Small So. Cal town declares itself a second amendment "sanctuary"

That town is Needles, in the Mojave Desert area of the state's Inland Empire.  The Cal Matters report characterizes Needles as "550 miles and an entire political culture away from the state capital in Sacramento," and one theme of the story is the state's urbanormativity/metrocentricity.    The small city lies in the far eastern reaches of San Bernardino County, population 2 million (albeit with a very low population density given the 20K square miles the county covers), just across the state line from Mohave County, Arizona.  Here's an excerpt from the Cal Matters story, dateline July 15, 2019, by John Glionna:

Like many inland Californians, Needles residents say they’re held hostage by state legislators who are too liberal and want too much control over their lives. They gripe about strict gun laws they say trample their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

So [city councilman Tim] Terral fought back. He spearheaded a resolution, passed last week by the council, that declared Needles a “Second Amendment Sanctuary,” a place where both California gun owners and those visiting from out-of-state can expect lenient enforcement on Golden State’s rules governing, for example, ammunition and concealed carry permits. 

Needles Mayor Jeff Williams, a former San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputy, who himself carries a Glock 45 9 mm, is quoted:

When Sacramento passes a new law, they look to San Francisco and Los Angeles. They don’t come looking to small towns like us, and it’s time we made our opinions known. We realize changing state law is pretty far-fetched, but you’ve got to start somewhere, you’ve got to stand on principle.

I agree that urbanormativity pervades California politics, where just 2% of the population live in places that meet the US. Census Bureau's definition of rural.  Indeed, not even Needles, with a population of population 4,844, meets the Census Bureau's miserly threshold for rural. 

As for the Needles resolution,

Terral even chose wording to take a swipe at Democratic legislators in Sacramento, and in cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, who have declared “sanctuary” policies limiting the involvement of state and local law enforcement in the pursuit of undocumented immigrants targeted by the Trump Administration.

The story quotes Terral: 

With the gun resolution, I purposely chose the word ‘sanctuary’ to take a stab at all the liberals.  It was a little jab in the eyes.

As for many Needles residents, they "want to make it easier for interstate travelers who pull off U.S. Interstate 40 for food and fuel to avoid a felony arrest if a traffic stop produces a loaded but legally-registered gun from outside California."  Needles has lost half of its population since the 1960s, and some believe "restrictive gun laws are driving visitors — and their money — away from town."

As for laws related to guns and ammo, the local government is not the only action.

Assemblyman Jay Obernolte, a Republican representing the largely-rural 33rd District that includes Needles, supports the town’s gun sanctuary declaration. He plans to introduce a bill in December to give more local control to rural gun owners and allow for interstate reciprocity with firearms laws.

Obernolte's chief of staff is the source of just one of the other quotes that makes this story so rich and interesting.  It's well worth a read in its entirety and I commend Glionna's reporting.

Another recent post about Needles--this one about marijuana legalization from late 2018--is here.   I guess the common philosophy of both actions in Needles is libertarianism, another explicit theme of the Cal Matters report.