Constitutional Duties of a Sheriff
by Richard Mack (Utah)
Speech given at the Restaurant Social and Speakers Forum of the IAP National Conference, January 17, 2003, Taylorsville (Salt Lake City), Utah. Richard Mack is a former county sheriff in Arizona, successful challenger of the Brady Bill, and a member of the Independent American Party.
[Introduction by Will Christensen, IAP Western States Coordinator:]
Well its my pleasure to introduce Richard Mack. Richard was the sheriff of a small county in Arizona when the Brady bill was passed, and he decided that that was not what he wanted to enforce, and so he filed suit against the federal government -- he and a sheriff up in Montana, if I remember correctly. And he took that suit all the way to the Supreme Court and won a tremendous freedom victory. And I understand he's going to talk about the ramifications of that, so without further ado, my friend Richard Mack.
[Address by Richard Mack:]
Well, I think the most important aspect of that introduction is that I'm Will's friend. Thank you. Since I did that, I lost a few friends.
If I could have your indulgence for a minute, I am presently employed, technically not in the field of my choice. The one that I actually chose to be part of was stripped from me when I did the lawsuit on the Brady bill. But my second choice would be to be in the freedom movement full time, which is what I am right now. I work as public affairs director for Gun Owners of America. Let me tell you just a little bit about them. If you're not a member you should be. There's a few organizations in this country where you can put stock into their fundamental beliefs and agenda -- Gun Owners of America is one of them. I worked with them before I worked for them. Now I work with them and for them.
Larry Pratt is the executive director. You'll never meet a finer Christian and you'll never meet somebody in this country who has sacrificed more for the God-given freedoms we've been talking about tonight. Gun Owners of America is not a single-issue organization. They are the second largest gun rights organization in this country. But the biggest one in the country who believes in the fundamental values of the Constitution -- the principles espoused in the Constitution by the founders. They believe -- they are not afraid to say -- they're pro-life and anti-UN completely and totally. Of course, if you're going to be pro-gun you can't be pro-UN. And if you're going to be pro-life, you can't be pro-UN. And a lot of these hidden agendas that are part of the United Nations are freely talked about in our newsletter. And so I have here in front of me -- and its 20 dollars to become a member. And if any of you have already purchased my books, then for you its only 10. So you'd get both of my books and a membership in Gun Owners of America for just thirty dollars. That would make these worth five dollars each.
Let me, I would like to pass these around if I could, if you want one and could be a member, please do so. This is a very Constitutional organization and you'll get the newsletter and within the next year it'll prove itself to you. So if you could just make sure every couple gets -- I'd like everybody to join or at least every couple to join in that fight.
Cash, check credit cards, but I prefer gold or silver -- so a tenth ounce of gold would do it, or like three or four silver coins, probably four silver coins. You know, Will mentioned something. Will has been incorrect before in his life, and we could check with his wife on that, but he mentioned a sheriff that joined me in my lawsuit. Let me give you just a little real quick history on that.
When the Brady bill first was announced publicly, it was billed and advertised, propagandized from the Clinton white house as a mere waiting period to make our streets safer from people who would jump out of their house in anger to run to a gun shop, grab a gun and come back and kill their kids and wife. Which I tried to find out in all the police departments across the country if that had ever happened, and I couldn't find one incident of that ever occurring. And even if it did, this still wouldn't have prevented any such thing.
Anyway, President Clinton was propagandizing the Brady bill as a measure to make our streets safer for police; and a time, when of course its for our children, that they could play in the parks in public in safety because we'll have this Brady bill. Well that was another Clintonesque piece of propaganda and probably matched the truthfulness of his "I did not have sex with that woman ...."
Now, the Brady bill, when I got closer to it, I started getting a little bit worried about it. But I wasn't going to have a major heart attack and I never intended to file a lawsuit. I was sheriff the whole time that this was being talked about. I paid very little attention to it. I did not start forming a political action committee saying what are we going to do about this Brady bill thing. It happened when the BATF sent three of their agents to a sheriff's association meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. Any of you from Arizona know that there's only 15 counties in Arizona -- about half of what there are in Utah. And so to get 13 or 14 sheriffs together is not that hard. And we actually had 12 of us. We had a quorum. And the BATF shows up to address 12 sheriffs -- it takes three of them. And there -- you know what they were there for -- to hand us our marching orders as to how we we're going to comply with the Brady bill.
Now I was having a heart attack. And the rest of the sheriffs did also. The one from Showlow [Arizona], Gary Butler -- all of them did. You never heard so much cussing in your life. I guarantee you. And those sheriffs can cuss good even when they're not mad. And now they were mad. And we tabled the discussion until the next week we had a special meeting. And then we came back and said okay, what are we going to do about the Brady bill? And I said, if we all stand together against this, we can just say "no" to it. And they wouldn't do it. They went down. I said let's send a letter to Janet Reno, President, c-c it to the senators and put a notice in the paper that we're not doing it. And let the people know why. These guys were really afraid that the constituents would say that we're taking the law into our own hands, and we should set a better example than that. And so I said, there is no way I'm going to go along with this, and if we allow this then where's it going to stop. There's not a one of us that reports to the BATF, and they're trying to make it that way.
