Shownotes
Tracy Lee, known online as Tracy Guns, joins John and Kaylee on State of the Second to talk about how she found her way into firearms and what the industry still gets wrong about women. Tracy grew up in Texas until she was 8, then in Sacramento with a liberal mother, and moved to Las Vegas to expand a business sending photographers to nightclubs. She traveled the world with the UFC as a cage-side photographer, built a relationship with a Las Vegas gun store, and started bringing UFC fighters there to shoot. She took her first firearms and CCW class in 2015, got hooked on real training, separated her gun content into the Tracy Guns account, and is now coming up on 10 years in the space.
The heart of the episode is Tracy's advice for women getting into the shooting sports. Her two biggest points: don't be intimidated by people who tell you things have to be done a certain way, and don't believe anyone who says your first gun needs to be tiny. At Annie Oakley events and National Women's Range Day she handed women a bigger gun first and then a smaller one, and they consistently shot a Glock 19 or a P320 better than a subcompact like a P365, a 43X, or a Hellcat. A small gun has more recoil and is one of the hardest things a new shooter can start on. Tracy and Kaylee also push the value of women-only range days, finding good mentors, getting real training, and the point that a guy usually can't teach his own wife or girlfriend to shoot.
The second half gets into culture and carry. Tracy talks about firearms censorship on social media, the workarounds gun creators used to dodge the algorithm, and how George Floyd and the climate in 2020 and 2021 shifted public tolerance toward firearms and self-protection. She closes with a CVS confrontation that became a lesson in concealed-carry responsibility: as a CCW holder she has to keep her cool, stay aware, and never escalate, because carrying a firearm raises the stakes on every situation. John reinforces that this mindset is what younger carriers need to learn. Tracy points listeners to Tracy Guns across platforms and to the Clapper app, and the show wraps with a plug for GOALS in Knoxville, August 9th and 10th.
Links
Questions this episode answers
How did Tracy Lee get into firearms and the gun industry?
Tracy Lee grew up in Texas and Sacramento, ran a business sending photographers to nightclubs, and traveled the world with the UFC as a cage-side photographer. She built a relationship with a Las Vegas gun store, took her first firearms and CCW class in 2015, got hooked on real training, and is now coming up on 10 years in the space.
What advice does Tracy Lee have for women starting in the shooting sports?
Tracy says don't be intimidated by people who insist things have to be done a certain way, and don't believe anyone who tells you your first gun needs to be tiny. She also points to women-only range days, finding a good mentor, and getting real training as the fastest way to build real skill.
Why does Tracy Lee say a new shooter's first gun should not be a tiny one?
A small gun has more recoil and is one of the hardest things a new shooter can start on. At women's events Tracy handed shooters a bigger gun first, and they consistently shot a Glock 19 or a P320 better than a subcompact like a P365, a 43X, or a Hellcat.
Why do women-only range days matter, and why can't a guy usually teach his own wife or girlfriend to shoot?
Tracy and co-host Kaylee push women-only range days, such as National Women's Range Day, as a lower-pressure place to learn from good mentors and get real training. Tracy's blunt take is that a man usually can't teach his own wife or girlfriend to shoot, so an outside instructor works better.
How has firearms content been censored on social media, and what changed?
Tracy describes ongoing firearms censorship on social platforms and the workarounds gun creators used to dodge the algorithm. She ties a shift in public tolerance toward firearms and self-protection to the climate of 2020 and 2021.
What role did George Floyd and the events of 2020 and 2021 play in shifting attitudes toward guns?
Tracy says George Floyd and the broader climate of 2020 and 2021 moved public tolerance toward firearms and self-protection, drawing more people, including women, toward owning and carrying.
What responsibility comes with being a concealed carry holder day to day?
Tracy recounts a CVS confrontation as a lesson in concealed-carry responsibility: a CCW holder has to keep their cool, stay aware, and never escalate, because carrying a firearm raises the stakes on every situation. Co-host John reinforces that this mindset is what younger carriers most need to learn.
Where can people follow Tracy Lee and meet her in person?
Tracy points listeners to Tracy Guns across Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok, as well as the Clapper app. The episode also plugs the Gun Owners Action Leadership Summit (GOALS) in Knoxville on August 9th and 10th.
Chapters
- 00:00 — Welcome and meet Tracy Lee
- 00:28 — Rapid fire questions
- 05:07 — Tracy's backstory: nightclubs, UFC, and guns
- 08:34 — American Air Gunner Challenge and competition
- 13:15 — Shooting on public BLM land and cleaning up
- 17:39 — Advice for women getting into shooting
- 19:18 — Why your first gun shouldn't be tiny
- 20:52 — Breaking in as a female influencer
- 27:34 — National Women's Range Day and women-only events
- 35:51 — Soapbox: social media censorship of guns
- 43:00 — Culture, COVID, George Floyd, and the shift
- 46:28 — Vegas, guns, and carry at SHOT Show hotels
- 54:51 — The CVS confrontation and CCW responsibility
- 1:00:48 — Where to find Tracy and GOALS wrap-up
About the guest
Tracy Lee, known online as Tracy Guns, is a firearms content creator and shooter based in Las Vegas, Nevada. She grew up in Texas until she was 8 and then in Sacramento, ran a business sending photographers to nightclubs, and traveled the world with the UFC as a cage-side photographer. She took her first firearms and CCW class in 2015 and is coming up on 10 years actively involved in firearms, shooting, and training. She competes in rifle and AK matches, has run full-auto ranges at women's events including National Women's Range Day, and appeared on the TV show American Air Gunner Challenge. She carries a P365 as her EDC and is active on Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, and the Clapper app.
Key quotes
"Just don't be intimidated by people out there that tell you that things need to be done a certain way." — Tracy Lee
"I also don't believe one of the biggest things that I teach is don't believe someone that tells you that your first gun needs to be tiny." — Tracy Lee
"It's just that they need to learn to shoot and learn what they like before they dive into something smaller." — Tracy Lee
"If you want to be taken seriously in this industry, it's not a matter of, you know, just posing with a gun." — Tracy Lee
"The best way to get into the industry is find a mentor and then, you know, really build those relationships, because the firearm industry is large and tiny all at the same time." — Kaylee
"I tell guys all the time, you can't teach your wife, you can't teach your girlfriend." — Tracy Lee
"I am not going to flare up and get angry like that girl got, you know, and that's because I know I have a firearm on me." — Tracy Lee
Transcripts
Welcome to Gun Owners of America State of the second podcast.
Speaker A:I'm Kayleigh.
Speaker B:And I am John.
Speaker B:And today we're joined with one of my favorite persons in the entire gun industry, Tracy Lee.
Speaker B:Tracy Guns.
Speaker B:She's one of the coolest human beings.
Speaker B:My favorite story about Tracy is she got an entire event to sing Happy Birthday to me.
Speaker B:So, Tracy, thank you for joining us.
Speaker B:Thank you for being on today.
Speaker C:Oh, thanks for having me.
Speaker C:I'm excited to be here.
Speaker C:It's been a while since I did a podcast too.
Speaker C:So let's go.
Speaker C:Let's dive in, do this thing.
Speaker B:So our first segment we have is rapid fire questions.
Speaker B:We were going to ask you five questions.
Speaker B:You answer them as quickly as or as slowly as you'd like.
Speaker B:My first question for you is see what.
Speaker B:Where do you watch your the most content?
Speaker B:Do you watch it YouTube, tick tock or Instagram?
Speaker C:Instagram.
Speaker C:I spend most of my time on Instagram and do the death scroll all the time from the minute I wake up to the moment I go to bed.
Speaker A:How do you take your coffee?
Speaker A:Cream, sugar or black?
Speaker C:I don't drink coffee.
Speaker B:I'm with Tracy on this.
