Eric Friday and Florida Open Carry

Tune in as Royce interviews Eric Friday, the man largely responsible for Florida's ban on open carry, and all the implications thereof! Also, Eric gives good advice on how to deal with law enforcement officials that may attempt to violate the law and your rights.

Transcript

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be glad to talk to you. All right, you recently heard here in Florida,
my home state, even though I wasn't born here, I guess I'm a native 'cause my
folks moved here after about six months after I was born. And Recently,
you probably heard that an appeals court overturned the ban on open carry here in
Florida, making us finally a truly constitutional carry state,
and that's the way it should be. Now, I don't know if you realize this, this
fight's been going on for 15 long years at a minimum, and fortunately,
we were able to circumvent some Rhino Republicans who were standing in the way of
it and I want to I'm going to introduce you now to the man who Spearheaded this
and you can thank him for it personally a matter of fact if you want to thank him
You can send it to me and I'll forward it on to him And that would be none other
than mr. Eric Friday and that should I go ahead and make this funny? Thank God.
It's Friday
God we have open carry back in the state of Florida Royce. - Amen, brother man.
It's been too long.
It's, I'll tell you what, it's a, tell us how this all took place. Cause this, I
think most people were kind of blindsided when they got the news. They were like,
good night. How'd that happen so quickly? I mean, last we heard we were fighting
the rhinos up there in the Florida Sheriff's Association. What happened so quick?
- Well, there was nothing quick about it, Royce, uh, Mr. McDaniels on July 4th,
2022 in the act of perfect civil disobedience and protest.
Uh, he live streamed himself on downtown Main Street, Pensacola, uh,
with a pot copy of the pocket constitution in his left hand, waving with his right
hand and openly carrying a pistol saying, here I him. This is the post -ruin world,
and we now have a right to open carry. Um, Prince Cole police showed up,
took his gun, went and got a warrant, had him turn himself in on the warrant. Uh,
we then litigated that issue through the trial court. Uh, my great co -counsel Chris
Crawford over in Prince Cole worked with me on it. He, uh, he, I went over and
handled the motion to dismiss hearing, judge denied it, Mr. Crawford handled the
trial, jury convicted Mr. McDaniels, and then we filed the appeal. And we argued
this appeal in October of last year. We had oral argument with the First District
Court of Appeal. And on Wednesday of last week, they released their opinion and
found that what I had said from the very beginning of this case and what I've been
saying for 15 years that the right to bare arms means the right to open carry and
that the state utterly failed to offer any evidence as required by Bruin that there
was a historical tradition in this country of banning the open carry of firearms and
therefore Florida's open carry ban is and has always been unconstitutional. Well I
guess when I say it seemed like all of a sudden I mean compared to what we've
already you know like you said it's been going on for 15 long years and suddenly I
mean it seems suddenly I guess you should say no one expected it I didn't expect
it I didn't realize that this case was even an issue or that was in the courts
until this came out a matter of fact As a matter of fact, I had a feeling that
you were kind of behind all that and spearheading that. And when you called me,
when I was on the way home from work the day it happened, I said, "Well, that
must be Eric," so I knew you were at the helm of that. So Mr. McDaniel hired you
as his counsel, and did you handle his first case after he was arrested?
So I handled part of it and Chris Crawford handled the actual trial of it in front
of a jury because unfortunately the prosecutor's office in Pensacola doesn't know how
to read a U .S. Supreme Court opinion or understand what it says and so they chose
to prosecute Mr. McDaniel despite having zero evidence to support their theory, they
decided to prosecute him anyway. And so now, you know, Florida carry, along with
some help from SAF, I'm sorry, not SAF, I'm sorry, so along with some help from
gun owners of America, work to try and deal with the fallout and try and get an
acquittal on the basis that there's evidence that's required to be produced by the
state to uphold the gun regulation. And then, once we got up on appeal,
an attorney from SAF actually came in and helped me on the brief. So, I'll accept
being the spearhead Royce, but it was a team effort, group effort by a lot of
organizations. Florida Carry absolutely was taking the lead on it, but some of those
other organizations stepped in and contributed a little bit too. And it was a long,
hard, costly fight to try and protect the rights of Mr. McDaniels and the rights of
all Florida citizens and visitors. And we have now prevailed. Well,
I tell you what, I thank you. I know you do a lot of work with Florida Carry and
other groups too, and especially with Louise Valdez, who's been on this program a
few times and hopefully will be
Um, uh, a lot of people don't, don't know that your general counsel for Florida
carry and people should join Florida carry was about 35 bucks a month or something
like that. Uh, I think it's actually the lowest off membership offering we have. I
think it's $25 a year. Oh, I mean, not a month a year. That's what I meant. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, uh, $25 a year to protect your second amendment rights and, uh, you
know, uh, There are organizations that are very good national focus,
national focus organizations that do a lot of good work, but Florida Carry is the
primary organization fighting here in Florida exclusively for these rights.
