Top Shot Chris Cheng

No on Prop 63 / No To Newsom

10/18/2016

I've been busy the past few months helping fight "Gunmageddon" -- the crazy anti-gun laws coming through California this year. We are still on our back foot but starting to lean into an offensive position with our "No on 63" campaign, an anti-gun initiative supported by Lt Gov Gavin Newsom.

Please join me and 6-time Olympic champion Kim Rhode, in saying No to Prop 63, and No to Newsom. See our videos below.

More details on Prop 63 at stoptheammograb.com.

#BLM + Firearms = Black Panthers?

10/16/2016

The Black Panthers on the steps of the California State Capitol, 1967.

The Black Panthers are a controversial group. Were they freedom fighters or domestic terrorists?

Yesterday marked their 50th anniversary which prompted me to revisit their history in relation to where we stand today.

The Black Panthers' historic action of going to the California State Capitol in 1967 with guns in hand, aiming to fight abuse by the Oakland Police, started what some consider a racist, anti-gun reaction by California Republicans.

At the time, California was an open carry state, and the vision of lawful African Americans having firearms in public was untenable for many politicians. The Black Panthers were all for gun rights. Ronald Reagan and his fellow Republicans enacted the Mulford Act which repealed open carry of loaded firearms (Note: open carry of unloaded firearms was legal until 2012).

The Atlantic has an informative article on the Black Panthers and gun rights, and this particular quote stood out to me:

"...the only tangible outcome of the civil-rights movement had been more violence and oppression, much of it committed by the very entity meant to protect and serve the public: the police."

So here we are almost 50 years later and we're still facing a huge problem with law enforcement and African Americans. The new incarnate of the Black Panthers is the Black Lives Matter #BLM movement. The stark difference is that while the Panthers fought with firearms, #BLM fights with cellphone videos and social media.

Is the video is mightier than the gun? Perhaps. We have clearly seen how viral videos continue to bring the #BLM movement to the forefront of our national conversation. Ultimately a movement is judged on the impact is has on society.

This story is far from over.

San Francisco's Last Gun Shop Closes

11/13/2015

Chris Cheng poses in front of Highbridge Arms which closed its doors October 31, 2015.

San Francisco's last gun shop, Highbridge Arms, has closed after years of anti-gun pressure from local and state politicians. The final straw that broke the camel's back was proposed legislation by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors which would have required firearms and ammunition transactions and personal data be handed over to the San Francisco Police Department. The invasion of privacy and additional overhead costs became too much for the store to handle.

Highbridge Arms expected to lose customers to neighboring gun shops outside city limits where customers would retain their privacy. There was no explanation how this invasion of privacy would have helped decrease crime in our city. This is the real travesty. Anti-gun politicians pursuing an agenda that won't have any effect.

Last week I picked up my last batch of firearms from Highbridge Arms, a fantastic collection of Mossberg shotguns.

Chris Cheng poses for one final picture with Highbridge Arms employee "Russ" with a number of Mossberg shotguns for Cheng's final order. Full order of shotguns in the picture below.

I've got one of the best jobs in the world. @mossbergcorp sent me some of my favorite shotguns and I feel so fortunate to have their support. Pictured from top to bottom: 500, 590A1 Mariner, 590 Magpul, 930 JM Pro, 930 Turkey with @leupoldoptics scope. Which one's your favorite??

A photo posted by Top Shot Chris Cheng (@topshotchris) on Nov 2, 2015 at 3:51pm PST

I am thankful for all the years of support Highbridge Arms provided me and my career. While I'm generally an optimistic person, I'm pessimistic that any new gun shop will open in San Francisco any time soon. Now that Highbridge Arms has been removed as an obstacle for the Board of Supervisors, I won't be surprised when new anti-gun legislation is introduced to target individual law abiding gun owners within city limits.

San Francisco is supposed to be a city for people from all walks of life. Especially those who are considered on the fringe of society. Law abiding gun owners abhor the gun violence in our cities and communities, and it takes the gun community acting as a collective whole to make our goals clear. We want safe communities for our children, our families, and friends. This is actually a goal that both pro-gun and anti-gun people share. Let's focus on the criminals and the mentally ill as a way to prevent the next gun crime from occurring.

AllOutdoor.com Editorial "After Every Massacre, Gun Owners Must Stand Up and Fight"

10/15/2015

My friends over at AllOutdoor.com have written an editorial piece on mass shootings which I think is a good read. Here's a blurb, and if it tickles your fancy then you can click through to read the full article.

Every time we have a mass shooting, both sides of the gun debate follow the same script. The anti-gunners come out in full force, waving the latest bloody shirt and blaming the tragedy on the NRA, the second amendment, guns, and gun owners everywhere. They’re not grasping at straws or flailing about looking for targets of opportunity; they know exactly what they want. They have a list of specific enemies that they use the tragedy to smear, and they have a specific list of legislative proposals on file that they immediately begin introducing in state legislatures.