Speaker B:I don't drink coffee either.
Speaker C:No coffee, no energy drinks.
Speaker C:I drink water and I drink milk, maybe juice.
Speaker C:Every once in a while, Tracy's with me.
Speaker B:No energy drinks.
Speaker A:And then she lost you because we just had a whole conversation about the fact you don't drink milk.
Speaker B:I don't drink milk.
Speaker C:I drink raw milk.
Speaker C:I'm on that mission.
Speaker C:Maha is my people.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker B:What is your current go to edc?
Speaker C:P365.
Speaker C:I have the original.
Speaker C:Still not customized, although I do have some, you know, different grips for it, but I usually run it completely stock.
Speaker B:That's dope.
Speaker A:What is your last splurge for yourself?
Speaker C:I mean, how big of a splurge are we talking?
Speaker A:Whatever.
Speaker C:I am addicted to Nellis Auctions and Amazon, so I'm always buying stuff.
Speaker C:So yesterday I ordered a. I know this sounds funny.
Speaker C:A rack to go over my sink for all my dishes to organize, and they dry because I don't use my.
Speaker C:I don't use my dishwasher.
Speaker C:So I don't.
Speaker A:I actually just recently bought one of those.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:Okay, good.
Speaker A:So you feel.
Speaker A:Yes, yes.
Speaker B:Have you seen the ones from Sweden where they cut.
Speaker B:They cut out the entire bottom of the cabinet over the sink and they hang.
Speaker B:Dry them in there and set them in there to hang dry?
Speaker A:No, but that's awesome.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So it's a cabinet.
Speaker B:So instead of having Like a cabinet to put your dishes into.
Speaker B:You just stack them in there, and then you grab them out of there, wash them, and put them back in.
Speaker C:You stack them in there dirty?
Speaker B:Yeah, you stack them.
Speaker B:So you.
Speaker B:You put them in there clean.
Speaker B:You stack them in like a.
Speaker B:A rack like this.
Speaker B:And then they air dry and drip dry into the sink.
Speaker B:And then you just grab them, rewash them, and put them back in.
Speaker B:Swedes are interesting.
Speaker C:Well, that's.
Speaker C:The whole thing is to air dry and drip dry into the sink.
Speaker C:That's why I got the rack.
Speaker C:And, you know, I just have.
Speaker C:I'm so much into cooking food with all natural ingredients, and my kitchen is just getting overflow, overflowing with mason jars and glass cooking dishes and everything.
Speaker C:Getting rid of plastic, and I'm just.
Speaker C:It's not flexible, so it.
Speaker C:It stacks up.
Speaker C:And I have a lot steel.
Speaker C:Steel.
Speaker C:Steel pots and pans, steel cookie sheets, cast iron everything.
Speaker C:If I had land, I would definitely be your doomsday prepper for sure.
Speaker A:Well, I don't know about the dooms prepping part, but I definitely tend to go into the clean eating.
Speaker A:I try not to do the microplastics, like, even down to the baby bottles for my newborn or glass.
Speaker C:Oh, yes, that's awesome.
Speaker A:Like, I'm trying to, like, cut back on the whole microplastics.
Speaker C:Are you using formula nursing?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's definitely the way.
Speaker A:She's a little NICU baby.
Speaker A:She just got out, so she's real sweet.
Speaker A:So I'll send you a picture later.
Speaker C:I want to see pictures.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:So, last question.
Speaker B:Since you are in the state of Nevada, are aliens real?
Speaker C:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker C:Have I seen them?
Speaker C:No, haven't seen them.
Speaker C:But we would be absolute fools to think that we are the only ones in this vast universe.
Speaker B:So, yes, I am 100% with that.
Speaker B:So that was rapid fire.
Speaker B:Questions again.
Speaker B:Just kept doing the ad reads here.
Speaker B:But, Tracy, now let's kind of talk about.
Speaker B:Because you have kind of an interesting backstory on how you got into the industry and everything.
Speaker B:Can you dive into that and kind of tell people who you are a little bit more about yourself and your backstory?
Speaker C:Oh, well, I grew up in Sacramento, so I had a very liberal mother.
Speaker C:You know, I'm very mixed.
Speaker C:I am Korean, Hungarian, and Russian.
Speaker C:I was born in the Cayman Islands.
Speaker C:I was born out of the country, so I've just got all this hodgepodge of craziness in.
Speaker C:In my life of where I came from and so on and so forth.
Speaker C:Grew up in Texas until I was 8, and then we moved to Sacramento.
Speaker C:I decided to move to Vegas to expand a business, and that business was sending photographers to nightclubs.
Speaker C:And I started that in Sacramento.
Speaker C:I expanded it out to Las Vegas.
Speaker C:I was spending eight nights a week in nightclubs.
Speaker C:So my thought process was I definitely need to get a firearm to protect myself.
Speaker C:I'm in, you know, parking lots at 3 o' clock in the morning, and so on and so forth.
Speaker C:But that actually took a while until I got to that point.
Speaker C:I started traveling around the world with the UFC as a cage side photographer, and that was a blast.
Speaker C:But the reason I started shooting was I built a relationship up with the gun store here in Las Vegas, and I would take the UFC fighters there, and it became a thing that every time there was a fight in town, we would do autograph signings with different UFC fighters.
Speaker C:We would take them there, they would shoot, they would post on their social media.
Speaker C:But at the time, it was only Twitter.
Speaker C:It wasn't even Instagram.
Speaker C: It was: Speaker C:And I think Instagram really started.
Speaker C: ure it probably started as of: Speaker C:It wasn't available on iPhone for the long.
Speaker C:I'm sorry, on Android for the longest time.
Speaker C: am really started going until: Speaker C:And so every.
Speaker C:Everybody was on Twitter and Facebook, so everybody was posting.
Speaker C:I got all the UFC fighters posting and they were going to shoot guns.
Speaker C:And it became a really cool thing at that point in time.
Speaker C:And I say a really cool thing, like it wasn't as taboo for those fighters to be shooting.
Speaker C:Then a few years later, it just got really, really bad for shooters to be posting about.
Speaker C:I mean, I'm sorry, fighters to be posting about guns and stuff.
Speaker C:And I remember Misha Tate, who is a very good friend of mine, she was really into shooting guns, and it just blew up on her social media very negatively, so she had to stop.
Speaker C: Anyways, fast forward: Speaker C:I had built up quite a following on Instagram and on Facebook and Twitter as well.
Speaker C:And I got invited to my first firearms class.
Speaker C:And this was also a CCW class, so it was kind of a cross between gun 101 and CCW.
Speaker C:So I took that class and I was addicted, like actual training.
Speaker C:So I started taking more and more classes, which I got invited out to post on my social media.
Speaker C:And I was posting so much gun content and again, freaking people out on my main social media accounts.
Speaker C:So I Separated and created Tracy Guns.
Speaker C:And here we are 10 years later.
Speaker C: That was: Speaker C:So we're just coming up on 10 years of actively being involved in firearms, shooting, training, and, you know, whatever else.
Speaker C:So it's been.
Speaker C:It's been a very awesome, fun, bittersweet, all different kinds of things journey.
Speaker C:And I'm just happy to be here now.
Speaker B:On top of that, you've done.
Speaker B:You were working with some crypto stuff for a little bit, if I remember correctly.
Speaker B:And then also you got to be on a TV show recently.
Speaker C:Yeah, recently I was on American Air Gunner Challenge, which was.
Speaker C:I was having some health issues at the time, and so I was really tempted to back out of going on the show, and I. I didn't, thankfully, because it's definitely one of the cooler experiences I had.
Speaker C:You know, you always hear horror stories about going on reality shows, and this one was awesome.
Speaker C:We had so much fun.
