The Arizona Republic‘s Laurie Roberts thinks a statewide sanctuary bill for Arizona is just a bunch of kooky talk. It’s just an insane response to a non-threat. There’s nothing to worry about and no one wants to take away anyone’s guns.
And if the tables were turned, there would be no shortage of smirking columnists at the Virginian-Pilot or the Richmond Times Dispatch willing to argue exactly the same thing.
The whole thing is, of course, a hysterical overreaction to a phantom fear.
No president, no Congress – not even Leo Biasiucci and the Arizona Legislature, should they be so inclined (they aren’t) – can take away your Second Amendment right to bear arms.
The U.S. Supreme Court – assuming we in Arizona are still subject to the rulings of that august body – has ruled that our right to bear arms is protected. But in writing that landmark 2008 decision, the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted, “Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.”
“It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,” he wrote.
Except, apparently, in Arizona, if Rep. Biasiucci has anything to say about it.
“This bill sends a clear message to the federal government that if they try to pass any laws that challenge our 2nd Amendment rights and/or the Arizona Constitution, they will be null and void within the State of Arizona,” he said.
Our very own Declaration of Independence … from federal laws we don’t like.
– Laurie Roberts in Here comes the crazy: a bill allowing Arizona to ignore federal gun laws