STATE LEGISLATORS WANT TO NULLIFY FEDERAL GUN CONTROL.

• Author: Osterhoudt, John
• Position: GUNS

AS PRESIDENT JOE Biden takes executive action to strengthen federal gun laws, state legislators across the country are working to weaken their enforcement by emulating immigration activists.

Since 1987, Oregon has prohibited law enforcement agencies from arresting or detaining people whose only crime was entering or living in the U.S. illegally. Hundreds of other jurisdictions have followed suit, becoming so-called sanctuary cities.

"The methods that we need to use are the ones already being used by the left," says Anthony Sabatini, a Republican member of the Florida House of Representatives. "Nullifying unconstitutional federal laws is both legal and the right thing to do."

Sabatini is co-sponsoring a Florida bill that would bar state employees from enforcing or attempting to enforce any of several listed federal gun controls, including taxes, registrations, bans, and more. State employees who violate that prohibition would be permanently barred from working for Florida's government.

In April, Republican governors in Arizona, West Virginia, and Montana signed similar bills into law, while Arkansas' governor, also a Republican, vetoed a bill. Such measures have passed in the Alabama Senate, the Missouri House, and the South Carolina House as well as legislative committees in Texas, New Hampshire, and Louisiana. Bills also have been introduced in North Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota, Ohio, Nebraska, and Iowa.

Many states already defy federal law, through both immigration sanctuaries and marijuana legalization. "In terms of the method, it's identical," says Sabatini. Sanctuary cities have "stopped reporting to or dealing with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and that's basically what we're doing."

The legal case does not depend on the constitutionality of the law a state wants to nullify in this way. Under the anti-commandeering doctrine, a principle that has been upheld in five Supreme Court cases from 1842 to 2018, the federal government can't require state or local officials to participate in the enforcement of federal laws.

"We know this stuff has been working," says Michael Boldin, founder and executive director of the Tenth Amendment Center. "The right can continue to complain about the things that the left is successful at, or they can look at it, learn from it, and replicate it."

The right has been wary of embracing nullification, however. In March 2018, when the Trump administration was battling sanctuary cities, soon-to-be...