Editorial O’ The Day – Page 8

These are semi automatic “assault rifles”, although the term is made up, this is what the left wants to take. I actually don’t care what you call them, at all, as long as you don’t call them “modern sporting rifles”. That term is a pathetic attempt at the gun movement trying to placate the left.

I dont own these rifles for sport, I don’t hunt with either of these rifles although I could. Both of these rifles are owned because they’re effective against two legged predators at varying distances. I own these rifles in case someone or a group of people intend to kill me or my loved ones. These rifles are owned specifically to defend myself against humans.

Let’s not mince words. Every attempt at banning them only makes me buy more and more. No legislation will make me give them to you, no tragedy will ever make me anti gun. Each shooting I see in the news makes me want to buy more and train harder to be more effective against the evil in this world.

These guns don’t make me a psychopathic killer. I’m not a violent person but I’m also not an idiot who believes the world is a safe place. As the world gets increasingly more dangerous I look for better and better tools to defend myself and my family. As the government gets more corrupt and the economy crashes I hedge my bets with effective self defense tools and the skillset to effectively deploy them.

My guns aren’t a threat to anyone that isn’t trying to kill me. So you can cry, you can protest and you can even legislate, these are mine and you’ll never get them. They’re absolutely no danger to you unless you’re someone who means me harm and tries to kill me. How many people need to die before I turn in my guns? There isn’t an amount. What do my guns have to do with shooting rates in this country? Do you advocate chopping off your penis to help prevent others from raping?

Tweet away, vote away, protest and cry. They’re still mine.

Maine legislators consider expanding adult access to guns on school grounds for school safety

AUGUSTA, Maine —
With more than one mass shooting a day in America so far this year, including many in schools and on college campuses, Maine legislators are taking a closer look at improving school safety by potentially expanding adult access to guns on school grounds for self-defense.

One bill that underwent a public hearing before the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee on Wednesday, LD 52, would let teachers and other school staff be armed at school following police-style training to use their guns.

Since there’s never been a school shooting in Maine, the bill’s sponsor sees lessons learned in mass school shootings in other states.

“In all of them, a quick response time would have saved lives, if we had the right person there that knew what they were doing for an active shooter situation was willing, obviously, to be that person and did so,” Rep. Steve Foster, (R) Dexter, said in an interview. “My district has one school resource officer with four buildings. So, this whole bill is about an immediate or almost immediate response in a building, and if you look at some of these past incidents around the country, the response time was a big key issue, and that’s what this is hoping to address.”

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Attacking Second Amendment doesn’t address core causes of society’s violence and lawlessness

By Sen. Keith Wagoner

On the Saturday before Easter, the state Senate’s majority Democrats passed what they call an “assault weapons ban.” In reality, the bill targets several of the most popular sporting and self-defense firearms in the country, including most modern sporting rifles and even some shotguns used for hunting and competition shooting.

My Republican colleagues and I debated the measure for nearly three hours, using the amendment process to try to point out the fallacies of their arguments and mitigate some of the damage the bill would do to the rights of Washingtonians and small business owners who work as legal firearms dealers.

As it turned out, I was the only one able to get an amendment accepted – one to support our military members and allow them to keep their firearms when they are ordered to move to Washington.

The proponents of this bill and I agree on one thing and one thing only. We are in a crisis in Washington. But it is a crisis of general lawlessness across our communities, one exacerbated by bad legislative decisions over the past several legislative sessions.

We have seen soft-on-crime policies, releasing criminals from incarceration; vilification of our law enforcement officers; toleration of life-destroying drug proliferation and use; failure to address mental health adequately; and poor decisions during the COVID lockdowns resulting in learning loss and depression among our youth. We need to focus on addressing the root causes leading to chaos and violence, not vilify firearm ownership.

Our nation has always had a history of gun ownership, and the Second Amendment to the U.S. constitution enshrines our naturally endowed right to defend ourselves and our families. But what we have not always seen – what is new to the moment – is the devastating loss of life we have witnessed due to crime, suicide, mass shootings and senseless violence.

House Bill 1240 declares the violent and inappropriate use of firearms ‘appeal[s] to troubled young men intent on becoming the next mass shooter.’ But where is the effort to help these troubled young males and heal whatever there is inside of them that is broken and leading to violence and rage?

Instead, this bill goes after the implement, and completely ignores the underlying root causes of the problems we see today.

The problems are not just reflected in deaths caused by a demented person with a firearm. We see it in the increase of drug-related deaths, teen suicides, wrong-way and drunk-driving assaults on our roads, and in the sunken eyes of lost souls we see roaming our streets with unattended-to mental-health and substance-abuse issues.

It is reflected in fatherless homes producing rudderless young men who feel hopeless and unsure of their place in this world. It is reflected in the general lawlessness we have seen explode across this state, thanks in large part to the failed policies of the Democrat majority in the Legislature and Governor Inslee.

Banning some of the most popular firearms kept and used by law-abiding citizens today will do nothing to address these problems. Absolutely zero.

Look no further than the City of Seattle. Despite Washington ranking in the Top 10 nationally for gun control for the past five years, we have seen the number of shootings – fatal or not – and ‘shots-fired events’ in our largest city hit an all-time high in 2022.

The fact of the matter is the law created by this bill will just be more of the same. Worse still, it will give the victims of these crimes and all Washingtonians a false sense of security that something is being done.

And let’s not forget that this ban is also blatantly unconstitutional, and likely to cost taxpayers crucial dollars that could be invested in mental health and public safety, but which will instead be used trying to unsuccessfully defend this law in the courts.

HB 1240 now goes back to the House to reconcile changes between the version that passed the Senate and the one that passed the House earlier this year. That means there is still time for lawmakers to do the right thing, put this bill down, and set their sights on real solutions.

Sen. Keith Wagoner, R-Sedro-Woolley, represents the 39th Legislative District. He serves as the Senate Republican Whip and is a member of the Senate Law and Justice Committee.

The core message of Passover may be more than three millennia old, but it should never be forgotten.
FREEDOM FROM SLAVERY!
As a sign, an archetype, it foretold the sacrifice the Messiah would make to free humanity from the slavery of sin.

