John Keys, a Marine Corps veteran and the founder of Guns Out TV, shares his transformative journey into gun ownership, emphasizing the importance of responsible firearm use and education. The conversation dives into how societal perceptions of gun culture often create barriers for individuals considering firearms, particularly in underserved communities. Keys reflects on his initial hesitance to own guns due to negative examples he witnessed but highlights how the pandemic prompted a shift in his mindset towards self-sufficiency and responsible ownership. The discussion also touches on the significance of community engagement and mentorship in breaking down misconceptions and fostering a more inclusive firearms culture. As the episode unfolds, listeners gain insight into the various initiatives Guns Out TV is undertaking to humanize firearms culture and empower new gun owners through education and positive representation.

Learn more about GunsOut TV: https://www.gunsouttv.com

The conversation with John Keys from Guns Out TV unveils a rich tapestry of experiences that shape the current narrative around gun ownership in America. Keys, a Marine Corps veteran, initially approached firearms with caution, influenced by negative perceptions and examples from his past. However, the onset of the pandemic prompted a transformative journey where he embraced self-sufficiency and the necessity of responsible gun ownership. This episode captures Keys' evolution from a hesitant novice to a passionate advocate for firearms education, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's rights and responsibilities as a gun owner. His story highlights a crucial theme: the need for positive representation and education within the gun community to foster a culture of safety and responsibility.

The podcast dives into the mission of Guns Out TV, which aims to humanize firearms culture and create a welcoming community for gun owners of all backgrounds. Keys discusses the significance of range days as a platform for engagement, where individuals can come together and share their experiences in a safe and inclusive environment. These events not only promote camaraderie among seasoned enthusiasts but also serve as an entry point for those new to gun ownership. Keys advocates for the importance of creating 'off-ramps' for individuals who may have previously identified as anti-gun, allowing for a shift in perspective through education and open dialogue. The discussion emphasizes that the goal is not merely to increase gun ownership but to cultivate a community grounded in responsibility and informed decision-making.

Moreover, the conversation addresses the broader political landscape impacting gun ownership, with a focus on the challenges posed by restrictive policies and societal perceptions. Keys and the host explore how advocates can effectively counter negative narratives by sharing their own stories and experiences, thereby reshaping the public perception of gun owners. The episode underscores the importance of vigilance in protecting Second Amendment rights, as well as the need for community engagement to bridge divides. Ultimately, Keys' insights inspire listeners to take an active role in promoting responsible gun ownership and fostering a more inclusive and informed gun culture, paving the way for a future where firearms are seen as tools for empowerment rather than fear.

Takeaways:

• John Keys emphasizes the importance of responsible gun ownership, advocating for education and training.
• The pandemic prompted many people, including John, to reconsider firearms ownership for personal safety.
• Guns Out TV aims to humanize firearms culture and make it accessible to everyone.
• John discusses the challenges of negative perceptions surrounding gun ownership in underserved communities.
• The podcast highlights the need for community engagement to change minds about firearms.
• John believes that creating a welcoming environment for new gun owners is crucial for growth.

Links referenced in this episode:

• gunowners.org
• youtube.com/gunsouttv
• instagram.com/gunsouttv
• facebook.com/gunsouttv

Welcome to gun owners of America's the second podcast.

I'm Kaylee.

And I'm John.

And today we're talking with John Keys from guns out tv.

How are you, my friend?

What's going on, guys?

I don't get to see you guys often enough.

This is exciting.

We're excited to have you on.

So for our audience who may not know who you are, go ahead and break down who you are.

What is guns out tv?

All the fun stuff.

All right.

I love to start there.

Right?

Give.

Give you a good backstory first.

Thanks for having me, guys.

You know, I see that you guys are going gangbusters with state of the second, and I love it.

This is something that you guys should have done a while ago, and I'm just happy to see that it's actually happening now and also happy to be a guest.

So thank you again for having me.

So, yeah.

John Keys, Marine Corps veteran.

Twelve years active duty, another eight years as a federal civilian marine working at the Pentagon, working at headquarters Marine Corps Quantico.

And then I started working for a broadcast media company in DC as an executive and learned a lot about the media space whole time.

I'm not a gun owner.

I didn't purchase a gun while I was on active duty.

I didn't purchase a gun after I got out of the Marine Corps.

And mainly it was because I felt like I didn't have the right, positive example of a civilian gun owner.

It was like people that I know or knew at the time that owned firearms, they would just do idiotic things like brandish for no reason and be aggressive and all these other things that just, to me, I was like, I don't need that energy in my life and nor that responsibility, because I was like, I'm looking at these people and it seems like the responsibility of gun ownership is a challenge for them.

So I was like, you know what?

Maybe I just don't even need to add that into my life, you know, into the equation of my life.

So with that being said, the pandemic strikes, and, you know, I'm almost a little bit of a shame to say that my.

My decision to purchase firearms was reactionary.

Obviously.

It was reactionary to the pandemic.

It was reactionary to the isolation, the civil unrest, not knowing what was going to happen next.

And it was the first time in my life that I felt like, you know, I really need to be as self sufficient as possible.

And that's what it came down to.

And then also reactionary because, you know, everything was shutting down gun stores, gun shows included.

So it was like, and nobody knew how long it was shutting down for.

So because of that, it was like, all right, it's now or never.

Let's.

Let's go and just get this out of the way.

So I went and I bought a pistol and rifle, and the rabbit hole began, like, almost immediately.

And for me, the rabbit hole began because of how serious I was taking firearms.

Because, remember, we're locked down, we're isolated.

So those bad examples that I was previously seeing before, like, they were oblivious to, I didn't see them, I was not in contact with them.

So at this point in time, I'm literally just going about this the way that I felt was the best way to go about it, in a responsible way.

So, you know, I'm doing everything that.

Doing the same things that everybody else is doing.

