8 ms·

This is a single symptom of a larger issue, namely an excess of laws to the point that any law can be arbitrarily used to prosecute you if you are of an unwante

This is a single symptom of a larger issue, namely an excess of laws to the point that any law can be arbitrarily used to prosecute you if you are of an unwanted class, race, etc. Add on top the police quota system and you have a recipe of this type of injustice that runs the gamut, from antiquidated knife laws to the drug war. To me, this is largely a result of lawyers fucking ruining everything they touch, and then not giving a shit about the lives they ruin by extension (for example, congress and k-street). It's the lawyers that are out of control here. They are the ones who got the bad law passed, they are the ones who keep allowing prosecutions to happen, they are the ones who keep the law from being challenged, etc. It's like lawyers want to be the gatekeepers to the world, but only if you pay them hefty fees. Hell, I even had someone try to tell me I shouldn't talk about GPL licensing because only lawyers understand licensing! I know lawyers are a needed entity, but they seem to have far too much power of the daily lives of people in this sense. You know what really grinds my gears though, is that these lawyers who are often at the heart of almost every injustice (even if by silent acquiescence) always pretend to be such awesome pillars of the community. I think we should start throwing lawyers in jail for such bullshit laws until you hit one powerful enough and watch the bullshit law suddenly disappear. For anyone who wants to see video of what a real gravity knife is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjXuiC8t1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjXuiC8t1E or a modern version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5IhZWyV0QI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5IhZWyV0QI

