DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

[CptPatriot]

You have been called to work with a congressional committee to draft a Federal Law to make using superpowers illegal. How would you set up a law to do this? If you fail to help them, you risk a more extreme version of the law being enacted.

 

Edit: You can make the determination under what circumstances this is so.

[Greywind]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

"So, you want us, with guns, to tell these people who can level cities to stop. Is that about right?"

 

"Pretty much"

 

"..."

[bubba smith]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

this might be better if moved to the regular champions thread

for my answer see this champions version of this thread the same answer applies

[CptPatriot]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

I posted it in both as Dark Champions characters might have a different viewpoint than conventional Champions characters.

[bubba smith]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

"So, you want us, with guns, to tell these people who can level cities to stop. Is that about right?"

 

"Pretty much"

 

"..."

i thought dark champions was a non powered actipn movie type game as opposed to a super-hero type game or ar you reffering to a low powered blend of champions and dark champions al dc tas

[ghost-angel]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

Hard time applying it - as Dark Champions these days isn't really superpowers at all.

 

Animated Series style might have some, but regular DC campaigns: Insert Real World Here For Answer.

[Greywind]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

i thought dark champions was a non powered actipn movie type game as opposed to a super-hero type game or ar you reffering to a low powered blend of champions and dark champions al dc tas

The general reaction would be different?

[bubba smith]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

The general reaction would be different?

yes they wouldn't have super powers to begin with .the law would be redundant and unenforceible

[CptPatriot]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

The assumption is that there are beings with powers in this world. If it helps, think of this universe more like Dark Champions: The Animated Series.

[bubba smith]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

now i get it still wouldn't work though

[CptPatriot]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

The point I'm trying to make is the powers that be are giving you a chance to help word a law that can. By not helping, they will just make a law that does what they want without regard to superpowered beings.

[incrdbil]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

Well, if its unavoidable a law was going to be passed, no way around it, I'd imagine a pro-metahuman politician might do the following.

Creatie a law filled with poorly designed wording, loopholes, and fuzzy concepts so courts could strike it down, or well funded heroes could run legal circles around it all day.

 

Use all sorts of words like 'intent', or 'reasonable person', 'excessive force in view of a 'percieved threat', 'patterns of occurance' , 'deliberately reckless' to weaken the law.

 

Also make the definition of a super power so hard to do that it is easy to dodge-- 'ability that is completely iexplicable, beyond the capable of a theoretical technology'--all in the guise of not wanting to make technological innovation illegal, or making taltened atheletes criminals for simply performing.

 

Or, on the flip side, make it so draconic that atheletes, or inventors of anything a smidegen beyond technology at the time of the law run afoul of the law--make the law so invaive, so restricting, so painfully stupid massive opposition will arise in a short amount of time to strike it down.

 

Fill the law with obligations towards registered heroes--guarantees of safety, training, support to help control their powers, protect their families that it makes the anti-metahumn bigots probably behind the law sick. For those metahumans who are unfortunately registered and mainatin heroic activities, ame the law at least do something for them if they are sadly caught up in it.

[incrdbil]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

Supplemetal thought: design the law so that enforcement is impossible. Assign it to a section thats really not capable of handling it, or has other priorities. Keep it away from the military,k or a new agency thyat woudl focus on it--give it to..oh heck, the FBI, so overworked agents with normal guns can find creative reasons why not to enforce the laws to persue heroes who can flatten buildings.

 

Underfund enforcement efforts as well. Make a note that non-violent offenders of the law cant be restrained in a super-max metahuman confinement facility due to some BS human rights obligation, and mandate the poor US bureau of Prisons take care of these metahumans. Make the regulations for building more metahuman capable super-prisons very easy to challenge and tie up, so that the government can't spare the room for anyone other than true villains.

 

 

Turn the bureacracy into the unwitting ally of the superhumans.

[Kal'El Wayne]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

Put simply, if my very English butler hero, Sir Johnstone, were asked, he would make America a police state as far as people with superpowers were concerned, with having any superpowers, whether you use them or not, whether you got them on purpose or accidentally, would make you a criminal, and so would inventing anything better than the basic technology that existed before the law was passed. Then Britain would open the doors to any superhero or supervillain (free pardons and tea for everyone!) who chose to become a british citizen. And all British supers would be declared 'ambassadors' with full diplomatic immunity. They would be practically encouraged to keep commiting crimes in the country that made them illegal.

 

All of a sudden, the moronic country that made superheroes illegal would have regular supervillain attacks and no superheroes to protect them, the British isles would be 25% superheroes, and 25% patriotic British supervillains who bring boatloads of money into the country, and if the country who thought registration was a good idea tried to start a war over it all, we've got an army of patriotic supers.

[bubba smith]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

sir johnstones getting sneaky there huh?

[Vulcan]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

Nope. Sir Johnstone is a British supervillian.

[bubba smith]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

still sneaky i'd say

[CTaylor]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

I actually don't think this sort of legislation is such a horrific burden or attack on tyranny, to be honest.

[Karmakaze]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

Making superpowers inherently illegal is problematic and probably impossible to enforce anyway.

 

On the other hand, I'd have no problem with creating an aggravated category for crimes committed using superpowers. We already have the difference between assault and aggravated assault. Have the commission of a crime using superpowers carry additional penalties and in some cases move the offense from a misdemeanor to a felony. Note, of course, that vigilantism is generally illegal...

