Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Sid Salter: Amid 2nd Amendment Sanctuary Movement, Court to Hear Gun Rights Case

  Taking an ironic cue from the “sanctuary” movement used by mostly liberal communities that decided to take stands against enforcement and implementation of federal and state immigration laws and policies with which they disagreed, the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement was born in recent years.

The original sanctuary community movement on the immigration issue held that cities or counties that declared themselves as “sanctuary cities” would simply decline to enforce immigration laws and policies or use public local tax dollars to be expended to enforce those same laws.

In the so-called Second Amendment Sanctuary movement, proponents take the same strategy on federal or state gun laws which local government officials believe are in violation of the Second Amendment. They adopt local resolutions or take other steps to declare that they will simply not recognize or enforce gun laws they believe violate the Second Amendment.

In 2020, Mississippi House Bill 753 sought entry into an intrastate compact with other Southern states to do just that. The bill died in committee, but to date more than a third of Mississippi counties have adopted some form of Second Amendment Sanctuary resolution.

Opponents of the movement say that local governments don’t have the authority to pick and choose which federal or state laws they will obey and enforce and that while “symbolic” they have no force of law. Proponents say by recognition and tacit acceptance of “sanctuary cities” on immigration, the federal government has in great measure legitimized the practice.

Legal scholars question whether the Second Amendment Sanctuary concept will withstand legal challenges.

Gun rights issues remain top of mind in Mississippi and other states in the South and the Midwest among pro-gun voters and among anti-gun voters on the East and West Coasts – clearly a highly partisan issue. In that highly charged political environment, the nation’s highest court is about to take the new supposedly conservative majority out for a legal spin on the issue of gun rights after another significant recent round of mass shootings across the nation.

The Supreme Court hasn’t spoken to gun rights since Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh took their seats on the nation’s highest court – and certainly not since Justice Amy Coney Barrett was appointed to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

The high court agreed last month to hear a substantial gun case from New York that would seem to take up the gun rights issue where the Heller case left off some 13 years ago. The new case under review will examine a New York law requiring people seeking a license to carry a weapon outside the home to show “proper cause” as to their need for the weapon.

In 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that gun rights did not inure only to those in a “well-regulated militia” as anti-gun forces argued but to individuals in their homes – which affirmed the pro-gun arguments in the case and overjoyed the National Rifle Association.

But the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia also wrote something else in the Heller decision that the NRA didn’t applaud: “Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

Scalia would also assert the belief that “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited” and that it is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Justice Coney Barrett was Scalia’s law clerk and shares many of his views.

Over the same period, Congress hasn’t passed substantial gun legislation since 1994, when a partial ban on making or possessing semiautomatic assault weapons was passed. Twenty years later, the law expired during the George W. Bush administration.

But Congress and the White House are now controlled by Democrats dedicated to enacting more restrictive gun laws. The stage is set for a highly partisan showdown on gun rights involving all three branches of the federal government.

 

 Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.

 

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 94 gun ban lasted 10 years, not 20.

Facebook Scholar said...

Who, exactly, besides himself, are these 'legal scholars' of whom Salter speaks. Names, please.

Additionally, who, specifically stopped the bill to join in concert with other states from exiting committee. Name names. Pull no punches. Assuming them to be 'legal scholars'.

Admitting that I'm not one of Sid's 'legal scholars', seems to me that Federal Precedent has been established when nothing is done about those states who refuse to cooperate with the enforcement of federal immigration law (re sanctuary). Of course it's not as if the feds intend to enforce those laws either.

Anonymous said...

@8:15AM
Sid is typical boomer bloviating about things he knows nothing about.
Next, Bill Crawford will inform us a out the benefits of MyPillow

Anonymous said...

Very little independent work product in his rhetoric, and who are his experts? This reads like someone on CNN/MSNBC/The View/etc.

Anonymous said...

Only government personnel can be trusted to operate weapons, vehicles, and rockets. We can't just have civilians owning rockets; too dangerous. Our police are highly trained, highly disciplined marksmen, ready to act and always on target.

Anonymous said...

let's just go ahead and form the "well regulated militias" our forefathers provided for in the constitution. We're going to need them soon enough.

Anonymous said...

When America recognized how foolish the 19th Amendment was they corrected it with the 21st Amendment. The 2nd Amendment can be just as easily rectified.

And BTW, it was the unforeseeable result of the 19th Amendment that the federal limitation on military weapons was enacted and continues to be strongly enforced.

Anonymous said...

"Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."

Yet, Scalia apparently did not visit the section of the Constitution which allows such, probably because there isn't one.

Anonymous said...

Sid, Sid, Sid. Your communist liberalism knows no bounds does it? Tell you what, when the federal government enforces immigration lawbreakers. Sanctuary city lawbreakers. BLM lawbreakers. Antifa lawbreakers. Criminal lawbreakers and then starts treating republican conservatives with the same laws they let Democratic communists break on a daily basis then just maybe people would consider some gun restrictions. But that will never happen now will it. Unless people tire of the crap going on in this country and start using force against force!!

Anonymous said...

"... the RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE ABRIDGED ..."

"...the RIGHT of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged."

"...the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged."

Anonymous said...

Gun owners like white people are in the minority, just wait for the census results.

Anonymous said...

@10:36

Did you forget the sarcasm font when stating, "Our police are highly trained, highly disciplined marksmen, ready to act and always on target."?

Anonymous said...

@10:36 and there always late to a crime. Telling people they need a reason to carry a firearm should be easy. Just look at what BLM members did today. Charged a restaurant and threatened patrons. And some were armed. Americans shouldn’t have to be murdered in the streets to appease liberal idiots.

Anonymous said...

There is nothing that can remove the 2nd Amendment. While the 2nd Amendment grants no rights it does perfectly state that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. For anyone who believes in the rule of law, there is no logical path to be “easily rectified.”

“Constitutional Rights” in the bill of rights are rights recognized, not granted. The ambiguity of attempting to infringe upon a recognized right by circumventing, in any way, the clause “shall not be infringed” would be too much for a nation built upon laws to bear.

There is no clearer message in The Constitution than shall not be infringed, yet we have allowed that to be severely infringed upon. Why would the founders choose such strong, fixed language?

Anonymous said...

The current SCOTUS is not conservative.

Anonymous said...

Could we use our firearms in Fondren to ward off the terrorist that roam the streets

Anonymous said...

I read that there are more water pistols and Nerf-Guns in The Fondren than actual firearms.


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