And so I came home from that meeting and talked to my boss and asked her what we should do, and told her I was probably going to file a lawsuit -- and see, and that is what's so stupid about all this, and maybe I showed my own naivete. I didn't form that committee and I didn't go around door to door and calling people and ask them if this was the right thing to do. There was only three people that made this decision -- and it was me, my wife and the good Lord. And because it was an automatic decision for me -- I certainly prayed about this absolutely. But I believe that the decision was made that quick. When the BATF showed up and said this, I said you know its over. You don't need to ask the Lord, if you know to say. do I need to do this good thing? You know, but certainly I asked for his help and his strength in performing the duties that are associated with this arduous task of suing the Clinton administration. A small town sheriff -- Grand County was thirty thousand people -- its a farming community -- copper mining area. And then when I filed the lawsuit I was alone. No one else in the country had talked about doing this -- NO ONE. And then luckily -- boy did I have a great day when I found out that Sheriff Prince from Montana was also doing the same thing.
He never called me -- I never called him. I never met him before in my life until we were asked to be on the Phil Donahue Show together. Of course the other side was there, Sarah Brady was there and an attorney from Handgun Control Incorporated. Here's two country sheriff's debating Sarah Brady and an attorney from Handgun Control Incorporated. And Phil Donahue said something that was very different for him. He said he really respected our constitutional concerns -- and that was on nationwide television -- he said that. So miracles were taking place with this whole thing. Ultimately, seven sheriffs joined the lawsuit -- filed lawsuits in separate jurisdictions across the country -- not more than one from any one state -- Vermont, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Wyoming, Montana and Arizona. That's it. There's 3000 sheriffs in the country.
Seven filed the suit. And it wasn't without some real repercussions. Several -- uh two or three --of the sheriffs lost their re-election bids right away. And I lost mine about nine months before the decision came out that we won. And it really would have helped had we got that just a little bit earlier, but it was a four-year battle. Not quite a four-year battle. But to get to the District Court, Circuit Court, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court and get a victory in four years -- any of you lawyers know how miraculous that was -- it was really a miracle. And I'm telling you right now, that victory made everything -- losing the job, moving, losing the home and everything else, we completely started over -- COMPLETELY started over -- at how old were we, I was about 42, I guess.
And then to come up to Utah County -- and say, you know, because I was a cop in Utah County. I started my police career in Provo [Utah] and I was a cop for 11 years. And then some crazy people from Arizona had called me and said we want you to move home to Arizona and run for sheriff. And I told them they were crazy -- and this is one time my wife agreed with me that her parents were crazy. And she really did, you know. And then three months later we did the crazy thing, picked up and left, and went home to Arizona. And I took a leave of absence from Provo, because in case I didn't win, I could come back. And I had to commute to Provo for court cases and other things that I had to be there for -- like six times during the campaign. Sometimes I was literally campaigning on the phone from Provo. And its totally a miracle. So, and then after the miracle, we started to say winning this election, not having even lived in my own community for 13 years, and never being a cop in Arizona or my community ever before, and then winning sheriff. And we all talked about what a miracle that was. And my wife and mother -- both being sensitive to that when I filed the lawsuit on the Brady bill, both of them within a day -- mentioned to me, now we know why you were elected sheriff.
And it really did seem to be an errand for the Almighty. And it went a real roller coaster ride. That's really how I described the lawsuit. One day it would be that you know we were getting inducted into the NRA hall of fame; and the next day we were being demonized by the national media as right-wing extremist radical terrorists. And most of you've been called the same thing because you believe in the Constitution. And isn't it amazing that those who quote the Constitution and the founding fathers today are demonized as radical extremists and even terrorists. How sad that our Constitution has taken on that kind of public scrutiny. Amazing that our media would allow that to happen and that politicians who go along with this redistribution of the wealth and forced charity as we were talking about earlier -- see forced charity by government is tyranny. And if charity has to be forced, its not charity folks. Its not charity. Call it anything but charity. Its NOT charity.
