As I was saying above, "Dexter" (both the TV show and the books) is very easily a "how-to" guide. I'm sure there are works more direct and explicit- I haven't done much research.

But it would be perfectly legal for me to write a book that

-Describes how to break into a house, like in that TV show To Catch A Thief (or is it "It Takes a Thief," I never remember...)

-Be stealthy as I walk

-Kill someone in a hundred different ways, whether with a found blunt or sharp object, by blocking a key artery described in any medical or anatomy book, by shooting them with a gun with a home-made silencer attached (which could be built by reading a book)

-Instead of killing them, tie them up with knots learned from any number of sailing or Boy Scount manuals

...and so on.


See, the information is always out there. For a more relevant example, someone could read a few books on childhood psychology and development, a few books on manipulation, and poof- you have like 75% of this book right there.


So, your statement "I don’t have a problem saying you can’t publish manuals on how to make WMD’s from things you bought at Home Depot or on how to rape children," is well-meaning, but ultimately kind of useless.

There isn't much difference between "Be careful not to mix these two chemicals, or else a toxic cloud will form," and "If you mix these two chemicals, you will be able to create a toxic cloud." We can't (and shouldn't) ban the first statement. So instead of trying to file down degrees of meaning to figure out if a book is encouraging people to kill everyone with chlorine gas, we should just make killing people with chlorine gas illegal.