Anti-gun Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and his new Democrat majority in the General Assembly just got slapped by the “Second Amendment Sanctuary” movement because, as reported by CBS News, the City of Virginia Beach—scene of last year’s mass shooting that precipitated the Commonwealth’s new gun control push—adopted a resolution earlier this week declaring itself a “Second Amendment ‘constitutional’ city.”
According to CBS, “The Virginia Beach City Council, by a 6 to 4 vote, adopted a resolution Monday declaring itself a ‘Second Amendment Constitutional City’… Under the resolution, the city government will not use its resources to prosecute anti-gun laws, even though any state laws limiting gun use would supersede the local government’s authority.”
Last May 31, a man described as “a disgruntled employee” opened fire in a city building, killing 11 people. He also killed a 12th person outside the building. All but one of the victims was a city employee.
The shooting allowed Northam to dust off his previously-rejected gun control agenda, which was quickly ignored again by the then-Republican majority.
Then, with state elections last November, the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund “invested” $2.5 million to flip the legislature to Democrat control in order to push the gun control agenda. They even bragged about it at the Everytown website.
Immediately after the election, Democrats started talking about gun control, and the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement in Virginia was born. Sheriffs announced they would not enforce any of the new gun control laws, and into that mess stepped Democrat Congressman Don McEachin from Richmond, who suggested calling up the National Guard to enforce gun laws. While Dan Casey, writing at the Roanoke Times tried hard to dismiss the idea as an “ill-thought-out comment,” it was an outrage in the minds of Virginia gun owners, who recalled vividly the threat by former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
(Dave Workman photo)
The notion of using force to confiscate privately-held firearms cannot be dismissed out of hand, for that’s exactly what happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It took a federal lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association to bring a screeching halt to that unconstitutional gun grab, but gun rights advocates have not forgotten, and they sometimes remind anyone who will listen that it “can happen here because it did happen here.”
Northam and the Democrats now pushing gun control perhaps never expected what amounts to an insurrection. At least 85 counties have joined the “sanctuary” effort, despite the insistence of state Attorney General Mark Herring that the resolutions have no force of law. In this case, the symbolic sanctuary declarations have a powerful impact in the court of public opinion.
Now, with Virginia Beach essentially joining this effort, though there may be a semantics difference with the “Second Amendment Constitutional City” declaration, it’s unclear whether Northam or his anti-gun Democrat cronies can exploit last year’s shooting to further their agenda.
