CCW Safe Podcast- Episode 66 Passing The Torch

Video version of the podcast:

Transcript:

Stan: The Mike episode.

Mike: Okay.

Stan: All right.

Mike: Okay. So we ready?

Stan: Yes, sir.

Mike: Welcome back to The CCW Safe Podcast. I am Mike Darter in Oklahoma City. We got a panel here today, right, Stan?

Stan: We do. I’m Stan Campbell. You know his partner in crime. He’s the Batman to my Robin. We are here. It’s been a long time since we’ve been on, because of pandemic and a lot of growth and everything that we got going on. We’re about to start something new and we want to introduce a couple of guests, someone that you actually do know, which is Rob High that works with us, our Use of Force expert. The man out there the man, the myth, the legend, Phil Naman of Firing Line Radio Show.

Phil: A myth mostly.

Stan: Mostly myth. Phil is great. I’ve been on his show many times. I’ve guest-hosted, sometimes, or co-hosted with him. Great show out of San Bernardino is where the guys are out of, but great show, really strong on 2A topics and concealed carry. We are here today, this is called the Past of Mike episode and there’s a reason for that. Mike and I, with the growth of CCW Safe, and really, from mostly you guys, sending in, suggestions on what you want to see, in our podcast, we actually take that under consideration, and we listened to you.

A lot of our members who wanted us to especially, through the pandemic, and the beginning of 2021, you guys reached out to us talking about, you really want us to deal with some of these hot topics, that often we don’t avoid them but, we don’t spend a lot of time with them because, as you know when we do– Any of our content is based on making you your own risk manager. We want you guys to learn from the mistakes of others, the challenges of others so that you don’t make the same mistakes and get yourself in trouble, the reason why we do the podcasts and the articles from Shawn Vincent and Don West.

We always, stay home where we know, we have experience with police matters and emergencies and use of force. We always hit home de-escalation and avoidance, that is really the foundation of everything, making you pulling the trigger your last resort. These are a lot of the things that that we push, and, for that reason, we made an administrative decision to, launch the new CCW podcast, with two new hosts. Mike, and I will be stepping away, unfortunately. We love you guys.

We know you’re used to hearing about all of the things that we do and, we love sharing stuff about mama Mona and all the stuff she goes through. Then Mike, and his worldly travels and everything, and we’re going to talk about some of that stuff today because he has been through some things. We really decided to step away from what we were doing with you guys and move more into something that helps you also get through your day-to-day questions about what’s happening in the Second Amendment and Use of Force.

That’s one of the reasons why we chose to– Phil is really one of the best in the industry. We chose to partner with Phil from Firing Line Radio Show. We’re going to introduce him and let him talk about himself a little bit. We’ve partnered with him, but we decided to make it so that he and Rob co-host so that we have an expert to break down, some things that Phil would not know. Phil is in the know when it comes down to the news and he has strong opinions. He’s really aligned with a lot of our membership group.

Then Rob, he keeps it home and will be able to answer any of Phil’s questions, and then we’ll break down how to [unintelligible 00:04:38] on the go later. Real quick before we jump into Phil and his true introduction, I want to pass it over to Mike because I’d like to hear about what Mike’s been doing for the past several months.

Mike: One of the biggest things is consistency with this podcast. We want to be able to have this consistent for you guys. Like Stan said, we’ve worked for Phil long enough, working for several years now and I think you guys are really going to feel what he’s going to be able to bring because he’s going to be able to bring something that we didn’t have before, talking about news and current events and things in a way that’s going to keep it relevant to you guys as CCW Safe members and like Stan said, with having Rob there, Rob is fulltime with us now. He’s a certified expert in Use of Force.

The consistency and having these two is going to be awesome for the show. We look forward to getting this to roll. We’ve been working on this for a while.

Stan: Yes sir.

Mike: It’s been good. We’ve had a lot going on with CCW Safe. This last year has been crazy for everyone and I’m sure we may get into some of that today but man, it’s a whole different world than it was last time we did this show probably.

Stan: Absolutely. He’s trying to get away from what he normally does for us with talks about, Mike is a man of the world and he just got back from a great trip. Tell us about the trip because this is important.

Mike: Man, it was awesome. I went to Guadalupe Island in Mexico and photographed great whites and I’ve got one up behind me on the TV. It was an amazing trip. I was in a cage for three days. I think the last day, man, I was in the water probably eight hours which is probably not too good for you but it was awesome.

At one time we had six great whites in the water. These things were 16 feet average 15, 16 feet long, about 2,000 pounds each. Man, oh, I should be able to play a video. I got a video. You saw the video, right, hitting our cage. If you don’t know, you should know already. I’m blind in my left eye. I got one eye. In my right eye, I had a shark going right across the cage and I was photographing it and they had these about 18-inch windows you can lean out, you can put the camera out and shoot.

