A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep in their arms shall not be infringed.

This is the Second Amendment, and this is the Gun Guy.

Boom boom boom boom bang bang bang bang boom boom boom boom bang bang.

Bo Guy Ralford on ninety three WYBC.

And good afternoon.

I'm welcome to the Gun Guy Show here on ninety three WYDC with thrill that you're with us.

I hope you're enjoying your weekend so far.

Dam I'm really excited about today's show coming up at five point thirty.

I'm going to have a guest that I'm really fascinated to talk to.

And his name is Barry Todd.

And Barry Todd was involved in a real self defense shooting where he was literally defending his life life in Uma, Arizona in twenty fourteen.

And you know, doing what I do for a living, that is defending self defense cases for real clients in real courtrooms.

You know, one thing I see, whether it's on social media or in the general media or wherever it might be, that people have sort of a romanticized view of self defense shootings and a lot of times I think an unrealistic view of what it really means if you get caught up in a self defense scenario where you're called upon necessarily to defend yourself or defend someone else, including with deadly force.

And the reason I spend so much time talking about the reason I spend so much time teaching that area of the law just we could go Today, I was out at Parabellum Firearms out in Avon, and in a five hour course, we spent a good two hours of it talking about the law of self defense and when you're actually allowed under Indiana law and Barry Todd's situation happened in Arizona, and there are certainly differences, and there are certainly similarities between Indiana and Arizona law, but a tremendous overlap.

But in the meantime, the reason I spend so much time talking about that is that, and I always praise it this way in my courses.

The way that self defense works, the way that the justifiable and legal use of force and self defense or defense of a third person, the way that actually works is it takes an act.

And this is exactly the way I start this discussion in my courses.

The law of self defense takes an act, and it could be something like punching someone in the face.

It could be as significant as intentionally killing a person.

I mean, what's the intentional killing of a human being?

That's murder.

That's how Indiana defines murder.

It's the intentional killing of a human being.

If someone kicks on my door in the middle of the night, and they walked through the broken door with a sawd off shotgun in their hands, and I point my pistol at his chest and pull the trigger four times and he dies, was that the intentional killing of a human being?

Well, of course, I pointed my gun loaded with competent self defense ammunition, at center mass center of his chest, and I pulled the trigger four times.

Any reasonable person would expect that person to die under that circumstance.

That was the intentional killing of a human being.

That's the definition of murder.

So why don't I go to prison for murder?

Because the law of self defense says in certain scenarios, in certain situations, if you meet certain tests, then what would otherwise be a criminal act, including the most severe of criminal acts, murder, for which you can get life in prison, or that, under some circumstances, the death penalty, and certainly forty to fifty sixty years in prison.

Here in Indiana, it takes that same act, the intentional killing a human being, and says, no, that's legal and it's justified, and you go home and sleep in your own bed that night.

And that all depends on which side of that self defense line you're on.

Are you on the line that says yes, under that particular set of circumstances, you are legal and justified in intentionally killing a human being.

And if you just fall on the other side of that line where you're not justified, now you're guilty of a very serious crime that can be murder, can be aggravated battery, could be attempted murder if the person doesn't die, and any number of other serious crimes, including reckless homicide, criminal recklessness of the deadly weapon.

It goes on from there, and Barry Todd, gentleman that's gonna join us at five point thirty, was involved in a situation where he had every reason to believe that what he did was absolutely justified in self defense under Arizona law, and in the context that we're going to discuss that issue.

Arizona law is very very similar to Indiana law.

Yet he was still prosecuted.

He was still prosecuted, He was still pursued in a way that very nearly cost him his not only his freedom to the extent he could go to jail for many, many many years, cost him his business which he had built from the ground up, and it still cost him six figures.

It still cost him literally hundreds of thousands of dollars, all because a prosecutor contended that he was on the wrong side of that law under Arizona law in terms of whether what he did was justified or not.

And that's what I do for a living.

I have pending cases right now.

I have a murder case pending right now, and I absolutely will not discuss any specifics on the radio.

But my client's accused him murder and our claim absolutely positively, without question, his self defense.

My client was actually shot during a struggle.

Prosecution says, no, it's not justified self defense, and whether it's self defense or not, because there's not really much dispute over what happened except whether my client was justified in doing what he did.

And again, that's why I'm fascinating and having mister Todd, Barry Todd on the show.

He's going to join us at five thirty, but I'm gonna spend quite a bit of time on the show because we are anticipating that call, and I think what will be a very interesting interview.

I'm gonna spend quite a bit of time talking about the law of self defense and how exactly the law of self defense works.

I'm going to focus around Indiana law, and then we'll talk about how that varies from state to state.

Mister Todd wrote a book, and I read his book.

He was nice enough to send me a copy.

Publicist actually did send me a copy.

In his book is called standrew Ground, One Man's Self Defense Nightmare.

It's got some really good artwork.

I'll tell you right now.

I commend whoever designed this cover because it has us the Lady Justice statue, and you've seen this a million times around courtrooms and other places.

It's a lady kind of looks like the Statue of Liberty, except she's holding up a set of scales and she's got a blindfold on the idea that justice is blind, but as sort of a silhouette, almost a shadow behind her, and you can look us up the books for sale on Amazon.

I've read it for somebody who's interested in self defense and Standard Ground laws in particular.

Is absolutely fascinating to me.

But it's sort of a silhouette, almost a shadow behind Lady Justice on this cover is something that looks unmistakably like the shadow of death.

And it really is good art in the sense that it communicates exactly what it's intended to, which is that if justice gets mischaracterized, if justice gets misapplied, then that can turn into something much much darker and much much more sinister.

And that's exactly what this artwork on the cover of Standard Ground One Man's Self Defense Nightmare portrays and incredibly well, So we'll talk more about that when we come back.

Right now, we're taking a break, but I'm really interested in this, and I really want to take your calls and get your questions and comments about the law of self defense, exactly how self defense works.

A lot of people have a lot of it very profound misunderstandings about the law of self defense.

And I see these things on social media all the time.

For instance, I see p will say, well, all I have to do is say I feared from my life, and that just allows me to do whatever I want to do, whether it's shoot someone or stab someone or run over them with a car or whatever it might be.

Well, I feared for my life, Aha, some magic wand that protects me.

No, that's not how it works.

That's not how any of this works.

But we'll talk more about that and get into the specifics of mister Todd's situation.

Right now, we're taking a break.

We want to invite your calls, as we always do here on the Gun Guy Show.

Give us a call three one seven two three nine ninety three ninety three.

