{"id":2769,"date":"2003-01-07T11:18:53","date_gmt":"2003-01-07T11:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=527"},"modified":"2003-01-07T11:18:53","modified_gmt":"2003-01-07T11:18:53","slug":"i-broke-a-bunch-of-laws-this-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2769","title":{"rendered":"I BROKE A BUNCH OF LAWS THIS MORNING"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coming up the 405 freeway on my motorcycle, I changed into the carpool lane at least 40 feet in front of the legal entrance (here in SoCal, we block most of the carpool lanes with double yellow lines); once in the carpool lane, I (along with the dozen or so cars in front and back of me) averaged about 80 \u0096 85 for several miles, in an area where the legal speed limit is 55.
\nWhen I bought gas, I illegally held the vapor recover hood back, because the old-style hoods don\u0092t work with motorcycle gas tanks.
\nPulling out of the gas station, I had to cross a solid white line to exit the right turn lane that blocks the entire front of the driveway and continue straight on the road I was on.
\nHeading up Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu, my cohort of vehicles averaged 65 in the marked 45 mile per hour zone. There was a Sheriff\u0092s car in the pack, moving up and down and checking out the traffic. I was watching him as he fell in behind me, and slowed by 5 mph to show him I was paying attention.
\n\u0085and so on.
\nWhat\u0092s my point?
\nThat we write laws that no one has any intention of obeying, and that it then becomes a kind of dance in which the legislators get political credit for \u0091dealing\u0092 with the problem, the various enforcers (police, zoning staff, etc.) get a lot of discretionary power \u0085 my Sheriff this morning has the absolute power to pull over any one of the ten or so cars in our little pod.
\nAnd, since the laws are seldom enforced, most of us don\u0092t mind.
\nIf speed laws were absolutely enforced\u0085with GATSO\u0092s (radar cameras), aggressive police enforcement etc.. how long do you think we\u0092d tolerate them? How politically challenging would it be to pass them. But because most of these laws are of the \u0091wink and a nudge\u0092 variety, they meet with little opposition.
\nHere\u0092s another example. In a neighborhood where I lived before moving to Southern Calfiornia\u0092s Mayberry, we had a crazy neighbor. He used to get into fistfights with several of the neighbors, harass and threaten the neighborhood kids, and was subject to a bunch of restraining orders. Then he came up with a new plan. He got a copy of the zoning standards, and went on a campaign to get exact compliance on a house-by-house basis.
\nMuch hilarity ensued, until I went over to his<\/u> duplex with a copy of the zoning code, a building inspector, and the local city councilwoman, who on reviewing the voluminous file, told the city staff to just stop answering his mail.
\nIn the case below, what\u0092s happening isn\u0092t concentrated enforcement against known gang members, parole violators, people under restraining orders, or in general people who have a high likelihood of committing one of the violent crimes that are the real subject of concern.
\nSo here are two sets of facts:
\nI have a gun safe in my garage (which I do), and a neighbor looks in one day as I\u0092m putting a gun in or taking it out, and sees an assault rifle (in reality I don\u0092t own one; I\u0092ve trained with them and they\u0092re fun to shoot, but since I don\u0092t have apocalyptic fantasies, I never saw the utility for a civilian\u0085plus I have a bunch of LEO and firearms trainer friends who will let me shoot theirs if I want). On the other hand, my ex-crazy neighbor takes to parading up and down his driveway with a shotgun.
\nIn the second case, there is a legitimate concern. I\u0092m not so clear on what the legitimate concern is in the first, or that there is a legitimate concern that rises to the level of a policed sweep.
\nThis goes to the core of the gun-management debate. On one hand, some people (including me) tend to believe that the issue is the people who commit the crimes; others see the tool used as the issue. To me, it\u0092s a fruitless argument, since no one on either side is going to change sides anytime soon.
\nBut this issue is one that we need to broaden as we talk about the bureaucratic state, and about expanding the power of that bureaucracy in response to 9\/11.
\nAnd as we expand the scope of citizen paranoia (I know I was and am ambivalent about TIPS, I’ll explain more soon), we wind up with stories like this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It was the most traumatic experience the Smoak family of North Carolina has ever had, and it happened yesterday afternoon as they traveled through Cookeville on their way home from a vacation in Nashville.
\nBefore their ordeal was over, three members of the family had been yanked out of their car and handcuffed on the side of Interstate 40 in downtown Cookeville, and their beloved dog, Patton, had been shot to death by a police officer as they watched.
\n…<\/b>
\n“A lady in Davidson County had seen that wallet fly off our car and had seen money coming out of it and going all over the road, and somehow that became a felony and they made a felony stop, but no robbery or felony had happened,” Pamela Smoak said.
\n“Apparently, they had listened to some citizen with a cell phone and let her play detective down there,” said James Smoak.
\n…<\/b><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming up the 405 freeway on my motorcycle, I changed into the carpool lane at least 40 feet in front of the legal entrance (here in SoCal, we block most of the carpool lanes with double yellow lines); once in the carpool lane, I (along with the dozen or so cars in front and back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}