"might produce some democratic pressure for more nuanced legislation."

Nah, you just get knee-jerk, feel-good laws because the masses never dig deeper and the elected only care about being reelected.

These laws are not driven by masses. The masses do not want this crap. These laws are driven by busybodies who think they know what's best for the masses. The politicians and their advisors think they can get "free" (statistically nobody ever voted for the other guy over something so little) turnout from these busybodies in their favor by promising/doing this stuff. It's a sick numbers game and we all lose. Just like everything else these days.