October 20, 2024 • 45 mins
In this episode, we turn our focus to a topic that sits at the heart of American identity—the Second Amendment.Few issues are as polarizing or as deeply ingrained in the fabric of U.S. history as the right to bear arms.
As the 2024 presidential election features two candidates who wish to take the country through two drastically different routes, what is in store for the second amendment in the event Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, wins.
Join Andrew Jose as he sits down with Stephen Willeford, spokesman for Gun Owners of America to discuss. Willeford is best known for his role as a hero who helped stop the Sutherland Springs church shooting.
As the 2024 presidential election features two candidates who wish to take the country through two drastically different routes, what is in store for the second amendment in the event Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, wins.
Join Andrew Jose as he sits down with Stephen Willeford, spokesman for Gun Owners of America to discuss. Willeford is best known for his role as a hero who helped stop the Sutherland Springs church shooting.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Strategic Wisdom with Andrew jose a war, national security,
and international politics podcast brought to you by me Andrew
jose Hey, Washington, DC based news reporter and security policy analyst.
In this episode, we are focusing on a topic that
sits at the heart of American identity, the Second Amendment,
(00:21):
also known as the right to bear arms. Few issues
in American politics are as polarizing or deeply ingrained as
the right to bear arms. With the flurry of school
shootings that have rocked this country of the past decade,
one side of the isle, the Democrat, has called for
increasing regulations. With the elections coming soon, how will Democratic
(00:45):
presidential nominee Kamala Harris, should she come to power, affect
gun rights. To answer this question, I sat down with
Stephen Wilford, a spokesperson for Gun Owners of America, a
prominent Second Amendment rights organization. Stephen Wilford is a spokesperson
(01:41):
with Gun Owners of America. Gun Owners of America was
founded in nineteen seventy six by California State Senator HL Richardson.
The organization lobbies both state and federal legislatures to promote
Second Amendment rights and distinguish itself from other gun rights
groups by maintaining a no comprom policy. Stephen himself is
(02:03):
renowned for being an armed defender who helped stop one
of Texas's largest mass shooting in twenty seventeen, the Sutherland
Springs church shooting. He narrates his experience in that incident
in the book A Town Called Sutherland Springs, Faith and
Heroism through Tragedy, available on Amazon both in paperback and
(02:23):
the ebook format. Stephen Wilford, great to have you and
thank you so much for making the time to join
me on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Thank you for inviting me on your show.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Could you tell us about your story, Steffen? If you
were to introduce yourself to the audience and talk about
your experiences and work in Sutherland Springs and later on
in Gun Owners of America, how would you answer the
question who is Stefen?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well? Stephen Wolford is a Christian, a community member in
a very small community under six hundred total popular. I
grew up I'm the fourth generation on the same piece
of property. I grew up on a derk in so
many ways a simple man, was a plumber by trade,
(03:14):
had three children and beautiful wife and We've now been
married thirty five years and now we have eight grandchildren,
the oldest of which is six years old. And so
who is Stephen Walford? I think? I guess I'm middle
(03:35):
class America in so many ways, love our country, love
my community, love people around me, have a strong Christian faith.
And I guess that's who Stephen Wolfford is. In a
nutshell and the best represented when when you're tombstone gets written,
(03:59):
those values need to be online because that's what matters
the most is my faith in my family and my friends.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Could you talk about your time in during the Sutherland massacres?
How did things unfold and how did it come to
be that you event you had to take action to
stop a shooter.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Oh, November fifth, twenty seventeen, I was home and I
chose to stay home from church myself that day because
I was going to start an on call where I
was a maintenance plumber at a major metropolitan hospital, university
hospital in Santario, Texas. Sutherland Springs is about forty miles
(04:45):
southeast of San Antonio, And since I was going to
have to do an on call, I was going to
have to carry a pager and for the next week
solid I was on call for twenty four hours a day,
and the page would go off in two three o'clock
in the morning, I'd be running to the hospital to
fix a problem. So I knew I was going to
(05:07):
get twenty to thirty extra hours that week. So I
chose to stay home from work, and and so I
was relaxing. Since I chose to stay home from work,
my wife decided that she would go help build my
daughter's house. Second, my middle child, my daughter was married
(05:32):
and pregnant with our very first grand baby, and we
were building her house for her and her husband, and
that they were living with us, and we were on
the timeline because we wanted to get that home bill
before the baby was born. So that day I was relaxing,
my wife said, I'm going to go tape and float
(05:55):
the walls, and that's what she did. She went down
the street to when my daughter was going to live,
taping and floating walls. The older daughter had stayed home
from or had moved back in with us also because
she was engaged to be married and she didn't want
to sign another apartment complex an agreement that she would
(06:19):
be stuck with, so she moved back in with us
until she got married and then she can move in
with her husband. So that day she was washing dishes
at the house and she heard the shooting and she
came into my bedroom and said, Dad, doesn't it sound
like gunfan And right away I thought it sounded like
somebody tapping at the window. And I went over and
(06:43):
opened the curtain, looked and she said, no, come into
the other part of the house. It's louder there. And
when I went into the other part of the house,
I realized it was gunfire. I ran in my safe
and opened it up. And if you have a choice,
I'm very sorry. That was fine. If you have a
(07:06):
choice of a pistol, I ran into my sight and
opened it up, and I pulled out a rifle at
AR fifteen. And if you have a choice of a
pistol or a rifle, and always choose a rifle if
you know you're going into a battle. And I grabbed
an AR fifteen, the very rifle that I had handbuilt
(07:28):
myself for competition. I made it light so I can
shoot and move with it. And I'm very good with
my rifle. And I grabbed a handful of ammunition stuffing
him in a magazine. I called my wife and said,
where are you at. She said, I'm at Rachel's house.
I said, don't go anywhere. Stay there. She said, what's
(07:50):
going on? I said, someone shooting at the Baptist church.
She said, don't go over there. I hung up and
I poked arounds in the magazine. As I was running
for the door, my oldest daughter burst in the door
and said, Dad, there's a guy in black tactical gear
shooting up the church. And I said, did you call
(08:10):
nine one one? She said, I did their awhare it
well right away. That told me the police were coming.
They were coming hard to a mass shooting. And I'm
running across the street with an AR fifteen in my
hands and no shoes on, and nothing looks more crazy
than that. And so I, at that moment was more
(08:33):
afraid of the police than I was a shooter himself.
And as I ran out the door, my older daughter
followed me out the door. I told her go back
in the house and load be a magazine. I may
need it. I knew she could, but I didn't want
her following me over there, because if she had followed
me over there, he already had enough targets that I
(08:54):
cared greatly about. I didn't want her to be one
of them. And if I failed, I didn't want her
to see that and to come running to my side.
So as I ran across the street, I yelled out.
And he had just shot Julie Workman through the breast,
and then she was hiding under a pew, and he
(09:17):
shot her through the breast and then bounce went off
the concrete into her leg, and then he turned the
rifle to the pew in front of her, and he
shot Chris Workman in the back, instantly paralyzing christophin Wistow.
