Kansas recently adopted a so-called "Second Amendment Protection Act." The law provides that Kansans can ignore any federal law that attempts to regulate guns in Kansas if the guns in question were made in Kansas and stay there. It would apply, for example, to a federal ban on assault weapons. Yet more incredibly, Kansas makes it a crime for any federal official to try to enforce federal law against such gun holders. US Attorney General Eric Holder quickly reminded Kansas that under the United States Constitution, the states do not have authority to override federal law.

Still, Kansas may be on to something. As the brewing collision of federal and state marijuana laws makes clear, there has to be some room for the states to have a say in what goods their citizens can possess and use. Eighteen states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, and Washington and Colorado just did so even for recreational use. The problem is, what Colorado allows, federal law prohibits. Can the states opt-out from the federal laws? The Justice Department's position on these state laws has been murky and inconsistent.

The problem Kansas faces is that its approach is based on an outmoded understanding of Congress's powers under the Constitution. You might wonder why it is that Kansas sought to defy federal law only with regard to guns made in Kansas and possessed in Kansas. The reason has to do with the part of the Constitution that arguably grants Congress the power to regulate guns in the first place.

The only way Congress can get its hands on Kansas's guns, or California's pot, is by using its power under the Commerce Clause, which allows it "to regulate... Commerce among the several States." Kansas's argument is that it is not commerce "among" the several states if the guns Kansans use were made there and stay there. That's intrastate commerce, not interstate commerce, and Congress can only regulate the latter.

While Kansas's argument may seem right as a matter of constitutional text, the Supreme Court rejected that interpretation of the Commerce Clause over seventy years ago -- during the great Depression. What the Supreme Court rightly recognized beginning in 1937 is that just because something happens in Kansas alone doesn't mean it doesn't affect the rest of us. During the Depression, state's rights conservatives argued that Congress could not set minimum wages, or maximum hours for coal miners, or make union activity legal in those mines, because what happened in any given coal mine was about local, intrastate production, not the buying and selling across state lines. The justices initially bought the argument, but then they reversed course and rejected it. They came to recognize - as did the rest of the country- that even purely intrastate activity can have an impact on the interstate economy. Labor strife in one state could threaten commerce throughout the country; if no coal came out of West Virginia, industries in other states would suffer.

The Supreme Court has already rejected Kansas's reasoning when it comes to marijuana. Several years ago, in a case called Gonzales v. Raich, some California citizens challenged the federal ban on using marijuana for medicinal reasons, arguing that if the pot was grown and consumed in California, it was none of the feds' business. It was not, they argued, "commerce . . . among the several States." The justices quickly snuffed out that argument, making the point that even if the weed is legal in California, inevitably it will bleed out into the interstate market.

What legislators in Kansas should do - and what the Californians should have done - is read the Commerce Clause more carefully. Instead of focusing on "among the several States" they should focus on the word "regulate." Congress only has the power to regulate commerce, not prohibit it altogether. Although the Supreme Court has casually assumed the former necessarily includes the latter, that's wrong if one thinks for just a moment about why the framers of the Constitution put the Commerce Clause in the Constitution in the first place. The Commerce Clause was intended to open borders, not close them. It was concerned that the states might engage in trade wars, impose tariffs on goods from other states, or flat out ban them. The framers realized that the commercial health of the nation required a free flow of commerce.

There is plenty of evidence that it would have shocked the framers to learn that Congress - rather than the states - would have the power to decide what goods the people could possess, consume or use. As late as 1886 - a full century after the Constitution was adopted - the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee deemed a proposed ban on oleomargarine (don't ask) "plainly unconstitutional," stating that "it could hardly have been within the minds of the framers of the Constitution to give Congress" the power to make what essentially was a decision for the state and its citizens.

Suppose Congress re-eanacted a federal ban on assault weapons. The question would be whether such a ban is a regulation of interstate commerce, or a prohibition of it. Some prohibitions can be regulations. For example, because a ban on the interstate transportation of diseased cattle does not shut down the livestock market, but instead protects it by assuring consumers the beef they buy will not make them ill and protecting cattle in the market from disease, it is a regulation not a prohibition of commerce. The tough question on guns is whether a federal ban on assault weapons works similarly, to protect the interstate gun market, or instead reflects Congress's attempt to shut down a disfavored market. One way to think about this is to ask: if a certain type of gun is banned, can consumers find a reasonable substitute? If yes, Congress may simply be regulating the market, rather than shutting it down.

The case is somewhat easier for concluding that Congress has no business prohibiting the sale of marijuana if the states want to allow it, especially for medical marijuana. Those who argue that marijuana should be legal, for medicinal uses, argue there is no effective substitute. We don't know this for sure, because the federal government has suppressed some of the scientific research that would tell us. However, it certainly seems marijuana is being banned not to protect us from unsafe pot, but because Congress does not like marijuana, period. If this is the case, there is a strong reason to be made that federal marijuana laws are unconstitutional.

Thus, rather than attempting to resurrect a nineteenth century notion that Congress cannot regulate goods wholly within a state - as the California plaintiffs did in the marijuana case, and Kansas's Second Amendment Protection Act would do - what we should be asking is whether Congress has the power to drive products out of the market altogether. Or whether that is a choice each state can make for itself. To the extent Congress is regulating to ensure a safe and wide-open interstate market, that's fine. To the extent Congress is making value judgments about what is or is not good for us, that's not its job - at least not so long as the states disagree.

Barry Friedman is the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Professor at New York University School of Law. In June he has an article coming out in the Supreme Court Review advancing this argument at length.

So where are we? We have we gone? Since the tragic massacre in Newtown, CT, several states have move forward with passing legislation that places tougher regulations on the gun industry. New York and Connecticut are principal examples of states that have taken the tragic incident in Newtown serious and have taken action.

