Comments that Sheriff Terry Maketa made last week about a package of gun bills have sparked a tense email exchange between a Manitou Springs woman and county officials.
It started when Joan Powers emailed the sheriff saying she was “shocked, dismayed and sickened” that he wouldn’t enforce laws he didn’t like.
“Sherrif Maketa will do nothing to enhance our national image of Colorado Springs and El Paso County with his recent comments,” Powers wrote Friday.
“Sheriff Maketa has just supplied the entire nation with more supportive information for our backwards, non-progressive image. Thank goodness we have beauty and outdoor sports to attract creative, young professionals to our area, because they certainly won’t come here for enlightened, intelligent and fair law enforcement,” she added.
Powers cc’d the Board of County Commissioners as well as The Gazette.
Maketa, as well as Commissioners Peggy Littleton and Amy Lathen, responded.
Highlights of their emails:
“Clearly you received some mis-information and that (is) unfortunate. If you could point me (to) your misinformed source, I would be happy to have it corrected. The truth of the matter is that I announced to that very group, that I took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Colorado. I further explain in very clear terms, that I would enforce all (laws) passed through the legal process of our legislature,” Maketa wrote.
“Ps. should you decide you would like to speak to me directly in a civil manner, I would be more than happy to talk to you,” added Maketa, who provided his phone number.
“I know that the Sheriff and I take our oath of office very seriously, that we are to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Colorado. I would ask you, after refreshing yourself on the Constitution, to consider whether the elected officials in Denver are holding to their oath of office when they propose bills that blatantly violate the Constitution?” Littleton wrote.
“If the citizens of this county, who overwhelmingly (80%+ in at least one case) elected Sheriff Maketa in three county-wide elections are too “backwards and non-progressive” in your words, then I would suggest your efforts to personally confront and change all of them or find a location in which you find the citizens more enlightened and apparently, less embarrassing to you,” Lathen wrote.
Powers responded to them all.
“We can all have our difference of opinions, but you, Sheriff Maketa, don’t get to pick and choose what you will or will not enforce once laws have been passed. That is a reprehensible stand for an officer of the law. If you think that a particular law is unenforceable, say so, but don’t encourage people to go ahead and break that law because they have nothing to fear from you,” Powers told Maketa.
“There is a majority in Colorado that want some form of gun control. Most of the laws that will go into effect in Colorado are completely normal in most universes. I only hope Terry Maketa can make peace with that and do the job he is sworn to do,” Powers told Littleton.
“By the way, are you suggesting that I move from El Paso County as a way to resolve my angst with a Sheriff that has publicly stated that there are certain laws and regulations he will flaunt? I have heard that argument used before….but have always found it to be sophomoric at best and threatening at worst. I hope you will reconsider using that argument with others that disagree with you in the future,” Powers told Lathen.
Democrats really think criminal killers are really going to go “gee, I better only carry 15 round mags when I go kill all these people.” What a bunch of idiots. Punishing law abiding citizens.
So a citizen reaches out to the BOCC, and Lathen responds by telling her to consider relocation. Wow. Amy you are a b*tch.
Joan Powers = idiot tool of the tyrannical left
WHO THE HELL DOES THIS POWERS B=TCH THINK SHE IS , ANOTHER SCUMBAG POLITICIAN TRYING TO TAKE AWAY THE PEOPLES RIGHTS. YOU ARE THE REASON COLORADO IS GOING TO GO BANKRUPT.
Joan Powers: I hope you are reading this.
A few quick questions for you; please provide cogent responses — that means factual responses not rooted in any emotion.
1. How would magazine limits have prevented what happened at Sandy Hook or Aurora?
You know, in Canada, there are magazine restrictions. What has happened? Nothing. The criminals drill out the rivets in the magazines and load more ammo. Surely you’d agree Canada is a progressive, enlightened country. No?!
