Executive orders are directives from the heads of executive branches of governments at both the federal and state levels, which concern the management of government operations. They have the force of law and are declared without consent from any other...
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Six hundred and twenty-one detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo Bay since 2002. NPR and The New York Times have identified at least a dozen of the 621 whom have resumed terrorist activities. Of that dozen, two became leaders of...
Since the military prison at Guantanamo Bay was first opened in January 2002, hunger strikes have been a frequent device used by the detainees to protest the conditions of the detention center and their general detainment. In 2005, one of...
Cuban nationalists began pressing for independence from Spain in the mid-nineteenth century. Cuban guerrilla fighters initiated frequent skirmishes with the Spanish military between 1868 and 1878. Revolutionary activities picked up in the 1890s and Spain imposed martial law in 1896....
Cuba leased the southern portion of Guantanamo Bay to the US on February 23, 1903, as part of the Cuban-American Treaty that allowed the US military to construct a permanent naval base on the site. The base has been in...
District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago made clear that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear firearms in the home for self-defense, but left unanswered whether it protects other conduct. Writing for the majority...
Open carry laws restrict a person's ability to visibly wear or carry a gun in public. Both open and concealed carry laws vary considerably from state to state. Some state open carry laws differentiate between handguns and long guns, such...
Washington DC had a set of gun laws that made owning a handgun illegal without a special one-year permit. An additional lock-and-trigger requirement prohibited keeping loaded "fire-ready" guns in DC homes. A policeman, Dick Heller, applied for a permit to...
Adopted to ease fear of the new federal government disarming the militias of individual states at the time of United States Constitution's ratification, the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security...
Eighteen US states have abolished the death penalty. Three states - Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin - have completely banned the death penalty since the mid-nineteenth century. Fifteen states abolished the death penalty at various points throughout the twentieth and twenty-first...
