All Episodes
Previous Next
June 8, 2022 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
38:59
Episode 50 LIVE: Shall Not Be Infringed – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Thank you.
Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
He can cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
So we're going to keep running the stories to get hurt again.
If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
You are in the right place!
This is the movement for you!
You ever watch this guy on television?
It's like a machine.
Matt Gaetz.
I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
They aren't really coming for me.
They're coming for you.
I'm just in the way.
Welcome to Firebrand Live.
We are in 1721 in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. And I will leave this report and go right to the floor of the House of Representatives voting against the procedural mechanism that allows Democrats to bring their gun control bills to the floor.
And then I will be debating against those gun control bills, measures that Have the federal government literally regulating your gun locker that raised the age to purchase certain firearms that sort of create this ghost gun regulatory structure that makes no sense.
And later on in Firebrand, I have an explosive interview with Chris Smith of Gulf Coast Guns.
And what you're really going to see there is an attack on...
The arguments we see from the left about red flag laws, that people can just walk into a gun shop and buy a gun in five minutes with no review over how dangerous they may be.
And I think we're also going to have a real discussion about the ways that big tech and big media influence how we think about guns, what we see, the commercial activity The viewpoint discrimination.
We're going to get into all of it with Chris Smith of Gulf Coast Guns in just a moment.
But first, it's very important you understand that the national security apparatus puts out a series of terrorism bulletins.
And traditionally, those gave us information about the entities abroad that might want to radicalize people in our country, might want to do harm to our country.
But as you'll see in this report from CNN's Whitney Wild, who's their national security correspondent, it's starting to take a turn.
And I want you to wonder, as you're watching this, how long until Joe Biden and the people in his government think that you are a domestic extremist?
Take a listen.
One part of the bulletin reads, threat actors have recently mobilized to violence due to factors such as personal grievances, reactions to current events, and adherence to violent extremist ideologies, including racially or ethnically motivated or anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism.
This is the sixth time since January 6, 2021, that DHS has issued this terrorism bulletin that makes very clear that the terrorism threat comes from within the United States.
John, a year and a half ago, before that event ever happened, these advisories focused on terrorism that originated from foreign groups or people beyond the U.S., Who were seeking to use foreign influence to inspire radicalism here in the United States.
And again, it's just this stark warning that right now we are in this heightened threat environment that really hasn't changed that much since January 6th, 2021. This is now the whole game for them.
January 6th, 2021 can never end.
And everything they do to keep people locked up who shouldn't be locked up, to use these exquisite Anti-terrorism authorities against our people.
It's all to maintain this construct of fear.
That's the whole game.
People ask me all the time why there's still folks locked up in the D.C. jail over the January 6th attack who might be facing minor charges.
And the answer is, they have to make you believe that Some coup could just emerge and erupt at any moment, and that's what justifies their tracking of the MAGA political movement, their targeting of people like Peter Navarro who, I mean, are you sleeping any better because an economist was hauled off in shackles?
Just totally, totally unacceptable abuses of government power.
But what you just saw there I think gives you the signal that they're going to try to label any group that poses a threat to the prevailing thinking of the regime as somehow an extremist group, a terrorist group.
We are now in a true zenith of whistleblowers in some of these various agencies who do not like the fact that they're becoming too political.
There are a lot of good people who sign up to serve in our federal government who don't want the law enforcement, national security, intelligence community to just be an apparatus, an enforcement wing of the political left.
They want those entities to Not to be deconstructed or demolished, but to be used for their true purpose.
And it is typical that we will get occasional whistleblowers in the Congress who will bring information forward to us, but we right now are seeing so many of them.
I covered on Firebrand earlier the whistleblower who gave us the information that allowed us to subsequently confirm that The FBI is operating a secret workspace inside the law firm of the Democratic Party.
And we're still figuring out what political dirt moved through those channels and ended up being an attack on the presidency, on Donald Trump, and on the tens of millions of Americans who voted for him multiple times.