[CTaylor]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

Actually the concept is to make failure to register their unusual abilities illegal, not the powers themselves. But in practical terms, use of powers to commit a crime carrying a heavier penalty is probably easier to enforce.

[Basil]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

By not helping' date=' they will just make a law that does what they want without regard to superpowered beings.[/quote']

 

By the time some committee of legislators ask "outsiders" for opinions, the fix is in; the law will be whatever was decided in some back-room "horse trading" or by unelected bureaucrats who really run things.

 

I would refuse to have anything to do with the process; I refuse to help give it any veneer of legitimacy. Further, I refuse to be associated with any law to remove people's right.

[bubba smith]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

well said basil

[CTaylor]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

What right does making you register take away? You have to register all kinds of things now for far less destructive or dangerous things: your marriage, your taxes, your ability to fish or drive. Buy a gun, you have to register. Have a child, you have to register him (social security number) to get the child tax credit. Able to walk through walls? Gotta register.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

What right does making you register take away? You have to register all kinds of things now for far less destructive or dangerous things: your marriage' date=' your taxes, your ability to fish or drive. Buy a gun, you have to register. Have a child, you have to register him (social security number) to get the child tax credit. Able to walk through walls? Gotta register.[/quote']

 

You are not born with, or accidentally acquire a gun, car, wife, et cetera. If you are born with (mutant) or accidentally obtain (radiation accident) a “super power” and are forced to register, than you are being forced to be identified and marked for something that is completely outside of your control. If that doesn’t qualify as discrimination, then what does?

 

Also, there are arguments that forced SS registration shouldn’t even exist (this is highly debatable, but it is a point). Getting a Marriage License is optional, in the sense that you don’t have to get legally married, you can live together, heck, a few states even still have “common law marriage” laws. If you don’t get legally married you don’t the tax breaks and all that jazz, it’s a choice. No one has to get a driver’s license. I know someone in their late 30’s that doesn’t have one, by choice. He uses public transportation.

 

The right to bear arms can be revoked; felons can’t own guns. Registering guns helps enforce this. People with powers, unless they are dangerous AND completely uncontrolled powers (ie: Mr. explodes when slightly startled) should not have to register for simply being what or who they are or what they are capable of, anymore than someone should have to register for being a certain race/skin color, or having a set of potentially dangerous skills (martial arts and the like).

 

What right does making you register take away? You have to register all kinds of things now for far less destructive or dangerous things.

 

With this statement you are starting from a completely false supposition. Power do not automatically equal destructive or even dangerous for that matter. I can breathe underwater, so I have to register? Why? Because I might drown someone? I heal really fast, like Wolverine or the girl from Heroes fast. I have to register? Why? I might use my miraculous healing powers, which I can’t control by the way, to do what? Pull of a huge heist, hide the goods, fake my own death, than go back and get the stuff? I mean what logical reason could you possibly present to require anyone/everyone with any type of ability whatsoever to register?

 

For that matter, what qualifies as a power? On one end of the spectrum we have the guy that can bend his thumb all the back to his wrist and on the other end we have Mr. Fantastic. How far along that spectrum to you have to go before ridiculous amounts of flexibility becomes a power? (Yes, I know Mr. F stretches, not just bends and flexes, but you get my point). I mean, a “mutant” who’s “power” is “I sneeze hard enough to knock someone over” would have to register (and he can’t make himself sneeze, it’s just natural) but Iron-Man wouldn’t.

 

Also, you might have noticed, that despite the fact that the title of this thread is “DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?” the OP actually says, “Draft a Federal Law to make using superpowers illegal. How would you set up a law to do this?” We’re not truly talking registration, we’re talking about making an ability (and most likely an inborn or accidentally obtained ability) illegal for absolutely no reason. Anyone with any type of “powers” (assuming you find some way to define “powers” at all) is doing something illegal by using them at all. So Claire from Heroes: when she gets a paper cut, she just broke the law because she healed automatically. Cyclops is breaking the law whenever he opens his eyes, visor or no, he is using his power. Thing, Abomination, and any other “transformed” characters are breaking the law just by existing. Oh, and the mutant healer that can suck cancer out of people? Yeah, he can’t do that or he’s breaking the law.

 

These are only a few examples of “What right does making you register take away?”

[CTaylor]

Re: DC-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

 

You are not born with, or accidentally acquire a gun, car, wife, et cetera. If you are born with (mutant) or accidentally obtain (radiation accident) a “super power” and are forced to register, than you are being forced to be identified and marked for something that is completely outside of your control. If that doesn’t qualify as discrimination, then what does?

 

First, the question was what right was taken away by registration, to which the answer is "none." The original poster is talking about an entirely different topic, which would be absurd and impossible to enforce (let alone pass).

 

Second, while that's discrimination, discrimination is not inherently bad or evil: discrimination is merely choosing between different things based on their characteristics. If you date Mary instead of Jane, you're discriminating between them; in one sense, having discriminating taste was considered a virtue. It is only wrong when you discriminate unjustly and unethically: say, you date Mary because she's blonde and you think any other hair color is inhuman and evil.

 

Third, merely being born with something does not mean that it is wrong to register you for having this ability. We register all children as they're born (ever heard of a birth certificate?) with any abilities whatsoever.

 

The point stands, merely registering unusual, powerful abilities beyond the human norm is not a violation of rights and not an unreasonable thing for a society to do.