Quote of the Day
As the elected sheriff of Pierce County, I am committed to addressing serious criminal activity to ensure the safety of our community and uphold the constitutional rights of all citizens. Recent state firearm regulations affecting licensed firearms dealers and introducing additional permit requirements for firearm purchases—beyond the state’s existing enhanced background checks—raise concerns regarding their alignment with constitutional rights.
…
To be clear: the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office will not engage in enforcing politically motivated mandates. Instead, we will continue to prioritize enforcement efforts on criminal activities that pose significant threats to public safety. The PCSO is dedicated to serving our community with integrity, ensuring that our actions reflect both the letter and spirit of our laws and Constitution.
Keith Swank
Pierce County Sheriff
May 2025
Pierce County Sheriff won’t enforce new gun permit law
Pierce County is the second most populous county. It has over 900,000 residents. This is over 11% of the entire population of the state. I expect there will soon be many other sheriffs and police departments making similar statements.
Civil disobedience, especially by a large population county sheriff, has to be scary to control freaks like gun owner hating Governor Ferguson. I hope to see Ferguson getting asked why he should not be prosecuted for violation of civil rights under the color of law. That would really make him sweat.
We live in interesting times.
Great sounding rhetoric. Now… who wants to step up and be the test case?
Ideal candidate has zero criminal history, is photogenic and well-spoken, with little or nothing to lose.
It would make Ferguson sweat more if the question were asked by the DoJ.
It’s less of a threat to the individuals than it is a threat to the FFLs. The Pierce county sheriff may decline to enforce that law against the people. The state can still revoke the business licenses of the FFLs if they don’t show proof of the permit-to-purchase for every sale.
Unless the US DOJ starts arresting WA government officials on the spot for merely requesting proof of PTPs or threatening consequences for not requiring PTPs, it’s going to be effective. But that would also be the dam breaking for other unconstitutional laws and regulations, like magazine limits, anything to do with “assault weapons”, firearm specific taxes, non-instant background checks, ‘universal’ background checks (that are only enforceable against the law abiding, consequences of Haynes v US 1968), parts limitation, etc. WA, OR, CA, DE, MA, NY, NJ, IL… their restrictions would be moot because there would be no one left to enforce them that isn’t under felony indictment for deprivation of rights under color of law and conspiracy to do the same.
It’d just take some guts (and the right appeals court) to make some precedent that punctures qualified immunity.
If this same logic is applied broadly, you’re arguing for a full breakdown in the rule of law. It’s one thing for citizens to engage in civil disobedience while protesting something, but when the people responsible for enforcing laws say “nah, not feelin’ it,” we’re well into breakdown territory.
You’re ok with them not enforcing gun laws, because that aligns with your political stance. How about immigration? Abortion? Civil rights? Free speech? Religious practice? How about arms trafficking to Mexico a la Fast and Furious? Conservatives hate “sanctuary cities” because they’re disobeying the feds, and Trump is trying to block federal funding from those cities as a result (although the courts are preventing that…for the moment). I assume when a Dem gets back in power you’re fine with them doing the same to cities where the Sheriff doesn’t obey whatever new federal gun law they put in place? Goose:gander.
There’s certainly a line beyond which law enforcement should disobey orders that are clearly unlawful and will have dire consequences (e.g. shooting protesters). Additional permit regulations aren’t anywhere near that line. Are they irritating and stupid? Sure. But the solution is the legislative process, not selective enforcement.
So you are arguing FOR the “Just following orders” line of law enforcement, then.
Not surprised.
So since you hate the pro-2A sheriff so much, why don’t you kill him yourself, rather than hiding behind your computer screen and egging your fellow leftists on?
Oh, yeah, I forgot. You’re a physical coward.
GFY, gun control boy.
Says the guy who doesn’t post with his full name. I’ll take your insults more seriously when you’re not hiding behind anonymity.
