Meaning a light Man like this man letting butterfly flapping and wing big down in a forest, man and gonna cause the.
Tree fall, letting five thousand miles away.
Man, nobody see nobody see you don't need to know. Man, like you followed this story and.
You got back to flect.
That'll win.
Man, don't blackly ding on the Panama man.
Man, you don't don't matter.
Man anyway, All right, focused trip, Welcome back to the jay Birds show. How you doing man, I'm doing great.
Thank you very much for having me on. Glad to be here.
Yeah, man, it's it's kind of crazy, uh, because I'm sure you're aware of a similar dynamic. Once you start, you know, creating more content, your bandwidth to consume goes down. It's probably a good thing that keeps it from being this kind of aura of boras. And so I've been, you know, from a distance, but you know, watching your
stuff really really catch on. You seem to be doing great, and every once in a while I'll catch one of your live streams or a clip for one of your live streams, and uh, yeah, man, I'm really glad to see that you're doing well. And it's it's good to have you back on man.
Yeah, thanks, Jared. It's a it's been a fun endeavor over the last really year and a half or so to kind of transition from a full time video producer on this channel to a streamer, which is kind of cringe because I always viewed streamers as like subhuman, and now I kind of am one, you know, cause it's
kind of catching on. Everybody needs that, that live entertainment, you know, that's what people really want because there's there's certain things you can't recreate outside of a live environment, like when you have you know, feisty guests on or certain topics. It's just it's irreplaceable. And it's kind of like, you know, more more circuses for the masses, but here I am the top circus performer in the gun space.
Yeah, well it's it's at a there's a similar uhaly a stigma around the podcaster, right, you know the joke click oh every you know, every young white man has a podcast, which is true, but also, uh, you checked the economy, you tried getting a real job. You know, it's it's somehow worse than being a monkey dancing on screen. Yeah, I mad the uh like I said, I'm unable just you know, for a number of reasons to catch all
of them. But every once in a while I catch a clip obviously you have, which is now what a year and a half old, you know, the the infamous uh like Nova group pedigree thing. Oh yes, I.
Prank a fantastic, top top clip of all time for sure.
It was really funny, and especially funny because I'm so out of the loop. I just kept seeing references to it. I'm like, what does this mean? Pedigree? Is this like some like in depth like dog food joke that I'm too stupid to realize, And so finally I saw it. I was like, oh, oh, okay, all of this Suddenly I have more context. So yeah, man, you're you're you're
doing good work on that front. The uh, the other thing we were talking about this earlier, right, is you know, the I think what and forgive me for speaking to your own work. I realized that's sort of you know, presumptive.
But I think the variety really helps as well because, and I say this as a massive gun artist, there's only so much to say about guns, right, And after a while you're like, all right, do we really need another you know, autismo niche micro caliber debate, or a conversation about you know, fractions of an inch on a barrel length, and the answer is no, we're good, We've had that conversation.
So yeah, Well, it's it's like anything. Struggling to find an hour's worth of content on guns three times a week is kind of exhausting because there's things you could talk about. It's like, wow, gun Company four sixteen brought out another small micro compact nine. Isn't that really exciting? Like Nope, that that happens every week of the year for the last ten years. It's not particularly interesting to
talk about. So yeah, you gotta you gotta find ways to mix it up because if you're if you're not doing that, you're literally just a corporate shill. Is like, you know, the whole meme about hey, look at this product, consume this product, get excited for next product. That's literally it well.
And like, I see the same thing obviously with uh, you know, pure politics streamers or podcasters or whatever. And I always think about Tim Poole, who like ten years ago, back when he had like thirty thousand YouTube subscriber, he was just a guy that used to work at weis I would, you know, catch in just because it was like daily news stuff and watch this man ruin his life and like you see clips of him now and he's just this like poor little like like husk of
a man. And it's like, I get it. He's making, you know, an ungodly amount of money. He seems to have, you know, a company, all that kind of great stuff. You're like, Tim, budd is this worth it? It seem to just be deranged from like reacting to like daily slot politics.
Well, that is another grind that will absolutely kill you. Like daily politics, Like, I think it just makes you stupid in the long run, trying to follow because you have to by proxy, be around so many stupid people and listen to so many stupid takes about this because essentially it's like me reacting to stupid take over here when clearly it's this is the right take until that changes at some point in the near future. But Tim is a guy who's like obviously he went through a
lot through that. I think there's a great lesson to be learned that if you can maneuver yourself through hard times, you can use that to build a massive audience. Right as long as you go through the persecution and you don't like end it all. You know, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. But the seeds of destruction are often sown in success, and so now he's a victim of his own success, which is why he threatens to fire all his people every day or every week.
And he's like, I'm gonna leave it all. I'm gonna go back to my trailer park. I'm gonna go back to my skate rink. And that's it. You know, I don't want to do this anymore. The ride's been fun. I have the money, I have the influence. I don't like my life, and half the country hates me.
You know.
It's a it's a weird place to be in.
Well, And like I said, I use Timpoole as an example, not that I have anything against him. I don't know him from Adam, right, but like you're you're one hundred percent right. And I think the other part of it, and it's similar to the corporate show thing, is forcing yourself to care about something because obviously, like part of what sells in that when you're a personality quote unquote is the like the sincerity what makes it seem genuine.
That's the advantage of you and I have towards you know, nra ATV in Fox News. But there's sort of a like a spiritual cost to faking that, to putting that on. And either you get the like you can you can clearly tell someone's just phoning it in. They don't care, and that's a garbage product. Why would anyone watch it? Or it's the like in you you see this definitely in the gun space, but in any kind of special interest where any sort of you know, microscopic advantage, new
product or whatever is either like that. You can just see this guy, you know, putting on this performance and it's not only like from the outside perspective embarrassing. You're like, all right, man, come on, some respect for yourself. You
don't need to pretend. And also it's like you could see those guys over time just turning something that you know is on one level, you know, a hobby into the most kind of soul crushing like office space style career job where you're like, you know, putting the I can't remember what they called it in the movie movie It came out before I was born, but like the like whatever, the little like Chochki's on their uniform to like you know, get all of the team spirit or whatever.
