Colorado - the New Police State

An article called "Bye, Bye Sheriffs: Colorado Redefines the Police State", by Elizabeth Hermesch on PoliticChicks, the Voice of the Conservative Woman, warns us of a new police state in Colorado.

According to the book They Fired the First Shot, “Sheriffs across our nation are standing up against tyranny and are winning their battles without violence, without protests, without lawsuits. How? Because constitutional power is clear as to who holds the final authority in local areas. Not the President of the United States, not Congress, not the Supreme Court, but the local Sheriff holds the authority and he is fast becoming the hero of the people.”

The states and the feds are almost powerless against the Constitutional sheriff…and they know it. That’s why they are now on the attack.

A new bill coming from Colorado, SB 13-013, passed on a nearly-party-line vote in the Democrat-controlled House and was signed into law recently by Governor John Hickenlooper. The bill’s long title is “CONCERNING PEACE OFFICER AUTHORITY FOR CERTAIN EMPLOYEES OF THE UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE.” The official summary reads, “The bill gives a special agent, uniform division officer, physical security technician, physical security specialist, or special officer of the United States secret service limited peace officer authority while working in Colorado.”

I readily confess that I am becoming increasingly paranoid of all realms of our government, but this is hardly a far-out conspiracy theory. Without a doubt, this law essentially gives police powers and arrest authority to the executive branch of federal government (Secret Service) within the State. In other words, it is shoving out the elected peace officers (the local sheriffs) who answer to the people and the Constitution and is replacing them with unelected Secret Service members who answer only to the federal government.

As if there was any doubt, the text of the bill reinforces it: The secret service agent acts in accordance with the rules and regulations of his or her employing agency. A secret service agent is a person who is employed by the united states government, assigned to the united states secret service, empowered to effect an arrest with or without a warrant for violations of the united states code, and authorized to carry a firearm and use deadly force in the performance of his or her duties as a federal law enforcement officer.

Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said, “Often in laws like this they will give broad authority in one section, then later in another section they will have wording which appears to restrict the authority,” he explained. “Unlike the state’s law enforcement, the Secret Service would not have any jurisdictional concerns. Under this bill they can go anywhere in the state of Colorado regardless of jurisdiction.”

“This is absolutely insane,” Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono, said. “In theory if a Secret Service agent is in a county where the sheriff has refused to enforce some of the recent unenforceable gun laws, the agent could arrest an individual if he believes the law has been broken.”

It is obvious that SB 13-013 was introduced in direct response to the hundreds of county sheriffs, including many in Colorado, who have justly stood up to the Washington bureaucrats and said they cannot enforce federal restrictions that would violate the Second Amendment.

But it gets worse.

Rep. Saine says she believes the bill is intended to be used as a foundation for later legislation that will surrender still greater control to federal officials. “There’ve been so many explanations for the reasons they really need this bill passed. So what is it really?” “I believe it is intended to be used for setting up a framework so that at some other time they could expand it to possibly include being able to arrest a sheriff who is refusing to enforce unconstitutional laws. They would justify it by saying that since we’ve already given the Secret Service this ability, why not give them just one more?”

This has already happened…and is happening increasingly.

In the Texas state legislature, Dallas Democratic Representative Yvonne Davis introduced a measure similar to the Colorado law that would fire any law enforcement officer who disobeys state or federal orders. The bill even calls for the removal of any law enforcement officer who just promises — either on paper or just verbally — not to enforce any federal gun control mandates that the federal government passes.

In Delaware, a bill was recently revived that attempts to replace elected sheriffs with federal-government-appointed police chiefs.

Coincidentally (or not so coincidentally), Connecticut, the state where the infamous Newtown school shooting occurred, voted in 2000 to eliminate county sheriffs as constitutional officers. Among the provisions eliminated were the requirements to hold an election of sheriffs in each county every four years for four-year terms and the requirement that sheriffs submit a bond to the treasurer to ensure the faithful discharge of their duties. Voters in Connecticut opted instead for a system of federal marshals who don’t bother to take an oath to uphold the Constitution; the marshals’ only loyalty is to those in upper echelons of power who appoint them, not the lowly “we the people” they are supposed to serve.

When you realize the power a local elected sheriff has, you quickly realize why there is a concerted effort to take away the position and change it into some kind of a yes-man governmental appointed fluff job. After all, as Thomas Jefferson said, “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.” The local sheriff’s job is to ensure the existence of that tempestuous sea of liberty, so, of course, liberals are doing everything to take that power away and instead ensure the calm of despotism.

