Biker, gun enthusiast, former bull rider and radio talk show host Mike Broomhead filled in for Glenn on The Glenn Beck Program today, Wednesday, December 28.

Read below or listen to the full segment from Hour 3 for answers to these questions:

• Can you still work hard and be successful in America?
• Why do Chinese people still want to be Americans?
• How did Donald Trump flipped certain states to win them?
• Are California gun sales skyrocketing?
• What the hell is an evil feature on a gun?

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

MIKE: It is the Glenn Beck Program. My name is Mike Broomhead. Phoenix, Arizona, is where I live. I’m in for Glenn today and tomorrow. Thanks for making the Glenn Beck Program a part of your day, wherever you’re listening, however you’re listening to us. We really do appreciate you being here, and I want to especially thank the hundreds of people on social media that have reached out to me this morning. I love social media and the interaction. It’s just a great way for us — and I do manage my own social media. I don’t have anybody that does it for me. So on Twitter, I’m @BroomheadShow. On Instagram, Mike Broomhead. All one word. And I’m known for here in Phoenix for my blurry pictures. Yes, I’m not doing it on purpose now. It’s just, for whatever reason, can’t take a picture no matter how good the camera is. But you can see my photographs there. And the Mike Broomhead Fan Page on Facebook is where you can find my page locally in Phoenix. I do Morning Drive in Phoenix, Arizona, at KFYI.

And I want to wrap something up from last hour. The biggest outpouring I’ve gotten in response has been about work in America and jobs. And I’ve gotten some great tweets. And they’ve been terrific. And people have been kind. And I’m not — Sharita said that, you know, that no one should feel that they can’t — if you want — what you have isn’t good enough, go out and get it. When there’s a will, there’s a way. And talked about going and getting her degree later in life, after retiring from the Army.

And thank you for your service. In the military, it is one of the great things about Americanism. And what I worry about with the regulation — so when I argue politics, I come from a different place. I am a registered Republican. I say that unashamedly. But I am not a standard-bearer for the Republican Party.

I’m a standard-bearer for a set of what I believe are ideals. And the reason why I want limited government is because I think government gets in the way many times.

And so we do need rules and regulations. But when the powerful become more powerful — and that’s all it is about, is becoming more powerful, it becomes a detriment.

And so I know the — it’s about principle, not party. And so when I argue about the Democratic platform, it’s because I think it’s wrong. I’m not arguing with Democrats and calling them evil people. I believe they’re well-intentioned. You know, my uncles were teamsters, for crying out loud, when I was a little boy. So you know what kind of family I came from. Everyone in that family, that entire family, all my cousins now Republican. Because what has become of the oppression of the Democratic Party is different. It’s the haves and the have-nots. And it’s class warfare that shouldn’t be there.

So to kind of wrap a bow on the last hour where we were talking about jobs and influence and the working class in America, we should be telling our children, in our own homes, but the generation of children right now in high school, that there’s a way for you in America, no matter who you are, to find a way to contribute and feel good about your contribution and make a living for yourself.

You’re not going to have — not many of us are ever going to have superstar money. It’s not going to happen. But we can improve our station in life. We can change our career in midstream. We can do things differently at an older age and still accomplish things. Like it can’t be done in other parts of the world. Why do you think as good as the Chinese economy is, that the Chinese people still want to be Americans?

America still stands for that land of opportunity to so many people in the world. And we should be proud of that. The class warfare is what has dragged this economy down for the last eight years. It is why we still see this huge disparity between rich and poor. Through this sluggish recovery — if you notice, the Dow is through the roof. So if you’ve got a 401(k), it’s doing better now. The rich have gotten much richer. But what are we doing at the grassroots level about jobs?

Well, the issue is, it costs so much money to do business. I want you to think — put yourself — if you’re one of the people that are listening right now and throwing things at your radio because of what I’m saying, I just want you to be honest for a moment: If you had $10 million right now, under the current rules we have, where if you were to invest part of that money in a startup company and risk it and the government was going to take a huge chunk of your profits, to the tune of 35 to 40 percent, and then on top of that, regulations were such that it costs so much money to start a business, or would you live on that 10 million, have a nice life, and wait until, A, your taxes were lower so you kept more of your profits when you risk everything and, B, the regulations made it easier for you to start a business?