And Okay, is this maybe player hating because I'm not getting you know, millions of dollars allegedly from the Russians like Timpoole did. Maybe a little bit. I mean, you know, I've named my price before. H But all the same, it is kind of interesting to watch, Like again, right, someone turned this like dream job into like the most miserable grind possible.
Yeah. It's like people on the outside look in and they're like, you have the dream job, you have that thing that I want, And it's kind of like the Fostian bargain, right. You get the dream, you get the girl, you get the money, and then you have it all and you realize, oh wait, that's that's not enough. Right. So I mean for me, like with what I do,
I think that authenticity has to be there. You know, people look for that, people want that, which is why you've seen kind of this shift in the younger generations away from the formerly mainstream media of any context, whether it's you know, mainstream news, mainstream entertainment, mainstream you know, podcast,
or whatever it might be. People are looking for more authentic information, and in some way maybe it's like a cultural revitalization, right where people are looking for something that's truer. They know that on some level what's being pushed in
the mainstream is all nonsense. Which taking it to the gun context is like somebody like Brandley Mariam It was one of the best shooters in the world and shoots a generic stock glock seventeen for the most part, or maybe he's upgraded to a glock forty seven at this point, but it's literally nothing special. And so for me, like the transition away from like chasing the next product is you realize that that's not that important. It's kind of
like slop daily politics. It's not really that important. It's like, look at the overarching things. The overarching things if you want to actually get good with guns is to just go out and shoot them practice train, which isn't as exciting. You know, sitting in my room for thirty minutes a day pointing at the same targets and dry firing every day is not particularly exciting, but that's what actually builds
foundations for skills and actual performance. Right, So it's it's chasing the flashy new product nonsense or do you actually want to be good at what you do? And I think people are looking for that authenticity more and more.
Well. And I think a big, a big part of it, right is that for a lot of these specific hobbies, because of the Internet and social media, there's been a huge, a huge explosion and also a democratization. Right. I think back to like when I was growing up, a gun media was like a few magazines, right, And I have some nostalgia for that because it was fun and I was seven years old and got to look at like
some quadrail abomination. But at the same time, like one with the benefit of hindsight, those were just product placement, right. They're sponsored by every one of these, But also that's centralized, so everyone's getting their information from the same source. And so yeah, sure is there still a competitive shooting world, one hundred percent, but it's way way smaller, tiny, compared to what it is now. You see the same thing with like you know, fitness or you know, martial arts
or whatever. And there are pros and cons to that growth. I mean, one of the pros is on the like product side, is that you have a lot more options, a lot more companies doing things a lot more of
an aftermarket support base. Like that's great, but with that comes that like your gun, your special interest, whatever it can substitute for a personality, and especially on social media, you can become like the kind of tired example from like three or four years ago is like goon culture right before that term developed on.
What version of goon are we using here? When it comes to.
Either or Actually funny enough, the thing is you could make this exact same point about both, but we'll stay with the like, uh, you know Toyota, Toyota, Tacoma, you know.
Binocularly squad nods, yes, yeah, one hundred percent. And that's like a very tired example that hasn't been as much of a thing since I was on Instagram, which was before the regrettable death of a you know, one George Floyd.
But point is right, like even then you saw that like, oh, these collection of consumer products, these things can be part of my kind of like personal brand, and once that reaches saturation, once it becomes so artificial, I think people are like, well, I mean I actually do care about guns. Can someone just tell me like what is this? What do I need to do? And obviously like there's always
a market for the big slop stuff. The mass market appeal like that will never go away, but I do think there is sort of a pendulum swing back to that kind of like conscious consumerism is a really douchey term and it's not exactly what I mean, but without having something better to hand, will say that where it's like, you know, I actually want to get better, I actually want to understand, And look, you're talking to the guy who you know has basically returned to the position that
the only gun I actually need is a glockpor three X, Like I'm that large collection of stupid items, and it's like for what I actually do as someone who's only used a gun and anger once and that was an even more janky I gro uh nine eighteen abomination. It's like, all right, the other stuff is cool, but like, what do you actually do versus what is something that someone on the internet told you would be cool? You know?
Yeah, Well, like you say, the slopification of any industry that gets mainline integration or just gets a large enough audience, you're always going to get the people. Where the other day I was seeing this image floating around on XIT went kind of viral, and it's this tattooed Brovett looking dude with a hat backwards shooting an ar while like having his perfectly manicured beard, and he's like just doing
the nod cool, not even looking where he's shooting. And it's like that is the perfect encapsulation of like the ratification, the rettification or the reditards finding the gun space right where it is. It's it's looking for trinkets, it's looking for I had a gentleman that coined the term guncopop right, And like you mentioned earlier magazines that had these old
builds in them. You know, there's now entire videos by content creators that I actually like where they just go and recreate what people are nostalgic for in some of these, you know, like Magpool, Dynamics DVDs or you know retro ars, which retro ars unfortunately are twenty years old, which was you know ars that are were built in my lifetime, which is not super cool that that's now considered retro
but whatever. Besides the point of my approaching demise, yeah, I mean, anytime the industry gets big enough, like you'll see it in like Warhammer forty K. Unfortunately, it's like, oh, that's cool in base. Well, the liberals come in or just you know, progressive left, whatever you want to call them, and it's like it's it's things become like on a timer for how cool they are going to be. So I do think there is some appropriate ways to gatekeep
your your industry, your sector of interest. And so for me, when it comes to like not being a mindless consumer, that's what I try and push on my channel, on my videos, on my shows, whatever it might be, you don't need to buy the thing. Ninety nine point nine percent of the time, right, what you actually need for yourself to be, you know, whether it's prepared or just to be competent, is very minuscule, very very meniscal even at a high level, that you need is very simple.
So for me, I always try and push now, like skills over specific items. You know, being an item nerd is cool and it's totally fine to be, you know, to be that guy who's down that rabbit hole, but I think skills are a lot harder, they're a lot less flashy, So they're they're the thing that you should chase.
