Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 07-24-26_FRIDAY_6AM

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Morning News, The Schofield Case and the judges controversy, Kevin Starrett at Oregon Firearms - Interacting with Police, Supreme Court to look at police shooting, how best to carry and stay safe.

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. 11 minutes after her six, join the conversation, 770KMED. Always appreciate having you here on Find Your Phone Friday, 77056633-77OKMED. Got a lot going on this morning. We talk with Kevin Starritt after 630.

reading a position piece or a note from the Rutherford Institute. Rutherford Institute, of course, Civil Liberties Attorney, John Whitehead. He used to talk with him quite often, but he's in his 80s now, and I don't think he's doing as many video or radio interviews as he once did back of the day. But they're trying to push a case up to the Supreme Court, and it has to do with a guy who was completely innocent, but kind of got shot by cops. He was actually an off-duty cop. up and the judge actually determined that the force was justified, even though it was pretty obvious that, you know, he said, hey, don't shoot. I'm an off-duty police officer. He's in his front yard, by the way, as the cops were coming through. And the judge just said, nope, nope, it is absolutely justified. And they're trying to get this case up to the Supreme Court because it was something that should have gone before a jury. And Whitehead has been concerned that that's been a real push to get rid of. the jury trials and, you know, just, you know, everything just either goes before a judge or is pled out, you know, that kind of thing. So anyway, I'll talk with Kevin about it, but we'll also

talk about, actually, one of the smarter ways, and it's just his opinion, and it's both of our opinions, really, on how do you handle officer stops these days, and you are carrying concealed? And it's just a matter of trying to make sure that everybody makes it out okay, because I don't blame police officers these days, especially with some of the dirt bags one might encounter these days, being a little concerned, little jacked up. You could have people that look perfectly normal. And there was one video I was watching not too long ago, which, you know, just regular old person just in the car, wasn't wanted for a warrant or anything else. Or nobody thought there was any problem. And the cop is going to walk up to him.

And then before he even gets to the car, he's just going to introduce himself, say, hey, hi, how you doing? license registration and the driver starts blasting. It's like, holy molly, you know, that sort of stuff does happen. I can understand why people get a little jacked up. Remember my nephew who's working for Ashland. Used to be patrol officer there. And he would talk about, oh, yeah, middle of the night, just pulling over a bunch of illegal immigrants, illegal aliens or whatever it is.

Of course, I would call him illegal aliens. He probably didn't say that, but that's what was going on, you know, in a talent area. Yeah, I had to run, had to wrestle. Yeah, had to wrestle with him in the middle of the night. It's like, whew, man. Good. I'm glad there are people around that can actually do stuff like that that are thinking, like, you know, this is a great job.

I get to go out and wrestle with dirtbags in the middle of the night. Aye, aye, aye. But, you know, we'll see how that goes. We'll talk with Kevin after 630 news or so. Mr. Outdoors with the Outdoor Report today. And actually, gosh, they were canceling and down. guys, we're just getting rid of all of these evacuation notices yesterday with East Evans,

it's really looking better. And we'll get the latest on that. We'll actually talk about the outdoor report for a change, too, for that matter. And also, State Representative Dwayne Yonker, he is concerned about this closing over at Asante. Asante's physical therapy.

The physical therapy shops are being closed, what, late in August? That was announced just the other day. and he's digging into that one. Junkyard dog, Dwayne. You know what it's like? He gets into it. There's a lot of politics surrounding this from the sounds of it, according to Dwayne.

And we have the amazing Nils Gravilius, the detective, L.A. area detective. And we're going to talk about some more crime this morning, too. And your calls in opinion. In fact, I think I know this. I think I recognize this call. Crazy Gene. Hello, Gene. How are you?

Hey, how's it going? I haven't heard for you for a little bit. You're doing okay? Oh, well, my property almost burned up, and I've been staying at my caregiver's place for a few days. What happened with your property? What's going on there? Well, I was just looking out the window and listening to the radio and watching YouTube, and I looked out the window and said, wow, well, this boat is really getting bad here.

And I got, well, that looks like it's coming from a little closer than these things. other fires. Yeah. I looked out more and I noticed my pomp house was on fire. Oh. Now, you live over in White City area, right? Is that what happened? Yeah, yeah.

Okay. It wasn't too white at the time. It got a little bleak at the time. Yeah, you got a little cinch. So did your house burn down or did you have to go somewhere? What's the result of that? No, my house is still here. Oh, good.