And then he pulled his pistol out and was aiming
at point black red Angel at Chris, and halfway across
(09:41):
the street, I yelled out. And I can't explain to
anybody why I yelled at I truly believe that God
yelled out from me because the moment he heard me yell,
and Chris heard me yell, and he said, is an
expression on his face changed when I yelled, and the
(10:04):
murderer dropped his rifle in the church and came out
shooting at me with a pistol. And when I first
saw him he had all Class three body armor and
a ballistic bulletproof helmet, and he started throwing shots at me.
I ran behind the pickup truck for cover. I came
up over the hood. I had him in the left chest.
(10:27):
I had him in the abdomen. He hit the truck
in front of me. He shattered the windshield of the
car behind me, and he hit the house behind me also,
And at that moment he ran for his vehicle, which
was setting in the middle of the street, the driver's
side door opened and the engine running. When he turned
(10:49):
to his side, I put one between the plate. He
had a front plate, rear plate held in with a
plate carrier, but nothing on the side, and I put
one between the plate high on his side. I put
one high in his legs, and he was still able
to get into his vehicle and put two rounds through
(11:09):
the side window at me, and then I busted one
across his forehead, just underneath the rim of the helmet.
From one side to the other. He accelerated to turn
the corner he wanted out, and he started running down
the street as fast as that vehicle could take him.
By the time I got the middle of the street,
(11:29):
he was about one hundred and fifty yards way and flee.
I put one through the back windshield. It shattered the
back windshield. Police say that one went through the driver's
side seat and hitting right of the left shoulder blade,
and he topped the hill and out of sight. And
(11:50):
I'm standing in the middle of the street, thinking it
can't end this way. He's getting away. And I looked
off to my left and there was a truck setting
at the stop sign, and this guy had witnessed the
whole thing, and he was on the phone with nine
to one one and I ran over and tapped on
(12:11):
the window and said, that guy just shot up the
Baptist church and we had to stop him. The next
thing I heard where the locks come open. I crawled
up in the cab of a truck with long, tall
Texan that I had never met before in my life,
had on a western hat, had a feather in the hat,
(12:32):
had tooth that hang it out of his mouth, as
a long horned skull in the middle of his neck,
and the horns go up underneath his ears. Johnny Langedorf
was his name, but I didn't know him at the times.
And he pursued that the murderer, and we were doing
(12:53):
at least ninety five one hundred miles for our splitting
cars chasing it. At first, the guy got such a
head start on us that we didn't see him, and
so we were chasing as fast as we could, and
Johnny was on the phone and every time we crossed
a cross road he would tell dispatch where we were,
(13:18):
so he was keeping them informed. And we chased a
guy eleven point six miles and in the end he
committed Society realized he was being chased, and he committed suicide.
And I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Did the police and the authorities try to go after you.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Not at all, As a matter of fact, from the start,
they held me at the crash scene for four and
a half hours. And when they finally told me that
I could go home, I was walking back to the
roadblock that the fire department had set up, and it
(14:02):
was about two hundred yards away from the police line.
And I was walking back to the roadblock and a
lady came up behind me and said, mister Wilifard, I
didn't need to speak with you. And I turned and
looked and her mescre was running. She had been crying,
and she said I had friends in that church. And
(14:26):
I said, how bad is it? And she said, this
is really bad. And then she pulled a card out
and she said, but if I can help you in
any way, please give me a call. I'm the DA
of Wilson County. I mean, I grabbed that card because
that lady had my life in her hands and she
(14:49):
was willing to help me in anything that I needed
at that point because the story from inside the church
and the neighbors told the story story of me confronting
the murderer and basically shooting him and then pursuing him.
So she considered me a hero, and so did the
(15:12):
law enforcement at that time. And so no, I never
had any legal issues other than having to deal with
the press that I really you know, and they kind
of made up their own stories and did their own thing,
and I had to have a lawyer to straighten hill
now and get their story correct. At one point, one
(15:38):
of the news Kin's five eyewitnessed news in San Antonio
said that I was leaning out Johnny's truck, shooting at
him running down the road and that just wasn't so.
And I called the reporter and was able to get
a hold of the reporter and I said, what in
the world are you reporting? She said, well, that's what
(15:58):
mister Wiliford told me. I said, do you know who
you're talking to? I said, I did not tell you that. Well,
that's what my producer said. And you took your producer
at his work. You didn't do any investigating to see
if that was true or not, you know. And I demanded,
(16:19):
they'll come out and do a retraction, and they said,
we don't do any And I send them to my lawyer.
I said, my lawyer will be calling you. And then
at ten o'clock news they were attracted it. And at
five o'clock on the news the next day they were
attracted it again. And it's said that we have to
have a lawyer to defend ourselves for things like that,
(16:43):
even you know.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Could you tell us more about the work of Gun
Owners of America And when people think of gun Rick's lobbying,
the ANDRI often comes to mind. How different is GOA
from the NRA. Is the difference mainly the approach or
is it somewhere else? And some people in the media
(17:09):
talk about a rivalry between GA and NRA. Could you
explain the dynamics between the missions between the tools.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
The GOA and the past and the NRA worked handed
in hand. So two of the members, the founding members
of the GOA were former NRA board members, And when
they originally broke away from the NRA, they said, we
(17:40):
need to start fighting some of these things in legislative
legislation and in the courts, and the NRA agreed, and
they did a handshake agreement that the NRA wouldn't get
into legislative action and the GOA would not get into
(18:00):
training because essentially, back then that's what the NRA did.
They were a training organization, training marksmanship, training people firearms
and stuff like that, and the sheer love of fire
arms and sports and hunting and stuff like that. And
(18:21):
so we were actually formed out of the NRA originally,
and it has come down to the GOA has never
compromised when it comes to Second Amendment right. We believe
that the Constitution is very clear when it states shall
(18:43):
not be infringed. We don't think that there should be
any laws regulating firearms use and ownership as long as
you're not a law break you know someone that breaks
the law. As long as you're a law binding citizen,
and we truly believe that if you are a danger
to society, you should never get out of prison anyways,
(19:09):
but we believe in the right for the American citizen
to be able to maintain and continue to shoot. Shooting
sports is great and stuff, but the real reason for
the right to bear, for the Second Amendment is in
(19:30):
case the government gets out of hand, a tyrannical government.
And we've seen it in the past with Russian Revolution
that slaughtered so many people, overshadowed even Nazi Germany and Russia.
Before they started the Russian Revolution, they demanded that everybody
(19:51):
turned in their arms, and when they turned in their arms,
then they started major genocide. And then we all know
about Nazi Germany, and the same thing happened there. They
enacted gun control and told everybody bringing their guns and
turn them in, and like good citizens, they marched down
there and turned them in. And then they started murdering
(20:13):
Jews and other people that they thought were impure, that
the white race was the master race, and so that
anyone else they didn't mind murdering, you know, and you
know Mause Tungue in China and all the way till
recent years Venezuela, they picked up all their guns and
(20:36):
then they started running over people with tank you know.
So we believe in the right to bear arms for
a multi multitude of purposes, and a tyrannical government is
one of those purposes. And make no mistake they say, well,
you know it's different here in the United States. That
would never happen here. And what I would tell you
(20:59):
is human nature never changes. When you get total power,
and you know, the populace cannot stand against you. With
that total power, then you become tyrannical and you know,
and take over total control over everybody. And that's what
(21:26):
our Second Amendment was all about. They didn't set down
and have a tea party with the King of England.