Ok, probably not, but at least if you establish you’re not some 25 year old living in his mother’s basement there’ll something to work with. And maybe if you were to read some of my posts you’d know I’m not pro gun control and argue with me instead of whatever’s in your head, but I’d hate for you to strain youself…
They are already doing all those things you cite. Tit for tat is the strategy that works.
Why are you pretending that this is the beginning of the breakdown of law and order, rather than an inevitable consequence of previous?
Let’s go down a partial list:
– “Sanctuary cities/counties/states/administrations” are unconstitutional intrusions into a realm of law that is exclusively reserved to Congress (as a whole) and must be faithfully enforced by by the Executive
– Permit regulation on the right to keep and bear arms ARE clearly unlawful. “No state may convert a secured liberty into a privilege, and issue a license and fee for it.” MURDOCK v. PENNSYLVANIA, 319 U.S. 105 and “If the state does convert a right into a privilege and issue a license and charge a fee for it, you can ignore the license and fee and engage in the right with impunity.” SHUTTLESWORTH V. BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA, 373 U.S. 262
– Refusal of executives and prosecutors to enforce laws regarding riot, civil unrest, arson, battery, manufacture, possession and use of destructive devices (i.e. Molotov cocktails), unlawful possession of firearms by prohibited persons, conspiracy to deprive rights, coordination, training and facilitation of terroristic acts etc, when the rioters/terrorists cover themselves with a fig leaf of a cause those in elected office favor.
– Government regulation and pressure on non-government actors to engage in unconstitutional violations of the Equal Protection clause and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, i.e. all race, nationality, ethnicity, etc and perception thereof preferences, for or against.
– Unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in public decision-making for permits, licenses, use of public facilities, employment of police resources
The Pierce county sheriff is not being unlawful, in this regard. The State of Washington is in rebellion against both the US Constitution and the Washington State constitution, and no, the opinion of the Supreme Court of Washington State does not change that, for they are just as much in rebellion as the majority of Legislature and the Governor.
So, your argument: people on the other side ignored the law, so it’s ok if my side does it in return. Do I have that right?
As usual, you’re oppositionally-defiantly wrong.
The State is being unlawful and unconstitutional. The Pierce County sheriff is acting lawfully and Constitutionally. He is not acting in civil disobedience, and that characterization is incorrect. He is acting in obedience to the law and Constitution.
However, if the Pierce County sheriff were to strictly hold to his oath, he would be required by law to arrest anyone attempting to enforce or promulgate these ‘laws’ with whatever level of force is necessary to take them into custody and deliver them to justice.
A law isn’t unconstitutional for purposes of enforcement until a court or the legislature declares it so. Sheriffs, police, random people on the internet playing constitutional lawyer/judge…they all don’t get to decide what is or is not constitutional and act on their theories. That’s not how the law works.
Judge Dredd is a fun movie and all, but it’s not reality.
No. An unconstitutional law is unconstitutional from the moment it is conceived, passed, and signed. When it is struck down is when it’s formally recognized as such, and we can stop worrying about needing deep pockets and a lawyer on speed-dial if we exercise our rights.
Their new strategy is to pass the same thing and claim it is different. The courts will then fart around for years while rights continue to be denied. We need prosecutions, including judges.
Being wrong is not so much a hobby for you, but a lifestyle, n’est-ce pas?
Perhaps you should find a country where the governance is more to your liking, where anything can be made definitively so or not so by the whim of more than 50% of their legislative body or a memo from their permanent civil bureaucracy. China, perhaps, or maybe Germany or England.
Unfortunately for your view of how government should work, as evidenced by your bass-ackwards pronouncements, the fundamental sine qua non of American exceptionalism is LIMITS. Democratic principles, national pride, motherhood, a national dessert, truth, justice, you can find support for most of that in most countries, but only in American political practice do you find hard and fast limits on government action. And by “hard”, that doesn’t just mean that a judge could rule against it, eventually, but it was a crime to even start. Furthermore, the constitutions are not the judges’ possessions: they belong to the People, they were passed by the People, and they are written so the individual people can read them, understand them, and identify when the government has gone wrong without waiting for for a judge to get around to it.
