SEE UPDATE HERE: 127 Sheriffs now oppose Obama gun laws; specter of door-to-door gun searches rears its head.
Yesterday in New Mexico, Roosevelt county sheriff Darren Hooker declared that he will not enforce President Obama's proposed gun control laws or assault weapons ban, according to the Portales News-Tribune.
In an interview with the local paper, Sheriff Hooker affirmed that he swore an oath to the U.S. Constitution, not the federal government, and therefore has no obligation to enforce federal law. When speaking specifically on the issue of Second Amendment rights and the proposed gun ban, Hooker made his position clear:
I believe the Second Amendment outlines the fact that we have the right to bear arms. It doesn’t say what kind, what shape, what size, what caliber. I feel as though bad people with the intention of doing harm will get weapons and the laws that may or may not be made will only infringe on the good people.
Sheriff Hooker joins the efforts of 11 New Mexico legislators who, on Friday, submitted a bill to resist President Obama's proposed federal gun bans. According to the Albuquerque Journal, these legislators -- led by Republican legislator Nora Espinoza -- seek to make it a third degree felony for federal or state agents to restrict, register or seize firearms under color of federal law.
The legislators' bill applies to assault weapons and high capacity magazines, which the White House seeks to ban, as well as to semi-automatic handguns. The lawmakers would also require the New Mexico Attorney General to defend any state resident charged by the federal government with violation of federal gun laws, as reported by this Examiner yesterday.
At the same time, however, other lawmakers in New Mexico seek to adopt New York State's ultra-restrictive gun control legislation, according to a report filed yesterday by Albuquerque Firearms Examiner Winston Dorian.
Sheriff Hooker joins four other sheriffs who have, in the past 48 hours, explicitly refused to enforce an "unconstitutional" assault weapon bans from the White House, as reported yesterday by the Examiner. He also joins nearly 40 other lawmen across the nation who have declared their intentions against the proposed Obama gun laws over the past week. A verified list of sheriffs around the country who have declared themselves against the Obama gun control laws -- and who will not enforce the gun laws and gun bans should they become law -- are complied here.
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