What do gun owners, and especially the NRA’s current leadership, do? First we lay low, waiting for the (self-)righteous outrage to die down a bit. Then a few brave souls poke their heads up from the foxhole and try to go on the defensive, asserting our constitutional rights, talking about how nothing could’ve been done to prevent this tragedy, and lamely pointing to various statistics that bolster our cause.

So in response to the anti-gunners’ emotionally charged rhetoric and powerful images of grieving parents, dead children, and candlelight vigils, we offer the public a few charts showing the decades-long decline in gun violence, some tired bromides, various hypotheticals about a possible future need for armed revolution, and some talk about our rights.

And how’s that working out for us? Not so well, at least from where we’re sitting here at AllOutdoor.com.

- See more at: http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/10/07/editorial-after-every-massacre-gun-owners-must-stand-up-and-fight/#sthash.QZM7ANXi.dpuf

Chris Cheng on Fox News: San Fran law "superficial, Anti-American"

9/25/2015

Fox News contacted me regarding my home gun shop in San Francisco closing. Here's a snippet of what I had to say:

“This is yet another piece of thoughtless, superficial, anti-American, anti-gun legislation that is a dangerous threat to our freedom and Constitution,” Chris Cheng, winner of The History Channel’s Season Four TOP SHOT, and a San Francisco resident, told FoxNews.com. “High Bridge Arms, like many gun shops around America, was a place for well-to-do folks to gather and talk shop about firearms and freedom.”

Read the full article at http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/24/surrender-san-fran-iconic-last-gun-shop-to-close-over-new-regulations/

San Francisco's Last Gun Shop to Close

9/18/2015

Inside of Highbridge Arms. Photo: Highbridge Arms Facebook page.

Earlier this week, San Francisco's last gun shop, Highbridge Arms, announced that it is closing its doors in October 2015. Here's an excerpt from their Facebook page:

Dear friends and family, it's with tremendous sadness and regret that I have to announce we are closing our shop. For many reasons I cannot get into at this moment, it appears our final days will be through to the end of October of 2015. We will clearance out what ever inventory we have in the shop and offer sale prices for anything you would like us to order.

For all our true friends and followers, I would like to sincerely thank you for all your support, likes, positive feedback and best of all, your friendship. Hopefully, we'll see you soon. It has been a long and difficult ride, but a great pleasure to be you're last San Francisco Gun shop.

Our warm regards,
High Bridge Arms

It's no secret that San Francisco has many anti-gun politicians in the Mayor's office, the Board of Supervisors, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi represents the city as well. While there has been no official comment from Highbridge Arms as to why they are closing, we can speculate that years of political pressure, an anti-gun climate in San Francisco, and anti-gun legislation and laws created a super storm making it challenging to run a gun shop in city limits.

Adding insult to injury is the incredible and dramatic increase in rent for businesses and residents over the past 6-7 years. Making ends meet for the gun shop and its employees may not have been a sustainable proposition.

As Highbridge Arms was my home gun shop, I will be very sad to see it go. There is no official word if they are relocating or simply going for good. I hope they will relocate to somewhere in the Bay Area so we can ensure that San Franciscans can exercise their Second Amendment right.

With Highbridge moving out, it will be interesting to see what will happen to legislation the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering which would require video taping gun and ammunition sales, and sharing ammo sales data with SFPD. My guess is that even with Highbridge closing by the time they vote on this, they will pass it in the hopes to keep any future gun shops from trying to open in the future.

It will be interesting to see if any viable lawsuits come up in the future which argue that San Francisco has a de facto gun ban since it will (soon) have zero gun shops, or something along those lines. I'm not a lawyer, but I sense potential for legal action by some organization down the line.

Anyway, thanks again to my friends at Highbridge for supporting my career and being great friends. You will truly be missed here in San Francisco, and I hope folks go visit them before the end of October when they shutter their doors.

NRA: Give guns to military recruiters (CNN)

7/21/2015

I literally have one word for this: Absolutely.

Full story via CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/20/politics/nra-guns-military-recruiters/index.html

NRA: Give guns to military recruiters
By Theodore Schleifer, CNN

Updated 9:17 AM ET, Tue July 21, 2015

Washington (CNN) The National Rifle Association said after a deadly shooting at a military facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that the rule that prohibits U.S. military men from carrying firearms on military installations was "outrageous."

The powerful gun lobby on Monday called on the White House to repeal its Pentagon directive that regulates who can carry firearms and then for Congress to "pursue a legislative fix to ensure that our service men and women are allowed to defend themselves on U.S. soil."

Troops on recruiting bases aren't armed.

"It's outrageous that members of our armed services have lost their lives because the government has forced them to be disarmed in the workplace," said Chris Cox, the leader of the NRA's legislative and political shop.

Since the shooting last Thursday that killed five service members, several governors have aimed to strengthen protection at National Guard facilities in their states, including some states choosing to arm their National Guard unit.

