NORTH VERNON, Ind.–A pledge to ignore the law is essentially what a Second Amendment Sanctuary declaration is, yet the sheriff of Jennings County and other law enforcement agencies have taken the pledge not to enforce what they see as anti-Second Amendment laws against law abiding gun owners.
“We kinda have been watching the stuff that’s going on in Virginia and I knew about the bill that was being introduce, Senate Bill 203, that was being introduced in our state,” said Sheriff Kenny Freeman.
In Virginia, 91 of 95 counties have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuary counties, with state legislators proposing bills that may violate the right to bear arms provision of the Constitution.
“The more that the Virginia counties started to declare sanctuaries, I figured we better get prepared and go ahead and make a statement and do that,” said Freeman, a first-year sheriff.
Freeman cited a bill written by Sen. Greg Taylor(D), that, among other provisions, would ban a gun magazine with a capacity of more than 10 rounds of ammo.
“I got everybody on board before we got this together because it wouldn’t have any teeth if I didn’t get my deputies on board and I didn’t have the city mayors here willing to say their law enforcement will do the same.”
Essentially, the sheriff authored a resolution that declares Jennings County a sanctuary county, and mayors in the county signed the paper pledging support. Freeman said he didn’t get any pushback from people in the county, though he did say he had some trouble with someone from Louisville.
“It gives the people an understanding from me that I support them more than some legislator that doesn’t live here,” he said.
Freeman said if his deputies were to stop someone who didn’t have a criminal background, who had a legal firearm that had a magazine deemed illegal by the proposed new law or any other, than that person would likely be told to go on his or her merry way.
“Almost 400 square miles, I’ve got three or four deputies on at a time, sometimes less than that, and we can’t get there from here sometimes in a timely manner and it might be a neighbor or somebody helping save somebody’s life.”
Some counties in Illinois have also declared themselves sanctuary counties, reacting to gun laws passed by the state legislature, largely by lawmakers from the Chicago area. The Indiana Senate bill that bans large-capacity magazines, will likely not be passed into law and may die in committee.