While President Obama and some of his allies on Capitol Hill prepare for a major push on gun control legislation, state lawmakers are preparing to resist new federal restrictions.
Texas officials and sheriffs around the nation have announced they don’t intend to enforce any new gun laws and now there is a push in Wyoming specifically designed to protect gun owners in that state against any crackdowns on semi-automatic firearms or efforts to limit magazine capacity.
Wyoming State Rep. Kendell Kroeker is leading this charge. He says there is already a law on the books in his state that protects any firearm manufactured and possessed in the state from being subject to federal gun laws. His changes to that law offer residents even more protections.
“We extended that bill this year by adding a clause that said any future ban by the federal government that would put bans on semi-automatic rifles or magazine size would not be allowed to be enforced in Wyoming. We would have misdemeanor penalties for anyone who tried to enforce it, and we expanded it to apply to any gun that is owned in Wyoming and remains exclusively in the state of Wyoming,” said Kroeker, noting his proposal would remove the requirement that the guns be manufactured in the state.
Kroeker says he’s not sure how courts would rule if the Wyoming law were to conflict with a new gun control law from Washington, but he’s very confident which side the founding fathers would choose.
“People say that but the Constitution says that the Constitution itself is the supreme law of the land and the federal government can only pass laws that are in pursuance with the Constitution,” said Kroeker. “Because this is an intrastate matter and not interstate commerce we believe that there’s no authority for the federal government to impose their restrictions on us.”
Kroeker’s bill has passed the Wyoming House of Representatives but he says he’s not sure how an unpredictable state senate will vote on it. Kroeker says the public feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with 700 emails backing his changes to the law and just 13 opposing it.
Kroeker is very concerned about the way the gun debate is unfolding in Washington.
“We’re very concerned. I truly believe that Obama and Feinstein would go as far as they feel they could get away with as far as taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens,” said Kroeker.
The GOP lawmaker also urged Congress to resist the urge to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to guns. He says the issue should be left up to the 50 states to decide what’s best to the people of that state.