Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Hunting Collective.
Speaker 1: I've been O'Brien and today I am in the Lost Wages, Nevada.
Speaker 1: Uh here at the Shot Show and I'm hanging out
Speaker 1: with Ryan Callahan and the Mediator crew as always, and
Speaker 1: UH my friend, a longtime friend, Ian Harrison, who is
Speaker 1: currently the editor in chief of Recoil Magazine, which is
Speaker 1: a one of the better gun magazines out in the world.
Speaker 1: It's on news stands and you're able to subscribe to
Speaker 1: it as well. I believe it'll they'll mail it to you. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's a great conversation. Ian has uh an incredible background
Speaker 1: when it comes to firearms ownership. His perspective is a
Speaker 1: unique one, and you'll find out why. In this podcast.
Speaker 1: We delved into, uh, some of the more political discussions
Speaker 1: we've had in the past. That can be I will
Speaker 1: warn you they can be. They can fire folks up.
Speaker 1: Everyone will have their opinions about our discussion, but I
Speaker 1: think what, as always we tried to do is to
Speaker 1: examine these things. Don't be afraid to wait into tough
Speaker 1: issues and examine them with pragmatism and a careful nature.
Speaker 1: So hopefully you'll agree with that as you listen to
Speaker 1: episode number seven with Ian Harrison. Hi, Ian, Hello, Ben,
Speaker 1: how are you? I'm finding down here? I mean, how
Speaker 1: how better could I be? I mean, I'm hooked up
Speaker 1: to an IVY I know me too. And m Callahan's here, Hey,
Speaker 1: cal Hello, how are you? I mean, what do you
Speaker 1: what do you call it? A non combatant here, combatant
Speaker 1: kind of on his nut, hooked up to an IVY observer.
Speaker 1: And when you know we're in Vegas, this is what
Speaker 1: day three four? Yeahs day three in Vegas. Um, this
Speaker 1: is responsible. It's prophylactic. Yeah. I don't know what that
Speaker 1: word means, but I'll go I agree. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're in Vegas, it's a lot of long nights
Speaker 1: and and the shot show is the sickness that has
Speaker 1: passed around via handshakes and hugs and general mouth breathing,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of that going on. Um, while
Speaker 1: we're doing is fighting back and we're taking the battle
Speaker 1: to the enemy. Yeah, right now, it's being as aggressive
Speaker 1: as we can. It's definitely prophylactic. That's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Your lovely co editor at Recoil, Your lovely editor, Candice
Speaker 1: was also a registered nurse. She is delightful and delightful
Speaker 1: for sure. Um, so she hooked us up. And so
Speaker 1: now we're going to use our IVY bags as a
Speaker 1: timer when the bags are empty. The podcast coming to
Speaker 1: a close. I would like also to have a big
Speaker 1: shout out to Phoenix Fly Department, who supplied all of
Speaker 1: the So, Phoenix a hefty You're great, You're great, thank you.
Speaker 1: Without you, Without you, we would be pale faced stumbling, Yes,
Speaker 1: pale face stumbling, hungover and dehydrated. And we've got B
Speaker 1: twelve involved. Yeah, sucker vegans, Yes, the sucking vegans. You're
Speaker 1: the editor of Carnivore. We work for meat Eater, So
Speaker 1: sucond vegans I think is implied, but we'll go right
Speaker 1: at him now, cal Why did you not want to
Speaker 1: get hooked up to an ivy? Oh you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just going with the old fashioned way of having a
Speaker 1: tall canny beer here. That's right right, water, And yeah, ironically,
Speaker 1: we're all drinking beer now while the ivy is flowing. Candice,
Speaker 1: does that counteract the does that in any way counteract
Speaker 1: the IVY experience to be drinking during this? Oh? Wow? Okay,
Speaker 1: would you mind's going fast. This mine's going too fast.
Speaker 1: Cannus is slowing down my ivy because it's going too fast.
Speaker 1: Otherwise we're not gonna have We're gonna get halfway through
Speaker 1: a story then, and then we just kept to Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta slow these babies down because we got like,
Speaker 1: we gotta go an hour or two here. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: mine's already. Really it feels cold. Does your feel cold? No,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling pretty good now. I'm so cold. It was
Speaker 1: like the position, Yeah, Ian's position is all messed up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm coming off. Well, this is great. I'm happy we're
Speaker 1: doing this. Sure it's entertaining for the listeners. Cale, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: were you will you at least take a shot of
Speaker 1: be twelve or something? Yeah? Absolutely, you would do that.
Speaker 1: Have that worked for me last year? Do you see? Okay? Alright, well,
Speaker 1: I mean in my eye and you're taking shot? Are
Speaker 1: you sure it was betwelve? And you? How was it that? Well?
Speaker 1: Behind a dumpster that looked like nurse says they were
Speaker 1: charging like fifty bucks. I found somebody behind the players
Speaker 1: for like five. I had a friend of mine just
Speaker 1: texting me. It lives in Bozeman and said like, we
Speaker 1: should start one of these ivy hydration deals because you
Speaker 1: pay like fifty bucks there in Vegas and they'll come
Speaker 1: to your room. Um, so maybe Candice could Moonlight has that.
Speaker 1: But they'll come to your room and they'll hook you up,
Speaker 1: or you can go down there and they put you
Speaker 1: in like we did it last year. They put you
Speaker 1: in a like a lounge chair and they put turn
Speaker 1: on like Netflix, and they just pump you full off
Speaker 1: or whatever you've paid for them to administer. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1: So maybe maybe that's a secondary business. Do you think
Speaker 1: Bozeman would support it. I don't know. Maybe Phoenix would. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Phoenix Matchro is big enough to support it.
Speaker 1: But one thing I don't like abo Phoenix is everything
Speaker 1: is so spread out. You know, it takes you an
Speaker 1: hour and a half to drive into the other So
Speaker 1: would that be economically viable. Maybe you'd have to factor
Speaker 1: in that time, Milledge. I think we can do it, Bozeman.
Speaker 1: Everything's about fift teen minutes away. A big, big part
Speaker 1: of this too is you know, you got your you
Speaker 1: got your high endurance athlete crowd around to it. Especially Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you'd have to say it's our teas and all
Speaker 1: farm to vein. This is all non gm O, it's
Speaker 1: gluten free b twelves. Yes, well, we were talking before
Speaker 1: the podcast that where Ian and I met, and I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, I've been in the industry for
Speaker 1: you know, like eleven years, maybe something ten years, and
Speaker 1: um Ian was like maybe the first person that I
Speaker 1: met outside of the walls of the n r A
Speaker 1: where I worked at the time. Huh. If I'd known that,
Speaker 1: you would never be uh. Ian was on a show
Speaker 1: called Top Shot indeed, and uh tell us about that show.
Speaker 1: Ian so reality based competition format shooting show, which doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like those words should ever go together, but then
Speaker 1: managed five seasons out of it and they did a
Speaker 1: good job of bringing the shooting sports to a wider audience.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've I have to thank everybody who's evolved
Speaker 1: with that and allowing me to bridge over from what
Speaker 1: I was doing before and into the shooting industry, and
Speaker 1: um so I forced got my way entirely through it.
Speaker 1: I'm not qualified to do anything that the things that
Speaker 1: I've been doing for the last twenty years, So um
Speaker 1: this is just one more thing that I was not
Speaker 1: qualified And what year. What year was this that you won? This?
Speaker 1: Believing then this is nine years ago, nine years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people don't even know. Kids that today don't even know
Speaker 1: about top show. There's nine year ten year old kids
Speaker 1: run around. I've never seen it. Unbelievable. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: to do reruns. But it was five seasons and you
Speaker 1: were the first champion, and then you were appeared on
Speaker 1: other show other seasons, right, yeah, yeah, I came back
Speaker 1: on every every season after that, A is either next.
Speaker 1: But again that was not qualified to do. So there
Speaker 1: any clips around him this Like when like did the
Speaker 1: it was the History Channel there, so it was, like
Speaker 1: you said, it was a mainstream you know, at the time,
Speaker 1: I'm working at the NAIs and editor for American Hunter
Speaker 1: American Rifleman, and we're looking for mainstream you know, acceptance
Speaker 1: of guns and gun culture. And it really was that, right,
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely, and uh it spawned a bunch of
Speaker 1: other sort of me to firewers related reality shows, which
Speaker 1: and I'm pleased to say that I think Top Shot
Speaker 1: is the only firewmers related reality TV show that did
Speaker 1: not result in a criminal conviction. You're right. I was
Speaker 1: a part of another one of those what was that.
Speaker 1: So there were various other ones like I think Sons
Speaker 1: of Gun, Sons of Guns. I knew that family very well, um,
Speaker 1: and I actually had also I wrote an article, a
Speaker 1: feature article in Your Life and Your Win, uh from
Speaker 1: I can write from, and then Sons of Guns came
Speaker 1: out and I did the same for those guys. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that was maybe my beat at the time,
Speaker 1: and that your story works out well. The story of
Speaker 1: Sons Guns, the elevid show from Discovery Channel perhaps not
Speaker 1: properly vetted individuals. Yeah, I would say that's probably the case.