You notice I'm calling from it, which I just stayed alive just to call you and bother you, Bill. Well, I really appreciate that. Well, do you need any help? Everything, okay? I mean, you know, we're all family here, even if it is, you know, kind of a weird family at times. Yeah, well, I know I'm the strangest of all, but no, we're starting to get us. We got some guy from a bill's pump, Bill digs well, he's coming out. My pump is setting down the well because the pipe that it was going to melt it and dropped the whole.

thing down into the well. Oh, wow. Are they going to be able to get the pump out or did the wires all melt off? How do you do something like that? I don't know, but this guy said, we can take care of it, but we've handled it before. Oh, okay. All right. Now, how deep is your well? Well, that's an interesting story. It started off at 280 feet. Then we had an earthquake many, many years ago, they gave the casing in, and then it went to about 180 feet, and then, well, no, now it's a surface level pump right at the moment. Oh, okay. Well, hey, the best on getting your water back there.

You haven't water trucked in right now? Well, my brother's bringing over what do they call those carboys. He brings a few of those over. If I was disgusting before, now that I haven't been able to wash my hands or anything else for days, I think it's getting worse. Yeah. Well, I tell you, water is a big, big deal, isn't it? It's kind of a reminder, a teachable moment, for sure. Oh, yeah, yeah, you're kind of in a bad way if you do not have it.

Well, all the best. Well, thanks for checking in. I'm sorry you've had a few challenges there, but I'm glad you're still in the upright, lock position, Gene. Okay? Yeah. Well, I was with you. Hey, come on. Get me.

give me because I won't stop calling Bill Meyer and bothering him. Well, you know, a day without being bothered by Crazy Gene is like, well, Friday, okay? Thanks. All right, Gene. Crazy Gene. You know, when you end up getting a nickname, it's always a good sign, right? Okay, 770KMED. Let me grab line two here, too. Good morning.

Hi. Good morning. Bill, Bob Shandon, Medford. Bob, pleasure. What's up? Hey, I would have called yesterday, but you had so much good content. There was no way to do it. Well, thank you.

Medford City Council. You were talking, you know, a lot about charging utility fees for the baseball stadium in Hawthorne Park. Well, right after the City Council meeting, the Medford Urban Renewal Board meeting started, which is made up primarily of city councilors. And they want to re-up the Mira business for another 25 years or so. And they want to take a lion's share of those funds and put it. into the ballpark at Hophorn. Now this means they use that tax incremental financing scheme, which is money that would have normally gone to actually pay for city services,

will then go into building a ball stadium for, well, a private baseball team, right? Correct. Correct. And they will spend it as, well, no increase in taxes to the taxpayers because we're using tax funds we've already collected. Ah, but wait a minute. Wait a minute. What about the taxes that would have gone into the city coffers to pay for, oh, I don't know, taking care of the streets and taking care of the homeless and various other things? That will have to come from something else, will it not? School funding, because the state will backfill any funds that were taken out for school funding

and cover that. So we will be paying twice for school funding taxes. In other words, there's no free ice school. cream cone there? Not at all. And which Ashland is doing with their utility fees is to get a petition, a referendum to put that on a vote for the people. So the people could decide if they want Mirr to spend millions of dollars. I wanted to, speaking, which I got Ron Kramer's number, and I was thinking about maybe getting him for Monday's show, did Ashland's counsel, I haven't been able to see coverage of this, I haven't seen any coverage of it. Did Ashland decide to refer the

ballot to the voters or not? You know? I did not watch the Ashton Council meeting, so I do not know. Okay. Well, I'm going to try to find out. And if so, I'll get up with Ron Kramer. Ron Kramer is the lead petitioner down in the city of Ashland to make this happen. And, you know, a big historical guy, you know, that sort of thing. Rod and I would probably agree on absolutely nothing else in politics, but I think he is absolutely spot on that people should be getting to vote on these fees now. Well, let's hope that's the tip of the spear, and we can do it in Medford as well. All right. I hope so, too.

Thank you for the call. Thanks for the update. You're welcome. You're welcome. Another update he wanted to touch on here in just a moment. What the heck is going on with that Schofield trial? Did you catch that article in the RV Times? Buffy's story there?

