Welcome to Gun Owners of America, State of the second podcast.

I'm Kayleigh.

And I'm John.

And today we're joined by the wearer of many hats, a great speaker in the 2Amovement, Cheryl Todd.

How are you today?

Well, thank you for that.

And I am extra good for being here with you two.

This is such an honor.

Thank you for asking me.

Well, we appreciate you making the trip out.

Let's start out.

Tell people who you are and what you do and we'll start with that and go from there.

Well, that could be the whole podcast because as you said, I do we lot of hats.

I'm a wife, a mom and a grandma and that's really the core of everything I do and where it all stems from.

I'm a business owner.

My husband and I host a podcast called, and you have to pronounce it correctly, Gun Freedom Radio.

Right.

I am the Arizona State Director to Women for Gun Rights.

I'm the vice president of the azcdl, which is the legislative arm, the watchmen on the wall, the guard dogs in the legislature.

And I'm the president of the AZCDL foundation, which is the C3, which is the Education and safety arm of the work we do there.

I also am on the board of the Second Amendment Institute, which has the component of being on campus is my real driver there because, you know, we're arbitrarily disarmed on our college campuses for no good reason.

And SAI is very tapped into bringing that concealed carry and just safety issue to college campuses.

It is a topic that I love and is near and dear to me.

That was my senior thesis at school, was writing about carry on campus because where I went to college it was very weird because the universities are public owned.

Anybody who is not at university could carry on campus.

But if you were a student or going to a university function, you were not allowed to carry on campus.

So that is something that is near and dear to me.

And I want all college campuses to be armed.

Those little blue lights don't do much.

They don't.

And the other side always talks about, well, college kids.

Well, I was an adult, married, parent, business owner before I ever went to college.

I was like 24 or something like that.

So I was not a college kid.

But I took night classes and you know, we were in sometimes a urban area, ASU campuses, sometimes a rural area out where I live with like Estrella Mountain Community College.

And you know, danger can strike anywhere.

And so to be arbitrarily disarmed and unable to Fully protect myself.

Makes zero sense.

So thank you for making that, you know, a push for your thesis.

That must have been interesting with your professors.

Yes, my professor, I got my first.

Sent off my first draft.

I got it back and it's.

He was in Texas.

We, where I grew up.

We left the guns in the vestibule and went into church.

And I was like, that's dangerous.

Yes.

Why?

Right there by the front door.

Yes.

But I think I swayed him by the end.

He did.

I did have a couple professors call me after the fact and were like, thank you for talking about this.

Thank you for bringing this up.

I want to go to the range.

So it was a interesting thesis and wrote a big thing on it.

There was a big movement on my campus when I was there and it was a good time to write about it because we were talking about it.

We just had the.

Now I can't remember her name.

She graduated, she had the AR15 across her back.

Oh, and she was being given a bunch of garbage about taking her prom picture with her AR15 or her grad picture with their AR15.

And yeah, I don't remember her name either.

But we.

That was my Caitlyn.

Yes, nice.

It's back there.

All of the information it gets stored, it's like a little buffering.

But that was the big movement while I was there.

We were trying to get campus carry because it was a safe campus, but not a safe campus at the same time.

And we had gone to two anywhere, right.

Yeah.

Because you don't know.

And thankfully we are seeing some movement on this issue.

I mean this year campus carry was enacted in West Virginia.

It finally went into effect.

It was, I think it's a July 1st effective.

And so it's fantastic that we're seeing this push because guess what?

Gun free zones not safe.

Mass murders happen by and large on gun free zones.

And so why would we want to send young adults to a place where they can be potentially harmed at a greater scale?

And everybody go, well, there's a sign and I've got a great example of this and I wish I got a picture.

My wife was, was home.

I was with you.

We were traveling.

We have a no soliciting sign on our door.

No soliciting.

Somebody came up with a political ad, put it right behind the sign.

I was like, see, signs clearly don't work.

Yeah.

I'm always like, are we going to paper cut somebody with this sign?

How is this going to protect me exactly?

Give me the specifics.

And the specifics are really in the stats that you just alluded to that, you know, predators look for the path of least resistance.

And if they know that there is a 0% likelihood or a very low likelihood that anybody is going to be able to meet them force for force, if you're a predator, where are you going to go?

Exactly right.

So anyway, and let me just say this.

Antonia Okaforkova, who is part of your goa's empowered women's.

When I first met her back in the day, one of her main things was campus safety and campus carry.

And so that was really one of the things that just made me run to meet her and interview her and then get to know her.

And you know, we appreciate at GOF, so the sister organization at GOA, our C3 side, has two A defenders, which is our college campus program and any students that may be listening to this.

We have a whole list of speakers that you can invite on your campus for free and cover a wide range of topics.

Because we have to fight the echo chambers on campus.

They own that space and they're comfortable with their dominance there.

And so now is the time for us to get on campus to educate your peers and to be a little bit rebellious with the ability to let people know that there is a different way to think.

You know, you don't have to be rude, you don't have to cuss, you don't have to make a big scene, but you do have to fight against the echo chamber and get that information on campus because they own the territory unless we start fighting back.

Yeah, and we did a movement at the first college I went to.

