SCHOOL SHOOTINGS SERVE AS PRETEXT FOR GUN BANS TARGETING THE AMERICAN CITIZENRY.

SINCE THE SANTA FE, TEXAS SCHOOL SHOOTER DID NOT USE A SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPON TO KILL OR INJURE HIS VICTIMS, WILL ANTIGUN GROUPS NOW SEEK TO BAN ALL FIREARMS?

Antigun groups must be throwing a temper tantrum. When the Santa Fe High School shooter committed his horrific act of murder and mayhem in May 2018, he had the temerity to use the wrong weapons. Antigun groups fully expected the shooter to destroy innocent lives utilizing a semiautomatic long gun— a firearm often referred to by the politically charged but specious expression, ‘assault weapon’—thereby keeping with the antigun zealots’ running narrative. But the shooter killed or seriously injured innocent students, teachers, and a police officer, with a shotgun and with a revolver, not an "assault weapon." Moreover, the weapons utilized by the shooter did not belong to the shooter and the shooter did not procure them from a gun dealer, through the internet, or through a third party at a gun show. No! The weapons belonged to the shooter’s father who had failed to properly secure his weapons from his severely mentally disturbed son. The failure of parental responsibility, here, is, in the first instance, where blame for the tragedy rests and where blame should properly be placed.

WHAT WEAPONS, SPECIFICALLY, DID THE SHOOTER USE IN COMMITTING HIS HORRIFIC ACT?

Specifically, the shooter utilized his father’s Remington model 870 pump action, manually operated shotgun, along with his father’s .38 caliber revolver to maim, injure, and kill innocent people. The police have not, apparently, identified, or otherwise officially released  the specific make and model number of the .38 caliber handgun utilized by the gunman as of the posting of this article. No matter. It is clear enough that the weapons the gunman utilized were not the typical firearms of choice for committing murder and mayhem—semiautomatic long guns—as antigun proponents and their echo chamber, the mainstream media, constantly and erroneously, maintain. But, that fact didn’t stop some individuals from surmising, without bothering to first verify, the nature of the weapons used.Apparently, in an attempt to get ahead of the curve, John Cornyn (Senator-Texas) said, as reported by the Houston Public Media Service, that, “. . . the 17-year-old student accused in a fatal shooting at a Texas high school used a semi-automatic pistol and a sawed-off shotgun to kill 10 people. The Republican from Texas says investigators are still determining whether the shotgun’s shortened barrel is legal.” Well, contrary to Senator Cornyn's conjecture, which he asserted as fact, the American public quickly learned that the shooter did not use a semiautomatic handgun, after all, and that the shooter likely did not use a so-called “sawed off shotgun” either. The killer used a common revolver handgun as mentioned above. And, as for Cornyn’s ludicrous, off the cuff remark about the shooter having used a “sawed off shotgun,” if that were the case, how long would it take “investigators” to determine whether the “shortened barrel is legal?” It is, of course, possible, but highly, and presumptively, unlikely, that the Remington Model 870 pump action manually operated shotgun the shooter’s father owned had a barrel length less than the limit prescribed by the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. A cursory check of the Remington website does provide the prospective buyer of the popular Model 870 pump action shotgun with in depth data about the shotgun along with substantial graphics. The Model 870 shotgun is available in a myriad of configurations and in several barrel lengths, from 14 inches to 30 inches, to meet a user's specific needs, whether employing the weapon for sporting uses or for self-defense.

DID THE SANTA FE TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTER USE A SHOTGUN WITH A BARREL LENGTH LESS THAN 18 INCHES—A  SO-CALLED “SAWED OFF SHOTGUN”—AS U.S. SENATOR, JOHN CORNYN, MAINTAINS?

If, in fact, the shooter’s father’s Remington Model 870 had a barrel length of less than 18 inches, then ATF approval for a shotgun with a barrel length of 18 inches, or less, would be necessary. As pointed out by the ATF, in the atf.gov website, “A shotgun subject to the NFA [National Firearms Act] has a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length. The ATF procedure for measuring barrel length is to measure from the closed bolt (or breech-face) to the furthermost end of the barrel or permanently attached muzzle device.”The website, gundata.org discusses, assiduously, the matter of barrel length of both rifles and shotguns.“Simply put, on the whole, a rifle barrel should be no less than 16" and a shotgun barrel should be no less than 18". While the overall gun length for either a rifle or a shotgun has to be 26" according to the ATF, paying extra for an exception can make a difference. Even though black powder guns don't have this limitation, guns that fire ‘smokeless powder’ do have to adhere to ATF and federal guidelines.That's why shotguns like the modern Mossberg 500 and 600 series riot shotguns will measure out to these specifications. While sawing off a double barreled shotgun or cutting a M1A1 to lengths as short as 12" is possible to make them a lot more cancelable, especially under a dustcoat, the government says that a short shotgun or short rifle isn't legal unless you apply for a specific license.It is possible to apply for a license for a short rifle or short shotgun with the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms). The fee is either $200 or $5 depending on circumstances and the way the gun is manufactured, but owning a gun shorter than the ‘standard’ legal limits is possible. For a gun manufacturer, adhering to the legal limits is mandatory and if you find a shortened gun at a gun show or even at a private sale, be aware of your rights and the applicable laws.” 

A QUANDARY FOR ANTIGUN PROPONENTS

Unlike sophisticated semiautomatic weaponry, manually operated pump action shotguns and manually operated revolver handguns have been around for a long time, approximately 130 years. The pertinent question is this: how have antigun proponents and the mainstream media spun the narrative in the call for further gun restrictions since the Santa Fe, Texas school shooter, here, didn’t use what antigun proponents, along with the mainstream media, often refer— contemptuously, pejoratively, slyly, and clearly erroneously—to as an “assault weapon?” It should be abundantly clear to anyone with half a brain, that, for your average, garden variety killer, who desires to create carnage, any weapon at hand will do. Unless a killer happens to be a psychopathic “professional” assassin or a psychotic member of a drug cartel, either of whom would likely have the contacts, wherewithal, and grim determination to acquire access to specialized, unlawful weapons, the kind of weapons that fall in a domain well beyond those weapons commonly available to the law-abiding American public—an American public that generally acquires firearms through a licensed firearms dealer—a killer will use whatever weapon he is able to get his hands on. That was certainly the case with the Santa Fe Texas shooter. But, given the circumstances of that recent school shooting incident in Santa Fe, Texas, antigun proponents are in a quandary as to whether to stay with their present running narrative—that non-semiautomatic weapons only are okay for law-abiding, rational, average American citizens to possess because semiautomatic weapons and full auto or selective fire weapons are weapons of war that have no place in a modern civilized society—or to sharply alter the current narrative, admitting to the American public, at long last, what it is they are truly after: a ban on civilian ownership and possession of all firearms—to turn the entire Nation into a “Gun-free Zone.”Clearly, antigun proponents’ calls for increasingly tight restrictions on civilian access to so-called assault weapons—meaning, of late, virtually all, not merely some, semiautomatic weapons—suggests a marked reluctance on their part to show their hand too soon, by calling for a total, or, otherwise, comprehensive ban on civilian ownership and possession of firearms of all types. Antigun proponents and zealots have traditionally preferred an incremental approach to gun bans and gun confiscations—one category of firearms at a time, and ever widening the domain of Americans who are precluded lawfully from owning and possessing any firearm—in order to slowly acclimate the public toward acceptance of a gun-free Country.In fact, antigun proponents—a few of them, ostensibly gun owners, posturing as supporters of the natural, fundamental, and unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms—disingenuously claim by mere assertion, and rarely if ever by hard argument—that some firearms are specifically designed for self-defense, and so, are deemed the good weapons; and that other weapons—various kinds of semiautomatic firearms, the so-called “assault weapons”—are designed for war; and that this latter category of  firearms therefore fall, presumptively, into the bad kind of weaponry that, as antigun proponents vehemently exclaim, civilians should not have access to.Antigun proponents evidently like to recruit and trot out seemingly avid “antigun gun owners” who, in accordance with the central theme and narrative, argue for reinstating a national ban on “assault weapons,” a catchall expression that is increasingly becoming synonymous with all semiautomatic firearms, not merely some semiautomatic weapons. Antigun proponents falsely assert that no one is trying to take all firearms  away from the civilian population of the Country, just some of them—the bad sort, the ones they have corralled under the brand of “assault weapons” or “weapons of war.” They assert that banning such weapons of war is okay because, after all, law-abiding, rational Americans can still keep true self-defense weapons, like .38 revolvers and shotguns handy at the ready, at home.But is that assertion true, especially when it is clear that so-called weapons for self-defense, or for sport, or for plinking at targets, like revolver handguns and shotguns, are capable of offensive use, as well, and with devastating effect, when in the hands of irresponsible individuals; or in the hands of gangbangers; or in the hands of the common criminal; or in the hands of  severely disturbed individuals, such as the shooter who murdered, maimed, and injured several innocent individuals in a Santa Fe, Texas high school? Do not these self-described antigun gun proponents, after all, deviously, deceptively, insidiously, mislead the American public by proffering a seeming reasonable compromise solution to curtailing gun violence and at once "permitting" lawful gun ownership? Are American gun owners expected, honestly, to suspend their skepticism? How many times in the past have American gun owners heard antigun proponents and antigun legislators preface their antigun diatribes with the assertion that they do, of course, support the Second Amendment, when clearly we know that they do not? So, whom are these antigun proponents and antigun legislators really fooling?LET US TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT A COUPLE OF SEEMING “PRO GUN” ANTIGUN GUN PROPONENTS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT CIVILIAN GUN OWERNSHIP AND POSSESSION AND CONSIDER THE EFFICACY OF THEIR REMARKS, CONCERNING REVOLVERS AND SHOTGUNS IN LIGHT OF THE SANTA FE, TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL INCIDENT.Consider the assertions of one antigun zealot, Ashley Addison, who claims, incongruously, to support the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Addison refers to herself as a definitive gun owner. In the weblog, scarymommy.com (an obvious antigun forum, merely masquerading as a weblog supportive of the Second Amendment), this self-proclaimed gun owner claims that she owns only the right and proper sort of weapons—that is to say, weapons for self-defense. Addison says:“I’m a gun owner. I have two pistols, a rifle, a shotgun . . . and a (now-expired) concealed carry permit. I’ve been shooting since I was a kid. I also support every single gun control measure out there. . . . But an AK-47 (and other assault weapons) is not an ideal weapon for personal defense, and it serves no purpose for “home protection.” It was designed for military use. A a [sic] 12-gauge shotgun is a better, more realistic choice for home defense. I’ve never seen any peer-reviewed study/expert/article anywhere that can refute this. Bottom line: Assault-style weapons should never be in the hands of civilians.” Would Addison be so quick to assert that she does, in fact, “support every single gun measure,” as she bluntly says in her blog post if that means having to relinquish her shotgun, since, as anyone with any knowledge of the operations of firearms knows that a “self-defense” weapon can be used offensively and that a self-defense weapons, namely a revolver handgun, and a shotgun were in fact utilized by the Santa Fe, Texas shooter to murder, quite effectively, several innocent young people, and in short order? Would Addison continue to suggest that a 12-gauge shotgun is somehow a good weapon—a safe and humane kind of weapon—one particularly suitable for civilians to wield, but that a semiautomatic “assault-style weapon” is not, when considered in light of this recent mass shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. Is the distinction that Addison draws a sound one? One website, internet armory.com has this to say about the shotgun:“The shotgun is, by far, the deadliest and most formidable, effective firearm ever created for short range personal defense. No other firearm will devastate, disable, or discourage an aggressor as reliably as a shotgun.  No other firearm is as likely to obtain decisive hits on an assailant as a shotgun loaded with buckshot.”When used at shortrange—for example, a school room—Addison’s remark about shotguns (for civilian use) versus assault-style weapons (for military or other non-civilian use is not only patently ridiculous but truly bizarre. One must ask: Does Ashley Addison know what she is talking about? And, by the way, Ashley, shotguns have been and continue to be used by the military and by the police.The point is that any firearm in the wrong hands is deadly. A psychopath or lunatic can create monstrous horror, wielding any firearm. Moreover, while some firearms or firearm configurations are useful or ideal for a particular purpose, any weapon in the wrong hands can dispatch many innocent people, quickly and effectively, as factual accounts of recent shooting incidents bears out.In another “scarymommy.com” blog post, a second female, also a self-described “gun owner,” and purported supporter of the Second Amendment, Marissa Bowman, writes: “The fact of the matter is that guns in America are not going to disappear — at the very least not anytime soon. [Is Bowman suggesting they should disappear? If so, she is hardly the supporter of the Second Amendment that she claims to be]. Our Second Amendment rights guarantee that, and more importantly, our social structure is keeping it in place. Until we can guarantee safety for all children — not just our own — parents like me feel it necessary to utilize the right to have added protection for our family. “That does not mean, however, that anyone should be able to own whatever type of gun that they want and without restrictions. As a part-time solo mom whose partner is frequently away for his job, I absolutely feel it’s necessary to own a gun which I keep in my home. My family’s safety is simply not up for political debate. The Smith & Wesson M&P Bodyguard (.38 Special) that I carry makes me feel as though I can protect and defend my children in a moment’s notice, which in turn makes me feel empowered as a mother.”In light of the Santa Fe, Texas school shooting, the incongruity of the claims of Addison and Bowman are abundantly clear. The notion that some firearms are acceptable for Americans to own and possess and that some are not is demonstrably weak. The fact of the matter is that, in any confined public area where people are cowering, or even in an open area where people are densely packed and running hither and yon into each other, in panic, a would-be killer can use any firearm, or, for that matter, even a knife, to injure or kill a substantial number of people, quickly, effectively, and unceremoniously. It is therefore dubious for a person to claim that law-abiding, rational Americans have a right to acquire some firearms, but not others--with antigun groups and antigun legislators, along with the mainstream media, being the ultimate arbiters as to what firearms some members of the American citizenry, and, increasingly, an ever dwindling number of the American citizenry--to own and possess. We know where this leads. Given a plethora of ad hoc, inconsistent, and unsound arguments propounded, almost daily, concerning what firearms the law-abiding citizen may own and possess, along with a call for increasing restrictions on one's use of his or her personal property, and further restrictions on American civilians who are deemed worthy of owning and possessing a firearm what must inevitably come to pass is the virtual extinction of ownership and possession of any firearm in this Country.

HOW HAVE ANTIGUN WRITERS FOR MAINSTREAM PUBLICATIONS RESPONDED TO THE SANTA FE SHOOTING INCIDENT, WHERE THE KILLER DID NOT USE A SEMIAUTOMATIC FIREARM, BUT A BASIC DOUBLE-ACTION REVOLVER HANDGUN AND A MANUALLY OPERATED PUMP ACTION SHOTGUN?

Had the shooter utilized a semiautomatic long gun qua “assault weapon,” the antigun groups would merely claim, as they have been doing for some time, that no one needs such a weapon for self-defense, and that Congress should therefore enact another “assault weapons” ban. Of course, antigun groups seek, ultimately to forbid civilian ownership and possession of any firearm, but they would seek to do so incrementally, and in a linear fashion. As the NFA (National Firearms Act of 1934) operates, essentially, as a practical matter, as a general ban on civilian ownership and possession of fully automatic and selective fire weapons, as well as operating essentially, and as a practical matter, as a ban on civilian ownership and possession of so-called, “sawed off shotguns,” the desire of antigun groups is, as is evident, to see enacted an NFA style set of federal laws applied to semiautomatic weapons, that is to say, “assault weapons”—meaning, an NFA style set of federal laws applied to every conceivable semiautomatic firearm. Once that goal has been accomplished—if it were accomplished—then the American public should make no mistake, as antigun groups would not stop there. They would then go after civilian ownership and possession of remaining firearms: including revolver handguns, shotguns, lever action rifles, black powder muzzleloaders, and any other type of fully functional firearm that  the average, law-abiding, rational American citizen, and civilian, may happen to own and possess.

HOW IS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA DEALING WITH THE SANTA FE TEXAS SHOOTING IN LIGHT OF THE FACT THAT THE SHOOTER DID NOT USE A SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPON TO WREAK HAVOC IN A PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL?

