The Aurora Massacre

No sooner had the smoke cleared over the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado than the usual chorus of anti-gun/anti-constitutionalists renewed their attacks on the 2nd Amendment demanding new anti-gun legislation and more stringent gun laws while totally ignoring the fact that the coward that perpetrated this senseless attack violated at least one gun control law.  The fact is the only people killed, wounded, and placed in danger were the people who followed the law and did not bring a gun into the "gun free zone" which was the theater.  That is the basic flaw in all gun control laws, the only people that obey gun laws are law abiding people and the only ones placed in danger by gun control laws are unarmed, law abiding citizens . . . those intent on doing harm with firearms simply do not obey those statutes and that is the fact that anti-gun proponents fail to understand.   Two hundred and forty-eight years ago Thomas Jefferson, in quoting Cesare Beccaria,  introduced that simple truth to America when he said "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one.”

After the most recent tragedy at Sandy Hook, another "gun free zone", the anti-gun/anti-Constitution forces began yet another onslaught against scary "assault rifles" even though police reports disclosed, according to NBC news, that no assault rifles were used in this attack, it was  left by the attacker in his vehicle in the parking lot.  Facts have never gotten in the way of the left-wing liberal agenda nor the current federal regime when it comes to attacks on the Constitution and the Second Amendment.

These renewed attacks by those cynically seeking to exploit and politicize these tragedies to advance their assault on the Constitution focus on the types of firearms and magazine capacities using the argument that "These (types of) weapons ("assault rifles") are not intended for hunting or target shooting." as if the Second Amendment of the Constitution was designed to address the issue of hunting and target shooting.  That was not the intent.  Just as the First Amendment is the voice and soul of the Constitution and the American people, the Second Amendment is their teeth.   Its intent is to provide the people with a last resort to resist any despotic attempts to destroy the Republic from within . . . nullify the Constitution and enslave the people.  

We have only to look to the words of the notable men in our history, the founding fathers and the framers of the Constitution, to discover the truth of this statement

 "What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." - Thomas Jefferson

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."  - Noah Webster

"But if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights. " – Alexander Hamilton

"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."  - Thomas Jefferson. 

I could go on and on citing almost every founding father with all agreeing on this one point, the right to bear arms is founded in the concept that to preserve liberty, the Republic, and the Constitution it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms without infringement, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them and that disarming this people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. 

In what appeared to me to be a signal to the forces of the anti-gun movement Justice Anthony Scalia made what is,  in my opinion, the most un-defendable statement I've ever heard coming from a member of the Supreme Court when he said that in context of 18th century history “They (the framers ?) had some limitations on the nature of arms that could be borne,".  My questions to him is "If the framers indeed recognized such limitations why were they not included in the Second Amendment?  Why is no mention of limitations present in their dissertations on the Second?  Why did they include the phrase ' . . . shall not be infringed.'   In the Second when in other amendments they did delineate conditions and exceptions?".  

No Mr. Scalia, the framers did not intend any limitations.  If in stating, “My starting point and probably my ending point will be what limitations are within the understood limitations that the society had at the time.  They had some limitations on the nature of arms that could be borne. So we’ll see what those limitations are as applied to modern weapons.”,  Mr. Scalia meant that our right to bear arms is limited to those weapons contemporary to the constitution, as some anti-gunners have said, then this position would mean we would have to view the entirety of the Constitution in the same myopic manner; i.e. we would have to dissolve the Air Force since there were no aircraft contemporary with the Constitution and the Constitution makes no provision for an "air force" only an army and navy, likewise we would have to throw out the income tax since contemporary with the Constitution there was no evidence of the concept of a tax on earnings or wages, and let's not forget women's suffrage and equality, both of these would likewise need to be eliminated since the concepts are not contemporary to the Constitution.  In short such a view would likewise eliminate many of the aspects of our modern age which are not contemporary to the Constitution.  

