Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Ballots and bullets

March for Our Lives protest

Gun control demonstrators join the "March for Our Lives" rally in Los Angeles, on June 11.


Ringo Chiu/AFP via Getty Images

Goldstone’s most recent book is "On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights."

Uvalde. Another school massacre. Another underage murderer. Another legally purchased weapon of war turned on innocent children. More calls for action. More thoughts and prayers. More braying about upholding the Second Amendment. More pandering.

More nothing done.

Or next to nothing, in any event. It appears Uvalde may result in some cosmetic changes, but the chances of meaningful reform remain zero. It’s the Constitution, you see.


Despite their self-righteous defense of individual liberty, opponents of gun control do not have a lot of law on their side. To buttress their position, they generally point to Antonin Scalia’s opinion in D.C. v. Heller as controlling the meaning of the Second Amendment. In that case, Scalia and four conservative colleagues overturned two centuries of precedent to take the position that the opening of the amendment, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” is essentially meaningless fluff, and that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” were the only words in the amendment that actually matter.

Even then, the right was not absolute. Although, “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home,” Scalia and his brethren acknowledged, “Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” He specifically noted “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” and “in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” Needless to say, that section of the opinion is rarely cited by senators and congressmen who think a mentally ill teenager has a constitutional right to buy an AR-15.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Before Scalia’s end-run, on the altar of “enshrinement of constitutional rights,” the most important gun control opinion, and the most logical interpretation of the amendment, was that of another conservative, James McReynolds in 1939 in United States v. Miller.

Miller stemmed from a challenge to the 1934 National Firearms Act, itself a response to the carnage spawned by Prohibition-era gang wars, including the notorious 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, in which seven members of Chicago’s Bugs Moran gang were executed with machine guns in a Lincoln Park garage by Al Capone’s executioners. The law imposed taxes on the sale or transfer of a variety of hand and long guns, required certain categories of firearms be registered, and restricted the movement of firearms across state lines.

In April 1938, Jack Miller and Frank Layton, two bank robbers on the run from both the law and their associates, were arrested and charged with transporting unregistered sawed-off shotguns across state lines. Miller had every reason to feel the need to carry a weapon — in 1935, he had turned state’s evidence to avoid a prison sentence, about which his colleagues were none too pleased.

Miller, although an unlikely plaintiff, sued in federal court to void his arrest on Second Amendment grounds. The judge, a gun control advocate, sided with Miller, which resulted in Miller’s release from prison, where any number of unhappy former associates were waiting for him. The decision was contrived — the judge assumed that Miller would flee and thus allow the government to win its appeal of Miller’s dismissal virtually by default. His assumption proved correct. As soon as he was a free man, Miller promptly vanished.

As a result, when the government appealed the dismissal to the Supreme Court in January 1939, there was no one on the other side to contest its brief. Miller and Layton’s court-appointed lawyer, working pro bono, refused to do any more work on their behalf. Oral arguments — or, rather, argument — were heard on March 30, 1939, and the decision was published only six weeks later.

Speaking for a unanimous court, McReynolds told onlookers, “We construe the [Second] amendment as having relation to military service and we are unable to say that a sawed-off shotgun has any relation to the militia.”

McReynolds was perhaps more unlikely a gun control advocate than Scalia would have been. A ferocious opponent of the New Deal and federal regulation, he was described by his own biographer as “an easy man to dislike.” Deeply conservative, he was “intolerant, cantankerous, and rude,” referred to Black people as “darkies,” and refused to associate with Justice Louis Brandeis for the crime of being Jewish.

In Miller, however, McReynolds and the other justices deemed the meaning of the Second Amendment so obvious, so related to the need for citizen soldiers in a nation with no standing army, that the argument that Miller or anyone else had the right to carry whatever weapon they wanted wherever they wanted was laughable. His nine-page opinion could not have been more dismissive.

(Jack Miller, however, was not around to learn of the verdict. Four days after oral arguments, his body was found with four bullet holes near Ketchum, Okla. The crime remains unsolved. Layton, who had kept a much lower profile, was eventually given five years’ probation for violating the National Firearms Act and died of natural causes in 1967.)

The Miller decision attracted little attention at the time, since almost no one interpreted the Second Amendment as anything other than an anachronism, rendered obsolete by the creation of a professional military. And so it remained, despite numerous attempts by gun worshipers to pretend the opening clause did not exist. That they finally found their spiritual bedfellow in the person of a man fond of trumpeting his reverence for the text of the Constitution, who sneered at judges who took into account such silly factors as “intent,” is the saddest of ironies.

Americans across the nation will be voting in November and the choices they make will determine the course the United States will follow for two years, likely longer. Litmus tests tend to be counterproductive in politics, but in this case may well be appropriate. Anyone who votes for a candidate who proclaims the supremacy of a non-existent right for expediency or even political survival loses the privilege to lament, express shock, or offer thoughts and prayers the next time children are gunned down.

Read More

While Pledging To Clean Up Toxic Chemicals, EPA Guts Hundreds of Environmental Grants

EPA Administrator Zeldin speaks with reporters on Long Island, NY.

Courtesy EPA via Flickr.

While Pledging To Clean Up Toxic Chemicals, EPA Guts Hundreds of Environmental Grants

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration promised to combat toxic “forever chemicals,” while conversely canceling nearly 800 grants aimed at addressing environmental injustices, including in communities plagued with PFAS contamination.

In a court filing, the Environmental Protection Agency revealed for the first time that it intends to cancel 781 environmental justice grants, nearly double what had previously been disclosed.