Yeah, and this is something that is very difficult to market, right, like there's and you see the same thing. You notice this in fitness as well, that like, as much as I hate to say this, fitness is kind of a solved science, Like, Okay, just do something hard regularly. Like I realize I'm massively oversimplifying that, but for the sake of this discussion, we'll go with that. Like, Okay, yes, if you are training to be an Olympic cyclist, your
workout program and your diet will be different. However, the fact that you were on an internet forum asking how to lose forty pounds in six months has given me a pretty strong suspicion you were not that guy. Right,
you were not that potential Olympic athlete. But again, right, when there's money flowing around, when there's that democratization which you and I have both benefited from, Right, I'm not trying to you know, completely and totally you know, talk down about it, but there is that like, oh, well, what's my niche? You know, what's the thing that I can do to get views, to get eyes, to get
to get money. And a lot of it's relative harmless, right, Like, look, like you know, I've a collection of weird, not entirely practical guns, like it's fine, you know, there's there's nothing wrong with that. Like, you know, my people in our grandparents generation did model trains, and I mean as far
as special interest, that's probably slightly more embarrassing. But at the same time, right, there is that distinction between like is this just something that you enjoy or is this some sort of like internal like are you justifying this to yourself as like, oh, this is for the end of the world, it's for the no knock grade, it's for whatever. And that's maybe more specific to the two A stuff. But like I think on balance, you could look at you know, the kind of like social mediazation.
That's a horrible term for it. But again we're on a role of creating bad terms for things that people have already named. But it's like, I think that you're right to identify that pattern because really, like if we're thinking about it, the first two places I saw this where cards were that very quickly came a large hobby and a very Instagram focused hobby. Like I don't know if I mentioned this, I might have I have like
three stories that I just tell on every show. But I was super into miatas when I was a kid, just because they were super cheap. Right, it was like a fun reworld drive car you could buy for two grand. If the engine blew up, you could get another one for three hundred bucks and you'd beat you know out
the next day. And I sort of watched that hit the like social media hive mind in the same way that for someone slightly older, it did, like it happened to civics where all of a sudden, this was like part of like it was sort of part of like a I don't know, an identity in a weird way, and the value shot up. A bunch of the cars got junked, you know, doing stupid things with them, and that's not the end of the world, right, Like they
made a million of them. You know, now you just have to pay six or eight grand instead of two whatever. But it was an interesting object lesson in like, oh okay, when that sort of hits the zeitgeist, like maybe you'll be the guy that that makes it through the filter, right, maybe this is something you were interested in, and once the kind of eye moves on, you'll still be there. But there is this sort of weird rush of this is the cool thing, or this is a cool thing,
and I'm curious. This is a very broad question focused so like, you know, if your answer to this is stop stroking your chin so much. But do you think that the like the sort of gun culture, the gun social media culture is like, is this something that's going to last or do you think that this is something that is unsustainable just due to the kind of consumerism. I don't have an answer. I'm kind of curious to get your take.
So on YouTube, I would say there's there's so many different angles to this because there's like the political social angle where I think that video based content on YouTube for guns will be more regulated in the future. So I think that just the supply will go down because YouTube will put out limitations. Now, of course that'll go to other video platforms, but it's never going to have
the same reach. Instagram already is tenuous, has a tenuous relationship with firearms, and some of the other platforms do like it's going to be like x and rombol are going to be the only places that you're gonna be able to post a lot of this style of content.
So I think that the industry saw a huge bump between like late twenty nineteen to now basically right, because we got a huge influx of record numbers of actual gun owners, of a whole generation of kids growing up in that environment, and we've seen you know, kind of a political swing to more traditional roles, let's say, among the youngest generation, which I do like to see, which it's going to put them towards things like weapons in general. So I do think that the industry has seen a
large influx of people. I think it has in some ways peaked. And if you look at like view numbers between all of the top YouTubers, and again it's hard to tell whether this is completely organic or some you know, suppression mitigation factors going on in there, but most of the biggest YouTubers are down somewhere between thirty and fifty percent viewership versus like one year or even two years ago. So I think that the industry is it expanded, it
blew up. Of course, now it's into contraction phase, and depending on how later this year goes, it could see another blow up, it could continue to constrict a little bit. But yeah, and there's there's a lot of different levels to it. So even on like the micro level, So like earlier this year, we got the removal of suppressors from the NFA tax system, so it's a zero dollar tax stamp, which is still somehow a tax stamp even
though it's zero dollars. So we have this huge influx of people buying suppressors like at Shop through this year literally two hundred and ten new suppressor companies that are all using the same three or four printers, because again, the joke is in the industry is like who's making
this suppressor again? Because there's really only three big print houses in the US four three D printed suppressors, So it's like it's literally somebody who came up with the CAD file shipped it off to one of the print houses and is like, hey, can you make X number one hundred of these for me? And they're like, oh, sure, we can do that. So that's kind of a new industry or a new market segment that's been blowing up, so that aspect of the industry has been blowing up
on top of that, well literally and metaphorically. And then we also have the FRT side of things, which is forced reset triggers, which gives you that simulated maximum semi auto if you will. I think that's kosher for YouTube. But yeah, so there's like little elements of the industry that are expanding rapidly, but overall, unless something crazy happened, I would predict in the future that it's going to continue to contract a little bit. And we kind of
saw this under previous administrations. Let's say that the restrictions on firearms content and the way that they're marketed will be more strict in the future. So I think it is going to see a constriction would which will be bad for the big players that require that money, that
require that cash flow. But I think again in that it leaves a lot of opportunities for other people to fill smaller niches, to create like really interesting products, whether it's physical products or content type packages, whatever it might be, within that decline of the bigger industry, because again, we had such a serious influx over the last three years that a correction is normal. You know, it's like the forest grows too wild to perging fire is inevitable.
Yeah, and I think too. And I can't remember if this was hap who said it, which, by the way, if you're looking for another episode or I talked to a gun tuber and don't say a thing about guns hop and I talked about like Japanese kimonos for forty five minutes. I have an impressive ability to bring someone on and in no way mention their area of expertise, which I take pride in.
But bold assume I have an area of expertise.
By the way, Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. It's the internet, right, I've seen a photo of you with a gun, so I think that means you're a Navy.
C Yes, exactly. It's just like any Republican talking about firearms or Democrat talking about firearms. They're very don't they know what they're talking about? All right?
