June 3, 2026 • 24 mins
Our host says State Lawmakers have done little to provide more protection on Florida university campuses. Does Charlie Strickland of the Talon Training Group agree?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
And here we go. Welcome to the third hour of
the Morning Show with Preston Scott Show fifty six fifteen.
I am joined by jose Can you see over there
in Studio one A, and here in Studio one B
by our friend. It's been a minute, as you kids
like to say. Charlie Strickling with me from the Talent
Training Group. He is the co founder co host of
(00:23):
all Things Talent, including Talent Outdoors. How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm doing good. Yeah, voice is a little scratchy. That's okay,
I got I boost you up a little bit, buddy.
I drink two cups of the throat Coach stuff you
turn me on. Yeah, it helps because I sound better
than I did want to woke up this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Do you do anything to try to help that stuff
taste better? Because it just makes me gag, But it works.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I put a little bit of the flavored coffee creamer.
I use it, okay with it? Yeah, a little bit
of honey honey. Yeah, Yeah it's fine. I mean I
like it.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
It does its job.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah. I mean it's all natural ingredients and stuff, and
it makes your throat slippery.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I guess nothing like that slippery bark and I don't
know licorice root and well what else.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I don't you know. I start reading that and I go,
I don't that sounds But you know, I used not
to be into this uh natural holistic stuff until I
started uh studying the the plants that you can eat
in your yard. Billy Bailey and Marianna does these classes,
and he uh turned me on to a bunch of
this stuff. And now I know what what you can
go out in your yard and what edibles there are there,
(01:31):
and and I mean a lot of people eat edibles,
but that's a different story, that's in another world that's
medical marijuana stuff. Ain't into all that. I go out
of the yard and see what plants. And the thing
is that some of these plants you can eat raw, uh,
you can cook. I mean there's more, there's more growing
(01:51):
around your house that you can't eat than you can't
and it's actually pretty good stuff. So now I whant
to look at something and it's all natural. I don't
care if it's got chemicals in it or something, but
it's just kind of cool to know that you can
live off of. If the world ended right now, there
was an MP blast and everything shut down, and my
vehicle wouldn't crank up, which could very well happen, and
(02:11):
I had to walk home to Marianna, an hour away,
which would turn into a day and a half. I
wouldn't be hungry when I got there, so especially this
time of.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Year, because you'd know how to forage.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I know how to forage, and I got a gun,
so I'm gonna make it other people I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I told you while you were driving in. I want
to get your thoughts. I am wholly dissatisfied, though. Yeah,
it's a move in the right direction the Florida legislature,
and I think the governor signed it in expanding the
Guardian program to colleges and universities. I described it on
my note here to myself as better but not enough.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, I agree. I still think that people should be
able to be armed in places where there are potential threats.
But you know, the Guardian program itself is a good
program because they put people through an awful lot of training.
I actually have guardians that work for my organization that
are in Leonie County schools, and I am a fan
(03:14):
of the training that they get. Absolutely. What has happened, though,
is last year you brought it up. I didn't provoke
this conversation. But the legislature passed the law that pushes
all of the training costs for private organizations like mine,
the sheriff's offices trainings. We have to pay for that
(03:37):
training to put those people into the schools, which is past.
We have to then pass that cost along to the schools.
And it's upwards of ten thousand dollars per person to
train those people, which means that that's an extra six
sub eight dollars an hour, you know, we would have
to charge, and so it's pretty much sidelined our industry.
We're making it more difficult to find those people because
(03:59):
a lot of schools don't don't want the pe coach
carrying a gun, they want a trained professional. Well, out
of that trained professional, costs went through the roof because
some what I understand is some sheriff I a sheriff
for several sheriffs in South Florida, push the FSA to
push some stuff through, and you know they're trying to
I guess in their mind that was a smart thing
(04:19):
to do to keep private industry out of school safety
and security. But in my mind, the more people that
are trained and are into schools with guns, the better.
But I you know, I see the parent as a
parent of an elementary school kid moving to middle school
or middle school kid moving to high school next year,
and wanted to just graduated. I want the most professional
(04:41):
people around my kids with guns as I can. But
on a college campus, by its very nature, it is
pretty much all adults. Now I want say mature adults,
because I was an FSU cop once upon a time
and I've arrested a lot of FSU students and FAM
students and TCC students. But to take to say, you
know a professor who the ones who would carry a
(05:04):
gun are fairly level headed, that person or the staff
there can't protect themselves, and people coming and going into
town like Tallahasset where you have to go on FSU
campus at some point in time, you're the driving across it,
which you can transport a gun in your car across
the FSU campus, even park on FSU campus or any
of colleges with the gun in the car, which can't
get out walk around right, so you have to leave
(05:26):
it there. And is it safer in the cars? It's
safer for all youth. But I mean, I struggle with it.
I think it should have gone farther.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But talking about the expanded Florida Guardian Program expanding into
colleges and universities and Charlie, I'm going to say things
that you know better than I, but just to reiterate
for our audience, you know, elementary schools Guardian program is
a step in the right direction. I still think it
ought to be more. But the bottom line is that's
(05:53):
a very small campus, even a high school, compared to
our colleges and universities, which are de facto's cities. They're
towns within a town. Yeah, and my concern to here
is how do you effectively create a safe environment for
students in an open city with multiple with endless points
(06:13):
of entry negress.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Well, first, let me say that Chief Trumbu has done
a fantastic job over there from the incident that happened
here over a year ago. Their response, their training. I
started my career at FSU Police and those are some
of the most highly trained officers around. Because I had
half time to get additional training, there's some slow times
of the year. Their training program, they're staffing supplemented by
(06:37):
all the other agencies around Sarris Offce Police Department of
other state agencies. I mean, we're cop heavy in town,
so Tallahassee should be a lot safer than it is.