I'm watching YouTube and watching videos on what firearms to potentially purchase and how to articulate, you know, firearms in different ways and your home defense, how to store it properly, all of these things.

I'm consuming all of this content.

I'm also going to outdoor ranges as often as possible, shooting both the pistol and the rifle that I purchased.

Friends and family started to join me, and then they also started to join me in purchasing firearms because the friends and family that were joining me initially, they were joining me to come and shoot my firearms.

Next thing you know, they show up to the range and they're like, man, look what I got.

Bam.

They slammed down the case on the table and they opened it up, and they got themselves an ar and a shotgun, or ar and a pistol.

So.

So I started to influence their opinions and ideas of gun ownership.

And after a couple of months went by and my collection of firearms grew, and I'm starting to see my friends and family's collections of firearms grow.

And we're looking for places to actively go and practice and shoot and trainings, and the restrictions are starting to get lifted a little bit.

The idea was brought up to me like, hey, John, you really have affected all of the people that are closest to you and really have changed their mindset on firearms.

And now you have this little collective group that you always are going to range with.

I think it's pretty cool.

And there may be other people out there that could benefit from knowing about your journey.

And I was immediately against it because I didn't want it to mess with my journey.

I was having such a good time just exploring on my own and not feeling like I had this overshadowing responsibility of sorts to create content and do all of this other stuff.

And so I was like, I don't really want to do it.

But then at the time, my wife, she was like, I'm gonna come and I'm gonna just film you one day.

And so she did.

She came to the range and she filmed me and my friends, and it was enough footage to be edited into an episode.

So we edited into an episode called the day I built a range because we found a piece of property way out in close to West Virginia, and we built a hundred yard range.

We just grabbed some stuff from Home Depot, and we set up targets and steel on trees and things like that.

And that episode, when we saw it, when we looked back at it was like, wow, this is pretty insane that I'm just doing this on my own.

And all of you decided to join me.

And so I showed it to my good friend Shamichael Singleton.

You know, Shermichael, Mister CNN, always, always on CNN, at least two to three times a day, talked to him about it, and he brought up all of the politics of gun ownership, how rights are at risk and how restrictions are pending and so on and so forth.

And that by sharing my story with other people, there's others out there that can relate to that, and that would potentially adopt my school of thought about being a responsible gun owner, about what it means to be a responsible gun owner.

So we decided, you know what?

Let's go film an episode together.

Try to see what that looks like.

And we did.

We had a blast.

It was so much fun, and it wasn't the most educational piece of content that we've created, but it was very lighthearted and it showed that you can do this on your own.

As long as you're being safe and responsible, as long as your intention to be a responsible gun owner is there, you're going to naturally kind of assimilate.

Not assimilate, gravitate towards like minded people and like minded experiences and so on and so forth.

So guns out was born from there.

And we were initially on national television, which a lot of people don't really know.

Well, actually, no, it wasn't national television.

It was local television on national platform ABC Seven here in the Washington, DC area.

And, yeah, we got two good episodes off before we got canceled.

It's the craziest thing ever.

I mean, after the very first episode, I remember that our YouTube, we started getting messages right away.

Like people were seeing us on tv and asking us if we were a club.

People thought we were a club, and they wanted to join our club.

And I was like, no, we're not a club.

We're just a media platform.

And we're showcasing all of the places and things you can do and learn with firearms safely.

And so, yeah, after two episodes, the powers that be were like, yeah, no, we don't want.

And now, mind you, this was close to January 6.

So they use that as an excuse.

Like, hey, you know, January 6 just happened.

We don't want a gun show airing in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area.

It's just.

It's just not safe.

So, bam, we got canceled.

Funny thing was where we were kind of on tour filming for our first television season of guns out.

We were in Texas somewhere and we found out about it via an email.

Like, nobody called us.

Nobody said, hey, John, Shermichael, your show isn't airing this Sunday.

None of that.

We got an email saying that this show is, as of today, canceled.

And then I want to say later that afternoon, Tampa Cary had already done an episode on us.

He had already done an episode cancel.

Culture hits the gun community and then from there, we started getting DM's and phone calls, I mean, from everybody, like, guns and gadgets.

Warrior Poet Society Network people were reaching out to us to, you know, find out what happened.

So then when we told that story, Warrior Poet Society Network decided that, hey, we can do a whole season of content around this.

So they gave us a platform for a season to explain our backstory.

And that's how the season started with our origin story.

And it was just.

It went crazy.

Like, people were just so excited to hear about us.

And they were also infuriated about the story of what happened to us.

And that's when our YouTube started to blow up.

We were getting thousands and thousands of subscribers pretty much every week.

And now here we are.

We are a budding media platform, also a full scale production company.

And might I say that none of this could have been possible if Goa hadn't come.

I wanna say to our rescue, like, right before we got canceled from television and then stuck with us after we got canceled.

Because, you know, obviously having advocates, positive advocates for firearms culture on that on television is a huge thing.

Like, that doesn't happen.

So we were happy to represent Goa on television while we were on television.

And then when we got canceled, we were afraid that, you know, our affiliation with Goa might, you know, kind of start to stutter or falter.

Not 1 second.

You guys came in and pushed us even harder.

And now, I mean, we are.

We're pretty significant in the industry as it pertains to edutainment style, responsible gun owner content.

And we're still in just the beginning.

We're only in approaching year four now.

Wow.

It doesn't feel like it's been four years.

I was.

I know, right?

Isn't it crazy?

It's wild how fast four years can go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, no, it was always going to be an important part of your story.

Right.

Getting canceled.

Getting not only canceled from local television, but for the reasons that they gave.

Right.

None.

Right.

You were just, we love you.

We're gonna do this.

We're gonna have this whole season.

And then, you know, they ultimately just don't care about the second amendment, about producing content that's educational and exciting.

