NEW YORK’S KATHY HOCHUL DOES NOT SEE PHYSICAL SURVIVAL AS A BASIC HUMAN INSTINCTUAL NEED, NOR SELF-DEFENSE AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT. WHY IS THAT?

The most basic instinct of every living thing, from the lowliest creature in God’s creation to the Divine Creator’s loftiest, man, is that of physical survival.No amount of prodding can convince any lowly creature otherwise. And man understands this as well on a basic instinctual level, apart from any reflecting he might do upon it.The act of self-defense is the natural response to a threat to life.All creatures understand this instinctively, as does man. But man understands self-defense also as a normative ethical prerogative, apart from the raw, innate instinct of any living creature to defend itself from mortal danger to the physical self, whether that danger comes from a creature, from another man, or from the tyranny of Government—the last of which poses the gravest danger to physical self and to Selfhood for members of a community.Yet, man, for all his intellect and, oddly enough, because of it, is oddly susceptible to denying the right to self-defense and, thence, denial of the instinctual urge to self-preservation.The framers of the U.S. Constitution engendered to extoll the absolute right of individual self-defense, knowing that the strength and fortitude of a Nation come from recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of each individual over that of the collective group. Once a Nation loses recognition of the singular importance of the right of the individual to be individual, the Nation has, then, within itself, the seeds of its own demise.The Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, unlike such document of rights that other nations might have, recognizes the singular importance of the individual over the group.The framers of the U.S. Constitution sought mightily to avoid any intimation of the United States as akin to an ant colony or beehive, where commonalty counts for naught, where only the life of the ruler, King or Queen, and the lives of the immediate entourage of that ruler are sacrosanct and inviolate. The framers conceived the United States as a free Constitutional Republic, in the purest sense, not as a meaningless jumble of words. In our free Constitutional Republic, Government serves the people.The American people themselves are sovereign rulers over the Government. But this idea is anathema to those transforming our Nation to tyranny. Unsurprisingly the agents of the Nation’s destruction have implemented policies designed to curb the exercise of natural law rights, especially those that pertain directly to the recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of Self.The adoration of “Selfhood” in the United States embodies the sanctity of one’s physical self, to be sure, but includes and transcends that basic right to the sanctity of one’s inner Self: his Psyche, Spirit, and Soul. That is consistent with the love the Divine Creator bestowed on man.But, the Destroyers of our Nation will have none of that. They do not accept. this. Such is their disdain for the Divine Creator and his Creation that they dare impose Godhead upon themselves and demand that Americans worship them, a false idol.The right of armed self-defense, in the United States, through the codification of the natural law right in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the Nation’s Constitution, is not of a different species from the general notion of self-defense, but recognition of, and acknowledgment that the Government cannot lawfully deny to a person the best means available to preserve his life and well-being. The natural law right of armed self-defense also embodies the natural law right of Selfhood—THE RIGHT OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO BE INDIVIDUAL.The two rights—the right of free speech and the right of the people to keep and bear arms work in tandem to exemplify the sovereignty of the American citizen over the State. The expression of those ideas, i.e., the exercise of them, is the source of our Nations’ strength and success.The attempt to emasculate these rights serves only to weaken the Country from within.Ruthless, malevolent, forces at work today both in our Federal Government and in many State and local governments, and through their agents in the private sector have attempted to dampen and restrain the exercise of the right of expression of thought and the right of armed self-defense. The reason to do so is plain: to weaken the Country.And the policy decisions giving rise to the slow strangulation of this Country are not difficult to ascertain. The results are prevalent and unmistakable:Destabilization of Society and Confusion and Demoralization of the American People.To deny an American citizen the natural law right to defend Self is to deny both the sanctity of the American’s Life, Spirit, and Soul, and to break down the Security of a Free State.Rampant crime in our major urban areas is endangering both.Unfortunately, the jurisdictions with the worst possible violent and property crime problems are also those that do not recognize the right to armed self-defense. This means, by logical extension, such jurisdictions do not acknowledge one’s instinct for the unalienable right to self-preservation, individuality, and the safety and security of the community. This should be self-evident. But, it isn't.How far removed is this radical Collectivist Federal Government and the radical Collectivist State and local governments that adhere to and proselytize to the masses an alien set of tenets, precepts, and principles—antithetical to those expressed in our Constitution? Truly beyond all imagining. But through the application of destructive policies, incrementally, many Americans are oblivious to the true extent of the destruction of our Nation.The Biden Administration, along with the Democrat-Party-controlled Congress, and Democrat-Party-controlled State and local governments, following the Administration’s lead, fail utterly to acknowledge or even to recognize the natural law right to self-defense, neither armed nor unarmed, and they even constrain the police from providing a modicum of protection for the community.A radical Democrat Party-controlled Federal Government and Democrat Party-controlled state and local governments have as a matter of policy chastised, handcuffed, shunned, demoralized, discredited, and even debased community police forces and traditional community policing. As a result, police have left in droves, in cities around the Country, and their ranks, are difficult to fill.Those police officers who remain on active duty can do little, to protect the community, given the policy and legal constraints now infecting traditional policing.The police often are not permitted to arrest lawbreakers who commit property crimes and even violent crimes. And when or if they do, the criminal justice system immediately releases these miscreants. That frustrates the police and endangers the community.As for the psychopathic criminal element and the psychotic maniacs who perpetrate violence, they have taken notice of the Governmental policy changes that not only tolerate destructive behavior but actively encourage it. The results are immediate and dire, impacting not only major urban areas but surrounding suburban communities as well.Take New York City. The present Democrat Mayor, Eric Adams, is ineffectual. But those New York City residents who voted for him bear responsibility now that he is in office and remains there. But every New York City resident pays the price for that.And then there is New York State. The unelected Democrat Lieutenant Governor, Kathy Hochul, who took over the reins of Government when the Democrat powerbrokers had tired of Governor Andrew Cuomo, forcing him to resign, bears singular responsibility for the carnage occurring throughout the State. Yet, she is dismissive of it and disparaging of those who dare call her out for it. The results are not surprising.New York State and its largest City, the Financial Capital of the Country, has hemorrhaged residents, 1.4 million people since 2010, and has, concomitantly, lost substantial tax revenue, further compounding the problems of servicing the State. See spectrum news article.And the website, the center square, reports:“The Internal Revenue Service this week released more troubling data for New York, with the federal agency showing more high-earning taxpayers leaving the state.Tracking returns filed in 2019 and 2020 showed that 479,826 people left New York for another state or country in those years. Over the same timeframe, just 231,439 people moved to the state. That means the state suffered a net loss of 248,387 residents.And, of course, those people took their money with them. The IRS figures show the moves generated an economic exodus of more than $19.5 billion.”This loss of population and concomitant revenue did not bother Andrew Cuomo.Back in 2014, Cuomo exclaimed, as reported by the New York Post, that he——“. . . has a message for conservative Republicans—you don’t belong in New York.Cuomo said Friday that members of the GOP with ‘extreme’ views are creating an identity crisis for their party and represent a bigger worry than Democrats such as himself.’‘Their problem isn’t me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves,’ the governor said on Albany’s The Capitol Pressroom radio show.‘Who are they? Right to life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay — if that’s who they are, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.’”But, even at that time, well before the ravages the CCP China COVID pandemic unleashed on the Country and the world, severely weakened the world’s economies, Cuomo carefully, added, at the end of his 2014 diatribe,“. . . moderate Republicans, such as those in the state Senate, ‘have a place in their state.’Cuomo hammered Republican activists whose views he said were out of step with the majority of New Yorkers and said the party has to back moderates to have any hope of winning seats in this fall’s elections.‘You have a schism within the Republican Party,’ Cuomo observed. ‘They’re searching to define their soul. That’s what’s going on . . . It’s a mirror of what’s going on in Washington.’” Id.Andrew Cuomo was mindful of his words and the threat of lost revenue if many took him seriously and left the State. So, he carefully avoided ostracizing Republicans simply for being Republican.But eight years later, Democrats now see all Republicans as beyond the pale, after the Party threw Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney into the dustbin.Liz Cheney is someone best left to memory. She will always be remembered for serving as a flunky, on behalf of Democrats, for Pelosi’s absurd and nauseating January 6 Panel. See recent October 23, 2o22 Washington Times article. Romney, though, is more dangerous. And, he recently, infuriated Senate Republicans for refusing to endorse Mike Lee’s reelection bid in 2022. This could jeopardize a Republican Senate majority in November. See the article in Breitbart. Romney supports the faux Republican, Ed McMullin, running against Mike Lee. See the article in the Federalist.Apparently seeing that Republicans are not going to play “pretend Democrats,” Hochul, taking her cue from the Neoliberal Globalists, treats all Republicans now as persona non grata, and, in so doing, forsakes Andrew Cuomo’s simulacrum of tact and commonsense.With Eric Adams standing next to her, as a crutch, she unleashes a torrent of invective and contempt against those New Yorkers whom she cannot influence and therefore does not trust—every Republican. She will not take her cue from Cuomo, who attempted to distinguish, even if only for show, the so-called “moderate” and therefore “good” Republicans, from the immoderate bad Republicans whom Biden refers to as “MAGA” Republicans. See the article in the New York Post.“Gov. Kathy Hochul, who hasn’t proven shy about issuing orders, had one for the state’s Republicans this week — all 5.4 million of them: ‘Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?’ she said. ‘You are not New Yorkers.”If you can move beyond the frankly disgusting political partisanship and intolerance, her message is fiscally irresponsible, even dangerous. The governor probably already knows this, but the state’s extensive public sector is heavily reliant on personal income taxes paid by residents, and with nearly $14 billion in projected budget gaps over the next five years, it can’t afford to lose any taxpayers, let alone 5.4 million of them.The Empire State has already lost 1.5 million residents in the past decade, and there’s no sign of that trend letting up. In fact, more than 350,000 New Yorkers relocated during the 12 pandemic-plagued months leading up to July 1, 2021.”Florida will be more than willing to oblige Hochul. Her loss is Florida’s gain, both in American citizens and in revenue. See the article in the center square.“New Jersey and Florida were the biggest beneficiaries. More than 84,500 people moved from New York to New Jersey and took $5.3 billion. By contrast, only 37,127 New Jersey residents moved to New York and brought $2.2 billion in income.The numbers were even starker between New York and Florida. Over the two years, 71,845 New Yorkers flocked to the Sunshine States and took $6.4 billion. Meanwhile, 26,902 former Floridians moved up north. Those individuals had a combined income of $1.2 billion.”Hochul would rather lose votes and retain her status as a puppet for the Neoliberal Globalists who fund her campaign for Governor against Republic Lee Zeldin than admit that maybe she should think more for her State and for the Country than for her own personal lust for power, kowtowing to interests that don’t cohere with those of the Country and the citizenry.If Hochul spent more time doing something productive about the out-of-control property and violent crime problem and acknowledged the fundamental and unalienable right to armed self-defense, she might garner millions of votes that she now has irretrievably lost, endangering what, months ago, she took for granted, have assumed her victory at the polls a sure-thing, a done deal.New York City, unfortunately, must contend with Eric Adams for three more years. But New York residents need not suffer Hochul. They can send her packing on November 8, and, for the sake of the State and the Country, let’s hope she goes. That will place Mayor Eric Adams in an unenviable position. Governor Lee Zeldin won’t be in his corner.

HOW IS IT THAT AMERICANS ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE LED BY POLITICIANS WHO SEEK THE DESTRUCTION OF THE REPUBLIC, THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, OUR SOVEREIGNTY, OUR HISTORY, HERITAGE,  CULTURE, AND OUR ETHOS?

