188 episodes

Riding Shotgun With Charlie is a aims to entertain and educate people who are into firearms. However, not everything is firearm related. We may talk music or politics or whatever may come up during a conversation between the driver and the passenger.

Riding Shotgun With Charlie Charlie Cook: Riding Shotgun With Charlie

    • Education
    • 4.9 • 15 Ratings

Riding Shotgun With Charlie is a aims to entertain and educate people who are into firearms. However, not everything is firearm related. We may talk music or politics or whatever may come up during a conversation between the driver and the passenger.

    RSWC #197 Erin Mihalik

    RSWC #197 Erin Mihalik

    Riding Shotgun With Charlie
    #197
    Erin Mihalik
    Throom Targets, CEO
     
    At the Great American Outdoor Show in 2022, I got to meet Erin. I was there with John Petrolino and we were in search of Tony Simon. Well, we were pretending we didn’t see Tony while he was behind us and we were talking smack about him. Erin wasn’t sure what we were up to, but she just went with it. That’s the kind of fun spirited person she is. We saw her again at GAOS in 2023 and she wanted to be on the show as things have been growing at Throom over the last year and she has lots to talk about!
     
    She starts us off with some lofty goals for the show. She wanted to see a bear. We did run into a pig (cop). Hehe! We were in the way northern part of New Jersey, Sussex Country, and drove into New York state for about a ½ mile, maybe less. I was honored to hear that she has watched several shows and knew the format well. She tracked out a path for us to drive and didn’t want to get lost. Part of the route took us over the Appalachian Trail. 
     
    We do talk about some of the ridiculousness of the New Jersey gun laws, hollow point ammo, and jug handles. She also tells us the difference between living in central New Jersey, where gun owners stay in the closet versus northern New Jersey where it’s a bit more conservative and people are gun owners and not hiding it. She used to say she was in manufacturing but can now say she’s with a company that makes targets. 
     
    Getting a degree in public relations and psychology, she noticed that her family were great engineers but not great marketers or communicating with people. She grew up in manufacturing with the rest of the family. Erin’s grandfather started an engineering business in the 1970’s and her dad and uncle grew up in the business. They started a side hustle in 1995 called Newbold Targets, which was the first self healing,reactive,  ricochet free targets. The only benefit she had is that she had targets to shoot. 
     
    Throom is a small family owned and run business. This year, Erin is the CEO. Her previous titles were Managing Director and Director of Sales before that. I don’t want to say that titles aren’t important, but they do have someone who manages the dummy rounds they make. He’s the Dummy Director. 
     
    After working for a big car company, Erin came back to the family business in 2013. She realized that they had a brand image issue and people were mistaking Newbold for other brands of targets. She’s got a great story about someone coming up to them at SHOT show and telling them their targets are junk. But they realized that they were talking about a different self healing target that didn’t heal so well. This is when the marketing stepped in and made a change in the color and packaging. 
    Throom was rebranding before the lockdowns of 2020. There were big plans for SHOT 2021, which didn’t happen. So they had started selling via the big online company. And sales took off! People were stuck at home, buying online, and shooting in the back yards. (Not in the Garden State, of course!) Neighbors weren’t complaining because there wasn’t noise from the Throom targets. More and more people started buying them. 
     
    The exciting news is that Throom is now in lots of new stores, the big box stores, the small mom & pop stores, and even some of the online suppliers, too. New to the product line is a remote target 




    Favorite quotes:
    “My husband says ‘Erin, we’re in Sussex County now. You can tell people what you do.”
    “I am the CEO this year.”
    “We’re just always having fun. We’re lucky we all get to work together. Most of us are family. And the people who aren’t technically family, we consider family.”
    “This industry, they respect people that make things in the US”




    Throom Targets Website
    https://throomtargets.com/
     
    Throom Targets Facebook
    https://www.facebook.com/throomtargets
     
    Throom Targets YouTube Channel

    • 55 min
    RSWC #196 Karise Jerel Crew

    RSWC #196 Karise Jerel Crew

    Riding Shotgun With Charlie
    #196
    Karise & Jerel Crew
    That Gun Talk
     
    I’ve been going to the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival at the Tommy Gun Warehouse in Greeley, PA, for about 5 years now. While I was hanging out in the VIP room with a friend, Karise Crew came in and sat across the room. I invited her to come join us. I’m glad I did. Karise and her husband, Jerel, are instructors in Philadelphia. They were speaking at the event, too. So after some talking with them, I thought it would be a great idea to have them in the stagecoach. 
     
