Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.
Rob McNealy
Okay, folks, I am real excited. Today I have an a guest that I’ve been a big fanboy of for a long time. And that is Tom Gresham. He is the host of the gun talk radio show. He has been a gun rights activist and gonna choose yes for decades. I’ve only been listening to him for a few years, but his wisdom is amazing. So Tom, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
Oh, you bet. This is fun. Anytime we get to talk about gun to what’s going on from the political standpoint. And it got to it crazy right now what’s going on over the last, what, three, four weeks without Coronavirus thing?
Rob McNealy
Yeah, a lot of things are happening because of that. And I wanted to get your kind of, you know, take on what you’re talking to people about and what you’re hearing on the streets because I got a much smaller, you know, network in this space than you do. But it’s certainly interesting that before the corona pandemic, it seemed to me that there’s definitely been a war on guns, especially in states like Virginia and California, where people are really going out there and trying to destroy liberty. What effect has the corona pandemic have had on the states that are trying to go after gun rights?
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk
Maybe just a little bit of background there because I’ve been doing this for about 50 years. So fighting for gun rights are talking about it everything else. The key thing to understand is that they always are after your rights. is not new. It’s been there 25 years ago, 50 years ago, they always have want to ended, want to end private sale guns, they want to end private ownership of guns. They really truly do think on the government’s own guns. So when you start with that background, you realize what they’re actually doing now. And so under the corona virus pandemic, we have a number of states who use that as an excuse to shut down gun stores stop all sales of guns in their state when they can’t do that, legally. But that said, you know, why not? Let’s go to shop. So what happened was the gun rights groups, owner groups all got together individually, they’re taking action, but also they’re taking action together. For instance, in California, you have four different gun rights groups working together Sacramento Foundation, in our a Firearms Policy Coalition, and one of the California State groups all working together, but NRA has been suing thicker metal Foundation has been suing an unsung group that people don’t know a lot about. It’s actually one of the most effective groups is the National Shooting Sports Foundation. That’s the group that puts on the SHOT Show. And they have entree into the White House into various places. And honestly, they’re the ones who made one of the biggest changes about two weeks ago, where now the Department of Homeland Security has listed gun stores and shooting ranges as essential businesses under the law enforcement umbrella. And so that gave cover for a number of governors to who are looking at a lawsuit we’re going to lose, we’re suing them. They said, Okay, well, we’ll just say we’re going to follow the federal guidelines, and that’s our cover political cover on the thing. So in most states, we’ve been able to get the gun stores opened up again. New Jersey was difficult. Massachusetts has done a flip flop like three times, four times now maybe in California is problematic as California always is. And that’s just going to take More legal action they’re working on?
Rob McNealy
Well, it’s good that I think that in this case, the President in the department Homeland Security made the right call. One of the things that I’m seeing with this pandemic and one of the things that a lot of people I know in the prepper space are kind of concerned about and it looks like it’s going to go that direction is that there may be an increased crime, at least in certain jurisdictions. Combined from the facts that many police departments are coming down with, you know, a lot of the officers are, you know, come becoming infected. I’m originally from Detroit right now, I think almost 25% of the Detroit police force is out on quarantine because of COVID. You have cities in my city to Salt Lake City where I am, California, Philadelphia have already put listed all the crimes they’re not going to come and send a cop for. Which to me, you know, I don’t I’m not a criminal. Right. I’m not one of those guys that have all the statistics. But it seems to me that when you have on one hand, you have the cops not coming to calls for 911. You have cops that are sick. And you combine that with releasing a bunch of prisoners, even if they’re low level low risk prisoners, it seems to me you’re gonna have an increase in crime. Anecdotally, I have a friend of mine in New York City right now lives in a good neighborhood in New York City said I’ve been there five years. He’s one of our community members. And this we were talking about this yesterday morning, he told me this time he said, Look, he I asked him, I go, what are you seeing on the ground? Because I don’t trust anything I’m seeing anywhere else. I want to hear from people that are there. Sure. And this is what he said. He said, Look, he goes, there’s been eight armed robberies and one home invasion in my neighborhood in the last two weeks. That’s never happened in the five years I’ve been here. So to me, it seems like having gun stores open seems to be the thing that people are getting. have to learn to defend themselves or at least have the tools available to defend themselves going forward. Now, I don’t know.
