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Mark Tapson is the Shillman Fellow on Popular Culture for the David Horowitz Freedom Center.Amid lockdowns and “shelter-in-place” orders and social distancing from strangers and even friends, the coronavirus pandemic has been a time, for many of us, of reaffirming the centrality of family in our lives. For utopians of the radical left, though, the pandemic is an opportunity to deconstruct flawed, traditional familial bonds and remake the world along the lines of new-and-improved, collectivist possibilities. As author Sophie Lewis (pictured above) puts it bluntly in a recent opinion piece at Open Democracy: “We deserve better than the family. And the time of corona is an excellent time to practice abolishing it.”The author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family, Sophie Lewis’ academic work “focuses on eugenic, bioconservative and imperial feminism, queer and trans social reproduction, Black feminist family abolitionism, hydrofeminism, postgenomics, and Marxist-feminist accounts of care,” which seems like a lot to fit on a business card.Writing in her article titled, “The coronavirus crisis shows it's time to abolish the family,” Lewis addresses what she calls “the unspoken and mostly unquestioned crux of the prescribed response to the pandemic: private homes.” She criticizes the assumption that we should all “stay at home” to contain the spread of the virus, arguing that 1) not everybody has a home, and 2) private property is already a “fundamentally unsafe space.”“How can a zone defined by the power asymmetries of housework (reproductive labor being so gendered), of renting and mortgage debt, land and deed ownership, of patriarchal parenting and (often) the institution of marriage, benefit health?” she asks. “Such standard homes are where, after all, everyone secretly knows the majority of earthly violence goes down… A quarantine is, in effect, an abuser’s dream – a situation that hands near-infinite power to those with the upper hand over a home.”Lewis approvingly quotes feminist Madeline Lane-McKinley, who had this to say in a tweet about the shelter-in-place imperative: “Households are capitalism’s pressure cookers. This crisis will see a surge in housework – cleaning, cooking, caretaking, but also child abuse, molestation, intimate partner rape, psychological torture, and more.”Imagine the warped mind that equates the family home with “a pressure cooker” of child abuse, rape, and psychological torture. Do such things happen in some homes? Tragically, yes; of course they do. But family abolitionists see these horrors as inherent in the ideologically “coercive” institution of the nuclear family. They pay lip service to acknowledging that families can be a source of love, comfort, and safety, and they claim that their goal “is not the destruction of kinship ties” but an “expansion of that protection into broader communities of struggle,” as ME O’Brien writes at Pinko (which describes itself as “a collective for thinking gay communism”). And yet they relentlessly denigrate the nuclear family as an institution poisoned by what O’Brien calls “compulsory heterosexuality, misogynistic subjugation and familial violence.” They sneer at “family householders” as “white property owners, abusive patriarchs, homophobes and others most invested in the normative family” (O’Brien again).But the domestic violence aspect is just the tip of the iceberg. The family is also apparently a capitalist plot for churning out – gasp – productive individuals. In an interview last year with the far-left The Nation titled “Want to Dismantle Capitalism? Abolish the Family,” Lewis stated, “We know that the nuclear private household is where the overwhelming majority of abuse can happen. And then there’s the whole question of what it is for: training us up to be workers, training us to be inhabitants of a binary-gendered and racially stratified system, training us not to be queer.” In her Open Democracy article, Lewis adds that “even when the private nuclear household poses no direct physical or mental threat to one’s person – no spouse-battering, no child rape, and no queer-bashing – the private family qua mode of social reproduction still, frankly, sucks. It genders, nationalizes and races us. It norms us for productive work. It makes us believe we are ‘individuals.’”The vision of anti-family theorists like Lewis is to replace the ideological straightjacket of the family with a world of communes of “collective social reproduction,” in which the entire community cares for children and rescues them from “abusive parental relationships.” Apparently communes will be free of spouse beating, child abuse, and all the other dark shadows of human nature. Oh, and no compulsory heterosexuality.They will also supposedly be free of homelessness. Calling comfortable housing “a basic human birthright,” Lewis recommends that we “open all the hotels and private palaces” for “housing for all,” “[f]ree all prisoners and detainees now, remake the care facilities as spacious self-led villages, and dismiss all the workers with full pay so they can leave their bunks