Would you support the Muggle Protection Act? What arguments do you see for or against it?

To remind you, the Muggle Protection Act prohibits the creation of items like Mr Weasley's flying car -- Muggle items with enchantments on them (though there exists a loophole defence: they're not illegal to own if you have no intention to use them). It was motivated by enchanted Muggle items being mistaken for regular Muggle items and then finding their way into Muggle hands (sometimes intentionally), where they would cause harm.

To help start the debate, here's an article taken from Victoria Potter which presents various viewpoints:

 

It's an interesting question, Taure, albeit an absurdly layered one.

I see nothing wrong with Arthur Weasley's enchanted car, save that I think it's long past time the Statute of Secrecy was reviewed and perhaps discarded. Certainly, there are still parts of the world that would burn witches at the stake, but we're modern enough in the hubs of civilization to actually have a proper conversation about such.

But what if that Ford Anglia was enchanted to shoot laser beams out of its headlights? What's to stop him flying that magical car into the Houses of Parliament at speed?

The Act itself would not prevent a Death Eater, or hell even Arthur Weasley, from enchanting whatever they want. One for nefarious means and the other for the sheer tinkering of the situation. So I don't agree with the Act for that alone. The Act is toothless.

You can't effectively legislate against inquisitiveness or malicious intent. Without making it about the 2nd amendment, it's a similar lip service. Folk will still do what they want, and when we're talking about cars turned into missiles you have to consider the greater context.

You have to adopt a stringent risk management policy. Establish the context, identify the risk, evaluate the severity, implement countermeasures, and monitor/review at every step of the cycle.

In the simplest terms, sure, implement the Act - it'll deter those who can be deterred. But behind that Act better be a rampant and global wizarding intelligence apparatus to monitor and intercept those that don't give a shit about legislation.

 

If a Wizard wanted to fuck with Muggles, then they'd be able to do so fairly easily just with their wand.

I'd suggest a more far reaching act that provides more extensive monitoring and protection of Muggle areas from possible malicious actors that would violate the SoS for their own amusement. As we move into the age of the internet, it's going to become harder and harder to defend the statute, I think more heavy involvement is advised in general to reduce risks of it failing.

That is as another person said, if we don't want it to fail. After all, Wizard kind could always install themselves as benevolent dictators and help to fix the worlds problems... A choice morally I can support, though would require some serious political acumen on a worldwide scale to get through.

 

If it can harm the Statute of Secrecy, then I'm for banning it.

Then again, I also support Wizards taking over Muggles from the shadows.

 

From canon we are told the Department in charge of enforcing this bill have all of two people in it. The very first thing Arthur does with his new power is raid the Malfoy family home. The bill is much too broad with so many wizards having 'muggle' enchanted items. I use muggle in quotations because there are so many items that transcend species here. I mean really, the Ministry has its own fleet of enchanted cars if I remember PoS correctly along with all the regular household items that are enchanted. It just seems like a stupid bill. Plus Arthur abuses his power to inconvenience someone he hates for his first act. Overall, I don't like the law.

 

I feel like the act itself is a bit weird.

Brooms themselves are a muggle item yet wizards use them to fly. Trunks are a muggle item yet they can apparently be made to expand in size. The same with tents.

Is there a distinction that I'm missing?

Edit: Ninja'd more in depth and expanded by @Dresden11

 

I presume the distinction in this case is "Objects that can be easily formed and put together by human hands" like a broom or a door and "things that require the scientific method and effort by muggles in detail to work out" such as electricity. Anything that brakes the middle ages aspect of the Wizarding world basically. Maybe also with wiggle room for Victorian era items like the Hogwarts Express, a distinctively muggle item.

It's entirely possible that Wizards simply choose not to use items like that out of not just lack of need but some sort of cultural inertia as well. Recall that Wizards are known to have longer lifespans then Muggles, meaning the older traditions are hence forward going to last a lot longer in the Wizarding world then the Muggle World. There is simply a inherent dislike of items that brake the setting from a doylist perspective and sociological distaste from a watsonian one...that means muggle items are driven out naturally and the times they're not there's seldom any need to use them due to wizarding ones simply being superior.

 

I wouldn't support it. In fact, I'd vote against it, if I could.

