Deputyheadmistress, you ask:
And explain why it is reasonable and legal for the CPSC to regulate neighborhood yard sales for selling pre-1985 books, plastic toys, or jackets with zippers.
and Ian, you state:
You missed my distinction between Federal and State law.
Frankly, I’m not interested in debating constitutional issues, etc here; that is a different topic unrelated to my original statement re. the merits of the handbooks.

As I think that there’s a bit too much misrepresentation of each other’s words here,
and prefer to avoid the slide into patronising and ad hominem debate, I’ll not engage further, thank you. Deputypostmistress (love that handle!) and others, you have made your position well and truly clear, and despite your muddying attempts, I think mine is too: regardless of the rights and wrongs of sub-elements of the CPSIA, regardless of the merits of nanny states vs libertarianism; regardless of one’s view on the role of state vs federal governments, the handbook OVERALL is a good resource that can educate would-be buyers and would-be sellers on what is and is not considered safe. You disagree.

No, Michael. That is not what I said. The LAST thing I said was that the handbook is a reflection of a very bad law, but you continue (for understandable reasons) to avoid defending your initial contention that books are actually dangerous so it was reasonable in your view for the handbook to defend banning their sale.

You defended the handbook on the basis that it identified products that are actually dangerous.

My first comment was in reply to that, when I asked you a very simple question, which you continue to refuse to answer. I asked you to explain
“why it is not safe to sell books published before 1985. Please tell us which children have been harmed by these products.”

Your answer was a long and utterly irrelevant rant about the effects of lead, which appears, incidentally, as though it came straight from the talking points of PIRG and Public Citizen types. But it didn’t answer the question, nor could it any way prove that it was reasonable of the CPSC to identify pre-1985 books as dangerous to sell, because, as I believe you know, there is no evidence that any child has ever been harmed by lead in a book. There is no evidence that would support the CPSC’s contention that it would be dangerous to sell pre-1985 children’s books. There is nothing reasonable about such a claim.

I would also say the handbook is bad for putting yard sales under federal jurisdiction. Yard sales are not interstate commerce, so the CPSC should have no jurisdiction over them in this matter.

And I said:
” As for this ‘excellent’ handbook- The very next paragraph in this new handbook to help thrift stores and other sellers of used products understand how to comply with the law illustrates the sort of mindset we’re dealing with:

“…as a business person, you do not want to knowingly sell products that have the potential to cause harm to anyone, especially a child.”

Throwing a yard sale makes you a dangerous business person, and you don’t want to sell anything with even the potential to cause harm to anyone. Got that? And what does that leave?

Everything has the ‘potential’ to cause harm.” Saying that a business person would not knowingly wish to sell anything with the “Potential” to cause harm to “anyone” is a silly and foolish statement, because EVERYTHING has the potential to harm SOMEBODY.

So please, as I and others have asked from the beginning, defend your proposition that it is reasonable to ban pre-1985 children’s books. Give us some evidence that there is an actual process whereby lead in the ink in a few illustrations has transferred from the substrate of a few pages in a book to a child’s blood stream.

And explain why it is reasonable and legal for the CPSC to regulate neighborhood yard sales for selling pre-1985 books, plastic toys, or jackets with zippers.

If a state government wants to pass seat belt laws or mandate a specific car color, that’s the state’s business.

Deputyheadmistress: I’ve already conceded that some parts of the CPSIA may be questionable. Where we disagree is on the handbook. You say that because the law is bad, the handbook must be bad. I disagree: regardless of the details of the CPSIA,the overall content of the handbook is valuable.

It wouldn’t be enough to lick a book (saliva proves not to be an effective mechanism). It wouldn’t be enough to chew a book, because most toddlers, in fact, ALL toddlers I have ever seen, chew the corners of a book, whereas those books that do have lead in them (which is not that many), generally have it in an illustration here or there, or part of one. It’s not like the book was soaked in lead.

A child would have to EAT multiple books, devour them, to even *possibly* get any elevation of lead in the blood levels- and, again, you are unable to name a single example of this happening. So is the CDC. So is the CPSC. and yet, still, an item that has NO history of every resulting in elevated blood levels is now illegal to sell or distribute (your library is breaking the law) to children as old as 12.

It’s not a good law. The handbook is a reflection of that.

Actually, yes, I do oppose seat belt laws. That isn’t the government’s business on a federal level.

Yes, I also don’t think that federal laws concerning pool fencing or outflow drains have any business existing. It isn’t what our federal government is for. If a state government wants to create a nanny state for all of its citizens, then anyone who wants that kind of government control is welcome to live there.

Do you need a law to keep your pool safe? Do you need a law to tell you to buckle up your kids? If you do, I feel sorry for you.

And indeed I do my utmost to keep my children alive. But small children chew stuff and no parent can maintain 100% visual contact for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So part of any parent’s strategy is relying on their environment being safe. Do you oppose laws requiring pools be fenced? That toys likely to be interesting to under-threes not have chokable components? etc? Such laws have been demonstrated (through falling numbers of deaths) to be an effective way of saving the lives of children. Do you also oppose seat belt laws? DUI laws? THAT is the slope you are going down when you make statements such as “it is YOUR job [...] not the government’s”.

> (if you even have a toddler, which I doubt).

Thanks for calling me a liar in such a polite way; nice.
For your information, yes, I do. Two, as a matter of fact.

Michael

To harm children, lead has to actually enter their blood stream- they need to eat it, ingest it, inhale it, absorb it- there has to be some mechanism whereby it transfers from point A to point B. There is NO evidence, as in ZERO, that any child of any age has ever been harmed by the lead in a book. Few books have been found to contain lead, those found typically have it in an illustration or two, or only part of the illustration (a red dress on a cover illustration, for instance). Furthermore, lead ink in books becomes part of the substrate.

And while you disingenuously tell us we should tell your toddler to stop eating his books, this law isn’t just about toddlers. It was, initially. But the special interest groups changed that, convincing Congress to raise the age to 12. Ten year olds do not eat their books, and very few toddlers, in fact, none in the history of science, eat enough of a book to raise their blood lead levels.
Furthermore, it is YOUR job to stop your toddler from eating books, not the government’s (if you even have a toddler, which I doubt).

As for this ‘excellent’ handbook- The very next paragraph in this new handbook to help thrift stores and other sellers of used products understand how to comply with the law illustrates the sort of mindset we’re dealing with:

“…as a business person, you do not want to knowingly sell products that have the potential to cause harm to anyone, especially a child.”

Throwing a yard sale makes you a dangerous business person, and you don’t want to sell anything with even the potential to cause harm to anyone. Got that? And what does that leave?

Everything has the ‘potential’ to cause harm.

And Michael, I agree, the handbook is very useful. For showing the insanity of our government.