CCW Safe Podcast- Episode 74: Rising Crime Rates

Video version of the podcast:

Transcript:

Rob High: Hi, welcome again to the CCW Safe Podcast. I’m Rob High joined by Phil Naman. How are you, Phil?

Phillip: I’m doing great, buddy. We’re actually getting a little bit of rain out here in California. We need it. We don’t deserve it, but we need the rain, so we’re blessed for that.

Rob: I get that. We go under those same things. We never know what kind of summers we’re going to have. This year, we’re blessed with the rain, but we’ve also had those that we go months without a drop.

Phillip: We’ve actually ended up with quite a bit of global warming in the summer. It seems that just like after April, it gets hot every year. It’s really wild. We have global warming. Every summer, it’s warmer than it was in the spring. Fortunately, we have global cooling to worry about through the December-January time period. Boy, watch out for that global warming.

Rob: [laughs] Crazy.

Phillip: Well, we have a lot of things to talk about today. More serious obviously than the weather. I think that this is a great point to make out to your listeners what’s going on in the world and what we need to do to protect ourselves.

Rob: It’s just the times that we live in. We talked months back about the effects of coming in and defunding your police departments. The fallout from that is higher increases in violent crimes.

Phillip: I think, actually, our official comments were, “Huh, what could happen?”

Rob: “How bad could it be?” Stats came out today on homicide rates in the major cities in the US. There are 12 major cities that didn’t just have increases. They broke records. It’s just crazy. You got Albuquerque, New Mexico. They got 99. That’s a 22%-increase over 2019 numbers. That’s what the comparisons are, is this year to two years ago. It’s pre-COVID things. That’ll be something that plays a factor into it. It just skyrockets from there. Saint Paul, Minnesota goes to 25%. That’s not a huge number for that city, but it’s 35 and that’s the most they’ve ever had. It does set the record for them. You go to–

Phillip: Are these homicides or murders?

Rob: These are homicides.

Phillip: People killing people. It didn’t say that it’s an actual murder, right?

Rob: Correct. There’ll be further breakdowns. Everything that gets reported through law enforcement to the Department of Justice has means of identifying how that particular thing plays out eventually. It’s a UCR code, a Universal Crime Reporting code.

Phillip: You got a bar label on the back of the corpse. Sorry about that. [chuckles] It’s on the toe tag. Tell the people the difference between a homicide and a murder.

Rob: Well, any killing of a person by another person is a homicide. You’re going to have things that fall into murder, which are things that are done with premeditation and intent.

Phillip: Malice. A homicide is if a police officer shoots a bad guy, that’s still counted as a homicide.

Rob: Absolutely.

Phillip: It could be if somebody runs somebody over, it’s a homicide, right? There’s accidental deaths that are included in that. There are murders that are included in that. There’s different degrees that people can think of for murder. There’s self-defense shootings. All of those are considered in the homicide number. The murder rate is something different.

Rob: The staggering percentage of increases– As I was saying, Philadelphia goes up 46%.

Phillip: No way. 46?

Rob: Yes, their numbers are huge. They’re 521 so far. Not even included in this because it doesn’t set a record for them. Chicago as of yesterday was at 719 for the year. That’s just mind-boggling. Especially, yes, there’s tons of people there, but it’s really a small area. I just can’t imagine being part of that law enforcement community there and trying to effectively run an investigation. I don’t know how big it is.

Phillip: There isn’t one. They’re flat out of this one. That’s Lori Lightfoot’s city that she has defunded the police and she’s pulled back from any kind of aggressive policing. Frankly, when you have that kind of gang war going on, you need aggressive policing. You did it. Without aggressive policing and without a show of force, keeping the bad guys at bay or in jail, if they can do anything they want and cashless bail, nobody’s even– I think this last weekend, 40-something people were shot in Chicago. 16 died.

Only 16 is the way they report it. Only 16 died in Chicago, 26 injured, 40 casualties of the shootings. That’s a weekend event. That’s every single weekend. There’s some websites that actually report, “Hey, here’s Chicago’s numbers,” because it’s astonishing, not amusing. It’s astonishing that that’s allowed to go on. You have a school shooting, which are absolutely horrific and terrible. I’m definitely not supporting that in any way. Absolutely the worst. Four people are killed. National news. Last weekend, 16 are killed in one city. It’s not like it’s an anomaly. It’s the weekend.

