A consortium of plaintiffs led by 54 of Colorado’s 62 elected county sheriffs filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state Friday in an effort to overturn two new gun control bills that are set to go into effect on July 1.
The plaintiffs have in their sights one law that effectively bans all firearm magazines, and one that requires a background check for every gun transfer when the gun will be in the possession of someone other than the owner for more than 72 hours.
El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said the laws are not only unconstitutional, but also confusing and unenforceable.
For example, the ban on magazines was discussed by its Democratic sponsors as applying only to those that hold more than 15 rounds, in response to mass-shooting incidents in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn.
But the law also outlaws any magazine that can be easily converted to hold more than 15 rounds, which applies to practically all magazines with a removable base plate that can be replaced with an after-market extender.
After July 1, the owners of such magazines cannot sell them, loan them or give them away. In effect, it means that even if they give their weapon to someone else for safekeeping — or, in the case of one wheelchair-bound plaintiff who spoke Friday, to hold momentarily as he gets in and out of his chair — they will be breaking the law.
This is a major issue with so many pieces of legislation, the devil of details are in the fine print, or in the poorly written wording. What a bill says it does, and what it can be twisted to do are entirely different.
Despite being elected for a second term, the questions about President Obama’s place of birth – and his eligibility to be president – just won’t go away. The Alabama Supreme Court is now set to hear an appeal from a case filed last fall, alleging that Obama wasn’t properly on the Alabama ballot because he never produced an original copy of his birth certificate.
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What makes this legal action different from all previous suits challenging Obama’s eligibility is that the plaintiffs are offering the gold standard in evidence: Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “cold case posse.” In March, Sheriff Joe announced the results of his posse’s investigation into the mysteries of the PDF, or electronic, long-form birth certificate Obama finally released in response to myriad challenges about whether he met the constitutional requirement that he be a “natural born citizen.”
Sheriff Joe and his Posse concluded that the birth certificate is a forgery:
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On close examination of the evidence, we are prepared to say we believe probable cause exists indicating that forgery and fraud may have been committed. Not only in President Obama’s long form birth certificate, but more disturbing evidence suggests that another fraud may have been committed regarding his selective service registration card.
At the very least, I can tell you this. Based on all of the evidence presented and investigated, I cannot in good faith report to you that these documents are authentic. My investigators believe that the long firm birth certificate was manufactured electronically and it did not originated in a paper format as claimed by the White House.
If Sheriff Joe is correct that the PDF is a forgery, that does not automatically prove that Obama is not eligible to hold the office of president. It just means that, to date, he has not provided any credible proof that he is eligible to hold that office.
In Alabama, plaintiffs who already had their suspicion that the birth certificate was a forgery filed suit to force the Alabama Secretary of State to verify that all candidates on the presidential 2012 ballot were eligible to serve. The Alabama trial court immediately joined a long line of courts that have refused to hear the case on the merits and dismissed the suit. Plaintiffs appealed.
The case is now before the Alabama Supreme Court, which is currently headed by Roy Moore, a strict constitutionalist. Even better from the plaintiffs’ point of view is the fact that Justice Moore has gone on record questioning whether Obama was indeed a “natural born citizen,” citing Obama’s refusal to provide had not provided any evidence proving that he is:
This is the strangest thing indeed. The president has never produced [evidence] in the face of substantial evidence he was not born in our country. People are accepting it blindly based on their feelings, not on the law.
Several blogs are reporting that Sheriff Joe and his cold case posse will be part of the team providing evidence to support the plaintiffs’ argument. On the defense side, the attorneys are doing a lot of name-calling – “birthers,” “tiny cabal of zealots” – but insults are neither facts nor law.
The proof that Obama was not born in Hawaii and is not eligible to hold the highest office in the land is all circumstantial, which is why those who defend Obama’s citizenship have such fun engaging in all sorts of name-calling. What they don’t realize is that the proof that Obama was born in Hawaii and is therefore eligible to be President is equally circumstantial.
