Law is . . . not simply a set of spoken, written or formalized rules that people blindly follow. Rather, law represents the formalization of behavioral rules, about which a high percentage of people agree, that reflect behavioral propensities and that offer potential benefits to those who follow them.

Margaret Gruter
1991
Law and the Mind: Biological Origins of Human Behavior
[I found this quote in the book The Mystery Of Capital Why Capitalism Succeeds In The West And Fails Everywhere Else in chapter 6. It is an interesting book in more than the domain it was intended.

There is a lot of discussion regarding the formulation of law in developing countries, former communist countries and how certain laws came to be the U.S. and some other western countries. In many cases the rulers set down some law and the common folk ignored it and created their own alternate law which served the people better. In the examples given the rulers frequently gave up even after, in some cases, the military was brought in, burned peoples houses down and drove them off. When the people, as a whole, disagree with a law the rulers frequently adopt, at least in part, the law of the people and give up on their own decrees.

I could not help but make the connection to the gun sanctuary movement in this country.—Joe]

Here is how the 4^th Amendment is treated:

That bit of chalk left on your car’s tire by a parking officer is unconstitutional, a federal court ruled Monday.

A three-judge panel took up the case of Alison Taylor, a Michigan woman who received 15 parking tickets during a three-year feud with a single parking officer, Tabitha Hoskins of the City of Saginaw.

Taylor’s lawyer argued that the city’s physical marking with chalk, done to note how long a vehicle is parked, amounted to searching without a warrant — a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously agreed.

The city “commences its search on vehicles that are parked legally, without probable cause or even so much as ‘individualized suspicion of wrongdoing’ — the touchstone of the reasonableness standard,” the court’s opinion states.

The Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” And the city’s chalking of cars “to raise revenue” does not qualify as a public safety concern that could allow a search without a warrant, the court said.

The court’s decision affects Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

“Trespassing upon a privately-owned vehicle parked on a public street to place a chalk mark to begin gathering information to ultimately impose a government sanction is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment,” Taylor’s lawyer, Philip Ellison, said in a court filing reported by NPR.

Ellison said that covertly marking a tire with chalk is not unlike police secretly putting a GPS on a car without a warrant, according to the Associated Press.

So what would it look like if the 2nd Amendment were treated like the 4^th?

Certainly all the laws against owning a gun, knife, or pepper spray would go away. No licenses or registration could be required for any type of arm. For your 4th of July party you could rent an old M40 and purchase its ammo on Amazon. And Glock 17s would be in blister packs of six at Costco.