What laws do

Welcome to America on the 4th of July weekend! The land of the free and home of the brave! Enjoy your freedom! While we are talking freedom let's take a moment to realize just what freedom means. Consulting my handy dandy dictionary I find...
Freedom (noun)
1. The state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint.
2. exemption from external control, interference or regulation
3. the power to determine action without restraint.

Now let's ponder this for a minute, are we really free? Quite possibly this is the most free land on the planet, but we as a nation are catching up really quick with our laws which legislate freedom.

Make no mistake I do not propose we live in an anarchistic society with no laws or rules, that would be terrifying to almost all of us. What I am growing more concerned about is the way our government spends our money to legislate our freedom and hammers down the fines on the small stuff to generate more money for the government and then goes blind when it comes to major stuff.

You see just this week in Illinois two tidbits in the news came to my attention: Death penalty officially expires for use in Illinois under Governor Quinn and Governor Quinn signs new law to require back seat passengers to buckle up. You see some people get all queasy when it comes to the death penalty. That is fine with me, the topic of what to do with murderers should be something that we as a society should debate. The taking of someone's life is the ultimate form of taking ones liberty. I have my opinions on the death penalty and I'm sure you have yours, that is healthy! In the end though what message are we sending our society when most people who commit murder go into jail and come out in an average of 8-10 years? What message does that send to the loved ones of the victim? Is the victim's life really only worth 8  to 10 years?

Conversely what right does the government have to regulate how you live your life? If you want to drive your car unbuckled, knowing that if you get into an accident you could be killed, isn't that really your decision? What right does the government have to tell you as the driver of a vehicle that you have to pay a fine if one of your passengers unbuckles as you are driving? Aren't you, as a responsible driver supposed to be paying attention to the road? I doubt that the responsible driver checks their back seat all that often while driving.

We are a nation defined by our laws and our laws get more and more petty all the time. Why? Because all the sensible laws have already been enacted and our legislators want to get their names on new ones is my best guess.

You see the only thing that laws effect are law abiding citizens, they do not effect criminals, the punishment might yes, but the law does not effect the thought process of a criminal. Take gun laws as an example. In Chicago from 1985 on to 2010 handguns were banned in Chicago. You could not legally own one in the defense of your home. You could not drive one through the city limits in your car legally. Go ask a police officer how bored they were during those years as far as it came to dealing with handguns. I mean there couldn't be any in Chicago because they were illegal right? You are right to assume that handguns were not scarce on the city streets in those years. Criminals used them all the time. A law abiding citizen could not. Illinois got so incredibly insane about this that they wanted to make it public knowledge who was a registered gun owner. Let's put on our thinking cap on this one, I am a law abiding citizen who wishes to own a gun, I go through all the required laws, the expense to legally acquire one and now the state wishes to punish me by making my information available to all those who didn't. That includes criminals. Criminals own guns, but do not register them. Why? Because they disregard the laws. This is insanity! Second Amendment arguments aside, why would you make it more dangerous for a law abiding citizen to live?

The politicians will always tell you that it is for officer safety, that the laws for registry are there to let the police know who has guns. Let me tell you two things I have always practiced or seen in my career as a law enforcement officer.
1. Everyone I stop, that I do not know as a personal friend of mine, I assume has a weapon, I could care less if the current law requires gun owners to paint themselves blue when carrying a weapon, I will assume, for my safety, that the person I am dealing with has disregarded the law.
2. Registry laws do not work, one I do not know of a database that assists me responding to a house that tells me "There is a gun in that house" and furthermore not a single time I have run into a person carrying a firearm, who is not law enforcement, has that weapon been registered anywhere. Not once in over 13 years.

In closing what do laws do? Restrict the freedom of law abiding citizens and not change anything for a criminal. A person who wants to kill, will. A person who wants to rape, will. In the end if we as a society wish to be free we need to take the criminals off the streets for long periods of time. We also need to stop breaking the backs of law abiding citizens by fining them for small misjudgements I.E. not having a passenger buckled up