Dump ideological posturing; get down to local business

Here we go again.

Last week, advocates for unrestricted gun rights urged commissioners to declare Yamhill County a Second Amendment sanctuary, free from enforcement of all local, state and federal firearms’ regulations.

The clearly unconstitutional resolution drew commission support only from Mary Starrett, whose brother heads Oregon Firearms Federation, self-described as “Oregon’s only no-compromise gun rights organization.”

The hearing resembled one held four years ago on the same issue.

That time, conservatives Allen Springer and Stan Primozich helped Starrett pass a narrower resolution. It was aimed at thwarting enforcement of a single state measure — Senate Bill 941, mandating background check requirements to private party firearm transfers.

The commissioners are facing many crucial issues over which they actually hold sway, and citizens are relying on them to address those issues. So it’s disheartening to see them sidetracked into aimless tilting at state and federal windmills.

The local campaign is part of a national movement pressed primarily by the Three Percenters militia and its equally extremist Oath Keepers bedfellow. That movement has won passage of state resolutions in supportive Idaho, Kansas and Alaska, and rural county resolutions in less-sympathetic Oregon, Washington, Illinois and New Mexico, where Democrats control the governorship and both legislative chambers.

The same forces promoted 2018 ballot measures in 10 rural Oregon counties and succeeded in passing eight.

The ballot measures purported to grant county sheriffs unilateral authority to “determine whether any law or regulation pertaining to the right to bear arms, or related rights, violates the U.S. or Oregon Constitution.” Ironically, that itself represents a clear violation of the Constitution, whose framers assigned legislation review to the judicial branch.

By their own admission, the militia forces bent on wiping American gun laws off the books are modeling their latest initiative on the immigration sanctuary movement, pioneered by Oregon. But Oregon’s immigration stance, which voters reaffirmed resoundingly in November, is vastly better grounded and much more narrowly framed.

Oregon’s immigration sanctuary declaration merely prevents area law enforcement agencies from using local resources on a job reserved for the nation’s 20,000 federal immigration agents.

It prohibits them from inquiring about immigration status or honoring non-binding detainer requests. But it makes no attempt to overturn federal immigration law, merely to limit local involvement in enforcement.

Locally, Springer hailed the county’s defiant 3-0 gun-law stance of 2015 by saying, “This speaks to the conservative bastion that Yamhill County still is, in a liberal state.” He went on to say, “We can work from that foothold and gain ground, and that’s really what they propose.”

Over the ensuing four years, however, a majority of voters sent a different kind of message, ousting Springer and Primozich while retaining Starrett.

Enough of this ideological nonsense from the dark corners of the fringes on either side. We have pressing local issues to address.