I think the most effective way to gather signatures will be to
use “network marketing.” Just start with collecting signatures
from friends and family that you know will sign. Each person that
signs your petition, ask them if they would be willing to take a
sheet and get signatures from other people they might know. If you
get 10 people to sign, and each of those people gets another 10
people, that’s 110 signatures! Carry with you extra sheets of
Signature Gathering Instructions that you can hand to people who
say yes. Also carry with you a copy of the initiative text so
people can read it. This copy is inside the petition document. Be
sure to direct them to the website as well!
If you want to do more to gather signatures, Post Offices are
traditionally the best places to stand. Another good place is
outside of supermarkets, however it would require permission from
that private property owner.
You will run across people who are on the fence about the concept.
Here are some excerpts that can help you persuade them:
No duty to protect. The oft-expressed motto of police "to
serve and protect" has come to be a misnomer. It has been
firmly established in the Nation's courts (e.g., Warren v. DC)
that police agencies and police personnel have no duty to protect
any individual - none, but only a duty to provide a general level
of protection (which has not been defined) to the community.
If a serial murderer is kicking in your door intending to murder
you, and you call 911 to ask for protection, police have no duty
whatsoever to even respond. If they do respond, they have no
duty to respond quickly. If they do respond quickly, they
have no duty to do anything effective to protect you once they do
arrive.
Sometimes nobody answers 911 calls; Portland, OR, 2006 [2]
Sometimes no officers respond; Everett, WA, 2006 [3]
This is underscored by an incident in Bozeman.
The Bozeman Police Department responded to a 911 call about a
knife-wielding assailant at a convenience store in Bozeman.
BPD personnel surrounded the convenience store with guns drawn,
and held in that surround for 45 minutes while the knife-toting
robber raped the female convenience store clerk.
This is not to say that individual officers don't want very much
to protect innocent people. Most officers in Montana
do. However, current law says that they are not obligated to
do so, and inadequate or interfering policies too often lead to
tragedies such as the one in Bozeman.”
Response times. A common saying among those who believe in
self-defense is, "When seconds count, police are only minutes
away." This principle is nowhere more accurate than in
Montana, so much of which is rural. We live in Montana for
the lifestyle, not for the big money. Because Montana is not
a wealthy place, we cannot afford to hire enough police officers
to insure that they are likely be nearby at the moment any
individual needs protection. Even if we could afford to hire
enough police officers that one would be likely to be nearby when
needed, we wouldn't do so. To do so would give us a police
state, the antithesis of liberty so cherished by Montanans.
We will never have short enough response times for police officers
in Montana to save victims of quickly-propagating crimes. It
is said, there will only be two people at the crime scene - the
criminal and the victim. This is why police are sometimes
called the "thin blue line," a very thin, indeed, in
Montana.
2006, U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics for Montana:
11.7% of police responses to crimes of violence were within one
day or longer
Only 26.6% of police responses were within five minutes
32% of police responses were between six and ten minutes
Almost 42% of police responses took over ten minutes
Large cities have an average response time of seven minutes for
high priority calls
Brittany Zimmerman slain after 911 call, police do not respond;
Madison, WI 2008
Response time to rural accidents in Montana is 1 hour 20 minutes
Response time to high priority calls in Madison County, MT, is 28
minutes
In early April of 2008, the International Law Enforcement
Educators' and Trainers' Association held its annual conference in
Wheeling, Illinois. Veteran firearms instructor and writer
John Farnam reports from that conference:
“Ed Sanow, active trainer and editor of Law and Order Magazine,
told us all that the four-man, 'diamond' formation that is
currently being promulgated as the local PD's standard response to
'active-shooter' calls is indeed an effective and powerful,
tactical tool. It is also mostly wishful thinking!
"By the time we get four, plain-vanilla patrolmen, let alone four
SWAT-Team members, to the scene and ready to make entry, nearly a
half hour will have elapsed since the first 911 call. By
then, there is every chance the entire event will be long-since
over! Ed suggests we need to be training with two-man teams,
even one-man entry, if we expect to act in time to save any
lives. Even then, he tells his school administrators that
they will be on their own for at least the first six
minutes. There is virtually no possibility even the first
beat-car will get there any sooner than that."
This report confirms that even though the first law enforcement
officer may arrive on the scene of an active shooting incident
within (no earlier than) six minutes, that officer will probably
not effect entry and interdiction, but will rely on protocol to
wait until a four-man "diamond" entry team can be assembled, 30
minutes after the first 911 call.