transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:09] This is Armed American Radio's Daily Defense.

Speaker 2:
[00:14] Armed American Radio's Daily Defense, because they don't want me to, that's why I do it.

Speaker 1:
[00:20] From the CZ Studios, they're never going to stop us here. Here is your host, the loudest conservative voice in America fighting the enemies of freedom, Mark Walters.

Speaker 2:
[00:33] And welcome in, ladies and gentlemen, Armed American Radio's Daily Defense begins right now here in the CZ Studios. Mark Walters here in front of the Patriot Mobile mic at the Patriot Mobile Command Center and the National Rifle Association. We are back from Houston, Texas. Greg in Dallas, how you doing, brother? We're back live, man.

Speaker 3:
[00:48] Yeah, here we are.

Speaker 2:
[00:50] It's strange, isn't it?

Speaker 3:
[00:51] No, it's, you know, we do this enough to wear a few days off doesn't mean that we don't know how to do it.

Speaker 2:
[00:57] I would argue with a few days off, but nonetheless, I know what you're talking about. You're talking about live and that, and yeah, there's a big difference. So guys, welcome in. We are back live with you today and it is great to be with you. Please visit all of our great partners. You can find them all at armedamericanradio.com. We hooked up with a bunch of them in Houston, Texas. In addition to that, Greg, we are live on Facebook for you, facebook.com/armedamericanradio, facebook.com/armedamericanradio, and everywhere else. I'll let Greg tell you where to go to enjoy all that fun stuff and comment, like, share, post, subscribe, and all that fun stuff. And then we'll get to our guests. We've got a good one today. Stephen Gutowski from The Reload. Wait to hear this conversation. Go ahead, Greg, take it away.

Speaker 3:
[01:33] Yeah, sure. Other places to watch the show are going to be YouTube and Rumble, just do a search for Armed American Radio with Mark Walters. You can watch us over at X at AAR Mark. You can also watch us over on armedamericanradio.org or.com. Hit that menu icon, then select your watch live or listen live option. Lastly, if you'd like to join our live chats, just download Telegram, create your profile and search for Armed American Radio Conversations.

Speaker 2:
[01:59] And that will bring you in. It looks like we got to get back in the groove to the live stuff, ladies and gentlemen. Look at Greg's got phone goes. Is it a good time to call?

Speaker 3:
[02:05] Yeah, it's a terrible time to call.

Speaker 2:
[02:07] Was that AWR by any chance? Let's go over to Stephen Gutowski, founder of The Reload and Virginia resident. Stephen, welcome in, my friend. How are you today? It's a pleasure to have you, brother.

Speaker 4:
[02:17] Hi, I'm doing all right. How are you?

Speaker 2:
[02:19] I'm doing well. You are right here in the room with me, man. I'm loving this. Yeah. Welcome in. I say welcome in. I mean, welcome in. Now, listen, you and I had a conversation earlier today, and it started when you reached out to me to ask some questions about my conversation with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch from the NRA. When you saw that I had had an opportunity to sit down with him, and that led into what if we could have recorded, that would have been a great radio program. And I asked you to come on and say, look, let's talk about these things today because there's just so much nuance and so much happening in particular in Virginia. But let's start with Todd Blanch, the Acting Attorney General. Did you have concerns about Todd? Tell me what you know or don't know about him and how our conversation started this morning. Let's bring it back to the radio.

Speaker 4:
[03:06] Yeah, you know, it's obviously he's Acting Attorney General now. I think most of his background is what he's most known for is being President Trump's Criminal Defense Attorney before the president before he won his second term. And so he doesn't have necessarily a background like somebody like Harmeet Dhillon or even Pam Bondi where you can kind of look at their, what they've done in the past, at least not that I'm intimately aware of, like I think most people are with those two figures. And so it's just kind of like trying to get a gauge on what he is like, what his beliefs are around the Second Amendment. I think there's sort of a baseline expectation in the Trump administration that they're going to be relatively pro-gun at the very least. Even with some of the stuff that's been worth criticizing, it's still in the spectrum on the pro-gun side of things. And so even somebody like Jeanine Pirro has gotten a lot of criticism for stuff she's done in DC as US attorney. They're still doing things like not enforcing DC's magazine ban, for instance. So it's sort of all, you got to take a proper view of everything, have a fair understanding. At least that's what I try to do. And so you had sat down and had an interview with him. He was at the NRA annual meeting, which is not something you see from attorney generals very often. Not that it's necessarily unexpected. Donald Trump himself has shown up at a number of NRA meetings, although not the last two. But I just kind of wanted to get a sense from somebody who knows well what the ins and outs of gun policy are like yourself, and who actually has talked with this guy in this figure, and tried to suss out. Because I saw his speech, or saw his message that the NRA put out. And it certainly hits a lot of the notes that I think gun rights activists want to hear. But obviously, it can go beyond what somebody says in a one-minute video to really have a good understanding of how they might approach the job.

