Yeah, you bet all right. Joining us now is Guy Ralford, and
we've had him on several times. That guy is an attorney as well as
an NRA firearms instructor and other things like that, but he focuses on a
second amendment. His practice is in Indiana, and there's a couple of very
interesting cases that he was directly involved in, as well as a law in
Indiana that helps to clarify what our rights are when we have to use deadly
force and self defense. And so we want to talk about those two cases
with him. Thank you for joining us, Guy. Oh, it's always
a pleasure, David. Let's talk about this is a couple of different cases.
Christy Phillips is one that you got involved in, and tell us a
little bit about the facts of that case and then how that got you to
get involved in changing the law. And then now you've had another second case
and you've seen how important it is that that law was changed. But first,
also a bit about Christy Phillips and what happened in that particular case.
You bet. Kisty is a very heroic young lady who lives down in southern
Indiana in a very small town called Rising Sun. Indiana, and here about
four years ago, she was involved in a situation where there was a traffic
stop right in front of her house, and it being a very small town.
The officer who had pulled over this guy for suspicious activity in the neighborhood.
That officer's son was actually at Kisty's house because he knew Kissy's daughter.
And so they're watching it basically as this kid's dad and their fellow community member.
This police officer had pulled this person over, a person turned out to
be on drugs, on methamphetamine as well as other illegal drugs. He immediately
got out of the vehicle. He's screaming profanity. He's screaming undecipherable gibberish.
The officer tells him, tells him to get back in his vehicle. He
doesn't. He ends up running up on the officer, tackles the officer and
is trying to get the officer's gun. The person who was a former high
school wrestler, pretty stocky guy, and he's winning the fight and and the
officer's losing control of his firearm. There's they're still wrestling over it to some
degree, but but Kissy realizes this is about to turn very bad, very
quickly. She grabs her gun. She runs out to the front of her
house, and she's yelling, get off him, get off him, stop.
Stop. That guy doesn't stop. The gun's literally seconds or milliseconds away
from being aimed at the police officer's head, and she shot the bad guy
and uh and ended the threat and that person ended up dying. But the
that officer actually later on told me, uh, he said, he said,
you know, when I heard that gun shot, I really thought it
was me dying, and I was and I was saying a prayer that I
just hope my son didn't didn't watch me get killed. But in fact,
that the gunshot was kissedy U, which is like Christie without the R.
It always sounds like people are mispronouncing it. Yeah, I see that really
quickly. Yeah, well it's not as weird as guy, but it's a
little bit of an unusual name. But but at any rate, the local
prosecutor's office called your hero. The local police officers called her your hero.
This particular officer definitely called her a hero, saying that she clearly saved his
life, but just shy of Two years later, just before the Statute of
limitations would run. She get sued for millions and millions of dollars by the
family of the deceased bad guy, uh, saying that she was just a
hysterical female who had overreacted and and and there was never a reason to use
deadly force. Uh and this was wrongful death. And she now owes the
family millions of dollars. Wow, did they not have a Was there a
police officer's body camera or in our camera in the police car that requires Yeah,
there was no video. There was no video of the event. But
everybody there, everyone who witnessed it, including the officer, told the same
story. I mean, there was really no ambiguity about what happened. But
because this was something that happened literally in her front yard, her homeowner's insurance
was implicated. And what's really interesting about homeowners insurance in this situation is there's
an exclusion for intentional acts, like if I intentionally hurt somebody on my property.
But there's an exception to the exclusion, which is if I acted lawful
and justified self defense or defense of a third person. So her insurance company
centered the letter and said, well, we're going to defend you. But
one we have the right to settle if we want. And two, if
it turns out you were not justified, you have no coverage as against any
verdict that might be imposed against you. Wow. So the local police office,
there's the Froterneral Order or police down there, looked at this whole situation
and said, we don't like anything about this, the fact she's being sued,
that the insurance company has the ability to control the defense and any potential
settlement. And they actually called NRA. At the same time, they set
up a go fundme account and raised a bunch of money, almost six figures.
