Successfully tying a godless killing machine like a polar bear to a fire hydrant is more a violation of the laws of nature than the laws of lawyers.
(That hydrant is not red, it’s blood).
Another likely source of dumb laws is corruption or personal animosity. Some law gets passed that is made to specifically profit a particular politician or his allies; or it’s crafted to target a specific individual or business. At the time the purpose may be obvious; but then a hundred years go by and out of context it makes no sense.
Hah, that reminds me of a Far Side cartoon. There’s an old West saloon; in front of it is a hitching post. Hitched up to the post are a pair of horses…and a bear with a saddle. Someone is just then being thrown out through the window of the saloon…
Meh. For municipalities, the way to get around that is to update a whole section, or several sections, without specifying any particular regulation or code. Tweak a few words here, add a line there, delete a few outdated subsections. That way it’s just boring housekeeping and nobody notices.
I was sad to see the municipal code update that removed the subsection giving the Director of Public Works the authority to license the collection and transportation of swill* within city limits. I’d been looking for something else when I first found it, and it amused me. I assume that swill collection and distribution is no longer a vibrant part of our local economy.
- kitchen refuse and scraps of waste food mixed with water for feeding to pigs
Speaking of laws that are still on the books…
An ex-boyfriend told me once that when he lived out in the country he wanted to go to the store. So he started walking, and along the way he saw a horse in a field so he grabbed the horse and rode it to the store. Of course the owner of the horse came home to find her horse missing and called the cops. They found him riding her horse on the way back from the store. Apparently the cop told my ex “You realize that the legal punishment for horse thieves is still hanging?”
Better still hanging than swinging hanging. Or so I’d assume. Would look more dignified at least.
Really? I’ve lived in Missouri, New Jersey and Ohio and I’ve stolen dozens if not hundreds of horses in just the manner you’ve mentioned and never once have I been hanged.
the only legal method of execution in the US is currently lethal injection, so obviously the cop was joking
Really? Virginia electrocuted someone as recently as January.
NH and WA have hanging still apparently, but only under specific circumstances that mean it never happens. Reservations about the death penalty aside, I hope that if someone else gets it, they make a Blazing Saddles joke.
That’s one of the reasons why the US still has those laws on the books: under the US legal system, a law that’s not valid due to having been superseded by a higher-level one is still on the books unless specifically repealed/reviewed. Someone has to think “hey, maybe we should review this” and start the process.
In other legal systems, the approval of the higher-level law would have triggered a process to update the lower-level ones, so that the laws listed at different levels would fit. It wouldn’t be a matter of “this lower-level law/article which is contradicted by a higher-level law will get ignored” but of “this lower-level item gets struck, print a new version for the lower-level law”. In some countries, the higher-level law would already include the list of corrections needed in every lower-level law affected.
Well, from the OP, the stupid haircut one makes some sense to me - I expect it stems from a similar sentiment as the law in France by which you can’t give your newborn kid just any name : the idea is to protect the kids from the stupidity or special snowflake-ness of their parents.
I’m actually not sure exactly how they decide which names are valid or not, but I do know my aunt had to go through some token administrative obstruction before she could name her first daughter Prune. Which is still a silly name if’n you asking me, but I suppose no system is truly foolproof.
The 50 Most Insane Driving Laws Around The World:
Okay, somebody please explain the one about spying on horses in Pennsylvania to me.
This happened in Ontario, Canada.
Most of those aren’t even that dumb. I can’t find the horse one anywhere else other than other “dumb law” posts, but it seems to be basically “if you see (spy) a group of horses approaching, you have to cover your car to not scare them.” Probably from when cars were brand new.
EDIT: Which brings up another way these laws pop up. They get repeated over and over and get changed so “spy a group of horses” becomes “spying on horses.”
Some weird laws are passed for the sake of tourism. I recall there’s some place in Georgia that bills itself as some sort of Fried Chicken Capital, and a city ordinance bans eating chicken with utensils. Well, no one is (probably) really going to arrest you for using a knife and fork. It’s just for publicity.
There are approximately 40,000 counties, municipalities and townships in the U.S. and they all have the power to pass laws. If only 1/4 of them ever wrote a single poorly worded, ambiguous or obsolete ordinance that still gives us 10,000 stupid laws to mock.
I’m going to go ahead and say the ice cream one is BS, because I can’t find a source other than unreferenced dumb law lists (for both Kentucky and Alabama), and because apparently a horse wouldn’t follow you for ice cream anyway.
SOMETIMES even sily-sounding laws have a kernel of logic behind them.
Years ago, I heard of a Southern town where it was perectly legal to sing in a bar or tavern, but it was illegal to sing off-key in a bar.
Weird law, I admit… but I sort of grasp the logic. A bunch of friends singing “Happy Birthday” in a bar? No big deal. A bunch of drunks singing off-key at the top of their lungs? A public nuisance.
Do you have any sort of details about this? What town?
It’s an urban legend generally attributed to North Carolina. It’s probably a stupid reading of a noise ordinance (in the manner discussed above).
What other legal systems are those?
Wha? How the hell am I supposed to eat my fried chicken then? I eat damn near everything with utensils.
Nothing insane or silly with parking cars on alternate sides of the street depending on date. It’s to facilitate sweeping the streets.