Borders, Badges, and Congress with Sheriff Mark Lamb (Part 2)

Last week, we heard how a single ride-along changed the trajectory of one man's life forever. This week, Sheriff Mark Lamb and I talk about the big issues: border security, the Second Amendment, term limits, what's broken in law enforcement today, and why a man who spent eight years as one of America's most recognized sheriffs is now setting his sights on Congress. This is Part Two of my conversation with The American Sheriff.

More about Sheriff Lamb. Mark Lamb is known as “The American Sheriff.” He served as the 24th Sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, overseeing a county the size of Connecticut. Before entering law enforcement, he was a business owner for over a decade and didn't join law enforcement until his thirties, yet he quickly rose through the ranks. Valedictorian of his training class, Rookie of the Year, Officer of the Year, and Detective of the Year.

He served as sheriff from January 2017 through December 2024, and ran for U.S. Senate in 2024, losing the Republican primary to Kari Lake. He's now running for Congress in Arizona's 5th Congressional District. 

Please enjoy this thought-provoking conversation with Sheriff Mark Lamb. 

 In today’s episode, we discuss:

·      What makes an effective leader, especially in law enforcement?

·      What was his favorite victory or defeat in life and in law enforcement?

·      The border crisis. What has been done to help, and why is it so imperative to have a safe and secure border?

·      What about the illegal aliens who have been here for years and are not criminals? A path towards citizenship.

·      The ICE catastrophe in Minneapolis and the complete breakdown in leadership from the president, the head of ICE, the mayor of Minneapolis, and the chief of the Minneapolis PD. 

·      2nd Amendment rights. What are we doing right and wrong in this country now regarding this?

·      Moving towards a sheriff model of law enforcement and moving away from having a chief of police who has to bow to political pressure to keep their jobs.

·      What is right and wrong with LE today? 

·      It feels like we are split as a nation. I believe a lot of this is fueled by untruthful media. What can we do to stop this?

·      Running for Congress, why???? It’s just not you; it is your family as well.

·      His views on term limits.

·      How can a congressman accumulate so much wealth while in office, making $175,000.00 a year?? 

All of this and more on today’s episode of the Cops and Writers podcast.

Visit Sheriff Lamb's website.

Head on over to my website! 

What's the craziest thing you saw when you were a cop?

My first week on the job, a guy running at me with a butcher knife. He'd just killed his brother over the last hot dog.

That's chapter 1. There are 33 more.

Police Stories: The Rookie Years just launched - available on Amazon. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Real quick, while recording this episode, the fire alarm was blaring where Sheriff Lamb was staying. It didn't last long, but the audio quality during that time was a bit wonky for a bit. So, hey, stick around. I think it's worth it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

The fix is you take away qualified immunity for uh prosecutors and for judges. And the reason why is because they want to take it away from us. So we're out making split-second decisions. These guys have all the time in the world to take a look at a case and review it and look at all the evidence and everything. If you release somebody, you should absolutely have no qualified immunity. And if judges could be sued, they wouldn't let anybody out. None of these kids that are repeat offenders would make it out of jail. And those kids would learn hard lessons and they would throw the book at them. And any prosecutor who dropped charges only to have that person go back out and re-offend and hurt another American or victimize another American, they should be held accountable too because they don't need qualified immunity. They have all the time in the world. Qualified immunity should be reserved for the police who go out and make split-second decisions.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Welcome to the Cops and Riders Podcast. Your host, Sergeant Patrick O'Donnell, worked the streets in one of the nation's largest police departments for over 25 years. Ride along with O'Donnell and his expert guests as they help you navigate the oftentimes confusing and misunderstood world of law enforcement. O'Donnell and his guests on this show do not represent any law enforcement agency. The content of this show is not meant to be legal advice. Do you think you need a lawyer?

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Hey Cops and Writers, thanks for being here with us today for another episode of the Cops and Writers Podcast. I'm Patrick O'Donnell and I'll be your host for today's show. This show is listener supported, so thanks to all of you who keep the show going. I would especially like to thank those of you who are patrons of the show. Your generosity helps pay for the software, equipment, and my time producing this show. Yes, you too can become a patron for less than a cup of coffee or a pint of Guinness. Just head on over to patreon.com forward slash cops and riders. Last week we heard about how a single ride-along changed the trajectory of one man's life forever. This week, Sheriff Mark Lamb and I talk about the big issues border security, the Second Amendment, term limits, what's broken in law enforcement today, and why a man who spent eight years as a as one of America's most recognized sheriffs is now setting his sights on Congress. This is part two of my conversation with Mark Lamb. More about Sheriff Lamb. Mark Lamb is known as the American Sheriff. He served as the 24th Sheriff of Pinell County, Arizona, overseeing a county the size of Connecticut. Before entering law enforcement, he was a business owner for over a decade and didn't join law enforcement until his 30s, yet quickly rose through the ranks, valedatorian of his training class, rookie of the year, officer of the year, and detective of the year. He served as sheriff from 2017 to December 2024 and ran for U.S. Senate in 24, losing the Republican primary to Kerry Lake. He's now running for Congress in Arizona's 5th Congressional District. Please enjoy this thought-provoking conversation with Sheriff Mark Lamb. What makes an effective leader? If you had to pick like one or two things, what really you know puts the rubber to the road? What what pops in your head?