They would much rather have the sensationalism.

And that's the downside to.

Well, there's lots of downsides.

That's one of the many downsides to cancel culture.

And I don't think anybody has been as affected by that as the firearms industry and the firearms community, because it's a threat to their perceived power and individualism.

Individual liberty, understanding that our rights are not government granted, understanding that we have the ultimate power, threatens so much of what they believe because they want to control hearts and minds.

And so when you are focused on individual liberty, when you're focused on personal responsibility, it takes that away from them.

And so we've loved seeing you guys grow and continue to watch you grow well into the future.

And then now we're able to have you on our podcast, which is great.

I know, right?

I know.

It's funny how that works, too.

It's like, I'm always a huge fan of empowering others, because when you empower somebody else that's doing something that is aligned with what you're doing, you feed off of that energy.

You feed off of that.

You learn lessons through those that you empower, too, because their approach is not always gonna be the same approach that you're gonna take.

And then you get to say, oh, wow, that was.

That was interesting.

Maybe.

Maybe we should look.

Maybe we should look into something like that.

Right?

And so, so, yeah, we see a lot of people kind of adopting some of the.

Some of the ways that we communicate things as it pertains to our content and even some of our events and things like that.

And we like it.

It's what we want.

We're not here to compete.

We're here to empower.

We're here to showcase what I like to say, a new era of gun ownership and a new era of experiences and content, because I felt like early on, obviously, like I was saying, I was consuming a lot of content on YouTube as it pertains to gun ownership and training and things like that.

And I didn't see a lot of black faces.

Unfortunately, I did not.

And the black faces that I did see, they weren't necessarily putting forth the most educational content.

It was more kind of reality style or just over light hearted.

And what I mean by over light hearted, I mean, you know, shooting firearms is fun, but there is.

There has to be a foundation of safety and responsibility.

So when you go with.

Go with that over lighthearted route, it just doesn't set a good example for people.

It doesn't.

It doesn't drive home how serious of a responsibility gun ownership is.

And so.

So with that being said, that's why we saw the opportunity to keep it still keep it light hearted, but also make it grounded in responsibility, a responsibility mindset, and ground it behind training and education.

So, yeah, that's a very important pillar of the guns out platform is to make sure that those things remain grounded.

And then, obviously, the third thing is to humanize firearms culture, because firearms culture, it can be intimidating to people that don't shoot firearms.

It can be intimidating.

People don't just, you know, grow up in their families, not the majority, anyway.

And gun ownership is a very talked about thing.

I mean, it was, in my opinion, I felt like it was super taboo when I was growing up.

I look at it like this.

My dad.

My dad owned a firearm.

He owned a revolver as a kid.

I may have seen that thing twice.

I may have seen it twice in my household, and I never saw him shoot it or anything.

I just knew he had it.

I don't know where he kept it.

And it might have been twice that I saw it in my childhood lifetime.

And then when you think about, I grew up in the eighties and the nineties, so late eighties, early nineties, you have all of these movies coming out on black, on black crime colors, menace to society, boys in the hood.

And when you see how people handled firearms in those movies, in the underserved black communities, it was gut wrenching.

It was.

It was horrifying.

It was like, oh, my God, I would never, like, don't show me a gun.

I don't even want to see a gun.

Right.

Because of the lens of which they're showing you what a gun is, what it does, and who has them.

Who has them, so to speak.

Right.

Um, so with all that being said, that.

That.

That again, kind of programmed me, even with military training, that, you know, guns.

My history with guns isn't.

It isn't really.

It's not overly positive.

And even in the military, the context of handling a firearm is in case of war.

So at the end of the day, it's like the stage is set for the majority of all Americans to be afraid of guns first before they actually accept that.

It's just another responsibility.

Guns are just tools, and it's about the person, the intent, and the responsibility of that person that wields it.

Yeah, I can.

I can't agree more.

I mean, we just did an episode of a few weeks back, or it was at Shawshow.

We did the episode, but the episode aired a few weeks back with Ken Ross from primary arms.

And a lot of people know Ken, and the narrative on the left is that gun owners are all old white men, and it's not true.

There's a lot of diversity in the gun community.

And Ken, you know, had some very strong words to say in that episode.

And I if after you're done listening to this one, go listen to his, too.

Oh, for sure.

But it shows that, you know, it's not this narrative that Hollywood has played and how the left plays it.

There's a lot.

And you hit it the nail right on the head.

Like, there was not.

There's not a lot of diversity on the YouTube culture when it comes to gun stuff and having you and like minded individuals like you who are now starting channels.

Another example that comes to mind is Jay the shooter.

I mean, that is showing how diverse our community really is and kind of beats down that narrative and breaks that wall.

Yeah, no, we agree 100%.

And, you know, that term break down that wall, we've used that so much.

So we were a platform for two years, almost two full years.

It was like, maybe we were, like, in right at about, like, our 20 month mark, August of 22, and months before that, we decided we're going to throw an event.

We're going to throw our first event.

We're going to throw a range day.

And our experience with range days were also, in our opinion, we wondered why there wasn't one that was public facing or weren't more that were public facing.

Because there may be a few public facing range days out there.

I don't really know of a ton of them.

Like, I know Jay the shooter has his pew party that's front facing.

Mark Chopper has his chopper day.

And then I know gun camp does like a public facing range day type experience, but there's not a whole lot of them, right?

And there are in, you know, isolated areas.

So we wanted to do one that was a public facing range day because we knew with the platform that we built and the partners we had, that we can create an elevated experience, an elevated experience for people to come and enjoy their second amendment rights around other people.

That obviously, if you're following our channel and if you're a fan of guns out, you think a certain way, you agree with what we're doing, you appreciate what we're doing.

So to pull all of those people into a single area and then invite other people that may be on the fence or may not be a gun owner or not even on the fence, they're not even thinking about it.