Speaker C:We were constantly playing pranks on each other.
Speaker C:We were filming crazy stuff like every night after, you know, the cameras were off, we were running around the hotel and just having a blast.
Speaker C:So it was.
Speaker C:It was a very cool experience.
Speaker C:And I have great friends as a result of that.
Speaker C:There was eight of us on there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I've got.
Speaker B:I got to see clips of it, and you look like you were having just a blast the entire time, and that looked like a fun thing.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:You know, and I was worried about going on a reality show because, you know, the big, big, huge network shows like Big Brother and, you know, Real World and all that stuff, they would decide, okay, this is our villain, this is our whoever.
Speaker C:And they would edit to make you look like whatever they wanted you to look like.
Speaker C:And I was really worried about that.
Speaker C:But this show, they didn't want us to look bad.
Speaker C:They just wanted us to have fun and compete.
Speaker C:Well, yeah.
Speaker B:And on top of that, I've seen you at a number.
Speaker B:I mean, we've met before that, but we met again at Red October.
Speaker B:And you're.
Speaker B:You shoot semi competitively, you know.
Speaker B:How did you get into that aspect of this, too?
Speaker C:Well, we have a ton of matches here in Vegas.
Speaker C:There's a lot of options.
Speaker C:So I used to.
Speaker C:I used to compete uspsa, which I don't anymore, but I would.
Speaker C:You know, it's just I. I'm not anti competing.
Speaker C:I'm not.
Speaker C:I just am not, like, insanely passionate about it.
Speaker C:So I just go have fun and shoot if I feel like it.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And I just did a competition.
Speaker C:Was it last weekend?
Speaker C:Week and a half ago.
Speaker C:Yeah, last Saturday out at Boulder City Pistol rifle.
Speaker C:They do a monthly rifle match.
Speaker C:So I did that one and I do a monthly AK match called Wolverine Wednesday.
Speaker C:Or during the winter it's called Soviet Sunday because they do it during the day, but Wolverine Wednesday is at night because of the heat here.
Speaker C:And this year is going to be hot.
Speaker B:Which years?
Speaker B:Because we did.
Speaker B:I think our top was 123this year in Phoenix.
Speaker C:I think ours was about 122.
Speaker B:It's hot.
Speaker A:We choose Stand Tennessee.
Speaker A:Thanks guys.
Speaker B:We, we choose to live in the desert.
Speaker C:So yes, yes, I love, I love the heat way more than I like the cold.
Speaker C:So it's been cold up until this point with a, a few times where it got hot early on.
Speaker C:But it's March and we're going to hit 86, 87 this week.
Speaker C:End of the week, I think we.
Speaker B:Just hit 92 the other day.
Speaker C:Really?
Speaker B:I'm loving it already.
Speaker B:Yeah, already I'm loving the heat.
Speaker B:It's so much nicer than having to dig out a pile of snow.
Speaker C:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker C:But I mean 86 in March is.
Speaker C:Or 92, I should say for you guys in March is.
Speaker C:It's early.
Speaker B:It's early.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's early.
Speaker B:It's really early.
Speaker B:Which makes me worried about the summer because we broke the record for Phoenix last year of most days over 110.
Speaker B:I think we went 100 days straight above 110.
Speaker C:I, I don't remember what ours was, but ours was somewhere around there because you guys are usually 5 degrees hotter than us.
Speaker C:Typically, I mean like consistently 5 degrees hotter than us.
Speaker C:So yeah, I feel sorry for you guys.
Speaker C:It might hit 125 this year.
Speaker B:I hope it doesn't work.
Speaker A:So you guys kind of have an advantage to a lot of people, especially those of us on the east coast when it comes to your availability to shoot different places on public lands on just the wide variety of training facilities that you guys have with especially long range that I am kind of jealous of as someone who is on the east coast.
Speaker A:So kind of walk us through what a, an average week looks like for you as far or a month that looks like for you as far as like the opportunities for you to go to competitions and connect with people in the two way space.
Speaker C:Well, there's competitions literally almost every weekend out here.
Speaker C:We've got as far as outdoor ranges.
Speaker C:We have Boulder City Pistol rifle, We have Pro gun.
Speaker C:Pro gun holds USPSA matches every weekend pretty much.
Speaker C:They also do shoot sporting clays and so on.
Speaker C:There's Clark county shooting complex.
Speaker C:So I would say those are probably three of the bigger ones.
Speaker C:I don't know if Desert Sportsman does competitions, but they recently since COVID started opening up their memberships a little bit wider and I went to Desert Sportsman for the first time in a few years la two weeks ago and they have done a lot of work on the range there.
Speaker C:So I'm not.
Speaker C:I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing matches out there.
Speaker C:There's just a lot of people who like to shoot, so there's a lot of people that go out shooting with.
Speaker C:I've got places that I like to go shooting.
Speaker C:If I just want to go to the desert and set up something short, like short range.
Speaker C:And if I want to go long range, we have another area that we can get out almost to a mile if we wanted to.
Speaker C:And then there's the dry lake bed that you can get to three or four miles if you are capable.
Speaker C:You know, I mean, I've definitely shot a mile out there.
Speaker C:I know my friends set up to two miles out there, but if you want to shoot straight across the entire entire lake bed, you can get three or four miles out there.
Speaker C:So we have.
Speaker C:We do have a lot of options.
Speaker C:We're very lucky.
Speaker C:It's all BLM land.
Speaker C:So we just grab targets and we can go set them up out there.
Speaker C:I have some places that I refuse to go because there's just jackasses out there that I don't feel safe around.
Speaker C:But, you know, there's a good chance that you're going to go out there and run into people, you know, which, you know, the shooting community is not insanely big out here.
Speaker C:It is busy.
Speaker C:But I mean, everybody kind of knows who everybody is a little bit.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I love how you brought up BLM land because as in Arizona, we have a ton of BLM land that we can go out and shoot.
Speaker B:And I guess I'm going to make this public service announcement because this makes me angry every time.
Speaker B:If you're using BLM land, don't trash it because that's how we lose.
Speaker C:Up after yourself.
Speaker B:Yeah, we went.
Speaker B:Kurt and I went out two weeks ago and we had to move spots four times because it was just so trashed.
Speaker B:And there's computers and I shot up iPads and just clean up after self.
Speaker B:Like it's not that hard.
Speaker C:I mean, on one hand, and I'm not.
Speaker C:I'm not condoning.
Speaker C:I agree 100% with you, but there are at least people that go out and pick up all the brass and pick up all, you know, certain things.
Speaker C:And then every year, because the Mint 400 does their race out here where everybody shoots, they do a cleanup day a couple days before the race, so it cleans up the area out there.
Speaker C:But I've gone and done that cleanup before, and it's a disaster.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, we have a.
Speaker B:We have a group of people that come and pick up the brass.
Speaker B:So normally I do leave my brass behind because they'll drive by and go, hey, can I take your brass?
Speaker B:And, yeah, go for it.
Speaker B:But there's.
Speaker B:They don't pick up the shotgun shells.
Speaker B:There's, you know, road signs and stuff.
Speaker B:Just clean up after yourself.
Speaker B:It's not cool, because if we could lose, we've already lost.
Speaker B:Kurt and I had this spot over down south of Phoenix that was super nice.
Speaker B:We really loved it, and we lost it because of that.
Speaker C:What do you mean?
Speaker B:They took it away?
Speaker B:They took away our ability to shoot on it.
Speaker B:They turned it into trust land.
Speaker C:Oh, okay.
Speaker C:Unfortunate.
Speaker C:Yeah, there's actually.
Speaker C:There's a lot of places out more towards Creature Force Base and Indian Springs.
Speaker C:I heard recently that they're not allowing people to shoot out there, and I'm not sure if that's the right reason, But I never had gone out to where this specific spot is, But I've driven past it and seen it out there.
