As a package of gun control measures makes its way through Virginia’s newly-Democratic legislature, gun rights activists around the South are turning to their county boards of commissioners to go on the record in opposition to gun control.
In Virginia, one sheriff has declared that he will deputize citizens and refuse to enforce any gun control law he deems unconstitutional. The view that county sheriffs can decide the constitutionality of a law has roots in white supremacy and dissent. Although there is little likelihood that the Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly will introduce gun control laws, citizens in counties like Davidson, Macon and Haywood have begun to introduce “Second Amendment sanctuary” resolutions.
These resolutions are mostly symbolic, as state law trumps local ordinances, but that does not seem to be stopping the movement, according to reporting from Smoky Mountain News’ Cory Vaillancourt. Host Frank Stasio talks with Vaillancourt and reporter Lisa Hagen, a Guns & America reporting fellow at WABE in Atlanta, about Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions around the South.
