CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY RECIPROCITY AMONG THE FIFTY STATES AND IN ALL U.S. TERRITORIES MUST BECOME A REALITY.
NATIONAL CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY—LIKE SELF-DEFENSE—IT’S A RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE.
CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY RECIPROCITY AMONG THE FIFTY STATES AND IN ALL U.S. TERRITORIES MUST BECOME A REALITY.
PART TWO
THE RIGHT OF SELF-DEFENSE IS EMBODIED IN OUR SECOND AMENDMENT.
The instinct for self-preservation is primary, primal, primordial. We take that statement as axiomatic, self-evident, true. It is fact, a given. The assertion requires no proof. A person need look but to his or her own response to a threat of attack to recognize the inherent truth of the assertion.
A rational person will defend his or her life against any threat to that life. The urge to defend one’s life against a threat to it stems from the instinct for self-preservation. Those assertions, too, are axiomatic, self-evident, true. The assertions require no proof and they require no justification.
Since we take, without need for proof or justification, the urge to defend one’s life from external harm as natural and universal, we draw from that notion a normative, ethical prescription. It is this: a person has the right to defend his or her life from threat of harm, and will do so. Most people, we think, would agree with this assertion as well.
But, consider the assertion, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The assertion embodies two correlates. The first correlate is that a person has the inherent right of self-defense. The second correlate is that a person has the right to defend one’s life with a firearm. The first correlate is simply a reiteration of the aforesaid assertion that, “a person has the right to defend his or her life from threat of harm, and will do so,” which most people, we postulate would, accept as true without need for proof.
Some people, though, namely, those who accept the rhetoric of antigun zealots would object to the second correlate. We, though, do not; nor would the founders of our Republic. For us, as with them, the natural right to defend one’s life with a firearm is axiomatic, self-evident, true. The truth of the assertion derives, straightforwardly, from the instinct for self-preservation. We need not proffer proof or justification for the truth of the second correlate.
The firearm is the most effective means to defend one’s life, and the founders of our Republic knew this. The founders of our Republic codified this natural right of self-defense in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The right of the people to defend one’s life with the most effective means of doing so is prominently etched in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.
The Second Amendment is one of ten basic, principal rights and liberties set forth in the Nation’s Bill of Rights. The Nation’s Bill of Rights is a critical part of the Nation’s Constitution; and, our Nation’s Constitution would not be complete without it. For, our Bill of Rights operates as a check on federal Government power.
Our Constitution establishes a Government, beholden to and answerable to the American people. The Bill of Rights makes that point poignantly clear. The Nation’s Constitution establishes a federal government, and establishes, as well, the parameters of the powers and authority of the three Branches of Government. But, the Constitution that creates the federal Government and that establishes the powers and authority of each Branch, does not also create the predicate rights and liberties of the People.
The rights and liberties of the People predate the Constitution. Our sacred rights and liberties exist intrinsically in the very being of each American citizen. The Constitution didn’t create or ordain our fundamental rights and liberties. And, Government did not bestow those rights and liberties on us. So, neither the Government, nor the Constitution, can take our sacred rights and liberties from us.
The Bill of Rights operates essentially as both an acknowledgement of the existence of our sacred rights and liberties—lest any Government functionary attempt to proscribe our rights and liberties—and as a constant reminder to those in the Government, that Government operates at the pleasure of the People. That means the People can dismantle Government when Government oversteps its authority and operates in accordance with its own mandate, contrary to the Will of the People.
Government functionaries must understand they are not to toy with our sacred rights and liberties; nor are they to undercut any of our sacred rights and liberties. Yet some Government officials do just that. They believe that our Bill of Rights can be shaped, molded, changed, even done away with.
They are wrong. Americans have demonstrated how out-of-touch such people are. With the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. President, a vast swathe of the American populace has made abundantly clear: we want our Country back, and we will take our Country back from those, like Hillary Rodham Clinton, who believe, essentially, that they operate by divine right. They most certainly do not.
Our Bill of Rights and, especially our Second Amendment, exist as essential codifications of natural rights that remain as vibrant and as true today as they did during the birth of our Nation. Our public Officials cannot undermine, them, disregard them, or repeal them—ever! Hillary Clinton didn’t heed the warning. She sought, through the power of the mainstream media to persuade the American public to disavow its birthright, to passively permit its fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms to be forfeited, done away with. Neither she, nor her powerful, wealthy sponsors appreciated the intelligence and determination and resolve of millions of Americans.
WE, AMERICANS, ARE AT A CROSSROADS.
The American people have seen their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms eroded under the Obama Administration. With the election of Donald Trump as our 45th President, we have thrown a wrench in the antigun agenda. For the moment, we have stopped the ruthless internationalist benefactors who fund the antigun agenda.
With defeat of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the antigun forces have lost their principal ally, their principal weapon for defeating the Second Amendment. The antigun forces are weakened but not undone.
