The Johnston County Sheriff's Office didn't bite when Clayton gun store owner Dennis Nielsen told them he was bringing a machine gun to his shop without a county permit.
Nielsen, who unsuccessfully sued the Johnston County Sheriff's Office over their refusal to grant him a machine gun permit, was engaging in part publicity stunt and part fact-finding mission when he wrote a letter to the county informing local officials when and where he would have the unregistered weapon.
In a place like Johnston County, where the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is valued, Nielsen raises some legitimate questions about the Sheriff's ability to approve or disapprove permits on what seems like an arbitrary basis.
But by pushing a few more buttons and trying to force the Sheriff's hand by publicizing his intent to violate rules, he threatens to back the sheriff's office into a corner that won't serve anyone well.
Sheriffs in North Carolina have a great deal of lattitude to run their offices as they see fit. Arguably, a sheriff has greater power than any other elected official in a county.
But that doesn't mean they should push those limits. Sheriff Steve Bizzell's office should work with Nielsen and others like him to find alternatives to an overly obtrusive permitting process.
And the sheriff's office can help people who, like Nielsen, believe that state law is contradictory on such matters.
The issue here is about the law: what it allows in terms of possession of a machine gun and what rights a sheriff has to gather private information. It should not be about someone marking a line in the sand and daring their opponents to step across it.