I really try to stay out of politics, but... wizards should be free to enchant whatever they want as long as it's benign and doesn't risk the Statute. Outlier problems should be solved case by case basis, not banning all of them. Basically, what Abbott and Burke said. While enchanted muggle items sometimes ending up in muggle hands is a problem, the goverment restricting magic use is worse.

 

Is it aimed at everyone in the Magical World? Including Ministry cars? Because in that case you might as well stop using the Hogwarts Express.

If it's just aimed at private citizens then it could be done, as long as the Act is written well. The last thing you'd want is to give incompetent Ministry employees like Arthur Weasley the power to interpret the act as he likes.

 

I wouldn't support the Act.

1. It is not needed.
When there are already laws and procedures in place to check illegally passing enchanted items in muggle hands, there is no point in enacting a new legislation.

2. It is too intrusive.
The law allows search and seizure in absence of any reasonable ground to permit such intrusion in a citizen's privacy.

3. It criminalises something without a guilty mind.
Possessing something potentially dangerous is not same as using it or intending to use it.

4. It's inconvenient.
There are a lot of items muggle by design and with nothing that makes them inherently magical, but wizards use them all the same. It would be a hassle to implement the law when one of the chief supporters and the enforcer of the law is much more likely to break it than a Death Eater.

As far as protecting the magical economy goes, using cheap muggle products that are mass produced and with muggle labour, will free up magical labour force to persue something magical instead of something mundane and tedious.

 

@Sesc, I'm not sure I agree with your reading of canon on this matter. Let's separate out essentially three issues:

1. The ability to "raid" wizards' homes for dark artefacts.

This power has always existed and is what Mr Malfoy is referring to in Borgin & Burke's - thus why he is selling dark objects (he references poisons, which are definitely not Muggle artefacts). This is also the type of raid the "Ministry" conducted later on in CoS at Malfoy Manor, after Ron passed information on to his dad about the secret stash of dark objects beneath the drawing room (discovered via the polyjuice ruse). Arthur then presumably passed this information on in turn to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, because this type of raid is not Arthur's job - it is not "Misuse of Muggle Artefacts". There's no evidence that I can recall that Arthur was personally involved in this raid on Malfoy Manor, other than passing on the information.

2. The illegality of passing enchanted objects to Muggles

This has always been illegal - Arthur's job is essentially retrieving such objects and tracking the wizards' responsible for doing so. This was noted in the article.

However, as also noted in the article and as evidenced by the fact that Arthur still has a job that keeps him busy, current laws do not seem to be an effective preventative measure.

3. The Muggle Protection Act

It seems clear to me that a) this Act was not in place at the time of Malfoy's visit to Borgin & Burke's but b) had been put into law by the time of the Ford Anglia incident. "Scrapped" to me means the repeal of a law that is in place.

The fact that the Ford Anglia incident is considered relevant to the (new) Muggle Protection Act to me suggests that it wouldn't have been illegal before, but now is. If it had always been illegal, then it would not be an argument against the new Act specifically. This is further reinforced by the fact that the Ministry has long had a fleet of enchanted cars (PoA), and yet Mr Weasley's fine in CoS was specifically for bewitching the car (not for using it, or for using it in front of Muggles). So the bewitchment of cars could not have been illegal as a long-standing thing, but rather something new (and then later made legal again, when the Muggle Protection Act was dropped).

From the fact that enchanting cars was legal, then illegal, then legal again by PoA, combined with the fact that Lucius refers to the Muggle protection act as prospective at the start of CoS then "should be scrapped" mid-way through CoS, to me makes it clear that the Muggle Protection Act made the enchantment of cars illegal. Extrapolating from this, and keeping in mind that enchanting "Muggle Artifacts" was already illegal, I think the Muggle Protection Act must have simply greatly expanded the list of "Muggle Artifacts" -- clearly not so far as to include the Hogwarts Express, but far enough to include cars.

Turning to the fanfiction side of things, the point I was trying to get across was that the Muggle Protection Act, as passed, was a Frankenstein's Monster of legislation which different groups were supporting for different reasons. The only way to achieve enough support for it to pass was to bolt on extra parts which would satisfy enough special interests to gain their support.

Separating those issues out into separate laws would mean no coalition, which means none of those groups would be able to muster the support for their pet legislation on their own. So they all dumped their pet ideas into a single amalgamated law and thereby gained the support for it to pass. But that very compromise and amalgamation turns the law into something -- as Lucius Malfoy said -- "ridiculous". Anyone familiar with "Obamacare" should find this a familiar narrative.

