This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.
- From diapering your pooch to shaving in the center of Main Street, here are some of the Magnolia State’s most bizarre laws.
“The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1902-1932.
It’s no secret that laws are passed to protect people from harm, keep chaos at a relative minimum, and hold everyone to the same societal standards.
So, when a crazy law comes around, something has to have happened. Right?
Bizarre Laws: Y’all Act Like You’ve Got Some Home Raisin’
Some of these laws should be considered common sense. But again, as Holmes said, “the life of the law has not been logic…”
So, someone, somewhere, did something so moronic that state and local tax dollars had to go into place to make sure that if it happened again, there would be grounds for punishment.
Strange and Funny Pet Laws in Mississippi
In Temperance, Mississippi, you can’t walk a dog without dressing it in diapers.
At first thought, one may imagine a little chihuahua or other pocket-sized pooch. Can one purchase a diaper for a Bull Mastiff? A Great Dane? A St. Bernard? Changing that diaper would be a nightmare. The way around it would be to fence in the backyard and hope for the best.
We’re trying to Keep Mississippi Beautiful, folks. Clean up after your pup.
It is illegal to sell cat meat in Mississippi.
This is a weird one. Again, I don’t know what happened to get this one on the books. But here’s the thing – in Mississippi, it is illegal to sell cat meat, but only Michigan, Virginia, California, Hawaii, New York, and Georgia expressly outlaw eating dogs and cats. And it wasn’t until the 2018 Farm Bill was signed into law by President Donald Trump that legislation outlawed the cat and dog meat trade in the United States.
Times might be tough, y’all, but not that tough.
Unexpected Public Behavior Laws in Mississippi
Do you remember being told, “Act like you got some sense?” Once again, someone fell short of the lower common denominators of social etiquette, therefore bringing about letters of the law to prohibit such behaviors.
In Tylertown, shaving in the center of Main Street is illegal.
Pardon me, but I have questions. Is it legal to shave while you drive? Can you shave in the center of 2nd Street? Is this relegated to facial shaving only? What event spurred this to become a law?
I’m not one to get into theories, but I sense that Big Barbershop is involved and didn’t like the hit on business. So, they lobbied the local reps and threatened with a botched high-and-tight if they didn’t get their way.
Driving around the town square in Oxford more than 100 times in a single session is illegal.
This makes at least some sense. Any strong neighborhood watch would report someone making rounds because to keep going on like that seems menacing. But why 100 times? Who sat there and counted the tours around the town square before saying, “Enough is enough?”
Mississippi drug stores can’t sell poison to children.
According to the 2020 Mississippi Code MS Code § 97-27-31 (2020), to sell poison to children is a misdemeanor. While this might seem like a commonsense measure, remember that sending a young child to the store with a list of what you needed was once common practice. Maybe rat poison was on a list, and a child got hurt.
In the mid-1990s, I remember going into a gas station with a list from my grandma that included her Camel Light 100 cigarettes. She’d wave through the window, and the guy would let me have them. That was probably frowned upon then, but it’s illegal now. This law probably came about similarly.
It is illegal to use profanity or profane stickers in public in Mississippi.
This one is not regularly enforced. Profane bumper stickers on cars are a routine occurrence.
There is also room for interpretation here. If two men loudly greet each other on the sidewalk with, “How the h**l are you?” has a crime been committed? And we’ve all seen bumper stickers where the artists were creative with their illustrations, but their meaning is apparent.
Unexpected Laws of Religious Engagement in Mississippi
It is illegal to be disruptive in church in Mississippi.
While this refers more to someone not hindering the practice of a religious service, it is a fun one to threaten the unruly kids with during the pastor’s third closing.
Atheists need not apply.
According to the Mississippi Constitution, Article 14, section 265, you can’t deny the existence of a Supreme Being and be elected to office. This means atheists can’t serve as representatives or senators.
While the First Amendment would trump this, Mississippi isn’t the only state with such a law. However, you may be hard-pressed to find an atheistic elected official anyway, or at least an openly atheistic one.
This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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