But bringing them into that environment where everybody's friendly, everybody's cordial, and there's so much diversity.

I'm talking about our range days represent America.

I mean, all of America is there.

And when I tell you, it's one of the most diverse crowds I've ever seen, I mean, people were coming there with families, baby strollers.

Like, that's.

That's insane when you stop to think about it because that's not what you expect to see at any gun range.

You don't expect to see at any gun range.

People coming with their whole family's babies in tow.

And they were because of the way that we've represented ourselves and the people that we've aligned with and the experiences that we create for ourselves, you see it through our content.

And then we invite you, the populace, to come out and experience it with us.

And, man, when you.

When I stop to think about how many people's lives we've changed just through our content and our events.

Breaking down those walls, making it feel more accessible.

Because the thing is, whether you, whether you believe it or not, it's accessible to everybody.

Everything about responsible gun ownership is accessible to everybody.

Training the ability to purchase the firearm, the ability to go shoot your firearm, all of these things are available and accessible.

But are you doing it correctly?

Are you doing it with people that are going to help you do it correctly?

Hold you accountable when you're not doing it correctly?

Offer you opportunities to get better and to be more responsible and then become somebody else's entryway into the firearms community?

Well, that's the question to be answered but we didn't wait for the answer.

We just created the answer on our own through our event.

Yeah.

You know, I've been in this industry for a long time now.

I'm not going to say how long, because I'll date myself and I'll feel old, but I've been.

I've been doing this for a while.

And you're absolutely right.

There's a lot of industry range days where you go out and you shoot with friends.

I will call them friends, content creators and companies.

And my first real public facing range day would have been a range I did with.

Sure, Michael at one point, we did one in Arizona.

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

The true shot.

Yeah, we did that one.

And then the other one that we did with did was trigger con.

That was fun.

But the one that we recently did was our international women's ranged a with empowered two a.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Texas gun experience.

Yeah, Texas guns.

That was an experience in itself.

Just talking to the crowd, it was all female, which is great to see women getting into the two a space, but a lot of them were new gun owners or not.

Not gun owners wanting to get into it and listening and talking to them and.

And hearing some of the myths that they've heard and some of their experiences, it really puts it into a new perspective.

We can.

We can, as gun owners who have been doing it for a long time, we can be in this echo chamber, and we can listen to like minded individuals who we agree with and just be in this echo chamber.

But being able to break the mold of that echo chamber and talk to people like yourself and like the women at the range day, it was a.

It's a totally different experience.

And it really opened my eyes to how many new gunners are coming in and how, as a community, we have to bring them in and teach them and kind of dispel a lot of these myths that are pushed out by the media.

No, man, you couldn't have said that any better, to be honest with you.

You know, I looked at a lot of the content coming out of the women's range day, and that just looked amazing, man.

These women, it was like, it was a celebration, and that's what.

That's what being able to exercise your second amendment rights feels like.

And to be honest.

It feels like that the majority of the time.

Even after you've been doing it for years and years and years.

It just.

It can feel like that by yourself.

When you open that box and you got a new firearm that you've been waiting to get in the.

Get your hands on, it could feel that way when you take friends to the range for the first time and you open your case and they see your guns and they're like, oh, oh, boy.

And they shoot your guns for the first time.

You know, there's so many different instances that can make gun ownership feel like Christmas morning on a Tuesday, right?

And again, it's all made okay if you're doing it in the right intent and under the right lens of responsibility and inclusion and, you know, human humanizing the culture and making it accessible to more people who aren't like minded like you.

Because the thing is, is like, you know, I feel like the term like minded could almost also be its own barrier, depending on how many of the certain like minds you get together in one room, right?

If you get it, if you get enough, you know, tactical guys in one room, that could be so off putting to an enthusiast.

You get enough enthusiasts in one room, and that could be off putting to the tactical guys, and both rooms, you get too much of them, and that can be completely off putting to the person who has never seen, held or shot a gun before.

So it's like, I feel like that's an extra layer of responsibility that I do think that the community at large could take more seriously.

And that is not being so adamant about the things that you're super passionate about.

I mean, we get it.

There's platforms for that, and there's places for that, right?

But it's kind of like, you gotta read the room.

You gotta read the room.

You gotta know the audience at the time, whoever you're in front of.

And you have to try to make that message palatable for the masses.

You have to make it palatable.

You have to make it acceptable.

You have to kind of meet people where they are, because gun ownership is not.

This is not like a fly by night decision.

This is not something that you just decide.

One day you go get a gun, and then that's it.

Now you got the gun, and it's sitting on the seat of your car, and you're like, okay, what do I do next?

Like, there should be thought into it.

There should be excitement about it.

There should be a hunger or a thirst for education and training.

All of those things should come along with that decision to become a gun owner, and that could easily be jaded by people who have these really, really strong passions and opinions about how they practice their second amendment rights.

So I feel like there should be a little dial there that you can turn up and turn down at the right times in order to reach people where they are and continue to grow the community, because that's what we wanna do.

We wanna grow the community.

Even though I'm not into politics, I'm apolitical as a person can get.

But I know the strength in numbers, and I know that if we have more people that are not against firearms, and it's not even like, we don't need.

We don't necessarily need more gun owners.

We just need more people that aren't against firearms.

And the way that you make people not against firearms is to make it a palatable conversation, make it a welcoming experience, break down those barriers.

Yeah.

So we spent a lot of time, particularly on.

On this show, talking about building that on ramp for people.

You have a second amendment right whether you choose to exercise it or not.

Yep.

And you have the right to defend yourself if you are attacked.

Right.

And those things are important when we're having these conversations, is if you try to open a fire hose on somebody and give them a rush of information, it's impossible for them to digest and understand it.

And I'm a big proponent of taking people to the range, having a conversation, opening up dialogue with the people in your own community.