Man, tell you more coming up. Saving money has never been easier. At my Oregon Edeals.com, you can purchase gift cards and gift certificates at a discounted price. 5 2085 or big lu.com. Hi, I'm Cassie from Clauser drilling and I'm on KMED. 24 minutes after 6. Big article, Harvey Times. Jackson County DA objects to judge shopping in a former Asante's nurse's case.

This is the Danny Schofield deal. And by the way, I don't think there's going to be any September 14th trial like they've been talking about. This keeps getting delayed and just drag it. on. And what's interesting, the latest wrinkle which is developed here is that the DA, Patrick Green, ended up writing to Judge David Hoppe, who I'm a big fan up, David Hoppe. And I guess he's been working mostly the, you know, the juvenile cases. I think that's what he's been usually doing. But he is the presiding judge right now. And he ended up, well, he was the latest one actually assigned to the case.

And then he put out an order last week, ordering Judge Lorenzo Mejillo, who is retired. He's a senior judge to actually take over this case. Now, the problem with Patrick Green, as far as he's concerned, you know, the DA is that this is the third judge change. The third judge change. And Patrick Green is going out there and saying, hey, wait a minute, this is looking like judge shopping. It sure does because Patrick Green ended up talking about this, you know, the conversation going on with Schofield's defense and with Schofield's defense.

And what is going on? Hang on just a second. I don't know why people call me during the show. All right. Off you go. Anyway, let me collect my thoughts again here. Anyway, so Judge David Hoppe orders Lorenzo Mejillo to take that. Mejia, rather, to take this over. And so it's the third time. Patrick Green is saying, hey, this is looking like judge shopping. Then there was conversation, apparently, between the DA and Judge Hoppe, say, hey, you can't do this. And there's been other conversation between Schofield's defense and Judge Hoppe saying

that, essentially, they want anybody other than Judge Hoppe. You know, we don't want Judge Hoppe to be on this case. Well, they already got rid of, you know, Markowitz ended up, you know, going away. it was Judge Hoppy. And, you know, here's the issue. Judge Hoppe is a perfectly fair, tough job. And Green, a judge, rather. He's a perfectly fair, tough judge, in my opinion.

I think Judge Hoppe is a great judge. I think we're lucky to have him here in Southern Oregon. Patrick Green is saying, hey, you know, you're a full-time judge. This is a really big case. He would hope that Judge Hoppe would stay on it. And then Judge Hoppe says, hey, listen, I'm the presiding judge. And it's my decision, you know, that sort of thing. And so there's kind of a duking out going on between Patrick Green and Judge Hoppe.

And I don't know. Maybe what's going on here is that it's going to be a long case, probably going to be an eight-week trial, at least could be more for all we know. And maybe Hoppe doesn't want to, you know, get away from that, you know, from his normal work. I don't know. I think he already transferred his cases to, to another judge and did some swapping. I know, but it's just bizarre.

And I have to tell you, if it were up to me in my benevolent dictatorship, I think I'd rather have Judge Hoppy on this case. It's full-time judge, well-respected, and tough but fair. Now, I'm not saying that Judge Lorenzo Mejia is not tough or fair. I'm not saying that at all, but, you know, he's retired. in, you know, this is one of the most high-profile trials that we've had. Why wouldn't you want, you know, on this case? I imagine that Judge Hoppe has his own reasons here.

But I would not, you know, as far as I'm concerned, I don't give a flying flip what the defense thinks about Judge Hoppe. And I would tend to agree with the DA in this particular case. I wouldn't be listening to the defense. to the defenses, to the defense's claims. It'd be one thing if Judge Hoppe had some connection with other cases here. Yeah, but that's not the case. Other judges have recused themselves from this case up to this point.

All right? So that's kind of what I'm thinking. I'm not liking this at all. I'll tell you. Cliff, you have a take of this too? Good morning. Welcome. Yeah, yeah, I got a take on this.

And, you know, it's actually if Hoppy succeeds in, well, he's already assigned to Mejia. Yeah. And to me, it's the fifth judge that's been assigned to this because the first two were recused because of, uh, what was it fair? They couldn't have a fair and partial hearing in front of those two judges. So they're actually on to the fifth judge here. Yeah, but this is the third actual. official change, you know, that's been done. Yeah, the other ones recuses, I guess, are not counted. State law says that, you know, you can only do it twice.

