Alabama proposes constitutional amendment to make churches "highly defensible property"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a...-force/ar-AADbRd6?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

Where does the government get its authority to tell religious organization how to do security?

[QUOTE="old lady new shooter, post: 11161530, member: 230484
I do find it curious that the language specifically says "church" as opposed to, for example, "house of worship"... Do they really want to exclude defenders of synagogues, mosques, Buddhist temples etc, from the additional protections provided by the proposed new classification? Any folks from Alabama here who can shed light on this?[/QUOTE]

I don't know Jamie Kiel, since he's still pretty new. Don't read anything into the wording. I'll almost guarantee that he lumped everything and everybody together in one term. Also, this is an Amendment that would only apply to Franklin County, and this entire population is round 30000 people. I haven't been up there in years, but they don't have too many different religions to worry about. This is one of the bizarre things about the Alabama Constitution of 1901. It looks like a phone book because of all the amendments. This is just one more of those things that the entire state will see on the ballot, since its a amendment, but will only matter in one county.

The MSM will attack it, as will several special interest lobbying orgs, one of which I can see not liking it will be the Alabama Sheriff's Assn. Its best chance to pass will be if there is little attention paid to it.

This is the sort of thing that should be handled by statute, not in the state constitution. Constitutions should be economical documents, lest they get bogged down in too much detail.

If anyone wants a little more information, emphasis on little.
https://yellowhammernews.com/state-...ground-protections-on-march-statewide-ballot/
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I haven’t been able to find the actual proposal but it has been introduced for several years so I was able to find the 2017 proposal, which obviously could be different.

Again, from 2017
https://legiscan.com/AL/text/HB36/id/1594367/Alabama-2017-HB36-Engrossed.pdf
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Also fwiw, “church” is defined as the following.

CHURCH. A bona fide duly constituted religious
society or ecclesiastical body of any sect, order, or
denomination, or any congregation thereof.

AlexanderA said:

This is the sort of thing that should be handled by statute, not in the state constitution. Constitutions should be economical documents, lest they get bogged down in too much detail.

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Should be, but isn't, never has been, and usually can't be due to the structure of the Constitution of 1901. There is an effort every so often to change that and rewrite it, but nobody trusts anybody else to do it.

The things to take away are:
1. If this passes, it will only apply to Franklin County and the 30,000 people who live there.
2. Even though it is so micro and only applies to one county, the entire state will see it on the ballot since it is an amendment.
3. I'd be shocked, to say the least to find a synagogue, much less anything truly exotic here.
4. Its an old Southernism to call any house of worship, a "church." (The same way that any carbonated beverage used to be a "coke.")

Prepare for the anti-gun side to make it look like the sky is falling. This won't matter much until there is a church shooting up there, and the DA starts charging the lowlife, if they catch him.

P5 Guy said:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a...-force/ar-AADbRd6?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

Where does the government get its authority to tell religious organization how to do security?

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As usual, MSN got it wrong. They are going to have to hire APOST certified officers, or send qualified candidates to the academy. There is no such thing as a "private police officer", in that regard. What this is really is the same thing as hiring off duty officers to work security, only instead of them moonlighting at the church, they'll be full time employees of the church. I don't like this kind of setup, but its not the first time its happened here. At least one private college has done the same thing, and they have been upheld.

old lady new shooter said:

Amazing how much I missed on my quick read-through of the embedded proposed amendment, it is in there that it only applies to Franklin County and so is the upthread-quoted definition of "church". I need a red-face emoticon. Meanwhile thanks to everyone for all the additional information.

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That's ok. There aren't many states that would do this in this way, and its going to provide some interesting political theater if it ever gets legs in the media.

AlexanderA said:

This is the sort of thing that should be handled by statute, not in the state constitution. Constitutions should be economical documents, lest they get bogged down in too much detail.

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Too late for Alabama .... ours requires a 18 Wheeler Mack Truck to move around.

Y'all aren't from Alabama... Neither am I - but it's the closest I ever had to a home state growing up (and I left it more than fifty years ago to go in the service...).

Put simply, the folks that thought this up probably never intended to exclude anyone.... since there probably aren't a lot of those places of worship other than churches (at least that's how I remember it..) and probably not many at all outside of big cities (there are a few in 'bama...) and college towns...

Alabama is still a great place to raise a family - and in some parts of it , plenty of jobs available... Their politics are their own - lord bless 'em...

lemaymiami said:

Y'all aren't from Alabama... Neither am I - but it's the closest I ever had to a home state growing up (and I left it more than fifty years ago to go in the service...).

Put simply, the folks that thought this up probably never intended to exclude anyone.... since there probably aren't a lot of those places of worship other than churches (at least that's how I remember it..) and probably not many at all outside of big cities (there are a few in 'bama...) and college towns...

Alabama is still a great place to raise a family - and in some parts of it , plenty of jobs available... Their politics are their own - lord bless 'em...

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You brought a smile to my face. Yes, that's pretty much it. Where did you live when you were here?

