Stephen Gutowski  0:00  
However, Virginia power companies trying to discourage gun owners from voting and interview with him Edwards Air yars that more on this episode of you load podcast.

Unknown Speaker  0:14  
I gave him poison, just for fun.

Stephen Gutowski  0:18  
Alright ladies and gentlemen, welcome 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 head over and get a membership today to get access to exclusive posts and exclusive reporting exclusive analysis stuff you will literally not get anywhere else, no matter where you look. And you'll also get early access to this your podcast plus the chance to be on the podcast, if you'd like we've had some really nice segments where we've had reload members on who kind of explain who they are their background, how they got into, potentially into owning firearms or in the firearms industry in some way. And you know how they came across the reload and what made him join those sorts of things. I always find those really interesting. So by the way, if you are already every load member, feel free to respond to your Sunday newsletter, your exclusive analysis newsletter that you get every Sunday, and let us know that you want to be on the show and we'll have you on. I think that those are, like I said, some of the best segments we do on the show. But this week, we are talking with contributing writer Jake fogelman. About the latest developments in the gun world. First up, we have the Virginia gubernatorial election, which has been the source of some recent controversy. Is that right Jake?

Jake Fogleman  1:46  
Yeah. So Brooke are covered a couple stories here. About You know, Terry McAuliffe and it came out that Dominion energy, which is a major power company in Virginia, was contributing $200,000 to a recently created Pac, Virginia accountability pack. And that group was running sort of shadowy ads and Republican strongholds in the state, basically calling Glenn young kind of squish on gun rights issues, ostensibly to you know, depress turnout in those areas, for people turning out to to race and it's notable because McAuliffe publicly sore off of funding from dominion. And so this kind of and run around that is, is very interesting, very, very suspicious.

Stephen Gutowski  2:33  
Yeah, very underhanded. Not not like, completely unheard of thing to do in politics, certainly, but it's one of those things that's very sleazy. I think most people view it as very underhanded. And, unfortunately, more common than everyone would like, which is kind of what turns a lot of people off from politics is exactly this kind of stuff. And the CEO, Robert blue, came out and said that Dominion just had, they had no idea what was going on, they didn't know that this money was gonna go towards ads that were pretending to be from, you know, a gun rights group, when really the group is founded and run by a progressive consulting firm, a liberal consulting firm and which raises its money through act blue, which is the largest liberal fundraising network in the country. That very clearly, I think, anyone paying attention. They are not a legitimate gun rights group. Now they do latch on to a legitimate complaint about the Republican in this race, Glenn younkin, where he hasn't sought out the endorsements of the gun rights groups, the NRA or or the vcdl. He's refused to fill out their their election surveys so they won't right, endorse him. Now that that does seem to be something of a intentional strategy on Duncan's part to maybe avoid, he's trying to sort of walk the tightrope. When it comes to a number of things, you know, Donald Trump, he's he's kind of kept him at arm's length but not rejected him entirely. Right. Right, which has upset Trump to some degree. But it seems to be working, so at least well enough to keep him in the single digit digits range of Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic governor here. Virginia has a weird system where governors can only serve for one term at a time but they can later on run for reelection run to be governor again if they'd like, which is exactly what's happening here. Cough was the previous governor before Northam, who's also a democrat and Northam can't run again, not that he probably would, at this point, given his the whole blackface scandal where he was, you know, caught wearing blackface in the picture in his one of his college yearbooks, but he didn't resign in the state And but he, anyway, he can't seek reelection at this point regardless. So McAuliffe came back in to do it instead. And yes, like you said he swore off donations from Dominion energy, which is, which is like a $62 billion utility company that operates in like, six or seven different states. But you could probably tell from the name is most associated with Virginia, right, where they provides most of the power to most people in the state. And I think that also underscores another reason people find this very distasteful, which is that dominion is a utility, you can just buy a different power company in Virginia, unfortunately, that's not how it works. I like my power is, is from dominion, here in Alexandria, Virginia, and I couldn't just like tell my apartment complex to switch power, you know, suppliers. That's not how it works. I think people show like the idea of them meddling in the Swiss specially in this way, frankly, because they're doing it. They're clearly trying to get around the cut, like you mentioned, the coughs, whole declaration that he wouldn't take money from them. They obviously want him to win over younkin. For whatever reason, maybe young kid, maybe they believe that McAuliffe will give them more incentives for certain programs or green energy programs that they're involved with, or whatever the reason is, yeah, who knows, I clearly prefer McAuliffe to younkin. And this is just the most backdoor sort of shady way of trying to influence the race. And their excuse, that they just didn't know what was going to happen with this money they gave this. Right. It's not remotely credible. Because this group, you know, they said, I guess they blue says, you know, we knew these guys that were making this this pack, right? So the consulting firm, I guess they're familiar with. But supposedly they didn't know what they were going to do with the money. They didn't know they were going to basically disingenuously attack, blank younkin from the right on guns when makalah when you know, yes, younkin has not been endorsed by these gun rights groups, but he's clearly far more pro gun or

