Sheriff Maketa talks at anti-gun law rally

first my name is terry makita i'm the sheriff of el paso county let me um i'll i'll try to be brief although that's not my nature but first first and foremost let me thank every one of you that came out or made the journey from your community to be here and stand with us in support of what we believe is right i'm not going to stand here and pretend to be some scholar of the constitution i'm not going to proclaim to be some expert on on whether a gun bill will work or won't work but is what i can say is like the people up here we have committed a career to interpreting the constitution every day not just the second amendment not just the first but the fourth the fifth the eighth the fourteenth all of them and i would think that would bring some validity when we look at this and say this isn't about keeping criminals behind bars or interfering with someone who wishes to do harm this is about criminalizing law-abiding citizens these laws will have no deterrent effect whatsoever on the tragedy that occurred in aurora it had no effect on the tragedy that occurred in my own county just two weeks ago or the the pizza delivery individual up in denver this is an infringement on our right as law abiding citizens and i would be remiss if i did not say the constitution and the government did not grant us the second amendment we had those rights long before this country was even formed as humans the constitution is what protected those rights from government intrusion now i'm going to stand here and and and i'm sorry to say this but our governor has lied to the citizens of this state and i have no problem telling him that directly and i'll tell you why because in july he stood up and said to national news media that gun control would most likely not have prevented the incident in the aurora theater he said that individuals that are that ill and want to carry out that kind of devastation will probably not follow any restrictions in place but is what he said was we should have this debate that was a lie and that is what upset me on march 4th because that debate did not take place it was ramrodded through there was no articulation of the benefits of it there was no debate about people like me and the people up here who are expected to identify this as being illegal as of july 1st is there anybody here that can tell me which of these magazines if we assume today's july 15 is an illegal magazine i have almost a century of experience can you guys look at these and tell me either well i'll probably break the law if it's july 15th look at it and tell me i just did a transfer that law targets law abiding citizens it it criminalizes people that intend to follow the law and it doesn't just stop with the magazine ban a cop cannot look at this and say whether a crime has occurred it's an after the fact issue the crime has occurred now we have probable cause to question now we have probable cause to interrogate that's where this law is overreaching the background check the governor lied to the people he said i talked to folks all over this state the eastern plains the western slope down south up north and he said they believe in universal backgrounds is what he failed to tell them and be honest with him about is we have universal background checks we have a gun show loophole is what he's targeting is my ability to turn to a person i went through the police academy with and say jim i would assume i surround myself with law-abiding citizens if you want to borrow this magazine i trust you and no in my heart jim is not going to go out and shoot up a theater or a school or a place of employment he's going to use it responsibly and give it back to me that's what this law targets that is what is so wrong and i think the best depiction i can come up with an example is what a gross dismal failure gun control has been in chicago go to the computer google chicago get into their crime stats look at the rate of homicides look at the rate of clearance it tells me something the citizens don't have confidence in the in the police to protect them and that's why they can't solve their crimes they got a 30 percent clearance rate on homicides i don't think there's a sheriff in this state that would accept that let alone has ever experienced that pathetic of performance but i've seen it around the world and the reason it exists is because citizens do not believe government can protect them therefore they don't step out and identify those that are committing homicides and murders in their communities you will not hear president obama stand up today and say chicago is a great example of where these kind of measures work because he's embarrassed by it he knows it's a failure every study out of the department of justice has shown these restrictions are a failure this is about this is about taking a world full of predators a world full of wolves and creating more sheep to defeat the wolves now i stole that line from a very intelligent individual because i'm not that smart but i think it says exactly what's happening let's create more sheep to try to control the predator that takes our sheep and it warms my heart to look out right here right now and see enough people that say i will not be a sheep i will not be silenced and when we're done here today when we're done here today let's go to the capitol and let's let those legislators know we will not be silenced we're not going to go away and we will not be the sheep they want us to be and we will not see more of our personal responsibilities to a government that in the last two weeks has shown its failure to protect our people

Channel: Denver7 – The Denver Channel

Views: 3,523,074

Rating: 4.8733754 out of 5

Keywords: Local news, News, Video, Local News Videos, local, news

Id: HCXx5Eb4FDc

Length: 6min 47sec (407 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/drale05]

Sir, I'm keeping mine because I can't call you for help for fear of you shooting me simply because of my skin color.

[u/DragonTHC]

2013, but relevant as ever.

[u/Bedbouncer]

It took me awhile to figure out who he sounds like: Kevin Costner.