If you're waiting for anyone on this podcast to reach every single person that hasn't heard the good news of the second amendment, you're going to be waiting a really long time, because it's impossible for us to reach everyone.

But if everyone listening to this podcast reaches someone, and then they reach someone, pretty soon we're changing the entire culture, and it's all about building that on ramp into the second Amendment community, building that on ramp into advocacy, and building that on ramp in not only gun ownership, but the understanding and the education of being a well rounded gun owner is so valuable, not just to our generation, but the generations to come.

No, I couldn't agree with you more.

And, you know, to kind of piggyback off that and maybe even expound on it a little bit, it's like.

So you have that on ramp for people who aren't into gun culture, aren't into practicing their second amendment rights, you have that on ramp.

Right.

And that's kind of like your first touch point.

But then when you get on that highway, I feel like there's another on ramp, because in my mind, the second amendment community, whether people like it or not, it embodies anyone who owns a gun, period.

That is the Second Amendment community.

You are practicing, actively practicing your second amendment by.

By being a gun owner.

So now you have that highway, and then you have more on ramps that take you to, you know, the training community, and then you have the enthusiast community, and then you have, in my opinion, a community of outliers that kind of, like, are in between communities.

They might be in between training and enthusiasts, or they might just be out here for the sake of having a gun type thing.

And I feel like there should be another on ramp that brings all of those other pieces of community back into just the responsible gun owner lane.

Right.

And what I mean by that is, like, when I see certain communities and the way that they practice their second Amendment rights, it may not honestly be the safest.

It may not be the most informed community.

And how do you help change that community?

How do you help educate that community?

You can't do it outside of that community.

You have to go into that community, and you have to bring information.

You have to bring opportunity.

You have to bring change to that community.

And I'm specifically now talking about underserved communities because underserved communities, there's a lot of gun owners in underserved communities, and the majority of them do not know how to handle firearms.

They just don't.

And that is a sad, sad story.

And it wasn't until we started going into these communities and bringing our brand into the communities that we are that we found that they are interested in learning.

They are interested in being trained and becoming a responsible gun owners.

But they just.

They're.

They're in their own echo chamber.

They're in their echo chamber of ignorance to what a responsible gun owner really, really means and what it looks like.

And when.

When we go into underserved communities and they see us and they see the way we carry ourselves, they see the brand that we've built, they see the firearms that we own, and then they see us and how we can run the guns.

They see that we know what we're doing with these firearms.

This is not just a swag play for us like we trained with the best in the industry.

We shoot in competitions.

We know how to articulate firearm safety.

We know how to train people to articulate firearm safety.

And they gravitate towards that.

They want to know.

They have questions, you know?

So I think that that's another responsibility that people who are tenured in the space, no matter what subgroup they're a part of, whether it be the trainers, whether it be the enthusiasts, whether it be whatever.

I feel like they should then go back into these communities where they see people not doing it correctly, specifically starting in your own.

Like, I started in my community right here in the neighborhood that I live.

I mandated that certain people do not go to the gun store to buy a gun until they consult me, because people were coming back with stuff that they did not need.

And I'm like, why did you buy that?

Let me see your ammo.

Yeah, you definitely shouldn't have that loaded in this gun in the house.

Like, you know, so.

So I really put my foot down when it comes to what it means to be a responsible gun owner.

And people receive it well, because I'm not overbearing.

I'm.

I'm offering myself to them by, you know, in a way of education.

I'm like, I am now a resource for you when you're trying to make decisions and you're uncertainty, of course, do your own research, watch videos, read articles, so on and so forth.

But at the end of the day, I am a person that you can call, walk right up to, and speak to, and you know that I'm a trusted source, and I'm going to give it to you exactly like it is.

Yeah.

One of the things that I think is important, you know, we're talking about the on ramp to the Second Amendment community, but almost as important as an on ramp is an off ramp for the anti gunners.

And nothing proved that more than the pandemic.

People who, like yourself, didn't ever consider themselves as a part of the Second Amendment community, didn't want to be a part of the Second Amendment community, or thought that everyone in the Second Amendment community was crazy.

Like, those people who are anti gun need to have a functioning off ramp to then be able to grow and find the on ramp onto the Second Amendment.

Into the Second Amendment community.

And the reason I say that is when you have a community that is underserved or when you have somebody who's had a life event in which they are going, oh, crap, you know, the.

What do you mean the police aren't going to be able to come save me?

What do you mean?

No one is coming to my rescue.

I'm responsible for me, that exit ramp.

And it is so valuable when we provide them education and resources and confidence to understand their rights, understand what needs to happen, so that they can start their journey into the Second Amendment and so I'm all about crossing over and understanding the arguments that they've heard, understand what and why they think the way that they do, so that we can build a proper exit ramp and we can educate them and teach them in a way that they are comfortable so that we can move the needle, because there are so many people who have been taught, whether they realize it or not, that their life has less value because politicians and Hollywood elites and all of the elitist society, you know, they have armed security, but they don't want you to have a firearm.

Right.

And so there's a natural devaluing of life that happens in that instant.

And so we have to, as the second Amendment community, come in with education and say, you know what?

Your life is so valuable that you should have the tools and resources so that you can defend yourself, so that you can defend your family, and that, if necessary, you can defend yourself from a tyrannical government.

But if you don't start having that conversation and meeting them where they're at, there is no changing their minds.

There is no idea or concept in which we win, because it requires active participation from us as the individual to make those on ramps and those off ramps for people so that they can join our community, and that's our job, to build as individuals.

Mm hmm.

I think that was.

That was really deep.

You know, I never.

First off, I've never looked through a lens of an anti gunner.

And I know that, speaking with people who are and were anti gunners, that you're right.

It's usually.

They've usually adopted that mindset because of a life event, like you said.

And when you.