And I thought all of that, and I started studying the Constitution way back -- and the importance of this book, its a short booklet, its thirty pages long, but its probably the most powerful thirty pages you'll read anywhere. It talks about my personal conversion to the Constitution. And did I say conversion? I said conversion, didn't I? It was a religious and spiritual experience for me. And it happened during the process, the biggest part of it was when I took a class -- taught by my mentor and friend and one of the most stalwart Constitutionalists on the face of this planet, when I attended his class called Constitutional Studies for Law Enforcement. You probably know who it is now -- Cleon Skousen -- W. Cleon Skousen. He was really famous for that, wasn't he? It didn't matter who he was talking to -- it was Constitutional Studies for Teachers or Constitutional Studies for Janitors, or Constitutional Studies for Cops, or Constitutional Studies for Cops Wives. It was all the same, he just named it to whoever he was teaching, but it was all the same class and it was always about the Constitution. And it talks about that in here, and how some things happened in my life that got me from being a numbers cop of just writing the tickets -- which I believe now is one of the greatest abuses of government that we have anywhere in our country. The revenue collection that happens because these guys wear a badge, called radar tickets, is an absolute outrage and abuse. It is a lark. We've got to change it.
And I really hope most of you know where I got the title for this book. Somebody mentioned a little while ago The Proper Role of Government. Well, I learned that from Cleon, just change it and make it a little bit more job specific. And so is this meant for cops to read this? Absolutely! And should every one of you read it first? Absolutely! And the jest of this is every police officer in this country took an oath and has taken an oath as well as most schoolteachers and every public official to uphold and defend the U. S. Constitution.
And what happens when we, as I was, as Sheriff placed in the quandary of choosing between statutory obedience or Constitutional adherence? See, that's the quandary I was in. There's a statue from on high from Washington, D.C. that said the Brady bill must be enforced by you sheriffs. And now I'm in the predicament of saying, but I read the Constitution. And I know that I was constitutionally elected by, for and of the people of Grand County, to protect and according to my oath, their constitutional rights. And in a democracy, I could probably have a lot of leeway, huh? You know, because as soon as one person or more than fifty percent of the people in my community said go ahead and enforce the Brady bill, you got our permission, then I could do that in a democracy. But in a Constitutional Republic, where I gave my word to protect the Constitution, if a hundred percent of the people in my community said for me to enforce it, I could not. Because I would be violating my word.
And you see, the founding fathers were naive in that sense -- is that when they put the requirement that every public official state and local would swear allegiance to the Constitution, they intended and trusted us that we would keep our word. And that might have been part of their problem. They should have put something in there that would punish us if we did not. And maybe they did, but it wasn't specific enough for today's political correctness problem. And I think you know if you don't go with the Constitution then you 're probably under the heading of the treason crime. But boy, I'll tell you if we have the FBI doing all of that, doing all the follow-up on all the traitors in Washington D.C.; boy would they be busy and finally have something to do that would be legitimate, huh?
And I would I like to make one other point out of this book. I make reference to a hero of mine. Her name was Rosa Parks. And do you know what? We need to pay attention to her story. Because what did she teach us? And what does the left side honor her for and -- in fact she got some congressional awards just a couple of years ago for what she did. And it was because she defied stupid law. And I believe that falls right in with our theory that defiance of tyranny is obedience to God.
See, she was arrested. It wasn't just a tradition that she give up her seat to a white man. It was the LAW! And what did the cop do when he got there? The same thing he tells us when he takes our gun or when he puts us in jail or he writes the ticket when we complain about his actions. What does he say? Just doing my job. You know I don't make the law lady, I'm the enforcer. And every cop will tell you that there's been plenty of times during his career that he hasn't enforced every law. We're not required to, we shouldn't and we shouldn't be obeying about 98 % of the laws or enforcing about 98 % that are there now, as a matter of routine.
If you've ever been to any of these courts that they call justice courts in Utah and across America? -- they are anything but. The judge is a rubber stamp for a police officer, and the police officer is a rubber stamp for the legislature, and here we have the executive and judicial and legislative branches all meshed into one. In fact, what are the police officers -- say, basically they are puppets for the judges and the legislative branches and that they are just following orders.
Well that's what the cop said when he went to arrest Rosa Parks. And he did arrest her and she was booked into jail. And she -- what would a cop that was really a statesman, that was really sincere about his oath of office, what would a sheriff have his deputies be doing if he took his oath of office seriously, then or now? He would have his deputy get on that bus and sit down next to Rosa Parks and make sure she got off the bus safely and got home in the same manner. And so when they make laws that are now today a violation of the First Amendment.
Okay, let's talk about guns. Let's start in California and work our way east shall we? In California they're confiscating guns, they're arresting people who have guns in their cars. They're taking the guns -- and even if the guy is found not guilty, the guns are still confiscated and destroyed under the nuisance law. You never get it back whether you're found not guilty or not. The right to keep and bear arms right now is subject to what? -- Government approval. Period, end of sentence, nationally. There's one state that has no permits. You can carry concealed or open anywhere in the state. Its Vermont. Thank you. Guess who has the lowest crime rate? Which state has the lowest crime rate every year? Yeah they're not very populated, its the crime rate per population, per capita we're talking about there. And yet, most people in this country don't even know that exists do they? They don't but they have that going on there.
