Since the early 1990s, several states have passed restrictions on firearm magazines as a purported public safety measure. To date, the Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to hear cases surrounding these “high‐​capacity” magazine bans. This has led to a fractured and unpredictable state of the law. In a new bulletin, Cato scholar Matthew Larosiere argues that these laws, as well as the “assault weapon” bans they tend to come packaged with, are abridgments of the natural right to self‐​defense. Moreover, says Larosiere, they fail to provide sufficient benefit to justify their inherent costs.

An American constitutionalist looking east today, seeing everything from Brexit to Grexit plus the reactions in European capitals, must be struck by the tension in the EU between exclusion and inclusion in its many forms, including individualism and collectivism. In the new issue of Cato Journal, Cato scholar Roger Pilon discusses how American constitutional theory and history, owing to the longevity of the document that is their subject, hold lessons for constitutionalism everywhere, but especially for European constitutionalism.