When you mention that off ramp, I think that's powerful, because anyone that's experienced a traumatic event or has a very strong belief about something, I do feel that there should be a level of counsel that they should be able to receive through osmosis in the community.

If you ask me, if everybody in the community was doing what they were supposed to do, it would happen through osmosis.

And now, when you get together, when you get the right people together, it does.

It does happen through osmosis.

We've seen it at our range days.

But you're right.

I do think that there should be a pointed effort to kind of unlearn the things that made you think and feel the way that you used to feel before you rush to adopt a new school of thought.

Because I feel like if you rush to adopt that new school of thought without giving yourself a chance to understand why you're actually changing your school of thought.

And what does that mean?

And because it's almost like learning another language.

It's like you were speaking this language for all these years, very adamantly, very easily, and then now you're going to try to go speak another language.

You're not going to go into another country and you only know 18 words and then go try to hold conversations and make big purchases and start businesses and doing crazy stuff.

You can't, because you can't even speak the language.

So I feel like there.

There should be kind of like an acclimation period that is naturally set for people that are coming from one drastic school of thought into another school of thought.

And that's just interesting.

I don't know what that off ramp looks like, other than the osmosis part of it, but the osmosis part will only happen if you get everybody aligned in the same school of thought of that.

We want this to be a palatable conversation for any and everyone, anti gunners people who are indifferent, because I was indifferent.

I was indifferent about firearms, even though I love to shoot guns.

I was indifferent about becoming an owner until I realized that that opportunity was at risk.

And again, it's reactionary.

You just can't help that.

That's.

That's.

That's how things go sometimes.

And, um, not everybody's going to make that decision to.

Even though they're making, like, this reactionary decision, they're not going to take the time to learn the right things.

They're not going to take the time to, you know, walk themselves into it potentially like they should.

But that's where good counsel and good, uh, mentoring comes into play within the community.

The politicians and the left really want to.

They're scared of the community.

They're scared of building a community.

And we're seeing this movement most recently in Hartford, Connecticut, where the community is coming together, taking back the community.

And the sense of community for a long time has just been.

Has gone away.

And now we see a lot of people coming in, like yourself, into the communities and going, hey, let's band together.

Let's better our community, clean up the streets.

And that's what they're doing in Hartford, um, most recently, a couple weeks ago, they were.

There were armed people from a specific church going around and going, hey, we're armed.

We're cleaning up our community.

We're taking care of this trash.

We're making sure everything's good.

We're taking our community back.

And I feel like that needs to be a national movement.

We need to have a sense of community.

Human beings are social creatures.

And most recently, with all this instant gratification stuff that's been going on when, when we order stuff and it's two day shipping and all that stuff, we've lost our sense of community.

We've lost our sense of life is so fast paced that we don't, you don't see the backyard barbecues, you don't see the block parties anymore.

You don't see that.

And we need to get back to that and become a community to the point where we can have conversations like this, where you.

Or conversation with people, like people who may be anti gun or things like that, wherever.

I, I'm going to tell you my point and you're going to tell me your point.

And at the end of the day, we're in the same community.

I'm going to shake your hand and we're going to go on.

It's not going to be the loudest person screaming at the end of the day who gets their point across.

And I feel like we've lost that.

We need to bring that back and become one and become a society where we can have a conversation without having the camera on us screaming and yelling and being, how do we put this current?

I guess.

But it's, you know, what I'm, you know, what I'm saying is for sure.

Yeah.

The polarization brings attention and we are a society that is over.

Like, the dopamine spikes are crazy.

Everybody wants attention and even if it comes for the wrong reasons, they want the attention.

Right.

But, you know, you said something interesting about how government doesn't want to promote community.

And I couldn't agree more in that sense, at least not community, about the right things.

Right.

So this is interesting because it takes me back to a conversation I had probably like in year one of guns out.

And it was, it was right as we were, like, doing a lot of training.

Me and Shermichael was doing a lot of training and I was having this conversation and, like, follow me, guys, stay with me on this because I don't want, because I feel like if I, if you don't let me finish, you might, before you start drawing your own conclusion, it might go the wrong way.

But the point was, as we were doing all this training, somebody was having a conversation about how politicians are now trying to put all of these layers and barriers to entry to become a gun owner and that gun restrictions and all these red flag laws, all of this was racist.

It was racist because it prices a lot of people out.

Right.

Gun ownership is not even a cheap thing, to be honest with you.

So.

So that alone kind of prices out some people in the underserved communities.

And so they were like, yeah, man, that's why, you know, you know, making it to where there's an age restriction, or even if they was to put, like, a training restriction or something like, that's racist because people can't.

Can barely even afford to buy guns sometimes.

And I pushed back on the idea of making training mandatory, and the reason why is because, first off, we were in the midst of, like, a rigorous, probably like, a three month run of just all types of trainings we were taking.

And after taking those trainings, man, it increased.

It increased my efficacy with the firearm.

It increased the fun I was having on the range.

It increased my ability to be able to train other people.

So now they're having more fun at the range.

And I was like, wow, man, you know, training really makes a dramatic impact on your experience as a gun owner.

So mandatory training might not be a bad thing, however, comma, it absolutely should be free.

Government subsidizes everything else.

They subsidize all kinds of crap that we don't ask them to subsidize.

Why can't you subsidize something that's so important?

We all know the responsibility of being a gunner.

We all know that a firearm can be dangerous if you do not know how to operate it.

Why doesn't the government subsidize mandatory training for anybody who purchases a gun?

First timer.

Right?

Period.

I personally wouldn't be against that.

That's not, in my opinion, that's not infringing on your right.

That's just making it so we shape the community in a responsible light, because people go out there and buy guns all the time, and they don't even think twice about training.

They think a gun is point and shoot, and it couldn't be further from the truth.

Right.

There's so many more things that people need to know and understand about being a gun owner.

