Riding Shotgun With Charlie

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#117Gabby FrancoThe DC ProjectTop Shot, Season 4 & 5Cartel Crew on VH1   Gabby Franco and several other members of The DC Project were going to be speaking at an event in New Jersey. With some simple coercion from a friend, I was talked into going.  All of the women speaking have been on RSWC except Gabby Franco. I sent her a message, explaining who I am and what I do, and who else has done the show, and asked if she would be able to film a show. Of course, she agreed. Gun people are the best people!   Gabby grew up in Venezuela, in a family full of women.  Venezuela was very different at the time when Gabby’s dad went to get a concealed carry license and saw the range had a junior shooting team. Her name, Franco, translates to ‘sniper’ in Spanish, which kind of set the tone for her life. By the time she was a teenager, she was shooting pistols competitively.  At 16 years old, she found herself shooting to be on the Venezuelan Olympic shooting team.     While at a fair in Miami,

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#116Neil WeidnerMarketing Director,  Active Self Protection   Neil Weidner saw me do a presentation at AMMcon (Alternative Multi Media conference) the day before the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Phoenix in 2019. He enjoyed the speech and the whole presentation.  A month later, a friend called me to say she was talking to Neil and he asked her how he could get on the stagecoach.  I didn’t believe it.  When I saw Neil at SHOT in January 2020, we talked about the possibility of setting up filming a show somewhere.  When I signed up for the MAG40 class in Sioux Falls in early June of 2020, I reached out to see if he was taking the course.  Boom! We had plans.    Neil and his wife Stephannie (RSWC #112) have four daughters, but they wanted a boy.  So, while living in Iowa, they wanted to become foster parents. They took in a young boy from a family that had some issues. Despite loving their son, the family wouldn’t be able to raise the son. So Stephannie and Neil took the boy in as th

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#114Ben DeWaltOnSight Firearms Training   One of my friends, Mark, asked if I was going to be taking a course called Defense Pistol - Accuracy and Accountability with Ben DeWalt of OnSight Firearms Training. I decided that I was going to do some training for myself this year and said only if Mark was taking the class, too.  He also told me that Ben would be a great person to have in the passenger’s seat.  So I signed up for the class and messaged Ben about being on the show!   Having grown up around firearms and shooting .22 rifles as a kid, he was carrying Guns & Ammo magazine in 3rd grade. About the time he was in 8th grade, he got into martial arts and karate. After high school, he found himself DJ’ing, doing security, and managing night clubs in NYC. That led to being a booking agent and calling clubs to set up tours for bands. Which came in handy years later as a firearm instructor.    Growing tired of the musicians and rockstar attitudes, he decided to make a career shift

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#114Daniel Schmutter, Esq.Hartman & Winnicki   Daniel Schmutter is an attorney in New Jersey. We ran into each other at NJSAFECON back in 2017. And certainly at GRPC over the last few years. I’ve heard Daniel on the Gun For Hire podcast for years and I finally had a chance to have him in the passenger's seat. But I do have to thank John Petrolino (Bearing Arms, Ammoland/ Decoding Firearms) as he made the connection to get Daniel and I together.  We covered many topics, from him getting into the 2A as a lawyer, to bringing a knife into court, and talking about liberty, which came up often. Daniel grew up in the Bronx, NYC, in an anti-gun family.  He didn’t have a chance to go shooting until he was in law school and took a course with the rifle & pistol team with a law school roommate He became a firearm owner in 1993 in New Jersey. In 2002, he wrote an op/ed for the Star Ledger, New Jersey's largest newspaper, against the ‘smart guns’ then was contacted by Scott Bach, who is

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#113Tanisha MonerNRA Instructor Chief Range Safety Officer, Legally Armed In Detroit   Tanisha Moner and I met this past March at the Florida Carry Speaker Event.  I was there to play the Star Spangled Banner and she was there with Rick Ector (RSWC #032) to find more instructors who want to be involved with Rick’s event.  Rick has been doing a free event for women in the Detroit area for 10 years.  His goal is to train as many women as possible.  Tanisha is the person who organizes the event for Rick.    Tanisha grew up in a household around firearms. Her father always had them around and in every room. She was kidnapped and robbed then  sexually assaulted at gunpoint when she was a teenager.  The men who did this to her were serial rapists, who were eventually caught and went to prison. After that, she was afraid of firearms and rightfully so.  She wanted to change that.  She had a talk with herself and realized that guns are inanimate objects and there’s no reason to be afraid of

