THE COURTS, NO LESS THAN CONGRESS, IS WHERE ONE WILL FIND THE SECOND AMENDMENT EITHER SAFEGUARDED AND STRENGTHENED OR ENDANGERED AND WEAKENED.

REPUBLICAN CONTROL OF ALL THREE-BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT IS NECESSARY TO MAINTAIN BOTH THE SOVEREIGNTY AND INDEPENDENCE OF OUR NATION STATE, AND THE SUPREMACY OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND OUR SYSTEM OF LAWS.

The mandate of a Republican controlled Congress, and of a Republican President and of a federal court system--comprising jurists who recognize the supremacy of our laws and of our Constitution over foreign laws and over the decisions of foreign tribunals and who recognize and appreciate the critical importance of the fundamental rights and liberties of the American people, as codified in the Bill of Rights--is this: to maintain our roots as a unique People; to make certain that our Country continues to exist as a free Republic and as an independent, sovereign Nation, beholden to no other Nation or to any group of Nations; and to keep sacred the supremacy of our Constitution and our system of laws, grounded in the sanctity of the Bill of Rights--a Bill of Rights that has no parallel in any other Nation on this Earth. To succeed in this mandate it is imperative that: one, Congress retain a Conservative Republican majority; two, that Donald Trump remain as U.S. President through two terms in Office; and, three, that the U.S. Supreme Court hold a conservative-wing majority and that the lower federal Courts seat a majority of  jurists who recognize and appreciate the supremacy of our Constitution and of our laws and of our sacred rights and liberties, and who render opinions with that principle omnipresent.Obviously, those malevolent forces that seek to undermine the sovereignty of this Nation, that seek to subvert the will of the American People, that seek to undercut and subordinate our Constitution, our system of laws and our fundamental rights and liberties, are working for the precise opposite. They seek to gain Democratic Party majorities in both Houses of Congress in the midterm elections, and, if they can accomplish that, they will undoubtedly pursue efforts to impeach Trump, using the tenuous, ludicrous, tax-payer funded Mueller investigation, chasing after ghosts, as a springboard to destroy the Trump Presidency. These individuals and groups, bankrolled by a shadowy, secretive, ruthless internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist “elite”, hope, as well, to create a liberal wing majority in the U.S. Supreme Court. To do that, they must win back the White House.Those who seek to destroy the sovereignty of this Nation and to undermine the true import and purport of the Bill of Rights are rankled by two specific events that they cannot, and, obviously, will not abide: one, the failure to usher Hillary Rodham Clinton into the Office of U.S. President, which they thought was an assured bet; and, two, the failure to seat Merrick Garland—the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and President Barack Obama’s nominee—on the U.S. Supreme Court. These critical and monumental failures of the internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist “elite” who bankroll and control the Deep State of the federal Government—the forces that would dare crush this Nation and the American people into submission—have suffered an extraordinary setback in their plans for world domination. To reset the clock in accordance with their global strategy, they have been forced to show their hand. The negative forces that manipulate and control the Government of this Nation and that manipulate and control the Governments of those Nations that comprise the EU have emerged from the shadows and have forced their toadies in this Country to surface from the depths of the Deep State of the federal Government, to undermine, at every turn, the efforts of the duly elected President of the United States, Donald Trump. Not content to undermine and undercut the President's policy objectives, which they attack at every turn through the well-orchestrated media circus they control, they attack the man himself, disrespectfully, caustically, and reprehensibly; and, in so doing, they demonstrate as well their disrespect for this Nation, and  for this Nation’s core values, and for this Nation’s system of laws, and for the people of this Nation who elected Donald Trump, who was then inaugurated the 45^th President of the United States, on January 20, 2017, succeeding Barack Obama.The election of Donald Trump as U.S. President has thrown a wrench into the well-oiled and greased machine of the Deep State of the federal Government of the United States. This singularly important event has thrown the internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist elites, headed by the international Rothschild clan, into a state of consternation, of befuddlement, of rage and turmoil, of chaos. Their well-laid plans for world domination sees the United States as an important cog in an expansive industrial and financial machine comprising the New World Order, for no other Western Nation has as impressive a military and as impressive an intelligence apparatus, and as adept technological capabilities as those of the United States. As the forces that would crush this Nation and its people into submission have suffered a severe and costly set-back, they intend to set matters aright. The American people bear witness to the raw extent of the power and reach of these forces: one, the naked audacity of their actions; two, the evident contempt in which they hold the American people; three, the bald self-assurance and aplomb by which they plan and orchestrate a campaign of deliberate deception—through the mainstream media—a campaign of disinformation and misinformation through which they hope and trust they can manipulate the American people into accepting a bizarre worldview--one inimical to the needs and desires and well-being of the American people; four, the obscene loathing they express toward our Bill of Rights; five, the demonstrative malevolence they have shown toward the U.S. President and toward his Administration; and, six, the abject hatred they display toward this Nation’s Constitution, toward this Nation’s unique history, toward this Nation’s core values, toward this Nation’s system of laws and morals. And through the levers of media and of the Deep-State of Government that they control, they give mere lip-service and lip-homage to those very things Americans hold most dear.The Arbalest Quarrel has done its part. We have worked to help elect Donald Trump as President of the United States and have worked, as well, to defeat the confirmation of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. But our work has not ended. It has, perforce, just begun.We must continue to support President Trump from the forces that, having failed to prevent his electoral success, seek, now, to place obstacles in his path, making it difficult for him to implement the policies he has promised—policies that are at loggerheads with those hostile internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist financial and industrial forces that seek global domination which, in accordance with their plans for world domination, requires the crushing of Western Nation States, including the crushing of our Nation State, the crushing of the sovereignty and independence of our Nation state; and, with that, the subordination of our laws to that of international laws and treaties and the subordination of our Courts to that of foreign Courts and foreign Tribunals; and the undermining of the sacred rights and liberties of the American citizenry. These extremely powerful, extraordinarily wealthy, and abjectly ruthless and cunning globalist forces seek eventually to topple Donald Trump and his administration. They seek also to take back control of the two Houses of Congress. We must therefore work to maintain House and Senate Republican Majorities.Further, we must work toward and anticipation of the confirmation of at least one additional, and, hopefully, two or, better yet, three conservative-wing Justices to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. With the passing of the eminent and brilliant jurist and true American patriot, Justice Antonin Scalia, we have lost a mighty champion of liberty in the vein of the founders of this Nation, the framers of our Constitution. We hope and trust and pray that, before the end of this year, 2018, Justice Anthony Kennedy and/or Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and/or Justice Stephen Breyer will retire. That will pave the way for President Trump to nominate at least one and conceivably two, and optimally three more American jurists, to sit on the high Court who, as with Trump’s nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, hold jurisprudential values and who would apply the same methodology to deciding cases as do Justices Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, which the late Justice Antonin Scalia had set the course. With strong and true conservative-wing Justices on the high Court, who hold a clear majority, we will see the Court agreeing to hear critical Second Amendment cases and, thereupon, rendering decisions that, with the Court’s untarnished and supreme judicial imprimatur, makes clear the import of the natural, fundamental rights and liberties of American citizens as codified in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution in the manner the framers’ intended.

THE ARBALEST QUARREL LOOKS BACK ON WORK COMPLETED IN 2017 AND THEN FORWARD TO OUR TASKS FOR 2018

WHAT WERE SOME OF OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2017?

Let us step back for a moment and look at just a few of the tasks we completed in 2017, and remark briefly on tasks we have set for ourselves in 2018. Much of our work, consistent with the primary purpose of the Arbalest Quarrel involved detailed, comprehensive analyses of critical federal and State Court cases impacting the Second Amendment. One of those cases is Soto vs. Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC., 2016 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2626; CCH Prod. Liab. Rep. P19,932. Soto is an active case. The Soto case arises from the deadly attack that occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when a deranged young adult, Adam Lanza, 20 years old, stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School, fatally shooting twenty children and six adults, before turning a handgun on and killing himself. According to the allegations of the Soto Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint (CM), Adam Lanza murdered these school children and school staff with a Bushmaster AR-15, model XM15-E2S rifle. Defendant Bushmaster prevailed in the lower Superior Court (trial Court), and we analyzed the Superior Court decision in depth. Plaintiffs appealed the adverse decision directly to the Connecticut Supreme Court, bypassing the State Court of Appeals, and the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed to hear argument. We will be analyzing the Briefs of Plaintiffs and Defendants in the case and will also analyze selected amicus (friend of Court) Briefs in that case. Over 50 amicus briefs were filed in that case. We also provided comprehensive analyses in an “assault weapons” case, (Kolbe vs. O’Malley, 42. F. Supp. 3d 768 (D. Md. 2014); vacated and remanded, Kolbe vs. Hogan, 813 F.3d 160 (4th Cir. 2016); rev’d en banc, Kolbe vs. Hogan, 849 F.3d 114 (4th Cir. 2017) ), which we had hoped would be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court—the high Court failing to have granted certiorari in an earlier disastrous “assault weapons” case, Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 6902 (7th Cir. Ill., 2015). Alas, the high Court failed to garner four votes, allowing the case to be heard in the high Court. Had the high Court agreed to hear the case, Americans would see a definitive ruling on whether so-called “assault weapons” fall within the core of the Second Amendment’s protection. Obviously, the liberal wing of the Court and at least two "apparent" conservative wing Justices, likely, Anthony Kennedy and the Chief Justice, John Roberts, did not want to resolve this case, and, so, to date, resolution of “assault weapons” as protected firearms within the core of the Second Amendment remains in abeyance, with liberal Circuit Court of Appeal Judges ruling that semiautomatic "assault weapons" do not fall within the core of the Second Amendment and, so, are not protected.In addition, we looked at two Congressional bills that, if enacted, strengthen the Second Amendment. We looked at national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation, pending in Congress, H.R. 38, and looked at Congressman Chris Collins’ bill, the “Second Amendment Guarantee Act” (H.R. 3576) (“SAGA”) which has been referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, on September 6, 2017 where it presently sits. We also did our part to sidetrack Obama’s attempt to sit Judge Merrick Garland on the U.S. Supreme Court. When we feel it critical that our representatives in Congress be notified of specific and extraordinary dangers presented to our Nation, we have not hesitated to contact them. When, after the passing of the exceptional U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, we have seen that President Barack Obama wasted little time in nominating a person to serve as a new ninth member of the high Court who would, given the opportunity, assist the liberal-wing Justices—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—in unwinding case law that Justice Scalia helped to shape in his many illustrious years on the Bench. That person who President Barack Obama had hoped to see confirmed is Merrick Garland, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Arbalest Quarrel took strong exception to the possibility of seeing Judge Garland sitting on the high Court. We sent a letter to the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Chuck Grassley, requesting the Senator to refrain from allowing a confirmation hearing to proceed. Had a confirmation proceeding been held, that would have resulted in Judge Merrick Garland sitting on the high Court as an Associate Justice. Of that, we have no doubt, as U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch has articulated that point. According to the liberal political commentary website, "New Republic," Senator Hatch said that there was "no question" that Judge Merrick Garland would be confirmed were a confirmation hearing held. The Arbalest Quarrel explained the singular danger Judge Merrick Garland posed to the preservation of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution if Merrick Garland sat on the U.S. Supreme Court. In our letter we took exception to pronouncements of several academicians who had also written a letter to Senator Grassley. Those academicians argued that nothing in the record of Judge Garland’s service as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals suggests that an inference can be drawn concerning Judge Garland’s jurisprudential philosophy toward the Second Amendment. We disagreed with the pronouncements of those academicians. We pointed to specific examples in the judicial record that establish beyond doubt that Judge Merrick Garland holds great and abiding antipathy toward the Second Amendment; and that Judge Garland’s antipathy toward the Second Amendment is very much in evidence in the judicial record, contrary to the pronouncements of those academicians who promote the Judge’s ascendancy to the U.S. Supreme Court. Our concern was not directed to Judge Garland’s ability as a jurist. We have no doubt that Judge Garland has a bright and, conceivably, brilliant legal mind. But, when that brilliance is coupled with a philosophy at loggerheads with the philosophy of another brilliant Justice, Antonin Scalia, then we know that preservation of the natural, substantive fundamental rights of the American citizenry—particularly the right of the people to keep and bear arms—are in jeopardy. In a series of in depth articles, we have written extensively about Judge Garland’s jurisprudential philosophy. We pointed out that Judge Garland’s judicial approach is clearly antithetical to that of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and that Justice Scalia’s illustrious work would be undone were Judge Garland to sit on the high Court. In our letter to Senator Grassley, we provided a link to the Arbalest Quarrel website and encouraged the Senator to peruse our analytical articles on Judge Garland, as the letter only touched upon the matters of concern.

THE MISSION OF THE ARBALEST QUARREL 

The mission of the Arbalest Quarrel is to preserve, protect, and strengthen the Bill of Rights, and, principally, to preserve, protect, and strengthen the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Arbalest Quarrel has written dozens of articles on newsworthy and noteworthy events, impacting the Second Amendment. Many of our articles appear in Ammoland Shooting Sports News. Most of the articles we prepare are comprehensive, extremely detailed, highly analytical expositions on Second Amendment issues. Many of our articles are written as part of lengthy, continuing series. Given the exigencies of time and of new and pressing newsworthy matters, we are often compelled to sidestep continuous work on a series, returning to a series later. Since threats to the Second Amendment are constant and continuous, much of the work that we may have left uncompleted in previous weeks or months is and remains pertinent. Some work that we do, involving analysis of active legal cases, such as the Soto case, cannot, of course, be completed until further action is taken by a Court and, in that event, we must await action before continuing discussion. In other cases, such as Kolbe, where we have commenced work, as part of a series, a higher Court, in this case, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied a writ of certiorari, which means that the ruling or rulings of the second highest Court, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, remains the law in that judicial Circuit. But, as those cases involve an open-ended and critically important issue that the U.S. Supreme Court will, at some point be compelled to tackle, our analysis of lower U.S. District Court and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal decisions are still relevant and, so, hold more than historical value in terms of their impact on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Kolbe, for example, deals directly with the issue whether semiautomatic weapons, defined as ‘assault weapons’ fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment. As antigun groups intend to deny American citizens the right to legally own and possess “assault weapons,” and, as they seek, eventually, to ban civilian ownership and possession of all semiautomatic weapons, it is incumbent upon us and important to consider the legal arguments they present. Thus, at some point in time when the U.S. Supreme Court does deal with the issue as to the extent of or whether semiautomatic weapons defined as ‘assault weapons’ fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment or whether semiautomatic weapons, as a broad category of firearms, fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment--and the high Court will, at some moment in time have to consider the issue--we will have addressed, in depth, all or virtually all of the salient arguments that litigants happen to make. As we look back at the work over the years, we note our article, titled “The Arsenal of Destruction.” Concerning antigun groups efforts to defeat the right of the people to keep and bear arms, what we mentioned in that article is as true then as it is today. We said: Here is what we deemed then, as now, to be the salient methodologies antigun groups use to undercut the Second Amendment. There are probably more; undoubtedly, the antigun groups are busy concocting others even as we publish this list:

• ENACTMENT OF RESTRICTIVE GUN LAWS

• REWRITING/RECONFIGURING/RECONSTITUTING THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO UNDERCUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INDEPENDENT CLAUSE: “THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.”

• EFFORTS TO REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT OUTRIGHT

• INDOCTRINATION OF AMERICA’S YOUTH

• MILITARIZATION/FEDERALIZATION OF CIVILIAN POLICE FORCES ACROSS THE COUNTRY THROUGH THE MACHINATIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

• DIRECT MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA ATTACKS ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

• USE OF PROPAGANDA AGAINST THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND INDOCTRINATION OF THE PUBLIC BY MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA GROUPS

• SYSTEMATIC EROSION OF THE RULE OF LAW IN THE UNITED STATES

• DENIAL OF GUN POSSESSION TO ENTIRE GROUPS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS

• ILLEGAL ATTEMPTS BY CITIES AND TOWNSHIPS TO WEAKEN OR OVERRIDE STATE LAWS WHERE SUCH STATE LAWS ARE DESIGNED TO EXTEND SECOND AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS TO THEIR CITIZENS

• CREATING CONFUSION OVER THE CONCEPT OF ‘CITIZEN’ AND CREATING CONFUSION AS TO THE RIGHTS OF A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES

• EXECUTIVE BRANCH OVERREACH/USURPATION OF THE LEGISLATIVE FUNCTION BY THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENT IN CLEAR DEFIANCE OF THE SEPARATION OF POWERS DOCTRINE SET FORTH IN AND THE MAINSTAY OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

• OVERRIDING THE BILL OF RIGHTS THROUGH INTERNATIONAL PACTS, TREATIES, AGREEMENTS, AND CONVENTIONS

• FALLACIOUS REASONING OF ANTIGUN GROUPS AND ANTIGUN GROUP DECEPTION AS TO THEIR ULTIMATE GOAL: DE JURE OR DE FACTO REPEAL OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

• ATTACK ON GUN RIGHTS’ ADVOCATES’ MORAL BELIEFS AND ETHICAL BELIEF SYSTEMS

• BATFE ADOPTION OF ONEROUS REQUIREMENTS FOR GUN DEALERS AND BATFE INTRUSION/ENCROACHMENT ON TRADITIONAL U.S. CONGRESSIONAL LAW MAKING AUTHORITY

• MISAPPLICATION/MISAPPROPRIATION OF THIRD PARTY PRODUCTS LIABILITY LAW AND LEGAL DOCTRINE TO UNFAIRLY TARGET GUN MANUFACTURERS

• FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESTRAINT OF TRADE: COERCING LENDING INSTITUTIONS TO REFRAIN FROM GIVING LOANS TO GUN DEALERS

• MANIPULATION OF THE COMPOSITION OF STATE LEGISLATURES AND OF THE U.S. CONGRESS BY MULTI-MILLIONAIRE/BILLIONAIRE TRANSNATIONAL GLOBALISTS THROUGH THE BANKROLLING OF POLITICIANS—WHO ACQUIESCE TO THEIR WISHES, AND WHO ARE WILLING TO DESTROY THE SECOND AMENDMENT—AND THROUGH THE NAKED, SHAMELESS EXPLOITATION OF ATTACK ADS, TARGETING THE DEFENDERS OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT -- THOSE POLITICIANS WHO REFUSE TO KOWTOW TO THE ANTI-AMERICAN AGENDA OF THE RUTHLESS MULTI-MILLIONAIRE AND BILLIONAIRE TRANSNATIONAL GLOBALISTS.

• GLOBAL CENSORSHIP/CONTROL OF EXPRESSION ON THE INTERNET: UNDERMINING THE SECOND AMENDMENT BY CONTROLLING MESSAGING WITH THE AIM, ULTIMATELY, OF INSIDIOUSLY DESTROYING THE SECOND AMENDMENT THROUGH AN UNCONSCIONABLE INFRINGMENT UPON THE FIRST AMENDMENT: AS CONTEMPT FOR ONE AMENDMENT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS IS SHOWN, SO, AS WELL, IS CONTEMPT FOR THE OTHERS DEMONSTRABLY SHOWN

• DESTRUCTION OF SOVEREIGN NATION STATES AND OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF SOVEREIGN NATION STATES THROUGH THE CREATION OF, ESTABLISHMENT OF AND INEXORABLE EXPANSION OF AN INTERNATIONAL, NEOLIBERAL INSPIRED WORLD ORDER DEDICATED TO AND WORKING TOWARD THE DESTRUCTION OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, THE DESTRUCTION OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTIES, AND THE ERADICATION OF PERSONAL AUTONOMY

We intended to do an article on each of these 21 strategies within the series. We didn’t complete the series, but we did write on several of these strategies and some of the strategies were touched upon in other articles. For example, our most recent article on the NY Times new “gag order” policy preventing its employees from exercising their freedom of free speech on their own time in vehicles other than the New York Times newspaper, actually is a response to two strategies we delineated on in “The Arsenal of Destruction":ONE: GLOBAL CENSORSHIP/CONTROL OF EXPRESSION ON THE INTERNET: UNDERMINING THE SECOND AMENDMENT BY CONTROLLING MESSAGING WITH THE AIM, ULTIMATELY, OF INSIDIOUSLY DESTROYING THE SECOND AMENDMENT THROUGH AN UNCONSCIONABLE INFRINGMENT UPON THE FIRST AMENDMENT: AS CONTEMPT FOR ONE AMENDMENT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS IS SHOWN, SO, AS WELL, IS CONTEMPT FOR THE OTHERS DEMONSTRABLY SHOWN; and,TWO: USE OF PROPAGANDA AGAINST THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND INDOCTRINATION OF THE PUBLIC BY MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA GROUPS.Our principal mission and raison d’etre—as mentioned, supra—is to preserve, protect, and strengthen the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the preservation of, protection of, and strengthening of the Second Amendment all go hand-in-hand. There exist forces both inside and outside this Country that would like to repeal the Second Amendment. Of course, they realize that repealing, de jure, any one of the Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution that comprise the Bill of Rights is virtually impossible. As natural rights, there is no mechanism for repealing these rights and liberties anyway, since no man created them. The Framers of the Constitution merely codified the rights that exist intrinsically in each American citizen. That doesn’t mean that a sacred right cannot be ignored or de facto repealed which effectively reduces the right to a nullity even as the words remain intact. Thus, if the words remain, but the intent behind the words is absent, hollowed out, the right, in essence, ceases to exist. We have seen this before. The fundamental right of Americans to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures has been hollowed out, as Government agencies like the CIA and NSA download and keep digital records on everyone and everything. This is patently illegal, but Federal Government agencies do it anyway. The fundamental right of free speech is beginning to be hollowed out, too, as censorship, in the guise of “political correctness” is taking its toll on free speech. The fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms was dying a slow death until the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court in two seminal cases, District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570; 128 S. Ct. 2783; 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010)), made clear what that right entails. The high Court made poignantly and categorically clear that this right—a right that must be recognized by both federal Government and by the States—is an individual right, a right, then, not connected to one’s service in a militia. Still, those Legislators and Jurists who seek to disembowel the Second Amendment have either ignored the holdings of the U.S. Supreme Court or have actively tinkered with it, working around the edges of the Heller and McDonald holdings to slowly weaken the Second Amendment. But, to weaken the right is tantamount to destroying it; for the rights codified must be understood in the context the framers of the Constitution intended, as absolute imperatives. This doesn’t mean restrictions ought not be enacted that operate as deprivations on some individuals but, this deprivation is justified only if the threat posed by the one threatens the lives of millions of others, or where the threat posed by an individual undermines the sovereignty of this Nation.Consider the Second Amendment. Federal law bars persons adjudged mentally incompetent from owning and possessing firearms. Thus, the absolute right to own and possess firearms infringes the right of a person adjudged mentally incompetent but this is necessary to protect the lives of millions of innocent, law-abiding Americans. Federal law also prohibits illegal aliens from owning and possessing firearms. And, in so doing, we protect the sanctity of the notion of a Nation State comprising a unique citizenry. Antigun groups, though, don’t perceive the Bill of Rights as a set of natural rights, existing intrinsically in the individual, endowed by the Creator to the individual. They see the Bill of Rights in the same vein as do internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist “elites,” as mere man-made creations-- statutes enacted and repealed at the will and the whim of the of the rulers that draft and enact them. As they see nothing positive in the right of the people to keep and bear arms, they see nothing that mandates the preservation and strengthening of that right. So, those who attempt to restrict the right of the people to keep and bear arms do not consider restrictions on the exercise of that right from the standpoint of the restriction's negative impact on the majority of rational, responsible, law-abiding American citizens, who wish to exercise their right, but, rather, see restrictions on the exercise of that fundamental right from the utilitarian consequentialist position. Consistent with utilitarian consequentialism, it is firearms in the hands of law-abiding rational, individual, not the occasional criminal or lunatic, that is perceived as posing the real danger, the real threat. And, what is that threat? It is a threat perceived as directed against society— against an amorphous collective “hive”—a threat perceived, eventually, as one directed against the entirety of the “free” world, a free world constituted as a "New World Order." It is not the criminal or lunatic possessing a firearm that concerns those that hold to the utilitarian consequentialist theory of morality that poses the greater threat to the well-being of society. In a constant flurry of new draconian firearms bills introduced in Congress, we see, in the draft language of these bills, that it is really the average law-abiding individual--the rational, responsible, law-abiding American citizen--against whom restrictive gun measures are really targeted and leveled. These restrictive gun bills are drafted and enacted in clear defiance of the right guaranteed in the Second Amendment.Our mission, our raison d’être, is to call out those disreputable groups and to call out those legislators and to call out those Hollywood film stars and moguls and to call out those mainstream news commentators and journalists and "comedians" and to call out those inordinately wealthy, extraordinarily powerful, extremely secretive, and absolutely ruthless internationalist, trans-nationalist, globalist forces that mean—all of them—to destroy our Nation State and that mean to destroy our Bill of Rights, and that mean to do so all the while claiming their efforts have a rational, ethical basis. But their actions belie their assertions. Their actions belie their true intent. These individuals, these groups, these cold-hearted ruthless internationalist, trans-nationalist, globalist “elites” that control the levers of finance and industry, that control major media organizations, that operate within and control the Deep State of Government within our own Nation mean to destroy the sovereignty and independence of this Nation and they mean to upend and to destroy the supremacy of our laws and of our Constitution.These individuals distort truth; they sow seeds of discord; they confuse and confound the ill-informed masses by challenging the Nation's core values and by interposing false substitutes for those core values. They rail against and dare to rewrite our Nation's history. They attack our Judeo-Christian ethic and our Christian heritage and traditions. They mean to destroy our Nation and our sacred Bill of Rights to pave the way for an antireligious, morally bankrupt trans-global corporate New World Order conglomerate—an amorphous, muddled indistinguishable conglomeration of once proud and unique independent Nation States—a union of populations comprising the entirety of the “free” world, which these internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist financiers and captains of industry plan to rule. We are beginning to see what this portends for the U.S. as they consolidate their power in the EU, with the assistance of their technocrats, their puppets.In their concerted effort to destroy the structure of and the very notion of the sanctity and sovereignty of Nation States, and of the sanctity and sovereignty of our Nation State in particular, we see insidious and perverse attempts by these internationalist, trans-nationalist globalist “elites”—through the mainstream media whom they control and through members of Congress whom they have bought—to play with language—to suggest that the notion, the idea of ‘American,’ of what the word ‘American’ means is simply a matter of personal belief. Why is such a ridiculous notion fostered? It is fostered for a reason. For, if what it means to be an ‘American,’ or, for that matter, what it means to be a Frenchman, or German, or Italian, or Canadian, for example, comes down to personal opinion and belief, then, the bonds between a person and that person’s Country is tenuous, amorphous, fragile, elusive, even illusive, and, ultimately, unimportant. This has serious ramifications for Nation States and repercussions for the people residing in a Nation State. Thus, if a person is to be deemed an American, for example, who simply and essentially believes him or herself to be an American, then, on that basis, alone, may presumptuously presume a right to live in this Country, to emigrate to this Country and to be endowed with all the rights and liberties that the United States Constitution provides.This open-ended concept of what it means to be an ‘American’ is deliberately and unconscionably fostered by those who seek an end to the very notion of a Nation State; who seek to portray people not as citizens of this or that Country but, literally, as “citizens of the world”—who may freely move about as they wish. This “open borders” philosophy is anathema to the concept of the primacy and sovereignty of Nation States which demands that independent, sovereign Nation States have a right and duty and responsibility to maintain and control their borders, and, in so doing, forestall emigration of undesirables to this Country. To allow essentially anyone and everyone to emigrate to this Country, is to denigrate and ultimately destroy the very foundation of the sovereignty and independence of a Nation State. A Nation State’s core ethical and religious and social values are in danger of erosion. That Nation’s historical roots are in danger of erosion. That Nation’s jurisprudential values and core economic principles are in danger of erosion.When educators, along with news organizations and legislators in the United States proclaim that illegal aliens are Americans, the Arbalest Quarrel has stepped in to set the record straight. Co-Founder and President of Arbalest Group, LLC., Stephen L. D’Andrilli wrote a reply to an article written by the Vice President of the United Federation of Teachers that appeared in the Union’s publication. The Arbalest Quarrel's response was published in Ammoland Shooting Sports News. Stephen has penned other cogent responses to the UFT that we, as strong supporters of America’s Bill of Rights, have taken exception with.

