The View from Right Field

Let’s Use the Defense Production Act – To Produce Stuff for Defense

The Defense Production Act was passed in September of 1950 to enable the President, by executive order, to order businesses to accept and prioritize contracts deemed necessary for our national defense.  Recently, President Trump used the DPA to, among other things, order General Motors to make ventilators for Covid.  (At the time, the experts said we needed more ventilators.  We wound up needing fewer than the experts thought would be necessary, but that happens sometimes.)

President Biden has used the DPA for numerous things, too, including fire hose and baby formula.

Solving Gun Violence – Without a Time Machine

I totally understand the calls for new gun control legislation.  What is happening is horrific.  The problem is that most of the proposals involve a time machine.  Let me explain.  Too many of the calls for gun control assume we can go back in time and get rid of the Second Amendment (which would involve going back to the early 1790s).  Or that we can, at least, go back to before the Heller decision in 2008, and get the Supreme Court to issue a different decision in that case (which might require going back before 2008 and getting at least a couple different justices on the Supreme Court). 

Many of them also assume we can go back to a time when we did not have upwards of 400 million guns in the United States.