Stephen Gutowski  0:00  
A federal judge holds the government responsible for mistakes made that allowed the Sutherland springs shooter to obtain his firearm and a conversation with Tiffany Johnson arrangements. That more on this episode of the weekly reload.

I gave him poison. Just all right Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, another episode of the weekly reload podcast. My name is Stephen Gutowski, I am your host, as well as the founder of the reload calm. And today we're going to be talking a little bit about some big news out of the federal courts. The first time ever. A federal judge has ruled that the government can be held liable for mistakes made during the background check process related to a mass shooting in Sutherland springs. The shooter there obtained his gun even though he was a prohibited person based on his criminal record while he was serving in the Air Force. He had a domestic violence conviction, he spent over a year in military prison for it and received a dishonorable discharge, which should have made him ineligible to buy firearms. And the problem was when he did go to buy his firearms that he used to commit the mass shooting which left 25 people dead and 20 more injured is one of the most horrific attacks on you know, random, innocent people in American history. When he went to buy his firearms to carry out that attack, he passed his background check. Yeah, he bought his guns from a retailer who ran a background check on him through the FBI, nationalistic criminal background check system next. And next did not find any disqualifying records. Now, of course, he's still wasn't legal for him to buy these guns, but there was no way for the the store that sold him the guns to know that because the airforce, never shared his criminal records with the FBI. And this was a very pervasive problem, up to this point, when it came to military records being shared with the FBI, for the background check system. And so this, this guy was able to get his guns and then carry out his attack. And victims families sued the government for this failure and United States District Judge Javier Rodriguez, ruled in their favor on on Tuesday, and found that the government is at least 60% liable. So these families will be able to recoup damages caused by the loss of their loved ones or by the injuries to some of the surviving victims from the government, which is, as far as I'm aware, and from what experts told me from Duke University, and UCLA and the Cato Institute. This is the first time that's ever happened in relation to failure regarding the background check system, and the resulting murder of dozens of people. And so that that could really set an interesting precedent and is likely actually to help with a similar case in Charleston, South Carolina, where the the church shooting occurred. And the shooter in that case, was able to obtain his gun, even though he likely would have been prohibited from doing so because of a pending criminal charge for drug possession. Which should have made him a prohibited person while that case was ongoing. But the FBI in that situation made a mistake and was done. They called the wrong police department to investigate his background and he was able to obtain his gun and carry out his attack as well. And victims families in that case are also suing and now seems likely that they may win that case is well, and that is an interesting new development because, frankly, the these this is fairly uncommon for the government to be held responsible for these sorts of mouth, you know, negligence on their part in this case. Sutherland springs, the judge said that essentially, the department that within the Air Force that was tasked with, essentially law enforcement for for the section that the shooter was stationed in was understaffed and overworked. But at the same time leadership for that department was negligent in how they allowed

the How they didn't follow up to make sure that the fingerprints and record you know, criminal records for the shooter had been submitted to the FBI like they were supposed to be in the first place. And so he says, you know, the government failed to exercise reasonable care in its undertaking to submit criminal history of the FBI. The government's failure to exercise reasonable care increase the risk of physical harm to the general public, including plaintiffs, and its failure. proximately caused the deaths and injuries of plaintiffs at the Sutherland springs First Baptist Church on November 5 2017, knows that sin is rolling. So bottom line, the government will have to pay these victims families for the negligence that led to this shooting occurring. And if that could set a precedent for other cases to come, probably not every case, I mean, you still are likely to have scenarios where the government could have acted to prevent someone from being able to obtain guns. For instance, with Parkland shooter, there were a number of so called red flags or a number of incidents where he likely could have either been charged or involuntarily committed for domestic violence incidents or suicidal ideations that he made clear before the attack, but was never actually committed or convicted of a crime beforehand, and so didn't have a criminal record to disqualify him when he went to purchase his guns. Whereas in this case in Sutherland springs, not only did he have the criminal record, but he had a pretty long one that would have disqualified him in several different ways. If the Air Force had done its due diligence in submitting his records to the FBI, and they simply didn't do that. And similar situation with Charleston, where if the FBI had not screwed up their investigation into that shooters background, he would have been likely prevented from purchasing a gun, at least legally. And so those cases is sort of more direct negligence on the part of government agents. And those seem like a distinct situation from something like, if you call the police, and they don't respond in a timely manner, and you suffer harm, because of that, you're less likely to be able to ever hold the government liable for your harm, because they don't have necessarily a duty to prevent harm from coming to you. It's more in these situations where they a government agent is not performing their duties as laid out by the law, then you have a possibility of holding the government civilly liable in court over that failure. But either way, interesting, really groundbreaking development, I think, as far as it comes to government accountability for mistakes that led to the loss of life on a really a grand scale, in this case, certainly. But right, I'm sure we'll see more on the Charleston case soon as well, because that was allowed to go forward in 2019, by the way, the Fourth Circuit. And so there should be a ruling in that case, relatively soon, you know, COVID is kind of slowed a lot of the courts down. But, you know, certainly that's well beyond the preliminary stages, and we would presumably get a final ruling on whether or not the FBI and government writ large can be held liable for the mistakes that led to the Charleston shooting as well. But moving on to something we covered a little bit last week, juice, sales numbers came in, and they were the second best on record. But interestingly, there's something of a pattern beginning to emerge with the 2020 gun sales numbers 20.1, sorry. And I wrote about this for the members section, which by the way, if you become a reload member, not only will you get access to exclusive pieces, like this one I'm about to talk about, but you will also get this podcast a day early on the website. So head on over to the radio.com and sign up today if you haven't already, but