My read is that an elected judge or doesn't want to handle this messy case and want to put it into the hands of a retired judge who's not going to get elected again. Yeah, you could be right. It could be something that simple, right? You don't want the dirt from the trial getting on your robe, right? Right. I was involved in a case here a while ago, and it kind of got settled here, and it was going to be heard in Multnomah County. And a trial date was set, and I was asking my attorney about it, and I said, is this

going to be extended? And she said, and she's a trial lawyer, that once a date is set for a trial in Monoma County, it is very rarely moved. And she's had cases down here, and she says it's notorious for cases to be put out further and further. That's notorious in Jackson County to have it done, you say? Yes. Yeah. Well, I would, well, I'm just giving you my overall impression after reading Buffy's stories that I doubt that September 14th trial date is going to have.

No, it's not going to happen. I'm wondering here, and this is just pure speculation on my part, but I'm just going to run this by you. Maybe we have the defense trying to get rid of every judge here, not because they really have problems with the judges, but they just want to run out of judges so that they can go for a change of venue. Well, it's looking like that. It really is. You know, so, yeah, that, you know, they want to drag it out and I guess, you know, keep her out of jail, you know, if she is guilty, who knows. Yeah. That did one time. Boy, what a mess.

It's a mess. You know, this is one of those things where I so wish if I could go back in time, if I could go back in time, I think I would have been telling Asante, don't try to investigate this internally. Because you know that you can figure out this has been such a mess. now because of what happened two, three years ago when they first found out about the suspicions around Schofield. And you can imagine they're trying to keep it quiet, you know, trying to do this. Well, we're going to try to remove this and then it got bigger and bigger and bigger. And then I would imagine there's been all sorts of problems. One of the reasons she's probably not being charged with any more serious crimes is that chain of custody and all sorts of other

evidentiary problems that occurred because of it not being brought in by police right away. In my opinion, I think it's what's going on. You really regret that now. Right. Well, the other thing that was revealed in the article, which you didn't touch on, was... Roses? The DA was trying to get more information through discovery from OHA and Asante, and apparently they have been able to quash that because they said it was overly broad. and my take on that is that Schofield has been doing this longer than what has been revealed in the newspapers.

That's a possibility. We don't know. Right. But I'm kind of wondering, you know, why wouldn't Assange just completely open the books to this one? You know? I mean, you know, the civil cases are the civil cases. You know, those are going to be decided separately. It has nothing to do with this particular trial. Well, a lot of them are being, have already been settled.

And here's another thing. On a wrongful death medical malpractice complaint, there's a statute on there and the non-economic damages, there's a law on the books and is capped at $500,000. So the trial attorneys have been getting around that. and it's a legal theory, and I can't remember what it is. And that $500,000 cap was such a paltry amount, then the plaintiff needs to be awarded more money. And they were being awarded money, more money when they went to trial.

Well, what happened in, I think it was February, an appellate court case dropped, and there was this malpractice, wrongful death suit, started four or five years ago, and the case was divided up against three or four defendants. And one of the defendants that had multimillion dollar assessment to them or judgment against them appealed to the appellate court. The appellate court essentially said, we are not legislators. The statute, the law, says it's a hard cap of $500,000.

So that's what it is. And the legislature needs to fix this if they want to raise the cap on non-economic damages in wrongful death suits. Do you think half a million is reasonable? No, it isn't. What do you think it should be? Well, I think it should be raised, and it's been like that for quite a while, and they should have had a cost of living, a cola. Okay, well, yeah, put a call on it. Okay, put a call on it.

Yeah, that would have to come from the legislature, though. All right, Cliff, appreciate the take on it. And right now, I guess everything about this particular case, the Schofield case is, we'll see, huh? Right? It's a mess. Yeah, got that right. 636. Sure.

I'm sure Patrick Green is properly going, ugh, okay. Is there a big enough ibuprofen jar on his desk with what's been going on there? 636 at KM.D. We'll catch up on other things and then switch to some different legal talk here with Kevin Starrant from Morgan Firearms Federation. Thanks, Jan. I'm out here on location looking at a roof that needs them every day for lunch and dinner. This is the Bill Meyer show on 1063 KMED. 541-770-5633.

That's 770 KMED. And of course the Rifleman theme. And a listener a number of years ago sent me the Chuck Conner's cut out here. I love it. I always have it on the window, but I always think of Kevin Staring. The rifleman. Of course, I don't know if he is a rifleman or not. I don't even think you have one of those lever actions, do you? I do not actually have a lever action. Oh, that's too bad.

