Standing on the Brink of Insurrection and Treason
Update: Here’s an article from the New York Times on the Firearms Protection Act initiatives around the country. You didn’t really think this was Draz’s idea, did you? Link from Two Putt.
Well, the Tenthers are at it again. Steve Drazkowski offered H.F. 419 (the “Firearms Protection Act”) this week (joined by Tea Party doyenne Cindy Pugh, Tony Cornish, Michael Beard, Greg Davids and others). The bill would make it a crime in Minnesota for an agent or official of the federal government (think FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshall, U.S. District Court judge, etc.) to attempt to enforce any “new” federal gun law. It’s another famous one-pager from the Draz, but he’s serious. An ATF agent or a federal judge who violated Draz’s law could be fined $5,000 and imprisoned for five years.
Personally, I think the idea of a Minnesota law enforcement officer trying to arrest Chief U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis and haul him off in cuffs to be very funny. Perhaps we can get the Game Warden, Tony Cornish, to do it. He wears after all, a pair of baby-sized handcuffs on his lapel.
Really, though, it isn’t funny at all. In the words of President Andrew Jackson, it’s standing on the brink of insurrection and treason. South Carolina made it criminal for federal customs officials to collect customs duties in the 1830s. It almost touched off civil war (avoided because South Carolina backed down), which came, of course, thirty years later.
When another Tenther, Tom Emmer, was running for governor, I interviewed Professor Bill Green on the history of Tenth Amendment fervor. Here’s the video.
Kurt Bills wants Minnesota to print its own money; Tom Emmer want the State to be able to nullify any federal law, and the Draz wants to arrest federal judges. Modern-day Republicans are truly an amazing bunch of people.
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