The Linn County sheriff says that he will not allow his deputies to enforce any potential new firearm regulations that he deems “unconstitutional.”
In a letter addressed to Vice President Joe Biden, dated Jan. 14, and posted on the agency’s Facebook page Tuesday, Sheriff Tim Mueller took aim at lawmakers.
“We must not allow, nor shall we tolerate, the actions of criminals, no matter how heinous the crimes, to prompt politicians to enact laws that will infringe upon the liberties of responsible citizens who have broken no laws,” the sheriff wrote.
This comes as the president is set to propose broad measures Wednesday urging Congress to ban military-style assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines.
Mueller said he was prompted to write the letter partly because he felt Biden's anti-gun violence task force did not consult law enforcement enough when putting together its report.
"I didn't just fall off the cabbage truck yesterday, I know that the chances that the vice president is actually going to read this is pretty slim," Muller told KOIN Tuesday evening.
A 28-year veteran of the sheriff’s office, Mueller claims in the letter that lawmakers are "attempting to exploit the deaths of innocent victims by advocating for laws that would prevent honest, law abiding Americans from possessing certain firearms and ammunition magazines.”
He goes on to write that, "Any federal regulation enacted by Congress or by executive order of the President offending the constitutional rights of my citizens shall not be enforced by me or by my deputies, nor will I permit the enforcement of any unconstitutional regulations or orders by federal officers within the borders of Linn County Oregon.”
Mueller does not specify what he considers to be unconstitutional, or what authority the sheriff's office might have over federal law enforcement officers.
"It just opens the conversation," Mueller said. "I think people need to be active participants in the conversation, let their elected representatives know where they stand. And whether that's left or right of this, or somewhere in the middle... But they need to do it, and do it respectfully."
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that Oregon legislators are skeptical on the chances of state gun control legislation. They addressed the issue at an annual meeting between media members, Governor John Kitzhaber and Oregon House and Senate leaders at the State Capitol in Salem Tuesday.
"We look to the Senate for their leadership on that issue," House Speaker Tina Kotek (D- Portland) told reporters. "At this point, I'm not aware of any particular proposal that has the legs to get out of here."
As of Tuesday evening, the post had recorded over 16,000 likes and 3,800 comments. The sheriff's office later issued a second Facebook posting that said that Mueller was "humbled and amazed" by the response.
BALTIMORE (AP) — The Second Amendment right to bear arms is not limited to the home and Maryland’s requirement that residents show a “good and substantial reason” to get a handgun permit is unconstitutional, according to a federal judge’s opinion filed Monday.
The right to bear arms has historically been understood to allow for militia membership and hunting, which extends the right beyond the home, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote. States can channel the way residents exercise their rights, but because Maryland’s goal was to minimize the number of firearms outside homes by limiting the privilege to those who could demonstrate “good reason,” it had turned into a rationing system, he wrote.
“A citizen may not be required to offer a `good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights,” Legg wrote. “The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.”
Plaintiff Raymond Woollard obtained a handgun permit after fighting with an intruder in his Hampstead home in 2002, but was denied a renewal in 2009 because he could not show he had been subject to “threats occurring beyond his residence.” Woollard appealed, but was rejected by the review board, which found he hadn’t demonstrated a “good and substantial reason” to carry a handgun as a reasonable precaution. The suit filed on Woollard’s behalf by the Second Amendment Foundation in 2010 claimed that Maryland didn’t have a reason to deny the renewal and wrongly put the burden on Woollard to show why he still needed to carry a gun.
“People have the right to carry a gun for self-defense and don’t have to prove that there’s a special reason for them to seek the permit,” said his attorney Alan Gura, who has challenged handgun bans in the District of Columbia and Chicago. “We’re not against the idea of a permit process, but the licensing system has to acknowledge that there’s a right to bear arms.”
The lawsuit names the state police superintendent and members of the Handgun Permit Review Board.
“We disagree with this ruling,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Fader said in a statement. “In light of the very important implications of the ruling for public safety, the defendants will be appealing to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The defendants will also be seeking a stay of the ruling pending appeal.”
Jonathan Lowy, director of legal action project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which assists states and cities in facing gun law challenges, expects the 4th Circuit to overturn the ruling.
“The Supreme Court has recognized the right to have guns in homes, but there is no right in public places,” Lowy said. “What Maryland does is reasonable. It allows law enforcement to make judgment based on substantial reasons why someone needs to carry a loaded gun in public. That’s not rationing and certainly not unconstitutional.”
