rc42 wrote:In my opinion, all laws really do is define crime and usually have a recommended punishment for those convicted of breaking them, in a way they define society and what is or is not acceptable.
Unfortunately, those that write and approve them are so biased and corrupt and trying to push personal agendas that laws are a mess that nobody fully understands, police and courts have an ongoing battle to understand and define them whilst politicians are constantly churning out more amendments and complexity to pile on top of the existing mess.
Those who try to be law abiding have to put in some effort to understand the laws that relate to their activities and try to follow them, especially with complex issues like firearms. In other areas, most people seem to just live their lives following the values they were brought up with usually that is enough to keep them within the law or just not infringing significantly enough to be prosecuted.
Criminals don't care about laws and they have minimal effect on their behaviour other than making them more careful about not being caught when breaking them, it is only the law abiding that are really affected by laws as we endeavour to follow them.
Fionn - If I've made any grammatical errors or used words contrary to their Oxford English Dictionary definitions please jump in and let me know.
Agreed. Law-abiding people can inadvertently become criminals because of our confusing laws. It does require some effort and diligence on our part to remain law-abiding, and it shouldn't work like that.
We only need one law that makes homicide illegal, we don't need another thousand laws listing every possible type of homicide and reiterating that that is also illegal. Our firearm laws could be a single line, "don't use firearms to threaten or injure other people or damage property". Any breach of this law is already adequately covered by the thousands of laws already in place regarding threatening or injuring people or damaging property. If we make the assumption that people applying for firearm licences are essentially law abiding, as the vast majority are, then we don't need 300 pages of laws about where and how we can use them and what sort of firearms we can and can't own. Instead, our laws start on the basis that we only want a firearm licence so we can be a nuisance to society, thus they want to regulate every conceivable act we might potentially want to do with them, regardless of whether it makes our society any safer.
if that helps your argument,