No Mr. Scalia, the Second Amendment means exactly what it says "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.”   What about ". . . shall not be infringed." do you, the other justices, the lesser courts, and the anti-gun movement not understand?  Oh I know, it contains the word "Militia" but by common usage contemporary with the Constitution "militia" meant every able-bodied male as described in the Militia Act of 1792 which gives contemporary meaning to the word "militia".  This act states, in part, ". . . That each and every free, able-bodied, white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, . . ."; in the 18th century life expectancy of males was 35 to 50 years dependent on locale of residency (I believe 41 years in the United States in 1792).  So any reading of the act said every male citizen from adulthood (18 years of age) to near the farthest extent of expected life were required to be members of the "militia";  in  other words the militia consisted of every adult male.  A contemporary of the Constitution, Richard Henry Lee (whose motion in the Second Continental Congress called for the colonies' independence from Great Britain, was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and whose famous resolution of June 1776 led to the United States' Declaration of Independence, which he signed, and who served as the President of the Continental Congress) gives us a definition of  "militia", "A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves... and include all men capable of bearing arms."   So much for the lie that the Second only applies to "militias".   

In the words of Tench Coxe, another contemporary of the Constitution, "Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.  The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."  Today, more than any time in our past, we need to reject any call for new or stricter gun laws and demand that our legislators on both the state and federal levels repeal all gun laws, the only legitimate way to change or limit the rights of the people granted in the Second Amendment is through Article V of the Constitution, the amendment process, not from the bench through "interpretation" and not by statute or "executive order".

If we allow the teeth of the Constitution to be blunted, the soul and the voice will be placed in jeopardy and soon lost.

An Open Letter to Governor Herbert 

Governor Herbert,

I recently read your “first shots” in the battle over gun control and Utah’s gun legislation.  To say I was disappointed in its compromising tone is an understatement. There cannot be any compromise on the Constitution . . . something is either Constitutional or it isn’t, if it isn’t then it is not lawful and should be nullified by both the people and the states. These are your five key points void of your expansions on each point, the comments are mine. 

1.  “Respect the Second Amendment” - Respect for not just the Second Amendment but all of the Constitution is the obligation of all Americans.  All current firearm control statutes diminish our fundamental right to bear arms and disrespect the Second since they have been instituted outside of the Constitution.  The Second Amendment guarantees us the right to keep and bear arms and places no restrictions or conditions on that right and specifically and clearly states that the right “shall not be infringed”.  All current and proposed firearms control statutes infringe on this right.  The Constitution allows for only one way to change anything in it and that is through Article V, the amendment process.  If, with the passage of time, limitations or conditions need to be placed on this most basic right they cannot be legitimately introduced through legislation, from the bench, nor through “executive order” since the authorities for modification of the Constitution are not enumerated to the legislative, judicial, or executive branches by Articles I, II, or III which enumerate the powers of these branches.

2.  “Find rational solutions” - Finding rational solutions is an important consideration Mr. Governor, but it is the Federal Administration and its left-wing, liberal anti-gun attack squads that are acting without careful consideration and in a reactionary manner marked by a hatred and contempt for the Constitution in proposing extreme measures designed to not only politicize and polarize the debate but also to inflame those who support the Second Amendment.   Additionally, we do not need to find solutions that protect Second Amendment rights, they are built into the Constitution in Article V which provides the only lawful means to change or add any amendment.

3.  “Enforce existing laws” - As you know, Mr. Governor, laws do not stop any anti-social behaviours, they only provide penalties for violating acceptable social standards which when violated are deemed criminal.  It is an indisputable fact that it is only the law abiding that obey laws, those with malevolent criminal intentions do not. The view that new, more restrictive gun laws will somehow cause criminals to be deflected from committing criminal acts is not just naïve but verges on criminal malfeasance when that view is held by elected officials.

If stringent gun laws actually reduced violence then Chicago and New York City with among the, if not the most, stringent gun laws would be the safest cities in America . . . they are not! 

