safe Act is the least restrictive means available to the Government for reducing gun violence in the State even if the State  can show that the Act is directed to satisfying a compelling State interest. If and only if the reviewing court is satisfied that the NY Safe Act amounts to the least restrictive means available to the Government for reducing gun violence will that court of review hold the Act constitutional. Otherwise, it will not do so, and cannot legally do so. Application of strict scrutiny to a law or governmental regulation is very difficult for a government to overcome. Application of the standard of strict scrutiny is meant to be difficult to overcome when a restriction on the exercise of a fundamental right is at stake.Challenges to fundamental rights are meant to fail precisely because preservation of the fundamental rights of the American people is itself fundamental to preservation of a free Republic. And a free Republic cannot long endure if State and federal governments can, virtually at will, enact laws that tend to undercut and negate the Bill of Rights. Hence, it is highly unlikely that the New York Safe Act would survive judicial review under a strict scrutiny test. Since the NY Safe Act directly impacts a fundamental right it is presumed from the get-go, that the Act is constitutionally invalid. Thus the burden on a State government or on the federal government to show that a draconian gun law is legally required is considerable, and necessarily so. A reviewing court is likely to see the NY Safe Act as the charade and subterfuge it really is: an underhanded attempt to undercut and negate the efficacy of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, under the guise of protecting the public from gun violence.Clearly, for the New York State Government to argue that denying to thousands of law-abiding New York residents access to large categories of firearms is the least restrictive means available to it for reducing gun violence is neither logically sound nor legally defensible. It is therefore highly unlikely that the NY Safe Act could withstand judicial scrutiny under a strict scrutiny standard. Thus, to say that no right – even a fundamental right – is not absolute, is not to suggest that a government can essentially regulate the right away whenever it so wishes. And, The New York Times is wrong in suggesting that it can.Now it is one thing for courts in New York to apply a weak standard of judicial review that allows for the existence of draconian gun laws, negatively impacting the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms; it is quite another to suggest that such a weak judicial standard should be applied across the board. Yet, this is precisely what the NY Times is asking for: that Congress should enact laws denying to tens of millions of law-abiding Americans the right to own and possess entire categories of firearms and that, if anyone should challenge the constitutionality of such a law, then a court of competent jurisdiction should be required to apply a relaxed standard of review, namely ‘reasonable regulation,’ which would virtually guarantee that an unconstitutional law would pass constitutional muster when it should not and would not if challenged under the strict scrutiny test.As you may recall, Democrats attempted, essentially, to expand the NY Safe Act nationally in 2013. The "illustrious," Dianne Feinstein, Democratic Party Senator from California, introduced a bill, in 2013, in the Senate, to ban so-called “assault weapons” and so-called “high capacity ammunition magazines.” Her bill, “The Assault Weapons Ban of 2013,” included 157 kinds of firearms that the American public would no longer be able to lawfully own and possess. And Americans could no longer own and possess ammunition magazines that held more than 10 cartridges, if that bill became law. Feinstein's “Assault Weapons Ban of 2013" was meant to resurrect the earlier “Assault Weapons Ban of 1994,” which banned 19 weapons and, in fact, to expand upon “The Assault Weapons of 1994,” which expired in accordance with its sunset provision in 2004. Fortunately, attempts by antigun Senators to renew the law, failed. And, Feinstein’s new 2013 bill could never gain traction. It failed by a vote of the Senate, 40 to 60, in April of 2013. Now, through despicable hubris and subterfuge on the part of a newspaper, The New York Times, that newspaper is attempting to resurrect Feinstein’s own dead antigun bill, using “fear," together with sleight-of-hand, to encourage the American public to take action against its own best self-interest – in effect calling upon the public to contact Congress to bring Feinstein’s Monster, “The Assault Weapons Ban of 2013,” back to life in the form of an “Assault Weapons Ban of 2016.”If there is any doubt about the New York Times’ deplorable intentions actions, attacking the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the Times makes the point that: “certain kinds of weapons . . . and certain kinds of ammunition must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up. . . .” This is essentially Feinstein’s: “Assault Weapons Ban of 2013.” Now, under a strict scrutiny standard of review, Feinstein’s resurrected antigun bill, as a draconian antigun law – essentially the New York Safe Act, applied nationally (assuming for purpose of argument that  an assault weapons ban could succeed, at all, in 