Speaker 1: Garrison started talking about crimes, and so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna hold off on president crime at all.
Speaker 1: Act that's true. That's true. James said the word crimes,
Speaker 1: and James is the one that brought up doing crimes.
Speaker 1: I would never talk about doing crimes. Oh, welcome to
Speaker 1: take it happen here. Yeah, if we never talk about
Speaker 1: anything illegal. Um with us today is myself, Garrison, James Stout,
Speaker 1: and mea Wong. It's right we are talking about crimes today. Actually,
Speaker 1: but we're not doing any crimes Chrishley, because we never would. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like for for for example, Well, actually I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's technically illegal to to to talk
Speaker 1: about jury nullification on air. I don't. I know. I
Speaker 1: don't think they can stop you from saying the words.
Speaker 1: I think they can. I think I think you you
Speaker 1: don't have the rights to do it, but you have
Speaker 1: the ability. I think is a way a lawyer explained
Speaker 1: it to me. But they also said I'm not your
Speaker 1: lawyer before that, So take that with a great assault. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you probably said you shouldn't be describing how to do
Speaker 1: jury notification or googling it if that's in your future.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for our upcoming episode. Yeah your jury, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how to nullify your jury? That will be our final episode. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now we're not talking about jury today. We are
Speaker 1: talking about crime. The people doing the crime in this episode,
Speaker 1: shockingly are the cops. So I want to start on
Speaker 1: October twenty eight, twenty sixteen. Some of you can probably
Speaker 1: cast your mind back then, the last week of the
Speaker 1: pre Trump era. Yeah yeah, So inside the captain's office
Speaker 1: at the sheriff station in Rancho, San Diego, one of
Speaker 1: the most expensive ZIP codes in the country, Captain Marco
Speaker 1: Garmo was making a deal. Garmo, along with Giovanni Tilotta,
Speaker 1: who's a licensed San Diego gun dealer, sold a glockhangun an,
Speaker 1: a R fifteen Star rifle, and a Smith and Western
Speaker 1: handgun to local defense attorney. Because inside Garmo's office, Garma
Speaker 1: coordinated backdated paperwork to avoid the ten day waiting period
Speaker 1: required by California law for handgun purchases and supplied Bajaj
Speaker 1: with misappropriated San Diego Sheriff's Department issued ammunition. Oh fun, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so's he's really thriving in his side hustle here, Marco Garmo.
Speaker 1: I've used the word misappropriated because that's what the DOJ used,
Speaker 1: and guessing the more vernacular term will be stolen here.
Speaker 1: I think I think he's so, what do you say issued?
Speaker 1: Is this AMMO that like like was supposed to be
Speaker 1: given to a coup or is this stuff they had
Speaker 1: an impound? Uh No, I think it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: given to a corpse. I think hell yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he's good. I think he's gone into the armory and
Speaker 1: just grabbed a few boxes of AMMO and stole them.
Speaker 1: Corps are just turned into the Afghan Army. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Ana. They've got the what's that guy who had
Speaker 1: the like help he had their like night vision on
Speaker 1: backwards or something that was that was the Taliban guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Interestingly what they have and they compound me, it's another
Speaker 1: story that maybe we should do another day. I also
Speaker 1: p r rate that like the weapons that are impounded,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. They have some shit like they have like
Speaker 1: a full auto shotgun, like a bunch of NFA items
Speaker 1: and they keep them all for like lab testing in theory,
Speaker 1: like so they can so they can be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this person was shot, what does that wound look like? Well,
Speaker 1: let's get our armory out from the fucking end shoots
Speaker 1: and ballistics gel and see if that helps us. And
Speaker 1: it's like that scene from two thousand and eight The
Speaker 1: Dark Night where Christian Bale is Batman fires a ridiculously
Speaker 1: loud gun in a seals bugger, absolutely destroying both his
Speaker 1: and Alfred's hearing for the entire rest of the movie.
Speaker 1: That's why they make so many bad choices. Fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know there was a character called Alfred in Batman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they really welshed him on the names, because like, Batman
Speaker 1: is a cool name, the joker cool name. Do you
Speaker 1: don't know who Alfred Petty? No one British character in
Speaker 1: bead He is your culture. When people think of British people,
Speaker 1: they think of Alfred J. Pennyworths, not a costume Garrison. Well,
Speaker 1: so I have a bad I have bad news. They
Speaker 1: disgusted that this is the point of reference, not one
Speaker 1: of our many wonderful modern British role models. Alfred's great.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. Okay, yeah, no, okay.
Speaker 1: He is a working class hero he was a he
Speaker 1: was a wait A, Butler's our working class right? Oh God,
Speaker 1: discourse off very quick, I would say, pett. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of complicated because you're like working directly for a
Speaker 1: billionaire and you're living in the billionaire's house and you're
Speaker 1: living a upper class life, but you still are working.
Speaker 1: It's kind of what is your relationship to the meda production? Though? Oh?
