The LAW defines what is right and wrong in a society. And, the stronger the law, the more the deterrent.
Our founders based our country on the principle of federalism. They had just left a country that had a national church and it wasn’t working for them. The beauty of what they designed was to keep the feds where it belonged, narrow and strictly defined. The beauty was most of the rest was left to the states to decide and that is how it should be now.