Whenever there is a mass shooting we read headlines or hear commentators describe it as a random shooting. While it is true that many times the victims are chosen at random, the locations for their carnage are rarely random.

When Dr. John Lott was on my radio program I asked him about this. I had heard that the shooter at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater bypassed many other theaters and venues because those locations had security.

John Lott said the diary of the killer (James Holmes) explained his selection. He decided not to attack the Denver airport because he wrote that it had “substantial security.” Then out of seven theaters within 20 minutes of the shooter’s apartments, Holmes went to the only theater that banned concealed handguns.

John Lott gave another example from the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. The shooter (Dylann Roof) originally planned to go to the College of Charleston. But he changed his plans after realizing the school had armed guards. While drinking at someone’s house, Roof blurted out his plan to carry out a mass shooting at the College of Charleston. The person who heard the comment said: “I don’t think the church was his primary target because he told us he was going for the school.” The person at the party concluded that because Roof couldn’t get into the school, he settled for the church.

If gun-free zones seem to make people more vulnerable to shooters, is there anything that might reduce the likelihood of a mass shooting? John Lott and Bill Landes in a scholarly research paper gathered more than twenty years of data on mass public shootings. They studied the impact of gun-control laws. None of these laws had an impact on shootings except one. They concluded that “the only law that had a statistically significant impact on mass public shootings was the passage of right-to-carry laws.”

Our elected officials need so consider these facts if they really want to keep people in their communities safe.

Much of the debate about the president’s new gun regulations centers on criminal background checks. The president wants to expand background checks to just about anyone selling a gun.

While the administration is doing this, it needs to fix some problems with the current system. Dr. John Lott was on my radio program to talk about some simple and reasonable changes that must be made to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. He believes that these proposals would easily pass Congress.

First, we shouldn’t charge gun buyers for background checks. Most buyers and sellers don’t realize they are paying for this since they are included in the cost of the gun. If it is really true that background checks reduce crime, and everyone benefits, then why not pay for background checks out of general revenue?

The cost of background checks on private transfers adds at least $80 to the cost of transferring a gun in New York. The cost is $125 in the District of Columbia. These fees can put guns out of the reach of people who are the most likely victims of violent crimes: poor people living in high-crime, urban areas.

Second, we should fix the system that falsely flags law-abiding citizens. Virtually everyone who fails a check is legally eligible to buy a gun. You wouldn’t know this by listening to some of the presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton in the last Democratic presidential debate proclaimed that the Brady Act prohibited more than 2 million people from purchasing a gun. These were merely “initial denials.” Almost all turned out to be mistakes.

John Lott says there is a racial component to this. Various ethnic groups (Asians, Hispanics, Blacks) often have similar names. A law-abiding citizen is often flagged because he or she has a similar name to someone with a criminal record.

These are just a few of his proposals to improve a broken system that needs fixing. Congress and the president need to act.

I saw an article recently with the arresting title: “The One Issue Where Republicans and Obama Agree.” There are probably a number of issues of agreement between the president and Congress, but this one is significant. Both sides agree that the criminal justice system needs fixing.

The interview in the article was with Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) who is on the other side of the president on most issues. They are in agreement that a wide-ranging, bipartisan criminal-justice-reform bill is necessary.

Senator Lee tells the story of his career as a federal prosecutor. He saw where minimum mandatory sentencing laws produced sentences that anyone would conclude were unjust. For example, there was a man in his mid-20s, a father of two children, who was caught selling marijuana on three occasions. He was selling in relatively small quantities. But because he had a gun on his person, and because of the way he was charged, he received a 55-year minimum mandatory sentence.

Nobody thought this was a just sentence for his crime. The judge himself did not think it was fair. In fact, when the judge issued his opinion, he lamented that only Congress could fix that. Senator Lee remembered that.

He points to a number of concerns. The federal prison population has grown dramatically, increasing 900 percent in the last 35 years. Some of that is due to the over-criminalization of the law. Some of it is due to the over-federalization of the law. And much of it is due to the existence of these minimum mandatory sentences.

Senator Lee is not against all minimum mandatory sentences, but he understands the need for Congress to reconsider what they haven written into law. It is too early to tell how all of this will turn out. But it is encouraging that the president and Congress seem willing to reform needed parts of our criminal justice system.

Contrary to what many political strategists might think, being pro-life as a candidate can be a winning issue. Marjorie Dannenfelser was on my radio program to explain her recent commentary on why the “pro-life movement is winning the culture—and elections.” Polling statistics, recent elections, and common sense all point to the fact that being pro-life is a winning issue in most campaigns.

The most recent Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans (55%) oppose abortion in all or most circumstances. A CNN poll back in 2014 put that number even higher at 58 percent. Those who promote abortion probably assumed that most Americans would support abortion forty years after the original abortion decision of Roe v. Wade. That has not happened.

The gubernatorial election in Louisiana may have surprised some because the governor-elect (John Bel Edwards) ran as a pro-life Democrat and won. In one TV ad, his wife described how it felt to discover her child had spina bifida at 20 weeks. The couple shared that they rejected the doctor’s suggestion of an abortion.

The governor’s race in Kentucky provides a similar outcome. Republican Matt Bevin defeated the Democratic governor because he focused on social issues like abortion and marriage. He explained to the Washington Post shortly before his victory, that he tried to talk about economics on the campaign trail but voters wanted to hear about Planned Parenthood and religious freedom.

Being pro-life is also a common sense position. Promoters of abortion cannot explain why the United States should be one of only seven countries in the world (including China, North Korea, and Vietnam) where abortion is legal 20 weeks into a pregnancy. Candidates who defend these late-term abortions seem like the extremists.