No, that's not taking anything away from the national organizations, but they have
other focuses sometimes. And God bless Louis Valdez and the work he and GOA have
done here. - Yes. - It's been important to the fight too. But Florida carries your
local state organization that's doing a lot of these things. And I gotta tell you,
Royce, unfortunately, we're already seeing that we're gonna have a bigger fight on
our hands this legislative session because we're already hearing rumblings that some
people are gonna try, and I don't mean anti -gunners. I mean people that run on a
pro -gun platform are going to try and undo some of this win, um, they claim to be
pro -gun when they run for reelection, but they get, get over there to Tallahassee
and something about the swap over there. Infects their brains and they start deciding
that, well, well maybe this little one restriction will be okay. Yeah. And so, you
know, we're going to need money for that fight. I, I, I don't ask for a lot of
donations. I don't usually come come on here to say, "Hey, please join Florida
Carry. Please donate even if you're already a member." But this fight's going to be
an expensive fight, this legislative session. - Yes, sir. So when you say rumblings,
can you give us a hint? - Well, I mean, we've already heard about some meetings.
We've already had people suggesting that maybe they need to modify certain laws or
require certain types of holsters to be carried. And that's, that's a little
concerning because, uh, you know, do you know exactly what constitutes a level two
retention holster, exactly what constitutes a level three retention holster? There's no
unified standard on that. Exactly. Um, and, you know, I've got a client I'm dealing
with right now. He was arrested for felony Possession of an SBR because the law
enforcement agency didn't know the difference from an AR pistol and an SBR. Oh my
yeah That's pretty common to you. He sat in jail for three weeks. So now we're
gonna expect Ask you pass a law and one officer should know what constitutes a
level two or level three retention holster when you know Oh, well, it's not the
brand they carry so it must not be acceptable. I mean, that's the kind of things
I'm worried about yeah And I got the feeling we're gonna feel those kind of
repercussions to My retort to them would be point to any other open carry state and
tell us about the problems they're having with holsters or, you know, or if they're
getting their guns snatched from them somehow. It ain't happening and everything that
they prognosticate and they say the gloom and doom that this could happen this could
happen and they put they present theoreticals or I'm sorry, hypotheticals and assume
that those things can happen and therefore we have to have a law to say they can't
and I don't think they understand the damage they're doing there. Agreed and I've
been I've been laughing and shaking my head you know some sheriffs came to the
table very quickly and said okay you know we will this fight was lost and so we're
gonna follow the law now that doesn't mean they're not gonna run to pass you the
first chance they Um, other sheriffs are still saying, we're going to enforce this
ruling all the way up until the 25th, 26th of September, even though the attorney
general has told them, don't bother, we want, we want to enforce it and we won't
prosecute it. Um, so we were dealing with some of those issues over the last few
days and my other answer to them is, I gave you 15 years. Florida carry gave you
15 years. GOA GOA gave you how many years they've been working on this fight in
Florida. To come to the table and let's sit down and discuss what open carry could
and should look like in the state of Florida. And the answer we kept getting was
no. We're not going to let you have that. We're not going to work with you on it.
We're going to continue to fight
against the right to open carry and so we won. And now they want to roll it back
or discuss changes.
So they're gonna have to put something up if they wanna discuss changes. We're not
interested in negotiating away this win.
We can talk about what needs to be changed in Florida law, but we're not gonna
negotiate a way this win. I don't know if you saw that there was a press release
put out yesterday morning, Florida gun rights, which is the local affiliation of
National Association for Gun Rights. - Right. - GOA, NRA, and Florida carry have all
issued a unified press release as of yesterday morning, that we are unified and
United on this issue that we've won the right to open carry and if they want to
try and roll it back, we're going to stand united against that. Why do you suppose
these law enforcement agencies are being so obstinate and just obtuse in their
responses here? I think it has to do with several things. I think it has to do
with They, you know, gun control isn't about the gun. It's about the control.
