FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
State Rep Shane Stringer - Jeff Poor Show - Monday 7-29-24
(upbeat music) We'll go back to the Jeff Porchola, if we talk. Well, those 6'5", they just stick it around on this Monday morning, 251. 3430106, I guess I have upset the B, community, the B lobby or the B, whatever they are, with my lack of caring about B's versus mosquitoes. But if you wanna somehow join the fray here, 2513430106 is the tax lie. Joining us now on the line, and we hear from him every other Monday, to move some stuff around, but I'm always appreciative of a state representative Shane Stringer coming on and making time for us. Representative, good morning, how are you? - Hey, doing great. Thanks for having me again. - Hey, thanks for making time for us. Well, we'll start here, Representative. Well, this really got kicked off last week, a little bit more. Your colleague, Wanda Linkavan, kind of surprised a lot of people when she said, she liked this, read England proposal to do some kind of, I would say it's a straight up state takeover, but it's where the state would come in and appoint a police chief and get some of these Bull eager police departments back in order, so, and then I think Birmingham and Montgomery are the two biggies. Probably, I don't think so in Selma, Prichard, Bessimer, there's some other places where the police protection leaves a lot to be desired. - You said you're kind of open to the idea, I think we last talked about it, but the reaction to it's been sort of mixed. I mean, like, now that you've had a few weeks to hear or think about it, well, what do you make of it? - Well, you know, like I've told you before, one of the things I'm seeing is you've got mayors across the state, not just around here and other states, that are making appointments to their top positions, whether it be the police chief, hierarchy, chief of staff, different positions, they're making those positions based on friendships, and instead of putting the right people in those places that can run the departments and run them effective and efficiently, and instead they're being put in there because of their affiliations or something. And I think that's problematic. And, you know, I think the more you see that, the more likely you're gonna have to do something like Reid's looking at in trying to come in there and maybe take over a foreign chief and administration to help that chief accomplish the goals. You know, I don't think the state's in the business of wanting to run the police departments across the state, but I also think that the citizens in those areas deserve adequate protection, you know, in taking care of them. - I essentially, the governor's really on board or kind of interested in this proposal, but what it tells me is just people aren't finding the answers, they are seeking the desire from municipal government. Now, Senator Orr was on my friend Dale Jackson, so he's just like, well, look, you don't like the way the city's handling your police protection did elect to do mayor, you just reelected a year ago, Steven Reid. But such as it is, I mean, how much of it do you think is just, hey, elections have consequences? - And I agree with that. You know, that's one of the things I've said all along is that, you know, if the people would hold the elected officials accountable for the people they hire and the actions that are taking place, then you would see some differences being done. You know, like I've told you before, there's got to be consequences to some of these actions. I mean, we have got to hire the right people, and if the current mayor of our city is not able to accomplish those goals, then it might be time for the citizens to replace them. I don't think it's all the responsibility of the state, you know, to have to come in and clean up and fix their problems, you know, you've got departments we've seen year after year after year, no matter what administration, they just seem to struggle and have problems. So I think, you know, we've got to come up with some solutions, but also think that we need to force the hand of the cities to do their job and to do what's right before we take that step. - Well, and I want to talk about Montgomery and I hear some of your colleagues, but representative, I mean, like you and I are talking off air, even in the, so you've been going there since 2019, on a regular basis. I mean, the city seems to be in the decline ever since the read administration took over, but look, the people that the government can vote in and they can do whatever they want, but state government still got a function. And when we saw the RSA buildings up there with the bullet holes in the windows, and I mean, if it doesn't feel safe, if you can't look should state government, then maybe there is justification for something. - Yeah, you know, and I stay two blocks from the state house, you know, in an Airbnb and it's not uncommon for me to be getting out of my car, walking out or, you know, something like that to hear gunshots really close to the state house and into where I'm staying. So that's not uncommon, you know, I don't know, you know, if the citizens need to consider maybe a recall vote or something on some of the mayors, if they're not able to do that, because the number one primary function of local government and any government is the safety of its citizens, and if they're not meeting that goal, then they've got their balance off and how they're handling things, and they really need to look at it. So, my grandmother's just, they've got some problems, and I'm not sure, you know, I'm not involved in it to be able to say exactly what it is, but they've got problems. - But I mean, if you guys don't feel safe, I mean, sort of, why should DC for a time, and then why should DC's kind of head back in that direction, but if you have lawmakers getting mugged, the state senators getting robbed on the streets there, that's going to, I would think even if not even based on, like, looking at this from a, you know, is this a good use of government standpoint? I mean, there's going to be an emotional response to that. - Yeah, you know, my thing is, whether it be a legislator or a citizen ain't no different, man, we don't deserve any more protection than anybody else, you know, and I've been a law enforcement my whole life, and, you know, I stand up for the people, and I put myself in danger for people, so I would much rather that citizens be safe before me, but still, we all deserve safety and security, and that's the primary function of our government, and whether it be on a local state or a federal level. And, you know, it's kind of like, I guess, kicking the problem down the road, or passing the buck along to the state government, is not exactly the first auction or best auction. I think that we should hold the locals accountable, and, you know, as long as they're doing within their means, now there are cities that struggle financially, and, you know, in those scenarios, they may want to look at dissolving if it's more than they can handle, but there's got to be options out there, other than just, you know, putting the burden on the state, or, you know, on the LEA. - Or what about these county sheriffs? And, you know, I mean, they're, they got a different, it's sort of a different sort of scenario. You elect them directly, they're not accountable necessarily to like a mayor or whatever, but they seem