Stephen Gutowski  0:01  
President Biden's handling the gun issue takes another hit in the polls and an interview with top shot champion Christian. That more on this episode of the weekly live podcast. I gave him poison just for fun. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to another episode of the weekly reload podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Gutowski. I'm also the founder of the reload comm where you can get a membership today if you want to get the podcast early, and exclusive access to content that you can't get without the membership head on over to the reload comm to check out our deal today, if you buy an annual membership, you get two months for free. So that's a good deal, right? This week, we do not have contributing writer Jake fogelman with us he is on vacation, attending a wedding. And I still I still feel like when I say that. It sounds weird contributing writer. I just can't i can't get past it. It's like a weird it's weird. Sounds weird to me, in my brain. I think ever since I watched Mayor B's town, which takes place in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, which is where where my dad's side of family lives. In fact, my step mother's name is also mayor. So she's mayor of mayor of Springfield, not the mayor of Springfield. She's mayor of Springfield. But yeah, I can feel the accent coming through it at times. And I think either other people don't necessarily recognize it like I do. In my own mind in my, my own inner monologue, I recognize it. And it freaks me out a little bit. Sometimes just after watching that show where the accent the Huggy mouth is like hardcore. Anyway, this week, we have top shots Chris Chang on to talk about his activism, his new Asian American gun rights group that he's a part of, and the Supreme Court briefs that they filed as well as NFT firearms. That'll be interesting. So make sure you stay tuned to listen to that. But first, let's discuss the news of the week starting with the President's polling numbers continuing to fall on the issue of guns. A new poll from the economist and you Gov shows that Biden's approval rating when it comes to how he has implemented his gun policies or failed implement them or, or what have you. I guess both, if you look at his record thus far, is down about I think it's 10 points from June, which is remarkable, because June was also down significantly from May, when he had previously done a poll everyone The Associated Press and pre listed on the poll on the same question they had found in May 48%. Approval of Biden's handling of guns and 49% disapproval. This new yougov poll finds that a majority disapprove of handle of his handling, including a plurality that strongly disapproves. Whereas all only 8% of people strongly approve of the President's handling of guns. his disapproval rating is up 5% from when you Gov did the poll in June and down 10%. In terms of approval, since that same poll, so things are not looking good. The disapproval is driven largely by Republicans and independents. But at the same time, Democrats don't even approve of the President's handling of guns they don't have a majority of Democrats don't. He has not reached a majority level of approval from even his own party on his handling of guns. And so he's got problems across the political landscape when it comes to guns. That poll comes after he was forced to pull his ATF nominee who was you know, worked for gun control groups for much of his career after he left the ATF. For the last decade or so he worked directly for Giffords, and now has gone back to working directly for them. And Biden could not get the 50 votes necessary to confirm him to the position is only the second nominee who hasn't gotten through. In fact, he just had another nominee go through this week.

With The party line vote with 50 votes in the Senate and the tiebreaker from the vice president. But he could not accomplish that for his ATF director nominee, who, in addition to being paid gun control activists, has also been accused of making racist comments and attempting to derail a black agents career over what the black agent claims was racial animus accused him of cheating on a promotion assessment. The black agent says because Shipman believed he had done too well, on a section of that test. The agent said, of course, that his name was later cleared. The Department of Justice confirmed parts of the agent stories, but also denied that shipment has any sort of racial animus. But Shipman himself has has never commented on the allegations. But in addition to losing that fight, Biden has also faced extreme uphill battle in Congress over his advocacy to pass and assault weapons ban and a universal background check bill. And a number of other priorities, he has made no progress on that, and it doesn't look likely he will make any progress on that soon. So there may be some on the gun control side of the aisle who are upset with the president in his performance on guns thus far. At the same time, the President has also pushed through a number of unilateral actions to restrict the sale of guns and to increase the power of the ATF. In particular, he's done two rules that he's putting through the federal rulemaking process that one would, which would expand the definition of what constitutes a firearm, so that the ATF could effectively make illegal unfinished gun parts, especially if they're sold in kits, which the the president and other advocates for stricter gun control have termed go ghost guns. And he's pushed through that proposal and the second proposal that deals with pistol braces on ar 15 style rifles and other firearms as well, which he is effectively trying to outlaw millions of those guns with a rulemaking process. Both of these proposals have continued to move forward Despite receiving hundreds of 1000s of negative public comments during the rulemaking process. And so it's likely that much of President Biden's disapproval on guns comes from people who are upset about both of those things as well. It seems the president is likely getting it from all sides on this issue at the moment. But the other story I wanted to talk about relates to the ATF nominee as well. David Chipman, who was pulled by the president this month or in September, did his first exclusive interview since failing to be confirmed to the position he spoke with the New York Times who completely skipped the allegations of racism made against him, as well as the other complaints that ATF agents had about Chipman including his adversarial approach towards the gun industry, which many ATF agents have said could damage the agency's ability to work with people in the industry to make their cases. Oftentimes, ATF agents will work with federally licensed gun dealers on tips that lead to arrests in gun trafficking cases or other sorts of federal gun crime investigations and by taking an approach like Chipman has, which has been very inflammatory in terms of how he is categorized the gun industry since leaving the ATF a decade ago,