Despite these efforts, the federal government has been incapable of moving forward policies that will potentially lessen the impact of guns on our society. Moreover, just like other policies, the policy window might be closing up. The opportunity and time period to move legislation forward is often right after a tragic incident such as a Newtown or Aurora. While I am very sympathetic towards recent natural disasters and issues that have developed in the international sphere, I would advance that gun control is still an issue and a challenging topic that we must taken on. Despite, this desire to take this legislation on, we might be at a point where the time has disappeared to move any reasonable legislation forward. Regardless the closing of the policy window, the power and influence of the NRA on Republican and conservative elected officials make it unlikely that anything will get through. Shame on America and shame on those who we elected to represent us in government. Admittedly, I am not against guns but against guns that kill people.

Eric Idle, original member of Monty Python and author of the Broadway hit musical Spamalot, describes himself in his Twitter bio as a "Writer, reader, husband, father, dog owner, sillographer, guitarist, football fan." Now, thanks to his hilarious performance at Whitman College last weekend, the British comedian can add coveted commencement speaker and honorary doctor of fine arts to that list.

"My wife is absolutely thrilled she's finally married to a doctor," Idle quipped during his speech on Sunday. "And of course I'm thrilled that I can now prescribe my own medical marijuana."

The site of Idle's first-ever commencement address was a small liberal arts college in Southeast Washington where his daughter was among this year's graduating class.

Following a 15-minute speech packed with pithy one-liners and an ongoing stunt in which the comedian placed one hand atop his head to indicate irony, Idle performed a surprise rendition of his classic hit, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

The following is a list of the 17 most sidesplitting lines culled from Idle's speech at Whitman, which was fittingly titled "There's No Time Like the Pleasant."

1. Graduation day is one of those days that you'll remember until the day you forget.
2. Today's address is rated NBL, NV, and NN: No bad language, no violence, and definitely no nudity.
3. I can't imagine why you asked me here. I presume the Kardashians were busy?
4. I have been specially asked not to be rude or inappropriate -- which is a bit like inviting a boxer to fight and not asking him to hit anyone.
5. I hope I can say something that you can take away with you as you commence your life -- or, as the rest of us know, go downhill from here.
6. If you're still playing beer pong five years from now, you may be on the wrong track.
7. After college, it's a bit like being cast out of paradise. From now on, it's all debts and taxes and death and jobs, marriages and divorces and money problems. It's a mess.
8. I don't want to be controversial today because I know you Americans are very sensitive, plus you have a lot of guns.
9. We Brits have no emotions. Instead, we have royalty, and they have emotions for us. We stand out in the rain for hours and wave little flags and cheer as they celebrate themselves. 'Hurray! Should we go inside now? No, no, let's stay outside, it's still raining.' So the Queen's reign is actually literal in England.
10. Nowadays, nobody gets irony, because we are now living in the post-ironic age. Once George Bush gets a library, all irony is dead.
11. A quick word on the Second Amendment... I can promise you, we Brits are not coming back. So you don't need that many muskets.
12. The English say 'sorry' all the time, but they don't mean it -- a famous example of an English apology is when Her Majesty the Queen was hosting the Nigerian president in London and they were in a horse and carriage in a parade on their way to a public banquet. And one of the horses loudly farted. 'I'm terribly sorry!' said the queen. 'That's alright,' said the president. 'I thought it was the horse.'
13. You probably remember the first time you got drunk. Who knew the room would go round and round and round? They don't say that on the bottle, do they? 'Warning: The room will go round and round and round.' So be careful of that. When the room is spinning, you've pretty much had enough. It's the same with marriage.
14. Learn to trust yourself. That's very vital... Just stand with yourself. Remember, in his lifetime, Van Gogh sold only two paintings. I personally sold even fewer.
15. There's nobody who wouldn't gladly exchange with you today being young and here and alive. I would give all of my money to be you, but I'm not going to because my wife has it. I'm allowed one wife joke, that's it, and I agreed because I'm a married liberal. I believe in a woman's right to choose for me.
16. Someone once said America is 300 million people all walking in the same direction singing "I Did It My Way." Actually, it was me. I said that.
17. Life has a very simple plot. First you're here, and then you're not.

Watch the full video of Idle's remarks and share your thoughts in the comments.

In the last few months we have seen a shocking increase in violence against LGBTQ New Yorkers -- many of them right here on the Lower West Side. Our community rightfully prides ourselves on being one of the most tolerant in the world, and these attacks have shaken us. The recent murder of Marc Carson exposes just how vulnerable we remain even in 2013 and even in the West Village in Manhattan.

It is heartening to see that our community is united to end the rash of anti-gay hate crimes and the bigotry that fuels it. The energy and enthusiasm of our brothers and sisters at rallies held by groups such as Queer Rising and the Anti-Violence Project spoke loudly that our community will not stand for these attacks. Yet, unfortunately it had to be followed by yet another vigil following the death of Mr. Carson.

Our community has made incredible progress in my 45 years. I was born a year before Stonewall, and today I watch with pride as state after state recognizes our families as equal before the law. But despite all the advancements we have made, all the awareness and work we have done, a man is shot down and killed for being gay. It is a humbling moment that forces us to reflect on what we need to do to stop the violence.

We still have a long way to go to create a world where the LGBTQ community does not live in fear. This fear extends to fair treatment in the work place (it is still legal in New York State to discriminate against our transgendered neighbors, for example), to safety when we walk down our streets, fair representation in the halls of power, access to public resources, and an idea that we should simply not exist.

Enough is enough. We cannot stand for this violence anymore. We cannot stand for this hatred. Our elected officials must not only stand with us when we rally for change, they must change the laws to protect us and support legislation such as ENDA and GENDA. Enough is enough. For Marc Carlson and Sylvia Lugo and Matthew Shephard and for countless others.

