LAW

More Guns, Less Murder?

The year 2025 is shaping up to have the lowest homicide rate since 1900. Let that sink in. The lowest in 125 years. Law-abiding citizens carrying firearms aren’t the problem. They never were.

The Myth of the “Patent Troll” Litigation Explosion

The Myth of the “Patent Troll” Litigation Explosion

Unfortunately, the complaints today about today’s patent litigation crisis arise more from unchecked intuitions about what feels like a bad situation, from unrealistic assumptions about how much certainty we can achieve in the patent system, and from emotionally-compelling anecdotes about innovators running into trouble with patents.

Profiling for Crime: Who Is Too Blame?

Profiling for Crime: Who Is Too Blame?

A law-abiding black person denied a taxi is rightfully angered, but to whom should his anger be directed, at the driver who’s trying to protect his life or at the people who’ve instilled fear by robbing and assaulting cabbies?

Hillary Clinton Insults Herself–and Women Everywhere

Hillary Clinton Insults Herself–and Women Everywhere

Hillary Clinton recently said she hoped the U.S. would elect a woman to the White House because it would send "exactly the right historical signal" to men, women and children. She said women in politics need to "dare to compete" and the nation needs to "take that leap...

Edward Snowden: Traitor by What Definition?

Edward Snowden: Traitor by What Definition?

It’s now an undisputed fact, in the minds of our esteemed government officials: Edward Snowden, the man who exposed the U.S. government for spying on private, law-abiding citizens, is a traitor. Exactly how did this label get smuggled in to the whole controversy about...

Edward Snowden vs. Fascism

Edward Snowden vs. Fascism

Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old ex-CIA technician who has come forward to self-identify as the source for news reports about massive...

NSA, Obama and The Loss of Trust

NSA, Obama and The Loss of Trust

Amid all the heated cross-currents of debate about the National Security Agency's massive surveillance program, there is a growing distrust of the Obama administration that makes weighing the costs and benefits of the NSA program itself hard to assess. The belated...

Sex and the Military

Sex and the Military

The headline on the front page of the New York Times said it all: "Women in the Senate Confront the Military on Sex Assaults." In a triumphalist article showcasing the growing numbers of women on the Senate Armed Services Committee, "one of the Senate's most...

Obama Exploits a Compliant America

Obama Exploits a Compliant America

"You can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society." So says Barack Obama, in defense of his administration’s policy of monitoring the phone records of private...

Alan Dershowitz vs. Ben Franklin

Alan Dershowitz vs. Ben Franklin

The collection of millions of Americans' phone records by the National Security Agency is a necessary compromise on privacy —but should be monitored to keep it from being abused, renowned civil rights attorney Alan Dershowitz says. "Even Benjamin Franklin was wrong...

Guns Save Lives

Guns Save Lives

We almost never hear about these hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of guns from the media, which will report the killing of a dozen people endlessly around the clock.

How Copyright Drives Innovation in Scholarly Publishing

How Copyright Drives Innovation in Scholarly Publishing

This basic economic fact—dynamic development of innovative distribution mechanisms require substantial investment in both people and resources—is what makes commercialization an essential feature of both copyright policy and law (and of all intellectual property doctrines).

Selling Horse Meat as Beef: Buyer Beware, Too?

Selling Horse Meat as Beef: Buyer Beware, Too?

In my last article I wrote about stores selling products past their best before date—such as the expired canned lobster pate, which raised demands for legislation against selling expired food products in Canada. I argued that such legislation would be a violation of...

Consumer Protection: Regulation vs. Reputation

Consumer Protection: Regulation vs. Reputation

A Canadian woman recently bought a can of lobster pate at a Wal-Mart store. The pate was about a year and half past its best before date, and the woman claimed that she felt ill about four hours after consuming some of the pate. In this era of the nanny state, the...

Columbine Survivor Asks the Hard Questions About Guns

Columbine Survivor Asks the Hard Questions About Guns

It’s amazing. When Hollywood celebrities who support gun control or gun bans advocate these policies, we’re supposed to humbly and uncritically listen. Even when some celebrities, such as Rosie O’Donnell, support gun bans while claiming special exceptions for...

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