MS, Apple, Blizzard, EA, WB and Disney ban all NY sex offenders

[Epona]

I wouldn't call that discrimination. That's like saying that not allowing drunk people to drive cars is discrimination against alcoholics.

Yes, because drunk driving and smoking are exactly as dangerous as one another.

Smoking smells bad. There is a ton of studies showing that smoking is bad for the health of the smoker and the people around them. In things such as hotel rooms, the scent of smoke lingers for days. In single building apartments, smoke is pulled through ventilation systems to other rooms.

Ok, let's ban everything that stinks. Some people wear their perfume/cologne too strongly and others drive an old car that stink up the air and factories put out a whole lot of dangerous smoke that surely doesn't smell well. Ever been around a paper factory?

These aren't good reasons to infringe on the rights of a group of people doing a LEGAL activity. You know, the exhaust from a car is far more deadly than a cigarette. So much for caring about clean air.

You may argue that smokers have a right to smoke where they please, but I would argue that other citizens have the right to breathe clean air.

You don't breathe clean air in public anyway.

Furthermore, a smoker can put out the cigarette, and then go where he pleases. A sex offender, regardless of the severity of their crime, is on that list for life. This is a permanent ban.

It's true the smokers bans and sex offender bans are not the same in severity, it's the basic principle of it all. It's the mob mentality of wanting to punish a group of people regardless of how discriminatory it is because that group of people is hated by many.

We cannot let ourselves sink to that level or one day it will be our group getting discriminated against.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about the smoking thing. Smokers won't defend themselves and I am no longer a smoker. I feel only the obligation to make my points but not the obligation to argue them further.

 

[Epona]

Apparently the rights of the anti-smokers to swing their fist doesn't end at the smokers nose.

You're really reaching to try and find a counter argument. It's kind of ridiculous.

You don't see it? Smokers can't invade the space of anti-smokers but anti-smokers can have smokers kicked from every public place. Even though public places are paid for by tax payers, which smokers are. Smokers even pay more taxes than anti-smokers. See there's a word for that, discrimination. No worries though, it's ok to discriminate against certain groups. Isn't that right?

We're not kicked out of places. We just can't smoke there. Wanking is perfectly legal as well, still not allowed do it in a restaurant.

Whatever, when you can't smoke in your car or in your house if there are non smokers present, then you'll have only your complacency to blame.

 

[Vrach]

I didn't say it was the only way for sex offenders to find or lure a target, but it's a damn good one. They've been using IRC channels for years and everyone's aware of it. But in an online game, especially an MMO, it's easy to gain someone's trust over time. They can easily arrange a meeting and lure their target from there.

You specifically used the word NEED. If you need it, then it's a neccesity to whatever you are trying to do.

Whilst I accept your point about MMOs in particular, would it not be easier to either
a) ban people on the list from certain things on these services (i.e. multiplayer of games specifically aimed at kids, being able to use a microphone/messaging on XBL). They'd still be able to play CoD or whatever the hell they want to
or
b) actually monitor them (I seem to remember GMs on WoW being able to see pretty much everything you said or did on there, wouldn't exactly be hard to ban them if they start inviting people to IRC channels or chatrooms)?

But they won't, because that would actually take some damn effort and its far easier to just ban them and get support from these silly "think of the children" types.

You're arguing semantics (and arguing it wrong for that matter, but I'm not getting sucked a pointless argument there) for no reason when you know what I meant. And I'm as far removed as I can be from "think of the children" mindset, but why the fuck should people put effort to make life better for a sex offender? What exactly have they done to deserve that effort?

And even games that aren't "aimed at kids" are often played by kids. As for monitoring in games like WoWW, they can't and do not monitor everything (you can find the proof in hundreds of thousands of inappropriate names people don't bother reporting, even though they're against Blizzard's rules). They have logs of it, but this kind of thing would require someone actively watching them and you seem miss what an enormous task something like that is.

However, to your point of letting them play stuff like CoD with communication options off, yeah, I agree, that'd make sense.

 

[shintakie10]

I didn't say it was the only way for sex offenders to find or lure a target, but it's a damn good one. They've been using IRC channels for years and everyone's aware of it. But in an online game, especially an MMO, it's easy to gain someone's trust over time. They can easily arrange a meeting and lure their target from there.

You specifically used the word NEED. If you need it, then it's a neccesity to whatever you are trying to do.

