It’s not often you get to riff off your editor twice in a row, but, hey, sometimes Christmas comes early! Let’s talk about kindergarten.

I left kindergarten behind many years ago, but it just won’t let go of me. I don’t mean stale graham crackers and milk, nor the warm blankie and a nap after lunch — not that the nap after lunch doesn’t have a certain attraction. No, what I’m referring to are “kindergarten rules,” the concept all too common today that states that since somebody, somewhere, might act to cause a problem, then *nobody* is allowed to act that way. “Just in case.”

Take, for example, the recent passage of Measure 91. For decades, we’ve been told that people can’t have recreational drugs because they might get stupid with them. They might overdose and die, or fry their brains into grey goo, or commit heinous offenses that no undrugged person would ever consider. Dead bodies everywhere!

Yet that’s just what we have today — dead bodies south of the border, dead bodies in our inner cities, overdoses in college — the very thing that we’re told that the New Prohibition will prevent. But very few of those people are killing each other over a six-pack of Carling Black Label. Why? Because CBL is legal and you can buy it at the local 7-Eleven (if you live in Pennsylvania — here, not so much). CBL is regulated; its content is quality controlled by statute, and while people do still do stupid stuff with alcohol, at least we don’t have organized crime growing fat off the proceeds.

Another common area for kindergarten rules is gun control. Guns, we are assured by those who would prohibit their possession, are a focus of evil in the modern world. The trigger pulls the finger. Otherwise happy and mild-mannered individuals are driven to psychotic rages simply by the presence of a Smith & Wesson revolver in the room. Only those who wear magic uniforms are immune to the evil magical influence of The Gun. Students of comparative religion will recognize this as “animism.”

Are guns dangerous? You bet — just like any other power tool. Gun owners should absolutely get safety training and instruction in the proper use of firearms, much like new drivers should get safety training and instruction in the proper operation of an automobile. But just suggest to a Kindergarten Ruler that gun safety should be taught in school and watch his head explode. People just lose control and shoot each other, a Kindergarten Ruler claims. Really, I ask Kindergarten Rulers, would *you* lose control and shoot somebody if you had a gun? If his answer is “no,” then what right does the Kindergarten Ruler have to speak for others? If his answer is “yes,” then he needs to get himself checked into a psychiatric ward for some serious help, if his anger can lead to killing.

The problem is that Kindergarten Rulers have difficulty understanding a basic logical fallacy, that “correlation is not causation.” Just because two events happen in proximity, there’s no guarantee that they’re related. Do idiots use drugs and do idiotic stuff? You bet, but do the drugs cause the idiocy, or are they already idiots and would they be idiots even without the drugs? For every “I watched my friend’s brain turn to oatmeal mush on heroin,” there is at least one “I knew a functioning amphetamine addict.” Doubt that? Go look up what we’re dosing our kids with in school — Ritalin, Adderall and stuff like that. The kids, we’re told, can’t function without it. That sure says “addict” to me. Charles Whitman is a rarity. Gary Kleck’s estimates of 3 million defensive gun uses per year is more normal.

Kindergarten rules may have had some value for kindergartners, who are young children whose brains aren’t all that developed yet. But as a lifestyle plan for adults, having someone tell you that you can’t be trusted because *he* can’t control himself — that’s not a rule, that’s more idiocy. Which does make me wonder what Kindergarten Rulers are smoking.

But that’s just the opinion of an opinionated guy who wants to leave kindergarten behind someday. Share your opinions in response! Letters to the editor or by email to hermistonheraldoffthebench@gmail.com. Names of the terminally shy will be withheld on request.

— Thomas Creasing is a municipal court judge and Herald columnist