Specifically, conservative-leaning people tend to view illegal immigrant sanctuary cities with disdain, even as they cheer the growing Second Amendment sanctuary movement. Conversely, liberal-leaners tend to reverse the views. Are both sides being inconsistent? Some people think so.
If I am going to be consistent, I have to declare that sanctuary locales are sad, and silly, and a bit wrong-headed.
I’m not exactly “conservative” or “liberal,” but I am a constitutionalist. I see it as the best option currently available, if we’d just use it. On that basis, immigration sanctuaries are wrong, and the entire country should be a Second Amendment sanctuary exactly as originally intended. That view is not inconsistent.
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution explicitly assigns the authority to regulate immigration to the federal government. While you might question the value of some of the specific laws, they are generally constitutional.
The Second Amendment explicitly forbids the government to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. Any law that restricts the rights of honest people to any weapon is unconstitutional, and therefore void.
Thus, the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written Constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.
— Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803)
Constitutionality — whether or or not a specific law is invalid — is a binary decision set. Yes/No. Thus, all laws restricting anything but the misuse of a firearm are unconstitutional.
Sadly, courts allowed an analog decision set to creep in: contrived levels of scrutiny nowhere to be found in the Constitution. The arguments became “Ok, the Constitution says we can’t do that, but it meant we can’t do it without a good reason.”
[expletive expurgated]
I oppose immigration sanctuaries because they are unconstitutional. I support Second Amendment sanctuaries because they are a tool against unconstitutional laws. They aren’t just taking back the Second Amendment, they’re taking back the Constitution.
They are taking back the rule of constitutional law, and they may be our last, best hope.