Speaker 1: Uh, that was the introduction, I did it, Sophie. Sophie
Speaker 1: is saying, that's an acceptable introduction. You know what podcast
Speaker 1: this is. You clicked on it, so I don't need
Speaker 1: to tell you the title. I don't need to say
Speaker 1: who we are. I'm just going to dive right into
Speaker 1: the fucking episode. No, I'm not. This is It Could
Speaker 1: Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and uh
Speaker 1: and what to maybe do to to arrest that and
Speaker 1: do something better in its place, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: folks who are are regular listeners who listened to the
Speaker 1: original scripted episodes of It Could Happen Here, the first
Speaker 1: fifteen episodes, which I certainly recommend to everybody. Know that
Speaker 1: one area in which I kind of separate from a
Speaker 1: lot of particularly more liberal folks and even some folks
Speaker 1: on the left is an embrace of the fact that
Speaker 1: firearms are sometimes necessary tools, especially in times of collapse
Speaker 1: when things get bad. Um. Now that said, we're also
Speaker 1: not uh kind of gun culture people here. We try not, to,
Speaker 1: for one thing, recommend that everybody necessarily pick up a gun.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people, perfectly nice people you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have them who don't need to have them, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're dealing with suicidal ideation or whatever. We're not.
Speaker 1: The point is, we try to be very careful about
Speaker 1: how we we talk about firearms as a potentially useful,
Speaker 1: even potentially necessary tool in the times that we're in.
Speaker 1: And today, since we're a few weeks into this, we've
Speaker 1: covered producing food, We've covered some medical stuff. We've talked
Speaker 1: about uh, community organizing, and a number of other things
Speaker 1: that I think our priorities for most people before, you know,
Speaker 1: getting strapped. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: getting strapped. And my guest today is Paul. Paul, do
Speaker 1: you want to kind of introduce your background in brief
Speaker 1: so people know why why you're on here, Sure, Robert H.
Speaker 1: I was in the Marine Corps and Infantry, and after
Speaker 1: that I went to security consulting and then to the
Speaker 1: Federal Protector of Service and finally the A T F
Speaker 1: some of our funnest agencies. Yeah, all my favorite organizations there. Well,
Speaker 1: they're better than the the what is it, the f
Speaker 1: d A. Yeah, they beat the f d A. I
Speaker 1: mean in terms of body count, they're certainly better than
Speaker 1: the f d A. And what what do you do now,
Speaker 1: Paul that you're you're you're out of that line of work. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: I do two things. I got a day job at
Speaker 1: disney World and then uh, the side gig is we
Speaker 1: run a explosives and machine guns supply company, also body armor,
Speaker 1: a handful of other things. But that's the big thing
Speaker 1: is destructive devices. Yeah, and uh, you've you've got I
Speaker 1: think experience that a lot of people, particularly on this
Speaker 1: side of the political I'll lack you know. One of
Speaker 1: the one of the downsides of kind of rejecting the
Speaker 1: federal government in the military and all its forms, is
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of people who may accept the
Speaker 1: validity of being armed and don't really have much in
Speaker 1: the way of practical training. And firearms are tools that
Speaker 1: to use most efficausly do require training and practice. You
Speaker 1: can't just um you can pick them up and be dangerous,
Speaker 1: but not in a way that is particularly protective to
Speaker 1: you in your community. Oh yeah, Um, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about kind of recommendations and and everything. We
Speaker 1: talk about nothing. We're not talking in the context of
Speaker 1: forming a militia or in the context of you know,
Speaker 1: showing up with guns to to yell at people at
Speaker 1: a protest. If that's the thing you're choosing to do,
Speaker 1: that's a whole different ball game. We're talking about, um,
Speaker 1: kind of responsibly arming yourself in your community in a
Speaker 1: way that is not going to get you in legal trouble. Um,
Speaker 1: it is also not going to endanger them. Because one
Speaker 1: of the things you have to accept about firearms is that, um,
Speaker 1: there's a risk you know, related to owning a firearm. Um.
Speaker 1: Not just the risk that like you know, suicide risk
Speaker 1: raises if you have a gun in the house, but
Speaker 1: just if you don't use them properly. Even carrying a gun.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not unheard of for people carrying guns
Speaker 1: to have those weapons taken from them and used against them.
Speaker 1: It happens to police, and it happens to armed citizens.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a matter of um, you know. I
Speaker 1: think when you accept that you're going to be armed,
Speaker 1: there's something incumbent upon you to understand the risks of
Speaker 1: being armed. And I guess that's kind of where I
Speaker 1: want to start, Like, what are some of the big
Speaker 1: pitfalls you see people uh fall into, Like um that
Speaker 1: I think traditionally, training is supposed to help allay to
Speaker 1: some degree. Uh well probably number one is uh grandpa's
Speaker 1: gun in the closet that's been there for forty years unfired,
Speaker 1: and somebody just picks it up and throw some ammo
Speaker 1: in it to go huna deer, and you know it's
Speaker 1: got a barrel obstruction or something that just blows up,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. But number two and and the one
Speaker 1: that can be mitigated by training rather than just general
Speaker 1: uh not being stupid, because it's kind of stupid to
Speaker 1: pick something up that's really old and just try to
Speaker 1: shoot it. Is um, not shooting yourself, and when you
Speaker 1: do go out to the range, not shooting other people,
Speaker 1: and then not shooting people in your own home. Um,
Speaker 1: you know you don't as much as you might want to, say,
Speaker 1: defend your own home, do you want to shoot your
Speaker 1: wife when she comes home at two thirty in the morning, uh,
Speaker 1: after work and wakes you up. And there are ways
Speaker 1: to mitigate that and and it's really easy and it's
Speaker 1: really cheap. So yeah, let's let's let's start with some
Speaker 1: of those. Just if you're if you're new too, if
Speaker 1: you've decided I need a gun for whatever reason, you
Speaker 1: purchase a gun. Um, you know, I think the most
Speaker 1: basic first things are in terms of like actually making
Speaker 1: that relatively safe. Is number one, knowing which which kind
Speaker 1: of firearm to purchase, and number two, and these are
Speaker 1: not in order of importance, these are both very important.