forever, move in with their friends, and pursue laziness for at least the next decade.”One would be forgiven for thinking that this kind of talk is Swiftian satire, but sadly, Lewis and her ilk are deadly serious – and brutally honest about it. Last year, for example, Lewis dispensed with the left’s usual tortured justifications for abortion and expressed her view that taking the life of the unborn is indeed killing, but “a form of killing that we need to be able to defend. I am not interested in where a human life starts to exist.”So for Lewis, the current pandemic is not a time “to acquiesce to ‘family values’ ideology”; on the contrary, it’s “an acutely important time to provision, evacuate and generally empower survivors of – and refugees from – the nuclear household.” In addition to hoping “to wrench something better than capitalism from the wreckage of this Plague and the coming Depression,” she looks forward to this crisis ratcheting up “the dialectic of families against the family, of real homes against the home.”The nuclear family is the most elemental relationship building block of civilization (of course, civilization as we know it is precisely what the left wants to dismantle.) It is a refuge, a source of strength and support, of identity and history, of love and forgiveness. It is home. Husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister -- the bonds these incredibly evocative words imply would not be expanded under the system Lewis is proposing; they would be dissolved. Are families perfect? Of course not. None of them is, because human beings aren’t perfect and never can be. We are fallen beings in a fallen world – this is the reality that the far left refuses to accept. There is no insanely totalitarian, collectivist nightmare that the left will not pursue with an evangelical passion to achieve their dream of the perfectibility of mankind, of paradise on earth. But that dream, as has been demonstrated in all places and in all times where it has been put into practice, is a mass-murdering lie.And yet as extreme as Sophie Lewis’ anti-family, anti-capitalist animus sounds, everything she proposes is simply the end game of mainstream Progressivism: the abolition of capitalism; the abolition of private property; the abolition of traditional kinship; the abolition of literally every single tradition and institution of Western civilization, to be replaced by the enlightened, peaceful, self-regulated structures of communism – just as Karl Marx envisioned. Family abolitionists like Lewis are mainstream Progressives; what makes them seem extreme is simply their unabashed openness about their aims.
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(The Roanoke Times) — A Russell County judge ruled against a southwest Virginia man’s request to allow more than 10 people to gather in church for Easter.Judge Michael Moore on Thursday denied retired teacher Larry Hughes’ appeal for a temporary injunction in a lawsuit filed earlier this week that claims executive orders from Gov. Ralph Northam limiting the number of people that can gather in one place infringes on his religious freedom. …Northam’s executive orders 53 and 55 ban public and private gatherings of more than 10 people, specifically mentioning religious events both inside and outside. Hughes’ lawsuit claims that it’s unfair to effectively shut down religious gatherings but allow other businesses that have been deemed essential to stay open.T. Shea Cook, Hughes’ lawyer, called Northam’s action a “dangerous precedent” in a phone interview Thursday after the hearing._______________________________________________________________Mayor in Miss. Outlaws In-Person Church Services, Christians Ticketed $500 Each for Meeting in CarsBY HEATHER CLARKSEE: https://christiannews.net/2020/04/09/mayor-in-miss-outlaws-in-person-church-services-christians-ticketed-500-each-for-meeting-in-cars/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:GREENVILLE, Miss. — Police in Mississippi ticketed more than 20 Christians on Wednesday evening who were sitting in their vehicles listening to a sermon from their pastor. The crackdown occurred as the mayor and city council of Greenville have issued an executive order banning in-person church services, including drive-in gatherings where attendees simply stay in their cars.According to reports, members of Temple Baptist Church tuned in to a radio frequency to listen to their pastor, Arthur Scott, as he preached inside of the church.A video recorded by member Chris Owens shows a police officer approaching his window and asking for identification, advising that he was giving him “an opportunity to move.” Citing the City order, he explains that the drive-in arrangement is “considered a gathering even though you’re in your vehicle.”The officer issues Owens a citation, who soon drives away.View the video below.Scott told radio show host and reporter Todd Starnes that everyone in attendance was fined $500 and that he was personally warned that he could be arrested.