CHRISTIAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN UTILIZED AS CANNON FODDER AND AS A PLOT DEVICE IN AN “ASSAULT WEAPON” HORROR FILM PSYCHODRAMA, AIMED AT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC

School shootings are rare events. But they need not happen, and should not happen. But they do happen. And the reason why is no secret. And, NO, the reason for school shooting incidents has nothing to do with too many “GUNS” in society.The reason for school shootings, as with shootings anywhere else in the Country, has nothing to do with the quantity of guns or the types of guns circulating in America, notwithstanding the fuss and furor of Anti-Second Amendment forces in Government, in the Press, or in the greater public. The reason why is simple:Guns, of themselves, “DON’T CAUSE” violence.“GUNS DON’T CAUSE ANYTHING” because, like any other implement, “GUNS CAN’T CAUSE ANYTHING.” A FIREARM IS AN INANIMATE OBJECT, NOT A SENTIENT AGENT.A firearm, be it an antique black powder musket, or modern assault rifle or submachine gun—or “assault weapon” qua “weapon of war” (expressions concocted by propagandists and subject to constant fluctuation and expansion)—have no will of their own.These implements might sit for a million years in a military armory or in one’s private abode, and, left alone, nothing would happen. They won’t sprout legs and arms and go off on a shooting spree because they aren’t sentient beings. They have no “will” to act and no ability to act. Only sentient agents CAN ACT, are capable of action, for good or naught.Yet, to hear Joe Biden, for one, go on about guns, one would think that guns are the seminal cause of criminal violence in our schools and elsewhere around the Country—A “SCOURGE” OF THE COUNTRY AND OF “GUN VIOLENCE” he has long said—as if this AWFUL “SCOURGE” is independent of the SENTIENT AGENTS, the PSYCHOPATHS and LUNATICS that use guns, or any other implement, to commit their unspeakable acts. “Get rid of Guns,” so the illogical messaging goes, “and peace and harmony will reign throughout the Land.” Nothing could be further from the truth.And, THE TRUTH IS THIS:The overwrought, pensive, incessant dwelling on “GUNS” would dissolve into nothingness like the chimera it is and ever was if Government would spend less time, money, dwelling on guns, and spend more time, money, and effort “RIDDING SOCIETY OF PSYCHOPATHIC CRIMINALS AND DANGEROUS LUNATICS”—placing and then keeping serial violent criminals in prison and placing and keeping dangerous lunatics in asylums. Then, there would be no issue about guns as a “SCOURGE” on society.But, the SCOURGE IS NOT GUNS. It is, rather, the crazed individuals permitted, even encouraged, to run amok in our Nation to terrorize innocent Americans at will.This should be obvious. The Anti-Second Amendment Biden Administration and the Legacy Press prostrate themselves to “THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR IN SOCIETY,” (those elements of no use to society and of little, if any, use to themselves) who intrude upon and trample the natural law rights of the “THE HIGHEST COMMON DENOMINATOR IN SOCIETY: tens of millions of responsible, rational, ethically minded citizens, who are the most significant part of the polity.In fact, given the present state of affairs, in this strange cultural milieu of DEI, CRT, SEL, ESG, and LGBTQIA+, the public sees the community police departments themselves handcuffed and in leg irons, underfunded or defunded, and often demoralized, and unable to provide a modicum of protection for their communities. In such a society that America, under the Biden Administration, has become, the import of the natural law right to armed self-defense is unmistakable, becoming more acute, insistent, and emphatic with each passing day.And Americans DO FIND themselves compelled to resort to armed self-defense more frequently, and they do successfully ward off the threat to life, and often without having to fire a shot because the display of a firearm is enough to deter a hardened but by no means dull-witted criminal.If an aggressor is hopped up on illegal narcotics, and undeterred by the mere presence of a firearm, a couple of well-placed gunshots renders the most maniacal assailant compliant, whereas a whistle, or pepper spray (diluted for civilian use), or a stun gun marketed for civilians, or a rap on the head with a baseball bat, or a firm command (“stay the f**k away from me”) would only tend to enrage the assailant more.Yet, the Press deliberately underreports the utility of the firearm for self-defense, notwithstanding statistical evidence to support it. See, e.g., the August 10, 2022 article by John R. Lott, Jr., titled, “The ‘Good Guys With Guns’ the FBI Stats Omit,” on RealClear Investigations.See also the March 31, 2023 in Americangunfacts. These statistics don’t lie, but, also they don’t fit the narrative of the Anti-Second Amendment Biden Administration and its friends in the Press, so these statistics are never mentioned.But, when a lunatic goes into a schoolhouse and murders children, the Government and media perk up their ears. They zero in on it, magnify it, and talk endlessly and vociferously about it.But does the Government—this Biden Administration—do this because it really cares about the plight of school children? No! The Biden Administration doesn't care about the plight of the children.Rather, a school shooting incident is the kind of event the Biden Administration exuberantly awaits and yearns for. Regardless of what the Administration says, the lives of children are not sacred and inviolate to the Administration. The public takes from the words of Joe Biden what it wants to hear, and wishes to believe, but the public is naive. The words are empty; worse they are lies.Children are viewed by the Administration as CANNON FODDER, THEATER PROPS, a PLOT DEVICE to be utilized in service to an agenda: illegal confiscation of semiautomatic weapons—weapons that are in common use by and for millions of average, responsible, rational Americans. And these Americans utilize these weapons for many lawful uses—principally, among them—for self-defense and in defense of one's family against rabid, violent assault.The Biden Administration and news organs use psychological conditioning techniques to create in the psyche of Americans a phobic reaction toward GUNS—treating the entire sordid event—Childrens’ violent deaths at the hands of a Lunatic intent on destroying innocent life, and the Lunatic, in turn, meeting a violent death through the same mechanism of destruction—are cast as a singular horrific event to overload the mind.This is the sort of event the Biden Administration and other foes of the natural law right to armed self-defense salivate over because the overarching focus and central aim is to constantly constrain and eventually eliminate civilian citizenship ownership and possession of firearms, commencing with semiautomatic firearms, encapsulated in the inflammatory, political expression, “assault weapons.” Remember Emmanuel Rahm’s Law: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”That IS the mantra of the Biden Administration. And it WAS the mantra of the Pelosi's House of Representatives.The Government and the Press prey on the horror of innocent lives lost—the lives of children lost.This type of event helps them spin a narrative of the evils of “THE GUN” as the DESTROYER of innocent life rather than as PRESERVER of innocent life. There is something archetypal in this.The Biden Administration does not permit the American public to see firearms in a positive light. The KILLER and the WEAPON become “ONE ENTITY,” inextricably linked and bound: a SINGLE instrument of Death.The matter of news reporting of the recent tragedy that occurred in a small, private, Christian elementary school, “The Covenant School” in Nashville, Tennessee, demonstrates how news coverage has evolved into an elaborate theatrical production.

