A Debate over American Gun Ownership (w/ Mark Booher)

He has some really cool , interesting stories to share with us . He has trained units from the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice , the Fortune 500 companies , police officers from over 60 departments from around the country . He is a coordinator of the Counter Terrorist magazine and the host of the Pearl Snap Tactical podcast .

Thank you , mark , for being here today , and I'm really excited to hear what you have to say . Today we're going to talk about gun control , a very controversial subject in the US . Here , where all of us love our , many of us love our guns , me being one of them .

I live in the state great state of Pennsylvania , have carriers permit and own multiple weapons , and love my guns because that's what the founding fathers of our country gave us as a means to overthrow the government . Mark , thank you . I know that my introduction doesn't do us much justice . Tell us a little bit more about yourself , brother .

I think that we have a very we're in a unique position , unique history , with regards to guns , and I think that if you compare us to even other Western nations I mean even like Britain , france , germany , australia , even though they're on the other side of the other but they're still kind of a Westernized nation If you compare the kind of freedoms that we have

in terms of speech , association , you know , and on down the list , you know , you'll think that we're all the same . But we're not . We have far more freedoms than even they do on what we can say , what we can post and everything like that .

And the only reason why that is true is because have an arm set of surgery , I mean , other than that you can't make the argument , otherwise there's nothing else would account for that . Because if you say , well , no , it's because of our laws , you know that allow that , well , I mean , who enforces the laws ? People with guns , right ?

So what is the only counterbalance to an abuse ? By that , I mean , we could even see in our country right now , there's certain laws that we have on the books , that are there for the safety and security of our country , that are simply not being enforced , right ? So you know just . I mean , in the end the law is the only is only a words on a paper .

It takes enforcement , you know to , to effectuate those laws and the only thing that keeps those laws did is force , right , either the government enacting force or the threat of the citizenry to enact force or to counter the force from the government . I mean , that's , that's all it is .

I mean , if never heard a cogent argument to the contrary , how are we different from France , france , france and Germany ?

But , for instance , in Britain , my understanding is that you know there's certain things that you can't put online and if you do , you can be arrested for that . That I believe you know , based on what I've read on reports that people have been arrested simply for things that they've posted online , things that you would not have gotten arrested for here .

Right , if you look at the and things in the lockdown , like back in the 2020 , 2021 , you know there were you could even see well , first of all , like in Australia , I mean they were literally keeping people under house arrest .

Again , just based on the reports that I read , I mean you were not allowed to basically come out of your house almost and you know , correspondingly , those people that have surrendered their guns . It's very hard to have a gun to own or to possess one . You could even compare the limits or the types of lockdowns that happened here in this country .

You know , you could see that the more the states that had more restrictive lockdowns , interestingly enough , had tighter gun laws . You know , and I think those are somewhat related . You know , I don't think it's just a coincidence that that's true .

So right now we're experiencing where we have our ex-president , donald Trump , where they took him off the ballot in Colorado , right , or they're trying to . Yet Colorado , and I think it was Maine , the other one in the state , I'm not sure and so the media has a big impact on that and the powers to be have a big impact on that .

Do you see a correlation of the media doing the same things here ?

Like , why , why would you do that ? If that , why , why would you take something that's not even involved or implicated in the attack and why would that be your first push ? You know why do they do that ? Why do you think that they do that ? I mean I could only speculate , you know , I wouldn't know , I don't know why they do that .

I mean you know the to speculate it it's . You know the folks have . There's certain folks that have , well , everybody , it doesn't matter what side of your eye , all that , your own , everyone has an agenda , everyone has goals and objectives and directions that they would like to see the country go .

And there's a certain segment of the population and those in power that want to see the populace disarmed . You know that they it's easier to control , right , if you could control , you control that . You control their speech , their freedom of association . I mean you control all kinds of things .

It's just slowly sliding down the hill where your freedoms are constantly eroded , and then when you decide to speak up , when you decide to protest , then you could be shut down . You know , you could be easily dispersed and you can be easily controlled and manipulated . So that's , I think that's usually .

I say hey , man , if you want to see which way we're going , just look at Europe and then add five years to it and that's what we're going to look like . And I said that you know , years ago , when we were doing terrorism training and looking at trends and terrorist attacks , you could look at the Middle East .