“The police officer said I might go to jail,” he stated. “If it means going to jail, and if it takes that for me to keep preaching, I’ll be glad to go to jail.”The City of Greenville announced via a press release on Tuesday that Mayor Errick Simmons and City Council had issued two new executive orders, one of which pertains to church services.It cited a statement from the Mississippi Department of Health (DOH) as its motivation.“Because of recent COVID-19 cases specifically linked to church gatherings, it is vital that Mississippians not attend in-person church services at any church or other type of facility. Services, weddings, and funerals are leading to greater COVID-19 transmission,” the DOH said.However, the City went even further in its executive order, including drive-in services in its prohibition and recommending that residents do church online or over the phone.“The City of Greenville put in place an executive order that orders all church buildings closed for in person and drive-in church services, until the State of Mississippi’s Shelter In Place Executive Order No. 1466 is lifted by Governor Tate Reeves,” the press release states.“Churches are strongly encouraged to hold services via Facebook Live, Zoom, Free Conference Call, and any and all other social media, streaming, and telephonic platforms.”An apparent email from the City also lists churches as “nonessential businesses,” along with dance halls, taverns, movie theaters and tattoo parlors.Scott says that he has been holding the drive-in services for three weeks and intends to fight the restriction.“I just can’t believe it,” he remarked to Starnes. “I tried to talk to the mayor. I’ve been here 45 years and I’ve never been to the city council. I’ve never complained. I’ve never stirred up a stink. But I told him I’m going to fight them on this.”SEE: https://www.toddstarnes.com/faith/watch-police-raid-churchs
-drive-in-service-issue-500-tickets-to-entire-congregation/
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U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- We Americans bear witness to the ruthless danger the Regime of Xi Jinping, and its puppet, “W.H.O.,” poses to our Nation’s very survival. We Americans bear witness, simultaneously, to a sinister cabal within our own Government intent, as well, on destroying our Nation, from within. There are those, here, who seek a political, social, economic and cultural metamorphosis of our Nation into something hideous; something antithetical to the philosophical underpinnings of a free, Constitutional Republic. These elements seek to turn Americans against each other even as they proclaim the opposite intention. They seek political, social, and economic upheaval.With the coming general election in November 2020, and as all previous attempts to destroy the Presidency of Donald Trump have failed, malevolent forces have one remaining gambit: use of a global pandemic to excoriate the President.Back in mid-January, well before the U.S. and other nations were apprised of the threat of the Chinese Coronovirus, Fox News contributor, Andy Puzner, pointed out that:“Over the last six months, it has become increasingly obvious there is no limit on how far Democrats and their media allies are willing to go to bring down President Trump. Because of their obsessive hatred of the president, they have wantonly placed our economy at risk of collapse, created a false constitutional crisis, and most recently, opposed the takedown of an Iranian terrorist leader.”The Fox News article illustrates the bizarre and sad truth about the cold and ruthless ambitions of those elements within our Nation that will use any calamity to their advantage. Remember the coarse and callous words of Rahm Emmanuel, prior Mayor of Chicago and Obama’s White House Chief of Staff:“You never want a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”Compare Rahm Emmanuel's disturbing comment with the very recent and equally disturbing remark of Representative James E. Clyburn, (D-SC), the House Majority Whip.During Congressional Republican and Democrat negotiation of the $2.5 Chinese Coronovirus relief package for the Nation, Clyburn could hardly contain his exuberance over a horrific event that he sees as an “opportunity” and that most Americans see as a National crisis.The mainstream media was obliged to acknowledge Clyburn's off-putting remark. Try, as it might, even the seditious New York Times could not put a good spin on Clyburn's audacious remark.The New York Times reported:“Republicans were . . . outraged when they saw the draft House bill, a $2.5 trillion measure that included an array of progressive policies well beyond the scope of emergency aid, saying Democrats were trying to use the crisis to advance a liberal agenda. They seized on a comment by Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat, who said on a private conference call with Democrats that the pandemic presented “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to our vision” — a comment Mr. McConnell brought up repeatedly.”People such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, puppets, of the transnational Global “elites,” have not been able to take down the U.S. President, Donald Trump, try as they might. They could not do so through the fanciful and