The Pentagon has reacted more slowly: Defense Secretary Ash Carter has asked military branches to recommend ways to beef up security on bases and installations, but at first only announced relatively modest steps in the aftermath of the shooting.

"Obviously force protection everywhere around the world, abroad and now at home, is a big priority for us at the department, and will continue to be," Carter said Friday.

San Francisco: The New NSA?

7/16/2015

You'd think that after the recent NSA data collection scandals the government would reel in their Big Brother tendencies. San Francisco must not have gotten the memo.

I live in San Francisco (yes, by choice), and as a native Californian it is one of the best cities in the state for many reasons. The food, the people, the ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge, and I could go on and on and on.

However, the anti-gun politicians are still keeping at it and their newest attack on the Second Amendment has come as a knee-jerk reaction to the Pier 14 shooting by an illegal immigrant who had seven felonies and had been deported more than enough times. Many factors contributed to the poor victim's death but the city's sanctuary laws protecting immigrants, both legal and illegal has drawn the most ire from the national discourse.

What is simply incredible though is that The San Francisco Board of Supervisors believes that gun control is the solution. The guy reportedly found the gun wrapped up in a cloth on a bench, and that gun was stolen from a federal agent's work vehicle. I have no idea how gun control would have prevented this tragedy. So the only logical conclusion is that the Board of Supervisors is trying to take advantage of an innocent person's death to push their gun control agenda.

It's shameful, and now the Board of Supervisors will be hearing a new law in September which would require all dealer sales of guns and ammunition to be videotaped. Buyer data would be collected and handed over to the San Francisco Police Department creating a database that has no use. More wasteful government spending- that is something I can tell you San Francisco is good at.

Major questions:

What will the SFPD even do with all that data? If someone came in and bought 1,000 rounds of 9mm, is that going to trigger some sort of alert and the SFPD will then go to that person's home? Then what?
Is this data collection constitutional?
Why does San Francisco think this will be effective when someone can just go to the next city over to buy guns and ammo? Also, there is only one gun shop in the city, Highbridge Arms, and so we're considering a whole law that targets a single business?

I plan on chatting with my Supervisor to voice my dismay over this proposal. I encourage other San Francisco residents who are against this proposal to contact their Supervisor as well.

Source: https://www.firearmspolicy.org/news/newslinks/new-san-francisco-measure-aims-to-videotape-all-gun-and-ammunition-sales/

CCRKBA SAYS SCOTUS RULING SHOULD OPEN DOOR TO NATIONAL CCW RECOGNITION

6/26/2015

http://www.ccrkba.org/?p=5014

BELLEVUE, WA – Following today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that requires all states to recognize same-sex marriages, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said that the same principle should apply to nationwide state recognition of concealed carry licenses and permits from all other states.

“To paraphrase what Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy said about same-sex marriage,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “no right is more profound than the right of self-preservation, and under the Constitution, all citizens should be able to exercise the right of self-defense anywhere in the country. It disparages their ability to do so, and diminishes their personhood to deny the right to bear arms they have in their home states when they are visiting other states.”

While many states recognize the concealed carry permits or licenses from other states, this is not universal. In some states, law-abiding citizens have been egregiously prosecuted for conduct that is perfectly legal in their home state. For example, New Jersey has become notorious in recent years for prosecuting honest citizens, the most recent being the unjust treatment of Shaneen Allen, the Pennsylvania single mom who had to be pardoned by Gov. Chris Christie because she crossed a bridge from one state to the other, and was honest about having a firearm when quizzed by a police officer during a traffic stop.

“State drivers’ licenses are universally recognized,” Gottlieb observed, “and with today’s high court ruling, same-sex marriage must now be recognized in all 50 states as well. It not only stands to reason, but common sense demands that the concealed carry licenses held by more than 11 million citizens across the country should now be valid in every state without question.

“We’re talking about law-abiding citizens who have gone through background checks, and in many cases, state-mandated training programs,” he added. “To continue treating their Second Amendment rights as second-class privileges seems unconscionable after today’s ruling.”

5.12.15 | The Second Scoop: Gun blogger Cops+Glocks=Death, Jersey Justice (Steffon Josey-Davis), The Second Scoop moves to CarbonTV

5/11/2015

It's Tuesday! This week's episode of The Second Scoop is now live!

Here are your headlines:

1. Pro-gun blogger argues that cops should not use Glocks. The internet explodes.
2. Another Jersey Justice problem where Steffon Josey-Davis, a 24 year old man who aspires to become a police officer, had his career dreams shattered when a routine traffic stop turned into a felony gun arrest. Will he get pardoned like other New Jerseyans?
3. The Second Scoop is now on CarbonTV! Sign up for weekly email updates using the "Sign Up" button above, or via bit.ly/1KC4272
4. Good Guy with a Gun: Utah conceal carry holder stops an attempted carjacking.
5. Video of the Week: Saturday Night Live takes on the Prophet Mohammed drawing controversy in a pretty funny skit. Host- Reese Witherspoon