Socialism and The Holiday Of Freedom
Passover Is A Celebration Of Freedom And Personal Choice—Socialism Is Government Controlled Slavery

Karl Marx famously said, “Religion is the opium of the people.” Following Marx’s lead, Socialism tries to replace God with a socialist Government. It destroys principles inherent to Jewish and American traditions, such as limited government, individual responsibility, and traditional morals. It even tries to destroy the meaning of Passover, which is constantly repeated throughout the Torah-individual freedom “Once we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Eternal God took us out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” While we observe the holiday with friends and family, it is a holiday about individual freedom, “In every generation, one is obligated to see oneself as one who personally went out from Egypt … “In every generation, one is obligated to see oneself as one who personally went out from Egypt.

Let’s start at the beginning, or in the beginning; the creation narrative in Genesis explains that man is created in God’s image. But we are also taught that our maker has no bodily form, so how can that be? The Bible is not telling us that we are all dead ringers for the “big guy upstairs.” If that were the case, the picture on everyone’s driver’s licenses would be the same, no one would be able to get a check cashed, and all of those TV shows about using DNA to solve crimes would be very boring.

“Created in God’s image” is supposed to teach us that just as God acts as a free being, without prior restraint to do right and wrong, so can man. God does good deeds as a matter of his own free choice, and because we are created in his image, so can man. Only through free choice can man indeed be in the image of God. It is further understood that for mankind to have absolutely free choice, it must have inner free will and an environment in which a choice between obedience and disobedience exists. God thus created the world such that both good and evil can operate freely; this is what the Rabbis mean when they said, “All is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven” (Talmud, Berachot 33b). God controls all our options, but it is up to man to choose between correct or incorrect choices.

When it comes right down to it, free will is the divine version of limited government. God picks the correct direction and even gives us the Torah as a guidebook to follow, but he does not pick winners and losers—it is up to us to choose the direction we want to proceed.

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Sometimes you wonder if that was part of the plan.

How Putin saved NATO

When Finland cleared the last hurdle for NATO membership last week, major Western newspapers buried the story. Yet Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto justly celebrated ‘these historic days’—the end of 75 years of neutrality. As of this week, Finland is formally in, and Sweden, another eternal neutral, will soon follow, once Turkey stops blocking its membership.

Why would these two countries throng into an alliance that French President Emmanuel Macron diagnosed as being ‘brain dead’ only four years ago, and which former US President Donald Trump saw as ‘obsolete’ in 2017? The wisdom of the 18th-century British wit Samuel Johnson offers a broad answer here: ‘When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’

But there is an even pithier answer to this question: Vladimir Putin. The man who would be king of Europe has given NATO a new brain and a new lease on life.

What an irony! One of Putin’s many pretexts for subduing Ukraine was to stop NATO enlargement once and for all. Instead, by pushing two neutral Nordic countries into the alliance, he has achieved the opposite. NATO, now, has not been in better health for decades.

Yet Putin doesn’t deserve all the credit. NATO was never as sclerotic as Macron and Trump presumed. It is the oldest alliance of free countries, and longevity bespeaks functionality. In past centuries, royals changed coalitions more often than their wigs. As Lord Palmerston famously said, ‘We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies.’

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OUR CHILDREN NEED PROTECTION—THE REAL SOLUTION IS TO ARM TEACHERS

We need to focus on solutions that could have directly prevented the deaths that occurred in Nashville, Tennessee at the Covenant School—not unrelated gun control measures that would not have saved a single life in this situation.

Anti-gun activists and politicians cannot name a single gun control law that would have prevented this shooting, according to the details we have from the most recent reports at the time of distribution.

Arming Teachers

We must discuss real solutions to preventing this type of evil from striking again by arming willing teachers—which is a solution supported by 81% of police.[i] Absolutely nothing should come between a teacher who wants to defend children and their right to carry a firearm. No school that has armed teachers or staff has ever experienced a mass shooting.[ii] If our elected officials are important enough to receive armed protection, so too should our children!

Repealing the Gun-Free School Zones Act

We must also repeal then-Senator Biden’s unconstitutional Gun-Free School Zones Act which leaves our children vulnerable to criminals and our parents unarmed to defend them.[iii] The Gun-Free School Zones Act is a blanket ban on firearms on school property[iv] with the sole exception of self-defense minded Americans with the permission of their state and local governments.[v] Even in the 1990s, it was not outrageous that Americans would carry firearms on school grounds for self-defense.

But the red-tape enacted in the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 is outdated three decades later when half of the country—twenty-five states[vi]—have enacted Constitutional Carry or permitless carry laws—and at least 32 states allow armed teachers, parents, and school resource officers on campus.[vii] For this reason, Gun Owners of America endorses Rep. Thomas Massie’s H.R. 7417, the Safe Students Act.[viii] This bill would eliminate federal restrictions unnecessarily placed between a teacher or parent and their right to defend our children.

Armed Guards and Other Hardening Alternatives

While society may see fit to place police or armed guards in schools, this is not a one-or-the-other type choice. Teachers and parents must be allowed to carry firearms, according to common sense and our Constitution. On the other hand, schools may choose to harden themselves in other ways.

But remember, no matter how hard of a target we make our schools, securities and defenses may be penetrated. Banks get robbed. Security guards can be targeted, as was the case in Buffalo, New York.[ix] Listen to GOA’s Florida State Director, who also served as a School Resource Officer:

Part of my law enforcement career was spent working as a school resource officer in Florida. I was charged with protecting our most cherished of resources: our children. I made it my mission to ensure the safety of the children entrusted to my care. I would have given my life, if necessary.

But the hard truth is that I was just one cop on the campus; I couldn’t be everywhere at once. I patrolled the grounds, I made sure the gates were locked and the doors were shut, and I kept watch for strangers. Still, one officer is not enough, given that most modern schools are vast and sprawling.

We must be honest about what makes a school safe, and right now, as a society, we are not being serious. The desire to “do something,” has been met by politicians actually enacting counterproductive legislation. It’s time to reverse course… I know more needs to be done and no, the answer isn’t gun control.[x]

Ultimately, the most important thing we can do as a nation is to allow school faculty and parents to exercise their constitutionally protected right to defend their lives and the lives of our children.

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A Re-Declaration of Independence.
Tyranny is already upon us. To defeat it, we must first learn to reject its premises. And to say so aloud.

Be it so understood:

I refuse to “unpack white violence.” I reject the idea that my existence “perpetuates white power structures.” I will not — and in fact cannot — “examine my implicit biases.” I’m an individual. I refuse to grant determined interpretive communities authority over my being. My meaning is mine. It is what makes me me.