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
It’s a great point. And it’s practice why we’re watching this rush of people going to the gun stores and buying guns and buy an apple. And I’ve had a couple of gun stores, people who are in the business community tell me that 90 to 95% of people buying guns right now are first time gun buyers. Imagine that these are people who do not own a firearm, and all of a sudden they have decided out of the blue to go buy a gun of why are they doing that? It goes back to what you were just saying. But also it’s just kind of this general sense of unease. It doesn’t take a lot for people to get rid of that bubble, artificial bubble that they choose to put themselves in where they can pretend that they’re safe, or we don’t need guns. We have the police we have this we don’t have to worry about it. Part of that is why I also say you guys are crazy for thinking that you need a gun for something Defense around the police. We saw the same thing happen in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina, the world and especially that night, the nation watched on video. As all symbols of civilization went away. There were no police. There were no police. There was only brute force source you’re left with, and you’re left to survive or not survive on the basis of what you could keep or protect yourself with. And people even in Detroit, or Seattle, or Salt Lake City looked at that what? Wow, honey, if that happened here, we don’t have any way to protect yourselves. So people went out and bought guns all over the country. Same things happen right now. They have come to grips with the realization that they really are on their own. This is not something we’ve always done this. This is always true. The police will be there when they can. Sometimes it’s two minutes, sometimes it’s five minutes, sometimes it’s 30 minutes, no matter what it is. It’s too late to Two minutes is too late. Just this morning, we had a story I believe it was out of Knoxville, Tennessee, where three women were stabbed to death. In a convenience store. A guy goes in there and kills three women stabbed them to death. The police arrived at two minutes a fabulous response time to live for those women. My whole deal is really simple. When you put your pants on in the morning, put on a gun. I wear a gun in my house all the time. I have a gun on all the time. Why is that? Because I don’t know what’s going to happen. And I’m competent. And I practice and people. They’re new gun owners. We’ll talk about that a second. What should you do if you just bought a gun? But the reality is, you’re responsible for your own safety, you are your own first responder.
Rob McNealy
I couldn’t agree with that more. Interestingly enough, I’m a pretty moderate guy. I’m very conservative on things like guns in the economy and fiscally I’m very fiscally conservative. And but I still have a lot of friends that are you know, liberals straight up liberal so I’m not even going to hide it now I don’t hate liberals because they lean a different way than I do. Like I try to get along with everybody. In the last week and a half I’ve had four phone calls from friends. Three of them were asking me about their first gun purchase the fourth person was asking where they can find emergency food. Like and of course I’m the guy they call but and and then and and I always I always like to play with people like I thought you weren’t a big gun guy and they’re like, you know, I’m not a big gun guy but but you know, in there backpedaling and I love my friends don’t get me wrong, and I do. Trust me. I give them a little crap upfront, but I do absolutely everything that I can to give them good advice. And and then you know, you know, help them get along and do it safely. So I guess that’s a good segue. What would you recommend to all these new gun owners, especially these liberal gun owners that have never really been around guns What would you recommend they do first thing after they get their gun?
