CCW Safe Podcast – Episode 108: Social Media

Hosts Rob High and Phillip Naman are joined by CCW Safe Critical Response Coordinator Gary Eastridge to discuss the impact social media posts can have on the investigation and possible trial after a self-defense incident.

 

 

Video version of the podcast:

Rob High: Hey, welcome back to the CCW Safe Podcast. I’m Rob High here in Oklahoma City. Joined again today by my co-host Phil Naman. Where are you at today, Phil?

Phil Naman: I’m in California today.

Rob: Good, good, back home.

Phil: I just got back from Wyoming.

Rob: I’m going to ask you about that here in just a second. Also got our critical response team manager Gary Eastridge joining us again. The topic of this podcast will actually be helping Gary and I in the event that you’re involved in an incident. Real quickly though, Phil, where were you hanging this last week? What were you doing? I’ve got a little insight to that, but why don’t you share that with us.

Phil: I have an old acquaintance, friend, who owns this giant ranch up in Laramie. In the fall I’ll guide for him. I’m not a real guide but I go to help out up there. I help guys get their animals and all that stuff. One of my friends was lucky enough to draw a tag and he shot the biggest bull I’ve seen. It is so huge and thick. It looked like a Tejon Ranch bull going up the hill. Very blessed to be able to go out there and enjoy Wyoming. I got a cow elk, and he got the giant bull elk. We tagged out in two days and it was a great time. Let me know if you want to go. Big elk.

Rob: The answer is yes, and then the second part of that is Gary and I will be anxiously awaiting an arrival of some meat. So it doesn’t go to waste, we’ll make sure that everybody in the office gets to eat. How about that?

Phil: I’ll send over some jerky when I get that made because I think we were trading pound-for-pound for your Wagyu, if I remember correctly.

Rob: [laughs] We can work something out. We’ve talked on several different points for your post involvement if you’re involved in a critical incident. If you have to defend yourself and use ultimate force, lethal force, whether it results in death or not, some of the things to do to handle that. Gary and I, we get stuff all the time. I know when we were talking about what to say, what to do immediately after an incident.

One of those was to be brief with 911, give them necessary vital information, but that’s all. Just cut it off because they’re trained to keep you on the line. One of the reasons for that is there is no privileged communication there. That’s absolutely one of the first things I was going to pull up as an investigator, is to see if the story to 911 differed from the story that I got at the scene.

Phil: How often did that happen?

Rob: Not all the time, but more frequently than you might imagine. There would always be some differences in there, which is understandable. If you’re talking about somebody involved in a traumatic event, we talked about trauma memories and things like that, things do get a little skewed. It’s one of the reasons why we fought to have law enforcement officers get two sleep cycles before they have to make a formal statement.

There are some informations out there that we need to get to investigators that will be to your benefit, especially if there’s witnesses or evidence or things like that, that we want to make sure don’t get overlooked, they get picked up or documented or processed or interviewed or whatever the case may be. There are things that we can do ahead of time, part of that is understanding the data mining that’s going to occur if you are involved in an incident.

Phil: You say the term data mining.

Rob: Absolutely.

Phil: What does that mean and how far back can it be mined?

Gary Eastridge: I was going to say I routinely find information that is 10 to 15 years old on the interwebs. If you put it in writing on the internet, no one can tell you how long it’s going to be there. That is the core issue that Rob and I wanted to discuss today. We do FOP national defense work as a sideline with the local, one of the co-owners of CCW Safe Kyle Sweet of Sweet Law. Now I think it’s Sweet Dewberry and Hubbard. We brief officers prior to them going in for their interview. One of the things we tell them is shut down your social media. Don’t get on it. Don’t get baited into an argument on a news channel’s comment section because those will come back to haunt you.

I know of two officers that ended up having to explain comments they posted on a newspaper’s commentary, their comments section under an article.

Phil: Come on, guys, use an alias.

