Sikh Man Claims Gun Laws Violate Religion

[Spats McGee]

If you're going to challenge criminal laws, you don't have to wait to be prosecuted, but there must be some reasonable threat that you could be. (ATM, I don't remember the exact wording.) As part of the pleading, the plaintiff will have to say:
1) I am prohibited by law from doing X.
2) I would very much like to do X.
3) Were X not illegal, I would do it.

IOW, the plaintiff has to make a statement under oath that he wants to break the law.

The other way to challenge a criminal law is to go break it, and challenge in as part of your defense.

Do I think the Plaintiff has prepared himself for one of the things I've listed? Yes, I do. Constitutional challenge to a federal law is long, expensive, and not risk-free.

 

[Chaz88]

if memory serves starting in the 1960s there were a number of "religions" founded that included the use of hallucinogenic drugs as part of their services and an essential basis of their doctrine for the purpose of allowing legal use of peyote, mescaline, LSD or whatever other substance the founders favored. I don't recall the fate of these "religions" but their history might possibly give some insight as to the possible course of events for "The Church of the Armed Disciples" or whatever the suggested order might be called.

I read about this a bit a long time ago and, as I recall, for a religious exemption from a law they had to show that the thing in question (drugs, firearms, or whatever) was a central part of their organized religion and ceremonial practices before the law was made. That way people could not just think up new religions every time they did not want to comply with the law. The only groups I know of that were successful challenging the law were Native American groups that had a long established tradition of peyote use as part of their religion. Mescaline on its own might not fall under the exemption because it would need to be extracted from peyote, normally the intact plant is ingested for ceremonial purposes. The Sikh caring of a knife is also a long established tradition but firearms are not so the exemption might be hard to defend for firearms.

 

[zukiphile]

Thus, an absolute carry ban makes sense (not from our view though) but interferring with how you go to services is not constitutional unless you show specific risk - peace or offending a supernatural entity is not that.

I share that conclusion. The infringement is not primarily against the church, but on the rights of one who wishes to attend. The bill of rights should not function as a Chinese menu in which you get to pick your favorite protected rights and sacrifice the others.

Certainly, we would object to a state law permitting the state to engage in prior restraint of speech if spoken at a church. Requiring a fellow to suspend his right as described in the Second Amendment while he attends church imposes a burden on that First Amendment right as well as the Second Amendment right.

And to play the Devil's Advocate, . . . The other side of that is the argument that unless carrying that firearm is central to the actual exercise of your religion, prohibiting you from carrying it does not infringe upon (much less prohibit) the free exercise thereof.

How many other rights may a state restrict in exchange for the free exercise right?