Things are heating up in Washington state.

As sheriffs vow not to enforce I-1639, anti-gun officials are left bewildered. Their entire ability to create law and exercise any power is dependent on their ability to enforce the laws they create. If sheriffs refuse to enforce such laws, it relegates them to nothing but overpaid figureheads, and everyone knows it.

So now the state attorney general has a warning for those sheriffs.

The state attorney general has stepped in with a warning to more than half the state’s county law enforcement officials who say they refuse to fully enforce the gun control measures voters approved in November.

Police chiefs and sheriffs will be held liable if they refuse to perform background checks required by I-1639, said Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Tuesday in an open letter to the law enforcement officers who oppose the measure.

“I will defend Initiative 1639 against any challenge,” wrote Ferguson. “My office defeated the legal challenge to the previous gun safety initiative passed by the people, and I am confident we will defeat any constitutional challenge to Initiative 1639 as well.

“Local law enforcement are entitled to their opinions about the constitutionality of any law, but those personal views do not absolve us of our duty to enforce Washington laws and protect the public,” he said.

To our friends in Washington, I have to ask something. What kind of idiot did your state elect to be attorney general?

Look, if I live in a county where the sheriff says he’s not going to enforce I-1639, I’m not going to go and make a big deal about needing a background check on a prospective buyer for my gun. I’m just going to sell the gun.

As such, there’s no way the sheriff can be accused of refusing to conduct a background check.

Then there’s the fact that even if the sheriffs in question were willing to enforce the law, there’s absolutely nothing to stop two people from conducting the same transaction. Nothing at all.

At the state level, it will be virtually impossible to distinguish between the two. Someone who is able to rise to the level of being an attorney general in the state of Washington should be able to muster enough brainpower to see that.

Then again, Ferguson supports gun control, so he’s not all that bright after all.

Further, there are issues with I-1639 that will likely work against it in a challenge, such as the discrepancies during its time as a petition and the fact that the law in the state only permits ballot measures to include one law at a time. I-1639 creates multiple laws, and while they’re all gun control, they should be separate ballot measures.

They weren’t.

While Ferguson’s confident the courts will uphold I-1639, I’m confident that there’s also jack-all he can do to the sheriffs that refuse to enforce this nonsense. If he really wants to be a stickler about enforcing the law, maybe he should start with cities like Seattle who have refused to enforce immigration law within their borders. How does that sound?

Unless you’re willing to crack down on them, trying to act big and bad with sheriffs who say they won’t enforce a law under challenge is nothing more than rank hypocrisy.