States have no legal duty to enforce federal law, and so refusing to do is a right unquestionably held by the state.
Isn't that the argument that states made on the sanctuary issue. It also wouldn't prevent Federal authorities from carrying out Federal law. These are the types of questions we have a Supreme Court for.
Yeah but look at the states on legal marijuana for example: Without local leos doing most of the leg work and holding etc, the Feds simply don't have the man power to enforce their decrees.
I think that's the model going forward. Marijuana is still illegal on the federal level but multiple states ignore that and craft their own laws for legal usage. That will probably be the way forward in regards to guns; ignore the feds.
Its already been happening. But it does need to happen more. And I'm sure it will. Sheriff Bob Songer of Klickitat County WA, said in 2019 in response to a host of new laws passed mainly by Seattlites and Olympians while largely unpopular in the rest of the state: "...If they come to take your guns, I'll be standing beside you and I'll call in a bunch of people and deputize them. They are not gonna take your guns without due process. It will not happen on my watch. I will stand there with that individual citizen and prevent that from happening. And if need be, uh, it could get ugly." By "they" he was referring to state authorities here, but I've no doubt his position applies to federal authorities as well. He also said in a different instance but regarding the same issue, something to the effect of 'the governor and the state legislature are not my boss. The people that elected me are my boss.' In WA, according to our state constitution, he is correct. Its worth noting that while Sheriff Songer was one of the more vocal Sheriffs opposed to the new gun laws, eventually 3/4 of all the County Sheriffs in WA have by now made some sort of public pledge to refuse to enforce the new-ish (3 years old, now) laws within their local jurisdictions. Legislators in Olympia have, of course, made all sorts of noise about it, but not attempted to actually do anything about it. And really, what could they do?
Add to that many local leos that will actively hinder federal enforcement of locally unpopular laws like certain gun controls, and the feds task becomes even more unenforcible. And I would very much like to see local leos take this same approach on federal drugs laws...
Prolly an issue for another thread, but wth... I've long been a proponent of abolishing both the DEA and the ATF and allocating 100% of their manpower, resources and funding to other govt programs designed to help people rather than control them.
Hopefully Biden won't try to withhold federal dollars from gun sanctuary cities like Trump tried to with immigration sanctuary cities
Very good point, which means going forward states and local municipalities can ignore federal law without putting federal funds at risk. After all, there is now court precedence for it.
How many people are in the ATF and how many people are armed in these states that will ignore a federal ban, including the local government?
In my experience the majority of leos will co-operate with federal gun control schemes. You also do not even have a state ignoring any federal gun control laws at this time, so you're talking about basically a pipe dream. The ATF can loop in other branches to door kick for them... you get that right?
As of December 2019, ATF has 1,714 special agents stationed across 25 field divisions, hundreds of field and satellite offices, and overseas posts. https://www.atf.gov/careers/special-agents