SPEAKER_01 3:41

There's a lot of things that pop into my head. You know, I think ultimately you have to have vision. I think that a leader has to probably have more so more than anything, you have to have a vision and you have to believe in that vision enough to where you inspire people to follow your vision. And I think if you have no vision, if you're just out there just trying to make it through and you don't really know where you want to go or what you want to be, I think that's tends to be what gets these people in trouble and where nobody wants to follow them. I mean, then you have to be visioned, you have to be relentless, you have to be uh, you have to care for your people, you have to be authentic. I mean, there's so many pieces to it, but I think people they want to feel your passion, they want to feel your vision, and they'll get and they'll saddle up and ride with you if if they feel it strong enough. Um, and they also got to know that you're gonna be right there in the battle with them.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

That's that's the key thing there. What I have seen through my career in law enforcement and nationally as well is when things get bad and things will get bad, there is going to be things where the optics are horrible, even if the cop was doing the right thing, but the optics look terrible, and especially for the uninformed that don't, you know, understand police work and have never done that job, where there's so much finger pointing, it just makes my stomach turn. Instead of being a leader and stepping up and saying, you know what, my responsibility, I'm the one who hired this person, I'm the one who hired their boss or whatever. You know, I'm the person who hired this person to do, you know, this is our training curriculum. This is you know how we're gonna take care of our cops, this is you know, blah, blah, blah. Instead of just pointing fingers like and just trying to brush it off, it drives me bananas. You know, just passing the buck instead of it's like, hey, you know what? I am the person who is at the very top, and it's my responsibility to put people in key positions to make sure that our cops or deputies or whoever are doing the right thing. I have good bosses, I you know, from sergeant up, you know, or cops up or whatever. But instead, all I see is finger pointing and denial and whatever else. It just it's it turns my stomach.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

We were successful because that became we were the ultimate, the butt stop with us. You know, when we set out to say, hey, this is where we need to see to be, and we're gonna lay down work, we're gonna make everything possible for the guys on the ground being working. One thing we understand is leadership is the job for things done by the officers, executives, and sergeants. That's it. Lieutenants, captains, commanders, troops, sheriffs, everybody else is important to those guys doing the job. And so we really think what every all that leadership includes down to say you guys are here to make this job possible for the ground troops. We said, Don't worry about the politics, you go do your job, don't hesitate to do what you have to do. You need to do the training, if you have to be aggressive, be aggressive, if you have to change the chase of, and then we stood behind them 100%, and because we stood behind them 100%, we gained the support of our men and women, and that made a difference in our industry. But it wasn't overnight, we had to earn a year, two, three years of showing them that 100% we had that back and that we were creating the that's working for them. We got them raises, we got them better cars, we got them better equipment, we made sure that everything that they needed to do the job right was there for them.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Yeah, you're setting your people up for not failure, but to you know, succeed for success, and that's key. You know, I I'm my first captain on the job, he was a grizzly uh Marine that was a Vietnam vet. He always, you know, his uniform was so crisp you could cut yourself on the creases, and you know, he always had his Marine Corps coffee mug and a cigarette. You know, this is a 95. And I'll never forget we're brand new. We just come in from the academy, and he's like, All right, what's gonna F your career? And yeah, we're all looking around. It's like not doing this report or whatever. He says, booze and broads every time. He says, Here's the thing when you're here, I got your back. Not for anything nefarious, we're not covering up, you know, like illegal activities or anything like that, but you're brand new, you're gonna do stupid shit. He said, You're gonna make mistakes, I've got you. As long as your heart's in the right place, don't worry about it. I have you now there was a commander that we would run through fire for, and you didn't want to disappoint him.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Okay, yeah. And what we tried to do is we tried to create that type of leadership to where the men and women were willing to do the job because they were willing to do it for you and follow your leadership, and we were successful in it.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

What was your favorite victory or defeat in life or law enforcement?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