We did a empty holster protest at one point and that was interesting how many people showed up to that.

It got the administration interested, but also ultimately they were like, nah.

So you can only do so much.

And starting off with things like that, it's always a good stepping point.

At least get their minds open and at least get the conversation going.

Well, we are at that time we're going to jump into our first segment which is a rapid fire.

We're going to ask you five questions.

Brace myself.

I'm going to ask you five questions.

You answer them as quickly or as shortly as you are longly as you'd like.

It's just going to go real quick.

So question number one.

Who is your favorite content creator?

How can I have a favorite?

I can't have a favorite.

I'm not.

I am not answering that question.

I'm not answering that question.

I love them all.

As long as they're working in this Space.

I love them all.

All right, what was your last impulse buy?

Does it have to be gun related?

Doesn't.

Books?

I am constantly.

On the way here, I was in the airport and passed by one of those little mini bookstores and should have purchased from that bookstore.

My apologies, but where am I going to carry it in an airport?

So hopped onto Amazon and purchased two of them actually.

So, yeah, books.

What is on the bucket list of guns for you?

Oh my gosh.

I've had pretty much everything.

My husband and I had the retail store for like 20 years, AZ Firearms.

And honestly, I mean, we had a 105, we had two 105 howitzers.

We've had Gatling guns.

I'm a spoiled girl.

I've pretty much had anything that I've wanted.

So.

As you should be.

As you should be.

I mean, you said it.

I'm just nodding my head in agreement.

I want Gatling guns.

That sounds like fun.

If there could be any trainer in the world that you haven't trained with that you want to train with, you have the opportunity.

Who would it be?

Lanny Barnes.

And then the last one is Top three Guns for the Zombie Apocalypse.

See, I'm equipment.

Even though I've had like every gun.

My husband is the one that could probably rattle these off at the top of his head easily.

But.

So of course you want long range, mid range and close quarters.

So long range, I'm probably going to go with maybe I can have my howitzer back.

We did sell those things when we liquidated the store, but you know, that can do some serious damage way out.

A mile out.

Right, that mid range.

Of course you're going to want a good AR and then close quarters.

My.

My handy edc, which I don't like to name.

And I'll briefly tell you why.

A friend of mine was wrongly accused of pulling his firearm on somebody.

And he had a podcast and he talked about his gun all the time.

And so when it first happened, I thought, well, this person's gonna name, you know, down to the serial number what you carry, because you've been talking about it incessantly and the person didn't, which is how we knew for sure the person was lying because they completely misidentified the firearm.

My friend didn't even own this kind of firearm, so I don't like to say what my specific carry gun is, but I'm well trained with it and I'm effective with it.

So there you go.

That's awesome.

That's a good thing to remember.

Yeah, and that's smart.

I actually think that's a good tactic for a lot of people.

It always.

It always, I guess, stresses me out when I see new gun owners posting a picture of their firearm.

And you can, like, clearly see the serial number.

And I'm like, you might want to take that down.

I'm not sure that needs to be public information.

Yeah, a little, you know, a little secrecy.

Privacy.

Privacy.

Never, never hurt anybody.

Yeah.

Don't go looking on my Instagram.

I mean, that's just.

I mean, it's just.

I don't know, it's always just kind of sat weird with me.

And I've always been like, I don't know that I would do that.

Well, and then there's another thing, is that.

And I don't think I ever did, but I could have.

You know how there's the cigar and the bourbon and the handgun pictures.

And because I work with so many people who are brand new to this space, I just started thinking about, so are we trying to say that we pair these things together?

The scar and the gun, fine.

But the liquor and the firearm, they don't mix.

And so I think that I have not posted any of those, but if I did, after my realization came that I'm not sure that I could back that up.

Right.

Like, I always consider, what if I, God forbid, have to defend myself?

You know, I'm ending up in court.

They're going to dig through every thing I have ever posted anywhere and try to come up with, you know, my mindset.

Was I an aggressive person?

Am I irresponsible person?

And so, you know, I.

I really need to go to Overthinkers Anonymous, if there is such a thing.

But.

But I kind of came to this place where I'm like, that's for me, that's not a good idea.

And maybe for our community, it might be something we want to give a second thought to.

I don't know.

What do you guys think about it?

I agree.

I used to do it.

I'm not going to lie.

I'm a big cigar smoker, so I've always done guns and cigars.

It's been my thing.

And then I got into bourbon, and so I was like, pairing them.

Like, hey, look, this is the new bourbon I've got.

This is the new cool thing I got.

And this is a new cigar.

And then I stopped because I was like this.

Even I feel uncomfortable combining liquor and firearms together.

Even though atf, like, that's the big thing.

It is a rare photo.

Yeah.

But I'll give it to you.

It can be a cool photo, but.

At the same time, like, it may, even watching people do it made me cringe on the inside.

And then I was like, yeah, I'm gonna stop doing this.

This is not.

Well, I think for at least the three of us that are at this table, we spend a lot of our day thinking about, how do I build a bigger, better, stronger, faster on ramp for people to be able to join this community?

How do we make education easier to access?

How do we get into those places, like a college campus, that are considered unreachable by many people's standards?

