"Constitutional Sheriffs" Ain't too Constitutional

I'm glad we elected Kim Stewart sheriff. 

Her opponent was hooked up with a right-wing cult called the “Constitutional Sheriffs Association,” which holds that sheriffs outrank federal law-enforcement. Joe Arpaio and Clive Bundy are big supporters. It grew from the old Posse Comitatus. (Jews exploit Christian farmers through taxes and unfair loans.) 

These folks favor stronger penalties for illegal border-crossings and refuse to enforce laws they don't like. 

They mouth the same tired rhetoric against gun laws. N.M. Senate Bill 8 would require universal background checks. “Constitutional” sheriffs say such laws are unconstitutional – something even the conservative U.S. Supreme Court has not said yet. Essentially, these guys would refuse to enforce New Mexico laws they don't like. Non-lawyers, they'd use the U.S. Constitution as an excuse. 

They say that gun-laws will merely inconvenience law-abiding gun owners, while criminals, by definition, will ignore the law. I've asked some of my friends whether the same arguments apply to laws against murder, robbery, and child molestation. Criminals will be criminals, so why bother?

Well, we bother because: first, laws may have some deterrent effect; second, if we forbid known wife-beaters from owning guns, then if a known wife-beater threatens with a gun, or someone has knowingly put a gun into a known wife-beater's hands, we can impose appropriate punishment, and/or perhaps get someone off the streets for awhile. 

Their stance is all the more puzzling because they must know the statistics. In the U.S. in 2016, 93% of the women killed by men were murdered by someone they knew, and the most common weapon used was a gun. I've known for decades that domestic disputes are the calls that most often get cops killed. A lot of these men are neither confirmed criminals, planning to knock over a 7-11 with a gun, or carjack your Prius, nor wholly law-abiding. They are normal people, living their lives unexceptionally, except when they get drunk, or they get really angry, or a spouse rolls her eyes . . . and they lose it. It's not as clear as with a repeat armed-robbery offender, that the domestic-abuse suspect is going to buy a gun, with no regard at all for the law. And if he does violate the law by buying a gun, or by failing to register it, that's a ready-made legal basis for cooling off the domestic situation by removing the offender for awhile. Could save a few lives. Though you or I might have to spend an extra half-hour filling out papers.

I don't purport to know the answers. I wish we could seek those answers cooperatively, with my ex-DASO friends who know much more than I do; but they too hew to the NRA line of “NO to all gun laws!” – or express the paranoid view that any and all restrictions and regulation requirements are all sub rosa steps toward confiscating everyone's guns. Which wouldn't work in New Mexico, practically or politically – and which would violate the Second Amendment. 

Absent their help, I'm left to wonder why they deign to register their cars, instead of cowering in fear that we libtards are plotting to confiscate all cars in the name of fighting climate-change.

“Do nothing because nothing you can do will completely solve the problem” ain't an answer these guys would accept if investigating a cop-killing or trying to stem the tide of drunk-driving.

I'm glad our sheriff follows laws.

                                              -30-

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 24 February 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website.  A spokenn version will air during the week on KRWG Radio and KTAL 101.5 FM (www.lccommunityradio.org).]


[The 93% figure cited in the column came from a 2018 study . . .  But it's not controversial.]

[The repeated argument that we should enact no gun-control laws because none of them will solve the problem is odd.  It's odd because there are so few fields in which the failure of a law or ordinance to solve the problem completely somehow bars enacting something that will partially solve the problem.  I don't hear these guys arguing against anti-DWI measures because even if you put in a governor, where the nine-times-convicted driver has to blow into a tube to start the car, s/he will drink anyway and get a pal to blow into the gizmo.  I don't hear them saying, "Let's do away with homicide laws, because most of the time people who commit murders are so worked up that a law wouldn't dissuade them."  They don't say, "Let's not bother carrying guns any more, because there'll be times we don't get them out and cocked in time."]

[The 2nd Amendment is another red herring.  Yes, it exists.  Yes, in Heller the U.S. Supreme Court ignored a century of precedent and the amendment's actual wording to find an individual right to carry guns that's independent of the need for a competent militia.   Whatever I may think, I didn't have a vote, so I live with the result -- as my ex-DASO friends and the CSA must also do.  Even though the decision was startlingly friendly to gun-owners, and expanded the reach of the 2nd Amendment, Heller did NOT ban gun-registration or reasonable firearm restrictions.  It specifically cited automatic weapons as something that perhaps could and should be regulated or prohibited. It certainly did not bar trying to keep guns out of the hands of wife-beaters.  So from just where do these "constitutional sheriffs" get their constitutional law courses?]


[Washington State is experiencing what we may soon see: 13 rural county sheriffs refusing to enforce gun laws.  There, 60% of the state's voters approved a law tightening rules on background checks for semi-automatic weapons and prohibiting anyone under 21 from buying them.  In certain rural counties where the new rules didn't gain a majority, sheriffs are refusing to follow the law.  Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer said, "I follow the rule of law, when I believe it's constitutional."   Washington's lawmakers think the law is constitutional; but the NRA doesn't, so Sheriff Bob has just the company he deserves.  By contrast, King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht argued that "as law enforcement leaders, we defy our oath and betray the public trust if we pick and choose which laws we will uphold."]