Everybody’s gotta have a hobby.
So, in your view of law, everybody is a valid interpreter, and gets to obey or disobey based on whether they think the law makes sense, “without waiting for a judge to get around to it”, do I have that right?
If that’s true, how do you ever justify punishing anyone for disobeying the law? If *they* think it’s unconstitutional, and the constitution “belongs” to them, and judges and legislatures *aren’t* the final arbiter of what is or is not legal, seems like you’re gonna have a hard time justifying any punishment for much of anything.
(Judge Dredd) “I AM the law!”
Mein Gott, you’re as thick as two short planks. That’s beyond a hobby, and I can only assume that the shame is part of the kink.
Yes, everyone gets to be the decider of the law, according to the written standard of the ratified US Constitution. And everyone else also gets to be the decider of whether you are rational enough to make those judgements. That’s why the Constitution, which was put before the people as “these are the rules that government must follow” and written in PLAIN ENGLISH so the common man of 1787 could understand it rather than the Latin, Greek and German that most of the university-educated elites would understand.
The legislatures definitely aren’t upholding any oath to the Constitution. This is not new; Mark Twain once quipped that “There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.” And the state legislatures, by reasonable inference.
So, if “they” think something is unconstitutional, and “they” properly think that the Constitution belongs to the People and not the government, and “they” decide not to adhere to a law passed by the legislatures and signed by the governor and hand-waved by the supreme court, then the rest of the People justly would want to know, “Where in the Constitution does it say the government can’t do that?” And if they say, “It’s in Amendment 2, the operative clause, as clarified by the Bill of Rights preamble to modify and constrain all enumerated powers of government, Legislative, Executive and Judicial,” then the People would properly say, “Hey, he’s right! He brought citations!”
If “they” think ‘unconstitutional’ is a word that means that “they” ‘feel’ something is inarticulably ‘unjust’ or ‘unfair’ or, you know, like, mean and stuff, “they” don’t know, “they” aren’t experts on this stuff, then the People would properly treat them as unserious people that shouldn’t enter into contracts because they are incapable of personal responsibility. Like Humpty Dumpty, “their” words mean what “they” want them to mean, nothing more and nothing less, and that means for everyone else, their words are unconnected to any common interpretation and therefore mean absolutely nothing.
You don’t get to identify as “being the law”. You can reference the law, particularly the Supreme Law of the land. The government definitely doesn’t get to declare that it is the final arbitrator of what the Constitution means; it was written specifically to restrain them, so why would you leave interpretation up to them any more than you would let the teenager with the keys to your car interpret what a 10pm curfew means? For people for whom “objective truth” exists, the Constitution says what it says in plain language and it is the legal basis of all just authority, even if it is inefficient or it gets in the way of what you want to do. I, for one, find that the Constitution is deficient in not laying out a stricter code of conduct for those in positions of public trust, ensuring its enforcement, and providing for the mandatory public execution by vivisection for those that violate their oath of office or abuse the public trust.
There’s some terms for US citizens who decide they can determine what the Constitution means without actually referring to the Constitution: progressive, idiots, convicts, prohibited persons. At least an anarchist is more honest in refusing to accept any form of government and is only constrained by the real threat of force, and a communist is honest in simply wanting to overthrown the existing government so they can establish their utopia where they can starve to death while the party leaders get fat on the last of the food.
“Yes, everyone gets to be the decider of the law,”
You could have stopped there and saved yourself a lot of typing,
One wonders what judges and lawyers (and legislators, for that matter) think of your theory. I’m guessing not much.
And one also wonders why you bother to obey any law you think is unjust/unconstitutional, and why you’d expect anyone else to do so.
My theory: most folks think the laws may be dumb at times, but that having a society without them and without courts and judges and legislatures and so on is not such a great thing, since you can no longer count on any kind of common rule for everyone to obey and you end up with corruption and chaos.