Speaker 1: That this? Wow? Well, but it's all service, like I
Speaker 1: don't know. I feel like we have to do a
Speaker 1: divide here between because I think I think the gender
Speaker 1: division of labor between Maide and Butler is very important.
Speaker 1: I love how we're devating how if Alfred is based. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can find Garrison on Twitter, I write, okay,
Speaker 1: so we made a paragraph too everywhere. In February twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: federal agents executed a search warrant at the Rancho of
Speaker 1: San Diego Cherff station. Later that year, they arrested Captain
Speaker 1: Marco Gamo. In twenty twenty one, Gama pleaded guilty to
Speaker 1: trafficking over one hundred guns, which were deemed unsafe for civilians.
Speaker 1: His sentence, I shouldn't say civilians because cops are also
Speaker 1: civilians right, but non cops. His sentencing, the judge said
Speaker 1: Gama was almost becoming a mob boss of sorts. What
Speaker 1: you want to strive for as a charis Captain. Garmo
Speaker 1: admitted to engaging in straw purchases, which is buying guns
Speaker 1: with the intent of transferring them to someone else. He
Speaker 1: also acknowledged tipping off an illegal marijuana dispensary that was
Speaker 1: about to be searched in order based Nothing this guy
Speaker 1: did is inherently wrong. It's the fact that he only
Speaker 1: did it to certain people, and so that was his
Speaker 1: cousin who earned a marijuana dispensury. He was also engaged
Speaker 1: in illegal consulting with other dispensaries, which I don't bulliant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing his consulting emerged to being like, hey, the
Speaker 1: cops are on their way tomorrow, maybe stop being a
Speaker 1: dispensary by the time they arrive. Yeah, that seems like
Speaker 1: a that that that that that that that seems like
Speaker 1: a very classic the cops to take a cut kind
Speaker 1: of insult. Yeah, I guess, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot
Speaker 1: of the things in this DJ thing are like really
Speaker 1: fantastically phrased. So Garmo and his code a friend and
Speaker 1: wail Will Anton also helped paying clients skip the waiting
Speaker 1: list for a difficult totain concealed carry permit. As part
Speaker 1: of this scheme, Anton took a legal cash payment to
Speaker 1: a county clerk who ensured favorable treatment for his clients.
Speaker 1: Garmo might have flown a little too close to some
Speaker 1: with this one, but it's not actually that unusual for
Speaker 1: gun laws to have carve outs for rich people. Often
Speaker 1: those carve outs don't involve cops stealing AMMO, but it's
Speaker 1: pretty easy if you're wealthy enough to work your way
Speaker 1: around firearms legislation, which is kind of what I want
Speaker 1: to get into today. So while Garmo did go to
Speaker 1: jail for gun trafficking and multiple other crimes, he was doing.
Speaker 1: The sale of so called offer us to firearms by
Speaker 1: law involvement officers in California's relatively common and there's not
Speaker 1: much that's been done to prevent it since Garmo was arrested.
Speaker 1: So to understand this, I think you have to understand
Speaker 1: California is incredibly complicated firearms laws, which probably requires like
Speaker 1: an undergraduate degree. But to give a brief summary, California
Speaker 1: introduced its gun roster in two thousand and one, and
Speaker 1: like many of our laws, it has its roots in
Speaker 1: entrenching systemic inequalities. In this case, legislatives were trying to
Speaker 1: ban something called a Saturday Night Special and people know what.
Speaker 1: People know what that is. No, it's it's a small, concealable,
Speaker 1: affordable handgun. Um, It's like there were there were this,
Speaker 1: there was this, these guns that came out in like
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties that were like super small, very cheap,
Speaker 1: very simple, very concealable, and shit, well that's the thing, right,
Speaker 1: So this is really fascinating. So in practice, right, these
Speaker 1: were at least culturally associated with like black communities, right
Speaker 1: that that's you see them in sometimes like certainly like
Speaker 1: there was a stigmatic reference to like a disease guns
Speaker 1: that is causing violence. And we're not going to fucking
Speaker 1: look at inequality at all, right, We're just going to
Speaker 1: ban the guns. Are they shit? Is an interesting question
Speaker 1: because California introduces legislation which that handguns have to be
Speaker 1: dropped safe, so that means you can drop them and
Speaker 1: they can't go off. That is generally a desirable feature,
Speaker 1: and a handgun able to fire six hundred rounds without
Speaker 1: more than six malfunctions and have a manual safety device.
Speaker 1: And later on they added another thing that would make
Speaker 1: the gun only fire when it had a magazine inserted.
Speaker 1: And they put all these rules in place, and has
Speaker 1: said manufacturers had to submit guns for testing. All the
Speaker 1: guns they were going after pass the testing, So I
Speaker 1: guess they're not as shit as one the one has suspected,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like that that is the intent
Speaker 1: they are laboring under that misapprehension, But it seems like
Speaker 1: these guns, which are very cheap, actually pass the testing
Speaker 1: just fine. So if you look at the California roster,
Speaker 1: so once those guns have passed that testing, right, they
Speaker 1: go on a roster, and that roster like it's done
Speaker 1: by skew, so like by the individual code that's given
Speaker 1: to the gun. And you could look up the California roster.
