The Limitations and Incompetence of the "Guardians"

FIRST HALF: A new company is proposing to use drones to defend schools against active shooters, and Royce expounds on the fallacies of such dependence upon electronic technology.

SECOND HALF: An incomplete record in the FBI's NCIC data base lands an innocent gun owner in jail for 14 days in Florida.

Transcript

Freedom Guns is your local gun store for the Rockledge Cocoa area in Brevard County,
Florida. Stop in and meet Mike and the gang and see the great deals they have on long guns,
handguns, accessories, ammunition, AR build kits, and Liberty Safes that come with free delivery
and installation. They're located at 1255 Florida Avenue, just north of Rockledge High School.
For more information, check them out at freedom-guns.com. Tell them you heard about them on the
Shooting Straight Radio podcast.
The Gun Sight in Merritt Island is your one-stop shop for all of your Second Amendment needs.
Stop out there and see my friend Steve Kennedy and check out his nine-lane, 25-yard indoor
shooting range. He's got handgun rentals galore out there. If you want to try it before you buy it,
the Gun Sight in Merritt Island is where you need to go. Also, we've got a great selection of
ammunition, accessories, range bags. You name it, you'll find it out there at 125 South Banana
River. Drive in Merritt Island. Check him out at gunsiterange.com.
Make sure you tell Steve Kennedy that Royce Bartlett sent you.
Progression against the American people
that someone held against murder will magically be stopped by a gun control law.
Mr. Maynard, he said, let's go. So let's go. We are locked, loaded and loud on the shooting
straight radio podcast. This is all about firearms with a heavy, heavy emphasis on the second
amendment. and all things pertaining thereto. I am Royce, your oh-so-gracious host,
pouring it to you from both barrels with 100% felt recoil and no suppressor at all.
Hey, if you ever like to reach out to the program here, shootingstraightradiopodcast at gmail.com
or shootingstraightradioshow at gmail.com. And I usually get back to you within the hour.
So, yes, keep those comments coming, those articles that some of you guys send, notifications from
your state, Second Amendment notifications and such. And I sure appreciate that.
So many of you have reached out before, and keep them coming. Even if you want to tell me I'm a
jerk and that I stink, I don't care. Send them to shootingstraightradiopodcast at gmail.com or
shootingstraightradioshow at gmail.com. I want to give a big Shooting Straight Radio podcast shout
out to Pat Cody in Connecticut. Pat, thanks for listening. I sincerely appreciate you. And man,
I appreciate the feedback you sent through Rich. All right, let's get her done. Let's dive right on
into things. There's a lot to talk about, as always. We're going to be discussing things electronic
today. And it's going to cover a couple of different stories. But first, I want to point out that
electronics... should never be completely trusted, especially when it comes to critical incidents.
Their failure rate is very well established, and that's why I don't run optics on any of my
pistols. I do run them on my carbines, but I also have flip-up sights that will co-witness
through the optic in the event that thing goes down. I also have a quick detach...
platform on it that I can take that optic off if the glass gets busted or fogged or otherwise
smeared and I can't see through it. And I just simply cannot trust electronics for one main reason,
and that is I think my body is a walking EMP. I fry G-Shock watches.
I kid you not, I have fried three of them. I don't know if I have a heavy alkaline content in my
system or what. But I can't wear G-Shock watches. There's only a select couple of brands of
watches that I can wear without killing them. I mean, not every G-Shock watch that I've got,
I've still got them. They're in my drawer. But all of them tell weirdly different times.
I'm talking about within just a few months of wearing them, too. So I don't trust electronics.
As a matter of fact, my... at work is, if it's going to go wrong,
it's going to happen to Royce, and that's always a reference to electronics. I will clock in or
clock out at work, and it won't register. I always get these, you missed the time punch
notifications in my email, and I have to fill out a missed punch report and explain why it
happened. And my comment is always, the system doesn't like me because it's electronic,
or something along those lines, because I simply zap out electronic things.
And optics, they're subject to multiple conditions, including temperature variations,
humidity. If you're sitting in a restaurant, a nice cool restaurant, especially down here in
Florida, and you get up and walk outside, what's the immediate effect on the glass in that optic?
