FRANKFORT, KY. — An Eastern Kentucky sheriff said Saturday that he will not enforce any new gun control laws that he considers unconstitutional.
Asked whether such a stance makes him more a judge than a law-enforcement official, Jackson County Sheriff Denny Peyman said he has "a team of attorneys to step up with me if necessary to be sure the Second Amendment is upheld."
"I consider this a moral obligation," he said.
Peyman, who has been sheriff of Jackson County for two years and is a member of the National Rifle Association, is garnering national attention and support from gun rights advocates for saying Saturday, "My office will not comply with any federal actions which violate the United States Constitution or the Kentucky Constitution which I swore to uphold."
By not enforcing the laws, he is violating the Constitution. The foundation of our nation gives us the courts to decide if laws are constitutional or not. The responsibility does not fall in the hands of law enforcement, hence the "enforcement" part of the title.
But it appears this guy does have problems with courts anyways:
Peyman dismissed problems he has with Jackson County Judge-Executive William O. Smith and the Jackson County Fiscal Court.
They say Peyman's office owes the fiscal court more than $278,000 in payroll assistance from when he took office in January 2011. Peyman says there is no problem, but the court has called for an investigation and has set up a county police department. Peyman said he now has no deputies.
Maybe he thinks the courts are not constitutional either?
Bob Cesca points to this interview Chris Christie gave about gun control.
Christie was asked about specific gun control measures, and instead talked about violent video games. “We don’t allow those games into our house…we think it desensitizes children to all the effects of violence,” and added that all of the issues related to gun violence needed to be dealt with.
When pressed on why he couldn’t answer whether he supports a ban on assault weapons, he said that it depends. “These are complicated issues,” he said. “I’m willing to have that conversation.”
As Bob says, it sure sounds like Christie is towing the NRA line.
But how good is that line?
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary since a member of Congress was shot. Gabby Giffords, along with 19 other people were shot on that day, leaving 6, including a federal judge, dead. In the days following the shooting there was a lot of finger pointing going on. Some of that came from the left. They pointed to gun violence in political ads as a possible motivator, including this map Sarah Palin had posted on her website that includes a target over Giffords district.
I don't know how I missed this, but earlier this year a law was passed in Indiana that allows citizens to shoot at police. This very law was backed by the NRA:
Every time police Sergeant Joseph Hubbard stops a speeder or serves a search warrant, he says he worries suspects assume they can open fire -- without breaking the law.
Hubbard, a 17-year veteran of the police department in Jeffersonville, Indiana, says his apprehension stems from a state law approved this year that allows residents to use deadly force in response to the “unlawful intrusion” by a “public servant” to protect themselves and others, or their property.
“If I pull over a car and I walk up to it and the guy shoots me, he’s going to say, ‘Well, he was trying to illegally enter my property,’” said Hubbard, 40, who is president of Jeffersonville Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 100. “Somebody is going get away with killing a cop because of this law.”
The NRA and gun nuts in this country are bound and determined to take us back to the days of the wild west. They don't realize the biggest threat facing this country is them. I believe it's past time to classify the NRA as a terrorist organization and treat them as such.
I just got done watching the NRA press conference and all I can do is shake my head. The first thing I would like to know is why does this group have the power they do? The NRA only has 4 million members. That's almost 1/2 of what MoveOn.org has, yet they have so much more power.
But putting that little fact aside, here's what I took away from what NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre had to say:
Let's blame those pesky "gun free zone" signs
Yes, he actually blamed those. He said it invites in these shooters. Just like deer crossing signs tell the deer exactly where to cross.
We must blame movies and video games, not guns.
.
What he failed to mention was that these same movies and games are available in about every other country, yet they don't have the violence we do.
Armed police in every school - By January!
This was a biggie. He wants Congress to pass legislation putting police in every single school. He said nothing of this being public only and/or all. On just public k-12 schools, we have over 98,000. Police average close to $50,000/year in salary alone. This doesn't account for benefits, training, etc. So if we go with that $50,000/year, that's $5 billion per year we must come up with just to put one officer in each school.
He also said "imagine if there was an armed guard at Sandy Hook?" Well we can. It was called Columbine, where there was an armed guard. He managed to fire 2 shots and then ran! Experiment failed Mr. LaPierre.
Final thoughts
The NRA is doing what the NRA always does - pushing for more guns and absolving themselves of any fault. This is the same failed NRA that we have had for the past couple of decades. It's time to remove them from the conversation, as their numbers and words are meaningless anymore. It's time to remove their lobbying power and the only way to do that is for our leaders to ignore them. Please, can our leaders do that?
They are too idiotic to realize it, but it's the pro-gun idiots out there that are pushing our nation to tougher firearms control. Take this story out of Salt Lake City:
A 6th grade student brought an unloaded handgun to West Kearns Elementary School Monday.
The 11-year-old boy told other students his parents encouraged him to bring a gun to school for protection following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday.