Look, man, I knew I was cooked when I saw win some earl searies with the world's most cursed PSA build And now I love it. I'm gonna sound like my grandpa right, a communist republic anyway, not that I'm salty about it, but anyway, the uh I can't remember if he said it or someone else that we're sort of an interesting moment in the industry where it's kind of like everyone has what they need, right, Like everyone has the AR, everyone has the service nine. And so
you're seeing this explosion. And I say this from the outside looking in, but I feel pretty confident in it of like weird niche stuff. So you're seeing, you know, a bunch of these companies and they're like small, you know, maybe a couple guys, and you know, maybe they're you know, they've got some way to use a I don't know, for instance, of you know, a blowback nine millimeter AK and they make it look kind of like the weird
bullpup abomination from one of the Black Ops games. And it's like, okay, we are firmly moving out of any
realm of pretending this is a practical purchase. This is just niche you know, interest for basically modern collectors, which fair enough, right, I'm not trying to but I think that that's an interesting shift because it feels as if there's sort of a move away from seriousness and kind of toward like a little bit more of a lighthearted attitude with stuff like that, and one a lot of that is more niche, right, It's guys who have all of the big stuff and they're looking for something, you know,
to take out and show to their friends because it's interesting where it was in X y Z video game. Not that I've ever purchased a gun because it was in a video game. But uh, point is I think that that's an interesting transition because to your point about volume, right, those shops are always going to be lower volume because not everyone wants you know, for instance, like the prototype grip for an MP five, right, the kind of stapler looking one but XYZ company, I can't remember, but I
was just looking at this. Well they'll make you one, right. There's a whole ecosystem of things like that, And I think that that's an interesting transition as well, because it seems as if it is kind of pivoting to a
more niche interest, more niche direction. And even on the social media side, you've seen that right where there's been this you know, increasing focus on both kind of like uh, you know, competition shooting and then long range stuff right where it's like okay, well we've kind of done our bill drills at seven yards, uh, just to keep the content fresh but also to keep people engaged. I think that there is sort of a pivot to you know,
a more kind of niche or specific focus. And then to your point more broadly about the industry contracting, I think that for a lot of people, the the whole COVID situation was a major motivation to get in to you know, firearms and two A stuff. There's naturally going to be a fall off with that, but I honestly this may be and again as someone who doesn't work in this industry, so my opinions on ited are worth absolutely nothing. I think a little bit of a lean
time could probably do the industry some good. Just put it mildly like there is a lot of just crazy overproduction. But I'm curious to get your thoughts.
Man.
Yeah, so you do you have a full market saturation where not only does everybody have the basics for the most parts, they probably have more basics than they're ever going to use. You know, you know the one guy who has fourteen ars and twelve pistols that all do basically the same thing, and he just kind of buys
because it's what he's always done. But in terms of market saturation, I think you also have content saturation, which is why it's difficult to determine whether people's views are down because people aren't consuming the level of content anymore or just because it's all been done before. So I've heard this coin before, but we were in the novelty era where to be interesting, to be cool, you have to be novel. You have to do something different. You have to entice us. Okay, so the money is not
coming as easier. The economy is a little tighter. People are tightening their wallets, and so to get my money, to get my cash, you got to do something a little bit different. So you're either being really niche, you know, like weird anime Wifu rifles, or you're doing something that hasn't been done before. Like I was seeing this product marketing on Instagram, and it was a revolver seal, which is like this horrifying contraption of metal plates that clamp
around the revolver so that it suppresses better. For those of you who don't know, like, revolvers are horrible to suppress because they have cylinder gap and there's all this extra area for the air to remove from. So you plant these steel plates on either side of it, which means you to unload and reload, you have to like finagle these two plates off of the revolver to then reload it, to then clamp it back together.
And I've got idea.
More than the price of the revolver for the system, but people are somehow buying it and talking and this is taking up drop time somewhere, but people are using it. So it's like, okay, I guess.
Well, focus, I've got an idea. How about we make a handgun sort of like a sealed revolver, but it's all of mechanisms are internal, and then instead of a revolver, maybe there could be some sort of box that holds the cartridges feet you know, feed into the mechanism. So thereby, yeah, I know.
Maybe you should make the books removable to sell the box for fla bucks.
Yeah, we can have a meeting out of our hand forever you buy one revolver, but you gotta buy you gotta buy a thousand.
Boxes exactly, exactly.
Yeah.
Another interest, sorry, another interesting area where that the market is moving, which I think is again because competition shooting or performance based shooting as opposed to you know, bringe shooting, it is novel. It is more interesting now because people have the things right and then they see you know, Matt Prank, a Delta CAG operator yelling at hop and brass facts, you know, because they don't have enough pedigree or something like that. It's like, well, maybe maybe he
has something to say there. Maybe even if we don't like the way that he says something, maybe performance is really cool. Maybe that actually matters more than whether I have the new like Mark one contract rifle. You know, maybe having that thing isn't as exciting as actually being able to use it. And this is an interesting area because I don't see the same level of interest in
competition performance shooting as you do in other industries. So for instance, like with cars, people use them as items, as lucky items, but they don't aren't necessarily interested in actually getting the performance out of them most of the time. Like I don't see that same crossover, Whereas I do see the competition scene in the firearms market growing like very rapidly, even since I've been into it really only
the last year and a half. Like there's an maybe not a doubling, but thirty forty fifty percent increase in the people that just in my general vicinity and people my friend groups that have gotten into this sort of thing. And certainly the interest is peaked on like my YouTube channel.
Maybe that's a bit of self selection there, but I'm seeing that really start to grow, Whereas you know, most car videos you watch, it's like they're maybe doing something stupid on a road, but they're not actually interested in like becoming a competent, like performance oriented driver that can actually get the most out of whatever tool it is that they're using.
Well as someone who's done a decent amount of performance driving. I think there's a couple of reasons, which is one, it is really hard to make especially the low level of that in any way interesting on the internet. Like can you imagine trying to cut together a ten minute video of like checking tire pressure and then you know, spending you know, three track sessions, right, It's like, and then I went around the left hand again, you know,
It's like, I think that's part of it. But to your broader point, I think another element of that is that firearms are proportionally a much smaller and more fungible purchase. Like you know, you anyone who has enough money to drop, you know, two grand on one gun can very likely you know, take a hit at you know, sixteen hundred bucks, sell it and buy the new next thing. Whereas like if you bought a Corvette and you decide, well, I'm not a Corvette guy anymore, you know, I want the
new you know, m for competition or whatever. That's a big decision, right, Like, there's a lot of things going into it. But also I think part of it is, well is that car like this is gonna sound stupid, but it's like cars are something that you okay, you can't not say, can't You shouldn't pull up to, you know, a country club waving around your new super cool gun, right you can. It's perhaps you know, medically and legally inadvisable.