Speaker 1: Number two is securing that weapon properly, as opposed to
Speaker 1: just having it laying loose in the house, which is
Speaker 1: never the best place. The best way to store a firearm,
Speaker 1: is it. Um, Yeah, I mean I own a number
Speaker 1: of personal firearms. Um. You know, I'm in my office
Speaker 1: right now where I got a locked door where nobody
Speaker 1: can get in, and I got a gun safe back
Speaker 1: behind the monitors. Um. And you know I'm comfortable with that.
Speaker 1: But if if it was in a place where kids
Speaker 1: could get at it, you don't want to just stuff
Speaker 1: it in, uh, in a sock in the closet, which
Speaker 1: is actually what my mom did when I was a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean safe storage and I mean really being able
Speaker 1: to identify your target is probably the biggest preventer of
Speaker 1: like inter family accident, because I know, you know, we
Speaker 1: do talk about safe storage kids and all that. But um,
Speaker 1: back to the wife coming home. If you just put
Speaker 1: a light on your gun, hundred dollar light, you can
Speaker 1: look at the thing that you're shooting in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night and uh, not shoot someone you don't
Speaker 1: want to shoot. Yeah. I would go so far as
Speaker 1: to say that, like if you've got a home defense
Speaker 1: weapon without a light on it, Um, you don't fully
Speaker 1: have a home defense weapon. No, no, yeah, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be useless in roughly half of the situation.
Speaker 1: And statistically, like if you're looking at when people are
Speaker 1: actually tend to be endangered in their own homes, the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the situations in which you might be
Speaker 1: in danger. Um. When it comes to weapons selection, uh,
Speaker 1: this is another area where like if you go on
Speaker 1: maybe one of the worst places in the world to
Speaker 1: have this discussion as Twitter, because everybody has the opinions
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Um. I tend to say because I think
Speaker 1: most people when they're looking for a first gun, if
Speaker 1: they're if they're committed, just like thinking of personal defense,
Speaker 1: they're going to go for like a lock or something.
Speaker 1: And I think unless you're planning on carrying a gun,
Speaker 1: And you can correct me if you disagree here, but
Speaker 1: I tend to think a handgun again, unless you're intending
Speaker 1: on carrying a concealed weapon is the last thing that
Speaker 1: you should own as a gun owner. Um. I got
Speaker 1: a mixed opinion on that. I mean, yeah, I think that, uh,
Speaker 1: the handiness of a handgun can outweigh some of the issues.
Speaker 1: I know you guys dealt with fires up there, we
Speaker 1: have hurricanes. Um, being able to stick a handgun into
Speaker 1: a backpack you know it can go a long way,
Speaker 1: or being ab um, keep keep it on you in
Speaker 1: your car because here were depend on state laws. Everything
Speaker 1: you say depends on state laws. Yeah, there are states
Speaker 1: where you can. Yeah. Yeah. If you're in California and
Speaker 1: you're in one of the counties that it doesn't issue
Speaker 1: a concealed carry of license like l A, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to get one. From what I understand, you got
Speaker 1: to get to San Berndino if you want to get
Speaker 1: one of those. Yeah, I mean, first off, like tooth,
Speaker 1: I got a short list of guns, and like two
Speaker 1: thirds of the list illegal in California. They're they're not
Speaker 1: on roster. But for what's most usable against our most handy,
Speaker 1: it's probably a handgun. But if you're expecting a threat
Speaker 1: more than like thirty feet away, have something other than
Speaker 1: a handgun. Handguns they suck at hurting people, they suck
Speaker 1: at killing people. They're they're ineffective. They're hard to use.
Speaker 1: I mean, say thirty ft away. But if you're not
Speaker 1: training regularly hitting something reliably in a stressful situation at
Speaker 1: thirty with a hand it can be difficult. It's not easy. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: it's not easy, And I tend to recommend number one.
Speaker 1: There are some options, like even if you're sticking with
Speaker 1: a handgun, there are different kind of um like uh
Speaker 1: options for that. Like I I'm a big advocate of
Speaker 1: pistol caliber carbines, which is essentially the size of a
Speaker 1: small rifle, so you can fit them easily in a backpack.
Speaker 1: Every backpack I've owned, you can. You can stick something
Speaker 1: like um like a Sazy scorpion in without much difficulty.
Speaker 1: And because they're so When you're talking about what makes
Speaker 1: a weapon easier to use, Number one of the number
Speaker 1: one things is size. So the longer the barrel, the
Speaker 1: more accurate it is. The heavier the gun, the less
Speaker 1: recoil is a problem, the easier it is to use it.
