Please Don't Eat the Daisies

If you're old enough, or watched enough TV movies, you'll recognize that name.  Originally a book by humorist Jean Kerr, the book's success led first to a Doris Day movie and later a TV sitcom.  The reason I'm bringing it up is not the plot, it's the idea: the backbone of the story was something many of us felt while raising our kids.  You had to be that specific about everything your kids could and could not do and you had to tell them explicitly.  You wouldn't even think of telling them not to eat the flowers, and the next thing you know, they'd have a mouth full of daisies - or, in our case, hibiscus.

Why is this relevant?  This the perfect description of our legal system today.  I'm thinking specifically about the gun control laws, but it works for everything.  Today, legislators would not only tell you not to eat the daisies, they'd define what a daisy was.  The idea is that if they're specific enough they can't get anything wrong.  We can see how well this works all around us.   

Here's an example that has been talked about both in comments here and and at other places.  New York's new laws refer to magazines and require the gun manufacturers to retool so that all standard magazines in all the modern double stack pistols can only have a seven round magazine.  How does that effect an 8-shot revolver?  Is an 8 place moon clip banned?

If you examine the law, there is never a mention of the term "Moon Clip", and the word revolver only occurs in reference to describing people licensed to possess a pistol or revolver.  There is mention of revolving cylinder shotguns being considered assault weapons, but not revolvers. 

Is this a magazine?  Have you ever seen anyone, anywhere who calls a moon clip a magazine?  As I said in comments, the people who wrote this law wouldn't know a moon clip from a Moon Pie if you told them one was edible - but maybe that's too Southern for the NY legislature and isn't fair.  The text of the law is pretty good about the term magazine and doesn't use the word clip at all.  It says 

"Large capacity ammunition feeding device" means a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device, "

I don't think a Moon Clip falls under this description, so I say it's fully legal.  If they had meant to outlaw it, they would have been specific - "please don't eat the daisies".

Of course, I Am Not A Lawyer, nor do I play one on the internet.  I'm some random dood with a blog and opinions that I think are well-based on fact and logic.

Like the previous "Assault Weapon Ban", it's a "scary features ban" but it's also declaring a war on ergonomics.  By outlawing telescoping stocks, they are saying that anyone with one of these scary-looking guns needs to make it fit them alone.  No sharing by a couple that's very different in size.  By outlawing pistol grips, they're just saying they want them to look like grandpa's rifle and not all scary like these new-fangled guns.  You're not allowed to have a barrel shroud to keep from burning your hands while holding the gun, and you're not allowed to have a forward mounted handle to help prevent you from burning your hands. But I'm sure a nice looking wood stock with checkered engraving will be just fine.

For now.