2016, when the Act failed in 2013) -- would almost certainly be struck down by federal courts, once challenged, and it would be challenged. But, under a relaxed “reasonable regulation” standard or under its functional equivalent, the “rational basis” test, such a law would more easily pass judicial scrutiny. This is why the New York Times presses for both an assault weapons ban and, at once, deviously, insists upon a relaxed legal standard of review, so that the Government can legally require Americans who own “certain kinds of weapons” – and one can fill in the blank as to what those weapons are, although the list would probably and eventually be extended to encompass all of them – to surrender them to government authorities and if such overreaching law were challenged in federal court, such challenge would almost certainly fail.The Times adds, piously, that Americans must give up their weapons "for the good of their fellow citizens.” In other words, the Times is saying that, for the “good” of the Collective, as defined by the puppet masters of Government, the sanctity and autonomy of each individual American must be forfeited. Of course, this will not make Americans safer. In fact it will make Americans substantially less safe as American citizens will be more prone to gun violence by sociopathic Islamic jihadists, psychopathic criminals and criminal gangs, and assorted lunatics. No doubt, the Times had substantial assistance from a phalanx of antigun lawyers to assist it when drafting its front page editorial.And, keep in mind that, if the New York Times is suggesting that, in the very act of dispossessing Americans of their firearms, thereby dismantling the Second Amendment, the Government is in some bizarre manner doing something beneficial for Americans, it is abundantly clear the Times is actually doing something quite contrary to the seemingly benign act of disarming Americans. The New York Times is actually targeting all Americans – hence, resurrection of Feinstein’s Monster. Clearly, the desire of the Times editorial staff is to target the millions of  law-abiding, sane, rational American gun owners – not simply Islamic jihadists, criminals and lunatics. For, in this same front page editorial, the Times asserts, that any American who wants those weapons, which the Times calls “weapons of war,”  must be corralled and considered criminally suspect. The Times asserts in the flamboyant, typically pious manner of the antigun zealot: “It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that people can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection.” Ergo, if an American would want such a weapon, much less insist on owning and possessing such a weapon, there must be something seriously wrong with that individual. Thus, The New York Times is targeting essentially all Americans. This is a frontal assault on the Second Amendment itself – a frontal assault on the exercise of a fundamental right of every law-abiding American. The only outrage and national disgrace here is The New York Times itself that would undercut our Free Republic and undermine the Bill of Rights that is the bedrock of our Free Republic.If the Second Amendment is frontally assaulted by the very Government -- the federal Government that is supposed to defend and preserve it, since it is a component of our Constitution – indeed a fundamental part of it -- then the People must defend it because  a quiet coup d’etat of the federal government is already underway. Thus, The New York Times isn’t preventing insurrection, it is fomenting it, inviting it, daring Americans to take arms against the very federal Government that was created to serve the People, as that same federal Government  now boldly asserts its dominion over the People – with the devout blessing of, and encouragement of, a member of the “Fourth Estate,” that the founders had themselves blessed with protection through the language of the First Amendment, guaranteeing the freedom of the Press. That same Press is now working with the federal  Government -- not as a check against it but as a tool of it -- against the American people.The New York Times has, in its front page editorial, insidiously suggested, through a very thin veil, that any American who would fight to preserve that “peculiar” Second Amendment is an American who must be treated no differently than a lunatic, criminal, or Islamic jihadist. And, as if the incendiary nature of that front page editorial were not enough, the Times continues feeding the American public with copious amounts of nonsensical fodder inside that same Saturday, December 5, 2015 edition.In another article, appearing on page 5 of the Saturday edition of the New York Times, the newspaper cites to Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama’s emulation of Australia’s gun laws. The New York times says, “President Obama has cited the country’s gun laws as a model for the United States, calling Australia a nation ‘like ours.’” The newspaper also mentions Clinton’s statement that “the Australian approach is ‘worth considering.’” Actually, Australia is anything but a nation like ours. In our article posted on December 1, 2015, in the Arbalest Quarrel, and which was also posted in Ammoland Shooting Sports News in condensed summary, we emphasized that Clinton’s support for a national gun confiscation program, if actually implemented, would be patently illegal. The mainstream