Speaker 1: Range um and a pistol caliber carbine, you know, you
Speaker 1: stick a light on that. That's a really good home
Speaker 1: defense weapon. Oh absolutely, yeah, I mean especially uh people
Speaker 1: will argue about the different types of magazines. But if
Speaker 1: you buy one that takes a glock magazine and you
Speaker 1: have a glock, you can build a full little load
Speaker 1: out that's just takes all the same magazines. One is
Speaker 1: more accurate. One is a handgun. UM, and you know,
Speaker 1: all the same AMMO. You're not having to uh figure
Speaker 1: out and read a bunch on on what kind of
Speaker 1: AMMO you need and stuff like that. You just buy
Speaker 1: one and it works for everything. Yeah, and when when
Speaker 1: you're talking about AMMO, I think one of the most
Speaker 1: important things, like especially if you're worried about a survival situation,
Speaker 1: is availability UM, which is the nice thing about like
Speaker 1: what we call the NATO calibers, and the NATO calibers
Speaker 1: are nine millimeter seven six two by fifty one better
Speaker 1: known as three O eight your grandpa's hunting rifle seven
Speaker 1: UM or it's thirty six but whatever UM and then
Speaker 1: five five six slash two to three and those are
Speaker 1: the rounds that's like five six is the standard. That's
Speaker 1: what's in your bog standard a r UM and so
Speaker 1: almost no matter what happens, UM, including you know ammo crunches.
Speaker 1: You will be able to find some amounts of those
Speaker 1: calibers generally, and you're going to find a box of bullets.
Speaker 1: They might not even own a gun and they got
Speaker 1: a boxing nine millimeter. Yeah, everybody's got nine millionaire and UM,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think that the basics of like, um,
Speaker 1: what to get if you're looking at kind of just
Speaker 1: a basic defensive arm. Um, you know how to store
Speaker 1: it safely? You know those kind of questions are important.
Speaker 1: Um when it comes to training. Uh, what are some
Speaker 1: of in your opinion, like the mistake that you see
Speaker 1: people make when it comes to kind of of practicing
Speaker 1: training with their weapon. Um, going to an n R
Speaker 1: a basic like four hour class and thinking that you
Speaker 1: are a god. Um, they're there are people who have
Speaker 1: spent um five days a week going to classes and
Speaker 1: doing training because there's practice and then there's training. Training
Speaker 1: is where someone teaches you something. Uh, practices where you
Speaker 1: go with what you're already taught. Right. Um, So there
Speaker 1: there are people that spend all that time and there's
Speaker 1: still not the best in the world. Um, there are
Speaker 1: people who do a ton of practice. Jerry Micklock. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever seen him shoot, but
Speaker 1: he's uh, he's like the fastest gun in the world
Speaker 1: or something like that. Um, his videos are crazy. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he'll he'll outshoot a full auto gunyah with
Speaker 1: with revolvers and it's just like, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: absolutely mind blowing. Um. But know he's like he's like
Speaker 1: he's like Michael Jordan or something. You know, you just
Speaker 1: get people who have almost it's just not natural ability. Um,
Speaker 1: certainly married with a practicing but yeah, continue, if if
Speaker 1: you had a fight a gunfight, which they really don't
Speaker 1: happen that much, but if you had a gun fight
Speaker 1: between um, a guy with a high point C nine
Speaker 1: who had the cheapest, cheapest quote reliable handguns on the
Speaker 1: face there. If if you had a guy with that
Speaker 1: that had had paid five hundred dollars for a training
Speaker 1: class over weekend and still went in uh, went to
Speaker 1: the shooting range every week and practiced and um or
Speaker 1: not even every week, just every month, and then did
Speaker 1: dry fire drills once a month in his garage or whatever.
Speaker 1: Versus a guy who went out and bought a Wilson
Speaker 1: Combat three thousand dollar nineteen eleven but had only taken
Speaker 1: the n R A class. I will bet on the
Speaker 1: guy with the eight or the C nine all day long. Um,
Speaker 1: even if he's only got one bullet, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't don't care. He'll win. And often like for all
Speaker 1: of it, for all of the guys you see, you know,
Speaker 1: within all of their tactical gear and whatnot, and their
Speaker 1: spare mag's taking a three hundred rounds out. If you
Speaker 1: actually look at most defensive shootings, Um, it's very common,
Speaker 1: and I think like like three to five rounds, three
Speaker 1: to five rounds generally closer than thirty feet, sometimes closer
Speaker 1: than like ten or fifteen. It sits in my pocket
Speaker 1: most of the time. It's nineteen. It's so tiny. Um,
Speaker 1: it has more bullets than I'll ever need to gunfight. Probably.
Speaker 1: I think I want to pivot from this point to um.
Speaker 1: We started this by it introducing that you you spent
Speaker 1: some time in the A t F, spent some time
Speaker 1: in the FPS. I haven't had any personal interactions the
Speaker 1: A t F, but I have met some FPS guys.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm kind of curious, especially as because I
Speaker 1: came in contact with you through your through your Twitter,
Speaker 1: where you're you're very my personal Twitter. Yeah, and you're
Speaker 1: you're quite politically active now, um, in a way that
Speaker 1: I think is surprising people for someone with your background.
