4 Insane Things You Had No Clue Were Legal
The law is full of oppressive rules against everyday things that should really be legal in this day and age but somehow aren't -- say, driving without pants or time travel. At the same time, there are certain dubious acts that you're totally allowed to do this very moment, for one gobsmacking reason or another.
Pot Is Illegal in Most States, but Deadly Synthetic Marijuana Is A-OK in Colorado
In Colorado, all the kids are trying this new hot craze called dying in a hospital after smoking shitty synthetic marijuana -- or Spice for short. This bootleg pot (which is made in China) has been linked to three deaths, 150 hospital visits, and a presumed legion of embarrassing calls to poison control centers. Oh, and due to a loophole, it's totally legal.
Seriously, three months is too long of a wait, assholes?
The apparent problem is that this strange drug has no constant chemicals in it -- when the original chemicals were banned, they just started tossing in whatever shit could make you high, apparently. Because of that, teenagers can literally walk into stores and buy the stuff under the guise of it being "incense" or "potpourri."
"Hey guys, I had a brilliant idea- what if we made pot that could kill you?"
School Bus Drivers Can Text and Drive in California
Did you see that recent video of a school bus driver blatantly texting away while entrusted with the innocent souls of children? At one point she even drifts out of her lane and picks up the wheel at the last second -- scandalous, right? Well, if you live in California, you can shove the indignation, because according to your state, she did nothing illegal ... as long as her texts were tangentially work related.
"Where's the 'bus bursting into flames' emoji?"
Texting laws are more or less fucked all over: In Florida, you can't be pulled over solely for texting, and New York is fine with texting at red lights, but California wins the dummy race -- all their texting laws don't apply to bus drivers so long as their texts can be argued as related to the job. In other words, your metro driver could theoretically drift across that rail crossing while thumbing the entire plot of his favorite Keanu Reeves film to a friend, so long as that film is Speed.
"Revenge Porn" Is Totally Legal as Long as You Didn't Take the Picture
In a proud moment for the Golden State, residents can no longer post spiteful nudie pics of their exes online lest they be fined up the ass or thrown in jail, which also tends to be unfavorable for that part of the anatomy. Good riddance, right? "Revenge porn" is scumbag behavior and should be treated as such.
Unless, that is, you didn't actually take the compromising pictures you're dickishly uploading for the entire Internet to see. Then it's cool.
"I sent those in confidence!"
Yep, it turns out this law only applies to people who took the picture themselves. That means that selfies, otherwise known as 80 percent of revenge porn pictures posted online, are totally fine to put on WhackItToMyGirlfriend.com or wherever (some of those sites then extort the person to get the picture taken down, incidentally). And the worst part is that the women who are usually the victims of this type of thing can't even retaliate with the same tactic, since ExtremeMicropeckers.com gets consistently less traffic.
You Can Have Your Own Machine Gun Now -- Just Don't Call It That
Machine guns are illegal for most people in the U.S., and we're gonna go ahead and say that's a good thing -- otherwise, every time you read about gun violence, you might have to add a zero next to the number of victims. But the new Slide Fire SFS BFR totally isn't a machine gun: It's just a rifle that can fire a shitload of bullets without recharging, which is a completely different thing as far as the law is concerned.
It's a mere $6000, so you can have this thing strapped to the hood of an old Civic for under ten grand.
See, the ATF defines a machine gun as a weapon with a frame or receiver that can shoot "more than one shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger." However, the Slide Fire doesn't modify the receiver (front shooty area), plus it works by using the gun's natural kick to bump the trigger into your finger with each shot -- meaning that you're still technically shooting one round per trigger function.
Hopefully they're not currently working on a huge armored vehicle with a mounted cannon that "technically" isn't a tank.