jowiar 9y ago
Lawyers aren’t the ones who propose the laws, or write them, or vote on them. Professionally, lawyers are the ones who represent people in disputes. Arrogant jackasses like you are what give techies a bad name.
- leesalminen 9y ago
  I’m guessing you’re a lawyer? Are you salty about your student loan debt, poor job prospects, and declining respect from society? Ha. You did this to yourselves.
- huffmsa 9y ago
  Who are lobbyist for $500 like, Trebeck
- KGIII 9y ago
  0.6% of the population are lawyers. 41% of legislators are lawyers. Legislators propose, write, and vote on the laws. It's duplicitous to say that lawyers don't propose, write, or vote on laws.
  - tomohawk 9y ago
    Lawyers should recuse themselves from being legislators. It's a conflict of interest.
    - twobyfour 9y ago
      So laws should be written by people who don't have any training in how their language will be interpreted or in how laws are applied? Most legislators aren't also actively practicing lawyers and are not writing laws with the aim of giving themselves more business.
    - KGIII 9y ago
      As the other person mentioned, that's probably not a good idea. The people writing the laws should know about the legal framework. They should understand a wide body of legal concepts, procedure, precedent, and the appropriate verbiage. It also ties in with the fact that, like it or not, we need lobbyists. Sure, the system is broken, but legislatures can't be experts on everything. So, they need people to explain and even be able to get into the details. They need someone who is a domain expert. That is, theoretically at least, why we have to have lobbyists. Legislatures should also have a good baseline knowledge of the legal system, with all the details that includes. They need to be very familiar with the legal system which makes lawyers potentially good legislatures. Potentially... Like lobbyists, there's good and bad with the system. There is potential for good, as much as there is potential for bad. We seem to like to think we are in dire straits and that doom faces us constantly, but we are actually doing quite well. We're not perfect, but we aren't as bad off as the nightly news would have us believe. Also, people really hate lawyers, until they need one. I'm not a lawyer but I have great respect for some of them.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  >Lawyers aren’t the ones who propose the laws https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44762.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44762.pdf (page 2 shows 218 lawyers in congress) http://library.clerk.house.gov/documents/Lawyers.pdf http://library.clerk.house.gov/documents/Lawyers.pdf >or write them Congress doesn't really write laws. K-street (lawyers) tend to write them in conjuction with congress (lawyers) staff helping. >vote on them. See above two links. Please now clarify how I give techies a bad name?
  - mobilefriendly 9y ago
    Congress has specialized, non-partisan staff called legislative counsel. They will take instruction from Congressional personal staff and committee staff and create drafts of legislation. At times, if the Congressional staff choose, outside counsel (K-Street) can be involved in this process. They can provide "model legislation" at the beginning of the process or suggested revisions. This can be very helpful because the K-street counsel is, at times, more expert on various highly technical aspects of the law. It can also speed up getting the bill into a finished place where it can be introduced. There's nothing particularly nefarious about this process, although well-funded, well-connected interests can get bills drafted sooner. But to be clear, Congressional political staff (who may or may not be lawyers) are in charge of the drafting process. Congress writes the laws.
- redial 9y ago
  Over 40% of Congress are lawyers, http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_no_longer_dominate_congress_is_commercialization_of_profession_to_b http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_no_longer_dom...
  - nsnick 9y ago
    The rest are Realestate agents... what does that tell you?
    - brianwawok 9y ago
      That people who want to pursue a career in politics know that a career in law or being very rich is helpful? Did you know 70% of programmers have a degree in computer science?
- sctb 9y ago
  Could you please not include personal attacks in your comments? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - jowiar 9y ago
    So calling someone an arrogant jackass is bad, but advocating “ I think we should start throwing lawyers in jail for such bullshit laws until you hit one powerful enough and watch the bullshit law suddenly disappear“ is fair discourse? HN is a disgusting cesspool, and always has been, because mods pretty much say “anything goes” when talking about outgroups (anyone who isn’t a white male engineer) while clamping down on any sort of attempt to identify the groupthink bullshit.
maxerickson 9y ago
Locally someone recently got charged with possession of burglary tools for the hammer and pry bar they used to pull a small safe out of a home. It seems to me that the motivation for such a law to apply to such a common tool is for prosecutors to have a tool to leverage during prosecution.
xkcd-sucks 9y ago
>The officer said, ‘When I find someone with one of these knives, sometimes I arrest him, sometimes I give him a summons, sometimes I just let him go.’ ” Galluzzo’s partner, Zachary Johnson, also a former district attorney in Manhattan, adds that such discretion is supposed to be exercised by prosecutors, not cops on the beat. “An officer should be making an arrest every time or none of the time,” Johnson says. “Otherwise it’s just not fair.”