Speaker 2:
[05:19] Bondi is a good example of that, right?

Speaker 4:
[05:21] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[05:22] So, yeah, you know, your little moniker over on The Reload, by the way, you can read everything Stephen puts out, ladies and gentlemen, at the reload.com. And is sober, serious firearms reporting and analysis. And sober is a really important word when we're talking about this. Because as you and I know, everybody wants everything yesterday. We all do. We want it yesterday. And part of the conversation I had with him, I did address the criticism coming their way. And he was straightforward with me. He said, Look, we've earned a lot of the criticism at the DOJ. And he wasn't talking about himself personally, but he was talking about overall. The DOJ itself has earned a lot of this criticism. And he pointed out that Republican administrations in the past have never done enough for Second Amendment. Now, I mean, I didn't have time. I had 10 minutes with the man. And as you know, on this program, it just flies right by. And we were taping the segment. We had 90 seconds notification that he was going to appear. And, you know, half of that was eating up a Secret Service prior to his immediate arrival. But he answered that question in a way that I thought was very telling as to how he might bring things to the table. He was wide open for the criticism. Now, if I wanted to, I could go back, based on his comment, Republican administrator, we could go all the way back to Reagan and talk about what could have been done over gun rights. And you and I talked about this morning, going back to, oh, wait, the Heller decision, some of the nuance in that, writing from Scalia, then the 2010 McDonald decision on to Bruin, and both you and I, we're both, when you talk about it together and it comes out, we're four years removed from Bruin now.

Speaker 4:
[07:00] Wild, right? Yeah, it's been that long.

Speaker 2:
[07:01] It's been that long. And when you look back and wonder, four years, what have we gotten in that? Guys, we're going to cover a lot of that with Stephen today. Some of his headlines will tell the story, and we'll just branch out in those directions with you today, Stephen. But go back to the administrations. I think we would all agree that not near enough has been done over the years. And that's why when we get somebody like Trump in, I go right back to your opening statement here. There's a baseline expectation. And there is a baseline expectation. Bondi didn't fill that baseline expectation. Now, I had no fear of her only because I know she's a loyalist and I know who her boss is or was. Okay? I feel a lot different about Todd Blanch right now. Now, again, he's acting. We don't know what's going to happen in that position permanently, but I have no fear of him whatsoever because I did have a chance to talk to him privately off air for about five to 10 minutes as well. So I felt good. Did I answer your questions about that earlier today in a private conversation? Okay, because we'll bring that to the airwaves. How did you feel after talking with me having met with him?

Speaker 4:
[08:02] Yeah, no, I mean, you gave as much, I think, as you can from the short interaction you had both in the interview itself and outside of it. That I trust your judgment to on these things about how you feel about Blanche. And you said his family had been in the gun business as well. That's an interesting thing to note. Because to me, a lot of even though we're working within a certain spectrum here, like I talked about with Piro, right? There's obviously things that she's done that very much upset gun rights advocates. But even within that, there are things that moves that also make people happy. They've reduced, for instance, the processing time for concealed carry permits in DC or for gun registration. Now, they've also defended the registration scheme in DC, and that upsets a lot of people understandably. But it's within a spectrum. Take what you would get from the Biden administration, for instance, would be on the complete opposite side of the spectrum that you'd be working within. To me, a lot of the variation in that is due to personnel, who's in these key positions. I think even Blanche made this point in your interview talking about the ATF and the chief counsel there being Robert Leiter, who was a former law professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason. He's a pro-gun guy, and now he's doing a lot of the legal work inside the ATF, which is a very different person than who was fired, who would hold over from the Biden administration. You can compare that to, you can even compare like Harmeet Dhillon to the assistant attorney general, same position of DOJ. One is filing lawsuits against the Soutwebens bans in DC, and threatening them in Virginia. And another is defending the Federal Switchblade Ban Act and saying in court that, yes, the government can ban all knives. These are wildly variant positions. And I think they come down largely to personnel who gets put in these key positions. And that's why, to me, it matters a lot of what the kind of views that Blanche has, because I think he will have a lot of say over how DOJ pursues within the spectrum that I laid out there. It's still going to be a general...

