US sheriff raps officers who say they'd ignore gun control laws they see as constitutional

Ottawa Citizen ^ | 1/22/2013 | Dan Elliott

[Washi]

DENVER -- The Colorado sheriff whose county includes the movie theater where 12 people were shot and killed last year says law-enforcement officers have no right to ignore gun-control laws unless the courts rule them unconstitutional.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson issued a statement Wednesday criticizing police and sheriff's officials who have said they would not enforce gun-control laws they consider unconstitutional.

...snip...

For a law enforcement official to claim that authority would be the equivalent of police officers or deputies deciding that people they arrest are guilty and sentencing them to jail, he said.

[guido911]

There’s your Eichmann.

[Newbomb Turk]

Come try and take my Tyranny Response Rifle copper !

[editor-surveyor]

This sheriff needs desperately to be removed from office.

[glock rocks]

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson

Great job you did there at the theatre, Grayson. Hope you didn't lose too many donuts in responding. Good for you it happened in a gun free killing zone, eh? Otherwise, chalk-lining and reporting would be so yesterday, eh?

Pfffft.

[SoConPubbie]

Sheriff Robinson is just achin’ to be removed in the next election.

[cva66snipe]

OK then sheriff Robinson why didn't YOU stop the killing in your county? Why didn't you prevent it to start with? You want to be the grand protector? You best start protecting each and every citizen and if they are harmed then you should be held responsible. Where were YOU? Where were your deputies? Only minutes away right? With innocents citizens in a Gun Free Zone. You just don't get it. You go to sleep with firearm protection in your home as does your deputies. You likely go out shopping carrying the same so do they.

Enjoying your ruling class status and ruling class privileges? What makes you more special than me? The oath you took? Laws must be Constitutional otherwise they are tyranny. Enforce the Constitution including yourself abiding in the rights stated within it and the Unconstitutional laws will take care of themselves. You have no legal authority or right to violate the Constitution of the United States including the Second Amendment.

[dragnet2]

Call me when you worry about all the officials who openly told LEOs to ignore immigration laws, for years now.

How many mayors, governors, police chiefs, judges, etc., have declared this?

This has been happening for many years now...Government only enforces the laws they want to enforce and the reason the U.S. now has upwards of 20+ million illegals running through it's streets, yet they are now concerned with law abiding Americans while attempting to limit or undermine their constitutional rights?

Total chaos... This just reeks...

[Vendome]

Uhm, no. You as the local constable can decide to let federalies in or not.

Clearly police were following the law during Jim Crowe enforcing unjust laws, while many others ignored it.

[Paladin2]

The Law these days is all about selective enforcement.

There are so many laws, changing at a rapid rate, that it's impossible for anyone to know them all, though ignorance of any of them is to the state's benefit.

[Tublecane]

“unless the courts rule them unconstitutional”

Yeah, they have the only say because...um...they just do.

[Tublecane]

What an idiotic argument. Is it possible people, officers of the law especially, don’t know the criminal justice system assumes innocence unless proved otherwise, and that false imprisonment is a greater wrong than letting the guilty go free? Did it never occur to him why the burden of proof is on the state?

Not that I go all the ACLU way. It is unjust not to punish the guilty, and getting guilty people or less than what they deserve is wrong. Of course we don’t know who is and isn’t guilty, and defense attorneys plug their ears lest clients admit what they’ve done so they don’t have to knowingly obstruct justice. It’s an abstract theoretical process for them, with the knowledge that in at least some of the cases actual, practical justice is served.

[coloradan]

He should brush up on “separation of powers.”

[HarleyLady27]

Don’t you worry your pretty little head Sheriff..we’ll handle anything that concerns the Second Admendment...your part of ‘government’ so you kiss O’s butt and leave the big stuff to us the ‘PEOPLE’....

[VeniVidiVici]

I don't think this Imaho County Sheriff has spent a day as a cop but he has all his tickets punched:

Grayson Robinson

Grayson Robinson is Sheriff of the Arapahoe County (CO) Sheriff’s Office, a position he has held since 2002. He also serves as the Vice President/Vice Chairperson for the Commission. Sheriff Robinson is actively involved with the National Sheriffs’ Association and currently serves on the Legislative Affairs, Counter Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Accreditations, Detention and Corrections committees. He is also a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Police Executive Research Forum.

He has a Bachelor’s degree in business administration and a Master’s degree in public administration from the University of Colorado. Sheriff Robinson also is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Seminar, and the State and Local Executives Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government

[chulaivn66]

“So here we are. Imagine where we’ll be.”

[MileHi]

He is a fitting replacement for Pat Sullivan. That sheriffs department is a big reason why Aurora sucks.

[Amendment10]

There is some merit in what the sheriff is saying.

However, the sheriff may be unaware of jury nullification. Jury nullification is when a jury returns a verdict of "not guilty" for somebody who has broken a law on the basis that the jury thinks that the law is a bad or stupid law. (Note that jury nullification is not the same thing as establishing a case precedent which applies to everybody who breaks the questionable law. Jury nullification affects only the case the jury is deciding.)

And I also think that the sheriff needs to be made aware that the Supreme Court has already clarified that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to restrict Congress from making gun control laws which the Court recognizes as the job of state and local authorities.

"The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation (emphases added), or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States." --United States v. Cruikshank, 1875.

[RC one]

Oh really? does that mnean they have to enforce federal immigration laws now?

[virgil]

Why can’t they ignore them? They ignore immigration laws.

[TigersEye]

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson

There is a name for the watch list. Thankfully my county Sheriff did sign the letter about not enforcing un-Constitutional FedMob gun laws.