Heading to the Capitol

All right, so once I get to the Capitol, I will have to disable that because I forgot I was gonna play. It's not Saturday night, this is not Mental Health Matters. It is 7:56 AM on a Wednesday morning in 2026, and I am heading to the Capitol. The first hearing starts at 10 AM. And I am the earliest speaker. I am like 40 or 50 on the list for the gun bills. I think I'm at like 250 on the vaccines and somewhere lower than that maybe on the homeschooling stuff. So hi everybody, my name is Brooke Cheney and I am a firearms instructor at a Great Start Shooting School. I'm also a mom. And I am headed to the Capitol today because our freedoms are being taken away from us by our legislators. And there are at least two governor's bills that I am speaking out against. One is the pistols that are convertible, and the other one is about vaccines. So, oh, and I'm in Connecticut, for those of you don't know where I am. So, um, yes, here in Connecticut, our governor— it is an election year, so our governor needs to make big splashes and make sure that he's paid attention to and all of that. As regardless of whether you're Democrat or Republican, that's not about this. It is just things get a little bit more crazy in an election year as far as the stuff they try to get done, because if it's big and it's bad and everybody pays attention, then, you know, it's just more, um more votes or more awareness of who we want to actually vote for come November. Ah, it's a lot. It takes days and weeks and years of education to be able to testify. No, that's not true. It's just not. If people think that way, you're wrong, because you don't have to know anything about the bills. You just have to know that freedom is important to you And freedom is about freedom of choice for everyone. It's not about, I want a gun, so you have to have a gun. No, that's not what freedom of choice is. Freedom of choice is, I have guns, you don't have guns, that's okay. You don't have to be like me, and I don't have to be like you. That is what freedom actually is. So if you— or vaccines, you know, my body, my choice. If I want to get a vaccine, more power to me. Let's make them affordable, make them easy for people to get, educate people about why they want to get a vaccine, and educate people as to what are the risks and what are the benefits. And to not tell me that I have to put chemicals in my body, or to give me the opportunity to understand why I would want to put chemicals in my body, then that is freedom It is not about telling me I must or I can't. And so, um, homeschooling, same idea. There's a reason there's homeschoolers. Now, if those of you in my audience have never met homeschoolers, uh, your life is not complete because I know there's plenty of amazing homeschoolers. When I lived in Windsor, I actually helped run a homeschooling church in that it was children who had come to church and we ran a homeschooling program. So the kids actually got all of the benefits of homeschooling and choosing what curriculum they were going to get and have playground time and be with their peers and all of that sort of stuff. Homeschooling has grown, uh, a lot over the past 10 or 15 years, actually 20 years because this was a long time ago that I used to do that. And it's not just for religious reasons. It's not just that sort of idea that, oh well, it's because of church or whatever, but— uh-oh, an alarm going off, and I have to stop at a stoplight, so that's helpful. I'm not sure why the alarm was going off. Hmm. All right, hold on. While I'm at my stoplight, I'm going to turn off the alarm. Ta-da! Just like that, perfect timing while I'm not moving. All right, so testifying, what do you have to do? A, you have to know— good morning, Pat in a Bunker, shouldn't you be out taking care of, um, cows or something? Is it that time, or you just don't sleep now? Uh, Crabby Turtle, hello, my friend. Yeah, see, I'm at a red light so I can read what y'all are saying. So, um, all right, so number 1, you have to care enough to take the time to go testify. Number 2, you don't have the time to go testify because you might be like Pat DeBunker out there right now who's calving lots and lots of calves right now. Um, so you can at least write something down and submit to your— not only to the committee who is deciding and deliberating and holding the hearing but specifically to whoever your representatives are in the state. Because when we are talking state policies, we want to talk to our state representatives and our state senators. And when we're talking federal policies, then that's when we talk to our federal representatives. And this is one of those things— prior to guns, I knew none of this because because I didn't know how important freedom actually is. I didn't know how important it is for our legislators to hear our voices because our poor legislators have the craziest job in the world. They are supposed to make decisions on hundreds, if not thousands, of items every session that they are in. And it's just, it's a lot. So your voice does matter. Relationships do matter. Taking the time to say, good job, thank you for supporting this, or oh my gosh, how could you? That's against everything I believe in. And there's reasons, because you and I are not going to believe on, agree on everything, because we have different frames of reference and all of that. But when you and I don't agree on something, if we will talk about it, Oh, I got my pandas. No, I got my trash pandas. Um, hi Jonathan. So when we don't agree on stuff, we