There is great news for listeners of Mark Walters on the Armed American Radio program, who make the three-hour Sunday night show, because Walters launches a new daily power hour on April 6 on many of the Salem Communications stations that now carry the Sunday program.
The new show, Armed American Radio's Daily Defense, will be produced by the United States Concealed Carry Association just as the Sunday show, said Walters, who got his start in the fight for gun rights after he was forced to draw his handgun to fend off an attacker coming as him and his daughter.
“This is truly groundbreaking programming,” he said. “I’m so excited about this new show and can’t wait to bring it to people who care about the right to bear arms and about the ever-present dangers to these rights.”
Walters said the new show will be most densely-packed hour in radio, focusing on gun-related news and politics, similar to the Sunday show, but with a quicker pace. The Sunday show's producer and on-air sidekick, Sean “Seanto” Young, will also pull double duty, by joining the daily show in addition to the Sunday show.
“Separate but related, and all part of the Armed American Radio Network brand, the new show is an extension of our flagship Sunday evening national broadcast providing more daily topic flexibility,” he said.
For the last year, I have been a part of Armed American Radio as the show's Washington editor and previously as a regular guest when I was the editor of the Guns & Patriots newsletter that is now a part of Bearing Arms.
From my perspective, Armed American Radio is needed now more than ever. President Barack Obama is in his final laps and he is going to run through the tape Jan. 20, 2017. No president has been as sneaky or determined in the repression of American gun rights. Going to the Daily Defense gives Walters the platform to not only call out the Obama administration, but also to bolster advocates for gun rights—especially on Capitol Hill.
The Sunday show is broken up into three hours, each with its own character.
Hour 1 is with Walters conducts his fireside chat updating listeners on the hot issues and news from the previous week, many times joined by Alan Gottleib, the executive director of Second Amendment Foundation. Hour 2 is when Walters brings on his headliner guests for an in-depth discussion of an issue, such as Remington Arms moving out of New York State or the tactics of supporters of gun rights in different states, such as customers open carrying in the Starbucks in Newtown, Connecticut. Hour 3 is the round table with writers and activists, such as David Codrea, George “The Mad Ogre” Hill and Alan Korwin.
As I spoke to Walters as he was developing the new daily show, I was not sure how someone could take everything that goes on during three very fast hours into an hour format.
But, from the beginning, he told me that he was working to keep the character of the Sunday show, but make the broadcast more appropriate for a daily drive time listener, who is less likely to be enjoying a cigar and an adult beverage.
“The new show differentiates itself by concentrating on the daily news stories related to our right to keep and bear arms heard largely in local news markets across the country, but rarely on a national level,” Walters said.
“We’re going to be dealing with what’s happening right now, every day, everywhere. Ultimately the daily format will help us create a continuing conversation about essential rights-related topics by sharing information that the mainstream media typically ignore or present with a terrible, anti-gun rights bias,” he said.
“Listeners will be immersed in hard-hitting commentary about recent shootings, current event gun-control efforts across individual states, self-defense matters, and everyday subjects that affect the rights of responsibly armed citizens,” he said.
Armed citizens make us all safer. But, the secret to Armed American Radio and its new AAR Daily Defense hour is that gun talk is great, great radio.