By Mark Waite
Local activist Sam Jones, who openly carries a sidearm, urged a newly-seated county commission Monday to take down signs banning carrying weapons into the Nye County courthouse and sheriff’s department.
“Hopefully this will start the new year out right,” Jones said under public comment. “I know it’s the county commissioners’ job to set policies, not the judges and the sheriff and the DA.”
Jones referred to a county resolution passed in 1994 that stated all citizens had the right to have arms of their choice.
“In order to provide for the emergency management of the county of Nye and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of Nye County and its inhabitants, every citizen residing in Nye County will be allowed to maintain firearms of their choice, together with ammunition.”
The resolution exempts people with a physical or mental disability that would prohibit them from using firearms or people convicted of a felony. County Commissioner Butch Borasky wants to strengthen that ordinance to send a statement to the state and federal government about the right to bear arms, but not specifically because of signage at the courthouse.
“We would have to go into an ordinance, then the judge still has the ability to supersede whatever we do,” Borasky said. “My thought is to just give an updated, stiff response to the state and federal governments, don’t tread on us. We have our second amendment rights and that’s not supposed to change.”
Fifth District Judge Robert Lane put the sign up about the ban on weapons in the courthouse.
“About five years ago, the Nevada Supreme Court said District Court judges needed to strengthen the security at the courthouse, because of all the shootings,” his bailiff Kenny Taylor said. “If someone does violate it, it is a contempt order, they can be fined or jailed. There isn’t metal detectors, if we discover one itself, you’ve pretty much committed contempt at that time.”
The county briefly set up metal detectors at the entrance to the courthouse but they were taken down due to a lack of manpower.
Taylor said many rural counties lack strict security, while in big cities, like at the justice center in Las Vegas, lines of people wait to clear metal detectors.
Jones also criticized a sign in front of the sheriff’s office banning weapons and videotaping. Sheriff Tony DeMeo said he has the right under NRS 202.3673 to post the signs.
The statute allows a permittee to carry a concealed firearm while on the premises of any public building except at an airport, a public school, child care facility, or property of the Nevada System of Higher Education, unless they have written permission. They also cannot carry a concealed weapon into a public building with a metal detector at each public entrance or a sign posted at each public entrance indicating that no firearms are allowed in the building.
Judges, prosecutors and employees of that building are allowed to carry concealed firearms, or any person who has written permission from the person in control of the building.
DeMeo broadened his weapons ban to include videotaping after someone came into the sheriff’s office with recording equipment.
“We’ve had people come into our facility where we have victims of crime and children and they were videotaping people. You just can’t do that,” DeMeo said. Witnesses were concerned about it as well, he said.
The sheriff added, “The way they carry firearms, they carry them so loosely, their firearm could be taken away from them.”
DeMeo said he once worked for the fifth precinct in Jersey City when there was a machine gun attack.
“From my perspective, I advised Judge Lane, just put a sign up because once you put metal detectors up you’re not going to be able to man them too long,” DeMeo said.
Probably the most conspicuous local pistol-toting court patron is Ray “The Flagman” Mielzynski, who spends his free time monitoring court cases each week. He stopped carrying his gun into the courthouse after the sign went up advertising the ban in 2010.
Mielzynski said county commissioners back in 1999 voted to allow carrying guns in the courthouse. But in 2002, after the county courthouse was closed due to black mold, when it reopened, signs were placed at different offices prohibiting weapons, he said, at a time when he carried his gun openly around the courthouse.
Mielzynski said he complained to former District Attorney Bob Beckett the signs were illegal. They were taken down and he received apologies from the department heads.
“Lane has no authority to put the sign in the door,” Mielzynski said. ” District Attorney Kunzi researched it and he said he can’t find any authority to put those signs in the door.”
But Mielzynski said Kunzi, the current DA, told him the sheriff would arrest him if he carried his gun into the courthouse and there would be a big turmoil.
“He said I don’t have authority over the sheriff, I can only act after the fact,” Mielzynski said.
Mielzynski recalled incidents in both district courtrooms where his practice of openly carrying a firearm was questioned. Attorney Louis Minicozzi III once insinuated he was carrying a gun in District Judge Kimberly Wanker’s court, Mielzynski said. Lane confronted him once about it in the courtroom.
“You have the liability if somebody comes in and starts whacking people, because nobody’s armed,” Mielzynski said. “Your bailiff is the only one who is armed.”
The bailiffs would protect the judge, he said, adding otherwise “there’s no security in that building.”
“The reason the guns were banned in the courtroom per se is because they got permission from commissioners to ban them in the courtroom, not in the courthouse. Now DeMeo is taking it a step further by banning guns in all the offices around him.”