I was leaning out shooting and [unintelligible 00:07:35] all of a sudden our cage just started shaking like it got hit by a car and I turn around and look up and there is a shark’s mouth in the cage. His nose is in the cage. What happens, he was going after the tuna and when they decide to go, they go and they roll their eyes back. They close their eyes or they roll them back. I can’t remember which one but they go, so, they can’t see what they’re– He hit that tuna and they breach. They were actually breaching the surface, jumping up out of the water, coming back down and when he came back down, he came right in our cage.

Stan: Oh my God.

Mike: In the video, you could tell I was like, “What the heck was that?” It was fun. It was a cool trip. You’ll go with me next year Stan.

Phil: Good times. Good times. Good times.

Stan: I’m going to try to go into Mexico like Stan, self-proclaimed tough guy but I’ll run from a pit bull. I’m going to try to go with Mike next year, push through my fear and really get in but not eight hours but I’m good for about 30 minutes.

Mike: I bet you would be surprised. Once you get under there, how fun it is, you get close to these things and they’re not aggressive. The month before that I was with brown bears up in Alaska that were probably 800 pounds plus brown bears and as long as you know the– It’s like when we talk about things with concealed carry, as long as you know what is around you and what the behaviors are, and you have to know the history too. You can’t go up into Colorado or Wyoming or Montana and be around grizzly bears like you can be in Alaska. It’s a totally different deal.

You have to know the history and that’s the same thing we talk about with concealed carry, we talked about knowing location, about knowing–

Stan: Knowing your environment.

Mike: Knowing your environment. Once you know that, once you understand that, you understand what you can and can’t do with these animals, it becomes fun at that point.

You’re going to have a good time.

Phil: I was in Alaska last month on a hunt. Somebody had taken an animal way up on the hill. We could see some stuff. There were two young grizzly bears and the way they move, they’re bounding up the hill, bounding up this 45, 60-degree hill, just like they’re running up it. They were parallel to this carcass. When they got even with it, with the wind, they turned and sprinted towards it. There are two grizzly bears we’re watching them. I had my binoculars on, sprinting right at this dull sheepskin that was up there and they just go and attack it.

Well, three days later, when I’m hiking down off the mountain, I have all this meat on my back. [laughter] I just have this vision in my head that, they’re just going to be downwind somewhere. All of a sudden I’m having two or three grizzlies just charging at me. [makes bear sounds]

Mike: I was in Montana last year. I think it was last season around the rut last year, there was a guide that was guiding a hunter up in near, it was around Jacksonville. It wasn’t in Jacksonville, but it’s close and they got, and the guide actually got killed, but they took an elk and by the time they got there, I think they actually went up the next morning. Two bears came full bore running at them and the guide turned around and just had enough time to get his hands up and start yelling at the bear and got hit full speed.

Stan: Oh, wow.

Mike: It was actually, there was a big investigation on it and I was able to see the reports on it. One of the interesting things from that report was they were coming out. They were talking about how guns don’t do anything against bears, but bear spray works. This guy, what happened was how they determined that was he had a Glock, I think in a shoulder hole so he took it off and hung it down. When they started to cut the meat, hung it on a tree right there and had his bear spray there.

Well, by the time he turned and those bears were already on them he didn’t have enough time to get to it. He got attacked, got mauled, and what actually stopped the attack. They found this out later because they did find the bear and I think they took the bear. I can’t remember if they killed a bear or not. I think they did, but, they had evidence that he had bear spray all over him and that’s what stopped the attack. They knew that the attack had stopped because the guide who got killed, the hunter took off, got on a horse of and took off.

The guide had made it from the spot of the attack about, I think, 50 yards or so before he finally collapsed and there was no sign of struggle. Once he engaged the bear spray, then the bear took off. They were talking about how guns really don’t do anything against bears but bear spray–

Phil: Pistols, no. The last night on this trip in Alaska we were sitting in camp. We couldn’t get flown out that day because of the wind, when you go to Alaska, you’re just at the mercy of everything. We’re there one extra night and we had to pack all this meat down off the hill through this canyon. The bottom of that canyon is just grizzly prints everywhere. Again, I’m thinking he’s coming in, and of course, I was the last one, my guides are way ahead of me. I’m trudging with 130 pounds of dinner on my back.

