Posted on 01/15/2013 11:49:08 AM PST by ConservativeInPA
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.'
"It is our responsibility to push back when those laws are infringed by King Obama," Toth said.
Texas is the second state to propose a measure to shield the state from the impact of any gun possession restrictions imposed by Congress or by Presidential order. A similar measure was introduced in Wyoming last week.
Every state that can should go ahead and do this. It’s sad, but it’s simply time to re-assert our state rights.
I seem to remember during the Arizona immigration discussion that the federal government did not think that the states should be trying to enforce federal laws.
The states should tell then that they are on there own trying to enforce any new rules. Sorry, we can’t help you!
Texas rocks b@lls.
Nope. Texas is saying “Don’t even think about it.”
It’d be a good first step . . .
This will get very interesting.
They need to expand the law to include any supervisor who sends someone out to attempt to enforce those laws, all the way up the line.
A lot of rural sheriffs may not enforce the law, but you can just about guarantee that in any city where there is a liberal mayor, there will be a liberal chief of police who will.
Federalism bump for later....
It is in the best interests of the federal officials....
What’s the chance of this actually becoming law. I mean Joe Strauss is still in power isn’t he?
Our AG has promised to fight federal enforcement. So he’s our first line of legal resistance before legislation.
I wish we could do something like that in NM, but it’ll never happen. I’d also like to see laws written to jail overreaching EPA maggots.
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