Speaker 2:
[10:30] Well, he's going to get... Yeah, we're getting ready to take our first break, Stephen. When we come back, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to go into the weeds here. So follow along with us as we kind of segue over to Virginia as well, because it does impact you. And we'll get into all of that in just a moment. We've got three more segments left with Stephen Gutowski. The Reload will be back right after this. Don't go away. The following segment of Armed American Radio is proudly being brought to you by the National Rifle Association. Help us defend freedom by visiting nra.org/aar and join today. Welcome back to the show. Boy, we did a lot of that in Houston, ladies and gentlemen. If you were one of the folks that walked up to the booth and said hello, we appreciate that very much. TX Huntsman, when you give you a big shout out, Greg TX Huntsman, Texas Huntsman came over and said hello at the booth. Not a shocker, that was great meeting him, and all of you who popped in was great. And to the guy that stole my shirt, I will find you, I will find you, and I will penalize you for what you did. I don't have time for thieves, but they're everywhere, ladies and gentlemen, they're everywhere. You got to keep your head on a swivel, guys. And welcome back in to CZ Studios. I'm going to find that guy, Greg. I promise I'm going to find that guy. All right, guys, welcome back CZ Studios, Patriot Mobile Microphone lit up for you. Make sure to check out all of our great partners, including, of course, blackoutcoffee.com, blackoutcoffee.com, and use the promo code AAR, or just go to blackoutcoffee.com/aar. I had two cups, two and a half cups to be exact, of Blackout to start my day today, trying to get back in the groove after being gone for a few days, and traveling and meeting with everybody is always a lot of fun. Takes a while to get back into the groove, it definitely does. But we're doing that with you right now today. Let's go back to our guest, Stephen Gutowski, founder of The Reload. Stephen, welcome back in, my friend.

Speaker 4:
[12:29] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[12:30] All right, so let's, you mentioned Piro. So let's kind of go there. I did ask Attorney General Blanche about Piro, and specifically the magazine ban case, and she, her seeking another re-hearing of that. Now, look, I made it clear, I'm not a lawyer, okay? I don't pretend to play one here, but I will give you my opinion. And it didn't make sense to me, and he kind of put it in perspective for me without going into a lot of the case, that what they were trying to do and why they're doing these things is they're trying to shore up their appellate position so that they can get these things to the Supreme Court. Now, it seems to me, I'm still trying to wrap my head around why you'd want to go back and ask for that again. I don't know why the decision wasn't strong enough. I don't understand that. Again, I am not a lawyer, and I'm not playing one on TV, but that was his response. Does anything about that shock you at all? Well, we have to be split with that DC Circuit Court decision. I'm going to make that clear.

Speaker 4:
[13:31] Yeah. I'm in the same boat as you as far as not being a lawyer, right? And so I would like to hear from some lawyers, especially some of the more respected gun rights lawyers out there on their perspective on this, on his response. So that isn't interesting. That he addressed it head on, and that was his explanation is interesting to me. I will say that we published a piece at the time when Piero filed that brief from Costas Moros, who works for the Second Amendment Foundation, is a gun rights lawyer, and he was pretty upset about it. His position was essentially that, one, she didn't need to do this. It wasn't required that the government say anything in this case, and two, that her position, one, it undermines what already had been a circus, because this court in DC, one of the things, DC is obviously a little bit confusing because it's not its own state. It's a federal enclave, but it does have the equivalent of a state court system, and that's where this case was, and this ruling was already at the highest level of that system. You know, she's requesting an on-buck, like, oh, the same court, but the whole court hear it, right? And so it's not necessary to create a circuit split, from my understanding of what Costas was saying. You know, that was already accomplished. So I'd like to hear from him or a couple other, you know, the Second Amendment legal scholars out there about, you know, whether they agree with Blanche's interpretation of what that's accomplishing. Because I know Costas, he viewed it as, they're not trying to defend the magazine ban necessarily, although he thinks that the position they're taking doesn't rule out the idea that some limit could be acceptable, like just not DC's 10-round limit.

