It's sometimes surprising how difficult it is for a death toll to force political action a sizable minority of the population strongly opposes.
How many people had to die from tobacco before even our currently very modest restrictions were put on its use and sale? Cigarettes can't be used as defense against wildlife, they can't be used for hunting, they can't be used in guerrilla defense during an invasion. But they're addictive and so even though they've played a part in killing millions and have been estimated to kill over 40,000 non-smokers a year, it's extremely difficult and time consuming to regulate them. And they aren't protected in the Bill of Rights, either.
We're probably going to see very slow change for gun control in the US, and with increasingly sharply divided opinions among voters.
How many people had to die from tobacco before even our currently very modest restrictions were put on its use and sale? Cigarettes can't be used as defense against wildlife, they can't be used for hunting, they can't be used in guerrilla defense during an invasion. But they're addictive and so even though they've played a part in killing millions and have been estimated to kill over 40,000 non-smokers a year, it's extremely difficult and time consuming to regulate them. And they aren't protected in the Bill of Rights, either.
We're probably going to see very slow change for gun control in the US, and with increasingly sharply divided opinions among voters.
http://www.livescience.com/23562-secondhand-smoke-kills-nons...