When Liberty Meets Responsibility: Russell Van Brocklen on the Second Amendment”

Keywords

gun rights, Second Amendment, concealed carry, self-defense, firearm safety, situational awareness, gun permits, home defense, legal issues, personal safety

Summary

In this episode of the Liberty and Gun Rights Podcast, host James Moffitt speaks with Russell van Brocklin about the importance of gun rights, the challenges of obtaining carry permits, and the significance of the Second Amendment. They discuss the need for responsible gun ownership, the role of firearms in self-defense, and the importance of situational awareness. Russell shares insights on crafting strong arguments for gun rights and the considerations for choosing the right firearm for home defense. The conversation emphasizes the need for education and training in responsible gun ownership.

Takeaways

The Second Amendment emphasizes a well-regulated militia.

Understanding the legal landscape is crucial for gun rights advocates.

Crafting a lucid argument is essential when presenting your case for gun rights.

Situational awareness can prevent dangerous encounters.

Home defense requires careful consideration of firearm choice.

Gun control laws often disproportionately affect legal gun owners.

Training and education are vital for responsible gun ownership.

The importance of self-defense in today's society cannot be overstated.

Avoidance is a key strategy in personal safety.

The choice of ammunition can impact safety in home defense situations.

Sound bites

"A well regulated militia."

"It's just not safe."

"You want a pump action shotgun."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Liberty and Gun Rights Podcast

02:56 Understanding the Second Amendment

06:42 The Importance of Responsible Gun Ownership

12:40 Crafting a Strong Argument for Gun Rights

18:13 The Reality of Gun Laws in Major Cities

23:24 The Purpose of Concealed Carry

25:16 Situational Awareness and Personal Safety

27:11 Challenges in the Criminal Justice System

29:30 The Impact of Theft on Communities

30:51 Gun Ownership and Personal Protection

39:00 Choosing the Right Firearm for Home Defense

Call to Action for episodes 

Kenny Dupar
Kenny Dupar is a retired Army Reservist and author of Scoundrels in Iraq

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.861)
Hello and welcome to Liberty and gun rights podcast. My name is James Moffat and I'll be your host today. We have Russell van Brocklin. Did I say that correct? Yes. So we got a special guest, Russell van Brocklin. Russell was also a guest on my ABCs of parenting adult children podcast back in I think July of last year. And, Russell, when you, when you booked this, I was like, wow, that name sounds really familiar. Now I know why.

Russell B Van Brocklen (00:10.999)
Yes, that's right.

James Moffitt (00:30.789)
So thank you for being on the episode tonight. And, as I told you earlier, I managed to double book two people at the same date, the same time. Luckily the other young lady, or the young lady was, she wasn't really prepared. And so she, agreed to, bow out and wait until she could get to her studio. You know, I want to do a quality, you know, audio and video, episode. And so she was,

She was like, yeah, that's cool. And, and then there you were and I was like, Hey, and I called you back and said, Hey, let's, let's do this.

Russell B Van Brocklen (01:08.622)
Yeah, and you know, it's just I got two lights and I spent a lot of money on my equipment so I can actually give you a good audio and get everything done the right way.

James Moffitt (01:18.225)
There you go. And I appreciate that. So, Liberty and gun rights podcast is just as it sounds, you know, it's all about gun rights, you know, American citizens, having the, right and privilege, for self-defense. And, there are a lot of, there are a lot of States out there. I think there's, I think there's, pretty close to, I don't know. I want to say 47 States that have some form of.

Concealed Carry or Open Carry. as I told you earlier, I'm the VP of South Carolina Carry, which is a 501C4 non-profit here in South Carolina that is all about gun safety, gun education, Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, and all that.

We want to encourage people to get their concealed weapon permits and to practice and train and do all of those sort of things. so, liberty and gun rights, liberty is all about, I'm very pro, very patriotic and I'm very supportive of the US Armed Forces and veterans and I appreciate people.

sacrificing what they have, know, time, energy and everything to serve in the armed forces. so, yeah, Liberty and Gun Rights kind of covers a whole smorgasbord of topics. There's all kinds of things we can talk about.

Russell B Van Brocklen (02:56.918)
Yeah. So what I find the most interesting is when I'm in a discussion with people who actually think about what the second amendment is, the key phrase that I want to give your audience is a way that they can write a much, it can create a much more lucid argument that based on what they think individually. And when you look at the second amendment, it clearly says a well regulated militia.

