When I had opportunities to speak I emphasized the need for personal, familial, and community responsibility. I told the audience that they are the true first responders and would face the criminals before any LEOs and that they should be as well armed as the sheriff's deputies that will show up after the fact with their AR15s and 30rd mags. I agreed with the need for armed security in schools and suggested that instead of waiting to legislate money that will probably never be there, we look to our communities to take responsibility for our schools and children and ask LEOs (active and retired) to volunteer their time to act as school security. I told them that my kids go to the local elementary school and I'd be glad to give a few days a month and said that we have lots of LEOs with children and grandchildren going to our schools that feel the same way. I emphasized that we could have armed, experienced, law enforcement personnel on site in days rather than wait months or years for the state or federal government to act. I also reminded the sheriff that 4 states have constitutional carry and do not require CC permits and they have not seen any increase in gun crime since those laws were enacted. There was more but I'm not going to bore you with all the details. Suffice it to say that I actually got a nice round of applause at one point, I think the people were liking what I had to say.
So, I was nervous about speaking in front of all those people but I was confident because I'd prepared well (thanks in no small part to all of you) and I was able to make the points I had hoped to when I volunteered to do this. Also, I encourage all of you to get involved where you can and to act on your convictions, you'll feel better for it and might actually make a difference.
If you are interested in watching the video of the forum, go to this link -
http://machias.edu/archived-videos - it should be up in a few days. If you do watch it please come back to this thread and let us know what you think.