A few years later you'd see those attacks going on in Europe . And then I say , give it five years , boom , we're going to start seeing , you know , vehicle born IDs . You're going to see people starting to run people over with vehicles and stuff like that , because that's what they do in the Middle East , that's what they were doing in Europe .

And then , sure enough , within that timeframe , we started seeing that here , you know , back in 2016 , 2017 , you know , back when all the ISIS stuff was going on and was more topic of discussion , you know in the news . But yeah , I mean that's one way that it could go .

You know , if we didn't have it or you could go , you could devolve full totalitarian state , like China did , like Nazi Germany did , like , you know , russia , back in the Stalin era . I mean , you know there's several different ways that it could go . It could be a hybrid of that , it could be , you know , but it's not going to be good .

I mean , you're not going to have more freedom , you're not going to have more to associate , to say what you want , to gather with who you want , who you want . But I mean , but really , that's only one way to erode your , your freedoms .

I mean we're already kind of drifting to what you know , some people would call a soft totalitarian state , where you know people are already , since they're self-censoring , they're already , through propaganda , manipulation , you know , driving their ideology down that people are already complying and self-apticating their own freedoms .

You know , self-censoring , deciding not to tell me stuff . You know , you already see that all the time . So we're you can't exactly say that . Well , I mean , there's just , there are things in the news , right , that I've already heard people that you know , oh , that's not politically correct .

They're not going to post certain things on their Facebook because they're scared of how that's going to affect their job .

They blast oh you're not saying the thing that you're supposed to say , right , and so they , you know , the immediate thing that they do is label you some kind of bigot or some kind of you know hateful or racist or whatever it is that they start throwing these labels on you .

And then all of a sudden it's you know , we , you know we can't have that here in the workplace . And there you go . So you see that already .

What do you say to those people that make those kinds of statements and want to take guns off of the regular , take away the regular Americans guns . What's your message to those people that say guns kill people , guns kill innocent children . Guns do this . Guns are bad , guns are . What's your message to them ?

What it God or natural law confers that right to me . So I have the right to do it because it's an implement and a tool that I can use to defend myself and to my family and maybe even property , to depend on the situation . So it's not for you to come in and to say that you know I don't have that right or that you can take it away .

The Second Amendment there isn't there to give me that right . It's there to acknowledge that the right exists and that it's not the government's or anybody has this place to come in and interfere with it . That's number one right . But those folks don't care about that . So that's not going to work . But that's that's where we start from , right .

The second thing is about the children . Right , they're always . That's the first thing that these folks will do is they always try to couch things and moral terms and they will couch things in emotional terms to where it's very hard for you to argue with it . Because , I mean , we all care about kids , right , we have kids and our family .

You know , we may be parents , or we have nieces and nephews , or , you know , we everybody wants to protect kids , but they only want to protect it on things when it , when it interferes with your rights to protect yourself . Right , they're not worried about kids that are being sex trafficked and over the border , you know , and things like that .

Now , you know , those feet , people that come in on that , they don't care about that , you know they don't care about leaving . Yeah , you know I could go down that rabbit hole . So , you know , first of all , recognize what their , what their , their angle is . It's to grab this , the moral high ground , and so you , you can't let them do that , right ?

You , you can't fall into that trap . So when they start saying guns are going into places , killing people , killing kids , there's no gun , no gun has legs , no gun is walking in and killing anybody , these are people that are using guns to do it . And in countries where they have banned guns or restricted the ownership of them , they either still .

You know you have the . The black market right is available . Criminals still find access . Those countries still have shootings right and even if those statistics are lower than what we have here , they we've had . The criminal element finds a way , they will find a knife .

We've had knife attacks in Europe and in the Asia that have racked up as many body count as some of the active shooting attacks we've had here . You know people ramming vehicles into places , you know in killing people . So you know the evil that resides in the human heart will always manifest and find a way to victimize people .

But they'll say , yeah , but we got this problem and it's like you know , we , this problem is relatively recent , right , and in terms of how we understand it now , yeah , people have been shooting people with guns since we've , you know , several hundred years ago , since they were invented , but I mean to have the dynamics that we have now , with the numbers that

we have now , that's a relatively recent development . And you have to ask yourself , where did that come from ? Because I could tell you where I grew up .

