Colo. sheriff refuses to enforce gun-control bills

http://news.yahoo.com/colo-sheriff-refuses-enforce-gun-control-bills-024608155.html

I'm heading out the door, so no commentary from myself, but this popped up on the Yahoo front page and I thought it was worthy of discussion.

Nullification: It's a beautiful thing.

What an asshole.

Lots of really dumb laws have been enacted, but there's a reason why these folks are called law enforcement.

If Sheriff Cooke and his band of badge-wearing dummies can't enforce the law, I hope they all get fired and/or charged. I'm tired of law enforcement types getting political. Do your fucking job.

EDIT: the redneck standing behind Sheriff Gump looks like he should be in an outlaw motorcycle gang, not in uniform. What a disgrace.

Is his job to protect and serve the people who elected him? Or is his job to represent clueless lunatics like Dianne Feinstein?

His job is to enforce the law. The government is an extension of the people. If people elect a clueless government that enacts stupid laws, that's the people's fault.

Sheriffs have the authority to prioritize the laws they upheld, such as Jim Crow laws and prohibition. If the citizens don't like it, they can vote them out.

For what it's worth, this sheriff has said that violators of this law would indeed be charged if they were using such in the commission of a crime.

Sounds like the sheriff is being an equal mix of lazy and stubborn. If you can't do the job of enforcing laws,

That's good, at least.

Any law enforcement officer can exercise discretion in enforcing the law. A typical everyday example is being let off with a warning when you're caught speeding on the highway. I'm simply tired of these dickheads calling a press conference to announce that they won't enforce some law they don't like.

Well, it wasn't a press conference. The picture caption says he was testifying against the legislation as part of the bill progress procedure. This doesn't appear to be a Joe Arpaio moment at least.

If anything, I feel sympathy for deputies who now will be trusted less by the public because they're the ones who have to harass and arrest otherwise law abiding gun owners because of this legislation.

.

What's funny is that I'm sure most of you would be singing a different tune of these guys were saying they wouldn't enforce a law that threatened some other aspect of civil liberties.

The people, including their local representatives, also have not merely a right but a duty to nullify stupid laws by refusing to enforce and/or refusing to convict.

Here's some remedial reading for you on Jury nullification in the U.S.

What's funny is that you think these Colorado laws violate civil liberties.

We all know you don't think the right to keep and bear arms is a civil liberty.

Every law enforcement agency exercises discretion, usually by deciding that some laws will be actively enforced and some will only be enforced on a by-complaint basis or when the violations are tied up in some larger crime. Sometimes it's publicly stated, sometimes not.

Now, if some sheriff said "We're not going to enforce laws against rape because everybody knows the bitches want it," we'd have a problem. But this is no different from what dozens of agencies have decided to do about their states' marijuana laws.

The two laws don't infringe on anyone's ability to keep and bear arms, they expand background checks and limit ammunition.

In case you missed it:

Mah guns!!!

I think it's not at all unreasonable to say that ammo falls under "arms," given how useless the one is without the other.

I think it is. Ammunition and magazine sizes are not protected by the 2nd Amendment.

And you make that assertion based on exactly what?

So when the authors of the Bill of Rights wrote the Second Amendment, they figured the government could limit ammunition all it liked? Because after all, the amendment's only real purpose was to preserve the right to, what ... firearms as a nifty mantlepiece decoration?

They wanted the right to preserve spears. Put a knife on the end and you've got a spear.

Ok, I am back, so I'll comment on this.

I think I agree with WAB in regards to this. People vote in a dumb government, it's their fault we get dumb laws. But I really don't think cops should step out of their bounds like this. Otherwise, why doesn't the sheriff become a politician to change said dumb laws.

Still, I'm reminded of Joe Biden's comment that the feds don't have money to enforce certain laws that are being signed. Then where does that leave you guys? Laws are worthless if they aren't enforced.

We know you don't understand the term "shall not be infringed" and that you seem to think it's cute to try to circumvent the 2nd Amendment this way - you know, the Chris Rock method - but it really isn't.

And if the Sheriff here does follow Federal law, the populace ends up disarmed and then murdered wholesale? Will Leftforge then exonerate him because, like other, more notorious, armed government employees in history, he "vuss only following ordahz"?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, huh?

Magazine-fed firearms weren't exactly in abundance at the time. The concept of limiting ammunition in a firearm wasn't exactly a problem, because you couldn't get any lower than one (unless it had an extra barrel, in which case, two).

Explain, then, how expanded background checks and regulations on magazine size infringe on your ability to bear arms.

I don't recall "in 1776" appearing anywhere in the Second Amendment. I do see part of the prefatory clause reading a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. Taking into account the necessity of a free state, it's clear that whatever is required for the security of a free state shall be available to the people.

So as soon as every government agent who is issued a weapon is limited to one round of ammunition, then, y'know...

We, the People, still won't be.

You don't even make sense anymore.

Anymore?

Adolf Eichmann's defense at his trial was that he was "only following orders."

Fella named George Santayana wrote a song about it, LIKE to hear it, here it go:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."