In a recent CNN story, Linn County, Oregon Sheriff Tim Mueller said he will not enforce any federal regulation that President Barack Obama lays out in his package of gun control proposals. Sheriff Mueller joined other public officials across the nation who have decided to push back against the federal government’s trickle-down tyrannical efforts to strip law-abiding citizens of their right to bear arms without infringement.
But wait! “Local officials don’t get to make that call,” according to CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin. This is the same legal eagle who, on a recent CNN program on guns, unholstered his Federal Arms one-shooter and blasted another upstart sheriff, Brad Rogers from Elkart County, Indiana, with his “supremacy clause” bullet. (This bullet serves as popular “ammunition” among “legal experts” in government, academia, and the media.)
But unlike Barney Fife, who had the good sense to keep his bullet in his shirt pocket, these cowboys are only too glad to produce theirs when the uppity rabble come into town. But we should excuse them, for they know not what they do—it’s all they learned about the Constitution in law school: The federal government rules! The words “in pursuance thereof” have been long banned from use in law schools across the land.
There’s more to Toobin. He goes on to with this senseless blather: “A sheriff does not get to decide whether laws are constitutional,” he said. “Unless a court invalidates a law, he’s obligated to enforce it.” That would be news to any officer of the law as well as military personnel who are not obligated to obey unconstitutional laws.
By extension, any U.S. citizen also has that prerogative, for if it is wrong for a soldier or officer of the law to deprive a citizen of his constitutional rights by enforcing an unconstitutional law or order, then it also follows that that same citizen is not obliged to comply with that same law or order as well. Law-abiding Japanese Americans, during World War II, would have had every right to refuse internment in the camps that were set up by the U.S. Government to treat them not as Americans–as human beings–but as cattle.
And soldiers would have been within their rights to not enforce the odious internment policy. In another era, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 serves as an example of where good Americans did not wait for some court to “invalidate” this shameless “law.”
The battle to educate is certainly not limited to “legal experts.” Typical Americans like Karin Hunt, an Oregon citizen, is quoted in the CNN article as saying: “I would expect (an) officer to enforce the laws of Oregon and the U.S.A. whether he agrees with the law or not,” she said. She continues with this overworked and meaningless statement: “That’s taking the law into your own hands.” And so it is. My question is, just who is the law supposed to serve, the government or the people? For too long, and on too many occasions, the government functionaries have been the ones who have taken the law into their own hands, with little or no consideration for the Constitution and the people.
It’s time the states and the people take the law into their own hands; the real law.
In Texas a sheriff takes an oath “to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and Laws of the United States”. I assume a similar oath is taken in all states. Does this not mean that if a sheriff has the duty to defend the Constitution that in the absence of relevant court decisions HE must have the authority to to decide the constitutionality of the laws he is enforcing? If he did not have this authority then he would have to assume all laws passed were constitutional but then he would not be preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution he would just be enforcing laws and the oath would be meaningless.
Further it appears to me that the oath does not require the sheriff to enforce the laws of the United States only to preserve, protect and defend them. Enforcement of federal laws that are directed at the people of the United States is a function of the federal authorities. Local sheriffs then may help out but they would not be required by their oath to take the lead in enforcing federal laws. If the President of the United States who takes a similar oath can not enforce federal laws on the books then clearly so can a sheriff.
Perhaps, it is time for one State, followed by a majority of the others, to rescind the authority and money from what the Federal Government has become. Would we return to prosperity for the most the quickest if “Provide for the Common Defense” were funded by tariffs and duties on imports and the rest of DC could just GO HOME.
Another issue to consider is the difference between law, executive order, and federal regulations. Some federal regulations can be enforced with criminal or civil action.