CURRITUCK COUNTY, N.C. — Currituck County is the latest municipality to pass a resolution becoming a second amendment sanctuary.
The county’s Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a "Second Amendment Refuge" resolution on Tuesday night.
Commissioner Owen Etheridge introduced the resolution explaining that even though North Carolina hasn’t seen any gun control bills in its General Assembly, they want to get ahead of the issue, just in case.
“This is an election year in North Carolina and the General Assembly could change in its makeup, quite possibly,” Etheridge said. “If it does, we’re ahead of the game…I’ve always believed in being proactive and staking your claim out, first.”
Etheridge said his second amendment refuge resolution comes in response to encroaching gun control bills in the Virginia capitol.
RELATED: 'No legal effect' | Virginia AG Herring issues advisory opinion on 2nd Amendment Sanctuary Cities
“It’s like the old saying: How do you eat an elephant? You eat him one bit at a time because you can’t eat him in one bite. So you have to just nip away at things,” he said.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam said the gun control bills are designed to keep people safer. But Etheridge said it could lead to more wide-sweeping, all-encompassing gun control.
“It’s an insidious approach to it,” Etheridge said, explaining guns are built into the very culture of Currituck County. “If you look at the motto of Currituck County, it’s ‘sportsman paradise.’ How could we be a sportsman paradise if we didn’t have firearms? [The county] was built around duck hunting and water-fowling.”
Etheridge said his resolution is inspired by the Second Amendment Sanctuary cities popping up in municipalities across Hampton Roads and wider Virginia.