And so we want to hire the best self defense lawyer that we can
find in Indiana, and they called NRA. NRA thankfully, at least,
I'm grateful they recommended me, and she hired me. And I told her
two things when she hired me. I said, I said, Kisty,
we're not only going to win this stupid case because it's a frivolous lawsuit.
Well, we're going to use this case to change the law. And that's
exactly what we did. We got that case dismissed. But in the meantime,
we had a bill pending in the General Assembly in Indiana that says there's
complete immunity for the lawful and justified use of force and self defense or defense
of a third person. You can't file a lawsuit if you were injured by
that justified use of force, or you're if you're the family of a person
who dies as a result of that justified uh force and self defense or defense
of a third person. And if you say, damn the torpedoes and file
a lawsuit anyway in the face of this immunity. There's a mechanism to get
the case dismissed curly on what's called summary judgment. And there's a mandatory attorneys
fees provision that says that the plaintiff then has to pay back all of the
defendant's attorneys fees. We're having brought that troublous lawsuit in the face of the
immunity statutew So that's and you yours, what we did? You were involved?
That is an amazing case. The facts of that, and then and
then the follow up to that, and then you were involved in that legislation.
Is that correct? I was because and I'm real active legislatively. I
started a group called the Two Way Project, which is fos focused on Second
Amendment rights, as you mentioned, my law practice as folks focused on Second
Amendment rights, and so I'm very I've always been very involved legislatively, and
I've helped write other bills or have written other bills, and so here I
wrote a self defense bill that laid out what we just described and then took
it to some legislators here in Indiana and said, hey, we want to
get this thing passed. And I was able to do that in the context
of Kisty's story, which made it that much more compelling. And by the
way, I mean, I always liked to brag that I wrote this thing
and then helped to get it passed. But Kisty came in and testified in
both both the House committee that heard the bill and the Senate committee in Indiana,
and it wasn't it dry eye in the room because of how compelling her
story was that she really was forced into this to defend a neighbor and a
police officer, and then her life basically could have been destroyed by her being
sued for millions and millions of dollars, and it was very compelling. So
Kisty Phillips is the reason we have that new statute. Well, that's great.
I'm glad to see a happy end to this, and it is a
happy ending, and you know, she went through this, but it's going
to be something she can be proud of. You know, this there wasn't
it wasn't pointless suffering, and it had a good resolution in it. You
know, you talk about her particular testimony, it reminds me of years and
years ago the Loubiy cafeteria situation. Had a woman who was a dentist and
she was there with her parents and she was you know, at the time,
she wasn't allowed to carry her firearms, so she left it, and
you know, she was worried about the legal invocations of it, so she
left it in her glove compartment. Had somebody drive through into the building with
his car and gets out, starts shooting people. And her testimony, she
later became a legislator, and I remember seeing her testimony many many times,
careful testimony of how if she had had her gun, she could have saved
her parents, but she was told that she couldn't and that made a big,
big difference. And unfortunately, you know, it was a very tragic
situation for her because she lost her parents and a lot of people were killed
in that. The good thing in this one is that even though Kissy went
through a real ordeal with that, and it is an ordeal whenever you have
to use your gun to kill somebody, but it is it is preferable to
seeing your loved ones or friends or someone killed murdered unnecessarily. And so you
know, for all the stuff that she went through, it had had a
great outcome. That's a super story really well, you know. And and
what really hit me hard it meant a lot to me is in one of
the committee hearings, I was in the House Judiciary Committee, one of the
legislators, seeing that that Kissy was very emotional about this and was obviously putting
herself through the trauma again by coming in and testifying publicly about it. When
she didn't have to do that. She she could have stayed home and avoided
having to relive that whole traumatic situation, including the trauma be ensued where she
was worried about losing her kids who's a single mom. She was worried about
losing her her daughter's college savings funds, and her house. But at any
rate, one of the legislators asked her and said, you know what made
you come in and speak to us and and and support this bill as you
said, you know what, without an immunity bill like this, if these
people were able to successfully sue me, for instance, then I'm worried that
the next person won't run out their door and save that police officer, or
the next person won't, you know, take their take their gun into Libby's
and have it available to them to save innocent lives. And I'm I'm worried
about the negative effect that a law seat like this has. And I'm willing
to put myself through this because I think that we need this law for exactly
that reason, and as a deterrent to those lawsuits, so that the lawsuits
aren't a deterrent to law abiding citizens defending themselves or defending other innocent people.
