Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 8, Rand introduces his next topic of complaint, a government act known as the Lacey Act. Originally put into place in 1900, the act was intended as a conservation law to help prevent illegal trafficking in wildlife, fish, and plants. However, it was amended in 1935, 1969, 1981, 1988, and 2008, and is now a broad, nonsensical, over-encompassing act that gives extremely harsh criminal penalties for extremely vague reasons. He notes that Gibson guitars was attacked under this Act, but that this Act has been mauled over the years. He points out that although Republicans want to blame Democrats for the bill, the issue is much bigger, as many of the problems with it have come from parts of other bills, where leaders choose to "tack on" unrelated issues, in the hopes of getting them passed. The 2008 adjustments to the Lacey Act...