That's it, fogging immediately. Not to mention other electromagnetic issues and other things.
And for me, I like fail-safe as possible, and that's why I trust iron sights implicitly.
I trust them over everything else. I shoot steel plates at 100 yards with a Glock 17 Gen 4,
in ring it shot after shot after shot, and with iron sights. So I'm pretty well squared away,
you know, within the... 25-yard range easily in a critical incident.
So the reason I'm saying this is that failure rate of electronics is a factor,
especially when you're talking about things like so-called smart gun technology that I've
addressed on the program before. And a lot of the key factors and the metrics are what they call
there's a bathtub curve. Electronics typically experience initial what they call it infant
mortality or manufacturing defects followed by I guess increased periods of low constant failure
rates and finally an increase in those failure rates due to the product just wearing out there's
other major influences like I said high temperatures or excessive voltage um and uh electro
electrolyte this my notes here electrolytic capacitors uh wear out there are common wear out points
and all of these electronic things and so this is why i don't trust electronics and especially when
electronic things are being proposed as um what should i say saviors or guardians of the people
anything that relies on electronics
solely as something that can identify a target or anything like that.
Like we've seen lately with AI, where AI systems have pointed out bags of chips and identified them
as guns, prompting a big police response on innocent young school kids. So when I read this article
by Ella Dawson about... states considering drones being used to stop school shootings,
immediately my skepticism went into overdrive like it always does, especially since they're talking
about implementing this new wonderful savior system here in my home state in Florida.
And here's the article by Ella Dawson writing for The Center Square. This is from May 2nd.
And it says Florida's legislature has proposed $557,000 to have drones in the Broward,
Leon and Volusia school districts. Here's the article. The first drones intended to stop school
shootings.
Really? We'll see about that as we read the article. So you're saying right off the bat,
these drones are intended to stop. A school shooter, an active shooter.
Okay. Intended to stop school shootings from the Campus Guardian Angel Program are set to go live
Friday at Deltona High School. Florida's legislature has appropriated $557,000 to have drones in
the Broward, Leon, and Volusia school districts, with Deltona High School being the first. Georgia
also... has appropriated $550,000 for drones in five of their high schools,
yet to be decided by the state's Department of Education. CEO and co-founder of Campus Guardian
Angel, Justin Marston, told the Center Square, Georgia went from first conversations to funding a
pilot. through the legislature in maybe 120 days. And he's talking about,
hey, this is lightning speed for a Congress. Yeah, it is, absolutely. But my skepticism is still in
overdrive, so bear with me. Many other states are interested in piloting these drones.
So far, Florida and Georgia have appropriated the funds to test out the drones for a year with hope
of expanding. The drones cost about $8 per student for the pilot program.
If the schools want to keep the drones, the cost drops to $4 per student.
Well, number one, I'm going to question those numbers very quickly because I think there's a lot of
factors they did not consider, not to mention the maintenance cost on these things. So expect that
dollar amount to increase exponentially. These things always do.
Marston continued, he said, we expect to see things in Texas next year.
In other words, these drones. We've had good conversations with the Republican Senate caucus and
done a demonstration for them. And Ella Cockrell headed the fundraising committee in Texas and she
told Click2Houston, I was just blown away by their technology and what they can do.
Marston said, we're working in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Illinois, a bunch of other states.
And he mentioned also Louisiana. Marston said,
the way Campus Guardian Angel is deploying drones is like a paradigm shift for many people,
like comparing Uber to a Formula One car, like a race car. But he is convinced it is the only way
to stop school shootings. Why are you convinced about that?
How is this the only way to do it, Mr. Marston? Why not armed personnel in the schools?
He said it sounds fantastical, but it needs to be instantaneous. Talking about the reaction.
And that's impossible, Mr. Marston, unless you actually have armed teachers nearby who know how to
deploy deadly force. He said it needs to be elite. It needs to be scalable and it needs to be
affordable. I can't think of any other way to do that than using robots and centralizing talent.
