Opinion
New York – -(AmmoLand.com)-
“The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors.” ~ Samuel Adams, American Statesman, and Founding Father
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has now responded to Justice Sotomayor’s “Response to application (22A557) requested by Justice Sotomayor, due by 4 p.m. (EST), Tuesday, January 3, 2023”.
Justice Sotomayor will act, but she won’t act on her own. Likely, she can’t act on her own. The entire Court must resolve the matter, and it will resolve the matter.
And the High Court will utilize New York’s own “Four-Factor” standard, devised by the New York Federal Courts, to ascertain if a Preliminary Injunction (PI) is warranted or not.
Applying New York’s own test, the High Court will determine whether to lift the stay or retain the stay on enforcement of the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) during the pendency of a final decision on the Preliminary Injunction.
In either event, the case will be returned to the Second Circuit for the ultimate resolution of the Preliminary Injunction.
Likely the High Court will find the District Court’s ruling, granting the Plaintiffs’ Preliminary Injunction, warranted and will order the Second Circuit to stay execution of the CCIA while the Second Circuit hashes out the substantive merits of the case.
One might think the Second Circuit would find against the Plaintiffs, on the merits, given the Court’s animosity toward the Second Amendment as illustrated in its decision on the District Court’s granting of the Preliminary Injunction. But will it do this? Suppose it does. What then? Plaintiffs will immediately appeal the adverse decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. And the U.S. Supreme Court would take the case up. There is no doubt about that.
The U.S. Supreme Court would take the case up because Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli directly affects the High Court’s earlier decision in NYSRPA vs. Bruen. That is something neither the New York Hochul Government nor the Second Circuit would want. For, the High Court would find that the CCIA, either in full or in substantial part, does not comply with the High Court’s Bruen rulings. The High Court would thereupon strike the CCIA down.
This would place Hochul Government in a much worse position than when the Bruen rulings first came down on June 23, 2022.
Hochul should not have toyed with the High Court, pretending to comply with the Court’s Bruen rulings, all the while machinating to constrain further and constrict the exercise of the citizen’s right to armed self-defense.
But Hochul thought she knew better. She didn’t. Instead, she stuck her foot well down her throat, and it remains.
And, once the High Court finds the CCIA unconstitutional, it could go one step further, finding the entire New York concealed handgun carry licensing structure unconstitutional.
This is something it avoided in NYSRPA vs. Bruen. But, given Hochul’s contemptuous attitude toward the High Court, the gloves are off. The Court could and will take the Hochul Government to task.
Strategically, then, to assist the Government, the Second Circuit would do well to find for the Plaintiffs, issuing a Permanent Injunction against enforcement of the CCIA. The Hochul Government wouldn’t dare appeal a seemingly adverse decision. That would be disastrous not only for New York but for many other jurisdictions around the country, including New Jersey, Illinois, California, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington State, among others.
Ultimately New York will have to revert to the original Gun Law, in substantial part, albeit without the “Proper Cause” requirement and without the other mischief it devised in constructing the CCIA.
The Government will be compelled to issue a lot more concealed handgun carry licenses. It would be a bitter pill for the Government to swallow. But, at least, the Hochul Government will be able to keep intact some semblance of the State handgun licensing scheme, which it desires to preserve at all costs.
Can Hochul do anything else, if not juridically, then politically to constrain New Yorkers from exercising their Second Amendment right? She can rant and rave to the Press, of course, which she will do anyway.
She could take her complaint to the Grand Harlequin in Chief, Joe Biden.
But what the Hell can Biden do for her? Not a damn thing unless his Administration is prepared to declare martial law, arguing the U.S. Supreme Court and the Bill of Rights are now both defunct.
This would lead to armed conflict throughout the Country. That is a dead certainty.
The Administrative State, although powerful, isn’t omnipotent even if it thinks it is and even if many of the brainwashed legions of Americans think so, too.