Whilst I accept your point about MMOs in particular, would it not be easier to either
a) ban people on the list from certain things on these services (i.e. multiplayer of games specifically aimed at kids, being able to use a microphone/messaging on XBL). They'd still be able to play CoD or whatever the hell they want to
or
b) actually monitor them (I seem to remember GMs on WoW being able to see pretty much everything you said or did on there, wouldn't exactly be hard to ban them if they start inviting people to IRC channels or chatrooms)?

But they won't, because that would actually take some damn effort and its far easier to just ban them and get support from these silly "think of the children" types.

You're arguing semantics (and arguing it wrong for that matter, but I'm not getting sucked a pointless argument there) for no reason when you know what I meant. And I'm as far removed as I can be from "think of the children" mindset, but why the fuck should people put effort to make life better for a sex offender? What exactly have they done to deserve that effort?

And even games that aren't "aimed at kids" are often played by kids. As for monitoring in games like WoWW, they can't and do not monitor everything (you can find the proof in hundreds of thousands of inappropriate names people don't bother reporting, even though they're against Blizzard's rules). They have logs of it, but this kind of thing would require someone actively watching them and you seem miss what an enormous task something like that is.

However, to your point of letting them play stuff like CoD with communication options off, yeah, I agree, that'd make sense.

Because you can't punish people beyond the punishment they received from the law. How feckin hard is that to understand?

If you treat people like shit over and over and over and tell them through words and actions that they are complete and utter shit and that they deserve to be treated like shit they'll eventually believe it. We, as a society, treat sex offenders like less than animals no matter what their crime is. They could be a child rapist or they could be someone who had consensual sex with their underage girlfriend. It doesn't matter because the court of public opinion sees the words sex offender and immediately believe that every single one of them is the child diddler.

If you're convicted of a sex crime, no matter how little it hurts anyone, you are practically ostracized from society. You have trouble getting good jobs because you have to tell all your future employers that you are a sex offender and it also comes up in background checks. In some areas you have to literally go door to door when you move there that you have been convicted of a sex crime and if anyone objects you are not allowed to live there. People have their kids taken away from them because they pissed in an alley and some kid happened to catch a glimpse of a penis and their parents felt their child was scarred for life.

Even aside from the innocent people who get grouped with child rapists because of people like you who can't understand that the sex offense crimes are so fucked we have got to stop pushin the less savory ones into corners. We systematically destroy their chances at havin any chance for rehabilitation because we don't even attempt to reintegrate them into society. Worse than that we force them out of society. We take away their chance at a good job. We take away their chances at education. We take away their chances to live in a place that remotely resembles a good environment. Now we're startin to take away some of the few outlets they actually have. It's no wonder that people become repeat offenders when we take away absolutely everythin and push them so far into the corner that they feel they don't have any options left except to embrace whatever horrible thing they did before.

It has gotten to the point that people purposely get themselves thrown back into prison because they're treated far more like human beings when they're behind bars than we as a society treated them when they were freed and yet we look down on those people instead of takin a step back and realizin that while we may not have started it, we most certainly never tried to stop it either.

 

[Vrach]

Because you can't punish people beyond the punishment they received from the law. How feckin hard is that to understand?

If you treat people like shit over and over and over and tell them through words and actions that they are complete and utter shit and that they deserve to be treated like shit they'll eventually believe it. We, as a society, treat sex offenders like less than animals no matter what their crime is. They could be a child rapist or they could be someone who had consensual sex with their underage girlfriend. It doesn't matter because the court of public opinion sees the words sex offender and immediately believe that every single one of them is the child diddler.

If you're convicted of a sex crime, no matter how little it hurts anyone, you are practically ostracized from society. You have trouble getting good jobs because you have to tell all your future employers that you are a sex offender and it also comes up in background checks. In some areas you have to literally go door to door when you move there that you have been convicted of a sex crime and if anyone objects you are not allowed to live there. People have their kids taken away from them because they pissed in an alley and some kid happened to catch a glimpse of a penis and their parents felt their child was scarred for life.

Even aside from the innocent people who get grouped with child rapists because of people like you who can't understand that the sex offense crimes are so fucked we have got to stop pushin the less savory ones into corners. We systematically destroy their chances at havin any chance for rehabilitation because we don't even attempt to reintegrate them into society. Worse than that we force them out of society. We take away their chance at a good job. We take away their chances at education. We take away their chances to live in a place that remotely resembles a good environment. Now we're startin to take away some of the few outlets they actually have. It's no wonder that people become repeat offenders when we take away absolutely everythin and push them so far into the corner that they feel they don't have any options left except to embrace whatever horrible thing they did before.