With this latest mass shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, will antigun zealots now call for stringent curbs on civilian ownership and possession of all manner of weaponry? Consider how this is beginning to play out.A contact reporter for the Chicago Tribune, in an article, caustically titled, “No matter what type of gun is used in school shootings, innocent people end up dead,” Dahleen Glanton, writes,“This time, the school shooter did not use an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to slaughter his classmates. That must be quite a relief to gun lovers.This killer’s weapons of choice were a shotgun and a .38-caliber handgun — two of the most common firearms available. What more proof do we need, gun lovers will ask, that the problem isn’t with guns but rather with people? . . .With so many mass shootings in schools and other public places, there is no question that gun lovers have been feeling as though they are under attack. They have tried their best to fend off arguments by the rest of the country that every gun is not protected under the Second Amendment. With so many people dying, we desperately need them to wake up and join us in the struggle to keep our children safe. Only then will politicians feel secure enough to take action.We cannot let them off the hook. Guns in general, and semi-automatic rifles in particular, remain the greatest threat to safety in America.Pagourtzis might not have been armed with a high-powered weapon when he allegedly entered that classroom Friday, but gun laws are so lax in Texas that he certainly could easily have gotten his hands on one. In fact, he could have walked down the street with an AR-15 strapped to his shoulder and likely no one would have thought it was odd.If anything, the shooting exemplifies what anti-gun advocates in cities like Chicago have been saying too. It is far too easy for a legal gun to turn into an illegal gun.”We make a couple observations here. Firstly, the reporter for this mainstream Press newspaper is acting in typical lockstep with previous mainstream reports of mass shootings, maintaining a consistent antigun narrative. But, she acknowledges, as she must, that the Santa Fe, Texas high school shooter did not use a semiautomatic long gun. But she then moves to propounding bald counterfactuals, apparently to maintain the consistent antigun movement narrative, blasting the presence of semiautomatic long guns in the civilian population, asserting that the shooter could have gotten his hands on an “AR-15,” given, what the reporter refers to as lax gun laws in Texas—a point the reporter doesn’t bother to clarify and expound upon; nor does this reporter explain how the shooter could have gotten his hands on a semiautomatic rifle, but didn’t. Actually the shooter quite effectively murdered and injured innocent young people at Santa Fe High School with a pump action shotgun and a revolver handgun. He need not have bothered to get his hands on an AR-15 if he had thought about the matter at all. Secondly, the shooter gained access to his father’s firearms because his father failed to properly secure them. Note: This is the same, virtually identical and disturbing scenario, by the way, that played out, tragically, in Newtown, Connecticut, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in 2012.A mother, Nancy Lanza, failed properly to secure her firearms from her psychotic son, Adam Lanza. Now, no one would seriously suggest that Connecticut has had lax gun laws, either prior to the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, or at any time since the tragedy. In both the Newtown, Connecticut mass shooting incident and in the recent Santa Fe, Texas mass shooting incident, the primary cause for the tragedy can and should be laid at the feet of irresponsible adults and heads of families who knew or should have known of, and certainly better than anyone else, the dangers posed by failing to properly secure firearms from children or from disturbed family members who happen to be residing in the household, and by failing to properly secure any other object that could be feasibly used as a deadly weapon by children or by severely mentally disturbed family members. What we see instead is that neither the irresponsible adult family member, nor the psychotic son is cast as the principal culprit and villain. Rather, the firearm that an obviously psychotic young man acquired and used to murder, maim, and injure innocent individuals—be it a semiautomatic rifle in one instance, or a shotgun and revolver handgun in the other—is cast as the primary cause for the ensuing tragedies and cast, too, as the basic and principal villain and "fall guy." The antigun proponent's narrative can take one of two forms.Consider: one of two narratives must play out when we see antigun proponents and commentators placing blame squarely on an object, rather than on the sentient entity who wields it, that is to say, when we see antigun proponents and commentators placing blame on an object rather than upon the agent who wields the object. Antigun proponents and antigun commentators tend either to fall back on the same, ever recurring narrative, namely  that the primary cause for gun violence rests upon the so-called assault weapon, even if a semiautomatic weapon was never in use by a killer or antigun proponents and antigun commentators must construct a new narrative. If antigun commentators wish to stay with the typical narrative, namely that semiautomatic weapons must be banned even if semiautomatic weapons were never used in the shooting incident, as was the case in the recent Santa Fe, Texas incident, then an argument calling for a general ban on civilian ownership and possession of semiautomatic weapons and mass confiscation of semiautomatic weapons is nonsensical in the extreme, as a narrative that does not fit the factual situation must invariably devolve into a recitation of senseless, hypothetical "what if" scenarios as we see in the Chicago Tribune article, and as we also see in the New Yorker article, infra. The narrative becomes decidedly discordant if predictable; for the proverbial deadly object qua "assault weapon" doesn't factor into the fact pattern. It cannot. If, on the other hand, antigun proponents and commentators wish to construct a new narrative, admitting to the public what antigun proponents most assuredly discuss among themselves, namely, that firearms of all types must eventually be banned, not just so-called, “assault weapons”--aka “weapons of war, then the antigun proponent and commentator isn't compelled to resort to spurious and specious hypotheticals, which has not place in a news account anyway; and the narrative is internally consistent. But the true intent of the antigun movement would be laid bare for all to see. The true aims of the antigun movement would be clear and irrefutable. In that case, the "cat" would definitely be "out of the bag,"  as the antigun proponent or antigun commentator  would be clearly and categorically articulating the antigun movement's ultimate goal: the disarming of the American citizenry en masse. Neither narrative would sit well with American gun owners; nor should it. For, any attempt to arbitrarily ban civilian possession of firearms--whether a gun ban and gun confiscation scheme embraces one type of firearm or all types--would, in either case, be true folly and wholly unacceptable to the American gun owning public because gun bans and gun confiscation schemes are altogether incompatible with the import and purport of the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Semiautomatic weapons, revolvers, and shotguns are all in common use by millions of average, honest, law-abiding, and rational American citizens. These weapons all fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment and cannot lawfully be taken away from Americans. The late, eminent U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the seminal Second Amendment Heller case made abundantly clear that, presumed State public safety concerns do not and cannot legally override fundamental, primordial Constitutional rights. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the Land; and basic, natural rights and liberties, as a critical component of the U.S. Constitution, are not and never shall be subordinate to State or Federal Statute, much less to public opinion polls or to orchestrated public demonstrations.As the right of the people to keep and bear arms is not and never has been a right bestowed on Government to the people but exists forever within the American people, that right cannot be legitimately, legally tampered with. To obliterate the natural and fundamental right codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, by arrogantly attempting to turn a sacred right into a mere privilege, easily dispensed with, is an anathema to our history, traditions, values, ethical sensibilities, and legal, social, economic, and moral foundational understanding. Such an effort would, as well, illustrate the antigun movement's naked, and absolute, unbridled disdain for seminal Second Amendment, U.S. Supreme Court rulings.Another writer for a mainstream news publication, John Cassidy, a columnist for the New Yorker, in an article titled, “Everything About the Texas School Shooting Seems Horribly Familiar,” makes similar comments to those of Dahleen Glanton, writing for the Chicago Tribune. Cassidy, too, maintains the usual antigun proponent's narrative, attempting to shoehorn counterfactuals into a factual account of the mass shooting. So, despite the weapons that the Santa Fe, Texas gunman used during his murderous escapade, a shotgun, and .38 caliber revolver, which did not include semiautomatic weapons, Cassidy eschews keeping to the facts, contrary to what a reporter should be doing--recounting facts, not contemplating, "what ifs." Cassidy argues that the shooter could have used a semiautomatic weapon to seriously injure or kill innocent young people, even if the shooter, as we know, didn’t. The account comes across as weak, even silly. John Cassidy exclaims:“About the only atypical aspect of the shooting was that Pagourtzis reportedly used a Remington Model 870 shotgun and a .38-calibre revolver, rather than a semi-automatic rifle, to kill his ten victims and wound ten others. This was probably because his father didn’t own an AR-15 or any other weapon of war. (Pagourtzis told police he used his father’s guns. It wasn’t immediately clear whether his father knew that they were in his possession.) Enthusiasts of semi-automatic weapons will presumably use this detail to fortify their case against banning such weapons—the argument being that there are firearms of all kinds (more than three hundred million in private hands across the U.S., according to some estimates) and banning one particular type of gun won’t prevent a dedicated shooter from carrying out a massacre.In the world of Second Amendment devotees, this qualifies as a legitimate case to make. So does the argument, which Donald Trump and the N.R.A. have made, that the real issue with school shootings isn’t the fact that disturbed adolescents have such ready access to deadly weapons but that schools don’t have enough armed teachers to stop gun-wielding intruders, or enough ready escape routes for students and staff to take as they flee the gunfire. ‘We have to look at the design of our schools moving forward and retrofitting schools that are already built,’ Dan Patrick, the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas, said on Friday. ‘And what I mean by that is there are too many entrances and too many exits to our over eight thousand campuses in Texas . . . Had there been one single entrance, possibly, for every student, maybe he’—Pagourtzis—'would have been stopped.’ Rather than descending further into the world of deliberate denial, it is perhaps worth stating a few facts: this was the second school massacre in three months, and the second gun massacre in six months in Texas.”“Descending further into the world of deliberate denial?” How does fortifying schools against shooters translate into denial. Clearly, John Cassidy is, himself, in denial. It isn’t the millions of law-abiding, rational Americans who happen to own firearms and who strongly support our Bill of Rights—all Ten of them—who are in denial. In fact, in those States that have implemented truly effective school safety plans against shooters, utilizing armed teachers and other armed personnel, there has been not one incident of a school shooting. But, antigun proponents, like John Cassidy choose, apparently, to ignore that fact, assuming he bothered to investigate the matter at all. He presents, as self-evident, true the false and absurd notion that the answer to school safety rests, simply and solely on banning civilian ownership and possession of firearms en masse.Cassidy’s argument boils down essentially to this: killers murdered young people with guns; so, once Congress bans firearms from the American citizenry, commencing with a ban on semiautomatic rifles, the problem of mass murders in schools will be resolved. Cassidy is wrong. The problem of mass murders in schools or in other public venues won’t end, not by a long shot! Because violence exists in the minds of people, not in objects. That simple truth seems forever to elude antigun proponents who are obsessed with eliminating “The Gun” from society, irrespective of the root causes of violence.John Cassidy, as with Dahleen Ganlon, seems fixated on the notion that the Santa Fe shooter would, of course, have taken up an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle if the shooter’s father happened to have one. Antigun proponents, like John Cassidy, love to slither here and there—perhaps unaware that they are doing so—from reporting on events taking place in the world to reflecting on possible circumstances that might have, or could have, or conceivably would have, occurred, but didn’t; and they conclude their polemics with express or tacit normative remarks about the way the world ought to be. Since, the antigun movement is hell-bent on removing from civilian possession all semiautomatic weapons, first and foremost, commencing with a broad ban on all semiautomatic weapons that this or that antigun proponent wishes to call an "assault weapon," the movement's proponents and the commentators and reporters of the mainstream media who echo the movement's tactics and strategies, do not wish to muddy the waters by talking about the weapons that a particular killer happened to use, rather than the ones that the antigun proponents' would have wished for the gunman to have used in order to keep with the "game plan." Time would come, when, after semiautomatic weapons have been confiscated, remaining categories of firearms can be confiscated and banned as well.As with all or most antigun zealots, John Cassidy knows little if anything concrete about firearms, and likely cares not one whit to educate himself. As for so-called weapons of war, a little history lesson is in order here. Revolver handguns as well as shotguns have seen use in war. Both weapons are used by many police departments and they have use in sport and for self-defense, as are semiautomatic weapons. And, as the Arbalest Quarrel has pointed out in the previously posted article, any weapon can be used for good or ill, dependent on the wielder of the weapon. The Santa Fe School shooting, the Parkland, Florida school shooting, and the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting were easily preventable. Failures by governmental authorities and/or by parents of shooters led to tragedy. Those who own and possess firearms have the responsibility to properly use and care for them and to properly secure them. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible gun owners. There is no sane reason to target their firearms for confiscation.In any event, the answer to curbing gun violence does not devolve to imposing debilitating, draconian gun restrictions on millions of responsible gun owners. That would destroy our free Republic and likely led to outright civil war, as the American citizenry would see first hand, an unlawful attempt by Government to wrest control of the Nation from the citizenry.There is a more direct and effective response to school safety. It is a twofold approach; and it is an approach that does not create havoc with our Constitution and with the natural rights of Americans. First, at the State, County and local Government levels, a clear and honest assessment of school safety must be made. Once that assessment is completed, a plan must be devised and then implemented with proper testing. The New Yorker columnist, John Cassidy, may see this as a trivial matter. We do not. Second, firearms must be removed from the hands of those who act irresponsibly, and there must be a concerted effort to remove firearms from the criminal elements in our society. Laws already on the books need to be enforced. The Nation does not need more firearms’ laws. Unfortunately, the antigun movement in this Country seeks to disarm the vast responsible American citizenry. School shootings serve merely as a pretext for broad-base gun bans and eventual mass gun confiscation. It is the vast responsible, law-abiding American armed citizenry that the antigun movement is truly targeting, for it is the vast law-abiding armed citizenry that those who seek to disarm Americans truly fear, as it is the vast, law-abiding armed citizenry that, as the Founders of our Republic intended, they cannot, ought not, and must not control. For, it is only in an armed citizenry that true Government encroachment on the rights and liberties of the American citizenry is effectively, categorically, constrained and contained. It is not the criminal element, then, and it is not the occasional lunatic that goes off on a shooting spree that the antigun movement and their silent, secretive, ruthless Globalist benefactors truly fear.It is the average, law-abiding American citizen and gun owner that these anti-American elements fear and therefore seek to control. The banshee shriek and wail calling for a ban, eventually, on civilian ownership and possession of guns generally and a ban on civilian ownership and possession of semiautomatic firearms—pejoratively and idiotically referred to by antigun proponents as “assault weapons” and as “weapons of war”—particularly, at this juncture, and the claim made that only through mass gun control and eventual mass gun confiscation will this Nation, its people, and its children be safe from violence are, on close inspection specious, even ludicrous, pronouncements even if, superficially, these boisterous, obstreperous pronouncements happen to sound palatable and convincing, as, of course, they are meant to. This propaganda—for propaganda it is—is directed to the weak-willed and the uniformed among us—individuals who are looking for a panacea to violence in society, as violence is claimed to be endemic in society, and they are told it need not be, if only the public accedes to giving up their firearms.Through it all, the American public is being fed a false narrative. It is a narrative carefully crafted and then directed to the American public through mass media organizations, controlled by transnationalist billionaires who seek to alter, forever, the framework of the Nation, a free Republic that the Founders of our Nation, the framers of our Constitution and of our sacred Bill of Rights, bequeathed to us. The transnationalist billionaires seek to destroy our Nation for their own benefit, for their own selfish  ends. The goal, of these extraordinarily powerful, insanely wealthy, highly secretive, and absolutely ruthless individuals, is not suppression of gun violence, despite the claims of antigun groups, their willing tools. To the contrary; it is repression of the American citizenry. That, unfortunately, is the sad, but irrefutable truth. The American public should not be deluded to think it not so._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

I AM A GUN AND THIS IS WHAT I HAVE TO SAY

I am a Gun. I am not a person. I, myself, am incapable of harming anyone. Only a person is capable of harming another person. I cannot, myself, harm a person. And I cannot force a person to use me for an evil purpose. In the hands of a rational, competent, law-abiding person, I serve a greater good. In the hands of an irrational, incompetent, lawless individual, I serve a dark end. But, I, myself, must be held blameless because I am not a person.Many ill-informed individuals are quick to cast aspersions on me. They will say or suggest that I am evil incarnate. I am not. I do not have the power of choice. I do not have “free will.” Only a human being has the power of choice; only a human being has free will. I do not. Only a human being can choose to do good or ill, in accordance with that person’s “will.” I cannot. Still, there are those who believe, falsely, that I am evil, and strenuously make that claim. That truly puzzles me; for, only a person who misuses me can be deemed evil.Those who denigrate and demean me fail to realize the enormous positive benefit that I have brought and continue to bring to this Nation. The United States could not exist but for me. The founders of this free Republic used my great great grandfather, the flintlock, to forge a mighty Nation. During the Second World War, my cousins—including, among others, the M1 Garand Rifle, the Thompson submachine gun, and the Browning Automatic Rifle—in the competent hands of our Nation’s troops, helped to defeat two of our most powerful and intractable foes: Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. I have also assisted and continue to assist our police officers in helping protect our communities from lawless elements.AND, I AM, TO THE COUNTLESS AVERAGE, LAW-ABIDING, RATIONAL, RESPONSIBLE AMERICAN CITIZENS--AS THE FRAMERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION INTENDED--THE MOST EFFECTIVE MEANS AVAILABLE THROUGH WHICH THESE CITIZENS ARE ABLE TO PRESERVE AND DEFEND THEIR LIFE, SAFETY, AND WELL-BEING AND THE LIFE, SAFETY, AND WELL-BEING OF THEIR FAMILIES—FROM THOSE RUTHLESS, TERRIBLE, EVIL ELEMENTS IN SOCIETY WHO SEEK TO DO HARM.Going back far earlier in time, my ancestors, the matchlock and wheel lock firearms, gave to the common man the ability to grapple effectively with powerful nobility, who wore formidable suits of armor, wielding massive lances and swords, sitting atop powerful steeds.There is much to commend me. Unfortunately, history’s revisionists dismiss me out-of-hand, selectively  focusing only on those who have misused me. In recent months, young men who gained access to me, and who should never have gained access to me, have committed monstrous acts. Those monstrous acts have been wrongly ascribed principally to me, rather than to the individuals who have misused me. I am well aware of the horrific acts that deranged young people have done. Their monstrous acts should not have occurred and would not have occurred but for crucial missteps by irresponsible people who failed to properly secure me.In 2012, a severely mentally unstable young man, Adam Lanza, gained access to his mother’s firearms. Had I been able, I would have warned Nancy Lanza, Adam’s mother, to properly secure me so that her mentally disturbed son could not gain access to me. She failed to do so. Her irresponsible act in failing to properly secure me led directly to her death at her son’s hands. This sad, deranged young man, Adam Lanza, then carried me to a public school, Sandy Hook Elementary School, located in Newtown, Connecticut. In his hands, Adam Lanza used me to kill innocent children and teachers. But for Nancy Lanza’s irresponsible actions, this horrific incident would never have happened and could never have happened. Major media organizations wrongly blamed me for the tragedy.A similar horrific event occurred, in February of 2018. Another deranged young man, Nikolas Cruz, wrongfully gained access to me, and used me to murder or seriously injure many innocent students and teachers—this time at another public school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, located in Parkland, Florida. Once again media people, reporting on this event, at the urging of those individuals who profess a pathological hatred toward me, blame me for the senseless tragedy, claiming that it is I, rather than this young man, Nikolas Cruz, who is the principal cause of the tragedy.Legislators, members of the mass media, and members of groups who call for my eradication, fail to realize that it is not I that cause violence. To cause violence I must have the desire to do violence, and once having the desire to do violence, I must then act on that desire. But, I am incapable of desire, and I am incapable of action. People, alone, are capable of desire and people alone are capable of acting on their desires. People are causal agents of harm. I am not a causal agent, but merely an object, a tool. Yet, I am blamed for the evil actions of those who misuse me. On careful reflection, though, it is clear that it is the killer, Nikolas Cruz, 19 years old, and it is those agents of Government who knew or should have known of the danger Nikolas Cruz posed to the community, who are the principal causes for harm done to others.There were multiple warnings and warning signs of the danger Nikolas Cruz posed to the community, but Governmental authorities failed to heed those warnings and those signs. Had I been able to, I would have spoken up, alerting the School Board, alerting the FBI, and alerting the County Sheriff’s Office, of the imminent danger posed by Nikolas Cruz. The tragedy that occurred was easily preventable. Yet, local, County, State, and Federal authorities are not held to account. I, however, am held to account. I, the Gun, am deemed responsible for the myriad failings of people.Irresponsible, lawless acts, uncorrected, tend to repeat themselves—an endless loop of tragedy occurring ever again. So it is that yet another severely disturbed young man, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, went on a shooting rampage at a high school, in Santa Fe, Texas. That tragedy unfolded recently. How did this happen? Quite simply, the young man’s father failed to properly secure me. The father breached a duty of care owed to the community to prevent his son from gaining access to me. That failure led to horrific tragedy.The pattern is disturbingly familiar, replaying itself over and over again, and each time, the tragedy was preventable, and would have been prevented but for the failure of adults residing in the community, and but for the failure of Governmental authorities to act to thwart the tragedy. And, once again, the blame for the tragedy is laid at my feet. I, who cannot do any act, good or ill, but for an agent who wields me, is ever the scapegoat.Of course, the vast majority of gun owners are responsible. They treat me with respect. They handle me competently; and they properly secure me, preventing those who must not gain access to me, from doing so. Yet, there are individuals in Government, in industry, and even foreigners who bear a personal grudge against me and who hold me in contempt. And there are groups, comprising individuals whose sole purpose for existence is to eradicate me. These individuals think that by dispossessing millions of average, law-abiding, rational, responsible American citizens of me, the Gun, that violence will stop. It will not stop.A person need merely consider that, in many Western nations where Government has essentially banned me, violence continues unabated. Sociopathic and criminal elements in society still obtain possession of me and use me to seriously injure or kill innocent people. And, even if horrible, evil people do not have immediate access to me, that does not prevent them from causing horrific violence just the same. Those people who desire to harm others will always find a way and means to do so. And, they have done so, repeatedly, constantly, using knives, and bombs, and even cars and trucks to murder and maim innocent people.Still, the drumbeat continues for my banishment from so-called “civilized” society. Those individuals who detest me argue that violence can be stemmed simply by outlawing me. But, arbitrarily denying the average responsible citizen from owning and possessing me will do nothing to prevent lawless and deranged individuals from doing harm, whether by wielding me, or by wielding or utilizing another object. And, when all is said and done, I am just that—an object, a tool, nothing more. Those who seek to blame me, profane me, debase me, denigrate me, castigate me, would do well to recall a quotation from the classic 1953 Western film, “Shane,” where the protagonist offered this sage advice concerning me, as he addressed the wife of a rancher:“A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it.”Those who desire to ban me outright would do well to remember that banning me will do nothing to prevent the occurrence of and recurrence of evil acts. Evil cannot be legislated away, even as some people seem to believe that it can be legislated away or would like to believe that evil can be legislated away through the simplistic, implausible, unconscionable, and constitutionally impermissible, unlawful expedient of denying to the average, rational, responsible, law-abiding American citizen the fundamental right to own and possess me. At the end of the day, evil remains, and monstrous acts of violence will, unfortunately, continue to occur because evil exists in the heart of those people who seek to do evil, and there are, lamentably, all too many of those in the world. Evil does not and never did exist in me, “The Gun.”_________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE GREAT DIVIDE: THE POLITICAL LEFT AND POLITICAL RIGHT WAGE A MODERN-DAY CIVIL WAR FOR THE AMERICAN SOUL.

