Say No to Anti-2A Scummy Joe

Image courtesy the sheriff via Wikimedia under Creative Commons license

If you have to tell people that you are a supporter of the Second Amendment, you clearly don’t support it. Constitutional rights do not come with qualifications. Something that is subject to restrictions placed on it by politicians is not a right, it is a privilege. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo supports some form of the right to bear arms, but only that which he feels is proper for citizens. Not all of us can be trusted with guns, as his record indicates. But mistakes can be made; we’ve seen Senator Roberson become a much more stalwart supporter of gun rights—the lion of this year’s legislative session—after 2015’s wasted “Year of the Gun.”

Last fall, while publicly remaining neutral on Question 1, Lombardo privately expressed his support for banning private gun sales. He also told the Las Vegas Sun that he saw “no need to have a high-capacity magazine for any practical reason.” Lombardo calls himself a hunter, but he’s actually just a Fudd; someone who believes anything tactical is unnecessary and doubts the Second Amendment provides for self-defense or revolution.

After announcing his re-election bid for 2018, his Facebook page was flooded with criticism for

Lombardo’s stance on gun control (and a lot of other issues). Initially, comments were being moderated, which was a poor policy for the San Diego County sheriff, who was sued over deleting comments the county didn’t like. Given the response to criticism that was posted earlier today (see below), did Lombardo change his mind?

Anything after the first paragraph makes Lombardo a butter; i.e. “I support the Second Amendment, but…” Specifically, "addressing mental illness and its relation to gun possession and mass killings." Sounds like Lombardo supports gun violence restraining orders, AKA pre-crime laws meant to strip one of their firearms based on nothing more than an unsubstantiated complaint made to a sympathetic judge. Since society does not have the moral fortitude to actually address mental health problems, the easier route for nanny-statists is to further regulate guns. Simply put, Scummy Joe Lombardo is skeptical of average joes owning guns.

This attitude is typical with cops of his age, experience, and rank—products of 1980s and 1990s urban law enforcement thinking that was often opposed to armed citizens. It has been a pattern with Clark County sheriffs in particular. Last election, there were several challengers who truly supported the Second Amendment without equivocation. Instead, casino money ensured the election of a sheriff who is ineffective at even being sheriff.

Lombardo’s department has been shockingly ineffective at keeping homicides and violent crime at bay. Homicides were up 80% in March of 2016. In October, homicides evened out to a 25% increase over 2015 and a case of dubious self-defense caused a 20 year high for murders. Lombardo says 50% of the homicides are related to gang activity, but some of his changes have been criticized. 

Gang expert Wes McBride, a retired gang detective, said that Lombardo's decision to break up the gang unit helped increase street crime. Metro blames California for exporting it’s gang members (true to a degree), but Metro can’t admit that Las Vegas simply has a gang problem because of the endemic poverty in some neighborhoods. “If they admit to having a local gang problem, they’re seen as being a weak administrator,” said McBride.

Metro police officers, via their unions, blame the decentralization of the gang unit for making sharing intelligence harder and diverting gang detectives to other types of investigations. Don’t forget the plan to pull detectives into black and whites for a few weeks of patrol to help out on the manpower shortage. Seems no one wants to be a cop anymore and the “more cops” tax just isn’t enough.

Scummy Joe also blames “the increase in firearms.” The increase in the use of firearms? The increase of illegal possession of firearms? Or does he mean “more guns=bad?” That kind of statement is like blaming an increase in car sales for an increase in traffic deaths and DUIs, but logic is not exactly the ken of anti-gunners.

Clark County citizens do not deserve to have a sheriff who is scolded by the Justice Department for helping Las Vegas to be a sanctuary city. We don’t need politicians who tell us guns are the problem when criminals are. Clark County has only finally, in 2015, emerged from the shadow of onerous and ineffective gun control and does not need anyone in power who supports further diminishment of our sacred constitutional rights. In 2018, it is imperative that this double-dipping public servant be sent to the inevitable future of every Clark County sheriff, security consultant for a casino company.

Men like Larry Burns or Gordon Martines would make much better top cops and they also supported getting rid of blue cards while Lombardo waffled. Only by being ambushed with the help of Channel 8 did Lombardo address the topic of blue cards back when Metro was seemingly took by surprise by the repeal of blue cards. So unless he gets wise to the public mood in Nevada, which is pro-gun rights, in 2018, just say no to Scummy Joe. We don’t need a public daddy to tell us our long-standing gun rights need to be limited.