But there's also a criminal element. When I was at
FSU police that back in the nineties, you know, French
Town was right up in amongst it. So we had
between the homeless people and we had then the robberies
and all this stuff going on. And they didn't want
(07:00):
you to talk about it back then because you know,
parents want to send their kids here, so we don't
talk about these things. At that time. It's FSU, you know,
college town. All these things have expanded out into those
marginal areas now and so the campus is pushing bigger
and bigger and bigger into the community. But what you
have to think about it's like, okay, so if you're
(07:23):
if you're a teacher, and you're not allowed to have
a gun in a school or in a in a
in a certain place, then you know that may mean
you have to travel to and from without guns. We've
talked about this before. Now you can park on campus,
but let's say you walk to and from every day
to a class and you're having the parking I don't
(07:48):
know if it's still atrocious or not. They've added a
lot of parking. I just struggle with if my daughter's
going and my daughter will probably be here in a
couple of years when she finishes Chipola, she will probably
end up at FSU, my third one. And you know
what am I going to tell her? You know, you've
got to walk across campus at odd hours, and I
(08:09):
know what goes on in this town, and well.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
The O four zip code is still the most violent
in the community, I believe.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Well, and there's cameras, and there's alert system and there's
I think they still have the phones used to have
blue light phone system.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I don't know what they have over there, but those
are all reactive.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
They are. But you know, and you mentioned so. But
it's the same problem as always we've always had. They
did make progress. They did say we can send staff
to one hundred and forty plus hours of training and
then and only then can certain ones that we approve
carry a gun in certain places, okay, at certain times.
(08:45):
So it's very limiting, but it is a step in
the right direction. They took a step, but it's not enough.
But you know, they did move in that direction. I
don't know what the next administration is going to be like,
so I don't know where we're going to, which direction
we're going to go from there. But you know, it's
the lady you mentioned that got stabbed and cut situational
(09:07):
awareness and we might talk about it that segment. That's
what I want to do is and for college students
moving around, situational awareness is absolutely key. But that's a
time of life when you probably are least aware.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
A question from a from a listener that was a
little inevitable. Please ask Charlie if the burner launcher is
legal on campus.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You can carry a pepper spray device, and I think Berner.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Is here's your challenge though with a burner, because we
have them for a couple of people in our family
that don't want firearms. The challenge I would see, Charlie
is do law enforcement know to distinguish that burner because
the burner looks like a firearm.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I'm not a fan of burner. I know, I don't
recommend anybody to get a burner, but if it's you know,
if you're I like them. For I run Attack Team
Jackson County, I kind of want one to shoot dogs
on search warrants because they work good on dogs. But
on a motivated you know, drug addle violent felling, I
think it's just gonna make him mad, but it's I
(10:14):
guess it's better than nothing.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I would recommend they just call the campus campus police, right.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, I mean, so if you if you want to
carry some of that on campus, yeah, I would call
and I would I would check with them and see.
I'm pretty sure it's legal because it's not a dark
firing stun gun I don't think is on campus, but
a regular touch type taser would be. I think, uh,
(10:44):
pepper spray, I know pepper spray is, but you can't
carry a gun. It's there's some there's some nuances to
the law. Really prepared to answer to that on a
burner because every time I hear Berna, I just kind.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Of look the other way it off.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I mean, like I said, they have a if I've
been shot with enough paintballs, and it's that's what it is,
is a paintball with some pepper powder in it. And
I've been shot with paintballs and training to the point
where I go out that kind of hurt a little
bit because you hit a sensitive spot. But other than that,
it doesn't bother me. The impact doesn't have any effect
on anybody. The pepper powder itself can have a respiratory
(11:18):
effect if they breathe the powder, but they have to
breathe the powder in order for it to have we
do they use pepper balls to quell disturbances downtown. If
a bunch of kids are in a parking lot, or
the people take the field and they don't want them
on the field, they got pepper balls to you really
think that something they're going to hit college kids with
and people hanging out in bar parking lots and McDonald's
(11:40):
parking lots on Tennessee Street is really going to stop
at if they will shoot those kids with it, it's not
going to stop a violent feeling for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, it is a combo of the pepper, pepper spray
and tear gas. It's a combo C.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
S and OC. Yeah, and the CS is arguably has
it's a different, slight different effect. I think you might
get a different kind of snot out of it. But
it's I've been I've been. I've been exposed to enough
CS and OC in my career. We used to intentionally
expose ourselves to this stuff, you know, and I put
enough of it in houses and going in and done stuff.