Even as far back as the 1970s, when the threat to eliminate the sheriff was openly before California supervisors, Supervisor William Johnson of El Dorado County persuaded two California State representatives to join him in getting an initiative qualified for the California ballot which stated in print in the state’s Constitution that the sheriff must be an elective office. The proposition on the ballot passed easily and it was entered into California’s constitution. At that time Supervisor Johnson declared that it “was an attempt to put a road block in the way” of the ‘change agents’. It gave the people more time to find ways to protect themselves against the ‘change agents’ who were trying to eliminate the Constitutional sheriff.

Many states, including Montana, Ohio, Kentucky, Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Michigan, Utah, and New Mexico, are trying to protect the power of their sheriffs in much the same way, with many gun rights bills gaining momentum. Will other states answer the bell and protect their sheriffs from the despotic, power-hungry agents who want to put them out of business? It is essential that they do because what is so eerie about the Colorado bill is that the state is willingly transferring enormous power to the federal government. Is this the new normal?

Welcome to the new police state, America.

Outdoor Channel Pulls Production From Colorado

I guess it wasn't only Mag-Pul Industries who threatended to move out of Colorado if the anti-constitutional gun ban was passed...... 

From: Michael Bane Date: Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 4:09 PM Subject: OUTDOOR CHANNEL Pulls Productions from Colorado To: Steve King

Dear Senator King;

I met you yesterday after the so-called "public hearings" on the anti-gun bills; as I mentioned, I am an Executive Producer for OUTDOOR CHANNEL. I currently have four series in production, including GUN STORIES, the top show on OC, with several additional series in development. My series focus on guns, hunting, shooting and the outdoors.

This morning I met with my three Producers, and we made the decision that if these anti-gun bills become law, we will be moving all of our production OUT of Colorado. We have already canceled a scheduled filming session for late this month. Obviously, part of this is due to our own commitment to the right to keep and bear arms, but it also reflects 3 lawyers' opinions that these laws are so poorly drafted and so designed to trap otherwise legal citizens into a crime (one of our attorneys referred to them as "flypaper laws") that it is simply too dangerous for us to film here.

I can give you chapter and verse on the legal implications if you need, but suffice to say that the first legal opinion was so scary we went out and got two others. Al three attorneys agreed.

We are relatively small potatoes in television, but our relocation of production will cost Colorado a little less than a million dollars in 2013.

Secondly, we have proudly promoted Colorado in our productions (and have been moving more and more production into the state); now we will do exactly the opposite. What does this mean for Colorado? The community of television producers is a small one. Last week I had lunch with a major network producer who was looking to locate his new reality series in Colorado. That producer is also a shooter, and the new reality series will now be based out of Phoenix. That lunch cost Colorado over a million in economic impact.

Thirdly, according to numbers I received from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (for whom I used to work) yesterday, hunting had an almost $800,000,000 impact on Colorado in 2012, driving as many as 8330 jobs. Next month I will be in Texas meeting with most of the top outdoor/hunting producers, and the Number One agenda item will be Colorado. Already, hunting organizations and statewide hunting clubs around the country are pulling out of Colorado, and we expect this trend to accelerate rapidly.

The message we will take to our viewers and listeners is that these proposed laws are so dangerous to hunters and any other person, be she a fisherman or a skier who brings a handgun into the state for self-defense, that we cannot recommend hunting, fishing or visiting Colorado. We reach millions of people, and, quite frankly, we have a credibility that Colorado government officials can no longer match. Colorado Division of Wildlife is already running ads trying to bring more out-of-state hunters to Colorado...in light of the flood of negative publicity about these proposed laws, I can assure you those ads will fail.

We estimate that as many as one-quarter to one-third of out-of-state hunters will desert Colorado in the next 18-24 months, which will quite frankly be a disaster for the hunting industry in Colorado and have a devastating effect on our western and northern communities (certainly cities like Grand Junction).

This is not a "boycott" in the traditional sense of a centralized, organized operation; rather, it is more of a grassroots decision on where shooters, hunters and other sportsmen are willing to spend their money. Look at the collapse of the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show in February. That venerable multimillion dollar trade show chose to ban modern sporting rifles and standard capacity magazines, and within three weeks it collapsed as all vendors and sponsors pulled out.

Colorado is going to pay a huge price for laws that will do nothing. Thank you, sir, for your support.

Best.

Michael Bane

OUTDOOR CHANNEL mbane@outdoorchannel.com