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Home Front: Culture Wars
Gun Control. Again. Give it Up Colorado. Less Popular than ObamaCare.
2013-12-16
It's the NYTs but nonetheless it almost reads like a newspaper instead of bird cage or kitty litter box liner.
GREELEY, Colo. -- When Sheriff John Cooke of Weld County explains in speeches why he is not enforcing the state's new gun laws, he holds up two 30-round magazines. One, he says, he had before July 1, when the law banning the possession, sale or transfer of the large-capacity magazines went into effect. The other, he "maybe" obtained afterward. He shuffles the magazines, which look identical, and then challenges the audience to tell the difference.
Why is it wrong for Champ to disregard the law but okay for a sheriff to disregard the law? If he thinks that the gun-control law is unconstitutional, file a lawsuit and ask a judge to toss it. Grrr...
"How is a deputy or an officer supposed to know which is which?" he asks.
...he "maybe" obtained afterward? Selective memory is sometimes a good thing. "How is a deputy or an officer supposed to know which is which?" Good question.
Colorado's package of gun laws, enacted this year after mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., has been hailed as a victory by advocates of gun control. But if Sheriff Cooke and a majority of the other county sheriffs in Colorado offer any indication, the new laws -- which mandate background checks for private gun transfers and outlaw magazines over 15 rounds -- may prove nearly irrelevant across much of the state's rural regions.
The party of gun control has paid a political price in Colorado recently when some of their members got retired from government. The will most likely pay a price in 2014 also.
Some sheriffs, like Sheriff Cooke, are refusing to enforce the laws, saying that they are too vague and violate Second Amendment rights. Many more say that enforcement will be "a very low priority," as several sheriffs put it. All but seven of the 62 elected sheriffs in Colorado signed on in May to a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statutes.
For some the Constitution is selectively followed--you know like the 10 Commandments; for others both are taken seriously.
The resistance of sheriffs in Colorado is playing out in other states, raising questions about whether tougher rules passed since Newtown will have a muted effect in parts of the American heartland, where gun ownership is common and grass-roots opposition to tighter restrictions is high.

Countering the elected sheriffs are some police chiefs, especially in urban areas, and state officials who say that the laws are not only enforceable but that they are already having an effect.
Who best represents the people in Colorado--The sheriffs or the police chiefs?
Posted by:JohnQC

#5  The good sheriff is abiding by the foundation of all laws. The 2nd Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Those attempting to circumvent the US Constitution can go ahead and take HIM to court. But We The People will be in His corner.
Posted by: Guillibaldo McCoy1948   2013-12-16 21:31  

#4  There are six counties in Colorado that have an aggregate population of over 4 million -- out of a statewide population of 4.5 million. Those counties are Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson. They all have one thing in common: they are part of the greater Denver metropolitan area. Guess which counties have the highest level of crime -- and the strictest gun control.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2013-12-16 14:38  

#3  A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish liberal brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.


The first stages of the revolution don't involve citizens taking to the streets, merely local officials refusing to enforce the demands of the "ruling class."
Posted by: Fred   2013-12-16 14:26  

#2  How to tell the difference? Well one has a slightly different curvature since the legislature redefined the value of Pi to be 3.00000...
Posted by: CrazyFool   2013-12-16 13:54  

#1  Hopefully some of the liberal rot that was imported into Colorado gets purged this election cycle.
Posted by: DarthVader   2013-12-16 13:39  

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