news media did not, at that time, give wide coverage of her remarks at last month’s Town Hall Meeting in Keene, New Hampshire, as Clinton’s remarks were seen as too farfetched even for the mainstream news media, as her remarks show a callous disregard and disrespect for the U.S. Constitution – this coming from a person with legal training who was educated at an elite university – and most Americans would clearly take serious exception with those remark if they were subject to widespread coverage and her chances of securing the U.S. Presidency in 2016 would be jeopardized. The mainstream news media did not, apparently, wish to ruin Clinton’s chances. Apparently, the New York Times, as one mainstream news media source, has, almost two months since that Town Hall meeting, reconsidered and decided to fully support Clinton’s position on gun ownership and possession, extreme as it is and trust that, by adopting that extreme position, itself, make it appear less extreme to the American people. Of course, The Times is well aware that it is actively creating dissension in the American populace, but it is betting that most Americans will side with Clinton on Second Amendment issues. Supposedly, public addresses by the current U.S. President will also serve to make assaults on the Second Amendment less “off-putting” to most Americans. At least that is the grand design of the international globalists and socialists, who control the mainstream media and who pull the strings of many Government Officials, including those of the present U.S. President, Barack Obama.The Times newspaper is clearly setting the stage for a Clinton Presidency. But that Presidency will pave the way for the dismantling of the U.S. Constitution by way of a full frontal assault on the Second Amendment. A Republican Congress would never allow the Second Amendment to be defeated. But, assuming arguendo, Congress were to enact a law requiring confiscation of guns on an unprecedented scale, the law would not withstand judicial review under a strict scrutiny standard. The U.S. Supreme Court would be the last Branch of Government called upon to protect the U.S. Constitution. For, if federal courts applied a lesser standard of scrutiny to a massive national gun confiscation law, such as ‘reasonable regulation,’ that the New York Times is asking for, Congress would be defying the U.S. Supreme Court which has the last word on the constitutionality of a Congressional Act. For a massive gun confiscation scheme would effectively nullify the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in the 2008 Heller case and, so, would be unconstitutional on its face. That, the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court would not allow.For this reason, in yet a third article appearing in the Saturday edition of the NY Times, there is posed the possibility of the U.S. President defying both Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court by imposing a massive gun confiscation scheme through executive order. Of course the NY Times would like to see this but even the Times recognizes that such an action by a U.S. President would be patently illegal. Still, if Barack Obama dared to do that – attack the Second Amendment head-on – such unilateral action by the Chief  Executive, who is not reluctant to use executive orders would, in this instance, amount to an impeachable offense. But, if the Democrats take control of Congress and if Clinton secures the “Oval Office,” then Americans have much to worry about. For Clinton would certainly make several federal district court and appellate court appointments and U.S. Supreme Court nominations and such people, whom she would appoint to the federal courts and nominate to the highest Court of the Land would generally support unconstitutional executive orders, designed to weaken the Second Amendment. Ultimately, a Clinton Presidency could very well pave the way for de facto, revocation of the Second Amendment, if not outright repeal of it. Other rights under the Bill of Rights would fall like dominos.If the New York Times would manifest a concern over an assault on the First Amendment’s Freedom of the Press, it is disheartening that it would demonstrate such a callous disregard for the Second. The Bill of Rights is not to be thought of like so many flavors of ice cream. One doesn’t pick and choose which ones to approve of and which ones to disapprove of. Thus, one must ask the publishers and editors of the New York Times, who, in this front page editorial, have attacked the Second Amendment without even a semblance of restraint: "have you lost your minds?" They may think that the American public is behind them on this. The Times is clearly directing its attention to the frightened and ignorant among us, who see in a Clinton Presidency what the Times says the public needs: protection that only Big Government can provide. What the Times fails to see, though, is that, if most Americans perceive a threat to their sacred rights and liberties, they will defend those rights and liberties at whatever cost, not merely from lunatics, criminals, and foreign invaders, but from an overreaching government itself. Indeed, the threat to the rights and liberties of the American People posed by the federal government itself is significantly more dangerous – infinitely more dangerous – than acts of gun violence perpetrated by lunatics, criminals and, of late, from