It's that time of the year. Cold weather = space heaters, fireplaces, stoves - and HOUSE FIRES. People die. It's the same story on the evening news night after night. Why do so many homes not have smoke detectors?

It parallels the question, "why do so many people not wear sealtbelts"? We just went through the seatbelt thing, with opinions pretty evenly split. If there were a proposal for "smoke detector laws" (local firemen doing yearly home inspections to be sure smoke detectors are properly placed and maintained) would the opinions here be exactly the same? Would the same people here who said we should have seatbelt laws also say we should have smoke detector laws? The home inspections would take only a few minutes. MANY lives would be saved, and everyone would save on insurance premiums.

The arguments for or against would be much the same as seatbelt laws. There must be a few here who would say yes to seatbelt laws and no to smoke detector laws. What would be the difference? I'm not being sarcastic. Do people think that our homes are more off limits to government mandates than cars? Or that they should be?

marc9000