Once again
Be careful when you leave America: 28 year old marine facing prison for violating NYC’s onerous gun laws.
Ignorance of the law is only an excuse when the police do it.
9 Responses to “Once again”
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January 3rd, 2012 at 11:32 am
“The online gun-law information Jerome read was inaccurate.”
There’s a shocker.
January 3rd, 2012 at 11:33 am
Wait another one?
January 3rd, 2012 at 11:36 am
“Ignorance of the law is no excuses.”
This a philosophically incomprehensible slogan.
Of course ignorance of the law is an excuse.
Firstly the law isn’t written in English, it’s written in a language that requires years of specialized education to translate, and even then people aren’t really sure about what it means. Any law which can cost a person their freedom should be clearly stated.
Secondly the law changes constantly without notice. When my bank makes a policy change, they send my a letter letting me know about it. Yet I haven’t seen a single letter or email describing any of the 40,000 new laws that went into effect on January 1st.
Thirdly many of the laws are not intuitive or rational.
Fourthly we don’t teach basic comprehension of the law in our public school system.
So we write the law in Klingon, we change it constantly without notice, we never actually tell you what it is before you are charged with a crime, and then have the nerve to say that “ignorance is no excuse.”
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” -Ayn Rand
A person should be able to travel with a reasonable degree of confidence. If they don’t kill, rape, or steal, then they are essentially in compliance with the law and should go unmolested by the government.
January 3rd, 2012 at 12:04 pm
@Chris
Agreed. I think ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’ should really only be applied to offenses where you’re obviously harming someone, like rape/murder/theft. You know, ‘malum in se’ kind of stuff. All these other ‘malum prohibitum’ offenses are just there to trap people.
The big hurdle is for people to start recognizing that there is a difference between the two.
January 3rd, 2012 at 12:18 pm
“Ignorance of the Law” applies only to congress critters.
January 3rd, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Since you brought up cops and ignorance, have you seen this?
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836&page=1#.Tv8mEPIndxW
January 3rd, 2012 at 2:40 pm
“Ignorance of the law is only an excuse when the police do it.”
And Politicians… or anyone in Obama’s Administration.
January 3rd, 2012 at 7:08 pm
So much for Mens rea
January 4th, 2012 at 10:55 am
This reminds me of the scene in Unintended Consequences when the lawyer turned big game hunter returns from Africa after 20 or so years and is accosted about bringing firearms and his hat (with a real leopard skin band on it) into what used to be his country.