Earlier this month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was criticized for using a term correctly and in the proper context. When he was speaking to the National Sheriffs’ Association, he reminded them that, “The office of sheriff is a crucial part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement.”

The outrage surfaced almost immediately because he used the term “Anglo-American.” Let me quote from one US Senator: “Do you know anyone who says ‘Anglo-American heritage’ in a sentence? What could possibly be the purpose of saying that other than to pit Americans against each other? For the chief law enforcement officer to use a dog whistle like that is appalling.”

It’s hard to know what to make of this and many of the other comments on Twitter. Either these people are ignorant of our history, or more likely they jumped on the phrase to score more political points against President Trump and Attorney General Sessions. In either case, let me provide a little education.

The word “sheriff” actually is a combination of the word “shire” and “reeve.” Sheriffs were important both in England (where much of law enforcement developed) and then in the United States. The Attorney General was quite proper in reminding the sheriffs gathered that they are part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement.

Charles Cooke did all of us a service by digging up multiple times when Senator Barack Obama and President Barack Obama talked about the Anglo-American legal system and the foundation of Anglo-American law. These, of course, were never controversial and illustrates that the criticism of Attorney General Sessions was merely trying to score political points.

We might also remind these critics that they enjoy so many constitutional rights because of our Anglo-American heritage. That includes the freedom of speech, that gives them the freedom to say such stupid things.

Yesterday I talked about a few pieces of legislation that might actually stem gun violence. There is another issue that also deserves attention. How many criminals and potential mass shooters are getting their guns through online gun sales?

One report from a number of years ago suggested that this was a potential problem. That is why two members of Congress (Representative Elijah Cummings and Senator Elizabeth Warren) asked the GAO to investigate. In November, they completed their two-and-a-half year investigation.

During the operation, undercover buyers revealed information during their transaction that indicated they should not be allowed to purchase a firearm. That means they pretended to be felons or individuals with domestic violence or outstanding restraining orders or addicts or unlawful users of controlled substances or people who were dishonorably discharged from the military.

Ultimately, there were 72 total purchase attempts that were made with these online vendors. How many of the purchase attempts succeeded? The number would be zero. Most of the sellers (in 56 cases) refused to complete the transaction. In another 5, the cases were “frozen.” And in the remaining 11 cases, it seems that the sellers wanted to take their money without actually delivering the firearm.

I might add that another part of the study looked into the “dark web.” Criminals and terrorists sometimes visit this dark place on the Internet where content has been intentionally concealed and special computer software is needed to access it. In that case, the GAO did complete 2 transactions. Both were referred for further investigation.

For years, we have been hearing stories about the dangerous “wild, wild, web.” It turns out that it may not be as much of a problem when it comes to gun sales.

We have once again been hearing that we need to do something to stem gun violence. Even though most gun purchases are significantly regulated, are there any gun law reforms being proposed that make some sense?

Benjamin Dierker, writing in The Federalist, proposes some reforms of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System that would make a difference. The system is composed of three databases, but not all relevant data is listed. For example, the Air Force failed to provide important information about the man who killed more than two-dozen people at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Legislation has been proposed to address this problem of inadequate records but failed to pass in Congress. There is a need to clarify which authorities must report and which records need to be reported.

Another piece of legislation that has been proposed (but not passed) would increase criminal prosecutions of felons who try to buy guns and would also criminalize straw purchases. The bill proposed by Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Charles Grassley would address the problem of people who lie on applications. Cruz says that in 2010, there were 48,000 felons and fugitives who lied and illegally tried to purchase guns. “They prosecuted only 44 of them.”

David French writes about a way to deal with people who already have guns and pose a danger to society. It is called a gun-violence restraining order. Various versions of these laws have been working their way through states. It would empower family members and others close to a potential shooter to use the courts to temporarily take an individual’s guns away. Obviously, it needs various safeguards. French shows how this law might have stopped at least four of the mass shootings in the last four years.

We keep hearing that we need to do something. I think these types of common sense gun law reforms might actually prevent the next mass shooting.

If you have ever listened to a Dennis Prager radio program, you know he often talks about the differences between liberals and conservatives. And you would also know that he dedicates one hour to what he calls “the happiness hour” where he explores why people are happy or unhappy.

So it is not surprising that he recently wrote a commentary on the subject: “Liberals and Conservatives Are Unhappy for Different Reasons.” He says that unhappy conservatives generally believe they are unhappy because life is difficult and tragic or because they made some unwise decisions in life. Liberals are unhappy generally because they believe they have been persecuted.

A left-wing woman may attribute her unhappiness to American society’s “patriarchy” or “misogyny.” She therefore feels oppressed. He also argues that the more left-wing blacks will attribute his or her unhappiness to racism. He has noticed that black conservatives have a much happier disposition than left-wing blacks. He has found that a cheerful black caller to his radio program is almost always a conservative.

Near the end of his commentary, he gives a personal example. His father (an Orthodox Jew) wrote his college senior thesis on the subject of anti-Semitism in America. His father was well aware of bigotry in this country but still reminded Dennis Prager and his brother that American Jews are the luckiest Jews in historybecause they are Americans. Prager says, “I therefore never knew what it was like to walk around thinking most of the people I met hated me. That alone contributed to my happiness.”

He correctly concludes that, “Unhappy Americans on the right blame the problems inherent to life, and they blame themselves. Unhappy Americans on the left blame America.” This simple formula explains so much.

