What’s killed more people this year in Massachusetts: vaping or mosquitoes?

Mosquitoes, 4-0.

What’s killed more people this year: Vaping or the Registry of Motor Vehicles?

The RMV, 7-0.

What’s the death toll in Massachusetts in the last year, sharks vs. vaping?

Sharks 1, vaping zero.

What’s killing more people in the United States this year: vaping or cigarette smoking?

Cigarettes, 480,000 to 12.

Yet it’s the sale of vaping products that’s just been banned in Massachusetts — not mosquitoes, sharks, the RMV or cigarettes. The vaping industry will be in federal court in Boston this morning, trying to put an end to this ridiculous four-month prohibition.

This whole “ban” is classic Charlie Baker. The governor always goes after the low-hanging fruit. Rather than try to take down the actual bad actors, he targets the people or groups he cynically believes are too weak to fight back.

It was the same thing with opioids. Even Marty Walsh’s Boston Police Department said most of the heroin/fentanyl epidemic is being fueled by illegal-immigrant Dominican drug gangs. But Tall Deval concentrated his fire on legal prescriptions — Dr. Feelgood, and his patient, Granny, who now has to fill three prescriptions (and come up with three co-pays) of 10 Oxys, instead of one for 30.

See, Dr. Feelgood and Granny weren’t going to punch back and point out that they were being scapegoated. But if you go after illegal-immigrant drug dealers, every woke Democrat from the SJC and Judge Feeley to the dying fake-news broadsheets will come after you like a ton of bricks.

Which brings us to this newest pseudo-crusade against vaping — 2,500 private-sector jobs at stake so that Tall Deval can read a headline or two about how “courageous” he is.

So what if you can just drive to a neighboring state and buy whatever you need. It’s the headline that counts. What would happen if somebody got a bad batch of moonshine from an illegal still? Would Tall Deval shut down every package store and barroom in the commonwealth until they could locate the source of the hootch?

Did you notice that the same day that this ban was imposed, the state’s Cannabis Control Commission OK’d home delivery of marijuana? Tell me which is worse for more people — weed or vaping?

If Tall Deval is so concerned about lung problems, he should outlaw cigarettes. I’m sure his reluctance to go after smokes has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Massachusetts has the fourth highest cigarette tax in the nation — $3.51 a pack. (That’s over twice the national average — $1.73 a pack.)

In their court filings ahead of this morning’s hearing, the lawyers for the vaping industry said that before they were shut down last month, licensed shops were providing $18,982,100 annually in state taxes, and their customers were furnishing the hackerama with another $10,773,000 for state coffers.

How about snuff? Here’s a quote from the state’s own website:

“Smokeless tobacco is subject to a 210 percent state excise tax of the wholesale price.”

Would the vaping industry be shut down if it were paying a 210% excise tax?

Okay, vaping is a health hazard, or at least it’s not a good thing to be doing. But what is, when you get right down to it? Everything in moderation, as they say. Are more likely to kill yourself vaping … or if you continue smoking cigarettes?

If you’re riding down the highway, are you more likely to be shot by a vaper, or an out-of-control Mass. state trooper? If you’re a cop in a bar in Newport, R.I., are you more likely to be assaulted by a vaper or an off-duty Mass. trooper?

Who embezzles hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funds every year, the old Troop E of the MSP or the vaping industry?

But does Tall Deval care about the fact that the MSP on his watch has become what is probably the most corrupt police force in the United States?

Of course not. Maybe because, unlike the vaping industry, the state police have an incident report on his son’s alleged groping of a female passenger on a JetBlue flight.

Yet vaping is out of business, for at least four months. Because Tall Deval wanted to virtue signal yet again. So much for “Hey, it’s a free country.” Or “live and let live.”

Again, vaping has supposedly killed 12 people in the U.S. this year, according to the statistics. By contrast, 57 Americans are killed by lightning, 70 by lawnmowers.

We don’t need any more “common sense laws” about guns or vaping or lawnmowers or anything else. We just need common sense politicians, who will leave us alone. As for Tall Deval, he’s nothing but a pest.

Check out Howie’s latest podcasts at dirtyratspodcast.com.