Paul LePage: ‘We Might As Well Go Home … And Get Our Guns Out’

FILE - In this Dec. 5, 2012 file photo, Gov. Paul LePage speaks at the swearing in ceremony for new representatives at the State House in Augusta, Maine. As LePage addressed the newly elected Legislature in early Dec... FILE - In this Dec. 5, 2012 file photo, Gov. Paul LePage speaks at the swearing in ceremony for new representatives at the State House in Augusta, Maine. As LePage addressed the newly elected Legislature in early December, his frustration with trackers, the video camera-toting operatives who follow politicians around, boiled over into a brief diatribe that set the session off to a sour start. (AP Photo/Joel Page, File) MORE LESS
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Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) sounded a dire note of caution Wednesday about the dangers of curtailing the First Amendment, warning ominously that any limits to free speech should serve as a call to arms.

LePage was still fuming over an incident at a state Appropriations Committee meeting on May 19, when his request to speak about the state budget was denied by a Democratic legislator.

“It’s freedom of speech. You folks should understand that better than I,” LePage told reporters, as quoted by the Portland Press Herald. “It is the First Amendment, then there is the Second and I love ‘em both.”

The outspoken governor added, “The minute we start stifling our speech, we might as well go home, roll up our sleeves and get our guns out.”

 

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