Talking About Guns and Culture

I have my second coffee already. So our topic is gun culture, uh, and to discuss gun culture with me and a number of aspects of it, including how to maybe make a better one. Uh. Is Carl cassarda from Enranged TV. Carl, Welcome to the program. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm really stoked to be here. And it's a topic, as you can imagine with my work on Enrainge TV, is a near and dear to my heart because it's a challenging one. We've got a lot of

great things in this community and a lot of challenges too. Yeah. Gun YouTube has gotten some really interesting places in the last Um. Really, it feels like most of the growth happen like the last five six years, like there's been a real significant increase in Yeah, I feel like there's been like a wave. I feel like there's generations of gun too. There's like Gen one, Gen two, Gen three in thereps, Russian back in the day and stuff totally. Yeah,

and so there's a whole thing there. There's there's generations of what was addressed in the conversation and the cultural significance as well as the geary impact. I think we've got different kind of generations of the Yeah, and I think this stuff obviously, when when aspects of gun YouTube go viral, it tends to be stuff that's like particularly problematic. But in my experience, most of it is just dudes shooting stuff to see what happens, or you know, trying

out different guns and stuff like. It is mostly if you're someone who you know believes in the right to bear arms, it's mostly pretty much just like people drying out guns and stuff with guns. Yeah. Yeah, when things go viral, it's like my my experience with that, there's a number of reasons, or one is that it's particularly gross that someone does something or says something fucked up.

Somebody's out there dressed as a rotation, all right, stuff like that, that kind that tends to push the buttons. But yeah, most of the time, the stuff that gets the largest volume of viewership are quite honestly more banal. It's things like a fifty caliber a exploding or shooting a gallon, you know, gallon, drum of gas. That kind of stuff. Is that that stuff appeals to people that aren't just gun people, so they're like, oh, I want

to see shoots bload, so let me click on it. Well, one of my favorite things is to look at videos of people destroying safe life fests. One of my favorite ways to watch gun YouTube. But I guess this is probably what we're probably talking about this as the episode goes on. But once you watch enough of those from like one channel, you'll you'll get to a video when they fantasize about like shooting Antifa or something that they're like, okay, well yeah, that yeah, that's that's just the way it

goes sometimes. And it is, you know, the thing that my first I guess the first time I became aware of like online gun culture UM was a site that's still really near and dear to my heart. I'm sure

you're familiar with it, Carl the Box of Truth. And it was like, and I think this like fifteen years ago or something like that is when I started reading their stuff, and it's it's just like some kind of bubba e dudes in Texas who will take different who will try out like, hey, there's a myth that, um this specific round in Korea got stopped by people who were wearing multiple layers of like clothing in the cold.

Can winter clothing stop this bullet? And they would they would, you know, mock up the clothing on like a target and they would shoot. Or like how many books does it take? Like if you have a full backpack, how many books would it take to stop a round of nine millimeter? If? I like, it's it's all very much like practical Hey, people you know say this works this way or this works that way. Well, let's go out

and shoot some stuff and test how it works. And um, I think was like it is, as you said, the kind of thing I think, even if you don't own guns you might find interesting just because like a lot of it is dealing with here's things you've seen in Hollywood, what actually happens? Um, So I do think like, fundamentally there's always going to be a place for that kind of content because it's it's not just like stuff that people who like guns are interested in. It's just stuff

that has kind of objective value. You know, you're trying to expand what people's understanding of things. Yeah, I call that G whiz content. It's like, G whiz, what happens if right? And so on? In range. The closest equivalent to that, which are the videos that the most views are are somewhat now infamous mud tests um and it started off six years ago and it was literally it

was G whiz, let's go do this. And of course there's this long standing lore everywhere outside of the gun community and in it about the A K M being this undestructed, indestructible unicorn you write into combat that no matter what happens to it, it fires, and they are

fifteen being this fragile piece of ship. And in our mud tests, of which we've now done multiple of it, while initially it was just G whiz, over time and aggregate, it turned out to actually have really interesting data points and that the A k doesn't do well in mud and they are excels in mud, which is completely against the lore about Vietnam, which is a different problem. But that kind of thing extends beyond the gun community because people are like guns and mud. What happened? Is this

