Columnist.
When it comes to gun control, Hillary Clinton said last Friday, "Australia is a good example" for the United States to follow. That comment suggested the leading Democratic presidential candidate's plans in this area are much more ambitious than she usually lets on — so ambitious that implementing them would require ignoring or repealing the Second Amendment.
Donald Trump, who in the 1990s tried to force an elderly widow out of her Atlantic City home as part of a plan to expand his casino, now says he is glad she resisted, because it helped him avoid a bad investment. By successfully fighting condemnation of her home, Trump told Breitbart News last week, Vera Coking "saved me a fortune."
After a gunman murdered nine people at a community college in Oregon last week, President Obama said the solution to such violence is obvious. "It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun," he declared. The problem is that we generally do not know a gun buyer "wants to inflict harm on other people" until he does it. That reality shows the folly of relying on background checks or psychiatric intervention to prevent mass shootings.
How the Democratic Presidential Candidate Kept an Email Controversy Alive
The Kentucky Senator Offers a Desperately Needed Alternative to the GOP's Mindless Militarism
California Could Become the Fifth State to Misidentify Suicide as a Medical Treatment
The Defiant Clerk's Defenders Dangerously Blur the Distinction Between Private Action and State Action
The City Treats Handing Out Pamphlets Near a Courthouse as a Crime
Looking at Pictures Should Not Be Treated Like a Violent Crime
Compelling Participation in Gay Wedding Celebrations Turns the Oppressed Into the Oppressors
His Clash with Rand Paul Reflects the Clash Between the GOP's Authoritarian and Libertarian Tendencies
Which Candidate Has a More Embarrassing Record of Gaffes and Misstatements?
New Charges Against the Charleston Shooter Highlight the Unconstitutional Absurdity of the Federal Hate Crime Statute
Last week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court shut down a secret criminal investigation that featured early-morning raids on the homes of innocent people and indiscriminate seizures of email, documents and personal property. You may be surprised to hear that the Brennan Center for Justice, which usually defends Fourth Amendment rights, denounced the court's decision.
Is Government-Resistant Encryption an Intolerable Threat to Public Safety?
New Jersey's Governor Dismisses Concerns About Warrantless Snooping
The Chief Justice Saves Obamacare by Rewriting the Law
The Urge to 'Do Something' After the Charleston Church Attack Inspires Half-Baked Proposals
'You Can't Have a Bunch of People Walking Around With Guns'
This week, the Supreme Court passed up an opportunity to get the government out of the bedroom. Counterintuitively, the case involved an ordinance adopted by the famously tolerant and progressive city of San Francisco eight years ago. The puzzle is solved when you learn that the ordinance deals with guns, tools for exercising a constitutional right that is decidedly unfashionable in the City by the Bay. By declining to hear the case, the Supreme Court — which in 2010 affirmed that the Second Amendment binds states and cities, as well as the federal government — undermined that principle, suggesting that the right of armed self-defense is constrained by local sensibilities.
