So your city or county has passed a resolution declaring it’s a “Second Amendment sanctuary.”
Now what?
The question is emerging across the commonwealth as gun rights groups successfully lobby localities large and small to vote on such resolutions declaring that officials there will not use public funds to in any way restrict rights granted by the Second Amendment.
It’s intended as a warning to the newly elected Democratic majority as they enter the General Assembly session: We don’t want stricter gun laws, and we dare you to pass them.
As the movement swept into Hampton Roads, Gloucester County’s Board of Supervisors passed such a resolution Tuesday — the same night hundreds of gun rights supporters crowded Virginia Beach City Hall to push for one. On Wednesday night more than 600 supporters flooded a Suffolk City Council meeting; a petition on the issue had more than 1,200 signatures, one speaker said. A vote is set later this month in York County, and Virginia Beach will likely take it up in January.
But do these resolutions have any teeth?
The short answer is: Not really. If local officials refuse to enforce the new state laws, they themselves would be breaking the law. Since most wouldn’t do that, the measure is really just symbolic.
Take Virginia Beach Sheriff Ken Stolle. He said he personally doesn’t believe the proposed gun control laws will work and wants Second Amendment rights to be protected. In fact, he was glad to have a gun on him in mid-November when he had to detain a burglar who attempted to break into his Great Neck home. The burglar was not armed and Stolle did not draw his weapon, an office spokeswoman said.
But it’s not up to him, Stolle said. He’ll follow whatever the law says, regardless of any resolution passed by the city.
“It’s a political effort more than anything else,” Stolle said. “Every sheriff should enforce the Constitution, but there’s a process for (determining what’s constitutional), and it’s not individual sheriffs. … There’s a process for taking these things to appeal through a court.”
___
Democrats promised sweeping gun control legislation when they take power in January, and Gov. Ralph Northam has proposed several bills that were previously defeated by a GOP-led legislature.
They include requiring background checks on all gun transactions, limiting handgun sales to one a month, a “red flag” law — allowing courts to temporarily take away someone’s firearms if they’re deemed a threat to themselves or others — letting localities regulate whether guns are allowed in government buildings, and more.
Senate Bill 16, which would prohibit the sale — and possession — of what lawmakers call “assault firearms” and magazines, has drawn particular ire among gun advocates who don’t want the government taking their guns.
Phillip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, which has been leading the statewide push, put it this way: Previous legislative attempts at putting restrictions on guns “were cherry bombs.”
“This is a nuclear bomb.”
The term “sanctuary cities” might remind some of similar efforts taken on the issue of immigration enforcement — cities that said they would not do the government’s bidding when it came to pursuing undocumented immigrants.
But there are key differences between those and the current situation, said Richard Schragger, a law professor at the University of Virginia. States and localities have the option to cooperate with federal immigration laws because the Constitution limits the ways the feds can force locals to enforce federal law.
But if a local official refuses to follow state law, that becomes more of a problem, he said.
Police officers do have discretion when it comes to certain laws. Little could be done legally, for example, in a situation where a cop pulls someone over and finds they have a gun they’re not allowed to have and decides not to do anything about it.
But local officials then open themselves up to contempt charges and police officers to individual liability, Schragger said. Say the officer doesn’t confiscate a gun that’s supposed to be under a new law, and then someone gets killed with the same weapon. The officer could become liable.
Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, said the association’s been fielding calls from police chiefs across the state, and she’s been advising them to inform citizens of the limitations of such resolutions.
“We need to respect that that is the separation of powers, the balance of powers,” she said. It’s up to the courts to decide what can pass constitutional muster.
“Our chief concern is citizens might think the passage of (a resolution) means the locality has enacted an authority to thwart a state law that someone thinks is unconstitutional,” she said. “These are statements of preference being made by localities.”
___
York-Poquoson Sheriff J.D. “Danny” Diggs compared the resolutions to municipalities’ annual legislative package that they send to the state, making clear what their priorities are. He’s in a group of sheriffs planning to release their own “declaration” of sorts, in support of the Second Amendment, which he believes would be infringed upon by some of the proposed bills.
He added that it would be “very difficult to enforce” new laws as they are currently proposed because he expects some would be unconstitutional and immediately challenged in the courts. When a noise ordinance in Virginia Beach was appealed in court, for example, he didn’t enforce a similar one on the books in York.
Nancy Guy, the Democratic delegate-elect in Virginia Beach’s 83rd House District, questioned the precedent these “sanctuary cities” would set.
“We would have chaos,” said Guy, who supports gun control measures put forth by her party.
She said the proposals are commonsense and not aimed at taking away people’s Second Amendment rights. She argues many have been passed in other states and helped reduce gun violence.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Mark Herring called the resolutions symbolic.
“It’s not clear what a second amendment sanctuary is, what its proponents are hoping to accomplish, or what authority they think they have to preemptively opt-out of gun safety laws, but if the Virginia Citizens Defense League is circulating it you can bet it’s a bad idea,” Charlotte Gomer said in an email. “If the General Assembly passes new gun safety laws, as Virginia voters demanded just a few weeks ago, we expect that everyone will follow the law and keep their citizens safe.”
Still, Van Cleave with the league said he’s hearing that many counties won’t enforce the new gun laws. He declined to name them. One sheriff, in Amelia County, told the Washington Post he wouldn’t seize guns under a law he views as unconstitutional, even on a judge’s orders.
Bill DeSteph, a Republican state senator representing Virginia Beach, said the proposed gun control laws are unconstitutional and he’s circulating a petition to protect Second Amendment rights against a “radical, liberal-controlled General Assembly.”
He also said the gun control bills proposed by Democrats have scared and upset gun owners.
Brooke Corson went with her husband and their two sons to the Suffolk council meeting Wednesday. A former Army drill sergeant, Corson said her family hunts and teaches their boys how to use guns safely.
“If we don’t stand up and defend our rights, then they’re going to disappear quickly,” she said.
Her 11-year-old son, Wyatt, agreed.
“If the second amendment falls, everything else does too,” he said. “Once you get the weapons of defense gone, everything else goes. History points that out.”
Staff writers Saleen Martin and Alissa Skelton contributed to this report.