    I have to start out saying that I love seeing and husband and wife teaming working together! This was the first year that they’ve been to the Rod of Iron. They were hoping to bring a whole group of people but a few didn’t due to the weather. I also love that they know some of the folks that I know and both of our circles of friendship are growing. 
     
    Jerel has family from Georgia and his father took him shooting as the youngest of five children. Karise used to hunt with her father, but her first purchase was with Jerel. He bought her a gun because she was robbed while only 10 feet from the police station. She got her permit before Jerel got his and she started carrying right away. Heading out on a trip to Mexico, Karise forgot that she had a gun in her purse. Of course she was stopped at the airport by the TSA. Fortunately, some of the police were Jerel’s friends from his youth and they were lenient on her. 
     
    This was the turning point for them. Someone saw her on the news and told her about the USCCA. They saw the passion from this man and wanted to learn as much as they could and pass that on to their friends and community. For Father’s Day, Karise got Jerel enrolled in an instructor program. At his instructor course was the man who told Karise about the USCCA. It’s truly a small world. 
     
    It’s always interesting to hear about the process to get permits around the country. I got my PA permit a couple years ago and it was easy.  I went to the county sheriff’s office, paid the $20,and waited an hour. Jerel talked about some people waiting 6 months in Philly. A friend of theirs moved from Philly to the suburbs and applied for a license. The people were about the leave and the woman at the office called them back and said their permits were ready right then. 
     
    Once That Gun Stuff started offering classes, there was a “mystery shopper” in the class. It was someone from the Philadelphia gun permitting unit who came in to see what they were doing. The great news is the officer came up and told him that he was doing an excellent job and to keep it going. 
     
    Jerel & Karise also run events for NAAGA, National African American Gun Association. NAAGA promotes gun rights to African Americans. Currently, they have more than 75 chapters around the country. A big part of their clients are women, which is the largest growing demographic of gun owners. Karise said she had a 73 year old woman whose daughter had been shot in the head twice and lived. This woman wants to get training and education so that this doesn’t happen to her and that she can pass this on to her family. That Gun Club was nominated for gun club of the year at the NAAGA conference.   
     
    They’ve been really knocking it out of the park with That Gun Talk. Both of them have worked in schools as a teacher and IT tech. Jerel said he’s about to do full time as an instructor. They’re taking their passion for firearms and teaching and turning it into a successful business. That’s just great to hear from someone who started their business just a few years ago. 




    Favorite quotes:
    Karise: “This is your American right. This is your 2A right. You have to exercise your right.”
    Jerel: “He said ‘I’m from the Philadelphia Police Department Gun Permitting Unit. I came here to see what you’re teaching.’ He shook my hand and said ‘you’re doing an excellent job’.

    • 44 min
    RSWC #195 Riley Bowman

    RSWC #195 Riley Bowman

    Riding Shotgun With Charlie
    #195
    Riley Bowman
    ConcealedCarry.com 
     
    I met Riley in passing at SHOT Show a few years ago. We exchanged info and he said he would enjoy being on the show. On a trip to Denver, I reached out and messaged him and we were good to go. Then on the day I was heading there, I didn’t hear from him. I called Neil Weidner (RSWC #116) to double check the number. When I did get in touch with Riley, he wrote a text but didn’t come through. Regardless, it all worked out. I met him at the ConcealedCarry.com offices in Sheridan, CO. 
     
    Riley grew up in Idaho and has been a lifelong shooter and hunter. During the crash of 2008, he had a construction company that went out of business.   In 2009, he moved to Colorado to a bigger city due to the economy. He was a project manager for the government doing construction projects. After a few years he went back to having his own construction company, but then an interest grew in becoming a firearm instructor. He started with some of the NRA training programs and started doing some volunteer police work. Those duties varied between things like driving a patrol car and filling a shift, crowd control at large events, and even responding to natural disasters. 
     
