*They* decide what the laws and the constitution are, not the legislature, executive or the judiciary
Remember how Donald Trump always says “If XXX happens, we don’t have a country anymore”? Well, if this continues, he will be right:
A growing list of Oregon sheriffs are telling their constituents they won’t enforce voter-approved gun restrictions despite not yet knowing how some aspects of the law will work and not having a clear role in enforcing others.
In a Nov. 9 Facebook post, Linn County Sheriff Michelle Duncan said Measure 114, which 50.7% of voters approved the day before, is a terrible law for gun owners, crime victims and public safety. The measure would require a permit to buy a firearm and ban magazines holding more than 10 rounds.
“I want to send a clear message to Linn County residents that the Linn County Sheriff’s Office is NOT going to be enforcing magazine capacity limits,” Duncan wrote in the post, which as of Friday had been shared 12,000 times and garnered 9,300 comments.
Duncan was soon joined by Jefferson County Sheriff Jason Pollock, Wallowa County Sheriff Joel Fish and Union County Sheriff Cody Bowen who also said they would not enforce the new laws.
Pollock said he believes “the provisions in Measure 114 run contrary to previously decided judicial decisions.” Bowen said the law would also be a drain on resources and called it “another attempt at defunding the police at its finest.”
“To the people who chime in with me picking and choosing which laws I want to enforce or not enforce! Hear this!” Bowen exclaimed in his Facebook post. “When it comes to our constitutional rights I’ll fight to the death to defend them. No matter what crazy law comes out of Salem!”
Ok. Apparently, this is fine with the people who put them in that job and everyone else just has to deal with it. The next time one of their constituents decides to mow down a bunch of people using a high capacity magazine they bought in the jurisdiction I would hope there would at least be some civil liability.
But I don’t want to hear another word from any of those people about cops being in a dangerous job. These guys are bringing it on themselves and putting their fellow cops in danger with this nonsense.
By the way, the rural, eastern part of the state is MAGA crazy and full of Oath Keepers in uniform:
Sheriffs, like other elected politicians, are beholden to voters and Duncan said her office has been inundated with messages from concerned constituents. Measure 114 passed by a thin margin, largely carried by broad support in the state’s more liberal, populous counties. Voters in 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties voted against it. In more rural parts of the state, like Linn and Union counties, the vote was more than 2-to-1 against.
Pishko said sheriffs who make sweeping statements about refusing to enforce gun laws when they haven’t been asked to do so are also likely being influenced by the fringe constitutional sheriff movement founded in 2011 by former Oath Keepers militia board member Richard Mack.
Mack’s organization adheres to the false belief that the sheriff is the most powerful law enforcement officer in the country.
“The president of the United States cannot tell your sheriff what to do,” he falsely claimed in an interview with the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group whose top members have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
That contradicts the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which says federal law trumps state law. Similarly, thanks to a National Rifle Association lobbying campaign to prevent more liberal cities from passing strict gun laws, Oregon has what’s known as a firearm preemption law, meaning state gun laws supersede any city and county laws.
Further complicating constitutional sheriff ideology, the county-state relationship is far less rigid than the state-federal relationship.
“Counties are entirely a construct of states,” Portland State University political science professor Chris Shortell explained to OPB in a 2019 interview for a story about Oregon sheriffs and extremist ideology. “States create them, states could eliminate them, states can redraw their boundaries and as such, they are treated as simply a part of the state.”
This is not the first time Oregon sheriffs have flirted with extremist ideas. Eight Oregon sheriffs sent a letter to the Obama administration in 2013 saying they refused to enforce any new federal gun laws. That campaign was led by one of Duncan’s predecessors, then-Linn County Sheriff Tim Mueller.
Similar ideas were floated by sheriffs refusing to enforce Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s COVID restrictions. Like these most recent refusals to enforce the high-capacity magazine ban, sheriffs were not being asked to enforce COVID restrictions in 2020.
And they wonder why so many people no longer have respect for the police. Maybe it’s because so many cops have no respect for the law.
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