[trollbridge]

Maybe I enjoy having an arsenal of late-model machine guns, doing research on rare nuclear isotopes, brewing cholera in my septic tank, tending a Japanese knotwood garden, raising lantern flies, and breeding new strains of cold viruses.

Perhaps society should continue to restrain such hobbies.

[jstanley]

Those are all good examples of things that you could in principle do without harming other people, so I don't see your point.

Yes, you should be allowed to do those things as long as you do it without harming others.

[vacuity]

If a lot of people have that as their hobby, and some are careless or malicious, people will be harmed. Now suppose that it's not simple to stop the offenders directly. Instead, restricting the sale of nuclear isotopes or cholera samples would probably be highly effective.