Unnecessary Laws

[Matty_Richo]

@Matty: I think parents should be responsible for their children, not the government.

You are right, parents should be responsible for their children. But that isn't to say any parent can or should be watching and lecturing their children all day, every day. It is perfectly reasonable for a child to walk to school of a morning, and if they saw an older person jaywalking they may be inclined to copy the behaviour.

And you're right, laws cannot account for individual scenarios, which is why I think it's all the more important that they are there, yes there may be the occasional situation where you need to break the law but I would argue that the majority of the time it's best not to do those things.

[DarkTrinity]

@Matty: I think parents should be responsible for their children, not the government.

While this should be true, some parents are just godawful at it. That, and parents aren't always around and we all know kids like to get into mischief. Even if a parent tells their kid to say, wear a bike helmet, that doesn't mean they're actually going to do it.

[sly 3 4 me]

I presented a speech on this three weeks ago. Pretty funny to see there was a topic on it.  ;D

[DarkTrinity]

You know what interests me? Silly laws. Not just unnecessary ones, but ones that are just so out there that you know there's got to be a back story to why they were written, and it's probably a hilarious one.
For instance, in a city in Florida: Owning a flower pot with water in it that isn?t capable of draining is considered a public nuisance.
Neon signs are prohibited in Naples Florida.
Fun stuff.

[Snakeman]

You know what interests me? Silly laws. Not just unnecessary ones, but ones that are just so out there that you know there's got to be a back story to why they were written, and it's probably a hilarious one.
For instance, in a city in Florida: Owning a flower pot with water in it that isn?t capable of draining is considered a public nuisance.
Neon signs are prohibited in Naples Florida.
Fun stuff.

Ice cream trucks are banned in the city I grew up in because a long time ago a kid got hit by one. :(

[sly 3 4 me]

Yeah, mine wasn't really much on 'weird' laws, but on silly laws. It was an entertainment speech, so the ones I used were more funny than weird. It was pretty annoying to present with my combination of not liking speeches and not being too enthusiastic for being funny, a double wammy perse.

http://www.harford.edu/faculty/dvolkart/handouts/odd_state_laws.htm

I used some stuff from there and a few other sites for credit of source material.

[crozier]

Wow, a few of those laws are really religiously biased, and sexist.
And a handful (the firetruck/ambulance speed limits, beating one's wife=ok, etc) are strait up retarded.

But yeah there's no way any of those are enforced. And question: isn't "If a child burps during a church service in Omaha, his or her parents may be arrested." impossible to enforce seeing police are not allowed into churches to arrest somebody?

[sly 3 4 me]

They're old laws or laws that have underlying reasoning. Replacing general places with specific places, animals with certain animals, nonspecific terms with ones that could potentially be true. I covered it in my speech about a few of the origins and why you can't get in trouble from any of those laws because of desuetude. So it's all good with most of them with how outrageous they are.

[Hikarikuen]

They're old laws or laws that have underlying reasoning. Replacing general places with specific places, animals with certain animals, nonspecific terms with ones that could potentially be true. I covered it in my speech about a few of the origins and why you can't get in trouble from any of those laws because of desuetude. So it's all good with most of them with how outrageous they are.

Yep, I was gonna post the same thing. I stopped finding most silly laws funny after I looked at the sources they cited for them.

NO FUN ALLOWED.