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"It's not like you go around wearing it on your hip like the Wild Wild West," said Derek Easterling, the town's three-term mayor and self-described "retired Navy guy".

To Mayor Easterling's knowledge, and that of multiple local officials, there have been no prosecutions or arrests made for violating Article II, Sec 34-21, which came into law in 1982.

What researchers are doing is like “when you take a person’s temperature to see if they have a fever,” said David Easterling, a scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

“The whole globe has been the warmest it’s ever been,” at least in recorded history, said Easterling.

“We’ve said that feels punitive,” he said of the demand, noting that conference Bishop Latrelle Easterling was part of a national team that worked out the rules for congregational departures.