6 Legal Loopholes That Criminals Love To Exploit

Many states are now working to make corpse-sex illegal: Our old friend Wisconsin quickly moved to criminalize the act just two years after the aforementioned Three Splooges tried to screw a dead woman. All three were re-charged and convicted of third-degree sexual assault -- presumably, the judge explained his refusal to grandfather their case in with, "Wait, what? Ew, no. Fuck no."

Civil forfeiture lets cops claim any property they believe a criminal obtained by being a criminal. We say "believe" for a reason: They don't need a warrant, evidence, or even a reason to enact civil forfeiture. They literally just have to think somebody is pulling a Pablo Escobar -- a process that involves seeing something they want, deciding "drugs, probably," and grabbing it. The assets become property of the police department. They can straight-up steal your cash, jewelry, money, car, and even your house, and if you object to the robbery, as many being robbed are wont to do, you can be arrested for obstructing justice or any other fun felony your legally protected mugger can think of.

An example: Christian rocker Saw Marvellous Soe and his manager, Eh Wah, got pulled over in Oklahoma with over $53,000 in their car. The money was meant to build an orphanage and a Christian college, but the cop saw the money, wrote "drug proceeds" on a piece of paper, and took every last penny. By the way, if you're picturing some spacey dudes with dreadlocks and bloodshot eyes, Soe and Wah actually look more like, well, Christian rockers.

The Institute for Justice"If the drug you refer to is Jesus, then yes, I'm guilty!"
"OK, off to jail."

Soe and Wah (and the internet) raised enough of a stink that the charges were dropped and the money returned, but since most victims of civil forfeiture aren't famous, that rarely happens. Of the 62,000 civil seizures since 9/11, only one in six saw a push-back. Even then, good luck getting the judge to agree you got hosed -- 59 percent of challenges end with the judge effectively saying, "Fuck you, cops are awesome, don't piss them off by doing nothing ever again."

And even when you win, don't expect your money back. Edwin Couse, who distributed legal medical marijuana, was mugged for over $1,800 by cops who decided, through a complex investigative process known as "shut up," his practice was illegal. The judge eventually dismissed all charges, but Couse never saw his $1,800 again. This was, presumably, explained by Colorado police through an official press release stating, "Didn't we tell you to shut up?"

Currently, only complete guns need to be stamped with serial numbers and have their sales reported to the authorities. Gun parts, meanwhile, don't require shit. In fact, as long as it doesn't contain a receiver -- the part that makes all the other parts work as fatally well as they do -- we can buy a box of gun parts just as easily as we'd buy a DIY chair at IKEA. And regarding the receivers: They're regulated only if they're complete. If a receiver requires even the slightest modification on your part, then only you and the god your victims are about to meet ever need to know you own it.

"But those are professional criminals," you say. "Regular people aren't buying boxes full of gun parts and putting them together while watching Wheel Of Fortune." You're right. They let a machine do that.

Ghost Gunner Not to be confused with Ghost Gunner 2, the direct-to-DVD Steven Seagal film.

The Ghost Gunner is a machine that easily assembles unregistered, unregulated, and totally legal AR rifles (normally designed more for terrorism than hunting Bambi's mom) while you touch yourself over how you sure pulled a fast one on that dang Obama. And it's selling like hot cakes. Deadly hot cakes.

Do we even need to tell you that people are killing each other with ghost guns? Because of course they are -- the 2013 Santa Monica massacre happened after the murderer, Someguy McFuckhisname, couldn't buy an assault rifle legally. So he simply made his own and then used it tragically well. The only reason he didn't escape is because he was still shooting when the cops arrived. But if a shooter leaves their gun behind, good luck linking it back to them: As far as official records are concerned, they not only never bought that gun, but that gun never existed.

Ghost Gunner Also the tagline of Ghost Gunner 3 (coming exclusively to Netflix in 2017).

But, believe it or not, the U.S. isn't the only country with insane gun-law loopholes ...

Now, if you just use your 200-year-old rifle to hide a hole in your wall, that's one thing. The problem is that people are increasingly using these weapons as actual weapons. They buy the guns, get ammunition on the black market, and then comes the people-hunting. Here are some more of the 100-plus totally legal antique handguns, shotguns, rifles, and submachine guns recently seized at British crime scenes:

Metropolitan Police

Metropolitan Police Number of fedoras seized: undetermined.

Again, these aren't rinky-dink water pistols -- these fuckers mean old-timey gangster business. And so do the people using them: They've shot at least 31 Londoners (three died) in the past three years. Is that "we're all gonna die" levels of epidemic? No, not yet anyway. But it's still too many, considering it's mostly happening because some lawmaker forgot that old guns still work, even if the original owner became one with the soil before King George III did.

Not surprisingly, Scotland Yard wants to close this loophole. Also not surprisingly, gun collectors don't want them to, because if they can't decorate their home with shit that blew away Americans in the War of 1812, why have a home to begin with?

Another issue is that the No-Fly List goes after terrorists ... but only terrorists. If you saw a movie where a crazy guy shoots a pastor and then just calmly boards an airplane while the police have a warrant out for him, you'd call bullshit -- but that's exactly what happened earlier this year. If you have a felony or outstanding warrant for anything besides terrorism, airport security won't check for it. You're more likely to be stopped for having dull scissors in your carry-on than you are for stabbing your wife or shooting up a church. That shit's bad, but as long as you don't do it in the name of Allah or because capitalism done wronged you, the TSA doesn't care.

See, while most of Yellowstone is very much in Wyoming, there's about 50 square miles that peek out into ol' Spuds MacStatezie itself, Idaho. And according to the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, juries must be composed of people from the "state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." So, if you kill someone in the Zone, your jury's a bunch of Idahobags, right? Nope, because Wyoming claims Yellowstone. So, it's a Wyoming jury, right? Nope, because the murder happened in Idaho. Maybe we just throw up our hands and say fuck it? Nope, because ... actually, yes. Precisely that.

In this case, the only legal solution would be to find 12 people (plus alternates) who live in the Zone Of Death. And, despite how living in the Zone Of Death would be the most metal fucking thing ever, a grand total of zero people currently do so. ZERO. That means no jury can be formed, no trial can be held, and the murderer goes free. At least until the family of the victim drags the murderer back to the Zone and legally shoots them dead, because the Wild Goddamn West is real, and it's seven hours east of Boise.

Daniel Mayer/Wiki Commons Above: Zone Of Deathers? Zone Of Deathians?

Thankfully, nobody has tested this loophole out yet. Less thankfully, nobody seems interested in closing it before somebody does. Law professor Brian Kalt discovered the Zone Of Death in 2005 and has since continually pitched lawmakers on closing it. He's had no luck so far. The Department Of Justice thinks the whole "jurors from the correct state" thing is a minor quibble at best, because apparently Constitutional amendments don't count after the first two. One politician even claimed that checks and balances would solve the problem, which isn't how checks and balances work. He would've made just as much sense and retained as much credibility by suggesting the bears of Yellowstone be the jury.

Please don't add "legal murder" to your vacation bucket list, please. But if something happens and you do, you didn't hear it from us. Tell the cops BuzzFeed sent you.

Good thing Jason had no desire to work at BuzzFeed, because it's definitely never happening now. Hit him up with other job offers (or, even better, free money) by following him on Facebook and Twitter.

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Also check out 9 Insane Loopholes You Won't Believe Are Legal and 5 Mind-Blowing Loopholes You Had No Idea Existed.

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