that could hinder any sort of cooperation that's going on there. And that was a common critique that you heard from ATF agents, several of which were, talk to the reload exclusively back in July, for you know, story on Shipman's nomination. And then you also had a letter from seven Former agents, several of which who worked with Shipman directly. That made many of the same points. In the New York Times article, though you would not know this because they mainly follow frankly, the narrative set forth in a Giffords press release from several weeks ago, which made these complaints out to be exclusively those of the gun industry or the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which is the gun industry trade group. And painted those concerns is only being shared by the gun industry itself, which of course, the gun industry does have those concerns. But frankly, ATF agents who have spoken out about David shipments domination, all of them have had negative things to say about him, or at least about his nomination. Some of the positive things to say about him personally, but still don't believe he should be the director. And now he won't be. But it's interesting to watch how the New York Times and frankly, many other major media outlets have treated allegations of racism levied against Chipman by effectively ignoring them altogether. They have not produced anything that claims that they are not legitimate allegations that they haven't been backed up with evidence again, the Department of Justice confirmed the black agents story that he was subject that Shipman initiated an investigation into an agent for cheating on a promotion assessment. In the timeframe that the black agent had suggested this, it happened. So there is cooperation for these allegations. Additionally, another agent confirmed that he was told about the situation at the time that it happened. And there's are a number of things that give credence to what this agent has claimed, including the fact that Senator Grassley his office, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee has produced a whistleblower report on their own independent of the reloads reporting on this exact allegation. But it has been almost entirely ignored, and Sherman was not asked about it during his exclusive interview with The New York Times. Reporter Glen thrush there to the interview, did described it as far ranging did not range far enough to ask whether or not he denied the allegation that he attempted to sideline a black agents career over racial animus. So it seems once again that if you want to know about what is happening in DC, with gun policy, unfortunately, for you, perhaps fortunately for me, I guess the only place you going to get all that information is from the reload. I don't believe, frankly, that the story would ever have seen the light of day without the reload, doing the reporting necessary to bring it to light in an ethical and forthright manner that follows the principles of good journalism, and just hide inconvenient claims about important and powerful people. So if you want to support our reporting, you can do that by joining today. We are 100% reader funded. We do not have any shady backers. We are not funded by any of the gun groups on either side of the issue. We are not owned by any major corporation like most major media outlets are, we get our funding from you. And that's it. That's the only place that we get funding. These are the only ads we have on this podcast. Maybe that will change in the future. Maybe we'll get some advertising to to supplement our revenue. But as things stand now 100% completely reader funded. This story would not have seen the light of day I can guarantee it without the reloads existence. And, frankly, it's that other colleagues in media appear to be trying to bury this story. Anyway, David Shipman is

not only still being considered for a role in the administration, according to press secretary, Jen Psaki at a press conference this week, but he is now back with Giffords in a full time role there apparently without having to ever even comment on whether or not these allegations have any truth to them. Because places like the New York Times will not ask him about that. So anyway, you get what I'm saying. And I think it's time we move on to the interview for this week's episode with Chris Chang. So take it away me in the past future, whenever I relative to now, I was the past that I filmed it, but you'll be hearing it in the future. Here we go. We are here with former talk shop champion, Chris Chang, who is now a leading gun rights activist as well. Chris, can you tell us just a little bit more about your background? Give already. Just a bit about who you are people who might have not heard of you in the past?

Chris Cheng  15:46  
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, my career actually started in tech at Google. And you know, I was a self taught amateur who occasionally went to the range. And my life changed though, when the show called top shot on the History Channel started airing in 2010. And, you know, I was watching my favorite TV show every week and seeing these incredible competitors, from all walks of life, from all corners of the country, come and shoot some amazing guns and compete in these incredible challenges. And I got this crazy idea of auditioning for season four. And long story short, you know, I trained really hard because I was so behind the curve. And all of my hard effort and training paid off in one $100,000 in a professional shooting contract with Bass Pro Shops, and it changed my life, it'll probably be forever, you know, my life will never be the same. And I'm very thankful for that change. Because, you know, I learned I have learned so much about gun culture, about the Second Amendment. And I've come to appreciate many elements of both. And I'm also still intact. So you know, I get to have fun with tech toys, and then I get to shoot guns and have fun with guns as well. And so I thank you for having me on. I'm really excited to chat with you and your listeners. Yeah,

Stephen Gutowski  17:13  
absolutely. And, and from that opportunity from from the show, you actually have gotten into the gun rights community as well, you've spoken before Congress as a witness and, you know, in gun control, bills that doing markup, even just recently, even this year, and you know, you've you've been involved with some of the biggest gun rights organizations in the country. And now you're actually an advisor to a group, a relatively new group called DME that focuses on Asian American gunners in particular. And now that group has, has started to become more active, too. In fact, you just had one of your first training events, right. And you the group filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court's skincare case, is that right?

Unknown Speaker  18:08  
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's been such an exciting time. So the group is called APA, geo A stands for Asian Pacific American Gun Owners Association. And our core focus is on safety, education, and community. We are we aspire to be a big tent organization, right? So it's for a political, we want to really zero in and focus on bread and butter, gun safety education. And you know, after about Naomi's two years now of racist attacks against Asian Americans, there are so many API's in the country that are looking for information on gun usage on safe gun handling, how you buy your first firearm in some of the more kind of traditional Second Amendment and gun safety outlets are not necessarily meeting the needs of APA is throughout the country. I think what's been I think fascinating for me, is clearly I'm Asian.

Stephen Gutowski  19:18  
anyone listening? aware, I guess. You can Yeah, for anyone on YouTube watching? Probably but

