US gun shop owner says he rumbled Sacha Baron Cohen and sent him packing

A gun shop owner in California has revealed that he realised he was about to be duped by Sacha Baron Cohen and told him to leave his premises.

Norris Sweidan, who is the proprietor of Warrior One Guns & Ammo in Riverside, California, says that Cohen and a film crew turned up to his shop in February, most likely filming footage for his new series for US broadcaster Showtime, Who Is America?

Sweidan says that Cohen was heavily disguised, and was pretending to be a Hungarian immigrant wanting to buy guns using a ‘fake’ accent, with the encounter being caught on his CCTV.

“He comes in, off the bat you can see in the video I’m looking like, this guy does not look like a Hungarian immigrant, tight-ass leather pants, a beard. It just didn’t fit,” Sweidan told the Fox 11 news channel in Los Angeles.

“The moment his words came out of his mouth, I was like, ‘This guy is full of s**t.’

“I’m looking at the producer and I’m just like, ‘Am I being fooled right here?’ And I just kept looking at the guy and I was like, ‘You’re Borat.’ As soon as I said that, his eyes just looked at me…and he did a turn right out the door.

“We’re talking to the people, they don’t wanna give us an answer. We basically told them to get the fuck out. ‘You guys are all full of s**t. Have a great day. Get out’. Once I knew it was Borat, we already know his game and his bulls**t, so we knew that he’s here to make a mockery, and make a mockery of what? Gun owners? The gun business, gun shops?

“He was fake, the producers were fake, the show was fake, and Showtime is fake, to be honest with you. They want a real story? Come talk to us. We’ll give you a real story.”

Sweidan is certainly not the first to be targeted for Cohen’s new series, which has caused a furore in the US since premiering on Sunday.

The likes of former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Republican senate nominee Roy Moore have also complained of being targeted by the show.

In the first episode, while disguised as new character Col. Erran Morad, a former Israeli soldier, he persuaded a handful of US politicians to endorse a made-up initiative called ‘Kinderguardians’, set up to train school children and pre-schoolers to use guns.

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