Speaker 1: Are you comfortable with kind of tracing sort of the
Speaker 1: broad strokes of your journey there, because I think that's instructive,
Speaker 1: um for folks oh at FPS specifically, well, just kind
Speaker 1: of what brought you from there to hear? Oh? Um,
Speaker 1: So I got kind of uh, oh man, what what's
Speaker 1: what's the word for when you just get uh? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just I got to a point I
Speaker 1: showed up for for work at four thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: and I was literally shuffling through some some paperwork and
Speaker 1: and was getting ready to file a warrant and just
Speaker 1: kind of realized I didn't think that it needed to happen,
Speaker 1: And you know, I talked to my supervising agent about it,
Speaker 1: and um, was kind of told too bad, And and
Speaker 1: I put in for some vacation time and ended up
Speaker 1: putting in a resignation while I was on vacation. I
Speaker 1: mean that that's the gist of how I became not
Speaker 1: a cop. Yeah, And UM, I'm wondering, kind of what
Speaker 1: do you think is there anything that kind of I
Speaker 1: don't know what looks different to you now as you've
Speaker 1: kind of left that behind. Was it like sort of um,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing there's like a period like a goldfish, you know,
Speaker 1: in a new bowl of of acclamation to to life
Speaker 1: outside of being a cop um? Like what what were
Speaker 1: the first kind of things that started to shift in
Speaker 1: your perspective when you left that that thought space. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what, watching or reading whatever, an article or
Speaker 1: a YouTube video, especially now that body cams are more
Speaker 1: and more are prevalent. It is watching something, reading the
Speaker 1: the press release, and going But that's that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: Like I just watched it and and and going from
Speaker 1: being able to justify it in your own mind and
Speaker 1: literally argue with people and be a hundred percent convinced
Speaker 1: like that was a good shoot. Um Castillo? What it was?
Speaker 1: Philandro Castillo? Yeah, oh god? And he was. Man, if
Speaker 1: you've if you've gotten lost track of this shooting in
Speaker 1: between all the others. Filando was a black man, a
Speaker 1: legal gun owner with a legal concealed carry permit, who
Speaker 1: was pulled over with his girlfriend and child in a
Speaker 1: car and hands on the wheel, told the officer he
Speaker 1: had a gun uh, and got shot. Um, and it
Speaker 1: did the thing you're supposed to do. Although now actually
Speaker 1: since then you will get like some states will and
Speaker 1: some training classes will recommend if it's not legally required
Speaker 1: and you're carrying a gun, don't say anything for that reason.
Speaker 1: But I mean, yeah, the command to not reach for
Speaker 1: the gun to being shot multiple times in the chest
Speaker 1: was like under two seconds. Um, So I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean the decision was already made as soon as as
Speaker 1: soon as he gave the command, the decision was made.
Speaker 1: Here's what that brings me to in terms of a
Speaker 1: question that's relevant to the topic of community self defensive potential,
Speaker 1: community armed self defense, because that's not that is a
Speaker 1: that is a cop problem, but that's not just a
Speaker 1: cop problem. And what happened everybody problem in the chop
Speaker 1: in the chairs in Seattle, the the autonomous zone is
Speaker 1: evidence of that. You had this situation where people, after
Speaker 1: nights and nights of mostly inaccurate warnings about proud boys
Speaker 1: coming to attack, got amped up, they had guns, some
Speaker 1: kids drove by in a car and they fucking shot
Speaker 1: him to death. Um. And it is the same it's
Speaker 1: the same mental thing happening. You don't have to have
Speaker 1: a badge for that that mindset to infect, especially when
Speaker 1: you're carrying a gun. Um, how do you, in your opinion,
Speaker 1: fight back against that? Be fucking chill? Uh? You know,
Speaker 1: like like honestly, Um, if you were a teenager, which
Speaker 1: we grew up in almost the same place you're from, plain, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm from Capel, so I would have argued with you
Speaker 1: about them being the same place when I was. But
Speaker 1: they're the same place. Yeah, they're absolutely the same place.
Speaker 1: Yeah one has uh one has uh woot dot com
Speaker 1: and the other one has raytheon so you know, and
Speaker 1: a bunch of hospitals. Um. But uh, you and I
Speaker 1: grew up in the same time, same place, same types
Speaker 1: of schools. How many times did you see in like
Speaker 1: high school or even middle school, just a guy hit
Speaker 1: on a girl and then the girl's boyfriend comes over
Speaker 1: and just start fighting him, like like like the guy
Speaker 1: had no reason to know, he didn't know he was
Speaker 1: doing anything wrong. Um. And I'm not suggesting, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: What I'm pointing out is that, Um, it's almost ingrained
Speaker 1: in us at a societal level to react violently to
Speaker 1: maintain like our personal position. And if that means that
Speaker 1: I'm in my neighborhood and I don't recognize someone, it
Speaker 1: may seem like violence is the right way to go.
Speaker 1: That's actually what what you're doing when like what's it
Speaker 1: called Karen ng you know where you call somebody the
Speaker 1: black kid yelled, uh selling water bottles or whatever. UM.
Speaker 1: I know that was one in New York where the
Speaker 1: police came and harassed you know, some like twelve year
Speaker 1: old black kids because they were selling water bottles. Um.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. I mean, you know in that case,
Speaker 1: you're not personally doing the violence, You're just calling somebody
Speaker 1: else to do it for you. UM. Because you know,
Speaker 1: the police are kind of violence, violence, of monopoly and
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah. Yeah, And that's U. One of the
Speaker 1: most I think important things about that is the idea
Speaker 1: of UM violence is like when you when you're willing
Speaker 1: to accept violence to kind of maintain your your your
Speaker 1: social position or something. UM. And I think that has
Speaker 1: a huge amount to do with with the kind of
Speaker 1: violence you see UM at protests with like we've had
Speaker 1: you know, protests quote unquote security here in Portland, people
Speaker 1: kind of declaring themselves security and what does that mean
Speaker 1: shooting other kids with guns for graffiti, Like, but it is,
Speaker 1: it is a matter for it's they're not doing it
Speaker 1: to protect anybody. They're doing it because they've declared themselves security.