MythBusters kind of stuff? Yeah, and I think, but it's interesting how you can learn from it. Yeah, And I think one of the problems that is, uh, we could say like has is an issue on on gun YouTube and one of the things that has become an issue, and this isn't just within the gun culture, it's everywhere. Is that like if you're into that stuff, and if you're if you're coming into it, like I want to see people do this g with stuff or I just want to see reviews of different guns because I might

be buying one. Um, Google's algorithm is going to feed you a lot of stuff, and some of that stuff is going to be people who, yeah, are preparing to like shoot folks at protests and our filming videos about that and stuff and that it has this um it has this radicalizing effect on a lot of people. And it also has this kind of can have this kind of radicalizing effect on content where you know, most political

stuff you see isn't kind of that over it. But it does if somebody has a video where they're being more explicitly political outside of you know, you know, arguing in favor of gun rights, but if they're getting kind of political and a broader since, and that does really

well the way that content works. As other people might be like, oh, well, folks want me to do a political video, folks want me to talk about I don't know, Nancy Pelosi or whatever, um And that that's you know, not just a problem with gun culture or gun YouTube, but it has increasingly become a thing. And in the n r A kind of very famously. There's a good podcast on the how that organization has kind of gone from where it started to where it is that talks

about like n r A TV. But they their YouTube channel had some pretty outrageous ship for a while, and I think it left an impact even though it failed in this eventually. Well, the n r A is an tool. We can get into that later. The end has changed so much since its organs to what it is now. It's not even the people have found it. It It wouldn't recognize it, I don't think at all. But you're touching on a topic there that's also near and dear, And I'm not trying to promote in range here, that's just

we're having a conversation. But years ago I decided to proactively demonetize. I turned off my AdSense and I take no money from any views, so it's not like advertising doesn't drive what I do. And I feel like the reason I did that was partially just fuck you YouTube. It was the hacker manifesto of you come watch my content, I cost you money versus make you money, which is

kind of a statement on my part. But additionally, I do feel like, whether it's firearms or any other content that is completely advertised, I supported there is a dangerous thing there in that you have to pursue the clicks like a heroin addict, and the clicks make you the money, and therefore you're gonna make the stuff that's gonna make the clicks because that's how you make your income. And even if you don't want it to do, it can

affect you. Yeah, And I'm curious, like, how do you kind of how do you um, how do you how do you approach sort of dealing in this space where it is so easy for things to become politicized, Like do you is that is that a kind of thing that you have to be consciously sort of picking your battles.

I guess I'm just kind of interested in how you because you definitely have been more open about having kind of more on the left libertarian side of things politics than a lot of people talk about in that space. How do you decide kind of what is worth inserting and what is worth kind of just you know, no one needs to hear that within this context. Oh yeah, I don't think that that's an easy thing to answer, right,

It's hard, Like there's a lot of landlines. But when um introspectively for me, the answer for me at least was I'm just going to come to this content as my honest self, Like, if I'm just going to produce what I want to produce, it's and since I don't have to worry about advertising dollars, I'm just gonna make this ship I want to make. And as a result, I guess it's sometimes considered an alternative voice, but I

don't think it really is. I think that the loud loud mouths have made it sound like there's only one voice in this community. It there isn't. And so by just being legitimate and honest and being me, there has turned out to be a lot of ground swell if you want to use grassroots type people out there that want to hear something that's not just evangelical American Taliban so but but in terms of what where to where, what where to put your foot on? What land mine?

I guess I did for me. My decision has been to do topics that have been intentionally ignored that shouldn't have been. Like I've done a bunch of videos about the confluence of civil rights and firearms ownership, which there's a lot of it, and it's it's really amazing how much there is and no one talks about it. Yeah, I mean we Yeah, we've chatted about that a little

bit in some of our episodes. It was like nineteen nineteen when there were all those like race riots around the country, or even if you're looking at like the post construction period, there's a history both of like gun control being used for racist purposes, but also just of community is arming themselves, Black communities arming themselves. That is is woefully undertold. Although it is people are starting to

deal with it more thankfully. Um. I'm kind of interested in talking to you about sort of the culture jamming aspect of we have this huge gun culture, aspects of it are very toxic and becoming politicized in a way that is um aggressive. Um, how do we how do we have a positive influence and kind of hopefully pull things back, because I do think within kind of the issue of gun rights, there's more actually more possibility for people to sort of come together and reaching a chord