Really? You can't think of any other way? This implies, of course, that the any other way includes
armed teachers and staff. Yeah. The article continues. Originally, Marston's light bulb moment
started with war. And this is his comment. He said, I had the idea. looking at how successful small
drones were against people with guns in Ukraine. Okay,
let's look at that, Mr. Marston. Yes, against targets in the open and even some camouflaged
targets. The success of these drones was,
you know, undoubtable. I mean, we saw what they were doing.
But the success was largely based on the drone's ability to carry high explosive ordnance and,
you know, the kind that could fly in between the body and the turret of a tank and blow it to
smithereens or fly it into the back of an armored personnel carrier and blow it up or drop a
grenade on a small entrenched enemy position of two or three or even five or six soldiers.
Yeah, with high explosive. It saw quite a bit of success in warfare.
But the success in a school setting,
it's a whole different dynamic. Yes, without high explosive,
the success of these drones is negligible at best. Now, Royce,
you're saying put high explosive on his drones? No, I'm saying don't trust drones. Don't trust them
to stop school shooters. There's too many variables in between the people piloting them from a
remote distance away and the actual stopping of a shooter, which these drones do not carry lethal
force and nor would I want them to. Because what if they mistake who the active shooter really is?
You know, like the AI system that pinpointed a potato chip bag and caught it a gun?
Yeah. They said the difference with the campus guardian angels drones is that the goal is to
incapacitate and not kill. Okay. Then as far as I'm concerned, it's useless.
How are you going to incapacitate them? Oh, here it is. The drones can trigger loud sirens.
Okay. How does that incapacitate? an active shooter oh also strobe lights okay strobe lights will
incapacitate an active shooter oh and they can spray pepper spray too great pepper spray is not a
definitive incapacitator I got news for you I've been hit with it and I can still fight oh they can
also knock the active shooter down okay here's the problem All that's feasible only if the shooter
is in the open, which he or she may or may not be. What if they're in a classroom and the door is
closed or a crowded cafeteria? He said we can put less lethal effects on these drones and they
would be incredibly effective against people with guns. Marston said that was his first aha moment.
With loud sirens and strobe lights and pepper spray against an armed individual, I don't think
you're going to meet a real high volume of success. You talked about knocking the shooter down.
Shooters can still fire from a prone position. Matter of fact, that's the...
desired position to be in, in warfare and combat. So, oh, it knocked the shooter down.
Well, that's great. While they're laying on the ground, they could still be shooting kids. It's
really freaking easy. How does knocking them down, how is that going to incapacitate them?
Incapacitating and knocking them down are two different freaking things. Well,
the article goes on. The second involved enabling pilots. to be a thousand miles away instead of a
few miles away. In other words, pilots at Campus Guardian Angel headquarters in Austin,
Texas could control drones operating in a high school in Florida. Okay,
two things. How much will have to be allocated to pay these drone pilots to be on station
throughout the entirety of each day? You're going to have to have multiple shifts.
Also, if you're going to be manning all of these systems across the country in all the different
time zones. So was this considered in this $550,000 price tag that you're trying to sell to us
here in Florida and in Georgia and beyond? How is this?
Are there no possibilities of electronic communications being glitched or disrupted?
those hundreds and hundreds of miles between Florida and Texas.
I mean, there's a lot of space between us, and a lot of it is water,
okay? There's a lot of things that can be muted over water, especially cell signal.
So how are you so sure that this is going to be 100% reliable 100% of the time?
Well, you can't. Marston has a background in entrepreneurial pursuits starting four successful
companies. So what? So freaking what?
It sounds to me like he's trying to create another company for his own personal profit more than
necessarily the defense of these school kids. Marston told the center square,
I pinged Bill King on LinkedIn. Bill King is the co-founder of Campus Guardian Angel.
He spent 32 years as a Navy SEAL, serving in elite teams and becoming senior enlisted leader for
all SEAL teams. Marston pitched to King this idea. He said, hey, I've got this idea.