in favor of fewer government's new restrictions than Terry McAuliffe is like, that's not sharing really no question on that. It's more of a question of whether he would fill out the surveys and whether he'll follow through all the things that he says, right? Oh, he supports like, you know, he's against an assault weapons ban. But if there's obvious, there's obviously real questions, that's how these attacks work. You take some legitimate concern or criticism of someone, and you latch on to that, but you're doing it in a way that by people who are obviously disingenuous about that concern, because if you were worried about gun rights in this campaign, right, as as the actual gun rights groups are the NRA and vcdl. You would also be criticizing at the very, at the very least, you would also criticize Terry McAuliffe for his very strong stances on wanting to implement even more gun restrictions than what Sharon's just implemented in the West. State, the session of the State House here in Virginia. So McAuliffe is very open about supporting the solvents ban, he supported with solvents composto, ar fifteens, ak 47 skins, like they're very popular firearms. He wants to confiscate what the democrats had proposed repeatedly over the last several years and what McAuliffe has has supported in the past. Now, I think his stated position on his campaign website is just opposing the sale of, you know, these sorts of firearms, but in the past, he's been on board with confiscation efforts as well. They didn't, they didn't get into law, but he was supported them. And so, you know, if you're going to be concerned about gun rights in this, in this race, you obviously can't just criticize younkin you can criticize him for not and vcdl and others have criticized him for not sure being more stringent on the issue being more open about his where he stands and making it more of a primary issue in his campaign. But as VCD on others have pointed out, the policy differences are Stark and obvious and clear, when you look at them. So when Dominion comes along gives money this group who disingenuously is attacking Yong Kim from the radon guns, and says they didn't know what was gonna happen. It's just it's just kind of a joke, to be honest, to be completely honest about the whole thing I obviously try my best not to a pine so much on this podcast or in my writing. But sometimes there's just things that are so ridiculous that I can't, I can't help it. It's, you know, this group was founded in July of 2021, the idea that they came around and just found this group didn't know what the heck it was, didn't know what it was gonna do and gave them six figures is laughable. If it were true, it wouldn't make it look any better. It makes them look very stupid. correctly. I guess they're, they're playing ignorant here. And it's not a good look one way or the other.

Jake Fogleman  10:52  
All right. And as you said, You're a Virginia gun owner, you have no choice but to pay money to these people. I mean, how does that make you feel as a gun owner to sit there and say, Look, this company that I have to give money to to keep the lights on, is now publicly campaigning to elect a guy that wants to take away my gun rights? So as you said, it is kind of a joke. It's a wild situation?

Stephen Gutowski  11:13  
Oh, it certainly is. But we'll have more on that in the in the newsletter this week, as well. And and on, you know, the idea of where, where guns is going to come down as far as the importance of this election. You know, the the candidates have really focused on other things so far. And we're gonna get more into this with actual with cam Edwards bearing arms here in a moment in the interview, but with the racist, close, I think, even though younkin and McAuliffe have focused on different issues, primarily throughout the race, anything can have a real impact. So we'll get into that more with with cam, I think what else I wanted to talk to you about specifically was your piece on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's recent rulings, another place that's dear to my heart. I'm from Pennsylvania, originally, for anyone who didn't realize this follows me on Twitter and sees all the Philly sports tweets. Those are. I was born into that torture. So that's what that's what that happens. But yeah, so Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Supreme Court, they had a big ruling today on preemption laws is that roll a roll this week on preemption law says that, right?

Jake Fogleman  12:23  
Yeah, there was a big ruling. So the whole case centered around the issue of standing. So typically, in order to bring a suit against one of these laws, you have to have been a victim of prosecution under these laws. That's traditionally how it's been understood. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in this case that the law itself existing and the nature of someone being a gun owner in that jurisdiction was sufficient enough that you can bring standing to sue against those laws. So in this case, Harrisburg had, I think, four ordinances that were under question things like there was a ban in city parks on possessing a firearm, discharging your firearm outside of designated gun ranges. There's a mandatory reporting if you lost or had your firearm stolen, so things like that, that a local gun group was suing against. And yeah,

Stephen Gutowski  13:11  
and the issue there, right, is that in Pennsylvania, there's a state law that says that's right, yes, in a lot of states now, that says localities can't pass these kinds of restrictions that go further than what the state law is, right?

Jake Fogleman  13:27  
That's correct. Yeah. So they're one of 42 states that have a very robust preemption law that essentially says, you know, can't be stricter than what the state mandates. And that's pretty significant. In Pennsylvania, they've had battles, several battles over the years where big cities like Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia will try to test the limits and pass a law. And they almost always end up getting struck down under that present preemption statute. So it'll be interesting to see going forward with this new ruling. If you know more gun owners are now able to bring suits against anytime one of these cities tries to pass new gun laws.

Stephen Gutowski  14:02  
Yeah, I think it's interesting. Especially because some of those ordinances are ones that Philadelphia has like that, that park ban, guns in the park banned. And yeah, they often will get struck down in court. But the the hiccup here is that a lot of these places will pass these laws, and then never prosecute anyone for them. I think Pittsburgh was trying to do something like this. And then they actually were threatened with legal action from the district attorney out there for trying to pursue illegal laws, basically, or Laura would violate the this the state preemption bill. And this fight has actually, you know, been pretty hot the last couple years throughout the country, right, not just in Pennsylvania, although it has been hot in Pennsylvania to for instance, Philadelphia's concealed carry permit application process. Test has been called into question a number of times, because they keep adding new requirements that go beyond what state law requires. And they keep getting sued over that. Right. So it's certainly been something that's come up a number of times in Pennsylvania, but it's also come up across the country. I mean, really, this is a fairly new protection for gun rights. That didn't exist, you know, 3040 years ago, most states didn't have these kinds of preemption laws. And the complaint was that you could, within a state, you could have, you know, a dozen, two dozen different restrictions on firearms. And if you traveled throughout that state, you might be a felon in one county and not in another. So it was sort of like, they call it like a spiderweb of laws. And that this was the main complaint that people had on the gun right side of the issue about the situation and so they a lot like concealed carry permits. They took about their, you know, they went about and had a grassroots campaign to change these laws throughout the country and Institute preemption laws that made it so the the law of the gun laws in each state were uniform, so that you could at least have an understanding from state to state, what what was illegal and what was not? Sure. And so recently, you've seen a number of, and I think you're gonna write a bit more about this to probably be out by the time this podcast gets up. But yeah, but recently, you've seen gun control advocates challenging these preemption laws throughout the country as well, by trying to get localities to pass stricter provisions within, you know, their own authority and, and then challenge them in court. And they've actually lost quite a lot of those that hasn't been very successful tactic in recent years for for the gun control community, and now you're actually seeing them go back towards legislation, because they have had some success in recent years.