Obama has never produced an original document proving his Hawaiian birth. Moreover, he has spent millions of dollars to make sure that he is never called upon to produce that kind of document. His efforts to hide the circumstances of his birth (Foreign? Illegitimate? A father other than the one claimed?) all indicate that there’s something funny going on.
Two hours earlier, sheriffs from 17 counties held a rally at a nearby park to lambast the state measures and call out the White House for using Colorado as a “guinea pig” for its national gun-control agenda.
“If the issue that we’re focusing on is community safety and reducing violence, it could have been done without some of these very serious impositions on our citizens,” said Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith. “The fact they ignored that and the president showed up for a victory lap, I think, is a slap in the face to Coloradans.”
“We are here to remind you that the voices of the 62 elected Colorado sheriffs were silenced by the leaders of the majority party in the statehouse,” Sheriff Smith said. “Your governor found it too inconvenient to allot even 15 minutes to hear the concerns of the sheriffs of his state.”
Sheriff Smith also criticized the Denver Police Department for putting pressure on officers to appear on stage with the president during his speech at the Denver Police Academy. At least one officer filed a complaint this week with the city’s ethics board over the request, saying it violated police rules on appearing in uniform at a political event.
A department memo obtained by KUSA-TV in Denver offered police the opportunity to appear with the president, but Sheriff Smith said officers told him that they were “coerced into being there.”
“I can tell you I’ve personally talked to Denver police officers who’ve assured me they had felt pressure, that they were told, ‘You’ll be at this event,’” said Sheriff Smith. “Only when officers refused to attend were they then were allowed to go to their normal districts. They certainly knew they could not stand up here today [with sheriffs] without potential repercussions.”
The Left loves to say that law enforcement supports gun control, these sheriffs would beg to differ. What the President bis doing is creating a false image about support for gun control, and a false image about what these new laws would do.
A Colorado sheriff says he won’t enforce two aggressive gun-control measures waiting to be signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Weld County Sheriff John Cooke told The Greeley Tribune (http://bit.ly/141Ee2z) that Democratic lawmakers are scrambling after recent mass shootings, and the bills are “feel-good, knee-jerk reactions that are unenforceable.”
One bill expands background checks on firearm purchases, and the other limits ammunition magazines to 15 rounds. The 15-round magazine limit would make Colorado the first state outside the East Coast to ratchet back gun rights after last year’s shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn.
Colorado’s gun-control debates have been closely watched because of the state’s gun-loving frontier heritage and painful history of mass shootings, most recently last summer’s movie theater shooting that killed 12.
The sheriff said he “won’t bother enforcing” the laws because it would be impossible for officers to keep track of how the requirements are being met by gun owners – and he and other sheriffs are considering suing the state to block the measures if they are signed into law.
Cooke said the bill passed Friday requiring a $10 background check to legally transfer a gun wouldn’t keep firearms out of the hands of those who use them for violence.
“Criminals are still going to get their guns,” he said.
The magazine-limit bill passed earlier in the week will technically ban all magazines because of a provision that outlaws any magazine that can be altered, he said, adding that all magazines can be altered to a higher capacity.
Expanded checks have been a top priority for Hickenlooper, who called for the proposal during his State of the State address in January.
The sheriff’s office did not immediately return calls left by The Associated Press.
WELLINGTON, Kan. (TheBlaze/AP) – Authorities have identified a 42-year-old Iowa fugitive who was fatally shot by a farmer in south-central Kansas.
Sumner County Sheriff Darren Chambers says Joseph L. Lamasters, of Creston, Iowa, was wanted in that state for a probation violation stemming from drug charges.
KSN-TV reports Kansas authorities began searching for Lamasters after he left his ID at a Kansas Turnpike tollbooth Monday, apparently to retrieve money to pay the toll. That’s when authorities learned he was wanted in Iowa.
Lamasters ran into a wooded area and was spotted later Monday afternoon by a farmer. The farmer says he opened fire after Lamasters jumped out from a pile of feed sacks and threatened to kill him.
The sheriff says it was self-defense and he does not expect the farmer to be charged.