Anyway, we’re at camp and I pointed back to that canyon and I said to the guy, I said, “You know that grizzly’s going to come down here this evening and I’m just going to shoot them from camp.” They’re like, “Yes, sure.” 30 minutes later, there’s the bear. We got over there and you want to talk about the difference in toughness, in an animal. I’ve shot a lot of animals. I’ve hunted for 40 years. That’s why you shoot a lot of animals, but this is the first grizzly bear I’d taken. He took four lethal shots. Each one of those was a mortal– No, we had to–

It took four. Normally, one shot on an animal, and you’re done. It took four. He was hit five times or he was hit six times, but four of them were lethal shots that should have killed him immediately. No, it was, [unintelligible 00:14:40]

Stan: Wow.

Phil: This was a high-powered rifle, not a pistol high-powered rifle with over 3000-foot pounds of energy. Like I said, elk go down immediately. Deer go down immediately. Grizzly, it just makes them really, really mad. They’re not nice. That’s what I came away with is, oh my goodness, how tough a grizzly bear was. I would never want to think of trying to take one with a Glock 21.

Mike: No. I heard a story from Luke Franny. He was a ATF agent that we all probably had worked with in the past. He lives in Colorado now. He used to tell me a story about a guy. I remember he was hunting, he had a shotgun, and he got attacked by a bear. He turned around and he had enough time to just go to the ground with his shotgun and he went to the ground.

When he went to the ground, he got one round off and it took the whole bear’s right side of his neck. Went right in his neck and got his carotid so the bear actually bled out almost on top of the guy but when he landed on the shotgun when that bear landed on the shotgun, it bent the barrel. The barrel was bent when the rangers got there. Those things are huge. That’s one thing where I go up into Katmai, they’ve never been hunted but right across at Kodiak, they’ve been hunted. Bears in Katmai, you have to know the history of the area and even the individual bears because even in Katmai, in King Salmon–

In King Salmon, Alaska, they will pepper bears if they get too close to houses, so they will pepper them with shotguns. Those bears even act differently, of course, than any that are out in the wild like in Katmai or Lake Clark because Katmai and Lake Clark, they’ve never been hunted so you can literally walk almost right up to the bears. You don’t walk right up to the bears but I can walk right up to the bears.

Phil: Stan and I will be right back here filming it.

Stan: Listen, this is not even a black conservation about I’ll just stay quiet but just to bring this back to what– Because all these stories, regardless of what we talk about, can be brought back to your world and I’m talking to the audience. Especially when you’re talking about dealing with a person that has either some type of intoxicant on board, drugs or their intention, and some with just being psychologically challenged. When you have to use deadly force or [unintelligible 00:17:43] yourself, understand that your one shot may not be enough.

We’re talking about the bears but the motivation of a human is still the same. A lot of people think, because of TV and movies, that we’re conditioned to believe that one or two shots may be enough, and many times, it’s not. You have to shoot until the threat has stopped because these people can still be motivated. It’s unfortunate but a viral video is out there showing some police officers having to deal with a man with a knife and this could be you but they’re trying to shoot. A lot of people talk about shoot him in the arm, shoot him in the leg. That’s not the thing but even fatal shots just like Phil was talking a little while ago, it doesn’t have to be a bear.

We’re talking about humans will actually continue on and bring the fight to you so you guys have to consider that. Also, a side note being that they were talking about animals, remember as well that we do cover vicious dog attacks as well on humans so if you are being attacked by some vicious dog, we actually cover that as well if you have to use your firearm to defend yourself but anyway, let’s bring it back to you guys.

Next, as we move on, because Phil, you see, he’s a hunter. We at least know Phil is a hunter right now but we’re going to get into–

Phil: Or, I was wondering, in Alaska, with a rifle for no particular reason, yes.

Stan: He’s at least he’s a meat hauler so we’ll call him that.

Phil: A packer, yes.

Stan: He’s a packer. Phil Naman, who are you? Give us a history on you and following that, tell us about the Firing Line Radio Show, why you did it, what it’s about and because it’s still going to be active, you guys check him out but who is Phil Naman? Talk to us.

Phil: I grew up in Southern California. I’ve gotten old in Southern California. I’ve never really grown up. I stand those but I think my teenage years, my mom, God bless her, was absolutely anti-gun still is. When I was 15-years-old, about half a mile from my house, a gun store opened up. For teenage rebellion, I went and got a job at the gun store. It was a great place a matter of fact, the owner of that store and I are still very good friends, but I learned a lot. I learned a lot about the second amendment. I learned about firearms, I learned about respect for firearms.

This was back in the day when all the cases had Colt Pythons in them and model 29, it was just beautiful pistols and nice Winchester models, 70s on the wall. It was a great time and I learned a lot. My high school years, I worked in a gun store. My mom was still anti-gun. On my 18th birthday, I bought my first firearm because it was my hunting rifle and because that was the very earliest I could do it. That’s my background, was I got into hunting by meeting this guy and just had a great time and started shooting.