THE NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL THEATRICAL PSYCHODRAMA HORROR SHOW UNFOLDS

In the film, presented to the public, through carefully drawn video vignettes and an accompanying film script, the perpetrator of the violence, the psychotic maniac, Audrey (“Aiden”) Elizabeth Hale and her “assault weapons” serve as a “TROPE,” a thematic storytelling device that drives the plot forward.The INANIMATE OBJECT, THE “ASSAULT WEAPON” bound to the ANIMATE SUBJECT, an emotional wreck of a human Being, are, together, presented as the “CENTRAL ANTAGONIST” in a carefully scripted and presented horror psychodrama.Photographs of both the person and the weaponry are presented.See March 28, 2023 article in Newsweek with sharp graphics of the firearms Hale carried into and utilized in carrying out the murders. and in Independent.co.uk.The New York Post, on March 23, 2023, shows “stills” and video of Hale shooting out the doors of the schools and walking the corridors with rifle at the ready.And see articles published in nytimes.com, independent.co.uk and cbsnews.com.The rhetorical talking points are all in service to an agenda, creating a false narrative about “guns,” using the murder of innocent children as a “plot device” to achieve a goal: Gaining Public Support for A Wholesale Ban On “Assault Weapons.”And, like all good theater, there must be a CLIMAX TO THE FILM. And there is one, here.The Nashville Metro Police provided detailed bodycam footage of the search for and takedown of Hale by an officer (a Metro SWAT Team member, perhaps?) as he methodically removes his assault rifle from the trunk of his squad car, racking the slide of the rifle as he walks determinedly, if curiously not particularly hurriedly, up to the entrance to the school, and waits patiently as an unknown party opens the door with a key. Upon entering the school other officers lead him (to clear?) several rooms of the school, all of which are devoid of the shooter, students, and staff. Apparently, children and staff had been previously shepherded out of the school.As he (and we, the audience) hear shots fired at an upper level of the school building, the officer double-times up a couple flights of stairs where yet other officers guide him to a large lobby area. It is here that he confronts the shooter, Audrey Hale, and takes the shooter out. We are not privy to the shooting itself (due to careful post-production editing of the body camera footage, ostensibly to garner a PG Rating for the film).A second officer (another METRO SWAT Team member, perhaps?) performs the coup de grâce, shooting Audrey Hale four more times, with his handgun, while standing over the fallen shooter. The actual shooting scene, too, is cut, post-production.A final “still” shows the fallen ANTAGONIST, with head deliberately obscured, body visible and contorted on the floor.The entire video camera sequence does appear to have a refined, staged look.The two officers, as with the ANTAGONIST, are demonstrably and inextricably linked with the weapons they bear (one wielding a presumably “selective fire assault rifle,” and the second officer wielding a semiautomatic handgun). See, e.g., video provided by CNN.The two police officers, Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, the two PROTAGONISTS in this news PSYCHODRAMA, who had neutralized the shooter, are hailed as heroes. And that’s, that! Or is it?Dis Collazo need to kill Hale? Was she already mortally wounded from Engelbert’s shots? In any event, she no longer appeared as a viable threat.Would it not have been preferable to keep Hale alive, if possible, once incapacitated. She would have some explaining to do, and better to hear directly from her, her motivations, than try to glean them from a diary or journal, news organizations pretentiously refer to as the killer’s ‘manifesto.’ See Newsweek article for one.Collazo could have kicked her rifle away from her hands if she were still grasping it.Reuters recounts the following:“‘Shots fired, shots fired, move,’ Collazo says before joining Engelbert and the other officer in confronting the shooter.With the perpetrator on the floor, Collazo presses forward to take the final four shots, exhorting the shooter to ‘stop moving!’There is no response from the mortally wounded assailant, as Collazo says, ‘suspect down, suspect down.’” “‘Shots fired, shots fired, move,’ Collazo says before joining Engelbert and the other officer in confronting the shooter.With the perpetrator on the floor, Collazo presses forward to take the final four shots, exhorting the shooter to ‘stop moving!’ (all the while he simultaneously appears to be shooting her).There is no response from the mortally wounded assailant, as Collazo says, ‘suspect down, suspect down.’”We now come to the narrative epilogue that lays bare the purport of the film:The rhetorical talking points are all in service to an agenda, creating a false narrative about “guns,” using the murder of innocent children as a “PLOT DEVICE” to achieve a goal: GAINING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR A BAN ON “ASSAULT WEAPONS.”But the public is left with a seemingly daunting incompatible view of “ASSAULT WEAPONS”:THEY ARE BOTH GOOD (OR NEUTRAL) AND EVIL, DEPENDING ON THE CAMERA’S VANTAGE POINT—THE PARALLAX:ASSAULT WEAPONS IN THE HANDS OF AVERAGE CITIZENS ARE AN EVIL THAT MUST NOT BE TOLERATED; INVARIABLY LEADING TO DEATH, DESTRUCTION, AND UNMITIGATED HORROR FOR EVERYONE; BUT,ASSAULT WEAPONS IN THE HANDS OF AGENTS OF THE GOVERNMENT, POLICE OFFICERS, ARE PERCEIVED AS “GOOD” (OR, PERHAPS, AS “NEUTRAL”) PROMOTING THE PRESERVATION OF INNOCENT LIFE AND DEATH (BUT ONLY IN EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES, AS FOR EXAMPLE WHEN AN OFFICER GOES TO THE ASSISTANCE OF SCHOOL CHILDREN, THREATENED BY A KILLER.Thus, resolution of the incompatibility of “ASSAULT WEAPON” (EVIL) VERSUS “ASSAULT WEAPON (GOOD OR OTHERWISE, AT LEAST, NEUTRAL) demands a magician’s trick, a feat of legerdemain.The messaging conveyed in the Coventry School Psychodrama is subtle—below the threshold of conscious awareness, residing in the subconscious mind.It is that GUNS qua “ASSAULT WEAPONS” are an EVIL, sometimes unadulterated, pure evil—at such time when “THE SENTIENT AGENT (A MANIACAL KILLER) murders children.But, GUNS qua “ASSAULT WEAPONS” are a (GOOD (OR AT LEAST NEUTRAL)) “NECESSARY EVIL” where another SENTIENT AGENT (THE TRAINED, CAPABLE, AND DETERMINED POLICE OFFICER) uses his WEAPON to KILL the KILLER.In other words, it takes a “SHOOTER” TO KILL A SHOOTER.” But isn’t that what armed self-defense is all about? And, if that is a commendable act for a police officer, why should that act be any less commendable if performed by the average civilian in defense of his or her life and that of one’s family?The Head of The Covenant School in Nashville, Katherine Koonce, whom one news account attributes with saving the lives of many of the school children, but at the cost of her own, as she ran directly toward the killer, Audrey Hale, had undertaken, according to the source, “active shooter training,” but the nature of that training was not provided. The author of the article, Billy Hallowell, writing for faithwire.com said he “cannot” (or would not) provide details.