As Washington turns to scandal rather than policy, gun control seems to be slipping from the public conversation, and the already slim chance of legislation passing is fading to black.

This is no surprise. Even President Obama famously only called for a gun control vote, rather than for any legislation actually getting enacted.

I would argue that the roots of American gun violence go far deeper than guns. This doesn't mean I'm pro-gun rights or a NRA supporter. In fact, I think the NRA and related groups embody the nasty divides in our society that ultimately make the U.S. such a violent place.

From a recent essay I wrote on gun violence in the The Morning News:

Perhaps, like a true original sin, groups in power in the U.S. have systematically destroyed social capital in vulnerable communities and between groups of all kinds in order to gain wealth and power and deny it to others. And perhaps they have done this in more ruthless fashion than in other comparable cultures. This could explain why the murder rate in New York has been more than five times higher than London's for 200 years, though the American propensity for violence reaches even farther back than that, going all the way back to frantic religious refugees with visions of the Apocalypse both at their back and before their eyes.

In a roundtable discussion at the Harvard School of Public Health in January, David King, of the Harvard Kennedy School, made a prescient point related to the near impossibility of passing significant gun control legislation.

Politics is often the art of taking a condition and redefining it as a problem.

So why do guns remain a condition, not a problem, for a huge percentage of Americans? Why does debate on this topic get so toxic that it stalls, letting the darkest, shrillest voices take over?
It's a failure of communication. Americans on either side of this issue simply speak different languages -- of gun rights versus public health, as one example -- and as much as you may agree or disagree with the other side, we're not going to get anywhere until we find a common vocabulary on guns... and everything else.

Many doctors and gun control supporters have tried to position gun violence as a public health crisis since the massacre in Newtown last year. Part of this is due to a controversial ban on CDC research into guns, which President Obama just lifted. But it goes deeper. The language of public health equates guns with car crashes and second hand smoke, and it seems like a less threatening way to approach the issue, with advocates acknowledging the challenges and trying to make their solution acceptable to as wide a base as possible.

Like this from an essay in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

Gun violence arises from sociocultural, educational, behavioral, and product safety issues that transcend gun ownership alone. Addressing this crisis will require a comprehensive, multidimensional strategy. Toward that end, much can be learned from prior public health successes in changing the prevalence, social norms, and cultures of harmful behaviors. These major achievements -- in the realms of tobacco, unintentional poisoning, and motor vehicle safety -- provide a set of evidence-based, successful tactics for immediate application to gun violence.

On first read, it sounds great. Yet I would argue that, with guns, this still not does get at the deeper causes of the disease -- like inequality or a lack of social capital -- and treats only the symptoms -- gun safety, background checks, social attitudes towards gun ownership.

A campaign against gun violence along the lines of campaigns against drunk driving would, of course, be helpful. It might knock down shootings by a couple of percentage points, which, in a country the size of the U.S., would save thousands of lives. But treating symptoms -- even deep-seated and complex ones -- only takes us so far, and it also carries larger systemic risks. This has created an expensive and often ineffective health care system that focuses not on larger health issues but on the immediate disease at hand. It leads to overprescribed antibiotics, a massive increase in depression despite new treatments and a diabetes pandemic.

And guns are not cars or tobacco. They are more intimately tied to a darkness or chaos in our national character. By calling gun violence a public health crisis, even with the best intentions, it makes gun violence something to be solved with decisive action. This approach can be useful for simple targets -- I would heartily support a war on lead paint, for instance -- but using this kind of language on guns could harden the gun guys the way a bacteria resists antibiotics. They will be immune to the medicine and less and less likely to listen to larger messages.

It doesn't help that the research and statistics on guns and their impact on violence is contradictory at best. And increasingly, guns are a partisan issue, making it ever more infected. Just since President Obama took office, the percentage of Republicans who supported gun rights leaped from half in 2007 to 72 percent as of last July. Democratic support for gun rights also rose but the change was "very modest," said Carroll Dougherty, associate director of research at Pew Research Center to CBC News in Canada. The numbers have gone up and down in recent months but the larger trend remains clear.

So what would a common language on guns look like? It almost certainly doesn't exist today. I would argue that we need to bridge our political and social gaps on local and state levels first, that our society needs to evolve, before we can get to topics this polarizing.

But if I had to come up with something now, I might point to what Ross Douthat in the New York Times calls "our general sympathy for rights-based arguments, heightened by the post-1960s trend toward what Robert Bellah has termed "expressive individualism" -- that has advanced many left-wing causes as well, gay marriage chief among them."

Maybe this is the way out -- to talk about how gun rights and gay marriage partially spring from the same individualistic American spring. This seems ridiculous in the current climate, but it's at least a little true, and it might take feeling ridiculous for both sides to find common words and start to address the open wounds in our society.

From my essay "Bad Land" in The Morning News:

In the U.S., we need to make a conscious decision to be one country, and we must hope that the better angels of all our faiths and creeds will win the day. We must fulfill the promise of de Tocqueville and find liberty not in isolated selves or clans but in the exercising of our local democratic rights, in the dignity of the individual within the caring community. Only by bridging our divides will we preserve freedom and possibly atone for our national sins.

It's just as we suspected and feared. After the first 3D-printed gun was created and released by a company called Defense Distributed, copycat firearm printers are popping up. A man who goes by "Joe" has created a newer, sturdier and cheaper 3D-printed gun that he calls the "Lulz Liberator," and now there's a video of the gun firing.

The Lulz Liberator is scary for a few reasons. First of all, it is ridiculously cheap. It cost $25 to print on Joe's $1,725 3D printer, Forbes reports. It's also robust. This gun seems sturdier than the original 3D gun. "One plastic barrel survived eight shots," according to the YouTube video's description. The technology has already come pretty far in just a few weeks. Imagine what a few years will bring?