You know, we started this sheriff's youth rejection program because I got tired of getting charged for dicking mouse and they would end up in the court system, and really what they were making was mistakes that we need to make. And so I went to the county attorney and said, I want to put this program together, but I need some latitude and we need to need some rope to kind of put stuff together. And so we decided to put this program together, the sheriff redirection program, and basically instead of putting them through the court system by charging them and sending them to the county attorney, we would put them in with the sheriff, and we would do like a citation, and the and they I would call the parent and say, Hey, the deputy's putting you in my redirection program, and I need your kid to show up here, and we would do these classes with goal setting and planning, digital media, social media section. Um, we would talk about drugs and alcohol, and then we'd have a career. And then we would do eight hours of community service, which was typically horse therapy. Well, we had over 200 kids go through that program, and only about five of them were thinking. So I would say that along with like my Humbi program, my housing unit for military veterans to jail, and a lot of the community programs we put together were probably what I was most proud of. But also the fact that I consistently got my guys raises, made, you know, got them the money that they deserved. Probably never enough for the leap the money better than they had gone 11 years without raise, you know, and we become recognized as one of the agencies that you wanted to work with.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Okay. Now, um border crisis. Yeah, we've gone back and forth, you know, this is ebbs and flows. You know, before I hit record, I was talking about how my son was actually, you know, stationed on the border. He deployed in the army. You know, he was in New Mexico, Arizona. You've got a whole big stretch of land there, you know, that's border. How is it now compared to when you were working? Do you think?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Oh, nine big difference. I mean, Joe Biden, there was no border, they were just letting people flow in. I think the number on conservative figures 15 million people. Many of the almost all of them were military-aged men. You know, you had some account a lot 140,000 company miners a year. You had women, but the women that were coming across were not near near the number that there were of mil of military agents from China, from Africa, from Mauritani, leading breeding grounds from China. They were coming from all over the world, not just Central and South America. And we just we we let the warp in the house, and now we're trying to deal with it at a national level. And it's a we're gonna see this really because we had a lot more. But when President Trump won overnight, we started seeing a difference, even before he took office. We started seeing the cartels changing people for doing business, and it is I mean, obviously, fentanyl deaths have reduced by 21 to 25 percent. So that's a big impact on saving emerging. We're seeing um zero people being cut loose. You still have these gataways people who come into the country legally, but um, we try to track as many of them in down as we can as well. So the border immediately, once overnight, was a major difference.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Okay, you know, people what opened my eyes, like I said before, was my kid. He said it was like the UN. I I thought it would just be a bunch of poor Mexicans, you know, coming to America for a better life, you know, that are risking everything to you know, come to America. It's kind of the American dream. He said, Yeah, there was some of that, and a lot of the cartels would use these people to divert the border patrol, and then you know, they're bringing in you know people that shouldn't be here that are not poor Mexicans, like what you just said, you know, they're shipping drugs over, they're shipping, you know, all kinds of crazy stuff, and it's like, yeah, it and what I find interesting is you know, Obama and Clinton both, you know, they're if you look at their old uh um speeches, then it's like it's imperative to have a safe and secure border. We have to have that.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

I don't know where that disappears if you don't have a border, and uh you know, Article 4, section four of the Constitution says that our governments, one of their main responsibilities is to protect, to ensure a Republican form of government for all the states and to protect us from an invasion. Now, people can say, well, I don't think it was an invasion. Oh, let me tell you what the definition of an invasion is: an unwanted incursion of a large group of people into a sphere or place or a place or active of activity, or an unwanted intrusion into somebody's domain. I mean, it by definition, it is it was an invasion. And not only was it an invasion, we let people come in for this country who are not friendly to this country, right? To the tune of, I mean, we had 70,000 Chinese in the last couple of years that came in, men, military-age men. I mean, it's just, and you can't let the third world in and expect that you're not gonna turn into the third world. They don't just magically come here and all of a sudden decide that you know that they're gonna they're gonna rise to our level. No, they come in and it's third world here too. And so these are the challenges. And people don't like to hear that. They they get their, they feel they they they're we've we've become so soft as a country that people don't want to hear the truth anymore and they find it offensive. And it's that that that fear of being offended or that willingness to be offended is going to really drive this country uh into uh collapse if we don't stop it. There are hard truths that people need to hear, and the fact that we let a bunch of people in here that shouldn't have come in is one of those hard truths, and they need to be removed from this country.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah. Now, what do you think about illegal aliens who have been here for years and are not criminals? It is there any way we could give them uh a quicker path towards citizenship if they want it.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

So, even by what your question, they are criminals, they broke the law, right? So they did break the law. Now, they may not be ongoing criminals, but let me tell you, even the good people, how this compounds, okay? If you came into the country illegally, it means you don't have a driver's license unless you get one in California, apparently. But you don't have a driver's license, which means you're driving illegally. If you don't have a driver's license, you likely don't have a vehicle insurance. And if you're working, you're working under the table, so you're not paying taxes. That's a crime. If you if you are working and you're you're paying taxes, you might have taken and frauded the in the uh social security, or and so you have a fake social security number or a fraudulent one, you're using somebody else's. Those are crimes as well. So these these civil infractions and crimes do compound, even for the for the the people that we would deem as good. If they're here in this country illegally, there's a lot of fruit of the original poisonous tree that that when they came illegally. This is why we have an immigration system in place. It's so that people can come here and be contributing members of our country, but they've got to do it the right way. If they do it illegally, it compounds a lot of those crimes and civil infractions that we as Americans are expected to abide by. But why is it these folks who broke the law to come to this country illegally are not?

SPEAKER_02 16:29

I see your point, but it is definitely a pain point with this discussion. You know, when you have somebody that's been here for 20 years and has a family and you know, et cetera, et cetera, has never committed a crime, except for you know, being into this country illegally, which is a crime itself, uh that's for sure. But I think that's people would like to see that, you know, if there was a way, or change the laws as far as or make it a little more screenlined to get citizen citizenship or be get into this country legally, because it doesn't seem like it's seamless.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

You can't let people cut the line. That's what these people there are people that have actually spent years waiting to do it right.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

And then if all of a sudden we just wave a magic wand and say, because you know they've been here for a certain amount of time. When they came into the country illegally, they knew the risk. Every year that went by that they worked here and did not make their citizen their status in this country right, paid a lawyer and gone through the process, they knew they knew they were taking a risk. I know this very sounds very callous, but you can't have a country if you don't. It's what so what other crimes are we not going to enforce? Let's just tell society right now what other crimes we're not gonna enforce. And I think protecting this country was probably a very, well, it may not seem like a big crime to some people, and I understand. I understand wanting to come to America and get the American dream. I get it, but at the same time, even the people that have been here for 20 years, sometimes I find that more egregious because you've had time to fix it and you didn't, you continued to stay in the country and you continued to live in a in to where you're not at playing by the same rules that they have every other American is. And I think some ways that is even becomes more egregious.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

