I’ve already explained why leftists must be depressed about their failure to restrict private gun ownership. They’ve suffered brutal electoral setbacks in Colorado, and more and more states have strengthened the right to keep and bear arms. Moreover, it’s hard for them to claim their agenda is about safer streets when cops overwhelmingly reject the premises of the anti-gun zealots. And […]

I’m a very straight-laced guy. Some would even say boring. I’ve never done drugs, for instance. But not because they’re illegal. I’ve never done drugs for the reason that I’ve never smoked cigarettes. Just doesn’t seem like a smart thing to do. And I encourage friends and family to have the same approach. That being […]

What do John Stossel, Mona Charen, Gary Johnson, Pat Robertson, Cory Booker, and Richard Branson all have in common? And let’s add voters from the states of Colorado and Washington to this list. So what unites this unusual collection of people? They’ve all expressed doubts about the War on Drugs. And that’s a good thing. […]

It sounds strange, but my two favorite columns on gun control were authored by self-identified leftists. But they didn’t let ideology trump common sense. Justin Cronin, for instance, explained that restrictions on gun ownership undermined his ability to protect his family. And Jeffrey Goldberg looked at the evidence and concluded that guns make people safer. […]

Fifty years from now (assuming we haven’t suffered a Greek-style fiscal collapse), will we still enjoy our constitutional freedom of private gun ownership? Sometimes I’m pessimistic about what will happen because politically correct educators are brainwashing our kids. We’ve even gotten to the point where a deaf kid can’t use sign language if his fingers […]

I want government to successfully and rationally fight crime and stop terrorism. That’s a perfectly appropriate libertarian sentiment since protecting life, liberty, and property are among the few legitimate roles for government. But I don’t want to give bureaucrats carte blanche to monitor our lives and I don’t want to waste money in those cases […]

Whether we’re talking about NSA spying, cross-border collection and sharing of private financial data by tax-hungry governments, pointlessly intrusive money-laundering laws, or other schemes to give the state more power and authority, we’re often told that “if you’re a law-abiding person, you have nothing to fear.” But that assumes government is both competent and trustworthy. […]

Using data stolen from service providers in the Cook Islands and the British Virgin Islands, the Washington Post published a supposed exposé of Americans who do business in so-called tax havens. Since I’m the self-appointed defender of low-tax jurisdictions in Washington, this caught my attention. Thomas Jefferson wasn’t joking when he warned that “eternal vigilance […]

I like to think I despise politicians more than 99.9 percent of the population. Even in my kindest moments, I see them as occasionally well-intentioned souls who are easily corrupted. Most of the time, they are a plague on society, as this cartoon illustrates. So you might think I’m in favor of throwing them in […]

bout a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals. What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though they were generally quite interesting. The stunning part […]