If ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, how is someone who is unable to read the entire code supposed to know what he or she can and can't do under the law?

They're not. The name of the game, is to make everyone a criminal, that way everyone has something to fear. Keeps the sheep in line...Get it??

Yes, that's why I brought it up.

Yes, I suppose non-legal types don't know in advance that murder, theft, robbery, rape, mayhem, are things that you must not do!

There are things that are [i][b]malum in se[/b][/i], which means that the act is so obviously wrong that no one would doubt otherwise.

Such as the previous examples of murder, etc.

There are crimes that are [i][b]malum prohibitum[/b][/i], which means that only because we have decided that such acts are wrong, we will punish the offender.  It is not obvious that the acts are wrong in themselves.

Such as Martha Stewart selling stock as the result of insider information.

Martha would argue, but that's what friends are supposed to do! Help you by giving you the little stock tips.

We have decided that such activity is bad for a host of reasons, some of which are not patently obvious!

Eric The(LegalType)Hun[>]:)]

It has to be that way, or else the state could never convict anyone of most of their criminal charges. How can you prove whether someone knew a section of the criminal code?
In reality, the list of crimes has never been so huge and vast in the history of law. There is simply no way to know many of the laws.
The criminal environmental statutes actually have regulations attached, a lawyer could spend years in the field and not completely understand what is a criminal act in all posible situtations.

So if it's not obvious that such things are wrong, and the list of such things is too large for any one person to completely learn, what's a guy to do?

This has been a question of mine in the case of tax law in particular. If this abomination is incomprehensible to even accountants that specialize in it, how can the average Joe be held responsible for a screw up? Couldn't it be argued that since the general populace can't make heads or tails of it that it is unconstitutional?

 Stepped-init

Hun beat me to the Latin punch...damnit.  

 It's made complicated so that lawyers can have a job...just kidding about that.

By "unable to read the entire code" I suppose that you mean the person is illiterate.

If "unable to read the entire code" means something other than this, you are probably trying to say that they don't have access to the code itself, or even if they did they wouldn't know how to comprehend it.  

 You would be wrong on both counts there, however.  Any US Law is free and open to the public through our library system and other free (as in 'no cost') public information centers.

As for interpretation, if you do not understand something, you have the responsibility to either ask an attorney, police officer, state entity, etc.  

 

How many pages are you talking about here?

 Why should you be required to ask someone? aren't the laws written for the people?

 Stepped-init

something along the line of rubey ridge, and waco comes to mind..

  If you're gonna go cutting down shotgun bbls, or traveling to another state to go shooting, it would be a good idea to post a question or two on AR15.COM.    

 I don't see why this is so tough to do.  

How about "unable to read the entire code" as in no human being can possibly read the entire US Code, Code of Federal Regulations, and other assorted bodies of law without some rediculous Shao-Lin like devotion, generally to the exclusion of all else.

As for asking an attourney or law enforcement, all they can give you is OPINION.  Take BATF for example--call them up and ask a question--call them up again next week, talk to a different agent, and ask the same question.  See if you don't have two different answers.

BTW, a good source for "the law" is [url]http://www.law.cornell.edu[/url]

Exactly. Nobody can read, and understand completely, the entire thing. It's a conspiracy.

Come on, Hun, that sarcastic response was rather unworthy, don't you think?

I think the poster meant something along the lines of "If I've never heard of the 1989 BATF regs prohibiting the importation of certain magazine fed semi-automatic rifles, and I haven't heard of the BATF's subsequent "you cannot manufacture a firearm domestically that would be illegal to import unless you use enough domestic parts" rule, how the hell do they figure out they're in violation of the law when they pull off that stupid choate stock their AK came with and put on russian rood furniture instead?

"The law" is no longer comprehensible to the average man--and indeed, even one in the legal profession can only specialize in a small part of it.

So to ask the same question as the original poster, and even more pointedly (since you saw fit to interject) if ignorance of the law is no excuse, how are us peons supposed to know what is illegal?

I heard administrative law is even worse.

Try starting a small business and hiring one employee. It's not worth it. Better to use contractors until you're large enough to have a lawyer on retainer.