Read the whole story at Forbes.

In May, Defense Distributed, the company that created and disseminated the first 3D gun blueprint, was forced to take the blueprints off of its site by the U.S. State Department. The gun blueprint then quickly found its way to Pirate Bay, where it has remained ever since.

"I'm not an anarchist," Joe tells Forbes, "but I don’t like the idea that the government is telling us ‘You can’t have that.’” Thankfully for us all, Joe has yet to release the blueprints to the public.

[h/t Gizmodo]

On 9/11, Islam jihadists turned four U.S. airlines into weapons of mass destruction and killed almost 3,000 people. Within a month the George W. Bush administration had convinced themselves, and much of America, that Iraq, while not the source of the 9/11 attacks, nevertheless was holding "weapons of mass destruction" intended for America, and he launched the United States' first unprovoked war against a foreign nation in our history. Within weeks his administration established the Patriot Act, giving his government wide-ranging powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps (parts of which were recently extended under the Obama Administration).

Since then, trillions upon trillions of dollars have been spent on "counter-terrorism" efforts. An alphabet soup of governmental agencies have come (TSA, DNI, DHS, NCTC, CVE, NSI, ICE, NCC) and gone (TTIC, INS). NSA, the government's eavesdropping agency, is building a $2 billion facility in Utah capable of capturing trillions of emails, web searches and business transactions. A second, similar unit is to be built in San Antonio. Our defense budget has doubled in the last decade. And our government now deploys more tools than ever to monitor its citizens -- to prevent another attack.

U.S. air travelers are subjected to heightened security scrutiny -- required to remove belts, hats, jackets; discard water bottles; gather remaining 3-ounces-or-less containers of liquid into separate bags for screening; random full-body scans; required to place computers, cell phones, Kindles and iPads in separate trays, et al. A failed shoe bomber prompted an additional requirement to remove our shoes, pre-screening. It's a wonder the failed underwear bomber didn't provoke further scrutiny, because some of this has reached ridiculous stages: In Florida a couple of years ago, a gravely ill, 95-year-old woman was forced to remove her wet diaper before she could pass security.

Airplanes have been fitted with hardened, more secure cockpit doors. Thousands of air marshals are now assigned to random flights to guard against terrorists who might somehow manage to get through all of this intensified screening. The no-fly list has expanded exponentially; public buildings now have sign-in requirements and require deliveries to be left at the lobby desk; our borders have been made more secure; federal funds were set aside to enable the number of border patrol personnel to be tripled.

As a result of all of these pro-active measures, or in spite of it all, only four people have been killed by terrorists on U.S. soil since 9/11 -- the recent Boston Marathon victims. That same day, 11 Americans were murdered by guns. And by the time the manhunt for the Boston Marathon terrorists ended, 38 more Americans had died by gunfire. Not to minimize these unfortunate deaths, but according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, more Americans will be crushed to death by falling televisions and furniture this year than die at the hand of terrorists

In the same span of time since 9/11, over 300,000 people have died in America as a result of gunfire: 300,000 versus four.

And yet not one single action has been taken in that same time to address gun violence in America.

What's wrong with this picture? Everything.

Despite the fact that fully one-half of all U.S. deaths by guns are suicide, our Congress recently failed to pass a modest background check law -- a procedure that could conceivably help identify potential victims. A recent New Hampshire study showed that nearly 10 percent of gun-related suicides in that state were committed with a gun purchased within a week of the suicide -- and yet our Congress refuses to consider a minimum waiting period to purchase a gun.

Despite the near-rabid claims of second amendment rights to own a gun -- for the purposes of self defense -- "a gun in the home a gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used to kill or injure in a domestic homicide, suicide, or unintentional shooting than to be used in self-defense. Most unintentional shooting deaths occur in the home (65 percent), based on data from 16 states. The most common context of the death (30 percent) was playing with the gun. According to USA Today, "in 2011, 14,675 people were wounded in an unintentional shooting but survived."

Enforce current laws? About 58 percent of federally licensed firearms dealers have not been inspected by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the past five years, according to a report from the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General.

The number of U.S. gun dealers has increased by 16 percent since 2004 -- and now number a staggering 130,000 as of Aug. 1. No wonder. Gun sales are skyrocketing. ABC News notes: "According to ATF reports, in 2010 there were 5,459,240 new firearms manufactured in the United States, nearly all (95 percent) for the U.S. market. An additional 3,252,404 firearms were imported to the United States. That's nearly 8.5 million new firearms on the street in one year."

This is particularly true of the AR-15 -- the most popular gun in the United States, with an estimated four million of them in the hands of U.S. gun owners. A genuine weapon of mass destruction designed for one purpose: to inflict mass casualties. And yet Congress allowed the assault weapons ban to expire and shows no interest in reinstating it.

Not one single action to address the gun violence in America, Not one.

Here's a thought: Let's label gun deaths in America for what they really are -- domestic terrorism. And then let's address reasonable, constitutional, democratic measures to exercise some minimum restrictions on their sale.

300,000 versus four. No contest.

The Senate voted on gun control and 'we' lost!

When the Senate reconvened after another 'vacation' one of the most important pieces of business was gun control -- especially the Manchin-Toomey expansion of background checks which had received so much press.

As the senators cast their votes it became obvious that the bill was not going to pass. Forty-six senators voted against it despite polls showing that as many as 90 percent of us wanted to at least expand background checks.

Dispassionate legislators,' who couldn't see the value in saving citizens' lives, and more specifically the lives of our children, voted against it, despite 4,000 gun-related deaths since the violence in Newtown.

These failed lawmakers, bound by an implied obligation to the National Rifle Association instead of their oath to the citizens of their states, are now in our sights. They should remain there until we've driven them out of office; until we find politicians who will listen to the will of 'the people' instead of subversive organizations like the NRA!