THE WORK AHEAD FOR THE ARBALEST QUARREL IN 2018

In 2018 we will continue to analyze federal and State gun laws; federal and State gun bills; and federal and State Court cases. We anticipate seeing one and perhaps two openings on the U.S. Supreme Court. It is imperative that President Trump have the opportunity to nominate one or more individuals to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.It is in the Courts, no less than in Congress that our Bill of Rights and, especially, our Second Amendment, will be preserved, strengthened, and expanded. We will otherwise see our Bill of Rights debilitated, weakened, and restricted.The House and, more importantly, the U.S. Senate must remain firmly in the hands of Republicans and, more especially, in the hands of those who espouse a conservative philosophy, reflective of the views and philosophy and sensibilities of the Founders of our Nation, the Framers of our Constitution, the Creators of our Free Republic—not those Centrists like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, who hold to a decidedly globalist philosophy, who demonstrate globalist sympathies, and whose support of our Bill of Rights is lukewarm at best.The Democrats intend to take control of both Houses of Congress and they intend to weaken our Bill of Rights and to weaken especially the First Amendment Freedom of Speech, and the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms. They intend, in league with their internationalist, trans-nationalist, globalist benefactors, to weaken, debase and eventually curtail our natural, fundamental rights and liberties. For they mean to draw us insidiously into the arms of a New World Order. They intend to do this through the vehicle of international pacts and treaties and through mainstream news organizations that condition the American public to accept open borders and to accept an amorphous notion of what it means to be a citizen; and by conditioning the American public to accept the legitimacy of foreign courts to hear cases impacting our fundamental rights; and to condition the American public to accept the supremacy of international law over that of our Constitution, and over our system of laws, and over our jurisprudence; and to condition the public to accept historical revisionism, to accept bizarre, alien notions of morality and gender identity; and to condition the public to accept the dismantling of a Nation that is grounded in Christianity and in notions of self-reliance and initiative, individual responsibility. All these things are on the table, as Democrats and many Centrist Republicans seek to weaken the foundation of a Nation as designed and understood by the Founders of it.

IN CLOSING, WE SET FORTH THE FOLLOWING POINTS AND CAUTIONARY IMPERATIVES FOR OUR READERS:

If the American people are to maintain their unique roots, we must work, first and foremost to keep sacred the Bill of Rights, and that means we must understand the import and purport of the Bill of Rights as the drafters intended, and we must insist that rights and liberties be preserved, protected, and strengthened. We must argue for the continued primacy of this Country as a sovereign, independent Nation State and we must insist that the federal Government’s first order of business, as servants of the American people, is to see to the needs of and well-being of, and security and safety of the American people. And, who are the American people? They are the citizens of this Country and those citizens, the American people, do not include anyone who resides here illegally, whatever that person's motive or circumstance for being here. And, no individual who resides elsewhere has a right to emigrate to this Country simply because that person seeks to live here, for good or for ill; and no one who has entered this Country illegally, whether consciously or through no fault of their own, can demand, as a matter of right, as a matter of law, the right to remain here. For law is not ad hoc. If Congress deigns to allow illegal aliens to remain here, then Congress must refrain from granting such individuals, citizenship. For, to grant citizenship to those who have consciously or not ignored our law, or who claim an exception to law that does not presently exist in law will serve only to destroy our system of laws. To change law or to ignore law on a whim sets a poor precedent and such action, in the seeming moral sense of it, will destroy this Country from within.We must hold to our core values. We must not be seduced into accepting notions of moral and legal relativism and we must not fall prey to historical revisionism. These notions are poisonous, pernicious, debilitating. We are a People with one common language, English. No Nation has remained a separate and distinct Nation State that has inculcated, internalized a notion of bilingualism or multilingualism or that has abided bilingualism or multilingualism.No one, whether inside or outside Government, shall indoctrinate the American people. Each American citizen has a right to free expression and to freely express his or her mind. That an individual may wish to express an idea or to possess a physical item that another individual may personally dislike, or even abhor, so what of it? The founders of our free Republic and the framers of our Constitution did not undertake to institute or to insinuate into the natural and fundamental rights and liberties of the American people a notion of “political correctness.” Such a notion is of modern invention and vintage, designed to serve an ulterior purpose. Indeed, had the founders of our Republic thought of such an absurd concept at all they would undoubtedly have held political correctness to be decidedly politically incorrect. Nothing is more devastating or destructive to the citizenry of this Nation or, for that matter, to the citizenry of any nation state, than the sins of hypocrisy and sanctimony. Unfortunately, both are in abundance in this Nation. We can for that thank the arrogance of mainstream media and of those with power and money and influence, both here and abroad, who wish to dictate a mode of thought the rest of us are obliged to adhere to. The American people should be particularly wary of those legislators and those presumptuous “elites” who bandy about such expressions as “rule of law,” and “living Constitution,” and “open borders,” and “citizen of the world” and “job creator,” and “commonsense gun laws,” and “social Darwinism, and “identity politics,” and “political correctness.” These expressions, and there are others, have become trite and dangerous clichés, shorthand simplistic sloganeering, that are either misunderstood and therefore misused, or are otherwise given to suggest or convey something overtly positive, even exemplary, when, in fact, their utilization is meant to harm the American citizen, meant to harm you! Always be mindful of seemingly noble sounding and high-minded verbiage thrown out to the masses for consumption like so much popcorn and roasted peanuts and cotton candy. Be observant, be cautious, think critically before throwing your lot in with everyone else simply because everyone else is “doing it” or “believing it.” You are no longer in high school. There is no longer any need for you to belong to this or that “clique,” in order to "fit in."The framers of the Constitution glorified the right of the individual to be individual and to accept personal responsibility for one’s actions. Our sacred rights and liberties as codified in the Bill of Rights are a testament to that fact. That is our birthright. The right of free speech; freedom of association; the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; and the right of the people to keep and bear arms. These are not mere platitudes. These are a few of the most important natural rights, codified in the Bill of Rights. They are absolute and unconditional, and they are slowly being eroded. Americans should consider, critically, how the words of a news commentator, or of a Hollywood star, or of a mega-sports star, or of a legislator, or of a financier, or of a government bureaucrat, or of a highly paid comic on nighttime  television meant to cajole or persuade Americans would impinge on or infringe those rights and liberties before you throw your lot in with them. For you may be hoodwinked into giving up everything of real consequence._________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GROUPTHINK VERSUS THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH

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

THE OWNERS AND EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES ARE HYPOCRITES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WE MUST ACT NOW TO PROTECT OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS*

ARTICLE SUBMITTED BY: Roman Buhler, Director of the Madison Coalition: http://www.madisoncoalition.org/.The individual rights guaranteed by the 1st and 2nd Amendments of our Constitution are under attack.  A dangerous new movement has emerged in American politics, one that seeks to upend the 225-year tradition that in America laws are made only with the consent of the governed. Many so-called progressives believe that when, sooner or later, they regain control of the White House they can erode and weaken the 1st Amendment rights like free speech and religious feedom as well as the 2nd Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms, not by passing legislation, but, through regulations dictated by the President's un-elected bureaucrats in Washington.In short these so-called progressives want a system where regulatory edicts issued by a President’s appointees can fundamentally change the meaning of a law in ways that were never intended by the Congress that passed that law. As each controversy over legislation or a political leader's tweet in Washington distracts the media, legislators, and the public, one fundamental question stands out. What will be the PERMANENT legacy of this era of a Republican President and Republican majorities in Congress, and in 33 states' legislatures? Will it be executive orders and laws that last only until the voters elect a liberal President and Congress as voters have done at least once a generation or so for the last 100 years.1912, 1934, 1964 and 2008 all saw the election of Democratic super majorities that dramatically expanded the size and power of government. There is no reason to believe that this will not happen again, continuing the trend towards bigger and bigger government.To reverse this trend, the legacy of our majorities and our control of the White House today must be something more permanent than executive orders and laws. To rein in the abuse of federal power, we need constitutional reform that will last for generations, not just for the term of one administration or of one Congressional majority.Our challenge is to persuade the majorities we now have in Congress and the states right to permanently and constitutionally strengthen checks and balances on the abuse of federal power.Perhaps the most important lasting pro-limited government reform of the last 75 years was the 22nd Amendment for Presidential term limits, ratified in 1951. That Amendment was proposed by Congress in part because of pressure from the states who favored it. Now, just as pressure from the states helped force Congress to propose the Bill of Rights and presidential term limits, pressure from 2/3 of the states could force Congress to propose a popular Amendment as soon as 2019, without Convention. In fact three times in American history, pressure from the states has forced Congress to propose an Amendment states wanted. 12 of the 27 Amendments to our Constitution were proposed in this way. The 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights, the 17th Amendment for direct election of Senators, and the 22nd Amendment limiting Presidents to two terms were all proposed by Congress because Congress realized that 2/3 of the states favored them, and Congress did not want the states even thinking about proposing the Amendment through a Convention.  If states, working with allies in Congress could help force Congress to propose an Amendment, what kind of Amendment could it be?Constitutional curbing the administrative state so future Presidents and their regulators could no longer dictate the rules that govern us would be a powerful permanent legacy. The good news is that than 1000 state legislators, 7 governors and former governors, including Mike Pence, a unanimous vote of the RNC, language in the 2016 Republican Platform, and Resolutions passed by 25 state legislative chambers have already urged Congress to propose the "Regulation Freedom Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution. The Regulation Freedom Amendment  would require that major new federal regulations be approved by Congress before they can take effect. And Congress, not bureaucrats would decide what is a "major" regulation.Conservatives in Congress including Sen. Ted Cruz, House Rules Chair Pete Sessions, House Natural Resources Chair Rob Bishop, and past Constitution Subcommittee Chair Trent Franks have endorsed the Regulation Freedom Amendment. Polls show 2-1 support for the Amendment from voters. Curbing the administrative state is an issue that could unite Conservatives and libertarians of all kinds while appealing to swing voters in 2018.Most so-called progressives do not want to answer a simple question: Should the rules that govern us be dictated by un-elected Washington bureaucrats or should they be approved by elected representatives of  the people? But we can make progressives answer that question and reveal them for the "Undemocrats" they really are. In fact we could even call pro-Washington Democrats who prefer bureaucracy to democracy the "UNDEMOCRATIC WING OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY."The Madison Coalition, is helping to build a national network of grassroots, political and business leaders to urge state legislators and Members of Congress to support the Regulation Freedom Amendment. Big change happens from the bottom up, not just the top down. Just one phone call or personal email to a legislator from each of hundreds and eventually thousands of people like those of you who are reading this article can make "ending regulation without representation" an issue that cannot be ignored.Every voting U.S. House Republican along with some courageous Democrats voted for and many Republican U.S. Senators support a bill called the REINS Act which would require that major new federal regulations that impose costs of more than 100 million dollars must be approved by Congress. But the REINS Act does not protect 2nd Amendment rights, free speech or religious freedom from regulations with a cost of less than $100 million. Creative regulators could also evade it by proposing multiple "mini" or "micro" regulations, each with a small cost. And the REINS Act could be repealed by a future more liberal Congress or overturned by a liberal U.S. Supreme Court.The Regulation Freedom Amendment, on the other hand, allows one quarter of the U.S. House or Senate to designate any regulation as a "major” regulation which would then require a majority vote of both the House and Senate to take effect. First and Second Amendment rights would be fully protected, and a Constitutional Amendment could not be repealed by a future Congress or overturned by the supreme Court. Most elected officials, and especially most Republicans do not know of this Constitutional alternative to the REINS act that has been endorsed by the RNC, the GOP Platform, and 25 state legislative chambers. When they hear about it from the grassroots, they certainly become interested. But we need the help of people like those of you who are reading this article to spread the word about this unique opportunity to permanently curb the bureaucracy and preserve the regulatory reforms we are now seeing.Our historic majorities are not permanent. If we don't act soon we will miss our chance. But if we do, we can change the course of American history. If you would like to learn more, visit the Regulation Freedom Amendment website at www.regulationfreedom.org. Or you can email us at Leaders@RegulationFreedom.org. Or call us at 202-255-5000.We hope to hear from you!________________________________________________*Roman Buhler is the Director of the Madison Coalition. He served for 14 years as a lawyer for the U.S. House of Representatives. He was Newt Gingrich's first House Committee Counsel. The present article was submitted for consideration for publication in the Arbalest Quarrel by its author, Roman Buhler, on July 8, 2017. The editors of the Arbalest Quarrel approved the article for publication shortly after presentation of the article for publication. Due to exigencies, unrelated to the submission, there has been an unfortunate delay in posting the article to this website. The editors of the Arbalest Quarrel apologize to the author for the delay in posting.As a further note, the editors of the Arbalest Quarrel have made minor, minimal grammatical and syntactic changes to the article where deemed appropriate, and have formatted the article, consistent with the font and style utilized in the website. The editors have, however, made no semantic changes to actual content, and the article appears here essentially as submitted by its author, complete and unabridged. As a final note, the ideas expressed in the article, reflect those of the author. The Arbalest Quarrel respects the ideas expressed, as consistent with the aims and purport of the Arbalest Quarrel website.The Arbalest Quarrel supports all efforts that serve to strengthen our Bill of Rights and supports, especially, all efforts to strengthen the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This article is copyright protected by its author, Roman Buhler, and is published by the Arbalest Quarrel with express permission of the author.  

THE SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT: GUARANTEEING THE SUPREMACY OF THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

NOW IS THE TIME TO GET MEANINGFUL FEDERAL SECOND AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS PASSED INTO LAW: LET'S GET THE SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT ("SAGA") UP TO SPEED.

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." Thomas Jefferson, Resolutions Relative to the Alien and Sedition Acts, in 1 The Founders' Constitution 292 (Philip Kurland & Ralph Lerner eds., 1987).Our fundamental rights, as codified in our Nation’s Bill of Rights, are under constant assault. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the continuous, contentious, cavalcade of laws emanating on the State and federal and local governmental levels—laws that slowly but inexorably chip and whittle away at the sacred right of the people to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But why is that? One reason for this aggressive assault on the right codified in the Second Amendment is that those supporting restrictive gun legislation view the right as an anathema, a thing of no positive value today. Those who support ever more arcane, restrictive, ponderous laws—a veritable cascade of them with no end in sight—may acknowledge that the right set forth in the Second Amendment had some import and merit, perhaps, at one time, early in our Nation’s history, but no longer. They see the right, today, as something archaic, anachronistic and, therefore, not a thing to be legitimately considered a right at all but, at most, a privilege, something that may be bestowed by government on a select few, whom Government trusts as worthy “caretakers” of society. What then becomes of the right as exercised by the common man? It is a thing lost, never to be recovered.Commoners—average Americans—are conditioned through propaganda to view firearms as an evil, as things to be reviled, and to view those who desire to own and possess them as individuals who are out of touch with reality, out of touch with the way the world works today, out of touch with the way things are or, as projected in the mind through incessant propaganda, out of touch with the ways things ought to be. The mainstream media pompously, piously, at the behest of its internationalist, globalist benefactors, proselytizes, telling us that firearms are responsible for the ills in society and that individuals who seek to own and possess them are rightfully to be shunned and viewed as slightly unhinged. The mainstream media, with the assistance of teachers and advocacy groups, condition children to fear firearms. Woe to the child caught bringing a toy gun to school or even pointing a finger at another child, simulating or suggesting a firearm. The school board ejects that child from the school, with great fanfare, as an object lesson for others. Thus, at an early age a child learns that “incorrect thinking” will turn that child into a pariah.Mainstream news sources at the behest of their benefactors—the secretive overlords of western civilization—seek, through constant, tedious, repetitive opinionating, to repress the desire in man to own and possess firearms. The argument made—specious though it is—is that firearms have no place in a “civilized” society. This modern-day excuse for a “Press” contends that Americans who desire to own and possess firearms are throwbacks to an earlier day and age and, so, need to be reeducated to forsake firearms. At times mainstream news sources—at the behest of their wealthy, powerful benefactors, the secretive, powerful, overlords of society—make these points overtly. At other times, the points are tacit, hidden in news accounts of criminals and lunatics who prey on us all. Yet, the American public is endlessly and noxiously bombarded with specious arguments remonstrating against firearms, arguing for destruction of firearm caches and castigating those who would deign to keep them. The ill-informed public thus perceives, in the constant barrage and fusillade of slogans and chastisements spat out by the propaganda machine of the mainstream media, that the loss of the right to keep and bear arms is nothing to be concerned about. The truth is ever lost on the public, as the very linchpin of the Bill of Rights falls to hundreds of unconstitutional restrictive State and federal statutes and dozens more of governmental edicts, and to tens of thousands of deliberately vague and ambiguous sentences and clauses and paragraphs tucked away in numerous local governmental rules, regulations, codes, and ordinances, designed to confound and mislead those among us who would dare to exercise the right believed important enough by the framers to carve in stone, but now to be dumped, unceremoniously, in a warehouse—like the statues and memorabilia of our Nation’s Confederacy—out of sight and, so, out of mind—lest raging anarchists and pseudo-moralists be offended.To convert the average American to its cause celebre—and to its way of thinking—to encourage the average American to accept the need for more and more firearms restrictions the mainstream media denigrates and trivializes the right embodied in the Second Amendment and, at once, castigates and ostracizes those who would dare support it.Clearly, it isn’t the career criminal, the psychopathic gang and drug cartel members, and the occasional lunatic, that gun restrictions are meant to target. No! It is, rather, the average, rational, law-abiding, American. It is that person who is the real target of ponderous gun restrictions. But, why is that? Why is it this individual that the mainstream media, and various like-minded politicians, and their benefactors—the inordinately secretive, extraordinarily powerful, insatiably and exorbitantly wealthy, and coldly ruthless internationalists, the destroyers of the Nation State and of a Nation’s laws—truly detest and truly fear? The answer is clear on reflection, and we see the answer in the mask shrouding the overt reasons the mainstream media blares out to the American public when extolling the virtue of ever more restrictive gun measures.The overt, pervasive reasons given for destroying the right of the people to keep and bear arms masks a more insidious reason the Second Amendment is under constant and vicious assault and it is the salient, true reason. It is one never given, nor dared to be given, nor is it even hinted at. Yet, it lurks ominously, in the shadows, ever present—and evident to those who pause to consider the constant, dogged, unwavering, and rapacious efforts to destroy the Second Amendment. It is clear enough to those who reflect carefully on the wording of the Second Amendment.The reason the gun grabbers truly seek to undercut the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is hidden in plain sight. It is found in the prefatory clause: “a well regulated militia being necessary to a free state.”  The framers of the Constitution, the founders of our free Republic, expressed concern over two primal threats to the young Nation. One threat emanates from outside. It is the threat posed by foreign aggressors. The other threat—by far the more serious and insidious one—operates from the inside. It goes by the name, “tyranny.”The dependent “militia” clause has no purpose other than to make clear why the right of the people to keep and bear arms is necessary. The operative clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” is clear, categorical, unequivocal, and absolute. The operative clause is not conditioned by the prefatory, dependent “militia” clause. It is not conditioned by anything. The prefatory clause simply sets forth the salient reason for the codification of the right, as set forth in the operative, independent clause—the supreme importance of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as the mechanism by which and through which the Nation guarantees that it remain a free Republic and, in that, therefor, the need for the right.Consider: there is no prefatory clause in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, justifying the right of Free Speech and Free Press. There is no prefatory clause in the First Amendment because the framers of the Constitution knew that freedom of expression and freedom of the Press—although powerful and critical rights—are not, in themselves, a check against armed invasion from the outside, nor do they constitute infallible checks against tyranny arising from within the Nation. Indeed, we see that the Press has been coopted by those who seek to destroy our Republic, thereby inviting tyranny—in fact, working indefatigably to see that tyranny comes to fruition even as the Press poses, deceptively, as a force poised against it—hence, the inherent, insidious, destructive nature of it--born from a poisonous seed within the Nation and nourished along by a chained Press. And, we see, in recent months attempts to constrain freedom of expression—deviously—through claims that it is improper for one to voice opinion that others might find objectionable. But, there is no equivocation in the Second Amendment. An armed citizenry either exists or it does not. If it exists, there is, in that armed citizenry, a perfect check against tyranny. If an armed citizenry does not exist, there is nothing to constrain tyranny.That is the salient reason for including a prefatory clause, a preamble to the Second Amendment. The prefatory clause serves no other purpose and it has no other purpose. But, those who seek to install autocracy in this Country see, in the inclusion of a prefatory, dependent clause, not the impetus the framers had for including it at all, but, a sly, devious way to suggest that the absolute right of the people to keep and bear arms—a right that, in its clear wording, is not and cannot be infringed—is not absolute, but structurally conditioned through the prefatory clause: namely, that one’s right to keep and bear arms is limited by and through and to one’s connection to a militia. That notion is false to be sure. In fact, the notion is ludicrous; and that notion has, fortunately, thankfully, finally, been laid to rest by the U.S. Supreme Court in the seminal Heller case.The intent of the framers in codifying the right of the people to keep and bear arms is abundantly clear. For, if the right could be infringed, namely, in the event one sought to keep and bear arms but had no connection to a militia, then the prefatory, dependent clause would contradict the import of the independent clause, namely, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. As a matter of formal logic, either the right of the people to keep and bear arms can be infringed or it cannot.Under the law of non-contradiction, it must be one or the other. It cannot be both. The independent clause makes clear that the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed. If the prefatory clause were truly to suggest that the right of the people to keep and bear arms could be infringed, as the gun grabbers insist, then the Second Amendment would make no logical sense. Its legal import would be totally lost; and the right expressed in the independent clause would be reduced to a nullity—which is how the liberal-wing of the U.S. Supreme Court sees it, anyway.Thus, the import of the Second Amendment is determinative here by the absolute principle of sound logic, quite apart from its import in law. To suggest that the framers would deliberately draft a self-contradiction would be to presume them insane. On the other hand, to suggest the framers drafted a self-contradiction, negligently, would be to presume they were dunces. Neither, of course, is the case. The framers of the Second Amendment were extremely intelligent, extremely capable, competent, and rational men and, as well, they were extremely wary of the nature of the existence of some ambitious but ruthless men—men, not at all like them--who would be capable of transforming and predisposed to transforming a free Republic into an autocracy if given half a chance, to serve their own private purposes and desires.The Second Amendment, as with every other component of the Constitution, was crafted with great care. The Second Amendment is a hedge—the one best hedge against the introduction of tyranny into a free State. Thus, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed makes clear that, in the event Government sought to impose tyranny upon the American people--and intrusion upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms would be clear evidence of such design to introduce tyranny--such illegitimate encroachment upon a sacred right shall be met with lawful force exerted by the American people, to preclude any Government attempt and effort to insinuate unlawful power against the true Sovereign of this Nation: the American people themselves. The prefatory clause must, then, have no use and serve no use other than to make clear to those servants of Government, the reason why the right cannot be infringed: namely, to remind those servants of Government that the People are Supreme; that Government was designed to serve the people, and not the other way around; and that, if the servants of Government should forget their role and should forget Government's place in the grand Constitutional scheme, the American people will remind them of their role and will remind them of Government's place in that scheme, and the American people will do so harshly, exacting a heavy price upon those who have thoughts of grandeur—those who have thoughts that it is the People who serve them--the Government Heads--and not the other way around. And, Government Heads will roll for the audacity to attempt to exert control over the American people.Thus, it is that the framers of the Constitution intended for the Second Amendment to be the one, true, and absolute check on tyranny. The late Justice Scalia knew that to be so, but was reluctant to make that point manifest in the seminal Heller case—instead discussing the tacit reason for the presence of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights—that of self-defense. Justice Scalia had to get Justices Roberts and Kennedy on board, and they, likely, would not have done so, had Justice Scalia asserted that the primary import of the militia clause was to make clear that an armed citizenry was necessary as the best check against tyranny. To mention the salient import  and purport of the Second Amendment is, apparently, today, to make too emphatic a statement; but, then, that tells us just how far we have fallen as a Nation and how expansive and powerful and treacherous the federal Government has become and as it continues to devolve, unless our present U.S. President, steps on the brake and reverses the trend toward dissolution of our Bill of Rights and our free Republic. Passing effective federal legislation that serves to strengthen our Second Amendment, as the framers of the U.S. Constitution intended, would be a good start toward reversing the deadly trend and tendency of an increasingly powerful federal Government to thwart the Bill of Rights, thereby instituting tyranny. Justice Scalia must have been aware of this horrible trend and, given the opportunity, in Heller, to set things right, he made clear the import of the Second Amendment as the drafters of the Second Amendment made intended: that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected to one's service in a militia. In that regard, Justice Scalia, writing for the Majority, pointed to the natural right of self-defense as implicit in the individual's exercise of that sacred right.Still, Justice Scalia’s discussion of one's right self-defense through firearms means--as I am sure he was aware--not only defense of one’s physical self but also defense against oppression, whether that oppression manifests outside this Country or, more frighteningly, within it. And, we have seen, in the regime of Barack Obama and as we would have seen in the regime of Hillary Clinton tyranny raising its ugly head, manifesting obliquely, tangentially, but most assuredly. We see in the Presidency of Donald Trump, a circumambulation around our Bill of Rights—an attempt to set things right, as Chief Executive of our Nation. But, he has his job cut out for him for the Deep State does not wish to cede the stranglehold of tyranny it has been weaving around this Nation for many years and which it shad ought to complete through the coronation of Hillary Clinton. Fortunately, that "coronation" never took place. Americans weren't hoodwinked.But, the failure of the secretive internationalist forces to elect their puppet, Hillary Clinton, hardly means we are out of the woods.We see the insinuation of tyranny through the instigation of international pacts and treaties, that operate to circumvent the sovereignty of our laws. We see it in the use of our military for purposes altogether unrelated to our national defense. We see it in attempts to draw this Country—an independent sovereign Nation—into the throes of the EU; we see it in the opinions of the liberal wing Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who argue that international law and jurisprudence should govern the decisions of cases impacting our fundamental rights, effectively subordinating, then, our Constitution and our written law to that of foreign bodies. We see it in the subordination of our laws and our sacred rights and liberties to that of international courts and tribunals. We are slowly, inexorably being sucked into a whirlpool that reshapes our laws, and our rights—to be twisted and molded and reformed into a thing that effectively loosens the underpinnings of our core values, traditions, and history. Our Bill of Rights, and, particularly, our Second Amendment, has no place in this new world order and must therefore be consigned--so the architects of our Nation’s destruction have ordered--to the dustbin of history.To that end, State and federal statutes and local governmental rules, regulations, and ordinances are enacted, to attack the free exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms to excoriate it; to exorcise it from conscious thought and memory—ostensibly to benefit society in its entirety, to benefit the collective, to benefit the “beehive,” never the individual, and, thus, to see our once independent sovereign Nation incorporated, as but one cog, into a larger “grand” design that embraces many other Nations in one seemingly seamless, cohesive whole. We see governmental regulations enacted in a scarcely disguised attempt to destroy the sacred right the framers of our Constitution knew to be necessary to restrict the power of Government and they saw the necessity of etching those rights and liberties in stone. But, attempts are made to undercut the Bill of Rights, and, particularly, to undercut the Second Amendment. Ominously, State and federal statutes are enacted to attack the right of the people to keep and bear arms at the root level. Statutes are enacted to attack the right codified in the Second Amendment in the hope that, at some point in the future, the Second Amendment will wither and die of its own accord, since de jure repeal of it outright is virtually impossible.Indeed, the framers intended that de jure repeal of the Bill of Rights would be, ought to be, must be, extremely difficult to accomplish. Repeal of fundamental rights should be difficult to accomplish, lest an uneducated or ill-informed public, hoodwinked by, and easily manipulated by  propaganda, spouted by a compliant Press, controlled by those who place no stock in the Bill of Rights, be led by the nose to believe that Americans really, truly, don’t need this or that right, codified in the Bill of Rights, and that we would all be better off to do away with the right altogether.Since actual de jure repeal of the Second Amendment outright won’t happen, cannot happen, even as those who detest the continued existence of the Second Amendment would love to see that happen—would fervently love to see formal repeal of the Second Amendment—it behooves those who seek to destroy it to find some other way or means to do so. And, they have done so, through a process that takes longer, but, through the inexorable tide of time, money, and effort expended in enacting ever more exacting, restrictive, convoluted, and redundant firearms legislation and through an easily malleable, complacent, compliant ill-informed public, they have exacted their toll on the Second Amendment, and have successfully eroded Americans’ exercise of the sacred right. Thus, the net result, if not reversed, would reduce the Second Amendment to a virtual nullity, even as it continues, formally, to exist.Thus, where we see the creation of ever more State and federal laws, and federal governmental rules and edicts, and local governmental codes, rules, regulations, and ordinances—enacted in defiance of the clear meaning of the Second Amendment and in clear defiance to U.S. Supreme Court rulings, we become aware that the destruction of the Second Amendment is no less certain than had the Second Amendment been repealed outright. This is what is meant by de facto repeal of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment continues to exist “on paper” but it has no efficacy. It means nothing. It means that no right exists that can be exercised through it.De facto repeal, then, has the same effect as outright de jure repeal. It just takes a little longer. Of course, the liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court seeks to destroy the Second Amendment in its own way, through its misinterpretation of law, rather than through misuse of legislation. We see this in the dissenting opinions of liberal wing Justices. By corralling the operative clause of the Second Amendment—“the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”—in the dependent clause, “a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,” and as the concept of a State militia, as understood by the framers of the U.S. Constitution is essentially non-existent today, the Second Amendment would be nugatory, as it would be impossible for an American ever to exercise the right under it.” Thus, if those Justices who dissented in the Heller and McDonald cases, had been writing for the Majority, the Second Amendment would effectively be reduced to a nullity. Thus, the right of the people to keep and bear arms would be transformed into a mere privilege, something Government could grant to a person or deny a person, at whim.Occasionally, as in Congressman Chris Collins’ Second Amendment Guarantee Act, we do see some relief—a welcome pushback against offensive restrictive firearms’ legislation. Yet, as we also see, that pushback is often gratuitous, designed merely to award a Congressman political points for taking a stand that, although unpopular to some, is welcomed by many, and should, even if it never were enacted into law, be heralded by all.But, Chris Collins’ bill, will wither and die, like the Second Amendment could, itself, unless the public spurs Congress to action. *Proponents of strong pro-Second Amendment bills must have the fortitude to see their bills through to fruition to the same extent, if not more so, than do opponents of the Second Amendment when introducing their own anti-Second Amendment bills. For we have seen, on several occasions, how opponents of our sacred right push their bills through to upend our most sacred right. It is unfortunate that those Legislators who ostensibly espouse their support of the right of the people to keep and bear arms demonstrate, at the end of the day, a lack of fortitude to see their work through to completion. They certainly do not exhibit the same exuberance as those who seek to undermine the Second Amendment exhibit, for, when introducing anti-Second Amendment legislation, such legislators generally work toward moving their bills along. They are serious about getting their anti-Second Amendment bills enacted into law. Such anti-Second Amendment bills don't simply die in Committee, much as we would like to see them do, unlike pro-Second Amendment bills, which we would like very much to see passage of.Thus, the best crafted bill in the Nation doesn’t get us anywhere unless serious effort is made to push it forward. We can get started on the first part—assisting Legislators—to craft effective legislation, and we are doing so. Yet, without a strong nudge from the public we see Congressional legislators unwilling to do their part, proceeding half-heartedly, at best, and then stopping short of their goal. That is hardly encouraging and we find it wholly unacceptable.The Republicans, for the moment, at least, control both Houses of Congress; and we have a U.S. President who has not been bought and paid for by internationalists—unlike Obama and the Clintons who have taken their marching orders from these internationalists—these ruthless and cunning individuals who owe their allegiance to no Nation—who seek to undermine all Nations, to bring them under the sway of their corporate control, operating through private charters that would undercut the constitutions of Nations. This we see as the fate befalling the Nations of the European Union. Lest we fall under the sway of the EU directly or otherwise fall prey to an EU styled dictatorship, it is necessary for Americans to take a stand and do our best to strengthen our Constitution and our Bill of Rights--those sacrosanct and inviolate documents that the founders bequeathed to us through their tremendous courage and through their great sacrifice.______________________________________*Let your U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative know how you feel about your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Phone (202) 225-3121. It is a fast and easy process; and a critical one. Only through your active participation, can we help secure our Second Amendment right. _________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.         

