Video - Start Your Own "Gun Free" Zone

[TGO David]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beUQBXI22CA[/ame]

Pretty funny stuff.

[shaftbass]

That is awesome.

[Marswolf]

I love it!

[Guest dotsun]

Awesome, I can't wait for my packet to arrive.

[Guest c.a.s.]

....

Of course, there are some gullible shop owners out there....

[Guest shadow12]

What you mean this isn't real?

[Guest CrazyLincoln]

Thats the solution in Iraq! Just make baghdad a gun-free/IED-free zone! Geez, we coulda saved alot of trouble.

[Marswolf]

What you mean this isn't real?

Lots of brain-dead folks in big cities think it is real and will work.

[Guest Len]

Funny stuff.

Now, I don't mean to get all serious on everyone here, but this does bring up an issue. I would imagine that at least a majority of lawmakers are, when push comes to shove, aware that just because a sign declares an area a "gun free zone" (or "drug free" or whatever), that does not mean that the bad people are going to listen. So, why pass laws like these? A couple of reasons:

1) An easy way to pass some "feel-good" legislation that it will be hard to "shoot down" come re-election time. A lame reason to pass any law, but there you go.

2) An easy way to create what are really "enhanced penalty zones." Gun off school property, go to jail for x days, gun ON school property, go to jail for x++ days. Again, hard to argue against come re-election season. Afterall, if the law does not work, its not the govt's fault, its the bad guy's fault.

This perturbs me to no end. Gives good govt a bad name, does nothing, wastes time and money, etc. On the other hand, great fodder for the youtube generation!

[Marswolf]

Most of these laws are probably ostensibly passed to enhance the penalty for illegal behavior. Unfortunately, keeping good people from packing makes thuggery more likely and harder to control and decreases public safety. It just creates defenseless good citizen zones.

[molonlabetn]

Yeah, it makes no sense to assume that a criminal who is bent upon using a firearm to commit a crime will be worried at all about breaking some ridiculous code, in the process...

The only laws which should be on the books, are those which punish harmful behavior. Everything else is superfluous policement of inanimate objects and unsubstantiated thoughts or possibilities. Those only serve to ineffectively replace common sense and personal responsibility.

[Guest Len]

The only laws which should be on the books, are those which punish harmful behavior. Everything else is superfluous policement of inanimate objects and unsubstantiated thoughts or possibilities. Those only serve to ineffectively replace common sense and personal responsibility.

While I agree 1000% with this statement, the problem is that no one seems to agree on just what is "harmful behavior" or whether a behavior that is merely perpetuated on oneself should be considered harmful for the purposes of the law.

At the end of each and every piece of legislation that the TN legislature passes is the following phrase: "the public welfare requiring it." Seems like a good standard to me. If the public wefare REQUIRES it, yes pass the law. I was reviewing a bunch of new TN Public Chapters relating to my job today and found several that I really don't see passing muster when measured against "the public welfare."

I guess we'll never agree on what the public welfare requires, either...

Well, it does make life interesting. I suppose we'd all be pretty bored if we agreed with each other 100% of the time. And some of the members of this forum would be out of a job!

[molonlabetn]

While I agree 1000% with this statement, the problem is that no one seems to agree on just what is "harmful behavior" or whether a behavior that is merely perpetuated on oneself should be considered harmful for the purposes of the law.

At the end of each and every piece of legislation that the TN legislature passes is the following phrase: "the public welfare requiring it." Seems like a good standard to me. If the public wefare REQUIRES it, yes pass the law. I was reviewing a bunch of new TN Public Chapters relating to my job today and found several that I really don't see passing muster when measured against "the public welfare."

I guess we'll never agree on what the public welfare requires, either...

Well, it does make life interesting. I suppose we'd all be pretty bored if we agreed with each other 100% of the time. And some of the members of this forum would be out of a job!

I absolutely agree with you that the main problem is in the articulation of what and why specific behavior is 'harmful'. Moreover, I think that the symptomatic problem which stems from that issue is the disposition of government to err on the side of creating more laws, even if there is contention whether the laws themselves create just as much potential for harm as they intend to prevent. We all know, in the end, that no law can protect anything... it is only the reasonable enforcement and application of the law which aims to regulate crime, though in many cases still cannot prevent it in advance.

Law is only a documented standard which enforcers use to mitigate harm caused by those who do not respect the documented standard, the welfare of the individual be damned.

[Marswolf]

I have to throw in that IMHO laws should punish behavior that actually harms others, not that just potentially might do so. To me this is the standard.

But admittedly, this is not the definition most people want to use for harmful. I want to punish the guy who harms someone by recklessness in driving their car too fast or drunk. I'm not interested in arresting or fining people for going 45 MPH in a 30 MPH zone or who may have had one more drink than is arbitrarily considered acceptable if they don't actually harm someone.

[Guest GLOCKGUY]

can someone tell me where i can find this video? for some reason youtube stop showing it.

[Guest GLOCKGUY]

can someone tell me where i can find this video? for some reason youtube stop showing it.

never mind I found it.