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Llama Legislation

In this essay, I intend to finally unveil the revelations of the age-old question: “why don’t llamas get arrested for spitting?” Although it is not well known, Plato, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking didn’t finish solving this riddle of the law and thusly I shall.

According to 45-5-214 assault with bodily fluid, it is illegal to spit. I will spare you the details but the definition 4a of bodily fluid explicitly states it includes saliva. An extremely paraphrased version of definition 1 is that if someone forces a bodily fluid onto an employee or volunteer of the state trying to be helpful. I was shocked at the specificness of the assault of spit until I found that although it is no longer classified as assault or have a convenient name for my purposes, it is still disorderly conduct for a citizen to spit at another citizen, but what about the animal part of this strange question?

Of course all laws are laws on animals as homo-sapiens are a form of animal, however as MCA put it in 45-2-101 “ Person" includes an individual, business association, partnership, corporation, government, or other legal entity and an individual acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of a government or subdivision of government.” So, it does clarify that the laws apply to humans and not furry friends.

If llamas can’t be prosecuted for assault with bodily fluids, do any laws apply to animals?

There are laws like the felony of stealing a llama, or does that even include llamas?

The law 45-6-301 B (iii) states ”A person convicted of the theft of any commonly domesticated hoofed animal shall be fined an amount of not less than $5,000”. The problem comes when attempting to decipher whether llamas fall under the category of a commonly domesticated animal, which is important to understand what laws will apply to them. It is stated that llamas are not apart of the laws involving “Cloven-hoofed ungulate(s)” as clearly defined in 87-6-101 definition five, “‘Cloven-hoofed ungulate’ means an animal of the order Artiodactyla, except a member of the families Suidae, Camelidae, or Hippopotamidae.” Llamas belong to the family Camelidae and thus are not ungulates, which is a great word. Using the reasoning that in Montana where this definition is stated it is more commonplace to see a llama in captivity rather than strolling glacier park. Furthermore, the Wikipedia page for llamas describes them as domesticated.

There are also laws like the vicious dog control law (7-23-2019) from 1979 which declared that the federal government could do whatever necessary to protect the community from an aggressive pup. But this law only applies to dogs and has evolved since 1979. There is a law that might apply to llamas, 60-7-201 “Grazing livestock on highway unlawful”. The question is, are llamas livestock? According to the definition from Webster's dictionary, I would say they qualify. As they can be considered an asset they are livestock. Although, by this definition cats are also livestock but I don't think a sheepdog would work on cat farms. An owner thus could be in trouble if their llama were to be caught racing cars down the highway, that shouldn’t be an issue as llamas fur is much to warm for running and I’d rather not think about shaved llamas.

Clearly, laws can and do apply to animals (again, not biped homosapiens.) They can even be enacted on animals, even though they may not be put in sheep ja-a-a-a-ail, animals could face the death penalty. However, spitting is most definitely legal for llamas in federal, state and national statutes. Llamas are an important spire of democracy and should be responsible for themselves even if they won’t be penalized for it, their owners rely on them.

Endnotes:

All laws cited are from Montana Code Annotated and only apply in the state of Montana as of 2017 unless stated otherwise.


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