And boy that brings us into now of course this book, this one's kind of beat up; this is my own copy, where I give my speeches out of it. In my son's school at middle school in Provo last year, he was taught that the word in the Second Amendment in his government class -- "militia" referred to -- you know it, referred to the National Guard or the U.S. Army. Do you know how stupid that is? And this liberal teacher was trying to re-write history, literally re-writing history, and telling my son a lie. Teaching him not what the founding fathers intended. Do you know that he could look up in any contemporary dictionary today and find out militia and its right. Look up in the dictionary "militia." I've yet to see one that was really wrong. They all call them a citizen's volunteer group. That's exactly what it is. Its a volunteer group of citizens. So is there a contradiction in the Second Amendment? No, the militia -- the citizen volunteers -- who what were called out by --? Another thing that's left out in most of our history books today -- Paul Revere. Paul Revere's ride. Start looking at your grade school history books. He's not in there any more. Why? Because, does that fit into today's society, where you have somebody riding through the country telling everybody to get their assault rifles out of the closet to come stand against tyrannical government? Ooh, we don't want people thinking that's okay. So that's got to be conspicuously left out of history books.
And what did one of my favorite quotes in the book here is -- George Mason, founding father from Virginia, legislator from Virginia -- this is page 178. "I ask sir what is the militia?" They told us. All that teacher had to do was do a little research, and it probably take her five minutes to find out what the militia really was. "It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
You see, in America we were intended to be the boss. How could we ever be the boss if we didn't own weapons of war? And I just think this is common sense. Does this mean we're supposed to have tanks and bazookas at our homes and what not? No, I think it simply means the weapons of war that are reasonably kept and born. Okay? I can bear this one. And that's really all you need. In a guerrilla warfare we could always win, and it is a great defense to tyranny and to any nation who wants to invade America. Because we have every one of us ready for them. Sounds worth while, doesn't it?
All of the citizens defending our country and defending our freedom. Its our responsibility. Read the Declaration of Independence.
If I got anything out of what the other speakers have said tonight, I believe that its time for another Boston Tea Party. It is. The Boston Tea Party was not violent, it didn't hurt anybody and it sent a strong message. That's how I feel. I want this to remain peaceful. I love America. I don't fear my government, I hate it. But the government is out of control. I hate Osama Bin Laden and I hate Sadam Hussein. But let's not play games here. The greatest enemy to America is within. The greatest threat to your freedom and mine lies within the walls of America. And one of the greatest threats to the God-given Constitutional American Liberty is our own federal government. We continue to have people who march around and prance around as pretended statesmen when they have proven that staying in Washington D.C. too long will ruin a good person. So Orrin [Sen. Hatch, Utah] you should have left about 20 years ago.
Also over at my table is a copy of the Supreme Court decision written by Justice Scallia. We've heard his name before. And if you don't have this, they cost me a dollar fifty to make them, and so I want you to have it. If you can't afford the dollar fifty, take it anyway. You can make as many copies of this as you like. Okay? Its extremely powerful. You would think that the Constitution was completely restored when you read through this. It was odd it was based on the Tenth Amendment. And I believe that this is where your sheriff really comes in to count here.
James Madison said in the Federalist Papers: "We can safely rely on the disposition of the State Legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority." That's what your sheriff's supposed to do, that's what your governor's supposed to do, that's what you mayor, city council, county commissioners, dogcatcher, are all supposed to do. Teachers, school boards all of them. They are autonomous, you can see it right here, they are sovereign -- and yes, under article 1, Section 8, the federal government does have superior authority under those eighteen assignments, eighteen duties. Anything outside that they cannot do it. And so they are probably about 98 % in everything they do outside the Constitution.
On the bottom of page 19 it gave me the greatest reward we could have ever had. Justice Scallia, and I quote, said this: "But the Constitution protects us from our own best intentions."
I had a friend in the State Legislature who actually passed some of these around to other legislators here in Utah and they said, "how do we know that's true?" That was their response. That was their response!
I don't know how many of you were there when Alan Keyes came to speak in Orem [Utah], but he gave a tremendous speech about two years ago and he said this during that speech, and I added it to the book right then and there. I was re-writing this book at the time. He said: "The only difference between today's slavery and the slavery of the old South is that at least the plantation owners paid for the chains."
And now I would like to leave with you -- and I do this at almost 99 % of my speeches because this is when I became converted to the Constitution -- I would like to leave with you the political prayer taught to me by Cleon Skousen at that Constitution Studies for Law Enforcement. He teaches this to children -- which I have done since to all my children and other grade schools. But it was during this political prayer with sign language, his own made up that converted me that I felt the spirit of freedom and the spirit of Moroni and the spirit of America so strong in my heart that I have never forgot it since.
And it goes like this [accompanied with sign language]: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
And he described what those wings are: That's America -- Long may she be free.