radicalized Islamic sociopaths. The New York Times is hoping and trusting that most Americans do not -- and will not -- realize what it is they are being asked to sacrifice in the name of feigned security.So it is that the real threat to America is becoming increasingly plain to most Americans. That threat is posed by powerful, ruthless individuals and groups – the international globalists and socialists – both inside this Country and abroad, who seek to take control of the federal government from the American People, to pave the way for an International Socialist State, and they are using, through the New York Times newspaper, the bugaboo of Islamic jihadists to frighten the American public into forsaking its sacred rights and liberties. The New York Times is obviously the sounding board that gives voice to the propaganda such powerful, ruthless individuals and groups seek to use against the American People – that the People will give up their rights and liberties, unknowingly, through subterfuge, possibly, and, if that fails, then through coercion. As these un-American interests so dare to bring America to its knees, there will be a day of reckoning. And that day of reckoning is fast approaching.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS DUPE THE PUBLIC ON GUN DEBATE

It is a curious fact that mainstream newspapers consistently fail to provide their readers with logically sound, consistent, coherent, cogent arguments to support their case against civilian ownership of guns. Indeed, there isn’t a pretense to do so. Rather, these newspapers prefer to recite banal normative prescriptions, empty slogans, and vague statements devoid of any meaningful content. The mainstream newspapers take as a given that civilian gun ownership is untenable. And upon that faulty foundation they spout pious sentiments and posit specious propositions, ostensibly to support a doubtful moral position.A few days ago, on September 27, 2014, Joe Nocera, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, wrote a piece titled, “Paralysis isn’t Inevitable.” In that Op-Ed Nocera says Congress can act to pass more gun laws. He points to a strategy Daniel Webster  Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, proposes to accomplish that.According to Webster, “It’s a loser to call for a gun ban.” Instead {Webster’s} reforms would make it more difficult for criminals to get their hands on guns. Using background checks, {Webster} would keep guns away from people who have a history of violence. {Webster} would raise the age of gun ownership to 21. (Webster notes that homicides peak between the ages of 18 and 20). . . . And {Webster} would mandate something called microstamping, ‘which would make it possible to trace a gun used in a crime to its first purchaser. . . .’ And {Webster} pointed to polls that show the vast majority of gun owners favor such changes.”Nocera then quotes, with approval, Webster’s obligatory attack on the NRA. “The N.R.A. has been very successful in controlling the conversation and making it about a cultural war. . . . But, I believe that narrative won’t persist. The key . . . is to change the conversation so that it is about pro- and anti-crime instead of pro- and anti-gun. . . . I think that ultimately that idea will prevail, and it will be a pretty mainstream idea.”Before we analyze the various assertions expressed in this Op-Ed, keep in mind that the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research is not a neutral think tank. It has an agenda and that agenda is decidedly unfavorable toward the Second Amendment. Its purpose: “The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research began in 1995 with funding from the Joyce Foundation of Chicago. It is dedicated to reducing gun violence by providing information on firearm injuries and gun policy; by developing, analyzing, and evaluating strategies to prevent firearm injuries; and by conducting public health and legal research to identify gun policy needs.”You will note the absence of any mention of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in the context of the Center’s mission statement. The normative argument implicit in the Center’s mission statement and as tacitly conveyed in Nocera’s Op-Ed is this: anything that the Center perceives as harmful to the public is morally reprehensible and must be banned. Guns are perceived as harmful to the public. Therefore guns must be banned. That is the moral argument – the normative prescription against gun ownership and possession. And, the goal of the “The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research" is clear enough from a perusal of its mission statement. Colloquially expressed the goal is simply this: Get guns out of the hands of the civilian population. Now, let’s take a look at the fallacies and speciousness of Webster’s assertions as cited, nonetheless, with approval in Nocera’s NY Times Op-Ed piece.First, we might well ask how Webster’s strategies prevent criminals from obtaining guns. Clearly, criminals aren’t prevented from obtaining guns. But, a good chunk of law-abiding American citizenry would be precluded from obtaining guns if any of these strategies became law. Apparently, Webster and Nocera equate criminals – who have never had a problem obtaining guns – with law-abiding citizens, whom they do not wish to have access to guns.Second, Webster says that, “it is a loser to call