For, here, in our Country, unlike in the EU, in the Commonwealth Nations, or in CCP China, Americans are well-armed, tens of millions of Americans, and Americans have substantial ammunition to prevent a Globalist/Neo-Marxist Counterrevolution from overturning the American Revolution of 1776.
History, morality, and the law would all be on the side of America’s Patriots to take up arms against forces intent on thrusting a Neoliberal Counterrevolution on the Nation.
A declaration of martial law where no legitimate reason exists for invoking it—and there is none—irrefutably points to immoral and unlawful tyranny of Government.
The Biden Administration would be openly guilty of this: launching tyranny of Government in the form of an illegal oligarchic conspiratorial takeover of the Government against the American people.
Recall that Justin Trudeau declared martial law in Canada for a short time.
Canada has nothing remotely like a true Bill of Rights to secure freedom and liberty for ordinary Canadians. Still, even that jackass was forced to back down, given a backlash in the Canadian Parliament. But he has learned from his earlier mistakes. He has since insinuated martial law in Canada incrementally, insidiously, beginning with a total ban on civilian possession of handguns. Further actions against liberty and freedom will be forthcoming. Wait and see.
So much for Canada. And lots of luck, you Canadians!
But for us Americans, we should focus on Antonyuk vs. Nigrelli. Where is that case headed in the immediate future?
The High Court will issue its order, sending the case back to the Second Circuit but likely reaffirming the District Court’s grant of the PI, staying enforcement of the CCIA during the pendency of the case. That is our prediction. And that benefits Plaintiffs from the get-go. Time is on their side. However long the Second Circuit takes, the CCIA will remain suspended.
We also predict as we stated, supra, that the Second Circuit will affirm the District Court’s findings on the Plaintiffs’ PI and convert it to a Permanent Injunction against enforcement of the CCIA, in full or in substantial part.
The Second Circuit will take that seemingly paradoxical action to salvage for the Hochul Government what it can of New York’s concealed handgun licensing structure. Otherwise, were the Second Circuit to find against the Plaintiffs, overturning the PI, and ruling the CCIA constitutional, that would serve as a final appealable order just begging for a High Court review of the case on the substantive merits with disastrous consequences for Hochul’s Government.
So, the Hochul Government is, ultimately, in a quagmire, it cannot extricate itself from.
And Hochul herself can’t do a damn thing about it except beat her chest, screech, and howl to the winds. And she has only herself to blame for this. She should not have toyed with the Bruen rulings, nor should she have poured salt on an open wound, contemptuously deriding the Court for its rulings in the process, as she openly defied the Court.
So, then, the Plaintiffs are in a strong position here to secure and strengthen the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment, even if that isn’t immediately evident.
The Globalist Cabal, both here and abroad, will also moan and thrash about in impotent rage as the Republic may yet survive. The question is: Will the Biden Administration dare impose martial law on the Country in the next couple of years? Not likely. Not that it wouldn’t love to do just that.
But, for all the myriad ways that the Biden Administration has deliberately weakened this Country in the first two years of its reign, reversing Trump’s triumphs, as he has strengthened our Nation, and secured it from threats posed by obvious foes and by dubious friends, the Biden Administration would be out of its mind to attempt confiscation of arms and ammunition on an industry-wide scale.
What argument could the Biden Administration conjure up? Can it rationally claim national security concerns, demanding that stringent measures be taken against those gun-toting “MAGA” Americans, and claiming a desire to protect the public from this thing, “Gun Violence,” even as the Government allows, even encourages, psychopathic criminals and lunatics, to run amok, preying at will on innocent Americans?
Spouting endless harangues against guns and the tens of millions of Americans who cherish their natural law right to keep and bear arms is one thing. Americans are inured to that. It is nothing more than water rolling off a duck’s back.
But, to demand that average Americans forsake their firearms or face the wrath of Government is something else again.
That is a recipe for civil war, the likes of which this Nation hasn’t seen since the War between the Blue and Gray. And it is the Federal Government itself that would bear sole responsibility for lighting that powder keg, unleashing a new horror on the Country for which History would forever justifiably excoriate.
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