Madison Society Meeting 7pm tonight (Apr 14) w/Stanislaus Sheriff candidate

[Jason95357]

I received the email yesterday:

A quick reminder, Monday night April 14th, we anticipate a guest speaker regarding the Stanislaus County Sheriffs race.

For those of you that don't know, the Madison Society is the pro-2A group which got Stanislaus Sheriff Adam Christianson four years ago on April 12, 2010 to sign their pledge which says self protection is all that is needed for the good cause requirement when requesting a CCW. This changed the way things are done in Stanislaus County, opening the floodgates for CCWs to the common citizen. They are our own "local" group in the greater Modesto area and well worth supporting and attending their monthly meetings and annual dinner banquet.

The meeting tonight is at 7pm at the Scout Hall at 3017 High St, Riverbank.

[4DMASTR]

Had it not been 5 minutes from now I would have liked to check this out. I like Christianson, had a chance to speak with him a few times and seems like a decent guy all around.

[Jason95357]

I know, my bad for waiting for the last minute to post this, but I only had a time just as I walked in the door coming home from work before I had to leave to the meeting.

Of course if you were a number of the Madison Society you would have received an email letting you know about the meeting's guest speaker

Candidate Tom Letras spoke tonight. He signed the Madison Society Pledge after speaking. I will summarize my notes in my next post.

Sheriff Adam Christianson was in the audience as well. He was invited to speak at the next meeting and has accepted. The next Madison Society meeting will be on May 12th.

[Jason95357]

Topics I heard discussed by Letras:
Spoke for a bit of time on how he is pro-CCW. He gave family examples, as is on his website, that he motivated his girlfriend and his father to get their CCWs. One thing that was interesting was that he asked for a show of hands in the audience who had CCW permits. Then he asked for a show of hands of those that had their permit who were not carrying, and chiding them for not carrying. He says he does that all the time to his dad as well - gives him a pat down and if he doesn't have his EDC on him, he'll give him a hard time and tell him he needs to carry 24/7.

He spoke about the SO's problems with recruitment, wanting to try to hire locally, wanting to try to hire returning military. He spoke about keeping deputies being a problem because of pay, but also that deputies left to work at MPD or Ceres PD for just a few bucks more, but mostly because of morale problems at the SO.

He spoke about wanting to re-open the local SO training facility to train cadets. Brought up that now they are sent for a week to Alameda Co. to be trained.

He was asked again about his stance on Constitional Sheriffs (he said he had looked into it since being asked the question at the Tea Party meeting) and gave a very diplomatic answer, basically saying he supports the Constitution, but also will work with the FBI, etc. and wouldn't arrest them. My take away is that he did not answer in the affirmative for support of the Constitutional Sheriff movement.

He spoke about getting the SO's gang unit open positions filled, and about that there were many unfilled budgeted positions in the department.

I appreciated his speaking at the meeting and spending time milling around with folks and answering questions after. I'll give him big props for stepping out and running against his boss, and speaking there with his boss sitting just a couple folks to his left before he got up. I think he was very polite in how he addressed things, and I appreciate that both sides have done so.

I really appreciate that Stanislaus County is very pro-2A and pro-CCW and that this is very widely known and as I've said before, basically a litmus test to be pro-CCW in order to run for sheriff since Christianson signed the pledge in 2010. I'm hopeful that things continue this way, and that it will spread to neighboring counties, such as Merced and San Joaquin.