And I know the tech side to make this work, but I need somebody with tactical experience. Yes,
you definitely do. But even with tactical experience, you can't make a drone do what these Navy
SEALs do on scene with their actual tactical experience. Bill King said that he worked with these
tactical drones in combat zones. Yes, if you're going to use them to incapacitate,
though, I'm sure, Mr. King, that you would add some high explosive ordnance to it. His role,
Mr. King's role, is to train with local law enforcement to work alongside the drones in a school
shooter situation. Most school shootings are over in 120 seconds.
Really? I guess the shooter in Uvalde didn't get that memo.
I think the shooter down in Parkland didn't get that memo either. I'm sure that the shooters,
I believe there was more than one, And Newtown didn't get that memo either.
I don't know where he got those 120 seconds thing, but it's a steaming pile of fertilizer.
Marston said, referring to the police, instead of running around with no idea where the shooter is
on the campus, we tell them. Okay, so what you're saying is this is more of a first responder type
app. A first responder type system that simply identifies the threat and tells the police where the
threat is. And I'm all for that, and that's great, but don't try to sell this as something that's
going to stop a school shooting like you did and like you've been saying through this article here.
Law enforcement will have access to an app created by Campus Guardian Angel that taps into the
security cameras already existing in schools. This map is also projected on ceiling-high monitors
at Guardian Angels Operating Center in Texas. The demonstration of the app looks like a video game
and, in fact, uses Unreal Engine, the basis of Fortnite,
where the user can walk through each room of the school and zoom out for a top-down view.
The threat can be marked in the app and communicated directly with other app users.
Okay. Meanwhile, the shooting continues. While everybody's waiting for the Savior drone to appear
and tell the cops where the shooter is, they're still being shot. Yeah, and for more than 120
seconds. It says, when there's an active shooter on campus, a student or teacher signals a panic
button.
What happens if the designated signal senders are one of the first ones shot?
and are unable to activate the panic button. Through the camera system,
the shooter is identified. Yeah, that's if they're talking about the camera system in the school
and providing it hasn't been disrupted in some way. If you're talking about the camera on the
drone, what happens if the shooter shoots the drone down? Yeah.
The shooter is identified, and then the pilots deploy the drones. So I guess they're talking about
using the school's camera systems to send info to the pilots that are thousands of miles away,
or a thousand miles away or whatever, who will then deploy the drone,
and law enforcement will then be on its way. What they essentially have is nothing but an early
warning system that has no real power to neutralize an active shooter. but it's being sold as
something that can stop school shootings. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is what?
Say it with me now. A good guy with a gun. Our central team,
Marston said, is a mix of ex-law enforcement, the best 911 operators,
SWAT guys, and people from the elite special forces unit. Which elite special forces unit?
Which one? There's lots of them. In addition to these players,
the company has five of the top ten drone racing pilots in North America. These guys are video
gamers, he exclaims. Professional drone racing takes astonishing talent,
as any video footage of ESPN competitions can attest. Great.
So, we're turning over the safety of our children to professional video gamers. Got it.
Okay. Come next school year, everything should be set to see what these drones can do in Florida
and Georgia schools. Well, I hope you got some armed cops on standby in the school to shut down the
shooter and make, matter of fact, make sure that those are cops who have no qualms at all about
charging an active shooter. like they did there at Covenant Presbyterian. God bless those guys,
unlike the little cowards at Uvalde and the Coward of Broward. But let's talk about some problems
here. Excuse me. These drones cannot fly through closed doors.
What if the shooter is a student inside the classroom, which has happened more than once?
Or worse yet, what if the shooter is inside a crowded cafeteria and the doors are closed? What good
does that freaking drone do then? It ain't going to knock him down. It ain't going to spray him
with pepper spray. It's not going to strobe him or trigger loud sirens. He's going to continue
shooting. He or she will continue shooting. And the police are still going to be minutes away when
the seconds count. The perpetrator can easily defeat one that sprays pepper spray or OC spray.
If they know these things are in existence, why do you think they won't prepare by bringing along a
gas mask for their little shooting party, huh? And one more time, the perp can shoot this thing
down. How about this? What happens when the app suddenly goes into update mode in the middle of a
critical incident? You know, like Google Maps has done to me several times while I was in transit.