Unknown Speaker  19:26  
but if you're just listening to the audio, yeah. Last Name Chang is Chinese and actually half Japanese as well. And, you know, I grew up in Southern California, where race was something that I've always been aware of the right that he asked, I'm Asian, but it's never been something that I've felt the need to talk about. Because I've always just thought myself Well, it's obvious I'm Asian. And I don't know like, what's what's there to talk about? But, you know, the past year and a half or two has really changed me where, you know, I live in San Francisco. And, you know, back, you know, earlier, earlier in the year, you know, there been these attacks, particularly against elderly, Asian Americans, you know, here in San Francisco in New York City, and some of these victims have died. And I have extended family here in San Francisco that are in their 60s and 70s, and 80s. And these are the same ages of victims that are being attacked, and sometimes gravely injured and killed. And that just, it just triggered something in me and said, Okay, look, you know, I have not really addressed my Asian American heritage. And up until this point in my life, it hasn't really been relevant. But this has been a key driver of why I wanted to be on the founding board of APA GLA is a way of establishing a nonprofit organization that is there for the APA community. And we're not exclusive, right? So you don't have to be APA, right to join APA GLA, right? It doesn't matter what ethnicity you are just, you know, we've, we have a lot of allies right across the, the, the ethnic spectrum. And what I think that if we, if we start double clicking right into Well, what is a PhD away wanting to do that is unique, and and impactful. One thing that I'm very excited about is translation. You have a lot of Asian Americans who don't speak English as a first language who can't read or write English very well, necessarily. And you know, to be very frank and transparent, like I used to come from a place where if you live in America, you should speak English, you should learn how to read and write English. And if you don't, sort of at your own detriment, but when it comes to the sanctity of life, and the concept of self defense, and the second amendment, I don't believe that language barriers should get in the way of somebody defending themselves with a firearm. Right? So my, my, my, my mental paradigm has totally shifted, and what I hope and what I think is a way that is more open, that's more thoughtful and empathetic around immigrants, right? Who are here legally, right? But if they don't, again, if they don't speak English, very well, or? Or if or if they just don't at all? How do we still help those that a significant part of our population, learn how to shoot a gun? If they're interested in buying a gun for self defense? How do you fill out the 4473? background check form? If it's all in English, right? Can you have a translator there with you? Does that mean it's a straw purchase, though? If you have somebody there who's right translating the CO government form for you, right? There's a lot of these kind of questions that I don't think haven't really addressed head on by any particular group or organization. So I'm excited that APA GLA, right, that we will be a group and hopefully there'll be other groups, right, who can help us shine the light on this part of America's population that, again, doesn't necessarily speak English. But but they should still have the right right to defend themselves with a firearm, right? If they're an American citizen, or if they're a resident, your green card

Stephen Gutowski  23:41  
holder. And the other thing you guys have done recently, that's, that's pretty impactful or new. I think it's unique, actually to, to a to APA, GLA which is fine that the brief with the Supreme Court in the gun carry case there. Obviously you guys are a lot of your members are in California. Right? I think that's where the group is based. And California has a may issue law that could be impacted by the Supreme Court's ruling on New York's may issue law. And so you guys, I believe we're the only Asian American organization that filed a brief in that case, that's acute, just give us a little rundown of what the view of the organization is about that case, what do you want to see happen?

Unknown Speaker  24:34  
Yeah, so you know, with Supreme Court case, right, that's going through and asking the question, does the Second Amendment apply outside of the home and specifically with regards to CCW, and you know, may issue versus shall issue for apa gioffre. Right. This is very much about maximizing the freedom of choice for individuals to decide whether they Want to own a firearm or not? outside the home, right? And whether you want to CCW is a very personal question and personal decision. But but it shouldn't be a choice. Right? It shouldn't be a choice in the fact that it is not an equal choice in every part of our country is a huge problem, right? My rights here in California are in specifically here in San Francisco County, are severely restricted compared to other parts of the country where you have constitutional carry, right? You don't even need to write apply for a CCW. So this disparity of freedom is something that, I think it's it comes down to the Equal Opportunity of exercising our civil rights, no matter where you live in our country, and this goes beyond Asian Americans, right in that regard. But specifically with the abacus brief, you know, we, we got connected to an amazing legal firm, and the lead Attorney for the abacus brief, his name is Albert Lin. He's the former Solicitor General of West Virginia. And he and his team gave the APA GOP leadership team a crash course in amaka spreads because, you know, I've never submitted one like I've read about the process, you know, from a distance, you know, hearing about other gun rights groups, submit Abacus briefs, right, and for other cases in the past. And what I think is really unique and distinctive about APA, God is brief, is the approach that we took to it, which was a very personal one. the briefest filled with personal anecdotes of Asian Pacific Americans across the country that were negatively impacted by the pandemic negatively impacted by violence that came upon them and their families. And how the Supreme Court's decision on this case could have a tremendously positive impact right and change their lives. And so you know, what's what's amazing about the abacus brief process is you have, it seems like maybe what 6070 different orgs submitted briefs?

Stephen Gutowski  27:17  
Yeah, quite a lot. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  27:20  
It's quite a lot, right. And at a high level, right, we're all sort of asking ourselves a question, how do we make our briefs stand out? How do we make them compelling? And for us, you know, we really wanted to lean into the personal anecdotes that we have been hearing. And these anecdotes are why we formed APA Doa in the first place, right? We've just been hearing, you know, myself included from from Asian Americans who were pissed off, we're scared, we're upset, we're angry, but we're also determined to protect ourselves and to protect our communities. And, and so this brief really leans into a lot of that emotion and into those those personal stories, which I guess surprisingly, if you look at the other briefs, a lot of reefs are, let me just say, other briefs lean into other right, impactful arguments, right? legal arguments, like socio economic and like other cultural arguments. But I would say APG always brief is unique in that we're one of the only if not one of the few, you know, briefs that really, really wanted to have a narrative, and a vibrant, impactful storytelling focus for our brief. And hopefully, our brief will make a difference when the final decision comes out here either later this year, or next year.

Stephen Gutowski  28:50  
And I think that segues well dovetails well with the next thing I wanted to ask you about, which is a recent report from the violence Policy Center, which focuses on how I guess they're claiming that the gun industry has attempted to sell firearms to Asian Americans. And of course, this is a gun control group that we're talking about here. And so they take a very negative view, to say the least to put it lightly of, of the attempts to, I guess, recruit more gun owners from the Asian American community. In fact, they mentioned you by name in this report, as you know, somebody who's been involved in encouraging Asian Americans to get to become gun owners and they paint this as a very negative thing. They they claim that this will lead to more violence. If more Asian Americans purchase guns or own guns, then there will be an increase in in violence or suicide as well. in the community, and I just wanted to get your reaction to that your your take on what they had to say,

Unknown Speaker  30:09  
you know, in the study, you know, quote, unquote study came out last week, I was just my jaw dropped on the floor reading through a ton of inaccuracies, and it was just really biased. by it, it was a biased study against Asian Americans and what I, what I let me just like start drilling down on some of these points, right? The whole notion that, you know, buying a gun, right increases the risk of like, injury or death, like, that is such a lazy intellectual argument free. And the reason why I say that is, of course, right, if you introduce a some sort of, you know, a dangerous item, right into your home or into your life, of course, like your level of risk of injury or death will increase, but then what's missing is, there are ways to manage that risk, right?

