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California Gun Control Makes It Harder to Fight Back Against Hamas-Like Terrorism
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An AR-15 at FT3 tactical shooting range in Stanton, Calif., on May 3, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
By John Seiler
10/17/2023Updated: 10/19/2023

Commentary

This is the most clueless statement ever made by a governor of the United States of America:

“It’s time to wake up. Unless we enshrine a Right to Safety in the Constitution, we are at the mercy of ideologues like Judge Benitez. All of our gun safety laws that are proven to save lives are at risk. It doesn’t matter what laws we pass. It doesn’t matter what the voters decide. Concealed carry. Banning weapons of war. Reasonable waiting periods. Background checks. The idealogues are coming for all of them.

“This is exactly why I’ve called for a Constitutional amendment, and this is why I’ll keep fighting to defend our right to protect ourselves from gun violence.”

That was California Gov. Gavin Newsom, possibly the next president of this country, on Sept. 22. Mr. Newsom was criticizing Judge Roger Benitez’s ruling that day striking down California’s ban on magazines holding more than 10 rounds. On Oct. 10, Mr. Newsom got his wish as an 11-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to suspend the decision. It'll probably be decided in the U.S. Supreme Court.

That panel ruling was also delusional. It came just three days after the Hamas terrorist group attacked Israel, massacring at least 1,400 people, including more than 30 Americans, mostly unarmed civilians. I’m sure you’ve read and seen a lot about the horror.

Here’s something maybe you didn’t hear about. The poor Israeli civilian victims sure could have used some “weapons of war,” holding 30-round magazines, to defend themselves against Hamas. But Israel has strict, Newsom-style gun control. Many people were unarmed while being massacred as they awaited rescue by the Israel Defense Forces.

According to GunPolicy.org, “In Israel, the right to private gun ownership is not guaranteed by law.”

That is, it has no Second Amendment right “to keep and bear arms.” Rather it has a version of Mr. Newsom’s proposed 28th Amendment strictly controlling who can have a gun.

A member of the public receives weapons training from a tutor at a shooting range in Efrat, Israel, on Oct. 15, 2023. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

A member of the public receives weapons training from a tutor at a shooting range in Efrat, Israel, on Oct. 15, 2023. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

“In Israel, only licensed gun owners may lawfully acquire, possess or transfer a firearm or ammunition,” GunPolicy.org states (this excellent site includes many citations to its reporting).

That contrasts with America, in which the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision last year upheld the right to carry a weapon, excepting only reasonable restrictions, such as not carrying a gun into a government building.

Who’s the Militia?

America is the most heavily armed country in the world, with an estimated 466 million firearms owned, according to American Gun Facts. About 46 percent of households own a gun. That’s a massive deterrent to potential criminals—and to terrorists hunting for easy prey. A Hamas-like attack on an American neighborhood would bring out dozens of men and many women wielding the “weapons of war” that Mr. Newsom wants to make harder to obtain.

The U.S. Census Bureau also estimates that there are about 16.5 million military veterans—including yours truly—all of them trained on M-16s or similar rifles, which are related to the weapon that’s so often demonized by Mr. Newsom and other gun controllers—the AR-15.

Gun controllers insist that the “militia” mentioned in the Second Amendment only means the official military. Actually, it’s everybody, as the Supreme Court held in the 2008 Heller case.

It also isn’t well known, but the official U.S. militia isn’t only made up of active-duty military personnel, inactive reservists, and the National Guard. According to “10 U.S. Code § 246 - Militia: composition and classes,” “a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.”

So if you’re a 20-year-old male citizen, you’re in the militia—even if you neglected to register for the draft, as required by law.

Contrary to Mr. Newsom and other gun controllers, America was born in the Revolutionary War with the blood of patriots who took their “weapons of war” off their fireplace mantles and marched off to the sound of gunfire to wrest this free nation from the most powerful military in the world at that time, the British Empire. Gun controllers contend that the “militia” is just those in government military forces. No, it isn’t. The militia is all of us.

A person holds a California-legal featureless AR-15 style rifle in Costa Mesa, Calif., on June 5, 2021. (Patrick Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

A person holds a California-legal featureless AR-15 style rifle in Costa Mesa, Calif., on June 5, 2021. (Patrick Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

Hamas Next Door

This is crucial because the Biden administration, without objection by Mr. Newsom, has opened our Southern border to anyone. Some of those are or soon could be your neighbors. On Sept. 7, the Republican majority of the House Committee on Homeland Security released a report titled, “DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Has Emboldened Cartels, Criminals, and America’s Enemies.”