Even though all current gun laws are unlawful since they amend the Constitution without going through the Amendment process, if we are not going to rescind them due to their un-Constitutionality then we should enforce those we have, we don't need new ones.

We already have "Universal" background checks.  Since 1986, those engaged in the business of selling firearms for livelihood and profit have been required to have a Federal Firearms License (FFL).  All retail sales of firearms currently require a NICS check, no matter where they occur.  Regarding the issue of private firearms sales, since 1968, it has been a federal felony for any private person to sell, trade, give, lend, rent or transfer a gun to a person he either knows or reasonably should know is not legally allowed to purchase or possess a firearm.  According to a January 2013 report from the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice, the effectiveness of “universal background checks” depends on requiring gun registration.  In other words, the only way that the government could fully enforce such a requirement would be to mandate the registration of all firearms in private possession – a requirement that has been prohibited by federal law since 1986.

A common misrepresentation made by the liberal-left, anti-gun/anti-constitutional lobby is that criminals obtain firearms through sales at gun shows.  A 1997 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of state prison inmates who had used or possessed firearms in the course of their crimes found that 79 percent acquired their firearms from “street/illegal sources” or “friends or family.”  Only 1.7 percent obtained firearms from anyone (dealer or non-dealer) at a gun show or flea market.  The fact is that the majority of criminals DO NOT acquire their weapons legally.  New gun laws would not limit the access of criminals to firearms it would only un-Constitutionally limit non-criminals from obtaining them for lawful purposes.

As you’ve said, preventing firearms access for violent criminals and the violent, or potentially violent, mentally ill is necessary to protect society.  I would pose that there must be some rational relationship between public safety and such restrictions.  There is absolutely no rational relationship between someone who is convicted of a non-violent felony, for example tax evasion, and the probability that such a felon will commit a violent act in the future nor is there any rational relationship between someone who suffers from a benign mental disorder such as obsessive compulsive disorder, for example, and the probability that the sufferer, due to this relatively benign mental condition, will commit a violent act with a firearm in the future.  When establishing restrictions specificity must be used to protect the rights of individuals rather than painting members of a class with a broad brush for the purpose of political expediency.

In 2010, the FBI denied 72,659 NICS checks out of a total of 14,409,616.  But only 62 of these cases were actually prosecuted, and only 13 resulted in a conviction.   Enforce current laws!

In a recent General Accounting Office study, as of 2011 23 states and the District of Columbia combined submitted less than 100 mental health records to NICS in addition 17 states submitted less than ten mental health records to NICS and four states submitted no mental health records to NICS.  In other words in 2011 only 110 mental health records were submitted.  

If you are not going to support the rescinding of all current gun laws because of the lack of Constitutional basis then demand the ENFORCEMENT OF THE CURRENT LAWS and the cessation further un-Constitutional gun law enactments ! 

4.  “Protect the vulnerable” - As you've stated, protection of the vulnerable is an imperative but to quote Cesare Beccaria “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one."   The events that have spurred these most recent attacks on the Second Amendment played out in “gun free” zones, areas where the attackers could be relatively assured that their targets would be unarmed and unable to defend themselves.  These events are proofs of Beccaria’s admonition.   Increased gun control will serve to make the vulnerable more vulnerable not less.

5.  “Address a growing culture of violence” - As much as the liberal-left, anti-gun/anti-Second Amendment movement would like to convince Americans differently, the truth is that violence in American Society has actually declined, not increased over the past quarter century.  Between 1991 and 2011, the latest years I could find data for, the violent crime rate decreased 51 percent to a 41-year low (including a 51 percent decrease in the murder rate, to a 48-year low).  The original  “Assault Rifle”Ban was signed into law in 1994 and expired in 2004, in other words the decline in violence began 3 years before the ban was enacted and has continue for the 7 years (now 9 years) after the ban expired.