My life took off in different ways and about 9 years ago, I was approached by the radio station. I was doing some other work with them. I was approached by the radio station and they asked me if I wanted to do another show. I said, “I’d like to do one on the second amendment and firearms because we don’t have that out here.” You have motor talk, you have tech talk, but we don’t have anything about guns in Southern California on the airwaves.

We started that, and CCW Safe came on, it was one of the early sponsors on that show, we just kept it on the air. We do a lot of advocacy for the second amendment. We have the California Rifle and Pistol Association on, we have legislators on, we have gun manufacturers on, we have gear guys. The fun part about the show for me is I get to design– I talk to who I want to talk to about what I want to talk about. I try and keep it mixed up between pistol shooting and CCW and the legal responsibilities you have and hey, here’s something new over here, and here’s a competition, and you’re just mixing it all up.

It’s not the same thing every single week. I am told I talk too much about ballistic coefficients, but I do try and keep that down a bit. We’ve been doing that for 9 years now Stan.

Stan: That’s awesome.

Phil: Once a week, the radio show, you can get the podcasts @firinglineradio.com. I’ve begun filming all of our episodes now at gab.com/firinglineradio we have all of those up. Like this will be up there also. We have a big presence on Facebook, but we’re trying to move everybody to Gab because the writing’s on the wall, Facebook is very anti-second amendment, and one day we’re going to wake up and not have access to it. It’s happened to me twice they’ve locked us out of our account.

It’s obvious we need to move the people from Facebook to another platform. For my radio show, I’ve chosen gab.com. There’s a great picture of Stan on that website right now. gab.com/firinglineradio there is Stan right there. Am I lying?

Stan: No you’re not lying. He decided to put this out with the light is like beaming off my bald head. I don’t know he really likes me.

Phil: I thought that was an inner glow.

Stan: No, it was not, that was an outer glow, but I do appreciate all that you do for me. What you guys are going to find about Phil, he has a sense of humor. He’s going to say some things at times, don’t tell on him, don’t send me no emails, but he’s going to say some things where he’s just playing. Please understand.

Mike: That’s the reason we got Rob there to–

Stan: Yes.

Phil: [laughs] You know want, my use of force recommendations.

Stan: No, no, no, no. Do not listen to Phil’s recommendation on use of force, only Rob, but it Phil’s will be funny, Phil is going to be funny. It’s going to bring a different dynamic. We’re really excited to have them on.

Phil: We’re the two angels on the shoulder, right?

Stan: Yes. You already know it’s not it, but you guys are going to be really happy with Phil and how he and Rob play off each other. Once again, hey, Rob, because there’s a lot of new members of CCW Safe over this past year, can you give a brief description of what you’ve done in your life and experience?

Rob: I can. I have been involved in combat sports my whole life from a little boy, even to current times. I started with wrestling. I was was a High School wrestling coach before I was a police officer. I was in an area that was blessed to have just amazing athletes. We had great results. When I became a police officer, I was in the academy in 1995, when we had a horrible domestic terrorist incident in Oklahoma City with the Murrah bombing. My academy class was actually activated, and that was the first call for service that I ever responded to. Mike and Stan were both part of that. Gary Eastridge, who’s our critical incident response team manager was the homicide detective then. We all had experience with that incident.

Instead of something that scared me, it was something that the community response to that was so overwhelming. I knew I was in the right place in the right spot. I had a still on, actually, my brother was an officer before me. I did a little over 25 years. During that time, I had the choice assignments that I’d always dreamed of. I started in patrol. I went and worked street crimes, kind of narcotics unit, the impact unit. I did that for a short while. I left that and went to be an officer in the Gang Enforcement Unit.

During that time, I was getting instructor certifications, anything I could get sent to, any school I could go to. I became a law enforcement driver instructor. I was a firearms instructor. I’ve taught firearms to police officers for about 23 years. I still enjoy shooting sports. I still enjoy training people. With my wrestling background, I became involved with martial arts, I became a defensive tactics instructor. It was something that people did the very best they could with what they had. Our program was really lacking.

Shortly after I got out of the academy, Stan actually took over that program, and really started changing things. Mike was involved in that as well. Both of them made amazing improvements to the safety of officers and citizens. We just did things a little cleaner, a little safer. Stan ran that for a number of years. When he promoted and became a lieutenant, I came in behind him and I filled that spot. We’ve both been the subject matter expert for law enforcement use of force. We’ve had that unique role of having to look at things like that with a critical eye.