Speaker 1: It's online still and like there are hundreds of cheap
Speaker 1: small hand guns that are on it. So they've failed
Speaker 1: in that regard. But they created this kind of bizarre
Speaker 1: system where most manufacturers had to make a California compliant
Speaker 1: model if they wanted selling California, right, because it had
Speaker 1: to have a magazine disconnect, which means that the gun
Speaker 1: won't fire without the magazine in, which is not a
Speaker 1: usual thing for semi automatic handguns to have. Like if
Speaker 1: you are outside of California and you have like a
Speaker 1: normal a glock, for instance, it doesn't have that, but
Speaker 1: you would need one that did in California. So that
Speaker 1: means that these guns are going to have a much
Speaker 1: much smaller economy of scale, right, they're going to be
Speaker 1: more expensive. Manufacturers also have to pay for the testing
Speaker 1: and submit three models. So what de facto means is
Speaker 1: that fewer guns are available in California, But it doesn't
Speaker 1: really become a big issue until twenty thirteen when the
Speaker 1: DOJ in California add a micro stamping requirement. But they
Speaker 1: added it earlier actually, but in twenty thirteen they certified
Speaker 1: it was possible for mist But so is the roster
Speaker 1: of the list of guns are allowed to buy? Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: And if it doesn't appear on the roster, we're going
Speaker 1: to get into that. You can actually buy it, but
Speaker 1: you can't buy it new from a store, so you
Speaker 1: can buy it used. And there are two ways that
Speaker 1: these used handguns can enter the state. Right. One of
Speaker 1: them is if you move to the state. So let's
Speaker 1: say Garrison moves to LA right, and they bring with
Speaker 1: horrifying Yeah, just enjoy it, just just like a Vulcan
Speaker 1: mini gun. Yeah yeah. They bring with them an m
Speaker 1: one Abrams tank. It's our balloon shooting gun. Yeah. Everyone
Speaker 1: on the West coast has to have one now, and
Speaker 1: so it's actually different for rifles, Seddi. But they bring
Speaker 1: with them pistols, and those pistols are not on the
Speaker 1: California roster. They can keep them and they can sell
Speaker 1: them right to a California resident. The other way that
Speaker 1: these guns can enter and be sold is cops are
Speaker 1: exempt from the roster, right, so yeah, boy, yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. And when I say cops, I am speaking
Speaker 1: in the broadest possible turns because a variety of peace
Speaker 1: officers are exempt, to include employees of the California State
Speaker 1: Horse Racing Boards. Park rangers can do this, right. I
Speaker 1: think it depends what you are within the park ranger,
Speaker 1: within the park, and it seems to be that there
Speaker 1: is actually a list that's in the legislation, but it
Speaker 1: seems to be largely like at the discretion of the
Speaker 1: gun shop. Like in practice, they could get in trouble.
Speaker 1: But like I've heard of like firefighters and EMT's being
Speaker 1: able to purchase off roster guns, which is fucking not
Speaker 1: in the legislation, Like it is also kind of funny,
Speaker 1: but like U, in theory, it would depend on what
Speaker 1: unit you were in, or they could contact your like
Speaker 1: park ranger office and be like, hey, this girl is
Speaker 1: trying to buy a gun, Like does she use us
Speaker 1: at work? Because the idea is that they would they
Speaker 1: would have the most up to date weapons to carry
Speaker 1: at work, right, or that they could buy themselves even
Speaker 1: though they get issued guns. So like if you need
Speaker 1: a gun as a cop, you get issued a gun, right.
Speaker 1: So what it means in practice is that there's a
Speaker 1: thriving market and offer us to firearms, but there's also
Speaker 1: massive price premium. Right. They often self for two or
Speaker 1: three times there MSRP, even though they're used. And I
Speaker 1: did a little digging into this, and I looked at
Speaker 1: one particular item, which was a P three sixty five,
Speaker 1: AIG P three sixty five, which is a fairly like
Speaker 1: a popular pistol. Right, But after twenty thirteen, California doesn't
Speaker 1: didn't allow any new guns to be added to the
Speaker 1: roster unless they micro stamp their bullets. Micro Stamping gets
Speaker 1: a little feature where the firing pin of the gun
Speaker 1: stamps the casing, not the bullet, with a little, kind
Speaker 1: little tiny stamp which is unique to the gun, right,
Speaker 1: or it stamps it with the serial number of the gun.