Want the focus here to be, at least on the first part of the show, the law of self defense, house self defense actually operates, and what really gun owners?

If you have a gun on the nightstand, you have a shotgun next to the bed.

Certainly if you carry a gun, have a gun in your vehicle, or any other means of deadly force in your vehicle, even is a means of deadly force.

What you really need to know about the law of self defense.

That's why I teach the classes that I do, That's why I discuss it so much here on the Gun Guy Show.

But we'll talk more a lot about that here throughout the show.

Give us a call.

Three one seven nine ninety three ninety three.

Three one seven two three nine ninety three ninety three, says Guy Ralford on The Gun Guy Show on ninety three WYBC.

Second to none on this second amendment.

This is the Gun Guy with Guy Ralford on ninety three WYBC.

Man, Welcome back on Guy Ralford on The Gun Guy Show on ninety three WIBC.

We're talking about the law of self defense, how self defense cases actually work.

And as I mentioned before the break, the fundamental concept when people need to get their heads around is that the law self defense takes an act, which can include shooting someone killing someone.

I mean, how important, how profound, how life changing can those type of events be.

But it takes that kind of an event depending on whether you're on the side of lawful justification or you're not.

That can literally make the difference between whether you go spend sixty years in prison or whether you're not guilty of any crime and you go home, as I said, and sleep in your own bed.

And that's why it's so incredibly important.

An awful lot of people I think just from reading a lot of posts.

I mean, I'm on a lot of the gun related firearms related, defense related pages or networks platforms, and I think there are a lot of miss understandings about how that law really works.

And I represent clients.

I don't think any currently, but I've certainly represented clients over my forty three years a self defense attorney forty two I guess soon to be forty three where people got caught up in the legal system in part because they had a real misunderstanding of how the self defense works or how the justice system works in that context.

And that's why I'm again excited about the show.

So, first of all, in Indiana, if we're talking about the use of a gun, and again, even though we're going to talk about a specific case that unfolded in Arizona, there are just tremendous overlaps from everything I've read, including mister Barry Todd's book in its entirety, there are a lot of overlaps.

First of all, if there's a gun involved, you know, Indiana has a case that says that merely pointing a loaded gun at someone creates a substantial risk of serious bodily injury.

Do you know what creating a substantial risk of serious bodily injury is?

That's the definition of deadly force.

So there's a Court of Appeals decision if you want to look it up.

It's called nance versus State an antz, And the Court of Appeals in Indiana said, well, yeah, I'm pointing a loaded gun on someone creates a substantial risk of serious bodily injury.

So if you're going to even point a gun at someone, much less pull the trigger, you have to be justified in the use of deadly force.

Well, how many people carrying guns in Indiana?

And this is not a criticism, it's just a rhetorical question.

How many people in Indiana who carry guns, have a gun in the car, have a gun on the night stand next to their bed.

Don't know when exactly it is that they're justified in the use of deadly force, especially in a state where the law is the current state of the law is even pointing your gun at someone in order to be legal means you must be justified in the use of deadly force unless you're a police officer within the legal performance of your official responsibilities.

So you're someone like me, and most of you who are not a cop.

We got to know when we can pull the gun out of the whole store.

We got to know when we can point it at someone, and we certainly need to know when we can pull the trigger.

And how many people do well.

Again, that's why I teach my class.

That's why you hear me plugging the class here so consistently, and it's something that I know there's a profound need for in Indiana.

Let me answer the question here a little bit.

There are four distinct circumstances in which you're justified in using deadly force and self defense or defensive a third person.

And you want to look all this up, it's all spelled out in the statute.

We have a self defense statute.

It's Indiana Code thirty five Dash forty one dash three dash two.

It has a bunch of subsections.

It was all the way through I want to say, sub section K, so a whole bunch of subsections.

It talks about different situations, different scenarios.

But in terms of when you're justified in using deadly force, there are basically four times you can do that.

And again we're talking about Indiana law here, since that's where our immediate audience primarily is although realizing people listen to the podcast from all over and they're a tremendous overlap.

Certainly there are differences, but there's tremendous overlap from state to state.

In Indiana, you can use deadly force first if you reasonably believe, and that reasonable belief is so huge that that force, meaning deadly force, is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to you or a third person.

To prevent serious bodily injury to you or a third person, I believe that subsection C of the statute.

Don't have it in front of me, but I've been teaching it and working with it for a long time.

So serious bodily injury you're preventing to you or a third person.

What also says right in that same section is this says you're justified in using reasonable excuse me, and using reasonable force, including deadly force, if you reasonably believe that force is necessary to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

What's a forcible felony, Well, it's a felony committed through the use or threat of force.

So there are a lot of felonies that are that are that are punishable as felony, and a felony is simply defined as a crime punishable by over one year in prison.

That is, the maximum penalty is over one year.

But there are a lot of felonies that are not forcible felonies.

If there's a guy at the parking garage here at WIBC right now, stealing my car, he's committing a feloning, but it's not a forcible felon.

A felonies is a felony committed through the user threat of force.

He's not threatening anyone, he's not brandishing a weapon at Indy one, He's just in my car trying to steal my car.

That's a felony, but it's not a forcible felon.

What if I'm in my car and a guy walks up next to the window of my car and waves a knife in my face and says, get out of the car.

I'm taking your car.

Well, now that's carjacking.

Is carjacking a forcible felony?

Yes, it's a felony committed through the user threat of force.

It's okay, now we're at two.

We've got you reasonably believe that force, including deadly force, is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to you or a third person.

Can you defend a third person the same way you defend yourself?

Yes, Eli Dickon, who I represented, who stopped the Greenwood Park Mall mass shooting.

The shooter didn't even know Eli was there.

The shooter was was shooting other innocent people all the way across the food court at the Greenwood Park Mall right here south of Indy.

He like drew his gun, shot the bad guy into the threat.

He was protecting others from serious bodily injury.

Justified, You bet one hundred percent.

So I can prevent serious bodily injury to myself or others.

I can prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

Not any felony has to be a forcible felon.

Armed robbery is that a forcible felon?

Yes, he's rape.

Forcible felming.

Of course, the most vile of forcible felonies.

Now goes on.

From there, then we have what we call our castle doctrine.

What's the castle doctrine?

Well, I means youing to defend your home.

The Indiana castle doctrine is broader than just your home.

It says you can use reasonable force, including deadly force, to prevent or terminate very important words, prevent or terminate an unlawful entry into or attack upon your dwelling.