This was about using the guns. And England was coming
for their guns and Lexington and Concord. That's what they
were doing, is they were coming to remove their guns.
When the shot heard around the world happened, and we
(21:48):
fought for our independence, and our founding fathers knew this,
and so the first thing was a freedom of speech,
freedom of engine, freedom of press, and stuff like that.
The second Amendment, the second Amendment was the right to
keep in bare arms. The right of the people, and
(22:12):
that's important. The right of the people shall not be infringed.
And GOA has been in the fight. We've been in
the pistol brace fight, We've been in framing receiver, we've
been in suppressor fights. We were now fighting in the
Illinois their modern sporting rifles ban. They call it a
(22:37):
a assault weapons band. There's no such thing as an
assault weapons but you know that we call it a
modern sporting rifle ban because it's any some automatic rifle.
We're fighting that and eventually we'll get into the Supreme
Court and it will be overturned nationwise, and we're convinced
(22:58):
of that.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
How has the Second Amendment been undermined over the years now?
And many politicians, particularly in moderate constituencies, do not necessarily
say that they want to fully get rid of the
Second Amendment, and they always do this through an incrementalist approach.
But what are the ways they have used to undermine
(23:25):
the Second Amendment and curtail its exercise to the extent
that they've succeeded.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Well, they use every tragedy as see, if nobody would
have had any guns, this wouldn't have happened. You know
this wouldn't have happened if this guy or this woman
wouldn't have had a gun. They say it as a
gun issue, and they use everything they stand on the
bodies of the ones that are lost to promote their
(23:55):
own agenda where you know. So if you take the
guns out of the hands of the populace, then who
has the guns? And that's the government. And in the past, again,
like I just stated, the government is the worst mass
murder of anyone else. It's always the government. It's always
(24:19):
the government that starts murdering people, that starts wars, that
starts you know. And so we have the right and
the ability as long as everybody in America owns a
gun to be able to fight that taranny. And they
don't like that, you know. And it's really obvious because
(24:42):
if they truly were worried about the numbers, they would
be more interested in banning pistols. Because this is FBI
stats now, you guys, you can look it up. More
people are every year, more people by numbers are murdered
with hammers and blunt instruments, then rifles in general, assault rifles,
(25:09):
bolt action rifles, lever action rifles, whatever. More people are
murdered with hammers than rifles in general. Why do they
want to ban assault rifle? But as they call it, well,
the reason they wanted rifles is they know that we
(25:31):
can never resist with just pistols, so they want to
first ban the rifles, and when the rifles get banned,
the pistols are next on the list. Make no mistake,
it will not stop at one thing or another, and
they have proven that in the past. Look at England
for instance. You know they have a lot of gun
(25:53):
control and now London, England has a murder rate higher
than New York City and it's with knights. And now
England is trying to ban knives and the ability to
own a gun to defend yourself. If you're an old
(26:16):
man like me, I'm no match for a young man anymore.
But I can defend myself with a gun. I'm quite
good with a gun as a matter of fact. And
it doesn't matter how big and bad you are, I'm
equal to you. If I have a gun and to
be able to defend myself without firal then we are
(26:37):
a society of survival of the fittest, especially when the
government continues to pit ourselves against each other. And it's
they tend to pit us against each other race, economic,
social status and stuff like that. You know, the one
(26:59):
percent or the rich people, they're the problem, or and
we we're the poor, or you know, black versus white
or Hispanic or whatever. And if we stand together and
don't worry about race and just focus on them, that's
not what they want. They want to divide us, and
(27:20):
we need to start being that melting pot in the
nation that we were designed to be. Now that doesn't
mean that you need to come over illegally, because they're
bringing their crime over two and in Aurora, Colorado right now,
the Venezuelan gangs are overtaken apartment complexes and stuff, and
(27:40):
no one can do anything about that. They then poured
it the violence to us, and apparently Venezuela has been
giving all of their people in jail saying we'll help
you get to the United States and we'll set you
free over there, take you out of jail. Now, Venezuela
has a lawless crime rate that they've had in years
(28:02):
and years because they've shipped it all over here, and
we shouldn't be okay with that.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
What do you see as the future for gun control
should Kamala Harris become president in November twenty twenty four,
do you think she would be a bigger threat to
gun owners than the Biden administration If you.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Were to do an analysis or assessment of Biden's performance
and good control and how in your estimation of how
Harris would turn out to be, how would it look like.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Well, Kamala has said it herself that she would do
a mandatory buy back. Make no mistake the gun the
federal government never owned guns to begin with, they can't
buy it back. And don't be stupid. If they did
give you money for your guns, they're giving you your
own tax money back. There's no bite back there at all.
(29:07):
And it's ridiculous. And Kamala Harris would be the absolute
worst disaster of a president for our Second Amendment rights
of any other president in the past. And Joe Biden
has has started using his pen and signing in the
(29:27):
Frendman receiver rule, the short the pistol brace rule, the
force reset trigger rule, the you know and and stuff
like that. He's he started doing that with his pen,
going totally around Congress, and GA has been fighting these
rules and and what has happened We got the bumpstock
(29:52):
ban overturned. Uh, we got the bruin case but in
the night, which said you have to have a historical
proof that this was done during the Second then during
the founding of our country. And then we have chevron
difference that got overturned. And Chevron difference is how they're
(30:14):
doing these things. The ATF and all these alphabet agencies
are making decisions without Congress through chevron defference, and now
it's been overturned by the Supreme Court. So things like
the pistol brace ban, the frame and receiver ban, and
force reset trigger and stuff like that, they're all going
(30:36):
to fall by the wayside because now they can't use
chevron defference to make those decisions. And that's how they
made those rulings, not laws, but rulings in the past.
And so they're losing. And thank you to Donald Trump
for his Supreme Court selection that made that the case is.
(31:01):
We now have a conservative Supreme Court and a whole
lot of lower court appointees by Donald Trump. And I
know Donald Trump himself hasn't been the absolute one percent
tow the line on the Second Amendment, but the judges
(31:23):
that he has put into place as upholder upheld our
Second Amendment. Make no mistake, there is a very stark
difference between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and the judge's
appointments are the biggest part of what's going to save
(31:43):
this nation.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
When one talks about undermining gun rights, people often think
about Democrats, because understandably Democrats have largely been behind this.
But what are the ways that Republican leaders, whether the callers,
those moderates, or as Kyle Rittenhouse criticized before recanting, the
(32:08):
Trump administration in the past contributed to a pullback of
gun rights, maybe not a complete band, but has undermined
efforts towards greater realization of the Second Amendment.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Well, you know, we have our own Texas Senator John
Cornyn that worked, and he led the charge with fourteen
other right owned Republicans to trample our constitution with the
safer communities, and he supported that and it was absolutely
(32:45):
a disaster for eighteen to twenty year olds. It was
a disaster for school budgets that were trying to put
in firearms training, whether it was under safety courses. And
you would think that that would want hunter safety courses
or things like that. All that were and the the
(33:09):
most recent was the UH in the business of is
what the ATF took and redefined with the Safer Communities Act.
