Texas Lawmaker Wants to Arrest Police for Enforcing Gun Control Laws
A Texas state representative says that a bill banning the enforcement of any new gun control laws is constitutional because it would only prosecute police and other state officials.
Fox News guest host Peter Johnson Jr. on Monday asked state Rep. Steve Toth (R) why his bill to moot any new federal assault weapons ban would not violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says that state laws are trumped by federal laws.
"This is not a nullification bill," Toth insisted. "We target a very specific portion of where the Obama administration's proposed legislation is infringing on our Second Amendment rights, and it only deals with those two things. For example, the size of a magazine and the type of weapon. We're very specific about it, and we're not going after federal officials. We're simply saying state officials within the state of Texas are are not allowed to violate our Second Amendment as it pertains to these two things."
"The way you eat an elephant is one bite at a time, and we're going to start first with state officials that are also dual -- a state official that acts both as a federal and state official," he added. "These are people that are county sheriffs and so on."
"Law enforcement officials in the state of Texas could be charged with a crime themselves if they enforced those federal provisions?" Johnson pressed.
"Correct," Toth agreed.
The Texas lawmaker argued that he had to act to protect law enforcement officials who had vowed not to enforce new gun control legislation because "they would be subject to prosecution" by the Justice Department.
"So, we had to protect them," he said.
A Public Policy Polling survey last month found that 49 percent of Texas voters supported a federal assault weapons ban, while 41 percent opposed it.