And so when you have that mindset and you do this for a living, a lot of times I want the content that I put out there to be easy to consume.

For somebody who is on the fence, my favorite thing is to take someone who's never been to the range before, never shot a gun before, for that first time experience.

It is the best dopamine you could ever have.

And no one can change my mind.

And if you haven't done it, do it because you get to see someone's walls come down and then be open to the second amendment community.

And I want that kind of reaction of taking someone to the range for the first time to also be something that can be seen on LinkedIn or Instagram or any social media that I have, because I think it's a valuable tool that we have to reach people that may be on the fence.

And you may only have one chance with the algorithm to change their mind.

I mean, you should do chicken and guns.

I'm just saying, chickens and guns.

Fried chicken.

I know.

I don't know.

So there is this meme with, what does an American breakfast look like?

Something like that.

And it's this pile of bacon, right?

A couple of eggs, and then a, you know, a firearm.

I'm like, I can totally get behind that.

Yeah, I'm like the Betty Crocker of guns.

I can have like a plate of muffins and, you know, things like that with my gun.

I love it.

So, burning question.

Yes.

Polka dots.

Yes.

What's.

What's the polka dots?

Well, it just kind of happened naturally and accidentally.

So I think you guys all know Charlie Cook riding shotgun with Charlie.

He's been a friend since I.

I don't even know when he first kind of got into the space.

And he was dating a woman at the time.

We were at some event together.

I was getting ready to give a speech, and he said something about, hey, my My girlfriend calls you the polka dot lady.

And I'm like, polka dot lady?

Why is that?

I look down, I'm wearing polka dots.

I'm like, oh, well, I never really thought about it.

And he goes, matter of fact, he gets out his phone, he's like scrolling through all the selfies we've taken together of each other.

And I'm like, polka dots, polka dots.

I'm like, that is so odd.

I just didn't even think about it.

And I said, well, you know, I guess polka dots are my camo.

And I went off and I gave the talk I was going to give and it was so fresh in my mind that I kind of tossed it in there and it resonated with the audience.

And I realized, you know, so much of what I am trying to do with the advocacy is to normalize gun ownership, right?

Just, you know, take things down to what is the most familiar, the most ordinary things about me and kind of tie that into.

And by the way, I'm passionate about this, right?

And I do own and carry and train with this particular tool.

And so I felt like that just really, it just flows.

Polka dots are my camo.

And then when I first started using it, people like, they didn't realize that I was trying to like really make it a connecting piece.

And.

And they were like, no, actually, polka dots are a good pattern for camo.

Okay.

It works out both ways.

But it's a good point you're making is that a lot of people see gun owners in, they see the tactical, like you gotta wear high speed pants.

I mean, Amy Langdon put it best when she was on, you know, the gun ownership doesn't have to be the high speed, low drag, you know, plate carrier, AR, sling across your chest.

It could be the everyday American just wearing their normal clothes, carrying every day in a number of options, as we've talked about, from fanny packs to shoulder holsters to inside outside usa.

But it is, it's, it's one of those things that how many we talk about the on ramp, how many people have been turned off because, oh, I gotta, I gotta have the latest and greatest high speed tactics.

And then they start looking at pricing or I've got to have the Latest and greatest 2011 or the latest and greatest this thing, and you start adding that up.

I mean, that's a mortgage and it's.

A budget line item.

And to that point, which was kind of a funny thing, is that, I mean, I just dress as I dress, right?

I love to wear dresses.

And I was taking A specific training.

I was signed up for it.

I was excited about it.

And then I thought, oh, I always conceal carry.

I don't even own a holster or a belt that I can draw from.

And that was part of the training was, you know, drawing from holster.

And so I was like, do I even have pants?

Let me think.

Do I have pants with belt loops?

Are the belt loops big enough for the belt that I need?

I mean, it was this whole process.

And so I shared that with the person putting on the classes.

And I said, you might actually.

If we are trying to reach people who are brand new to this.

I'm not even brand new to this, but I just don't train that way.

I don't carry that way.

You don't want them to be a day before the class and then realize, ew, I got to go to the 501 store or something, you know, or 511 store.

See, I don't even know the things.

And that is what I did is I ran down and it was like.

And even those, the clothing was not really made for a curvy girl.

And so I'm like, right.

And so I'm like, grabbing the sizes I normally wear, and I go in the.

The dressing room, and it's like, it, okay.

I can't even get the buttons together.

All right, well, let's go back out there and leave my pride at the door.

And by the time I got up to the size that would actually, you know, fit in all the different places, it was not a lot of fun for me.

It was.

It was not fun, but I think I got the job done and I had a great training.

Yeah.

I think that they're starting.

We're starting to see some improvement in the female space when it comes to clothing options for concealed carry.

We are very far from where we need to be.

I think I will give some love to the people over at Vertex for making a pair of comfortable jeans that will work for most people.

I would encourage you to look at petite for those of us who are short, because spending significant money on jeans and then having to drop another $50 to have someone cut off half of them is a little disheartening.

Well, and barriers like that for some people who are like, I'm just a little curious about this.

That might just be the bar.

That's too high.

Yeah, right.