When I expanded my contracting company — and I’m no genius. The people that are listening in Phoenix can attest to that. They hear me every day. I’m no smarter than anybody else. I’m as average as average can be. I just work hard.

When I expanded my business, I was able to get a 50,000-dollar line of credit on my house to expand my business.

I had a box of tools and a pickup truck when I started. And my concern is — because I’m no genius. But my concern is, my grandchildren — I got three grandsons. The oldest is five.

Fifteen years, he’s going to be in high school — or, I mean, he’s going to be in college. Well, he may be in high school if he follows in my footsteps at 20. But at 20 years old, he’ll either be in the job market, in college, or in the military. And if he’s in the job market, is he going to have the opportunities I had? If he’s got the — the desire to jump out there and take the risk. Is the opportunity going to be there?

Because we’ve wiped that opportunity out for so many people. It is so costly to start a business now, just on the compliance issues alone. That unless you’ve already got a ton of money, you can’t do it.

The individual that’s willing to risk everything — you know, mortgage their house to do something, you can’t even afford to do it now at all.

So when I talk about lowering taxes at the corporate level, it’s not because I’m snuggling up to the wealthy. I’m no silver spoon kid myself. I just don’t think the government is entitled to it just because you earned it. I mean, I don’t care who you are. And the decrease in regulation, I’m not saying because I don’t care about the environment. That’s ridiculous. Anybody that loves the outdoors, that hunts and fishes, cares about the environment.

Hunters and fishermen want to have the forest pristine and they want clean water because they want their grandkids and their great-grandkids to enjoy the forests like they do. They don’t want to decimate the animal population. They don’t want to cut down all the trees. They don’t want to pollute the water. I don’t want to pollute the air. I don’t want to give my grandkids lung cancer because I don’t care about the environment. But oppressive regulation drags down business and drags down opportunity.

I want my grandkids to have an opportunity to do what they desire to do with their lives. If they want to go to work eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, make a nice living, and spend every other minute with their families, God bless them, I hope they do it. If they’re an entrepreneurial spirit and they’re willing to work 100 hours a week on a dream — and even if they fail at the dream, to have the opportunity to chase it, that’s why I have aligned myself with the Republican Party in what the platform is supposed to stand for.

I don’t agree with everything they’ve done. Trust me. Go back and listen to the podcast on my show. Go to KFYI.com. Listen to some of the podcasts. What I’ve said about the Republican Party.

But the principles of small government and standing on your own two feet, most people believe in, no matter what party they are. There are plenty of Democrats that aren’t looking for a handout.

That’s why Donald Trump flipped the states he flipped because he went into those states and he said to the working Democrats in those union towns, get your factories opened again. We’re going to make sure you have your job. We’re not going to hand you anything. You’re just going to get your job back. You’re going to keep your job.

Now, they believed him. And if they don’t come through — if the Republicans in the House and the Senate don’t come through, you’re going to see those two houses flip in the next four years. And Donald Trump will be out in four years.

This hour of the show, we’re going to talk about California. I am a very big Second Amendment advocate for a number of reasons. And I live in a state that has got great gun laws, which are very lenient, and they’re very pro-gun owner. But California is going the other direction. And so gun sales are going through the roof in the state of California.

We’re going to discuss this idea here in a few moments, this hour. And also, one commentator is still talking about why Hillary lost and it’s still not Hillary’s fault. Now it’s white fear. I don’t know what white fear is. I’m white. Nobody whiter than me. Pretty sure that however white you are, nobody whiter than me. And I don’t know what white fear is.

So we’re going to talk about, again, racial tension in this country and the division again, if it’s not rich versus poor, it’s black versus white or men versus women or gay versus straight.

Talk about that political division, and is it time it all came to an end? We’ll do that here in just a few moments on the show. It’s Glenn Beck Program. My name is Mike Broomhead. We’ll be back.

[break]

MIKE: My name is Mike Broomhead. Phoenix, Arizona. In for Glenn today and tomorrow. Thanks for making the Glenn Beck Program a part of your day. We’re talking issue-based. This one is about guns. And I’m a Second Amendment advocate. I’ve owned guns most of my life. I’m a very excitable personality. You may have figured that out.

