It is perfectly easy to distinguish: if your bow was made by a master craftsman in 1925 and has the permits to prove it (as per its $100k value it better have them), you know that the elephant wasn't killed last year by a poaching gang.
Nevertheless, I am not discussing whether one should ban ivory or not. If US citizen want to ban old bows from being used in performances on their territory it is their choice to do so, and I broadly agree, based on what limited information I have read, that only a blanket ban can be effective.
What worries me is the tendency of law enforcement in this case to deviate from the rule of law. If someone has a permit and this permit is somehow invalidated upon their arrival, despite their having been told that everything was in order at departure (as was also the case in a previous thread about visas), individual rights have been infringed. It is not because it is something where many people have strong feelings (ivory and the slaughtering of African elephants) and the group of individuals affected is both small (classical musicians) and non-citizen, that the bending of the rules should be excused. Do you disagree with that position?
(I won't argue about demand. I personally am more likely to see a performance if the performer uses a rare instrument, such as a Stradivarius or an Amati. I discovered Guarneri via Leonid Kagan recordings, which were hair raisingly beautiful. Anecdotes don't make data, etc.)
> if your bow was made by a master craftsman in 1925
the year of manufacturing is impossible to determine without a lab
> has the permits to prove it
the issue is that the customs officers who are supposed to be in charge of this are very understaffed. for example, there's only 6 customs employees dealing with this for all cargo coming into nyc and nj. it's impossible for them to check all of it. forgery is also very common.
> What worries me is the tendency of law enforcement in this case to deviate from the rule of law.
are you going to generalize from that one instance? if you have more examples, please provide them. also this is something that happens at the customs quite a bit. idk, do you care this much about other things confiscated during import even if they had the permits? yeah, sure, i care maybe a bit but fundamentally i don't care.
> Do you disagree with that position?
Well, we kind of have to pick our fights. And I know which one I picked.
Let me clarify your position: because a. it is not a subject you care about b. it "happens quite a bit" c. in this case it helps your position which is "good" (the ivory ban) you "don't care" that the rule of law is breached?
I outright disagree with this position, which has been quite common in the US recently ("well, those CIA prisons have been happening quite a bit, and it helps the fight against terrorism anyway, plus, those are terrorists, they don't have any rights anymore. Not going to affect me anyway, I'm American, and I'm on the good side."). And you can go back to the lynch mobs of the Wild West for a more visual version.
Not wishing to be overdramatic, I did not bring up Niemoller until now, but his point stands. And of course there is the issue of flavours of patriotism (or loyalty to a cause) which is split into "my country right or wrong" vs "do the right thing no matter what". Aside from moral considerations, being in the "right or wrong" camp often backfires by providing the opposition with intellectual ammo to slow it down with.
To answer your question I care not one bit about what gets confiscated so long as it gets confiscated legally. It is good that you are fighting for the African elephants and I admire you for it. But I disagree that one has to behave above the law because of it.
Are they not different grades of the same thing, the infringement of individual rights?
Note I said illegal confiscations and you removed it. This is actually a very important point, in a system that assumes the law is our best guess at protecting individual rights.
Well in my eyes, there is no such thing as legal ivory as it's gray area at best. It's similar to the synthetic drugs. Yeah, they are not explicitly illegal but you are a fool if you think that they won't be confiscated if they are found by the customs.
The law is not what's in your eyes, it's what's established by elected legislatures. And the proposed Washington law says that there is legal ivory if it's over 100 years old, and/or a very small part by volume of a musical instrument.
Somehow I doubt that.
> Also worth noting in the second case that a permit was issued and the instruments were still confiscated.
To be honest, I really don't care. Illegal ivory is impossible to distinguish from legal ivory and it's better to err on the side of caution.