My adopted
home state of Georgia has recently entered the national (and, dare I say,
international) news for its new gun laws. In the wake of a recent spate of
tragic mass shootings, many states have enacted more restrictive firearms laws.
Georgia has, in a contrarian spirit, liberalized its weapons regulations.
Georgia House
Bill 60 will take effect on July 1, 2014. It is a 29 page bill and addresses
many issues. One of H.B. 60’s most interesting features is that it allows
individuals with weapons carry licenses to carry pistols, rifles, and shotguns
in a place of worship with the permission the governing body or authority of
the place of worship. The board of trusties of a congregational church could,
for example, authorize people with the appropriate licenses to carry guns while
in the sanctuary. Arms could then be brought into the sacred precincts at the
discretion of the appropriate ecclesiastical leaders.
While this may
shock, it is not without precedent. In Georgia’s late colonial period, an act
of February 27, 1770 required most adult white males to carry a gun or
pair of pistols to church and take their weapons to their pews.
Moreover, church wardens and other religious officials were required to enforce
this requirement by conducting inspections on Christmas and Easter and twelve
other times each year. This law remained in effect for decades after
independence.
Colonial
Georgia was a veritable community-at-arms. It was established as a military
buffer between the prosperous Carolina colonies and the ever-menacing Spanish
in Florida. The colonists were expected to do their part in the defense of the
crown’s possessions.
The colony’s
relations with local Indians was initially good. Free Indians in amity
with the government of the colony were accorded the same rights was whites and
their interests were aggressively protected. Nevertheless, the specter of
Indian attacks loomed in the imaginations of colonists and stimulated
preparedness.
When Georgia
was first established, slavery was prohibited. The colony was envisioned as a
second-chance for the worthy poor. Unpaid slaves would be unwholesome
competition to free people to who had nothing to offer but their labor.
Ultimately, the colonists succumbed to the temptation to treat their bothers
and sisters as chattels and the founding purposes of Georgia were subverted.
With slavery came the fear of servile insurrection. This was a practical
incentive for remaining armed at all times.
One hundred
years later, the foreign menace became a distant memory. The last of the Indian
nations had been removed in the Trail of Tears. And the slaves had been legally
freed. The original motivations for armed vigilance were removed.
In 1870, the
Georgia General Assembly passed “[a]n Act to preserve the peace and harmony
of the people of this State . . . . ” This act prohibited the carrying of
deadly weapons in “any place of public worship” as well as any court, polling
place, or other public gathering, but not “militia muster-grounds.” Violations
were punishable by incarceration for up to 20 days.
This was a
radical change of policy and is not attributable exclusively to the
disappearance of existential threats to the state. It was a product of the
development of new modes of worship.
Colonial-era
church services were usually orderly and sober affairs and congregants were
almost exclusively locals. Guns did not constitute any special hazard at these
calm, community-centered affairs. After all, almost everyone knew everyone
else. And everyone certainly knew his place.
Following
independence, new practices arose: the revival and the camp meeting. In
contrast to restrained church services, these gatherings were emotional
experiences and often drew visitors from far and near. Communities could mix in
broad fellowship. Popular preachers tried to attract religions tourists.
In fact, a revival attended only by regular congregants would be an abject
failure. With the potential for ecstatic frenzy and presence of strangers, the
possession of weapons at revivals and camp meetings seemed an invitation to
misadventure.
Georgia has
maintained an explicit prohibition on carrying firearms in either places of
worship or churches almost continually since 1870. (From 1969 until 1976,
statute prohibited carrying weapons at public gatherings in general, without
mentioning either churches or places of worship.) Very shortly, this will
change. The scents of gunpowder and incense may mix.
I am reminded
of a tale of dubious provenance. A parish priest became frustrated with his
flock’s violent tendencies. On the way to and from mass, rival factions of his
rustic congregation would brawl, using everything from knives and clubs to
broad swords and battleaxes. The priest decreed a ban of all weapons from the
sanctuary. Mass-goers would be forced to leave their weapons at home. They
could not leave them outside the church, unattended, for fear of theft. A peace
of God would be imposed, at least on Sundays and holy days. Or so the
pastor thought.
The
quarrelsome congregants arrived at an expedient: they had the village
blacksmith fashion giant iron rosaries. They would beat each other with the
chains (weighted with large iron beads, one for each ave and pater)
and stab their enemies with sharpened crucifixes. Sacramentals were turned to
decidedly unholy proposes.
Men and women
bent on violence will do violence. Stripping them of their regular implements
only stimulates their creativity.
(I gladly
acknowledge that the title of this post was inspired by Chapter 18 of the
book Jewish Wisdom by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin.)
References:
19 The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, pt. 1, at
137-40 (1911) (act of February 27, 1770).
Robert &
George Watkins, A Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia 157-58 (1800) (indicating the continued effectiveness of the act
of February 27, 1770).
1870 Ga. Laws
page 421.
1968 Ga. Laws
page 1249, § 1 (enacting Code section 26-2902).
1976 Ga. Laws
page 1430, § 2.
2010 Ga. Laws
page 963, § 1-3.
2014 Ga. Laws page ____, § 1-5; available
at http://www.legis.ga.gov/ Legislation/en-US/display/20132014/HB/60 (House
Bill 60 of the 2013-2014 Georgia General Assembly).
(While these
references are hardly exhaustive, they should be sufficient to enable an interested
reader to verify, or disprove, my conclusions.)