Jake Fogleman  17:12  
Yeah, my home state of Colorado. Yeah. It's Yeah, that's right.

Stephen Gutowski  17:17  
Virginia would

Jake Fogleman  17:18  
be the city of Boulder had an assault weapons ban that was struck down under our preemption law this spring. And then after that tragic shooting at the King soopers that happened there. It just galvanized the state legislature, and we completely did away with our preemption statute. So now it's free rein for localities to pass any gun law that they want, so long as it's not less strict than the state.

Stephen Gutowski  17:40  
Yeah. And Virginia chipped away at its preemption law, just recently, as part of the package that Democrats passed in 2020. where basically, localities can create their own regulations over where people are allowed to carry guns. So inside local government buildings, at parks, or inside parks, and similar to what Harrisburg and Philadelphia have implemented illegally up in Pennsylvania. Now, you localities can do that legally here, they can restrict guns from parks, and from permitted events or events that should be permitted, whatever that means. And so like protests or large gatherings of people that don't have permits, to gather. So, you know, it's certainly become an issue here. And in Alexandria, specifically, where I live, that they've banned all the ban guns and all the parks, they put up signs and so forth. And so it's not as extreme as what they did in Colorado, which was, you know, removing all preemption protections, but so you have seen some success for the gun control side of things on that front, you know, limited success in a couple of states on rolling back these preemption protections. So it'll be interesting to see what this this Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling does for the state that's been a big bite up there for a while now, they're they even passed a wall that would allowed, like gun rights groups to sue of their own volition, but that got caught up in basically like, technicalities of how it was passed. Not the law itself. But the way they passed it was deemed to be not in compliance with state constitution. So they weren't able to put that into effect, but now it seems like you're gonna see a lot more than suits, but sure, it'll be interesting to watch. They will keep an eye on it, for sure. But anyway, we've got a great interview with cam Edwards dang arms coming up. We're going to talk a little bit more about the Virginia elections, and how some of these Dominion shenanigans have played out and what it actually looks like. is going to happen in about a week here when Virginians head to the polls, so stay tuned for that. I'm here with cam Edwards of bearing arms Kim. Once you give our listeners a little bit of background about yourself,

Cam Edwards  20:13  
you bet so as you dispense with editor of bearing arms calm host of the Cameron company podcast, you can find it on YouTube and rumble and Apple podcasts at Amazon and all the rest. Before buried arms. I was the host of Cayman company on NRA news. And then NRA TV from 2004 to 2019, also a member of the board of the Citizens Committee for the right to keep and bear arms. And

Stephen Gutowski  20:40  
yeah, I think that's about it. And you live in Virginia,

Cam Edwards  20:44  
I do live in Virginia. Yes. In fact, like Farmville, right? Just Yeah, in fact, I was just saying about the other day. So I've now officially lived in Central Virginia longer than I lived in Northern Virginia, I've lived in a rural part of Virginia longer than I live in the DC suburbs. So I don't think I could be called a DC transplant anymore. I think that's how that works.

Stephen Gutowski  21:05  
I think that's fair, pretty different lifestyle down there. I guess because I'm up in the, for any listeners who don't know, I'm up in Alexandria, Virginia, which is Northern Virginia, near Washington, DC. And so, Cam is a couple hours away from me down south in a much prettier area of the state. Not you know, Old Town, Alexandria is very nice. You know, this is much more built up area, though, then, then, as the name implies, then then Farmville is,

Cam Edwards  21:38  
yeah, absolutely. I mean, I so Fairfax County, I think was 1.8 million people, we moved to a county that was 18,000 people, and about the same size as Fairfax County. So you know, that the population density is a lot less. You traffic's not nearly as bad although we we've had a lot of Amish move into the area. So we actually now we have to watch out for horse and buggies. And, and, you know, that'll slow you down just like, you know, an accident on 495. So, but it you know, it has given me I think, a kind of interesting perspective, because I do have the Northern Virginia experience, but I also now have the that experience of living in a very rural community and a much more, you know, read part of the state. And, you know, personally, it's been great. I'd love to see, you know, a statewide election where gun owners can actually come out ahead. It's been a long time since that's been the case in Virginia. But I mean, this could be the year this is a fascinating, just, you know, from a political standpoint, I mean, I'm personally invested in this race to as a voter in Virginia, and but just from a just, you know, we really like to look at it from 30,000 feet. I mean, this is just really a fascinating race, because Terry McAuliffe is such an abysmal candidate. And you know, Glenn younkin, I've said he's been playing it a little too safe for my liking. But you can't argue with what the polls are saying. I mean, it's, you know, this is I think, younguns race to lose at this point, a couple of weeks out.