But Gura disagrees, noting that many states require gun permits, but six states, including Maryland, issue permits on a discretionary basis. He’d like to see Maryland develop a licensing system that is “objective and straightforward.”
This suit is one of several federal suits the foundation is bringing across the nation, but it is the first time the foundation has had success before reaching the appeals level, according to foundation Founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb.
“Momentum is moving in our direction,” he said.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a western Maryland Republican who has introduced a bill to protect the right to obtain a firearm for self-defense or to protect one’s home or family, applauded the ruling.
“As Judge Legg correctly ruled, the burden should be on the government to prove that an American is unfit to exercise this Constitutional right,” he said.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
As the Obama administration plots various assaults on gun rights by “executive order” and legislation, proposals described as “very extreme” even by some Democrats, state lawmakers in Wyoming have another idea. Republican legislators are rallying behind nullification legislation that would void unconstitutional infringements on the right to keep and bear arms, even providing prison time for any federal agents who may try to enforce Washington, D.C., gun control in the state. Lawmakers expect it to pass.
The new bill, H.B. 0104 or the “Firearms Protection Act,” would nullify any new federal infringements on the constitutionally protected gun rights of state residents — who enjoy some of the lowest crime rates while being among the most heavily armed people in America. Unconstitutional federal gun registration schemes, as well as restrictions on semi-automatic guns or standard-capacity magazines, would also be nullified under the legislation.
There are teeth in the proposed law too: Any federal official attempting to enforce unconstitutional statutes or decrees infringing on gun rights passed after January 1 of this year would be charged with a felony. If convicted, criminal officials would be punished by up to five years in state prison and a $5,000 fine. The legislation also authorizes the state attorney general to defend citizens of Wyoming if federal authorities seek prosecutions under unconstitutional gun control rules.
At least eight state representatives and two state senators have already sponsored the legislation. And nationwide, support for similar measures is exploding. "We want to get things ahead of the game," Republican state Rep. Kendell Kroeker, the primary sponsor of the bill, told the Huffington Post. "We take the Second Amendment seriously in Wyoming.... If the federal government is going to pass laws taking back our rights, it is our right as a state to defend those rights."
Citing his oath to support and defend the U.S. and state constitutions, state Rep. Kroeker has been a leader in standing against lawless usurpations of power by the federal government. In a previous session, he introduced legislation to increase the use of gold as currency in the state, for example. "I take an oath to uphold, support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Wyoming," Kroeker continued, telling reporters that his constituents and activists nationwide were thrilled by the move. "I believe it is my duty to take that oath seriously."
In a separate interview with the Associated Press, the liberty-minded lawmaker noted that there are “a lot of people” who would seek to take all of Americans’ guns — at least if they could. The only thing restraining them, Kroeker said, is public opposition as well as other lawmakers who take their oaths seriously and are concerned about protecting the people’s unalienable rights.
"We're a sovereign state with our own constitutional form of government," he told the AP. "We've got a right to make our laws, and if the federal government is going to try to enforce unconstitutional laws on our people and take away the rights of Wyoming citizens, then we as a state are going to step up and make that a crime."
In the state Senate, another co-sponsor of the legislation, Wyoming State Senator Larry Hicks, cited the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reserves all powers not specifically granted to the federal government to the states or the people. The nullification bill, he added in an interview with the Washington Examiner, will send a message to federal politicians considering further infringements on the rights of his constituents.
“It says that your one size fits all solution doesn’t comport to what a vast majority of the state believes,” Sen. Hicks told the paper about the message federal politicians should be taking from the legislation, telling other reporters that state lawmakers were receiving e-mails in support of the bill from all across America and that citizens were urging their own states to take similar action. “I don’t think this is controversial in Wyoming at all.... I fully expect this bill to pass.”
According to the liberty-minded state senator, even if Congress refuses to budge, the administration is determined to restrict gun ownership by presidential decree. "I think that's the biggest threat we're facing," he told the AP. Sen. Hicks also said that his constituents were “absolutely terrified” about threats from Washington to assault gun rights — especially Vice President Joe Biden’s pledge this week to implement the lawless attack by executive order.
“They are very, very upset that we’re going to see some level of federal takeover of our weapons and abuse of our rights given to us by the Second Amendment,” the state senator was quoted as saying, referring to his constituents. “Also, that the federal government will bypass our legislative officials and confiscate our weapons through executive order. This gives citizens of the Western United States a great deal of concern.”