than there is on something like abortion. Um. And I think a lot of that conversation is going to start in spaces like the one you inhabit. Yeah, no, I yeah, I like what you said culture jamming, because another term I've heard is subversibile. That's not the intent. But like you mentioned the Red Summer of nineteen nineteen and uh, yeah, I talked to when I talked to a lot of people that that are really huge historically interested in minded and I was astonished how many people have not even

heard of it. Never mind you only like the explicit realities of it. And so when it comes to the culture jamming, there's one video I did about one or two of the events of Red Summer of nineteen nine, one of them here in Bisbee locally and it's an interesting problem to someone who normally would be considered as

a very standard issue firearms content creator. In that particular Red Summer nineteen nineteen episode, it turned into the local police attempting to disarm the tenth Cavalry soldiers who are off you know, military soldiers in bis beyond recreation, And

so you've got this interesting cognitive dissonance. Do I support the cops that a lot of firearms people are like just blindly support, or do I support the military, which a lot of fires people blindly support when both of them converge and the and it's a racist agenda in it that poses a question that I like to do with like this kind of content because it means that the viewer has to really, if they get through the video, have to introspectively go, Holy funk, which do I support

or do I support either? Or is there a problem

here I haven't been considering. I think asking questions like that really matters when you try to like start these conversations with people who are in the same space but but not you know, I haven't considered talking about this stuff before or on what would traditionally be seen as kind of very opposed political um wing, how do you kind of start these conversations in a way that makes it most likely that you're gonna be able to have a positive dialogue that actually moves forward as opposed to

kind of getting bogged down in the and the things that caused people to just kind of lock horns generally when you we start getting into these areas, Yeah, you know, I don't know, it's totally possible. You're gonna have that problem no matter what right you see that with your work. For surely, when you take an honest approach to history and just be like, here's the facts. Um, there's gonna be people that are just gonna be completely resistant to that.

They're not going to take it. But um, I think the best way to do that is to just be that honest approach to it. Like one of the things that I've think we do with firearms content gears cool tech is cool. Guns are neat. They're fun. I enjoy shooting with guns. I like the foard of it. I

like going to competitions. But one of the things that it gets left out of the conversation a lot is what are the implications of firearms and the sociological economic environments that we live in, and I think that's one of the things that didn't get talked about. And so if we talk about it fairly and also tend to I think it's hard to do, but have people from all sides of this perspective, as long as they're not completely dangerous and toxic, being part of the conversation, we

can have a better middle ground. That's the hard part. Like so being inclusive, ironically, even of views that you aren't necessarily your own, as long as the person you're dealing with isn't. My line is, if you're actively supporting bigotry or the harm of other people, there's a no go. We're done. But if we have different views but we realize that that's not the intent, then then we should have a conversation. I think that that's a big difference now.

I think one of the areas in which this can murkiest is when you are talking to people and I've had a few of these conversations who are convinced that there is uh that they're kind of on the precipice of of a violent conflict sparked by someone coming to take their guns right that and it and you know, there's the version of this that is like, I'm worried that the A t F Is going to do some fuckory in a bunch of my ship is going to

be illegal, which is pretty reasonable. And then there's the I'm worried Antifa's going to come to my small town and and and take my you know, guns or do whatever like because that there are often people in that who are just kind of um tragically misinformed and radicalized in a way that they're not so much eager to harm people as they are just like broken and frightened

because of the things that have been fed to them. Um, do you have any kind of best practices when it comes to sort of approaching those conversations and trying to improve the information those people are getting. I guess for me in that regardless of what I when I see people like that, and I think all of us have those people in our world, whether it's your your aunt or your uncle or a friend, right like we've seen

that over the last couple of years for sure. Um, I think the best thing you can do there for me, And again I'm just talking to my approach is a break the echo chamber if you can. And so the echo chamber is the problem when we suck from the fire hose of only one source, like NonStop. Yeah, that's gonna be dangerous. That's the kind of stuff that pollutes your mind to the point where you can't think outside

of that box. So like being more inclusive and that word is kind of a trigger word, a catchphrase, but being legitimately more inclusive and presenting a lot of different diversity that really is part of the firearms community. Can I can in some circumstances break the echo chamber, Like I'm really happy with this one project on the channel where I'm working with the net Evans about specifically a female or woman's approach to self defense with firearms. And

you don't really see that. You'll see like channels that are only for women, and you'll see like all the majority of gun channels that are only for gun fascinated dudes.