Yeah, your phone's updating. Oh, that's great. I'm right around the corner from my destination,
but now I can't find it because I've got to wait for about five or ten minutes while my phone
updates completely. Oh, don't turn your phone off. We're updating. We'll let you know when
everything's ready to go again. When seconds count, you can't afford to wait for an app to update.
And what about possible incorrect target identification? Are these drones eventually going to be
interfaced with AI systems? That's a rhetorical question, people. You know goodness thinking well.
That's what's going to happen. Are they going to start flagging bags of chips as guns and trigger
police responses? Or come up and spray a student in the face with pepper spray? I mean,
why are these things? You're looking at all the potential positives, but you're not at all looking
at any of the possible and very real and very potential issues with your system.
The main problem I'm seeing in all of this is that electronics are dependent upon fallible humans.
constructing them, inputting the data into them, and making sure,
as best as these fallible humans can, that these electronics things are going to operate as they
intended when the seconds count.
This cannot be a replacement for determined defenders with guns.
Drones are not going to fix the school shooter problem. They never could anyway. Guns can't fix it
necessarily either. The best way to fix this is found in 2 Chronicles 7.14.
And that's for this country to put itself back on a godly footing, get itself right with God,
and realign itself with moral principle, and then you'll see a lot less of this garbage.
Not only that, the bad people will have to be dealt with.
with a heavy-handed response and that's simply the only way to deal with a school shooter.
Not with a drone, not with a camera system. Armed human beings have to kill the armed bad human
being and that's just the bottom line. When we come back after this brief commercial timeout,
we're going to look at some other electronics issues that landed an innocent man in jail for 14
days, also down here in my home state of Florida. Don't go anywhere. We've got more to go here on
Shooting Straight.
This is your humble host, and I am proud and honored to say that Sicario's Gun Shop is a sponsor of
the Shooting Straight Radio podcast. They're up on North Wickham Road in Melbourne. They are your
full-service gun store. They offer a wide range of firearms, including Class III and NFA weapons,
ammo and accessories, gunsmithing. If you want to buy or trade, head on down to Sicario's Gun Shop.
They also offer transfer service, custom builds. If you need a muzzle device pinned and welded, no
problem.
They also have a fine selection of gun safes to choose from. Check them out at Sicario'sGunShop
.com. Make sure you tell them you heard about them on Shooting Straight. Sicario's Gun Shop, where
you come first for your second.
Norm's Music Shop, producer and music creator for Shooting Straight Radio Podcast.
I can write and record a personalized music track for your audio or video projects. Do you want a
song for a special occasion? I can do that. For more information, contact Norm's Music Shop at
gmail.com.
Let's create your musical identity. Thank you. Welcome back to the program.
We have been discussing my pet peeve, which is electronics. and how I don't trust them.
And in the first half of the program, we talked about how drones are now, drone systems are now
going to be introduced into Florida and Georgia schools. And they're being touted as a system that
is going to stop school shootings. And I think we pretty handily destroyed that notion with some
simple basic facts.
So we'll see how that goes. I'll keep you guys posted on the implementation of those things as they
go. So right now, I'd like to talk about, and I'm going to be referencing...
Duncan Johnson from Ammo Land Incorporated. If you don't follow Ammo Land online,
I think you should. Got some great articles, great writers there, and they are very staunch
defenders of the Second Amendment. But this is an article, the title of which is NICS,
which is the National Instant Criminal, I'm sorry, National Instant Check System,
and it's the FBI's program there for instant background checks.
And the NICS denial alert turns into 14 days in jail for a Florida gun owner.
Well, that's unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable. Especially when these things are also issued
electronically. And when people are subject to go through a background check to freely exercise a
right they were born with, I've got a big problem with that. I don't have to get a background check
to go to church. I don't have to get a background check to speak freely. I don't need to get a
background check to keep my door from being kicked in by the police without a warrant.
I don't understand why we the people have to go through a background check and go through
government scrutiny just to freely exercise our God-given rights. But here's the article.
