Good morning! I greet you as Secretary Of State of Colorado and I welcome you to Colorado, a state where some of us believe strongly in the entire Constitution of these Unites States, including the Second Amendment.

Isn't it ironic that many who would run you out of town would themselves be unable to even vote had we as a nation not honored all provisions of the Unites States Constitution?

To them I say -- shame on you!

I stand before you today as one who has worked closely with the family of Isaiah Shoels. Isaiah was the Columbine High School student who was killed in part because of the color of his skin.

I must agree with Isalah's father Michael who has stated that guns are not the issue. Hate is what pulls the trigger of violence.

We are witnesses to new age hate crimes which we must eliminate if we are to remain the greatest nation on earth.

What is a new age hate crime?

When our children leave for school without a value system which places a premium on human life -- we are accessories to a new age hate crime.

Parents, when you raise your children and send them to school without a value system which teaches the difference between right and wrong; then parents, we have committed a new age hate crime.

I say to those who run our schools, when you allow children to graduate who are technologically and functionally illiterate -- you have committed a new age hate crime because those children are destined to be economically tortured to death as though they had been chained and dragged behind a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas.

Those who would run the NRA out of town need to look at our own children who are engaging in irresponsible sex and having children they cannot take care of. Such irresponsible sex is a new age hate crime -- raise as much heck about that as you do the NRA and you will save more lives in 5 years than are taken with guns in a century.

If we allow the language of hate in our homes -- when terms such as "nigger" are freely used then we are laying the foundation for new age hate crimes. the language of hate must be challenged.

Just before a skinhead gunned down a black man on a downtown denver street last year he asked, "Are you ready to die, nigger?" Columbine eyewitness accounts reveal that just before Isaiah's killers fired they asked, "Where is that little nigger?" the language of hate must go.

Now I know that some of what I say here today can make some of us squirm a little bit. We are all guilty of harboring some prejudices and stereotypes. But it is when we are most uncomfortable about addressing an issue that we become so close to real problem solving.

People we can do better. I am not a hyphenated American. I am an American. That is why I know we can do better.

I find it difficult to discuss -- but I have been a victim of a gun-shot wound. I know first hand the pain and fear -- but that experience has not made me an opponent of the NRA or the Second Amendment.

That is why I stand before you today and ask you to join me and commit NRA resources to combat violence and hate. I am not talking a slick PR campaign, I am talking about a programmatic approach designed to combat violence and hate. I will be in touch to make this proposal a reality.

Together, we can work for a living memorial to those who perished at Columbine. But we must stand ever strong against those who would ignore sections of the U.S. Constitution which they do not like. We are a strong democracy because the guiding principles of our Constitution and all of its amendments including the Second must be adhered to in its entirety, not selectively.

Thank you and God bless America.