On June 14, the US Supreme Court overturned former US president Donald Trump’s 2018 “bump stock ban.”

Like many SCOTUS rulings, this outcome turned on neither the plain text and meaning of the US Constitution (under which the ban was clearly illegal) nor common sense (under which the ban was clearly idiotic — everyday objects as mundane as belt loops and rubber bands can be used as “bump stocks”).

Instead, the court ruled (in the negative) on the question of whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has the power to magically change the definition of the term “machine gun” on the whim of the president.

I’d rather SCOTUS had just upheld the plain text and unambiguous meaning of the Second Amendment (under which laws against “machine guns” are void whether the term includes “bump stocks” or not), but close enough for government work, I guess.

Perhaps the most useful outcome of the ruling is its tendency to highlight Donald Trump’s actual record on gun rights as he seeks a second term in the White House.

In February, Trump  assured National Rifle Association members that he was “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House. … During my four years … there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield. … Your Second Amendment will always be safe with me as your president.”

In the wake of the SCOTUS ruling, his campaign’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt asserted that “[t]he Court has spoken and their decision should be respected,” assuring the public that Trump “has been and always will be a fierce defender of Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”

But back in 2018, when he was still actually the president, Trump told the public at a news conference: “We’re knocking out bump stocks. I’ve told the NRA … bump stocks are gone.”

And back in 2018, then-president Trump, addressing lawmakers in support of “red flag” laws, came out against not just the Second Amendment but the Fifth Amendment as well: “I like taking the guns early …. Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

His 2018 actions speak louder than his 2024 words — and highlight the larger problem the Republican Party ran into when it gave its 2016 presidential nomination to a life-long progressive Democrat for president in an (unsuccessful) attempt to out-authoritarian the Democratic Party on immigration.

For all his self-promoting “outsider” guff, Trump’s a typical politician: On the campaign trail, he pretends to be whoever and whatever he thinks his supporters want him to be; once in office, he tends to revert to his true form.

Never trust a politician (any politician) to protect your rights (any of your rights). Thus endeth the lesson.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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On June 13, the US Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval (in 2000) of mifepristone, aka RU-486, aka “the abortion pill.”

The court ruled unanimously, but on an issue of standing rather than on the facts. The case was brought by a group of doctors who oppose abortion and do not themselves prescribe mifepristone for that use . “[A] plaintiff ’s desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue,” Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted in the court’s opinion.

The facts, however, are also important.

“If we had a war on abortion in this country,” Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne told CNN two months before FDA approved mifepristone,  “within five years, men would be having abortions.”

Taking Harry’s “slippery slope” argument at face value for its time — he died in 2006 and is thus unavailable for comment on current kerfuffles over gender identity — it’s a fair riff on the title of his 1996 campaign book: Why Government Doesn’t Work. The war on drugs hasn’t “worked.” The war on poverty hasn’t “worked.”

Men? Maybe not … but women who choose to abort a pregnancy have enjoyed ways of doing so since time immemorial, government edicts to the contrary notwithstanding.

I don’t have to like that choice. You don’t have to like that choice. Women have that choice whether we like it or not, even if we go to courts or politicians to try to take it from them.

Harry didn’t like that choice — he was “pro-life” and morally opposed to abortion — but wisely opposed government involvement in it. In fact, he opposed the very existence of the FDA (as do I), preferring to leave drug development, testing, and sales to the private sector.

It’s unlikely that banning mifepristone would prevent so much as a single abortion. It would just push women toward other methods — methods more likely to result in their own deaths in addition to the deaths of the fetuses involved. Fortunately, mifepristone would still be available on the black market, but that would become just another game of roulette — is it the real thing or just a fake pill?

Banning mifepristone would also make it less available to for management of symptoms related to early miscarriage, as well as for patients with Cushing’s syndrome, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, and psychotic depression, all of which it’s used to treat.

I’m well aware of the moral arguments against abortion. I don’t make a habit of sharing my moral position on that issue.

I will, however, share my moral position on how to handle the issue in the moment. That moral position is to support women making difficult decisions, and to limit any argument over those decisions to gentle, understanding persuasion.

Legislation has never ended, and never will end, abortion. Even totalitarian regimes like that of Romania’s Nicolae Ceauaescu have historically proven incapable of eliminating it. And trying to do it that way leads us toward such totalitarian outcomes.

Whatever their reasons, SCOTUS got this one right.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Among descriptions of political libertarianism, “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” probably takes the prize for both simplicity and frequency of use.

It’s especially useful in an election year. The Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate generally faces high media access barriers and limited opportunities to reach “low-information voters” with the elevator pitch for smaller, cheaper, less intrusive, and less warlike government.

It’s pithy. It’s easily, if not necessarily accurately, understood. It associates itself with the two of the most mainstream/popular American political tendencies.  What’s not to like?

I don’t use the slogan much, though. I don’t really consider it very accurate. I know many “socially conservative” (often, though not always, due to their personal religious beliefs) and “fiscally liberal” (often, though not always, due to their historical analysis of phenomena like corporations and taxation) libertarians. And an op-ed gives me a little bit more room to elaborate than a politician’s elevator pitch. So hang in there with me, please.

What differentiates libertarianism from other political ideologies isn’t just a utilitarian or consequentialist claim as to “what works best.”

What differentiates libertarianism from other political ideologies is a moral claim: The claim that it is wrong to initiate force.

That’s a moral claim you probably grew up with as an individual.

The people who shaped your worldview as a child — parents, teachers, etc. — almost certainly taught you libertarianism as a matter of basic individual morality. In the words of libertarian author Matt Kibbe: “Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff.” Words to live by.

Libertarians extend that moral claim to everyone and to all organizations, including government.

Just as it’s wrong for me to steal $50 from your wallet, it’s wrong for government to steal $50 from your paycheck.

Just as it’s wrong for me to burn down your house or shoot you other than in self-defense, it’s wrong for government to conduct itself violently against the non-violent.

To the extent that a “social contract” can really be said to exist, that’s the whole of it — don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff, in return for which we need not tolerate others hurting  us and taking our stuff.

You’re free to believe whatever you want to believe, as long as you don’t forcibly inflict those beliefs on others.

Libertarianism is a “deontological” (morality-based) rather than “consequentialist” (outcome-based) position.

Happily, however, it’s not a fiat iustitia ruat caelum — “let justice be done though the heavens fall” — position, because its application won’t bring the heavens down. It really DOES produce better outcomes than state edict backed by force.

Unhappily, it doesn’t easily translate to the electoral politics “elevator pitch”/”low-information voter” environment.

But if you’ve read this far, you’re an off-the-elevator “high-information voter” now. Remember, come November.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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