The Constitution Study podcast Paul Engel: Author, speaker and podcaster

If there is a boogie man in the anti-gun community, it’s got to be the National Rifle Association. Accused of complicity in almost every gun crime from gang violence to mass murder, the NRA has become the lightning rod for the vitriol of those whose fear of firearms has grown to an irrational state. What happens though, when government actors advice others about the dangers of doing business with such a company? Is it merely warning of the dangers of sleeping with dogs, or an attempt to use their power to intimidate others into abandoning those they otherwise would do business with? The case of NRA v Vullo is just such a case?

Listen, my children, and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere, Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Most of us who grew up here in America learned about the battles of Lexington and Concorde from this Longfellow poem. Who does not remember, "One if by land, and two if by sea;" or Paul Revere's cries of "The British are coming! The British are coming!"? Most of the stories we have heard are not true. Whether poetic license or outright propaganda has been lost to history. However, the story behind those battles is not only well worth the telling, but of great importance to anyone today who still claims the title American.

I have a lot of issues with TikTok, and it’s one social media platform I refuse to use. However, when I look at how Congress plans to deal with this problem, I see even more. I’ve also read and listened to several commentators about the bill, and find even more problems with their suggestions. So what do We the People do when our representatives in Congress have a personal vendetta against a foreign company?

The word “choice” has all but been taken over by the pro-abortion crowd, but that is not what I want to discuss here today. Recent history, both public and private, has displayed the fundamental function choice plays in a person’s independence, liberty, and freedom. Yet said history has shown that many of the American people have given up the ability to choose, placing that responsibility on others. By doing so, people have voluntarily abandoned their position as free citizens in order to become enslaved subjects to those who do the choosing for them.

The gun grabbers in Congress are at it again. Attempts to disarm the American people have only been moderately successful over the past few years. So a bill was recently introduced in the House of Representatives entitled “Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act of 2024”. This bill wants to make it a crime for private citizens to work together to defend their rights. If this bill were to become law some day, even training together could not only get you fined, but placed in jail, possibly for life. Have these members of Congress forgotten that our war of independence was started by an attempt by the British governor of Massachusetts' attempt to disarm the people? That the the battles of Lexington and Concord were fought by private citizens who formed a militia? Or could it be that they just don’t care about our rights and the Constitution, and are just looking for another way to subjugate the American people?

As April 15th approaches, and people spend valuable time and money on filing their income tax return. While plenty of people grouse and complain about paying income taxes, most don’t realize that the cause of their pain is the actions of the states back in 1913. When the states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment they did more than just help the feds collect income taxes, they fundamentally changed the republic for the worse.