- mattmanser 9y ago
  I don't understand. Why is it fair if that decision just happens a bit further up the chain? What's the difference?
  - rblatz 9y ago
    Paper trails, and accountability.
  - stefco_ 9y ago
    There is a paper trail and oversite further up the chain. This might improve if officers all wear body cameras, but for now, it can create a situation where some demographics get an unfair amount of attention from the police while unaffected demographics are completely unaffected. Because records are not systematically kept, it is easier for a systematic asymmetry to remain obscured.
  - steanne 9y ago
    not agreeing with it here, but i CAN see a difference: paperwork and accountability. when a cop lets someone go, it happens before the incident has any records that someone could use to audit the decision.
  - curun1r 9y ago
    Beyond the other answers you've received that mention the paper trail, district attorneys are elected officials and police officers aren't. The citizens of a city choose the district attorney as a proxy to make decisions for them. They don't have that input when it comes to choosing police officers. The competitiveness of local elections and the level to which voters are informed aside, that is an important difference.
RealityNow 9y ago
It's absolutely absurd that "arrest quotas" are even a thing in America. The job of the police in most first world countries is to protect the people, not make arrests for ludicrous laws. I don't want my tax dollars funding police officers camping out on highways to hand out speeding tickets or arresting random people for having pocket knives on them. No wonder Americans have such an adversarial relationship with the police.
- theWatcher37 9y ago
  And by extension the government. Americans have a built in distrust of our government (often for good reason), which is why a lot of policies don’t happen here.
  - throwawayfnei 9y ago
    So much distrust that we keep electing fascists!
- wdr1 9y ago
  "Arrest quotas" is a bit like voter fraud. It's talked about a lot, there's heavy speculation, but there's little evidence showing it exists in any systemic form. It's also worth noting in many areas arrest quotas are outright illegal. What departments do typically do is look at distributions. Say on a Friday evening shift, over the past 12 month period, a typical officer typically has 16-18 speeding stops. However, during the same Friday evening shift, an offer typically writes 1-2 for the past months. Why? Maybe it's something explainable. Maybe it's the officer isn't doing a good job. But that's the intent of looking at distribution. It's not to say the officer has to write 16-18, but if it turned out they were slacking off, they may easily see it that way.
  - URSpider94 9y ago
    From the article: ““It’s an easy way to make an arrest. And they’re under pressure to make arrests.” A poster on Officer.com, a verified online message board for law enforcement officers, put it bluntly in 2013 when he advised a rookie to be on the lookout for “GKs”: “make sure they have a prior conviction so you can bump it up to that felony!!!” So, there may not be quotas, but it’s pretty clear that there is pressure to deliver arrest numbers, especially felony arrests. A different mechanism that drives the same behavior.
briantakita 9y ago
This is why the 2nd Amendment is an important right to uphold. If one cannot protect oneself against criminal elements, one is vulnerable to be harmed, intimidated, & suppressed. Outlawing certain types of guns & knives also exposes the population to selective enforcement, civil asset forfeiture, & other means to tyranny. Of course, there are practical limits, like it probably wouldn't behoove us to ensure that everybody has a right to carry a briefcase nuclear bomb. It's about creating a cogent system of checks & balances that acknowledges that people oppress each other. A system that acknowledges that politics can be a vehicle of liberation/oppression, that the voting public can be educated/deceived, & that people unite or devolve into tribes.
- jackmott 9y ago
  >If one cannot protect oneself against criminal elements, one is vulnerable to be harmed, intimidated, & suppressed. That really isn't the first order way one protects themselves from criminal elements. Even if you are Jason Bourne, living in a mad max wasteland you will not live long. Whereas millions of people with zero self defense skills can go through their whole lives never having to defend themselves at all in civilized societies. It isn't even clear if keeping powerful weapons around in a civilized place is a net win on safety. Yes there is some chance you may successfully defend yourself from criminals, but that is very low, maybe lower than the chance of having an accident or some other negative results of owning the weapon.
  - briantakita 9y ago