Rob: That’s just what they do.

Phillip: If you’re an emergency room physician, you don’t get Saturday, Sunday off.

Rob: It’s amazing to me. I wouldn’t even know how many hospitals there would have to be Level 1 trauma care centers.

Phillip: Actually, what I have heard is that even the Department of Defense sends their doctors to Chicago and San Bernardino and Oakland to work those emergency rooms so they can practice on victims of the shootings.

Rob: Oakland’s numbers are big, but they’re nowhere near records. They’re terrifying when you get–

Phillip: Oakland, just like the Raiders, they’re slackers. They’re just all the way around and then they fall apart. Oakland’s not going to beat a record. It’s the Raider curse. They can’t beat the record. They’re going to get close and then fail ultimately. That’s just the city of Oakland in all things that they do. I’m trying to, probably shouldn’t be, but joking a little bit about some of these different cities and the way that they’re run, but these are people’s lives being affected. The city of Oakland, how many was in Oakland this year?

Rob: I don’t have that number.

Phillip: It’s one of the worst. San Bernardino is one of the worst. That’s where my radio show is actually located in Southern California. Our towers are in San Bernardino or, as we affectionately call it, “Sad Burning Ghetto.” It’s a lost city. It’s a lost cause. Oakland’s the same way and some of these other cities. How do you have a life in a city like that like in South Central Chicago? How do you go to a football game with your kids in high school and all these things happening?

It’s a war zone. Defunding the police and allowing the criminals to dictate the terms on the streets, you inspect what you expect and you get what you pay for. If you’re allowing this to continue to grow, well, you’re going to get more of it. When crime is free, you get more crime. We’re seeing it with the smash-and-grabs and everything else, but the murder is the coup de grâce. It’s absolutely terrible.

Rob: Well, it’s like San Francisco area, we’re not going to make arrests in cases where people are coming in and emptying shelves out until the value is greater than $950.

Phillip: That’s not just San Francisco. That’s all of California.

Rob: Is it really?

Phillip: Yes.

Rob: There was a store owner that will be willing to negotiate with you as a customer, but because of those laws, he’s gone in and he’s priced–

Phillip: Everything at $975- [laughs]

Rob: -and 51.

Phillip: I have a cash discount upfront. If you want to pay for it at the counter, it might be less.

Rob: We can talk about it. I can’t imagine being a business owner and having people come in and just free rein just groups of people. It doesn’t have to be in California. I’ve watched those outfits operate in Oklahoma City. Actually, we’ve got a task force that started just specifically for this organized retail crime thing that was going on. It’s very organized. They come in. They got a number of people that come into the store at once. Everybody is doing it all at once. You just overwhelm the staff and they just walk out.

Phillip: The first one that happened up, I think it was in Nordstroms in San Francisco. Not the first time it happened but recently, the first, apparently, very well-organized, They had 25 cars blocked off all streets and approaches. They just blocked the traffic, did what they wanted, and took off. The police can’t get in there and even if they did, so the guy drops a few things and he only has $800 worth of stuff on him. Now, it’s a ticket. It’s tragic and it’s theft.

It’s a theft from the individual citizens who have to pay for this with their lives, have to pay for this with their wallet and their paycheck. For instance, if a store loses– This is actually a story of a local manager for a grocery store I was speaking with. They lose $1,000 a day out of their store. It’s a big retail grocery store. In liquor, $1,000 a day that liquor sales are stolen. That’s $365,000 a year for that one store. Now, that store is not going to go out of business. What do they have to do? They have to raise their prices.

Guess what? I pay extra for everything to cover the loss of just the liquor $365,000 and everything else that’s stolen. The crime is not free. They have to raise their prices. Those of us who actually pay for things are covering the loss of those criminals. It’s insane that people say, “Oh, it’s just shoplifting.” Well, you’re the one paying it, ding-dong. We have an inflation rate that’s almost as high as a murder rate increase. I think it’s the one thing Joe Biden says. He wants to get his inflation at least as high as murder rate so that everything’s equal. I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t say that.

Rob: It’s the way it’s moving. Another deal is when you go and you look at area by area on these things and then look into who has the strictest gun laws.

Phillip: Chicago. I think nationwide, Chicago and Massachusetts are the two.

Rob: Chicago is amazing.

Phillip: New York City.

