In a November 3 Washington Post article about increased sale of guns and ammunition since the election of President Barack Obama, Wayne LaPierre, Chief Executive Officer of the National Rifle Association, said something curious. Asked to explain this buying spree, he stated, "I think it's Katrina. I think it's...

New Hampshire resident William Kostric caused a national stir on August 11 when he appeared outside President Obama's town hall meeting in Portsmouth with a loaded semiautomatic handgun strapped to his leg. Kostric held a sign that read, "IT IS TIME TO WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY!" This was a...

On Monday, it was national news when a man (identified only as "Chris") appeared at a health care rally in Phoenix, Arizona, openly and legally carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and a semiautomatic handgun. He was not alone. While President Obama addressed a Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) convention directly...

The nation is transfixed this month on a series of tense, contentious town halls that are taking place in states across the country. Determined to derail President Obama's health care reform plans, right wing activists have stormed these meetings en masse to shout down speakers (including Democratic members of Congress)...

For years, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) has warned Americans about the dangers of insurrectionist ideology: the idea that individuals have the "right," in the words of National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre, "to take whatever measures necessary, including force, to abolish oppressive government." CSGV has...

In 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, "It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty...

Due to the advanced age and lengthy service of many of the Associate Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, it is likely that our next president will make one or more nominations to the bench during his term. Currently, Justice John Paul Stevens is 88 years old and five other...

It was national news on June 26 when the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia's strict gun laws and declared that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. The media continues to dissect the impact of the District of Columbia v. Heller case on the future...

The recent choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket came as a surprise to many and has created an uproar in the national media as reporters and bloggers scramble to learn more about this relatively unknown politician. While Palin's staunch anti-abortion stance...

In the aftermath of the shooting at Northern Illinois University in February of this year, Americans struggled to understand how Steven Kazmierczak could have perpetrated such a terrible tragedy. National media outlets quoted close friends of Kazmierczak who described him as "probably the nicest, most caring person ever." His...

Fighting Insurrection in Mexico, Fostering it at Home

In towns along the United States-Mexico border, a battle is raging between drug cartels and the Mexican government that has left thousands of innocent civilians and Mexican police officials dead. A galvanizing moment occurred on May 8, when assassins shot and killed...

With the Bush administration casting aside the Constitution to eavesdrop on telephone conversations and hold suspected terrorists for years without access to lawyers, it's easy to see why civil libertarians on the left are finding a lot to like about the right-wing critique of expansive government power. This distrust and...

Gun Safety No Laughing Matter

The dust is only beginning to settle in the wake of oral arguments heard before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 18 in the historic case of Heller v. District of Columbia. The day featured several lively exchanges, as both the justices and the attorneys...

This month's horrific shootings in Kirkwood, Missouri provide an all-too tragic and real context for the scholarly debate over the Second Amendment that is now before the Supreme Court in the case of Heller v. District of Columbia (Parker v. District of Columbia in the lower court). One of the...