Mielzynski made another technical point, the statute addresses concealed weapons, not open carry. He said concealed weapons are considered a privilege in the State of Nevada, open carrying of firearms is a right.
During a county commission meeting a few years ago, former Commissioner Peter Liakopoulos asked for security at the meetings when Jones confronted him during a break and had a heated argument while carrying a sidearm. A sheriff’s deputy was stationed at the county meetings for a time as security, then it was discontinued.
Attempts to ban carrying of weapons into buildings in the past where public meetings were held, like the Bob Ruud Community Center, brought out crowds of gun advocates who displayed their guns, Mielzynski said.
“I don’t bring my gun in with me, I stand outside the door with both of my guns, the Bill of Rights and the flag and I greet people as they come in,” the Flagman said.
“You see me outside with my guns but I take them off and put them in the trunk of the car, even though this court is not supposed to have that sign out there.”
Mielzynski suggested commissioners either put up metal detectors or take down the sign.
Jones was frequently in the courthouse parking lot this past summer, standing under a tent collecting signatures for five petitions.
He also did a voluntary poll of voters leaving the courthouse during early voting.
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- Sam Jones
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- Horace Langford Jr. / Pahrump Valley Times – Signs at the Nye County Sheriff’s Office, above, and the Fifth Judicial District courthouse in Pahrump, left, warn vistors that guns are prohibited in either location. Some armed locals say the bans are illegal.
I am kind of torn on this one. I am a big supporter of gun rights, but I dont really think we need guns in the court houses. Perhaps they should just allow people with valid CCW permits to carry concealed only, but open carry of guns that close to some felon with nothing left to loose does not sound like a good idea.
The felons come in the court room from back ways or are on jail/court room TV. They don’t come through the court house. Plus during the time where it was aloud to open carry in the court house, there was never an incident of some one take a gun from anyone.
Its no secret I am a total Repub/Conservative and Gun supporter…..However, this guy must be Koo-Koo or something?
Allowing open carry of guns in the courthouse is a bad idea. There is such a mix of citizens milling about, where emotions run high for many people there, the availability of a gun on an honest citizen by someone feeling the walls closing in on them is just too big a temptation for some who are not thinking clearly.
I am an NRA Life Member and I am a solid defender of gun rights, but keeping them out of the courthouse and out of the sheriff’s department is the right thing to do.
Do we seriously want to allow victims of a crime or relatives of victims of a crime to carry a gun into the courtroom where they could shoot the defendent?????
We are not talking about the court room, it has always been illegal to bring fire arms into the court room, we are talking about the court house.
I guess I’m as human as the rest of the folks who post here (Mrs. Whiplash would disagree at times), and I have to say that who the messenger is influences, to a great degree, my opinion about something. In this case, I’ve seen Mr. Jones in action during several public meetings and he is the last person I would allow to have a weapon in any government building. I don’t support this.
I say let’s make carrying firearms in court houses legal. In fact, let’s have it be legal for both houses of the NV and US Congress too! That way, we will be sure to get some common sense firearms laws passed….finally.
There have to be limits to carrying, purchasing and using firearms. Using the argument “fear of tyranny” is an argument that only paranoid and extreme people find acceptable. Surely saner heads will prevail.
The second amendment (ratified), states: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
So tell me, what part of “well regulated” , allows someone to get a hold of, buy and use weapons of war to massacre children?
Neanderthals.
First off, “common sense gun laws” to people such as yourself on the fringe left means confiscation.
Second, as someone who gets the blast emails from both sides on this issue, I can tell you got the whole “paranoid and extreme” argument right off the one from the Brady Center one last week. If you are going to argue points, at least let’s do the right thing and come up with some original content. I would think someone who feels so strongly on this issue would feel motivated to create some original thoughts on the issue instead of regurgitating what they are told to say by their party.
Tell me, Why do people who favor gun-control call people who disagree with them neanderthals? Is that constructive? Do you think that will draw us to your side some how?
No “neanderthals” here since they are a scientific hoax. But if you start laying the blame on the fallen nature of man then your on to something!
Oh, by all means, please appeal to me with logic.
Automobiles don’t kill people, people kill people? That means we should forego insurance and seat belt laws? That is the argument we will use to find solutions? That may work on uneducated people, who lack sufficient critical; thinking skills, but you’ll have to do better for those of us who understand context.
I have long since given up on “drawing someone to my side” Roger. A position in defense of unregulated firearms in the 21st Century is not maintained with a logical mind, but rather a fearful, ideological and often a theological one.
