Riding Shotgun With Charlie

Riding Shotgun With Charlie  #088 Stephen Willeford   Last month, I was at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival in Greeley, PA, and was able to get some time with one of the featured speakers, Stephen Willeford. We’ve all heard the story about what happened on November 5. 2017 at a church in Sutherland Springs, TX. Mr Willeford was the good guy with a gun who heard the gunshots, grabbed a handful of ammo and his AR 15 and headed to confront the murder.    Stephen Willeford grew up shooting and hunting on a dairy farm. He saved the money he earned to buy .22 ammo and eventually a .30-30 lever action rifle.  As a parent, his church parishioners would have regular shooting competitions on Sundays, teaching the children gun safety while the mothers shot.  Then the mothers would take the kids while the fathers shot.    On the day that changed Stephen’s life, he was taking it easy on a Sunday afternoon while he was on call at a local hospital where he was a plumber. His daughter heard gunshots nearby and yelled to her

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #087 Beth AlcazarPacifiers & Peacemakers USCCAThe DC Project   I met Beth Alcazar at SHOT Show 2017. The following month, I saw her again at a concealed carry fashion show I was emceeing in Cleveland.  And I’ve seen her at every GPRC since 2017 and even in Washington DC at a DC Project event. That isn’t just how she’s everywhere.  She writes a blog for the USCCA called Pacifiers & Peacemakers, and she teaches the teachers for the USCCA as well.  She’s also a board member of BamaCarry.  She’s one of the busiest women in the gun community and I was able to catch up with her in Birmingham, AL, during the RSWC Southern Tour 2020.  She did start off with some Southern Hospitality and a number of gifts from local businesses and trivia of Alabama. You can check that out on the RSWC Facebook page from August 23, 2020. She also brought her 2A blanket, Twizzlers, and a book for me.    Beth got her start as a writer in the shooting/hunting/outdoor industry, but wanted to learn how the

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #086 Claude Werner Tactical Professor   Claude Werner brings his airsoft MP5 Zombie Eraser Z71 Edition. We had some time to hangout a little before we started filming at the home of Shelley & Brian Hill before the show. What I really like about Claude is that he likes to ‘stir the pot’ a bit..  And I noticed that when I spotted the SCCY handgun in his waistband. He did tell me that he pushes what others believe and the SCCY has been holding up to his 1,000 Days of Dryfire Challenge.    The reason he’s called the Tactical Professor is because he’s analytical and date driven.  After joining the Army he was sent to West Point to teach tactics to cadets, which led to a Special Forces Team Commander. He’s also run a number of different shooting clubs.  He was a student at the elite Rogers Shooting School in Ellijay, GA, before he had taken enough classes and was asked to be the Chief Instructor there. I love that Claude calls the people who take classes with him “clients” rather tha

RSWC  #085 Brad Premo CEO, Leadslingers Whiskey   When I heard about Leadslingers Whiskey on Armed American Radio, I decided to find some.  I drove an hour to get a bottle.  I loved it.  Then I decided that I would message Brad Premo, CEO of Leadslingers and a regular contributor to AAR, and inquired about getting some of their hand sanitizer to use during the summer tour while the virus that shall not be named was going on. Within 2 minutes, Brad got back to me and asked for my shipping address. This is the kind of people ‘gun folks’ are!   He replied just as quick when I said I was coming to Nashville to film some shows for the Southern Tour.    Brad and I discuss his early shooting, hunting, and fishing, with family members.  Like many of us, September 11, 2001 changed him, too.  He decided a week after college with a degree in sociology and criminology, he was going to join the Army as an Airborne Infantryman. He did 3 years serving our country including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Joining the military

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #084 Mark Walters Armed American Radio   Part of the Southern Tour 2020 brought me to the Atlanta area. Of course, I had to reach out to Mark Walters from Armed American Radio.  Mark is the reason that I was brought into the 2A Activist fold. I interviewed him in Minneapolis in August 2016 and he loved the idea of driving passengers around as we talk about gun issues with gun people.  He asked if I wanted to speak at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Tampa that year.  How could I say no?   I picked Mark up at his house outside Atlanta and we headed out to film another show. We drove to the bar & marina that Ozark was filmed on Lake Altoona, but the Hood-Cam wasn’t working. Grrr! We covered some of the things Mark and his guests talked about the night before. And we covered some politics about how things are going for gun owners in America.   We talk about Kennesaw GA, GunTown USA since 1982. It was a bit of a pilgrimage to visit the town while I was there. We cover how Georgi