Stan and I still, if there is something that hits the news, that’s really hot, we jump on it immediately. If he knows about it before I do, my phone rings and he’s like, “Have you seen this yet?” We start hashing things out. We’re just like everybody else, your first initial reaction is based on emotion. It’s just like, “Oh my gosh, this looks horrible.” Until you get more of the story and you find out some of the things that are going on. There’s so many factors that actually get looked at in uses of force, whether it’s law enforcement, or a civilian defending themselves, or something like that. There’s so many things that play into that.

It’s something that that Phil and I will do like Mike and Stan were mentioning. There’s things out there that that kind of hit us in the fields and we get really upset about, oh my gosh, this happened. Yes, it’s normal, it’s natural to have that emotional reaction to it. Hopefully, what we’re going to do is be able to bring in a little bit of how this is going to be looked at through the court systems and everything else. We’ve avoided a lot of things like this previously because people do become so emotional about them. They’ll get upset with us and go, “I can’t believe you’re siding with this.”

You’re basing this emotional reaction on very limited information. You don’t really [unintelligible 00:30:17] everything that’s going on. Stan and I have seen things and it’s like, oh, my goodness, this officer is going to prison. Then by the time an investigation is completed, and everything is hashed out, it’s like, “Man, this officer really didn’t have a choice.” There’s all kinds of things to look at like that.

Stan: Hey, Rob, before you go too far into that. Real quick, we got about five minutes left, because Mike talked about consistency, can you talk about how the show is going to be because Mike and I ran our show loose, give us some idea about how you and Phil are going to have your production.

Rob: We’re going to go back to releasing these podcasts on Wednesdays again. It’s going to fall back in line with where we used to put things out for your– So you guys could digest them. Each week, we’re going to going to have a little bit different way we want to run with it. We’re going to have a week, every month that is an open forum, where we actually can get into some of these hot topics, some of these news items that maybe they are the things that are causing people to react emotionally.

On another week, we’re going to have feature guests specifically related to our members and what our wishes are. We want to carry topics that are specifically related to second amendment things, concealed carry things, and maybe just some current violent thing that’s happened that it’s in the news. We want to go on another week and utilize the experts that we have in-house. We can have Stan back. We can have Mike back. We’ve got Don West on staff. I mentioned Gary Eastridge, earlier, Shawn Vincent does a lot of research in writing for us. We’ll do some things with Shawn.

Then we’d like to do an additional extra week in there where we cover some things from the legal end of it. Again, whether we’re going to use legal experts that we have, whether it’s Don or other guys that we have access to. It’s going to give you that other perspective coming from the courts and it’s just well-rounded out the information and things that are available to our members and subscribers.

Stan: Awesome. Thank you. Guys we are really looking forward to what Phil and Rob are going to bring to the table. Again, we’re not abandoning you. There will be times even when they have experts on you might see a box where Mike or I jump on just to help with the interviews or, give our perspective as well. Like I said, this is like some exciting times for us, where we’re trying to give you guys what you’re asking for. Mike, you got anything before we get off?

Mike: No. I’m looking forward to see what comes of this. It’s going to be [unintelligible 00:34:15] good podcast.

Phil: No pressure.

Stan: No pressure, Phil.

Mike: No pressure, Phil. Make it happen.

Stan: If you guys don’t like Phil, email Mike at CCW Safe–

[laughter]

Stan: I think it’s going to be great. Really I’m pumped about it. We’ve been looking to do this for a while and timing is everything. Passing the mic is really important for me because that just this organization built on Michael’s experience in his shooting. We come full circle with [unintelligible 00:34:56] doing the officer-involved shootings here in the metro area, and wow. They’re working on more than 60 officer-involved shootings. I was really happy about that.

Mike: You know, that would actually be a good podcast too, is maybe having Kyle on, and just talking about what we’re doing for law enforcement. They might be able to even talk about some of the cases that have been, that have already gotten–

Stan: Dissolved?

Mike: Yes.

Stan: Yes, that’s what we are now, so we’ve about a minute left. I’m going to allow Mike to exit us out for the last time.

Mike: For the last time.

Stan: For the last time exit us out.

Mike: Feel like we’re on That 70s Show, just going off, you know?

Stan: Yes.

Mike: This is going to be great, Phil. I’m thrilled to have you involved. I’ve always had a great time with coming out and being on your show. Phil, he’s really all we’ve ever done in California, and California’s our probably number one or two state. I think a lot of it comes out of that little show in San Bernadino.

Phil: Inland Empire.

Stan: Inland Empire, excuse us. For the last time for me and Mike show anyway, I want to say you guys, be safe out there. Keep using your head because