I grew up in the rural South where kids would take off a school when deer season came Right and I know there's some places up there in Pennsylvania where they do that too and I could tell you that I went to a school where people , like kids , kept their deer rifles out in their trucks . There was , you know , in those pickup trucks back in the old days .

There was racks , you know , in the back glass and people kept their rifles . That you could drive to school and have a loaded gun in your car and no one would have ever thought to say anything about it . Nobody would have broken to your car to take it , nobody would have .

No student would have gotten so mad that they would have run out and grabbed their gun and come back in and shot somebody with it and there was no teacher , superintendent or administrative official that was even concerned that that would happen . It's because mentally we were , and emotionally and psychologically we were a healthier society right than we are now .

So then you start , you start kind of backtracking it and say , well , what's changed in this country ? You know what is different . And you go from there and if it were me , I think that's what you should address . But see , you don't . But the folks that are onto this you know that are wanting to control and restrict .

They don't care about that Because those problems that exist , that just exacerbates the problem . It encourages more violence , which then gives them an opportunity to talk about it because ultimately they want to take it away Because there's no other option . There's no other reason why they would say because they're not concerned about the safety .

For you and I , right , as men , to protect our family , like I'm going to protect my wife , my children , my home at all costs , I don't care , like my theory has always been , mark , if someone comes into my home and I live in the woods in the middle of nowhere , someone comes into my home and I hear them and I get my gun and I'm going to go on record

on this . I will end my and I feel that my families and I want to make sure I'm specific and I feel that my family's life is threatened . Anyone in my family under my roof is threatened . It's my duty as a man to protect my home . I'm going to take you down and worry about the consequences later . You're in my home . You threaten my family .

My wife , my kid does my primary role as a man in my home to protect them . Why do these people want to take that away from me ? And yet the criminals can have the right not , they don't have the right , but they get the guns illegally anyway right To come and hurt you and I , law-abiding citizens .

And I would just say , well , why do they do that ? Well , the simple reason is so that they can control people , Right , I mean , that's all , that's all it is , so that they , they maintain power , control . So that's what I see in totalitarian , totalitarian societies .

I see I can't think of another reason or motivation that I've seen , you know , in those societies . So then I guess you just kind of bring it back here and I guess that's the only thing we're left with . I don't know . I mean maybe one of these folks that are , you know , that advocate for that kind of position . I'd like to hear their take on it .

I'd like to sit down and talk to them about it and have an honest discussion we will have .

I'm sharing with Mark and is here . This is from statistics center fire shooting sports right and where fire armed deaths are most prevalent . Countries with the most violent deaths involving a firearm port per hundred thousand population in 2016 . And at the top of the list is El Salvador , right Murder capital of the world . El Salvador , venezuela .

Next , syria and Arab , honduras , st Kitt and Nevis , nevis , jamaica , trinidad and Tobago , angola , bahamas , guatemala , and this is the top 10 . The US doesn't even come close . Now , when we look at percentages , el Salvador has 72.5% of firearm deaths , or of that says countries with the most violent deaths involving firearms per hundred thousand . So they have 72.5 .

They have the highest percentage . America , for those that can't see 3.1% , 3.1% . So what is it that these people are ? These people that have this argument about taking Americans guns away off of you know , taking our guns away from us . Yet the data , the data , this is pure data we're going with now , right ? Pure logic , not emotion .

We talked about emotion a little while ago , because we all love kids and we all want to protect our kids . I think that's our duty is to protect women , children and seniors . That's just my alignment of values , right ? Yeah , those are the ones we have to protect . What are your thoughts when you see this , when you see this data ?

But again it just gets back to what we said earlier the control . You know the people that are driving this discussion , and I mean the people at the top right that are setting policies , setting the agenda , the topics for discussion . You know they don't care about that . They don't care about that because that's not what they're trying to get into .

They're after the control and the power . But there are people kind of , you know , just like what Stalin would call . You know the useful idiots . You know the people that are low IQ , low information , people , you know that are part of the movement . You know that they propagandize the people that are ideologically aligned .

You know with that , they probably have no idea . They don't look at those statistics . You know they probably don't know . But , like you said , like with the media , you know it's all dependent on what you give attention to , right , like we in this country .

