Quote:
Originally Posted by crash_override
I'm ok with a smoking ban in public. Some places take it too far, like California. Making smoking illegal almost everywhere, including your own car in certain towns. Myself being a non-smoker, couldn't really care less. But there is a point where government trying to protect the health of the mass public crosses over into denying people their American rights (assuming we are talking about America here). Now I can see the benefits of both sides of the argument, but the main thing I think people are forgetting is that we have to look out for everyones rights.
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True.
The key phrase here is "everyone's rights". It's hard to protect everyone's rights when you're protecting smoker's rights while violating non-smoker's rights. This is the situation in bars where workers and patrons may be non-smokers. But in your own car, alone... there's no reason to ban that. That's just infringement.
One thing I like about Louisiana... not sure if it's the same in most other places, but your car is legally an extension of your home. This means you can smoke in it, carry loaded weapons in it, and if someone hijacks your car and threatens your life, you can legally shoot them in your car and be operating legally under self-defense.
I guess it'd be even more extreme for some folks to claim that smoking outdoors would harm others... but then you'd have to go after emissions of cars and every other emission that industry puts out there. Personally, that's just going too far to be effective without trampling on everything in the process.