Speaker 1: Somebody doesn't listen to what they say and their ego
Speaker 1: is hurt. It's the same thing that again cops do.
Speaker 1: It's this, it's a human mindset. It's not just a
Speaker 1: a cop mindset. And um, I think you when you're
Speaker 1: talking about like, I think there's a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Number One, if you're going to be armed and if
Speaker 1: you're going to be armed in the community self defense role,
Speaker 1: one of the things you have to accept is that
Speaker 1: like you're not as a person who is armed and
Speaker 1: cares about the defense of your community, you're not a
Speaker 1: separate thing from them. I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: areas where which policing goes wrong. May view yourselves as separate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I know you guys have a big problem with that. Um,
Speaker 1: we do here too. I live in a metro and
Speaker 1: our metro police, like them, don't even live in the county. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they all go the same here. Yeah. Yeah, they don't
Speaker 1: even not just the city, they don't live in the
Speaker 1: whole county. Um. And that's despite they get a living
Speaker 1: allowance if they'll live in the city, and there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of if they live in the city, they get
Speaker 1: a take home car. There's a bunch of incentives to
Speaker 1: try and get people to live here, and they still
Speaker 1: won't do it. They want to go live in the
Speaker 1: next sheriff over the next county where yeah, we have
Speaker 1: a very vocal share off the next county. Odor who's
Speaker 1: who's really racist? And all that ship? And I yeah,
Speaker 1: I think if you're if you're talking about like the
Speaker 1: potential of of again of like armed community self defense, Um,
Speaker 1: you almost I almost would prefer phrasing it differently, community
Speaker 1: self defense, you know, um, which should be the entire community. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: community And you're not the gun isn't what you are.
Speaker 1: You're not you're not security. You're not self defense because
Speaker 1: you're armed your self defense because you're a member of
Speaker 1: the community. And if you personally choose to be armed,
Speaker 1: that is an option that is expanded to you specifically
Speaker 1: because you're armed. But it doesn't change fun. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: change what you are. And if it does, there's a
Speaker 1: phrase that I think is really useful. Um, the finger
Speaker 1: pulls the trigger and if you want to avoid or
Speaker 1: the trigger pulls the finger. Sorry. And it's this idea
Speaker 1: that when you show up armed, and you're showing up
Speaker 1: armed as someone like your purpose there is to be armed,
Speaker 1: you're at at heavy risk of the weapon guiding your responses. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's the most important thing in any circumstance to
Speaker 1: avoid if you're carrying a weapon. If if you've got
Speaker 1: a hammer, everything's a nail. Ye. Well, and and uh,
Speaker 1: the last twenty years we've had kind of a with
Speaker 1: the War on Terror. You've seen a proliferation in media
Speaker 1: around um, making Navy Seals and all that ship look
Speaker 1: really really really cool. Uh, every other movie is about that,
Speaker 1: even though like really they're just drunk guys who yell
Speaker 1: at people a lot and who occasionally commit murder to
Speaker 1: protect Or was that was that the Seals? Was that
Speaker 1: the Green Berets who killed that guy to protected drug trafficking? Greg?
Speaker 1: I mean probably both? Oh you know that that was
Speaker 1: the Green Berets in North Carolina? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean and it crosses all all borders. Um. But
Speaker 1: one thing that's come out of that is we we've
Speaker 1: started to call those guys operators. Right, So you've gone
Speaker 1: from a gun being a tool that someone trains there
Speaker 1: to use too, they are merely an operator of a
Speaker 1: weapons system. Um. And it it's kind of dehumanizing like
Speaker 1: it it allows you to get out of the thought
Speaker 1: on that. Um, it's exactly what you were talking about.
Speaker 1: Where where the triggers really pulling the finger at that point? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's it's I think there's a number of I
Speaker 1: don't know, there's a number of tactics and more than
Speaker 1: we can get through, and that we'll be talking with
Speaker 1: some other community to self defense people at some point
Speaker 1: in the near future about this, because this is a
Speaker 1: big topic, right, and it's not one I haven't seen
Speaker 1: anyone do it super well yet in the United States
Speaker 1: like we anytime you have kind of persistent right wingers
Speaker 1: do every once in a while. Yeah, yeah, they take
Speaker 1: over BLM land. Yeah yeah, but then they die. I
Speaker 1: forgot about that. Yeah they did get killed. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's it's a it's a really messy
Speaker 1: topic because of you know, what you brought up is
Speaker 1: a valid point. All the everything that all the kind
Speaker 1: of social baggage there is around weaponry in this in
Speaker 1: this country and in our in our culture, this kind
Speaker 1: of like worship of the gun. And if you think
Speaker 1: like the left is any more immune to that than
Speaker 1: the right, you're wrong. You see the same you know,
Speaker 1: toxic behavior all around. You have to be extremely cognizant
Speaker 1: of it, even if you know it's something at the
Speaker 1: risk board. There is UM. Weapons in general have a
Speaker 1: mental impact on us carrying them. UM, And there is
Speaker 1: there is a level of just like being around weaponry
Speaker 1: that is entrancing. It's it's a human thing. You know,
Speaker 1: we make weapons, it's we're tool using apes and weapons
Speaker 1: are some of the first tools that we made that
Speaker 1: that are responsible for why you know, we get to
Speaker 1: tell the dogs and the cats what to do. UM.
Speaker 1: And you have to you have to really approach being
Speaker 1: armed from a standpoint of rejecting a lot of that
Speaker 1: if you're going to do it responsibly. I mean, among
Speaker 1: other things, the idea that you might have to use
Speaker 1: a gun UM has to be you're you're very close
Speaker 1: to your worst nightmare. UM, because it would be it
Speaker 1: would be if you ever actually had to use one. UM.
