HEAD GAMES
Fighting Nevada’s motorcycle-helmet law… with the law.
by Richard Graham
Kate Wells has a vision of the future, and it’s not pretty.
Wells, an attorney from Santa Cruz, California, represents Steve Bianco and Richard Quigley, two California members of the group Bikers of Lesser Tolerance who are suing to overturn Nevada’s motorcycle helmet law. The lawsuit, originally filed last April in U.S. District Court in Southern California, was transferred four months later to U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, and it names the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as the main defendant. Bianco and Quigley argue that the law is too unconstitutionally vague for anyone to comply with, and Wells concurs.
“The best argument to stop these laws is the ‘slippery slope’ argument,” Wells said. “If we allow the government to come in and force us to wear a helmet on a motorcycle because we might become a vegetable and become a burden on society, then what happens next? The government works in incremental ways to take away our rights. First it’s bikers. Then it’s the homeless and abortion protestors. Next it’s the antiwar protestors. They pass the law against an unpopular group and then they apply it to everyone else. One day, the food cops will sift through your groceries and say you can’t have those Twinkies because of heart disease.”
Outrageous hyperbole, right? Actually, no.
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Sincerely,
Richard Graham
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