Right , if the media is talking about something and they're running a spotlight on it , then you , you , it changes your perception , right ? You think that that is , that's what's going on . You think that that is , that it's a ? I'm trying to . I'm probably , you know , it's propaganda , brother , that's propaganda . Yeah , I mean , you can't just think .

Well , just like during the , you know , a great example would be like you know , I've had when I've gone to Europe before and I've talked with people and they're like , oh man , america is like such a dangerous place , man , I know , like here's no dangerous , like how would you go ? And I was like , what are you talking about , dude ?

Like America is one of the safest places . And you know , even by your , by the , the graphic you just put up , you know our gun deaths are a lot , a lot less than you , than many other places . They're very small in terms of gun violence . But they're like , oh , you know the guns and everybody's got guns and they're shooting people .

And I'm like , not where I live , not where I travel , I travel the entire country and I've never run into any of that stuff . I don't see it . It's not . I mean , we're not in a war zone .

You know you , you do have certain pockets , you know , on the East Coast and inner cities where there's gang violence and stuff like that and certain parts of town , but that is very isolated , but the media is just driving it . They're just constantly shining a spotlight on it . That you know .

When you're just consuming that and you're not balancing it against other perspectives , then you begin to think that that's reality . Media is very powerful . I mean , they can really set the agenda . You can look at things that are going on . You know that this country's facing and they can .

They can change , they can turn and channel your attention to any direction , to any other topic at will , just by simply ignoring it and putting attention on some other topic .

I've been bought guns . I bought guns at gun shows . I bought guns at stores here , local . There's a local store here . I've seen from my office . I got my carrier's permit , my wife has a carrier's permit , and so what ? I do believe on that side that we probably should have a better process as it pertains to mental health issues .

What are your thoughts on mental health and the wrong people getting their hand on weapons , people with mental health illness ? What would you propose if you ? Let's play a game , let's play legislation .

If you were a legislator and you were in power , what recommendation would you implement or would you recommend so that we can manage the mental health issues and gun ownership in America ?

And so , if the case is they had an illness that was undiagnosed , how did we miss it ? How did they go through a school system and job like ? How did no one catch that ? I would want to know those types , that type of pattern .

Let's say that's a serious mental health issue and those of you that might have that that is a serious mental health issue in medical field and they have decided that they have known records of having this issue and that person is now decided , for whatever reason , to stop taking their medication or whatever that case may be , and they go into store on the corner

up the street here from my office to buy a weapon , to buy a gun . Could there be some type of registry when that person goes into that store that checks for mental health of some sort , because that person now could potentially be a threat ? Is that a ? Would you think that's a violation of HIPAA laws or someone's health issues ? Do you think there's ?

Do you think there should be some guardrails around that ? And again , we don't have the data around .

I mean , I was a prosecutor for six years and we did was very small part of my job maybe you know less than five percent of my docket was you know , handling military involuntary mental commitments .

You know people who had were a danger to themselves and others who were off of their medication or had not never been prescribed medication that could go through this hearing process to have them involuntarily committed so that they could get diagnosed , get treated and then , as soon as the doctor which always and like 99% of the cases literally , I think only had in

those six years maybe one case where someone was kept longer than 45 days and most of them were less than 30 days and I'd say at least 90% , 95% were you know out within a week . You know and released . You know , I don't , I don't know a whole lot , I would .

Again , it kind of goes back to the data of you know this , this person , what was the level of schizophrenic ? I mean , I just don't know enough about the mental health stuff to to advise . You know , but I did . But your answer to your question is you know , should there be guardrails ? Yeah , there should be .

You know , because you know with the founding fathers when they drafted the Constitution and you know it assumes that you have a healthy citizenry . You know , I think it was even John Adams said that . You know the way we have this set up . It only works for a moral people you have to have a sense of morality .

You have to understand that , yes , you have freedom , but you are responsible for your decisions , you're responsible for your actions and you have a duty to live within a society you know with . You know cooperative self-interest , right . I mean that type of thing . So you know , just they , that's how this society was constructed , right ?

So , yeah , when you have a deviation from that , when there's someone who is unhealthy and unable to make to assume the responsibility for their own actions , of course there needs to be guardrails .

What those are that's what are , unfortunately in this country , but that's what we really need are people who are experts from different fields that come at this , that are really trying to seek a solution and not not pursue an agenda , you know , other than the health and safety of all and respecting the rights of the individual .