to be at least having to handle some of this burden around the state. - Yeah, they really are, you know, and that's, luckily, our state has got a lot of good sheriffs that's willing to step in and help out other agencies that are struggling or having something, but, you know, it ain't their burden either. You know, I think the, we've got to come up with a way to hold even the sheriffs departments that are not able to do their job. We've got to come up with a way to tackle that and address that. I mean, the citizens of every county, every city throughout the state deserve, you know, protecting and the service that we offer. - Well, in kind of talking about that, the sheriffs, as you probably will remember, the constitutional carry bill, and they were against it, but are you surprised to see the way some of these people, particularly the left and some of the mayors, but also some of the so-called talking heads, blame your bill for this? - I'm not surprised at all. You know, you know, people always trying to push the burden off or blame off on somebody else, other than taking responsibility and ownership and meeting that. I mean, we've shown right there in Mobile, Alabama, where your since constitution carries past the crime. It's been the lowest it's been since '19. I think they said '84 or '94, but I mean, the lowest it's been in 33 years. So that tells you right there that the law-abiding gun owners are absolutely not the problem. You know, we've got to address the criminal element and the thugs that are running our communities. I mean, I, as a law enforcement, also try to arrest them and make it hard on them as much as they do our good citizens. I'm not gonna sit back and let them take advantage of our citizens or our communities to increase their crime and their profits. - Joined by state representative Shane Stringer here on the program. Something else, some pre-filed bills, but won by all your colleagues, we're Democrat colleagues and assault weapon permitting. And then they kind of defines a, see Representative Hassel Montgomery says, he wants to require a permit as a assault weapon, which he says is an automatic rifle with the capacity to accept attachment magazines to possess at least one of six attributes among them being a folding stocker or second hand grip. And I guess there are a bunch of scenarios here. I mean, I don't foresee this seeing the light of day, but you see proposals like this, what do you think? - I'll fight it tooth and nail. I'll fight it with everything I've got. And unless they change the constitution, I'm going with the constitution and the constitution don't say nothing about having to get a permit or rush to your gun, regardless to whether it's a pistol or whether it's a assault weapon or a hunt rifle. I'm not gonna, I'll do everything I can to stop that kind of legislation. I don't agree with it. And we see it coming from just about every Democrat and every facet. I mean, it's just, to me, it's some way or somehow they have forgot or either have not read the constitution. - Well, and it's this too, right? It's such as Democrats, it's Republicans, but I guess these guys are just looking for solutions or looking for something. And then you never hear this representative. You never hear these guys talk about, well, don't we just repeal the second amendment, make gun ownership of privilege in this country and not a right, because until you can maneuver the second amendment and whatever these fixes are, don't really dive with the second amendment. I mean, that's the issue, they never go anywhere. - Absolutely, that's the problem is, the legislators that have enough sense to listen to their constituents and follow the constitution are gonna do what's right. The ones that want to do, try to find shortcuts to solutions are going to try to circumvent the constitution and do that kind of stuff. But the fact of the matter is, elected officials need to start listening to their constituents. We are elected by them to represent them in our offices, whether it's in Montgomery or DC or wherever, and I personally just don't think that there's enough that to listen to their constituents, the elected sheriffs, whenever we went through the constitutional carry, I reminded a bunch of them, I'm like, you need to go back and listen to your constituents because we were polling 70 plus percent every single time we polled the constitution carry legislation. And even I even had some of the sheriffs that say, "Well, but they don't know what's best for them." And I'm like, "Well, that's a typical big government answer," you know, regardless, we have got to listen to our constituents and what they got. - Well, are you surprised to see this? It's just this is, and there's, it's this. These laws that you guys pass the legislature apply to the entire state, but we're just seeing these pockets of places where they're having a real struggle right now with law enforcement. And you're being scapegoated here, like you're being particularly the constitutional carry bill, but some other things as well. And there just, this seems to be the default mechanism that we're gonna go after guns and firearms. And I don't know that that's, 'cause you're in a red state in Alabama, is that really even a solution we're discussing because we know where this is headed. It would be just like any other liberal policy that this is a waste of time. - Yeah, you've seen in blue, blue states and blue counties across our state where they try to go in there. They don't put a priority on their law enforcement. They try to defund the law enforcement. They do things to cut their law enforcement. They don't support the law enforcement. You lose them around in your departments. It's hard enough to recruit, retain, and hire new officers as it is. And then if you get the reputation of not supporting your law enforcement and not being there for them, then that makes it even harder. So this is a complex problem. And I've said this before. There's a lot of issues related to this. It's from social issues to home raising and issues to the economy. I mean, there's just lots of issues that play into this. In Mobile County, we have a lot of industry, high-paying industry effect that are, you know, paying in and it's awesome for our area, but they're also hiring up a lot of the good candidates that we would normally have as law enforcement officers. So that's taken from the hiring pool. There's just lots of problems that relate to this and to the crime and the issues. I mean, you got jail overcrowding. You got judges that use the jail overcrowding to not do something. So I think that, you know, it's a complex problem that's gonna take a lot of wise people to put some answers to. I mean, first and foremost, we have got to build more prisons. We've got to come up with a way to be able to do that and afford to do that to put these prisoners somewhere. - Yeah, I think you're right, but that's gonna be another fight in the future. I guess we'll have to talk more about that. Later, Representative, we've got to cut it short here, but I appreciate you making time for us and we'll talk again soon. - Yep, thanks for having me, Jeff. Y'all have a blessed day. - Shane Stringer, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be right back. This is F.M. Talk, 106.5. (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) ♪ I learned the path to heaven ♪ ♪ There's full of sinners and we need ♪