Gun Laws: Like Laws Named After Crime Victims
How well do gun laws work? Well, Mexico is one of the murder capitals of the world, and they have strict gun laws.

Jon Hammar, an American ex-Marine, got caught up in them and ended up in a Mexican prison after trying to bring a family heirloom gun across the border. He's finally been freed.

The US Consulate in Mexico posts about the Mexican gun laws:

Don't bring firearms or ammunition across the border into Mexico.

Don't carry a knife, even a small pocketknife, on your person in Mexico.

You may become one of dozens of U.S. Citizens who are arrested each month for unintentionally violating Mexico's strict weapons laws.

If you are caught with firearms or ammunition in Mexico...

•You will go to jail and your vehicle will be seized;
•You will be separated from your family, friends, and your job, and likely suffer substantial financial hardship;
•You will pay court costs and other fees ranging into the tens of thousands of dollars defending yourself;
•You may get up to a 30-year sentence in a Mexican prison if found guilty.

If you carry a knife on your person in Mexico, even a pocketknife . . .

•You may be arrested and charged with possession of a deadly weapon;
•You may spend weeks in jail waiting for trial, and tens of thousands of dollars in attorney's fees, court costs, and fines;
•If convicted, you may be sentenced to up to five years in a Mexican prison.
•Claiming not to know about the law will not get you leniency from a police officer or the judicial system. Leave your firearms, ammunition, and knives at home. Don't bring them into Mexico.

Those calling for stricter gun laws in the USA should consider how little a deterrent that is to all the people gunning each other down across the border.

Again, after a tragedy, there's a compulsion to "Dooo something," but we have to be mindful that that will be our compulsion, and try to be rational and reasonable instead. Laws are passed more easily than they are repealed, and few laws protect our rights -- most restrict them. And for the most part, the people who abide by the restrictions are the sane and law-abiding.

A related area is laws named after crime victims. Radley Balko writes at the HuffPo:

This is about vengeance. They're angry at this verdict.

That anger is understandable. But anger is a bad reason to make public policy. New laws, especially laws with serious criminal sanctions, demand careful consideration: Will the law actually address the problem it is intended to address? Is it enforceable? What are some possible unintended consequences of this law? Could it be abused by police and prosecutors?

Laws named after the victims of brutal crimes make it difficult to ask these questions, especially for politicians, who aren't exactly known for taking bold stands against an angry public. When you put Caylee Anthony's name on a bill, you imply that anyone who opposes the bill -- even for good reasons -- is indifferent to the death of its namesake, or at least isn't as concerned about it as you think they ought to be. That's not a formula for an honest discussion of the bill's merits.

In a country of 308 million people, bad things are going to happen. We already have laws against murder, child abuse, and child neglect. When you pass laws that make it easier to imprison people in cases where the state doesn't have enough evidence to prove the crime everyone knows they're actually prosecuting, you undermine the integrity of the justice system. The "flaw" that led to the Casey Anthony verdict is pretty straightforward: The state failed to prove its case. And the government must prove its case, even when all of America is 100 percent certain of the defendant's guilt, because we want to be sure the state will always also have to prove its case when we aren't so certain.