It’s clear as day that a lot of the gun laws that are being debated now would totally infringe the second amendment it could be decades before the supreme court makes its mind up it’s silly to sit around and wait for something you know is unconstitutional
It’s time to stand up and fight back and the methods that we need to use are the ones already being used by the left in 1987 organ passed a law prohibiting state and local law enforcement from using public resources to arrest or detain people whose only crime was being in the country illegally
Since then hundreds of other jurisdictions have passed similar laws becoming what’s known as sanctuary cities there’s a new movement among conservative gun rights activists to employ the same strategy lawmakers have introduced bills in more than a dozen states that would nullify federal gun control laws on april 6 arizona governor doug ducey
Signed a gun control nullification bill into law montana and west virginia’s legislatures have each approved bills that are now awaiting signature or veto from their governors the arkansas senate and the missouri and south carolina houses have each passed such bills and committees in texas alabama and new hampshire have bills that are moving
Forward in their state legislatures and similar bills have been introduced in florida north carolina georgia minnesota ohio nebraska iowa and louisiana james madison in federalist 46 he told us what needs to be done by individuals cities and states to defeat federal programs without relying on the federal government to
Limit itself he said specifically a refusal to cooperate with the officers of the union this is how you defeat the feds whether it’s an unconstitutional act or if you just don’t like the policy michael bolden is the founder and executive director of the 10th amendment center based in los angeles he studies and
Advocates for nullification of all kinds of federal overreach we know this stuff has been working and the right can continue to complain about the things that the left is successful at or they can look at it learn from it and replicate it i think the strategy is there the
Strategies no it’s just time to execute florida state representative anthony sabatini is a co-sponsor of house bill 1205 otherwise known as the second amendment preservation act it prohibits any employee of the state of florida from enforcing or attempting to enforce any federal act law executive order administrative order court order
Rule regulation statute or ordinance infringing on the right to keep and bear arms as insured by the second amendment if the bill passes any state employee that assists in enforcing federal gun control laws would be permanently terminated defying federal law is something that the majority of states already do in one
Way or another in the form of becoming immigration sanctuaries or through the legalization and decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs well in terms of the method it’s identical what you’re doing is basically saying we as a state are not going to do anything to assist in the enforcement of this unconstitutional law
So in that sense the method is exactly the same with marijuana certain drug laws basically they just stood down and they stopped cooperating and what you saw was sanctuary cities was the same thing they stopped reporting to and dealing with ice and that’s basically what we’re doing
The federal government is so big today that it can’t enforce pretty much anything without the help of state and local law enforcement state agencies and the like and when you opt out of enforcement it renders that nearly impossible to enforce the atf only has about 5 500 employees for the whole country
About a third of them are in administration and that means they don’t have the manpower or resources to enforce federal gun control on their own their maximum capacity year in and year out is between 8 and 10 000 close cases so if you get a combination
Of more than 10 000 people violating a federal act and then on top of it you have states and local communities refusing to participate in enforcement you’ve then opened the door to actually nullify that federal act in practice and effect bolden says that the legal case for nullification doesn’t
Depend on the constitutionality of the law that a state wants to nullify thanks to a legal doctrine known as anti-commandeering which has been upheld in five supreme court cases stretching from 1842 to 2018 it states that the federal government can’t require states and localities to participate in the enforcement of federal laws
Talking about constitutionality actually does kind of get in the way of anti-commandeering because you don’t actually have to address the constitutionality of something to say you’re not going to participate a lot of people like that as a line in the sand and i think that’s a good approach but i
Don’t think they should be helping enforce federal gun control even if a federal court says this federal gun control measure is constitutional in march of 2018 when the trump administration was fighting with local officials over the enforcement of federal immigration laws john bolton challenged the concept of nullification in an
Interview with breitbart news daily the idea that law enforcement at lower levels shouldn’t be required to cooperate with the feds is just unthinkable that was also proposed by south carolina senator john c calhoun before the civil war say that south carolina and other other slave states would not enforce federal law on
Regarding slavery people will use that line if they just don’t like the policy and of course some people will just fall in line say well that’s evil and racist but the bottom line is nullification as a tool banning participation in federal enforcement was actually a tool of the anti-slavery abolitionist north
And when south carolina seceded and same with georgia and mississippi and i think texas as well they issued a document to explain their rationale and they specifically cited northern nullification of the federal fugitive slave act sabatini says the nullification bill he’s sponsoring is popular among voters which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s
Likely to pass i know that at the grassroots level throughout the state of florida this is one of the most popular bills filed in the session this year if not the most popular bill but you really never know what the chances are in the legislature in other states law enforcement groups like the
Sheriff’s associations in montana wyoming and missouri have worked to prevent these laws from passing or to change language in the bills to render them effectively useless bolton says police departments want to continue enforcing federal law because it’s lucrative in missouri one of the biggest reasons that sheriff’s association is against it is they
Want to be able to use federal gun charges as leverage for marijuana violations or other drug war issues and so if you get caught by cops and you’ve got a gun they’re going to say you know turn over your friends or you’re going to get an
Extra five or an extra two or an extra 10 years under a federal gun charge and they want to be able to continue that they get all kinds of funding for the joint task forces through the department of homeland security grant the edward byrne justice assistance grant they get civil
Asset forfeiture i think that is probably getting in the way i don’t think they’ll admit that like they’re getting a bunch of loot to do this federal enforcement for them but they certainly are bolden says that for the nullification movement to succeed against gun control laws and beyond
More americans will have to recognize that the most effective way to oppose federal policies that violate their rights is at the local level the whole idea of federalism is so important because it’s the only way you can have a country with a few hundred million people living together with a wide range of
Social economic political viewpoints together in peace what’s right for people in california is probably not right for people in south carolina and vice versa and when we see things that come down from a one-size-fits-all centralized solution i don’t think anyone really ever gets what they want
And that’s why this kind of movement i think is so important when you reject a federal centralized approach and you start taking your own view locally or on a state level we see how things can grow and that’s exactly what’s happened now with 36 states define washington dc
On a plant and i think we can replicate that on other issues and learn that localism is really the way forward for liberty
