Despite all the platitudes about respecting the Second Amendment that he mouthed at the time, then-candidate Joe Biden told gun owners and gun rights’ groups all they needed to know when he told Beto “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15” O’Rouke that he would play a key role on gun policy in a Biden administration.
We have not seen Beto yet. But state lawmakers are not taking any chances.
At least five states so far have recently introduced bills that resist or thwart gun control imposed by Washington, according to the Tenth Amendment Center, or TAC.
In Florida, a House bill filed by GOP Rep. Kaylee Tuck would ban any person in Florida, including cops, from enforcing or attempting to enforce any past, present, or future federal “acts, laws, executive orders, administrative orders, court orders, rules, regulations, statutes or ordinances” that violate the Second Amendment.
That would include resisting the following when applied to firearms, gun accessories, ammunition, or owners: new taxes and fees; registration proposals; laws that prohibit possession, ownership, use, or transfer; laws that order their confiscation.
The TAC also reported on a proposal in Nebraska that would ban state and local enforcement of any federal gun control laws not already on the books that don’t have matching laws in the state.
GOP Sen. Steve Halloran’s measure also would prohibit state and local enforcement of any future gun control measures that have companion laws in Nebraska and would encourage gun-rights’ activists to work to repeal state-level gun control measures.
According to TAC, the Arizona House, by a 31-29 margin, passed a bill last week to ban state and local enforcement of federal gun control, “past, present and future.”
The measure, by Republican Rep. Leo Biasiucci, would prohibit state and local agencies from “using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the United States government that is inconsistent with any law” of the state of Arizona pertaining to the regulation of guns.
Republican Sen. Eric Tarr of West Virginia has proposed a bill that mirrors those in Nebraska and Arizona.
In Beto’s home state of Texas, meanwhile, GOP Rep. Matt Krause has offered a bill that would essentially make the state a “sanctuary state” for guns and their owners.
His bill would block state agencies and law enforcement officers from having any “contract with or in any other manner provide assistance to a federal agency or official with respect to the enforcement of a federal statute, order, rule, or regulation purporting to regulate a firearm, a firearm accessory, or firearm ammunition if the statute, order, rule, or regulation imposes a prohibition, restriction, or other regulation, such as a capacity or size limitation or a registration requirement, that does not exist under the laws of this state.”
Krause’s legislation also would prohibit state agencies from receiving grants that are conditioned on enforcing federal gun control regulations. Further, the bill crafts a process permitting Texans to file complaints with the attorney general if state agencies or law enforcement officers violate this policy, and require the attorney general to defend any state agency that is sued by the federal government for refusing to enforce federal gun laws.