Local Government
County Supervisors approve ‘2nd Amendment Sanctuary’ designation
On a motion by outgoing Supervisor Tom Sayre, seconded by Archie Fox, by a unanimous 5-0 vote the Warren County Board of Supervisors Tuesday night approved a Resolution adding this community to a list statewide declaring itself a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary”. Tony Carter, absent for a family health situation, voted by remote electronic device to reach the unanimous consensus.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA1N-dKczdA[/embedyt]
However, exactly what that consensus designation might mean for the County legally if a variety of proposed gun control bills in the coming General Assembly session pass, remains to be seen.
The vote came after the board heard from an overflow crowd that packed Warren County High School’s 1,024-seat capacity auditorium for Tuesday night’s public hearing on the Republican-endorsed “2nd Amendment Sanctuary” request. Prevalent among attendees were “Guns Save Lives” stickers.
A large crowd, both from in and out of Warren County according to addresses given, was present for Tuesday’s 2nd Amendment Sanctuary County Resolution Public Hearing. And the public present was overwhelmingly in favor of County support of the designation. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini. Video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.
Of over 45 speakers only two spoke against the statewide initiative. At one point in the almost three-hour public hearing, Warren County Republican Committee Chairman Steve Kurtz read a message of support for the 2nd Amendment Sanctuary designation from first-term Sixth District U.S. Congressional successor to Robert Goodlatte, Ben Cline.
“Your God-given liberties can’t be taken by men,” Kurtz quoted Cline telling those assembled against proposed Democratic General Assembly Bills on a variety of gun control issues.
The first speaker against the 2nd Amendment “Sanctuary” initiative came after 19 pro-guns rights speakers. That speaker was Warren County Democratic Committee Chairman Steve Foreman. He urged caution to the board, warning that Warren County officials could once again be placing themselves in the position of creating a long-standing negative historical legacy involving “massive resistance” as in the 1960’s surrounding Civil Rights legislation mandating racial desegregation of public schools.
“Good!” one person in the crowd shouted.
“Go Home,” another suggested to Foreman.
While Foreman was frequently booed and hooted at for his dissension against the overwhelming majority consensus, not all present appeared to agree with that treatment of a dissenting opinion.
The public hearing’s first pro-2nd Amendment Sanctuary speakers were sisters Anna and Chloe. Both lauded the value of NRA gun skills competitions and gun training in their and their family’s lives.
Speaking five spots later, Kenneth Logan apologized for the crowd’s behavior toward Foreman’s dissenting opinion, drawing some scattered, polite applause from a segment of the crowd. Logan then requested the Warren County Supervisors to give him “a way out” of having to face a decision to become a criminal resister to gun control laws on the table of the coming General Assembly session.
It was a sentiment many present addressed, several stating they would become “felons” if proposed gun laws, including a ban on “assault firearms” are enacted. That decision will be made as a matter of conscience and political belief, they noted.
Other speakers called on armed Virginians, particularly those present, to become that “well-regulated militia” referenced in the 2nd Amendment “necessary to the security of a free State”. One such challenge aimed directly at the thousand-plus people in the auditorium drew a huge cheer.
The crowd was enthusiastic in support of this trio of guns rights advocates stance against what are perceived as obtrusive, pending gun laws in Virginia.
That passion appeared tied to a majority consensus that the new Virginia General Assembly House and Senate Democratic majorities, as well as their out-of-state allies, are out to subjugate Virginia, and eventually all of America into a culturally mongrel, anti-prayer-in-schools or public meeting, and now most alarmingly, an unarmed nation ripe for a takeover by a totalitarian political machine.
And rather from the political right as many on the political left currently appear to believe under way, the 2nd Amendment advocates who spoke characterize such a threat coming from a “liberal-socialist”, “Richmond, Northern Virginia, inside the D.C. Capitol beltway” and “George Soros-funded” political machine.
Of efforts to remove or limit possession of “assault firearms” or military-style rifles converted to semi-automatic (single trigger pull, single shot fired) status, along with other proposed gun control legislation, one speaker surrounded by flag-bearing companions told the crowd, “I’m here to tell you that will not happen, not on my watch. We will not tolerate or sit around while the tyrants in Richmond try to change our way of life …”
‘Not on our watch’ they told the crowd, drawing more cheers
His, among other such assertions were met by loud cheers.
Some speakers stressed the necessity of guns for self-defense against potential attackers and the criminal element they believe is coddled by the political left.
“Think of young women like me — no matter how I fought like they teach you… they could break me like a twig. The only equalizer I have is my gun,” Blue Mountain resident Sarah Faber said, drawing cheers.
However, despite that and other sometimes emotional recounts of encounters with suspicious people or criminals on their property where self-defense was at issue, it was the specter of a pending leftist totalitarian takeover of America that seemed the dominant theme of the public hearing speakers.
The other lone anti-sanctuary speaker was Tom Howarth. He said he believed the proposal before the supervisors was “unconstitutional” rather than a constitutional protection.
Of the aspect of having county sheriffs become actively involved in “Sanctuary” community resistance to potential state laws regarding gun control, Howarth observed, “Even sheriffs can’t say what’s constitutional, that’s for the courts to decide.”
Howarth called a move away from the established legal order of the nation, not a move toward democracy, but rather a move toward anarchy.
Howarth, whose presentation was met with silence, also warned against the all-or-nothing divisive level of political discourse, not only in the Warren County High School auditorium that evening, but in the nation at large.
“We’ve seen this movie before,” Howarth warned, citing the localized state “nullification” movement against legally-established laws in the 1850’s in the political run-up to the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Of the legal questions involved in that era culminating with the federal move to abolish slavery, Howarth noted those questions were answered “at the cost of 640,000 American lives”.
