The Second Amendment Sanctuary movement is not going away.
It’s sweeping across the nation and represents one of the fastest growing grassroots movements in America over the last decade. Earlier this month, the Newton County, Missouri commission passed the “Second Amendment Preservation Act of Newton County Missouri. Part of the Act states:
…all federal acts, laws, orders, rules, and regulations passed by the federal government and specifically any Presidential Administration whether past, present, or future, which infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 23 of the Missouri Constitution shall be invalid in the county.
Daniel Horowitz of The Blaze observed the following details about the Act:
Specifically, the ordinance targets federal policies that order the tracking or registering of firearms or ammunition, an idea that Democrats have been floating recently. It also bars the enforcement of any effort to confiscate guns except from those who are ‘suspected criminals.’.
In addition, Horowitz noted that this sanctuary act is among the strongest in the nation:
The sanctuary movement has only recently come to the state of Missouri, with several counties recently declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries and the state legislature pushing similar bills. But Newton County might have adopted the strongest language in the entire country – going so far as to criminalize enforcement or cooperation with federal law enforcement who seek to enforce such policies.
Horowitz also showed how this act has actual teeth by giving sheriff’s the power to arrest federal agents who attempt to enforce unconstitutional gun control laws:
Specifically, section 4a of the Newton County ordinance grants the sheriff’s department ‘full authority to make an arrest of any and all federal agents that violate state laws and enforce regulations’ that violate the Second Amendment. Finally, the ordinance bars anyone ‘who enforces or attempts to enforce any of the infringements identified in this ordinance’ from ‘being hired as a law enforcement officer or to supervise law enforcement officers in the county.’
P. Gardner Goldsmith Is correct in observing that this act is in line with the spirit of the 1798 Kentucky Resolutions, which responded to the unconstitutional Alien and Sedition Acts during John Adam’s administration. Since the federal government is in Democrat hands and Republicans have been useless in passing pro-gun reforms, states and counties will have to embrace nullification as a check against federal overreach.