Speaker 2:
[15:31] Yeah. Let me stop you for just a second, because, you know, that raises a great point. Is the clarification meant for her or for us? There's a big difference, because we don't know what she personally is seeking. Now, I had a lengthy conversation with constitutional attorney, Mark Smith, and I'll be airing that interview, guys, on Sunday, along with heavy-duty country Dan interview. I did a great interview with him, a lot of fun, both those interviews. Honestly, I don't recall if I asked him about that, because I spoke with him after I spoke with the AG, or did I? Yeah, I did. So, I mean, I'll have to go back and listen to it before I run it. Because that, to me, I'm with Moros on this, which is why I asked him for that answer, and I threw that out there, right? I'm not a lawyer. What's going on here? What needs to happen? So, I'm not going to pretend I know the answer to that. So, I guess this is just one of those things. We're going to have to wait and see, a lot like Virginia, and we're going to be getting into that very shortly, the wait and see that we talked about today we'll bring to the airwaves. Go ahead, continue the thought on it, because it is interesting, it's very interesting.

Speaker 4:
[16:37] And I think Costa's main objection to it was that they're seemingly trying to defend the registration scheme. Because it's one thing, and this is where we get into that, it's a spectrum, within this more pro-gun spectrum, Piero is obviously on the left of that spectrum, right? She's not like, you're still better off overall than you were under a Biden appointee. Of course, that's just the reality of the situation, and that's whatever you think about Donald Trump or Joe Biden, that's just the reality. And so, but within the spectrum, you've got Harmeet Dhillon is like all the way on the other end of it, and Pirro and Dhillon are kind of on one end of each side of this Trump spectrum. And so, for Costas, his big objection was that she seemed to be trying to defend the registration requirements. DC has a registration requirement. Most gun rights advocates don't like gun registration, obviously. But it's something that even though she's not prosecuting people under the MAG ban in DC, she is prosecuting people under the registration ban. If you have an unregistered gun, she will. That was one of the big controversies around here, right, was talking about how you could be law abiding somewhere else. But if you come into the district and you...

Speaker 2:
[17:59] She made that clear in her statement that day. You know, eventually kind of walk that back, which I don't like. We had three comments come out from three of the members of Trump's team on this, and all of them had to walk their statements back, including Pirro on that count. So yeah, the registration aspect of this is very important. Here, when you talk about Harmeet being on the opposite side of the spectrum, Mr. I no doubt after meeting with him, absolutely put him over there with Harmeet. Okay? There's no Pirro in him whatsoever. It is very important. You know, just south of my booth was his family's booth. Checkmate. There's a guy that understands the industry. Far better than Jeanine Pirro. Remind me, where does Jeanine Pirro hail from?

Speaker 4:
[18:42] Yeah, New York, right?

Speaker 2:
[18:43] New York. So there's that.

Speaker 4:
[18:45] And she operates a lot like a Northeast Republican, the old school Northeast Republican, who's much more willing to accept and enforce certain kinds of gun restrictions. Like not as much as Democrats necessarily, but different, certainly not in the same vein of what somebody from the NRA or GOA or FPC would want to see.