It has gotten to the point that people purposely get themselves thrown back into prison because they're treated far more like human beings when they're behind bars than we as a society treated them when they were freed and yet we look down on those people instead of takin a step back and realizin that while we may not have started it, we most certainly never tried to stop it either.

As far as outlets go, note my last paragraph - I agree we should give them outlets, but they don't necessarily need to come with being able to be used as tools for a repeat offense.

As for "you can't punish people beyond the punishment", I'm pretty sure pedophiles are warded away from kid parks, playrooms and similar - how is this any different?

And sorry, that's bullshit. "Having sex with an underage girlfriend"? Most countries have a law that permits sex with underage people if you're within some 5 years away from them. You wanna tell me it's normal for a 17 year old to have sex with a 23 year old? As a 23 year old, I can tell you you have no business doing that, a relationship requires some common interests and if at 23 you have the same mindset you did at 17, you've got some bigger problems than being legally forbidden to have sex with 17 year olds ("best" case scenario). The only reason you'd have sex with one is if sex is the only thing you're looking for, in which case, you should have no issue getting someone a year older to fuck with. And you're truly in love with someone during that age difference, you're either going to be 100% confident that that person won't get you in trouble over it or you're going to be content to wait a bit, possibly both.

I'm aware of the draconian measures American and some other countries have towards sex offenders, but that's another problem. If they're lumping it all together (which honestly I'm not aware of, but I'll take your word for it), yeah that's stupid for some small percentage of cases. But even that isn't a free pass to think with your dick and not consider the alternatives and the consequences of your actions. I'd be willing to bet the percentage of people we would agree are unjustly lumped in with the rest of the child diddlers is a hell of a lot smaller than you make it out to be.

As for not letting them integrate into society, how would you integrate them into society? How much of a second chance do you think these people should be given? What are you prepared to risk to give them that second chance? I like how you're all high and mighty talking over the draconian measures and how they get "less guilty" people into the same net and how you'd like to solve things to make it easier on them. But did you stop to consider that might, no, WILL have for effect more innocent (not less guilty, innocent) kids attacked?

I'm not giving you "won't someone think of the children" here mind you - don't misunderstand me. But while your solution is aimed at helping the less guilty, the fact of the matter is, it will also help the guilty ones. It'll also result in more hurt kids. This is not a sermon, it's a statistical fact. So why do you think it's ok to protect these people - who knew fully well what they were getting into - at the cost of someone innocent? Forget that these are kids, I don't give a flying fuck about that, we're simply talking about an innocent person here, why are they less of a priority than someone who is completely accountable and fully responsible for their actions?

Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from. Repression is not a perfect solution. But neither is letting up. The fact is though, if you make CRYSTAL CLEAR the consequences for such actions, you discourage people from becoming those very sex offenders, which not only helps the would-be innocent victims, but also the would-be offenders. If you ask me, prevention is the best and only real solution here and while I'm not exactly cool with all the draconian measures some countries take against sex offenders, I can understand the value of having a punishment that makes someone think twice before doing something that's in 99% cases VERY wrong.

 

[ElPatron]

What is wrong with all of you?

To me rape is one of the worst kinds of crime someone can commit, but I still think this is a violation on someone's rights.

Many people who don't care about internet security actually have traces of child pornography on their computers because they have been transmitting that data over the internet without knowing.

Would you like if you lost the right to enjoy an online service because you didn't care about firewalls or backdoor Trojans?

I have a friend who completely flips out whenever any guy touches them (I patted them on the back during a video game...you'd have thought that I just murdered his dog right in front of him). Some victims recover right away (person #2 in my life is just fine after what happened to them)

Where the hell do you live? Where on Earth do you have so many sex offenders that there is actually the chance of being close to TWO victims?

I would start handing out bear spray and stun grenades to citizens.

 

[VoidWanderer]

Also, why only sex offenders? What about murderers?

Murderers don't typically talk about their penises to 12 year olds.

Are you really saying that murder is better than talking about a penis? Man, that's pretty fucked up but it explains why politicians get away with persecuting sex offenders.

