I listened to the politicians, arms locked with the parents of Chelsea King, proclaim that they will pass laws so that such a tragedy “never happens again.” But it will.

What happened to Chelsea King is certainly a tragedy. What happens in her name will likely be a tragedy as well. The parents are in pain now, and want to do something to bring meaning to the death of their daughter. But the politicians know better. They know that there is nothing they can ever do to stop tragedies like this from happening.

We’ve been trying since Hammarabi chipped his code in stone to craft laws to stop people from doing bad things. It hasn’t worked yet. It’s not that we don’t have the law, though enforcement of many may be a lot harder than originally thought, but that laws punish people for doing wrong. Laws don’t stop them. They never have, even though we talk about disincentives and deterrence. Has any law eradicated a crime?

Eventually, we’ll have a million laws. And we’ll still have crime. People aren’t changing any time soon, and the very sad truth is some other person will, no doubt, commit this very tragic, very heinous crime again, no matter what laws are passed to make sure it never does.