Ask yourself these questions and answer them truthfully. Why do you want your local, state, and federal governments passing more laws to restrict what kids can and can't do? Why is it important to have a curfew law in your city or town? Why shouldn't kids be allowed to "hang out" in certain places or in groups of more than a few kids? Why should certain books be banned from the local library or restricted to adults only? Is censorship and ratings for music, movies, and television really going to make a difference? I could ask a hundred more questions, but this is a good start.
      If you think some of these are important to protect yourself, your neighbors, or your "good" kids from the "bad" kids, you may have a very good point. Curfews can cut down on the number of kids out late and causing trouble. When kids "hang out" being loud and sometimes rude to customers near a store or other public place, it can cut down on business. If too many kids are in one place, it could very well be a gang or just a group of kids out to cause trouble. But what about the kids who wouldn't be causing problems? Why punish all of them for the few "bad apples"?
      I've actually heard some parents ask "How am I supposed to control my kid if the police or government don't make it illegal?" What? Check out the crime statistics. Enacting laws aren't going to keep kids from doing something if they want to do it anyway. If a kid is raised to be a "good" kid, more than likely that's what they'll be and no laws are needed. From experience, I've found that the kids who're causing the most problems are the ones who have parents who don't take time to teach their kids right from wrong and/or aren't really involved in their lives. What about peer pressure? The same rule applies. If you teach your kids about right and wrong, they're less likely to fall prey to peer pressure or, if they do, it's less likely to be something getting them jail time.
      What about the censorship and pulling books off library shelves? I may not agree with everyone's ideas of art, entertainment, or literary genius, but that doesn't mean the stuff shouldn't be available. If you don't want your kids to view the material, it's your responsibility to know what they're doing and stop them. Take the time to teach them to appreciate the "good" things available and why certain things are "bad" and off limits. As an adult, you've set limits for yourself and you stick to them, so you need to do the same for your kids. When it comes to entertainment, you're idea of "wrong" for your kids is within another parents "acceptable" range.
      It may sound like I'm advocating a stance of there being no absolute wrong or right. That's the furthest thing from my mind. If I didn't believe in absolutes, I would find no logic in the law enforcement in this country. What I'm trying to get at in this post, is there's still something called "parental responsibility". They're your children and it's your responsibility to build the basis of their moral behavior, not the legal system. If you don't take any personal action to raise your kids and expect the law to do it for you, you may spend your time visiting your kids in the local juvenile detention center or even an adult prison.
      If you insist on the laws being passed and get your wish, don't turn on the police department, prosecutors, and judges when it's your kid who broke the law and ended up in legal trouble. Too often I've heard parents praise the government for passing some law and later cry about how their kid was "unjustly punished" for breaking the law. These are parents who think their kids will obey the law and be good little boys and girls if they know something is illegal, yet those kids have decided the law doesn't apply to them. Having laws and their related punishments does deter some people from committing crimes. How many murder cases do you think the police would have on their desks if there was no law against killing someone? If every book you didn't like was banned from the library, any kid wanting to read it would still get a copy from somewhere. There are many cities with curfew laws, but they don't stop kids from sneaking out of the house after a set hour. If you get the laws you want, don't get angry when it's your phone ringing and the police telling you "if you want [put a name here] to be home tonight, you have to come down and bail him out of jail".
      While there may be a need for some more laws to protect kids, if every parent got every law enacted they wanted to control THEIR kids, we'd be living in a police state where Big Brother made sure everyone was exactly like everyone else. Do you really want that to happen? Laws were created to protect people from harmful and dangerous behaviors, not to raise your kids. That's your job, not the police in your community.