And I confronted John Cornyn on that and he said, well,
the Biden administration did something with it that was never
supposed to be done. And I told John Cornyn, but
(33:30):
you had to know that they were going to do that.
If you make a deal with the devil, he is
the devil, you should expect it. And UH, So, I
don't cut these right on Republicans any any slack either.
I'm going to do my best to find someone to
support UH to run against John Cornyn in the primary
(33:53):
and to get him out. And John Cornyn has now said, oh, well,
I have a resolution to overturn happened with the Safer
Communities at And I said, but you know that resolution
if you could pass it through to the Senate, which
if walked passed through the Senate, you might get it
through the House, but Joe Biden would veto it. So
(34:16):
it's senseless to put that out there trying to cover
your behind after you made this bad mistake. You know,
you knew it was going to happen. And now he
wants to support things like reciprocity for the whole nation,
so you could carry with your permit through all fifty
(34:38):
states reciprocity. And he wants to get rid of the
short belled rifle, and he's pushing that out there and
sponsoring those bills when he knows that the president would
veto it. So what we need to do now is
we need to get a president that is very friendly
to us and then for him to pass those bills
(35:02):
and they're not just posturing. Then if you have the House,
the Senate, and the presidency and then pass those bills,
not when you know they won't get put into law.
And that's what he's doing. So he can point back
and say, look at me, I promoted this bill even
(35:24):
though it didn't pass. I pushed it. So let's call
his block, let's get let's take back the Senate, let's
take back the House, and let's give Donald Trump the
presidency and see if he then promotes that bill and
pushes it, because then it could get passed.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
What are some areas that the GOA believes that firearms
must be restricted in now? Notably ISIS and a lot
of other terrorist groups have often put put out videos
encouraging Muslims in America, for exaln as a video and
Isis by Isis showed to purchase firearms in states where
(36:06):
they are easily available and then use that to shoot up,
shoot up, shoot up churches and quote unquote non believers.
But in that situation, what is the right policy response?
Now some propose that you know, whide access of guns
are is means that any any terrorists or any person
(36:30):
who suddenly is religiously radicalized could attacks.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
The courts have now come out and said law abiding
citizens have the Second Amendment. If they're not law abiding citizens,
then they don't have their second amitment. If they're just
coming over as illegal or whatever which is porn across
their board our borders, that's not law abiding citizen. And second,
(36:59):
understand that it is not hard for Isis to get
full automatic AK forty sevens. They went into France and
murdered people at a concert. They went through the streets
of France, murdering police officers on their way to the
cartoonists and murdered the cartoonist in his business at the
(37:22):
paper for drawing Mohammed. They murdered people on the train
with full automatic AK forty seven. Make no mistake, the
terrorists are going to come up with those guns anyway
where it is illegal in Russia to own any kind
(37:42):
of gun. They went to a concert just recently with
full automatic AK forty sevens and murdered Russians waiting in
line to get into the concert. They shot them down
against the walls, just like they were lined up, you know.
So make no mistake. Isis is here, as Blah is here.
(38:05):
They've opened our borders and let them flood in. They
are here, and they're gonna have guns one way or
the other. They get them through the black market. And
the only answer to that is for Lombiding citizens patriots
to own guns to be able to fight back. They've
created this problem. Like I say, all these guys from
(38:30):
Venezuela that are in those apartments in Aurora, Colorado, they
didn't obtain those guns legally, and now they've chased everybody
out of those apartments. And and what I understand is
they've tried to hijack school buses. Now the Biden administration,
(38:54):
the Harris Biden administration, has invited this into our country.
They are squarely responsible for all these illegal aliens that
are creating this crime, and then the administration wants to say, see,
we need to get these guns off the street. No,
they have brought the the The problem isn't a gun.
(39:18):
The problem is the criminal and they have imported those
criminals into my country. And honestly, that's that's what's going on,
and we are going to have to clean up their mess.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Coming to our last question, what are the key areas
that the battle over gun rights will be taking place
in the months ahead.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
One are the key areas or the key.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
The key battles that will be taking off place.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
And we're in the battle for to overturn assault weapons bands,
high capacity magazine bands. We're still in the fight for
the pistol brace and the Frameman receiver van. They just
sued Polymerate into non existence now and there were laws
(40:22):
against them doing that. You know, there are no laws
protecting manufacturers of faulty product. But just because somebody buys
a Ford truck and runs through a crowd and murders
multiple people with a Ford truck doesn't mean that you
should be able to sue Ford Motor Company, you know.
(40:47):
So that's their next strategy is trying to sue the
manufacturing companies. Right now, they are suing block and saying
a block is easily convertible converted to full lout of metic. Well,
the reality is anything is easily converted to full out
of metic and the criminals are going to do that anyway,
(41:09):
you know. So uh, they're going to get it through
the black market or whatever. Those are the battleground and
that's that's what's happening, and we need to support manufacturing,
you know, good American manufacturing. I think they need to
move to Texas because we're more friendly to manufacturers. They
(41:33):
are already fleeing to Tennessee and stuff. But we need
to shore up that avenue. We need to get rid
of the Assault Weapons Band nationwide, and if it reaches
the Supreme Court, that will happen as it will overturn
and all these laws can saying ten round magazines. Just
(41:57):
recently Maryland, a judge said, you can't ban AR fifteens.
It's the most commonly owned rifle and through bruin the
Heller decision, you cannot ban them. And then he made
the mistake and said, but you can limit the ammunition
that you can put into them. Well, that makes no
(42:21):
since at all. Because then you can have illegally owned
AR fifteen with a magazine with a capacity of one.
You know, well that's ridiculous and we're going to fight that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Is there any battles the gas fighting on three D
printed guns? What's the stance on that issue.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Well, that's the prime and receiver battle three D printed
guns where they decide what hearts could be made into
firearms and they need to be serialized. And since even
before the Revolutionary War with England, even before that, Americans
(43:03):
could build their own gun. It was legal. It still
is legal. And the Frameman receiver, you take an aluminum
block and the ATF has tried to say that could
be made into a gun. Therefore to own that illuminum
block is illegal. Well, with today a three D printers,
(43:26):
I just saw business that was doing three D printers,
plastic polymer printers that would print AR fifteen's and block
lower receivers out of polymer. And it came for five
hundred dollars. You could buy a three D printer with
(43:47):
these already programmed into the printer technology. You cannot stop.
It's here and people can do that, and you can't
prevent that, and criminals don't care about the laws anyway.
So all the laws in the world is not going
(44:09):
to stop the criminals. They just stop law abiding citizens
like myself.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Ladies and gentlemen, you just listen to Steffen Wilford. Stephen
Wilford is the spokesperson for Gun Owners of America. Stephen
Wilford for your time.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Please go to gun owners dot org.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose is an initiative of Andrew
Jose Media. The views expressed by guests on this show
do not necessarily represent the official positions and opinions of
Andrew Jose, Andrew Jose Media, and Strategic Wisdom.
