Monday, October 17, 2016

Attorney General Investigation of City of Tucson for Illegal Destruction of Firearms




The Tucson City Council has become a notorious scofflaw for ignoring state law that involves firearms. Arizona has a state preemption law, to prevent a confusing patchwork of local laws, which could easily entrap innocent people who exercise their Second Amendment rights.  The Tucson City Council has ignored the law.

Arizona also requires that valuable firearms that come into the possession of the police must be sold to federal firearms dealers, so that the value will be used for the public good.  Tucson has been accused of destroying these valuable items, presumably to make some sort of political statement. 

This year, the legislature became fed up with the scofflaw attitude of the Tucson City Council and other political entities that refuse to follow the law.  They passed a bill that required the Attorney general to investigate claims that political entities were violating the law, if the AG was asked to do so by a member of the legislature.  

If the investigation shows violation of the law, the political entity could be punished by the withholding of state revenue sharing.

From an AzCDL email:
Great news! Representative (and AzCDL member) Mark Finchem (LD 11) has asked the Arizona Attorney General to investigate the City of Tucson for the routine destruction of firearms in violation of ARS 13-3108.F. If the Attorney General’s investigation reveals that legal action should be brought against Tucson, the city could face withholding of State Shared Revenue funds.
It appears that there will be an official investigation into the alleged violations of law by the Tucson City Council.  The next few months should shed light on whether violations of the law have occurred or not. 

The Arizona Citizens Defense League was instrumental in promoting the legislation to hold scofflaw political entities to account.  Similar legislation has been passed in Florida and Pennsylvania, and is being considered in other states. 

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

When an elected or appointed public official violates their oath of office they are required to be impeached and removed from office. If a law has no teeth in it to punish elected or appointed officials it effectively has no value. ignoring a state law is a violation of the oath of office, in that oath it requires the oath taker to uphold and enforce all laws federal and state by upholding and enforcing the constitutions. by ignoring the states preemption law it amounts to self resignation or mandatory impeachment. it makes no difference what level of government it is. to impeach and remove from office may not seem to bad but the effects of being impeached and removed are long lasting, the person that is impeached can never hold public office again or any job that requires an oath of office. they can not receive any government money related to the works they do and all professional license are void. basically you get thrown under the bus for the rest of your life. You can never be a corporation officer that requires an oath of office this is what upset me when bill Clinton was impeached. He got away with making a plea deal that is not permitted he must be removed from office if found guilty in the impeachment trial. In his plea deal he gave up his legal license for five years then started a non profit corporation. being found guilty in an impeachment hearing required permanent disbarment and he is prevented from being a CEO. When will the people start demanding that the laws be enforced as written and put these gangsters out of business? talk about corruption in the democratic party. Read the constitution it clearly states Congress shall impeach AND remove from office. it says nothing about accepting a plea deal. everyone of those people that voted for this ordinance should be impeached AND removed.

Dean Weingarten said...

Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives.

The Senate, where the trial was held, did not convict him. They shirked their duty, and would not even look at the evidence the House had collected.

Anonymous said...

This is my point, congress failed in its duty to impeach and remove. to be impeached by the house requires the senate to try the accused. if convicted removal must follow. Clinton plea bargained his way out of it. find the guidelines for plea bargaining in the constitution. are we talking about corrupt government or not? He agreed to his law license to be suspended for five years. a plea bargain is an admission of guilt. refusing to loo at the evidence is not a trial.