(12:15):
I'm just telling you it's it's it's there again. I
mean I I'd carry a really high pressure pellet rifle,
and I have probably a better effect if I could
shoot with it, you know, shoot him in an eye,
you have more of effect, and shoot them. Want to
burn of it.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
We've got a couple of minutes left here. Let's talk
about that person though that you know, young girl off
to college. You can't carry a firearm. You talked about
situational awareness and some other things.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
The best defense for someone in a situation like that
is paying attention to your surroundings. If you're going to
go drink and they're going to go drink, is to
be with a group of friends. Never be by yourself,
and try not to be just with one other person
and then be choosing about who you're with and watch
each other's backs. But if you're just moving around campus,
coming and going, be aware of what's going on around
(13:08):
you and don't be afraid to offend someone. We talk
about the woman on the subway or the bus that
she's by herself. She was by herself mardy train yep,
and this guy walks up to her and stands next
to her for several moments before he whips out of
a knife and cuts her throat and starts stabbing her. Well,
(13:29):
you've got you can't be afraid to stand up, look
somebody and eye and go I'm sorry. You need to
step away from me, you know, and be assertive. Or
if you see someone coming towards you, a lot of
people go, oh, I'm afraid I'm gonna offend them. They're
gonna think I'm discriminatory, I'm racist or whatever. If it's
an uncomfortable situation for you, make it known. Leave the situation. Yeah,
(13:51):
you're gonna probably if it's some kid with a phone,
he's gonna put you all over. There's a guy here
in town that goes to the hardware stores and walks
around the film of the guy filming on his phone
and walks up in misgenders people on purpose and gets
people mad at him because he goes up and calls
men miss and princess and things like that in public
places just to aggravate them. And you know, eventually he'll
(14:14):
get trespassed from the location. But crap like that, So Yeah,
if you do something assertive to defend yourself from this
day and age, because of these idiots out there, it
makes it hard for you to not appear to be
a bad guy because you were offended. But I'll run
the risk of having a bad reputation if it makes
me safe. And I'll tell my young daughter exactly that
(14:38):
if something makes you uncomfortable, walk away, get in the car,
blow the horn, you know, and if there's weapons that
you can carry on you, then carry those weapons. Because
there's some little handheld things I love. I love flashlights.
I like little pointy things that you can stab with,
things like that.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
I want to talk a little more about this because
I have a couple of questions that have come up
as we were chatting. Find a couple of segments here
with Charlie Strickland of the Talent Training Group. That's where
you go go to talent Range dot com to get
properly trained and take some advanced classes. Charlie, we were
talking about the Marta incident just a few days ago
in Atlanta where a woman was just tragically stabbed to death,
(15:15):
and we were talking in the break sometimes you just
don't have a fighting chance if she's alone in that
car and the doors closed. She doesn't have a chance
against a man with a knife.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
It's highly it's very difficult. But what would mitigate the situation?
And I've asked people, I've asked cops this, I've asked
people this. How many fights have you been in? How
many times? I can ask a law enforcement officer, how
many shootings have you been involved in? How many fights
have you been I didn't give you an approximate number,
if not exact number. Thirty two years of doing being
(15:49):
a cop, I can give you an approximation. I know
exactly how many times I was involved in a shooting.
I know aroundabout number. But here's what I cannot quantify,
and nobody really can. Just how many fights did you
avoid because you look squared away, you had a command presence,
of command bearing, you used the command voice, You carried
(16:11):
yourself with confidence and confidence, and you own the space
around you. How many fights did you if you had
not done that? How many fights would you have gotten into?
How many people would have resisted arrest? How many people
would have punched you in the nose? How many fights
did you avoid by being good at your job, by
paying attention so they don't know that they can't. You
never do that, because that's the way you should carry
(16:32):
yourself all the time in a first responder setting, whether
it be a firefighter or an EMT or whatever, or
a nursing in the air. If you walk around and
you act like you own the place, the fact is
most people will give you that latitude, and well, they obviously.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Know what they're doing exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And you know that you have an alpha personality, you
have this big way about you with the voice, and
you know, of course you're not.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
A little guy either.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
You're just bigger, bigger. You're bigger than me actually, And
so if you and I've talked two women about this constantly.
I do this in our active shuter trainings we do
and our personal safety classes. If you make eye contact
with people. So if he had gotten on that train
and started walking towards her, and she looked him in
(17:17):
the eye and smiled and said, hey, how are you tonight,
she may not have got cut. That's not her fault
by any means. But I'm just saying one of the
ways you can deflect aggression is by looking at someone,
acknowledging them and trying to de escalate that situation. He
lord knows what demon was going on, the thing was
(17:38):
going on in his head, what demon possessed him at
that point in time, And could she have said something,
done something, take some sort of action instead of just
sitting there staring straight ahead. Because people are bad guys,
evil are looking for a victim, They're looking for an
easy target. They're looking for something that they can dominate.
And if you are not that person, and you see
(17:59):
particular women in sales, the people who have worked their
way up the chain and banks and businesses and that
walk up and look you in the eye and reach
out and shake your hand, those people are not often
victims of violent crimes because they're a more difficult target.
They're harder to target because most bad guys, unless they
(18:20):
are intent on killing you like that guy was, most
bad guys they don't want to be identified by you
when it's time to go to court.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
So absent having some way of defending yourself with an implement.
And I want to talk about that because you tease
that just a little bit and started getting onto that
some personal engagement might be your best means of trying
to avoid a situation.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, I mean don't ignore people. If you speak to people, smile,
act like. There again, there's a command presence, a command voice,
and my voice is terrible right now. But it's the
difference between a soft, passive voice and hey, how are
you to day? Sure, and hey how are you? You know,
it's more assertive. It's like if your kid wouldn't shut
up in the theater. You don't yell at them, but
(19:07):
you can even do it in a whisper instead of
you just shut up. You know. It's it's but that
in a public setting is it's just more of a
hey how are you today?