And to be honest, a lot of these canned trainings out there and fly by night trainers, that's certifying people that really do not have the skillset.

That's no bueno.

That's not the way to go.

There should be something in place that's standardized, that everybody is properly trained to a certain extent, either before or right after or when they become a gun owner come becoming a.

You purchase a gun, this is your first time gun purchase, and the ATF knows it's your first time purchasing a gun.

Here's your certificate for your free class.

Go get trained.

Just like that.

And now you've already set a whole different standard, a whole different landscape as it pertains to new, new gun owners coming into the space.

No, you're absolutely right.

I mean, if you look back at some of the organizations that were started, like, let's go, for example, the civilian marksmanship program.

If people don't know, the CMP does some great work when it comes to that.

But the civilian marksmanship program came about to train people to host competitions, to have a readied group of people in case we were ever invaded or anything like that.

And that has kind of fallen to the wayside, unfortunately, they not getting the funding that they need.

But also, we also saw this same thing.

You're talking about the barrier of entry, and we're seeing a lot of firearms at a lower price.

I don't want to say cheap, because cheap is synonymous with bad, but at a budget price that are coming out of the market, that are really well built and really, you know, there's a lot of imports and things like that.

But there's another side of our community that will bash these cheaper, lower price.

And the government has even bashed it with the 68 gun Control act.

There was a lot of things coming in that were budget friendly, but they put a label on it just like they're trying with AR fifteen s and the assault weapons bans.

They put a label on as Saturday night specials and things like that.

There, there's comes a point where people have to understand, it is our God given right, the second amendment is our God given right to own a firearm.

And by making the barrier to entry so high, so cost, high cost, that you're, you're pricing, like you said, you're pricing people out of the ability to exercise their rights.

And you wouldn't do the same thing with a car, you wouldn't do that.

They don't do the same thing with vehicles.

They don't do the same thing with alcohol.

They don't do the same thing with a lot of that stuff.

But firearms, the thing that protects us, like Kaylee says, it's, we are taking an investment into ourselves to protect our well being, to put all these barriers to entries and are.

It's just ridiculous.

Mm hmm.

No, it really is.

But again, that's agenda driven.

Yeah, right.

That's agenda driven.

And anybody who's paying attention can see the agendas being executed.

You know, like me and Kaylee was speaking about off camera, that politics and politicians play the game of inches.

Like in football, it's like, you know, you can beat a team by throwing 80 yard bombs and touchdowns every play, or you can beat a team by wearing them down first down after first down after first down, holding the ball for 910 minutes at a time, and then finally scoring.

Right.

And all of the things that are being put into regulation or being proposed as.

As regulation, all of this is a game of inches, right?

And the most egregious, in my opinion, is every time they take something that's so, like, they take this low hanging fruit approach.

They take this opportunistic approach.

Like, okay, a veteran just committed suicide, for whatever reason, with a gun.

And it's like, now they.

They're trying to take guns away from veterans by literally policing how a veteran manages his money, something that actually doesn't have anything to do with the firearm.

Right?

How people manage their money has nothing to do with being able to purchase a firearm.

Yet, and still they're trying to leverage that to say, hey, you know, if you can't manage money, you probably aren't of the right mindset to have a gun.

So you can't have a gun, or whatever.

Whatever that policy says in all of the red tape and hidden fine print, right?

And then you have them attacking the ammo band, trying to ban lead ammo because they say birds are picking lead shards out of the guts of slain wildlife.

Are you kidding me?

Like, are you kidding me right now?

And to me, those are just so egregious and so opportunistic that if you're.

If you don't know that.

And again, apolitical over here, guys, I'm not, like, I'm not the guy that's reading up on policy and state and citations and all these.

I don't know that crap, but I know common sense when I see it.

And that crap is just like, it's.

It's for the birds.

Dare I say it's for the birds.

Like, you.

You know, you just.

So.

So, again, that's why the mission from guns out has always been to humanize firearms culture.

Because we feel like, you know, the strength in numbers of people that are enthusiastic about being a gun owner the right way, they are more likely to speak up, and we want to get more people speaking, and that's why we do what we do.

Thankfully, we won on the veterans issue, and that was a massive win that took way too long to win.

That's a 20 year fight that Goa has been fighting to finally.

To finally win.

That is a huge deal.

But anytime that the government can infringe on your rights, chances are they will infringe on your rights.

And that's why you have to save vigilance, why you have to stay active.

It's why when it's time to comment on a lead ammo ban, we send notifications out and we have thousands of people commenting, actually Goa members, in that instance, made up over 90% of all comments made.

Oh, I believe it.

I constantly want to applaud our membership because they understand the fight, they understand the personal responsibility.

They understand that things are happening to the Second Amendment.

And we are at a point in history where if we don't defend and start restoring our second amendment, we won't have one.

And so it's so vital and it's, it's so important.

I mean, let's just take a moment to talk about zero tolerance policy and the fact that the Biden administration is, has a full on assault for mom and pop dealers across the country, that if you make a clerical error, you can lose your ability not only to, you know, feed your family and those that are employed, but that is shutting off an access point to the second amendment for, you know, hundreds if not thousands of people at a time, every time that policy strikes.

And, you know, we're, we file a suit on that and, you know, we're going to continue to fight it.

But, like, I, that's why is it, it's so vital in so many areas that we have to stay vigilant, and we can't ever allow ourselves to be in that state of apathy, um, because that's the most dangerous state that anybody can be in.

Yeah.

No, you, you couldn't have said it better.

And, um, again, I just think it's that, it's that game of inches.

It's that low hanging fruit approach.

You know, if we can't, we can't, you know, cut off the head, then we'll go after fingers, we'll go after toes, we'll go after whatever, whatever appendages that we can cut off to try to weaken the state of the second amendment.

And, you know, again, you don't hear, like, on our platform, you don't hear us.

