“Now if they’re going to tell the sheriff that he’s going to go around picking up guns from everybody, they’re going to have a problem,” America’s toughest sheriff told a radio station in Maricopa County. “I may not enforce that federal law.”

His comments reflect an unfounded fear among many gun owners that President Obama will try to confiscate their firearms, based on the president’s urgings for tougher laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. Among the suggested measures, a proposed reinstatement of a ban on assault weapons and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition has sparked the most backlash.