But hey, I’m just “thick as two short planks,” and since we all know Internet comments sections are a super effective way to judge people, I should just accept your judgement and bow in your direction.
“A Law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” Marbury v. Madison (1803)
“The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.” [16 Am. Jur. 2d, Section 177; later 2d, Section 256]
Washington State Constitution
Art. 1, Sec. 1
“….governments… are established to protect and maintain individual rights.”
Sure sounds to me like the laws the good sheriff is talking about are not laws at all, and are owed about as much deference as someone waving at you to cross a busy highway to hear his complaint about the words on your tshirt.
Yes, this. It is part of the checks-and-balances so often talked about (and ignored). The executive branch may decline to arrest, charge, or prosecute. The Judicial branch may dismiss the case or direct a “not guilty” verdict. That is how things are SUPPOSED to work.
“So, your argument: people on the other side ignored the law, so it’s ok if my side does it in return. Do I have that right??
That’s exactly what your communist left is doing. And has been doing for a100 years in this country.
And since ignorance of the law is no excuse. Don’t we all have to read and understand the law as it was wrote?
We do. And we understand just as the sheriff does that your law is communist bullshit, and no law just as the constitution tells us it isn’t.
The constitution was wrote by the people, for the people.
But only judges and lawyers can understand and act on it?
That’s the world your telling us we have to except?
Eat shit and die. BFYTW.
Thats real law in this country. That’s the way you and your judges that truly aren’t, made it. You’all been getting away with crap for far to long.
So quite whining when your own hypocrisy bites you in the ass.
“Don’t we all have to read and understand the law as it was wrote?”
Well, no, actually. It’s been understood for centuries now that the law, which has to cover the entirety of complex social conflicts and all manner of thorny ethical questions, is not something everyone can understand all of. Lawyers, for example, specialize, because even within the area of, say, personal injury law, there’s an enormous body of both statutory and case law that makes it nearly impossible for one person to be expert in every possible scenario. So some lawyers focus on medical malpractice. Some on corporate malfeasance. Some on workplace injury, and so on.
It’s unfortunate that you never made it past junior high, because if you had you might have been confronted with the more complex scenarios of adult life (for people beyond those you happen to know) and acquired some insight into how the legal system attempts to navigate complex disputes while maintaining some semblance of equal treatment. And you would be less inclined to wave it away as “communist bullshit.”
So yes, if you’re in a legal dispute you need counsel in most cases, because the law has adapted over time to accommodate the needs of an extremely complex society, and has itself become very complex. You can of course wish for “simpler days” when conflicts were resolved with a straightforward fist fight or shootout, but those days are long gone (and TBH they never really existed), and your wishes will go unanswered.
But you’re not alone. There’s an enormous population of straight, white, Christian men who are deeply angry that they’re no longer the leading character in the movie, and that they’re being forced to deal with women, brown people, gays, and all manner of other inferior characters who in the past they could have simply told to sit down and STFU. It’s hard watching the world change around you. One of the possible solutions to Fermi’s paradox is that we simply never acquire a mature capacity to manage conflict within the context of massive social upheaval, and ultimately destroy each other. It’s sure feeling like that’s the direction we’re headed….
And there it is. Racist, sexist, religiously-bigoted, sexuality-blinkered John Schussler just brought his personal obsessions into a discussion that had nothing to do with any of them. Chauvinism is the constant awareness of identity and class based differences, whether you act on them or not. Well, John Schussler is a chauvinist, and he has preferences that he thinks are right and just rather than reprehensible and disgusting.
John has been told he is wrong by several people, and those declaration have included citations from controlling legal decisions. John’s response was “huh-uh, you’re not experts, I don’t have to pay attention to you!” Some of us are experts, or at least specialty enthusiasts. But we can’t persuade John. You see, you can’t get someone to get something when their income depends on not getting it. It’s not the money in this case, however: it’s the self image. John desperately wants to imagine himself a good person, despite his disgusting bigotries, and if he considers our arguments at all, he can’t be the good person.