Speaker 2:
[19:09] All right, we're getting ready to take another break, guys. When we come back, we're going to start digging into Virginia because there's a ton going on. There's more going on than I even thought after talking with Stephen this morning. It's a lot deeper. And I do want to make a correction to something that I said on the program from NRA because I got two bills mixed up when I mentioned what the governor did, and it was only one of the two bills. And I'll explain that when we come back. And Stephen is going to take a deep, deep, deep dive into what is going on and what this all means. And then we're going to start asking questions like we did of each other today. It's impossible to get into the head of a Democrat, but we're going to do our level best on Armed American Radio's daily defense. We'll be back. Two more segments to go with Stephen. The following segment of Armed American Radio's Daily Defense is being brought to you by Patriot Mobile. Visit patriotmobile.com/aar and use the AAR promo code to get free activation today. Welcome back to the show. Yeah, welcome back to the show indeed. Mark Walters filling your prescription for freedom. We're talking with Stephen Gutowski. Before we get right back to Stephen, Patriot Mobile, I got the Patriot Mobile hat on, and I had left my Patriot Mobile activated phone at home by accident when I went out to the NRA convention. Patriot Mobile will be here Thursday too, by the way, we'll be talking hopefully with Scott Coburn. But Patriot Mobile, ladies and gentlemen, you heard me, I was talking with the founder, co-founder of Old Glory Bank. There are businesses out there that you should be doing business with, that I should be doing business with, like Patriot Mobile, like Old Glory Bank. We'll talk more about that down the road. But as far as your phones go, Patriot Mobile has got you covered. And when you visit the site, patriotmobile.com/aar, you see the Second Amendment and their support for it right there on the page. They had a booth at NRA. The other three carriers we don't like to name because it's not fair, that would be AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, didn't. And I want to continue to drive that home and make that clear. Switching phones is easy. Keep your number. All that fun stuff will give you up to a $500 credit. And depending on how many phones you move over, you won't be paying a phone bill for quite some time. patriotmobile.com/aar and check them out. All of our great sponsors and partners can be found over at armedamericanradio.com. Stephen Gutowski from The Reload, welcome back in brother. In the essence of time, let's just go right to Virginia, okay? I do not want to run out of time on this conversation because there is so much to talk about. And what I'm going to do is just start by reading some of your headlines from The Reload. Virginia governor wants gun bill expansions. The end of non-resident carry bans. We'll go there. You were talking with Philip Van Cleef about that. We'll hold that one off to the end, but we'll hopefully get there. Who are Virginia governor Spanberger's gun moves meant to please? Virginia governor pushes to further tighten new gun bans. Spanberger requests stricter hospital gun ban from Virginia legislature, and Virginia governor sends assault firearms ban back to legislature. Now, what I wanted to clarify before we get started, ladies and gentlemen, was when I was talking with, I believe it was Doug Hamlin, executive director of the National Rifle Association, the news was breaking. Literally, I had gotten word of it moments before. We taped that interview, that there's a four-fifths majority, there's an emergency bill, emergency declaration in there that triggers the Virginia state constitution. And it was 18 to 20 year olds. I also thought it included, quote unquote, the assault firearms bill, as they call it, or otherwise known, as you know, it has the media puts it out as the assault weapons ban. It only applied to the 18 to 20 year old. But nonetheless, it's all tied together. So Stephen, let's get into the weeds on all of this, because it's a mess, and it's getting worse by the minute. Where are we?

Speaker 4:
[23:06] Yeah, it is a mess, and it's not surprising that it gets confusing even to someone like you or I. It's hard to keep track of all this stuff that the legislature has passed, and now that the governor has sent back in really kind of a unique feature here in Virginia, where the governor can send back bills with recommendations for how to change them. That's what we're waiting on now, right? About half the bills she signed, things like eliminating reciprocity with other states. Virginia currently accepts concealed carry permits for every state, and they're basically going back to the old system where the attorney general will decide, and the attorney general is the guy who had a scandal for wanting to, is threatening to, saying he wanted to kill his political opponents.

Speaker 2:
[23:59] You can't make this stuff up, folks. You cannot make this stuff up.

