Some sheriffs in rural areas across the U.S. are vowing to ignore tighter gun laws and stand with the people they serve to support the Second Amendment.
“I made a vow and a commitment that as long as I’m the sheriff of this county I will not allow the federal government to come in here and strip my law-abiding citizens of the right to bear arms,”
Sheriff Mike Lewis of Wicomico County, Maryland, told NBC News. “If they attempt to do that it will be an all-out civil war. Because I will stand toe-to-toe with my people.”
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“State police and highway patrol get their orders from the governor,” the sheriff added. “I get my orders from the citizens in this county.”
As more states pass stronger gun control laws, some sheriffs are finding themselves at odds with the new rules.
NBC noted that the position of sheriff is not in the U.S. Constitution — though it is in state constitutions — and most sheriffs are elected by the people.
“The role of a sheriff is to be the interposer between the law and the citizen,” Maryland Delegate Don Dwyer, an Anne Arundel County Republican, told NBC News. “He should stand between the government and citizen in every issue pertaining to the law.”
Sheriff Tony Desmond of Schoharie County in New York feels his stand against new gun laws broadening the definition of banned assault weapons helped him get re-elected last year.
“If you have an (assault) weapon, which under the SAFE Act is considered illegal, I don’t look at it as being illegal just because someone said it was,” he told NBC.
One former sheriff said that upon studying the U.S. Constitution, there shouldn't be any gun control laws at all.
“I studied what the Founding Fathers meant about the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, and the conclusion is inescapable,” said Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff and the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). “There’s no way around it. Gun control in America is against the law.”
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