Thank you so much. I love you.
http://www.usiap.org/Viewpoints/Zhold/Speeches/SpeechConstitutionalDutiesOfASheriff.html
by Richard Mack (Utah)
Speech given at the Restaurant Social and Speakers Forum of the IAP National Conference, January 17, 2003, Taylorsville (Salt Lake City), Utah. Richard Mack is a former county sheriff in Arizona, successful challenger of the Brady Bill, and a member of the Independent American Party.
[Introduction by Will Christensen, IAP Western States Coordinator:]
Well its my pleasure to introduce Richard Mack. Richard was the sheriff of a small county in Arizona when the Brady bill was passed, and he decided that that was not what he wanted to enforce, and so he filed suit against the federal government -- he and a sheriff up in Montana, if I remember correctly. And he took that suit all the way to the Supreme Court and won a tremendous freedom victory. And I understand he's going to talk about the ramifications of that, so without further ado, my friend Richard Mack.
[Address by Richard Mack:]
Well, I think the most important aspect of that introduction is that I'm Will's friend. Thank you. Since I did that, I lost a few friends.
If I could have your indulgence for a minute, I am presently employed, technically not in the field of my choice. The one that I actually chose to be part of was stripped from me when I did the lawsuit on the Brady bill. But my second choice would be to be in the freedom movement full time, which is what I am right now. I work as public affairs director for Gun Owners of America. Let me tell you just a little bit about them. If you're not a member you should be. There's a few organizations in this country where you can put stock into their fundamental beliefs and agenda -- Gun Owners of America is one of them. I worked with them before I worked for them. Now I work with them and for them.
Larry Pratt is the executive director. You'll never meet a finer Christian and you'll never meet somebody in this country who has sacrificed more for the God-given freedoms we've been talking about tonight. Gun Owners of America is not a single-issue organization. They are the second largest gun rights organization in this country. But the biggest one in the country who believes in the fundamental values of the Constitution -- the principles espoused in the Constitution by the founders. They believe -- they are not afraid to say -- they're pro-life and anti-UN completely and totally. Of course, if you're going to be pro-gun you can't be pro-UN. And if you're going to be pro-life, you can't be pro-UN. And a lot of these hidden agendas that are part of the United Nations are freely talked about in our newsletter. And so I have here in front of me -- and its 20 dollars to become a member. And if any of you have already purchased my books, then for you its only 10. So you'd get both of my books and a membership in Gun Owners of America for just thirty dollars. That would make these worth five dollars each.
Let me, I would like to pass these around if I could, if you want one and could be a member, please do so. This is a very Constitutional organization and you'll get the newsletter and within the next year it'll prove itself to you. So if you could just make sure every couple gets -- I'd like everybody to join or at least every couple to join in that fight.
Cash, check credit cards, but I prefer gold or silver -- so a tenth ounce of gold would do it, or like three or four silver coins, probably four silver coins. You know, Will mentioned something. Will has been incorrect before in his life, and we could check with his wife on that, but he mentioned a sheriff that joined me in my lawsuit. Let me give you just a little real quick history on that.
When the Brady bill first was announced publicly, it was billed and advertised, propagandized from the Clinton white house as a mere waiting period to make our streets safer from people who would jump out of their house in anger to run to a gun shop, grab a gun and come back and kill their kids and wife. Which I tried to find out in all the police departments across the country if that had ever happened, and I couldn't find one incident of that ever occurring. And even if it did, this still wouldn't have prevented any such thing.
Anyway, President Clinton was propagandizing the Brady bill as a measure to make our streets safer for police; and a time, when of course its for our children, that they could play in the parks in public in safety because we'll have this Brady bill. Well that was another Clintonesque piece of propaganda and probably matched the truthfulness of his "I did not have sex with that woman ...."
Now, the Brady bill, when I got closer to it, I started getting a little bit worried about it. But I wasn't going to have a major heart attack and I never intended to file a lawsuit. I was sheriff the whole time that this was being talked about. I paid very little attention to it. I did not start forming a political action committee saying what are we going to do about this Brady bill thing. It happened when the BATF sent three of their agents to a sheriff's association meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. Any of you from Arizona know that there's only 15 counties in Arizona -- about half of what there are in Utah. And so to get 13 or 14 sheriffs together is not that hard. And we actually had 12 of us. We had a quorum. And the BATF shows up to address 12 sheriffs -- it takes three of them. And there -- you know what they were there for -- to hand us our marching orders as to how we we're going to comply with the Brady bill.
Now I was having a heart attack. And the rest of the sheriffs did also. The one from Showlow [Arizona], Gary Butler -- all of them did. You never heard so much cussing in your life. I guarantee you. And those sheriffs can cuss good even when they're not mad. And now they were mad. And we tabled the discussion until the next week we had a special meeting. And then we came back and said okay, what are we going to do about the Brady bill? And I said, if we all stand together against this, we can just say "no" to it. And they wouldn't do it. They went down. I said let's send a letter to Janet Reno, President, c-c it to the senators and put a notice in the paper that we're not doing it. And let the people know why. These guys were really afraid that the constituents would say that we're taking the law into our own hands, and we should set a better example than that. And so I said, there is no way I'm going to go along with this, and if we allow this then where's it going to stop. There's not a one of us that reports to the BATF, and they're trying to make it that way.
