Podcast appearances and mentions of bob o'connor

  Don West and Shawn Vincent discuss the extraordinary Amber Guyger case in which an off duty police officer mistakenly enters the wrong apartments and shoots the occupant thinking he was an intruder in her own home. The case tests the absolute limits of the Castle Doctrine and serves as a warning for concealed carriers to check their assumptions when making decisions in potentially threatening situations.   TRANSCRIPT:   Shawn Vincent: Don West. How are you doing? Don West: Hey Shawn. As always nice to talk with you. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. So when we're recording this right now, we're about a week and a half away from my 43rd birthday. Don West: It doesn't sound like such a big deal to me since- Shawn Vincent: Yeah. You're a little past 43, right? Don West: Yeah, but at the same time, I'm thinking back to those days where I was in my life and my family and my career. And you are, I guess probably about halfway through by now, don't you think? Shawn Vincent: Yeah. I think judging by my diet, I think I'm a little over halfway through for sure. Don West: You once described yourself as mid-life. I guess if we do the math, 86 would be a pretty good life. I think if I make 86, I probably [crosstalk 00:01:17]. Shawn Vincent: You can say you did it. When I met you, I was nice mid 30s. I think at 43 should become mid 40s. I'm early forties now. One more year. I'm mid 40. Someone the other day told me that I looked spry today, which I think is- Don West: Well, that drips with something, doesn't it? Shawn Vincent: No one ever tells someone in middle school, "You’re looking spry." That doesn't happen so. Don West: Well. I once heard a lawyer talk about other lawyers in terms of experience, whether if they had 20 years experience, they had 20 years experience or whether they had one year of experience repeated 20 times. Shawn Vincent: Sure. I like that. Don West: I have to think, knowing you, as long as I've known you, that you have continued to build on that life experience and provided a positive and grateful environment for your children and developed a nice little niche career where you're doing good things for people in bad situations. And from my perspective it looks like it's all coming together. Shawn Vincent: Well, I like that a hell of a lot better than I like spry, so thanks for that. Well, can we say seasoned? Let's go with seasoned. Don West: Yeah, I'll go with seasoned. I think that's euphemistic enough. Shawn Vincent: Perfect. Well, hey, we have a case that I've been dying to talk to you about and it happened out where you've been spending some of your time in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Don West: Yeah, that's right. It was all the news for quite a while. It's the almost infamous case of Amber Guyger, the police officer who shot and killed a young man by the name of Botham Jean. Shawn Vincent: Sure. She was an off-duty police officer, right? Don West: She was. This day that this happened, I believe around August, September of 2018, I think it was just about a year before the trial. And not only was she off-duty, but she had worked I think a double that day. At the time she went home at the end of her shifts, she was in full uniform, equipment belt and all of that stuff. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: Going home after a long day. Shawn Vincent: Right. So she lived on the fourth floor of this apartment building and it's got an attached parking garage. And Botham John, he lived in the same apartment that she lived in one floor up. So- Don West: Yeah, I think that's right. It doesn't matter which floor exactly but that's exactly what happened. She went to the wrong floor thinking she was going to her apartment. Shawn Vincent: I've been in parking garages where unless there's the big number written on the wall in the right spot, you don't necessarily know what level you're on. They all look about the same floor to floor and I've been in a hotel where you get off on the wrong floor and it takes a little bit before you realize that you're not in the right spot. So I can imagine an apartment building where if it came in from the garage on floor five, it looks a lot like it does on floor four. Don West: Oh, sure. I think everyone's probably had that experience. I have a tendency to do that with cars. Walk up to the wrong car, especially if it's a rental car. I wind up being distracted because of whatever it was that took me there and walk up right to the car sometimes lift the handle to get in, only to realize that I'm off a row or two. And I just, without thinking walked up to somebody else's car and from their perspective, especially if they had been sitting inside, would have thought I was trying to break in the car. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. And I rent cars enough to where sometimes I've literally forgotten what car I rented and if it weren't for the little fob that will click to make it blink, I'd have no idea what car to get into. So we've all made mistakes concerning orientation. Where you are and being confused about that. And in this case, Amber Guyger came in the wrong floor, she goes to the wrong apartment. It's the one above where she lives. It's in the right spot it's just one floor up too far. She doesn't notice that the floor mat out front is different. There's something wrong with Botham Jean's door to where it didn't clasp properly. So she was able to open it without a key. Don West: Yeah. I think the way these doors worked... The sense of it I had was it was a magnetic key like a hotel room key. Shawn Vincent: Okay. Don West: In fact people testified in the trial that the doors didn't always close completely. So it was entirely possible that from the inside you'd think your door was closed but unless you pushed it that last half inch, it would be sitting there slightly ajar. And from the outside, I don't know if there was a light or what might tell you like there is hotel rooms, but in fact in this case there was testimony that she knew that the door was unlocked. So it wasn't that she was able to get in the wrong door using her key it was that the door wasn't latched completely so that effectively it could just be pushed open. So that was one of the facts that the prosecutor used in the case to explain why she should have known something was up, or at least that she was in the wrong place because of that. The floor mat you're talking about became significant in that it was symbolic. It was bright red. So people attending the trial that were sympathetic to Botham Jean wore bright red clothing and other paraphernalia and such to indicate their support and also to reinforce the idea that in their mind it was a ridiculous claim that she didn't know she was in the wrong place because she didn't have a bright red door mat, and he did, and she was standing right there on it and crossed it when she went in the apartment. Shawn Vincent: Right. So she goes in the apartment and, if we believe her, she thinks she's walking into her apartment, and there's this guy there. From the accounts that I read he was apparently eating ice cream and watching football but she doesn't necessarily see it that way. Don West: I don't know exactly what she said she thought was going on other than she was convinced she was entering her own apartment and she never wavered from that. And I think that ultimately that was accepted, that she had made a mistake and that she had gone into his apartment fully believing that she was going into her own. After that, it becomes pretty confusing because the layout in terms of furniture isn't the same. I'm assuming that she would have known whether she left the TV on or not when she went to work that day. I think a lot of people said, "Why would she go in, even if it's her own apartment, if the door isn't latched, doesn't that tell anyone much less a trained police officer that there's something different?" Shawn Vincent: Something's wrong here. Don West: Yeah. And of course the idea that being a trained police officer and having her equipment and tools of the trade, including weapons and such, but having the tactical training and experience in these encounters on the street, why would she make the decision to go in at all rather than recognizing something was amiss but not even knowing what it was, assuming it was her own apartment why wouldn't she call for backup? Why wouldn't she maintain her position of relative safety until she had some people with her that could figure it all out. Shawn Vincent: Because instead what happens is Botham Jean gets up and comes towards her, right? She testifies that she was giving voice commands, "Put your hands up, what are you doing here?" That sort of thing. Don West: Yeah. And it's obviously impossible to know whether he was confused or could even hear her, but her testimony was that he came in her direction and from her perspective, he wasn't obeying her commands. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: And of course the distance closed rapidly. He must've been incredibly confused and wondering who that person was and of course why were they in his apartment and what was their intention. Whether he perceived it as a threat, who knows? Shawn Vincent: Yeah, we'll never know. Don West: There had been a neighbor over there earlier and maybe the door was even left open on purpose. I don't know any of that stuff, but it must've been incredibly confusing for him. And now we're looking at his perception and how that affects his behavior and then how his behavior affects the perception of Amber Guyger and then of course her response, which tragically was to point her gun at him and fire twice. One I think missed, but the other penetrated his chest, I think pierced his heart and an immediately- Shawn Vincent: And then that's it. Don West: Mortal wound. Shawn Vincent: Right. Then what happens immediately afterwards becomes a point at trial as well. There's video of her freaking out while there's first responders there, there was some hay made that she never seemed to try to render any aid to the guy that she had just shot. She obviously quickly realized that she was in the wrong apartment and that this was a horrific mistake. Don West: Well that's an interesting observation because that has nothing to do with the lawfulness of her act of shooting him. We'll talk about how all of that plays out. Whether or not she immediately rendered aid has to do, I think with the way the prosecutor could paint her maybe as being callous or uncaring about what she had done combined with some of the things she said on the call about losing her job and all that stuff seemed to suggest she was more worried about herself than she was- Shawn Vincent: Sure. Well, often- Don West: Than the guy that she shot. Shawn Vincent: Often a second degree murder charge -- especially in Florida where we've worked on some cases together -- the second-degree murder charge implies a reckless disregard for human life and if there's any chance to provide aid to resuscitate somebody and you don't do that, that helps paint a picture of someone who has disregard for that life. Don West: We've come across a couple of cases where the prosecutor exploited the idea that no aid was rendered and tried to impute some meaning to that. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: And- Shawn Vincent: We just talked about the Drejka case and instead of trying to help the guy or express concern for him, he was wandering around letting people coming up at the store, letting them know he had just shot somebody. A weird reaction that was. Don West: We know being involved in something like that may make you act in a different way than you would even if you were thinking it through. But certainly the perception others have of you becomes pretty important and frankly, I've seen cases where the response to the shooting was so immediate and so positive in an attempt to get aid that the prosecutor commented on that in making their charging decision, that they thought that the person did everything right afterwards and it impressed them about the way they viewed the case Shawn Vincent: We talked about Zach Peters and he didn't necessarily render aid but indicated on this 911 call that they were still alive and that you better get here quick. The implication being that he had some concern for whether or not they'd be able to survive that episode. Don West: Our advice has been, even though it may be the last thing you want to do to help the person that you firmly believe just tried to kill you but for your use of deadly force would have been dead, the last thing you want to do is reach out and try to provide medical assistance. But we have specific examples we can talk about plus the idea of being able to show that your conduct was not rooted in anger and malice but rather was a response to the threat and that once the threat is over, you will, as any human being should try to mitigate the situation. Shawn Vincent: Right. Because the point- Don West: Your goal is not to kill the person. Your goal is to neutralize the threat. Stop the threat. Shawn Vincent: That's right. And that should be the attitude from the beginning to the end. And all the actions that you take should indicate that respect for life. Otherwise- Don West: In a case that we're talking about like that when the prosecutor is looking for any opportunity to look for evidence that will support their theory. Now their theory could be any number of things but in this case the theory was that what she did was not reasonable and that even though the law may have favored her, notwithstanding the fact that she made a mistake, her conduct should be viewed by the jury as being unreasonable and then set about explaining why and how at different points in time throughout the entire scenario and the fact that she seemed more focused on herself and the fact that she would lose her job than trying to render immediate aid was just one thing that piled on a lot of other things that happened long before the trigger was pulled. Shawn Vincent: That's the cherry on top of the pie here, the meat is this whole thing that... And we've never encountered a case like this where someone... She essentially broke into someone else's house and then shot them and is claiming self-defense. It wasn't breaking and entering, but she went in uninvited to somebody's house and shot them in their living room and then makes a self-defense claim. That sounds crazy. Don West: It does sound crazy in the sense that most people that don't truly understand self-defense law and what it is that become the critical turning points in a self-defense case would think that all you really needed to know was that she went into the wrong house and shot an otherwise law-abiding citizen and that nothing else really matters. Well, in fact, that's not the case. That notwithstanding some of the things that we'll talk about that help shed some light on whether her actions ultimately were reasonable. Legally, you are allowed to make mistakes. It's really the perception of the threat more than the actual threat that becomes the critical issue. Shawn Vincent: Right. So if the jury- Don West: So the fact- Shawn Vincent: If the jury really believes that you've made that mistake in perception, then they're supposed to accept that as the reality or the perceived reality. And then under that set of realities then decide whether it was reasonable. So under your misperception, was your action reasonable? Even if you're wrong about that first assumption. Don West: That's exactly right. The threat doesn't... And the jury instructions say this, the threat doesn't have to be actual, it's the perception of the threat. So the prosecutor had to go much further than just showing the jury that in fact she had made a mistake, they had to show that the way this thing played out, her mistake was unreasonable and that there were lots of places along the way where she should have realized her mistake and you put all that stuff together overall the actions were unreasonable. And once the- Shawn Vincent: So let me- Don West: Go ahead. Shawn Vincent: Let me ask you about that. So if we're going to operate with the assumption that she thought it was her house and that the jury has to, if they believe that's true, judge her based on that, then let's make a more controversial scenario. You come home from a double shift, you're distracted, you're tired, it's dark, you walk in your front door and then there's a stranger there who gets up and starts moving towards you. You're a concealed carrier, you're in your own home, someone's obviously entered without your permission, are you justified in shooting them then? Don West: It may take a few more facts but the general sense is yes. Especially if you know there's no way they got in there by consent. Shawn Vincent: It's not potentially like a friend of your son's or it's not the bug guy. Don West: Well, I can tell you there are lots of cases. Tragic cases. You'll read about them regularly if you just pay attention -- about people being home asleep, hearing a noise, getting out of bed, taking a gun into the living room or to the kitchen and finding somebody and shooting that person dead, only to realize after the fact that it was a kid coming home from college or a relative that came into the house. So they were clearly no actual threat, but the fact that they entered, from your perspective without consent, essentially a breaking and entering idea, especially in your home, there are presumptions that if somebody enters the house without permission, there's a presumption that they're there and a threat. Shawn Vincent: Right. So she's got that on her side. Don West: The law is on her side, even if she's making a mistake. And I think that was somewhat controversial in this case because I think the judge ultimately agreed that she was entitled to the Castle Doctrine defense, even though she wasn't in her own apartment and obviously she was the in the wrong spot. So that was controversial and I think a lot of people were afraid the jury might use that as a technicality of some sort and acquit her, notwithstanding the clear indication that she was making a big mistake about the whole thing from beginning to end. Shawn Vincent: Right. So if the Castle Doctrine could have or should have applied to her in that case, then now I want to connect the dots about how she gets a guilty verdict because she was found guilty of murder in that case from shooting an intruder in her, quote on quote, her house. What she perceived to be her house. So one thing I look at is even though the law often allows you to assume that someone who is in your house uninvited is a threat, whether or not they actually are a threat from a perception point of view, still makes a difference. And we've talked recently about the idea... We were talking about Marissa Alexander. She left a confrontation in her house and went into her garage. She was not followed but she got a gun and then she went back into her house and re-engaged and that was a problem in her case. So if you walk in your front door and you have the option of turning around and leaving or going further into your house and confronting somebody who's there uninvited, does that change the scenario when you're looking at the Castle Doctrine and the duty to retreat that's waived by the Castle Doctrine? Don West: Well, I think the focus shifts that notwithstanding the legal right to take certain steps that the law would protect because of the Castle Doctrine, no legal duty to retreat. And in many jurisdictions, the presumption that someone who has entered the home uninvited is a threat and that your fear would be reasonable, that's not the end of the inquiry. And in this case, the prosecution focused on all of the little things that in combination and when put together the so-called totality of the circumstances test that we've talked about before, whether overall her actions were reasonable. And you can break that down into mistakes of fact and maybe mistakes that shouldn't have been made and why she didn't know where she was. Then you talk about the tactics or the strategy of the decision making and why she did what she did under those circumstances. And when you start stacking that one-on-one on top of it and then you compound that of course by the fact that she was wrong, that she shot an innocent person, I think the jury had a different perspective than you would have had it been in your own home where you made an innocent but tragic mistake shooting somebody that wasn't in fact there to harm you like a relative or a drunk neighbor that wandered in. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And you've coined the term forgivable subjectivity for situations like this. When it's your home or you're perceived to be in your home, or if you have the protection of the Castle Doctrine, the law affords you a few mistakes, even if you don't do everything perfect. There's this forgivable subjectivity. There were the deciders of fact can lean in your favor pretty easily, but I think the fact that it wasn't her house, even if legally the standard is Castle Doctrine applies, she's lost a whole bunch of that forgivable subjectivity, right? She's got a long road to claw back at and then you throw in the fact that he was unarmed, that she had an opportunity to just walk back out the door that she had just come in, the fact that she didn't attempt to render any raid after-the-fact; those are little things that push this forgivable subjectivity back to the point of no return. Don West: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about some of the specifics that formed the basis of the prosecution argument that made her, in their view, the conduct unreasonable, which meant that she really shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt. I think that's what we're talking about. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: To some degree the forgivable subjectivity notion is that if you do most things right and you do them in good faith and you do them consistent with the law, even if you are wrong about some things you'll get the benefit of that, especially if it's in your own home. So setting the stage just a little bit more, I think we had talked earlier that she had worked a double shift, that she was in uniform, she was coming home, there was a different color mat in front of her door. It's certainly and I guess a different apartment number, but it's certainly explainable. I'm satisfied that you could miss that stuff but- Shawn Vincent: I don't even know what our door mat looks like. Don West: Sure. Shawn Vincent: Don't tell my wife, but- Don West: But then the door is unlatched. So that should've been a real big clue. And I would think someone would want to look around a little bit more than not necessarily even thinking you're in the wrong place but looking for what else might be out of the ordinary or amiss. Shawn Vincent: So you come home and your door is open, you're going to look around like, "What's going on here?" You're going to be extra perceptive is what you're saying. Don West: I would think you'd be very vigilant at that point because now this is something that jolts you awake. Now, in your end of the day automaton response. How many times have you driven home and you certainly can't remember the route you took or those things. Shawn Vincent: So whatever is distracting you, now you're shocked out of that and now you're in the moment because your door's open. Don West: I would think so. I think that's a reasonable interpretation. Shawn Vincent: Especially if you're a cop. Yeah. Don West: So there were a couple of other things going on, too, as I remember some of the testimony and I watched quite a bit of it that first of all, she'd only been there a couple of months so she's not going to be as familiar with the layout as people that lived there a long time, but it was my understanding that she had a dog and that the dog was boarded or being kept somewhere because maintenance was supposed to come through at some point in time. I don't know if it was that day, but if you put your dog up, you would know two things. One, you would know your dog wasn't there, so the dog wasn't at any risk if that's what you were concerned about. And then the fact that you boarded the dog because maintenance was going to have to do some stuff, then you would maybe not be quite as surprised that the door was unlocked or open, but you would react to that, I would think. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: Rather than think. So that would have been another opportunity to think that maybe if somebody is inside, they're specifically there to do harm or even to steal things. And the idea that... Well let me characterize it this way. She is trained and prepared to deal with threats and violence. At the same time she's also prepared and trained how to not do that without incurring greater risk and you call for backup. If you're in a situation that's not urgent, that you don't have to take immediate action and you don't know what's going on or how big the risk or the threat is, you call for help. So the prosecutor really harped on that. Why not just call for backup? The police station was only a few blocks away. You stay outside where you're safe, you call for people and then you go in and deal with it. So while it wasn't specifically said, what struck me about that is why would you go in there when there's nothing really to protect? It's just your stuff, there's no people in there, whoever it is that's in there is not there specifically to attack you because you're on the outside. So why specifically go inside knowing you have to confront whatever it is rather than just waiting outside and- Shawn Vincent: You're going from a place of relative safety to uncertain danger. Don West: Yeah. And how many times have we seen that? So she goes inside with the expectation of confronting whoever it is and she may not have known or even really suspected that it was an intruder at that point. I don't know what she really thought that wasn't clear, but she did make the decision to go on in. And I think the prosecutor pretty reasonably said how unreasonable that decision was. Shawn Vincent: We've talked over and over again in these cases that the decision to pull the trigger by definition has to be imminent fear, right? And if it's imminent, there's no time to think twice about that decision. It has to be done right now. Imminent means right now, you told me once, right? So we have this conversation that we've had a few times about the choice before the choice and almost all the cases we've found there's been escalation and the shooter makes some choices before that critical moment where they pull the trigger where they could have gone a different way. And in Guyger's case, that's clearly her decision to continue into the apartment after she knew that something was wrong. That was where she really had the most discretion to change how the scenario went. Don West: Yes, exactly right. So she would then, by making the decision to go in and confront whatever it was that was inside, cross that line where she had to do it. Now I'm not saying she had to shoot somebody but once she made that decision to go inside, she had basically decided she will handle whatever it is. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: And when she didn't really have to do that, she had lots of other options there. Shawn Vincent: So that decision was unreasonable from the deciders of fact point of view. Don West: I think so. You couple it with all of the other little things where the prosecutor reinforced the notion that she should have known she wasn't in her place. There are too many things going on for her not to have realized it. If she hadn't been distracted with text messaging, if she hadn't been tired,  perhaps -- but nonetheless the prosecutor exploited everything that they could to show that she wasn't focusing, that she was distracted, that she really wasn't paying attention, that any reasonable person would have given these situations. And then I suppose from my perspective, the decision to go in and confront is a one-way street at that point. You go in and you have to deal with it. Now, I think what's interesting maybe for our listeners is we have, excuse me, no doubt lots of listeners that if they hear a noise in their backyard are going to get their gun and go out and figure out what it is. And just like when Amber Guyger went into what she believed be her apartment with her gun, with the expectation that she would confront whatever it was that was inside, she wasn't breaking any law. She was completely allowed to do that as a citizen and certainly as an off-duty police officer. So it's not that she made a critical illegal decision. She simply made, I think in hindsight, what was a critically bad decision. A decision that she didn't have to make that had the risk of increasing her own danger but more or less, as we've talked about before, when you talk about the choice before the choice, you make the choice that forces your hand and you hope it's going to turn out okay, you hope that you're going to come up on the winning side of it but nonetheless, you make a choice that forces a hard choice. And in this case how much more wrong could it have gone? Her life is effectively ruined, Botham Jean is dead, a promising, universally loved young man, a young professional who had a loving family and peers, it's just- Shawn Vincent: Just the ultimate tragedy. Don West: Yep, sure is. Shawn Vincent: So there were other things that we got brought up in trial that yeah, if we're going to push this forgivable subjectivity, the prosecutor tried to make her look like a bad person. They tried to make her look like a racist. She was white, Botham Jean was black. Don West: I think that the prosecutor, knowing how delicate a balance all of this is in terms of the jury's perception of what happened, were taking the opportunities that they had to exploit the weaknesses in the character, weaknesses in the history, in the background, taking events in Ms. Guyger's life and, rightfully or wrongfully, I don't know enough about it to suggest that there was any real evidentiary value to this other than what seemed to be a pretty clear attempt to dirty her up. I don't think anybody could credibly claim that race played a part in this, even though the media focus was oftentimes race-based and only because another unarmed black man is killed at the hands of a police officer. So that's a narrative which percolates throughout the news these days. Shawn Vincent: That definitely grabs national headlines. Don West: Yeah. It's a round peg, square hole scenario. I don't know anybody would truly suggest race played a part of it, but it was an aspect of this that was exploited by the lawyers on behalf of the family and certainly the prosecutor appreciated whatever value some inference of that might have and took full advantage of it to the extent they could. Whatever lesson there is, there only is what we've said on and on and that is that whatever you have out there in your past, whether it's social media, or text messages, or off-color jokes that are offensive, can and -- if there's any way for it to come back to haunt you -- it will. By all accounts, Amber Guyger was a decent person who had done a good job as a police officer, who had done good works in the community, was well-liked and well-respected but through this sequence of poor judgment, bad decisions, maybe being a little bit too gung-ho, dealing with whatever it was on her own, instead of getting the backup, set the stage for this tragedy. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. So she was convicted of murder, right? One of the options that the jury had along with acquittal would've been manslaughter. Were you surprised when you heard the murder conviction? Don West: I was a little surprised. Well, there was one other aspect about this case that the prosecution took full advantage of. And when I say taking full advantage of something, I'm not suggesting it's unethical or somehow even inappropriate, although I think there's some arguments to be made that the prosecutor is always supposed to take the high road and that their goal is serving justice not just getting a conviction, but I can tell you after many trials and lots of years of doing this, it's an adversarial process. There are egos on the line, everybody wants to win and if you see a chance, unless there's a clear prohibition against it, you're going to take it with a prosecutor or a defense lawyer. And they saw a chance and they took full advantage of it when during examination, Amber Guyger was asked about what was happening at the time that she shot Botham Jean. As we mentioned before, there were two shots, one that missed, one that went through his chest. And I believe it was cross-examination the prosecutor asked whether she was trying to kill him. And I believe she was nervous, being on the stand, no matter how seasoned you are is an imposing, intimidating thing and it's pretty easy to get rattled. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: So my guess is her answer was more a product of that than in fact what she was thinking but it might've been regardless when she was asked whether she was trying to kill him, she said yes. So the prosecutor had that little nugget when they wanted to argue about her state of mind and what she was really doing all along that she was there trying to kill him and shot him through the heart. Shawn Vincent: The right answer is she was trying to eliminate the immediate threat. That's the legal answer. Don West: Well, that's the true answer, I hope because that's the answer that her training would have been. There's no police department that I've ever heard of including a recent tour of an NYPD training facility where the officers are taught to kill in the face of a threat. Certainly death may be a consequence and it may be the only consequence if you truly have to incapacitate somebody, but it's never the goal. And the goal is exactly as you said, is to stop the threat. To neutralize the threat. And I think a lot of times these fatal wounds aren't by design. No reason to think that she was shooting Botham Jean in the heart for the purpose of killing him. The training would be to shoot in the larger mass of the torso and unfortunately that's where the heart and other vital organs are that often result in death but also fortunately, if you have to stop the threat and incapacitate someone, that's a pretty good place to hit him other than shooting somebody in the head, which from a training perspective is pretty hard to do. I don't claim to understand that fully but you shoot where you think you can hit somebody that's the threat and then you go from there. Shawn Vincent: Well, it's like the Sundance Kid says, aim for the middle and that way, in case you miss, you still hit something, Don West: So when she said, “I intended to kill him,” I think she misspoke. That was something that was one of those oh, oh, moments because it resonated in such an ugly way in the case. But I really questioned whether that was simply more misspeaking than that was, in fact, her intention. Shawn Vincent: But if you're a juror and you have to decide between murder and manslaughter, “I meant to kill him” is a tough obstacle to overcome. Don West: Hard for me to imagine. She had good lawyers, experienced lawyers. It's hard for me to imagine that they wouldn't have been through that with her in some way in the pre-trial preparation. But I don't know what statements she may have made before that she got locked in on something like that. But it came as a surprise to me. I think it probably came as a surprise to everybody that she answered that way and I think that was simply unfortunate. It doesn't really change anything except the observation you just now had. Shawn Vincent: Sure. But then you take a step further, now you have the guilty verdict and you talk about in Texas it's relatively unusual where that same jury gets to come up with the sentencing. And in this case for the murder conviction, it could've been anywhere between five and 99 years. I understand. And they chose- Don West: Yeah. Unusual in the sense that it doesn't happen very many places outside of Texas. Yes. It's common in Texas, that's how they do things. Shawn Vincent: Sure. In Florida, the judge is going to give you the sentence and- Don West: Exactly right. Shawn Vincent: And this jury, the same jury that convicted her of murder, went way low on that sentencing range. They gave her 10 years. Don West: Well, the trial and the sentencing are two distinct phases with different rules and different objectives. Of course it becomes pretty clear in a place like Texas, where the jury is actively involved in the sentencing, where there's actually a separate evidentiary proceeding. Typically in other jurisdictions, the jury will decide guilt or innocence and then there'll be a separate hearing but only with the judge or they hear additional evidence and aggravation to support a higher sentence based upon perhaps the background and character prior record, those things that would influence a judge and sentencing guidelines, calculations, that stuff. And much is the same in Texas but with the jury, witnesses testify, It's a much more formal process and then the jury retires to deliberate again and come up with a sentencing. Shawn Vincent: So what does it mean to hear that they come up with this 10 years instead of 99 years --  instead of 20 years? Don West: A sentencing hearing from a defendant's perspective is going to focus largely on mitigation. That's really the first time in most cases where the jury or the judge, depending on who the sentencer is, gets to hear about the person. There may be some stuff in the trial itself that comes out but how the person conducted themselves in the past, who their friends were, character references, employers, friends, that stuff is highly relevant. We have in the United States individualized sentencing. So there's virtually, unless it's a mandatory minimum, which I think is why there's so much condemnation of these mandatory minimum sentences and especially the high ones and for certain crimes is it takes the individuality away from the person being sentenced and also removes the discretion of the judge. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Every crime's committed within a very specific context and that context matters when it comes to punishment. Don West: And I think this case showed that dramatically, too. And while the jury sent a clear message that what she did was a crime and a serious crime, that there is value to her life, that as a public servant, as a police officer there's value to that. I think that... Of course, I don't know what they said in the jury room, but they obviously took it very seriously and after making a tough decision on guilt and innocence probably made even a tougher decision on sentencing because they had to decide basically whether to lock her up for the rest of her life or give her a chance at life. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Because she's a young woman, in 10 years, she still has life to live. Don West: Shawn, it's interesting about this case now that we've talked about the charge. If I'm not mistaken, she was first charged with manslaughter and then the case was taken to the grand jury. By charge I think probably the prosecutor's office was able to make that charge taken to the grand jury and the grand jury upped it to murder. Shawn Vincent: Okay. Don West: So then the trial jury instead of reducing it to manslaughter, as many thought it would if there was a conviction actually maintained the main charge, the murder charge . . . Shawn Vincent: But gave her a more “manslaughter” sentence for it. Don West: Yeah. As I understand it, a 10 year sentence, the one that she got there's going to be parole eligibility in about five years. It may not result in parole but I think that would be the earliest possible date that she could be released. The next five years are going to be pretty tough for her, not to focus so much on her as opposed to the suffering of Botham Jean's family and the tragic loss of his life. That's what's interesting about murder cases though, is that every murder case starts with someone that's been killed in some way. The starting point, not the ending point so it's really moving past that to how the system works with the focus on the accused. So the victim doesn't get lost along the way but from a jurisprudence standpoint, it's not about the victim. Shawn Vincent: So that's definitely just one of the remarkable parts of this case. And that is when the family of Botham Jean had an opportunity to give an impact statement, Botham's brother basically said he forgave Amber and didn't wish her any ill will and in fact asked the judge for permission to give her a hug. And there was a very dramatic moment where she goes and embraces him and she's in tears. Don West: I think that was so extraordinary in the normal course of affairs that everybody did a double take when he made that request and the judge hesitated. The knee jerk-reaction would be to say, "No, that's not permitted." And say, "Well, for security reasons or what have you." But this judge was very contemplative and very humanistic at the end especially. And she said yes. And Mr. Jean's brother got off the stand and walked toward counsel table where Ms. Guyger was seated and she stood up and they met in the middle of the courtroom and hugged. It was incredibly powerful and caught me completely by surprise. I hadn't seen such a thing. Shawn Vincent: I can’t pretend to think that this is actually true or know it in any way, but I got the impression that after this was all done and she got her sentence that she was ready to serve it. I felt that she was genuinely devastated and truly remorseful for what happened and you could see the pain of it on her face. And I think having the opportunity to pay for it, but still have a life afterwards was a good result for her. Don West: There may very well have been some relief. You're not allowed to show that thing during the process. The process is very rigid and formal and obviously adversarial as we've talked about. Can you imagine the uncertainty of not knowing whether you would receive a sentence that would allow you to have some life left or whether you would effectively be serving the rest of your life in prison. And she certainly has a sense of fairness and justice. She was a cop for a long time and she certainly wouldn't welcome spending 10 years in prison but I have to think knowing how badly she knows that she screwed up that she has to understand there's a sense of fairness in all of that. Shawn Vincent: I think that's right. Don West: Some of the evidence in sentencing was presented in court to the jury and then the jury went back to deliberate on the sentence and then there was an additional opportunity for family members or others, I suppose to speak more directly to the defendant. So there was a separate proceeding where family members, while they were in court and they were on the stand, the judge was in the courtroom, they were really talking more to Ms. Guyger. And that was the moment that Botham Jean's brother Brandt talked about forgiveness and the hug and that was outside the presence of the jury. So notwithstanding that the jury still gave- Shawn Vincent: Still went easy on her essentially. Well, we talked about looking for the lessons for concealed carriers so that they don't repeat those lessons. And in this case, I think the real takeaway for me is what we talk a little bit about at the beginning -- is just that very often in a stressful situation your perceptions about what's going on can be wrong. In this case, it's extraordinary unusual that she mistook someone else's home for her home. But what's not as uncommon is for someone to mistake an intruder for the wrong person. If someone that they know or someone who belongs there as an intruder or even more commonly to mistake someone who's unarmed for someone who's armed, right? We saw Drejka mistake someone who's intoxicated for someone who's making rational decisions. To me this just as a case that really underscores that when you get into these difficult decisions that you might not be right about your understanding of all the details. And while that doesn't necessarily matter if you're facing that imminent threat of death or great bodily harm, it should inform all those choices before the choice that you make. And sometimes we always emphasize avoiding the situation if you can at all, even if that means sometimes the bad guy gets away. But that's all in the service of making sure that you don't make mistakes that could cost you your freedom and the rest of your life. Don West: That's exactly on point. And it makes my mind start to turn again about this case. What was she thinking? Could she possibly have been going in to protect her stuff? Texas is one of the few States in the country that allows deadly force in some scenarios to protect property. I hope that's not what she was thinking. I hope she knew better than that just because legally you might be allowed to do something does not in any way make it a smart choice and certainly not a reasonable choice depending on the other circumstances. Did she not know that there was nothing that person could do inside that place that mattered a lot? The only thing that mattered was her safe. And of course what you're saying, wasn't there enough that was going on that seemed out of order that would have caused someone to just take a second and reflect and regroup and reassess before... Even if you are a trained police officer, even if you have a sidearm and if you're used to going to the threat as opposed to away from it, isn't there enough there that would cause you to say, "Wait a second, I am not in immediate danger. I don't have to make an immediate decision. What's the smart thing to do so that nobody gets hurt?" Shawn Vincent: Yup. And what I'm encouraging people to do is even if those signs aren't there, if you're in an escalating situation where the tension is getting high but before you reach a point of no return is make it a best practice. Our friend Bob O'Connor calls it the warrior mindset. I think that includes checking your assumptions before you take the next step and assume that you could be wrong about one of them before you commit to deadly force or putting yourself in the position where you won't have the choice to back away. Don West: Make no mistake that juries take firearm offenses, especially those involving serious injury or death very seriously. And the first thing I believe the prosecutor will look to even those prosecutors that are proponents of the second amendment and proponents of concealed carry will immediately focus on whether the concealed carrier is responsible. Is there anything we can look to show that they were being reckless or irresponsible or not exercising the high level judgment that you expect someone to have when they're carrying around an instrument with them that can cause immediate death. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: We have seen that theme over and over and over again as we look back at the cases we've talked about. Shawn Vincent: Well, that's a good point Don and as the psychiatrist says, I think our time's up. Don West: But we haven't even talked about mom yet. Shawn Vincent: Well, you may save that for a different day. As always, really enjoy talking with you about these things. Don West: Thanks Shawn. Look forward to the next time. I hope it's soon. Take care. Shawn Vincent: Alright. Take care.

  Don West and Shawn Vincent explore several cases where a firearm was used to threaten force, but no shots were fired. Some resulted in prosecutions, and some did not. Each helps concealed carriers understand the legal risk that comes with unholstering your weapon, even if you don’t fire it.    TRANSCRIPT: The Legal Risk of Drawing Your Firearm Don West: Well, I am ready to talk. I am re-caffeinated. Shawn Vincent: Re-caffeinated. Don West: I've never heard that before. I don't think I could have possibly made it up, but caffeinated and then of course decaf and all of that. But I am now re-caffeinated. I was heavily caffeinated earlier today, but I was losing my energy, and now I am re-caffeinated so I'm raring to go. Shawn Vincent: I had to stop with the caffeine. My heart rate gets a little high sometimes, so my doctor encouraged me to cut out caffeine altogether. So I am decaffeinated. Don West: Caffeine doesn't affect me dramatically. I know it does some, and I can really overdo it. But mostly, I like the taste of coffee. So that's my first choice, and the caffeine doesn't bother me. And I have this sort of slow, methodical approach. Actually, my ex-wife used to say that I'm so slow I have to speed up to stop. A little caffeine doesn't hurt me a bit. Shawn Vincent: I was explaining you to somebody recently Don, about how that slowness that your ex-wife talks about, I call thoughtfulness. Be very contemplative, right? I have this picture in my head, I'll say something to you that maybe is an interesting idea, and you'll stop and you'll stare for a minute. You might rub your head for a second, and then you'll start nodding your head and you'll come around to it. The best is when it's a joke, because you'll take it and you'll hold it in for a second, and then you'll get a big smile and then you'll laugh. It was a good joke. But it's a good two or three second delay. Don West: Unfortunately that's not something that I do on purpose and it's something that can be a little off-putting. Shawn Vincent: I've seen judges be off-put by that before. Don West: As a matter of fact, a couple come to mind, one in particular but no offense was intended. I'm sorry. I just need a little time to process and I want to maybe savor the moment for a second. I'm not afraid of gaps, just dead air, I guess we should call it, in radio biz. And this is who I am and how I am, and I do have to compensate for that every once in a while. Shawn Vincent: I, for one, find it very endearing. Don West: It's kind, thanks. My ex-wife wasn't always so kind. Regardless, we've all moved on. Shawn Vincent: And here we are. Don West: So how are you today? What are we going to talk about? Shawn Vincent: We're going to talk about -- we're going to talk about self-defense. This might be a surprise to anyone who listens to the podcast. I pulled out ... We talked about a pretty interesting case out of Mississippi not long ago, where the lady who was the attendant at the laundromat. Don West: Yes. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. One of the patrons got a little crazy about refund policy on the machines and attacked her. They went down to the ground, there were some scratches and some light bruising. The attendant got away, went outside, called the cops, got her gun, had it in, like, a low ready position. Then this crazy angry patron came back out to re-engage her. The attendant lifts the gun up, points it at her, and that was enough. But angry patron backed off. She got a car she left before the police arrived. And I thought it was interesting. It was one of the ... I thought it was interesting. It was one of the few cases that we've talked about, where a gun was used but not fired in a self-defense situation. And we got into a discussion about the differences between a defensive display and brandishing. And I know we've talked to Mike and Stan, founders of CCW Safe before, and they talk about that and you take some of these phone calls, right Don? Where I think brandishing is one of the biggest issues that our members might find themselves wrapped up in. Does that that jive with your experience? Don West: That's right. Probably if you just look at gross numbers, we probably get more calls that flow out of a brandishing type scenario than any other type. It can take many, many forms. But to be clear, brandishing has a pretty specific legal definition in most jurisdictions. There's crimes that are actually called brandishing. It's often more loosely talked about as sort of recklessly displaying a gun, maybe waving it around in a threatening way. But when we talk about brandishing, we're talking about an act of an aggressive act that is ... Well, it's a crime in and of itself. If you're convicted of a crime like brandishing, it can have very serious consequences with it. Defensive is not really a legal term. That's a term that's coined. Don West: And I don't know where I heard it the first time. I think I do, actually. I think it was Massad Ayoob, who will be a name known to do many of the listeners, I think. A very well-respected experienced firearm instructor. Has literally written the book, several books on things. He has an instructor program. He teaches classes -- group 20, 40 and 80, I think. And they represent the number of hours that are involved in his programs. A combination of self-defense techniques and law-based instruction and live fire shooting. In any event, he's a fairly prolific writer and speaker, and I remember him being interviewed and was being talked to about this notion of brandishing. And he characterized the other side of that as defensive display. But I don't think it has a specific legal definition. It's not really something you would find in a statute somewhere, I wouldn't think. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. But for the sake of our conversation, if you are in a situation that could be a self-defense situation, and you pull out your weapon and the threat of the use of force allows you to get away without having to use the deadly use of force, we're going to call that a defensive display as opposed . . . Don West: Yes. Basically, you're really talking about an escalating self-defense type scenario and ongoing escalating threat, and that the display of the firearm, in other words, showing that you have a gun to the other person who's being aggressive, is enough for them to back off. Shawn Vincent: That's right. Don West: To discontinue their aggression. Yes. Shawn Vincent: That's right. Don West: I think that's a fair thing to discuss, and a good definition of that. Shawn Vincent: Well, we've also seen cases where maybe that was the intent, with the person who showed the gun, maybe they thought they were doing a defensive display. Under the circumstances, law enforcement took that to be a brandishing scenario. So let's get into ... I found this case from Sacramento, California, a guy named Brandon Jackson. This is your textbook brandishing situation. He gets in a road-rage argument with this woman who's driving another car. They pull up to a red light. Jackson is annoyed and upset and angry, and he pulls out a gun and then he points it at the other driver. The other driver freaks out. She speeds through the red light, drives away. Jackson ends up going into a different direction. The confrontation is over, but she obviously calls in what happened, describes the car. Moments later, Jackson's pulled over, they find the gun. He didn't have a permit for it. And then they charged him with a weapons violation and then producing criminal threats, were the charges I read in the paper. So this is a classic brandishing. Don West: Yeah. In some places they call that terroristic acts even. It's the idea of, by displaying the weapon in such a reckless threatening way, that you're terrorizing the person. I don't know if he was charged with that, but I've seen that charge in a couple of places actually. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And I've looked these up as a whole, simple assault is one of the charges that I've seen thrown in when there's these brandishing type cases. So it seems like there'd be a whole recipe book full of different things you can be charged with when you display a gun like that, depending on the circumstances. Don West: The names are a little different depending on the jurisdiction. Brandishing is probably the one that's best known, depending on how the gun is displayed, and how threatening it is being used. For example, in Florida, if you point a gun at somebody in a threatening way, without firing it, and even without any intent to harm or kill, but certainly demonstrating the present ability to do that, that kind of threat is characterized as an aggravated assault. The firearm makes it aggravated. The assault is the threat by word or act. You combine those two and you can go to prison for several years, and many people do. And in fact, there is a mandatory minimum in Florida for that very act of threatening somebody with a handgun. Shawn Vincent: Is that 10 years in Florida? Is that a 10, 20- Don West: Last time I looked, the mandatory minimum for the crime was three years. The maximum was five, and that's without it being fired. Or any injuries or anything like that. So aggravated assault is typically a five year maximum felony with a three year mandatory minimum. Shawn Vincent: But you'd agree that this road rage incident, that's sort of a classic, even though he didn't get charged maybe officially with brandishing, that's a classic brandishing incident? Don West: Yeah. Yeah. Brandishing, aggravated assault. Any number of ways doing something like that could be characterized as a criminal act, and a serious one. There does not appear to be, in this case, any legal justification whatsoever, other than he's mad at this woman for something real or perceived- Shawn Vincent: And why did he want to be threatening and scare her? Don West: Yeah, he clearly wasn't responding to a threat of hers. There's no suggestion that she tried to run him over. No suggestion that she had a weapon, that she was in some way displaying. I guess whatever happened on the street just made him so mad he thought somehow, his way of addressing the problem would be to point a gun. And what an idiot. Of course, we say that often in these cases because it sets the stage for tragedy. And we've had other cases where something that starts like this results in one or both people getting shot and sometimes killed. Shawn Vincent: Right. So we recently talked about a case where there's a guy in his work truck on the phone with a friend. He's a veteran Marine by the way. And he cut off this other guy in traffic, and he knew it, and he knew it was his fault. So they pull up to a red light and he rolls down his window if it wasn't already rolled down, and he leans out to try to say, "Hey, my bad." His friend on the phone heard him say, "My bad." But that wasn't appropriate or good enough for the guy who got cut off. He gets out of his car, he has a gun. So here's this guy getting out of his car, walking up to the vehicle of a guy who he doesn't realize as a Marine veteran who's also armed. He pulls his gun, they have a shootout right there in the middle of the street. Both of them ended up dying. Don West: Yeah. Tragic, tragic consequences. And, well let's talk about that for just a second to compare what that case was, and this one that we're talking about, just now, in terms of the reaction of the driver. Not the aggressor, the driver in the case. I guess that was down in Florida, Davie, Florida. Shawn Vincent: That's right. It sure was. Don West: He decided to try to mitigate whatever it was that he had done wrong by apologizing. But in order to do that, he stayed where he was. He rolled the window down and engaged. We don't know what else he may have said, but you talked about it. Then the act of rolling the window down may very well have been perceived by the other guy who was hot enough to get out of his car with a gun, to be an act of aggression, or an escalation of some sort. Shawn Vincent: That's right. We talked about how in road rage incidents, almost nothing you can do can de-escalate it other than just getting out of there. Don West: So even if you assume he was de-escalating by rolling the window down, it may very well have been perceived as a willingness to engage, and tragic consequences. So I'd like to compliment this unnamed woman in this incident, in this I-80 case, for having the presence of mind to do nothing more complicated than just driving off. Just getting the hell out of there. Shawn Vincent: And then ended the confrontation. Don West: Yeah. It put her in a safe position. Not everybody can because of cars and being in front or around. But she had the presence of mind to see this guy with the gun, knowing no good's going to come out of her trying to reason with him. So she just got out of dodge and then also called it in apparently. And this guy, I guess, what he did there was he got on the interstate, because that's why they call it the I-80 case. He was eventually pulled over on the interstate driving. Don West: Let's talk about what's going on with this guy, because as a criminal defense lawyer, I've seen it from this guy's side, meaning I've represented people who have done these kinds of things. I believe as part of my criminal defense practice, I was doing public service work by accepting court-appointed cases. Sometimes I really didn't have any choice. I needed the money early in the career, and it was a good source of income. I'd spent some time at the public defender's office later on when I was much more established and financially independent. I didn't need to take court appointed cases, because sometimes they were a huge pain in the neck with hostile clients that are ungrateful for everything that's done. It just kind of comes with the territory. But I do think that it keeps the system honest if capable, experienced lawyers participate in the public defender court-appointed system. So anyway, I did it for a long, long time. Don West: So I've represented these guys, and as we joked in a prior segment, I see bad people at their best. So I'm seeing the best side of these guys coming in. But I can just imagine from the reports and the interviews, how volatile, and how quick the emotional triggers are. Many of them have ... I'm no psychiatrist, certainly not a neurologist, but many of these guys in my experience have a frontal lobe impairment of some kind. So whether it's an impairment caused by alcohol or drugs or physical abuse or any number of different conditions, can result in impairments in the frontal lobe, which impairs executive functioning or reasoning. And most importantly, I think impulse controls. Shawn Vincent: Sure. In our family, we call that a screw loose. Don West: Yeah. They just go off. And I don't know if they can control it or not. Some can better than they do, but I suspect there are many that just can't. And once they get started, it's going to have a bad outcome, and there's very little that can happen, good, when it comes to this. So let's talk about this guy. He's driving down the road. Something makes him mad. Mad enough that he displays a gun to this woman, who apparently had not threatened him in any way. So we know that's a crime. We know it's a crime that's worthy of the local deputies enlisting the help of the California Highway Patrol, chasing this guy, catching him on Interstate 80 and arresting him, finding the gun in the car, and he doesn't have a permit. I don't know if he has a criminal record that would keep him from getting a permit. There are lots of places in California where you just can't get one. I don't think Sacramento necessarily is that area. Don West: So here's a guy who's carrying a gun illegally. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: And threatens a woman with it, and then drives down the road, what? Thinking he's not going to get caught? Or doesn't process that well enough. Doesn't even think about what happened in the sense of, "Geez, I had to at least get rid of this gun. Don't you think?" Shawn Vincent: Sure. Well he's not considering the severity of the crime that he just committed. Don West: Maybe that's it too. Maybe he doesn't think it's a big deal. Maybe he does it all the time. But the list of charges is pretty lengthy. So the illegal possession of the firearm is completely separate and apart from the threatening use of the firearm. Now they're all part of this continuous event. But what he did to threaten this woman, the brandishing assault type behavior, is distinctly legally separate from what happens, maybe 10 miles down the road when he gets caught with the gun. And he's not allowed to possess. So he's got those charges. He's got the assault-type brandishing charge. And if he has any kind of criminal history, he's looking at a lengthy prison sentence. Why? Well, he was committing a crime all along by having the gun, but to be so reckless and irresponsible and volatile to display it in that way, as a guy that I guess ... Don West: Maybe the end of this long rambling story is, that's a guy whose his own worst enemy. That's a guy who's completely unpredictable. If you pull out a gun in that situation, what is it going to take for him to pull the trigger? Maybe not so much. So how do you reason, how do you conduct yourself rationally and logically when you're faced with somebody like that? And I submit you can't. You just can't. You have to save yourself, protect yourself, and depending on the dynamics of the situation, respond to it in such a way that will keep you safe. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. And I think if we all ... You don't have to have a frontal lobe problem to have a bad temper. Right? Don West: Yeah. I'm not offering that as any sort of informed opinion. And I'm certainly not offering it as an excuse. Shawn Vincent: No, but- Don West: I know from- Shawn Vincent: Go ahead. Don West: Well, I was just going to say, I know from my work, representing people that later after the cases, well months or years after the event has occurred and you're sitting there doing scans and neurological testing, and you're able to, with these instruments, actually identify some brain stuff that will help explain the lack of impulse control. And sometimes that's very favorable in a mitigation context, in a sentencing context, in no way makes you not guilty of the crime. It may warrant some lesser sentence if there's a significant impairment, but anyway, Shawn, I guess my point is there may be all sorts of biological and neurological and substance abuse components to this. But the bottom line, the behavior is scary and threatening and very dangerous. Don West: To your point, you're absolutely right. I don't know why people fly off the handle. I would agree not all of them have some diagnosable identifiable brain injury. They could just be what? Assholes, maybe. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Or just ... I have had very strong reactions in the car when my kids are in the car, especially when they were little, and somebody did something dangerous in traffic. And I've felt a sort of anger at that threat to my children's safety come over me. And I guess I'm always looking for what are the lessons for concealed carriers. Anyone who's listening to this podcast comes to this with a responsible gun ownership mentality. You're not listening to this podcast if you're not interested in being the most responsible gun owner you can. But if I'm looking for lessons in these cases for us and for our listeners, it's knowing yourself, and knowing what circumstances might cause you, because I think everyone can get irrational at some point under the wrong circumstances. You tell a story all the time about a guy on a jury who decided he was a concealed carrier, but he didn't put a gun in the car cause he gets too hot tempered. It's about knowing yourself, right? It's about knowing yourself and when's it appropriate to carry it, and when's it maybe not a good idea for you? Anyways. Don West: No, that's well said. Shawn Vincent: So let's look at the complete other side of this. Another case where a gun is displayed, but there's no charges for the guy who pulled it, right? We're going to go to Allentown, Pennsylvania, right? And there's this road rage incident where one guy who probably has frontal lobe issues, Don, freaks out, chases this guy for a couple of miles, apparently. It ends in, I don't know if it's a an alley or some dead end there. They're out of the car. The guy who was losing his mind has a knife, attacks the guy he had been chasing. That guy punches him in the face. They wrestled each other to the ground. And then that's when this third party comes by and he's a legal concealed carrier. He pulls out his gun and tells the guys to stop and essentially holds the attacker at gunpoint until police arrived. Somebody else calls the police. Shawn Vincent: And so police show up and here's two guys lying on the ground. There's a knife some distance from them, and there's a guy standing, legs shoulder width apart, in a shooting stance, both hands on his gun pointing at these guys. And he was referred to in the reporting I saw as a Good Samaritan. So here's a case where- Don West: I saw that. There was interesting choice of terms, right. I guess Good Samaritan in that he was able to put to a stop whatever was happening at that point. So there was no more violence because he was the one who was then in control. Shawn Vincent: Sure. So he intervened into somebody else's self-defense scenario, I suppose. And he used the threat of deadly force to stop it. Whatever he did, however crazy and angry this attacker was, the sight of the gun caused him to reconsider his aggression, and he stopped. But I don't know. You tell me. We talk often about Andrew Branca's idea of legal risk when you use a gun for self defense, that if you're bring the gun out, you're opening some non 0% chance of legal consequences. Did this guy take a risk by pulling out his gun and holding these people at gunpoint until the police showed up? Don West: He clearly took a big risk because he needed to make some decisions, and he may have had to take sides as to his interpretation of what was happening. Now it's like so many of these cases, the deciding points are often buried in the details. So we don't know exactly when he became knowledgeable of this. He probably didn't know anything about the car chase and the circumstances that brought these two guys together in this parking lot. Shawn Vincent: So would he know even who is the first aggressor was? Don West: He wouldn't. I wouldn't think he would know who had a weapon first, or who threatened first, or what may have led up to this, or maybe one of the guys was trying to chase down a bad guy in some sense. That's the thing. And Andrew Branca points that out, that you put yourself in the shoes of the person defending, and that your rights typically don't extend beyond what that person could have done. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: So you need to be right. Now, in this case, he probably saw an unarmed person being attacked by an armed person- Shawn Vincent: Sure. The knife. Don West: The way the circumstances are described when these two cars came to a stop, and we should talk about how on earth that happened. But in any event, these two are- Shawn Vincent: Yeah. If someone's chasing you, why do you stop and get out to confront them? Don West: Yeah. Why don't you, if you're going to stop your car and some guys chasing you, why don't you stop it in front of a police department and call 911 and say, "There's some idiot behind me who's been chasing me through town for 20 minutes"? But in any event, he sees, I'm assuming, two guys out of their cars, one of them with a knife who's being very aggressive to the other. And that he decides to put a stop to it. So when I looked at the video, I got the sense that maybe he wasn't actually taking a side- Shawn Vincent: No. He seemed like holding the gun on both of them until the cops got there. Don West: Yeah, yeah. That he was just making them stop and trying to communicate that whoever ... If they both don't stop, one of them is going to have a problem if they continue the aggression. So my guess is if the guy with the knife hadn't dropped it, or if he'd tried to stab the other guy, the guy with the gun may have very well have intervened at that point. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And in the video you talk about, you can see a fourth party come over and pick up the knife, kind of with just his index finger and his thumb, and carries it away. Understanding that it's evidence, trying to keep his prints off at as best as he can. Don West: Well, maybe that's one interpretation. That's why these things are so tricky, Shawn, is because I saw that video and he did exactly what you described. Kind of pinched the end of the handle of it and carried it open. He may very well have had the presence of mind to show the guy with the gun that he wasn't a risk. So he was holding the knife in such a way that he couldn't use it as a weapon, and got it away from these guys to be sure the guy with the gun knew that he wasn't going to involve himself- Shawn Vincent: And then of course in this case, there's a fifth guy who's the one with the cell phone camera. So there's a lot of people. It's a well-documented moment, a well-witnessed moment. But you know, another consideration on this is, when the police show up on a scene, I don't ever want to be the guy standing there with a gun drawn. You know what I'm saying? Don West: Talk about a confusing situation. How are the police supposed to figure this out? And they're rolling up and they see a guy with a gun. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, that can be a very tense situation very quickly. Don West: Now, let's assume he had the presence of mind that once the police presence was known, that he did the right things too. But in any event, when you see a story like this, obviously your mind races because there's so many variables. Any one thing that happened differently could have resulted in one or more people being killed. I'm wondering if the guy that was so mad, who had the knife on the ground, made some sort of aggressive movement even after he was disarmed. Would he have been shot? He can't, at that point, if he's disarmed, he's laying on the ground, wrestling around with somebody, he's not in the act of threatening somebody with great bodily harm or death. To shoot him would be very disproportional, I think, under that scenario. And then all of a sudden the good Samaritan's looking at a serious crime. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And we had said before, that maybe not in every scenario, but in most scenarios, you'd be justified in the display, the defensive display of the weapon if you would have been legally justified to use the weapon. Right? Don West: Yes. Shawn Vincent: So if you were justified in shooting and killing, then you're certainly justified and defenseive display. And what we're looking at here is once this guy's disarmed, he doesn't have the knife anymore and you just have two guys in a fistfight, are you allowed to shoot somebody to break up a fist fight? Is the question. And the answer is no, in most cases, right? Don West: I agree. Yes. Shawn Vincent: And then if you're not justified in shooting them to break up the fight, then it becomes a lot murkier about whether you're justified in the offensive display. So there's that legal risk. Don West: MSo you've got a situation here where if you really wanted to drill into it and even break it down frame by frame, there are moments, I think, where the Good Samaritan has some legal risk, frankly. But we're also given, assuming it's exactly as it was described, that's where the law enforcement and prosecutorial discretion come in. That's something that Andrew Branca talks about is those kinds of cases, you probably will get the benefit of the doubt from the prosecution or from law enforcement. But you don't have to. If you have legal exposure, you can be prosecuted for it. And while many prosecutions that technically could go forward don't, because of the good judgment and the good sense of law enforcement and the State Attorney or the DA, seeing that this isn't the kind of crime that should be prosecuted, nonetheless, there are many gray area cases where someone gets charged. Or there's a couple of additional facts that cast some sort of shadow on it that tips the- Shawn Vincent: Well, here's another case where a gun comes out after a fight. We're going to go to ... This is a dance competition. It's at a high school gym. It's not hosted by the high school. It's another organization that's hosting it. But let's just say there's eight, nine, different troops of young women, girls who are in dance troupes and they're competing here. And the winners of the dance competition get announced. Some people obviously feel that they were jilted and the argument ensues. A fight breaks out. And then at one point you see cell phone picture, a woman pulls out a gun. And then we find out even later that that turns out another woman pulled out a gun in this situation. And the one they knew who it was, she got arrested and charged. This is the one where they had the simple assault charge amongst others, and then they're looking for who this other woman was who brought out a gun. So here you got a fight going on. Now the gun's introduced and there's no question that anyone here's a Good Samaritan. They're looking to criminally prosecute people. Don West: So this is in what? A gymnasium at a school. Even though it's a private event, it's a at a school facility. Shawn Vincent: That's right. Don West: I got the sense there were hundreds of people there of all ages, including a lot of the kids that were participating in this competition, and their parents. Shawn Vincent: That's right. I think about those wooden bleachers that you pullout in high school gyms, those seemed pretty filled with people. Don West: Yeah, and I guess I shake my head in disbelief, to think that someone would ... Well, I'm going to assume that it wasn't illegal to possess the gun there. I'm probably not right if more facts were known. I'm going to assume that even though it was a school where guns would likely be prohibited otherwise, that because it was a private event. . . Shawn Vincent: She was charged with brandishing, simple assault, and carrying a firearm on school grounds. So. . . Don West: Well, then they've already made that decision that there was no exemption for that because it was a privately held event, rather than the school being used as a school. So the audacity to take a gun there, and then the circumstances under which it was displayed are shocking to me because, as I read the report, all of this was happening because they disagreed with the outcome of the competition. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: And if that wasn't enough, another woman has a gun and it comes out, and there's video of her holding it. That's the one the individual that hasn't been identified yet. Shawn Vincent: That's right. Don West: Oh, I'm just shaking my head. I can't. It's scary isn't it? If you think that people exercise that kind of judgment, that they ... We talk about being a responsible gun owner. First and foremost, if you're going to assume the incredible, awesome responsibility of carrying a firearm, that that carries with it so much more than what life demands of you otherwise. You can be a hothead, you can be a jerk, you can get in people's faces and wag your finger, and you can tell them how whatever the low-life they are, and how stupid they are, and you can pick fights if you want, as long as you don't break the law. But to introduce firearm into a children's event like that shows such irresponsibility and such bad judgment that, well, frankly, I hope all of the individuals responsible and do get prosecuted. What an inherently reckless and dangerous thing to do in a public event like that full of kids? That's shocking. Shawn Vincent: And since that's so clear, I wanted to show that as a contrast to the 'good Samaritan' who pulled out a gun to stop a fight. And I guess the question is, are you trying to stop the fight or are you escalating the fight? And I think that's a sense here, that these women who pulled out the gun seemed to be escalating as opposed to getting a fight to breakup. And I guess a gun is probably a bad way to break up a fight anyway. Here's a. . . Don West: It's a terrible way to win an argument, I can tell you that. And that's probably how it started. That there was an argument over who the winner should have been, and that got more and more heated. And then pretty soon somebody threatened to kick somebody else's butt, and then pretty soon it got to the point where, "Oh yeah, really?" And then a gun comes out. And then of course that's as far as you can take it without shooting somebody, right? Shawn Vincent: That's it. It's there  . . Don West: And now they believe that they were at risk of being shot. So the response, the way I take it is that ... Then another gun comes out. And I can imagine. Shawn Vincent: And here's where that goes, right? So we'll talk about another case that you and I have touched on before. But when we talk about brandishing, you can be arrested for it and have real jail time, right? It's a serious offense, but there's a worse consequence to it. So we're going to go to Indiana, right? You'll remember this case because we talked about it years ago. And there's a guy. He's a Indiana firefighter. He owns his home, he's working. He's got a big yard. He's got a fence between his yard and his neighbor's yard. He and his neighbor who sort of was this wacko, crazy guy ... He reminds me of ... What's Laura Dern's father, that actor? Don West: Bruce? Shawn Vincent: Bruce Dern, if he's one of his roles where his hair's all crazy and he's wild-eyed and crazy, this is what this guy reminds me of, right? So he's got a Bruce Dern character as his neighbor. And they'd gotten in this fight before, that involved bite marks on each other. This is the kind of animosity these guys have towards each other. So they're at it again. They're yelling at each other over the fence. There's a security camera that picks up this. So the, the Bruce Dern character, then, you can see him on his riding mower tractor go by the frame of the camera, and he pulls out a revolver that turns out to be his live-in girlfriend’s revolver. And he kind of jangles it in the air. Like, "Hey, I got a gun. How about that?" Shawn Vincent: Well, apparently, the firefighter, he kept his gun on him while he was doing yard work. He's got a, I think, a Glock with 16 rounds in the magazine. So he pulls out and he just unloads the whole thing out of it. He shoots his neighbor four times, he falls behind the tractor and then the tractor absorbs the other 12 bullets. Miraculously, the guy didn't die, actually stood up, flipped him off and walked back into his living room where he collapsed. And I think he ended up surviving that episode. And the prosecutor looked at this case and he said that it was justifiable self-defense, although he didn't want to be seen as validating either the men's behavior. Shawn Vincent: But I guess I say this in all to say that some brandishing best case scenario, you get arrested for it. Worst case scenario, you get shot and killed for it. And we've seen cases where you introduce a gun, you've just given somebody else a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily harm. Would you agree with that? Don West: You put a little history behind it as these guys did, even if the history becomes an exchange of angry words and gestures and those sorts of things during the onslaught of a road rage incident of some sort, and pretty soon the reason you're not dead is because you were lucky that the wounds weren't fatal, and that could go either way. As soon as people start shooting at each other with a gun, the fact that no one actually dies is just luck, as opposed to any plan. We know, we've seen how many cases where one shot results in death, and four or five doesn't. But that's not to say that anything good came out of the one where he didn't die other than the fact that he literally didn't die. Shawn Vincent: You just don't know. Don West: And, yeah, in many instances, everyone's surprised. That's a case where it's what? One upmanship. We see that in varying degrees too, especially with these ongoing disputes. The violence starts with arguments over the fence and then escalates, sometimes, as in this case, with some prior physical contact. Wasn't there even a knife introduced at one point? Shawn Vincent: Yeah, I think that's right. Don West: And like you said, all that stuff. So I suppose when the prosecutor looks at this, if they looked at it fairly objectively, they would say, "Well, the guy on the lawnmower is the one who introduced the firearm into it. It had been an escalating ongoing sequence. And as soon as he showed he had the gun, it's fair to believe that he intended to use it. Why wouldn't he under those circumstances?" So the fear was reasonable. If the fear of great bodily harm or death was viewed as reasonable under the circumstances, then the use of deadly force in response becomes reasonable. And so long as more shots aren't fired than necessary, and in this instance maybe there were, but they weren't necessarily ones that hit their mark. . . Shawn Vincent: That's just it. I think the first four shots may have been justified. The last 12 shots, if he had actually killed his neighbor with those shots, lying on the ground, we would have a whole different story here, wouldn't we? Don West: Oh, sure. Yes. Without question. Crazy stuff, huh? Shawn Vincent: It's crazy stuff. And we look at this too ... Yeah. I'm trying to find, what's our lesson, because I feel we've said it before in this segment that our listeners are responsible gun owners. They've come to CCW Safe because they have ... You don't buy insurance, right? If you're irresponsible. The thing you need to do to protect yourself is a responsible thing to do. And we're looking at some really irresponsible uses of firearms in this case. And I don't think that our members are going to be in these situations, but there's something to be learned from them, which is, I think, how quickly ... Maybe the lesson is just how quickly things can escalate, and the temptation of when you're armed. I think the lesson, especially when it comes to the brandishing, is that if you're not justified in using deadly force, you're not justified in showing the gun. Don West: And that follows immediately by, once you show a gun, there is a very predictable response. Either it ends it, and the other person goes away, or they escalate it because . . . Shawn Vincent: And now you're in a gunfight. Don West: And now it's on. Shawn Vincent: And here's the other lesson that I think I'd like to draw from this, and we'll go to the good Samaritan case on this, and the legal risks you take when you draw your weapon. And that's this idea of all these variables you don't know about, right? We talked time and time again about whether a self-defense use of force incident is considered justified or not really rests on a lot of these nuances. Right? And when we were talking, we talked about a case where a guy shot some intruders who were trying to get into his house through his front door, which we generally not recommend shooting people you can't see who don't pose an imminent threat. But in that case, he knew who they were. He knew that they weren't there for good. There were two of them that are going to try to break into his house, and he was justified. Shawn Vincent: But you said something interesting then, which is if you're going to use force to prevent a forcible felony, right? Use your firearm prevent a forcible felony, then you have to be right. Right. And you have to be certain because if you're wrong about any of the details, then you could be in real legal jeopardy there. And if this good Samaritan were wrong about the circumstances, he could have found himself in legal jeopardy there. Don West: I think that's especially true when you are employing the defense of others, when you sort of step into the shoes of the other person. And there are certain scenarios that are clear. I remember a case in Florida where a good Samaritan came upon a deputy sheriff being brutally beaten by someone, another motorist, I guess. And he had a gun. He got out of his car, had the gun, and the officer said to him, "Shoot him. Shoot him." And of course there was no mistake at that point who the victim was, who the attacker was, and that in many regards, all of that ambiguity of what was going on was resolved. And I think he shot the guy. I believe that he did and certainly was not being prosecuted. Don West: So that kind of scenario made it especially clear, unless you have something that you've watched unfold from the beginning, there's certainly going to be subject to a misinterpreting what's going on. And that just makes you at greater risk. At the same time, this guy was brave enough to stop what he believed to be a very dangerous situation for somebody, because the other guy had a knife and was swinging at him. So to the extent that he was able to stop somebody from getting hurt, he was gutsy enough to do it. Fortunately, it turned out well for everybody. Shawn Vincent: And he had the judgment to not fire. And it would've been a different scenario if he had actually fired the weapon and hurt or killed somebody with it. Don West: Yeah. And thankfully he didn't. And thankfully he didn't need to. That that display was enough to make them stop. Had he displayed the gun, and the attack continued, then he would have had another set of considerations, and ultimately another decision to make, and thankfully that didn't happen. Shawn Vincent: Well, here's something that I can count on, is that in the next couple of weeks, there's going to be at least five more self-defense stories that pop up in the news. And we're always going to have something to talk about. But I think I've been really deeply influenced by my conversations with Bob O'Connor, the retired veteran career homicide detective that we both know. And he talks about judgment and mindset. And when we go through even some of these ridiculous cases like these women pulling out the gun at the school dance competition, I think just going through them and thinking about them in a critical way is a way to build that mindset, right? Because we don't know as concealed carriers, what circumstance we're going to find ourselves in when we have to make a life and death situation, if that ever happens. We're not going to know all these nuances, but I think the only way to be prepared for it is to have thought critically about the types of situations that can and do occur, and have that mindset going into it. Don West: I think that's very, very well said. A terrific observation, and I encourage our listeners to check out some of the work that Bob ... Some of the written work that Bob has done, submitted to CCW Safe. It's been posted, and the podcast that you did with him. I don't think it's been . . . Shawn Vincent: Yeah, by the time this one's released, that one will be up, so people can go back and hear that. We had a great conversation, not just about mindset, but also about you and his involvement in the George Zimmerman case. Don West: Yeah. Bob was the captain at the Sanford Police Department when the incident took place. Shawn, you said something about the mindset, but more importantly to me what caught my attention is, I think you were saying we really don't know how we might react in those situations, because we've either never been in them or never been in them with a gun. And we've never really been tried and tested, in terms of the triggers that we all have. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Not that trigger on the gun, but the triggers for our temper, or that spark our emotions. Don West: Yeah. That set us off, that make us crazy in any given situation. So thinking about that stuff, visualizing that stuff, hearing the bad things and good things that have come out of some of these stories, and I think helps us better understand how we might react and force us to think about it. Let me just add that depending on where you are, and where you get your concealed carry permit, there may be as little as only a couple of hours of training, maybe no live firing. And that, I think CCW Safe has in mind that no matter how much training you had to get the concealed carry permit, it's not enough. It's not enough to prepare yourself for these kinds of things. Don West: So the training is an ongoing process. The act of training with the operation of the firearm and the act of training with the strategies and tactics involved, and then of course, as we've talked about before, understanding the legal parameters of these. And frankly, we do some of this stuff because we want people to learn from other people's mistakes. And I think that's possible. I know I have already, just by talking to you about these things, I've looked at scenarios differently than I might have otherwise. And really focused on some of the legal boundaries, as Andrew Branca talks about it, rather than the emotional aspect of it. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Well, I've ... I think we do this right, then people go into scary situations with a better mindset, more prepared, and we might just save a life from being needlessly taken, and save a solid citizen, and a responsible gun owner from facing maybe an unjust and life changing prosecution. That's the mission. Don West: Agreed. Shawn Vincent: Well Don, I really enjoyed it and we'll talk again real soon. Don West: That's great. Thanks Shawn. I enjoyed it as well, and looking forward to our next get together. Take care.

