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    Knives, Lipstick, and Liberty One Woman's Journey
    Knives, Lipstick, and Liberty One Woman's Journey
    Knives, Lipstick, and Liberty One Woman's Journey
    Ebook221 pages2 hours

    Knives, Lipstick, and Liberty One Woman's Journey

    By Jenn Coffey

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    Knives, Lipstick and Liberty - One Woman's Journey is Jenn's story, in her own words, on how in five short years she went from not being involved in politics at all to being recognized around the country for her knife advocacy, and her success in changing laws in her own state.

    “Not only is Jenn Coffey an inspiration for her many New Hampshire constituents, but she has won over scores of knife enthusiasts worldwide for her efforts in championing the idea that their right to own and carry their knives when they want to and where they want to is their inalienable right. In my business, it doesn’t get much better than that.” - Steve Shackleford, Editor, Blade Magazine

    The Coffey Chronicles by Annmarie Timmins Concord Monitor staff

    Watch state Rep. Jenn Coffey on the floor of the House and you’d think she was swaddled from infancy in the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.

    An Andover Republican, Coffey is pro-gun, anti-regulation and well-versed in the Constitution. She could be the poster girl for the Free State Project, the Republican Liberty Caucus and the Second Amendment Sisters.

    It was Coffey, after all, who sponsored a bill last year requiring the state to post warning signs at the Massachusetts border so gun owners wouldn’t be caught unaware in the anti-gun Bay State.

    Turns out, that’s the new Jenn Coffey.

    Seven years ago, Coffey was a Massachusetts resident (true!) who viewed her husband’s political rants about government intrusion as “background noise,” according to an autobiography she’s written. The title is fantastic: Knives, Lipstick and Liberty.

    “There were times when (my husband) Billy would point out certain things about the direction our country was headed in, and I would nod my head in a ‘Yes, Dear’ fashion and then forget about it,” Coffey writes. “Sometimes I would tell him he was nuts and getting into conspiracy junk.”

    The couple argued over radio stations: he wanted to listen to “political crap” and she wanted to hear music.

    That all changed one day in 2004 when Coffey went to work and had to scan her fingerprints to clock in. Then she started hearing about the Patriot Act.

    By that summer, Coffey was on board with her husband and decided to leave Massachusetts. They looked at two states Florida (her pick) and New Hampshire (his). Turns out, Billy Coffey had already been chatting online with New Hampshire Free Staters and had even voted with them in 2003 to make New Hampshire their headquarters Among other things, Coffey’s book shows why the Free State Project is so appealing to newcomers: When the family arrived in New Hampshire, Coffey quietly ill with a medical condition, they were greeted by a huge group of strangers ready to move them in. They’d all connected with the Coffeys through the Free State Project.

    In no time, Coffey was running for state representative, leading the Second Amendment Sisters gun advocacy group, introducing legislation for Pro-Gun New Hampshire and becoming a Republic Liberty Alliance star.

    Coffey has a nice writing voice, and Knives, Lipstick and Liberty is a quick read complete with appearances from Free Staters, Ron Paul and gun rights activists.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJenn Coffey
    Release dateJul 19, 2013
    ISBN9781301691142
    Knives, Lipstick, and Liberty One Woman's Journey
    Author

    Jenn Coffey

    Writer, Activist & Mother with a hint of Rebel Award winning Author and speaker. Sample Client List Blade Magazine American Knife and Tool Institute (AKTI) NH Liberty Forum Second Amendment Sister, Inc. WGIR 610 and 96.7 Free State Project Experience That Matters: National Director of Legislative Affairs, Second Amendment Sisters Captain, Andover EMS Senior Adviser Pro-Gun New Hampshire Vice-President of the Fort Constitution Arms Collectors Vice-President of the Andover Constitutional Freedom Alliance Highlights of service in the New Hampshire house of Representative: Served as Vice-Chair of the Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee Served as Chair of the Automatic External Defibulator NH State Commission Served as Vice-Chair of the Special Committee to investigate the NH Liquor Commission Served on the Speaker of the House's Transition Team Served as a member of the Transportation Committee and Republican Committee Whip Awards Concord Emergency Medical Associates - CEMA Star (2011) Blade Magazine Publisher's Award (2011) 40 Under Forty Class of 2011 - sponsored by the New Hampshire Union Leader, Business and Industry Association and Citizens Bank Inaugural Freedom's Edge Award - Knife Rights, Inc. (2010) With a Rick Hinderer special Gerber Rescue in EMS Blue Defending Liberty Plaque - New Hampshire Motorcycle Rights Organization (2010) New Hampshire Wildlife Federation - Friend of the Federation (2008-2010)