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk
Well, first of all, I, I don’t make a distinction between conservatives and liberals. I just don’t care. It’s truly a non starter for me. I know it’s a fun thing to talk about those liberals or those conservatives, but when it comes to gun rights, All I care about is you’re either with us or against us. And I don’t care if you’re the super leftist and there are a lot of leftist and liberals who are really pretty good on the second amendment because they believe in the Bill of Rights, they protect all the other rights and they back the Second Amendment. But to your question, I guess a couple of things. If you are a first time gun buyer, go to kids, you can’t go to a lot of shooting ranges right now and can’t get instruction. But there are a lot of places you can go online and get some instruction we just put up a brand new video on our YouTube channel, go to gun talk media on YouTube, and we’re calling it the three minute EDC, three minute everyday carry. It’s a tip we’re going to do. There’s three minutes that’s On basically how to load and unload a revolver, we’re going to do the same thing with a lot of other things. But here’s the other if you’re a gun owner, and there are a lot of gun owners who are watching this right now, this is our opportunity to once again show that we’re the responsible ones out there. All of us have friends who may not be into guns, they you may know people who are first time gun owners, and if you don’t, maybe you have this extended group of Facebook people or even church members, and you can make an offer, hey, I could help. And even if you can’t go see them with a social distancing. You can do a FaceTime chat, zoom connection, and say, okay, that gun your pistol you just bought, put it on the table in the box. And Alright, we’re going to walk through this open up the box, there’s a pamphlet in there. The gun makers spent a lot of money and a lot of time on the owner’s manual. Read every page in your owner’s manual you will learn a lot actually ended up knowing a lot more than a lot of gun owners do. And then let’s talk about our We’re gonna take it out the box, and we’re going to make sure it’s unloaded, you’re gonna show me on your camera. And we as gun owners can walk them through. How do you take out a magazine? How do you work a slide? How do you when you pick up your gun, here’s your tip for the day to grab a gun, make a gun, that is you make a finger gun, right. And then you pick up the gun with your finger gun. Now your finger straight along the side of the gun. It’s a safe way to teach people to pick up guns and not wrap their finger inside the trigger the way people tend to do. So we as gun owners can actually help people be safe with how they handle their gun. Let’s talk about the four rules of gun safety. We’ll talk about muzzle discipline. We’ll talk about how you work a slide, keep your finger off the trigger. We can help these people out and then when we can all get back together and you just have a standing offer. When we can do this. I’ll take you out to the range and I will teach you some things We’ll get you some level of comfort and familiarity. We may have a million or 2 million or who knows how many new gun owners who some of them could be persuaded to come to the side of the Second Amendment. You’re not going to make them conservative. But we don’t need them to be conserved. We just need them to vote on the basis of the Second Amendment. I truly don’t care where they are on any other issues. Nothing.
Rob McNealy
Well, I agree. I’m glad that you bring that up. Because I’m basically a one issue voter anymore on the second amendment and, and I look at a pretty straightforward if you’re going to be bad on the Second Amendment, you’re probably not going to be good on any of the other ones either. And that goes for conservatives, too. I tell people I tell people all the time you do not have a you are not entitled to my vote ever. When it comes to politicians, and I think that’s important to stress that is, you know, if you you know, there’s no good politicians that don’t like certain rights, either Do you like the rights or you don’t? You may not like what people do with those rights. It’s a different story, I think. But you know, I think it’s important that you know, we point out that you know, you can be more liberal in some ways and still be a big defender of your your person your right to self defense and I think a lot of people miss the fact that ultimately everybody is conservative when it comes to their own life. Typically, about this it just they don’t usually sometimes they don’t realize it until it’s too late to do something about it. And I and I see that it’s interesting. I was arguing with this not arguing discussing on social media recently with a one of my more liberal Facebook friends who was in Dallas, and I was shocked that she must be suicidal because her position you know, she I posted an article about why people should get a gun and this is like, three four weeks ago before people were freaking out. And and my position was like, get it while you can get it now because it’s going to be A lot harder and a few weeks to get anything, which is so far proven to be correct. And and she’s like, Well, why do I need a gun? I go, Well, there’s a good chance that you know, the crime is going to go up around you and everywhere else. And she’s like, well, if I need a gun to defend myself, then I don’t really want to live on this planet. And I go, and I said, bless your heart. But I hope you don’t change your mind when it’s too late to go back from that decision. And that’s an interesting,