You know, we had a chief and a mayor that went on television. You know, this clip is gone. I wish I would have kept it. Where they were like, you know what, that little nickel bag of weed you have in your pocket, we don't care. You know, if you steal a car and it's just joyriding, it's joyriding. It's you know, it's a felony, you know, but you know, we don't care about that. We're more interested in the bigger crimes. So they're selectively enforcing crime, you know, they're selectively enforcing laws, you know, for different crimes. I think that's where the heartburn comes from, where you have elected officials saying, Oh, we're not gonna worry about that.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah, politicians opened that door, yes. They did it the and they've sent a poor message to the people that did come in here illegally to say, eh, not we have laws, but they don't all matter, you know. That's what they're basically saying. And it's not, I'm not okay, I'm not okay with that. I get it. These are tough. It's tough, but you know who's to blame? Ultimately, the person to blame is the person that came in this country illegally, knowing fully well they broke the law when they came in. And they ultimately there has to be some responsibility, and really the only pretty people they hurt are their own family by allowing that to continue for so long. And it sounds callous, but it's just the way if you don't have a line in the sand, you're gonna we're gonna be messed up.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah. Along the same vein, you know, I want to talk a little bit about the ice catastrophe in Minneapolis. I believe it was a breakdown in leadership at its core. It was a lead, you know, what I saw was the head of ice, the mayor of Minneapolis, the chief of the Minneapolis PD, even all the way up to the president. What I saw was there was zero leadership as far as if you're gonna be conducting these operations, you need help. There's a handful of ICE agents, you know, they're wearing khaki pants and vests, they don't have the proper equipment for these huge crowds that were engulfing them. And if you're gonna have that, you should be sit before you do anything, you should be sitting at a table with your enemy, per se, you know, the mayor and the governor in a perfect world, and then the head of ice should have sat down and it's like, okay, we're gonna be here. This is what we're gonna do. You know, it's a lot more dangerous if we don't have your backup, if we don't have you know, street cops in riot gear with gas masks and shields and batons and horses, and it's like there's there's a science behind, and I I know you know about this, you know, behind large crowds and unruly crowds, because it it was violent, it turned into mob mentality.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

And I don't I don't think it was an ICE catastrophe. I think it was a Minnesota Minneapolis catastrophe. ICE was doing the same job everywhere else across this country. But what happened was you had local law enforcement who failed to do their job. You had the ICE calling and saying, we need help. And they weren't showing up because they didn't want to help out, because they didn't, the politicians didn't agree with the removal of people that were in this country illegally. The reality is had local law enforcement came out and dispelled those riots, which is what they were. And these people were not peaceful protesters.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

No, they were not.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

They were they were paid agitators who came in and they were breaking the law. Just because they don't have handcuffs on them does not mean they weren't breaking the law. They were breaking the law, but the feds didn't have the bandwidth to go arrest every American there that was breaking the law. And number two, the local authorities, they were really the ones that failed because this was no, only a couple states have had this problem. And the real reality is it works in most places. So you can't really say that while I could agree that there are things that I think leadership could have done on every level. I blame Minneapolis. I blame them for allowing this to get out of control. And they wanted this to happen. You know why? Because they just got caught frauding about $9 billion from the American people. They were very willing to allow this thing to get out of control because it took the heat off of them and threw the heat back on ICE. And it's sad that two people lost their lives because they were pawns in a political game being played by politicians in Minneapolis and being played by politicians across this country. And I think that is where the failure was. ICE was doing their job that Congress and Senate set forth by them. If you have a problem with it, it's not your ICE is not where you go and fight against it. You should be at your congressional office or at your Senate office. And by the way, one more thing. And they said you had the right to redress your petition your government for a redress of grievances. That means you send a letter in and you redress your grievances. What we're seeing on the streets of America has been adopted erroneously as what has been what should be covered under the First Amendment. And I think that has been one of the travesties as well. Courts are to blame. But the reality is that's not what the Founding Fathers intended when they did they created the First Amendment. And these are paid agitators. These are people that are breaking the law by obstructing law enforcement, and many ways violently doing it. And ultimately we saw the impact of it. But I don't think it was ICE's failure. I think it was Minneapolis, Minneapolis PD, that mayor of Minneapolis, the governor. And it was because they knew they got caught, but they got busted on a frauding the American people to the tunes of billions of dollars. And they were more than willing to let that play out so that they deflected some of that off of them.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

