A fellow who says such things is fortunate to live in a land with such muscular free-speech protections. Any punishable incitement to violence, ruled the Supreme Court in the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, must meet a two-part test: It must be “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and also be “likely to incite or produce such action.” In so ruling, the Supreme Court invalidated an Ohio law under which Ku Klux Klan member Clarence Brandenburg was imprisoned and fined for having advocated “revengeance” against Jews and African Americans.

Today on the idiotic Fox News program “Fox & Friends,” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Trump about militants who received their instructions and inspiration on the Internet. The Republican presidential nominee launched into a riff about “where you buy magazines and they tell you how to make these same bombs.” Then he declared himself “totally in favor of freedom of the press.” Whenever someone in public life makes that declaration, there’s invariably a “but” or a “however” or maybe an “even so.” In this case, Trump thought perhaps the First Amendment needed perhaps an interpretive tweak or two. “But how do you allow magazines to be sold — these are magazines that tell you from step one, go to the store and buy such and such, right? Simple, simple stuff. And it’s devastating. … They tell you about the nails, what kind of nails to buy. What kind of what manufacturer to buy. They tell you how to make bombs. We should arrest the people who do that. Because they’re participating in crime. We should arrest them. Instead they say, ‘Oh no, you can’t do anything. That’s freedom of expression.'” Those who run websites with such instructions, continued Trump, are “inciting violence. They’re making violence possible. They should be arrested immediately.”

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For once, Trump’s words carried some factual integrity. There are indeed many, many materials on the Internet, and elsewhere, that provide instructions on how to put together an incendiary device. Among the most famous how-to sources is “The Anarchist Cookbook,” an assortment of recipes for criminal wannabes. Author William Powell wrote the book as a 19-year-old opponent of the Vietnam War, and it was first published in 1971; he has since renounced the material. “The central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change. I no longer agree with this,” writes Powell in an author’s note on the book’s Amazon.com page. A student who carried out a shooting (leaving one girl in a coma) at a Colorado high school in 2013 had read “The Anarchist Cookbook.” Not an isolated moment: The Justice Department reported in 1997 that “law enforcement experience demonstrates that persons who attempt or plan acts of terrorism often possess literature that describes the construction of explosive devices and other weapons of mass destruction.” That same report found that “any member of the public who desires such information can readily obtain it.”

That was 1997.

Widespread availability notwithstanding, there are some sane people who also find fault with the latitude given to how-to-make-a-bomb manuals. Two professors at Saint Louis University, Kathryn E. Kuhn and M. Dyan McGuire, in 2013 wrote in the Internet Journal of Criminology: “A better approach is to identify ‘how-to’ criminal manuals as a species of expression which is unworthy of First Amendment protection. Such an approach would allow the authorities to seize such materials upon discovery as contraband and would allow those who create, disseminate and possess such materials to be swiftly and efficiently sanctioned, without waiting until someone is actually injured or an additional criminal offense involving the material can be proved.”

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, too! The California Democrat has long sought legislation against bomb-making how-to manuals, including a failed legislative effort in the mid-1990s. In April 2015, two Queens women were charged with a bomb plot and were revealed to have relied on instructions “on how to turn propane tanks into bombs.” In a press release, Feinstein said, “I am particularly struck that the alleged bombers made use of online bombmaking guides like the Anarchist Cookbook and Inspire Magazine. These documents are not, in my view, protected by the First Amendment and should be removed from the Internet.” Inspire is al-Qaeda’s English-language publication.

So Trump isn’t out there on Authoritarian Island in going after bomb-making instruction sites. There’ll be no drawing comparisons between this call and, say, his dream to “open up” libel laws so that people like him can more easily sue the news media for tough coverage.