What's you're dwelling, Well, that's where you're living at the time.

Can be permanent or temporary, movable or fixed, meaning could be my hotel room, but that's where I'm living at the time.

Certainly my home, my house, my apartment, it's where I'm living at the time.

Now, Indiana's castle doctrine goes beyond that, talks about kurdledge, which, as I've mentioned her own the show before, is a bit of an unknown we'll go into that right now.

It also includes your you're occupied motor vehicle.

Indiana extends the castle doctrine what you can defend with deadly force to your occupied motor vehicle interesting not germane to the present discussion.

And then the last one, the force scenario is you can use reasonable force, including deadly force to prevent the hijacking of an airplane.

By the way, that law has been on the books long before nine to eleven.

So in Indiana we're talking about Indiana law right now.

Those are the four times you can use deadly force.

But then there are a whole bunch of I started to say peripheral issues, and they're not peripheral, they're central.

They're in critical issues, including if you're cut up in a scenario where you've used force, including deadly force.

And listen, if you shoot someone, it's that deadly forced?

Yes, yes, one hundred percent of the time.

Well what if they don't die, it doesn't matter.

Deadly force in Indiana is defined as forced to create a substantial risk of serious bodily injury, and serious bodily injuries defined very broadly to include force that simply includes extreme pain or unconsciousness or impairing a bodily member or organ quote unquote goes on from there.

It's very broad.

You're shooting someone, I don't care where are you shoot?

Shootman a foot, shoot them in a leg?

Is that deadly forced?

Yes?

So again we're talking about to be justified.

There are specific scenarios, and who has to prove that in a court case.

You get caught up, you shoot someone, you defend your home, you defend your life, you defend yourself from a drunk outside of bar, which is going to be Germane to mister Barry Todd's discussion, we're kind of having join us here in just a bit.

Well, first of all, who has to prove that?

Do you do you have to prove as the person who's potentially accused of a crime, do you have to prove you acted in self defense?

Or does a prosecution the state have to prove you didn't.

That varies by state to state to state to state.

I can say that, and it's critically important.

Burden what's the burden of proof?

Goes on from there.

These are things that self defense attorneys deal with all the time.

Certainly I do as part of my practice.

It all becomes a bit of a quackmire and certainly fascinating to discuss and can determine exactly what we talked about earlier, which is whether you're charged with a crime at all.

If you are charged with a crime, whether you win or you lose, whether you go to trial, whether you can have the case dismissed before trial, whether you're disputing probable cause or otherwise having evidence suppressed, or whether you win in front of the jury.

That's how the progression goes.

But knowing the rules of the game and certainly how they can be used against you many times unjustly.

It's so critical to discussion.

That's why I'm excited about having Barry Todd on the show.

We're going to take a break here.

At the bottom of the hour we come back.

We'll have mister Barry Todd, author of Stand Your Ground, One Man's Self Defense Nightmare.

I read it.

I just read it over the last couple of days.

Fascinating, fascinating book, certainly to end anyone interested in self defense, and me as a self defense attorney, I found it absolutely fascinating and I'm excited to talk to mister Todd.

We'll be right back.

This is Guy Ralford on the Gun Guys Show on ninety three WYBC.

The show about gun rights, gun safety, and responsible gun ownership.

With This is the Gun Guy with Guy Ralford on WYPC.

And welcome back to the Gun Guy Show here on ninety three WYBC.

I thrilled you with us.

Say well, let's get right to the phone lines, and on our VP hotline we have mister Barry Todd.

And I've been talking about mister Todd here for a while.

But first of all, welcome to the Gun Guy Show.

Sir, oh, thank you for having me, guys, I appreciate it absolutely.

So I read your book and was completely fascinated by your story, especially as someone who's trained in self defense for a long time and someone it was an attorney for forty plus years and defense self defense cases completely fascinating to me.

But I just want to start with you're someone who certainly familiar with firearms.

Firearms twenty plus years in the military, including as an army ranger, reaching the rank of captain.

That certainly led you to be extremely comfortable, certainly with your ability to handle a firearm.

Yes, sir, those you know, when you're around firearms your whole life, they become part of you.

They're not They're not something that you're afraid of.

Yeah, exactly.

So twenty fourteen, you're out to an evening of entertainment, including singing a little karaoke And by the way, I tried my Way by Sinatra one time, as you apparently, and I dropped the ball pretty hard on that.

I'm hoping you did a better version of that than I did.

But my wife said that's the only song I could ever say.

Well, I can't.

I can't even sing that one.

But but just to describe what led to the encounter that resulted in you feeling the need to involve a firearm.

What happened?

Just what were the events that evening that caused this whole scenario to unfold?

Well, simply guy the uh for your listeners here, Uh, my wife and I were out with four other retired military couples for dinner, drinks, a little bit of dancing.

We usually linked up about once a month, we all many of us serve together.

And throughout the evening we met this young this young man UH, and he became very aggressive toward the ladies.

He ended up threatening me and my wife.

Than I was viciously attacked not by one man, but two twice, one of them wielding a knife.

And when the police showed up, literally they did zero investigation.

They totally skipped a new process and charged me with attempted murder to count evaggravated assault within five or six hours.

And there were one hundred and sixty hours worth of video camera videos from sixteen different cameras that they never looked at before they charged me.

And we're going to get more into this.

And by the way, I hope you have a little time to spend with us because This is going to take certainly more than one segment to kind of pull all the layers off this onion.

But you were in the bar, things got a little tense with this guy, even threatening inside the bar.

He was making gestures, insinuations towards your wife.

At one point you left the bar.

I believe, just go get some chew, right, some Copenhagen or something like out of your vehicle.

Correct, you left the bar, I sure did.

He threatened me twice in the bar, and both times I told him the same thing.

I am too old to get in a bar room fight.

This is not happening.

Yeah, I would walk away exactly.

So you left to go to your vehicle just to get some chew.

But on the way back, now, suddenly you're confronted by this guy.

And by the way, what in terms of physicality is this guy bigger, younger, stronger?

How's this guy compared to you?

What are you faced with?

Because as I understand it, he was actually preventing you from going back in the bar as you try to re enter to go rejoin your wife.

Oh yeah, the pictures you saw in there.

He towered over me.

He outweighed me by one hundred pounds.

He was about four or five inches taller than me, and both both of the guys were so.

He won't let you back in the bar, and he at one point he said something I won't use his language on the radio, but uh, signify find that he fully planned to spend the rest of evening with your wife and wasn't going to allow you even back in the bar.

Where did it go from there?

