Rick Green
Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders Show. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. We appreciate you joining us, but be sure and visit online as well. Wallbuilders.show for the radio programs if you want to check out the archives of the last few weeks, and wallbuilders.com for all the great materials updates on upcoming events. You want to send out the archives the last few weeks, and wallbuilders.com for all the great materials updates on upcoming events. You want to send your pastors to our pastors briefing in DC. Get your teachers to our trainings in the summers, young people all kinds of things going on, so check it out.
There at wallbuilders.com, I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, here with David and Tim Barton. Tim's a national speaker and pastor and president of Wall Builders. David's America's premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders and guys, I would say we're probably all packing. I know the listeners might be wondering why would I lead with that right, but we're all trained good guys with guns. So we believe in living out our Second Amendment rights and our guest later in the program today is going to be talking about some of the lawfare out there that's necessary to preserve those Second Amendment rights going into the courts to make sure that that Bruin decision from a couple of years ago is actually being upheld. So this is going to be really interesting today.
Tim Barton
Well, Rick, not only are we packing, which, when you first said that, I thought you know we probably should clarify. I don't want people to think it's like.
Rick Green
We do a lot of traveling, so yeah, we're always packing for something.
Tim Barton
Well, or you know, like we're Joe Biden and we're packing, because that's a different kind of you know the depends being packed as opposed to you know of like Second Amendment carrying. Anyway, not to derail us too far. But one of the things that we highly encourage is not just that people have a firearm, but that they train and work to become more proficient with that firearm. The old adage of the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. We would disagree with that assessment. It's not a good guy with a gun necessarily that stops a bad guy. It's a well-trained good guy with a gun, because if you have a gun and don't know how to use it, you're not going to stop the bad guy. You have to know how to use it. And we're actually pretty excited that in just a couple of weeks I don't know what the official countdown is now, but 4th of July weekend we all get to hang out together and do some training.
Rick Green
We're going to watch fireworks go off and we're going to fire a few of our own works.
I don't know if that's the right way to say that, but let's just say there's going to be a lot of bang and we're going to have some fun at the ranges there at the Fredericksburg campus for Patriot Academy and we've still got some slots available, WallBuilders, listeners, if you want to come join us, constitutional Defense of your Family and Freedom, and Tim and David and I will be there training and we'd love for you to come along with us and then, of course, get engaged in teaching the Constitution, not just living it out by carrying a firearm, being trained, but also intellectually defending the Constitution, and that's what they do over at National Gun Rights Foundation.
And, guys, we love the Bruin decision right, I mean, that was a really good decision came down from the Supreme Court saying you don't just have a right to carry a gun in your home, you have a right to carry that gun with you when you go outside, when you go places, to be able to defend your family. But you remember when we won Kennedy that same summer, that Kennedy case, Kelly Shackelford told us it's not going to be enough to win the Supreme Court case, we're going to have to go out and teach people to live according to the Constitution and file a lot of local lawsuits in order to make sure that the Kennedy case is followed. I think today we're going to learn the same thing is necessary with Bruin and our Second Amendment rights, as well as Kennedy and our First Amendment rights.
Tim Barton
Well, there's no doubt, and it's something that you know, Kelly Shackelford First Liberty they've been fighting for religious freedom, religious liberty. They've won four cases of the US Supreme Court in the last four or five years. Just incredible what God has enabled them and helped them to accomplish. But one of the things that the reason I bring up that they've won four cases in the last four or five years. Why does that matter? Because you don't just win one case and then the issue becomes settled. So so, Bruin has been determined. Rick, even as you're saying we need to see more cases happen, well, part of what that means is that people need to start practicing some of their constitutionally protected, god given rights, and there are going to be people that challenge and saying, no, you can't do that. And we're not at all encouraging people to be obnoxious, right, we're not encouraging you to be weird. One of the things I think sometimes, as we've seen, Christians confuse this that they're weird where they should be normal and they're normal where they should be weird. Right, that we're supposed to be in the world, but not of it. But make sure you're weird in the right ways. Don't be weird for the sake of being weird. Don't be like Austin, Texas, that their motto is keep Austin weird. That's not the point of what it is. So I'm not encouraging people to be foolish, to do things that are obnoxious just to draw attention to yourself.