Now, I’m willing to concede a point: John is not capable of interpreting the plain language of law, especially not the Constitution. So, in his intellectual incapacity, he must rely on credentialed experts and he defers to those better equipped than him to make those determinations. He further projects that incapacity on everyone else.
I, on the other hand, can understand the plain language of criminal law and Constitution, as must pretty much every else with an IQ above 70, for otherwise you can’t really expect anyone to abide in what they can’t understand. I can also understand contract law, judicial decisions, text, history and legal tradition. And I was wrong in projecting my capacity upon everyone else, especially in John’s case. Certainly, the more complex parts of contract law and government contracting and specialty areas of law like building code require specialization, and mostly what anyone pays a lawyer for is specialty knowledge of how to negotiate the system and the time to do it for you. I could certainly argue a case in court, but as I don’t do it full time, I would be slow, miss the non-law parts of court procedure, and might make strategic errors in presentation that would weaken my case.
Now: is John stupid? No, he seems to be well written, reasonably articulate, knows how to punctuate. That’s contraindicated for a case of stupidity. So how is it he is incapable of basic comprehension?
There’s two other possibilities: bad faith, and corruption.
For bad faith, he would be coming around here to spew his positions as if he were open to debate, but he’s actually not. It would be a version of trolling. He comes, drops trou, squeezes out a stinking opinion and dances around it as if he accomplished something. When he writes, “So you mean…” what follows is a non sequitur that reveals more of his internal mental landscape than any reasonable interpretation of what he is vaguely referencing. That would certainly be consistent with long term observed behavior.
For corruption, it’s a matter of ideologically acquired brain damage. He literally cannot accept or conceive of the concepts we are presenting as counter-arguments. Heard of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? It’s very effective in treating various mental illnesses, actually leading to full recovery. Well, it has been observed that modern academia and the ideological miasma flowing from it is a process that is the opposite of CBT: it actually creates persistent, deep rooted mental illness where none existed before. Those afflicted perceive things that do not exist and cannot accept things that do exist. They acquire the properties of the fanatic: can’t change their mind, can’t change the subject, and can’t shut up. Not won’t, but can’t.
Which of these is it? Embrace the healing power of AND.
That’s a lot of words I’ve used to express my contempt and disdain for the wretched husk that is John Schussler. Well, this is Joe’s house, and operates by his rules, and I have previously been properly rebuked for terse, to-the-point statements like “John is a obnoxious wanker, a distended rectum evacuating his idiocy on a reliable basis, and nothing he says is convincing or particularly interesting.” But it is my understanding that, like interpreting the Constitution, it is acceptable to be pointedly abusive with specific citations to observed behavior.
Dude, that. was. awesome. Seriously, 10 out of 10. No notes.
Kudos, John!
Awww, no fair being agreeable now! I persuaded Grok to write insulting sonnets! ChatGPT won’t do it.
I’m sorry to hear Grok is being uncooperative. You could go consult some of the liberal groups I comment in, they like to insult me but from exactly the opposite position: ’cause I’m a gun-hugging, boot-licking, trans-phobic, police-loving government stooge. I’m guessing they could give you some good material, though you’d need to put it through a “flip the politics” translator first….
“Some of us are experts, or at least * specialty enthusiasts * ”
I like that! I am going to steal that, use it like it is my own and never give you credit for it.
Well done! And thanks for all the fish.
My understanding of his statement is that the basic founding principles of the law (the constitution and amendments) are written in common language, and can be generally understood by the average man with average education, and while the details of the implementing law may be numerous and, well, detailed, they must be in compliance with the general principles put forth in the founding documents. When they do not, they are null and void.
What you are arguing is that the priesthood of lawyers and government officials must be employed to tell us what should be plain and obvious. That we rubes are to stupid and unsophisticated to read and understand for ourselves that “shall not be infringed” means, but we need a black-robed Humpty Dumpty dictate to us what those simple words REALLY mean. “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ So the smoothest liar rules, and plays Calvin-ball with your life via the law. Great world-view you have there, built-to-spec for Satan, con-men and psychopaths.