At that point?

That's and he had already assaulted me, threw me headfirst into cinderblock wall and punched me.

At that point, when he threatened my wife, I said, be advised, I'm armed.

Now, when you said you're armed, were you carrying a gun at that moment?

No, in Arizona, you don't have to.

I'm sorry, you don't have to what.

You don't have to have the gun on you at that time.

I understood.

So what happened then you said, be advised, I am armed, even though you didn't actually have a gun in your immediate possession.

What happened?

Correct?

He said, go get your fing gun, and I said okay, and I proceeded to walk the forty forty five feet to my vehicle, secured my firearm just the way the laws of Arizona teach you to do when you go through their CCW training.

I had it down at my side when I went to re enter the establishment.

He was standing off to the right, right along the edge of the door, and I stopped short because not only would my CCW training, but more so of my military training.

You never crossed a danger area exposing your back to somebody that's already attacked you or that is threatening you.

That's the worst thing in the world.

You do.

Exactly.

So, you got your gun in your hand sort of down or along your leg, correct, on my right leg, Okay, And so what happened Then.

I stopped short of him.

I pointed at him, and I said, I'm going in there getting my wife and my belongings, and I'm leaving.

Before I could even get my arm down, he attacked me.

So he essentially he said, damn the torpedoes to your gun, right, didn't much care that you had a gun.

I'm assuming there were some alcohol involved at this point.

Well, he says he couldn't remember any thing that he blacked out.

Oh so blackout dracts was the only statement yet he was blackout drunk, he said the last thing he remembers was playing darks.

Well, if you watch all the videos, he stopped playing darts about forty five minutes before he attacked me.

Wow.

Wow, So he attacked you and he's got a buddy there outside the bar with him apparently true too, right, and it actually attacks you, including with a knife, correct, So what happened?

And he even admitted to the police that he had a knife, but he was never charged.

And that's because the police never looked at the videos.

So all you wanted to do was get back in the bar, rejoin your wife.

You're obviously concerned about your wife.

She's been threatened by this huge, drunk guy.

You're now in what a fight for your life outside the bar?

Correct?

Yes?

At that point, yes, When he attacked me the second time, he fell into the doorway and as I came up off of him his buddy, I fell forward on him my left and he was trying to grab hold of my gun hand and finally he let go.

And then when I started to come up, thinking it was over with his buddy with a knife attacked me from behind and pulled me down, and then he jumped me right back on top of me.

So that now they're trying to get the gun from me.

Okay, so you're fighting for the gun.

What then happens?

Well, he wasn't very smart.

I mean, the guy was really dumb.

He had my forearm and he was squeezing it with all his strength.

He actually broke my arm.

He squosed it.

He squeezed it so hard a caused a what do they call that a hairline fracture?

He actually broke the bones in my right forearm.

And I just finally looked at him, because at that point I knew I wasn't gonna let him.

Let them have gun.

This guy's got a knife.

I'm like, I just looked at him, dead in his eyes.

I said this is going to suck for both.

Of us, and literally said that out loud.

Yes, his nose was literally two inches from mine when I said that to him.

And then what happened?

And then he when he took the three fifty seven round and his stomach came out of his shoulder.

He stood up, and then he staggered away and fell down in the middle of a parking lot.

Well, I'll tell you what, Barry.

Let's if you don't mind, and I hope you have more time because we are not grazing the surface on this.

I need to take a break.

We're going to come back for a short segment.

I really would like to keep you for a while because one, I want to get into the details of your book and where people can find this entire story, but also I want to talk about the entire legal battle.

I really hope you have some more time to stick with us here this evening.

I do I can give you, how's about thirty or forty up to thirty or forty five minutes.

I'll tell you what.

It's going to be the best thirty or forty five minutes we've had here on The Gun Guy Show for a long damn time.

So I'll tell you what.

Let's take a break right now.

We'll be right back with Barry Todd, author of standrew Ground, one Man's Self Defense Nightmare, when we come back here on The Gun Guy Show on ninety three WYBC.

Your rights, your responsibilities, and your guns.

This is the Gun Guy with Guy Ralford, ninety three WYDC.

That's Guy Ralford on The Gun Guy Show on ninety three WIBC.

So Guy here on a VIP hotline.

We've got Barry Todd who's involved in a self defense shooting you Arizona twenty fourteen.

So, Barry, you've just pulled the trigger.

The guy who'd been attacking you is now hurt.

Stood up, but then keels over.

You're hurt.

You've got a broken forearm and various other last rations, contusions and injuries from having struggled with this big, huge, drunk idiot.

Well what happens then?

That's when my friends actually heard what was going on outside, and they all rushed out, and uh the uh the bouncer at that point was trying to take charge.

He wasn't really a bouncer, more of a I D.

Car checker.

He tells him to take My wife tells me go ahead and let go of the gun.

I'm here, my friends were there.

We let the I let go of the gun.

The bouncer uh uh had somebody take it over unloaded.

Then the police.

I stood up.

She goes what happened?

I said, he wouldn't stop attacking.

Me, and very and forgive me.

We we've got to go to break to the top of the I was way late getting into this, but we're gonna we have to take a break here the top of the hour and get some advertising in.

When you come back after this break to the top of the hour, I want to talk about when you first had any doubt that you were completely legally justified and that there was even a possibility you were actually going to be prosecuted for having clearly defended yourself with your firearm.

And thanks so much for your patience for sticking around right now we got to go into a break top of the hour.

Guy Ralford on The Gun Guy Show on ninety three WYBC.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep in their arms shall not be infringed.

This is the Second Amendment, and this is the Gun Guy.

Boom boom boom boom bang bang bang bang boom boom boom, boom bang.

Bang bo Guy Ralford on ninety three WYBC, and welcome back.

For hour number two of the Gun Guys showed here on ninety three WYBC.

I got to tell you that's going to be the longest break at the top of an hour that we've ever been through here in the ten years I've been doing a Gun Guys show, because we haven't even graised the surface of the story of Barry Todd, author of standrew Ground One Man's self defense Nightmare.

And all I wanted to do is get it at a substance.

And like I said, we've just barely touched on it.

But Barry's on the line.

And so, just to recount for anybody just joining us, violent encounter.

A huge, drunk, aggressive person is trying to prevent Barry from just re entering the restaurant where you've just been in the evening with his family, his his wife and friends, threatens him, attacks him.

Burry at one point gets his gun from the vehicle, comes back.

There's a struggle over the gun, and the shot has discharged Barry's attacker.

