Talk:Comstock Act of 1873

It has been noted that zealous enforcement of the Comstock Law could have prevented the distribution through the U.S. Mail of the King James Verison of the Bible (which contains the word "piss" in several places). Rlquall 03:11, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) i love you

Still enforced?

I would like to see actual evidence that these have been specifically enforced, since, say 1990.--Pharos 18:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• And FCC restrictions on broadcasted material on the public airwaves are an entirely different legal matter, not at all regulated by the Comstock Act of 1873.--Pharos 19:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Look, you can't just make up legal history because you think different laws are similar in intent. The new laws only cover the airwaves, which are construed as public property, and the Comstock Act is not enforced at all.--Pharos 02:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I dunno. On a local level, sometimes they or something very similar to them certainly are enforced. There was a case a couple years or so ago in Texas (wish I knew which one so I could cite it specifically, but I don't, I just recall it from news articles), for instance, where a comic book store owner was arrested for providing a single-chapter comic book magazine issue that was a translated hentai work and it was considered obscene by the arresting officer. The guy had it under the counter and only took it out to so much as show it let alone sell it if the person (in this case, an undercover cop) provided proof he was over 18, yet he was charged under obscenity laws and had to go to court over it (the prosecuter was kind of stupid in the way he tried to sway the jury, too, that old "everybody knows comic books are for kids" argument was in there somewhere, I recall that much). Wish I knew how that turned out or which case it was, but I recall it was definitely in Texas in the last few years, DEFINITELY past 1990; in fact, I'm just about absolutely positive the article I read was written in the 2000s, since I was linked to it online (I believe the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund got involved), and I wasn't online at all before 1999, and not seriously active on it until 2000 onward, and it was a recent story at the time.

And on a side note, please stop saying "[it] is not enforced at all". If there's no evidence or specific case citations that it has been, say that, but unless you have intimate knowledge of every single legal case ever since 1990, you can't say it definitively, now can you, you just have to say you don't know of any enforcements of it since (for instance) 1990. Sorry, that just bugs me a little, when people claim absolute, sure knowledge of something (such as whether or not a law that was applied across many, many states has been enforced "at all", i.e. including arrests and convictions on a local level that never went to higher courts... in the last seventeen years or more) that's too complex and vast a subject to even remotely be 100% knowledgeable on it. Please be careful how you put things like that, because you could very well be wrong, and for all you know it could discourage more in-depth research into the matter on the parts of some editors. :\ Runa27 (talk) 18:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)