It's a false premise.The ONLY people you discourage or prevent are Law ABIDING ones , what part of that do you fail to grasp?i never claimed that prohibiting something would equate to its elimination.I hate to be the one to break it to you but ANY "tech" that is actually available anywhere in the world is available to criminals in the US and terrorists. They do not follow laws and smuggle in anything they need or want. All banning something does is ensure the people that follow laws will not have it. Something like about 2 percent of all cargo delivered to our ports is inspected. A nuclear war head could be smuggled in if anyone had one.so you do not believe that if all offensive and defensive tech are made available that an arms race will happen between police and criminals?do you have an actual response, or can you not see that allowing all tech to be purchased and used by the public essentially creates an arms race between the police and criminals?
You are spouting stupidity. The only appropriate response is to point out said stupidity.
but if i can't own, sell, or buy something legally it'll be a hell of a lot more complicated and more expensive to get my hands on it - especially when we're talking about specialized equipment.
scarcity in the marketplace, price, and illegality discourages everyone. perhaps not enough to dissuade everyone, but it does discourage people.
and let's not pretend we're talking about drugs or alcohol here - these are items that the average person can't grow in their backyard or brew in their basements. we're talking about specialized equipment that requires specialized equipment. outlawing such items would leave them in the hands of criminals, but they would be in fewer criminal hands than before.
pretending that because a law doesn't prevent something 100% is a valid reason to oppose it is idiotic. why then would we have laws against anything?