“A gun-rights wave is swelling on R.I.’s western front: 6 communities are considering or have passed ‘Second Amendment sanctuary’ status.”
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HOPKINTON — It isn’t on the scale of revolutionaries burning a British tax ship, or even West Warwick’s secession from Warwick a century ago. But dissension is brewing in western Rhode Island over gun rights and the region’s resentment of Smith Hill urbanites.
Following the lead of jurisdictions in eight other states, a handful of Rhode Island’s rural communities are considering declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuary communities — places where the constitutional right to bear arms won’t be infringed no matter what state lawmakers pass this session.
Town officials say they’re employing the same kind of defiance as are “sanctuary cities” that pointedly oppose the federal government’s immigration crackdown, although Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions are largely symbolic.
Burrillville was the first town to pass such a resolution last month, and on Monday night in Hopkinton, the Town Council, in a tiny town hall packed with gun-rights advocates, voted 3 to 2 in favor of a similar resolution.
“The Second Amendment is not a suggestion. It’s guaranteed, like freedom of the press, freedom of assembly,” said council member Scott Bill Hirst. “We have a degree of arrogance from state leaders … and I’m going to proudly vote to defend the Second Amendment.”
His words brought cheers from the standing-room-only audience.
by Tom Mooney