THE ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND THE ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT DEMOCRAT-PARTY ESTABLISHMENT THAT INCLUDE THE LEGACY PRESS ARE FIXATED ON DENYING AMERICANS’ NATURAL LAW RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE

The Biden Administration and other Anti-Second Amendment elements treat the common people as random bits of energy that, at any time, can go off the deep end, and their tendency for violence, i.e., “GUN VIOLENCE,” must therefore be constrained.The notorious American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a politically connected organization tightly aligned with the Biden Administration, posits:“A diagnosis of mental illness does not predict gun violence,”—a true statement—but the AFT, then uses that statement to declare, “Gun control can help prevent gun violence,” implying that, because no can know for certain who will one day go off on a killing spree, the better course of action dictates disarming the public, beginning with a ban on “ASSAULT WEAPONS”—i.e., all semiautomatic firearms.Recall that Biden’s first nominee to head the ATF, David Chipman “. . . believes those tens of millions of semi-automatic rifles should be reclassified as machine guns, which would require registration with the government and the payment of a $200.00 tax stamp for every legally purchased and possessed firearm, with the potential of a 10-year federal prison sentence for those who simply kept their guns without registering them under the National Firearms Act.” See the article in bearingarms.com, posted on May 21, 2021.

WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON HERE?

The United States has this—an Armed Citizenry—both a FACT and an IDEA. The FACT and the IDEA are A Reality: insistent, resilient, and tenacious, not easily ignored or dismantled.Getting guns out of the hands of the citizenry is a physical matter—difficult enough. But, to force the public to forfeit an idea requires the Biden Administration to get inside the mind of Americans and, once inside the American psyche, to reshape it in such a way, that the psyche would willingly turn away from and forsake its natural law, eternal rights.Self-preservation is innate in all living creatures. Americans have a strong desire to protect “self” and to protect one’s offspring. Self-defense is a natural law, fundamental, eternal right. And armed self-defense is not a difference in kind. The natural law right to armed self-defense simply means that an individual has the unalienable right to utilize the most effective means available to ensure his or her life. And for hundreds of years the best means of ensuring one’s life is with a firearm.The propagandists working with and through both the Biden Administration, the Legacy Press, social media, and galvanizing a base of supporters, seduced by the fallacious rhetoric, have devised a stratagem to cajole more and more Americans to turn away from the natural law right to armed self-defense.The stratagem involves psychically weakening, fracturing the idea of “GUNS” as a mechanism for one’s self-preservation by focusing on the murder of young children by gun-wielding maniacs.But the stratagem embodies a fatal flaw that undermines one’s confidence in the seriousness of the effort.If the Biden Administration’s concern for the life and well-being of children, while attending school were truly forthright, earnest, and sincere, then the Administration would be duty-bound to encourage implementation of all measures that would best ensure the physical safety of the children while in school.What would that mean? It means the Biden Administration would encourage officials of public and private schools to harden their schools against armed attack. There are specific measures that, once implemented, would prevent an aggressor from entering a school, and possibly deter that aggressor from contemplating an attack on a hardened school. This isn’t a supposition. It’s fact.The New York Post reported that,“Police said Hale was equipped with at least two assault weapons and a handgun, and in searching her family home in Nashville, officers found detailed maps and a manifesto of the attack.‘We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this day,’ Nashville Metropolitan Police Chief John Drake said about the discovery.He added that Hale was ‘prepared to do more harm than was actually done,’ and that she had drawn up plans to attack another school in the area, but backed out of them because the school was too secure.” See also article in Newsweek.“Drake told reporters that ‘there was another location that was mentioned, but because of threat assessment by the suspect, too much security, they decided not to.’”Drake also said, as reported in newsweek,“. . . that Hale had come with ‘multiple rounds of ammunition’ and ‘prepared to do more damage than was actually done,’ having been stopped from carrying out further bloodshed after being fatally shot by responding officers.”We can infer from these synopses, that Audrey Hale had meticulously planned out her murder of children, and that she considered and deliberately avoided attempting to penetrate any school that she knew as secured against assault.The Police Chief points out that the quick actions of his Officers had prevented Audrey Hale from murdering more children. But, that raises the question: “Suppose well-armed resource officers, or off-duty or retired police officers, had been employed to patrol the Coventry School corridors and school grounds, would utilization of armed personnel not have prevented the killer from gaining entrance to the School, or, would they not, otherwise have stopped the would-be killer immediately had she succeeded in gaining entry into the School?Did Joe Biden get the message? Apparently not. He never mentioned the need to harden schools. It wasn’t on his radar, not in this instance or in any prior instance. And so school shooting recur. There is an immense and disconcerting disconnect between Biden's ostensible concern over school shootings, as seen through the florid language he employs, and a resolute stance AGAINST implementing measures to curtail these horrific school shootings from reoccurring from time-to-time, as inevitably they do. After the Coventry School tragedy, Biden said this, as reported in usnews.com.“It’s sick. It's heartbreaking . . . a family's worst nightmare,’ Biden said in brief remarks at the White House before beginning a planned event on women-owned small businesses.