From time to time, I like to delve into the ancient annals of our history books to hu-mor myself with laws our representatives have enacted. Here’s a few silly laws I found.
Michigan Laws
The City of Detroit passed an ordinance that made it illegal for a pig or pigs to run free in the city, unless they had rings through their nose.
In 1919 the legislature passed a law making it ille-gal to kill a dog using a de-compression chamber.
In Wayland an ordinance was passed that would allow anyone to keep a cow or cows downtown for 3 cents per day.
A state law made it legal for any person over 12 to obtain a license for a hand-gun as long as they hadn’t committed a felony.
Another state law made it illegal to seduce an unmar-ried girl. If caught, you could be punished by five years in prison.
Before women’s suffrage the legislature deemed it illegal for women to cut their own hair without the permis-sion of their husband.
Another archaic law made it illegal for a husband, or anyone for that matter, to swear in front of a woman or child. This law was repealed by the legislature in 2002.
Bet you didn’t know there was a law in place that forbids you from destroying your old radio.
The Kalamazoo City Council drafted an ordinance making it illegal to serenade your girlfriend in public.
In the City of Rochester, a law stated all bathing suits worn by women must be first inspected by the police chief.
It gets even more ridicu-lous in Alabama. Check out these:
Alabama Laws
Legislators drafted a clari-fication noting it was lawful to marry your cousin or even sister.
Another law made it un-lawful to have an ice cream cone in your back pocket at any time.
Lee County commission-ers enacted an ordinance that disallows selling peanuts after sundown on Wednes-days.
Bordering the absurd, the state put a law in place mak-ing it illegal to drive while blindfolded.
The legislature made placing salt on railroad pun-ishable death, worse than for persons convicted of second-degree murder.
The state made it unlaw-ful to wear masks in public, even on Halloween.
I could go on and on. Many absurd laws debated and enacted by state and local governments remain on the books. Our lawmakers continue to focus on making more restrictions without relieving constituents from those that are outdated or downright stupid.
Here’s hoping one of these legislative sessions will strike unnecessary laws from our books.