Speaker 1: There was a little bit of some improper things going
Speaker 1: on in the Red Jacket Gun Shop. Um, and so
Speaker 1: that that is a long since defunct and some folks
Speaker 1: are in jail and absolutely justifiably, absolutely justifiably. So I
Speaker 1: don't I don't want to talk about that. You can
Speaker 1: look it up. Just you can look up I'll google
Speaker 1: that and read it. We don't need to cover that here.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, there was another show after that. We're
Speaker 1: a similar thing. What was it? We don't even need
Speaker 1: to say. The show that was Colorado Basic another show
Speaker 1: something that dude went down for other to various sacks
Speaker 1: and so. But you, you you and your fellow top shotters,
Speaker 1: because I see a lot of them walking around here. Man,
Speaker 1: Like back in the day, man, you guys had it
Speaker 1: was like a family. Yeah, uh yeah, from that show.
Speaker 1: In fact, I saw one of them this morning, and uh,
Speaker 1: Chris Sereno remains one of my longest standing friends in
Speaker 1: the firearms industry. And he was my rival at last
Speaker 1: Dude Standing in season one and we went head to
Speaker 1: head and you know, I won, he lost, and we've
Speaker 1: remained great friends ever since. And he was staying at
Speaker 1: my house just last week. Man. It's it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: because you know, it's a reality TV show, it's a
Speaker 1: production for television. But I remember from those years, like
Speaker 1: you guys were tight. You would just show up at
Speaker 1: the trade shows and it was it was, it was
Speaker 1: a real thing. Yeah. I even I met up with
Speaker 1: j J. Ricaza, another champion, and that guy's been crushing.
Speaker 1: He's a he's a beast, he's an athlete, he's a
Speaker 1: he's somebody that children should look up to, because j
Speaker 1: J is one of the nicest guys you ever meet.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I ran into him a range day on Monday.
Speaker 1: And if you're gonna look up to eat and you
Speaker 1: should at least be an adult, not a child. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm probably the worst example of humanity your children will
Speaker 1: never meet. But JJ, on the other hand, you know,
Speaker 1: he's a prince among men. Yeah. Yeah, Well that was
Speaker 1: an interesting time. And so that's when we met because
Speaker 1: I watched the show and thought, here's a person that
Speaker 1: uh and then I heard a little bit about your
Speaker 1: story and I was like, wow, here's a person that
Speaker 1: needs to be highlighted. And um, so we did, right.
Speaker 1: You came, you came to I came to nime h
Speaker 1: Q and did the interview with you with your good self.
Speaker 1: And as a result of that and a chance of
Speaker 1: meeting with Mark Keith in a corridor, I said, he
Speaker 1: asked me, you know, what do you want to do now?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I kind of I want to
Speaker 1: go of in the firearms industry full time, and he said,
Speaker 1: let me make a phone call. And as a result
Speaker 1: of that, and of totally grateful to Mark all that,
Speaker 1: but as a result of that, I ended up working
Speaker 1: at Crimson Trast for two years as the pr guy
Speaker 1: and taking credit for that. All this time. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been telling people like you gotta start because I well
Speaker 1: indirect many of you got me there, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I like meeting with Mark, but Mark was I
Speaker 1: took you to the hallway the bathrooms down there, and
Speaker 1: you you were at it there. Talk to everybody you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you see a guide, it looks important. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'm and were where were you at two thousand ten?
Speaker 1: Were you US citizen? Uh? Not quite? Not quite. Um.
Speaker 1: I was working in the construction industry, and um, I
Speaker 1: was started off as a timber framer in the construction
Speaker 1: industry and then went rose through the ranks and that,
Speaker 1: and then ended up being general manager of the company
Speaker 1: that I was working for. And then they kind of
Speaker 1: gave me a checkbook and said, go west young man
Speaker 1: established a new branch of this organization I was working
Speaker 1: for in the Poland, Oregon area and did that, and
Speaker 1: then while I was there, I went on to top
Speaker 1: shot audition for that, then went through that whole sordid
Speaker 1: process and then came out the other end, and apparently
Speaker 1: I managed to get through it without people discovering my entirely,
Speaker 1: you know, my my gross lack of skill. So I
Speaker 1: blowed my way through that and then Ben invited me
Speaker 1: to the headquarters and editor in chief of American Rifleman,
Speaker 1: Mark Keith made a phone callum on my behalf and
Speaker 1: hooked me up with Crimson Trace, who are a great
Speaker 1: company and in the Northwest would staff with some fantastic people.
Speaker 1: And the founder of the company, Lou Danielson, is like
Speaker 1: everybody's crazy uncle. He's he's larger than I was trying
Speaker 1: to find him this week. But the dude is to say,
Speaker 1: it's like everybody everybody's crazy uncle who goes and tinkers
Speaker 1: and invents things, and he's just a wonderful, wonderful human being.
Speaker 1: And there are lots and lots of blue stories and
Speaker 1: uh and as as as a result of that, I
Speaker 1: was in the right place at the right time when
Speaker 1: my current gig with Recoil, they needed a new editor
Speaker 1: in chief and I thought maybe I could do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody told me I couldn't. No, Yeah, nobody
Speaker 1: seemed to have instructed up to this point. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you I was going into marketing at the time. I
Speaker 1: had been an editor and then went to Peterson Tunning
Speaker 1: and been an editor there, and then I was going
Speaker 1: into marketing. When you were going from marketing into editorial, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so who's the biggest hole me? Maybe? Yeah. Anyway, anyway,
Speaker 1: if anybody's listening to this and wants to give me
Speaker 1: free gear, I'm in Uh so you you know, you
Speaker 1: spent some time, you know, like that's it's an interesting turn,
Speaker 1: Like for for how I think that your life proceeding
Speaker 1: top shot and in our meeting, in your conversation with Mark,
Speaker 1: it was even probably more interesting, but it's it's an
Speaker 1: interesting turn to where you are today from from a
Speaker 1: reality TV show and I remember just being like this
Speaker 1: dude's in construction, former military, British military. He wins the
Speaker 1: reality show and now he's doing what he loves to
Speaker 1: do in a country where he's allowed to do it
Speaker 1: like it's it's he has pretty much the American dream. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and for any any detractors of this great nation,
Speaker 1: I would say that, you know, well, first off, get
Speaker 1: your head out of your offs and um yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just like this is the one place on earth that
Speaker 1: I know that offers those kind of opportunities. But if
Speaker 1: you want to seize them, then that's all down to you.
Speaker 1: You can't just sitting here awesome let them. You expect
Speaker 1: things to be handed to you on a plate. And
Speaker 1: like I said, I've been phenomenally lucky. But um, at
Speaker 1: the same time, you know I haven't just coasted through it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you work hard and you get there. Um,
Speaker 1: what's you know you're explain your current gig? Okay, So
Speaker 1: current gig is I'm the editor in chief of Recoil
Speaker 1: Magazine and well that's why, aw we started out Recoil is.
Speaker 1: I don't know, how would we describe Recoil Countess, how
Speaker 1: would we describe Recoil the honor the most honest and
Speaker 1: visually captivating gun magazine based out of Phoenix. That was
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say just missed out of things, but we
Speaker 1: will bass out of l a. But right is subsequently
Speaker 1: that was changing, but I'll touch on that in a minute. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So Recoil was founded in I think twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: um if I if I remember correctly, and the whole
Speaker 1: premise of it was that, um, a bunch of really
Speaker 1: smart dudes got together and sort of looked at the
Speaker 1: the marketplace at the time and in publishing they were
Speaker 1: in probably polishing background, and they decided that you know what,
Speaker 1: there's an awful lot of gun magazines out there and
Speaker 1: most of them are shit, and they decided to create
Speaker 1: their own and by doing so kind of set the
Speaker 1: bar in terms of certainly graphic layout and quality of photography,
Speaker 1: and um yeah, so that that was kind of it
Speaker 1: to start off with. And since then, uh well let
Speaker 1: me back up a little bit. So recall this See
Speaker 1: one was launched a short show twleven and then it
Speaker 1: was an s I p SO or special interest publication,
Speaker 1: So it was a one off at that point and
Speaker 1: the kind of testing the waters just to see if
Speaker 1: it would fly, and it did, so more issues were
Speaker 1: created and it was then became a bi annual publication,
Speaker 1: and then subsequently when I took it over, was kind
Speaker 1: of you know, okay, it's going to be a quarterly
Speaker 1: something like that, but by s U four because it
Speaker 1: was created out of California, by guys who who are
Speaker 1: kind of tied into the California firearms scene, which is
Speaker 1: not perhaps the most vigorous. We'll call that an oxymen. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they kind of ended up saying some things that they
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have done, and as a result of that,
Speaker 1: it was kind of an object lesson as to how
Speaker 1: to ruin a brand over the course of a weekend,
Speaker 1: and I then had the opportunity to step in and
Speaker 1: sort of rescue it. Since then managed to get a
Speaker 1: great team hired, some really dedicated and uh sort of
Speaker 1: creative individuals. UM and hiring, hiring and managing creatives, as
Speaker 1: you well know, has its own set of has its
Speaker 1: kind of like a box of fireworks exploding. It Ye,
Speaker 1: lots of things happening, many different directions. Well, explain to
Speaker 1: people how like what you're um because we're in the
Speaker 1: media world here, so we can talk about it all day.