Speaker 5 (44:49):
Thank you for listening to Strategic Wisdom. Be sure to
follow and subscribe to us on whatever podcast platform you
are using to listen to this show in order to
not miss out any future interviews and conversations that Andrew
Jose will bring to you on this podcast. We're streaming
on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, yandex geosovin, Amazon Music, and
many other podcasts streaming services. Also, be sure to subscribe
(45:12):
to Strategic Wisdom on substack at Strategicqwisdom dot substack dot com,
and to follow Strategic Wisdom on Twitter, and Instagram at stratwisdom,
do support our work by buying from our merch store.
For more details, visit Strategicwisdom dot substack dot com
Welcome to Strategic Wisdom with Andrew jose a war, national security,
and international politics podcast brought to you by me Andrew
jose Hey, Washington, DC based news reporter and security policy analyst.
In this episode, we are focusing on a topic that
sits at the heart of American identity, the Second Amendment,
(00:21):
also known as the right to bear arms. Few issues
in American politics are as polarizing or deeply ingrained as
the right to bear arms. With the flurry of school
shootings that have rocked this country of the past decade,
one side of the isle, the Democrat, has called for
increasing regulations. With the elections coming soon, how will Democratic
(00:45):
presidential nominee Kamala Harris, should she come to power, affect
gun rights. To answer this question, I sat down with
Stephen Wilford, a spokesperson for Gun Owners of America, a
prominent Second Amendment rights organization. Stephen Wilford is a spokesperson
(01:41):
with Gun Owners of America. Gun Owners of America was
founded in nineteen seventy six by California State Senator HL Richardson.
The organization lobbies both state and federal legislatures to promote
Second Amendment rights and distinguish itself from other gun rights
groups by maintaining a no comprom policy. Stephen himself is
(02:03):
renowned for being an armed defender who helped stop one
of Texas's largest mass shooting in twenty seventeen, the Sutherland
Springs church shooting. He narrates his experience in that incident
in the book A Town Called Sutherland Springs, Faith and
Heroism through Tragedy, available on Amazon both in paperback and
(02:23):
the ebook format. Stephen Wilford, great to have you and
thank you so much for making the time to join
me on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Thank you for inviting me on your show.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Could you tell us about your story, Steffen? If you
were to introduce yourself to the audience and talk about
your experiences and work in Sutherland Springs and later on
in Gun Owners of America, how would you answer the
question who is Stefen?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well? Stephen Wolford is a Christian, a community member in
a very small community under six hundred total popular. I
grew up I'm the fourth generation on the same piece
of property. I grew up on a derk in so
many ways a simple man, was a plumber by trade,
(03:14):
had three children and beautiful wife and We've now been
married thirty five years and now we have eight grandchildren,
the oldest of which is six years old. And so
who is Stephen Walford? I think? I guess I'm middle
(03:35):
class America in so many ways, love our country, love
my community, love people around me, have a strong Christian faith.
And I guess that's who Stephen Wolfford is. In a
nutshell and the best represented when when you're tombstone gets written,
(03:59):
those values need to be online because that's what matters
the most is my faith in my family and my friends.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Could you talk about your time in during the Sutherland massacres?
How did things unfold and how did it come to
be that you event you had to take action to
stop a shooter.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Oh, November fifth, twenty seventeen, I was home and I
chose to stay home from church myself that day because
I was going to start an on call where I
was a maintenance plumber at a major metropolitan hospital, university
hospital in Santario, Texas. Sutherland Springs is about forty miles
(04:45):
southeast of San Antonio, And since I was going to
have to do an on call, I was going to
have to carry a pager and for the next week
solid I was on call for twenty four hours a day,
and the page would go off in two three o'clock
in the morning, I'd be running to the hospital to
fix a problem. So I knew I was going to
(05:07):
get twenty to thirty extra hours that week. So I
chose to stay home from work, and and so I
was relaxing. Since I chose to stay home from work,
my wife decided that she would go help build my
daughter's house. Second, my middle child, my daughter was married
(05:32):
and pregnant with our very first grand baby, and we
were building her house for her and her husband, and
that they were living with us, and we were on
the timeline because we wanted to get that home bill
before the baby was born. So that day I was relaxing,
my wife said, I'm going to go tape and float
(05:55):
the walls, and that's what she did. She went down
the street to when my daughter was going to live,
taping and floating walls. The older daughter had stayed home
from or had moved back in with us also because
she was engaged to be married and she didn't want
to sign another apartment complex an agreement that she would
(06:19):
be stuck with, so she moved back in with us
until she got married and then she can move in
with her husband. So that day she was washing dishes
at the house and she heard the shooting and she
came into my bedroom and said, Dad, doesn't it sound
like gunfan And right away I thought it sounded like
somebody tapping at the window. And I went over and
(06:43):
opened the curtain, looked and she said, no, come into
the other part of the house. It's louder there. And
when I went into the other part of the house,
I realized it was gunfire. I ran in my safe
and opened it up. And if you have a choice,
I'm very sorry. That was fine. If you have a
(07:06):
choice of a pistol, I ran into my sight and
opened it up, and I pulled out a rifle at
AR fifteen. And if you have a choice of a
pistol or a rifle, and always choose a rifle if
you know you're going into a battle. And I grabbed
an AR fifteen, the very rifle that I had handbuilt
(07:28):
myself for competition. I made it light so I can
shoot and move with it. And I'm very good with
my rifle. And I grabbed a handful of ammunition stuffing
him in a magazine. I called my wife and said,
where are you at. She said, I'm at Rachel's house.
I said, don't go anywhere. Stay there. She said, what's
(07:50):
going on? I said, someone shooting at the Baptist church.
She said, don't go over there. I hung up and
I poked arounds in the magazine. As I was running
for the door, my oldest daughter burst in the door
and said, Dad, there's a guy in black tactical gear
shooting up the church. And I said, did you call
(08:10):
nine one one? She said, I did their awhare it
well right away. That told me the police were coming.
They were coming hard to a mass shooting. And I'm
running across the street with an AR fifteen in my
hands and no shoes on, and nothing looks more crazy
than that. And so I, at that moment was more
(08:33):
afraid of the police than I was a shooter himself.
And as I ran out the door, my older daughter
followed me out the door. I told her go back
in the house and load be a magazine. I may
need it. I knew she could, but I didn't want
her following me over there, because if she had followed
me over there, he already had enough targets that I
(08:54):
cared greatly about. I didn't want her to be one
of them. And if I failed, I didn't want her
to see that and to come running to my side.
So as I ran across the street, I yelled out.
And he had just shot Julie Workman through the breast,
and then she was hiding under a pew, and he
(09:17):
shot her through the breast and then bounce went off
the concrete into her leg, and then he turned the
rifle to the pew in front of her, and he
shot Chris Workman in the back, instantly paralyzing christophin Wistow.
And then he pulled his pistol out and was aiming
at point black red Angel at Chris, and halfway across
(09:41):
the street, I yelled out. And I can't explain to
anybody why I yelled at I truly believe that God
yelled out from me because the moment he heard me yell,
and Chris heard me yell, and he said, is an
expression on his face changed when I yelled, and the
(10:04):
murderer dropped his rifle in the church and came out
shooting at me with a pistol. And when I first
saw him he had all Class three body armor and
a ballistic bulletproof helmet, and he started throwing shots at me.
I ran behind the pickup truck for cover. I came
up over the hood. I had him in the left chest.
