Every law has a story as to why it exists, from the Miranda rights to the Constitution itself. You may wind up familiar with these stories should you ever find yourself navigating a criminal case in Federal Court.
However, some stories are simply strange, and the laws that resulted from them are usually just as odd. A few of these weird federal laws will be covered below to give you a laugh and make you more prepared for your next trivia night.
Falconry in Films
It may sound strange, but it is illegal for falconry to appear in most movies. If the movie is about falconry, bird biology, protecting local migratory species, or something similar, then you should be all good. Anything else, though, and you start running into trouble.
If you do see a bird in a non-bird-related movie, then it’s likely not what it seems. Birds native to the United States are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, so other non-native species must be used as replacements for filming or the movies must be filmed outside of the U.S. altogether.
Any birds are then modified during editing to make them look and sound like whatever bird they’re supposed to be. Other movies ditch the real bird entirely and instead either use recorded footage of wild ones or create the bird they need with CGI.
While these restrictions seem strange, they’re likely in place to protect native birds from being captured and used for profit. That doesn’t stop the law from being kind of weird, though.
Checks for Cents
If you look into this topic, you’ll likely see that you aren’t allowed to write a check for less than a single dollar, but that’s not completely true. The law basically says that no check, token, etc., that is worth less than a dollar can be used to replace money.
In the past, the metal used to make the coins used in the United States was pretty valuable. So valuable, in fact, that some people would stockpile the coins to melt them down to get the valuable metals.
Some people tried using checks that were written to cover a purchase that was under a dollar in value to replace the coins while others would create tokens for the same purpose. This law was created in response to that.
To be clear, if you receive a check for less than a dollar and take it to a bank to cash it, you should be fine. However, some may not do so because of how small the amount is. Just don’t try to replace coins with checks at the cash register and you should be fine.
Eyeless Swiss Cheese
Swiss cheese is supposed to have holes, called “eyes.” It’s as true as the sky is blue, and yet there’s a law preventing someone from selling eyeless Swiss cheese as, well, Swiss cheese. However, there’s a pretty good reason for it: hole-free Swiss cheese isn’t Swiss cheese at all, though it is typically called “blind Swiss.”
Blind Swiss has a much milder flavor when compared to the run-of-the-mill kind, and the holes are the reason why. Basically, hay dust in the milk would weaken the structure of the forming cheese, allowing air pockets to form and create the eyes as the bacteria did its thing.
Without this process, you don’t really have Swiss cheese, leading to the regulation. For those wondering, baby Swiss is safe because while the holes may be small and the flavor milder, it still has the holes, so it is still considered true Swiss cheese.
Traveling Nickels
As mentioned earlier, many people wanted to melt coins down to get at the expensive metals that they’re made of. While many were stopped from doing this by many different regulations, the most stubborn people were likely stopped by a 2006 law banning the export of pennies and nickels.
The law limits how many nickels or pennies you can travel with, probably to make sure you don’t try to sell them or their metals for money in another country. If you can prove that you’re carrying them for an express recreational purpose, you can bring up to twenty-five dollars’ worth of the coins.
Failing to do this could see you sitting in prison for up to five years, though, so it’s probably best to keep the spare change in your luggage to a minimum on your next vacation abroad.
