John Brice
The LaFayette Sun
After an extended hiatus since their last meeting in April of 2022, the Chambers County chapter of BamaCarry has resumed their monthly meetings on the last Saturday of every month at El Rio Grande restaurant in Lanett. BamaCarry is a statewide organization focused on advocating for gun rights in Alabama with chapters in all 67 counties and the Chambers County chapters is one of the largest and longest running. Jimmy Allen, born and raised in LaFayette, is a resident of Lanett who leads the Chambers county chapter and recently made himself available for an exclusive interview with the LaFayette Sun.
Reflecting on the group’s origins which began over a decade ago, Allen stated "We used to do it as Chambers County Gun Club. That was because we found out that the group we were with previously, they were just trying to get a paycheck. What we were doing didn't have anything to do with money, we didn't care anything about making money. We just wanted to educate people on gun rights, on laws and even round up some people to run for office that would make a point to support gun rights." Every single one of the group’s meetings over the years has been held at the El Rio Grande restaurant, the reason for which Allen explained "They have great food and service. El Rio has always been very accommodating of us. William and Eddie, the owners of El Rio, they are always eager to help us get set up and support what we are doing."
Looking back at some highlights of meetings past, Allen noted "We used to have some really great meetings. There was actually one night where we had a hundred people there. We have had a lot of local politicians come speak. We had Scott Dawson's campaign manager show up, he was a candidate for governor. We have had various representatives, we get all of them to come that we can get. Let people ask them some tough questions." Clarifying one of the core missions of the group, Allen remarked "Gun laws are changing constantly. Right now we got permitless carry passed during the last legislative session, which went into effect January 1st. People need to know what is going on, they don't know whether they need a permit or not. We can explain to them why they do or do not need a permit." He went on to continue "We go over the laws with them, help them out with it, let them ask questions and maybe even get involved in some other ways. Especially if John Rice comes to a meeting, I always ask him if there is anything he would like to bring up to the group. He will let people know things about government overreach. It doesn't matter whether it is about gun laws, we try to keep everyone informed about what is going on and hopefully get people more active."
In addition to the meetings themselves, Allen described activities that have been associated with the group by stating "We will raffle away guns occasionally, the money that we raise from that, we will buy door prizes and let everybody know that we are doing an emergency preparedness class. John Rice always does those for us, we do those over at the Valley Sportsplex. They always let us have it for free since it is a public service. We don't charge anybody for that, it's just something that we do just to try to help, get people prepared. We will take money that we make from a gun raffle and buy door prizes that have something to do with emergency preparedness and try to let several people go home with cool prizes."
Attendees of the July meeting last month had the opportunity to view a presentation by Jimmy of a smartphone app called Poli-Tics which he is working on with his lifelong friend, who also happens to be named Jimmy and is a native of LaFayette. Describing his software startup, Allen commented "It is going to be an app that will allow constituents to have direct access for the people who hold political office in their area. It is address specific so if a constituent is talking to a representative, it will be his representative, his city councilman, his county commissioner, his senator and no one else. There is no chance of someone from another state influencing what your representatives are seeing or hearing from you, their constituent." Looking towards the future, Allen mentioned one of his hopes for this year’s agenda "We used to hold beginner's shooting classes, especially for women. I always thought it was very important to empower women to defend themselves. We started that for a while, I would like to get that started back up."
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