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Are you know?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Nice to meet you? You know, just something and it
can deflect, but there again you'll never be able to
quantify it and then have a backup plan.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Forty one minutes past. Final segment with Charlie Strickland of
the Talent Training Group. This is our personal defense segment,
and again it always revolves around personal situational awareness. Charlie,
what are some things that people can do differently about
their positioning and maybe even having implements in their hands
(19:54):
at their disposal to help.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Well, I mean a lot of times what you're doing
is bluffing. I mean, if I were a lady sitting
on a subway or a bus or marta train or whatever,
I'm gonna sit somewhere I can see all the way
around me. I'm either gonna sit at the end where
i can see everything coming at me, or I'm gonna
sit in the middle, in the side near a door,
where i can see what's coming left and right, and
if someone starts approaching me, I'm gonna stand up and
get to where I can move. The other thing I'm
(20:18):
gonna do is if I don't carry a purse, but
if I had a purse or I had a bag,
and I will carry like a tactical bag. Sometimes if
I was uncomfortable, I would unzi up that thing. I'd
stick my hand in it. I might not have anything
in it, but I'm gonna stick my hand in there
like I do. And then I'm gonna look them in
the eye and go, hey, how are you? And you
know now all of a sudden they're having to go, okay,
(20:38):
it's this the hill I want to die on. It's
this the victim for me. And the other thing is
to use your other hand and pick up the phone
and call nine one one and go would you play
on the stay on the phone me for just a minute. Please,
at least you know I will tell you. And I've
talked to people about this, like walking around Tallahassee. So
if you were leaving a restaurant or an office or
(21:03):
something after hours, so you walked out of the Governor's Club,
you know, a little rich for my blood. But the
there's probably a pizza joint down there I can afford.
And I'm walking down the street. And I tell people
if you're walking, if you're walking down the street and
someone is paralleling you, are following you, then pick up
your phone and go hello, honey, Hey, yeah, where are
(21:24):
you at? Okay, I'll meet you right, I'll meet you
right there on the corner. I'll be there. And just
to say, okay, yeah, just come on, I'm right here.
He doesn't need to know that nobody's talking to you. Sure,
but now that person thinks hey, and you can cross
the street, or you can turn around and go the
other way. You can do whatever. Dip in the closest
business you walk out, and you walk out of a
(21:44):
business at night and there's someone there that makes you uncomfortable,
and to turnround and walk back in and go with you.
Please walk me to my car. Come watch me get
to my car. I just don't really feel comfortable. But
having the thing I love look right here in my pocket.
They can't see this. That's a flashlight. Yeah, it is
eight forty four on a Wednesday morning and I have
a flashlight on. You can put it in my eyes.
(22:04):
It's gonna it's not gonna do that. But that's that's yeah,
that's several hundred lumens. It's recharged with the USBC rechargeable waterproof.
You open that up, you charge it. It's got a
pocket clip on it. And when I can carry it
in my hand in exactly precisely just like that one,
and I can stab. It's got a little bit of
(22:25):
an edge on the bowl, and I can stab this
into someone's temple or their eye, or the bridge of
their nose. And it doesn't take any special fighting technique
to do that. Everybody knows how to stab. But if
you're you're leaving somewhere it's dark, shine the light around
where you're going. Immediately, people who are the thugs of
(22:46):
the world, you go. That's not the victim I want,
because they're paying attention and they'll identify me and I'll
go to prison. Or do they If they've got a flashlight,
they may have a gun, or they may have something else.
Speaking of something else, Abbey devices anything that sharpened.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Tactical pins are actually pretty legit.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, I mean that we have them on the counter.
It's it's you can get them any type of pen
that there's the ones that are designed not to be
or if you're just going to carry a writing instrument
on you. I've got a pin in my pocket and
it's it's it's fairly rigid, but I could stab you
an eye with it. I could probably with enough forest,
get right through your temple. I could certainly stab you
(23:26):
in the ear. I'm going to distract you to where
you no longer want to bother me. But there are
the little sharpie versions that that are not sharpies. They're
very sharp, but they don't write on anything. Yeah, they're
just out of ink. But the middle of it is
my KRTA and it's really and it's and you can
stab with it. A pocket knife? Is that a common
pocket knife you can have pretty much anywhere. I mean,
(23:47):
you can't get to a middle detector with it, but
anyplace else you can.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
There are things to do.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Pepper spray does work on about half the people. It
will cause a pause in combat. So having something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Which is about time to get away, that's what that's about.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
And you can get a taser if you want. You
can do some different things. But there's a lot of
stuff out there. I would just google self defense devices.
Don't fall for any of the gimmicks, but just kind
of think about it. But here's the thing. The time
to think about that is now, yes, and have a
conversation with a family. It is not waiting until somebody
makes you uncomfortable. When you start thinking about what is
my weapon of opportunity today. It goes the same thing
(24:25):
for the office, as goes on your person, as your vehicle,
as your home. Look around as you find the things
that you can defend yourself and have a plan to
use it.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Thanks so much. Yep, good to see again. It's been
a while.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Thanks so much. Charlie Strickland with a talent training group.