But now We have whistleblowers who are alleging even more serious uses of politics as a potential purge.
Take a listen to Jim Jordan breaking the news on Laura Ingraham's program on Fox News last evening.
Now, this specific FBI employee I mentioned, what can you tell us more about him or her?
Decorated Iraqi war veteran being run out of the FBI. His allegiance to the country is being questioned because he had the gall to say something that offended the FBI leadership about the January 6th investigation.
The other one is also having the same thing happen to them Simply because on an anonymous questionnaire, they said something that the leadership disagreed with them about January 6th.
And I would point out, Laura, that we now have had six agents come forward as whistleblowers.
Two on the school board's narrative, on the school board's issue, and four now regarding January 6th.
That is a concern to us, but we've had literally half a dozen FBI agents come to our committee.
Effective congressional oversight requires that when people see corrupt, politically motivated activity that's not proper in our agencies, that they report that activity.
And Jim Jordan and I, we take incredibly seriously The trust that's been placed in us by those who have already come forward.
And if there are others, we will be here to receive your story, to evaluate it, and to certainly see that we ask the tough questions that are necessary so that we do not fall into a tyranny in this country.
There is really important protection against that tyranny, and it's our Second Amendment.
A lot of people misconstrue the Second Amendment, and in Northwest Florida, we fundamentally understand what it is about.
One of our most successful gun shop owners is Chris Smith, who owns Gulf Coast Guns, and we spoke with him earlier about some of the challenges that customers are facing, gun owners, and even gun shop owners.
The controversy that brought Chris to our office originally dealt with advertising.
He had submitted a couple of television ads to be run on a local news station, and they rejected these ads.
Take a look at one of them right here.
Are you tired of going into FUD stores and asking some disgruntled associate for permission just to look at their firearms?
Sounds like tyranny to me.
With Gulf Coast Gun, we believe in freedom.
Freedom for you to check out the largest selection of freedom sticks in the Florida panhandle without asking permission.
That's why all our guns are out on the wall ready for you to finger diddle.
That's right, this is America, and in America we don't ask permission.
Well, we do, but how did Gulf Coast Gun?
Come check out the store where freedom still rings.
Gulf Coast Gun, Highway 90, Milton, Florida.
From a Northwest Florida standpoint, that's like as American as mom and apple pie.
Take a look at this next ad.
Biden just called gun dealers merchants of death.
Well, if you believe the dumbest president in U.S. history, that makes me the biggest M.O.D. in the Florida Panhandle.
Hi, I'm Chris Smith, owner of Gulf Coast Gun.
And if you believe it's up to ourselves to ensure the safety of our families and that the Second Amendment is there to protect us against tyranny, you should come check us out.
With the largest selection of firearms and ammo in the Panhandle, we believe it's not only our right to own guns, but also our duty as Americans.
Gulf Coast Gun, Highway 90, Milton, Florida.
Don't forget to like us on Facebook.
If you don't love that, I just don't even know what to say to you.
But Chris did have challenges placing some of his ads on local television.
We spoke to him about that earlier.
Take a listen to our interview.
So I'm joined by fellow Florida man Chris Smith of the great town of Milton.
And Chris, tell me about the business you operate.
I own Gulf Coast Gun and Outdoors in Milton, Florida.
We've been in business for about seven years and we've become the highest volume firearm and ammo dealer in the Florida Panhandle.
Tell me about your customers, the kind of folks who come in and that you're able to serve.
Oh man, we have some of the greatest customers in the world.
You know, we're here in Milton.
We also service Pensacola as well, Fort Walton, Navarre, Gulf Breeze and This is a strong community, and if you have an issue in this community, these people will get behind you.
We have a lot of volunteers that do a lot of community service around here, and I can't stress how much this community in this area will get behind local business owners, local people, and just anyone in the community.
I bet you got a lot of current and former military, probably a lot of current and former law enforcement too, right?
Absolutely.
You know, Whiting Field is here in Milton.
We have the NAS down in Pensacola.
We have huge following with Santa Rosa Sheriff's Department, Escambia County Sheriff's Department.
These guys support us, and we try to do everything we can to support these guys right back.
We love our military here.
We love our law enforcement officers.
Officers as well and this is one of the best communities I've ever been in.
And you know I think there's a lot of folks who might be familiar with Northwest Florida who don't understand that for a lot of military and law enforcement getting some firearms and going out for some Hunting, sports shooting, that's a great way to blow off steam.
Do you ever hear stories about how your customers are able to have a firearms experience that helps their mental health, that helps them recreate and just do the things that we enjoy as Americans?
Oh, absolutely.
That's why we have repeat customers selling ammunition and buying more firearms.
If you've never went out and shot For your mental stability, shooting sports is one of the best ways to relieve stress.
It's a lot of fun, and as long as you're doing it in a safe manner, in my opinion, there's nothing else out there that makes you feel as good as going out and target shooting.
Hunting's a lot of fun.
We got a lot of deer hunters around here.
Hog hunting's a lot of fun.
There's just a lot of things in the shooting sports industry that people like to do and love to do that are great for relieving stress.
Great for that, great for mental health, but there is a serious business side to what you do as well.
You are a highly regulated industry.
For folks who might be familiar, walk us through what a gun purchase looks like in your store, the background check you run, the different government agencies that you have to be responsive to for reporting and the like.
One of the highest regulated industries in the world.
If you come in to purchase a firearm, first off, you pick out your firearm.
And then we start on a background check with a 4473. So they take a 4473, they fill out the form, and we put this background check into a system.
In the state of Florida, it goes to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Now, they use the FBI NICS system as well, which is a national system that's used by a Every state in the United States, but they use that system to help them get the background checks done.
Now, in the state of Florida, there are a few more regulations than there are in a lot of other states.
Florida has a three business day hold period if you purchase a firearm and you don't have a Florida concealed weapons permit.
You still have to wait for this background check to come back.
Once you wait for this background check to come back, Your waiting period starts then, and then you can come pick your firearm up after this three business day hold period.
Now, if you have the concealed weapons permit, once your background check comes back, then you can leave with the firearm as soon as your background check comes back.
Sometimes those background checks take a while.
You know, yesterday we were seeing three, four hour waiting times on background checks.
So like some of the liberal media says, you don't just...
You don't just walk in to a gun store and walk right out in five minutes with a firearm.
That's just not the case.
And so you've got this business.
You've been operating for years.
You've been serving our local military community, our veteran community, our law enforcement community.
You're complying with all of these layers of regulations to meet the needs of the state, but also the needs of your customers.
And you create an advertisement to As just about any business would do, whether you're selling firearms or paper clips, I guess you need advertising, right?
And tell us about the challenges you've had in placing that advertising in our community.
Well, it's tough already.
We have a big Facebook following already.
I've gained that Facebook following through lots and lots of promos, through lots of giveaways, through lots of things we've done for the community.
But First off, Facebook is censoring us hard now.
We have 32,000 Facebook followers.
A lot of our posts are only reaching 200 or 300 people.
They're shadow banning our posts.
We've been doing radio ads.
We've been doing television ads.
We're spending good money on television ads.
And that's been fine until recently and they shut us down on Channel 3 on Monday.
So the email that I received said that they were following guidelines from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Anybody that's ever checked out this non-profit organization, this is not a federal organization, It is a non-profit.
It is a far-left anti-gun lobbyist group.
And the fact that they were using their guidelines for their publications is absurd.
I mean, I asked them as well, why not just use the NRA or Gun Owners of America's guidelines?
Because it's the same scenario, but it's a completely opposite end of the spectrum.
Well, and whether it's big tech, you know, farming out the ability to give shadow banning authorities to far left-wing groups or even A local TV station.
The local TV station doesn't own the airwaves.
The public, the American people, own the airwaves.
They simply have the right to transmit content on those airwaves in exchange for them providing the public service of being a network that people are able to access.
