'Read the Constitution'
Retired Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack speaks at Big Bend's Wallenstien Theater.
MOSES LAKE - A retired Arizona sheriff told a Moses Lake crowd
the local and state governments need to force the federal
government to follow the Constitution.
Richard Mack spoke to the crowd about his experiences as a
police officer and challenging a provision in Brady Handgun
Violence Prevention Act.
MOSES LAKE - A retired Arizona sheriff told a Moses Lake crowd the local and state governments need to force the federal government to follow the Constitution.
Richard Mack spoke to the crowd about his experiences as a police officer and challenging a provision in Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.
Mack started by describing the experience he said led him from being a "by the numbers jerk" to a defender of the Constitution. As a patrol officer in Provo, Utah, he saw a woman fail to stop at a traffic sign. When he walked to the car, he described the scene as being like the Tasmanian Devil cartoon.
"Just heads and hands and feet and arms and everything going all crazy," he said. "She looks over at me and throws her arms into the air, and goes, ‘What else could go wrong today?'"
When he thought about writing her a ticket, he started to feel bad about it, Mack said, adding he asked himself if he was helping this family by doing this, and if he was adding honor to his office by doing this. He decided he wasn't and became depressed.
The incident led him to look at his oath of office, he said, adding the oath requires officers to uphold the state and U.S. constitutions. He never read either.
"Now I'm more depressed then I was before," Mack said. "As a matter of fact, I took an oath so I could have a paycheck and a fun job driving cars as fast as I wanted any time I wanted, and we never got tickets because we never gave tickets to each other."
The discovery led Mack to read the constitutions, and he said it converted him to a guard of the constitution.
Mack said the majority of tickets written by police violate the Eighth Amendment. The amendment states people are protected from excessive fines or bail and cruel and unusual punishment. Tickets are all three.
"I really don't view tickets as a moral or proper law enforcement tactic," he said. "Most of the tickets, I want to say 90 percent of the tickets we write across this country are all immoral and unconstitutional."
The retired sheriff went on to describe his experience fighting a provision of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, requiring sheriffs to conduct background checks. He first found out about the provision during a meeting of all of the Arizona sheriffs. Three federal agents brought the bill to the meeting.
"The first time in United States history that the federal government, the United States Congress, wants to commandeer the office of sheriff ... without any negotiation or contract under threat of arrest," he said. "There was lots of cussing after those guys left and said, ‘This is beyond federal arrogance. This is crazy.'"
He said every sheriff hated the provision, but felt they couldn't fight the federal government. Mack, along with six other county sheriff's, decided to sue the federal government, stating it was violating the states' rights. The U.S. Supreme Court decided Mack was right.
"They're not our boss and they can't fire us and they can't hire us and they don't pay my salary and I don't answer to them," he said. "I answer to the people."
He continued, saying people have to depend on their sheriffs to defend their constitutional rights and act as guardian against the federal government.
"The greatest threat to our God-given, constitutional liberty is our own federal government ... I'm not glad to say it, and I wish it wasn't true," he said. "I would feel a weight off my shoulders if I knew that in America there really was an army out to make sure that we as Americans are free."
He said the army exists with the county sheriffs. He added later the state should interpose itself between the people and the federal government.
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