the trend we're seeing with 2020 ones gun sales are that they're they're not record anymore. We're not beating 2020s numbers anymore. Like we were at the beginning of the year in January, February, but they are the second best numbers ever, so that there's been a drop off. And really the drop off in June was fairly significant, almost a million units and guns sold million fewer, in 2021, then 2020, because 20, March 2020. We all remember how that went, was unprecedented. It's an all time record for any month in history, and is unlikely to be hopefully replicated due to all the circumstances that motivated people to buy guns in in March 2021. Same for June 2020, which is when we saw the onset of widespread rioting in the United States, that led a lot of people to buy guns in that month, as well, we did not see that same level of violence occur this year. And so gun sales were down significantly, but they were still wildly elevated over what their normal level is. And I think that's probably where you're going to see 2021 and up as we move throughout the rest of this year, you know, I wouldn't go out and sell my Smith and Wesson stock necessarily. Because June's gun sales were not as high as last years. And, you know, I think it'll actually be interesting to see how the fall goes, because by the fall of 2020, we had seen a lot of the motivating factors that jumps out at Americans in the early part of 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, the racial unrest from, you know, incidents of police brutality, the brighting, the chest, the meat shortages, right, they there was a lot that happened last year, but by the false, you know, a lot of that was beginning to recede, and people were as best they pot as they possibly could getting. I don't know if you're still living with the viruses, the right phrase, but, but certainly adapting to the new reality of living in a pandemic. And so, presumably, a lot of the factors that were driving those record numbers in early 2020, had come down by the fall, just like you're seeing now in 2021. They didn't go away completely, obviously. And certainly the the worst days for the virus were still to come by fall 2020. But certainly, I think a lot of the chaos element had been lessened by then. And it'll be interesting to see how 2021 sales numbers match up against 2020? Because I think, by the fall, you'll things had normalized in the, you know, to a certain degree, at least in motivation factors for buying guns. And so with that level of anxiety buying, dying down last fall. I wonder if that will match what we see here in 2021, because that's I think the reason why gun sales have not been to the level of 2020 sales, just the the cast level is, is lower than it was in, you know, March or June of 2020. And so we'll, I don't know, October, November of 2021.

Actually exceed the same months from the previous year. Because, I mean, you obviously have what's left now, beyond the lingering, you know, concerns that we still have about the, you know, the pandemic in the economy and everything that's still an issue. Now, we have heightened concerns about the politics, the political element, the push for gun control, certainly, President Biden is continuing to aggressively push for new gun restrictions, both legislatively which obviously is not as likely to happen, but also through executive action where he is likely to be able to overcome obstacles put in his way by Republicans or other gun rights actors generally. And so with that, continuing to occur, you might actually see an elevated sense of urgency to purchase guns, especially certain kinds of guns pistol braced firearm For one, this fall than you saw, even in the run up to the election last year, because the election, as much as there was a stark contrast on guns between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it wasn't a primary issue in that election because of just everything else going on in the country. And so now, with sort of the realities of these executive actions sinking in, during the fall, will that drive more people to buy guns out of concern over their availability because of President Biden's push to to ban or restrict certain kinds of guns. So that's what I'm, that's what I'm going to look for. I think when we get here, obviously, we're in the summer now, which is the slow season for gun sales traditionally. And the Fall is when things tend to pick back up. And so you should expect to see higher sales coming anyway. But will they exceed 2020? Or will they stay on track to be like this recent trend where they're second best ever, but the second best is still way higher than the previous years and 2019 2018 2017. Obviously, I cover a little a little bit more about this I talked to had exchanged with Larry King of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which is the gun industry's trade group, where he describes you know, how these sorts of things usually level out after a big surge. And so you should head on over there and check that piece out. There's also the piece on the the federal judges, first of a kind ruling. So head on over to the reload calm if you haven't already read these pieces, and check them out today. And again, join. If you want this podcast, they early and you want access to these sorts of extra special analysis pieces that I do for the members. So and you also get Of course, the weekly members newsletter, where I go in in more depth on the analysis side of things as well. But all that said, let's move on to our special interview this episode with Tiffany Johnson of the range masters training program. And so much more really, she really, I think will give us a lot of really interesting insights into black gun ownership gun culture 2.0.