    Eventually, he became certified for pistol and rifle and started to teach more. Once the classes picked up more, he stopped volunteering and focused on instructing, expanding his knowledge base and offering more classes to clients. Riley also started competing more often, too. By 2015, he was working full time with ConcealedCarry.com. The new business was geared towards helping new instructors with booking classes, marketing, and developing websites. While offering the courses, he started offering products to clients. Products ranged from holsters and belts to training aids, books, and other classes. Seven years later, they’ve got hundreds of products offered to help people carry. Over the years, they went from more training and less products to more products and less training. 
     
    On his personal website, you’ll see that Riley does offer training around the country. He has also done some instructing at the Active Self Protection Conference.He also keeps his schedule busy with competitive shooting, too. Besides the businesses, instructing, and competing, he’s got a wife and five children that he also wants to spend time with. As he says, he’s trying to raise some freedom loving Americans. 
     
    The great thing about people like Riley is their business sense. He’s taken ConcealedCarry.com and purchased several other companies over the years. Each one has its own customer base, marketing plan, and business plan. Keeping several businesses going is similar to when he was a project manager and running the construction business. There’s lots of things going on that need attention and never a dull moment. 
     
    The current businesses under the ConcealedCarry.com umbrella are: Range Tech Timer, Mountain Man Medical, Barrel Blok, KSG Armory, Dry Fire Pro Shop, and Ready Up Gear. Links are below, of course. Riley and his team also have their own conference, called The Guardian Conference. 
     
    I’m always excited to hear about people who make massive changes in their careers. Going from construction to volunteer policing to firearm instructing and running several businesses with hundreds of products cannot be easy. But Riley and his team have great products. And he wouldn’t go back to construction and project managing because every day he gets to do what he loves. 





    Favorite quotes: 
    “Now it's fully reversed. Used to be training and a little bit of product sales. Now it’s a little bit of training and a lot of product sales.”
    “Juggling a lot of things doesn’t cause me a lot of stress.”
    “It’s also important to us that we help people be well rounded self defenders.”
    “I really, really enjoy what I do now. It doesn’t feel like work.”
    “Everyday, I

    • 44 min
    RSWC #194 Rob Campbell

    RSWC #194 Rob Campbell

    Riding Shotgun With Charlie
    #194
    Rob Campbell
    Eye On The Target Radio
     
    You have absolutely no idea when or where you’re going to meet your next best friend. I replied to a Facebook post about a radio show wanting to talk to instructors from every state. I replied because it was 2015 and I was teaching NRA courses in Massachusetts. I made two great friends during that show but I didn’t know it.
     
    In 2016, I was at the Gun Rights Policy Conference and I ran into Amanda Suffecool. She’s Rob Campbell’s sister. They were the radio show hosts I talked to. We became fast friends. The following February I went to Cleveland to emcee a concealed carry fashion show with Amanda for Realize FAC, their non-profit to help educate people about firearms. After the fashion show then a Friends of the NRA dinner, we raced to the local radio station to do Eye On The Target Radio. We’ve raced all around the country, SHOT Show, NRA AM, GPRC, Florida Cary events, and the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival. 
     
    Rob is a very relaxed guy. He’s been called “Rob Dude” for sometime. His father was a collector of Ruger .357s. They have been going to SHOT Show for about 20 years.  Rob and Amanda have owned a gun store and they spend time buying and selling some collectibles. Campbell has an extensive knowledge of firearm history and origins. They’ve got a segment on the history of guns on their show. Amanda just gives him a topic and he’s off. 
     
    Like many folks, Campbell has a day job that keeps him busy. But since EOTT has gone from a station in Akron OH, to a nationally syndicated show on the Salem Network, he hasn't really changed. He loves all the events they go to but he’s the catalyst that pushes Amanda. He says he’s along for the ride and would be OK if they weren’t going everywhere. But I think he secretly enjoys it. 
     
    We talk about how he does some training with friends. Most of it is defensive training. They like pushing a firearm’s limit to see how much abuse it can take. He’s at the range weekly trying new things and shooting different guns. 
     
    Having a radio show gives you some credibility. One day; Rob got a call from a local sheriff and the Ohio Attorney General. They inquired about a blind man who wanted a carry permit. Campbell said he would train him and pass on his knowledge and skill information because the blind man also needs to be able to defend himself. When they asked if Campbell would give him a carry permit, he said it’s not up to him. Because the man would have to apply, then be denied, then sue the state over his rights. Then they would have to determine how blind was too blind. 
     