Gary: The problem is with social media, a lot of guys do that. We see it. One of my side jobs that I do here with CCW Safe is monitor our social media accounts. We get the people that just want to stir up an argument or something like that, or troll for a competitor. The thing that really concerns me are, let me put this tactfully, the less than smart comments that people make, mostly in jest, but five years from now when they’re involved in a self-defense incident and somebody comes up with one of these comments, you’ve just built in another hurdle for your attorney to deal with.

Phil: You’re absolutely right. I’m just teasing about the alias part because there is no anonymity on the internet. Everything is tracked down to your– Anyway, there is no anonymity. It’s the same thing with texting, right?

Gary: Yes.

Phil: A text doesn’t have a tone, so I could text something to you and your frame of mind is the tone you’re going to read into it. I see more disgruntlements between family members or something because they sent an innocent text but it was read on the other side with that person’s mindset and now it’s a whole different issue.

Gary: Even if you delete that, it is discoverable with subpoena.

Phil: Unless you’re running for president as a female in 2016.

Gary: Well, things can happen. I had a good friend going through a very bitter divorce. My advice was do not put anything on social media or in a text or in an email. I’m a fan of doing emails and texts for documentation purposes, but don’t put anything in there you wouldn’t want to read to that judge because there’s a good chance you’re going to get to read that to the judge. If you don’t, the other side’s attorney is going to read it to the judge. Hopefully, you’ll be able to explain it, but you may not even be allowed to do that.

Phil: The social medias, everybody’s got Facebook, right? There are some of those, I think Snapchat or whatever, they were supposed to have some messages that disappear or cryptic or WhatsApp or all these other things but they’re not. Let’s talk about that. Everything you put in there, even though you think it’s a top-secret message going from Captain A to Captain B, it isn’t.

Rob: Yes. That was something that I dealt with a lot as an investigator, especially when I was working in sex crimes. People thought Snapchat was something that I send it to you, it was there for just a brief time and then it just evaporated.

Phil: Until it shows up again in front of the judge.

Gary: Yes.

Rob: Yes. Somebody that knows the ins and outs and knows how to write up a subpoena and a search warrant, all of a sudden I’ve got that stuff that you thought no longer existed. It’s just stuff that I don’t ever want to leave that open door for attack. We talk all the time about checking your ego at the door if you’re going to carry a firearm, that carries over even into the social networking stuff. If we looked at the response from the State of New York to the Bruen decision, that’s one of the first things that they’re asking for now, is they want to be able to have the ability to go through your social media and make sure that you’re not some type of threat to them.

We’ve said it before, the Second Amendment protects the First. These are things that people are really pressing the issue and seeing just how far they can take things. The worst thing we can do is be an advocate for them and give them the ammunition they need to shoot us down. That’s just crazy.

Phil: One of the things is, especially on some of the politically charged stuff, it’s how things are said, right? You put the vulgar to this, the vulgar to that, obviously, it reduces everybody’s IQ level, but you can get your point across in a way that you could explain to a judge later if you’re a little bit more articulate than just F this, F that, F-ing this, F-ing that, two of those and two of these. [crosstalk]

Gary: Go ahead. I’m sorry to interrupt you.

Phil: No. Go ahead, Gary.

Gary: I was just going to say what you’re hitting on is exactly the issue with a lot of the– I break these down into two categories. One is the bad advice, the bad suggestions on how to do things, the bad advice on weapons.

Phil: The keyboard commando.

Gary: I’ll go into a couple of examples. The second is what you’re doing is you’re going in front of a jury and you’re going to try to paint a picture of yourself as a law-abiding tax-paying citizen that has compassion for your fellow human beings but only had to do what you had to do, yet the other side is going to take your offhand. Half of the people I call out on these remarks, “Well, it was just a joke.”

Well, you are now painting a picture of yourself as someone who doesn’t value human life. When you talk about burying somebody in the backyard, or they’re only being one side, make sure the other person can’t tell a story, first of all, you’re saying I will commit a crime even when– I’m the one who’s justified, but I was willing to commit a crime to cover up my non-crime. You have now painted a picture of yourself, potentially to the 12 people sitting on that jury who are going to decide the rest of your life, that you’re callous towards human life. Hey, any doubt, I’ll bury them in the backyard. What message have you conveyed?

