Reprinted In Its Entirity in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

So, my last entry discussed some of the difficulties of crafting laws. Like how you want to write a law that says, “Electric Scooters shouldn’t be on Highways” but you don’t want that law to somehow prevent someone in a Wheel Chair from going for help if their van breaks down. Apparently, Cracked.com contributor Jason Iannone wrote something about that in 2016.

6 Legal Loopholes That Criminals Love To Exploit

A lot of time and effort goes into crafting the laws of our society, because without said laws, everyone would just rape, murder, and download MP3s off the internet all day. It’s so much work, in fact, that every once in a while our devoted lawmakers will overlook a tiny little detail while crafting important legislation. But, hey, what’s the worst that could happen?

Oh, you have no idea …

1. In Many States, It’s Totally Legal To Have Sex With A Corpse

In 2006, three Wisconsin men were caught trying to dig up the body of a recently deceased woman. Why the hell? Because one of them saw her obituary photo and decided it would be nice to have sex with her. He even brought condoms, because he wasn’t ready to be tied down with a bouncing baby zombie nine months later.

They were arrested, as you’d expect, and charged with attempted sexual assault, also as you’d expect. What you might not expect is that the judge dropped the assault charges, because it actually wasn’t illegal to fuck a corpse in Wisconsin.

And it’s not just Wisconsin. Despite corpse-fucking being one of those things even a child could tell you is wrong (also wrong: asking a child what they think about corpse-fucking), the typical law book is shockingly quiet about the matter. It’s not a federal offense, and 22 states have no anti-necrophilia laws whatsoever. And of the 28 that do punish, 10 deem it a misdemeanor, meaning you could theoretically get off with probation for getting off on your wife after she croaked in the kitchen.

The main issue appears to be that, in many places, dead bodies are not considered people. Once you stop breathing, the law stops protecting you, period. As Maryland State Senator Lisa Gladden summarized it, while arguing to change her state’s laws: “If I dropped dead on this floor right now and someone came and chopped me up, nothing.” Luckily, nobody called her bluff.

Another problem is that few respectable lawmakers are willing to draw up verbiage that straight-up says, “Don’t fuck dead people, you creep.” Massachusetts, for example, has no laws against necrophilia (but plenty that outlaw blasphemy, butt stuff, and publicly selling an albino).

Massachusetts does, however, forbid embalmers and undertakers from uttering “profane, indecent, or obscene language” while chilling with the stiffs. So they can fuck ‘em, just not talk dirty while doing so.

Many states are now working to make corpse-sex illegal: Our old friend Wisconsin quickly moved to criminalize the act just two years after the aforementioned Three Splooges tried to screw a dead woman. All three were re-charged and convicted of third-degree sexual assault – presumably, the judge explained his refusal to grandfather their case in with, “Wait, what? Ew, no. Fuck no.”

1. The Cops Can Steal Your Stuff If They Think You Bought It With Drug Money

In 2014, burglars took $3.5 billion from law-abiding citizens. That same year, cops took $5 billion. Also from citizens. And it was all totally legal, thanks to “civil asset forfeiture,” a practice which, if you own literally anything, should absolutely terrify you.

Civil forfeiture lets cops claim any property they believe a criminal obtained by being a criminal. We say “believe” for a reason: They don’t need a warrant, evidence, or even a reason to enact civil forfeiture. They literally just have to think somebody is pulling a Pablo Escobar – a process that involves seeing something they want, deciding “drugs, probably,” and grabbing it. The assets become property of the police department. They can straight-up steal your cash, jewelry, money, car, and even your house, and if you object to the robbery, as many being robbed are wont to do, you can be arrested for obstructing justice or any other fun felony your legally protected mugger can think of.

An example: Christian rocker Saw Marvellous Soe and his manager, Eh Wah, got pulled over in Oklahoma with over $53,000 in their car. The money was meant to build an orphanage and a Christian college, but the cop saw the money, wrote “drug proceeds” on a piece of paper, and took every last penny. By the way, if you’re picturing some spacey dudes with dreadlocks and bloodshot eyes, Soe and Wah actually look more like, well, Christian rockers.