    > Even if you are Jason Bourne, living in a mad max wasteland you will not live long. Whereas millions of people with zero self defense skills can go through their whole lives never having to defend themselves at all in civilized societies. This is a false dichotomy. Banning legal gun ownership does not mean a civilized society (i.e. Bordertowns in Mexico) & protecting legal gun ownership does not mean a Mad Max Society. > It isn't even clear if keeping powerful weapons around in a civilized place is a net win on safety. The maxim is one of preventing asymmetric power. Legal Gun Ownership is an effective strategy to check the lethal power of the state, cartels, gangs, etc. Hitler, Stalin, & Mao used gun control to give the state a monopoly on violence. Many societies that have gun control are relatively safe, but many with gun control also devolve into a case where the criminal elements gain power & rule due to a monopoly on violence. Mexico does not allow legal gun ownership yet Sinaloa, Los Zetas, MS-13, & corrupt Federales own guns. The law abiding population suffers (in horrific ways) as a result. Chicago has some of the strongest gun control laws in the USA; yet, gang members don't seem to want to follow the law...and the violent crime rates hold testament to the consequences. Legal gun ownership is one of many strategies to implement. It's a particularly effective safeguard when you have political/demographic/cultural/societal dynamics that are less than ideal to ensure that law abiding citizens have a shooting chance.
mirimir 9y ago
I have one of the Luftwaffe ones. If you're hanging upside down in a tree, it's great to have a knife that you can open with one hand.
- jackmott 9y ago
  takes notes
vvanders 9y ago
Yup, I own a few Benchmades and aside from one with a physical lock[1](which happens to be a "spring loaded, assisted knife", which is not illegal) all of them could be considered gravity knives by nature of their locking mechanism. However things like Kershaw's SpeedSafe[2] and other assisted knives are totally legal and exempt, it's crazy. The general wisdom in the knife community is to not make a scene or rock the boat if you've got any pocket knife on you and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES use a pocket knife to defend yourself(even under thread of life or limb). There's a metric ton of laws about using knives and weapons(even in self defense, largely tied to gang enforcement) and prosecutors tend to aggressively pursue them. In a lot of cases you'd be under less legal jeopardy drawing a pistol with a CCW than a small pocket knife. Knife laws are also enforced on a per-city basis(aside from the assisted knives which are generally state-level). So one town might have a length limit of 3" where the next town over might be 3.5". It's almost impossible to not run afoul of some local ordinance. [1] http://www.benchmade.com/emissary-3-5-family.html http://www.benchmade.com/emissary-3-5-family.html [2] https://kershaw.kaiusaltd.com/technology https://kershaw.kaiusaltd.com/technology
- mc32 9y ago
  What about boxcutters? Long time ago, acquaintance was assaulted/mugged on a platform and defended self with a boxcutter. Subsequently had to go to trial and defend actions. IIRC, took a while to get things cleared even tough it was self-defense. But maybe it wasn't as onerous as it could have been with a real knife.
MertsA 9y ago
> I shouldn't talk about GPL licensing because only lawyers understand licensing! Clearly that person has never read the GPL, all of the legalese is clearly explained in the license. The GPL has always been my go to as an example of an easy to read and understand legal document.
- adekok 9y ago
  > Clearly that person has never read the GPL, It's not about "reading the GPL". It's about power. If the only people allowed to decide morality / ethics / legality are lawyers, then they have power, and you don't. This is fantastic for the people in power. Less so for you.
louithethrid 9y ago
Lawyers are mercenarys, and mercenarys thrive on conflict. It makes perfect buisness sense to create laws to propagate and expand conflict. Here in germany we have a law, that rules that if somebody dies without a last will- all his belongings are shared in percentage among his decendants - creating the "Erbengemeinschaft". In theory this is a good law. In reality, this generates even among the best familys,as it allows for a group of decendants to manage the common fortune- especially if a company is at stake, a huge chance for a infinite conflict that lasts until the last of the fortune is used up by lawyers. Its insane and nobody gains from this. Jobs are lost, lives are shattered for nothing, brothers and sisters never talk again to one another- if there ever was a law to ensure enployment of a disgusting profession - this is it. If you wanted peace- the law would be salomonic, slice the fortune instantly, conflict solved.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  I'm not familiar with that law, but it sounds a lot like what we have in The Netherlands. I'm curious about your alternative to "Erbengemeinschaft"?
rayiner 9y ago
People who can afford a lawyer don’t carry gravity knives. These laws are promoted by middle class parents, who are terrified of everything, but especially of things that are indicative of working class people (such as knives—middle class suburbanites have little use for them outside the kitchen).
tombert 9y ago
You want to put lawyers in jail because they advocate a "bad law"? It was congress and the president who actually voted for it and signed it into practice, and it was the cops' selective enforcement that is the bigger problem. How on earth did you extract "lawyers are awful" from this?
wyager 9y ago
> It's the lawyers that are out of control here. They are the ones who got the bad law passed, they are the ones who keep allowing prosecutions to happen, they are the ones who keep the law from being challenged I don’t think you know what a lawyer is. You’re respectively describing legislators, prosecutorial administrators, and various forms of politicians. These people may or may not be lawyers.