Phil: I’ve seen a lot of those things. The other issue you have is you’re going to get lumped in with other people. Let’s just say that you are not really that guy. You made an offhand comment on Facebook 19 years ago or whatever, 12 years ago, and it comes back up. Now, you may not be that guy. Obviously, you’re not, if you’re dealing with this company, but somebody on that jury knows a guy like that’s at their work, that runs their mouth, and now you’ve just gotten painted with his paintbrush and it’s not where you want to be. You want to distance yourself from that.

It’s a very important thing that you have discipline. We run the Firing Line Radio Show. We have a Facebook page and Instagram. Sometimes I’ll make political comments about the lack of, I would say, ideal leadership in certain areas, but I never– I let guys do free comments. I’ve very rarely had to take comments down. When I have, it’s somebody that I just block from the page. We just don’t want any idiocy like that. Most of the guys are pretty– I would say 98% of them are okay. Some guys are maybe a little bit more animated on certain issues than others, and there are better ways to express things, we just let the post go unless they’re way over the top.

Gary: My personal, when I’m monitoring our social media, our Facebook comments, Instagram comments, as long as they’re not advocating committing a crime, if you’re advocating committing a crime, I’m going to tell you we don’t condone criminal activity and I’m going to delete the post. If you do it repeatedly, I will probably end up banning you from the page.

Phil: Which you have to. It’s just like if you’re in a social setting, you’re just going to remove yourself from the situation, right?

Gary: Yes. We as a company cannot allow people to talk about criminal acts and condone it by leaving that online. That flies in the face of everything that we’re trying to do. We’re trying to educate the concealed carrier that you have the right to defend yourself. That’s what the Second Amendment is for. Exercise it, but know your limitations. Don’t let it empower you to get on and just vent about all the things you’ll do when in reality you’re probably not going to, but you now gave a prosecutor, a plaintiff attorney, ammunition, for the lack of a better term, to attack you.

Rob: It’s one of those things that I’m really proud to be a part of this organization for the simple fact that it has never been about the dollar. It’s never been about the sale. It’s never been about keeping a member at all costs. Gary and I have both seen our ownership group come in and go, write that guy a full refund, we’re done. We’re not going to cover this kind of action. It’s just crazy. There’s people out there that think that’s all you’ve done, you’ve given them insurance to go out and be idiots. It’s not what it is.

Phil: That’s what the press portrays it as, too. They really try and slam the whole industry, which is incorrect. If somebody is a member, do you ever review their things when they sign up?

Gary: Yes.

Phil: How’s that work?

Gary: Usually, only after we’ve had some indicator of a problem. Generally, if a member joins, we’re sitting with tens of thousands of members, we don’t routinely go in and do a background search, but if somebody makes a comment on Facebook that is questionable, or if they submit– I handle most of the what-if questions, and we get a lot of what-if questions. If some of those questions are so far out of the norm, we may then take a deeper look at this person as a member.

As Mike Darter has said, we don’t want everybody as a member. There are people we do not want to join CCW Safe. We’re proud of our members. I can tell you from being with the company almost six years now– Rob and I get notified of every emergency call that comes in, period. When I started, it was a handful a month. Now, on days, we’ve had as many as three to five calls back to back. Back to my point, with all these emergency calls that we get, 99% of them, the member did exactly what we would have done in the situation.

That’s why for me, it’s counterproductive to allow people to just write whatever they want to on your Facebook page. People don’t understand that that jury that’s determining the legality of your action has got a very short window to get to know Phil Naman. I may have known Phil for 30 years and I have a good picture, that jury is going to have snapshots to judge you by. One of which may well be your social media conduct.

Phil: Well, it will be it.

Gary: It will be.

Phil: When has there been a case where it hasn’t come up? It’s going to be part of the package.

Gary: I can tell you when I started investigations 32 years ago the internet was something that I was familiar with but didn’t do much on.

Phil: It was just a sparkle in Al Gore’s eye.