However, if it comes to protecting, however, if it comes to protecting, preserving those rights, we should. And, Rick, the reason I say that is because the Bruin decision was absolutely significant, acknowledging that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms as they're traveling throughout their state, as they are going to work as normal just operations of their day. You have a right to have a firearm with you and as we say that, there's still a lot more of this thought to be developed and a lot more of the Second Amendment to be preserved and restored, especially in certain areas. So it's something that, to your point, people do need to be educated on what is already there. But there are still going to be some legal battles to help restore things back to more of what we should be doing in America, which is protecting, politically, protecting our God-given rights, and we've made some great strides. Bruin decision is one of the things making the strides, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done, especially in some specific states and areas.
Rick Green
I'm going to be laughing while we're on break about your. You know, we're weird when we should be normal and normal when we should be weird. And the fact that Austin is weird, because where I live in Dripping Springs, we call it being just west of weird and we like to say keep dripping normal, but Austin is moving out and taking over, so that's why we're moving to Fredericksburg. Anyway, quick break, stay with us folks, we'll be right back. Hannah Hill, our special guest. We're going to be talking about how to get Bruin to be the law of the land in every area Gunrightsfoundation.org to learn more about the organization.
It's called National Foundation for Gun Rights, Hannah Hill, when we return on the WallBuilders Show.
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. I am so excited about this because it's like Patriot Academy has come full circle. One of my greatest graduates ever I call her the Southern Belle Hannah Hill is with us. Hannah, God bless you Well. I love the fact that you came to Patriot Academy as just a youngling, searching for purpose and where can I use my talents that God's given me and help save the Republic, and got trained for years and now, man, you are on the front lines. Talk about front lines. I mean the legal battles that you are leading the way on. It's incredible. I get your emails and I watch you on social media and I'm like go Hannah go! Anyway, I'm proud of you. I want to say that I'm proud of you.
Hannah Hill
You made me laugh, Rick. I mean honestly. You and everything you did at Patriot Academy has been so instrumental in making that happen. You've been a mentor to me over the years. So thrilled to hear you say that. And also, you know it's thrilling to see how you know you're used to the harvest being slow. So to see the full, those full circle moments for me, for you and for me, as we invest, you know, in the next generation, it just means a lot to see that happen and to see how the fact how what we were doing 10, 15, 20 years ago um, we were laying the groundwork for where we would be right now and that those years weren't wasted, even though you didn't necessarily see where you fit into the movement at that time.
Rick Green
Yeah, it's so true. And it's interesting because you came back and helped pour into other students in that next group that was coming right behind you and served them and helped them. I'll be honest, Hannah, I never thought the Second Amendment would be your part of the Constitution, that you would decide to put so much into it. I don't know why I didn't connect that. I mean, I know you're Southern Belle, I knew Jonathan. Your brother went on to be a legislator in South Carolina, super strong on the Second Amendment. I don't know, I just didn't picture it.
And now here you are with all these great cases, because
Hannah Hill
I’m so glad to hear you say that because it never was my thing. My number one issue has always been limited government, so for me, every other issue falls into that, but the thing that I have always been most passionate about is keeping government from doing things that it's not supposed to be doing. Back to actually some of the stuff that I like.
Rick Green
Well then, protecting the Second Amendment makes sense. What you're doing makes perfect sense, then yeah.
Hannah Hill
It really does. But you know, the thing is, the Second Amendment was always something that I believed in very strongly, but until I came to work for a gun rights organization, I would never have said, you know that that's the issue that gets me up in the morning. And now I've spent the last four years working in the second amendment litigation field and I think you can say that it's very much more. I'm very much more invested in it and I very much appreciate how it fits in. But you know, growing up trying to find your place, you know it's the life battles that you're more passionate about. But you know, growing up trying to find your, find your place, you know it's the life battles that you're more passionate about.