Speaker C:But, yeah, it's a mess in the desert, unfortunately.
Speaker B:Unfortunately.
Speaker B:Tracy, what.
Speaker B:What advice can you give to women trying to get into the shooting sports?
Speaker C:Oh, wow.
Speaker C:I can say don't be scared and don't be intimidated by guys and men that.
Speaker C:I'm sorry.
Speaker C:Guys and men, but you know what I mean?
Speaker C:Don't be.
Speaker C:Just don't be intimidated by people out there that tell you that things need to be done a certain way.
Speaker C:Definitely do your research.
Speaker C:There's a lot of women available on Instagram now, on YouTube that have a lot of good information, whether you're.
Speaker C:You've shot before or you're starting brand new.
Speaker C:I don't necessarily have a ton of brand new, you know, shooter stuff out there, but the big thing is being knowledgeable and being safe.
Speaker C:Getting out there and learning what safety means, Learning the four rules of firearm safety, but diving in deeper, not just learning to recite them, but what do they actually mean?
Speaker C:Like, fingers straightened off the trigger, paying attention to your target and what's beyond it.
Speaker C:Like, your target might be 10ft from you, but what's beyond it is like a mile behind it.
Speaker C:You know, you.
Speaker C:You Never know what's going to happen.
Speaker C:And so being safe, that's very vital and important.
Speaker C:And if you're a safe shooter, you will get invited out to go shoot with other people.
Speaker C:You know, if they think that you're not safe, obviously you're going to have limited resources in learning more and getting out there and, you know, enjoying the sport now.
Speaker C:I also don't believe one of the biggest things that I teach is don't believe someone that tells you that your first gun needs to be tiny.
Speaker C:I get it.
Speaker C:I get that you want to have a tiny concealable gun, but if you've never shot before and you don't know what kind of gun you're gonna like, a small gun is going to be one of the hardest things that you have to that you try to shoot.
Speaker C:It has a lot more recoil than a bigger gun will.
Speaker C:And I see that mistake happening a lot to the point where the girl doesn't like the gun because she can't hold onto it and therefore doesn't carry it and doesn't use it.
Speaker C:So when I've done, I've roed for Annie Oakley events where New Frontier Armory has brought out a ton of guns for the women to shoot.
Speaker C:And every single woman that I've worked with, I'm all like, okay, here is a bigger gun.
Speaker C:Now try this smaller gun.
Speaker C:And every time they like a Glock 19 or a P320 over, you know, a smaller gun like my P365, a.43X or a Hellcat, not because those are bad guns, because they're not, they're great guns.
Speaker C:It's just that they need to learn to shoot and learn what they like before they dive into something smaller.
Speaker C:And they just need to be more proficient at it.
Speaker C:So once, once they get used to shooting a bigger gun in my eyes, they can then evolve into a smaller gun.
Speaker C:But then they also have a lot more experience at that point.
Speaker B:Yeah, and I've got a follow up question on that.
Speaker B:You look at the firearms industry, it's a very male dominated industry.
Speaker B:What was it like get breaking in as a female influencer also?
Speaker B:And, and what advice can you give to either female influencers or females trying to get into the industry?
Speaker B:And I know Kaylee's here to add in on that as well.
Speaker C:You know, when I started a lot of stuff on Instagram wasn't really videos, not that it wasn't videos, but it was a lot more photos.
Speaker C:So I do photos posing with a gun and I definitely got a lot of flack for that.
Speaker C:I wasn't posing with bikinis and guns.
Speaker C:You know, I was just out there shooting.
Speaker C:So I take a picture with whatever gun we were shooting.
Speaker C:So I definitely ran into a lot of people calling me gun bunny.
Speaker C:But I think that they.
Speaker C:They just looked at the pictures of me posing with guns and.
Speaker C:And forgot to look at all the training that I was doing.
Speaker C:If you want to be taken seriously in this industry, it's not a matter of, you know, just posing with a gun.
Speaker C:It's a matter of learning about the guns, learning how to clean the guns, learning how to manipulate the guns, learning how to be safe.
Speaker C:I can't stress that enough.
Speaker C:But also getting out there and doing training courses, I mean, this is not just important for getting into the industry.
Speaker C:This is important for your family, your friends, you know, just the people around you, for being a safe shooter, for understanding how to use your gun.
Speaker C:Because at the end of the day, yes, we get into the shooting sports because we want to have fun and we want to enjoy it, but we also get into the shooting sports because we want to be safe and create a safe environment for our families and friends.
Speaker C:So that would probably be one of my bigger suggestions, is get training.
Speaker B:Kelly, do you got anything to add to that?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:I mean, I think she's right on.
Speaker A:On the money when it comes to the perception of what you're doing.
Speaker A:And I would almost take it a step further and say, find good mentors.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Especially as a female in the industry, because there at one point were so few of us.
Speaker A:Although that is drastically changing.
Speaker A:You know, find somebody that is close.
Speaker A:Close to you, maybe geographically, or is in the same kind of space that you want to be in and have a conversation.
Speaker A:I mean, we don't.
Speaker A:Generally, we're not a difficult group of people to find online.
Speaker A:We've kind of made it our mission to be pretty vocal about the fact that we believe in the second Amendment.
Speaker A:We enjoy the shooting sports.
Speaker A:This isn't some fad.
Speaker A:This is our constitutionally protected rights, and we enjoy them.
Speaker A:And, you know, everyone has their own lane.
Speaker A:You know, some people like doing trick shots, and that's amazing.
Speaker A:And if that's what you want to do, then go find those people.
Speaker A:If.
Speaker A:If you want to be, you know, a competition shooter, go find those people.
Speaker A:If you.
Speaker A:You know, there.
Speaker A:There's so many different avenues, and it.
Speaker A:This isn't just a female thing, but a.
Speaker A:A everybody thing.
Speaker A:The best way to get into the industry is find a mentor and then, you know, really build those relationships, because the firearm industry is large and tiny all at the same time.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And So I agree 100% with you and I say, like, there are so many different types of shooting.
Speaker C:You, you have to decide what kind of shooting you're into.
Speaker C:Like me, I like all kinds of shooting.
Speaker C:I like competition, I like long range.
Speaker C:I like, you know, combative, you know, training with my pistol.
Speaker C:I like all of it, so I do all of it.
Speaker C:I actually, I can't say I do all of it.
Speaker C:I've never done that, shooting balloons from a horse.
Speaker C:And I really would like to do that.
Speaker C:I don't know what it's even called.
Speaker B:Me in on it.
Speaker B:It's, it's part of cowboy action.
Speaker B:They do it up at Ben Avery during their cowboy action shoots.
Speaker B:And that's part of the, the cowboy action thing that gets a special class of cowboy action shooting.
Speaker C:Oh, that looks so cool.
Speaker C:There's also snowboarding and shooting.
Speaker C:I've only seen one video of it that it ever existed that I saw, but I thought that'd be cool to do if there was a range.
Speaker C:I've also seen zipline shooting and I think could be wrong that they might be setting one up out.
Speaker C:Out in Perump.
Speaker C:But I'm not 100, so don't quote me on that.
Speaker C:And I have not done what other countries.
Speaker C:Oh, I haven't even done sporting clays.
Speaker C:And I have the option at pro gun to go do sporting clays, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to do that soon.
Speaker B:If I could recommend anything.
Speaker B:Sporting clays is.
Speaker B:I didn't think I was gonna like sporting clays.
Speaker B:I shot sporting clays for the first time like three, four years ago and I love it.
Speaker B:It's just, it's addicting for some reason.
Speaker C:Just like long or miniature golf or whatever.
Speaker B:Yeah, like the long range shooting I thought was the most addicting shooting I could do because that gets really addicting really quick.