(10:27):
I had him in the abdomen. He hit the truck
in front of me. He shattered the windshield of the
car behind me, and he hit the house behind me also,
And at that moment he ran for his vehicle, which
was setting in the middle of the street, the driver's
side door opened and the engine running. When he turned
(10:49):
to his side, I put one between the plate. He
had a front plate, rear plate held in with a
plate carrier, but nothing on the side, and I put
one between the plate high on his side. I put
one high in his legs, and he was still able
to get into his vehicle and put two rounds through
(11:09):
the side window at me, and then I busted one
across his forehead, just underneath the rim of the helmet.
From one side to the other. He accelerated to turn
the corner he wanted out, and he started running down
the street as fast as that vehicle could take him.
By the time I got the middle of the street,
(11:29):
he was about one hundred and fifty yards way and flee.
I put one through the back windshield. It shattered the
back windshield. Police say that one went through the driver's
side seat and hitting right of the left shoulder blade,
and he topped the hill and out of sight. And
(11:50):
I'm standing in the middle of the street, thinking it
can't end this way. He's getting away. And I looked
off to my left and there was a truck setting
at the stop sign, and this guy had witnessed the
whole thing, and he was on the phone with nine
to one one and I ran over and tapped on
(12:11):
the window and said, that guy just shot up the
Baptist church and we had to stop him. The next
thing I heard where the locks come open. I crawled
up in the cab of a truck with long, tall
Texan that I had never met before in my life,
had on a western hat, had a feather in the hat,
(12:32):
had tooth that hang it out of his mouth, as
a long horned skull in the middle of his neck,
and the horns go up underneath his ears. Johnny Langedorf
was his name, but I didn't know him at the times.
And he pursued that the murderer, and we were doing
(12:53):
at least ninety five one hundred miles for our splitting
cars chasing it. At first, the guy got such a
head start on us that we didn't see him, and
so we were chasing as fast as we could, and
Johnny was on the phone and every time we crossed
a cross road he would tell dispatch where we were,
(13:18):
so he was keeping them informed. And we chased a
guy eleven point six miles and in the end he
committed Society realized he was being chased, and he committed suicide.
And I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Did the police and the authorities try to go after you.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Not at all, As a matter of fact, from the start,
they held me at the crash scene for four and
a half hours. And when they finally told me that
I could go home, I was walking back to the
roadblock that the fire department had set up, and it
(14:02):
was about two hundred yards away from the police line.
And I was walking back to the roadblock and a
lady came up behind me and said, mister Wilifard, I
didn't need to speak with you. And I turned and
looked and her mescre was running. She had been crying,
and she said I had friends in that church. And
(14:26):
I said, how bad is it? And she said, this
is really bad. And then she pulled a card out
and she said, but if I can help you in
any way, please give me a call. I'm the DA
of Wilson County. I mean, I grabbed that card because
that lady had my life in her hands and she
(14:49):
was willing to help me in anything that I needed
at that point because the story from inside the church
and the neighbors told the story story of me confronting
the murderer and basically shooting him and then pursuing him.
So she considered me a hero, and so did the
(15:12):
law enforcement at that time. And so no, I never
had any legal issues other than having to deal with
the press that I really you know, and they kind
of made up their own stories and did their own thing,
and I had to have a lawyer to straighten hill
now and get their story correct. At one point, one
(15:38):
of the news Kin's five eyewitnessed news in San Antonio
said that I was leaning out Johnny's truck, shooting at
him running down the road and that just wasn't so.
And I called the reporter and was able to get
a hold of the reporter and I said, what in
the world are you reporting? She said, well, that's what
(15:58):
mister Wiliford told me. I said, do you know who
you're talking to? I said, I did not tell you that. Well,
that's what my producer said. And you took your producer
at his work. You didn't do any investigating to see
if that was true or not, you know. And I demanded,
(16:19):
they'll come out and do a retraction, and they said,
we don't do any And I send them to my lawyer.
I said, my lawyer will be calling you. And then
at ten o'clock news they were attracted it. And at
five o'clock on the news the next day they were
attracted it again. And it's said that we have to
have a lawyer to defend ourselves for things like that,
(16:43):
even you know.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Could you tell us more about the work of Gun
Owners of America And when people think of gun Rick's lobbying,
the ANDRI often comes to mind. How different is GOA
from the NRA. Is the difference mainly the approach or
is it somewhere else? And some people in the media
(17:09):
talk about a rivalry between GA and NRA. Could you
explain the dynamics between the missions between the tools.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
The GOA and the past and the NRA worked handed
in hand. So two of the members, the founding members
of the GOA were former NRA board members, And when
they originally broke away from the NRA, they said, we
(17:40):
need to start fighting some of these things in legislative
legislation and in the courts, and the NRA agreed, and
they did a handshake agreement that the NRA wouldn't get
into legislative action and the GOA would not get into
(18:00):
training because essentially, back then that's what the NRA did.
They were a training organization, training marksmanship, training people firearms
and stuff like that, and the sheer love of fire
arms and sports and hunting and stuff like that. And
(18:21):
so we were actually formed out of the NRA originally,
and it has come down to the GOA has never
compromised when it comes to Second Amendment right. We believe
that the Constitution is very clear when it states shall
(18:43):
not be infringed. We don't think that there should be
any laws regulating firearms use and ownership as long as
you're not a law break you know someone that breaks
the law. As long as you're a law binding citizen,
and we truly believe that if you are a danger
to society, you should never get out of prison anyways,
(19:09):
but we believe in the right for the American citizen
to be able to maintain and continue to shoot. Shooting
sports is great and stuff, but the real reason for
the right to bear, for the Second Amendment is in
(19:30):
case the government gets out of hand, a tyrannical government.
And we've seen it in the past with Russian Revolution
that slaughtered so many people, overshadowed even Nazi Germany and Russia.
Before they started the Russian Revolution, they demanded that everybody
(19:51):
turned in their arms, and when they turned in their arms,
then they started major genocide. And then we all know
about Nazi Germany, and the same thing happened there. They
enacted gun control and told everybody bringing their guns and
turn them in, and like good citizens, they marched down
there and turned them in. And then they started murdering
(20:13):
Jews and other people that they thought were impure, that
the white race was the master race, and so that
anyone else they didn't mind murdering, you know, and you
know Mause Tungue in China and all the way till
recent years Venezuela, they picked up all their guns and
(20:36):
then they started running over people with tank you know.
So we believe in the right to bear arms for
a multi multitude of purposes, and a tyrannical government is
one of those purposes. And make no mistake they say, well,
you know it's different here in the United States. That
would never happen here. And what I would tell you
(20:59):
is human nature never changes. When you get total power,
and you know, the populace cannot stand against you. With
that total power, then you become tyrannical and you know,
and take over total control over everybody. And that's what
(21:26):
our Second Amendment was all about. They didn't set down
and have a tea party with the King of England.
This was about using the guns. And England was coming
for their guns and Lexington and Concord. That's what they
were doing, is they were coming to remove their guns.
When the shot heard around the world happened, and we
(21:48):
fought for our independence, and our founding fathers knew this,
and so the first thing was a freedom of speech,
freedom of engine, freedom of press, and stuff like that.