So just so everybody knows my experience with this, I was in college at SUNY Center at Buffalo back right when 9-11 happened. And we actually had the Buffalo 6. These were terrorists who wanted to blow up the dam for Niagara Falls. right. And yeah, it was a scary time. So I was thinking about, I wanted to go and get a gun, have access to it.

James Moffitt (03:44.373)
wow.

Russell B Van Brocklen (03:55.469)
to think about it. In New York state, you have to go and take like a five hour, six hour course, whatever it was. So I found one, I went like, who's the best in Western New York? It was a retired Marine who was Marine Special Forces recon. He was just the top in Western New York. So I went to sign up. Now this is my idea of a well-regulated militia. So after I tell you what my story is, I'm going to tell you some techniques that I use for dyslectic kids.

that it will allow you to tell your story much more lucidly when you're trying to argue against people who think that we shouldn't have the Second Amendment. So I go in, and one thing that I found interesting is they said, if you take this five or six hour course, FBI statistics, the chances of any legit gun that you buy being used in a crime is statistically next to zero.

It's like, OK, what's so great about this course? One of the things that I remember is he had a Glock. And the slide, he had to pull back something like 18 pounds or something. And he wanted us to experience that. So I saw him take the bullets out of his clip, put it back in, and take out the bullet in the chamber.

So then he gives it to me and I'm doing this. I'm shooting it all. It's going over the place. I'm aiming at the wall. I'm like, darn, this is hard. Okay. I'm aiming at the wall. Then there's this woman who desperately needs the gun, desperately, legit, in fear of her life. She gets it and she starts pointing it at me. I duck and then he corrects her and says, don't do that.

And then she says, I saw you take the bullets out. She does it again. I jump on the floor and flatten out. All right. And just so people know, I did get my Eagle Scout at 17. So I had some experience with this thing. did get the marksmanship merit badge. So, and then he goes and takes the gun out. He goes to the judge, because in Western New York, you had to have a judge allow you to get these sort of permits.

James Moffitt (05:55.013)
Sure.

Russell B Van Brocklen (06:12.642)
And he said, don't allow her to get one. I don't care how badly she needs it. She's dangerous. And he said, when they moved after 20 years in a gun store, they had 18 holes where the bullet went off and they thought their gun was empty. You don't mess with this. So that's an example of some people just don't deserve to have a gun, a carry permit. They're too dangerous. But for those of us who actually are responsible,

You're trying to argue this. So when you're trying to have somebody argue for their rights to have a carry permit, because let's say maybe you're going to go before a judge. Maybe you have to go in front of your local sheriff. You have to argue this. What do you find is the biggest problem people have to try to present their case?

James Moffitt (07:03.481)
Well, here in South Carolina, you don't, you don't have to, you don't actually have to make a case per se. You just have to fill out the application and yeah.

Russell B Van Brocklen (07:09.758)
Right, but you're down south. I'm talking like I'm up in New York state. So for people like in where it's much harder, what are you finding with all your experience that it takes when you have to argue to a judge or a sheriff that you should have the right to carry or conceal carry or even just carry any which way? What do you find the biggest issue is?

James Moffitt (07:29.167)
Well, I mean, most of your northern states, they feel that only local law enforcement and military should have a right to carry a firearm of any kind. Citizens don't need a firearm. it's like, number one, it just...

Russell B Van Brocklen (07:50.351)
Yeah, try to go in any downtown city in New York state and tell me that with a straight face.

James Moffitt (07:58.832)
Well, just think about California. mean, that's California is not a US state anymore. As far as I'm concerned, it's a communist state. I mean, I would be surprised to find an American flag in California. And they are as anti second amendment as any like Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, any of those, northeastern states that like, like police officer, know, I know of police officers that are sheriff's deputies.

Russell B Van Brocklen (08:01.283)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (08:28.569)
local cops, that make the, made the mistake of driving into New Jersey with a loaded firearm in their car with their badge, with their credentials and wound up in jail because I got pulled over in traffic and they found out they had a weapon in the car and it was a felony and they put them in jail. And I don't, I don't know what the final outcome of all of those cases were, but, but it's, they don't care. They don't care that you're, don't care.

Russell B Van Brocklen (08:52.55)
Yeah, it's insane. Well, let me just give you an example of New York City. I have a buddy down there who used to play college based basketball. He's like six foot five, weighs probably little over 200 pounds, pretty good sized guy. He said he used to, he works in finance. So he would go on the subway and he said, it wasn't used to be that bad. You'd have like one crackhead per car. Now you go down and you got like five or six crackheads per car.

