Tucson, Ariz. city officials passed a resolution last week agreeing to ignore the state’s new “Second Amendment sanctuary” law that bans the enforcement of specific federal gun regulations during a city council meeting.
According to the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and the city council unanimously passed a resolution rejecting the state’s “Second Amendment sanctuary” status, declaring that “federal laws, orders and acts that regulate firearms in a manner that is consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution” will “remain in full force and effect” in Tucson “regardless of whether those laws, orders or acts are more restrictive or prohibitive than regulations established under the laws of this state.”
The city’s move comes in response to House Bill 2111, which “prohibits the state and political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the U.S. government that is inconsistent with any Arizona law regarding the regulation of firearms.” The controversial legislation was signed into law by Gov. Doug Ducey in April, effectively establishing Arizona as a “Second Amendment sanctuary” state.
Councilman Steve Kozachik, who introduced the local resolution in June, called the new Arizona law unconstitutional.
“Let them challenge us,” he told the Arizona Daily Star.
Prior to its passage, Sophia Carrillo, a volunteer with the gun-control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, told the Arizona Mirror that the group had delivered almost 2,500 signatures urging Ducey to reject the bill. “We want [Gov. Ducey] to know that his constituents don’t agree with this,” she said.
Ducey later told KTAR that the legislation protects an “enumerated right” that all Americans have under the Second Amendment in the United States Constitution.
“That (bill) has not changed anything,” he said. “That was a proactive law for what is possible to come out of the Biden administration.”
Arizona isn’t the only state to preemptively legislate against gun control laws likely to come out of President Joe Biden’s administration. Wisconsin, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Montana and others have passed similar “Second Amendment sanctuary” legislation.
After the lower chamber of Congress passed two separate gun control laws, H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446, earlier this year, President Biden announced in April several additional gun-control measures that will be enacted by the White House, including regulations on pistol braces, a proposed rule to help stop the growth of homemade “ghost gun” firearms and a federal model for state “red flag” laws.
Biden referred to gun violence as a “public health crisis” and said asserted that none of his regulations “in any way impinges on the Second Amendment.”
“Their phony argument suggesting that these are Second Amendment rights at stake for what we’re talking about, but no amendment to the Constitution is absolute,” Biden said. “You can’t yell fire in a crowded movie theater and call it freedom of speech.”
“The idea is just bizarre to suggest that some of the things we’re recommending are contrary to the Constitution,” he added.
