Marshall County Commissioners to consider resolution to designate the county as Second Amendment Sanctuary

Marshall County Commissioner Jesse Bohannon supports a constituent’s request to designate the county as a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” county. 

During Monday’s County Commission meeting, resident Don Nunemaker proposed that the commissioners adopt a resolution making Marshall County a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” county. 

Nunemaker told the commissioners, “Our constitution says the Second Amendment shall not be infringed, but yet, that is exactly what we have a lot of people doing.”   He said, “There are over 20,000 gun laws in the United States, all supposedly to improve security and what have you. Really, they don’t do anything except infringe upon the gun owners.”  He went on to say that most of the gun owners he knows are pretty ethical and wouldn’t do anything illegal. Nunamaker told the commissioner that the people you need to worry about are the criminals.

On April 5, 2021, Nunamaker approached the previous commissioners with this same request.  They studied it for a few weeks and decided not to move forward with the request.   

Nunamaker sent each commissioner a copy of the Kosciusko County “Second Amendment Sanctuary” resolution for review.

A Second Amendment sanctuary, also known as a gun sanctuary, is a state, county, or locality in the United States that has adopted laws or resolution to prohibit or impede the enforcement of specific gun control measures which are perceived to violate the Second Amendment, such as universal gun background checks, high capacity magazine bans, assault weapon bans, and red flag laws.  Although other jurisdictions had previously adopted legislation now characterized as creating Second Amendment sanctuaries, the Carroll County, Maryland Board of Commissioners is thought to be the first body to explicitly use the term "sanctuary" in its resolution on May 22, 2013.

Commissioner Jesse Bohannon said he has reviewed the Kosciusko County resolution and said, “I would be in favor of adopting identical language that Kosciusko County adopted.” Bohannon asked County Attorney Sean Surrisi to draft a resolution for Marshall County to present at their meeting on Monday, November 17^th.