And then they're like, I don't.

I don't look good in these clothes.

I don't feel good in these clothes.

I just bought nine sizes bigger than what I'm supposed to be buying.

No, thank you.

I'm completely uncomfortable now before I ever even get to the range and put this tool in my hand that I've also never held, you know, so we really should be thinking about these things.

I totally agree.

And thankfully, again, we are making progress there.

But there's gotta be so much more because, you know, we look at gun ownership and we look about at female gun ownership growing at a tremendous rate, and we never want the barrier to entry to be.

It doesn't stylistically work.

Yeah.

And, you know, I also think the people behind the gun counter have a tremendous responsibility to make sure that the firearms that you're showing work.

I've used this example a couple of times, so people who have listened to the show multiple times are probably like, oh, here we go again.

But.

But I was in one of the very first classes that I had the ability to take, and the instructor unknowingly gets up and starts talking about the purpose of the class.

And it's concealed carrying, and, you know, you need to be worried about printing and, you know, all of the things that, you know, go into it.

And this.

I start seeing this woman that's sitting kind of diagonal to me start shrinking.

And she's realizing that she bought her gun with the intentions of she felt uncomfortable running.

And he's talking about, you know, if your shirt's coming up, you know, the concealability.

And she's looking at a Tiffany blue gun with a glitter slide.

And you could just see all of.

She spent all of this money.

She's purchased something that she thinks she's gonna love that's gonna work perfectly for her.

And then she finds out it's not the right gun for the application that she wanted to use it for.

The instructor taught nothing wrong, but you could tell that if she would have asked a few more questions at the gun store, she would have probably picked something completely different.

And we can love those Tiffany blue guns and we can own them and shoot them, and they work just as well as anything else.

But at the same time, you know, application matters too, and it's all gotta be a part of the conversation.

Exactly.

You know, my guns are tools of self defense.

I'm really not a hunter.

Right.

I'm really.

I'm definitely not a competitor, you know, not even so much of a plinker.

I am thinking if and when I ever need to unsheathe this firearm, I want to be as concealed right as, you know, protected as.

As sneaky as I possibly can.

And if I've got something that's shiny.

It's going to possibly glint and give away my position.

If I've got some fancy color, then that could work against me.

And so, I mean, I definitely do double takes at some of those really fun colors.

And my daughter loves all the really fun colors.

But for me, it truly is just a tool.

And so what do I want this tool to do and not do really is on the top of my mind when I'm.

And you want to be confident and you want to know that you've got the right tool for the job.

And I just, my heart broke for her because I knew exactly what she was feeling and her body language told everybody in the class.

I regret this.

And she walked in with the I'm confident.

And that's not the conversation that you want when somebody's taking training, you want them to leave more confident, not staring at the face of potentially another, you know, four, five, $600 purchase.

It's funny, you talk about not just that, but you talked about Vertex and the way women have carried.

I'm going to admit it on the podcast, Lena's fanny pack is better than the men's fanny pack.

And I love it.

And I carry with it every day because it is so slim and designed perfectly.

It's fantastic.

You go, girl.

You go.

You got it.

Yes.

But now that's.

And we've seen again, this, this transition of, like, the way the options for when I started in the gun industry, I'm a date myself, is going to be old.

Like, the options for women carry were shrink it and pink it.

J frame revolvers.

Everybody was pushing.

And then your carry, your holster options were the, The.

Was it the can.

Cans, you remember those, they were like spandex that had lace on the back and they were there.

Or maybe a thigh holster here and there.

And seeing how much the industry has shifted a lot of that now, is it the best?

I think there's still room for a lot of room for improvement, but I.

Definitely think so too, because what we just talked about with, like, the clothing options and how, you know, the different body types and shapes that comes up more often than the people that are making these products would care to know or care to admit and.

Or they should lean in and really research with the women that are like, I hate everything that's available right now.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that there's so much improvement.

And yet despite that, we see women coming more and more into the firearms industry.

So imagine the kind of explosion of growth that can happen when we start meeting more of these needs.

Amen.

And I think from the advocacy side of things, that's what really excites me is when the industry starts making improvements and that goes hand in hand to attracting more women into the community.

Yeah.

Let me tell you something.

The reason that we spend so much time talking about moms demand action is because women getting together, they're organized and they are doing everything that they can to destroy our rights.

Imagine if the females got together and the community was opening up more and more and meeting the needs that women have.

Absolutely.

The firepower of response would be overwhelming to the anti gunners because what are you telling a mom when you empower her with a firearm to be able to protect her kids is completely different.

Where you are the victor versus when you disarm them and they're the victim.

And that is a message that I think we can completely kind of tear the roof off of the place and unleash a firepower like we've never seen before.

And a lot of that is going to be by reaching out to these previous minorities in the firearms communities and just bring them into the fold.

Feel bad for the other side if this happens.

It's true.

I mean, but some, some of it I think is that the other side, as you mentioned the mom's demand, they really have candy for the ear.

Right.

That's really the substance of what they are delivering in messaging is it's very emotional.

They don't have to really understand history.

They don't have to understand how life really works in gun free zones.

They don't have to really know what the stats are.

So they.

