Yes it is. The combination of fear and ignorance, and the poor judgement of a few individuals, leads to this kind of overbearing regulation.
I am very conflicted about this kind of thing, because I am a libertarian at heart, yet I believe that there are too many stupid people in the world (like the idiots who released Burmese Pythons in S. Florida) to have freedom without regulation.
The problem is that regulation all too often leads to over-regulation.
We need to regulate the regulators. Elections are supposed to do that, but the problem is that so much damage can be done in a single political term of office.