But like throwing that into the mix, there's gonna be some subset of people that will clicking and watch it out of that g whiz Lowell and that kind of stuff can break a paradigm in terms of well, I never thought of that, I never looked at it from that perspective, and that's at least that's what I think is the great answer is do your best to make sure you're approachable and try to break the echo chamber. Yeah, that makes complete Yeah, I mean that makes a lot

of sense. Um. I think on the other side of this is also worth talking about because we've kind of been focused on how do you break the echo chamber? How do you get people who are you know, in the gun culture on the right to be more open minded.

The other side of this is you have a lot of people who are kind of liberals um or on the left who have a really reflexively negative opinion to the reaction to the very idea of gun ownership or gun rights and have these you know, you will generally see there's there's a mix of people who can come to it from a very reasonable and argued point in a mix of people who are just going to like in the same way that folks on the right to throw out a handful of quotes that they've seen on memes,

um that they can is to kind of, you know, shut down debate. How do you do you have a lot of those conversations where you're kind of trying to make people at least more open to because this is something my work has dealt with a lot. Is kind of trying to sit down to, like, I get why you don't think these things should be legal. Um, obviously, I I see the same mass shooting news that you do. There's a problem, a deep problem with guns in this country.

I don't deny that, but like, let's also talk about the idea that the state should have an absolute monopoly on on the ability to do violence. Let's talk about the ability of marginalized groups to defend themselves. Let's talk about the history of gun control and how it's like it is it is. There's a lot of conversations that kind of get wrapped up in that. Um, I'm wondering, do you have thoughts in terms of like how to kind of broach those and progressive avenues to go down

to when you're having that side of the conversation. You know, it's totally interesting. I think I feel like I don't. I'm curious what you think about this from your work as well. I feel like over the last for good reasons, over the last couple of years, more than a couple of years, I think I've seen Maybe it's just my own echo chamber. I've seen a lot of people on that side of the political spectrum coming more and more around to being pro gun. Yeah, and then the statistics

back that up. Supporting soil in the United States is the lowest it's been in quite a while. In so that like, if there's that joke on that side of the political fence about you go far enough left to get your guns back right, um so um. But I think there's been a real wake up call for a lot of people that used to be very much vehemently against the idea with some of the stuff they saw and went, whoa, Um, this isn't These aren't going away.

And if you're reasonable, if you're willing to have a rational thought about, at least in this country, the reality of firearms ownership, whether you like it or not, it's not debatable. This is real. It's what it is. They're not like they could ban everything tomorrow and there's gonna be air fifteens in this country for the next hundred years. Um,

so that ain't gonna change. So with that realization, maybe maybe the better idea with which I think is with all technology, is instead of being afraid of it, is to actually learn about it and understand it whether you want it or not. You but like learning and understanding it is at least a step further forward than just

complete object fear. Yeah, that that is often kind of where I start the conversation with just like we have to deal with the reality as it is on the ground, which is that there's four million firearms in private hands here, which is not all that far from half of all

of the guns in the world. Um, So any any sort of like plan you have, it's the kind of like one of the things that often comes up in those conversations is Australia and people they were like, well they were able to do it after Now Port Arthur was Scotland. Um, I forget the name of the massacre, but there was a massacre in in in in Australia that they banned most kinds of firearms after and confiscated them.

And it gets brought up a lot where like, well they did this in the short frame of time, and there was this this impact on gun violence deaths. Why couldn't we do it? And the reason is that they had to confiscate a total of two hundred thousand arms and there's four hundred million guns in private hands in the United States, Um, it's it's a different scale of problem. And that that's before we get to sort of illegal

barriers because Australia didn't have a Second Amendment. Obviously, like whether or not you like at firearms have a level of protection that is equivalent to the protection free speech enjoys in this country. And you can't just pretend that's not the case. There's a tremendous body of jurisprudence around it. Yeah, no, totally, and like so that that's that's part of it is

the reality there Australia. Here is a completely different beast as well as culturally, like the people that were into guns there and I don't mean to offend any Australians listening, but it wasn't like here, like in a place of Arizona at pleast like Arizona, guns are just if you're in Arizonian they're just intrinsically part of life, whether like they're just constant. They're everywhere you go to, Like you see them open care you not always do she open