Speaker 1: So in theory, this would allow you to pick up
Speaker 1: the casings at a murder scene and be like, huh,
Speaker 1: well they were fired from this gun, and this gun
Speaker 1: is right to this person. Therefore we got someone to
Speaker 1: talk to you, right, pick up the casings. Yeah right, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: no ways around this, well, I mean absolutely immediately that
Speaker 1: The one thing I've learned over the years is that
Speaker 1: people are really lazy when they're doing crimes, and so
Speaker 1: so true, so true. To be slightly less lazy and
Speaker 1: get caught so you're really less that is that is
Speaker 1: that is my biggest my biggest advice to the illegalists
Speaker 1: literally think five minutes before yeah yeah yeah. Also, don't
Speaker 1: tweet your crimes. Yeah ever ever green statements. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of our mottoes here. You could also just
Speaker 1: use a revolver, I guess, and it would inject the casings.
Speaker 1: But because there are no guns in twenty thirteen. Right,
Speaker 1: the DOJ says you are not allowed to add a
Speaker 1: gun to the roster unless it micro stamps, and we've
Speaker 1: decided that microstamping as possible. No firearms manufacturer will make
Speaker 1: a gun that micro stamps because other states will require
Speaker 1: all guns to micro stamps once set technology is available.
Speaker 1: So they just don't built it. So they just don't
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, it is, and it's very funny. It's
Speaker 1: like the car companies just being like, fucking, you know
Speaker 1: what if we put airbags in that bad boy, They're
Speaker 1: going to make us put airbags in all the cars.
Speaker 1: You know. This is the thing that I've run into
Speaker 1: a lot. I think it's really interesting, which is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: the specific combination of regulatory state and corporations being required
Speaker 1: to do a thing gives you a bunch of really
Speaker 1: really weird like outcomes that are like not what you
Speaker 1: would expect when you're writing the legislation, which makes them ineffective.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, like the most famous one is like
Speaker 1: the Clean Air Act actually worse than to air quality
Speaker 1: for a huge amount of time because they put in
Speaker 1: this exception for like existing coal facilities under the assumption
Speaker 1: that people would just like you know, build new coal
Speaker 1: facilities and thus be like and thus like have better
Speaker 1: like create that cleaner technology, and no one just no
Speaker 1: one ever did. They just left these old coal facilities
Speaker 1: running or the other one. Like everyone always talks about
Speaker 1: those like those fucking like why why the giant SUVs
Speaker 1: keep getting bigger? And the reason for that is actually,
Speaker 1: I mean it kind of is sort of fascist psychosis,
Speaker 1: but like the actual reason for that is Obama era
Speaker 1: pollution controls on cars, right, had to have these fuel
Speaker 1: emission standards, But the larger your car is like the
Speaker 1: worst fuel emission standards are. So they keep so okay
Speaker 1: in order to get around the fuel mission things, they
Speaker 1: just keep making cars make it bigger. Amazing. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: this shit just like I don't know, this is this
Speaker 1: is I think a pretty good argument against like against
Speaker 1: a sort of regulatory state being able to contain like
Speaker 1: capitalism doing horror bloifying shit. Is like every single time
Speaker 1: someone tries to make it air pollution thing, it just
Speaker 1: makes it worse. Yeah, they just create perverse incentives to
Speaker 1: do something which is like just stupid and polluting as
Speaker 1: opposed to Yeah, or they just don't comply. It was
Speaker 1: the microcy thing you're just like no like, yeah, simply
Speaker 1: wrote the specific interaction of like people who elevate themselves
Speaker 1: who make it to the California legislature on one hand
Speaker 1: and gun companies on the other hand, just leads to
Speaker 1: this complete intransigence, where like anytime a Laura is written,
Speaker 1: it is like someone has found an end run or
Speaker 1: a loophole before it comes into practice. Do you know
Speaker 1: what won't illegally smuggle illegally smuggle guns into California install
Speaker 1: them for two to three times a retail price? Mere?
Speaker 1: Is it? All the firms that are doing child trafficking?
Speaker 1: And that's right, the Washington State Highway Patrol. We're back
Speaker 1: and we're talking about cops selling guns for a lot
Speaker 1: of money in southern California. So big Marco Garma wasn't
Speaker 1: the only cop who surres a life of crime. As
Speaker 1: it turns out, yeah, yeah, shockingly enough, this practice is
Speaker 1: pretty common. So a Guardina police officer in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one was also convicted of making forty one illegal offer
Speaker 1: us to sales in a year, and at least six
Speaker 1: LA officers have been found to be engaged in legal
Speaker 1: firearms transfers according to twenty twenty one LA Times investigation,
Speaker 1: so that that's eight in a single year if you're
Speaker 1: keeping track. And it's pretty common to see people like
Speaker 1: posting about this, like like if you go on to
Speaker 1: like the California Guns for them, where people will be
Speaker 1: like where they sell guns right where they don't. You
Speaker 1: don't actually sell the guns on the internet. That's illegal,
Speaker 1: but people will post it and then they meet me
Speaker 1: at this gun dealer and we'll do the background check,
Speaker 1: and you'll see people being like, oh, like m l O,
Speaker 1: I have a friend who Elio and like happened to
Speaker 1: be selling this gun new in package. I bought it
Speaker 1: to carry it on patrol, but I decided I didn't
Speaker 1: like it. You know, Like that's the theoretical connad here, right,
Speaker 1: Oh god, Okay. The thing this reminds me of specifically
Speaker 1: is is a very very weird use case of like
Speaker 1: people will magice the gathering tournaments where you're not legally
Speaker 1: allowed to both draw and split the prize money. So
Speaker 1: you have to say this incredibly complicated series of sentences
Speaker 1: where you're like, I want to draw, and then new conversation,
Speaker 1: can we split the prize money? It's like I have
Speaker 1: to I have to like say this exact series of
Speaker 1: words in order to make it's clear that I'm not
Speaker 1: doing exactly what I'm doing and breaking the law. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is how the law works, right, Like it always
Speaker 1: ends up being some kind of like totalistic magic incantation
Speaker 1: that you can say, and then the thing that they're
Speaker 1: trying to fucking stop obviously no longer applies to you,
Speaker 1: and you can do what you want. Like it's incredibly assinine.