THE SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT: A REAFFIRMATION OF THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

THE SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT SHOULD, AS THE TITLE OF THE ACT ASSERTS AND AS PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD, DO NOTHING MORE NOR LESS THAN RETURN, TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, THE FUNDAMENTAL, NATURAL RIGHT SLIPPING FROM THEM: THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.

WHAT MISBEGOTTEN CONGRESS AND MANY OVERZEALOUS STATE LEGISLATURES HAVE WROUGHT MUST BE CORRECTED

THREE SCENARIOS THAT REQUIRE CONSTANT VIGILANCE ON THE PART OF AMERICANS:

ONE: SOMETIMES LEGISLATIVE ACTS HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES, RESULTING IN THE LOSS OF ONE'S FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OR RESULTING IN AN ABRIDGMENT OF OR AN ATTENUATION OF THOSE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES, IF NOT IN AN OUTRIGHT LOSS OF ONE'S RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.

TWO: AT OTHER TIMES LEGISLATORS ENACT LAWS THAT, ALTHOUGH DIRECTED TO ACCOMPLISHING ONE GOAL, NOT DESIGNED TO IMPACT FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES, NONETHELESS, WHEN IMPLEMENTED, HAVE A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON THE EXERCISE OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.

AND, THREE: AT TIMES--AS IS MOST OFTEN THE CASE--LEGISLATORS OPERATE WITH ABANDON, DRAFTING AND ENACTING LAWS THAT ARE DIRECTED SPECIFICALLY TO CURTAILING AMERICANS' FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.

When State Legislatures and Congress propose legislation—legislation that may touch upon fundamental, natural rights codified in the Bill of Rights—there exists a possibility that the proposed legislation will negatively impact the citizen's exercise of a fundamental right, protected by the Bill of Rights. The danger of an abridgment of or attenuation of a citizen’s rights and liberties may occur through accident or through invidious design. Either way, a danger to the rights and liberties of American citizens is ever present in any legislative action. Americans must, therefore, be ever vigilant of that possibility to preclude elected officials and bureaucrats from undermining Americans' rights and liberties.If an abridgement of a citizen’s rights and liberties occurs through accident, as a result of careless drafting of legislation, this tells us that State legislators and U.S. Congressmen must be conscientious in drafting legislation to avoid unintended negative consequences and must be mindful of bureaucratic overreach that operates to curtail a citizen’s rights and liberties—bureaucratic overreach that operates beyond the extreme of legislation--beyond the parameters of seeming enabling legislation that, on the surface, may suggest, in the rules bureaucrats promulgate to effectuate Legislative intent, that bureaucrats have carte blanche to promulgate rules abridging constitutionally protected rights and liberties, when, in fact, they do not have such authorization and when, in fact, it was never Congressional intention or a State Legislature's intention to cede to federal and State bureaucrats such authority to override Constitutionally protected rights and liberties.If, however, State legislation or Congressional legislation directed to accomplishing one objective, has anticipated indirect and negative impact on a fundamental right, what does that tell us? It tells us that legislators are operating deviously—clearly out of normative bounds of duty and decency, machinating behind the back of voters, and in clear violation of their oath of Office. In that event, those legislators who manipulate legislative powers to destroy the Bill of Rights must be called out for their actions and that means impeachment.Most often, though, those individuals drafting federal or State laws do so with clear cold, calculated deliberation, with a categorical objective in mind, one that cannot be mistaken for something else or for something less, namely, the goal of creating law that has, at its salient purpose, impinging fundamental rights and liberties and, in fact, infringing fundamental rights, specifically. Legislation is expressly drafted with that goal in mind. In these circumstances, legislators do not attempt to hide their intentions. In such circumstances, legislators act with cheerful abandon and with a very heavy hand, demonstrating little concern over whether they have overstepped acceptable legal and moral bounds when impinging on or infringing, altogether, a fundamental right—if we presume, from the get-go, that there are such things as acceptable legal and moral boundaries in the matter of curtailing an American’s exercise of his or her fundamental rights and liberties But, to be sure, there exist none! Still a rationale—really an excuse—for such legislation is provided, trumpeted by legislators' willing accomplices in the mainstream media. The American public must not allow such legislators to remain in Office.In the last case presented here, the excuse, posing as a legitimate rationale, that is invariably given, is that federal or State legislation restricting the American citizen's exercise of this or that fundamental right and liberty serves or promotes a compelling State interest. That is the test the United States Supreme Court has devised to ascertain the constitutionality of a State or federal statute when the very core of a natural, fundamental right is impinged on or infringed outright.In practice, courts of competent jurisdiction that share the sentiments of government, as expressed in a State or federal regulation, will often, although, fortunately, not invariably, find the offending regulation constitutionally permissible even if, on logical and legal grounds, it isn’t.Government, whether State or federal, must, nonetheless, articulate its compelling interest to restrict the people’s exercise of a fundamental right when a plaintiff, that has standing to sue, directly challenges the constitutionality of a State or federal statute or local governmental regulation or ordinance.Rarely do we see Congress or State Legislatures enacting legislation impacting natural, fundamental rights that serve to strengthen the right as codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights. Congressman Chris Collins; bill, the Second Amendment Guarantee Act, is one example of legislation the intent of which is to strengthen rather than to weaken a fundamental right: the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But, when all is said and done, such legislation should be unnecessary anyway; for, a fundamental right—namely any right codified in the Bill of Rights—has no parameters and legislation should never be enacted to create parameters unless, if done so very, very circumspectly. For, example, illegal aliens do not have the right to keep and bear arms, for they are not understood to be "the people" to whom the right of the people to keep and bear arms attaches. So, a law that precludes illegal aliens from possessing firearms is not really establishing a parameter around the Second Amendment anyway, as the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as codified in the Second Amendment by the framers of our Constitution, did not have illegal aliens in mind. As Congress, has authority, under Article I, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution to enact laws governing naturalization. An illegal alien--for which the term, 'undocumented,' is nothing more than an euphemism and a poor and inexact term to be applied to such a person--is by definition an individual who is not of this Country as he or she is merely in this Country, and should not have been in this Country at all.Parameters are set by legislators in statute or by Courts, when interpreting statute. But, as is clear from the language of the Amendments of the Bill of Rights, there are no true parameters. The rights expressed therein are absolute--as applied to citizens of the United States. It is a legal shibboleth, nothing more than a platitude, really, running as a constant thread through all State and federal legislation and through local rules, regulations, codes and ordinances. It is a platitude asserted by jurists and politicians alike—repeated with regularity, wearily and eerily, and as no more than an afterthought—as no more than cliché—a thing that has become a strange jurisprudential adage. It is that State and federal governmental regulations and local governmental rules and regulations, and codes and ordinances, that routinely and negatively impact basic rights might pass constitutional muster anyway since no right is absolute—including, and especially, those rights and liberties, clearly articulated and codified in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, as handed down to us by the framers of our Constitution—the founders of our free Republic. Hence, the rationale, we see, is really nothing more than a paltry excuse, a mirage, a meager attempt to legitimize the undermining of fundamental rights of the People. This has led to a monstrous curtailing of the rights of the people of this Country. It has occurred incrementally, quietly, insidiously, seductively. And, many Americans have, unfortunately, grown accustomed to accepting out of whole cloth the illusion that they really don’t need to exercise the fundamental right to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, and that they don’t really need to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, as that right is codified in the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the  U.S. Constitution, notwithstanding that these two rights were deemed sufficiently important to the founders of our Nation that they set them down, expressly, in our Constitution. And now we are beginning to see that the freedom of speech and the right of the people peaceably to assemble, as guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, too, are under assault. And we, Americans, are led to believe that this is, somehow, in some undefined way, in the natural order of things to see our fundamental rights and liberties curtailed and that we should no longer have any real expectation that we have any fundamental rights or liberties except to the extent that Government deigns to grant such rights and liberties to us, explaining, thereby, the extent to which such rights and liberties are granted, for a time, to this one or that one among us. This is to suggest that fundamental rights and liberties are to be perceived as fads, trivialities, things easily and infinitely malleable, to be kneaded like clay, or sloughed off like old clothes--things to be transformed or deleted, according to the norms of the time—as “new norms” are thrust on us by those who arrogantly, yet erroneously, claim the moral high ground and who claim a tacit right to decide what is best for the rest of us.Another platitude we constantly hear is that we are a Nation that is ruled by laws and not by men. We live under the profound illusion that there exists a natural order existent in this platitude, forgetting or failing even to consider that it is men, after all, that make the laws that govern our actions and that govern our very lives, and that it is men that make the laws that denigrate our Constitutional rights and liberties, claiming, all the while, as they do so, as they forever inform us--artfully, deceitfully--that destruction of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, under the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, and that destruction of the freedom of speech and destruction of the right of the people peaceably to assemble under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, and that destruction of the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, are necessary--that destruction of these rights and liberties are, indeed, for the common good and that they are for the good of society, for the good of the collective, for the good of the hive. We are seduced into believing or otherwise cajoled into accepting that destructions of our fundamental rights and liberties, destructions set down in federal or State statute, and destructions set down in local rules, and codes, and regulations, and ordinances are yet, somehow, all created and implemented for our own good, for the good of the Nation or for the good of the community, or for the good of the people. We are told that these laws and codes and rules and regulations and ordinances that undercut our sacred rights and liberties are, nonetheless, to be taken as just and moral things. We are to accept these changes, and we are told that we should applaud these changes, as things consistent with the norms and standards of the time and of a "civilized society." We are told to accept the notion that our Bill of Rights is, no more than any man-made law, something mutable, and like all things mutable, contingent, not meant to last. But, that is the myth thrust on us, to make us pliant little lambs.

OUR BILL OF RIGHTS CAN NEVER BE DESTROYED, NOT REALLY, NOT EVER--TRY AS SOME MAY TO DO SO.

What these scoundrels—these makers of “laws” that rule us, suffocate us—don’t tell us is that the laws they create are designed to supersede the Constitution, thereby denigrating the most important Truth of all—the singular, quintessential Truth which tells us that the U.S. Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. Yet, the fact of the matter is that no Statute, Rule, Regulation, Code, or Ordinance stands superior to the U.S. Constitution. No man-made law carries sway over our natural rights and liberties as set forth in the U.S. Constitution. To say that we are a Nation ruled by laws and not by men is, thus, a horrible lie—a monstrous lie because it carries--as many effective lies do--a kernel of truth—namely that we are ruled by laws, but they are all arbitrary laws--laws that come and go, like the light of a firefly at night. But it is the light of the Ten Amendments that comprise our sacred Bill of Rights that shines forever and can never be dimmed or snuffed out. Those Laws--the Ten Amendments that comprise our Bill of Rights--are Sacred Principles, Sacred , Sacrosanct, and Inviolate Truths. These Truths embodied in our Bill of Rights cannot be muted, or undercut, or diluted, or deleted, or destroyed. To attempt to destroy our sacred Ten Amendments is to destroy this Nation and, yet, these Ten Amendments cannot ever truly be destroyed. They can never be destroyed because they live in us. They are intrinsic to our very being as Americans.We are a Nation that, ultimately, is ruled not by men, not by contingent, transient laws of men, and not by the edicts of men, but solely by the American People, as the Nation is in us as we are the embodiment of the Nation. The Nation is: We the People; and the sword and shield of the American People resides not in our laws--those contingent, transient things that come and go with the flow and ebb of time--but solely in the primordial, immutable, natural rights codified in the first Ten Amendments of the Nation’s Bill of Rights, a document seamlessly sewn into the fabric of the United States Constitution.

WHAT, THEN, SHOULD WE, AMERICANS, UNDERSTAND, FROM PRO-SECOND AMENDMENT BILLS, SUCH AS CONGRESSMAN COLLINS' SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT?

Congressman Chris Collins’ Second Amendment Guarantee Act must be viewed not as extending the right of the People to keep and bear arms—as those who oppose it would undoubtedly assert and thereupon argue that the bill should not be enacted into law--but should simply be understood as a reaffirmation of that fundamental, natural, primordial, preexistent, immutable Right as it exists, unconstrained: Pure, Infinite, all-Powerful, Supreme. As such, the Second Amendment remains, second to none, as the best guarantor of our freedom and our best hedge against tyranny.As a reaffirmation of the import of our sacred Second Amendment, Chris Collins' Second Amendment Guarantee Act can be improved. We explain how to do so, commencing with our next post._________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

CONGRESSMAN CHRIS COLLINS’ SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT (“SAGA”): A GOOD START BUT NOT A FINISHED PRODUCT

THE SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT

INTRODUCTION

The seminal Second Amendment Heller case (District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008)) made categorically clear and unequivocal that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected with one’s service in a militia; and the seminal Second Amendment McDonald case (McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010)) that followed Heller, two years later, made clear that the right of the people to keep and bear arms—an individual right—applies to the States as well as to the federal Government. Unfortunately, many State Legislatures, along with many legislators in Congress and, worst of all, many jurists on State or Federal Courts strongly oppose the holdings and reasoning of the Majority in Heller and McDonald. This animosity carries over to and is reflected in poorly drafted legislation and in poorly crafted legal opinions. Occasionally, though, State Legislatures and Congress get it right, and do draft laws recognizing the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms. Congressman Chris Collins’ (NY-27) Second Amendment Guarantee Act (“SAGA”) that the Congressman recently introduced in Congress is just such a bill. We heartily support the Congressman’s efforts. But, what might we expect?

WHAT IS THE POSSIBILITY OF PASSAGE OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT?

Unfortunately, not good. We take our cue from other pro-Second Amendment bills. We have yet to see movement on several national handgun carry reciprocity bills that presently exist in a state of limbo, locked up in Committee.  Even if Congressman Collins’ bill makes it out of Committee, and, further, is voted on and passes a full House vote, it likely would be held up in the Senate where it must garner a super majority—60 votes—to pass and see enactment. The bill likely would not pass as a “stand-alone” bill in any event. That means the bill would have to be tacked on to other legislation to have any chance of passage. But, assuming the bill were enacted, what might we expect from it?

WHY DID CONGRESSMAN COLLINS DRAFT THE SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT AND WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE BILL?

Congressman Collins, a Representative of New York, obviously had Governor Cuomo’s signature anti-Second Amendment legislation, the NY Safe Act, in mind, when he drafted this bill; for the bill, if enacted, is, ostensibly at least, at loggerheads with a key feature of the Safe Act—Section 37 of the Act—the Section that bans the possession and sale of all firearms defined as ‘assault weapons.’According to the Congressman’s Press Release “Congressman Chris Collins (NY-27) has proposed new measures for protecting Second Amendment rights by introducing legislation to limit states authority when it comes to regulating rifles and shotguns, commonly used by sportsmen and sportswomen. The Second Amendment Guarantee Act (SAGA) would prevent states from implementing any regulations on these weapons that are more restrictive than what is required by federal law. Upon passage of this bill, most of the language included in New York State’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act of 2013 signed into law by Governor Cuomo would be void." But, is that true? Is the Press Release accurate? Or, does the Press Release presume more about the bill than what the bill produces, in the event the bill, as drafted, sees the light of day and becomes law?

WHAT DOES THE BILL SAY?

The bill (H.R. 3576), amends Section 927 (Effect on State Law) of Chapter 44 (Firearms), of Title 18 (Crimes and Criminal Procedure) of the U.S. Code.As presently enacted Section 927, says:“No provision of this chapter [18 USCS §§ 921 et seq.] shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of the Congress to occupy the field in which such provision operates to the exclusion of the law of any State on the same subject matter, unless there is a direct and positive conflict between such provision and the law of the State so that the two cannot be reconciled or consistently stand together.”Collins’ bill deletes the first word of Section 927—the word, “No,”—and replaces that word with the phrase, “Except as provided,” and, then adds language, establishing, inter alia, that States cannot enact laws pertaining to rifles and shotguns that are “more restrictive. . . with respect to such a rifle or shotgun.” In pertinent part, Congressman Collins’ modification of Section 927 of Title 18 sets forth:“A State or a political subdivision of a State may not impose any regulation, prohibition, or registration or licensing requirement with respect to the design, manufacture, importation, sale, transfer, possession, or marking of a rifle or shotgun that has moved in, or any such conduct that affects, interstate or foreign commerce, that is more restrictive, or impose any penalty, tax, fee, or charge with respect to such a rifle or shotgun or such conduct, in an amount greater, than is provided under Federal law. To the extent that a law of a State or political subdivision of a State, whether enacted before, on, or after the date of the enactment of this subsection, violates the preceding sentence, the law shall have no force or effect. For purposes of this subsection, the term ‘rifle or shotgun’ includes any part of a rifle or shotgun, any detachable magazine or ammunition feeding device, and any type of pistol grip or stock design.”What does the modification of Section 927 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code purport to do; and what does the modification of Section 927 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code mean?To understand the import of Congressman Collins’ bill, it is first helpful, in this instance, to understand what those who oppose it would do to challenge it, assuming the Second Amendment Guarantee Act does become law—which is far from clear given Democrats’ hysterical aversion to the Second Amendment and Republicans’ constant foot-dragging.

IF ANTIGUN GROUPS AND LEGISLATORS CHALLENGE THE BILL IN THE EVENT IT BECAME LAW, UNDER WHAT GROUND MIGHT THE BILL BE CHALLENGED?

Congressman Collins’ bill is likely to face stiff opposition and resistance in Congress prior to enactment—assuming it even moves out of Committee—as it would almost certainly be challenged, inter alia, on Constitutional, Tenth Amendment grounds were the bill to become law.What does the Tenth Amendment say? The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The Tenth Amendment has always been a sticky wicket, especially in matters involving the Second Amendment because the matter of firearms’ regulations and licensing, apart from the regulation and licensing of machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and destructive devices, falls, traditionally, within the police powers of a State. Although the federal Government has, in the last several decades, amassed ever more powers unto itself, the fact of the matter is that this Nation is a confederation of independent sovereign States. This idea seems to be lost on people, not least of all in light of the present “Charlottesville” episode—a matter which the Arbalest Quarrel will be writing on in the near future, taking the mainstream news media to task for unleashing a wave of opinionated fake news on the matter, and which the mainstream media is egging the Trump Administration to handle, on the federal level, to support Marxist efforts to erase our Nation’s history, traditions, and core values.Yet, the federal Government cannot indiscriminately, lawfully, run roughshod over the States and the people. In the matter of Congressman Collins’ bill, the Second Amendment Guarantee Act, this creates something of a quandary; for, the bill—as the Congressman articulates through his Press Release—substantially preempts States’ rights on matters of firearms regulations and licensing. The paramount question is this: if Congressman Collins’ bill does become law, can those, who would then seek to mount a Tenth Amendment challenge against it, likely succeed in the Courts? The answer isn’t clear, but, a careful analysis of the bill’s text suggests the bill can survive a Tenth Amendment challenge, as it was carefully drafted to sidestep just such a challenge. Why do we say this? Well, looking at the Tenth Amendment issue, the actual drafter or drafters of the bill made clear the intent of the Act to supersede State regulation of and licensing of firearms; for, Congress would, under the Second Amendment Guarantee Act, be exercising its authority to regulate firearms moving in interstate commerce. It is a categorical, unequivocal principle of law that Congress has plenary power to regulate goods moving in interstate commerce under the Commerce clause. On that matter, no legitimate legal question exists, as the U.S. Supreme Court has made this point abundantly clear.“As we observed in Lopez, [United States v Lopez (1995) 514 U.S. 549, 131 L. Ed. 2d 626, 115 S. Ct. 1624] modern Commerce Clause jurisprudence has ‘identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power.’ 514 U.S. at 558 (citing Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 276-277, 69 L. Ed. 2d 1, 101 S. Ct. 2352 (1981); Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 150, 28 L. Ed. 2d 686, 91 S. Ct. 1357 (1971)). ‘First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.’ 514 U.S. at 558 (citing Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 256, 85 S. Ct. 348, 13 L. Ed. 2d 258 (1964); United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 114, 85 L. Ed. 609, 61 S. Ct. 451 (1941)). ‘Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities.’ 514 U.S. at 558 (citing Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U.S. 342 (1914); Southern R. Co. v. United States, 222 U.S. 20, 32 S. Ct. 2, 56 L. Ed. 72 (1911); Perez, supra, at 150). ‘Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, . . . i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.’ 514 U.S. at 558-559 (citing Jones & Laughlin Steel, supra, at 37). United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 609; 120 S Ct. 1740, 1749; 146 L. Ed. 2d 658, 670 (2000).”So, the Second Amendment Guarantee Act would likely survive a Tenth Amendment challenge. But, the strength of the bill, as drafted, also poses a weakness, notwithstanding. For, while State laws, such as New York’s SAFE Act and Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act, cannot, if Collins’ bill is enacted, most likely preclude importation of firearms into their State—including and importantly so-called assault weapons, as importation of such firearms affects interstate commerce and federal law, would, under the Second Amendment Guarantee Act, preempt State law in matters affecting interstate commerce—still, once the firearms are presented in States such as New York and Maryland, it isn’t clear, from the present language of the bill, that firearms’ dealers would be able to sell or trade such “assault weapons” to individuals residing in those States, so long as laws such as the SAFE Act and the Firearm Safety Act are in effect. And, those Acts would still be in effect. For, contrary to Collins’ Press Release, restrictive State gun laws, such as the NY Safe Act, do not, ipso facto, become nugatory. A legal challenge to the constitutionality of New York’s Safe Act and Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act would have to be made. But, once made, it is still unclear whether the Safe Act and the Firearm Safety Act could not prevent transfers of "assault weapons" to individuals, not under disability, within the State, on the ground that regulation of "assault weapons" was being conducted intrastate, thereby not affecting interstate commerce.The question, from the standpoint of those challenging restrictive gun legislation existent in States such as New York, Maryland, California, Hawaii, and others, then becomes whether so-called “assault weapons” that some States wish to ban and, at present, have banned outright, can be sold as “protected” firearms under federal law, once they are in a State, such as New York. If so, that means, then, that States could not legally proscribe the transfer, ownership, and possession of those weapons, try as they might. The issue raised by the Second Amendment Guarantee Act is analogous to the matter pertaining to machine guns, submachine guns, and selective fire weapons, as federal law completely preempts the field concerning those weapons, which means that States have absolutely no legal power to enact laws involving the regulation, licensing, and disposition of those kinds of weapons in their States. Federal law completely preempts the field in matters involving the licensing, regulation, and disposition of machine guns. Language in Section 922 (Unlawful Acts) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code makes clear the intent of Congress to preempt the field, in its entirety, in matters pertaining to the transfer and ownership and possession of machine guns. Paragraph “o” of Section 922 of Title 18 says,“(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun.(2)  This subsection does not apply with respect to—(A)  a transfer to or by, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof; or(B)  any lawful transfer or lawful possession of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date this subsection takes effect [effective May 19, 1986].”Curiously, the expressions, ‘firearm,’ ‘rifle,’ ‘shotgun,’ and ‘machine gun,’ are not defined in Section 922 of Chapter 4 (Firearms) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, where a person might expect to find them, but in Section 5845 of the Internal Revenue Service Code of the U.S. Code, 26 USCS § 5845. In 26 USCS § 5845(b), “The term ‘machinegun’ means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.”Keep in mind that Congressman Collins’ bill modifies Section 927 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code only, which deals with federal preemption of State law regulation of firearms,  generally, but the bill modifies nothing in Section 922 of Title 18, where one would expect to find an assertion of those particular firearms and firearms’ components that federal law is preempting States from regulating and there is no modification of Section 5845 of Title 26 (Internal Revenue Code) where firearm terminology is specifically defined. And, it is in Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code that we see federal preemption of regulation of machine guns; and it is in that same Section of Title 18 that, in 1994, Congress expressly banned ownership and possession of “assault weapons,” nationally—as part of antigun efforts that orchestrated enactment of the “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.” A national ban on the transfer of and ownership of so-called “assault weapons,” along with a ban on LCMs, was set forth in federal law, subsumed in Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. But inclusion of an “assault weapons” provision of Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which added a paragraph “v” which made it “unlawful for a person to manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon,” and inclusion of a ban on large capacity magazines, set forth in paragraph “w” of Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which made it “unlawful for a person to transfer or possess a large capacity ammunition feeding device,” both expired in September of 2003. Those provisions of Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code were never reauthorized, despite subsequent and numerous efforts by antigun politicians to do so.Since the impetus for the Second Amendment Guarantee Act was predicated, obviously and reasonably, on Congressman Collins' laudable desire to negate the impact of the NY Safe Act on the federal level, through the federal preemption—since Albany appears either unwilling or incapable of repealing the NY Safe Act on the State level itself—we can infer that the Second Amendment Guarantee Act was designed principally to preclude States, such as New York, from banning substantial numbers of semiautomatic firearms that’s State antigun legislators, with great fanfare, cast into the category of “assault weapons.”Congressman Collins, a staunch proponent of the Second Amendment, clearly seeks, through enactment of his bill, to provide Americans the converse—the flipside—of efforts to curb exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment Guarantee Act, as some would argue, proscribes States from regulating all categories of rifle and shotgun, thereby curbing, with one fell swoop, attempts by any State Legislature to impose specific restrictions on the ownership and possession of one large category of firearms, those subsumed under the nomenclature “assault weapons,” and curbing, as well, attempts by any State Legislature to impose size restrictions on ammunition magazines.But, does Congressman Collins’ bill, that modifies Section 927 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, make federal preemption of regulation of assault weapons and other firearms’ components absolutely clear?Once again, as presently enacted Section 927 says:“No provision of this chapter [18 USCS §§ 921 et seq.] shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of the Congress to occupy the field in which such provision operates to the exclusion of the law of any State on the same subject matter, unless there is a direct and positive conflict between such provision and the law of the State so that the two cannot be reconciled or consistently stand together.”Collins’ bill deletes the first word of Section 927—the word, “No,”—and replaces that word with the phrase, “Except as provided,” and, then adds language, establishing, inter alia, that States cannot enact laws pertaining to rifles and shotguns that are “more restrictive. . . with respect to such a rifle or shotgun.” But, and this is an important, but, is such language enough to negate restrictive State firearms’ legislation such as the NY Safe Act? We don’t think so—thus, the failings of the bill, in its current form. For, what do the words, ‘more restrictive with respect to such a rifle or shotgun,’ mean, here?The reader must understand that federal law preemption of firearms, Sections 921, et. seq., of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, is directed essentially to a specific class of firearms, namely machine guns. As made clear in paragraph "o" of Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, Federal law preempts the field as to those kinds of firearms only, and the language of the law makes federal preemption in matters involving the regulation of machine guns patently clear. Congressman Collins’ bill is silent on the subject of so-called “assault weapons”—which some believe Congressman Collins’ bill, if enacted, would adequately address, and which it must address if it were to do what it purports to do: preclude States from prohibiting the transfer and possession of firearms that New York’s Safe Act and Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act prohibit, expressly, and prohibit outright--"assault weapons."Had Congressman Collins’ bill been more explicit and precise, we believe that language should appear in Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code that would work in tandem with the language appearing in Section 927 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. And, in Section 5845 of Title 26, we would like to see language that clearly and specifically defines the expression 'semiautomatic weapons.' And, in Section 922 of Title 18, we would like to see language that sets forth the lawful transfer of all semiautomatic weapons to individuals, not under disability. The federal preemption Statute, namely, Section 927 of Title 18, as modified in the Second Amendment Guarantee Act would then make federal preemption of the entire field of semiautomatic firearms abundantly and categorically clear. Ideally, language modifying Section 5845 of Title 26, and modifying Sections 922 and 927 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code would establish federal preemption of the entire field of firearms but--and this next point is critical--only to the extent that such modifications serve to enhance the citizen’s right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. We have no desire to see federal preemption leading to mass registration of firearms and draconian licensing measures on the federal level that we already see much too often on the State level.Ideally, language in the Congressman’s bill would have set forth, in Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code explicit protection of all commercial transactions, among all the people, who are not under disability (as categories of disability are set forth with particularity in paragraph “g” of Section 922 of Title 18), involving all firearms—rifles, shotguns and pistols, whatever the configuration or mode of operation of those rifles, shotguns, and pistols; and, further, Collins’ bill should have included language doing away with BATFE licensing of such firearms as well, which, in the case of machine guns, involves a lengthy, time-consuming, expensive and mentally exhaustive process that does nothing to enshrine the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms, as exercise of that fundamental right is unduly hampered by a multitude of administrative obstacles. Lastly, we would like to see firearms’ licensing at both the State and Federal levels ended. As a parenthetical note, we point out that Congressman Collins’ bill is altogether silent on the matter of handguns which means that, under his bill, handguns would not be subject to federal preemption. States would still be able to impose draconian restrictions on the American citizenry in matters involving handguns. But, why should Americans suffer the indignity of exhaustive, extensive, and expensive firearms’ regulatory hurdles at all?One doesn’t need a license to freely exercise one’s right of free speech—at least at the moment—although leftwing groups—most notoriously, the so-called “ANTIFA,” an anarchist/communist, domestic terrorist group (as much as any other terrorist group that this Country formally recognizes), is doing its best to constrain the right of free expression in this Country. Why must one secure a license to exercise a fundamental natural right of self-defense, as firearms are the best means available to secure one's safety and well-being when threatened and access to firearms, for those not under disability (as set forth in paragraph "g" of Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code), is guaranteed under the Second Amendment!Congressman Collins’ modification of Section 927 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, alone, does not, we believe, adequately establish federal preemption of firearms’ regulation because the purpose of Section 927 is simply designed to preclude conflict between State and Federal firearms laws. That is the Section’s only purpose. Its purpose is not to define the kinds of firearms that fall under the auspices of federal preemption—which is addressed, and is meant to be addressed in Section 5845 of Title 26 of the U.S. Code (referred to more specifically as the Internal Revenue Code of the U.S. Code) and does not set forth the manner in which federal preemption of firearms is specifically addressed, as is the case with machine guns, as set forth in paragraph "o" of Section 922 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. We also note that the Congressman’s bill, as drafted, uses the permissive ‘may,’ rather than the obligatory ‘shall’ suggesting, then, that States might still regulate firearms, transecting, then, federal preemption, rather than being totally eclipsed by it. Furthermore, as drafted, Congressman Collins’ bill does not adequately establish the kinds of firearms that he intends federal law to preempt. The draft language of the bill simply sets forth that State law “may not” enact a law “that is more restrictive, or impose any penalty, tax, fee, or charge with respect to such a rifle or shotgun or such conduct, in an amount greater, than is provided under Federal law.” But, federal law, Sections 921 et. seq., direct attention to machine guns. Federal law does not address so-called “assault weapons”—semiautomatic weapons and, in New York, revolving cylinder shotguns (which are also defined as 'assault weapons'). Consider: had federal law still imposed federal licensing requirements on “assault weapons,” as it once had, in 1994, then New York’s SAFE Act and Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act, regulating such weapons, likely would have been struck down as unlawful under Section 927 because Federal law had, at that time, in effect, at least, preempted the field as to the regulation of assault weapons and large capacity magazines. What this means is that such restrictive State gun laws, regulating or proscribing ownership and possession of “assault weapons,” at that time, would either have been redundant, if otherwise consistent with federal law, or unlawful, if inconsistent with federal law.