The paramount aim of national and international antigun efforts is de facto repeal of the Second Amendment. Make no mistake about that. They aim to destroy gun ownership and possession in our Country. That means they seek to undercut the individual’s right of self-defense. What is their motivation? The answer is simple. They seek to break the back of our National resolve, of our heritage, of our culture, of our National identity. If they can destroy our most sacred, natural right, they have eliminated a core, defining attribute of our Nation—the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Our Nation, as an independent, sovereign Republic would, if they were successful, totter on its very foundation.
So, we know the impetus for the antigun forces. But, why do many average, law-abiding citizens fall prey to the messaging of the antigun forces?
We discuss this in Part Three of the Arbalest Quarrel’s comprehensive multipart series on National concealed handgun carry. We also explain in Part Three how the Arbalest Quarrel has fought the myriad lies about firearms and about our Second Amendment as fomented and perpetrated on the American people by powerful, ruthless, internationalists and by antigun zealots and by those who, through their ignorance, support the actions, policies and goals of antigun groups, operating, as they do, through the mainstream media and through their puppets in Government.
By exposing, to the light of day, the lies perpetuated by those bent on destroying our sacred right of the people to keep and bear arms, we succeed in strengthening our Second Amendment. It therefore will come to pass that we will see universal concealed handgun carry in the Nation’s fifty States and in the Nation’s sixteen territories. Understand, this will become a reality but only if the resolve of the American people never wavers. We must all do our part if we are to be successful in our endeavor.
Copyright © 2016 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.3 Comments
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wunhunglo2
What about possible Federal intervention in training, licensing, and carry locations? What about the incorporation of the Constitution and the ability of States to nullify Federal laws? Yes, I’d like to be able to carry in all states, but I can do that in nearly 40 right now. I always want the Feds power limited, and I trust any “lawmaker” or bureaucrat a bit less far than I can throw them.
ObjectivistDad
The COTUS was intended to prevent the Federal govt growing so large and poweful that it would replace the King they’d just rebelled against.
And here you are advocating for growing the govt that the 2nd was intended to help prevent.
Towne Criour
Thank you for your comment. Actually, we are well aware of the incipient problem. We are not at all advocating for a federal concealed handgun carry license. We immediately see the danger in that. For the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a natural right preexistent in the people. It is not a grant or privilege bestowed on one by government, Federal or State. If the right to own and possess firearms were a grant or privilege, that would undermine the Second Amendment which simply codifies the right existent in the people. If the natural right were reduced to a privilege, the privilege bestowed could be rescinded. A right preexistent in the people cannot be rescinded by government since it was never something that emanated from government. Ideally, no legislation, State or Federal, should be necessary to permit a law-abiding citizen the right to carry a handgun concealed throughout the Country and in our Nation’s territories. As a matter of pragmatic reality, though, we do see the need for federal legislation but legislation that would do no more than exemplify what we already know: that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is not limited to specific zones or places within the United States or its territories. Better it would be if all 50 States recognized this so that federal legislation would be redundant and, therefore, unnecessary. Unfortunately, many States do not recognize the import of the Second Amendment. Or, if they do, they don’t care. Thus, acceptable federal legislation would simply require that every State recognize the right of law-abiding citizens who have on their person a valid concealed handgun carry license issued in one State to be able to carry lawfully in any other State, without fear of arrest.
Now this federal legislation, as we envision it, would not categorically interfere with State rights, under the Tenth Amendment. States would still be free to draft their own laws regarding firearms, in accordance with recognized State police powers, albeit such laws should be consistent with the import and purport of the Second Amendment but, except, for a few States, like Vermont, we do not see this. So, we envision that federal legislation would operate as an impetus for States to modify or rescind outright, draconian gun laws. If States that have draconian firearms’ laws, like New York and New Jersey, are suddenly faced with the prospect of being compelled to honor valid concealed handgun licenses issued to a person in a State, say, like Texas or Ohio, then we expect that residents of States, like New York and New Jersey, would demand of their legislators that draconian gun laws be modified or repealed. For, it would hardly be acceptable to a law-abiding resident of New York or New Jersey to have their States recognize the right of a law-abiding non-resident Texan or Ohioan to carry a handgun concealed in New York and New Jersey simply because it happened to be easier for the residents of those States to obtain a concealed handgun carry license in their respective State than it is for a law-abiding New York resident or a law-abiding resident of New Jersey to obtain such a license in his or her own State. We would therefore hope that federal legislation would spur States such as New York and New Jersey and California and Hawaii to relax standards for the issuance of concealed handgun carry licenses. Much has to be worked out. But, you are right, of course. The Constitution, as ratified, prescribed a Federal Government with limited powers, carefully delineated and circumscribed. The Rights and Liberties as set forth in the Bill of Rights are, contrariwise, expansive and, if not absolute, certainly not to be restricted to the extent that we have, unfortunately, seen in our body of common law and Statute, both federal and State. That is something we feel called upon here to rectify.