I get that Yeah, the polarization of guns too. We talked about a lot of interesting things. So let's head on over there. Now we're here with Tiffany Johnson from range Master's. And we're going to talk a little bit about gun culture 2.0 today, as well as outreach to minority groups and black gun ownership in America. So typically tell us just a little bit about yourself for for listeners who might not know you.

Tiffany Johnson  17:59  
Sure. Well, my name is Tiffany Johnson and I am a reformed anti gunner, I guess. I started out afraid of guns was definitely not a gun person for the first half of my life. And I'm actually still not really a gun person, although that might surprise some people. So if you're curious why I'd say that maybe we can jump into that a little later. But, but I do train quite a bit and I am now an instructor for rangemaster when I decided I was going to take a class despite my fears, I just so happened by sheer dumb luck to walk into rangemaster and take my very first class with the one and only the famous the incomparable Tom Givens. I didn't have any idea who he was at the time, but he for some reason took me under his wing and we've been close ever since he's a an esteemed mentor of mine, and I guess the rest is history. It was through rangemaster that I met a keel Kadir, who is the owner of citizen safety Academy. He and I both are range master certified master instructors. And I teamed up with a keel and so now not only do I help Tom and Lynn Gibbons with rangemaster events, but I also teach through a keyless company, which is citizen safety Academy. 

Stephen Gutowski  19:18  
Wonderful. And you guys have some events coming up soon, right?

Tiffany Johnson  19:23  
Yeah, we've we've got a lot going on. Actually, Akil was really focused this year for 2021 on hosting other instructors. So we're bringing in a ton of folks who have got some national name recognition that the idea there was to kind of expose our our local community and the region to some of the trainers that we revere and that we train with so often so we've got this weekend, actually, Chuck haggard is coming in, and we're bringing in Don Johnston and Brian Hill and let's see john Murphy is coming

So we've got a lot of guests instructors coming in. But our standard fare is basic entry level permit style classes. Tennessee, just as of July one has now gone permitless.

Not quite full constitutional carry, but it is now a permit was carry state. So we're tweaking our curriculum a little bit to accommodate that change in the law. But that's kind of our sweet spot. We're a keel and I teach we like working with brand new shooters. So the other thing that we're focusing on this year is training up new new instructors, particularly to teach new shooters because we think that's a very nuanced skill that not everybody is very good at, not everybody enjoys. Certainly, and and you have a particular focus on instructors for the the new demographics that are coming into the gun and community at a higher rate now, sort of gun culture 2.0 is a lot of people have called it, you know, more minorities, more women, people from more urban areas rather than rural areas, that sort of thing, younger people.

Stephen Gutowski  21:13  
More what's, what's the goal there? What are you what are you trying to accomplish with with that program of training these these new instructors? 

Tiffany Johnson  21:21  
Right, well, so it may seem like a distinction without a difference, but we think it really does matter. I do want to make sure it's clear that we're not, we're not so much focused on training black instructors, or female instructors, or training instructors to work with any particular racial or gender demographic. But instead, more broadly, what we hope to do is make instructors writ large, aware of the ways that they may subconsciously limit their target market, and, you know, kind of help people see what their blind spots are, and ways that they can make their their services and their products that they offer more attractive to non traditional gun owners, new gun owners, all of the folks that you just mentioned. So we are definitely not advocates of any kind of separation. And we certainly don't don't advocate for any distinction in the techniques that are taught to one demographic or another. And that includes gender. I teach women basically the exact same way I teach men. But we do want instructors of the gun culture 2.0 community to understand how that community receives instruction differently than, you know, training communities of old and also how we can tweak our teaching style so that we are so we lend ourselves more to a universality of, of application, rather than just speaking towards one narrow group of people.

Stephen Gutowski  23:03  
Okay, so it's not so much about training instructors to, you know, help that particular demographic of people. It's more about, you know, training instructors to be able to speak to all sorts of different grip demographics of people's that's how you see it.