Speaker 1: But for folks who don't know the the general like
Speaker 1: you read Field and Stream, you read Peers and Hunting,
Speaker 1: what's happening there is the advertising is running the ship. There.
Speaker 1: There are two business models in this industry. Explain those
Speaker 1: and give people an idea what you are doing. And
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm not judgmentalist to which one is better.
Speaker 1: The one that we operate on is that in my
Speaker 1: most important, my most important client, the one guy that
Speaker 1: I or girl that I have to satisfy is the
Speaker 1: person who goes to the local newsstand and stumps up
Speaker 1: nine dollars because we have a nine dollar cover price.
Speaker 1: It's so you know, it's an expensive magazine and they
Speaker 1: put down nine bucks of the hart and cash every
Speaker 1: couple of months in order to buy an issue. Um,
Speaker 1: that is the person that I write for. There. Now,
Speaker 1: there is another business model, which is pretty which is
Speaker 1: prevalent and pre eminent in the industry and has worked
Speaker 1: very well over the past few decades, and that In
Speaker 1: that one, you kind of look at what the numbers are.
Speaker 1: So if I'm offering, say a two year subscription at
Speaker 1: you kind of figure okay, that doesn't really cover the
Speaker 1: cost of postage. And I know is if I was
Speaker 1: a writer working for that magazine, then you know, all
Speaker 1: of my income was funded from the cover price. At
Speaker 1: a subscription of twenty fours, then I wouldn't be getting
Speaker 1: out of bed um. So in that case, okay, how
Speaker 1: did that does that? Does that company? How does that
Speaker 1: publication make money? Well, it's advertising driven, So you pump
Speaker 1: up your circulation numbers so that you can go to
Speaker 1: advertise and say, okay, I'm reaching half a million people
Speaker 1: and advertisers go okay, so it sounds good. Yeah. What
Speaker 1: they call CPM CPMP impression and it's you know, per
Speaker 1: times a thousand basically, and and those folks are, like
Speaker 1: you said, a cheaper subscription means generally more subscribers, which
Speaker 1: means you can charge and advertise more for those. More
Speaker 1: about super simple. So your your page price per advert
Speaker 1: within the book is you know, you can charge more
Speaker 1: for it, and that's what covers you overheads, and that's
Speaker 1: what pays you, right is And that's what you know
Speaker 1: to come to me sew profits We're all in here,
Speaker 1: all in this business to make profit. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: what it is. And there's no you know, there's no
Speaker 1: shame in either either way. I'm predisposed to working for
Speaker 1: the audience. You know, I'm and I'm and I've done
Speaker 1: you know, obviously in my past been a part of
Speaker 1: a lot of different editorial operations, and um, I always
Speaker 1: have felt and felt very strongly that the relationship with
Speaker 1: the reader, the one you're talking about, particularly in your case,
Speaker 1: you you can you know exactly what that person, how
Speaker 1: that transaction happens. They go to the news stand, they
Speaker 1: pick it up, they pay for it, they go home,
Speaker 1: and they read it. Um, I feel like that's that's
Speaker 1: the most important thing. You know, agree with that, And
Speaker 1: like I say, I'm not denigrating anybody else's business model,
Speaker 1: but that is the way that we do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it says this is a just a motivation and
Speaker 1: not saying that any of these any other publication is
Speaker 1: driven by anything else other than the relationship with the audience.
Speaker 1: But there's a purity scale somewhere in there that says,
Speaker 1: you know, how does your business model inform your intent
Speaker 1: in some ways? Agreed? Agreed? Now does it is successful? Now?
Speaker 1: Which one? Which one is the most successful at the moment?
Speaker 1: And I think what we've seen is a cultural shift
Speaker 1: over the last decade or so, and it's mainly been
Speaker 1: driven by digital content and the accessibility of other people's
Speaker 1: opinions online. Whereas now it's kind of the audience recognizes
Speaker 1: that there is a pay to play element and a
Speaker 1: lot of print publications, and that business model is it's
Speaker 1: still around. It certainly is still around. But you know
Speaker 1: we have been successful operating on the other the other model. Well,
Speaker 1: and you think, like the audience can sniff it out right,
Speaker 1: I mean, Cal, you're you know, you read and watch
Speaker 1: a lot of content, like can you whoa cal reads?
Speaker 1: I can read you read a lot of third secret,
Speaker 1: it's a dirty secret. You can tell when somebody's you know,
Speaker 1: somebody's not an altruistic in there and their editorial. Uh
Speaker 1: oh yeah. Man. It was like a heartbreaking moment, you know,
Speaker 1: years years ago, you know, forking over some cash. Um,
Speaker 1: when I was super super into bow hunting, you know,
Speaker 1: for the first time. So it's like the strongest that
Speaker 1: y'all ever experienced something is when you're like diving in
Speaker 1: for the first time and really wanting to learn it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would convent at that point. Yeah, there's nobody more
Speaker 1: enthusiastic than by this magazine. And it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: like review of the years you know, best archery sites.
Speaker 1: I'm like, cool, every fucking site is the best site
Speaker 1: on the market. Like, wait a minute, that can't be true.
Speaker 1: But it must. It's in print, it must be true. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: there has been. I mean it's it's like we can
Speaker 1: be honest here, Like there's been some degradation of the
Speaker 1: relationship between the reader and then the writer. I mean
Speaker 1: there has in the editorial and that sort of probably
Speaker 1: over the years based on the business model where the
Speaker 1: advertiser pays the bills. I mean it just has. And um,
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid to say it, and I know it
Speaker 1: to be true from being a part of it in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. Um again, it employs some of
Speaker 1: my best friends and people I know to be good
Speaker 1: folks and people I know to care about readers and
Speaker 1: care about information. So it doesn't it doesn't always corrupt,
Speaker 1: but it's it has the ability. It's ever present, and
Speaker 1: it's ever present for sure. So what you know, what
Speaker 1: are you excited about Recoil? Wise? Now like you can
Speaker 1: you give us what's like the state of of guns?
Speaker 1: What's the state of the industry right now? We don't, uh,
Speaker 1: well they well, you see, excited about Recoil. We've since
Speaker 1: grown Recoil from one brand, one one publication, which was
Speaker 1: a quarterly when I took it over, and now six
Speaker 1: times a year, so bi annual, so bi monthly, bi monthly,
Speaker 1: um slapping around the here somebody. And then we've added
Speaker 1: titles which are been a natural extension from from our brand.
Speaker 1: So we then stood up a sort of prepper light
Speaker 1: magazine which focuses on guys who are not so much
Speaker 1: have their forty acres and a mule out in the
Speaker 1: back country and they're drying their own feces for fuel,
Speaker 1: because you know those guys who already have a had
Speaker 1: stuff tapped down, you know, they already know what they're
Speaker 1: talking about. But for people who are maybe in an
Speaker 1: urban area and want to get prepared for the next
Speaker 1: natural disaster, be at the fires in California or a
Speaker 1: hurricane or whatever. So that was the next publication that
Speaker 1: we stood up and that's been that's been accessful and
Speaker 1: well received. And then after that we created a publication
Speaker 1: to cater to people who carry concealed weapons on a
Speaker 1: daily basis, and one of those is me. And after
Speaker 1: that the one that we're most particularly excited about the
Speaker 1: moment myself and Nurse Candae over in the corner there,
Speaker 1: and that is Carnival. And we kind of have the
Speaker 1: same philosophy I think with meat Eata and carnivore. Hey,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of crossover in the in the theme
Speaker 1: theme of the titles as well. In that ah for example,
Speaker 1: And you contributed to the first issue as I did that.
Speaker 1: Then we are all about hunting, but hunting is an experience,
Speaker 1: and hunting as not so much pursuing antlers, but definitely
Speaker 1: pursuing time of field with friends and family, and putting
Speaker 1: high quality protein on the table. And I do have
Speaker 1: to say, I don't know if you have it published
Speaker 1: somewhere where people can access it right now. With that,
Speaker 1: your first issue, first letter from the editor, is just
Speaker 1: a thing of beauty. Like the messaging in there is
Speaker 1: is something people need to that's something people need to
Speaker 1: read before they Yeah, sometimes you need to speak bluntly
Speaker 1: about you know, about where we are and what we're
Speaker 1: doing and why we're doing it. Yeah. Good, thanks, that's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think as well, because if we do that,
Speaker 1: if we take that approach and we address it as
Speaker 1: you know, this is the way that all of our
Speaker 1: ancestors have managed to put meat on the table. And
Speaker 1: and as Steve when Now has said, and I use
Speaker 1: this quote all the time, not hunting is a particularly
Speaker 1: recent phenomenon. And as everybody befull that pre industrial ever,
Speaker 1: you know, if you didn't hunt, then you were a widow.