abjectly wasteful Mueller probe; nor through the imbecilic impeachment hoax; nor through the hyped-up Ukraine nonsense. All attempts by the Radical Left Democrat Party Leadership to destroy the Trump Presidency have failed. But, still they persist.The Radical Left Democrat Party leadership now has, at its disposal, a new, potent weapon in their arsenal: the Chinese Coronovirus; something they did not create but which presents for them, as James Clyburn refers to it, an “opportunity” that, in the words of Rahm Emmanuel, they dare not “waste” if they wish to see their vision for the Country come to fruition: A Marxist Socialist nightmare.We point out, as the Democrats know full well: The U.S. economy under Donald Trump has prospered. But the impact of the deadly Chinese Coronovirus viral plague is devastating our economy, through no fault of the Trump Administration. But, instead of working willingly and diligently to work with President Trump and with Congressional Republicans to protect the critical health needs of Americans, together with the U.S. economy, we see Pelosi, Schumer, and others of their ilk in Congress doing so only grudgingly, planting obstacles in his path, attempting to take advantage of a horrific situation, to pursue their agenda. Even Joe Biden has gotten into the act. These Radical Leftist malcontents, along with a seditious Leftist Press are even now trying to figure out how best to use this viral pandemic to promote efforts to unseat Trump in November 2020.“No matter what Mr. Trump does, he will be accused of 1) reacting recklessly; 2) reacting too slowly; 3) being racist; 4) ignoring medical advice; and 4) treating the health crisis as a partisan issue.”To Preserve the Founders’ Vision Of Our Nation, it is Imperative, Now, More Than Ever, That We Support Our President, Donald Trump
Ever since President Trump swore his Oath of Office to preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States, there have been efforts both at home and abroad to unseat him. The Founders’ vision of a Nation where the American people themselves are sovereign is now looked on by ruthless elements, both at home and abroad, as archaic and injurious to their own plans for a new world order. They have been engineering our demise as an independent sovereign Nation-State for decades.The autocratic regime of China’s Xi Jinping operates as one monstrous threat to our Nation’s continued survival as a free Republic and as the most powerful economic engine and military power in the world. The trans-nationalist corporatist elites of the West—those who have already harnessed the Nations of Europe into a centralized union that they alone control—represent the other major threat to our Founders’ vision, as they seek to expand their domain to include the military and economic assets of the United States. And then there are the centrist status quo Republicans, and Radical Left and New Progressive Left Democrats, both of whom fear and loathe the Trump Administration. Both of these groups, here at home, have been quietly engineering the creation of a shadow Government within our Government; a Government that doesn’t serve the best interests of our Nation and its citizenry, but is one decidedly detrimental to and antithetical to the preservation of our Nation as a free Constitutional Republic—a Nation where, as the founders intended, the American people themselves are sovereign and the Federal Government is servant. These two groups are working hand-in-hand as puppets of the West's trans-nationalist corporatist elites; but they are certainly not averse to striking side deals with the Chinese Premier, Xi Jinping, in order to line their own pockets. And, as the Chinese regime steals our technology, and gobbles up U.S. Corporations and real estate, that is of no apparent consequence to these Congressional sell-outs who see no profit in preserving a free Constitutional Republic.Anti-Constitutional elements within our midst–who take money from the Chinese Regime to line their own pockets and, at one and the same time, operate as willing toadies of the European Rothschild clan and its minions who seek the abolition of nation-states and the creation of a one world political, social, economic, and cultural government–are the worst sort of people. They are the “dry-rot” that eats away at the frame of a house, from within.Ruthless, remorseless elements, both inside our Nation and outside look upon our Nation’s resources jealously. They seek at once to mine our Nation and its physical resources and to discard our people, hollowing out our Nation, as private equity firms hollow out companies, leaving our people destitute and our Nation, an empty shell.The present Chinese Coronovirus pandemic has provided abjectly ruthless, evil elements with a useful weapon. And we, Americans, find ourselves caught in the middle of a titanic struggle between two brawling monsters, both of which view the United States with covetous eyes.In the next few articles we will continue to illustrate the dire threat posed to our Nation and our people by the Xi Jinping Regime of China, and by those evil and ruthless forces right here at home.