    Campbell really is a walking encyclopedia of firearm knowledge and history. At some events, he brings his Blue Book of Gun Values and helps evaluate guns for people. He has a story about a man who had a gun and didn’t know what he had. Rob told him to have someone else evaluate it and it ended up being worth thousands of dollars. 
     
    He’s also told Amanda to go buy a particular gun because he knows it’s worth more than the store is asking. Another time at an auction, someone got into a bidding war. The other person knew that if Campbell kept bidding, it had to have a high value. Turns out it was just going to be a parts gun for another one he was building. 
     
    Rob is a great guy to hang out with and tell stories with. And I’m not necessarily talking about the tinfoil hat theories or what happened to Epstein. 



    Favorite quotes: 
    “I’ve been a student of the gun since I was a little kid.”
    “If you got a shotgun, you can find somebody that will buy it.”
    “I never paid too much for a gun, I just bought it too early.”
    “Shooting is a memory game: you gotta remember what you did last time you hit the bull’s eye.”
    “You think the West Coast is anti-gun, but they like Rob & Amanda’s radio show.” 
    “It’s not about the gun, it’s all in the mechanic

    • 50 min
    RSWC #193 Lenny Magill

    RSWC #193 Lenny Magill

    Riding Shotgun With Charlie
    #193
    Lenny Magill
    The GLOCK Store
     
    I’ve known about Lenny Magill probably since I started getting gun catalogs in the mail. I even have a VHS, yes VHS!, tape that he did back in 1993! Before I learned about the other instructors, I knew about Lenny Magill. 
     
    Lenny now owns The GLOCK Store. But he started out selling advertisements on radio and tv. Back in 1893, he did some commercials and ads for a San Diego area gun store and instructor. The ads did well and lead to some other things.The more he got into firearms, the more he wanted to get involved.  Lenny heard about the newly formed ESPN. Yes, there was a day when ESPN was new. The sports channel was looking for more content. Lenny found out that they only wanted $10,000 to run a half hour show. 
     
    The Bianchi Cup was in southern California and Lenny approached John Bianchi and asked if he could film the competition then put it on ESPN. Bianchi liked the idea, but didn’t have a budget for something like that. The deal they made was that Lenny could film the competition but he wanted the rights to the film. Bianchi agreed. At the games, Bianchi had Lenny pitch the idea for advertisers for the sponsors for a one-minute on the video to help fund the video. They all agreed and chipped in.  Meanwhile, Lenny’s filming team went and made flyers to hand out at the competition. Everyone wanted the film and he found 300 orders for the full 90 video. He also had the 24 minute show for ESPN. Soon after, Lenny was filming several other competitions around the country. 
     
    After nearly 10 years of these videos, he decided to get in front of the camera to show people how to take down this new people everyone was raving about, the GLOCK. After making several more videos on GLOCKs and helping people with competitive shooting, he decided that he was going to start GunVideos. The catalog, which many of us used to get, featured over 150 different videos. 
     
    As time passed, he opened The GLOCK Store in San Diego, getting pieces and parts for the striker fired pistol and also doing videos on installing and using these new parts. The GLOCK Store started producing their own parts which may be sturdier than some original parts. Besides parts, he also did more shooting and testing of their parts. Which led to other people wanting to shoot at his facility. Eventually, they opened a shooting range for everyone to have access to use. 
     
    After being in San Diego, Lenny’s wife had the idea to leave southern California and find somewhere new. Searching all around the country, they settled on Nashville, Tenn. The move started with building a new facility and getting that opened around 2018. They built an amazing and big facility, around 75,000 square feet. They make, install, fix, and repair all their parts there. Cerakoting and some other work gets sent out, but they’ve installed several thousand red dots for their customers. The GLOCK Store is going as strong as ever and doesn’t have any signs of letting up. 

    Before the show, Lenny took me around the facility. I got to see the storefront, of course. But I also went through where they manufacture their parts, do all the installing and upgrading, and where Lenny has the “corner office”. The GLOCK Store is only 2 miles from the airport in Nashville. So when you’re in town and waiting for a flight, you should stop by and pick up some new parts for your GLOCK. And tell Lenny “Hello”!



    Favorite quotes: 
    “I’ll do the show, as long as I get to own it.”
    “At the end of the deal, I got the $30,000. Everybody committed.”
    “I think I can also do some instructional videos…”
    “The challenge with the lane is that you’ll end up shooting in one direction and that’ll be your skill level.”
     