The second Amendment, the second Amendment was the right to
keep in bare arms. The right of the people, and
(22:12):
that's important. The right of the people shall not be infringed.
And GOA has been in the fight. We've been in
the pistol brace fight, We've been in framing receiver, we've
been in suppressor fights. We were now fighting in the
Illinois their modern sporting rifles ban. They call it a
(22:37):
a assault weapons band. There's no such thing as an
assault weapons but you know that we call it a
modern sporting rifle ban because it's any some automatic rifle.
We're fighting that and eventually we'll get into the Supreme
Court and it will be overturned nationwise, and we're convinced
(22:58):
of that.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
How has the Second Amendment been undermined over the years now?
And many politicians, particularly in moderate constituencies, do not necessarily
say that they want to fully get rid of the
Second Amendment, and they always do this through an incrementalist approach.
But what are the ways they have used to undermine
(23:25):
the Second Amendment and curtail its exercise to the extent
that they've succeeded.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Well, they use every tragedy as see, if nobody would
have had any guns, this wouldn't have happened. You know
this wouldn't have happened if this guy or this woman
wouldn't have had a gun. They say it as a
gun issue, and they use everything they stand on the
bodies of the ones that are lost to promote their
(23:55):
own agenda where you know. So if you take the
guns out of the hands of the populace, then who
has the guns? And that's the government. And in the past, again,
like I just stated, the government is the worst mass
murder of anyone else. It's always the government. It's always
(24:19):
the government that starts murdering people, that starts wars, that
starts you know. And so we have the right and
the ability as long as everybody in America owns a
gun to be able to fight that taranny. And they
don't like that, you know. And it's really obvious because
(24:42):
if they truly were worried about the numbers, they would
be more interested in banning pistols. Because this is FBI
stats now, you guys, you can look it up. More
people are every year, more people by numbers are murdered
with hammers and blunt instruments, then rifles in general, assault rifles,
(25:09):
bolt action rifles, lever action rifles, whatever. More people are
murdered with hammers than rifles in general. Why do they
want to ban assault rifle? But as they call it, well,
the reason they wanted rifles is they know that we
(25:31):
can never resist with just pistols, so they want to
first ban the rifles, and when the rifles get banned,
the pistols are next on the list. Make no mistake,
it will not stop at one thing or another, and
they have proven that in the past. Look at England
for instance. You know they have a lot of gun
(25:53):
control and now London, England has a murder rate higher
than New York City and it's with knights. And now
England is trying to ban knives and the ability to
own a gun to defend yourself. If you're an old
(26:16):
man like me, I'm no match for a young man anymore.
But I can defend myself with a gun. I'm quite
good with a gun as a matter of fact. And
it doesn't matter how big and bad you are, I'm
equal to you. If I have a gun and to
be able to defend myself without firal then we are
(26:37):
a society of survival of the fittest, especially when the
government continues to pit ourselves against each other. And it's
they tend to pit us against each other race, economic,
social status and stuff like that. You know, the one
(26:59):
percent or the rich people, they're the problem, or and
we we're the poor, or you know, black versus white
or Hispanic or whatever. And if we stand together and
don't worry about race and just focus on them, that's
not what they want. They want to divide us, and
(27:20):
we need to start being that melting pot in the
nation that we were designed to be. Now that doesn't
mean that you need to come over illegally, because they're
bringing their crime over two and in Aurora, Colorado right now,
the Venezuelan gangs are overtaken apartment complexes and stuff, and
(27:40):
no one can do anything about that. They then poured
it the violence to us, and apparently Venezuela has been
giving all of their people in jail saying we'll help
you get to the United States and we'll set you
free over there, take you out of jail. Now, Venezuela
has a lawless crime rate that they've had in years
(28:02):
and years because they've shipped it all over here, and
we shouldn't be okay with that.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
What do you see as the future for gun control
should Kamala Harris become president in November twenty twenty four,
do you think she would be a bigger threat to
gun owners than the Biden administration If you.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Were to do an analysis or assessment of Biden's performance
and good control and how in your estimation of how
Harris would turn out to be, how would it look like.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Well, Kamala has said it herself that she would do
a mandatory buy back. Make no mistake the gun the
federal government never owned guns to begin with, they can't
buy it back. And don't be stupid. If they did
give you money for your guns, they're giving you your
own tax money back. There's no bite back there at all.
(29:07):
And it's ridiculous. And Kamala Harris would be the absolute
worst disaster of a president for our Second Amendment rights
of any other president in the past. And Joe Biden
has has started using his pen and signing in the
(29:27):
Frendman receiver rule, the short the pistol brace rule, the
force reset trigger rule, the you know and and stuff
like that. He's he started doing that with his pen,
going totally around Congress, and GA has been fighting these
rules and and what has happened We got the bumpstock
(29:52):
ban overturned. Uh, we got the bruin case but in
the night, which said you have to have a historical
proof that this was done during the Second then during
the founding of our country. And then we have chevron
difference that got overturned. And Chevron difference is how they're
(30:14):
doing these things. The ATF and all these alphabet agencies
are making decisions without Congress through chevron defference, and now
it's been overturned by the Supreme Court. So things like
the pistol brace ban, the frame and receiver ban, and
force reset trigger and stuff like that, they're all going
(30:36):
to fall by the wayside because now they can't use
chevron defference to make those decisions. And that's how they
made those rulings, not laws, but rulings in the past.
And so they're losing. And thank you to Donald Trump
for his Supreme Court selection that made that the case is.
(31:01):
We now have a conservative Supreme Court and a whole
lot of lower court appointees by Donald Trump. And I
know Donald Trump himself hasn't been the absolute one percent
tow the line on the Second Amendment, but the judges
(31:23):
that he has put into place as upholder upheld our
Second Amendment. Make no mistake, there is a very stark
difference between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and the judge's
appointments are the biggest part of what's going to save
(31:43):
this nation.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
When one talks about undermining gun rights, people often think
about Democrats, because understandably Democrats have largely been behind this.
But what are the ways that Republican leaders, whether the callers,
those moderates, or as Kyle Rittenhouse criticized before recanting, the
(32:08):
Trump administration in the past contributed to a pullback of
gun rights, maybe not a complete band, but has undermined
efforts towards greater realization of the Second Amendment.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Well, you know, we have our own Texas Senator John
Cornyn that worked, and he led the charge with fourteen
other right owned Republicans to trample our constitution with the
safer communities, and he supported that and it was absolutely
(32:45):
a disaster for eighteen to twenty year olds. It was
a disaster for school budgets that were trying to put
in firearms training, whether it was under safety courses. And
you would think that that would want hunter safety courses
or things like that. All that were and the the
(33:09):
most recent was the UH in the business of is
what the ATF took and redefined with the Safer Communities Act.
And I confronted John Cornyn on that and he said, well,
the Biden administration did something with it that was never
supposed to be done. And I told John Cornyn, but
(33:30):
you had to know that they were going to do that.
If you make a deal with the devil, he is
the devil, you should expect it. And UH, So, I
don't cut these right on Republicans any any slack either.