You know, the airwaves that are owned by the public are now controlled by the Brady lobby and they get to filter what the public sees as far as advertising.
Oh, I'm very upset about it, of course.
You know, if you watch any of Gulf Coast Gun's Facebook spots or anything that we've done in the local community, we're very vocal about the Second Amendment.
We're very vocal about the First Amendment as well.
And the fact that they're censoring anything, and like you said, they don't own the airwaves.
The fact that they're censoring any of us, especially when it has something to do with the Constitution, is, I mean, it's ridiculous, and we're just not going to stand for it.
Well, I make you this commitment.
We're certainly going to look at every avenue available with the FCC to see if this is even legal.
This is viewpoint discrimination.
I mean, you guys elected me to this job after I was a lawyer, you know, and I spent a good amount of time in law school studying how you're able to discriminate against different perspectives under the First Amendment, and you're not if someone is engaged in, like, viewpoint, you know, sharing, and it's just crazy to me that they would hold this view.
Have you ever experienced anything like this before where someone wouldn't take your advertisement?
No, not in this aspect.
I mean, we have with Facebook.
You know, Facebook will not let us promote any of our products.
They will not let us pay to advertise.
Any gun?
You are not allowed to promote the sale of any firearm on Facebook?
No.
The way you can promote other products and other pages can promote their products, our page is not allowed to promote those.
I've tried to pay to promote...
Ammo, I got a 30-day ban the other day for promoting a flashlight that went on a firearm.
So it popped up and I've been in Facebook.
How was Facebook?
Yes, for Facebook, yeah.
We're talking with Chris Smith from Gulf Coast Guns in Florida's 1st Congressional District, Milton, Florida.
And, you know, businesses ought to be able to advertise, especially if they're lawful businesses complying with every regulation and And meeting the needs of a patriotic community that loves the Constitution and loves our country.
And, you know, do you think that some of the messaging that we get out of Washington and the White House emboldens entities closer to home and even out in Silicon Valley to restrict what is otherwise entirely protected speech?
Absolutely.
They're doing it a little at a time.
They're taking an inch here and an inch there and it's emboldening them every step of the way.
They're getting braver and braver and they're not even trying to hide it anymore.
They're just straight up coming after us and they're trying to hit us in our wallets and that's why I took this action with Channel 3. I don't know if you saw Our Facebook post, but we're asking people not to watch Channel 3. If they want to pull us from there, they're trying to hit us in our wallet, so let's hit them right back where it hurts.
You know, Chris, here in Washington, there's a lot of talk of red flag laws, and since I've got you here, and since I know this could affect some of your customers, I want to ask you about it.
The argument we get from the left is, well, you know, When we identify someone who's problematic, we need to be able to go into a courtroom without that person present and get a judgment that allows us to go take that person's firearms away.
Just as someone who's familiar with firearms, familiar with the people that are buying firearms in your store, would you want me to vote for more red flag laws in our country as your congressman?
Absolutely not.
Anybody can be red flagged.
I had a customer not too long ago that's become a good friend of mine who got into a family argument.
Nothing happened, no violence or anything, but one of her family members said that she was crazy and had firearms in the house.
They came and confiscated her firearms in her house And now she's having to petition to get them back.
I think this is going to be a part of every contentious divorce now.
I think that when people are getting divorced, this is just going to be a thing that's used to create leverage for custody or alimony or whatever.
And our rights shouldn't be subjected to that.
In addition to the Facebook post that you made that we're going to share with our audience here, what's your strategy now?
For dealing with this coordinated effort from big tech and big media to silence the existence of your law-abiding business?
So, you know, we're looking at every avenue.
There's other social media platforms out there that we are trying to get a following on as well.
You know, it's tough.
It took us years to build up our Facebook following.
It's going to take us years to build up followings on these other social media platforms.
But we're getting out there in local news.
We have our name out there in the community.
We do lots of community outreach here.
We help with a lot of charities around here.
And we don't do that for publicity, but that has gotten our name out in the community as well.
And people are starting to give us their information to contact them directly.
People are sick of Of these news sources, these channels that are discriminating against the First and Second Amendment.
They're sick of social media that's discriminating against the First Amendment, the Second Amendment.
And they're getting fed up.
So they are coming to us now.
They're wanting to be reached by text message.
They're wanting to be reached through email.
We're just getting out there any possible way we can just to keep our name relevant because they are Making it as hard as humanly possible on us to advertise.
My prediction is that this spasm into more gun control in Washington, D.C. is actually going to create a whole lot of customer interest in Northwest Florida for your business.
Because I think people are going to see this and they're going to say, wait a second, are certain firearms going to just be banned capriciously?
And that's what they're talking about, just banning the AR-15.
You know, with Without really a whole lot of thought behind it or really an understanding of how people use AR-15s.
They're reacting.
They have absolutely no clue what an assault weapon is.
There's no such thing as an assault weapon.
You can assault someone with anything and make it an assault weapon.
But there's no definition of an assault weapon.
The definition that we saw on Wikipedia, I could change that on a firearm in about five minutes.
It's pretty funny.
If it looks scary, then they want to ban it.
But there's no real substance to what they're trying to do.
So yesterday in the House Rules Committee, one of our Republican colleagues asked Jerry Nadler, the Democrat chairman of the Judiciary Committee, pushing a lot of these gun control bills, what does the AR stand for, an AR-15?
And he said, assault rifle.
uh chairman and i don't want to put you on the spot but do you know what the ar and ar-15 stands for it's a rifle so that's not um mr massey you know what it stands for armalite is original manufacturer
there's a certain arrogance that comes from a lot of these politicians from new york or california or chicago who don't really know anything about firearms and safe storage and appropriate care and appropriate training for firearms
but they think that they have a right to limit use Limit advertising, limit transfers, purchases all throughout our country where really I think people appreciate the opportunity that America is special in giving the people the ability to exercise those rights.
I want to close out with this.
I want to commit to you.
I am personally going to contact the president of Sinclair Media to talk about this matter.
I am personally going to send correspondence to the FCC. There may be some violation of federal law for them just outsourcing their control over advertising review to a private entity, a lobbyist entity.
Think about that.
Lobbyists controlling what Northwest Florida businesses can advertise and what Northwest Florida viewers can see.
That's totally crazy.
People are going to be enraged by that.
But I want you to share, what does the Second Amendment mean to you?
What is it about to you?
And what is it about to the people who come in your store that you're able to serve?
Well, the Second Amendment, Matt, says shall not be infringed.
And it's been infringed every single day since they've written it.
They've taken an inch here and an inch there.
But the Second Amendment is to stand up against a tyrannical government.
If we didn't have arms to be able to stand up against tyrannical government, eventually our government would become so tyrannical that we would just be servants to them.
Without the Second Amendment, you're not going to have a First Amendment because if they take away the Second Amendment, you're going to have nothing to defend yourself against them taking away the First Amendment.
It has nothing to do with hunting.
It has nothing to do with keeping a gun in your home for self-defense.
It was put there by our founding fathers to make sure that our government did not become tyrannical.
What you just said is a clearer crystallization of the Second Amendment Than I think almost any member of the Democratic Party here in Washington, D.C. could offer.
People don't get it.
You're exactly right.
I have the smartest constituents in all of America.
And the left goes crazy when I say this, like we want to hurt people, which we absolutely don't.
The Second Amendment's not about self-defense.
The Second Amendment is not about hunting.
The Second Amendment is about curating a balance in our country where the people reserve the ability to resist tyranny.
And that they maintain the means to do so.
And if people don't like that, then they need to have a clear conversation about repealing the Second Amendment.
If they want to repeal the Second Amendment, there's a process that they can go about and we can have that debate and discussion.
And I, of course, will be against repealing the Second Amendment.
But when they want to recast the Second Amendment as this moving target or this thing that is an inkblot test that everyone can stare at and see their own thing...
It just totally misunderstands the point.
But the Second Amendment does require access to firearms.
It does require people knowing where they can go and vindicate their rights by utilizing those rights.
And I'm glad that in Northwest Florida, we have places like Gulf Coast Gun.
We got people like Chris Smith who are meeting that need and are following the law and who are, I would say, helping on the mental health front.
You know, people are always talking about mental health up here, and I'm glad you referenced the fact that Getting outdoors, doing some shooting, enjoying a gun safely, properly, that can actually help people live better lives and relax and deal with PTSD. And so I'm very grateful to you for what you do, and I appreciate the homework you've given me today to go to work fighting for you, Chris.
Thanks, Matt.
I appreciate you having me.
All right, thanks.
We're back live in the U.S. Capitol.
And on Getter, at Tanya Renee says, how is it that pharma can advertise anywhere but guns can't?
A fair question.
And also at C.D. Dilbert on Getter, U.S. would have looked like Canada during COVID without the Second Amendment.
That's a hot take.
On Facebook, Dina says, MTG and Matt are the true warriors.
Kirk says he's seeing too many Republicans sit on their hands.
Steve says the criminals will always have guns.
Karen from Chicago says we don't need gun control, we need gang control.
Mike says all guns matter.
Manuel wants us to abolish the ATF entirely.
Maybe that's what it's going to have to come to.
I have good news.
As I committed in my discussion with Chris, I spoke with the senior leadership at Sinclair, which is the parent company that owns WEAR Channel 3, that did not run these particular ads that I showed you earlier in the program based on their adherence to the Brady standards.
And here is the feedback that I got back from Sinclair.
First of all, they want to reiterate, They are pro-Constitution and they are pro-Second Amendment.
They said that there are many networks, there are many news organizations, there are many cable channels that will not accept any advertising at all under any circumstance for firearms or ammunition or gun stores, even things like body armor.
And they do not hold that paradigm.
And frankly, that paradigm is pretty anti-American from my standpoint.
They also agreed that the Brady organization should not participate in any way in the review of the content that they allow through their advertising platforms.
I believe that that policy is going to change now at Sinclair Media, and I believe that Chris Smith at Gulf Coast Guns Being involved, being active, putting a story out there is one reason why this positive change is happening.
Very likely to take place.
And I think that when we criticize bad decisions or bad employment of the rules, we also ought to congratulate and be, I think, appropriately laudatory when people see the error of prior ways.
And it is true that the Brady organization has become increasingly more of a lobbying organization, more of a political organization, more of a leftist organization now than probably they were today.
Decades ago.
And so it's good to see Sinclair make that realization.
And it's my hope that with Sinclair realizing that the greater organization shouldn't be involved in the decision making, taking another look at kind of the theme and tone and context of these ads that we'll see them on TV or a version very similar to them in Northwest Florida.
But I am grateful to Sinclair for seeing that this was a sort of a flaw in their Regulation on content and that that flaw is going to change.
Keep in mind, Sinclair, they get called alt-right about every other day because they typically don't filter as much as some of the other organizations that own local news.
I mean, in my experience with Sinclair, A lot of times they give you the microphone and what you say is what you say and that's the news that they want to report and that's a healthy thing for our democracy to not have entities like MSNBC and CNN or ABC or CBS News that...
Want to act like they're neutral and unbiased, but in fact, it's quite the opposite.
They are but the communications wing of the political left in many cases.
The same cannot be said of Sinclair, and so I'm hopeful that we're able to get this resolved, and it sounds like there's a policy change coming.
Thank you guys so much for tuning in to Firebrand.
I'm going to get down to the floor, vote against this gun control, debate against this gun control, and hopefully show a brighter path ahead for America.
Thanks so much.
Subscribe.
Have those notifications turned on.
And you know, red flag law is one of the things we're going to be talking about soon in the Congress, and I think persistently over the next few weeks.
So if you've got good arguments on the red flag issue, why don't you leave that in the comments section, either on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Whatever your viewing or listening platform is of choice.
▲
Export Selection