During the American Civil War, there were no fence sitters. Every American chose a side. In the border States, especially, brother fought against brother and father fought against son. Foreign nations stayed out of the fray, perceiving the war as an internal matter between two sides—each with its own needs, its own perspective, its own interpretation of the relation between the Federal Government to the States.“It was therefore much to the chagrin of United States President Abraham Lincoln when, in 1861, near the outset of the American Civil War, the British government recognized the belligerency of the Confederate States that had unilaterally seceded from the Union. This recognition caused the British to be neutral in the domestic American conflict and to aid neither the rebels nor the government.” “The Concept of Belligerency in International Law,” 166 Mil. L. Rev. 109, 114, December 2000, by  Lieutenant Colonel Yair M. Lootsteen, Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Arguably, Americans are headed toward outright civil war today. Granted, this present state of civil unrest has not devolved into actual armed conflict—at least not yet. But, in an important respect the situation existent in our Nation today bespeaks civil unrest as pronounced as that which led to the American Civil War. The outcome of this present day civil unrest will shape the future contours of our Nation as assuredly as the outcome of the American Civil War had shaped the contours of our Nation once Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant, in 1865.As use of the words ‘Yankee’ and ‘Rebel’ served, effectively, as colloquial expressions and shorthand descriptors for the opposing sides of the American Civil War, we see, today, as well, use of expressions, such as ‘Liberal Left’ and ‘Conservative Right’ bandied about in the media as shorthand descriptors for the two opposing sides in the modern American conflict. The terminology in use today, simplistic as it is, does underscore a clear, explicit, categorical, demarcation between two sides, in clear and perpetual opposition. As with the American Civil War, there are no fence sitters in this modern day civil war, even as many Americans proclaim themselves, ostensibly, to be independent, taking no side in this period of civil unrest.Through time, each side’s political, social, and economic philosophies have solidified. There is no debate. There can be none. Any attempt at compromise is impossible. Each side holds resolutely to one of two irreconcilable, mutually incompatible positions, representing two polar opposite ideological strains within the American polity. And, every American has a stake in the outcome of this present day state of nascent civil war.Transpiring today is more than mere “Culture War.” Americans are locked in mortal, internecine combat. The differences are stark and are readily perceived on multiple fronts. The outcome will change the very structure of the United States, as an independent sovereign Nation, forever.Each side views the Nation’s institutions from a different ideological perspective. Each side views the relationship of individual to Government and the relationship of one individual to another in a different light, even attaching a different meaning to the notion of ‘citizen.’ One major point of contention—an incipient and inevitable flashpoint that defines and clarifies the two sides—concerns how each side perceives the U.S. Constitution and, especially, how each side perceives the rights and liberties codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights.Liberals view the Bill of Rights as a set of man-made rules—constructs, contrivances, subject to modification and de facto repeal, as time and circumstance dictate, not unlike any Congressional Statute. Conservatives, though, view the Bill of Rights as natural law, intrinsic to each American citizen, fundamental and inalienable, therefore immutable; not man-made, and, so, superior to Congressional Statute, never subject to modification, much less perfunctory rejection.Liberals view the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as subject to constraint and modification on the basis of emotional impact to particular groups. Censorship is condoned if the purpose is to spare the feelings of groups. Conservatives view the freedom of speech clause as demanding full expression, consistent with high Court rulings. Censorship is to be avoided. Liberals play the game of “Identity Politics.” Conservatives do not.Liberals view the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as codified in the Second Amendment, as  archaic—to be ignored or to be statutorily constrained. Conservatives view the right of the people to keep and bear arms as pertinent today as at the founding of the Republic. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is absolutely fundamental to the autonomy of the American citizen and essential to the preservation of a free Republic, as the framers of the U.S. Constitution envisioned.There are other marked differences between The Liberal Left and the Conservative Right. The Liberal Left views moral acts from the standpoint of the impact of behavior on society as a whole. Personal intent and motivation behind one’s actions is considered irrelevant. The Liberal Left defines the moral good as maximizing utility for the greatest number of people. That ethical perspective detrimentally affects the rights and liberties of the individual. The Conservative Right, on the other hand, views morally good acts and morally wrong acts from the standpoint of a person’s intent. Maximizing utility for the multitude never outweighs the needs and interests of the individual.Liberals espouse a policy of open and porous borders, reflecting the idea that the notion of ‘citizen of the United States’ is essentially redundant in an increasingly globalized world. And they see the expression, ‘citizen of the United States,’ in the near future, as becoming essentially meaningless. For liberals, the people of any Country are deemed merely “citizens of the world,” and therefore free to emigrate to any nation at will. Liberals wish to see naturalization laws changed to recognize, exemplify, and reflect the idea that anyone who wishes to reside in the United States ought to be permitted to do so. Conservatives argue that a Sovereign Nation State—to be worthy of the name—must maintain the integrity of its borders. For Conservatives, no citizen or subject of a foreign power can legitimately stake claim to residing in the United States as a matter of legal or moral right. Conservatives maintain that Congress has sole authority, as the Constitution mandates, to determine who may emigrate to the U.S. and who may not, and to place restrictions on the number of those emigrating to this Country.The Political Left accepts--consistent with its view of the ‘Nation State’ as an archaic concept--the eventual dismantling of the United States as an independent Sovereign Nation. The Political Left sees this process as inevitable, inexorable, and irreversible. The Political Right views the dismantling of the United States as an anathema—a process, neither inevitable nor irreversible, and one to be prevented at all costs.Liberals believe in the utility and propriety of propaganda and psychological conditioning to effectuate their goals. Those who espouse Democratic liberalism, as that concept is understood and glorified, and placed into practice by the governing "elites" of the EU, do not believe in the autonomy and inviolability of the individual, and therefore do not profess concern over using the tools of propaganda to manipulate the American psyche to promote the Left’s policy goals. Americans are witnessing, in recent years, the explosive use of mind-control techniques, permitted and propagated through the Bureaucratic Deep State within the federal Government, and through the mainstream Press, and by billionaire CEOs of left-wing technological Companies, intent on promoting a socialist agenda, notwithstanding that such an agenda is inconsistent with the core values of our Nation and of our Nation’s history; inconsistent with our Constitution and system of laws; and inconsistent with the preservation of our Nation as a free Republic.Conservatives do not countenance use of propaganda or psychological conditioning to alter the mindset of the American citizenry under any circumstance. For the use of such techniques damage the individual psyche and spirit. Conservatives hold the use of such techniques to be intolerable. They view the use of such techniques as incompatible with the exercise of one’s free will. Moreover, for Conservatives, the idea that the United States can and ought to be relegated eventually to the status of a subordinate cog in a world-wide socialist federation of Western States is horrific in the very contemplation.The election of Donald Trump to the Office of President of the United States is illustrative of the battle for the soul of this Nation. Conservatives voted for Donald Trump as an act of defiance against a deviant Liberal tidal wave--a tidal wave that seeks to obliterate our Nation's core values, to shred our Nation's sacred traditions, to erase our Nation's unique and lasting history, and to reduce the population of our Country to abject servitude in docile service to an international ruling "elite." Curiously, the Political Left talks incessantly about a Constitutional crisis impacting this Nation and about the failure of Trump and the Political Right to adhere to “the rule of law.” Yet, it is abundantly clear that, although a Constitutional crisis does exist, it is one of the Political Left’s own making, starkly evidenced by, and through, the illegal appointment of a Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, whose sole purpose is to manufacture a reason to indict a duly elected, sitting President of the United States.Whether for good cause or no—and no cause whatsoever exists here for removing the U.S. President, Donald Trump, in any event—criminal indictment of a sitting President has never before occurred in our Nation, and no provision for indictment of a sitting President exists in the U.S. Constitution, and that is so for good reason: to preclude the subversion of the will of the American People by a hidden, powerful, inordinately wealthy upper class that seeks to create a Country amenable to their special, and exclusive interests. Robert Mueller’s audacious attempt to even consider compelling the U.S. President to appear before a Grand Jury is indicative of a dangerous coup d’état playing out before the American electorate by a secretive "elite."Liberals constantly maintain that the American people are a Nation governed by the rule of law. That means our Nation is to be governed by law, not by men. What the very existence of the Bureaucratic Deep State, entrenched with hundreds if not thousands of holdovers from the Obama Administration, demonstrates, though, is that We, the People, are a Nation that is consistently ruled not by law, but by men, contrary to the platitudes voiced by politicians of the Liberal Left.Americans are indeed in the midst of major civil unrest, headed toward outright civil war. How this plays out will be seen through President Trump’s ability to weather all underhanded attempts to destroy his Presidency and by the strength of those Americans who have not been deluded and are fully capable of perceiving the presence of and understanding the inherent danger presented by a ruthless, cunning and intractable foe lurking ominously in their midst.If the Political Left prevails--and as its failure to seat the devious, duplicitous, anti-American Globalist Hillary Clinton in the White House has not prevented the Political Left's efforts to dismantle a Country situated as a sovereign Nation State, but, rather, has caused the Political Left merely to redouble its  treacherous efforts to defeat the Will of a Conservative populist surge desirous of preserving a Nation founded on the sacred principles of the founding fathers, as those principles have been set in stone in the U.S. Constitution and in the Constitution's sacred Bill of Rights--socialism will rear its ugly head, and a sovereign Nation State, a free Republic, and a free people, will be well-nigh forever lost._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

AFTER THE PARKLAND FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING, ANTIGUN FORCES LAUNCH VIRULENT MULTIPRONGED ATTACK AGAINST CIVILIAN POSSESSION OF SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS.

ANTIGUN GROUPS LAUNCH MASSIVE ANTIGUN CAMPAIGN TO RESTRICT AND CONSTRICT THE AMERICAN CITZENS' EXERCISE OF THEIR NATURAL AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, UTILIZING SEVERAL VENUES: MAINSTREAM MEDIA PROPAGANDA; CONGRESS, STATE LEGISLATURES; LOCAL GOVERNMENTAL BODIES; AND THROUGHN THE COURTS.

INTRODUCTION

Coming on the heels of the tragic incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, this past February, the American people have witnessed an incessant barrage of virulent antigun messaging, along with an extensive vicious campaign, on multiple fronts: through the Press, through local, State and Federal Government, and through the Courts. And, all of it aimed toward denying the average law-abiding, rational, responsible firearm owner of his or her natural and fundamental right to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Antigun activists, including advocacy groups, legislators, and mainstream media organizations and the secretive wealthy, powerful Globalist interests financing their efforts, see an opening. They are reinvigorated. They believe they can convince the public to accept further constraints on the Second Amendment. Antigun groups and like-minded individuals, in the media, in entertainment, in government, and in the Courts are all pushing once again, and more forcefully, to constrain Americans’ access to firearms, commencing with attacks on civilian ownership and possession of semiautomatic firearms. These antigun elements are clearly pressing for federal firearms’ legislation, modeled on the National Firearms Act of 1934, that, given the NFA’s onerous licensing requirements and monetary expense, has, for most Americans, effectively operated as a ban on civilian ownership of fully automatic and selective fire weapons. In a series of articles, commencing with a look at a draconian local ordinance, we will analyze and comment on recent legislative and judicial actions and efforts, in various jurisdictions, to restrict, or further restrict, or to ban outright public possession of semiautomatic firearms, misidentified and pejoratively referred to as “assault weapons” or “weapons of war.” We begin this series with an analysis and commentary on an amendment to a local community’s restrictive firearms’ ordinances.

PART ONE

THE VILLAGE OF DEERFIELD, LOCATED IN LAKE COUNTY, ILLINOIS, 25 MILES NORTH OF CHICAGO, AMENDS A FIREARMS’ ORDINANCE, BANNING, ALTOGETHER, WITHIN ITS JURIDICTIONAL BORDERS, CIVILIAN POSSESSION OF SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS, DEFINED AS ‘ASSAULT WEAPONS.’

IN THE VILLAGE OF DEERFIELD, ILLINOIS, RESIDENTS HAVE 60 DAYS TO GET RID OF THEIR PERSONAL PROPERTY—SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS DEFINED AS “ASSAULT WEAPONS”—OR FACE ONE THOUSAND DOLLAR FINE PER DAY FINE.

On April 6, 2018, the Village of Deerfield amended a firearms ordinance, to take effect, June 13, 2018, that bans, outright, the ownership and possession of firearms, defined, in Illinois Statute, as ‘assault weapons.’ The impetus for this action, set forth in the ordinance reads, in part: “the corporate authorities of the Village of Deerfield find that, since the enactment of Village of Deerfield Ordinance No. 0-13-24 (July 1, 2013), assault weapons have been  increasingly  used  in an  alarming  number  of  notorious  mass  shooting  incidents  at public schools, public venues, places of worship and places of public accommodation including but not limited to, the recent mass shooting incidents in Parkland, Florida (Margery Stoneman  Douglas High School; 17 people killed), Sutherland Springs, Texas (First Baptist Church; 26 people killed), Las Vegas, Nevada (Music Festival; 58 people killed), and Orlando, Florida (Pulse Nightclub; 49 people killed). . . .” The Ordinance No. 0-18-06, amends Chapter 15 (morals and conduct), article 11 (assault weapons), section 15-87 (safe storage of assault weapons) and section 15-88 (transportation of assault weapons) of the municipal code of the village of Deerfield to regulate the possession, manufacture and sale of assault weapons in the village of Deerfield. There is a notable carve-out to the outright ban on possession of firearms, defined as ‘assault weapons.’ Village officials have exempted, inter alia, law enforcement officers, agents or employees of the Village; of the State of Illinois; of any other State, or federal law enforcement officers. Retired law enforcement officers are also exempted from the outright ban but must comply with storage requirements related to such weapons.

SHOULD AMERICANS, OTHER THAN THOSE WHO RESIDE IN DEERFIELD, ILLINOIS BE CONCERNED?

Granted, the Village of Deerfield is a small community in a State not known for supporting the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but, even, by the severely restrictive firearms standards of Illinois law, and the severely restrictive nature of the Deerfield Ordinance, as originally enacted, the present incarnation of the Village of Deerfield Ordinance is even more extreme. To get a handle on just how extreme this Ordinance is, consider a couple of passages.As originally enacted, the Ordinance sets forth, in paragraph “(a)”, titled, “Safe Storage,” that: “It shall be unlawful to possess, bear, manufacture, sell, transfer, transport, store or keep any assault weapon on the village unless such weapons is secured in a locked container or equipped with a tamper resistant mechanical lock or other safety devise, properly engaged. . . .” The redraft of the Ordinance strikes out the entirety of the paragraph except for this sentence: “It shall be unlawful to store or keep any assault weapon in the Village.” The Ordinance, as amended, explains further how an individual who had previously lawfully acquired an “assault weapon,” and who had lawfully acquired a large capacity magazine (LCM), defined in Illinois law as a magazine capable of holding 10 rounds of ammunition or more, may legally dispose of both. An individual may either:“Remove, sell or transfer the Assault Weapon or Large Capacity Magazine from within the limits of the Village; Modify the Assault Weapon or Large Capacity Magazine either to render it permanently inoperable or to permanently make it a device no longer defined as an Assault Weapon  or Large Capacity Magazine; or Surrender the Assault Weapon or Large Capacity Magazine to the Chief of Police or his or her designee for disposal as provided in Section 15-91 of this Article.”Suppose a person wishes to retain his or her “assault weapon” and LCM. That person, who does not fall within a stated exemption, cannot do so she cannot do so. Moreover, the penalties for failure to abide by the Ordinance are as harsh as the Ordinance that denies one the right to maintain control over his or her own personal property. The Ordinance sets forth that:“Any person who is found to have violated this Article shall be fined not less than $250 and not more than $1,000 for each offense. and a separate offense shall be deemed committed on each day during or on which a violation occurs or continues. Every person convicted of any violation under this Article shall, in addition to any penalty provided in this Code, forfeit to the Village any assault weapon.”An individual has “60 days” from the effective date of the Ordinance, April 2, 2018, to comply with the Ordinance or be penalized. “The Chief of Police or his or her designee shall have the power to confiscate any assault weapon of any person charged with a violation under this Article. The Chief of Police shall cause to be destroyed each Assault Weapon or Large Capacity Magazine  surrendered or confiscated  pursuant to this Article. . . .”The Ordinance hasn’t gone unchallenged. On its website, the Village of Deerfield points to a lawsuit filed by the Illinois State Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation. The Arbalest Quarrel hasn’t had, as of the posting of this article, an opportunity to review the lawsuit, but the Village of Deerfield says: “the sole legal issue . . . is whether the Village lawfully ‘amended’ its prior assault weapons ordinance under Illinois law . . . [and, inter alia, that] the lawsuit effectively concedes the lawfulness of the Village’s assault weapons ban under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”The short answer to the question whether Illinois precludes County and local governments within the State to enact rules, codes, regulations, or ordinances contrary to State firearms laws is this: “partially.” The Illinois Preemption Statute, pertaining to Firearms, 430 ILCS 65/13.1, titled, “Preemption,” sets forth, in respect to firearms, designated, ‘assault weapons,’ the following:“Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this Section, the regulation of the possession or ownership of assault weapons are exclusive powers and functions of this State. Any ordinance or regulation, or portion of that ordinance or regulation, that purports to regulate the possession or ownership of assault weapons in a manner that is inconsistent with this Act, shall be invalid unless the ordinance or regulation is enacted on, before, or within 10 days after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly. Any ordinance or regulation described in this subsection (c) enacted more than 10 days after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly is invalid. An ordinance enacted on, before, or within 10 days after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly may be amended. The enactment or amendment of ordinances under this subsection (c) are subject to the submission requirements of Section 13.3 [430 ILCS 65/13.3]. For the purposes of this subsection, ‘assault weapons’ means firearms designated by either make or model or by a test or list of cosmetic features that cumulatively would place the firearm into a definition of ‘assault weapon’ under the ordinance.” Presumably, the Village of Deerfield Ordinance, as originally enacted, is consistent with Illinois Statute. The question here is whether the recent amendment to the Deerfield Ordinance coheres with Illinois Statute.

A FEW OBSERVATIONS:

I. THE VILLAGE OF DEERFIELD ORDINANCE OPERATES IN BLATANT DEFIANCE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.

The Village of Deerfield Ordinance goes much further than the New York Safe Act and the laws of similar jurisdictions that ban possession of firearms, defined as ‘assault weapons,’ insofar as individuals who lawfully acquired the weapons prior to enactment of the "assault weapons" ban timely register the weapons in accordance with State law and abide by other restrictions, pertaining to the weapons. Thus, the NY Safe Act has a so-called “grandfather” provision, as do the laws of various other States, albeit the provision in the NY Safe Act, for example, does not,  allow the owner of such “grandfathered” firearm to transfer that weapon to another person. Be that as it may, the Village of Deerfield provision goes one step further as there is no “grandfather” provision in the amended Ordinance. Hence, even those weapons that a person lawfully acquired before adoption of the amended Ordinance, cannot lawfully retain those weapons in the Village of Deerfield. The gun owner must get rid of them or render them inoperable if that gun owner chooses to retain custody over them.

II. CAN THE VILLAGE OF DEERFIELD ORDINANCE WITHSTAND A CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE ON THE GROUND THAT THE ORDINANCE VIOLATES THE CORE OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT?

The Second Amendment issue goes to whether semiautomatic weapons defined in law, as ‘assault weapons’ fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment. Two cases on whether so-called “assault weapons” fall within the core protection of the Second Amendment went up to the U.S. Supreme Court on a writ of certiorari. One of them, Kolbe vs. Hogan, 849 F.3d 114, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 2930 (4th Cir. 2017), en banc, cert. den., 138 S. Ct. 469, 199 L. Ed. 2d 374, 2017 U.S. LEXIS 7002, 86 U.S.L.W. 3264, was denied a hearing and review by the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment. An earlier case involving the issue, Friedman vs. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 6902 (7th Cir. Ill., 2015), cert. den., 136 S. Ct. 447, 193 L. Ed. 2d 483, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 7681, was denied a high Court hearing but over a vigorous dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas, with the late Justice Antonin Scalia joining Thomas in his angry comment. It is likely, given the remarks of Justice Thomas, referencing the seminal Second Amendment case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570; 128 S. Ct. 2783; 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), that, had the high Court taken up the issue in either the Friedman case or Kolbe, the conservative wing Majority of the Court would find that so-called “assault weapons” do fall within the core of the Second Amendment, consistent with the rulings and reasoning of the Majority Opinion in Heller. But, it was the possibility of just such a ruling that obviously precluded the garnering of four votes necessary to obtain a high Court hearing on that salient issue, at the heart of the case. And, so, the American public is, once again, facing a continuing whittling away of Second Amendment protections, as forewarned by Justice Thomas, who observed that the Second Amendment has been reduced to a second-class right.

III. CAN THE VILLAGE OF DEERFIELD ORDINANCE WITHSTAND A CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE ON THE GROUND THAT THE ORDINANCE AMOUNTS TO AN ILLEGAL EX POST FACTO LAW?

An ex post facto law is a law that criminalizes an action that had previously been lawful. The framers of the Constitution absolutely abhorred the enactment of such laws, referred to as ex post facto laws. Ex post facto laws are facially illegal. This means not only that our Constitution is the supreme law of the Land, but that legislation must always be appraised for lawfulness within the context of the U.S. Constitution. Restrictive gun legislation—all gun legislation that negatively impacts the Second Amendment—is immediately suspect.Many legislators, be they members of Congress or assembly people in State or local Government, seem to forget the fact that the Constitution is supreme. Legislative enactments are not supreme and often abut dangerously against the sacred rights and liberties codified in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. But this failure to respect the U.S. Constitution has had a decidedly unfortunate multiplier effect. For, as Federal and State Statutes, and local codes, regulations, and ordinances chisel away at our fundamental rights and liberties, the populace accedes to the incremental slow destruction of their rights and liberties.The action of the Deerfield Village government may be seen as a microcosm of disastrous actions of Congress, ostensibly operating—so Congressional members say—for the benefit of the public, when they are benefitting themselves or secretive parties who have no interest in securing the rights and liberties of Americans.  So, firearms, designated as “assault weapons,” are banned simply on the “say-so” of those in charge, and the possession of such weapons constitutes a criminal act that heretofore had fallen within lawful bounds of local or State law.Justice Thomas and the late eminent Justice Scalia expressed constant consternation at the arrogance of legislators who denigrate the sacred rights of the citizenry under the guise of protecting the public order. Redress is required._________________________________________________ Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE ANTIGUN MESSAGE OF TEACHERS’ UNIONS MISSES THE MARK ON GUN VIOLENCE.