And so I came home from that meeting and talked to my boss and asked her what we should do, and told her I was probably going to file a lawsuit -- and see, and that is what's so stupid about all this, and maybe I showed my own naivete. I didn't form that committee and I didn't go around door to door and calling people and ask them if this was the right thing to do. There was only three people that made this decision -- and it was me, my wife and the good Lord. And because it was an automatic decision for me -- I certainly prayed about this absolutely. But I believe that the decision was made that quick. When the BATF showed up and said this, I said you know its over. You don't need to ask the Lord, if you know to say. do I need to do this good thing? You know, but certainly I asked for his help and his strength in performing the duties that are associated with this arduous task of suing the Clinton administration. A small town sheriff -- Grand County was thirty thousand people -- its a farming community -- copper mining area. And then when I filed the lawsuit I was alone. No one else in the country had talked about doing this -- NO ONE. And then luckily -- boy did I have a great day when I found out that Sheriff Prince from Montana was also doing the same thing.
He never called me -- I never called him. I never met him before in my life until we were asked to be on the Phil Donahue Show together. Of course the other side was there, Sarah Brady was there and an attorney from Handgun Control Incorporated. Here's two country sheriff's debating Sarah Brady and an attorney from Handgun Control Incorporated. And Phil Donahue said something that was very different for him. He said he really respected our constitutional concerns -- and that was on nationwide television -- he said that. So miracles were taking place with this whole thing. Ultimately, seven sheriffs joined the lawsuit -- filed lawsuits in separate jurisdictions across the country -- not more than one from any one state -- Vermont, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Wyoming, Montana and Arizona. That's it. There's 3000 sheriffs in the country.
Seven filed the suit. And it wasn't without some real repercussions. Several -- uh two or three --of the sheriffs lost their re-election bids right away. And I lost mine about nine months before the decision came out that we won. And it really would have helped had we got that just a little bit earlier, but it was a four-year battle. Not quite a four-year battle. But to get to the District Court, Circuit Court, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court and get a victory in four years -- any of you lawyers know how miraculous that was -- it was really a miracle. And I'm telling you right now, that victory made everything -- losing the job, moving, losing the home and everything else, we completely started over -- COMPLETELY started over -- at how old were we, I was about 42, I guess.
And then to come up to Utah County -- and say, you know, because I was a cop in Utah County. I started my police career in Provo [Utah] and I was a cop for 11 years. And then some crazy people from Arizona had called me and said we want you to move home to Arizona and run for sheriff. And I told them they were crazy -- and this is one time my wife agreed with me that her parents were crazy. And she really did, you know. And then three months later we did the crazy thing, picked up and left, and went home to Arizona. And I took a leave of absence from Provo, because in case I didn't win, I could come back. And I had to commute to Provo for court cases and other things that I had to be there for -- like six times during the campaign. Sometimes I was literally campaigning on the phone from Provo. And its totally a miracle. So, and then after the miracle, we started to say winning this election, not having even lived in my own community for 13 years, and never being a cop in Arizona or my community ever before, and then winning sheriff. And we all talked about what a miracle that was. And my wife and mother -- both being sensitive to that when I filed the lawsuit on the Brady bill, both of them within a day -- mentioned to me, now we know why you were elected sheriff.
And it really did seem to be an errand for the Almighty. And it went a real roller coaster ride. That's really how I described the lawsuit. One day it would be that you know we were getting inducted into the NRA hall of fame; and the next day we were being demonized by the national media as right-wing extremist radical terrorists. And most of you've been called the same thing because you believe in the Constitution. And isn't it amazing that those who quote the Constitution and the founding fathers today are demonized as radical extremists and even terrorists. How sad that our Constitution has taken on that kind of public scrutiny. Amazing that our media would allow that to happen and that politicians who go along with this redistribution of the wealth and forced charity as we were talking about earlier -- see forced charity by government is tyranny. And if charity has to be forced, its not charity folks. Its not charity. Call it anything but charity. Its NOT charity.
