Saggy Pants Ban to Eliminate Crime!

The Jackson Mississippi city council has dropped its saggy-pants ordinance, an attempt to ban the most moronic fashion trend ever, far worse mullets or white leisure suits, being functionally idiotic as well as aesthetically so. It also does social damage, being yet another sad case of people in a group suffering from a stereotype of stupidity (inner city blacks) perpetuating that stereotype by dressing stupidly. Ditto for the sideways hats (recall Otis on the old Andy Griffen show). I roared with laughter once watching a group of kids walking to school through some 3 or 4 inches of standing water with those idiot pants on, having to pull up their pants legs to keep them out of the water. I couldn't help unleashing a "Hey dumbasses! Wear your pants right and you won't have that problem!"

Here's an idea: instead of banning them, how about a public education program reminding these morons that this fashion originated in prison with guys who got it up the ass a lot. Now how tough and macho do you feel?

But seriously, what caught my eye with this article was something the mayor said about it that sounded eerily familiar:

He said many of the young men who wear saggy pants also get in trouble at school or with police.

He said the ordinance was an attempt to "save all the children we can."

Now where have I heard similar reasoning before?

In the US:

Accidental shooting injuries by people with guns: ~200,000/yr.

Accidental shooting injuries by people without guns: 0

Ah there, you see? Ban saggy pants because saggy pants are involved in so much crime. That way the saggy-pants related crime will drop to zero! Never mind that the perps will merely wear something different, or use a different weapon, and commit the crimes anyway. You also hear similar arguments with regard to alcohol, textbook examples of confusing correlation with causality.