Stephen Gutowski  23:08  
Interesting. You think it's you think it's turned that much? Because obviously McAuliffe has been leading probably five, seven points up to the last a month or so, in most polling, but we have seen certainly tightening now and you've seen a number of polls, not just republican leaning polls, either more mainstream polls, you've seen the race at basically a tie at this point. So you from your point of view, that's that that means that things are actually leaning towards younkin? A little bit.

Cam Edwards  23:40  
Yeah, I think I think it's breaking toward Junkin at this point. And, you know, unless Haleakala was able to do something to stop that, I think that independence are gonna continue to break free again. I mean, remember, early voting is already happening right now. So there are people like acid a ballot. Now, if if McAuliffe was able to bank a lot of votes early, may maybe that'll be helpful to them. But the way he's running this campaign, I don't think they're confident that they banked many votes at all, early on, I think they're still really, really worried about turnout for McAuliffe and that's why they're bringing in, you know, not just Barack Obama. But they brought in, they brought in Stacey Abrams. I mean, Terry McAuliffe has been basically running this campaign that you know, Glenn younkin, is Donald Trump in a mask in a you know, it's all about, you know, stolen elections and the big lie. And then he brings a woman who believes she's the governor of Georgia, to campaign for him in Virginia. I mean, it's it's Yeah, it really is amazing. And I think, you know, while he's trying to get his base of support, energized, I think it's, I mean, there are conservatives who are going to be energized now because McAuliffe is bringing in Stacey Abrams while he's trying to pretend to be this, you know, moderate middle of the road candidate.

Stephen Gutowski  24:59  
It is Fight to watch him do the whole Trump thing with younkin. Which to be fair do to me that that, that is a concern. Partly, I don't I don't love. Obviously, the way that the former President Trump is has reacted to losing his election and the lies that he's told about it. And, and you, there's probably some space to go after young kid on that front for not being forceful enough and how he's, you know, talked about the last election. But the problem is, with that tactic, as you just noted here, is that not only did McAuliffe bring in Stacey Abrams, who didn't, who still holds that she won, effectively the Georgia gubernatorial race a couple years ago when she clearly did not, but McAuliffe himself has questioned the veracity of the multiple elections on record, and hadn't stands by that today. So it's like, okay, you know, I, you know, you're telling me not to vote for young king, because he's not solid enough on accepting results of elections, but you're doing the same thing. So it's just a very weird strategy that he's employed with regards to that, and that seems to be kind of his main strategy is just say that young kids, Trump is obviously trying to walk the sort of tightrope of keeping Trump at an arm's length but not going full, you know, anti Trump, by any means. And so, you know, which seems to be working. Thus far, at least in the polling. Obviously, we'll see how the election turns out but, you know, I, in another area, he seems to be walking a tightrope with that, I think we'll get a little more in depth on here, his guns as well, because you've had younkin. Now, there's an interesting, dynamic there, too, you've had younkin. Avoid, not seek out the endorsements of the NRA, the Virginia citizens defensively, he won't fill out their surveys or candidate surveys, so he has not been endorsed by either of those groups. While at the same time, he clearly has positions that are in stark contrast with Terry McAuliffe, who is staunchly pro gun control and wants to implement a new assault weapons ban and in the past, has supported even confiscation of firearms like the AR 15 and ak 47. Whereas young kin is opposed to that, and it said so on record, but so younkin is also rocking a bit of a tight grip on that issue. And McAuliffe or at least, I guess. Perhaps McAuliffe allies in this case, not him directly. have gone after younkin for exactly that, but in a way, that is fairly underhanded, right, you had a new pack. Come in, set up shop in July. Pretend that they are some sort of gun rights group and run a bunch of ads. Actually, I just got one of these ads served to me on facebook today. Thursday when we were when my

Cam Edwards  28:14  
wife got one yesterday. Yeah, so they're

Stephen Gutowski  28:16  
still doing this. Oh, yeah. It's still active. But these ads they attack younkin for not seeking out those endorsements, you know, so they're acting as though they're a pro gun rights group but they're they've been set up in our run by a liberal consulting firm that uses act blue which is the nation's leading progressive fundraising operation to raise their donations. So clearly what's happening with these ads is disingenuous. They're trying to go after young kid from the right on guns, they're targeting republican areas of the state and, and Republican leading or at least, you know, conservative leaning voters like myself and Miss e down their farm bill, and the clear attempt to suppress turnout among gun gun owners and help Terry McAuliffe. Now interestingly, we found out who was behind these ads, right? Or

Cam Edwards  29:13  
at least who was one of the contributors Yeah, Dominion energy. And the reason why I find out about this is because they declared this right, it wasn't that the pack itself said okay, well, you know, Dominion has given us money. It was Dominion that reported it in their financer reporting, and $200,000 donation to this pack that, as you say, is designed to depress the turnout of gun owners in Virginia. And so when

