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This is not a real story (as far as I'm aware), just a context to ask a question about logical fallacies:

Susan hunted wolves with her rifle from the bed of a pickup truck while her friend drove her. A conservation officer caught them, and they were charged with illegal hunting practices (such laws regarding hunting from vehicles exist).

Susan and her friend pleaded not-guilty, as they checked the driving laws, and the driving laws said nothing about shooting a gun from the bed of a moving pickup truck.

Clearly Susan and friend committed a logical fallacy. Which one was it given the facts below?

  1. Driving laws say nothing about hunting wolves.
  2. They were in a moving car while hunting.
  3. They were not doing anything illegal as far as driving laws were concerned.
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  • But Susan was hunting, not driving. The driver was just an accomplice in the crime. So the fallacy is a type of red herring or shifting of attention away from relevancy. – Bread Feb 25 '19 at 2:09
  • The list provided does not list fallacies, and it is not clear that any fallacy was committed at all, as opposed to a rookie error of looking at wrong laws. Fallacies are errors of reasoning, and there is no Susan's reasoning presented here. – Conifold Feb 25 '19 at 5:04
  • I made an edit which you may roll back or continue editing. I tried to clarify that those three statements were just facts about the story,. If that was not your intent, please edit this further or revise. Welcome to Philosophy! – Frank Hubeny Feb 25 '19 at 5:43
  • @FrankHubeny: you've made a very logical edit, thank you. – user37444 Feb 25 '19 at 12:13
  • Laws are often illogical. So there is nothing else to this. Law design flaw. – Overmind Feb 25 '19 at 12:36
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Susan and her friend were charged with illegal hunting practices because they were caught hunting from a moving vehicle which hunting laws prohibited.

In their defense they argued that there was no driving law that prohibited them from hunting from a moving vehicle.

The logical fallacy in their argument might be the red herring fallacy.

Here is how Wikipedia describes that fallacy:

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue.

They are trying to distract attention from their violation of hunting laws by focusing on their non-violation of driving laws.

Here is Bo Bennett's description of that fallacy:

Attempting to redirect the argument to another issue to which the person doing the redirecting can better respond. While it is similar to the avoiding the issue fallacy, the red herring is a deliberate diversion of attention with the intention of trying to abandon the original argument.

They would be better able to respond to not violating any driving law than they would be to not violating any hunting law.

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If you are driving in a car AND hunting wolves, then obeying the laws regarding driving is a necessary but insufficient condition for lawful operation of the car WHILE YOU ARE ALSO HUNTING. The necessary AND sufficient condition is obeying BOTH sets of rules. I do not know exactly how to express the fallacy here except to assert it is one of "necessity but insufficiency".

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