Rob: The hurdles those people have to jump through in order to even be able to carry legally, you have to have your FOID card first. Then once that’s approved, you can go get training. It’s amazing. I got to carry my ID, I got to carry my FOID card, then I got to carry my concealed carry license if you get approved to get such a thing. It’s amazing to me. It’s an area that has the highest murder rate in the country. It’s terrifying.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about following the Supreme Court looking at the gun laws in New York State. It’s crazy to me how you make the argument that, “Well, gun laws are stricter in areas with more volume of people.” Am I more apt to be a victim out in a rural area and I’m walking down a country road or am I going to be going through Central Park and, all of a sudden, something happens to me? The argument, it’s asinine to me. You start putting your crime stats to it and you made it open season for predators, for bad guys.

Phillip: Crime is free in some states in some cases. Criminals are cowards. They’re not stupid. Some are stupid cowards. For the most part, they’re just cowards who want something for free and to impose their will and don’t really care about the consequences. If the consequences are so high that they risk never seeing the sun again or maybe one of those permanent enclosed lifestyle cases that they can be submerged in the ground with, if that’s their risk level, then they change their behavior, but not until then.

In California, we had a dramatic drop in all violent crime throughout the ’90s. We instituted something called, “Three strikes, you’re out.” Three felonies, you’re in jail for life, 25 to life. I don’t care if the last thing you stole was a pizza. They overturned it because somebody got a life sentence for “stealing a pizza.” Of course, he had 42 other convictions ahead of that, just the last one that sent him away, right? The last thing he was caught for sent him away.

They’ve changed all that. Of course, now, we’re open season. A lot of people will go back and say that, “Well, look, the murder rates were worse up until 1990.” That’s true as far as numbers are concerned. As you know, as a police officer, when you had a violent crime of this nature, what would you say? You say the percentage, but there’s a high percentage of times. It was a young man between the ages of 20 and 40, right? Are those not normally who’s committing most violent crimes?

Rob: Yes, you’re locked in. You’re right there.

Phillip: In that time frame from ’75 to 1990, what we had is we had the giant coming-of-age of the baby boom generation who were 25 to 40 years old through that. It was a huge numbers of crime that was happening, but that’s because that age bracket that typically has the most criminals was the largest we’ve ever seen. People are saying, “Well, look, the crime rate went down because Clinton did an assault weapon ban.” No, the crime rate went down because we had harder enforcement and we had fewer criminals physically.

Just the population-wise, we had fewer people going through the 20 to 40-year cycle. Well, we’re on another bubble like that today too. Now, we don’t have any enforcement mechanisms, at least in California. The police officers here are just shaking their heads like, “Wow, I want to transfer to Idaho, Texas, Florida, anywhere,” [laughs] because it’s frustrating. You can’t do your job. You’ve got everybody with a video camera and there’s consequences for you for enforcing the law. There’s no consequences for the people breaking the law and that has to be maddening for an officer

Rob: Well, you see all this stuff on TV or on the news and you’ve got a guy that– I have the option that I can go over here and then go to work for the phone company or I can go over here and follow my dream and be in law enforcement and, “Wait a second. Everybody hates those guys. I don’t want to be the guy that everybody hates. I’m going to go over here.”

It’s funny because almost to a person when you ask young recruits, “Why are you doing this? What do you expect to get out of this?” “You know what? I’d like to help people. I like to better my community. I’d like to do this.” Nobody jumps in it to go, “I just really like fighting. I like having somebody attack me. I’ve never been shot at. I wanted to see what that’s like.” Now, you want to arm–

Phillip: You make him a preschool teacher.

Rob: I just can’t imagine Joe Average looking across the board and going, “How would you like somebody that knows nothing about what you do, armchair quarterback, and everything, every decision you make that is done in a split second?” I’ll be the first to admit. I’ve worked cases against police officers, shooting cases. I’ve worked predator cases that needed to be worked. These were people that they didn’t just need to be not on a police force. They needed to be incarcerated and dealt with.

I felt very strongly about if you can’t go after a dirty cop, you should never be allowed to go out and police the general population. That will be the guy that you go after the very hardest, the guy that is tainting the profession. It’s unbelievable to me that it has become under such a microscope and everybody gets to weigh in and be an expert on, “You should have done this, you should have done that.”