About The Arbalest Quarrel:Arbalest Group created `The Arbalest Quarrel' website for a special purpose. That purpose is to educate the American public about recent Federal and State firearms control legislation. No other website, to our knowledge, provides as deep an analysis or as thorough an analysis. Arbalest Group offers this information free.For more information, visit: www.arbalestquarrel.com.
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Few people realize how severely America’s universities and colleges have degenerated. Georgetown University is a national disgrace, employing numerous apologists for jihad and professional dissemblers about the teachings of Islam that incite believers to commit acts of jihad violence. The millions it is alleged to have taken from Qatar may be a partial explanation for its steep decline from academic institution to Islamic dawah and propaganda outfit. Not only should it not be regarded as an academic institution, but the Catholic Church, if it had not completely lost its way in this regard, should reevaluate its status as a Catholic university. But that would be in a sane world. In ours, Catholic hierarchs will probably direct other Catholic colleges and universities to follow Georgetown’s lead.“Catholic university’s religion panel on COVID ignores Easter, focuses on Ramadan,” by Jeremiah Poff, The College Fix, April 8, 2020 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):A Georgetown University panel event hosted by its religion center on Monday about the religious response to the coronavirus pandemic did not delve into how billions of Christians across the globe will not be able to celebrate Easter together.The “COVID-19 Crisis: Taking Stock of Religious Responses” panel was held at the start of Holy Week, which culminates with Easter this Sunday. As the globe is in something of a lockdown, most churches have cancelled in-person Holy Week services and plan for online ones instead.Georgetown University, a private Catholic institution in Washington D.C., has cancelled all of its in-person religious services. It plans to livestream its various Easter Week observances on its Facebook page, according to the university website.At the panel, neither the virus’ impact on the campus and the globe’s Christians, nor the topic of the Jewish Passover, was raised. Instead the religion experts zeroed in on how the lockdown has complicated observing the upcoming month of Ramadan for the Islamic community, as well as how the COVID-19 response has hurt the marginalized in society, such as refugees.The presentation was hosted by Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. The panelists called on the religious to consider the most vulnerable in society and how the coronavirus crisis hurts them more than traditional households….Monday’s panel featured Berkley Center Senior Fellow Katherine Marshall as moderator, Imam Mohamed Magid, independent consultant on humanitarian emergencies David Robinson, and Olivia Wilkinson, director of research at the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities.Wilkinson, whose online bio states that her research focus is on secular and religious influences in humanitarian action, said in her initial comments that “people with vulnerabilities are disproportionately affected” by crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.While she mentioned poor and sick individuals as just some of those “with vulnerabilities,” Wilkinson pivoted the discussion to migrants and refugees.“We’re very well aware that systemic issues from the lack of funding and defunding of support for refugees and migrants, marginalization that refugees and migrants experience economically or otherwise, influence their vulnerability at any time. Now that we’re in a time of pandemic as well, these vulnerabilities are compounding,” Wilkinson said.She cited food baskets in the lead up to Ramadan as a service that is being affected by the global crisis….Imam Magid began his comments by saying that the world needed a “theology of crisis,” in which religious leaders can bring faith to the faithful in a time of crisis….
