A twenty-five year-old man named Kyle Hendrickson of Berwick, Maine was arrested in Maine on Thursday, April 13, 2023 for allegedly threatening to “shoot up” Portsmouth High School. He posted a video which was taken just outside the school to his Snapchat account while waving around a handgun and making threats. Police also confiscated from his vehicle an AR-15 rifle, a shotgun, and tactical gear. He is currently being held at the Dover jail.
The next day, April 14, school officials in Rochester received a bomb threat email, resulting in the school superintendent shutting down Rochester Middle School for the day and immediately contacting local police. Luckily, the threat was later determined to be a hoax.
In the meantime, while the bomb threat in Rochester was playing out, and a young man with a gun threatening a high school the day before, Gov. Sununu was at the annual NRA convention in Indianapolis giving what could be construed as a “testing the waters for a presidential run” speech. The following are excerpts taken from his roughly ten minute speech:
“Indianapolis, back for the first time in a few years. This is awesome. We have a full crowd. We have a full room. I was walking on the floor and seeing incredible manufacturers. Walking around, getting excited about not just the 2nd Amendment, but at the politics and all that. We’ll get to that, but first the freedom. The opportunity to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. That is what America is all about. A lot of you may know or not know that I am from the Live Free or Die state. As we are very proud in New Hampshire to remind ourselves and the rest of the country. And I always told folks, it is not some cute motto on our license plates. It is the essence of what we do. How we live. . .
The heart of live free or die is limited government. Low taxes, local control and individual responsibility. All of these fundamentals, and I try to remind my other fellow Republicans, but the Founding Fathers had it right, as we say in New Hampshire, they were wicked smart. The last thing this country should have been about is the federal government. I am from the government. I am the governor. It ain’t about us. I am not here to solve your problems. The government is not here to solve your problems. What are we here to do? Create doors of opportunity. For you. Your family, your school. Whatever. You do you. That is what you do. That’s what live free or die is. You walk through the door of opportunity that best fits your needs. Not the door of opportunity that the government forces you through, that’s the old way of doing things. . .
I’m looking at thousands of people in front of me. It is about you. It ain’t about us. We have to appreciate this job and responsibility when we represent the citizens we represent. An opportunity that is so much bigger than ourselves. We have to walk into these situations, with our neighbors that are running for the planning board or the school board. We all have to have a little bit of that live free or die in us to remember what is the essence that makes this country great. I don’t mind saying this, but I see a lot of Republicans that I respect very much, but man, do they cave under pressure when it comes to the 2nd Amendment. What is that about? Politics get involved and they get all this pressure on them, and at the end of the day, you’ve got to pull yourselves out of these politics. You’ve got to ignore it. You have to say what is best for my citizens in this this country, and what is best is their opportunity. And look. Let’s face it. I remember a prominent Republican a couple years ago, and I think he said, we need to take the guns away first. Take them away early he said.What is that about? I am always going to hold folks accountable. Not just the left wing, but those in our party. At the end of the day, when we share those ideas of individual responsibility, the team gets bigger. That’s what I want. A bigger team. You want more members of the NRA? You want more members of the Republican party? You want more Independents on board? You want the next generation saying, you know what, those are the guys I want to be associated with. . .
We can yell and scream all we want, but we want winners for tomorrow. So we’ve got to be inspirational and we have to be big again. Bigger than ourselves. Now obviously, we talk about leadership, we talk about what happens, we talk about the issue of the day. Tragedies. Mass shootings. It’s real. It’s at an unprecedented level. And every time there’s a mass shooting, or a tragedy, what do they do, they blame you. (POINTS FINGER INTO CROWD). They blame politics and they make a political story out of it. As opposed to saying what is the crux of the issue. We know that. It is undiagnosed mental health. It is a lack of opportunity in schools. It is not supporting law enforcement. It’s not supporting SROS or the hardening of the school. All these things we do, we don’t sit back. Well. We passed a law. They gave me a red flag law and I gave them a red veto pen. That is what you have to do. I saw someone getting excited because they were going to sign constitutional carry in four years. I signed it in four weeks because that is what is right. . .
We passed a law in New Hampshire that says you’re the federal government, we are the states. We go first. Shove it. We are not doing it. We are not doing it. Look, my closing message is think big. Think big. Think positive. How do you grow or inspire? I get back to how do we grow the NRA. How do we get excited about the opportunity to create for tomorrow. Not the law, not the imposing regulation, not the penalty on businesses and all that kind of crap. How do we get excited about opportunities. I am from New Hampshire. We are very pro-business. We’ve got Sig. I’m sure our guys are here somewhere. There are a lot of people, a lot of folks out there. We’ve got Ruger. The Redhawk, if you can handle that, the super Redhawk, the 9 inch barrel. That is pretty impressive, by the way. We have a lot of manufacturers. We’re creating a lot of opportunities for them. I want this team bigger. I want to make sure we are fighting for the finish line in 2024 when it comes to a presidential race or the Senator races or what I think are the important things, the governor races, or we are down to the school board with the most impactful decisions being made for your family and community.. .
We have to influence. We have to use all of the tools as our needs because lemme tell ya, as bad as the Democrats are, they’re good at influencing. They’re good at messaging. Look what they’ve done with young people. Look what they’ve done with academia. That is real and happening. We can complain about that, we can complain about the left-wing media, or we can do something about it and talk to our families and co-workers. We can inspire folks in our community to get back on this team.. . .”
Christopher Sununu, tone-deaf Governor of New Hampshire!
While the majority of the speech is in this article, you can click on the link below for the entire speech.