I will not “respect your pronouns” or “celebrate” your “queerness.” I am hostile to your sexualizing of children. I reject your neologisms, your “triggers,” and your desire to control my speech. I know who and what you are: you are my presumptive master, or else the Useful Idiot who empowers him. But I will grant you and your ideology no power over me.

I reject “equity” because it is collectivism disguised as virtue. I reject “inclusivity” because it is inorganic, superficial, and contrived. I reject mandated “diversity”: I will not surrender to the Crayon Box Mafia, nor to the gender changelings who pretend I am a construct answerable to their whims.

“Cultural appropriation” is merely culture: it expands to include, and it makes up the very fabric of a pluralist society. There’s no such thing as “digital blackface.” My whiteness is not “violent”; my sex is not “oppressive”; my religion doesn’t concern you; and my children are not yours to mold. Your beliefs will not be imposed on me. The State will not parent my sons.

“Queer theory” is “critical race theory” is “critical consciousness” is the Marxist rejection of the individual as individual. Cultural Marxism is determined to raze norms, sow chaos, tear families asunder, and reduce being to collective conformity. I reject its premises as fully as I reject its adherents. I will not comply.

I will not mouth your slogans. I will not denounce on command. I am not your tool, and you are not my minder. I reject your social hectoring. I find abhorrent your authoritarian urges. I laugh at your disingenuous outrage. From me you will receive no apologies. I reject your premises entirely, and I hereby reclaim my time.

My speech is my own. I reject each of your excuses to silence me. I don’t ask for your protections. I can filter information without your interference, and I despise your presumption to protect me from myself.

I am your sworn enemy, as you are mine. I will not perform for you. I will not read from your script or dance in your follies. I utterly reject your revisionism, your ahistorical impertinence, your presentism, your self-appointed expertise. I will not bow before your theorists, nor admire your social prophets.

I am not a disease. My existence doesn’t “warm the planet.” I’m not interested in your “sustainability” concerns. I am not yours to manage.

I won’t eat your bugs, live in your pods, surrender my cars, or without consent be packed into your cities. I reject your charity. I unmask your intentions. I know what a woman is; I know that any member of any racial group can practice racism; I know that 2+2=4, regardless of how contingent you wish to make reality. I despise your ideology. I refuse your relativism. You are not the Elect, and I am not answerable to the various neuroses you wear as badges of honor.

I know you better than you know yourselves. You are conditioned. Programmed. Automotons who believe themselves sentient beings. Your intolerance of “hate” is not a virtue. It’s a ruse. An excuse to practice your own intolerance and luxuriate in your own hatreds. You are a self-fulfilling prophecy. You are that which you claim to despise, and I am that which you claim to be.

I see you. Clearly. And I aim to misbehave.

I strive to be self-sufficient. I honor the founding ideals of my country, and I work to live up to their measure. I recognize the great fortune of my birth. History does not frighten me. I reject your blood libels: I am not responsible for that which I didn’t do, nor are you victims of what was never done to you. I will not proclaim your goodness while knowing your evil.

I am a free man. You wish to take me from me. You will fail. I will win. And God willing, I will live to spit on your graves.

Outlaw.

The post-Bruen “Sugar High” is a serious threat to our Second Amendment

The NYSRPA v. Bruen verdict passed by the Supreme Court last June was a watershed moment in American history. What began as a fight against the arbitrary power of government apparatchiks to grant concealed carry permits, often with a dollop of corruption, ended with a judicial standard that limits the power of government to infringe upon our right to keep and arms. The new guidance from the Supreme Court places the burden of proof on the government to show that a law that implicates the Second Amendment rights of citizens is in line with the nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation.

The implications have been massive. From coast to coast, laws that were previously rubber-stamped by a jaundiced judiciary are being struck down.

Laws that created a malleable category of “assault weapons” and banned them? Gone!
Laws that mandated non-existent James Bond technology? Gone!
Magazine capacity restrictions? Poof!
Laws that banned out-of-state ammunition purchases? In the process of getting shot down.
Laws that restrict young adults from owning guns? On their way out.
Ammo background purchase requirements? About to get overturned…

California has seen a lot of the above action but New York, my state of residence, has also seen its fair share of lawsuits after the Empire State struck back.

There is a lot to celebrate. Gun owners in anti-Second Amendment states are giddy at being able to own pistol grips instead of obscene workarounds, threaded barrels, detachable magazines, and folding/adjustable stocks. They’re no longer limited to Gen3 Glocks, and are no longer discouraged to apply for a carry permit because they aren’t rich, politically connected, or refuse to participate in Third World bribery.

Yet, amid all this, I see reason for alarm. Granted, things were far worse and on a bad trajectory but seem to have turned around. Those gains, in my opinion, are tenuous and can be rolled back within our lifetimes. The scoreboard as it stands now is the result of a razor-thin Electoral College victory in 2016. Regardless of one’s sentiments and policy positions on abortion, the overturning of Roe v. Wade should serve as a warning.

In an ideal world, lawmakers would refrain from passing laws that violate the Constitution, the Executive Branch would stop usurping the authority of lawmakers, and the judiciary would make use of its lifetime tenure to judge cases on their merits and not be cowed down by public opinion or political pressure. But the world we live in is far from that. The weakened separation of powers will be dangerous in the long run, not just for the Second Amendment, but for the overall health of the Republic.

Secondly, the enemies of our freedoms are organized, well-funded, and waging an all-out war. They’re working secretly with the CDC, pushing propaganda in Hollywood, applying pressure campaigns on private industry, conspiring with academia, and using public money to push their agenda. I hesitate to say this, but they’re behaving like modern-day Benedict Arnolds, colluding with foreign nations to subvert the American Bill of Rights because of their deep-seated hatred and basic denial of our right to keep and bear arms.

I’ve heard people say that “we’ve got ’em on the ropes” but I’m doubtful. What I see is a danger arising from a post-Bruen “Sugar High” and complacency on the part of gun owners.

Will you stop your activism now that you can buy pistol grips and folding stocks? Will you stop calling your elected representatives now that you have your carry permit? Will you show up to vote or relax at home? Will your rifles gather dust in your safe as you go about your life assuming that the law and political circumstances will stay as they are now, and your freedoms will remain safe?