My guests here Personal defense on the Morning Show with
Preston Scott
And here we go. Welcome to the third hour of
the Morning Show with Preston Scott Show fifty six fifteen.
I am joined by jose Can you see over there
in Studio one A, and here in Studio one B
by our friend. It's been a minute, as you kids
like to say. Charlie Strickling with me from the Talent
Training Group. He is the co founder co host of
(00:23):
all Things Talent, including Talent Outdoors. How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm doing good. Yeah, voice is a little scratchy. That's okay,
I got I boost you up a little bit, buddy.
I drink two cups of the throat Coach stuff you
turn me on. Yeah, it helps because I sound better
than I did want to woke up this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Do you do anything to try to help that stuff
taste better? Because it just makes me gag, But it works.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I put a little bit of the flavored coffee creamer.
I use it, okay with it? Yeah, a little bit
of honey honey. Yeah, Yeah it's fine. I mean I
like it.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
It does its job.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah. I mean it's all natural ingredients and stuff, and
it makes your throat slippery.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I guess nothing like that slippery bark and I don't
know licorice root and well what else.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I don't you know. I start reading that and I go,
I don't that sounds But you know, I used not
to be into this uh natural holistic stuff until I
started uh studying the the plants that you can eat
in your yard. Billy Bailey and Marianna does these classes,
and he uh turned me on to a bunch of
this stuff. And now I know what what you can
go out in your yard and what edibles there are there,
(01:31):
and and I mean a lot of people eat edibles,
but that's a different story, that's in another world that's
medical marijuana stuff. Ain't into all that. I go out
of the yard and see what plants. And the thing
is that some of these plants you can eat raw, uh,
you can cook. I mean there's more, there's more growing
(01:51):
around your house that you can't eat than you can't
and it's actually pretty good stuff. So now I whant
to look at something and it's all natural. I don't
care if it's got chemicals in it or something, but
it's just kind of cool to know that you can
live off of. If the world ended right now, there
was an MP blast and everything shut down, and my
vehicle wouldn't crank up, which could very well happen, and
(02:11):
I had to walk home to Marianna, an hour away,
which would turn into a day and a half. I
wouldn't be hungry when I got there, so especially this
time of.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Year, because you'd know how to forage.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I know how to forage, and I got a gun,
so I'm gonna make it other people I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I told you while you were driving in. I want
to get your thoughts. I am wholly dissatisfied, though. Yeah,
it's a move in the right direction the Florida legislature,
and I think the governor signed it in expanding the
Guardian program to colleges and universities. I described it on
my note here to myself as better but not enough.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, I agree. I still think that people should be
able to be armed in places where there are potential threats.
But you know, the Guardian program itself is a good
program because they put people through an awful lot of training.
I actually have guardians that work for my organization that
are in Leonie County schools, and I am a fan
(03:14):
of the training that they get. Absolutely. What has happened, though,
is last year you brought it up. I didn't provoke
this conversation. But the legislature passed the law that pushes
all of the training costs for private organizations like mine,
the sheriff's offices trainings. We have to pay for that
(03:37):
training to put those people into the schools, which is past.
We have to then pass that cost along to the schools.
And it's upwards of ten thousand dollars per person to
train those people, which means that that's an extra six
sub eight dollars an hour, you know, we would have
to charge, and so it's pretty much sidelined our industry.
We're making it more difficult to find those people because
(03:59):
a lot of schools don't don't want the pe coach
carrying a gun, they want a trained professional. Well, out
of that trained professional, costs went through the roof because
some what I understand is some sheriff I a sheriff
for several sheriffs in South Florida, push the FSA to
push some stuff through, and you know they're trying to
I guess in their mind that was a smart thing
(04:19):
to do to keep private industry out of school safety
and security. But in my mind, the more people that
are trained and are into schools with guns, the better.
But I you know, I see the parent as a
parent of an elementary school kid moving to middle school
or middle school kid moving to high school next year,
and wanted to just graduated. I want the most professional
(04:41):
people around my kids with guns as I can. But
on a college campus, by its very nature, it is
pretty much all adults. Now I want say mature adults,
because I was an FSU cop once upon a time
and I've arrested a lot of FSU students and FAM
students and TCC students. But to take to say, you
know a professor who the ones who would carry a
(05:04):
gun are fairly level headed, that person or the staff
there can't protect themselves, and people coming and going into
town like Tallahasset where you have to go on FSU
campus at some point in time, you're the driving across it,
which you can transport a gun in your car across
the FSU campus, even park on FSU campus or any
of colleges with the gun in the car, which can't
get out walk around right, so you have to leave
(05:26):
it there. And is it safer in the cars? It's
safer for all youth. But I mean, I struggle with it.
I think it should have gone farther.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But talking about the expanded Florida Guardian Program expanding into
colleges and universities and Charlie, I'm going to say things
that you know better than I, but just to reiterate
for our audience, you know, elementary schools Guardian program is
a step in the right direction. I still think it
ought to be more. But the bottom line is that's
(05:53):
a very small campus, even a high school, compared to
our colleges and universities, which are de facto's cities. They're
towns within a town. Yeah, and my concern to here
is how do you effectively create a safe environment for
students in an open city with multiple with endless points
(06:13):
of entry negress.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Well, first, let me say that Chief Trumbu has done
a fantastic job over there from the incident that happened
here over a year ago. Their response, their training. I
started my career at FSU Police and those are some
of the most highly trained officers around. Because I had
half time to get additional training, there's some slow times
of the year. Their training program, they're staffing supplemented by
(06:37):
all the other agencies around Sarris Offce Police Department of
other state agencies. I mean, we're cop heavy in town,
so Tallahassee should be a lot safer than it is.
