Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Good law?

This is topic Good law? in forum The Flameboard at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/11/133.html

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

I was reading last night where some state has enacted a law that makes it illegal for you to possess a gun if you or your employer have ever been convicted of a felony.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Meant to go after mobsters and their bodyguards and such...

Except, what if you're a bank guard, and your bank manager was once convicted in a drunk driving fatality? (vehicular manslaughter).

You could be a criminal just by doing your job..

There was, until recently, a law in california that stated that it was illegal for a person in a mental institution to own a gun.

This sounds good too, until you realize that many people in hospitals could have owned guns BEFORE they were committed, and not had the opportunity to dispose of them beforehand, thus making them "instant, involuntary criminals," and violating the ex post facto clause of the Constitution.
(Fortunately, the law now makes it forbidden to "possess" or "purchase," which is somewhat better.)

What we need now is not more laws, but better-enacted laws, and better enforcement. Any time you enact an unenforcable or poorly-thought-out law, you weaken the judicial and legal systems that much more.

------------------
You're just JEALOUS because the little voices talk to ME!

Posted by Simon on :

Well I'm not sure if its like that everywhere but around here most bank gaurds work for a seperate company under contract with the bank.

What we need are smarter politicians and more people paying attention. If you just let the government run without close observation they are bound to end up doing something very stupid.

For instance the state government of Indiana once tried to pass a law making pi equal 3. It got all the way to the senate before a math teacher noticed and informed them that pi can't be set by the government.

------------------
America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.
-Clemenceau

Posted by The Excalibur (Member # 34) on :

ROTFLMFAO!!!!!!!!!! Sweet!!

------------------
PARTURITION

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

This is why sometimes parts of laws are ignored.

Simon: I think the 50's were pretty civil.

------------------
2 FINALS REMAINING! College is taken care of, summer job; check, now if I could get that girl back to her old self.

Oh, and that sig.file. :)

Wheelersburg Correctional Facility
#05301999-1382

Posted by Cargile (Member # 45) on :

In the bank guard thing above, I doubt district attorneys are going to press charges in such a case. And if they did, it wouldn't make a grand jury indictment.

------------------
Think of it this way, at least we will be in prison together.
Tom to B'Lanna, upon reaching Earth and and being arrested by Tuvok.

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

Here's an article regarding the pi=3 legislation. Actually, the law, as written would have assigned several different values to pi, depending on what you needed to use it for.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_341.html

Here's s'more from the Urban Legends Reference Pages (this time the "stupid state" is Alabama, a more believable proposition if you ask me ):

http://snopes.simplenet.com/spoons/faxlore/pi.htm

--Baloo

------------------
If lawyers are disbarred and priests are defrocked,
are tree surgeons debarked and ecologists denatured?
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Actually, I was thinking of the lawsuit an injured robber (or the relatives of a deceased scumbag) might file, saying that the guard was carrying and using the gun illegally, which would essentially be true.

Even a lawsuit you win can put you deep into debt.

------------------
You're just JEALOUS because the little voices talk to ME!

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

One day I really must trawl through that Urban Myths site Baloo likes so.

------------------
"Now then, I believe Random Pavarotti disease is a psychological ailment and we should find it in the otherworldliness of Vince's brain."
"Ohw, rubbish. I reckon Random Pavarotti disease is a physical condition......
Let's go and look at 'is bum!"

-Rex the Runt