On Tuesday night, an armed would-be robber approached a Miami man outside his apartment building and demanded his belongings.
Though it is not clear why, the robber then shot the victim in the hand. He didn’t know it at the time, but it would turn out to be a senseless violent act that cost him his life.
The victim, whose injury was said to be non-life threatening, then pulled out his own handgun in self-defense and shot his attacker several times. The violent robber later died at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital due to his injuries.
What? No smart-assed comments Frum? Maybe he is too busy licking the boots of the DC elites
A video featuring Sheriff Ken Campbell of Boone County, Ind., is capturing the attention of gun enthusiasts who have consistently argued that capping magazine sizes will do very little to save American lives. In a 14-minute instructional and debunk clip, Campbell narrates why a ban on high-capacity magazine sizes is ineffective, showcasing – through examples – the idea’s purported deficiencies. In an interview with TheBlaze, he explained the video’s purpose and detailed his views on the current gun control debate.
When asked whether capping magazine sizes would saves lives, Campbell was forthright in sharing his views with TheBlaze.
“I think it’s a great fallacy to believe that it would,” he said candidly. “You’ve got a standard capacity versus a 10 round. From a citizen standpoint… all we’re doing is making it more difficult for [people] to defend themselves against bad guys.”
The sheriff also took aim at recent comments uttered by Vice President Joe Biden. While Campbell said he respects the politician, Biden’s statements about shotguns were simply silly, he argued.
“You don’t fire rounds of a shotgun in the air – and you don’t shoot them through a door. Where I come from that’s called crime,” he said of the vice-president’s controversial recommendations.
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Campbell also noted that bullets “aren’t magic” and that it could take more than 10 to stop a bad guy, particularly one who is fervent and dedicated to committing his or her crime. He said that those who break the law aren’t concerned with abiding by regulations, so creating magazine capacity restrictions simply doesn’t make sense. The law abiding will follow, but criminals, naturally, won’t.
“By limiting the access to standard magazines… I think you are restricting a good American’s opportunity to protect himself and his family,” the sheriff continued.
Additionally, Campbell defended the U.S. Constitution and said that the Framers were smart men who had the ability to profoundly look into the future. He dismissed arguments centered around the idea that Americans were never intended to have AR-15s and other such weapons.
The law enforcement professional compared improved gun technologies to advancement in free-speech tools like Twitter and Facebook. While the Founders couldn’t have imagined such progressed social media tools, the First Amendment surely still covers them just as he believes the Second protects so-called assault rifles.
“Our constitution has stood its test for more than 200 years and I think it can go for 200 more if we leave it alone and follow it,” he said.
If you can’t yet tell, Campbell, who also instructs firearms courses at Gunsite Academy in Paulden, Ariz., is a passionate proponent of the Second Amendment. So, when he was asked to narrate the aforementioned video project (produced by the Defense Small Arms Advisory Council) he was happy to oblige.
The goal of the video, which is divided into two sections – one focuses on magazine sizes and the other on so-called assault weapons – is to dispel gun fallacies and misconceptions. The second portion of the project has not yet been released.
It attempts to address apparent magazine capacity myths, while also providing practical examples surrounding why these initiatives aren’t as beneficial as some politicians claim. The clip opens by introducing the issue with some text slides, then it moves into video evidence, showing what happens when different guns and magazine sizes are used.
Of particular note, it seems to debunk – or at least challenge – the notion that a reload of magazines (pending a cap on the number of bullets one can hold) opens a window of opportunity for someone to tackle an assailant. Experienced shooters are shown to be too quick to allow for enough time for a tackle. However, some would argue that an inexperienced gunman might struggle more with this, providing a wider opening for action.
The clip concludes by noting that proposed magazine size changes don’t truly pass “the common sense test.” Watch it for yourself, below:
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Funded by Mark Westrom, owner of ArmaLite, a gun manufacturer, the video was filmed in Feb. Campbell, a police officer since 1979, made it a point to note that he wasn’t paid for the project and that he narrated the video out of love for the Second Amendment. He hopes that viewers will watch it and, based on the information, make an educated decision for themselves regarding the magazine capacity issue.
