The North Carolina legislature came together recently to pass strong anti-rioting legislation that will increase the penalty for those arrested in Antifa-style riots.House Bill 40, which passed with bipartisan support, contains the same provisions as a bill that was vetoed in 2021 by Democratic governor Roy Cooper....The legislation increases the penalty for those arrested for rioting where deaths or injury occurred, or significant damage was inflicted on property. It also increases penalties for anyone convicted of assaulting a first responder during a riot. Since radical organizations supporting Antifa rioters with systematic bail funds has resulted in revolving door justice, the bill also tightens bail and pre-trial release requirements.
Among the provisions of the law is a heightened penalty if you riot while on drugs (or while brandishing weapons). The prohibition against attacking emergency personnel (the term used in the law, rather than 'first responder') is a Class D felony, equivalent to being a member of a terrorist organization, trafficking in serious quantities of cocaine, train robbery, intentional arson, or voluntary manslaughter.
If we must have laws, at least let them be good laws. Until and unless actual revolution is justified, this kind of rioting is utterly destructive.
Does an officer of the local law enforcement agency have to stand in front of the mob and read aloud the pertinent provisions of the act, ordering them to desist and disperse, before he orders or uses violence to enforce that act?
ReplyDeleteA.k.a. "Read them the Riot Act..."
https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/09/reading-the-riot-act-wasn-t-always-just-a-metaphor.html
During a Special Commission for the trial of rioters who participated in London’s massive anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780, Lord Loughborough clarified the post-reading-of-the-Riot-Act procedures:
“If the mob, collectively, or a part of it, or any individual, within or before the expiration of that hour, attempts or begins to perpetrate an outrage amounting to felony, to pull down houses, or by any other act to violate the law, it is the duty of all present, of whatever description they may be, to endeavor to stop the mischief, and to apprehend the offender.”
Does an officer of the local law enforcement agency have to stand in front of the mob and read aloud....
ReplyDeleteNope. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for its violation.
Eric Hines
The crux of the question is not what the law is- it is who it is enforced on.
ReplyDeleteWe see this daily where the connected (those in current political favor) get a free pass, while those who are not, get railroaded on the slimmest of charges. To think that the antifa rioters were not charged because of a lack of laws is ridiculous.
The benefit of sterner laws, is that the enforcers have a bigger hammer to use on whoever they choose.
So I favor no new laws. No new penalties. We have plenty of Law, already literally uncountable. The problem lies in selective enforcement.
Good points, Raven. I agree that issue is of great importance, and somewhere we don't have good handles on the matter.
ReplyDeleteNew laws are not my preferred solution, but it is what the legislature does. I like it better as a rule when they repeal laws than when the pass new ones.