Speaker B:But sporting clay somehow got addicting really quick.
Speaker A:Yeah, I just think it's.
Speaker A:And what you think you're going to, like, might not be the thing you fall in love with, like you said.
Speaker A:And so, you know, it's, it's letting yourself attend different classes, go to different trainers.
Speaker A:If you don't like a trainer, you didn't, you know, get along or, or just thought something was a little off or maybe they look really awesome on their social media and then you're, you take their class and you're like, wow, you know, I thought you were going to be teaching me and it's somebody else.
Speaker A:Like go get training from qualified individuals and.
Speaker A:But try and go to different classes.
Speaker A:And you know, sometimes even taking the same class twice with two different instructors will teach you different things just because of their teaching style.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:There's not, I mean, like, think about the car industry.
Speaker C:There's not only one type of.
Speaker C:It's not just cars.
Speaker C:Like, people are into, you know, old classics, they're into Mopars, they're into imports.
Speaker C:You know, it just like, just like there's such a variety and it's so diverse.
Speaker C:It's diverse in the firearms industry as well.
Speaker C:So you can kind of find something for everyone and there's its own subculture in each one.
Speaker B:Now, I normally take every opportunity I can to come and hang out with you, but I missed this year's event, which was Women National Women's Range Day, which I heard was so much fun.
Speaker C:It was fun.
Speaker B:Can you tell me, can you explain your experience as somebody who's been to both of those events and what's it like to have all those new women come in and check out and teach them?
Speaker B:I believe if I remember correctly, you were on the machine gun range too.
Speaker B:I was running the show with Rachel.
Speaker C:Yeah, I was on the full auto range, which was a lot of fun.
Speaker C:I was running the full auto AKs and then Rachel was running the full auto sub guns, you know, like the 9 mils and stuff.
Speaker C:And I'm really into AKs, so I thought I would probably be better suited for that and she would be better suited for the 9 mil.
Speaker C:We had a blast.
Speaker C:But I will tell you, I woke up the next day and I was sore.
Speaker C:I was.
Speaker C:I didn't realize that, you know, roing an 8K or 3 AKs for six hours would affect me that much.
Speaker C:But it did.
Speaker C:It caught up with me the next day.
Speaker C:But it was a blast.
Speaker C:And a lot of those women had not only never shot a full auto, they had never shot a gun.
Speaker C:So to come out there that day and run around this place, playground that, you know, staccato Vegas is, and to, you know, get to shoot all different kinds of guns and see all different kinds of products, they loved it.
Speaker C:Now, I will say that they were two absolutely different kinds of events.
Speaker C:And even though it was for National Women's Range day and it was range day and they were shooting the way that they were set up at an indoor range versus being at an outdoor range, it was a lot more spread out.
Speaker C:There was probably a lot more time to actually speak to each of the Vendors or each of the, you know, different bays that different guns were on at.
Speaker C:This one, the one at Texas Gun Experience last year, was a lot.
Speaker C:Would I call it more intimate, I guess a lot more tight and closed in.
Speaker C:So everybody was around each other most of the day.
Speaker C:I made an effort at the first one to walk around and talk to as many of the women as I could.
Speaker C:This time I was at a range and they had to come talk to me.
Speaker C:Really didn't have any time to socialize with the women.
Speaker C:So I think that I would like that a little bit, you know, have maybe make it two days so I have more time to talk to the women or set up a mixer for the women.
Speaker C:Because we had.
Speaker C:We had the.
Speaker C:We had the gala the night before, and that was awesome because I got to do some line dancing and country swing dancing at the gala, which was.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's my thing now.
Speaker C:But we didn't have a chance to talk to women who just attended the range day.
Speaker C:And I really enjoyed that to see what their journey was and what.
Speaker C:Where they came from.
Speaker C:And there's very good possibility that some of the other women there that were, you know, on my side of things, working with the women had more time to do that.
Speaker C:But on the range, on the full auto range, we were going nonstop for that six hours.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:And it's always exciting, especially when you get to take someone to the range for the first time.
Speaker A:And one of the things that I really love about Empowered 2A and the work that we do with the Women's Coalition is the fact that so many women are brave enough to go to a shooting event, often by themselves, for the first time, to experience it.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker C:But I think that's why, because they know there's only going to be women there they don't have.
Speaker C:And I tell guys all the time, you can't teach your wife, you can't teach your girlfriend.
Speaker C:They're not going to listen to you.
Speaker C:You need to.
Speaker C:And a lot of guys realize that.
Speaker C:I get hit up by my guy friends all the time.
Speaker C:What should I do?
Speaker C:I tried to take her to the range.
Speaker C:It's not working.
Speaker C:And I said, you can't.
Speaker C:It's not.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:They're embarrassed or they're intimidated or whatever, and they don't want to do it in front of you at the end of the day.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:They need to get away.
Speaker C:And even if they do train with a male versus a female, as long as it's not their significant other, like, for Some reason that just gives women anxiety and they need to get away from that.
Speaker C:So being able to come to the gun range and doing it by themselves, really empowering.
Speaker C:And I had one of the DJs at the country bar that I go to, his wife told him, I guess saw me there and was like, just super excited.
Speaker C:And she came home from the event and she had nothing but great things to say and she wanted to go shoot more.
Speaker C:And it really empowers women.
Speaker C:I mean, I know that's the name of that, of, you know, the organization, but it really does empower women to want to get more involved in this.
Speaker C:And actually, last night was it last night, night before last.
Speaker C:So Saturday night, I was at the country bar as well.
Speaker C:This guy comes up to me and he goes, were you at the range day?
Speaker C:And I go, yeah.
Speaker C:He said, I saw you on my wife's video.
Speaker C:Her first time shooting.
Speaker C:She came home from that and now she's all about it.
Speaker C:She's super excited.
Speaker C:So having the option to have that range day, and I know that Empower 2A also does range days that aren't national level, they're more localized, I think is huge.
Speaker C:It is great for the women.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We're super excited to bring national women's range today back out to Vegas for next year.
Speaker C:We're doing it here again.
Speaker B:We're doing it here again.
Speaker B:Party.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Hopefully this time I can come out and hang out with you.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:I didn't get a chance.
Speaker B:I was kind of sad.
Speaker B:But you have to hang out with Alex, who showed up.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker C:Yeah, we did a dinner that.
Speaker C:The night before Thursday night.
Speaker C:I think that was fun.
Speaker C:I hung out with both Alex's.
Speaker B:Yeah, both Alex's were there.
Speaker B:You were also at Goals this year or last year, which was really cool to have you out there.
Speaker B:How.
Speaker B:What was your.
Speaker B:Your feeling about Goals and are you excited for this year?
Speaker C:Super excited for this year.
Speaker C:I can't wait.
Speaker C:I think that Goals has already outgrown Knoxville, and so I'm curious to see where it is the following year.
Speaker C:I'm definitely looking forward to going this year, but it was a really good vibe, and I can see that it's going to get big and grow the positivity and everybody had great energy and was excited to be there from the companies.
Speaker C:And I know probably a lot more companies after hearing about it, have signed on to be there this year and probably even ahead of time for next year, but it was awesome.
Speaker C:And I. I know that there's a lot of the vendors that probably didn't like having that extra day on the front to go let all of the media and content creators through.
Speaker C:But for me, that was super valuable to be able to have quiet downtime, to be able to talk to those vendors.
Speaker C:I really made every effort to go talk to as many of them as I could.
Speaker C:And even though I had that day to do it, I still didn't make it through all of them.
Speaker C:So the next day I had to go back.
Speaker C:And I think that second and third day is definitely for them to talk to customers and stuff, not talk to me.
Speaker C:So that's why I made every effort to try and do it on that first day.