But there's also a criminal element. When I was at
FSU police that back in the nineties, you know, French
Town was right up in amongst it. So we had
between the homeless people and we had then the robberies
and all this stuff going on. And they didn't want
(07:00):
you to talk about it back then because you know,
parents want to send their kids here, so we don't
talk about these things. At that time. It's FSU, you know,
college town. All these things have expanded out into those
marginal areas now and so the campus is pushing bigger
and bigger and bigger into the community. But what you
have to think about it's like, okay, so if you're
(07:23):
if you're a teacher, and you're not allowed to have
a gun in a school or in a in a
in a certain place, then you know that may mean
you have to travel to and from without guns. We've
talked about this before. Now you can park on campus,
but let's say you walk to and from every day
to a class and you're having the parking I don't
(07:48):
know if it's still atrocious or not. They've added a
lot of parking. I just struggle with if my daughter's
going and my daughter will probably be here in a
couple of years when she finishes Chipola, she will probably
end up at FSU, my third one. And you know
what am I going to tell her? You know, you've
got to walk across campus at odd hours, and I
(08:09):
know what goes on in this town, and well.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
The O four zip code is still the most violent
in the community, I believe.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Well, and there's cameras, and there's alert system and there's
I think they still have the phones used to have
blue light phone system.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I don't know what they have over there, but those
are all reactive.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
They are. But you know, and you mentioned so. But
it's the same problem as always we've always had. They
did make progress. They did say we can send staff
to one hundred and forty plus hours of training and
then and only then can certain ones that we approve
carry a gun in certain places, okay, at certain times.
(08:45):
So it's very limiting, but it is a step in
the right direction. They took a step, but it's not enough.
But you know, they did move in that direction. I
don't know what the next administration is going to be like,
so I don't know where we're going to, which direction
we're going to go from there. But you know, it's
the lady you mentioned that got stabbed and cut situational
(09:07):
awareness and we might talk about it that segment. That's
what I want to do is and for college students
moving around, situational awareness is absolutely key. But that's a
time of life when you probably are least aware.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
A question from a from a listener that was a
little inevitable. Please ask Charlie if the burner launcher is
legal on campus.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You can carry a pepper spray device, and I think Berner.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Is here's your challenge though with a burner, because we
have them for a couple of people in our family
that don't want firearms. The challenge I would see, Charlie
is do law enforcement know to distinguish that burner because
the burner looks like a firearm.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I'm not a fan of burner. I know, I don't
recommend anybody to get a burner, but if it's you know,
if you're I like them. For I run Attack Team
Jackson County, I kind of want one to shoot dogs
on search warrants because they work good on dogs. But
on a motivated you know, drug addle violent felling, I
think it's just gonna make him mad, but it's I
(10:14):
guess it's better than nothing.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I would recommend they just call the campus campus police, right.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, I mean, so if you if you want to
carry some of that on campus, yeah, I would call
and I would I would check with them and see.
I'm pretty sure it's legal because it's not a dark
firing stun gun I don't think is on campus, but
a regular touch type taser would be. I think, uh,
(10:44):
pepper spray, I know pepper spray is, but you can't
carry a gun. It's there's some there's some nuances to
the law. Really prepared to answer to that on a
burner because every time I hear Berna, I just kind.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Of look the other way it off.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I mean, like I said, they have a if I've
been shot with enough paintballs, and it's that's what it is,
is a paintball with some pepper powder in it. And
I've been shot with paintballs and training to the point
where I go out that kind of hurt a little
bit because you hit a sensitive spot. But other than that,
it doesn't bother me. The impact doesn't have any effect
on anybody. The pepper powder itself can have a respiratory
(11:18):
effect if they breathe the powder, but they have to
breathe the powder in order for it to have we
do they use pepper balls to quell disturbances downtown. If
a bunch of kids are in a parking lot, or
the people take the field and they don't want them
on the field, they got pepper balls to you really
think that something they're going to hit college kids with
and people hanging out in bar parking lots and McDonald's
(11:40):
parking lots on Tennessee Street is really going to stop
at if they will shoot those kids with it, it's not
going to stop a violent feeling for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, it is a combo of the pepper, pepper spray
and tear gas. It's a combo C.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
S and OC. Yeah, and the CS is arguably has
it's a different, slight different effect. I think you might
get a different kind of snot out of it. But
it's I've been I've been. I've been exposed to enough
CS and OC in my career. We used to intentionally
expose ourselves to this stuff, you know, and I put
enough of it in houses and going in and done stuff.