Stephen Gutowski  29:46  
young is a power company,

Cam Edwards  29:48  
it's a huge Yeah, it's a large. Exactly. It's a huge energy company. And it you know, so what's interesting is the democrat running for lieutenant governor Yala I remember her first name. She had vowed not to take any money from Dominion right because the left doesn't want to be seen as cozying up to the corporate interest right because they're all going after Wall Street her Will she reverse your position after the primary was over and accepted a very very large donation from Dominion as well and basically said yeah get over this isn't a direct donation to McAuliffe right but but it's an it's an essence it's an in kind donation. But the way that it Look, I look if Dominion was spending $200,000 on ads for Terry McAuliffe. That wouldn't be nearly as

Stephen Gutowski  30:40  
big a story or even against Glenn younkin. just outright right. But it's the underhand nature

Cam Edwards  30:46  
but funding ads that are deceptive, right? That's the issue because look like it or not, I mean, you can you can decide what you want about Glenn Duncan's decision not to seek the endorsement of the NRA in the vcdl by not filling out their questionnaires, right. But but he's answered that question. And that's his response. He says I didn't fill out anybody's questionnaire. So he said it wasn't you know, that it wasn't trying to seek the nominations that I just didn't fill out anybody's questionnaire. Again, believe it or not, like it or not, that's his answer.

Stephen Gutowski  31:20  
And that's how these that's how a lot of these when they do these sorts of underhanded tactics, which obviously it's not the first time somebody has done this, it's funded ads that have nothing to do with their interest, because it hurts a candidate they don't like, right, that's not new. It's sleazy. And it's one of those, you know, the, the combination of sleaziness and communists is one of the things that turns people off about politics.

Cam Edwards  31:42  
Do you remember the American hunters and shooters Association?

Stephen Gutowski  31:46  
Yes, this happens with guns quite a lot.

Cam Edwards  31:48  
It does. Right. And so yeah, you know, in every election cycle, it seems somewhere, you get one of these astroturf gun groups that pops up. And you know, tries to tell you what, what's interesting, though, is that normally in the past, like American hunters and shooters Association, they were running ads saying things like, you know, john kerry is a sportsman and he'll protect your rights, but generally wasn't attacking the republican as being soft on guns like that this is there's an extra layer of crumb Enos in sleaziness to this typical astroturf.

Stephen Gutowski  32:28  
Yeah, that's what they'll do is they'll pick something that where there's a there's legitimacy to the complaint, right? Like you said that it's legitimate for a gun owner or gun rights proponent to make this complaint about young kids to go and say, Well, I you know, and vcdl has done this, the Virginia systems defensively first, like, Well, look, we understand his positions are pro gun, and he's obviously created a very stark contrast between himself and McAuliffe who's very pro gun control. But, you know, if he's not willing to fill out these surveys, or, you know, that's going to affect how people view his commitment to this issue. And so you take this legitimate complaint, and then you disingenuously forward it with a bunch of money from a power company. And that's where it turns into something that's that a lot of people are probably not going to be responsive to, in fact, all of the comments on the Facebook ad that I was served by the group were wildly negative, about the group itself. And it was clear, like the people who commented at least knew what was going on, thanks to the reporting of places like people like lochlan, Mark eight at axios. And you and me, and others who've written about it, but it's, it's something that's created backlash to I wonder if there's a couple things that I wonder about this first is like, Did this hurt them more than it helped, because like, now that everyone knows what they were doing, minions were being protested by Virginia citizens Defense League, which is one of the groups they were trying to piggyback off of to make these deceptive ads. That only now highlights the stark contrast between the call often younkin on their stated positions on guns. Yeah. But then the other thing, I think is even perhaps interesting to note here is about young can strategy itself, this type of strategy, like Clearly, the analysts who dominium was willing to back with six figures worth of donations, determine that this is a weakness for him, that he's not going far enough on this issue, and that leaves them vulnerable with Republican voters in the state. You sort of alluded to this earlier. And I wonder like, yeah, obviously, dominion and the people behind This consulting firm behind this pack are doing something underhanded. But I think it it's evidence of a miscalculation, perhaps on younguns part or even on McAuliffe support for McAuliffe being remaining very pro gun control in his own campaign. It seems like the political analysts out there, at least some of them think that guns could be a much bigger motivating factor for at least republican areas of the state. If younkin were to actually do more with it.

Cam Edwards  35:39  
Well, so yeah. Okay. So there's a lot to unpack there. Um, yes to that last point. I mean, don't forget, it was, you know, late 2019, early 2020 when we had the SEC women's Sanctuary Movement in Virginia, and what was it 95 counties ended up becoming Second, the sanctuary as you had dozens of towns. I mean, that was less than two years ago. You know, it was a result of the 2019 elections, it was a direct result of Democrats taking control of state government two years ago. So why you wouldn't want to remind the voters of what's at stake in those second weapon sanctuaries, and make that a part of your campaign. I don't know, unless, you know, younguns advisors say to turns off moderates and independence in Fairfax County or the Richmond suburbs.