The suspect, identified as Eddie Ray Routh, 25, was pursued to a house in Lancaster by officers, including a local SWAT team. Routh again try to flee in a vehicle but was stopped about 9 p.m. after spikes were laid across a road, Bryant said.
“The suspect has been caught and is in custody in Lancaster,” the sheriff said. Erath County sheriff’s investigators and Texas Rangers were securing a capital murder warrant, he said.
Witnesses told sheriff’s investigators that the gunman opened fire on the two men around 3:30 p.m., then fled in a pickup truck belonging to one of the victims. The sheriff’s department didn’t get a call until around 6 p.m.
Why the 2-and-a-half hour delay in the police getting a call? Something does not add up about that. Again, details are somewhat sketchy, and I am still looking, and re-reading everything I can find. More updates when I can
A sheriff who released a radio ad urging Milwaukee-area residents to learn to handle firearms so they can defend themselves while waiting for police said Friday that law enforcement cutbacks have changed the way police can respond to crime.
In the 30-second commercial, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. says personal safety is no longer a spectator sport.
“I need you in the game,” he says.
“With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option,” he adds. “You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back… Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there.”
The ad has generated sharp criticism from other area officials and anti-violence advocates. The president of the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, Roy Felber, said it sounds like a call to vigilantism.
“That doesn’t sound too smart,” Felber said. “People have the right to defend themselves, but they don’t have the right to take the law into their own hands.”
Under Wisconsin’s “castle doctrine,” someone who uses deadly force against an unlawful intruder to their home, business or vehicle is presumed to have acted reasonably. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Justice said that as of this week, there are about 155,000 concealed carry permits in Wisconsin.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Clarke said he just wants people to know what their options are. While self-defense isn’t for everyone, some people see personal safety as their own responsibility, he said, and they should be trained properly.
“I’m not telling you to `Hey, pick up a gun and blast away.’ …People need to know what they are doing if they chose that method – to defend themselves,” he said.
But he also said he wanted to call on residents to be law enforcement “partners.” He said he could either whine about budget cuts that forced him to lay off 48 deputies last year or he could get creative.
“People are responsible to play a role in their own safety, with the help of law enforcement,” Clarke said. “I’m here to do my part, but we have fewer and fewer resources. We’re not omnipresent, and we have to stop giving people that impression.”
“After sitting down and thinking about this, I’m thinking `Hey, I’ve got an untapped reserve over here, and it’s the public,”‘ Clarke said.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s office released a statement criticizing the ad: “Apparently Sheriff David Clarke is auditioning for the next Dirty Harry movie.”
Barrett was beaten up several years ago by someone with a tire iron, and Clarke said he thought that would make the mayor “a lot more sensitive to people being able to defend themselves in such instances. A firearm and a plan of defense would have come in handy for him that day.”
Jeri Bonavia, executive director of Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, said Clarke took a dangerous position with his ad. She pointed to the case of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida who fatally shot an unarmed 17-year-old following an altercation. Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, claiming self-defense under Florida’s “stand your ground” law.
“I feel like this is such an irresponsible thing for our chief public safety officer of a county to do,” Bonavia said. “I think he owes this community an apology. And if he really believes that he’s not capable of providing for our public safety he should get a different job.”
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio plans to start putting armed members of his volunteer posse near schools in the wake of the mass shooting in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Arpaio doesn’t plan to put posse members inside schools but will have them posted around the perimeters.
“Why not utilize the posse into patrolling schools in our areas?” Arpaio asks.
With what he thinks is no reason not to, he’ll start this new idea within the next week.
The specific schools are not yet known but volunteers will be spread throughout Arpaio’s jurisdiction and he has identified certain areas.
The posse members are qualified for the job, according to Arpaio.
“Our posses are well trained with over 100 hours of how to use weapons [and] they have authority under the elected sheriff,” Arpaio said. “I feel they’ll be a great asset to schools around our area.”
They would be armed with a side-arm and not a semi-automatic weapon.