And also the difference for like someone else, like if you pull up to a random parking lot in a Ferrari people who don't know anything about cars, like that thing's cool. But even in a public range, if you show up with, especially something weirder and more expensive, you think of the like open class guns, it's like, who's gonna care like the other slightly neurodivergent guy there.
You know, And so I think that's it's gonna be a seventy year old guy who's gonna waddle over to you and be like what you got there, Sonny?
Yeah. And so the reason I bring that up is not because like obviously there's a similar kind of like performance, you know, I guess you could say industry around both.
But I think that like the that gulf is so big for most people, and the benefit of the like the flash basically is so much easier to achieve, and there is very much And this was in my mind, this is very like mid two thousand's car forum culture, which was like the obsession with numbers, right, which is like why the Bugatti Varon ruined every interesting conversation about cars. Ever that was like, well this is you know, faster to sixty, but it's slur to one hundred and it's like, okay,
well we just have again it becomes solved. It's like, well, this is just the fastest thing forever or at least for ten years. But yeah, I think that that's an interesting dynamic you've identified there, And honestly, maybe the other advantages that with performance shooting relative to driving the gear, especially with and I haven't have a ton of experience, but I've shot you know, handful of matches that the gear is cheaper and also relatively speaking less important, not literally,
but like, okay, so here's here's my point. Sorry, this is this is a poorly formula.
Now I get you. I I realize halfway through this that I probably should have selected a different analogy than to cars.
Fair fairly, but so point is like my only objection, But I do think that you're you're right with this and maybe not objection my perhaps my explanation on this is that the difference around track between a one hundred and twenty thousand dollars car and you know, a four thousand dollars two hundred and sixty thousand mile Mariner Blew one point six Miata with racing flicks you bought off Craigslist,
which is a very specific example. Because this is a very specific example is so great right that you're sort of like, what have I even doing here? You know, I'm having a good time, but like I can't get this thing above one hundred and eighteen miles an hour, which you hit in like third gear, you know, versus like I think that part of the drive for that
like end to performances. You're like, well, shoot, I'm only two seconds off that guy, and well maybe with a better barrel, i'd be you know, some marginal percent more accurate, or maybe if they made my gun better, all of those sort of things, and each one of those changes is like one hundred bucks two hundred bucks here or there, which is real money and it adds up. But I think it.
It's a lot more accessible.
It's accessible and it leans into that like tinkering instinct of like I'll figure out the problem, or as like, dude, even if you just want tires, that's like, you know, four hundred bucks a corner, you're gonna think about that decision anyway. Sorry, just a rant from me. Dude.
Well, now you're in the cars. No, I did the same thing in a twenty thirteen Ford Focus, and yes, it was quite funny to have everything power car. Yes, everybody else on the on the track doing considerably more, and you know, it's like I'm having a good time. I'm having fun. Though.
Look, look, this is the saltiest thing you'll ever hear me say about car. A Ford Focus is slow until you've driven something with ninety horse power.
Yeah. Well man, that's the thing that with miatas specifically, is the people who were having the most fun were the guys in the miatas though, you know, and uh, like you said, you know, if I crash or total miata, it's like I'm sad, but I'm not crying that I just ruined a mortgage, you know, basically in terms of value.
Yeah, well, and I mean that was always the funniest thing too, is driving a slow car aggressively will get you the funniest reactions like I'll never forget again, clapped out piece of junk, Like yeah, just an it was a miracle. It still worked, but you know it still worked, so I kept going to tracks with it, and I'll never forget it was right when the first nine to eleven engined came in, came out, the GT four, beautiful car,
super cool. They're shot up in value, but it was the classic example of like a dentist who bought it and was like, I'm going to take this thing to the track and a very capable machine. Obviously, if he's even a halfway decent drivery'd be completely demolishing me. But my card's worth four thousand dollars conservatively. I had a lot less than that in it. I've got, you know again, cheap cupped racing slicks like I'm going ten tenths because like,
what have I got to lose? Right, Like, I roll this thing, I get another shell out of a junk yard and I'm back next weekend. This guy's so parandoid because of course he's driving around, you know, a house basically, and we got back to the paddock and he's like, what have you done to that thing? As I opened it looks like, you know, there's like animals crawling out
of it. And again it's like that advantage of you can push so hard because the consequences are so low, you know, like, how are you going to get the rear end to step out with ninety horse power?
Like try?
It needs work anyway, Sorry, no.
I mean it's it's almost more applicable if you want to try and draw a line between performance shooting and driving a Miata, because obviously there's the stakes are a lot harder with the GT four, But then like performance shooting, like if you go as fast as possible and like what do you do, what are the consequences for losing in a match? It's like, oh, well, you missed a bunch of targets because you were going too fast, or you weren't looking where you're going, or you know, the
consequences of that are very low. So like for me, I want I'm I'm always curious if the reason why the performance shooting aspect has increased over the last few years. Is because that there's a lot of influencers who have actually like professional level influencers, like you know, whether it's uh Ben Steger or like Hunter Constantine or some of these other like GM or super GM level guys that
are just making content directly focused on performance shooting. And that's what's kind of driving the market now is you have a lot of the top level guys actually actively pushing the content, right whereas I don't know if you necessarily see that in other areas, and that certainly hasn't been the case in the past.