I'm going to do my best to find someone to
support UH to run against John Cornyn in the primary
(33:53):
and to get him out. And John Cornyn has now said, oh, well,
I have a resolution to overturn happened with the Safer
Communities at And I said, but you know that resolution
if you could pass it through to the Senate, which
if walked passed through the Senate, you might get it
through the House, but Joe Biden would veto it. So
(34:16):
it's senseless to put that out there trying to cover
your behind after you made this bad mistake. You know,
you knew it was going to happen. And now he
wants to support things like reciprocity for the whole nation,
so you could carry with your permit through all fifty
(34:38):
states reciprocity. And he wants to get rid of the
short belled rifle, and he's pushing that out there and
sponsoring those bills when he knows that the president would
veto it. So what we need to do now is
we need to get a president that is very friendly
to us and then for him to pass those bills
(35:02):
and they're not just posturing. Then if you have the House,
the Senate, and the presidency and then pass those bills,
not when you know they won't get put into law.
And that's what he's doing. So he can point back
and say, look at me, I promoted this bill even
(35:24):
though it didn't pass. I pushed it. So let's call
his block, let's get let's take back the Senate, let's
take back the House, and let's give Donald Trump the
presidency and see if he then promotes that bill and
pushes it, because then it could get passed.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
What are some areas that the GOA believes that firearms
must be restricted in now? Notably ISIS and a lot
of other terrorist groups have often put put out videos
encouraging Muslims in America, for exaln as a video and
Isis by Isis showed to purchase firearms in states where
(36:06):
they are easily available and then use that to shoot up,
shoot up, shoot up churches and quote unquote non believers.
But in that situation, what is the right policy response?
Now some propose that you know, whide access of guns
are is means that any any terrorists or any person
(36:30):
who suddenly is religiously radicalized could attacks.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
The courts have now come out and said law abiding
citizens have the Second Amendment. If they're not law abiding citizens,
then they don't have their second amitment. If they're just
coming over as illegal or whatever which is porn across
their board our borders, that's not law abiding citizen. And second,
(36:59):
understand that it is not hard for Isis to get
full automatic AK forty sevens. They went into France and
murdered people at a concert. They went through the streets
of France, murdering police officers on their way to the
cartoonists and murdered the cartoonist in his business at the
(37:22):
paper for drawing Mohammed. They murdered people on the train
with full automatic AK forty seven. Make no mistake, the
terrorists are going to come up with those guns anyway
where it is illegal in Russia to own any kind
(37:42):
of gun. They went to a concert just recently with
full automatic AK forty sevens and murdered Russians waiting in
line to get into the concert. They shot them down
against the walls, just like they were lined up, you know.
So make no mistake. Isis is here, as Blah is here.
(38:05):
They've opened our borders and let them flood in. They
are here, and they're gonna have guns one way or
the other. They get them through the black market. And
the only answer to that is for Lombiding citizens patriots
to own guns to be able to fight back. They've
created this problem. Like I say, all these guys from
(38:30):
Venezuela that are in those apartments in Aurora, Colorado, they
didn't obtain those guns legally, and now they've chased everybody
out of those apartments. And and what I understand is
they've tried to hijack school buses. Now the Biden administration,
(38:54):
the Harris Biden administration, has invited this into our country.
They are squarely responsible for all these illegal aliens that
are creating this crime, and then the administration wants to say, see,
we need to get these guns off the street. No,
they have brought the the The problem isn't a gun.
(39:18):
The problem is the criminal and they have imported those
criminals into my country. And honestly, that's that's what's going on,
and we are going to have to clean up their mess.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Coming to our last question, what are the key areas
that the battle over gun rights will be taking place
in the months ahead.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
One are the key areas or the key.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
The key battles that will be taking off place.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
And we're in the battle for to overturn assault weapons bands,
high capacity magazine bands. We're still in the fight for
the pistol brace and the Frameman receiver van. They just
sued Polymerate into non existence now and there were laws
(40:22):
against them doing that. You know, there are no laws
protecting manufacturers of faulty product. But just because somebody buys
a Ford truck and runs through a crowd and murders
multiple people with a Ford truck doesn't mean that you
should be able to sue Ford Motor Company, you know.
(40:47):
So that's their next strategy is trying to sue the
manufacturing companies. Right now, they are suing block and saying
a block is easily convertible converted to full lout of metic. Well,
the reality is anything is easily converted to full out
of metic and the criminals are going to do that anyway,
(41:09):
you know. So uh, they're going to get it through
the black market or whatever. Those are the battleground and
that's that's what's happening, and we need to support manufacturing,
you know, good American manufacturing. I think they need to
move to Texas because we're more friendly to manufacturers. They
(41:33):
are already fleeing to Tennessee and stuff. But we need
to shore up that avenue. We need to get rid
of the Assault Weapons Band nationwide, and if it reaches
the Supreme Court, that will happen as it will overturn
and all these laws can saying ten round magazines. Just
(41:57):
recently Maryland, a judge said, you can't ban AR fifteens.
It's the most commonly owned rifle and through bruin the
Heller decision, you cannot ban them. And then he made
the mistake and said, but you can limit the ammunition
that you can put into them. Well, that makes no
(42:21):
since at all. Because then you can have illegally owned
AR fifteen with a magazine with a capacity of one.
You know, well that's ridiculous and we're going to fight that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Is there any battles the gas fighting on three D
printed guns? What's the stance on that issue.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Well, that's the prime and receiver battle three D printed
guns where they decide what hearts could be made into
firearms and they need to be serialized. And since even
before the Revolutionary War with England, even before that, Americans
(43:03):
could build their own gun. It was legal. It still
is legal. And the Frameman receiver, you take an aluminum
block and the ATF has tried to say that could
be made into a gun. Therefore to own that illuminum
block is illegal. Well, with today a three D printers,
(43:26):
I just saw business that was doing three D printers,
plastic polymer printers that would print AR fifteen's and block
lower receivers out of polymer. And it came for five
hundred dollars. You could buy a three D printer with
(43:47):
these already programmed into the printer technology. You cannot stop.
It's here and people can do that, and you can't
prevent that, and criminals don't care about the laws anyway.
So all the laws in the world is not going
(44:09):
to stop the criminals. They just stop law abiding citizens
like myself.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Ladies and gentlemen, you just listen to Steffen Wilford. Stephen
Wilford is the spokesperson for Gun Owners of America. Stephen
Wilford for your time.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Please go to gun owners dot org.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose is an initiative of Andrew
Jose Media. The views expressed by guests on this show
do not necessarily represent the official positions and opinions of
Andrew Jose, Andrew Jose Media, and Strategic Wisdom.
Speaker 5 (44:49):
Thank you for listening to Strategic Wisdom. Be sure to
follow and subscribe to us on whatever podcast platform you
are using to listen to this show in order to
not miss out any future interviews and conversations that Andrew
Jose will bring to you on this podcast. We're streaming
on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, yandex geosovin, Amazon Music, and
many other podcasts streaming services. Also, be sure to subscribe
(45:12):
to Strategic Wisdom on substack at Strategicqwisdom dot substack dot com,
and to follow Strategic Wisdom on Twitter, and Instagram at stratwisdom,
do support our work by buying from our merch store.
For more details, visit Strategicwisdom dot substack dot com
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.