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #083 Boge Quinn GunBlast   I set up a quick 2020 Southern Tour this summer and I reached out to Boge Quinn.  He watched a few RSWCs and agreed to be on the show. I drove from Nashville to Dover, TN, to meet up with Boge. I never met his brother Jeff, but if Jeff was anything like Boge, he was a hell of a guy! Hearing Boge talk about his brother, you can tell they’ve got an incredible family and relationship, and you can hear it the way Boge talks about Jeff.    We had lots to talk about besides guns and Jeff.  Boge is an accomplished musician, plays all types of stringed instruments from guitar to banjo to electric mandolin. Yes, electric mandolin! He also spent a career working with computers since DOS and Commodore64.    In 1999 when Jeff decided to start writing real gun reviews, Boge was his go to for figuring out to get the reviews and videos on “that internet thing”. They were going to share duties on reviewing guns and started with their own website.  The early videos were s

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#082Stephanie SchaferA Girl & A GunThe DC Project   Stephanie Schafer is from “basically Wyoming” Nebraska. We met in DC in July 2019 at a DC Project event.  It was funny when we started talking and she said I sound just like I do on YouTube! Hehe!  She’s also a facilitator with A Girl & A Gun (AG&AG), teaching women about gun safety, the fundamentals of shooting, and about their Rights as Americans. She started shooting with her boyfriend and he didn’t know what he was getting her into!    Stephanie and her boyfriend, Lanny, wrote their own curriculum to teach a concealed carry course in Nebraska. Their shooting school, Def Comp  (Defensive & Competitive Shooting Instruction) requires that you take their prerequisite fundamentals of shooting course. After becoming instructors, they also got into 3-gun competitive shooting.  Stephanie is also passing the 3-gun fun with one of her daughters. Just as she was looking into how to start a women’s shooting club, she discov

Riding Shotgun With Charlie   #080  Aaargo Jay & Rhonda Ezell   (Adult Language Warning: There are a couple offensive words used in this episode. The words were used as a quote from someone who isn’t on the show.  The words used are offensive to the speaker and the host, but they were used to make a point). This is also an extra long episode, so you need to dedicate time to watch it.    In Chicago September 2018, Aaargo Jay and I met at the Gun Rights Policy Conference. He told me that his son is a big fan of my GunGram videos!  We saw each other again at the GPRC in Phoenix in 2019 and Aaargo Jay asked if I would come to Milwaukee to film a show during the DNC in July 2020.  How could I say no?  But the DNC was cancelled due to the virus that shall not be named. I had some personal business to tend to in Illinois, so I set up a date with Aaargo then contacted Rhonda Ezell to see if she wanted to join us.  So I picked up Rhonda and headed to Wisconsin.    We spent about an hour and a half shooting. Aaargo

Riding Shotgun With Charlie   #080  Robyn Sandoval A Girl & A Gun   Robyn Sandoval and I have been running into each other at several of the 2A events around the country.   Last year, we filmed a show in Phoenix at the Gun Rights Policy Conference, but we didn’t put that interview out. I was able to interview a few of the instructors with A Girl & A Gun in between classes they were taking at SIG Academy in Epping, New Hampshire.    Robyn was an anti-gun person for much of her life, but Hurricane Katrina changed that.  It made her realize that saving peanut butter and tuna fish is only good if you can protect your peanut butter and tuna fish from others. Then she realized it was time to change.     Her husband sent her to a “girls night out at the range” at a local shooting range with Julianna Crowder, a local instructor and soon to be other half of AG & AG. The experience changed her life. She took her background in marketing and content management and made a career transition.  A Girl & A Gun

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #079 Ronnie Siegel A GIrl & A Gun Facilitator for Central New Jersey   Ronnie Siegel is with A Girl & A Gun (AGAG).  Some of the AGAG instructors were taking a class in Epping, New Hampshire,at the SIG Academy. This was like a “bonus” interview. Robyn Sandoval, one of the founders of AGAG, said she wanted to have Ronnie in my passenger’s seat.  It was like a bonus interview!   Ronnie has been shooting since she was a young woman.  Recently, she started the A Girl & A Gun in New Jersey.   She spent years studying art and became an art director, art teacher, and eventually a vice principal. All of her advanced art classes were full. She was also a motorcycle safety instructor.  And she airbrushed her gas tanks, and started a business doing custom tanks for bikers around the country.  Even as a teacher and principal, she knew that she needed a plan for the safety of her students.    Ronnie and her husband are competitive shooters, traveling around the country for the AGAG