Phillip: Even we’ve seen today, somebody’s being attacked on a train, sexually assaulted for 45 minutes, and everybody stands there with their phone out. It’s like, what’s up with this? We have a dramatic shortage of men in this country who are willing to stand in harm’s way to protect innocents. As you said, the people who want to be police officers, that’s their main motivation. Sadly, we’re pushing away from that.

Let’s talk about what you need to do to protect yourself in a situation. Obviously, the criminals are on the streets. We know that. They’re in the malls. They’re doing whatever they want to do. In San Francisco, they have smash-and-grabs where if you park your car, there’s literally like a van behind you that the guy gets out, looks in your window. If he likes it, he’ll just smash and grab it. If he doesn’t know what it is, he’ll smash your window and look through your car anyway.

These guys are videotaped all the time. This stuff happens. As you know, we can’t protect our property with deadly force. We’ve talked about that a number of times, but you have to be able to protect your family. Obviously, some states are constitutional carry. God bless you. That’s fantastic. Excuse me. We have to have our permits here in California. Other states have to have concealed carry permits.

It’s important for you to protect your family. Anybody who’s a legal, good person, I think, should be carrying a firearm. Obviously, I don’t like to cut felons any slack. You’ve heard that before. A legally-owned weapon, you should be able to carry it for your self-protection. If you ever have to use it, that’s the other thing that we always talk about is first fight’s for your life, second fight’s for your freedom. That’s where you guys come back in.

Rob: Right. It’s one of those things that as a career law enforcement guy, I never worried about what was going to happen if I was pressed into that situation that I had to defend myself or somebody else with lethal force because I knew I had great homicide investigators that were going to come in behind and work the case. I had great attorneys through the FOP as well as through the city that were going to ensure that no stone was unturned.

Everything was going to get worked to its fullest. Then it goes to a district attorney or a grand jury. I really was never concerned with what’s going to happen. The civilian realm is completely different and that’s the beauty of the system that CCW Safe came up with. They based this off the police model. All the things that I would’ve had at my disposal as an active duty police officer–

Phillip: You talked about that because you’re familiar with it. For those in the civilian part, which is a large part of listeners there, what does that mean? If an officer’s involved in a shooting through the fraternity of police, through their union groups, there’s a certain protocol where they’re not allowed to be questioned for a certain amount of time. They have the ability to get their attorney before they have to make any kind of statements, right?

Rob: They do and even that is a new phenomenon. That’s not something that’s been around for a great deal of time. The majority of my career had I been involved in an on-duty shooting, we’d have loaded up in a car and gone downtown. You’d had some guys working clean and you’d have another guy that is going to sit across from me and ask me about the case.

Now, on the other end of that is had I been involved in an on-duty shooting, not only did I have all those people coming out, I also had attorneys through the police union that would show up as well. I would have representation at the time of questioning. That would be covered. Through medical studies and research and things like that, we’ve learned that people that are involved in traumatic events don’t always clearly remember the events as they occurred. I was really opposed to the idea of body cams and dash cams on police vehicles, on police officers.

Phillip: You felt like it was getting snitched on?

Rob: I did. I felt it was a big brother thing.

Phillip: I don’t want to have a camera on me all day long.

Rob: I can tell you as an investigator, that’s coming in behind and working some of these things. That was such a great benefit to have those things at your disposal because it gives you a clearer picture of a lot of the things that go on. The problem with that is I’m not getting every dimension in a fixed camera. Sometimes it doesn’t look as good as the case really was. We found that in several times when you have four or five different officers on a scene and, suddenly, we can look at everybody’s camera individually and go, “Oh.”

Phillip: Paint the picture.

Rob: Over here, this looked like a horrible situation, but this camera caught it and now we understand.

Phillip: Guess which one the media is going to run with? [laughs]

Rob: Oh, absolutely. Again, it’s something that law enforcement brought on themselves over some of the things. There’s been things that have been swept under a rug and not dealt with the way they should have been dealt with. You’ve had guys in position before that. I don’t know what their deal was. For whatever reason, it just gave them–

Phillip: They shouldn’t had power and authority.

Rob: They had carte blanche to just be a bully. We got rid of a kid that was– he was still in field training, so he had completed the academy. He was still going through the training cycle, but he was riding with a veteran officer, a field training officer. This kid was still in his personal vehicle. He is leaving the station after the end of a shift. He’s still dressed in a police uniform.

