It's Time to Regulate...FLAGPOLES!

A Kindergarten student was tragically killed a couple of years ago when a flagpole fell on top of her during a windstorm. A Michigan lawmaker has come to the rescue, offering legislation to regulate flagpoles.

Do we really need to make a new law every time someone is injured or killed? As the article points out, the flagpole was not poorly designed or defective, it was rusted. The article also mentions that a civil lawsuit ensued. That is what the legal community is there for, to provide us the Constitutionally protected right to file for redress. If there was negligence on the part of school, the lawsuit will sort it out and provide compensation. Will that replace the loss of a human life? Of course not. But it will, among other things, encourage just about everyone who owns a flagpole to check and see if it is in danger of collapse. In fact, the district immediately went out and inspected all their flagpoles, and I suspect every school district in the state that heard about the incident probably went out and did the same thing.

The point here is, it should not be the responsibility of government to make sure we are safe from every possible ill or injury. We need to practice individual and corporate responsibility. When we don't and tragic accidents do happen, we have the courts.

I cannot help but ask the question, if one person dies from a freak accident when a flagpole falls, what should we do about the dozens of people who die from trees and tree limbs that fall? Should government regulate every tree that grows on public property?