You know , to keep them safe , because ultimately , it is the right of the individual and their responsibility of the individual to keep them safe . Right , but that that's where people like you and I come down . We , we just automatically think that it's the individual's ultimate responsibility . You can't outsource it .

But you do have other people that think , no , it's not , it's the state . The state has the responsibility to protect you . It's the state that has to come in and , you know , decide how you will be protected .

But and every time we see that , I mean it's it's a disaster , ludicrous , you know it's absolutely ludicrous to expect the state to take care of me and my family .

You're gotta be joking yeah , how could somebody a thousand miles away , you know , trying to handle all of the world's problems , regulate me like , decide down to the level of you know how and when , you know I could do things that are , just as a basic human , necessary for my survival , yeah , and the survival of my family ?

You know , if you're , if you're religious , yeah , I mean if you're a religious person , and depends on what kind of religion you're into , right .

But you know , if you're a part of one of the , the mainstream I hate to use that word , but like one of the , the larger world religions , you know , then usually when you talk about morality , it's connected to your certain duties that are religious right , and then those may carry on to you interact with your fellow man , you know , whereas if somebody is not

religious , they may still talk about morality but may be more connected to ethics , you know , and instead of just a good and evil versus , you know , right or wrong , or permitted and unpermitted , you know , and things like that . So you know , I don't . That's the first thing we'd have to do is define what I think for this for the sense of this discussion .

They're bad people , but I think for the most part , people have good intentions . Right , don't kill , don't steal the . You know those basic things . Don't do harm on to others for no reason . Like , like those basic things . That's just . Let's just keep that in context .

For the sake , for the sake of morality , don't speak bad about other people without , without honor your word . Right now we're going kind of into values , but , yeah , do you think that , as it pertains to like , if we use that as as a baseline , that our society as a whole is losing a sense of morality ?

Because , like you said , james Adams assumed that this will only work and stated that this will , as you , as you said , this will only work if we have a society that has a sense of morality . Have we lost that in 2024 in the United States of America ?

You know and I think , on the most part , yeah , I think when people are going to their nine to five jobs , paying their bills , trying to raise their family and their kids , think for the most part , yes , think for the most part , yes . I think the problem comes into is where is that morality grounded and defined ?

And that kind of gets into your values and principles , because you know , when you have certain pressures , certain crises that happen in society , then it starts bringing out things and people , maybe things that people didn't didn't know was there and then . So I just kind of go back to the lockdowns . You know some of the things that was being said .

You know , neighbor to neighbor , it was incredible . You know you had , you know with people that didn't want to take the jab and literally I saw people . I I mean I can't think of specifics , of names of people , but I mean I do remember seeing things .

You know certain politicians or people that were posting things , taking the position of , well , if they didn't get vaccinated , then you know you should refuse them medical care if they get sick . You know things like that .

We see how that turned out yeah yeah , I mean , and it's like that's amazing , you know , and and all of the hysteria that was really driven by talking heads and media and people not really educating themselves . And you know , I remember driving down , driving in my truck , you know , just running errands and stuff .

You know , at the height of all this , where I live , we were semi-restricted , but not not near as what other states were , but I'm driving down and I mean , on the hour or every half hour , we had posted statistics how many people were in the hospital . You know how many deaths have we had . You know how many .

You know what the current state of the hospitals are . But you know what ? You know what metric they never reported , never reported or how many people were recovering , mm-hmm . Now , that's a pretty important metric , right ? Because what in ? Yeah , and then I'm just , I'm just pulling it's a statistic out , but I mean this is man-made .

I don't know what the statistic was , but I know the overwhelming amount of people recovered from it . And so if , if you have a metric of , you know , a 90% recovery rate versus mortality rate , well , I mean , wouldn't you wanna know that ? Don't you think that's important ?

Wouldn't that change the maybe some decisions that you were making , or at least influence certain decisions on . You know , whether I decided to wear a mask , or whether I decided to go out into public or engage with certain people or go certain places , don't you think that metric is pretty dang important ? But they never mentioned that you had to what ?

Right , I'm gonna push the narrative of the upside . I wanna give both sides so that we can make informed decision , right ? Yeah , why do you think the media , and even the government at the time , wasn't pushing this narrative ? Mm-hmm Wasn't pushing that side and giving us the full picture , but giving us only a narrow view of what's bad . Mm-hmm .