    Lenny Magill Instagram
    https://www.instagram.com/lennymagill
     
    GLOCK Store YouTube Channel
    https://www.youtube.com/@glockstore
     
    GLOCK Store
    https://w

    • 49 min
    RSWC #192 Quinn Cunningham

    RSWC #192 Quinn Cunningham

    Riding Shotgun With Charlie
    #192
    Quinn Cunningham
    FASTER Colorado
     
    I’ve mentioned the “Olympic rings” idea before. It’s where I know person A and they know person B, but I don’t know person B. Ok, it's a classier version of the Six Degrees of Separation. In this case, I know Laura Carno (RSWC #188), and Laura knows Quinn Cunningham. If you missed The Gun Experiment Ep 83, Laura said Quinn is who she wants on her side in a gunfight. He is someone you’d want too and you could also train with him. 
     
    Laura was selling me on having Quinn in the stagecoach. Not a hard sell. She gave me some of his back story. Again, it’s a story that I’ve heard and read about. You may have heard it, too.  And you’ll hear it right from him at the end of the show. 
     
    Quinn is a SWAT officer, a FASTER Colorado instructor, and a competitive shooter, sponsored by Shadow Systems. An influence on what being a man is came from his brother in law. He showed Quinn about virtue, leadership, and shooting and marksmanship. He grew up in Nebraska and would take the .22 rifle out shooting and tell his folks he didn’t know why the ammo supply was depleting. His decision to get into law enforcement was due to watching Lethal Weapon back in the 1980’s. They drove fast and shot guns and he knew he wanted to do that. 
     
    After 22 years of being a police officer, he worked in the jail, got to work the streets, and finally got on the SWAT team. To get on SWAT, there’s more training, you need to be an LEO for a number of years, have good performance evaluations, mental and physical challenges, and performance under stress. Now, he instructs at the local police academy.
     
    Getting into competition shooting was a way for Quinn to check some of the things he was teaching at the academy. Going to a GLOCK competition, he thought shooting at stable targets from a standing position would be easy. When the buzzer went off, he started shaking and missing shots. There was going to be a lot to learn from this kind of shooting. He had to focus on mindset, marksmanship, and fundamentals under stress. This opened up the world of high performance shooting to him. He found himself completely addicted to it. He worked his way through the rankings and in 2017, found himself at number 2 in the World Police & Fire Games. That year the French team took 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th. But Quinn was at 2nd. Talking with the competitors from around the world and hearing how they trained was also beneficial to him. 
     
    Quinn is one of the lead instructors with FASTER Colorado. His years as a police officer, SWAT, competitive shooter, and trainer has been instrumental with this position. FASTER Colorado has four levels of courses, each building off the other. FASTER gives school staff the skills and information needed to respond to active shooter incidents. I've done a number of shows with people from FASTER Saves Lives, and I have a few more coming soon. 
     
    He skimmed over the incident during the conversation.I wasn’t sure about asking about the story, the reason Quinn does FASTER, but he offered it up and I wanted to hear it. You will too. The shooting at Arapahoe High School happened in 2013 and it lasted 80 seconds long. Quinn was one of the responding SWAT members. He was injured at the time and responded regardless. He took someone else’s rifle and a traffic jacket to identify himself as a good guy.  What he saw changed his life and his direction. He works with FASTER trying to make sure incidents like this don’t happen again. 




    Favorite quotes: 
    “I was a SWAT guy. I walked up there thinking I was this big, bad dude. And I just got my ass kicked.”
    “Dry fire will get you so much better.”
    “Every school, there is someone in every school planning to shoot that school, right now.”
    “You act totally different than you think you act.”
    “We need to get this message out. If I have to go through a little bit of

    • 57 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
15 Ratings

15 Ratings

Ctownz83 ,

Great show

Great show. I look forward to every new episode. Legacy Media is Dead! Podcasts are the only way to get news and info nowadays.

Eckwin ,

What a concept!!!

I really love this concept and this Podcast!! In these interviews you learn history - not just pertaining to the Second Amendment - around the country, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be entertained. Also you’ll hear about Second Amendment events, activism and opportunities you (may not have been) aware of!

I’ve found other Second Amendment friends from this Podcast!

SlowFacts ,

Fun guests

Charlie lets the guests talk.. and he has interesting guests.

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