It reads: “Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ open-borders policies have empowered and emboldened some of the most vicious, ruthless, and savage individuals and groups in the world. Whether it is transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) like the cartels and human smuggling organizations in the Western Hemisphere, potential national security threats from countries who sponsor terrorism, or those coming from major state adversaries like China and Russia, the wide-open Southwest border has given America’s enemies all over the globe an opportunity to infiltrate the homeland—an opportunity too good to pass up.”

And on Oct. 15 in San Diego, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference:

“In this heightened environment, there’s no question we’re seeing an increase in reported threats, and we’ve got to be on the lookout, especially for lone actors who may take inspiration from recent events to commit violence of their own. So I encourage you to stay vigilant, because as the first line of defense in protecting our communities, you’re often the first to see the signs that someone may be mobilizing to violence. And I’d also ask you to continue sharing any intelligence or observations you may have. And on our end, we’re committed to doing the same, so that together, we can safeguard our communities.”

Of course, it would help if the FBI wasn’t devoting massive resources to the false threat coming from former President Donald Trump’s peaceful MAGA supporters. And, as I reported two months ago in The Epoch Times, the FBI has also been surveilling Catholics.

Columnist James Howard Kunstler put the pieces together on Mr. Mayorkas and Mr. Wray:

“Neither of these officials noted that the rising terror threat here had any relation to the thousands of aliens streaming daily across the US border unvetted, or that the agencies under Homeland Security were helping to distribute them into every corner of America by plane and bus, giving them free cell phones, loaded debit cards, and other rewards for breaking the law.

“And that ‘lone wolf’ bit—is it possible that any number of them actually arrived as trained and pre-organized cadres or squads? How would we know? Most of them are military-age young men. Are these unreasonable questions to ask? And if Hamas was so supernaturally successful in secretly planning the mass murder and kidnapping operation of 10/7 from Gaza that the world’s supposedly top intel agencies were blindsided as it rolled out, why should Americans have any confidence that the FBI has a clue what any of those unvetted border-jumping mutts are up to here? Especially since those free phones enable them to find each other and hook-up right from the get-go, without delay.”

Thousands of demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and signs denouncing "Israeli apartheid" march in Los Angeles on Oct. 14, 2023. (David Swanson/AFP via Getty Images)

Thousands of demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and signs denouncing "Israeli apartheid" march in Los Angeles on Oct. 14, 2023. (David Swanson/AFP via Getty Images)

Terrorists and Sleeper Cells

Also in August, The Epoch Times’s Eva Fu headlined, “FBI on Front Line in Fight Against CCP’s Covert War on US.”

She reported: “Forty Chinese officers, a retired NYPD sergeant, two Navy sailors-turned-spies, and two minders of a secret Chinese police station in New York. These cases, and others, feed an ever-growing list of FBI investigations as the agency zeroes in on combating Chinese espionage operations, an arena it has branded its ‘top counterintelligence priority.’”

What would these covert operators do if they were genuine “sleeper cells”? Let me speculate. The Chinese Communist Party wouldn’t waste them on common terrorism. Instead, it would wait until an attack by Hamas or some other terrorists started massacring people in the streets, in stores, and in their homes. Then the sleeper cell might shut down power stations, leaving millions of people in darkness as they’re being assaulted. The power station’s software might be sabotaged or explosives used. Chaos would ensue.

In such a situation, those with “arms of war” to defend their families would have a greater chance of survival than those disarmed by Mr. Newsom’s gun-control bills or his constitutional amendment.

Guns are as American as apple pie. Get yours, if you wish. Practice at a range. Exercise safety there and at home, especially if you have children, the precious ones you will be defending. Follow the law. Be alert. Get ready. Hamas could be coming.

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John Seiler is a veteran California opinion writer. Mr. Seiler has written editorials for The Orange County Register for almost 30 years. He is a U.S. Army veteran and former press secretary for California state Sen. John Moorlach. He blogs at JohnSeiler.Substack.com and his email is writejohnseiler@gmail.com

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