On Monday, Idaho’s House State Affairs Committee approved a Senate-passed measure to prevent the state from enforcing new President Joe Biden’s executive orders related to gun control.
The committee, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 12-2, voted to send the bill, called the Idaho Firearm and Firearm Accessories and Components Protection Act, to the full House. The legislation, as the Washington Examiner reports, would make state officials responsible for a $1,000 civil penalty should they enforce “any executive order, agency order, treaty, law, rule, or regulation of the United States government” that violates Idaho’s constitution, which explicitly guarantees the right to bear arms.
Regarding the right to bear arms, Idaho’s constitution states that “no law shall impose licensure, registration or special taxation on the ownership or possession of firearms or ammunition. Nor shall any law permit the confiscation of firearms, except those actually used in the commission of a felony.”
Idaho State Senator Steve Vick told the Examiner that the goal is to “prevent local law enforcement from enforcing unconstitutional gun laws that are unconstitutional at the state level. We have a little stronger constitutional amendment in our constitution than the Second Amendment. We’re trying to be proactive, not reactive.”
Vick also noted that this bill is an extension of a bill passed in 2014, saying that “[T]his added to the protections that we already had in place.”
The bill’s provisions would be retroactive to January 20th, when President Joe Biden took office. Since taking office, Biden has issued several executive orders in the area of firearms, such as tighter regulation of “ghost guns” and starting the process of clarifying whether a stabilizing brace would subject a firearm to certain regulations under the National Firearms Act.
It is unclear whether Republican Governor Brad Little supports the legislation, however Little has publicly condemned Biden’s executive actions when it comes to guns.
