Indiana Sheriff Brad Rogers is taking a stand. This week he vowed to protect his residents’ Second Amendment rights by refusing to enforce any gun control executive actions Obama may sign before the end of his term.
“There’s gun violence and there’s people who want to rid our area of gun violence. You know, I highly respect that and the world is an evil place. We saw that in Boston, we’ve seen it in various locations throughout our nation. But I’m telling you, gun legislation is not the way to control gun violence,” he said at a Second Amendment rally in northern Indiana.
The sheriff’s speech included four points, the first being the nature of anti-gun laws. “First of all, it’s not gun legislation; it’s anti-Second Amendment legislation,” he proclaimed to the cheering crowd.
“The right to bear arms is a right; it is not a privilege granted through legislative mandate or any legislative control,” said Rogers. “In fact…as the legislature considers all these different laws to control that, we would never tolerate religious legislation or freedom of the press legislation via our first amendment. And therefore any legislation that tries to control the second amendment is unconstitutional,” he concluded.
Rogers went on to discuss the very clear wording of the Second Amendment and highlighted the amendment’s original purpose: “Contrary to popular belief, the Second Amendment is not about… just self defense and hunting. It’s about having freedom and controlling tyranny and unconstitutional laws that can be enforced against us…and I’m saying that as a member of the government.”
Sheriff Rogers concluded his speech with the following promise: “I will not allow gun confiscation in my county. I will not enforce any additional anti-gun laws. I stand with you for liberty as a law enforcement officer, as a sheriff, and hopefully to light the flame across this nation for other sheriffs to also stand for liberty and not tolerate the constitutional usurpations that are occurring at the federal level.”
The Elkhart County Sheriff appeared on WNIT’s Politically Speaking, where he was asked how – as a police officer – he could possibly oppose the president.
“If President Obama today said, ‘I’m creating an executive order that all sheriffs and police chiefs around this nation need to start registering firearms,’ I will disregard it,” said Rogers. While his oath does call for the support of U.S. constitutions, Rogers explained, “That does not necessarily mean I have to enforce every law.”