[belorn]

There are other cases where society punish people before they commit a crime. We punish people from driving under the influence, even if the drug has yet to cause an accident. Society and the majority of the populace has generally decided that the risk to society is bad enough to make it illegal.

Under the process of law making, a lot of things has been made illegal because it adds a risk to society. From a simplistic perspective it is just risk management, with risk on one side and the cost of the mitigation on the other side. It is not necessary any ideology behind it, and thus the removal of one costly mitigation strategy can have little impact on other strategies that are less costly.