Speaker C:So I don't know if you guys are planning that for this year, but I do have appreciation for that.
Speaker B:Well, that is happening again this year.
Speaker B:We've gotten a lot of people who are excited about that, so super pumped.
Speaker B:This is brought to you by Patriot Mobile.
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Speaker B:Well, we are at about the halfway point.
Speaker B:So we are going into our next segment which is from the Soapbox.
Speaker B:That's Kaylee's favorite segment where she gets to be spicy.
Speaker B:But this is where we get spicy.
Speaker B:We pick a topic.
Speaker B:You, you pick the topic that you think is the spiciest.
Speaker B:What needs to come out and be said for the, for the 2A community.
Speaker B:So Tracy, do you have a topic for the from the Soapbox for us today?
Speaker C:Oh, I'm on the spot.
Speaker C:Well, I could talk about a couple different things, but I think that one of the biggest topics right now is what's going on on social media.
Speaker C:Mark Zuckerberg came out a few months back and he said, you know, through the election, through the previous administration, that he was pigeonholed and cornered into giving up a lot of access to the government and doing a lot of things that would be considered questionable like censoring election information, censoring Covid information, censoring to a.
Speaker C:And I am hoping, hoping, hoping that's changing.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:I still haven't changed my content back into all 100% firearm stuff.
Speaker C:So I put dancing, I put videos of me country swing dancing and I put videos, I put a really political video on Tariffs up recently.
Speaker C:And that's actually blowing up on my social media right now because so many people are fighting on it.
Speaker C:I tend to not be that content creator that purposely is causing antagonistic things to happen or being antagonistic.
Speaker C:That's just not me.
Speaker C:And of course, because that's not me, it's not gonna, I'm not gonna probably do as well on my social media as a result.
Speaker C:But you know, I did put that up because of everything that's going on with, you know, Trump coming into office right now.
Speaker C:So there's so much, so much violence going on, which is crazy because if you, if you look at it from our side of things, when, when conservatives, you know, lose an election and have to, or do anything, when conservatives do anything, we, we handle things in a way calmer manner.
Speaker C:Right now people are, you know, mad at Elon Musk.
Speaker C:So they're blowing up Tesla dealerships and they're attacking people that own Teslas and putting out websites that, that docs Tesla users.
Speaker C:That's not what we do.
Speaker C:And I mean everybody wants to say that, that the Democrats are this accepting, you know, party and they're not.
Speaker C:So, you know, going back, I know I'm digressing and stuff, but going back onto social media is like I am trying to just put good content out there, entertaining content, informational content, and it's not usually stuff that is antagonistic, but that seems to do the best.
Speaker C:And unfortunately Facebook and Instagram and TikTok, they allow that.
Speaker C:And TikTok is so anti gun.
Speaker C:It's so frustrating to me because I would put up videos of competition shooting or shooting on a safe range and, and trying to educate and yeah, they wouldn't allow it.
Speaker C:It got taken down.
Speaker C:So I have, I have a, an account over there that grew up to 30,000 followers in almost no time.
Speaker C:And then I haven't touched it in, I don't know, four years.
Speaker C:I, I mean every once in a while like I do have other TikTok accounts too, but yeah, social media is a, I think hot topic and it's very frustrating that 2am politics get censored so much.
Speaker C:So I'm also on another platform called Clapper that is very conservative friendly so you might check it out.
Speaker C:I have about 30, 35,000 followers on now.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's very interesting to me.
Speaker A:Kind of the post election state that we're in where you've got all of these different social media platforms and, and basically everybody that I talk to kind of feels the same way where for so long.
Speaker A:It's like we had to play.
Speaker A:Play their game and, you know, censor, kind of self censor or use things to, you know, make sure that it didn't explicitly say gun or whatever in it.
Speaker A:And the problem with that is politics is downstream of culture.
Speaker C:Sorry.
Speaker A:No, you're good.
Speaker A:I want him on camera.
Speaker A:Like, introduce.
Speaker B:The Instagram famous dog Tracy likes to.
Speaker B:And Tracy, these are some of my favorite videos of yours where you're rollerblading with the dog.
Speaker B:And it's some of my favorite because you look so happy and the dog looks so happy.
Speaker B:It just makes me happy.
Speaker A:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker B:He's adorable.
Speaker C:Look at that.
Speaker A:That's the best podcast kit.
Speaker C:Like, look at it.
Speaker A:He needs to be the mascot.
Speaker C:So she's not allowed on couches usually.
Speaker C:So she's not.
Speaker C:Not doing it.
Speaker C:Nope.
Speaker C:I'm not getting in trouble.
Speaker A:That is a one well trained dog.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker C:Here she goes.
Speaker A:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker C:Come here.
Speaker C:She.
Speaker C:She doesn't even know what to do.
Speaker C:Hey, face this way.
Speaker A:Look at that.
Speaker A:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker C:Say hi to everybody.
Speaker C:Oh, hi.
Speaker A:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker A:How old?
Speaker C:She's six.
Speaker C:She's been to shot show four times.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker B:That's one of my favorite things when Tracy's walking around with her at shot show, I get to pet the dog and say hi to Tracy.
Speaker B:And then, like I said, the vibes when Tracy's rollerblading with the dog.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Some of my favorite content.
Speaker B:You do.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:We roller skated yesterday, actually, and we don't usually roller skate anymore because I'm on 75 hard for the second time in a row.
Speaker C:And when, especially now that it's getting hot, she can't do 45 straight minutes of roller skating.
Speaker C:So I walk typically quickly.
Speaker C:Okay, get down off.
Speaker C:There we go.
Speaker A:Beautiful.
Speaker A:I love puppies.
Speaker C:Anyways, we digress.
Speaker B:We went from being spicy to happy.
Speaker B:That's what dogs do to us.
Speaker A:Wait a second.
Speaker A:See just those little ears pop up on the screen.
Speaker A:I was like, introduce.
Speaker A:Introduce us to the bestest.
Speaker A:The bestest girl.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker A:So sorry.
Speaker A:I get lost starting, I guess, diving back in.
Speaker A:You know, for so long, we.
Speaker A:We kind of as.
Speaker A:As people in the gun space, you know, the emoji changes for a firearm.
Speaker A:You know, we have to say, you know, pew.
Speaker A:Or don't spell out the word gun.
Speaker A:And like, people were, you know, sharing their.
Speaker A:Their tricks on how to be able to post content and.
Speaker A:And not offend the algorithm.
Speaker A:And the problem with that is so oftentimes you know that the statement rings true.
Speaker A:And that's why it's been said over and over again that culture is downstream of politics.
Speaker A:And you know, I think that's why.
Speaker A:So the silent majority that people kept talking and talking and talking about has finally kind of raised their voice.
Speaker A:And it, and it showed in the election and it showed in other ways in our society.
Speaker A:And then now that social media companies are coming out and they're like, well, we're going to be a little bit nicer.
Speaker A:We're going to, you know, we're going to let you post this content.
Speaker A:And it's because we were letting the anti gunners, we were letting the people who weren't following the Constitution, who don't believe that we have a second amendment right, who believe that our rights are government granted instead of constitutionally protected.
Speaker A:We let them in the driver's seat and we didn't say anything.
Speaker A:And we weren't trying to change the culture in many ways.
Speaker A:And so it's really interesting now that there's like this cultural shift towards really starting during COVID where people were worried about protecting themselves, where content about the firearms and looking for educational content started increasing in a way that we hadn't seen before.
Speaker A:And it's made people take notice.
Speaker C:I would agree with you 100%.
Speaker C:And I also agree that that single thing potentially moved a lot of people that were probably fringe, you know, moderates, and moved them more towards the middle or towards the right.
Speaker C:Like, I really think that it made people do a little more research and take a little bit more notice and it really changed a lot of people.
