For 19 years, I had no beef with re-electing Duke Schirard, again and again. Quiet, dignified, invisible, all business – just the way I liked my sheriffs.

Then last spring, I was startled to learn that Duke appointed himself constitutional judge to defend my rights to hold onto my cherished three-gun collection. I learned that piddling minor restrictions on keeping records at gun shows, on background checks (I do want felons and the mentally ill to own guns!) and on magazine size (I can’t shoot my yearly elk with less than 20 rounds!) trampled on my sacred Second Amendment rights. And I learned, most curious, that my county sheriff reserved the right to decide which state laws not to enforce.

And so, a few months back, I went to listen to the first debate with Sean Smith, at long last laying eye on Duke in the flesh. Whereby my law-enforcement hero began by reminding us of his pioneering work on fighting domestic violence – but then informed us that it was really not much of a problem in the good ol’ days, when all of us were the right kind of people. Well, sheriff’s department files dating back to 1985 – right here in my own neighborhood – suggest otherwise. What the heck, I thought. As our savior had prominently noted, we are all sinners, let he who is without blame cast the first stone.

The straw that broke this old camel’s proverbial back came in the Sept. 11 edition of the Herald, reporting how Duke had unburdened himself – in private or so he thought, to the right kind of people – of whom the enemy (I am tempted to say the Devil) really was “...your liberal, democratic, gun hating, pot loving, abortionist, Obama supporting socialists ... .”

I must confess, I score disappointingly low on Duke’s list (democratic, pot-loving). But I score high on refusing to demonize people who just happen, for their own perfectly good reasons, to disagree with me on the issues.

So I wonder if the real Duke Schirard would consent, at long last, to stand up? I am getting curious.

Tom Givón

Ignacio