And again, I that was incredibly compelling. Oh yeah, yeah. And
of course the insurance company, if they didn't throw her under the bus,
they would have thrown everybody else under the bus, even by making some kind
of a settlement. You know, that's probably what these people had calculated.
She's got deep pockets because of the policy that's there, and you know,
that would have established that kind of precedent that you talked about for everybody else
and put a lot of people at risk. It would have raised everybody's insurance
premiums, because that's why the insurance company doesn't care about that kind of stuff.
So yeah, we'll make a settlement with them, and we'll just raise
everybody's premiums. So it helped in so many different ways. It truly is
amazing. And that's something the law getting passed is how long ago was this
case? She said they waited two years before they came after Kissy was And
then when did this law get put through? Did the law just get passed
through recently? Actually the law just the law went into effect twenty nineteen,
Okay, So I guess the event with Kissy was perhaps a little earlier than
what I described. But the law was passed in twenty nineteen, and that
was a little more than two years after the original incident. And it was
kind of neat because we had the NA annual meeting here in Indianapolis that year
and our governor, Governor Holcomb actually signed the bill into law from the from
the main stage at the NA leadership conference, which was a big event.
So it was, it was it was very satisfying. A lot of work
went into it, but I was able to be there with kisst when the
governor signed it, and so it was. It was a it was a
big event, but it's a it's a it's a really important change, and
I'm proud that it happened in Indiana. But one of the reasons I was
so enthused about talking to you about it, David, is there's no reason
why this shouldn't be the law in all fifty states. Now we know there
are blue states out there that would never consider it in a million years.
Could they despise our ability to defend ourselves. But for for for the majority
of the state in this country, there's no reason why there shouldn't be a
similar law out there protecting people. And I'll tell you, I mean,
for instance, I'm I'm not only an instructor, but I'm kind of a
training junkie when it when it comes to firearms and self defense. And I
go to multiple classes every year, and I bet I've been literally, I
bet I've been to three or four dozen k classes where at some point there's
a lecture that says and oh by the way, if you use force,
even if you're completely justified, you just better count on getting sued. The
bad guy is going to suit on. It doesn't matter if he breaks into
your house, if he gets hurt, he's going to sue you, or
if he gets killed, his family's going to sue you. And I would
always sit there listening to that lecture, especially as a lawyer, going well,
why is that? Why is that? Okay? You know what,
And and let's fix this thing. You know, we got this nail that
we've been got, the old sleeping dog has been laying on this nail on
the front porch and just too much a problem to get up and do something
about it. You know, let's fix this problem exactly. And and and
by the way, Kissy at the time was the seventh person that I had
represented who would lawfully and justifiably use force and self defense and either got prosecuted
or got sued or both. And I looked at that and said, you
know, that's just not okay. I'm not trying to cut into my own
business, but I'd rather have citizens have immunity. And that mandatory attorneys fees
provision is so important because that's a big deterrent because before that PLANEFF layer,
I mean, how many times have you heard the commercial of well, unless
I recover for you, you don't have to pay me any attorneys fees,
right, I mean you see that commercial all the time. Well, now
they can say, well, you don't have to pay me any money as
your lawyer is the planeff's lawyer, unless we recover. But oh, by
the way, there's this immunity that we probably can't defeat. And if we
can't defeat it, the case is going to get dismissed. And once the
case is dismissed, you have to pay all the other side their attorney's fees
back. Yeah, after recovering nothing. So it's a huge deterrent and we're
really proud of it. That's good. Yeah, people need to look at
that. And you know, we see these types of things going around there,
the gun control laws. Some you know California, come up with some
idea in New Jersey and they'll start passing that around. But it works the
other way as well. You know, we've seen the increase in constitutional carry
bills going around and increasing in states, and this is the type of thing
that really does need to increase. I've heard all the commercials about you know,
well, if you carry concealed, you know you need to join this
organization. We've got like an insurance policy here to defend you. But you
know, cut it off at the beginning, you know, don't clutter,
don't expose anybody to this jeopardy. If it is justifiable and the law enforcement
people realize that it's justifiable, you should not have any legal jeopardy over some
kind of a civil action that is being taken over that that really is the
right approach. You're correct about, and that's how our statute works. Actually
good picking up exactly on your point, David, which is that if there's
no criminal prosecution from the use of force where self defense or defense a third
person is claimed, that lack of criminal prosecution raises a presumption of justification,
which implicates the immunity, and you can use that presumption of justification to get
the case thrown out early based on a lack of criminal prosecution. So it
really works exactly like you suggested, and that's how we wrote the statute that
we've had for a while and here just recently what was really satisfying, I
know you've seen this opinion is We were able to use that statute to get
a case where I represented two homeowners who defended their home against somebody trying to
break in in the middle of the night and then got sued for it.