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#112Stephannie WeidnerCEO, Active Self Protection Stephannie Weidner has been coming up on my Facebook page as “someone you might know” for a long time. I’m friends with her husband, Neil. She and I also have a lot of friends in common.  Finally we got the chance to meet at the end of the MAG40 class in Sioux Falls, SD.  Neil and I and a number of us met for drinks and decompression after the classes ended. She was also highly recommended by some of the participants in The Mingle head by Shelley Hill, RSWC #089.   Stephannie skims over the home life and how the Weidner’s got into firearms. The backstory is they were new foster parents and took in a child from a large, dysfunctional family.  When one of the family members said they were coming to take the child is when Neil & Stephannie decided it was time to learn more about firearms and self defense.    As new gun owners, they turned to the Active Self Protection (ASP) YouTube channel. There's a lot of great info there!  Eventu

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#111Tom HallInstructorBuckeye Firearms FoundationFASTER Saves Lives   Tom Hall & I met just last week. He was instructing with the FASTER Saves Lives staff in Ohio.  We enjoyed some social time with some of the other students and instructors of the class the night before the class started. What I thought was really cool was finding out that he was working on getting some education from a whiskey university.  He said if there was a cigar university, he could be all set with firearms, whiskey and cigars!   Tom has been with FASTER Saves Lives since the second year they were around. He is a firearm instructor in Ohio in his own right, but volunteers with FASTER and teaches their FASTERS Foundations courses.  That’s a class for school educators who are going to be carrying a firearm in their schools and have a concealed carry permit already.  The Foundations class gives them all the vernacular of firearms and fundamentals of shooting. He’s also worked at some local gun stores.    FA

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#110Sharyn HinchcliffePink Pistols Seattle   I really appreciate the friendships  I’ve made in the firearm community since I started RSWC. Sometimes the friendship turns into another friendship. Thanks to Derek LeBlanc from Kids S.A.F.E. Foundation for making the connection to Sharyn Hinchcliffe.  She’s a busy woman in Washington state for our Rights on many levels and fronts.    She grew up in New Jersey to a family of police officers. Unfortunately, there was an incident.  She had a relative who, as a 5 year old child, climbed up and over things the way kids do.  And found their father’s revolver.  Due to the weight of the gun and the age and strength of the child, the firearm went off.  Their family lost a child. This incident is why her father instilled firearm safety to her and her other family members at a young age.    In 2008, Sharyn and a blind date for coffee...it is Seattle.  They eventually went to a shooting range.  And things changed for her. She enjoyed her new partne

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#109Rob BeckmanFirearm Trainer’s PodcastAmerican Defense Training    A few months ago, John Petrolino reached out and connected me with Rob Beckman.  Rob was looking for an instructor in Massachusetts for his podcast, Firearm Trainer’s Podcast. I listened to a few episodes and really like Rob’s format for helping instructors on the business side of things. I was on Firearm Trainer’s Podcast back in April, FTP #109.  How ironic that he’s episode #109 of RSWC!   https://www.firearmtrainerpodcast.com/2021/04/12/ep-109-being-a-firearm-instructor-in-massachusetts/   Recently in Sioux Fall, SD, Rob and I were both students at the MAG40 course, taught by Massad Ayoob himself!  There were several other podcasters in the class.  It was hosted by Paul & Susan Lathrop of the Polite Society Podcast. Amanda Suffecool  (RSWC #009) of Eye On The Target Radio, the Polite Society Podcast, and the DC Project was a student.  So was Robyn Sandoval  (RSWC #080), from A Girl & A Gun and DC Proje

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#108Shirley WatralInstructor, Author, & DC Project Member    Shirley and I were both at the Florida Carry Speaker Event in 2021. I was only playing the Star Spangled Banner for the event, but I had my GoPro cameras should I have the chance to film a show.  She was speaking at the event as an instructor, author, and as a DC Project member. I purchased her book in the summer of 2020, but didn’t know she was going to be there.  I approached her and said “Hi, my name is Charlie. I’ve got a show called Riding Shotgun With Charlie.”  She said ‘You’re the guy who interviews the DC Project woman as you drive around, right?”.  I replied “Yes, that's me.  What are you doing for the next half hour? Do you want to be on the show?”   How can she say no?!?!  I told her I have her book and would have brought it so she could sign it, but I didn’t know she was going to be at the event. She offered me another book (signed) but I had to give my copy to another woman.  Which I did.    I learned abo