CONCLUSION

The bottom line: In its present form, Congressman Collins’ Second Amendment Guarantee Act (“SAGA”), is a good start toward giving the Second Amendment full effect, as the framers of our Bill of Rights intended. And the Congressman is to be commended for his effort. But the bill, as drafted, leaves, we feel, too much uncertainty, in its present form, to be effective in defeating restrictive, draconian State gun measures like the New York’s Safe Act and Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act, contrary to the opinions of some. More work on the bill is needed. But, such work would, we feel, certainly be a worthwhile endeavor._________________________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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

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

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

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

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

TRUMP, UNSHACKLED BY REPUBLICAN PARTY DISUNITY, REMAINS STRONG TO WIN!

TRUMP, UNSHACKLED BY REPUBLICAN PARTY DISUNITY, REMAINS STRONG TO WIN!“. . . if the populace had any intelligence at all, the world wouldn’t be in its present condition. . . .” ~Captains And The Kings, by Taylor Caldwell, Part One, Chapter 24, page 260 (Doubleday & Company, Inc.)(1972)

INTRODUCTION

WHAT AMERICA GAINS THROUGH A TRUMP VICTORY IN NOVEMBER IS A RETURN TO SANITY; AND THE RETURN TO TRADITIONAL GOALS; AND A RETURN TO THE IDEALS OF OUR NATION AS HELD AND PROMOTED BY OUR FOUNDERS—IN SUM: PLACING THE NEEDS OF OUR NATION FIRST, NOT CONFLATING THE NEEDS OF OUR NATION WITH THOSE OF OTHER NATIONS AND WITH OTHER PEOPLES; AND IN EXTOLLING THE PRINCIPLE THAT WE ARE A NATION THAT RESPECTS AND HONORS THE  SANCTITY OF EACH LAW-ABIDING AMERICAN CITIZEN; AND THAT WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE INHERENT RIGHT OF EACH LAW-ABIDING AMERICAN CITIZEN TO LIVE HIS LIFE UNHINDERED BY GOVERNMENT AND FREE FROM THREAT OF GOVERNMENT RETRIBUTION FOR HAVING EXERCISED HIS OR HER RIGHTS UNDER THE BILL OF RIGHTS—THAT EACH CITIZEN HAS THE RIGHT TO BE LEFT ALONE.

The American public remains abysmally unaware of the danger posed by a Clinton Presidency. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have wreaked havoc with the economy, with our security, with our health care system, with our social and educational institutions, with our Constitution—in fact—with our National Identity. We are a unique people with a unique history, with a unique perspective on life, and with a unique way of life worth preserving. We are a Nation that places value on the individual and awards individual effort. These ideas are central to Donald Trump's political philosophy as one can deduce from an analysis of his speeches. But Clinton and Obama don’t agree with that philosophy. Their political philosophy devalues the individual. Their political philosophy subordinates the worth and sanctity of the individual to that of the collective, of the hive. We hear Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama express these alien, anti-American ideas in their own speeches. We see these alien, anti-American ideas expressed in their policy directives. They pontificate. They lecture Americans. They treat Americans in a condescending manner, drumming their drivel into the public's psyche through simplistic slogans, catchy phrases, and sanctimonious sermons. The mainstream media is their willing, treacherous accomplice in all of this, heralding, trumpeting the bizarre messages of Obama and Clinton and those like them, who seek to undermine the importance and sanctity of the individual and the sovereignty and independence of this Nation. Obama and Clinton suppress as subversive anything that is incompatible with the goals, aims and directives of their silent, secretive partners and benefactors who seek ever more control over the lives of Americans.Obama and Clinton, in accordance with the directives of their secretive partners and benefactors denigrate the notions of individual initiative, individual drive, and individual effort. Obama and Clinton seek to rework, reshape the American public in the mold of sameness. They seek to erase our sacred rights and liberties as heresy for those rights and liberties are grounded on yet one more basic and sacred right they cannot and will not abide: the right of the individual to be individual. Trump displays the very attribute of individuality that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and their benefactors and partners seek to stamp out, must stamp out if their goal of a New World Order is to succeed; and the powerful and corrupting influences at work in this Country and in the world at large know this very well. Through the tool of the mainstream media, they do everything in their considerable power to attack, demean, and discredit Trump—to discredit the right of the individual to be, in that person’s thought and actions, individual.

PART ONE

NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, IS MORE IMPORTANT, MORE CRITICAL TO THE SURVIVAL OF THIS NATION THAN THE PRESERVATION OF OUR RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES—ALL TEN OF THEM—AS CODIFIED IN OUR BILL OF RIGHTS. THESE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES ARE NOT TO BE IGNORED, REFUTED, DEBASED, SUPPRESSED OR DIMINISHED BY STATE OR FEDERAL LAW, BY EXECUTIVE FIAT, BY INTERNATIONAL LAW, OR BY OPERATION OF FOREIGN PACT, TREATY, UNDERSTANDING, OR AGREEMENT.

The primary, primordial right of the individual to be individual is embodied in our jurisprudence, in our Constitution, in the very existence of our Nation. We are the only Country in existence, founded on the sacred principle that the rights and liberties of this Nation’s citizens are not privileges, granted to the people through the grace of the State, but natural rights, preexistent and preeminent in the people themselves. Our Nation is also founded on the principal that the federal Government exists by grace of the People to serve the People. Government does not exist by its own grace; and the American People are not subjects or indentured servants of the State: they are not to be perceived as such and they are not to be treated as such. America’s citizens are individuals in whose hands, and in whose hands alone, ultimate power and authority resides. But, we don’t hear these points recited by our present President, Barack Obama, or by the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. President, Hillary Rodham Clinton.For all their pretentious pronouncements, Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama forbear from remarking on the import of our sacred rights and liberties. They forbear on remarking, that the power and authority residing in the American People is preeminent; that such power and authority given to the federal Government is by grant of the people; that such power and authority that Government has is limited; and that such power and authority the Government has exists to serve the People, not the other way around. Why do you suppose that is? The question is rhetorical. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton don’t talk about this. They don’t talk about our sacred rights and liberties in any meaningful way. They slither through any discussion of the citizenry’s sacred rights and liberties and they dismiss altogether any suggestion that ultimate power and authority resides in the American People. They do so because they mean to exercise power and authority for themselves, as regents on behalf of the puppet masters—the silent and secret masters who control them. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton muffle criticism and muzzle those who speak out in defiance to the lies and hoaxes they perpetrate on Americans. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton muffle criticism and muzzle those who dare point to the Obama and Clinton puppets’ callous disregard and contempt for Americans’ rights and liberties; for the callous disregard these puppets have for the Constitution and for the rule of law; for the callous disregard these puppets have for the security and well-being of this Country’s citizenry.

PART TWO

THE FOUNDERS OF OUR REPUBLIC WOULD FIND THE ETHICAL SYSTEM PROPOUNDED BY AND PROMOTED BY CLINTON AND OBAMA REPUGNANT TO THE FOUNDERS’ CONSCIENCE AND INCONSISTENT WITH THE IMPORT AND PURPORT OF THE NATION’S BILL OF RIGHTS.

Obama and Clinton assert they know what is in the best interests of the American People. Their notion of what is in the best interests of the American People is grounded in the ethical theory of utilitarianism, which looks at what is deemed to be in the best interests of society as a whole, as a collective. The problem with this notion is that it is antithetical to the founders’ ethical system. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on this in an article posted on our site on June 1, 2015, titled, "Guns, Knives, and Occam's Dangerous Razor." In codifying our rights and liberties, the founders of our Republic emphasized the importance of the individual, not the collective. But Obama and Clinton don’t like that idea. It gets in the way of their ability to interfere with and to interject themselves into the lives of average law-abiding Americans. For, if Obama and Clinton are going to create and implement policies grounded in notions of what is best for the collective—consistent with the principals of socialism and communism—then the needs and interests of the individual cannot and must not be factored into the mix.It is through the natural, inalienable rights and liberties codified in our Bill of Rights that the individual’s needs and interests—not those of the collective—may be expressed—and may be expressed free from Government control and interference.Indeed, Obama and Clinton argue that the exercise of individual rights and liberties is archaic. The individual is expected to give up any pretense of such individual right or individual liberty. He or she must do so for the benefit of society as a whole—for the benefit of the collective. Obama and Clinton operate as if the Bill of Rights doesn’t exist.Similarly, Obama and Clinton don’t mention that ultimate power resides in the American People because that fact is inconsistent with the Imperial Presidency. Through this notion of an Imperial Presidency, Obama has sought to accumulate ever more power in the Executive Branch at the expense of the other two Branches of Government. He obliterates the suggestion that our Constitution is structured on the governing principal that ultimate power and authority resides in the American People, not in the Federal Government, and certainly not in one Branch of Government. Clinton’s view of the Imperial Presidency would build on Obama’s.President Obama and Hillary Clinton have contempt for our rights and liberties as codified in the Bill of Rights. They have contempt for the Separation of Powers doctrine, reflected in the first three Articles of our Constitution. And, they have contempt for the fact that ultimate power and authority resides in the American People, not in the Government.As evidenced in their political philosophy, in their foreign and domestic policy directives, in their utilitarian consequentialist ethical system, which our Nation’s founders never ascribed to, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton respect not our Constitution, or our system of laws, or our traditions, culture, and history. They are both, at heart, Globalists and Internationalists, not Nationalists. For Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the expressions, ‘Nationalism,’ ‘National Pride,’ and ‘National Identity,’ ‘Protectionism,’ ‘Isolationism,’ and ‘Non-interventionism,’ ‘Secured Borders,’ and ‘Immigration Quotas,’ are vestiges of an earlier time, having no import today. Indeed, for Obama and Clinton such expressions are pejoratives.What the Arbalest Quarrel provides for you in this multipart series article is a comprehensive look at the nature of the stakes. We provide you a view of the political landscape that you won’t find in the mainstream media. We don’t paint for you a pretty picture here; but the conclusions drawn follow from the facts as we see them. We welcome your comments.

PART THREE

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA DELIBERATELY DISTORTS THE GRAPHIC IT DRAWS OF TRUMP. IT RAISES TRUMP’S PECCADILLOES TO THE LEVEL OF CRIMES WHEN THERE IS NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT CRIMINAL CHARGES OR CIVIL TORT LAWSUITS; AND NO CRIMINAL INDICTMENT OR CIVIL ACTION IS FORTHCOMING AGAINST HIM. INVERSELY, THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA’S ESTIMATION OF CLINTON’S MISCONDUCT IS, FOR THE MOST PART, ALL FLOWERS AND SUNSHINE. THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA CONVEYS THE IDEA THAT CLINTON’S FEDERAL FELONIES ARE NOTHING MORE THAN NON-ACTIONABLE “MISTAKES” NOTWITHSTANDING THE EXISTENCE OF SUBSTANTIAL AND SUBSTANTIVE EVIDENCE THAT CLINTON INTENTIONALLY OR THROUGH GROSS NEGLIGENCE COMMITTED SEVERAL FEDERAL FELONIES, AND DID SO REPEATEDLY, AND DID SO OVER AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME.

The mainstream media does not set the record straight. Rather, the mainstream media is the greatest enabler of and for the unlawful policies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The power the mainstream wields, as guaranteed to the Press under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution is all for naught. The sacred right is squandered. The mainstream media refuses to discuss the serious issues of the day. The media treats politics as entertainment, no more important than a sports event or celebrity show, perhaps even less important. The media, at the behest of the wealthy powerful, secretive, globalist interests that control them, treat the public to fluff and nonsense.Realizing how ridiculous it is to have endorsed a criminal for President of the United States, namely Hillary Rodham Clinton, the mainstream media finds it useful to attack her opponent’s character rather than to pay serious attention to the idiocy of their endorsement of Clinton. So, the mainstream media offers distractions for public consumption, raising embarrassing episodes in Donald Trump’s past, blowing those episodes up to major imbroglios as if to suggest that anything in Trump’s past could truly compare to the horrific conduct of Hillary Clinton: mishandling confidential government information, lying to federal investigators, selling out this Country for personal gain, and allowing Americans to die because it is inconvenient to send American troops to protect them. Hillary Clinton has committed felonies. The Nation has suffered because of them; lives have been lost. But, Trump’s personal indiscretions—none of them prosecutable crimes and certainly not felonies—are deemed by the Press to be worse. Fancy that!Clinton has harmed this Country. She has placed its citizens at unnecessary risk. She has placed this Nation’s system of laws and jurisprudence at risk. She has placed this Nation’s institutions at risk. She has shown her utter contempt for our Country’s Constitution, and she has demonstrated a flagrant disregard for the rights and liberties of American citizens under the Bill of Rights. Hillary Clinton has broken federal law both intentionally and through gross negligence. She has committed serious crimes. She has done so repeatedly and through an extended period of time. Not improbably, she still does. Yet, Americans are to believe, as professed by the mainstream media, by political pundits, by policy analysts, by news commentators, and by her supporters—albeit wrongly—that Clinton is fit to hold the Office of President of the United States and that Donald Trump is not.But, on the measure of misconduct, whose sins are greater, really? Clinton’s criminal misconduct is not unimportant or irrelevant. Many commentators point to the fact that Clinton has, to date, not been indicted, as if to suggest or to expressly assert she committed no crime. But failure of prosecutors to indict does not entail, either in law or logic, that a crime has not been committed. There are often many reasons prosecutors do not indict a person on criminal charges even if prosecutors have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. In the case at hand, it is not beyond the realm of reasonable inference that the U.S. Department of Justice was prepared to indict Clinton but was pressured not to. That suggests our Government has suffered a quiet coup d'état. If so, what is at stake for the American People in this election is not simply a choice of different political philosophical viewpoints: Democratic or Republican? No! What it is that is at stake in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election suggests something no less critical than the greatest ordeal to face this Nation since the American Revolution: Americans either retake their Country that totters, now, at the brink of dissolution or Americans suffer the loss of their Country forever.

PART FOUR

THE CORRUPTING FORCES AND INFLUENCES THAT CONTROL THE INNER WORKINGS OF THIS COUNTRY AND THAT SEEK TO MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO AT ALL COSTS ARE AFRAID OF TRUMP.

As the 2016 U.S. Presidential election grows near, mainstream media, including major newspapers, like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and major broadcast networks, namely and particularly, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX News Channel, mislead the Public to promote an agenda that has nothing to do with providing fair, unbiased reporting of the news. They do so endlessly, relentlessly, tirelessly, and tediously. Trump draws flak from the billionaire donor class, from international globalists, multinational conglomerates, and from neoliberal economists. He draws flak from President Barack Obama, and from Obama’s wife, Michelle. Trump draws flak from Hollywood moguls and film actors. He draws flak from the Communist Party USA, from Democratic Party leaders, and from Clinton followers.Each, in his or her or its own way, seek to displace Trump and place Hillary Rodham Clinton in the White House, using every sleight of hand and subterfuge, every dirty trick, every artifice, every psychological methodology and propagandist tool at their disposal—anything and everything to nudge the public to accept Hillary Clinton as the best choice, the inevitable choice—the legitimate choice, the only real choice for U.S. President.If Hillary Rodham Clinton, by hook or crook, as the case may be, as the case certainly is, successfully claws her way to victory in November, it will be through no small help of her vast army of surrogates, benefactors, and enablers. If she secures the U.S. Presidency, she will lead this Country to its destiny. But that destiny is one the average American would find both unfamiliar and most disagreeable: the destruction of the U.S. Constitution, the end of the rule of law, and the end of this Country as an independent, sovereign Nation State. The Clinton family will make out just fine. They will be paid handsomely by their Globalist Benefactors as they sell this Country out, for pennies on the dollar, like privateers and hucksters who sell off the assets of a company for their own personal gain, heartlessly casting the employees out into the void, leaving the company a dry, empty husk.In their effort to promote, for U.S. President, the most corrupt politician this Country has ever seen, Hillary Clinton, those individuals and groups, who seek to sit their puppet, Clinton, in the Oval Office, attack the Republican Party candidate, Donald Trump viciously and unconscionably. They do so on specious, spurious grounds. They drum up titillating material to thwart Trump’s campaign because they know his policy issues are rational and sound but detrimental to their goals of a tightly nested confederation of Western member nations—all of them ruled through a single technocratic governing European body, the New World Order, presided over by trillionaire international bankers: the Rothschild clan.The Rothschilds have pulled out all the stops. The clan overtly supports Hillary Clinton for President, as acknowledged by the New York Times, and as the Arbalest Quarrel has written about in an article posted on our site, on September 12, 2016, titled, "Hillary Rodham Clinton: The Candidate Of Choice Of The Secretive, Powerful, Incredibly Wealthy Internationalist Rothschild Family."The proponents of the New World Order have their own Agenda. It is one contrary to the well-being of and continued sanctity of the United States as an independent sovereign Nation.

PART FIVE

DO CENTRIST REPUBLICANS SECRETLY SUPPORT THE AGENDA OF CLINTON’S SUPPORTERS AND BENEFACTORS?

WHERE ARE CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS TO BE FOUND? WHY HAVE THEY NOT COME TO TRUMP’S AID?What we find difficult to understand and vehemently take exception with are attacks against Trump by many Congressional Republicans. Do they not realize that, by attacking Trump, they are playing into the hands of Clinton’s supporters and benefactors, especially the Rothschild clan? From their actions we can only surmise that Congressional Republicans who speak out against Trump share, if tacitly, the sentiments of those who actively support Clinton. And, those Congressional Republicans who remain silent, who fail to take a stand to support Trump, are nonetheless complicit in the condemnation of Trump and, so, no better than those Republican Congressmen who speak out, overtly, against him.No Republican Congressman can sit idle, inconspicuous in this, riding the waves quietly like a jellyfish. The American People are not fooled. There is no place for reticence here, not when the very survival of our Country, and of our Constitution, and of our very way of life is at stake.

WHAT DO CLINTON’S BENEFACTORS WANT? WHAT ARE THEIR AIMS AND THEIR WISH FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY?

The attacks against Trump are vigorous, wearingly repetitive, and unremitting. What do these individuals and groups support? They support globalism, multiculturalism and neoliberal free trade agreements. They support constraints on freedom of speech. They support reduction in, if not outright elimination of, the rights and liberties of American citizens—those rights and liberties existent in our Nation’s citizenry as natural rights, as codified in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights.Those who attack Trump support de facto if not de jure repeal of the Second Amendment right of the People to keep and bear arms. They support abortion on demand, open borders, and general amnesty for illegal aliens. They support federal control of State police forces, extension of federal powers and authority, and concomitant reduction in the powers reserved to the States through the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.The individuals and groups that attack Donald Trump support subordination of the U.S. Constitution and subordination of our body of laws and of our jurisprudence to the laws of other nations and to foreign jurisprudence, consistent with the dictates of the UN and with international pacts, treaties, and mandates. Yet the subordination of our laws, our Constitution, our jurisprudence to those of other nations, or to the dictates of foreign courts and to international courts, and to foreign tribunals, is anathema. Such notion is in contradistinction to the precept that the U.S. Constitution and U.S. law and U.S. jurisprudence supersede those of any other nation and supersede the dictates of orders of foreign courts and foreign tribunals.Our Constitution mandates the absolute supremacy of our laws and legal system. It does not allow the ceding of our Nation’s legal authority and dominance to anyone. It mandates the independence and superiority of our laws and our Court Orders over any ruling and any holding of any foreign court or foreign tribunal. It mandates dominance over the rulings and orders of international courts, over the rulings and orders of courts of other nations, and over the rulings and orders of any foreign tribunal or foreign administrative panel, regardless of any suggestion by treaty, or pact, or UN or EU decree to the contrary.Those individuals and groups that attack Trump support growth of the Welfare State and the continuation of deficit spending. They support elimination of the death penalty even for individuals convicted of the most despicable, heinous crimes. They support affirmative action and absolute federal control of public school education. They support expansion of the power of the Federal Reserve which they believe is a vital institution of Government even though it isn’t a Governmental institution at all but simply a private entity.The very existence and power wielded by the Federal Reserve System of Banking has devastated the financial well-being of this Country while enriching the international central banking consortium that operates to enslave us, the international Rothschild banking clan—a family that, collectively, holds trillions of dollars in assets. With the financial power the international Rothschild banking family wields, this one international family of bankers has controlled, through the centuries, up to the present time, the financial system of the world. Through the central banking system that the family’s Patriarch, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, created in the eighteenth century, and which has served the family well through the centuries—at the expense of the nations where these banks operate, leaving nations bankrupt—these privately held central banks operate in every corner of the world, in virtually every major nation on this planet. Like a black hole in the center of every galaxy in the universe, the Rothschilds, through their banks, control the destinies of nations, vacuuming up the lifeblood of each nation to fill their own coffers, leaving each nation bone dry.The individuals and groups that attack Trump support vast expenditures of taxpayer monies to foreign countries, absent proof of benefit to our own Country. They support endless war, and continued and costly foreign interventionism. They promote entangling—rather than untangling—foreign alliances.Such policy and philosophical goals, objectives, positions, and initiatives undermine the core values, principals, and traditions of our Country. Such policy and philosophical goals, objectives, positions, and initiatives undermine our Country’s economic well-being and physical security. Worst of all, such policy and philosophical goals, objectives, positions, and initiatives undermine the continued independence of and sovereignty of the United States. Hillary Clinton supports them, declaring her support openly, avidly. Donald Trump does not, and powerful interests both here and abroad know this. That’s why they want Hillary Clinton seated in the White House, not Trump. Hillary Clinton’s benefactors, first and foremost, the Rothschild clan—extraordinarily wealthy, all-powerful, secretive, immoral or otherwise amoral corrupting interests and influences at work in the world today are concerned—actually frantic with worry—over a Trump victory in November. But, average, law-abiding Americans have more to fear from a Clinton victory in November. After Brexit, Clinton’s benefactors do not intend to lose their control of the United States Government. They are controlling this U.S. Presidential cycle with the fury and frenzy of a shark attack.Through the power of the Office of the Chief Executive and as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, Hillary Clinton would, if elected U.S. President, command vast Governmental resources. She will be in the position to bend and violate our laws to benefit herself personally, to benefit her benefactors, to benefit her family, and to benefit the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation—all at the expense of the well-being of and the security of the American people, and at the expense of and well-being of U.S. interests. To get a handle on the corruption inherent in the Clinton Foundation. See the  “Clinton Cash Documentary Movie” (in full) on youtube.  See also the New York Post article on Clinton corruption, dated August 3, 2016, titled, "New revelations show a nation for sale under Hillary Clinton." All the while Hillary Clinton will claim her interests are to be equated with America’s interests—that they are the same, when in fact they are not. Such is the viewpoint of despots the world over, throughout history.

