I can tell you’ve neither read the law itself, nor did you carefully read anything I wrote. Nor have you given two seconds’ thought as to why the law was needed: regulations occur because lots of people don’t act responsibly. If they did, we wouldn’t need regulations. Manufacturers of gas cans shouldn’t have needed to be told to design the canisters such as to not leak, and to be made of materials the gas doesn’t permeate. Consumers shouldn’t have needed to be told to close them. Yet every garage or shed holding an old style gas can constantly reeked of gasoline, indicating ongoing vapor leakage.
I don't have to because it's irrelevant.
But it's
not irrelevant. Examining it is necessary to truly understand the problem. Your "solution" of just whining and telling everyone they're wrong doesn't actually solve anything. It doesn't solve the vapor escape problems that existed before, it doesn't solve the usability problems with the shitty cans, and it doesn't solve the vapor escape caused by the shitty cans' shitty usability. All your attitude does is try and shut down discussion, and cause animosity.
Look, the law may be well intentioned, and if you read it, it may sound very reasonable but the bottom line is that the result of the law is that a majority of the products on the market which are fully compliant with the law and able to be sold are garbage. Not only are they difficult to use and not fit for the purpose for which they are sold, but they result in a large increase in the amount of raw gasoline and vapors spilled into the environment, and reduced safety because of the way they spill gas all over the place. Blame the manufactures of the cans if you want but that's ignoring the FACT that these problems did not exist prior to the law. It's absolutely irrelevant what the law intended, what problem it was meant to solve, and who the blame is placed on after the fact because the actual result is the problem is worse than it was before. If a container can be sold that is compliant with the law yet results in an increase in spilled fuel and other problems then it's a bad law, period.
If you'd read the law, you'd know that if those cans are unable to be used without spilling gas, then they
aren't compliant with the law (neither as intended nor as written), and the manufacturer needs to be taken to task.
Remember: I'm
not saying that
all failed laws are written well. Many aren't. But
this one just isn't an example of a badly designed or badly written law.
The problem with the whole thing is people with your attitude who perceive a problem and believe the law is good because it "does something" about the problem, while ignoring the mountains of evidence demonstrating that most of the products on the market which comply with the law do not actually solve the problem, they simply comply with the law as written. What part of this are you failing to grasp?
Didja actually read my posts? Obviously not:
I am absolutely
not a blind "well it does something" supporter of bad laws. I
expressly said that if a law is not working as intended, then it should be amended or rescinded. Like… even if you don't agree with my ultimate conclusion, you need to be respectful and fair, and give me credit for the things I said that basically agree with you:
I do, however, agree that regulations need to be done right, and that means a) making a sincere effort to weigh the benefits of the change against the negative consequences, and b) being willing to quickly and decisively rescind or modify a regulation if it has unforeseen negative consequences. But the latter is something governments in USA are almost never willing to do. So bad regulation, instead of being rescinded, gets more and more crap slathered onto it, with lawmakers digging in their heels rather than simply saying "hey, this didn't work out, so let's undo it, regroup, and do something else".
You certainly cannot claim that I think "eh, the law tried, that's good enough" even distantly agrees with my views.
Bad law, end of story.
Uhhhh, no. Bad
manufacturers, "end of story."
(Except that I absolutely don't think that "end of story" is how one should end things like that, because that doesn't resolve the problem. The story
should end with the manufacturers being held accountable and/or the law being amended. Foot stomping and whining don't accomplish anything.)