Many people in the neighboring state to the north are up in arms about gun-control laws the state government has proposed. There are those in the state of North Carolina who are just as concerned about what is being termed government overreach by the state of Virginia.

Those people are firmly dedicated to the preservation of the rights given the American people by the Second Amendment.

It’s always a hot-button issue. One of the reasons is because there’s little way of knowing if the Founding Fathers of 1791 (when it was ratified) would look at Second Amendment rights in the U.S. today and say, “No, that’s not what we were thinking” or “Yes, that’s exactly what we meant by the Second Amendment.” There’s only educated guesses, and that’s where Constitutional law steps in.

There’s another thing about law set up in the U.S. Constitution: it says state law doesn’t trump federal law. That fact is written right into that document, in the Supremacy Clause: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

It’s the same way in the state of North Carolina: local law doesn’t trump state law. Local governments can only do things the state government gives them authority to do. It’s a top-down situation.

When a county government believes it’s doing the right thing by declaring Beaufort County a “sanctuary county” for Second Amendment rights, that’s well within its rights. But when a county government declares it will instruct its employees not to enforce any law it believes infringes on Second Amendment rights, then that could equate to breaking the law, should North Carolina’s General Assembly pass gun control legislation that goes beyond federal law, or if the federal government passes gun-control laws more stringent than current law.

This week, when the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution declaring  the county a sanctuary county for Second Amendment rights, commissioners were encouraged to change some wording about prohibiting employees from enforcing “any unconstitutional actions of the state government,” replacing it instead with a declaration that those actions would be vigorously challenged in the courts.

It was the right thing to do, as every elected official is sworn to uphold the law, even ones they don’t agree with. And just as Second Amendment rights as they stand now were defined by the courts, so any challenge to those laws should be confined to the courts too.