‘We have to do more to protect our schools so they’re not turned into prisons. You know, a shooter in this situation reportedly had two assault weapons and a pistol, two AK-47. So I call on Congress again to pass my assault weapons ban.’”Apart from the gaffe pertaining to “two AK-47”, Biden’s point about not turning schools into prisons alludes directly to his absolute refusal (and that of his Administration) to entertain securing schools from armed attack. (Biden doesn't know a damn thing about firearms but he would ban all of them if he could). The words, “We have to do more to protect our schools” are both telling and vacuous. They are telling because the term, ‘children,’ is noticeably absent from the declaration. It is children that need protecting, and hardening the schools against attack, serves to protect the lives and well-being of the children. And Biden's declaration is hollow and vacuous because he isn't serious about protecting children. His concern, and the concern of his Administration is directed solely to confiscation of firearms from the hands of millions, nay tens of millions, of Americans, the commoners. That one-dimensional view of school shootings is the beginning and the end of the matter for Biden and his Administration. And he rails against Congress. The Hill reports, on March 3, 2023,“President Biden on Tuesday argued that he can’t do much more to curb gun violence other than plead with Congress to act, blaming lawmakers for their lack of legislation to ban assault weapons following another deadly school shooting — this time in Nashville.”The Biden Administration won't even give lip service to hardening schools against aggressive armed assault. The Administration vehemently opposes that. And, such vehement opposition to securing schools against armed attack is particularly alarming, because securing schools against armed attack does work. In fact, as noted supra, the Nashville, Tennessee Police Chief, John Drake, pointedly asserted that Audrey Hale intentionally avoided attempting entry at another school, after consideration, precisely because she was aware that this second school was impenetrable. She was a homicidal maniac, sure. But, unlike Joe Biden, and the other puppets in his Administration, she wasn't a colossal idiot.“In Thursday's White House press briefing, Karine Jean-Pierre made the Biden administration's clearly partisan position clear regarding legislation aimed at making schools and students safer: Biden won't consider anything other than a ban on ‘assault weapons.’As Townhall reported earlier on Thursday, Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee introduced the SAFE Act, a $900 million grant program to help public and private schools harden their physical security and hire veterans and former law enforcement officers as additional security and as a deterrent to assailants.But the White House, according to Karine Kean-Pierre, isn't interested in taking steps to make schools safer for the students who attend them by making it more difficult for assailants to enter the premises, introduce trained individuals who could defend schools and the students within them, or create more deterrents that could dissuade a would-be assailant from targeting schools in the first place.” See townhall.com.And there you have it: “Biden won't consider anything other than a ban on ‘assault weapons.’” This means either that Joe Biden and his Administration don't give a damn about the life of an innocent child while in school, as that child is completely dependent on a school's administration to provide for that child's physical safety and well-being, OR that Joe Biden and his Administration see that the death of a child HAS UTILITY — THAT IT Serves a useful purpose.COLDLY AND CALLOUSLY INDIFFERENT TO THE LIFE OF AN INNOCENT CHILD, OR COLDLY AND CALLOUSLY CALCULATING, PERCEIVING THE DEATH OF AN INNOCENT CHILD AS USEFUL TO SECURING AN OBJECTIVE: GAINING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR A WHOLESALE CIVILIAN CITIZEN BAN ON "ASSAULT WEAPONS," I.E., A WHOLESALE BAN ON SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS—IN FURTHERANCE OF A GOAL: SUBJUGATION OF THE AMERICAN CITIZENRY AND DESTRUCTION OF A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC TO PAVE THE WAY FOR A NEO-FEUDALISTIC WORLD EMPIRE.THE ONE POSSIBILITY IS HORRIBLE AND HORRENDOUS TO CONTEMPLATE. AND THAT IS BAD ENOUGH. BUT, THE SECOND IS MIND-NUMBINGLY HORRIFIC, THE VERY CRUCIFIXION OF SANITY, AS THE SANCTITY AND INVIOLABILITY OF THE LIFE OF A CHILD AND THE LIFE OF ANY AMERICAN IS CONSIDERED TO BE WORTHLESS. Logically, one or the other position is the case. There is no getting around this, given WHAT JOE BIDEN AND HIS ADMINISTRATION SAYS AND WHAT THEY DO!SUCH IS THE MINDSET OF THE COLLECTIVIST—AN ACOLYTE OF AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS COMPLETELY ANTITHETICAL TO THE TENETS OF INDIVIDUALISM UPON WHICH THE BLUEPRINT OF OUR NATION, THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, IS CONSTRUCTED.This refusal to even consider hardening schools is inexplicable if Biden and his Administration are serious about protecting a child’s life. But, THEY AREN'T. That fact is clear and inescapable.The lack of empathy for the life of an innocent child is an inference to be derived from present and previous assertions made by both Biden and his Press Secretary, and those assertions put the lie to any claim that anyone who supports Trump might say: that he cares one whit about the the death of children and the heartbreak that the death of a child causes parents.The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively both about this and about the basic strategies that schools can and should implement to protect their students and staff.  See, e.g., AQ articles posted on March 13, 2018, November 17, 2022, January 30, 2023, February 9, 2023, and February 23, 2023.Biden only talks about banning firearms—those, by the way, “in common use”—those held by millions of average, responsible, and level-headed Americans. It is these firearms he refers to by the false pejorative, “weapons of war.”And from yahoo.com, we have this,“President Joe Biden said Tuesday in the wake of the latest US school shooting that most Americans think owning the types of military style rifles regularly used to carry out such massacres is ‘bizarre.’