Yes, exactly. And they have historically controlled the narrative in Florida.
They control the narrative and, you know, this is the, they control the narrative a
lot of the times because they're county -wide elected officials and they've managed to
do that for years. And now the Florida First District Court of Appeals has declared
their position to be unconstitutional. I have a, you know,
it's funny, we have Republican candidates commonly. We'll talk about how supportive
they are of law enforcement. Now, I'll use our most recent President,
Ben Albrighton, as
You know, he came out last year and said he opposed open carry because he believed
in law enforcement, trusted law enforcement and would follow their advice. I don't
know where an elected official gets the idea that law enforcement's advice or
suggestion is more valid than our constitutional rights. Exactly. Exactly.
And so long as law enforcement takes the position that their opinions and advice are
more valid than our constitutional rights, I can't call myself a supporter of law
enforcement. No, sir, not that kind. There's a, there's a old 1960s license plate in
my office that says when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. And I know
that's kind of an old trope, but that hung in my sheriff's officer, our sheriff's
deputy father's workshop when I was a little boy. And he was the first one that
taught me about the concept of gun control. And I guess it's partly responsible for
starting me down this path. And so when I see that on my wall,
I wonder what happened to law enforcement that they don't get, that their concerns
about guns on the street don't override our guaranteed, constitutionally guaranteed and
pre -existing right of self -defense and to be harmed. Amen to that. And now you
know what? I can't help but say it. And yes, I support law enforcement as long as
they remain constitutional. But when they begin to set themselves in array against
it, well, my support is going to go right out the window.
There's an arrogance, it seems, and some of them these days and an ego. And they
feel that they are, I think they feel that they're losing power and they are,
they're losing, they don't have the advantage anymore so to speak. Everybody else
gets to be armed too and they don't like that. I guess they think that they have
rights superior to ours somehow or that they're cut from a higher immoral fabric.
But I've had a couple of lively discussions but a couple of them recently and one
of them said, well, I can only hope that the, uh, this will go right to the
Florida Supreme court and they're going to, you know, get put, uh, put the thing
back in place. And I'm like, no, that's that is not what we need to have happen.
And he began to raise all the standard hypotheticals about what could happen. I
said, yeah, but point to any other constitutional carry state and tell me it happens
there because you can. Yeah. No, sir, it has not not happen and, you know, first
of all, before I go any farther, I have to recognize your Sheriff Wayne Ivey and
Sheriff Gordon Smith over in Bradford County. Those two sheriffs have been with us
in the fight for a long time. Yes, sir. There are some other sheriffs that have
come and gone over the years that supported this like Nick Finch over in Liberty
County, but, um, yeah, it's been rare support from sheriffs within Florida.
And yeah, if your sheriff is not named Wayne Ivy or Gordon Smith, I don't care
what they tell you on YouTube. I don't care what they tell you at your local
political meeting. They have not been supporting and for most part have been actively
working against your second amendment rights. - And they probably say something like--
- I've had it for 18 years. - And they probably say things like, well, I believe in
the second amendment, but, and we both know what that means, you really don't
understand the second amendment. And they don't, I remember one of them telling me
that, well, the second amendment is not unlimited. And I said, well, absolutely it
certainly is, what's it limited by? Because the founders viewed the people as a
military force, and they wanted us to be just as strong, actually stronger than our
actual military. And I give a quote of by Tench Coxson there,
where he says, "I pray that the unlimited power of the sword would always remain
not in the hands of the state and federal governments, but in the hands of the
people. And I give that quote often on my program. I think, unfortunately,
a lot of us keepers and bearers have allowed ourselves to be even subjected to,
what should I say, exercising less of our rights just to, you know, stay in
compliance on all those things. And I'm starting to hate the word compliance and
comply, but me so yeah I don't I don't support anybody that doesn't support me in
my rights that's just how I am and I've told a couple of officers why don't you
just walk through Arlington National Cemetery and relieve yourself on the headstones
of those who gave their lives to defend the rights that we are exercising here that
you are standing in the way of because you might as well do that and like I said
it's been some lively discussions to say the
Well, we have, like I said, we do know we have two good, two really strong
constitutional sheriffs in this state. I hope that this win will give them a little
more influence within the Florida Sheriffs Association. I hope that next time when
we're having this debate in the upcoming legislative session, that their voices will
be heard by the FSA and the FSA's, you know, lobbyist representatives because it's
time to understand that our constitution means something. It's time for law
enforcement to respect that constitution. And it's time for us to have an honest
assessment of Florida's Chapter 790 and what does and does not need to be there
anymore. And that's something that's going to have to be done one way or the other
because they wouldn't work with us the last 15 years, partly.