Government tyranny? An argument of fear is what you are using to justify doing nothing after New Town, Aurora, and Columbine massacres? That argument is exactly what makes these defenses of military assault weapons so unbelievably primitive and savage.
How can logic even attempt to address the feelings of fear these people keep in their hearts? The only thing they can do to alleviate their fear is to stockpile military weapons and prepare for doomsday? Nobody has heard of the concept “self-fulfilling prophecy”?
How is that you can logically propose that the solution to gun violence in America is adding more guns? Logic is not the strong suit of people who use fear as a basis for argument. Fear is one of the exact opposites of logic.
And then, the NRA is blaming the video game industry for our violent culture? Seriously? So the NRA is going to throw private sector businesses under the bus? Isn’t that kind of antithetical to the the capitalist mindset? The NRA wants the government to regulate the film industry? I think they call that censorship. Government “overreach” is the NRA’s solution to their fear of government overreach?
Go ahead and try some logic for a change.
You want logic fine, the main reason for the 2nd Amendment is so we can over throw the gov if we have to. To prove the above we have this
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
Your quote is accurate, but your interpretation of this passage is not correct, i.e. – “..to reduce them under absolute Despotism…” This phrase sets out EXACTLY when it is a need, right or duty to provide a new government, and it is not because of the 2nd Amendment. It does mean that if our government should fall under a political system where the ruler holds ABSOLUTE power, which is defined as ABSOLUTE DESPOTISM then and only then should we remake the government.
The Declaration of Independence was drafted to inform the King of England that we were 13 “free and independent’ states and would not tolerate the King’s control. You will note that the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document and has no enforcement powers. The Constitution provides the enforcement powers to those issue ascribed in the Declaration and there is nothing within the Constitution providing for ANY reason to remove a legitimate, standing government.
“Framers Intent” and “textualism” indicate that this was for the period of time that the Declaration and Constitution were written. This phrase from the Declaration has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment and is often used to support the 2nd Amendment’s “right to bear arms…” provision.
I never said it was the reason for the 2nd Amendment, but the 2nd Amendment was there for us to over throw our gov if the need ever shown it’s self. I am not say the need has come, but as our right are slowly taken from us, that need might someday come.
While the Declaration was for England for that time period, the reasons for it was for all time. That the reasons hold even to today. A good read is the Federal papers, the writings of our Founding Fathers, showing there mindset behind the Bill of Rights, Constitution, and Declaration. While there is some disagreement between them on different subjects, there is also agreement among them on other things that effect us in our day.
The 2nd Amendment gives the way to over throw the gov if the need ever comes up. One of our Founding Fathers felt we should have a revolution every 25 years or so.
Thomas Jefferson expressed the sentiment that periodic revolution is probably necessary to remove the excesses, corruption, violation of rights, etc. that accumulate in government.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Nor was he the only one, “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.” – Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C., March 4, 1861
“Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” Benjamin Frankin, 1776
“The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government . . .” George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty . . . And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stevens Smith, November 13, 1787
The Netherlands and South Korea spend more than twice as much per capita on video games, yet gun murder rates in these two countries are far, far lower than those in the United States. Japan, which has some of the most graphically violent games and animation in the world, has violent crime rates that are a fraction of those in the United States.
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/12/dont-blame-the-video-games/
I believe every court room should be filled with American Citizens trained in the use of fire arms. Their is no safer place to be than in a crowed of experienced and trained gun toters with a high regard for life and a desire to protect not only themselves but those around them. Any one who has spent any time on the front will tell you that when confronting the enemy it is important to be armed and even more important to have those with you armed. Any one who believes differently is either a liar or has never been in an all out gun fight. It is a fact that where more than 3 people have been killed by gun fire since 1958 all but one incident have been in gun free zones, ie; churches, schools, federal buildings, and movie theaters. Nothing empowers an angry shooter more than the thought of targeting defenseless, unarmed victims. When was the last time you heard of some one bursting into a police station and blasting the police? Yea, I have never heard of that either. If you wont a safer America then eliminate gun free zones. You wont logic there it is. If you wont facts mine can not be disputed.
In 2011 more people were murdered by bats and hammers than guns. Why are we not talking about outlawing bats and hammers?
http://www.freep.com/article/20110128/NEWS01/110128009/Watch-video-released-by-Detroit-police-showing-police-station-gun-battle
MORE:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=chr-greentree_gc&ei=utf-8&ilc=12&type=937811&p=police+shot+in+police+station
just saying, “S” happens wherever there are crazies.