All of a sudden, you go by him a little bit fast. He’d pull up next to you and he’d start showing you the patch on his shoulder and the badge on his chest and flagging people over and doing stuff like that. That’s just crazy. Those are the guys we don’t need in the profession. There have been those things out there that make people go. Man, I can’t stand those guys. Now, I had to run in like that as a kid when I was– I think I was a ninth-grader.

I had a cop that lived down the street from my family that came out and accused me and my best friend of something. I was pro-police growing up and I didn’t have any issue with that. I was like, “Listen, mister, if you got a problem, call the cops.” He came out and he started cussing me and pounding me in the chest. “I’ll tell you what, you little SOB, I am a cop.”

Phillip: That’s good. You just committed battery. [laughs] There’s good people, there’s bad people all the way around. I think that the body cams have come out where they’ve actually– I think there’s been more cases of police officers being accused of saying something, doing something. They roll the camera footage, they bring the complainer, and they go, “Oh, well, yes, they made it up.”

They wanted to get him in trouble for it. They’ve actually cleared more of the– not egregious cases, more of the nuisance complaints that didn’t really happen. Those are going away now because there’s camera footage it didn’t happen. You can’t go in and lie anymore and get a cop in trouble. That’s a good thing. You know what? As we’ve always said, we want justice to be served. It’s not cops are always right, bad guys are– There’s a line there.

We just want to be able to know what it is when we have to make a judgment call. More information is best. As we’re talking about the crime rates, 46% in Philadelphia, 16% nationwide in the major cities. This is the time that you need to get proficient with your defensive weapon, understand when to use your defensive weapon, keep your head on a swivel so you don’t have to use your defensive weapon, and make sure that your family is covered in case you do have to use it with CCW Safe.

Rob: We’ll be back here in just a little bit. We’ll go to a quick break and we’ll be right back. Thank you.

[silence]

Rob: Hi, welcome back to CCW Safe Podcast. I’m Rob High with Phillip Naman out in California. We’re talking today about the increase in some of these homicide records across the country in the major cities. One of the things Phil and I had discussed previously was the role as a citizen and the importance of me being involved. Our election cycles come through. I had explained to Phil, there was times in my life that I would look at something that was on a ballot.

I wouldn’t even look at it until it was the day of voting, walk in and start looking at things and go, “I don’t know anything about this, so I’m just not going to cast a vote at all. I’m just going to remain silent.” The silent majority really has lost the right to remain silent. It’s one of those that if we don’t become involved, if we don’t educate ourselves and our families and our friends on the importance of knowing who is running for office for district attorney or for your local criminal judges, in Oklahoma, these are elected positions.

There’s times that there can be appointments made to those things. Again, those are made by a governor or something like that. It’s things that you need to be aware of when you’re casting a ballot in some of these elections. It’s one of those that even if I didn’t know who are the judges here, what am I looking at? Because people are going to tell you anything you want to hear to be able to tickle your ear for a vote. That’s where they stand or what they want to do. That’s not their real platform. They just want your vote today.

Phillip: One of the things that has been very– I don’t want to say egregious but very deceitful in California is that we have these lower-level positions that are statewide like secretary of state. Who knows? Who cares, right? Who is that? The governor, lieutenant governor, we look at those. Maybe the lieutenant governor. Attorney general, maybe. Secretary of state, man, what’s that?

Well, the secretary of state is a very important position because the secretary of state in California writes the little ballot snippets of what we’re voting on. I’m going to say that 90% of the people make their decision when they get their voter pamphlet book and it says Proposition 141, whatever, Proposition 47 reduces incarceration for petty thefts like, “Well, yes, we shouldn’t– Petty theft, so this makes sense.”

Then the law comes out and you can steal anything up to $950 like, “Wait a minute. That’s–” The person who writes that, they are so slanted. I wish I could’ve kept a couple for examples here. They’re so slanted. It’s a marketing piece that’s shoved into your voter pamphlet. The secretary of state is very important because they decide how things are going to go. They staff the voter registrations.

They decide whether or not they want to even do an investigation of voter fraud, which may or may not have happened in the last couple of times. Those other positions are important. It’s good to find a group. Like in California, we have the California Rifle & Pistol Association. They are very good on the statewide issues that affect your Second Amendment. Then below that, we have the Riverside County.

