Regular readers of my work are aware that I have had more than a few occasions to criticize the policy goals of the Obama Administration. In my column this week for the Hoover Institution’s Defining Ideas, however, I take on an issue of a different nature: one in which the Administration’s goals are laudable, but the means by which it aims to achieve them are hopeless.

The Department of the Interior announced last month that it is imposing a sweeping ban on the commercial trade of ivory — one that will cover both the sale of objects that contain any amount of ivory, however small, and the shipment across state lines by the owner of any object that contains ivory. This policy is part of a well-intentioned effort to protect animals like elephants and rhinos from poachers by strengthening enforcement mechanisms against the illicit markets in which products made from their horns and tusks are traded. It suffers, however, from a total disconnect between ends and means. As I write: