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April 27, 2023 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
47:15
Top Shot champion Chris Cheng and Mike Adams talk Second Amendment, gun control and...
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Welcome to Brighteon.com.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighteon, and as you know, I am a pro-Second Amendment individual living in Texas.
I practice concealed carry and many thousands of hours of target shooting and training and so on, drills.
Most of those are drills hours, actually.
And today we're joined by a very accomplished marksman, a shooter, well, more than just a shooter.
His name is Chris Chang, and he was the season four champion of of Top Shot, which is a very popular show on History Channel.
His website is TopShotChris.com.
He lives in San Francisco, which is, of course, not a gun-friendly jurisdiction, and he joins us today to talk about firearms and so much more.
Chris, welcome to the show.
It's great to have you on.
Thanks for having me on, and I'm excited to chat about guns and the Second Amendment with you.
That's awesome.
I really appreciate you coming on.
You're from the tech industry, and you live in San Francisco, so you're not the typical person that people associate with being a gun owner, but tell us about your experience.
Clearly, you're not the only one in California that is an accomplished firearms expert.
What's it like being there and also being a pro-Second Amendment accomplished shooter?
Yeah, you know, California, obviously, we get a really bad rap.
Sometimes it's well deserved.
You know, we have the most gun control laws on the books in the country, right?
And yet, none of these gun control laws, you know, do anything meaningful to reduce crime.
They negatively and disproportionately impact regular law-abiding citizens like me and the 58 million other California residents.
But, you know, one thing that you may not know is that California has the most the highest number of sales in firearms and firearms related accessories, according to the firearms industry.
Yeah.
So, you know, there are so many gun owners here in California.
We're spending so much money on firearms, firearms, accessories, right, going to the range, et cetera, et cetera.
And what I found here, especially in San Francisco, is this notion of the closeted gun owner.
I'm very open about being a gun owner, but there are so many gun owners here in San Francisco where they're afraid to be out as a gun owner.
They won't mention their guns to their friends or their family or their colleagues.
One of my friends, he lives in Haight-Ashbury, which is historically known as the hippie district here in San Francisco, the liberal mecca back in the heyday of the 70s.
And we walk into his apartment, and there are hunting rifles and taxidermy All over his San Francisco apartment.
It's super impressive.
But yeah, so you know, California, and we have some of the best shooters in the world here.
Taron Butler, who trained Keanu Reeves and Holly Berry in the whole John Wick series, and he's based in Los Angeles.
That's right.
And yeah, one of the top, he's one of the top We have the top three shooters in the world, at least for three-gun.
And then Keith Garcia, another top world-ranked three-gun shooter right here in my backyard in the Bay Area.
And we have plenty of other top-tier world-class shooters as well.
So the shooting sports are very, very healthy here in the Bay Area.
We're definitely under attack, though.
We've had lots of ranges that have been shut down by not just San Francisco politicians, but other politicians throughout the Bay Area.
And so this is a constant battle, not just for our Second Amendment rights, but just for the simple act of keeping gun shops and gun ranges open.
Yeah, no kidding.
And by the way, we're having this interview right after Governor Inslee of Washington signed a law outlawing AR-15s and AK-47s and so-called assault rifles, which they can't really define.
They are...
As of right now, illegal to buy or sell or transfer in any way whatsoever.
It's not illegal to still have one, apparently.
But the gun crackdown is accelerating across the entire West Coast, and a lot of people are very concerned.
But before I get into more questions for you about, I want to ask you about concealed carry and things like that.
But can you give us a little more background of your accomplishments?
Because you, as I understand it, You were not trained, you know, you don't come out of law enforcement or military, correct?
Correct.
No, I'm a regular civilian.
Okay, so how did you learn to shoot?
And then how did you learn to shoot so well?
And even tell us about, I mean, you're the champion of season four, right?
Of Top Shot, correct?
Yeah, my father taught me how to shoot at the age of six, and I grew up in Southern California.
And this was a time in the 80s and 90s where gun ownership was not very common, or at least we didn't know many other gun owners in Orange County.
I think there was very much a closeted gun ownership mentality in Southern California.
But I didn't shoot very often.
Growing up.
You know, this was a hobby, an infrequent hobby, where my father and I, every three to four years, go to the range for an hour or two, punch some holes in paper.
And it's all just the basics, right?
Safe firearms handling, you know, nothing fancy.
But...
When the show called Top Shot on the History Channel started airing back in 2008, 2009, it's this incredible show.
It's a variety of weapons and challenges.
It's like Disneyland for adults with guns.
I mean, you're just seeing these incredible challenges that exist nowhere else in the world.
Average guy, just, you know, got my job at Google, watching this show Top Shot every week.
And, you know, this silly idea popped into my head around, wouldn't it be so fun to be on my favorite TV show?
At that time, I owned two guns, and I was competing locally, but not doing very well, not winning any kind of awards or anything.
But fast forward to when I got accepted onto the show.
That's when my training kicked into high gear.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I had a five-month window to train for season four of Top Shot, and I treated it like a part-time job.
Oh, you'd have to.
I mean, if you only had five months, that's no time to waste.
Yeah, I mean, I was spending 20 to 25 hours a week either studying marksmanship, dry firing at home, going to the range.
And so, you know, really focusing on the fundamentals of marksmanship, that gave me the edge to win because, you know, in the show, the competition is all about adaptability because every challenge is a brand new weapon and a weapon that you may or may not have shot before.
Oh, really?
Yeah, so there's no time to complain about things.
Many of our viewers, including myself, may not have ever seen the show.
So tell us what happens there.
Yeah, so every challenge, it's a brand new weapon.
We get an hour's worth of practice with the weapon, and then next thing you know, we're thrown into a challenge, and we don't know what the challenge is until we literally walk up to the range, and the host, Colby Donaldson, explains what the challenge is.
And then that weapon is, after we shoot it, right, we don't see that weapon again for the rest of the season for the most part.
So they can hand you, like, here's a muzzleloader, and then you have to go.
We shot muzzleloader.
Did you?
We shot muzzleloaders, right?
I mean, we also shot machine guns.
I shot a grenade launcher, which was incredible.
I never thought I'd ever be shooting a grenade launcher as a civilian.
But, you know, the show, yeah, the top shot just brought these incredible weapons.
And since it's on the History Channel, it's all about explaining the historical context.
Yes.
Of these weapons, their place in history, why they're important, why they're impactful.
So I love that part of Top Shot as well, right?
It wasn't just about the weapons.
It just wasn't about having a great time, but it was also about learning the history of some of the world's most famous and infamous weapons.
Wow, wow.
So, like, the M60? Did you shoot the M60? Did you shoot, like, the M1A carbine?
Or what was that?
Yeah, M1 carbine was on my season in particular.
Oh, yeah, okay.
M1919 machine gun.
Oh, no way!
Was that the water-cooled one?
The VAR? No, mm-mm.
Belt-fed.
Oh, just belt-fed.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, but it's also mounted on an authentic World War II half-track vehicle.
Oh, that does sound like fun.
Yeah, man, it was something else.
It was something else, right?
And so, you know, watching all these challenges in the prior seasons of Top Shot, I was like, I want to do that, right?
I want, I mean, this is classic Americana, right?
You just, you can't, no other country in the world offers a show like Top Shot, where civilians, well, get to compete alongside law enforcement, military, Olympic shooters, lifelong hunters, There's just no other opportunities like this for a civilian to do it.
So, you know, I threw my hat in the ring Well, okay, let me give out your website again, topshotchris.com.
That's where people can follow you.
But let me ask you a serious question.
You said you worked at Google and you worked at other tech companies.
You came out of the big tech scene in California.
And honestly, the California tech scene is not at all friendly towards firearms.
Did you get some hate?
Did people give you crap for like, why are you glorifying firearms?
Anything like that happen?
Yeah, a little bit.
But, you know, I was more surprised by finding the large number of tech gun owners.
There's just so many employees, you know, all the way up from the C-suite, you know, down to your entry-level, you know, tech person.
Like, there's a lot of gun owners in the tech community.
And, you know, the one spat I did get into was, you know, my previous employer, I won't name them, but, you know, they have some anti-gun policies.
And I went to the general counsel of the company, and I was like, hey, I'm interested to learn, why did the company decide to take what I consider a very woke perspective on the Second Amendment when my previous employer had nothing to do with guns or the Second Amendment?
And we had this back and forth, and ultimately she just said, well...
Chris, you know, we wanted to do something that we thought would save lives.
It's like, well, okay, look, I mean, I know you're trying to do the, quote, right thing, but it is at the expense of the rest of us, right?
Our civil liberties are being restricted by a private company's product policies.
So, you know, you have a lot.
Basically, what I'm getting at is you have executives, right?
Tech executives who are receiving pressure from the public, from gun control entities to sign these letters, right?
That often come out after mass shootings and other tragedies.
And oftentimes, you know, these tech executives, they don't know what they're signing or they don't understand the nuances and the implications of red flag laws, of assault weapons bans, magazine capacity restrictions.
They don't understand the flip side of the argument and how, one, they're not going to do anything to reduce crime.
Number two, It mostly just negatively impacts law-abiding citizens who want to lawfully own these firearms and accessories.
So that's, you know, and I think that's a typical dynamic, right?
You have just these tech executives who feel public pressure to do things.
They don't understand, but they jump on the bandwagon because that's the cool thing to do.
And firearms in the workplace is, of course, a very big issue.
I think that, for the most part, corporations in California, especially in tech, their policies tend to be that employees are not allowed to bring firearms into work.
Correct.
We occasionally, I live in Texas, my studio is here in Texas, we occasionally have attempted mass shootings or attempted robberies and often like three or four civilians pull out their guns and end it pretty quickly.
Or, you know, sheriff's deputies with AR-15s happen to be eating a burger next door and they just grab their rifle and come in and it's over, right?
They take care of it.
Not always, but that's usually the way it goes in Texas.
I've noticed that in the medical fields, that hospitals, clinics, places like that, even in Texas, are all saying no guns whatsoever.
And I'll ask for your comment on this, but this, I think, comes out of the COVID years that we've all been through.
There were a lot of really...
There's escalation events between, you know, patients and doctors.
Like, you know, how come you won't do this?
Or how come you demand this?
Or why are you making me, you know, whatever, wear a mask or whatever?
And things got really heated.
I've seen a lot of anti-gun, like no guns allowed or we won't even serve you type of thing, even in Texas.
What's your response to that?
Yeah, you know, COVID was just such a curveball, you know, for our entire culture, our entire society, and we saw a number of aberrations.
And so, you know, on this topic of, you know, increased tension between medical professionals and patients and this whole concept of, you know, basically it sounds like hospitals wanted to be, you know, gun-free zones, which is...
Which is only possible if you're going to be setting up metal detectors and actually checking every single person that comes into the facility, which, right, for some facilities, I'm sure that's feasible, but for a lot of hospitals and facilities, that's not.
But, you know, our country is incredibly sick, you know, and I don't mean this in the COVID way.
I mean this in a mental health way.
There's something really, really bad that happened during COVID. And I don't know if it was the social isolation, the civil unrest, or maybe it's all of these things, financial pressures.
But we're just seeing this increase in violent crime, both with the use of a firearm and without as well.
You know, the number of deaths that we saw during COVID with a firearm increased notably.
The proportion of homicide to suicide stayed pretty much the same, which is about two-thirds of firearms deaths were suicides and one-third homicides, right?
But the aggregate number of deaths increased from something like 35,000 to 45,000 deaths in a year.
That's a notable increase.
Something's happened and happening in our country.
We're a very sick country.
We have a lot of healing that needs to get done.
I really want us to focus on people.
This is not so much about the guns.
This is much more about the people and the circumstances around people's lives that are causing them to fall off a cliff and to decide that violence is their solution, which is obviously not a good solution for anybody.
So part of that, I agree with what you just said, by the way.
We have to pay attention to mental health, for sure, and the stresses that people have been under all these years, and more stresses with things like food inflation and people not being able to afford to live the way they used to in pre-2019 or what have you.
But let's talk about self-defense for a minute because you're a very accomplished marksman with obviously apparently a lot of really cool weapons.
I'm very much jealous of that, by the way.
But Are you able to apply for a permit and get a concealed carry?
I don't even know if you can talk about this, but what about your protection in a place like San Francisco?
Because there is spontaneous violent crime that's getting worse in a lot of these cities.
And it seems like these are the same cities where the cities tend to defund police, number one.
Which lengthens response times, so you're on your own for longer.
And then secondly, most of these cities have very strong anti-gun policies to try to disarm law-abiding citizens.
So how are you navigating that being in San Francisco?
Yeah, so, you know, let me start high-level with the context.
You know, so I'm Asian.
I'm also gay.
And, you know, historically, San Francisco has been a very safe place for minorities and people of color, etc.
But, you know, over the past few years, in particular, my Asian background has become a risk factor to my safety because...
Of the increase of racist attacks against Asian Americans.
A lot of these criminals are basically, you know, scapegoating Asians for COVID and, right, it's total BS. But, you know, my safety and my family's safety, right, is obviously paramount.
So, you know, CCW has been at the forefront of my mind for decades.
a long, long time.
But the restrictive policies here in San Francisco up until a year ago made it pretty much impossible for anybody to get a CCW.
But with the Supreme Court decision last year that basically it codified that the Second Amendment protects the individual's right to defend themselves outside of the home with a firearm.
Right.
That's a game-changing Supreme Court decision.
Is that the Bruin decision, or which decision was it?
Yes, exactly.
The Bruin decision was groundbreaking.
Earth-shattering, totally changing the paradigm, and tilting things in favor of gun rights advocates.
So I applied for my CCW, gosh, it's almost a year now.
I applied last July in San Francisco.
The Sheriff's Department, God bless them, they don't know what they're doing.
I mean, they self-admittedly told me, Chris, like, In the past, you know, 20 years, they had processed eight CCW applications and all of them got denied, you know, the very first steps.
You know, they don't have a process for this at all.
You know, I talked to one of my firearms trainer friends.
She just got her company certified, right, to train CCW, right, applicants for San Francisco, right?
So the Bruin decision was back in June of last year.
The San Francisco sheriff and police departments finally started accepting CCW applications in July, but here we are.
It's April, almost May, and they haven't fully processed.
I think they've processed one.
I think they've fully processed one applicant in this, you know, nine, ten-month period.
Well, that's, I mean...
You know, a right denied through bureaucracy is, I mean, that's a violation of your civil rights to deny you this obviously constitutionally, you know, enforced, or let's say the Supreme Court has backed this up to say you have this right that the state must issue to you unless you are disqualified from being a felon or what have you, but they must issue this permit to you, and yet so far they haven't.
Any idea where that's going to happen?
And the wild thing, I don't.
I have no idea.
It's a total, you know, black box at the moment.
But, you know, when you compare California with constitutional carry states where you don't have to apply for a permit, right, your constitutional right is immediate, right, that you get to immediately exercise that right.
And how is it that just because I live in California that my constitutional rights should be any different, right?
So that's Ultimately, I'm fighting for, at minimum, a more expeditious CCW process, but we really should be tilting in the direction of having the Second Amendment be acknowledged and recognized like our other constitutional amendments.
And what I mean by this is, just like you don't have to apply for a permit to exercise your religion or your freedom of speech I mean, that's kind of ridiculous.
It's so true.
And they might find a reason to deny you.
They could say, well, you're clearly, you know too many weapons.
You might be a danger to society.
But actually, you're the safest guy around because you know how to handle all these different weapons.
You're the safest.
And there's some subjective measures that gun control advocates are trying to insert into the CCW process in different states where One of them that is terrifying is they want to insert a social media screening component to your CCW application, right?
So if someone in the sheriff's department doesn't like one of your posts on social media where you say something inflammatory or whatever, these gun control advocates want to make that grounds possible.
For disqualifying you to conceal carry, right?
So there's a lot of these insidious ways that Big Brother is just, they want to increase Big Brother's scope and give them more power Over restricting and dictating who can and cannot exercise their constitutional rights,
which should be concerning to everyone regardless of whether you're in Texas or whether you're in California or anywhere in our country because California-style gun control is coming and has come to other states like Washington, Colorado, Oregon.
These are states that used to be pretty reliable strongholds Yeah, well, and also, I mean, you kind of mentioned this earlier, a lot of the people don't understand even let's say the tech executives they should understand
at least this is my opinion that if you have legally armed law-abiding employees who are carrying pistols into the workplace you have a much safer workplace because any any mass shooter tries to walk into that place they're not going to get very far because your employees are going to turn it into a two-way range right and yeah i mean there there have been mass shootings i I forgot there was one in California a few years ago.
Some crazy couple, I think, went into an executive building and just shot up the place.
I would hate to be hiding under my desk as an employee of a corporation, knowing, like...
You, Chris, you have all these skills.
I know you don't have any desire to actually shoot another human being, but if you were in a situation where you could stop violence and help save lives of your colleagues, wouldn't you rather have the option to have that pistol rather than not have it?
Yeah, absolutely.
That's the name of the game.
That is what a lot of gun control advocates do not understand.
They don't understand that if you're ever in a situation where assailants have weapons, you just, this is a game of increasing the chances that you will survive, right?
And I'm not saying that having a firearm is not gonna guarantee that you're gonna walk out of there alive. - No, it doesn't. - But it will increase your chances.
It'll increase your chances.
At least you have a tool at your disposal.
You don't have to use it, but if push comes to shove, it's better to have the tool and not need it versus the other way around.
And then on employers, thinking that if you put up a no guns allowed here sign and think that that's going to deter a bad guy from walking in to do bad things, you're kidding yourself, right?
This is a simple sign.
Yeah, the signs, obviously criminals don't follow the signs because they don't follow the laws either.
But the other tactical issue is, you know, just by shooting back in the direction of the shooter, you can make that shooter pause and seek cover.
And that alone could save lives and give other people more time to exit, more time for them to find cover.
It would reduce the rate of fire of the shooter.
I mean, this is classic military strategy.
You pin them down with gunfire, even if you're not actually hitting them.
You're making them stop their own activities.
And frankly, for a mass shooter, you might force that mass shooter to rethink, like, why did I come here today?
You know, I didn't realize this was going to be a two-way thing.
So I think a lot of mass shooters, they target places that they think will be completely free of guns because they don't want anybody shooting back.
Go ahead.
Yeah, that's right.
A lot of shooters, the second they come up Against any kind of resistance is, you know, those are key inflection points.
Like you said, I can either buy more time, right, for people to escape, or at least slow the guy down, right, or confuse the shooter, right?
But, you know, one thing that I think often goes unsaid in self-defense trainings is, you know, oftentimes, you know, your first option is to flee.
Yes, absolutely.
As a civilian, right?
This is a civilian, right?
Like, if you're law enforcement or military, that's a very different paradigm, very different, like, training.
But as a civilian, you know, no one's looking for heroes.
You know, I know heroes, right?
Yes, heroes.
We appreciate them and glorify them in the media, and they earn the praise that they have accomplished.
But if it comes down to you going home and seeing your family and loved ones at night, or potentially either being a hero or potentially being in the ground, obviously this is just a decision that every individual has to make for themselves.
Going towards the fight, right?
That's not a typical recommendation in civilian-oriented self-defense training.
So I just wanted to highlight that as well, right?
That self-defense...
It's called defense for a reason, right?
Because defense is all about protecting yourself from some other threat.
This is not about you, first and foremost, going on the offense, right?
This is very much you're responding to a threat.
So it's a nuance, but I think a really important nuance that, again, a lot of gun control folks don't understand, and they think gun owners, we're all trigger-happy people who think we're all cowboys and heroes, and man, like, That's not the case.
Nobody wants to be shooting and killing anybody if you can avoid it.
Oh, yeah.
You are so correct about that.
And as a civilian, as you mentioned, you're under no civil obligation to engage a shooter.
It's not like anybody's going to sue you and say, oh, you should have done more to engage and shoot back.
No.
That's law enforcement's job, but there may be circumstances, as you said, where You have no choice, and you may need to engage the shooter in order to stop them.
There was an attempted mass shooting in a mall.
I don't recall which state this happened in, but clearly someone with a rifle was in a mall and started to fire upon, you know, just...
A crowd of innocent people.
But there was a concealed carry holder that happened to be nearby.
And he was, as I recall, quite an incredible marksman.
I think he had like an 85% strike rate of shooting the shooter, which is a good, that's a good ratio in any circumstance, much less under stress.
And he put the guy down.
And in that circumstance, that was the right call.
But it depends on the circumstances.
Yeah, you know, the fascinating part about that story, right?