Speaker 1: Well that's the numbers are there's a hundred and every
Speaker 1: time I say anything sounds wrong, but it's right. A
Speaker 1: hundred thousand generations of people lived on the hunter gatherer
Speaker 1: diet prior to the industry revolution, like prior to the
Speaker 1: availability of industrialized foods, and then I think it's one
Speaker 1: or two generations in the industrial ages. And then you've
Speaker 1: got to processed foods, and there's like a generation a
Speaker 1: half two generations of people that have lived I think
Speaker 1: it's three now, um, that have lived in you know,
Speaker 1: the processed food environment. And how quickly we've forgotten, how
Speaker 1: quickly we've lost the knowledge of that exact fact. And
Speaker 1: that then that came from one of the doctors who
Speaker 1: founded the Paleo diet. This is a guy saying like,
Speaker 1: this is in your genes. You are experimenting in a
Speaker 1: way that yeah, yeah, we've now normalized eating cheetos, And
Speaker 1: whereas mabously like your head, yeah, I know we've normalized that,
Speaker 1: we've normalized cheetos. But yeah, I mean I think that's
Speaker 1: it's just that's the truth. You know. I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of times, you know, because we care about
Speaker 1: this thing so much and we want people to understand
Speaker 1: what it is, we we sound like a broken record,
Speaker 1: like listen, this is this is this is us. Like
Speaker 1: research your humanity and you will find there's no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. You will find that's someone in your past, uh,
Speaker 1: killed an animal, native you know a good friend of mine, well,
Speaker 1: Greg Dean, he used to buy by way of dating
Speaker 1: a gal. He spent a lot of time volunteering at
Speaker 1: a food shelter in South Idaho, Southern Idaho, and um,
Speaker 1: he was just shocked at how much food they could
Speaker 1: take in and how little food they could actually distribute
Speaker 1: because people would show up and they unless it is
Speaker 1: in a box in a you know, basically pre prepared way,
Speaker 1: they just don't have any clue that it is even food.
Speaker 1: So there could be a thirty pound bag of beans
Speaker 1: next to a three ounce like add water bag of
Speaker 1: beans and they see one is food and the other
Speaker 1: is ballast a pillow. Yeah exactly, yeah, exactly, I throw
Speaker 1: that in the back of the truck during the winter season.
Speaker 1: Well just try it, you know, just try one time.
Speaker 1: Like if you you know anybody out there wants to
Speaker 1: try it, have somebody cook all your meals for a year.
Speaker 1: Don't touch the ingredients or the meals. Just take a
Speaker 1: year and don't do any work, any culinary work at
Speaker 1: all for yourself or your family, and see how it
Speaker 1: changes you and your expectations, your perspective, Like what you have,
Speaker 1: what food is, do you changes like, I've never done that,
Speaker 1: but an experiment that I would want to inflict on them.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of people that do. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of college students that that do you know, There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people, uh that just that's what they know.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that are quote unquote foodies
Speaker 1: that like to go out have other people feed them,
Speaker 1: and that's what food. Being a foodie is. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you're talking about the flavors. I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: work that's being involved. Yeah, being involved. So it's it's
Speaker 1: in a way scary, but in a way just like
Speaker 1: we're it's not gonna stop, like we're not, you know,
Speaker 1: this conversation ain't gonna put it to a halt. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we need to be realistic as to expectations.
Speaker 1: There are only a certain number of people who will
Speaker 1: listen to that message and actually act on it. And
Speaker 1: you know, and that's fine too, because you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to dig the people's lifestyles. And there may
Speaker 1: be good reason for people to do that, lack of time,
Speaker 1: family pressures, that sort of thing. But I think eventually,
Speaker 1: once those prescious change, perhaps that people might be more
Speaker 1: receptive to the to the message and Okay, go and
Speaker 1: kill something. Um take it all the way through from
Speaker 1: slow food man. Man, it's about the slowest food there is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree. Like, not everybody's gonna be able to
Speaker 1: go out and do that stuff for many, many, many reasons.
Speaker 1: They also need to understand that that is how this works,
Speaker 1: all of it works, and so they better damn well
Speaker 1: be uh cognizant of the fact that if they buy
Speaker 1: it in the grocery store, it does not mean that
Speaker 1: something didn't die. Well. This I've been I've been advocating
Speaker 1: this since like episode two of this program. I believe
Speaker 1: that we should do a deal where you have to
Speaker 1: get a license to buy meat. This means you're gonna
Speaker 1: like it. Okay, this meeting, and this is one by
Speaker 1: the government, right this meat licenses administered by it, but
Speaker 1: some sort of government the government. Yeah, yeah, it could
Speaker 1: be a state. Now that could be like now you
Speaker 1: fucking yeah, I thought I had it. Listen, it's in
Speaker 1: your King's super's card or you have to go, so
Speaker 1: you go to just like you get a driver's license,
Speaker 1: what you have to do is go to the meat.
Speaker 1: You have to go to a factory farm, and you
Speaker 1: have to take a knife and chop the head off
Speaker 1: a chicken, pluck that chicken, and like, you know, hang
Speaker 1: out with Mr Purdue and cut it in in vacuum, seal it,
Speaker 1: and send it off to everyone for everyone to eat.
Speaker 1: Once you've done that, they give you a little chicken license.
Speaker 1: And then when you go to the store. When you
Speaker 1: go to the store, they're like, sir, do you have
Speaker 1: your chicken license? And you're like, yes, here, it's a
Speaker 1: little laminated card with a picture of you and a
Speaker 1: dead chicken. You're like, here, I've got a chicken license.
Speaker 1: You're like, all right, perfect, You're allowed to buy chicken now.
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to buy a pig, you have
Speaker 1: to go to you have to go wack a pig
Speaker 1: on the head. And if you like to buy a cow,
Speaker 1: you know, beef, you have to have killed a cow.
Speaker 1: I'm a cognizant meat consumer. I'm a cognizant met Because
Speaker 1: I'm now, there's a lot of holes in this Uh
Speaker 1: you just called out one of them. A lot of
Speaker 1: people will say I'm some kind of comedy for one
Speaker 1: more government restriction. I'm not. I'm not. If anybody who's
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with my background. I was a shooter in the UK.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I'm running the show here. I don't know the reason
Speaker 1: I would say this. The reason I wanted you to
Speaker 1: come on the show is exactly what we're about to
Speaker 1: talk about. And I want to go line by line.
Speaker 1: I don't want to skip anything. Um because you're, like
Speaker 1: I said, your your story that that we've already covered
Speaker 1: after top shot was interesting, but the real interest comes prior,
Speaker 1: and the real perspective that you can provide comes prior
Speaker 1: to Okay, So you were born in what year? Damn,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it because I'm so freaking incient.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling so incient old you'll die before a little bit.
Speaker 1: What do you first remember about life? You were born
Speaker 1: in what town? I was born in the northeast of England,
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, group there, normal normal life, normal happy
Speaker 1: childhood and then uh, one day, my my folks are
Speaker 1: this little with some of my other wellito was stand
Speaker 1: this uh sort of weekend place on a working farm,
Speaker 1: which I think is where I got to introduce to
Speaker 1: the idea of animals. They sort of end up on
Speaker 1: people's plates. It's actually you know, there is there, it
Speaker 1: is walking around and then subsequently, you know, I means, Dick,
Speaker 1: make that connection so we can place on the farm
Speaker 1: and then manage to finagle away into convincing the farmer
Speaker 1: to let me shoot at twenty two and that was it.
Speaker 1: It's like, ah, this is awesome. This is what I
Speaker 1: want to do for my entire life. Now I want
Speaker 1: to shoot things. And and as a result of that,
Speaker 1: you know, I went through the normal progression of a
Speaker 1: bb gun and then a shotgun, and then then started
Speaker 1: competitive handgun shooting, and then went to school, joined the
Speaker 1: army and became a I was serving British Infantry Office
Speaker 1: three eight years and then uh in seven the British
Speaker 1: government confiscated my handguns as a result of a school shooting.
Speaker 1: They changed the law and said, okay, anybody who's you know,
Speaker 1: you guys, your psychol insics, and even though you didn't
Speaker 1: do anything bad and you didn't do nothing wrong, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna have you know, indulge in some collective punishment.