It’s a good idea to live like an optimist but prepare for the worst. I implore the reader to still act like your freedom is on the verge of obliteration: continue dutifully calling your elected representatives, speak up when needed, and most importantly, continue taking inexperienced people to the range and bring them into the fold of gun ownership, so our freedoms can be enjoyed by our grandchildren and their descendants a hundred years from now.

Will Phobias About AR-15s Keep Schools From Adopting This Innovative Product?

Time is of the essence in mass public shootings. Civilians and police stop a lot of mass murders by carrying handguns, but sometimes you need a larger round than is available in a traditional handgun. It often simply isn’t practical to carry around a rifle. And school staff might not have time to run to a locker to retrieve the needed gun.

Andrew Pollack, whose 18-year-old daughter, Meadow, died in the 2018 Parkland school mass murder that left 17 people dead, is fighting to give school districts the tools they need. Byrna, a company that makes innovative self-defense tools, has donated eight backpacks containing collapsible AR-15s to Pollack’s “Meadows Movement” nonprofit. These guns fire .223 caliber rifle rounds and are more powerful than traditional handguns.

On January 4th, Pollack will give the backpacks to the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office for use by school resource officers (SROs) and Will Hartley, superintendent of Bradford County Schools.

“The folding rifle is easy to carry throughout the day for a school resource officer inside the bulletproof backpack,” Pollack said. “The seconds to get minutes lost retrieving a rifle from a locker vs. pulling the bulletproof backpack into a vest and having the rifle on hand equates to the number of lives that could have been saved.”

The school superintendent echoes his comments. “I wish more people could have it,” Hartley notes. “Because if someone comes on your campus and they have a long gun, we need to be able to meet their force with the same kind of force.”

Bradford County Schools is smart enough to have multiple layers of protection. Even when school resource officers are in the right place at the right time, they have a tough job. Uniformed guards may as well be holding neon signs saying, “Shoot me first.” Attackers know that once they kill the sheriff’s deputy, they have free rein to go after everybody else.

To prevent that, the Bradford County schools are part of Florida’s Guardian Program. As in nineteen other states, teachers and staff are trained to use guns to protect people. But their guns are concealed. Permit holders make guards’ very difficult job easier. If an attacker tries to kill a school resource officer, he reveals his position and makes himself a target to someone with a concealed handgun. As with concealed handgun permit holders generally, the whole point is that the attacker doesn’t know who else he needs to worry about.

Instead of a sign in front of these schools saying “Gun Free School Zone,” they are replaced with signs warning: “Please be aware that certain staff members at Bradford County Schools can be legally armed and may use whatever force is necessary to protect our students.”

But, unfortunately, there are plenty of schools around the country that haven’t learned the lessons that Bradford County has. And these backpacks, with their built-in bullet-resistant vests and ARs will help protect school resource officers from surprise attacks from behind them and will give them more potent firepower if they get into a firefight with attackers. In literally just a couple of seconds, the bullet-resistant vest can also be put on their front side.

Technically these guns are called AR-pistols rather than AR-15s, but the difference in terms is entirely arbitrary and results from nonsensical government regulations on how to define a rifle. Instead of a stock, an AR-15 pistol usually has a tube, but the two guns are functionally identical.

Pollack so believes in Byrna’s products that he is now their chief public safety officer.

It will be a shame if school districts’ phobias about AR-15s prevent them from taking advantage of this innovative product.

Who Wants to Tell California AG Bonta that Access to ‘Weapons of War’ as a Check Against Tyranny is a Core Tenet of the Second Amendment?

I spent much of the last week assisting my brilliant colleagues in preparing their supplemental brief in Duncan v. Bonta. This is the magazine-capacity case that kicked off the now-famous “freedom week” in California in 2019. Our win in district court was affirmed on appeal by a 3-judge panel, but then was reversed by the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court acted on our appeal by vacating the en banc decision and remanding the case for further proceedings in light of Bruen.

Back in the district court, the Attorney General Rob Bonta submitted an overlong brief making all sorts of inane arguments, which our brief responds to quite well. However, one throwaway line from the Attorney General bugged me immensely . . .

In neither Heller nor Bruen did the Court find that the Second Amendment’s protections were grounded in the need to bear arms for militia service…or as a “check against tyranny”. In fact, Bruen repeatedly confirms that self-defense (and not militia or military service) is the “central component” of the right protected by the Second Amendment.

Personal self-defense is certainly a critical aspect of the Second Amendment, but both the founders as well as the generations immediately after them considered one other purpose paramount: a final defense against a tyrannical government that attempts to overthrow our constitutional order.

This idea, once accepted as common knowledge, has become controversial. It has been derided by modern day gun control advocates as the “insurrectionist theory” of the Second Amendment that was invented by the NRA in the 1970s.[1]

Yet it certainly wasn’t invented by the NRA, nor is it some tinfoil hat theory. It instead goes to the very core of what the Second Amendment was intended for, as the historical record is indisputable on this point.

Embarrassing as it may be to admit for some polite society academics of today, the Bill of Rights was written by people who just finished violently overthrowing their former government. Based on that experience, they were obviously very fearful of the new government they were forming becoming tyrannical, and so they included the Second Amendment, in part, as a failsafe.

You don’t need to take my word for it – the Founders said so themselves. James Madison tried to assuage fears of a tyrannical federal army running roughshod over the people in one of his many Federalist Papers:

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Opinion: Gun control and the right to self-defense in a Culture of Death
Those in favor of gun control are right about one thing: there is no excuse for inaction. But they are wrongheaded in acting toward stricter but ultimately futile regulations.

As the nation continues to mourn the victims of the Uvalde massacre, and with old wounds aching over the sentencing of the Parkland shooter and the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist trial, Catholics should be the ones who offer answers when it comes to gun violence.

Some legislators want to focus on gun ownership and gun control. But the remedy won’t be found there. Rather, the remedy is spiritual. The nation must realize that saving lives begins with returning sanctity to life in all its stages. And sometimes, as counterintuitive as it may seem to say so, it might, at times, actually take a gun to do that.

A common response to the continual tragedy of school shootings in the United States is to assert that if there are no guns, there will be no shootings. But this perspective is both impractical and misguided. Christians are still called to defend the lives of the helpless—and sometimes an opposing firearm is the best tool to accomplish that. To a virtuous person, the Second Amendment bestows the real potential to be a lifesaver. In these dark days, exercising the right to keep and bear arms may even be considered a responsibility where it is permissible.

