The crackdown on illegal wood begins!

Rand Simberg linked a post I wrote last month about the federal criminalization of wood, and I thought I should thank him here rather than in the post itself -- which Glenn Reynolds linked yesterday, but which is so old that regular readers might miss updates on it. Simberg added a great point which I think should be noted, and renoted -- by the Powers That Shouldn't Be:

Throw all the bastards out. One of the elements in the Republicans' new contract with America has to address these outrageously long, unread bills.
When I wrote the post ("Where were you when wood became a felony?" -- a long diatribe against yet another grotesque unconstitutional overreaching by the feds), little did I know that there would soon be a federal raid on the Gibson Guitar company. The name "Gibson" is legendary in rock music -- so much so that this raid is more than just an attack on an important and cherished American industry. The attack (on what the Justice Department thugs would probably call "Big Guitar") is an attack on freedom itself -- little different from raiding rock bands and seizing their guitars.

The feds raided Gibson looking for undocumented wood.


Not aliens.

Wood.

Just think about it. Look around you. How many things in the spaces surrounding you are made of wood? How many objects? Think of what a malicious prosecutor like Mike Nifong in a federal roid rage could do with such a "law." I don't think it is any exaggeration to say that this may be the greatest law enforcement harassment tool ever devised.

"Is that a gun in your pocket or are you concealing illegal handles made from undocumented wood?"

What I can't figure out is whether the greater crime is the passage of this monstrosity or the fact that its existence was so cleverly concealed -- as a small part of yet another humongous "act" -- that it went unreported.

We are not represented, we are ruled.

posted by Eric on 11.20.09 at 11:17 AM





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Comments

Things will be ever so much better when all wood products require a strict chain of custody, the lowly house framing stud as well as the Circassian walnut shotgun stock blank.

chuckR   ·  November 20, 2009 12:08 PM

Interesting delay between your original post and this new attention! Was the Gibson raid due to this new law or was it existing law?

SteveBrooklineMA   ·  November 20, 2009 01:45 PM

"Are all the books you own printed on paper made of properly documented wood"?

Marzo   ·  November 21, 2009 02:58 PM

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