for a gun ban.” No kidding and rightly so! Yet, in the very assertion Webster admits the need to deceive the public. To get the public to cajole Congress to enact further restrictive gun laws, it is necessary to get the public to think less about the law-abiding citizen’s right to own and possess guns and more about criminals who misuse guns. Of course, Webster fails to acknowledge the myriad laws on the books that prohibit criminals from owning guns – laws that are rarely, if ever, enforced. So, Webster’s desire for further restrictive laws against gun ownership and possession must be directed, not against the career criminal, but, rather, against the law-abiding citizen.Third, knowing that laws against ownership of guns by law-abiding Americans won’t fly, Webster suggests attacking the right to keep and bear arms obliquely, through the device of “background checks.” Note: Webster hasn’t mentioned using background checks to target criminals. Rather, he wishes to target two other exponentially larger population groups: those under the age of 21, specifically those between the ages of 18 and 20, and those whom, he says, “have a history of violence.”Let’s take a closer look at these two groups. It should be obvious to all Americans that the minimum age of enlistment in any of the armed forces is 17. So, an American citizen may, as a soldier, handle and possess sophisticated weaponry at age 17, but Webster and Nocera would deny an American citizen, as a civilian, to own and possess a gun until he or she is 21.You see where this is going. Say a young man or woman leaves the military at age 20. A person risks life and limb to serve his and her Country and is perfectly adept at handling firearms; but, as a civilian, that American citizen isn’t permitted to own a firearm because he or she falls into an age group that, according to Webster, happens to have the highest rates of homicide. Dubious statistics trumps ice-cold logic.Fourth, and what does the phrase “a history of violence” mean: That a person who had ever said a discouraging word to another person is violent? That a person who was depressed at some point in his or her life is presumptively violent against self and/or against others? That a person who had ever had an altercation with another for whatever reason is violent? That a soldier or sailor or airman who had engaged in armed conflict is violent? Cannot such an open-ended phrase, “a history of violence,” sweep into the clutches of the gun grabbers literally millions of honest, law-abiding Americans? Undoubtedly, Webster wishes to keep the phrase as open-ended and as amorphous as possible, to corral millions of law-abiding Americans.Fifth, Webster and Nocera refer to that “something” or other called microstamping that would enable the police to trace a gun “to its first purchaser.” The emphasis here is on tracing a gun “to its first purchaser,” and not to the criminal who actually used the gun in the commission of a crime. So, a criminal plants cartridge shells at the scene of the crime or steals a gun from a law-abiding firearms owner. The police duly “trace” the gun “to its first purchaser,” and not to the criminal. And, we are to conclude that microstamping is an acceptable forensics tool for law enforcement? Really? Clearly, microstamping of firearms is worse than useless. Apparently, Webster and Nocera think otherwise. Perhaps they simply don’t care, reasoning that, if a law-abiding person didn’t have a gun in the first place, the gun could never be traced back to him. So, the moral is: don’t own a gun!Sixth, and what about those opinion polls? Without referring to any particular poll, Webster says that, in the wake of Newtown, gun owners favor changes to existing gun laws. What changes is Webster referring to? And, what questions were asked of “gun owners” whom Webster claims support “changes?” Certainly, one can phrase a question in a multitude of ways to elicit any answer the questioner wishes. And, asking a question about guns, when emotions run high, is not the time to push through legislation. The public should be treated with respect. And appeals should be directed to one’s higher cognitive functions, not to the emotive center of one’s brain.Seventh, Webster attacks the NRA. The antigun crowd always attacks the NRA. Webster asserts the NRA controls the conversation about guns. If that were only true! Actually, the NRA is forever compelled to repel insistent attacks against it and against the Second Amendment. Webster says the NRA makes the issue about guns a “cultural war.” Since when is the battle to preserve and secure our sacred Bill of Rights reduced to a matter of personal aesthetics, which, apparently, is what Webster is getting at through use of the word ‘culture?’ And, when, if ever, did the NRA profess a cavalier attitude toward crime? Webster suggests that any pro-gun argument, which, actually, is a pro Bill of Rights Second Amendment argument, entails acquiescence toward gun violence. That is absolutely false, but Webster creates the association anyway suggesting, ludicrously, that the NRA, by being strong on guns, is soft on crime.Bottom line: don’t look to the mainstream news media for cogent, well-reasoned arguments. You won’t get them.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2014 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour) and Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