Tiffany Johnson  23:21  
That's right. Absolutely. And, you know, and I and I don't mean to, to split hairs here. I mean, I certainly we own the fact that our training attracts non traditional gun owners, all the demographics, you named black folks, young folks, urbanites, millennials, women. We're proud of that. But we do not. We are not exclusionary. And we're not training those folks at the expense of or to the exclusion of anybody else. In fact, what our what our primary goal is our I guess, our big overreaching umbrella goal is to bring the different groups together so that they realize what Akil and I have come to realize, which is they're not really as different as they think they are. They're just separate and separate is different from actually being different. As I gravitate towards one group or another. I It baffles me how often they say the same things, they expressed the same concerns. And they have the same fears, the same priorities, even despite hailing from different demographics, or even different political persuasions. And so we would love for our students to see that and to celebrate it and to realize, hey, there's not there's not much of a difference between us. After all, I know that sounds really cliche and almost corny, but it's actually true. And if we if we want to shore up the Second Amendment for generations to come, I think it would behoove us as a community to to embrace that and own it and use it to our advantage.

Stephen Gutowski  24:57  
That makes a lot of sense. So what are some of the things that you do differently? To try and have this cross demographic appeal this cross partisan appeal that you're going for? What are what are a few of the things that are sort of holding back traditional gun training? And what are the things that you guys are doing different to try to break through that?

Tiffany Johnson  25:20  
Yeah. So it's sometimes it's really simple things. And it may feel, it may feel like it's touchy feely or overly, overly overly sensitive. And I know that that's sometimes taboo in in the traditional gun community. But I think that sensitivity to these different, you know, different, different backgrounds is important. So it can be something as simple as who's greeting people, when your students come through the door? What photos are posted on the wall? Or what books are on the shelf? Or what posters Do you have framed? In your training space? Or in your gun store? if you're if you're a retailer, you know, what products are you offering? And do they appeal to people from all kinds of different backgrounds? What music are you playing? when people walk through your doors? I think that we trainers and retailers in the in the gun community, we should try and diversify ourselves and kind of think about well, am I just going to play the music that I want to hear? Or am I going to change it up from day to day, and maybe play things that my customers or my students may want to hear? Even if it's not my favorite type of music?

Stephen Gutowski  26:45  
Interesting. And, and so, you've been doing this for a while now. Right? And you're become one of the most prominent African American women in the training space at this point. You were just in shooting illustrated. article by famous trainer, I had a sob. Got butchered his name, but you got it mixed up the same. But obviously very well known, very well respected trainer. And, and, you know, he wrote a piece on this topic where he quoted, you know, so I wonder, in your experience now, what have you seen change for the better or for the worse, over the last, you know, period of years that you've you've been doing this?

Tiffany Johnson  27:37  
Sure. So there's been a lot of change for the better. And I think, ironically enough, much of the impetus for that change has also brought about some change for the worse. And a lot of that has to do with political winds of late. So during the Obama years, there was a huge swing to the right, by General, you know, kind of mid mid range conservatives as a reaction to Obama. And then in the Trump era, there was a giant swing to the left. And so the middle has been kind of vacated. And I think that that's it, that can be a potential problem for us, because it it just sort of carves out a huge space where there's no, there's no commonality. So the upside is that we've seen as you as you indicate it with gun culture 2.0. And I think there's an argument to be made that we're encroaching upon gun culture 3.0 there's been a huge upswing in firearm sales and an explosion of new gun owners. And again, a large percentage of those new gun owners are on non white, non male, you know, non traditional, not your standard, stereotypical kind of card carrying and are a member. Right. So that's great. I think the increase in numbers is great. And I also think the increase in diversity is great.

Stephen Gutowski  29:13  
The downside, but go ahead.

I just wanted to touch on that. The core what you were saying there about, essentially polarization of gun ownership in America. The downside? Yeah, yeah. You've seen? Certainly. You've had I think a lot of people fall into the idea on both sides really of the aisle, that guns are really just for Republicans, conservative Republicans are the only people who should own guns or carrying guns or, or whatever. And, you know, I say, you see that obviously, as a significant roadblock to expanding gun ownership, right. But, but, you know, obviously, you have people who argue that you know, Democrats or liberals should not be welcomed in the gun community because they support policies that or at least vote for people who support policies that would restrict gun ownership. You know, what do you think about those kinds of arguments that, that these, you know, they're sort of I know that they're not voting in the interest of gun owners, so they shouldn't be, you know, catered to in the in the, the gun industry or the gun owning community.