As the Left makes arguments that gun control is about saving lives, Pope Francis and the American bishops have taken this tack as well. Though the USCCB’s emphasis is certainly on sensible measures (such as reasonable background checks), the push to have Congress tighten the legislation around the buying and selling of firearms ever since Columbine seems a little too in lockstep with the liberal sectors of government—such as their support for banning assault-style weapons and limiting handgun ownership.

In the wake of Uvalde, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago was particularly direct:

The Second Amendment, unlike the Second Commandment, did not come down from Sinai. There is an understanding that we all have in our hearts, engraved in our hearts, a natural law about the value of human life. And there is no amendment that can trump that.

His Eminence is both right and wrong. Yes, the right to bear arms is not a sacred right, as is the right to life. But there is an often-neglected angle of argument concerning that truth that responsible citizens bearing arms can save lives, and at certain times and situations, it does take an amendment to protect the lives that Cardinal Cupich affirms is a duty of natural law.

But, in fact, the criminals and even the criminally insane will often get their hands on firearms. Severe legislative restrictions, however, will keep many honest citizens unarmed, and that can lead to more unnecessary deaths as well. The bishops might say that being anti-gun is being pro-life, but allowing for the increasingly common scenario where the strong will take evil advantage over the weak is not pro-life at all.

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Even in Los Angeles………

U.S. Supreme Court aids gun rights yet again

The United States Supreme Court has no troops to enforce its rulings, but the justices are doing what they can to enforce their decision earlier this year in a major Second Amendment case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc., v. Bruen.

Last week the court took a dim view of a Massachusetts law that bars people convicted of gun-related misdemeanors from ever being allowed to buy a handgun again.

In Morin v. Lyver, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Massachusetts law using a two-step balancing test that the Supreme Court forcefully threw out in its New York State Rifle & Pistol decision. The Supreme Court has now vacated the First Circuit’s ruling and sent the case back down to be heard again under the high court’s new standard, which is based not on subjective judicial balancing tests, but on history.

This time Massachusetts will have to prove that its law barring some people from buying guns is similar to restrictions that have traditionally been viewed as consistent with the right to keep and bear arms.

Dr. Alfred Morin was arrested for carrying a gun without a permit while on a trip to Washington, D.C., in 2004. Morin was licensed to carry in Massachusetts and didn’t realize his permit was not valid in D.C. due to the city’s total ban on carrying a gun (later declared unconstitutional). He was arrested after he complied with a no-gun sign at a museum and tried to check his gun with security. He pleaded guilty to carrying a gun without a license and was sentenced to jail time, but never required to serve it.

That misdemeanor conviction now bars Morin from ever again obtaining a permit to buy a handgun. He sued the state, but the U.S. District Court found that the law was constitutional because Morin was not a “law-abiding citizen,” having been convicted of a gun-related misdemeanor warranting imprisonment. The Court of Appeals agreed with that reasoning.

However, under the Supreme Court’s new standard, it’s no longer enough for courts to find that the states have “an interest in preventing crime” and then determine if the law is “reasonably tailored” to meet those needs. The presumption now is that individuals have the right to keep and bear arms. States must prove that any laws restricting that right have traditionally been consistent with Second Amendment rights going all the way back to the early days of the Republic.

Morin v. Lyver is the fifth case the Supreme Court has vacated and sent back down for reconsideration under the new standard. One is a California case, a challenge to the state’s 10-round magazine limit. In addition, a Ninth Circuit en banc panel vacated a decision in McDougall v. Ventura County, involving a challenge to the closure of gun shops early in the COVID-19 pandemic. The case has been sent back to the trial court to be reconsidered in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the New York case.

This is an important course correction. The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is not a privilege that governments may arbitrarily withhold or revoke. A written constitution is the consent of the governed, and it places limits on government power. Enforcing those limits is the job of the Supreme Court. Freedom depends on it.

BLUF
There is not going to be a national divorce. There is going to be a national backlash, a backlash against the stupid, corrupt, and evil ideology of the left. We normal people are not going anywhere. We’re not chopping up our country any more than we are going to tolerate these monsters chopping up our little kids. We will not divorce them. We will defeat them. And it will be glorious.

Instead of a National Divorce, How About a National Backlash?

Dumping the libs and their garbage, blue cities – figuratively throwing their junk out on the lawn just in time for the sprinklers to go off – is so tempting and sounds so sweet. If only we could wave a magic wand and make the weirdos, losers, and mutations of the left just go away, along with annoying states like New Jersey. After all, they are pretty much a significantly less hot Amber Heard, and they are figuratively doing to America what she did to Johnny Depp’s bed.

Pack your stuff, libs, and get out. You’re someone else’s problem now.

But as much fun as it is to simply wish our pinko ex would just disappear and that we in red America could buy a Porsche, rent a condo, lose some weight and get some hair plugs, then hook up with an eager actress/model/whatever half our age, that doesn’t work out when middle-aged accountants do it, and it won’t work out for us if we try it as a country. The devil is in the details, and the details get really, really devilish.

I discuss a national divorce in my most recent non-fiction book, “We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America,” but I show the consequences of one in my seventh and latest novel in the “People’s Republic” series, the just-released “Inferno.” Beyond all the new book’s gunplay and shooting – there’s a lot – and its cruel mockery of woke, liberal nonsense – there’s a lot of that too – “Inferno” gets into the weeds about what happens when you split a country in two.

The answer is not a lot of good.

When was the last time you heard of a happy divorce, especially when the exes have to live next door to each other? And they would – right next door to us. A national divorce means splitting up the country. This state goes blue, that one red. Some places are easy to take – yeah, blues, Chicago is all yours. But what about the rest of Illinois? Once you get out of Beetlejuice’s hellhole, you are mostly among normal Americans who like America, know which bathroom to use, and don’t murder each other with gleeful abandon. What, are we going to leave them behind the lines?

That’s not going to work well, especially when the blue rulers decide to turn blue America into a giant college campus and mandate that everyone sits to pee as a Harrison Bergeron-esque nod toward urination equity.

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Toddlers In Charge

Watching the Biden Administration announce, retract, modify, announce, let Joe speak, retract… and on and on is like watching a toddler on a sugar high. Think about it. Anybody who’s ever raised or dealt with small children knows that within the limits of their understanding, toddlers don’t necessarily lie. Tell outrageous stories about why or how something happened, yes. Understand that those stories are what adults often consider to be lies, no.