The news reached me by phone tonight, just as I was trying to get to sleep: Someone has targeted Red State’s Erick Erickson with the same dangerous hoax that had previously been used against Patterico.
Last week we spent a lot of time writing about Brett Kimberlin and the incident involving blogger Patterico where someone spoofed his phone number and told 911 he had shot his wife. Tonight, my family was sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner when sheriffs deputies pulled up in the driveway. Someone called 911 from my address claiming there had been an accidental shooting. It wasn’t nearly the trauma that Patterico suffered, but I guess the Erickson household is on somebody’s radar. Luckily it was two sheriffs deputies who knew me and I had already, last week, advised the Sheriff’s Department to be on the look out for something like this.
It’s no secret that I sharply criticized Erickson during the 2012 presidential primary campaign, but last week he mentioned me in writing about the Kimberlin case, which was a gracious gesture. This situation is more important than individual personalities.
UPDATE II: Instapundit: “Really, if the goal is to keep people from writing about Brett Kimberlin, this doesn’t seem like the way to do it.”
Indeed, given that Erickson is a CNN contributor, this incident certainly should provide the mainstream media a solid reason to stop ignoring the Kimberlin case.
UPDATE III: Patterico: “Anyone else think CNN is going to talk about SWATting now?”
Perhaps this is the spark that light a fire under CNN? I hope so. It would seem to me that every single person, and company that reports or comments on news should band together and stamp miscreant thugs like Kimberlin out like the diseased parasites they are!
If I were the president, I would call in my military leaders, and tell them to handle these cartels. The reason is this. heavily armed, well trained cartels are invading on o0ur soil, endangering our citizens. our military is the best trained, most lethal force in the world, and they would have a free hand, by my order, to eradicate these vermin. And, if Flippy Calderon had an issue with it, well, too bad!
MCALLEN, Texas (AP) — A shooting that injured a sheriff’s deputy was the first indisputable case of spillover violence from the Mexican drug wars in Hidalgo County, the local sheriff said Monday.
Sheriff Lupe Trevino, who previously said there was no direct spillover violence in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, said the Sunday shootout erupted while one of his deputies investigated a reported kidnapping and drug deal.
“I have to say that with this particular incident, the way the witnesses and the information that we have gotten particularly in the federal system, this is the first recorded spillover violence event that we have experienced — and unfortunately got one of our deputies shot,” Trevino said.
One suspect was killed and two were wounded. In all, six people were taken into custody, including the alleged kidnapping victim, and are awaiting charges, the sheriff said.
The sheriff said a protective vest probably saved the life of Deputy Hugo Rodriguez, who was shot in the chest, abdomen and leg. He is recovering at a hospital.
The longer our borders are neglected and drug cartels are subsidized by the United States government (thank you Mr. Holder), the more spillover. For those of us living in Border States, it’s nothing new. In 2009, The University of Texas at Brownsville (waaaaaay down south by the Mexico border) was forced to close due tostray bullets from a drug war shoot out – in Mexico. But no one was injured.
Our military has a purpose, to DEFEND our land and our people. Well, this is a clear case for that isn’t it? These cartels, would not fare well against our Green Berets, or Seals. let them do what they do, it likely would not take them long. And these cartels would never even think of even crossing America’s border again. It sickens me that our leaders are so gutless frankly. They prefer to fight governors that try to stop illegal immigration than to fight these cartels. I leave you with this from Sheriff Trevino
“Now, there are more cartel members living in Texas, in the Valley, in the United States. I’ll guarantee you there’s a ton of them,” he said.
These are nothing but vermin, and the sooner we stomp them into dust the better! And, of that means our military has to go onto Mexico, where these cartels are, then so be it! And, again, if Flippy Calderon does not like it, then fuck him!
Sheriff Chuck Wright of Spartanburg County, South Carolina is one of those rare law enforcement individuals that gets it. He is telling the citizens of his county to get their concealed weapons permits and carry at all times. He made these remarks at a news conference after a woman was attacked in Milliken Park. Here’s the story ( Bold emphasis mine);
SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. — The Spartanburg County Sheriff is known for speaking his mind, and at a news conference on Monday, he didn’t hold back his anger and frustration after a woman was attacked in a park over the weekend.