Speaker 1: So in mid twenty twenty one, I tried to I
Speaker 1: wanted to get a sense, right and when I was
Speaker 1: doing this of how many of these offer us to
Speaker 1: guns there are in California, to get a sense of
Speaker 1: like exactly how much of a fass the attempt to
Speaker 1: create this roster has been. So I've been going after
Speaker 1: this for a while. But in the middle of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, there was an Assembly bill pass called Assembly
Speaker 1: Bill two six nine nine if you're interested, and the
Speaker 1: bill required the Department of Justice to send a letter
Speaker 1: to owners off offer rouster weapons, which California officially calls
Speaker 1: unsafe handguns, to remind the people who own them other
Speaker 1: laws surrounding them, and to whom they could transfer them right.
Speaker 1: I first became aware of this letter because someone decided
Speaker 1: to post it online, and that kind of gave me
Speaker 1: an opening where because I can't pira the names of
Speaker 1: the people who own the guns right or even where
Speaker 1: they live, because obviously that's protect information and it probably
Speaker 1: should be. And I don't think that in inforation is
Speaker 1: even nicteally stored by the state. But I can pira
Speaker 1: the letters say sent out, So pira is a public
Speaker 1: records that require it's what people might know as of Foyer.
Speaker 1: And so I did that, and it took me more
Speaker 1: than a year, and it cost me more than a
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, But eventually I managed to get the doj
Speaker 1: to to send me the information which showed that at
Speaker 1: least at the time I got it, which is the
Speaker 1: middle of twenty twenty one, four thousand and five hundred
Speaker 1: and ten firearms have been obtained by the subsection of
Speaker 1: the law that allows exemptions for police officers. There were
Speaker 1: some other exemptions for like antique collectible firearms as well,
Speaker 1: so it's not clear that all of those were cops.
Speaker 1: They also noted that it had sent two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirteen thousand, eight hundred and four notices to the owners
Speaker 1: of off rouster weapons. Which, yeah, it suggests that, like
Speaker 1: if we think of that, the roster became a serious
Speaker 1: issue in twenty thirteen, right, so that suggested about ten thousand,
Speaker 1: ten thousand weapons a year since the roster began in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one have entered the state that I
Speaker 1: offer ruster, which kind of kind of makes the point
Speaker 1: that it's it's a rather fastical attempt at gun control, right,
Speaker 1: but it still is that the roster, which I don't
Speaker 1: think you're fine, right, you can you can buy a
Speaker 1: very effective gun in California, as we have seen, they're
Speaker 1: very effective at killing people. But it does kind of
Speaker 1: make it a joke that if you have enough money
Speaker 1: or a friend who's a cop, then this doesn't apply
Speaker 1: to you. Right then you're over two hundred thousand of
Speaker 1: these guns which are supposed to be like banned in circulation,
Speaker 1: as long as you're wealthy enough to buy them. I
Speaker 1: tried also to p r A if any of these
Speaker 1: guns have been involved in crime or murder, and they
Speaker 1: would tell me that. And what it's always worth pointing
Speaker 1: out that like the cops themselves are issued guns which
Speaker 1: are illegal for civilians to purchase, right, or it's not
Speaker 1: possible for them to purchase them new I should say
Speaker 1: that offer Ruster guns are issued to the cops, right. So,
Speaker 1: by definition, some of these guns have been used in
Speaker 1: the accidental shooting of bystanders, shooting of officers by themselves,
Speaker 1: and shooting of officers by other officers that have occurred
Speaker 1: in California since the ROSTA began, and so the sort
Speaker 1: of by definition of us to gun to kill some people.
Speaker 1: So this isn't actually the only way that being wealthy
Speaker 1: can get you around gun laws. And I want to
Speaker 1: go a little further east for my next example. Then
Speaker 1: I want to go in factor to a little town
Speaker 1: called Lake Arthur in New Mexico. Any if you are
Speaker 1: you guys familiar with this part of the world. Not well,
Speaker 1: not that I lived in New Mexico very very briefly
Speaker 1: when I was a small child, but not there. So,
Speaker 1: so I've been using Google street View. That's my my dive.
