West Lake Norman News

Second Amendment advocates should be cautious about adopting the word "sanctuary," as in part of the "gun sanctuary movement," because of how the word is interpreted, a Lincoln County GOP official said during a recent interview.

Lincoln County GOP Chairman Fred E. Jarrett Jr. told West Lake Norman News that "Second Amendment constitutional rights protection movement" would be a name better than "gun sanctuary movement."

Jarrett's suggestion came about a week after the left-leaning NC Policy Watch published an article entitled "Hiding from the Constitution and common sense: The so-called 'gun sanctuary' movement."

Lincoln County GOP Chairman Fred E. Jarrett Jr.

The Jan. 28 NC Policy Watch article maintained that "there is something fundamentally incongruous and just plain wrong about the idea of a 'gun sanctuary,'" saying that the word "sanctuary" is "clearly, a word of peace, freedom from violence and even sacredness."

The article goes on to say applying sanctuary to the gun sanctuary movement, which "seeks to defy the common good and even democratically enacted public laws for the purpose of making it easier to acquire and possess machines used to kill 100 Americans every day and 36,000 per year, borders on blasphemy.

"What's next – a national park dedicated to the preservation of toxic chemicals? A monument on the national mall that celebrates virulent diseases?" the article continued. "Sadly, though, as we’ve seen in so many other areas of 21st-Century discourse, the modern political far right has no shame when it comes to twisting and mangling basic concepts to abet its objectives (a phenomenon perhaps best exemplified on a daily basis by the laughable use of the phrase “fair and balanced” by the propaganda machine known as Fox News)."

The NC Policy Watch article is an opinion piece, Jarrett pointed out.

"People have opinions and an opinion is a mere view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge," Jarrett told West Lake Norman News. "That's my thought about the article, an opinion."

Jarrett says he also understands the article's opinion about the word "sanctuary" in the context of the so-called "gun sanctuary movement."

"I think I understand both views but I do believe in Second Amendment rights," he said. "The word 'sanctuary' does give me concern because the article stated that the Second Amendment sanctuary movement sends a dangerous message of lawlessness and violence, but what about sanctuary cities which are dangerous and constitutionally illegal? What signal do sanctuary cities send? Back to the word ‘sanctuary,’ how about replacing with Second Amendment constitutional rights protection movement?"