Well, actually, they’ve just merged, but it’s Inland Empire Gun Owners. They go through all the lower levels, city council members, state legislators, all the local seats, and they vet people for that. As a citizen, it is our duty to give an informed consent with our vote, not just to fall for whatever this ballot measure says or the hype that they’ve written for you, and to find out what actually is there and who they are.

Wherever you’re at, find the groups that think the way you do that have done this background because you can’t research a judge on your own. Judge blah, blah, blah did– You’re not going to be able to, but there are people who have. You can find those resources and understand, “Okay, this is a pro-law enforcement. This is a pro-2A. This is somebody that I agree with who follows the law, doesn’t make it up as they go as we’ve seen many judges do.”

It’s an important thing, local judges– Well, now, they’ve combined municipal and superior, but local judges move up to the regional board– oh my gosh, sorry, Ninth Circuit court. They go to the federal bench. They go to the Ninth Circuit court. You’ve seen the crazy situations and decisions that the Ninth Circuit court has had in California. That’s the whole western 11 states have to deal with the Ninth Circuit court, but most of those people on there have been put on through the California court system.

It’s important that we look at the local issues. That’s where you can make your effect. In California, there’s 38 million people. Six million of them voted for Joe Biden. Had everybody who was registered to vote showed up and done the right thing, he wouldn’t have won California. It’s obvious that we have a situation where people are not getting involved for whatever reason and you can’t run.

The other thing that it’s important, especially you’re there in Oklahoma, you’ve got good senators. You have good governance of your state. California, obviously, we’re whacked. We got Fabio the clown running around in circles, honking his horn. That’s our governor. That’s where we’re at, but we send two senators to Congress. We send 53 congresspeople. What happens in California affects the entire nation. We have the most congressional seats over there and you’ve seen them.

Adam Schiff. Sorry, he’s one of ours. Eric Swalwell, Nancy Pelosi, we got all the crazies. The point is we have to affect you out there in free America, have to affect your local elections to save the other stuff. That’s your duty as a citizen. Here’s one more thing. Carry your firearm, get trained, understand defensive tactics, get CCW Safe, and be a citizen activist. Those are the five things you need to do for this Christmas. We’ll have a much better 2022 if everybody follows that.

Rob: [chuckles] Well, again, the importance of having a say in your community and that’s essentially what you’re doing.

Phillip: Well, there’s two ways to get a say, by vote or by force. We don’t want number two. Nobody wants a civil war. Ugh, no. We can still save everything by the vote. We have the legal rights. By doing things the right way, we can save this.

Rob: It takes work and it takes commitment and it takes effort. It’s part of that thing. If I fail to prepare, I fail. It’s just the way it works. I’m not just going to go out to be a gun owner and go, “I’m going to buy a new gun. I’m going to carry.” Well, no, I’m going to learn how to function the thing. I’m going to learn to be proficient with it. I’m going to learn the laws.

Phillip: Especially if it’s a single-action pistol, you should really study how those things work. Just going to leave that there.

Rob: Yes, you can. I don’t know. It’s such an obligation. It’s such a big responsibility. It’s not just knowing how to make the tool function. It’s understanding the laws in your area. “I can do this, I can’t do that. I want to avoid that at all costs,” or going out and knowing that it’s not just about good equipment. “I’ve got a great belt, I got a great holster, I got a really dependable firearm. I make sure my magazines are in good working order. I buy quality ammunition.”

Those are all part of it, but it’s understanding that, do I ever work on weapon retention? Do I ever work on keeping my gun? It’d be the worst thing in the world to go, “I’m going to make this step and I’m going to be a legal gun owner and carrier,” and then have somebody take your gun away from you. I used to think, “Man, there’s no way you’ll ever pull a gun away from me.”

Then after being a cop, I’m telling you, I’ve seen guys that were defensive, the tactics instructors, guys that train these things and taught these things, and lost a gun in a fight on the street. There is a level of commitment to all aspects of it. I study first aid. I study martial arts. I do weapon retention, weapon disarming. Whether it’s holster gun defense or drawn gun defense, they’re all responsibilities I have if I’m going to be this guy carrying this thing around.

Phillip: You said there’s a duty, right? There’s a responsibility. There’s also an honor. We live in the greatest country in the United States that allows us– Well, God’s given us those rights, but they’re enumerated in the Bill of Rights to have our rights displayed as a Second Amendment, that we have the ability to defend ourselves and our families and our freedoms. We have this ability.