So, the concealed carry guy, his name is Elijah Dickens.
Oh, that's right.
Thank you.
Yeah, and a shooting drill is named after him.
It's now called the Dickens drill.
You know, I forget the exact detail.
Let's see, I'm looking it up right now.
So, you know, he fired it looks like he fired 10 rounds at 40 yards.
If I remember the disc.
I mean, this is wow.
40 yards.
Right.
This is almost half of a football field away.
40 yards, 10 rounds and eight rounds hit the shooter.
That's remarkable.
Right?
With a pistol.
I mean, with a pistol, exactly.
I mean, that is phenomenal, even for trained marksmen and experienced competition shooters like me.
I mean, that is phenomenal.
And to do that under real-life stress...
And I mean, you know, table stakes are just like, I mean, I couldn't be greater.
But yeah, Elijah Dickens, you know, such a humble guy.
Yes, saved a lot of people.
And this is where training definitely comes into play.
You know, I mean, you've got to train.
You can't just buy a firearm, not train with it, and think that it's going to be useful for you when it is necessary, right?
Right, training is everything, yeah.
Marksmanship is a perishable skill, just like any other skill set.
If you're a gun owner, get out and train.
I have to train all the time, just like everybody else.
Training, it's super important.
Wow, yeah, it must be hard to train in San Francisco, but I'm able to go to all these outdoor ranges or other people's places and shoot with other people who have ranges right on their property, like private ranges.
On any given weekend in Texas, I hear lots of gunfire, by the way.
To me, it's like the sound of liberty.
Yeah.
Love it.
And sometimes I hear full-auto weapons, too, by the way.
I don't even know where they're coming from, but some folks out here have some full-auto, and I guess they have enough money to burn because the ammo is quite pricey.
Are you doing okay on time?
You got a few more minutes?
Yeah, I can hang out, yep.
Okay, great.
Let me ask you a cultural question, because you mentioned you're gay, and there was a time in America when that phrase, like, in the closet, often referred to people who were gay, and they didn't want other people to find out they were gay.
Now, like, you know, maybe that hasn't been the case for a very long time, and certainly in San Francisco, or even most of the country, you know, that's not a closet issue anymore, but...
But now you're saying that being a firearms advocate and living in a place like San Francisco or the West Coast, that's kind of an in-the-closet type of issue now.
Do you find that interesting, being that you're both gay and a Second Amendment advocate, that the tables have kind of turned on what's okay socially to talk about and now what's not okay socially?
Are there any comments on that?
Yeah, it's...
You know, I think one of my problems with politics in general and, you know, our oversimplification of the political parties, right?
You're either Republican or a Democrat and or you're conservative, you're liberal.
And if whatever sort of label you just are tribe, you decide to choose, you're supposed to check certain boxes.
Right.
Right.
Or against right.
Certain certain things.
And that's just not how I view things.
Right.
I like to think of myself as a free, independent thinker that, you know, I'm going to research the issues and I will make an informed decision about whatever the issue is.
And but I'm not going to just simply check, you know, check all the boxes, you know, in the Republican column just because, you know, yes, I mean, I'm conservative, but no, I'm not conservative on everything, right?
But, you know, here's the interesting rub, you know, right, with I believe in small government.
I believe the government should more or less stay out of our lives unless they really need to.
And LGBT rights are one of the things that I don't think the government really has any real interest or need to intervene most of the times.
Obviously, you know, there's some exceptions, but, you know, but I think to your point and the question, you know, gun owners, right, we come from all walks of life, right?
And for LGBT gun owners, you know, look, like, If you're LGBT and you're already a gun owner, you know that there are constant threats, right, in many parts of our country against the gay community.
And having a firearm is a very good way to defend yourself.
Now, if you're LGBT and don't have a firearm, hopefully, at least every gay person knows the threat.
They know the threat against them, but what they don't always think about is, well, how am I going to protect myself if I ever come in a situation where I'm under attack?
Can I ask you here, and this is truly genuine, and I've said publicly many times, I think that every person, LGBT or otherwise, has the right to defend themselves and should be proficient in self-defense, and I think that's a universal thing.
So that's everywhere, but you were just mentioning that People who are gay have, I guess you're implying that there are threats against them.