Gary: There you go. You just had that concept, but 32 years later, it’s one of the first thing investigators do. When I was with the District Attorney’s office, if I had a high profile case come in, the first thing I did was look at your social media. Then I would screen grab it and use that, whatever was available there, as grounds to get a warrant or a subpoena for everything you’ve done. Then we’ll send out preservation letters to Facebook, Instagram, all of them, and say, “Give us everything you have.”

Phil: There’s been several high-profile cases that the FBI has raided in the last couple of months. Number one thing they’re grabbing too is their cell phone. They’re taking somebody’s cell phone. Boom, and look at what information you have in there. Your gallery, your pictures-

Gary: It’s a computer. You’ve got your whole life in there.

Phil: -private messages, notes. Yes. If they see a lot of hunting pictures in mine they’d probably be pretty bored.

Gary: Yes. You’re absolutely right. That also when you hear the people arguing about the Second Amendment only applies to flintlocks and that sort of thing, the First Amendment is now being applied to a computer. It develops as society develops. Rob can tell you, getting those phones is one of the first things we do. There’s a device called a Cellebrite. You plug it in, I’ve got every email, every text, every picture, every website you’ve ever visited. All that is used to paint a picture of you.

Rob: Things that you think have been deleted and trashed and that you’ve got rid of, you did not. If I have that physical structure there, I have that ability to get a lot of that stuff out of there. People, they don’t understand that once you put it out there, it’s there.

Gary: You own it.

Phil: Even different web like Brave, some of these things are supposed to be privacy browsers, they’re not. They might not sell your information, but it is recorded. Everything is recorded. Anything electronic is recorded. You just have to realize that. This little audio clip is going to live forever. I’ll be dead, buried and pushing up begonias and this thing will still be available, right?

Gary: Yes.

Phil: Lucky all of you listeners.

Gary: Absolutely. If you’ve got just a minute, I’d like to go over a few of these that– I just, yesterday afternoon, sat down and went through our social media and pulled some comments off of it. The first one, I understand what they’re saying. He says, “I never leave the house unless I have one or two on me, and my conceal and carry permit is the Second Amendment.”

Phil: Second Amendment.

Gary: People don’t understand. I believe the Second Amendment is what it says it is, but the Supreme Court who have the ultimate authority on determining what constitutional law is have said, these are their words, don’t get mad at me, that reasonable restrictions are not unconstitutional, including having a permit. If you tell somebody that doesn’t know any better, “Well, the Second Amendment allows you to carry anywhere,” and they end up in New York City, guess what? They’re going to go to jail. They’re going to lose their gun. They’re probably going to lose any hope of ever having carry rights again.

We see that one over and over and over. The Second Amendment, we love, we support, but there are limitations with that Second Amendment, and they are defined by the Supreme Court.

Phil: Under current law.

Gary: Even that Bruen decision. The Bruen decision that everybody has misread says you can’t put unreasonable restrictions on getting a permit. That’s what New York was determined to have been doing. Another one. “Take the warning labels off everything and let natural selection work it out.” What have you just told everybody? Human life doesn’t matter to you. Here’s one that–

Phil: I think he was trying to say stupid human life doesn’t matter to him.

Gary: While I understand what they’re trying to say–

Phil: It’s not what you should be saying. I get it.

Gary: Not what you should be saying.

Phil: No.

Gary: “Shotguns spread out. I don’t have to be a great shot to hit my target.”

Phil: Wow. He’s obviously never shot [crosstalk].

Gary: Yes. If you hit your target, as you just said, it spreads out. What about all those other people if your target happens to be 15, 20, 30 yards away?

Phil: This is all one day?

Gary: No. All of these comments were left within the last two to three weeks. It’s rare that I go a day without getting some comment like this. “Carry wasp and hornet spray, better than pepper spray, so they say. You can always use it for a club.”

Phil: So wasp and pepper spray. I had a background as an exterminator, one of the things you learn is if you’re using poison in an instance and the person dies, it’s first degree. No. Wasp and hornet spray is some of the most horrible stuff out there. Wow. That’s a really bad choice.

