[at-l] Camping for the Gathering and the Use of Alcohol

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 06:44 PM 9/30/2004 -0500, Shane Steinkamp wrote:
>In Louisiana, it's against the law to comit suicide.  I've never figured 
>out what the penalty is, though.
>
>Shane

NY has that law too. Never could figure that one out. I think it's there so 
that if you try to kill yourself but fail they have reason to lock you up 
in order to prevent you from trying again, in other words, save your life. 
Is that a penalty? I guess, like the issue that started this subject line, 
it depends on your perspective. To get back to that debate I must say I 
agree with Chomp that point. Assuming it really is illegal to jump off the 
bridge in Hanover, ALDHA should not condone it by listing it as an official 
function during the Gathering. If Warren and others want to make it a civil 
rights issue and do it anyway, that's their business but ALDHA is not about 
protesting anti-bridge jumping ordinances so we, as a group, should not be 
involved.

The question has been posed "is it really illegal?". Anyone know the 
answer? If it is, does anyone know *why* there is an ordinance against 
jumping off the bridge? It is my experience that laws result from 
something, sometimes as puny as a fear of something that hasn't happened 
but might, to insurance problems, occasionally to an actual tragedy that 
occurred. While it may be a blow for personal liberty to defy the law, it 
wouldn't hurt one's protest to know why the law is there to be protested. 
Knee-jerk protests are no better than any other knee jerk judgements. It 
might even turn out that the law makes sense and if the real point of the 
jump is to take an early morning plunge, there is always the pond at 
Storr's. In fact I was a bit confused when I learned that the traditional 
"cliff jump" was actually off a bridge. So where's the cliff?