So when you're trying to argue that you need this, and you're right, the people that you're arguing to are much more skeptical. Now, if you go into suburban towns outside of Buffalo, you've got a lot of very sympathetic judges. But from what I understand, you still got to go through them. So when you're trying to tell your story of why you need this, I'm going to give you an example. I use a universal thing, but

To give you an example of how this works, I use movies. And believe me, this does make sense. So I'm just illustrating a point here. So I want you to think about a movie that you thought was one of the best of all time, that you really enjoyed, that you know a lot about, and that everybody's seen. What's the name of that movie?

James Moffitt (10:13.58)
what, John Wick?

Russell B Van Brocklen (10:16.078)
John Wick, okay. Now I'm gonna ask you a question that's gonna require you to think for a bit. I need you to reduce to one word, one universal theme that best represents John Wick.

James Moffitt (10:21.05)
Okay.

James Moffitt (10:30.033)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (10:36.439)
one word wow man proficiency

Russell B Van Brocklen (10:37.799)
One word, one universal thing. Yeah.

Russell B Van Brocklen (10:44.046)
Proficiency. Now, here's the problem. This is an analogy that we also use for gun rights. When you look at a review from Harvard educated or Yale educated writers that work for major publications, they tell you this happened, this happened, then this happened. You know what happened in the movie before you even show up and they ruin it. It ruins it. Make sense? Okay. Here's how you write a better review.

You would take the universal theme of proficiency and then write, how do the individual actors do with that universal theme? How did the director do? How did the screenwriter do? And then you write your review that way. People can see if they want to see the movie or not based on your interpretation, especially that main universal theme, but you're not ruining it for them. Make sense? OK, here's the problem. When you're looking at the word proficiency,

James Moffitt (11:33.369)
Right. Sure.

Russell B Van Brocklen (11:40.503)
and you try to use that as the focus what you're writing, it's still so broad, you can't focus real well. That make sense? OK. So when you're before a judge, I'm just using New York State because I'm just used to it. So when you're before a judge and you say, want a, I need a concealed carry or just a carry because of da, da, da, da, da, if you can't make the most lucid, the most direct argument that you can,

It's going really hurt your chances of getting what you need because judges are people. They're highly educated people, but they're people. All right. So what we need to do is we need to focus that much deeper. So here's the process that I use to teach dyslectics to read. All right. And I'm just going to give you this. You look at any script out there, any story you want to tell. You have a hero. Hero wants to do something that's represented by a universal theme.

And then you have an ultimate villain, a person or a concept that is best designed to prevent them from achieving what they want. And that conflict makes it interesting. When you put that for gun rights, who's the villain? It's the darn town prosecutor or somebody on the government side saying, you don't need this gun because. All right. And people eat.

To get things in New York City, mean, good grief, outside of guys who are carrying diamonds from the diamond exchange, it's near impossible to get a carry permit. They just try to make it as hard as possible. So what you do is you say your name. What do you want to do? You want to get a concealed carry permit. OK? How do you express that? You write what you want to do, and you write why. For every sentence,

James Moffitt (13:14.885)
Right.

Russell B Van Brocklen (13:34.159)
you're going come up, you're going to pick the most important word. At the end of the day, you're going to take all those sentences and find your best most important word. That's what I like to call our base universal theme. But just like the universal theme that you used for John Wick, remember how broad it was? It's so broad that you're not going to be able to focus well and to give your argument. So what you do at that point is you take your best universal theme, we're to call that

your best, important word and call that our base universal theme. You're going to put that into the thesaurus. All right. And then you're going to pick five words, 10 words, the whole level, multiple levels, whatever you want to do for each word. You can type out the word and then look up the dictionary, Marion Webster's online dictionary and type it out. Or you can just because we're adults and we don't need to do things the way school kids do. You can just ask chat GPT.

Give me 10 synonyms, 100 synonyms, 50 synonyms of this universal theme with custom definitions. And you can even ask it based on what you want to do. What are the top 10? Pick the one from that top 10 that best represents what's in your head. Now you're going to find that it's a really, really tightly focused universal theme. And you use that.

to express what you want to say. That's where you're getting your arguments from. And you will find them that they're much sharper. You can then go back and forth with the artificial intelligence and ask, what are the objections probably going to be from the town prosecutor? Because it's a good grief they've done this before. How can I best use my universal theme and what I'm trying to do to argue back and forth and just practice? You can do that with ChatGPT on the $20 a month plan.

And after you go back and forth and get used to it, then you go in and argue in front of the judge, you will be in much better shape.

James Moffitt (15:34.533)
Interesting.

Russell B Van Brocklen (15:37.517)
Well, the thing is, if you want a concealed carry or just a carry, and you're willing to go through the government regulations, the additional training or whatever it is, this will give you a much better chance. I've seen gun rights people who have tried it and they said it helped out forever. Some of them researched it and what they found out was the guy they're going up against,

uses the same three, five arguments all the time. So they practice back and forth. And they had a much sharper response because they did this, and they won. And the guy that they're going up against thinks, that's a civilian. They're not legally trained. I can just walk over them. I don't even need to prepare. Well, in the case of people that use that method, they were wrong.

James Moffitt (16:09.627)
right

James Moffitt (16:31.215)
Interesting.

Russell B Van Brocklen (16:31.458)
That's well, you need to have you need to have the ability to get what you need because I swear you go into a typical city in New York state. And it's just not safe.

James Moffitt (16:46.351)
Right? I remember years ago, the only people that were allowed to have a firearm to get a permit to carry a firearm were business owners that carried money back and forth between the business and the bank at night to make night deposit drops. And that literally you had to prove that you were the business owner and you were doing night deposits and taking your money to the bank. And only then could you get a permit to carry a firearm.

Russell B Van Brocklen (16:47.617)
I purposely avoid it.

James Moffitt (17:16.941)
You couldn't get it for any other reason, you know, and there's a whole host of reasons, you know, that people, especially, you know, females, women, that they may be forced to get, they're in a domestic violence situations and they've been attacked and they get these little worthless pieces of paper called protection orders, you know, that quote unquote will

Russell B Van Brocklen (17:42.35)
You

James Moffitt (17:44.646)
will protect them from the bad person, know, from the dude that, you know, the ex-husband or the boyfriend or whatever, you know, that assaulted them. And you know, those things are worth, they're as worthless as the paper that are written on. so there's a lot of, there's a lot of valid reasons why a citizen, wherever they live, to want to carry a firearm, you know.

Russell B Van Brocklen (18:13.996)
yeah. And I'll let everybody know when I went through that training and he said, this is what you need to do. You need to get a safe. need to put it this way. This is the response. He said, forget about the law. This is what a responsible gun owner does. I'm a grad student in an apartment with two other guys. One who was in a foreign military from one of our allies who was literally said, this guy is crazy. Literally.

So I was like, okay. I talked to them and they said, in that living environment, I was like, yeah, I don't think I can responsibly buy a gun. So I didn't. But I got the ability to buy it. And what do I do now? I generally just honestly, I stay out of the major cities as much as I can.

And I just avoid it. it's really, honestly, it's not that hard to do. The only time I have to go into the city of Albany is to go into the medical center. But I park in a parking garage where they have security there. And there's security all around that place, because it's the number one trauma hospital for like 100 miles around. OK? But besides that, I just stay away. It's really not that hard to avoid.

James Moffitt (19:29.766)
Right.

James Moffitt (19:39.356)
Yeah, the most powerful weapon that we have is what's between our ears. our brains, our common sense, our intellect, our intelligence. And I tell people all the time that I practice avoidance. You know, your parents used to tell you is nothing good happens after midnight, right? And there's a lot of...

There's a lot of wisdom to that. And you know, going into the, going into parts of town, every city, I don't care what city it is, there's good parts of that city. And then there's bad parts of that city. You know, like you don't go to the projects, you don't go to the slum areas, you don't go to the section eight housing. You don't go where all the drug dealers and the prostitutes and pimps and all of that, because every, all the, know, the only people that

How do I say this? Gun control laws only apply to us. Right? Because we're legal gun owners, but we follow the laws, right? And so if there's an establishment that has a no concealed carry sign, you can't carry here according to state statutes, well, what do we do as legal gun owners? We don't go in. We go spend our money somewhere else, right? But criminals, they don't give a crap. They don't care.

Russell B Van Brocklen (20:44.841)
apps. Yeah, the.

James Moffitt (21:07.313)
They carry all the time because that's how they prey on people. They use those weapons to threaten people, coerce people, terrorize people, and drug dealers, and armed robbers, and people that... Why do we as citizens need firearms? Why do we need...

Russell B Van Brocklen (21:24.942)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

James Moffitt (21:36.325)
the teeth that the second amendment provides us is we need to be able to protect ourselves and our loved ones and family members.

Russell B Van Brocklen (21:47.575)
Yeah. And what I, like when I, I'm going down to New York city to present at a major dyslexia conference in a little over a month. And honestly, I just take the train down. get off as quick as I can. I literally walk to the venue. I give my presentation. I go out to dinner with my co-presenter and then I just walk back, get on the train and get out. All right. And that's in a pretty safe part of town, but I still don't.

I still don't feel safe being in the city. won't get on the subway. I won't get on the bus. Okay, I just, it's just, I would just prefer to walk and I don't even feel comfortable doing that anymore. I mean, they're literally taking cops out and turning them into social and turning them, giving more social workers. I just, I don't understand what's going on with the place. So,

James Moffitt (22:39.665)
Yeah, I won't go, I won't go to New York city for that reason, because they, they have horrible gun laws and you're literally, you're, you're unarmed and you're at the, you're at the mercy of whatever happens, you know? And I'm like, yeah, no, I'm not going to do that.

Russell B Van Brocklen (22:57.366)
Yeah, and everybody that I know that has actually was put in a position to use the gun, you know, that they can seal carry, when they pull that out, all of a sudden the people that want to rob them, because they don't want to actually fire. I never met anybody who could seal carry, who ever wanted to pull the trigger. What it was mainly there for is to say, if you don't

leave me alone and stop trying to hurt me or my family, then I will shoot. And then the people tend to go, yeah, this is not somebody we want to mess with. they go on to, they just leave to go after somebody else. But every, everything that I've ever met from people who conceal carry is the vast majority of them. The only time they fired was on a firing range.

All right. And even when I took that class right after 9-11, the guy said, if you had a busload of witnesses and somebody was doing a horrific, violent crime and you shot them, number one, you're going to jail. This is New York State, up west in New York. He said, you're going to jail. It's going to cost you thousands of dollars for an attorney in the best possible case. All right.

And if you did something stupid, it's way downhill from there. So they said, don't fire unless you absolutely have to. The purpose is to scare the people and you walk away. Get away from it, call the cops, let them know, but don't actually fire because then in the best situation, you're still going to be in a very unfriendly position.

James Moffitt (24:46.383)
Well, here in South Carolina, and I'm sure it's the same way everywhere, prerequisite for using deadly force is if you're in fear of serious bodily injury and or death. You're not supposed to pull that weapon unless you're in fear of serious bodily injury and or death. And if you're at that point, you're backed into a corner, you can't get away, at that point you're going to use deadly force. And that's why you

Russell B Van Brocklen (24:50.926)
Mm-hmm.

Russell B Van Brocklen (24:59.054)
Mm-hmm.

Russell B Van Brocklen (25:12.824)
Right.

James Moffitt (25:16.025)
you practice avoidance. You make sure that your head's on a swivel, you're practicing situational awareness, you're not placing yourself or your family in harm's way. Now, and that works probably 95, 96 % of the time. Sometimes shit happens, right? Sometimes the predators are out there and they're looking for an easy target. What do you see people doing?

a lot of times like when you're when you're out in public what do see people doing?

Russell B Van Brocklen (25:49.273)
Well, number one, I honestly, I just avoid those spots. Okay. I mean, what do I see when I'm down in New York City and I'm seeing some guys doing some really nasty stuff? I'm in spots where there are cops. All right. And I go to the cops and I let them know what's going on. And you know what their response is? That's nothing that happened. Literally, this is what happens.

James Moffitt (26:07.067)
What are, what?

Russell B Van Brocklen (26:17.842)
They'll go and say, yep, if I even mention it to the guy, here's what's going to happen. If I arrest him, he'll be let out with no bail before I finish the paperwork and be right back doing the same thing. They've given up.

James Moffitt (26:30.415)
Right. Yeah, it's a...

Russell B Van Brocklen (26:33.238)
I have a second cousin who was an ex-Marine, was a guard at an embassy, which is really tough to get. He came back, became a deputy sheriff in the central New York state. We're talking pretty rural. He said he can't wait to retire because he'll arrest somebody.

The sheriff of the county will just let him go before he even finishes the paperwork. He's like, what's the point?

James Moffitt (27:11.205)
Yeah, that's indicative of a criminal justice system that's screwed up. the criminal justice system in America is, in many ways, a farce. You you go to Israel, or you go over to the Middle East somewhere, just basic crime. You go into somebody's store, and you steal a loaf of bread. You know what they do over there? They catch you stealing? They cut your hand off.

Russell B Van Brocklen (27:16.301)
Yeah.

Russell B Van Brocklen (27:37.902)
Everybody's in the national army and everybody's walking around with Uzis. I would suspect it's not good.

James Moffitt (27:43.878)
Well, well, the, the, the business owner and his family, they will track you down and they'll cut your arm on your handoff. You're not going to steal twice from that business owner because they don't play games. They, they, you know, understandably here in America, when we talk about this and we think about it, we go, my God, he was hungry. He stole, he stole a loaf of bread. And of course the business owner can tell, you know, they can make that

that decision as to, why did you steal from me? Why did you steal that loaf of bread? I stole it. I stole it because my family is starving and we need food. Well, they're probably not going to cut your hand off for that. However, you go in there and steal again after they tell you don't do that again. Here's your loaf of bread. Go your way. Leave us alone. Don't come back. You go in there again and steal another loaf of bread or God forbid something else. Well, they're going to cut your hand off. And then, and what does that teach you that teaches you not to steal? Right.

Here in America, in many cases, the business owners won't even call the police if you steal a loaf of bread, if you steal something that's very minimal or whatever. we have three-time repeat offenders that we have. We have district attorneys in a lot of these, especially in democratic-run cities. There's a revolving door, right?

What is criminal justice system primarily for? It's judges and attorneys making money, you know, on top of the table and under the table, right? They want repeat offenders because that's revenue that's being generated for the court system. And it's sad.

Russell B Van Brocklen (29:30.319)
Well, if you look in California, they had a law, I don't know it's still in the books, where if it was under 900 bucks, they wouldn't prosecute you for the reasons you just said for people that are starving. Well, so what happened is it got so bad that people were coming in stealing up to 900 bucks and leaving, and it got dangerous for the employees. So let's say for Walgreens, some employees would try to stop them because obviously, you know, they're stealing not food stuff, but other things, and they would get hurt.

James Moffitt (29:40.079)
Right. Right.

Russell B Van Brocklen (30:00.054)
So finally, what Walgreens said for the safety of our employees and because we can no longer make any money because these stores are losing money, they closed the stores. And that's where the community would go to get their prescriptions. And now they don't have a place to go. And that has kept happening in place after place after place.

And, you know, good luck trying to get a carry permit, even a visual one. mean, I'll tell you, one of the more interesting ones that I saw, there was a guy who he didn't have a concealed carry. He was a Texan up in the Northeast and he had a, he could carry, but he couldn't conceal. So he had one of those massive belt buckles and on the belt buckle was, it was a 22.

right? It was right there on his belt buckle. was like, I mean, completely visible. You should see that guy going into places and the owners going, the managers going nuts. You can't have that in here. That's dangerous. He said, no, like use this in case if there is danger.

James Moffitt (30:56.111)
Alrighty then.

Russell B Van Brocklen (31:15.022)
All right. It's a 22. I mean, you know, it's still a gun, but it's, you know, it's the little ones. And he said, I just, it's this area is not safe. Doesn't want his wife assaulted like she was, you know, beat up before in that general area. So that's why he carried it, but it couldn't be concealed. And it was, thought that was one of the more interesting solutions I've ever seen. Putting it on this massive belt buckle.

James Moffitt (31:43.717)
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure that that would be the best way to carry a firearm, but hey.

Russell B Van Brocklen (31:49.207)
it's not the best way, but it was a way that he couldn't be confused of trying to hide it because if he was hiding it, the penalties were draconian. I just thought it was one of the more interesting solutions that I found.

James Moffitt (32:01.158)
right well

Yes, yeah, and you know, hey, you've got to come up with a solution and that was it, you know? You can't conceal carry, then...

Russell B Van Brocklen (32:12.622)
I mean, out in the West, I would see a lot of guys going around just like the Cowboys used to use with a quick draw. All right. mean, completely visible. And to be honest with you, I'd be at a bar, there'd be a couple of guys like that. One guy got a little drunk doing something stupid the way some drunk guys in a bar would be. they would notice the guy's wearing a gun.

Let's just say they got a lot politer a lot faster.

James Moffitt (32:46.171)
Yeah, alcohol and firearms doesn't, they don't mix.

Russell B Van Brocklen (32:49.194)
no, the guy who was wearing it wasn't, he was drinking club soda or Coke or whatever. But just being there with a gun on people who were going to mess with him then realized not a good idea and it kept it a lot more civil.

James Moffitt (33:04.229)
Yes, absolutely.

Russell B Van Brocklen (33:06.08)
I noticed that when I was in Texas, I don't know who's caring. don't know who's not. just noticed people try to be a bit more courteous with each other and not do things that are going to start off, you know, with road rage or anything, because heck, like, you know, with road rage, I mean, who knows? You see some people trying to go after the person to yell at them. You don't know if that guy's got a firearm or not. They're upset. No, not a good idea. Just let it go.

