Retired Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack, known for his lawsuit in the 1990s that successfully convinced the Supreme Court to strike down the Brady Bill’s requirement that local law enforcement conduct background checks, is suffering damage to his reputation after journalists at Arizona State University wrote a “dishonest hit piece” about Mack and his law enforcement organization. Arizona State University’s Howard Center for Investigative Journalism (HCIJ), in collaboration with the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting (AZCIR), published an article on August 21, 2023 that falsely portrayed Mack and his Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) as vigilantes who were prone to violence.
Mack met with the journalists prior to the article to provide them with CSPOA’s standard training on the Constitution, which the group offers to law enforcement officers and others. It thoroughly goes over how CSPOA was formed on the basis of the principles laid out in his famous case, Printz v. United States. However, Mack told The Arizona Sun Times the eventual article the journalists produced never mentioned anything from his almost two-hour long presentation, which refuted many of their assertions about him and CSPOA. The article barely mentioned the case, which is the reason why Mack is famous.
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