jowiar 9y ago

Lawyers aren’t the ones who propose the laws, or write them, or vote on them. Professionally, lawyers are the ones who represent people in disputes. Arrogant jackasses like you are what give techies a bad name.

leesalminen 9y ago
I’m guessing you’re a lawyer? Are you salty about your student loan debt, poor job prospects, and declining respect from society? Ha. You did this to yourselves.
huffmsa 9y ago
Who are lobbyist for $500 like, Trebeck
KGIII 9y ago
0.6% of the population are lawyers. 41% of legislators are lawyers. Legislators propose, write, and vote on the laws. It's duplicitous to say that lawyers don't propose, write, or vote on laws.
- tomohawk 9y ago
  Lawyers should recuse themselves from being legislators. It's a conflict of interest.
  - twobyfour 9y ago
    So laws should be written by people who don't have any training in how their language will be interpreted or in how laws are applied? Most legislators aren't also actively practicing lawyers and are not writing laws with the aim of giving themselves more business.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    As the other person mentioned, that's probably not a good idea. The people writing the laws should know about the legal framework. They should understand a wide body of legal concepts, procedure, precedent, and the appropriate verbiage. It also ties in with the fact that, like it or not, we need lobbyists. Sure, the system is broken, but legislatures can't be experts on everything. So, they need people to explain and even be able to get into the details. They need someone who is a domain expert. That is, theoretically at least, why we have to have lobbyists. Legislatures should also have a good baseline knowledge of the legal system, with all the details that includes. They need to be very familiar with the legal system which makes lawyers potentially good legislatures. Potentially... Like lobbyists, there's good and bad with the system. There is potential for good, as much as there is potential for bad. We seem to like to think we are in dire straits and that doom faces us constantly, but we are actually doing quite well. We're not perfect, but we aren't as bad off as the nightly news would have us believe. Also, people really hate lawyers, until they need one. I'm not a lawyer but I have great respect for some of them.
arca_vorago 9y ago
>Lawyers aren’t the ones who propose the laws https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44762.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44762.pdf (page 2 shows 218 lawyers in congress) http://library.clerk.house.gov/documents/Lawyers.pdf http://library.clerk.house.gov/documents/Lawyers.pdf >or write them Congress doesn't really write laws. K-street (lawyers) tend to write them in conjuction with congress (lawyers) staff helping. >vote on them. See above two links. Please now clarify how I give techies a bad name?
- mobilefriendly 9y ago
  Congress has specialized, non-partisan staff called legislative counsel. They will take instruction from Congressional personal staff and committee staff and create drafts of legislation. At times, if the Congressional staff choose, outside counsel (K-Street) can be involved in this process. They can provide "model legislation" at the beginning of the process or suggested revisions. This can be very helpful because the K-street counsel is, at times, more expert on various highly technical aspects of the law. It can also speed up getting the bill into a finished place where it can be introduced. There's nothing particularly nefarious about this process, although well-funded, well-connected interests can get bills drafted sooner. But to be clear, Congressional political staff (who may or may not be lawyers) are in charge of the drafting process. Congress writes the laws.
redial 9y ago
Over 40% of Congress are lawyers, http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_no_longer_dominate_congress_is_commercialization_of_profession_to_b http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_no_longer_dom...
- nsnick 9y ago
  The rest are Realestate agents... what does that tell you?
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    That people who want to pursue a career in politics know that a career in law or being very rich is helpful? Did you know 70% of programmers have a degree in computer science?
sctb 9y ago
Could you please not include personal attacks in your comments? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jowiar 9y ago
  So calling someone an arrogant jackass is bad, but advocating “ I think we should start throwing lawyers in jail for such bullshit laws until you hit one powerful enough and watch the bullshit law suddenly disappear“ is fair discourse? HN is a disgusting cesspool, and always has been, because mods pretty much say “anything goes” when talking about outgroups (anyone who isn’t a white male engineer) while clamping down on any sort of attempt to identify the groupthink bullshit.

maxerickson 9y ago

Locally someone recently got charged with possession of burglary tools for the hammer and pry bar they used to pull a small safe out of a home. It seems to me that the motivation for such a law to apply to such a common tool is for prosecutors to have a tool to leverage during prosecution.

xkcd-sucks 9y ago

>The officer said, ‘When I find someone with one of these knives, sometimes I arrest him, sometimes I give him a summons, sometimes I just let him go.’ ” Galluzzo’s partner, Zachary Johnson, also a former district attorney in Manhattan, adds that such discretion is supposed to be exercised by prosecutors, not cops on the beat. “An officer should be making an arrest every time or none of the time,” Johnson says. “Otherwise it’s just not fair.”

mattmanser 9y ago
I don't understand. Why is it fair if that decision just happens a bit further up the chain? What's the difference?
- rblatz 9y ago
  Paper trails, and accountability.
- stefco_ 9y ago
  There is a paper trail and oversite further up the chain. This might improve if officers all wear body cameras, but for now, it can create a situation where some demographics get an unfair amount of attention from the police while unaffected demographics are completely unaffected. Because records are not systematically kept, it is easier for a systematic asymmetry to remain obscured.
- steanne 9y ago
  not agreeing with it here, but i CAN see a difference: paperwork and accountability. when a cop lets someone go, it happens before the incident has any records that someone could use to audit the decision.
- curun1r 9y ago
  Beyond the other answers you've received that mention the paper trail, district attorneys are elected officials and police officers aren't. The citizens of a city choose the district attorney as a proxy to make decisions for them. They don't have that input when it comes to choosing police officers. The competitiveness of local elections and the level to which voters are informed aside, that is an important difference.