I’ve never brandished a weapon on a human being in my life, nor have I ever considered it, thank God.

I do know this: The second to last thing I ever want to do is shoot a person. The last thing I want to do is have to defend myself or my family and not have the ability. It’s not about being a hero. Not at all. The last thing I want to be is a hero. I will talk — I have been prone to arguments and even fistfights when I was younger — I was — I was going to say, I was a bit of a hothead. I am a hothead. Never considered taking a human life.

So the gun issue for me is about. Law-abiding citizens. And earlier I mentioned, it’s about policies. When conservatives in America argue issues, dispassionately argue issues, we can win on the issues every single time. Because it’s about personal responsibility. And I think even the majority of the people on the political left have a sense of personal responsibility. They may disagree to what level the government gets involved in things, but they do have the idea of personal responsibility.

So even within conservative circles, we disagree on things. And so we associate ourselves largely with people that agree with us. It’s easier that way.

But we talk about issues with people when we disagree. We win almost every time. I can defend my pro-life stance, dispassionately, although it’s a passionate issue.

And I’ve asked my friends that are pro-choice to just hear me out. I’m not calling you a baby killer. Don’t give me the stupid line of keep your laws off my body. I don’t care what you do with your body. Tattoo, pierce it, cut it off. It doesn’t matter to me.

But I genuinely believe that that is a human life inside that woman’s body that deserves to be protected with the same laws that we would protect it if it were outside the womb. That’s just my belief. It starts there. It’s not about oppressing women. It’s not about any of that stuff. I believe it’s a human life.

And I’ll go on and ask the question: If you had someone in your life that you loved that was pregnant that was intending to keep the baby, even in the time period when the baby is legally able to be aborted and that woman, God forbid, was involved in a car accident that caused her to lose the baby and the driver of the other car was drunk, would you want that drunk driver prosecuted for murdering that baby? If the answer is yes, then it’s a human life. It can’t be a human life when you want to keep it and a glob of tissue when you don’t.

I don’t expect I’m going to win anybody over that change their mind. But maybe they’ll think about it differently, when — they think I’m going to come at them and call them a baby killer. We win on the issues.

You know, one of the things I admire most about my friendship with Glenn — Glenn Beck, of course — is that he’s always treated me like a colleague. And even — and especially when we disagree about things, there’s never been anyone more thoughtful about something, nor have I ever met anybody that wants to do the right thing and is willing to risk everything to do the right thing.

I was with Glenn on the border when — when the listeners to this network, to this show donated all of that money so that those supplies could be taken to those kids at the border.

I am as anti-illegal immigration as they come. I live in a border state, where it is horrendous what’s happening with illegal immigration on all of the issues tied to it.

But you go to McAllen, Texas. I saw the picture on my phone of a little boy, maybe eight years old, sitting on a cot in a tent. They — they gave him clean clothes, shower, food, and they gave him a toy. It was a Woody Story (sic) toy from Toy Story.

And we looked in, and this little boy was sitting by himself on a cot. And we were told he’s just going to sit there until they figure out what they can do with him. They got a family member somewhere. Where are they going to put him?

Now, I don’t care where you stand on illegal immigration, how do you not look at a little boy and say, “He was one of tens of thousands, and what are we going to do?”

So when I look at situations like that, I’ll go one further on the other side of it. Last weekend in June, we have the anniversary of the firefighters who were killed on Yarnell Hill here in Arizona. The 100 Club of Arizona donates money to these families, just to get them through. And the charities at Mercury donated $50,000 that year.

So I want to associate myself with people to put their money with their mouth is. And not just money. Put themselves on the line. So it’s interesting that people would have the assumption that everybody that is associated with, friendly with, close to Glenn, would have to think like Glenn all the time.

He is one of the most thoughtful, nicest people I’ve ever met, even when we disagree about things.

And is one of the most conservative people I’ve ever met in my entire life. I just — I think it’s interesting that within our circles, it’s funny I have — I just got a message from one of my local listeners recently, a minute ago. Mad at me because I have John McCain on my show locally in Arizona. And I laugh because he’s chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the United States Senate. Has been in the Senate forever, which to the — much to the chagrin of many of you. But I like John McCain. As a person, I get along well with him, and I disagree with him on a lot of issues. But he is the senior senator in Arizona, the most recognizable name in American politics. He wins his elections by large numbers here in the state of Arizona. And I’m on the talk radio station in Arizona. Why in the world would I ever stop having him on my show?