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A Rhode Island teacher is under investigation after tweeting out a message offering payment to COVID-19 patients to deliberately cough on President Trump and infect him with the deadly virus.The female teacher identified herself in a later tweet as a sixth-grade teacher at Villa Nova Middle School which is located in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.“Somebody with Covid-19, I will pay you to cough on #Trump,” read the original tweet. The account used by the teacher has now been deleted, but was created under the name “Proud Teacher.”The teacher has not been identified by the school district, but other media sources have reported that her name is Amy Bednarz, and that she works as an English Language Learner teacher at Villa Nova Middle School.School Committee Chairman Paul Bourget called the threatening tweet “a serious matter” and promised a full investigation to get “concrete evidence and a concrete determination.”“If this thing pans out, if it’s true she did it, then we’ll take appropriate action,” Bourget promised.School District Superintendent Patrick McGee also spoke to media about the incident. He reported that the teacher was placed on administrative leave and will not be allowed to have contact with students or faculty until the matter is resolved.“Once we conclude the investigation, we’ll make a determination as to whether or not there’ll be any consequences with respect to that staff member,” he said. He labeled the tweet “pretty vile and disgusting,” adding, “That’s not what the Woonsocket Education Department espouses. It’s not in line with our core values. And it’s not in line with our ideals here in Woonsocket.”“It is unprofessional and sends the wrong message during a time when our whole education community is setting a national example,” concurred Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green in a tweet. “This is not acceptable and certainly not representative of the overwhelming majority of RI teachers.”_____________________________________________________________EXCERPTS:
"A Rhode Island public school teacher with a history of harassing school choice supporters has posted an offer on social media to pay for someone with COVID-19 to cough on President Donald Trump.Amy Bednarz is a 6th grade teacher at Villa Nova Middle School in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.When Bednarz is not teaching English as a Second Language to middle schoolers, or offering to hire people to kill the president with biological warfare, she can often be found threatening Keri Rodriguez, the president of the National Parents Union.Bednarz’ hostility towards Rodriguez has been so severe that she wrote a blog detailing her experiences with the teacher — which included threats against her children and repeatedly calling her on the telephone."_____________________________________________________________EXCERPTS: "It seems rather inappropriate for a teacher to use social media in order to offer money to a potential bioterrorist to kill the President. But when it’s mainstream for people to literally believe that Donald Trump is the modern-day equivalent to Hitler, can we really act surprised when people see nothing wrong with openly encouraging people to give him a deadly disease?Amy Bednarz, an ELL teacher at Villa Nova Middle School in Woonsocket made the headlines for all the wrong reasons.When Bednarz is not teaching English as a Second Language to middle schoolers, or offering to hire people to kill the president with biological warfare."Her history shows that she should have been fired by now and shouldn’t have worked with children, our system failed and she is still working.But this time she should have a visit from the Secret Service.From the secretservice.govYou can report the situation here on this LINK
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Irony: Gun rights groups have filed a Second Amendment lawsuit against Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker as the 245th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord looms.
U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- A coalition of Second Amendment groups has filed a federal lawsuit against Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker over gun control issues during the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, ironically just days before the 245th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord that ignited the American Revolution.This time around, instead of British Regulars marching to confiscate arms and munitions from the Colonial militia, it’s the Baker administration “eliminating all lawful channels of access to constitutionally protected arms and ammunition by mandating the closure of all businesses that sell firearms and ammunition to the consumer public,” the lawsuit says.“These actions amount to a ban on obtaining modern arms for personal defense in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” the 18-page complaint alleges.The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Partnering with the Second Amendment Foundation are the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and Commonwealth Second Amendment, Inc. (Comm2A), along with several retailers and private citizens.In addition to Baker, two other state officials and four municipal police chiefs are named as defendants in the complaint.The complaint makes it clear that:“The Plaintiffs bringing this action do not mean to minimize the severity or urgency of the coronavirus pandemic. The exigencies surrounding this viral pandemic both justify and necessitate changes in the manner in which people live their lives and conduct their daily business. However, this emergency—like any other emergency—has its constitutional limits. It would not justify a prior restraint on speech, nor a suspension of the right to vote. Just the same, it does not justify a ban on obtaining guns and ammunition. The declaratory and injunctive relief that Plaintiffs have been forced to seek in this action is necessary to uphold this bedrock principle of constitutional rights and the rule of law.”According to Jim Wallace, executive director of the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League (GOAL), which supports the legal action but is not a plaintiff, information acknowledging a Department of Homeland Security recognition of gun shops as “essential” was posted in an initial notice, but within three hours it had disappeared, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.In a telephone interview with Ammoland News, Wallace acknowledged this may be the culmination of a longer-running problem with Baker.