A wise consumer of news and information should question some of the statistics thrown out by journalists. This is especially true since an advocacy group may have provided these statistics in order to influence public opinion.

Here’s one example. Tulane University says that 41 percent of the undergraduate women have been sexually assaulted since arriving on campus. That’s an alarming statistic that seems to be contrary to common sense. If there were that many assaults, we would be hearing about what a dangerous place this college is to any woman.

When you dig into the statistics, you find that Tulane broadly defines sexual assault. We are talking about any unwanted sexual contact. The survey also included lots of people who were self-selecting themselves for the survey. Just a bit of skepticism and discernment would tell you that the 41 percent figure could not possibly be correct.

Another example has been the statistics for school shootings. Even before the tragic shooting in Florida, there were people questioning the criteria used to compile school shooting incidents. Daniel Lee, writing in the Wall Street Journal, challenged the claim that there had been eleven school shootings just in the month of January.

The only one some might remember was a shooting at a Kentucky high school. What about the other ten? If you look at the database put together by a gun control group, you see lots of incidents that don’t even qualify as a school shooting. A school bus window was broken with a pellet gun in Iowa. A gun accidentally discharged in a weapons class in a Texas community college. A veteran with PTSD shot himself in the parking lot of a closed Michigan school. No students were present.

The point is simple: Don’t trust every statistic. We need some healthy skepticism and discernment when it comes to news and information.

Steven Pinker (Harvard University) says that the left and the right at least agree on one major point: “The world is getting worse.” His new book goes into some detail to show that simply is not true.

In a recent op-ed, he reminds us that, “Such gloominess is decidedly un-American.” Unfortunately, we fool ourselves by comparing rose-tinted images of the past with the scary headlines of today. Here are just a few statistics worth considering.

The homicide rate three decades ago was is almost twice what it is today. Americans below the poverty rate today is less than a third of what it was back then. The number of wars worldwide today is half of what it was in 1988.

Life expectancy has risen dramatically in the last century. “Through most of human history, continuing into the 19th century, a newborn was expected to live around 30 years.” Life expectancy around the world has now risen to 71, and in the developed world is at 81.

As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, extreme poverty across the globe has dropped at a significant rate. In fact, Pinker predicts that the rate of extreme poverty may approach zero in our lifetimes. I would attribute that success to the free market that has given us a world that is “a hundred times wealthier than it was two centuries ago.”

My major concern with his book and op-ed is his belief that all of this human flourishing is due to the Enlightenment. He wrote his book to make the case for science, humanism, and progress.

As I have discussed in previous commentaries, the rise of modern science came in large part from scientific pioneers who were at least theists, and in most cases Christians. Likewise, arguments for free markets and private property also had a Christian component. Many of the founders of this country who gave us a republic articulated Christian principles. Some of that is lost in his attempt to credit all this good news to secular humanism.

For the last few decades, politicians and high tech companies have been talking about the digital divide. They wanted to make sure that poor and underprivileged students had access to the same digital devices as wealthier ones.

I have always felt there was a bigger issue that fewer people were talking about. Fortunately, Naomi Schaefer Riley addresses this in her New York Times op-ed on “America’s Real Digital Divide.” She warns that, “If you think middle-class children are being harmed by too much screen time, just consider how much greater the damage is to minority and disadvantaged kids, who spend much more time in front of screens.”

One study, for example, found that minority children watch 50 percent more TV than their white peers. They use computers for up to one and a half hours longer each day. And the amount of time black and Hispanic children spend in front of any screen is substantially longer each day than for white children.

Another study found that every additional hour of TV increased a child’s odds of attention problems by about 10 percent. “Kids who watched three hours a day were 30 percent more like to have attention trouble than those who watched none.”

The push from politicians and educators has been to bridge the digital divide and get computers and other technology into the classrooms. Apparently, minority students already have access to technology. One Pew Research report documented that African-American teenagers are more likely to own a smartphone than any other group of teenagers in America.

Put simply, the problem today is not a lack of technology in the schools, in the homes, and in the hands of young people. The problem is too much technology. They are spending a significant number of hours every day in front of a TV screen, a video game screen, a computer screen, or a smartphone screen.

Often I say on radio that the youngest generation is the most pro-life generation in history. A recent Quinnipiac poll bears this out. It found that 18-to-34-year-olds were more likely than any other age demographic to support a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of gestation. As I mentioned in a recent commentary, that is what a bill in Congress would accomplish if it could pass the US Senate.

In a recent Washington Post blog, Eugene Scott also argues that this polling illustrates that even after 45 years of legalized abortion, because of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, the “culture battle over abortion is not over.” This surely is not what the National Abortion Rights Action League or Planned Parenthood expected. They would have expected that a generation growing up where abortion was always legal would want to continue keeping abortion legal.

In the 1970s and 1980s, polling showed a significant generation gap. Older voters opposed legalized abortion while younger voters supported abortion rights. That has changed over time. Sonograms have provided a “window on the womb.” And millennials realize that their parents and their peers have been aborting their fellow classmates or even their possible brothers and sisters.

Michael New, writing in National Review, also has found polling data that illustrates the shift. He says the most compelling evidence comes from the General Social Survey (GSS). It has asked the same six questions on abortion since the early 1970s. They range from whether abortion should be legal for a woman who is raped to whether a married woman should be allowed to get an abortion merely because she does not want more children.

Starting around 2000, there is a significant shift in attitudes among young adults. They are much more likely to identify with the pro-life position but also may be a bit more reluctant to identify as pro-life. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable shift in values on the issue of life.