We were able to successfully have that case dismissed here more recently, and that's
a compelling story too. Yeah, yeah, have this story. So you
were involved in the landmark case that pushed through the legislation that you helped to
write. And now you had somebody who decided that they would they felt lucky,
so they were against this law even though and you got that shed DOWNE
tell us about that particular case. That's the details of that. Sure,
that one much more recent. In fact, it's really still pending over a
couple of administrative issues. But this is one where two homeowners in Indianapolis.
We're asleep in bed at three o'clock in the morning. The dog starts barking.
They realize someone's pounding on the front door. They ran out, and
the man did and someone is kicking on their front door. Then he's putting
the full force of his weight and his shoulder into the door, trying to
break the door down. He's screaming, let me in let me in.
The homeowner yells, I don't know you go away, and the guy outside
is cussing a lot and doesn't make a lot of sense, but he runs
around to the back of the house, tries to get in the back door.
It's locked, thankfully, but then he breaks the window in the next
to the back door, and a parent attempt to reach in and unlock the
door, and the homeowner at this point has retrieved his handgun and he said,
listen, go away, I have a gun, and the guy that
responded by saying, well, then you're going to have to shoot me where
I won't use it starts with a bee. You know you're gonna have to
shoot me, and at which point he tried to gain entry, and the
homeowner, having no alternative, shot him. And exactly the same thing in
the sense that the prosecutor's office looked at it. The police investigated, all
the physical evidence matched up with what the story the both he told and his
wife told. It was a clear case of castle doctrine, where you can
defend your home, including with deadly force the way our laws written in Indiana
against an unlawful entry, and even to prevent an unlawful entry. You don't
have to don't have to be in your house. If they're trying to get
in your house, you can prevent that unlawful entry, including with deadly force.
And that's the way the law's written, this way it should be written.
And we included in our immunity statue we defined as a forcible felony someone
trying to break into your home in violation of the castle doctrine committee a crime.
A lot of states call it breaking an entry, been breaking and entering.
In Indiana we call it residential entry. But anyway, we said,
if you're trying to commit residential entry, that's a forcible felony. And in
Indiana, stopping someone from committing a forcible felony is also justified in terms of
the use of deadly forced So again, no prosecution. And we raised this
new immunity. I put it in my answer to the plaintiff's complaint and said,
you can't file this lawsuit. We have immunity for this, and there's
going to be an attorney's fees award. They said, damn the torpedoes.
No, no, we think we can defeat it. We think we have
evidence that wasn't justified and just a couple of weeks ago, we went in
and had a hearing. Hearing Marion County, which is Indianapolis, and just
a matter of days ago got the judge's opinion where he said, Nope,
the law is clear. There's immunity under the situation. The presumption that arises
from the lack of criminal prosecution could be used to get a case dismissed where
the plaintiff has no affirmative evidence to rebut the presumption that the use of force
was justified. And here they had no had speculation. They said, well,
he was just asking to come in. He wasn't trying to break in.