I think that's why it's, you know, the easy open road.

The narrower gate is ours with the truth and the facts on our side.

And for us to speak intelligently about why we believe what we believe, we really kind of have to know these things.

And you've got to have people that are hungry.

Right.

And just always looking for information and then can articulate it well.

So I do think that our bar is a little bit higher.

But the hat I wear with women for gun rights we wear teal.

We're teal for 2A.

Our slogan is education not legislation is the key to safety.

We want to be the counter visual and the counter voice to the moms demand who show up in droves in their red shirts with their little cue cards that they have their five talking points that they don't know really what they're even saying but what they're advocating for is if we could get legislation based on their little feel good talking points, we're actually endangering ourselves and endangering our children and our children's children.

And so we do the best we can with women for gun rights.

That when we find ourselves in a space where we've got our teal shirted ladies and there's some of the ladies in the red shirt, we really do try to be very open handed, engage as we can, just in a very friendly manner and a very relational manner.

And there have been times when there's been enough cognitive dissonance, right.

That it's not like the red shirted lady takes off her red shirt and instantly puts on a teal or says, you know what, you're absolutely right and I'm going to go vote the next time I can to protect my rights instead of endanger my rights and vote to actually take not only my rights away, but your rights away.

But you can see that they're being, they're experiencing and they're being exposed to something that's completely foreign to them.

They've never in their lives.

Some of these ladies experienced somebody like me who we, we really, at the core, believe the same things.

We all want to protect what we love.

That's at the core of it.

It's our therefore that takes us in different directions.

We all want to protect what we love.

Therefore, the people with the red shirts think we need somebody out there, some policeman, some politician, some law to protect us.

And the women for gun rights say we all want to protect what we love.

Therefore, we need to train, we need to educate ourselves, we need to open the door to education for others.

And we know that we are our own first responders.

We are responding to what's happening to us in a dangerous situation.

And we want to be empowered and prepared.

And so it's that split right there.

We all grieve when there's a horrible shooting, a horrible mass murder.

We all grieve when one person is wrongfully, wrongly harmed or killed.

So yes, we can agree here.

Let's try to expand the place where we can find common ground.

And that is what we do with women for gun rights.

I mentor women in the state of Arizona to find their voice and use their voice and learn our history and our civics.

And then when bills come down the line in our state, I mentor these women to show up at our state capitol and offer testimony.

Ooh, that sounds like a big word, right?

I'm going to testify at the Arizona state capitol.

Ooh, it's so scary.

It's not.

It's 60 seconds.

Generally, they give us to basically say, this is me.

I'm Cheryl Todd.

I'm a wife, a mom, a grandma.

I'm the Arizona State director to women for Gun rights.

And this bill either improves my life, and this is how.

Or makes my life worse.

And this is how.

Thank you for your time.

Please support or please vote against this bill.

Done.

That's it.

That's testifying.

Why don't we do more of that?

Yeah.

And first of all, two things.

One, I am personally jealous of Arizona and how easy it is to sign up.

Up to testify in the state of Arizona.

I live in Tennessee.

It is much harder to get on the docket.

To testify.

You have to be technically almost invited.

So you have to email your representative or email the committee and say, hey, I'd like to offer testimony and for or against.

And you have to get all.

It's a lot.

It's actually a little bit more complicated.

There are a few more steps in Tennessee versus Arizona.

My understanding, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I've never lived in your state, but you basically can just sign up almost right before to testify.

Which is, I think, as it should.

Be crazy to me because that's not how it is in my state.

And so I'm like, if I lived in Arizona, they'd be so tired of me.

And they should be.

I say we should know who all of our elected officials are.

But as important, maybe more important, they should know who you are.

When I walk in the building, you know, there's a lot of, hey, hey, Ms.

Todd.

Hey, Cheryl.

And some of it's, hey, they come over and they give me a hug.

And some of it's like, oh, look at the time.

I don't really want to engage with this young lady.

But we also have the RTS system request to speak.

And so you can sign up for that and sit home in your jammies and engage in the legislative process.

Here's the bill.

You can say, it's a little green thumbs up click.

It's a little red thumbs down click.

And then there's a space.

Would you like to say anything?

Right.

And so you don't want to go on and on.

Give it that, you know, brief.

This is who I am.

This is where I live.

So they know who their constituents are.

Right.

And this is how I feel about this particular bill.

And here's why.

And then there is a button that says, would you like to speak?

Like, actually speak and, you know, generally I say yes.

And as much as my calendar will allow, I go down there so that I can be available.

Now, they do play games.

Right.

Even in Arizona.

And so the bill that.

That I would like to speak on, it's gun rights.

You know, depending on who is the chairperson of the room I'm in, they might just keep, oh, well, we're gonna.

We're gonna hear these other people first.

And they bump it down.

And they bump it down.

They bump it down.

You're sitting there for three hours, and then it's, you know, oh, I gotta go pick up the grandkids from school.

It's, you know, time is starting to get on.

And then they might even say, you know what?

We're gonna go ahead and postpone this to another time, another day.

And so these things do happen, and it does get discouraging to those of us who have jobs and we have family responsibilities.

But again, if it goes to.