Many of the senators who voted no have already fallen from grace, unable to clearly explain their 'no' vote; their opposition to better gun control -- to a safer society. To fewer violent deaths. To greater freedom from senseless loss for all, young and old.

Some, like Senator Kelly Ayotte, (R-NH) had difficulty justifying her contrarian vote to the daughter of slain principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School, Dawn Hochsprung, at one of her three town hall meetings. She was approached at the other two meetings by constituents equally upset by her cowardly vote.

Ayotte's only defense was to regurgitate Republican and NRA talking points which make little sense to the general public and expose the sordid reasoning behind #NRAlogic.

The new senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake, was caught in a lie of his own hand and is now having trouble rationalizing his overt dishonesty to a constituent, Caren Teves, the mother of the young man killed while protecting his girlfriend in the Aurora theater, after implying he would vote for expanded background checks. The self-described pond scum is now the most unpopular senator in the country -- in his first 100 days! He's even less popular than Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who's held that distinction for some time.

Evidently NRA campaign money and an 'A' rating were of more import to the neophyte Senator than his integrity.

Though these two showed the greatest slide in popularity, they're not the only Senators who felt the backlash after their contemptuous vote. Senators' Murkowski (R-AK), Begich (D-AK), Portman (R-OH), and Heller (R-NV) approval ratings' fell -- some dramatically -- after their obvious misrepresentation of their citizens' wishes.

We need to look closer at Ayotte and Flake and the other senators who voted no to uncover their motivation and find out who they actually represent.

The Granite State, whose citizens amassed in protest in front of the Capitol on April 1st, 2011, opposing legislation passed in their State House, will not stand for any bullshit or rhetoric from a dispassionate representative like Senator Ayotte.

Arizona, not nearly as patriotic as New Hampshire, will likely forgive Flake his ignorance, and hypocrisy. The Grand Canyon State is a great void when it comes to gun laws -- especially curtailing gun trafficking.

Senator Flake represents the state with the worst gun laws in the country -- which was revealed in the investigative report by Fortune's Katherine Eban. It was Arizona's weak gun laws that were responsible for the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Flake also voted against Senator Leahy's gun trafficking amendment last month.

Arizona's motto, 'God Enriches' should be changed to 'What God Enriches, Man Destroys.'

But there were other men and women -- including four weak Democrats -- who failed 'the people' -- who failed the families of Newtown! A horrific failure.

Every senator who voted no on expanded background checks should always be in our sights and reminded every time a new tragedy of gun violence occurs in this country. They should remain in our sights if they also voted no on the assault weapons ban, the high capacity magazines ban or the gun trafficking law. And there are many who did just that: Alexander (R-TN); Cornyn (R-TX); Enzi (R-WY); War Monger Graham (R-SC); Inhofe (R-OK); Minority Leader Mcconnell (R-KY); Risch (R-ID); Sessions (R-AL) who are up for reelection in 2014. And there are many other Republicans who voted down all four Amendments.

Until we've eliminated this love affair with lethal weapons; until we've put common-sense gun laws in place; until we've destroyed the campaign money the NRA dangles in front of legislators' and their rating system and threats, we must keep these dispassionate Pols in our sights and take them down election by election.

Until we become smart enough to recognize what other civilized countries have found -- that stricter gun control saves lives -- we're destined to repeat the tragedies of Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, and Virginia Tech again and again and again.

Tell your legislator that this battle is not over, (202) 224-3121.

Hold these monsters in Congress responsible with your vote!

As the gun debate rages on, one development has sparked great interest: The rise of guns created by 3D printers. With this invention, anyone with the proper hardware and software can create a working firearm in their own home without going through traditional channels required to procure a weapon. And on last night's "Colbert Report," Stephen properly unpacked the phenomenon by mocking the 25-year-old Texas college student who has become a leader in the cause.

"What do we want? Guns! Why do we want them? I dunno," Colbert summed up the message of Cody Wilson, the founder and spokesperson for Defense Distributed, a leading organization advocating the dispensing of the software and tools necessary to create the guns.

Colbert pointed out that defense distributors are calling the 3D printed guns "wiki-weapons," referring to their accessibility by the public. And also, "like Wikipedia, they will also be used to settle bar bets," Colbert joked.

But last week, the State Department ordered the 3D printed guns instructions to be removed from the Internet. "The feds have pulled our world wide weapons. And we know that as soon as something is deleted from the Internet, it's as gone as Anthony Weiner's crotch."

Check out the clip above to see Colbert take down the 3D printed gun phenomenon.

One Democrat is pushing a gun control measure with some unusual inspiration -- James Bond.

Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) teamed up with founders of Moms Demand Action and Stop Handgun Violence to propose a "smart gun" bill that would require all newly manufactured handguns to be personalized within two years, so they can only be operated by authorized users. The measure would also provide for grants to continue to develop and improve handgun personalization technology, according to a statement from Tierney's office.

"In the most recent James Bond film, Bond escapes death when his handgun, which is equipped with technology that recognizes him as its owner, becomes inoperable when it gets into the wrong hands," Tierney's office said. "This technology, however, isn't just for the movies -- it's a reality."

"This technology needs to be put into action," Tierney said in the statement.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), a co-sponsor of the bill, said the measure could help the problem of irresponsible gun ownership, which she called a "national shame."

“Many of the senseless deaths that occur daily can be prevented. Half of all gun-owning households in the United States do not lock up their firearms, including 40 percent of households with children under the age of 18," Maloney said. "This is a national shame that calls not just for greater parental responsibility, but for more effective handgun safety measures, and that’s why I support this bill.

Maloney called the "smart gun" technology a "game changer."

"Technology now exists to ensure a gun is used only by the actual authorized user of a weapon -- and that will be a game-changer in the cause of keeping guns out of the hands of children and criminals," Maloney said in the statement.

