| From: | "XaOs [David Goth]" <xaos@*****.NET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Law in Magic (was RE: No need for Spell Permits was Re: Spell |
| Date: | Sun, 4 Oct 1998 02:24:39 -0500 |
> permits. Look at
> the size of the population. 1 percent magically active. Of that
> maybe 10% have
> the ability and desire to become true magicians. The rest are
> adepts of one
> form or another or don't even realize they have the talent. So
> one person in a
> 1000 has the ability to cast major mojo.
Permits are perhaps not necessary by that argument (and I'd agree), but laws
against using spells in the commission of a crime, etc. etc. might work
better. Anyway, just because a small number of people are/can do something,
it's hardly reason not to have laws concerning it. (For that matter, very
few people have the authority to own fully-automatic weapons, but people DO
have permits for them).
> Even then using magic for an illegal activity is going to be hard
> to prove in
> many cases.
This gives me some ideas. A projecting mage can remove astral traces of a
crime. I'm thinking about crime-scenes now (with the typical police tape
surrounding them, and maybe a cop standing around keeping people away). How
common do you think wards might be in these situations? Or perhaps an
Awakened officer hanging out waiting for someone to try to project in and
remove the evidence.
And how useful would this 'evidence' be anyway? Basically it'd just amount
to an eye-witness account by a cop, since the astral traces would be long
gone by the time a case went to trial.
> As was pointed out, few beat cops are going to be magically
> active. They will call for magical backup if the needed and the
> backup could
> testify that they witness a perp using magic. Of course if you are still
> casting magic by the time the back up shows then you deserve what you get.
> They will no doubt throw the book at such an individual. But once
> again that
> is using magic to commit a crime not having the magic.
And back to my idea... How common would it be for a police force to squander
it's assets in a situation where they're just keeping bystanders out of a
scene? I guess I'd say that wards might be more common. Something like that
could be easily sub-contracted out (although that removes the benefit of a
cop-mage knowing that someone's trying to violate his ward, and thus having
a hard-on to get over there, possibly with friends, to kick the hoop of a
perp interfering with police affairs). Probably that would be somewhat
covered by the sub-contract with the warding agency.
> If can see requiring registration and/or certification has being very
> possible.
I kinda doubt it. This is a very valued/valuable group who is different than
other people on a genetic level (according to SR fiction anyway).
Essentially, this would be discrimination. Now before you pipe up that
discrimination is all over the place, I'd say that this is going to be the
most protected group (almost a separate race) on the planet. With the rarity
of Awakened individuals, and the sheer value that everyone puts on their
talents, I have a hard time believing that anyone is going to seriously
mistreat them more than your normal mundane.
> Certainly if someone showed that he could cast a fireball, then
> Lonestar would track him.
I'd think that this 'proof' would be really hard to come by. (But this
doesn't prevent Lonestar from having a file on someone anyway, so that they
can keep an eye out on them).
> Such a person may be forced to register
> (like having
> a concealed gun permit).
Again, for reasons above, I doubt it. (Which makes me wonder, but I'm too
lazy to look it up...how uncommon is it for concealed weapons to be legal by
2060 anyway? Seems like weapons are a lot more common than in 1998.)
> However requiring a permit for someone having a
> Makeover spell wouldn't fly. Maybe you could require them to have
> a permit if
> they used it on someone else, but why bother?
I think it'd be handled better by treating it as a form of assault,
regardless of the method used. Using a weapon in the commission of a crime
is a common thing to tack on to charges, and I can definitely see 'using
magic in the commission of a crime' as being just as common.
> You could require
> them to have
> be registered if they used healing magic on someone. Burning
> Bright showed a
> hospital refusing to allow a non-certified mage to magically heal
> a patent,
> but I got the feeling that was more for insurance purposes than anything.
This is also very common in the medical profession right now. Professional
medical people are generally for regulation of such things as midwifery to
keep the power in their own hands. (Also for regulating herbal remedies, I'd
think that most pharmaceutical companies are merely trying to protect their
market share more than anything.)
> Someone suggested that society might try to red tape magicians to
> death as a
> form of control. You know, "You don't have your permits so you
> can't work on
> this town. Maybe you should go work for some nice corp", but
> magicians are so
> rare I can't see that flying. Everyone is going to want to be
> able to bring in
> their own magicians and to hire any that are available. England
> does have some
> very restrictive laws on magicians, but mostly for foreign magicians. Any
> place that was really bad would soon experience magical brain drain.
Absolutely. This fits in with my 'arguments'.
> The very idea of spell permits makes it sound as if any punk on the corner
> street could be tossing off a fireball.
But then the devil's advocate in me points back to my analogy to permits for
the ownership of fully-auto weapons...
-XaOs-
xaos@*****.net
-David Goth-
