Texas Considers Ways to Block Federal Gun Laws

We’re talking about bills that would allow Texas to ignore — and in some cases criminalize — enforcement of any new national gun control measures.

Bills that would exempt locally made firearms from any new restrictions and jail Texas policemen attempting to enforce federal gun laws were introduced last week before the state House Committee on Federalism and Fiscal Responsibility.

The proposals have support from people like Aubrey Vaughan with Pastors for the Second Amendment who testified in Austin last week.

“God has given us life, liberty and land,” Vaughan tells KTRH News. “And the only way you can protect that life, liberty and land nowadays is to be armed.”

Another proposal would block federal attempts to restrict sales of weapons manufactured and sold solely within the state.

Critics still argue federal law trumps any state or local effort.

“The supremacy clause in the state’s Constitution says the Constitution and laws pursuant thereof are supreme,” argues Tom Glass at the Libertarian Party of Texas.
“Nowhere in the Constitution does it say who is the final arbiter of Constitutional meaning.”

“We are going to decide it, and the federal government — including the United States Supreme Court — is not going to be able to overrule our independent judgment of what’s Constitutional and what’s not,” he says.

Some argue the feds have allowed states to legalize medical marijuana, why not guns? Vaughan says that clearly shows where Obama’s priorities are.

“He’d rather for you to be smoking dope than taking care of your personal responsibilities,” he says.