After the initial excitement of my announcement about my attempts to seek public office began to wane I settled into the slog of trying to procure enough signatures to make the ballot in November.  That’s why, I must admit, I was a little jealous at the outpouring of support and pledges to sign on to a petition declaring our county a Second Amendment sanctuary area. I know it was just my Facebook feed but folks seemed genuinely committed to doing whatever it took to have their name joined with countless others in urging our commissioners to protect what they see as potential infringement on the right to bear arms. I decided to put my envy aside long enough to dig a little deeper into the sanctuary movement and also clue you in to my feelings about gun laws.

This past Monday, the Harnett County Commissioners voted 5-0 to make us a Second Amendment sanctuary by vowing to uphold both the United States and state constitutions. This puts us in line with over a dozen North Carolina counties and municipalities and that number is growing. Supporters of the move were pleased, according to the Daily Record, but some wanted even stronger language denying access to and use of county property by groups in favor of tightening gun control laws. I’m not sure denying usage of county services to those folks would hold up in court because of First Amendment issues so the commissioners probably got it about right with the wording. It also remains to be seen if this spate of recent ordinances will pass muster at all but if we are going to find out we probably need to look no further than our neighbors to the north where this all began anyway.

In January, Virginia seated their first Democrat-controlled legislature in 25 years and they decided to make tightening gun laws a priority. Some of the legislative initiatives required background checks for gun purchases while another limited the purchase of handguns to one per month. Before they had passed both houses and been signed into law by the governor, gun rights activists reacted in a major way. A previously scheduled gun rights gathering, oddly on the MLK holiday, swelled by thousands over its normal attendance as activists from around the country descended on Richmond. Concerns about violence prompted the governor to restrict certain areas around the capital as gun-free zones while other areas were filled with folks carrying long rifles wearing tactical gear. Thankfully, there was no violence and the sanctuary movement was born. 

As I explained to a friend at school the other day, I’m pretty ambivalent about gun laws. I think the fact that, with all of the sound and fury over the last two decades from both sides, there has been no appreciative change in gun laws. To me that means lots of money has been spent, bumper stickers sold, and friendships jeopardized for little difference in legislation. Something else being sold besides bumper stickers are guns. According to statistics, Americans own 40% of all guns in the world and there are 120 guns for every 100 people here. That’s a lot of firepower.

Now, unless you believe that an eight-year-old should be able to take a loaded 9 mm to school for show-and-tell we both agree that there must be some limits on weaponry. The degree of those limits is what’s debatable. Most of us also agree that the decisions on the degree of limitations of rights or their protections should typically be left up to duly elected representatives. That happened in Harnett County and it happened in Virginia. You may not like it but this is America so if you have a problem then say so. Just like they did in Virginia. And if you really want to see a change in how the government works, well I have a petition for you to sign.