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #078 LaKasha Robbins Massachusetts Women Gun Owners Gun Owners Action League The DC Project   It was sometime in 2018 when I met LaKasha. She was modeling for the Gun Owners Action League (GOAL) Concealed Carry Fashion Show. I was the emcee. We were running into each other at 2A events put on by GOAL, The DC Project (DCP), and even trap shooting locally. Finally after about a year and a half of telling her she should be on the show, while we were sighting in some ARs recently, she agreed!  She’s been interviewed by Tom Gresham & Cam Edwards, this ought to be like shooting a .22!   LaKasha Robbins is a relatively new shooter and gun owner.  She’s had a license for several years, but things really started moving when she and some other female 2A activists in Massachusetts, started Mass Women Gun Owners (MWGO). She’s got some computer experience and organization skills, so she volunteered to help get materials and information out.  She and the others started the group just to exch

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #077 Dawn Hillyer Hiding Hilda   Dawn and I were both models at the concealed carry fashion show at Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) in Chicago, 2018. I was modeling a holster undershirt.  I’m sure she was modeling one of her own products made by her company, Hiding Hilda. I told her that I wanted to do a show in every state and secretly she wanted to be my Indiana passenger. We made it happen in Fort Wayne, Indiana last month.    Dawn Hillyer, like many people, didn’t grow up around firearms or shooting. She got involved with firearms a year after a dating relationship ended and she was stalked for 6 years by her ex-boyfriend. There were death threats not just to her, but her family and friends, too. It kept escalating and escalating. The ex-boyfriend was very computer savvy and sent fake emails to himself making it look like she was going after him. She changed her phone number and email yet he still found and stalked her.     She had a bad feeling one evening and took her chi

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #076 Lauren Nelson This what one of the things I love about the 2A community is how easily we connect with others.  I met Patrick Collins in Phoenix.  He was able to connect me to Lauren Nelson when I asked about finding someone in Vermont to be on the show.    I met Lauren and we headed to her local gun shop in Wells River, VT, called Gateway Sports. They have a nice little shop that was recently redone inside.  While we were there, the store was busy with people looking to trade in some handguns, buying new handguns for some women, and even a few people with their young kids. Lauren shares a story about trading in a pink BB gun to buy her first gun at Gateway,too.    Lauren grew up south of Boston in a non-gun household.  She became interested in getting a handgun after she was married.  Her husband is mostly into long guns. Since they live in Vermont, they have their own range on their farm. They mostly shoot outdoors and usually in fair weather.   We get into how Vermont is a

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #075 Brooke Cheney A Great Start Shooting School The DC Project   I met Brooke Cheney at The DC Project dinner in Washington last summer.  Then we ran into each other again in Massachusetts at the Gun Owners Action League Concealed Carry Fashion show back in March. Of course, we kept in touch and with the current times, I needed to stay local for a show.  We did use some Leadslingers Hand Sanitizer, thanks for LeadslingersWhiskey.com, and headed out for a drive.    Brooke grew up and learned a little about firearms when she was a young girl. Her dad would load up a firearm and have her shoot them.  When she was dating her to-be-husband, they would go shooting, and he would load the firearm and have her shoot it. It wasn’t until after she had children, that she really needed to learn about firearms since they were going to be in the house.    Like many of us, after we take a safety course, we learn that we have more to learn. She learned that the course to get her license was just t

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #074 Mike Hughes & Britt Lentz Next Level Training   I met Mike & Britt at SHOT Show 2020 thanks to  Klint Macro & Matt Mallory from Meet The Pressers. They said they’re great guys from Next Level Training  and they needed to get in the stagecoach.  You may have seen Mike Hughes from History Channel’s Top Shot Season 3.    Before Next Level Training and SIRT pistols, Mike was a football player and a patent attorney who enjoyed competitive shooting. He spent a lot of time training and running his business, but having a family took over, and competitive shooting took a backseat.    The SIRT (Shot Indicating Resetting Trigger) pistol was Mike’s idea.  It took a lot of work, effort, and research to make the pistols and assembly them, which is all done in Washington state. They’ve got a number of types of pistols, like a GLCOK 17/22, S&W M&P, SIG P320, and a bolt for the AR 15 platform.    We did cover a little about the differences in intellectual property and funct