With Murder the victim no longer suffers. With Sex Offences, it can completely destroy the personality, the person has to live with the memory of the event for the rest of their live. The person's sexual urges can be changed by that one act. Their entire perception of the world changes to something much more negative. There is also the thought "Did I provoke/deserve this?" While the answer is always 'It is not your fault', like survivor's guilt, it NEVER leaves.

So yes, Murder is better than Sexual Abuse in terms of crimes.

So are you saying that rapists should kill their victims, to spare them? Really?

Most rapists enjoy the feeling of power over their victims, believing they did the victim 'a favour'. They enjoy the rush of power whenever they see them. Killing the victim would negate that.

You think the victim would be better off dead then? Rape crisis centers should just start killing victims?

See, I don't think you really believe that rape/molestation is worse than murder.

Which requires more help for the victims; Murder or Rape.

Murder. For a murder there's witnesses and people close to the victim that all need help. For rape there's just one person, and the crime, though horrible, is not as bad as taking a life.

Could you pass me your dictionary; mine seems to have a different meaning for the word 'Victim'.

Also murder is not necessarily an event that can be witnessed, and I am pretty sure the family of a rape victim go through the same emotional struggles as that of a Murder victim's family.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

However, to the quoted part. The Captchas were supposed to be to weed out bots and spammers, not to pay the bills. I have always held out hope that they would eventually take the advice of me and other posters and remove the captchas for accounts in good standing. After all, how many times must we prove we are straight shooters? With the advertising dollars added in now, I know that will never happen.

Oh gee...How dare a website with financial issues try to actually make money.


OT: This just sounds like an attempt at persecution in order to keep the heat off the businesses involved. Is this what we are going to do now? Keep punishing people who have already gone through the original sentence? So much for "rehabilitating people into society".
And yes, I'm well aware that this is yet another strike in the name of "protecting the children" but first off, sex offender doesn't = Child molester. You can get put on that list for peeing in public or making a pass at your sexy co-worker. You'd think that they would filter those people out but seeing as there are THOUSANDS of people getting a big blanket ban then it seems doubtfull.

 

[shintakie10]

Spoiler

Because you can't punish people beyond the punishment they received from the law. How feckin hard is that to understand?

If you treat people like shit over and over and over and tell them through words and actions that they are complete and utter shit and that they deserve to be treated like shit they'll eventually believe it. We, as a society, treat sex offenders like less than animals no matter what their crime is. They could be a child rapist or they could be someone who had consensual sex with their underage girlfriend. It doesn't matter because the court of public opinion sees the words sex offender and immediately believe that every single one of them is the child diddler.

If you're convicted of a sex crime, no matter how little it hurts anyone, you are practically ostracized from society. You have trouble getting good jobs because you have to tell all your future employers that you are a sex offender and it also comes up in background checks. In some areas you have to literally go door to door when you move there that you have been convicted of a sex crime and if anyone objects you are not allowed to live there. People have their kids taken away from them because they pissed in an alley and some kid happened to catch a glimpse of a penis and their parents felt their child was scarred for life.

Even aside from the innocent people who get grouped with child rapists because of people like you who can't understand that the sex offense crimes are so fucked we have got to stop pushin the less savory ones into corners. We systematically destroy their chances at havin any chance for rehabilitation because we don't even attempt to reintegrate them into society. Worse than that we force them out of society. We take away their chance at a good job. We take away their chances at education. We take away their chances to live in a place that remotely resembles a good environment. Now we're startin to take away some of the few outlets they actually have. It's no wonder that people become repeat offenders when we take away absolutely everythin and push them so far into the corner that they feel they don't have any options left except to embrace whatever horrible thing they did before.

It has gotten to the point that people purposely get themselves thrown back into prison because they're treated far more like human beings when they're behind bars than we as a society treated them when they were freed and yet we look down on those people instead of takin a step back and realizin that while we may not have started it, we most certainly never tried to stop it either.

As far as outlets go, note my last paragraph - I agree we should give them outlets, but they don't necessarily need to come with being able to be used as tools for a repeat offense.

As for "you can't punish people beyond the punishment", I'm pretty sure pedophiles are warded away from kid parks, playrooms and similar - how is this any different?

