A man who went viral for walking around Kensington with an assault rifle-style weapon was arrested on illegal gun charges

For weeks, Kobe Artis, 24, garnered a social media following for walking around Kensington openly carrying an assault rifle-style weapon.

Cracking jokes on podcasts, highlighting local businesses on his Instagram page, and posting videos of himself advising young people to buy guns, Artis — who is from New Castle, Pa., near the border with Ohio — brandished his distinctly stickered guns whenever he was seen on social media.

“When you know your rights, all the police disperse,” Artis boasted in a recent video in which he appears to be walking down Broad Street brandishing the high-powered weapon. Other images posted on Artis’ Instagram show him wielding the gun outside City Hall and on a SEPTA train car.

Eventually, these public displays drew the attention of law enforcement.

On Tuesday, District Attorney Larry Krasner announced that Artis had been arrested on firearms charges after a social media video in which he was seen giving guns to someone who is not allowed to possess firearms because of a felony conviction.

Dennis Brown, 34, was charged with multiple felonies for receiving the weapons despite that prohibition, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, which conducted the joint investigation with the district attorney’s office, Philadelphia police, and the FBI.

In the video, Artis carries a “distinct AR-style” pistol with a white sticker on the magazine and a white buffer tube with black lettering on it. Artis is seen transferring that weapon and a black handgun with a miniature reflex sight attachment to Brown.

Krasner called Artis’ actions “heinous.”

“Walking around like a one-man army is absolutely intimidating, frightening, disturbing, and troubling to witness,“ he said. ”Defendant Artis is not a role model for anyone. His unlawful actions will be appropriately prosecuted and he will be held accountable.”

Artis did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

The Defender Association of Philadelphia, which represents Artis, declined to comment.

No attorney was listed for Brown in court records.

Attorney General Dave Sunday said in a statement Wednesday that his office had reviewed multiple videos of both Artis and Brown “blatantly breaking the law.”

The men went as far as “taunting law enforcement and encouraging murder,” he said.

Artis was arrested Tuesday afternoon in a Kensington grocery store parking lot by Philadelphia police and members of the attorney general’s gun violence task force, according to Sunday.

Agents recovered from Artis an assault-style weapon and a 9mm handgun as well as packets of marijuana and multiple rounds of ammunition, Sunday said.

Artis is being held in jail on $1 million bail and is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on June 2.

Brown is not in custody and investigators are searching for him, Sunday said.

City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, whose represents Kensington, said Tuesday that she was “grateful [Artis] is off the streets because our community is a little safer tonight.”

“One less illegal weapon off our streets is one step closer to the safer environment that Kensington residents deserve,” Lozada said.

In recent weeks, candid, “man on the street” videos of Artis circulated steadily across Instagram and YouTube, featuring the 24-year-old advising other young people on how to to arm themselves.

In one of those clips, Artis holds an assault-style weapon as he advises a young man on Pennsylvania’s open carry laws. The young man is also wielding a firearm as a group of people gather around them.

“Explain to me how you helped this kid get his gun?” a woman asks Artis. It is unclear where the gun came from, but Artis replies the young man needs “just an ID” to carry it openly in public.

That kind of pro-gun enthusiasm is repeated across Artis’ videos, including during his appearance in a sit-down podcast interview uploaded to YouTube in late April.

Artis told the host that he had traveled to Philadelphia from his native Western Pennsylvania to “avenge” a deceased acquaintance, Miles Roberson, by “teaching other kids self-defense.” Roberson, 20, was shot and killed in New Castle in 2022, according to news reports.

Artis told the interviewer he owns 33 guns and had developed a reputation in the Western Pennsylvania town for “walking around” with “semiautomatic shotguns for a while.”

“I’m not new to this, I’m true to this,” Artis said. His goal, he added, was to “come out here and teach the kids on every side of the law.”

“The law is police can’t touch you anymore,” he added.

Much of Artis’ knowledge about firearms law came from artificial intelligence, he told the interviewer.

In another clip Artis recently posted on Instagram, he is seen telling a group of men about recent court rulings that favor gun owners, including a 2019 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that established that police cannot stop and frisk people solely because they are openly carrying a firearm.

Artis frequently made antagonistic remarks about law enforcement, the clips show. He often mentions his disdain for Philadelphia police, and is seen in one video shouting obscenities at a group of officers.

In another clip, Artis speaks with a group of several police officers on a sidewalk under an El platform while wielding an AR-style rifle.

After exchanging words with the officers, Artis leaves the scene with the gun.