Yeah, and honestly, I think too there is the element of like, okay, you know, you put yourself out here, well x y Z other influencer, he's a uspsa grand master, right, so like what are you gonna do? You know? Like there it does add a again from the outside looking in,
it adds an element of credibility. And let's also be honest, Uh, it's kind of fun, you know, like not always you know, doing the like supporting stuff isn't fun, but like rocking up to a match every like, you know, four months, doing no specific training in between, and then just kind
of blasting at someone who's done that. It's pretty fun and for like twenty five bucks, you know, like I understand why it's becoming more popular because like, sure, if you want to be super competitive, if you want to climb the ranks, if you want to do all that you can, and like there's a path that's laid out, but like as an intermediate step from like oh, I'm basically shooting trash with extra steps to like, okay, well
here's the like here's a game I can do. You know, it's the same thing as like training for anything else where. It's like okay, you know, like what's more fun sparring or jumping rope? Well, it's like you if you want to be good, you have to jump rope. But like, let's be honest, everyone goes to the gym. They want
they want to throw hands right the uh. It is just I think an interesting development, And honestly, I wonder if another part of it is like ten years of guys saying get training, get training, get training, and finally everyone being like, oh, maybe maybe I should, but who knows,
Maybe that's too too kind of wishy washy. I'm a I'm curious, And I mentioned this earlier and I'm not trying to get too into like your personal stuff at all, but uh, as someone who is about to be living in a band state and it's really upset about it, you had a similar issue, didn't you.
Yeah, so no, I lived in Washington for twenty seven years. I just turned thirty. So when Washington in twenty twenty two, I want to say, passed their assault weapons ban, it literally shut my business down, like hard stop. I can't get parts in. What you can and can't buy is extremely limited, and so I had to completely move out
of there. So if you're on the West Coast or in some of these other places where they have horrifying gun laws, it's it's different, I suppose if you're just a gun owner who wants to be prepared versus like a business owner, or if you're really concerned about like
your family in the future. So like for the Washington state one, I was one of the guys who signed up to talk there or to you know, like cause you're you're able to before a bill gets passed, like have a say in it, essentially, And one of my arguments was that sure, you're allowing me to keep what I have, but you're taking the same rights that I had from my children. So it's it depends on your long term strategy.
Right.
For me, because I had a business, I couldn't be there, so I had to leave. I just left instantaneously. If you're just a single dude and you already have the things you need, yeah, it sucks, it's obnoxious. It makes life a little bit more miserable. But maybe you're willing to wait it out. Maybe you're willing to you know, stay and fight or just to kind of deal with it as it is. So it really depends on your
specific situation like what to do. And yes, I mean without knowing your specific situation or the specific situation of anyone who's dealing with this, it's difficult to give like an accurate prognosis like, oh, here's exactly what you have to do to get through this, right.
Yeah, now, fair point. I mean, in my situation, it's
like this is a hobby for me. And look, I'm not trying to get too much into you know, political analysis here, but if you watched even a single speech add I really you just looked at whin some earl sears You're like, hey, guys, this probably isn't going so well, right, she seemed like a very nice church lady, but not one cut out for her assigned role, and so like I would kind of expecting this, I mean for a number of reasons, right, just the kind of you know
demos of the state. As you know, nova, you know, grows bigger and bigger. But uh, look, I don't have a business in this. I'm staying. Ancestors have been here for four hundred years. I'm not leaving. But on that point, it is and I know this is overstated, but it is just really annoying, like there's something deep in my body. It's like, why why am I not allowed to do this because some guy from Bangladesh showed up five years ago?
You're like, what, you have your own Like it might be rude to tell to tell an elected official in my own state to go back home, but yeah, pretty much, it's like you could go to Bangladesh and experience whatever you want, but you get to come here and tell me that I'm not allowed to, you know, own a tool because some others have used it irresponsibly. We'll leave it at that. It's incredibly galling and as I'm sure you know, right, the business regulations are perhaps the the
most devastating thing. Like, you know, I have a buddy U's in FFL SOT who's completely shutting up shop because of you know, in our state, they have this insane liability law now where FFLs are legally liable for what people do with the guns they buy, which is kind of insane. It's like of anything. I don't know, man, the state police did the background check. Blame them, but I mean obviously that will never happen for a number of reasons.
That yeah, I mean, depending on how political you want to get. That's always the most frustrating aspect to me is not only will they not hold the actual perpetrators accountable, but they will go out of their way to effectively punish every everyone else except the perpetrators. It's this really odd dichotomy where they use the evil actions of others to punish the just. It's some sort of like inversion. You know, it's crazy that this thing just keeps happening
over and over again. It's really weird. I just I just don't get it. It's almost like these people are a tool. You know, they use mash casualty events or shootings or you know, teens doing teen activities during takeover events is what they're calling them now, take over events.
Yeah, it's the sequels of the Knockout game. It's just a series of euphemisms, yes, or exactly. Grandpa has a word too, but you know, and I let's say that one.
Yeah, he's not welcome at Thanksgiving for some reason. He's always making my sister upset. It's crazy funny little words.
Well, and that's the thing that's that's so galling about this because you know, like and I've had this conversation with my wife because she's you know, not into guns and not particularly political, and you know, it sort of came up where it was like, well, why are they
doing this? Because so many of these law the scene, even to someone who's fully out of it, like kind of irrational, you know, the sort of things where it's like, okay, man, like we all know what we'd have to do if we actually wanted to solve gun crime, which is like if you decided that the tool you were going to do is just banning a thing, it's like okay, you know, you'd go after you know arps, you know, beams and switches. Right, Like we understand we're not you know, it's not rocket science.
It turns out most of those things are already illegal. But what did they actually go after? And it's basically things that like you and I like, right, like guys with
jobs and wives and kids. Because look, man, like I'm sorry, there's not a lot of like hood dudes, you know, shelling out three and four grand for like some you know, absurdly well tuned you know, semi auto three to eight rifle, right, But there's obviously the like, you know, how do you get you know, certain segments of the population show up to vote, But I think the you're one hundred percent right that a lot of it is basically just spite. You know, it's like, what do the chuds like now
they can't do that anymore? Now that thing is a pretense for us to you know, ruin their life over and like, okay, maybe that sounds a little conspiratorial, but like if you look into the laws, you're like, Okay, after decades of you trying this, I don't believe this is a good faith effort anymore. Like I don't believe that you're really just waiting on the data because it's an experiment that's been run dozens of times.
Right, Yeah, it's like I don't I don't believe that these people have my best interests at heart. So there's so many different things happening at the same time. So like, at the same time, like obviously evil people are doing bad things, and they're like, okay, well, instead of you know, putting those people in jail, we're going to remove your family's ability to defend themselves from these people. And at
the same time, we're going to target long guns. And it's like there are more people killed every year with fists and feet than long guns. Like the amount of long gun shootings are like less than one hundred and fifty a year in a country of three hundred and fifty million, roughly quite literally, who should or should not be here?