And by the way, another guy joined the like with a knife, also attacking Barry, broke Barry's arm, caused various other injuries.

Now the bad guy is down and Barry.

I hope I that's a brief summary, But I hope I did that accurately.

What happens next?

When's the first indication that you thought you might actually have an illegal jeopardy arising from out of this?

Well?

I knew the law well enough that I knew I was going to have to go down and be questioned, so I didn't really think anything of it.

They did handcuff me immediately.

They put me in the back of a patrol car.

Then they took me down and put me in an interview room.

Everybody was very pleasant and it wasn't no big deal.

But then when I started realizing there was going to be trouble was after the second interview.

At first, I wasn't going to say anything because that's what everybody says to do.

But whenever I had talked to the police before, you know, if you knew you were in the right, you know they usually reasonable people.

Well, let's talk about that, because reading your book, at one point you very specifically said, listen, I'm not saying anything.

This is to the police without my attorney president And they said, okay, interview's over.

You thought about that for a while, and then you said, now tell you what.

I've got a clear story to tell and then decided to make a statement without an attorney present.

Is that the way that went?

Yeah, because I knew the self defense laws.

I've been trained in Arizona.

I've been with my wife and I during that time period.

We practice all the time, and we'd go to other take additional training, and I knew the laws.

And now, unfortunately, what we didn't find out till much later was the police and the prosecutors didn't know the newer Arizona laws that have been passed in the past over the past decade prior to my shooting.

Which you actually know more about than they did because of your CCW class.

Correct.

Correct.

As a matter of fact, I even knew more than my attorney did.

Yeah, well, I want to talk about that too, because that hit me like a ton of bricks when I read that in your book.

But I want to talk about I want to focus on that because I teach a class on the legal issues around the use of force and self defense.

I've been teaching it for a long long time, and I actually have a slide that I put up and it says aftermath, and then the slide after that says, I'd be willing to cooperate fully and give you a complete statement after my attorney is present and I've had a chance to calm down, and people will challenge me on that and say, hold on, if I didn't do anything wrong, why should I be concerned about telling the police what happened?

Because I know I'm in the right.

I know what I did was legal.

Looking back, where you first said nope, I'm not going to say anything without my attorney president, then you made a decision to make a statement.

Is there anything about that you do differently today?

I probably wouldn't have made a statement, but I don't think it would have mattered anyway.

Okay, but you think because the prosecutors were going to end up charging you anyway.

Well, the police made the decision that night.

And as you read and when you read the book from the preliminary hearing, the police officer, the lead detective, finally admitted to it.

After months, actually two years of saying no, he did not have any predetermined notion.

My attorney, being a brilliant man he was finally backed him into the corner and got him to admit on the stand that yes he did.

Okay, so let's let's and I kind of jumped into the one issue about making a statement or not just because it's something that I teach.

But so the police made the decision to write this up essentially and to initiate charges against you.

And what happened from that point going forward?

Do you want to know about that night when they charged me, yeah, or do you want me to go forward?

What happened?

So when did you realize you were actually being charge with the crome?

Well, so I went back into the interview and we sat down.

I told him everything that happened, and then he walked out.

They brought me a cup of coffee and he walked out.

He came back in probably ten fifteen minutes later.

He said, read this and sign it.

And I said, I shared with you earlier, Detective, I don't have my glasses on me.

What is it?

He says, it's a chart sheet and I said a chart sheet for what?

And that's when he said attempted murder to count evaggerated assault, And I said, I told you of everything.

I told you it was strictly self defense.

His exact words to me were, we have the whole thing on video.

I said, great, have you looked at the video?

And his exact words back to me were not yet.

And charges and they haven't even looked at the video yet?

Yeah, exactly.

And I looked at him, and my old ranger instructor days from the nineteen eighties came out and I proceeded to literally verbally abuse his lack of intelligence.

Yeah, I imagine there were a couple of f bombs in there somewhere.

There were.

Yeah.

I started it out was, Oh, you're a real intelligent life form.

The oxygen is just flowing to your brain and it just continued to flow from there.

And listen and we can chuckle about that.

But this is the beginning of what a two year nightmare.

Yeah, twenty six months and seventeen days.

Yeah.

And so just on the criminal side, yeah, well exactly, and we'll talk more about that too.

So you're charged with a crime, and as you found out later, the whole matter was actually submitted to a grand jury there in Arizona.

Correct, Yeah, sure was six days after the incident.

It was submitted to a grand jury.

And again they never showed the video.

They at that point, they hadn't even reviewed the video.

And people need to understand, And I explained this to people all the time, and I've had many cases over the four decades i've been an attorney where the grand jury is involved.

People don't understand that the grand jury only hears one side of the story.

Now, the prosecutors, under some ethical responsibilities, are supposed to present both evidence of guilt as well as evidence suggesting innocence.

But prosecutors don't generally do that in my experience.

They tend to present a completely one sided story, and the grand jury then they don't decide guilt or innocence, but they decide whether there was probable cause to pursue criminal charges against you.

And that became a real focus of your case, didn't it.

Oh?

It did.

It became the total focus of it.

It was unbelievable, and you hit the nail on the head guy.

The people don't realize that a prosecutor, when he first takes up a case, before he takes it to a grand jury.

Technically the legal term for it of his title is called minister of justice.

All right, that's supposed to be his title.

He's supposed to be wearing an entirely different hat than the prosecutor hat.

He's supposed to look at all the evidence, present all the evidence to the grand jury fully whether it whether it exonerates the potential person to be charged, or whether or not done.

And he's supposed to present everything and then let the chips fall where they may.

What we and that's why my attorney, the brilliant man, he was he passed away in at the end of twenty twenty three, but he was the number two chair on the Miranda rights case that went through the Supreme Court.

Brilliant man, Michael Kimmer.

And he goes, well, Berry, our goal is to not Ford to go to trial.

So they didn't we know they had the videos, they didn't show it.

So the first thing we're going to do is say send it back to the grand jury.

And so he did that and it worked, and so the prosecution because he didn't even show he didn't even present all any He presents the basic affirmative defense self defense law.

And I don't know if your listeners know the difference.

I heard you talking earlier, the difference between affirmative defense and justification defense.

Yeah, I was saying.

One of the preliminary issues in self defense, always depending on jurisdiction you're in, is who has the burden of proof?

In other words, is it an affirmative defense where the defendant has to a person being investigated has to prove they did act in self defense, or is it a matter of what we call the state's prima fagere case, meaning they have to prove you didn't act in self defense.

And that's fundamentally important.