Tiffany Johnson  30:30  
Right. It's a it's a tantalizing argument. But at the end of the day, I do not subscribe to that argument. for a lot of reasons. I think that that argument may feel right and apt in the short term or as a kind of knee jerk. But if we step back and look at the situation dispassionately, and logically and strategically, I think it's in our best interest to have as many people exposed to firearm ownership as possible. If we have any hope, of gaining trust of folks who, as of right now vote against the interests of gun ownership, the best way to do that is to expose them to gun ownership, we're never going to have anyone vote in our, in our interest, who knows nothing about firearms, I very rarely vote in favor of things I know nothing about. So that's just human nature, it would be irresponsible to do anything otherwise. So I think we kind of shoot ourselves in the foot if we exclude if we kind of excommunicate anybody who doesn't automatically vote the way we want them to, then we're kind of cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Stephen Gutowski  31:54  
And, you know, another interesting aspect of the whole political polarization of gun ownership in America is that it kind of fell to the wayside. I feel like over the last year, right, once, people were presented with an emergency situation, like we saw, obviously with Coronavirus, and then also with the instances of police brutality, that led a lot of presumably a lot of minorities to buy guns as well. And then riding that by other people, you know, all called all kinds of people to buy guns, in the wake of the riots we saw last year, it seemed like that was enough to push people out of this sort of partisan way of looking at gun ownership. Do you think that's part of the reason why we have that that big gun surge, that people have looked beyond the politics, when sort of the safety is on the line, or the very least they don't feel safe. And then in addition to that, obviously, one of the fastest growing demographics during that surge, courting the National Shooting Sports Foundation was black Americans. And so now, obviously, don't don't expect you to speak for every black American country. Thank you for that some people. People are not a monolith. There are a lot of different reasons why black people might buy guns are not by guns, just like white people, or Asian people or any other kind. Absolutely. But, but certainly, I would imagine you have a better insight into the community than I do on this topic. So I just wanted to get your thoughts as to what, you know, it wasn't just the sort of being faced with uncertainty and wanting to protect themselves and their families that drove black Americans to buy guns last year, was it police brutality incidents, obviously, Derek shovin. And, and George Floyd in Minneapolis was was massive national news. And, you know, there was a whole movement surrounded by the Black Lives Matter movement that surrounded that, you know, what, what do you see as sort of the big reasons why people from the black community started buying guns more, because this seems like there was at least a fairly significant shift in attitudes about gun ownership, because traditionally, black Americans have been less likely to or been more likely to support stricter gun laws at the very least, right? modern modern times.

Tiffany Johnson  34:27  
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think that it became a matter of prioritizing safety. And people realized the extent to which their safety and the safety of their nuclear family was first and foremost, their own responsibility. I think it began to occur to folks that Oh, I'll just call the police is not a you know, it's not a cure for everything that could possibly confront the average American family and in In more cases than not, if your safety is in danger right now, you have to do something about it before the police can get there. Or there's a small sliver of the community that now doesn't any longer trust the police to have their safety at, you know, at the forefront, and I'm not here to talk on whether or not that's a that's a valid concern. But as far as just the impetus for, for buying guns, that that that plays a role. I don't know that it is.

Stephen Gutowski  35:35  
I would say to that that's not necessarily an uncommon concern among a certain section of gun owners, regardless of race, right? Is this. Yeah, yes, sir, about government overreach. And that, yeah, these are a lot of things that people feel, that are motives that motivate people to buy guns.

Tiffany Johnson  35:54  
So this is a this is a perfect example of what I was mentioning earlier about how the seemingly disparate groups aren't as different as they may think. The you know, your, your average kind of middle aged conservative Republican white guy who says, You know, I don't want the government messing with my business is not preaching much different sermon than the, you know, the liberal, young, urban black guy who says, I don't want the cops coming in my house, it's kind of the same theme. I'll be it may be coming from different different origins are expressed in different ways. But the other thing I was going to mention, though, with the with the surge in gun ownership and gun purchases, I don't think it's nearly as political as standard gun is as standard gun standard, I guess traditional gun owners might assume. One One difference that I have noticed in your and I'm speaking in broad generalizations here. There's obviously exceptions to every rule, but I'll just say for, for sake of simplicity, in the pro gun community and the quote unquote, anti gun community, one distinction that does exist is the tendency is higher in the pro gun community to be a single issue voter. And I think a lot of pro gun advocates assume that anyone who owns a gun is gonna let that right. You know, take precedence over any other consideration that dictates who, how they vote in the anti gun community, slash new gun owning community. Um, that's not the case. We, you know, we don't always have the luxury of being single issue voters. So whereas some of my friends, let the buck stop with who's going to be the best advocate for my second amendment rights, and that determines who they vote for. I'm not a single issue voter, I've got to weigh that against, you know, a half a dozen, a dozen different factors that also are very important and highly prioritize the when I do the calculus to ultimately figure out where I'm going to cast my vote. So it's not as simple as well, you own guns now. So why would you vote for somebody who supports gun control? That's that's a gross oversimplification of the the consideration that most people have to put into their voting decisions.

Stephen Gutowski  38:30  
Sure, sure. That makes sense. So I guess one question I have for you here is, in your view, like Where should we go from here? Where should the the gun industry and the gun rights movement go from here? What do you want to see more of?