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      Book preview

      Knives, Lipstick, and Liberty One Woman's Journey - Jenn Coffey

      Knives, Lipstick, and Liberty

      One Woman’s Journey

      By Jenn Coffey

      Published by Jenn Coffey at Smashwords

      KNIVES, LIPSTICK, AND LIBERTY

      ONE WOMAN’S JOURNEY

      Copyright © 2011 Jennifer Coffey

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission of the publisher. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      First published in the United States under the title

      KNIVES, LIPSTICK, AND LIBERTY — ONE WOMAN’s JOURNEY

      by The Honorable Jennifer Coffey,

      New Hampshire State Representative

      This book is also available in print and can be purchased at http://www.kniveslipstickandliberty.com/

      ISBN 0-983-52190-5

      Acknowledgements:

      Cover photo by Senator Bob Clegg

      Back cover photo by Billy Coffey

      eBook edit by Ruby Nicole Hilliard

      Other photos in the book taken by friends and family at various public events.

      This is my story of how my life changed so dramatically in just five short years. It is my hope that by sharing this story, others will join me in the fight for Liberty.

      ***

      Dedication

      To my soul mate and love of my life, my husband Billy. May our amazing journey continue to be full of blessings, joy, and laughter.

      To my son, Jesse, my pride and joy; nothing gives me more happiness than to listen to you sing and play your guitar while watching you also work for the cause of liberty.

      To Evan and Bev Nappen, my friends without whom this book would not have been possible.

      Special thanks to Sam Cohen, for always being willing to edit my writings and make sure I have dotted my I’s and crossed my T’s.

      In memory and honor of a true American hero, who taught me the difference between being an activist and a Bill of Rightist.

      Aaron Zelman

      March 4, 1946 - December 21, 2010

      Preface

      So here I sit, five years after moving to New Hampshire with a simple plan to live in a state where liberty still exists and to raise my son in a better environment. It seemed like a simple plan at the time, a good move to make. So how did I end up a New Hampshire state representative, the national director of legislative affairs for the Second Amendment Sisters, and heavily involved with so many organizations? Good question, and one that not one person who knew me before the move would ever have seen coming, and yes, that includes me.

      Letter:

      I heard Jenn Coffey speak at the 2008 Boston Tea Party Faneuil Hall, an event sponsored by The Committees of Safety. She was the best speaker in a long line of outstanding speakers. Her presentation was inspiring and motivating. Here was a young wife and mother indifferent to the issues of the day, but thanks to an incident that terrified her, mentioned in these pages, she decided that she would not be a victim and pledged to take a stand for liberty. She has been doing that with great effectiveness ever since. In just a few years, Jenn has become a highly effective freedom activist or as she puts it aBill of Rightists. She relates how she took a key role in getting New Hampshire to say no to the Real ID Act, and since she has been serving in the New Hampshire legislature, Jenn has worked to repeal knife legislation, and promote legislation in line with both the New Hampshire and U.S. Constitution.

      We hope that this book will inspire and motivate readers to either become a Bill of Rightist or a more effective Bill of Rightist. Camp Constitution’s motto is Honoring the Past. Teaching the Present…Preparing the Future. We believe that publishing this fine book does just that. This is Camp Constitution’s first, in what we hope will be a long line of books promoting liberty and freedom. We are honored to know this great lady and proud to call her a friend.

      Hal Shurtleff

      Director Camp Constitution

      Boston, MA

      Chapter 1

      Sometime back in 2000 my husband, Billy, became very interested in government — the good, the bad, and well, you know. Almost every day he would have some kind of talk show on or be on an online forum discussing politics. I had no interest in politics and really didn’t want to hear anything about it. Heck, most of that stuff is just garbage, right? It doesn’t affect me; it’s just background noise in the office we shared. Well, at least that’s what I thought at the time.

