I share your position, but the obvious counterpart to this is that many regular people need access to gasoline as part of their daily lives. not so with phosphorus.

in general, I don't think citizens should have to answer "why do you need this?" to the government, but you're not really comparing apples to apples here.

I think it is apples to apples, since as you say, the "why do you need this" question isn't relevant. Gasoline is easier to cause harm with and would be more readily accessible even if phosphorus were totally unregulated; regulating ownership of phosphorus nets a society nothing. It's as inane as banning switchblade knives when machetes, handguns, rifles, etc are all legal and available. Does anybody need a switchblade? No. But does banning them accomplish anything at all? I can't see how.

Phosphorus and gasoline even share the same potential for substance abuse. Just as you can make meth from phosphorus (apparently) you could huff gasoline. I wouldn't recommend either, but you could. Both can be used for arson, and both can be used as drugs. One you can buy anonymously in large quantities with cash in literally every neighborhood in the country.

the "why do you need this?" question isn't irrelevant. it's my personal opinion that it shouldn't matter, but other people aren't wrong if they disagree. I can only hope to encourage them to see things my way.

If you want to deprive someone of their access to phosphorus, you need to deprive them of either their access to urine, or their ability to boil liquid.

I don't know what that endgame looks like, but I'm not a fan of it.

It's about the societal costs of denial vs. the risks of availability. Restricting gasoline to only certain individuals would cost millions to billions of dollars and would save us from a few fires a year. Restricting access to nuclear bombs costs almost nothing and saves huge risk.

some might say that restriction of X, even if X has no "real" value, is already a significant cost. depends on whether you think freedom is merely a means to an end or a value in and of itself.

> Restricting access to nuclear bombs costs almost nothing and saves huge risk.

That makes me wonder, if nuclear bombs were deregulated, who would actually be rich and stupid enough to actually construct their own? Larry Ellison maybe? Probably not even him.

If John McAfee ever became terminally ill, I could see him building one, driving out into a desert, and going out with a literal bang.

Gasoline is regulated. Trucks transporting large quantities of it requires hazmat registration for the safety of first responders. Zoning regulations limit and regulate how large quantities of gasoline can be stored. Try parking a gas tanker in a residential HOA without proper hazmat plates and see how long it goes "without even raising any eyebrows". Try driving one without a hazmat license and see how long you get away with it.

Now, yes, regulating tiny amounts of phosophorus might be a bit much. But I'm pretty sure you'd object to an unregulated chemical plant next door - those things can be dangerous even with well trained, well meaning personel. The question, then, is where to draw the line, not if it should be drawn at all.

Gasoline in the quantities required to burn down a building with people inside it is, for the intents and purposes of an arsonist, unregulated. They might yell at you if you use an unapproved jerry can, but otherwise it may as well be unregulated as far as homicidal nut is concerned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation_arson_attack

Buildings are pretty flammable on their own - people die in house and building fires without any gasoline being involved whatsoever. An animation studio filled with paper, without a fire supression system, and possibly without fire escapes is no exception.

When holding out the kyoto animation studio tragedy - are you sure you're not arguing for better fire codes and gasoline regulation, rather than the deregulation of phosophorus? You're certainly not making a good argument for deregulating gasoline entirely, if that's your intention. Yes, an arsonist can get their hands on enough to do damage. Suggesting we remove all those pesky regulations so they can trivially get a gas tanker and drive that into a building - making it easy for them to cause an even larger tragedy - certainly doesn't follow as a logical conclusion, nor does giving them ready unregulated access to potentially more dangerous materials:

https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/1337 https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/11498

...which would allow them to do more damage, or shrink their packages, or maybe just delay detection and reaction to their actions. Gasoline has a distinctive smell that would make me curious/cautious. What does phosophorus smell like? I could see myself mistaking someone spreading it out for someone spreading fertilizer or something, at least until the point it starts spontaniously combusting.

By all means write better fire codes, but unless you wrap yourself in a mile of asbestos blankets I don't think anything you do will render you immune to burning gasoline. There is nothing you or any government can do to stop a nutjob from killing you with gasoline.

Yet here you are, unscathed. Nobody has thrown gasoline at you yet, and probably nobody ever will. Why? It's not because of any gasoline regulations, nor because of your reaction time to smells, nor because of tanker truck regulations, or anything like that. The true reason nobody has lit you on fire yet is because there aren't really that many arsonists who want to light you on fire. That's it; it rarely happens because it's rare that anybody has the inclination to do it.

So how about phosphorus crime? Is that common? No, and I see no rational reason to believe it would be more common than gasoline attacks if phosphorous were as unregulated as gasoline. Even if phosphorus were unregulated, the market demand for it would be low and therefore few stores would sell it. Gasoline would remain the obvious accelerant for any would-be-arsonist.

The phosphorous crime in question is using it as a reagent in a few illicit drug synthesis paths (and poor ones too), specifically methamphetamine.

So yes, there have been a plenty of phosphorous related crime.

Now, whether we should allow just about anyone to synthesize meth is a different and more pertinent question. Synthesis alone is not especially dangerous, illegal distribution is... and this ban was taken to curb it. It is not especially successful. (Also limits on saffrol and sulfuric acid for other drugs.)

In comparison, production of explosives is dangerous. Risks fire and explosions, therefore should not be done on a bench top by just about anyone. (And reason for limits on nitric acid.)

Chemical disposal is also a quite minor problem.

I've actually lived in a neighborhood that was being randomly targeted by a nutjob arsonist, with multiple fires, and some burned down buildings. Fortunately, IIRC, no deaths, but perhaps one injured firefighter. In attempting to find an article about the bloke to refresh my memory as to if the arsonist used accelerants like gasoline - I believe he did at least once, but perhaps inconsistently - I didn't find google particularly helpful, as there have been apparently more recent arsonists in that same neighborhood cluttering up my search results. Arson is perhaps not quite as rare as you think, although I'm still pretty relaxed about it. Turns out most arsonists don't think to get an entire trolley or cart full of gasoline, and in smaller quantities it isn't quite as dangerous.

I'm more worried - although still rather relaxed - about accidents. I've caught a gas leak. I've walked up to a restraunt I frequent only to find the building condemed due to a nearby gas leak resulting in an explosion overnight, rendering the structure unsound. I've had insulation in heating ducts catch fire. I've had drunk neighbors in a shared apartment complex set their kitchens on fire as they've gone to sleep. I've helped stomp out grass fires caused by someone's discarded cigarette butts. I'm sure there's more I've simply forgotten. Again, no deaths, despite plenty of property damage and destruction.

> So how about phosphorus crime? Is that common? No, and I see no rational reason to believe it would be more common than gasoline attacks if phosphorous were as unregulated as gasoline.

I hear a lot more about war crimes involving white phosphorus than I do about war crimes involving gasoline, despite current regulations. Even if you're correct that civilian crime involving phosphorus wouldn't become as common as civilian crime involving gasoline, that wouldn't make any uptick a good thing, or even neutral.