Why shouldn’t I support CPSIA?
Suppose Congress was worried about preventing rape, so they passed a law saying that every man in the country had to register as a sex offender or be locked up in prison if he refuses. You would probably say that this was unfair, that most men aren’t rapists, and that it was cruel to lock someone up in prison for not committing a crime. You might also say that this would not prevent any rapes, since women on the lookout for potential rapists wouldn’t be able to tell which of the newly registered men was really a sex offender. If you are a woman, would you feel safer knowing that all men had registered as sex offenders, or would you become suspicious of everyone? If you are a man, would you want to register because you feel that any action should be taken that might possibly stand even a tiny chance of preventing a horrible crime?
This is how businesses feel about CPSIA. Most of the businesses affected have done nothing wrong; they have never broken any laws or sold any unsafe products and have even taken many precautions to make sure their products are safe, long before CPSIA became law. But they are faced with either extinction or extremely high costs from testing. The fact that all manufacturers have to do the testing makes consumers suspicious that all products have poisonous amounts of lead in them, which makes them feel less safe. And the real kicker is that all this effort is entirely wasted. CPSIA will not prevent most cases of lead poisoning, which are caused by lead in old house paint and in contaminated soil– items that are not covered by CPSIA. It is simply not true that we should go to any lengths at all, including doing demonstrable harm to children, to potentially protect one single child from the slightest chance of lead poisoning. It is not worth destroying the industry that clothes, amuses, and educates all our children so that one child can “safely” eat 10,000 rubber duckies without poisoning himself with lead.
Some manufacturers will still choose to break the new law by selling safe but untested or unlabeled products, hoping they won’t get caught or that if they do get caught, the fact that their products are safe will protect them in court. But when people go around breaking laws, this lessens respect for the rule of law. Think for a minute about a law almost everybody breaks. Do you speed? Do you have respect for the speeding laws? No, because everybody around you is breaking them too. Imagine if all laws were disrespected like speeding laws. Nobody would care if they committed a crime, because everyone else does it too. When we look at places in the world where there is no respect for the rule of law, we see drug lords and warlords take over. This is not a recipe for civilization. Of course CPSIA won’t result in warlords taking over the country, but it is one step toward that path– a step we should not take, for fear the next one will be easier.
