Governor Jindal
Thank you Chris.
Thank you for your friendship.
And thank you for all you do defending our freedom.
Aren’t we lucky to have him?
The NRA is very fortunate to have a very talented and dedicated team standing watch for us in Washington.
Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox
and NRA’s president John Siglar… and I better stop before I leave someone out.
There is a reason you haven’t seen gun control pass since Nancy Pelosi took over…. and you can be sure it’s not because she’s all of a sudden for the 2nd Amendment… it’s not that at all.
It’s because the NRA has a great team standing on the wall for us every day.
This is a great honor.
As a matter of fact, for a Governor of the state they call the Sportsman’s Paradise, it doesn’t get much better than this.
And as the Governor of the Sportsman’s Paradise, I would not be doing my job if I didn’t tell you a little bit about what’s going on there.
We’re making a whole lot of changes and we are moving fast.
As Chris mentioned, we’ve changed our ethics laws.
We’ve change our tax code.
We’re changing business regulations.
We’re going to change everything necessary to get us on top of all the good lists and get us off
all the bad lists.
But don’t you worry… the two things we are not changing are the food and the ducks.
And we’ve got the best in the world of both.
So come to Louisiana on your next hunting trip.
We’ll feed you well and send you home with a trophy.
And if you are not careful, we might just
talk you into staying for good.
As Chris mentioned, we won a great victory in Congress on this piece of legislation.
Most of the time, when you pass a good bill,
you celebrate.
But I think I can speak for a lot of us when I say that passing this law did not make me want to celebrate.
Instead, it reminded me just how much more work we have to do to protect our rights.
In my state, we are often fond of telling visitors… ”oh, things are different here in Louisiana.”
Well…. considering what happened in the days that followed Katrina, I sure hope our state is different forever.
You know what you just saw in that video.
For the very first time in our nation’s history…..
deputized agents of our government shelved the Constitution right in front of our
very eyes.
Law abiding citizens who were under perhaps the greatest threat to their safety they will ever know were rendered defenseless…. and not just by the criminals, but by misguided agents of a government out of control.
And while the television pictures were gripping….
you really had to be there to fully appreciate the chaos and the terror.
Just hours after enduring a near death experience with the storm, the survivors were left to fight off roaming bands of looters and criminals.
Can you just imagine the thought of a senior citizen like Patty Koenie, who looked out her window and saw the police coming.
Can you imagine her emotions?
Can you imagine what was going through her mind?
Help.
They’re coming to check on me, she had to have thought.
And then when they banged on the door
and used physical force to take the weapon she kept for protection…. the betrayal she must have sensed.
And it wasn’t an isolated case.
It wasn’t limited to rich people, poor people,
or people of any one race.
And that’s the way freedom works.
Which is why we cherish it so much…
Freedom protects us all equally, and when it is
taken away we are all equally threatened.
As you might have guessed, I spent the days
right after the storm on the ground in Louisiana,
trying to get supplies to my constituents…
and I have to tell you we got em trucks
and water and supplies faster than FEMA
or the state did, that’s for sure.
As soon as I went back to Washington,
I began telling other members of Congress about the travesty that happened regarding the Second Amendment.
Some of the folks I told just barely could suppress a roll of their eyes.
Plenty of people on the left found the confiscation entirely reasonable.
And more than a few folks – even some of our friends-- just didn’t believe it had actually happened.
And not everyone was convinced we immediately had to do something about it.
It was a very stark reminder to me that we can never back off in our cause to put true-blue,
down-to-the-core, Second Amendment believers into office in Congress.
Thanks to your outcry…. and swift action by the NRA…. we overcame those skeptics….
and we did pass this important protection
so that never again will our government render her citizens defenseless in time of disaster.
Never again.
Never again.
Now I want you to think for a moment about what might have happened if Katrina had happened in 2007 instead of 2005.
In 2005, we had a supporter of Second Amendment rights in the Speaker’s chair.
Today, we don’t.
In 2005, we had a supporter of Second Amendment rights as Chair of the Judiciary Committee.
Today, we don’t.
In 2005, we had a president who signed our bill into law.
Next year?
There are no guarantees.
That is where you come in.
And it’s a job I know you take seriously.
In my campaign last year, I traveled to
every parish, every town, every wide spot
in the road in Louisiana.
It is impossible to do that and not come across a whole lot of folks who care about the Second Amendment.
And they don’t mind telling you what’s on their mind, I can tell you that.
Even though a lot of folks knew about my work to pass this law, I was asked thousands of times where I stand on the Second Amendment.
I want to encourage you and gun owners everywhere to remain that vigilant… and that thorough.
When you find a candidate, rake em over the coals good.
We don’t need fair weather friends…. we need dedicated supporters of freedom and the
constitutional rights granted to every American.
That means demanding that my party, the party of freedom, never nominate candidates who oppose 2nd Amendment freedoms.
And it means demanding that our friends in the Democrat Party vote their Second Amendment convictions when they vote for Speaker as well.
As leaders of our grass roots movement, the members of this movement have to make it clear to every candidate…. if you want the votes of all who love freedom, you must take your turn at the watch….. standing with us even when it is hard.
I want to thank you again for what you do.
Thank you for supporting this organization….
which rushed to my state to stand up for the Constitution…. even when those sworn to uphold it would not.
All of us in Louisiana… and all of us who love freedom are in your debt.
God bless you
and God Bless these Great United States of America.
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