Quite literally? You could do more to save lives by euthanizing every pit bull in America Like that, that's a discussion for another day.
Dog eugenics, yes, let's go.
Dog eugenics is just owning a dog.
Dog dog genocide. We're genociding the pit bulls.
Now, Well, that's an extreme example. You know, I don't want to I don't want to paint myself a sub sort of extremist on the the PQ is some have said, uh, but seriously, like and the reason that I, you know, I interjected with that is like, there's any number of of things that people don't view in the same light that are not even on the table, right, No one seriously is debating, you know, an assault dog band, although because dogs.
Are cute, they're fluffy, and you would never punish the dogs' actions, would you. But y, the the banning of firearms, seems to appeal to a maternal instinct, right, there's something that appeals to the female mind about removing dangerous items,
right that it seems fundamentally female. So it attracts like just that part of the population because like, outside of deranged people that I've talked to on the internet only, I don't know if I've ever met a man that was afraid of a firearm, like instinctively, but many women instinctively are adverse to firearms or weapons in general.
Yeah, I think there is something to that, and it's in my mind, it's actually funny we bring up the the dog situation because it's sort of an interesting where it's like, look like, in the same way that there is nothing you know, inherently wrong with masculinity. It's sort of a vital part to the human species and continuing
to exist, you know, which is fairly important. There's a similar dynamic with femininity, but in each case those instincts can be dislocated and sort of turned towards something sinister. And I think that that sort of like obsessive safety ism, which you see in a whole bunch of other places right as well. Right, Like, you know, if you've ever been to a public school, you've seen the exact same thing where it's this like overbearing culture mother of the state. Yeah, exactly,
like the long house matrix or whatever. And Okay, sure that makes a ton of sense in your second grade class, But to your point, like, we've got a country with like three hundred and some odd million people here, like that does it scale? And I think that that sort of like instinct towards banning. And you see this with like, honestly, every time the kind of conversation comes up to like you know, big pickup trucks or whatever, something that's like
scary and masculine. I think that that is just in itself threatening to a certain segment of the population, you know, And it's like I just make a go away. I don't care make a go away. And it's like, well, is it a problem? It's like, I know, I don't make it go away. And also it's a especially true because both items or whatever are they are markers of
being a bad person. So we've talked a lot about like identity in heavy scare quotes of course, right, like the whole like identity thing that kind of like bringing together different kind of consumer products, and like this is kind of run rampant with you know, gen z due to, like to be honest, more and more sophisticated algorithms, right, Like you know, talking to my grandparents, it's like, well, what music do young people listen to? And I'm like,
I can't tell you because it's so individuated. But because of that, you know, there's this incredible explosion of subculture and with that particularly you know, people of a certain age or hyper attune to Oh what does that mean? You have that thing, you consume that product, you listen to that person. Oh that must mean you're part of X y Z group. Like you see this. It's funny you brought up forty K where it's like for a certain segment of the internet. Forty K means you are
a fascist. You know, that's a silly example. It's not the most you know, it's not the most contra or like consequential. I would say, if you're wearing like a forty K hoodie in public, you probably have worse things to worry about. Uh, you know, I guess you know, eternal chastity isn't the worst thing in the world. But similarly, it's like.
They're just like the heroes.
Okay, yeah, yeah, they are a little close to all but the uh uh but to that point, right, it's like guns and people who own them. It's like a sim of evil, like, oh, why would you ever want to hurt someone? Why do you want that tool of violence? And it's additionally funny we keep talking about pit bulls because it's like pit bulls work, like how that person thinks guns work, where it has like a mind of its own and it will like break down your back
fence and go maul a toddler. You know, the air fiftied is possessed by the spirit of you know, evil to go out and shoot up a school. But yeah, it's it's crazy because it's really not and I think that's been I'm sorry, I'm monologuing you and what's supposed to be an interview show. But one of the things that I've really realized is that a lot of these aren't really discussions per se, Like they're not really people
considering the values. It's simply gut level and so like, you know, I don't know what Washington's crime data looks like, but I would I'd put a lot of money on the fact that banning all of those horrible items didn't magically turn it into like, I don't know, Switzerland or like, you know, Victorian England. It's just simply the like an emotional kind of lashing out against a people or like a group of people rather any type of person that's designated bad.
Right, And it's very superficial, right, because all they look at is the item, the thing, you know. It's like the other day I read a headline that somebody was killed by a stolen vehicle, and I was like, oh, that's quite interesting. Perhaps we should ban stolen vehicles, right, But they look towards I suppose the most obvious, simple solution without abag you know, perhaps some would say if you strip a man of all logic and reasoning, you just end up with a woman.
You know.
Some might say that, but if you just if you have that and you just see like a dangerous item that gives me the bad feelings in my stomach, if I just get rid of that, that feeling goes away. It is such a superficial like nothingness. You know, it doesn't mean anything. There's no real law, like because you and I could probably explain it to a group of people right who are against guns and be like, listen, like this is like the data, this is what it shows.
You know, we could maybe postulate some root causes about the actual violence, not necessarily just about the items in and of themselves. We could even counterexample with areas where it's very difficult to acquire such items. However, they seem to have a similar level of violence, which seems quite strange if it's just the lack of firearms, and you know, we could like logically reasoned through this and make a well reasoned argument, and at the end of the day,
it's still superficial black rifle bad just like that. You know, It's it's like talking to a brick wall a lot of ways, which is why having the debate in and of itself is kind of meaningless because it's like, imagine any other point in history, like go back to Rome or go back to the Middle Ages and being like the anti sword lobby. It's like, I don't really know if this is a thing. I don't know if this is really something that we need to talk about. And
I feel like there's something about modernity. There's something about like maybe the nineteenth Amendment that has just changed the way that society functions in a way that's a historical and it seems out of place.