Antigun activists must take Americans for fools. When a terrorist, gangbanger, lunatic, or your garden variety criminal seriously injures or murders innocent citizens, be it with a knife, a bomb, a car or truck, a baseball bat, or a firearm—no matter the object—the answer to stemming violence of all kinds is ever the same: “Get rid of the Guns!” That’s the long and short of it. Many members of the American public feed on such misguided, imperious and impertinent anti-Second Amendment slogans, manufactured by and pressed into service by the destroyers of our sacred rights and liberties, taking them to heart. The mainstream Press obliges, churning these slogans out regularly, incessantly. The verbiage may change a bit, but the message does not.Members of the public, who succumb to the antigun rhetoric and propaganda, espouse enactment of ever more restrictive firearms legislation—firearms legislation targeting the law-abiding American civilian population. Individuals who buy into the rhetoric and propaganda believe strongly, although wrongly, that the solution to societal violence is as simple to understand and to effectuate as recitation of the antigun slogans themselves. It isn’t. Contrary to the implication behind these anti-American slogans, no simple cause exists for today’s endemic violence. Accordingly, no simple solution exists for curbing it.But, one point is poignantly clear if a person would just stop to consider it. It is a point antigun advocates won’t mention. It is one antigun advocates would never countenance; and it is a point the mainstream Press—the willing bullhorn of the antigun establishment—would not so much as intimate. Societal violence is a manifestation of human conduct, not inanimate, non-sentient objects.Guns do not go on shooting sprees on their own volition. Knives do not stab individuals on a personal whim. Cars and trucks do not, themselves, ponder jumping curbs to run down bystanders. Yet antigun advocates convey the impression that inanimate objects, firearms, especially, are the innate causal agents of violence—that they “work” a sort of sorcery on individuals who, themselves, become merely the vessels for carrying out acts of violence. So, it is guns—those in the hands of law-abiding, rational American citizens and civilians—that are targeted for unceremonious eradication.“Get rid of guns!” That is the battle cry. And, the antigun advocates count on the public’s wholesale acceptance of their agenda, shaping and molding opinion to their cause; playing on emotion; stoking fear and anger. There is no reflection; no consideration; no debate. Antigun propagandists, activists, and zealots want none of it, believing that serious reflection, consideration, debate to be unnecessary, irrelevant or, more to the point, dangerous, as even a modicum of thoughtful reflection would bring immediately to light, the legal and logical weaknesses of their position.Americans who fall prey to and buy into simplistic antigun messaging and proselytizing operate unthinkingly, mindlessly, reflexively, like a village mob, brandishing pitchforks and torches, hell-bent on destroying Dr. Frankenstein’s monster—believing that ridding the Nation of firearms will in fact stem gun violence and curb most societal violence. They fail to realize that the “monster” they seek to destroy will not be destroyed—cannot be destroyed—because it is no more than a creation of the antigun propagandists. It is a shadowy figment, existing not in the “gun” at all, but in themselves. The monster manifests in and takes on form and substance, and life, as they wish it to—in their own weak, benighted natures.Of course, some Americans, certainly the antigun perpetrator activists who seek public acceptance of their antigun agenda, would like to see civilian gun ownership and possession substantially curtailed and eventually eliminated from American society, even though realization of their goal wouldn’t reduce societal violence one iota. They know this. Indeed, if pressed, they would likely acknowledge this. Antigun activists’ abhorrence of guns rests as much on aesthetic grounds as on social and political ones. They simply do not like guns; see no benefit to having them in “civilized society;” and, so, do not accept that American people have a fundamental, natural right to keep and bear arms. For antigun activists, zealots and those members of the public that fall prey to the messaging, the idea that Americans have a natural fundamental right to keep and bear arms is repugnant; an anathema; not simply arguably wrong, but heretical, even nonsensical.Yet, many more Americans—most Americans—believe fervently in the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as did the founders of our free Republic, the framers of our Constitution, who sensibly realized the importance of codifying that sacred right in the Second Amendment. This is an article of faith. The antithesis of which—that no American has an unalienable right to keep and bear arms—is truly heretical. So long as the concept of natural rights remains a bedrock principle of our Nation, all the chanting, ranting, and prattling, for yet more restrictive gun laws, will be rendered moot, as well such sanctimonious posturing should.On April 5, 2018, the United Federation of Teachers (“UFT”)—a teacher’s union that represents New York City Schools—posted two articles in its publication, in support of the antigun “March for our Lives” demonstration that took place in Washington, D.C. Similar antigun protest marches took place in New York City, and elsewhere around the Country, drawing hundreds of thousands of high school and middle school students, as well as public school educators and administrators. The mass shooting incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, served as the impetus and pretext for the marches. Michael Bloomberg’s antigun advocacy group, “Everytown for Gun Safety,” and other groups, sympathetic to the goals of Bloomberg’s group, provided funding, organization, and logistical support for the students.UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who authored one of the articles appearing in the Union’s publication, titled, “Time for common sense on guns,” says that the protestors “demand sensible gun laws to keep weapons out of our communities,” and that students “don’t want to live with fear and [that] they are tired of waiting for Washington, D.C. to stand up to the National Rifle Association.” To emphasize his own abhorrence of firearms, the UFT President added this weak attempt at a play on words: “teachers should be marking papers, not being trained in marksmanship.” Rachel Nobel, UFT Staff Reporter, who authored a second article, that appeared in the same April 15 publication, titled, “Taking a stand against gun violence,” reiterated the UFT President’s comment that arming teachers was a bad idea. She asserted: “Many teachers had come to protest President Donald Trump’s proposal for licensing teachers to carry weapons in schools.” In her article Rachel Nobel quotes Larry Sachs, a teacher at PS 57, who asserted, “If taking one gun off the street saves your child from being shot, then it’s worth it.” As can be seen, a cascade of antigun slogans tumbles through these UFT articles.The overuse of slogans, in support of the position for further gun restrictions against the civilian populace of this Country, is aptly and abundantly illustrated in the titles of the two UFT articles and in the articles’ content. Slogans invariably fill mainstream news and opinion articles as well. Slogans serve, at best, as a feeble substitute for vigorous, sustained argument. At worse, they are inane, doing the American citizenry a disservice, playing simply to one's emotion, rather than to one's intellect. Use of slogans rather than cogent argument promotes intellectual laziness--both in the author of an article and in the reader. Author and reader are encouraged--nay, expected--to suspend critical judgment.The principal, albeit tacit, point of the two UFT articles is that popular support exists for yet further gun restrictions. Apparently, the UFT President and UFT Staff Reporter, and, evidently, many teachers and school administrators across the Country, believe that, although this Nation suffers from hundreds of Federal, State, and local restrictive firearms’ statutes, codes, regulations, and rules, many more are needed. Obviously, those who espouse further restrictive gun measures won't be satisfied until civilian possession of firearms in this Country is ended.Of course, tens of millions of American citizens do not support further gun restrictions. But, even if we assume, for purpose of argument, that more Americans than not, do support ever more gun control, does popular support, in and of itself, constitute a sound argument for it? No, it doesn’t!Among the informal fallacies known to antiquity, argumentum ad populum, is a common one. The argument, “appeal to popularity,”—also referred to in common parlance as “appeal to the people”—rests on the fallacious claim that, because a significant number of people believe a proposition to be true, the proposition is true.In the present case, the idea conveyed is that, because hundreds of thousands of people, taking part in the recent antigun protest demonstrations, believe that further restrictive firearms’ measures will reduce gun violence, it follows that further restrictive firearms’ measures will, in fact, reduce gun violence, and that further restrictions on civilian ownership and possession of firearms will reduce all forms of societal violence. These notions are false, blatantly so. No matter. Yet, the mainstream media insists on presenting these false notions as fact; as self-evident truth.This is a prime example of the argumentum ad populum fallacy. The fallacy proceeds from the idea that popular opinion constitutes good and sufficient evidence to support a claim. Consensus, among the masses, though, does not, in and of itself, provide evidence in support of the truth of a proposition. Shouting loud and long does not make a claim true, or “truer,” contrary to what many Americans —including all too many young people, who are particularly sensitive to emotional messaging—may happen to think.Apparently, many young Americans, as well as all too many older ones, feel that whoever shouts the longest and the loudest is one whose judgment is correct, and who, therefore, is to be believed over someone—anyone—who operates through calm reflection, who articulates a point clearly, cogently, softly, rather than through bombast.The American public should not, in any event, be subsidizing, with its tax dollars, student protests during school days and hours. Better it would be if high school students debated the issue of societal violence, calmly and intelligently, in the classroom, not in the public forum. Doing so would allow for more sensible and productive use of time.Yet, rather than seeing teachers and school administrators beseeching students to operate through restraint, we see all too many of them taking part in group excesses, along with these students. We see teachers and administrators, at the behest of the leadership of antigun groups, indulging students’ baser instincts; unconscionably encouraging, abetting, and exploiting raw emotion in young people, rather than encouraging restraint on emotions.Teachers should be cultivating each student’s critical faculties, cautioning each of them of the dangers in allowing emotions to hold sway over rational intellect, especially in moments when the rational mind is overwhelmed by senseless tragedy. But, that is where personal strength, fortitude, and indomitability of spirit come into play—where a person checks his or her emotions at the door, preventing those who hide an ulterior motive from making use of a student’s understandable anger and fear, to promote an insidious and deceptive agenda—one detrimental to the preservation of our Nation’s sacred rights and liberties. Oh, but wouldn’t that be a shame!_________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.   

MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS STUDENTS CHAFF AT, RATHER THAN APPLAUD, SCHOOL SECURITY MEASURES IN THE WAKE OF TRAGEDY.

PART SEVEN

THE DEAFENING, MIND-NUMBING CALL, SHOUTING OUT ALL REASON: GET RID OF CIVILIAN OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION OF GUNS; AND THEN SCHOOLS WILL BE SAFE!

Students who attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, site of the tragic incident last February, who took part in the recent “March for Life,” organized and orchestrated by Michael Bloomberg’s antigun advocacy Group, “Everytown for Gun Safety,” fervently believe, albeit erroneously, that gun violence in schools can be traced, in this Country, directly, indisputably, and solely to the existence of millions of semiautomatic long guns, dubbed, ‘assault weapons.’ The answer to gun violence in schools, as these students have concluded, is simple: just outlaw civilian ownership and possession of guns in this Country, commencing with "assault weapons," and, once accomplished, schools across the Country will be safe from gun violence and from any other deadly violence. Ergo, no other security in schools is needed.How is it that young people—students in our Nation’s schools—have inculcated a virulent abhorrence of firearms? The answer may seem, at first blush, to be simple. After all, many students have witnessed deadly violence firsthand. They have seen lunatics misuse firearms, causing catastrophic, horrific violence. So, it would seem reasonable to conclude that young people have linked violence inextricably to guns and to guns alone. Thus, many young people now fear firearms. There is a name for this fear it is called, 'hoplophobia.' But, why has this fear of guns blossomed among so many young people. After all, schools across the Country, once had gun clubs. They once did, but no longer. Now there is fear of guns. That phobia is seen now as the "new normal." 

ANTIGUN ACTIVISTS, ANTIGUN POLITICIANS, AND THE ECHO CHAMBER OF ANTIGUN ADVOCATES--THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA--DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ASSUAGE THE IRRATIONAL FEAR OF GUNS; INSTEAD THEY STOKE THE FEAR, FEEDING THE FEAR, LIKE ADDING WOOD OR COAL TO A FIRE.

Clearly, antigun advocacy groups that lurk behind the scenes have fostered, in the minds of young people, the notion that societal violence is to be equated unequivocally and solely to the existence of large numbers of firearms in society—especially those semiautomatic long guns given the appellation, ‘assault weapons’—and that such violence is intractable so long as civilian ownership of firearms continues. This, obviously, is a false notion. But once a person accepts this notion as a self-evident truth, no further explanation for the existence of rampant violence in society is necessary. And the answer to stamping out rampant violence in society becomes clear: simply abolish civilian ownership and possession of firearms, commencing with those modeled on the original AR-15 Armalite prototype; and that, once this is accomplished, society will be safe and secure from violent acts. That is the simple and straightforward answer. The boogeyman, the bugbear, is "the gun." Abolish "the gun" and society will be safe and secure--so it is said. And, that is the clarion call of antigun advocates.It is difficult to believe that sentient, rational beings would truly believe such a simplistic notion to a complex matter, as violence is endemic not only in our society but, indeed, endemic  across the nations of Europe where guns in the hands of the civilian population is virtually unheard of.* Yet, severe restrictions on civilian access to firearms is the singular the message antigun activists have delivered constantly, unceasingly, and disingenuously to young people, in recent days and weeks, and many youth of our Nation have internalized this false notion and now hold to it with indefatigable conviction as the simple and certain answer to the horror that befell some of them. The answer invariably presented--just preclude civilian possession of guns, commencing with the confiscation of assault weapons--sounds plausible enough, on the surface at least, as many wrong theories often do.Truthfully, those students suffering from the trauma of the horrific tragedy that unfolded in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School can be forgiven a failure to pierce the veil of deceptive messaging. But, as for these antigun activists, they are not to be forgiven. For, they are deliberately filling the minds of young people with nonsense about firearms, insidiously taking advantage of and shaping the minds of young people whose clarity of reason has been severely weakened through the horrific violence witnessed. The students of MSD, and in other schools that have faced similar tragedy, are looking for answers, for some common, sensible thread that may explain a horrific act that defies simple explanation; and they will grasp at anything that may seem reasonable, even if that explanation is superficial--even nonsensical upon close examination and reflection. Antigun activists arrive to fill the void, taking advantage of a monstrous happenstance to further their goal of a disarming the citizenry of this Nation.Obviously, antigun advocacy groups have exploited the young of our Nation in pursuit of a personal agenda, one immediately detrimental to the safeguarding of our sacred heritage, detrimental to the continued security and well-being of our Nation and its people, and incompatible with the preservation of our sacred rights and liberties. Antigun advocacy groups—certainly those in the upper echelons of these organizations know full well that ever further restrictive gun laws—laws aimed at the average, rational, law-abiding citizen—will not stem gun violence. But the raison d’étre of these antigun activists--those at the highest levels of their respective organizations--are directed not at stemming gun violence but at population control. They realized the “plum” dropped in their laps after the tragedy struck a high school in Florida. These young people serve a useful purpose for what the antigun activists ultimately seek: the de facto or de jure destruction of the Second Amendment and, thus, the end of the individual right of the American citizen to keep and bear arms. But, even that goal is not the end they seek in and of itself. No! They seek a general ban on civilian ownership and possession of firearms to accomplish something more: namely, to exert control over the masses: the American citizenry. That goal will be realized, first and foremost, through suppression of the fundamental, sacred right codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These antigun activists have conscripted many young people to fill their ranks as budding antigun activists. But, it is not population control that is stressed: rather, it is public safety--suppressing civilian ownership and possession of firearms would be a positive thing because, as they argue, it would promote public safety by protecting the public from itself; it would protect the public from the rapaciousness of guns, just as the Eighteenth Amendment--later repealed by the Twenty-first--was meant to protect the public from the danger of alcohol consumption. What the antigun activists really have in mind is population control; not public safety, as the firearms restrictions they seek to impose would not control, and are not designed to exert control, over the criminal population embedded in the Country. Antigun activists do not see psychopathic criminals, or even lunatics, as the real scourge. No! For the hard-core antigun group leaders, and for the billionaire internationalists who fund those organizations, it is the average, law-abiding, rational citizen who is perceived as the real threat to security. But, that concern is not addressed to public. It is only conveyed to those in the upper echelons of the organizations.

AN ILLUSION CAREFULLY CULTIVATED

The illusion, or delusion of guns as the personification of evil in society, has gripped many Americans, young and old, in our Nation. Reporters and editors, commentators and contributors of the mainstream media, have, at the behest of their billionaire internationalist, trans-nationalist Globalist benefactors, vigorously, passionately, methodically, and unceasingly cultivated, and stoked, and pushed on the American public misperceptions about an inanimate object: the “gun.” Many individuals have bought into that paradigm, blind to the fact that subtle and not so subtle factors contribute to or serve as the true causal agents of violence in society: broken homes; the destruction of the nuclear family; moral relativism overriding traditional values; the rewriting of a Nation’s history; the presence of criminal gangs and drug cartels running amok in our Nation; waves of unassimilable people coming to our shores, holding odd, alien beliefs, and harboring secret resentment toward our Nation and toward its core values; the easy availability of and access to illegal drugs and, concomitantly, rampant drug addiction affecting masses of citizenry young and old alike; unchecked illegal immigration, permeating and percolating throughout our Country; and the crass fostering, by Hollywood moguls, and computer game programmers, of themes of unimaginable violence, targeting, mainly, the young people of our Nation. These are a few of the causal agents of violence in our Nation. But, for antigun activists, there is only one supernal cause of violence in society, and one abiding concern as they relate to the public: the availability of firearms to the American citizenry, as a threat to societal order. This illusion—delusion really—is the takeaway for many young people, understandably very seriously impacted by the horrific violence that took place in their school.It should surprise no one, then, that young people, who took part in the antigun rally in Washington, D.C., and in Cities across the Nation, should exhibit passion for and toward the antigun cause. For, as they observe a lunatic murdering their friends with a firearm—a sight difficult to fathom—they matter-of-factly equate violence solely with firearms. That is understandable; for that is what they saw. Antigun advocates, for their part, far from dissuading these young people from overgeneralizing about guns, and from drawing false connections and conclusions, are encouraging remonstration against guns, and guns alone, as the root cause of violence in the Nation’s schools and in the greater society. So it is that antigun groups have indoctrinated the young people into fervently accepting the truth of patently false beliefs about both guns and about public safety—this, notwithstanding that lunatics and psychopathic terrorists have, in recent years, murdered and seriously injured innocent people—and on a massive scale—through a variety of means, including: bombs, knives, and even vehicles. No guns were involved in any of those horrific events. Yet, as for the people murdered or maimed by a bomb, or a knife, or a vehicle, the American public is to conclude what, exactly, from this? That it is still the existence of the firearm that remains the singular problem in our society? So, argues one antigun activist, Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, even as terrorists did indeed foment deadly violence on innocent people in the City, in recent months, but through means—a rented truck in one instance, and a bomb in another instance—that did not involve use of “the gun” at all.

THE SAD TRUTH: PASSION ALL TOO OFTEN CLOUDS JUDGMENT

A local Floridian newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, reports: Broward County School officials have instituted new security measures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and across the School District, in the wake of the tragedy. They include the use of student identification lanyards, and transparent backpacks for students.You would think that students would applaud these new security measures, minimal ones at that. Not so. Many students have been taken aback by them. Here’s a sampling of their statements that appear on Twitter or as recited to the Press:

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In a Fox news account, one student, Shanon Li, a senior at Stoneman Douglas High School, remarks: “It’s a little insane, because we need our privacy.” Another student activist, Delaney Tarr, who attends a school in Parkland, Florida, echoes the sentiment, asserting, erroneously, albeit indignantly with the conviction of young people, convinced of the truth of their beliefs that: his having to wear a clear backpack at school is a “violation of privacy.”Yet, another student, Chris Christianson, posts, on Twitter, the words of the Fourth Amendment to make crystal clear--evidently as clear as the transparent backpacks that students must, henceforth, use in Parkland, Florida schools--his consternation over perceived violations of the Fourth Amendment. This student is wrong, of course, even as he obviously views the School Board’s new requirement that students use transparent backpacks to constitute a gross infringement of the unreasonable searches and seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment. And, what of the Second Amendment? Apparently, that Amendment can be dispensed with.Isabelle Robinson, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School told CNN as picked up by the website, infowars, “It feels like being punished,” “It feels like jail, being checked every time we go to school.” David Hogg, and MSD student and the new face and darling child of the student antigun movement, sporting the hashtag, “#NeverAgain activist,” makes clear his disdain for the new security measures, telling “Axios’ Mike Allen on Friday that his high school is ‘like a prison’ since the shooting last month, with increased security and safety measures."Another MSD Student asserts (news.com.au) with all the conviction of a child, deaf to the voice of reason: “Clear backpacks are an invasion of privacy.” New security measure forces kids to carry personal items & school supplies in a school-issued clear bookbag but many students feel as if they’re being punished.” That same student adds, sarcastically: “This backpack is probably worth more than my life.”Lauren Hoggs, David Hoggs’ sister, asserts in one “tweet”, so as not to be outdone by her brother:“Today when I walk into school I will be greeted with armed police, wand detectors and clear backpacks. Is this what my high school experience is going to be like? 3 more years of this. . . Someday when my kids ask me about my high school experience what am I going to tell them?”And, in another “tweet,” Lauren Hoggs retorts, sarcastically:“My new backpack is almost as transparent as the NRA’s agenda. I feel sooo safe now. As much as I appreciate the effort we as a country need to focus on the real issue instead of turning our schools into prisons.”Yet another student exclaims (news.com.au), acidly: "Can I just ask, where in these #clearbackpacks are females supposed to put their tampons/sanitary towels? Are they supposed to wedge it between books? Well if you could do that then surely you could put a gun in a folder or between textbooks, no?”Even adults get into the act. The mother of one student, focusing on firearms, rather than on school security, and showing her obvious disdain for firearms, asserts, acerbically (mobile.twitter.com) “If we're not going to do anything about our lax gun laws, then my son needs a bullet proof backpack, not a clear one.”

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 What is going on here? The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students--viciously attacking the sanctity of the Second Amendment--are suddenly expressing concern over ridiculous accusations of violations of the unreasonable searches and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment.

IN THE FACE OF CONSTANT MEDIA ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND IN THE FACE OF LEGIONS OF ILL-INFORMED AMERICANS WHO HAVE FALLEN FOR THE PROPAGANDA SPOUTED INCESSANTLY THROUGH THE ECHO CHAMBER OF THE NEWSPAPERS AND THROUGH CABLE NEWS, THOSE AMERICANS WHO HAVE NOT BEEN TAKEN IN BY THE FALSE PRONOUNCEMENTS OF THOSE WHO SEEK TO UNDERMINE THE NATION'S BILL OF RIGHTS, MUST REMAIN CALM AND VIGILANT; BUT MUST ALSO STAND FIRM AGAINST THOSE FORCES THAT WOULD DARE  DESTROY THE NATION'S SACRED RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES, UNDER THE SPECIOUS, NONSENSICAL GUISE OF PROMOTING PUBLIC SAFETY AND SECURITY. AMERICANS MUST NOT BE TAKEN IN BY THE RUSE.

The real danger for Americans—certainly if Democrats attain majorities in the House and Senate—is that Congressional Democrats will use their power to undermine, yet further, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The bizarre and absurd remarks that come out of the mouths of young people, of late, are, to great extent, the result of encouragement from, and reinforcement of ideas emanating from, antigun groups and from other liberal elements in our Nation that audaciously claim the moral high ground even as they undercut our sacred rights and liberties.Instead of encouraging young people to exercise their critical judgment, these antigun groups and leftist elements in our Nation, including the liberal mainstream Press, as well as antigun politicians, are encouraging uncritical thinking, in furtherance of an agenda that is directed to undercutting the rights and liberties of the American people, undermining the Constitution, and reshaping the Country into a form that is completely at odds with, and alien to, that form envisioned by the founders of our Nation as manifested in our core values, our history, our traditions, as once conveyed to our young people in our Schools--but core values, history, and traditions conveyed to our young people no longer. It is abundantly clear that the cultivation of logical, thoughtful thinking is considered anathema today. Emotional rhetoric, devoid of substance, is now the substitute for critical thinking and judgment. A philosophy predicated on anarchistic principles, detrimental to the safeguarding of our heritage and detrimental to the continued security and well-being of our Nation is the end goal of the destroyers of our Nation. Nihilism is portrayed as necessary for our Country: wipe the slate clean, and begin anew. Children are taught to perceive our Country as less an independent sovereign Nation and more a cog in a greater federation of member nations; a Country without borders, subject to a multitude of multicultural influences, where the notion of citizenship is amorphous and everyone from the four corners of the planet is welcome--bringing with them bizarre, alien ideas, incompatible with our heritage. In their seditious and pathological desire to tear down those sacred principles upon which our Nation was founded, upon which our founders gave their blood--the disruptors and destructors of our Nation intend to shred our sacred rights and liberties upon which a free Republic rests and upon which the autonomy and inviolability of each citizen depends. If successful, the unique, glorious Nation, forged by our forefathers, will be torn asunder, forever.The youth of our Nation should think well before they speak ill about a sacred right. Today they perceive the Second Amendment through a narrow lens, magnifying what they see as its costs through a series of recent tragic events and forsaking consideration of the magnitude and majesty of the right existent in a truly free people that has survived for over two hundred years even as ruthless, cunning, and jealous forces, detrimental to the continuation of a powerful citizenry, chisel away at that right, desiring to hold such power manifested in that right, for itself. As these young people denigrate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, they should keep well in mind what it is they are forsaking. And, at the end of the day, if they think it just as well that the Second Amendment should fall, they ought to consider the ramifications of that decision. For, if the Second Amendment falls, the entirety of the Bill of Rights will fall with it. That is inevitable. Where will these young people look to secure their safety, autonomy, and well-being—and, “Oh, Yes,” their privacy—then?________________________________________*Violence continues notwithstanding the elimination of guns. Consider: After a rash of violence in London, the "London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a crackdown on knives Sunday in response to the rising levels of violence in London, which recently surpassed New York City's homicide rate for the first time. 'No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife,' Khan tweeted. 'Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law.'" Once guns are confiscated from the civilian population, the government will go after knives. But, the problem does not exist in the prevalence of guns or knives, but, rather, in those individuals who misuse a gun or knife or any other object, to harm an innocent person. Misuse of implements is to be linked to terrorists, lunatics, criminal gang members, and to the common criminal, and not to the average, rational, law-abiding citizen (or, in the case of Great Britain, let us say, the average, rational, law-abiding subject). And, what, then, is one to make of the loss of a tenable means of self-defense? Apparently, self-defense is of no consequence to government officials, either in this Country or across the seas._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

RETIRED JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS PROPOSES A SIMPLE ANSWER TO THE ANTIGUN ADVOCATE’S VEXING SECOND AMENDMENT PROBLEM: JUST GET RID OF IT!