On today's podcast I speak with photographer Bob O'Connor who has worked with clients such as Bloomberg Businessweek, ESPN, Popular Science, and The New York Times to name a few. www.boboconnor.net Instagram - @_boboconnor

    Don West and Shawn Vincent explore two home invasion cases, with a focus on the choices the defenders made that justified their use of force, and the decisions that could have increased their legal jeopardy.   TRANSCRIPT: Shawn Vincent: Hey, Don. Good to see you again. Don West: Shawn, as always, nice to see you. Shawn Vincent: So, I’ve got to ask some questions. You're, as most people know by now, a career criminal defense attorney. Don West: Right, that's actually all I've ever done. I started my legal career at the public defender's office and have never prosecuted, so I understand and respect that job and there are lots of criminal defense lawyers that used to be prosecutors, but not me. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And so I'm a litigation consultant, which is less straightforward, so I don't get to represent people. I don't try cases, I don't pick juries, I don't take depositions. But I have had a great opportunity to work with a lot of interesting lawyers on theme and theory aspects of the case. I've gotten into the legal mind even though I'm not a lawyer. Shawn Vincent: I bring this all up because I want to see if you share the same problem that I have. Today, I took my kids to see Spider-Man, in the movie theaters, and this movie, like so many other action-type movies, I can't help but to count up all the felonies and misdemeanors that are committed throughout the course of the film, or tally up the civil liability that's being assessed while all this violence is going on. I'm just curious if this has ever crossed your mind watching a film, where you're like, "That's a felony, you can't do that." Don West: You have to suspend disbelief and I suppose suspend any notion of accountability either. Otherwise, every scene has something that would land somebody in hot water of some sort. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: Either go to jail or get sued. Well, the stuff that you go see with your kids the superhero stuff. Shawn Vincent: Sure. But even a classic car chase, how there are at least 20 lawsuits, civil lawsuits that would come out of that, plus multiple criminal violations. Don West: Good point, I had a client one time charged with DUI. Left the roadway and hit a utility pole, bent the light pole. Got the criminal charges resolved favorably but she still got sued by the city to fix the light pole. Shawn Vincent: So not a criminal, but out of pocket. Don West: Had to pay for it, yes. Had to pay for it. Shawn Vincent: That's not unlike what self-defense shooters sometimes face. Don West: Sure. Shawn Vincent: Right. That's what our podcast is about. We look at real life self-defense shootings, things that we've seen in the news. Sometimes, things that we've had an opportunity to be involved with from a legal perspective. We dissect those to look at how did these facts, as they played out, as we know them, as they are reported sometimes, contribute to what Mike Darter likes to call the fight after the fight. You've had this first fight, this self-defense scenario. Now there's potentially a legal fight afterwards and that legal fight could be first criminal liability and potentially civil liability. Don West: No matter what, there's going to be a lot of cleanup of some sort. There's going to be the literal cleanup of the scene. We've had cases where the shooting took place inside a home, and several thousand dollars spent just to clean the place up from the event that took place. And there's the criminal process cleanup, the cost of hiring counsel and investigators and experts to sort all of that out. And then the cleanup, if there's a civil claim filed. Don West: The so-called aftermath can be measured not just in a legal liability. It can be measured in dollars and cents. It can be measured in emotional cost. I think if there's any one theme that runs throughout our discussions of this, is that the first fight is only the first one and there may be at least one big one and several others to address after a self-defense incident. Shawn Vincent: I remember one of the cases that we looked at deeply was the Markus Kaarma case, from Missoula Montana. And I follow up on these cases and the last bit of research I did on it, we know that what happened in that case is that Markus had been robbed previously. Someone had broken into his garage, not really broken in, he had his garage door open so they came into the garage and took some things of value. He had been monitoring it with a baby monitor thinking that some burglar might come back and try it again. Shawn Vincent: One night, after midnight, or right around midnight, he sees a shadow in his garage. He gets a shotgun and goes around up front of the garage, which was opened. Then he fires in and he kills a 16-year-old foreign exchange student who is most likely trying to steal beer from his refrigerator. Garage hopping. Shawn Vincent: We know that he was convicted after a trial and he's in jail for I believe the rest of his life. But also, that family, from all the way in Germany, came to the States and sued his wife, his common law wife, and the property and the estate. What hey got is undisclosed, but I assume a pretty big civil settlement that ended up resolving that side of things. So we hear about the criminal stuff a lot. We don't always hear about the civil stuff. Don West: From our member's standpoint, we are so aggressive so early in the case defending the members, with the risk of criminal prosecution, that we get investigators and experts involved early, get lawyers involved. We have a critical response team that is dispatched to the scene immediately, for a couple of reasons. Don West: One, to do the very best we can at that moment to make our members' chances the best they can be at successfully navigating the criminal investigation. But I think in hindsight, having gone through a few of these cases, we also realize that the more effort you put up front, the better the chances are of not only perhaps discouraging what might have been a close call on the criminal case, but also setting the stage not to be sued down the road. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Understanding and identifying the mitigating factors and bringing down the risk and the liability. Don West: Sure. Shawn Vincent: That's interesting. One of the reasons I brought up the Markus Kaarma case is that was one of three burglary/home invasion cases that we looked at. One reason I thought it was originally interesting was because we feel that we know about the castle doctrine, right. Our home and our sanctuary, and you've said it's a special place. There's nowhere in the world where we're more justified in defending ourselves than when we are in our home. Shawn Vincent: And then here you have a guy, Markus Kaarma, someone was in fact trespassing at least, in his garage, and because of some extraordinary circumstances, because of the fact that it was pretty well established that he was trying to lure someone back in to catch these burglars. Don West: Yeah, I think that we really talk about that case, not because we think Markus Kaarma got a raw deal or was in some way unjustly prosecuted, but to point out so many mistakes that he made, so many avoidable mistakes that he made that ... That changed what might have been on its face protecting one's castle from an intruder, to what the jury and everyone else ultimately concluded was simply murder. Shawn Vincent: Right. And that's what I want to explore today, is that fine line between self-defense and murder when it comes to home invasions or burglaries that you catch in the act. Because we'll talk about a case from Cincinnati, Ohio, where we know we have this mother of five, she lives in a home that she owns with the five children, her estranged ex, she has a restraining order against him. She herself has a concealed carry permit, even though she wouldn't necessarily need that in her home. Shawn Vincent: He comes over, is causing a ruckus. He wants to get in the house. He eventually rips the air conditioning unit out of a window. Don West: It's a window unit- Shawn Vincent: A window unit. Don West: That's mounted and the window is closed on top of it. So if you pull the air conditioner out, you have a big hole you can crawl through? Shawn Vincent: Once he pulled that air conditioning out, he had essentially gained entry to the home, and that's when it looks like she shot him multiple times. He ended up getting taken to the hospital, survived those injuries and her children are safe. The police looked at it for not very long at all. And even the district attorney for Cincinnati, a guy named Joe Deters, he said afterwards that, "Thank goodness she had a concealed carry permit and was able to defend herself and her five children. It's hard to imagine what might have happened to her or her children if she had not been able to protect herself and her family." Shawn Vincent: This is one of those scenarios where just like Joe Dieter says, the prosecutor, thank God she was able to protect herself and her children. And it seems like here she pretty much did everything right. She certainly, she didn't need to have a concealed carry to have a gun at her home. Don West: Let's break that down, let's take a look at that. Don West: That's the prosecutor not endorsing what happened because a life was nearly lost, but at the same time acknowledging that she acted lawfully and that as a result she was not going to be prosecuted. So, if we break that down, we know a few things just by those limited facts that are available on this. One, that she had attempted to use the legal process, the legal system to get some safety from this guy. A protective order is going to be issued upon application, claiming fear, threats, indicating prior incidents of violence likely. Shawn Vincent: You have to go before a judge and make a case for it. Don West: Yeah, there's typically a temporary order issued upon the application of one of the parties, and then that's served on the other party. and there's an opportunity for the parties to go to court, explain their situation to the judge, and then the judge makes a decision whether the protective order should be issued. And apparently based upon the information available, the judge said "Yes," and that order is going to require the person to stay away. Shawn Vincent: He's legally required to stay away. And she's established, she's afraid of this guy. Whatever it was that convinced the judge to give the order. Don West: Sure. Yeah. I think that that is the threshold that she did before she resorted to self-help the first time there was a problem, she took the steps necessary to use the judicial system and it didn't work. That's unfortunate. Sometimes it doesn't work and there's more violence and somebody dies. In this case, fortunately, as the prosecutor suggested, she was prepared and capable to defend herself as it turned out to be necessary. Shawn Vincent: And her children. Don West: So what we also know is that she herself is a law abiding citizen, because she wouldn't have a carry permit if she had a significant criminal history. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: For whatever that's worth, that she lawfully possessed the weapon, that she took the steps to be able to lawfully carry it outside the home. I think all suggests that this is a responsible person who's trying to follow the law, dealing with someone who clearly isn't. We don't know what the relationship was like, but we know it had to have been volatile and we knew that he was ordered to stay away because of the protective order in place and that didn't work, and he went to the house. Obviously would not be deterred to gain entry if he went so as to pull the AC unit out of the window and then go through. Don West: We also know it was her house, we also know that protective order made him a trespasser, if not worse, just by being on the property. So when the prosecutor looks at the equities in this case, he doesn't have to take her word for much of anything frankly. She's got the protective order in place. Shawn Vincent: It's her home. Don West: The air conditioner is on the ground, and he's incapacitated, having been shot. Now, no question that she had good reason to believe that he intended her harm. And I suspect with all of those circumstances and the factors at play, the law favored that and may very well under Ohio law, presumed that her fear of serious bodily harm or death was justified. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. One thing I want to point out here too is, unlike Markus Kaarma, she doesn't run outside the house to shoot this guy. She doesn't try to engage him until he's gained access to the house. Don West: She doesn't leave the door open and dare him to come in. Shawn Vincent: Right. She doesn't go outside to meet the threat. She waits there. It seems to me, and this isn't explicit in the article that we've found about this, the reporting about this, but it seems to me that he was out there for a while, probably yelling before he got to the point where he was trying to rip the air conditioner out. I'm sure he was banging on the door or pounding on some windows at some point. Don West: Sure, she didn't shoot him through the wall as he was trying to remove the air conditioner or through the window. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. It doesn't say here, but I suspect she's the type of person who would have called the police while he's out there raging in her yard. And it was only when he had gone through the extraordinary circumstance of actually breaking into the house, and now had entry that she fired, and eliminated the threat. Don West: And of course she would have known who it was. This wasn't a stranger to her. She couldn't write it off as a mistake, or that it was someone lost. She knew by virtue of what he did and how he was doing it in the face of the protective order and their history, judicial and otherwise, that- Shawn Vincent: Sure, so you bring up whether she knew who it was, she did obviously. That has echoes of the Ted Wafer case. We reference that a lot when we have these discussions. Because that one was a real heartbreaking case. That's Ted Wafer up in Dearborn, Michigan outside of Detroit. It's very early in the morning, around four o'clock in the morning. He lives alone. He's in a rough neighborhood now and there's violent banging on the door, on the front door, moves to the side door, comes back around the, the floorboards are shaking, the pounding's so loud he gets his shotgun, goes to the front door during a lull and the knocking opens it up and he's surprised by a figure there. Shawn Vincent: He doesn't know that it's a 19 year old girl named Renisha McBride. She tries to push through the screen. It seems like from the facts a shot is fired from a shotgun, it blows her head off. He claimed later that it was an accidental shot. I think you and I both agree that it was probably a twitch. He was scared, he was frightened, he was startled and he pulled the trigger and he didn't mean to shoot her, but it seemed like she was trying to break in. That was the case they made at trial. Don West: And that may have been exactly what actually happened. That makes life really complicated though when you then claim self-defense, which by definition is an intentional act. Shawn Vincent: Right, it's an affirmative defense, you meant to do it. Don West: A justified intentional act. Shawn Vincent: You can't accidentally shoot somebody in self-defense was what we've said before. And so the difference there, when you've got someone attempting to intrude your home, what you know about them becomes very important. If it's somebody that you've got a negative history with, that you suspect will do you harm, like this woman's ex-husband, who she had a restraining order against, you're in a more justified position. Shawn Vincent: If it's somebody, if it happens to be the pest control guy or someone who -- the mailman, someone who has a reason that you found suspicious for some extraordinary circumstance, you're in a much worse position. And then if you don't know who it is, that you don't know, there is no ... That has an effect on the reasonableness of your fear. Don West: Of course. Shawn Vincent: Is that true? Don West: Sure. One comment I wanted to make it in these facts, like we've always talked about if you just tweak one little aspect of it, you can take a legitimate self-defense shooting and turn it very quickly into a criminal act, perhaps murder. Can you imagine how emotional this whole thing must have been between these two people? Shawn Vincent: We're talking the woman and her estranged husband? Don West: Yeah. That he is willing to do all of that in the face of the court order, so he's not to be deterred. Apparently nothing is going to stop him until eventually some bullets did. And her, they've got this relationship. It's in the worst possible shape it could be in because she had to get a protective order. My guess is that their lives together and particularly hers have been a living hell for a long time. Don West: She finally feels she's got the judicial process in place and she's safe and he winds up coming over, yanking the air conditioner out and going inside to face her with a gun. Can you imagine how much self-restraint and emotional control she must have had? Because we know he didn't die on the scene. Shawn Vincent: To actually stop shooting once she had taken him down? Don West: To actually stop shooting and not say to herself, if not out loud, you will never do this to me again and fire that last, that one final round. Shawn Vincent: She didn't come around and shoot him in the head while he was on the ground and finish him off. Don West: And we've seen those cases. We've seen those cases where all of a sudden self-defense becomes a murder. No prosecutor is going to defend that. The prosecutor would not let her off the hook for that if that's in fact what the facts turned out to be. You need to keep shooting until the threat is neutralized. But once the threat is neutralized and you are no longer facing that threat, you can't put one more round in for good measure. Shawn Vincent: Well, and we call that every shot counts. Every shot fired will be judged on its own. And that first shot can be self-defense, the second shot could be self-defense. That last shot could be and sometimes is murder. Don West: Other people have said every bullet comes with a lawyer. Shawn Vincent: I also remember the Gyrell Lee case we talked about, and that's a guy who watched his cousin get shot in the stomach right in front of him, and then he had a gun- Don West: And the gun turned on him. Shawn Vincent: Then turned on him, and then he fired on the shooter, killed the shooter. He made a mistake of running away. But one of the things that we know really affected his trial, because the jury asked for the evidence of this was a suggestion that that last bullet was fired through his body that was laying on the ground and struck the pavement underneath him. Don West: Yeah, they made a big deal about the forensic evidence. There was a divot in the pavement that the prosecutor wanted the jury to interpret that evidence as if it was the, what's the French term coup de grace. Shawn Vincent: Is that it? Don West: I think that's it, the one final shot for good measure and that ... Now in the Lee case, if I'm not mistaken, he was convicted. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: And then wound up with a successful appeal but had to face the whole thing over again. Shawn Vincent: Right. Yeah, but I don't think he's faced it over again yet. I'm not sure the status of that case, but just proof of how those things can drag on for years and years. Don West: Regardless of what the final outcome is, he spent the past several years in prison trying to get it sorted out. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Let's talk about another home invasion case. I think it's fair to call this a home invasion case. The difference between burglary and home invasion, Mr. Lawyer, counselor is what? Don West: A lot of people confuse burglary with robbery. It's pretty hard to rob a house because a robbery contemplates a face to face encounter, accompanied by violence or threat of violence. So you can't legally rob an occupied house. Shawn Vincent: Okay. Don West: You burglarize a house. A burglary could turn into a robbery- Shawn Vincent: If someone happens to be home. Don West: Yes. And those are more often characterized as burglary, then with an assault. And that's a much more serious offense than just illegal breaking and entering. A home invasion is typically considered as forcible breaking knowing there are people inside with the intent of confronting them and robbing them, or terrorizing them, doing something, knowing that you're going to be face to face with another human being. Shawn Vincent: Sure. So we talked about the Zack Peters case out of Oklahoma, and there we have three people dressed all in black, break in through the back door. They'd actually burglarized the guest house of this property in the recent past, and here they are at noon on a weekday, they break in through some glass, gain access to the house and then are surprised to find Zach Peters is there, armed with an AR 15. That was a burglary turned into something else. Don West: Right. That would not be viewed as a home invasion robbery to start with. I tell you what, what commonly happens out there, and that's often common as home invasion robberies is when there is design to go inside and rob the people valuables or jewelery. But you see that kind of stuff all the time when people go into drug houses. Often other gangs will go into drug houses and rob the individuals there of their drugs. The goal is to go in and control and confront and take whatever they have of value, may very well be targeting their stash of drugs. Shawn Vincent: Okay. That's interesting. So we're looking at this case out of Wichita where the homeowner there, he's a young guy, 18 years old, and two people that he knows, they're both 20 years old, come over in the middle of the afternoon, 2:45 PM on a Saturday. And according to police, they're trying to recover some property that's in dispute, that the 18 year old, the homeowner has. They've got a bad history, these three. These two guys are out there trying to get in the house. Don West: The 18 year old is the homeowner or occupant. The other guys that he knows want something that they believe he has in his house, they claim is theirs. As I understand what you're saying and what I saw in the article is, they went there to recover some property of some sort. Shawn Vincent: That's right. Don West: It's never really been identified or described other than that particular property wasn't stolen unless they thought it was stolen from them perhaps. Shawn Vincent: Sure. I think of this as the OJ Simpson scenario where he's going, he wants his trophy back. I don't know what it was that they were after. Don West: That's a robbery. It wasn't like he broke into the place or the hotel room to steal the Heisman trophy back, confronted people, by force and threat, and that's what made him into a robber. That was, what'd he get? 15 years? Something for that? Shawn Vincent: Yeah. I can't remember exactly, but ... Well, he's on Twitter now, so he's out, OJ. Don West: Another day, another conversation. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Here, you got two guys that you know that you have something they want and now they're outside your door at 2:45 PM on a Saturday, trying to force their way in. Here's what the homeowner does. He fires through the door and kills them both, one of them shot in the back. Now from everything we've read in this report, it looks like he was not charged for these homicides. He was later charged because he had stolen property in his house. It wasn't the property that these guys were there after, so he's got his own legal problems. Well, one of them isn't apparently murder. Shawn Vincent: And I bring this one up because I think we take a pretty conservative look at a lot of these cases and our mantra is, you never shoot until you absolutely have to. And usually that's when there is imminent threat of great bodily injury or death. And I think we would almost never recommend shooting people through a closed locked door. I feel like that's a recipe for some real trouble afterwards. Don West: Yeah, I agree. That can be extremely hard to justify, although under certain circumstances, either legal or close enough, since you're protecting your home that you wind up not being prosecuted. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: And that's typically a call that you don't want to make unless you're absolutely forced to and you can't make that decision whether you in fact are justified and feel the absolute need to do that until you're right there in the middle of it and can assess your own situation. What you think the odds are against you, and in this case he knew who these guys were. I assume he knew what they are capable of. He probably felt he knew what they intended, if they were able to get inside, and may very reasonably have felt that he couldn't have protected himself adequately if they got in -- that he would have been overwhelmed. Shawn Vincent: So it's two against one. Maybe he believes that they're armed, maybe they got shotguns, I don't know. But once that door's down, he's at the disadvantage is the idea. Don West: And we have some other things going and that is not only did he know them, but that it seemed pretty clear that law enforcement accepted the explanation that they intended to break their way in. They were trying to force their way in as opposed to other cases we've talked about where some crazed person or drunk person or lost person isn't necessarily trying to commit a home invasion robbery, but rather get some attention, maybe even in their mind get some help, but they raise a hell of a ruckus outside banging on the door, the Renisha McBride case. Shawn Vincent: She was probably looking for help and her actions were interpreted as an attempt to break in, but they were actually an attempt to get help. She was confused and disoriented Don West: Whereas these guys apparently we're not going to stop until they got in and there were two of them. And yeah whether there could have been some ... Could have exercised better judgment or different judgment hindsight may tell, but at this point any way from the initial investigation, apparently law enforcement decided it was justified and it was his house, let's not forget that. Like you said before, that is your sanctuary. It's a sacred place. It's highly protected. And if the law is ever going to favor your use of force. . . Shawn Vincent: Give you the benefit of any doubt, right? Don West: Yeah. You remember our other conversations that we've had where I use this phrase that struck me, it's subjective forgiveability. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, right. Don West: The idea that even if you don't do it 100% right, unless it's clear you're doing it wrong, or you aren't justified, then as the homeowner who is being subjected to criminals breaking in or some other kind of threat, then you're going to be given the benefit of the doubt in your house. Shawn Vincent: Right. So our mother of five, with all of these things that we know about her, the protective order that she's a law abiding citizen, she owns a house. She's got the children, she has a concealed carry permit. She waited for the air conditioner to be ripped out before she fired. All those things, anywhere where we might've had a subjective look at whether she was right or wrong, we're forgiving her, because she's got everything lined up on her side. Don West: Right. Shawn Vincent: This guy in Wichita, he doesn't have five kids in there and he doesn't have a restraining order against these two guys, but apparently there was enough of a documented history between them that it seems like, he seems reasonable to fear them. And then we get into this other thing I wanted to talk to you about is, a lot of self-defense statutes and they're a little bit different in every state, but a lot of self-defense statutes are, you're allowed to use deadly force when there's an imminent threat of great bodily harm or death to you, right? Don West: Yes. Shawn Vincent: And sometimes. . . Don West: That's the law in all 50 States. Some States still require a duty to retreat, so you can't use that force unless you've exhausted a way to avoid using it safely. And stand your ground states, you don't have to retreat first, but nowhere can you respond with deadly force other than a threat to yourself of deadly force, except in very rare circumstances, and that happens to be in the house. Shawn Vincent: Right, in order to prevent a forcible felony is often what the statute reads. And some of them, I've read like in Colorado for example, I remember reading that that includes specifically your house. They'll address specifically that someone breaking into your home, there's this presumption that. . . Don West: Yeah, you bring up a good point, we should try to make that a little more clear. Andrew Branca, that we think the world of who wrote the book, The Law of Self-Defense and blogs, and offers a lot of content for gun owners who want to know the law of the jurisdiction, where they live and where the boundaries are. So we encourage people to take advantage of his vast knowledge to improve their own. He calls the home the highly defensible property. So, that's where you're going ... That's the most defendable place you can be on earth is your house. Don West: Now, what you were talking about was another aspect of self-defense that doesn't necessarily require the actual threat to you, before you can use, in this instance, deadly force, and that is a lot of places including Florida in particular, allow for the use of deadly force to prevent the commission of an aggravated felony. And there's a list of those in most statutes. What is an aggravated felony, robbery, murder, rape, kidnapping, those kinds of things. Don West: And you can use force to prevent someone from committing an aggravated felony in most places. And that doesn't necessarily require the specific threat, life-threatening event to you, but you do have to be right, and you have to be able to perceive the circumstances correctly. And if so, you have the right to protect someone from being raped or robbed or kidnapped. Shawn Vincent: Right. Or from breaking into your house. Don West: Yes. We talked about Florida a little bit. The Florida statute provides that not only can you use deadly force to defend against, a threat, a threat against your life, but in Florida, if someone is breaking into your house, forcibly entering your house, the element of reasonable fear is presumed just by virtue of those circumstances, it's your house, they're trying to force their way in, your use of deadly force is presumed to be reasonable. Shawn Vincent: You're allowed to assume that they're going to do you harm if they come in and you're there. They've broken into your house. Now here's where the conversation gets interesting, because we've got this great letter from a CCW Safe member, we're going to talk about it anonymously to protect the identity, but we can share the story. And the story is that this man lived on a small ranch with his wife and two children. Shawn Vincent: And it's just before midnight out here on this ranch, a rural, desolate area, and this guy comes up on his porch wearing nothing but blue jeans. He's a little bloodied, he's clearly been in a fight, he's either intoxicated or in some way otherwise out of his mind. And he started yelling that he wants to entry to the house. He's banging on the door over the course of 20 minutes. He tries to steal their ATV. He tries to use the swing bench on the porch as a ramrod to get into the house. He pulls up bushes and throws them at the windows. Shawn Vincent: All this time, the homeowner had a pistol and a flashlight, I think, out. That you can see through the windows this guy, he lets him know that if he comes in the house, he's going to shoot him. Meanwhile, his wife's on the phone with 911, in a locked room in the back of the house with the children. It's going to take 911 out here in his ranch 20 minutes to get out there, and during that time, he keeps his cool and there's one confrontation at a backdoor, which was a big pane glass in it where he was face to face with this guy. Shawn Vincent: And he wrote to let us know that he was remembering the Ted Wafer story that we wrote about. Don't open the door, don't go outside. This man decided that he was going to wait for this person to cross his threshold before we fired, that he would resolve to shoot him if he did, and he told him so. And as fate would have it, the police arrived in time, they take the guy down, nobody’s shot; nobody's killed. There's no legal inquiry, at least for the homeowner at this point, and there was the best possible resolution of a terrifying situation. Shawn Vincent: And I would suggest that, especially at a point where maybe this guy is using a swing bench to try to ram down his front door. He may have been justified like this guy in Wichita who someone was trying to forcibly enter his house. I suspect the right police department and the right prosecutors would look at that and say, you're all right here. But you're in gray area or you're in a grayer area than if you are to wait for that threshold -- for the window to be broken, for the air conditioning unit to be ripped out. Don West: One of the things that Andrew Branca talks about is managing your risk and of course with training and experience and such, you manage your risk by being better prepared to defend yourself if and when necessary. But you also can manage your risk in the legal context. And what you're saying may in fact have been true under those circumstances. He may very well have been legally justified to fire and shoot this guy under some of the circumstances you've described. But at a very minimum, we know that his legal risk skyrocketed at that point. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: And it went from zero to something unnecessarily, and the guy had enough. He thought it through. He realized that he wasn't actually in danger. His family wasn't actually in danger at that moment. And if his level of physical risk increased, he was prepared. But he wasn't going to do anything to make himself more vulnerable, or frankly, to increase his legal risk. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. In this case, this is a guy who seems unarmed, just crazy and he had established a threshold that he was comfortable with. You talked one time about, and maybe this is a Andrew Branca thing, about buying yourself time in these critical decisions, right? Don West: That's important to me, and I don't claim to be any kind of expert whatsoever on the tactics side of it. It just makes sense that a lot of what goes on is trying to figure out what's going on. What does this person intend? How much of a comfort zone do I have before I have to take decisive action? And the more you do to give yourself the opportunity to assess it, I think the better decision you're going to make. Don West: And you may not have any time whatsoever and you have to react, but if you can get away a little bit and give yourself another chance to see what's going on, that's more helpful than not. And if you can get completely away then ... Shawn Vincent: Sure. Well, and then Zach Peters, after he shot those guys, he didn't know if he had killed them or ... He retreated his room locked the door and called the police. So even though he knew he had people still in the house, he knew he was home alone and he went to a safer place in the house. This guy on the ranch we talked about sent his family to a safer place in the house. I just have to think, when I look at these cases, I see thresholds all along the way. Shawn Vincent: And if somebody trips in alarm and still continues to try to get in, they've crossed that threshold. Our mother of five waited for a threshold to be opened before she shot. Ted Wafer made the mistake of opening that threshold himself, forcing the conflict. And so I guess we might have 10 thresholds and somewhere on the first one, we might be unjustified or have what you talked about this high legal risk, but the more thresholds that get crossed, more likely you have more time to consider your options. Shawn Vincent: Your legal risk depending on the circumstances might go down and if you're forced at last after having allowed those thresholds, recognize and allowed it, I mean the, there's ... We talked about reasonableness in all of these shootings that the reasonableness becomes greater and greater I think as known thresholds are crossed. Don West: That's an excellent point because that's what the case will hinge on eventually. No matter what happens, the prosecutor and then ultimately the jury will have to decide did you act reasonably under the circumstances? Another point that Andrew Branca makes, which I think is so important for people to know and that is, when you're talking about a stand your ground state, meaning that there is no legal duty to retreat, just as a brief refresher, if there's a legal duty to retreat, that means you have to try to get away if you can do so safely before you use deadly force- Shawn Vincent: Before you're justified of it. Don West: While facing a threat of serious bodily harm or death. Stand your ground basically means is you don't have to retreat, but you can if otherwise justified, you can meet force with force. But Andrew points out brilliantly that depending on where you are, there are certain stand your ground states that he calls hard stand your ground states, and other states that he calls soft stand your ground States. Both stand your ground, but the difference being in a hard stand your ground state, the opportunity to retreat or the failure to retreat isn't admissible on the question of whether you acted justifiably. Shawn Vincent: The prosecutor can't suggest that because you didn't retreat in this hard stand your ground state, that that somehow reflects on your judgment or your fear. Don West: Yes. And that your conduct was unreasonable. In the soft states though, even though you had the legal right to stand your ground, the prosecutor may very well get away with arguing that sure he didn't legally have to get away, but he had these clear opportunities to avoid this and to get safe. And no reasonable person, no one who really was trying to defend themselves would not have taken advantage of that. So this was a guy looking for a fight. This was a guy trying to be aggressive. This was a guy who, who just missed any opportunity to avoid the confrontation. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, when you look at the totality of the circumstances and what this person did, it's unreasonable. Shawn Vincent: And we know in the Gyrell Lee case, that's the guy whose cousin was shot and he shot back, the prosecutor in that case made that argument in court, that a reasonable person would've gotten out of there. Don West: Yeah, so the jury could very well find all of the other elements of self-defense to be satisfied except the reasonableness one. Shawn Vincent: Right. So in the stand your ground state, the duty to retreat is removed, but that's just for that first threshold for whether you're justified or not. I think that if you can try to retreat safely, then you become more reasonable. Don West: Yeah, I don't know any advisor or instructor for that matter, any trainer that ever says don't retreat if you can, don't avoid the confrontation if you can, because you can't control the outcome. All of a sudden your risk is then gone up and the risk of killing somebody, the risk of being killed, the risk of going to prison for the rest of your life is just infinitely greater than if you were able to get away. Shawn Vincent: Well, I think about this rancher and what he was able to do, take everything else off the table. He was able to turn this into, for his kids: “I remember that night, that crazy guy was banging on our door,” kept it from being, “Remember that night that daddy killed somebody on our porch,” justifiable or not. The trauma on his family is so different because he had that judgment, and that he established those thresholds. I think that's the lesson, whenever we had these conversations, we're looking for the lessons for the concealed carrier, to be ... Everyone who has got a concealed carrier permit is there, because they are interested in their own, they're taking responsibility for their own protection. Don West: Yes. The protection of themselves, the protection of their loved ones, of their home. Shawn Vincent: And a lot of people who carry, I believe responsible people, will have gone through scenarios. They're trained for scenarios often of where this might happen so that they can survive it, their family will survive it. And then what we talk about are what happens after that. And we talked about Bob O'Connor all the time and his “warrior mindset.” His mindset and his judgment where if, if beyond just thinking about the tactical scenarios where you might need to use your weapon, thinking about the ... We're talking about the legal scenarios here and when you can safely, if you have the judgment and the mindset, and can safely buy yourself that time and recognize the thresholds of where the threat is and when it becomes critical. Shawn Vincent: And, we're talking about split second decisions here, but recognizing those thresholds allows you more choices than just that one choice, whether to pull the trigger or not. And that can be the difference between killing somebody or not, being killed or not. Don West: Yeah, we know statistically it's highly statistically unlikely, but we also know what happens and it happens fairly frequently. But as you take that responsibility, I think the better you can train your brain to react appropriately under that high stress moment of having to make those decisions. You can also train your brain to know the boundaries better. That helps define your own conduct, and all of that together helps you avoid what could turn out to be a lethal confrontation. Shawn Vincent: We started this conversation now talking about watching movies like Spider-Man and chalking it up all the felonies and misdemeanors and civil liability that happens. But I think when we talked about that mindset, if you're a concealed carrier, you end up when you choose to carry, walking around needing to contemplate what is my liability in these situations? What's my responsibility as a carrier? What's the risk I have? Shawn Vincent: And this, call it tactical awareness, if you will, on adding the legal aspect of it, it's understanding, I'm in a parking lot at night now, at the convenience store at 2:00 AM, this is a place where people get shot. This is where things happen. I'm at risk and I'm armed and right now my liability is high. I'm at home, I've got a security system, I have lights in my yard, I'm where I'm meant to be, my liability and my risk is low. I think these are things that we need to think about all the time when we choose to carry- Don West: Yeah, and I think the experts would say, if you're in a high risk situation by choice, don't do it. Go someplace else. If you have to be, then of course everything else has to kick in, but you also keep yourself safe by understanding what a high risk situation is and taking steps simply to avoid making yourself vulnerable or increasing the odds that there's going to be some problem. What's that App that Mike has, Mike Darter, he's got an App on his phone. It's, shoot, I wish I knew the name of it, crime something. Shawn Vincent: Crime maps, that shows how at risk you are? Don West: Yeah. It's find you and basically tell you what kind of spots you're at, what the crime rates are. Is it relatively safe or relatively dangerous? Shawn Vincent: That's interesting. I like to take very long walks and sometimes it's behind the building or someplace on a route to go somewhere. And other places I'm more comfortable than others. And there's some places where I've mapped out a long walk in advance and like, you know what, I don't think right there, I'd be comfortable unless I had a gun with me. And then I stop and think, well, if I'm not comfortable there without a gun, and I don't have to go there, then I just don't need to go there. Don West: Yeah. Shawn Vincent: And that's the mindset. Don West: That's what we're talking about, isn't it?. Thinking it through. Making some decisions with the goal of being safe and reducing your risk. Don't be a victim. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don't be a victim, and sometimes walking away or avoiding the aggressor is how you avoid being the victim of the bigger system, the victim with a legal system. Don West: There you go. Shawn Vincent: Or of your own temper or of a mistaken identity. All those things. Don West: So many things that could go wrong. Shawn Vincent: Well there we did it, it's another episode in the can, and a real pleasure to talk with you. Don West: Thanks as always, look forward to the next time and be good, be safe. Shawn Vincent: Be good, be safe. Take care.

In this episode, Stan and Mike talk to Steve Moses about the decisions we make as concealed carriers.  The three talk about everything from carrying a firearm, to the decisions we make while carrying, including complex decisions regarding self defense.   The full transcription of this podcast is below.  Speaker 1: 00:01 Welcome to the Inside CCW Safe Podcast, with founders Stan Campbell and Mike Darter. If you're forced to fight the battle for your life, CCW Safe will fight the battle for your future. Mike: 00:11 Alright, welcome back to the Inside CCW Safe Podcast, I'm Mike Darter in Oklahoma City. Stan: 00:26 Stan Campbell, I'm in Los Angeles today and the weather is fair, Michael. Mike: 00:31 It's fair? Stan: 00:33 It's fair. Mike: 00:34 It's still cold here, man. Think we're gonna get snow here this weekend maybe. Or ice [crosstalk 00:00:39] somethin' somethin' somethin'. Mike: 00:40 How's mama Mona doin'? Stan: 00:43 You know, we haven't talked about mama Mona in a while. Mike: 00:44 I know! Stan: 00:46 She's still in the Dallas area, metro area. She relocated and she's doin' well, you know. I put that app on her phone so that I can keep track of where she is, so, you know it's really helpful especially if she ever has any emergencies and such, but she laughs, she gets tickled when I just call her out of the blue and say, "Oh, so you washin' your car now?", "Oh, so you at the Subway? Better be havin' something healthy!", so she loves the fact that I can follow her around and stalk her, so yeah. It's fun, but it's safe. If you guys have not seen the app, it's 360, right Mike? Mike: 01:27 Yeah, Life360. Stan: 01:28 Yeah, Life360 is a great app if you wanna really keep track of your family members and they can hit a panic-type button and let everybody know where they are, so it's awesome. I love it. Mike: 01:44 Yeah, it's what I use with the girls in the past. So I have officially made a proposal to stay in, to add a mama Mona moment to our podcast where we call mama Mona, we present her with either situational awareness things or questions from our members. Mike: 02:16 That's in the works, man. We're gonna have [inaudible 00:02:19] for mama Mona moments. Stan: 02:21 Yeah, she's so sweet, but she really hasn't still just common sense. Mike: 02:26 Oh man, yeah, she's got the common sense. Stan: 02:29 She really does, I mean a lot of these questions and not all of them from members, some of them are from customers and some of them can get really outrageous just with the scenarios and we gonna allow mama Mona to answer the questions, "What if I see a baby with an AK47 pointing it at a grandmother?" Mike: 02:46 "What if somebody chasin' me, tryin' to beat me with a dead squirrel?" Stan: 02:51 Yes. We'll let mama Mona answer those. Mike: 02:55 Well speaking of common sense, we have Steve Moses is on today, from Texas. Steve: 03:01 Hey guys. Mike: 03:01 And Steve's got some awesome articles recently. How you doin' Steve? Steve: 03:06 Oh, I'm doin' well. I'm doin' well. It's good to be back talkin' to you guys. Mike: 03:10 How's the weather in Texas? East Texas? Steve: 03:13 Nasty. Mike: 03:14 Is it? Steve: 03:15 Nasty. Cold, damp, wet, you know, so, it's kind of a almost a sub-tropic environment here. It's very beautiful and everything, but the humidity is pretty high and when these cold fronts that come through Oklahoma and [inaudible 00:03:29] you guys get down here, we're not frigid, we're just miserable. Mike: 03:34 Yeah, that's what it is here. Steve: 03:38 Just miserable. Mike: 03:40 So what are we talking about today Stan? Stan: 03:43 Well today, I decided to ... we're having Steve Moses, he submitted a piece of writing that we were gonna look at as a article, but I thought that be so much better as a topic of discussion for the podcast, especially on the cuffs of having David Darter here, you don't know [crosstalk 00:04:06] last week we had Dave Darter talking about different things that comes up during customer service and question and stuff that we get a lot Steve. So we were kinda answering some of those scenario type questions and when I saw your submission I said, "Oh no. That's perfect for our topic of discussion today." Stan: 04:31 Steve if you can kinda introduce what that is and why you even chose that topic. Steve: 04:41 The title of the article I wrote was Boring Article, Serious Subject. It is kinda come to my mind where I've seen people carrying handguns in areas and locations where they probably shouldn't. Citing that old Maxim, "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6." I kinda got, "I really don't want to put myself in to a position where I am a D judged by 12 and perhaps I might lose my rights to possess a concealed handgun. Or worse, end up in prison." This is something that I've seen quite frequently and while I'm very much a believer that we should be armed to the extent that we can, it needs to be done lawfully and it needs to be done with some common sense. Steve: 05:41 There are areas where it's basic, like in Texas, where concealed carry is banned, but by the same token, it's a criminal trespass issue primarily if you are accosted or that is discovered and then you're asked to vacate the premises and you do not do so. The penalty for that I don't consider to be something significant, we can always go back and leave. We can choose not to go to those kind of places. But on occasion there are places where all of us, I don't care who you are, need to go where being able to have a concealed handgun on your person is a bad idea, perhaps for a variety of reasons. Mike: 06:31 And you know, we talked about that a little bit on the podcast, the last podcast with David, but there's also one other thing that I think we, everybody really needs to be honest with themselves about and this is Pat McNamara actually put it on his Instagram one day. Just because you have a gun does not mean you are armed. [crosstalk 00:06:58] And I think everybody needs to be, I mean including me, I mean everybody needs to be realistic and honest with themselves on if you're, just because you have a firearm does not mean you're armed. Steve: 07:17 That's right. Stan: 07:20 I love how he put that because you can take that in a couple of different ways because you can talk about mindset, that being relevant to mindset, that being relevant to your physical abilities to even defend your weapon or pull it out without somebody taking it from you, or the fact that you don't train at all. Mike: 07:40 Right. Stan: 07:41 There are so many different ways you can look at that so. Qaeda is on it there. Thanks for bringing that up Mike. Hey before we get too far, also 'cause I know Steve is gonna keep talking, I wanted to remind everybody Steve talked about that. As far as CCW Safe members, please understand this is a reminder. I think I did it last week, but I'm a do it again. As far as no gun zones, you will be outside of the scope of coverage if you are in a place where it is a felony or misdemeanor in itself to possess a firearm on the premises, okay. You will also be out of coverage if you challenge someone on private property, you know what I mean as a business owner or representative and you refuse to leave that property, standing up for second amendment rights, but deciding to take on that misdemeanor charge or trespassing. Those are the areas that you will not be covered. Stan: 08:49 Now, if you are walking out after someone told you to leave and Isis comes in or Al-Qaeda, and you save the day we will cover you. If you're on the premises where you accidentally bypass a sign or they didn't have one up, and they didn't tell you to leave and someone comes in and robs the place and such, then you will be covered for that incident, defending yourself or another. I had to get that in because everybody calls in on that and they really want to know. Not to say, I know it seems like it happens a lot nationally, and we're not gonna say it not on the rise, but it doesn't happen as much and there's nothing wrong with people calling and having concerns about, "will you cover me if?", please understand that like Mike said, be armed. In those three areas, training, have your mindset right, and the physical ability to sustain that fight and protect your weapon. Go ahead Steve. Steve: 10:00 Those are all excellent points. Those are very good points. One of the other things that occurred to me when I was thinking about writing this article is that in many instances there's places where it's just a bad idea to have your handgun on your person. If you're someone who's gonna go to a Superbowl party or go out to a bar and basically "Okay I don't have my handgun on my person while I'm actually in that place, but on the way back to wherever I came from, I do have my handgun on my place and I'm under the influence of alcohol," and if you're stopped that is a serious incident in and of itself and if you're forced to use any kind of force in order to defend yourself and it's later determined that "wow. You were under the influence of alcohol," that can be a big problem. To that end, I just thought we really need to exercise some good judgment when we go about our life. Life is not without risk. Every time we drive to a grocery store or we get on an airplane or anything else, there's always the risk that something can happen, but it many instances we can to some effect mitigate that risk by having good judgment, making good decisions, and following through. Steve: 11:33 One of the things that I do know that a lot of concealed carriers do, actually I should say concealed carriers, I'll just say people do is they store their handguns in their vehicles. I believe there I read, let me see there, I think it was the guardian said, I can't recall the year, might have been like 2015 or so, that between 300,000 and 600,000 firearms reported as stolen. As people now have the right to carry guns on their person, what we're seeing is we're seeing a lot more guns in vehicles. Steve: 12:16 People go to a place they go, "Well, I can't carry my gun in there. I'm just gonna stick it under here, under the car seat in the console, in the glove compartment and leave it. Then they're somewhat horrified when they come back and they see typically a window broken out, snatch and grab took place, and now that gun is missing. Stan: 12:40 Yeah. That's terrible. Steve: 12:43 It is bad. It is bad. Mike: 12:46 That's one thing I looked at early on when we first started CCW Safe was different. At one time we had a little video on there, kinda some different products but, yeah you think about people just putting it in between the seat and the column or whatever. If you get in a wreck, that thing could be a flying object through that car. Stan: 13:14 Projectile. Mike: 13:15 I've gotten to where I've gotten the console vault in both my trucks now. Steve I don't know if you've heard of Gold Star Holsters? Stan: 13:28 No I have not. Mike: 13:29 They have a really cool deal that they sent one out. I'm actually ordering one for my P365, but they have a under the steering wheel where column now holstered that is actually like a Kydex holster. It's pretty cool. Those are the two that I would strongly recommend, vault or whatever for the console vaults and then this one is really cool. Actually I have, they sent me one for a Glock 19, Steve, I'm gonna send it down. Actually when you come up next week I'll get it to you. Stan: 14:09 Okay. That sounds good, why don't you take a look at it. I'll take a look it at it. Mike: 14:12 Yeah it's awesome. It's awesome. So is that what you, what do you use, Steve? Steve: 14:18 Well actually when I'm in my car I keep my handgun on my person. I keep it in a holster. If something happens, I know where that handgun is going to be. I don't feel like "Okay. Oh where's that handgun?" So I'm trying to find it under bad circumstances. To that end, I keep my handgun on my person. I typically carry appendix which is very easy to drive with. If you get a good holster and you actually put the bottom of the seatbelt over the holster, blouse your shirt over it and then if for some reason you're forced to use your handgun while you're still in your car, it's there. Steve: 15:05 However, when I go to leave my car I want that handgun completely out of sight. There's some really inexpensive options for doing this. I mean some of them start at less than $30. They're just super lock boxes. They're made of metal. They're padded. They have a three digit combination lock and they come with a cable that allows you to loop the cable around the frame of your automobile seat so that you can then store the handgun in there, lock it, and put it underneath your car seat. Some of these are relatively inexpensive under $30. They go up in price and probably robustness. Probably the more robust they are, the more they're going to defy any attempt to open 'em. Steve: 16:05 For the most part, people that break into and enter into cars, burglarize cars, they're moving pretty fast. They don't have the tools it would take to free that storage safe from it. I don't wanna say you can't break in to it, but it's gonna be pretty difficult. Most of you know, burglars don't carry around a set of bolt cutters, those are hard to explain in the event that you run into a police officer, especially if you have a background. But something just as small as that can go a long ways towards securing a handgun inside of a vehicle. Steve: 16:46 Yeah, that's awesome. Mike: 16:48 I've had those that have the cable that wrap around like seat post lock into it ... Yep, yep. Steve: 16:56 Yes sir. One of the things I might add is that it requires discipline in order to always do this. Having good intentions and then failing to following through, that's not gonna get you what you want. It may take a little bit of time in order to get that handgun safely out of the holster or however you carry it. Basically, something I've really encouraged all of our listeners to do is to make sure that you have taken some formal training from a qualified instructor so you know how to get handguns in and back into the holster safely. Stan: 17:37 That's right. Steve: 17:38 You have to do it the same way every single time. It needs to be done so that trigger finger is straight, you're concentrating on what you're doing, you're not multi-tasking. And when you withdraw that handgun and you insert that handgun back into the holster, you don't wanna be muzzling any of your own body parts. Stan: 17:57 That's right. You know we had a member just recently send a email, I think I shared it with you Steve, in which he listened to you the last time you were on the podcast and he signed up for one of your classes 'cause I think he was just within 30 miles of you. Steve: 18:15 That's correct. Stan: 18:16 It got just like Steve said and I'll have him again share a list of qualified instructors, firearms instructors, that he would use or that he has gone to their classes and actually verified that they are legit or significant in the industry. Make sure we'll share that stuff with you, as well. Stan: 18:41 But like Steve said, it's absolutely important to get that training. I train police officer 15 years and even they don't have as much time as they should on protecting their firearm, getting it in and out of the holster, establishing that "muscle memory" and preparing for someone that is intentional about hurting you. That doesn't happen to often in your lifetime, but a traumatic attack when someone that is really, they have that thing, either some liquid courage I call alcohol, or some type of drug that takes them to a place where they're not thinking sensibly or they're just have decided that you are the target and they're gonna execute an attack ... It doesn't happen often, but when it does you have to be ready to go beyond just verbal commands. Something you might have to be prepared to do, especially for a surprise attack or ambush type situation, you have to be prepared to respond to these things. Stan: 20:00 Seek out a lot of training on the range. Go ahead and invest into a training firearm, I'm talkin' maybe a little rubber gun or something like that that's similar to what you carry and then you and your buddies get together in a safe manner just wrestle around. Get out the house and put it some time where somebody's trying to get your weapon so you can figure out what am I gonna do? Stan: 20:29 In case and point, I was really hard on the officers. If there's any listening, they really, you'll vouch for this. I was hard on the officers and I would literally, this is no joke, some of the other instructors look at me like I was crazy, but I would slap them so hard when I get on their gun and they wouldn't knock my hand off of it. Just something as simple as that. So I would hit 'em and give them some physical encouragement so that they know that this is serious. There's a couple of training recruits that I made cry, boys and girls. I made 'em cry, but it's so that you train in a sterile environment and as much as you can try to make it so that this is real. Stan: 21:14 You need to practice the fight for your life so that you know when you actually do, you can handle a three minute fight or protect your weapon, or even while you on the ground, try to figure out how would I pull it out of my holster if someone is on top of me. How do I adjust my body? These are really really important things that we spend really not enough time. You still need to spend a lot of time on the range and in target shooting, but no one spends time trying to figure out, what would actually happen if? What would I do? Same thing with the training weapon, I keep saying training weapon because I don't want nobody accidentally shooting their friend. What would I do if I just parked somewhere in my garage and someone opened up my door and came inside my drivers side door and pinned me to my passenger side door where I couldn't get my firearm out and I still got my seatbelt on. These are those things that don't happen often, but when they do, if you have a plan you got a better chance of surviving attack like that. Steve: 22:18 That's actually awesome, awesome advice. I'm glad you said that. That's something that should probably be discussed in a future article or podcast. Having the experience and the skills and the ability what Stan is referring to, not only does it better prepare you for such an incident, it also puts you in a position where if you have those skills and you know how you would probably properly respond, it makes one less likely to prematurely go to the handgun when they think "Wow, this person is about to unleash some violence on me. My only response is gonna be I go to my handgun, and then it turns out I was wrong. There was video I did it prematurely. Now I'm facing a brandishment issue." Stan: 23:14 Oh we've had several of those. Really, these people, they were lucky Steve, that we had the resources to handle their mistake. You guys gotta be careful out there because those mistakes cost 10,000 to start with and then it goes up from there. If you dip too far away from us and go outside of coverage, then you're on your own and that sucks. We want to do everything in our power to take care of you and that's why we give you guys these articles and podcasts and different things so you can learn from the mistakes of others. Learn from the challenges of others. Don't make you that guy because that guy, it hurts when somebody says "Will the defendant please stand." Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody. Stan: 24:09 Be mindful of those things and before Steve steps back in, I passed up a few things that they said something significant, he and Mike. I'm one when I'm in the car I like to carry on hip as well, but I too, I carry secondary weapons. I have a real nice seven, eight inch, I think it's an eight inch knife that my door, right inside my drivers side door, I have an additional one over on my passenger side and some other thing I hold up in different areas of my car so that if I do get pushed down somewhere and Michael calls it, what did you say? I ball up into a fetal position? I'm a pretty tough guy but, if I get caught slippin', I know that if I got pushed into a fetal position, which is not my go to position, but if I got pushed into a fetal position because someone got the jump on me at the gas station or whatever, I fall into a position and a space where there's another weapon that I'm gonna do some major damage so that I can get to my gun. So those are things you guys to think about- Steve: 25:29 That's awesome. Stan: 25:29 Plus, Steve talked about carrying a gun in places where you cannot, or not carrying because you know you can't carry a firearm. But don't forget those who are CCW Safe members, we cover you for any legal weapon. If you can't carry a firearm and you have another legal weapon or weapon of opportunity or even physical force to defend the life of yourself or another, we got you covered. That's one of the reasons why when Mike and I designed these models and the police union model, we made sure that we said "Okay. We need to cover these guys like we had coverage when we were in the police department." There were times we couldn't use, like at the state fair, there's so many people that you wouldn't dare pull your gun out and start shooting in that direction where there's a suspect, plus 50 people behind 'em depending on your distance. Stan: 26:27 There's other things that we have to have or weapons of opportunity have been used to take a life on the police department with like flashlights and such. A lot of officers had to feel people flashlights. These two of the things that we would if there was cement screw you had to pick up and defend your life, we got you. We got you covered. Anyway, that's what I kinda wanted to talk about coverage. The people, they really like to know how deep that goes, Steve. So go ahead and continue sir. Steve: 26:56 Excellent. Well one of the things I kinda wanted to touch on is that the inexpensive safes that I'm referring to. While they should secure a firearm in most instances, they're not quick access. If you want something that's quick access and also secure, then you're probably looking at additional funds and I have zero issue with that. One of the things that I do kinda like about these more inexpensive lock boxes with the cable is that if you are staying in a place other than your home, let's say for instance it's a travel trailer, it's a hotel room, and you want to be able to secure our handgun from reasonable efforts to have it stolen or to keep children from accessing it, this same lock box can be used to secure the handgun, loop the cable around the doorframe. I'm sure that listeners can find other ways to do that, but that also affords you another means of keeping that handgun secure when it's not on your person. Steve: 28:13 Something that's really important is whether you store a handgun in a vehicle or not. I try to avoid stickers and decals that say things such as "I don't call 911", "Driver only carries $20 worth of ammunition", I try to keep those kinda decals off my vehicle because I think that's just kind of a advertisement that says burglarize me first. I think that's probably a good way to go and also it just makes common sense. Don't leave other items out there that either have decals on your vehicle, but you have like uh you left your cell phone out there. You left the obvious charging cord for maybe a garment or a TomTom or a purse. Or anything that looks like it might hold something of value because it doesn't take any time at all for an experienced criminal to break into your car, grab that particular item, and they're gone. I mean, car alarms are such that we hear 'em going off all the time and what happens when we hear a car alarm going off in a parking lot most of the time? We ignore it. Stan: 29:32 We disregard it, yeah. Steve: 29:33 Somebody was looking for their vehicle. The thing is, anything you can kinda do to keep your vehicle sort of under the radar, be kind of the gray man if you will, I think that helps. The other thing too is think about where you're gonna park your car. Think about it in advance. Are there locations where your car is more likely to be broken into than others? Give that some thought. The closer I can get to a store entrance when I park, that's a good thing. I like parking under lights. I just try to take all those things into consideration that is just not a good idea to put your handgun in a position where others can get it. The numbers, a matter of fact, I believe it was in Memphis that I think the number is over a thousand handguns possibly, or firearms are stolen from vehicles every year. Stan: 30:35 Oh my god. Steve: 30:35 That is, people are losing a lot of guns. In some instances from what I understand, people are leaving handguns in cars and the cars are unlocked. Stan: 30:48 That's right. Steve: 30:48 Just take all this in to consideration. These gun safes are not that expensive and a little bit of foresight can really save you a lot of trouble later. Stan: 30:59 That's right. Mike: 31:00 Hey Steve, can those boxes also the safes, the small safes, can those also be used to transport on planes? Do you know what the policy of that by chance? Steve: 31:15 I'm gonna say that the small ones probably can. I probably need to verify that. I believe that I read that that is the case. But that's also a very, very good way to secure a hand gun, I think the main thing is TSA need to be able to access it. And I'm not sure exactly how that would work with the three digit combinations. By the same token, when I fly I use a three digit combination padlock. I know TSA can access those, but I'm not sure if that's the case on this. We probably just need to check that out before answering. Stan: 31:54 Yeah, make sure you check the rules and regulations associated with each airline that you fly 'cause all of them a little bit different. Also, to piggyback what Steve was just making reference to, I've said this in other podcasts as well, have a plan when you leave your house. There's two things that you shouldn't do at night. Plan to do them during the day. That is to get gas and go to the ATM so that you have a better chance of not being targeted. Stan: 32:26 The other thing, even if you have these boxes and stuff like that, I always say you stopping at the mall, you stop somewhere, if it's a planned stop, stop about two blocks away. Pull over to the side, put your gun in your box, put your purses in your trunk so that people don't see you do these things when you pull up to the mall, and different stuff like that because the greatest point of vulnerability is when you're trying to concentrate on how to store your firearm. Now you've got your head down and doin' different things like that. When you get to the store, you should be ready just to pop out, look around, like Steve said, find a great spot to park, look around make sure there's no strange looking people out, or people out of place. Then get out and go in to the store, making sure your stuff is locked up and there's nothing visible to be stolen. Thanks Steve for all that. Steve: 33:26 Excellent point. Excellent, excellent point. Stan: 33:28 Well Steve I have a million of 'em. Thank you. Steve: 33:40 I don't doubt. And anyway, a big part of it is kinda look at the overall picture. Life in many ways in kind of a strategy. It's like okay, my ultimate plan here is I want to be as trained as I can. I want my practice to have been current. I want to be familiar with the laws regarding the use of force, regardless of where I am. When I'm out in the public, to the extent that I can, I want to be armed. When I can't do that, I want my guns secured. I want to minimize the time that I'm at at-risk locations. Sometimes I realize that cannot be avoided. But, the main thing is just kinda try to use common sense and then in addition to common sense, this is one of the things I really try to drive home with my students, is then you've got to use discipline. When you're tired, or it's raining, or you're cold, or you wanna get something done, saying "You know what? I'm just not gonna do what I know is smart this time," I think that's a slippery slope that you're going down to. Steve: 34:53 I just really encourage all the listeners, I would encourage this to anybody, is just use good judgment, but then always, always, always, follow through if you can. Stan: 35:05 That's right. Michael you're up. Mike: 35:11 I'm just listening, man. Stan: 35:16 Listen, you know you got a million things to say. Steve: 35:20 Stan, I have something to say. Stan: 35:22 Uh oh. Steve: 35:24 This is going back to the comment you made about the use of a defensive knife. Stan: 35:30 Yes, sir. Steve: 35:31 I absolutely subscribe to that. I keep a knife on my person any time I'm not in the hospital doin' somethin' related to being a nose guy. I keep a knife on my person. The ability to use that as a force multiplier, especially for females who in many ways a lot of them are assaulted way different than males are. A lot of times with females, and this is maybe even true for smaller males, is that the other person is more prone to just using physical force in order to force their will and get what they want, as opposed to the threat of using a handgun in order to accomplish that. Having that knife on your person, close access, and having it in a position where I can access it or it can be accessed relatively quickly, and knowing how to use it when you're in an entangled situation, man those are awesome skills. If you have that ability in order to do that and you have nothing in your hands more than a really robust stainless steel ink pen, you're well armed. Stan: 37:01 Absolutely. Steve: 37:01 You can do a lot of damage with that ink pen in terms of putting the other person in a situation where they're forced to break contact or they can't continue doing whatever it was when they were attempting to injure you, sexually assault you, or kill you for that matter. Stan: 37:22 That's right. Hey Mike what is the name of the ... The name just escapes me. What's the name of the bracelet that you and I wear? Mike: 37:35 Oh, the underarm, I mean the Leatherman Tread? Stan: 37:36 Yes, that's right. The Leatherman Tread, if you don't know what that is, pick one up because it's a very, very cool looking piece and it has a lot of tools and stuff on it, but I wear it a lot because it too, I've learned how to adjust it to make it a impromptu weapon. It's one of my favorite ones to wear on the planes. I open it open and drop it down to almost cover my knuckles if I had to deal with something like that. There's a different way you can carry it with the tools that you can use as almost a cutting type device to defend yourself if somebody got you wrapped up and they tryin' to go for your gun and you take it and you just kinda rip a portion of skin across the top of their forehead and make 'em bleed into their eye. Poke and do anything you need to do. You really have to have the mindset to say, "if you're going for my gun, I am going to bite pieces of your cheek out. I'm gonna pull your eyeball out." You gotta be ready to do all those things. Stan: 38:45 When I talked about the training and the academy, I'm really not playing about that. One of those individuals who could not get me off of his gun, five years later, he answered a call here in Oklahoma City in which he was attacked. It was a robbery call and they said the guy only had a knife so he got out, he wasn't prepared. The guy ended up physically attacking him, taking his gun from him, standing over top of the officer, and shooting at him while he was on the ground. While he twisted and turned, only the hand of God saved that officer from being injured 'cause that guy was right above him and he wasn't shot. The bottom line to the story is it's very serious. You are carrying around a tool of death and destruction and you need to act like it. You need to be able to protect it. Think about these different things. Pick up the pens, the things that can be used as impromptu weapons to protect yourself in the secondary. Steve: 40:09 You know Stan, there was actually a tactical pen that I saw at the shot show this year called the Impromptu. Stan: 40:17 Really? Pull that out. Steve: 40:19 Yes, it's made by Gerber. It's actually a decent writing instrument. It actually is one of the click pens so it's not one of the ones you have to take it in two pieces and everything. Something like that in your hand, especially if you know how to use it and your target is forehead and eyes, that's a pretty awesome tool for doing that. If you don't have anything else, especially recommend this to people that are having to walk to their cars at nighttime after dark. Just simply having that pen in your hand and an understanding of few very, very basic moves can go a long ways towards making sure that you're less likely to be injured or worse. Stan: 41:14 I love that. I think I'm a get that one. I just saw a picture of it on the internet. Mike: 41:19 Yeah, I pulled it up. I pulled it up too while [crosstalk 00:41:22] Stan: 41:22 Impromptu technical pen. Steve: 41:24 Yes, sir. Stan: 41:25 I like those. Steve: 41:25 Yeah, you're timing is awesome. Stan: 41:28 Yeah I actually keep something similar to that on my visor, but I like that one. I'm a get that. Stan: 41:37 Oh, thank you sir. Yeah, you know what you're right. That's one of those things, what can I carry on the airplane? Stan: 41:42 You guys, it's really important to do all these things and to prepare. Always remember, Steve talked about it before in one of his last podcast about training with jiu jitsu and some type of martial arts and keeping yourself physically ready to defend yourself. No matter how old you get, you have to figure it out for your body type and what you do to be able to defend yourself. Don't just walk around and grow old into a victim. Get yourself ready and do what you can to survive. Just really important to seek out these instructors. Physical martial arts type training should go side by side with firearms training. It's a close cousin and it too will save your life. You have to do these things. Mike: 42:38 Yeah and I would just tell people too, look back over some of our articles, especially from Steve. In the podcast we had Steve on not too long ago, we talked one about gear. But also Bob O'Connor, his series. If you just search Bob O'Connor you'll pull up some of his articles as well. You have one on the principles of concealed carry and one being mindset. So we definitely have things on our side that can kind of point you in the right direction. Ultimately it's going to come down to you as a concealed carrier, taking it upon yourself to do some of these things that we're recommending because I do strongly believe everything we've said here today, I totally believe in. When I saw that post by Mac it was like, it's so true that just because- Stan: 43:46 [crosstalk 00:43:46] Mac's social media, he'd be great to follow because- Mike: 43:50 Yeah, he would. Stan: 43:50 We're talking about a hero in training. I don't know anybody that goes as hard as Mac. Mike: 43:57 I think it is ... let me look it up right quick. TMA on Instagram, he does a lot of stuff on Instagram and it is TMACSINC. That's Pat McNamara. He's got some really good drills and for law enforcement he's got some great shooting drills with sandbags and doing things along with the shooting. I haven't seen much of those on there lately. He had a lot of those in the past. Stan: 44:42 Yeah he's mixing up, but you definitely need to follow him. He's the real deal and you talk about extreme training, you just take what he does and kinda dumb it down for your body type and level. You can really, really increase your abilities just by getting a lot of that stuff done. It's really hard to not train static, but it really is important to raise your heart rate because if somebody surprise attacks you, everything is gonna shut down and your body is gonna prepare for trauma. So your body prepares for war, but in doing so there's things happening in your body that you're not gonna be able to control, so you gotta try to recreate that or get it as close as you can to that and see how you respond when you shoot a firearm at that time. Those are really, really important to do so find people. Stan: 45:41 You know Pat and you know of course Vicars and all the rest of our guys. Jeff Gonzalez and Spalding and some of the others that we subscribe to and that are associated with CCW Safe as well. Just find these trainers and put in the work. Put in the work so that when you get attacked, you don't have to. Mike: 46:02 And speaking of, we're actually having Larry on next week, I believe. Stan: 46:07 That's right. [crosstalk 00:46:09] Mike: 46:10 I'll reach out to Pat too and probably get him on. Stan: 46:13 That would be awesome. Mike: 46:15 He's got a really good deal talking about personal protection detail, controlling your own personal protection detail. And he's got some really good- Stan: 46:30 Be your own body guard. Mike: 46:31 Short videos on those. What was that? Steve: 46:38 I think you said being your own body guard. Stan: 46:40 Yeah, be your own body guard. But it derives from the sentinel, correct Mike? Mike: 46:46 Yeah, he has a book called the Sentinel that I would say if you haven't read that, get it. You can get it on Amazon. I think you can get a digital format, it's just a short read. It's a very short read, but it's just on being your own sentinel for you and your family. Developing personal protection details, plans, and it's just a great blueprint for your own personal safety plans. Stan: 47:20 Absolutely. Mike: 47:22 Lets talk about, are there any other social media that you follow, Steve, that you would recommend for people? Steve: 47:36 I'll tell you what, I like Greg Ellifritz. A lot of the information he puts out I find very sound. There's another instructor that actually did a interview with him and submitted an article, named Cecil Burch. Cecil Burch, he has a company called Immediate Action Combatives and he is very much dialed into just the short range, a realistic approach to dealing with a situation in where your near contact distance or contact distance in such a manner that regardless of your age and almost your physical condition, you can do things that lessen the chances that you're going to be taken out of the fight immediately. Basically, you can pick your skills and use them as a speed bump in order to gain some time and then turn the odds back into your favor. So I follow him, anything by Craig Douglas. Another guy named Paul Sharp. These guys, they blog, they post on Facebook and I pretty much read everything that they do very carefully. Tom Gibbons, y'all have heard me talk about him multiple times. With range master, he has a monthly newsletter. Always got some good articles in that. Another person that I follow is Carl Wren KR training. He is a retired college professor, grand master IPSC shooter and a basically a full time trainer. Just very, very, very bright. Very articulate. Very analytical. I just kinda listen to what these guys have to say and they're not all guys. Steve: 49:36 Melody is someone whenever she posts something, she especially kind of tuned in to the perhaps a female perspective on self defense. She's a relatively small female and what she has done and can do, she's very- Mike: 49:53 Who's that? Steve: 49:54 In to Melody Lauer. Mike: 50:00 Lauer? Steve: 50:02 Lauer. LAUER I believe. Mike: 50:05 And then what was Cecil Burch's training program called? Steve: 50:11 Immediate Action Combatives. Mike: 50:15 Okay. Steve: 50:15 Yeah, very, very, very articulate. Very articulate, I mean everything he says is very insightful and it's doable. There's no cool ninja commando stuff in his program. It's largely based upon common sense. He's got outstanding martial arts background in addition to his firearms background. He's a ... Golly, he's a ... I'm not sure how many stripes he has, but he's a black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu under Megaton. And so- Mike: 50:52 Where is he at? Missouri? Steve: 50:54 Out of Phoenix, Arizona. Mike: 50:57 Oh Phoenix, okay. Steve: 50:59 Phoenix, Arizona. Matter of fact, he's not too far from Ernest Langdon. He and Ernest are acquainted. I try to read that stuff all the time. I'd rather kinda learn a lot of that material through their experience as opposed to my experience, 'cause you know what, a lot of experience I've gained is a kind of specific to me and some of it has been kind a painful acquiring so, I'd rather, I like to read that kinda stuff and say "oh wow, this guy found himself in that situation. This is how he dealt with it, or this is how he or she believed they could have dealt with it better. Okay." I filed that away in my mental Rolodex which means that okay, I've seen this. This is something that I can use to benefit myself if I find myself in what appears to be a like scenario. Mike: 51:52 You know that's some good stuff. I was pulling a lot of these up as you were talking about 'em. This is something that we should start doing, Stan. Start recommending some of these, some of the people that we follow, and some of the other companies that we're dealing with now. Stan: 52:16 Yeah, I love that. Steve: 52:17 There's a lot of good instructors out there and one of the things that I've noticed a trend towards is that we're seeing more of the, how should I say this, works for practical self defense scenarios. When I first started training which was in 1993, the premise was that the guy was always gonna have a revolver held at belly level and he's gonna be wearing a ski mask. Okay so that's how we always trained and everything that we ever shot was a guy like that. And then we got in to the whole tactical side of that, which was cool. Tactical carbines, shotguns, team tactics, high risk entry, vehicle defense, did a bunch of that. And that was cool too. But, I always kind of saw myself when I did this, I think I'm kind of like a grownup kid here. I'm having a great time and I'm sure some of these skills could be useful to me at some point, but I'm not sure exactly when. Steve: 53:24 Now we're seeing a trend where we have so much video out there, John Corriea has done a wonderful job of a, and hopefully I pronounced his name correctly, of getting out a lot of video on situations where people had to defend themselves against perhaps a beat down, a stabbing, a robbing, a kidnapping. Now we can kinda see what's happening in these real life situations. And so our training now has become more specific to dealing with those kind of situations which I think this is probably one of the best times ever for a concealed carrier to be investing in training. Stan: 54:07 That's right. Steve: 54:14 [crosstalk 00:54:14] There's a lot of good stuff out there, a lot of good stuff out there. Sorry I interrupted. Mike: 54:18 That's all right. Just Stan wanted to, you had sent a text saying you wanted to cover, you wanted to address some email or something? Stan: 54:26 Yeah, just real quick. Mike and I, we always suggest you guys call in and give us some feedback on the podcast and all the stuff that we're doing to help you become your own risk manager. So real quick, want to give a shout out to a few people starting off with Clip Beasley, he's a supportive one, his quote was "Today I unlocked my phone and the start of your podcast, it began playing." He was really excited, he listened to it. He says he really appreciates the things that we're doing and it's very positive, our association. He kinda gave us a big shout out for what we doing with the podcast and said kudos. Then we have Michael W. From North Carolina. He's a former law enforcement officer. He retired from North Carolina state LEO and he says that "I gained a lot of insight from your messages. I recently switched from," I'm not gonna name the company, "and have gained more from CCW Safe in a month than I did from them in almost two years. Please continue to podcast." Stan: 55:43 And then finally, from J Ralsh in Virginia, it's a pretty long one, I'm not gonna read all of it, but he said, "Gentlemen, I want to let you know I'm enjoying the new podcast. Informative, interesting, and continue drill down the critical factors of self defense. Same goes for the articles, videos, and online training you provide." He had a story where, following listening to the podcast, he actually had a incident, a road rage incident and a guy jumped out who had, getting in front of him. He jumped out and started coming back toward his car. He had positioned himself tactically already and he put it in reverse and backed away. And then he did 20 feet first and then kept coming 20 more feet until the guy got frustrated and got back in his car. He said, then is quote states, "I want to let you know your hard work and dedication has paid off. Education is key for CCW Safe carriers and most don't have nearly enough as they should. Keep up the good work and thank you for what you do for the community." Stan: 56:45 So I want to let you guys know we appreciate that. Keep sending in your stories. We love to hear that you know you're using your head to avoid these incidents. You're planning ahead so not to be in these situations and you're not launching yourself into deadly force situations when you have the power to remove yourself. So thanks a lot for those who are listening and having successful outcomes and not changing their lives with a deadly force incident. Mike: 57:16 Yeah, that's awesome to hear. We love hearing those stories because it's just awesome to hear that people are, they're getting something out of the articles, out of the podcast, so forth. So yeah, keep those coming in. Mike: 57:32 All right, well we're right at about an hour. Anybody have anything to add? Steve: 57:38 I tell you what, I thought this was a good topic. I know it is not real sexy in terms of, okay you just need to be able to secure your gun and everything, but think it's really important and I hope this is of some benefit to our listeners. Mike: 57:59 And I think it's something, it's just not, it's something that a lot of people don't think about and a lot of people may not want to think about it, but like you said, it is very important. You have to think about all these things we've talked about today. Mike: 58:19 Steve, thanks for coming on again. I'm sure we'll, well I'll see you next, I'll see you Monday, right? Steve: 58:25 Yes, sir. Mike: 58:27 And Stan, I will see you next week. Stan: 58:31 Yes, sir. [crosstalk 00:58:34] Mike: 58:35 All right. You guys take care. Steve: 58:35 Okay guys. Be safe out there. Stan: 58:35 Thank you. Mike: 58:35 Bye, take care.

