Andrew Branca is a lifelong NRA member, a lawyer who consults on self-defence law and the author of The Law of Self Defense: The Indispensable Guide to the Armed Citizen.

During our discussion, I metioned the Dickey Amendment, which forbids the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from advocating or promoting gun control, but has widely been interpreted as preventing the CDC from studying the health effects of gun ownership.

I also mentioned sutdies that show that owning a gun does not reduce the chance of being the victim of a gun attack, and that gun ownership is not associated with a reduction in crime.

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Back in episode

107, I talked to David Dayen on the Economics of vaping, particularly the

huge expansion in the market reach and the valuation of the market leader,

Juul.

At the time we noted that Juul say that

they are a healthier alternative to smoking, that even if it isn’t healthy, it

is healthier. They are saving people

from the worst effects of their addiction. But the suspicion was that, although

they denied it, rather than reducing the number of smokers, they are targeting

children to expand the number of people addicted to nicotine.

Some information that has been uncovered

since then doesn’t exactly reassure the people who might have doubted their

word. Documents presented to the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and

Consumer Policy show just what Juul has been doing to not target children with

their products.

Let’s be clear here – the suspicion is that

Juul, now owned by the same company that makes Marlboro cigarettes – is trying

to get children addicted to nicotine before they can make a mature decision as

to whether that is something they want in their life. Research shows that

almost all smokers who get addicted to nicotine do so before the age of 18, and

the small portion who take up smoking as adults are much more...