Vice President Joe Biden proposed similar "smart gun" technology in January 2013, claiming evidence shows personalized handguns may have prevented the events of the Newtown school shooting where 20 children and six teachers were killed.

Click here to read the full press release on Tierney's "smart gun" proposal.

As I drifted into unconsciousness this past Wednesday night, I was presented with a question: "So, are you still an island?" This disembodied voice, a quiet but powerful echo, jolted me to full consciousness. At first, I groggily attributed this remark to the changes in today's communication as a result of technology -- that strange dichotomy of constantly talking to people electronically, yet being conditioned to physically stay apart. I settled on this explanation and went back to sleep.

The next morning I thought it over: "So, are you still an island?" What did it really refer to? Did it even make sense? Given that I immerse myself in our government for a living, and that oftentimes the events covered in the news leave me feeling isolated and hopeless, I have to believe it relates to the major issues our country is facing right now. More personally, this little voice seemed to recognize how hard it is for me to find my place as a proud American amidst the avalanche of conflicts in our country. How does one conduct herself each day among such partisanship, isolation, domestic and international disasters, and what seems like the daily fracturing not only of our nation, but also of our relationship with other nations? You'll be surprised to find where I ultimately got my answer. It's been a harrowing week trying to figure all of this out -- here's what I've established.

Guns. I've received criticism for my anti-gun views and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. We currently live in a country where children accidentally shoot and kill each other. Neighbor against neighbor, sibling against sibling. Not literally against, of course, but these accidents should not happen once, let alone several times in few months. The Children's Defense Fund reports that in 2010, 15,576 children and teenagers were injured by firearms -- three times more than the number of U.S. soldiers injured in the war in Afghanistan. Those of us who own guns should lock them, double lock them, triple lock them. What we should absolutely not be doing as individual states is declining to enforce federal laws. States should have some discretion as to how they apply their resources, but it can just as easily be argued that the federal government exists to override decisions that present danger for populations.

Don't get me started on 3D gun printing, which is the most dangerously unregulated and isolationist activity American citizens could partake in. If you must have a gun, go out and by one (hopefully with federally mandated background checks in the future), lock up your guns at home, and abide by federal laws as a citizen of this country over citizens of a state (that goes for marriage equality, too; soon enough, so many states will allow gay marriage that it will become a federal law, as it should have been long ago).

Kidnapping. It's is a crime that has always existed, but the Cleveland case is particularly disturbing. Reports have revealed that throughout the 10 years these girls were in captivity, neighbors noticed suspicious activity on the part of the homeowners. One person reportedly saw naked women crawling around in the backyard with dog leashes around their necks; others heard screams and pounding on doors. The police were called several times but didn't take the accusations seriously, leaving after walking only around the side of the house. Another time, police never even responded to the calls. Joel Achenbach writes in a recent Washington Post article that he hopes this incident "will get us all to pay more attention to the people around us, including our neighbors." People are suffering horrifically from the distractions and lack of communication and follow-up brimming in today's culture.

Benghazi. With Benghazi brings issues of government transparency (how much do we actually have? Are we entitled to more?) and partisan conspiracy theories (where was all the interest when 64 attacks on American diplomatic targets occurred during George W. Bush's administration?) Benghazi is not Watergate. It's not Iran Contra. Details were overlooked in the Obama administration and there was little time to react. Not to mention that diplomatic security budgets began receiving less funding under Bush, hence the lack of protection. And maybe Obama's re-electability was a factor why his administration was reluctant to be forthright with information after the attack. But it wasn't a conspiracy. No one wanted those four Americans to die. It's possibly the most bipartisan statement among all of these partisan accusations to say that sometimes, shit just happens.

Federal budget. Are we always going to live on the edge, in a perpetual state of "fiscal cliff?" Is there a chance that any kind of deal can be made between the executive and legislative branches (was there ever a chance?), or will we wax and wane this way until we get back on track, if ever? What even is "on track?" The manner in which I'm firing out these questions might seem overly Woody Allen-esque, but these anxieties plague all of us who follow the news, and especially those who feel the effects of our government's financial woes. Financially, many of us are all alone out there. We want to get back on our feet but we just don't have the resources. Are these people still islands? Hell yes.

Terrorism (and surveillance). I bet you never thought you'd long for the Cold War days, when we knew exactly who our enemies were. The most alarming part about today's world is that any attack can happen at any time by anyone. Maybe the government will be able to thwart the attack, maybe not. This also ties in with the issue of surveillance. How much are we willing to have our personal securities breached so that the government can gather information to prevent a potential attack on our country? The conflict between security and liberty isn't new, but it's coming to a tipping point with today's technology and terrorism. Even the abstract idea of terror reinforces the lack of control individuals have. Sixty-three percent of Americans believe that terrorists will always find ways to launch major attacks, no matter what government does, according to Time magazine. Forty percent worry that someone in their family will become a victim of terrorism. At the same time, 61 percent of us worry that the government will enact excessive antiterrorism policies. Everyone is shifting around in discomfort and disagreement when it comes to terrorism and surveillance. How we deal with these issues personally and as a nation has yet to be realized.

Trust in government. Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas have described Washington as "a town where one party believes it's winning only if the other party believes its losing." Perhaps it has always been the case that gains and losses are just perception. The difference between history and the present is that right now everyone is losing, reflected in Americans' extreme distrust of government and the president, which furthers the polarization pervading our country. Even a national tragedy, such as the Boston Marathon bombings, can't bring our government or its citizens together anymore. Partisanship and disconnection prevail above absolutely everything else in America today. In such a society, no one can win.

In addition to all of the above, we have much to fear in a world of nuclear and chemical weapons, where entire populations can be blown up with the press of a button. Our country is becoming strikingly similar to the Hunger Games. We're justified in feeling like each one of us is an island, incapable of or too cautious to tread water to the others. But as my subconscious said, each one of us has a choice not to be an island. We can talk about all of these issues with each other, not at each other via Twitter (a great networking tool but not a good remedy for feeling isolated). We can acknowledge and connect.

A good friend of mine sent me the most refreshing video just a few days ago. It starts out following a 10-year-old boy as he shows viewers how to be "the most suave, romantic, George Clooniest guy out there." By the end of the video, you realize it's not really about romance; it's about intimacy and connection with other human beings, even people you don't know. "Don't just be a nice date," the kid says, "be a nice guy." Be kind, generous, and forgiving. Don't stare at your phone while you walk -- acknowledge a stranger's existence instead. Let a struggling car merge in front of you, even when you're driving in insane LA traffic.

We can't do much about terrorism and drones; we can't force the government to be more transparent. We can't pass gun safety or immigration reforms -- at least not right now, and certainly not alone. What we can do is recognize individuals every day, and be kind to one another other amidst all of this isolation and upheaval. Maybe we are all islands, due to technology, distrust of government, fear of the unknown, or other reasons. But we don't have to be. If you reach out to others, human to human, you'll be surprised how easy it is to feel that most of us exist together on the same island, instead of fragmented and alone.

Tip to prospective home intruders: If you're going to lock your victim in a closet, be certain it's not their gun closet.

Police in Texas say a homeowner found himself shoved in his weapons closet when three men attempted to ransack his house around 2 p.m. Tuesday, the Houston Chronicle reports.

The man thought the suspects had left when he came out armed.

"He actually confronted one of the suspects who was still at his home and shots were exchanged," Sgt. J. Brandon told KTRK.

The homeowner shot one of the intruders in the leg, causing him to collapse outside. He was arrested.

The other two suspects fled in a black Chevrolet Tahoe.

Police did not specify the make and model of the homeowner's firearm.

The homeowner was not injured in the incident.

Anyone with information is encouraged to contact Crimestoppers at 713-222-TIPS.

There is some good news. In his latest TED talk, Bono says world poverty is on the decline. In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker says violence has been on the decline for centuries. You wouldn't know it by looking at what happened in Boston, though, and Sandy Hook, and throughout the rest of the world. So, I'd like to ask a simple question:

I. Where does peace begin?

I admire the warriors who want gun laws changed, people like Gabrielle Giffords and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I believe, eventually, they will triumph. But I don't think that's where peace begins.

II. Peace does not start with tragedy. It starts with happiness.

If you are a parent, start with your children. How can you tell them what peace is? Even better, how can you help them discover peace and non-violence for themselves? If you are a father, this assignment becomes critical, something you need to do now. Today.

III. Young men.

The bombing of the Boston Marathon is the work of young men. A young man shot down children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School. There was a young man behind the weapon at the mass shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. A young man shot former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. I look for explanations, patterns. Their parents are educated, their parents are working stiffs, their parents are immigrants, their parents were good, their parents were bad.

Pattern? There's only one pattern. They are all young men. Of course, they had access to weapons and access to violent entertainment (movies, video games) on which to model their behavior. I want to take things back a few clicks, though, to when they were children. When did they first hold a toy gun? What did that feel like? What was it like for them to play-fight, to shoot at and innocently "kill" a friend in a game? If you've watched boys play, you see they know how to shoot, they make the sound of a bullet leaving the chamber, they spin down to the playground dirt with convincing violence. When does that start?

IV. When Your Kid Asks for a Toy Gun

Inevitably, parents will face this difficult moment. Your kid asks: "Dad can I have that?" The question sounds innocent enough. But when your kid is pointing to a toy gun it's -- pardon the pun -- a loaded question. What if you said this: "No, that's a gun, and we don't play with those." You'd get a lot of complaining, even crying and whining, but you'd also get a conversation with your kid. "Do you know what guns are used for? People use them to kill animals and to kill other people. That's just not something we want to play with. It's serious."

V. Rage

Your kid might get mad at you if you talk like that. But if we look at the examples above of young men who committed acts of gun violence, there is always rage involved. It might have been a quiet rage that nobody saw coming, it might have been madness. It certainly started with suppressed anger. It started with not talking about something. If rage comes up, it's useful, and you can try talking it through. If more young men had a forum for working through rage, there would be less violence expressed at the barrel of a gun or with a bomb. Yes, this is a tall order, a complicated fix, but you can start by talking to the first kids you see in the morning. Your own.

VI. When Your Kid asks for a Real Gun

There's an argument to be made for showing a young person how to shoot. If you are a hunter, this might be a tradition in your family. A healthy respect for the power of a firearm is a good thing.

VII. Fathers as Role Models

If you can handle a gun with dignity and respect for its power, it says a lot to your kid. When you go deeper, however, disturbing questions come to the surface about guns in the home and their violent purposes. Are you killing an animal because you are hungry and plan to eat it, or for sport, simply to watch it die? If you own guns at home, are you willing to tell your children that guns at home are likely to be used in suicides? (You probably won't; I doubt I would have the courage to say that.) When you feel rage, what do your kids see? When you say you need a gun for protection, what do your kids learn from that? When you say no to gun toys and violent play, do your kids understand why?

VIII. Changing the Conversation

These are certainties: Gun owners are not crazy. We will see changes in gun legislation to limit access to guns. Arguments in the political sphere about that legislation will go on for a long time. From person to person there will always be differences in our relationship to violence and peace. So if we want violence to decline, we have to begin a conversation with our children. There is a primal conversation we all must have. It's going to start with this moment: "Dad, can I have that?" Your child will be pointing to a gun.

Photo Credit: Joe Loong via Flickr Creative Commons License.

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Ever the publicity hound, Sen. Chuck Schumer, who obviously has no idea what additive manufacturing actually is, came out big and strong against "stomach-churning" 3D printed plastic guns last week.

