By Michael F. Grace

Recently, towns and communities have taken up resolutions calling for their communities to be “Sanctuary Towns," meaning they can ignore any law passed by the state or federal government that they believe is an affront to their interpretation of The Second Amendment.

During the Andrew Jackson administration in the early 19th century, John C. Calhoun, the former vice president and standing senator from South Carolina, had a similar idea. Called nullification, it was one of the most pressing problems our young country faced. Nullification is the concept that states have the constitutional right to disobey any federal law they determine is an affront to their own sense of sovereignty.

Mr. Calhoun’s purpose was to stop the abolishment of slavery and to divide the Union. Luckily for our young Union, President Jackson, for all of his faults, believed in the Union and had an unlikely advocate in Daniel Webster. Senator Webster stood on the floor of the Senate in 1830 speaking on the importance of the Union and the Constitution and many give him credit for preventing the Civil War for 30 years. Mr. Webster also believed in the Union, and even more powerfully, they believed in the oath they swore to uphold the Constitution and to protect the Union.

It seems now that state Assemblyman Parker Space, along with several other misinformed individuals, believe they have the right to ignore dutifully passed state and federal laws designed to protect the population from harm by individuals who should not have access to deadly firearms.

What is so actually stunning in these recent developments is the total lack of understanding of the oath our elected representatives take swearing to uphold both the state and federal constitution that includes, “So help me God.” The law is the social compact that has made this experiment in democracy salient for over 240 years. This oath can not and should not be taken lightly regardless of how we feel about a certain president, elected official or a dutiful law passed by the representatives we, as the true government, send to do our bidding, enact. No community, district, state can decide for themselves that a given law or conceived law can be, and should be, disregarded because we happen to fear, justly or unjustly, the laws we live under. It is through the process of justice, however long it takes to align with the truth, that we, as the people abide.

These so-called sanctuary resolutions eat at the very heart of the compact that is the foundation of our Constitution. You cannot pick and choose which laws you want to obey because of your personal disdain for the law. In addition, resolution such as the one that Assembylman Space is championing are designed to stoke fear and animosity, division, and a blatant disregard for the law.

The Second Amendment is in no jeopardy of being abolished any time soon, in spite of the fear stoked by those who gain to benefit from such fear. There have been more than 10,000 attempts to amend the Constitution with only 27 successful Amendments passed. Two of which cancel each other out. The last Amendment was passed in 1992, 203 years after its introduction as one of the original 12. Stoking fear in our communities by our elected officials only serves to divide our communities, and our nation, serving the personal interest of the elected official who take up the mantle of fear to foster their own agendas.

We the people deserve much better from those who swear an oath to uphold the Constitutions of our state and our country. Don’t be swayed by those who seek to stoke fear as a means of keeping us divided and are disregarding their oath, especially our local elected representatives who seem bent on disregarding their oaths to the institutions we hold as the pillars of our democracy, from the very heart, our respect for the rule of law, that is The United States of America.

Michael F. Grace is a former Wall Street trader, investment banker, and chief compliance officer. More recently, he’s worked as an adjunct professor in economics and finance at William Paterson University and taught U.S. history at Hudson Catholic High School. In 2015, he ran for an assembly seat in the 24th Legislative District against Parker Space and Gail Phoebus.

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