I mean , I think people you know , most people are still under the misconception that the media is out there to inform you about the truth . And that's not the case . They are there to . They are a business , that is , they're not a nonprofit entity . They are a business designed to make a profit . They have to have sponsors , right . They have to run ads .

And no one is going to run ads if there's no listenership or no viewership . And we know just through psychology that the best way to ramp people up is to get them scared , to get them fearful . I mean , that's what gets them paying attention , right .

So you have to generate this hysteria to keep people clicking on the post , to keep people tuning in to see what the latest results , to get the people searching , you know , online and hitting those ads so that when they bring up that website , there's the ad space .

You know , there's the ad that pops up that you see , and if you tell people , hey , listen , if you're healthy , you know , if you have a healthy lifestyle , if you're taking care of yourself , chances are , yeah , you probably are gonna get this , but you're probably gonna recover and it's just gonna be a terrible case of the flu .

Yes , there are some anomalies of healthy people who've got it and died , but that is a very low percentage of the rate . Most of the people that are dying off are people who have , you know , elderly and again , I'm not a medical person , but just kind of what I saw when I looked at the stats .

It seemed like if you were elderly , or if you had comorbidity , you know , since you had other things enlarged hearts or you know other type of health issues that you were at the greatest risk and so you needed to take the greatest precautions . Or with children , you know , things like that People probably wouldn't turn in .

They'd be like , oh , okay , well , I don't fit that category . So you know , I'm not going to tune in and be hyped up and kind of get addicted to that , to the news feed , to the news cycle . Right , got it ? No , I mean , you know , I always thought this would be interesting . I mean , what if ?

And I would guarantee you I mean I firmly believe this in my heart that if the media ran statistics of people who died in car crashes every half hour , if they told you on the national statistics of how many people were getting involved in auto accidents and car crashes and dying from that , I could guarantee you there would be more stricter regulations on the

road , on travel and on vehicles . Guarantee it , because it would be top of mind and everybody thinks , oh man , people would probably be afraid to drive their own cars . You know , people would probably opt . There would probably be greater calls for more public transit , like there is in Europe in larger cities and things like that . Guarantee why ?

Because they would be shining a spotlight . And if that's all you see , then you begin to think that that is reality .

But the things that I can do as a person is have honest , meaningful conversations with people , not trying to win an argument . That's the problem , I think , a lot of where we are in society , we're so segmented now that we only want to talk to people who agree with us .

We only want to watch things and opinions that agree with us , that bolster our sense of self and our ego .

And if someone doesn't agree with it , now , all of a sudden , through media , social media , through our feeds , we can block those voices out , and so the more you block that out , the more wider the disparity between the beliefs or our ability to even communicate with one another .

So what I try to do when I come into contact with people that don't agree with me , I just try to have a conversation . I'm not bent on trying to change their mind . I'm not going to change their mind If that certain type of ideology is ingrained in your mind , your mindset .

I'm not going to change your mind in a five , 10 minute or 30 minute conversation , but I can maybe plant a seed .

Maybe I have an interaction where you're like oh wait , maybe I'm not , maybe they're not all rabid , violent people , maybe this is a sensible , responsible human being , maybe not all gun owners are evil and wicked and just want kids to die in the streets . And then maybe they have a conversation with you and they see the same thing and you can change that .

I mean , every one of us can do that at a minimum . Every one of us can do that . But getting into Twitter fights with people or on Facebook or posting memes and calling people names just because they don't agree with you regardless and it goes on both sides I mean that doesn't help anybody .

All that does is reinforce the folks that are already on your side of the aisle . So to say so you didn't get anything done there and it just further alienates those that disagree with you . So nothing's gotten done at all if you interact with people that way .

But if you just try to interact with someone as a human being , as a fellow human person , respecting their opinion and trying to figure out well , why do you think that way ? That's really interesting . Why do you think that ? I never thought of that .

I mean , even if you don't agree with them , you might learn something just having an honest discussion and just trying to find out what they think and talk about it , and not necessarily trying to change a person and force them to your way of thinking . It may sound counterintuitive , you know , but I mean , I think I think that's one thing .

