Colo. sheriff refuses to enforce gun-control bills

Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, center, backed by a group of fellow sheriffs, testifies against proposed gun control legislation in the Colorado Legislature, at the State Capitol, in Denver, Monday March 4, 2013. State Senate committees began work Monday on a package of gun-control measures that already have cleared the House which include limits on ammunition magazine sizes and expanded background checks to include private sales and online purchases. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)Yahoo News – by Associated Press

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado sheriff says he won’t enforce two aggressive gun-control measures waiting to be signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Weld County Sheriff John Cooke told The Greeley Tribune (http://bit.ly/141Ee2z ) that Democratic lawmakers are scrambling after recent mass shootings, and the bills are “feel-good, knee-jerk reactions that are unenforceable.”  

One bill expands background checks on firearm purchases, and the other limits ammunition magazines to 15 rounds. The 15-round magazine limit would make Colorado the first state outside the East Coast to ratchet back gun rights after last year’s shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn.

Colorado’s gun-control debates have been closely watched because of the state’s gun-loving frontier heritage and painful history of mass shootings, most recently last summer’s movie theater shooting that killed 12.

The sheriff said he “won’t bother enforcing” the laws because it would be impossible for officers to keep track of how the requirements are being met by gun owners — and he and other sheriffs are considering suing the state to block the measures if they are signed into law.

Cooke said the bill passed Friday requiring a $10 background check to legally transfer a gun wouldn’t keep firearms out of the hands of those who use them for violence.

“Criminals are still going to get their guns,” he said.

The sheriff’s office did not immediately return calls left by The Associated Press.

The magazine-limit bill passed earlier in the week will technically ban all magazines because of a provision that outlaws any magazine that can be altered, he said, adding that all magazines can be altered to a higher capacity.

Expanded checks have been a top priority for Hickenlooper, who called for the proposal during his State of the State address in January.

Cooke oversees law enforcement in Colorado’s third-largest county by area. His jurisdiction includes its largest city, Greeley, and large swaths of farmland and areas of oil and gas production.

http://news.yahoo.com/colo-sheriff-refuses-enforce-gun-control-bills-024608155.html

4 thoughts on “Colo. sheriff refuses to enforce gun-control bills

  1. Send the gun-grabbers to Afghanistan. Most gun-grabbers are also draft-dodgers or NON-volunteers. They can go “defend the Nation”. We dis-armed, terroristic, racist, evil, gun-nuts will stay home from anymore of THEIR wars. ……
    The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling

    AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
    I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
    Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

    We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
    That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
    But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
    So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

    We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
    Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
    But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
    That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

    With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
    They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
    They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
    So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

    When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
    They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
    But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

    On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
    (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
    Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

    In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
    By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
    But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

    Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
    And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
    That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

    As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
    There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
    That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
    And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

    And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
    When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
    As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
    The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

  2. These illogical, emotions based laws are the result of lawmakers thinking “we must do something!!” every time some nut on psychotropic drugs cracks.
    I simply do not care about gun bans, upcoming UN treaties, what any supreme court judge decides, what any senator wants or what any global tyrant wants; I shall never relinquish the tools that keep me from ending up a slave or a victim of a genocide.
    Is that clear enough?

Join the Conversation

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*