I picked (for some reason) a random example of a made-up put option position, and most of the above response seems centered around the special qualities of short positions and put options. But there's just as much stock market gambling on the "bullish" direction, which doesn't have most of those same properties.

This part rings true partially though: "hedging to reduce how much you're relying on chance in your life" ... so you're saying that it's bad for society when people rely very much on chance in their life?

Is it the proper role of the government though, to put people in jail because they relied on chance too much in their life? Because that's what gambling bans amount to. And on top of everything, these exact same governments (including New York!) purport to "help" society by banning gambling, while still selling lottery tickets themselves.