One of the more interesting interviews I did leading up to my Nov. 22 stories on firearms sales and on militias was with former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack. But little of the interview made it into the stories.
The Safford resident has become something of a star among gun-rights activists and people who consider themselves constitutionalists. He’s also a supporter of the Oath Keepers and spoke at the group’s first convention last month in Las Vegas.
Broadly, Mack, who was sheriff from 1988 to 1996, believes the federal government has far overstepped the powers it was assigned in the Constitution. “The federal government has limited and enumerated powers. It’s time to put the genie, the federal genie, back in the bottle,” he said when I interviewed him last month.
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One of Mack’s main points is the supremacy of the county sheriff as a law-enforcement agent. “I believe that the sheriff has the duty and responsibility to protect people from corrupt government and that he is the ultimate protector … that he won’t allow injustice and unconstitutional acts to take place against them.”
Mack became renowned for successfully challenging a portion of the Brady gun-control bill in the 1990s. But he lost in his run for a third term in Graham County’s 1996 Democratic primary. He later applied to be police chief in South Tucson and ran for U.S. Senate as a Libertarian.
What inspired Mack’s current thinking, he said, were two incidents that have been touchstones for a segment of the American populace: The deadly standoff involving federal agents and Randy Weaver’s family at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992 and the raid, standoff and fire at David Koresh’s compound near Waco, Texas, which left dozens dead.
“I just had it with the federal government,” Mack said.
Lately, Mack has been excited by the formation of the Oath Keepers, a group of active and retired law-enforcement officers and military members. The focus of the group is on obeying the constitution as they view it, not orders of their superiors that they consider unconstitutional. The group has a list of 10 ‘Orders we will not obey.’ And the top item on the list?
“We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.”
Others follow a familiar pattern of feared governmental acts often discussed on the libertarian right:
“We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a ‘state of emergency’ on a state,” and “We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.”
Mack wouldn’t say that he believes the federal government is preparing detention camps for American citizens — a theme of conversation in some circles — but, he said: “There are some signs that are getting kind of weird. You’ve got to admit — it just looks like government is getting too out of control.”
“This is a time to wake up, and yes Obama is waking a lot of people up because of such an anti constitutional agenda that he has.”
And he said he is concerned about future erosion of the value of the U.S. dollar. “Yes, I do buy silver coins. I do believe it’s good to have a hedge against inflation,” he said.
He said he is not for armed revolution, but he does support a peaceful movement to put the federal government back in its rightful place, and he thinks the nation’s sheriffs need to be in the vanguard.
