Anti-vaxx leader who advocated drinking urine now says he doesn’t need a driver’s licence
The urine drinking "Vaccine Police" anti-vaxx influencer Christopher Key apparently does not believe he needs a driver's license, even though he's currently driving across the country.
Mr Key - who made headlines earlier in the month after advising his anti-vaxx followers to drink their own urine to combat Covid-19 - spoke withThe Daily Beast and revealed that he did not think licensure applied to him.
"I travel," he told the outlet, drawing an empty distinction between travel and driving. "My car is not a car. My car is a wagon, with wagon wheels."
He claimed that someone is only "driving" while they are engaged in commerce, a definition that is unlikely to fly if a police officer asks him for his license and registration.
Mr Key has been traveling around the country in a car covered in graphics - including a huge "Vaccine Police" label and another calling Covid a bio-weapon - on a mission to conduct citizen arrests of Democratic governors. Thus far he has been unsuccessful.
“The only people that need a driver’s license are truck drivers, Uber drivers, FedEx drivers, but if you understand your constitutional rights, you have the ‘life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,'” he told The Daily Beast.
Mr Key insists he is a "free man living on the land," and that as such, his driving without a license is "no crime."
The "Vaccine Police" evangelist's views are similar to those held by Sovereign Citizens, a name given to individuals who believe they are not subject to a huge swath of US laws and who often hold anti-government views.
Sovereign Citizens believe they have the "right to travel" under the US Constitution, which allows them to drive without licenses, license plates, vehicle registration or insurance.
Attorney Caesar Kalinowski IV, who confronted sovereign legal claims in the Montana Law Review, spoke with Car and Driver about similar "right to travel" claims by Sovereign Citizens.
"[The idea that] the federal government doesn't represent them, doesn't understand them, and is trying to reach down into their lives in ways it shouldn't be. The problem is, these people think they've figured out a way around that," he said.
He said that because the logic makes sense in their minds that they believe it will extend to their interactions with police, which rarely is the case.
"It's actually causing them to have more interaction with the government. More negative interactions because they think they've found a talismanic phrase they can utter and get them out of all trouble. It never works out that way," he said. "There's no case where a sovereign citizen's case has been upheld."
If Mr Key ever gets pulled over, it's unlikely his explanation of commerce driving versus traveling will clear him of hefty fines.
