That's a very bold statement. I'm sure all the gangs, drug cartels and criminals generally have their guns registered and don't obtain them in an illegal fashion at all.
Right. Just like those of us in countries where flash cards are banned don't obtain them in an illegal fashion either.
Because nobody has ever used a flashcart to listen to music, use an organizer or watch video clips that they legally own.
That's not the point, though, is it? Flash cards don't have a legitimate business purpose, they don't represent a significant importance like CDs and DVDs did.
I don't see how comparing rewrittable storage to rewrittable storage is in any way unfair.
But that's not what you're comparing. They're banning a copyright circumvention device―many of which provide patches or updates to circumvent further copy protections in the actual game code―that may, or may not, have rewritable storage as an additional feature. Most flash cards accept rewritable storage as a medium, but if you exclude the flashable bootloaders, not many of them include it.
Then DVD's and CD's should be banned as well as those too are used in making illegal copies - of DVD's and CD's.
But like I said before, those items are (or were) invaluable to a much larger market across the world for legitimate purposes. The number of people using a flash card for legitimate purposes is comparatively tiny.
But it's the individual who committed the felony/crime - why would you not do that?
So what if it's impractical and the damages are small? It's merely unmasking how little impact piracy actually has on the industry. Again, in the case of a stabbing, I'm sure that chasing the company that made the knife is much more practical, but they're still not responsible for someone who stabbed another person with their knife. You don't chase the knife manufacturer, you chase the criminal.
...and none of those things in any way harm the developers who actually made the games.
Well, like I said it's not really feasible. Nintendo can't sue Jim if Jim copied a game published by Capcom. Capcom could, but the damages are technically minimal (much less than the RRP as I previously mentioned) and potentially nothing as you said before. If Jim was selling or sharing the illegal copy then, yes, the damages would be more substantial. Instead, though, it makes much more sense to go after those facilitating piracy than those committing it.
I'm not at all arguing the effect of piracy on the market. If you want to use the case of stabbing, I think that if, tomorrow 100 websites popped up selling different types of dangerous knives, along with guides on how they can make them more effective at doing harm (sharpening vs firmware updates) and tutorials on where to stab people to do the most harm possible (vs tutorials on how to load retail games onto a card), then probably the justice system would try and do something about it. When things become a problem, it's common for the law to step in and deal with it.
Seeing that users have a right to backup their software, I don't see anything unreasonable in telling them how to do it and subsequently how to use the backup.
Except nobody is naive enough to think that they're selling R4 cards to angelic citizens who'd never do anything like pirate games. Instead, all these retailers are fully aware that they're making money from facilitating piracy, making them almost as bad as bootleg distributors. They know it, the games companies know it and the courts know it and that's how it can be justified that they're in the wrong.