Rick Green
Right, right, and it's those you know and well easier to the life battles, I think, are easier to understand and and to clearly know. You know, this is where the line you know we're obviously protecting all life and and there's so many battles out there. Second Amendment is is you know? It's different state to state in terms of what the battles are and some people you know it's just it's not as easy. I am curious, though, for you, was there a light bulb moment, kind of a wow, this issue is so important. We don't get all of our other rights without this one to protect life. What was it a case, Was it a story? What turns you on to it all of a sudden? And it was like okay, this is important enough for me to invest.
Hannah Hill
No, it wasn't that. It was more like the doors of opportunity opened. I've always known that the Second Amendment is what secures all of our other rights. The Second Amendment is what protects your right to speech. It's what protects our right to life. It's what made what the founders did in 1776 possible. I always believed in that right.
But I was working for a think tank back home in South Carolina and we were kind of a legislative watchdog think tank. We were reading the bills that the lawmakers would put forward and we would analyze them from a limited government free market perspective. And it was a wide variety of policy. There was Second Amendment policy. There was some life policy, but we had massive budget spreadsheets. We were analyzing where the road funding came to and where it went. We were looking for fraud, waste, abuse and corruption, and I loved it.
And the funny thing is was, you know, I had discovered at Patriot Academy that I liked reading bills, which is a very weird thing to like, but I enjoyed it. And somebody asked me at Patriot Academy so where do you see yourself? What would you like to do with all of this? And not having any idea if it was even possible, I said basically I'd like to be a policy analyst and then, just through you know volunteer opportunities, the Lord just kind of opened the doors to survey internship, which turned into full-time work. I don't have a college degree, I don't have the background or the credentialing that you would look for to build a career like this, but for me,
Rick Green
Which is why you're so good on policy, by the way, because you didn't get it messed up in college. You still have that limited government, individual liberties, free enterprise, timeless truths, Patriot Academy, lift principles. That's right. And didn't have college, mess that up for you.
Hannah Hill
Maybe we should go over what the lift principles were, just in case anybody here isn't familiar with limited government.
Rick Green
Yes.
Hannah Hill
Individual rights, individual responsibility they're both two sides of the same thing.
Rick Green
That's right.
Hannah Hill
In the market.
Rick Green
That's right.
Hannah Hill
And traditional values. That last point the traditional values is why I will never be a libertarian. So that's a dig. I have to get in, yeah, so that's
But you know those are the principles that you operate from and you believe you know in all of them but you don't necessarily hone in on one of them. For me, I was more of a free market liberty general practitioner, but then you know, I had kind of gone as far as I could at that particular think tank. We had run into some issues and I was really getting a little frustrated because we weren't able to be as useful as I felt like we should be. Covid hit during that time and there was a lot of opportunity for a limited government perspective on what our governor was doing. But we, suddenly our team of policy analysts, found ourselves unable to do that and it was an extremely frustrating thing. You're sitting at home, you're going crazy, you can't do anything about it. You're slowly devolving into that. You know the work from home descent into insanity, right. And in the middle of all of that came a job offer.
So the National Association for Gun Rights out in Colorado was wanting to put together a legal team. So they needed somebody to do legal research, case research, that type of thing. I didn't know anything about the legal world and I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I didn't know anything that much about the legislative world before I got into it either. So our parents were very good at teaching us not only how to think but how to learn. So you just jump in and you figure it out. So moved out to Colorado between the two shutdown waves um, in the summer of 2020 and very interesting time to make a cross-country move um, and we and we hit the ground running. We got started.
So the national association for gun rights is a 501c4 um. I worked for the 501c3, the legal foundation, the legal arm, and in many ways it was like creating a self-supporting. In many ways it was like creating this self-supporting nonprofit startup and figuring everything out. And now fast forward four years pretty much and we have a whole slew of lawsuits. We have lawsuits at all three levels of the federal judiciary. We have one pending at the Supreme Court today and we have other cases in the hopper. So back to your original question. That's the long way around.
Rick Green
It's almost like being an entrepreneur. I mean you, literally, were starting from ground up. You had to build the. You know you had somewhat of a base of audience or supporters that they already, you know, had in place. But the business plan how we're going to do this, who's going to do this very, very similar to starting a business. Raising the money, doing all of those pieces had to be part of it.