Soe and Wah (and the internet) raised enough of a stink that the charges were dropped and the money returned, but since most victims of civil forfeiture aren’t famous, that rarely happens. Of the 62,000 civil seizures since 9/11, only one in six saw a push-back. Even then, good luck getting the judge to agree you got hosed – 59 percent of challenges end with the judge effectively saying, “Fuck you, cops are awesome, don’t piss them off by doing nothing ever again.”

And even when you win, don’t expect your money back. Edwin Couse, who distributed legal medical marijuana, was mugged for over $1,800 by cops who decided, through a complex investigative process known as “shut up,” his practice was illegal. The judge eventually dismissed all charges, but Couse never saw his $1,800 again. This was, presumably, explained by Colorado police through an official press release stating, “Didn’t we tell you to shut up?”

1. You Can Legally Own An Untraceable Assault Rifle (If You Assemble It Yourself)

The closest the government has come to “taking away your guns” is the fact that they are required to have a serial number and they maybe sometimes require a background check, but that’s still too tyrannical for some people. Their solution: Exploit a loophole that lets them own as many assault rifles, AK-47s, BFGs, and large-scale missile launchers as their hearts desire, without having to report it to anybody … as long as they don’t buy them fully assembled.

Currently, only complete guns need to be stamped with serial numbers and have their sales reported to the authorities. Gun parts, meanwhile, don’t require shit. In fact, as long as it doesn’t contain a receiver – the part that makes all the other parts work as fatally well as they do – we can buy a box of gun parts just as easily as we’d buy a DIY chair at IKEA. And regarding the receivers: They’re regulated only if they’re complete. If a receiver requires even the slightest modification on your part, then only you and the god your victims are about to meet ever need to know you own it.

“But those are professional criminals,” you say. “Regular people aren’t buying boxes full of gun parts and putting them together while watching Wheel Of Fortune.” You’re right. They let a machine do that.

The Ghost Gunner is a machine that easily assembles unregistered, unregulated, and totally legal AR rifles (normally designed more for terrorism than hunting Bambi’s mom) while you touch yourself over how you sure pulled a fast one on that dang Obama. And it’s selling like hot cakes. Deadly hot cakes.

Do we even need to tell you that people are killing each other with ghost guns? Because of course they are – the 2013 Santa Monica massacre happened after the murderer, Someguy McFuckhisname, couldn’t buy an assault rifle legally. So he simply made his own and then used it tragically well. The only reason he didn’t escape is because he was still shooting when the cops arrived. But if a shooter leaves their gun behind, good luck linking it back to them: As far as official records are concerned, they not only never bought that gun, but that gun never existed.

But, believe it or not, the U.S. isn’t the only country with insane gun-law loopholes …

1. England’s Strict Gun Control Laws Don’t Apply To Antiques

England’s gun control is pretty legendary. Most guns are straight-up banned, with any legal guns intensely regulated – as a result, gun crime is down over 50 percent since 2003. But as it turns out, there’s a real easy way to get around all those oppressive life-saving laws: Get yourself a really old gun.

See, to keep the hobbyists happy, England’s gun control laws provide an exception for antique weaponry (as do U.S. laws, naturally). In England, as long as they’re meant as an “ornament or curiosity,” antique guns can be bought just as easily as one would buy a NERF gun. We’re not talking about bayonets and stuff. These will do:

Now, if you just use your 200-year-old rifle to hide a hole in your wall, that’s one thing. The problem is that people are increasingly using these weapons as actual weapons. They buy the guns, get ammunition on the black market, and then comes the people-hunting. Here are some more of the 100-plus totally legal antique handguns, shotguns, rifles, and submachine guns recently seized at British crime scenes:

Again, these aren’t rinky-dink water pistols – these fuckers mean old-timey gangster business. And so do the people using them: They’ve shot at least 31 Londoners (three died) in the past three years. Is that “we’re all gonna die” levels of epidemic? No, not yet anyway. But it’s still too many, considering it’s mostly happening because some lawmaker forgot that old guns still work, even if the original owner became one with the soil before King George III did.

