I've had something rattling around in my noggin for a long time and it's something I can't seem to ever get out in words to explain what I'm thinking. Thankfully, Say Uncle has a post that allowed me to be sarcastic in the comments, and I realized that's EXACTLY the point I've been trying to make
From his post
OK law makes it illegal to fortify home if you have drugs: bill that makes it unlawful for “any person to willfully fortify an access point into any dwelling, structure, building or other place where a felony offense prohibited by the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act is being committed, or attempted, and the fortification is for the purpose of preventing or delaying entry or access by a law enforcement officer, or to harm or injure a law enforcement officer in the performance of official duties.
OK law makes it illegal to fortify home if you have drugs:
bill that makes it unlawful for “any person to willfully fortify an access point into any dwelling, structure, building or other place where a felony offense prohibited by the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act is being committed, or attempted, and the fortification is for the purpose of preventing or delaying entry or access by a law enforcement officer, or to harm or injure a law enforcement officer in the performance of official duties.
My comment
“OK, so we’ve got the meth lab all set up, the pot farm lights are in place, the underage Taiwanese kids are putting the heroin in the baggies when they’re not being whored out, and that guy I killed is stuffed into a freezer. God, I hope nobody does a raid on the house because I’m not going to risk breaking the law that says I can’t fortify my doors!”
“OK, so we’ve got the meth lab all set up, the pot farm lights are in place, the underage Taiwanese kids are putting the heroin in the baggies when they’re not being whored out, and that guy I killed is stuffed into a freezer.
God, I hope nobody does a raid on the house because I’m not going to risk breaking the law that says I can’t fortify my doors!”
Laws are like chains – only as strong as the weakest link. Adding more laws onto the chain has no effect when a criminal is willing to break any of them. A guy who just got through ax murdering every last person at a Shriners' convention and is being chased by the cops isn't going to be deterred by the speed limit during his getaway.
I understand that many of these laws are put into place in order to increase the likelihood of a conviction but the issue with that is that it creates a labyrinth of laws that require lawyers to figure out and ends up ensnaring the innocent more than the bad guys. When a law requires someone to have extensive training in order to decipher / understand it, it's a bad law.
Take, for example, gun laws. All these laws are passed to make it even more illegaller for criminals to be criminals but instead of lowering crime, we simply expand the definition of what is a criminal. A guy who has a shotgun handed to him by his grandfather who never even shoots it but who's home is broken into and the cops find it during their investigation and it just happens to be 1/8" shorter than the legal limit… tell me how that prevented any crime.
Suppressors, fully automatic weapons, too large caliber, too small caliber, too many, too few – all these laws that attempt to 'catch' the criminals do nothing but place an undue burden on the law abiding since the criminals are not going to care about their weapon being even more illegal.
Why this is a difficult concept to those who support the gun banners' goals I'll never understand. Not the banners themselves. They know they don't care about crime prevention, they're just pushing their bigotry. But one would think that simple logic would be all that's needed to counter the few cheerleaders the gun banners have.
Alas, it doesn't and hence, I must continue to blog, continue to preach to those around me the benefits of freedom, and continue to fight for the rights of all of us.
Does that mean it doesn't matter whether murder is punishable by death or merely a $20 fine?