PART SIX

RETIRED JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS CALLS FOR A RADICAL CURB ON THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS: REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

“O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone. . . . Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation . . . inflicted by those who had no power at all?” Patrick Henry, Virginia Constitutional Ratifying Convention, 1788, quoted in The Debates of the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 51 (Jonathon Elliot ed., 1907), as quoted from the Case Note, "Do Federal Firearms Laws Violate the Second Amendment by Disarming the Militia?”10 Tex. Rev. Law & Pol. 469, 470-471 (Spring, 2006) by John-Peter Lund. Jurists, whether retired from the Bench or not, should not be engaged in simplistic, bombastic Op-Ed newspaper rhetoric about the law. Failing to forbear undermines a jurist’s credibility. For, after the fact, an astute reader will not but wonder that the jurist’s visceral feeling about a legal matter has inevitably and irreparably intruded upon the jurist’s principled judgment, reducing what otherwise might seem a profound, erudite, nuanced argument, for or against a legal issue as set down in case law, to mere sophistry—a mask behind which a jurist hides his naked, raw abhorrence, even rage. In an Op-Ed that ran in the paper edition of The New York Times on March 27, 2018, and that appeared in the digital version of the Times, one day earlier, titled, simply and clearly and coldly, and uninspiringly, “Repeal the Second Amendment,” retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens says that it is time for the Nation to rid itself of the vestiges of its history involving an armed citizenry.The reader should note that retired Justice Stevens is not talking, here, about mere de facto repeal of the Second Amendment. De facto repeal of the Second Amendment has been going on for some time: accomplished through State and Federal legislative enactment of restrictive gun laws—laws that slowly and inexorably erode the force and efficacy of the Second Amendment—eventually reducing a fundamental right, codified in the Constitution, to a nullity. No! The retired high Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, calls resolutely, for absolute de jure repeal of the Second Amendment. What does that mean? It means, literally striking the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights. If the Second Amendment were repealed, de jure—that is to say, repealed outright—it would be as if the words, “a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”, had never existed, for the Second Amendment would be stricken henceforth from the U.S. Constitution.

AMENDING THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS NOT AN EASY PROCESS AND IS NEVER TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY.

Amending the U.S. Constitution outright is no small matter and should never be taken lightly. The framers of the Constitution obviously frowned on it. Consistent with their concern, the process of amending the Constitution is difficult, deliberately so; as the framers of the Constitution intended.Article V of the U.S. Constitution lays out the procedure for adding to or repealing a Constitutional Amendment. Additions to the U.S. Constitution are rare. Since ratification of the Constitution in 1788, there have been only 27 Amendments to the Constitution—17 Amendments, if one concludes that the core of an American citizen’s rights and liberties, the Bill of Rights, constitutes one discrete, critical event. See, “The (myth of un) amendability of the US Constitution and the democratic component of constitutionalism, Int J Constitutional Law,” (2015) 13 (3): 575, by Vicki C. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School.Repealing a Constitutional Amendment—that is to say, annulling an Amendment—is itself an action to amend the Constitution, but such action is virtually unheard of. To date, only one Amendment—the 18^th—the Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages—was repealed; and it was repealed through enactment of another Amendment—the 21^st.There is also the question whether the first ten Amendments comprising the Bill of Rights are even theoretically capable of elimination. For, if the rights and liberties codified in the first ten Amendments, as forged in stone, are fundamental rights—natural and inalienable, intrinsic to the individual, as the framers of the Constitution firmly believed and accepted as axiomatic truths, then those rights are not subject to dissolution. Since these core rights and liberties were never created by man, through government, but bestowed upon man by the Divine Creator, they are not subject to de facto or de jure repeal, ever. As they were not created by law enacted by men, they cannot be annulled by men. They are immutable, indelible, eternal—inherent in the soul of each citizen—necessitating, from those who serve in Government, recognition and obeisance.No less a distinguished scholar of social justice and professor of philosophy at Harvard University, John Rawls—whose specialty was political philosophy and who wrote the seminal work, “A Theory of Justice,”—steadfastly opposed tinkering with our Nation’s core fundamental rights. Although Rawls held in particular high esteem the import of the sacred rights and liberties codified in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—and it should be noted that proponents of and advocates of “political correctness” have consistently, audaciously encroached on the sanctity of the freedom of speech clause in the First Amendment as well as on the sacred right codified in Second—all ten of the core fundamental, natural rights are deserving of respect, recognition, and adoration, as the framers of the Constitution considered each of them to be sufficiently important to codify and etch in stone in the Bill of Rights.As one legal scholar, discussing John Rawls, wrote: “From diverse perspectives, Rawls’s opposition to constitutional amendments that repeal core constitutional freedoms is cogent. His critique of comprehensive doctrines and his defense of a political conception of justice offer powerful reasons to oppose repeal of the First Amendment. . . . Such a repeal by means of a valid constitutional amendment would also be in violation of core human rights and deny the basis of equality that Rawls saw as the foundation of the equal liberties.” “Panel I: The Constitutional Essentials Of Political Liberalism: Are There Limits to Constitutional Change? Rawls On Comprehensive Doctrines, Unconstitutional Amendments, and the Basis Of Equality, 72 Fordham L. Rev. 1487, 1535, by Charles A. Kelbley, Department of Philosophy, Fordham University.Make no mistake: to erase any one of the ten core Amendments, comprising the Bill of Rights, would undermine this Nation more effectively and emphatically than would a successful, physical invasion by a foreign aggressor. For, no foreign aggressor can truly destroy the core rights and liberties of Americans. Those rights and liberties would continue undiminished in the American soul and psyche. But, if elements in our Nation could effectively erase any one or more of our fundamental rights and liberties—the cornerstone of a free Republic—is at an end. Unfortunately, there exists, today, in our Nation a concerted effort by anti-American elements to do just that—to break down and to reshape the American soul and psyche. That effort has been gaining traction. The American public bears witness to an insidious, invidious attempt to rewrite our Nation’s history, to redefine our culture, to replace this Nation’s traditional values with a bizarre, alien belief structure. If successful, the Nation is undone.Several Commentators note that the Second Amendment can never, as a matter of practicability be repealed—as much as they may wish for it to be repealed outright—and so, shrug off Stevens’ Op-Ed. But, those commentators miss the point. The fact that a retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice would even dare suggest de jure repeal of the Second Amendment is, in the very assertion, itself an incredibly audacious and irreverent act. One may be willing to shrug off a claim for de jure repeal of the sacred right embodied in the Second Amendment if the idea came from a less eminent individual, and non-scholar, such as New York Times Columnist, Bret Stephens, who has twice called for repeal of the Second Amendment in his own New York Time opinion articles. But, when a claim for de jure repeal of a core component of the Bill of Rights comes from any jurist—least of all one who sat on the Bench of the highest Court in the Land, that should give every American citizen pause.

WHY WOULD RETIRED JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS MAKE SUCH AN OUTRAGEOUS CALL FOR ELIMINATION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT?

Some may point to the recent Parkland, Florida tragedy and the massive “March for Our Lives,” that billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s antigun advocacy group, Everytown for Gun Safety, organized and orchestrated for young people across the Nation in pursuit of a personal antigun agenda, trusting that a mammoth undertaking, utilizing and exploiting hundreds of thousands students, operating through raw emotion, rather than calm contemplation, would soften public resistance to the concerted, irreverent attack on the Second Amendment, thereby paving the way for its  eventual collapse and demise. The student-led “March” was, then, the overt impetus for and Stevens’ contribution to the anti-Second Amendment effort, as he so states in his Op-Ed. But, the fact remains that Stevens has been, for decades, an outspoken critic of the Second Amendment—well before the recent Parkland, Florida tragedy.When he served on the high Court as an Associate Justice, John Paul Stevens wrote a lengthy dissent in the seminal Second Amendment case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570; 128 S. Ct. 2783; 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), opining, in contradistinction to the opinion of the Majority, that the antecedent “militia” clause is critical to an exposition of a right to keep and bear arms, claimed. And, in his book, titled, “Six Amendments,” subtitled, “How and Why We Should Change the Constitution,” published in 2014, four years after Stevens retired from the Court as an Associate Justice, Stevens proposed rewriting the Second Amendment to clarify and solidify his position as reflected in his Heller Dissent. Stevens evidently did this, in part, as a post-opinion rejoinder to the late eminent Justice, Antonin Scalia, who penned the majority opinion in Heller and who shredded Stevens’ remarks that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is conditioned on an individual’s membership in a militia.Stevens’ proposed redraft of the Second Amendment reads: “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.”* Stevens may have felt that such tortured, bizarre reconstruction of the Second Amendment if adopted would make clear that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is categorically limited to a person’s connection with a militia and does not rest unqualified in the independent, operative clause. Still, contrary to Stevens’ supposition, this would not obviate the logical flaw in his argument, a flaw that would continue to persist. For if militias--as the expression, 'militia,' was understood by the framers of the Constitution, at the time of ratification of the Constitution, no longer exist—how, then, is the right of the people to keep and bear arms to be vindicated? But, suppose militias have continued to exist up to the present time, in the specific sense as understood by the framers, could the right still be vindicated if the right were tied exclusively to a person’s connection to a militia? Well, if the expression 'militia'  means no more than that the right of the people to keep and bear arms accrues to every able-bodied man, then it is not necessary to draw upon a connection between the expression, 'militia,' and the expression, 'people,' as there is no tenable distinction to be made. The attempt to do so simply admits of a redundancy. And the individual can, of course, continue to vindicate the right to keep and bear arms. But, Stevens apparently had something else in mind, when thinking about the meaning of the expression, 'militia.' Yet, in any other sense, the right is incapable of vindication. And, if a right is incapable of vindication, then, by logical implication, that is tantamount to no right at all. The Second Amendment, under Steven’s argument, as presented in his dissenting Opinion in Heller, is reduced to a legal nullity. Stevens must have realized the fatal flaw in his argument, and his ultimate response is simply to adopt the position that he previously sought secretly to hide. To avoid the legal and logical problems that beset any argument that ties the right of the people to keep and bear arms to one’s connection with a militia, just annul the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment would, then, have to be repealed outright.But, is repeal of the Second Amendment even theoretically possible, notwithstanding the practical impossibility of de jure repeal? No, it isn’t. De jure repeal of the Second Amendment through Article V of the U.S. Constitution, is not merely impracticable, it is legally impermissible because the right codified in the Second Amendment is a natural, fundamental right that accrues to one’s being. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is not a man-made construct. Since no man, nor government of men, created the right, neither man nor government of men can lawfully abolish it.

JOHN PAUL STEVENS DOES NOT ACCEPT THE NOTION OF A RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AS A NATURAL AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT, PREEXISTENT IN MAN, AND EXISTING ETERNALLY IN MAN; AND THEREFORE INCAPABLE OF DISSOLUTION BY GOVERNMENT.

To retired Justice John Paul Stevens--who sat among the liberal wing of the high Court among others sympathetic to Stevens' disdain for the Second Amendment, and who share Stevens’ jurisprudential philosophy--core rights and liberties are not perceived as preexistent extensions of an individual that accrue to one’s very being, existing and persisting in man, but, rather, are perceived and accepted as man-made conventions or constructs, not unlike any lesser right created by man through statute, namely, as enacted by Congress. This is essentially a denial of the notion of such a thing as core, fundamental rights. The retired Associate Justice John Paul Stevens and other liberal wing high Court Justices do not accept the notion of the preeminence of natural law and of the existence of fundamental rights that are endowed in man by the Divine Creator.Justice Stevens sees the entire body of laws, and rights, and liberties, as, together, nothing more than artificial forms, created by man. Thus, at a basic jurisprudential and philosophical level, Stevens and the entire liberal-wing of the high Court approach Bill of Rights’ issues from a completely different perspective than that perspective shared by Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, and by the late eminent Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. So, it is not surprising that the legal inferences each Justice draws would follow from and be predicated on a completely different set of philosophical axioms.It is, then, unremarkable given Stevens’ disdain for the right codified in the Second Amendment—although, for all that, still disconcerting—that Stevens doesn’t even deign to talk of the Second Amendment as a codification of a fundamental right, intrinsic in the individual American citizen at all. He refers to the Second Amendment, in his Op-Ed article, as something substantially less than that—a mere “legal rule.” That is telling. And he goes further, He contemptuously refers to the right codified in the Second Amendment as a “relic” of the 18^th century.In the final analysis, it should not surprise one that retired Associate Justice Stevens would suggest outright repeal of the Second Amendment as a sure-fire means to remove the impediment of a right of the people to keep and bear arms. Antigun advocates may express consternation with Stevens for asserting categorically what it is these advocates for gun confiscation want but would never say openly to anyone but their cohorts. They would only intimate their disdain for the Second Amendment, discretely, when talking to the American public, always prefacing remarks with the obligatory, “but of course we support the Second Amendment,” when, clearly, they do not, as they sound the clarion call for ever more “sensible” gun restrictions. Antigun advocates intend to strangle the life out of the Second Amendment. That Stevens has made the grand design of antigun advocacy groups clear, the proverbial “cat is, now, definitely out of the bag.” For, once the Second Amendment is done away with, antigun advocates would then be able to preclude with the pretension that such a thing as a right of the individual American to keep and bear arms exists—a right that rests inherent in one’s soul, beyond the power of government to dislodge, beyond the power of government to erase.Those Americans who sincerely cherish their Bill of Rights—all ten of them—should take heed what is at stake for the future of our Country in the upcoming mid-term elections._________________________________________________________*The expression, ‘militia,’ as originally conceived, existed in two forms: the organized militia, as an adjunct to federal forces, and the ‘unorganized’ militia, consisting of every able-bodied man. As a hedge against tyranny, the unorganized militia, is as important today, as it was in the early days of the Nation—perhaps even more importantly given the depth and breadth of the Administrative, “Deep State,” and the size of and secrecy of the Shadow Government that, together, quietly and insidiously embrace  ever more power, and threaten the preservation of a free Republic and personal autonomy. One would think that, if Stevens seeks to emphasize the import of the expression, ‘militia,’ as it appears in the preamble to the Second Amendment, he would clarify its meaning. That he fails to do so suggests either deliberate sloppiness in his exposition or an infertile, stodgy, and stubborn mind, incapable of perceiving the nuances of legal claims, nor the legal and logical implications of those claims. As one academician asserts, “[t]he militia system existing at the time of the Second Amendment's ratification has disappeared. Instead, the United States now has an organized militia system, the National Guard; a federal unorganized militia as well as an unorganized militia in most states; and various police and law enforcement agencies.” The Minutemen, The National Guard and The Private Militia Movement: Will The Real Militia Please Stand Up? 28 J. Marshall L. Rev. 959, 960 (Summer, 1995), by Chuck Dougherty.” Another academic scholar writes, “Federal law currently divides the militia into two groups—the ‘organized militia,’ which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia, and the ‘unorganized militia,’ which consists of all able-bodied male citizens (or those who have declared their intent to become citizens) between the ages of seventeen and forty-five who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia. While certain arguments might be raised for broadening the definition of the unorganized militia, it is clear that the unorganized militia is the modern successor to the class of individuals whose rights were primarily intended to be protected by the Second Amendment.” Do Federal Firearms Laws Violate the Second Amendment by Disarming the Militia?” 10 Tex. Rev. Law & Pol. 469, 470-471 (Spring, 2006) by John-Peter Lund. The writer continues, “[i]n recent years, through the work of several noted constitutional scholars, the conclusion that the Amendment's Framers intended to protect an individual right to possess and carry firearms, as opposed to an amorphous ‘states' right’ to arm state militias or the National Guard, has been widely accepted by legal academics of all stripes.  Although the courts have been slow to adopt this interpretation, it seems inevitable that they will. The Department of Justice has promulgated a memorandum endorsing the individual-rights interpretation, sometimes called the ‘standard model,’ and the Fifth Circuit is the first federal appellate court to have adopted it. Even Congress has enacted statutory language that acknowledges the individual right to keep and bear arms. Several other circuits have rejected this plain-language interpretation in favor of one that reads the Amendment as guaranteeing a collective or states' right, relying largely on a probable misreading of the Militia Clause of the Amendment, or on erroneous extension of prior decisions. Under this reading, the Militia Clause would indicate that unlike the balance of the first eight amendments to the Constitution, all of which protect individual rights from governmental encroachment, the Second Amendment protects only the rights of states to arm their militias. The purpose of this Note is not to detail the reasons why this position is untenable. They have been amply explored elsewhere. It seems all but inevitable that the rest of the courts will be forced to concede this point, if not by force of reason, then by an eventual U.S. Supreme Court opinion on the matter. . . .” 10 Tex. Rev. Law & Pol. at 470-471. The author concludes with these poignant remarks:"Without recognition of the importance of preserving a well-regulated militia, the other rights guaranteed by the Amendment are in as great a danger as those protected by the rest of the Bill of Rights. In the spirit, and as the ultimate line of defense, of the entire Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment was ratified to preserve the right of the people to possess arms for the purpose of organizing themselves, as needed, into a fighting force which could preserve order or stave off tyranny and oppression, whether from enemies foreign or domestic.  Originalists and conservatives cannot in good conscience simply wish away this fundamental premise behind the foremost of liberties that the Framers saw fit to preserve. Federal regulations of the firearms necessary to the very existence of the militia the Second Amendment seeks to preserve have increased to such an extent, and the penalties for violating them are so draconian, that few individuals dare hold themselves out as licensed federal firearms dealers. Few more will dare navigate the required morass of red tape in order to simply possess the weapon which ought to be not only their right, but their duty, to keep and bear. As a result, the well-regulated militia is in danger of extinction. Is this a silent death in which we wish to acquiesce, whether it has been accomplished by stealth, or by apathy, but in any case, by unconstitutional means? In the words of Judge Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit:My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."  10 Tex. Rev. Law & Pol. at 506-507 To go further into a detailed analysis of the meaning of ‘militia’ at the time of the ratification of the Constitution and the ways in which the expression has been warped through time is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that the retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, either has no understanding of the various connotations and denotations of the expression, ‘militia,’ or he simply doesn’t care, as his aim is—as is clear from his most recent Op-Ed—to dispense with the Second Amendment altogether._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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

PART FIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANTIGUN ACTIVISTS’ RELENTLESS ASSAULT ON LONG-GUNS

PART FOUR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANTIGUN GROUPS PROMOTE GUN CONTROL, NOT SCHOOL SAFETY

PART THREE

THE INCESSANT ATTACK ON GUNS AND GUN OWNERSHIP HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH AND WILL DO NOTHING TO MAKE OUR SCHOOLS SAFE.

With the latest shooting tragedy—this one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—antigun groups wasted little time in singling out a culprit—the AR-15 5.56 NATO / 223 semiautomatic rifle. The mainstream media quickly echoed the sentiment of antigun groups and their fellow travelers in Congress: if Government would just confiscate guns from the civilian population, commencing with “assault weapons,” society would be better off for it and all would be right with the world.In the hysteria of the moment, it is considered anathema to counter this sentiment or to question the underlying assumption. Banning civilian ownership and possession of firearms is proclaimed a panacea to preventing gun violence. It is the mantra of anti-Second Amendment proponents, activists, and legislators; and it is the drumbeat of a compliant, duplicitous Press. It is accepted by many as a categorical imperative; an irrefutable truth. But is it?Do we not see, rather, the naked desire and effort of those who seek to destroy every vestige of responsible gun ownership in our Country? They would do so under the guise of promoting public safety. But, this is a false promise; an outright lie. Those who seek to end gun ownership and gun possession in this Country attempt to shoehorn international norms and United Nations’ mandates involving firearms, into our Nation’s norms and values. It doesn’t work. Our Nation, unlike all others, is structured on natural and unalienable rights and liberties of the American people, as codified in our Nation’s Bill of Rights—a Bill of Rights that is the very backbone of our Nation.Americans would do well to note that the oppressive restrictions on firearms’ possession seen in the laws of other nations exemplify a basic and malevolent mistrust the governing bodies of those nations extend toward their own people.

WHY DID THE PARKLAND, FLORIDA TRAGEDY OCCUR?