Speaker 1: Was called the dune blame dun blame yep, don't blame
Speaker 1: mesaca and not too similar to what the school shootings
Speaker 1: that have happened in recent vintage in India, in America, indeeds,
Speaker 1: And so because that happened in an election, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: two political parties were vying to out um to do
Speaker 1: each other in terms of restricting people's liberties and throwing
Speaker 1: the firearms community under the bus as escapegoat for the
Speaker 1: actions of a lunatic. And they decided that, you know,
Speaker 1: collective punishment was in order, so they confiscated mine and
Speaker 1: other people's lawfully held firearms. And as a result of that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: described the day that that you had to you know,
Speaker 1: I gotta jump in here one second, because the only
Speaker 1: time I've heard this story, Ian and I had just
Speaker 1: butchered a black bear and we were we were literally, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the kitchen. Yeah, I mean getting that meat prepared
Speaker 1: to feed thirteen people, and really that was like our
Speaker 1: only opportunity to just like, you know, through the course
Speaker 1: of good kitchen talk, get to know each other a
Speaker 1: little bit. And um. Yeah. The fascinating part to me
Speaker 1: is it was twenty people. Yeah, so there were only
Speaker 1: that number of pistol shooters in a country of a
Speaker 1: population of what about sixty million at the time, And
Speaker 1: there have been previous restrictions on yeah, yeah, but until
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three, there was no there were no firearms lows,
Speaker 1: effectively no firearms lows in the UK. You could walk
Speaker 1: into a hard waist and buy a machine gun before then.
Speaker 1: And what happened was because of after the end of
Speaker 1: the First World War, in the mismanagement of the vet
Speaker 1: and population returning from that, the Bolshevik Revolution actually started
Speaker 1: getting a toe hold in the UK and so you know,
Speaker 1: casting managed back to what happened then that time in history.
Speaker 1: So you have a large working class purple population which
Speaker 1: had been used as canon foder for four years, and
Speaker 1: they came back to a country that kind of did
Speaker 1: not appreciate what they've done, what they've been through, and
Speaker 1: to straight into the effectively the opening phases of the
Speaker 1: Great Depression. And so you know, the Bolshevik message was
Speaker 1: being accepted and had a ready audience at that time.
Speaker 1: So as a result of that, the British government and
Speaker 1: establishment discided that okay, and in the wording of the
Speaker 1: the Cabinet minutes at the time, they wanted to ensure
Speaker 1: that firearms were available to friends of the government, and
Speaker 1: as a result of that, they instituted the first firearms
Speaker 1: restrictions in the United Kingdom. And like I said, prior
Speaker 1: to that, you could walk into a hardware store and
Speaker 1: buy a machine gun. And it's a story that is
Speaker 1: very very rarely told and um, you know, armed crime
Speaker 1: as a result because of that. Well it let me backtrack,
Speaker 1: So that was the first firearms restrictions and that's sort
Speaker 1: of kind of set the scene for every subsequent incremental
Speaker 1: increase in screwing with guys right owned firearms. And we
Speaker 1: went all the way through up to the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: sixty eight, I believe, restrictions on shotguns and it was
Speaker 1: just sort of just drip drip, drip, drip drip, chipping
Speaker 1: away people's firearms rights. And as a result, now you
Speaker 1: know the there's very very little in the way of
Speaker 1: firearms ownership in the UK. It's regarded as some sort
Speaker 1: of cultural aberration. And at the point at which you
Speaker 1: had to turn in, you had two pistols at that
Speaker 1: virtual Smoke's boarde of handguns most competitive shot pistol shoot Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but they were like twenty thousand licensed. But yeah, but
Speaker 1: by that's only about twenty people who's amazing own handguns.
Speaker 1: I mean that you could, but you know, licensed to
Speaker 1: own shotguns, licensed to own lone rifles. And so because
Speaker 1: of that, these two political parties they're like people, okay,
Speaker 1: under the bus, you go do the do the math. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we could win the election. These twenty people don't matter,
Speaker 1: they don't matter. There's no blip on anybody's red off.
Speaker 1: And so we was sacrifice and um and they say
Speaker 1: that we're trying to outdo each other. So Tony Blair,
Speaker 1: who is uh yeah, don't get me started on that motherfucker.
Speaker 1: Um No, that's why we're here. We want to get
Speaker 1: you started on that motherfucker. So yeah, so he decided
Speaker 1: the point that the firearms new Laws were created, twenty
Speaker 1: two pistols were were exampt and so he went, that's
Speaker 1: an opening, that's that's a vulnerability to the Tory establishment.
Speaker 1: And so he went, no, we need to band twenty
Speaker 1: two handguns as well. So that was added. That was
Speaker 1: subsequently added. So there was when this Finman's legislation was enacted,
Speaker 1: there was a grace period and they the government said okay,
Speaker 1: well you have to hand them all in. And initially
Speaker 1: it was the low the lowest drafted was there was
Speaker 1: no compensation whatsoever, and it's just like hand over your property.
Speaker 1: And that produced a bit of a backlash in the
Speaker 1: House of Lords, and subsequently the government revisited the legislation
Speaker 1: and said, okay, well we're gonna we're gonna compensate you
Speaker 1: for it at fair market value. So if you just
Speaker 1: destroyed the market for something, what's the fair market valure you,
Speaker 1: so they're worthless, We'll give you five dollars exactly pretty much.
Speaker 1: But you know, you know, shoot as a resourceful people,
Speaker 1: so we found ways to gain the system, gain the system. Um,
Speaker 1: And you had about six months, if I remember rightly too,
Speaker 1: from the passage of the law to the point where
Speaker 1: you were looking at a ten stretch in pound me
Speaker 1: in the asked prison if he didn't hand over your guns,
Speaker 1: it's a weird name for a prison. Her majesty is
Speaker 1: pound me. The yes. And you're you're you're still active military,
Speaker 1: still active military, that you're a competitive shooter. Put this
Speaker 1: set this up for fox. You're a competitive shooter. Um,
Speaker 1: you're active military. But yet and yet the government decided
Speaker 1: that despite the fact when you go to work you
Speaker 1: have all of these instruments of destruction. You're not fit
Speaker 1: worthy or trustworthy enough in order to have a handgun
Speaker 1: in your home because someone else, because somebody else might
Speaker 1: break a law that you are following exactly exactly. And
Speaker 1: then the last m I checked even in the UK,
Speaker 1: you murder is illegal. Yes, there you go. I'll google it,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go I'm gonna go with yes on
Speaker 1: that one. But yeah, I mean that's that's so you
Speaker 1: experienced that in what year? That was? So? Yeah, at
Speaker 1: the end of this six month grace period, um, the
Speaker 1: very last day, I went down to my local police
Speaker 1: a station wearing uniform and handed over my guns and
Speaker 1: then went back to work and then checked out machine
Speaker 1: guns from the armory and then you know, but yes,
Speaker 1: I went back and did my thing. And and what's
Speaker 1: the feeling, like, I mean, give people a window into
Speaker 1: you know, I could guess angry, Uh what you know,
Speaker 1: what are you feeling when you're turning those guns in?
Speaker 1: And like, what's the conversation, what's the experience in the
Speaker 1: police station. Take people into what that might feel like
Speaker 1: the cop who took possession of them. Kind of he
Speaker 1: was kind of he realized that the absurdity of the situation.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, you know, it's his job. Took my guns
Speaker 1: off me and give me a receipt for them, and
Speaker 1: we shook hands, and then I left for the United States.
Speaker 1: You flew to how but how long? Until it took
Speaker 1: about six months after that, and then just to finalize
Speaker 1: the sort of move but yeah, you'll resign my commission
Speaker 1: um and said, no, funck you guys. If you contrast
Speaker 1: me the guns, then I don't want to be a
Speaker 1: citizen here anymore. So moved to the US, follow the dream, ye.
Speaker 1: And then and as a result, you know, perhaps I'm
Speaker 1: more pro to a more rapidly pro pro to a
Speaker 1: than than the majority of people in the United States.
Speaker 1: But I've experienced it firsthand. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that that are on the left or or would
Speaker 1: like to restrict gun ownership in this country that will
Speaker 1: say and have said to me, and I'm sort of
Speaker 1: said to you, no one wants to take all your guns.
Speaker 1: Will never happen, but like, we're not going to take
Speaker 1: all your guns, we just want to take a few
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, Well, I've experienced it firsthand. So saying
Speaker 1: that from about night the early part of the twentieth
Speaker 1: century through the end of the you know, not even
Speaker 1: the end of the twentieth century. They say there's no
Speaker 1: finance restrictions and it's just an incremental chip chip chip away.
Speaker 1: And he said, the next everybody wants to just the
Speaker 1: common sense good laws. That's all we want is common
Speaker 1: sense concers. Well, guess what happens. The next stage is
Speaker 1: registration or backdoor registration. And once that happens, it's just like, okay,
Speaker 1: we know what you have handemen. Yeah, yeah, And there's
Speaker 1: examples of that in Australia. There's examples of that in
Speaker 1: England and California and California. So let's just defunct that
Speaker 1: right now. This is this has happened elsewhere, uh, and
Speaker 1: we don't want it to happen to us exactly, Like
Speaker 1: that's that's what we go to work to do, right
Speaker 1: So that's that's it's sort of the editorial stance that
Speaker 1: we have is um is not one fucking inch. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not compromising, and you have look at you, and
Speaker 1: I know that, and you have the experience to back
Speaker 1: it up. I mean the experience and now and you
Speaker 1: look at the the UK, now, you look at England,
Speaker 1: now they have, they are looking to I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how much you've read. I'm sure you have. Looking to
Speaker 1: restrict knife ownership. There has always been excuse me, not
Speaker 1: under kind of restricting anything that could possibly be used
Speaker 1: in a self defense scenario. The government wishes to monopolize
Speaker 1: the use of violence. Yeah, and like it or not,
Speaker 1: violence is of active life. Yeah, I mean that's what
Speaker 1: when I wrote. I mean, I wrote this story for
Speaker 1: American riflemen back in two thousand ten. That's what struck me.