Stephen Gutowski  31:07  
Like with firearms in your yard, you know, there's obviously higher risk of accidents with the pool. But yeah, that doesn't or doesn't hurt your car? or certainly,

Unknown Speaker  31:19  
if you buy a car, of course, right, you're at your chances of getting into a car accident, or getting in getting injured or killed in a car accident or going to increase, but there are ways right, that we manage that risk, right for everything in our lives. So you know, that that part of the study, you know, they use that as sort of the bedrock of the study, it was in the first, you know, opening paragraph, and

Stephen Gutowski  31:44  
it's, it's a talking point from gun control groups, obviously, that that guns are inherently dangerous. And they sort of take the agency out of away from the gun owner in whenever they talk about things in this way, as though just owning a gun is automatically going to make you more suicidal or more violent in some way. And that's obvious, right? Not true.

Unknown Speaker  32:11  
Exactly. It's not the case. Right? And so they make another argument saying that the firearms industry neglects this risk, and we never talk about, you know, how to reduce the risk, which is absolutely false. It's absolutely false. You know, there's groups like APA GLA, like the NRA, you know, Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, right? The list goes on and on, where we always emphasize safety, safe storage, you know, the, the notion in the study, basically, you know, they're accusing me and the firearms industry of trying to encourage every Asian American to buy a gun. And no, like, that is literally not what I am saying. And that's not what I've said, What I am saying is, I want to encourage Asian Americans to consider purchasing a firearm or learning how to use one and making your own personal decision, then whether this is something for you. And that's something for you comes with responsibility, around understanding, safe storage, understanding that you need to train. Let me tell you a very quick story. You know, there's, I've told the number of friends and family to not buy a gun. And the reason why I've told them that is because they did not want to spend the money or the time on training, that they thought that simply buying a firearm would make them safer. Now to be frank, right? Like, yeah, hey, if you just buy a firearm, thinking it's going to make you safer? No, that firearm will be a liability, right, without proper training around how to safely store and handle and use that firearm. So, you know, this study, I think, conveniently glosses over the fact that second amendment advocates and gun safety advocates like me and everybody else who's a gun owner, we're always always preaching gun safety and gun education. Yeah.

Stephen Gutowski  34:21  
If you read the report, obviously, it makes all everything seem very nefarious, right? Like, like, certainly you are encouraging people to become armed if they if they wish to be and you do talk about the way that Asian Americans have been targeted by hate crimes over the last year and a half because that's all I mean, a matter of record. It's fact that that's happening, and that people can, as you described, just now choose to become armed if they are concerned about that rise in violence. And that's not nefarious II this is where it really the disconnect exists for me because they they talk about this as though it's a very nefarious thing like it's a you know, it's that keep you've come up in the smoky back rooms and put together a strategy with, you know, Ruger or or Winchester somebody and to appeal to Asian Americans when it's really just like a fairly straightforward and aboveboard opinion that Asian Americans are being targeted for violence at a higher rate than they used to be. And one way to protect yourself in America is by owning firearms, just like any other demographic of people. And in fact, to me, it's a little bit weird for them to you know, they obviously they, they make these arguments about owning guns, generally, that know what they mean, obviously, they don't really think that anybody should own a gun because they think guns are dangerous and will lead to more violence or suicide. If you own one, this is the basic concept that violence Policy Center operates off of all the time, it but it gets kind of weird and uncomfortable when you start applying it to demographics, specifically saying that, like Asian Americans shouldn't own guns, because they're dangerous. It's sort of like, there's an implication that Asian Americans can't be responsible with firearms. And I know right,

Unknown Speaker  36:32  
or that we're somehow or that we're somehow you're going to be dangerous, right? And, you know, the, I think the line that we're flirting with here is right, where's the line that this becomes racist? And if we think about other races, like in with respect to gun control, right, we talked about the Black Panthers, right back in the 60s and 70s. You know, here in California, you know, former Governor Reagan implemented some pretty harsh gun control regulations after the Black Panthers went to Sacramento and exercise their open carry rights. And, you know, it's, it's, it's this overlay of, for me, I'm a diversity advocate. Right, I've spent the past 10 years on the nssf and nras outreach committees, advocating for increased outreach to Asians to Latinos, the LGBT community, and I believe that diversity everywhere is a good thing. So right for this for this for the study, why is diversity no longer a good thing? Right? Like I just I take umbrage with that. And also the nefarious piece here that you mentioned, they also try and tie firearms ownership into the bad actors in the alcohol and tobacco industries. Like they mentioned this a number of times, saying that you know, the firearms industry is going to start using you know, a questionable marketing tactics like the alcohol and tobacco industries like no, like, this is the difference is everybody understands how deadly a firearm can be. Right? There's, there's just no secret right there. There's a difference between right the tobacco industry back in the day right was right, sort of not being totally transparent about right how smoking might cause cancer or as a key contributor right factor right to cancer and other you know, lung disease and other things but right like there's nothing there's no smoke and mirrors right this is very This is all transparent This is literally we're taking diversity outreach pages from from other playbooks right from you know from from the LGBT community from you know other other successful you know, ethnic groups that that are reaching out right to to to people of color and so why is it now not okay for the firearms industry to reach out to people of color right it's it's again it's sort of flirts with this line of racism I'm Mr. Klein the the study racist but right it's it touches upon right some of these like, somewhat sensitive pieces, and I'm in the study, I encourage people to, to read it when you have a chance and just understand for me, it's about understanding what is the other side constantly advocating for propagating and I mean, some of these are just I don't want to call them lies, but it's very misinformed. And I think very slanted and biased viewpoints about gun owners and about guns and for me, it's important to understand that because then, you know, that makes all of us more effective when we're trying to speak for you know, for freedom and on behalf of the second Yeah,

