Because it isn't about CSAM, IMO. You see this with plenty of social issues, notably firearms ownership. The claim is we will restrict/license/outlaw xyz for the kids, but really, a data-drive approach would have focused on different things entirely (eg additional behavioral health services for kids, suicide prevention etc)
The same technology/access used for CSAM identification can find copyrighted files, materials that don't support current government, etc. Full E2E encryption seriously raises the cost of mass surveillance, and why the US government fights it at every turn going back 30 years.
When did we aggressively legislate against, search for, monitor, investigate, and prosecute owning firearms?
I'm taking a guess at what the OP meant, but people focus on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. Supposedly most incidents and deaths are caused by handguns. They're more affordable, and easy to discretely keep on your person. A data-driven policy would focus on them first, but it's easier to rile up the public about AR-15s so we keep doing the less-effective thing.
Things that feel useful instead of are useful.
We're not allowed to use data or experts. They’re untrustworthy and out to trick us.
One might wonder about why ceramic plates are controlled in Connecticut or New York.
It looks like Connecticut first enacted body armor regulations in 1998, the year after the North Hollywood police shootout with a pair of heavily armed and armored men:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout#Weapo...
It's hard to find 1998 news articles about it now, but I would guess that the law was a reaction to this high profile crime.
The second militia act of 1792. Though that required you to have a gun. Which in some fashion required monitoring. In modern times many states require you to have a permit to own a firearm and states regularly prosecute people without a license. In Washington state they have laws about safe storage and the police can come into your house to inspect your storage solution without if someone calls them and says you aren’t storing it properly. There’s a constant stream of cases fighting these laws in court. In the 2025-2026 SCOTUS term there were 14 petitions for cert.
https://scotus2a.com/
> The claim is we will restrict/license/outlaw xyz for the kids, but really, a data-drive approach would have focused on different things entirely (eg additional behavioral health services for kids, suicide prevention etc)
Well, most of Europe simply has banned guns in the hands of civilians instead, so that's some data as well.
The only reason why the US is so extremely lax on firearms is because people keep blathering on about how guns are the last line of defense against a tyrannical government - and yet, what do the most rabid of these people do? Vote in and defend a literal tyrant.
>The only reason why the US is so extremely lax on firearms is because people keep blathering on about how guns are the last line of defense against a tyrannical government
No, it’s because the right to own firearms is very explicitly stated in our constitution and the constitution requires an extreme super majority to update. A 50%+1 majority is all that’s required to ban civilian ownership of guns in most parliamentary systems, not so in the US. The culture is downstream of the law.
> the right to own firearms is very explicitly stated in our constitution
The right to bear arms does not necessarily mean firearms. Arms doesn't necessarily even have to include firearms, and America is already pretty damn strict about certain armaments, such as sub-machine guns.
Americans are allowed to have certain firearms, sometimes, in some places. I'm not sure how one squares that with the blanket statement from the American constitution that Americans have the right to bear arms, unless it's simply an impossibly poorly-informed citizenry
Or just a reinterpretation of a single line of the constitution.
Oh, SCOTUS doesn't radically reinterpret the Constitution in that direction. Or, perhaps maybe it does, but nobody's bought Clarence the right RV yet.
> Vote in a literal tyrant.
Tyrant? You may disagree with him, but he got in through the system. Now if he doesn't get out that is another story.
Being a tyrant has little to do with term limits or office duration.
No part of Europe has “simply banned guns”. Some countries have stricter policies but it’s possibly to own a gun in every country. Some countries are famous for gun ownership, eg switzerland that expects men to keep their militarily issued gun in the home.
epsteins case tells you how much the US political class cares about SA and CSA happening in the US.
Yea, until at least one non-ringleader Epstein party participant goes to jail, I'm not going to believe the US actually gives a shit about protecting children.
There’s no concrete evidence that anyone besides Epstein (and by extension Maxwell, who assisted Epstein) actually abused children. Besides the testimony of Virginia Giuffre, nobody else has claimed they were sexually assaulted as minors (Sjoberg was groped by Prince Andrew at Epstein’s home when she was in her early 20s). And neither the FBI nor the Palm Beach PD found physical evidence of such or communications between Epstein or others indicating this was going on.
Why would you expect anyone else to go to jail under those circumstances? Proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt seems very unlikely
I'd at least expect there to be an investigation, based on the huge volume of information that already exists. Unless we believe that the files are just 3 million pages of casserole recipes and that the people who visited just went to play Settlers of Catan.
There is if someone would follow the money trail. Plenty of hard facts to reach a guilty outcome. And over half of the papers haven't been released. If someone motivated comes to power there is a good chance.
Every president since Clinton protected epstein too, it's not a partisan thing.