Spirit of the law?

[radioburning]

I was on a job a couple weeks ago, and was talking with the producer of the photo shoot. I've worked with him a couple times before and found out through a crew member that he is a retired sheriff(can't remember for what county). One conversation with the producer leads to another and eventually we're talking about guns. I asked him what he thought of the whole OLL/bullet button thing, and he didn't have a clue about it. After showing him some stuff on Calguns, he said "I'm not buying it, you are working around 'the spirit of the law'" and proceeded to tell me you legally can't intentionally create little "workarounds" to circumvent the law.

I'm not buying into his take on the situation, but anybody have a legally-based response to this so I have some ammo for our next job together?

P.s. He's a cool guy, and down for shooting. He emails me links to ammo deals and such. I'm thinking if I can convince him of the legality aspect, we might have another soldier on our side.

[Hopi]

You have a lot of reading to do.

Search Alison Merrilees , underground regulation, and/or any thread involving the BB prior to Oct. 07 or so, and any thread involving OLL prior to June 06 or so......there is just too much joy involved to have you miss out on all the fun.

[Liberty1]

LOL! :confused:

"Spirit of the law" is a concept to enforce or not to enforce the "letter of the law" aka discretion. It doesn't apply to not breading the "letter of the law" - you've either broken it or not. You can't break the "spirit of the law" without already having broken the "letter" in which case it is up to the officer to apply the "letter" (arrest/ticket you) or determine that the "spirit of the law" was not broken even though the "letter" was and not arrest you (give an advisal/warning only).

Oh, my head is hurting time to :sleeping:

[dfletcher]

I suppose you could ask him if he abides by the law or "the spirit of the law" when he pays his taxes.

A law enforcement official determining the spirit of the law is in effect saying the legislature really didn't know what they were doing; that he knows better than them what was their intent.

Why stop at configuration. I suppose he could determine the "spirit of the law" with respect to the original AW banned models list was to ban ARs, AKs and FALs - so no name AKs, Stag ARs and DSA FALs should be illegal also. That whole "a nation of laws" thing just seems to get in the way sometimes.

[motorhead]

he is wrong and his opinion means nothing.

[Hopi]

he is wrong and his opinion means nothing.

To be fair, for the unprepared or less-eloquent that encounters an LEO like this, it could mean a ride in a police car, new shiny metal bracelets, a rifle confiscation, and/or lawyer fees.

Education, prepared citation, and effective dissemination, are the keys. Best to do this before any of the above has happened.

[CCWFacts]

Laws don't have spirits. They have written text. That is all. We can all read a law and come up with different "intentions" behind it but those are all opinions, and you know what they say about opinions, opinions are like, um, well something that everyone has one of.

Lawyers / prosecutors need to win or lose their cases based on what the law says. It's our duty as law-abiding citizens to follow the laws, and there are so many of them that it's hard enough to do that without also driving ourselves crazy trying to use ESP to see the spirits of laws. I personally don't have ESP so I stick to written facts.

[M. D. Van Norman]

Would a Kel-Tec SU-16 violate the spirit of the law? I guess that it matters whether the spirit is to reduce violent crime or to disarm common subjects.

[nicki]

Well the spirit of the concealed weapons permit system here in California was to deprieve minorities of the ability to carry concealed weapons.

The spirit of the open loaded carry ban was to disarm the Black Panthers.

Of course if any of us tried using that as a legal defense, the Judge would laugh at us while throwing the book at us.

The Spirit of the AW ban was to ban possession of what the legislature considered Military Arms. Of course this was done at a time when the 2nd amendment was viewed as a "Individual Right".

The reason the laws are written so poorly is that the original AW ban and the Subsequent bans were done in such a way to try to ban as many guns as possible while giving legislators cover that they were only banning so called "Assault Weapons" and not "Sporting Weapons".

The legislature won't admit they are banning guns that have certain cosmetic features.

In fact, the OLL with the bullet buttons have less firepower than say detachable 20 to 40 round capacity magazines(pre 2000 possession) where those of us who choose to put certain cosmetic features on our OLL's have limited our magazine capacity to 10 rounds only.

Sure a bullet button can be fast, but not as fast as a detachable magazine, and by going to this feature, we have limited ourselves to 10 rounds unless we want to risk committing a felony.

Getting back to the Spirit of the Law, now that we have Heller, and the Spirit of the 2nd amendment is that we have "Modern Arms" suitable for warfare, the original Roberti Roos bill and all follow up AW laws ban AW's because they are especially well suited for militia purposes.

Heller, Nordyke and hopefully after that, a string of court cases to abolish all gun laws that infringe on our RKBA.

Nicki

[MudCamper]

The "spirit" of the AW ban was to ban all "scary looking" and "military style" firearms. The AW ban was created by people who are totally ignorant to firearms and their function.

[Ledbetter]

Ask him if he always observed the spirit of the Miranda case, which outlawed interrogations without an attorney present, or Mapp v. Ohio, which made illegally seized evidence inadmissable, or the 4th amendment, which outlaws searches without legal cause. Or the laws against perjuring yourself to get a misdemeanor drug conviction on some poor SOB with a weakness for pot.

[shark92651]

A "spirit" is something metaphysical or metaphorical. What in the world does it have to do with written laws?

I love this from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_and_spirit_of_the_law

Authoritarians tend to view "following the spirit" negatively as disobeying the law. The reason is that the actual intent of the law may be ambiguous, and allowing anyone to follow his own interpretation of the law may result in anarchy.

[Suvorov]

Ask him how putting a muzzle brake on a M1A is violating the spirit of the law any less that putting a monsterman or fixed mag on an AR lower? Don't forget to remind him that the "Spirit" of the law was to get every rifle out of our hands that the legislature thought was politically possible at the time.

[bohoki]

they write a list of specifications to follow and we do how is that circumventing the law?

[motorhead]

wonder how many "spiritual" arrests he had thrown out of court.

[Jonar]

The spirit of the law works in favor of the people most of the time...

Like if you get pulled over for a california-roll at 3am in a business district, while you might've technically broken the letter of the law (thus warranting a ticket), you might get off due to the 'spirit of the law'... the 'spirit' of the law is the intentions and reasoning behind the law itself; in this case, to allow for safe travel of both pedestrians and vehicles etc etc...

Since at 3am in a business district, there's such a low probability of other cars, let alone pedestrians, the officer might be more inclined to let you go (or give you a warning) by following the 'spirit of the law'.


But in court, it's all down to the letter of the law. Until you get to the Supreme level where they actually review the spirit alongside with the letter.


What I'm saying here is, the spirit of the law works FOR the people in the sense that it lets people 'break' the law. However, it can't work AGAINST you, i.e. getting charged for something that's not clearly written in the 'letter of the law' even if it's well within the intentions of another law. That gets thrown out quicker than explosive diarrhea.

[AJAX22]

Well the spirit of the concealed weapons permit system here in California was to deprieve minorities of the ability to carry concealed weapons.

Nicki

Beat me to it...

Yeah the original 'spirit' of the gun control laws (all of them) was to keep the n*ggers and sp*cs from getting the means to defend themselves.




(slurs added for emphasis)

[motorhead]

eeeny meeny chili beanie, the spirits are about to speak.

[Nodda Duma]

In arguments like that, I come back with the argument that the spirit *and the letter* of the law is that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

-Jason

[hoffmang]

In fact, the bullet button follows the spirit of the law much better than welded magazine wells... The bullet button's functionality is actually spelled out in the enabling regulation.

-Gene