Second amendment litigation continues, and 26 attorneys general take a peculiar position

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Can a municipality ban assault rifles and high capacity magazines without running afoul of the Second Amendment?  The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia says yes. What about registration requirements for hand guns and rifles and a mandatory safety course?  Are they constitutional?  The U.S. District Court (a trial court) for the District of Columbia says they are, but the issue is on appeal. How about trigger locks and bans on hollow point ammunition? The Court of Appeals ...

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26
JAN
4

Gun Policy

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If it’s on the internet, it must be true. Right?

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[Because of a technical problem, last week’s post was compressed and difficult to read, and so I’m publishing it again.]

Do you remember the State Farm ad, where a young woman talks to a friend about meeting her date, a French model, on the internet? As it turns out, the woman’s date is neither French nor hardly a model, but, hey, that’s what she was told about him on the internet, so it must be true. Right?

The obvious point of the ...

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19
JAN
0

Social Issues

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What makes Cuba so special?

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It’s stunning that the decision to resume diplomatic relations with Cuba has been such a controversial event. President Barack Obama is criticized for opening the door with Cuba because it is governed by a dictator and has a history of human rights abuses, but since when has the U.S. limited its relations to open, democratic governments?  The examples of the U.S. maintaining diplomatic and trade relations with closed, abusive government are many.

The U.S.S.R. was a repressive government from its inception ...

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29
DEC
4

Political Issues

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With forgiveness comes freedom

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What do Louis Zemperini, Tom Moe and Immaculée Ilibagiza have in common? First, let me identify these people.

Louis Zemperini was a 1936 Olympian, who joined the Army Air Forces in WWII and served as a B-24 bombardier in the western Pacific. In what would turn out to be his last mission, his plane developed mechanical problems over water, forcing the crew to ditch. Zemperini was one of only three survivors and spent 47 days in a life raft before he ...

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22
DEC
0

Social Issues

Let’s stand back and examine what we’ve done

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How can any of us determine if “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs)—the euphemism given to waterboarding, rectal hydration, sleep deprivation and other practices, applied to detainees—produced meaningful information?  The rebuttals exchanged by politicians consist of generalizations that fall along political lines and tell us nothing.

Investigating the issue is a daunting task, and the most meaningful information is not available. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report, which has been published by The Washington Post, consists of a 528 page executive summary, a ...

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15
DEC
15

Political Issues

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Secrecy in death penalty is only option legislators see

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I wrote about H.B. 663 just two months ago, but this bill deserves additional attention, because it was passed by the Ohio House and is now before the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. Referred to by its opponents as the “Execution Secrecy Bill,” H.B. 663 was introduced because the state is having difficulty acquiring the lethal drugs needed to execute Death Row inmates by injection. The bill would provide immunity from ethics proceedings to physicians who participate in executions and would ...

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8
DEC
5

Death Penalty

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Why black parents have “the talk” with their kids

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I don’t know if Michael Brown presented a life-threatening situation to police officer Darren Wilson, and I don’t know if Wilson’s shooting of Brown was racially motivated. I don’t know if the grand jury in St. Louis got it right by not indicting Wilson, and I don’t know if St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch purposefully failed to get an indictment.

Here’s what I do know with reasonable certainty: Michael Brown’s death gives us cause to think about the fact that ...

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1
DEC
8

Social Issues

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Who controls the U.S. Surgeon General’s office?

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Let’s have a quiz.  Who is the U.S. Surgeon General?  (a) Vivek Murthy, (b) Boris D. Lushniak, (c) Everett Koop, or (d) none of these people.

The answer is (d), though you should feel good if you selected Boris D. Lushniak, who is the “acting” Surgeon General. Vivek Murthy should be the Surgeon General, but the Senate won’t confirm his appointment. .

Who’s Murthy? The Boston Globe has high praise for him.  He graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude in 1997 with a degree ...

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24
NOV
7

Gun Policy

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Do last names matter in judicial elections? You bet they do.

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Last week’s elections give me cause to revisit the matter of whether judges should be elected or appointed by a body that vets them for their qualifications. First, let’s review the comments from the judicial candidates who ran for appellate and trial court positions in Franklin County, Ohio. They were all asked, “Do you support merit selection of state supreme court and state appellate judges and explain why.” With one exception, all were in favor of elections.

I wonder if ...

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10
NOV
10

Judges

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