PART SIX

BARACK OBAMA AND HILLARY CLINTON DO NOT REPRESENT THE NATION’S  INTERESTS OR THE NEEDS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE; THEY FORCE A BIZARRE, ALIEN AGENDA ON OUR NATION AND ITS PEOPLE—AN AGENDA AT ODDS WITH OUR TRADITIONS, OUR HISTORY, OUR CONSTITUTION, AND THE PRINCIPLES LAID DOWN FOR THIS NATION BY AMERICA’S FOUNDERS.

President Obama has, throughout his Presidency, slowly, insidiously—often beneath the threshold of the American public’s conscious perception—insinuated an alien idea into the American psyche, and upon that idea he has, on behalf of the puppet masters to whom he has silently, secretly declared his true allegiance, the international Rothschild clan, betrayed his oath of Office; betrayed his duty to serve our Country; and betrayed his duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution.The idea germinating in the American psyche, as promoted by Obama, stated succinctly, is this: Americans are citizens of the world, not merely citizens of America. Obama, on behalf of his benefactors, has sullied a basic precept, namely that each Nation has a unique history; its own set of laws; and its own core values. That means each nation is to be left alone and to its own devices unless that nation aggressively interferes in the internal affairs of and in the security of another nation.That means, too, we, Americans, are not to interfere in the affairs of other nations unless those other nations interfere in our affairs or in our security, or with our clearly defined interests. And if such other nation interferes in the affairs of our nation or endangers the security of our nation, then we may deal with that nation directly and harshly, and with finality. We have done so in the past and we should return to that singular policy stance now. Obama doesn’t adhere to that policy position because he doesn’t adhere to the sanctity of the Nation State. He suggests the very concept of the Nation State is, at that concept exists today, destructive to world peace.Obama has made his position poignantly clear, during his last speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 2016. See, Obama's last speech to the UN General Assembly, delivered on September 20, 2016, as posted by the White House, on its own website. Obama says,  in pertinent part, “This speaks to a central question of our global age: whether we will solve our problems together, in a spirit of mutual interests and mutual respect, or whether we descend into destructive rivalries of the past. When nations find common ground, not simply based on power, but on principle, then we can make enormous progress. And I stand before you today committed to investing American strength in working with nations to address the problems we face in the 21st century. . . . On issue after issue, we cannot rely on a rule-book written for a different century. If we lift our eyes beyond our borders – if we think globally and act cooperatively – we can shape the course of this century as our predecessors shaped the post-World War II age.” On the surface, through a superficial appraisal of Obama’s speech to the UN General Assembly, the speech appears eloquent and innocuous and, to some listeners, no doubt, even uplifting. Yet, dig deep into an analysis of that speech, and the ugly underbelly of the policy aims set forth in Obama’s speech come to light. The insidious goals of Obama’s puppet masters, whom Obama owes his allegiance, are cloaked in moralistic terminology, as illustrated in Obama’s speech to the UN General Assembly. Yet, the central premise of the speech contains a frightening portent. Obama speaks of subordinating our Nation’s needs and using our Nation’s resources for the ostensible benefit of a nebulous world community. Obama’s seemingly lofty political message to the UN General Assembly this past September paraphrases a Marxian World Political Economy Doctrine, albeit one with an interesting twist. Instead of promoting the destruction of Nation States through the rise of international labor, Obama promotes a political and economic schema that would bring to fruition the dream of the Patriarch of the international Rothschild clan, Meyer Amschel Rothschild.The Governments of the major nations of the world, under the secret directive of the Rothschild clan, must cede economic and political control, and, eventually, they must cede social and lawmaking control. True power already resides in an integrated, intertwining, interlocking network of central banks. Eventually all decisions would emanate through a hidden cabal of powerful international financial robber barons, who, in turn, are ruled by and who receive their directions from the trillionaire banking Rothschild clan.In either scenario, be it a Marxian world political economic system ruled by labor through its international representatives or, as we see materializing, a world ruled by and under the Rothschild central banking system, and Rothschild technocrats  the destruction of the United States as an independent, sovereign Nation is assured. But, Barack Obama doesn’t talk about that. The social engineering program he employs, at the behest of the puppet masters, the Rothschilds, is subtle.Slowly, through the mainstream media, as a tool of social conditioning, Obama has conditioned Americans to accept the new precept, set forth more fully, thusly: Americans are citizens of the world and that, as citizens of the world, we must embrace the needs of and the dangers faced by those peoples of other nations, and that our citizens must suffer the needs and dangers of those others, though we be not the cause of such needs or sufferings of others; and that we, Americans, must accept the needs or sufferings or dangers, of other peoples of other nations in the world, willingly, obligingly, because it is the moral thing, the “right thing” to do.Americans are expected to accept this as our new precept, our new credo, even a mantra—one to replace our Nation’s precept as set forth in the Preamble to our Constitution, proclaiming our “Nation State” to be sacred and inviolate; proclaiming the duty of the leaders of our Country to abide by the constraints imposed in the Constitution.

PART SEVEN

OUR CONSTITUTION’S PREAMBLE MAKES PLAIN THAT THE NATIONS CONCERNS RESIDE WITH THE NATION AND WITH THE CITIZENRY OF THE NATION; THOSE CONCERNS DO NOT EXTEND TO NATIONS AND PEOPLES BEYOND OUR SHORES. WE SHOULD NOT INTERFERE IN THE AFFAIRS OF OTHER NATIONS, AND THEY, FOR THEIR PART, MUST NOT INTERFERE IN THE AFFAIRS OF OURS.

The core purport of our Nation as a unique Nation is set forth, thusly, in the Preamble to the United States Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”Nothing in our Constitution—certainly nothing in the Preamble, the Articles, or the Bill of Rights, the components of our Nation's Constitution—says, overtly, tacitly, or tangentially, that our Country is to be the police force of and the caretakers of the rest of the world. Yet, Obama’s ethical posture, and that of Hillary Clinton, as heralded by the mainstream media, is to do just that: to become the police force and caretakers of the world, to ignore the very import and purport of our Constitution. The posturing of these imposters, masquerading as concerned leaders of our Nation, displays their arrogance, the danger they pose to preservation of our Constitution and free Republic, and the harm they would callously inflict on our citizenry under the guise of promoting civil harmony, piety, and decorum in the affairs of our Nation.Yet, by interfering in the affairs of other nations and other peoples —which Obama sees merely as a benign coordinating of efforts with other Nations to ensure peace—we are inviting other nations and savage actors to wage war against us, and to interfere in our internal affairs. Hillary Clinton would continue the use of our Nation’s armed forces as a wrecking ball, plowing through the world, causing anger, resentment, and rage—all the while claiming that this Nation is working with other nations to maintain peace in the world. The existent dangers in the world today belie the stated objectives. Obama and Clinton argue, essentially, that we must foment unwinnable wars in order to maintain the peace. The blatant absurdity of this pronouncement—this doublespeak—should be lost on no one. The unrest and upheaval present in the world today was planned all along. Obama and Clinton play the American public for fools.Through the resulting confusion—one engineered quietly behind the scenes by the Rothschild clan—the resulting breakdown of law and order in the Nation States, including our own, leads inexorably and inevitably to the ultimate breakdown of the foundation of Nation States. For Americans, we witness the breakdown of our Nation State.By opening the floodgates of our Nation to millions of refugees, irrespective of the dangers posed to our Nation and to its citizenry, Barack Obama suggests that we, Americans, as citizens of the world, should adjust to the new reality, to share in the dangers posed to citizens in any other part of the world. He doesn’t say this but his actions support that idea. Hillary Clinton accepts the precept. If she secures the U.S. Presidency, her foreign and domestic policies will be influenced and informed by it. The danger to the safety and security of our citizenry is prescient; it is expected; it is even desired. And the American people will suffer for it.The public sees the breakdown of law and order. Hillary Clinton’s response: suspension of our Bill of Rights and, in particular, suspension of the right of the people to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. She declares martial law. The foundation of our Nation fractures. Our Constitution, our system of laws, and the social and economic structure of our society all begin to crumble. Clinton engineers plans for the creation of a new Constitution—one consistent with those of the Countries of Western Europe. The affairs of our Nation become intertwined with those of other nations. We lose our National identity. We lose our Country.Obama’s new precept contradicts the inviolability of the ‘Nation State.’ The new precept is inconsistent with our Constitution, because it weakens our Constitution. Insinuation of the new precept into the design and implementation of foreign and domestic policies engenders the erosion of our institutions, of our laws, of our economy, of our culture and history, of our very identity as a unique and sovereign Country—one in which the citizens control Government and control their destiny—one contrary to the dictates of those powerful, internationalist interests who see our Country as part of a greater whole, a carbon copy of the others. To these individuals, to the Rothschilds, nations are politically identical to each other. The strength of all nations engenders relinquishing of individual national identity. This is, as the Rothschilds see it, as they want it, and as they plan for it. Through each nation’s contiguity to the other and in each nation’s political, economic, and social structure, each nation is essentially a carbon copy of the other. The goal is to dissolve the very concept of national unity, of national identity, of national pride. No nation is unique or is to be perceived as unique. Rather, each nation state must conform to the other, having the same  ideology, the same currency, the same constitution and set of laws, perhaps even the same language, identical—overseen and managed by one world government, abutting each other seamlessly like dozens of tessellating cubes. Individual history would be erased. National identity would be erased; culture, heritage, ethos--all amorphous, none unique.Under the new schema of political thought engendered by Obama, the concept of the ‘Nation State’ is archaic, obsolete, as is our Constitution. As liberal-wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had infamously asserted, in her remarks to the Egyptian Government, on February 6, 2012, in an article, titled, “Ginsburg to Egyptians: I wouldn’t use U.S. Constitution as a model,” as posted by Fox News Politics, “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.”  Apparently, the United States Constitution—one that has stood the test of time, as attested to by the greatness of our Nation—is no longer good enough for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Our Constitution is to be discarded like an old lease agreement, redrafted, and replaced with one that better reflects her own judicial, political, and moral philosophy, and her own jurisprudential concerns. Imagine Justice Ginsburg lecturing and scolding the founders of our Republic!Consider what the new Constitution would look like if Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, and past Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, and President Barack Obama, and Democratic Presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, all had a hand in redrafting the U.S. Constitution—one they see as more fitting for the 2lst Century.If Donald Trump wins the U.S. Presidential election, he will upend the Apple Cart of the imposters and destroyers of our Country and its Constitution. Trump's Presidency will mark a return to sanity, a return to traditional values, principals, and precepts—those held by the founders of our Nation. Hillary Clinton, though, will build on Obama’s legacy. Obama and Clinton hope that the familiarity of it is something they can build on it as this Country moves further away from its historical roots.

PART EIGHT

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AND DEMOCRATIC PARTY PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, HILLARY CLINTON, HAVE TWISTED AND CONTORTED THE SACRED PRECEPTS OF OUR NATION BEYOND ANYTHING OUR FOUNDERS WOULD HAVE ACCEPTED OR CONDONED.

The United States that exists today is something alien to anything our founders envisioned. What Obama and Clinton envision for our Country is abhorrent. They would use—have used—our armed forces to promote causes and interests that do not ensure the security of this Nation but, rather, endanger it.Obama and Clinton use advertisement firms, they use the mainstream media, they use speech writers, they use communication specialists, they use psychologists and propagandists, and they use social engineers to market their toxic policies and toxic brand to the American People. They market their poisonous policies and their initiatives as something palatable, even nourishing. The fact remains, their foreign policies and initiatives have weakened the security of our Nation.The Clinton and Obama economic trade policies are just as disastrous. Clinton and Obama spring them on the American people suddenly and offer them to the public as something as inviting, even necessary. Yet, NAFTA has devastated our domestic economy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP)—drafted over several years in secret, that the public has only recently heard about—and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—also drafted over several years in secret that few people even know about—both of which Clinton will sign if she becomes President if these trade pacts cross her desk—and make no mistake about the fact that she will sign them—will essentially end comprehensive manufacturing of quality products in this Country. Ever more struggling small and medium size businesses will cease to exist as the multinational conglomerates squeeze them out of existence.Hillary Clinton will work, quietly, behind the scenes, to make sure TTP and TTIP are actualized. She will do so because Obama seeks to have them implemented. She will sign them because she intends to pursue Obama’s policies if she becomes the next U.S. President. She will sign these trade pacts because they are her trade pacts as well, as she helped draft them. She will sign these trade pacts because the Rothschild family wants to see them implemented. Yet these trade pacts are designed not only to weaken our economy further, harming American labor and small business, but are also designed to weaken our Nation’s laws, our Constitution, our entire legal system, subordinating America’s sovereign interests to another entity entirely—one comprising an interlocking collective of foreign nations and foreign holding companies—a collective, ruled by the Rothschild clan, governed by the clan’s underlings, financial and political technocrats. These technocrats do not consider themselves and are not--in any reasonable sense of the word 'citizen'--citizens of the United States; nor are they--as Obama and Clinton would make Americans--"citizens of the world;" nor do not owe allegiance to any nation. They certainly do not owe their allegiance to the United States. Their allegiance is to the shadow world government, with the Rothschild clan at its head.These foreign intrigues, entangling alliances, liberal immigration policies, and disastrous trade policies, all reflect a trend toward subordination of American interests to the interests of a new amorphous confederation of nations, resulting in the transferring of our wealth, our resources, and even our lives to foreign interests, foreign pursuits, and foreign goals. Obama and Clinton tell us, duplicitously, disingenuously, and hypocritically that America’s sacrifices are necessary because they promote worthy causes. But, what worthy causes are they talking about, and worthy to whom, and for what purpose, and to what end?

PART NINE

HOUSE SPEAKER PAUL RYAN, PRINCIPAL LEADER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, HARMS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND HARMS THE NATION BY DENOUNCING TRUMP

Why has House Speaker Paul Ryan, the leader of the Republican Party, spoken out against Trump? Having denounced Trump, he acknowledges his tacit support of Hillary Clinton. He cannot reasonably deny this, much as he may like to.Paul Ryan’s pious pronouncements against Trump are insupportable. They are reprehensible. Trump is guilty of nothing more than braggadocio. That isn’t a crime. But, that simple fact is lost in the noise generated by Clinton’s supporters, enablers, and surrogates, and further fanned by the flame of the machinery of the mainstream media. But, there is, for all the commotion, no basis for concluding that Donald Trump has engaged in prosecutable criminal conduct. Clinton’s supporters, enablers, and surrogates have not demonstrated otherwise because they cannot, much as they would like to.Clinton’s supporters and benefactors have dug deep into Trump’s past, and what they have come up with, ultimately, is merely nothing more than a man’s bravado, based solely on a private discussion between two men, which the mainstream media, to its shame, broadcast to the world. A parade of women, coming out of the woodwork of late, obviously as a result of the release of the private tape and almost certainly at the behest of Clinton’s supporters, hangers-on, and benefactors—alleging sexual assault by Trump—does nothing, in the insinuations, to support an actionable basis for a civil lawsuit, much less a crime.What the American public is witnessing is nothing less than a massive smear campaign, conceptualized and orchestrated by Clinton’s staff and by her benefactors to prop up their puppet and to draw attention away from her own failings, which, on balance, are much more serious, and have been much more harmful to this Country and to Americans than anything that Clinton’s supporters, staff, and benefactors have manufactured or can manufacture against Trump.Whatever one is to make of Donald Trump’s conduct, it pales in significance to that of Hillary Clinton. The F.B.I. was not—is not—interested in investigating Trump for malfeasance, for no allegations are forthcoming that Trump has done anything that would suggest he had harmed the interests of the United States or that he would ever wish to harm the interests of the United States. No one can make any such claim for Hillary Clinton, for she has harmed the United States and she has done so repeatedly and callously through a lengthy period of time. Hillary Clinton has committed crimes, serious crimes against this Country and against the American people. The Arbalest Quarrel has detailed those crimes in several articles. We draw your attention to two in particular: one posted on August 17, 2016, titled, "Pay to Play: The Clinton's Open Secret and Silent Purpose;" and a second on September 26, 2016, titled, "Hillary Clinton: A Flawed Character for Those Who See the U.S. as Flawed."   But the mainstream news media has precious little to say about Clinton’s crimes. Why is that? The mainstream media uses their resources, 24/7, smearing Trump over matters that don’t come close to the misconduct of Hillary Clinton. For, as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has endangered the security and well-being of this Nation and her actions have directly or indirectly harmed many Americans, including those that worked under her. One can only wonder at the damage she’d do to this Country as U.S. President, of the damage she is capable of doing to this Country and to American citizens.Curiously, if Hillary Clinton applied for a job with the F.B.I., her application would be denied out-of-hand. She is a security risk. That is plain and irrefutable. Given that simple truth, it defies credulity to believe she can be trusted with our Nation’s secrets—secrets she would have at her disposal as U.S. President.If Hillary Clinton loved our Country and truly had remorse for her past actions, she would not run for political Office. She would realize how shameful it is for her to consider running for any political office, let alone that of the highest Office in the Land.Obviously, Hillary Clinton has no remorse. She is utterly shameless. Clinton disingenuously says of her past criminal conduct that she has made mistakes and that she takes full responsibility for her actions. But what do those assertions even mean? What are the consequences of her criminal behavior? If nothing, then whom is she attempting to flatter with her feigned, half-hearted attempts to appease?  Is Clinton reproaching herself because she is sorry for committing serious crimes, even now that she, apparently, no longer has to fear retribution through criminal indictment on charges of committing federal felonies, thanks to our illustrious Department of Justice that has shirked its responsibility to mete out justice? Or, is Clinton exclaiming her concern over the fact that she has been caught and seeks to avoid the one repercussion of her criminal misconduct she truly fears, loss of the U.S. Presidency that she lusts for?Clinton’s expressions of concern are, like all of her other public pronouncements, nothing more than self-serving, vacuous platitudes. Clinton and the mainstream media know this. Yet, the mainstream media refrains from calling Clinton on the carpet for her empty, disingenuous remarks.

PART TEN

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA MALIGNS TRUMP’S CHARACTER, BUT IT IS CLINTON’S CHARACTER THAT THE MEDIA SHOULD IMPUGN.

Hillary Clinton is a repugnant individual. Many who support her know this, yet may vote for her anyway because they seek to benefit personally from her position as President of the United States and/or they share the same goals. She is the darling of the abhorrent Rothschild clan.But, Hillary Clinton is also a sociopathic personality. That’s her nature. It is implied in her actions, in her words, in material she would like to suppress, and in material she has suppressed or intentionally destroyed. Hillary Clinton is also temperamental, vindictive, treacherous, duplicitous, and incapable of sympathy or empathy for others. She is subject to angry outbursts and diatribes. She is psychologically unstable and likely suffers from one or more neurological pathologies.Clinton is much like a viper. Yet, one doesn’t hate a viper for being a viper. One understands it is in the nature of a viper to cause harm. That is the essence of its character. So, how do we handle a viper? Well, we do not place a viper in a position where it can do harm. We mind it closely. We look for the possibility it may strike without notice. We contain it. We know its venom can kill.If we can forgive Clinton, it is because she, like a viper, is an inherently flawed character, altogether beyond redemption. But that does not mean or extend to supporting her candidacy. But, what we cannot, must not, forgive are those individuals who enable her. And, the worst of the lot are individuals like Paul Ryan. Republicans, like Paul Ryan, should know better. But they are amoral individuals, proverbial opportunists, more concerned about their personal success, accumulation of personal wealth, political survival, and personal well-being than for the well-being of the Country they are sworn to serve.Because politicians like Paul Ryan are not beyond redemption, they are worthy of our condemnation. We rightfully despise them when they fill the air waves with their false piety. They are hypocrites. They earn our condemnation.The Arbalest Quarrel has said, some time ago, in an article posted on our site, on February 18, 2014, titled, "Truth and Hypocrisy: 'Bill Of Rights' Betrayal." Hypocrisy is the worst behavior. Hypocrisy is, sadly, ubiquitous in politics. It need not be. It should not be. But, it is so.

PART ELEVEN

HOUSE SPEAKER PAUL RYAN TURNS HIS BACK ON DONALD TRUMP AND, IN SO DOING, TURNS HIS BACK ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND ON THE COUNTRY.

In asserting he will no longer campaign for Trump, Paul Ryan has turned his back on the Republican Party and, more, he has turned his back upon the Country. Ryan may not like Donald Trump but Trump is the Party’s candidate for U.S. President. Republicans nominated him. Trump won the right to represent the Party. He fought hard for the nomination, against a large field of well-funded often very bright and, in a couple of cases, brilliant politicians. He did so fairly and squarely. Moreover, Trump singlehandedly raised tens of millions of dollars for the Party. Yet the Party bites the hand that feeds it.Republican Party officials are poor gamesmen. They play to lose, not to win. They should take their cues from the masters of Chess, for politics is like Chess. Chess is a complex game, as is politics. A grand master knows when to sacrifice a lesser piece to gain advantage. A grand master knows he must sacrifice Pawns. But he will also sacrifice Knights, Bishops, and Rooks to gain a tactical advantage.Occasionally, a grand master will even sacrifice his Queen, the most powerful game piece on the board. He will do so to gain strategic advantage, dangerous as that move is. But, neither grandmaster nor novice will sacrifice his King. He cannot. He must not; never. That’s axiomatic. For, once the opposing side knocks out the King, that signals, checkmate: game over.Paul Ryan, a political grandmaster, or seemingly so, should know that, by sacrificing his King—the Republican Party nominee for U.S. President, Donald Trump—he is not placating the opposing side and he is not making his own position secure. Ryan will never be able placate the other side. He should know this, and he has not ensured the security of his own position. Rather, he has simply capitulated. He has thrown in the towel. He has checkmated the Republican Party. He has conceded the game, without a fight.The other side’s King—Hillary Clinton—is safe. Her Party supports her even if many in the Democratic Party base do not. But, unlike the game of Chess that impacts no one but the players, the political game of Chess may have dire ripple effects. If Hillary Clinton secures the Presidency for the Democratic Party, the impact of the Democratic Party victory will have immediate effects on this Country and those effects will not bode well for this Country or its citizenry. The effects will definitely not bode well for this Country or its citizenry.Paul Ryan’s vociferous denouncement of Trump has set in motion the machinery that may allow Hillary Clinton to succeed to the White House. If she does, she will decimate our Country, and much of the blame for that will fall in great measure to the actions of Paul Ryan.The Arbalest Quarrel has predicted the resulting diminution or destruction of the Republican Party if the Republican Party did not stand together. We pointed out what could befall a Party that does not stand together. We discussed this in an article we posted on our site, two years ago, on November 9, 2014, titled, "The Arbalest Quarrel's Take On The Midterm Election Results."  And, on August 22, 2016, in another article posted on our site, titled, "The Opera Won't Be Over 'Till the Fat Lady Sings'--In Federal Court--And The Opera Isn't Over Yet." In that article we mentioned that our fear had come to fruition. The present, multi-series article builds on the previous two articles, setting forth with particularity the catastrophe that will befall the Republican Party and this Nation if Hillary Clinton secures the U.S. Presidency in November. The impact of a disintegrating Republican Party will be seen in the disintegration of our Country as an independent sovereign Nation State.If Hillary Clinton wins the election, she will destroy the Nation. Of that, there is no doubt. The House Speaker may think that a Republican majority in Congress can work with Clinton; can negotiate with her; contain her. Again, he should know better, but does not.Hillary Clinton is incapable of restraint. If Clinton cannot bend Congress to her will, she will make law through Executive fiat. She would use Executive Orders in defiance of Congressional Statute, just as Barack Obama has done, but she will do so even more frequently, with greater fervor, and with greater negative consequences for the American People. Anyone and everyone Clinton appoints to operate the federal bureaucracy she will control with an iron fist.Clinton will only appoint toadies, thousands of them to fill a bloated Government bureaucracy. Clinton’s nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court and to the lower federal Courts will be those who share her philosophy, who agree with her social goals. Justice Scalia’s legacy will be undone.The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on the danger posed by Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland. Garland is someone whom Clinton would support. See our article, dated, March 18, 2016, titled, "Justice: For Or Against The Second Amendment? A Commentary On President Obama’s Nominee For Associate Justice On The U.S. Supreme Court: Judge Merrick Garland.”If Paul Ryan and other House Republicans, along with Senate Republicans, think they only need to maintain Republican majorities in both houses of Congress to contain Hillary Clinton, to contain Congressional Democrats, and to maintain control over the Legislative process—that they are in a better position to do so once they sacrifice Trump—they are sorely mistaken. Such thinking is misguided. Those Congressional Republicans who think their reasoning sound would do well to see a psychiatrist for clinical evaluation. They would do well, too, to see a psychologist for an IQ test, for both their rationality and intelligence are sorely in question.Why do we say this? We say this because Congressional Republicans who denounce Trump have weakened their hand. We explain as you continue reading.

PART TWELVE

CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS WHO FAIL TO SUPPORT TRUMP ARE MAKING A POOR CALCULATION FOR THEMSELVES, FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, AND FOR THIS COUNTRY.

If Congressional Republicans believe they can cede two Branches of Government—the Executive and Judicial Branches—and still maintain control over the Government simply by holding majorities in one Branch of Government, the Legislative Branch—and there is no assurance of that—they are making the poorest of wagers. The payout is low—simply one Branch of Government is secured, when two Branches might have been secured: the Executive and Judicial Branches of Government; and the risk of irreparable damage to this Country is high if they lose the wager: Democrats will then control all three Branches of Government.One comes away thinking, and rightfully so, that Paul Ryan and others like him are merely concerned about holding onto their seats and onto the fringe benefits and perks that go with their lofty position as Congressmen, notwithstanding and regardless of the loss of Republican Party control of the Executive and Judicial Branches of Government. They may think that, by sacrificing Trump, their chances of holding onto their seats are higher even if Democrats ultimately hold more seats in each House of Congress. If so, these Republican Congressmen should lose their Congressional seats. They don’t deserve to retain them.Ryan and other Congressional Republicans presumably know that Clinton has a distorted view of our Country’s history, of its traditions, of its values, and of its culture. She will stamp this Country with her own sociopathic personality if she secures the Office of the Presidency.During the Democratic Party campaign for the U.S. Presidency, up to the present moment, Hillary Clinton has kept a very low profile. But refraining from making public appearances does not mean Clinton has a quiet persona. That is deceptive. If Clinton secures the Office of the U.S. Presidency, heads will roll, and the Country will itself be turned on its head. If House Speaker, Paul Ryan, can’t see this, or if, perhaps, he chooses not to, he should step down as House Speaker.Apparently, Ryan doesn’t care who ultimately secures the U.S. Presidency. For, if Ryan did truly care about safeguarding this Country’s future, he would stand steadfastly with Trump and, in doing so, he would lead other Republicans to do so by his example.Ryan, as Republican House Speaker, would be, and should be, expected to take all possible measures to prevent the very possibility of Hillary Clinton ever winning the White House. By speaking out against Trump, though, Ryan is probably gambling on Clinton winning the election, anyway. But, by speaking out against Trump, that act can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.If Ryan thinks that Clinton has a better chance of winning the Presidency, regardless of what Ryan does, and if he is simply attempting to get into her good graces by speaking out against Trump now, before the votes are counted, that may backfire on him. Moreover, he is acting despicably. Indeed, by speaking out against Trump, Ryan must want Clinton to win. He must count on Clinton winning the election in November. If so, that is even more despicable.But, the notion that Ryan wants Hillary Clinton to win the U.S. Presidential election is the logical inference for one to draw. It is the only rational inference for one to draw. For, Paul Ryan must know that, if Trump wins the election—even if Ryan thinks the possibility of that is remote—Ryan’s relationship with Trump will be acrimonious, bitter, poisonous, probably irreparably damaged. Thus Ryan must assume that, given his negative comments against Trump, he will have a decent relationship with Clinton if she secures the U.S. Presidency. Through negative comments directed at Trump and by refraining from saying anything negative about Clinton—The House Speaker is cautiously, calculatedly sidling up to Clinton. Ryan must be secretly, silently hoping for a Clinton victory, having openly, and clearly, and unabashedly rebuffed Trump.But, if Ryan’s calculations are wrong, and Trump does secure the U.S. Presidency, then Paul Ryan would probably have to forfeit his position as House Speaker. He would obviously lose the position of House Speaker if Democrats obtain a majority. But, Ryan likely would have to forfeit his position as House Speaker even if Republicans maintain control of the House. He would either be forced to forfeit the House Speakership or, at least, he would be encouraged to do so because Trump likely would have little to do with Ryan thereafter.But a Trump Presidency would not bode well for the Clintons either. Circumstances for the Clintons would be substantially worse than what happens to befall Paul Ryan.If Trump secures the Presidency, Hillary Clinton and her wayward husband, Bill, would both likely face federal felony charges. Their lives would be relegated to: one, attempting to preserve for themselves the tens of millions of dollars they made, illicitly, selling out this Country; and, two, working with their legal team, attempting to avoid incarceration in federal prison for tens of years. Each of them can then say, and truly mean it: “I take full responsibility for my actions.” Yes, you do, Bill! Yes, you do, Hillary!