The reason we have complex law is that we no longer have a relatively homogenous culture. The more diversity you have, the more legalistic it becomes to mediate disputes that arise from the frictions of close-proximity different cultures. Not sure you hate whites and men so much, but hardly anybody is immigrating to place ruled by women or non-whites, because places like that generally suck pretty bad (with a handful of notable exceptions).
“It’s unfortunate that you never made it past junior high, because if you had you might have been confronted with the more complex scenarios of adult life (for people beyond those you happen to know) and acquired some insight into how the legal system attempts to navigate complex disputes while maintaining some semblance of equal treatment. And you would be less inclined to wave it away as “communist bullshit.”
I just spent almost 40 years at hard labor showing time and again “expert professional papered engineers”, mistake upon mistakes with my junior high education.
Now if, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Seems so complicated that you need and expert to understand and apply it to daily life?
Thanks! I feel totally vindicated about not listening to teachers, after grade school.
And “communist bullshit” is perfectly accurate descriptor of you and the present legal system.
Well heck, if ya don’t need any id(or indeed proof of citizenship)
to vote, why should need any of those to buy a gun ?
You need ID, and I need ID, because if the FFL doesn’t follow those rules, they’ll lose their business license.
But illegal aliens and criminals don’t need ID, or registration, or universal background checks, because of the Fifth Amendment and Haynes v US (1968). The crux of that decision: 5A means that you cannot be compelled to testify against yourself, and if registration, or license, or whatever government process it happens to be has the effect of confessing to committing a crime, then 1) you can’t be compelled to go through that process and B) you can’t be punished for not going through the process. A criminal can still be charged for being in possession of a firearm, but they can’t be charged with having an “unregistered” firearm, or not transferring through an FFL, or not getting a background check, or not having a Permit-To-Purchase, or not having the required training conducted by a state-approved instructor.
Which really leaves you with the same charge you would have to develop in the same manner as if it was 1933, so what did you gain except for harassing the good citizens and making gun ownership a hassle and oh I get it now.
Sooner or later the left will regain a level of control that will allow them to act against such people. Currently they don’t have the political “capital” to do so.
That WILL change eventually. Because our side has and follows rules while the left has only ONE rule…WIN, at any cost, our side MUST eventually succumb.
“Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. * Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other *.” – John Adams
Our republican form of government is unique in the history of mankind. Formed on the bedrock idea that the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect the God given rights of individuals, it is particularly limited in the scope of its powers. Yet we see what happens when godless people gain control over levers of power and presume that they can do anything they wish as long as they have 50.1% of the vote. And it doesn’t matter to them if they have to cheat to get the
appearance
of a simple majority.
We have, across the fruited plain, politicians who raise their right hand with a face of sincerity and swear, often to whatever god they may claim to worship, to uphold and defend our constitutions. They never have any intention to uphold those oaths and we know this because they immediately set about gleefully repudiating them with regularity, alacrity and impunity. As our host so often wistfully says, “I can’t wait for their trials.” They are all guilty, but sadly there will be no such trials.
Well, if the government won’t try them, then I guess the unorganized militia will have to take care of the traitors.
Morally, if we let them live, we are their accomplices.
Our founders, whom we call patriots, committed treason against their king. so that their children would not have to fight for their freedom through the bonds of slavery. At least that’s what they said. 100 years later or so, pioneers on the American frontier formed committees of vigilance to record the lawlessness of the legally constituted mechanisms of law in their territory. When the reports of official lawlessness went unheeded by territorial governments, vigilance turned to vigilantes. In some cases, the vigilantes themselves then became lawless for profit. In the next century. Churchill exhorted his fellow subjects to fight. fight, fight in the streets and the hills. while they still had even little hope of victory, lest their children be forced to fight when there would be no hope of victory, only the opportunity to die while still free. Little seems to change when Godless men – those to whom honor means nothing – gain the levers of power.
As has occurred in Washington State.
What to do, what to do.