Letter to the Editor: Police Chief Has No Right to Not Enforce Gun Law

I was very saddened and alarmed to read the article “Threats to Kelso and Toutle Schools”. I fear more every day for our children. When are people going to be honest enough to acknowledge that the more access and available guns are to our young people and mentally disturbed people, the more threats, killings, mass shootings, and suicides there will be? There is absolutely no legal correlation between increasing ownership age and performing background checks with Second Amendment violations of a citizen’s “right” to own guns. I was appalled at the recent so-called “Morton Gun Rally” in which two public servants, the “Republic Chief of Police, Loren Culp and Morton Chief of Police, Roger Morningstar were “heading the (gun) rally to bring attention to the unconstitutional gun law (I-1639) that was just passed (in 2018)”. The statement made by these public servants is misleading and false. No court has decided yet that Initiative 1639 is “unconstitutional.” 

For a Sheriff to declare a law to be unconstitutional without a court hearing or going through the process to change the law is wrong and it intentionally misleads the residents of our community. The law was passed by a majority vote of the people of the State of Washington; in a Democracy, the majority opinion of it citizens determines law. 

However, because of things like “gun rights” “abortion” and other social issues, the citizens of Washington and the nation are being forced to live in an era of a Minority Rule system. This attitude is present in acts like Chief Culp’s “refusal to uphold the law and to hold firm against I-1639,” a “sovereign act” that is unacceptable for a public servant to hold while in office. 

Culp has the right as a citizen to “organize” against the initiative but not to spew “false statements” or to refuse to uphold the law that he as a public servant gave oath to uphold. Culp and the acts of all Sheriffs that refuse to enforce the law have been publicly denounced as being “agitators and inciting rebellion.” 

Perhaps, but in the least they are lying to their friends, neighbors, and constituents when they “make up lies” to gain sympathy and support. The Revised Code of Washington 36.28.010 establishes the duties of our state’s 39 sheriffs. Those duties do not allow for individual vigilante behavior to decide what legislated laws to enforce and what laws to not enforce. 

Chief Culp’s statement: “there is no more important God given right than the protection of innocent life and firearms are the great equalizer” is a frightening and outdated sentiment for a public servant seeking to run for office to make. I am offended that he uses “God’s name in vain” to justify and defend a controversial personal opinion. Scripture states that “The LORD hates: “a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community” (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Diane Riley

Toledo