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #073  John Costa The Gunrunner LLC   When I called John Costa, owner of The Gunrunner LLC,  was on the phone with Glenn Beck. I read this story the day before about his gun store. I left my number and a couple hours later, we set up the time for an interview the next day.    During the breakout of COVID-19, many businesses and stores in Massachusetts were ordered to close. MA Governor Charlie Baker made a (vague) list of essential businesses.  President Trump eventually said that gun stores were essential businesses and should remain open. On March 31, Governor Baker included firearms retailers in the essential businesses.  Within hours, Governor Baker retracted firearms retailers on the list. Then Attorney General Maura Healey tweeted that gun stores were NOT essential and that gun owners were a danger to police officers, first responders, and domestic violence victims. The gun stores in Massachusetts would also not be on the list of businesses that could receive financial help fr

RSWC #072Mike OxDry Fire Training Cards Thanks to the Meet The Presser gents, Klint & Matt, for the use of their Vegas rental car! Attending a SHOT Show 2020 gathering is where I met Mike Ox.  He’s an instructor, author, and creator of the Dry Fire Training Cards. The Dry Fire Training Cards would be GREAT to have while the country is working through the virus of March 2020. “Ox” has been shooting since he was a young man.  After years of playing sports he got a number of concussions. When he was ‘no holds barred’ fighting in college, he learned to work with Olympic coaches on mental imagery and visualization and control his adrenaline response. Taking this training and combining it with firearm training, he ended up making a dry firing program for himself and it worked very quickly.  It became the Tactical Firearms Training Secrets book. He found out he was suffering with vertigo almost every night for 3 ½ years and learned about neurology and how to not have vertigo and keep doing IDPA Nationals. With s

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #071 Daniel Easterday Sued Deerfield, IL with IRSA & SAF   I was headed to Chicago for some family events. I had one morning to squeeze in a possible RSWC interview.  I messaged Rhonda Ezell and asked if she knew anyone who would be around that morning. She set me up with Daniel Easterday. She always comes thru!  Check out the Facebook LIVE video we did on the Riding Shotgun With Charlie Facebook page from Jan 26, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/RidingShotgunWithCharlie/videos/2425804361080948/   Daniel Easterday had a gunsmith as an uncle and started shooting as a kid. When he was older, he started to get into training. He learned that people aren’t as good they think they are with a firearm and he wanted to learn more.    After the Supreme Court decided that since Illinois was the last and only state to NOT allow it’s law abiding, background check passing citizens to be able to carry a concealed firearm outside their homes, they needed to change that. However, the anti-gun cr

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #070 Brian Harris Live Free Or Die Guys   In August 2015, Brian took a course from me to get his Utah & MA permits.  A month later, he was arguing with a woman he was dating. He took his clothes and headed out. After a verbal argument, she called the police. His girlfriend didn’t even know that he had a gun in his trunk.    They called Brian and asked him to come downstairs. Four police officers greeted him at the door with guns drawn waiting for him. They searched his vehicle and he said he had a firearm and a permit. It was unloaded, locked and secured. There was a temporary restraining order and the police confiscated the firearm. A year later when the restraining order was supposed to be dropped, the district attorney extended it. And pressed charges. He had to spend $13,000 to hire an attorney to fight his case for 2 years.    He was really being “red flagged” before “red flags” existed.   It seems like the district attorney was the one pushing to get Brian jailed. The DA

Riding Shotgun With Charlie #069 Klint Macro & Matthew Mallory Meet The Pressers    One of my passengers said I needed to get Klint in the car. After some messaging, we decided that I’d be on Meet The Pressers and they would be on RSWC.  Since we were all heading to SHOT Show 2020, this is where we filmed this show. The Meet The Pressers gents were kind enough to let me use their rental car for the show!   Klint Macro is a recording engineer as well as a firearm instructor. When Klint was recording musicians in LA, he was friends with an armorer which led to helping others in using a firearm.  That led to becoming a firearm instructor. After some NRA instructor training, Klint discovered that he was going to be able to teach as a civilian since he thought only military and police were the only people who could be instructors.    He shares a story about a woman who told him that after he taught her to use a firearm safely, she would never be victimized again. That had a profound effect on him and his instr