I mean, there were a couple of points that we tried to work together on and were
successful. You know, and the problem is, is even when the Parkland bill,
for example, law enforcement almost unanimously supported the Parkland bill.
And, you know, we've got a, we've got an upcoming governor's election in two years,
or down, sorry, not two years in a year. And one of the candidates voted for
Parkland. Now, his explanation to me was, I voted for the good things in it.
I voted for the school guardian program. I voted for the hardening of schools and
hopefully he and I are going to have more conversations about that. But he was
voting for those things that he felt were so important that he had to say yes even
though it included gun control and took away rights from 18 to 20 year olds.
And I questioned that type of legislative compromise. And I also understand the
dynamic they were put under at the time. But if you want to retreat from that
vote, you got to do something affirmative to show that you're willing, wanting to
retreat from that vote and to try and fix that issue. Yes.
I remind people all time Royce, 9 /11 was because the government failed. Parkland was
because the government failed. In neither case, was it the failure of average
citizens?
No worries. In neither case was it the failure of average citizens that allowed 9
/11 or Parkland to happen. It was failure of government. On the other hand, the shoe
bomber was stopped by average citizens sitting on an airplane. The Whereas train
massacre was started by some off -duty U .S. service members who were sitting on no
official capacity on a train, one of the mall shootings was stopped by a 19 -year
-old man who knew how to use his firearm properly. Law enforcement and the government
have a limited ability and capacity to protect us because they're not there in the
moment, and the Constitution rightly prevents them from taking certain actions,
even when it might prevent a tragedy.
We don't operate under those restrictions, and we're present when the tragedy happens,
and we have the right to have the ability to stop those tragedies,
and we should not be painted with the brush of the criminals, just because we don't
wear a badge. - Amen to that. And literally, I had it explained me once by some
gentlemen who said, "We the people when we are armed, and when we use our arms to
defend ourselves, we are also very, in a very real sense, upholding the laws of the
state of Florida, the laws against their violence." And so, like I said,
the founders viewed us as a military force and that means we should always be armed
and the police should never view us as a separate entity from them and they forget
that we chose them from among us and that we gave them their power, they would
have no power if we didn't give it to them. And I wish they would quit looking at
us like we are beneath them And that they have the right to infringe our rights,
of course, for our own safety. And that's just something that sticks in my crawler
every time. So Eric, let's take a brief commercial time out of your wood, brother.
When we come back, I'd like you to talk about where do we go from here? What
happens on September 26th? What can we do?
What should we not do? And if you could give us some pointers there, I greatly
appreciate it. How's that? Okay, brother, so we'll be right back. We're going to
take a brief commercial time out to hear from the world's finest sponsor so don't
go anywhere because the list of retention squads are all on standby and you know
what that means. Be right back with more shooting straight and Eric Friday.
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Let's create your musical identity. Thank you. Welcome back to the program.
We've got special guest Eric Friday, General Counsel for Florida Carry. And if you're
not a member, well you should be, especially if you live in Florida. They, along
with groups like GOA and N -A -G -R and Second Amendment Foundation and others are
out there fighting tooth and nail to make sure that the Constitution is enforced.
And so, Eric, I really appreciate you being able to come on the program today. So,
a lot of questions. What happened? Can we openly carry in Florida now,
or should we wait till the 26th. What needs to happen here? Fill us in, and if
you would. So initially, I was advising Florida, Kerry and I were advising people,
give it till the 26th when the decision was final, because there was the possibility
of certain post trial motions or post post decision motions. However,
yesterday morning, our current Attorney General James Othmire released his opinion and
his guidance to law enforcement throughout the state and his opinion that he released
stated open carry was lawful as of last week on Wednesday September 10th when the
court's decision was issued period it became lawful at that moment now he has also
advised that he will not be seeking Supreme Court review or any other type of stays
on this case because he agrees with the court's decision which is more than I can
say for our prior attorney general who tried to fight this case. Yeah, she's the
main attorney general now. Well, no, she's the, she's our US senator.