Speaker 4:
[24:02] Yeah. And even if that hadn't happened, he's obviously somebody who believes in very strict gun laws, and you're likely to see a real elimination of most reciprocity deals with Virginia down the line here once that bill goes into effect. So she's already signed a number of these gun bills, but she sent nine of them back to the legislature with changes. And those changes as well can be kind of complex and vague and confusing in both the language and in how they interact with one another. The biggest ticket item, I will say, is what she did with the, as we called in Virginia for whatever reason, assault firearms, both sales and carry ban. There's two different bills. One of them does the traditional sales ban, where after July 1st, you won't be able to buy certain kinds of guns. I mean, this is very similar to most of the other ones out there. Targets AR-15s and similar firearms, semi-automatic center fire rifles that are capable of accepting a detachable magazine and then have one of a certain number of features, cosmetic and ergonomic features like pistol grips and telescoping stocks and barrels that can accept threaded barrels essentially and so forth. And those will be illegal to sell in Virginia. You'll be able to keep the ones you have, but they'll be illegal to sell. Same for magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. And then so that there's a sales ban, which you'd expect that's typical, but they also have a carry ban on those same kinds of guns. And what the governor has done, so that's what's passed already, the legislature. And you're likely, whatever happens with what the governor has recommended, she can still just accept the old language if the legislature decides not to agree to her changes.

Speaker 2:
[25:53] And that meeting of the legislature for this is tomorrow, by the way.

Speaker 4:
[25:56] Tomorrow, yes. Okay, so we're gonna go a lot more. Which does put it after, it does put it a day after the, and a lot of people have talked about this as sort of a delaying effort on the governor's part. I'm a little skeptical that that's what's going on, but we can get into it. But it does put it the day after today, which is the day that Virginia goes to vote on the redistricting while the gerrymander law. And so it does, you know, the reconsideration day for the legislature is tomorrow, which is after this vote. And so some people think that that was part of the motivation here, or maybe all the motivation for what the governor's doing.

Speaker 2:
[26:28] I'm one of them.

Speaker 4:
[26:30] And we can talk about that if you want, but we could start with what she's actually recommending, right? The big-ticket thing is this change to the Assault Firearms Bans, because she is changing the definition of what an Assault Firearm is, or she wants to change it, right? And these bills that have Assault Weapons, Assault Firearms, whatever you want to call it, bans that include the magazine ban, they always have a section that says, yeah, this also applies to semi-auto center fire rifles and pistols that have a fixed magazine of more than 15 rounds, right? And so what the governor has done, one of the things she's changed is remove the word fixed, which creates kind of a lot of issues because one, it makes the sentence not, you know, it's a sort of a category error, right? How can you have a semi-automatic pistol or rifle with a magazine capacity more than 15 rounds? The guns themselves don't have any magazine capacity, right? Unless they have an internal or fixed magazine.

Speaker 2:
[27:31] And it's important to point out, Stephen, like you and I talked about, guys, when you're talking about one of your pistols, in theory, you could have a 10-foot magazine.

Speaker 4:
[27:40] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[27:41] OK? The gun will accept a 10-foot magazine. So keep this in mind when you hear this craziness.

Speaker 4:
[27:47] Yeah. And, you know, there is so there's some concern over what exactly this means. And I had Phil Van Cleet from BCDO on my show, on my podcast, and we kind of talked to him. And he does he warns like, well, what is that? How do you read this? Is it just an assault firearm when you put the magazine in that's banned? Or maybe you're carrying the gun and it has a 15 round magazine in it, but you have a 17 round magazine on you. Does that mean the gun is with the magazine? Or does it mean, you know, any gun that could accept a magazine that holds more than 15 rounds? Because that would be pretty much every gun, right? And that becomes a big problem. The governor won't say, I have reached out asking that exact question of what exactly does she intend with this language change? And they haven't responded and she hasn't said anything publicly that would explain that. And at the very least though, it seems to impact any gun with that has the magazine in it that's banned, right? Like it's not a, maybe it's not an assault firearm. If the magazine is not in there, but once you put the magazine in it becomes an assault firearm. And that's relevant because, that's a big deal because maybe it doesn't matter for the sales ban because you just sell them without the magazines, but it couples with that carry ban. And she wants to change the definition in the carry ban to match the sales ban. And what that would mean is you can't carry your gun that has magazine that holds more than 15 rounds in it. That seems to be the most straightforward reading, at least.

