Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told a California audience that the right to keep and bear arms remains essential not only because police often arrive after a crime has already happened, but because he believes the Second Amendment was written as a check against government power.
Speaking at a #NotMeCA event titled An Evening of Courage, Community & Conversation, in a segment posted by Gun Owners Radio, Bianco framed self-defense as a matter of preparation, training and personal responsibility, while arguing that California’s gun laws mostly restrict people who are already willing to obey the law.
Bianco said law enforcement officers want to help victims, but he was blunt about the practical limits of policing.
“We are a phone call away,” Bianco said, “and we are that phone call away after you’re usually victimized.”
Bianco Says Police Usually Arrive After The Danger Begins
Bianco said his point was not that citizens should become vigilantes, but that people should understand the gap between danger starting and law enforcement arriving.
In his view, that reality makes self-defense training, situational awareness and lawful firearm ownership more important than many politicians are willing to admit.
He urged people to think broadly about safety, saying that being alert to one’s surroundings can sometimes help a person avoid a dangerous situation before it escalates. He also said there are times when avoidance is no longer possible, which is why he supports people being able to protect themselves.
That is where Bianco shifted into one of the central themes of his remarks: his strong support for Second Amendment rights.
“I am an absolute huge supporter of your Second Amendment rights,” Bianco told the audience, drawing applause before explaining that he sees the amendment as having two connected but distinct purposes.
The first, he said, is the constitutional purpose.
“If you’re truly a fan of the Constitution, your Second Amendment rights have nothing to do with you protecting yourself,” Bianco said. “It’s protecting us from Sacramento and from Washington.”
The Constitutional Argument He Made
Bianco argued that the Second Amendment was written primarily to protect the people from tyranny, not simply to preserve the ability to defend against criminals.
“Our founding fathers said nothing in any of their founding papers about protecting yourself from a criminal,” he said. “It was about being able to protect yourself from a tyrannical government.”
That interpretation will not satisfy everyone, of course, because Americans have long debated the scope and meaning of the Second Amendment. But Bianco’s remarks reflect a common gun-rights argument: that the amendment was included in the Bill of Rights because the founders believed armed citizens were a safeguard against government overreach.
Bianco also pushed back on the argument that modern firearms fall outside constitutional protection because they did not exist at the time of the founding.
He compared that reasoning to saying modern speech protections should not apply to cell phones or text messages because the founders did not have those technologies either. In his view, constitutional rights apply through time even as tools and technology evolve.
That is a familiar argument, but it remains one of the more effective ways gun-rights advocates frame the issue. The First Amendment is not limited to quill pens and town squares, they argue, so the Second Amendment should not be limited to muskets.
Self-Defense, Training And Women’s Safety
Although Bianco emphasized the anti-tyranny purpose of the Second Amendment, he also said self-defense remains a “God-given right” and a practical concern for ordinary people.
He said that is especially true for women, who, in his words, are more easily victimized by men, particularly in situations involving domestic violence or predatory behavior.
“That’s why organizations like this are so important,” Bianco said, referring to groups that educate and train women to protect themselves.
He praised organizations that help women escape dangerous situations and said some victims believe there is “no way out” because of long cycles of abuse that can begin in childhood and carry into adult relationships.
The sheriff said police officers may desperately want to help in every situation, but they still have to learn about the incident and travel to the scene. Too often, he said, they arrive after the harm has already been done.
“More often than not, we’re there to clean up the mess,” Bianco said.
He encouraged people to train with firearms if they choose to own or carry them, and he argued that guns themselves are not the source of violence.
“Firearms are truly not dangerous. People are dangerous,” Bianco said. “Throughout the entire history of the world, a firearm has never committed a crime.”
Why He Says California Gun Laws Miss The Mark
Bianco’s sharpest criticism was aimed at California’s gun laws, which he said do not actually stop criminals from committing violence.