Stephen Gutowski  36:31  
Yeah, that seems to be the calculus. Right. Right. That he doesn't want to upset. Rose in Northern Virginia, which like, Yeah, and that's, that's always the balance when you're running in, in Virginia, right? Yeah, that places like Farmville, you might be able to motivate a lot of people with gun rights advocacy there. But places like Arlington, where far more people live, you might turn them off. I don't know. It's interesting, though. Because if you look at Jeff, we're just zooming in on Virginia here. First of all, I mean, hasn't even actually been to you. It's time is obviously a very abstract concept these days after having a pandemic, but the big protest in Richmond, right, that we both attended and covered. And you spoke at, actually, that happened in January 2020. Yeah, no, it seems like it was much longer ago. But that's the last major political movement in this entire state. I mean, largely, because, you know, we've been locked down and that not for the entire two years since then. But But you know, there hasn't there hasn't been like a grassroots movement of that nature until really the latest with the school board's protests, even and even those are far more limited in scope than what happened with the the sanctuary counties movement in Virginia. So it's interesting, because younkin has seized on on the school board protests. That's basically his main issue. But he's effectively ignored the gun rights, grassroots movement that came before that. And and I do wonder if that is the right calculation and clearly Dominion? And the consulting firm they gave money to don't think so. Or at least they think it leaves them vulnerable with his own turnout on on the Republican side? Well,

Cam Edwards  38:28  
I mean, it is gonna be, you know, we say that every election, it's gonna be a turnout election, but it you know, they're talking about turnout, well, under 50%. I mean, in Virginia, this is an off year election, it's always a struggle to get people to turn out. So voter apathy is a concern, or should be a concern for both campaigns. Now, you know, ordinarily, it'd be more of a concern for Glenn younkin, because, you know, Biden won the state by 10 points. So Terry McAuliffe should have a cushion, right, he should have a margin of apathy. But he because he's such a extraordinarily awful candidate. A, you know, he doesn't have that margin. And because I think younkin has run a good campaign is not listed. Like I said, it's not necessarily the campaign that I want to run. But the fact that we're seeing these polls where he's tied, where he's ahead by double digits within dependencies within four of Jerry column among women, um, you know, is that that's, I mean, that's pretty remarkable. And he's not, you know, as you say, he's walking the tightrope. Now, like when young guns come out and said, Well, you know, there's some common sense gun safety reforms I'd like to see in place, but I can't really talk about what those are. No. He I think he has managed to, I think you're right. I think he has decided that that the gun issue right now is probably not worth bringing up politically because it might motivate democrats in Northern Virginia and he probably feels Feels like he does have gun owners pretty well in hand. And I think that's the case because McAuliffe has been outspoken about gun control. He hasn't, you know, held a huge gun control rally or anything of that nature. But he says, Yeah, I want to ban ar fifteens. Yeah, I want to be in large capacity magazines. You reported on the, the audio from 2018 or 19 1990, where, you know, gun shows, oh, they're the worst. Yeah, this was a guy who wanted praise for supposedly saving gun shows and in reciprocity, the last time he was governor and and now he's told us that that was all BS. You know, I was it was just what was politically expedient for him at the time. And now it's politically expedient for him to try to go after our guns. And so I think that gun owners are aware. And so you're right. I think that this ultimately was a net negative. For the McAuliffe campaign. I think this backfired for because today, it did get gun owners talking. So it got us sharing this information with our friends. And maybe we weren't doing that before. But now it gave us something to talk about. And, you know, and, and we're talking about it, as you say, I mean, they're protesting outside of dominion. So gun owners are now fired up. They are engaged, I think, I think they were gonna show up at the polls, but now they might be calling their friends to see if they need a ride. You know, right.

Stephen Gutowski  41:31  
And I think in this election with how close it is, even though this has not been the primary focus of either candidate. You know, every little bit is gonna matter. Oh, yeah. When when an election is down to a couple points. Yeah. You know, I don't want to get people too excited about the outcome of this thing, or like be definitive about it, because we did we have seen this, this sort of play a couple the last two, gubernatorial elections in Virginia, where, at the end, it tightens and everybody thinks the republicans gonna pull it off. He's he's doing a little. He's right, within a couple points. It's closer than it was and then they lose. Right, that's happened the last two times with Cucinelli. And who was the last one? The last republican North?

Cam Edwards  42:16  
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's totally memorable. Our candidates event.

Stephen Gutowski  42:21  
I can't, I can't for the life of me, but but either way. So you know, this is sort of a story that's happened. Of course, McDonald pulled it off. Before before the call off. So it's certainly not impossible. The state has obviously changed quite a bit, but we are it is an off year election, you have President Trump, so hey, President Biden, in office and his approval ratings have fallen significantly and so off your elections like this tend to also have a sort of referendum effect to them on the party that's currently in control of the presidency. And that's the democrats and, and Biden's not doing so hot right now, with approval, so that that might be dragging down McAuliffe numbers as well. So there are some factors that point to maybe, maybe, you know, can can pull it off. I think the Tim doing so well in Northern Virginia, compared to, you know, Cuccinelli or or the other losing candidates that Republicans have put up is a big sign that he he has a real fighting chance, and certainly McAuliffe 's become a lot more desperate in his rhetoric recently, and he's got Biden is coming out to Arlington. I guess, we just was just reported recently here. So he's still trying to bring in as many big names as he can. I actually wanted to real quick you touched on the 2019 comments from McAuliffe One of the interesting things to me, in those comments that hasn't gotten a ton of attention, is, you know, he describes the 2016 deal that they were, that was made over gun carry reciprocity, for concealed carry reciprocity for people coming from other states that have concealed carry permits than being valid in Virginia, you know, in 2016, after they had failed to capture control of the State House, despite millions of dollars worth of donations from gun control advocacy groups, and Michael Bloomberg. It seemed like how that all went down, and you were following it at the time, just like I was, was that mark herring, who's still the Attorney General today and is is actually running for re election and why this point, I think, really matters. He unilaterally did away with all of our reciprocity deals, which made it illegal for anyone to to carry a handgun concealed in Virginia, if they were from out of state, even if they had a permit from their home state. Right. And this was a huge deal at the time.

