The so-called "Firearm Protection Act," is a proposed bill developed by Texas, Rep. Steve Toth. Toth announced the measures of the bill in an interview on Feb. 19, with NBC affiliate station, KXAN.
State lawmakers are taking what some may consider as drastic measures, to combat federally imposed gun regulations. Toth's bill will criminalize the state's police officers, in acting on federal orders to confiscate any federally banned firearms and ammunition magazines, from the state's citizens.
If the firearms and magazines are deemed by the federal government as unlawful to own, the State wants to disallow the federal mandates from being executed at the state level. Toth admitted that he expects opposition to the bill and a possible U.S. Supreme Court action.
President Barack Obama has proposed federal laws banning such weapons, but no such laws currently exist, Toth said. Toth's bill is set in motion as a preemptive measure to the proposed federal gun regulations. Toth's Firearm Protection Act moved to the House Committee on Federalism, on Feb. 19, 2013.
Toth's proposal would create a "Class A misdemeanor for police officers enforcing any new federal gun regulations. It also would establish cause for the state attorney general to sue anyone who seeks to enforce new federal gun regulations." It is one of several states-rights measures being offered by conservative state lawmakers nationwide in response to federal gun control proposals.
KXAN reports, "Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Collin County and the most senior lawmaker who stood in support of the proposal, said it could become law, if it's not demagogue as an anti-Obama bill."
Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott helped draft the bill, but the addendum of criminal penalties for police officers is cause for Abbott's office to distance itself from the proposal.
"The attorney general does not support a law that would provide any criminal penalties for police officers," said Daniel Hodge, Abbott's assistant.
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