2. SPECIFICALLY, what steps should the Sheriff take to enforce this law?
3. What source(s) do you cite regarding your comment, “there is a majority in Colorado that want some form of gun control”???
Thanks for your time Joan.
p.s., I’ve talked to the Sheriff personally. He’s a fair man; and responds to everyone – which is rare for any politician regardless of the R or D after their name. By way of comparison, I cannot say the same for Doug Lamborn or Darryl Glenn (when he was my rep on city council). I’m willing to bet that if you engage him without all the ranting and raving, he’ll answer your questions.
Why are we giving this Joan Powers a whole article in the Gazette when citizens were turned away from speaking or testifying during State Senate hearings? I would like to hear her “professional credintials” to speak on the issue. Ranting, whether articulate or not, is pathetic. Timothy McVeigh murdered 168 people utilizing fertilizer, but I don’t hear Joan crying out for agriculture and gardening restrictions. As Edmund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. I have full faith and trust in our military, our federal law enforcement, and our local law enforcement, but these assets are not always available at a moments notice to protect those most dear to me.
Joan Powers is a communist. She does not care about you protecting yourself from criminals. She wants you defenseless toward any tyranny being put upon you brothers or your family or even America ! If she denies us ,as a whole nation, our inheritances, then she is enemy to the people. Stay away from these folks, as they are walking victims, waiting for crime to happen to any person, without her backing you up. She will not help you, unless she gets what She Alone wants,,to hell with you.Joan Powers did not defend her country ,ever, in any conceivable fashion. She talks against American Rights. We are free because men and women sacrificed their very own lives in wars past,so she can talk dirt about you and your future and your childrens too. She wants us Americans to change our very essence of life,surrender to the crime, die for nothing, defenseless against aggression. Shes a commie pig and needs to be removed from the United States as an enemy of the state
I just want to say that EVERY police officer decides what laws to enforce. I mean, have you ever been pulled over for a traffic violation and the kind officer just let you go with a warning?
I trust El Paso County Deputies to enforce laws wisely. In fact, every El Paso County Deputy that I’ve met have been an outstanding individual. I support Sheriff Maketa 100%. I’m sure his deputies have better things to do than bust good law abiding, tax paying citizens. It really makes me frustrated that I will have to go through an FFL to transfer my grandfather’s rifle to my son. It’s just ridiculous.
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Apparently Joan Powers is either ignorant, or willfully malicious. Or, even perhaps illiterate. Or… suppose by her petulant bratty display, all of the above.
The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution specifically enumerates that ONLY LAWS MADE IN PURSUANT to the Constitution shall be lawful.
Capice?
Successive generations of political hacks routinely legislate, pass, violate the Constitution with unlawful ‘laws,’ with regularity that only a naive insensate, gullible fool would be clueless to the reality of.
That, is why you actually see cases heading to SCOTUS. Or, did you think your ‘rulers’ were infallible?
What IS despicable, is the Exhibit A) knee jerk emotive reactionaries like Joan Powers who obviously has no clue, no historical understanding of the Constitution, attempting, and I mean very publicly, idiotically attempting to ‘educate’ a Sheriff, a public servant who has no problem professing to be a servant and not our ‘ruler’ unlike most, who is obviously displaying that he has, also unlike the 90% of govt servants, actually read the Constitution.
Like most historically, natural rights -origin imbecilic liberals/RINOs, Joan Powers delude that if you repeat your assertions enough, it automatically becomes a universally accepted ‘truth.’
Uh, no, darling.
It’s getting tiresome addressing petulance from what passes for ‘grown ups’ in America.
Here, rather than belabor the point, go look up:
1. Supremacy Clause
2. Tench Coxe
3. The 9th AND 10th Amendments
4. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
5. Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
6. Warren v. District of Columbia (1981)
7. Mack and Printz v. US (1997)
8. US v. Miller (1939)
9. John Bad Elk v. US (1900)
I included Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Bd of Ed, precisely to illustrate the fact that the ‘godly and infallible’ SCOTUS, the same Fed Govt body contradicted itself ONLY 58yrs later.