Stephen Gutowski  39:53  
and I just feel like you take that argument that guns because you know, violence policy sense I think that they just have a general belief that nobody should own guns, frankly, that it's dangerous for everyone. But when they start drilling down to different demographics and say, Asians shouldn't own guns because strangers for Asians to own guns, like yeah, it starts to get into very uncomfortable territory, I would imagine for most people who are listening to arguments like that, I mean, it starts to sound very, very racist. I mean, I know that that's probably not their intention here. But But, you know, what are you supposed to? How are you supposed to react when you hear them talk about how Asians shouldn't own guns? Because it's to be dangerous for them to own guns? Like, yeah, I don't know. But their argument is, anyway, obviously, like you discussed, like, Yes, I think everyone acknowledges that guns are, are dangerous, they're not toys. Right? They're the they require a level of safe handling, for people to not be harmed by them. But obviously, it's a level that is achievable by every informed adult. So it's not as it's certainly there's no difference between the ability of an Asian American or black American or Latino American or white American to comprehend gun safety rules and handle guns safely. There's no difference. I mean, between how any adult can process that information and handle guns safely, men, women, that you whatever, like anything, and that's where, you know, trying to make arguments that some community or others shouldn't own guns, because they're dangerous is, yeah, I mean, it just starts to get into territory that I doubt that they want to be in. But they put out this report, so

Unknown Speaker  41:53  
I don't know. Yeah, it's their report. And they're, they, they're, they need to own it, right, they need to own it, along with all the scrutiny and criticism that's, that's gonna come

Stephen Gutowski  42:02  
with moving away from politics for a moment. You are also involved in the NFT space, which is a sort of brand new, burgeoning space, you're seeing NF T's and the blockchain, tech, you know, technology generally, that has been associated with cryptocurrencies to this point, and is now moving into things like collectibles and art. And in your case, you're saying that perhaps the next place that it should go is into the firearms community. So can you explain just because obviously, a lot of people listening probably don't know the first thing about what an NF T is, and how it could possibly relate to firearms?

Unknown Speaker  42:57  
Yeah, it's so NF T's you know, for For the uninitiated, that stands for non fungible token. I like to kind of dispense with the technical talk and I think when you hear the the letters and f t, just think of it as a digital collectible. For me, that was the most easiest way to think about what is an NF t right. So it's a digital.

Stephen Gutowski  43:22  
Just real quick, you've actually seen the major sport sporting leagues in America in the NBA NHL tops, right, the old collectible card, you know, baseball companies, upper deck, I've got I believe they've all gotten into creating NF T's now so you can basically it's the same way that you would treat a physical card. Now you can trade an NF t instead. People are doing

Unknown Speaker  43:49  
exactly so yeah, I have a tremendous amount of confidence that the firearms community we will absolutely be getting into NFT firearms you know, sooner probably rather than later. It's you know, right now, right? The the utility is mostly around collectibles, right? Like you said trick digital trading cards, the NBA top shot brand, which has no relation to history, top shot around the NBA top shot brand. Yeah, ironic, but they've made $700 million right and FTC sales and trades over the past year. I mean, it's tremendous, right? The opportunity that we're talking about here, but as it relates to guns, you know, for me, the collectors the digital collector's card is one very fun component. I used to collect baseball cards Yeah, FLIR tops upper deck and as it's like so fun to see you know, in 1987, you know, Ken Griffey Jr rookie card and how the value right of that that same card but you know versity of tops versus score versus you know, another brand, right? It was just like such a fun experience, right? That it enhances your community experience, right. And in our case, I think it would bring a lot of fun to the firearms community bring literally a ton of value, right, we will be generating wealth for card owners, you know, for the community for the industry, and FC farms,

Stephen Gutowski  45:24  
and you could see this not just in, obviously, I mean, obviously, there's the collectibles, where you have like a picture of the like a baseball card type of deal, but but with firearms instead. Which is one use, but I feel like there's an even bigger use out there that if you look at how NF T's have been used for concerts, or for you know, bands that have put out albums, you know, that feature and NFT components, and basically you buy that NFT which could be a copy of the album, because you know, it's digital, so it could be music, as well. And basically you can't you can't copy and NFT like it has us essentially like a digital signature on it. So you could make the same image again, but it won't have that digital signature that authenticates it kind of like when you buy a baseball card from an authenticator that has like the provenance of how we know this is not fake or a copy right? And so people have us that or bands of use that technology to you know you buy the NFT of the album you also get a VIP ticket to the next concert in your town or whatever and I feel like that's a way as well that it could be used perhaps by by gun companies when they release a new gun or something does that is that in line with what Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  46:54  
yeah, absolutely. So you know that's going to be one of my future medium articles. My first article on medium was mostly focusing on digital collectibles and video games. But what you're talking about is a fantastic idea right and the the concept here could be a firearms manufacturer publishes 100 nF T's of a new gun that they're coming out with and those first those those 100 winners, they not only win the NF t but it can it can buy them the right to purchase the new actual physical gun in real life. So it's sort of like this Willy Wonka golden ticket dynamic where you know you're buying the candy bar and the ticket gets you a whole nother experience right here at you're buying the NFT and that digital asset could open up real life benefits and opportunities, which for me, I think that's just like that's so fun.

Stephen Gutowski  47:47  
That's so exciting too.