Not surprisingly, Scotland Yard wants to close this loophole. Also not surprisingly, gun collectors don’t want them to, because if they can’t decorate their home with shit that blew away Americans in the War of 1812, why have a home to begin with?

1. There Are So Many Ways To Get Around The No-Fly List

You’re probably aware of the No-Fly List. Hell, you might be on the No-Fly List, whether it’s because you’re a terrorist (fuck you), you share a name with a terrorist (sucks to be you), or you just have a weird foreign name that scares white people even though you’re a baby (fuck this world). It’s a fairly effective program for keeping would-be suicide bombers out of our skies … except for the many loopholes we simply haven’t found the time over the past 15 years to close.

For instance, our laws explicitly state that all terrorists are banned from taking piloting classes in America, since the last time they did, we got several terrible Toby Keith songs out of it. And yet, if you’re a U.S. citizen and you’re on the List, nothing’s stopping you from enrolling in any flight school you want. You could even have an arrest record related to why you’re on the List, but it doesn’t matter: Only foreigners are deemed too cruel for school.

Another issue is that the No-Fly List goes after terrorists … but only terrorists. If you saw a movie where a crazy guy shoots a pastor and then just calmly boards an airplane while the police have a warrant out for him, you’d call bullshit – but that’s exactly what happened earlier this year. If you have a felony or outstanding warrant for anything besides terrorism, airport security won’t check for it. You’re more likely to be stopped for having dull scissors in your carry-on than you are for stabbing your wife or shooting up a church. That shit’s bad, but as long as you don’t do it in the name of Allah or because capitalism done wronged you, the TSA doesn’t care.

1. Yellowstone’s “Zone Of Death” Allows For Totally Legal Murder

Of the 3,537,436 square miles of land that make up our humble little U.S. of A., murder is strictly verboten in 3,537,386 of them. In case you’re too terrified to attempt math, that’s a 50-mile difference. And those 50 miles where The Purge lasts all year long are in Yellowstone National Park, of all places. If a body kills a body comin’ thro’ the section of the park adorably nicknamed the “Zone Of Death,” the law’s currently at a loss for what to do.

See, while most of Yellowstone is very much in Wyoming, there’s about 50 square miles that peek out into ol’ Spuds MacStatezie itself, Idaho. And according to the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, juries must be composed of people from the “state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” So, if you kill someone in the Zone, your jury’s a bunch of Idahobags, right? Nope, because Wyoming claims Yellowstone. So, it’s a Wyoming jury, right? Nope, because the murder happened in Idaho. Maybe we just throw up our hands and say fuck it? Nope, because … actually, yes. Precisely that.

In this case, the only legal solution would be to find 12 people (plus alternates) who live in the Zone Of Death. And, despite how living in the Zone Of Death would be the most metal fucking thing ever, a grand total of zero people currently do so. ZERO. That means no jury can be formed, no trial can be held, and the murderer goes free. At least until the family of the victim drags the murderer back to the Zone and legally shoots them dead, because the Wild Goddamn West is real, and it’s seven hours east of Boise.

Thankfully, nobody has tested this loophole out yet. Less thankfully, nobody seems interested in closing it before somebody does. Law professor Brian Kalt discovered the Zone Of Death in 2005 and has since continually pitched lawmakers on closing it. He’s had no luck so far. The Department Of Justice thinks the whole “jurors from the correct state” thing is a minor quibble at best, because apparently Constitutional amendments don’t count after the first two. One politician even claimed that checks and balances would solve the problem, which isn’t how checks and balances work. He would’ve made just as much sense and retained as much credibility by suggesting the bears of Yellowstone be the jury.

Please don’t add “legal murder” to your vacation bucket list, please. But if something happens and you do, you didn’t hear it from us. Tell the cops BuzzFeed sent you.