A Florida gun hunter says he spent two weeks in jail because of the government's background check
machinery. and it treated an old Kentucky misdemeanor as if it were a felony.
Oh, isn't that nice? That should bother every American who values due process,
the right to keep and bear arms, and basic competence from the people who have the power to put
citizens in handcuffs. William Michael Brewer tried to buy a Glock 26 from Lotus Gunworks in Jensen
Beach, Florida. According to the civil rights lawyer on YouTube, and if you don't follow him,
he's a great guy, Brewer said he filled out the paperwork, paid for the firearm,
and waited for the call that his background check had cleared. Instead, he was told the transaction
had been denied. Well, by the way, this happens a lot in this business. I'm in this business,
and all but one denial that I have experienced with customers has been false.
Yeah, let that sink in. That denial set up a chain of events that should have never gone this far.
WPTV reported that the failed background check was flagged by the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement, not my favorite people, alerting the Martin County Sheriff's Office.
Deputies believed Brewer was a felon trying to buy a gun. Brewer and his attorney says he was not.
The problem, according to WPTV, came from the FBI's National Crime Information Center database
where Brewer's Kentucky record showed a felony arrest from more than a decade ago,
while Kentucky court documents confirmed the charge had been reduced to a misdemeanor.
The update was not reflected. in the NCIC database.
Why not? Brewer was later pulled over by Martin County deputies.
By the way, Martin County Sheriff's Department is an agency that has faced major civil rights
lawsuits, including one in 2021 where deputies were accused of fabricating evidence.
One of their deputies was sentenced to 13 years in prison for doing so. So this agency doesn't
exactly have the greatest reputation. In the video, Brewer says he told the cops that he had a
firearm in his work bag and he told them about it. The video shows him repeatedly trying to explain
that he was not a felon, that he had a Kentucky concealed carry license, and that he had passed
other background checks. The deputies arrested him anyway. These days,
they always err on the side of tyranny and not the people. Body camera video showed Brewer pleading
with deputies not to arrest him after they pulled him over, believing he was a felon in possession
of a firearm. Brewer told WPTV he was taken out of the vehicle,
handcuffed, and told he was under arrest as a felon in possession. Brewer's own words from the
video cut through the legal fog. And he asked, do you understand how scary it is to not be a felon
and then you get arrested as a felon? I cannot imagine. I'd never want to go through with that and
I'd be absolutely pissed off about it. The article continues, not a paperwork inconvenience,
not a minor oops in a government database, not a harmless background check hiccup,
A man was jailed for 14 days because officials treated a database flag as proof rather than a lead
that needed verification.
WPTV confirmed Brewer spent 14 days in jail.
His attorney, Andrew Strecker, said his team produced original documents Establishing Brewer was
not a felon, but the remedy offered was only a bond reduction and release on an ankle monitor.
Prosecutors eventually dropped the case after receiving certified records showing the misdemeanor
conviction. Now this is something else that pisses me off. I had to get my driver's license renewed
back in September of 25. I have my original birth certificate,
complete with an inked handprint, my right handprint,
little tiny handprint, and my inked right footprint on this thing.
And it still has the seal from Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta,
which I call the rectum of Georgia. Anyway, that was the original document,
but the... I'm telling you, the driver's license place would not accept that.
They said, we want a certified copy. I'm like, how much more freaking certified do you need than
the original? I had to pay 50-something dollars to petition the state of Georgia to get a
certified copy of my birth certificate. It took how many weeks to get that,
too? It was ridiculous.
His attorney said, here, state of Florida, here's the original documents establishing that my
client is not a felon. No, sorry, we can't do that unless you have certified records.
The best we can do is a slight bond reduction and he wears an ankle monitor.
Wow.
Brewer. has now sued the Martin County Sheriff's Office and the deputies involved in his arrest,
accusing them of false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution,
according to WPTV. And I say good. They need to be sued over this. That was some lazy,
lazy police work. And sadly, this seems to be indicative of how today's average police force and
judicial system operates. Yeah. The article continues.