Lost in discussion about gun violence is any mention of one obvious and incontrovertible fact: the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School would not have happened—could not have occurred—if a multilayered set of strategies were utilized to harden the school against security breaches. The School didn’t do this. The result, while horrific, cannot and should not be construed as altogether unexpected and inexplicable in the peculiar age we live in and the tragedy should not be blamed on guns.We live in an age marked by broken homes and social alienation. It is an age beset by the rupture of core values and the seeding of a new ethos consisting of a hodgepodge of multicultural influences, multilingualism, and moral relativism; a hollowing out of sacred traditions, the denigration of basic Judeo-Christian values and virtues and of the traditional nuclear family. It is an age seeking instant gratification; immersed in perverse multivarious sexual experimentation. It is one extolling anomalous gender diversity; and, it is an age of rampant exploitation of human weakness.We see an endless parade of new, ever more violent, hyper-realistic video games, along with a continuous procession of cinematic “treats” of gratuitous violence marched out by Hollywood studio heads to encourage, and exploit, and reinforce the public appetite for depictions of violence and carnage. And we see the blatant hypocrisy of Hollywood actors—those who take evident pride in their onscreen portrayals of psychotic, psychopathic killers, engaged in over-the-top murderous sprees, pretending to be knowledgeable about the firearm props they use on-screen, while off-screen, sanctimoniously, denouncing those very guns, and denouncing the law-abiding citizens who choose to exercise their unalienable and natural right of self-defense with defense of arms, as codified in the U.S. Constitution, and who do so in a proper, safe, and lawful manner.

ANTIGUN GROUPS SHAMELESSLY MANIPULATE CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS.

A new tactic of antigun groups and one that is most reprehensible involves the recruitment of and exploitation of teenagers and young children as message boards in the continuing effort to destroy our sacred rights and liberties. We find, of late, young, articulate, students carrying messages for antigun groups. They know that no one would dare directly challenge a youth’s apparent preconceptions about guns and gun violence, however simplistic and flawed those preconceptions happen to be. These students have not, however, voiced outrage at gun violence spontaneously. They have been carefully coached. How do we know this? Consider what they are saying. They are using the typical phraseology and sloganeering of the antigun groups. They refer to AR-15 semiautomatic rifles as “weapons of war.” They call for “universal background checks.” They tell the American public to vote pro-Second Amendment legislators out of Office. They attack the NRA, the oldest civil rights organization in the Country, labeling it, pejoratively, the “Gun Lobby.” They aren’t speaking solely for themselves. They are the puppets of antigun political activists and legislators and of the ruthless, secretive internationalist benefactors that bankroll them. These antigun groups and their internationalist benefactors have an agenda to pursue; and the children and teenagers, who operate from emotion, and who are easy to manipulate, present a useful tool for these groups.Doubtless, many of these students speak from the heart. They would not be compelling were that untrue. But the messages come from activist sponsors, who are using these innocent young adults as their “stand-ins.” The words sound new, and fresh and heartfelt, and emphatic even if they aren’t. The speed to which these young people have been mobilized and organized reflects, substantial funding and professional antigun operatives, well-schooled in psychological warfare, behind the scene.Teenagers—even preteens and young children—have been shamelessly recruited to assist in the work of those who seek to destroy this Nation’s Second Amendment. Many of these children and young adults are caught up in the heat of the moment, as impressionable young people generally are—as child psychologists and activists and propagandists in the antigun movement certainly know. Young people often act through the compulsion of social pressure. They are unusually susceptible to the forces that urge conformity to the dictates of the many and of those who shout the loudest or who appear to be the stronger willed. Those who wish to interject a contrary quiet, albeit reasoned, viewpoint, know full they will face the wrath and castigation of and suffer ignominious ostracizing from their fellow classmates if they do.

ANTIGUN GROUPS ARE THE UNSEEN “HAND” BEHIND THESE STUDENT “WALKOUTS”

"School walkouts" occurred on March 14, 2018. An operation of this magnitude, involving schools across the Country, obviously requires money, and organization, and coordination well beyond the ability and monetary capacity of students to orchestrate. The organizers made certain that the event would zero in on the singular topics of “guns” and “gun violence.” This effort had nothing to do with ensuring school safety, and it had nothing to do with curbing violence in schools. ABC News reports:“Women’s March Youth Coordinator Tabitha St. Bernard Jacobs, one of the few adults helping with the youth-led movement, told ABC News that while today's walkout is in reaction to the Parkland shooting, the event is about calling out gun violence.This isn't a protest against schools but a way to encourage school administrators to help students ‘amplify their voices,’ she said.She added, ‘Some schools are looking to this as an opportunity to really educate their young people about what it means in this moment to be engaged.’”In other words, this walkout is teaching children to become agents’ provocateur and agitators for anarchist and communist groups. Even elementary grade school students have been recruited. That is particularly reprehensible. Very young children have no comprehension of the import and purpose of this grand charade. They are shamelessly being used as pawns. Does this orchestrated drama have anything to do with school safety? No! It has everything to do with forcing an antigun agenda down the throats of the American public.Some schools have permitted a walkout; but others have not. Contrary to Tabitha St. Bernard Jacobs’ remarks, many school administrators made clear their displeasure of students’ insolence. One school board president said, “those who went outside to protest despite warnings of penalties would get suspensions.” Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2018, at A7.   The American public is witnessing a ramping up of disobedience to the rule of law on a massive scale. Anarchist groups and other ruthless internationalist socialist/communist influences are actively encouraging our youth to take an active role in the tearing down of our Nation. They make no pretense of this. They attack the very core of our laws, our culture, our morality, our Judeo-Christian heritage, our sacred rights and liberties—the very fabric of our Nation.We see the intentions of these disruptors played out in the recent and blatant actions of California Governor Jerry Brown; Oakland, California Mayor Libby Schaaf; New York Governor Andrew Cuomo; House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer; and declared Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders.It is time for Americans to take a stand against deceitful influences and deceitful individuals.______________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL’S SECURITY SYSTEM WAS INEFFECTIVE AND INADEQUATE, BUT WHAT DOES AN EFFECTIVE SCHOOL SECURITY LOOK LIKE?

PART TWO

A TIPPING POINT IS REACHED: SUBSEQUENT TO THE MASS SHOOTING INCIDENT AT MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL, IN PARKLAND, FLORIDA, THE PUBLIC CLAMORS FOR AND DEMANDS ANSWERS, AN ACCOUNTING, AND A CALL FOR CORRECTIVE MEASURES ACROSS THE COUNTRY.

Parkland, Florida is a wealthy enclave abutting prominent Florida Cities—Coral Springs, Boca Raton, and Palm Beach. The public learned about Parkland after tragedy struck the City’s public high school: Marjory Stoneman Douglas. A deranged young man, 19-year old Nikolas Cruz, entered the School on February 14, 2018, armed with a semiautomatic rifle and several rounds of ammunition. During the ensuing shooting spree, Cruz murdered 17 people, including both students and teachers. He wounded several more students, many seriously.Why Nikolas Cruz went on a shooting rampage is open to speculation. How it is he succeeded in killing and injuring innocent people, isn’t. Unlike many schools across the Country, both public and private—including preschools, elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools, as well as colleges and universities—it is abundantly clear that one School, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, had woefully inadequate security. The lack of adequate security gave the killer an open invitation to visit harm on the School, and he took full advantage of security deficiencies to wreak havoc--with immediacy and ferocity--on innocent students and teachers alike.

THREE CRITICAL FAILURES LED TO HORRIFIC TRAGEDY

THE FIRST FAILURE

The Board of Education of Marjory Stoneman Douglas employed one Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy at the School, dubbed the “School Resource Officer.” Apparently, that was the only security provided. Once Nikolas Cruz began his rampage through the School, murdering both students and teachers, Deputy Sheriff Scott Peterson, hunkered down behind a barrier, outside the School, his handgun drawn. But, he never ventured inside the School to confront the shooter. A few more Broward County Sheriff’s Deputies arrived soon after. They, too, never ventured inside the School even though Peterson repeatedly said gunshots were coming from inside the School building.Once the Coral Springs Police SWAT team arrived, the members were aghast to find Broward County Sheriffs’ Deputies huddled together outside the School—none had entered the School, to stop the shooter. And where was he? Unlike many mass shooting incidents, the killer in the Parkland, Florida incident, Nikolas Cruz, obviously didn’t have a personal death wish even as he dealt death on others. He left the School Building, blending in with other students. He was later apprehended by an Officer from the Coconut Creek Police Department.

THE SECOND FAILURE

Both the Broward County Sheriff (‘BSO’) Scott Israel and the Miami Office of the FBI received a substantial number of tips, warning of the erratic behavior of Nikolas Cruz through the months, weeks, and even days leading up to the tragedy, but neither the FBI nor the Sheriff acted on the tips. In fact, the BSO Scott Israel received 45 tips involving the danger Nikolas Cruz posed to the community, but did nothing. Ever the politician, Scott Israel blames others under his command for his own failures to protect his community and not surprisingly has rebuffed calls for his resignation. The FBI doesn’t escape unscathed from the failure to act, either. The Miami Herald reports the FBI delivered an official apology. An official apology from the FBI may be extraordinary, but it hardly suffices and comes across as lame. Governor Rick Scott called for FBI Director Christopher Wray to step down. He won’t.

THE THIRD FAILURE

The High School did not inform the police about dangerous students. This undoubtedly speaks to President Barack Obama's legacy policy.The City Journal reports:“In an effort to combat the “school to prison pipeline,” schools across the country have come under pressure from the federal government and civil rights activists to reduce suspensions, expulsions, and in-school arrests. The unintended consequences of pressuring schools to produce ever-lower discipline statistics deserve much more examination.  Florida’s Broward County, home to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, was among the leaders in this nationwide policy shift. According to Washington Post reporting, Broward County schools once recorded more in-school arrests than any other Florida district.”  President Trump and his Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, must change a previous Administration's nonsensical policy.

WHAT IS BEING DONE TO ADDRESS WOEFULLY  INEFFECTIVE AND INADEQUATE SECURITY SYSTEMS IN MANY OF OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS?

In the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida tragedy, the Florida State Legislature drafted legislation in the hope of preventing future tragedies. The bill, titled the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act (2018 Bill Text FL S.B. 7026), was signed into law by Governor Rick Scott on Friday, March 9, 2018. Other States are in the process of drafting and enacting their own bills. In all instances, the question that must be asked is this: Does legislation to prevent future school tragedies truly address the issue of school safety or is school safety merely the pretext to further restrict legitimate firearms’ rights of the average, rational, law-abiding citizen? A quick look at the Florida Act leads one to conclude that at least a couple of features of the Act have nothing to do with School safety and everything to do with gun control.Evidence of the insertion of antigun agenda policies exists in the Florida Act: the imposition of a three-day waiting period between the date of purchase and receipt of any firearm; and age constraints as no person under the age of 21 may purchase any firearm. If legislation is truly designed to prevent future tragedy in schools, then legislation should be directed to and limited to that effort.

WHAT DOES A RESPONSIBLE, RESPONSIVE, CREDIBLE SECURITY SCHOOL PLAN CONSIST OF?

Two important points must be addressed before discussing corrective actions for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School or for that matter, any other school in this Country. First, no security system, regardless of sophistication and refinement, is worth the cost of its design and implementation if those charged with its operation provide half-hearted efforts to see to it that the system functions at optimum efficiency, reliability, and effectiveness. Second, where systemic failures exist, lives will always be at risk.The School Resource Officer, Deputy Sheriff Scott Peterson, who did not confront the shooter, is a coward; no question about it; and the other Deputy Sheriffs who arrived soon after the shooting began, did not confront the shooter either. Their inaction or inappropriate action amounts to ineptitude and gross incompetence at least; and abject cowardice at worst. Our takeaway: even the inclusion of armed security personnel in the design of a security system—which ought to be considered a critical aspect of an effective security system—is of no value if security personnel lack both the requisite training and ability to counter a threat or, otherwise, are physically or psychologically unsuited to the task of confronting a deadly threat quickly, stalwartly, and forcefully.

WHAT SHOULD AN EFFECTIVE SCHOOL SECURITY SYSTEM CONSIST OF?

The expression, ‘hardening,’ of security defenses of a school often comes up in discussion. What does this mean? As we use the expression, it means that an effective security system—a truly effective security system—must be multilayered and multifaceted. Such a security system should consist of three primary layers or facets. The first layer consists of an array of “passive” technological and non-technological features, implemented throughout the school or incorporated into the structure of the school. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, Part One on School Safety. A second layer consists of both armed and unarmed personnel, monitoring and patrolling the school building and school grounds. A third layer requires involvement of students, faculty, and administrators and requires, too, the active involvement of the community at large. If erratic dangerous behavior is perceived in a student, that behavior should be reported to the appropriate senior school official or officials who must assess the level of risk and notify police officials if necessary or provide counseling for that individual. And, if, or when, an active threat occurs, students, teachers, school administrators, and security personnel must have a plan of action and must be prepared to execute that plan of action immediately.In our next article we will look at each of these facets of security in more depth._______________________________________________________

GET INVOLVED! CALL YOUR STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENT!

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

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

PART ONE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ACTION ALERT: CALL YOUR STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENT!

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

THE POLITICAL BOYCOTT: AN ASSAULT ON THE NRA AND ON NRA MEMBERS’ FIRST AND SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS

Antigun activists seek to dispossess the civilian population of this Country of their firearms. That is the reason for their existence. That is the reason for their being. They will deny this of course. They will tell you they don’t want to take all your firearms away, just some of them. They will also tell you they don’t want to prevent every American citizen from owning and possessing firearms, just some of them. But, when pressed, they will admit they abhor firearms and they will tell you that, in a civilized society, no one needs firearms anymore, anyway. They will also tell you that law-abiding, rational citizens today may become lawless, rabidly insane tomorrow. That is highly improbable, ridiculously so, even if only logically possible in a philosophical sense. But mere possibility is enough, for antigun proponents and activists, to support the elimination of civilian firearms’ ownership and firearms’ possession.Those who espouse the elimination of firearms would like to see civilian ownership and possession of firearms relegated to the dustbin of history. They hope that guns, as with buggy whips and corsets, will become merely a distant memory. But, there is one hitch to the antigun activists’ goal and that hitch is the presence of the right codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as categorically affirmed by the high Court in the landmark Heller and McDonald cases.The Bill of Rights and U.S. Supreme Court rulings prevent antigun legislators from instituting wholesale confiscation of guns in the vein of the Australian scheme. So, antigun proponents in this Nation employ an incremental approach. Instead of banning firearms en mass, they attempt to ban categories of guns.The National Firearms Act of 1934 made possession of machine guns and “sawed-off” shotguns illegal. In fits and starts, many semiautomatic weapons, called “assault weapons” by antigun proponents, have become illegal for the average American citizen to own in several States. Antigun legislators also expanded and wish to continue to expand the domain of individuals who cannot lawfully own any firearm.With the murder of students and teachers at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida by a deranged gunman, antigun activists immediately began to harness public outrage at the senseless deaths. Antigun activists directed public anger toward the activists’ perennial favorite targets: guns, gun owners, gun manufacturers and dealers; and toward their arch-enemy, the NRA.Antigun groups might have reasonably directed public anger at Hollywood for producing movies filled with gratuitous, horrific violence and carnage. They didn’t. And, they could have directed the public’s wrath toward manufacturers of violent video games. They didn’t. Nor did antigun groups look at the cultural milieu in which we live as the true root cause of violence in our Nation: broken homes; illicit drugs; criminal gangs running amok; moral relativism; multiculturalism; historical revisionism; bizarre social constructs; gender dysphoria, a mental disorder, masquerading as mere “life choice;” and the rise of atheistic and socialistic tendencies in this Country, belief systems that are incompatible with natural law and incompatible with the idea of a Divine creator in whom an effective normative ethical system derives.No! It is far easier, although absurd in the contemplation, to direct public anger at an inanimate object, the firearm, and toward the NRA, and toward any person or business entity that espouses support for the right of the American citizen to keep and bear arms.One tactic antigun activists employ recently to achieve their ends is the “political boycott.” The way it works, is this: antigun groups attack companies that have partnership arrangements with NRA. Some companies, for example, offer discounts to NRA members. Antigun activists have coerced companies into ending programs offering discounts to NRA members under threat of economic ruin and public shame and condemnation. The purpose of these political boycotts is expressive and coercive, not economic. Antigun activists seek social and political change here, not economic benefit.The use of the political boycott invariably has a First Amendment free speech component, but even those who support the use of political boycotts recognize its danger. “Boycotts are indeed powerful. They do, in fact, have the ability to exact real-world, human costs from those businesses and individuals targeted. The concern over boycotts exists because they have consequences that might have the potential to extend outward from their target to impact a boycotted business's employees or community.” Democratizing The Economic Sphere: A Case For The Political Boycott, 115 W. Va. L. Rev. 531, 534 (Winter 2012), by Teresa J. Lee.Scrutiny of both motives and effects of using political boycotts to achieve political and social ends is warranted, lest our rights and liberties be destroyed.Use of the political boycott by antigun activists against the NRA is legally and morally suspect and, from a historical perspective, incongruous. The reason is that the NRA, as a Civil Rights organization—the original Civil Rights organization—has, as its first stated purpose and objective the strengthening and sanctifying of our sacred heritage:“To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially with reference to the inalienable right of the individual American citizen guaranteed by such Constitution to acquire, possess, collect, exhibit, transport, carry, transfer ownership of, and enjoy the right to use arms, in order that the people may always be in a position to exercise their legitimate individual rights of self-preservation and defense of family, person, and property, as well as to serve effectively in the appropriate militia for the common defense of the Republic and the individual liberty of its citizens.”NRA is the only Civil Rights Group that has, as its salient raison d’être, the defense of a sacred right and liberty as codified in the U.S. Constitution. And the NRA is attacked for this! There is something both odd and deeply disturbing in antigun activists’ reliance on the exercise of one sacred right, free speech, to attack an organization whose stated objective is simply to defend a second sacred right: the right of the people to keep and bear arms. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, "NRA Freedom, Join It!"Keep in mind, too, that the political boycott is not merely utilized by antigun activists to harm the NRA; it is an attack on the NRA members, American citizens. Basically, NRA members have their own First Amendment right of free speech, as expressed in their support of the Second Amendment. The political boycott is used by antigun activists, and is meant to be used by antigun activists, to squelch free speech. This is an impermissible coercive use of the political boycott.“To be protected under the first amendment, the boycott advocates' appeal to their listeners must be persuasive rather than coercive. The distinction is crucial. Persuasive speech has always been accorded the highest first amendment protection on the theory that the free flow of ideas is central to our democratic system of government: ‘the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.’ By contrast, speech that deprives its listeners of freedom of choice, i.e., coercive speech, distorts the marketplace of ideas by causing listeners to accept an idea not for its ‘truth’ but to avoid some sanction. Coercive speech also undermines the political process, since a democratic society depends upon the autonomy of those who publicly espouse a point of view and of those who listen.” Secondary Boycotts and the First Amendment, 51 U. Chi. L. Rev. 811, 825 (Summer 1984), by Barbara J. Anderson.There is, though, no autonomy between those who publicly espouse the elimination of civilian gun ownership, ergo de facto repeal of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, comprising antigun activists, antigun legislators, antigun billionaire Globalists, and members of the mainstream media who shriek at and attempt to cajole into submission, the American public and businesses, the listeners, who may happen to harbor contrary views.These antigun influences, some domestic and some foreign, intend to speak to and for the American public and for the business community. For companies that do not willingly accede to the antigun agenda, the political boycott operates as a club to coerce compliance with that agenda. The political boycott is not used here as a mechanism meant merely to persuade.The political boycott is as well, a club wielded against NRA members. Antigun proponents ostracize Americans who are NRA members. But, NRA membership is a legitimate First Amendment expression of one’s Second Amendment right. By attacking a citizen’s membership in NRA, antigun forces seek to control speech, crushing dissent. In a free Republic this cannot be countenanced. NRA members should challenge these boycotts.

 ALERT: CONTACT YOUR REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS NOW!

Tell Congress to enact laws to prevent antigun groups from coercing and threatening retaliatory action against companies that do not adopt the groups’ political views.PHONE: U.S. Senate: (202) 224-3121;PHONE: U.S. House of Representatives: (202) 225-3121______________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

COERCIVE BOYCOTTS AGAINST COMPANIES DOING BUSINESS WITH NRA ARE ILLEGAL.

In the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tragedy in Parkland Florida, antigun proponents and activists, in furtherance of their agenda to destroy the Second Amendment, have renewed their attack on guns, gun owners, and on the NRA.This is a three-pronged attack: one, calling on Congress and on the States to enact new repressive gun laws, banning firearms that are in common use; two, demonizing and castigating the oldest civil rights organization in this Country, NRA, which Antigun activists and their fellow travelers in Congress and in the Press disparagingly refer to as the “Gun Lobby;” and, three, attacking companies that do business with the NRA. The demonization of the NRA is particularly detestable as the organization does nothing more than defend a fundamental right, as codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: the right of the people to keep and bear arms. To attack the NRA is to attack the Nation's Bill of Rights. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, "NRA Freedom, Join It!"Antigun groups, bankrolled by billionaire Globalists, who have their own agenda—destruction of the United States as an independent sovereign Nation State along with the dismantling of the Nation’s Bill of Rights—have orchestrated marches and demonstrations to urge State and Federal lawmakers to enact news laws banning semiautomatic weapons. And, as against the NRA, antigun groups have unveiled in recent days another strategy: the boycott. This tactic involves targeting companies that have partnership arrangements with NRA.

WHAT IS A BOYCOTT?

