Let's talk about the Legislative Process in CT

This is just me waiting for the little circly thing to go away. Say hey, you're live! Hi, how are you doing? Hi, replay viewers, how are you? Um, I don't know about you, but I am enjoying Facebook Live from time to time, even YouTube Live, because I'm both places right now, just like that. So some people have just gotten notifications saying, Brooke Brooke Cheney's live. Do you want to know what she has to say? Do you? Do you really want to know? Um, it's Wednesday, it's not any of my normal times. I don't know if anyone will stop in, but here's the deal. I got all worked up last night because I was reading legislative stuff. A friend of mine got into this long before I did, and I really wondered how she could go through all of this stuff And I still wonder, because as I'm reading how our legislative process works and what's up for this legislative season, holy smokes, my little head wants to explode. Um, so in the description I said we're going to talk about the legislative process, so let me show you a little bit of how our legislative process here in Connecticut actually works. So hold on just a second. I'm going to try to be all fancy-ish. Maybe we'll see how this works. So if you're here in Connecticut, first thing you want to do is make that bigger so y'all can see it. Um, go to our Connecticut General Assembly, right? So Connecticut General Assembly is our legislative body, and it is in Hartford, Connecticut. And it looks like this right here. That right there, that's our Capitol building. And right next to it over here, that's our actual legislative building. That's where all the stuff goes down. And it's going down this year. So hold on to your pants, man, or maybe your pocketbooks. Yeah, because there's lots of taxes that they want to push through. And because, you know, inflation is not enough yet. So when you go to our Connecticut legislative body of our Connecticut General Assembly, there's lots of information for you to find. How would you like to know about what is going on? Well, let me give you an example. Hey DJ, how are you, hon? Um, yeah, this is just like a pop-up. I'm like, hey, why not? Because sadly I have been doing too much stuff with legislative, but We have a short session this year. It is 12 weeks because it's an election year, in case anyone didn't know. It's an election year and they want to get good stuff in if they can. And quite honestly, they're going out for some pretty horrible stuff. So let me show you the governor's bill. Let's talk about how this is framed. Um, do I have it? Do I have it? Oh, All right, hold on. Governor's Bill Number 16. And here, I'll show it to you. Ready? Ready? Okay, it's called an Act Addressing Gun Violence and Juvenile Crime. Now let's be real, who wouldn't want to address gun violence and juvenile crime? I would vote for that, wouldn't you? We want to address gun violence and juvenile crime. Well, here's the truth, right? There is very little in this bill that is addressing gun violence and juvenile crime. There are 30— uh, hold on, I have the list here. There are 34 sections to this gun violence and juvenile crime bill. Of those 34 sections, there are 3, 3 sections that have anything to do with juvenile crime. One of them is making specific serious offenses, um, they're redefining what a serious juvenile crime offense is, and that if you get one of those serious offenses that they're redefining, guess what? Here in Connecticut, you're not gonna be able to get your pistol permit ever again. Then they are also changing how long police can hold juveniles if they cannot get a hold of their parents, from 6 to 8 hours. Not a cop, I don't know how that makes a difference. It doesn't mean that it doesn't, but the last one I've read it and I don't know what it is. It just says they're redefining what— oh, and the third one was ankle monitor for teens. Basically to, you know, throw teens not in jail but have ankle monitors instead. So I don't know if this is an improvement or not because I don't really follow juvenile crime that often, but considering— oh wait, what was the name of that bill again? An Act Addressing Gun Violence and Juvenile Crime. And we've got 34 pieces of it, and 3 of them are on juvenile crime. So is it really addressing that relative to the rest of this bill? All right, well, gun violence, right? I mean, right? Yeah, absolutely, gun violence. We want to deal with gun violence. Again, here's the deal: what it says, gun violence, and what it does, not the same thing. There are two pieces of legislation or suggestions within this bill of 34 pieces that, one, it creates a gun violence task force, which I'm a little on the fence about because the stuff they're looking to create and recreate for gun violence task force is stuff that's already out there. Millions and millions of dollars have already been spent on the task force that they're talking on a federal level. And a lot of the information is already out there, and all they need to do with that gun violence task force is actually implement some of the stuff that's out there. So that's Section 33 of 34. So there's one at the very beginning of the bill. They also have money going towards the, um, hold on, let me look at the darn thing again. Um, they're, they're putting money towards the police, the gun trafficking unit. So there are 2 things in here that actually address gun violence too, but the name of the bill— wait, what is it again? Oh