scared and in danger of bad legislation

A state representative in Missouri wants a new law, one that will bar registered sex offenders from zoos and museums.

Registered sex offenders would be prohibited from being within 500 feet of any museum, zoo or “other location with the primary purpose of entertaining or educating children” younger than 18 years of age under legislation introduced by [state representative] Swan. 

The Cape Girardeau Republican’s bill would expand restrictions in existing state law that bars any convicted sex offender from entering or being within 500 feet of any public park that has playground equipment or a swimming pool, or within 1,000 feet of a school or child-care facility. 

Violators could face prison sentences.

Note that the prison sentence could be imposed on people who did nothing wrong except to be present in an area restricted by arbitrary laws, laws devoid of evidence that they make any one safer.

Swan said she also wants to bar sex offenders from hanging out near children’s sections of public libraries and children’s play areas in shopping malls.

What prompted this hysteria?

...a “known, registered sexual offender came to the Discovery Playhouse unattended. Museum employees called the Cape Girardeau Police Department as the offender “roamed the facility,” [Isaac Venable, president of the museum’s board of directors] wrote.

Roamed the facility.

But police could not remove the person because “children’s museums are not protected” under state law, Venable said. 

“We felt confused and vulnerable,” he wrote. 

Oh, that poor, poor man. Imagine his confusion and vulnerability at the grocery store, a place that welcomes everyone.

“The safety of children visiting our facility is our greatest priority. A child can’t learn and explore the exhibits we provide if they are scared and/or in danger,” Venable said in backing the legislation.

Scared and in danger.

This man leads a museum meant to educate children and he has no idea what children can do when they are scared and/or in real danger. In some areas of the world, communities fight to keep schools open in the midst of war. In those areas, the education of their children is their greatest priority, not their safety.

This man seems to think much less of Missouri children and their abilities to deal with fear.

What fear is he talking about, though? The fear he himself generates by not knowing facts about the sex offender registry. That fear.

The registrant roaming the museum did nothing frightening. There are no reports of frightened children, only the report from a man frightened by his own ignorance.