We live in the greatest country here and we have got to defend it. We’ve got to do everything we can to hold this on, not for me. Look, see all this gray hair? I’m old. I’m going to die soon. For my grandkids, for my great-grandkids, for everybody else, for posterity, it is our duty to hold the line here. Just legally voting all the great stuff that we can do and it’s easy to do.

We had a saying on the Firing Line Radio Show, which was GOYA, stands for Get Off Your Couch and Get in the Fight, right? It’s an important thing. You have to get involved. This is not for you. It’s for your kids, for your grandkids, for your great-grandkids. We need to think that far out what is best and do what’s required today. It’s not only is it a duty and responsibility, but is it an honor to do that?

Rob: Yes, you’re right.

Phillip: I usually am. Ask my wife.

[laughter]

Rob: For those that want to argue that point and say, “America is not what America used to be,” well, maybe, maybe not, but that’s our fault. If you want to know what a great country you live in, travel. Go out of business. Come back and be thankful for what you have because there’s plenty of places that-

Phillip: -that you’re not doing number two through a hole in the floor.

Rob: Yes, we live in an amazing country. We live where people who feel as though they’re completely impoverished are walking around with a $1,200 cell phone in their hand.

Phillip: I just listened to this podcast yesterday with Pastor Doug Wilson. He’s a great guy and he’s talking about how American conservatives sitting in the recliner couch watching their giant flat-screen TV. Fox News is on, listen to the normal story, get up, walk over to their sub-zero fridge, pop it open, get a cold drink, crack it open, and say to the wife, “Oh, this country’s terrible.” [laughs] The blessings that we have are so over the top right now. We need to maintain and make sure that we provide for others.

Rob: Well, we’re remarkably spoiled.

Phillip: Yes, and that makes it easy to do nothing. The other part, I’ve been in Second Amendment Advocacy for 9 years now, almost 10 for the radio show, and I get this a lot. You know what you need to do, what you guys, what the NRA should do, what the California CRP should do, what Oklahoma pistol and rifle associations do is this. It’s like, “Look, it’s the old thing. One finger forward, three fingers back.” It’s not what they should do. It’s what we should do. I answer that directly like, “That’s a great idea. How do you want to do it?”

Rob: “How do you want to start this?”

Phillip: Yes, that’s awesome. “Let’s go. I’m going to put you in charge of it. Let’s go.”

Rob: That’s a great point.

Phillip: The other thing is don’t form circular firing squads. Second Amendment community does this a lot. I only shoot ducks, so I think that the only thing you should have is an over, under, and a side-by-side. “Well, I like AR-15s,” “Oh, I would never have an AR-15.” “That’s black rifle. Those are bad.” “I hunt. I like my long-range rifles.” “Oh, you shoot over 500 yards. That’s terrible. You should only shoot a longbow.” We do this interior circular firing squad on each other. We need to be supportive in the Second Amendment community all the way around.

“I don’t think you should conceal carry. I think you should open carry.” Look, carry, right? Legally, do what you can do in the city and states that you live in. Don’t spend our time and energy fighting each other. Turn that sucker around. If instead of having a 360-degree firing squad where we’re all aiming at the guy in the middle, if everybody turned around and went back to back, we’d be in a lot better position. Take our arguments to the enemy. Don’t take the arguments to each other.

Rob: Yes, I agree with that wholeheartedly. It’s that way all across our community, not just in this against that. It works that way in the training community. That’s why–

Phillip: You want to start World War III? Post this online, “9-millimeter is better than .45 ACP.” That’s it. You got mushroom clouds. Everybody’s coming apart at that. Spend your time on something else.

Rob: Yes, or if you’re not shooting competition, you’re not ever really preparing yourself. I think it plays a part. I think that’s something that can help you become more proficient at the things that you do. If I’ve never learned basic shooting fundamentals and, all of a sudden, you want to put me out on an IPsec course or something, that’s going to be disastrous. Hopefully, nobody gets injured.

Phillip: To be a long day.

Rob: The law enforcement guys train it like this and that’s so stupid because we do it like this and we’re–

Phillip: Again, that’s the interior sniping. It’s like, “Hey–“

Rob: I’m telling you, I say branch out. Do the Bruce Lee thing. Study everything and steal everything that works for you. If it doesn’t work for you, discard it. You don’t have to do that. You don’t have to. We don’t have to eat our young either.

