Originally published at: New Hampshire State legislature votes on a bill to override all federal gun legislation | Boing Boing
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I guess that the ATF’ll score some easy busts; following people from New Hampshire gun shows back to the border.
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Oh, this is going to backfire on them SPECTACULARLY, and that’s assuming it even survives the likely Supreme Court challenge. Which, in this case, I’m pretty sure it will not. Because this isn’t a challenge of federal gun regulations, this is a challenge of the Supremacy Clause. Article VI was not decided on in the last 50 years, it’s a foundational part of the Constitution and clearly states federal law takes precedence over state law. That will not stand, even with the most conservative judges (because they damn well know it means blue states could ignore any law passed by a conservative congress and signed by a conservative president).
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I’m sure you can come to a reasonable compromise with conservatives. /s
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I’m not sure they think that far ahead. See also: Texas allowing suits for abortions being used as precedent for allowing suits for gun violence
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Folks: it’s a very serious problem when the state you live in demands that you ignore/break federal laws that bind you. Whaddya wanna bet NH kicks any and all liability down to the individual level if/when the feds fine and/or prosecute?
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Isn’t this essentially the same principle as compassionate cities that don’t have their police cooperate with federal immigration officers? And states that have legalized marijuana don’t have their police enforce the federal prohibition, but that doesn’t stop the feds from doing it themselves.
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Maybe, but I’m not sure I’d bet on it. The headline is a bit misleading. This law isn’t saying Federal gun laws are void in New Hampshire. It’s just saying that state government officials can’t help enforce them. The Federal Govt is still free it enforce them. In that sense, it’s essentially identical to sanctuary city laws passed when Trump was in office to prevent cooperation with immigration laws. Trump did take those laws to the Supreme Court, but they didn’t hear the case before Biden took over and he dropped the case.
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But hey, you can play some skeeball on the boardwalk and buy a bazooka in one quick trip!
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So nice of NH to supply the surrounding States with weapons/guns. /s
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So, Sanctuary Cities.
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Except that enforcing Federal immigration law was never traditionally among the laws we expected local beat cops to get involved with any more than enforcing Tax laws.
“You’ve got a big freaking gun that is illegal under Federal law” is one of those things we usually expect cops to take notice of.
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nope. there’s many problems with that comparison.
for the most part, there’s no definition of “sanctuary city” - it’s mostly branding, with few cities outright passing laws.
for those that did pass laws: it mostly pertained to limiting police cooperation with ice. and there’s no contradiction there with federal law. immigration is solely the domain of the federal government. ( no matter what abbott in texas says ) here: they are trying to override all federal laws with their own less restrictive laws
notably, also, cities are not states. states have many law enforcement agencies, cities have just one: their own local police. so this is many orders of magnitude different.
most importantly though: undocumented immigrants need to be able to talk to police without fear. they need to be able to report crime safely, and they need to be willing to be witnesses. you can’t have that if deportation hangs over their head.
there’s nothing similar here about gun laws. in fact, police will be in more danger with more guns floating around
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Are they using the loop hole that Texas worked out with banning abortions by allowing people to be vigilantes? Did Texas already break the constitution, by making the supremacy clause meaningless?
See Texas and their lack of action on their heinous abortion bill.
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Are they? That’s not how I read it. That’s what the headline says, but when I read the text of the law it appears to just be saying that state agencies can’t help enforce them. Setting aside the morality or ethics of this law’s goal, that would indeed make it nearly identical as a point of law to the sanctuary city laws that some cities have indeed passed.
In terms of impact, sure. In a legal sense, not really.
I’m not trying to argue for the morality of the NH law, nor against the sanctuary city laws. All I was saying is that from a legal standpoint they’re both equally likely to stand or be struck down, and it’s not at all clear to me that there’s a basis for either to be struck down.
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Wrong. This is not a challenge to the supremacy clause. It’s a straightforward application of the anti-commandeering doctrine, which is the same exact reason why Marijuana is legal in most states and undocumented immigrant sanctuary cities didn’t just have people being deported regardless.
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Yeah, this is a shitty application, but state law enforcement is not generally required to help enforce federal laws. The biggest potential issues arise from the overlap between state and federal purview, e.g. federally licensed gunsellers.
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We should be worried about states refusing to acknowledge parts of the constitution. If they ignore that federal law on this, they’ll do it on anything else, including basic human rights. 
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police have never had an obligation to help immigration authorities for the practical reasons i mentioned. police started to do so because of the gop, so some cities said: no, please go back to the way things were.
oto police and especially district attorneys offices ( at all levels of city, country, and state government ) have long coordinated with the feds on things that are actual felonies - this changes that
i get that on the surface people might see similarities between sanctuary cities and this law. it’s when you look under the hood that you can see they are not
when taken in context where conservatives are challenging the supremacy clause on many fronts, when they are trying to move civil rights decisions - like abortion - to the states ( so that they can remove those rights ) – yes, this is what it’s trying to do
i don’t know who’d even have standing to sue them. in that it seems similar to texas’s abortion vigilante law: an effort to disrupt the way law itself is handled. so yeah, ive no idea on the prospects either
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IIRC, this isn’t the first state to pass such a law. But for the most part, the STATE laws mirror current FEDERAL laws. So it doesn’t really make anything not legal Federally, legal in the state. However, if something like an Assault Weapon ban passed Federally, or some other law that the state doesn’t have on the books, then the state won’t help enforce it.
There are several states that also have laws that allow people to make or buy NFA items made WITHIN that state, that stay IN that state. (eg suppressors, short barreled rifles,etc). I am too tired to look up the specifics, but Kansas I know has a suppressor law like that, and pretty sure Montana has an almost anything goes law. Though I have not learned how prevalent it is. How many people are willing to do something when the state says it is OK, when it is illegal Federally, and the feds are zealously still enforcing the NFA.
These are similar to states allowing drugs to be sold within the state that are illegal federally. Or when states/cities say they won’t help enforce federal immigration laws. But the DEA isn’t actively going after state legal weed dispensaries.
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