PART THIRTEEN

CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS WHO EXPRESSLY ATTACK TRUMP OR WHO SNUB HIM THROUGH THEIR SILENCE ARE ALL HYPOCRITES.

Congressional Republicans, like the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, are quintessential hypocrites, pretending to care about the Party and their Country, but looking out only for themselves. Instead of standing behind the Republican Party nominee for U.S. President, they castigate the nominee. Paul Ryan and other House and Senate Republicans—mostly, if not invariably, the leaders and power brokers, consisting of Party Centrists and Statists—believe, erroneously, that they can maintain Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and that they can protect themselves and the Republican Party, all the while throwing Donald Trump to the wolves. They are wrong. Rank and file Republicans won’t forgive them, nor will millions of other good Americans who will suffer under a Clinton Administration.Paul Ryan and other Centrist, Statist Congressional Republicans fail to understand that the power of the Republican Party would operate most effectively by seating a Republican in the White House. Donald Trump is not a traditional Republican, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The Republican Party has become ossified. That is evident. Donald Trump brings a fresh outlook to the Party. He holds to conservative values. He would help bring our Nation back to its traditional roots.Those Republicans resigned to having Clinton in the White House demonstrate their own weakness as representatives of the American people and of their particular constituencies. These Legislators cannot lead the Nation through capitulation. They cannot, reasonably, expect the Republican base to support them. They may have signed their own political death warrants. If they wish to commit political suicide, then fine. As individuals, we can tell them, “good riddance.” But, in their position of power it means they have also signed the death warrant of the Party and, worst of all, they have signed the death warrant of the Country. That, however, is altogether unacceptable.This Country cannot suffer, should never be compelled to abide a criminal and sociopath for U.S. President. That is odious and abhorrent.This Country and its citizenry cannot and ought not to suffer a person whose stated policy objectives are destruction of both the Bill of Rights, the undercutting of the security and well-being of the American people, and the undermining of the independence and sovereignty of the United States. Yet, Paul Ryan, and other Republicans of his ilk believe they can somehow preserve the Party and the Nation with Hillary Clinton at the helm. That is patently absurd. Have these Congressional Republicans lost their senses?Conceivably, Centrist Republicans and Statists not only expect Hillary Clinton to win the Presidency, they secretly want her to win. Centrist Republicans and Statists would want Hillary Clinton to win the U.S. Presidential election because they believe Clinton would implement foreign and domestic policies they are actively supportive of or, at least,  definitely amenable to, which the Republican base, clearly, is not, having nominated Donald Trump for U.S. President. If so that suggests an irreparable schism between Centrist Republicans and Statists and the Republican Party base. This idea may not be far-fetched. After all, the Party faithful, the power brokers of the Party, the Centrists and Statists, fully expected Jeb Bush to secure the nomination. Trump was expected to be merely a foil for Bush just as the Democratic Party power brokers fully expected for Bernie Sanders to be a foil for Hillary Clinton. Neither political Party truly appreciated how weak their favorites for nomination really were.Among Republicans, Jeb Bush represents the interests of the Centrists and Statists, the power brokers and Party leaders. Jeb Bush certainly supports the TTP and TTIP—trade agreements that are harmful to the economic well-being of the Party’s base and to the Nation as a whole. Trump actively campaigned against these trade pacts. Jeb Bush, along with the Centrists and Statists of the Party, strongly supports them.Jeb Bush, whom the power brokers of the Party, the Republican Centrists and Statists, had hoped would secure the Party’s nomination, also supports immigration reform. Immigration reform is coded language. Immigration reform means general amnesty for millions of illegal aliens who reside among us--among them members of criminal drug cartels. Those who support immigration reform also support the continuation of open border policies, notwithstanding their assertions to the contrary.To Democrats, immigration reform means votes for their Party. To Republican Centrists and Statists—the power brokers of the Republican Party—immigration reform connotes dirt cheap labor and that inevitably hurts American workers—able craftsmen. So, Jeb Bush supports immigration reform. Jeb Bush represents the interests of the Party's power brokers. Trump and the Republican base do not.Jeb Bush and the power brokers in the Republican Party, the Centrists and Statists, also support continued use of the armed forces for unwinnable wars. That translates into substantial wealth for defense contractors as that, for them, is sufficient to support a purpose for war.Hillary Clinton is in the same camp as the Centrist Republicans and Statists when it comes to use of the military to line the pockets of the defense contractors. Making defense contractors wealthy is not a legitimate use of our armed forces. We should use our armed forces circumspectly. For use of our armed forces inevitably means loss of American lives. We should ask, "is our national security really at risk?" If so, then we consider deploying our armed forces. If the answer is, "no," then we shouldn't.Trump is not reluctant to use America’s armed forces but, he believes, rightfully, we should do so with the intention to win a war or other armed conflict. If there is any doubt about our ability to win a war or other armed conflict or, if our goals are not clear and cannot be made clear, to the American People—and, first and foremost, if our National Security isn’t threatened—then we should not be getting into wars or any other armed conflict.Trump is not a fan of the Big Banks, whom the American public had to bail out and may have to do so yet again. The power brokers in the Republican Party, the Centrists and Statists, are strong supporters of the big banks as is, of course, Hillary Clinton.The disturbing but unavoidable conclusion to draw here is that many of the aims and concerns and desires of the Centrists and Statists of the Republican Party are identical with or, at least, closely aligned to those of the Centrists and Statists of the Democratic Party but are not the aims or concerns of the Republican base. In fact, the policy goals of the Centrists and Statists of both political Parties are all too often detrimental to the well-being and security of our Nation and its citizenry. The average American knows this. Recognizing this, the Republican base, average hard-working law-abiding Americans, have through their support of Trump, made clear that they have had their fill of both the Bush family and of Centrist and Statist Republicans who have operated for many years merely to serve their own narrow interests and feeding, through receipt of tax-payer dollars, their own shallow desires, ignoring entirely the plight of average Americans and demonstrating callous indifference to the well-being of and security of this Nation.The Republican Party has done little to contain and to restrain Obama as he proceeds on his merry escapades. The Republican Party has made clear, through its attack on Trump and overt or covert support of Clinton that it has misused the loyalty of its base, consigning it to Hell. Between Centrist and Statist Republicans and their counterparts in the Democratic Party, there is, then, little to distinguish the two. More, one may remark, how similar they both are to one another.Hillary Clinton represents the interests of the power brokers of both political Parties. She is out of touch with the American public. But the Centrists and Statists of the major political Parties don’t care about any of that. They care only about plodding along same tired road—one that benefits them and their benefactors—the ruthless international globalist power brokers—but harms the Country. The continued independence and sovereignty of our Nation is threatened, the lives of average law-abiding Americans become ever more tenuous, and small business in this Country simply vanishes, becoming but a footnote in economic textbooks.

PART FOURTEEN

TRUMP IS THE ONLY HOPE FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND FOR OUR COUNTRY.

Only one thing can save the Republican Party and the Country now, and that is a Trump victory in November. The Republican leadership must support Trump. But, if they think that Trump doesn’t represent the interests of their Party, they should keep in mind that the Party doesn’t belong to them alone even as they have treated it as if it did belong only to them. But, they are wrong. The Party belongs to the millions of Americans who voted them into Office and can, just as easily vote them out of Office. The Republican leaders will be in for a rude awakening if they don't come to their senses and consider the needs of their base and the well-being of the Nation, which take precedence over their own narrow, selfish interests. The Republican Party that seeks to maintain itself as it has existed for many years, simply benefiting a few, and rotting from within, will be left to wither away, as it deserves to.Republican Congressmen must stand behind Trump. In standing steadfastly behind Trump, Congressional Republicans are supporting a free Republic; they are supporting the rights and liberties of the American citizenry under the Constitution; they are supporting our unique history, our culture, our heritage, our morality, and traditional American values; they are protecting the security of our Nation and our citizenry; and they are guaranteeing the preservation of the United States as an independent sovereign Nation. All this goes out the door if Hillary Clinton secures the U.S. Presidency.Do Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders honestly believe they can protect this Nation and its People if Clinton were ensconced in Office? If so, they are deluding themselves. For, once Clinton secures the U.S. Presidency, she will appoint thousands of individuals who will respond to her every wish, her every desire—and none of it will bode well for either this Country or its People. Even if Republicans can maintain majorities in both Houses of Congress—which is highly doubtful absent Party unity—Clinton will pacify Congress. Through her Imperial Presidency and through her control of the entire federal Judiciary, she won’t need to negotiate with a Republican Congress. She will do essentially whatever she wants. She will bypass Congress whenever necessary to do what she pleases.Who in Congress can defy Clinton? Congress has shown its ineptitude in failing to ensure that Clinton would be brought to justice. If Congress fails to control Clinton’s excesses before she secures the U.S. Presidency—and to date Congress has shown incredible cowardice to act—on what logical ground can the public believe Congress will be able to rein Clinton in after she secures the U.S. Presidency?For a person who sees herself above the law and with the means to act with impunity as if she were above the law, and has shown, as we have seen firsthand, that she is, for all intents and purposes, clearly above the law, as the U.S. Department of Justice has shown itself to be powerless to bring her to justice, and as Congress has failed to exert its own power to bring a criminal to justice, who, then, in Congress will be able to constrain Hillary Clinton from committing the worst excesses once she succeeds to the Presidency? If there is none in Congress who will bring Clinton to justice now, before she succeeds to the Office of the U.S. Presidency, why should the public believe Congress will be able to constrain Clinton once she assumes the mantle of the highest Office in the Land?If Politicians have learned anything about any of the Clintons, it is that they have no compunctions about breaking the law. Politicians should know they cannot contain a viper—neither Congressional Democrats, nor Congressional Republicans. Hillary Clinton will rule with force, with impunity. Only a Trump Presidency can prevent a horrific future for our Country.Yet some Republicans, not content simply to drop their support for Trump, have had the gall to call for Donald Trump to give up his bid for the U.S. Presidency. Instead, they should have long ago called for Hillary Clinton to give up her bid for the U.S. Presidency. They could have done so. They should have done so, given substantial evidence of serious criminal misconduct on her part when she served as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration.

PART FIFTEEN

CLINTON CAN STILL BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE BEFORE THE ELECTION BUT CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS MUST ACT NOW!

House Republicans should have supported the Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 2016, introduced by U.S. Congressmen, Michael Turner and Rick Allen. The Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act compels integrity in Government. Had the Act passed, independent Counsel—free of the baggage of the political appointees of the Justice Department, specifically, James Comey and Loretta Lynch—would surely have indicted Hillary Clinton on federal felony charges. Clinton’s bid for the White House would never have come to fruition. It could not.What happened? Why is it we never hear about the Act? Why is the Act suspended in Committee? Why hasn’t the Act come before the full House for discussion, debate, and a Floor vote? The Arbalest Quarrel attempted to ascertain what became of the Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 2016 that, if passed, would have mandated integrity in Government. We wrote a letter to the sponsor and co-sponsor of the Act, asking them for an update on the status of the bill. We posted the letter, on August 27, 2016, within an article, titled, "The Foundation of Justice Undone By The Foundation, Clinton." To date, we haven’t heard a word from any member of Congress.It isn’t too late for House Republicans to move on this Act, but time is rapidly running out. They show they can act quickly when they want to. After all, they acted very quickly in denouncing Trump. Those Republicans who have denounced Trump can still redeem themselves. But, will they do so? Do they have the moral courage to stand with the Party, to stand with the American People, to stand with this Nation? Do they have the courage of the founders of our Nation?Trump certainly has shown courage. He stands proudly with our founders. Trump alone has openly expressed the need for a Special Prosecutor to reinvestigate Hillary Clinton’s federal crimes. Is he the only individual with the backbone to insist on integrity in Government? He would demand integrity in Government once he became President. He would make certain that Clinton would be called to account for her crimes against this Nation and against the American people. He would make certain the U.S. Department of Justice is called to account for its failure to indict a high Government official on a multitude of felonies. He would maintain our Nation as one of law and equal justice under our Constitution and system of laws.Donald Trump shows courage, fortitude, his mettle. He shows that, if necessary, he will stand alone to uphold our Constitution and that he will uphold the rule of law even as those in his own Party seem afraid to do so. He shows, by way of his good example, that he definitely has Presidential character. In that regard, he is unlike Hillary Clinton, whom one rarely hears from. She stands well back in the herd of her benefactors, campaign officials, and image makers. Everything she does and says is carefully orchestrated and choreographed. What the public sees—what the public is allowed to see of her is nothing more than a façade, a mask, an illusion. She is Medusa. Her character is poisonous. Once in Office, her true capacity for unleashing a Hell in this Country and on this Earth will be readily apparent. At that point, though, it will be too late—much too late—for Americans to do anything about her.So, Republicans must act with haste. They must act now on the Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 2016.With passage of the Act even at this late date independent counsel could reinvestigate Clinton’s criminal misconduct, bypassing the corrupt or compromised Department of Justice. Independent counsel would have authority to indict Clinton on federal criminal charges. She would have to step down. Why hasn’t Congress acted?Trump’s failings pale compared to the irresponsible, shameful, duplicitous, illegal, treacherous activities of Hillary Clinton. The mainstream media, in shameful misuse of the power of the Press under the First Amendment, manipulates public opinion. It endorses Clinton, a flawed character, who has exhibited ineptitude and lack of acumen in her Cabinet level position as Secretary of State and who has conducted herself shamefully, criminally. The Press either shamefully ignores this clear and irrefutable fact or more shamefully defends and praises Clinton’s abominable record and conduct. The Press then unabashedly, heatedly goes after Trump with all the tact and subtlety, and with all the respectfulness and thoughtfulness of a dog chowing down on and devouring a hunk of meat. But, having no legitimate basis to attack Trump on logical, rational grounds, as Trump can and would represent the interests of this Nation adeptly, the mainstream media resorts to trickery—inflating innocuous events beyond sensible bounds and spreading scandalous lies and rumors—doing this to inflame public opinion against Trump, appealing to the public’s emotion rather than to its intellect.The mainstream media is intellectually dishonest, and Congressional Republicans are irresponsibly falling for the nonsense spouted by a disreputable Press. They are allowing themselves to be played for fools, and it’s the Republican Party and worse, this Nation and its citizenry that will suffer for the lack of courage of the Republicans to act.If a catastrophe is to be avoided, Congressional Republicans better get their own act together and they better do so quickly. If they do not, they would do well to realize that, if Donald Trump loses the election, he won’t go down alone. The Republicans will likely lose the House and the Senate.

PART SIXTEEN

REPUBLICANS SACRIFICE THEIR NOMINEE FOR U.S. PRESIDENT TO THEIR PERIL AND SHAME.

By willingly, unconscionably, duplicitously, irrationally sacrificing the Republican Party’s leader, its “King” (Trump), there is no win and no draw for Congressional Republicans in this political rendition of the game of Chess. The Democrats have no wish to sacrifice their “King” (Clinton), although having a criminal as their nominee brings disgrace to the entire Party. But, they don’t care. They know that, if Democrats control the Executive Branch of Government, they also control the Judicial Branch, because Clinton’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee—a nominee that Congress, at some point, will have to confirm—will give the liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court, a fifth vote—a majority. The Senate Judiciary Committee cannot hold off the confirmation process indefinitely.Yes, there is nothing in the Constitution mandating that any set number of Justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. But, if Hillary Clinton secures the U.S. Presidency, the full brunt of her Office and of the mainstream media will come to bear to compel the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a Confirmation Hearing on her nominees. Once the Senate Judiciary Committee does hold a Confirmation Hearing, it is inevitable that one of Clinton’s nominees, be it Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, or, otherwise, someone like him, will be confirmed sooner or later—probably sooner—as the ninth U.S. Supreme Court Justice. That ninth seat will give the liberal wing of the High Court the majority it needs to transform society into that image Hillary Clinton sees and ordains for it.Among the first couple of cases to be overturned—probably the first couple of cases ever to be overturned within just a few years of their precedential holdings—will be the seminal Second Amendment Heller and McDonald cases: District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008); and, McDonald vs. City of Chicago, 130 S. Ct. 320, 177 L. Ed.2d 894, 2010 U.S. LEXIS 5523 (2010).  The decisions of the high Court’s liberal wing will influence the outcome of critical cases and, so, change the makeup of our Nation’s culture for decades. Democrats may also control one or both Houses of Congress. In that event, Democrats will have won the Grand Trifecta.

CONCLUSION

Democrats know without doubt the Republican Party is in disarray and the Republicans have done nothing to suggest to Democrats otherwise. The Republican Party has done nothing to demonstrate to Democrats and to this Nation, that the Republican Party is united. The Party has ceded the political Chess game to them.The ceding of the U.S. Presidential election, the capitulation of the Republican Party to its opponent, before the voting even takes place, is unprecedented and unforgivable. The Republican Party is, at this juncture, at this critical moment in our Nation’s history, with the U.S. Presidential Election just around the corner, vanquished, thanks, in no small part, to the actions of Paul Ryan and other Republicans who have behaved like him.The vanquishing of the Republican Party is bad enough surely. But, we Americans will have lost our Country, and that will be infinitely worse. There will be no return match for House and Senate Republicans. There can’t be. It will be much too late for that; for them and for us.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2016 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

HILLARY CLINTON: A FLAWED CHARACTER FOR THOSE WHO SEE THE U.S. AS FLAWED

Individuals are unique and that is to be applauded; but unethical and criminal conduct is never unique, and when such conduct occurs, it is to be brought to light and roundly condemned.

PART ONE OF TWO PARTS

“Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.” ~ William Penn“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, and licentiousness, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ~ John Adams (Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798)Hillary Clinton is likely a criminal—not merely a misdemeanant, but, rather, the worst sort of criminal—a felon. Her supporters don’t want to acknowledge it. They certainly don’t want to talk about it. But they must accept the truth of it even as they choose to ignore the searing reality behind it; the transparently clear evidence for it.Moreover, even though Hillary Clinton, to date, has not been indicted on felony criminal charges, this does not mean that Hillary Clinton did not commit one or more felonies as Secretary of State. The failure of the F.B.I. to recommend an indictment to the Attorney General and the failure of the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, to proceed with an indictment regardless of the F.B.I.’s recommendation, does not entail that Hillary Clinton didn’t commit a crime. This point is contrary to the mainstream media’s take on the matter and it is the very point that supporters of Clinton hang their hat on, postulating that, “after all Hillary Clinton is not a criminal precisely because the Department of Justice failed to bring charges against her.” Hogwash! Probable cause dictates a finding that Hillary Clinton committed several felonies, and the lack of indictment does not obviate the truth of that assertion one iota. At times prosecutors will not charge an individual with a crime for a multitude of reasons, notwithstanding that probable cause exists that an individual did in fact commit a crime. Sometimes evidence of a crime is clear and indisputable, but, the evidence may be tainted. If so, that evidence of a crime will not be admissible in a Court of law, rendering the possibility of a conviction unlikely or moot.Perhaps prosecutors go after “bigger fish to fry” and will agree not to charge an individual with a crime if that individual is willing to “turn State’s evidence” and agree to testify against another in return for leniency or freedom from prosecution. Prosecutorial discretion permits prosecutors to charge a person with all the crimes that appear in a police report or just one or a few of them. Or prosecutors can charge a person with a crime less severe or even more severe than what appears in a police arrest report. Sometimes prosecutors will bend to political pressure to bring charges against an individual when, in their best judgment, they would rather not do so.Contrariwise, as we see here, the Justice Department may decide not to bring charges against a person who, by all reasonable accounts—if we are a Nation of laws and a Nation governed by the rule of law and not by men—should have been indicted on multiple felony criminal charges and on multiple counts within any one felony.Perhaps, Hillary Rodham Clinton, like the major banks, is too big to prosecute. Perhaps, as is increasingly evident, Hillary Clinton is protected by shadowy, sinister, wholly evil, extraordinarily wealthy, and extremely powerful interests both here and abroad, who want their “puppet” in the highest Office of the Land. These secretive, powerful interests want a creature in high Office that has done and will continue to do all that they ask of it and that will be able to deliver ever more sizable returns as President of the United States. So, if the F.B.I., and the entirety of the Justice Department, of which the F.B.I. is a critical component, has not been corrupted, it definitely has been compromised. For probable cause of Clinton’s crimes is clear and irrefutable.Substantive and substantial evidence supports a finding that Hillary Clinton likely violated 18 U.S.C. § 793, “Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information” because substantive and substantial evidence exists that she mishandled, either intentionally or through gross negligence, classified Government information during her tenure as Secretary of State.Substantive and substantial evidence also supports a finding that Hillary Clinton likely violated 18 U.S.C. § 1001 is titled, “Statements or Entries Generally,” because substantive evidence exists that she lied to the F.B.I., during the Bureau’s criminal investigation. Substantive and substantial evidence supports a finding, third, that Hillary Clinton likely violated 18 U.S.C. § 201, titled, "Bribery of public officials and witnesses," because substantive and substantial evidence exists that, while serving as Secretary of State, both she and her husband utilized the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation as an illegal conduit through which wealthy donors— including individuals, foreign governments, NGOs, and multinational corporations—paid the Clintons handsomely for personal favorable treatment at the expense of the American people and in contravention of the U.S. Constitution and in contravention of our Nation’s laws. The offering of bribes to public officials and the taking of bribes by public officials is a serious federal offense.The penalty for conviction on any one of the aforementioned laws includes incarceration in federal prison—incarceration for several years.It is unlikely that a person who is convicted of a felony can obtain employment with the federal Government—whether as a low-level civil servant, or one who holds super-grade under the General Schedule of the U.S. Government service. The F.B.I., for example, will not hire a person who has been convicted of a felony. One can only wonder whether the F.B.I. would seriously consider hiring Hillary Rodham Clinton for any position in the Bureau if she were to seek employment with the Bureau. Would all her sins be forgiven? Not hardly!Of Course, the Director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, had made a recommendation to the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, not to indict Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Loretta Lynch, not surprisingly, accepted that recommendation. But, one would be hard-pressed to believe that James Comey would permit Hillary Rodham Clinton to work for the F.B.I. as an agent of the F.B.I. or, for that matter, as a clerk-typist within the F.B.I., based on what he had learned about her—a tidbit, no doubt, of what the public has learned about Clinton’s misconduct—and what he shared with the American public in his unprecedented statement to the American public, on July 5, 2016, the day following and marking our day of independence from tyranny. James Comey made abundantly clear to the American people that Clinton’s mishandling of Government information falls into the category of “extremely careless.”Would James Comey permit the hiring of such a person to handle F.B.I. information? And, if Hillary Clinton was extremely careless in handling classified information coming across her desk as Secretary of State, is it not likely she would be just as careless in her handling of classified federal Government information that comes across her desk as “U.S. President” Hillary Clinton?U.S. President Barack Obama, for his part, doesn’t seem to mind. He obviously doesn’t care whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled Government information in her capacity as Secretary of State, for he was off campaigning with her the very day James Comey delivered his statement to the American people, —a statement clearly damning Clinton even as Comey refused, for some unexplained and inexplicable reason, to recommend indictment, assuming that he, otherwise, wasn't compelled to recommend, to the Attorney General, no indictment on felony charges against Clinton.And, what is one to make of Obama’s assertions against Donald Trump. The President casts aspersions on Donald Trump, whom the F.B.I. has never investigated for federal crimes amounting to serious felonies and whom the F.B.I. never had to investigate for federal crimes amounting to felonies. Yet Obama tells the American people that Hillary Rodham Clinton is admirably suited to run this Country. Obama says this, oddly enough, even as Director Comey certainly must now—especially now—have serious doubts about Clinton’s ability to lead this Country—serious doubts based on the fact that the F.B.I. had a rational basis to undertake its criminal investigation of Clinton for possible violations of federal law in the first place—very serious violations of federal law—violations of specific federal law amounting to felonies. The sound conclusion to be drawn is this: probable cause exists that Hillary Clinton committed multiple felonies. This is not mere speculation. This is predicated on the findings of the Bureau as illuminated for the American people through the Director’s candid July 5, 2016 statement to the American people.So, whether Director Comey recommended an indictment of Hillary Rodham Clinton or not, that is beside the point because there is nothing in the Director’s July 5, 2016 statement to the American people that vindicates Clinton. He certainly didn’t say that Clinton did not commit a crime. To the contrary, the Director’s statement makes clear that the F.B.I. believes—contrary to the conclusions drawn by some mainstream media publications that Clinton did not violate Federal law—that she did in fact commit a crime—that the evidence supports a finding that Clinton did in fact commit more than one federal crime and that the evidence supports a finding that she committed federal crimes over an extended period of time—several instances of misconduct of each crime over an extended period of time.James B. Comey, then, did not give Hillary Rodham Clinton "a free pass" or “a clean bill of health,” when he failed to recommend an indictment against her on charges of violating federal law. Indeed, Comey’s arguments for not recommending indictment are so lame, when juxtaposed with the clear, cogent, and comprehensive litany of wrongdoing by Clinton that one comes away suspecting that Comey expects—indeed wants—the public to see through the obvious weaknesses of his arguments in support of not recommending an indictment of Clinton on federal criminal charges.First, Comey says, in his statement to the American public that, "although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." That is all well and good, but for the fact that the F.B.I. wouldn't be prosecuting Hillary Clinton; the Criminal Division of the Justice Department would be handling the prosecution of Clinton and it is for the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, not for the F.B.I., to determine whether to proceed with the prosecution. So it is the Criminal Division's call whether or not, ultimately, to prosecute Clinton. There is certainly sufficient evidence to warrant a recommendation of the F.B.I. to the Attorney General. James Comey interjected a matter into his decision to recommend an indictment or not that isn't his to make. As Comey said, in that very same statement to American public, "in our system, the prosecutors make the decisions about whether charges are appropriate based on evidence the FBI has helped collect." The F.B.I. collected substantive and substantial evidence of crimes. So, if the prosecutors within the Criminal Division of the Justice Department make the decision whether charges are appropriate, why would Comey attempt to preclude the prosecutors in the Justice Department from making that decision to prosecute? Of course, the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, could have indicted Hillary Clinton, regardless of the decision of the F.B.I. She said, though, that she would abide by the recommendation of the F.B.I., which is not what she said originally. The Attorney General is supposed to exercise independent judgment. Did she know what Comey's decision would be prior to Comey's statement to the public? Sure she knew. She must have known, just as Obama must have known, as he was flying off with Hillary Clinton, campaigning with her the very day Comey was delivering his unprecedented statement to the American public on July 5, 2016. The Director said that no one knew beforehand what he would be saying in his statement--that he had not coordinated his remarks with any one in the Justice Department or with any other part of government. That may be true. We can take that at face value. But, then, that is not to say, that Comey didn't inform the President and the Attorney General what his decision would be. They knew. They must have known, for if they didn't know, the Attorney General would not have expressed confidence in asserting that she would abide by the F.B.I. Director's decision, whatever that decision might be, and the U.S. President, for his part, would not have been encouraged to campaign with Hillary Clinton before he knew, with absolute certainty, what Comey's decision would be. For, how would it look for the President and for the Nation for Obama to be seen campaigning with Hillary Clinton on the very day that the F.B.I. Director asserts that he, the Director of the F.B.I., will be recommending indictment of Hillary Clinton on multiple federal felony charges?Second, Comey, asserts, "In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here." That assertion suggests that the only time a prosecutor will bring a case is when there is specific case precedent for it. That is false. Precedent is always a great thing to have. It makes a conviction virtually certain. But, it is very rare  for a prosecutor to find two cases that have essentially identical facts. Rather, a prosecutor looks to see whether a given set of facts comply with the elements of a crime as set forth in statute. If they do, that is a sufficient basis to seriously consider bringing charges against an individual. But, again, whether the Criminal Division of the Justice Department chooses to prosecute or not, that is a decision for the Criminal Division, together with the Attorney General, to make. That is not a matter for the F.B.I. to decide because, again, the F.B.I. would not be prosecuting the case. The Criminal Division of the Justice Department has responsibility for that.Third, Comey stresses the lack of finding intentional or willful misconduct by Hillary Clinton in the mishandling of classified Government information as a ground for not recommending indictment. That assertion doesn't follow from the litany of damning evidence he presents to the public in his statement. But, be that as it may, the Statute, U.S.C. § 793, “Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information”  doesn't require that intentional or willful misconduct be present as part of the crime, "gross negligence" is sufficient--a lesser standard. Comey's failure to even mention "gross negligence"--curiously, he does say, in his statement, that, Clinton was "extremely careless" in her handling of classified government information, which is essentially the same thing as "gross negligence"--illustrates sloppiness in Comey's remarks against recommending indictment of Clinton on federal criminal charges, and that sloppiness stands in stark and marked contrast to the cogency, the clarity, the precision in his detailing of Clinton's misconduct in that very same statement. One can only suspect that the Director of the F.B.I. intended for the American public--and certainly for attorneys--to see through the charade, to recognize that the F.B.I. has been compromised but that he feels, just the same, the need--perhaps for his own legacy--to let the public know that he had no choice in the matter--that the F.B.I., as with the entirety of the Executive Branch, does not serve the public--that something sinister and profane--even evil--has taken over our Government.Regardless, Comey’s statement to the American people, in its totality, makes very clear what he thinks of Hillary Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State. The portrait the Director of the F.B.I. has painted of Hillary Clinton, for the American People's purview, is not a flattering one.So, another logical inference to draw from Comey’s July 5, 2016 statement to the American people is that the Director believes Hillary Rodham Clinton’s behavior as Secretary of State is morally reprehensible, and that Clinton is morally unfit to hold any position of responsibility in Government—least of all the position of President of the United States.Yet, Barack Obama continues to sing his praises of Clinton and at one and the same time casts aspersions on Trump. There is to be seen a marked inconsistency between what the public is to gather from Comey’s statement to the American people about Clinton’s conduct and what the President, Barack Obama, would have the American people believe about Clinton. Given that inconsistency, a rational person can and should dismiss, out-of-hand, Obama’s negative statements against Trump, as those statements are facially nonsensical in light of Obama’s support for a person who could not obtain employment with the F.B.I. had Clinton desired to do so because she is likely a criminal and she is certainly a security risk.In fact, Hillary Clinton would have a devil of a time securing a job with any federal agency given, one, the fact of a lengthy, intensive, and comprehensive investigation into her actions as a Cabinet Level Official of the federal Government; two, given the F.B.I.’s damning report against her and; and, three, given the fact that she is a security risk.Of course, Barack Obama has a vested interest in Hillary Clinton, for he is interested in seeing the continuation of his legacy. James Comey, though, has no vested interest in a Clinton candidacy and he certainly has no desire to support a likely criminal for President of the United States.The continuation of Obama’s legacy is something Hillary Clinton intends to promote. That legacy is something Donald Trump has no intention of promoting. None of this seems to trouble Obama, for he continues to sing his praises of Clinton and consistently maintains she is fit to serve as U.S. President. But, then, the American public should not really be surprised; nor should the public put stock in what Barack Obama has to say about Clinton. After all, Obama has, through Executive Order, made it easier for convicted felons to gain employment with the Federal Government.See, for example, the New York Post article, titled, "Obama makes it easier for felons to become government workers." That should tell the American public all it needs to know of the true worth of Obama’s remarks concerning who is and who isn’t capable of serving as President of the United States.But, it isn’t Obama that the American people need long concern themselves with. He has done his damage to this Country. One would think the American people, who voted for him, would have learned from their mistakes. For, one tacit assumption can be drawn from his remarks, as he supports Clinton and attacks Trump.A vote for Clinton is a vote for the extension of the Administrations of both Obama and Bill Clinton. Beyond the obviousness of that assertion, it should trouble any American to elect to the highest Office in the Land, a person who likely would not—indeed, probably could not—be hired at the lowest General Schedule pay Grade of the Federal Government were she to apply for a job with the Federal Government; for, a person who applies for a job with the Federal Government must undergo an F.B.I. investigation.It beggars belief that any federal agency or department would hire a person whom the F.B.I. had investigated for serious violations of federal law, regardless of the outcome of those investigation, notwithstanding Obama’s Executive Order, making it easier for criminals to secure employment in the federal Government. It is by the mere fact that the F.B.I., armed with substantive and substantial evidence of Hillary Clinton’s criminal wrongdoing, and it is by predicate acts that gave the Bureau jurisdiction to investigate Hillary Clinton at all, that Americans should think long and hard before supporting Hillary Clinton for U.S. President.Did the F.B.I. investigate Clinton for any other crimes? Is there a legitimate basis for concluding that Clinton broke any other federal laws? Did Hillary Clinton likely commit the most serious crime that any American citizen can be charged with? That is the topic of discussion in Part 2 of this article and in succeeding articles._________________________________________

