2PM Texas makes some Big Fish stories illegal

In what you might think is itself a tall tale or at least an example of government intruding on things it really shouldn’t regulate, the Texas legislature recently passed a bill to the governor making it illegal to misrepresent the size of fish in sporting contests or to do anything to falsify the weight of the fish. The reason is that since the prizes in these contests have grown fairly substantial, anglers have been caught doing all sorts of things to win without actually winning. At first, I thought this was an overreach of government, since the operators of the tournaments should be the ones handling this. But then I realized that there’s some justification for the state to be involved since it’s a fraud issue. And also, how much leverage do the tournament officials really have over people to discourage this sort of behavior on their own? Not much. But if they can let it be known that there is a criminal penalty for people who try to engage in this sort of fraud…maybe it will be deterred. Sometimes the community is vital to reinforcing a moral sanction that individuals just don’t have enough weight (sorry) to effectively enforce themselves.