‘The majority of the American people think having assault weapons is bizarre, it's a crazy idea. They're against that,’ he told reporters at the White House when asked how to respond to the incident in Nashville, where a heavily armed former student gunned down three children and three staff before being killed by police.”What is this “majority” of Americans is Biden talking about? The only thing “bizarre” here is Biden’s comment about “AR-15 Style Rifles.” See article in Business Insider.“Around 19.8 million AR-15 style rifles are in circulation in the US, a nationwide tally that's surged from around 8.5 million since a federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004.The more recent estimate comes from a November 2020 statement by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. In the statement, its President and CEO Joseph Bartozzi called the AR-15 the ‘most popular rifle sold in America’ and a ‘commonly-owned firearm.’”See also article in Forbes. Even an attempt at a ban is ludicrous on many levels.Perhaps Biden would like to see a little Civil War? The attempt to institute a comprehensive ban on semiautomatic rifles would do just that.But more to the point, apart from this fixation of “GUNS,” why does Biden oppose securing the schools? A desire to ban firearms in the general population, while ludicrous, is not inconsistent with securing schools from an armed lunatic desirous of gaining entry for the purpose of murdering children. Yet, Biden opposes securing schools. What can possibly explain this?We can draw only one inference—one that is horrific to consider but the only plausible one that is consistent with a single-minded FIXATION ON A NATIONWIDE “ASSAULT WEAPON” BAN and “ABSOLUTE REFUSAL TO COUNTENANCE SECURING SCHOOLS FROM ARMED AGGRESSION.”Joe Biden, and his Administration and the Press, and the Democrat-Party machinery see school children as useful cannon fodder in support of an agenda: the destruction of a free Constitutional Republic and a sovereign people. And exclaiming that loss of children to “GUN VIOLENCE” is awful, but relishing the utility of their death in service to their agenda makes their disingenuous words even more noxious.The Biden Administration and other Anti-Second Amendment interests know that nothing stokes the public more and tugs at the heartstrings than the senseless death of a young child. If anything can encourage more Americans to get onboard with mass confiscation of a popular firearm for self-defense, it is the senseless death of a child from a lunatic who murders a child with the instrument the Government wants to preclude the common man from possessing.The cold and callous Biden Administration knows this and uses the public's moral conscience against itself. School shootings will therefore continue because the Administration wants them to continue. The Administration is fixated on only one thing: disbanding the Armed Citizenry, the one mechanism that alone can ably resist Tyranny. Until it gets what it wants, a wholesale civilian citizen ban on semiautomatic weaponry, the Biden Administration will allow for, even encourage, school shootings to continue. The Biden Administration will do nothing to curtail school shootings. Killers get the message and willingly, gleefully, oblige Joe Biden and his Administration.And why is the Biden Administration so fixated on “semiautomatic weapons?”The Administration is fixated on those weapons precisely because they are popular with the public — See article ingunsandammo.com, — and they are useful instruments, in fact, highly effective tools for the purpose of self-defense, against creature, against an aggressor, and, most importantly (in the mindset of the Biden Administration), against Government Tyranny.The Armed Citizenry will never permit a free Constitutional Republic to fall. The Armed Citizenry has both the means and the will to resist a Government, this Government, from destroying the sovereignty of the American people over Government. That fact makes this caretaker Government and the secretive agency behind it apoplectic with rage.The life of an individual, child or adult means nothing to a TYRANT. A Tyrant’s goal is the accumulation of power in HIM or ITSELF. An armed citizenry is the bane of all Tyrants.Is the Biden Administration A Tyrant? No. Biden and those making up his Cabinet and other high offices are too stupid, inept, and craven to be considered a Tyrant. They aren't TYRANTS themselves, but they are compliant, base, and corrupt, and lust for the trappings of power, while not actually wielding power. Biden and the rest are compliant, obedient, servile tools in the employ of formidable, powerful, wealthy, malevolent, forces that are the true TYRANT.The Biden Administration is in league with these secretive, powerful, ruthless interests, operating both here and abroad. And Biden and his Administration pay homage to these forces and swear allegiance only to them.The Biden Administration is best perceived as a Governor-General in service to powerful interests that utilize the Administration, as their willing servant, to gain control/mastery over the Republic and the American people. These ruthless interests control the currency of the Nation, and are intent on confiscating the weaponry of the citizenry. With the collapse of the economy and the Nation's institutions, a new neo-feudalistic world empire can emerge. The empire envisioned has many names. The ones recently utilized are the “Liberal Rules-Based International Order,” which Anthony Blinken has referred to, and the (SOROS) “Open-Society.” If there is doubt about any of this, just focus on the recent and most formidable, disheartening, and alarming outrage:THE IMPENDING CRIMINAL INDICTMENT OF DONALD TRUMP, PAST UNITED STATES PRESIDENT, AND FRONT-RUNNER IN A 2024 SECOND-TERM BID.  A GEORGE SOROS-CONTROLLED TOADY, ALVIN BRAGG, A CRASS AND CRAVEN OPPORTUNIST WHO LIKELY HAS BEEN PROMISED THE NEW YORK GOVERNOR’S MANSION FOR SERVICES RENDERED TO HIS SECRET WEALTHY BENEFACTORS HAS BROUGHT PSEUDO-CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST TRUMP. BUT IT IS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, THE TRUE PATRIOTS, WHO ARE, BY EXTENSION, PERCEIVED AS CRIMINALS, WITH TRUMP.THE CRIME? FAILURE TO FORSAKE THEIR CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS, AND SOVEREIGNTY OVER GOVERNMENT, AND WILLINGLY ACCEDE TO THE REALITY OF A POST-NATION-STATE WORLD. ____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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