Ask a toddler how a vase got broken and s/he might tell you that the dinosaur did it. Yeah, right, you say. No, really mama! The dinosaur flew around the room and crashed into the vase! It wasn’t me! The dinosaur did it! The kid totally believes this and does not recognize it as a lie. Why? Well, it’s true that the dinosaur flew around the room and hit the vase. What the child has neglected to mention is that it flew out of their hand. Yep, they tossed it. But after that, the dinosaur was on its own, therefore its inability to fly properly led to it crashing into the vase. So, it’s not the kid’s fault. See how that works?

The Biden Administration seems to think that those sorts of fantastical, detail omitting stories can be utilized by adults trying to clumsily talk their way out of a bad situation that they created. They don’t seem to understand or recognize that they were supposed to leave that behavior behind when they were five or six years old. We have a bunch of toddlers in charge.

The magical thinking that this administration engages in is astounding. I mean, yes, magical thinking is emblematic of Democratic administrations, but this one is taking it a step further. Okay, on second thought, Gavin Newsome may be tied or pulling ahead in the race for most magical thinking by a Democratic pol. After all, Newsome seems to believe that he can order California drivers to go all in on electric cars with zero consequences for the electrical grid. Given his penchant for magical toddler thinking, I’m sure the fault for the electrical system will reside with the states from whom California purchases electricity and the failure of the grid will be the fault of the electrical companies who can’t upgrade their grid due to California’s highly restrictive environmental laws and regulations.

Back to our national toddler drama.

The Biden administration has been putting ideas out in the media-sphere and stating that these are done deals. Then when the public and often other Democrats push back and either refuse to deal or publicly state that this is not only a bad idea, it’s a stupidly bad idea, the administration pulls back and claims that this was never a done deal, but rather a suggestion. Just like the toddler who told mom, that no, he really wasn’t planning on jumping off the back of the sofa onto the dog, even though the kid is standing on the back of the sofa, looming over the dog. Not a lie for the toddler, simply a change of plans.

The entire kerfuffle with DeSantis over Hurricane Ian is a good example. Biden called the governors of the states affected by Ian, except for DeSantis. When DeSantis pointed that out, Biden called a few hours later. The administration of the President of the United States got called out for toddler behavior. They tried to justify it as scheduling. A toddler would argue that he meant to do it all along, and just hadn’t gotten to it yet.

A week or so ago, the feds were discovered purchasing $290 million worth of Nplate, a medicine used to treat radiation poisoning. Right after Putin threatened to use nukes against Ukraine. What are the feds (led by the Biden administration) expecting to happen? And who’s getting that medicine? When asked, Biden’s press secretary tried to pass it off as a scheduled and normal purchase. Uh-huh. Yep. Of course. Toddler magical thinking again, this time of the “What? I do this all the time!” variety.

Another example… refusing to reopen the Keystone pipeline for gas but trying to get OPEC to increase production and then relaxing sanctions on Venezuela in the hopes that we can up their production and buy gas there. It’s clear that the administration will do anything to avoid giving jobs to the middle, fly-over states and it’s clear that environmental concerns regarding pumping oil are not a consideration with regard to other, poorer countries. Toddlers engaging in payback behavior combined with the selective amnesia about prior behavior that led to current situation.

I know I’m not pointing out anything new or exciting here. Anybody who’s been paying attention has seen the projection of behaviors, the lies, obfuscations, hypocrisy, and contorted explanations coming out of the White House. But it just hit me that this is truly toddler behavior. What really scares me is that, like toddlers, I’m afraid that this administration – Ron Klain, Jill Biden on down – actually believes its own stories and doesn’t understand why the rest of us aren’t buying those stories. That’s the truly scary thing.

Toddlers are narcissistic little creatures. Everything is all about them, how they feel, and what they want. There’s a reason ages two to about four are called “The Terrible Twos.” Parents are supposed to train that out of their children so that they grow up to be a wee bit more self-aware and somewhat less navel-gazing. Adults with a narcissistic toddler mindset are created either through a chemical imbalance in the brain, or a failure to have that mindset trained out of them at an early age. For this administration I’m going with the latter.

I’m not sanguine about the ability of the rest of us to teach them that this sort of behavior is unacceptable. They’ve gotten their way for too long. But I do believe that we can (and must) somehow sanction this behavior. Like toddlers, they will squirm and scream to avoid taking any responsibility for any consequences arising from their actions. They will call their opponents (which encompasses all those who disagree with them) all sorts of names in hopes of getting those opponents to feel guilty and ashamed and give up on doing anything. They will continue to spin fantastical tales of evil aliens forcing them into actions they really didn’t want to take. They will do and say anything to get away with everything.

Don’t let them.

These are supposedly functional adults (note the modifier. However, they want us to believe they’re functional adults, so I’m going to treat them as such. If they can’t handle that, that’s their problem). Just like you would with a toddler, calmly and patiently point out the inconsistencies in whatever story they’re spinning out. Don’t allow the temper tantrums to affect you. Continue to point out the problems. Do it in public if you can, because throwing a temper tantrum in front of an audience has the beneficial effect of showing their toddler behavior to everyone.

Call them out when you see and hear those stories. Ask why they think that’s going to work, or why the other thing is true.

If you’re not a parent, or haven’t dealt with toddlers, ask someone who has for tips and tricks. They’ll happily share.

This administration and its supporters are toddlers who are acting up. Treat them as such.

The Second Amendment puts safety first

The Second Amendment which addresses the right of American citizens to bear arms, is a touchy subject these days, but its effect on our daily lives cannot be overstated. Being able to protect ourselves in a world that is becoming increasingly dangerous by the day is essential to survival. The right to arm oneself, whether the weapon is concealed or not, has become more important than ever.

Take a stroll through any major city and you’re likely to see a replay of what I witnessed recently in New York City, rampant homelessness, burgeoning crime and a proliferation of drug use. Feeling safe should be and has previously been an inalienable right, but today that’s no longer a given in this country. Instead, our cities are in a dangerous downward spiral. They are increasingly filthy and crime rates are skyrocketing. Make no mistake about it, America and its people are at risk. Cities that used to be barometers for the American experience are now bastions of hellish disarray.