(12:15):
I'm just telling you it's it's it's there again. I
mean I I'd carry a really high pressure pellet rifle,
and I have probably a better effect if I could
shoot with it, you know, shoot him in an eye,
you have more of effect, and shoot them. Want to
burn of it.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
We've got a couple of minutes left here. Let's talk
about that person though that you know, young girl off
to college. You can't carry a firearm. You talked about
situational awareness and some other things.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
The best defense for someone in a situation like that
is paying attention to your surroundings. If you're going to
go drink and they're going to go drink, is to
be with a group of friends. Never be by yourself,
and try not to be just with one other person
and then be choosing about who you're with and watch
each other's backs. But if you're just moving around campus,
coming and going, be aware of what's going on around
(13:08):
you and don't be afraid to offend someone. We talk
about the woman on the subway or the bus that
she's by herself. She was by herself mardy train yep,
and this guy walks up to her and stands next
to her for several moments before he whips out of
a knife and cuts her throat and starts stabbing her. Well,
(13:29):
you've got you can't be afraid to stand up, look
somebody and eye and go I'm sorry. You need to
step away from me, you know, and be assertive. Or
if you see someone coming towards you, a lot of
people go, oh, I'm afraid I'm gonna offend them. They're
gonna think I'm discriminatory, I'm racist or whatever. If it's
an uncomfortable situation for you, make it known. Leave the situation. Yeah,
(13:51):
you're gonna probably if it's some kid with a phone,
he's gonna put you all over. There's a guy here
in town that goes to the hardware stores and walks
around the film of the guy filming on his phone
and walks up in misgenders people on purpose and gets
people mad at him because he goes up and calls
men miss and princess and things like that in public
places just to aggravate them. And you know, eventually he'll
(14:14):
get trespassed from the location. But crap like that, So Yeah,
if you do something assertive to defend yourself from this
day and age, because of these idiots out there, it
makes it hard for you to not appear to be
a bad guy because you were offended. But I'll run
the risk of having a bad reputation if it makes
me safe. And I'll tell my young daughter exactly that
(14:38):
if something makes you uncomfortable, walk away, get in the car,
blow the horn, you know, and if there's weapons that
you can carry on you, then carry those weapons. Because
there's some little handheld things I love. I love flashlights.
I like little pointy things that you can stab with,
things like that.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
I want to talk a little more about this because
I have a couple of questions that have come up
as we were chatting. Find a couple of segments here
with Charlie Strickland of the Talent Training Group. That's where
you go go to talent Range dot com to get
properly trained and take some advanced classes. Charlie, we were
talking about the Marta incident just a few days ago
in Atlanta where a woman was just tragically stabbed to death,
(15:15):
and we were talking in the break sometimes you just
don't have a fighting chance if she's alone in that
car and the doors closed. She doesn't have a chance
against a man with a knife.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
It's highly it's very difficult. But what would mitigate the situation?
And I've asked people, I've asked cops this, I've asked
people this. How many fights have you been in? How
many times? I can ask a law enforcement officer, how
many shootings have you been involved in? How many fights
have you been I didn't give you an approximate number,
if not exact number. Thirty two years of doing being
(15:49):
a cop, I can give you an approximation. I know
exactly how many times I was involved in a shooting.
I know aroundabout number. But here's what I cannot quantify,
and nobody really can. Just how many fights did you
avoid because you look squared away, you had a command presence,
of command bearing, you used the command voice, You carried
(16:11):
yourself with confidence and confidence, and you own the space
around you. How many fights did you if you had
not done that? How many fights would you have gotten into?
How many people would have resisted arrest? How many people
would have punched you in the nose? How many fights
did you avoid by being good at your job, by
paying attention so they don't know that they can't. You
never do that, because that's the way you should carry
(16:32):
yourself all the time in a first responder setting, whether
it be a firefighter or an EMT or whatever, or
a nursing in the air. If you walk around and
you act like you own the place, the fact is
most people will give you that latitude, and well, they obviously.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Know what they're doing exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And you know that you have an alpha personality, you
have this big way about you with the voice, and
you know, of course you're not.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
A little guy either.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
You're just bigger, bigger. You're bigger than me actually, And
so if you and I've talked two women about this constantly.
I do this in our active shuter trainings we do
and our personal safety classes. If you make eye contact
with people. So if he had gotten on that train
and started walking towards her, and she looked him in
(17:17):
the eye and smiled and said, hey, how are you tonight,
she may not have got cut. That's not her fault
by any means. But I'm just saying one of the
ways you can deflect aggression is by looking at someone,
acknowledging them and trying to de escalate that situation. He
lord knows what demon was going on, the thing was
(17:38):
going on in his head, what demon possessed him at
that point in time, And could she have said something,
done something, take some sort of action instead of just
sitting there staring straight ahead. Because people are bad guys,
evil are looking for a victim, They're looking for an
easy target. They're looking for something that they can dominate.
And if you are not that person, and you see
(17:59):
particular women in sales, the people who have worked their
way up the chain and banks and businesses and that
walk up and look you in the eye and reach
out and shake your hand, those people are not often
victims of violent crimes because they're a more difficult target.
They're harder to target because most bad guys, unless they
(18:20):
are intent on killing you like that guy was, most
bad guys they don't want to be identified by you
when it's time to go to court.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
So absent having some way of defending yourself with an implement.
And I want to talk about that because you tease
that just a little bit and started getting onto that
some personal engagement might be your best means of trying
to avoid a situation.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, I mean don't ignore people. If you speak to people, smile,
act like. There again, there's a command presence, a command voice,
and my voice is terrible right now. But it's the
difference between a soft, passive voice and hey, how are
you to day? Sure, and hey how are you? You know,
it's more assertive. It's like if your kid wouldn't shut
up in the theater. You don't yell at them, but
(19:07):
you can even do it in a whisper instead of
you just shut up. You know. It's it's but that
in a public setting is it's just more of a
hey how are you today?