will find a better solution when we don't agree, because y'all know if you have yes men all around you, you are not challenged. There. And my main argument in the gun bill is y'all have been passing law after law after law and you've not shown any noticeable difference. What you have done though is increase the number of felons in Connecticut because there are plenty of folks who have bought a rifle and their rifle was perfectly legal when they bought it, and then over the past decade and a half Sandy Hook, they keep passing different laws regarding rifles. So a rifle someone bought 15 years ago and has been sitting peacefully in their gun safe for all of this time, and maybe it goes to the range from time to time, is now— its owner is now a felon, even though the owner has done nothing different. So my main conversation today is going to be about stop creating felons. Legal, law-abiding gun owners are not the problem. There are over 393 laws here in Connecticut already against violence and gun ownership and regulations around gun ownership. And good morning, Miss Abigail. And so yeah, every so often I'm like, yeah, you know that 10 seconds thing that they taught you in, uh, whatever that's called, uh, driver's ed, you know, check here, there, there. So I'm like, oh look, I can see Abigail. Um, and of course, hi DJ, sorry, you're the one being all chatty out there. But all right, so all the legislation— legislative body keeps doing is creating more and more felons. And because of that, my students come in to learn about safe gun handling skills and they start to learn about the laws. And I've absolutely had students who are like, nope, I'm not gonna get my permit here in Connecticut because the laws are too confusing, because the laws— there's too many ways to get in trouble. And so the anti-gun people unfortunately are anti-gun, and I wish that they would be anti-violence instead, because I can get behind some anti-violence people because there's lots of ways to help people be anti-violence, and a good portion of that is absolute mental health. So I will also be touching on that in my testimony because of the 2 out of 3 gun deaths are suicides, and that is the biggest number we can actually have an impact on. So, um, hello New York Outcast. So yeah, so stop making felons. Let's address problems that actually make a difference, like suicide prevention and actual violence prevention. 'Cause the thing about violence prevention is we wanna help people long before they ever have a firearm in their home. We wanna teach about responsible firearm ownership. Those are the things, education, not legislation, is that as well. And we are gonna have a long day. There are, I looked at it and if you're on Facebook side, I put in the speakers, like the speaker lineup, and for the gun bill, there are only 80 people on the gun bill. There's actually 3, 2 to be against and 1 to be in support of because people's firearms are getting destroyed. And one of the bills is to extend the amount of time that they hold on to the guns, the police, once they've seized them. Because those of you who've been through court proceedings, often they're not done in a year, ergo you can't get your stuff back and stuff just goes away. Um, 2, vaccines. That has over 500 people signed up to speak to. And then 3 is the school bill, and I think there's 250, 260 people baby to sign up for, or that have, um, signed up to speak for that. So, um, yeah, it's gonna be a long day. I need to stay hydrated, all those good things. And I'm coming up to my next stoplight, which is where I think I'm going to end this. Um, education without legislation. Yeah, no, education not legislation, because educating people is how we make changes. Just saying, no, don't go in there, doesn't— makes people curious. If I say, no, don't go in there, there's rabid lions in there, that's the education portion. Um, so yeah, education, not legislation. But anywho, well, I'm gonna drink plenty of water, Pat, and I'm gonna say goodbye to y'all so I can listen to some rocking tunes on my way into the Capitol, because, you know, gotta get pumped for today. I'll be doing these lives pop up throughout the day. Um, the, uh, whatever that's called, audio, it's gonna be questionable because it's really loud in there unless I find a quiet corner in there. I do know lots of the building, and who knows, maybe I'll give you all a tour of our Capitol. I ended up not having a red light where I thought I was going to. Um, and yes, thank you, Pat. I do need good luck and prayers, and my, my brother prayed over me last night mightily And, uh, that is always helpful. And it's finding the right words to the right people at the right time to try to help and reach people to understand. I will say, after all of these years of doing this, that there are so many people who just don't have any information. Back to the education portion of it, it's not like there's a rash of convertible pistols that are taking over the streets of Hartford or anywhere else in Connecticut. So, um, they're looking for problems to solve that don't exist while creating more felons. So, all right, my friends, I'm gonna stop now because I gotta— I got an actual stoplight. All right, have an awesome day, everybody. Like I said, I'll be doing some pop-ups throughout the day, let you know how it's all going. And yeah, New York Outcast, so there's always 3 3 jobs every day. Go home, stay out of the hospital, stay out of jail— oh, there's 4— and stay out of the morgue. Good night, everybody. Or, you know, later. That's