Speaker 1: Is this like the the dichotomy of oh, canis is
Speaker 1: coming over to check them? Is this not going? I
Speaker 1: got a bigger vein, That's what she was telling me.
Speaker 1: You know what, ye bear in mind, this is hooked
Speaker 1: to our arms, but I still have a bigger place
Speaker 1: squeezing ivy bag. You're gonna have to get play by
Speaker 1: play because I'm feeling a little dizzy. Guys, my body
Speaker 1: has never had There's an interesting parallel, you know, to
Speaker 1: the meat talk that we're having at the beginning here,
Speaker 1: is um you know, there's so much of the conversation
Speaker 1: that's driven by people who have no firsthand experience whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And I've had these conversations I'm like, well, yeah, but
Speaker 1: what do you think of semi automatic weapons? Like well,
Speaker 1: let me let me just tell you what semi automatic
Speaker 1: weapons are, Like what's that? And what do you understand
Speaker 1: by Yeah, I have a friend, very close friend, um
Speaker 1: that says things like guns are made to kill and
Speaker 1: that's the difference between guns and cars. Because I was like, well,
Speaker 1: what was it just between driving a car into a
Speaker 1: crowd and taking a gun out? Is all guns are
Speaker 1: paid to kill? Like It's like, listen, that's the dumbest
Speaker 1: thing I've ever heard. Guns are made to shoot cars.
Speaker 1: Guns are meant to expel a projectile. What you use
Speaker 1: that projecting off is ntially down to the us you know,
Speaker 1: what it hits when it gets to this terminal impact
Speaker 1: is up to the user. Where the car drives, whether
Speaker 1: it's on the road in between the lines the yellow
Speaker 1: and the white one is up to the user. Where
Speaker 1: the bullet impacts is up to the user. And that
Speaker 1: is the fucking difference in that. Let's put that to
Speaker 1: bed and let's let's get that belief off the table.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and you're coming to America, Like I said that,
Speaker 1: the economy is they there's a tragic event right, there's
Speaker 1: immense sadness, there's a shock, there's all. And then it
Speaker 1: spends that that goes away. We've seen this in the
Speaker 1: in the States. That goes away. It spends into a
Speaker 1: political fervor based on emotion, most times intirely based on emotion.
Speaker 1: And because you don't have the majority of time, you
Speaker 1: don't have a perpetrator left to hang the blame on,
Speaker 1: because these nut joes sucking off themselves nine times out
Speaker 1: of time. Then okay, so we're looking for we're looking
Speaker 1: for a bad guy. We always look for the bad guy,
Speaker 1: and it's a human niche to do. So, so what
Speaker 1: can we blame? Um, so we blame an inanimate object.
Speaker 1: If you get your your your assistance, and your protein
Speaker 1: from the supermarket and that's all that you have, that's
Speaker 1: all the only exposure that you have to it, then
Speaker 1: then yeah, anything outside of that is looked as as
Speaker 1: other and therefore threatening and therefore something that is icky,
Speaker 1: And why would you do it any other way? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's right here. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and you know,
Speaker 1: and buy my meat on styrofoam traders because animals don't
Speaker 1: stuff up because of it. Yeah, Well that's why your
Speaker 1: story is just it doesn't. It didn't need to be
Speaker 1: about guns. It just was about like your pursuit of
Speaker 1: as you put as I would put it, or you
Speaker 1: would put it freedom, like your freedom too to express
Speaker 1: your enjoyment and your love and your passion for firearms
Speaker 1: and in the most productive way for you, the people
Speaker 1: around you and your life. Like yeah, I got dude,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just I just basically I'm not
Speaker 1: going to tell you how to live your life, So
Speaker 1: stick the fucking knows out of mine. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't care. You know, I don't care who you sleep
Speaker 1: with as long as it comes, it comes something, and
Speaker 1: don't um. You know, I have a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of gay friends, and I say, okay, you want
Speaker 1: to get your fighting for equality in marriage, you knock
Speaker 1: yourselves out, you make the mistake that I did, go
Speaker 1: for it, Jump in that pool. I mean, it's we
Speaker 1: There's there's been some as as everyone listening to this one. No,
Speaker 1: there's been some some talk around, um, the company I
Speaker 1: work for in this podcast and my voice and what
Speaker 1: I think around guns and the Second Amendment. Uh, and
Speaker 1: you know here's what I really think. Wow, man, I
Speaker 1: don't want to I can't say what I really think
Speaker 1: because it would have lots of cursing and yelling at
Speaker 1: a certain individuals. And there's been a little bit of
Speaker 1: you know, fucking yeah, yeah, well yeah, we said about
Speaker 1: were drinking beer in Vegas with ivys with yeah, we
Speaker 1: shouldn't have any rules here, no rules. But I think, um,
Speaker 1: I always try to look at these things with a
Speaker 1: pragmatic eye and be like, what about fire ownership is
Speaker 1: the most important to me? And to me, it's defending
Speaker 1: my family. That's that's to me. But that doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be for everyone. That's just to me what it's about.
Speaker 1: And when someone says, why do you need an air
Speaker 1: fifteen to devent your family? I'm like, well, have you
Speaker 1: ever been a part of a natural disaster like I
Speaker 1: was in Illinois where they wiped it Illinois by living there.
Speaker 1: There was a tornado that came through and wiped out
Speaker 1: an entire town and Bob Honeycutt the when I was
Speaker 1: working at Peters and Hunting, one of my bosses there,
Speaker 1: Bob Honeycutt, who was was the editor of Shotgun News
Speaker 1: which is now Firearms and News. His house was wiped
Speaker 1: off the fucking map. Like just pieces, just rubble, And
Speaker 1: we went over to his house, and there's people coming
Speaker 1: in from uh urban areas like Peoria to loot this
Speaker 1: town Washington, Illinois that had been wiped off the map,
Speaker 1: and the folks who were defending their houses were doing
Speaker 1: so with air fifteen and all manner of firearms. So
Speaker 1: when you're in that position, you want the most perfective
Speaker 1: tool available to you. So it's easy when you've never
Speaker 1: been in that position to say, let me limit the
Speaker 1: tools that are available to you to defend your house,
Speaker 1: your property, in your life, in that situation. And that's
Speaker 1: where I got my you know, my big dose of
Speaker 1: actual perspective when it came to that concept. Yeah, well, um,
Speaker 1: if you don't have anything belt fed uh and I do,
Speaker 1: of course you do, probably mounted to the back of
Speaker 1: a jeep. Then yeah, and the fifteen is the next
Speaker 1: best semiota copying that takes detachable magazines is perhaps to
Speaker 1: your best tool for the joke, And okay, cool, And
Speaker 1: then I'm I'm something might be something that only happens
Speaker 1: once in a lifetime is a natural disaster, But who
Speaker 1: the hell are you to tell me what I can
Speaker 1: and can't use? Yeah, or where I can and can't
Speaker 1: go hunting. Oh yeah, well private property. Who the hell
Speaker 1: are you tell me pay taxes on this piece of
Speaker 1: last Tell me I can't go in here and take
Speaker 1: the King's dead. There's a I won't say the brand
Speaker 1: under armour. They have a hashtag that says go where
Speaker 1: you don't belong, and it's about their hunting. It's a
Speaker 1: hunting hashtag they have. It says go where you don't belong.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, next time I am bill hunting,
Speaker 1: and then somebody's backyard in Connecticut. Yeah, I'll be like
Speaker 1: wearing what are you warring waring about? Good? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why I don't belong here. Well, check Instagrams hashtag. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you moved to America where and you moved to where
Speaker 1: in America? Moved to the great stay it's the permits
Speaker 1: perhaps the most fireless freedom at the moment um, because
Speaker 1: you know that's what you do. Yeah, I moved to
Speaker 1: New York. You're like out of the frying band. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but to its credit, New York does have some of
Speaker 1: the best deer hunting in the world. But we don't
Speaker 1: tell anybody anybody like that because you know there's there
Speaker 1: is again from US perspective that there is a different story,
Speaker 1: there's a different narrative. You know, I screw those guys
Speaker 1: and restricting all our gun rights, and yes, absolutely screw
Speaker 1: those guys for that. But I've got some good friends
Speaker 1: that's still in New York and there is some great,
Speaker 1: great deal hunting. Um. Everybody thinks that New York, You're
Speaker 1: gonna go hunting in Central Park. Well, no, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty big place and it offers a lot of diverse
Speaker 1: terrain from the you know they you know, I love
Speaker 1: the finger Leggs. That's where I was, and then and
Speaker 1: then the other on XS as well. Um, beautiful country,
Speaker 1: that beautiful country. And I actually went. I went to
Speaker 1: hunting in for the opening day of Yeah, I went
Speaker 1: to the Allegheny State Park. Um this past day season
Speaker 1: in November, and it took somebodies out of Phoenix who
Speaker 1: had never been hunting before and introduced them to hunting
Speaker 1: on public land and perhaps one of the most populous
Speaker 1: states in the nation with the most restrictive gun rights. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm doing this wrong, but how did they tell
Speaker 1: their friends about that? What did you do this? We go? Why?
