Taking a page from the liberal playbook on illegal aliens, several blue-state counties are declaring themselves to be "Second Amendment sanctuaries" where they refuse to enforce gun laws they feel infringe on a citizen's Second Amendment rights.

Organizers of the pro-gun sanctuaries admit they took the idea from liberals who have created immigration sanctuaries across the United States where local officials defy the Trump administration's efforts to enforce tougher immigration laws. Now local conservatives are rebelling against majority Democratic rule in the states. Elected sheriffs and county commissioners say they might allow some people deemed to be threats under "red flag" laws to keep their firearms. In states where the legal age for gun ownership is raised to 21, authorities in some jurisdictions could refuse to confiscate guns from 18- to 20-year-olds. Democrats took control of state governments or widened leads in legislative chambers last November, then followed through on promises to enact gun control in response to an epidemic of mass shootings in public spaces, religious sites and schools. Resistance to those laws is complicating Democratic efforts to enact gun control in Washington, Oregon, New Mexico and Illinois, even though the party holds the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature in all four states. The sanctuary movement is exposing the rift between rural and urban America as much as the one between the Republican and Democratic parties, as small, conservative counties push back against statewide edicts passed by big-city politicians.

Can counties pick and choose which gun control laws to enforce? The courts will decide that. But I think we're talking about apples and oranges when looking at lack of enforcement of federal immigration law and ignoring state gun control statutes.

Sanctuary cities have been granted wide latitude by the courts to determine how they enforce federal immigration law — specifically, whether they should be forced to put a "hold" on illegal aliens who commit a crime and keep them until federal authorities can take them into custody. Courts have ruled that requiring cities and states to comply with a federal "hold" on an illegal alien is an intrusion by the federal government into local law enforcement.

But a state law banning sales of guns to anyone under 21, or allowing some people to own firearms who the state says cannot, is a different matter. The Constitution granted states full authority to legislate things like public safety, and it's not clear what legal justification the sheriffs can use to defy the law. State legislatures have every right to "intrude" in local law enforcement matters, so the basis of a legal theory that says otherwise remains hidden.

While the idea has a nice symbiosis with sanctuary cities, I doubt whether the actions by counties will hold up in court.