Hannah Hill
Now, if I had known then what I know now, everything you just said, would have helped me not be nearly as impatient. What I know now, everything you just said, would have helped me not be nearly as impatient, because you know how it is when you're starting. The trick is to not overextend yourself, and the vision for the legal arm was always for it to be self-sufficient. Now we had a lot of support from the rest of the organization but, being a separate legal entity, we were supposed to raise our own recurring revenue, our own the war chest, if you will, to fight these legal battles with. So, fortunately, our executive leadership was wiser than I was and they're like we're not going to. They spent the first year kind of pumping the brakes on me and I was like I really don't know what the big deal is. Let's get this.
Rick Green
You were ready to charge the hill? Yeah, and you have to charge the hill? I was yeah,
Hannah Hill
and you have to actually prepare first.
And I didn't realize that what they were waiting to do was to lay that foundation and that groundwork so that we could juggle as many lawsuits as we are today. So in hindsight
Rick Green
So in hindsight, Okay, wait, Hannah, I got to tell you I'm laughing inside because I remember a talk you came in 10 years ago. You tell me how long ago. It was A talk that you gave about how to beat the barbarians and part of it was, you know, planning organization. All this stuff. Isn't that interesting that you gave that talk at Patriot Academy all those years ago and then you had to go through it yourself.
Hannah Hill
You know, I read somewhere a statement, and I don't I forget who said it, but it always struck me as being super profound. The hardest lessons to learn are the ones that we have already learned, and for me, some of it was technical, you know, ignorance, I didn't. I didn't know how to build a startup, I didn't know how to build a business, and so I didn't know where the pitfalls were. But part of it was that, part of it was um, taking the time to actually, you know, the lack of preparation is the number one reason we in the liberty movement we fail. Um, it's a cause. Yeah, we get. We start. Want calling in help to fix the ceiling. When the ceiling has already caved in, you're supposed to start when you see the cracks right, and so you know there's a lot.
When you look around at what's happening, start when you see the cracks right, and so you know there's a lot. When you look around at what's happening around us, you see we're losing elections. The ones that are elected keep passing bad laws at the state and the federal level and at the local level. You see evil books in the kids' sections at the libraries and you're like how did we get here? Well, we got here by ignoring the cracks in the ceiling and then suddenly we come in with a pitchfork and we think we can fix everything. Um, once the ceiling is in the process of caving in, it doesn't look like that. You have to mobilize, you have to, you have to lay that groundwork when the need doesn't feel urgent, and then you have the base from which to operate, to act quickly when suddenly you start finding objectionable material in the kid section of your library.
Rick Green
So yeah, it's, it's been that's wisdom right there girl.
That's wisdom, it's hard one, it's so true, yeah, and it hard and it and it takes time. Right, it takes time. We, we want the victories overnight. I'm that way, I'm impatient, you know, and said a few minutes ago is so, so true. It's like a lot of times you're preparing, equipping or maybe even going through a small battle that you don't even realize God's just putting you through that to prepare you for this big one that's coming, you know, 10 years later or 20 years later. So good, so good. You're right on.
Rick Green
What a treat. Thanks to Hannah Hill for joining us. Stay with us, folks, we'll be right back on the WallBuilders Show.
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back to WildBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Hannah Hill, thanks for joining us. Okay guys, I admit I'm popping buttons like a proud papa. Hannah was a young gal when she came to Patriot Academy the first time. Sweet little Southern belle, I mean like sat in the back and by the time it was over she was running the show. Became Lieutenant Governor of Patriot Academy, Ended up recruiting a lot of folks to Patriot Academy and was absolutely the most lethal bill killer at the back microphone. With her sweet little Southern Belle accent, she would just cut you to shreds. I just so enjoyed having her on the program with us. What a cool thing to see.