Gary: The second one that follows that same line, “Oven cleaner works too.” This was a response to that comment. “Oven cleaner works too. If it gets in their eyes, they are screwed. The lye will blind them.” How would you like to be a civil plaintiff’s attorney with that line when you were suing somebody that sprayed oven cleaner in someone else’s eye? Now, if my girlfriend is home and she’s cleaning the oven and she’s attacked, hey, you do what you have to do, but to recommend that as something to carry, first of all, how are you going to explain that you had a can of oven cleaner on you? [crosstalk]

Phil: I read a Facebook post that suggested it. That’s why I did it.

Gary: Exactly.

Phil: Let’s talk about that. Person A makes this comment about oven cleaner, Person B carries it, uses it, and then says, “Well, Person A told me to,” is there liability on Person A?

Gary: I believe there is. We’d have to get a civil attorney on here, but there’s a good chance you’re going to be named in that lawsuit as well. That’s the bad side of this type of comment, is somebody who has not done their own research, sees it on our page and thinks, “Well, I read that. I’m going to go try that.” [crosstalk] That’s why we can’t allow comments like that to stay, because it’s bad advice.

It can affect you, but you’re sending that message to people that are on our website looking for guidance. We have a lot of good discussions. It’s why we do these podcasts. It’s not just members that watch these podcasts. There’s people out there wanting to learn, so they’re finding it from every available source.

Rob: It’s one of those things, Gary and I have both seen this over time, when you get people that have that emotional buy-in, emotional reaction, and they just start spewing garbage out that, “Oh my God, I’d have shot him.” I’d have done this, I’d have done that. I’ve always seen those people as individuals who are still unsure and they’re trying to convince themselves that they could take these actions if necessary as being somebody who has been in situations, countless situations, that I could have justifiably shot up a human being but had the other tools and resources available to avoid it.

I can’t tell you how thankful I am for that, to have been able to do a workaround and not have to take a life. That’s something that doesn’t ever go away. That’s something you carry forever, whether you want to or not. Depending on where you’re at in your maturity and how you’ve prepared yourself to deal with things like that, that can be something that, “Yes, I have a recollection of this. I’m always going to have a recollection of this,” to “This can ruin your life. It can ruin your career. It can ruin your family.” I promise, Gary and I have both seen every single one of those things.

Gary: Yes. Absolutely.

Rob: That’s the last ditch thing that I ever want to do, so to just have that quick emotional reaction to something and jump on a keyboard and make some flippant comment, even though it may not be what’s really in my heart. At the time, I’m just bleeding my emotions on a keyboard. It’s one of those [crosstalk].

Gary: For the whole world to see.

Rob: Yes. You don’t get to erase it. It’s the same as pointing that gun and squeezing that trigger. As soon as the primer is impacted in that thing and those gases burn and your projectile goes down your barrel, there’s nothing else I can do to call that back. It’s already in motion. It’s going to go. We’ve done the same thing when we start typing on that keyboard doing silly things.

Gary: Let’s say even if that round doesn’t impact a person, I believe it’s Darryl Bolke that says every round hits something.

Rob: Yes.

Gary: There is no round that doesn’t hit something.

Phil: We always say you own it until it stops moving. It’s got your name on it.

Gary: Absolutely. Even if you have missed and the DA is reviewing your case to go, “Hey, this is a concealed carrier, maybe they made a little mistake in judgment. Oh, wait a minute, they just posted shoot until they’re dead. Dead men tell no tales.” I see that one repeatedly, “Dead men tell no tales.” “Drag them inside after you’re finished shooting them.” If you’ve shown a callous disregard for human life, that DA may look at it and go, “You know what, I think we need to file this,” maybe even a misdemeanor charge, “based on what I see here.”

Phil: Something that you’ve brought on yourself.

Gary: Yes. Absolutely.

Rob: Again, it’s one of those, having done this and worked in law enforcement and been an investigator, we always get people that reach out and go, “What do you think about this case? Did you see this on the news? Did you read this?”

Phil: I’ve sent you some things I’ve seen videos, “Hey, Rob, what’s your take on this?”