And if you disagree with that, I respect you. But you can’t come at me and question my conservative values because I would — for the reasons I just gave you, have him on my show.

The time for us throwing stones at each other should be over. Republicans and Democrats should have one thing in common. We have a healthy suspicion of the people we elect to public office.

They can try to divide us, rich versus poor, black versus white, man versus woman, gay versus straight, but in the end, we should have a healthy suspicion of especially the ones we support and put there.

I think that’s what makes us a great country. In the end, we know we say this all the time: I’m done talking to politicians. I’m talking to you. Because you and I can wipe out the entire House of Representatives every two years and a third of the Senate. Every two years. We have term limits. It’s called the way we vote.

Unfortunately, you know, the same woman who said a few years ago, you have to vote for this bill to see what’s in it — called Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi will never be pried out of that seat by her voters, by that electorate. That’s the problem with American politics.

All right. I’m done with the preaching — the preaching of the sermon. We will talk about the California gun laws. I think it’s an important story. I promise we’ll get to it after this bottom-of-the-hour break. Again, @BroomheadShow on Twitter.

The Mike Broomhead Show Fan Page on Facebook. Or all one word, MikeBroomhead, on Instagram, if you would like to follow me there. Looking for the interaction during the break. This is the Glenn Beck Program. My name is Mike Broomhead. We’ll be back.

[break]

MIKE: Thanks for joining us. Thanks for joining the Glenn Beck Show. Wherever you’re listening, thanks for making it a part of your day. My name is Mike Broomhead. Phoenix, Arizona. In today and tomorrow for Glenn. The social media feedback is a lot of fun. Been reading and answering a lot of the tweets and some of the — some of what’s going on. I appreciate all of the comments.

This California gun law story, it’s on TheBlaze, if you want to go to TheBlaze.com. By the way, the new format on TheBlaze, I don’t know if you noticed it, but I print out a lot of their stories. It’s just a lot cleaner.

California gun sales continue to skyrocket, as strict anti-gun laws are set to kick in. Where have we heard this story before?

Every time the president of the United States over the last eight years has come out and talked about stricter gun laws and what they would call common sense gun laws — first of all, it’s an oxymoron and it makes me laugh. The other part of that is gun sales went through the roof.

These are not unreasonable fearmongering people. It’s just common American people that realize the right to keep and bear arms is a cornerstone of who we are as a society.

And if someone is going to try to come in and hinder that, they want to get out in front of it. You can’t have the number of guns sold in America over the eight years of this president and call it just a bunch of crazy people.

And I don’t know what state many of you live in when you listen to this. I can tell you I moved from a fairly lenient gun law state of Florida, where I grew up, to Arizona — almost 22 years ago.

Our gun laws are the most lenient in the country. I believe they’re the most lenient. If you can legally own a firearm in the state of Arizona, if you legally own a handgun, you can conceal it without a permit. Now, I maintain a concealed carry permit. I like the training that goes with it. The knowledge of laws that goes with it. But I also like reciprocity, where I can travel to other states and maintain a concealed weapons permit.

But the laws don’t change anything. I live in a very — you know, Phoenix is the sixth largest city, but the surrounding cities around us, it is a very big valley. It’s beautiful. It’s safe. It’s clean. I’m not mocking Chicago. But I’d rather be here than Chicago when it comes to crime or DC when it comes to crime with very strict gun laws.

Criminals bent on killing could care less if they’re going to get hammered with a gun law violation. It sounds trite. It’s not.

We should be fixing the problem. When you’re — if you go to the doctor with an ailment and they begin to treat you for the wrong ailment, A, it’s horrible because they think they’re solving a problem and they’re not. And, B, the issue continues to get worse because they’re not treating the right issue.

So California’s gun sales continue to skyrocket as — that when these laws go into effect — a lawmaker was quick to use the tragedy in San Bernardino to put further restrictions on firearms within the state. Among the six bills that were signed into law is a law that requires semiautomatic rifles with evil features to be registered upon purchase.