Now, honestly, maybe it's just the circles that I run in.
I never hear any talk, and I'm in rural Texas, I never hear any talk here of anybody saying, oh, let's go out and hunt them gays or anything crazy like that, like redneck gay hunting talk or whatever.
I've never heard that in my life, and also, you know, I've never heard anybody use the N-word, right?
You know, as being like redneck racist stuff.
I've never heard that at all.
But that's just my experience.
And maybe, you know, that says something that I don't hang out with crazy racist, you know, murderous people, which is a good thing.
Which is good.
Right, which is good.
But is that a real thing?
I mean, do people who are gay, are they really subject to like just anti-gay violence?
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the numbers, if you look into stories that hit the media, you have LGBT Americans who are getting attacked, injured, and killed.
I mean, it's a pretty...
It's a pretty constant thing, and it's really scary and unfortunate to say that.
It's something that you're probably not going to see it on the mainstream news every day kind of thing, but if you look at certain outlets that track these kind of attacks, they're there, and the numbers are there as well.
Something else that's been so interesting in general that's happened over the past few years, and a little bit of this is social media and the internet, and some of this is COVID-related, I think.
But, you know, there's more and more people who are saying the quiet parts out loud.
And I mean that in a general sense and in a very specific sense to this topic, right?
That, you know, I would say a lot of people in the past, you know, used to hold...
Decorum, right?
And respect by kind of keeping, if you had racist or homophobic or misogynistic tendencies or thoughts, you used to not say them out loud, right?
You used to just sort of Let's have a polite society, right?
But more and more often, we see more of these really hateful and vile comments not just come out online, but I've heard them in person.
I've heard a lot of homophobic, bigoted remarks in person.
I mean, these aren't my friends, but I'll be at other events, social things across the country.
And they're rare, sure.
Thankfully, I can say they're rare.
But I've heard them.
I mean, I've seen it.
And, you know, and I think you never know how safe you really are.
I mean, that's, I think, kind of an unfortunate truth is, you know, there's always...
Along those lines, I mean, it's fascinating that you mentioned that because I do see an escalation of rhetoric kind of from every direction.
So there's...
You know, there are elements in society that are discriminating against Asians.
For example, the California University System specifically penalizes Asian applicants for being Asian.
Like, that's just straight up racism.
It's crazy.
And, you know, I'm married to an ethnic Asian woman.
And, you know, I lived in Taiwan, and so I know a lot about that community, and Asian people tend to be very academically capable and gifted, and it's the craziest thing in the world to see that they're punished for that.
And then at the same time, we see a lot of programs that specifically exclude white people today.
And I've seen a lot of lawsuits about this, for example, grants or job opportunities in certain governments that say, you know, we welcome, let's say, just people of color.
But no whites allowed, essentially.
Or even university spaces that are no whites allowed.
And then we see, you know, there's a lot of conflict between specifically trans and conservative groups and religious groups and so on.
There's quite a lot of escalation happening in that space.
So it does seem to me, I mean, I agree with you, there's a lot of escalation happening in society.
But don't you think, Chris, that Some of that is really contrived.
We the people, I think, can just get along with each other and be cool and live together in a country, but some of this seems to be kind of provoked.
Do you see that?
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm a technologist, and I love technology.
I think the internet is amazing, but I also do think that the internet has definitely unleashed this dark side.
in people, right?
Where they're keyboard commandos, right?
People say things online that they would never say to somebody to their face and in person.
And so, yeah, and so on some level, right, the internet is not real, as I like to sometimes say to myself, right?
It's like you, right?
You hear some of the things that people say, the comments that they write.
It's like, this just, on some level, it's contrived, right?
It's like people, like, venting, and yes, they're saying all sorts of vile things.
But, you know, I don't consider the internet real life, right?
Real life for me is being in person, right?
Being physically present with people People, right?
And that's my real experience.
That's the lived human condition and experience of being around people and we're not just talking at and past each other on the internet.
Right, right.
And anonymity tends to embolden a lot of people.
If they think that they can't be found out, then they tend to say sometimes super crazy things.
And then sometimes, I mean, look, I've said a lot of things.
I've been outraged by a lot of things, but I'm talking in generalities, not about specific people typically, unless some super crazy person has done something super crazy.