“We’ve had virtually no relationship with him,” Wallace said, despite the fact that Baker is a Republican. In Massachusetts, that actually has not worked out so well for gun owners.“The greatest irony,” Wallace observed, “is that every time we’ve had a bad bill signed, it’s been with a Republican governor.”When emergency loan funds were made available for businesses in the Commonwealth, Baker specifically excluded gun shops gun shops, along with real estate firms, adult entertainment businesses and multi-level marketing firms. At the time, Wallace issued a statement accusing the governor of discrimination.Presently, most police agencies are not accepting new applications for firearms licenses, which are required in Massachusetts to even possess empty cartridge cases, Wallace warned.In a subsequent message to its members, GOAL stated, “As soon as this public health crisis was announced, GOAL began to try to work with the Baker Administration to address issues we knew would be coming. The first piece was to request an emergency order to extend all firearm licenses until the crisis was over. That request had the support of the two police chiefs’ association because it would have freed up their staff during this time. That request was denied even though the state had already done it for a lengthy list of other state-issued licenses. Since then, there has been a clear effort on behalf of the Baker Administration to block access to the Second Amendment.”The exception to the gun shop shutdown is an order from James Gagnon, commissioner of the state Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, in which he advises gun dealers that supply firearms and ammunition to police agencies were allowed to remain open.According to the Enterprise News, some gun stores are defying Baker’s order. A shop in Middleboro was still open, and owner John Costa told the newspaper, “The government can go pound tar. We are essential. We have every right to protect our citizens. We have every right to give them what we need to protect themselves.”Wallace said gun control has not worked in Massachusetts, except to reduce the number of licensed gun owners. In 1998, he recalled, there were 1.5 million gun owners, but a major gun control package pared that number down dramatically, to less than 250,000, he said.GOAL, which was founded in 1974, has some 16,000 members. Wallace has been with the organization since 2000.In a prepared statement announcing the lawsuit, Wallace expressed pleasure at being able to work with the other organizations on this legal action, even though GOAL is not involved as a plaintiff.“Since the beginning of the fight against Covid-19, the Baker Administration has launched a systematic campaign against our Second Amendment civil rights. It is imperative we ensure our civil rights and systems of checks and balances on our government are protected, especially during times of crisis.”–Jim Wallace, GOALSAF’s Alan Gottlieb was quick to acknowledge the irony.“Closing gun stores and preventing citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights is not the way to fight a viral pandemic,” Gottieb said. “How ironic that rights groups must take the governor of Massachusetts to court over a Second Amendment issue as the 245th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord approaches. Government gun control is precisely the reason our ancestors stood together on April 19, 1775, and the Baker administration should seriously re-think its position.”“It is disheartening to see one of our original freedom fighter colonies decide to take a page from General Thomas Gage,” Adam Kraut, FPC’s Director of Legal Strategy concurred. “During the Massachusetts ratifying convention, Samuel Adams proposed an amendment guaranteeing that the constitution would not prevent peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. Yet, the modern day Massachusetts government seeks to do just that. There is no COVID-19 exception in the Constitution, and even this crisis has constitutional limits.”Brent Carlton with Comm2A echoed their sentiments.“It’s sad that rather than devoting their full attention to addressing this serious public health emergency, the Baker administration is treating this crisis as an opportunity to set the precedent for suspend constitutional rights that they oppose,” Carlton observed. “The Baker administration can no more block exercise of the Second Amendment by preventing Massachusetts residents from purchasing firearms than the Trump administration can limit the First Amendment by closing the New York Times or CNN.”“State and local governments cannot suspend the Constitution and its guarantee of fundamental human rights,” FPC President Brandon Combs added. “Massachusetts has again gone out of its way to prevent individuals from exercising their right to keep and bear arms when they want and need to most. But the Second Amendment is not a second-class right. We are proud to fight for the rights of Bay Staters alongside our friends and fellow plaintiffs in this case.”In recent weeks, SAF and the FPC have been involved in several legal actions, in California, North Carolina, New Jersey, all involving similar complaints about gun store closures amid the coronavirus outbreak.The battles of Lexington and Concord are widely held to have been the real start of the Revolutionary War, despite the fact they happened more than a year before the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, dated July 4, 1776. There was a brief, but fatal, skirmish between the Lexington militia on the village commons as some 700 troops marched toward Concord to seize what they believed were rebel munitions, including cannons.After Lexington, troops continued their march to Concord, but by the time they arrived, word of the trouble had spread. By some estimates, at least 2,000 militia members from various communities had converged for what proved to be a confrontation at Concord’s North Bridge.Following these two battles, some 15,000 militia members surrounded Boston and placed it under siege. Almost two months later, on June 17, the battles of Breeds and Bunker hills were fought.From then on, it was a shooting war.
Today, the fighting is done in the courts, but the underlying issue appears to have changed very little.
About Dave WorkmanDave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books #add on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