yeah, it's the gun— an act addressing gun violence and juvenile crime. So we got 34 pieces of this bill, 2 of them address gun violence, 3 of them address juvenile crime. And oh, hey GW, nice to see you, sir. Thank you for the, yeah, the CT update. It's pretty brutal this year. I don't know a state currently that is not going through really, really bad legislation, but this, this is SB bill, the governor's SB 16, and it is not good. So So we've got 34 pieces of a bill. 5 pieces of that 34 actually address what the title of the bill is. And I am here just so you guys understand, when you hear a senator or a representative saying, oh, well, it's the Puppies and Kittens Bill, of course we voted for it. Or if you're watching someone get in trouble for voting against the puppies and kitty bill and you're like, how can you vote against puppies and kitties? It's probably something that's actually in the bill. Our news cycle is so tiny, our attention span is so tiny. All people hear is the name of the bill. And of course we want to address gun violence and juvenile crime. But because I can look at the bill and find out that there's really not a lot in there that actually addresses it, I'm going to ask my senators and my representatives to vote no against this bill, or at least make significant changes. It's like there's 34 pieces that say they're addressing these things. So let's see, 34 minus 5. So out of 34 things, take out gut 29%, 20, the 29 other sections of this. And then I would say vote for the bill because it actually addresses what's in, they say, in the bill. So this is just something to think about. It is our legislative session here in Connecticut. It does make sense for you to pay attention not only to what a bill is called, but how to actually get into it and read some of it. To be fair. Laws were supposed to be made simple and easy for those of us citizens to follow. We have fallen very far away from that. When I read this legislation, which I spent multiple hours doing yesterday, um, it's not easy, it's not simple, it doesn't make sense. Uh, here in Connecticut, we used to have, as firearms owners, we used to have a little booklet that the DESPP— sorry, they changed their acronym often— used to print out. And in 2005, it was about this big. By 2014 or '15, it was about this big. Now it's so large, they won't even print it out. They won't put it together. Like, yeah, you know, we've got all these gun laws, but yeah, you can't have it easy and concise for those of us who want to be law-abiding gun owners, right? So this is where we have many, many challenges. You really do need to understand that the title of a bill rarely has anything to do with it. As a firearm owner, the other thing that is often very misleading is there's usually a women's protection bill. That for those of us women who choose to protect ourselves with firearms, it is an anti-protection bill for women. And they use these words to manipulate those of us who don't have time to look under the covers, right? Like, lift up— oh well, it's called puppies and kittens, so we must be saving puppies and kittens. But in actuality, we're killing puppies and kittens. So I know they do this with environmental bills too. My, my rep, uh, John Piscopo, uh, he gets lambasted for voting against environmental bills. And it's just like, well, it says it's the environmental protection, blah blah blah, but what it actually does is increase taxes on the poor and the middle class and makes it impossible for people to heat their homes. So Have some grace for all of our politicians. They have a hard, hard job. Remember, you are actually important in the process. They need to hear what you have to say because they are up there, whether it's locally at your state Capitol or in DC at a national level, and they're expected to vote and make decisions on hundreds of thousands of different things every single day. And they do need your opinion and they do need to hear from you. And you need to say, it's like, okay, well, I would be for this bill if you got rid of the 29 other pieces that have nothing to do with gun violence and nothing to do with juvenile crime. And let them know because they really don't. No one can know it all. All of us know something. Find something that you're excited about, something that you care about. And follow up on that thing, whether it's environmental, veterans, whatever your thing is, help them, help them be better at what they do. They need to hear from you. All right, I think that's it. I needed to rant and rave a little bit about this bill because it's really, really bad. It is looking to create more bureaucracy. I can't even say the words, I just like it so And they're trying— so for those of you who don't know, who are not in the gun world with me, if you walk into a gun store, it holds a license called an FFL, Federal Firearms Licensing, right? Our national government, our federal government regulates all the people who sell 10 or more guns on a regular basis in a year. So they have a ton of paperwork they have to do. They have chunks and chunks of regulations they already have. Here in Connecticut, our governor has decided they don't do enough. And so he's trying to create another statewide registration process, AKA a tax for our gun shops. And that's supposed to be part of the violence prevention bill. So it doesn't do anything to prevent violence. It doesn't do anything other than put gun shops out of business and make it impossible to do