Gun Sanctuary Guarantees Nothing
I live in a county (Yavapai, Arizona) whose governing board has joined the cultish movement declaring us a gun sanctuary.
The declaration is like that in 85 of 95 counties in Virginia – the home of the National Rifle Association. The supervisors (commissioners) here voted unanimously to become the second Arizona county to get on the band wagon after hundreds gathered in and outside the courthouse’s administrative offices to voice their support for the resolution.
A minority of speakers reminded the supervisors that we already have a Second Amendment and that no guarantee in the Constitution is absolute. But Prescott is home to a big gun factory (Ruger) and a whole bunch of folks who just love toting a weapon on their hips because they can.
No one seems to know what the new rule will mean: Will the county refuse to enforce a state anti-bump stock law? Will the sheriff (who is independently elected) be ordered not to arrest a guy with an automatic rifle? Will locals be told not to do background checks?
Should I send the county a Valentine reminding them that Justice Scalia wrote in D.C. v. Heller (2008) that Second Amendment rights, too, are limited?
While everyone here is wondering about the gun sanctuary, I suggest another sanctuary resolution. This would be in protection of the most “excepted” Amendment: The Fourth. Just think of all the ways law enforcers get around the necessity for a warrant, from “plain view” to “hot pursuit” to “motor vehicle” (for starters).
For those who say, “Well, that’s different,” that’s the reason given for every exception to all constitutional protections, from freedom of speech to free exercise of religion to whatever you might think up for not strictly adhering even to the Third Amendment (prohibiting the quartering of soldiers).
One would hope that resolutions about the Constitution would be more serious than, say, a declaration of Mother-in-Law’s Week.
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