And sorry, that's bullshit. "Having sex with an underage girlfriend"? Most countries have a law that permits sex with underage people if you're within some 5 years away from them. You wanna tell me it's normal for a 17 year old to have sex with a 23 year old? As a 23 year old, I can tell you you have no business doing that, a relationship requires some common interests and if at 23 you have the same mindset you did at 17, you've got some bigger problems than being legally forbidden to have sex with 17 year olds ("best" case scenario). The only reason you'd have sex with one is if sex is the only thing you're looking for, in which case, you should have no issue getting someone a year older to fuck with. And you're truly in love with someone during that age difference, you're either going to be 100% confident that that person won't get you in trouble over it or you're going to be content to wait a bit, possibly both.

I'm aware of the draconian measures American and some other countries have towards sex offenders, but that's another problem. If they're lumping it all together (which honestly I'm not aware of, but I'll take your word for it), yeah that's stupid for some small percentage of cases. But even that isn't a free pass to think with your dick and not consider the alternatives and the consequences of your actions. I'd be willing to bet the percentage of people we would agree are unjustly lumped in with the rest of the child diddlers is a hell of a lot smaller than you make it out to be.

As for not letting them integrate into society, how would you integrate them into society? How much of a second chance do you think these people should be given? What are you prepared to risk to give them that second chance? I like how you're all high and mighty talking over the draconian measures and how they get "less guilty" people into the same net and how you'd like to solve things to make it easier on them. But did you stop to consider that might, no, WILL have for effect more innocent (not less guilty, innocent) kids attacked?

I'm not giving you "won't someone think of the children" here mind you - don't misunderstand me. But while your solution is aimed at helping the less guilty, the fact of the matter is, it will also help the guilty ones. It'll also result in more hurt kids. This is not a sermon, it's a statistical fact. So why do you think it's ok to protect these people - who knew fully well what they were getting into - at the cost of someone innocent? Forget that these are kids, I don't give a flying fuck about that, we're simply talking about an innocent person here, why are they less of a priority than someone who is completely accountable and fully responsible for their actions?

Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from. Repression is not a perfect solution. But neither is letting up. The fact is though, if you make CRYSTAL CLEAR the consequences for such actions, you discourage people from becoming those very sex offenders, which not only helps the would-be innocent victims, but also the would-be offenders. If you ask me, prevention is the best and only real solution here and while I'm not exactly cool with all the draconian measures some countries take against sex offenders, I can understand the value of having a punishment that makes someone think twice before doing something that's in 99% cases VERY wrong.

Not being from the US I can understand how you might not actually get our laws, so I'll just explain them. Granted its different by state, but here's the general gist.

Most research on the topic generally puts the number of nonviolent sex offenders with little possibility of a repeat offense to make up over 40% of the list. Unfortunately our governments treat every single one of them in the exact same way accordin to the law. They require to register their names on the list. They are required to tell their neighbors that they're on the list. They're generally required to some form of observation after their sentence (even if its just a fine) from police officers.

Also there are no laws like that five year difference thing here. If one of the two partners is underage, no matter the age difference, then the other partner gets put on the sex offenders list. More than that, even if both partners are underage one or both (generally the male) can be put on the sex offenders list. If your 16 year old girlfriend text a picture of herself naked to her 16 year old boyfriend, one or both of them can be put on the list for making or possessing child pornography. The law is incredibly strict on what can get you put on that list and there is absolutely no leniency in it.

The funny thing about all this though and probably the most amazin? Despite how feckin awful we treat sex offenders and how much we try our damndest to shove them out of society, over half will not ever be arrested again for any other crime. Accordin to wikipedia (not the best source but I'm havin trouble findin anythin that doesn't use the source quoted by them) "Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense ?? 43% of sex offenders versus 68% of non-sex offenders." In fact, almost all non jacked research points to recidivism rates toppin out at 52%. Most others put it in the low 40s. To add to that "Sex offenders were about four times more likely than non-sex offenders to be arrested for another sex crime after their discharge from prison ?? 5.3% of sex offenders versus 1.3% of non-sex offenders." Yet we treat sex offenders like they will get right out of jail and start rapin kids again.

That is why your whole point of protectin the children from the majority of these ugly people to be completely bullshit. The majority of the people on the sex offense list are not actually bad people. They are victims of circumstance and laws that are broken. They may have made a drunken decision to pee in a alley or had drunk sex with someone who was just slightly more drunk. They're teenagers who have sex with other teenagers and people who text each other naked pictures of each other. These are the people that people like you are perfectly fine with persecutin.