Really, what about the broken window? I mean, it was really
kind of silly. But judge, judge, and I give judges a lot
of credit because judges don't like to dismiss cases early. If you look at
when judges get reversed on appeal h grant, you know, dismissing cases early
is fertile ground for getting that reverse. Not here because it's very very clear
cut. But generally speaking, judges are reluctant to grant summary judgment or motions
to dismiss, and this judge had had the fortitude to do just that,
and said the laws also clear that the planiffs have to pay the defendants back
their attorneys fees, and so asked me to submit my final statement on my
fee, which the Cortal review, and then they're going to award attorney's fees.
So my client doesn't have to worry about paying me any money because they're
going to get that paid from the planet. Uh. And you deserve it.
You've done a great job. You defended that other person. You got
a law run through there, and that law has held up now and that's,
you know, for a second time, you defended some of course you
said you defended a lot of people like that, but that's exactly what we
should see with that. Let me and of course I didn't mention the beginning
of the program. You've also got a radio program size being a NRA instructor
and besides having a law firm that specialized in the Second Amendment. Guy Ralford
R E. L F O R D. I who want to find him
on Facebook if you need his help? But you also have a radio program,
the gun Guy. I love the title that. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, again the radio station likes making use of my odd name, but
yeah, but yeah, it's just a weekly show, David. It's just
on Saturdays in Indianapolis. But they also put it out there as a as
a podcast as well, so a lot of people who can't listen in live
from five to seven in central Indiana. We reach I think fifty two counties,
so it's a it's a good sized radio station. But people who can't
listen in can go to WIB dot com and find the podcast as well.
And we just talked about Second Amendment issues and it's it's kind of fun because
it's a call in show for the whole two hours. Yeah, I'm on
the air, and that's my favorite. My actually, my very favorite is
when people call in and want to argue with me because I do this for
a living, right, But but it's it's a lot of fun. And
but you know, people call in with everything under the sun, from legal
questions. I don't give legal advice on the radio, but I can explain
what the laws say, and too technical questions, gun questions, you know,
I mean, how do I fix this problem with my trigger on AR
fifteen. I'm just it's really interesting. I never know what I'm going to
get, which really makes it it's fun for me to do. Of course,
I always have somewhat of an agenda in terms of what I want to
get into, but the listeners often take us in different directions based on the
calls we get, which make it makes it a lot of fun. I
bet it's fun, especially when somebody calls in they want argument. That when
you said where is that? That that made me think of the old Monty
Python skit, you know, because you want an argument. Okay starts arguing
about whether he's going to do an argument with him or not. But you've
got more substantial arguments to talk about. Let me ask you this because we've
had some interesting things. As you point out, it brings up a lot
of different interesting points of law, and we've had an interesting back and forth.
I talked about last week about the fact that Trump went to South Carolina
and they had a commemorative gun that had his face on the handle, and
it's like, oh, yeah, I got to get one of these and
everything, and then his assistant said, yeah, he bought it. And
then he had all these people say, wait a minute, he's indicted for
a fella, he can't buy a gun, which is very similar. As
Reason pointed out, it was exactly the same type of thing that they're coming
after Hunter Biden. You know, they're saying, well, you know,
you're not allowed to buy a gun if you're a drug addict or drug user
or whatever. You know, both of these things are non violent issues.
You know, Trump hasn't been convicted of anything. He's just been indicted for
something, indicted for something that is not a violent crime even and so you
know, they were looking at this and they said, you know, we
need to look at these laws and not be so colored. You know,
you've got people who were cheering the fact that maybe we got another thing on
Trump here, or other people saying, yeah, let's get Biden on this
thing. But you know, maybe the law itself is a thing that needs
to be changed as to whether or not the ATF has it. And then
I saw another issue where they said, it looks like a Hunter may wind
up trying to use Bruin and that decision to say, you know, this
is an unusual restriction that's been put here that is not doesn't really have doesn't
fit in the historical context of what was meant by the Second Amendment, And
so according to Bruin, maybe you know, he gets off he still has
an issue I would imagine of lying on a form. But nevertheless, you
know, what do you make of that of those two juxtapositions. It's an
interesting juxtaposition of those two that you might have actually the Biden family supporting the
Second Amendment and some freedoms involved there war and litigation maker strange bedfellows and but
yeah, I mean, if anybody would have ever asked me I would support
a legal argument that Hunter Biden was making, I would have doubted it.