Tiffany Johnson  38:47  
I would love to see the gun owning community, take more pride in the growth of gun ownership across the nation and leave politics out of it. At least at first glance, I think one mistake that we often make in in the gun community is we we go straight to politics. No, and, and if I happen to meet somebody at my office, who says, Hey, I bought a gun this weekend, and we strike up a conversation about that I shouldn't be talking politics. 30 seconds into that conversation. All I need to concern myself with is just what what do we both know in common about guns? What do we both want to learn about guns? What can we share? What experiences do we share in terms of motivations for purchasing firearms, and leave all of the voting and the politics out of it? That doesn't come into play until you know somebody so well, that you will feel totally comfortable asking them about their religion or their love life. If you're not that cool with the person then you don't need to be discussing how they vote with them. So I really think that we need to kind of crawl before we walk before we run before we fly, in terms of how we're going to best preserve the Second Amendment, from the perspective of the gun gun community, stop worrying so much about immediately bashing people over the heads with vote this way, vote this way, vote this way. And instead just be a human being, be it be a neighbor, be a co worker. And it's a much more powerful message for someone who's known you for two years and gone to work with you every day, to suddenly say to you, Wow, I didn't know you carried a gun. As opposed to you beating people over the head with that, from the front out of the gate and expecting them to just, you know, succumb or cede the floor to you. Because what happens when people make that face? And they say, Well, I didn't know you were a gun owner. What that means is, I didn't realize that guns belonged in the hands of people like you, because you're like me. So I thought that everybody who owned a gun was different from me, that's really what's going on in a person's head who says, with an eyebrow raised? I didn't know you carry the gun.

Stephen Gutowski  41:16  
Right? That makes sense. Absolutely. Um, and, and so what I guess what, what are some of your advice for trainers out there for you know, other firearms trainers or gun store owners or employees? You know, if someone comes into their shop, that they're, that's, you know, different gender or race or or, you know, ethnicity, whatever background than they're used to seeing in their store than they're used to training? What are some of the ways that they can help make that person feel comfortable there? That that? What are some of the things that they might do, unknowingly, to make them uncomfortable? You know, what some of the advice that you would give to other people in the gun industry? In that regard?

Tiffany Johnson  42:03  
Yeah. So the first thing should go without saying, but it doesn't. The first thing is, greet the person and be nice, be just as nice to that person as you would be to your VIP customers are the people who take your classes every week are the people who buy from your store every week. Don't assume that that person is just sightseeing, or on some kind of field trip, try and make that person a loyal customer the same way you would anyone else who walks through the door. And the reason I say greet them, show them respect and and show them your interest in making them a customer. Because I can't tell you how many times I've been treated otherwise myself. I've gone into countless gun stores and watched just as a plain old people watching experiment watched as the the gun store employees saw to other customers before they saw to me. Now, I don't have enough information from those situations to accuse those people of being racist or sexist. I have no idea why they ignored me, I have no idea if it had anything to do with my race, or my gender or anything else for that matter. But all I know is that one, they opened the door for me to speculate about those things. And to they lost my trust as a customer. Because now it doesn't matter what the answer to the question is, if I have to ask myself the question, why hasn't anyone come over to help me, then the customer service agent, whether it's an instructor, or a sales clerk has failed. So that would be my first thing flashes, smile, be genuine, be yourself. A lot of people when I talk about how to greet customers, they they fear that I'm asking people to be fake or inauthentic. Somehow, nothing could be farther from the truth. Be yourself, because people will smell bs on you if you try to play a role or wear a mask. So be your true self. But also just be polite, you know, be a considerate human being be a little cautious about how many f bombs you drop, or how many distasteful comments you make about women. Again, not telling you that you can't make crew jokes. I make crew jokes myself all the time. But you do that in company that you're familiar with and comfortable with Not in front of total strangers whose opinions you you don't know. So that's kind of where I would start.

Stephen Gutowski  44:35  
It sounds a lot like just having some some basic empathy or, you know, being considerate is kind of the key to what you're what you're talking about there.

Tiffany Johnson  44:44  
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I'll say one other thing real quick on that topic. The other important part is don't be afraid to ask questions or to admit when you're wrong, because we all are we all do it and it's really awkward if you make an assumption about somebody and find that assumption, to not be True, then the first thing people do is start getting defensive or try to justify the assumption or something like that. Instead, I think the better way to go about it is to just say, Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I don't know what got into me, that was the dumbest thing. I forgive me. I said that there's no reason for it. I'm just, I'm an idiot. I'm sorry. Let's start all over. How are you today? You know, and, and just move on. Or if someone's different from you, and you're not sure how to navigate that visa v something related to the sale or to the class? Just ask, because most people don't mind and would rather you ask then assume we've we've had, you know, we had a wheelchair bound student one time and a keel. And I were like, I have no idea what what do we need to change? We're not we're not sure how to handle this. And we spent some time going back and forth. And finally, we were like, let's just call her. So we called and we said, hey, look, you know, tell us what you need. And, and that. And first of all, she thanked us for asking her. And secondly, it turned out that she needed a whole lot less than we thought, because again, there we go. Assuming that because there are differences on the surface, that that requires a whole lot of, you know, change as far as how we operate. And it usually doesn't, there were one or two accommodations we had to make. And it was super simple. And other than that, we just conducted the class the same way we always do. And the same is true on the retail floor or you know, on the range.