Speaker 1: At minimum, you're talking like when you actually look at
Speaker 1: like legal self defense shoots you're talking minimum the next
Speaker 1: if you kill somebody, at least minimum, the next year
Speaker 1: of your life is dealing with the legal consequences of that. Sure,
Speaker 1: and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're having if if IF IF file, if charges
Speaker 1: get filed, you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars for
Speaker 1: like a capital defense case, if not millions. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: and that's in you know there. There's one of the
Speaker 1: gun YouTubers that I like to push people towards it
Speaker 1: for this kind of stuff, as a guy named Paul
Speaker 1: Harrold who was certainly more on the conservative side, but
Speaker 1: who actually killed somebody in a self defense and went
Speaker 1: through the whole legal process afterwards. And he has a
Speaker 1: couple of videos where he talks about it and he
Speaker 1: gives I think pretty good advice on that that is
Speaker 1: that is completely without ego because it was a nightmare
Speaker 1: for him. It was the worst experience of his life,
Speaker 1: which is what it's going to be if you ever
Speaker 1: have to use a gun, and that should be like,
Speaker 1: that should be the top of your that should be
Speaker 1: the top of your mindset. You know, I've been in
Speaker 1: this situation a couple of times at protests where like
Speaker 1: someone pulls a knife and starts lunging at people and
Speaker 1: I have a gun and I'm fifteen feet away, And
Speaker 1: I never drew in part because it never quite crossed
Speaker 1: that line for me, and I knew that giving people
Speaker 1: the chance to de escalate was vastly more important than
Speaker 1: um introducing a second weapon to the situation immediately. And
Speaker 1: if things had gone different, perhaps I would feel differently
Speaker 1: about my choices in that moment. But um, they didn't
Speaker 1: and nobody got hurt. And that's always the best case scenario,
Speaker 1: even if it's somebody you really dislike who is who
Speaker 1: is threatening people with a weapon. I swear that happened
Speaker 1: up in Olympia like two weeks ago. Yeah, well the
Speaker 1: shooting in Olympia, which was a guy named Tiny who
Speaker 1: got shot. Um, and there's video of it. It's absolutely
Speaker 1: not a legally justified shoot for sure. Like, yeah, he
Speaker 1: was he was like forty ft away, you know. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's really tall. He is big, he is I
Speaker 1: think that counts for something. He was tall, he was tall,
Speaker 1: he was chasing them, he was armed. Um. Not making
Speaker 1: a moral case here. I think legally they would have
Speaker 1: had a trouble. Had they stayed around. Now, of course
Speaker 1: they've got I believe they've been arrested at this point.
Speaker 1: Oh have they? I just heard it, didn't think so,
Speaker 1: so sorry. I don't mean to crash it for a second.
Speaker 1: I think I saw our our best friend Andy post
Speaker 1: something about it three days ago. Three I must have
Speaker 1: missed this. Yeah, okay, so they did. They did arrest
Speaker 1: the guy. Yeah, and it's you know, it's another thing
Speaker 1: if you, um, if you feel if if you're involved
Speaker 1: in like a shooting that you feel is a justified
Speaker 1: legal shooting. Um, you don't. You don't leave the scene. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in fact, one of the better videos you'll get
Speaker 1: on like what to Do and uh, this guy's life
Speaker 1: has gone to ship because of the political nature of
Speaker 1: the shooting. But the guy in um in Denver who
Speaker 1: shot that dude at a protest, the pinker, I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: you know, no, no matter what you want to say
Speaker 1: about whether or not it was a good shoot, yeah
Speaker 1: that that he dropped that fucking guy, he dropped head
Speaker 1: down on his knees. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: You know, again, the court case is not settled out,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if that guy's story is going
Speaker 1: to end happily. But in terms of if you want
Speaker 1: to not get shot yourself and you want to have
Speaker 1: the maximum chance of defending yourself if you have to
Speaker 1: shoot somebody in a situation that's legally justified. What that
Speaker 1: guy did after the shoot is how to handle it, um,
Speaker 1: And I mean the evidence for that is he did
Speaker 1: not get shot. And obviously your mileage with that's going
Speaker 1: to vary depending on your skin color. Uh. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a big factor. Yeah, in terms of actual training, people
Speaker 1: can like pay for if they if they want to
Speaker 1: take that step, which I think is a good idea. Um,
Speaker 1: who do you do? You do you have kind of
Speaker 1: like broad recommendations for how people can know if something's
Speaker 1: you know, because there's this is certainly a space where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of grifters and whatnot. Um. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean most of the beginner level uh how to fight
Speaker 1: with a gun are two to three days long. Like that.
Speaker 1: That's a good starting point is the fact that you're
Speaker 1: going to pay probably three to five hundred dollars per day, um,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be multiple days long. You can't
Speaker 1: because you're going from a baseline you know, they know
Speaker 1: you already know how to point and shoot a gun,
Speaker 1: but they're going to go up for everything on how
Speaker 1: to draw, how to move, how to reload. Um, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have some classroom time going over their specific safety
Speaker 1: instructions and stuff like that. Um. But anything you can
Speaker 1: do in one day or four hours or forty rounds
Speaker 1: or whatever, it isn't going to cut it. Um. You
Speaker 1: need to go get something, and you need to listen
Speaker 1: because they're going to ask you to do things that
Speaker 1: might not be the way you want to do it.
