hour rob pincus. He is a former law enforcement office
and creates gun safety programs He has been active in
the fight for Second Amendment rights for nearly two
decades now and is a self identified gun hobbyist ro
Thank you so much for joining us tonight on the why
Great to be here. Thank you veronica of course. So we
know you like to shoot guns, but you also believe in
gun safety. But there are people who say, hey, guns and
safety, they don't go hand in hand. Why do you think
guns are so controversial They're an emotional object,
right A lot of people have very strong convict
about them. Obviously, there are some people who feel
very passionately about them because they enjoy them.
There's people who think they are intrinsically tied
into our human rights and certainly are enumerated
civil rights here in the United States and there's
other people who I think justifiably don't underst
them and therefore fear them as we all fear things that
are that are unknown to us and obviously can cause
great harm. There are negative outcomes connected to
guns. And I think that's why the safety of the
education and even just the awareness information is so
important. So why do you think ghost guns are becoming
more and more popular for gun enthusiasts and crimina
if you will Well, let's, I can certainly attest to why
I think they're they're more important to the gun
community and why more and more hobbyists are taking up
the craft of private gun making. Um it's become easier
over the years. There's more industry support companies
like polymer 80 organizations like the National
Association of Sporting goods wholesalers and the
National Shooting Sports Foundation are certainly
embracing the opportunity to reach more consumers and
more work with more industry companies that are
manufacturing not only the kits to build gun but but
also the parts and and the three D printer like I have
behind me. Um the advancing technology of three D
printing has also been embraced by private gun makers.
So that's why it's more popular um all throughout the
firearms community and in some cases the technology
community as well. Well, how ea is it to make one of
these three D. Printed guns I mean I know that you're,
you're sitting in front of a three D. Printer there. Um
can you do a show and tell how easy is it to make this
gun How easy is it at the end of the day to your hands
on these kits Well, let's talk about three D. Printing
first. If you have computer aided drafting skills.
you can work a cad program. If you have the techni
know how to set up and calibrate the machine. If y
understand the various different filaments, the raw
materials that go into them. Um It can be relatively
simple to print a firearm frame for example. Um
Something like this, this handg frame. Um this is a
modified frame. You can have my company logo on it and
some other just little changes to the way it's shaped.
But this design was done by somebody with much more
advanced engineering and computer aided design skills
than I have. Um these files were put out into the
public domain. You can print them directly um with a
printer that again, that's set up and calibrated with
the right filament and that might take 12 to 15 hours
and then you're in for another few hours of work after
that. And in this case hundreds of dollars worth of
extra parts. So the parts that go into this printed
frame are commercially manufactured parts for firearms
that could go into a manufactured gun traditionall
manufactured gun or a privately made firearms. So
there's a fair amount of technical, know how and uh
workmanship and craftsmanship t has to go into that.
On the other hand, some of the kits the hit builds can
be much simpler. Um, what I always tell people is that
at the end of the day, the firearms owner who mak
their own firearms is a safer and more responsible
firearms owner. They understand more about how the gun
works. They've obviously been interested enough in
firearms to learn how to build their own, maintain
their own and get their own working. And I think that's
a really important and often overlooked aspect of why
the hobby is so important to the gun community. But we
are talking about illegal gun trafficking tonight. That
is our top, our topic of conversation and we want to
ask you as our bottom line question, Break it down fo
us. Why is the number of illegal guns on the streets on
the rise Why are they increasing Well, I would like t
hope it's because that law enforcement is becoming mor
efficient at finding the real criminals. They're
finding people who are engaged in violent crime or
they're finding people who are involved in illegally
manufacturing or selling guns with the with the
knowledge that they're being sold and transferred to
people who are going to commit crimes. You know, if you
could identify for me the gun shops and and this is the
job of the A.T.F. Really, where are those gunshots I
keep hearing about that are clearly selling guns to
known criminals or engaging in straw purchases so that
someone who can pass a background check can get the
guns into criminals. Hands right, Everybody involved in
that is there is a danger to our society. That's w
I think the attention should be placed not on the
hobbyist gunmaker again. Where is the local law
enforcement and where is the federal law enforcement
taking action against the people who are really
threatening our kids in our society Alright, rob pincus
We appreciate you starting off our our here on the Y
thank you so much for your time tonight. Thank you.
Still ahead. We hear from the other side of this debate,