There are many dumb and crazy laws in the United States, and the government should remove them from the law books. Let’s start with Texas, for example. You can be legally married by simply introducing someone in public as your husband or wife 3 times. In Austin, wire cutters cannot be carried in your pocket. There is a law in North Carolina that says it is illegal to sing off key. You also can’t roller blade on the state highway, although it has been done and videotaped. In Kentucky you need a license to walk around nude on your property, and fortunately every citizen is required to take a shower once a year.
People who are unaware of these obscure laws would be thrown in jail for no reason just because they did not know about them. Even I would be someone who would try to fish with a bow and arrow even though it is illegal in Kentucky. Now the government is paying for the shelter and food and everything that a prisoner would need to be taken care of for a minor offense. Officers are tied up chasing petty crimes when there are drug dealers and car thieves on the loose.
The national and state governments should investigate and make changes to these silly laws. They can see the bad effects these laws would have on people. The law codes need to be simplified and that would help out with freeing up the justice system to pursue true troublemakers. This would free people from suffering the injustice of nit-picky laws.
The government should eliminate all laws that are nonsensical. Making carrying ice cream in your pocket because it may distract horses illegal, when it is not something any person would think of doing, is ridiculous. Laws should be made only for true problems that people face currently. Maybe there should be a process to review all local, state, and national laws on a specific time schedule to make sure there are not any out of date or unnecessary laws still being carried.
Now where did I put my bow and arrow... I feel like a fish fry. I’m a smooth criminal…
Alright, the laws that you just mentioned sound ludicrous, I definitely have to agree with you on that. It has also been the first time I hear about the laws you just mentioned, nonetheless I have heard of a couple silly laws myself, that are like you said, plain dumb and crazy. I do not know why someone would make it illegal to sing off key, to me it does not seem like it would harm anyone - well maybe the eardrums a little but that is besides’ the point. On the other hand when it comes to not roller blading on the state highway or cannot fish with a bow and arrow, I can maybe understand a bit why that would be illegal. These laws might have been put for the safety of the individual, and anybody who might be near a person that would do such things.
ReplyDeleteSo, for sure, some laws as crazy as they may sound it might be for the beneficial of their citizens. Now, I am not saying that those laws should stay as laws because those types of laws are also laws that can put people in prison. Putting people in prison with possibly a dangerous stunt by an individual, is risking the fact that the person that was put in prison for an un-violent crime is put in an unsafe environment; with people that have committed a real crime. How the government defines a crime is also something else that should be considered as well. Knowing these dilemmas brings me to another dilemma. Prisons are full. Having them occupied by many other folks and having the government put more individuals in jail just makes it all the more difficult to decrease the population of the facilities. To me, that is a problem that the government should focus more on. Therefore, having an investigation of what laws are more rational than others would be a great way to start off. This way, true criminals can be put away and the authority would not have to waste their time with laws that do not seem rational at times.
If some laws were made a law for the safety of the public, they should re-think another option to punish or help the person committing an illegal action, which might put other individuals in danger or even themselves. Maybe other types of facilities should be made. Then again a person doing something silly in public might just need a psychologist or something, no offense to anybody.
On another note, Jareb, your blog about these silly laws you speak of was a really good blog, your sense of humor made it all the better. While letting your audience know about some laws that seem non-logical, and giving some ideas of what the government should do is a great way to keep people involved in the topic. Something I do recommend is that, you might want to put the link from where you read and found these laws, other than that the blog and your opinion was very interesting to read.
Why are there so many stupid laws in the United States? I was so intrigued and entertained by Jareb Blackford’s blog that I felt I needed to post a comment. He describes how there are so many ridiculous laws that have passed in the United States throughout the years that are completely silly. For example, fishing with a bow & arrow and walking around nude on your own property are illegal in Kentucky or you can be legally married to someone if you introduce them as a spouse more than 3 times in Texas.
ReplyDeleteMy big question is what influenced those laws to begin with? It is one thing to try to pass a law and it is another thing to have a law that actually goes through. I found an interesting editorial on hubpages.com that explains why ridiculous laws pass. For example, it is illegal to hunt camels in Arizona. Now everyone knows there are no camels roaming around in that state unless you go to a zoo (or to a farm of someone who REALLY LOVES camels). Now think about this… when was this law created? History shows us that camels were imported to that part of the country in order to help haul supplies across the desert for the army in between 1856-1857. For reasons like this, I have a feeling most of what we would currently consider obscure laws in the U.S. were probably written in between the 1700s through the early 1900s for specific situations of that time and then simply forgotten about.
I completely agree with Jareb as it is a waste of tax payers’ money to support the funding associated with taking care of these individuals who may be arrested for any of these offenses. However in hindsight, how many of these law-breaking rebels are actually taken to jail? I personally believe in cases like these, people may be given warnings or perhaps a ticket in order to achieve a quota for that police officer but I think that is as far is it would possibly go.