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Are you know?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Nice to meet you? You know, just something and it
can deflect, but there again you'll never be able to
quantify it and then have a backup plan.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Forty one minutes past. Final segment with Charlie Strickland of
the Talent Training Group. This is our personal defense segment,
and again it always revolves around personal situational awareness. Charlie,
what are some things that people can do differently about
their positioning and maybe even having implements in their hands
(19:54):
at their disposal to help.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Well, I mean a lot of times what you're doing
is bluffing. I mean, if I were a lady sitting
on a subway or a bus or marta train or whatever,
I'm gonna sit somewhere I can see all the way
around me. I'm either gonna sit at the end where
i can see everything coming at me, or I'm gonna
sit in the middle, in the side near a door,
where i can see what's coming left and right, and
if someone starts approaching me, I'm gonna stand up and
get to where I can move. The other thing I'm
(20:18):
gonna do is if I don't carry a purse, but
if I had a purse or I had a bag,
and I will carry like a tactical bag. Sometimes if
I was uncomfortable, I would unzi up that thing. I'd
stick my hand in it. I might not have anything
in it, but I'm gonna stick my hand in there
like I do. And then I'm gonna look them in
the eye and go, hey, how are you? And you
know now all of a sudden they're having to go, okay,
(20:38):
it's this the hill I want to die on. It's
this the victim for me. And the other thing is
to use your other hand and pick up the phone
and call nine one one and go would you play
on the stay on the phone me for just a minute. Please,
at least you know I will tell you. And I've
talked to people about this, like walking around Tallahassee. So
if you were leaving a restaurant or an office or
(21:03):
something after hours, so you walked out of the Governor's Club,
you know, a little rich for my blood. But the
there's probably a pizza joint down there I can afford.
And I'm walking down the street. And I tell people
if you're walking, if you're walking down the street and
someone is paralleling you, are following you, then pick up
your phone and go hello, honey, Hey, yeah, where are
(21:24):
you at? Okay, I'll meet you right, I'll meet you
right there on the corner. I'll be there. And just
to say, okay, yeah, just come on, I'm right here.
He doesn't need to know that nobody's talking to you. Sure,
but now that person thinks hey, and you can cross
the street, or you can turn around and go the
other way. You can do whatever. Dip in the closest
business you walk out, and you walk out of a
(21:44):
business at night and there's someone there that makes you uncomfortable,
and to turnround and walk back in and go with you.
Please walk me to my car. Come watch me get
to my car. I just don't really feel comfortable. But
having the thing I love look right here in my pocket.
They can't see this. That's a flashlight. Yeah, it is
eight forty four on a Wednesday morning and I have
a flashlight on. You can put it in my eyes.
(22:04):
It's gonna it's not gonna do that. But that's that's yeah,
that's several hundred lumens. It's recharged with the USBC rechargeable waterproof.
You open that up, you charge it. It's got a
pocket clip on it. And when I can carry it
in my hand in exactly precisely just like that one,
and I can stab. It's got a little bit of
(22:25):
an edge on the bowl, and I can stab this
into someone's temple or their eye, or the bridge of
their nose. And it doesn't take any special fighting technique
to do that. Everybody knows how to stab. But if
you're you're leaving somewhere it's dark, shine the light around
where you're going. Immediately, people who are the thugs of
(22:46):
the world, you go. That's not the victim I want,
because they're paying attention and they'll identify me and I'll
go to prison. Or do they If they've got a flashlight,
they may have a gun, or they may have something else.
Speaking of something else, Abbey devices anything that sharpened.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Tactical pins are actually pretty legit.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, I mean that we have them on the counter.
It's it's you can get them any type of pen
that there's the ones that are designed not to be
or if you're just going to carry a writing instrument
on you. I've got a pin in my pocket and
it's it's it's fairly rigid, but I could stab you
an eye with it. I could probably with enough forest,
get right through your temple. I could certainly stab you
(23:26):
in the ear. I'm going to distract you to where
you no longer want to bother me. But there are
the little sharpie versions that that are not sharpies. They're
very sharp, but they don't write on anything. Yeah, they're
just out of ink. But the middle of it is
my KRTA and it's really and it's and you can
stab with it. A pocket knife? Is that a common
pocket knife you can have pretty much anywhere. I mean,
(23:47):
you can't get to a middle detector with it, but
anyplace else you can.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
There are things to do.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Pepper spray does work on about half the people. It
will cause a pause in combat. So having something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Which is about time to get away, that's what that's about.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
And you can get a taser if you want. You
can do some different things. But there's a lot of
stuff out there. I would just google self defense devices.
Don't fall for any of the gimmicks, but just kind
of think about it. But here's the thing. The time
to think about that is now, yes, and have a
conversation with a family. It is not waiting until somebody
makes you uncomfortable. When you start thinking about what is
my weapon of opportunity today. It goes the same thing
(24:25):
for the office, as goes on your person, as your vehicle,
as your home. Look around as you find the things
that you can defend yourself and have a plan to
use it.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Thanks so much. Yep, good to see again. It's been
a while.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Thanks so much. Charlie Strickland with a talent training group.
My guests here Personal defense on the Morning Show with
Preston Scott
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