Take for example San Francisco and you will see precisely what I mean. Shoeless drug addicts roam the streets like zombies in a trance, treating the streets like public toilets. Droves of homeless people shoot up heroin, not in trash-littered back alleys, but in plain sight on major roads and the gutters are filled with discarded syringes. What we need to rectify this situation is more policing and enforcement of the current rule of law. Until then, we are going the wrong direction by focusing on gun control. Our focus needs to be increased funding to the police, not “defunding” them. We also need to ensure that law-abiding citizens are afforded their constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms which is becoming an increasingly essential way for men and women to protect themselves.

People kill people, guns do not. Research has demonstrated that over-regulating gun ownership will have zero effect on the estimated 400 million guns that are already in private circulation. Gun control simply cannot stop violence in this country, which is being caused by a crime-ridden society that is out of control. Imagine that you are a small businessman in a big city rife with crime and short on cops. Imagine how you might react if an armed robber burst into your store, pulled a gun and demanded cash. You could meekly hand the money over and put your fate in the hands of an armed criminal, hoping he doesn’t just decide to orphan your children, or you could up the odds in your favor by defending yourself with a legally purchased and properly registered firearm.

In San Francisco, the former District Attorney decided that the city would not be prosecuting thieves who stole, as long as their thievery fell beneath a certain price point, these initiatives were announced publicly, talk about throwing gasoline on a fire. The result of that ridiculousness? We have all seen the videos of the resulting crime sprees posted online of gangs of criminals breaking into and robbing stores. In this era of lawlessness, the best life insurance policy is one tucked into a holster. Should we be forced to choose a thug’s life or our own, we should have the means to make the right decision.

Gun control advocates like to point to the mayhem wreaked by mass shootings, especially in schools, which are a truly terrifying reality. But we know that the perpetrators of those horrors are often mentally ill people. I am not opposed to sensible steps to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the insane and the criminal—but I am opposed to overreach by the government to prevent law-abiding and rational Americans from securing the firearms of their choice.

Gun violence deaths detailed by Giffords Law Center hype the numbers but fail to look at the hard truth, the overwhelming majority of gun deaths are caused by people who misuse guns and stricter gun legislation would do little to stop those individuals who are compelled to use guns to commit crimes. The sooner we recognize this truth and the sooner we recognize where our country is headed, the quicker we will come to the realization that we truly must protect ourselves at all costs. Responsible gun owners know how to properly secure their weapons away from children and often routinely train with professionals to maintain standard of skill.

Gun ownership by good people deters crime. Criminals may think twice about committing their attacks if they are forced to wonder if their victims are packing heat. As the saying goes, “if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have them.” What’s more, strict gun laws make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and families, a growing concern in a day and age where fewer and fewer people want to become police officers. In addition, considering this reality, police simply cannot protect everyone all the time. Response times may be short, but the window for self-preservation often occurs in mere moments.

A Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer. Another 64% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun also said they felt safer.

Safety in a land without allowing people to exercise their Second Amendment will become even harder to find. However, good people can make America safer with a permit in their pockets, and a holstered gun on their hips.

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Mr. Williams is Manager / Sole Owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the year. He is the author of “Reawakening Virtues.”

Joe Biden, Lout, Liar, And Lunatic

When candidate Joe Biden promised that if elected president he would unite the country, did he think he could do it alienating roughly half the population? Or did he mean he would unite the Democrats and independents against the “MAGA Republicans”? Thursday’s speech clearly indicates what he had in mind was the latter.

Last week, Biden smeared Donald Trump supporters, calling them semi-fascists who practice “burn-it-all-down politics” and face “backwards full of anger, violence, hate and division.”

One of the most appropriate and fitting responses we saw to this was Libby Emmons’ Biden Is The Semi-Fascist He’s Looking For in Human Events.

Biden followed up his “semi-fascist” rant with Thursday’s prime-time “soul of a nation” speech, in which he spoke of the 74.2 million who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 as white supremacists, extremists, rearward-looking deplorables, and wild-haired bogeymen who pose an existential threat to the country.

Which shows he’s a liar. Less than a week after the 2020 election, Biden swore before the country he would “be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify; who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States.”

Sure, he said Thursday that not every Republican is a “MAGA Republican.” But his handlers were not going to let him make the mistake that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul did when she told that state’s Republicans they needed to leave and go to Florida. He needed to show some restraint in what amounted to a campaign speech.

Biden is also a lunatic. To have listened to him since he took office, it’s hard to conclude that he’s not trying to provoke a cold if not hot civil war, or at least a major political conflagration. He did tone things down a bit Thursday from his previous fever speech, but that was likely in part to make room for all the meaningless bromides he spouted as if they were the most unique and profound words ever stitched together.

Naturally Biden resorted to our “democracy” over and again as if it were a convention that should be worshipped. He said it well beyond the point of where it became sickening. And it’s another lie. The U.S. is not a democracy. Never has been. Why do the Democrats and their media cheerleaders continue to identify our style of government in the same terms a grade-schooler would?

The U.S. is a representative republic, or democratic republic. (And Biden and his party are its biggest internal threat.) Democracy is mob rule, which is exactly what the Democrats want – as long as it’s their mob ruling. Think of the George Floyd riots, Antifa violence, destruction, looting – they support anything that wrecks order and helps set them up to take on more political power.

Even the ancients understood the dangers of democracy. A Greek historian who lived more than 2,000 years ago noted that Democracy, “by its violence and contempt of law becomes sheer mob rule.”

As always, Biden was a lout, projecting, as Democrats do, the sins of his party – flouting the Constitution, disregard for the rule of law, a naked lust for political power, and contempt for our system of government – onto the only major party in this country that has, too often with minimal success, tried to protect liberties and limit freedom-killing government expansion.

But none are surprised. Biden has always been a sleazy character who has plagiarized the work of others, bullied anyone not in a position to challenge him, smeared GOP judicial nominees, vilified a man whose offense is that he was driving the truck that Biden’s first wife drove into the path of, killing herself and infant daughter, and likely used his office for personal monetary gain. The man is a wreck who is taking a country down with him.

Gun law grounded in bigotry reveals its roots

It’s telling when your best argument for a new law is to cite discredited laws of the past as part of your rationale.

But that’s just what New York State has resorted to in trying to convince a judge that its plethora of new restrictions making a permit to carry a handgun virtually useless should pass muster.

As the clock ticks down to the Sept. 1 implementation date, the misnamed Concealed Carry Improvement Act will do nothing more than create a new class of law-abiding criminals. And if that phrase sounds oxymoronic, you don’t know New York State – where the second half of that word is often the most operative.