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#107Jeff Spiegelman & Kim PettersDelaware House of RepresentativesThe DC Project After I had the show set up to film with Kim Petters, she asked if I wanted to film another show.  She said she’s friends with Jeff Spiegelman, a member of the Delaware House of Representatives, who is a good Second Amendment supporter and a good friend of hers.  How can I say no?  I didn’t. Kim decided that she should ride in the backseat for this show.  Someone need to keep Jeff in control!   What a time we had! Despite everything he touches breaks!    Jeff wasn’t always a politician.  He was a US Navy contractor for a few years.  Then he was a military historian, teaching on the USS Cole & USS Roosevelt and teaching college history and politics. He was also the guy who complained about how the politicians should do things.  Then he got into commercial real estate.  Then he decided to be the guy who did something because he didn’t like how the politicians were doing things. And he’s been in of

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#106Joseph MorseShooting Gallery New EnglandShooting in the Woods Podcast   Joseph Morse reached out to me a while ago.  He’s a gunsmith at a gun store in Massachusetts. But he’s also a content creator!  He’s got an Instagram page called Shooting Gallery New England and a podcast called Shooting in the Woods. Both being gun guys in Massachusetts, we finally were able to connect and film a show!  Since we’re both in Massachusetts, we decided to meet at…. Plymouth Rock!  Of course the rock and the Mayflower are replicas, but we still did selfies in front of them.  Our driving route took us on both the Sagamore and Bourne Bridges.    Joseph has really had a bit of success as a young guy. He had a tough childhood and moved around a lot. After some bow hunting with a friend, he decided to get his firearm identification card (FID) which allows you to have non-large capacity rifles and shotguns in MA. After he turned 21 and got a License to Carry (LTC), he also became an instructor.    Not

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#105Dave WorkmanSecond Amendment Journalist   Dave Workman’s first words to me were “You’re a horrible model.”  It was at GRPC 2017 in Dallas. I was only into the firearm community for a year. I was modeling and IWB and an ankle  for the concealed carry fashion show. I went to a table, hiked up my pant leg, and showed off the ankle holster.  Someone put a one dollar bill into my holster and I left the table. Dave  snapped a picture and then said those ‘famous’ words to me.    Dave has been a journalist covering hunting, firearms, and freedoms for  years. He’s been writing for decades for publications like The Gun Mag, American Handgun Insider Online, Conservative Firing Line, Liberty Park Press, Ammoland, The Northwest Sportsman, and the CCRBKA, among others. He earned a degree in Journalism from the University of Washington, and ran a weekly newspaper after college. The great aspect about Dave’s writing is that he wants to get the story out and he knows the story isn’t about him or

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#104Mike PiwowarskiArms Room Radio   Mike Piwowarski is one of those people who goes to ALL the 2A events!  I can’t remember if we met at Gun Rights Policy Conference or SHOT Show, but we run into each other everywhere, which is one of the things I love about my 2A friends!   Mike is officially the SECOND passenger to “really ride shotgun”!  He brought with him a Serbu Super Shorty!  It’s a Mossberg 500 with a pistol grip cut down to be an “AOW”- Any Other Weapon. Which he tells me you only need to pay $5 to have a Class III firearm in Florida.  Now I see how much better Florida is than Massachusetts!   Mike has a long history of family that served in the military and on the police force. He continued the family tradition with over 20 years service active and reserve. He served several years in the Middle East.  Then came back stateside and pursued a career in law enforcement. When the politics got to be too much, it was time to make a life change.    He was already working on build

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#103 Alexander RoubianNew Jersey Second Amendment Society   Alexander and I first met at Gun Rights Policy Conference in 2016 in Tampa. After the conference, we both went with Mark Walters (RSWC #002 & #084) and Alan Gottlieb (RSWC #100) to a radio station to be on Armed American Radio. I’ve also been a fan of the Gun For Hire Radio Podcast, which has had Alexander on several times over the years. When I was heading to NJ to film some other shows, I reached out to Alexander and asked if he’d be up for filming  a show.    Alexander had an unfortunate experience which led him to gun ownership.  He grew up in a “gun agnostic” house, where guns weren’t really talked about. He was 20 feet away from a gang initiation which involved killing someone, he decided it was time to get a firearm. After seeing the ridiculousness of the process to get a NJ firearm permit, Alex reached out to Frank Fiamingo, founder of New Jersey Second Amendment Society (NJ2AS) and joined the group. Within 5 ye