Oh, okay. Okay, I thought you were, I thought you were referring to Pam Blondie
there. Well, she, she, she fought me on this issue - I believe it.
- 2014, 2017. So she got it wrong, then actually Moody got it wrong,
Senator Moody got it wrong, but our current Attorney General James Othmire, he has
gotten it right. He has taken all of the right steps since this decision came out.
We applaud him for all the good work he has done. I applaud him for the research
that his team did to put out that, that statement yesterday morning. Um, and you
know, you had the case citations right there making it clear to law enforcement
throughout this state that this is now the law of Florida and they should not
attempt to enforce this. I know we've got a couple of sheriff running around saying
that they're going to keep enforcing it till the 26th. Most of the ones who have
stated that have since retracted and stepped back from that position. But Attorney
General did a great job putting out a legal opinion yesterday morning. We applauded,
we agree with it, and it makes pretty clear that this is now the law in Florida.
Now, it's important to know that, number one, this restores the right to carry to
18 to 20 -year -olds. Yes, sir. And while they can't go buy a gun in a gun store
or private sale, if a family member, It gives them one, loans them one.
They can absolutely have a gun and they can carry it as long as they do so
openly. I do want to remind everybody, there's a list of prohibited places for
concealed carry in 790, 06, subsection 12A. Everyone should continue to abide by that
prohibited places list even while open -carrying. That is our advice.
Yes, sir. If you want to avoid problems, avoid an unfortunate interaction, you should
continue to avoid those prohibited places listed in subsection 12a of 790 .06.
It's important that you do so.
That's something we expect to be addressed in the upcoming legislative session and
we're going to work and we're willing to work with people on that. There's some
places on that list that shouldn't be there. And there's some places that I don't
think anybody, any person would really argue with. You know, even police officers
check their guns before they go into the jail. - Right. - So,
you know, we're not gonna have an argument about that, I don't think. But
Yes, anybody, as long as you are allowed to own and possess firearms, you may
openly carry that firearm as long as you don't go into one of those primitive
places. I strongly encourage people, unless there's some reason, stick to the
holstered handguns. We don't need, you know, I have been a big advocate for open
carry of long, long guns, rifles, shotguns, ARs for purposes of getting the message
out, we've won. It's time, we don't need to be our bad winners.
We need to, for the most part, stick to the openly carried handgun, I mean,
openly carried holster handguns.
If you do have a reason or just want to carry a rifle because darn it, it is
your right, Please be careful about it. Have it on a sling. Don't be toting it
around in your hands. This is not legal advice This is practical advice. Yes While
we don't care if it makes people uncomfortable because it is a constitutional right
We should care about giving our enemies ammunition. Amen.
It's pardoned upon To use against us and so I encourage everybody to be reasonable
respectful and responsible in how and what they choose to carry in the manner of
carry The other thing I need to remind everybody if a property owner asks you to
leave Listen as long as it's not a government property. You have a private property
owner ask you to leave you should politely respectfully Agree to do So follow up
later with a phone call, follow up later, um, there's some business cards, things
you can get out to inform business owners that, Hey, you know, this is important to
us. And you know, it could subject your, your business to, to a, to a downturn,
but we, that's not the primary place we want to go. We want to encourage business
owners. Hey, your business is safer with law abiding citizens carrying firearms Amen,
much safer. Well, what kind of advice, Eric, for the average Joe or Jane open
-carrying and they have an inadvertent encounter with law enforcement and quite
possibly running into one who just doesn't care what the law says or be like to do
the Constitution. And they don't care about this new ruling and they feel that they
can do whatever they want just to, what should I say, enhance public safety.
What if you encounter one of these hard heads or any law enforcement officer? State
that you will comply with all instructions but that you object to being detained or
disarmed and immediately, you know, hands up, you know,
officer, I will do with whatever you tell me to do, but I do not believe this is
a valid stop and anything I do at this point is because I'm being ordered to and
it's without my consent. Okay. Because the number one problem I have Royce in civil
rights cases sometimes is, you know, the ultra assed person take, you know, I'm
going to take your gun. The person says, "Absolutely, go ahead. You know, I
understand you just want to be safe." Well, the officer's just violated your
constitutional rights. Yes. But you consented to it and so you have no constitutional
violation case. So you need to be clear that you're going to comply and you need
to be clear that it's because you are being ordered to do so. You're not, you're
not treating this as a request. You're treating this as an order and you're
complying with orders and instructions. And then they need to get in touch with
Florida Kerry or contact my office and And we need to see, like,
what happened here? Is this a valid stop? Was there a good reason for this stop?
