Firstly, don't believe the face-value stories given about "I was banned for nothing, just this one little thing I said in an isolated moment of anger". Banned players are players that have either been warned several times to stop their poor behavior, or were so drastically toxic they warranted an escalated response.
When those banned players come here and post a chat log they are usually not sharing the ENTIRE story. They aren't sharing the lead-up incidents where they were warned to stop misbehaving. They are, in many cases, only showing an edited portion of the chat log to make themselves look better. And ultimately, those banned players pitching sob stories to the playerbase are the vocal minority. They are NOT average players, they are exceptions that are making a really big deal about it to try and avoid punishment. They aren't just losing their cool once or twice, they are doing it constantly and regularly.
Think about it this way: You and your friend Bill go to the park to play basketball. You meet two guys, Dale and Chip. You play some 2 on 2, and the other guys win. Dale winks smiles and says you played like old grandpas, then points his thumb at the hoop and asks if you want to go another round. Chip thumps his chest and gets right up in your personal space yelling at the top of his lungs how frail and weak you are, and how easy it was to beat you and how terrible you played.
Bill has to go to an appointment, so he excuses himself and leaves. You still want to play, but now it's a 1v1. Both of the enemy players engaged in trash talking. Both made jokes about you being old and frail when they beat you. But one did so with a friendly wink, one did so with aggressive yelling. Who would you wish to play with again?
The average League player is a Dale. It's the Chip's who get banned, then come to the boards sobbing and telling biased stories to get people on their side. League community and Riot player behavior only look "soft" because the Chips of the world feel like they are entitled to be as big a dick as they want and it's everyone else's problem if they "can't handle it".
TL;DR: bans are not happening as often or as easily as the banned want you to believe. The banned simply don't want to admit they need to stop being dicks like Chip.