Speaker 1: You might say, yeah, that's not the way my dad
Speaker 1: taught me how to reload a handgun. Um. A good
Speaker 1: example is actually, UM tactical response in Tennessee. They a
Speaker 1: lot of people hate them, but they have a very
Speaker 1: specific way that they say, everyone reloads this way in
Speaker 1: our class. You know, you put it in and you
Speaker 1: sling shot the slide. Um, And the people argue and go, well,
Speaker 1: I want to just press the button. Well the button
Speaker 1: is cool and all, but we want you to sling
Speaker 1: shot the slide. Just do it for this class. Um. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I got a little off topic there, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: that that's a good point too, because I mean just
Speaker 1: go in and listen. Um, And you don't have to
Speaker 1: take everything away. You take what you saw as good
Speaker 1: usable information and merge that with what you already know,
Speaker 1: maybe throw away some of what you already know when
Speaker 1: you've got this ball a goo that you can work
Speaker 1: with for practice. Um. Yeah, yeah, and yeah it is.
Speaker 1: And to that point when you're talking about like training,
Speaker 1: one of the differences between handguns and rifles, Like all
Speaker 1: all shooting, as always there's a degree of perishable nous
Speaker 1: to it, but shooting a handgun is a much more
Speaker 1: perishable skill than shooting a rifle. Um. And it's it's
Speaker 1: so if you're going to be armed with a handgun, UM,
Speaker 1: it really behooves you to take to train, you know,
Speaker 1: because you're only as good as how often you've been
Speaker 1: out there, really um and having a stay a good foundation,
Speaker 1: like taking some real professional classes will help a lot
Speaker 1: in that as opposed to just kind of going out
Speaker 1: to the range every now and again. But yeah, um,
Speaker 1: let's talk at the s the last little bit of
Speaker 1: this here about kind of the gun that's always on
Speaker 1: the tip of everybody's tongue when you start talking about
Speaker 1: being armed and armed self defenses you know the A
Speaker 1: R platform. Um, it's a gun with a lot of baggage,
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of cultural baggage, and it's it has
Speaker 1: become vastly more than just a firearm in our culture.
Speaker 1: Um what a what? What do you what? Are kind of?
Speaker 1: Because I am a big advoc kit of people who
Speaker 1: who are open to being armed getting an A R platform.
Speaker 1: I think it's a great gun to learn. I mean
Speaker 1: it goes yeah, it goes bang really well almost every time,
Speaker 1: as long as it's from a reputable manufacturer. Um, despite
Speaker 1: what some people say, they're very reliable. Um, they're easy
Speaker 1: to clean. Literally as long as you keep them lubricated,
Speaker 1: even in the field, you keep it lubricated, it will
Speaker 1: just just keep banging out rounds. Um. It functions in
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about this during the episodes on
Speaker 1: like you know, food storage in and whatnot. Like, where
Speaker 1: there's a there's the there's the cheap version. I like
Speaker 1: stuff where there's there's the cheap version that works, and
Speaker 1: there's the expensive version that works. And you you have
Speaker 1: that with an A R. You can get a very
Speaker 1: inexpensive are and you can you can replace every part
Speaker 1: of that are over the next five years and have
Speaker 1: a six thousand dollar gun. I I did um minor
Speaker 1: price checking last night because I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I haven't checked the price the retail prices on stuff, right,
Speaker 1: so in like your your budget tier normal price that
Speaker 1: that's out right Now, you've got like a Ruber a
Speaker 1: R five five six. There's seven hundred bucks. That's that's
Speaker 1: dirt cheap and it's gonna go bang just the same gun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have a friend who who's who's a r is
Speaker 1: a five five six and they're very solid. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: just they go bang every time. You're not going to
Speaker 1: break up. Um. I mean, as long as you don't
Speaker 1: use it like a baseball bat, you're not going to
Speaker 1: break up, especially now that the Russian steelcase dammo has
Speaker 1: been banned. But then like the the other end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum is you got a sick right, Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: got a couple. Okay, So you know what the rattler is.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a fun one. I do not own
Speaker 1: a rattler, but they are they are cute, do you
Speaker 1: know how much? Well, for first off, the rattler, it's
Speaker 1: a short, bare old five five six. It's not really
Speaker 1: an air of fifteen, but technically it kind of is
Speaker 1: um and it's well, how about this, how much do
Speaker 1: you think that the Rattler costs? Right now, don't don't
Speaker 1: go look just just techs would be my guess. Now
Speaker 1: it's uh now, I actually put it in my category
Speaker 1: of honorable mentioned slash meme because it's kind of a
Speaker 1: meme gun. Uh. It's so tiny, um, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to get shot with it. But that's kind of
Speaker 1: the spread we were talking about, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: you can get a seven hundred dollar gun and it'll
Speaker 1: go bang the exact same way as the rattler. Um,
Speaker 1: it fires the same bullet um, and you can build
Speaker 1: up to something not like a Rattler, but you can
Speaker 1: build up to um a bunch of Novesky parts. You
Speaker 1: can throw a bunch of Novesky parts into that ruger
Speaker 1: lower and upper that you bought and build a really
Speaker 1: awesome gun that will be you know, ninety nine percent reliable. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can uh, you know, I think generally if
Speaker 1: you're buying like a again, you're you're getting kind of
Speaker 1: a bargain basement. Are one of the first things that
Speaker 1: that it's going to behoove you to replaces the optics.