But but here your wise, and you're dead on David to focus on the
Brewin decision, because both in the Trump scenario and the Hunter Biden scenario,
that that's exactly where they're going. In fact, the exact law that you
mentioned relative to Hunter Biden was recently found to be unconstitutional. Is is it
a district court case in Texas? So it has no direct bearing on his
case. But I can see that it really snowballing because you know, as
you said, and as you know, you know, Bruin says, look,
we look at text history and tradition, and we look at the text
the Second Amendment. Does this does this law implicate a protected writer? Not?
If it does, then we say, all right, does the long
history and tradition of the regulation of this right support this particular limitation in the
sense that it's been upheld and it's been found to be legal and allowable under
the Second Amendment historically and traditionally in this country. And that's going back to
the founding. That's not since the Brady Bill in nineteen ninety four. I
mean, that's all very very you know, recent stuff. It's all you
know, going back to the founding and even un degree looking at English law
that US law is based on, and in this case, that found the
law that says, if you're a user of or addicted to in the illegal
drugs, you can't possess a firearm and make it a felony to do so.
This court in Texans looked at that and said, hold on, we
can find historical restrictions on saying someone can't possess a firearm if they're currently intoxicated
or you know, inebriated, impaired, But we don't see anywhere just the
occasional user and important distinction. That was a case where this guy was an
occasional marijuana user and he admitted to authorities he yeah, he said, you
know, I'm a recreation marijuana user. I said, oh well, and
marijuana is still illegal at the federal level through the Controlled Substances Act in nineteen
seventy, So therefore it's illegal under federal law. Therefore, you've admitted you're
a user of or addicted to an illegal drug. Therefore you're going to prison
for ten years or at least a maximum. And that's what they found to
be unconstitutional under the Bruin analysis. But the very similar thing, and in
fact, Amy Cony Barrett now on the Supreme Court wrote an opinion that said
just this. It was a descent, but it was at the Seventh Circuit.
They said laws saying even people convicted of nonviolent felonies should not lose their
rights. And the law that says that if you have any felony conviction,
even a non violent one, I mean you could have a get a you
know, an accounting conviction based on tax fraud or something, and suddenly you're
being likened to a violent criminal. We can't trust with a firearm. And
Amy Cody Barrett wrote a opinion before We're Ruined, obviously that said this is
unconstitutional. There's no history and tradition of limiting nonviolent people just because of a
criminal conviction, and then compound that and say, well, here Trump hasn't
even been convicted of a non violent felony. He's only been indicted. Yeah,
so the law that says if you're just under an indictment for a felony,
even a non violent felony. So to say that's unconstitutional under a Bruin
analysis is not a stretch because we're seeing we were seeing these different laws,
a lot of these very recent laws, a lot of them part of the
Brady Bill, some of them part of the Gun Control Act in nineteen sixty
eight. But a lot of these are following one after the other. And
I'm somewhat expecting the pendulum to swing back because, for instance, there's a
there's a case in front of the Supreme Court right now that involves the law
that says if you are under a domestic violence order of protection, you can't
possess a firearm, and that that doesn't mean you've been convicted of a cron
That doesn't mean you you know, you've been it's been proven that you are,
you know, a violent person based on your criminal history. Is just
a judge found enough of a threat to say you ought to be under this
domestic violence order protection. The Fifth Circuit again, another case coming out of
Texas found that law to be unconstitutional, to say, wait a minute,
there's no criminal conviction here, there's a there's a potential threat, but we
don't take people's constitutional rights away on that basis, at least not historically and
traditionally under the Bruin analysis that is in front of the Supreme Court right now.
