After the Texas Legislature failed to act this session to protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners, a growing number of Texas counties are declaring themselves Second Amendment “sanctuaries.”
In the past week, seven Texas counties, including Metroplex-area Kaufman, passed resolutions affirming citizens’ right to keep and bear arms, as protected by the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. The total is now 15, and more counties are set to join the list.
They are part of a nationwide movement demanding preservation of gun ownership rights against unconstitutional threats.
The declarations are designed to defend against threats of state and federal restrictions on law-abiding gun owners, from “red-flag” laws, which allow authorities to disregard due process and confiscate firearms from people the government deems dangerous, to sweeping gun-grabbing schemes from far-left Democrats like failed presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke.
The Second Amendment preservation resolutions also declare support for sheriffs in protecting gun owners’ rights.
“These resolutions are a strong, positive step forward in asserting the responsibility and authority of the county sheriff … in upholding constitutional rights,” said Gun Owners of America Texas Director Rachel Malone.
Though the measures lack force of law, conservative Texans have urged their county officials to pass the resolutions to demonstrate unified opposition to attacks on the Second Amendment—a sentiment the mostly Republican local officials have shared and turned into action.
In addition to Kaufman County, commissioners in Nolan, Stephens, Palo Pinto, Upshur, Montgomery, and Wood counties passed resolutions in the past week, joining Hudspeth, Edwards, Mitchell, Presidio, Hood, Parker, Smith, and Ellis counties.
Collin County may be next. With over a million residents, it would be the most populous county on the list, eclipsing Montgomery.
On Monday, County Judge Chris Hill said he and Precinct 3 Commissioner Darrell Hale will present a Second Amendment resolution at the next commissioners court meeting.
“Every elected official has already taken an oath to support the Constitution, so you’d think that would be enough,” Hill told the Collin County Republican Party executive committee, who were considering a resolution modeled after Kaufman’s. “But we know it’s not.”
Collin County Sheriff Jim Skinner said he agrees with the sentiment but not the necessity of the resolutions.
“I don’t need a proclamation to uphold my oath of office,” Skinner said.
Hill added that, ultimately, the question at stake for elected officials is who is going to be an oath keeper and who is going to be an oath breaker.
“I’m proud to be in a county that is going to be oath keepers,” he said.
Texans who want their elected officials to go on record as protecting citizens’ constitutional rights should contact their county commissioners court.