Speaker 1: What were the British guy to New York on public
Speaker 1: land with guns, with guns. I mean the reality is though,
Speaker 1: that's that's a more realistic way to do it for
Speaker 1: most people over and it's like, yeah, that's where the
Speaker 1: most people live. Yeah, exactly accessible and and uh it was,
Speaker 1: you know, the typical East Coast opening day experience. So
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys walking around in orange vests and
Speaker 1: you know, it's fairly pad act, you know, the you know,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of dudes in the woods out there,
Speaker 1: and so you have to walk a few miles in
Speaker 1: order to thin the crowds out. And yeah, we got
Speaker 1: into it and we dropped a deer and hold it
Speaker 1: back out butchered it there at the cabin that we
Speaker 1: rendered in this great state park and I'm damn, am
Speaker 1: I just giving away my honey holes and uh we
Speaker 1: it sounds like no, not really, but you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta I got a little six pointed and um you
Speaker 1: butchered in that evening and we did Venison Tatar and
Speaker 1: then venison strugging off and wash it down with some
Speaker 1: fantastic wines from a buddy of mine who owns the
Speaker 1: best reestling estate in the country. Right now he's a
Speaker 1: great guy, and he is has died in the woold
Speaker 1: liberal Democrat as possible. But you know, he's a great friend.
Speaker 1: And we see I do y on hunting. We may
Speaker 1: not see the cee I do y on politics. And
Speaker 1: we still talked. We respect each other's use. I know
Speaker 1: it's like in this, in this social media age, how
Speaker 1: is it possible to have friends that disagree with you
Speaker 1: on any subject? I thought I knew you. I thought
Speaker 1: I knew you. This is where I distrausted to the
Speaker 1: British come from. I'm getting to here you now, keep
Speaker 1: telling your story. I guess, I guess we're good. It's
Speaker 1: a good illustration of how I think. That's a good
Speaker 1: illustration how hunting can transcend boundaries in both politics and
Speaker 1: ideology and food and food and what you get food dudes,
Speaker 1: A bunch of dudes with food, wine, fresh meat, cigars
Speaker 1: around a table who are just busting each of the balls,
Speaker 1: cracking job, Unlchael. Social media finding a reason to disagree
Speaker 1: in that environment, you find a reason to agree and
Speaker 1: have a good time and enjoy life exactly. And anybody
Speaker 1: walked away as from that as just you know, best
Speaker 1: of friends. M that's how it should be. And we
Speaker 1: all part of this great nation, and we will despite
Speaker 1: the fact that we may have different views on certain
Speaker 1: policy issues, we're still and Americans. Yes, we're taking a
Speaker 1: break from the podcast to appreciate this great nation. Mm
Speaker 1: hmmm hmm. Beautiful from sea to shining sea. You know,
Speaker 1: It's It's an odd thing to me though, too, man.
Speaker 1: I it seems like every uh, strong dude with you know,
Speaker 1: positive hit on on their shoulders can look somebody and
Speaker 1: have an actual conversation. Um and uh we need a
Speaker 1: lot more of that right now. So that's that's what
Speaker 1: like what I would preach. The numbers game, the numbers game,
Speaker 1: and we have better be willing to have a conversation
Speaker 1: because we're not gonna win this game by breeding. We're
Speaker 1: not gonna breed ourselves out of it, right, I'm not
Speaker 1: breeding a bunch of gun owners, you know, so breeder
Speaker 1: at this point, you're a non breeder. And I'm talking great,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking and and every day, but there's you
Speaker 1: get like, hey, man, I've done the research, been listening
Speaker 1: to you guys for a long time. I think squirrels
Speaker 1: and rabbits are gonna be the only thing in my
Speaker 1: area that I can hunt. What should be my first
Speaker 1: firearm purchase? Not my life? My fifth? There's tenth. What's
Speaker 1: the very first one? Yeah? That's yeah, just pist a
Speaker 1: politician off, you'll, But that's so here's where I'm suppressing.
Speaker 1: Here's where around the midterm elections we came kind of
Speaker 1: to ahead. And I think it's interesting to get everybody's
Speaker 1: perspective on this. You have articulated, well where you are right,
Speaker 1: You're like, you have a very what a lot of
Speaker 1: people would say is left leaning. Are you peeing and
Speaker 1: we're having I V I'm I'm gonna pop here bad?
Speaker 1: What the fuck? We have? Ivy? It's a real quick
Speaker 1: light beer. That's light beer. That's light beer. How much
Speaker 1: you have left in the can? Then? Ben? Uh? Not
Speaker 1: a much? Okay, because I'm I mean, I'm a need
Speaker 1: to join them in. You need to all right, Well,
Speaker 1: I can't go on a soapbox with nobody else in
Speaker 1: the in the room. You wait until Callahan gets back
Speaker 1: and then and then you go, yeah, yeah, you have
Speaker 1: to carry your ivy. So right now, according to the
Speaker 1: we may have to speed the ivy. We've been going
Speaker 1: for like an hour and thirteen that we're only halfway through.
Speaker 1: I mean we made bounce our entire afternoon, Canice? Can
Speaker 1: you can you turn this thing up all my wide open? Fine? No,
Speaker 1: I'm mad about it. I like say here talking to
Speaker 1: my friends from a very long time. It's yeah, he's
Speaker 1: going faster than me. I should have made fun of
Speaker 1: his vein size Houston next to me and hung like
Speaker 1: a Chinese fighting man. This water is deep. Anyway, what
Speaker 1: was I saying that this is so people canna listen
Speaker 1: to this? Yeah a lot of them do. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys need to this one. This one will be,
Speaker 1: this will be. I have this predisposition that this is,
Speaker 1: this has happened recently, you know, and with this this,
Speaker 1: folks are challenging our belief and you know in guns
Speaker 1: and such um and people also challenge our belief in
Speaker 1: hunting and like killing anials. So people are challenging from
Speaker 1: both sides, which is people are challenging the people are
Speaker 1: just challenging, challenge and challenging. But I've had this predisposition
Speaker 1: lately to see like a tough issue, which was what
Speaker 1: we're talking about, see a tough issue and just sucking
Speaker 1: run right at it. Sometimes get it wrong, sometimes get
Speaker 1: it right, but just run right at it and then
Speaker 1: we can figure it out at some point, hopefully the conversation.
Speaker 1: Do you get, Yeah, you're getting, you know, solid dudes
Speaker 1: around drinking off. I think you get by the end
Speaker 1: of the evening, everything squid. This is how stuff is
Speaker 1: figured out. All right, go pee, you gotta pee? Or
Speaker 1: you getting hold it? No, no, no, I'm gonna hold
Speaker 1: it all right. I'm gonna at you for it, but
Speaker 1: we'll have to. There's only one battery in here. So anyways, listen,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty big bottle. Yeah, and then a huge
Speaker 1: opening for a guy like you can probably get it
Speaker 1: all the way. Uh, where where are we at? We're
Speaker 1: about what will you say, Candice? How far down the ivy?
Speaker 1: How long do we have left? Do you think? In
Speaker 1: the podcast? Because I don't want to wait into some
Speaker 1: other like healthy subject, I'm gonna I'm gonna an interview
Speaker 1: from somebody who's gonna throw the canamon the pigeons, throw
Speaker 1: the one on the pigeons, the canama on the pigeons.
Speaker 1: It's it's an English term. He wouldn't understand. Yeah, speak
Speaker 1: American Ian has and he will think one time. He
Speaker 1: texted me and I was like, what's up, man? He's like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Like just hanging out? He's like,
Speaker 1: I thought you might be in your whanking chariot And
Speaker 1: I was like, the funk is that? Bro? I think
Speaker 1: it turned out to be in my bed as Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's end the alright, alright, I got this now?
Speaker 1: Are we done with this heavy topic? Are we good?
Speaker 1: Like everybody said what they need say, I'm good. Another chapter,
Speaker 1: another chapter in the chapter. So let's spend this. Give
Speaker 1: us some British terms, some fucking like we got the
Speaker 1: whanking chair? Yeah. So other terms for you for your
Speaker 1: cat among the pigeons, yes, which means I'm assuming means
Speaker 1: like the predator among the prey exactly, feathers flying. Other
Speaker 1: terms these are old, you know, prettish squaty terms. Yes.
