It's easier to control your citizens then it is to predict what the enemy will do. Who is the enemy?--every first-world country. Smokers are just the tip of the iceberg -- it's places like China and the Middle East that pose real threats because their land could be worth alot. By the way; I should clarify I was using sarcasm. Building weapons of mass destruction is OK because the enemy is doing the same. Neither side wants to show weakness and neither side wants their citizens to think there's nothing to be afraid about. "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living."

Weapons generally are made for defense.

First, although this is a somewhat loaded question, I will say that I think it is a BAD thing to ban smoking in public places - an example of the government getting involved in personal, individual liberty that doesn't actually harm anyone that isn't willing to cope with it. I'll also say that using "second hand smoke" as an argument pro banning public smoking is crap - yes, exposure to second hand smoking has been more or less demonstrated to cause health problems, but only with very frequent, regular exposure over the long term. There is no data to suggest any health problems from sitting in a bar or in a public building once every other week or so and inhaling it. That's just silly. A better question is why refined sugar (or any type of sugar) is still sold, and is not banned in any real way. Constantly bumping up blood sugars with this crap has been clinically proven to the key cause of type 2 diabetes, premature aging, obesity, and heart disease, even increasing the risk of all-cause mortality and cancers. I don't think we should ban it, for the same reason we should keep tobacco open and free for public use - individual liberty, what this country was founded on. But maybe a stern warning by the Surgeon General on the packages like there is for tobacco might be nice... The bombs and stuff are for defense. Those things are, at least for our country, good things. I'm more concerned with my life and my family's life (and by extension, the lives of the people that share my city, their city, and then from their state and country) than any people overseas we might destroy with our weapons.