Listen, I don’t — I don’t want to lose my temper and I don’t want to mock people. What the hell is an evil feature on a gun?

See, the problem is, there’s a multitude of things that can be used to kill. And unfortunately, we’ve seen that. Pressure cookers. Backpacks. Vehicles.

No one is suggesting limitations on those. DUI is a horrible crime. You know, drinking and driving is just — it’s just — it’s unnecessary. That’s why — the consequences can be so devastating for such an easy fix.

But nobody suggests punishing good drivers because of the bad ones. You don’t blame the car. You don’t blame the booze. You blame the person that drank the booze and got in the car. No one is talking about smaller cars or limitations on cars. No one is talking about limited on the amount of alcohol you can buy at one time. No one is talking about any of that.

You put the blame where it belongs, on the abuser.

In Arizona, and I’m sorry to keep bringing up where I live, but we have very restrictive DUI laws. And very lenient gun laws.

And you look around this country and you see where the gun laws are very restrictive and the high crime rates, you can’t reconcile the two. And for anybody — when I only get insulted when somebody goes after low-hanging fruit in their mind, which is usually emotion. Is that any town, is that the organization that’s cropped up after the Sandy Hook shooting, where there was another anti-gun group. And they make the assertion that if you’re not in favor of the gun laws they’re in favor of, you don’t care about children dying.

I was doing afternoons in Phoenix, when Sandy Hook happened. And I remember being so physically ill, and I didn’t know how I was going to go on the air that afternoon and talk about anything else or make any sense about what we saw happening. That a kid would murder his mother, drive to an elementary school, and then wipe out a class of second graders. And those families that showed up at that school that were segregated based on if you were a parent to one of the kids that were killed, you were segregated to be told that your child was dead.

As a matter of fact, one of the people I reached out to that day was Glenn. I said, “How do I make sense of this?” How do I go on the air and talk about this kind of evil and not break down?

Don’t tell me that gun owners in this country have no respect for human life or don’t care about dead kids or would rather have guns than children dying. It’s an insult to say that.

But I can guarantee you this: California’s restrictive gun laws will do absolutely nothing to lower the gun crime rate in that state. Not a thing.

Criminals will get their hands on guns. They always have. They always will. That’s what makes them a criminal.

When you talk about the spree killers like the Adam Lanza kid in Sandy Hook or Jared Loughner here in Tucson, Arizona, when Congresswoman Giffords was shot and injured so severely. And the federal court judge was killed. And that small girl, Christina-Taylor Green was murdered at that scene. Or the shooter in South Carolina, Dylann Roof, or in Colorado in that movie theater, or go all the way back to Virginia Tech. Columbine.

The common denominator, guns? Sure. The common denominator was also that these were dangerously mentally ill people that had been warned — their families had been warned, they had been kicked out of school on many occasions and told, “Don’t come back until you’ve had some mental health counseling.” As a matter of fact, in the case of what was going on in Colorado, they were going to his house with an intervention team, but he had withdrawn from school, so they didn’t have the authority to do anything. So they didn’t.

HIPAA laws have a lot more to do with solving this problem. To what level can we institutionalize or forcibly medicate somebody that — you can’t punish somebody for a crime they haven’t committed.

But when someone’s that dangerously mentally ill, how much intervention can be done? There’s where the problem lies. Not in guns.

The most ridiculous example of that was Adam Lanza and the gun laws they wanted after Sandy Hook. They wanted background checks. They wanted to get rid of the gun show loophole and the hand-to-hand sales loopholes, where any gun sale had to be registered or had to go through a gun dealer, with the exception of family members. You could sell to a family member.

Well, the reason why that’s ridiculous is Adam Lanza, A, was too young to possess the guns he had, so he was already violating gun laws. But, B, they were his mother’s guns. So that new law wouldn’t have stopped Adam Lanza from getting those guns if his mother gave him the guns.

No background check required. No stopping that young man from obtaining them legally if she could hand them to him. Now, we know the story. The story is, he murdered his mother with those guns and then went on the killing spree. I mean, it’s a horrible thought. But if she had given him the guns, the law wouldn’t have stopped it. He still would have had them.