The last lever action I bought was a gift for my son, but I do not personally own one. I don't really like guns, Bill. They make too much noise. Deep Sargazza. You know, I once had a really. reporter from Eugene come up to my office, and she was about 12 years old, carrying a full-size studio camera, tripod, and everything was hilarious, walks right past a fairly large gun safe, sets up her camera, and the first question she asks me was, do you own any guns? Really?

Yeah. The first question I asked her was, does your mother know you're here? You did? Did you seriously? Yes. Knowing you would actually say something like that. Yeah, I mean, it was absurd. Well, you know, that is one of the issues here.

I know everybody is a new, you know, if you're in journalism, everybody has a, you know, you're new at some point, right? You're new at some point. But you get to a certain point when everybody seems to be 12 years old and has no institutional memory and has absolutely no practical knowledge of how life is conducted in the real world. Well, I mean, I think that whole business has changed so much because there was a time when they really. had for better, you know, they were good in bed, but they were somewhat professional adults. Yeah. And as the budgets all got cut, you know, I was used to seeing people show up with a camera, a camera photographer, with carrying a, you know, guy, big guy carrying a big camera, a big

tripod, and a reporter. And then more and more reporters were on their own. They'd show up with an iPhone or they'd set up the camera on a tripod and go stand in front of it because the budget just kept getting cut. And I mean, certainly the Portland stations. I knew a lot of people there. Well, now it isn't it, people to show up with an iPhone, don't they? Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, I won't talk to them anymore, but why not? You know, when you think about it, I mean, the technology certainly allows it.

But, you know, I mean, even, you know, there was a time when the national guys would show up. And it would be, oh, it would be like two or three people. And now it's an eight-year-old with an iPhone. Oh, so it keeps getting younger. Okay, great. All right. I'm loving this. You know, I couldn't help but think about this.

You know, the other trend in electronic news gathering that I've not necessarily been a real fan of is that everybody does interviews now on network TV and everybody else. They do it on Zoom, right? And so you have someone looking really horrible and they got really bad mics. It's like, okay, and camera. And it's like, huh? Yeah, they're buffering. The lights terrible.

The background makes no sense. You know, it's just, and you know the pros when you see somebody who's actually got a ring light set up in a pretty background. But then invariably, you know, the cat wanders into the picture or something. Yeah, the two-year-old crawls up on the lap. It says, Daddy! You know. Used to watch the legislative proceedings when we were all locked down except the big box stores.

And, you know, you'd have a legislator and their kids would be screaming in the background. And it was just so absurd. I miss Mike Neerman, you know, who opened the doors. Exactly. He opened the door. How dare he open the door and let the people inside the people's house? but because we all know this different. Hey, I wanted to talk with you, though, about some firearms issues this morning here.

And I popped you something from the Rutherford Institute. And I know you took a look at this. It has to do with a case that these civil libertarians are trying to get pushed up to the Supreme Court. And it has to do apparently with how a judge just decided that, you know, a shooting of an off-duty police officer was justified force. And they weren't even able to get it over to a, to a jury to decide on this. The judge said, nope, I am the law. You know, Judge Drander Hoover was, you know, ended up doing this. And they actually wanted more justifiable cases, apparently going to

juries instead of just going to a judge themselves. Do you check that out at all? You've been able to Oh, yeah. I checked it out. It was interesting. You had a judge say, no, you can't get a juror trial. And then the Eighth Circuit appeals agreed. And I will say this, a couple of thoughts of what you sent me. Because the first thing is when you look at how the Rutherford Institute framed this, they started off by blaming all this on Trump. Now, you and I both have serious issues with Trump, particularly more recently. But I think that was kind of a stretch. I thought so, too. Yeah, Rutherford has definitely gone off into a TDS kind of mode.

But a lot of people have, apparently. Well, yeah, absolutely. But, you know, this particular thing, I really think you can't dump this on Trump. I mean, the Supreme Court also, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the Derek Chauvin conviction. Now, I think you could, in spite of the accolades that that conviction got from our beloved Christine Drazen, I don't think you could come up with a war. Hey, hey, hey, hey, you're not supposed to say that. Stop it.

You could not come up with a more unjust ruling, period. No one was murdered. The guy was a drug addict, the entire videotape, totally exonerate shawmen, and the Supreme Court refused to hear it. And in this case, we're talking about a guy who could very well be murdered in prisons, already been stabbed multiple times. So life has been ruined because of politics. And so this stuff happens, and I think the real problem here, and I don't know how you solve it, is the power of, judges, which in many cases, I think, is somewhat unbridled. We look at what this guy, Bowsberg does every time Trump makes a move, he finds a way to undo it. And I'm not really sure

why judges have gotten so powerful. And you look at the judge in our federal case against Measure 114, Karen Emmergut. Two things. One, her ruling was virtually immediate. She didn't really look at the facts. She had made up her mind before she ever, the case ever started. Two, it was obvious that she was wrong, that as we're starting to see more and more, that the measure is clearly unconstitutional. And then three, she openly and brazenly ignored the directives of the U.S. Supreme Court, which said these are how these cases will be decided. And she said, no, I'm not going to do it. And that's what I think is very concerning. Yeah, well, it's like we have the Oregon courts and Oregon judges and open rebellion against the Supreme Court, don't we?

Yeah, I mean, and locally when we sued, we got sued by a lawyer we fired, and the judge, one of the judges, because this went on for years, one of the judges said, you have no right to a defense. And my lawyers are going, wait a minute, we've been sued. How could we not have a right to a defense? We saw the same thing when Michael Strickland was convicted. Now, in that case, they chose not to have a jury trial. And in retrospect, that probably wasn't a good idea, but that was a decision that was made. the time with the facts and situation that they had at hand. And that judge kind of just summarily set up guilty on 15 counts. We see this happen all the time where judges have an incredible amount of power that's virtually unchecked. And then we see a lot of situations, certainly in the Ninth Circuit, which has all these shenanigans when it comes to gun rights cases. And then they can sit around and deny or delay things as long as they want, which in some civil cases might just be costing you everything you own, but in criminal cases, you know, this kind of abuse can cost you your freedom. And really not sure how one addresses this, but I mean, look at, okay, so our case

against Measure 114 has been sitting in the Ninth Circuit for years now, and they're not making a decision about it. Well, I'm going to give you my opinion on this, and I don't think I'm the first person to have mentioned this, but I think they're holding off on this decision until after in the midterms because maybe there's a change in the weather, so to speak, or maybe even the gubernatorial talk. I don't know. Well, I think they're waiting for the elections as well because I think that, you know, the democratically controlled courts do not want to come up with a decision that could negatively impact Democrat candidates. So if they say it's constitutional, remember, I don't personally

believe the measure passed because, as you'll recall, our disgraced Secretary of State Fagan at the time declared it passed before all the votes were counted, and then we saw what happened to her. But even if you agree that legally it did pass, it passed by such a tiny margin, it's clearly not a popular law. And if they say, yes, this bill is, this measures constitutional, and it goes into effect, the catastrophic impact on gun owners and people in the business will really be unprecedented. I mean, it's astounding what 114 would do, essentially, monetizing, you have a constitutional right, but yet you have to have, you know, tests and permits and all sorts of other things, just an amazing jumping through a lot of hoops that don't even

exist and probably can't even exist in order to have your constitutional right. If we were doing this for voting, they'd be apoplectic right now. Well, one of the attorneys on our team at the time made the point. He said, you're demanding that we jump through hoops, but there are no hoops. And so I think, you know, I think the court, the Oregon courts will lean towards finding it constitutional, but they don't want to have an impact on the election. And the other thing is, as you know, because we've talked about this, there are cases now around the country where people are so. The courts are saying, no, you can't ban these items. Like in the case of 114, they're banning virtually all magazines. It's growing around the country here.

Wasn't New Jersey, the latest one that had one of those decisions? Yeah. That was the most important one that just happened because they said both you can't ban ARs and you can't ban magazines. And, of course, what is Oregon trying to do, right? Ban magazine? Yeah. Exactly. With a kind of inexplicable position is saying that, well, yes, you can still operate a firearm with a magazine fewer than 10 rounds.

And that's technically true. But if theoretically, if that's a sound legal or judicial principle, then there's no limit. You can operate a firearm with a magazine with a capacity of one or in some firearms, no magazine. And so if you can say a component isn't an arm and therefore it can be banned, well, it triggers a component and barrels a component and a scope's a component and a stock is a component. So those things can be banned and say, oh, we're still protecting the Second Amendment. So I think the real – my big concern here is is the power, the unbridled power of judge. Look, we have a judge on the appeals court. His name is Jim Egan.

