PA Bill Number: HB1661
Title: Further providing for schedules of controlled substances; and providing for secure storage of xylazine.
Description: Further providing for schedules of controlled substances; and providing for secure storage of xylazine. ...
Last Action: Act No. 17 of 2024
Last Action Date: May 15, 2024
Amish Photo Exemption Bill Raises Questions about Gun Control Laws :: 09/06/2017
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “A Republican state senator from upstate New York wants to make it easier for members of the Amish and Mennonite communities to buy a gun,” Gothamist reported Sunday.
Have photo ID requirements on the Amish reduced drive-by shootings and other violent crimes? (TheCadExpert/ Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)
“Senator Catharine Young introduced legislation that would carve out a special exception in the firearm application rule, allowing members of an ‘established religious sect’ to forego the requirement of submitting a photograph along with their handgun application under certain circumstances.”
The photo requirement forces them to make a choice between adhering to their faith or being able to have a gun, the story elaborates. With the change Young proposes, they would be able to submit an affidavit. And existing exemptions on labor, building code and educational regulations have created precedents for accommodating alternative sets of rules.
While some Amish do have guns for pest control and hunting, beliefs in nonresistance and forsaking of technology would seem to an outsider to make ownership of handguns, particularly modern ones, problematic. Leaving their business to them, the focus of this article must be on laws that apply to all, and as such, several questions come to mind:
How does that fit in with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?
Wouldn’t requiring a doctrine to be “established” discriminate against new religions?
Logical consistency says only haters would deny respect for a right to “identify” with religious tenets, too.
If someone can “identify” with the gender combination of their choosing, and if laws infringing on that are condemned as hateful and discriminatory, why would the same not apply to religious beliefs of their choosing? What valid mechanism do state bureaucracies have to read a person’s heart and to know if they’re sincere or just gaming the system?
Those questions expose the arbitrary nature of the rules, and how the more contradictory they get, the pettier they become. But like writer Thomas Pynchon observed:
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.”
Because there’s a more fundamental question than whether or not there’s a workaround to the photo requirement, or whether there ought to be such a requirement in the first place.
Where does anyone get off requiring a free citizen to get permission to exercise a right?
Who has legitimate moral authority to impose prior restraints on rights that, depending on your beliefs, are either “endowed by our Creator” or inherent to the condition of being human?
And where do they get off legally, since Supreme Court precedent acknowledges:
“This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed …”
The Cult of Statism is determined to impose faith in a monopoly of violence enforced by follower disarmament, even though all credible observations show its tenets to be superstitious nonsense. And we know what happens to non-believers, heretics, infidels…
“Progressives” are inconsistent on requiring photo IDs. (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Attribution: Peterljr888)
And here’s another bit of hypocrisy from those who would force their will on those who would stray from the flock: Notice how, when it comes to Voter ID laws requiring government photo IDs, the same zealots scream “Disenfranchisement!” and “Discrimination!”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