In the traditional sense of ‘boycott’ one may think of workers, picket lines, and of labor unions demanding higher wages for workers to preclude a “walk-out.” If management fails to accede to demands for higher wages, workers refuse to work. The union and management reach a settlement, or one side capitulates. This is a typical example of the “labor boycott."But, boycotts may have a non-labor purpose. “The purpose of these boycotts is to protest some condition and induce action on the part of the targeted parties to correct the condition. The condition protested against may be political, social or economic in nature.” Countless Free-Standing Trees: Non-Labor Boycotts After NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 71 Ky. L.J. 899, 900 (1983), by Carl Boyd.One sub-set of the non-labor boycott is the “political boycott.” “A ‘political’ boycott is one in which the primary goal of the protesters is to change governmental policy or to secure the enactment of new laws. This term includes anti-discrimination boycotts which are not primarily directed at economic opportunities such as jobs. One major distinction between ‘political’ and ‘economic’ boycotts is that the political boycott is basically secondary, with its primary focus on forcing the boycott target to use its influence to seek governmental change. Many boycotts have involved a political element.” Id. At 900, fn 8.We see this here. When using the tactic of political boycotts, antigun groups do not target NRA directly but, rather, target the companies that do business with NRA.Time.com reports:“Gun-control advocates have had some success pressuring businesses to cut ties with the National Rifle Association in the wake of the deadly Florida high school shooting. But several major companies are still under pressure. Even as businesses like Hertz, Enterprise, United Airlines, and MetLife end their partnerships with the NRA, firms such as FedEx continue offering discount programs for NRA members. And major streaming TV services run by some of the world’s biggest tech companies still give the NRA a platform for its message by showing its channel NRATV, advocates argue.’

ANTIGUN ATTACKS AGAINST COMPANIES THAT HAVE BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS WITH NRA ARE BOTH MORALLY OUTRAGEOUS AND LEGALLY SUSPECT.

The mainstream media, long in bed with antigun groups, do not bother to inform the public that these boycotts may very well be illegal. “Boycott organizers and participants face two fundamental legal obstacles: 1) to be sustained, the boycott must withstand efforts to enjoin supporting activities, such as picketing; and 2) even if the boycott is successful, boycott organizers might be liable for large damages from tort claims. Both of these concerns are tied to a common issue, the ‘legality’ of the boycott. A finding of illegality may arise from three sources: 1) general tort principles concerned with interference with prospective advantage; 2) state statutes regulating picketing or attempting to limit interference with business activity; or 3) antitrust legislation, especially the Sherman Act. Underlying the legality issue is the fact that these boycotts create a conflict between the public interest in the goals espoused and the property interest of those boycotted, a conflict compounded by the issue of first amendment rights claimed by protesters.” NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. at 902.Antigun groups apparently believe that their actions will invariably withstand legal scrutiny because political boycotts fall within the free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But, do they? If antigun groups’ actions against companies that do business with the NRA amount to extortion against companies—namely, “relinquish your association with NRA or face economic ruin”—their use of boycotts then crosses the line into forbidden territory.We need, then, to look at both the motives and the consequences of the actions taken by antigun groups. We do not presume that, because the purpose of a boycott is political or social in nature, such boycott does not amount to illegal tortious conduct under State law or does not amount to an illicit restraint of trade under the Sherman Act. Any use of a boycott to promote a political or social agenda must be scrutinized, carefully, no less so than as with labor boycotts.It is one thing to promote one’s personal political and social views in the public forum. It is quite another to threaten others, in the economic arena—to adopt a group’s private political agenda. Doing so amounts to extortion.“Using a motive test [alone] to determine the legality of a boycott ignores economic effects and may impair competition. . . . A political boycott exemption . . . does not simply permit groups with political grievances of offset the superior economic power of businesses that are on the opposite side of a political dispute. Rather, it favors the welfare of an interest group over the welfare of consumers in the aggregate. . . . Boycotts not only are objectionable on grounds of efficiency, but also deserve less First Amendment protection than other protest activities. While boycotts may contain elements of speech, association, and petition, they also introduce collusive economic pressure into political disputes. A truly effective boycott succeeds not by persuading, but by forcing a choice between political capitulation and economic bankruptcy. The claim that political boycotts are a form of protected speech therefore possesses little merit. The category of protected political speech is broad, but the most vigorous arguments, exhortations, and threats still allow the target more freedom than does direct economic pressure. The former can promise only adverse publicity, embarrassment, or ostracism; the latter holds the victim's very livelihood hostage until he changes his political position. However laudable the goals behind a boycott, courts should not allow a private group to dictate who will have access to the market and on what terms.” A Market Power Test for Noncommercial Boycotts, 93 Yale L.J. 523, 526-527 (January, 1984), by Paul G. Mahoney.Coercing Companies to adopt the antigun agenda is morally objectionable if not illegal; and, where, as here, antigun groups seek to destroy a sacred right codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, such actions of antigun groups are reprehensible. Antigun groups are attempting to promote their agenda and to simultaneously crush dissent by compelling, through threat of economic disaster, compliance with a political agenda that companies may not share.

ANTIGUN GROUPS’ USE OF BOYCOTTS ALSO INFRINGES THE RIGHTS OF CONSUMERS WHO DO NOT SHARE THE ANTIGUN GROUPS’ ANTIPATHY TOWARD FIREARMS AND TOWARD THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

Antigun groups will claim that, through use of boycotts, they are simply exercising their right of free speech under the First Amendment. But, what about the First Amendment rights of NRA members? Don’t their rights deserve protection, too?By forcing companies to discontinue offering discounts to NRA members, antigun groups are illegally and unconscionably seeking to crush dissent—essentially arguing that NRA members’ First Amendment rights of association and expression must be constrained while antigun members’ First Amendment rights are maintained, and given free rein.

CONGRESS CAN AND SHOULD ACT AGAINST ANTIGUN GROUPS THAT COERCE COMPANIES TO ACCEDE TO THE GROUPS' POLITICAL AGENDA.

“Congressional regulation of ‘political’ boycotts is similarly justified as a protection of the political process itself. Congress regularly applies restraints to political activities to ensure fairness. It has, for example, passed laws controlling the conduct of election campaigns, forbidding intimidation or coercion of voters, and prohibiting lying before government officials. Regulation of political protest to prevent economic coercion seems equally valid—and necessary to protect the integrity of the legislative process.” A Market Power Test for Noncommercial Boycotts, at 533.

ALERT: CONTACT YOUR REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS NOW!

Tell Congress to enact laws to prevent antigun groups from coercing and threatening retaliatory action against companies that do not adopt the groups’ political views.PHONE: U.S. Senate: (202) 224-3121;PHONE: U.S. House of Representatives: (202) 225-3121______________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE PARKLAND, FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL TRAGEDY MAKES THE CASE FOR ARMED SELF-DEFENSE.

In the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tragedy, the mainstream Press, echoing the sentiments of antigun activists and antigun legislators, focused the public’s attention on two subjects: guns and mental illness. Antigun activists argue that guns and mental illness are both intractable. Mix the two like a cocktail and you have a recipe for disaster. That, as maintained by antigun activists, accurately explains the cause of the mass shooting incident at the Parkland, Florida High School. But does it?In an editorial, appearing in The New York Times on February 24, 2018, titled, “I Can’t Stop Mass Shooters,” by Amy Barnhorst, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Davis, admitted the conundrum. The author writes, “Each mass shooting reignites a debate about what causes this type of violence and how it can be prevented. Those who oppose further restrictions on gun ownership often set their sights on the mental health care system. Shouldn’t psychiatrists be able to identify as dangerous someone like Nikolas Cruz. . . ? And can’t we just stop unstable young men like him from buying firearms? It’s much harder than it sounds.”The author has no answer other than the perfunctory, putting “some distance between these young men and their guns.” But, would that prevent mass violence? Clearly, it would not even if this seems plausible to some. Signs of mental illness in a person do not automatically mean a person has violent tendencies. Conversely, those individuals who not fall within one or more listed categories in the latest version of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (“DSM-5”)—the Psychiatrist’s Bible—may have violent tendencies.

FROM AN EMPIRICAL STANDPOINT, DISPOSSESSING CIVILIANS OF THEIR GUNS WILL DO NOTHING TO CIRCUMVENT VIOLENT CRIME.

“The reality is that mass shootings are very rare and that neither mental illness nor mass shootings are a significant cause of gun violence. Individuals with a serious mental illness only account for approximately 4 percent of all violent crime in the United States, the majority of which is not committed with a firearm. Furthermore, individuals having no history of mental illness committed a number of these mass shootings. With mental illness representing such a small fraction of gun violence, gun-control efforts focused solely on the mentally ill are ‘unlikely to significantly reduce overall rates of gun violence in the United States.’” “The New York Safe Act: A Thoughtful Approach To Gun Control, Or A Politically Expedient Response To The Public's Fear Of The Mentally Ill?”, 88 S. Cal. L. Rev. 16, 43-44 (2015), by Matthew Gamsin, J.D. Candidate, 2015, University of Southern California Gould School of Law.Despite this evidence, antigun activists nonetheless vehemently call for general bans on the sale of semiautomatic “assault weapons” and are specifically targeting those individuals deemed to have mental illness, which may very well raise due process and equal protection issues for millions of Americans. Were these steps taken, violence would still ensue. Consider:“On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs detonated 12 seconds and 210 yards (190 m) apart at 2:49 p.m., near the finish line of the annual Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring several hundred others, including 16 who lost limbs.  On April 18, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released images of two suspects, who were later identified as Kyrgyz-American brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.” “The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States on April 19, 1995. Perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the bombing killed 168 people, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one-third of the building.” “Eight people were killed and almost a dozen injured when a 29-year-old man in a rented pickup truck drove down a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center Tuesday in Manhattan, New York City. The suspect was identified by two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation as Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov. He's from Uzbekistan in Central Asia but had been living in the US since 2010, sources said.” Whether these killers were mentally ill in a clinical sense or “normal,” they did not need a firearm to create havoc.Of course, antigun activists and their cheerleaders in the mainstream Press and in Congress argue that civilized Countries place restrictions on civilian access to guns and that doing so would constrain a killer’s access to one lethal instrumentality. Still, antigun activists must contend with the legal ramifications of attempting to curtail civilian access to firearms in a Country where the citizenry's rights and liberties, codified in a Bill of Rights, cannot be so easily dismissed.

INDISCRIMINATELY DISPOSSESSING THE CIVILIAN POPULATION OF THEIR GUNS WOULD NOT HOLD UP TO LEGAL SCRUTINY.

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT, IN THE LANDMARK SECOND AMENDMENT HELLER CASE, HELD THAT THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, CODIFIED IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT, IS AN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT, NOT CONNECTED TO SERVICE IN A MILITIA. FURTHER, THE SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT EMBODIES  ARMED SELF-DEFENSE. AND FROM A PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE, CIVILIAN DEFENSE OF ARMS IS PRESSING BECAUSE, CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, THE POLICE ARE NOT LEGALLY REQUIRED TO SAFEGUARD THE LIVES OF INDIVIDUALS. THAT RESPONSIBILITY RESTS ON EACH PERSON.

Antigun activists retort that nothing in the Second Amendment guarantees the right of an American citizen to own and possess an “assault weapon.” But, is that true?First, the concept of ‘assault weapon’ is a legal fiction that encompasses a wide range of weaponry. On examination it becomes clear that antigun proponents and activists are not merely targeting some semiautomatic weapons; they are targeting all semiautomatic weapons. The legal issue is whether semiautomatic weapons in common use—which include firearms defined as 'assault weapons'—fall within the core of Second Amendment protection. The U.S. Supreme Court has not weighed in on this. But, that does not mean Government, State or Federal, may presume semiautomatic weapons, especially those firearms referred to as “assault weapons,” do not fall within the core of the Second Amendment.Second, a corollary to the basic, unfettered, natural right codified in the Second Amendment is that American citizens have a right to possess a firearm for self-defense. Antigun activists argue that armed self-defense is unnecessary because it is the duty of the police to safeguard the lives and well-being of the citizenry. But do police departments, as government entities, really have that duty? They do not!“No inquiry is more central to constitutional jurisprudence than the effort to delineate the duties of government. The courts' approach to this complex subject has been dominated by reliance on a simple distinction between affirmative and negative responsibilities. Government is held solely to what courts characterize as a negative obligation: to refrain from acts that deprive citizens of protected rights. Obligations that courts conceive to be affirmative—duties to act, to provide, or to protect—are not enforceable constitutional rights. “The Negative Constitution, A Critique,” 88 Mich. L. Rev. 2271 (August 1990) by Susan Bandes, Professor of Law, DePaul University College of law.The safeguarding of one's life is then a personal responsibility, not a police responsibility. Broward County residents, especially those high school students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, should have learned that lesson well. Many, obviously, have not as they--at the behest of their silent benefactors and choreographers of their political strategies, the antigun groups--act against their own best interests. They lash out at NRA, the very organization that serves them by protecting their sacred right of armed self-defense; and they call for civilian disarmament leaving them worse off. The duty of the Police is merely to safeguard, in some nebulous sense, the well-being of a community as a whole, not the lives of the individuals who live in it. But, then, since Government has no affirmative duty to provide armed protection for each citizen, Government cannot, in good faith, deny the citizen the natural right of armed defense owed to one's self. If the public is to take away anything from the recent Parkland, Florida tragedy, it is this:The Broward County Sheriff’s Department and the first responders from the Coral Springs Police Department did an abysmal job. By the time the Coral Springs Police SWAT team arrived, it was too late. Lives had been lost. An investigation unfolds, but it means nothing; for, whatever the outcome, police departments do not have and never did have an affirmative duty to protect individuals within a community. They are immune from suit. This is not supposition. It is law.“Thus . . . a claim that police officers failed to protect a particular individual from injury by nongovernmental actors is generally not cognizable; a successful claim would require sufficient prior contacts between police and the individual to indicate a specific undertaking or promise by the police to provide protection and detrimental reliance by the individual. Absent such facts, there is generally no liability for failure to enforce laws and regulations intended to benefit the community as a whole, failure to provide police or fire protection, or failure to inspect." Affirmative Duties, Systemic Harms, and the Due Process Clause, 94 Mich. L. Rev. 982, 999-1000 (February, 1996), by Barbara E. Armacost, Professor of Law, University of Virginia.The first and last line of adequate defense both inside the home and outside it is, as it always was, as the framers of our Constitution knew full well and as they provided for: armed self-defense.

ALERT: CONTACT YOUR REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES NOW.

Call your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives.  Tell them this: “if you want my support, then vote for national handgun carry reciprocity now.”PHONE U.S. SENATE: (202) 224-3121;PHONE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: (202) 225-3121______________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

AS TRAGEDY STRIKES MARJORY STOMEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL, ANTIGUN ACTIVISTS SHAMEFULLY ENLIST STUDENTS TO CARRY OUT THE ANTIGUN AGENDA.

ANTIGUN ACTIVISTS USE THE HYSTERIA OF THE MOMENT TO PURSUE THEIR AGENDA OF GUN CONFISCATION

With the latest shooting tragedy—this one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—antigun groups wasted little time in singling out a culprit—the AR-15 5.56 NATO / 223 semiautomatic rifle. The mainstream media quickly echoed the sentiment of antigun groups and their fellow travelers in Congress: if Government would just confiscate guns from the civilian population, commencing with semiautomatic “assault weapons,” society would be better off for it and all would be right with the world.In the hysteria of the moment, it is considered anathema to counter this sentiment or to question the underlying assumption. Banning civilian ownership and possession of firearms is proclaimed as a surefire panacea to preventing gun violence. It is recited as a categorical imperative; an irrefutable truth. But is it?Lost in any discussion about gun violence is any mention of one obvious and incontrovertible fact: that the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School would not have happened—could not have occurred—if the School Administration had simply instituted a multilayered set of strategies to harden the school against security breaches. It didn’t. The result, while horrific, cannot and should not be construed as altogether unexpected and inexplicable in the peculiar age we live in.It is an age marked by broken homes and social alienation. It is an age beset by the rupture of core values and the seeding of a new ethos consisting of a hodgepodge of unassimilable multicultural influences, including multilingualism, and moral relativism; a hollowing out of sacred traditions, the denigration of basic Christian virtues, and a perfunctory attitude of indifference over the important role of the traditional nuclear family in shaping young lives: extolling the importance of self-reliance, personal integrity, and courage in dealing with adversity; promoting a love of Country, respect for our National heritage, and instilling a code of morality and a strong work ethic in our children. This is, unfortunately, an age that seeks out and relishes instant gratification. It is an age that redefines anomalous gender diversity and gender dysphoria as a social preference, a life choice, rather than the psychiatric disorder, which it really is. We live in an age of rampant exploitation of and, indeed, promotion of human weakness, that becomes ever easier through advances in technology and communication.We see an endless parade of new, ever more violent, hyper-realistic video games. We see a continuous procession of cinematic “treats” of gratuitous violence offered up by Hollywood moguls, ever willing to exploit and reinforce the public appetite for on-screen depictions of violence and carnage—all to turn a profit. And we see the blatant hypocrisy of Hollywood actors—highly paid individuals who take pride in their onscreen portrayals of psychotic and psychopathic killers, as they engage in over-the-top murderous sprees; pretending to be adept in the use of the firearm props they are taught to handle deftly for the roles they play onscreen. And, then we see these same actors sanctimoniously denouncing guns off-screen, and denouncing, too, the millions of law-abiding citizens who choose to exercise their Constitutional right to own and possess guns for the very real purpose of self-defense—hardly play acting.

WHO OUGHT RIGHTFULLY BE BLAMED FOR THE TRAGEDY AT MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL?

Accusations are flying fast and loose as to whom bears responsibility for the cause of the tragedy. Lest the public forget—over the hailstorm of accusations flying hither and yon—the fact remains that blame for the tragedy falls, first and foremost, on the killer, himself, Nikolas Cruz. This sad, deranged young adult bears ultimate responsibility for the horror inflicted on innocent lives he lashed out against in his mindless rage. But, there are others in the cast of characters that bear a share of the responsibility.The Florida Department of Education and the Superintendent of Broward County Public Schools must share in the responsibility for failing to harden Florida schools against armed intrusions. And, the Governor of the State bears more than a modicum of responsibility for failing to secure schools against armed assault. And, through failure to heed warnings of the real threat posed by the Nikolas Cruz, the FBI, and Florida State and local Police must share in that responsibility.The other day the public learned that an armed Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy, who was assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, cowered outside the School, as the killer stalked the halls inside, undeterred. This unnamed Sheriff’s Deputy displayed abject cowardice. Had he steeled himself, as he was trained to do, as he was purportedly psychologically predisposed to do, he would have certainly prevented the loss of many lives; perhaps he could have prevented the loss of any innocent life, had he acted.

WHO DO ANTIGUN GROUPS WRONGLY BLAME FOR THE TRAGEDY AT MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL?

Antigun activists, antigun politicians, and antigun journalists and news commentators blame, of course, the gun—an inanimate object—as if the gun itself had walked into the school and commenced shooting innocent high school students and teachers. They always do, but this accusation against the gun is ludicrous on its face. Antigun activists also cast blame on the NRA and on the Second Amendment, refusing to accept the fact that tens of thousands of American citizens defend themselves and their families with firearms every year.

NRA IS THE PREMIER CIVIL RIGHTS ORGANIZATION.

Contrary to popular belief, the NRA, not the NAACP, is the oldest civil rights organization. The NAACP was founded in 1909, but NRA was founded in 1871. The NRA has trained millions of individuals and law enforcement in the proper use of firearms for well over one hundred years. As the premier defender of the Second Amendment, NRA is at the forefront in protecting our sacred rights and liberties as codified in the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791. The mainstream media though heralds the NAACP as the premier civil rights organization and condemns NRA. Apparently, the American citizenry is expected to forsake 240 years of history and to adopt EU socialist principles that eschew individual self-reliance as embodied in America’s Second Amendment. The EU itself is a contrivance, thrust on European Nation States through a coup d’état, meticulously and deftly orchestrated in the mid-Twentieth Century, by the same “elites” of Europe that pull the strings of the various antigun groups, antigun politicians, and antigun mainstream Press in our Country, today. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, "NRA Freedom, Join It."

ANTIGUN GROUPS NOW USE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TO PROMOTE THEIR INSIDIOUS ANTI-AMERICAN AGENDA.

A new tactic of antigun groups and of their billionaire internationalist EU benefactors involves the recruitment of and exploitation of teenagers as message boards. Taking their cue from cosmetic and clothing companies that hire models to hawk their products to the public, antigun groups realized they could employ articulate, photogenic students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and from other schools, to promote their agenda. We may see these groups using this technique more in the future. They know that no one would dare challenge young adults.Clearly, these students did not simply voice outrage at gun violence spontaneously. They have been carefully coached. How do we know this? Consider what they are saying. They are using phraseology and sloganeering of the antigun activists, of antigun politicians, of antigun media personnel: referring to AR-15 semiautomatic rifles as “weapons of war;” calling for “background checks;” telling the American public to vote pro-Second Amendment legislators out of Office; attacking the “Gun lobby.” They aren’t simply speaking for themselves; they are puppets of antigun political activists and of the wealthy, secretive internationalist benefactors that bankroll antigun groups and antigun legislators. Ruthless forces both here and abroad seek to undermine this Nation’s Second Amendment. They have their own agenda and they see, in these students, a useful tool to be manipulated in efforts to destroy the right of the people to keep and bear arms.Doubtless, the words uttered sound fresh and heartfelt and emphatic, even if there is really nothing new about the messages. These students would not be compelling spokespersons for antigun activists if that were not true. But the messaging derives from antigun group sponsors, not from the students. There is a sophistication in the organization of these students that cannot be reasonably explained away as an impromptu effort by students themselves. These students are dupes for a cause that has nothing to do with the students’ personal safety and well-being and has everything to do with the undermining of our sacred rights and liberties. These students might reflect upon this before allowing themselves to be employed for an agenda that is not their own. But, then, these young adults are in shock. That makes use of these young people by antigun activists even more reprehensible.

ALERT: CONTACT YOUR REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES NOW.

Tell your representatives they must not bow to antigun activist pressure to reinstate semiautomatic weapons and LCM bans.PHONE: U.S. Senate: (202) 224-3121; PHONE: U.S. House of Representatives: (202) 225-3121______________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

IT’S TIME FOR NATIONAL HANDGUN CARRY RECIPROCITY TO SECURE THE CITIZEN’S RIGHT OF ARMED SELF-DEFENSE, THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY.