RealityNow 9y ago

It's absolutely absurd that "arrest quotas" are even a thing in America. The job of the police in most first world countries is to protect the people, not make arrests for ludicrous laws. I don't want my tax dollars funding police officers camping out on highways to hand out speeding tickets or arresting random people for having pocket knives on them. No wonder Americans have such an adversarial relationship with the police.

theWatcher37 9y ago
And by extension the government. Americans have a built in distrust of our government (often for good reason), which is why a lot of policies don’t happen here.
- throwawayfnei 9y ago
  So much distrust that we keep electing fascists!
wdr1 9y ago
"Arrest quotas" is a bit like voter fraud. It's talked about a lot, there's heavy speculation, but there's little evidence showing it exists in any systemic form. It's also worth noting in many areas arrest quotas are outright illegal. What departments do typically do is look at distributions. Say on a Friday evening shift, over the past 12 month period, a typical officer typically has 16-18 speeding stops. However, during the same Friday evening shift, an offer typically writes 1-2 for the past months. Why? Maybe it's something explainable. Maybe it's the officer isn't doing a good job. But that's the intent of looking at distribution. It's not to say the officer has to write 16-18, but if it turned out they were slacking off, they may easily see it that way.
- URSpider94 9y ago
  From the article: ““It’s an easy way to make an arrest. And they’re under pressure to make arrests.” A poster on Officer.com, a verified online message board for law enforcement officers, put it bluntly in 2013 when he advised a rookie to be on the lookout for “GKs”: “make sure they have a prior conviction so you can bump it up to that felony!!!” So, there may not be quotas, but it’s pretty clear that there is pressure to deliver arrest numbers, especially felony arrests. A different mechanism that drives the same behavior.

briantakita 9y ago

This is why the 2nd Amendment is an important right to uphold. If one cannot protect oneself against criminal elements, one is vulnerable to be harmed, intimidated, & suppressed. Outlawing certain types of guns & knives also exposes the population to selective enforcement, civil asset forfeiture, & other means to tyranny. Of course, there are practical limits, like it probably wouldn't behoove us to ensure that everybody has a right to carry a briefcase nuclear bomb. It's about creating a cogent system of checks & balances that acknowledges that people oppress each other. A system that acknowledges that politics can be a vehicle of liberation/oppression, that the voting public can be educated/deceived, & that people unite or devolve into tribes.

jackmott 9y ago
>If one cannot protect oneself against criminal elements, one is vulnerable to be harmed, intimidated, & suppressed. That really isn't the first order way one protects themselves from criminal elements. Even if you are Jason Bourne, living in a mad max wasteland you will not live long. Whereas millions of people with zero self defense skills can go through their whole lives never having to defend themselves at all in civilized societies. It isn't even clear if keeping powerful weapons around in a civilized place is a net win on safety. Yes there is some chance you may successfully defend yourself from criminals, but that is very low, maybe lower than the chance of having an accident or some other negative results of owning the weapon.
- briantakita 9y ago
  > Even if you are Jason Bourne, living in a mad max wasteland you will not live long. Whereas millions of people with zero self defense skills can go through their whole lives never having to defend themselves at all in civilized societies. This is a false dichotomy. Banning legal gun ownership does not mean a civilized society (i.e. Bordertowns in Mexico) & protecting legal gun ownership does not mean a Mad Max Society. > It isn't even clear if keeping powerful weapons around in a civilized place is a net win on safety. The maxim is one of preventing asymmetric power. Legal Gun Ownership is an effective strategy to check the lethal power of the state, cartels, gangs, etc. Hitler, Stalin, & Mao used gun control to give the state a monopoly on violence. Many societies that have gun control are relatively safe, but many with gun control also devolve into a case where the criminal elements gain power & rule due to a monopoly on violence. Mexico does not allow legal gun ownership yet Sinaloa, Los Zetas, MS-13, & corrupt Federales own guns. The law abiding population suffers (in horrific ways) as a result. Chicago has some of the strongest gun control laws in the USA; yet, gang members don't seem to want to follow the law...and the violent crime rates hold testament to the consequences. Legal gun ownership is one of many strategies to implement. It's a particularly effective safeguard when you have political/demographic/cultural/societal dynamics that are less than ideal to ensure that law abiding citizens have a shooting chance.