Unscrupulous politicians, aided by an army of malicious “loudspeakers” seduce much of the public to deny the horrors they see around them or convince the public that better times are just around the corner.The Destroyers of a free Constitutional Republic know this. They have convinced many Americans they represent all that is good and right and proper for America—all in pursuit of shameless goals: the dissolution of society; the destruction of a sovereign, independent Nation; and subordination of a free and sovereign people, to the dictates of a tyrannical government.In those pursuits they have brought devastation to the Republic:

• The upheaval of our Nation’s institutions;
• Promotion of moral decadence and degradation even unto the Nation’s seed corn;
• The psychical malaise of the public soul and psyche;
• The deliberate inception of physical violence and economic strife;
• The insinuation of alien cultures and influences upon Americans;
• Graft and corruption in the public and private sectors of an unprecedented scale;
• incredible wastefulness of the nation’s tax dollars;
• The physical opening of the Nation’s borders to over five million illegal wayfarers looking for handouts, and with no end in sight as they keep coming—a tidal wave of disease and dependency the American public can ill afford; and,
• Expensive foreign escapades, both extravagantly expensive and extraordinarily dangerous to the well-being of the Nation and the world.

A veritable hailstorm has overtaken this Country. It has progressed subtly at first, but it has gathered steam and it is undeniable. Yet, for all the horror that Democrats have unleashed upon us, and that all too many Republicans have placidly acceded to or even actively conspired in, Americans are contemptuously treated to incomprehensible messaging.The horrors unfolding are dismissed out-of-hand, blatantly denied outright, or extolled as good and proper: the necessary growing pains for a better America and a better world, we are told. It is a damnable lie.Still, Americans are urged to conform actions and thoughts to the dictates of those who would destroy both them and the Country.Too few people remain alive today who would remember the Pied Piper of Hamlin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His Presidency should be studied. He sought to turn the Nation into a Socialist welfare State. How did that come about?Manipulation of public thought existed at that time, no less so than today. And it came by way of a composer’s catchy jingle coupled with a songwriter’s sprightly lyrics, and eloquently sung by a popular jazz singer and soon, as hoped and expected, became a useful campaign slogan: “Happy Days Are Here Again.”The public bought into the lies and voted into Office a man who sought to turn the Nation into a massive socialist enclave.For anyone who cared to notice, the propagandists had demonstrated the effectiveness of mass conditioning on the national stage, notwithstanding that, back then, during the first third of the 20^th Century, the world only had radio and newspapers and a smattering of periodicals to convey the Socialist messaging to a large audience.The Biden Administration's goals for the Country are the same as that of FDR, whom Biden emulates, and has not disguised that fact. See the article in the Hill.But tools for mass psychological conditioning, although in their infancy, along with the means for delivering those devices, although rudimentary by today’s standards, were still effective in seducing the masses.How far we have come. Today’s propagandists have available to them sophisticated tools of neurophysiological and neuropsychological conditioning, and with devices like smartphones, now ubiquitous, they have the means to deliver the messaging to the masses instantaneously.The immolation of American society is at hand, and it is indisputable, but many Americans are blind to it or are otherwise resigned to it. A few, even, are on board with it; relish the extinction of the United States as a free Constitutional Republic, favoring a stateless geographical region, open to millions for the taking. Have they considered what that might do to their own welfare? Or are they too far gone to even care?Rising, raging violent crime, especially in our major urban cities, is emblematic of destruction.How can rational Americans be cavalier about this?How is it that the public allows this to exist?How is it that Americans have a predilection for voting into Office—undoubtedly through the help of massive electoral subterfuge—deceitful leaders: seen in the mayors of cities, governors, and legislators of states, and in the Nation’s Congressional leaders, including a manikin in the highest Office of the Land?At some level, every American must know the Country is dying from within, even as much of that “assistance” is coming from ruthless forces from the outside.Many Americans, resigned to this, accept it. Several others have deluded themselves into the belief that matters will correct themselves of their own accord. And a few soulless types relish the demise of the Country.New York is a testbed of denial. Severe property crime and violent crime are rampant.The New York Governor hopeful, Lee Zeldin, has made the problem of crime a linchpin of his campaign. And notwithstanding all the money at Hochul’s disposal, she must contend with this upstart who is embarking perilously close to her domain.To be sure, New York, and especially New York City, has traditionally supported liberal, left-wing candidates. But the extent and scope of crime are now affecting too many New Yorkers, and even a dollop of wishful thinking is not sufficient to mask the seriousness of it.Hochul is compelled to admit the fact of it, to her dismay, and she is not happy to do so, for that means she plays into Zeldin’s strong suit and in accordance with his rules, his game plan, and that pains her to do so. To do so is also an admission that Zeldin is correct, and that weakens Hochul's campaign, and therefore weakens her standing as the preeminent candidate who should be setting out the pressing issues for consideration. See the article on law enforcement today.The entire House of Cards the Democrats carefully constructed is in danger of collapsing—across the Country. Could it be any other way? Even with their almost total control of messaging and of communication resources across the Country, how can these toadies of the wealthy, powerful, ruthless Neoliberal Globalists and of the out-of-control Neo-Marxist cultists, together with the absurdities of socio-political and economic Collectivist ideology and bankrupt normative ethical systems grounded in utilitarian consequentialism that view morality in terms of group dynamics, instead of individual will, motive, and need, honestly expect Americans to discard the precepts of our Constitution and over two thousand years of Christian deontological ethics extolling the sanctity of each individual human soul, and the self-evident truth of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, morally perfect, and benevolent Divine Being for an irrational belief system—one that, both in logic and in its effects, is contrary to the well-being of Americans and the Nation? It is the height of arrogance and erroneously presumes that mass psychological conditioning will win the day over one's deep, abiding innermost thoughts bespeaking the nature of right and wrong, on an elemental level, and of the inviolability of one's Being as a creation of God.Notwithstanding propagandist control of most communication venues, they have heretofore demonstrated little that can be deemed a success, and have found few converts to their cause and to their way of thinking.  They have constructed narratives and manufactured false issues out of whole cloth: narratives and the issues concerning racism, climate change, abortion, and “green energy.” They have buttressed and magnified these ludicrous narratives and issues and fabricated an equally ludicrous new dogma—a veritable religion—to push these idiotic narratives and false issues to the fore, around which they seek to replace our culture with the new one: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”  They have few takers.Concomitant with this, the Democrat toadies of the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxists have also sought to deemphasize issues that are critical to the strength and well-being of the Country and its people. These include the depletion of our energy reserves, runaway inflation, wasteful government spending, engaging our Nation in dangerous, wholly unnecessary military escapades, and systematically dissolving the integrity of the Nation’s geographical borders. But these issues are less policy, per se. Rather they are the accumulated effects of bad policy that beg now for solutions. And the solutions must come from Republicans. There is much work to be done to mend the corruption wrought by the Biden Administration, and by a Democrat-Party-controlled Congress, and by corrupt Democrat-Party-controlled State and municipal governments that have taken their cue from a despicable, despotic Federal Government. The responsible people must be investigated and brought to justice.The profound decay and ruin that has occurred throughout our Nation and on so many levels will take time to rectify. And to do this Americans must understand that the disintegration of our history, heritage, culture, ethos, and strength is not the result of mere ineptitude. Would that it were so. No! The decay and ruin are deliberate. They are the aims and goals of ruthless forces both here and abroad that have taken over the Democrat Party. They have taken over many of the agencies of the Federal and State Governments and many major businesses. They have taken over the Press and many of the Nation's institutions. And they seek to corrupt the minds of Americans: men, women, and even children. No one is safe from the corruption these ruthless, malevolent, malignant forces have perpetrated. Corruption has permeated all of America. Most Americans know this intuitively, innately, as well, and experientially. But, Americans feel powerless to do anything about this. And that, feeling of powerlessness, contributing to societal malaise is also by design. Americans must regain inner strength to do battle with the corrupters of our Nation.Failure of Americans to take charge of their life and national destiny will result in the further crippling of the United States. In a weakened condition, the Nation is inexorably, inevitably, susceptible to complete, and irrecoverable societal collapse. That means the Nation will cease to exist as an independent nation-state. And with that, the remains of the Country can be easily merged into a neo-feudal political, social, and economic world empire, ruled by an “elite “ few who, alone, will benefit from this. That is the endgame. That is what Trump saw, and that is what Americans saw who voted for him. And he sought to prevent the decay; to halt it; and then to turn the Country around. and, for a time, he did. That explains why Democrats, from the corrupt, demented Toady in Chief, Joe Biden, on down, have attacked Americans who supported Trump. That is why Democrats attack the slogan and policy goal, "Make America Great Again." They treat it as if it were an obscenity.Democrats have also sought to erroneously conflate matters that should not be conflated. This is best exemplified in discussions of immigration/naturalization: Illegal excursions into our Country by millions of people around the world. Illegal entry by millions of people is not equivalent to legal immigration. The U.S. already takes in more people legally than any other Country on Earth. And naturalized citizens resent, justifiably so, those millions who get a free ride into the U.S. Democrats. Democrats have consistently faulted Trump for his immigration stance, claiming erroneously that Trump was against immigration. He wasn’t. He never said that. What he did say was that he is against “illegal immigration.” But, for Democrats “illegal entry” into the Country is subsumed in “legal immigration.” That is inconsistent with both logic and law. But no matter. It is also odd to consider that ten to twenty years ago, Democrats, themselves also attacked illegal entry into our Country. That seemingly miraculously changed. What caused this sudden about-face?Democrats' control of the Press and social media gives the illusion of credibility to their narrative fiction. But, the result is devastation to the health of the Country. How do we rid ourselves of millions of illegals in our Country in the space of two years, with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands more pouring into the Nation every month? The short answer is, we can’t. Not easily. And that’s the point. They’re here to stay.And Democrats conflate violent crime, which they tolerate and even enable, with guns. They refuse to accept the fact that the right of the people to keep and bear arms, a natural law fundamental right, that Democrats loathe and wish to eventually outlaw. It is not by mistake that Progressive  or Marxist Democrats, such as the present Governor,  Kathy Hochul, remarks erroneously and absurdly that crime is simply a function of guns; ergo “criminal violence” reduces to “gun violence.” Kathy Hochul and all Democrats routinely, indeed, invariably eschew the phrase “criminal violence” in all of their remarks. They always use the expression “gun violence.” For, it is guns, in the hands of tens of millions of law-abiding citizens whom the Democrats wish to abolish, not criminal violence which serves their end goal to destabilize society, thereby making way for the dismantling of the United States as a free, sovereign, independent, Nation-State. The soci0-political regimes to which they seek to attach the remains of the U.S., merging the remains of the U.S. in an amorphous neo-feudal empire, do not, and never did recognize armed self-defense as a fundamental right. The Progressive, Neo-Marxists, and Neoliberal Globalists intend for our laws, rights, and jurisprudence to mirror the "Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" adopted by the Council of Europe and the loose "EU Charter of Fundamental Rights" as adopted by the European Union. These all reflect and cohere with the "Declaration of Human Rights" promulgated by the United Nations. Notable in its absence in those documents is any reference to the right of the people to keep and bear arms in their own defense and to thwart tyranny. In fact, there is no mention even of a general individual right of self-defense.  position papers of the UN. Any reference to a notion of self-defense is limited to that ascribed only to nations, who have a duty—more in the nature of a prerogative—to protect their native populations. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, dealing with this, titled, "Tyranny, Fundamental Rights and the Armed Citizen," posted on December 2, 2021.The concept of individual rights is reduced to a seemingly noble but, in analysis, vacuous recitation. One wonders if the EU and UN and Council of Nations drafters of these tracts, and documents of ostensible "Human Rights," take seriously the rights their tracts and documents recite. Of what use are these things in the absense of the means for the individual to enforce them? This question is rhetorical. For, the EU and UN and British Commonwealth of Nations, too, do not recognize the sanctity of the individual as an independent singular living Being. The rights espoused belong to the group—to a collective, to the Hive. The criminal element, there as here, understands this all too well, and preys at will on innocent lives. And, they use whatever means Criminals use whatever means they can to commit their crimes. In Democrat-run jurisdictions, in the U.S., the criminal's use of guns in the commission of their crimes is pleaded out, and the remaining felony count is then reduced to a misdemeanor. The criminal is let loose from pretrial detention to create more mayhem before his trial on the first crime even commences.This horrible situation is what New Yorkers face under the Hochul/Adams regime, and it won’t go away if Hochul is elected Governor. Her answer to criminal violence is to take away handguns from the average, responsible, rational, law-abiding adult citizen. She takes as axiomatic that guns as a numerical factor are responsible for the scope and ferocity of criminal behavior, irrespective of whom it is that wields a gun. This idea is flawed on both empirical grounds and as a matter of pure logic. She recites it anyway. Apparently, it makes for good messaging to those who have a phobic aversion to guns. And Hochul, and others of her kind, play and prey on that aversion. It means nothing. Violent crime continues unabated, sometimes through the use of a gun, often, then, by a gangbanger, and, more often by any of a variety of implements, whatever is at hand: knives, axes, baseball bats, hands and feet, hammers, even automobiles.Hochul spent the summer expending her energies, not on dealing with the explosion of violent crime, by working out and implementing crime reduction measures, but, rather, on defying U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the Bruen case, handed down at the end of June 2022. Her target is not violent crime reduction, but on oppressing law-abiding citizens, residents of the State, who merely wish to exercise their God-given right to bear arms in their own defense, as it is plain enough the police can't protect them, notwithstanding that the police do not have a duty to guarantee the life and safety of individuals anyway. But, now, the police in New York, in this post-George Floyd era, are constrained from even protecting the community at large.Like all Democrats, Hochul loathes the idea of implementing a policy that adheres to the natural law right to armed self-defense outside the home as well as inside it. In a jurisdiction that has degenerated into marked lawlessness, by design, it is reprehensible that Hochul would dare defy the U.S. Supreme Court unless she felt she could get away with this. She can’t, and, to date, she hasn’t. And it could well be the end of her after November 8, 2022. One can only hope.And let us hope that the majority of New Yorkers, even those who consider themselves social and political liberals or progressives, will come to their senses and recognize that Hochul does not have a plan to protect New Yorkers. The question is: Does she even care about the life and well-being of New Yorkers? Likely, not. Her actions speak louder than and belie her words. But, to fringe "Neo-Marxist cultists," the life of the individual counts for nothing. A million years of evolution begs to differ. The instinct for Self-Preservation does not abide by odd fads that deny the truth and strength of the instinctual need as pronounced in the actions of the lower animals.And the moral prerogative of self-defense derives as a natural law right baked into the Being of man by a Loving and all-powerful, Creator who created Man in His Own Image. But, the Cultists deny both God and the sanctity of the Individual Soul.The natural law right of armed self-defense is but an aspect of the general natural law right of defense. A person has the right and duty to protect him or herself with the most effective means available. At first, the most effective means available were the knife and sword. And for several hundred years thereafter, and currently, the best means available to protect oneself in imminent extremity, is the firearm, not the social worker. The natural law right to armed self-defense is coextensive with one’s instinct for survival.In an environment that at once eschews police protection for the welfare of the community and denies one the basic right to defend self against violent attack, it is little wonder that many New Yorkers, especially those that have hitherto extolled the Democrat Party tradition against guns, would have second thoughts about voting into Office, for four years, a person whose cavalier attitude toward the life, safety, and well-being is painfully in evidence.Lee Zeldin who sees that freedom from violent crime and the right to armed self-defense are not mutually exclusive but, to the contrary, go hand-in-hand, is in a good position to defeat Kathy Hochul. Hochul is a person who takes for granted that the concerns of a violent criminal or lunatic supersede the concerns of a law-abiding, innocent citizen, and she refuses to acknowledge the right of the individual to armed self-defense, even where an institution no less than the U.S. Supreme Court so ordains, consistent with the plain meaning of the language of the Second Amendment.Hochul’s ideas concerning crime and criminals and her abhorrence of the right of armed self-defense, together with her reluctance to allow the police to engage in traditional policing to defend life and property, cannot be viewed in a vacuum. These ideas, attributable to a faulty ethical system, odd moral imperatives of interest, and a predilection toward defying laws she happens to disagree with would be of interest to scholars in the fields of law and government studies, and in the fields of philosophy and psychology. Unfortunately, Hochul is, at present—and hopefully only for a few more days—the New York Governor. Her personal beliefs have expression in reality. They are not consigned simply to academic literature.Hochul’s ideas concerning crime and criminals and armed self-defense are not, then, mere “ideas.” They are policy choices, and those policy choices affect the nature of the society that a New Yorker must live and work in. They have real-world consequences. And those real-world consequences are not pleasant ones to behold.New Yorkers have taken notice. And they aren’t happy with what they see. This slow turn of events, now gaining in speed, obviously confuses and frustrates both Hochul and her wealthy donors. It shouldn’t but it does. That they are arrogant and jaded makes them sloppy. But, that is a good thing. It makes them easier to defeat.New Yorkers and Americans around the Country have awakened to the illogic of Democrats’ worldview. Democrats treat Americans like children who should not be permitted to think for themselves. Such is the condition of people who live in tyranny.Americans are rebelling against attempts to treat them like wayward children who must be led about. Americans won’t allow themselves to be governed by tyrants, whether those tyrants tend to see themselves as benevolent dictators or not.Since taking over the mantle of Governor in August, New Yorkers have obtained a good look at the New York Hochul envisions for them. Let’s see if enough New Yorkers, in the few days remaining before the election, make plain their displeasure with Hochul, and rid themselves of this petty tyrant, once and for all, at the polls.Those residents of New York who choose not to leave or cannot leave the State for “greener pastures” can turn things around for New York or they can accelerate the pace of societal decay and further endanger their life.The cutesy limerick, “A vote for Hochul is a vote for the same, but a vote for Zeldin is a vote for change to save New York,” is a bearer of a serious, dire message despite its tone.Hochul, who owes her allegiance to her donors, wealthy Neoliberal Globalists bent on destroying New York to satisfy their own interests and insatiable greed, together with the Neo-Marxists who have made no attempt to hide their disgust for the U.S. Constitution, and for the founders of our Free Constitutional Republic, and for our history, our heritage, and for our Christian heritage, and who deny the very concept of natural law rights, have—in Kathy Hochul—an agent to bring about the financial, economic, and social collapse of New York. Just look at the ruin of a once great State she has “accomplished” in the short time, she has been in office. Do New Yorkers want four years of this? If so, New York will be unrecognizable, and not in a good way!___________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL FILES APPEAL OF TRO: WHAT WILL THE U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT DO?

