It is better to tolerate minor defects in the law than to change it.

It is better to tolerate minor defects in the law than to change it.

5:00-5:30

The purpose of the law in any society is to provide justice to those compromised of their well being, stability, preservation of certain rights and freedoms of a nation. Most laws are written are written with a clear intention of being strict to prevent misinterpretations or loop holes. If a law is well defined, then it will be harder for people to break it and take advantage of the law for their personal gain. All laws are meant to be interpreted but, if a law lacks clarity then there is more room for ambiguity and interpretation. Thus minor defects in laws are often times ignored but other times action is taken to change the law for the betterment of society.

Firstly consider a situation in which it is better to tolerate the minor defect of a law than to change the law altogether. Over the past few decades, the internet has transformed society in tremendous ways making our world smaller. Laws on the internet and other multimedia are somewhat obsolete and ineffective. For example, the US copyright law was made for the clear intentions of preventing fraudulent usage of media and to give credit to the creator. Multimedia such as music, movies, reading material, and tv shows have been protected by the US copyright law of 0f 1975 up to the last few years since mid 2005. After mid 2005, the internet as well as other forms of nanotechnology such as Ipads, smartphones, Amazon kindle and other electronic handheld devices have made it easier to break the copyright laws by posting material on the internet without the author’s notice. Recently, in 2009 the SOPA, stop online piracy act, was proposed in the US House of Representatives by Repulican Sentaor Lanmar Smith. However, SOPA was defeated by the internet with negative propaganda and widespread protests that it violated the right to free speech, expression and data online. Many citizens believe that SOPA would hinder free speech and caused social unrest. Thus, some people have left the SOPA and copyright laws as they are, since these are minor defects in the law that might heal by themselves.

In contrast, consider a situation in which it is better to correct the minor defect of a law than to change the law altogether. In the US the 4^th amendment of the Constitution allows citizens to possess firearms. Over the past few decades, there have been changes to the freedom of using firearms due to certain incidents. The recent incident at Oikos University, in Oakland,CA have put the gun laws in the spotlight once again. The shooter, a Korean, One Goh walked into school one morning of April 2, 2012 at Oikos lined up students and faculty in the classroom and shot them execution style. It was later revealed the shooter had been bullied and acted in retaliation. Thus gun laws are currently being revised in California and else where to prevent this incident. Likewise, in the recent George Zimmerman shooting of Trayvon Martin has questioned the validity of Florida’s “Stand your Ground law”. The “Stand your Ground law” states that if a person is under attack by someone and their life is in danger they can restrain or attack the perpretaor in self defense. In the case of Trayvon Martin, a 13-year old, was causing no problem and was shot deliberately by the neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Zimmerman claims he was attacked by Martin and shot him in self defense quoting the “Stand your Ground law”. Now after close scrutiny the law is being modified because too many incidents in the past few years have led to innocent people being killed under the law. There was a loop hole as to what is considered acceptable forms of self defense and weak gun laws. Thus in the case of Zimmerman, the “Stand your Ground law”  is going to be modified to prevent future blunders.

All in all whether or not a defect in a law should be ignored or acted upon is circumstantial. If the defect is not going to cause any direct harm, such as SOPA and Copyright infringement laws from the internet , then it should not be changed altogether rather tolerate it to see where it ends up. On the other hand, if the defect of a law such as the “Stand your Ground law”  has too many loopholes giving justice to criminal acts of violence then modifications must be made to the law to prevent future atrocities.