Not even Huey Long could have come up with this

Let's suppose I sell you a nice early Travis McGee paperback for two dollars. Then, within a month, I sell you another one for cash, real cash -- two singles,  40 nickels, whatever.

In Louisiana, that makes me a criminal.


“Anyone, other than a nonprofit entity, who buys, sells, trades in or otherwise acquires or disposes of junk or used or secondhand property more frequently than once per month from any other person, other than a nonprofit entity, shall be deemed as being in the business of a secondhand dealer.


“A secondhand dealer,” the law continues, “shall not enter into any cash transactions in payment for the purchase of junk or used or secondhand property.”


The idiots who enacted this aggressive tyranny are glorying in the notion that they have solved copper-theft problems.  If a few hundred mothers nabbed for selling their kids' outgrown toys and clothes are sent to jail, why, that's  just the price we pay for law and order here in the Land of the Free.

"You in charge of gettin' dem pitch forks, Rabidoux. Me'en Evangeline gonna make up da torches."


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It 's beyond merely obvious what this means for us loopholers. You find the two-dollar guard screw you need at the parts dealer's table. He, and you, are required to complete the transaction by check or money order or, perhaps, credit card.  Government must have its paper trail.

Who loves this, Baby?

Well, the BATFE-I-E-I-O, TSA, and the rest of the homeland security apparatchik of course. Restoring small-ring Mausers is an obvious terrorist threat.

But if it isn't giving the IRS ideas I'll kiss your arse in Preservation Hall and pay for the videographing.

(H/T my favorite member of the military/industrial complex.)