If we have more people available to us, then somebody's schedule is going to work and somebody's schedule is going to line up.

So more.

We need more people.

Yeah.

So I do want to touch on this one thing really fast, and then we'll move on to our next segment.

But Morton Blackwell of the Leadership Institute, which is a great conservative organization, you know, he always talks about, you have to read to lead, because you've got to have a depth of argument.

You've got to have a strong foundation.

And you brought some books with you, and you're also an avid reader.

It was your impulse buy.

So what can you kind of tell.

Tell us?

And what would be some advice and some books that you would recommend for people who are just starting out in their advocacy journey?

Absolutely.

Well, I think these three that I brought with me really do apply.

And I've given a few speeches where I use, actually, these two, and I use that kind of phrase that's out there right now is this is how it started and this is how it's going.

Right.

And so the Second Amendment Manifesto by John Payne, and I've interviewed both of these authors on my show, as well as David Yamani, which I'll get to his book Gun Curious.

But John Payne takes us not just through American history, and I think so often that's where our brains start, is, well, we had the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and that's all we need.

And.

And I mean, in fairness, it should be all we need.

Right.

Because every single elected official swears the same oath to protect the same documents.

Right.

The same values.

But he takes us all the way through world history.

And not until I read this book did I realize that England actually had a revolutionary war over firearms or civil war over firearms.

England, who then showed up on our shores, right.

That weren't quite ours yet at Lexington and Concord to take what?

Our guns and our ammo.

And if you look at where England is now, I think they're not even allowed to have like pointy forks.

So, you know, they didn't learn the lesson of history.

But we should.

And I think this book was.

Is brilliant to give people that overall scope of why did our founders end up being so passionate about this particular issue?

And then this is how it's going.

Mao's A Survivor's Warning by Xi Van Fleet.

Xi grew up in China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

And she says in her book that we are experiencing almost like cookie cutter, the exact same things in the United States as a Cultural Revolution.

That they used the young people, the college age and younger in China to turn against their own parents and turn against anybody who didn't agree with their leader, Mao Zedong.

And the very first murders created by the Red Guard.

Actually, the Red Guard I didn't even realize were young people.

I thought the Red Guard was part of their military.

I knew very, very little about the Chinese Cultural Revolution until I read this.

But they were like junior high girls who murdered their principal because he wouldn't espouse these beliefs of Mao's and that they were.

The young people were taught to reject the 5 olds.

And of course right now I'm not going to get them.

All right?

But it was anything that was traditional.

So, you know, family traditions, historical traditions, cultural traditions, any of those sort of things if you.

It was the ultimate cancel culture at the end of guns, right?

And they would have these things called shaming sessions where they'd put people in a town square and they would wear these really tall white dunce caps with words written on them explaining the.

The thought crimes that these people had.

And there were instances of the children being in those crowds spitting on and yelling at and encouraging the beatings and even in prison and death of their own parents because this whole ideology got a hold of their minds.

So it's terrifying to think how far Marxism and Maoism and communism and socialism has seeped into our culture.

Because where culture is downstream, you end up electing people who agree with the culture.

And then those people, once they're elected, downstream from there, they enact laws that agree with the culture.

Not necessarily with what is good or right or what actually protects people.

So it's these two books I cannot recommend high enough to people to just educate ourselves.

And then gun Curious.

David Yamani has been on my show as well.

And the subtitle is A Liberal.

A liberal right.

You don't often hear people from the more left or liberal side even talk about gun ownership or value of gun ownership.

And so he does A liberal professor's surprising journey inside of America's gun culture.

And he is able with.

He teaches college courses and he.

One of the prerequisites for one of his courses is his class has to go out on the range, on a live firing range and experience in safe conditions firing a firearm at the beginning of the course.

And then as they're writing papers and debating and doing all the things, they at least have that level of experience.

And I think it's brilliant what he's doing.

I wish more college professors would do it.

And one of the big distinctions that Professor Yamani made on my show was, you know, how I said we agree on certain things, the left and the right, the pro firearms, the anti firearms groups.

And he said, well, many people our side says we want to be safe with the gun.

And many people on the left think, well, the only way to be safe is without guns.

And that just really is one of those things that I mentally chew on when I'm trying to talk to somebody who I know is probably looking at me like I have a third eye because possibly somewhere strapped to my body is that particular tool that they have been encouraged to have a phobic response to.

Right.

And so how do I, how do I take the sting out of all of that?

Well, knowing that their idea of safety is that tool can't even be part of the any equation.

Just helps me with my approach and my methodology and my language and things like that.

So thank you for asking me about my books.

Absolutely.

So we are halfway, well over halfway for this show.

So it's time for our final segment, which is from the Soapbox, where we delve into an issue that is generally political in nature and talk about, you know, what your hot take is with it.

And so because of your work in advocacy, especially on the state level, I wanted to get into apathy at the state level.

National topics, you know, the pistol brace ban, some of those major challenges that we've had to overcome as a community.

Community seem to get all of the airtime.

You're really big on the state advocacy.

So how do we battle apathy?

Within gun ownership at the state level.

That is such a great question.