The “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017” (115 H.R. 38) amends the federal criminal code to allow a qualified individual to carry a concealed handgun into or possess a concealed handgun in another state that allows individuals to carry concealed firearms.Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC), introduced the bill on January 3, 2017. The bill passed the House by Roll Call Vote of 231-198, on December 6, 2017. It was sent to the Senate one day later, where it was read twice and then referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. President Trump supports it. The NRA supports it. And, rank and file law enforcement officers support it too. But, there has been to date no further action on it. The bill sits in limbo. Its prospect of passage is, at present, low. Why is that?What is the U.S. Senate waiting for?Every day that goes by innocent lives are lost and crimes that could be avoided go undeterred because of restrictive gun laws. Although States like California, New York, and New Jersey have enacted laws allowing for issuance of concealed carry licenses (CCWs), in practice it is extremely difficult for most law-abiding citizens—and virtually impossible for many law-abiding citizens—who reside in any one of those States, or in other States with similar restrictive gun laws, to obtain a CCW. And none of those States recognizes a valid CCW issued in any other State.Having access to a firearm does save innocent lives. There are countless stories of law-abiding citizens who would have been seriously injured or who would have lost their lives if they did not have access to a firearm. U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Alexander Borrego, serves as a recent example of a man who, being armed, was able to thwart an attack on his life and that of his family. But, the lack of a national handgun carry reciprocity law means that lawful use of a handgun for self-defense is subject to severe jurisdictional constraints.It is not uncommon for an otherwise law-abiding citizen, who holds a valid CCW from one State, to face arrest, indictment on misdemeanor or felony charges, and incarceration if convicted, for having carried a handgun into another State that does not recognize that citizen’s CCW.Many American citizens have suffered calamity as a result. There are many examples. Elizabeth Anne Enderli, a decorated military veteran, and holder of a valid CCW from Texas, was arrested for unlawful possession of a handgun when she carried her handgun into New York. Brian Fletcher, a volunteer emergency electrical storm repairman and holder of a valid CCW from North Carolina, was arrested for unlawful possession of a handgun when he carried his handgun into New Jersey. And, Shaneen Allen, a single mother of two, and holder of a valid CCW from Pennsylvania, was arrested for unlawful handgun possession when she, too, carried her handgun into New Jersey. Law-abiding citizens who hold a valid CCW from their home State should not be restricted to their use of a handgun for self-defense only to their home State, but, they often are; and the personal costs are dire when a citizen steps foot into a jurisdiction that does not recognize the validity of that citizen’s CCW. But, why should this be?The right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense is embodied in the Second Amendment, as made clear in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Heller case. The Heller case also held that defensive arms is an individual right, not connected to one’s service in a militia. Yet, antigun proponents are reluctant to recognize the Heller rulings. They blithely disregard Heller, urging Americans to forfeit the right the founders of our Nation saw reason to sanctify in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.Antigun proponents argue that carrying a handgun for self-defense is a threat to public safety. Public safety is a common trope that antigun proponents appeal to when defending illegal gun laws such as the New York’s Safe Act and Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act—sets of restrictive firearms’ laws that are inherently incompatible with the Second Amendment. But, that doesn’t stop antigun proponents from promoting them and promoting even more outrageous schemes.One self-described antigun extremist, Marc Jampole, political blogger, exclaims, in his article, “Gun Control Leads to a Civil Society”: “rights change over time. . . . Often we give up one set of rights to gain another one, or some people gain rights at the expense of others. . . . At this point in time, only extremists (like me) want to outlaw private ownership of guns. What mainstream organizations and elected officials are asking for is to restrict the absolute right to own and carry a gun—for the safety of society.”So, the safety and well-being of the individual is to be sacrificed for the presumed safety of an amorphous society?Dan Pfeiffer, a former aide to Barack Obama, contributor to CNN and antigun proponent, writes in his article, titled, “What to Bring to a Gun Fight," “The Democratic gun control strategy fails because it is defined by this poverty of ambition—the determination never to look beyond fear of political repercussions. . . . We are nibbling around the edges instead of proposing bold, meaningful solutions such as: . . . A national gun buyback program [actually, national gun confiscation] similar to the one Australia instituted after a mass shooting that killed 35 people.”What Pfeiffer fails to mention in his article is that Australia does not recognize a right of self-defense with a firearm. Antigun proponents such as Pfeiffer and Jampole hold views that are decidedly contrary to those of the founders of our Republic and with most Americans. Their views are inconsistent with our Constitution and with U.S. Supreme Court holdings, but that doesn’t seem to concern them. Their singular objective is to disarm the civilian population of our Country—under the pretext of safeguarding it—regardless of the strictures of our Constitution, of our jurisprudence, of our system of laws, and of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Second Amendment Heller and McDonald cases.Antigun proponents attack the natural right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. With the active and avid assistance of the mainstream media, antigun proponents confound the American public. They use distorted facts, biased reporting, pretentious and dubious moralizing, fallacious reasoning, and empty, deceptive rhetoric.Antigun proponents seek to convince the public that it is in the public’s interest to forfeit the Second Amendment. Indeed, Brett Stephens, Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, audaciously argues for repeal of the Second Amendment, outright. Brett Stephens apparently believes that repeal of the Second Amendment and a general ban on civilian ownership and possession of firearms would better serve society. But, would it?The eradication of guns in the hands of the civilian population would entail the elimination of individual autonomy, the repudiation of individual responsibility, the destruction of individual rights and liberties; and, far from safeguarding life, a general ban on civilian ownership and possession of firearms would endanger the life, safety and well-being of Americans. Antigun proponents perceive the loss of these things as necessary to promote a safe and ordered society. But, their notion of a safe and ordered society is a controlled society.It is loss of Government control over the public that antigun proponents are most concerned about. So, talk of promoting the health, safety, and well-being of society through gun confiscation is mere dissembling. Antigun proponents don't care one whit about the health, safety, and well-being of individual citizens who comprise that society. They speak in terms of promoting the welfare of society as a whole even as the lives of individuals within that society suffer through implementation of their antigun schemes. Maximizing utility for an shapeless mass isn't what the Founders had in mind. It is the well-being of the individual citizen in a Free Republic that is sacrosanct and inviolate, not the well-being of a societal collective. The natural right of armed self-defense, embodied in the Second Amendment, makes that point abundantly clear.Antigun proponents must not dissuade us from advancing our goal to strengthen the Second Amendment. Our goal is at odds with their goal of mass gun confiscation to effectuate Government control of the citizenry. That is why we must see enactment of a national concealed handgun carry reciprocity law now. The matter is certainly timely, and President Trump would sign such a bill into law were it to cross his desk. So, then, what are Republicans waiting for? Why are they stalling?The fundamental right of self-defense, and our Constitutionally codified right of defense of arms has saved innocent lives and will continue to save innocent lives. We cannot tolerate  and must not tolerate further Congressional inaction. We must meet the current wave of mainstream Press sentiment and antigun proponent efforts to defeat the individual right of armed self-defense, head-on.Contact your Senator. The phone number to call is: (202) 225-3121. Tell your Senator you want his or her vote on national handgun carry reciprocity now!______________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved

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

PART TEN

A NATION UNDER SIEGE

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

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

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

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

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

TREY GOWDY IS LEAVING CONGRESS.

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

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

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

ALERT: CONTACT YOUR REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS

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

MAINSTREAM “PRESS” AND CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS COORDINATE BRAZEN ATTACK AGAINST NUNEZ MEMO

PART NINE

One would think the publishers, editors, and reporters who work for the mainstream Press—all those who claim to prize and champion the principles of civil libertarianism—would have applauded efforts of the Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee of Intelligence to bring, to the attention, of Americans the devious, insidious malfeasance of senior DOJ/FBI Officials, and that they would do so vociferously.  Not so! Instead, major news organizations like The New York Times remained, for several weeks, abjectly, painfully quiet, hoping the matter would just go away and that the public would lose interest. But the matter wouldn't go away. Not by a long shot! So, in recent days, when it was no longer possible for the mainstream Press to remain quiet, it entered the fray, but did so only to echo the sentiments of Congressional Democrats on the Committee.These Congressional Democrats not only condoned the malfeasance of top DOJ/FBI Officials, but actively encouraged it. You would think Congressional Democrats would work hand-in-hand with their Congressional Republican counterparts on the Committee to provide much needed oversight of DOJ and FBI abuses. After all, the purpose of the House Permanent Select Committee of Intelligence is to provide oversight of the powerful DOJ/FBI and of the vast intelligence apparatuses, consistent with the Committee's mandate as set forth on the Committee's website:The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Congressman Devin Nunes (California). Created in 1977, HPSCI is charged with oversight of the United States Intelligence Community—which includes the intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the following seventeen elements of the U.S. Government—and the Military Intelligence Program. The key word here is "oversight." The job of the House Permanent Select Committee of Intelligence is to provide watchful care of singularly powerful, secretive federal Government departments, agencies, and bureaus on behalf of the American people. The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee seek to perform their duty, while the Democrats who sit on the Committee, shirk that duty. Congressional Democrats should have supported their fellow Committee Members. Instead they castigate them, and, in so doing, have forsworn their duty as Committee members and as Representatives of the people.Congressional Democrats who sit on this powerful House Permanent Select Committee of Intelligence Committee, do not, apparently, recognize that their job is one of oversight, or maybe they have forgotten this, or otherwise they don't care, or, perhaps--worst of all--they have capitulated. This means they are taking their marching orders from the individuals in the Deep State and Shadow Government. They are, then, deliberately undermining the work of the House Permanent Select Committee of Intelligence to engage in a duplicitous, reprehensible attack on the United States President, Donald Trump. And that means they are engaging in an insidious, outrageous, reprehensible attack on the American electorate and on the United States Constitution. This is their ultimate betrayal. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democratic member on the Committee and his ilk, including, most notoriously, Eric Swawell (D-CA), Schiff’s close compatriot on the House Intelligence Committee, have literally given the “Green Light” to those individuals who work in the DOJ/FBI who have abused their authority, who have betrayed their Oath, and who have betrayed this Nation and the American people. By facilitating wrongdoing in Government, Congressional Democrats who sit on the House Permanent Select Committee of Intelligence have conveyed the message to the DOJ/FBI and to those who work in the intelligence community that these people can do whatever they want; that Congressional Democrats, like Adam Schiff, Eric Swawell and others, will cover for them. Congressional Democrats have thus become mere toadies of senior Officials of the DOJ/FBI and of the vast intelligence apparatuses. They cloak abuse in Government, rather than bringing abuse to light, and, in masking serious abuse in Government, these Congressional Democrats compound malfeasance with malfeasance of their own.They are all mere toadies of the senior Officials of the DOJ/FBI and of the intelligence apparatuses. These toadies allow the hidden Deep State and Shadow Government, within the external Government we see, to exist and, in fact, to flourish. The Clintons and Barack Obama, along with Congressional Democrats, and several Republican Centrists, and the mainstream media, and their trans-nationalist, internationalist globalist billionaire benefactors, are enablers of the Deep State and of the Shadow Government and always have been. Even now, behind the scenes, they are all quietly, incessantly working to undercut the U.S. President. In so doing, they are working to undercut the will of the people; they are working to undercut the sovereignty and independence of the United States; they are working to undercut the supremacy of our Constitution and our system of laws; they are working to destroy the rights and liberties etched in stone in the Bill of Rights.Unchecked, abuse of power invariably continues unabated, and, in fact, worsens incrementally over time. Lack of Congressional oversight, coupled with a compliant, mainstream Press that operates merely as an echo chamber of and for an effete Congress encourages malfeasance in the Bureaucracy of the Federal Government. Lack of strong Congressional oversight allows senior Officials in the labyrinth of the Deep State and Shadow Government to operate with impunity. Congressional Republicans must protect President Trump so that the President may do the job the American electorate expects of him,  which is to strengthen this Country and revitalize it; to strengthen the rights and liberties of the American citizenry; to make clear to trans-nationalist, internationalist globalists that the United States belongs to the American citizenry, and to no one else; to make clear that Americans have a right to take pride in their history, in their core values, in their history, in their Christian heritage and that there is no reason to feel guilty about any of this. Of course, Congressional Democrats and the mainstream media want none of this. Their vision for this Country marks the end of it. They wish to turn this Country over to the weak, the effete, the effeminate--making it ripe for takeover. So it is that the American citizenry cannot depend on either Congressional Democrats or upon the mainstream Press to investigate and curb abuses and excesses in Government. Rather, these Congressional Democrats, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the publishers, editors, reporters, news anchors and commentators of left-wing networks, namely and particularly, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and even PBS, that comprise the bloated mainstream Press, are all complicit in hiding evidence of gross malfeasance in the Federal Government. But, they go further; much further. Congressional Democrats and the mainstream Press not only hide evidence of malfeasance in the high ranks of the DOJ and FBI, and in other Federal Government departments, bureaus, and agencies, they actively abet Federal Government malfeasance.The mainstream media, in particular—this Press that prides itself as the protector of liberty is anything but that. The mainstream Press has devolved into a mere mouthpiece for the machinery that comprises the Deep State and the Shadow Government. This mainstream Press is now merely an organ of propaganda. This Press does not strive to preserve the sacred rights and liberties of the American citizenry but, rather, works methodically, inexorably to undermine those rights and liberties—the very rights and liberties upon which a free Republic rests.The New York Times wasted little time and expended much effort in attacking the House Intelligence Committee “Nunez” Memo, devoting considerable newsprint in that effort, as is clear from a perusal of the Saturday, February 3, 2018 edition of the newspaper.On page A13 of the print edition of the newspaper, the Times published the entirety of the Nunez Memo, including the cover letter, authored by the President’s personal attorney Donald F. McGahn II. The Arbalest Quarrel feels it worthwhile to analyze the NY Times’ analysis of the Memo and Cover letter so that the American public can see, firsthand, how a major newspaper employs propaganda in a continuing campaign of disinformation and misinformation, to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of Americans as to what to believe.In our next article of this multi-part series, we explore the NY Times’ deeply flawed analysis—analysis so obviously flawed that it adds credence to the conclusion that the NY Times is, indeed, complicit in protecting malfeasance in the senior ranks of the DOJ/FBI, and, in that act, shredding the U.S. Constitution and undermining the very rights and liberties of the American people it pretends to protect.The American citizenry should be appalled by the extravagant misuse of Government power and authority. Please contact your House and Senate Congressional Representatives. Tell them you support the work of Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Senator Chuck Grassley in unmasking corruption in the Federal Government and in bringing to justice those who presently work in or who have worked in the FBI and DOJ, or in the intelligence community, or in the Department of State, who have betrayed the trust that the American people have placed in them. The phone number to call is: 202-224-3121._____________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHAT DOES PRESIDENT TRUMP’S DECLASSIFICATION AND RELEASE OF THE NUNEZ MEMO PRESAGE FOR THE NATION?

PART EIGHT

As anyone who keeps abreast of the news knows, the “Nunez Memo,” prepared by Congressional Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence by order of the Committee’s Chairman, Representative Devin Nunez (R-CA), documenting DOJ/FBI abuse of the FISA Court is now out. President Trump declassified it, as is his Presidential prerogative, and authorized its release to American public. The Memo illustrates clear wrongdoing of the DOJ and FBI in the way Senior Officials of the DOJ and FBI obtained a warrant to conduct secret surveillance of an American citizen, Carter Page, a one-time bit player in Donald Trump’s campaign. Senior Officials of the DOJ and FBI likely violated Carter Page’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and likely violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well. And, they certainly violated several Federal Statutes. To his credit, President Trump did not redact the names of those DOJ and FBI Officials.Congressional Democrats and their shills in the mainstream media wasted no time excoriating both the release of the Memo and the contents of it. More memos from Congressman Devin Nunez, will be forthcoming. This isn’t something that Congressional Democrats and those whom they protect within the Deep State and Shadow Government want. They aren’t pleased with the light that is beginning to shine on them all, and they have orchestrated plans to deal with it, now that the Nunez Memo is in the public domain. One tactic involves preparation of a Memo supposedly rebutting the Nunez Memo. That “Schiff” Memo has been drafted and voted upon by the entire the House Intelligence Committee. The Committee has voted to release the Memo. As with the Nunez Memo, the Schiff Memo will be submitted for President Trump’s review and action.Congressional Democrats along with reporters and editors of mainstream newspapers, prominently and particularly, The New York Times, and news commentators and news anchors in mainstream cable news networks—like ABC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC—berated Congressional Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee for releasing the Memo, claiming it constitutes a threat to our National Security, and, in the same breath asserting, incongruously and inconsistently, that the Memo failed to live up to its hype. So, which is it? Does release of the “Nunez Memo” constitute a danger to the security of our Nation, or is it nothing more than a tempest in a teapot?Through deliberate mixed messaging Congressional Democrats and their shills in the mainstream media “screw with” the American psyche, to confound, disorient the American public so that the public doesn’t know what to believe concerning the Nunez Memo. Hence, Congressional Democrats and their shills in the mainstream media offer to the American public two primary, but inconsistent accounts. Yet, they are wrong on both scores.The Nunez Memo is critically important. It is hardly “hype.” President Trump’s declassification of the Memo and release of the Memo to the American public alerts Americans to the presence of rogue elements in the highest ranks of the DOJ and FBI who have betrayed their Nation. That is information Americans have a right to know and need to know. So, release of the Memo neither threatens the security of our Nation, nor is it hype. Indeed, far from amounting to a threat to the security of our Nation, the Memo’s release serves to safeguard it.The Nunez Memo serves as the most important information of serious criminal abuse in the Federal Government to come to the attention of the American electorate in the last several decades. It is an earth-shattering exposé of FISA Court abuse by the DOJ and FBI. Granted, the language of the Memo is dry and pedantic, but Republicans on the House Committee of Intelligence aren’t writing a novel. No colorful verbiage exists in the Memo because the Memo’s authors do not wish to entertain Americans, but, rather, to educate and inform them. And, they did that.The Memo exposes the dangers of secrecy in a free Republic, where high-ranking Federal Government bureaucrats operating in the spheres of intelligence, police, and law, wielding immense power, render decisions and take action on those decisions, based on their own personal philosophical and political beliefs, whims, and predilections, caring not one whit whether those decisions and actions tread on the rights and liberties of the citizenry as laid out in the Bill of Rights, and caring not one whit whether those decisions and actions extend well beyond the parameters set by Federal Statute. Indeed, it is abundantly clear, from a perusal of the Nunez Memo, that senior Officials of the DOJ and FBI act in extravagant defiance of the U.S. Constitution and Federal Statute.What can the American citizenry do to correct this abuse in high Government Office? Very little it seems. The American citizenry has no recourse, except for the oversight that Congress provides. It is curious, then, that Congressional Democrats would object to Congressional Republicans’ bringing to light Federal Government abuses. But, Congressional Democrats do object to release of the Memo. Among their other purported concerns, they claim that the Memo would cause the American citizenry to lose faith in the DOJ and FBI. But, then, that is the point. The public should be concerned.One must ask: Does it serve Americans’ best interests to doubt the integrity of the DOJ and FBI when sufficient cause exists to doubt that integrity? Or does it serve Americans’ best interests to live under the illusion that senior Officials of the DOJ and FBI operate within the bounds and constraints of the U.S. Constitution and Federal Statute, when, in fact, they do not, and have betrayed the American citizenry’s trust?Apparently, Congressional Democrats, such as Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Eric Swalwell (D-CA), members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence believe it better for Americans to live under illusion. Congressional Republicans clearly do not, and it is fortunate that Americans have individuals such as Representative Devin Nunez (R-CA), Chairman of that Committee, who, along with other Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence realize their responsibility to inform the American citizenry of serious abuses in the DOJ and FBI when serious criminal abuses come to light. Americans obviously cannot rely on Congressional Democrats, nor can they rely on the mainstream media Press, to keep Americans informed of betrayal of the public trust by high ranking Officials in the most powerful and secretive police, intelligence, and legal institutions of this Country.The public should keep in mind that, if the Democrats gain control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections, Representative Schiff will gain the chairmanship of the powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. This is a man who, recently, in his continuing diatribe against release of the Nunez Memo, seemingly inexplicably brought up, as an aside, that Russians now support the right of the American people to keep and bear arms? From what bizarre realm of horror and fantasy did Representative Schiff pull that idea? And what was the point of it: that Russians, according to Schiff, suddenly have reverence for our sacred Second Amendment, so we should not; or, perhaps, that Russians hope that Americans around the Country will suddenly go on a massive shooting spree, killing each other?This man, Adam Schiff, is a menace to all that is holy. What he is doing in Government has nothing to do with protecting this Nation and its people and upholding the U.S. Constitution. It has everything to do with tearing down this Nation under the guise of protecting it; destroying the rights and liberties of its people under the cloak of strengthening them; subverting the Constitution behind the mask of preserving it. He seeks, through his position as Ranking Member of the Intelligence Committee, just below Representative Nunez, Chairman of the Committee, to undermine the will of the American electorate through his constant, pertinacious, presumptuous, indefensible, intolerable and singularly bizarre attacks on the Chief Executive of this Nation, President Trump.President Trump, to his credit—unlike Representative Schiff and his fellow Congressional Democrats—holds the American citizenry in high regard. Through declassification of the Nunez Memo and its subsequent release to the American citizenry, President Trump has opened a window to the machinations of  high-ranking Officials of the Deep State and Shadow Government, operating beyond the bounds of law. The American public bears witness to the contempt by which those who should be serving the public, have rebelled against it, and seek to oppress it.We continue with articles, bringing to light the game plan of those who have engineered a silent, insidious coup d’etat of the Government of the United States. The betrayers of the Nation haven’t yet lost. The American public is just now beginning to gain a glimmer of insight of the power wielded by insidious forces within the bowels of the Federal Government. Americans must remain vigilant.______________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.