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
One of things I tell people to look, particularly if you’re a parent, you don’t have that choice anymore. You don’t have the choice to say, well, I’ll just die rather than defend myself because, number one, if you’re protecting your child, then you need a tool to do that. You need the skills to do that. But more than that, even if you’re by yourself, if you die, you traumatize that child, what a selfish thing to do. To say I’m going I’m willing to die for this and traumatize my children. Forever, because I wouldn’t take the simple steps to take to get protection to learn how to use a gun. I describe a gun as a parachute. It’s the thing you use, when every other thing is failed. You know, you run out of gas, the wings don’t fire the engine don’t fire, you’re crashing, you jump out with a parachute. In this case, we try to do everything we can to not use a gun. We work hard at, you know, avoid those evasion, awareness, you know, de escalation, all the other things we can do, because any day I don’t have to use my gun, it’s a great day, and I hope I end up dying at the age of 142. Never having used my gut. But having said that, I also know that stuff happens. I mean, we have fire extinguishers in our house. I didn’t plan to ever have a fire. I did. Okay. It’s the thing you use to control the situation. Until help gets there. Think of the fire extinguisher analogy. It’s not there to put out a house. is to try to control it until the fire department gets there. Same thing with a gun. And you know, one of the things that people and you know this, but a lot of people don’t know the public is that the police legally have no duty to protect anyone. The courts have ruled over and over, but they’re not responsible for you, and they don’t have a legal duty to even come. Or if they come, they can sit there and watch you get injured, they don’t have a legal responsibility to protect you.
Rob McNealy
Well, that came up down in Florida, right? Down Down at Sandy Hook, right, the resource officer waited on the outside of the building, during that environment or during that that mass shooting and so and you know, and it’s funny because I follow that a little bit, but a lot of the courts basically said there’s nothing we can do against them and then they you know, work really hard because of the public outrage about it. But ultimately, they’re they’re not legally obligated to defend you. And I was the first and only As a first responder, I was been an EMT and a firefighter and I’ve worked around law enforcement many years. And I can tell you, it’s not a bad thing, but even EMTs and firefighters are told, save yourself first. Don’t put yourself in danger. That’s typically the mantra, right? So I think it’s a personal responsibility, and no one’s gonna care about your life more than you. Let’s be honest.
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
Well, to your point, if the police and the firemen EMTs will save your life first. That’s pretty good advice for all of us. Save Your Life first. don’t depend on anybody else. And don’t you love the folks who said, Well, you know, I would never have a gun in my home. Really? Okay. So if somebody breaks in, we’re going to call, I’m gonna call at least Well, that doesn’t make any sense. I thought you just said you would never had a gun in your home. What do you think the police are going to come in? They’re going to come in with a gun. That makes no sense whatsoever. You’re okay with somebody having a gun, but only if they were a certain kind of clothing. Only if they’re wearing
Rob McNealy
Tiny little badge, right?
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
Yeah, exactly. That’s which we already have to get into the whole. Who’s more competent? Yeah, very well, maybe the woman is walking in the streets more confident about 90% of the police officers out there. And that’s no knock on the cops, they get what they get. We’re trading, but most of them are not gun people. Most of them don’t train on their own, most of them won’t spend the money on ammo. And so they get minimal training with very minimal remedial recurrent training, and they’re just simply not very good. So once again, do you really want to trust your life to that, but this whole Corona Virus Pandemic has been interesting. And as I say there may be an opportunity here at the end of it for us to pick up some people in the gun world and gun culture if you will. But only if we reach out to them and we’re not engaging in the Where have you been all along and also, you know, we’re making fun of them. There’s a an addictive attraction for putting people down, especially on the internet, and, you know, rather than do that we should be looking at this and going, Wow, what a golden opportunity. We could pick up a million votes with a million votes we win on a national basis with a million votes, you win.