And when we were a Jim Egan who – I know parties with Democrats in Portland because Democrats in Portland have told me this. And here's a guy who at one time claimed to be a Republican who when we were attempting to pass a sanctuary ordinance that said, we're not going to enforce the county's not going to enforce the state's gun laws. The state has to do it. He said gun owners are racist anti-Semites in his decision. I mean, he actually is a gun, all gun owners are racist anti-Semites. You know, it would seem to me that that would be grounds for recusal right off the bat. He shouldn't have ever even heard that case.

Well, of course, he said that in his decision on the case. And when that followed up with the state case against 114, the Arnold v. Cotech case, he's on the appeals court. And the attorneys at the time said, well, look, we'd like to get this guy off this case. And he said, no, no, he's staying on the case. So he'll have a guy who is a clear, open bigot who hates gun owners, who parties with leftists. And is going to be judging the case. Right. And so, and did judge the case.

And not the constitutional. And that's why it's in the Supreme Court. So how that is rectified, I don't really know. But, you know, of course, in Oregon, we have a game that we play. We're very, very few judges are elected, and you know this. That, you know, virtually all judges. We just saw this again. Kotech just appointed another judge.

And the governor appoints judges when a judge retires. And then, you know, in other words, nobody ever runs for an open seat or very few people. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I've liked Judge David Hoppe here in Jackson County, he actually ran and won on an open seat, which is very rare. It does happen, but it is very rare. And if you go and look at the people that Kate Brown and Tina Kotech have appointed, they're all of the exact same political stripe, they're all activists, they're largely females. And this is an issue that I've never seen addressed in the legislature. Like, how do we prevent a situation where the people have very little to say?

because not only are these people being appointed by the governor instead of being elected by the people, but then when they run for re-election, for some reason, they are the only people identified in the voter's guide as incumbents, and rarely do people run against them. It happens, but it's rare. Yeah. Well, we know why. Nobody wants to run against the judge and then have to be in the judge's court, too. So getting back to this here, when we were talking about this police shooting case that Rutherford, was trying to get up to the Supreme Court, Green v. Tanner, you're saying the real issue is not Green v. Tanner as much as it is just the unbridled power of the judiciary period. Well, certainly, and I mean, here we have a blue-on-blue shooting, right?

Got him in plain close. He was an off-duty cop. This is a mistake. This is a screw-up, and there really may be some liability here. I mean, according to what they posted, the shooter really did some stupid stuff. He claims, first he claimed that he saw the cop was holding his badge and thought it was a gun, and then he claimed he didn't see the badge. So those are the kind of facts that should come out in a trial. But those things happen. I mean, it happens a lot, you know, these high pressure situations where people who are humans are forced to make decisions in a split second. And let's face it, there are cops who are simply hotheads who do kind of stuff all the time, not just shooting other cops, but abusing their power.

but it is something that I would like to see the victim in this case have an opportunity to have the thing heard. But when a judge can simply say, not, ain't going to happen, I think the Rutherford Institute is correct here, is that there is a problem where that kind of authority is just excessive and abused. But where the Rutherford Institute is wrong is saying that this is Trump's fault. This has been something it's been growing for years, really? Yeah, oh, absolutely. I mean, I don't, in what they put out, I didn't see them draw any direct line. They basically said, okay, Trump's an authoritarian. And all that may be true, but I don't think it applies in this case at all.

Well, I remember Biden being an authoritarian too saying that, hey, I had to get the shot or I was going to be thrown out of work, okay? You know? Well, I think it's been generations since the president's had any idea what their constitutional limits is supposed to be. And that's because we have a Congress that allows it. And, you know, right now, I mean, some of the things that happen in the Supreme Court for how long, long have they put off deciding on whether modern rifles are constitutional? And now they've decided to do it. In some cases, they may have a legitimate reason to delay things. And I can't look into what they're, you know, that's way over my pay scale. But there are probably times when they say,

you know, I mean, who's ever deciding this? We've got these ultra-liberals on the court if we decided or this particular case is a bad case to make a precedent out of. So that's a legitimate concern for delays. And I think that may have been one of the concerns, one of the reasons they've delayed ruling on modern rifles for so long. But on the other hand, in the interim, in the meantime, people's rights and property at stake. And so, you know, how judges, individual judges, keep completely changing what either Congress or the president has done unchecked, That continues to be, I think that is a real problem.

