Even with that caveat, it is a rare thing for me to say. But I agree with the thrust of Ann Coulter’s latest column, and the main argument she has been making in her media appearances about it: Those who fear anti-black racism should favor that blacks arm themselves. Even more important, we should...
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Two years ago, members of the Michigan “Hutaree” militia were jailed and charged with conspiracy to violently overthrow the government. As is the case in most of these incidents, the feds had planted an informant among the group. The arrests made a splash in the news, especially among progressive journalists who, beginning at the...
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Earlier this week, the Colorado Supreme Court held that University of Colorado students and employees with concealed carry permits are allowed to carry their weapons on campus. The University had exempted itself from the statewide law, but the Court held that the Concealed Carry Act is comprehensive with narrow exclusions (none of which apply...
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U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg, sitting in Maryland, has issued a ruling (Wollard v. Sheridan) in an interesting Second Amendment case. The State of Maryland requires applicants for concealed carry permits to demonstrate a “good and substantial reason” to carry the gun. Wollard wanted a permit because his home had been broken into, he...
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In the escalating P.C. wars waged by the secular theocracy‘s Nanny State, an elementary public school this fall ordered a ten-year-old boy to spend the rest of the semester eating lunch alone at the school’s “silence table,” with a dire warning of suspension if he dared to threaten others again. We certainly need to...
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The Supreme Court has just overturned a California ban on violent video game sales to minors in a decision penned by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying the First Amendment was never meant to apply absolutely to distribution of ideas to children. I have a big problem with his reasoning. Certainly,...
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Conditions for California prisoners are so bad that the Supreme Court has ruled that the overcrowding amounts to unconstitutional “needless suffering and death” (it almost goes without saying that the conservative justices dissented). California is supposed to release 38,000 to 46,000 prisoners. Unfortunately, Matthew Cate, head of California Corrections, indicates that the Brown administration...
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The Lighthouse is the weekly email newsletter of the Independent Institute, which I’ve written since at least late 1999. It features summaries of topical commentaries and analysis by our research fellows and announces new Independent Institute books and journals, upcoming events, and academic programs. Its contents should interest all readers of The Beacon. To...
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Few individuals in recent years have had such a profound impact on scholarship, public debate and public policy as has Independent Institute Research Fellow Stephen P. Halbrook. The leading constitutional legal scholar and attorney on the Second Amendment, who has won three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, Dr. Halbrook has authored numerous seminal...
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What a feast for law geeks. Today, the Supreme Court actually decided an incorporation case. Most of us never thought we would see such in our life times. What is incorporation? It is the judicially created doctrine that certain provisions of the the bill of rights are applicable to the states. History teaches that...
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