Stephen Gutowski  46:28  
So there's this, I guess, sort of thing you're talking about here maybe like with with women in gun stores, often you hear a lot of trying to push them towards the pink gun or the smallest gun that's available. And it's which is not necessarily always the best course of action for someone, especially if they're buying their first gun. You know, giving them a really small gun can often be harder to handle in a lot of cases. And there's sort of assumptions made about women. And what in those ways is that? Is that sort of one of the things you're Yes, you're talking about here?

Tiffany Johnson  47:03  
Definitely. It's another it's another instance where it's better to ask them to assume so rather than assuming that a woman because she's a woman wants a gun with some ridiculous coat of paint on it, and just asked her, What are you interested in? What have you shot before? What are you looking for? Do you have any idea what what your preferences might be? Have you ever shopped before? And then go from there?

Stephen Gutowski  47:27  
Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, a lot of it just kind of sounds like how you should deal with everybody

Tiffany Johnson  47:33  
does. And that's kind of the frustrating part is because the answers to some of these questions are so simple, that again, it seems like it maybe it's I dare call it common sense, but but it should go without saying and yet it has to be said. So I'll keep saying it if people ask. I don't know, I think people just get uptight when it comes to things like race, gender, you know, sexuality, sexual orientation, just because we've been so swept up in identity politics for so long that now it's almost like walking on eggshells. And I think everybody needs to just kind of relax, take a deep breath, exhale, and just deal with people on a human basis rather than, oh, there's a black person in my store, what what should I change? It's, you know, treat everybody like a human being and your chances go way up of not offending that person?

Stephen Gutowski  48:27  
Well, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. Obviously. It says very simple, sort of advice you got there for, for how to improve things. So which I guess on a certain level is good, because, you know, it's not complicated necessarily to, to try and make things better. When it comes to, you know, how you treat sort of these gun culture to point out demographics, if you haven't had experience with them before coming into your store doing your training. Now, although I will say like, at this point, I imagine a lot of unless you're living in an area that isn't, that doesn't have a lot of diversity in it. You probably if you're in the gun industry have dealt with a lot of diverse people, people from all kinds of backgrounds. I mean, in my experience, now, I live in Northern Virginia, which happens to be probably a more diverse area, in terms of race and religion and so forth, than then some other areas. But, you know, shooting has been one of the most diverse activities that I engage in, you know, up there with like, football fandom, yes. But you know, snowboarding is much less diverse than, than shoot, like, I go to the range. There's all kinds of people there. And the people who run my local store, I used to dealing with that at this point. But yeah, I mean, I guess, with this latest search, perhaps there were areas where people had new customers they just didn't understand that aren't used to dealing with them. And it Yeah, I think it makes sense what you're saying that like, they got this is something new to me. And maybe they try to the way they handle it doesn't work out? Well. Yeah, he is to just be just trying to have some empathy and be human.

Tiffany Johnson  50:15  
Yeah, I think as far as how much diversity, you're exposed to that that really is a regional thing. I mean, there's there, if you live anywhere close to even a medium sized city, you're going to have way more diversity than then if you live in places that are more sparsely populated populated. I can drive 100 miles from here and meet people who have never laid eyes on a black person before. So it's, you know, it's it's, it just depends on where you are. It's been very recently that I've walked into an establishment that was full of white people and gotten the stares. That, again, I can't read people's minds. But that that I interpreted as well, this is something new, never seen her. She's not from around here. So so that happens even today. And it and again, people are sensitive about this stuff. And I want to make it clear, that reaction from folks does not make them racist. noticing something different in your environment is a good thing. That's what we teach our students to do. It doesn't if you happen to notice that there's a black person walking around, and there usually aren't any black people walking around. That's fine. It doesn't make you racist. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who claim to be colorblind. Unless you're actually blind, you're not colorblind, you totally notice what race everyone is. So there's no point in pretending that it's not a thing, because that is a thing.

