This Idaho town becomes the newest ‘Second Amendment sanctuary city.’ What that means

That Idaho town, by the way, is Kuna, where on Tuesday night the city council voted unanimously in favor of declaring the community a Second Amendment Sanctuary and vowing to “oppose the enactment of any legislation that would infringe upon the rights of the people to keep and bear arms.”

In Kuna, the largely symbolic resolution says that the council will not “appropriate any funds for any enforcement of unconstitutional laws.”

“The people of Kuna, Idaho affirm support of the Kuna Police Department and, additionally, specifically to exercise sound discretion to not enforce against any citizen any unconstitutional laws” from the Idaho Legislature or the U.S. Congress, the resolution reads.

There’s every reason to believe that Second Amendment Sanctuaries will play a similar role in the next few years in response to anti-gun legislation, executive actions, and administrative orders from Democrats in Washington, D.C. That doesn’t mean that federal law won’t be enforced by federal agents, but they won’t be getting any help from the locals.

We’ve already seen hundreds of communities from Rhode Island to California adopt these Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions, including the vast majority of the state of Virginia, where I live. I suspect we’ll see hundreds more in the next few months, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some states even get on board. There’s already legislation that’s been introduced in Oklahoma to do that very thing, and Sen. Nathan Dahm doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s symbolic.

“Meaning that those cities, those states, those counties that enact this will not implement any unconstitutional gun control measures,” Dahm said.

Dahm said he is also considering language that would prevent police from enforcing gun control measures.

“A lot of how the feds try to implement these things is through local law enforcement, whether it’s county sheriffs, local police departments, and they try to attach funding to that to force those cities and counties to do that. So what we could do is make sure that those cities and counties don’t accept any federal funding to implement any gun control measures,” he said.

Again, I want to make clear that I’m not suggesting Second Amendment Sanctuaries are some sort of utopian device that will make all of our problems go away. They won’t. We still have to be engaged in the political and legal process. We still need to challenge bad laws in court and work to pass good laws in statehouses. None of that changes if you live in a Second Amendment Sanctuary, as I do. Legally, the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement puts the onus on the federal government and not local communities to enforce its laws. Politically, though, it sends a strong message of opposition and resistance to attacks on our individual rights, and one that is entirely in line with the history, tradition, and laws of this nation. Second Amendment Sanctuaries aren’t a perfect solution, but they’re still going to be a valuable tool in our kit going forward.