An NICS denial is not a conviction. During his arrest, Brewer said,
so because I tried to purchase a firearm, I got pulled over for it and it red flagged or something.
This case points to a dangerous flaw in the modern background check system.
The FBI says NICS checks are conducted when a federal firearms licensee contacts NICS by phone or
electronically after a prospective buyer completes the required form. The background check is
supposed to determine whether the buyer is prohibited from receiving or possessing a firearm.
Since October 1st, 2022, the FBI has been required by law to report NICS-denied transactions to
state, local, or tribal law enforcement within 24 hours.
Yeah, that was part of that Omnibus Bipartisan Safer Communities Act bullcrap,
yeah. The FBI says those notifications are sent based on the location of the FFL and,
when different, the attempted buyer's home address. But here is a key point.
Every gun owner, every cop, every prosecutor, and every lawmaker needs to understand the FBI's own
law enforcement page clearly says that the law does not require those agencies to take action when
they receive those denial notifications. And you know what?
It's a good thing because I know of three different incidents where I work where police officers,
yes, active duty cops, were denied a purchase of a firearm.
Hmm. The FBI also says its NICS section will not ask them to take action.
That means a denial notice is not a command to arrest.
It is not a court judgment. It is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It is not even necessarily
proof that a crime occurred. It's a notification, and that's all. In Brewer's case,
WPTV reported that the state's attorney's office, FDLE, and the sheriff's office all saw the same
NCIC record showing a felony severity and guilty disposition,
but the NCIC record had no mention that the felony charge had been amended down to a misdemeanor.
Kentucky State Police, who have been in the news a lot lately, falsely arresting people for DUI who
were stone-cold sober and passed blood and breath tests and still were arrested.
Yeah, I don't put any faith in them at all. They later told WPTV that the electronic record
reflected a felony charge, but... disposition section of that charge indicated clearly that the
charge was later amended to a misdemeanor. So my question in all this, why was this not made right
in the FBI's system? Why did they put in incomplete information about this?
Well, again, that's a rhetorical question, of course. Now, here's the other problem with this.
This is not a theoretical problem. This is not an isolated incident.
M.O. Land, according to this article, previously reported that records obtained through an FOIA
request showed the FBI said 28% of NICS appeals received during the requested period were
overturned and the firearm transactions were allowed to proceed.
But in the meantime, 30%, and that's just the ones that were contested. How many were not
contested? A right delayed is a right denied, and if you ask me,
this man has a suit for that reason also. They denied him,
under color of law, his right to keep and bear.
He has the right to purchase them and the right to carry them. He also had a Kentucky state carry
permit. So why was that not a factor either? Why did that not cause those Martin County deputies to
go, okay, let's hold up here, guys. Let's make sure we're not overstepping and arresting an
innocent man. No, they don't do that. They just go right to the handcuffs.
GOA, if you're not a member of GOA, you should be. GOA argued that even that number underestimates
or understates the real problem because many denied buyers never appeal,
either because they don't know how, they can't afford help, or they simply give up.
And I've had that. There are three guns sitting on our shelf right now that, as a matter of fact,
one of them is a cop. I just remembered that. One of them is a cop. It's been sitting there for
over a year waiting for this guy to contest his denial. And the other two also waiting to get
approval to take possession of their firearm. This is a delayment and an infringement of someone's
right. This cannot happen. Second Amendment researcher John Lott has gone further.
arguing that the overwhelming majority of initial NICS denials are false positives.
And by the way, that's 97% is what Lott has been arguing. He also points to the very low rate of
prosecutions after NICS denials as evidence that many denied transactions are not real criminal
cases. Well, and he's right. I've dealt with this.
where I work. And by the way, none of those cops that have been denied were ever arrested,
stuffed into a jail cell for two weeks.
One of them is appealing, and yet he remains free, as he should. The article continues,
the database cannot be the Constitution. It cannot substitute the Constitution.
It is not a replacement for the Constitution. Gun control advocates want Americans to trust the
background check systems as if it were clean, complete, and infallible.