Speaker 1: It appears to be the back arshile of nowhere, and
Speaker 1: in Let Arthur they have one cop who it turns
Speaker 1: out was a volunteer and was being paid a dollar
Speaker 1: a year. Ah ha. Yeah, So this is this is
Speaker 1: where the problem starts. This guy is called Lilliam Norwood.
Speaker 1: And I'll issue a spoiler here that William Norwood is
Speaker 1: no longer a cop norders the Department exist and that's
Speaker 1: because Norwood was running a scam that took advantage of
Speaker 1: something called LIOSA. LIOSA is a Law Enforcement Officers Safety
Speaker 1: Act and what the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act does
Speaker 1: is allow cops from any state in the Union to
Speaker 1: conceal carry a gun in every state in the Union.
Speaker 1: So this was a big deal. Yeah, I think you
Speaker 1: might be abotuly what this is going. This is a
Speaker 1: big deal before the Supreme Court Brewined decision. Right, the
Speaker 1: Brewin decision was the one that significantly reduced the impediments
Speaker 1: in between you and getting a concealed carry weapons permit.
Speaker 1: I didn't totally remove them, and it didn't make it
Speaker 1: any less expensive. And California seems to be going about
Speaker 1: trying to make it even more expensive, which is bullshit,
Speaker 1: Like everyone should have the same right, regardless of how
Speaker 1: wealthy they are. But if you were covered by LEOSA right,
Speaker 1: if you're a law enforcement officer, you could conceal carrie anywhere.
Speaker 1: So this is very desirable for some people. One of
Speaker 1: those people is Robert Mercer. Do you guys remember Robert Mercer? No?
Speaker 1: I do not. Okay, So Murcer is a big time
Speaker 1: Donald Trump appreciated. Oh yeah, he's that like super rich guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the bright Bart guy, the Cambridge Analytica guy. Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: So this guy is rolling in it, and he he was.
Speaker 1: He actually hosted like a like success party soon after
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen election. This this guy is definitely pivotal to
Speaker 1: the whole Trump scene, right, like like his his bank
Speaker 1: rolling a bright Bart, cambrin Elytica. He As it turns out,
Speaker 1: it's also a cop in this little New Mexico town,
Speaker 1: which is kind of weird, right, especially when you consider
Speaker 1: that one hundred and fifty other people are also cops
Speaker 1: in this New Mexico one of these Yeah. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: one cop for every two point nine residents. Jesus. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it turns out they're probably not doing much copying,
Speaker 1: but they are doing at least a certain amount of volunteering.
Speaker 1: It's actually unclear how much. So the Lake Arthur Treasurer
Speaker 1: with Bloomberg did some prays around this, and it turns
Speaker 1: out that Mercer was what's called an honorary member of
Speaker 1: the police department, but there are no records to indicate
Speaker 1: they actually did any policing. But nonetheless, he took advantage
Speaker 1: of Leosa right and thus carried in all fifty states.
Speaker 1: So these jurisdictions, there are several of them. Another famous
Speaker 1: person who's taken advantage of this is a friend of
Speaker 1: the podcast, Stephen Seagal. Oh Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Stephen Siagar,
Speaker 1: who apparently has been a volunteer cop for a very
Speaker 1: long time and like actually was doing some copping according
Speaker 1: to a reality TV show he made called Steven Seagal Lawman.
Speaker 1: You know the thing about that show, right is it's like,
Speaker 1: are you gonna come out and defend the show? Are
Speaker 1: you pro the show? Really? Here, here's why they on
Speaker 1: this show, right, Like, obviously Seagal's doing stuff that's really
Speaker 1: messed up, but it's also unclear how much, ye, what
Speaker 1: he was doing is than the average cop. Like like,
Speaker 1: probably what he's doing is worst than the average cop.
Speaker 1: But I don't think it's like like I don't I
Speaker 1: don't think it's as bad as like like a Chicago
Speaker 1: Special Operations Unit. It's like I can't believe this came
Speaker 1: out in defense of Steven Seagal, specifically, he has work
Speaker 1: to do to reach like the true upper echelon of
Speaker 1: like I don't know, shitty cops Like this is a
Speaker 1: man who gave his time freely to volunteer for Joe R. Pio.
Speaker 1: This level of apologism coming from you right now is
Speaker 1: simply shocking. I don't know how to deal with this,
Speaker 1: this zigol apology. Yeah, psigologismsgism. Yeah, that is that is
Speaker 1: what I was working my way towards what I couldn't
Speaker 1: finish it. Yeah, thank you for delivering the kuda grass. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me are coming out with some cop to bastard to
Speaker 1: take scab. Okay, So what what is Carrison's carrison to deceased?
