Prohibitions and Encouragement

This morning in the New York Times, in an article on a new gun law in Florida, some "Chief Timoney said, 'you're encouraging people to possibly use deadly physical force where it shouldn't be used.'" (Here, 8th graf)

The law in question removes prohibitions on shooting an assailant in public. Now, we can argue over whether or not removal of prohibitions causally encourages the action. What I am more interested in is the relation of this argument to sexual laws. Both killing and sex are situations with moral implications. If removing prohibitions on killing encourages that action, then removing prohibitions on sex also encourages that action. Interestingly, usually conservatives and liberals with both oppose this broad stroke. Conservatives will wish to say that removing prohibitions on killing do not encourage it, and liberals will say the same about sexual laws. Perhaps this is a straw man generally, but I have heard both arguments before.

My view is that it is the case that removing the prohibition on an action encourages it. While I definitely prefer to have as few prohibitionary laws as possible, this encouragement factor must be weighed when legislating.