Tim Barton
Well, and as you're saying, from Patriot Academy days, when she would cut people to shreds. What she would do is she would challenge a lot of their positions, saying, hey, is that constitutional? Does that follow the lift principles for limited government, whatever it is, and it's so great that she got that foundation and now she's at a place advocating for the very same principles. And, as you, really did a good job helping connect the dots. And she said you know, really, I just I'm limited government. And you said, but right, defending the second amendment, that's part of how this process works and certainly, as people that care about God-given rights, we talk about this a lot at WallBuilders, recognizing that the founding father's starting place was, they knew there was a God, they knew that God gave rights and they knew that the primary role and function of the government was to protect those God-given rights and, as they go through and identify what many of those God-given rights were. That's part of why the Bill of Rights existed was to bring clarity, so that nobody in government could ever be confused at what the federal government or even state or local government, what they should or shouldn't do. And so the Bill of Rights, the negative listing of rights and the sense of these are things that government can never touch. And the right of people to keep and bear arms was part of that, because they recognize that self-defense is a right that God has given us. Everything in God's creation. There is this intuitive design that God put in there that if it's threatened, it's going to work on self-preservation, whether it runs, whether it bites, whether it claws, whether it flies, whatever mechanism it has, have found better ways to enact self-preservation and ultimately right the gun being a great equalizer in self-preservation.
But all of this goes back to the recognition of the God-given rights, the recognition of the limitations of what government is supposed to do is protect those God-given rights and helping more people to understand that this is not about a pro-gun culture. It's actually a pro-life culture, and because we want to protect and preserve life, then we want people to have the ability, the capacity and the training to be able to protect themselves, their loved ones, the things that are significant and important to them, their coworkers, as the case might be, and this is part of what preserving the second amendment's all about. So just incredible that hannah taking that training as a young lady from patriot academy and now applying that same training to make a difference. I mean genuinely, rick, incredible. You should be the proud papa, although I well, never mind I was was gonna make a rude comment about you know, if there's buttons popping, it might be because of lack of exercise, not because she's awesome, but I'm not gonna go there.
Rick Green
It's. It might be both, yeah, might be both. I you know what, though? I love what you just said about it's not just, it's not pro-gun, it's pro-life. That's really good, man, because that is that's what you're doing you're preserving life, you're protecting innocent life. David, you did I don't know how many years ago it was when you did the Second Amendment, primer, but I mean that was so instrumental in creating the programs at Patriot Academy that we have, because you went back and said you know what's the reason for having this in the Second Amendment? And it really is. It's an argument for protecting life, and you did it in the words of the Founding Fathers Really important tool. It's available atwallbuilders.com. Folks, you should get it Pretty quick read and it will absolutely give you the intellectual ammunition you need to preserve the Constitution.
David Barton
Well, I'll point out that what Hannah's doing should not be needed, because there's unequivocal what Founding Fathers intended, unequivocal what the Constitution says If you read the Heller decisions and Bruin decisions. It's unequivocal what the Supreme Court said. We're going back to original intent of the Second Amendment. We're doing what the founders wanted.
The problem we face today, the reason that she's doing what she's doing, is number one education and teaching. Instilling progressive ideas that, oh, we always need to leave the old stuff behind. Well, wait a minute. You don't leave the laws of gravity behind. You don't leave Boyle's law of gases behind, or the laws of thermodynamics. Well, we need new things. And so the progressive nature.
And the second thing is the anti-God nature that we get out of education, because we're talking inalienable rights here, which means they do come from God, but we're now in a culture that says no, no, no, everything stems from us. God's not important and history is not important. And so I wish we were back at a point where we did not need Hannah to be doing this at all, that she could be doing something else. I will love the fact that she's doing it. I'm glad she's doing it.
She's going to keep winning, because the courts have made this very, very clear, but the other side is relentless and they're not going to give up just because they disagree. But this all goes back to education again. So I'm going to harp on education. If you, if you want to win cases like this in the future, you better start working on education right now, because that's where all this anti-constitution, anti-god, anti-animal rights stuff is coming from. And Hannah is a good warrior to have out there on the other side until we can get control of this and get it pointed back in the right direction.
Rick Green
Great stuff, folks. If you want to learn more about that constitutional defense and that intellectual ammunition and also get physically trained, as we talked about at the beginning of the program, come join us. Go to PatriotAcademy.com today, Click on constitutional defense. We'll be out there July 4th the Bartons and the Greens and a whole lot of our friends from across the country and you can come train with us. Check it out today at patriotacademy.com. You've been listening to the Wall Builder Show.