Speaker 2:
[29:24] Guys, it's really, really hard as we go to this break to try to get into the minds of these folks. I believe 100% deep in my soul that she's playing politics with Virginia gun rights because of this referendum vote that is occurring. It's underway. And it's not looking good, not to mention her numbers are in the toilets. But when we come back, we'll try to get into their heads and try to figure out why she's doing this from a political standpoint. One more segment to go with Stephen, don't go away. This segment is brought to you by Attorneys on Retainer. Get the only self-defense program for gun owners backed by a real law firm, the Attorneys for Freedom. Visit them online at attorneysonretainer.us. Welcome back. Yeah, welcome back. And I now have two of these cards because I left one of my cards, this one here. I have one in my wallet now and this one because I left this one at home by accident. And Lauren at Attorneys on Retainer, when I was interviewing her, was kind enough to give me another one because she had stacks of them all of the people that were signing up who heard about it on this show. And from great guys like Jared Yanis and Dan over at Heavy Duty Country, who will be airing that great interview with him coming up this weekend, make sure to put this card in your wallet, ladies and gentlemen. You heard the attorneys yesterday for the hour. It's the real deal. Attorneys on Retainer dot US and you can use the promo code AAR. And you still have a week to get that discount. It's fifty bucks off, not twenty five, and it's only thirty seven dollars a month. So take advantage of that for the week, please. You've got a week to do that. That was an NRA annual meeting special. Take advantage of that. If you saw two tens and a five, would you pick it up? Probably my daughter won't because she thinks it's all laced with fentanyl. But you get the idea, right? Metaphorically speaking, keep that extra twenty five bucks in your pocket and have an attorney and this card. Also Pot of Gold Auctions. Make sure to check them out. Pot of Gold auctions.com. And here's where I'm going to put the push in. Because you know we're working closely with VCDL. We need you to join VCDL. There is power and strength in these numbers and we are going to need every single one of you. It is twenty five dollars to join them for the year. Join them like I did a long time ago and become a member. Incredibly important. VCDL dot org and stand with your Virginia counterparts because we are all Virginians now. And don't forget Bud's Gun Shop, Bud's Gun shop.com and all of our great partners. You can find them all at armedamericanradio.com or dot org. Steve and welcome back in. Let's try to get into the mind of a Democrat now and go into kind of why she's doing these things. One of the things that I find fascinating, Steve, is why did she add or try to, in her mind, strengthen the assault weapons ban? I have a theory, particularly I kind of solidified it in my mind after you and I spoke today, and I'm kind of leaning in this direction. I made the prediction that after she got Harmeet's threatening letter to sue, knowing Spanberger, as we do so far, that my prediction was, no, she's going to sign that bill right out of the box, just to spite the DOJ. Well, she didn't, she, in her mind, strengthened it. I believe she did that intentionally to say to the DOJ, it would make sense, let's just strengthen it. The other deal is, you know, we were getting into the weeds a little bit about the referendum being voted on, playing politics with guns, sending that back to the legislature right now, and not really worrying about that at this point because she needs that referendum, that that might be more politically expedient for the Democrats in total, as a party, to screw the rest of Virginia. So, you know, I can't get in her mind. I don't, but whatever you and I talked about today, we came up with the answer. We just don't know what it is yet. We're soon going to find out, right?

Speaker 4:
[33:21] Yeah, certainly, you can't know for sure exactly why the governor has made the move she has. There's a lot of theories out there that are plausible. You know, pushing it back beyond the referendum is maybe that's true, although she did sign a bunch of other gun bills already that should provide motivation for people who are going to vote on that basis. You know, I mean, first off, like people turning up to vote on this referendum, probably mainly motivated by the referendum itself, right? Because it's about gerrymandering. It's not about guns in any particular way. But if you could certainly look at it as if she loses this vote, that's a big political blow to her. And so if you're a gun owner and you want to lessen her political capital, that's how you would do it. And so, yeah, you can certainly vote strategically. How many people are actually doing that in practice, I think, is a question in my mind. And then also just like, there's 1,000 bills, literally. I know this sounds like an exaggeration, but they literally passed 1,000 bills this year. So we focus very intently on the gun-related ones, obviously. And for good reason, there's significant bills, the very significant package of gun bills here that moved Virginia very far to the left on gun policy from where it was before they passed. And so a good reason to focus on them, but there's so much else going on. You do wonder how much of these things that you noticed in these gun bills are all strategically done, or how much of them are kind of sloppy. Why did she make that 18 to 20-year-old handgun ban? Why does she want to make that an emergency bill that goes into effect right away, and not these other bills, especially when you do need a four-fifths vote for that particular bill, which probably dooms it in this session that's coming up, because it was a party line bill the first time around. I doubt they're going to get a bunch of Republicans on board with it. And then even this big change that I just mentioned, what seems to be a roundabout way of trying to ban the carry of these magazines they're trying to restrict, it does it in a really clunky two-part way that if the carry ban changes she asked for don't happen, which she removed the exemptions for off-duty and retired law enforcement from that carry ban, which seems politically risky to do that. Usually, the police have a lot of power in state houses.