And and and it doesn't feel very good, I will tell you,
because you think they might take the gun and do the due process later,
as Trump said. But this one had had been in multiple domestic violence.
This particular litigant had been under mutual domestic violence order protection involving multiple women.
And and he does appear to have somewhat of a criminal history. Now there's
a reason that blindfold is on Lady justice, right, And the judges aren't
supposed to look at the facts of any individual case and be influenced by that.
They're supposed to do a strict legal analysis under the concept that justice is
blind. But I think anybody who wouldn't think that these particular facts wouldn't leave
the Supreme court to go, well, maybe we had to roll this back
just a bit. I think it's probably being a little naive because there's no
old saying among lawyers that bad facts make for bad law, and these facts
are not great. It's not the case I would have wanted to have taken
up on that issue. But anyway, but based on the analysis is out
there right now and based on Bruin as it exists, these laws. You
know the fact that a eighteen to twenty year old can't buy a handgun in
a gun store under federal law. What's the history and tradition of having to
be twenty one to be armed in this country when if you've joined the militia
quote unquote in seventeen ninety one, at seventeen or six. So there's there's
a lot to talk about for a lot of these laws where we get drafted
in modern America at eighteen and sent to Vietnam. Right, but you can't
buy a gun, and you know, that's the kind of stuff that you
know, we see and of course you know that was even you know when
I mentioned, you know, take the gun and do the due process later
with the red flag stuff and everything. At that same meeting. You know,
Trump was pushing the idea of let's raise the age that people can buy
guns. It's kind of interesting because this whole Brewin thing, I think it's
gonna you know, hit a lot of these different issues again, like the
bump stock for example. You know what's Brewing going to do to the bump
stock. We've seen a surprising number of losses in terms of the challenges against
the bump stock. And to me, that was a very, very big
precedent because it established the fact that not only could they infringe against our constitutional
you know, protections of a god given right, but they could also it
could be done not just by the legislature, but it could be done by
the bureaucracy or by a press that's running the bureaucracy. And now we've seen
you know, Biden exercising that as well. And so when you go back
here, look at the bump stock thing, we got this I think it's
a Fifth Circuit talked about it just last couple of days. Yeah, the
Fifth Circuit court where you got i know, a Michael Cargill back at the
Central Texas Gun Works who's running that through. He's had a victory there,
but there's been losses on the other side of this with a lot of other
courts. What do you think is going to happen with that bump stock because
that is a big precedent. You know, we've never had regulation of attachments
and things like that before, especially by executive order. Yeah, it's such
an important point, David. I'm glad you raised it because I said when
it happened, you know Trump, you remember the news conference he said,
well, bump stocks are gone, right, Tady's responding to the horrific shooting
in Las Vegas, and he said that, well, he said, I
can do that. I don't need to have any guy with It's like,
well, that's exactly that's exactly right. And and so many people on on
you know, our side of the Second Amendment debate said well, you know
what, if we give them bump stocks, then maybe they won't come after
or so called assault weapons semi automatic rifles, and so nobody really cares about
bump stocks anyway. So, uh, you know, and even the NRA
came out and I strongly disagreed with the NRA on this, and I said,
this publicly huge mistake. NRA came out and said we invite the ATF
to re examine the legality of bump stocks. And I'm saying, I'm sorry,
you're inviting the ATF to rewrite laws written by Congress and and and simply
because the president tells them to do so doesn't make it legal or constitutional.
It's a it's a it's an inappropriate use of the legislative power by an executive
agency. And that's what we need to reel back in this country. But
but when Trump did it, and people say, well, guy, do
you really care about bumstocks? I now, bumstocks are stupid. If you
come to my range where I'm teaching a class and you get a bumpstock on
your rifle, I'm gonna make fun of you, even you know, before
the band, because you're trading. You're trading accuracy for rate of fire,
which is typically stupid. So at any rate, I didn't care about bumpstock.