Speaker C:I was really, really hoping that Nevada, let's just say Nevada was red, but Vegas was blue.
Speaker C:And Vegas still is blue, unfortunately.
Speaker C:I was really hoping that it would switch Nevada red.
Speaker C:And I'm pretty moderate for the most part.
Speaker C:I'm, you know, very much in the middle.
Speaker C:But as as many of us heard and people have said, anyone that was moderate before this last six, eight years or whatever is now seems very conservative or very right leaning.
Speaker C:And so where I would have said I was in the middle, I'm definitely more over on the right at this point.
Speaker C:And you know, I spent this particular election as much as possible getting people like, hey, you got to vote, you got to get out there and vote.
Speaker C:So I do feel that that movement, that change, that change within myself had a lot to do with everything that happened in Covid.
Speaker B:Speaking of Nevada, Nevada seems to be very pro gun on most stuff, but Vegas itself seems to be kind of anti Gun.
Speaker B:Can you touch on that?
Speaker B:Like where, where?
Speaker B:Because I know like when we go to shot show it's very like, oh, we want you here.
Speaker B:But if you get caught with anything in your hotel room, they kick you out.
Speaker C:Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker C:Yeah, I really didn't know that because I thought.
Speaker C:I thought it in.
Speaker C:Meaning in your hotel room.
Speaker C:That's kind of your place.
Speaker B:Yeah, they kicked out.
Speaker B:So couple year last.
Speaker B:Not this Joshua, but the year before we were staying at a. I'm not going to mention the name of the hotel.
Speaker B:We were staying at a hotel and what the kicks.
Speaker B:Jeremy brought in a pelican case for his camera equipment and they searched it because they thought there was a gun in it and they started searching people's camera equipment in Pelican.
Speaker B:Any pelican case that came in and then a couple people got kicked out from another company because they had a firearm in their room.
Speaker C:I had no idea because, I mean you got to think that.
Speaker C: , you know,: Speaker C:But I didn't know that they were stopping people from bringing firearms to their rooms.
Speaker C:Like.
Speaker B:Yeah, it.
Speaker B:They make you.
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean I guess.
Speaker C:I guess there's signs at the front that say no weapons allowed.
Speaker C:So yeah, I guess they make you keep it in your car or something which is insane.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They take the security takes them and puts them in the.
Speaker C:The safe which is at the Venetian during shot show.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's.
Speaker B:It's the weirdest thing.
Speaker B:Like they will take your.
Speaker B:If you come in with a firearm, they'll.
Speaker B:They'll take it and put in the.
Speaker B:The security takes it.
Speaker C:So I would have to say that I am maybe a little ignorant when it comes to that part of things.
Speaker C:As far as, you know, Vegas doesn't seem that anti gun to me.
Speaker C:Like it doesn't surprise me when someone's open carrying here.
Speaker C:But I'm, you know, I'm very familiar with it.
Speaker C:It doesn't bother me.
Speaker C:So I don't notice it.
Speaker C:It could be, but I haven't noticed anything being very anti gun here in Vegas, even though Vegas itself is pretty blue.
Speaker B:Because I see and I guess my assumption when you, when you talk about Vegas, Vegas is a large city, the assumption is always like the strip.
Speaker B:And I think that's just such a small part of the whole of Vegas and that normally seems to be where the issues are.
Speaker C:So I would, I will say this.
Speaker C:When I started shooting the Reason I separated and made its own account because I was posting things and people were getting a little bit upset and bothered by all the firearms stuff on my main account.
Speaker C:And then ever since COVID the tolerance for firearms from people around me has definitely shifted.
Speaker C:So I'm able to post and I'm able to talk about guns.
Speaker C:Like I don't hide from, you know, your average person anymore that I'm into firearms and stuff.
Speaker C:I don't, I don't feel that I need to anymore.
Speaker C:And at one point I felt that I just kind of kept it on the low, not hit it, but I just kept it kind of quiet.
Speaker C:I didn't make a big deal about it.
Speaker C:And it's not like I make a big deal now, but you know, it's just that I feel like that people were a lot more scared than they are now and a lot people are a lot more open to it here and just.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think that that's true about most of the US And I think a lot of that has come with the, the grassroots groundswell and it is a groundswell for constitutional carry and the groundswell of people that want to protect themselves and see that it is up to them for their own protection and being your own first responder.
Speaker A:And the mindset has shifted in a very positive way.
Speaker A:And I think the more that we're able to capitalize on that, the more that we're able to educate people on that, the more that we're able to debunk the myths that the anti gunners use towards us, the more people who have maybe never been around guns or really aren't persuaded one way or the other can find that on ramp that we're building for them and we can welcome them into the second Amendment community.
Speaker C:You know, we keep using Covid, we keep saying Covid, but I don't mean Covid.
Speaker C:It was George Floyd.
Speaker C:It was the whole George Floyd conflict that, that really pushed and, and changed the, the entire firearm space.
Speaker C: I think in: Speaker C:I mean, we keep calling it Covid and I mean we're lumping it together, but at the end of the day it was the, all the conflicts as a result of.
Speaker C:Joyfully.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think, I think it was the perfect storm of fear.
Speaker B:The fear, the being locked home, the, the worry that the police aren't going to respond.
Speaker B:The, the fear of riots and, and attacks and, and seeing how the police weren't doing anything during that.
Speaker B:I think that really triggered this primeval, you know, feeling in people that I need to take My self defense in my own hand.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:And they realized.
Speaker C:And I actually had a friend who prior to that, oh, we, we had gotten into some online arguments a couple years prior to that.
Speaker C:And then she didn't ever apologize, but she came back around and she saw.
Speaker C:Now I understand.
Speaker C:Now I know what you're talking about.
Speaker C:Now I know why.
Speaker C:And she, she went from being very left leaning and she is now not left leaning at all and very vocal about it too.
Speaker C:So it's been really cool to see some of the changes throughout.
Speaker C:And a lot of people run from one side to the other.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I've seen also you mentioned how, you know, you would hide.
Speaker B:Not hide, but pull away from.
Speaker B:You've got two different accounts.
Speaker B:And I feel like as somebody who owns firearms who travels a ton normally when I travel, I gray man it out.
Speaker B:So it's a buggy hoodie because Everybody loves Buc EE's and like I'll wear my seamum g hat or a different hat that's got a different logo on it just so I don't get bothered on the airplane.
Speaker B:And lately I've been switching up to this nice Victos hoodie with the GLA logo on it.
Speaker B:But people have now been, now that, you know, it went from being very like, hey, I want to separate the two because, you know, I don't want to be bothered on the airplane.
Speaker B:I gotta sit with these people for four or five hours now.
Speaker B:It's like I've had conversations.
Speaker B:The, the woman next to me.
Speaker B:About two weeks ago, we started striking a conversation.
Speaker B:She seemed like this very liberal woman.
Speaker B:And then she looked at me and said something and I was like, oh, wait a second, you are on my side.
Speaker B:You are so pro gun.
Speaker B:And she started talking to me about it.
Speaker B:And on the the end of the flight we got struck up a conversation.
Speaker B:It was just cool to see, like it seems that it's more people are more open minded now to that stuff.
Speaker B:And it's not like hate, it's more just general conversation.
Speaker C:I agree.
Speaker C:And I mean, I'll tell you a funny.
Speaker C:A couple funny stories, I mean, or a couple things.
Speaker C:When I see anyone wearing a Make America Great again, a compliment, nice hat or anything, Maha, you know, I'll be like, nice hat.
Speaker C:And they look at me and they're trying to decide if I'm making fun of them.
Speaker C:And I'm like, okay, don't assume because I have blue hair, that means that I'm a certain way, you know.