DISCUSSION OF H.R. 1095

PART THREE

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

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

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

ANTIGUN ACTIVISTS’ RELENTLESS ASSAULT ON LONG-GUNS

PART FOUR

MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH THE ACTIVE ASSISTANCE OF ANTIGUN AND OTHER RADICAL GROUPS PURSUE ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT AGENDA THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ENHANCING SCHOOL SAFETY AND SECURITY.

ANTIGUN ACTIVISTS TARGET SEMIAUTOMATIC LONG-GUNS FOR ELIMINATION THROUGH SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN: THE PROXIES FOR ANTIGUN GROUPS.

Make no mistake: the relentless assault on semiautomatic long-guns that antigun activists call “assault weapons” is itself an assault on civilian ownership of all semiautomatic weapons, not merely some of them. This relentless assault on so-called “assault weapons” is an attack on the natural and sacred right of the people to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.American citizens should not believe for a moment that antigun activists and their cohorts in State legislators and in Congress, and those who echo their sentiments in Hollywood and in the mainstream media, and the billionaire benefactors behind the scenes who fund the effort to destroy our sacred rights and liberties do not—all of them— seek to end civilian gun ownership in this Country. They say they merely support “common-sense” gun laws and “sensible” constraints on gun ownership. But their principal goal is confiscation and eventual elimination of all firearms in the hands of civilians.Through enactment of the National Firearms Act of 1934, civilian access to selective-fire and fully automatic firearms has been effectively eliminated. Since that time antigun activists have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to ban semiautomatic guns defined as ‘assault weapons.’ But, the distinction between semiautomatic handguns and semiautomatic long guns construed as ‘assault weapons,’ that antigun activists and legislators feel American civilians should not be permitted to own and possess, is fuzzy. Each State has its own legal standards.Against the backdrop of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tragedy, many jurisdictions are enacting or are attempting to enact increasingly more onerous firearms laws. The distinction between semiautomatic weapons defined as banned ‘assault weapons’ and those that aren’t is becoming increasingly tenuous. Antigun activists and antigun legislators strive to cast ever more semiautomatic handguns and long guns into the ‘assault weapon’ banned category.

ANTIGUN ACTIVISTS SEEK TO END CIVILIAN OWNERSHIP OF ALL SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS IN THE UNITED STATES, NOT MERELY SOME OF THEM.