A friend recently sent me this:

Alligators vs Lawyers


Two alligators are sitting on the edge of a swamp. The small one turns to
the big one and says, "I don't understand how you can be so much bigger than
me. We're the same age, we were the same size as kids.  I just don't get
it."

"Well," says the big alligator, "what have you been eating?"

"Lawyers, same as you," replies the small alligator.

"Hm. Well, where do you catch'em?"

"Down at that law firm on the edge of the swamp."

"Same here. Hm. How do you catch'em?"

"Well, I crawl under a BMW and wait for someone to unlock the door. Then I
jump out, bite'em, shake the crap out of 'em, and eat 'em!"

"Ah!" says the big alligator, "I think I see your problem.
See, by the time you get done shakin' the crap out of a lawyer,
there's nothin' left but lips and a briefcase."

Err, so we've just imagined everything the anti-gun folks have said about how the 2nd amendment is really about the states, how we have no right to own a gun, and how they want to ban them all?

No wait, its part of a conspiracy on the part of all lawyers, who are secret agents of the british crown. Do you remember your thread on how lawyers are secret agents of the Queen, liberty86?

like cockroaches in the light

And, many of the offenses in federal tax laws, though technical in nature, are federal felonies.  Note in regard to all the palaver about felons being prohibited from..., etc.

Excellent!

the_reject

Post from Zak -

In a sea of anti-lawyer sarcasm, you pick out my simple little bit of sarcasm to harangue?[:D]

C'mon, lighten up Francis!

'You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows' - B. Dylan.

Eric The(SarcasticToAPoint)Hun[>]:)]

So does anyone have an answer other than "that's just the way it is"?

I figured if a lawyer was going to respond to this thread, they might be a little helpful, if possible--yeah, I do realize it's difficult, if not downright impossible to be "helpful" on this particular topic, but you didn't need to insult the guy's intelligence. [:)]



Call me psycho! [:D]

Both the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations are online and downloadable, and VERY large.  I have the entirety of USC from the end of the 2001 legislative session on my other system for "personal reference."  I am still assembling the entirety of CFR...

Of course, that is merely Federal Law.  As a private citizen, you are mainly interested in 18USC (Crimes and Criminal Procedures) and 26CFR (Internal Revenue Code,) and I recall another title of CFR that is pertinent of firearms owners as well.  Many of the acts listed in 18USC44 are _malum prohibitorum_ and not _malum in se_, of course.

Email me for urls, I get most of my legal reference material from the House website.

As EtH mentioned, acts that are _malum in se_ require no understanding of law to know that they are wrong - murder, rape, kidnap, and the like are all obviously wrong (and should all be capital, IMHO.  But I digress.)  However, there are acts that are _malum prohibitorum_ that are so simply to raise revenue or to generate a degree of control, or are prohibited to create a false sense of "duty" - NFA1934 and GCA1968 are examples of the former, and the whole of 26CFR the latter - really now, have you ever tried to READ the thing?  Byzantine...  And, try looking up the DCMA in its entirety...

One thing that I would like to see is a reform of the legislative system.  If we are not to have an outright purge carried out, let us prevent the system gaining weight by adding a rider to EACH and EVERY bill calling for the recission and/or nullification of an existing law.  Many are useless and/or unenforcable, and need to be rescinded for the good of the citizenry.  Others are not passed to enforce correctness and to penalise malefactory behaviour, but are simply rubber-stamped to protect corporate interests - reference the DMCA (again!) and the various incarnations of the ECPA.

DMCA = Digital Milennium Copyright Act
ECPA = Electronic Communications Protection Act

FFZ

I've tried to read the GCA. Gave up cause I had better things to do.

So now that you've demonstrated your skill at spewing latin, we've established that some laws make crimes out of activities that no normal person would assume are wrong. Woop. The question I'm trying to get at is this,
if the entire code is to large and/or complex for even a relatively well educated american to understand in whole, then how can a person resonably be held responsible for non-obvious crimes?

Is it even reasonable to say the the average college grad (i know we could start another thread about that one so assume it was a hard working , well educated, college grad) would not be able to understand the whole of the law?

Understand?  Probably.  Read?  Definitely not.  You may find some of my comments on the "Nazi" thread interesting, when I expound upon Anarchy...

FFZ