And you actually on that point, because you've been through your CCW class, actually had to educate your own attorney on that.

Oh exactly, I did because the law that changed ten years earlier before my case happened, the actual in Arizona.

For your listeners, this is now a justification defense state.

The moment anybody who had to use a weapon in any type of incident, if the moment they say it was self defense by Arizona law, they're not supposed to charge you.

They are supposed to prove that.

They're not supposed to charge you until the prosecution proves that it wasn't self defense.

In terms of the grand jury in this case making that determination correct.

Yes, they're not exactly they're not even supposed to charge you.

Because what you're saying when you call it, when you do that for your listeners, you're saying, yes, I did shoot him.

You're not denying that you didn't shoot the person.

What you're doing, though, is saying I was justified in accordance with the laws of the state of Arizona in my case.

Yeah, and listen, Barry, we have to take one more break.

Can you can you come back with for one more segment, because there's so much more I want to talk to you about I so much.

I appreciate you indulging us with your time, and.

I want to plug my book real quick before you let me go and groundbook dot com.

You can get it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Durrance Publishing.

Absolutely, but I want you to come back for one more segment if you have the time, because I really had more to talk to you about.

All right, and we'll talk again about where people can find your book.

Right now, we're taking a quick break, and says Guy Ralford on The Gun Guy Show on ninety three WIBC.

Now you've got a gun guy Guy Reldrick WYPC.

And welcome back.

We're back with Barry Todd, author of Stan Ground one Man's Self Defense Nightmare.

So Barry, okay, So the prosecutor submits a completely one sided version of the case to the grand jury and doesn't even show that.

This is mind boggling to me as a defense attorney, that they would submit grand jury evidence and not even give them the video of the shooting.

Oh yeah, it just blew our minds much much less the video of everything going on in the bar, including this guy confronting you, threatening you verbally and physically assaulting you, all before the actual events that led to him getting shot.

How's the grand jury supposed to make a decision on probable cause without seeing both sides of the story?

Correct?

That's exactly right, and that's why the first time he agreed to it.

And we even took the videos that we received from the police and turned them over to one of the FBI's tops video forensics experts, Brian Newmeister.

He took all the cameras that referenced of the sixteen, there were four of them that picked up the entire incident inside and outside the establishment, and he went ahead and ran them and spliced them together like a movie.

It's unbelievable.

And we gave that to him before the second grand jury, the prosecutor.

Yeah, we gave it to the prosecutor before the second grand jury, and he still didn't show at all.

And at this point you have to wonder, I mean, yeah, this guy's role in the grand jury proceeding is supposed to be the Minister of Justice, right, yep.

Obviously he was acting as anything, But what do you think what do you think the agenda was here?

Do you think this guy just has political ambitions and he thought it would help him to try to put you in jail, or what do you think the motivation was.

Well, whenever you take somebody and you you before where you've looked at the most important evidence, and you plaster them all over the Southwestern United States newspapers and everything else, some crazy retired ranger comes into a bar and shoots a guy in the head.

I mean, it was it was horrible.

I mean they don't want to let it go because they didn't have egg on their face, but that's exactly what happened.

And you know the role of a prosecutor, and I've heard many many prosecutors over a lot of years say this in open court that listen, my job is just not to prove guilt.

My job is resent truth and throughout the whole judicial proceeding.

And that's supposed to give them an air of credibility.

But that's only if it's true, and that's only if they act this way.

And the thing that struck me that the two things that just leapt out of me as someone who's done this for a long time, is when when a you, because you'd learned Arizona law through your your concealed carry class, had to update your lawyer on who actually had the burden of proof of proving or disproving self defense.

But the second one was, and this just screamed at me, when when you your lawyer and the prosecutor are arguing over what should or shouldn't have been presented to the grand jury, and the prosecutor actually said it came out of his mouth over his lips.

He said, I don't care what the law says.

That's correct.

And we got that on We got that on an actual recording.

How you're supposed to be the minister of truth, minister of justice if you don't actually care what the controlling law of the jurisdiction says.

That That hit me like a ton of bricks.

Oh yeah, and that's what one of the people that was in the room even wrote an Affidavid saying that's what he heard.

Even then we had it on the recording.

It's unbelievable.

It is.

He told my attorney, I don't care if he was following the law, he could have come back with a gun up is but yeah.

Yeah, right, no, I remember that so how much, and listen, it always breaks my heart.

And I'll be talking to my own clients and I'll say, listen, this is such an incredibly unfair process because the rest of us, the whole criminal justice system, prosecutors, grandeurors, maybe a criminal jury at some point if it goes to trial, your defense team, your investigators, everybody else has weeks, months, years to dissect everything that happened in the matter of a few minutes.

And you had to make instantaneous decisions, sometimes in a millisecond, including whether to pull a trigger or not.

And it's so unfair because everyone, everybody else gets to analyze this in retrospect with the benefit of hindsight.

You had to make the decision in an instant and realizing that of course, looking back on it, for instance, how big of a deal was it.

How big of a deal did the prosecutor make it that when you you left the bar the first time, you didn't have your gun in your immediate possession, then having a confrontation with this drunken, huge idiot at the entrance to the bar where you just tried to go in and rejoin your wife, that you actually then went to your vehicle and retrieved your gun and came back.

Did the prosecutor make them off?

Did he make a big deal out of that?

Oh yeah, he sure did.

He hated that he could have he could have walked down the road.

Well, that walk would have been a quarter to a half a mile on a dirt road or or a two lane road with no sidewalks, forty five miles an hour, no street lights, to a gas station way down there to call my wife because my cell phone and everything was inside my wallet.

And also my wife was a dd that night.

She wasn't drinking right, And that's that's how we operate a lot of times.

So that was it was just it's abhorred.

How you the whole system has been turned upside down, And to be honest with the guy, I think it's happened over the past forty fifty years.

I'll tell you a story.

In nineteen sixty six, my brother was eight years old.

His dad woke him up at two o'clock in the morning outside Fort Bragg, North Carolina, said come out here on the porch, and there it was a dead guy on the porch there, and I had a big bullet hole in his chest and he said, grab that hose over there and wash the blood off the porch.

Griff comes up the driveway, walks up on the porch and goes, what do we have here?

And Ralph's dad said to him, goes, hey, ask him and pointed to the dead band.

He goes, I can't, he's dead.

He goes, exactly.

So everything I want to tell you that's happened is what happened.

Don't try to add anything to it or create a crime that doesn't exist.

That man was breaking into my house.