In a recent March 2, 2018 article, titled, “With AR-15s, Mass Shooter Attack with the Killing Power of Many U.S. Troops,” posted in the National Section of the paper edition of The New York Times newspaper, and published digitally, on February 28, 2018, under the title, "With AR-15-s, Mass Shooters Attack With the Rifle Firepower Typically Used by Infantry Troops," Times’ reporters wrote a lengthy article on semiautomatic long guns that was uncharacteristically discerning. In hundreds of earlier articles, NY Times reporters, Op-Ed columnists and NY Times contributors--and those writing for other mainstream newspapers--carelessly, and clumsily, refer to the semiautomatic long gun, modeled on the original Armalite AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, as an ‘assault weapon.’ The expression, ‘assault weapon,’ was invented by antigun proponents as a political device to pursue a gun confiscation agenda, attacking an entire category of firearms in common use among the law-abiding American citizens that comprise the civilian population. But the expression, 'assault weapon,' isn't a technically accurate one; and it is not to be confused with the expression, ‘assault rifle,’ which is a technically precise military term of art.Often, in the same newspaper articles, writers will use ‘assault weapon’ and ‘assault rifle’ interchangeably, likely not knowing the difference, and not caring if they did know as the distinction isn’t crucial to the running narrative, which is that both categories of firearms are, as antigun proponents perceive them, "weapons of war"--which is another political phrase, and one also tinged with emotion. "Weapons of war," so the narrative goes, have no place in “civilized” Countries.But, the March 2, NY Times article is decidedly different from previous antigun articles. The reporters here appear intent on demonstrating that semiautomatic long guns, modeled on the progenitor, Armalite AR-15, presently marketed to the civilian population, truly are military weapons and, so, must be banned. In that article, the expression, ‘assault weapon,’ doesn’t even appear.The article is presented as a seeming technical exposition on “AR-15” rifles. The Times reporters, who wrote the article, compare the civilian “AR-15” rifle to various military models. They assert:“The main functional difference between the military’s M16 and M4 rifles and a civilian AR-15 is the ‘burst’ mode on the many military models. . . . But in actual American combat these technical differences are less significant than they seem. For decades the American military has trained its conventional troops to fire their M4s and M16s in the semiautomatic mode—one bullet per trigger pull—instead of on ‘burst’ or automatic in almost all shooting situations. The weapons are more accurate this way and thus more lethal.” Consider these remarks for a moment. The NY Times reporters are using quasi technical exposition here in an attempt to make the case that no appreciable difference exists between “AR-15” rifles and their military counterparts. The reporters argue, tacitly, that  the politically charged expression, ‘assault weapon,’ and the military expression, ‘assault rifle,’ do accurately refer to the same kind of rifle, after all. But, do they? The NY Times reporters remark that many troops are issued military rifles without selective-fire capability at all. They do this in an obvious attempt to dispel the criticism constantly and accurately leveled against mainstream news reporters which is that some semiautomatic rifles marketed to the civilian population may exhibit superficial, cosmetic similarities to military rifles, but these rifles are functionally different from military rifles. Yet, in the recent NY Times article, the reporters categorically state that AR-15 semiautomatic rifles are functionally equivalent to military M4 and M16 assault rifles. But are they? The reporters assert:“The NRA and other pro-gun groups highlight the fully automatic feature in military M4s and M16s. But the American military, after a long experience with fully automatic M16s reaching back to Vietnam, decided by the 1980s to issue M16s and later M4s to most conventional troops without the fully automatic function,* and to train them to fire in a more controlled fashion. What all this means is that the Parkland gunman, in practical terms, had the same rifle firepower as an American grunt using a standard infantry rifle in the standard way.”It is abundantly clear that the Times’ reporters—clearly speaking for antigun proponents generally—are targeting all semiautomatic weapons for elimination, not merely some of them. They attempt to get across the idea that since any semiautomatic weapon is capable of rapid, controlled fire, all semiautomatic weapons represent a threat to public safety and must be eliminated—long guns and handguns.

THE STATE OF THE LAW ON SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLES MODELED ON THE ORIGINAL ARMALITE (“AR-15”) SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLE

The federal ban on “AR-15” rifles expired in 1994 when the 10-year sunset provision kicked in. But many States have enacted their own laws, banning these rifles. Two cases on whether so-called “assault weapons” fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment went up to the U.S. Supreme Court on a writ of certiorari. One of them, Kolbe vs. Hogan, 849 F.3d 114, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 2930 (4th Cir. 2017), en banc, cert. den., 138 S. Ct. 469, 199 L. Ed. 2d 374, 2017 U.S. LEXIS 7002, 86 U.S.L.W. 3264, was denied a hearing and review by the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment. An earlier case involving the issue, Friedman vs. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 6902 (7th Cir. Ill., 2015), cert. den., 136 S. Ct. 447, 193 L. Ed. 2d 483, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 7681, was denied but over a vigorous dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas, with the late Justice Antonin Scalia joining Thomas in the dissent.Justice Thomas stated in pertinent part:“The City’s ban is thus highly suspect because it broadly prohibits common semiautomatic firearms used for lawful purposes. Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. See 784 F. 3d, at 415, n. 3. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. See ibid. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons. See McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767-768, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3036-3037, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894, 914-915; Heller, supra, at 628-629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2817-2818, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 679-680.The Seventh Circuit ultimately upheld a ban on many common semiautomatic firearms based on speculation about the law’s potential policy benefits. See 784 F. 3d, at 411-412. The court conceded that handguns — not ‘assault weapons’ — ‘are responsible for the vast majority of gun violence in the United States.’ Id., at 409. Still, the court concluded, the ordinance ‘may increase the public’s sense of safety,’ which alone is ‘a substantial benefit.’ Id., at 412. Heller, however, forbids subjecting the Second Amendment’s ‘core protection . . . to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach.’ Heller, supra, at 634, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2821, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 683. This case illustrates why. If a broad ban on firearms can be upheld based on conjecture that the public might feel safer (while being no safer at all), then the Second Amendment guarantees nothing."The Court’s refusal to review a decision that flouts two of our Second Amendment precedents stands in marked contrast to the Court’s willingness to summarily reverse courts that disregard our other constitutional decisions. . . . There is no basis for a different result when our Second Amendment precedents are at stake. I would grant certiorari to prevent the Seventh Circuit from relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right."Despite the opinion of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, antigun proponents, including those occupying the lower appellate and district courts, evidently don’t give a damn either for high Court precedent or for our sacred, natural right, codified in the Second Amendment.And, this brings us to critical Second Amendment Soto vs. Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC., 2016 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2626; CCH Prod. Liab. Rep. P19,932, which the Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively about and will continue to do so. See, e.g., the AQ article, Soto vs. Bushmaster: Antigunners Take Aim at Gun Manufacturers.The Soto case arises from the deadly attack that occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when a deranged young adult, Adam Lanza, 20 years old, stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School, fatally shooting twenty children and six adults, before turning a handgun on and killing himself. According to the allegations of the Soto Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint (CM), Adam Lanza murdered these school children and school staff with a Bushmaster AR-15, model XM15-E2S rifle.The Soto Plaintiffs contend that the Defendant, Bushmaster (Remington), manufacturer of the weapon, specifically, a Bushmaster AR-15, model XM15-E2S rifle, which, as alleged, the killer, Adam Lanza, used to commit the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School—along with the firearms’ distributor and dealer who served as the intermediaries through which the weapons were sold to the killer’s mother, and ultimately fell into the hands of the killer, Adam Lanza—bears legal, not merely moral, responsibility for the deaths of children and adults that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and that, this is due to the fact of Defendant Bushmaster’s marketing of its AR-15 rifle to the entirety of the civilian population in this Country, and the manner in which the Defendant manufacturer, Bushmaster marketed its AR-15 model semiautomatic rifle to the entirety of the civilian population in this Country.The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (the ‘PLCAA’), Pub. L. No. 109-92, 119 Stat. 2095. 15 U.S.C. §§ 7901-03 (2005). The PLCAA provides immunity to firearms manufacturers and dealers from any lawsuit, pending or otherwise, fitting the Act's definition of a ‘qualified civil liability action.’ 15 U.S.C. §§ 7902-03, and the trial Court found for the Defendants’ on Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiffs appealed the adverse decision directly to the Connecticut Supreme Court, and the State high Court agreed to hear the case.Soon, the State Supreme Court of Connecticut will decide whether to affirm the trial Court’s decision dismissing Plaintiffs suit or remand the Soto case to the Superior Court of Connecticut. The State Supreme Court should affirm the trial Court and not remand the case. In fact, the State Supreme Court shouldn’t have agreed to hear the case in the first place since the PLCAA makes clear that plaintiffs in the Sandy Hook Elementary School cannot overcome Defendants’ qualified immunity. If, though, the case is remanded to the trial Court and if the trial Court reverses its previous stance, that can have dire consequences for manufacturers of semiautomatic rifles modeled on the Armalite AR-15. We shall wait and see. The Wall Street Journal, in an article, titled, “Key Gun Case Awaits Ruling in Connecticut,” published on March 17, 2018, discussing the Soto case, and posted online under the title, "The Court Case Making Gun Manufacturers Anxious," hints that the Connecticut Supreme Court may soon issue a ruling.The question is whether the Connecticut Supreme Court will be swayed by political considerations in light of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting incident. It shouldn’t, but, as the matter of semiautomatic long guns is now front and center in the public’s psyche due to massive negative coverage by the mainstream media, and, as we know that liberal Courts that have a dim view concerning the Second Amendment, it is anyone’s guess how the Connecticut Supreme Court will proceed. We must wait and see.This much, we do know, despite the opinion of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, antigun proponents, including lower Appellate and District Court antigun judges, don’t give a damn either for high Court precedent or for our sacred, natural right, codified in the Second Amendment. Lest there be any doubt about this, consider the words of the antigun New York Times Op-Ed Columnist, Bret Stephens, who made the following remark in an NY Times OP-Ed, posted, on February 16, 2018, titled: "To Repeat: Repeal the Second Amendment."“We need to repeal the Second Amendment because most gun-control legislation is ineffective when most Americans have a guaranteed constitutional right to purchase deadly weaponry in nearly unlimited quantities.” Hey, Bret—Any firearm is potentially deadly. The question is whether the person wielding it is responsible. And, Bret, how much ammunition is too much? Our guess is that for you, Bret, and for other like-minded sanctimonious antigun activists, even one round is too much.____________________________________*The Arbalest Quarrel contacted an expert on small arms weaponry. The Times' reporters' assertion is absolutely false. "Assault rifles" marketed to the military have two main configurations. One configuration has a three-way selector for the following three modes: safe, semiauto, and full auto. The second configuration has a four-way selector for four modes: safe, semiauto, full auto, and burst. Consider, if a military configuration were limited to semiauto mode only, there would be no reason for any rifle to have anything other than the "AR-15" designation as semiautomatic rifles issued to military troops would in fact be identical to the semiautomatic rifles presently marketed to the civilian population. It is true that Army troops and Marines are trained to use semiautomatic fire or burst fire in many instances in order to conserve ammunition and for accuracy. But, for extraction and when charging an enemy position head-0n, full auto is tactically necessary: hence, the need for a selector switch on military models, to serve varying combat needs. The NY Times reporters deviously mix pertinent facts with critical omissions, including an out-and-out lie. Deceptive "fake news" reporting is, unfortunately, to be expected from the mainstream Press as the Press promotes an agenda, and we see deceptiveness in abundance in this "news" article. The mainstream Press is in the business of propagandizing, of psychologically conditioning the American public to perceive the world in a false light. The Press is no longer in the business of informing and enlightening the public, if it ever were in the business of presenting factually accurate news accounts._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.