Second Amendment Sanctuaries Are Lawful and Right

Above, a map of New Mexico Second Amendment Sanctuary Counties and cities.

Several states this past year have seen Democrats passing unconstitutional gun control laws and finding themselves thwarted by counties in those states, including my home state of New Mexico, declaring themselves a "Second Amendment Sanctuary County".

Liberals cry that law enforcement in those counties have to enforce these laws (despite the fact that they started the "sanctuary movement" concerning illegal immigration) or face "the consequences".

Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America has an article in The Roanoke Times arguing that Second Amendment Sanctuary Counties are "lawful and right".

He begins with:

Pratt is senior vice president of Gun Owners of America. 

Those hostile to the Second Amendment rights of individuals to keep and bear arms are mischaracterizing the efforts of Virginians who urge local governments to pass “Second Amendment Sanctuary” resolutions. Critics falsely claim such policies openly defy state law. They do not. 

Sanctuary resolutions provide the most prudent and effective way for local officials to inform the newly elected General Assembly and the governor that if they rush forward to create new felony crimes to jail law-abiding Virginians — just for exercising their most fundamental and natural right of self-defense — then they cannot expect localities to enforce such unjust laws. 

The Second Amendment right of citizens to use firearms to defend their homes was recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010). Under Gov. Northam’s most current confiscation scheme, exercising that Constitutional right to home protection with a newly banned firearm would be a felony. 

Local officials take an oath to defend our federal and state Constitutions, both of which affirm our inalienable right to self-defense. Local officials have a duty to limit their actions to their constitutionally-granted powers to secure the common good. If the state passes an unjust law, criminalizing constitutionally-protected actions, then the state should not expect local governments to enforce them. 

It’s not resistance, but non-cooperation—a principle that runs through all levels of government dating from Colonial America. Refusal by a lower level of government to cooperate with an evil, unjust law imposed by a higher level of government, is a moral act that is sanctioned by our country’s history.

There is much more that Pratt writes.

To read more, go here.