And truly I believe that apathy is so such a big issue, such a big problem, that truly, if the other side didn't have their mom's demand, we would undo ourselves eventually.

Because apathy is that rampant and that dangerous because people just.

They're busy living their lives, right?

You're not a villain if you're apathetic to the whole second amendment issue, but you're not preparing yourself and your children and your children's children for the future.

So when I first got into this, I would say that it's because whatever I do or don't do in my lifetime, the fact that that will have reverberating impact on the future, that's why I have to do everything I possibly can.

I don't honestly know how to recreate more people who think that way other than to continually speak to, you know, any, anyone.

I can take any opportunity I can to open myself to conversations.

I'm not one that likes to have conversations on airplanes, but on the.

The last flight I took before I came here, it came up in conversation because of the book I was reading.

The person next to me waited till we were actually landing and then asked me so that it wouldn't be a long conversation.

And I caused a little cognitive dissonance.

So whatever we can do as advocates, I think it's important.

But at our state level, Arizona, we are a state of 7 million plus people.

The, the key organization, the AZCDL, the Watchmen on the wall, the guard dogs in the state legislature that I'm the vice president of, we have all of 20, some thousand members.

That's a problem, right?

Because not only could we be doing so much more if we had bigger numbers, because membership, the Women for Gun Rights, I mentioned earlier, that's a free membership.

The azcdl, we do charge for a membership, but it's like the cost of a cup of coffee over the course of a couple of weeks.

It's very, very inexpensive.

We could do so much more.

And when we walk into a legislator's office, what do they want to know?

When I'm talking to you, Cheryl, how many people am I really talking to?

They want to know about our membership.

They want to know how big of an issue, how many people are involved in this.

And when we know that from national statistics that at least half of every household has at least one gun, then truly who they are talking to is at least 35,000 or I mean 350,000 to 400,000, sorry, million.

4 million people.

Because if there's 7 million people, half of them own guns.

Math is not my strong suit, then that's going to make a much larger impact than we have 20 some thousand people.

We do speak on behalf of every single person in the United States as well as Arizona, because we want to preserve all of your rights.

We want to preserve the rights of people who would give their rights away in a minute, who want to reach into my personal life and take my rights away.

I'm still fighting for your rights.

So apathy is horrible.

And I really wish that we could figure out what is the key to causing people to be more involved.

Usually if they're afraid, if there's some legislation that's coming up, which right now, with the executive orders that just got handed down, and we've got one of our major political candidates out there advocating.

Well, on one hand, she says, oh, no, I'm one of you, right?

I own a gun.

It's a Glock.

Like, we believe you, right, that you own a gun.

But then out of the other side of her mouth, she says she wants to support this executive order and do all of these things that are only going to make us less safe.

How does that not create that atmosphere where people say, yes, my gun rights are under threat?

And we do have so many people on the left who have come into gun ownership.

Just because you own a gun doesn't mean you automatically understand all the responsibilities and rights that come with that.

But at least it's a step.

And when my husband and I had our gun shop, we felt that it was really a huge privilege for us to be able to serve people in that way.

Not only am I helping them find the tool that fits their life and their needs the best, but I can also introduce them to not only the Arizona state constitution, but also the federal Constitution.

And, oh, by the way, here's some business cards of some trainers, right?

So we were doing what we could do.

But, you know, I wish I knew the answer.

I wish I had that magic ingredient that would say, this is what's going to cause people to wake up and realize that our Second Amendment, our state in Arizona is Article 2, Section 26.

And instead of shall not be infringed, ours is written even a little bit more strong, and it shall not be impaired.

Anything that is less than absolutely perfect is necessarily impaired.

And so our founder said, shall not be impaired.

I was just talking to Maj Ture, who's in Philadelphia.

He was teaching a class in Arizona, and he said, In Pennsylvania, it shall not be questioned.

I like that.

Shall not be even questioned.

But people have to know, they have to understand that, you know, this is a real.

It's a real thing that our Constitution could end up being put in the shredder in many multiple ways.

It already is culturally.

And so I think that one of the tools that we have to create community, which is important and excitement and connectivity, is the rally that comes to Arizona or is put on in Arizona every single year.

I've been a part of it for the past several years.

We called it the celebrate and protect your Second Amendment, even though in Arizona it's not really the Second Amendment, but that's the shorter way.

Celebrate your Article 2, Section 26.

You know, that's a little bit hard, but that we've boasted thousands upon thousands of people who come together.

And you know, one of the things I say as the MC is, you know, one of your marching orders today is to make two new friends.

Right.

Connect with people, get to know who your fellow firearms owner is and your fellow advocate is so that you can grow those relationships.

And I'm excited because there's been a big change in the rally and GOA is going to be for this, the first time in 2025, taking it over as a GOA event.

And I believe it's called the Arizona Freedom Festival, which I love, because our gun rights do protect our freedom.

So it's kind of the or else of everything else.

And so I'm very excited about that, working with Synlad, Arizona State Director to Gun Owners of America, putting that on.

And I just think it's going to be bigger and better than ever.

Yes.

And mark your calendars if you are in Arizona, even if you're not a resident of Arizona, you know, tourism, you know, it's peaceful, you know, especially for those people who kind of use Arizona as their tourism for freedom from states like California that have very oppressive gun laws, your neighbors on the left coast in more ways than one.