But I really respect what you just said, and I think that We need to learn to live in a de-escalated type of environment, both online and also in real life, because we don't want shootings.
We don't even want to have to engage in a self-defense shooting.
We don't want law enforcement to be subjected to threats of mass shooters.
But we also want our Second Amendment rights, our personal liberties.
In fact, we demand those things.
That's the basis of our society.
So any final thoughts, Chris, or comments or anything you want to add?
Yeah, I guess just to say a final thought on this topic is, you know, in grad school, I studied conflict resolution.
And, you know, although my focus was nation states and political leaders engaging in conflict resolution, you know, the core principles are still the same if it's still a person to person, right?
And I think what's very concerning to me is, right, we're seeing individuals Increased polarization and tribalism these days, where basically people, they all go into their echo chambers, that they surround themselves with people who agree with them all the time.
I know that might feel good on some level to have people reaffirming the things that you believe in, but I believe that only serves to polarize us further, and what we need is to engage people that we disagree with, know some conflict resolution skills, because this is about us trying to co-exist We can disagree on any number of issues.
We just cannot have a United States of America if we are so divided on all of these social and political issues.
We can disagree, but we can't let it divide us.
We can disagree, but we have...
We have to stay strong, and the way we do that is we have to respect each other and also be willing to openly discuss solutions and maybe use the dirty word compromise.
I know nobody likes to hear that word compromise, but that's kind of the old-school way of doing things, right?
It wasn't always a zero-sum game of zero or one.
So I really want to encourage people, I think, to think about Not just conflict resolution, but boy, you know, just be kind and be compassionate and be patient with each other because I think those are going to be some key ingredients to our success of getting ourselves to the other side of this darkness, I think, that has enveloped our country.
And I want to get out of this as quickly as everybody else wants.
Yeah, I think, Chris, I really appreciate the maturity that you bring to this conversation.
You've clearly thought through a lot of these issues, and I think that your voice and your message is something that can be very healing for America, and that's why I really appreciate you coming on.
I mean, you and I had never spoken before, and here you are, a great guest.
We've had a great conversation.
I can't thank you enough.
It's been really wonderful.
Yeah, I appreciate your time, and I hope your listeners find this chat interesting, and yeah, thanks again for having me on.
Well, absolutely.
I'm sure they will.
Let me give out your website one more time, topshotchris.com.
Oh, one more question, Chris.
Sure, thank you.
What pistol would you carry once you get your CC? If you're willing to talk, like, what's your favorite self-defense pistol?
I'm just curious.
Yeah, so when my CCW gets approved, I'll most likely be carrying a Glock 43.
It's a single stack, 9mm.
Reason for me is I typically like to wear slimmer clothes and more of a tighter fit.
You know, double stack or anything kind of thicker than a single stack might not be compatible with my dress style, but yeah.
I'm going to start with the Glock 43, and we'll progress from there.
I've got a Glock 19 also, so that might be my ultimate carry gun, but you know...
Yeah, the 19 might print a little more, a little thicker.
I would say, have you ever shot the Sig 365, the P365? Great pistol.
Yeah, the 365, another great pistol.
The problem is, can't get it here in California.
This is one of the biggest problems of our gun control laws.
You can't get SIGs.
It's an unsafe handgun roster.
You can't get any new SIGs.
We can only get, basically, older SIGs are permitted.
All the new stuff, you know, it's verboten in California.
Well, Chris, I'll tell you what, in the next 30 days, I'll go out, I will buy another SIG in your name here in Texas.
Thank you.
Just to give SIG the business, I'll get the X macro, the 365 TACOPS. How about that?
Get one of those.
I love it.
I'll get it in your name.
That's a great choice.
Okay.
Appreciate it.
You can never have enough pistols.
But thank you, Chris.
Thanks for joining me.
It's been a lot of fun.
Thanks again.
All right.
And for those of you watching, I hope you enjoyed this interview.
Feel free to post your comments beneath it on brighttown.com.
We're also posting this on Rumble and Bitchute and other platforms, band.video as well.
And as always, you can repost this video anywhere you'd like.
You have our permission to do so.
Just give a link to Chris Chang at, what is it, topshotchris.com.
And thank you for listening today.
God bless you all.
God bless America.
Take care.
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