Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

COURTLAND

The Southampton County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted on Monday night to become a “Second Amendment Sanctuary.” Before that, though, county administrator Mike Johnson told both the supervisors and the standing-room-only audience that the definition of the term refers to a locality that declares it won’t enforce any unconstitutional gun laws.

Southampton joins a growing list of Virginia localities — such as Appomattox, Campbell, Dinwiddie, Pittsylvania and Sussex counties — concerned by any efforts to curtail the second amendment of the constitution: “A well‐regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Last Thursday, according to a story in The Smithfield Times, the Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors was confronted with the same issue, but ultimately “decided to take the request under advisement.”

Johnson noted that Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, has stated “his party’s leaders will push for gun control measures in this year’s legislative session.”

County attorney Richard Railey told the paper on Tuesday that the statement which the supervisors support is “Purely a resolution, not an ordinance. It reaffirms our faith in the Second Amendment.”

The administrator also said the resolution is non-binding, adding that if the General Assembly were to legally adopt laws related to the aforementioned issue, they would stay in place unless a court were to declare them unconstitutional.

The issue was originally scheduled as a late-arriving one to the agenda. Supervisors Dr. Alan Edwards and Bruce Phillips had made the request of Johnson to add it. Dallas Jones, board chairman, moved the matter to the start of the meeting.

Johnson read the text of the resolution, which reads in part, “BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of Supervisors of Southampton County Virginia: That the Southampton County Board of Supervisors hereby declares Southampton County, Virginia, as a “Second Amendment Sanctuary,” and that the Southampton County Board of Supervisors hereby expresses its intent to uphold the Second Amendment rights of the citizens of Southampton County, Virginia, and that the Southampton County Board of Supervisors hereby expresses its intent that public funds of the county not be used to restrict the Second Amendment rights of the citizens of Southampton County, or to aid federal or state agencies in the restriction of said rights, and That the Southampton County Board of Supervisors hereby declares its intent to oppose any infringement on the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms using such legal means as may be expedient, including, without limitation, court action.”

The full text can read online at the county website, www.southamptoncounty.org.

Edwards made the motion to approve, and Phillips seconded it. Immediately after the members voiced their support, they were applauded by the audience.