GEE, IF YOU’RE GOING TO COMMIT MURDER, PLEASE USE A GUN!

This from the NY Times: “The parents of the first three victims of Elliot O. Rodger’s murderous rampage [re: the Santa Barbara killings on May 23, 2014] said they were frustrated by the authorities handling of the case. . . . It was not clear how the slight Mr. Rodger, 22, was able to over-power the three, who were stabbed to death [all young men, not women]. In a joint interview, the parents told The Washington Post that they had visited the crime scene and had seen no blood on the walls or ceiling. The police had removed a 6-by-5 foot piece of carpeting in one bedroom, and a swath of vinyl flooring around the toilet had been cut out. They said the limited amount of material removed from the apartment suggested the killings had been confined to a small space. They criticized the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s department for not telling them how it believed the killings had been carried out, and said they were angered by public health and legal systems that they said valued the rights of the mentally ill, including Mr. Rodger, over those who may become their victims.” New York Times, “Inquiry Vexes Parents of 3 Slain in Spree.”The Article appeared on page 15 of the Sunday, June 22, 2014 edition of the N.Y. Times. What’s immediately evident, given a description of the knifing attack that killed three men, is that a knife is as useful a killing implement as a gun in the hands of a person who’s set on doing violence to another – in this case, to three others, all other men. That point, although evident to any sensible person, isn’t evident to the N.Y. Times. The paper demonstrates incredulity that “the slight Mr. Rodger, 22, was able to over-power the three, who were stabbed to death.” So, we are to assume the New York Times would not have any reason to doubt Mr. Rodger’s ability to snuff the life out of the three young men had he done the proper thing and used a gun on them as he had on the young women whom next he killed. That would have made good copy for the paper and would certainly be consistent with the fanciful world the paper has created for its readers: (1) guns alone are the main vehicle of and hallmark of violence in America; (2) it is easy to kill with a gun, but not so easy to kill with any other object; (3) if a person is going on a killing rampage, it is best that he do so using a gun, for otherwise, how can the public be duped into going along with a complete gun ban if any other object can be utilized to kill another just as easily; and (4) killers have a decided preference for guns. Unfortunately, for the NY Times and the antigun zealots, Elliot Rodger didn’t go along with the game plan. Apparently, he wasn’t aware of the four axioms of antigun logic. Perhaps Rodger didn’t want to show he was prejudiced in his choice of killing implements. Be that as it may, the three young men Rodger killed with a knife, in lieu of a gun, are just as dead. No doubt the New York Times would’ve loved to interview both Rodger and his male victims to get a handle on just how the slight Elliot O. Rodger was able to kill three men in close quarters, with but a knife.The last sentence of the N.Y. Times Article makes an important point although you might miss it at first glance: “Sheriff Bill Brown [of the Santa Barbara County sheriff’s department] has said the three men were stabbed repeatedly with sharp objects and [he] called the crime scene ‘pretty horrific.’”  Did you catch it? Probably not; and that’s understandable – because what you missed wasn’t there to be found. It was a point that the New York Times never fails to make when reporting on horrific gun violence. But, nonetheless, the newspaper did fail to make the point here. For, curiously absent from that last sentence of the NY Times Article and – indeed – what is curiously and notably absent from the entirety of that June 22^nd New York Times news article, is any remonstration against the horrors of knives and the need to get knives out of the hands of civilians. Obviously, the New York Times didn’t choose to dwell on the lethality of knives. The New York Times didn’t, in fact, choose to make anything of it. The New York Times wished decidedly and decisively, to avoid any discussion about it. The New York Times isn't interested in curbing ownership and possession of knives. The New York Times is interested in curbing ownership and possession of guns.The N.Y. Times, like any other mainstream newspaper, often distorts facts when writing about horrendous events – namely and particularly, when writing about horrific events involving the misuse of firearms. But, this June 22^nd Times article also shows that a mainstream newspaper can, when it so chooses, refrain from distorting facts. You can see, from a perusal of the June 22^nd article, that the newspaper happened not to interject opinions – if indeed the newspaper had any – about knives and the use of knives to commit violent acts, apart from the Times singularly odd statement pertaining to its incredulity about a slight man killing three other men with a knife. Mainstream newspapers and their outlets – as a rule, though – aren’t interested in stating facts and permitting the public to draw its own conclusions from unbiased, unfiltered reporting of the facts. These newspapers all too often feel a need to shape public opinion and to direct it or redirect it to a desired