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: A QUESTION OF TREASON

PART TWO OF TWO PARTS

ALL ELSE MAY BE FORGIVEN: THE CRIME OF TREASON CANNOT! AND THE SIN OF TREACHERY TO GOD AND COUNTRY MUST NOT!THE INFERNO CANTO XXXIICIRCLE NINE: COCYTUS ROUND TWO: ANTENORAThe Treacherous to CountryAt the bottom of the well Dante finds himself on a huge frozen lake. This is COCYTUS, the NINTH CIRCLE, the fourth and last great water of Hell, and here, fixed in the ice, each according to his guilt are punished sinners guilty of TREACHERY AGAINST THOSE TO WHOM THEY WERE BOUND BY SPECIAL TIES.The ice is divided into four concentric rings marked only by the different positions of the damned within the ice. This is Dante’s symbolic equivalent of the final guilt. The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and of all human warmth. Only the remorseless dead center of the ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied God’s love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied all human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice. ~Ciardi, John; Alighieri, Dante; MacAllister, Archibald. The Inferno (Signet Classics) Penguin Publishing Group

DOES HILLARY CLINTON’S MISCONDUCT EXTEND TO TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is unfit to serve as President of the United States. In fact Hillary Rodham Clinton is unfit to serve as a federal Government official in any capacity of responsibility. These two straightforward assertions are not suppositions. They are valid and logical inferences drawn from several incontrovertible facts.One, concrete evidence supports a finding Hillary Rodham Clinton had, during her tenure as Secretary of State, a Cabinet level position in the Obama Administration, either intentionally or through gross negligence, mishandled classified Government information. Doing so constitutes a serious breach of federal law, amounting to a felony if convicted.Two, concrete evidence supports a finding that Hillary Rodham Clinton had knowingly obstructed justice by lying to federal officers engaged in the legitimate criminal investigation of Clinton’s conduct. This is a serious breach of federal law, amounting to a felony if convicted.Three, concrete evidence supports a finding that Hillary Clinton engaged in an ongoing practice of corruption, having used the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Foundation as a conduit for the selling of favors through the Department of State—a high level component of the Executive Branch of Government—to wealthy, prominent, and powerful individuals, and to multinational corporations, and to non-governmental organizations (“NGO’s”), and to foreign governments, some clearly unfriendly to the U.S. and to U.S., interests in exchange for hard cold cash. Bribery is a serious breach of federal law, amounting to a felony if convicted.Conviction on any one of the above mentioned crimes is sufficient to send a person to federal prison for several years.The mere possibility that a person has engaged in any one or more of the above crimes raises serious doubt about that person’s ability to serve this Country, and about that person’s character, namely and specifically, that person’s honesty, integrity, sincerity, sense of values, and willingness to sacrifice his or her personal needs and desires and wishes to the more sacred needs of duty to Country, duty to our Country’s Constitution and to its system of laws, and duty to our citizenry; and that duty of service does not extend to the citizenry of other Countries, contrary to what the present U.S. President, Barack Obama, says and what Hillary Clinton also ascribes to.But, let us consider whether Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her seeming service to the American people as Secretary of State, transgressed in any other way. Let us consider whether Hillary Clinton committed a crime so serious, so ignoble, and so heinous, that every other crime pales in comparison and significance. Let us consider whether evidence supports a finding that Hillary Rodham Clinton’s wrongful conduct, as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, amounts to a crime directed against the very Sovereignty of this Nation, against this Nation’s Constitution, and against the citizens of the United States.Let us in fact ask this question: apart from likely committing serious felonies during her tenure as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration that have been detailed, did Hillary Clinton likely commit the most heinous crime of all—a crime so horrific that no one, from either political Party, will talk openly about it; that no one in either political Party will even speculate about? Did Hillary Clinton commit treason against this Nation? Is there a basis, in either the U.S. Constitution or federal Statute, or both, to indict Hillary Clinton on one or multiple counts of treason? And, may we not consider, concomitantly, that, apart from considering whether Hillary Rodham Clinton committed the crime of Treason, under our Constitution and under Federal Law, did she not also break God’s law, and commit the cardinal sin of treachery to Country?Now, to be sure, the Arbalest Quarrel is not the first party to consider the issue of treason in relation to Hillary Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State. Some commentators and some websites have heretofore broached the subject of treason in connection with Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State. Indeed, some commentators and some websites have even asserted, categorically, that Hillary Clinton did commit treason. But—and this is an important but—it is one thing to call a person a “traitor,” as rhetorical hyperbole, and this is more often the case than not. It is quite another to apply the term, ‘traitor,’ to a person from a legal standpoint, with all the consequences that such assertion constitutes. And, it is from the legal perspective—and not from the matter-of-fact, colloquial, rhetorical, man-in-the-street standpoint and perspective—that we look at treason here, that we consider the legal grounds, if any, for legitimately, realistically, and appropriately positing a charge of treason on Hillary Rodham Clinton.In undertaking this investigation into the merits of bringing a charge of treason against Hillary Clinton, we must always bear in mind that the worst citizens among us, along with the best, do have and should have, that protection afforded all citizens of the United States, under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says clearly, cogently, succinctly:“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense." The Sixth Amendment guarantee holds true for me; it holds true for you; and it holds true for Hillary Rodham Clinton. It holds true for all citizens of the United States.The American citizen’s natural right to defend him or herself against a criminal charge levied against that citizen is a right no less to be honored and safeguarded than the natural right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, as codified in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution; and no less to be honored and safeguarded than the natural right of an American citizen to speak his or her mind openly and freely, as codified in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, uninhibited by and irrespective of the current penchant for “political and social correctness” as thrust on us all because of the personal peculiar sensitivity of a few; and no less to be honored and safeguarded than the natural right of the American citizen to keep and bear arms, as codified under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Also, when looking at the possibility that an American citizen’s conduct amounts to a crime—whether considered relatively minor in scope such as an inoffensive infraction, or one codified in our law that is so horrific that we consider it, as well, a mortal sin—a crime against nature and against God’s strictures—we must consider one’s conduct from the standpoint of federal and State statute and from the standpoint of individual State Constitutions and from the standpoint of the U.S. Constitution.Our criminal codes, whether enacted by State Legislatures or by the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. Constitution, and the Constitutions of the various States establish, one, the fact that certain conduct amounts to a punishable offense; two, the specific elements necessary to establish a prima facie case for the existence of a punishable offense; and, three, the penalties for conviction on that offense. In other words, our system of laws pertaining to criminal behavior requires the codification in the U.S. Constitution or the in the Constitutions of the States or in federal or State statute saying that particular behavior is criminal.So, under the U.S. Constitution and under State Constitutions, and under our federal and State system of criminal law, it is not sufficient a particular species of behavior be deemed reprehensible in order to exact a penalty for the commission of it. That is to say, if a person’s conduct isn’t statutorily prohibited, then that person’s conduct does not rise to the level of a crime, upon which a person can be charged and tried in a court of competent jurisdiction, and, if found guilty, assessed a penalty once the prohibited conduct, for which the person has been formally charged and tried, has been finally, and firmly, established and adjudicated.We point this out in exacting detail here for a reason. We do this because the discussion of treason, from a legal and philosophical perspective is not so easy to understand and to fathom as some might think.The subject of treason, seemingly simple to understand in a straightforward colloquial sense, is actually quite opaque, difficult to comprehend and to apply in the legal sense. And, it is the legal sense of “treason” you must come to know, that you must become familiar with, that you must be receptive to and come to appreciate that is important here, even if the subject matter is abstruse.That can’t be helped. Indeed our founders struggled with the very notion and concept of ‘treason’ and we’ll explain why and how in upcoming articles.So, the rhetorical use of the term, ‘treason,’ as applied, by some, to Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State, does nothing to help us to effectively defeat Hillary Clinton on that ground. So saying, doesn’t make it so. Simply calling Hillary Clinton a traitor does not, in the mere assertion, serve to persuade anyone who is predisposed to see Clinton as someone suitable to lead this Country that she isn’t.Rather, to call Clinton a “traitor” in the absence of a good legal ground for so saying simply informs those who support Clinton in her quest for the U.S. Presidency, that those who call Clinton a traitor are wrong-headed. Better then not to use the term, ‘treason,’ or ‘traitor’ in reference to Hillary Clinton at all. For, one simply displays his or her own ineptitude. So, we must be cautious. And, at worst, so saying opens one up to a defamation action. So, we must be circumspect and careful.In the next few articles, The Arbalest Quarrel shall discuss treason, from a legal, historical, and philosophical perspective. If there is a legal basis for charging Hillary Rodham Clinton with the crime of treason, we will present the grounds for doing so. In the articles that follow we will explore the legal basis, if any, for doing just that.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2016 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE “TERROR WATCH LIST”—A GOOD IDEA? A GOOD IDEA GONE BAD? OR A BAD IDEA ALL ALONG?

THE “TERROR WATCH LIST”—A GOOD IDEA? A GOOD IDEA GONE BAD? OR A BAD IDEA ALL ALONG?

“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. . . . But even that is all beside the point, the main question is: Who is issuing the indictment?” “The Trial,” a novel by Franz Kafka, published in 1925Who is issuing the indictment, indeed? Unlike Josef K., the protagonist, in Franz Kafka’s insightful allegory, we, Americans, don’t live in a dictatorship. But, is that true? Was that statement once true, but true no longer?How is it that, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. . .” has devolved into “We the Government of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. . . . ?”  The phrases—“insure domestic Tranquility,” “provide for the common defense,” “promote the general Welfare”—are lost in time. The federal Government and the media circus subsume these phrases, appearing in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, under the ubiquitous, deceptive expression, “national security”—an expression that appears nowhere in it. What hath this Government in the name of “We the People” wrought for the People.Understand: Nothing—absolutely nothing—Congress, or the United States President, or the President’s legions of bureaucrats do is more invidious and insidious than disemboweling and dismembering the Bill of Rights in the name of national security. We should not excuse or laud emotional trumpet calls for action before pondering the legality and ethical merits of such Government action. We should not excuse or laud emotional trumpet calls for action before considering their impact on our free Republic. We should not excuse or laud emotional trumpet calls for action before recognizing their cost—the possible loss of our precious rights and liberties. For, once lost, they’re lost forever.When emotions run high, restraint is required. The denial of gun sales to anyone whose name appears on the Government’s “terror watch list” is a recent proposal bubbling to the surface as a result of the recent carnage wrought by a home-grown self-radicalized Islamic terrorist. On Monday, June 20, 2016, the U.S. Senate voted on a measure that would do just that: preclude a person from purchasing a firearm if his or her name appears on the Government’s “terror watch list.” Fortunately, sane heads prevailed. The measure was voted down. But, we may expect further attempts by antigun Legislators in both the House and the Senate to push a measure like this one, through. [Breaking News: At the moment, June 22, 2016, the foes of the Second Amendment are staging a sit-in on the Floor of the House. They won't "sit contented" until the Second Amendment is stricken from the U.S. Constitution].Secret Government lists, such as the “terror watch list” and the “no fly list,”—and perhaps others, of which we are unaware—are problematic in a free, democratic Republic. For, once an American’s name appears on a secret government watch list, his or her rights and liberties, guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, are in jeopardy. More to the point, such lists enable the federal Government to deny an American citizen his or her rights and liberties absent any charge of criminal wrong-doing. The Government, at the stroke of a pen, denies a person his or her rights and liberties without notice, without hearing, without reasonable means to challenge the inclusion of their name, in open court. Understand, we aren’t saying or suggesting those who seek to harm innocent Americans should have access to firearms. And, those Senators who voted down the “terror watch list” measure, on June 20, 2016, aren’t tacitly suggesting that American citizens who seek to harm innocent Americans should have access to firearms. These U.S. Senators have obviously asked themselves—and we need ask ourselves too—this profound question: Are we, Americans, ready to forsake, as a Nation, our sacred rights and liberties for the illusion of, or a mere modicum of, collective security? Is this something a free Republic, founded on a Bill of Rights and on a Constitution establishing a federal Government with carefully defined, demarcated, and limited power and authority, should accept or tolerate?The proposal came before the Senate—cavalierly bandied about by those who, despite assertions to the contrary, care not one whit about our Bill of Rights. That measure would deny Americans due process of law, a right guaranteed to all Americans under the Fifth Amendment. That measure would also deny Americans their natural right to keep and bear arms, a right codified and guaranteed to Americans under the Second Amendment.Millions of law-abiding citizens exercise their sacred right to keep and bear arms. They take responsibility for their own self-defense. They pose no threat to self or others. Are they expected to sacrifice that right, codified in the Second Amendment? Is that not asking too much of Americans? Would not that sacrifice operate as a capitulation to Islamic terrorism? Would not that sacrifice eviscerate our Bill of Rights and destroy one Amendment, in particular, that proclaims our uniqueness: that Government exists—truly exists—at the pleasure of the People and does not exist as a right unto itself?Lost in discussion—because of the frenzy of the moment—is any mention, any hint, how or whether Government intends to protect Americans from Islamist terrorists without infringing the sacred right of millions of law-abiding Americans who wish “to keep and bear arms.” Some Americans, we know, have no regard for that right. They seek to undermine it—are even counting on undermining it—in part, through application of the “terror watch list” to gun sales. They relish using a disastrous event to further a wicked agenda.What do we really know about this secret “list?”Consider: “The number of names on the terror watch list has grown steeply in the past decade, compounding the problem of inaccuracies. Whereas 288,000 names were on the list in 2005, the number had grown to 1.1  million by 2009. A Justice Department audit of the watch list in 2009 revealed a thirty-five percent rate of error, and disclosed that in seventy-two percent of the cases, the FBI failed to respond to these errors by removing the person from the watch list in a timely manner.” “Symposium: Inside America’s Criminal Justice System: The Supreme Court On The Rights Of The Accused And The Incarcerated: Bright Lines, Black Bodies: The Florence Strip Search Case And Its Dire Repercussions,” 46 Akron L. Review, 433, 461-462, Teresa A. Miller, Professor of Law, State University of New York, at Buffalo (SUNY—Buffalo)(2013).The critical problem presented by the Government’s “terror watch list” and other such “watch lists” is four-fold. One, an American loses his or her rights and liberties before commission of any crime or before probable cause exists an American has even considered committing a crime. This is a “Minority Report” scenario. Two, the Government’s “terror watch list” is secret. American citizens don’t know their name appears on the list until they seek to exercise a fundamental right and find they cannot. That alone should give all Americans pause. Three, fighting to remove one’s name from a secret list is extraordinarily difficult. The Government condemns an American citizen in secret, without notice, without hearing, without satisfactory legal recourse. Four, since the “terror watch list” is secret, the Government can add names to it at will—indiscriminately. This action results in millions of American citizens divested of their Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms.” The existence of secret Government “watch lists” in a free society—in a free republic—makes mincemeat of one’s rights and liberties. True Congressional oversight doesn’t and cannot exist, regardless of assertions to the contrary. Such feigned oversight is window dressing, nothing more. In the name of “national security” the Government clamps down on one’s beliefs, thoughts, actions, even absent criminal wrong-doing.One academic writer says, “the insulation of national security conduct from external review obscures hard questions surrounding liberty and security, undermining the rule of law.” See, “Essay: Rule Of Law Tropes In National Security,” 129 Harvard Law Review 1566, 1566 (2016), Shirin Sinnar, Assistant Professor of Law, Stanford law School.”The problem boils down to this: whether the Government ought to deny an American citizen’s rights and liberties merely for displaying odd character traits. The existence of a “terror watch list” creates tension with the Bill of Rights.The existence and use of a “terror watch list” raises a host of questions. Do you know the factors Government uses when placing a person on a “terror watch list?” Do you know any factor?” Can you know how those factors, change, grow, evolve through time? If your name appears on a “terror watch list,” how do you contest that? What is the monetary cost for fighting Government action? How does the Government remove a name when it uncovers a mistake? When would Government act to remove a name—your name— appearing on the “list,” mistakenly? Would Government remove a name appearing on the list mistakenly? Why has the list grown from a few thousand names to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands, to over one million in the last several years?Suppose a person seeks to join or associate with a political group the Government targets. Would that not conflict with the free association clause of the First Amendment? Suppose a person seeks to affiliate with the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, the American Communist Party? Should that person’s name appear on a “terror watch list?” If so, how far do we go? Suppose a person seeks to affiliate with the Green Party, the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party, or with various groups comprising the “Tea Party.” Which affiliation warrants placing an American citizen’s name on the “terror watch list?” Should any affiliation warrant placing a person’s name on the “terror watch list.” The First Amendment sets forth in principal part, as proposed by and as elucidated by one founder of our Nation, James Madison: “The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good.” We have seen the insidious effects of fear-mongering before: the infamous McCarthy hearings of the 1950s, during the “Cold War.”We are now witnessing a new twist on an old ploy: an attempt to use a secret Government “terror watch list” to deny to hundreds of thousands, and conceivably eventually, to millions of Americans their natural right to keep and bear arms.Ought the Government suspend the civil liberties of potentially millions of law-abiding Americans if Government believes, rightly or wrongly, such harsh measures will reduce the carnage created by a few? Are we, as Americans, prepared to sacrifice, conceivably, all rights and liberties for the benefit of national security?Cannot an American citizen hold “extreme” views without fearing Government reprisal? Is it not the right of an American to hold and display views another American might find extreme, even distasteful? Are not American citizens slowly squeezed into a tight container as Government dictates to the public what is fit and proper thought, belief, and action?Are you willing to sacrifice free speech? Are you prepared to surrender your firearms? Are you willing to sacrifice freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures? Are you willing to abandon the writ of Habeas Corpus? Are you agreeable to forgoing the right to a fair and public trial? Are you prepared to give up friends and associates because the Government doesn’t approve of their idiosyncrasies? How would the founders of our Nation respond to these questions if posed to them? Do you have answers to these questions? If so, sound off.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2016 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

FIRST AMENDMENT UNDER ATTACK . . . IN CHICAGO WHERE THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS TRAMPLED ON!

U.S. Under Attack: Chicago, Trump, Outrage . . . And the Trampling of Our Constitution