In this episode, Stan and Mike talk with CCW Safe Accounts Manager, David Darter.  They talk about some of the most common questions from our members and prospective members, and some of the best practices for getting help with your account.   Full Transcription below! Speaker 1: Welcome to the Inside CCW Safe podcast with founders Stan Campbell and Mike Darter. If you're forced to fight the battle for your life, CCW Safe will fight the battle for your future. Mike: Okay. All right. Peter Gordon. Mike: Hi, welcome back to the Inside CCW Safe podcast. I'm Mike Darter with CCW Safe in Oklahoma City. Here, we're with Stan Campbell. Stan Campbell: Yeah, Stan Campbell holding down Los Angeles today. Mike: You're what? Stan Campbell: I said I'm holding down Los Angeles, sorry about that. Mike: Holding down Los Angeles. I hit my little mute button to turn off all ... I'm turning off all my phones and beeps and stuff, and I accidentally hit the mute button on my computer which muted you. Mike: So, Stan man, it's been freezing here. We've been like had two school days. Stan Campbell: You said two school days? Mike: Two no school days. Stan Campbell: Oh, two no school days. Yeah, you guys have ice storms out there, right? Mike: Yeah, it's been crazy. But I think today it's supposed to get up to like 40. So, it should be pretty good. What's LA like? Stan Campbell: LA is kinda overcast. It's not that pretty, but it's no ice. I haven't seen ice over there. No ice. Mike: Good deal. Anything else going on recently we need to know about? Stan Campbell: No. I mean, we're following the ... And we will get to talk about it at a later podcast, but we're following the constitutional carry that just got passed here in Oklahoma, and that's a good thing. Mike: Yeah. I think it goes in November? Stan Campbell: Yeah. November 1st is gonna be when it pushes through. So, that's a good thing. It's always good to hear some governors willing to stand up for those who support the Second Amendment and take care of concealed carriers and such. Mike: Yeah. I didn't know that was even going through until yesterday. I know it went through last year and then the governor didn't sign it. But, cool. Mike: Well, today we got on my brother. My real brother, not my first [inaudible 00:02:23]. Mike Darter: Not a brother from another mother. Stan Campbell: They're brothers from the same mother. Brothers from the same mothers. Mike: David Gardner, he's our account manager. David, thanks for coming on. David Darter: You bet. Mike: Thank you, Dave. David Darter: Good to see you around. Mike: Did you still end up in the city as well, fighting this ice? David Darter: Yeah, I already fell yesterday. I busted my butt. Stan Campbell: That's not good. Well, what, as long as it wasn't on CCW Safe property, I'm okay with it. So get back to work, Dave. Get back to work. David Darter: That's hilarious. Stan Campbell: For those who don't know, I mean, we always talk about our support staff. You guys heard about, we had just added Justin. The usual suspects, Don and Gary, but behind the scenes, who really keeps this thing moving and who coordinates all the efforts of customer service is David Darter. He is the star really of CCW Safe because if you're not involved in a critical incident and they need our support because of an arrest or use of force to defend your life, you're dealing with just simple issues of customer service and just simple questions that you just might have if you just chose to join us without really learning about us. And David is the one who really ... He holds down that position and he does an awesome job with our customers. Stan Campbell: I really love having him in that position and being over the specialist, just coordinating all the efforts and all the help with the members in our CCW Safe family. I just wanna let you guys know, David is a rockstar. David Darter: Thank you, Stan. I appreciate that. Stan Campbell: No, it's okay. David Gardner: We take a great pride in our customer service. Stan Campbell: Yeah. That's true. And what, David, I was really trying to invest. That was the opening for Michael to list. It's obvious that there's some big brother, little brother issues going on here, where he can't give you a simple account- Mike: This is what happened. I'd just plugged in my headphones at the time he said that 'cause I didn't know if my mic was picking up you coming over the deal. So, I was like, "Maybe I'll just talk to my headphones." I'm taking them off now because it's like watching a- Stan Campbell: A Chinese movie? Mike: ... a 1970s movie. So I didn't hear what you said. Stan Campbell: That's hilarious. Mike: There you are. Now you're talking in your mouth. Stan Campbell: Yeah, we're here Michael. Mike: So yeah, he is a rockstar. Stan Campbell: Yeah, he is. Mike: He does great with our customer service, and that's one of the things that ... It's hard when you're dealing with tens of thousands of members and trying to provide good customer service for a nationwide covering. It's very hard to do that. I know that some of our competitors have the same issues that we do, but I think we handle ours very well and I think that we have a very good handler of our customer support, and a lot of it is because of David. Stan Campbell: Absolutely. David, and David sorry, we're gonna talk about you first. So David, he is the accounts manager, and of course, like I said, he's over the CCW Safe specialists who get your non-emergency calls. If I had to really do an estimate, I'd say about 98% of the calls for service are non-emergency. The 2% would be emergency calls, talking about arrest and use of force issues. Stan Campbell: So it's a lot of work. What everybody needs to understand, and let's start out with backstage, stating that, we have a great system in place, and it's a layered system. Number I, we want everyone to know that if you have account issues, absolutely send them to David. Don't call the non-emergency number if it's an account issue because, by design, we don't have them ... The contracted organization who handles our non-emergency calls, we don't have them able to have access to your accounts. And that's just to protect you guys. It's all about protecting you all from police officers here. Everything that we do, even what we desire for customer service, is so to protect you, your credit card, access, and all that. Stan Campbell: So if you guys have any account issues, please send it to david@ccwsafe.com, or support@ccwsafe.com. That way, you don't waste any time, you don't get frustrated because the non-emergency agents you can't have access or can't access your account. So you don't want to put that information out there. Stan Campbell: The other thing that I want you guys to understand is that this is a very unique business and it's a very unique service. And when people call us to get answers, it's not usually a quick one-minute phone call. We spend a lot of time with our members on the phone. I wish we could do it a little bit faster but those who call can really, and please send emails supporting my statement right now for those who have enjoyed the time and effort that we have spent with you 30 minutes to an hour, to really give you an understanding of this service, your protection, because a lot of this stuff is built in legal leads. Stan Campbell: Although our agreement is pretty cut and dry, there's still some legal leads in there; it has to be because of contractual agreements. But people usually you don't understand a lot of this stuff without lawyers. So when they called David, or when I see there's an overflow and I jump on the phone, because I oversee all of it as well: If I see there's a pending call, I'll jump on it as well and take some calls. But when we spend that time with you, please understand if we don't get back with you, we have to put it in a priority and we're getting back to you as fast as we can. So, make sure that you guys just really be patient with us. Kudos to David for spending that amount of time and giving these people a real understanding of their coverage. Stan Campbell: But before we start with David, I wanna talk about a call that I just received, because Dave is going to go over today. Not the Top 10, nor the most significant, the calls that we get most often, the frequently asked questions that come across his computer most. But before he starts, I'm gonna jump ahead of him and talk about one that I received today. Stan Campbell: One of our members who has been with us for a long time, I'll just call him Jim S., it becomes [inaudible 00:10:07] listen to this, but Jim called me and he and I, we've been ... I've been trying to give him understanding and we finally kind of got through to him today 'cause I got on the phone. Sometimes it's best to get off the computer and get on the phone. Stan Campbell: I talked to Jim about his services that he's providing for his church with a volunteer security. Please understand that we absolutely support what you guys are doing when you, as concealed carriers, are getting together, teaming up with your churches, and trying to give them some extra support beyond who they hire for security, their armed security outside or if they don't have it. Putting teams together, training together, and doing all those things. That is a noble thing that you do will be a church and it's absolutely needed. Stan Campbell: Well, Jim and I discussed today because he has one of our older plans and he's moving toward the ultimate plan, which has a special coverage for volunteers security, for churches only. So, he and his wife are moving to the ultimate plan to have that coverage because I sent him some other alternatives. Because, for us, CCW Safe, what we try to do is really cover you and give you advice and recommendations that even protect you from yourself. Stan Campbell: What I mean by that is, I already stated, and you all will agree with me, it's a great thing to defend the church, and those that go there, but please understand, if you get into a use of force, you will absolutely be a hero that first day, second day, that first week. But if you overshoot and you make a mistake while all the members of the church are running around, and you accidentally shoot an innocent person, although they will thank you initially for defending their life, please understand they will be contacted by a lawyer and they will sue you and the church for damages. It's just going to happen. It's human nature, it's the process. It's unfair, but it's just what's gonna happen. Stan Campbell: And that's the reason why Mike and myself and Kyle, the partners, decided to protect you guys a little bit with the ultimate plan because it's a dedicated million dollar civil liability coverage that will cover you for that type of incident when you're in a legitimate shooting, and you're trying to protect others or yourself and you shoot an innocent bystander. It's needed. Stan Campbell: So, I went over those things with him. I made it known. He told me that he even got permission from his pastor, who created this volunteer group. But I told him. I said, "Please protect yourself and get that in writing, because at the end of the day, when the smoke clears and they start trying to sue the church, it's gonna be every man for himself regardless of how long you guys have known each other. I mean, it's every man for himself. So, we're trying to get you guys to protect yourselves. If you are in church security, please protect yourself no matter what you think and upgrade to the ultimate plan so that you can cover yourself, because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about and that's what we care about. Stan Campbell: On that same note, I'll give this one more little tidbit before we add David in. Sorry for taking up all this time, but it is very important. The reason why it's important to go beyond your homeowner's insurance and any other insurance entity, we hire civil attorneys for you, not for CCW Safe, to protect you and your actions with that as the agenda. Other entities, homeowner's insurance, they're gonna hire lawyers associated with that insurance company to protect that company first, and you second. That makes a big difference, and that's why we open this thing up for you. Stan Campbell: Guys, please research. Research your own ... I'm not gonna tell you that. Research your homeowner's policies, make sure that they say that they cover, and it has to in its verbiage, "We cover intentional acts because, although you didn't force a shooting, it is an intentional act." If it does not say that in your policy, you are not covered no matter what your broker may try to slide to you in between the smiles and laughing. Please protect yourself, and that's what I had to say on that. Mike I'll let you jump in. Mike: No, that's great points. And we do have a lot of that. So, what do we want to do? Let's get right into it. Just for time, do you have some questions that we were gonna go over today or did you- Stan Campbell: Well, what we did was we had David pick up some of his top questions and, as he's going forward, I'll add some more, ask some more- Mike: Yeah, we can jump in. Stan Campbell: Yeah, we'll jump in. Mike: Okay. What we figured was that we would kinda get a list of our top questions, because we do get these spurts of questions too, that we get one question that starts coming in and then we get a bunch of those questions coming in. I don't know where ... Mike: (silence) Mike: ... have some that are more common than others. So we figured we'd kind of go through that, and somebody maybe who listens to our podcast, who's not a member, might be able to get some insight. Or if you're a member, you might not have full understanding of everything that we do. So, let's just jump right in. Stan Campbell: Okay. Who'll be your first? David Darter: Okay. Let me start just real quick by kind of talking and following up on what you said, Stan. We try to do the best job we can. We take great pride in our customer service. We are in the midst of an upgrade to make the check out much easier right now. Stan Campbell: That's right. David Darter: And then within the next probably four to six months, we are going to be updating some of our phone systems and things like that. So, we constantly try to make it better and easier for new members to get ahold of us and we wanna answer your phone just as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, you can't have an infinite number of specialists. Stan Campbell: That's right. David Darter: So, sometimes it might take us a little bit, but we try to get used as quickly as we can, and we are doing a lot of updating that's going to make your whole experience I think much easier. So, I just wanted to throw that out there. So I think- Mike: And, on that too, there are other ways that people can can find out answers to their questions. We have a new chat that we kind of rolled out maybe six months ago. Some of that is automated; kind of takes you through. So if you ask a certain question, email support at ccwsafe.com is a good one. Sometimes, if you have a pretty simple question, if you email it, you might get an e-mail back before you would if you were to try to call in. So, we have different ways that people can get ahold of us. Stan Campbell: Absolutely. Mike: The chat, I think, has been a really get additional niche right on the website. If you go to ccwsafe.com, you'll see it pop up there. Stan Campbell: Yes. Just to piggyback what Mike's saying, hey guys, this works Central time because that's where our hub is located. We also have the West Coast times, but the West Coast Times but West Coast [inaudible 00:18:27]. So, if you do have issues that you need dealt with pretty quickly, you don't try to contact David between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. in Central Time. Stan Campbell: Once again, we're trying to get ahead of any frustrations you might have or delays. David also does not work on the weekends. So, be mindful of that. If you say, "Hey, I contacted David on Friday at 10:00 p.m., you're not gonna get a response from him until Monday morning. So, please be mindful of that as well. Stan Campbell: Also, Mike did mention some of the other ways that you can gather information. A lot of people don't know that you can go to the website and you can find our frequently asked questions. Locate the frequently asked questions. I mean, there's two pages of them. So, you can get ahead of it and really study what your policy is about. Look at our terms of service. Look at the terms of service and copy that now. I mean, it too is on the website. Make sure that you go to the terms of service and have an understanding of what you actually have as coverage. Stan Campbell: But those means there, and to go along with Michael, you did mentioned the Chat function as well. We have a live chat, but a lot of the questions that you guys have can be answered on the FAQs, either in the Chat function or automated function, also has FAQs that we've seen with the live agents there. You can go there, look at the frequently asked questions on chats, look at their frequently asked questions on the website, and you actually have your answers when you put it together before having to call us. If you don't have an understanding then .... Stan Campbell: And we actually designed the chat function. It is automated initially so that it can answer simple questions. But if you ask a question a second time, please understand that the automated function is gonna state, "I'm gonna send you to a live representative." Okay? Then it sends us a message and we pick up on it. All of that's by design, like real simple stuff that it won't take us a long time to deal with. We can deal with the medium level request, and also semi-emergencies and emergencies. Stan Campbell: We're doing all this to try to keep the machine moving because at the end of the day, it's all about the emergency calls and everything else, it's not really an emergency, we can help you through. It's a non-emergency or an elevated non-emergency where you have a credit card issues, please, by all means, call David to get it taken care of. Stan Campbell: I wanted to kinda jump in and let you guys know about that so that you know those are the working hours. Don't frustrate yourself. I'll also give you a little head's up. Thursdays is the day, for some reason, that we don't have a lot of calls and e-mails. So, if you have something that can wait to Thursday, call at us Thursday. But if you try to hit us on a Monday, we're catching up on weekend stuff, non-emergencies and David is swamped on Mondays. You're probably not gonna catch him as fast on a Monday as you would on a Tuesday, and then Wednesday and Thursday. And please be mindful of that. Stan Campbell: We're trying to really assist tens of thousands of people, and just to be honest, we're still talking about hundreds a day. Let's be honest. 50 to 100 contacts a day is what we're dealing with, and these people all expect 30 minutes to an hour and it's only an eight-hour day. So, if you guys do the math, I hope you understand that. You have to just be mindful of that. Stan Campbell: Anyway, sorry. I get to talk too much, but go ahead Michael. God bless. David Darter: So, I think one of the first things that is probably one of our most frequently asked questions now, and is probably due to the political climate, the things that have been happening in some of the states. Do we cover New York? Do we cover Washington? Both of those states now have passed legislation where some of the other companies can't service members in those states. We still do. And Stan, I don't know if you wanna kind of explain the [inaudible 00:22:49] of the business. Stan Campbell: Absolutely, I will. Stan Campbell: Hey, guys. Those who are already members, kudos to you because you chose the right company. Those who are not, research, make an independent decision, and be Michael especially if you're in some of these questionable anti-gun states. Stan Campbell: David brought up New York and Washington state. We know the issues with New York. About a year ago, their governor all out, assault on, one of our competitors and also anybody associated with the Second Amendment. The reason why I say kudos to those who are members and part of our family already is the fact that we saw this coming years ago. And in 2016, 'cause we talked about it in 2015, we saw the writing on the wall. That's the importance of having people that know what they're doing and experienced in the criminal justice system, and handing handling a serious civil litigation across the nation. That's what you have in CCW Safe, and we are also leaders in the industry and forward thinkers. So we tried to get ahead of the anti-gun campaigns, and one was New York. Stan Campbell: So we saw the fact that we should not follow everyone else and attach ourselves to a traditional insurance and broker for insurance coverage backed by a foreign entity in Europe. We knew not to do that because we knew that it left you open as vulnerable to that traditional insurance industry that is regulated, while our competitors, all of our main competitors did that. They went for about a year or so, doing a really, really good job and taking their members. Stan Campbell: What I mean my good job is taking in a lot of members, but then once they got attacked, the anti-gunners, they were smart enough to attack the brokers, not the actual company. So they attacked the brokers and stated technically, 'cause this is what it comes down to, technically they are engaged in selling their illegal insurance products by teaming up with this competitor of ours. And by doing that, because they're allowing them to sell products and they're outside of the traditional regulation, it makes it illegal in that state. That's why the government sued our competitor and they exited out of New York. There's another competitor that is still not selling any additional ones but allowing its members to stay on board until their memberships expire, and then they give them a letter to say, "Now you're no longer covered in the insurance, which is a different conversation. Stan Campbell: One thing that I'm gonna fall back on again is the way that we designed our model. Our model was designed so that CCW Safe is insured through our insurance company that we own, backed by reinsurance as well. So, we have a two-layered protection for CCW Safe to help us to deal with these catastrophic events and these critical incidents in support of our benefits for our packages. Stan Campbell: So CCW Safe is the insured, we are not an insurance company. Let me say that one more time. We are not an insurance company, and we do not sell insurance policies. Our competitors do that. We are a legal service subscription plan, and we facilitate finance and coordinate all the efforts and resources associated with defending your actions in the use of force that is critical. Therefore, we are allowed to stand strong in those states because we're not doing what these other companies are doing. We are not presenting ourselves as an insurance company, nor an associate with traditional insurance product. Therefore, we are the only one standing strong in Washington State and New York. There are no other products there, just us. Stan Campbell: And there are other there other states that are doing the same thing, like California and New Jersey. So please, if you live there, pay attention to what's going on there in your legislation because they're trying to put a stop to you guys being covered as well. And then once that happens again we're going to be the only one standing strong and only ones that's going to be able they truly state that we cover everyone in 50 states. No one else in the industry is gonna be able to state that, unless they follow suit and design themselves like CCW Safe, and it takes about a year to do that. So, in that time, in the next year, we're gonna be the only organization standing strong in certain states because of the way that we're designed. Stan Campbell: You got anything to add on that, Mike? I know I said a lot. Mike: No, no. That's good. Good point. Stan Campbell: Thank you. I did my job, thank you. Mike: You did your job, and you did it well. David Darter: You did. You did it. Stan Campbell: [inaudible 00:28:28] David Darter: No, I just wanted to bring it up. That has been a very popular question. David Darter: So, one of the other questions that we get a lot of is, what is the difference between civil defense versus civil liability? So, all of our basic packages cover unlimited civil and criminal defense stemming from a self-defense incident. That covers attorneys expert witnesses, private investigators, any fees that come along; deposition fees, filing fees, trial cost, court costs, mistrials or retrials appeals, anything that has to do with your actual defense is covered unlimited on what we pay. David Darter: Now, the civil liability is a little different animal, in that your civil defense is covered while the trial is going on. After a trial, if there was a civil monetary judgment brought against you, then that's what the civil liability covers, up to $1 million dollar civil liability. And that's after a civil trial. That comes after a civil trial, and so that's what the difference is to those two. While one covers defense costs, the other one covers after a trial for any liabilities that would be brought against you. Mike: Yeah. One good point I want to bring up is, it's a dedicated one. If you have a civil liability coverage, meaning that after the trial is over and the judge says, "Okay, you're found in judgment of $1 million, if you have the civil liability protection, then that is a dedicated $1 million. So it's not a wasting policy where, if the cost of the trial was $400,000, then you have $600,000 left over. That's a wasting policy. So that's taken out of that million. Ours is the dedicated millions. So if you have $400,000 trial costs, then you still have $1 million dedicated on that civil liability policy because it's a add-on separate policy or a separate membership. So, that's just one point I wanted to make. Stan Campbell: Absolutely. Just piggybacking both of your thoughts, I want to caution everyone who hasn't made a decision to get coverage thus far. I wanna caution you to truly be careful about how some of these companies market their product. And really, at the end of the day, anybody that's watched a used car dealerships commercial or you've been up at night and, you've got, while you are punch, drunk and tired, you end up buying something from a commercial when you know you went to purchase that thing in the morning. Be cautious of the tricks that are associated even in our industry. Because some of these companies, I mean, wow, they are masterful in their marketing attempts. Stan Campbell: Some these companies spend more money on marketing than they do on their members. No, we don't. But there's a reason for that. We keep all of our resources for you guys when you need it, and of our stuff is word of mouth as well, but I want you to be careful because they use a lot of scare tactics, videos, to scare you into submission, and buying their product so that you think that the civil liability is your first fight, and it is not. Stan Campbell: I mean, if you can do any research, because part of my job is to research the industry, and in doing so, I challenge anyone listening to my voice at this time, to locate three, more than three, incidents across the nation, in the past 20 years, in which a concealed carrier has used legitimate self-defense, and has won a criminal trial, but the system allow a civil proceeding to continue and a civil suit to go through, and in that they actually lose a civil suit because, Number I, you're not gonna find too many where someone that is not or that's acquitted of the criminal charges, are not protected by the state for the civil proceedings. But you're not going to find any, unless you find it in Philadelphia. I think I found one in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the only place that you might find one or two, where someone has won a criminal case and they lost the civil ... The civil was allowed and they lost it, and they had damages. Stan Campbell: So, I'm saying all that to say, you being sued for your use of force, if you just hit the suspect ... If you just hit the suspect, it's so small of a chance. We only deal with, to be honest with our listeners, 0.1% of our members, there are tens of thousand of them, 0.1% get involved in the deadly use of force incident. 