The AP, in an uncharacteristically honest assessment, pointed out that Wyoming has one of the highest rates of per-capita gun ownership in America, and that it also has among the lowest levels of gun violence. "Part of it's our culture," Hicks explained. "Our kids grow up around firearms, and they also grow up hunting, and they know what the consequences are of taking a life. And they know at an early age, whether you hunt or fish, that there's consequences from pulling that trigger. We're not insulated from the real world in Wyoming."
At least one Democrat, Rep. James Byrd, has already expressed his opposition to the plan. "If you want to pick a fight with the feds, let's pick a fight with the feds that's about something that means something," he was quoted as saying by the AP while claiming to be a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment. It was not immediately clear why Byrd thought the unalienable right to keep and bear arms — enshrined in both the Wyoming and U.S. constitutions — was not meaningful.
Predictably, Obama apparatchiks funded by billionaire statist George Soros are already crying foul, too. The far-left “Think Progress” blog, for example, claimed that nullification would be unconstitutional. “The constitution actually stipulates that federal law ‘shall be the supreme law of the land,’” Annie-Rose Strasser alleged falsely, without pointing out the constitutional stipulation that federal laws must be “made in pursuance” with the Constitution. It was not clear whether the writer was simply ignorant of American history and the U.S. Constitution, or whether the false statements were deliberate lies in an effort to confuse readers.
Some analysts quoted in the establishment press, also presumably unfamiliar with history or the U.S. Constitution, have claimed that states may not nullify unconstitutional federal usurpations as well. Of course, American history is replete with examples of nullification — Wisconsin nullified a federal statute purporting to require the return of escaped slaves to their masters, for example. Even Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson helped states void unconstitutional legislation in the early years of the Republic.
More recently, states all across America have been putting their foot down. Even causes traditionally associated with liberals, such as marijuana legalization, have succeeded through nullification — Colorado and Washington state both legalized the controversial plant in November, and many other states have approved it for medical use in spite of unconstitutional federal statutes. Conservatives and libertarians have also been relying on nullification, especially in recent years.
As the increasingly out-of-control federal government tries to restrict more and more of Americans’ unalienable rights — with the Second Amendment just the latest target — state lawmakers all across the country are taking action. A bill just introduced in Indiana known as the Firearm Freedom Act, for instance, would also protect the rights of gun owners to be free from federal regulations if the gun was produced and purchased in the state. Similar legislation has already been adopted in other states.
Meanwhile, law-enforcement officials, such as sheriffs and police chiefs, are also developing legal strategies to protect gun rights in their jurisdictions, with some lobbying for nullification measures as well. As The New American reported this week, while the Obama administration seeks to severely infringe on the Second Amendment, talk of mass resistance nationwide is growing in tandem. The president may believe he can violate the Constitution by decree, but it appears that many states have had just about enough of the lawlessness. If Congress refuses to rein in the out-of-control administration, state governments may have to do it instead.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com.
An Eastern Kentucky Sheriff is taking a strong stance on gun regulation by saying he wont enforce any new federal gun laws in his county that he deems unconstitutional.
Jackson Co. Sheriff Denny Peyman said he is not defying President Obama but an executive order that might arise in which guns of any sort would be collected by the federal government.
"I can only speak for the people here in Jackson County," Sheriff Peyman said. "We're talking about self protection here. I don't think there should be a limit."
Peyman's comments come before next week's recommendations by Vice President Joe Biden and his task force to President Barack Obama on ways to minimize gun violence.
The sheriff of two years estimated that about half of the people in his county are registered handgun owners and many of them would not take lightly to giving them up.
"They're going to bury them, they're going to hide them and there are some who will probably just fight you for it," Peyman said. "If you take away our freedoms and take away our firearms that's total control of the people."
Peyman said the decision came down to his duty to defend both the Kentucky and US Constitutions. He highlighted the importance of the Second Amendment which Peyman pointed out was put second on the Bill of Rights instead of "down the line".
"Let's go to the Kentucky Supreme Court and see how much say the states have compared to the federal government," Peyman said, who added that he has received several calls from attorneys who told the sheriff they would help with any litigation.
Peyman told LEX 18 he's not in favor of any restrictions. He said if the only guns allowed were six-shot revolvers the "bad guys {would still} walk in with AK-47's."
"Once they outlaw them how many do they think they're really going to get," Peyman said. "If push comes to shove it's going to take a while. They're not going to come tomorrow."
Where was the sheriff when they passed the Patriot Act?
Did he defend the constitution when that was introduced.
Or does he comply with some laws but not others.
Where was the sheriff when they passed the Patriot Act?
Did he defend the constitution when that was introduced.
Or does he comply with some laws but not others.
What amendment and or rights were infringed by it?
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