Suppose I liked venomous snakes. Maybe I don’t really know why, I just really
enjoy them. I suppose I wouldn’t have
anything against your common garden snake but I would just get a kick out of
poisonous snakes and the more poisonous the better. Rattlesnakes and water moccasins would be great
fun but there would be nothing like a blue krait or and inland taipan to really
get my juices flowing. Suppose I had 5
of the 10 most deadly snakes in the world in my personal collection in my
home. I wouldn’t take these dangerous
creatures lightly and I would be very careful with them and keep them locked up
in special enclosures.
Unfortunately, there would probably be some people who were
not as conscientious about their snakes as I was. Some people would like to carry their deadly
snakes in public in special holders on their belts or over their shoulders.
Some people would get their snakes out when they had been drinking and end up
hurting themselves or someone else. Sometimes other people’s snakes would get
out by accident and kill someone. There might be incidents where people left
their children alone with these venomous snakes and the kids might end up
getting bitten. There might even be
cases where people with mental illness, criminals or terrorists got their hands
on these snakes and used them to hurt people.
This would in all likelihood lead to demands to regulate the possession
of these dangerous snakes. There would
probably not be an outright ban on the possession of poisonous snakes but it
would be well regulated. The more
dangerous the snake the greater the level of control would be. In fact, some snakes would be deemed so
dangerous that only special organizations with highly trained personnel would
be allowed to possess them.
Naturally, this might lead to some anger and frustration
from people like me who really liked owning deadly snakes. We might argue that we have a right to own
these snakes for home protection. But
this argument would not have much effect on public opinion since venomous
snakes are very hard to train and if you got them out to sick them on the bad
guy they might just as often end up killing you instead.
No, I think we would all have to agree that no matter how
much we enjoyed owning deadly snakes it would be better for everyone if the possession
of deadly snakes was strictly regulated.
To my surprise I just looked on-line and discovered that the
possession of venomous snakes is highly regulated. That makes me think if there might be other
highly dangerous things in society that should be just as regulated.
