This article suggests that the federal government can use its taxing power to make it more expensive to build personal arsenals. Specifically, I argue for an incremental excise tax, which would be imposed on each successive gun after the initial purchase, which would be tax-free. I believe this approach would offer two advantages.  First, given the current constitutional landscape, such a tax would be much harder to challenge than a restriction on gun ownership, which directly implicates the Second Amendment. Second, an incremental tax would distribute the costs of arsenals in proportion to the public safety risk created by each individual gun owner. A tax could be implemented with the adoption of universal background checks without limiting an individual’s choice to own multiple weapons.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, voting rights advocates should be cautiously optimistic that the Voting Rights Act’s “bail-in” process, left intact by that decision, can fill the void left open by the Court’s rejection of the preclearance coverage formula. Although statutory change may still be possible and desirable immediate attention should be paid to provisions currently in effect and capable of instant application. The bail-in provision satisfies the constitutional requirements laid out by the Shelby County Court, is immediately available, and, if utilized, represents the remedial option closest to the previously utilized § 5 preclearance structure.

Ezra Ross and Martin Pritikin’s well-researched article regarding the collection of fines and penalties imposed on corporate offenders answers the question of what happens after the enforcement action ends—the government does not collect the vast majority of corporate enforcement penalties imposed. In this Essay, I address some of the practical realities of enforcing corporate penalties. First, I provide a different explanation than Ross and Pritikin for the “collection gap”—that prosecutors and other government enforcers are highly motivated to impose high penalties but far less motivated to collect them. Second, I address some significant practical reasons why the government appears to place a low priority on collecting penalties—reasons that Ross and Pritikin have arguably under-emphasized, such as the existence of alternative nongovernmental remedies. Third, I agree to some extent with Ross and Pritikin’s observation that procedures already in place could, if the government were so inclined, be used to conduct more robust and effective collection activity. Finally, I suggest that narrowing the “collection gap” might occur just as effectively through reforms in how the government and the courts assess financial penalties as opposed to developing alternative collection strategies.