Rob: There’s so little that we can really truly comment on because you don’t know the full depth of everything that went on. You had the one that you’re talking about, Phil, that you had recently sent where the kid is jumped and the guy just knocks the crap out of him. He gets up and he walks out and he goes, exits the door, turns and pulls his weapon. The threat is done. He’s not being threatened anymore. He’s been assaulted. He’s been battered. It happened. It’s there on camera. Then he executes the guy and shoots him dead where he sits.

Phil: He does that, and then in the comments section, “Yes, great shooting. I’d have done the same thing.” Those are the pile-ons that happen all the time. That’s what we’re talking about, is, guys.

Gary: I’ve touched on this before with Don and Shawn in different podcasts. That window of justification can be very brief. I describe it as a window. That window opens, you’re justified. Then it close, you’re not justified. That can do that or it can stay open for a while. Most concealed carriers that get in trouble either react too hasty or they react to what was done not what’s being done. Once it is past tense, once a threat is past tense, it’s no longer a threat and your window of justification is closed.

That’s what our famous case here in Oklahoma City of the pharmacist that shot the armed robbers. Absolutely criminals. His window closed, but his actions didn’t stop. That’s why he is in prison to this day.

Phil: I remember seeing that. Just as a question, in the situation we just talked about where the guy is jumped from behind by a very, very large man, slammed around, he goes out, he gets his pistol, does he have a right to hold that person till the police come?

Gary: It depends on the jurisdiction. You’d have to know that state’s jurisdiction and laws. There are civilian arrests. Generally, you don’t have the authority to use deadly force against a physical assault, especially once you’ve disengaged. The only way you can really make an argument for lethal force with a physical assault is if you feel that your life is in danger. You’re in immediate, imminent threat of great bodily injury or death. If you’ve got time to walk out and get your gun, you’re not in imminent threat of great bodily injury or death.

Phil: That’s why I’m bringing this up. Here this guy gets just demolished right from behind by a criminal and pulls his firearm. Now, he fires. Even if he didn’t fire but he tried to hold him, he could still have criminal proceedings against him in some jurisdictions, right?

Gary: Correct. For pointing a firearm, kidnapping. If there’s not a citizen’s arrest statute, you could be charged with kidnapping. There’s many ways you can go wrong, but let’s say you have that same incident and now that investigator who’s gone, “Well, he got really beat bad, we can understand. Maybe he shouldn’t have, but this guy is really bad. He’s been going around attacking people. Oh, wait, on Facebook, I read that if you blow someone away, even for a righteous reason, you’re going to jail, so make sure there’s no body found.” Those little things, those little comments can be the deciding factor on whether or not you face charges.

One of my least favorite comments is the most common, “It’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.” Yes. Absolutely, it is. What message have you just conveyed? What message have you conveyed if you’re involved in that exact incident where you’ve gone and got your gun and discharged? You’ve said, I’m going to take a chance, regardless.

Rob: You’ve predetermined the path that you’re going to go. That’s what it looks like. Another thing I want to want to add on to here is none of these comments– They’re on our pages. We’re not mining anybody else’s personal stuff there. There are some things that you go into some of these guys’ personal stuff and it gets way more outrageous, egregious, violent, however, you want to look at it. None of this stuff is protected speech. It’s not things that we can hold back from anybody. It’s not anything we would hold back from anybody. I think it’s important that people understand that as well.

Phil: Right. Because if you did, then you’re accomplice after the fact sometimes. You just don’t want to be involved in that. It is amazing. Here we’re talking about legal action. There’s an incident, everything’s going to be reviewed. Guess what, guys, if you’re just trying to get a job, everything is reviewed. If you’ve got these things on your Facebook page, “Oh, bah, bah, bah, I will do this,” is somebody going to want to put you in their workforce, in their office, if they’re viewing you as slightly unhinged? Just a little bit of control goes a long way.

Gary: I’ve got to the point anymore on social media, when I get a friend request, because of my job and because of doing things such as podcasts, I get a lot of friend requests on Facebook, first thing I do now is go look at their page to see is this somebody I really want to be friends with. You and I might be politically and have everything else in alignment, but if that’s all you talk about, is politics and other sensitive topics, I don’t want that in my life. I don’t accept those requests from those type of people.