So, you willing to put an erroneous Constitutional/Unconstitutional declaration for another 58yrs, while REAL people’s lives are ruined by false and wrongful arrests coming out of the current slate State govt level ex post facto and otherwise wholly Unconstitutional ‘laws’?
It would also be one thing if the ‘legislators’ actually knew WTF they wanted to ban; these idiots can’t tell apart a firing pin from a magazine baseplate!
If your idea of studying history is those only written by authors with “liberal” tattooed on their foreheads, you’re merely a propagandized tool.
I read Chomsky, Zinn, Glenn Greenwald, Paul Krugman, as well as Tom Woods, Thom DiLorenzo, and Murray Rothbard.
Have you read any among that list, or at least ‘your’ half?
By your logic, if we (unlike European democratic or parliamentary monarchic SUBJECTS, who are sovereign citizenry whom our govt supposedly are delegated ONLY those powers that are strictly limited enumerated powers) ‘don’t have any right to protest what ‘our’ bought off/special interests-bribed public servants pass,’ then if they passed a law saying you have to turn over your daughter to be raped by a govt official, on their whim whenever, technically, we should just STFU and put up with it, until such criminal regulation/’law’ is challenged in SCOTUS, yrs down the line?
Are you friggin so brainwashed by American Idol TV-nation MSM drivel lifestyle that you really cannot tell apart reality, from fiction?
People like you have no idea how actual laws are applied, carried out/enforced, vs. what the publicly propagandized original intent of a legalese is/was. Patriot Act and DHS and the Drone program was meant for foreign terrorists, now the DHS has become nothing more than the modern Stasi. And, if you paid attention on March 6th, 2013 you’d have found out from the Senate floor, that the Attorney General Eric ‘I kno nozing about illegally shipping guns to Mexico that directly led to innocents getting murdered’ Holder wrote, in print, in DoJ whitepapers that the POTUS can decide, all by himself, whom he can assassinate, even “without ANY EVIDENCE,” in black and white.
Yes, believe govt whatever it says, what ever its publicly stated intent of a law is. Nope, they never abuse it. Nope, they’ll never broadly interpret laws to fit their whims.
Brilliant ‘logic’, slave.
Now, go back to your kindergarten chalkboard and write: “I will not feign authority on topics that I’ve never researched in depth, nor have any comprehension of, before proceeding to lecture other adults, while simultaneously making an ass of myself to the world, by so publicly taking a stance as to write to my local news paper.” a thousand times.
And really, leave the adult discussion to adults, and not pretend-’grown ups,’ Umkay?
Thank you Sheriff Maketa for showing some common sense among the feel good dems who are only punishing law abiding citizens.
If a 2nd grader makes his finger into a gun the dems would then tape all the 2nd graders hands to gether to prevent anyone from making a hand gun.
I don’t think that Commissioner Lathen’s comment is “sophomoric” at all. If Powers believes that Colorado Springs is “backwards” and “not progressive,” I would think that she would like to move to a more “enlightened” community such as Boulder.
Not everyone agrees with everything. That is a given. Our Constitution is above all else. Period. An Amendment to our U.S. Constitution must be passed by 38 states. Our elected officials including Sheriff Maketa swear an oath to that Constitution. The laws being passed are UNCONSTITUTIONAL Ms. Powers and will eventually be overturned or nullified because they are reactionary and make little sense and will not prevent or deter crime. These things take time. Our Sheriff is not choosing which laws to uphold. On the contrary Madam. Your over zealous State legislators have chosen to illegally disregard their oath to uphold our Constitution and should be removed from office.
Gun control activists are “not” the Majority, and people who support the Second Amendment have the right (under the First Amendment) to speak “their” opinion, and seem to be getting louder all the time! The Colorado State and our Federal Government have Democrats in the majority and “demonize” those who do not support their agenda, and always take it straight to the media. Colorado is not “Back-Woods” and is full of fine upstanding law abiding citizens. The only people who suffer from more “Control” are those law-abiding citizens.
