In Washington, Kill a Zombie, Go to Jail.

First caveat, this applies to Washington law only, zombie hunter/killers in other states beware of relying on the opinions here.

Second caveat, you are not law enforcement.  You have taken upon yourself to rid the State of Washington of these undead parasites.

Third caveat, zombies are not people.  The law in Washington defines person as:  "Person", "he", and "actor" include any natural person and, where relevant, a corporation, joint stock association, or an unincorporated association.  RCW 9A.04.110(17).  While zombies may be people (and maybe more of a person than some corporations like Google and BP), they clearly aren't "natural" so in Washington, zombies aren't people.

So, what happens to you when you, full of righteous fury, blow an attacking zombie's head off?  The police come and arrest you.  "But," you stutter to the officer, "I was acting in self-defense!"  Ah, well there's the rub.  In Washington you can legally use force to defend yourself against a person.  And as shown above, in Washington, zombies are not people.  You would be guilty of Unlawful Disturbance of Human Remains, RCW 68.50.140(4) Every person who removes, disinters, or mutilates human remains from a place of interment, without authority of law, is guilty of a class C felony.  While you might be able to get a jury to nullify your case with a good attorney, you are certainly taking a risk 12 gauging that undead hellspawn.

But remember:  Its better to be judged by twelve than carried by six or, in the case of zombies, to walk forever the earth as undead scum.  

Gun Laws in the Paranormal World

Let me set up the parameters for this and subsequent posts.  I am assuming here that 1) the paranormal world has intruded into the normal world in a recognizable way, and 2) (for this post) that humanity is facing, for lack of a better word, monsters.  That is big, bad things that are attempting to prey on humans.

With that, it is flat out crazy to think that anything like modern gun laws would exist in this world.  Without going into to much detail, gun laws exist to make society safe.  While I know that the merits of this or that gun law as they exist in the "real" world are hotly debated, we are not talking about that world.  Lets imagine this: instead of a shooter coming into a school like Virginia Tech and shooting 37 people, imagine a werewolf attacking the school and killing 37 people.  Does anyone think for an instant that we would be arguing the merits of the victims being able to protect themselves from the werewolf?  While I can agree that there would probably be some people arguing that werewolves are people too and have to snack when they can and its just a disease and they should be protected, those people would mostly be served up to the werewolves by the rest of us who would rapidly agree that we need to be able to protect ourselves from these things.  And the limits on that would probably be how hard the monsters are to kill.  The harder they are, the more guns would be available.  Almost certainly automatic weapons would be allowed and probably sold in hardware stores, Costco and Wal-marts.  There is no way that people would allow themselves to be unprotected if things as bad-ass or badder than great white sharks might be able to snack on them at their leisure because there is an assault weapon ban.

So get with the program writers!  I don't want my blog to go off on a tangent on my first real post but just think for a moment, who would be re-elected if they supported a law that allowed carnage like that by an inhuman monster.  While people can bitch and moan about assault weapons and their purpose and place in real life, if you are going to be a tapa to a vampire without a submachine gun, then the price of submachine guns from China will be available at low, low prices at Wal-mart I promise you.

'Nuff said on this, next: The (un)Civil Rights of Zombies and can we go to jail for killing them?

First Post

Well, my first post.  I've given this a lot of thought so I'm going to lay out the groundwork for what this blog is going to be and why it came about.  Second thing first, why this blog on this topic.  First, I am an avid reader.  I read many things, but most pertinent to this blog I read (depending on your perspective I suppose) somewhere between a lot and some paranormal fiction.  I like it (and love some of it).  But most important to this blog is not only do I read a lot of paranormal fiction, but I have a serious "devil's advocate" quirk in me.  I try to see the other side of arguments and situations, almost reflexively.  It helps (sometimes) in my real life job, but it often gets in the way (in relationships in particular).  One way this manifests (which is of most consequence here), is that I don't like the lack of thought by the authors about the consequences on the real world around them of the paranormal world they create.  Monsters and undead are tearing people apart in the street and the author will blithely state Non-Magic folk (hereinafter to be referred to as "Norms") either are in denial or swallow wholesale the government cover-up or whatever silly reason.  I don't buy it.  Without some actual physical/magical manifestation that just doesn't allow us to comprehend the world (ala A.J. Martinez's world in Monster), I cry foul.  The world just doesn't work that way.  Cover-ups don't last, and while denial is powerful, it is not powerful enough to change the very very strong survival instinct in most humans.  So I don't buy that if there is a strong paranormal world shadowing ours that it would have no effect on the socio-political-economic (read real) world at all.  So what effect would it have?

Being a lawyer in real life, I began to ponder this.  Since I hated property and never fully understood its nuances, I began to think about the effects paranormalcy (is that even a word?) would have on property law.  How would the undead inherit?  Could they inherit?  For those of you that don't know, one of the reasons property law exists is to deal with the orderly transfer of property rights from one individual to another at death so that property is not left with uncertain ownership for long periods of time (thus making it economically de-valued/valueless).  And I began to think about how "immortal yet undead" beings could eventually accumulate huge abouts of property without ever transferring it.  Would the Norms stand for this?  And I began to think that they would not.  So how would that effect the law?  And then that led me to thinking about what are the legal ramifications for killing an undead creature under the law as it stands now?  And then I began to think would the Norms stand for that?  And thus the seed for this blog was born.

It is my intent to explore (tongue firmly in cheek) the legal ramifications of the undead, werewolves, sorcerers, etc. as they impact the legal community.  I firmly advise any zombies, vampires, were-anything, pixies, wizards and that ilk that what I say is not legal advise and cannot be taken as such.  And with that, I'll see you soon.  My first topic: Gun laws in the paranormal world.