Unheard of, right?….well, that’s what you would think.
The Second Amendment debate continues to brew across the country. Some feel that their Second Amendment rights are threatened and immediate action needs to be taken. As a result, several sheriffs around the nation have pledged that they would not enforce ANY laws they felt would violate our Second Amendment rights.
In Florida, sixty-seven sheriffs signed one of those pledges declaring they would uphold the Second Amendment and defend Americans’ right to bear arms. This decision didn’t fare so well for Sheriff Nicholas Finch, who was arrested in early March by FL Governor Rick Scott for upholding the Second Amendment. Governor Scott has appointed Carl Causey as sheriff to replaced Finch until the case is heard in July. Here’s a little background to the story.
The charge against the sheriff stems from an incident involving his deputy, James Hoagland.
On March 8, Sgt. James Hoagland arrested a man named Floyd Parrish for carrying a fully loaded concealed semi-automatic weapon. When Sheriff Finch walked on the scene, he was accompanied by one of Parrish’s family members. After investigating the situation, Finch took Parrish’s arrest file and released Parrish and his gun. The sheriff then destroyed all documentation related to Parrish’s arrest. Several days later, Hoagland asked Finch about the incident. He responded by saying he believes in, “Second Amendment rights.”
It wasn’t long afterwards that Sheriff. Finch was arrested, according to the Independent Sentinel for a “Third-Degree Felony charge of official misconduct for destroying or removing official documents from the county jail to cover up the arrest of Mr. Parrish. Finch was released on his own recognizance.”
Finch’s lawyer, Jimmy Judkins, released this statement to the Independent Sentinel:
”The records at the jail show exactly what happened in this case and the records speak the truth. The sheriff looked at the facts and said, ‘I believe in the second amendment and we’re not going to charge him.’ That is not misconduct at all. That is within the sheriff’s prerogative whether to charge someone or not.”
Many believe, according to the Independent Sentinel, that all actions taken by the sheriff were within his authority. As a sheriff, he had the authority to decide whether or not to charge Parish for having a firearm in his possession. Since Parrish was not charged, the arrest records are not of any value to Finch who, therefore, had a right to destroy those records.
Any yet, Finch was still arrested and charged with third-degree felony offenses.
What do you think?
Courtesy LibertyNEWS.com
eric@grassfire.com
A Christian American Opinion 
June 12th, 2013 at 10:48 am
The 2nd Amendment was written as a collective right. “The people” means the people in a body politic, aka, the States. The Federal Government is not to infringe on state militias rights to keep and bear arms. The Founding Fathers were TERRIFIED of standing armies and did not want the Federal Government having control over a standing army. They believed militias, that were well trained and regulated, would be the best form of defense against not only other nations, but against ourselves. It wasn’t until 2008 that the 2nd Amendment was viewed as being an “individual” right to keep and bear arms. And even this is limited to only handguns within ones home. There is a reason why Conservative Chief Justice Burger called the idea of an individual right to own weapons “one of the biggest pieces of fraud—and I repeat the word fraud—on the American public by a special interest group that I have seen in my lifetime.” He means the NRA…
If you want to be fired up about something, and truly be mad about the federal government doing something against the Founding Fathers ideas, get mad about our HUGE federal defense budget and concentration of military power away from the states (i.e., national guard which is now just another branch of the military) towards the federal government. You DO NOT have a right to own an AR-15 and you never have.
http://josephwiltse.com/2013/01/18/381/