After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate safer table saws

Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by alphazard on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @06:44PM (#39985138)

Yeah this guy gets it.

Regardless of your stance on whether the government should regulate x or y, it's important to understand that the people driving this law do not care about you or your fingers. This is rent seeking; someone who makes safe saws wants to sell more of their saws, and they compete with people who sell less safe saws. They are using the legal system to benefit their own bottom line.

After the real goal is established, reasons like "think of the children" or "think of the fingers" can be fabricated.

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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by unethical_ban on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @07:58PM (#39985570)

>it's important to understand that the people driving this law do not care about you or your fingers

People and consumer advocates can feasibly have motives other than greed.

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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by stuaxo on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @08:56PM (#39985899)

Seatbelts is a good example: Volvo let any one use 3 point seatbelts so this could be standardised.

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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by thereisnospork on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @07:00PM (#39985257)

But what do the goals matter? The only relevant question I can see is 'are the fingers worth the rent?'

To that point, a regulation requiring "if and only if" per unit licensing is available at (much) less than the worth of the fingers should be a no brainier.

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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by InvertedRhodium on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @07:26PM (#39985390)

Given the relatively small market share that SawStop enjoys, you can only assume that most people feel like the fingers aren't really worth the rent.

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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by thereisnospork on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @07:37PM (#39985458)

It's not really their choice to make though. (trivially, see seatbelts, smoking, airline regulations, ...).

Should it be? Maybe, but that's a discussion out of scope from 'is it in society's interest to mandate inclusion of sawstop's technology, or it's equivalent?'.

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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by InvertedRhodium on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @11:12PM (#39986608)

As of right now, it's 100% their choice to make. Next week, who knows?

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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by lobsterthief on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @07:20AM (#39989411)

A lot of people simply can’t afford their saws though.

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