James Moffitt (33:15.771)
Sure.

James Moffitt (33:34.245)
Have you watched Landman?

Russell B Van Brocklen (33:36.983)
probably not. What was that about?

James Moffitt (33:39.087)
land van it's it's about the the oil boom in midland texas in the eighties eighties and nineties billy bob thorton is the lead character in that

Russell B Van Brocklen (33:52.872)
No, but I'm familiar with the history of the oil boom in the 80s.

James Moffitt (33:55.974)
Yeah, it's going to have its third season starting in October, November or December of this year. But they've been through two seasons and this attorney that they hire for this oil company. I don't want to run it for anybody. basically, have Billy Bob Thornton, who is the landman for that section or that

area in west texas thing was called m-tex anyway the oil company was called m-tex and anyway he they had to hire they had an attorney that they had just hired and she was like in her you know late 20s and just fresh out of out of law school blah blah blah she was a she was a real kind of a snake you know she was she was very aggressive

with her tactics and, and, uh, she and he, and she did not get along. They didn't like each other. They didn't want to be around each other, but they, you know, they had a working relationship. They were, he, she was there for purpose and he wanted her, he wanted her to meet him at one of their oil, uh, Derrick's or whatever, you know, whatever those things are called. And, uh, she was like, I just want to let you know that I'm licensed to carry in the state of Texas, concealed carry in state of Texas. And he said, honey.

He said, everybody carries in the state of Texas. You don't have to, you don't have to be, you don't have to have a permit to carry. We all carry. And that's, and that's why everybody's nice to one another. They're civil because everybody's carrying, you know, so you don't, you don't want to get in a red rage situation or, do something stupid because you're in, somebody's going to be pointing a gun at your forehead and you're going to be like, Oh shit, I'm sorry. But anyway.

Russell B Van Brocklen (35:43.887)
Yeah, I drive a 2016 Toyota Corolla with 101,000 miles on it. I drive slow to avoid that. And I see people, cut me off all the time. And I'm just like, go ahead. But one of these days, you're going to cut off the wrong guy. it's not going to be pretty. Or one of my favorite ones when I was seeing that, there was an aggressive kid.

James Moffitt (36:07.171)
yeah.

Russell B Van Brocklen (36:13.9)
and he's cutting everybody off, and then he cuts off a car in front of me. Problem is, that was an unmarked police car, and you see all the lights go on.

James Moffitt (36:24.113)
Oops, wrong, wrong vehicle, huh?

Russell B Van Brocklen (36:28.334)
Yeah. uh, you know, it's like individuals like that. Um, that's one thing where I would have to say in New York, in Western New York, in the suburban areas, you do need a judge from what I recall to get a gun. But as I said, some people just, they're just too dangerous to have them. But most of us, if we're responsible with it, then yeah, we should be able to get it. As the constitution says, rail regulated militia.

Does that mean we have to go in? Like for me, I had to go in for five or six hours of training. And honestly, what I learned from there, what type of equipment that I need to get, how do you store it? I had a neighbor who had a ton of guns and the kids broke in to where he kept his guns, but they ran into a slight problem. Every place he actually had the gun was in this massive, huge safe with all his ammunition.

All they got was some things that he used to keep things clean and everything else. Everything else was literally in this mat, one of the biggest safes I've ever seen. OK? I mean, you're not pulling that thing out without a forklift. You're not opening it up unless you got like a whole bunch of sticks of dynamite. And then that might not even do it. And he said that's why it cost him a lot to get that safe. But he knew this was going to happen. It happened to him a couple of times, but nobody stole any of his guns.

James Moffitt (37:58.172)
Right. Well, it's called gun safety.

Russell B Van Brocklen (38:02.476)
Yes, but I looked at all that and I was like, you know what, in the situation where I was at a time, I wasn't in a good position to get it. So I declined to get one, but I found the course eminently useful. it was good business for the guys giving it on because he said, you want all this stuff? by the way, we sell it. We install.

and most of the people bought their stuff through him.

James Moffitt (38:31.153)
over the years I've had several friends that that I had this one guy I'm thinking of he and I worked at Delta Airlines back in the in the 1990s the late 1990s before the year 2000 and and he knew that I was into you know the Second Amendment and had firearms and you know was in law enforcement security private security and all that so so there was a reason why I was around it and had them and

He looked at me one day and he said, why do you have a gun? Why do you need a gun? I said, for self protection, for self defense, for defense of myself and my family, if I need it. And he looked at me and he says, I haven't had a firearm in 35 years. I've never needed one, never had one, and I don't feel like I need to buy a gun.