Speaker 1: Uh so. Other terms for your your sleeping equipment would
Speaker 1: be uh, your gonk sack, your gonk zack. And the
Speaker 1: one that I'm most vivid, most enamored of is uh
Speaker 1: if you're sleeping back is is referred to as the
Speaker 1: horizontal time accelerator. It's a little wordy for me, but
Speaker 1: I like it. Cal and I are have a dual
Speaker 1: gonk sacks over there and we'll be sleeping. I wake
Speaker 1: up and I look over during the shot show and
Speaker 1: there's Kyl there. He's gun out in the sack. What else?
Speaker 1: This is great? I'm sure you've got a lot of
Speaker 1: this show. Yeah, speaking with your better half who she's
Speaker 1: doing a little booth time at one o'clock that we
Speaker 1: need to make it too, because she's way prettier than
Speaker 1: she is. Um, she's also more interesting. Brother shows up.
Speaker 1: She's like, I can't understand a single word. They say, well,
Speaker 1: yeah we could. We sort of lapsed back into Northern dialect,
Speaker 1: which in the UK you can't travel more than twenty
Speaker 1: miles before somebody speaks a different accent to you. And
Speaker 1: so that's how we hate each other. We we use
Speaker 1: that as a gauge zone. Just see how he says
Speaker 1: he has a slightly different emphasis on the on the
Speaker 1: letter A, and therefore you must die. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a lovely culture. H Yeah, Well we are the the
Speaker 1: culture that did bring you concentration camps and the bow
Speaker 1: and football houganism, so Uligans, Hulians football, who is it?
Speaker 1: Are real? I spent some time in Wales, one time,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I was in Cardiff and we went to
Speaker 1: a football game and people were just like, he didn't
Speaker 1: go to rugby match? Ugby rugby? Man? It was a
Speaker 1: football game for sure, and we didn't football. I don't
Speaker 1: come now was football? So football is unball and rugby
Speaker 1: is like like American football but for men do you
Speaker 1: guys wear pads? And then you call it rugby football? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And then football? What else you got? What? We just
Speaker 1: got a ton of confusing stuff. And it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: we have our own culture and dialect all over the
Speaker 1: country and which served only to confuse the foot people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like from the air cand from the northeast where I'm from,
Speaker 1: a lot of our dialect to come from the Ore important.
Speaker 1: You know, the British Empire was you know, worldwide, so
Speaker 1: not all the people know that pajamas came from India.
Speaker 1: Really Yeah, and you saying minic of the woods. Then
Speaker 1: if you say, if you tell somebody I'm gan Yam,
Speaker 1: then you're going home say that again, I'm gan Yam.
Speaker 1: Spell it. I'm not too sure I can. When we
Speaker 1: were in bear Camp, Ian's dish was um curry big
Speaker 1: big curry sorts panda, yeah, ye, pasanda. And culture is
Speaker 1: the national and there's the national dish in England. Really
Speaker 1: that's what I killed me. It's like, well, I'm from
Speaker 1: the UK, so I'm making my national dish, Like I
Speaker 1: thought that was he just fried fried fish and fried
Speaker 1: potatoes and then called it fish and chips. He has that,
Speaker 1: and then there's you know the rest of it where
Speaker 1: which basically consists of bald gray mush and you know,
Speaker 1: people have looked at is this lamb or is this
Speaker 1: is this? Uh check in you know, going back to
Speaker 1: the UK, Did you go back there? I go there
Speaker 1: every year or so, and for the longest time after
Speaker 1: I moved over here, I was saying, Okay, I know
Speaker 1: I'm going back to the UK. If anybody wants for
Speaker 1: my family to visit them, they have to visit me
Speaker 1: in the US because I'm not giving any of my
Speaker 1: money to the British government because those guys. And then,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of mellowed a little bit. And
Speaker 1: actually this last year I went hunting in the UK
Speaker 1: for the first time, at like thirty five minutes from
Speaker 1: the center of London. And it's possible, it is possible.
Speaker 1: What did you go hunting for fellow fellow. Yeah, was
Speaker 1: there like, was there a road deer and things around?
Speaker 1: Munjack muncha really yeah, Muna is fang deer, fanged deer,
Speaker 1: possibly the smallest deer I've ever shot with the two seventy,
Speaker 1: which kind of probably didn't get any meat off the
Speaker 1: front shoulders. Was blade round start looking very good? Ortunally
Speaker 1: I did thread the need life shut it right in
Speaker 1: the center of the chest. So um the bullet probably
Speaker 1: expanded just inside the rib cage. But tender logs will
Speaker 1: go on. Whoa. But there after hunting cou'se deer, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden have so I gotta hunt seek a
Speaker 1: deer and then Cou's deer within four months of each other.
Speaker 1: And I'm now very fascinated by small deer, the dominative
Speaker 1: deer hunter, the dominiative hunter. Ryan Callahan. Yeah, loads for
Speaker 1: my twenty two long rifle. I was gonna suggest perhaps
Speaker 1: at one seven seven rifle. Oh yeah, yeah. The whole
Speaker 1: New World charge it up hunting. So there was six
Speaker 1: There were six d species in the UK, and I
Speaker 1: shot three of the four of them so far. But
Speaker 1: this this, let's see, let's see what we can guess Okay,
Speaker 1: can we guess the six deer species that are in
Speaker 1: what tail deer, mule deer, none of the above, None
Speaker 1: of those. I'm gonna go with road deer being yep,
Speaker 1: follow deer discussed, monk chack yep being another. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: also say that red deer gives in there. That's obvious.
Speaker 1: Now we got two more to get ska is za yep,
Speaker 1: one more, we said, foulow. We said, am I going
Speaker 1: to win this? We're gonna get this. It's not roosa deer.
Speaker 1: That's not that. It's come on, come on, you can
Speaker 1: do this. Come on, cow. Cow's looking confused. It's gotta
Speaker 1: have strange teeth. Yeah, it's kind of it can't be
Speaker 1: just a normal deer. Yeah, that was a great joke.
Speaker 1: A little spike. I'm thinking that, we said. Road deer
Speaker 1: said faullo deer. Okay, I'll save you Chinese. I would
Speaker 1: have never got that. I was thinking rooster deer and
Speaker 1: other things. You know. So it's one of the few
Speaker 1: places in the world that you can Chinese want to do,
Speaker 1: and the Chinese want to do. A population in China
Speaker 1: isn't doing all that well. So um, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a rest of those genetics. Yeah, I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to come check things out. How many of those are native? Three? Three? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And fellow fellow not native? They were imported from Europe
Speaker 1: in the time of the Norman's valid if if, if
Speaker 1: I'm correct, for the most populated deer in the world,
Speaker 1: there's more fallady than any other type of deer. I
Speaker 1: believe I was told that by a man it would know,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna go with it. Uh. If I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. That could be the title of this podcast.
Speaker 1: If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but be Over would probably
Speaker 1: do very well. Well. We are coming to the end
Speaker 1: of our ivy You know what that means, kids, kids,
Speaker 1: you know what that means here at the Hunting Collective,
Speaker 1: when the ivy bag is empty, it's time to go pee,
Speaker 1: It's time to go and p Thank you Ian for
Speaker 1: joining us. Thank you Ben. What's how do you say
Speaker 1: goodbye in English? Goodbye? Goodbye, cheerio. That's it. That's all.
Speaker 1: Episode number forty seven is in the books I vys
Speaker 1: beer all the best discussion with my good friendI and Harrison.
Speaker 1: I'm a good friend. Ryan Callahan's Privilege to sit down
Speaker 1: with these boys and record, and I believe it's a
Speaker 1: great representation of Ian's life and what he feels and thinks,
Speaker 1: and ours as well. So hopefully enjoyed it. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you will let us know your opinions on what was discussed,
Speaker 1: and we'll have fun time with that conversation. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: As always, please go to the mediator dot com, sign
Speaker 1: up for the newsletter, go to the store, go to
Speaker 1: the events page, do all those things. You're gonna find
Speaker 1: us all over the country. In the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: We head out very soon to Reno and Sacramento, So
Speaker 1: there's the places you'd be looking at and buying tickets
Speaker 1: for that. If you want to see Callahan, myself, Johannes Pitelis,
Speaker 1: Steve Vanilla, and other guests on the live podcast tour,
Speaker 1: we very much look forward to seeing you there, or
Speaker 1: seeing you anywhere for that matter. So that's it. That's
Speaker 1: all I got, short, sweet and beautiful. Again, thank you
Speaker 1: for listening, Thank you for wading into these deep waters
Speaker 1: and these important issues with us. Hopefully you find the
Speaker 1: conversation to be challenging, you find the conversation to be
Speaker 1: something that makes you think it makes you better, because,
Speaker 1: as Ian said and as Cal said during this podcast,
Speaker 1: the conversation is what we care about, so we'll keep
Speaker 1: having it. Next time on The Hunting Collective see yu