All right. Let's talk about us a little practically, though, as we wrap things up. Because I was mentioning earlier this morning that I understand police officers being very nervous, especially in traffic stops, when, you know, someone who looks perfectly normal has pulled out guns and started, you know, blasting away at someone as they're going up to introduce themselves, right? It's not always that way. Fortunately, it doesn't go that way very often, but it's enough that I would be nervous. if I was approaching any vehicle these days. Now, if you are carrying and concealed here in the state of Oregon, or even if you just have a firearm in your car,

which is perfectly allowed in state law, as long as it's visible if you don't have a – or I guess if it's locked away, it's perfectly legal, right? If you have it locked in the trunk or something like that, that's fine. Yes. It depends where you are, though. Yeah. It depends where you are because the state allows a loaded firearm to be in your car,

but a locality is allowed to restrict that and say, that it can't be loaded. Those things do not apply to license holders, but if you are not a license holder, a locality can regulate loaded, not open, but loaded carry in public places, and at least one court in Maloma County has determined that your car is a public place, which flies directly in the face of other court decisions. I think they also said your porch is a public place, too, right? They have said that, yes, Mulham County has said that your porch is a public place. Yeah, everything is public except, boy, I'll tell you, what, What a world.

So here it is. You're pulled over by the police. The police officer is rightfully, you know, could be nervous, you know, about the approaching you. You know, and maybe jacked up, maybe a hothead, maybe just trying to, you know, go home at the end of the day, all right? What is the best way, in your opinion, observing all of these cases over the years? Because there were people like Castillo that you had mentioned to me that I'd forgotten

about that did everything right and still got blasted away and killed, you know, a number of years ago by an officer. He said, officer, I have a lot of. firearm and I'm going to get my license and registration and then the cop shot him, right? That famous story. What do you do? Well, okay, having spent many years, I've been a firearms instructor for about 40 years now, I've been around so many others.

There's a big divergence of opinions here. In Oregon, there is no requirement that you announce that you have a permit. There are states where you do, but in many states you don't. And the couple of times I've been stopped, it has never come up. But the reality is that the minute a cop knows who you are, having run your license, he already knows or don't know you have a trumpet. If he, when you get pulled over, the first thing, of course, he's going to do is run your tag. He then knows who owns the car.

He doesn't know if you are the owner. So when does the police officer or sheriff or OSP person know? They know for certain as soon as they have your ID, and they've run that. And the first thing that'll come up, because I've sat and put state police cars when they've done this, is they run your license information. The first thing that comes back is valid CHL out of whatever county. Now, as far as what you should do, people disagree about this. There's a lot of firearms instructors who say you should announce it immediately. I've never said, I've never suggested that.

Obviously, turn on your lights, roll down your window, take off your sunglasses. Yes, sir, no, sir, that kind of thing. If you're asked, I mean, technically, and we have it occasionally, and we have it occasionally, Jimenez versus Oregon, where they're not allowed to ask you if you have a gun unless they can articulate some immediate danger. You're not allowed to lie to a cop either, but I just try to be as non-threatening as possible, and I've never volunteered that information because – and instructors say, hand them your CHL with your driver's license. I'm not sure that there's any benefit to that because there are police out there who perceive that when you identify yourself as a license holder, which should make them relax. They perceive that as a threat. In fact, didn't that happen in a Salem case you were talking about?

Salem cop got a- Oh, yeah. I mean, I was contacted by somebody. You said, hey, look, I have a permit, and the cop got really angry, took the guy's gun, unloaded, it, put it on the roof of the car, told them not to touch it till a cop had left. Now, I don't believe that's lawful. But I don't, I think you really have to just kind of assess the situation. I personally will not volunteer that. So you're thinking ultimately, in your opinion, just from, you don't have to volunteer that.

And the fact is the police officer wants he or she runs your license already knows, right? Kevin? Oh, I think we lost Kevin. Did the OSP shut you down, Kevin? Okay. All right. That is where it might have ended there at that point. I think Kevin pretty much made his case over there. Don't tell, you don't have to volunteer it to the officer. Just understand that they already know once they have your ID. Kevin Starratt, Oregon Firearms Federation on KMED and KMED HD-1 Eagle Point Medford. KBXG grants pass. Legendary Arms Gun Shop and Trading Post, typically stocks 400.