Your Sheriff Can Thwart Federal Gun Control Efforts

UPDATE 11.10.23: The courts are fighting back against unconstitutional bans on firearms and firearm equipment. A new ruling by a judge in Texas has granted an injunction against the unconstitutional ban on pistol braces. Gun Owners of America reported on its Twitter feed:

HUGE news on the pistol brace front! ⁰⁰A judge in the Northern District of Texas just granted a NATIONWIDE preliminary injunction against the ATF’s pistol brace ban! https://t.co/WsEjdLGphB pic.twitter.com/NTcg0CSQJ3

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) November 9, 2023

UPDATE 6.1.2022: Americans are watching today with horror as Canada comes very close to passing legislation that, while not explicitly banning guns, will eventually lead to such a state. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to stop the import, sale, and transfer of all handguns in Canada. Also included is a mandatory sporting rifle buyback. In other words, a gun confiscation is where the government gives you money for a gun you didn’t want to sell.

Canadians aren’t protected by a Second Amendment. Nor do they have the strong protection of constitutional county sheriffs. Read more below about how the county sheriff is America’s last hope.

Originally posted April 23, 2010. 

The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope

Part I

The book The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope is an absolute must-read. In just 49 quick pages, Richard Mack, former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, provides a concise roadmap to liberty and freedom.

Sheriff Mack was the first sheriff in the nation to file a lawsuit to stop the Brady Bill. On June 27, 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the Brady Bill was in fact unconstitutional and that the federal government could not commandeer state or county officers to carry out the federal government’s bidding. Prior to Sheriff Mack’s courageous stand, the Clinton/Brady Bill forced all sheriffs to be pawns for the federal government and do its bidding by promoting gun control within their jurisdictions. No funds were allocated for this work, and the Brady Bill authorized arrest for noncompliance.

As Sheriff Mack writes, the Supreme Court ruling says at least three times that the states are “not subject to federal direction,” emphasizing that “The federal government may not compel the states to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program.” Sheriff Mack is right in suggesting that the most vital of all assets to be protected is liberty. This is the first in a series of mini essays on The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope.

Part II

In the chapter of his book The County Sheriff entitled “Form of Government,” Sheriff Mack writes,

You will not find any references made by the Founders that they ever made any comments about their hopes of making America the next great democracy! There had already been numerous failed democracies throughout history (Rome and Greece) and they had no intention of risking their lives just to start another one here. The blood, sweat, and tears that went into the creation of our Declaration of Independence and the subsequent Constitution, were all about a new experiment. An experiment of a unique form of government based on the idea that all men are created equal and would therefore be left to govern themselves. Furthermore, the people would retain an inviolable sovereignty and power over the government, which exists to serve them, not vice versa.

The bottom line, says Sheriff Mack, is that sovereignty is inviolable: “America was founded as a constitutional Republic, a representative form of government with extremely limited powers, confined within the parameters as expressly set forth by the supreme law of the land, the Constitution itself.” Hard to see how Obamacare fits here, isn’t it?

Part III

In the chapter of The County Sheriff on barriers, Sheriff Richard Mack offers the following insight on Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s 10^th Amendment ruling: “The power of the Federal Government would be augmented immeasurably if it were able to impress into its service—and at no cost to itself—the police officers of the 50 States.” Mack writes that the federal government does not have the power or authority to “impress” the police from the states into federal regulatory programs. He concludes, “Finally, and most unambiguously, the Supreme Court ruled repeatedly in this case ‘state legislatures are not subject to federal direction.’”

Part IV

In the chapter of The County Sheriff entitled “Political Correctness,” Sheriff Richard Mack tells Americans, “our American Republic has been replaced by a corrupt system of political correctness. The founders of America warned us repeatedly, in their writing and their intent, to avoid gun control, a welfare state, a police state, entangling foreign alliances, a grandiose and omnipotent central government, enslaving taxation, [and] paper money not backed by a gold and silver standard.” Mack concludes that “The political platforms of both major parties have promoted each and every one of these socialistic or communistic ideals, that our country was specifically established to prevent.”

I agree 100% and would ask how Sheriff Mack’s on-the-money arguments match up with those in Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President by Mark Green and Michele Jolin. I doubt Sheriff Mack could wade through the first chapter of this abuse of the printing press.

Part V

In the chapter of The County Sheriff titled “Real Criminals,” Sheriff Mack tells Americans that the IRS should never have existed in the first place. There should be no tax on incomes. The 16^th Amendment, which supposedly authorized Congress to collect income tax, was never ratified by the states. Sheriff Mack summarizes his chapter on the IRS by saying, “Why would any Sheriff trust the IRS or allow them inside his county?”

In the chapter “Legal Advice,” Mack tells Americans that the county sheriff has no superior or boss, except for the people. He does from time to time receive “legal advice from the county attorney. However, there is nothing that requires the sheriff to follow such advice and, for the most part, it is not legally binding.”

In his “Making of America” chapter, Sheriff Mack writes that when the Constitution was drafted, “The absolute and most vital of all assets to be protected was liberty.” He argues that our nation today is the opposite of the one desired by our founders. Mack concludes that countless institutions—EPA, FCC, OSHA, Department of Education, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, INS, BATFE, HUD, BIA, SEC, the Federal Reserve, DEA, the Forest Service, BLM, and of course our own American version of the notorious WWII Gestapo, the IRS—were never meant to be, based upon the enumerated powers granted under the Constitution. I carry a mini copy of the Constitution with me at all times. Article I, Section 8, lists all the enumerated power of Congress. Here is the short and specific list:

Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;—And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

I’ll let you be the judge. This is the final mini summary on Sheriff Richard Mack’s The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope. I obviously feel that Sheriff Mack has a profound understanding of the intent of America’s founders, namely Jefferson and Madison. As a country, we have since come off the tracks. Listen to Rush any day of the week. Record the Glenn Beck show on FOX News every day at 5:00 p.m. and play it back for your whole family. And buy a gang of copies of Sheriff Mack’s great The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope to pass around to all of your friends. Finally, it’s time to fly the yellow Don’t Tread on Me flag for liberty and freedom. It’s a brand new day. Visit SheriffMack.com.