- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
- europe@feddit.org
- Technically, the new law will raise the legal age requirement in the UK for buying cigarettes, cigars or tobacco, which is currently 18, by one year in every subsequent year, starting on January 1, 2027
- This will effectively mean that people born on or after January 1, 2009 will never be eligible to buy them
- Retailers will face financial penalties for selling the products to those not entitled to them
- The government will also be empowered to impose a new registration system for smoking and vaping products entering the country, seeking to improve oversight
- The bill will expand the UK’s indoor smoking ban to a series of outdoor public spaces, for instance in children’s playgrounds, outside schools and hospitals
- Most indoor spaces that are designated smoke-free will become vape-free as well
- Smoking in designated areas outside pubs and bars and other hospitality settings will remain permissible
- Smoking and vaping will remain legal in people’s homes
- Vaping will become illegal in cars if someone under the age of 18 is inside, to match existing rules on smoking
- Advertising for smoking and vaping products will be banned
- People aged 18 or older will remain eligible to purchase vaping products, but some items targeted at younger consumers like disposable vapes have already been outlawed as part of the program
Well to be honest, there is an argument for letting you build bombs in your basement. A bullet is effectively a bomb. Plenty of people make their own bullets/shells. Should they be forced to buy those from a company?
There is nuance to just about everything.
Laws should be restricted to protecting people from other people, not from themselves.
For very, very small definitions of “plenty”.
Sure, in that example, plenty is small. But who decides how small a group has to be to be allowed to take their rights away when they have committed no crime.
If a law is passed making what they’re doing illegal and they continue to do it, then they are committing a crime.
You really wrote that right? So don’t like someones rights. Justify taking them away because you wrote a law to make what they were doing a crime. It wasn’t a crime until you decided it was okay to take their rights away. So they hadn’t committed a crime when you made the law.
“Rights” are just things that aren’t outlawed. Do you have a right to commit murder, and are upset that the government has outlawed it?
Rights are rights until they are outlawed. So you can’t justify making a law to take away someones rights because after the law they will be criminals.
And no, I am not upset that there is a law against murder. Because murder impacts others directly. But smoking alone in your basement doesn’t. Big difference. A law making it illegal to force others to inhale your smoke and such… fine by me. Make it illegal to smoke at all. Not fine by me.
Exactly. People have a right to murder other people, until the damn government trampled all over their rights by making it illegal!
Sure there is an argument for letting me do anything, but when you keep persuing and reducing the argument, it eventually boils down to “Why do we even have laws at all?”
The answer to that question is “because we as a society decided to.” By their very nature, laws created by people are arbitrary and intangible, their only actual effect is derived from society’s willingness to actually enforce them.
If the laws were actually agreed upon by the people… but they aren’t. And most are really to protect businesses, not people.
But no, it doesn’t boil down to why have laws at all. Laws should protect people’s rights. Like the right to not get murdered. But that’s not what this is.
Okay, let’s play this out. Laws against murder remove my right to murder people. Just because you weren’t going to use that right doesn’t mean that I wasn’t going to.
Maybe you came in on a side thread. The only rights that should be considered for law are rights that impact others. It’s still a super large list. But your right to snoke in you basement isn’t on it. Your right to murder is.
It has nothing to do with using it or not. Just who it impacts directly.
People smoking in their basements present a fire hazard, major issue if you live with other people.
People smoking (at all) creates second-hand smoke, which harms the people that come into them, or their spaces (like say, a contractor, or first responders, utility technicians…)
People who smoke end up using more critical and limited medical resources because of their habits.
I’m not as daft as to say that smoking harms to the same degree as outright murder, but it’s equally stupid, if not more so, to say that smoking (even in your basement by yourself) harms no one else.
Also…
Who decided what rights should be considered for laws?
I’ll give you a hint; it’s not some universal property of the universe, nor a divine command.
At some point in time, the society I live in established that murder is against the law, and that is the sole reason I’m not allowed to murder anyone. My “right” to murder was just as valid as my “right” to smoke in my basement until there was a law created that defined (or changed) those “rights”.
So, back to my still very relevant comment from earlier…
Okay, let’s play this out. Laws against murder remove my right to murder people. Just because you weren’t going to use that right doesn’t mean that I wasn’t going to.
How about we say, smoking in your basement alone, in a house only you live in to avoid the semantics. Second hand smoke exposure usually requires the smoking to be taking place at the same time or very recently. So first responders are not signficantly at risk if the person isn’t smoking at the time. And their ppe should help reduce that further. If it is a concern based on data, then better ppe should be provided. 2nd hand smoke is probably the least concerning thing they are exposed to when responding. Other people like contractors and such can refuse to enter until the place is aired out.
People who smoke do end up needing more medical care. But so do people who drink alcohol, eat red meat, or any of a large number of lifestyle choices. Motorcycle riders are a great example. If they get into an accident, they will likely need greater healthcare than someone in a car. So should be ban those too?
As for who decides what rights should be considered for laws. That is litterally what we are discussing here. No it’s not universal anything. It’s my opinion. Universally no one has any rights.
Cool, you’re going to die or move sometime, and that smoked in house will go to someone else, which will harm them.
Your house burning down harms your community by using up emergency response resources.
Hell, the smoke from your burning house harms your neighbors. I should know, since the house halfway down the street from me caught fire and fogged up the whole neighborhood for a day. I had to take my wife to stay with her parents because the smoke was extremely irritating for her.
Tell me you’ve never been in an indoor smoker’s house without telling me.
Ah, so your opinion is law? Must be nice to be a despot. Am I talking with Kim? Maybe Vlad?
Yes… This was my point actually, and it takes away from your point that harming other people cannot be a right. Rights are determined by the society you are in. I don’t have a right to murder because the society I’m in has said that murder is not a right. It’s not any more complex than that.
What are you even arguing here? You’ve jumped around so much, I can’t even really tell if you remember what your position was? I think it was something like…
“Laws should be restricted to protecting people from other people, not from themselves.”
Or…
“Well to be honest, there is an argument for letting you build bombs in your basement.”
A bullet isn’t even remotely “effectively a bomb.”
But the things you use can also be made into a bomb just by putting them in a pipe instead. Where is the line? Who decides?
Lots of things are made from the same ingredients. That doesn’t mean they’re the same thing.
Sure but how do you plan to make a law that makes it illegal to make bombs in your basement?
That’s already a law in many places.
Find one. Take a look at it. It bans the ingredients in certain quantities usually because it’s hard to argue with. Just saying “bomb making” is illegal ends up being highly objective. I mean, my propane tank is a kind of bomb really.
We’re kinda getting into the weeds here man. What you’re describing is just banning a bomb with extra steps. Regardless, I don’t know what this has to do with your original assertion that an ammo cartridge is basically a bomb.
So if to ban bomb making, you ban anyone from having a quantity of explosive enough to make a bomb, you also banned them from buying a bottle of the gunpowder needed to make bullets. And if you simply have enough bullets, made by you or not, you also have enough for a bomb. It’s very hard to prove an action noone witnessed. Find some bombs in a basement of a house with 4 occupants. None of them are talking. How can you prove which did it. That is why laws usually revolve around possession for this sort of thing. And really, at the end of the day, a bullet is a bomb by most definitions. Hit it just right, and it explodes. It’s just small. Though it could still do some damage without needing to be in a gun.