Judge: Sheriff violated man’s 1st Amendment rights in denying gun permit
SIOUX CITY — After less than a full day of testimony in U.S. District Court, Presiding Judge Mark W. Bennett issued a ruling from the bench this week that found Osceola County Sheriff Douglas Weber’s denial of an Ocheyedan, Iowa, man’s application for a gun permit constituted First Amendment retaliation, according to court documents.
Bennett’s written order in the civil action is to follow.
Paul Dorr and his son Alexander, then 18, filed suit in 2008 after Weber turned down their concealed-weapon permit applications.
Paul Dorr said Friday he believed Weber denied his application because he was working as a paid consultant with the Osceola County Taxpayers Association, which was fighting public safety budgets, including those of the sheriff’s and county attorney’s offices.
Weber could not reached for comment Friday. His Sioux City attorney, Douglas Phillips, said he would not comment until he had seen the judge’s order.
Petty tyrants all over the country think nothing of this kind of retaliation, just as they think nothing of turning traffic enforcement into an extortion racket. Whatever one might think about the Second Amendment and concealed carry, there is no doubt at all about the First Amendment and what it means.
This highlights something that should probably be kept in mind when we hear wingnuts yammer about local control and states rights: It is really at the local and state level where the most egregious abuses of power occur.
Just imagine what creationist school boards would do if they didn’t have the feds looking over their shoulders or, worse, how their cronies, cousins and allies in local law enforcement might deal with critics if they weren’t afraid of federal marshals descending on them
The reason is pretty simple: The Federal government is huge and powerful, but there are thousands of people whose sole occupation is to keep an eye on what it is doing and they have the resources to do something about it. At the local level, there usually aren’t any top-flight investigative reporters, or public interest lawyers, or gigantic NGOs to keep officious officials and imperious lackeys from doing as they please.
In fact, this kind of stuff is routine in places like Lubbock, where yokel bureaucrats seem to believe that basic American and common-law principles are just something you see on TV.
For instance, the very day after I publicly criticized the city’s traffic control policies, I found an arrogant city flunky in the alley behind my house, carefully measuring the height of individual weeds with a ruler to determine whether they violated the city code. Coincidence? I really don’t think so.