These are hard hitting points and I put them clearly on all my campaign material.  This way, you don’t have to worry that I will tell one group what they want to hear and another group what they want to hear. 

 

Pro Gun:  Growing up in a gun store has allowed me to know personally all the people in an area that own guns. We literally sold thousands of guns to every law abiding citizen of Carrollton and surrounding counties.  With all those “guns on the street”, there was only one murder in Carrollton during my entire childhood and that guy used a hatchet.  Guns are not a problem.  Yes the're dangerous, so are cars, that’s why we should teach children to shoot real rifles, instead of letting gangsters teach them to shoot on a video game. 

 

There is currently a bill in the US House of representatives that is silently moving through the house.  This bill will require that all firearms be individually licensed and an annual tax paid on each gun.  If you own several guns, this could be a substantial sum.  The purpose of this tax is not to raise revenue, but to encourage gun owners to get rid of their guns to avoid the annual tax. 

 

Pro-Life:  Before we had the ability to see inside a pregnant mothers womb, it is reasonable that we would conclude that the baby didn’t exist until it was born.  However, we can now see the baby growing at every stage of development and can clearly see that it is a baby, not a “fetus”.  To pretend that the unborn baby is anything but a very small person is like claiming the world is flat because that’s how it looks from where you’re standing.  Life begins at conception.  There are couples lined up to adopt your baby if you don’t want it.  The only reason you would want to abort you’re child is because it will embarrass you. 

 

Capital Punishment:  I am very much in favor of capital punishment.  This issue is typically put forth as a contradiction of pro-life.  The difference is the criminal deserves to die, while the baby does not.  I would like to make some changes to capital punishment.  The sentence should be executed faster.  This may be as simple as putting a time limit of five years to exhaust all appeals.  These cases get drug out for 20 years, because the defense attorneys ask for endless extensions. 

 

Crime:  To say that I will be tough on crime is inadequate.  My entire platform is based on spending less money in government.  However, I will make an exception with prisons.  I would like to expand Kentucky’s jail and prison system so that there is room for all deserving criminals.  When a judge is trying cases, they may see 200 cases that day, but only have room for 1 person to go to jail.  The result is they have to release someone in order to put someone else in.  Consequently, we only put extremely dangerous criminals in prison.  If the judge had the freedom to place any criminal in jail, then the small offender would serve time and learn a valuable lesson.  In addition to the criminal learning a lesson, the offender’s friends would also learn a lesson.  That lesson is if you do the crime you do the time. 

 

A terrible example of the failing of the criminal justice system is the recent article that a group of sex offenders (rapist) are being released and still pose a large threat.  If these rapists still pose a threat, then they simply were not in prison long enough.  Additionally, the jury should have the option of executing the rapist, not just imprisoning them. 

 

Small Government:  This is the issue that no government official can face.  The temptation to tell the citizens how to live their life is too great.  The slogan of the left is to protect people from themselves.  The government is now your parent, wear your seatbelt, don’t smoke, don’t eat trans fats, exercise daily.  We all know these things and make our own decisions on them.  If a person wants to eat transfat, then obesity is the result of that action.  Take responsibility for your own actions.  Don’t expect the government to protect you from your own bad decisions.  Those decisions are yours to make, if you turn them over to the government, you lose another freedom.  The government on all levels, federal, state and local has grown so large that it thinks of itself as your parent.  The only way to reduce the size of the government is to reduce its supply of money.  Currently, Kentucky has a large budget deficit.  They are now searching for new sources of revenue.  My goal is to take this opportunity to balance the budget by eliminating some excess areas of the government. 

 

To continue with this thought process, I will oppose any bill that further restricts our freedom to make our own decisions.  I will also scour the existing laws and try to repeal old laws that I believe expand government beyond its role. 

 

Education:  I am a product of public education and compete fine with my private school counterparts.  However, that does not mean I encourage people to attend public schools.  The public school system should be a safety net so that anyone can receive an education, even if they cannot afford to pay for it themselves.  However, families should be encouraged to take care of their children’s education themselves, not rely on the government.  If more families sent their children to private schools, there would be less financial pressure on the public schools.  Let the private sector educate the children and only use the public school as a fall back.  

 

Taxes:  The most offensive taxes I have seen passed lately are those passed on smokers.  One group of people should not be taxed differently than the rest of the citizens.  As a group they are too small to defend themselves against these taxes and are helpless to stop it.  Their only option is to pay the tax or stop smoking.  If the government wants to make something illegal, then make it illegal, don’t tax people because you don’t like what their doing.  I will oppose any tax that only applies to one group of people and will attempt to repeal this tax and others like it.  If the state needs the money, they can raise taxes on everyone equally.

 

Gambling:

 

If the question is should we change the law so that three race tracks can break the law in order to increase profit and yet it remains illegal for the rest of Kentucky, then I am opposed to it.  That is known as corruption.  The horse industry has a long history of buying their legislators.  This was very obvious in the amount of money that the horse industry poured into the election in Bardstown last year.  You can bet that they will be pouring massive amounts of money into this election as well.    So when you see the adds against me, don’t believe them.