Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden oversees an office that doesn’t have the best Second Amendment track record out there. Lawsuits have come about permitting delays, for example, and the county has been absolutely abysmal in recognizing people in North Carolina do, in fact, have a right to keep and bear arms.

Some people think this is a good thing. In fact, they think people who do this are good people.

However, McFadden doesn’t seem to be. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden uses racially offensive language, fires longtime staff for little or no reason, delays firearm permits and promotes himself and his own interests rather than his staff.

Mecklenburg County is the largest county in North or South Carolina. It has more than 1 million residents, measures 546 square miles and has six townships including Charlotte, the 17th largest city in the country.

With nearly 1,100 employees, McFadden runs the largest law enforcement agency in either Carolina.

McFadden recently called one of his white deputies a “cracker” and a black deputy the N-word. Both were senior officers within his department.

“That white cracker captain is better than the other seven captains upstairs,” McFadden said. “I got Chief Collins. I don’t know who that n—-r is.”

The sheriff’s comments were secretly recorded by a member of his staff during a meeting in 2021. Just last week, McFadden said he was sorry for making the racist comments.

“It doesn’t matter who recorded or how many years ago it was recorded. Today, I want to apologize for that language,” the sheriff stated in a video press release. “Held to a higher standard — that’s the office of the Sheriff. But you must understand that I am human and I’m not perfect and I will make mistakes.”

The North Carolina Sherrif’s Association issued their own letter last week in disgust at what the Sheriff said and is investigating McFadden’s racist comments.

Now, I have no use for racist language, which I think I made clear earlier today, but McFadden wasn’t just accused of using terrible words. He’s also accused of treating his staff horribly, forcing a number of key personnel to quit their jobs because of his own actions. Some of it does result in his use of racially-charged language, but a lot of it goes beyond that.

 Kevin Canty was McFadden’s chief deputy. I say “was” because he resigned earlier this month. Among the many sins he accuses McFadden of are taking personal credit for the department’s successes while shifting blame for its failures, temper tantrums, lies, and attacking the messenger when those lies came to light.

In other words, it sounds like McFadden is a terrible person.

A McFadden spokesperson said the sheriff supports people’s Second Amendment rights, but if you go and look at the story linked above you’ll find the long and storied history of how that’s simply not true.

Then again, Canty said McFadden lies, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised he’d try to do that here and now.

I’m sure there are a lot of anti-gunners in elected positions that are good people. It seems pretty clear that McFadden isn’t one of them, and it seems that his refusal to recognize people’s right to keep and bear arms as an actual right stems from him believing he’s the man with the power to do what he wants to do and no one can stop him.

That’s not how it works.