I watched the video and was very surprised to see an armed gun man walk into a Detroit police station and start shooting police. I was also surprised to hear police Chief Ralph Godman say exactly what I stated earlier that if it weren’t for the quick actions of those around who reacted with valor and used their guns to kill the shooter many would have lost their lives. That day the only person to die was the shooter. Chief Godman came face to face with the facts about guns. When in a gun fight have at least one gun to fight back and more importantly have people with the desire to save there life and the lives of those around them armed and know how to use there arms. Great vid. THANK YOU.
Mindful whim
The crime and murder rate of places with strict gun control laws like the UK and Chicago disprove your theory the gun control works. When people fear the government, because the government is armed and the people are not, there is tyranny, when government fears it’s people because they are well armed, there is freedom.
I will need permission to bring my rocket launcher and grenades. Remember only you can prevent floride in our water. (Edited:You want to advertise your political campaign…take out an ad. There is no free advertising on this site. – PVT)
Back in the day, when the Constitution was written, the arms you had a right to bare was probably a musket. Our forefathers did not know that assult weapons would be a reality. Perhaps if they could see the advances in weapons the wording in the Constitution would have been different.
Dear Zulie are we from the Left wing State of mind of Lunatics in Calif ?
failed economy and Illegal gun control Laws. but it is Astonishing you can
Own a CIII M Gun if you can pass stiff back round checks as in NV LOL!
what do you say ?
Study the Federalist Papers the Original Writing’s and ideas to draft our present Divinely given and Written Bill of Wrights on Fire Arms. yes that means believ in God We trust who says we can!
In Amendments the founding FRAMERS( PC WORD ) say on the US Constitution is mis iterprated and study or Spin re written on US History in most Dem
STATES under UNION Control. today 8th graders in NV alone read at 3rd grade levels ? do we need to sepnd more tax dolars to reserach why?
Oh Jimmy C. you did us a favor with DEMOCRATIC controlled DEPT of Fed Education welfare !
Ah yes or worse yet Andrew Como-D the Commie Gov of NY, who is trying to pass Un lawful Edict like a King, gun ban laws ,and hopes the rest of the nation follows. I thought Calif owned that phrase.
Do we need to listen to the Chinese Govt to demand OBAMA to disarm of this the week need fraud and lier on the 2nd Amendment & Economy arguments and lies on the Administration is not going after the 2nd amendment! and Now the DemocRATS trying to out law all Semi Auto weapons in the CO legeslature as of today! by reading the context it Infringes the 2nd Amendment !
Now I demand you and any othe doubters here on this post to read and study NV weapons laws and Our Constitution and Open Carry laws and CCW laws the most stringent in Reciprocity in traning and gun Safety backround checks allowed by Fed and State laws with at least 10 States.
The problem in America is the self opinionated news Media and the lost sheep who lap it up with out checking real facts is Alarming , who dis-service America wiith Spin Fact Checking!
The are the first to attck every 4 years on Republicnas in there radar hell they are already lining up to dis-service Sen TED,TX Cruz(Pro Gun) run for the president and he has said nothing about it, RUMOR SPIN ??? the Lies of Harry Reid is Shocking!
There are more reputable resources besides the left wing news with self opinionated lies !
This, what ever it is, is a terrible piece of writing. What are you talking about? Who are you talking about? What is this that you are attempting, rather poorly, to speak of? Please go back and write this so that a 3rd grader would have the ability to understand what ever it is you are trying to say.
The people owned Man-of-War ships, and cannons, the weapon of mass destruction of it’s time. Now true it was the rich who own the Man-of-War ships, and they were Merchantmen ships used in transporting goods, but they were armed ships, and the first ships used in the war. Some Americans own there own cannons. So to say our Founding fathers couldn’t see what our weapons would be, I thing that’s more along the lines of nukes, bio, and chemical weapons.
I think we all agree that we want guns out of the hands of CRIMINALS!! MENTAL CASES TOO. EX-FELONS ETC. BUT THEN WE GET CONN. MASSACRE OF THE GUY TAKING HIS MOTHERS LEGAL WEAPON and well we know what happened their. So another side of this whole thing is that people keep their guns safe and away from thieves and unstable people, etc. Look at Mexico, they took there guns and 40,000 people have been killed, (probably twice that much) because of the drug cartels who have the guns. All illegally. I think if they tried to take the guns from everyone, there would be a 2nd revolution for sure!!
I agree with on this totally. Like I have said earlier, the 2 cities that have the strictest gun laws, have the highest gun deaths, NYC, and Chicago. We must do more for the mentally disturbed among us. Not only in helping them but in keeping guns out of there hands. In the last 2 shootings, both people stole there guns.