What I guess I should clarify, I don't disagree with any of that. What I'm trying to say is the ICE agents themselves, I don't blame them. They're doing what you know they're supposed to do. But there should have been some leadership, like I said before, there should have been city cops backing them up, even you know what? I've been to things that I don't agree with 100%, but I got a job to do, and that's what I swore to do. And this is still a law enforcement agency doing their job. So guess what? Again, like I said, you should have uniformed police. Hey, you know what? Jane Doe over there is blocking the intersection. Okay, we'll take care of that, we'll clear that for you, you know. Or hey, they're you know, we're trying to arrest this person. Now I've got a small army of people with bongos and whistles and doing all kinds of stupid shit, you know, that's in obstructing our job. That's a crime, you know, and you take care of it appropriately. But I just wish there could have been some conversations before this happened. I wish it wasn't such an adversarial thing where in a perfect world, yeah, you know what, we're gonna be here, you have no say in it. Let's work together for the safety of our community. Because at the end of the day, you know, people died because the governor didn't talk to you know, everybody was digging their heels into the ground, and it's like and trying to make a political statement and trying to pacify, you know, a group of people, and people died because of that.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah, that's it. You know, you're right, it is the leadership. That's where those leadership, and I'm not I'm not absolving the leadership on the other side either. What I'm saying is that this could have all been avoided, even with cons, you know, if they would have just said, hey guys, we're gonna support ice in this, we're not gonna, we're not gonna go out of our way to help, we're not gonna go on the streets and round people up, but we're not gonna let the this this chaos ensue in our streets. Um, and they allowed that, yeah. And they allowed these guys to get followed and harassed, and ultimately we saw two two versions of it.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Yeah, yeah. And you have the woman with her wife egging her on, yeah, go, honey, go, you know, towards this cop. Well, yeah, you know, bad things are gonna happen. Then the other guy brings a pistol, and a lot of this fueled by a certain segment of social media where it's like, yeah, we have to stand and take arms against ice. You know, I saw I saw these posts, and I'm like, Are you nuts? First off, you don't take a gun to a demonstration, that's just stupid. And this guy obviously doesn't know what he's doing because he's got a SIG P320, the gun that goes off without you touching it. That's the last thing you want on your hip.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Look, here's here's the problem is the media lied to the American people about who that guy was. They portrayed him as a nurse. No, he had lost his job, he had been out there consistently. There was video of him that surfaced after where he was kicking out the tail lights of that's the he broke the law. They should have arrested him that day. So this was not an unknown subject to them. He clearly had been increasing in his violence towards ICE, and they had seen him on multiple days. They made it just seem like some poor nurse was on his way home from work and happened to have a gun and they killed him. That was not the situation. He had lost his job, he had mental health issues, and he was consistently getting more and more. And I don't know whether he was on the payroll or not. The majority of these people are paid agitators, but he had gone out there and was consistently harassing and obstructing them and to the point where he created criminal damage against one of their cars and they didn't arrest him because they don't have the bandwidth for it. And then ultimately he lost his life. I'm a gun guy, I carry a gun everywhere, so I didn't have a problem with him having his gun. But I wouldn't put myself in the middle of a riot or something with the gun. Like if you want to, you know, sit in your car and whatever or just go about your business. But when you go out to a riot and you're armed, you're gonna get the attention of law enforcement when you do that.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Exactly. You know, because these protests, quote unquote, turned into riots, and you know you're gonna have police contact and you're armed. You know, it's not okay. That is not cool, and you know, but whatever. We could talk about that, could be a whole new show, but we're not gonna do that. Second amendment rights, you're a gun guy, you said. What are we doing right and wrong in this country now regarding Second Amendment?

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Well, I think we're doing more wrong than right. I mean, I do see a push to to make it to where it's reciprocal in more states. Personally, I think the states passing laws that are contrary to the second amendment are a violation of the 10th amendment because it does say that anything not listed in the constitution, not enumerated, any rights not in the constitution are therefore states' rights. Well, the second amendment is enumerated in the constitution, therefore, I don't think the states have any authority, to be honest with you, to pass any laws, not just on the second amendment, also on the 10th amendment, I just don't think they have any right to pass laws that are contrary to our federal Second Amendment laws. I don't like the um firearms act. I don't like any part of it. I think that the Founding Fathers would have said, hey, none of that is okay. You guys need to, this is why we have the right to bear arms. And contrary to these goofballs say on these shows sometimes, you don't need this kind of gun to hunt deer or whatever. That's not what it was about. The Founding Fathers didn't give us, you know, want us to have guns. They had just come through with a tyrannical government. And they wanted to make sure that we never had to have that happen again. And they knew that one of the ways to do that was through the second amendment. And so we should be able to, whatever our governments, you know, could use against us, we should be able to arm ourselves with that. And so uh it's more than just hunting, it's not or protecting your home. This is about preventing another tyrannical government. And if we didn't have the second amendment, our government would have already run roughshod over us, they would have already done what far greater egregious actions taking away our freedoms. They would have already done that.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Well, what the way I feel about it is you know, you what you often hear from the left is we need more common sense gun laws. And I'm like, no, because we're not enforcing the gun laws we already have. New gun laws aren't gonna make diddly squat when I would see and who's common sense because they don't have common sense, first of all.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Yes, but who's common sense? See, here's the problem with the left. I'm on the right. I want you to be able to live the life you want. You want to live, you want to have a different social, you know, you want to have a different marriage arrangement, whatever. What I don't want you to do is go out and and and try to indoctrinate, you know, my family or somebody else's. If you want to carry a gun, great. If you don't, great. But the left, they say, well, we need common sense. What they really are saying is we want you to do it our way. Because if your way makes sense, that's not what they mean. They mean they want you to do it their way. So even that, you know, when they say we need some common sense, we don't need any gun laws, and we certainly don't need what they have in in mind for us because it is a slippery slope which is intended to take away your rights eventually.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Well, Wisconsin was one of the very last states to adopt CCW, and our chief at the time was from out east, and he was so much smarter than us and enlightened, and we're just a bunch of country pumpkins, you know, and he was venomly against it. And when it passed, every time I went to a shooting, I was a sergeant. If there was a CCW holder involved, we would have to like make all kinds of different notifications because he had such a just a hard on for this that you know, he's like, Oh, of course, you know, the crime is gonna skyrocket because these CCW holders, it didn't do anything, you know. You know what? There may have been a couple of instances where somebody it it saved their life, and maybe there's a couple of instances where yeah, that guy was shooting at those kids because they just uh stole a bunch of stuff out of the store and he's shooting warning rounds over their heads. Okay, that ain't cool. But for the 99%, it didn't do a whole lot, it didn't turn into Armageddon. The world didn't swallow us whole. I mean, none of that and he wanted that to happen so badly, and it is just it was so ridiculous, and it's like oh, but craziness gun laws gun laws do not solve crime, they don't stop crime.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Gun laws only affect law-abiding citizens who are not out committing criminal crimes anyway. Gun law, because the people who are criminals, they half the time they got stolen guns on them or they purchased straw purchases or whatever it be, they are not following the law anyway. No, and they don't plan on following your law just because you pass some goofy common sense law that uh that only makes you want it to be your way, not not the way that's right. Or here's what's most important it's not constitutional to pass gun laws. The governments, you know, these founding fathers said, let's say it the plainest way we can, most simple, so they can't screw it up down the road. All right, let's say you shall be able to keep and bear arms, and that right shall never not shall not be infringed. They're like, There's no way they can screw this up. No, we did. We screwed it up, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Yeah, it just yeah, like I said, we could talk about this forever, but yeah, I and I'll just end it with I can't tell how many times I show up to a shooting where somebody is not dead, and this guy is a multiple offender by the time he's 19. He's already, you know, I don't know how many gun offenses where he got probation, probation, probation, probation, probation. You know, no no new gun law is gonna change that unless you have DAs that are willing to actually prosecute people and judges who are willing to give serious time to these crimes.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

