League City officials won't enforce potential federal gun measures

If the U.S. government bans any firearm, limits ammunition or takes other steps to infringe upon people's constitutional right to bear arms, League City officials won't enforce those federal measures, according to a new resolution.

League City City Council on Tuesday passed the resolution on a 7-1 vote with Councilman Dennis O'Keefe opposed.

The resolution was submitted by Councilwoman Heidi Thiess, a licensed firearms dealer.

"I wrote it, researched it, ran it by legal and got external input," Thiess said by phone Thursday. "I consulted with people at the state level."

In the resolution preamble - the "whereas" section - Thiess cites the second, ninth and 10th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Texas Constitution and League City residents' agreement that "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon by any government or organization, political or otherwise."

Under the resolution's terms, all League City agencies "are instructed to refuse requests or directives by federal agencies acting under unconstitutional powers ... that would infringe upon our residents' second, ninth and 10th amendment rights...."

While cities often pass resolutions that have no teeth, this isn't one of those, Thiess said. But the measure doesn't come into play until the federal government makes a move against League City residents, she said.

"That would include any type of forceable registration, confiscation, or infringement upon our Fourth Amendment rights against illegal search and seizure," she said. "Those items are a worst-case scenario. If (federal agencies) come in in force, we already have bigger problems."

Since there's no federal gun law the local police are required to enforce at this point, League City Police Chief Michael Kramm said the resolution's potential impact is a matter of speculation.

"I can't imagine any agent of the federal government ever coming into League City and trying to order my officers to collect people's firearms," he said.

It wouldn't play well, Kramm said, in a city that, at least in recent years, has had the state's highest percentage of concealed handgun license holders.

The resolution calls upon "state legislators and elected officials" to join with the city in affirming the rights of citizens under the Second Amendment.

Thiess, a Tea Party member whose biography on the city website describes her as "fiercely independent," was elected to City Council in November.

She said she has sent the resolution to other cities in Texas but declined to name them.

"I don't want to pull anyone into a media firestorm that they may not be prepared to go public with," she said by phone. "This is going to take a lot of strength of will. I'm not going to put them in a position of having to answer for it."

According to Thiess' bio page on the city website, "she enlisted in the U.S. Army as a 17-year-old college freshman and served simultaneously in the U.S. Reserves and ROTC until her graduation and commissioning."