MILESFORTIS

Republican leaders vow to ‘protect’ gun rights for Missourians ahead of session

As legislators prepare to head back to Jefferson City this week, Republican lawmakers are making a point to reaffirm their aversion to taking up strong gun control legislation during the upcoming session.

Gov. Mike Parson held multiple meetings with a handful of metro area mayors this year as Kansas City and St. Louis, in particular, have grappled with an abundance of gun violence. Following a November meeting, news reports suggested the Republican governor agreed to back the mayors’ call for stronger gun control — among other things.

But in a one-pager published Saturday, Parson said he has not “supported restricting law abiding citizens’ right to bear arms.” Instead, Parson said the three big takeaways from his meetings with the metro area mayors centered on witness protection, mental health and substance abuse treatment, and “keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals.”

“I have never wavered in my support of the Second Amendment,” Parson said. “I firmly believe in protecting Missourians’ Second Amendment rights and will continue working with federal, state, local, and community partners to protect the citizens of our state. Over the past months, we have rolled up our sleeves, gotten to work, and identified the immediate actions we can take at the state level to keep Missouri citizens safe, while still protecting their Second Amendment rights.”

Missouri Republican Party executive director Jean Evans defended Parson on a recent episode of “This Week in Missouri Politics,” noting, “Saying everything is on the table is completely different than saying, ‘I’m for gun control or I want red flag laws or I want any of those other things.’”

House Speaker Elijah Haahr and Majority Floor Leader Rob Vescovo, too, have vowed not to support policies that “infringe” on the “Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Missouri citizens.”

“Our federal and state constitutions hold the rights of gun owners sacred,” Haahr told The Missouri Times. “I take those rights seriously, as do the members of my caucus. We look forward to upholding those rights in this 2020 legislative session.”

In a lengthy December Facebook post, Vescovo said “if heavy penalties that already exist” for murder and assault “don’t effectively deter” people from committing them, then “how will any new laws produce better results, especially if they’re little more than window dressing.”

“Both gun grabbing laws and red flag laws do not get to the root of the problem, which is that criminals will still find ways to obtain weapons with these policies in place. Instead, those policies will create additional hurdles for law-abiding citizens, while those who wish to do harm will continue to obtain stolen weapons on the black market,” Vescovo said.

Several bills have already been filed by Democrats in an effort to increase regulations and hamper gun violence throughout the state. Sen. Jill Schupp pre-filed legislation that would require passing a background check by a licensed firearms dealer before purchasing a firearm; Rep. LaKeySha Bosley is championing a proposal that would highly regulate the sale of ammunition, including by requiring dealers to keep records of those who purchase ammunition and require transactions to be done face-to-face.

The legislative session officially gets underway on Jan. 8.

VA County Addresses Its 2A Ordinance “Ordering” The Militia

Most of the 115 counties, cities, and towns in Virginia that have declared themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries have done so via a resolution, but a couple of counties have gone further by passing an actual ordinance.
Tazewell County, a beautiful and somewhat remote county (at least once you get off Interstate 81) in the Appalachian Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau, is full of Second Amendment supporters, and the county supervisors not only declared the county a sanctuary on December 3rd, it passed an ordinance “ordering” the militia in an attempt to prevent any lawfully owned firearms from being seized.

Since then, the county’s been fielding questions from residents, reporters, and others who are curious about what exactly that means. According to Southwest Virginia Today, the county’s been giving a “stock answer.”

That answer is “On Dec. 3rd, 2019, our Board of Supervisors chose to exercise some of its rights under the Virginia Constitution to order or regulate militia.  By insuring that our residents have the opportunity (1) to possess certain types of firearms, (2) to educate themselves on their use, (3) to learn common military practices, and (4) to learn basic survival skills, we hope to preserve a group of residents who could form a militia, were such a body needed.  Without these most basic elements our County would not have a group of persons from whom a militia could be drawn.  At the moment, however, the Board has not called any such militia to arms and prays that such moment never occurs.”

In other words, the ordering of the militia wasn’t necessarily meant to lead to thousands of residents drilling on the courthouse lawn, but to make the argument that, because virtually every law-abiding resident is a member of the county militia, they need access to the type of firearm most suited for use in defense of self and county; a semi-automatic rifle. Since SB 16 in Virginia currently is written to make continued possession of legally owned semi-automatic rifles a crime, this is an attempt to protect residents from the effects of the unconstitutional law.

Note, however, that the county reserves the right to call the militia to arms, though its statement doesn’t indicate what would trigger such a response.

As the paper in southwest Virginia points out, while Tazewell County may have been the first in the state to order the county’s militia, it likely won’t be the last.

Some counties that passed just the second amendment sanctuary bill are now considering following Tazewell County’s lead and calling for a militia.  A large crowd of Wythe County residents attended its December supervisors meeting to ask for a militia to be formed and many of the speakers carried copies of the Tazewell County ordinance.

Buchanan County passed both a second amendment sanctuary and a preservation ordinance at its December meeting. That board also requested its county attorney write Governor Northam a letter demanding he resign due to his stance on gun control and abortion.

They later held a called meeting and tabled the request for the letter until new board members office take office this month. They were also asked to consider a militia ordinance this month.

The Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions that have been passed by the vast majority of Virginia counties are the first step, not the last word in the movement. Despite tough talk from Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring, these counties don’t seem interested in backing down from their pro-Second Amendment stand.

This is How You Know That Virginia’s Second Amendment Sanctuary Movement Has Them Running Scared

This is how you can tell that the Virginia Second Amendment Sanctuary movement has them really rattled…the Washington Post pays enough attention to run drivel like this. First there’s the economic argument.

These crazy gun nuts are going to scare away all of the entrepreneurial lefties with cash — the kind of people we REALLY want here — who are fleeing New York, Illinois and California!

Then there’s the nauseating spectacle of likening the sanctuary movement — everyday citizens standing up to defend a constitutionally guaranteed civil right — to slavery and segregation.

[T]he anti-control fervor got its start in rural areas and then spread to wealthy suburban counties, including Henrico and Hanover near Richmond. “I think it reveals the deep cultural divide you have in Virginia,” political analyst Bob Holsworth told me.

The movement is dangerous, he added, because it could hurt the state economically as more high-tech firms consider moving in with more progressive-minded workers. Some may not want to locate in a gun-toting state. And it is certainly ugly, he said. “The threats that have come up are really over the top as people talk to officials,” Holsworth said.

A sad irony is that the “sanctuary” movement conjures the disturbing nullification movements of the past three centuries in Virginia. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison argued that the states have the right to ignore federal laws they consider unconstitutional.

That thinking was applied to proslavery movements, leading to the Civil War and the fight over integration in the 1950s and 1960s. Prince Edward County, for instance, shut down public schools for several years rather than desegregate.

– By Peter Galuszka in The disturbing ‘Second Amendment sanctuary’ trend in Virginia