Cam Edwards  44:57  
Oh, yeah, because a lot of other states cancel their reservation. with Virginia and so all of a sudden now Virginia is couldn't carry in North Carolina. So I mean, you had, you know, a lot of people along who live along these borders, who all of a sudden were completely screwed because of what Aaron did. Yeah.

Stephen Gutowski  45:12  
Right. And we're Pennsylvania where I'm from, and it personally affected me. Very annoying, and then Pennsylvania's ag did the same thing. And got rid of we still don't have reciprocity, with with Pennsylvania, unfortunately, which is very annoying for me personally. But, but so he, that backfired horribly, at the time, and led to the legislation which was controlled rather than by Republicans passing a bill or introducing bills to override what the Attorney General wanted to do with reciprocity, because this is, first of all, it's never been done before. No Attorney General had done anything like this. It wasn't like something normal, it was like this is like a fairly extreme like, technically, he had the power to do this. But no one else had ever tried something like that. The power is supposed to be the like, the Attorney General is supposed to go out and make these deals, not break all of them unilaterally. Honestly, that was never the intention behind him having that power. So it pissed off a lot of people as you noted there, and and so the, what ended up happening was, there was horrible backlash, they were going to pass these laws, and then we're gonna have a veto proof majority was the rumor, at least at the time. So McAuliffe couldn't do anything to stop them from putting this law. So instead, he made this deal, where we got universal recognition of all out of state concealed carry permits in exchange for prohibition on essentially people who have domestic violence related restraining orders against them have turned their firearms, which is not a controversial position, like the vcdl supported that the deal was not in any way, viewed as much of a compromise. It was definitely a win for gun rights groups. But McAuliffe tries to spin this in his 2019 comments as him like making you know, the the first he says the Attorney General did this, and it gave him leverage to make this deal, which is wild, a wild distortion of the reality of what happened. But the more interesting part of it to me was that he admits in those comments that herring, did this unilaterally remove these these reciprocity deals, while knowing that nobody had ever come into Virginia, according to McAuliffe no one had ever come to Virginia with an out of state license and hurt anyone. Then they apparently knew this, and he's openly talking about this in 2019. So this move was done completely for political reasons. And not out of any sense of, you know, safety concerns. Right. And that is interesting to me, because hearing is running for re election, even though hearing hearing was the other state official who had a blackface controversy, who admitted that he, too, wore blackface in college, just like current governor Ralph Northam did. And so, which is also probably why they needed recall to come back and run again because they're their top three guys in state government here for the democrats all basically got tar, you know, tarnished for life by terrible scandals, although none of them resigned, and then when we did blackface paring to blackface and then the lieutenant governor was accused of sexual misconduct as well. Yeah.

Cam Edwards  48:46  
Yeah. But you know, I think in a way, I mean, I think that you're right. I think the Democratic establishment was was probably very happy to see McAuliffe comeback. But, you know, Doug Wilder was the first black governor of Virginia, has been very critical of Terry McAuliffe. Because McAuliffe said at the time of Northam and herons, blackface scandal that they should resign. And now he's campaigning with him. You know, he's standing side by side, Mark Heron. And Doug Wilder has criticized makalah for that he is they actually he accused McAuliffe of jumping in line ahead of black female legislators who were running for the governorship. And if McAuliffe hadn't been of the race, the democrats probably would have nominated a black woman as their candidate. So that's one of the reasons why you're seeing Kamala Harris and why you're seeing Stacey Abrams and why you're seeing you know, women of color politicians of color coming to Virginia now because McCall is very concerned about whether or not black democrats are going to turn out to vote for him or black independence and you know, the the other person on the ballot, who rarely if ever again, It's mentioned is a woman named princess Blanding, who is running as the liberation party candidate, not the Libertarian Party candidate, the liberation party candidate to determine columns left, but she is the sister of Marcus Peters, who was killed by the Richmond Police. She is, you know, very well known in social justice circles. There's a way she's winning, but every vote she gets is probably a vote taken away from Terry McAuliffe. And you know, McAuliffe is really concerned that if they're 4646, what happens if princess Blanding gets 3% of the vote, or 4% of the vote, or 5% of the vote. And so you're right about McCall's desperation, but I think I think a lot of it is structural. I, you know, he is I think he's an awful politician, but I think he was the wrong candidate for the democrats this year. And I think that Glenn younkin has turned out to be you know, if not the right candidate, a right candidate, because I think he's, you know, he's done what he is needed to do to to keep this race close. He has been able to capitalize on makalah offs, you know, just that I mean, the and I think it's ultimately gonna come down to if McAuliffe loses, it's got to be that statement that parents shouldn't have a say in what their kids learned in school.

Stephen Gutowski  51:28  
Alright, so But bottom line, you think that young king is in a position to win now, and McAuliffe is the one who's scrambling to catch up at this point, basically.

Cam Edwards  51:37  
Yeah, I do think that's the dynamic of the race at the moment. I mean, I think that this is now younguns race to lose I still think it's going to be close. I think it's going to be fluid but I think he the energy right now is with young gun and I think Terry McAuliffe is flailing and like we talked about me they're just some structural problems with with McCall's candidacy that I think are gonna make it really difficult for him to pull it out. But you know, bottom line I mean, look, I've got under stay home in Virginia on election day. We're only going to have ourselves to blame if we turn out if we show up I think that we've got a chance to defeat Terry McAuliffe gun ban. I think we've got a chance to block in a new gun control laws. But you know, again, for both sides, it's going to come out to it's going to come down to who turns out who shows up.