Bumstocks are dumb. I would never own one. But the precedent,
and that's why the point you made is the important one. The precedent he
made by saying I'm going to snap my finger. Well, what did Obama
say? I got a phone and a pen? Yeah, Well, he
never much delivered on that, but President Trump did and then and then,
now what do you see in ATF on so called ghost guns, atf on
what they're calling for streset triggers, ATF on short barreled rifles. They're saying,
oh, well, we told you ten years ago that if you put
a brace on your pistol, it doesn't make it a rifle. But we
changed our mind. So now we're going to rewrite a definition of short barreled
rifle as written by Congress and all that's based on the bumpstock precedent. And
now I think we have a great shot at destroying a lot of these,
not only under the Bruin analysis, but because they are in fact unconstitutional in
the fact that their legislative authority being exercised by the executive branch. And we
even had an important decision that had nothing to do with guns at the Second
Amendment came out of Supreme Court here a couple of years ago. It was
a West Virginia and it was an EPA regulation case. I think it was
a clean water or clean air case. I don't remember now, but they
said, hold on, you know, the EPA just going out there and
making up its own rules without an express delegation of authority from Congress doesn't doesn't
fly anymore. We're reeling back on that fourth branch of government that's become so
danger in this country, so dangerous in this country that our founders never intended
for, you know, for the I r S and the ATF and all
these executive agencies to be able to have the power they do, and a
bunch of armed agents turning around putting people in prison. That's not what we
ever envisioned from in terms of enforcing rules that they've written and that they've created
without Congress. That's what was never intended by our founders. And so hopefully
we get that reeled back, and ATF is fertile ground for that right now,
for all the reasons you mentioned. Yeah, that really it just I
couldn't believe when that happened, because I've talked for the longest time about the
power of the gureacracy of the regulatory state. I said, you know,
we had the slogan for seventeen seventy six was no taxation without representation. Well
we have now taxation without representation because these people can find us. But we
also have regulation without representation and what's even worse is they say, well,
because this is a rule and not a law, you don't get due process,
you're going to get the presumption of innocence, and you don't get protection
against excessive fines. And so we've seen this metastasize. You know, originally
I think it was the IRS that was doing it predominantly, but now it's
metastasized all these different agencies, and so now they're going to just do gun
control by doing that as well, that's a really, really dangerous thing.
And it was. It was not just the bump stock, it was also
the pistol brace under Trump, and they got put in in twenty nineteen,
and then they pulled it out in December of twenty twenty. But then Biden
puts it back in La La Harris when she's running, said yeah, I'm
going to give Congress hundred days to do all the gun control stuff I want
if you elect me as president, and then I'll just do it by executive
order if they don't do it at that point. It really is a horrific
thing, and it is a much bigger problem than even just a second Amendment
to try to get this regulatory state under control. So it'd be interesting to
see what happens with the Supreme Court decisions on this. And again, I
think the bump stock issue is such an important thing. Even though the bump
stock itself, as you point out, its total piece of garbage. You
know, everybody says it's based of garbage, but it's an important principle,
and that's the key thing. The principle is so important even if the item
isn't so well. It's always great talking to you guy. And again people
can find a gun guy and they can find that at what's the call letters
for the radio station again where they can find that poost WIBC. Yeah,
you can find me at WIBC dot com or my Twitter or x I guess
we're calling it now? Is just a guy Ralford? Great, great,
Thank you very much guy. Always a pleasure to talk to you and thank
you for what you've done. And that's a great example that you got there
and other states do need to implement that. That is an important law to
protect people who are doing what they can to protect themselves and protect to other
innocent people at the same time. Thank you so much. Thank you,
David. Always an honor the common man. They created common core and dumbed
down our children. They created common past to track and control us. They're
Commons project to make sure the commoners own nothing and the communist future. They
see the common man as simple, unsophisticated ordinary. But each of us has
worth and dignity created in the image of God. That is what we have
in common. That is what they want to take away. Their most powerful
weapons are isolation, deception, intimidation. They desire to know everything about us,
while they hide everything from us. It's time to turn that around and
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