How does law protect us?

Laws themselves do little to protect us.  Most of the
actual protections we get are governmental authorities who enforce the laws.  This is an
important distinction because we must not simply look at the laws on the books and
assume that they have effect and that they protect the people they are meant to
protect.

It is true that laws might protect us to some
degree because people will have respect for the law and will not want to break it.  We
might say, then, that law protects us by setting standards for society which people will
not violate.  These standards include provisions to protect our lives, our liberty, and
our property.

However, we know that laws are very often
broken and that some laws (like those giving African Americans equal rights in the late
1800s and early 1900s) are completely ignored.  Those laws, by themselves, do not
protect us.  Laws can only protect us to the extent that the government is willing and
able to enforce them.

Laws, then, protect us by setting
standards for society and by requiring the government to enforce those standards. 
However, laws can only protect us insofar as the government enforces
them.