Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts

Radley Balko: The Flashbang Menace

Officer safety always trumps citizen safety. ProPublica has just published a long investigation of the use of flashbang grenades, an issue I’ve written about quite a bit, including here at The Watch. These are the incendiary devices intended to temporarily stun, blind and deafen everyone within range. They have some limited appropriate    ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: The Devil's Bargain

In return for your liberty, I will give you ...   It’s no coincidence that during the same week in which the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Yates v. United States, a case in which a Florida fisherman is being threatened with 20 years’ jail time for throwing fish that were too small back into the water, Florida police arrested a 90-year-old   ... MORE

Americans Now Understand Guns Make Homes Safer

by Jason Keisling & J.D. Tuccille.     "An armed society is a polite society" - Robert A. Heinlein. After Washington state voters passed an initiative imposing background checks on people willing to subject even their private and largely untraceable transaction to goverment scrutiny, opponents of self-defense rights proclaimed that they've found a ... MORE

David Leonhardt: Football, The Newest Partisan Divide

Dismantling the gridiron.      To the list of issues that divide the country along partisan lines, you can add an unusual item: football. Yes, virtually every slice of America still watches football in enormous numbers. But blue America — particularly the highly educated Democratic-leaning areas of major metropolitan areas — is    ... MORE

Veronique de Rugy: Government Failure Is Baked In

Why the least government is the best government. On July 14, The New York Times reported that scientists at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had mishandled dangerous strains of anthrax and bird flu, failed to follow correct safety procedures after employees were exposed, and neglected to notify the appropriate         ... MORE

Jeannie DeAngelis: Amnesty For Ebola

Never mind the threat to 300 million people.   Recently, Time magazine published an article entitled “Ebola Just the Latest Hardship for Liberian Patient in the U.S.” The piece seemed to be written with the intent to elicit sympathy for a man who, in his quest to survive, illegally infiltrated a nation carrying a highly contagious hemorrhagic     ... MORE

Police Captain: To Avoid Cop Rape, Don't Break Any Laws

by Elizabeth Nolan Brown. In less than two months, three Oklahoma police officers have been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting women while on duty. One of the officers, state trooper Eric Roberts, was accused of raping women he pulled over for traffic violations. In the wake of this, Tulsa news station KJRH interviewed Oklahoma Highway   ... MORE

California Cell Phone Ban Fails To Reduce Accidents

But it does raise revenue for politicians to spend.     Six years ago, California began enforcing a ban on the use of cell phones behind the wheel. In the latest edition of the journal Transportation Research, a study found that issuing tens of thousands of $170 tickets each year for this new offense failed to yield measurable safety benefits.    ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Who Owns You?

Who should decide your fate?        Darcy Olsen, president of the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, and Richard Garr, president of Neuralstem, a biotech company, wrote "Right to Try experimental drugs" in USA Today (5/28/2014). They pointed out that   ... MORE

Gun Homicides Down Dramatically; Americans Unaware

by Summer Dashe.   An inconvenient truth for gun control advocates. It seems there is something in the news every day about gun violence. The recent mass shooting in Isla Vista, California, a movie theater riddled with bullets in Colorado, children and teachers gunned down at school in Connecticut, and the list goes on. While you may be seeing     ... MORE

John Stossel: Eat Without Fear

Don't be afraid of your food.        It's easy to scare people about what's in their food, but the danger is almost never real. And the fear itself kills. Take the panic over genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Ninety percent of all corn grown in America is genetically modified now. That means it grew from a seed that scientists altered by      ... MORE

Marijuana Legalization Could Bring Unexpected Benefits

by Jacob Sullum.    Why more pot may mean safer roads. The anti-pot group Project SAM claims drug test data show that marijuana legalization in Washington, approved by voters in that state at the end of 2012, already has made the roads more dangerous. The group notes with alarm that the percentage of people arrested for driving under the      ... MORE

Abby Wisse Schachter: The War On Fun

When safety becomes a god.     In 1859, the esteemed magazine Scientific American issued a warning about young people's "pernicious excitement" over a trendy game: chess. The shuffling of pawns and rooks was "a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements   ... MORE

Court Slams First Amendment & Free Expression In School

Upholds ban on clothing with American flags.     It might offend Mexicans. Officials at a Northern California high school acted appropriately when they ordered students wearing American flag T-shirts to turn the garments inside out during the Mexican heritage celebration Cinco de Mayo, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The 9th U.S.    ... MORE

J.D. Tuccille: The Right To Take (Even Really Stupid) Risks

The beauty of self-determination.         There's nothing like the feeling of a motorcycle sliding out from beneath you on a busy thoroughfare to focus the mind beautifully on the value of life. As your ass bounces from the cushioned seat toward the hard tarmac with the screech of unseen cars slamming on their brakes to your rear, you have   ... MORE

VIDEO: Citizen Proposes "Really Safe" Local Ordinances