      Life was good, we had a great little boy and a decent apartment, my work was at a hospital a whole seven minute drive from the house, and my best friend lived within a mile of me. I enjoyed going over to her house or having her over to mine for coffee, and on occasion going out to see a show. Outside of that, I had little interest in outside activities, let alone politics, protests, or organizations. Boy, did I never see my life changing into the direction it now has. But now I’m getting ahead of myself.

      There were times when Billy would point out certain things about the direction our country was heading in, and I would nod my head in a Yes, Dear fashion and then forget about it. Sometimes I would tell him he was nuts and getting into conspiracy junk. Boy, you know sometimes I wish I’d been right about all that. But I was wrong, dead wrong, and blind.

      He’d say, You wait, they’re going to pass laws to take away our rights, you’re going to have to scan your fingerprints to get paid, and you’re going to watch your liberty die. Nope, didn’t believe one word of what he was saying. In fact, we would sometimes have arguments about his political crap playing on the radio when I wanted to listen to music. Yup, you guessed it, I had no clue. This went on for a long time. But then one day in 2004, I went to work and there were all the new time clocks, and guess what I had to do in order to clock in? Yes, scan my fingerprints. Now, I didn’t work in a government building or any place with high security. I worked in a nonprofit public hospital. Boy, did I have my tail between my legs when I came home and told him what had changed at work. After that I started to notice things, things like the so-called Patriot Act. Talk about hypocrisy, to call legislation so unpatriotic and un-American the Patriot Act. Basically, it struck out at least four different constitutional rights. But don’t take my word for it, look it up.

      Now that I had become more aware, I started to see the reality of the world. Mindless TV shows were just not that interesting anymore. I actually started watching the news. I started to pay attention for real to the news programs Billy watched. I paid attention to what he was saying and really started to learn what it seemed I had been blind to. That our country was – is – heading down a road toward socialism, and I could not, would not, just sit back and watch it happen.

      Right around the summer of 2004 I had had enough of living in Massachusetts; the final nail in the coffin had to be the drive-by shooting a block away from our house. By the winter of 2004 I was really ready to move. The catch was that I wanted to move to Florida. Heck, if you’re going to pick up and start over, why not do it somewhere warm and never have to shovel snow again, right?

      Well, not so fast. We actually looked at every state. Some were easy to cross out, with places like New York, California, and Kentucky all off the list quickly for various reasons. We looked at school systems, the job market, crime rate, and firearms laws, to name a few factors. After a while we were down to two states, Florida and New Hampshire. Guess which one I wanted to pick.

      Billy decided it would be good if we took a drive to New Hampshire and met some of the folks he had been talking to online. Sure, why not, seemed like a good idea, and besides, I had not been to New Hampshire in a long time. As a child I would spend many summers there, and I always thought it was pretty, in the summer that is. Here we were, in the dead of winter. It’s cold, there’s a ton of snow, and why in the world were we even considering moving to a state that has a longer winter than the one we already live in? This was nuts. But, hey, I was curious, and why not go to a meeting? What could the big deal be, anyway?

      It was time to meet the Free State Project. Billy had spoken of them back in 2003, in one of the conversations I had half listened to and half ignored. Back in my clueless days, he had participated in a vote that chose New Hampshire as the most constitutional state and one that was worth working to preserve and protect. I didn’t get that at the time; the only part I got was more snow. Don’t you think palm trees are better?

      We walked into this room and there had to be about forty or so people there. They all shared common beliefs, and it was odd, almost shocking, to listen to people saying all the same things Billy had been saying for years. These were not crazy people; they were engineers, scientists, contractors, people from all walks of life — intelligent, honest, and genuine people. There was this one gentleman, I’ll call him Huggy Bear, who was so nice and caring it seemed unreal. I don’t know what I was expecting — I guess maybe I was expecting to find something that would let me simply dismiss this whole Free State thing as just a passing interest for Billy. Another one of those moments where if you had told me then how involved I would be, I would have told

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