The Sunday Chieftain (Tell it, April 21), had several angry letters denigrating Pueblo County Sheriff Kirk Taylor for "shirking his duty" in regard to his (finally) announced stand on gun control laws passed by the Colorado State Legislature this year. While I wasn't impressed with his waffling on the subject over a period of two months, his decision to enforce the enforceable and not to bother with the unenforceable only makes sense.

A policeman (or sheriff's deputy) isn't a judge nor a lawmaker, so he has little time or budget to decide when or where a 30 round magazine in some citizen's gun was bought or given to him. Nor does he have time to prove ownership of a firearm by the person possessing the same.

His obligation stops once the firearm has been cleared and declared "legal" in the NCIC check, as one has to assume the current possessor is the legal possessor. And unless the firearm is defaced, stolen or its possessor is not legally allowed to possess that firearm, how does he check to see if the possessor passed a background check?

He doesn't, because it's probably impossible.

Thus, the sheriff's stance. He certainly isn't picking and choosing what law(s) he will enforce as the current president and his Department of Justice have done repeatedly. He's just doing what is and isn't possible within the framework of his constitutional duties, as are most of the law enforcement in this country. The fact that Barack Obama can put a wall of blue behind him at a campaign speech doesn't mean the majority of law enforcement believes in "gun control." They don't, they believe in "crime control" which involves tougher sentencing of offenders using firearms or illegal firearms at the state level.

Feel-good, "doing something" laws do not make anyone safer, but instead tie up the law enforcement that we don't seem to have enough of. Self-important lawmakers do things they seem to think will help them get re-elected.
It's time for some common sense when dealing with crime on the streets.