Sheriff’s Department Unwilling to Go Against the Wishes of the People They Serve

Division Actually Brings Truth to the Surface, Jesus came with the truth and a sword…

New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association Opposes Democrat Red Flag Law Push

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The New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association is standing against the red flag bill state Democrats are trying to pass this legislative session.

The sheriffs were able to help defeat such legislation in 2019 and remain as opposed to it now as they were then.

The Miami Herald reports 17 states and D.C. have red flag laws, all of which allow a judge to issue an order for the confiscation of an individual’s firearms.

State Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) is sponsoring the red flag legislation in New Mexico’s Senate. And Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) is standing with Cervantes, claiming without red flag laws, “you can’t have law enforcement engage before a horrific tragedy.”

But the New Mexico Sheriff’s Association sees it otherwise. They worry the red flag legislation will violate due process rights, remove a judge’s ability to be non-partial, and create a burden on sheriff’s offices.

The Ruidoso News quotes Lincoln County Sheriff Robert Sheppard saying, “We have a duty to follow the Constitution and this bill violates due process, because there is no hearing before the government confiscates possessions. It violates unlawful search and seizure 4th Amendment and the 5th Amendment. Someone can have this happen to them without ever committing a criminal act.”

He noted the red flag law puts judge’s in a tough spot, making it hard to maintain non-partiality: “It… gives authorization for a judge to issue a search warrant. They cannot do that, because there are the triers of the facts. As a law enforcement officer, we have to go and swear to the facts to be the officiate for a search warrant. These are misdemeanor charges and you can’t get [a] search warrant for that.”

Sheppard also said the law would require sheriffs to store confiscated firearms and ammunition, placing a burden of cost and storage space on those offices. Moreover, he said if the guns and ammo are sold, the money from the sale goes to the state rather than the sheriff, so there is no way for the sheriff to recoup the cost of storage, transport, etc.

Nonetheless, anyone could be the subject of a Red Flag accusation and be forced to make snap decisions as to how they will handle the confrontation. Will they calmly turn in their guns, or will they fire upon law enforcement in such situations?

The public trust is a fragile thing, it is the glue of civil society. Without it we live in want philosophers have termed a “State of Nature,” where there are no laws besides the law of the jungle. When bullies come to your door with guns blazing, people snap. It doesn’t matter if it is a police officer or a criminal, nobody will be calm at the point of a gun, especially in their own homes.

Back to the State of Nature

We have no obligation to submit to another’s violence on the macroscale of government or the microscale by a robber at gunpoint. A harmful government is a criminal government, and to be rebelled against seeing it will continue a cycle of violence.

In one of the most powerful lines of the Declaration of Independence, we get a clear description of the role of good government,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…” (Source)

Red Flag Laws, a State of Nature and the Right to Shoot Back

Mr. Trump last year made a statement to the effect that the police should take the guns first and then go to court and have a judge decide, here’s what I can tell you, we have elected REPROBATES and they are now our slave masters, and these corrupt elected officials are going to disarm the America people, it’s coming, and it will be sooner rather than later. SRH…

“Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not” Thomas Jefferson In the Lord’s freedom a sheepdog standing.warrior on

White-bread Americans are in for a rude awakening as they find themselves at the end of a barrel and being told to disarm under the guise of “Red Flag” gun confiscation laws.

The enforcement of Red Flag gun confiscation laws that are currently in place in 14 states now, will statistically impact everyone. In upcoming years as confrontations with law enforcement grows, everyone reading this article will know people impacted by gun confiscation and gun confrontations.

Dr. Chuck Baldwin accurately described these laws recently in a column entitled An Open Letter To Our Legislators, Judges And Lawmen, an article I beg everyone to pass along, especially to their law enforcement friends. He writes,

The “red flag” laws that are sweeping the country violate every principle of liberty upon which our country was founded. There is no due process associated with “red flag” laws. A judge’s order to seize the firearms from an American citizen who has not been accused of a crime, charged with a crime, convicted of a crime—or who never even threatened to commit a crime—based on the accusation of a single individual is anything but due process.

Our accuser could be a disgruntled employee, a bitter ex-spouse or relative, a vengeful neighbor, an anti-gun liberal or even an anti-gun policeman. By definition, “red flag” laws use mere suspicion of what one “might” do as justification to seize a person’s firearms. Tactics such as these have been used in virtually every despotic regime of history. In the name of protecting society, the rights and liberties of individuals were denied. Eventually, these repressive governments included political or religious persuasion as triggering “red flags,” which led to their disarmament—all in the name of public safety, of course.” (Chuck Baldwin Live)

This is a precise description of how these laws operate; they force confrontations with police and civilians based on nothing but unsubstantiated proof. It is obvious to see how this is ripe for abuse, exactly like kids who falsely call in SWAT team raids on video game opponents as a malicious joke in the past. A game that turned deadly, for example, the case of Tyler Barriss, who gave a false report and as a result, unarmed people died by police. When police act on unsubstantiated proof, without due process, in a militarized manner, civilians die, as does the Constitution and trust of the governed. If police are the cause of violence in suburban, middle-class America, as it is in the ghettos, you just watch how fast the public trust erodes.

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