Mr. Chacon, who is this Powers person, that you provided her your soapbox in preference to all of the people who commented on The Gazette’s article about Commissioner Peggy Littleton’s town hall meeting last Thursday?
Find that story at www.gazette.com/articles/maketa-152285-gun-angry.html
As I check now, there are about 66 main comments. Some of those have a high double-digit number of replies. Featuring Ms. Powers on this blog is blatantly unfair.
It’s unethical as well. You could have canvased any number of Progressive hotbeds to turn up the most vile, unreasonable, and unrepresentative one you could find. Is that what you did? Was that your intent?
I don’t know Ms. Powers, so I don’t want to characterize her that way. My point, Mr. Chacon, is that you irresponsibly lent your soapbox to Ms. Powers not to inform, but so as to splatter irresponsible accusations and mischaracterizations.
Mr. Chacon, who is this Powers person, that you provided her your soapbox in preference to all of the people who commented on The Gazette’s article about Commissioner Peggy Littleton’s town hall meeting last Thursday?
As I check now, there are about 66 main comments. Some of those have a high double-digit number of replies. Featuring Ms. Powers on this blog is blatantly unfair.
It’s unethical as well. You could have canvased any number of Progressive hotbeds to turn up the most vile, unreasonable, and unrepresentative one you could find. Is that what you did? Was that your intent?
I don’t know Ms. Powers, so I don’t want to characterize her that way. My point, Mr. Chacon, is that you irresponsibly lent your soapbox to Ms. Powers not to inform, but so as to splatter irresponsible accusations and mischaracterizations.
Mr. Chacon, who is this Powers person, that you provided her your soapbox in preference to all of the people who commented on The Gazette’s article about Commissioner Peggy Littleton’s town hall meeting last Thursday?
As I check now, there are about 66 main comments. Some of those have a high double-digit number of replies. Featuring Ms. Powers on this blog is blatantly unfair.
It’s unethical as well. You could have canvased any number of Progressives to turn up someone unrepresentative. Is that what you did? Was that your intent?
I don’t know Ms. Powers, so I don’t want to characterize her that way. My point, Mr. Chacon, is that you irresponsibly lent your soapbox to Ms. Powers not to inform, but to blare a one-sided message.
It is not up to law enforcement to determine what is constitutional. That is up to the judicial/court systems. Or at least that is how I understand the constitution.
Reply to Mark Whitehouse: With all due respect sir, I must correct your statement. Public law enforcement officers, like all military personnel, take an oath of office. First and foremost, above their duty to uphold the law, is their duty to uphold and defend the Constitution, in this case of the State of Colorado, but also of the United States of America. I took this oath when I enlisted 37 years ago, and was not released from that oath when I was discharged. When an unconstitutional law is passed, I have a sworn duty to work against it, hopefully by peaceful means. So does Sheriff Maketa.
Reply to Mark Whitehouse: With all due respect sir, I must correct your statement. Public law enforcement officers, like all military personnel, take an oath of office. First and foremost, above their duty to uphold the law, is their duty to uphold and defend the Constitution, in this case of the State of Colorado, but also of the United States of America. I took this oath when I enlisted 37 years ago, and was not released from that oath when I was discharged. When an unconstitutional law is passed, I have a sworn duty to work against it, hopefully by peaceful means. So does Sheriff Maketa. The respective Constitutions are written in English, so that normal, educated persons can tell when they are being violated, regardless of what some judicial “experts” might claim.
100% support for the sheriff, and the truth most of the people in this state supports. California has been going constantly downhill for the past decade, and now their transplants are moving here to the two “California spin-offs (Denver and Boulder)” and taking this beautiful state down the same path. Let’s have a vote on the gun issue of ALL the people in the state, and see where the majority of people stand, instead of just letting politicians play political games.
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