Prolife groups and legislators wonder what they can do next in light of the Supreme Court decision last week. The 5-3 decision that struck down the legislation in Texas left little room for any future prolife legislation.

The court’s ruling prevented the state of Texas from regulating the health and safety standards of abortion clinics. It also struck down the common sense requirement that a physician performing an abortion also have admitting privileges in a hospital within 30 miles of where the procedure is performed.

The majority on the court argued that it was an undue burden on women to require abortion clinics be governed by the same rules as ambulatory surgical centers. And in throwing out the law, they also threw out the requirement that abortion clinics comply with basic fire-safety standards.

Consider the irony for a moment. Progressives in our government want to regulate nearly every industry, except the abortion industry. And the high court seems content to let them do it. We have regulations on the air we breathe and the water we drink. We have regulations about the light bulbs you can have in your home. Many are now working hard to regulate guns out of existence without even having to repeal the Second Amendment. But when it comes to killing the unborn in abortion clinics, they don’t want any limits or any rules.

It is difficult to see what prolife legislators can do until the makeup of the Supreme Court changes. The five justices have effectively ruled against just about any common sense regulation of abortion clinics.

That is why the November election will be crucial. Three of the five in the majority are due for retirement. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 83 years old. Justice Anthony Kenney will turn 80 this summer, and Justice Stephen Breyer will turn 78 this summer. It is clear that the next president will determine the prolife future.

On various television sitcoms, a Dad acts like a buffoon every 3.24 minutes. That was the conclusion of a small study with the title “Daddies or Dummies” done by Savannah Keenan at Brigham Young University after watching popular TV programs.

Don’t dismiss this study merely because a student conducted it. Her study was the winner of the college’s Fulton Conference. And Naomi Schaefer Riley, writing in the New York Post, reminds us that the student’s research matches other academic studies. For example, a study the Erica Scharrer in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media found that the number of times a mother told a joke at the father’s expense increased dramatically from the 1950s to 1990.

Savannah Keenan’s study also looked at the reaction of the children onscreen to their father’s stupidity or cluelessness. At least half the time, children reacted negatively by rolling their eyes, making fun of Dad, criticizing him, or walking away while he was talking to them.

We should be concerned about the message this is sending to children. America is already facing a crisis because of its fatherlessness. Fathers are often seen as insignificant and unimportant. These programs are reinforcing the negative stereotype that fathers are incompetent and uninformed.

I realize that on past television sitcoms Dads were sometimes the butt of jokes. Their mistakes made them human. Sometimes they even had to apologize to their kids. Sometimes the children were able to trick them and sneak out of the house undetected.

But in these past sitcoms, it was still obvious that Dad was in control. He was an authority figure in the home. There were consequences to disobedience. Now Dad is someone to ignore. He isn’t very competent and certainly isn’t someone to obey and respect. We aren’t helping families when TV sitcoms turn Daddies into Dummies.

Do we have evidence that strict gun control laws reduce the murder rate? This is a question economist Thomas Sowell asks us to contemplate. He explains that this “is not an esoteric question, nor one for which no empirical evidence is available.” After all, we have crime statistics from all 50 states that have very different gun control laws.

The fact that you rarely hear a gun control advocate cite such data should tell you something. Sometimes an advocate might talk about murder rates in other countries. Thomas Sowell addresses that issue in his column. But even so, the comparison between the U.S. and other countries isn’t that helpful. A much better comparison would be to compare American murder rates in one state to another state.

If we have data that shows that gun ownership increases the murder rate, then we can talk about repealing the Second Amendment. Some have said we should have a Twenty-Ninth Amendment that says: “The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.” Former justice John Paul Stevens instead would merely add five extra words to the Second Amendment so that it reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.”

But if tighter restrictions on gun ownership do not reduce murder, why call for strict gun control laws? Why take so much time to demonize anyone who supports the Second Amendment? And why treat gun owners almost like they are criminals? Last week Hawaii became the first state to enroll gun owners into a federal criminal monitoring database.

It is time to call the bluff of those who want more gun control. If they believe the Second Amendment is wrong, they should submit a Twenty-Ninth Amendment for constitutional ratification. If they believe more gun control will save lives, put the relevant data supporting that position on the table. I doubt they will not do either.

Today is the 4th of July, and I thought I would take a moment to talk about the origin of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson said that many of the ideas in the Declaration came from John Locke. Jefferson also gave credit to the writer Algernon Sidney, who in turn cites most prominently Aristotle, Plato, Roman republican writers, and the Old Testament.

Legal scholar Gary Amos argues that Locke’s Two Treatises on Government is simply Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex in a popularized form. Amos says in his book Defending the Declaration: “that the ‘law of nature’ is God’s general revelation of law in creation, which God also supernaturally writes on the hearts of men.”

This foundation helps explain the tempered nature of the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence was a bold document, but not a radical one. The colonists did not break with England for “light and transient causes.” They were mindful that Romans 13 says they should be “in subjection to the governing authorities” which “are established by God.” Yet when they suffered from a “long train of abuses and usurpations,” they argued that “it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government.”

Jefferson also drew from George Mason’s Declaration of Rights (published on June 6, 1776). The first paragraph states that “all men are born equally free and independent and have certain inherent natural Rights; among which are the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of Acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining Happiness and Safety.”

The Declaration of Independence is more than 200 years old. It was a monumental work at the time. Even today its words ring with truth and inspire new generations.

Superhero movies aren’t what they used to be. They are bigger, bolder, but also more adult-oriented. That is not good news for parents who have kids that want to go to all of these movies.

Christopher Gildemeister (Parents Television Council) was on my radio program to talk about his article, “Many Superhero Movies Not for Kids.” He reminds us that originally superhero comics were for young children but later were able to attract older teens and even college students. The current trend has been to make superhero movies that attract kids and adults.

Two companies dominate the superhero world: DC and Marvel. Marvel is the home for Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and the Avengers (including Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and Ant-Man.). DC has the more iconic superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

Some of the movies began to become “dark” and “edgy.” The Christopher Nolan trilogy of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises are a good example. Frankly, these films may have fit the character of Batman, but it seems to have led to more and more films (especially by DC comics) that are also dark, violent, and destructive.

The recent movie, Batman vs. Superman is a good example. It was originally intended to carry an R rating, but got by with a PG-13 rating by pulling some footage. This is not the Superman from previous years.

Don’t take my word for it. One of the most compelling quotes in the article came from a man who was an artist on DC’s Supergirl comics. He lamented, “My most prominent memory as a five-year-old is my grandfather taking me to see Christopher Reeve in Superman. The fact that I can’t take my eight-year-old to a Superman movie disappoints me on a level I have trouble reconciling.”

I agree. It is a sad commentary on Hollywood movie producers when we can’t take our kids or grandkids to see Superman, a man who used to stand for truth, justice, and the American way.