It's it's really glad you said that because here's the fix the fix is you take away qualified immunity for for uh prosecutors and for judges, and the reason why is because they want to take it away from us working on second decisions. Yep, these guys have all the time in the world to take a look at a case and review it and look at all the evidence and everything. If you release somebody, you should absolutely have no qualified immunity. And if judges could be sued, they wouldn't let anybody out. None of these kids that are repeat offenders would make it out of jail, and those kids would learn hard lessons and they would throw the book at them. And any prosecutor who dropped charges only to have that person go back out and re-offend and hurt another American or victimize another American, they should be held accountable too because they don't need qualified immunity, they have all the time in the world. Qualified immunity should be reserved for the police who go out and make split-second decisions.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

I completely agree with you. And I'll just end it with you know, you go to around the world and say drunk driving, you know, different states, you know, treat it differently. But if you go to a different country, the last thing they're gonna do is drive while they're drunk because they go to prison for a long time. You know, they take their car, you know, these are like first offense. I mean, they don't mess around. So guess what? Singapore, there's no Singapore, there's almost no drunk driving in parts of the world because they know what is gonna happen. It's the same thing with gun laws. Okay, you just shot somebody, either you killed them or didn't kill them, you're gonna be spending, you know, and people listening to this that don't know much about the criminal justice system is like, well, aren't they in prison for a long time? No, absolutely not. You shoot somebody, you know, or you're shooting around somebody or whatever, five years you're out in two or three. Yeah, it's ridiculous. There would be a pain point, you know, our jails would our prison system would be clogged, but then when the smoke cleared, you would have a much, much better country.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

But hey, absolutely, but that's just me. Uh sheriff or chief, you know, these are similar yet different, you know, titles. I like the sheriff model, and I believe we should end the chief position because the chief is hired by a mayor and they're beholden to this one person, or like a group of four or five people, where the sheriff is hired by the people. You know, you have it's it's an election, and you're beholden to the people. Of course, there's politics, and there's going to be mayors or whoever that are going to put pressure on you. But I just don't like that model of that one person. I've seen good chiefs go down some really dark roads to appease them to keep their jobs.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

You know, what's funny is being a sheriff is an actual political position. We run for office, we get elected. But I would say that being a chief, they make far more political decisions. Because they make decisions based on what the the the town council or city mayor wants, or or they're making a decision based on how they they think they can protect their fat salary. I could make a strong argument to where I think all there should be only sheriff's offices, and that uh that all the law enforcement within a county is provided by the sheriff, and he's the top dog, and no city council or mayor can in you know influence uh what needs to be done to keep community safe. But I also have being a sheriff, would I have wanted all those, you know, every every single call that came in, even in the cities within our county? No. I mean, so you can make I said I could make a strong argument. I just don't know that most of us got our hands full already.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

Yeah, you know, maybe the Vegas metro model, you know, that's a sheriff, but if he's policing a city or a metropolitan area, obviously. And I I really, really like that. I I'm a big fan. So I I think that's where we should go. So what's right and wrong with law enforcement today? And what what are you gonna do to change it?

