Originally Posted by Joe Obenberger

I think that it's time to require background checks and a 72 hour cooling off period before the sale of any pressure cookers. And convicted felons and those under indictment and those who've been convicted of domestic battery, of course, should be prohibited from acquiring them. All sales should go through licensed cookware dealers - who, at the same time can do the background checks on anyone seeking to buy knives longer than, say three inches. Ditto for sales of gasoline, bleach, cotton, nitric acid, bleach, BBs, ball bearings, chainsaws, and - well, what other weapons of mass destruction or constituent parts of them have I left off? That will, by analogy to what I've been hearing about guns, bring about the Millennium, peace on earth, and the end of mayhem, because, of course, criminals only acquire these things by buying them at retail in places that charge sales tax. I'm sort of amazed that I have not heard this suggestion about pressure cookers - a much easier sell, I'd think, because the Founders neglected to establish a constitutional right to canning in a well-regulated circle of fruit and vegetable preservationists. With no Bill of Rights protection, I suspect the Pelosi's and Obamas of this world would feel not the slightest restraint from regulating pressure cookers as they see fit, perhaps even confiscating them in the interest of creating a nation of angels.

No, I seriously don't believe in regulating pressure cookers. But I think that regulating them will reduce violent, terrorist attacks just as effectively as further regulating guns would, and just as effectively as Prohibition ended alcoholism and just as effectively as drug laws have ended addiction and the other ills that stem from drug abuse.