care either. Sometimes it's like reasonable open carey. Sometimes you see the other side of it. But they're just everywhere. It's just part of the deal, and it's like a lot of that in a lot of the country, and so UM I actually think that that fear based ignorance of them is more dangerous because then we don't teach people what to do around them or how to be safe around them, kind like abstinence, like education in school, teach people not to have that's dumb, that ain't gonna work,

and guns exist in this country. Does just be afraid of them that don't work either, So in the regard, I think that the reality is it's much better to UM to approach this. What I think. I guess the way I try to deal with that is if you don't fetishize them, people that are more afraid of them are less likely to just click away. If you talk about them like this is a thing, here's what they are. They're not a totem against evil. They're just a tool.

And here's a historical story or narrative or sociological impact of this that's not fetishizing it as some religious item. I think that that helps break that barrier a little bit. And I think that that does bring me to something I think about a lot, which is the how you're in and it actually has I think gotten a bit better than it was prior to Sandy Hook, but the very sorry state in a lot of cases of advertising

of gear and guns. Um. I think the most famous example was a I believe it was a Bushmaster ad that got pulled after Sandy Hook that was like an a R fifteen that came with a man card that you would get like with your gun. Yeah, get your man card back. Your man card has been reissued because you have this gun here and that I I you know, I've seen a lot of different gun cultures because it's actually like we've just talked about how unique US gun culture is, but a lot of people actually own firearms

around the world. There's a lot of even like in Europe, like France has a very significant gun culture, UM and in Germany you'd be surprised, like people can own a lot of the same weapons you can hear. There's a lot more hoops to jump through to to get access to them. Um. But there's still like there's gun cultures all around and especially places like Iraq and Syria. It was really going to UM when I saw kind of the gun culture that I I most wanted to put

some things over to hear from there. It was in northeast Syria in Rojava, where like damn near every not every individual, but every like family had an AK because in part, there was this understanding that you have a duty from time to time to like patrol and watch your neighborhood and not in sort of this like I'm gonna set up a checkpoint for Antifa, but in I like, hey,

isis just carried out a big attack. Let's let's get some folks out into the streets to like watch our neighborhoods, because that's just the reality of the world, and we don't we don't do we don't just have like a group of militarized police rolling around every neighborhood. Like we also are responsible for protecting our communities, and so we

train with weapons. And there was a lot of conversations I had with women about like, well, the fact that I have this and know how to use it now means that things can't be done to me that were before because I have an a K forty seven, And that means something I would like to port the kind of like what you were talking about not just seeing it as a tool, but seeing it as a tool with societal responsibilities. You don't just have a gun so you can hold up in your house in the zombie apocalypse.

You have a gun because you're part of a community and because there's there's some value that we see in members of the community being armed and not just the state. Yeah, no, totally. So I mean that goes that kind of goes way back to the old like now sort of silly sounding thing, but like God made man, cult made them equal, right, So before that, like if you were a frail human being for whatever reasons, Um, you really were sort of defenseless,

especially in the places like the frontier. But skill at arms could change that and um, and that it puts it can put a more balanced power infrastructure in place. UM. Not that I want to live in a world, but we're always like at this point of mutually assured destruction. But it is much better to have more power balanced than power imbalance. And firearms absolutely provide that in trained, responsible, educated hands. Um. And that's what I think the story

should be, right, that's the emphasis. Like when when the whole thing happened went down in Iraq like you're describing, I think it was ironic. One of the things that the US military did was allowed every home to have an AK like because you get to keep one gun and it's one of these and uh, and you talked about gun ownership worldwide, like, um, once you jumped through some of the hurtles in some of these countries, it's

actually easier to own certain things than you can't. Like, Yeah, like a machine gun in the US is highly regulated, its four and pretty difficult and highly expensive because of a specially closed market. But like Bloke on the Range, one of the guys I work with on on on YouTube, once he gets his permit, like he's like, I'm just gonna go buy a fully automatic stent and he just does. And it's not at an exorbitant price like it would be in the United States. So it's not apples to apples.

Like these controls, whether we like them or not, some of them are actually more liberal than we have in the United States. Yeah, I think a good example of that, and an example of where like a lot of folks who might kind of reflexively think this is insane, but like it's silencers, you know, suppressors being the more accurate term, but silencer is what you call. It's the thing you see James Bond screw on the end of his gun

to make it quiet. Um. And there's the like this attitude that they should be heavily restricted because there's this misnomer that for the most part they make things sound like stuff in James Bond. Now, there are some ways to it a firearm that is incredibly quiet, um, particularly using like a smaller around and sub sonic ammunition. There are some very some weapons you can effectively make quiet

enough that people won't notice it. But when you're putting a silencer on an a R fifteen, it is not quiet. No one will miss it firing. But what it won't do if you have to defend yourself in your home is shatter your ear drums forever, right or this is honestly the bigger case for suppressors. If you are hunting with an animal, as a lot of people do with your dogs, you can have a suppressor on your shotgun as your bird hunting or whatever, and you will not

destroy that dog's ears. Um. You know, it's the same thing like I'm hunting for deer. You know it's it's it's easier, Um, it's like less dangerous for you potentially, Like I know one thing you notice, if you've spent a lot of time around hunting dogs, they don't have good hearing by the time they get older because they're hunting.

You know. It's funny suppressors, Like everything that's that's more controlled has gotta allure of magic around it, right, Like, oh, a suppressor, a silencer or or for that matter, or a machine gun, and like therefore it is the forbidden fruit and everyone wants it more than they ever would

have once you own. I have one transferable machine guns with tax stamp the whole nine yards, and I shoot it like once a year because you shoot it and then you're like, wow, that was expensive and and it's like, oh we that was fun, and then you put it away. And the truth is the some automatic stuff is far more interesting and actually generally more effective. Once you use

full auto fire, it's got very limited use. Um fully there there, I mean there is like, if we again are being complete, there's one mass shooting I can think of where a fully automatic weapon made the shooter more dangerous, and it was the Las Vegas shooting because he was in a set fixed position um. He was holed up um and he had he was not like moving and standing. He was like braced while firing into a crowd from

a building. As a general rule, if you're talking about like what someone going to be more dangerous with, if they're somebody who decides to shoot up something, it's a semi automatic weapon. Because an automatic weapon number one going to jam more often quires a bit more understanding and know how on behalf of the user. And also it's a lot harder to hit with and we'll run out of ammunition very quickly as opposed to it and a

semi automatic a R fifteen. The reason they are so often used in mass shootings is it's kind of the best weapon to use for that. If that's it's also prolific, right, there's like cordwood in this country. You can like they're literally everywhere. Um, the Las Vegas shooter, though I don't know that he had actually any truly select fire guns. Weren't they It was, Yeah, he was using a bump stock. I think it's close enough to Yeah, well no, it's a good analog. But it is interesting to note and

that guy. What's interesting about that guy's um? Well, of course his act was horrific and evil. Obviously he used a bunch of air fifteens with like shitty bump stocks, and he had planned something like this for years apparently. Yeah, he had Tanner right in the set up too, which is yeah, no one knows, I mean as we know, no one currently I don't know anyone knows what his motivation was, at least it hasn't been released. But he had been planning something like this for a very long time.

And what's ironic about that is that if he had bided his time, could have actually had a real select fire like belt fed machine gun. He just did a millionaire. Yeah, he could have done that, and uh, um, this could but he just went with this bump stock kind of garbage,

which is weird. Um. That's a whole another topic, but it is and it it is like that is one of those cases when you talk to people in the right where it's like after that shooting, Um, Donald Trump and his administration banned bump stocks, um, which is more gun control than we got out of eight years of Obama. That's like, you know, oh boy, you point that out at least on the center in fact, um, Uh, there's always this narrative that you know, this political party will

take your guns and this polargically party waved. But the truth is statistically and historically speaking, both tend to err on the side of trying to add more restrictions over time, Like if you do it over time like Obama didn't. In fact, Obama open things up. I think he liberalized concealed carry of pistol or firearms in national parks. Actually

he actually made guns a little easier to deal with. UM. But then via essentially executive order edict, you've got Trump banning bump stocks, which, whether you like bump stocks or not, I think the way that went down is questionable legally speaking, but that's another topic it And and obviously bump stocks were also somewhat questionable. They were speaking right right, totally totally. But but that's that's an interesting precedent when what he

did with just like fiat edict um. But that that said, like historically, over time, there's always been more restrictions, not less, from both sides. And when you point that out, the people that just kind of drink the kool aid from one side or the other, I want to just remediately knee jerk on you, and you're like, no, this is weird.

This is coming from all directions really, Yeah, and I think it is it is a big part of it is just that like as a general rule, people who are rich and powerful do not want poor people to be armed. It doesn't tend to work out in their favor. The only time they want poor people armed is when

they send them to a war they decided to have. Yeah, obviously the history of gun controls would have really tied to racism and the Black Panthers and ahtle just stuff around California's gun laws being started to curb black people from from owning fire arms, and so it would be we would be You could argue in some ways that Reagan had a big role in inventing our modern concepts of like what gun control means and what kind of gun control laws like liberal states tend to go after

was on open carrying bands, on you know, concealed carrying of arms, that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's deeper than this, there's always nuanced It's really hard, right, But like um, like California, which is kind of one of the flagship states of gun control, um, and I think that their methods are bizarre to me and almost on not understandable. But like you talk about Reagan pretty much. They were like, guns are cool. And then the panthers walked around with

some guns. Are like, whoa sucking? We better do something? And uh, of course that the image of the panthers with their guns out walking down the street, which was their legal right, um, and it was ad and it motivated, um, of course a lot of things in California, which now we see where where that has led in California gun control laws. UM has also changed the narrative for so many people that are unwilling to look at things from

a truly broad historical perspective. That's only one tiny thing the Black Panthers did, and the rest of their actions are so lost to just the pictures of them standing

around them on carbons. And that's another example of leaving out, like the sinnabal Mission, We'll talk about one thing, but not the rest, and therefore the historical narrative is only one thing, and it is also there's a lesson in that for people who are on the left and who are advocates of gun ownership, about what happens in terms of media and in terms of how your movement is thought about and remembered when guns are a part of it because that's always going to for a variety of reasons,

and we can say a lot of those are very unreasonable reasons. But if you are a political group who is armed and makes that a visible part of your activism, that is going to really dominate a lot of conversations. It doesn't mean you shouldn't be, but it means you have to go into that understanding that like, that's just

how it works in this country. Yeah, you will immediately get you will immediately from at least some part of the perspective, whatever whatever side you're on, you will immediately get someone slinging extremist militant at you. Yeah. But by the way, I mean, those are real things too. There are those. I'm not saying there aren't extremists. We'll talk about them all the time. Yeah, this country is full of them, as is the world. So that's not that's

not an unreasonable thing that does exist. But the minute you go ahead and stand with that gun, you're going to get that label, whether it's truly something you earned

or not. There's a very deep conversation that we've talked about that we've had in pieces on this program and other shows that we've done on Cool Zone about like when makes sense to be openly armed and when makes sense to be openly armed as part of a group, because that is a very fraught question, as like the what happened in the chas made abundantly clear, but in you know, a bunch of cases Kyle Rittenhouse and whatnot, there's a ton of different reasons why choosing to be

openly armed. Um, there's a debate to be had about like how that influences everyone around you had that influences influences the demonstration, And I've seen and heard it used in in good ways in an irresponsible ways. I've seen people carrying guns at political events in order to intimidate others. I've also seen people carrying guns at political events to create essentially a buffer where it's like, Okay, there's going to be people fighting at this event. There's going to

be clashes. If we're standing here as a group with guns, there's a place people can run back to and the fighting won't continue because nobody wants to push that. And that's yeah, without talking about specifics of intent to any of those situations you already talked about, because I can't, But yeah, I think I think it does like it

always comes back to this thing of intent. Right. So to me, Um, you're right for the fireman, absolutely true, regardless, Like even if I agree with you, this is a right, like we said, it's protected like the first Amendment, it's the second. Um. But I think the problem starts to come when you've decided to bring the firearm solely for

the intended purpose of intimidation. Like that's that's where I start getting like, this is this is troubling, right, But if you're bringing it for personal defense or community defense, or there's a need because your community is really at risk. I mean one of the examples of a civil rights one was this is some someday I'll do a video

about this. A community knew that the clan was coming to intimidate them, and they armed up with surplus m one garren's and steel pot helmets, literally dug fighting positions and fought them off. The clan ran for their lives. No one was killed, but they literally used m one grands to uh to stop the clan from infiltrating their community. Um. That was not used as a weapon of intimidation, it was used as a weapon of community defense. I think

