Several Missouri sheriffs are trotting out decisions they don’t have the power to make: whether they will or won’t enforce this nation’s gun laws.

If the sheriffs don’t think they can enforce the laws - if their heart or conscience won’t let them do it - they have an easy out.

They can resign.

They can stop taking taxpayers’ money for a public-safety job, yet not doing the job correctly.

Sure, this kooky behavior is embarrassing to the state of Missouri. But it’s also happening around the nation as more than 100 sheriffs - who apparently wouldn’t know what’s in the U.S. Constitution if it fell on their head - are puffing themselves up, playing to the right wing and deciding they can tell the president of the United States they aren’t going to enforce any gun laws he develops.

Sigh.

Look, we all get it.

These contemptuous sheriffs have to look good in the eyes of their conservative followers, the ones who think the Second Amendment entitles U.S. citizens to a boat load of guns and ammunition in their house.

But local sheriffs don’t have - and certainly have not earned - the right to decide what laws they will or won’t enforce.

One sheriff who’s fighting to put some sanity in the discussion put it well: “Public safety professionals serving in the executive branch do not have the constitutional authority, responsibility, and in most cases, the credentials to determine the constitutionality of any issue. Law enforcement officials should leave it to the courts to decide whether a law is constitutional or not.”