Marjorie Dannenfelser is correct. The pro-life movement is winning.

We fought an American Revolution so that a king would no longer rule us. For two centuries presidents and members of Congress served because “we the people” elected them to office. Charles Cooke believes that the last few presidents have begun to act like kings.

He laments that: “we seem to believe that we are the children of legislatures, not of kings.” But there is nothing to guarantee that will continue in the future. The freedom we enjoy today may not be available to our children and grandchildren.

He reminds us that the president is “openly promising to finish off his second term with a flurry of extra-constitutional activity. By the power invested in his pen and phone.” We have already seen this in the administration’s environmental regulations and immigration decisions. We are now hearing about regulations that would increase gun control and attempts to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

These are just the most recent attempts by a president to act more like a king. Professor Philip Hamburger in his book on administrative law contends that the president and the administrative branch are engaging in legislative actions that are supposed to be the prerogative of Congress.

The founders intended there be three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. Many are now calling the huge federal bureaucracy the fourth branch of government. Millions of unelected government employees are making administrative and legislative decisions.

As I have explained in more detail in previous commentaries, Congress each year passes about 100 bills. During that same period the executive branch issues more than 3,000 rules and regulations. Add to that the various executive orders issued by the president. It is easy to see that the president (with the executive branch) is acting more like a king. Voters this year need to decide if they want this to continue or return back to the constitutional foundation provided by the framers.

If we are to defeat ISIS, we will need a comprehensive strategy that includes both military, economic, and diplomatic action. This combined effort has the greatest possibility for success.

Ambassador Francis Rooney was on my program recently to talk about such a strategy. He believes that we should begin by correctly identifying ISIS and other groups as radical jihadists. He also argues for an embargo that would cut off extremist held territory. No cross border movement should be allowed. He also argues for a “No Fly Zone” and safe corridor in Syria. This would provide a place where humanitarian aid can be given to the displaced and stem the current refugee tide.

Lawrence Kudlow is concerned that the government has done very little to cut off sources of income to ISIS, which is now listed as the wealthiest terrorist organization in the world. He points out that the draft UN resolution merely calls on countries to describe what steps they are taking to prevent terrorist organizations from making money. Essentially, he says this is nothing more than a book report.

He recommends that the U.S. bomb oil trucks carrying the most valuable resource funding ISIS. Up until recently we have not done so because it would kill truck drivers who are civilians. He says they are part of the ISIS operation even if they are not wearing uniforms.

Presidential candidate Ben Carson recently released his 7-point plan for defeating ISIS. It called for forming regional partnerships to recruit and train Sunni Syrian men who could be fighting ISIS. It includes establishing a refugee safe zone in northeastern Syria and putting refuges under “international protection.”

Defeating ISIS requires a multi-prong approach. All of these ideas make sense and need to be implemented immediately.

When we are talking about the conflict between the West and radical Islam, do we have a clash of civilizations? Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently does not think so. At the last Democratic presidential debate, she said she worried “that the rhetoric coming from Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, is sending a message to Muslims here . . . and around the world, that there is a clash of civilizations.”

The phrase “clash of civilizations” is important because it comes from the title of the book written by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington. Back in 1996 he wrote The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order and predicted the current conflict between Islam and the West.

In my book, A Biblical Point of View on Islam, I show how this clash of civilizations has had a profound impact not only on the war on terrorism but even on missions. In the past, countries that were closed to the gospel tended to be communist countries. Even so, there was still a significant amount of Christian growth in countries behind the Iron Curtain and Bamboo Curtain. Today many of the closed countries are Muslim countries where the gospel is prohibited and Christians are persecuted.

Samuel Huntington also predicted a growing conflict between western universalism and Muslim militancy. In other words, there is a political and ideological conflict between liberal western democracies and Muslim countries. He didn’t mean that all Muslims are militant or that all Muslim countries are militant. But there is certainly a clash between western values and Muslim values.

Does Hillary Clinton reject the ideas put forward by Samuel Huntington, or did she use the phrase and not even understand its significance? I doubt any moderator or interviewer would ask her this question, even though it is very important. We are in the midst of a major clash of civilizations, and the next president needs to understand this.

Much of the debate about the minimum wage has focused on providing a living wage for hard-working people. As admirable that that might seem, there are consequences to raising the minimum wage, especially to the level demanded by activists who want everyone to have a living wage.

One of the prime targets has been Wal-Mart. The company did raise its base wage last April and is scheduled to increase the base wage again next month. Last month, Wal-Mart announced a 10 percent decline in earnings per share for the third quarter. The CEO claimed it was due to the higher wages.

Andy Puzder is the CEO of CKE Restaurants, and recently explained in his op-ed that certain companies can weather an increase in the minimum wage better than others. He provides a comparison between Wal-Mart and Apple to show the stark difference.

Apple is the most profitable company on the Fortune 500. Its annual profit is $39.5 billion with about 97,000 employees. The means Apple’s annual profit per employee is $407,000. Remember that amount.

Wal-Mart has nearly the same annual profit ($36.4 billion) but has 5.8 million employees. That means their annual profit per employee is $6,300. As you can see, there is a stark different between $407,000 and $6,300.

Increasing the base wage just one dollar an hour increases the annual wage cost by nearly $2,000. You can do the math. Subtracting $2,000 from $407,000 does not have much of an impact. Subtracting $2,000 from $6,300 has a great impact. Retail stores like Wal-Mart at some point actually start losing money by having employees on staff. To survive they have to fire some or not hire new employees.

This is some of the harsh economic reality to attempts to raise wages to a level demanded by activists.