(Roughly) Daily

From the one-handed flail…

to the flamethrower…

… “10 Crazy Weapons That Are Still Legal In The U.S.”

* variation on the NRA’s slogan, popularized by Charlton Heston: “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”

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As we re-read the Second Amendment, we might recall that it was on this date in 1998 that a tobacco company executive– Steven Goldstone, RJR Nabisco chairman and CEO– acknowledged the health risk of tobacco products under oath to Congress for the first time.

Concern about the safety of tobacco dated back to the 19th Century, and links to lung cancer emerged in the early 20th.  But it was in 1950, with the publication of Richard Doll‘s research in the British Medical Journal, that a close link between smoking and lung cancer was scientifically established.  Many studies quickly followed, confirming Doll’s findings and establishing the addictive quality of nicotine.  Still, as recently to Goldstone’s testimony as 1994, seven tobacco company executives had sworn under oath that nicotine was not addictive.

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