A Sheriff in Kentucky, Denny Peyman of Jackson County, says he feels a moral obligation to not enforce any new gun laws as part of his duty to protect the American Constitution. Okay. Not sure that’s a moral obligation when he has access to the federal and state courts to object to any laws on Constitutional grounds … Oh, excuse me. He also says, as sheriff, he has more power than the Federal and state governments. He can tell federal and state officials to leave his county and they have to obey him, according to his interpretation of the laws that govern our country and his state.
“The sheriff has more power than the federal people,” Peyman said Saturday at a press conference. “They need to go back and study that.
We’re a commonwealth, I can ask the federal people to leave and they have to leave. I can ask state people to leave and they have to leave.”
Hmmm. Never knew there was a clause in either the US or Kentucky Constitutions that made sheriffs so all-powerful. But this is the kicker, for me. He said people should be allowed, under the 2nd amendment to carry grenades if they need them. No seriously, he did.
Peyman said he was even open to allowing people to own hand grenades “if it was necessary for self protection.”
Well Skippy, sign me up for M1 Abrams tank and some FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles. I mean, we get a lot of funny looking helicopters flying overhead in my neck of the woods. Might be someday they might prove to be controlled by the UN’s new world order. Wouldn’t be prudent of me not to be armed with the weapons I need. I’m sure Sheriff Peyman would agree.
Videos of his press conference can be viewed at Raw Story.
P.S. Sheriff Peyman wants you to know that his little trouble with “Jackson County Judge-Executive William O. Smith and the Jackson County Fiscal Court” is not that big a deal:
Peyman dismissed problems he has with Jackson County Judge-Executive William O. Smith and the Jackson County Fiscal Court.
They say Peyman’s office owes the fiscal court more than $278,000 in payroll assistance from when he took office in January 2011. Peyman says there is no problem, but the court has called for an investigation and has set up a county police department. Peyman said he now has no deputies.
I guess he doesn’t need no stinking deputies.
Welcome to MY neck of the woods…..
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As Oui’s comment makes clear, this ever-more-common story says far more about the good folks of Jackson County, KY than about the cretinous “Sheriff” Denny Peyman.
Denny is plainly and clearly an irresponsible goofball and imbecile, not fit to be elected as county parks trashman—yet he’s the elected sheriff. Par for the course for the “conservative” movement and its braindead voters.
When democracy fails, there’s not much that can be done. Reform becomes simply impossible. As a result of the (manufactured) insanity of a strong majority of southern citizens, we are shackled to a corpse…
Peyman said he was even open to allowing people to own hand grenades “if it was necessary for self protection.”
Y’know, he’s right. If you interpret the 2nd amendment the way the right wing has, including the SCOTUS, there is literally no legal justification for preventing the citizenry from having any kind of weapons. Hand grenades, bazookas, anti-aircraft missles, nuclear warheads. Where do you draw the line? Where in the 2nd amendment can you find any language that allows the government to “infringe” on some weapons but not all? Is there a transcript anywhere of a discussion in Congress that, for example, muskets were to be allowed but not cannon? Of course not.
This, of course, is where the argument of NRA proponents regarding the 2nd amendment interpretation totally collapses. They like to talk about how if you allow registration of one type of gun, say semi-automatics or small caliber handguns, then it is a “slippery slope” to a full ban. But the problem is that they already accept banning of all kind of “arms”. Why are semi-automatics protected by the 2nd but not grenades? Why does the NRA accept this? On what legal ground? There isn’t any.
Just as we (including the NRA), very correctly, DO accept that the 2nd amendent allows bans on personal ownership of many kinds of weapons – from anti-aircraft missles to RPGs – we can also accept that the 2nd amendment allows bans on classes of guns.
Mostly, this blatant contradiction proves that the gun ownership fetish movement is motivated by something other than what they claim.
Rather famously, Supreme Court Justice Scalia speculated last July that the Constitution might defend the right of citizens to have rocket-propelled grenades:
“SCALIA: We’ll see. Obviously the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried — it’s to keep and “bear,” so it doesn’t apply to cannons — but I suppose here are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided.”
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/29/did-justice-scalia-just-encourage-the-next-crazy-to-aim-a-rea
l-rpg-at-the-supreme-court/
Fat Tony said this because he likes pissing liberals off, and because he is insane. He was unwiling to make a simple legal call on this obvious issue because he is also a chickenshit.
Obviously the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried — it’s to keep and “bear,” so it doesn’t apply to cannons
Scalia is an intellectual midget who has fooled the centrists into thinking he’s something else.
Show me one shred of evidence that this is “obvious”. Show me that the definition used in 1789 excluded non-hand-carried items.
He can’t, because it didn’t. As I’ve cited here before, the 2nd amendment was derived from the 13th article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. There it clearly stated that the proper defense of a State was a militia (part-time army) comprised of the people, and that therefore the people had the right to bear arms – that is, any arms necessary for the militia. Of course, in the context of the 2nd amendment the individual states were considered trusted – what the amendment was intended to do was to prevent the new national government, of which there was still large doubt and skepticism, from taking the right of defense from the states.
He can’t justify his interpretation – but that’s true of all his decisions. He blusters and puts down any other viewpoints to hide the incredible weakness of his argument.
Makes me wonder what Scalia’s views are regarding suitcase-sized nukes.
In Kentucky, the county judge rules. This guy is a goner. Only a matter of time.
this will not end well.
especially if he gives everyone a grenade.
Somebody ought to tell the sheriff that a hand grenade is not an arm, under any definition, it is an explosive device that a single human can employ.
Explosive devices are not mentioned in the second amendment.