Regulations are interventions by the government, includes bans.

The definition of regulation as intervention in the private domain is quite old. Already in the mid-nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill casually used the word “regulation” to describe “governmental intervention in the affairs of society” and laws that implement such intervention.23 Mill argued that “[n]o subject has been more keenly contested in the present age” than “the limits of the province of government.” He posited that the source of controversy was largely an ideological divide between two groups in society—”the supporters of interference [who believe the government should act] wherever its intervention would be useful” and the “laissez-faire school [that believes] the province of government [should be] restricted . . . to the protection of person and property against force and fraud.”24 Reflecting on such beliefs, Mill pointed out that “on every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting reasons. . .. [W]e do not [always] understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to . . . complicated [subjects], to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favor some opinion different from it.”25 Mill’s account of perceptions of regulation and their formation is timeless.