The Archives

2015

“High-capacity magazines have been the accessory of choice for most mass killers in the U.S.,” Newsweek wrote, arguing for tighter regulation. “In this great compromise, that is all the gun controllers get: a ban on high-capacity magazines and other slaughter accessories, universal background checks and a ban on the public display of weapons.” In June, President Biden signed the most significant gun safety law in decades, expanding background checks on minors and red flag laws; weeks later, however, the Supreme Court loosened restrictions on carrying arms in public.

1970

“Snoops, bugs, wiretaps, dossiers, data banks—and specters of 1984,” was how Newsweek referred to new privacy concerns. Over 50 years later, privacy is even more of a contentious issue, with Big Data tracking Americans’ online footprints and using information to not only predict consumer behavior, but guide it.

1995

“Some modern historians argue that dropping the bomb was not only immoral but unnecessary,” Newsweek wrote 50 years after Hiroshima. “Such judgments have the quality of perfect hindsight, declaring not only what we should have done, but... thought.” The U.S. currently admits to 5,550 nuclear weapons, says the Arms Control Association.