Speaker 1: You know, it'll probably start with iron sights. But these
Speaker 1: don't even come with anything. Yeah, usually they come with
Speaker 1: nothing on them, and you have to stick the irons
Speaker 1: or you stick a reflex site. There's a whole world
Speaker 1: of um of optics, and I think one of the
Speaker 1: actually one of the websites I recommend people check into
Speaker 1: if you're looking and kind of reading up on this
Speaker 1: and and doing your due diligence is Pew pew tactical um.
Speaker 1: They do not written from like a super you know,
Speaker 1: chetty or whatever. Like you get a lot of very
Speaker 1: political gun websites that may have some good information but
Speaker 1: are frustrating to read. They're not that way. They're written
Speaker 1: you know, four people who are not super aggro about guns,
Speaker 1: but who are are are interested in guns, and you
Speaker 1: can find really good reviews on stuff. But as a
Speaker 1: general rule, modern optics beat iron sights every day of
Speaker 1: the like they prefer I I and I do in
Speaker 1: some on my a case, I vastly prefer using irons,
Speaker 1: but that would never be the weapon I would pick
Speaker 1: if I was in a situation where I needed a weapon.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I mean I think everyone should learn
Speaker 1: how to use iron sights, absolutely. But if I can
Speaker 1: hand someone a four and fifty dollar aim point pro
Speaker 1: which which is uh the budget version of a high
Speaker 1: end optic, if I can put a four optic with
Speaker 1: the mountain everything onto a rifle and just go, hey,
Speaker 1: just just put the dot on what you want to shoot,
Speaker 1: You're done. Um. Now, there's a lot that goes past that,
Speaker 1: but we got rid of the entire proper site alignment
Speaker 1: and all that. They just got to put the dot
Speaker 1: on the box and squeeze. Yeah. Yeah, I mean even
Speaker 1: even the Marine Corps, famous for for fielding marks my
Speaker 1: has gone we're going to switch over to optic based training. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just I mean you look at even guys in
Speaker 1: like Idlib Province, which is like one of the rebel
Speaker 1: provinces in Syria that's been persistently under siege for most
Speaker 1: of the last decade. Um, they're all using fancy optics
Speaker 1: now like that generally alten Ali Baba versions of like
Speaker 1: brand optics. But it does the trick, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a sig Romeo that never got the
Speaker 1: role market for cig on, yeah exactly, And they paid
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks instead of four fifty. Yeah. Um, alright, well,
Speaker 1: I think that's most of what we can responsibly get through.
Speaker 1: I do want to end on the caveat we started
Speaker 1: with this with, which is that UM deciding whether or not.
Speaker 1: And I we advocate, uh, firearms is an option both
Speaker 1: as a legal option and something that can be for
Speaker 1: your community and for you as an individual potentially practical.
Speaker 1: I don't blanket advise people to buy guns. I think
Speaker 1: in many case ass it's going to be counterproductive. I
Speaker 1: think you should not own a firearm. Again, if you're
Speaker 1: someone who struggles with suicidal ideation, they they can be
Speaker 1: a very dangerous thing to have in your home. If
Speaker 1: that's something that that you battle with. I do think
Speaker 1: that they can be owned and used very responsibly. In
Speaker 1: addition to I think shooting can be a really enjoyable pastime. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think more than anything, when a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people who are talking about killing you all have guns,
Speaker 1: it can behoove you to own a firearm as well
Speaker 1: if you're a member of one of those communities. So
Speaker 1: please don't take any of this. As Robert Evans says,
Speaker 1: everyone go buy a gun. But if you're going to
Speaker 1: buy a gun, there's there's a right way and a
Speaker 1: responsible way to go about it, and there's you know,
Speaker 1: picking up a random twelve gauge and shoving it under
Speaker 1: your bed, which is no more shotguns for home defense.
Speaker 1: Yeah they're not, they're not ideal. Um yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we can, we can talk about over penetration and stuff,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean just being able to move lead
Speaker 1: in a direction. They're very bad at it. Yeah, um yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they they're they're not they're not. I mean again, something
Speaker 1: like uh an a R or a pistol caliber carbine
Speaker 1: is in a lot of situations going to be a
Speaker 1: much more practical and and have less risk of hitting
Speaker 1: stuff you don't want to hit necessarily. Get the high point? Um,
Speaker 1: yeat the Yeah they eat cannon. Well we'll discuss that
Speaker 1: on our whole episode of about high points. So you've
Speaker 1: shot yourself in the dick the high points story. All right, Well, um,
Speaker 1: do you wanna Paul, you've got any got anything to
Speaker 1: plug before we roll out here? Uh, give food to
Speaker 1: homeless people, well houseless, houseless I think is yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And if you're in an area with a based d
Speaker 1: S A join the d s I and then with
Speaker 1: out the ships. That's what's happening here in Orlando. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, embrace anarchy. Well, I'm Robert Evans, this is
Speaker 1: gonna podcast and uh and remember as we sail out,
Speaker 1: there's a reason the episode talking about guns came after
Speaker 1: the episodes talking about storing and growing food. Robert Evans here,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to ask for your help. There is
Speaker 1: a Portland area woman Ruby to Mimi. She's an Arabic
Speaker 1: interpreter and a Palestinian liberation activist, and she is trying
Speaker 1: to save her home at the moment. She's got to
Speaker 1: go fund me. If you go to save Ruba's house,
Speaker 1: are you be a on go fund Me? You'll find it.
Speaker 1: Save Ruby's house on go fund Me. You've got a
Speaker 1: few bucks. Um, she could really use it again, save
Speaker 1: Ruba's house. Are you be a at go fund Me? Thanks?
Speaker 1: It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone
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