Unknown Speaker  47:49  
I'm a technologist

Stephen Gutowski  47:50  
right? And the difference between like cuz obviously they could sell you a gift card or something now, but the NFT has that digital signature so you can verify anyone can verify this the way blockchain works the whole concept behind it any exam verify that that's the actual one and not just some sort of fake that's been made of it. That's that would be sort of the big exactly step forward in terms of technology right?

Unknown Speaker  48:16  
Yeah, exactly right. And the big missing piece though at the moment is getting manufacturers right signed on to the concept and the notion that they should be selling NFT versions of their other firearms and you know I'm actually in some conversations with some major fires manufacturers and you know, they're they're interested but it's also a very new and to be frank it's it's kind of this foreign topic right? It took me personally I think when NF T's started to hit you know mainstream media by like late last year I watched with skepticism like oh you know, I think these are these are gonna be you know, a fly by night kind of operation it sounds a little sounds a little weird, but man they're here to stay and and again, back to you know, NBA top shot, you've got deepl which is an artist who sold his digital artwork for $69 million. You've got the Charlie Bit My Finger YouTube, that which turned into an NFT that sold for like $640,000 I mean, there's a real market for this. There's people who are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on NF Ts and I just don't see any reason why the firearms industry in the firearms community would also want to come play in this extremely fun Yeah, and

Stephen Gutowski  49:40  
you've even seen major publishers get involved as well. I mean, obviously, you've got the NBA and, and major companies like them, they'll be you also have the New York Times sold an NF T of one of their front pages. A while back for a significant amount of money. I think the Washington Post did the same thing. So you're seeing

Unknown Speaker  49:58  
us Today in Time Magazine, a

Stephen Gutowski  50:01  
lot of people get into this, this trend. And I mean, I guess the concept here is like, Oh, well, cuz you can look at and be like, well, this is just a JPEG of whatever of the front page or of this digital art. You know, why is that valuable? But because it has that digital signature that guarantees to anyone who looks at it, that it is the only it is the original copy, and it is, has the provenance connected to it, it can prove definitively that this is the real first copy of this. Art

Unknown Speaker  50:38  
the analogy? Yeah, the analogy that really helped concretize why NF T's are valuable is I think about the Mona Lisa, like the Mona Lisa, in real life. There's only one copy of the Mona Lisa. Now there's millions of visitors who go see the Mona Lisa, every year, right? And we take pictures on our cell phones, right? Maybe you put it up, you print copies out, he used to have the gift shops, right who have, you know, copies of the Mona Lisa, but but they're not as valuable as the actual single Mona Lisa, that again, the provenance part that you've talked about, right? It's authenticated by the museum. And by right museum curators, that's, that's the value in back to the blockchain. And that day, the digital signature piece, right, that you mentioned, that's, that's the key piece to where NF T's derive their value is their rarity, the provenance. And I, again, I just think this is such an exciting concept that I'm doing everything I can to promote this fun, cool new idea. I've got some, you know, ideas in the works myself, and I want to encourage other people other, you know, entrepreneurs to think about NFT firearms, think about the blockchain, because for me, I would love to, you know, maybe come on again later, when I've got some of these other ideas that I think would benefit the firearms community with respect to blockchain technology. I think it could possibly, you know, be game changing, but it's about how do we do this together. It's, it's, it's, it's very much, you know, the, for me, the more fun that people have, right? That's sort of the whole point of life is like, let's have a good time. Hey, and the more people that are having fun, whether it's with firearms in real life, or firearms in the digital space, like, that's great, and everybody can pick and choose, like, whichever, whichever, you know, kind of paradigm or paradigms that you want to play in. So, yeah, I look forward to hopefully chatting more about that. Yeah.

Stephen Gutowski  52:48  
Because I think it's easy to look at, like some of the examples you cited of, you know, some of the city's digital artists making hundreds of millions of dollars off off of NF T's, and just dismiss it as like some crazy thing. Like, why would that be worth that much money, especially if it's not even a physical, you know, medium that's being represented? But then, you know, you can look at the regular art world, the physical art, and say, a lot of the same things, right? Like, people do that all the time, right? You look at how some of these art pieces that are physical pieces of art sell for and they're like, blank canvas or black dot and, and it's like, yes, like, there's plenty of art is completely subjective, obviously. So what gives it value is not determined by whether I like it or you like it, right? It's what somebody is willing to pay for it. And exactly the same, really, the same basic rule applies here. Like it's valuable, because people give it value. Like, yeah, I could make an NF T of nothing. And we could do an FFT of the front page of the reload right now. And, and, you know, it could sell for nothing, even though it's one of a kind, right? It's not just the scarcity angle, it's also you know, what gives art value? Generally, there's plenty of plenty of art, that's physical art, you could buy for nothing, too. That's not really what, where the value comes from. So when that was, I think what changed my mind about NF T's A while back is being more than just like some weird scam that's going on. Right? which you could also say, again, is another thing that people say about the regular art Well, yeah, but, you know, when I started thinking about my, in my own head, like the, the critiques I have of it, then I started to realize these are the same critiques that you can make about regular or regular baseball card collecting or whatever that people put value into. So there really isn't anything inherently rock flawed about NF T's or the blockchain Same thing with like crypto you can look at crypto and a lot of the smaller coins that exist out there there's a lot of like fraud and pump and dump schemes that are around some of these coins little like fake basically scam coins that nefarious people will create but yeah you again you can watch Wolf of Wall Street and see that that is not that's not unique to crypto and that there is real value

Unknown Speaker  55:27  
yeah scams and frauds exactly it's it's the same stuff happens and in the crypto world as it does fiat currency just a little bit less

Stephen Gutowski  55:35  
for the crypto yet but yeah, I saw you know to me I think that there isn't any reason why something like what you're talking about couldn't become reality eventually and probably frankly it kind of seems inevitable at this point that that it's some some point down the line you're gonna see the firearms industry involved in NF Ts and crypto

Unknown Speaker  56:00  
that's that's exactly my perspective this is so inevitable and I am going to you know push pull and drag the firearms industry into doing the inevitable and it's like why there's this is like literally no reason why we shouldn't just jump into this today it's it's very I would consider this very low risk like the technology is there to make this incredibly affordable for everybody. And again, I just think this is a really fun thing that's win win win across the board so I hope NFT firearms has been an interesting topic for your for your listeners I definitely is for me and thank you again for giving me the opportunity to come to reload podcast so

Stephen Gutowski  56:42  
if people want to find you they want to get involved with APA GLA. They want to hear more about NF T's and firearms. How can they find you?

