Ineffective

What's an ineffective law?

Defining it as something which fails to eliminate a crime is deciding to fail.

There are people who will commit a given crime regardless of their likelihood of being caught and being punished.

There are people whom will commit a crime even when being caught is certain, because they don't fear the sentence which will be imposed.

That they are breaking the law is irrelevant to them.

Does this mean a law is ineffective because there are still people who will perform the crime?

I don't think so.

To me, an effective law is one which reduces the incidence of a given crime because most people don't want to be punished for committing it.

BUT!

I don't think that any crime that lacks a victim should be a crime at all.

I don't think that any law that's supposed to influence criminal behavior but puts all the burden on the law-abiding should be a law.

To put it in a gun owning context:

Who is victimized if I cut the barrel of a shotgun down to less than 18" and the stock to make it shorter than 26"?

How is a criminal burdened by making me fill out a 4473 when the damn background check only needs my name and address?  Never mind, how is a criminal burdened by making ME pass a background check?

We law abiding folks are definitely deterred from cutting down our shotguns by this law.  We even submit to the kabuki theatre of further background checks and expenditures to remain law abiding when we feel we cannot live without a short barreled shotgun.

We expose ourselves to prosecution for "lying on an official document" from checking the wrong box on a form (or forgetting to answer one).

These things do not burden the criminal.  They interfere in the lives of everyday citizens and are doing so in an ever increasingly intrusive manner.

So far the only beneficiaries are the people collecting our wages as taxes and spending them to make sure we're properly controlled.

It's also stupefying to realize that we're extremely unregulated and free even when compared to other "free" nations.

There's still time to let the soap and ballot boxes work, but we must decide we want to be more free and have more liberty.

It will mean giving up the power to interfere with so many things in others lives from what they eat, to who they fuck to how they raise their kids.

For a long time, we didn't care as a matter of law what everyone else did.  But once you can force your whims about one thing, there's a temptation to go for more, and other will follow your example.

Ever notice how many people chose to live where there's no homeowners association?

Government is like an HOA you cannot move away from and didn't agree to live under.