You hear how, in the 1968 Masters, Roberto de Vicenzo carelessly signed a scorecard showing a 4 instead of a 3 on the 17th hole the final day, and thereby lost the championship to Bob Goalby. Today, de Vicenzo might have been persuaded to sue. Casey Martin will get to play the PGA Tour this year while riding a golf cart. Not because the PGA Tour itself made a humanitarian decision, but because the law stomped all over the Tour's privilege of making that decision in the first place. There's the tragedy.
People regularly complain about American society being armed and dangerous.
So it is, but not in the way most of those complainers think. The real deadly weapon is too much law, which murders the possibility of mercy altogether.