Unknown Speaker  56:52  
Yeah, so I'm available on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and my handle is at top shot Chris. I've also got a website top shot Chris calm and I've got a series of medium posts and my handle there is at top chakras as well. So if you want to read more about NF T's and blockchain stuff and guns Yeah Come Come follow me on medium I'm really excited for for more posts that I'm going to be posting here in the coming weeks.

Stephen Gutowski  57:21  
Apa GLA has a website as well. Yes, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  57:25  
Thanks for the reminders Yeah. Apa Gao a.org is our website it stands for Asian Pacific American Gun Owners Association we've got a number of very fun events that are you know coming up in the in the coming months and quarters anyone who wants to volunteer you know definitely please drop us a line as well. Apa geo a guy

Stephen Gutowski  57:48  
All right, well we'll have to have you on again real soon. Thank you again for coming on with us.

Chris Cheng  57:54  
Great thanks again for having me.

Stephen Gutowski  57:56  
All right, we're here with john who's a member of the reload to do another one of my favorite segments here where we talk to some of the reload members and get their story and their background and and learn a little bit more about our community here. Our growing community so john, can you tell us a little bit about yourself a little bit about your background where you're from? How'd you get into guns?

John  58:19  
Sure. So I guess I'm a little bit different than your probably your typical member I'm actually pretty left wing or I was anyway are still mostly am I'm I'm from New Jersey so behind behind enemy lines almost as I found out so I Castlevania so we're yeah actually I'm very I'm just outside of Philly so Oh wonderful. Yeah

Stephen Gutowski  58:42  
still bear that's right where I grew up so go Eagles Yeah, go birds.

Unknown Speaker  58:47  
So um, so yeah, I actually went nominate I'm kind of used to changing my mind I was I was actually raised in a very conservative household. And over the years, I kind of became grew up my chemo political age during the Bush years, became far more liberal over time, as I saw some, what I saw as contradictions and in that the sort of things I was raised in, and I still stayed mostly pro pro gun until about like Sandy Hook happened. And by then I was a parent. I have two young daughters. And I also do a bit of philosophy study as a as a hobby. Man, I did notice that the the arguments for gun control where the gun control arguments that are put out are not particularly very good, at least policies. And that kind of comes down to this. Should we own guns or not own guns question, right? Should we have the Second Amendment that's almost never never debated. But like you talked about assault weapons bans, that's not really gonna do much. And then so very liberal, anti Trump whole thing and then the pandemic hit, and I had a whole bunch of crime happened right around my house. The ATM I use, it was an arm robbery, there was a murder at a hotel, right by my house, there was a, there was all sorts of problems right in the neighborhood even. And everything, everything seemed to be going nuts. And I had gone shooting the year before with a friend for the first time ever. So I knew how to run a handgun. And I was like, I think we need to get, we need to get one of these. And because I live in New Jersey took forever. It was it was an extraordinarily eye opening and painful process that is designed to be painful and multiple redundant and ways to make it as painful as possible. And I, you know, we have it, we made a self defense plan of safe storage, all that kind of stuff. And I kind of got more and more into the arguments about, you know, pro anti gun, that sort of thing. And I found the reload. And I'm like a lot of when you're waiting for your gun permits to process it, you can only go online and research things. And you find a lot of the pro gun stuff is very, almost like gun rush limbaugh, it's very sure a pro, very, very slanted in a specific direction. And the thing I really liked about what you've done is it seems very fair minded. You'll you'll go and give the pros and cons of everything. And so that's why I decided I wanted to join up.

Stephen Gutowski  1:01:19  
Yeah, I think that's where we've tried to be a little bit different in the approach and focusing on obviously hard news over over commentary. Obviously, we do some analysis as well to China Yes, you know, give give a better view of what's really going on. But But yeah, I think there's not much of that, whether you're looking at very pro gun outlets, which you know, obviously have their place and then the opinion, even heated, strong opinions are, are still valuable to to a certain degree. But that's kind of all there is when you look at a lot of gun media. And then when you look at a lot of mainstream media, or major media outlets that are news focused or more news focus, they tend to not be very informed on the issue, and they tend to lean in the other direction a lot. So you know, that's that's where I thought that was a good fit for the reload to try and do something a little bit different. But you know, I find your story pretty fascinating, because you're, you're one of these, one of the people who, who bought a gun just recently that we talked a lot about, right, this is sort of really important, new group of gun owners. In some cases like yourself, not traditional, you know, party line Republican voters, obviously, that you know, might have different points of view on lots of other issues, then your traditional conservative gun owning gun voter. And so I think it's really fascinating to see that kind of development, as you described, like how you got into it. Obviously, there was rioting in Philly, there was there's been a rise in it's been interesting, actually, the last two years here, you had a decline in a number of crimes like property crimes, right. But a huge increase in in severe crimes like murder. Yeah, murder was up 30% in 2020, which is the biggest spike. Yeah, so percentage wise in history, like it's still it's still relative to the 1990s or late 80s. still relatively low levels, but they've increased a lot in recent years. And, and it seems like it's driven a lot of people to buy guns. And I mean, here you are, is one of the prime examples of that.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:35  
Yeah. One of the things especially the thing I really loved actually, that really got me sucked into listening to your podcast every week. You had david French on talk about the New York State Rifle Association verse Bruin case, which I am intensely