that's intent goes everywhere. Yeah, that's dope too. Um and yeah, I U I think um one thing that that that kind of I think there's a conversation that needs to be had when we start talking about when is reasonable and what situations are reasonable to carry a gun opener concealed about also what should be carried. Um. I've certainly seen because I don't I think that the most harmful

thing is certainly people carrying gun to intimidate. I've also seen people carry guns as a fashion statement, which is not the same thing but is bad. For example, people on the left people at a protests bringing a loaded mosen um too, because it was the gun the communists used, which is like, you don't you don't want to be in a firefight in a dense urban environment with a motion negat did you bring? It? Is a gun that

doesn't function without a sizeable hammer, you know. And of course people on like I remember outside of this anti mask rally, these two guys who are up and carrying a r is, one of whom had an a r tin with with a hundred round drum was talking about it. We had like four hundreds something rounds on him and it was like, and in case stuff pops off, and

it's like, what are you? Number one? Like, if you're talking like that, you've spent no time thinking about what actually happens in the situations in public areas in which gunfights occur, because none of them that have happened in any time in the recent future have involved people needing to four hundred rounds of ammunition or or drum magazines or whatever. Like you are. You are not in Fallujah,

you are in Salem, Oregon. Um. The extent to which a firearm can be useful for uh self defense and that does not like bragging about the number of bullets you have is just like weird and gross. You know this is gonna come off maybe a little strange or

even counterintuitive. But when I hear someone like that at what you just described in that particular person, First of all, that guns barrel would burst in four and of rounds, But that's a whole another topic probably, But that said, Um, when I hear that, I almost have like, Um, it's kind of sad because the reason that's sad is that person is doing that one because they've been sold the idea of the firearms and talisman like that to me,

that person is acting like that's a talisman. Secondarily, the reason they have four in a round is because they've been sold a pretty big bill of fear. And that's that's sad for anyone to live a life based on fear. Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that entirely. UM, do you have anything else you wanted to get into and this, uh, this conversation, Well, I don't know. I mean, we're just

here to talk about like community. I just I think one thing that's really important and it's something that UM is a positive and I'm happy to see this is that it was kind of a happy accident with my work. I didn't even think about it. It It is hard to happen. But this is a much the people people that love, first of all, just the sport. There's a lot of us.

There's a lot of us of all spectrums across the board. UM. People that believe in the right from the person purposes of personal defense and community defense there across the board. And I think that one of the things that we need to do is not let the narrative be only one, which is we see so much of UM very much just like right wing I'm gonna usually say Christian white males need like completely dominating this conversation as though, and they think they owe as a result own the space.

Now it would be in their interest too, from the perspective of preserving firearms rights, to be inclusive and have everyone that believes in that a particular thing work together to make sure we don't lose a right, because the right unexercised is lost. Right. So even if I disagree with you on economic policy, but we agree on firearms right, we have an agreement there, and that makes us somehow

interestingly in the same space. We have something in common versus something diversive, and I think that part of the conversation, at least within reason. I mean, there are people that are legitimately dangerous, you don't negotiate with them, but within reason, like agreeing on that topic means well, we've got something in common here. There's probably other things too, and maybe that could be a place where we kind of try

to make that conversation that or not worse. And so by being more open inclusive and saying, hey, there's people here and people there and here we are all together doing this together. Um, perhaps conversation can be had. That's better than what we've been having. Maybe it can be actually a community builder versus a community destroyer. Yeah, yeah, I would like to see that. Um well, I think that's as good a note as any to uh to close out on Carl. You wanna you want to throw

your plug ables up before we we write out of here? Yeah? Sure, I mean so I run in range TV. You can find me an in range dot TV. Um completely viewer supported. Like I said, I don't want to sponsors or anything I like. I like the idea of the people liking watching it, support it. So if you like it cool, come check it out all over the place. YouTube bit shoot decentralized video contrat distributions another thing I believe in

strong would the corporate oligarchy. But yeah, come out. If you want to have a little bit different take on fire and stuff, or you're justted in the confluence of civil rights and guns and stuff, come check out in Range TV. I'd appreciate I always appreciate new viewers, and thanks for checking it out. Awesome all right, um yeah, check out in Range TV, and uh check us out somewhere. We won't tell you where, but you can find us if you keep us in your hearts. It Could Happen

Here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.