Texas Proposal: JAIL Any Federal Officials Trying to Enforce New Gun Restrictions in the State
A Texas lawmaker says he plans to file the Firearms Protection Act, which would make any federal laws that may be passed by Congress or imposed by Presidential order which would ban or restrict ownership of semi-automatic firearms or limit the size of gun magazines illegal in the state, 1200 WOAI news reports.
Republican Rep. Steve Toth says his measure also calls for felony criminal charges to be filed against any federal official who tries to enforce the rule in the state.
“If a federal official comes into the state of Texas to enforce the federal executive order, that person is subject to criminal prosecution,” Toth told 1200 WOAI’s Joe Pags Tuesday. He says his bill would make attempting to enforce a federal gun ban in Texas punishable by a $50,000 fine and up to five years in prison.
Toth says he will file his measure after speaking with the state’s Republican Attorney General, Greg Abbott, who has already vowed to fight any federal measures which call for restrictions on weapons possession.
Toth concedes that he would welcome a legal fight over his proposals.
“At some point there needs to be a showdown between the states and the federal government over the Supremacy Clause,” he said.
The Supremacy Clause is the portion of the Constitution which declares that federal laws and statutes are ‘the supreme law of the land.’
That noted liberal Andrew Jackson had a very low opinion of this kind of thing. During the Nullification Crisis of the 1830s he had this to say to certain South Carolina nullifiers:
“…..Please give my compliments to my friends in your State and say to them, that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach.”
