Some on the left are angry, if not apoplectic, that conservatives are turning the tables on them and co-opting one of their own tactics against liberal policies. But turnabout, as they say, is fair play: Self-styled “progressives,” it seems, aren’t the only ones who can unilaterally decide which laws they will or will not enforce and/or comply with.
Across the country, a growing number of county sheriffs and other law enforcement officials, as well as other city and county officials, are announcing their refusal to enforce unduly restrictive gun laws that they believe run afoul of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. They’re declaring their jurisdictions “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”
If liberal “sanctuary” cities, counties and even states defiantly refuse to cooperate fully with federal immigration laws with respect to the detention and deportation of illegal aliens, then their objections should fall on deaf ears when other towns, cities and counties won’t go along when liberal governors and Democrat-controlled legislatures enact strict gun-control measures.
Even in purple states such as Colorado and in blue ones, such as New Mexico and Illinois, dozens of counties are defying Democratic governors and legislatures and telling them they won’t aid and abet the would-be gun grabbers in their efforts to “unconstitutionally restrict” the right to bear arms.
Closer to home, at least 10 counties across the central Piedmont and Appalachian Southwest regions of Virginia have already embraced the Second Amendment sanctuary movement. Led by the outgoing chairman of its Board of Supervisors, conservative activist Corey Stewart, Prince William County in increasingly blue Northern Virginia is poised to join their ranks. Dozens of other Virginia counties are reportedly looking at adopting the resolution, model language for which was drafted and circulated by Philip Van Cleave of the Virginia Citizens Defense League.
– Washington Times editorial, Second Amendment Sanctuaries