this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
120 points (90.0% liked)
Asklemmy
43984 readers
671 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
For a start it shouldn't be a crime to merely carry something for self-defense. The current laws say that carrying anything for the express purpose of self-defense is illegal. There's a bizarre cat and mouse game where the law says 'its fine to defend yourself' while simultaneously expressly forbidding you from carrying anything that you might be able to use for self-defense. It puts anyone actually in a life threatening situation at a supreme disadvantage: An attacker is already breaking the law so they'll be armed to some extent, but under the law the victim is designed to be defenseless. If they do decide to arm themselves against the law and use it to defend themselves they can be prosecuted for carrying a weapon after the fact.
Thanks for the explanation. On one hand I think you have a point, on the other hand I still can't tell what kinds of weapons you want legalised.
But no one ever is unless it's something egregious. There are even law blogs advising on what to carry.
We've had self defence stabbings and even shooting, the victims were not prosecuted. In the case of that guy who stabbed someone to death for tagging his fence, he probably should have been tbh.
I have no strong feelings on which particular weapons should be legal to carry, even if it's just pepper spray or brass knuckles or something. The main thing is that it should be legal to carry something.
Also, selectively enforced laws are a terrible, HORRIBLE concept and should be avoided at all costs. It gives police and those in power the ability to selectively punish (or pardon) whomever they choose, often at the whims of their personal biases. Passing and exploiting selectively enforced laws is a common tactic used by corrupt nations and can be used to silence political opponents, target selected groups, promote agendas and so forth. The law should not rely on cops 'being nice' and choosing not to arrest you.
@Rossphorus
That's a really good point. My lassaiz faire attitude to this is something I need to rethink. It's a bit like the abortion law thing we had a while ago.
Selective enforcement is one of those concepts that isn't talked about much outside of legal ethics circles unfortunately, but I think it's an important concept to be aware of and the potential issues with it. I first heard about it from The Dictators Handbook, which explores many behaviours of politicians and those in power, including how and why corrupt nations often employ selective enforcement. It's an interesting read, would recommend. It definitely changed how I looked at the world.
I guess there's passive selective enforcement (like NZ's old abortion law, where in theory women could only have an abortion if the pregnancy was a risk to health) and then there's more active selection (like corrupt countries use on political opponents)?
I will keep a look out for that book.