Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – official guest host Aaron Gulbransen welcomed Mark Walters creator of Armed American Radio and Armed American News to discuss his journey to becoming a writer and advocate for the Second Amendment, a talk show host, and news outlet owner.
Gulbransen: I want to go to our newsmaker line with Mark Walters of Armed American Radio. We are in dire straits with the Second Amendment in this country. It is under attack, and we need to talk about it as much as possible. Mark, how are you doing this morning?
Walters: I’m doing great. Good morning. Thanks for having me back, Aaron. I appreciate it.
Gulbransen: No problem. And we’re going to have you on for a while just so our audience knows, because last time I think our 12 minutes seemed like it was, two. By the way, before we get into obviously, I’m a marketer at heart, too.
I want to ask you this twice, but how can everybody find you? I want to maximize this so our audience can go check you out. What’s your Twitter, your website, and all that?
Walters: Yes, if you’re foolish enough to be on Twitter like I am, you can check me out at @Aarmark. And of course, you can reach me at any time at armedamericanradio.com.
And my news division site where we separate news from opinion on all things related to the Second Amendment stories that really matter armedamericannews.com.
And that’s got you covered. You can watch the show then six days a week, you can listen live from that site. Everything there has got you covered for Armed American Radio.
Gulbransen: I don’t remember if I got to ask you this last time, but how did you become a Second Amendment advocate and enthusiast? Does your family have a Constitution on the nightstand? And did you grow up around firearms or how did that work?
Walters: Yes, I’m just a redneck at heart. I grew up learning how to grill on a Webber kettle. I couldn’t tell you how to start a gas grill to this day.
I’ve got a cookbook out written that’s my favorite work that I’ve done, and that’s called Grilling While Armed, where I have 20 of my favorite recipes paired up with a great fire. Liberals pair food with wine. No, not this kid.
We pair up a good barbecue with a great sidearm to wear on your hip while you’re smoking up the neighborhood. And I grew up shooting from the time I was about 10 years old, but it was in 2002 when I was down in Florida.
I was living in Florida at the time. My daughter was just two weeks old and I was on my way to work. I owned a truckload brokerage firm that was fledgling and growing rapidly and like most entrepreneurs, I was up before the crack of dawn.
And I was heading to work about 6:20 a.m. in the morning when a pair of attempted carjackers decided to make me their target after they couldn’t get into the car off of my front left bumper and they turned their attention toward me.
And luckily that day I was carrying a Glock 36, a compact 45 caliber when I saw this. What was unfolding in the blink of an eye at a traffic light I unsheathed my firearm and used it to point it at the two individuals that began moving towards my direction.
And I never had to pull the trigger. And it was from that point forward that I wrote a column for a magazine about that event. I began writing and I think I was with that magazine for about 14 years.
My writings appeared in other locations. And that naturally turned to the radio in 2009. And Armed American Radio was just a 1-hour show heard inside the perimeter.
If you know anything about Atlanta, that’s inside the 285 beltway that surrounds Atlanta for a 1-hour show when the Salem Radio Network says, look, I think we can move this nationally.
And within four months, the show was on 35 stations and growing. I’m now 200 to 250 stations, something like that. I’ve lost count. And 14 years on the airwaves now fighting for Second Amendment rights.
I’m now a member of the board of directors for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms with Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation.
And it went from there because I became one of those statistics of the 95 percent of Americans who use a firearm to defend themselves and never have to pull the trigger.
And as you know, I think we discussed it last time on the low end of the spectrum, even Obama’s own DOJ found roughly 180,000 of those incidents. The CDC found about half a million-plus.
And of course, the famed Gary Kleck study from the early 90s at the University of Florida found up to 2.5 DGU’s per year of defensive gun uses per year. So I haven’t looked back since.
Gulbransen: By the way, it’s interesting. Maybe you know this off the top of your head, how many states have before we get into all the federal craziness and some of the New York stuff and bitter Don Beyer. But how many states on top of your head have anti-brandishing laws or brandishing restrictions?
Walters: You know, that’s hard to tell. I mean, that’s pretty much I think in every law or every state has that law. You can’t just pull a firearm because you feel threatened.
You have to be threatened. For example, here when this occurred in the state of Florida, Florida has a mandatory three-year jail sentence. The judge has no discretion for aggravated assault with a firearm.
Pulling a firearm and pointing it at someone would obviously be considered aggravated assault. You have to be in fear for your life. I met all of those parameters that day. I had a disparity of force.
There were two individuals coming at me. They were committing a forcible felony at the time and I didn’t hesitate to pull my firearm and I would have used it. Thankfully, I didn’t have to.
Here in the state of Georgia, mere threatening that you have a firearm to someone, for example, just reaching and pretending you have a firearm, even if you don’t, can be considered a threat that can wind you up with aggravated assault.
So you cannot pull a firearm lawfully in any state unless your life is in imminent immediate danger. And all 50 states have those laws to some degree. They vary in punishment and so forth but they all have them.
Gulbransen: And as you know and I’ve been taught this many times in different classes obviously it’s not something you just would it’s not like some of these weird videos you find on TikTok where kids are being idiots waving things around, right?
If you are pulling it out, you have to be willing to use it in order to defend your life or the life of a loved one. So there you go. And that is how responsible gun owners handle things. I knew you were on Twitter and social media rightfully so diatribe on this house action that they passed. Why don’t you tell and I’m calling this not for the children act. Why don’t you tell the public what’s going on with that.
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
