Month: May 2013

Demand for Bullets: Shooting Up

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Demand for Bullets: Shooting Up

NPR’s Planet Money recently discussed how there has been an increased demand for ammunition, yet prices have not correspondingly increased.  Here is the introduction to the story: 

Sales of guns and ammunition rose after President Obama took office in 2008, and they went through the roof starting late last year, when a school shooting led to a push for new gun control measures. That’s led to a prolonged ammunition shortage, even with manufacturers running at full capacity.

A gun owner in Florida told me he has had a hard time finding .380 ammo for a small handgun for the past six months. Customers at Bob’s Little Sport Shop in southern New Jersey told me it’s hard to find ammo for some rifles and for the popular 9 mm. Even .22 rounds, the small ones, have been hard to come by.

An economics textbook would say this shouldn’t happen. It would say that Bob Viden, who has run the shop for almost 50 years, should respond to the increase in demand by raising prices. And some stores and online sellers have done just that. But, Viden told me, “We don’t want to do that. We want to be fair.”

Private Prisons: Pernicious Public Policy?

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Private Prisons: Pernicious Public Policy?

That was the question being debated on Lawyer to Lawyer. Here is a description of the show:

n this edition of Lawyer2Lawyer host Bob Ambrogi discusses private prisons with Susan Herman, president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Adrian Moore, vice president of the Reason Foundation, a non-profit in support of libertarian principles and privatization.

  • Susan Herman was elected president of the ACLU in October 2008. As Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, she teaches courses in the area of Criminal Law and Procedure and Constitutional Law. The ACLU has been studying and protesting against private prisons as a for-profit business for decades.
  • Dr. Adrian Moore is vice president of policy at the Reason Foundation. He has conducted studies, written publications and scholarly articles on the privatization of prisons and how they yield quality corrections at a lower cost. He has served on boards and commissions developing or overseeing privatization at the federal, state, and local level.

Tune in to hear Herman and Moore debate and discuss the colossal incarceration rate, the profit motives of private prisons, the politics behind it all, and the impact on prisoners’ rights.

Suboxone: Why Government is Frustrating

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NPR’s Planet Money team tells the story of Suboxone, an anti-addiction drug that the government subsidized then regulated to the point that it is almost impossible for addicts to access.  To attain the anti-drug, addicts are left turning to… their drug dealers. 

Here is a description of the story: 

There’s a pill called Suboxone that treats addiction to heroin and pain pills like oxycontin. Doctors and addicts say it’s amazing.

“It was the best thing that ever happened,” one heroin addict told us. “I was like OH. MY. LORD. This is a miracle pill.”

The government spent tens of millions of dollars developing Suboxone. Doctors can prescribe it in their offices. But a lot of people who want it can’t get it from a doctor, so they have to buy it on the street.

Today on the show: Why people have to turn to drug dealers to get a pill that fights addiction.

What is Viability?

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What is Viability?

Radio Lab recently ran a story about a child that was born at 23 weeks and 6 days about halfway through a typical pregnancy.  Although this program isn’t explicitly about the abortion debate in the United States, I have included it because I believes it has implications in the debate. Here is a description of the story: 

When Kelley Benham and her husband Tom French finally got pregnant, after many attempts and a good deal of technological help, everything was perfect. Until it wasn’t. Their story raises questions that, until recently, no parent had to face… and that are still nearly impossible to answer.

 

This hour, we spend the entire episode on the story of Kelley and Tom, whose daughter was born at 23 weeks and 6 days, roughly halfway to full term. Their story contains an entire universe of questions about the lines between life and death, reflex and will, and the confusing tug of war between two basic moral touchstones: doing no harm…and doing everything in our power to help. Kelley has written about her experience in a brilliant series of articles in the Tampa Bay Times.

Murder and Mental Illness: “Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde”

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Murder and Mental Illness: “Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde”

This American Life recently ran a riveting story about a beloved family doctor who bruttally murdered his father. Here is an introduction to the story: 

Dr. Benjamin Gilmer . . . gets a job at a rural clinic. He finds out he’s replaced someone — also named Dr. Gilmer . . .  — who went to prison after killing his own father. But the more Benjamin’s patients talk about the other Dr. Gilmer, the more confused he becomes. Everyone loved the old Dr. Gilmer. So Benjamin starts digging around, trying to understand how a good man can seemingly turn bad.