Stephen Gutowski  51:46  
No, that makes sense. Um, as far as the industry goes, You know, I know one of the things that that gets talked about a lot with, especially with with minorities and the gun industry, is there's a at least the lack of representation when it comes to gun store ownership. How are things when it comes to, you know, training companies and, and the training industry? Like, do you think that that industry, whether it's makers, dealers, trainers, that we need to see more of an effort put into, you know, reaching out to colors of communities of color and, and different demographics to try and bring them into ownership of gun stores or gun companies or training companies is is that what is that a major issue, from your point of view? Is that something that still needs improvement at this point? Yeah, I definitely we're doing well.

Tiffany Johnson  52:48  
We're doing better. I mean, we're moving in the right direction. But I definitely think that there's much to be gained from reaching out to communities that may not have previously considered owning a gun store or owning a training company. For all of the same reasons that diversifying the instructor. Community is advantageous, I think it just means the more the more diversity we have in the ranks, the more chances we have of reaching new folks in the broader community of bruv broadening expanding our our entire target market, both commercially and politically. So I just I don't see a downside to that at all.

Stephen Gutowski  53:39  
Right, that makes sense. Well, you know, I think you've made a lot of good points here. But so last thing that people want to take your class if they want to maybe join your instructor course to sort of learn how to better incorporate different points of view and reach out to different demographics. How can they do that?

Tiffany Johnson  54:00  
Shameless plug. Thank you. So yeah, if you're interested in training with range master under Tom and Lynn Givens, the website is range master calm. You can also follow range masters event schedule on Eventbrite at range master.eventbrite.com. And locally, or I guess, regionally, Akil and I are based in the Nashville area. So that's citizens safety.com. And you can also follow us on Eventbrite citizens safety.eventbrite.com, and we're all over social media and all of the usual online platforms. We do Akil and I, we do travel. So if you're not in the Nashville area, and you're interested in training with us, just give us a holler. You can email both of us at info at citizens safety comm we would love to train with you.

Stephen Gutowski  54:56  
Hey, all right. Well, Tiffany Johnson really appreciate you coming on and giving us your patience. spective I think it's very valuable. And we've, I think I learned a lot by hearing from you. So I really appreciate it. 

Tiffany Johnson  55:07  
Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate you inviting me. 

Stephen Gutowski  55:10  
Absolutely, I really enjoyed having Tiffany on, I think it's important to have people who've, you know, experienced different things than you who come at topics from a different point of view, I really want that to be part of what this podcast does, obviously, is an extension of what the reload as a whole does. And I think that I'm going to strive to try and have some people on as well that don't necessarily probably agree with a lot of the things that I do as far as, you know, gun rights, or gun control or gun legislation or concern. You know, that's one thing I'm going to try and, and bring more of to this podcast, as well as been great having, you know, people who I think are very knowledgeable. You know, that's the other big thing I want for this podcast is knowledgeable people, not just, you know, talking heads or, or people who want to just repeat, old talking points. But, you know, I'd also like to have on people that sort of challenge the things that I believe, and maybe the things that you guys believe out there listening. So we can have, you know, more full, full throated conversation, more thoroughly informed. discussion, I think that that's healthy, I think it's good. And, you know, I think bringing on people, even if they agree with me on, you know, my personal views about gun rights, you know, like, I'm sure Tiffany and I probably have quite a lot of similar opinions on, on on these things that seem that way, at least from from talking with her. I've met her before, of course, but but, you know, I think it'd be great to have on some people that we can really have a good disagreement get to the core of an issue and, and hash it out. I think that'll be healthy. And, and even interesting to listen to, as well, you know, this conversation, I think, was very interesting to listen to hearing for someone else, from different point of view than, than I am. And, you know, he's had different experiences in life than I have. And I think the same will be true. And when I bring on people from opposing points of view, as long as obviously, as long as there can be a reasonable discussion, I think that's what I want to strive for. And what else seek out here on the podcast. But that's it for this episode. As always, for the third or fourth time, I think I'll put the pitch in here that if you want to get this early, you can join today. And if you want extra content, exclusive access to member content. Yeah, you can head on over to the reload comm and join today. But otherwise, you know, I think we're gonna have a couple professors coming up here that should be interesting, one from Northeastern University to discuss mass shootings, and coverage of them and how frequently they actually happen, whether or not they're increasing, as seems to be portrayed by the media. And then we're also going to have one from Duke University discuss perhaps some of the big cases going through the federal court system. We talked about some of those with David French on a previous episode, which you guys can check out freely available on all of the major podcasting platforms now. But, you know, we're gonna go more in depth on the California assault weapons ban ruling, because there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in there. And I think that will be grounds for a fruitful discussion, so make sure you tune in again. Next time on is all for this week. Thank you guys, for coming along and listening.

Unknown Speaker  59:10  
I gave him poison just for fun. I had one friend now there's none. I'm a the devil Ryan. broke so many bones. But none of them. I was alone. I broke so many balls.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai