Brooks is placing blame on "political groups". Being the consummate politician, he places the blame of "potentially" causing the loss of revenue to the charities on OC rather than stating the clearly obvious.
Due to a contract between ABE and Royal Oak, the violation of state law and civil rights caused citizens to stand against it. The blame should be on ABE and Royal Oak, not on those who's rights were infringed upon. We did no wrong, they did. We just pointed it out and made it public. Brooks' comments are typical blame the victim politics. But he is an overpriced, overpaid, pompous windbag whos nothing more than a career politician. What he is doing is simply trying to castigate us for refusing to allow our rights to be trampled, rather than standing up for( like he claims he does) for the 2A and OC and blasting the responsible parties for infringing on the rights of the people.
Actually, THEY bear the responsibility of the issue becoming so "public". If the commission had just changed the contract instead of thinking that they were "right", this would have been just a small footnote in the history of this event. Instead, they turned this whole issue into a "power play" and... they lost.
Now, instead of just dropping it and moving on to more pressing business, they vow to change the law so that they once again appear "powerful" in their own eyes. If instead of regarding those who came to point out the illegality of their actions as adversarial they instead saw the information as an opportunity to do what is right, they would have probably had only a handful of people show up to ABE carrying a handgun. Now, they are very likely going to have a large number of people openly carrying a firearm. I've even considered attending just to remind the commission that they "serve" at the whim of the citizens.
But their smugness and contempt of those who dare question them continues! Instead of just declaring that those who advocated for the change regarding firearms were correct, they intend to spend a large amount of money and time to try to change the law. My guess is that they will once again lose, thereby showing how incompetent they truly are as community leaders.
Like a narcissist unwilling to concede defeat, this behavior will probably ensure each commission member's eventual political demise. I'm referring here to Commissioner Rasor who actually went on a radio program to proclaim that he and the commission were above the law.
Perhaps members here who live in RO would be interested in a designing a recall petition based upon this fact alone?