Bundy-backing Arizona Repub floats state bill to ignore Obama’s executive order on guns

An Arizona Republican lawmaker is pushing a bill that would allow the state to ignore any federal order it deems to be unconstitutional, the Arizona Republic reported.

"If you torture the Constitution enough, you will get it to say anything. And that's what we have today," said state Rep. Mark Finchem (R).

Finchem's proposal, House Bill 2024, would give the state the power to refuse to allocate any resources in support of presidential executive orders, Supreme Court decisions or federal policies that went into effect without congressional approval.

However, it does not specify how the state would determine whether any decision by the high court or executive order would be "is not in pursuance of the Constitution."

Finchem, a former police officer, said that his bill did not come in response to President Barack Obama's executive order tightening background checks on gun sales, but that he still opposed it.

"I think all of us who are responsible gun owners, responsible self-defense folks, want to see a safe world," he said. "But bad guys don't give a flying rip where they're going to get guns from. They'll steal them. They'll buy them out of the trunk of a car."

He was even more critical of the high court, telling the Arizona Capitol Times that he did not consider its decisions to be case law.

"The court can pass an opinion all day long," he said. "But until that opinion goes back to Congress and becomes an enactment, and is signed into law, a statute, by the president, it's not operable."

Finchem cited the court's decision legalizing same-sex marriage as one example, arguing that the government should not be involved in marriage at all.

"If the federal government wants to issue a gay marriage license, they're free to do that," Finchem said. "But it's not a state license."

The representative's Facebook page contains posts suggesting support for Ammon Bundy and the militant group that seized a federal building in Harvey County, Oregon, as well as disparaging not only Obama, but the Black Lives Matter movement, as seen below.