Stephen Gutowski  52:25  
Yeah, I mean, I think if the young kid pulls off an upset here, that's gonna be a big deal. I was gonna steal I was gonna say a lot. I mean, like you mentioned earlier, this is a Biden plus 10 state at this point. And a republican winning state Now, obviously, it's not unheard of, but the virgin has been trending blue ever since the last republican governor we had almost a decade ago it was it was more than a decade ago at this point, right? Yeah. 2013 so just just under a decade ago, just nine years ago,

Cam Edwards  52:59  
but it's been more than a second since we've elected one.

Stephen Gutowski  53:01  
Yeah, right. So boy, that'll be interesting and I really do think that you're right about the the gun implications here that the implications of this Dominion story and how it it's probably backfired a lot at this point from what I've seen, and it's hard it's hard to know without polling but but it does feel like guns have become a much more salient issue at the very end of this race and could motivate a number of people to turn out and then the racist close that could matter a lot. But thanks for coming on what tell people where they can find more of you.

Cam Edwards  53:36  
You bet you can find more of me at bearing arms calm also just look up variant arms cannon company on YouTube or rumble or all the podcast platforms and you can find us there. And if you want some non to a stuff, you can also visit my Patreon page which is patreon.com slash cam Edwards is he and I do a fairly irregular podcast called foul language fo wl although it is uncensored and I've just started doing a another podcast called the other reading rabbit hole in which I go through some really obscure bits of American history that I've come across in my reading. So there you go. Interesting.

Stephen Gutowski  54:17  
Yeah, you'll have to update us on what it's like to live with the Amish because I have to tell you as someone who's lived next to Lancaster County for most of his life, that the buggy the buggy traffic is very annoying

Cam Edwards  54:33  
buddy I gotta tell you I mean like this is we we just had a horrible accident and the next county over that both parents were killed six kids were injured. You know all of them Amish in a buggy and part of it is because we have had a lot of objects move in over the last few years and people don't know how to drive around the you know, we're still driving like they don't exist,

Stephen Gutowski  54:56  
right? And it'd be careful. The absolute especially those are all bad. roads that they're that they're driving their buggies on it's not

Cam Edwards  55:02  
to say you can come up real fast yeah it's it's go

Stephen Gutowski  55:06  
from annoying to dangerous very fast

Cam Edwards  55:08  
yep absolutely but yeah more fun my

Stephen Gutowski  55:11  
mom actually has this stable in the parking lot for people to park their their horses are really sharp yes because it's not just Amish right that that do you get Mennonites that you're sort of a spectrum that right lifestyle out there so they don't all necessarily shun you know shopping at Walmart or whatever

Cam Edwards  55:31  
they need a flag

Stephen Gutowski  55:33  
yeah

Cam Edwards  55:36  
of course right there

Stephen Gutowski  55:37  
you go nice I mean I always found this is getting way off track but I've always found the whole Amish thing in southeastern Pennsylvania is is very much a like marketing scam 99% of the time that people like to just slip Amish made or whatever on everything just pretend that that well yeah because there is Taurus garbage

Cam Edwards  56:01  
it was gonna say there it's a huge tourism industry and we haven't we haven't had that pop up yet we we only have and we have the authentic Amish industries next time I come on I'll tell you about the the the Amish guy who occasionally calls me on my cell phone which I didn't realize you were supposed to do but

Stephen Gutowski  56:21  
I again I think there's a whole spectrum there right it is a lot of

Cam Edwards  56:26  
loopholes a lot of the right lobby would love the office because there's so many loopholes to close

Stephen Gutowski  56:32  
there's yeah it's uh you know, that's a each their own I guess this fight right? I don't want to lose my Amish listenership and too harsh on but, but you're

Cam Edwards  56:45  
the Dave Chappelle of the Amish. You get to ASCII.

Stephen Gutowski  56:50  
Just when you're around this. It's not as romantic as it seems. But hey, that's, that's their right to live the way they want. Exactly. Just be careful when you're driving out in Lancaster County, or now. Central Virginia.

Cam Edwards  57:05  
Yeah, exactly. Right. This was this is always fun. We got to get you back on very nervous gaming company.

Stephen Gutowski  57:11  
Yes, absolutely. We will do that very soon. Thanks. Thanks for coming on. we'll have you back on here again, because I've always enjoyed talking to you, anytime. And that's all we've got for this week's episode of the weekly reload podcast. If you enjoyed it, the number one thing you can do to help us out is go ahead and rate or review the podcast on whatever app you're listening to it on. like it on Facebook, share it, spread the joy around, and we will see you again next week. You can also obviously buy a membership, that's that's really big help, you know, indirectly funding the reload. It's an independent publication that does not receive any sort of backing from any gun groups or, or any one that would provide any sort of conflict of interest is 100% reader funded at this point, then we need those memberships to survive because we are 100% accountable to you guys, the readers the listeners. Now if you want to be a part of that, if you want to help make this all possible. You can head on over to reload calm today and buy a membership. But until next time, I'm Stephen Gutowski and I will see you again soon.

Unknown Speaker  58:33  
I gave him poison just for fun. I had one friend. Now there's none. I'm a the devil Ryan broke so many bones. But none of them were ever my own army. I was alone. I broke so many bows.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai