Forget Common Sense, Pass A Law

The horse’s name was Amigo. He was big-footed and liked to eat. I could relate to that.

Amigo appeared aptly named. But once astride his wide back I realized that I could get hurt. Looking around at our small group getting ready to leave the stables for a Sunday afternoon ride, I felt the need for more government regulation.

After all, what’s the purpose of government if not to protect its citizens?

Not one person in our group wore a seat belt. No one wore a Department of Transportation-approved crash helmet. And not one saddle in our group was equipped with an air bag.

As this great nation prepares to enter the 21st century, it’s hard to believe that the American government has callously ignored the protection of its citizens by its failure to pass laws making it illegal to ride horses without rider and passenger air bags, mandatory seat belts on saddles and government-approved helmets for riders and passengers.

Surely, the government has no greater priority than to protect its citizens from themselves. No doubt the Founding Fathers would spin in their graves if they knew that the government they fought to establish still allowed its citizens to make decisions that could harm themselves and thereby place their individual liberties and personal freedoms at risk. No expense is too great and no personal inconvenience is too burdensome if only one life can be saved.

The current dust-up over federally mandated air bags comes not from opponents of bothersome government safety nannies, such as myself, or the usual libertarian critics of government run amok. No, the latest attacks on this government-ordered safety device come from soccer moms, women and men who weigh less than 179 pounds, which describes 90 percent of Clinton voters.

It seems expensive government-required air bags designed to save lives are killing people. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that air bags are responsible for killing 51 people between 1986 and 1996. These are people who would not have been killed except for the deployment of air bags. Another untold number of Americans have been maimed or injured due solely to air bags.

Most of the people killed or injured were children, women and small men. It seems the government requires that air bags protect a 179-pound man not wearing his government-required seat belt, which is why the explosive force of air bags have decapitated a 1-year-old girl strapped in a government-approved child seat along with killing 30 other children and 20 small adults.

To correct this government-ordered oversight, safety nannies argue that new laws should be passed to tell Americans where they must sit in cars and trucks according to their age and weight. A law prohibiting children, women or small men in the right-front passenger seat should solve the problem of deaths due to the 200 mph deployment of passenger-side air bags, for instance.

Since there remains the problem of government-mandated driver-side air bags, that problem could be solved by making it illegal for anyone under 179 pounds to drive a car, which is fine with me.

Although air-bag laws have already cost Americans billions of dollars to save 1,136 lives, another solution could be to order many billions more spent for air bags that determine the size, weight and punch-absorbing ability of all drivers and passengers who must be strapped into a government-approved seating arrangement, pass drug and alcohol breathalizer tests and have on the government-tested crash helmets before the car will start.

Since only the very rich could afford cars, Americans would again be forced to ride horses for transportation. Amigo wouldn’t like that.

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