States fire back on federal policy.

• Author: Griffin, Jonathan
• Position: TRENDS & TRANSITIONS - Brief article

On Jan. 16, President Obama outlined his federal firearms policy. Within 48 hours, nine states had introduced legislation prohibiting the enforcement, either by state or federal officials, of specified federal firearms laws. One month later, as of Feb. 26, 24 states had introduced similar bills.

The bills differ in structure, but the message is clear: state legislators want to control how they police their state's firearm activity without federal involvement.

Historically, state efforts to declare federal law unenforceable or to make enforcement of a federal law illegal (also known as "nullification") have been rejected in the U. S. Supreme Court.

In the 1958 decision in Cooper v. Aaron, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the previous federal decision regarding desegregation of schools was the law across all states. It ruled states were bound to uphold the federal law, regardless of...