end – at odds with the public’s own best interests. So, what are we getting at here? Just this:The New York Times, like other mainstream newspapers has an agenda. And, that agenda isn't one focused on knives and the misuse of knives -- at least at this point in time. It's an agenda that's focused squarely on guns and their use and misuse -- indeed, on the mere fact of the gun's existence. So, when a horrific act occurs through misuse of an implement other than the misuse of a gun, the horrific act of violence only serves to deflect criticism away from the single-minded pursuit of the antigun crowd and of its allies in the U.S. Congress and in the State Legislatures and in the mainstream media who wish first and foremost to ban guns -- all guns -- from the hands of the civilian citizenry. Moreover, when a horrific act occurs through use of an implement other than a gun, the public becomes aware that the entire issue of violence in society isn't, rationally, one that is properly centered around guns -- which are but inanimate objects devoid of sentience -- but, rather, the issue of violence in society is one  that, rationally and properly, is centered on the perpetrators of the violence, namely, the individuals who perpetrate the violence:  criminal psychopaths and psychotics. Thus, the answer to violence in society must perforce begin and end by dealing with the root cause of that violence, namely, the individual perpetrator of it, and not with the object or objects the perpetrator happens to use to effectuate that violence, be that object a gun, knife, club or any other object.  So, suppose Elliot O. Rodger hadn’t used a knife in any of the attacks. Imagine if you will that Elliot O. Rodger had killed all his victims with a gun. Do you honestly think the N.Y. Times Article would have plainly and succinctly set forth the anguish of the parents of the three men Elliot Rodger had murdered, without also addressing the matter of the implement used in the horrific attack and the need to regulate the ownership and possession of that destructive implement by civilians? Do you honestly think the N.Y. Times would so easily dismiss the use of a gun by Rodger – that the paper would be content merely to set forth the fact of the murders, perhaps referring to use of a gun in the murders and leave the matter at that, without drawing upon antigun sentiment and interjecting comments about the evils of guns? Of course not. The N.Y. Times would talk about the evils of guns in order to foment public outrage toward guns, rather than toward the perpetrator of the violent act or acts, as if to suggest that the existence of evil were a property of the object -- the gun -- rather than of the individual who committed the horrific act.  And, that's absolutely absurd. But, the N.Y Times is less interested on focusing attention on the individual who commits the horrific act and more interested on focusing attention on the object the perpetrator uses to commit the horrific act when the object is a gun. At that point the newspaper at once digresses from reporting the facts pertaining to the horrific act, and propagandizes about the supposed evils attendant to guns. And that misuse of reporting bespeaks an agenda and a wish that, if a horrific act occurs, it's best the object utilized be a gun, rather than any other object. For then the horrific act becomes a useful statistic -- one that might be used by antigun groups to support a call for a ban on gun ownership and possession. If, however, an object other than a gun -- such as a knife -- is used by a perpetrator of a horrific act, the use of such a non-gun object to commit a horrific act only dilutes the argument against guns as sources of evil. For such act of violence tends to divert one's attention away from guns. And, in fact, such act of violence tends to divert one's attention away from any implement used in the commission of a violent act -- whether the object is a gun, knife, club or any other inanimate object and compels -- truly forces -- one to look deep and hard at the individual perpetrator of violence -- at the perpetrator's incongruous rationalizations for committing a horrific act of violence, which is where one's attention ought to be focused and should have been focused all along. That focus should not be directed on the implement of violence. For to place such focus and emphasis on an implement -- such as a gun -- rather than on the individual serves to minimize, to diminish, the individual's personal and sole responsibility and accountability for his actions. The individual who commits the horrific act with a gun becomes, then, not the central participant, but, rather, the abettor of the criminal act. And the object used to commit the crime -- the object used to perpetrate the horrific act -- the gun -- becomes, itself, the salient and principal participant in the criminal act. It is as if the N.Y. Times and other similar mainstream newspapers wish, then, "to jail" the miscreant gun, arguing that we, the American public, should agree to do just that and that we, the American public, may be able to do just that -- through the device of a total ban on civilian ownership and possession of guns. Such, of course, is not an action the N.Y. Times and other similar mainstream newspapers would wish to see realized -- at least at this moment in time -- for knives.So it is that, in the June 22nd N.Y. Times article, we