About: Jacob Sullum
Posts by Jacob Sullum
Former NIH Director Says Ignoring ‘Collateral Damage’ Inflicted by COVID-19 Policies Was ‘Really Unfortunate’
As federal officials considered how the government should respond to an emerging pandemic in 2020, Francis Collins recalled last year, “we weren’t really...
Hunter Biden’s Multiplying Charges Exemplify a Profound Threat to Trial by Jury
Under a plea deal that fell apart last July, Hunter Biden would have spent no time behind bars after admitting to illegally buying...
Laws Requiring Permission to Obtain Guns Look Vulnerable
According to a landmark 2022 Supreme Court decision, the Second Amendment constrains the requirements that states may impose on residents who want to...
Trump Gag Order Raises Unsettled Constitutional Questions
“I’ll be the only politician in history” who “won’t be allowed to criticize people,” former President Donald Trump complained last month. He was...
The Supreme Court Should Not Let Bureaucrats Invent Crimes by Rewriting the Law
On Dec. 26, 2018, every American who owned a bump stock, a rifle accessory that facilitates rapid firing, was suddenly guilty of a...
Don’t Blame the Maine Shootings on ‘Woefully Weak’ Gun Laws
Five months before an Army Reserve sergeant killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine, his relatives told...
The Bipartisan Urge to Control Online Speech
According to the Biden administration, federal officials who urged social media companies to suppress “misinformation” about COVID-19 and other subjects were merely asking...
A Blatantly Unconstitutional Gun Edict Highlights the Hazards of Emergency Powers: New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham Thinks Violent Crime Gives Her a License to Rule by Decree
Grisham's stunt was widely condemned as blatantly unconstitutional, even by some leading supporters of gun control. ...
A Ruling Against a Man Arrested for a COVID-19 Joke Highlights the Influence of a Pernicious Analogy
Back in March 2020, a dozen or so sheriff’s deputies wearing bulletproof vests descended upon Waylon Bailey’s home in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, with...
A Ham-Handed Bill Attacks the First Amendment in the Name of Protecting Minors From Online Harm
Late last month, a Senate committee considered a 50-page bill with a name that includes the word “kids” and approved it unanimously. Those...
Methanol-Tainted Liquor and Xylazine-Tainted Fentanyl Illustrate the Same Prohibitionist Peril
When the celebrated Iranian artist Khosrow Hassanzadeh died of methanol poisoning this month, everyone but his country’s most ardent theocrats recognized that prohibition...
Critics of the Ruling Against Biden’s Anti-‘Misinformation’ Crusade See No Threat to Freedom of Speech
Last week, a federal judge in Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction that bars a long list of federal officials and agencies from encouraging...
A Post-Clemency Prosecution Shines a Light on a Broken System
A month before he left office, then-President Donald Trump freed Philip Esformes, a Florida nursing home operator who had served nearly five years...
Congress Considers Conditions on the Government’s License to Steal
Two years ago, the FBI seized the contents of safe deposit boxes used by hundreds of people at U.S. Private Vaults, a Beverly...
Ron DeSantis Dangerously Blurs the Line Between State and Private Action
Ron DeSantis, who officially launched his presidential campaign last week, presents himself as a champion of individual freedom against overweening government. But as...