I have my seven children and my wife in here, and I put two holes in his chest.

Any questions and that was the end of that.

That was the end of it.

But you do that nowadays, and all of a sudden they have all this stuff, and then they put you through this ringer called pre trial services.

You love this one guy, pre trial services for your listeners out there.

That's probation.

Okay.

They took away my guns, they took away my alcohol.

Being convicted of anything, this is all pending with your case pending.

Never been convicted of anything in my life in a criminal trial, and no felony is nothing.

And outside of some traffic tickets, they turn around and I have to get permission to travel.

I'm the CEO of a national company.

My wife owned a real estate business, and so I couldn't do anything.

I had to ask permission to go to my father's eightieth birthday, unbelievable.

And I had to ask permission to go to my own daughter's wedding.

So and then they turn around and they put you on a every thirty days, they want to check out, give you an unannounced your analysis and blood test.

What.

I'm not a druggie.

I've never had these issues.

And then the biggest thing is you got to go in every two weeks and have sit in front of some new probation officer to the probation office and they give you the newest guy and he tries to cycle analyze you.

I'm a decorated disabled veteran, I own a national company, all right, I've seen things that could make a billy goat fuke, And You're going to come in here and try to cycle analyze me to see how I'm doing.

It's absurd.

And I want to reemphasize this is while your case is spending, you haven't been convicted of anything.

They're treating you like you're on probation after conviction for a serious crime.

Well listen, lets so you had, even though you had to do some education or early on, you had obviously a very very good attorney.

And he ends up actually being able to challenge the grand jury's determination of probable cause and what's called a preliminary hearing, and that it's a little different procedure than we have here in Indiana, but out there in Arizona, and it was able to get the judge to make an independent determination of probable cause.

That it's huge because that would if you win on this would result the dismissal of the charges and you don't have to actually go to trial where you're the remainder of your life is in the hands of six or twelve people who are going to determine guild or innocence, and the judge, by the grace of God and through good lawyering, and because it was true and substantiated by video and all the other evidence, judge determines there never should have been a determination of probable cause and dismisses the case against you.

So that's the happy part, correct, Yeah, it is.

But going back to that, the whole point of the matter is that the judge literally after the third grand jury, he got so frustrated with the prosecutor not showing the videos to the grand juries, he actually went and looked at the video and made a finding of fact in a case before it ever went to trial.

Wow.

And my attorney, who was, as I shared earlier, Michael Kimer at that point, had fifty years of a criminal defense experience.

He said to me, Barry, he goes, in my fifty years are practicing law, I've never seen a judge do that.

He goes.

That was unbelievable.

And let me ask you, have you ever seen a judge make a finding a fact before the case goes to trial.

No, no, not less as a proceeding that specifically allows him to do so, which that didn't do.

So no, I agree with that completely.

Well, listen, and I don't want to ask any too personal information here, but you won.

That's the great news.

And you made some allusions to this in your book.

I mean, just the retainer for your attorney was one hundred thousand dollars.

You had to spend ten thousand dollars on a retainer for your investigator that you had in this case, which yielded great benefits.

But if you're comfortable answering this question, you were innocent, Jessea Truman.

You should have never even been charged because there was no probable cost because the prosecution couldn't rebut your claim of self defense with any competent evidence.

But you still spent what a couple hundred thousand.

Dollars closer to four hundred thousand on the personal side, and then through my business.

It took me another quarter from Meion to clear my name because see, folks, let me your listeners out there, you are guilty until proven innocent.

I'm own a national financial advisory firm that the moment I was arrested, it went on every single disclosure for every business associate, for every client or everything.

It didn't have anything to do with my with my business, but it had to go on there.

And even after I was and it never went to trial, the case was dismissed, I had to keep it on there just the fact that I was charged.

It took me another five years to get the record sealed, get it off the FBI databases and all the other police databases throughout the country, because you have to do those individually.

That's just not a one happenstats and that takes time, and you have to get a judge to order it, to seal the record, and then to get it off of all those disclosures.

It was an absolute nightmare, especially when you have people like the State of Florida.

State of Florida, because we were licensed in Florida, says, yeah, we want you to go down to the court and get us a copy of every single court document in your case certified.

All right, let me tell you something.

It costs like four dollars per page of certification and we had over twenty five hundred gigabytes.

Really, the amount of dollars that we spent on this is astronomical.

And the lessons I learned.

Number One, know the laws in the state where you're carrying, and my wife and I were licensed in about forty one states, and as soon as you cross there, get an app on your phone so you know it.

Number two, carry the insurance, carry good self defense insurance.

Number three, don't talk to the police.

Don't give it to them.

I don't think it really hurt me.

But then again, just follow what the lawyers tell you.

You don't say nothing without your lawyer.

There and then number four, and this is the most important.

Remember the attorneys, the private eyes, the expert witnesses, they work for you, all right.

You're the one right in the check no matter you know, they're going to give you their opinion that you do not always have to take it, and you have to check their work and hold them accountable.

And if they have a problem with that, then you probably need to fire them in the first place.

I love that as somebody who could be fired if somebody follows that advice.

I still love that advice because I'm one to stand behind my representation of any client, and any competent lawyer is going to feel the same way.

So I love that, absolutely, absolutely love that advice.

I'll tell you what, Barry, We've gone way past the bottom of the hour.

Where can people find your book?

I read it, I was fascinated by it, and I'm somebody who does this for a living, both on the training on self defense as well as as a criminal defense attorney who handle self defense cases.

It was fascinating to me as a quick read.

I loved every minute of reading it.

Where can people find it?

All right?

They can go to our website Stand Your Groundbook Dot com and on there you can go to you can order it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Dorms Publishing and folks out there, this money's not going back into my pocket.

All the proceeds are going into foundation that my wife and my legal team and some other law enforcement experts have helped us establish so we can help others who don't have the money.

I was blessed because my wife and I have been blessed by our Lord Jesus with gifts and being financially successful.

I was blessed in that way.

But how many people aren't out there?

Are not?

I know tons of people across the country that aren't, and nobody wants to come in and help them with those resources to be able to have them.

Yeah, they want to all help them afterwards after they found the evidence, so that way they consume and get a lot of money, but not a lot of them want to just come in and say, Okay, we're going to give money to your defense team.

Quick question before we let you go.

Were there any repercussions to this prosecutor?

Was this the pross we're ever disciplined in any way?

No, and obviously that should have happened Lastly, I lied one more question.

We have a concerned about this person who was shot after attacking you, and you justifiably shot him.