Yes, that's true.

But you know, please come out.

It is March 1st.

I believe it kicks off at 10am yes.

And so, you know, come and celebrate your rights.

The thing that I think is so incredible about the Second Amendment community is we still have cause for celebration every day that we're able to push for greater innovation.

Every day that we're able to be gun owners is a day we're celebrating.

And let's build that momentum and that celebration so that we can even better attack the issues at hand so that we can restore sections of the Second Amendment that need to be restored and defend those that need to be defended.

Because this is a fight that is winnable.

And for everybody who looks at the federal level and sees the pistol brace ban and all of these things, lead ammo bans and the Safer Communities act and the bipartisan gun control that just passed, with that, it's easy to get discouraged.

But let's take note that now over 50% of the country has some form of constitutional or permitless carry.

And we need the momentum of everyday gun owners to be able to continue that trend, to be able to fight in the courts and to be able to take the fight to the federal level and to our state level.

But it all comes down to the individual.

It does.

And that is why GOA was founded and we've been a grassroots army from the beginning.

And I really encourage everyone and I know we mentioned this a lot on the podcast, but if you're not dialed in, if you're not a member, if you're not members of your state groups, all of those things matter tremendously.

Constantly check to make sure that your inbox isn't playing tricks and it's hiding the emails because they don't want you to see the infringements.

You know, we talk about shadow banning and things like that.

Education is how we're going to win and advocacy only can happen when we're well educated.

And I'll be there.

Awesome.

That's the reason to come right there.

Yeah, I'll be there.

Come out and see.

John.

Yeah.

As an Arizona state resident.

Yes.

I want to say representative, but I don't represent the state as a resident.

I'm so excited that we are taking this over.

I went last year for the first time.

It was a blast.

As a new resident of the state, I had a great time.

I think it's a great event.

And if you are in the state of Arizona, go.

It's worth it.

It's a good.

It's free.

Free grid.

It's free.

It's family friendly.

There'll be activities for the kiddos.

Food is great.

Yeah.

The weather's better.

The MC is kind of fun.

Yeah.

So, absolutely.

And so it's really.

GOA really does a fantastic job of making sure that all of our events are family friendly.

And for those that made it out to goals, they know that we've got lots of, lots of things for the kiddos and we even have some nice resources through our foundation so that you can start that training and that supplementary education at home.

But it's gonna be a blast.

And I highly encourage you all to mark your calendars.

Now if you're traveling from like Flagstaff or someplace that's a little further away, go ahead and book your hotel.

Hotel.

And March is fastly approaching.

Go down to the Capitol, hang out.

Then you go drive an hour or so.

Go to Tortilla Flats, get yourself a great steak.

Nice.

And then go to the Overlook and go see the beauty of Arizona.

And go.

Then go or stay.

It's amazing.

So we've traditionally we've held it the second weekend of February, which kind of tied into Arizona's birthday.

February 14th is Arizona's birthday.

And so that's kind of where that celebrate piece came into.

But also when you are enacting your rights, you're celebrating them, right?

And so moving it to March.

This weather is still going to be gorgeous and blue skies and there's lots.

I am not a golfer, but there's a lot of golfing.

Sometimes in the February months we were competing with I think the pga, you know, so that'll be all done.

So there's every reason in the world to come to Arizona.

Go golfing, go overlanding, go see all the cool things.

The Arizona, I found this out.

I think it's the one in Tucson.

Don't correct me.

The Arizona Museum has Sitting Bull's gun.

Go check out cool historical stuff.

Drive down the tombstone.

Go see cool historical stuff.

I love our state and Ben Avery shooting range, I believe I'm quoting this correctly, is the largest outdoor shooting complex in the United States.

So it's not far from the capital.

So I think there's every reason to come and if you don't, you're just being apathetic.

Don't, don't do that.

Well, we are so excited and thank you so much for joining us on this podcast.

Where can everyone find you, give us social links and where they can listen to your podcast.

Thank you so much again for having me and for allowing me to kind of invite people to watch and listen.

Gun Freedom Radio, really if you just go to our website, gunfreedomradio.com you click the on demand tab and binge listen to your heart's content.

And this is where my co host would say darling for me and you know you can also see photos and bios and to all of the guests that we've ever had on all of the subject matter experts on the guest tab.

And John was one.

So you know that I've got high quality people on, on my interview based show and if you just look up Gun Freedom Radio on X, on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram.

You will find our work there.

And from there, you know, if you are interested in the Arizona Citizens Defense League, which you don't have to be a resident of the state of Arizona to join, it's azcdl.org Women for Gun Rights.

The teal for 2A I was talking about, that is womenforgunrights.org and something we didn't get to talk about too much.

But the work that I do with the AZCDL foundation, we are bringing Faster Saves Lives.

It's an emergency preparedness program for schools and it is state of the art.

It is amazing.

Check them out at faster saves lives.org awesome.

Well, thank you so much.

Be sure to like, share and subscribe to this episode.

If you're listening on a podcasting platform, go ahead and give us a five star review and we will see you next week.