And I thought all of that, and I started studying the Constitution way back -- and the importance of this book, its a short booklet, its thirty pages long, but its probably the most powerful thirty pages you'll read anywhere. It talks about my personal conversion to the Constitution. And did I say conversion? I said conversion, didn't I? It was a religious and spiritual experience for me. And it happened during the process, the biggest part of it was when I took a class -- taught by my mentor and friend and one of the most stalwart Constitutionalists on the face of this planet, when I attended his class called Constitutional Studies for Law Enforcement. You probably know who it is now -- Cleon Skousen -- W. Cleon Skousen. He was really famous for that, wasn't he? It didn't matter who he was talking to -- it was Constitutional Studies for Teachers or Constitutional Studies for Janitors, or Constitutional Studies for Cops, or Constitutional Studies for Cops Wives. It was all the same, he just named it to whoever he was teaching, but it was all the same class and it was always about the Constitution. And it talks about that in here, and how some things happened in my life that got me from being a numbers cop of just writing the tickets -- which I believe now is one of the greatest abuses of government that we have anywhere in our country. The revenue collection that happens because these guys wear a badge, called radar tickets, is an absolute outrage and abuse. It is a lark. We've got to change it.
And I really hope most of you know where I got the title for this book. Somebody mentioned a little while ago The Proper Role of Government. Well, I learned that from Cleon, just change it and make it a little bit more job specific. And so is this meant for cops to read this? Absolutely! And should every one of you read it first? Absolutely! And the jest of this is every police officer in this country took an oath and has taken an oath as well as most schoolteachers and every public official to uphold and defend the U. S. Constitution.
And what happens when we, as I was, as Sheriff placed in the quandary of choosing between statutory obedience or Constitutional adherence? See, that's the quandary I was in. There's a statue from on high from Washington, D.C. that said the Brady bill must be enforced by you sheriffs. And now I'm in the predicament of saying, but I read the Constitution. And I know that I was constitutionally elected by, for and of the people of Grand County, to protect and according to my oath, their constitutional rights. And in a democracy, I could probably have a lot of leeway, huh? You know, because as soon as one person or more than fifty percent of the people in my community said go ahead and enforce the Brady bill, you got our permission, then I could do that in a democracy. But in a Constitutional Republic, where I gave my word to protect the Constitution, if a hundred percent of the people in my community said for me to enforce it, I could not. Because I would be violating my word.
And you see, the founding fathers were naive in that sense -- is that when they put the requirement that every public official state and local would swear allegiance to the Constitution, they intended and trusted us that we would keep our word. And that might have been part of their problem. They should have put something in there that would punish us if we did not. And maybe they did, but it wasn't specific enough for today's political correctness problem. And I think you know if you don't go with the Constitution then you 're probably under the heading of the treason crime. But boy, I'll tell you if we have the FBI doing all of that, doing all the follow-up on all the traitors in Washington D.C.; boy would they be busy and finally have something to do that would be legitimate, huh?
And I would I like to make one other point out of this book. I make reference to a hero of mine. Her name was Rosa Parks. And do you know what? We need to pay attention to her story. Because what did she teach us? And what does the left side honor her for and -- in fact she got some congressional awards just a couple of years ago for what she did. And it was because she defied stupid law. And I believe that falls right in with our theory that defiance of tyranny is obedience to God.
See, she was arrested. It wasn't just a tradition that she give up her seat to a white man. It was the LAW! And what did the cop do when he got there? The same thing he tells us when he takes our gun or when he puts us in jail or he writes the ticket when we complain about his actions. What does he say? Just doing my job. You know I don't make the law lady, I'm the enforcer. And every cop will tell you that there's been plenty of times during his career that he hasn't enforced every law. We're not required to, we shouldn't and we shouldn't be obeying about 98 % of the laws or enforcing about 98 % that are there now, as a matter of routine.
If you've ever been to any of these courts that they call justice courts in Utah and across America? -- they are anything but. The judge is a rubber stamp for a police officer, and the police officer is a rubber stamp for the legislature, and here we have the executive and judicial and legislative branches all meshed into one. In fact, what are the police officers -- say, basically they are puppets for the judges and the legislative branches and that they are just following orders.
Well that's what the cop said when he went to arrest Rosa Parks. And he did arrest her and she was booked into jail. And she -- what would a cop that was really a statesman, that was really sincere about his oath of office, what would a sheriff have his deputies be doing if he took his oath of office seriously, then or now? He would have his deputy get on that bus and sit down next to Rosa Parks and make sure she got off the bus safely and got home in the same manner. And so when they make laws that are now today a violation of the First Amendment.
Okay, let's talk about guns. Let's start in California and work our way east shall we? In California they're confiscating guns, they're arresting people who have guns in their cars. They're taking the guns -- and even if the guy is found not guilty, the guns are still confiscated and destroyed under the nuisance law. You never get it back whether you're found not guilty or not. The right to keep and bear arms right now is subject to what? -- Government approval. Period, end of sentence, nationally. There's one state that has no permits. You can carry concealed or open anywhere in the state. Its Vermont. Thank you. Guess who has the lowest crime rate? Which state has the lowest crime rate every year? Yeah they're not very populated, its the crime rate per population, per capita we're talking about there. And yet, most people in this country don't even know that exists do they? They don't but they have that going on there.