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#102Alan LauALau Firearm Training   Alan and I have been following each other on social media for a while. We were officially connected by Patrick Collins RSWC #91 & #99 Part 1.  He thought Alan would be a great passenger for the show. And he was correct!   Alan grew up in Hong Kong and moved to the Boston area when he was 13.  He had other family members living in the area, so Massachusetts is where they went. He’s got years of martial arts including Muay Tai and used to referee MMA in New Hampshire until Massachusetts became a sanctioned state to run matches.    Alan was a Democrat when he moved to the USA and stayed with the party for a while. During the Obama years is when Alan got into firearms thanks to a Groupon offer. He got his license and bought an overpriced rifle during the Obama administration. He joined a shooting club and started shooting but realized that being an instructor could help him get discounts on firearms.   After becoming an instructor, he would get fr

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#101Hickok45YouTube Creator   Wilder things have happened. Snow in Tennessee isn’t something that happens often. Unless I’m driving down. Despite nearly every place being closed and many Tennesseans not having experience driving in the snow, I was able to meet Hickok45 for breakfast before we filmed the show!  Whew!   We’ve all been watching Hickok45 for years and he’s the nicest man around. He’s been a school teacher for years, which we share in common.  We drove by where he used to teach.  He took a break from teaching and he had another career that he can’t talk about, unless he kills you, of course. Then he went back to teaching in the 1990’s.    He’s been a shooter since he was a young boy.  He used to go shooting with his dad’s old .22 rifle and a pocket full of ammo and that’s when he got the shooting bug.    He started the YouTube channel back in 2007 when most people posted cat videos. He did a video shooting through his Honda Element’s open doors in the very early days. Th

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#100Alan GottliebSecond Amendment Foundation   Alan Gottlieb is The MAN! At my first Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) in Tampa 2016, I approached Massad Ayoob to have him sign my copy of In The Gravest Extreme. I took a deep breath, asked Mas if he could come Riding Shotgun.  Alan was right behind Mas. He said “Oh my gosh, Mas you’ve got to go Riding Shotgun With Charlie!” It was 2 years before we made it happen.    In Phoenix 2019 at GRPC, I was hanging out with a few people at the social hour and Alan came up to our group and congratulated me on the Blogger of the Year.  And he asked when HE was going to come Riding Shotgun.  We made it happen in Bellevue, WA, at the Second Amendment Foundation headquarters last month. He may have let me conduct the interview in his car, his 7th Corvette!   Alan grew up in New York City then joined the Army.  Earning a degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Tennessee, he became interested in fighting for individual rights, and the

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#099 Part 2Florida Carry Speaker Event Review Part 2 Stephen Shives, Runaway CampersKristin Franke, Packin’ NeatKevin & Sarah Sona, Florida Carry   While I was at the Florida  Carry Speaker Event on March 20, I filmed a few shows.  This is part 2 of Episode 099. I grabbed a few more folks and put them in the car for a review of the event. If you missed the Clown Car video, you can watch it here. https://youtu.be/d2rR1PtolyQ   Kevin Sona of Florida Carry organized the Speaker Event.  It’s the 4th Annual event and it's been growing every year. It started off with a few speakers and about 50 people.  This year, the numbers were low due to the ‘virus’, but there were speakers and visitors from Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, South Carolina, New York, Texas, California, and Virginia.  It has been the first time for many to get together since the Florida Carry event last year, which was just before the beginning of the virus.    This year, Kevin had some issues gettin

Riding Shotgun With Charlie#099 Part 1Florida Carry Speaker Event Review Part 1 I love my gig! I really do! Kevin Sona (RSWC #043) has been organizing a camping event for Florida Carry since 2018.  In Florida, its legal to open carrying while you’re doing the “...ing” activities: camping, hunting, fishing.  Therefore, anyone camping can open carry while they’re there. Past speakers are a who’s who of the 2A community. Massad Ayoob, Rick Ector, Rob Morse, Rob Pincus, to name just a few.  This year, the event was held at Runaway Campers in Summerfield, FL, on March 19 & 20.  The camping part was both nights, but the Speaker Event was only on Saturday. This was the first time many of the 2A activists, authors, and speakers have gotten together since the Gun Rights Policy Conference hosted by the Second Amendment Foundation in Phoenix, September 2019. The line up for 2021 included Cheryl Todd from Gun Freedom Radio & AZFirearms, Rick Ector from Legally Armed In Detroit, Erich Pratt from Gun Owners of Amer