Any worries about him suing you for civil damages?

For the interest?

So he did?

Oh he did?

Oh he did five weeks after he was in the hospital.

I didn't get into that in the book because I wanted to focus on the criminal.

I think he did.

Oh he dropped the lawsuit.

But that's why you carry your homeowner's insurance, an auto insurance, or carry insurance.

Yeah, you remember, folks out there.

I own a national financial advisory firm.

Your home covers you anywhere in the world for anything that you do except operating a vehicle.

And that's when your auto insurance comes in.

And if you want additional liability coverage like I had, I had an umbrella that takes the liability for my owners of my homeowners of my auto and takes it above that I got you.

Listen, we need to leave it there, sir.

I took way more of your time than I said I would, but this is a fascinating story.

I absolutely commend your book to people.

It's called Standred Ground.

One Man Self Defense Nightmare author Barry Todd findal on Amazon, finding it at standred Ground, the website that Barry mentioned.

Right now, I gotta let you go.

Thank you, sir so much for sharing your story with us here on The Gun Guy Show.

God bless you and have a great weekend you too, sir.

Right now we're taking a break.

Guy Ralford on The Gun Guy Show on ninety three WYBC.

He's a Second Amendment Attorney, he's an NRA A certified Firearms instructor.

He's the Gun Guy.

Guy Ralford on ninety three WYPC.

And welcome look back.

Thanks so much to Barry Todd, a retired Army ranger and author of the book standrew Ground, One Man's Self Defense Nightmare.

We mentioned this during our segments, but where you can find that go to Stand your groundbook dot com.

Just Stand your Ground book dot com.

I've read it and the interview we did, and we went longer than I necessarily planned, and we still barely scratch the surface of what a nightmare this was for this gentleman.

And it's near and dear to my heart because of how long I've been involved in self defense and training self defense but also defending people.

This was a travesty, but not.

I can't say it's rare.

I can't say that it's anything.

Well, I can't say it's rare.

Let me praise it that way.

I mean, I see miscarriages all the time.

There are prosecutors out there who don't understand the law.

There are prosecutors who, apparently, as his felt, don't care.

Literally said where there were witnesses, I heard him say it.

A prosecutor said I don't care what the law says and wanted to put the gentleman in prison even though the law of the State of Arizona said he was not guilty.

I'll tell you what we need to go ahead and get right back into a break.

It says, of how long I went on that segment again, it's stand your ground book dot com.

Check that out.

We'll come back.

We'll wrap up this edition of The Gun Guy Show.

If you're on hold, forgive me, please call back next week.

We went so long with mister Todd's interview that we're not going to have time to go to the phone lines when we come back.

But I'll wrap up this segment with some additional thoughts on the lessons learned from Barry Todd's experience.

Right now, we're taking a break.

Guy Ralford on The Gun Guy Show on ninety three WYBC.

He's a Second Amendment attorney, he's an NRA certified firearms instructor.

He's this gun guy, the guy l FORYPC and welcome back.

I'll tell you thanks again to Barry Todd who joined us.

That's right in my wheelhouse here.

That's it's right dead center of what we find important, what we think it's critical to communicate on here on The Gun Guy Show, and his story is just so important.

One word about insurance.

Mister Todd talked about having an umbrella policy through his business to protect him, protected him against different layers of liability.

I will tell you that most homeowners insurance, which he mentioned, does not cover you for any quote unquote intentional act.

And if you're accused of a crime, and it's actually there are limitations and virtually every state prohibits insurance companies, including homeowners insurance companies, from insuring against criminal acts.

So if you're accused of a crime, there are an awful lot of homeowners and insurance policies out there.

They will either say, well, that was an intentional act, which is excluded, or it was a criminal act, which is excluded, and you don't have any coverage.

Now it sounded like things may have worked out a little better on that issue, but insurance is a contract.

Insurance covers what the contract says it covers, and in my experience, if there's a self defense scenario that unfolds on your property, then you have an argument it's covered, but you'll get it a what's called a reservation of rights letter that says, well, if ultimately it is determined that what you did was a intentional and be not justified, then you're not covered for that in terms of your expenses, your attorney's fees, expert witnesses, all that kinds of things.

So that's one of the reasons, for instance, that I have separate carry insurance and mine is through USCCA.

There are several other programs out there that specifically designed to cover you, whether you're accused of a crime or whether it's civil liability that is a private suit.

And you heard Barry Todd say it was one of the last questions I asked him, did this guy actually think about sooning you?

He said, oh, he did.

You know, days are barely weeks after the incident, this guy filed a civil lawsuits.

So now you've got to worry about going to prison.

You also got to get worried about losing millions of dollars in a civil lawsuit.

That's why I like insurance that covers both of those.

Now, I mean full disclosure.

USCACA several years ago hired me to teach their self defense seminars.

They paid me a little bit of money, not very much, and haven't done so in gosh, probably three or four years now.

But I did have that financial relationship there at one point, so I want to disclose that to you so he can take that for what it's worth.

But since then, I just pay them money every month.

It's not much, It's like twenty five bucks a month.

But I have insurance that covers me if I use my gun or otherwise defend myself or defend another person and to he get either prosecuted or suit.

So and again I'm not necessarily pitching USCCA.

You can decide for yourself.

There are many other programs.

There are programs like US Law Shield and Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network and First Call Defense.

There are several others, So make your own decision on that.

But it really did strike me as I read Barry Todd's book that one of the primary lessons.

You know, I see people out there on the internet, on the gun related forums, and everybody, everybody you know, wants to be rambo.

Everybody wants to be a tough guy or girl, and and a lot of times people seem very cavalier, even enthusiastic about using their gun or using force, or defending themselves with deadly force.

And let me tell you, every person I've defended a lot over the years, many many people, including many of I'm represented, several I'm representing right now, and every one of them will tell you it's something that they would avoid if they had it to do over again, that they simply wouldn't have gone there.

Now, does that mean you shouldn't defend yourself if it's warranted.

Absolutely not.

I carry a gun every day.

Why do I carry my gun because I think I might have to use it if I have to save my own life, save another innocent life, save one certainly my family.

Oh hell yeah, I'm going there, and I'll do it without reservation.

At the same time, if it's possible to avoid it, boy, I'll tell you that's a lesson that comes out over and over again in these stories.

But right now we're coming to the end of the show.

Hope you enjoyed it, Thanks again to Barry Todd.

We'll be back next week.

And remember I always shoot straight and always be saving.

This is Guy Ralford on The Gun Guy Show on ninety three to WYBC.