Speaker C:And I do have a funny story to share.
Speaker C:With you guys about blue hair.
Speaker C:I got into an altercation at a CVS last week and it was very interesting because the person that worked there couldn't ring me up.
Speaker C:She couldn't figure it out.
Speaker C:And she was getting super upset because I said, no, I'm not paying that because that's not ring up correctly.
Speaker C:And I'm not going to go into the whole details about why it wasn't ring up correctly.
Speaker C:But she started trying to like, oh, look at you with your blue hair and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker C:Meanwhile, she's there wearing a mask.
Speaker C:Last week.
Speaker C:This is last week.
Speaker C:This is not like three years ago.
Speaker C:This is last week.
Speaker C:She's there wearing a mask but making fun of me as if she's calling me.
Speaker C:She didn't say it, but blue hair liberal.
Speaker C:Blue hair, liberal.
Speaker C:Like, she's making fun of me because I have blue hair and I have blue eyelashes.
Speaker C:And yeah, she ends up calling the cops.
Speaker C:I'm calling the cops.
Speaker C:Calls the cops.
Speaker C:She also threatens me to get.
Speaker C:We need to go outside and have a conversation.
Speaker C:This is the employee.
Speaker C:And so that's when I hit record.
Speaker C:As soon as she's all like, let's go outside.
Speaker C:And I go, what did you say?
Speaker C:Put up my phone, recorded her saying, I'll clock out right now and we can go outside and discuss this.
Speaker C:And, you know, later on, I ended up talking to the manager.
Speaker C:The girl had left and, you know, left her keys.
Speaker C:Her dad came there.
Speaker C:I don't know why her dad needed to be there, but her dad came there and apparently she has anger issues and all this stuff.
Speaker C:But what's really funny to me is like people popping off and not realizing, like, she wants to go outside with me.
Speaker C:I would never.
Speaker C:As a.
Speaker C:And I talked to the manager.
Speaker C:I was all.
Speaker C:As a concealed carry holder, I have to be extremely conscious.
Speaker C:Conscious of situations I get into like that.
Speaker C:Because, you know, I am not going to flare up and get angry like that girl got, you know, and that's because I know I have a firearm on me.
Speaker C:So I'm not.
Speaker C:I mean, there's so many reasons from, just from a moral compass, from a legality standpoint, I'm not going to get into a fight with someone, you know, and.
Speaker C:And knowingly walk outside with someone knowing that I have a firearm on me, you know, And I think that's.
Speaker C:That's the education that we part that we need to get out there is that.
Speaker C:That people understand, you know, when you're, when you're carrying a firearm, it takes it to A whole new level.
Speaker C:But I thought it was really funny.
Speaker C:I ended up talking to the manager for quite some time about it.
Speaker C:After that, the manager wasn't there.
Speaker C:The cops did show up that day.
Speaker C:One of the employees all, well, the cops are coming.
Speaker C:And I go, yeah, I'm not staying around.
Speaker C:I didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker C:So I ended up leaving, calling the.
Speaker C:The manager wasn't in store at that point in time.
Speaker C:So I called the next store over and gave them my contact info and they had already sent their manager over there to deal with it.
Speaker C:But I guess the girl had ended up turning in her keys and leaving.
Speaker C:So I don't know if she was there when the cops showed up, but I mean, essentially she's on the phone with 911.
Speaker C:Yes, this blue haired girl is causing all this stuff.
Speaker C:She's been asked to leave, which I was never asked to leave.
Speaker C:She, I asked her to leave.
Speaker C:She's causing a disturbance.
Speaker C:She says she's threatening to call corporate cvs.
Speaker C:Like that was her reason for needing the cops there in the store was that I was threatening to call corporate on her because of this situation.
Speaker C:So it was, it was funny and I can't believe it happened.
Speaker C:But I kept my coal.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm going to add one more thing and then we got to wrap up.
Speaker B:Tracy, you brought up a great point being a concealed carry holder.
Speaker B:And I know I was this way originally when I first started carrying.
Speaker B:I think it comes with age and education, is that you're.
Speaker B:You get your concealed carry permit and you're all gun ho.
Speaker B:You're like, I'm going to, I'm going to save the city.
Speaker B:But you have to know and be situational aware as you learn the laws and as people talk to you and you learn these things, you know, like, okay, well, as a concealed carry holder, I need to keep my calm, I need to keep my cool.
Speaker B:I need to be this.
Speaker B:It's not.
Speaker B:You can't just whip it out whenever you want.
Speaker B:There are consequences to your actions.
Speaker B:And I think that's something that really needs to be nailed into to younger generations as we start getting them into the concealed carry and bringing them into the fold.
Speaker B:This education, this, hey, you're taking this responsibility to keep and bear arms and this responsibility to be a concealed carry holder and protect.
Speaker B:But there's a time and a place for everything.
Speaker B:So that's my two cents.
Speaker C:I mean, and as a concealed carry holder, you know, keeping that level head and, and keeping your awareness and, and so on and so forth.
Speaker C:I mean I, I, I said to the manager and here's the funny thing, I explained the blue hair and I explained the guns.
Speaker C:She was a pink haired manager.
Speaker C:I didn't see her in person.
Speaker C:She's all, yeah, she said that to you?
Speaker C:I can't believe that I have pink hair.
Speaker C:And I was all, oh.
Speaker C:And I said, yeah, as a concealed carry holder, you know, I have to keep my cool and blah blah.
Speaker C:And I'm not telling you that to make that like any threats.
Speaker C:That that wasn't the intention.
Speaker C:I'm just saying that I have to keep my cool.
Speaker C:And she goes, I'm a concealed carry holder as well.
Speaker C:I was all right.
Speaker C:My colored haired 2A advocates and that's awesome.
Speaker C:I did a video earlier in November, I think that said blue haired non liberals for Trump.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker B:Well, we've come to the end.
Speaker B:Let's go ahead and wrap this up.
Speaker B:Kelly, go.
Speaker B:Go for it.
Speaker C:I went by where can every.
Speaker A:So it's been wonderful having you on.
Speaker A:Where can everyone find you?
Speaker A:Give us your socials, all of that fun stuff.
Speaker C:The best way to find me is at Tracy Guns.
Speaker C:If you want less gun content, which most of you probably won't.
Speaker C:You can also fight me at Ms. Tracy Lee.
Speaker C:I'm on Twitter, Facebook.
Speaker C:Well, X, it's easier to call it Twitter, but I'm on X Facebook, Instagram.
Speaker C:I am on TikTok.
Speaker C:I barely use it and I'm on a app called Clapper.
Speaker C:So if you download Clapper, you know where to find me.
Speaker C:It's Tracy Guns.
Speaker B:And thanks for, thank you for being on.
Speaker B:We appreciate it.
Speaker B:Before we leave, we do have a sponsor for gifts for our guests this year.
Speaker B:Palmetto State Armory and AACMO has sponsored our gifts for guests.
Speaker B:So Tracy, you will be receiving something from AAC or Palmetto State Armory as a gift for for being on the show again.
Speaker B:Thank you AAC and Palmetto for sponsoring that this year.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:I, I will never turn down an Elmo.
Speaker B:So guys, make sure to like share and subscribe.
Speaker B:Hit the little bell for notifications.
Speaker B:We will be in Knoxville August 9th and 10th for goals.
Speaker B:Meet Tracy at goals.
Speaker B:She will be there.
Speaker B:You can take photos and say hi.
Speaker B:Be polite, please.
Speaker C:Everybody.
Speaker C:Everybody is usually very polite and it's nice.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:But yes.
Speaker B:Join us in Knoxville, Tennessee again August 9th and 10th.
Speaker B:For goals go to gunners.orggoals to get your tickets day free to every GOA member and we will see you guys on the next episode.