Phil: Or the one that has one picture, and it’s been online for 12 years, like, “What’s up with this?” I’ve got to ask you a quick question here, Gary. Is that a scout rifle back there?

Gary: It is. That’s a Yost-Bonitz scout rifle.

Phil: Very nice. What’s on top?

Gary: I’ve got an FFL on the side. I bought that about 10 years ago. I actually visited the Yost-Bonitz shop back around 2006. Lew Bonitz moved to Montana and has Grizzly Customs. Ted Yost, of course, has his shop, Estate Sporting, I believe it is. Ted started off as the gunsmith out at Gunsite. Just an artisan with guns. That one is a Model 700 Remington. I bought three of them from the same guy. Two Model 70 Winchesters and that Remington.

Phil: Very nice.

Gary: That rifle was one of those brilliant ideas, it was short-lived; they were real popular for a minute and then slowed way down.

Phil: I had one. I had the Ruger for a while.

Gary: I had one of the Steyrs, Jeff Cooper. If you know the history of scout rifles, Jeff was a big proponent of it. Steyr made the scout rifle that he had a lot of input in the design.

Phil: It’s a beautiful piece. Very good.

Rob: We’d like to thank everybody for tuning in again. Really, really honored that you guys follow us and tune in. We’re hoping that we’re giving you some little nuggets that help keep you safe and on the straight and narrow. Phil, you’ve got anything else coming up? You’ve got any more hunts? You’ve got [crosstalk]?

Phil: I’m done. The freezer is full. We’re all good with that. I think one of the things that is important is people realize you guys have got the 30 years plus of law enforcement, the detective, the investigation, you know what’s going on and I just try and bring the layman’s questions like what if this. I don’t have that background, so it’s more along the lines of, “Hey, walking down the street, what about this?” It’s questions you may have answered 700 times already in the last couple of months, but other people haven’t. I think it works well bringing that up, I think, and I like to talk about Gary’s guns.

Gary: I hope that if you’re a person watching this and left one of these comments, our reason is to give you the information available to understand that that one comment when a jury’s weighing, you go free or you spend the rest of your life in prison, sometimes it gets down to this.

Phil: A feather tips the scales.

Gary: One comment can be the deciding factor, so that’s why. I’m not a super smart guy but I’ve been in this business a long time, as Rob has, and we can tell you that sometimes it’s the little things that make the difference between you walking out of a courthouse and you walking out the back door in handcuffs.

Rob: They’re little traps. Like Gary said, that may be the only thing that tips that scale to that side, everything else would have been enough that maybe we walk free. They’re just important things. They’re things that we think are big enough that we want to pass them on to our members and to everybody else that’s out there tuning in. I want to give a quick shout to Mickey Schuch and his S12 bunch.

Those guys put on a great event again here two weeks ago. Out in Tennessee, if you guys ever get an opportunity. There was medical training and legal training and some health-related benefits and exercise components and a lot of shooting. It’s a beautiful place to train. I know he’s already got his dates set for 2023, so you can look that up on his carry trainer stuff.

Phil: Not only is it a great training experience and a great facility and great food, all that, it’s a comic show in action with Mickey.

Gary: I went in the May of last year and I found it to be one of the most comprehensive well-balanced training courses I’ve ever been through.

Rob: It’s absolutely a full meal deal. We started with a morning PT session at 6:15 and we were walking off the line at 6:30 PM, 6:45 PM, so you’re doing big, long 12-plus hour days. You absolutely get full value for the dollar that you spend for this thing. As always, vet your instructors. There’s plenty of good training out there, stay plugged in, keep honing your skills. We’d like to welcome everybody and have you give us your comments and questions. You can get me directly at rob@ccwsafe.com. We look forward to seeing everybody next week. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you guys helping today. Thanks, Gary.

Gary: Leave your oven cleaner in the kitchen.

Rob: Please.

[laughter]

Gary: Bye-bye.

Phil: God bless.

[00:46:05] [END OF AUDIO]