Mr. Governor, there is a growing divide in this nation based not on race, religion, or even class but between those that support the Constitution and those that would have us abandon it with the Second Amendment being the current skirmish.  In Utah the Utah Sheriffs Association as well as a majority of law enforcement, the Utah Legislature as well as our Federal Representatives and, I believe, the majority of Utahans are standing on the side of the Constitution.   I ask you most respectfully to stand with the Constitution and the people you serve and sign HB114, the Protection of The Second Amendment Act,  and any other legislation supporting the Constitution when they appear on your desk even if they inflame those that favour abandonment of the Constitution.

Unlawful Statutes

Rule by edict and whim is the way in which monarchs and dictators rule serfs, peasants and the proletariat in monarchies and dictatorships, systems where rights are replaced by privileges granted by an absolute ruler.  Governance by a constitution and law is the way chief magistrates and legislatures govern free citizens in a constitutional republic, a system in which the rights of the governed form the basis of law.  In such a system privileges, where they exist, such as a driving privilege, are granted not by the governors but established by statute.  In the former there are no limitations on the powers of the rulers, in the latter limitations are imposed on the powers of the governors by those governed through their constitution.  The United States of America is a Constitutional Republic so two thing follow; firstly, the powers of the governing bodies; the executive, legislative, and judiciary are delineated and limited in the constitution and secondly, uniquely to our constitution, the inalienable and unalienable rights of the governed are codified in our constitution while not being limited to those which are delineated in it.

In our constitution the powers and authority of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches are carefully delineated in Articles I, II, and III respectively; the most basic rights of the people are enshrined in the “Bill of Rights”, the first ten amendments; and the only lawful method to add to, change, or clarify the constitution or any of its amendments is codified in Article V.  These elements form the entire structure of our government, the foundation for all our laws, and the assurance that the people’s will, through the legislatures of their sovereign states, will be the ultimate and only arbitrators of the Constitution.   

Various specific authorities and powers were ceded to the Congress by the sovereign states in Article I of the Constitution which gives legitimacy to statutes and acts created by the federal legislature.  However, statutes and acts created by Congress based on unconstitutional, usurped authorities or powers are null and void;  citizens are under no lawful obligation to comply with them, law enforcement agencies are under no lawful obligation to enforce them, and courts are under no lawful obligation to adjudicate violation of them.    In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “Resolved, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force . . .". 

Article II Section 2 of the Constitution delineates the entirety of the function, authority, responsibilities, and powers of the President.  Nowhere there in, or in any other place in the Constitution, can the term “executive order” be found nor in any place in the document can such a power be derived by reasonable implication or construction through related powers.  The very concept of an “executive order” runs counter to the notion of a chief executive in a constitutional republic, reflects government by edict rather than by law and is contrary to the dictum of three coordinate departments of government, independent of each other fashioned so as to check and balance one another.

"But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.'  True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force." --Thomas Jefferson

Successive Supreme Courts since 1803, as well as various inferior courts, have violated Article V of the Constitution through the exercise of the fraudulent and extra-constitutional authority of “judicial review” to establish the judiciary as the sole arbiters of the Constitution.  This usurped power has resulted in the de facto amendment of the Constitution from the bench without the requisite ratification by the states.  Article III, Section 2 paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Constitution which layout the authority, powers, and jurisdictions of the judiciary makes no mention of “judicial review”, of the judiciary’s authority to interpret the Constitution, nor does it extend to the court the authority to amend the Constitution from the bench.   Once again looking to no less of an intimate of the Constitution than Thomas Jefferson for confirmation of this lack of authority we find it in this quote, "You seem... to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions: a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is "boni judicis est ampliare juris-dictionem," and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions or time and party, its members would become despots."