mirimir 9y ago

I have one of the Luftwaffe ones. If you're hanging upside down in a tree, it's great to have a knife that you can open with one hand.

jackmott 9y ago
takes notes

vvanders 9y ago

Yup, I own a few Benchmades and aside from one with a physical lock[1](which happens to be a "spring loaded, assisted knife", which is not illegal) all of them could be considered gravity knives by nature of their locking mechanism. However things like Kershaw's SpeedSafe[2] and other assisted knives are totally legal and exempt, it's crazy. The general wisdom in the knife community is to not make a scene or rock the boat if you've got any pocket knife on you and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES use a pocket knife to defend yourself(even under thread of life or limb). There's a metric ton of laws about using knives and weapons(even in self defense, largely tied to gang enforcement) and prosecutors tend to aggressively pursue them. In a lot of cases you'd be under less legal jeopardy drawing a pistol with a CCW than a small pocket knife. Knife laws are also enforced on a per-city basis(aside from the assisted knives which are generally state-level). So one town might have a length limit of 3" where the next town over might be 3.5". It's almost impossible to not run afoul of some local ordinance. [1] http://www.benchmade.com/emissary-3-5-family.html http://www.benchmade.com/emissary-3-5-family.html [2] https://kershaw.kaiusaltd.com/technology https://kershaw.kaiusaltd.com/technology

mc32 9y ago
What about boxcutters? Long time ago, acquaintance was assaulted/mugged on a platform and defended self with a boxcutter. Subsequently had to go to trial and defend actions. IIRC, took a while to get things cleared even tough it was self-defense. But maybe it wasn't as onerous as it could have been with a real knife.

MertsA 9y ago

> I shouldn't talk about GPL licensing because only lawyers understand licensing! Clearly that person has never read the GPL, all of the legalese is clearly explained in the license. The GPL has always been my go to as an example of an easy to read and understand legal document.

adekok 9y ago
> Clearly that person has never read the GPL, It's not about "reading the GPL". It's about power. If the only people allowed to decide morality / ethics / legality are lawyers, then they have power, and you don't. This is fantastic for the people in power. Less so for you.

louithethrid 9y ago

Lawyers are mercenarys, and mercenarys thrive on conflict. It makes perfect buisness sense to create laws to propagate and expand conflict. Here in germany we have a law, that rules that if somebody dies without a last will- all his belongings are shared in percentage among his decendants - creating the "Erbengemeinschaft". In theory this is a good law. In reality, this generates even among the best familys,as it allows for a group of decendants to manage the common fortune- especially if a company is at stake, a huge chance for a infinite conflict that lasts until the last of the fortune is used up by lawyers. Its insane and nobody gains from this. Jobs are lost, lives are shattered for nothing, brothers and sisters never talk again to one another- if there ever was a law to ensure enployment of a disgusting profession - this is it. If you wanted peace- the law would be salomonic, slice the fortune instantly, conflict solved.

Fnoord 9y ago
I'm not familiar with that law, but it sounds a lot like what we have in The Netherlands. I'm curious about your alternative to "Erbengemeinschaft"?

rayiner 9y ago

People who can afford a lawyer don’t carry gravity knives. These laws are promoted by middle class parents, who are terrified of everything, but especially of things that are indicative of working class people (such as knives—middle class suburbanites have little use for them outside the kitchen).

tombert 9y ago

You want to put lawyers in jail because they advocate a "bad law"? It was congress and the president who actually voted for it and signed it into practice, and it was the cops' selective enforcement that is the bigger problem. How on earth did you extract "lawyers are awful" from this?

wyager 9y ago

> It's the lawyers that are out of control here. They are the ones who got the bad law passed, they are the ones who keep allowing prosecutions to happen, they are the ones who keep the law from being challenged I don’t think you know what a lawyer is. You’re respectively describing legislators, prosecutorial administrators, and various forms of politicians. These people may or may not be lawyers.