0.1%. Less than that, 0.1% of that, will be those involved in a civil proceeding. In the seven years that we've been doing business, and we serviced a lot of members in shooting cases, We've only had one that went to the beginnings of a civil proceeding before we were able to resource it out and to negotiate it out. We have not had anyone, and we have not had to pay out, on a civil lawsuit. Stan Campbell: And we and we do the most work out of everyone. We're the only ones with a documented use of force by one of our members that went from an allegation of murder and completed an entire murder trial with the Stephen Maddox case. We're actually sitting on two other deadly force cases that we cannot mention for confidentiality reasons. But I need you guys to know that. And challenge these companies. When they tell you, "Hey, we've got a gun for you." Or, "Hey, we've got this and that," or, "We'll give you extra two months on your service if you join us now," challenge them and say, "How much work have you done? Show me. How many members have you paid out on civil cases?" They're not gonna be able to produce anything because it just doesn't happen that often. Stan Campbell: So, you guys, be careful about that because it's really tricky in the way they bring you in. Just like Mike talked about the wasting policy. Nobody really knows what that is. They think with somebody tells them that you have $2 million of coverage, you go, "Well, my God, that's twice the amount of everybody else's coverage." Well, really it's not. They're saying, out of all of the things that you can do, all of the little elements that you can use them for and you can be resourced for, that it amounts to that. The problem is, it wastes and it takes away for every dollar that you use, and it starts off with $100,000 for a retainer if you take someone's life. That's where they turn you. Stan Campbell: You can do your own independent research on this, guys. Look at the industry, check with your local criminal defense attorneys, ask anyone that has tried cases for murder, how much do they require for a retainer. And the retainer just readily, it started working. That's not all that it cost. So, I want you guys just to be mindful of that because it's scary. Stan Campbell: This is why we're so upfront with you guys and we're so truthful. Number I, we all come from a background of servicing citizens, but we like to lead with honesty, integrity, and good character, and it stands by and it supports our core values as well. So, we give you information in support of our core values. Mike: Yes. Next up, David. David Darter: Okay. So, I think next we came out with some new plans here. It was late 2017, fourth quarter of 2017, and anybody that had plans, who'd had been a member with us longer than that, you were grandfathered in with what you had. And so, basically, pretty much what happened was they just renamed the plans and made a few changes like bond amount. David Gardner: So, if you had the military law enforcement plan, which was what it was called up until 2017, and you go to the site now, what you're gonna wanna look at is the protector plan. 'Cause the difference, one of the main differences between what you have and that protector plan is the amount of the bond. Unless you've upgraded to the $1 million bond on the old plans, you're covered for $250,000 bond and the new plans cover up to $500,000 bond on the basic plans. Mike: And David, before we go any ... Or I'm gonna let you wrap this up, then I'll talk about the bond. David Darter: Okay, all right. So, if you had the military law enforcement, you would basically wanna look at the protector plan, which is the renamed plan with some changes. If you had the annual single membership, you can look at the defender plan. And if you had the dual membership, it would be either one of the protector or defender with spouse. So, we get that a lot. You are grandfathered into those. You could keep those as long as you want. A lot of members do, but you do not have to update, upgrade, or switch to one of the new plans. Stan Campbell: Yeah, and then just to cut and jump in real quick David, hey guys, remember you're allowed the grandfather in as long as your automated payment does not stop. If you're automated payment because there's a guy that they'd have to e-mail you. But there's a guy that allowed his payment to lapse back in 2018, and back then he was on the 129 payment plan, which is our old basic. He wants to get the 129 plan again, and it's just we can't do that. I mean, if you allow your payment to continue on, then you can be grandfathered in. Stan Campbell: If it does cease and you stop it, and you try to come back later, we can't give you that. We're not selling that any longer. I mean, it doesn't even compute. We can only allow it to continue. Our computer doesn't allow us to go back to that price because it's not attached any longer. You cannot get the old plans. We know what the pricing in the old plans if you did not have it and it's not a continuous cycle. That's the point of being grandfathered in. Just to let you guys know, that that came from Mike Darter. Stan Campbell: Mike Darter wanted to take care of those who wanted to hold their pricing, but at the same time, when he explains the reason for us changing the standard, which he will do in a minute, there's a reason why we did what we did and moved away from those plans. We're trying to give you guys more protection. If you don't mind, I might just jump in real quick and handle that, and we will let David finish. Mike: Yeah. So there's two things that went into this decision. One was the Maddox trial, and one was the fact that his bail was set at $500,000 just based on the fact that there was a man that was killed and he was the shooter. Didn't really take anything into effect about the case, about that it was a self-defense case. I mean, that was just based on the fact that, "Your honor, we have one dead, we have one deceased, and this man shot him." Boom! $500,000. Mike: Again, there's another- Stan Campbell: Hey Mike, also I think that was because he lived in another county. So he lived outside that county as well, is reason why. They made that soft justification 'cause it is really weak what they used that one. Mike: All right. Yeah, it was weak. There's another article that came out on priceonomics.com, and I'll try to put this in a show notes but it was on America's peculiar bail system. It came out kind of talking about the Freddie Gray in Baltimore, and some of the other cases. And it was really a kind of a more liberal piece talking about, why is bail for murder cases so much higher than the other cases? Mike: In the bail system, you have bail starting at $1,000 or so going up to, I think it was around $55,000 for most cases, felony cases, and then, I think it went up to $250,000 for rape and sexual cases, and then murder cases, manslaughter cases, jumped to $500,000 to a million. It was basically saying that the bail system is unfair, but it's just another key piece that made us realize that if we have, in the case of Steven Maddox, he had coverage for up to a million dollars bail. If he would have got that bail set at $500,000 and would have had the standard $250,000, we might not have been able to get him out of jail. Stan Campbell: Yeah. And the reason why Mike says that is because, we would pay 10% or up to 10%, which would be 25,000, and Stephen would have had to pay 25,000, which he did not have. Mike: One of the whole things that we have to worry about, that we have to kinda moderate with our members is, keeping them in the best physical, mental, and emotional shape to prepare them for that trial. We can only do so much. If somebody is in jail and cannot get out of jail, and some people think, "Well, if I could get a bond out." Well, you might bond out. The judge may say he's not issuing any bail. And in the case of Stephen Maddox, it was 30 days later. He's gonna miss Thanksgiving with his family. Mike: We were able to get that within, I think, eight days or seven days, something. But, we have to make sure that our members stay healthy emotionally, mentally, physically to prepare them for this time. Stephen went to a two-year trial process before he even went to trial. You can see from some of the videos of Stephen, there are many days that he woke up and he didn't really want to even stick around. As far as, he just wanted to just give up. He would call our critical response coordinator, which was John Risenhoover at that time, which did a phenomenal job on that. Stan Campbell: He did. Mike: He had dietary guidelines and workout regimens for Steven. So that's why we said, "If there's a case of a self-defense case that is gonna be a murder 1 charge, a murder 2 , manslaughter, it's going to be most likely $500,000 or more. Stan Campbell: Sure. Mike: And if we can better cover our members, that's why we took our bail up to $500,000 'cause we didn't wanna have to have one of our members get stuck in a situation where, based on our terms of service, that we couldn't help them and get them out. That's another reason why, if you look at our website, our whole site ... We do three posts a week. Last week, we didn't do a podcast. We kinda took a week off because we've been re-strategizing some things. This week we're back on and every Wednesday we're gonna have a podcast, or try to I can't say that we will for sure have one, but we're gonna try to do this weekly. Mike: We've been doing weekly for the last three, four months. We also have posts every Friday from Shawn Vincent and Don Weston, in self-defense, which looks at high profile cases and what they did right, what they did wrong. We also have posts by either us, or Steve Moses, or Bob O'Connor on Mondays, and all those, if you look at our site, all those are trying to help people to avoid these situations. So, if we can help our members avoid these situations and give them examples of what should be done, and we're doing the best we can to help them mitigate the risk, that they're not gonna be in a situation that is not gonna be defendable as self-defense. So that's the whole reason why we took that. Mike: I'll put that link in the show notes, it's priceonomics.com. If you search America's peculiar bail system, you'll probably get it in a search and you can look at it. It has all the kinda statistics on that. Based on that and the fact that we had our own experience with Steven Maddox is why we took that up. Stan Campbell: That's right. I couldn't say anything better than that, Mike. That was awesome. What Mike is saying ... Like I said, we invite you guys to grandfather your plans, but our new standard, and we're trying to make this to the industry's. The standard is a $500,000 bail coverage. I think there's only one other company that has matched that standard, but that's where actually they tap out. We tap out at a million dollar bank coverage. Stan Campbell: But the reason why we do that, like Mike said, we really need you guys out of jail. It doesn't help us at all for you to stay in jail. If Steven Maddox would have, and I know you didn't hear the numbers from Michael, right? If he couldn't get out of jail, please understand that's two years in jail waiting for trial. That's not where you wanna be. And for $50 or more, and that's the reason why we made the increase to 170 now, for the defender plan, you get the $500,000 coverage. Stan Campbell: So, even all of you who are coming up on your renewal date, please do, do so thinking about how should I be covered? Or do I have? Or really, you don't have to upgrade because it's really not about the money for us. We're just trying to help you. Put $25,000 aside in a savings account so that you can match our $25,000 so we can get you out of jail. And if you don't have that, like most Americans, please allow us to take the financial burden off of you. That's it. David Darter: All right. Let's move on to the next one. On the dual plans, we have quite a few people. Lot of members getting the ultimate plan now where it automatically covers a spouse. And the question that always comes up is, where do I put my wife's name and why is she not showing up on the account? David Darter: Most likely, she's there. If you go to your ... If you log into your account, or if you're in your account, and you go to My Memberships, you'll the primary membership card, and then right next to it, you'll be able to sign a second card. Now, that second card is therefore your spouse only. That's not for a friend that lives in another town or anything like that, that's for your spouse. David Darter: So, if you go to that, you'll be able to enter your spouse information and then she will be listed right there next to you. And you can look at her membership card if you like, by, I think there's a view button, or you can click on her account number that's there. But that's where you'll enter your spouse's name, and that's what that second card is for. It is for a spouse for one of the dual memberships. We have a lot of people that think that that's, "Hey can I put somebody else in there? Can I put my neighbor in there?" Whatever. That's not the case for that. It is for spouse only. You can do that under the My Membership selection under My Account on the top menu bar. Stan Campbell: That's right. David Gardner: Just like- Mike: Ultimate plan has a lot of ... If you haven't looked at that, it has a civil liability. I mean, it's our top-tier plan. It has everything available. So, if you do have a spouse, whether they just wanna be covered in the home or if they do have a permit, that would be a great plan to look at. Stan Campbell: That's right. And then also, that plan still does cover you guys for your spouse if you wanna cover her for provisional terms. She'll be covered on the provisional terms as well, but she will not be covered for civil liability. Only the primary is. Because we get that question as well. Unless you add civil liability, that's an additional $220 a year, you make the decision whether or not it's worth it. Weigh out the options of your wife. If she carries, she doesn't have as much as you do in public while you guys are together, weigh out the options whether or not you wanna pay that. We don't push that upon you. We leave it up to the member whether or not they wanna just be primary covered or not. Stan Campbell: But please understand, she is not covered, or he ... Your spouse is not covered unless you have that additional civil liability coverage. And David Darter explained that yes they do get civil defense. And although David said unlimited, sort of you guys are gonna use our words against us, what that really means is that, your defense funds are not capped for everything needed to prepare you for, or to get through trial. Because something might say there is no such thing as unlimited. There is a limit. When the trial's over, then that's over. Stan Campbell: We don't have a cut-step plan. That's one of the reasons why our defender plan, we can match against ... And that's our standard plan. Our defender plan, we can match against most companies' higher plans because we created the ultimate plan through the brilliance of Mike Darter to be the best in the nation [inaudible 00:53:59], and the most amount of benefits for the most reasonable amount of cost. So, for 4.99, you get all of that, that we give you, and it covers a lot. Stan Campbell: And people that don't understand, even those companies that they say, "You have over $2 million of coverage," but look at the coverage you have for your defense. Because if you'd only have $500,000 of coverage or less, to $250,000 of coverage, say this is worse, for your defense, when that money runs out, where do you think it's coming from? They're not gonna just say, "Hey you, I owe you. It comes from the member." So, when they say, "This is all you need," or, "You only need 20% because we're a reimbursement plan," please don't fall for that. Use your good judgment, please understand what happens in these cases, and how much money you would need. If you run out of money, if your plan runs out of money with these other companies, you're gonna pay. That's it. Stan Campbell: Now David. David Darter: Okay. All right. Next one I just wanted to touch on was credit cards. With credit cards, we have a lot of people that will have a change of address. And they change their address in their mailing address, in their profile, but because billing addresses can be different than mailing addresses, if you change your address in your profile, you'll also need to go into your billing information, which is under My Subscriptions. You can go in there. There's a Change Payment Method, you can go in and change that, and make sure you get that changed there as well. Because if you change your profile address, it does not automatically change your billing address. Stan Campbell: That's correct. David Darter: Absolutely. Stan Campbell: Yeah. The reason why they've told you guys that is because your plan is gonna fail. It is gonna fall. You went in and changed your profile, but you didn't go in and change what you need. And he's giving you that information now that let's you know, go in there and edit your credit card. Don't get mad at us because you get a failure and it has a mismatch. It's just part of the system. You need to upgrade it, just like you would at your bank. All of these need to be upgraded. And it's the same thing for us, you gotta update that information so that it doesn't fail. David Darter: And the failure is the security. Stan Campbell: Yeah, is is. David Darter: It's therefore your security. So yeah, that's just something that we don't wanna change a lot for people because they don't realize that but they can do that right there on their own account. So, I think the last thing I wanted to just touch on was our membership cards. At the end of 2017, I did a digital membership card, which is a membership card that you can download to a phone, iPhone or Android, and have it with you always on your phone. It just gives you another place to have our emergency information. David Darter: The wallet card is is not automatically sent out any longer. However, if you have to have a wallet card, then you can always request that by just sending me an email at david@ccwsafe.com, and we will send you one. But it's not an automatic thing. The digital card is a card of choice, currently. Stan Campbell: That's correct. And then, in saying that too, David, guys please remember, 'cause I know that there's some folks that either don't have a ... There's a small number of you don't have a smartphone, or you're just old school, because this is what I say all time, "I'm old school. I need something in my pocket." Even if you request one from Dave and he sends it out to you, I just wanna caution you guys again. Although we used to back when we first started ... We used to say, "Show them your CCW Safe membership card and say that you're having a lawyer on the way, we no longer do that. I mean, we put that word out a couple of years ago, that we don't want to sway a decision of a responding officer, investigator, or anyone, that you planned for this to happen. So, we don't wanna give that to them. All we need you to do is say that, "Hey, I will give you the details of this incident in the presence of my attorney, and I've already called my attorney." Stan Campbell: So, to just add another quick one before Michael closes this down, but that's also why we want you guys, don't stay on the phone with 911. Do it long enough to give them your description, that you've been attacked and you had to defend your life. You need medical and police. Get off the phone and call us. Because we do that, we tell you that for a reason. We don't want you to have to say, "Here's my card." You don't have to try to make a phone call in a police car, in front of a police car, because of the videotapes, the car cams, and anything you say in the police department as well, you don't have any expectation of privacy initially. When you make a phone call there, everything's recorded. And they wanna take you to a recorded interview room for your statement. Stan Campbell: So, please know that if you want your phone call with the lawyers to be privilege, do it prior to the officers getting there, from a safe place. Make sure that you're not in high shot of the suspect, get behind cover, and make the call. Even if there's a car or something like that. Stan Campbell: I had to add that. Sorry Mike. Mike: No, you're good. You're good. It is going on rather than an hour, so we're gonna have to turn off. Shut it down. Mike: Do we have any other questions that we wanna address today? David Gardner: I don't have any. We are constantly trying to keep questions updated on our FAQ page. So, it's always good to go look there first. I think most of our main questions that we get asked over and over are on that Frequently Asked Questions page. Stan Campbell: Hey, Mike. Can I ask? I have one more and I'll get off of it. Mike: Yeah. Stan Campbell: Just because it comes up so much. This is for those guys who really concentrate on the forums and the information they're getting about zones that say no guns. I'm gonna talk about this real quick before I have to bring it back later, 'cause I'm gonna David back. Although Dave is saying he doesn't have anything, we doesn't have time for you, he went to come back and assess for Part II. But no gun zones, if it is a felony or a misdemeanor in itself to possess a firearm at a location like a federal building et cetera, you're not covered. You're outside the scope of coverage because it's illegal to do so. You know that. Stan Campbell: If you are in a state in which it is not a misdemeanor crime to walk on to private property of someone else's, and it only becomes a crime after they tell you to leave and you refuse to do so, the crime of trespassing, if you accept that charge of trespassing you refuse to leave, you're outside of the scope of your coverage. If you agree to leave, or if they don't know that you have it and you accidentally ... Stop trying to challenge these, don't use us to challenge people. If you accidentally walk on to property and you didn't see their sign, and something happens you defend others and then they come back with a charge, and they didn't tell you to leave, we will cover you. Stan Campbell: If you will on your way out after they tell you to leave, and Al-Qaeda or ISIS comes in the front door and you handle the threat, we will cover you. So, I just want you guys to know, this is not a game for us. This is really not a Second Amendment issue. This is about using deadly force, which is not a Second Amendment issue. We're trying to protect you from yourself as well. So, please, stop trying to challenge these things and know how you're covered. Stan Campbell: Go Michael. Mike: Well, I'm just gonna say, a lot of the examples we get from people, the only answer is, "Well, that would be a challenge case and that's not what we're here for." Like Stan said, that's why we put all these case studies and stuff online, so you can see what other people have done, and what life sentences other people have gotten for what they've done, and it's just not worth it. Mike: (silence) Mike: (music)  

In this episode, Stan and Mike talk with Bob O'Connor about what can happen when you are involved in a lethal self defense incident when it comes to media coverage.   Bob was the supervising investigator in the George Zimmerman case, which was a case that experienced a plethora of misinformation in the media surrounding the case and investigation.  Bob dealt directly with various media outlets during that time, and experienced what we have always believed and stated, which is, misinformation can quickly become fact in the public domain if it is not immediately addressed.  In the Zimmerman case, there was so much misinformation that was being disseminated through various channels, that the investigation couldn't keep up to even attempt to address much of it.  Furthermore, when certain aspects were addressed, the media itself chose to put aside facts and continue reporting misinformation.   Bob eventually resigned the Sanford Police Department over the handling of the case and went on to become a special investigator with the state attorney's office.  He recently retired and is now an author for CCW Safe, and has written an outstanding series of articles on The Principles of Concealed Carry Commitment, including Mindset, Education, Training, and Judgement.  

In this podcast episode, Stan and Mike interview Bob O'Connor, investigator for the Florida State Attorney's Office.  Bob is a highly experienced criminal investigator, and has had the opportunity to be involved at both the investigator and major case supervisory/management roles in multiple high profile, media-intensive investigations over his career. Those cases and the various assignments over a 40 year career provided Bob with a unique perspective of the criminal justice system and the interaction between the police and the public. He has worked at the local, county, state and federal levels successfully, using multiagency cooperation as the basis for mutual accomplishments.Time: 1:10:57

Dr. Bob O'Connor, Associate Professor of Philosophy, addresses the Wheaton College community. Watch Anna O'Connor's chapel message from November 2009 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jBNsDQbJZI. Her interview with WGN's John Williams can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjXt511Di88.

A funny farce, Results Inc. stars Lloyd Nolan as Johnny Strange in this rare series. Results Inc.. December 30, 1944. Mutual net. Sustaining. Johnny Strange finds that a mummy in a museum has been going on nightly strolls! Possibly, the last show of the series. Lloyd Nolan, Claire Trevor, Sol Stein (writer), Martin Worth (writer), Lawrence Edmond Taylor (creator), Russ Crump (music), Bob O'Connor (announcer), Joseph Kearns, Harry Lang. 29:37.The Strange detective places two ads:âResults, Incorporated â your problem is our problem. Will locate your long-lost uncle, work your crossword puzzle, hold your baby.â The second silly slip, âSecretary wanted â blonde, beautiful, between 22 and 28 years, unmarried, with the skin you love to touch and a heart you canât."Terry Travers (played by Claire Trevor) answers the ad. Terryâs pay is â25% commission, my hospital bills, and bail money.â A laugh a minute! Go To GoDaddy, use the promo code blu19 and save 10%