Update: County Commissioners approved the motion to support the Second Amendment resolution.
NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Second amendment advocates succeeded in convincing New Hanover County Commissioners to consider a resolution that would symbolically affirm the County’s belief in the peoples’ right to bear arms.
Commissioners will vote on the resolution during Monday’s meeting, and if passed, it would require neither further action nor taxpayer funding.
“I feel like the second amendment is fundamental to any other amendment in the constitution,” Minta Clore, a local organizer for N.C. 2A Advocacy Group, said. “Without the Second, you can’t have any of the rest because you have no way to defend them.”
The N.C. 2A Advocacy Group works with localized grassroots efforts — like the one in New Hanover County — to lobby N.C. county commissions into passing “Second Amendment Sanctuary” resolutions in their areas.
To date, over 70 counties in N.C. have adopted Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions. The symbolic movement first appeared in the state’s western counties in 2019, then spread throughout the state in 2020.
The gun-rights group is reacting to what they say is a nationwide effort to curb Americans’ access to firearms: referencing the recent New York Attorney General lawsuit advocating for the dissolution of the National Rifle Association, as well as proposed “Red Flag” laws in N.C. and other states.
“I think it’s just a step in trying to strip our rights as American citizens and leave us defenseless, so that we can have a socialist, and eventually probably communist country here,” Clore said.
County Commissioner Rob Zapple said he considers this movement to be fueled by a political agenda that “has attracted a lot of more conservative people who are insistent that there is an assault on the Second Amendment, which to my knowledge, simply doesn’t exist.”
Zapple said the County Commission was approached by gun rights activists two months ago with the resolution, but that it never made it to the agenda. He said the County Commissioners told organizers that they were not interested in the idea.
“We don’t need a resolution on this. This is something we all sort of believe in, in New Hanover County,” Zapple said.
Clore said the County told her and the group that the appropriate materials were never received.
“They just sort of dismissed us,” she said.
After another round of lobbying, the 2A Advocacy Group recently convinced the County Commission to put the resolution to a vote. Zapple said Vice-Chair Patricia Kusek brought the resolution to the county manager, and asked that it be placed on the agenda.
Zapple called the resolution a waste of time, and noted that as an elected official, he always seeks to affirm the principles of the Constitution. Turning a specific component of it into a symbolic gesture, though, seems to him to be a misplaced use of energy, he said.
“It’s one of the ones where you just have to sit there and bite your lip as a reasonable person, and say, ‘Am I going to put more spotlights on this ridiculous exercise by voting no, than rather simply voting yes and moving on?’”
The New Hanover County Board of Commissioners meets Monday at 4 p.m. in room 301 of the county courthouse at 24 N. 3rd St.