Speaker 2:
[35:57] In particular, too, because of what Katz, the superintendent of the VSP said the other day, too. There's going to be a lot of unhappy people. So let's just throw that out. I think this goes down to capital. I think this goes down to political capital. Look, as you and I talked about earlier today, nothing in politics happens in a vacuum. There's no doubt she's talking to the head of the Democrat Party, whoever that may be, at DNC. There is strategy in play here. We covered a bunch of it, but we don't know yet. But we will find out. The four-fifth, I think, dooms that bill. They have to know that. They have to know that. So I think that's why it goes down to political capital, and I think a lot of it is tied back to those rural Virginia gun owners who are already ticked off enough that are going to come out to vote in this referendum today, which would literally wipe out their votes if that referendum is lost. It's a big, big problem. It's a huge problem. And guys, what's really important about all of this is that we have got this incredible open window as we watch what's happening in Virginia. This took 20-plus years, 30-plus years in other Democrat states. It was a creep. We're watching it unfold in real time, right before our eyes literally overnight in the state of Virginia. And if you live in a blue state, they're watching what's going on in Virginia. Whatever Virginia gets away with, I can promise you they're going to try in your state. And if they take over another state, God forbid Democrats take over in Arizona, Stephen, or in the state of Georgia, this is what's in store. So it's critical. I'll give you the last 30 seconds, and please tell people where to go to find all of your amazing writing at the Reload.

Speaker 4:
[37:29] Yeah, I mean, I agree with you that it's very significant and it does say a lot about where, you know, maybe our politics are generally, but especially the Virginia Democratic Party has moved quite significantly on this issue. Even just less than a decade ago, they partnered with the Republicans to pass that reciprocity bill in the first place after a Democrat Attorney General had kind of blown up all the reciprocity agreements. And now they're right back to what at the time was, you know, more left-leaning position in their party. Now it's the mainstream of the party on guns at the very least. And so, you know, it's emblematic and you can look at, like, Rhode Island and what they're trying to do moving from just banning guns to now-

Speaker 2:
[38:14] To removing the grandfather clause.

Speaker 4:
[38:16] And that's a real risk here in Virginia. And this started off as a potential illegal possession of magazines and they moderated. Who knows what happens next year? Anyway, you head over to thereload.com. There's a lot to watch tomorrow in what the legislature does with this governor's recognition.

Speaker 2:
[38:33] Yeah, as much as I hate to admit this, I'm going to be watching the quote unquote news tonight to see what's happening here. This is going to be either they're going to claim a huge victory or it's going to be a massive blow, one of the two.

Speaker 4:
[38:44] Yeah, and it's all on tomorrow.

Speaker 2:
[38:46] Tonight and tomorrow, guys. In Virginia, big days. Stephen Gutowski, The Reload. Guys, you can listen to his podcast. You can read everything he writes about it. And it is true, sober, realistic journalism when it comes to our right to keep and bear arms. Stephen, thanks for being here, brother. We love you. We've known you for a long time. Thanks for everything that you do for this program and everything you do for keeping us informed. You've been a great source of content for this program over the years as well. Guys, we're going to get up and do it again tomorrow because they don't want us to. Enjoy your day. Stay safe. We'll see you on the radio.

Speaker 1:
[39:19] You just filled your prescription for freedom on Armed American Radio with Mark Walters, the loudest voice in America fighting for gun rights.