From his perspective as sheriff, Bianco said, “there is not one firearms law that keeps you safe.”
He argued that the only people meaningfully constrained by gun restrictions are law-abiding residents, because criminals already ignore laws against murder, robbery and illegal gun possession.
“The only thing that a law does is it prevents a law-abiding citizen from doing something,” Bianco said.
That claim is clearly political and will be disputed by gun-control supporters, who argue that certain regulations can reduce access to firearms by dangerous people. Still, Bianco’s core point was less about theory than enforcement: a person willing to commit a violent felony is unlikely to be deterred by a carry restriction or a ban on a particular type of firearm.
He said California’s laws are designed in ways that prevent residents from owning certain guns, carrying firearms in certain places or otherwise protecting themselves, while criminals continue to act outside the system.
His answer was not that gun crimes should go unpunished. In fact, he argued for harsher consequences when someone uses a gun to commit a crime.
“We should have laws that create harsh penalties for committing a crime with a gun,” Bianco said. “And when you do that, you should be punished severely.”
The difference, he said, is between punishing criminal misuse and punishing the simple exercise of a constitutional right.
The CCW Numbers He Pointed To In Riverside County
Bianco also used Riverside County’s concealed carry permit numbers to make his case that armed, vetted residents are not the problem.
When he became sheriff in 2019, Bianco said, Riverside County had issued about 3,200 CCW permits over roughly 130 years.
Since then, he said, his office has issued 74,000 permits.
He told the audience that, to his knowledge, not one of those permit holders had committed a crime with their CCW.
That claim was one of the strongest applause lines of his remarks, because it supports his broader argument that people who go through the legal process to carry firearms are generally not the ones driving violent crime.
Bianco also joked that he had never stopped a liquor store robbery because a criminal decided not to commit the crime after failing to get a CCW permit.
The joke had a serious point behind it: legal permitting systems regulate people who submit paperwork, complete requirements and identify themselves to the government, while violent offenders typically do not seek permission before committing crimes.
A Broader Warning About Crime And Civic Life
Bianco eventually moved beyond guns and self-defense into a broader warning about what he sees as a decline in public order and accountability.
He said society is reaching a point where too many people lack respect for adults, teachers, police and ordinary rules of conduct. He pointed to road rage, public fights and conflicts over small everyday issues as signs of a culture becoming less civil.
His answer was partly legal and partly civic.
Bianco said domestic violence, crimes against children and crimes involving men victimizing women should carry harsher consequences. He argued that behavior will not change without meaningful punishment.
At the same time, he said law enforcement cannot fix the problem alone.
“We as society have to do it also,” Bianco said.
He urged people to support community organizations, become more active in local politics and consider running for office, particularly in California, where he said conservatives have often become apathetic because they assume they cannot win.
A Gun-Rights Message Rooted In Responsibility
Bianco’s speech, as posted by Gun Owners Radio, was not merely a defense of gun ownership as a hobby or political identity. It was framed as a larger argument about personal responsibility, public safety and government limits.
His message was that people should train, pay attention, protect themselves when necessary and push back against laws he believes leave good citizens less capable of defending their families.
There are reasonable arguments on all sides of gun policy, and the difficult question is always how to balance public safety with constitutional rights. But Bianco’s position was clear: California, in his view, has placed too much of the burden on people who obey the law and not enough on those who use violence against others.
For Bianco, that is why the Second Amendment still matters.
It is not just about firearms, he argued. It is about whether citizens retain the ability to defend themselves, their families and their freedoms when institutions fail to be there in time.
A former park ranger and wildlife conservationist, Lisa’s passion for survival started with her deep connection to nature. Raised on a small farm in northern Wisconsin, she learned how to grow her own food, raise livestock, and live off the land. Lisa is our dedicated Second Amendment news writer and also focuses on homesteading, natural remedies, and survival strategies. Lisa aims to help others live more sustainably and prepare for the unexpected.
