At schools and other youth centers, they allow or require the presence of armed adults, such as teachers, as I detailed in a 2004 article for National Review Online. These policies were adopted to deal with well-organized terrorist attacks, rather than with perpetrators such as the lone Jew-hater who apparently carried out yesterday's crimes in Seattle. Lone terrorists, especially those who are mentally ill, might be less subject to rational deterrence than are organized terrorist gangs. On the other hand, lone terrorists, should they attempt to instigate an attack, would be all the more easily defeated by the guardian adults, since the perpetrator would be acting alone, and would usually not be as careful about planning as are organized terrorist gangs.

Like Eugene Volokh, I am skeptical about "hate crime" laws as a response to crimes such as the Seattle shooting. In a 2003 Issue Paper for the Independence Institute, I examined the record of Colorado's "ethnic intimidation" statute, and found the statute to have contributed almost nothing to effective criminal justice in Colorado. While calling for repeal of the ethnic intimidation statute, I argued that the penalty for hate crime hoaxes should be substantially increased, since hate crime hoaxes (like hate crimes themselves) cause broad fear in the community. PDF version. HTML version.

On another subject, my Rocky Mountain News media column notes how the Denver Post erred in describing Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez's stance on gun control. And I chastise the Denver Newspaper Agency for running as bait-and-switch web ad promising "You have been chosen to receive a FREE 42-inch Samsung or Panasonic HDTV."

Finally, those of you who read Spanish might enjoy Política de Oficiales: Los recientes escándalos del departamento de policía son el resultado de la creciente intervención del estado federal y de las prácticas de empleo racistas. It's a Spanish translation of an article that Mike Krause and I wrote for American Outlook in 2001; examining the Rampart scandal in Los Angeles, and similar problems in other big city police departments, we suggest that the problems of corruption and illegal violence involving the police are aggravated by excessive federal involvement, race-based hiring, and the drug war.