Brewer's case shows the danger of that fantasy. When the government builds a system that can deny a
gun purchase, trigger police notification, launch an investigation,
produce an arrest, and put a citizen in jail based on stale or incomplete records,
The burden cannot be shoved onto the citizen after the handcuffs are already on.
Amen, Mr. Johnson. The government should have to prove the prohibition before it strips a man of
his freedoms and treats him like a criminal. By the way, this should be first chapter in the book
of Duh for all law enforcement agencies. This should be part of somebody's due process.
You don't simply say, well, we have the suspicion, so you're going to jail until you can clear it
up. No, you have the burden of proof, not Mr. Brewer.
Brewer's attorney said in the video that officials could have verified Brewer's status by checking
with Kentucky, the clerk, the prosecutor's office, or law enforcement there.
He said his office, that is Brewer's attorney's office, did that and found very quickly that the
case was not a felony. Yeah, and he's right. This could have been done in minutes. Even if it had
taken a couple of hours, Mr. Brewer would not have had to spend 14 days in jail and incur
unnecessary costs and attorney's fees.
WPTV reported that Sheriff John Budensike defended the deputies,
saying that they did their jobs and used the mechanisms in place, while noting that bad information
in the database was not input by Martin County Sheriff's Office. No, they did not use all the
mechanisms at their disposal, Sheriff, obviously, because they could have used a simple mechanism
called a telephone. to verify Mr. Brewer's story, and they did not do that,
sir. Your deputies, sheriff, were investigatively lazy,
and a man unnecessarily and wrongly lost his freedom for 14 days,
not to mention a pile of money having to defend himself and get bonded out of jail, not to mention
any impact it may have had on his professional life or his job. Assistant State Attorney Kristen
Chase told WPTV that prosecutors needed certified official records from Kentucky,
not the originals just didn't work, which can take time, and said the system did what it was
supposed to do. I guess you're saying the system is supposed to wrongly accuse and jail people for
14 freaking days while y'all sort the crap out. Or while the person who's incarcerated for 14 days
has his attorney do the homework that you guys should have done. Yeah. That defense will not
satisfy gun owners. If the system can jail a man for two weeks, Before the government confirms
whether he is actually a prohibited person, then the system is not working for the citizenry.
It is working for the bureaucracy. This is what happened when government databases become the
gatekeepers of constitutional rights and local officials treat those databases as gospel.
And all in the name of public safety, of course. More to the point. Where is the historical analog
for background checks at the time of the founding? The right to keep and bear arms does not depend
on clean data entry. Due process does not begin after two weeks in jail.
An NICS denial should never be treated as a conviction, and a database flag should never replace
basic police work. Amen and amen. Brewer said in the video that he is speaking out because he does
not want someone else to go through what he went through. Good for you, Mr. Brewer. If bad data can
turn a lawful gun hunter into a jailed felon in Florida, it can happen anywhere. The government is
allowed to treat a background check denial like proof of guilt instead of a reason to investigate
carefully. Now, what's the remedy to all this?
Congressman Bill Massey from Kentucky, ironically, he is creating a bill that would expose the FBI
false gun buyer denials. And I'll post the article on the Shooting Straight Radio podcast Facebook
page, and you can read about it there. But he is trying to do something about this,
like Mr. Brewer is also. And I want to reach out to all of you out there who have had this problem
happen to you. You want to reach out and let me know about it, shootingstraightradiopodcast at
gmail.com, and I'll try to put you in touch with some good constitutional attorneys.
I know several here in Florida. I may not know any in your home state, but reach out to me anyway,
and maybe some of the attorneys I know here know some attorneys in your state that can help you
out. In the meantime, yeah, we're kind of stuck with this idiotic system. We have to go through a
background check to simply exercise a right we were born with, but only one of those rights and not
the other nine. Yeah, that's the kind of idiocy that we're dealing with here in this modern day and
age here in the United States of America. And this has all been put in place by the civilian
disarmament complex, and they are going to keep doing it, and we have to keep fighting it.
Stay in contact with your reps, stay armed up, stay trained up, and stay stocked up on beans,
bullets, and bandages. And never forget, incoming rounds always have the right of way.
Royce out.