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

MULTI SERIES

PART SEVENTEEN

Just as we anticipated and pointed out in our article posted on both AQ and in Ammoland Shooting Sports news, on October 10, 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s Government wasted no time filing her “Emergency Motion Pending Appeal” with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, after the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted Plaintiffs' request for a TRO staying execution of Hochul’s CCIA in Antonyuk vs. Hochul.Hochul’s Attorney General, Letitia James, filed the Motion along with the Governor’s “Memorandum Of Law In Support Of Motion For A Stay Pending Appeal And An Administrative Stay Pending Resolution Of The Motion,” on October 10, 2022.Apart from the AG’s Press Release of October 6, 2022, coming immediately after the District Court granted a stay of the CCIA, there was a blackout of news coverage on this.Hochul’s AG, James, must have worked around the clock to get Hochul’s motion filed in hopes of protecting the CCIA in the run-up to the Midterm Elections.Upon the filing of the Motion to lift the stay, the AG released a succinct Press Release, detailing the aspects of the CCIA under assault, which Hochul intends to enforce:“The CCIA was passed during an extraordinary session of the Legislature and enacted earlier this summer in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The law strengthens requirements for concealed carry permits, prohibits guns in sensitive places, requires individuals with concealed carry permits to request a property owner’s consent to carry on their premises, enhances safe storage requirements, requires social media review ahead of certain gun purchases, and requires background checks on all ammunition purchases.”The curious thing about this entire episode is the notable absence of Press Coverage, apart from two terse, self-serving Press releases from the AG’s Office. Is this a news blackout? It is! Doesn’t The New York Times think the District Court’s award of a TRO meets the requirement of the Paper’s motto: “All the News Fit to Print”? It doesn’t.The legal ramifications of the TRO are bad enough but the political fall-out is even more compelling, concerning, and disconcerting for Hochul, especially with her Governorship on the line.Congressman Zeldin is breathing down her neck. A staunch supporter of the Second Amendment is in striking distance, closer than anyone thought possible, as the New York Post points out in its October 10, 2022, article, “Polls show Lee Zeldin on track to win — if voters learn the stakes.” Hochul’s image makers want to make the New York Gubernatorial Race about abortion. But the pressing issue is rampant, escalating violent crime in New York City, extending throughout New York. The Governor is either unable or unwilling to deal with that.Hochul never talks about “Criminal Violence.” She only talks about “Gun Violence.” Sounds simple, and, for some, logical: no guns, no “gun violence.” But, what about criminal violence? Doesn't that remain?Hochul’s policy is one-sided: disarm the public, and her CCIA does that.But what about criminal violence? How about removing psychopaths and lunatics from the streets? It is these elements that are responsible for the havoc and chaos and harm to or loss of innocent life.This flotsam and jetsam may use guns, if available, sure; or other items such as knives, blunt objects, and arms and legs and maws. See the FBI statistics report and the breakdown provided by Joslyn Law Firm Report.And New York's cashless bail policy doesn’t help, as the Zeldin Media Center aptly points out.And it doesn’t help that NYC prosecutors routinely drop serious charges against perpetrators of violence. See the article in The New America. And, of course, it is easy to attack the law-abiding citizen.Doing so kills two birds with one stone. Disarm the citizenry so it doesn’t pose a threat to the Tyrant, and create the pretense of promoting public safety. That once was true, but no longer.Now the Hochul Government is beset with a vexing problem: the award of a TRO against enforcement of Hochul’s CCIA.The awarding of a TRO is an extraordinary remedy rarely granted. That a U.S. District Court granted it here, means the District Court finds that the principal provisions of the CCIA are unconstitutional and unconscionable. But Hochul should have seen this coming. She didn't or simply hoped the District Court wouldn't award a TRO. After all, the Federal Courts have hitherto deferred to Government actions targeting New York gun owners.They once did, but no longer, certainly not since NYSRPA vs. Bruen.And Hochul should have gotten a clue when the District Court pointed to the unconstitutionality and outright rapaciousness of the CCIA in the previous case, Antonyuk vs. Bruen when the Court dismissed the case without prejudice due to a technical legal matter.The Court’s lengthy opinion in the first case left no doubt that it encouraged the Plaintiff, Antonyuk, to file a new case. The Court spent considerable ink in explaining, one, why the CCIA is unconstitutional and intolerable and two, how Antonyuk can overcome the standing issue.This is a problem for Hochul. It is one thing when an American citizen and resident of New York argues that the State Government has violated his fundamental, unalienable right to keep and bear arms, consistent with his God-Given natural law right to armed self-defense. That has come to be expected. Hochul doesn’t give a damn about that. It is ho-hum, nothing new. It has happened many times before, going back to 1911 when the State first imposed handgun licensing on New Yorkers, with enactment of the Sullivan Act. And the New York Government has slowly, methodically, inexorably whittled away at the God-Given right of armed self-defense ever since.But it is quite another thing when a Federal Court agrees with the citizen and, more, not only admonishes the Government but excoriates the Government for creating a law that denies a law-abiding citizen the ability to effectively secure his life, health, well-being, and safety with a firearm.The Court’s reaction to the CCIA is damning to the Government’s narrative that it had long assumed the public and the courts would take as axiomatic: that denying a law-abiding citizen the right to armed self-defense is constitutional precisely because doing so promotes public safety. Both propositions are false.Heretofore New York’s Federal Courts have deferred to the Government’s immolation of the Second Amendment guarantee, even acknowledging that armed self-defense is nothing but a privilege, conditioned on the acquisition of a license to engage in that privilege of armed self-defense; and that constraints on the exercise of the privilege are acceptable because a greater good is obtained: public safety.This in a nutshell is the salient tenet of the American Collectivist ethical system of utilitarian consequentialism.The Heller, McDonald, and Bruen rulings upended the idea that the fundamental, unalienable right of armed self-defense is reducible to a mere Governmental privilege. And in controverting that idea, the High Court also uprooted the entire normative ethical system of utilitarianism that denies the existence of natural law rights beyond the power of the Government to modify, dismiss, abrogate, or ignore.But, in failing to strike a State’s handgun licensing statute, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed renegade State Governments to perpetuate the practice of denying the exercise of a natural law right—the most important natural law right—survival of Self, upon which the sanctity and inviolability of one’s being depends. And jurisdictions like New York took advantage of that failure.Collectivism repudiates the idea of the sanctity and inviolability of the individual. The individual counts for nothing. Only the sanctity of “the hive” is important along with the Queen Bee. In human society, the “Queen Bee” includes the few “Elect Elites” of society.Of course, people like Governor Hochul don’t describe the ravaging of the natural law right of armed self-defense in such stark terms, but, their actions bear out they care nothing for the well-being of the common man.But, at least one New York Federal Court in New York has rethought the foundation of Second Circuit law in light of the Bruen rulings, recognizes the flaw, and has done something about it.Presumptive deference to State Government actions denying the right of armed self-defense in New York is becoming a dead letter, erstwhile blackletter law. Let’s see if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agrees with the District Court’s granting of the TRO, and keeps the TRO in place, suspending enforcement of the CCIA until the District Court has had an opportunity to resolve Antonyuk vs. Hochul on the merits and has entered final judgment in the case. It should.NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL’S ARGUMENT TO DISSOLVE THE TRO IN THE ANTONYUK CASE AND ALLOW ENFORCEMENT OF THE CCIAIn the Government's Memorandum, Letitia James, on behalf of Governor Hochul, cites several cases to buttress the Governor’s argument. But those arguments all boil down to one thing: a presumptive legal prerogative of the State that, through time, has devolved into a vacuous rhetorical political talking point, a mere platitude: “public safety.”Letitia James writes,“The serious risk of irreparable harm to public safety and the possibility of regulatory chaos necessitates an immediate appeal. As the data confirm, more guns carried in more places by more people result in more crime, violence, and homicide. In addition, state and local officials have spent significant resources implementing the CCIA and informing New Yorkers about the new law, only to have the Order sow confusion among the public, licensing officials, and law enforcement. The purpose of interim relief is to preserve the status quo, not to create turmoil during the pendency of litigation.”In other words, James is saying: guns are the root of all evil; the CCIA helps eradicate that root; the public good is best served by CCIA enforcement.That’s the gist of the argument, which begs the question why would a District Court not see this? That it did not, the Hochul Government presumes that the District Court is wrong, and she expects the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to rectify the matter, in her favor.So convinced is the Government in its own infallibility, that it doesn’t try to convince the Federal Circuit Court that the District Court’s TRO is legally insupportable. The Government simply assumes the TRO is insupportable and that the Circuit Court should recognize this as plain and self-evident. The AG, on behalf of Governor Hochul, says,“The serious risk of irreparable harm to public safety and the possibility of regulatory chaos necessitates an immediate appeal. As the data confirm, more guns carried in more places by more people result in more crime, violence, and homicide. In addition, state and local officials have spent significant resources implementing the CCIA and informing New Yorkers about the new law, only to have the Order sow confusion among the public, licensing officials, and law enforcement. The purpose of interim relief is to preserve the status quo, not to create turmoil during the pendency of litigation. Second, the Order should be stayed pending this appeal.”The conclusion is presupposed in the premise. Letitia James says,“The [TRO] Order bears the hallmarks of an appealable preliminary injunction, and a stay pending appeal is necessary given the overwhelming balance of equities in favor of appellants and plaintiffs’ failure to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits.”But, the District Court explained through rigorous argument that it was the Plaintiffs, not the Defendant Government Officials, who had established a likelihood of success on the merits. And that is a critical requirement that must be met before a Court can legally issue a TRO. And the District Court has determined the weight of hardship accrues to the Plaintiffs if the TRO is dissolved. For if the TRO is lifted, then the Plaintiffs would be subject to arrest and slapped with a serious misdemeanor or felony for carrying a handgun for self-defense in an area where, prior to the enactment of the CCIA, it was lawful to carry if one had a valid handgun license, which Plaintiffs presently have. The Hochul Government doesn't see this or otherwise simply chooses to ignore it, such contempt it has for gun owners. And The Government claims the TRO, an interlocutory order, is a final appealable order to be treated as an injunction. It isn't. Further, the Government claims it is likely to win on the merits. It can't legally make that claim because, once again, the TRO is an interlocutory order. The claim isn't appealable unless the TRO can be treated as an injunction. The Government here hasn't proffered a cogent argument to support a finding for the Second Circuit to treat the TRO as an injunction. The Government's assertions bespeak arrogance. The Second Circuit should keep the TRO stay in place and remand the case to the District Court to resolve the substantive issues through discovery and trial. And, in the end, the District Court will either issue a preliminary or permanent injunction or, if the Government can prove with the weight of evidence that the CCIA is constitutional, the Court can order enforcement of it. Once the trial has concluded, and the District Court has entered its order, that order becomes a final judgment entry. At that point, the party against whom judgment is entered can appeal that final judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for final resolution of the case, after which the losing Party can then appeal the judgment of the Second Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, which the High Court may or may not agree to review.___________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WITHOUT AN ARMED CITIZENRY THE PEOPLE REMAIN AT THE MERCY OF THE STATE

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

WITHOUT AN ARMED CITIZENRY THE PEOPLE REMAIN AT THE MERCY OF THE STATE

MULTISERIES

PART TWELVE

HELLER, MCDONALD, AND BRUEN ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

New York Governor Kathy Hochul and the Anti-Second Amendment Legislators in Albany were in a bind. The U.S. Supreme officially published its decision in NYSRPA vs. Bruen on June 23, 2022. Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-Controlled State Legislature in Albany had reason enough to expect, and every reason to fear, that Bruen would be a momentous decision—and for Hochul and the Democrat Party Legislators in Albany—a disastrous decision, directly and potentially fatally, impacting the State’s century-old Gun Law, the Sullivan Act, long since codified in the State’s Penal Code, NY CLS Penal § 400.00, et. seq. It would take Hochul and the Legislators, and their respective lawyers considerable time to concoct a scheme that would salvage the Sullivan Act, creating the illusion—if ultimately unconvincingly—of complying with the High Court’s rulings. The Anti-Second Amendment Hochul Administration and the Legislators in Albany had nothing but contempt for the High Court. Hochul, herself, did not so much as try to hide this. On the Governor’s website, the public sees this announcement:“ ‘While the Supreme Court's appalling decision to strike down New York State's concealed carry law has potentially vast and far-reaching implications, it does not activate any immediate changes to State gun license and permit laws, nor does it allow residential permit owners to carry their weapons outside their homes. . . . “As the case returns to lower court, we encourage responsible gun owners to continue to follow their current restrictions, and always put safety first. While we are disappointed with the Supreme Court's reckless disregard for the safety of our communities, we are prepared to fight. And the Lieutenant Governor, Antonio Delgado, added this to Governor Hochul’ statement.“‘Yesterday, the Supreme Court sent us backwards in our efforts to protect families and prevent gun violence by striking down a NY law that limits who can carry concealed weapons. While the implications are not immediate, New York is committed to taking action and enacting a new set of laws that will work around this ruling. . . . If the Supreme Court and federal government won't act to keep our children safe, then New York will.’” Id.Hochul likely had received abundant advance notice of the content of the Bruen decision “on the QT,”  judging by how quickly her Government came out with a comprehensive set of amendments to the State’s Gun Law. The Arbalest Quarrel has taken an in-depth look at the Bruen decision along with the Hochul Government’s response to it. There is a lot of material to digest, and we will continue to do this as nothing—absolutely nothing—is more critical to the preservation of a free Constitutional Republic, than the right of the people to keep and bear arms.All the rambunctious talk of “the need to get rid of guns” for the sake of public safety and public order for everyone serves as deflection. The message translates as: “constraining law-abiding citizens’ access to firearms for self-defense. The argument presented for doing so is specious on its face and, worse, it is corrosive of the fundamental truth that tyranny looms in the absence of an armed citizenry. Tyranny of Government looms in New York. And, as New York is a microcosm of the Nation, what transpires there has a ripple effect across the Nation: crime is rampant and intractable; the criminal justice system casts a blind eyed to the safety of the public, and the public is denied the right to defend itself against the danger presented. It is a recipe for societal collapse. The U.S. Supreme Court could see this even if the New York Government does not. The Court could not compel the New York Government to protect its citizens, but it could require New York to adhere to the core principles of the Bill of Rights. That means New York cannot lawfully prevent the citizen from protecting itself. The Bill of Rights boils down to these Divine absolutes: the sanctity and inviolability of Selfhood; and the fundamental, immutable, unalienable, and incontrovertible natural law right of survival against aggression, howsoever that aggression manifests itself: from predatory creature, or predatory man, or a predatory Government.Yet, as violent crime goes unchecked, and the criminal justice system itself remains constrained, the Hochul Government provides excuses. Yet, as to the matter of armed self-defense, the Hochul Government has much to say.It couldn’t dismiss U.S. Supreme Court rulings out-of-hand without admitting that it cares not for the Article 3 authority of the Court. So it came up with a workaround to salvage the Sullivan Act. It was as ingenious as it was diabolical. The Government pretends to give free rein to the law-abiding citizen to carry a handgun concealed for self-protection. And a seditious Press and the Hochul Government denounce the U.S. Supreme Court for turning New York into a “wild west.”  The Press and the Hochul Government should reflect on that a bit. New York City and other jurisdictions, including those several on the west coast, and jurisdictions inland, including Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and many others, are already in the throes of the “wild west.” In the name of the new secular religious dogma of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” and with Soros's money raining down on jurisdictions that support his Dystopian Nightmare of the “Open Society,” Cities across the Country are collapsing. Incompetence can’t alone explain this. It has to be deliberate.The degradation of society invariably follows in the wake of and must therefore be construed as a function of systematic denigration of the Second Amendment by governments in all of those jurisdictions. Congress and the Biden Administration have done little if anything to prevent wholescale annihilation of the exercise of armed self-defense, and much to promote it.And so it is left to the province of the U.S. Supreme Court to reinvigorate the Bill of Rights that the Federal Government and those of many States and cities have disdainfully ignored or actively dismantled.

DOWN MEMORY LANE: THE VIOLATION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT OF THE NATION’S BILL OF RIGHTS

The U.S. Supreme Court had done with playing games with New York and with all other State Governments that had heretofore played fast and loose with the natural law right of armed self-defense. New York and other similar Anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions had withstood the impact of Heller and McDonald through feats of judicial legerdemain. And New York itself had weathered the storm of the predecessor to the Bruen case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association vs. the City of New York, 140 S. Ct. 1525 (2020); often referred to informally as the “New York City Gun Transport” case.In both NYSRPA vs. Bruen and NYSPRA vs the City of New York, the U.S. Supreme Court began to zero in on a long-standing nemesis to the Second Amendment, New York, just as it had zeroed in on the District of Columbia and on Illinois, several years earlier. All three of these jurisdictions were notorious for systematically treating the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as the bane of Collectivist orthodoxy that seeks to Government absolute control over the thoughts and actions of the masses. And that requires suppression of basic freedoms and liberties—most notably that of speech, privacy, and the right to armed self-defense.The U.S. Supreme Court was one remaining Branch of the Federal Government that had had enough of the immolation of basic natural law rights: most concerning to some Justices on the Court: armed self-defense.If Congress and the U.S. President would not take concrete steps to preserve the natural law right of armed self-defense, several Justices on the High Court would do so. And, after years of noncompliance to High Court rulings in Heller and McDonald, two Associate Justices, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, would not be denied any longer. NYSRPA vs. the City of New York provided an opportunity to prevent the New York Government from continuously weakening the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The Court’s rulings would course through the rest of the Country, impacting those States that had enacted similar unconscionable, unconstitutional constraints on the exercise of the right codified in the Second Amendment.

NYSPRA vs. THE CITY OF NEW YORK: DECISION ON THE MERITS AVOIDED

In the Gun Transport case, Petitioners challenged a New York City rule preventing holders of restricted handgun premise licenses from transporting their firearms outside the confines of the City.  Petitioners claimed the rule violated the Second Amendment and sought both declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement of the rule insofar as the rule prevented their transport of firearms to a second home or shooting range outside of the city. The District Court and the Court of Appeals rejected Petitioners’ claim and they took the case up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The liberal wing of the Court, and likely Chief Justice John Roberts as well, were not keen on reviewing the case. They had no desire to take up any Second Amendment case they felt would serve, from their ideological perspective, of expanding the people's exercise of the natural law right of armed self-defense.Of course, Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch—Trump’s first nominee to the High Court, after the untimely death and, some would add, dubious circumstances surrounding that death—do not view Second Amendment cases as irrational or unreasonable attempts by Americans to expand the natural law right of armed self-defense. Rather, these Justices perceive Second Amendment challenges to Government actions constraining the exercise of a natural law right as opportunities to preclude the Government from constraining the exercise of a supernal right. It is the unconstitutional actions of the Government that demand adjudication by the High Court—a task that should be unnecessary and would be unnecessary if the States and the Federal Government would acknowledge the Bill of Rights instead of continually frustrating Americans’ exercise of their fundamental, unalienable rights.Although the Gun Transport case wasn’t the ideal case to adjudicate, as many others had wended their way to the Court years before, yet could not garner enough votes for review, this case was the best that could be achieved at the time.The Petitioners sought to have the case decided on the merits. They argued that, notwithstanding that they held a restrictive premise handgun license, they still had a fundamental right under the Second Amendment to carry a firearm to a target range outside the City limits. Had the case been decided on the merits, the Court could have taken the opportunity to rule restrictive handgun carry licenses as presumptively unlawful. The liberal wing and Chief Justice Roberts would have none of that, and, likely, Roberts cajoled the newest member of the High Court, at that time, Brett Kavanaugh, to vote with him to forsake the opportunity the case gave them.The case didn’t just bother several members of the Court, it concerned Andrew Cuomo and other Anti-Second Amendment politicians who had made it their life’s work to make New York a veritable Gun-Free jurisdiction. And, Cuomo saw an escape route, and most of the Justices saw a pretext to avoid dealing with the case on the merits.Since the issue in the Gun Transport case pertained only to holders of restricted handgun licenses who, under New York law, could not lawfully carry a handgun outside one’s home for self-defense, there was the concern that the Court could come embroiled with the issue of armed self-defense outside the home. If so, that would impinge on the Sullivan Act itself. Neither the liberal wing of the High Court nor the Chief Justice, John Roberts wanted to deal with this. And Andrew Cuomo, the Governor at the time, and a virulent hater of the Second Amendment intended to do all in his power to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court from reviewing a case that could very expand the right of all law-abiding civilian citizens in New York to carry a concealed handgun in the public realm for self-defense, thus imperiling the century-old Sullivan Act at its core. Better, then, Cuomo realized, simply to redraft the State Gun Law and the Rules of the City of New York, to allow a holder of a restricted premise license to carry a handgun outside the environs of the City, albeit, in a locked container, with ammunition separated from the firearm. This would still preclude the use of the handgun for self-defense in public if the need arose, and the Sullivan Act would remain intact. Cuomo and the other Anti-Second Amendment zealot power brokers don’t like to weaken their own gun laws, but they could do so here, as it wouldn’t have a disastrous impact on the core of the Gun Law—inhibiting the vast majority of law-abiding New Yorkers from lawfully relying on a firearm for self-defense.New York City changed its Rules and the State reconfigured the law to avoid a direct threat to the Sullivan Act. The last thing anti-Second Amendment forces want is a high Court opinion that strengthens the Second Amendment. The City’s gambit paid off. In a 6 to 3 vote, the Supreme Court held that, since the City changed the old rule, the case is moot, because Petitioners can now lawfully transport their handgun to a second home or shooting range outside the City. But can they really? What will New York City do in the future to restrict the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms? This will almost certainly embolden New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. And there is nothing to prevent the New York Government from countermanding the law once the High Court dismisses it. The Petitioners made these points and Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch concurred, but they were two votes shy of reviewing the case on the merits. So, for a time, at least, the Sullivan Act was spared direct confrontation. The reprieve for Anti-Second Amendment zealots, both in New York, and elsewhere, was short-lived. Everything changed with Bruen.

NYSRPA vs. BRUEN: DECISION ON THE MERITS UNAVOIDABLE

Unlike the NYC Gun Transport case, the constitutionality of armed self-defense outside the confines of one’s home was now squarely before the High Court. Reconfiguring New York law to avoid a showdown was out of the question. There was no way the Hochul Government could finesse the Gun Law to avoid a High Court review of the case on the merits. And with three certain votes in favor of striking down the Sullivan Act, and with both Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kavanaugh compelled to add a fourth and fifth vote, the High Court had a majority, necessary to defeat the Liberal wing of the Court. Chief Justice Roberts would look more the fool for siding with the liberal wing now, even if he likely wanted to. For to do so would be demonstrably inconsistent with his pro-Second Amendment votes in Heller and McDonald, and, as Chief Justice, he would prefer not to be situated with the losing side on any occasion, but certainly not on a case of this magnitude.And Kavanaugh would be compelled to side with the majority as he said as much in his concurring opinion in the NYC Gun Transport case. He made clear the Court would have ample opportunity to hear a Second Amendment case on the merits in the future, which he would support, and that day had come, even if he would prefer not to see it.Hochul and Albany were therefore on their own to devise a strategy to salvage the Sullivan Act. And, it would have to come after the fact once the case was decided on the merits. And since Bruen dealt squarely with State law, as it no longer had anything to do with New York City Rules, Mayor Adams would have done well to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t. Ever the lackey, under the thumb of Neo-Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists, and discerning that it would be best for him not to disappoint Kathy Hochul, he would do what was expected of him; and that meant concurring with whatever the Governor had in mind. His own Press Release reflected that. On the official NYC website, Adams echoed the sentiments of both Hochul and of the State Senate Majority Leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins. In so doing, Adams made clear and indisputable, if ever there were any doubt, that he vehemently disapproves of the civilian citizen's right to armed self-defense. He declared, “Put simply, this Supreme Court ruling will put New Yorkers at further risk of gun violence. We have been preparing for this decision and will continue to do everything possible to work with our federal, state, and local partners to protect our city. Those efforts will include a comprehensive review of our approach to defining ‘sensitive locations’ where carrying a gun is banned, and reviewing our application process to ensure that only those who are fully qualified can obtain a carry license. We will work together to mitigate the risks this decision will create once it is implemented, as we cannot allow New York to become the Wild West. One thing is certain: We will do whatever is in our power, using every resource available to ensure that the gains we’ve seen during this administration are not undone, to make certain New Yorkers are not put in further danger of gun violence. This decision may have opened an additional river feeding the sea of gun violence, but we will do everything we can to dam it.” See also the article posted on the website, Reason, on November 10, 2021, a week after the Oral Argument in Bruen.“Before he was elected mayor of New York City . . . , Eric Adams raised some eyebrows by saying he would carry a handgun to protect himself and any houses of worship he might visit. While those remarks were controversial, the real scandal is that ordinary New Yorkers cannot legally carry guns for self-defense—a privilege that Adams takes for granted as a former police officer.That double standard came into focus last week, when the Supreme Court considered a constitutional challenge to New York's carry permit law. Unlike the vast majority of states, which allow residents to carry guns in public if they meet a short list of objective criteria, New York gives local officials broad discretion to decide whether an applicant has ‘proper cause’ to exercise a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment.Former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, speaking on behalf of the law's opponents, emphasized that applicants cannot pass the state's amorphous test by expressing a general desire to protect themselves against criminal assault. ‘In order to exercise a constitutional right that New York is willing to concede extends outside the home,’ he noted, ‘you have to show that you have an atypical need to exercise the right that distinguishes you from the general community.’That situation, Clement said, ‘describes a privilege’ rather than ‘a constitutional right.’ Most of the justices seemed inclined to agree.”Six Justices did agree—two of them, Roberts and Kavanaugh, likely reluctantly—the flipside of what occurred a couple of years earlier, where it was 6 to 3 that voted against the NYSRPA and individual gun owners in the disastrous “Gun Transport” case.

A SCHEME IS HATCHED!

Hochul and the Democrats in Albany, with their band of attorneys, conceived and executed a plan to salvage the Sullivan Act, which meant, by logical implication, sabotaging the Bruen holdings, albeit without appearing overtly that they were doing just that. Hochul and the other conspirators in her Government had ample time to plot a way around Bruen, notwithstanding the clarity and conciseness of the case, delivered in the first sentence of the Opinion. Obviously, someone alerted Hochul as to what to expect. Could it have been the same law clerk who had presumptuously and illegally released an early copy of the Dobbs decision to the Press? In aPress Release, dated May 3, 2022, printed in full by the Washington Examiner, the Chief Justice said he has “directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.” Did the Chief Justice find the leaker? If so, he hasn’t reported it, which belies the sense of importance that he says he had placed upon it. See the article in the Federalist concerning it:“More than 100 days have passed since the infamous leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s majority draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and Americans are still no closer to finding out the identity of the leaker than the day the draft decision was published.”Deception and contrivance and false reporting and hiding findings seem to be the modus operandi of this Federal Government.But, concerning the Second Amendment—the importance the founders of the Republic, the framers of the Constitution, had placed on it is a matter always front in center. It is a matter as important to a tyrant who is as wary of the armed citizenry as the armed citizenry is wary of the tyrant. The matter of firearms is not a topic easily dismissed or swept under the rug. Tangible weapons in the hands of criminals and in the hands of a tyrant’s standing army—that may be used or have been used, or continue to be used, or will be used against the people—require arms in the hands of the people to counter the threat.Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party controlling majority in Albany see the law-abiding citizenry as a greater threat to themselves than the criminal element that is tearing down the community they are sworn to protect but do not. It is their design then, through their policies, to destroy society, just as on a National level it is the aim of the Democrat Party-controlled Congress and the Biden Administration to do the same to the Country. The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court places a damper on both. It impacts New York immediately and directly, but it has a ripple effect across the Nation. Hochul and Albany meant to throw a wrench into the Bruen rulings.The scheme wasn’t perfect, and it really fooled no one—certainly not anyone who spends sufficient time to pour over the elaborate contrivance. But, it was the best they could muster, given the clear exposition of Bruen.Associate Justice Thomas, writing for the Court majority, opined:“In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010), we recognized that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right of an ordinary, law-abiding citizen to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense. In this case, petitioners and respondents agree that ordinary, law-abiding citizens have a similar right to carry handguns publicly for their self-defense. We too agree, and now hold, consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”The holding was concise, unambiguous, and categorical. But would it suffice to prevent a New York Government, that had a long tradition of constraining the natural law right of armed self-defense, from devising an end run around the holding, while ostensibly complying with the dictates of it? Apparently, in anticipation of just that possibility—and with Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett in agreement, and with two others, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the Chief Justice, John Roberts, in tow, if only reluctantly—Justice Thomas set forth an additional holding in the second paragraph of the opinion. He wrote, in pertinent part:“The parties nevertheless dispute whether New York’s licensing regime respects the constitutional right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense. . . . Because the State of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.”It would seem clear enough at least to a casual observer that the U.S. Supreme Court had covered two critical bases—seemingly sufficient to forestall Kathy Hochul and her compatriots in Albany from circumventing Bruen.Boiled down to its essence the Court’s first two holdings set forth in the first two paragraphs of the Opinion, established the following:

• The right of a law-abiding citizen to possess a handgun for self-defense exists beyond the confines of one’s home as well as in it; and
• New York’s Gun Law, requiring a person to justify a special need to carry a handgun for armed self-defense outside the home, is unconstitutional.

The implication of the first holding is that the right of armed self-defense, unconstrained by place, time, or circumstance, follows from the plain meaning of the Second Amendment for there is nothing in the language of the Second Amendment to suggest an American’s right of armed self-defense is limited.The implication of the second holding is that a showing of special need to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home is inconsistent with the natural law right of armed self-defense. A claim of simple self-defense is sufficient and that simple claim need not be stated, for it is logically implied in the language of the Second Amendment. To require one to assert self-defense to justify the issuance of a concealed handgun carry license would be redundant.Did Justice Thomas, et. al., adequately cover their bases? Apparently, they didn’t realize just how cunning Hochul and  Albany could be, and how advanced notice of the decision gave her Government ample time to defuse the import of the holdings.Even with the Court’s acute legal minds and an unshakeable desire and resolve to preserve the citizen’s natural law right of armed self-defense—a right both fundamental and immutable, unalienable and eternal—Justices Thomas and Alito, in particular, might not have foreseen the lengths to which Kathy Hochul’s Government was prepared to go to protect a 100 plus old Gun Law, the Sullivan Act of 1911, and the diabolical cleverness of the Government’s scheme to override Bruen even as her Government created the illusion of complying with it, by striking the phrase, “proper cause” from the Sullivan Act. She could work around that and has done so. The “Good Moral Character,” of little importance given the “proper cause” requirement, has been re-engineered to function much like the “proper cause” requirement.Thus, it may well be that Justices Thomas and Alito did know or did suspect that New York would disobey the rulings of the Third Branch of Government. For, did they not have firsthand knowledge of how lower State and Federal Courts, including those of New York had hitherto disobeyed the clear rulings of Heller and McDonald?That Bruen was needed at all to rectify the matter of prolific disobedience to Heller and McDonald serves as proof of the tenacity of Anti-Second Amendment State Governments as well as the tenacity of the Biden Administration and the Democrat-Party Controlled Congress, at the Federal level, to arrogantly dismiss the U.S. Constitution out-of-hand, even as it pretends to cohere to it, with its ludicrous claims of adhering to the Rule of Law and of claiming it is a steadfast defender of Democracy.It is interesting to behold that Democrats like to throw out terminology without ever bothering to define what they mean by it as if expressions like the ‘Rule of Law’ and ‘Democracy’ are self-explanatory. They aren’t. But, by referring to these phrases, ad nauseum, and positing undying faith and passion in them, Democrats presume the American public will take them at their word, reflexively, like a sneeze or cough, as if they care deeply about the well-being of the Nation and the American people. They don’t. And that is exemplified by policies systematically designed to wreck the economy, demoralize the citizenry, weaken the Nation militarily and geopolitically, dismantle our institutions, and shatter the cohesiveness and stability of society. Nothing better exemplifies the danger wrought by the Destructors of our Nation and its Constitution, who pretend to be Defenders of both, than the inexorable disintegration of our Nation’s Bill of Rights, especially that of the Second Amendment.Consider——The Heller case of 2008 reaffirmed what all rational minds know: the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia. That the prefatory “militia clause” might mean the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a collective right flies in the face of the very purpose of the Bill of Rights. Apart from the dictates of the Tenth Amendment, referencing the doctrine of federalism underlying the relationship of the Federal Government to the States, the first Nine Amendments of the Bill of Rights codify the natural law rights of the individual and the Second Amendment is no exception.The militia clause—a dependent clause under the rules of English grammar—is not a thing that can, or does, stand-alone, for dependent clauses are not complete sentences: they don’t convey a complete thought.* The late Justice Antonin Scalia, who penned the majority opinion in Heller, explained the prefatory, dependent clause, “a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State,” does not assert a limitation on the independent clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Rather, the prefatory clause provides a rationale for the independent clause that follows. Justice Scalia explained that the drafters of the Second Amendment knew that nothing less than a well-armed citizenry would serve as the best deterrent to tyranny emerging in the Federal Government. This was of great concern, especially to the Antifederalists, among the framers. They were justifiably wary of establishing a strong central government with its own standing army. Thus, an independent citizen army, unbeholden to a federal government, would have both the means and the frame of mind to deter tyranny if such should come to pass.Oddly, many academicians today ignore this or dismiss this. They argue that the Constitution’s framers could not have intended to create, in the Second Amendment, a mechanism through which the commonalty could overthrow their own Government. Therefore, any right to keep and bear arms had to be tied to a militia—but one that was constrained by the Federal Government itself. One academician says that the Federalists, among the framers of the Constitution—those who supported a strong centralized Government and a strong standing arming—intended for armed citizens, as part of a militia, to function under federal control. Can that be true? They write,“In the eyes of the Federalists, the past had proven that the militia, to be effective, had to be federalized. The discipline of militia members, in particular, was of paramount concern.  Federal authority over the militia would also create uniformity in arms and training. But of the two means of military power recognized by the document, a standing army and a militia, both were put under federal control.” Of course, today, militias as such, are under firm State and/or Federal control. These militias have transformed into ‘national guards.’” “The Inconvenient Militia Clause Of The Second Amendment: Why The Supreme Court Declines To Resolve The Debate Over The Right To Bear Arms,” 16 St. John's J.L. Comm. 41(Winter, 2002), by Robert Hardaway, Professor of Law at the University of Denver College of Law; and Elizabeth Gormley and Bryan Taylor, graduates of University College of Law 2001The writers go on to say, in support of the idea the Second Amendment must, on logical as well as legal grounds, only be construed as conferring a collective right to keep and bear arms:“One of the most commonly made arguments by the broad individual rights advocates is that the Second Amendment embodies some sort of right of insurrection. This is a difficult argument to sustain given the numerous, and sometimes explicit, provisions against insurrection in the Constitution. Perhaps the most obvious constitutional prohibition against insurrection is the treason clause which forbids making war against the United States. Armed insurrection obviously is making war on the United States. Therefore, far from embodying a right of insurrection, the Constitution explicitly criminalizes the act. Further, the militia clauses themselves deny any right of insurrection. One of the constitutional functions of the militia is to suppress insurrection. It strains credulity to believe that the same institution would be empowered with the right to engage in insurrection and the duty to suppress them. As one writer expresses, the Constitution cannot view the militia both as a means by which government can suppress insurrection and as an instrument for insurrection against the government. It must be one or the other. ‘The Militia Clauses make clear which one it is.’ Lastly, the militia was intended to implement the guarantee clause. This provision reflects Madison's desire to expressly guarantee the ‘tranquility of the states against internal as well as external dangers.’ The primary concern underlying the provision was to secure the ability to put down insurrections such as Shay's Rebellion. Taken together, these clauses ‘make it overwhelmingly clear that the Constitution was framed to forbid, prevent, and punish insurrection against its own laws - as, indeed, any constitution that claims legitimate authority must do.’ To assert a constitutional right of insurrection is fundamentally illogical. The Constitution could not embrace the means of its own destruction. As Lincoln said in his first inaugural address, ‘it is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination . . . it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.’ The right of insurrection inheres intrinsically in all people, regardless of the government under which they live; it does not derive its sanction from a disputed interpretation of an amendment with an altogether different purpose.’” Id.It might be noted that the afore referenced law review article came out seven years before the Heller decision. AQ mentions this not to suggest that, perhaps, the writers would admit they were wrong in their thesis. Rather AQ mentions this because the writers would likely maintain they are correct and it's the U.S. Supreme Court authors of the majority opinion who are wrong. The entire thesis begins with the assumption that the antecedent dependent militia clause controls the import of the following independent clause and serves as a defining limitation of the right of that clause, i.e., that the people to keep and bear arms operates only as long as one serves in a State militia; and, as the notion of a 'state militia' has essentially been superseded by 'state national guard units.' The writers say, in that regard: “Of course, today, militias as such, are under firm State and/or Federal control. These militias have transformed into ‘national guards.’” The import of these assertions is not to be taken lightly. For, the writers allude to the idea that, since militias don't exist any longer, at least as they like to understand the meaning of the term, 'militia,' the Second Amendment is essentially nugatory, which means that it serves no function and, so, should be repealed. This is also the thesis of retired Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, and that of Justice Steven Breyer as well, although Breyer did well to refrain from mentioning that position in his dissenting opinion in Bruen. But there is more at stake here. The argument made has disturbing implications impacting the relationship between the American people and the Federal Government. The writers of the afore referenced article claim that the framers of the U.S. Constitution could not and would not under any circumstance conceive of a situation where the citizenry would have the right and obligation to dismantle the Federal Government.The argument made begs the salient question, of whether “insurrection” qua revolt or rebellion against tyranny is not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when penning the Second Amendment. After all, didn’t these men once take up arms against a Tyrant, the British Empire? The writers of the above article would rather not deal with the implications of their own thesis and the attendant, and very serious consequences of that thesis. They merely dismiss out of hand that there could exist any moral, and legal, justification for the American people taking it upon themselves to dismantle an unjust Federal Government, i.e., a tyrannical Government, and bringing the servants of that tyranny to justice. These writers, so careful in positing an argument against what they refer to as insurrection, slither around how it is, or whether, the American people could rightly, legally, dismantle a Government that no longer serves the interests of the American people, and, in fact, operates contrary to the interests of the American people. But, let us here take a closer look at that thesis and consider the legal and logical consequences of it. We begin by asking——  Would the founders of our Republic be so naïve as to believe that the “Federal Government” they were devising could not itself—even with their best efforts to constrain a powerful, centralized Government—one day devolve into tyranny? And, if so, would not the American people have a right and obligation, then, to take up arms against that tyranny just as they had once taken up arms against tyranny? The Federalists, among the framers of the U.S. Constitution, who supported a strong centralized Government, would certainly be well aware of the threat to life, and liberty, and well-being of the American people, as were the Antifederalists who emphasized their concern and who emphatically demanded inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution to prevent such an event occurring. And the Federalists relented realizing the obvious truth. The Antifederalists would not leave it as a matter of faith that Government servants would adhere to the express limitations on the exercise of Governmental power set forth in the Articles of the Constitution.It hardly takes much imagination to recognize that the founders of our Republic and framers of our Constitution would be appalled, indeed horrified, to observe the powers that Government now wields—powers that go well beyond the strictures permitted by the Constitution, and this Federal Government doesn't deny it; in fact, perfunctorily acknowledges it and operates with abandon. And our Government is well on the road to tyranny if it hasn't already swung over into it.So, yes, the founders of the Republic did recognize and would agree that the American people would have a right to revolt against a tyrant. To argue otherwise is to infer that the people do not have a right to rebel against tyranny. The writers of the afore referenced law review article must have known the logical implications of their argument but felt it better not to acknowledge the flaw in their reasoning. It is one that Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito made clear in Heller:Of course, Americans have the moral and the legal right—a sacred right and duty—to rebel against tyranny.But then, if the American people have both a right and a duty to revolt against tyranny, is that not to say that a Government that turns against its own people, has committed unforgivable violence against its people—a cardinal transgression against the Divine Creator as well. For tyranny of Government manifests as oppression and subjugation of a people and that destroys the sanctity and inviolability of the Human Soul. And that, in turn, amounts to sin against the Creator.Such violence, therefore, amounts to treason against the people. Is not the crime of high treason a two-way street, then? If Americans who rebel against a just and fair Government are justifiably, rightly to be roundly condemned and deemed traitors, and if they are to suffer the consequences merited for their egregious crime, is it not also so that an unjust Government that betrays its people should not be similarly deemed traitor against the people, and rightly rebuked for it? And would not that just rebuke include the dismantling of that Government and trial and punishment of those servants of the people who have—through their treachery and licentious betrayal of Oath to Country, and to Constitution, and to People—brought the Nation to ruin, and brought Constitution and people to harm? And ought not those disloyal servants suffer severely for their crimes, lest to forgo punishment serve to condone it. And if a Government is not to be considered a traitor to its own people, is that not to say the people are less to be regarded than the Government? But, in our Nation, it is the people who are Sovereign over Nation and Government and it is not the case that Government is Sovereign over Nation and people. If so, and if one remark that high treason is to be regarded as a crime against the sovereign, then wherefore is the argument to be made that no action of the Federal Government toward its people shall work as treason against them? What then is to be made of the assertion that the American people are sole Sovereign over the Government of the United States and that Government owes its existence and continued presence only by the will and consent of the Governed—the people who had created that Government to serve them. How is it that the servant, owing its existence and its duty to the people—the one true Sovereign—should entertain for itself that the people serve Government and the Government can do with the people as it pleases, even to oppress and subjugate them. Of what use is an electoral process at that point? To whom is it that the people can turn to as their elected representatives when those representatives are all of the same cloth—united against the people? Of what greater urgency and need exists then for armed revolt?Is not the tyranny of Government against its people, treachery of Government toward its people? If so, is not ‘tyranny’ then but equivalent to the term ‘treachery of Government’ and should not the term ‘traitor’ not apply with equal and bold force to that Government, any less so than to a person who would revolt against a just Government? Is not a “tyrant” but a “traitor’ to the people—certainly a people whom the founders pointedly ascribe the term “Sovereign” to, whom they could not and did not ascribe that term to when speaking of a tyrant who was Sovereign, namely, the King of England?Tyrants of course are the last sorts that would acknowledge that they are tyrants and would continue to deny that even as they are led to the gallows. Is it any wonder that tyrants such as those in the Biden Administration and in some State Governments would be oblivious to their own acts of treason against the people? Is it not curious that the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, would proclaim that Americans who belong to “militias”—bands of armed citizens who are not connected with the “national guard”—are the greatest threat to the Nation? But is it not they, some of these servants of the people, rather than we, the People, who are the greater and graver threat to the Nation—to the Security of a free State?As can be seen through dissenting opinions in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, these Justices do not recognize the right of the people, as individuals, to keep and bear arms. Given the opportunity, these three cases would be overturned, marking the quickest reversal of U.S. Supreme Court thought in American jurisprudential history.At the State level, too, people like Kathy Hochul and those in control of the State Senate and Assembly in Albany, view the armed citizen as a graver threat to the State than common criminals and even well-armed and well-funded international criminal cartels. Strange that, but true nonetheless. Otherwise, her Government would have taken measures to bring these psychopaths and lunatics to justice. They don't! Ant that is telling. Thus, it is no surprise to see Hochul and Albany caustically attacking the High Court, with affected pieties, and insincere demonstrations of acquiescence to the Supreme Court's rulings. Who, indeed, has dangerous impulses here?Is it so beyond the pale for Americans to demand their right to armed self-defense against predatory creature, predatory man, and predatory Government? The High Court rightly admonishes Government actors who do not abide by the Constitution. The Court rightly ruled against the New York Government.Here, in New York, we see a Governor who claims by the power she exerts—as did her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo—justification to exert that power, as she pleases. It is all circular reasoning, albeit with real-world, not mere academic consequences. Hochul fails to recognize that she is expected to serve the interests of the people of New York, consistent with the State and Federal Constitutions. Affected pieties don't serve as an adequate substitution for serving the interests of the people of the State.Kathy Hochul’s Government, like several others, ignored Heller. And they were prepared to ignore McDonald too, until the High Court made clear that the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms applies to the States, no less so than to the Federal Government, through the application of the Fourteenth Amendment. In New York, it is the Hochul Administration and the controlling Democrat Party Legislature in Albany that is acting the part of an unfettered out-of-control Tyrant.With the attitude of a tyrant—the Hochul Government and Legislature—behave with customary indignation at any authority that would dare dictate to them. But, the U.S. Supreme Court has done just that, dictating to the New York Government, that its Gun Law is inconsistent with the import of the Second Amendment, having found Petitioner’s case to have merit. Hochul and Albany aren't concerned about armed civilian citizens per se. Rather, they are concerned about what that armed self-defense represents: a threat to the Government itself. The New York Government has long abided lawlessness in New York, such coming from the criminal element. That lawlessness the Government will tolerate, perhaps even encourage. That criminal element poses no tenable threat to the Government. It is something the Government understands for that Government, too, like the omnipresent and ferocious and voracious criminal element, has become a law unto itself, unbeholden to New York's own Constitution and to its laws and to the Constitution and Laws of the United States Government. It has become lawless. A Government that refuses to recognize that it is the people whom it exists to serve, and not the other way around is a danger to the people and must be taken to task. The U.S. Supreme Court has done so. And New York isn't alone in its distrust of and its disdain for the common people.Somewhere in the last 250 years of our Nation’s existence, Governments at all levels forgot the fact of and the meaning of the American Revolution.Government tyranny has become the very thing the people must fight against. The Federal Government and many of the State Governments do not represent the will of the people, and care not at all for their needs; not anymore. These Governments, ironically, defer to the foreign dictators whom our Founders fought a successful war against. Back then, it was the mighty British Empire funded by the fabulously wealthy Rothschild financial clan. Today, it is much the same threat, albeit now restructured, reconstituted, as one even more powerful: the European Union and various supra-national constructs like the United Nations whom we are told do not wield any authority, but only advice. How is it then that the Biden Administration adheres to the pacts and tracts and treaties emanating from the United Nations that our Nation never signed, nor even discussed?The money behind these monstrous global entities belongs now, as in the past, to the powerful Rothschild family. The Rothschild clan and other mega-billionaires are working together to complete a transnational neo-feudalistic empire spanning the world, to replace all present western nation-states. The world of the 21st Century is shapingThe Rothschild family and its minions have extended their reach—through the vehicle of the central banking system—throughout the world. A world comprising two powers: a western neo-feudal empire and CCP China. A strong, vigorous, independent sovereign United States doesn't factor in that equation. It is in the process of disassembling.New York is its own little fiefdom—a Baron that owes allegiance to a Lord that doesn’t even reside in our Country.The purpose of  New York’s Gun Law, the Sullivan Act, was designed then as now, to constrain, and—as can be seen through further attempts by the Government, through time, to constrict and restrict the right of the law-abiding civilian citizens of New York to keep and bear arms ever further—eventually to curtail the exercise of the right, altogether. In her Press Release, upon official publication of the Bruen case decision, Governor Hochul made clear a passion to constrain the inherent right of armed self-defense, regardless of the rulings of the High Court. In both her tone and in the content of her messaging, Hochul conveyed a contemptuous attitude toward the High Court and made no attempt to disguise her contempt of the Court. Likely she is taking her talking points from others who pay for her campaign, and those who formulate her policies. She is essentially a messenger, and she is paid handsomely for doing the work of her benefactors, just as Biden takes his share of wealth from a shadowy network of benefactors. He has no compunction against selling out the Country. He has had plenty of decades of practice; nor does he mind mouthing platitudes, if he understands at all what it is he is asked to recite. So he informs the public that all is well and that he means well and everything will be just fine. He doesn't believe that he is capable of coherent thought any longer anyway. And the propagandists that feed him and his Administrators their lines, don't sound convincing, and it is not necessary that they do sound convincing to the public. The Federal Government is long past caring what the polity thinks anyway. It is only necessary that they obey. Meanwhile, the Country goes to Hell in a Handbasket.Further litigation and armed revolt are to be avoided. New York has an opportunity, through the electoral process, to throw out the petty tyrants, and vote into office people who respect the Constitution and the fundamental natural law rights of man. A vote for Lee Zeldin for Governor of New York is the most obvious way and the easiest way to turn the State back to its historical roots. So many people in New York and throughout the Country have been so conditioned to deny the truth before their eyes that they continue to reflexively vote into Office the same tyrants who do nothing to promote the well-being of the people and society. The Country was well on its way to recovering its security under Trump: economically, geopolitically, militarily, and societally. But the airwaves are now filled with negativity and our own tax dollars are being used against us. Americans must wake up to the truth and confront the lies and liars head-on. It just takes a little common sense and a leap of faith.It is far easier and much less time-consuming and expensive to prevent a petty tyrant from serving in Office in the first place than it is to attempt to remove a tyrant after the fact. California provides several textbook examples of what is to be avoided. New York should learn from this. How much more damage can New Yorkers be expected to take? How is it that so many people have taken leave of their senses—always believing that a better, safer, New York is just around the corner even as the truth illustrates something else entirely? And the not picture isn't an attractive one. And it won't become any more attractive if people keep electing the wrong people to Office. At some point, even the electoral process may well be denied to the citizenry. New Yorkers already have a good taste of Kathy Hochul and her brand of politics and politicking. It is no different than that of Andrew Cuomo. She shares the same set of beliefs; she conveys the same messaging, and she is backed by the same Globalist money. It isn't the average New Yorker that informs her policies and decisions. On crime, the right to armed self-defense, on abortion, Hochul packages her policies as candy; telling the voting public what she thinks the public would like to hear, but not what the public needs to hear. Between Kathy Hochul and Lee Zeldin, there is a world of difference. Each New York resident should ask: which world would he or she prefer to live in? ___________________________________ *Every child learns this, or, at one time, had learned this. That was before the lunatics took control of public education and proclaimed the dogmas of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” “Critical Race Theory,” and “Transgender Doctrine,” more important to the structural formation of young minds than developing a child’s own critical thinking processes, by teaching the core traditional subjects, like “reading, writing, and arithmetic,” and those subjects that instill in our youth a love of and an appreciation for our history, heritage, and ethical system of justice through which our Nation can continue to survive and thrive: a free Constitutional Republic.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH TO PRESERVE THE SECOND AMENDMENT; THE GREATER EFFORT RESTS, AS IT ALWAYS HAS, WITH THE PEOPLE

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

MULTISERIES

PART EIGHT (REWORKED)

IT HAS BEEN A LONG HARD BATTLE TO SECURE THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. AND YET MORE BATTLES REMAIN TO BE FOUGHT

Bruen has been an arduous, time-consuming, expensive, uphill battle for New Yorkers who simply wish to exercise their natural law right of armed self-defense. It will continue to be so. Bruen hasn’t changed a damn thing—at least in New York—and matters will remain the same until or unless New Yorkers say they have had enough of the specious nonsense spouted from the New York Governor, Kathy Hochul and others like her. She is cut from the same cloth as her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo. They claim they care about the life and well-being of New Yorkers, even as innocent residents fear for their safety and well-being, as they have good reason to do. But they simply don’t care, And New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, is no different. They are on the same page, each a carbon copy of the other, especially in matters involving their singular abhorrence of guns and antipathy toward the civilian citizen owning and possessing them. That fact is engrained in their brains. They won’t change. Those New Yorkers who continue to elect to office the same politicians who continue to harp on the evils of guns, and who continue to defy the plain meaning of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, are doing themselves, and all other residents in New York, a disservice. These politicians, Kathy Hochul and Eric Adams, aren't wise and New York isn't safe. And, unfortunately, New York isn't alone. Politicians and Courts in other jurisdictions will pay lip service to the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court in Bruen, just as they have paid lip service to the rulings in Heller and McDonald, for over a decade.New York politicians, and politicians in several other jurisdictions, with the same mindset, have handcuffed the police. Yet, at one and the same time, they continue to prevent members of the public from obtaining access to the best means available for protecting themselves, a handgun. Yet, all the while, they exclaim, disingenuously, a concern for “gun violence,” that plagues their cities.But “gun violence” is simply a species of general “criminal violence.” New York’s Hochul and Adams deliberately mislead the public into believing that “gun violence” is the only source of violence committed against innocent people, or, otherwise, that “gun violence” is the only kind of violence in the community that matters. They stubbornly refuse to accept the obvious.  Criminals will always find a way to obtain guns illegally or will use other means if guns are not readily available to them, and that guns in the hands of average, innocent, rational, and responsible Americans do a better job of preventing the commission of violent crimes than do fewer guns in the hands of those Americans. And to those Anti-Second Amendment zealots who contend that guns have no place in a civilized society, one need only point out that no society, today, is truly civilized. Predatory animal, and predatory man, and predatory government are ever with us. In a million years man may truly become “civilized.” And, at that point, the presence or absence of firearms will be irrelevant. But, until that time, the innocent man will require effective means to protect his life and well-being. And, to date, only a firearm provides that. Denying the omnipresent need for a firearm in the hands of the innocent man does not make that fact go away. It only welcomes violence against that innocent man by predator animal on four legs, predator animal on two legs, or, worst of all, predatory Government, a monster with multiple heads—the Hydra beast, a thing most tenacious, wildly destructive, and difficult to control, let alone kill.