Rob McNealy
Well, it was interesting. One of the people that asked me about advice is someone who’s actually in New York City, and he’s an attorney of all things. And, and I said, Look, I don’t know your laws in New York City. But I said, it’s really hard to get a gun at all right now, because they’re everywhere I know, is sold out of most inventory right now. But I tried to help them out, gave me some suggestions on what he could do and where he could go. But it’s I think you’re right. I think unfortunately, I think it’s part of the human kind of, you know, programming that we have that people don’t think about those things still, it’s right in their lap, right. Right now there’s somewhere between two and 600 people De dying in New York City from COVID right now I just looked at the numbers, the raw numbers from New York City that’s what the numbers are looking for look like 400 people died from COVID since yesterday which is sad and scary and and I can’t imagine what it would be like if I was living there Now personally because I know there is gonna be unrest people just I think when you get people in a group or you know people a lot of people are in a mass and they live close to each other like in a big city like New York City. People just get dis gets scared and they get restless and they go crazy. So, so the guess the last thing I wanted to ask you about and see if you’ve heard anything about this is what do you see is happening to the supply chain and I don’t just mean about the FOMO knowing the fear of missing out and the panic buying or the last minute buying. I’ve heard some rumors that because China has been shut down for so long that that could start impacting the US gun manufacturing industry as a whole. Have you heard anything about that at all in your circles?
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
I really haven’t. Again, remember, we’ve been through these crushes before, when Obama was elected when it looked like Hillary was going to be elected, we have a run on guns. There was was eight years ago, 10 years ago now, you couldn’t find guns, you couldn’t find animal. There’s just nothing there. That’s going to happen again, that’s happening right now. The gun makers are, especially the ammo makers are not going to gear up to take care of this demand. Because they know it will go away and when it goes away, it drops off the end of the table. It’s just gone. And so they’re not going to hire more people. They’re not going to add shifts just not going to happen. So what’s out there is out there there’s there’s enough ammo in the pipeline to take care of all of our shooting for the next 10 years. But not if you buy your next 10 years worth of ammo right now all at once. That’s what’s going on. I guess my takeaway is what I’ve been telling people on gun talk radio for yours now is investing they have a thing called dollar cost averaging, which means buy stock every month. Whether it’s up whether it’s down just every month to buy a little bit. We should do the same thing with ammunition. ammo six months ago was so cheap, it was like a giveaway ammo. You could buy it for nothing and it was available everywhere. When this whole nonsense is over. You know anybody can find $10 a week. Okay, that’s one box of nine millimeter ammo. Anybody can find 10 bucks a week. Buy a box of ammo a week. At the end of the year or two years you have two or three shelves full of ammo. This is not your shooting ammo This is your the next time the world loses its mind ammo, and then you can just you know do shooting but you know this will all come back. This will all get back to normal. The gun makers are making guns there’s gonna be plenty of guns for everybody. Actually, I’ve heard a gun people say Huh, dig around in my safe. I’m selling guns right now. Prices are up, I put them in the gun stores on consignment, I’m gonna make some money. If you’re a real gun person, you don’t have really a need to go out and buy guns at inflated prices right now. So just take a deep breath, sit back Come middle of the summer, this will all be over. And if you went out bought several guns at inflated prices, if you have to sell them, you’re gonna take a PDR
Rob McNealy
I think that’s really good advice. Tom. I do appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find out about you and where can they check out your website?
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
Well, several different ways to go. Gun talk comm is the home base for everything. We have videos on YouTube, Roku, Amazon Fire Apple TV, just look for gun talk where we have thousands of those. We have the guns in gear television show which runs on the sports channel. And then of course, the gun talk radio show is available in podcast. So that’s the number two all time podcast in the hobby category according to Apple. So those are the basic ones. And then we actually have a smartphone app is very cool GunDealio that gives you great deals on guns and ammo. If you go to GunDealio calm, you can get it for your iPhone or your Android. So a lot of ways to keep up.
Rob McNealy
Tom Gresham, thank you so much. I really appreciate it today.
Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
For sure, take care.