I will never ever side with someone who thinks it is perfectly acceptable to punish 95 people to make sure that the 5 who should be punished stay punished statistically speakin. Do you honestly not see a problem with that number? Can you truthfully tell me that punishin an overwhelmin majority of a group in order to keep a tiny minority from hurtin someone else is not wrong?

 

[Necrofudge]

Nobody likes sex offenders, but does anyone else see this as wrong?

The fact that they're a CONVICTED sex offender means that they served their time and their lives are already probably ruined.

This law does nothing other than creating more punishments for a group of people that probably won't commit the same crime again anyway.

Still, I guess the companies can ban whoever they want and this is great publicity for both the businesses and the politicians.

And a convicted drug dealer/user NEVER re-uses drugs?

Apples and oranges, my friend.

In the first place, there's less of a community stigma against drug dealers/users when compared to sex offenders.

I've never heard of a convicted drug user being forced to submit his information to government websites where his location can be tracked by anyone who wants to know about drug users in the area.
I've also never heard of drug dealers being forced to move because of laws requiring them to stay away from schools or child care facilities. Probably because these laws don't exist when you've been convicted of drug abuse.
Huh...

I was mainly referring to just because someone committed a crime doesn't mean they will not do so again.

Yes, and I was referring to the fact that not all crimes have the same likelihood of being repeated.

 

[Something Amyss]

You don't see it? Smokers can't invade the space of anti-smokers but anti-smokers can have smokers kicked from every public place.

Right, in the same way I can swing my fists around, but if I do it in a public place, I'll get the cops called on me.

Non-smokers aren't assaulting you, they are defending themselves. Their right to not breathe in nasty shit trumps your right to breathe nasty shit because you have NO right to inflict it upon others. Seriously, that actually falls under assault.

I do like the precedent that taxpayers can violate others solely because they're taxpayers, though. I'll remember that the next time I'm doing 90 in a 25 MPH zone and the cops DARE stop me.

 

[Something Amyss]

I was mainly referring to just because someone committed a crime doesn't mean they will not do so again.

Yes, but sex offenders have one of the highest recidivism rates (In part because of how we treat them). Surely, there merits at least an eyebrow raise.

 

[masticina]

Mmm sex offender lists have one big problem

It doesn't really tells you the full story. See quite a few ended on that list either due to false complaints [and getting off is not easy] or.. being 18 and loving a 16-17 year old. Guess what parents dislike.. you are on the list

Yeah....

 

[Epona]

You don't see it? Smokers can't invade the space of anti-smokers but anti-smokers can have smokers kicked from every public place.

Right, in the same way I can swing my fists around, but if I do it in a public place, I'll get the cops called on me.

Non-smokers aren't assaulting you, they are defending themselves. Their right to not breathe in nasty shit trumps your right to breathe nasty shit because you have NO right to inflict it upon others. Seriously, that actually falls under assault.

I do like the precedent that taxpayers can violate others solely because they're taxpayers, though. I'll remember that the next time I'm doing 90 in a 25 MPH zone and the cops DARE stop me.

1) I don't smoke

2) Trying to talk sense into a hater is pointless

3) Don't deny 2, you hate smokers and don't see the hypocrisy of calling smoking assault while not caring what contaminants cars and factories put in the air.

 

[MetalMagpie]

This is kinda weird. Why are they punishing people beyond their court sentence?

In the UK, part of the punishment for many sex-related crimes is to be made to sign what's called the Sex Offenders Register (this is done in addition to any prison time). Being on the Sex Offenders Register has certain downsides, including not being allowed to take a job that includes access to "vulnerable people" (usually defined as children, the elderly, and people with severe learning difficulties).

I don't know what the system is in the US, but I could completely see how this need new idea (banning people from online games) could fit into the UK strategy. It would come under the same idea that being on the Sex Offenders Register restricts access to vulnerable people.

(Probably worth noting: Most sex crimes only put people on the register for a few years. It's only a permanent sentence for very severe crimes.)

 

[Vegosiux]

Non-smokers aren't assaulting you, they are defending themselves. Their right to not breathe in nasty shit trumps your right to breathe nasty shit because you have NO right to inflict it upon others. Seriously, that actually falls under assault.

Slightly off topic. I don't smoke, but to that I always say "Why don't we crack down on car owners too? I don't want to have to breathe in their exhaust fumes when I walk to work. They're just as toxic and they have just as much right to pollute my lungs as smokers do."