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Well, I'm running for Congress. So I mean, I'm not my job is not to change local law enforcement. You know, I hope to be able to curb some of what's going on at the federal level. I think accountability, um, this is outside of law enforcement, but I think accountability is something Americans are looking for. I think uh we should spend far less money on federal law enforcement and dump that money back into states and local law enforcement. I don't think that uh I think that they're that it's a shame that the federal resources are so much greater than state and local, because the majority of the calls, they don't respond to any 911 calls. That's all us. Right. Like these are we're the ones actually responding to the crimes that are that are happening in real time. And I think that's where the lion's share of the money should go. So if I can do something on a federal level to kind of pare down what's happening, you know, all the federal agencies, because there's police, every single, every little thing up there in DC has got a police force. Um, and so and I think that you know, the FBI with the FISA violations that they've had against the American people, if you or I did that in our profession, if I did that as a sheriff, I would have been in big trouble. But they have to the tune of millions of FISA violations. I think that is a major problem. Um, on a local level, I mean, what we're doing right is I don't know, I think we're trending the wrong way. I think you know, we've got to get back to where we hold people accountable. We were a very aggressive agency. If you ran from us, we were gonna chase you. If you committed a crime, we were gonna hold you accountable. But then we were the strongest defenders of your constitutional rights as well, which is what our job was. Right. We're keepers of the peace. And so I think that we need to see more of that, more people that are minded, you know, police-minded. I'm an unapologetic defender of the profession. Um, I think we've got to uh stop funding a lot of these NGOs who continue to attack our profession and weaken our profession. Um and uh we need we there are men and women that are still applying, so that's a good thing. That's where we're going right. People are still wanting to do this job, and that's a good thing, but we can do a lot to make this job better and make our community safer. And you know, getting politicians out of it and getting um uh judges and attorneys to be held accountable for their poor decisions will help a ton in law enforcement.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

Yeah, I totally agree. So yeah, it feels like we're really split as a nation, yeah. And it's fueled by a lot of untruthful media, et cetera. What can we do to stop this?

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Well, the media is no longer the press that the founding fathers wanted. The media now are political activists. Um they're they're affecting elections with their stories. They run a story as if they were a uh an unbiased source of a story, and it's not. They're they're it's fake, it's false. It they don't do the work that they used to that they should be doing, and ultimately that's to impact one side or the other. And so um I think that the media is really gone and deviated from what the founding fathers uh would have them do. Um, they're not helping the situation in this country, the division. Here's what it is there are powers that be that want to control. And I think the average person doesn't understand the depths of what of how people salivate for power and how these people, there are people that pull strings, they're huge donors to to political uh uh uh to elected officials.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

And you know, a lot of those decisions they make in DC or in your state level are are based on what those big donors want from them. And so I think that we've got to do a lot to restrict campaign finance, who can donate, how much you can donate. I don't think that you should be able to spend millions and millions of dollars to get a job that pays $174,000 a year. Right. I think what you should be able to raise and spend should be reflective of the position that you are going for. I think when you do that, you would eliminate a lot of the of the lobbying and a lot of that that dark money that comes into campaigns. And I think ultimately that would be less divisive for our country. But they push all of this, whether it's race, religion, politics, social ideology, it's all designed to drive a wedge in the American people. Because the power in this country is we the people. And as long as they keep us divided and keep us distracted and keep us fighting over the dumb stuff that they create, then they continue to be a necessary evil for us. So government creates problems so they can then give you a solution to it. But the solution is to take more tax dollars so they can say, fix this problem. Look at California, they threw $26 billion at homelessness and it got worse. So it's not about the money or whatever, it's it's about them taking. There's a saying that an old African proverb that the sheep will spend its entire life fearing the wolf only to be eaten by the shepherd.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

And when you really understand that, we're in this position in this country. They make us fear Iran or the cartels, and you should, our China, or whatever it is, they make you fear your neighbor because he believes different than you. When the reality is it is the shepherd who will lead us. And so be very wary, folks. And that's, I think it's important that we elect people who want to serve the American people for the right reasons, who are not hungry for power, who truly want to do the right thing. And whether we can save it at this point, I don't know. But I'm going to try my damnedest to do it.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

All right. Now you are running for Congress. When is that election?

SPEAKER_01 44:50

July 21st is the primary, and then November is the general election. If you love what I've said today, you can go support me at marklamb.us. Doesn't matter where you live in this country, you can donate. Um, because my decision, my vote in Arizona will impact you just as much as a congressman in Alabama or New York or Florida or or North Dakota. Every one of those votes matter and they affect all of us as Americans. So we should be cognizant of good candidates, not just in the states we live in, but across this country. And uh I hope to be a champion for the American people, not just Arizona.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

I was gonna ask you why, but I think you've already answered this. Yeah, what's your view on term limits if you get in?

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Absolutely. Need them. I think it should be maybe like I would love to abolish the 17th Amendment, which the 17th Amendment says that um it used to be that your senators were picked by your state legislators, and then all of a sudden politicians decided they wanted to keep those jobs and they didn't want state legislators to dictate that. And also they knew that they could then get their a different party in there. Because if you had if it was get guided by state uh by state legislatures, the majority of the senators would be Republican, um, because most states are being run, you know. Right. But so I would like to see the 17th Amendment overturned. I don't know that that's gonna happen because you got the Fox guarding the hen house. Two, it's hard to say because the Senate term is six years. So if you do two terms, it's 12 years. And I think you should be no more than three terms to four terms um for Congress, which would be six to eight years. Now, the average person is gonna say, that's not enough, you know, this and that. The longer they stay in there, the more affected they are by the big money and the lobbyists. If you want so big companies and lobbyists are not gonna put millions of dollars behind a candidate who can only be there for six years anyway, it's gonna balance out the playing field, and um, so yeah, I'm a big proponent of it.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

