It appears to me the more broken the system, the more laws are passed to try and correct its deficiencies; in fact, the problem is the number of laws itself.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation announced last year the Colorado Instant Check System stopped over 90 convicted murders from purchasing firearms from licensed dealers in Colorado.

As a peace officer, I think it is good these murderers are denied the right to purchase firearms. But in our efforts to correct one problem, murderers having firearms, we fail to recognize and address a much more fundamental problem. That being, of course, why in the hell are there 90 convicted murders out walking around on the streets of Colorado?

This extreme number of laws has blurred the criminal justice system's response in upholding them. Trying to identify the laws that are important becomes a nightmare for all involved in the system. Officers are required to carry around volumes of peace officer's manuals, law books, code books, and policy and procedure manuals -- all in an effort to perform a job that used to be done with a little bit of common sense.

The Bible tells us Moses walked up Mount Sinai and came down with 10 laws to live by, most of them about one sentence long. Moses' four words, or God's, depending on your level of faith, Thou shall not steal, is now Colorado Revised Statutes 18-4-401 through 18-4-416. It is over 24,000 words long, and if you really don't want to be a victim of theft you still need a car alarm,� house alarm, 25 keys and a digital credit card.

Governor Johnson of New Mexico has a story he tells about an ancient city-state in Greece. This city-state practiced true democracy and allowed any citizen to propose a law to the council of all citizens who met on occasion in a large coliseum. The one restriction on proposed laws was that the citizen proposing a new law had to stand on a scaffold with a noose about� his neck while the law was being debated and voted on. If the citizens voted� the proposed new law down as being unnecessary, the citizen proposing the law� was immediately hung.

Moses and the ancient Greeks were onto something we have forgotten. Pass only� the laws that are really necessary. Keep them few in number, and make them� easy enough for a child to read and understand. If we took this simple advice� to heart, we would find new respect for, and honor in, our government and its� institutions.

"The constitutions of most of our states assert that all power is inherent in the people. That it is their right and duty to be at all times, armed."-Thomas Jefferson

I have a book in my office that was given to me by a friend in Telluride who collects old books. The book was written by Sheriff Doc Shores of Gunnison County, and is called Memoirs of a Lawman. Doc was the sheriff in Gunnison from 1890 to 1900. His book is the fascinating story of his life as a sheriff in that era, here on the Western Slope of Colorado. Doc tells a story about how he became sheriff. One day, when he was on Main Street in Gunnison, he heard a number of gunshots. He turned and saw a couple of young punks riding down the street on horseback shooting wildly. A shopkeeper stepped out of his store to see what the commotion was about and was shot dead by the punks as they rode by.

Doc, always taking Jefferson to heart even though he was just a citizen, immediately grabbed his rifle, got on his horse and gave chase. In the ensuing gun battle Doc was able to capture the outlaws, and the people of Gunnison recognized him as a hero and elected him sheriff.

If you did the same thing today you would be labeled a nut case, if not arrested.

In another account, Doc recalls investigating a train robbery near Salida. Doc and that famous lawman, and sometimes outlaw, Tom Horn are given the job of capturing the train robbers. They arrive at the scene of the crime about three days after the event to find the tracks of the two horsemen they believe to be the outlaws. They take off at once to follow the tracks. It is a slow process through the mountains, following tracks one at a time.

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