Royce, I'm concerned we're gonna see incidents of a type of swatting. Somebody that
doesn't like guns, sees a person openly carrying, they're gonna call dispatch and
say, "Oh my gosh, this person was waving a gun at me." Well, the gun never left
the holster, but people will lie. - Oh yes. - And so, You may think,
"I'm just walking down the street, I haven't done anything, why would the officer be
coming at me aggressively?" Well, it's because somebody called in and made a lie
that you were acting in an aggressive manner, or you were acting in a crazy manner,
or you looked crazy. And so we're going to have to adjust to that reality if we're
open caring, be prepared for it, know that it could happen, and it's going to be
our job to comply, de escalate the situation, but also calmly and clearly just to
serve our rights. You don't have to repeat it time after time. You just need to
say it once, um, hope, make sure asked to make sure their body cam is on. And
then when the, when the encounter is over, be very clear that, you know, I
understand you're just doing your job. No, don't say that say I do not agree with
how you did your job and I will be filing an internal affairs complaint for how
you treated me just now. And I don't hear how nicely or politely or respectfully
they treat you. Violating the constitutional right while being polite doesn't mean
it's not a violation. Amen. Amen. And we need to assert those violations so that we
can get court decisions that say, like we already have some, the mere presence of a
firearm is not a basis for stopping and detaining somebody. The The presence of a
firearm is not a basis for searching or frisking somebody. People have a right.
They can no more stop you for carrying up our arm than they can pull you over
because they want to check and see if you have a valid driver's license. You have
to commit a violation first.
And that's the number one issue I expect us to have with law enforcement is
stopping and detaining people for open carrying merely because of the presence of a
firearm and /or taking that gun from somebody. I hope law enforcement will understand
it, unless somebody's acting off safest place for everybody for that citizen's gun is
in the holster where it already is. - Yes, sir. Amen to that.
So, I got a feeling we are gonna see those things because you mentioned a few
minutes ago, people lying, swatting, things like that. And that's exactly what the
leftists will do, especially when we watch the aftermath and the hideous things
they've said about Charlie Kirk and his family. And they've been talking about making
lists to take the rest of us out and things like that. So it wouldn't surprise me
one bit if they began doing crap like this, just to be spiteful and just to try
to possibly cause a shootout or something like that. And I guess that's where this
instruction that you're giving us now is gonna come into play very heavily. What
about, how do we help educate our local law enforcement about this now?
- Well, I think, and just, I have talked to a couple of attorneys for some of the
sheriffs. I think they've been having a rough few days trying to figure things out
and figure out what they need to say and how they need to say it. And I applaud
all of the ones who figured it out and the ones who were kind enough to call me
back and respond to my certain response to some concerns. I think we're far enough
along that unless you know your sheriff is, unless you already know your sheriff is
being one of the difficult ones, it's time to quit calling our sheriffs and checking
in on it. It's time to just assume that they know the law. But if your sheriff
has a town hall, if your sheriff has a community meeting, go to it. That's a good
time to ask the question, how is this open carry thing working? How should I
interact with law enforcement if I'm stopped? Are your officers going to just stop
me just because they see me with a gun? That's a really good time to ask that
question at those community engagement events or when they're running for re -election
is a really good time to ask that question. A lot of them are up for re -election
next year. Ask the question then.
So that's what I would encourage. I would encourage you that if you know your
sheriff's a problem and it's not coming into compliance, call them.
Let them know you're disappointed. Let them know that you expect them to follow what
the attorney general is advising them to do.
But I think that's the most we can do right now. I'm hopeful that a lot of
sheriffs will be doing continuing training, will be making sure they're up on the
case law. We have some great attorneys that work for some sheriffs and sometimes
sheriffs don't listen to their own attorneys. I've seen that too in Um,
uh, let me ask you this, where, if someone does have an issue and they have had
their rights violated, what's, how do we find the proper attorney? I mean,
cause there's plenty of people, plenty of people out there that are called attorneys
and I'm going to give you, there, there's a real short list right now in Florida.
Uh,
there's no Flasterstein in the Miami, Fort Lauderdale area, there is Jeffrey Young
over in the Sarasota County area. There's Katz and Phillips with U .S.