"Everyone's seen the movie 'In The Line of Fire,' where one of the great bad guys, [played by] John Malkovich, labored at making a gun out of plastic and wood so it could get through metal detectors and he could assassinate the president..." Senator Schumer went on to say, "But that was only a movie, and just this week, it has become reality. We're facing a situation where anyone -- a felon, a terrorist -- can open a gun factory in their garage and the weapons they make will be undetectable. It's stomach-churning."

This naive, sensationalist rant so misunderstands the issue, I almost don't know where to start.  He goes on to inform the public that because these guns are made of plastic, they are undetectable, so he must introduce legislation that will make it illegal to possess an undetectable or an untraceable weapon.  This is like putting a "Band-Aid on a heart attack."  Sen. Schumer simply doesn't understand what he is dealing with.  In fact, most of us don't.

We (all of us) need to understand how different the actual world is from the world most of us think we're living in.  Most people believe that tomorrow is going to be substantially identical to today.  The sun will rise, you'll have breakfast, go to work, etc.  But, those are the things we try to keep constant in our lives ... technological advances don't work that way.

Technology is evolving at an accelerating rate and we really have no chance of keeping up with it - not legally, not legislatively, not socially, not strategically ... not at all.  The best we can do is position ourselves to quickly adapt to change - it is the only guaranteed part of our reality.

Back to 3D printing, aka additive manufacturing -- 3D printed plastic handguns are just one example of an unimaginably large number of weapons one could manufacture using a 3D printer.  They are also an example (by manufacturing technique only) of the infinite number of constructive, uplifting, world-changing, life-affirming, life-saving items that one can manufacture using the exact same technology.

There are several variations of additive manufacturing technology.  The 3D printer that has everyone's attention prints one layer of plastic at a time.  The thickness of the each layer determines the printer's resolution.  Thinner layers allow for more complicated and intricate output.  Resolution of the printer is also a function of the materials being used to create the output.  Some materials require thicker layers to print stable objects, other materials can be printed on nano-tech scales.  The plastic guns in question are easy to print on inexpensive 3D printers because they are basically simple blocks of plastic with grooves and a few holes in them.

Now that you know what a 3D printer is, you must also understand that 3D printers are not limited to printing in plastic.  There are 3D printers that print in wood (a mixture of wood particles and binding agent that dries as wood) ceramic, carbon fiber, bronze, iron, steel, cellulose, human tissue (certain body parts for human transplant are grown using 3D printed frameworks) ... there are limitations to the range of additive manufacturing materials, but the technology is evolving rapidly.

As for guns ... CAD/CAM files (the computer files that 3D printers transform into physical objects one layer at a time) for the .45 caliber M1911 or the 1911A-1 single-action, semi-automatic pistol have been online for years.  In fact, you can find all kinds of CAD/CAMs for all kinds of gun parts, bomb parts, bazooka parts, rocket launcher parts and other deadly weapons online.  These are computer files, like songs or movies or documents or images, they cannot be protected or digitally rights managed (DRM) any better than the entertainment industry has done with its intellectual property.  A file is a file is a file, if someone wants to copy it - it will be copied.  You can't tell what the file contains unless you open it and, most importantly, there is no way to ban or prohibit the transfer of files.  In this case, the genie is out of the bottle, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, the ship has sailed - the files are out there.

Plastic guns?  Seriously.  How about guns printed in steel, guns printed in carbon fiber, guns printed in, you name it - there's a 3D printer that can print in the medium.  In a world of 3D printers, there is no such thing as gun control - people who are so inclined will print all the guns and ammo they need - untraceable, no serial numbers, no markings about point of origin, no trade marks, nothing!

That's the dark side of this technology.  However, the benefits of 3D printing are overwhelmingly positive.

This is a picture of a 3D printed replacement part for a baby stroller.  It was printed at a 3D printing bureau called Shapeways.  You can think of Shapeways as a Kinkos for 3D printing.  Shapeways prints in all kinds of materials, including stainless steel.

One of the employees of Shapeways needed a replacement part for his kid's stroller, so he emailed the manufacturer and they emailed him a CAD/CAM file for the part.  He printed two of them in stainless steel - one for the stroller and one to display at the Maker Faire, where I took this picture.

This stainless steel part was annealed, deburred in a tub of ceramic balls and looks exactly like the spare part the manufacturer would have sent him.  The difference is profound.  The replacement part was printed on demand.  The spare part would have to have been manufactured in advance, stored on a shelf, picked, packed and shipped.  Rent would have been paid on the real estate the physical spare part occupied and it would have to be kept in stock during the entire useful life of the particular stroller design.

Go have a look at an average manufacturing facility and see how much real estate and other resources are used storing parts that may break sometime in the future.  Now multiply this by everything ever made in a factory and you start to see the kind of economic impact 3D printing may have.  How about 3D printers in sterile environments (like Hospitals) creating specialized instruments for surgery (robotic or other)?  Let your imagination run wild - once you understand additive manufacturing, you will think of thousands of ways to use this technology - you will also realize how it is going to change supply chains and shipping and real estate and materials handling and on and on.  3D printing is changing the world.

Now Sen. Schumer, let's start over.  This is not a technology to sensationalize.  When high-speed laser printers became economical for people to have at home, they did not start printing counterfeit books - but the nature of printed material changed forever.  That is exactly what is going to happen here.  Some things will be 3D printed, others will not.  Some things will be cheaper or better 3D printed at home, others will be better 3D printed by companies like Shapeways, and still others will be printed in factories because it is more cost-effective to do so.

From now on, physical goods can easily be produced from the files that were created to design them - which give a whole to meaning to "Real 3D" and gives us a science fact version of Star Trek's Transtater (sans Transporter and Warp Drive).