Speaker 1: They've died, Okay. So these badge factories like the ones
Speaker 1: in Lake Arthur and generally trade influenced cash, your connections
Speaker 1: for a badge and the right to carry a gun.
Speaker 1: Nation White Mercer and his son in LAWD. George Wells
Speaker 1: have reported the town generously and so the most kind
Speaker 1: of the best investigated example of this right because Bloomberg
Speaker 1: went after him and Bloomberg Publication not Bloomberg, the dude
Speaker 1: he went down there personally, Bloomberg he formed an alliance
Speaker 1: with apparently at one point this with this police department
Speaker 1: did to a raid on a methhouse. And I would
Speaker 1: love to see like Bloomberg forming alliance with the methulers
Speaker 1: of Lake Arth to fucking take on Murcer. So if
Speaker 1: Bloomberg can take on nine to eleven single handedly, surely
Speaker 1: he can bust up whatever whatever operations going down in
Speaker 1: New Mexico. One hundred and fifty Stephen Seagals, would you
Speaker 1: rather fight one Bloomberg size Stephen Seagal? And yeah, don't
Speaker 1: don't do not bother messaging me. I know he wasn't
Speaker 1: the mayor during nine to eleven. That was the joke.
Speaker 1: Don't bother messaging me. I already know, thank you, No no, no,
Speaker 1: So I wrote, okay Garrison's Twitter again, I write a case.
Speaker 1: He also famously dropped Staten Island Phil Bloomberg, You guys
Speaker 1: don't know about Stannine. Staten Island. Phil is a groundhog.
Speaker 1: This this will be in a Bastard episode as well.
Speaker 1: So it's a second mentor of Staten Island film for
Speaker 1: some people. Staatenland Phil is a groundhog similar to Puck's
Speaker 1: attorney Phil. Yeah, but he lives in Staten Island and
Speaker 1: that's fortunately. Yeah, well would we say that's a second
Speaker 1: second pretty pretty disgusting take from me anti Staten Island.
Speaker 1: This is this is when THEA gets canceled episode Yeah,
Speaker 1: time and getting rid of the Yankees things of the state. Sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately Build a Blasio dropped the groundhog on its head
Speaker 1: and it died, and yeah, build really built a Blazio groundhog.
Speaker 1: But it's reduced popularity. Everyone who's been the mayor of
Speaker 1: New York is such a piece of shape, unhinged. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. Yeah, like fucking the current mayor just what
Speaker 1: I liked TV to Tay and talked about how he
Speaker 1: has this magic smudge that yes, so that he could
Speaker 1: absorb despair and ring the despair. What the I'm so sick.
Speaker 1: The only thing isolated New York was it does the
Speaker 1: whole like there shouldn't be any separation of church and
Speaker 1: say that is so much funnier. He's doing a sham
Speaker 1: wow for sadness. Oh what a place, what a town?
Speaker 1: All right, So if you're wondering how much it costs
Speaker 1: for Mercer and his son in law to carry downs everywhere.
Speaker 1: They paid at least ninety three thousand to set up
Speaker 1: this thing called the Southeast New Mexico Police Reserve Foundation,
Speaker 1: which you know is doing the valuable work of supporting
Speaker 1: reserve cops in Southeast New Mexico because they are the
Speaker 1: thin blue line between us and people not being able
Speaker 1: to buy contial carry permits in all fifty states. I
Speaker 1: guess under it's by laws of its half the foundation's
Speaker 1: net jews were required to be paid to police departments
Speaker 1: whose reservists were members of the foundation the time of
Speaker 1: its founding. All of the members were Like Arthur reservists,
Speaker 1: so just a good public public benefit, probably just money
Speaker 1: going around in circles. He also paid for Lake Arthur
Speaker 1: officers to get SWAT training in Vegas. Again, there is
Speaker 1: only one full time cop and he's a volunteer, so
Speaker 1: some of the lads went to Vegas, I guess, and
Speaker 1: this was a donation that was probably tax deductible. The
Speaker 1: way that this came out is when a quote unquote
Speaker 1: firearms expert from North Carolina got drunk and shot his
Speaker 1: brother in law in the leg, and people were why
Speaker 1: were you carrying bro like you're a cop and yeah,
Speaker 1: from their things began to unwind. A lot of the
Speaker 1: other clients for this place are people like bodyguards, and
Speaker 1: they were a client's cops volunteer officers. I should say,
Speaker 1: there are people who do close protection for wealthy folks, right,
Speaker 1: and carry guns as part of that work. And I'm
Speaker 1: guessing it's their employers who are making these significant donations
Speaker 1: to like Arthur that probably allowed these people to be
Speaker 1: reserve officers, which allowed them to carry in all fifty states,
Speaker 1: which in turn allowed them to protect these wealthy people. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's another and like it's important to understand that
Speaker 1: like New York, for instance, declined before this was before
Speaker 1: the bruined decision. I can still carry permit applicant from
Speaker 1: like an FBI informant who had taken down a biker gang.
