[SampleMan]

Actually, he's almost right. "Harm" is really hard to show in many cases and can be whatever someone claims it to be. The BEST baseline for crime is violation of rights, which are pretty easy to define objectively. Murder is, of course, the ultimate violation of rights.

Yes. Breaking a set speed limit in a school zone is not nearly as definitive as a dead child. If only there were an infinite supply of children.

I say however that the person that hit the child wasn't doing anything different than the person that went through at 120mph and didn't kill a child. Neither could have stopped, one just got lucky, so you're not punishing the action, but a statistical anomaly. Isn't that arbitrary enforcement?

Also, do attempted murder and attempted rape become unconstitutional on the grounds that nothing actually happened? Such laws are just based on the reasonable fear that the final act would have occurred.

[dcwusmc]

Rules of the road, as I already noted, are jake with me because the road is a SHARED commodity. The problem I have with them is when cities use enforcement of them as a means of fundraising, as my city does.

ATTEMPTED violations of rights, such as attempted rape or murder, are, in my view, just as serious as COMPLETED violations. Punishment should be left to the imagination of the intended victim. I would have a few creative suggestions to offer... PRESUMING, in a truly FREE (meaning armed) society, the perp survived the attempt.