Sheriffs: Feds can't take away Utahns' 2nd Amendment rights

[freedom fighter jh]

99. Yes and no.

I think it's kinda sticky.

If they are told to do something that is blatantly unconstitutional or illegal, they are not supposed to do it. They are not supposed to be mindless machine parts that do what they are told regardless of principle. Folks at the top will push their limits. They need lots of checks. Courts are one. Citizen underlings who stand up to principle are another.

Yes, if everyone is making up their own interpretation of the law and enforcing it there is trouble. (I don't think it would be fascism -- fascism depends on having a strong state -- but that disagreement does not go to the core of your argument.) So the question is What is blatant? I have not read all of President Obama's executive orders, so I cannot say whether they blatantly violate the Constitution, but I think most likely the sheriffs are overreacting. (I'm guessing this because (a) they reacted so fast that it looks knee jerk and (b) the Second Amendment is so vague and open to interpretation that it's hard to see how this package of executive orders could violate it in any blatant way.) It's the general idea that law enforcement officers are supposed to be obedient primarily to their superiors rather than the Constitution that I am questioning. I think a system like that leads inevitably to a system of rule by people rather than by law, exactly what our system is designed not to be.

Imagine that the right under assault was the right to a free press. Imagine that, oh, a law were passed saying you could be executed on the spot under the guise of copyright protection for publishing information that was clearly intended to be political, and that did not infringe in any meaningful way on anyone's valid copy rights or rights of any other kind. The cops who are supposed to shoot you may be your last line of protection. Is this example extreme? Yes. That's the point. When the violation of rights becomes blatant, the cops, if they're going to do their duty, need to side with the citizens. Are we at that point in our society? No, but we're getting there fast.

The Constitution's guarantees are under threat. We the people cannot depend on folks at the top -- in any of the three branches of government -- to preserve them. It's gotta be people down the line. If it comes to police being told to arrest or even execute us without cause, without trial, any justice in the system may come down to those police choosing principle over obedience.