Phillip: Exactly. The black belt or jiu-jitsu, he says, “Get your reps in.” It’s not like you do something once and watch a video on it and you’re a black belt, right? No, you’re getting your reps in. Whether that’s training the way the cops train or training the way this guy does or like your Bruce Lee approach or taking something from everybody, that’s what’s going to make you not only a better shooter, it’s going to make you a better person all the way around. [laughs]

Rob: Put that in every aspect of life. Learn all of them. I don’t know.

Phillip: Well, you have to be constantly learning just to know what you can discard.

Rob: Yes, for sure. Just because of discomfort, if you come out to our range and you go, “Rob, I want you to try this,” I’m going to try it.

Phillip: Be coachable.

Rob: It doesn’t mean that it didn’t work for me today, I’m going to give it an effort. I’m going to at least give this a good run to see if it’s something that I can adapt into my tool belt. It’s like you’re talking. It’s just the reps. I’ve got to do it over and over and over and over again. I’ve got a good friend of mine that has provided me with an appendix carry holster. I look forward to learning how to function out of this holster, but I’ve gone from my hip for decades.

I’m not the guy that’s just going to slide this thing down the front of my pants and that’s the way I’m going from this day forward. I have to get the reps in on that thing. I got to learn how to function this thing. It’s the same way if I change and I go from a Springfield to a SIG or to a Kimber, whatever, I want to get the reps in with that firearm, with that piece of equipment, and become completely familiar with it before I want to make that my everyday carry thing. It’s just keeping an open mind and investing the time in yourself. It benefits everybody.

Phillip: It does. For appendix carry practice, I like my Glock 19 airsoft. [laughs]

Rob: I’m telling you, with the ammo stuff, there are so many really good shooters I know that have actually gone to systems like that.

Phillip: I do. This thing on the wall back here, it’s actually a McMillan stock airsoft gun. If you look over here on the shelf, you’ll see this little plastic mousse. I set these up across the driveway and practice, right? It’s a 10th of a penny a shot as opposed to $5 a shot for the high-powered rifles, but you got to practice what you got to practice. The point is, for me personally, because I’m a little scary, when I’m doing my practice for appendix, I’m using my airsoft gun just because–

Rob: For safety. Absolutely. I’m going to become familiar with everything first.

Phillip: Exactly. You don’t want to start doing a cross draw with a single-action pistol. [whistles]

Rob: To discharge there on trying to draw and have a complete miss would be so terrifying if anybody ever found out about that, wouldn’t it?

Phillip: Yes, turn off your body cam.

Rob: [laughs] Holidays are coming up. You guys got any plans, you traveling, you staying home?

Phillip: We got lots of plans. We’re flying in my kids. Well, my son and his wife from New York, he’s going from the occupied state of New York to the occupied state of California. No freedom for him. No, we’re going to have a great time. Lots of family.

Rob: Good. Anything coming up in the foreseeable future? You got any training things coming up or–

Phillip: This Saturday, I am shooting a match. I’m shooting a practical pistol match at West End Gun Club. A friend of mine invited me out there. I haven’t done it for several months, like nine months. Well, I was focusing on my sheep hunt, so I quit the pistol shooting and went all long-range practice, including picking on those little toy animals. We’re shooting all the time. We shoot probably once a week of one discipline or another. Normally, rifles, but that’s my joy. I like that. Everybody else is watching NFL Sunday afternoon. I’m at the range. Got the whole thing to myself. It’s perfect. I love football for that reason. [laughs]

Rob: We had a great time out at our range yesterday. Our content manager, Justin, set the range up for some guests. We hosted a local radio show out there, SportsTalk Radio, but one of our good advertisers had a great, great day with them. Oklahoma Machine Guns came out.

Phillip: Well, that’s always a good day. Anything with the name “machine guns” in it is a good day.

Rob: Some of their things along and got a little time on the range, a little time with friends. We had a beautiful day for it. It was mid-60s and no wind and there’s three days a year like that in Oklahoma. We haven’t arranged in one of them. It was a great blessing.

Phillip: Pretty good.

Rob: Be kind to your families. Be kind to each other. We got the holiday seasons coming up. Some of you have great times during that. Some of you have great anxiety during that. Be kind to each other. This is the season for that. Phil, you got anything else?

Phillip: No. God bless. Merry Christmas.

Rob: Merry Christmas, guys. We will be joining you again shortly and look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.