The Vet

Banning Shorts Works in Fancy Restaurants, Not the Marketplace

If short selling allows an investor to be "bearish on stocks they don't own" the obvious opposite position is an activity that allows longs to be "bullish on stocks they buy but don't pay for".

Of course that is possible through buying call options or sell puts, just as the bearish crowd can either sell calls or buy puts. If bears want to speculate on drops in the stock price then they should use the options market, the same way as the bulls have to.

So until the system allows bullish investors to buy stocks without paying for them, why should shorts be allowed to sell something they don't own?