Nullification is as American as apple pie. It dates back to 1798, when the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia supported resolutions that asserted the states’ right to stand against federal infringements on their powers. During the 1850s, Northern states resisted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. For Second Amendment activists attempting to roll back federal overreach on the right to bear arms, this strategy is slowly becoming an attractive option.

During the Obama Administration (2008-2016), Republicans in various state legislatures put forward dozens of nullification bills. By the end of his eight-year term, 22 states had 50 bills pushing back against encroachments on the Second Amendment and governors signed five bills into law taking on federal gun control.

◆ Idaho: In March 2014, Idaho became the first state to pass a prohibition on future federal gun control legislation when Governor Butch Otter signed S.1332. On paper, this law will keep state and local police from enforcing recently enacted gun control actions such as the Trump administration’s bump stock ban, on top of other future gun control coming from Washington, D.C. It should be noted that such legislation hinges on local and state support, so if it’s lacking in this regard, the bill will be effectively toothless.
   
◆ Indiana: Another way states have stepped up to challenge gun control is by introducing legislation that bans state enforcement of specific gun control measures that are currently on the books. For example, when Mike Pence was Governor of Indiana he signed a bill that “Repeals the prohibition against manufacturing, importing, selling, or possessing a sawed-off shotgun” in 2015.
 
◆ Tennessee: Other forms of gun control nullification include measures that prohibit state enforcement of all federal gun control, in the present and future. In 2015, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill into law that made a significant step toward nullifying numerous current and future gun control actions. This law bars the state from enacting or enforcing federal gun control measures that are in violation of the Tennessee state constitution. Scott Landreth of ShallNot.org suggests that “Things won’t change until the people use this new law to make them change.”
   
◆ Alaska: On the books since 2013, this Alaska law gives the state the power to nullify current and future gun control legislation. It sets the principle that no state or local entity can use any resources to “implement or aid in the implementation” of any federal measures that violate a “person's right, under the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to keep and bear arms.”
   
◆ Kansas: Kansas signed a similar piece of legislation – the 2nd Amendment Protection Act – in April 2013. Like the Alaska legislation, the Kansas law lays the foundation for a prohibition on state and local aid or participation in the enforcement of federal gun control actions. The legislation partly reads: “Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas.” In June 2015, a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit filed by the Brady Campaign, which challenged the constitutionality of the Kansas law. The judge argued that the lawsuit was “without merit.”

The election of Donald Trump changed the overall dynamic of the nullification movement. According to the Tenth Amendment Center – one of the leading organizations promoting nullification and other measures restoring states’ rights – the number of nullification bills introduced as well as the number of states pushing back fell by more than half.

The Inalienable Rights of an American Citizen

The work of the Founding Fathers, the Second Amendment is uniquely American. They were men who had to fight for their freedom from tyranny, and who intended that the means for that fight should never be taken away from American citizens.

Over the last two centuries, however, the United States and its people have sought to strike a balance between the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment and the mayhem created by guns wielded by unhinged individuals. In that balancing act, outrage and fear have been powerful forces pushing some Americans to call for more firearm laws in order to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, assassins and terrorists.

As this balancing act continues, it is worth remembering the unshakeable connection between American citizenship and the right to bear arms from an American once denied that right:

    “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pockets, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States." -  Frederick Douglass

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