Investigators said 46-year-old Walter Lance grabbed a woman who was walking her dog in Milliken Park on Sunday afternoon. They said Lance choked the woman, made her take off her clothing and tried to rape her. (Full Story)
Lance is in custody and was denied bond on Monday.
Sheriff Chuck Wright opened his news conference by saying, “Our form of justice is not making it,” and he said, “I’m really aggravated.”
He said, “Carry a concealed weapon. That’ll fix it.”
Wright said Lance had been charged numerous times with crimes again women, and other crimes such as resisting arrest and escape. Wright said Lance had been on probation for a federal gun charge.
Then can we EXPECT Sheriff Dupnik to take the blame if any Conservatives are attacked? certainly blaming Conservatives for the Arizona shootings is a very serious charge isn’t it? Might that not, at least if we apply Dupnik’s warped logic, lead to attacks on Tea Party members? Or Sarah palin, or, Rush Limbaugh? Oh wait, it might have already done so.
After blaming the tea party for the mass slaughter on Saturday one tea party leader is receiving death threats. The sheriff’s office told Tucson tea party leader Trent Humphries to stay home.The Tuscon Tea Party leader started receiving death threats since the shootings at the Safeway on Saturday. Talking Points Memo reported, via Free Republic:
Trent Humphries, the leader of the largest tea party group in this mourning southern Arizona city, has nothing but praise for the way President Obama has led the nation through the aftermath of Saturday’s mass shooting at a constituent event for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). But Humphries won’t be there tonight when Obama speaks at a memorial rally intended to unify Tucson after six people were killed in the tragedy.
Humphries says he’s been getting threats at his home from people who seem to hold him and his organization partially responsible for the shootings Saturday.
Humphries told TPM he’s called the Sheriff’s department more than once in the past few days to make them aware of threatening phone calls.
“We got a not-so-veiled threat,” Humprhies told me. “The Sheriff’s deputies told me to stay away from public places.”
Now, I do not blame the sheriffs words, no matter how baseless and stupid they are, for these threats. The threats are from losers, who have little minds full of lots of hatred. BUT, Sheriff, IF you are going to apply blame for the shootings in Arizona, then maybe YOU ought to be consistent? Just sayin……….
Sheriff’s Department and community-college officials in Pima County are refusing to release a wide range of public documents about the man charged in Saturday’s shooting rampage that left six dead and more than a dozen wounded. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and Pima Community College have declined to release documents that could shed light on run-ins they had with 22-year-old Jared Loughner in the months prior to the shooting. . . . The school officials assertion that an FBI inquiry prevents them from releasing this information is transparently invalid.
The school official’s assertion that an FBI inquiry prevents them from releasing this information is transparently invalid. And if the FBI has indeed asked officials to suppress the information, this is absolutely unacceptable.
Six people are dead, among them a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, while a U.S. Congresswoman and 11 other people are grievously injured. There can be no “privilege” to shield government officials from scrutiny for their apparent mishandling of previous criminal behavior by the suspect in this case, given that protecting the lives of its citizens is the first duty of government.
Much more at the link, and also consider that the sheriff has, in the past allowed his political leanings to cause him to, shall we say NOT ENFORCE LAWS!
Is it any wonder he blames Teabaggerzz/FOX/Palin/Beck/Limbaugh/Right Wing etc for Jared Loughner’s murderous rampage?
5/01/10.... “We are not immigration officials,” Dupnick vowed Thursday. “We fight crime. The state put us in this position.”[...] Dupnick said he never joined the contentious debate over the controversial bill because he didn’t expect Gov. Jan Brewer or state legislators to approve it.
“This law, it’s just irresponsible,” he said. “It makes them [legislators] look like racists.
Well, well, well. it seem s Dupnik has so9me explaining to do doesn’t it?
darcprynce
Dave C
Gatordoug
