On Mass Shootings, Baton Rouge, and the Sorry State of the World
After the tragic slaying of three police officers in Baton Rouge (following the tragic slaying of a black man by police officers) I was asked by The Atlantic to offer a view from the ground, and I did. I'm happy with the way the piece turned out, though the 1,000 words lost in the edit made less clear the thesis of the piece, which is: The civil strife in the city, which made national news, was actually very localized in Baton Rouge, and easily avoided. The assassination of police officers has made it a city-wide tragedy—a fresh wound felt by all and impossible for anyone to ignore. I received some pushback on Twitter from people suggesting that I was somehow justifying cop-killing, which is the exact opposite of what I wrote in the essay. (Those people likely did not read the piece, but rather, the headline, which I did not write.) The city is reeling, and is unlikely to recover for a very long time. The piece can be found here.
Over at The Week, I wrote about firearms and the terrorist attack in Orlando, and suggested that Alexander Hamilton was pretty clear in the Federalist Papers about what a "well regulated militia" means. My suggestion: rather than wait for gun confiscation, which will never happen, or the next mass shooting, which definitely will happen, why not follow the Second Amendment to the letter? If the right to keep and bear arms is to maintain a well regulated militia, why not mandate militia membership in order to own a firearm, and let local militias police themselves? Small groups are very good at identifying problem individuals in their ranks, and militias would have a vested interest in doing so. Moreover, in keeping with the Framers' intentions, militias would have to meet once or twice a year; it would keep gun ownership a state issue; and it would confer civil obligations on gun owners. You want a rifle? That's fine. But you need to be proficient with it, understand firearm safety, and be ready to be called upon to use your weapon in defense of the United States. That piece can be found here.