see that the focus of the article was not on the evil of knives, as objects used in the commission of violent acts. The focus was on the perpetrator of the horrific act, Elliot O. Rodger. And the focus was on the Santa Barbara County sheriff's department that had the responsibility to investigate the triple murder of the three young men. And the focus was on the parents of the three young men who Rodger murdered. And the focus of the N.Y. Times article was on the parents' legitimate concern over the thoroughness of the investigation and on the failure of the legal and mental health systems that had failed to properly deal with an obviously very ill individual, Elliot O. Rodger. What the focus of the N.Y. Times article was not on were knives; nor should the focus of the N.Y. Times article have been on knives -- inanimate, non-sentient objects. The June 22nd article simply stuck to the facts. And, that’s all the N.Y. Times did in the June 22^nd article – simply report the use of a knife by Rodger, to murder three men and to assert the anguish of the families who lost their loved ones. The N.Y. Times did not go into a tirade over the evil of knives. The N.Y. Times did not use the incident to call for regulations on knife possession and ownership. But, if Rodger had killed the young men with a gun, as he had the young women, then, most certainly, the N.Y. Times would’ve written a polemic on the evil of guns and would’ve argued long and hard, in that article, how those young men would most certainly not have died but for the presence of guns in American society. And, while such polemic might be posited in the op-ed section of the newspaper, the N.Y. Times would, invariably, place its opinions in the news section of the paper, wrongly suggesting to its readership that its views about guns aren't mere opinions at all -- but are hard, cold facts. We know the N.Y. Times myriad opinions about guns are invariably wrong. But, to proclaim opinions -- false beliefs -- to be hard, cold facts is ethically wrong and duplicitous -- deceptive in the extreme.The New York Times, as with all mainstream newspapers, no longer leaves opinions to the op-ed section of their respective papers, but constantly interjects opinions in the news sections of the papers. So, gun related murders require some discussion of the need to regulate guns. Gun related murders require some discussion of the so-called “gun lobby” and of gun manufacturers and of the need for so-called “common-sense gun laws.” But, you’d have to search long and hard – and it’s unlikely you’d meet with success – to find mainstream news media stories calling for “common-sense knife laws” or “knife laws we can live with” or the need to curb the “knife lobby” or the need to place restraints on knife manufacturers, whenever a lunatic or psychopathic gang member or your “run of the mill” homicidal killer murders an innocent person with a knife. Clearly, mainstream newspapers like the N.Y. Times aren't interested in curbing knife ownership and possession. Those newspapers are interested in curbing gun ownership and possession. And, by expressing their personal wishes as to what ought to be done about gun ownership and possession in the news sections of their respective papers, they wrongly associate personal beliefs and wishes with facts. That journalistic practice must end!Mainstream news organizations demonstrate callousness – or – perhaps it’s more appropriate to say, schizophrenia – when it comes to reporting stories involving violence. If the violent act involves anything other than the use of guns, the news story is confined to a discussion of the perpetrator and his victims and the events surrounding the violent act.  However, if the violent act involves the use of a firearm, then, a distinct matter – one altogether unrelated to the people involved and time, place and circumstances of the crime – is added to the mix.  It is one that invokes morality, philosophy, psychology and the politics of gun ownership and possession. The newspaper’s purpose and focus changes: from one limited to reporting the news to one attempting to make news – by shaping public opinion and driving public action. And, there is a phrase used to describe such newspapers that aim to provoke the public. It’s called “yellow journalism.”Yellow journalism was much in vogue in the 19^th Century. A relic of time, it has been used in the 20^th Century, and it has become a veritable art form in the 21^st. And it is indeed used with masterful success by mainstream newspapers, including the N.Y. Times. In stooping to politicking and provocation the newspaper discredits itself and discredits, as well, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. For, the paper misuses the very power the Founders gave to it – that is to say – the very power the Founders gave to the Press: the unfettered, fundamental right to inform the Public.The founders perceived the Press as critical to the wellbeing of our Republic. The Press wasn’t to be relegated to the status of tool of those with a secret agenda – one embracing the very destruction of that Republic. But, to function as a tool of others who have a secret agenda, the N.Y. Times appears, most unfortunately, to be perfectly content.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2014 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour) and Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.