The boy reportedly pulled the gun, a .22-caliber pistol, out of his backpack during recess Monday morning.
“At recess, he pointed a gun to my head and said he was going to kill me,” said Isabel Rios, one of the boy’s fellow 6th grade students.
First off. These parents, who by the love of God should not be allowed to reproduce, much less own weapons, put their child in more harms way. Pulling an unloaded weapon is extremely dangerous in violent situations. It makes the perpetrator take instant notice at you, and the most you can maybe do is throw the weapon at them. Smooth move, idiots! Hopefully your child is taken away from you.
Second, this shows that not everyone should have the right to own a gun. These parents sure as hell shouldn't considering they have given a firearm to a child. The parents should also be facing charges for child endangerment, but there is no word on that either.
One can only suspect that the parents are big pro-gun nuts. These are the people that think the only solution to any problem is with a firearm. These people are the biggest threat to the 2nd amendment we have.
Since Sandy Hook last week, we are seeing a big shift in opinion, both from the public and politicians. One more Sandy Hook incident and we will see even a bigger shift. A couple more and there will be enough support in this nation to repeal the 2nd amendment. So what's that say to the gun nuts?
Yesterday David Gregory said on Meet the Press that all 31 pro-gun rights senators refused to come on the show. On Friday, following the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA hid their Facebook page.
Why are these people in hiding and not out defending what they believe in? Do they realize that they are only hurting their own cause?
What happened Friday may have a silver lining. Sadly it took the needless murders of some of our most vulnerable, young children, but we may finally have the national discussion our country has so needed for years. We might finally get to talk about what is causing so many of our citizens to snap and kill so many innocents and what we can do to prevent it.
Needless to say gun control will be part of this debate. That part of the debate is very much needed, as is the part of mental health, violence in movies and video games and lyrics in songs. We need to discuss everything that can be contributing to this to see if a solution lies in that aspect. Ignoring one part defeats the whole purpose.
So why are these pro-gun rights advocates in hiding? Now is the time for them to make their cases and be heard. The very much need to be part of the debate, just like those against all guns. Without all sides of the arguments being heard, we can't come to a reasonable conclusion.
Like many other Americans, I do believe in our right to bear arms. I also believe that the second amendment has been outdated and technology advances need to be considered in changes. We no longer have the days of musket loaders that fire a single shot every 30 seconds. We live in a time of high power, automatic weapons that can shoot a dozen rounds per second. These are guns with a single purpose - to kill mass people.
Jason Alexander, or George Costanza to the Seinfeld fans out there, took to Twitter this weekend to urge action in the wake of the Batman killing spree in a Colorado theater:
I'd like to preface this long tweet by saying that my passion comes from my deepest sympathy and shared sorrow with yesterday's victims and with the utmost respect for the people and the police/fire/medical/political forces of Aurora and all who seek to comfort and aid these victims.
This morning, I made a comment about how I do not understand people who support public ownership of assault style weapons like the AR-15 used in the Colorado massacre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15
That comment, has of course, inspired a lot of feedback. There have been many tweets of agreement and sympathy but many, many more that have been challenging at the least, hostile and vitriolic at the worst.
Clearly, the angry, threatened and threatening, hostile comments are coming from gun owners and gun advocates. Despite these massacres recurring and despite the 100,000 Americans that die every year due to domestic gun violence - these people see no value to even considering some kind of control as to what kinds of weapons are put in civilian hands.
Before the last rounds are fired in these heinous crimes you can count on the pro-gun lobby already pushing the "it's not the guns fault" meme. Of course it isn't. It takes a person to operate that piece of machinery. But the same can be said for other things, like drugs. Maybe I enjoy the look and scent of cannabis. If I don't smoke it, it won't get me high, yet I still can not grow it. In other words, it's not the plants fault, yet our laws ban it.
The Jason hits on the second amendment and his interpretation is something I have always said:
I have always been pro-Second Amendment. By that I mean that responsible and stable adults should be allowed to own firearms. Two stories out of Arizona this week goes against the "responsible and stable" part.
An Arizona man who on Wednesday reportedly killed four people, including a 47-year-old grandmother and a 15-month-old infant, and then took his own life was also a former Republican Party official, a former white supremacist neo-Nazi and the founder of a border patrol vigilante group that advocated using violence on immigrants.
On Thursday morning, police in Gilbert, Arizona confirmed that J.T. (Jason Todd) Ready had committed suicide after killing his girlfriend, 47-year-old Lisa Mederos, along with her daughter, her daughter’s boyfriend and her granddaughter, according to The Arizona Republic.
Remember back in 2010 when Republicans won tons of races across the country and retook the House? They said up and down it was a sign that people wanted new direction on the economy and they were right in that. But since then we have seen all these Republican victories result in very little direction on the economy. John Boehner's House has been unable to pass one actual piece of legislation to get the economy moving again and the same has happened in numerous states. Instead Republicans ignored what the voters wanted and decided to push their far right agenda.
One part of that agenda has always been loosening the laws on firearms. Here in Ohio we saw the Republican controlled state push through a new law allowing people to carry concealed weapons into bars. Now the Republican lead U.S. House wants to extend that to other states in the "National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act", which passed the House last week in a 272-154 vote and now heads to the Senate.
The "National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act" allows people who can legally carry a concealed weapon in one state to carry it in another state, so long as that state's law allows it. On top of that the Congress decided to invoke the commerce clause of the Constitution in justifying this bill, which seems like a further stretch than invoking it for the health insurance mandate.
Of course bills like this come with big backing, like the NRA, and when one Republican decided that this law was pushing the bounds of crazy the NRA decided to go to war with him:
After taking over as Mayor of the small town of Wasilla, Palin fired the longtime local police chief. The former police chief, Irl Stambaugh says he was fired because he stepped on the toes of Palin's campaign contributors, including bar owners and the National Rifle Association.
It seems like if someone disagrees with Palin they get fired. Is that really the leadership we need in Washington? Donald Rumsfeld followed this practice, including firing Generals who knew what was needed in Iraq, but didn't bow to him. Perhaps this should be the new Republican slogan; "They bow down or they get terminated".
The United States said on Wednesday it opposed setting firm targets for greenhouse gas cuts at a G8 summit but offered reassurance that its plan for fighting climate change would not undermine U.N. efforts.
President George W. Bush told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he had a "strong desire" to work with her on greenhouse gas cuts beyond 2012 even though he has resisted her appeals for agreement at the June 6-8 summit in Germany.
Police and protesters clashed near the summit venue on the Baltic coast as G8 leaders gathered for a meeting likely to be dominated by issues including climate change, missile defences and Russia's frosty relations with its partners.
Nobody loves a loser. Repudiated at the polls last November, President George W. Bush is now being dissed by the National Rifle Association, his once faithful ally. More surprising still, the issue sundering the former friends is one new to the gun-rights organization: conservation.
"The Bush administration has placed more emphasis on oil and gas than access rights for hunters," complained Ronald Schmeits, an NRA vice president, to the Washington Post. The NRA's 4.2 million members increasingly find themselves locked out of prime wildlife areas, not by jackbooted federal bureaucrats but by the oil and gas industry. "Gun rights are still number one," said Schmeits, "but there will be more time and effort spent on this issue as we move forward."
The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms.
Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales, licenses or permits to terror suspects.
In a letter this week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, NRA executive director Chris Cox said the bill, offered last week by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., "would allow arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based on mere 'suspicions' of a terrorist threat."
We get called "terrorist sympathizers" for complaining about torture and the removal of Habeas. What the hell is this? These people think those suspects should have guns (and yes - they are suspects). How can the Republicans defend this? So you don't get a right to a speedy trial, yet you do get the right to a gun? I missed the part where one constitutional right trumps the other.
I think the Republicans should be asked if they will denounce this stance by the NRA. If the ACLU went out and said that terrorism suspects had a right to bear arms, then they would be branded as terrorists themselves. Something is very wrong here.
Pro-gun Democrats did better in the midterms than probably any other class of politician, but the National Rifle Association is not in the business of reflecting moderate political reality. The NRA lives off memberships, and the standard card-carrying member has two enemies: Democrats and ... deer, most likely.
But even loyalists go soft, as the GOP learned last month, and you need some Grade A propaganda to get people riled up again. Let no one accuse the NRA of shirking its duty. Freedom In Peril: Guarding the 2nd Amendment in the 21st Century, is a spectacularly beautiful graphic novel. Here, for example, is one of the biggest threats to the white suburban hunter: dirty hippies and their evil sidekicks: the dynamite-carrying owl, sinister pig, angry Wall Street bull, dire wolf, terror chicken and Land Lobster:
In the week prior to Congress's summer recess, the military spending bill was
shoved aside by leader Tom Delay in order to bring more pressing matters to the
table. The issue at hand - protecting the gun industry from civil action. Just a
few minutes ago, the House voted to pass this bill:
Congress gave the gun lobby its top legislative priority Thursday,
passing a bill that would protect the firearms industry from massive
lawsuits brought by crime victims. The White House says President Bush will
sign it into law.
The House voted 283-144 to send the bill to the president after
supporters, led by the National Rifle Association, proclaimed it vital to
protect the industry from being bankrupted by huge jury awards. Opponents,
waging a tough battle against growing public support for the legislation,
called it proof of the gun lobby's power over the Republican-controlled
Congress.
Under the measure, about 20 pending lawsuits by local governments against
the industry would be dismissed. The Senate passed the bill in July.
The bill's passage was the NRA's top legislative priority and would give
Bush and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill a rare victory at a time when
some top GOP leaders are under indictment or investigation.
"Lawsuits seeking to hold the firearms industry responsible for the
criminal and unlawful use of its products are brazen attempts to accomplish
through litigation what has not been achieved by legislation and the
democratic process," House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner,
R-Wis., told his colleagues.