business. So when people tell you they're not coming after my guns, they don't understand all the nuances of how they're coming around the corners and under the doors and through the windows, whether it's financing, whether it's additional taxes, whether it's ridiculousness in order to be able to apply for a permit. That's another thing that's in this bill. They are changing it. So when I go for a renewal of my permit, they're going to run a medical check on me to verify that I haven't been committed in a mental institution. However, the bill actually says if I'm there for rehab for drugs or alcohol, that's not a disqualifier for my permit to be renewed. But if I'm there for any other reason, mental breakdown, et cetera, then I get my permit revoked. I don't know about you, but one, HIPAA, hello, no one's supposed to have access to my health, um, health information. And two, yes, of course we want sane, competent people but the overreach is just kind of crazy. All right. So Mr. Ballinger, how do you find more about people being elected in Burlington? I hate just checking off boxes. Become educated and get into your local, it's RTC, Republican Town Committee, or DTC, Democratic Town Committee, because those are the people who are in the know. Of who the people who are coming up for election. Now, in actually, no, sorry, this is not a local election currently, but you still can talk to those people, whether you're Democratic or Republican. It's a statewide election year. So I think you guys have Henry Martin. I think you and I share Henry Martin as a state representative. I know Connecticut, Harwington has little pieces that are shoved out other places, um, and I don't know if John Piscopo is your, uh, rep or not, but all right, so here's the deal. Go to— I'll put this in the comments— go to cga.gov and you can actual, um, Oh, you can look up who your, your, your reps are and you can check in on them, find out if they're going up for reelection, and they will actually tell you probably who's going to be running against them because they should know. So sorry for such a long-winded answer to your question, Mike, but those are all the different ways that I can think of, um, how you're going to do that. All right, so share your live to Lock and Load Farms and the Waffle page. I don't know how to do that, Josh. If I knew how to do that, I would do that, but I have no idea how to do that, um, especially not from here because I'm on StreamYard, which is not on Facebook directly. So I got nothing, but G Webs is here, so maybe he knows and he can tell us, but he's on YouTube, so I don't know. Um, all right, so yeah, so that's how you find out. That's how I would find out who's running, is check in with your existing reps and ask them if they know who their opponent is or if they have an opponent. Um, that would be the easiest way I think that I would try to find that. Oh, you're telling me that you did? Okay, sorry. I'll figure this out eventually. All right, so yeah, gun owners unite. Holy heck. People who want a sane and reasonable free country— that it doesn't mean, no, every Tom, Dick, and Harry doesn't have to have a gun. However, we do need to have freedom of choice. We do need to not put businesses out of business just because we don't agree with them. You know, I drive down the highway all the time and I see all these signs for different places. And if you drive through Hartford, the 84-91 interchange, you know what I'm talking about. And if you don't, I'm not telling you. So anyway, there's all sorts of businesses out there. We don't have to support them all, but we shouldn't be trying to put them out of business. And this act of addressing gun violence and juvenile crime is more about taxes, revenue, and bureaucracy than it has to do with anything addressing actual violence and juvenile crime. So, uh, thanks everybody for checking in, saying hi, and I have a feeling I'm going to do a lot of these over this legislative session because it's not pretty, and I really need folks to step up and be interested and learn. Like I said, it doesn't have to be about guns, but I am a firearms instructor, I own my shooting school, and I want my fellow gun owners to realize that all of these gun— all of these laws are going to affect you. I mean, the, the things they are doing with long guns and rifles and everything else. Basically, if this bill passes as it is, there are going to be a lot of Class D felons within Connecticut, and they won't even know that they are felons because the guns they have in their home they legally bought. But once this bill goes through, if it goes through, they're, they're all going to be felons. And people need to understand, this is one of the things that makes these anti-gun laws so very bad, is they're taking someone like me— well, not like me, but someone, any other gun owner that doesn't do this on a regular basis— and make them the felons. And they're not notifying us. They're not saying, hey, here is the newest set of gun laws. Here are the things that you need to do. They're not doing anything like that. And the laws are just not doing anything to actually prevent violence. So I'm Brooke Cheney. I'm checking out. 2 out of every 3 gun deaths you hear about is suicide. So if we really want to stop gun deaths, we'll start paying attention to mental health awareness and stop creating all these crazy gun laws. God bless, have a great night, and I am so out of here. Oh yeah, I'm teaching tomorrow. See ya.