One of the two big dominoes in the Hillary Clinton email controversy toppled today: The State Department's inspector general released its report on the email practices of Clinton and a number of other past secretaries of state. (The other major domino is, of course, the FBI investigation into Clinton's decision to exclusively use a private email server while serving as the nation's top diplomat.)

The report, which you can read in its entirety here, badly complicates Clinton's past explanations about the server and whether she complied fully with the laws in place governing electronic communication. And it virtually ensures that Clinton's email practices will be front and center in Donald Trump's fusillade of attacks against her credibility and honesty between now and Nov. 8.

Clinton used an inappropriate method of preserving her documents. Her approach would not have been approved if it had been requested by a more junior member of the State Department staff. The report also suggests that despite a Clinton aide's insistence that the method of preserving her emails had been submitted to a legal review back in 2010, there is no evidence that such a review took place. And, here's the kicker: Clinton refused to sit for a formal interview.

Oomph. Double oomph. Heck, that might merit a triple oomph.

One of the differences between moderate advocates of gun control and prohibitionists is in their attitudes toward self-defense. The former are willing to recognize that defensive arms in the right hands can be socially beneficial. The latter deny that firearms do in fact save lives. A good example is Katie Couric’s new TV special “Under the Gun.” In that program, Matt Lauer states: “There is a very common expression out there that ‘The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun.’ ” Couric answers, “Most public health experts and gun safety experts say that it is just a specious argument.”

The unnamed “experts” on whom Couric relies are apparently not expert at reading newspapers. Literally, a good guy with a gun is not the “only” way that armed criminals are stopped. But it is an important way, including in mass shootings.

Now, Ronald K. Noble, former secretary-general of Interpol, is weighing in on the issue. During the first Clinton administration, from 1993 to 1996, Noble served as assistant secretary and then undersecretary for enforcement at the Treasury Department. This made him the direct supervisor of the main federal gun control agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. As such, he played a major role in the Clinton administration’s very aggressive gun control program. This included changing BATF licensing practices for Federal Firearms Licensees to deny the majority of them license renewal.

As Noble explains, his 14 years of close involvement in global counterterrorism changed his perspective on gun control. This week, he has published a video about the 2013 mass shootings at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. The video, “Armed Citizens Can Help Stop Terrorist Massacres Like Nairobi and Paris,” shows graphic footage of the attack and of the response of armed citizens. During the lengthy and well-planned attack, more than 60 innocent people were murdered. As Noble explains, the death count would have been hundreds more if not for the armed citizens who intervened. As Noble puts it, “This is not an American argument, nor a political argument. In these horrific situations, law-abiding armed citizens have helped protect others and literally saved lives, and the world should be made aware of this reality. . . . In the hands of law-abiding citizens, guns can and do save lives.”

For the second time in as many years, a federal judge in Washington ordered the city to halt enforcement of its new, concealed-carry law that requires applicants to state “good reason” to carry a weapon in order to obtain a permit from police.

The preliminary injunction was contained in a 46-page ruling Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon that will be in force pending further litigation. Leon declared the District’s gun-permitting system is likely unconstitutional. The system was adapted by the District after its long-standing ban on carrying firearms in public was overturned at court order in 2014.

[Read the judge’s full opinion here]

The city’s law, among the strictest in the nation, matches those in Maryland, New Jersey and New York that have been upheld by federal appeals courts elsewhere.

The case was brought by plaintiff Matthew Grace and the libertarian gun-rights group Pink Pistols.

May a county in effect bar all new gun stores in its unincorporated areas? (The incorporated areas would be governed by city zoning rules.) This morning’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decision in Teixeira v. County of Alameda [Calif.] suggests that the answer is probably “no.” Here’s a rough summary of the reasoning of the majority (written by Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain and joined by Judge Carlos Bea):

1. The Second Amendment, in protecting a right to have guns for self-defense, also protects the “right to acquire weapons for self-defense.” Both history and logic supports this:

If “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” is to have any force, the people must have a right to acquire the very firearms they are entitled to keep and to bear. Indeed, where a right depends on subsidiary activity, it would make little sense if the right did not extend, at least partly, to such activity as well. The Supreme Court recognized this principle in very different contexts [citing cases involving the right to use contraceptives and the First Amendment].

Though D.C. v. Heller stated that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on … laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,” there is no “categorical exception from Second Amendment scrutiny for the regulation of gun stores. If such were the case, the County could enact a total prohibition on the commercial sale of firearms. There is no question that ‘[s]uch a result would be untenable under Heller.’” “Conditions and qualifications” do not include broad prohibitions.

Chris Gaither was home alone “petting the dogs” on Wednesday morning when he heard a noise upstairs.

The 11-year-old boy from Talladega, Ala., told NBC affiliate WVTM-TV that he was scared, so he grabbed a knife and steadied himself.

Chris said that a man appeared on the stairwell, but when confronted, he ran back up upstairs. When the man reappeared moments later, the boy told WVTM-TV, the individual was holding a gun.

“When he was coming down the stairs, that’s when he told me he was going to kill me, f-you and all that,” Chris said.

Instead of running, Chris told the station, he upgraded his weaponry, picking up a 9mm handgun that was in the home.

Once the man made it outside, Chris fired a warning shot. The man, who was carrying a stolen laundry hamper, began running. Chris emptied the clip, firing off 12 shots by the time the intruder neared a fence in the family’s front yard, the 11-year-old told the station.

The final shot hit the man in the leg as he was hopping the fence, the boy said.

“I shot through the hamper he was carrying,” Chris said. “It was a full metal jacket bullet. It went straight through the back of his leg. He started crying like a little baby.”