Stephen Gutowski  1:03:51  
interested in. Yeah, those are big impacts in New Jersey,

Unknown Speaker  1:03:54  
I cannot carry my firearm, and I have been a new gun owner. One thing I learned is train. And so I've taken quite a lot of training classes. I took a private lesson to learn how to use a holster in the hope that we will eventually next year get rights to be able to carry and like the analysis you guys did about Okay, they will hopefully likely make shot make all the last eight states become shall issue. So the state must issue permits, but then get ready. They will make it as hard as possible like they do just buy a gun. So

Stephen Gutowski  1:04:32  
yeah, I think that's probably the the most likely outcome. Obviously, we talked about a range of what could Yes, but yeah, most likely they'll probably strike down a issue that has, you know, where states like New Jersey and New York and Maryland and California have these systems that give extraordinary discretion to government officials on whether or not somebody can obtain a concealed carry license based on Georgia.

Unknown Speaker  1:05:00  
inherited discretion is a very correct way to put it. politically correct way to put it, it's de facto ban unless you're that exceedingly wealthy or a retired police officer.

Stephen Gutowski  1:05:10  
Yes, yeah. This systems breed a type of corruption to that's very common, where the people in charge of issuing permits, generally don't issue any permits unless you are connected in some way, or you can bribe them. In many cases, we've seen that in New York City and in California, and in New Jersey, over and over again, this has happened. So yes, certainly, the the current system, because of the basically, it's left up to the opinion of the the issuing, you know, official as to whether or not the applicant has a good reason to carry a gun for self defense. And so when you give someone that kind of discretion over people's ability to protect themselves with firearms, that tends to provide a lot of incentive for people to try and bribe those officials. And I know this might be shocking to some, but public officials, they aren't always the most upstanding people and may be vulnerable to these kinds of bribes. And certainly have been in many cases in the past.

Unknown Speaker  1:06:21  
Yeah, you know, the one the one thing I like to point out, especially to other liberals, when I debate, I've gotten it a lot of debates about this, but I've been a little public about it. And I say, Well, you know, who had a carry permit in New York City, when he was a Democrat, giving money to anti gun politicians for years. Yeah, was Donald Trump and his sons. People like Howard Stern, and all the New York, the celebrities and very wealthy people who you might not have even ever heard of, if you didn't live there, all have carry permits. That's right. And yeah, so he felt like he was past, you know, to get a gun, I had to pass three background checks, to buy a pistol. Yeah, been a law abiding citizen all my life, there is no chance for me to get a carry permit.

Stephen Gutowski  1:07:07  
Yeah, effectively, that's the case and New Jersey and most of these states with may issue laws. And of course, a lot of these states have permit requirements on simply purchasing firearms. In New Jersey, there's a permit requirement for purchasing a handgun, and that system itself can also become very, very backed up and difficult to get through, I know, during the pandemic, they shut down a lot of that process. And I did reporting and when I was at the Free Beacon, on some of the people who got caught in that, and they had to wait for months, months and months and months and months to get their pistol permit approval. And, and that was in the middle of, you know, all the turmoil we experienced in 2020, whether it was the meat shortages, the runs on, you know how to store the, you know, early release of, of, you know, certain convicts from, from jail, the police officers getting sick, you know, the list goes on and on. And obviously, the writing that happened near where you live in Philadelphia, area and throughout the country. And so, you know, the the system is very restrictive in, in places like New Jersey in New York, to the point where it's extremely difficult for a regular person to obtain a handgun in the first place, even even with, you know, the Heller ruling that says, it's protected by the Second Amendment, you can still put a lot of sort of hurdles on that path to legal gun ownership. And that, and then they obviously have essentially the biggest hurdle of all and may issue when it comes to carrying your gun. And then like, yeah, like I discussed discussed with David French, and with a previous podcast that you alluded to here. That's probably what is gonna happen. If and when the Supreme Court strikes down may issue laws, they'll probably just create a new regime of very complicated processes to obtain a permit DC has already done this. Yep. effectively. Now, it's, it's certainly possible to get through that process. They do issue permits, they've In fact, they've increased how many permits they've issued over the last two years by a huge percentage, there's a report about that just the other day, but you know, they're still going to make it difficult. And, and yeah, we'll have to see exactly what, what comes with that case. But yeah, I really appreciate you coming on. And just talking to us a little bit about your point of view. I always like to hear from the members and, and hear from the variety of the points of view that that we have in this new community here of people who've subscribed to the reload and I really appreciate you taking the time. Just to To give us a little bit of insight into your, your own thinking,

John  1:10:04  
no, thank you for having me on. It was it's a pleasure.

Stephen Gutowski  1:10:07  
Absolutely. And we'll do this again with another member. Soon if you remember who wants to come on the podcast and talk to us do a little interview, just reach out to me reply to your Sunday newsletter, saying you want to be on and, and we'll make time to have you on and have a nice discussion. I think this has been one of my favorite segments so far on the podcast, so I really enjoy it. But Alright, thanks again.

John  1:10:33  
Thank you.

Stephen Gutowski  1:10:34  
And that's all we've got for this episode of the weekly reload podcast. Join us again next week when our guests will be Adam serveware of the Atlantic. And I think we'll have a really good interesting conversation with him. If you want to get this podcast today early and get exclusive access to other reload pieces, especially the analysis pieces where I give my take on every news story that I can. Hopefully it's interesting, I think people enjoy it. Make sure you sign up for a membership today over at the reload.com but until next time, thank you.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:25  
I gave him poison just for fun. I had one friend. Now there's none.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:31  
I'm a the devil, right? I broke so many bones. But none of them were on me. I was alone. I broke so many bows

Transcribed by https://otter.ai