And I don't, I don't feel like I need one. So in 35 years, I've never, if I've never needed a gun, why would I buy one now? And I'm like, maybe it's not for you. Maybe, maybe you don't feel like you need one. And if, and that's fine too. If you don't feel like you need a firearm, that's great. But you know what the old saying is? I'd rather, I'd rather have one and not need it versus, you know, needing one desperately and not having it. Right.

Russell B Van Brocklen (39:56.143)
And that was one of the things that I found most interesting when I took that class. said, most people said, do need a gun? It wasn't to go out and conceal carry your carry. It was because they wanted it for home protection. And what he said was, you don't want a handgun for that. What you want is a pump action shotgun. Because you just hear that click, click. And he says, I don't care who you are. You're going to stop unless if you're on crack.

And then if you do run into somebody who's literally spaced out on drugs and who's dangerous, you don't want a slug. You want the pellets. And you shoot anything in a big area. You're going to hit something. All right. And, know, if anybody's like he's been to so many situations where the cops would call him in to help with certain things, he would show up to these scenes because he knows all the cops. And they just said the guy in the home just had a

had a pump action shotgun click click and the intruder just froze because they knew what that meant. You can survive a gunshot to parts of your body. You have a decent chance. But one of those buck shots right at your chest, you're done. And they knew just to stop and wait for the police to get them.

James Moffitt (41:17.499)
Well.

James Moffitt (41:21.019)
Well, one of the reasons people are told that or suggested that they have a pump action shotgun is because you do have birdshot. You have different types of ammo for a shotgun. the dangerous thing about having a handgun in a home is that depending what round, 9 millimeter, 45, 40, 10 millimeter, whatever, whatever the projectile is, you've got nine times out of 10, you're going to have plywood or you're going to have

what's it called what are the malls made out of

Russell B Van Brocklen (41:56.813)
Yeah, little copper, you know.

James Moffitt (42:00.316)
Now talking about the walls themselves. What are they made out of? Sheetrock. Sheetrock. Drywall. Sheetrock. Well any round can go through sheetrock. Right? Even a 22 can go through sheetrock. And so the point is that you want to pick the right tool for the right job. Well a pump action shotgun with different types of bird shot, those pellets are not going to go all the way through a wall. Nine times out of ten. A couple of them may go through

Russell B Van Brocklen (42:02.58)
drywall. Yes, Yeah.

James Moffitt (42:29.659)
But you don't want to wind up shooting, God forbid, a child sleeping in a bed or your wife sleeping in a bed or God forbid it go through several walls and go outside and go into somebody else's house and kill them, right? Because every round that you fire is called a little attorney. you're legally and morally responsible for every round that you shoot. And so you better be aware of your surroundings. You better be aware of what the backstop is.

all of that. So yeah, a pump action shotgun for home defense is perfect.

Russell B Van Brocklen (43:05.102)
Yeah, well, I guess I would see some some women that I knew. Let's just say they're around five foot tall, weighing 100 and nothing, 110 pounds. And they're they, you know, they get like their grand dads who was in the army. Colt 1911, 45. All right. And you want to see what they said? You don't want to shoot that at the range. They said, oh, I want to make sure you're at the range. Make sure you got people around.

because the kick on that thing, so they would get up, they would get into what they thought was the right stance, shoot it, and they be literally on their butts because of the recoil. And they're like, no, you want a gun that's more proportionate, that they would get like a nice revolver, know, something that still has the decent stopping power, but something that they can control reasonably well. Because if the first one is going to put you on your butt,

James Moffitt (43:42.415)
Right. Right.

Russell B Van Brocklen (44:01.676)
The second one, you don't know where that bullet's going. And those things will go through anything.

I've literally heard people that I knew that actually had to fire and they would get like some football lineman size guy coming after them and they would shoot him in the shoulder with that thing and that even stopped somebody high on drugs. It literally put them down.

So yeah, but those things are hard to control for a big guy coding it the correct way.

So that's the other, get a gun that best fits what you're looking for.

James Moffitt (44:41.617)
Well, Russell, I appreciate you being on the show tonight. And I had an entertaining and educational conversation with you. And I thank you. Thank you for telling us about your method of being able to articulate your need for a self-defense weapon firearm. And I think that'll come in handy for some folks. thanks again for being here.

Russell B Van Brocklen (45:11.106)
Well, thanks for having me.

James Moffitt (45:12.689)
Alright brother, don't go anywhere.