We could play this game for hours. What about speeding tickets? What about library fines? What if he killed somebody but that guy liked pineapple on his pizza (not a crime IMO)?
You're conflating malum prohibitum crimes (speeding tickets) with malum in se crimes. Two entirely different classes of crime. The former is shit that is illegal only because the state don't like it (or the behavior) and the latter- things like THEFT rape murder etc.... .are bad because they've caused actual economic or bodily harm to someone else. I mean lets face facts, at the end of the day most purely malum prohibitum crimes are horseshit, and often at worst, public
nuisances. Impugning someones character in a major way based solely on them having committed a malum prohitibutm crime is pretty mind
numbing.
I would give him the benefit of the doubt up to the defaced serial #.
I see where you're coming from, but I don't buy into it, honestly. Particularly given that there's a corner-possibility that someone could decide to deface a serial number for a far more innocuous reason. What if a thief stole a gun, defaced the serial number, but it was somehow recovered by the original
owner? Does that person who holds the gun now just lose the right to their property because some a**h*** ground a number off of it? that's just on its face,
idiotic/mind numbing. By itself- it's just another paper gun crime, its pure bullshit. It's one of those laws they passed that they knew they could get
away with because typical pious retard member of the public puts their nose in the air and goes "well, that lawr is fine, that will never happen to meeee, I'm not the sort of.... ruffian... or rapscallion.... that would ever own a gun with a DEFACED serial numburrrr.... muffy, will you please order some more grey poupon?"
Basically.... you're making a moral judgement on someone's actions or possession of an object.... based off a notion of morality which exists ONLY via some legislator creating a stupid law regulating conduct... conduct which, by itself, doesn't present any kind of ongoing public hazard or what have you. So he's a bad person just because he broke a dumb federal law that shouldn't exist? LOL. cwithe.
Now if this gun was shown to be stolen somehow, fine, throw the guy in prison, etc. I wouldn't even be against a tack on charge for something like "possession of a stolen firearm with defaced serial number" making the punishment greater- because you'd still have to prove that a bad thing happened- that someone stole a
firearm or at least acquired stolen property! But a law that says "oh this gun has a fuxored serial number, therefore its contraband all the time" is just idiotic.
-Mike
