# Site General > Pet Related Laws & Legislation >  Copy & Paste Local Ordinances

## sgath92

I have noticed more and more municipal governments in the US have stopped writing their own codes & regulations and instead have been opting to use example/generic code that they find from legal/law publishing companies.

So how this works with snakes is a local government decides to enact a new exotic-pet law and goes to a company like General Code LLC to get something already thought-up and then they mindlessly enact it assuming since people already use it somewhere, it's good enough for them.

What it seems no one is realizing is that the generic exotic pet laws you find out there featured by law publishing companies tend to use the phrase "All venomous and constricting snakes." Meaning technically in towns & cities all over the country it is by the letter of the law illegal to own a corn snake, and illegal for pet stores to so much as carry them. Just googling the phrase "venomous and constricting snakes" turns up all kinds of local municipalities that have virtually identical codes on what animals are listed as explicitly prohibited.

Clearly these local governments have no idea how small and harmless a constrictor snake can be and are probably enacting & enforcing code based on the assumption it only means "dangerous" giant snakes like burms and retics, but it also means that it's only a matter of the police or health or animal control agencies getting a complaint or getting pissed off at someone to take advantage of the letter of the law to go after something that flies in the face of the spirit of the law. To say nothing of rear-fang venomous species like the hognose that are harmless to humans. By the letter of the law; completely illegal.

But there's another implication; these generic exotic pet codes also tend to use a "3-day rule" meaning if you take an animal into their jurisdiction and have it there for 3-days they can subject it to their laws. So if you go to  visit a relative or friend and bring a "constricting snake" with you and stay for 4 days technically they have the power to confiscate it on the 4th day even if you don't live there and plan to leave to go home that day.

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