Last Updated on December 8, 2019
Tazewell County, Virginia passed a militia resolution, allowing all able bodied, law-abiding citizens to join the local militia and adding firearms training to public school curricula.
When Tazewell County, Virginia’s Board of Supervisors met on December 3 to consider joining the Commonwealth’s ever-growing list of Second Amendment sanctuaries, more than 200 local citizens packed the 189 seat board room.
The outpouring of support was massive, and the vote unanimous – but the board didn’t stop there.
Alongside the sanctuary resolution, the board unanimously passed a militia resolution, which at this time, appears to be unique to Tazewell County.
By virtue of the resolution, citizens of Tazewell County now comprise a de facto militia, ordered to arms by the Board of Supervisors, and legitimized by Article 1, Section 13, of the Constitution of Virginia, which reads:
‘That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.’
Additionally, the militia resolution calls for concealed weapons training for all eligible, law-abiding citizens of Tazewell County, and the addition of firearms training to public school curriculum.
The Tazewell resolution takes the constitutional backing and judicial authority of resistance to gun control and confiscation bills to the next level, and uses the language of the Constitution of Virginia to do exactly what it was meant to do in the first place; protect the rights of Virginians from big government.
According to the board, that’s the point. ‘The resolution is truly designed to allow us to hire lawyers to see that laws infringing on the Second Amendment never last any longer than it takes a court to remove them’, said board member Charlie Stacy, who is also an attorney.
County Administrator Eric Young elaborated, explaining that under the Constitution of Virginia, “counties, not the state, determine what types of arms may be carried in their territory and by whom.”
By invoking Article 1, Section 13, Tazewell County has sent a loud and clear message to anti-Second Amendment activists in Richmond.
