This week President Obama announced that he wants a ban on assault rifles, stronger background checks, and a number of other things involving gun control. What the President wants has some people cheering, while others are fuming and calling some of the ideas "unconstitutional."

Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith was took to Facebook yesterday to speak his mind on the issue and announce the he would not enforce any laws deemed unconstitutional.

Smith said a number of things on Facebook that make me think he may have a severe disagreement with what it appears some in the Federal Government are trying to do with these new regulations. You can read Sheriff Smith's entire Facebook post at the bottom of this one, but here is the jist of it:

The Colorado Sheriff occupies this independent office which is not a subservient department of county, state or federal government. As Sheriff, I will not:

  • Enforce unconstitutional federal laws
  • Obey unconstitutional laws
  • Allow others to violate the Constitutional Rights of those in my county

Those are some pretty strong words, and Smith is now the only law enforcement official in the country to take similar stands. Tim Mueller, a Sheriff in Oregon, said that he will not enforce any gun control regulations laid out by President Obama that offends the constitutional rights of his citizens. Another Oregon Sheriff named Jim Hensley said something along the same lines.

Others in Larimer County and Colorado don't see eye-to-eye with the Sheriff. According to the Coloradoan, Larimer County Commissioner Steve Johnson said, “There are lots of laws as a public official that I don’t like, but I don’t have the authority to declare a law unconstitutional.” And that Governor Hickenlooper's spokesman said that the governor expects all Sheriffs in the state to uphold all state laws.

What do you think about Sheriff Smith's words?

According to the Loveland Reporter-Herald, Smith has made a few statements about his post that he says have been taken out of context. He told them that did not mean to imply that he would determine whether a law was constitutional or not. And that several media outlets had taken his words to mean something other than what he had intended.

It is not my role as sheriff to establish the constitutionality of a law...What's been twisted is that the sheriff is going to somehow define what's constitutional...That's not the case.

(Here is his full Facebook post.)

Preserving our C0onstitutional Republic

The United States was very deliberatively established as a Constitutional Republic. John Adams said it succinctly "We are a nation of laws, not a nation of men." Our founding was based on the clear understanding that we are endowed by our Creator with our unalienable Rights. While our Constitution clearly defined these Rights, it did not create or establish these rights and no government official has the authority to take these Rights away.

The most basic of these Rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To assure the protection of these Rights, our Constitution was amended in 1791 with the Bill of Rights. The second Right articulated in the amendments was the Right of self-protection by individual citizens through the private ownership and possession of firearms.

Our founders had the wisdom to establish a nation where citizens granted the authority to be governed from the local level up to the federal level and they made it clear that the powers of the federal government were to be limited to only the areas defined in our Constitution. The government established by our Constitution is a divided government which created a balance of powers between the legislative, judicial and executive branches. Each branch has limited powers and each has an ability to keep the other in check. The executive branch is empowered to enforce laws, but not to establish laws.

That has not changed.

Colorado was established with the Constitutional Office of Sheriff. Statutes define the specific duties of the Sheriff, but through tradition and law, it is clear, the Sheriff's duties include the absolute obligation to protect the Rights of the citizens of the county, and the Sheriff is accountable directly to those citizens. The Colorado Sheriff occupies this independent office which is not a subservient department of county, state or federal government.

As Sheriff, I will not:

  • Enforce unconstitutional federal laws
  • Obey unconstitutional laws
  • Allow others to violate the Constitutional Rights of those in my county

I encourage thinking citizens of all political affiliations, or no political affiliation, to carefully and logically follow the shell game that is occurring before their very eyes. The only possible way to achieve "universal background checks" for private transactions of lawfully-owned firearms is to register every single firearm in existence in our nation. Otherwise, the federal government could never prove the transaction of a firearm. Anyone who fails to go through with such registration will be defined as a criminal by our federal government. That same government which has all too often has failed to enforce the current laws against criminal predators, will then start to discriminately target and prosecute law-abiding Americans who are simply exercising their Constitutionally recognized Right to keep and bear arms.

We must understand that while we are talking about the Right to keep and bear arms today, we could just as easily be talking about the Right to lawfully assemble and petition our government, the Right to free speech, the Right to worship freely, the Right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure or any of our other Rights. They all have to be defended without fail.

I will continue to honor my oath to uphold the Constitution and protect citizens of my county. I will not allow unconstitutional proposals to stand. County by county, state by state, we must protect these God-given Rights that so many fine Americans before us have defended with their lives over the last 237 years. We will remain a Constitutional Republican for as long as we are respectful of these Rights.

Posted by  Justin Smith to Facebook on January 16th, 2013

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