 

Wouldn't it be a kicker if the Weasley's were only poor because Arthur is constantly getting fined for misusing muggle artefacts?

 

I try to imagine myself in their situation, as a wizard, and I have to say that I strongly disagree with the idea of discarding the Statue Of Secrecy.

Witch hunts were never a real problem to begin with. A torch-bearing muggle wouldn't be able to do a single thing against a witch/wizard, not even a crowd of them, and the muggles could never prevent the witch/wizard from disapparating.

There are many, many issues with our world. I've had this discussion before and one of the suggestions that I've seen was that the muggles should effective enslave the magical world and force them to use their talents to solve the world's problems.

Another issue is that many muggles have a sense of entitlement, and there are far more of them than there are magicals. The moment that the magical world revealed itself you would get a wide range of reactions. Envy. Fear. Hatred. Greed, ect. There are certainly still enough of the religious types in the world to cause some serious problems for a smaller population.

Another reaction would come from the "entitled" crowd, which would demand access to magical towns and shopping districts, and what do you suppose would happen when they absolutely swarmed these locations and wanted to buy things? Who wouldn't want a wand? There are probably hundreds of millions of people that would want a wand just for the novelty of it - but wait! The magical world doesn't have the ability to produce so many, and isn't each wand unique, essentially destined for a specific person?

What would happen if the magical world even tried protesting such a thing? What if they wanted to keep their towns ans alleys to themselves, because there are far too many muggles? What if they wanted to keep their magical items to themselves? Even if they passed legislation to do just that, this legislation would be seen as discriminatory by entitled muggles, and black markets would rise. Why would a wand maker want to sell his wands for 7 galleons when they could fetch tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of dollars? And even if the wand makers didn't sell their wands to muggles on the side, a number of other things would happen:

1. Wand theft would become a VERY lucrative business.
2. Counterfeiting wands to sell to stupid, unsuspecting muggles that can't tell the difference between a wand and stick of wood would also be a very lucrative business.

I'm using wands as an example, but the same goes for ANY magical item.

Then there's the issue of government. The Ministry of Magic is separate from the British muggle government - How well do you think that would go over? The muggles would demand that they merge, and that magicals begin following muggle law, and the magicals would be highly resistant to having someone that does not understand them and most likely wants to use them having any say over them.

Then there's the problem that magicals would be highly sought after, for a number of reasons. Militaries, intelligence agencies, any corporation ever would want to hire them and would probably be willing to pay them quite a bit. Magical talent within the magical world would dry up, and the magical world would suffer greatly for it.

How long until a trans-magical demanded the right to attend Hogwarts? How long until they wanted to buy houses in Hogsmeade. Any resistance that was put up to these ideas on the side of the magicals would be called discriminatory. There would be muggle movements to end these practices, and this means buying magical politicians. These politicians would be bribed and no longer serve the magical world.

Then there are the socialist and communist. How do you handle people that want to create a "classless" society when one group of people so obviously have an advantage over another?

In addition, if I were magical, I would probably be a traditionalist. Not a blood supremacist, but I would believe in keeping tradition and culture. Culture is important to me in the real world: I want France to remain French, I want Ireland to remain Irish, I want Germany to remain german. Our differences are what makes the idea of traveling the world so appealing to me, but if the magical world revealed itself and allowed muggles to buy magical politicians, magical items, explore magical places, and buy property there - magical culture would be annihilated, and eventually you would have muggle groups demanding reparations for Grindelwald, Voldemort, ect,

That's all in addition to the terrorist attacks and various armed religious groups that would rise after the reveal.

So, no. We aren't civilized. We're entitled and we would stomp our feet and cry discrimination when they weren't so keen on having millions of people flood Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. If I were magical, the only solution that I would see left in order to save my world is to take control of the muggle Nukes...

 

Tensions rise between Ministry and MACUSA


Fierce debate broke out in the Wizengamot yesterday as news emerged of the Head of The misuse of muggle artifacts department, Arthur Weasley's arrest by American aurors.

Mr. Weasley was apprehended inside a muggle military base attempting to transfigure "nookes" into Yorkshire pudding.

The Ministry has not yet released a statement on the matter but details are sure to emerge soon.