Law Shield in Orlando area. David, is that David Katz? David Katz.
Yep, I know him. I've had him on my program before when I was live on WMMB. Yeah,
David and James at Katz and Phillips in Orlando. There's myself in northeast Florida.
You know, I, Chris Crawford over in a scam, I don't know if he's, if he's happy
he did this case or put in all this work. Yeah, I owe him the world for being my
local counsel over there. But yeah, if you're over in that West Florida area, Chris
Crawford, somebody you can reach out to, He definitely knows how to get in touch
with me if it's something that he's not completely familiar with. But those are some
attorneys that I can tell you around the state that I trust I would use them
locally if I was in their jurisdiction.
And they just they do incredible great work. And I'm so thankful that every one of
them is co -counseling at least one case with me or some cases I've actually given
them the lead and I'm co -counseled with them. I'm very fortunate that we have these
few attorneys that are doing this. I wish Royce we had more. I promise I got
enough business to spread it around. - I bet you do. - But those guys do some great
work also and they've been a huge support. They help review some briefs on some of
these cases that I've worked on. They've been co -counseling on some of these cases.
And I just, every gun owner should know that that's the short list in Florida right
now. If you have to use Fireman deadly force encounter, if you're arrested for a
gun related charge, if you have your civil rights violated on related to firearms
especially, you know, that's my go -to list of folks to call in those counties. - Do
you happen to know, per chance, if any of the places like US Law Shield and such,
if they offer any kind of defense for those kind of issues, the civil rights
violations? - So, US Law Shield is a great organization.
They, we actually have a partnership agreement between them and Florida Carry to do
some certain things. And they are co -plaintiffs with Florida Carry on some cases. I
don't remember the exact parameters of what they do and do not cover. I know
they've got some excellent customer service people, you know, at the main headquarters
that they can clarify what they do and don't cover, but I'm not going to dare
speak to that. Might want to grab David and get him back on the show to clarify,
but I just, I know that U .S. law shield does some great work. Unfortunately,
we've lost ACLDN, Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network, but they have transitioned
their business over to CCW Safe. I don't have much experience with CCW Safe,
but I trust Marty and Gaila Hayes, and they did great work for decades with ACLDN,
along with Mass Ayub, working on their board.
So if they trust CCW I'm I'm absolutely going to be happy to work with them too
if if they want my assistance on a Florida case
So that's but that's my short list of companies right now that that I have an
interest in I am a referral counsel for some of the other other companies that
offer services
And I'm not trying to throw any shade their way, but these are the companies that
I work with primarily. All right. Well, you know, I would like to tell everybody
that rights become stronger just like your body with exercise, and they should
exercise them. And if you really want them, if I think one of the things I kind
of probably answered my own question in my thoughts, if we want to educate law
enforcement, then well, one thing we need to start freely exercising our rights and
make it to where it's not viewed as anathema and somehow a public safety risk.
I think the more they get used to it, I think the easier it's gonna be. So you
got any final words of advice for us before we end the program here, Eric? Yeah,
if you don't like Florida Carry, join some other gun rights organization. Join an
organization that aligns with your values to vote the right to bear arms. Every one
of us needs your time, your donations. But I would ask everybody that thinks that
this is an important victory, please go to FloridaCarry .org, join. There's a lot of
people that are on our Facebook group that we interact with that are not actually
paying members. We need every member we can, FloridaCarry .org.
And when we send you an alert during the of session, please act on it. Please
contact your legislator when those things come out because it matters.
It makes a difference. We have killed bad bills in Tallahassee and gotten good ones
passed nearly because our members and our supporters were willing to get those emails
out and make it happen. Yes, sir. And that's why a lot of times I sign this
program off by, um, That sounds like you just signed off.
Anyway, Eric, you with us? Nope, I guess Eric signed off. I think he hung up
accidentally. Anyway, well, that's gonna do it for this episode. And as good advice,
thank you for being part of the program, Eric, and thank you for everything you did
to bring this about. Looking forward to having you on again soon. And as Eric said,
you stay in contact with your reps, you have to. And he's already given you a
proof that it does work. And it does. If you get in contact with them and they
feel the heat, they will see the light. So stay in contact with your reps, stay
trained up, stay armed at all times. We live in very dicey times. And never forget,
incoming rounds always have the right of way. Royce out. (upbeat music)
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