Sunday, January 27, 2013

Virginia House Committee Passes Bill Preventing Enforcement Of Federal Gun Laws

By Susan Duclos

In response to Obama and liberal gun grabbers' push for gun control, gun and certain ammunition clip/magazine bans, Virginia's Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety voted overwhelmingly on a bill to prevent state officials from helping to enforce any new federal gun-control laws that might be passed.

The bill would “Prevent any agency, political subdivision, or employee of Virginia from assisting the Federal government of the United States in any investigation, prosecution, detention, arrest, search, or seizure, under the authority of any federal statute enacted, or Executive Order or regulation issued, after December 31, 2012, infringing the individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms by imposing new restrictions on private ownership or private transfer of firearms, firearm magazines, ammunition, or components thereof,” according to the measure’s official summary.

“This is really an assault on second amendment rights and it has nothing to do with gun safety,” Marshall said of federal legislation.

Recently Beaufort County, NC became the first in the nation to pass a Gun Law Nullification Resolution.

There are thirteen states, to date, introducing Second Amendment preservation  and firearm protection legislation, and Sheriffs across the country standing up and speaking out with some sending the Obama administration letters stating they will not enforce any new gun laws coming out of Washington in their counties, setting up a Tenth Amendment constitutional battle between state sovereignty and the federal government's overreach.

Tenth Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

State Sovereignty:

The supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power by which an independent state is governed and from which all specific political powers are derived; the intentional independence of a state, combined with the right and power of regulating its internal affairs without foreign interference.

Sovereignty is the power of a state to do everything necessary to govern itself, such as making, executing, and applying laws; imposing and collecting taxes; making war and peace; and forming treaties or engaging in commerce with foreign nations.

The individual states of the United States do not possess the powers of external sovereignty, such as the right to deport undesirable persons, but each does have certain attributes of internal sovereignty, such as the power to regulate the acquisition and transfer of property within its borders. The sovereignty of a state is determined with reference to the U.S. Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land.

Some states like Mississippi and Utah are specifically proposing legislation to "assert state sovereignty."