Ok, I see a huge problem with this law. As always, the things passed into law in the name of making society do the right thing are the ones that bite us in the ass. I am referring to this section from the article, Harassment, as defined by the ordinance, will be considered any conduct, whether verbal, physical, written or by means of any mode of communication that causes a person to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed or molested and which serves no legitimate purpose. Sounds good, right? Except that most laws like this tend to add on that it is what a REASONABLE person would feel. In terms of self defense, a jury must decided if I felt in danger to my life before I shoot someone based on what they believe a reasonable person would think in the same situation. If self defense law was written like this one was, then anytime someone looked at me dirty I could possibly say I was in fear for my life and blow them away. In this case, I suspect that there will be a hell of a lot of abuse of this law by people that get their feelings hurt by simple truths. Just adding in something like the part about reasonable person standards would cut back the problems a lot, but I dont think most politicians bother to think about how their laws can be abused, only with trying to show voters that they really carry about hot-topic issues. This type of thing is one of the steps in the chipping away of our individual rights. If all it takes is someone saying that what I say somehow intimidates them to shut me up, then we really cant say anything anymore.
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 16:19:46 +0000
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