Hours after Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed new “red-flag laws” that authorize law-enforcement officials to confiscate firearms from persons deemed a threat to public safety or themselves…the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners Tuesday evening passed a resolution declaring itself as a “constitutional county.”
The vote had been expected in response to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's new gun-control legislation, after Ottawa County Chair Joe Moss posted last week on his Facebook page that commissioners planned on passing the "Resolution to Protect Constitutional Freedom," Tuesday evening.
In the post Moss said, the resolution aims to “protect the individual freedoms of the people of Ottawa County…” including “freedom of speech, religion, and assembly, the right to keep and bear arms, and the right to due process.” Moss added that the vote meant the county would not “use any funds or resources’ to enforce the new laws.
The vote, however, is mostly a symbolic one, as officials say, the board does not have the legal authority to declare laws passed by the state as “unconstitutional.” Rather, it will be up to the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office to enforce the new red-flag laws; and in a statement, the prosecutor’s office said the declaration of being a constitutional county by the commission would not “impact the way it conducts business.”