You don't hear us even use that term Second Amendment as often as people who really, really advocate for it.

Right.

And to me, it's because there's so many people dissuaded by politics.

There's so many people that is, that are dissuaded by the politics of it all.

As soon as they hear someone overusing the term second amendment, they automatically are thinking a certain way of you.

So we've done a really good job of really making it about the overall experience of being a gun owner.

And that's how we reach people that aren't heavily into politics, that, and maybe even be on the other side looking at us wanting to talk crap, but they can't, because we're not attacking them.

We're just showing you it's okay to be a gun owner, and you can do it the right way, and everybody will enjoy it with you.

Right.

So it's kind of like one of those things, you kill them with kindness, and that's.

That's.

That's where our humanization of firearms culture, uh, pillar comes from.

It's like we want people to feel like this is attainable.

We want people to feel like this is something that does belong to you as an individual.

It's your responsibility.

It's your choice.

You come, you can command what your experience is like.

We're just here to show you what experiences are available and.

And what it feels like for those things.

So, for people who might not be familiar with the guns out platform, you guys have a couple of different.

I don't know if I should call them brands within guns out, because you've got guns out news, and then you've got the guns out tv, and they're different, but they're the same.

So, how does your approach to firearms news break off from others in the space?

Great question.

Well, we at guns out tv have the luxury of having a resident news person within our infrastructure in ShareMichael.

You will notice that anytime, sure, Michael does go news or anytime John does go news, it looks and feels a little different.

You know, you get more of a traditional news approach with Sir Michael, which is great, because he is just an aficionado.

He knows how to deliver things in, articulate things, in a manner of which there's kind of no gray area.

Right.

And it's.

It's unbiased.

It's always, you know, sunken in facts.

For me, I'm more of a student of the game.

I seek out information.

I like to share information.

I like to bring on subject matter experts and me personally ask questions, because the questions that I have may be the same questions that someone else has.

So that's kind of our basis for how we run go news.

And then there's times that we'll do it together.

And when we do it together, it's even more fun to be honest with you, because.

Because then you have Shamichel, who delivers it in a very news centric way.

And you have me on the other hand, that's asking all the questions and cracking the jokes, and then you have the subject matter expert that kind of plays between the both of us.

So it's a really, it's fun.

It's fun and it brings variety to our platform, because again, guns out tv is a media platform.

Again, we didn't set out to become influencers or even content creators like that.

It was more about standing up a platform where content, meaningful content, can live.

And to be honest, that could even be outside of just us creating said content.

We've.

So, so now we have guns out tv, which is the media platform.

Guns out is the brand and that represents, I guess, me.

And sure, Michael, when we go out into the world and we bring our brand out into the world, that's guns out.

And then Warrior poet Society did a good job of taking that brand and turning it into a show.

So then it also became its own piece of content, guns out.

And then go news was born, you know, when we realized that there was an opportunity to bring very specific and timely news to people in a more digestible way.

And we're working on other offerings as well.

We're working on other original shows and series.

We have our own production company now, go films.

So go films.

With go films, we can create anything we want, from short form reels and shorts to a full on documentary or an original series, feature film even.

I mean, we have that much production capabilities.

And it's because we've traveled the country and because we're traveling the country, obviously, you link up with videographers, you hire people here and there.

And, and the people that have worked with us, they love working with us, so they come on board and they stay on board with us to continue to create this content.

So we have that capability no matter where we would potentially go in the country.

So the production side of it has been really important.

Other entities and companies, manufacturers in the industry proper have been leveraging our production capabilities and also our production creativity, because the creativity that we deploy or employ in our content is what breaks the barriers down.

It shows that we're not afraid to not be the subject matter expert and yield to a subject matter expert in order to get the right information, to then bring it back to the communities, to the content and spread it all around.

So, so that's, that's what's really been a proponent of our success, is that we're here to, we're here to find all of the great things about the community and showcase it.

Showcase it, showcase it.

Show it to everybody.

Scream it to the rooftops.

This exists.

This person exists.

That that technique is great.

So on and so forth.

There's no limit or no ceiling to the positive things that we don't want to showcase about the community.

We want everybody to see it front and center.

Um, and, yeah, and people should.

People that are not aware of our platform definitely go check us out at GunsouTV on YouTube.

We're at guns out tv on all the platforms, actually, x YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

And we're gonna be coming out with some new original series.

We've been producing long form series as of recently.

We did one.

When we launched our range, we did a two part series on a competition, the inaugural competition at our range.

I did a three part docu series on gun camp out in Chicago, which started with a first of its kind, one on one interview with twisted bonafide celebrity.

And then we went into gun camp and I met all of their members and did a range day.

And the most recent one is the shot show all Access series, which I'm really proud of that series because, you know, this goes to show you how much I'm into these things.

Just like a person that just started is that I didn't even realize that Shasho wasn't open to the public until this year.

That I went.

I thought that's because there's so many people there.

I'm like, that has to be public.

They have to be open to the public with that many people there.

But no, it's industry, it's media, and that's it.

So I saw once I.

Once I came to that realization after year three, I realized, I was like, you know, this is an opportunity to go and capture the element of shot show that people don't really get to see.

And that is the relationships.

That's the people.

That's how good the people are to one another, how good the people are to us.

At guns out, the relationships we built, how inclusive everybody is, and.

And just showcase that human side of it.

We did all of our interviews with the booths and showcasing guns and gear and things like that.

But the three part series really showcased the people of the community, specifically at Shasho.

So.

So, yeah, we're growing our content, offering every single day.

Every day we're thinking about what is another way that we can show the human side of the industry, the human side of the culture, and it's serving us well.

So I'm really happy and sure, Michael is really happy and the brand is growing fantastic.

Make sure guys to like, share and subscribe.

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We will see you in Knoxville.