Even the most casual reading of the preceding leads to only one conclusion; the offices of the federal government have, over the course of time, departed from the elements of constitutional governance through various ploys and by appropriating authorities and powers not found in the Constitution.  With respect to the Second Amendment in particular, over the course of the past 78 years, since the first attempt at federal gun-control legislation in the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934, the federal government has sought to unlawfully infringe on the people’s inalienable right “ . . . to keep and bear arms, . . .” using every guise from the government’s  tax authority to perverting the Commerce Clause (Article I Section 8) of the Constitution and most recently, the use of the non-existent Presidential power of the “executive order”.  

I would pose that, since the statutes and acts thus far instituted to this end, limiting or placing conditions on the Second Amendment, lack Constitutional legitimacy based on the points I've discussed, they are null and void and should be rescinded.  If logical restrictions and conditions or clarifications are need with respect to the Second Amendment then they must conform to the Constitution, be subjected to the amendment process, there must be some real relationship between public safety and the limitation or condition,  and there must be a balance between the supposed public safety imperative and the original intent of the Second Amendment.  Limitations based on the appearance of a firearm or on magazine capacity, after examining the facts, would fail these criteria as would restrictions from ownership of a firearm based solely  on conviction of a non-violent felony or suffering from a benign mental disorder.  In respect to the former, there is no evidence that military appearance alone portends any greater public danger than does a firearm with a non-military appearance nor does the capacity of a magazine represent a greater or lesser danger when one considers the ease and short period of time  in which magazines may be exchanged.  As to the latter, the restriction on felons, there is absolutely no real relationship between someone who is convicted of a non-violent felony, for example tax evasion, and the probability that such a felon will commit a violent act in the future anymore than there is between someone who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and the probability that the suffer, due to this mental disorder, will commit a violent act with a firearm in the future.

The only reason for rushing through changes to the Second Amendment outside of Article V, as is currently being pursued,  is that the public safety imperative is but a beard behind which the real agenda, the disarming of the people for nefarious reasons, can be hidden.

Why gun laws don’t work

The United States has had, until relatively recently, a long history of private ownership of firearms based on the Second Amendment with relatively low incidents of gun violence in proportion to its population.  What has happened to change that?   Has the change occurred because of a greater proliferation of firearms or because we can now purchase “assault rifles” and “high capacity magazines” or because we are exposed to violence in video games, television and movies as those pushing for more stringent gun laws and a weakening of the Second Amendment would have us believe?   I would say “NO!”, the root cause of gun violence, and violence in general in our society, has nothing to do with the weapons themselves but with the societal decay that has resulted from the pervasive shift from a center right nation to a center left one, the spread of political correctness that has crippled law enforcement, and the abandonment of traditional, faith based moral values in deference to the secular pseudo-religion of atheism.  

Is the answer to gun violence and domestic terrorism more stringent gun laws limiting the types of firearms Americans can own based on a firearm’s appearance or which disallow the sale and possession of magazines based on capacity or requiring gun owners to register their firearms or limiting the number of firearms or amount of ammunition an American can own or is the answer heavily taxing firearm and ammunition purchases or,  as some left-wing, progressive intellectuals have suggested, the total abandonment of the United States Constitution and with it the right to “keep and bear arms”?

Why do the liberal-left, progressive (the new term for communist), anti-gun lobbies and proponents not understand that gun laws do not reduce gun violence nor do they reduce incidents of domestic terrorism such as Aurora and Sandy Hook.  If stringent gun laws did then it follows that New York City and Chicago would be the safest cities in the U.S.  The history of gun laws indicate that they do nothing to reduce gun violence and the locales that have the most stringent firearms control laws, such as New York City and Chicago, actually are among, if not the, most dangerous locales!  Why?  Because it is a simple truth that only law abiding people obey laws.  Those with malevolent intentions do not obey the law!  The idea that someone who would use a firearm to commit murder or who is intent on using a firearm to rob would be deterred by the fact that the firearm they were using was unregistered, was of a banned type, contained a banned magazine or was obtained without a background check is not just naive but is moronic and legislators who subscribe to that idea should be removed from office for criminal incompetency.   The truth is that disarming the general public only makes them easier targets for those intent on victimizing the disarmed. 