Yeah, yeah, too, big time. And you know, it begs the question you know, how can a congressman who makes $174, $175,000 a year have such wealth, have millions of dollars, have all these different homes that are living in like opulent luxury, and I like it doesn't compute, it doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Doesn't make sense to me either. How does Ilan Omar go from you know being worth 30,000 to 30 million? Yeah, it's shady as hell. Yeah, and as Americans, we got to stop tolerating this. Right. Look, I uh my family and I opted to buy a ranch to offset the income that we're gonna lose in our family business by me running for office, and we bought the ranch also this year so that people wouldn't say later on, oh, look at him, he goes to Congress now, he's buying a ranch. Okay, we have been blessed, we have been blessed last year and this year as a family and as a business to where we were in a position to be able to do this. I don't own it, like I have to make a payment. If you want the payments, you're more than willing to take the risk than I've taken. But you know, we're trying to set things up so that I can go do this because I don't want to be that guy who goes in there and I don't want to profit in any way. Like you take your money. It's I expect this to be a major blow to me financially and to my family. Now, when you're done, inevitably when you hold a high-level position like that, people want to hire you and they want to pay you big money to be part of their company. So I get it when you leave Congress that they might make some money, right? But when they the fact that you would you would become a millionaire while you were in Congress if you weren't already a millionaire is disgusting.

SPEAKER_02 48:31

Yeah, not what would you do you think your first day as a newly elected congressman?

SPEAKER_01 48:37

Well, the border issues obviously, I mean, the first day you're gonna get sworn in, and then you gotta go settle into your office and figure out what the hell's going on because you're like I'm baby deer on ice. Yeah, so that's not I'm not gonna sit here and go, well, the first day I would do this and do this, you know. Um, look, the first day, I think immediately, whether it's the first day or not, I think we've got to work on getting the border solidified. HR2 is a good border bill that they passed once. Senate, surprise, surprise, didn't push it through, didn't even take it up. I would love to see the Save America Act go through. Senate, they they kick that back, even though 80% of Americans, Republican and Democrat, support it. Um, I think that I would immediately start to evaluate which laws, which EPA regulations, which things that we can peel back and take away from the American people so that businesses can thrive and so that American families can thrive. I want to reduce government as much as I can during my 10 year as a con as a congressman.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

I love that because people don't understand. I have friends that you know they want the government to do everything for them. And I'm like, obviously, you've never worked for the government. Yeah, I don't want them in charge of my health care, I don't want them in charge of my finances. I hell no, because you know where that's going.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

If you've ever worked for the government, it's it's not I've always said government can't put it, they don't, I wouldn't let them run a hot dog stand, they wouldn't know how to put the hot dog in the bud. Do not look for government to set your moral compass and do not look for government to to fix your problems, they will make the problems worse. The reason we like we make plenty in this country, we are now being taxed 35 to 50 percent. When you really add everything in sales tax, you know, income tax, all of these things, they're clobbering us over the head. The founding fathers went to war, they broke away from England for a couple percent. And so, like, this is we're already way, way, way off base, and it's called legal plunder, talked about very well in a book by the called The Law by Frederick Bastiat. But hey, I don't have much time. I've already probably about 40 minutes past.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

All right, well, I'll tell you what, let's wrap it up then. Uh, I love asking this question for heavy thinkers, and I think you are a deep thinker, my friend. If you had a billboard that millions could see, what's your favorite quote or any words of wisdom that you'd put on there?

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Believe in God in Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

Okay. I think you can't go wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

So working people find out what in the end, in the end, all this BS we talk about, everything going on in politics, it would solve a lot of our problems socially, um, as a country, globally, if we would turn our hearts back to God. And then here in America, if we would focus on the Constitution, which I think was a very inspired document. So I think that uh the more we can return to what the purpose of our life here is on this earth, I think the better off we'll be. Because in the end, I've taken many dead people out of the house. Have you you don't even leave with your wallet, you leave with maybe whatever clothes you're wearing, and sometimes we cut that off too. And so, whatever you've worked so hard and spent all your time and you've spent all this energy and and mental anguish and anxiety dealing with, in the end, none of it matters. What matters is is your relationship with God and Jesus Christ, your family, and the person that you become here on this earth. Very good.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

All right, where can people go to find out more about you? Your campaign if they want to donate. Where do you go?

SPEAKER_01 52:19

Uh, go to marklam.us, markland.us, and you can donate there. And then please, if you want to support me now, you can go to my YouTube channel at Real American Sheriff, where I break down YouTube videos. I have a ranch, my family runs a ranch, and so we have one that's at uh that's Lamb Ranch Official. So we got Lamb Ranch and then at Real American Sheriff. Um, you support it, you can support me by just watching your the videos. So all right.

SPEAKER_02 52:48

Well, very good. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks everyone for joining me and the American Sheriff and Congressional candidate Mark Lamb for the conclusion of this most interesting conversation. Good luck to you, Sheriff, on your run for Congress. That wraps up another episode of the Cops and Writers Podcast. If you haven't done so yet, can you take a minute and rate and review the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts? If you have already, thank you. As always, thank you for all of your support, and of course, let's be careful out there.