Yeah, well, and you see that this is a story that for some reason stuck in my head. Uh do you remember right when the first shoot I forget what they're calling it, the when the first XM seven spears got offered on the civilian market and there's this massive moral panic of like, oh, they're selling this gun that can you know, defeat a ballistic vest you know, four hundred yards the general public. And it's interesting because you're like, well,
I don't know, man, like Papa is twenty two to fifty. Uh, you know, if we're really worried about that, you could make an argument, but it isn't really about that. It isn't about the actual physics. It is simply to that point. It's like, this is, oh, it's the military version of setting aside. What was that claim about the sigsper true? Should you buy one steparate discussion? The answer is no
and no. However, right, it's to your point. Right, It's like imagine taking that conversation back, you know, two thousand years ago. It's like, oh, well, you know that peelum that's that stick is pretty close to the one the legionariyas use. What are you doing with that? And of
course it falls apart. It's completely and totally absurd. But I think that one of the the things that people genuinely don't realize, and you see this a lot in kind of American conservative circles is and I get it right, because like, we rebelled against the king, but they have this vision of like, you know, the monarchies, the you know, the Roman Empire, you know, the medieval world as the
most kind of insanely grinding totalitarian state possible. And from a certain perspective, it's like, yeah, well, if you got caught stealing a horse, they might try your thumbs off or you know, burn you to death or something horrible. So fair enough, although an argument could be made as someone who's had one too many of packages stolen off my front porch, if we could maybe cut someone's thumbs off,
that would stop. But in all seriousness, right, it's like, well, there just wasn't the ability to do that, Like how would the Roman emperor go around and say you can't have a point you stick? It's absurd, It couldn't be done. But because you know, unfortunately, like society is more and more urbanized, more and more centralized, and everything is like look like I, you know, I last time I picked up a gun, like went to my credit card company
and went to the government, it went to everything. It's like that level of centralization, well that allows you to do it. And even then it's not perfect. Of course, we understand there's still you know, aspiring astrophysicist with clock switches in you know, Cook County where it's fully illegal to do so. But it is one of those things where it's like, yeah, okay, sure you know you have your freedoms now, but not really in the same way
that your ancestors would have understood it. Completely separate discussion, but just I don't know something that I think about a lot.
Yeah, it's always funny when somebody appeals to some ancient culture as authoritarian or evil and we would rebel against it. But then it's like, did you know that taxes and the Roman Empire were like one percent? And then a libertarian is like, what.
If they could find you? Yeah, exactly.
It's very different level of authoritarianism where now everything is so like interlocked, right that if tomorrow likes you know, let's just say hypothetically, they could you can't use your credit cards anymore for firearms, and now you're going to like some sort of barter system or whatnot. Whereas fortunately I live in a state currently where you have private sales, so I just I walk up to somebody else and I hand them cash and we're done. That's the entire interaction,
totally legal, totally coature, right. So yeah, I mean the modern landscape, there is the potentiality for you know, lists, confiscation, so on and so forth that people have always been beating the drum about. But in some ways that is a very real threat that you have now that you
do not have in the past. And it's funny that, yes, they will go after law abiding citizens while at the same time utilizing Tyrone's switch as a justification for banning you from having something that again has been you know, maybe even in your family's possession for hundreds of years at this point.
Yeah, although it's not to be labor the comparison between you know, guns and cards, but you see the exact same thing with emission stuff right where it's like, oh, you, you know, put a chip in your diesel truck that you use to contribute to the economy, right to put pull cows to market or whatever. We're going to find you tens of thousands of dollars in ruin your life. Oh you stole a Kia. Eh, you know, we'll make Kia pay you. Like, By the way, this is one
of my favorite automotive stories. Is so sidebar issue. Chicago politics is quite possibly the most entertaining politics in the world because it's so insanely corrupt. I can't remember. I think it was daily Maybe it's before that. No, no Ah, shit, I can't remember who it was. But he had a gift room where you weren't allowed to take bribes, but you could leave items in the gift room that the mayor couldn't take until he was done with office, and then he could take everything all at once as a
private citizen. That kind of institutionalized corruption. That's kind of funny. You have Lori Lightfoot the mixing of human evolution. Yeah, it was one of my favorites. But Mayor Johnson and sorry, I'll bring this up just because this is exactly the dynamic we're talking about. And then we can get out of here. I can go eat dinner, I can stop talking to your ear off. But during the whole Kia boys situation, right, people were stealing kias you know, going
on high speed chases crashing them. Well, how do we solve this problem? Do we throw people in jail for krth theft? No, that's a problem. Uh do we do really anything other than what he actually did, which is sue Kia for like forty million dollars and make them pay the city government of Chicago. And you're like, okay, yeah, fair Kia designed a bad product. But like you just this is just a shakedown.
Straight, like the young gentleman taking the cars for a drawey ride. They're they're not worth any money. In fact, they cost you money to put them in jail, right, there's no possible benefit. Yeah, however, well listen, if you want to sell cars here, you gotta play ball, you know, you gotta. It's literally a shakedown. It's an extortion racket. You still want to sell your cars here, don't you? Don't you? You know, pay a little fine and a little ties to the Emperor and then you're good to go.
Yeah, it's It's why I love Chicago because it is the same politics we get everywhere, but stripped of any form of free dance whatsoever.
It's like the third one, you know, it's just it's just open air.
You know, it's just crazy, and it has been, you know, for a while. I'll leave it at that. I've been chastised for my anti Italian racism or as I like to say.
Uh.
To say that even as a joke, telling might give you bad anyway, Focus this has been a ton of fun.
Bed.
I appreciate you coming on. Where can people find you?
Well, my YouTube channel is focus Trip. I also run the gun Dot Deal's channel. If you want actual gun content, there's a lot of gun content there. I have a clips channel, and I think I'm on x and Instagram. Also is Focus Trip. Or some derivative there on. So yeah, just focus trip with two piece, that's what it is.
We'll definitely be sure to check that out everyone. I might include a particularly amusing clip in the comments provided I meant I remember, which is you know, not really great odds, So check that out if you're interested. As far as my stuff, Jay Burden Show, Apple Spotify YouTube, if you want the episodes early in ed free, have to throw me a few bucks five dollars a month. They're like twenty cents an hour for no ads and forty eight hours early access, which is not a bad
deal if you're interested. Axio is remote fitness coaching. My sponsor Jdi's great. He is very patient with me and constantly answers my questions. Also, oh yeah, if you join up, you also get to call me gay in the group chat, which you know doesn't stop you people you do that in the comments anyway, But I don't know it's a value add I guess again, Focus, I appreciate it. Never wont at home, keep your head up. I can't last forever.
Good night
Me