Indeed. Making something that could be made impossible (or extremely difficult) "only" illegal will tend to make people complacent. If the expectation is that bad people won't do something because it's against the law, good people may fail to ensure that they can't. And then bad people do it anyway, leading to outrage, panic and harmful reactionary legislation. Not to mention bad people getting away with doing bad things, which could all have been prevented with sound engineering.
This isn't to say that every problem can be solved with a technical solution -- but when the technical solution is extremely effective, a legal solution is surplus to requirements.
Indeed. Making something that could be made impossible (or extremely difficult) "only" illegal will tend to make people complacent. If the expectation is that bad people won't do something because it's against the law, good people may fail to ensure that they can't. And then bad people do it anyway, leading to outrage, panic and harmful reactionary legislation. Not to mention bad people getting away with doing bad things, which could all have been prevented with sound engineering.
This isn't to say that every problem can be solved with a technical solution -- but when the technical solution is extremely effective, a legal solution is surplus to requirements.