So the very laws they came up with in the fallout of Sandy Hook would not have stopped Sandy Hook. And when we stop blaming what is to blame and we shift it to something else, we’re in danger. Because we’re not solving the problem. And we’re treating something that’s not the problem.

Guns aren’t the problem. Certainly you and I aren’t the problem. Someone explain how taking my gun away from me or limiting my access to firearms or ammunition makes us safer.

It doesn’t. I’m armed most of the time. And most of the time, I don’t even think about it. Because I’m not looking to use a gun. I’m not looking to brandish a weapon. But I’m also not looking to be a victim either.

So as a society, we have to decide. The state of California is crashing. Their economy is crashing because of the welfare state. They are taxing businesses and regulating businesses out of that state. They are running for the hills.

Other states here in the western United States like Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, they are just waiting because the businesses are leaving California. Economically, they are about to crash.

And with laws like this, it becomes a lawless nation because the law-abiding citizen is going to listen to the law because they have to. And the lawbreakers are still going to do whatever they please. And they’re going to prey upon society. Because they’re breaking the law anyway. You’re going to murder somebody — you mean the gun charge matters to you? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Before we end the show today, talk about the hypocrisy of a protected class of people. If you go back to remember, nobody was going to make the wedding cake for the gay couple, and businesses were fined and hammered. Well, something along those lines. But I don’t believe that anybody is getting in trouble for this one. I’m going to get to a story to wrap it up here in just a couple of moments. I hope you’ll stick around for it. My name is Mike Broomhead, and this is the Glenn Beck Program.

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MIKE: My name is Mike Broomhead in for a few more minutes today. And, again, in for Glenn tomorrow. Thanks for making the Glenn Beck Program a part of your day, wherever you’re listening.

And before we get out of here, we may have to start a GoFundMe page. Not me personally. But maybe one of you. You may want to do this, to help this out.

There is a cafe in Hawaii that I’m sure is going to have to pay a hefty fine because, just based on precedent — we know that there have been bakeries that didn’t want to bake cakes for gay weddings. There were — there was a farm that didn’t want to host a gay wedding. They said, “We’ll host a reception. We just don’t want to host the ceremony.”

And there has been story after story of businesses that have been run out of business or fined to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars because you can’t refuse service based on deeply held beliefs. That if you do that, then you are somehow hindering them. And they are not able to have what they want. Now, it’s ridiculous. But that’s — that’s the precedent that’s been set.

Well, in Hawaii, Honolulu’s Cafe — 8 1/2? Is that what it’s called? Gets rave reviews on Yelp for its — one of its menu items. Very popular place.

But they have decided to post a sign that says, “If you voted for Donald Trump, you can’t eat here.”

Well, I’m sure that the Obama administration and the Justice Department and the civil rights — they are — they are going to hammer these people. I mean, you would think that just based on the fact that you’ve got to make the cake for a gay wedding, you can’t refuse that.

You’re going to get fined. You’re hindering people. You are showing bias. So if you want, you could help this cafe by starting a GoFundMe page. Because I’m sure the government is going to hammer them. No, actually what’s going to happen is they’re going to applaud them for their courage in standing up for what they believe in.

The issue of bias and hate crimes is one that has always bothered me. Because if I go out on a date and somebody decides either they don’t like me or they don’t like her, so they beat us up, or in front of us is a gay couple and they beat them up because they don’t like gay people, they should be punished to a greater degree for beating up the gay couple because it’s a hate crime. Well, it’s not a love crime if you beat me up.

So the idea — and I thought our justice system was supposed to be blind. I thought we had equal justice for crimes. That if you commit a crime against somebody because you don’t like them because of their race or you commit a crime against somebody just because you’re a criminal, the punishment should be the punishment.

And the other side of this — if this Hawaiian cafe doesn’t want Trump voters there, Trump voters should take their money someplace else. And if you’re a gay couple planning a wedding and somebody doesn’t want to do business with you, take your money someplace else. You don’t make your wedding a political statement. Well, you shouldn’t anyway.

We’re just about out of time. Tomorrow I’ll be back in on the Glenn Beck Program. Again, @BroomheadShow on Twitter, MikeBroomhead on Instagram, or the Mike Broomhead Show on Facebook. Thanks for being a part of the show today. I’ll be back tomorrow. Have a great day, everyone. God bless.

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