We, as a nation, must realize that we will never totally eliminate violence.  Violence is the fatal flaw in our human DNA, but if we are intent on reducing violence in our society then we must attack those true root causes for the proliferation of violence and not be diverted by attacking the inanimate objects that have the potential of being the instruments of violence.  We must attack and eliminate that societal decay, that spread of political correctness, and that abandonment of traditional, faith based morality that has brought us to our present condition.   Our legislators need to reverse that societal decay by reducing the “mommy state”, restoring personal responsibility and enforcing the laws that we have, they need to eliminate “political correctness” in all its forms and restore the authority of the police to police by allowing them to “profile” and target those anti-social individuals and groups in a community who are the perpetrators of violence with particular emphasis on gangs and “gang bangers”, and, perhaps most importantly, they need to reset our national moral compass by inviting God back into our national conscience through the  re-establishment of the original intent of the First Amendment . . . the prohibition against the state establishing a state religion not, as the liberal-left has perverted its meaning, the separation of the state and the people from God.

If all the foregoing be true then why are some of our leaders pushing gun control so strongly and ignoring the issues of societal decay, the destructive nature of political correctness, and the abandonment of traditional, faith based moral values?   In my view it’s simple, these elements do not fit into their political agenda which is the abandonment of the United States Constitution and the transformation of our Republic into a socialist state in which privileges flow from the state and rights are non-existent; where we are ruled  by the edicts ("executive orders") and dictates of our chief magistrates rather than governed by them under the protections of a constitution.  Those who conspire in this agenda fear that such an overt attack on the Constitution and the Republic would be responded to as the architects of the Second Amendment intended . . . by the people working in concert in armed rebellion for the preservation of both.  They, those who so conspire, realize that advancing their agenda with impunity requires that the means to belligerently and successfully resist must be eliminated, ergo the weakening and eventual elimination of the people’s inalienable right to “keep and bear” arms.   I contend that the continued denial of this intent is the proof of this agenda.  

The liberal-left and their progressive allies have begun blaming our national woes on the American people’s insistence on obedience to the Constitution and who characterize it as archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil.  Professor Louis Michael Seidman, who calls for politicians and judges to engage in “constitutional disobedience”, has said “ ‘We the people’ is impossibly Utopian.  If so, we have to give up on the claim that we are a self-governing people who can settle our disagreements through mature and tolerant debate. But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.”

Each president and legislator takes an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  Violation of this oath in an act of “constitutional disobedience” is, in my opinion, not just  a mere broken campaign promise, not only an impeachable offense but rather, it is, arguably, an act of treason and the higher the office the higher the treason. As John Adams stated, “We are a nation of laws, not of men.” , being such requires strict adherence to our foundational laws, the United States Constitution.  It appears to me that this president and some member of our current federal legislature and judiciary are intentionally practicing constitutional disobedience and are aided and abetted by a small albeit vocal and strategically placed cadre of liberal-left wing and progressive operatives.

We, the people, must take the opportunity of this "debate" to remind those that we have chosen to govern that they are not the masters, we are and they are our servants; that it is not for them to decide what rights they will allow us but to defend the rights granted to us by the Constitution; that the Constitution is not a group of suggestions for them to pick and chose which to comply with and which to ignore but that it is the law they must conform to and obey and finally, that we will not tolerate any further attacks on our rights and demand the full reinstatement on those rights that have been thus far compromised and infringed on.  It is time for our states through their governors, legislatures, and judiciaries to reassert their sovereignty and dominance over the federal government and support the Constitution by exercising nullification of laws, court rulings, and “executive orders” that violate that Constitution.   

Finally we must bear in mind that no power on earth can wrest our freedoms from us so long as we maintain the means to resist but we can lose it none the less through apathy and inaction when that means is threatened.