Keep ReadingShow less
Policy Changes Could Derail Michigan’s Clean Energy Goals

New clean energy manufacturing plants, including for EV batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines, are being built across states like Michigan, Georgia, and Ohio.

Steve/Adobe Stock

Policy Changes Could Derail Michigan’s Clean Energy Goals

In recent years, Michigan has been aggressive in its approach to clean energy: It’s invested millions of dollars in renewable energy infrastructure, created training programs for jobs in the electric vehicle industry, and set a goal of moving the state to 100% carbon neutrality by 2050.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other state officials aim to make the Great Lakes State a leader in clean energy manufacturing by bringing jobs and investments to local communities while also tackling pollution, which continues to wreak havoc on the environment.

Now Michigan’s clean energy efforts have seemingly hit a wall of uncertainty as President Donald Trump’s administration takes ongoing actions to roll back federal climate regulations.

“We’ve seen nothing less than an unprecedented, all-out assault on our environment and our democracy,” said Bentley Johnson, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters’ federal government affairs director.

The clean energy sector has grown rapidly in the United States since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Congress appropriated $370 billion under the IRA, and White House officials at the time touted it as the country’s largest investment in clean energy.

According to Climate Power, a national public relations and advocacy organization dedicated to climate justice, Michigan was the No. 1 state in the nation in 2024 in its number of clean energy projects; from 2022-2024, the state announced 74 projects totalling over 26,000 jobs and roughly $27 billion in federal funding.

Trump has long been critical of the country’s climate initiatives and development of clean energy technology. He’s previously made false claims that climate change is a hoax and wind turbines cause cancer. Since taking office again in January, Trump has tried to pause IRA funding and signed an executive order to boost coal production.

Additionally, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in March that the agency had canceled more than 400 environmental justice grants to be used to improve air and water quality in disadvantaged communities. Senate Democrats, who released a full list of the canceled grants, accused the EPA of illegally terminating the contracts, through which funds were appropriated by Congress under the IRA. Of those 400 grants, 15 were allocated for projects in Michigan, including one to restore housing units in Kalamazoo and another to transform Detroit area food pantries and soup kitchens into emergency shelters for those in need.

Johnson said the federal government reversing course on the allotted funding has left community groups who were set to receive it in the lurch.

“That just seems wrong, to take away these public benefits that there was already an agreement — Congress has already appropriated or committed to spending this, to handing this money out, and the rug is being pulled out from under them,” Johnson said.

Climate Power has tracked clean energy projects across the country totaling $56.3 billion in projected funding and over 50,000 potential jobs that have been stalled or canceled since Trump was elected in November. Michigan accounts for seven of those projects, including Nel Hydrogen’s plans to build an electrolyzer manufacturing facility in Plymouth.

Nel Hydrogen announced an indefinite delay in the construction of its Plymouth factory in February 2025. Wilhelm Flinder, the company’s head of investor relations, communications, and marketing, cited uncertainty regarding the IRA’s tax credits for clean hydrogen production as a factor in the company’s decision, according to reporting by Hometownlife.com. The facility was expected to invest $400 million in the local community and to create over 500 people when it started production.

“America is losing nearly a thousand jobs a day because of Trump’s war against cheaper, faster, and cleaner energy. Congressional Republicans have a choice: get in line with Trump’s job-killing energy agenda or take a stand to protect jobs and lower costs for American families,” Climate Power executive director Lori Lodes said in a March statement.

Opposition groups make misleading claims about the benefits of renewable energy, such as the reliability of wind or solar energy and the land used for clean energy projects, in order to stir up public distrust, Johnson said.

In support of its clean energy goals, the state fronted some of its own taxpayer dollars for several projects to complement the federal IRA money. Johnson said the strategy was initially successful, but with sudden shifts in federal policies, it’s potentially become a risk, because the state would be unable to foot the bill entirely on its own.

The state still has its self-imposed clean energy goals to reach in 25 years, but whether it will meet that deadline is hard to predict, Johnson said. Michigan’s clean energy laws are still in place and, despite Trump’s efforts, the IRA remains intact for now.

“Thanks to the combination — I like to call it a one-two punch of the state-passed Clean Energy and Jobs Act … and the Inflation Reduction Act, with the two of those intact — as long as we don’t weaken it — and then the combination of the private sector and technological advancement, we can absolutely still make it,” Johnson said. “It is still going to be tough, even if there wasn’t a single rollback.”

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Keep ReadingShow less
A Missed Opportunity

Broken speech bubbles.

Getty Images, MirageC

A Missed Opportunity

en español

In a disappointing turn of events, Connecticut has chosen to follow the precedent set by President Donald Trump’s English-Only Executive Order, effectively disregarding the federal mandates of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Keep ReadingShow less
The DOGE and Executive Power

White House Senior Advisor, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The DOGE and Executive Power

The DOGE is not the first effort to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in government. It is the first to receive such vociferous disdain along what appears to be purely political lines. Most presidents have made efforts in these areas, some more substantial than others, with limited success. Here are some modern examples.

In 1982, President Reagan used an executive order to establish a private sector task force to identify inefficiencies in government spending (commonly called the Grace Commission). The final report included 2,478 recommendations to reduce wasteful government practices, estimated savings of $429 billion over the first three years and $6.8 trillion between 1985 and 2000. Most of the savings required legislative changes, and Congress ignored most of those proposals.

Keep ReadingShow less