ABSURD BELIEFS HAVE ODD STAYING POWER WHEN CONSTANTLY REPEATED

Anti-Second Amendment proponents continually go on about how guns are the source of violence and those that possess them are prone to violence, be whoever they are and wherever situated. That is patently ridiculous. Yet that message is stated insistently and emphatically by Anti-Second Amendment politicians. It is echoed loudly and incessantly by a compliant, sympathetic legacy Press. And it is further exploited by many in the medical community. The message is taken as self-evidently true, without need for proof, even though the claim is patently ridiculous.And New Yorkers know it is hopeless to ask for assistance from Governor Hochul or from the police, especially in a situation where the need is both dire and immediate. See, e.g., Arbalest Quarrel article, titled, "Can We, as Individuals, Rely on the Police to Protect Us" and reposted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News. And, police response to emergencies has only gotten worse in this Post-George Floyd era. Even where refunding of community police departments has displaced the defunding the Police the BLM hysteria, the Neo-Marxist "racism" hysteria remains a potent and debilitating force yet to be reckoned with. Police response times along with the general ineffectiveness of community policing, due in great part to demoralization in the police ranks, understandable and justified, remains. Thus the effectiveness of community policing is worse than in the Pre-George Floyd era. It is especially bad in large Democrat Party run municipalities, like NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, Minneapolis, LA, San Francisco, just to name a few. These City Governments are hopelessly tied to the Neo-Marxist Racism craze or are held hostage to Marxist cultists and/or  derive funding/guidance/control/advice from one or more of a plethora of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) that have direct or indirect connection to the George Soros "Open Society Initiative. See, e.g., a delineation of these organizations on the website "Jellyfish." The tentacles of this "Open Society" takeover of western civilization are in fact worldwide, as readily acknowledged.With all this in mind, it is important for one to keep fervently in mind that the matter of self-defense remains—especially today—a personal responsibility. Police Departments have no legal duty—contrary to what many erroneously believe—to come to the assistance of anyone anyway. And they never did. The impact of this fact has grown acute and is now transparent to any American who will stop to look. The Arbalest Quarrel has published much content about the doctrine of sovereign immunity apropos of the police.See, especially, as noted, supra, AQ article, titled, “Can We, as Individuals, Rely on the Police to Protect Us?”, published on November 21, 2019; AQ article, titled, “The Government Cannot Protect You! You Must Protect Yourself”, published on July 31, 2020; and AQ article, titled “NYC Mayor Eric Adams Has His Own Armed Protection; What About The Rest Of Us?, published on March 30, 2022.New Yorkers are simply asking—in fact, demanding, as they have every right to do—that the Government not deny to the people exercise of the natural law right of personal armed self-defense. But, in New York it is too much to ask of the Government that the people be allowed to arm themselves in their own defense against predators—as if they should be required to ask Government for such permission, when they should not; when Bruen, in fact, says they need not, as the right of armed self-defense is implicit in the Second Amendment guarantee, as a natural law, Divine Right.For, even with the Divine Creator’s own imprimatur on this—the plain words “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”—codified in the Second Amendment of our Nation’s Bill of Rights, and even with the U.S. Supreme Court’s strictures, commanding the New York Government, to comply with the fundamental, unalienable natural law right of the people, the NY Government does not acquiesce. It will not relent. It won’t adhere to or even deign to make an iota of concession to the people of New York. This New York Government doubles down on invoking the Sullivan Act. And, with 112 years of existence and further refinement, the Sullivan Act has been cemented in the psyche of the New York Government and in the psyche of the public as well.And so, this emblem of New York Government defiance to God, to the Constitution, and to the people of New York—one Kathy Hochul—declares openly and pompously that the Government of New York, and not the U.S. Supreme Court, will continue to decide what is in the best interests of the people; that the Government not the High Court has the best interests of the people of New York at heart; and that allowing law-abiding, responsible, rational civilian citizens to carry a concealed weapon in New York endangers everyone. This is the height of arrogance and conceit. Thus, the Governor of New York gives carte blanche to psychopaths and lunatics that they may continue to prey on the innocent, with abandon. See recent AQ article on this as posted on our site, and as reposted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News. But, even in that—allowing law-abiding, responsible, rational civilian citizens to carry a concealed weapon in New York endangers everyone—the Hochul Government is wrong. The Daily Wire blows that myth out of the water. See also article in “Bearing Arms,” and in NSSF. No less than the progressive cable station, CNN, dares mention of a crime wave in Mayor Eric Adams’ New York City. The criminal is, always was, and ever remains the problem. It isn’t “the gun,” and never was “the gun.”  See also article in the NY Post. Bloomberg News tries to spin this massive increase in crime, explaining the crime rates were much worse in the Eighties and early Nineties. But who were the Mayors of NYC at the time? It was the Democrat, Ed Koch, from 1978 through 1989, and it was Democrat David Dinkins, from 1990 until 1993. Crime rates in NYC only began to drop, and to drop dramatically, under Republican Rudy Giuliani, the NYC Mayor from 1994 through December 2001. Giuliani instituted a tough on crime policy, referred to as “Broken Windows.” Crime rates in the Big Apple continued to plummet under the Democrat, Michael Bloomberg, who continued Giuliani’s “Broken Windows” policy. But, once that tough on crime policy was revoked by the Democrat, Bill de Blasio, crime rates began to spike once again and to spiral completely out of control. And, de Blasio, true to form like most politicians, blamed the massive spike in crime in NYC, not on himself and his soft on crime policies, but on the Courts. See NY Post article.The present NYC Mayor, Eric Adams is playing the same “Blame Game” as de Blasio—casting blame on the Courts for crime in the City that continues unchecked.  See CBS News Report here and here, CBS News report. New Yorkers—never a group to exhibit patience—are becoming impatient with Eric Adams. Remember, Eric Adams told the public he wouldn’t continue de Blasio’s lenient on crime policy measures. But, as reported by the Washington Examiner, Adams’ has done just that, notwithstanding the unveiling of his “Blueprint To End Gun Violence,” delivered with great fanfare to the City back in January 2022. But no one hears anything about that anymore. Does anyone really wonder why? Adams “Blueprint to End Gun Violence” was never anything other than a publicity stunt and a poor one at that. And its failure is alluded to in the very title of the Adams’ plan for the City.This thing ‘Gun Violence’ is, like the phrase, ‘assault weapon,’ nothing more than a stratagem, a neologism manufactured for a specific purpose. Leftist propagandists developed it, and the ever obedient and indulgent legacy Press, ran with it. The fabricators of the phrase, ‘Gun Violence,’ have used the phrase to deflect justifiable public criticism, for the massive waves of criminal violence afflicting our Nation, onto “the gun” and away from the Democrats and other Obstructors and Destructors of our free Republic. People like Hochul and Adams attribute the surge of violent crime on “guns” and thereby shift discussion onto an inanimate object and away from themselves. A firearm is a convenient scapegoat. It is incapable of proffering a defense. It cannot point to the fact that it, as an object, not a sentient subject, can neither cause violent crime, nor be the effect of violent crime. But Hochul and Adams attempt, nonetheless, to shunt aside justifiable criticism of them and their administrations. But it is their own incompetence and their own lack of will and foresight to deal with crime head-on, unlike their predecessors Giuliani and Bloomberg had done, that explains the rapidly rising crime rates. But even those Mayors of New York could have gone further to truly bring violent crime to a standstill. They could have taken action to overturn the Sullivan Act. But they would never go so far as that. Disarming the law-abiding New Yorker would never be part of a bold plan to tackle crime at its source: the psychopathic criminal, the violent criminally insane, and the opportunistic hoodlum. See article in “City and State New York.” How these Anti-Second Amendment zealots love to use statistics to deceive the public and to lull it into complacency! Contending with crime, substantively and seriously, won’t happen with the present Administration and Democrat Party-Controlled Legislature in Albany. The main problem with New York is that too many members of the public willingly accept their politicians' manipulation of statistical data, urging the public to deny what they readily observe in day-to-day life in New York. And too many of them have become so enamored with and mesmerized by the new religious dogma of "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion," along with its ludicrous claim of having a lock hold on morality, i.e., of what is right, and proper, and just, that their rational mind is trapped in a hopeless miasma of confusion, subject to its own nightmarish discordant logic.And so, the State Government is, at present, under the thumb of Governor Kathy Hochul and of a Democrat Party-Controlled Legislature that operates with abandon, against the needs and interests of the people of the State.The New York Governor, along with the Democrat Party-Controlled Legislature and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, “who vowed to crack down on crime if elected mayor,” but didn’t, are ever bound to their own dogma and to their own psychological and ideological biases. Add to that the fact that they are held hostage to a Radical Left Marxist internationalist base of voters that despises our Country, and to a shadowy network of Neoliberal Globalist/Neo-Marxist "ruling elite" enforcers that intend to destroy our Country, and you have a situation ripe for corruption of Government, and stagnation in society, and ultimate decay and dissolution of the Republic.So wrapped up are these politicians in their dogma and personal lust for power, that they fail to understand, or choose to ignore, that their cardinal duty is to provide for the general safety, security, and well-being of the public.  Saying they care are about the well-being of New York and its denizens, doesn't make it so. It is all just a vacuous exercise—the same verbiage delivered drone-like, hypnotically, unconvincingly. These politicians have done nothing beneficial for New York, and everything that disadvantages New York. Their multiple failures bring discredit and shame to all of them. Time for a change in outlook don't you think? The Governor, the Legislature, the City Mayor adamantly refuse to allow New Yorkers to provide for their own defense. And that is worse than shameful. The conscious refusal to even acknowledge the unalienable, immutable right of armed self-defense is reprehensible, indefensible, and unforgivable. And, with the Soros-funded Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, who operates more like a zealous Public Defender of the criminal element in the City and much less like a zealous Prosecutor of them, on behalf of the populace, as he is supposed to do, New York is on the road to societal disaster at a rapid pace.If change is to come, then, it will have to come from Republicans and Independents. And the best bet for New York is U.S. Congressman, Lee Zeldin, for Governor, in 2022. If Americans are to secure their unalienable right of armed self-defense, it is best they have Government, Federal and State, that work for them, not against them; that honor their natural law rights, rather than attempt to shred those rights. Might Lee Zeldin take steps to dismantle the apparatus of the Sullivan Act? It would be interesting to see. But will the New York voter give him that chance? Better legislation with the right people in Office than spending exorbitant sums of money, time, and aggravation on endless litigation!How much more threat of violence must progressive/liberal-minded New Yorkers suffer before they come to their senses. How many more innocent lives lost for lack of will to try someone new; to try something new?One would think the public would finally come to its senses after the horror of de Blasio as Mayor of NYC and Cuomo as Governor of the State. Too many New Yorkers have not. How much more danger must New Yorkers contend with before they throw people like Hochul and Adams under the bus, instead of positing themselves there, instead? Too many New Yorkers seem willing to accept deception from politicians, even when that deception and the horrific result of that deception is plainly visible and risible.City residents are stuck with Adams for a long while, three more years. But Governor Hochul, who was never elected Mayor, but became Mayor after Cuomo was hounded out of Office by the Democrat Party machinery that had once supported him, will now face her first Gubernatorial race in November 2022.New Yorkers will have a chance as well, to remake the New York State Assembly and Senate. Hopefully, Republicans and Independents and enough intelligent Democrats will turn the tide. They can in November. They can have a safe and secure State if they have the will and do not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by propaganda, flooding the airwaves. It is all up to the people of New York. Give Lee Zeldin and Alison Esposito a chance to turn things around for New York. New York can become a safe, secure, and thriving State once again._____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.