And boy that brings us into now of course this book, this one's kind of beat up; this is my own copy, where I give my speeches out of it. In my son's school at middle school in Provo last year, he was taught that the word in the Second Amendment in his government class -- "militia" referred to -- you know it, referred to the National Guard or the U.S. Army. Do you know how stupid that is? And this liberal teacher was trying to re-write history, literally re-writing history, and telling my son a lie. Teaching him not what the founding fathers intended. Do you know that he could look up in any contemporary dictionary today and find out militia and its right. Look up in the dictionary "militia." I've yet to see one that was really wrong. They all call them a citizen's volunteer group. That's exactly what it is. Its a volunteer group of citizens. So is there a contradiction in the Second Amendment? No, the militia -- the citizen volunteers -- who what were called out by --? Another thing that's left out in most of our history books today -- Paul Revere. Paul Revere's ride. Start looking at your grade school history books. He's not in there any more. Why? Because, does that fit into today's society, where you have somebody riding through the country telling everybody to get their assault rifles out of the closet to come stand against tyrannical government? Ooh, we don't want people thinking that's okay. So that's got to be conspicuously left out of history books.
And what did one of my favorite quotes in the book here is -- George Mason, founding father from Virginia, legislator from Virginia -- this is page 178. "I ask sir what is the militia?" They told us. All that teacher had to do was do a little research, and it probably take her five minutes to find out what the militia really was. "It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
You see, in America we were intended to be the boss. How could we ever be the boss if we didn't own weapons of war? And I just think this is common sense. Does this mean we're supposed to have tanks and bazookas at our homes and what not? No, I think it simply means the weapons of war that are reasonably kept and born. Okay? I can bear this one. And that's really all you need. In a guerrilla warfare we could always win, and it is a great defense to tyranny and to any nation who wants to invade America. Because we have every one of us ready for them. Sounds worth while, doesn't it?
All of the citizens defending our country and defending our freedom. Its our responsibility. Read the Declaration of Independence.
If I got anything out of what the other speakers have said tonight, I believe that its time for another Boston Tea Party. It is. The Boston Tea Party was not violent, it didn't hurt anybody and it sent a strong message. That's how I feel. I want this to remain peaceful. I love America. I don't fear my government, I hate it. But the government is out of control. I hate Osama Bin Laden and I hate Sadam Hussein. But let's not play games here. The greatest enemy to America is within. The greatest threat to your freedom and mine lies within the walls of America. And one of the greatest threats to the God-given Constitutional American Liberty is our own federal government. We continue to have people who march around and prance around as pretended statesmen when they have proven that staying in Washington D.C. too long will ruin a good person. So Orrin [Sen. Hatch, Utah] you should have left about 20 years ago.
Also over at my table is a copy of the Supreme Court decision written by Justice Scallia. We've heard his name before. And if you don't have this, they cost me a dollar fifty to make them, and so I want you to have it. If you can't afford the dollar fifty, take it anyway. You can make as many copies of this as you like. Okay? Its extremely powerful. You would think that the Constitution was completely restored when you read through this. It was odd it was based on the Tenth Amendment. And I believe that this is where your sheriff really comes in to count here.
James Madison said in the Federalist Papers: "We can safely rely on the disposition of the State Legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority." That's what your sheriff's supposed to do, that's what your governor's supposed to do, that's what you mayor, city council, county commissioners, dogcatcher, are all supposed to do. Teachers, school boards all of them. They are autonomous, you can see it right here, they are sovereign -- and yes, under article 1, Section 8, the federal government does have superior authority under those eighteen assignments, eighteen duties. Anything outside that they cannot do it. And so they are probably about 98 % in everything they do outside the Constitution.
On the bottom of page 19 it gave me the greatest reward we could have ever had. Justice Scallia, and I quote, said this: "But the Constitution protects us from our own best intentions."
I had a friend in the State Legislature who actually passed some of these around to other legislators here in Utah and they said, "how do we know that's true?" That was their response. That was their response!
I don't know how many of you were there when Alan Keyes came to speak in Orem [Utah], but he gave a tremendous speech about two years ago and he said this during that speech, and I added it to the book right then and there. I was re-writing this book at the time. He said: "The only difference between today's slavery and the slavery of the old South is that at least the plantation owners paid for the chains."
And now I would like to leave with you -- and I do this at almost 99 % of my speeches because this is when I became converted to the Constitution -- I would like to leave with you the political prayer taught to me by Cleon Skousen at that Constitution Studies for Law Enforcement. He teaches this to children -- which I have done since to all my children and other grade schools. But it was during this political prayer with sign language, his own made up that converted me that I felt the spirit of freedom and the spirit of Moroni and the spirit of America so strong in my heart that I have never forgot it since.
And it goes like this [accompanied with sign language]: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
And he described what those wings are: That's America -- Long may she be free.
Thank you so much. I love you.
http://www.usiap.org/Viewpoints/Zhold/Speeches/SpeechConstitutionalDutiesOfASheriff.html
