Second Amendment Doesn't Allow Shooting Strangers at the Door
The Claim
It is legal to brandish weapons and shoot at door-to-door vaccination volunteers.
News posted on
Emerging story
On August 3, 2021, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke to the Alabama Federation of Republican Women. She discussed President Joe Biden’s door-to-door vaccination awareness program, saying: “Joe Biden wants to come talk to you guys. He's going to be sending one of his police state friends to your front door to knock on the door, take down your name, your address, your family members' names, your phone numbers, your cellphone numbers, probably ask for your Social Security number and whether you've taken the vaccine or not. Yeah, well, what they don't know is in the south we all love our Second Amendment rights. We're not real big on strangers showing up on our front door, are we? They might not like the welcome they get."
Discussion of her statement soon took off on social media.
Misbar’s Analysis
While the Second Amendment does say that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed,” it does not guarantee the right to “welcome” strangers at your door with a weapon.
Gun laws vary state to state. Alabama, where Greene gave her speech, is a state with castle doctrine laws. Castle doctrine laws state that people do not have a duty to retreat while defending their home against an intruder. Specifically, Alabama Code 1975, § 13A-3-23, says that a person may use deadly physical force if they reasonably believe that they or another person is in danger of kidnapping, assault, burglary, robbery, forcible rape, or forcible sodomy.
As we have discussed previously at Misbar, the door-to-door vaccination program is meant to spread awareness about the COVID-19 vaccine. It does not force people to receive the vaccine, thus does not qualify as presenting a danger of assault.
In criminal law, a reasonable person is a “hypothetical person in society who exercises average care, skill, and judgment in conduct and who serves as a comparative standard for determining liability.” It seems likely that a reasonable person would not find brandishing or shooting a weapon at a door-to-door awareness program volunteer to be an appropriate choice. Even if someone truly believed that the volunteers were going to forcibly enter their home to inject them with a dangerous vaccine, a reasonable person would likely realize that that is not the point of the program, has not happened to anyone, and will not happen to them. It would be the equivalent of someone shooting a door-to-door Jehovah’s witness because they believe proselytizing to be assault.
Those who do not wish to speak with door-to-door vaccination volunteers may simply choose not to open the door.