Instead of targeting criminals, the new statute targets law-abiding pistol permit holders, many of whom will become felons simply by ignoring a law that will accomplish nothing except to put their lives at risk and put them in handcuffs.

The fact that in defending the law from a legal challenge, the state’s filing contains a footnote practically disavowing its own arguments tells you all you need to know. But that’s what happens when you try to defend the indefensible restrictions pushed through by Gov. Kathy Hochul and a compliant Democratic Legislature.

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Recent pitch for gun control relies on faulty data

State Rep. Emily Kinkead, D-Pittsburgh, and state Sen. Art Haywood, D-Philadelphia, are sponsoring bills in the state House and Senate respectively to require Pennsylvanians who wish to purchase firearms first apply for and secure a permit from a law enforcement agency.

We are skeptical that this proposal complies with the Supreme Court’s decisions — including one decided just this summer about New York state’s onorous and frequently arbitrary permit requirements — that protect the right of Americans to keep and to bear arms.

We are even more skeptical it complies with the state’s Constitution, which leaves even less ambiguity about the right of Pennsylvanians to arm themselves.

And in voicing our skepticism we must also note that Kinkead is advocating for the law using specious data.

As political reporter Bradley Vasoli detailed, a claim by Gov. Tom Wolf echoed by Kinkead that Pennsylvania sees a mass shooting “every 10 days” relies on an uncommon definition of mass shooting, under which about two-thirds of the “mass shootings” are incidents without a single fatality.

Twenty-three shootings combined without one death.

Kinkead also echoed an argument by Haywood that Missouri saw its gun-related killings increase after a similar law was repealed in 2007. But what neither Kinkead or Haywood acknowledged and what Vasoli and Second Amendment rights advocate John R. Lott noted in examining this claim is that while gun-related killings increased 17 percent in a five-year stretch after the repeal, they were already increasing before the repeal. In fact, before the repeal they had increased by nearly 30 percent.

When considering legislation that affects a deeply cherished right of our region, we need legislators that respect our U.S. and state constitutions. We also need legislators that respect all the facts and not cherry-picked numbers or contorted definitions.

Law-abiding gun owners will not harm you. But criminals will

There have been innumerable debates on gun ownership. These discussions generally address two critical factors: gun violence in inner cities and mass shootings. As a result, some Americans have called for the removal of certain weapons, such as the AR-15, from civilian ownership, and the limitation of magazines to 10 rounds as a means to combat these two problems. While I understand the desire to act quickly, we should not act in a way that makes villains of law-abiding gun owners who only wish to protect themselves and their families while simultaneously giving criminals the upper hand in their pursuit of destruction.

Can good, responsible citizens with firearms actually make a difference in life-threatening situations? A recent incident in Indianapolis demonstrates that, with training, a responsible gun owner can respond swiftly, safely and responsibly to save lives. A 22-year-old saved a significant number of lives when he eliminated a shooter who murdered three people and injured three more in an Indiana mall; the situation likely would have been much worse. Since 2021, there have been a total of 22 confirmed incidents of concealed carry permit holders employing deadly force to stop criminals in life-threatening situations. This number sounds insignificant in a vacuum; however, it is critical to consider that most shootings do not occur in places where firearm carry is permitted — for obvious reasons — thus there is generally no armed person available to stop a shooter.

As a gun owner with a license to carry a concealed handgun, I am fully aware that the use of force is an action of last resort. Firearm carriers are trained to avoid risky situations and make every attempt to deescalate whenever feasible. Nonetheless, taking a life is only appropriate if your own life is in imminent danger. I hope that I will never be in such a life-or-death scenario, but it is comforting to know that I can safeguard my life and the lives of others if necessary. After all, no sane individual goes about his or her day craving blood; rather, people carry to secure their own safety. Responsible individuals can use a weapon to prevent mass shootings and other types of deadly violence.

However, the villainization of law-abiding gun owners has prompted many Americans to distrust firearms and gun owners in general. This has occurred at the hands of government actors and gun control lobbyists who twist the facts to make people believe that guns are both dangerous and unnecessary in life-threatening situations. They make gun owners out to seem like fringe conspiracy theorists who have a deep distrust for authority.

Unsurprisingly, this could not be further from the truth. Gun owners are your neighbors, your friends and your family members. The firearms community is comprised of people you care about, and they are neither monsters nor evil; they are ordinary citizens concerned with their safety and the use of the fundamental right to defend themselves. No one should be at danger of having their rights and liberty infringed upon by criminals intent on causing bodily harm. Restrictive gun laws merely place criminals who flout the law in control.

When I recall growing up in rural South Carolina during a very difficult period in our nation’s history, I recognize that it was firearms that enabled Black people in the South to fend off the Ku Klux Klan. I consider today’s single moms and women who, in most cases, would be powerless against an assailant but could have the ability to protect themselves with a firearm. It goes without saying that members of the LGBTQ community have the right to keep and bear arms, and they most certainly ought to have the right to defend themselves if they find themselves a potential victim of a transphobic or homophobic attack. I consider the hatred of Asian people and atrocities committed against our Jewish brothers and sisters; they absolutely deserve to use deadly force against assailants who seek to harm them for their immutable characteristics. This privilege is available to all law-abiding Americans, regardless of color, religion, orientation or any other classification.

Criminals and those seeking to commit mass violence do not care if you are armed or not; they will find other ways to harm you. This has been the case since the beginning of human history. However, the question is how to strike a balance between protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens and keeping us safe from criminals. Maintaining access to weapons for law-abiding citizens is essential, and a balance must be struck between laws that screen out criminals and laws that make it difficult for law-abiding people to acquire and possess firearms.

You may not like firearms, and you may not want to possess one, but if you ever find yourself in a situation similar to the victims in that Indianapolis mall, you will wish there was a good Samaritan with a gun who could mean the difference between survival or death.

Judge Napolitano’s basic sentiment is correct, he just gets some facts wrong.

Your Gun Is None of the Government’s Business

No sooner had the Supreme Court released its decision last month recognizing the personal right to carry a handgun outside the home than the big-government politicians began to resist the court’s holding. None was more anti-Constitution than New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who told the court that “New York is ready for you.”

I understand that politicians often say and do things that they inwardly know are unconstitutional or unlawful in order to please their political bases, but vaguely threatening the Supreme Court over a fundamental liberty is an offense to the Constitution.

Here is the backstory.

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