You would be hard-pressed to find a state redder and more pro-Trump than Wyoming, despite the presence of Rep. Liz Cheney in Congress.
So it seems fitting that Wyoming would be near the front of the line with a new law that purports to “protect” the Second Amendment. It’s literally in the name of the Second Amendment Protection Act signed last week by Republican Gov. Mark Gordon.
The law’s language forbids local or state officials from working to “enforce, administer or cooperate” with any federal law or regulation that “infringes on or impedes the free exercise of individual rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
Seems straightforward.
But a leader of a states’ rights organization argues the new law – which aligns Wyoming with Missouri, Arizona, and Montana in similar nullification efforts – fails to do what its proponents claim it will.
And all because of one word, wrote Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center in a recent blog post.
Boldin notes that the stated ban on Wyoming officials enforcing or cooperating with federal gun-control laws depends on such laws being declared “unconstitutional.”
The law, Boldin wrote, “actually bans the enforcement of no federal gun control whatsoever. … Telling government agents to stop enforcing ‘unconstitutional’ federal acts rather than specific federal acts ensures those agents will continue what they do today – defer to the courts and wait for the courts to declare an act unconstitutional before ending enforcement.”
In other words, nothing will change unless or until a court declares a federal law or rule unconstitutional – a maneuver that could take years of litigation with no guarantee of success.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. In that case the court ruled that a Washington, D.C., ban on pistols kept for home defense was unconstitutional.
While that seems a basic, commonsense proposition, the case took five years to reach the court, and then it was decided by a narrow 5-4 majority.
Meanwhile, D.C. residents still faced prosecution for violating the ban.
In his piece, Boldin argued some officials may go along with the spirit of the Second Amendment Protection Act. Yet so long as the word “unconstitutional” remains, the law remains problematic.
Proponents of Wyoming’s new law also noted that local prosecutors would readily go after law enforcement officials who violate the statute. But here, Boldin said, they again run into a wording issue. Such cops could only be punished if they “knowingly” violate the law. Consequences don’t exist if a prosecutor or jury believes cops made a good-faith effort to enforce other laws.
As Boldin put it, “No law enforcement officer will ever be convicted of violating [the law] if they just keep doing what they’re doing today – helping the ATF enforce federal gun control that the Supreme Court has not called ‘unconstitutional.’”
Bolding suggested revising the law to remove the words “unconstitutional” and “knowingly” would improve the statute. But a problem still remains.
Lawmakers are unlikely to revisit what they passed, believing their work is done, unless grassroots activists ramp up the pressure on them.
Thus, Wyoming offers a cautionary tale for other gun-friendly states, such as Florida.
As Boldin wrote, “Passage of [the law] has now made rejecting federal gun control far more difficult in Wyoming – and possibly in other states as well.”
“In other states, the grassroots needs to keep a watchful eye on grandstanding politicians who will try to use the Wyoming law as a template to pretend to protect the 2nd amendment while actually doing nothing in practice.”
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