The other thing is making sure that we're raising the next generation to appreciate freedoms , getting them involved in shooting sports . I mean , back in the day you could see , you know pictures from the 50s and stuff . There were , there were some , some schools that had shooting programs in the school , you know , and maybe , maybe they were shooting BB guns .

But that's fine , right ? I mean , the fundamentals are the same . You're teaching them an appreciation for shooting and you're teaching them responsible gun handling . You know those types of things and you're putting that into the culture , right ? I think it gets harder , you know . I think then you say , well , what changed ? Well , there's a lot of change .

It's not just one thing that changed , but I think one thing that impacts it negatively is we are more urbanized now than we were 100 years ago , 50 years ago , and the more urban you get , right , you don't have the as much access and ability to exercise , to go out and shoot , and so your culture tends to drift away from that . You know where I grew up .

Like I said , I grew up in rural South . Everybody had land . If I wanted to go shoot , I just go out my backyard and I could shoot .

And as we become more and more urbanized , you know , though , that ability goes away , and it's just like anything if you don't use it , if you don't engage in it , then it becomes less important to you and then it finally vanishes .

And it was like you saw a gun , right . Me growing up in New York City , see a gun is like whoa , I , whoa , I get away from me , I don't want nothing to do with that . Like it's a fear of law , right .

And we would hear I would hear all these stories about these shootings with kids that took a gun to school or took mom or dad's gun , and you hear these things . And I remember it . When I moved to Pennsylvania , my kids were small .

I raised all of my kids here and one of the things that I did , the first thing I did when I bought my first gun , was took all the kids they were little , I mean , my youngest was like five put them around the table . I said this is a gun here . This is how I took out bullets . I said here , touch it , let's get the curiosity out .

This is what it is Right , this is how it's handled , this is what it's for and it just I made it normal for them because the last thing I wanted was they go to a friend's house or something and they're curious . Now they see guns . When they come to another adult , they see guns and they come to the house and we keep .

You know , my oldest kid comes home and he puts his gun on top of the kitchen table . It's normal for us , right , like it's just normal for us , and they see guns . But we took out that curiosity to your point of training our kids . You know , we go to gun , we go to shooting ranges together , as a family too .

Backyard , we shoot in our backyard because we got four acres and so it's just getting that out of them , giving them that education . Hey , this is a weapon , you handle it with , you , treat it with respect . It's not a toy . This is how you handle it , this is what you do and this is how you conduct yourself with it .

I think we need to be doing more of that to your point .

I'm not saying that that was the right thing . I'm just saying in the day and age where we lived back then that that's what happened in my house . But I never once thought you know my dad , when I was kid he's like if you ever want to see one , if you want to take it out , come to me and we will .

And every once in a while would I go up and I say , hey , daddy , I want to see that one gun , that one pistol or the shotgun or whatever . He would stop what he was doing . He never , he would never say , okay , we'll do it in a second . He would literally , if he was in the middle of something , he would stop right there . He would take it out .

You know , make sure it was unloaded , hand it to me , and then we would talk about it , or I'd see it or manipulate or whatever , but you know , reemphasizing the safety things , and then I would give it back . I never once thought , because I also knew if I went and grabbed one , if I went , he's going to wear me out with the belt .

You know , man , I knew he was going to do that . So never once did I , because there was no curiosity . You know that it was the spell , the mystique behind it was the dispel , because I knew anytime I wanted to , it was there , it was available to me . So it wasn't , it wasn't anything like that . So I've done that with my kids . We don't have any issues .

And yeah , I think , but that's the , that's the key there . You know I grew up in a home that was very disciplined . You know I was very respectful of my parents , particularly my dad , and you know I knew what the ground rules and I knew what the consequences were if I violated those . And so , mark , you know he did it right in my opinion .

I know you're doing trainings and you're doing a bunch of different things . Tell us about that . How can people find you ?

If you want to come out and train with us what types of courses we're going to do . You'll get announcements on when new podcasts drop . So PearlSnap Tactical . We're on Apple Spotify , anywhere you go , to listen to your podcasts .

Yeah , you'll always be updated there , and then you'll get access to , or you can get access to , online courses and training that we do as well . So that's probably the best place to find us . We're on the social medias and stuff like that . But again , if you go to the website , sign up for the newsletter you're going to get all that .