If I’m not mistaken, a few mega-churches already have armed guards. So this isn’t really that new in the big picture. I also don’t see the big deal in this, if anything I think all places of worship should have armed guards. As long they stay in said place of worship.

When my family first moved to Huntsville we lived on Redstone Arsensal... I was 12 and it was 1960. When my Dad drew his first tour to Vietnam in 1965 we had to move into town... I still have family there that I visit when I can.

It’s a great town - but entirely too far from saltwater...

lemaymiami said:

When my family first moved to Huntsville we lived on Redstone Arsensal... I was 12 and it was 1960. When my Dad drew his first tour to Vietnam in 1965 we had to move into town... I still have family there that I visit when I can.

It’s a great town - but entirely too far from saltwater...

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I agree. My oldest sister's husband was the XO up there back in the day. They stayed there after he retired. Not a bad little town.

P5 Guy said:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a...-force/ar-AADbRd6?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

Where does the government get its authority to tell religious organization how to do security?

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Is the church request for armed security or for a private police force? The article describes it as private police. I'm not sure what the difference is under Alabama law but the article mentions a concern about the private police's discretion with regard to crimes -- I guess they could theoretically be pressured by the church to choose not to go to prosecutors with evidence of some crimes. State and Federal police do that too though.

labnoti said:

Is the church request for armed security or for a private police force? The article describes it as private police. I'm not sure what the difference is under Alabama law but the article mentions a concern about the private police's discretion with regard to crimes -- I guess they could theoretically be pressured by the church to choose not to go to prosecutors with evidence of some crimes. State and Federal police do that too though.

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That the problem. Its a poorly written article. There is no such things as a "private police force" in Alabama. They have been given authority to create an actual LEA. They will have power of arrest and function closer to what most think of as private security. This is going to give someone headaches, starting with ALEA\APOST.

The Law of Self Defense article discussing "highly-defensible property" in the OP is locked for people who don't pay Andrew Branca, so I don't know what point he's trying to make. My understanding of highly-defensible property is that it's like one's domicile or "castle" (as in castle-doctrine). In other words, churches could protect their *property* with a lower standard for the use of deadly force. Under present law, churches and business owners are allowed to protect their property with "force" but not necessarily deadly force if it is only property that is being criminally interfered with.

I'm a church person, but I have to say I'm a little skeptical of this while witholding judgment because I don't think I understand it. The use of deadly force in the protection of life is justified. That should cover churches with self-defense immunity that shoot someone trying to kill people in the church. Do they want to be able to shoot trespassers that are robbing idols or something? More likely they want to lower the standard for justifying an armed response to a violent incident. Do they just want to cover themselves with a wider margin into the grey area? It seems like their grasping for more freedom to use their guns than they would have at Walmart. Is this necessary?

Where does the notion of highly-defensible property come from? I think it comes from the idea that someone breaking into your house, burglarizing it, even if their only intention is to commit a property crime, should still be regarded as a lethal threat.

If someone is shoplifting a TV from Walmart, it doesn't seem justified to blow them away. If they're breaking into our living room to steal a TV, it does. The reason this seems justified is because they've violated our private domicile, giving a reasonable person sufficient cause to believe that they would also be willing to or have violated the security of our person.

Should church buildings be regarded that way?

I just looked at the date. Mr. Branca didn't mention, or probably realize, that this is from 2017. The 2019 regular session has ended, and since Governor Ivey didn't call a special session to debate this, and only this amendment, its deader than disco until the 2020 session. This is a feel good measure, either something Kiel thought would be really cool, or he thought might help him make a name for himself. For the time being, it doesn't exist as a proposed amendment.

Anytime any government agency wants to do something, I start to worry. When has the government done anything effectively? I don't like idea of the government having a say in what is a marriage is (like gay marriage). I don't support gay rights, I just think it's none of my business. I think marriage is a promise before God in a house of our lord. Let's keep the government out of our church, synagogue and temple. If you invite the government to legislate one ceremony (marriage) they will want to legislate them all. Let's keep our houses of religion a "No Go Zone" for government.

AlexanderA said:

This is the sort of thing that should be handled by statute, not in the state constitution. Constitutions should be economical documents, lest they get bogged down in too much detail.

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The AL Constitution is already longer than all the Harry Potter books combined in terms of word length. They missed the memo on not getting bogged down a long long time ago.

P5 Guy said:

Where does the government get its authority to tell religious organization how to do security?

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Best statement ever!

herrwalther said:

The AL Constitution is already longer than all the Harry Potter books combined in terms of word length. They missed the memo on not getting bogged down a long long time ago.

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The Alabama constitution is working exactly as designed. The whole point was to limit the ability of individual counties and cities to make changes to the laws without the consent of the rest of the state.

Think about the time period that this was created - we're less than 30 years after Reconstruction (post civil war) and moving firmly into the Jim Crow era. The length and process required to make even a minor change was a feature, not an error.

I think we can all agree that this is a poor structure for a state constitution, but it's a huge undertaking to replace it.