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Also one more point how wording and language is written in bills/penal Codes works for both sides good and bad. About four years ago we spent 4 weeks working on changing one sentence in a bill based on only 4 of the words in a sentence, it eventually got changed and the attorneys working on it felt comfortable that the courts would interpret the change to our benefit should it ever come up in court. It was a compromise for both sides and both sides got what they wanted or at least were satisfied with the outcome to a reasonable degree, but it didnt mean the sentence was easy to read or clearly articulated its point.

RHENRIKSEN wrote:Here's a thought - it's not as sexy or compelling as campus carry, OC, or the parking lot bill, but it would be worthwhile nonetheless:

language cleanup!

Not *changes* to the existing statutes, but fixing the godawful convoluted wording that causes so much confusion to lay people and LEOs alike.

For instance, church carry. The statute says 'places where carry is prohibited: aaaaaa, bbbbb, *churches*, ddddd, etc'. You have to read much further down to discover, oh! but churches have post to a 30.06 like everyone else. No wonder there's so much confusion (and potential LEO hassles) because of this poor language.

Why not float a bill which modifies the statute to clean up this kind of thing? Remove 'churches' completely from the section that lists prohibits places for CHLs.

Any bill I have ever seen that clearly states its objective in laymens terms gets shot to pieces. Doesnt mean there isnt one out there, it just means language clean up is not that feasible or easy to do. Any bill I have ever worked on or read, the wording is the key and its why penal codes come out like they do. You will have a bunch of folks beat up language in a bill based on what they want their outcome to be and how they think the courts will interpret the language. Thats why laws end up written like they are. Its why we have judges and attorneys, its their job to interpret the law, and it is why precadents are also important, those type cases set a precadent as to how law has been interpretted in the past, its why attorneys argue before the Supreme Court. My point is dont hold your breath on language clean up, these things are written that way because you have a lot of special interest or points of view focusing on wording and how wording will be interpreted.