The American public must ask and a serious investigation to find answers must ensue: did the disruption in an auditorium in the City of Chicago, at a rally for the leading Republican candidate for President of the United States, that occurred Friday evening, March 12, 2016, just happen or did it happen because someone or some group intended for a riot to happen?In other words, was the disruption in Chicago that led to cancellation of a rally for the leading Republican candidate for U.S. President, on the eve of the most important Super Tuesday 2016 primary elections, a happenstance – a mere spontaneous outpouring of anger and rage expressed by certain unhappy segments of the population toward the leading Republican candidate, as the mainstream media is playing this, or was the disruption something more – a staged event in and of itself – carefully orchestrated and choreographed by certain powerful and ruthless interests that are willing to do and, apparently, are capable of doing whatever it takes to destroy the momentum of a popular political candidate for the highest Office in the Land?At the moment the public can only speculate as to the root cause for the disruption. One thing is certain, though. Our Bill of Rights is under attack and has been under incessant assault for many years. Our Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear arms” has, for many years, slowly and systematically suffered erosion through Congressional enactments and State action. If the leading Democratic Party contender for the Office of U.S. President gets the nod and ultimately secures the Oval Office, the right of the people to keep and bear arms will likely cease to exist except as a short footnote in the history texts. And, what shall become of other fundamental rights and liberties of the People?The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Since the early years of the twenty-first century, that fundamental right has been quietly and systematically eroded by federal Government intelligence and police apparatuses – all in the name of promoting “safety” for the collective, for the masses, generally. But, one would be hard-pressed to find, through a careful reading of the U.S. Constitution, any clause, sentence, or passage that authorizes the federal Government to undermine an individual citizen’s fundamental right to privacy – the sacred right to be left alone and the sacred right clearly setting forth that an individual’s personal effects are to remain free from unreasonable searches and seizures, as entailed by and codified under the Fourth Amendment – ostensibly to promote and ensure public safety; and one would be hard-pressed to find, through a careful perusal of the U.S. Constitution, any clause, sentence, or passage that authorizes the federal Government to undercut the fundamental right of an American citizen to keep and bear arms – the inviolable right of the individual to take responsibility for one’s personal security, as entailed by and codified in the Second Amendment – ostensibly to promote and ensure public safety.Yet the federal Government – especially in recent years – incessantly, unashamedly, and unapologetically invades the sanctity of both these natural and fundamental rights – all under the mask, the guise, of ensuring public safety. But, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – in the United States Constitution, either explicitly or impliedly, that authorizes the federal Government, under any set of actual events or, as we are more likely to see, under any set of contrived circumstances, to denigrate the fundamental, natural rights and liberties of the people – the rights and liberties that are clearly, cogently, and unambiguously set down in the first Ten Amendments to the United States Constitution.And, what of the First Amendment guarantee? The First Amendment as set forth in the Bill of Rights says, in meaningful part: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble. . . .”For many years the American people have been asleep. They have been fed pabulum by the mainstream media as the rug has been pulled out from under them. But, as law-abiding Americans, hard-working citizens, have seen their wages stagnating, their jobs shipped overseas or given over to foreigners here – whether those foreigners are in this Country legally, having secured temporary visas, or are in this Country illegally, having simply walked across unsecured borders – Americans have begun to wake up. The Americans are now placing their support behind candidates who have not been paid off by wealthy, powerful, ruthless interests to do the bidding of their sponsors.All bets are off now. Those powerful, ruthless interests that have been slowly, quietly, insidiously taking over our institutions, rewriting our history, forcing an alien morality and an alien culture down our throats are now aghast that the American public is no longer falling into lockstep behind the newly minted puppets or, in one case, a dusted off old puppet. The American public is no longer listening to the vapid, insipid, soothing, carefully rehearsed melodies that the song writers have composed for their ears, as sung to the public by their string pullers in sweet-sounding three part harmony.There is, in this U.S. Presidential election cycle, one candidate from each major political Party who dares to speak his mind rather than parrot the views of paid sponsors. That fact bothers the ruthless interests that have slowly taken over this Country. It has made them uneasy. It is even making them frantic. These ruthless interests are devising ways – legal, quasi-legal, and even illegal – to silence those candidates they have not been able to buy and whom they can never control.The University administration officials in Chicago must certainly have known that elements would be attending the political rally on Friday who were not interested in hearing what one particular candidate from one particular political Party had to say. They were only interested in creating a disturbance, to silence a voice, and these University officials must take responsibility for the disturbance that did occur and that occurred quite spectacularly on their turf. And, they did, indeed, silence a voice, if but for a moment and only for a moment.In a City that has in place some of the most stringent gun control measures anywhere in the Country – in a City that requires its citizenry to place full stock in the police to protect it – University officials did not take sufficient advantage of police utilization to protect those individuals who sought simply to attend a political rally to hear what one candidate for high political Office has to say. University administration officials should have seen to it that the right of free speech and right of the people to peaceably assemble – rights guaranteed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution – was assured. Instead those officials chose to send the First Amendment down the toilet just as the City of Chicago had, years ago, sent the Second Amendment down the toilet.Had there been an adequate police contingent at the auditorium on that Friday night, the police would certainly have been able to vet those individuals who sought attendance at the event, permitting entry only to those who honestly and sincerely wished to hear what one candidate for President of the United States had to say, and turning away those who sought to prevent the candidate from exercising his guaranteed freedom of speech and voicing his beliefs, his views, his policies and in his typical blunt, candid manner. And, in their desire to prevent an American citizen from exercising his right of free speech, those individuals who attended the political rally for the purpose of disrupting it showed their defiance of and contempt for the First Amendment, and, for some of those individuals, their obvious ignorance of the import and purport of the First Amendment.Make no mistake, the American people bore witness to a savage beating that took place the other night in Chicago, a beating abetted by both a complacent University administration and a treacherous news media. But, it wasn’t an individual who was harmed. It was the sanctity of the First Amendment itself that was savagely assaulted Friday night. Yet, that fact was hardly mentioned by the mainstream media either during the disturbance, nor at any time thereafter. Instead the mainstream media, at the behest of those interests that control it, have placed blame squarely and bizarrely on the candidate who was compelled to cancel the event and who was thereby silenced! The First Amendment freedom of speech died that night and without a whisper of its death.The mainstream media – the press – mentions the First Amendment in passing but never takes the First Amendment to heart. The press has lost its focus and direction, its purpose. It sensationalizes rather than enlightens. It seeks merely to sell a product, a commodity, rather than to inform and educate the American public.The mainstream media further denigrates the freedom of speech, guaranteed under the First Amendment, by demanding that the candidate apologize for the disturbance. Really? To whom and for what ought the candidate apologize?The First Amendment provides for and guarantees the right of every American to speak his or her mind, even if the ideas expressed are unpalatable, even repugnant to some individuals. Certainly, the public has a right to hear from a candidate, who seeks the highest Office in the Land, that candidate’s views on those topics and matters impacting all Americans. And each American may choose to hear, or not, what that candidate has to say. But no candidate should be silenced on the ground that some people do not like what the candidate has to say.There are mechanisms for peaceful protest. But, no person is permitted, in our Democracy, under our First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom to peaceably assemble, to shut out the voice of another person with whom one happens to take exception. To understand  Americans’ First Amendment guarantees is to appreciate the benefit it serves in a Democratic society and free Republic. For those few among us who do not appreciate the First Amendment, they should view it as the obligatory cost of living in a Democratic society and free Republic; and, if they are not content with that, such individuals ought to leave the Country.Of late we see our institution of higher education – an institution that should welcome diverse expression of thought – becoming decidedly intolerant, inhospitable to any view that is deemed inconsistent with a particular bland norm. That intolerance, that pretentious, impertinent, pious regard for the irrefutability of one’s own set of beliefs and values is now spilling over and into the political arena. Certainly, the American public has the right under the First Amendment to hear, unfiltered and unmediated, the thoughts of those individuals who seek to secure the highest Office of the Land.No candidate for public Office should be ostracized and denigrated simply because some individuals think that person’s views extend beyond the pale. No candidate should ever be silenced. The American public has the right to hear all viewpoints, to hear all sides of a debate. The First Amendment dies when the freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble, is shattered because some people don’t like the message recited and personally abhor the manner of recitation. Odd it is that the press – our press – that should be the first to recognize and defend the freedom of speech – becomes, instead, the voice of oppression that would gag free speech. Is the press – colloquially and affectionately referred to, in times past, as the “fourth estate” – not now, less an independent and necessary institution of a democratic society and free Republic, and more reminiscent of and, in fact, reduced merely to a tool of government – a tool of oppression that one witnesses in despotic nations?How is it, then, that we see our First Amendment guarantees crumbling before us? The public must understand: the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee does not guard against offending one. It was not designed to do so. It was never designed to do so. An adult should not be so easily offended anyway. And the U.S. Supreme Court has never held that the freedom of speech clause has such parameters carefully woven around it, to protect the sensibilities of peculiarly sensitive souls. The American public ought to be made of sterner stuff.The mainstream media, instead of supporting a candidate’s right to speak freely, in accordance with the First Amendment guarantee, has the temerity to denigrate America’s fundamental First Amendment right of free speech. And, what does the mainstream media – the press – suggest a candidate for the highest Office in the land ought acquiesce to? Just this: timidity, banality, sophistry, careful modulation in thought and speech lest this or that sensitive or ignorant soul be offended. Nonsense!The American people are not supposed to think too deeply lest they begin to see what roils beneath the surface; lest they see through the vapidity of the puppet masters’ “talking heads;” lest they come to recognize the cupidity and ruthlessness of the creatures who seek to destroy the sanctity of the individual; lest they become aware that their Constitution is becoming no more than a curious relic of a by-gone age; lest they come to realize the loss of a free Republic, through the loss of the Bill of Rights; and lest they come face-to-face with the very real possibility of annihilation of a once great sovereign Nation State.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF THE ANTIGUN MOVEMENT

The ultimate goal of the antigun movement is this: the universal elimination of civilian firearms’ ownership and possession. This is true and incontrovertible. Everything the antigun movement does is directed to the attainment of that goal. Nothing the antigun movement does diverges from the path to that goal. When asked to admit the truth of the assertion, the antigun movement, and its sounding board, the mainstream corporate media, will deny it, curtly and vehemently. But, the antigun movement’s actions belie its blunt denial.Realization of the movement’s goal amounts to de facto repeal of the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms – a right expressed clearly and cogently, succinctly and indelibly, in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Yet, if there exist any residual doubt as to the import of that right, the U.S. Supreme Court laid such doubt to rest in the 2008 Heller and 2010 McDonald decisions.In Heller the Supreme Court held: “the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” This right, the high Court maintains, operates as a constraint on the federal government. The question subsequently arose, in McDonald, whether the Heller holding applies to the States as well. The high Court held that it did, asserting, clearly, categorically, unequivocally, “the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller.”Still, the antigun organizations, and many lower courts amenable to their views, resist Heller and McDonald, and continue to advance strategies altogether inconsistent with the High Court’s holdings. The arguments – actually rationalizations – for more and more restrictive gun measures may be distilled to the following: one, no one needs a gun because the police will protect you; two, curtailing civilian gun ownership precludes gun violence and gun accidents; three, civilized people don’t want guns and are repulsed by them; four, since no one can know who, among the population, will go off “half-cocked” – presenting a danger to self or others – it is best to curtail civilian gun ownership and possession; and, five, the Second Amendment is obsolete; no other Country has anything like it, and the U.S. shouldn’t either. These five arguments are a ragbag of elements gleaned from utilitarian ethics, psychology, sociology, politics, economics, and even aesthetics. But they all embrace one central tenet: governmental control of the American public.The antigun movement does not recognize the sanctity and autonomy of the individual, which is the linchpin of the Bill of Rights. Rather, the antigun movement sees each individual American as a random bit of unharmonious energy, running hither and yon – an individual who is likely to harm self or others unless appropriately constrained for his or her own good and for the good of the greater society. A firearm in the hands of a civilian lessens government’s ability to control that individual. Ergo, the government must keep the two – firearm and individual – separated. What NRA works to keep conjoined, antigun groups wish to sever and keep disjoined.As the antigun movement works incessantly, inexorably toward its ultimate goal, the movement invariably butts up against the NRA, which the movement routinely and pejoratively refers to as the “gun lobby.” But, the antigun movement refrains from referring to itself as the “antigun lobby.” Now, lobbying activities are protected speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and NRA is open about its lobbying efforts on behalf of its millions of members. Yet the antigun movement cloak’s its own lobbying activities and blatantly panders to the U.S. President. President Obama, for his part, has not shied away from using the power of his Office to further the agenda of the antigun movement through issuance of executive actions, and he has formally announced, in January of 2016, his intention to do so.Now, Congress, under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, has sole authority to make law. The question is whether Obama’s antigun measures operate within the framework of existing Congressional firearms laws, as he claims, or operate beyond the boundaries of existing law. That Congress might obtain some resolution of that question, U.S. Senator Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., Chairman of the Subcommittee On Commerce, Justice and Science, requested Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appear at a hearing, held on January 20, 2016, to discuss the President’s recent executive actions.Senator Shelby made abundantly clear that the President does not have the authority to tell Congress what it must do. But the President has done just that, using the mechanism of executive directives, crafted by the Attorney General, herself, to conduct an “end-run” around Congress. The President isn’t asking Congress and the American people for permission to do what he wants to do. He is telling Congress and the American people what he’s going to do and cajoling both Congress and the American people to get on board with his game plan. That is extreme hubris.If the antigun movement is able to harness the Office of the President to craft its own laws to further a personal agenda, in defiance of both Congressional legislation and U.S. Supreme Court decision, then the Constitution is belittled and the Republic is endangered.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NRA: THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’S VOICE

Antigun Groups Curry Favor with the President to Further Personal Agenda and to Attack the NRA

Nothing speaks more clearly and cogently of the duplicity and hypocrisy existent in Obama’s efforts to undermine the right of the people to keep and bear arms than the personal attacks he levels against NRA. The singular aim of NRA is nothing less than defense of the inalienable, natural, and fundamental right to keep and bear arms – clearly and cogently articulated and codified in the Bill of Rights, as the second of ten critical, enumerated rights.We all know that the President and the various antigun interest groups habitually refer to NRA, disparagingly, as the “Gun Lobby.” They do this to suggest that NRA represents a small, select interest group, namely, gun manufacturers, whose singular objective is to make money from the sale of firearms. If true, NRA would be a “trade” group. Now, trade groups, on behalf of their members, do lobby Congress. And, there is nothing wrong with that. But, NRA is not a trade group.Although firearms’ manufacturers – which, by the way have their own trade groups – may benefit tangentially from the efforts of NRA to secure the sacred right of people to keep and bear arms, NRA does not represent gun manufacturers, and NRA is not an organization that comprises gun manufacturers. To the contrary, NRA is composed of American citizens – millions of Americans. Americans do not become members of NRA because they are interested in making money off NRA’s efforts. Americans become members of NRA because they know the United States will not long stand as a free republic if the right of each American to keep and bear firearms is curtailed. NRA is one organization that embodies and engenders the spirit of America as a free republic.The salient purpose of the NRA is to protect and preserve, for Americans the sanctity of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It works on behalf of its members, certainly, but, in fact, it works on behalf of all Americans who cherish their Bill of Rights.NRA does lobby on behalf of its members, just as the antigun interest groups lobby on behalf of their members, although the antigun groups’ members amount to a miniscule fraction of Americans. Moreover, unlike the antigun groups that are essentially nothing more than a lobbying vehicle for those individuals and cabals both here and abroad who wish to erode the Bill of Rights and to destroy the Second Amendment, NRA is much more than a lobby group.The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on the many services NRA provides for average Americans, law enforcement, and, traditionally, for the U.S. military. Readers are invited to read the Arbalest Quarrel's extensive article on the history of the NRA, posted on April 8, 2015.President Obama and Hillary Clinton and the antigun groups attack the lobbying efforts of NRA. But, there is nothing wrong in the act of lobbying, per se. Lobbying is an activity protected under the First Amendment. And, it would hardly do for the antigun forces in this Country to attack the NRA on the ground that NRA's lobbying efforts are wrongly directed to defending and preserving one of America’s inalienable, natural, and fundamental rights, especially in light of the lobbying efforts of the antigun groups that are directed to attaining the opposite end – the tearing down of a sacred right that the founders of a free republic gave to us. And it would hardly do for antigun groups to attack the NRA's defense of the Second Amendment when those same antigun forces openly declare, albeit disingenuously, that they do not wish to tear down the Second Amendment, when they seek to do just that. For, if they were serious in their assertions and declarations that they do in fact support the Second Amendment, then they would not be continuously, endlessly, and vociferously attacking NRA. That they do incessantly attack NRA, their hypocrisy and duplicity is glaringly obvious for all to see.At the behest of the President and at the behest of the antigun groups the mainstream media argues, emphatically, but falsely, that NRA represents and conducts lobbying activities on behalf of firearms' manufacturers, whose interests, the selling of firearms, play well to the ignorant among America’s populace who are conditioned, through the power of the mainstream media, to equate guns solely with violence – that is to say – with nothing good, even as that violence, as everyone knows, is produced, not by the tens of millions of law-abiding gun owners but, rather by a notably few, the very worst who live among us – namely, career criminals, psychopathic gang members -- many of whom have entered and remain in the U.S. illegally -- assorted lunatics and, of late, radical and radicalized Islamic jihadists.But, it is one thing for antigun groups to attack the NRA, as an organization whose goal it is to preserve the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, and to attack, too, those Americans who choose to exercise that right. It is quite another for the President to do so. Why is that? For this reason: when the President of the United States attacks NRA and, by extension, attacks millions of Americans who simply wish to exercise their fundamental right to keep and bear arms, the President is, himself, operating as a lobbyist for a specific interest group, at the detriment of the interests of another group. In this instance we see the President, Barack Obama, representing groups whose interests – the destruction of the Second Amendment and the erosion of the other nine Amendments – are at odds with the well-being of a free republic and with the safeguarding of the Bill of Rights.The duplicity and hypocrisy of the President of the United States are obvious and self-evident. President Obama and, before him, President Clinton, have used the power and influence of the Office of the Chief  Executive, to condemn the lobbying efforts of the NRA and, in so, doing, they have played favorites: furthering the dubious interests of those interest groups whose avowed goal is the dismantling of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the undermining of our Bill of Rights.In contradistinction to the underhanded, secretive use of the Office of the President (the Chief Executive of the Nation) by antigun interest groups to further their own nefarious, insidious objectives, NRA’s lobbying efforts have been subject to full disclosure, have been directed to the most honorable of goals – preservation of Americans’ fundamental right to keep and bear arms set forth with specificity in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – and have been directed to securing appropriate legislation through Congress, not through the Office of the President.The right of an interest group to lobby Congress to further that group’s objectives, if those objectives are properly disclosed, is legitimate, fully protected political speech, under the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On the other hand, the antigun groups, apart from lobbying Congress to further their own ends – upending the Second Amendment through the Legislative process – have, inappropriately, sought intervention by the Chief Executive, as well -- have, in fact, concentrated their lobbying campaign on the Chief Executive because Congress won't do their bidding. They trust that the Chief Executive will. But that means the Chief Executive is expected to legislate antigun laws on their behalf. And that is monstrous. We see the ludicrousness of President Obama's message to the public: asserting that he must intervene because Congress won't legislate in this area, but then asserting that he isn't making new law but simply operating within the constraints of present Congressional legislation! While an interest group is not prohibited from seeking special favor of, or groveling before, or currying favor from the Chief Executive, such instant and easy access to the President of the United States by one group, to the detriment of others, is fraught with danger especially when this behind-the-scenes actions of noxious special interest groups, namely and specifically, antigun interest groups, furthers goals that are diametrically opposed both to the well-being of a free republic and to the safeguarding of the Bill of Rights upon which a free republic depends for its survival.One must wonder whether President Obama’s recent impermissible promulgation of antigun legislation, through the device of executive directives, was not inspired by, or, more to the point, directed by antigun interest groups. Did not these antigun interest groups – angered by the failure of Congress to extend the parameters of the national instant criminal background check system of the “Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1994” – exert pressure on the President – convincing Obama, who was amenable to their goals anyway, to use the power of his Office to further the antigun agenda along precisely because Congress wouldn’t? And, does not this circumvention of Congress by the antigun interest groups constitute an illegitimate exertion of influence by these groups on the Executive, contrary to and irrespective of the will of the American people? Do not the actions of Obama amount to a compounding of fault, having allowed his Office to be a conduit for illegal law-making?Indeed, one antigun group, “the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence,” has, for decades, attempted to use the power of the Executive to further its own nefarious goals.The Brady Campaign, an antigun lobbying group, had appealed directly to President Carter, in the 1970s, to harass gun owners; and Carter did just that. The Brady Campaign had little success with the Republican Presidents, Reagan and H.W. Bush. But, then, Bill Clinton entered the picture. The Brady Campaign sent a confidential memorandum to the White House, setting out exactly what the Brady Campaign antigun interest and lobbying group wanted from and expected to obtain from Clinton, including, inter alia, licensing requirements and registration for handgun owners, bans on firearms, defined as ‘assault weapons,’ waiting periods, and a required “arsenal license” for anyone who owned 20 firearms or more.The Brady Campaign sought to use the power of the Executive Branch to put pressure on the Legislative Branch to further the interest of a small, virulently antigun segment of the population. Obviously, the Brady Campaign and other antigun groups have been working behind-the-scenes in recent times, as well, to push Obama to accede to their desires. Since Obama harbors anti-Second Amendment, antigun sentiments, anyway, he has been all-to-willing to use the power and influence of his Office to push the agenda of these groups – especially now, as he, in his final year of Office, is no longer afraid of offending Congress.If Hillary Clinton becomes her Party’s nominee and, thereafter, gains the Presidency, her Administration will be essentially an extension of her husband’s previous Administration, and the Brady Campaign and other antigun lobbying groups will continue to exert inappropriate, illegitimate, and, in fact, illegal influence over Hillary Clinton, just as they had exerted such influence over her husband and over Obama.Clinton, as we know, is more than merely amenable to this influence. She will be enthusiastic about using the Office of the Presidency to further the antigun agenda, even as this means by-passing Congress, and notwithstanding that Congress has sole authority to enact the laws of the Land, consistent with its law-making powers under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. If Hillary Clinton is successful in securing the Office of President of the United States, Americans will see further erosion of their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. They will see the continued erosion, too, of the Separation of Powers Doctrine as the Executive Branch amasses ever more power unto itself.You can help prevent Hillary Clinton’s ascendancy to the highest Office of the Land. If you are an NRA member, that is good. If you are a “Life Member” of the NRA, that is even better. America’s interests in preserving the Second Amendment and in preserving, as well, the other Nine Amendments of our Bill of Rights, are enhanced, and the influence exerted by the anti-American, antigun interest groups are, contrariwise, diminished, as NRA accrues more members. We ask that you encourage your family and friends to become members of NRA. And, please do not forget to vote![separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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

THE NEW YORK TIMES RESURRECTS FEINSTEIN'S MONSTER

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

PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT

THE ARBALEST QUARREL'S RATIONALE FOR WRITING TO THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE, TO THE GOVERNOR AND LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AND TO THE NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL

The New York Safe Act, signed into law by New York Governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, on January 15, 2013, is poorly drafted legislation. It was authorized without due process and in defiance of New York’s own State Constitution.The Safe Act is the Government’s model for undercutting the Second Amendment. The public knows this. But, what is not understood by most is that the Safe Act is destructive of private property rights too. The antigun establishment argues that the right to keep and bear arms is a collective right, not an individual right. But, in the seminal case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not merely a collective right. A person need not be a member of a State militia or other governmental military force to exercise the right to keep and bear arms.Moreover, an implication can be drawn from the Heller decision. Since an American citizen has the right, as an individual, to keep and bear arms, irrespective of membership in a State militia, this individual right to keep and bear arms presumes the citizen’s right to own the firearms he bears and keeps. Private property ownership is basic to a free America.The right of an American citizen to own property – to have exclusive and absolute ownership of property – is as fundamental a right to an American as the right to speak openly and freely under the First Amendment or to keep and bear arms under the Second.But, under the Safe Act a resident’s right of ownership in his own firearms is strained and constrained. New York law severely restricts a New York resident’s right to transfer ownership in his or her firearms to others upon the person’s death.New York residents may have one firearm worth a few hundred dollars or they may have collections of rare and expensive firearms worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars – perhaps millions of dollars. In either case, New York law restrains one’s ability to transfer firearms during one’s lifetime and restricts one’s ability to transfer firearms to one’s heirs upon the firearms’ owner’s death.The dollar value of a rare and expensive firearms’ collection may be severely compromised upon the death of a New York resident gun owner because New York law restricts transfers of firearms to heirs who happen to live in New York.In particular the New York Safe Act absolutely forbids the transfer of any firearm to an heir that is a Safe Act registered weapon unless that heir happens also to be a licensed New York gun dealer or an authorized police official.What does this mean for an individual who may happen to own a very rare and expensive firearm that happens to be a New York Safe Act registered weapon. Let’s consider an example.Suppose you have a gold-plated commemorative firearm that has a fair market value of $50,000.00, and suppose you wish to bequeath that firearm to your adult son or daughter upon your death. Suppose, further, that this gold-plated commemorative firearm is classified as a New York Safe Act registered weapon. Can you transfer that firearm – your personal property – to your adult son or daughter?Well, certainly nothing in New York law prevents you from bequeathing that firearm to your next of kin. But, the important question is whether your son or daughter can keep and enjoy that personal property, just as you had. And, there’s the rub.Your adult son or daughter can keep the firearm for up to 15 days. After that, the firearm must be turned over to the appropriate police official. At that point your son or daughter has up to one year to transfer or sell the firearm either to a licensed New York gun dealer or to a person or entity outside the State. If your adult heir fails to tell the police official how the Safe Act registered weapon is to be disposed of, the police official will destroy that firearm – a valuable collectible – one year from the date he or she obtains custody of it. There is no recourse. There is no remedy. There is no redress.Transference of firearms to a decedent’s rightful heirs creates an undue burden on the estate as the heirs may be ineligible to receive the firearms under the Safe Act. Thus, the Safe Act operates as an unconstitutional “taking” of one’s firearm in violation of the “Takings Clause” of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This cannot be tolerated. This contempt for our Bill of Rights cannot be condoned.The Arbalest Quarrel has recently written to every member of the New York State Senate and Assembly, in Albany, New York, and to the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the New York and to the Attorney General for New York, requesting each of them to use his or her authority to amend New York law so that a New York resident and citizen of the United States may exercise the fundamental right of enjoyment in his or her private property – that such right may be preserved, consistent with the intent of the United States Constitution, the New York State Constitution, and the precepts of a capitalist society. The Arbalest Quarrel has also notified the New York Delegation in Washington D.C. of its action as well.If the notion of private property is to mean anything concrete in this Country, then no governmental body, State or Federal, should be allowed to undermine an American’s exclusive power over his or her private property. That means American citizens and law-abiding gun owners, including those citizens and gun owners who are residents of New York, should be able to transfer their firearms to their heirs, free of governmental interference and constraint. That is why New York law must be changed. It must comply with the U.S. Constitution and the New York State Constitution, and with principles of a free market economy.The fundamental right of ownership and power over one’s private property must not be diminished by political machination. The fundamental right of enjoyment in one’s private property, as protected in the “Takings Clause” of the Fifth Amendment, is as basic and as important and as fundamental a right to an American as any other right set forth in the Bill of Rights.We are posting our letter on the Arbalest Quarrel website. It appears as a separate blog post. We shall keep our readers apprised of the results: who responds, and who fails to respond to our letter; and what each respondent has said in reply to our letter.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) and Vincent L. Pacifico (Orca) All Rights Reserved.

GUN RIGHTS ARE NOT SIMPLY EMBODIED IN THE SACRED SECOND AMENDMENT. AMERICANS HAVE A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO THE PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF GUNS TOO.

GUN RIGHTS ACTUALLY TRANSCEND THE SECOND AMENDMENT; AN AMERICAN’S FIREARMS ARE HIS SACRED PRIVATE PROPERTY. AND ONE’S RIGHT IN ONE’S SACRED PRIVATE PROPERTY SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED EITHER.

Gun collections are private property. This may seem obvious to you. After all the concept of a private property right is deeply embedded in American culture. It is deeply embedded in America’s economic traditions. And it is deeply embedded in the hearts and minds of Americans. The right to own and possess private property is as fundamental a right in this Country as is the freedom of speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and as the freedom to keep and bear arms is under the Second Amendment.Unfortunately, New York law doesn't really treat guns as private property. But, then, New York law views gun possession as a privilege rather than as an inalienable right. So, it should come as no surprise that guns are treated less as private property and more like rental property. We say this because strict limitations are placed on New York residents' ability to transfer their firearms, especially apropos of transfers  of guns or gun collections to heirs. If one's right of enjoyment in and to one's private property were truly honored as a right, then no express or tacit limitation would be placed on one's full enjoyment of that private property. That enjoyment includes the right to dispose of the private property as one wishes, to those whom one wishes to give that property, assuming one wishes to dispose of his or her firearms at all. A person should not be required to dispose of his firearms or firearms' collection if those firearms or collection of firearms are truly private property. Nonetheless, New York Statute tells a person not only when or that he or she must dispose of a gun or collection of guns, but also how a disposal of guns or of an entire gun collection must take place. And the language of gun transfers is laid out not at all succinctly, clearly, and plainly, as one might reasonably expect, but in lengthy, agonizing, and often incoherent detail.

THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS ENTAILS THE RIGHT TO OWN FIREARMS AS ONE'S SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE PRIVATE PROPERTY.

The concept of private property rights underlies and precedes the imperative of the Second Amendment: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Further, the fundamental right of Americans to own, possess, and enjoy their private property is embraced in the language of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as specifically applied to the States under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Further, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution secure for American gun owners the right to enjoy the liberties the Founders of our Republic intended for them as for all Americans. Present New York law denigrates the rights and protections and liberties of New York gun owners.Many New York residents have firearms’ collections worth many tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars – perhaps millions of dollars. The fair market value of these firearms’ collections is placed in jeopardy by specific language of the NY Safe Act, and in the language of the Penal Code of New York, and, by implication, in other Rules and Regulations of New York. In that regard it is not sound to argue that New York law provides firearms owners with mechanisms through which they can freely transfer, or sell, or otherwise dispose of their firearms to appropriate parties within the State or outside it. For the language of New York law is coercive. New York law often requires a gun owner to sell, transfer, or dispose of a particular gun or an entire gun collection when he doesn’t want to and prohibits him from bequeathing his gun collection to those whom he does want to bequeath his gun collection to. And he obtains little or no monetary compensation for that gun collection. Such coercion is antithetical to free market practices and turns the very notion of a free market on its head.Oddly, Governor Cuomo doesn’t address how a property interest in a firearms’ collection might be secured. We know this to be true as we have checked out the Governor’s website. You can check it out for yourself. This is the link: http://programs.governor.ny.gov/nysafeact/gun-owners.The Governor’s website provides absolutely no information or guidance for New York gun owners who seek to bequeath a gun collection to their next of kin. Doesn’t Governor Cuomo believe this matter to be important? If that is the case, clearly, tens of thousands of law-abiding New York gun owners would disagree with the Governor. They believe this to be a matter of utmost importance. Many of our readers have expressed considerable bewilderment over the matter of transferring gun collections to their heirs, and they have expressed substantial confusion as to the specific manner of transferring gun collections to their heirs.The testator owner of an expensive gun collection who wishes to bequeath a gun collection to his heirs should not be subject to impediments. But he is. New York law takes his expensive gun collection away from him. It takes his private property away from him without justly compensating him for it. And it deprives the New York gun owner of his expensive firearms collection, his private property, in complete derogation of the precepts laid out in the United States Constitution.In fact the taking of a New York resident’s gun collection without just compensation is not only in contradistinction to the United States Constitution; such taking is in derogation of the New York State Constitution, too.NY CLS Const Art I, § 7(a) says, “Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.” A person’s gun collection is his private property and the State essentially takes it from the owner and prospective heirs without just compensation. And, what public use is attendant to this “taking” of the firearms’ collection? Is the public use merely that a police department may, unbeknownst to the gun owner’s heirs, and, in fact, contrary even to the laws of New York, make use of the gun collection sans compensation to the owner’s heirs? Is the public use merely and incoherently that some of the firearms or the entirety of it will be destroyed by the police official and, so, the decedent’s heirs wind up with zero compensation for the firearms? The taking of private property without just compensation is also inconsistent with NY CLS Const Art I, § 11 which sets forth in pertinent part, “No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this state or any subdivision thereof. By failing to safeguard the monetary value of a New York resident’s gun collection, through the taking of it without just compensation, New York clearly and categorically denies to gun owners the equal protection of the laws to which they are entitled.The Bottom line:New York Statute altogether ignores the precepts implicit in the United States Constitution and in New York’s own State Constitution. New York’s governments operate in complete derogation of and, in fact, in unconscionable defiance to the dictates of both. Whether New York residents own firearms or not, they must wake up to the monstrous destruction of sacred rights and liberties, lest they lose all rights and liberties. [separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour) and Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.