The rising threat of 'gun sanctuaries'

When Shane Cox started manufacturing and selling unregistered short-barrel rifles and silencers in his Chanute, Kan., gun store roughly six years ago, he believed that the state’s new Second Amendment Protection Act shielded him from federal prosecution. So did his customer Jeremy Kettler, a veteran who bought one of Cox’s “Made in Kansas” suppressors. Kettler was so excited that he posted a video about the purchase on Facebook.

You’ve probably guessed what happened next: Cox and Kettler were soon convicted for federal gun violations. It is illegal to make and sell unregistered firearms and their accessories under federal law, and states can’t legally nullify national laws they don’t like. And yet, in 2013, Kansas legislators passed a law declaring that any federal gun-control laws did not apply to firearms, accessories, and ammunition manufactured and kept within the borders of the deeply red state. Cox even gave copies of that state law to his customers. Kettler later said he bought the unregistered silencer “because of a piece of paper signed by the governor saying it was legal.” He lambasted his state government for “setting up its citizens to be prosecuted by the United States of America.”

The nationwide rise of so-called Second Amendment sanctuary jurisdictions, where local governments pass ordinances vowing not to enforce state or federal gun-control laws, has quickened since then. More than 400 municipalities in 20 states, including at least one city in Maine, and a few in Vermont and Rhode Island, have declared themselves such sanctuaries. In Virginia — where a recent pro-gun rally drew thousands of Second Amendment advocates and fully armed militia to protest a strict new state gun law — more than 120 cities, towns, and counties enacted similar resolutions in a two-month period.

These ordinances, whose exact details vary widely from place to place, are by and large legally meaningless. Still, their growing numbers are a troubling development. These votes have the potential to confuse residents about their rights, deter those threatened by guns from using legal protections, and set up gun owners and local authorities for legal trouble.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-rising-threat-of-gun-sanctuaries/ar-BBZNRdF?ocid=msn360