Speaker 1: They were like, no, you don't need to carry again,
Speaker 1: Like it was almost impossible for people, even if they
Speaker 1: were like helping the cops to get concealed carry permits
Speaker 1: in some parts of United States and California was very hard.
Speaker 1: Lots of places before Brewin Like I think, what's it.
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi had a concealed carry permit or Feinstein, this
Speaker 1: is the whole thing. Okay, so this was this was
Speaker 1: finestein that. One of the other scamps for this is
Speaker 1: you can get deputized as a federal marshal. There's like
Speaker 1: a bunch like I like Finstein's rumored who have done
Speaker 1: There's like a bunch of like every like a bunch
Speaker 1: of sort of like California like Congress people have done this.
Speaker 1: They're like they get they get deputizes marshals and so
Speaker 1: they can do this shit. Yeah, incredible stuff. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: so I guess what I want to come back to
Speaker 1: is like all of these laws, right, all of these
Speaker 1: gun control laws and are circumventable if you have enough money. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if you want a nice, brand new gun that doesn't
Speaker 1: mic ris damp, it doesn't have the it doesn't have
Speaker 1: the magazine disconnect, and like modern the modern carry guns especially,
Speaker 1: you're a lot nicer than they were in twenty thirteen. Right,
Speaker 1: They're smaller, they have a higher capacity. You can put
Speaker 1: a little red dot site on them if you want to.
Speaker 1: And if you want one of those things, you can
Speaker 1: have it in California as long as you're rich and
Speaker 1: if you're if you're not, then you can't. The same
Speaker 1: applies with this fifty state carry right if you want
Speaker 1: to carry a gun all around the country, and even
Speaker 1: now with Bruin, states are not required to recognize each
Speaker 1: other's concealed carry permits. Right. So I have a concealed
Speaker 1: harry permit in California. It's not recognized by any other
Speaker 1: states because California doesn't recognize any other states carry permits.
Speaker 1: So I can apply for one Arizona. That costs me
Speaker 1: more money. But if you want to carry in all
Speaker 1: fifty states, you can just make this donation to the corps, right,
Speaker 1: And you can almost all of these things, right. These
Speaker 1: are the only examples mere cited the federal marshal thing.
Speaker 1: Another one is the NFA right, the National Firearms Act,
Speaker 1: Yeah Act, which like, essentially it's not illegal to have
Speaker 1: a suppressor, it's not illegal to have a short barreled rifle.
Speaker 1: It's not illegal to have a machine gun. Actually, you
Speaker 1: just have to spend a shit ton of money to
Speaker 1: get one, which a mercer has a collection of machine guns.
Speaker 1: I guess, So all of these things. Yeah, it's great,
Speaker 1: it's fine. It's it's great that we live in a
Speaker 1: country with with two tiers of rights for people. Those
Speaker 1: are those those machine guns are totally going to be
Speaker 1: used for normal, completely normal things in twenty years. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a totally normal guy who will use them for normal
Speaker 1: stuff and just I'm sure like to make holes in
Speaker 1: paper with his friends. And it's not problematic at all
Speaker 1: that to be as rich as this guy is, you
Speaker 1: have to be a problematic dude. And it maybe those
Speaker 1: are the people who shouldn't be having guns, yeah, But
Speaker 1: instead it's it's it's going to be poor people who
Speaker 1: can't be having guns. And I think, regardless of what
Speaker 1: you and it's perfectly reasonable to think that there should
Speaker 1: be fewer guns in this country. It's perfectly reasonable to
Speaker 1: leave that. And I think, like it's perfectly reasonable to
Speaker 1: think what the fuck should we do about the fact
Speaker 1: that kids get shot in schools. That's not an unreasonable
Speaker 1: starts at all. But if the way around it is saying, well,
Speaker 1: only rich people get to shoot people, then that that's
Speaker 1: not really a solution. It's just kind of the the
Speaker 1: appearance of one. And I don't think any of us suddenly,
Speaker 1: if we were on the left, should should really support that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where we are in California, which is great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's about all we've got on this. If people
Speaker 1: are interested in seeing more about either the Mercer case
Speaker 1: or the public records I have, we'll put them all
Speaker 1: up on our sources page. You can find our sources
Speaker 1: page on there could Happen Here website, and we put
Speaker 1: all our sorts out there for all our episodes. So yeah,
Speaker 1: go check that out. Anything else to finish off with? Guys?
Speaker 1: The cops having guns, bad cops being cops, bad cops? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh well, what about Stephen Cigar the may This is
Speaker 1: a dramatic change of from your earlier stones. I only
Speaker 1: ever argued that he would slightly violent than a normal cop.
Speaker 1: That was the extent of my argument. He is only
Speaker 1: slightly more violent than a regular cop. She is flip
Speaker 1: flopping on the some some cops of issue. Again. You
Speaker 1: can send me your opinions on the police. She's on
Speaker 1: Twitter at I write Okay, it could happen here as
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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Speaker 1: for It could happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone
Speaker 1: media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.