Shownotes
State of the Second hosts Kaylee and John sit down with Eddie from Elite Tactical Systems (ETS) for an episode that runs from magazine engineering into the maze of laws gun owners face when they travel across state lines. Eddie has worked in the firearms industry for about 20 years, including stints at Remington, AOB, Timney, and Crimson Trace, and he explains why he left big companies for a small one. His line is that "big ships turn slow" while small companies stay agile, which is why ETS can develop a brand new magazine for a gun like the Echelon in the same time a large company spends just getting the paperwork done.
Most of the show dismantles magazine myths and explains why the magazine is so often an afterthought in gun design. Eddie says the old advice to never leave mags loaded no longer holds for magazines made in roughly the last decade, because wear comes from cycling, not from sitting loaded. He walks through ETS testing, including laser scanners that measure every critical dimension so a bad batch can be tracked, quarantined, and kept off the market. He says there are probably about eight true magazine engineers in America, calls tuning a magazine a "dark art," and points to the industry trend toward standardizing on AR, Glock, and CZ pattern mags. Kaylee and Eddie also push first-time owners to get training and go shoot, since both hosts note how overwhelming and expensive the first purchase can be.
The Soapbox segment turns to the episode's title question: why traveling armed in America is so complicated. Eddie describes routing a trip through Memphis to add an hour to his drive just so he could legally carry his gun and the rounds he wanted to use. John recounts driving a U-Haul full of guns through Illinois and being "butt puckered" the whole way, then learning later that some restrictions only applied to residents. Kaylee argues the pro-gun side keeps losing "the battle of language" by adopting terms like "high capacity magazine" and "red flag law," which she calls a gun confiscation order. They cover the push for national reciprocity, the absurdity of state rosters that reject a gun over a screw type or the color of a chamber flag, and the way restrictive places like D.C. normalize what they call tyranny. The episode closes with ETS contact info and a plug for GOALS in Knoxville, Tennessee on August 9th and 10th.
Links
Questions this episode answers
Why did Eddie leave large firearms companies like Remington and Crimson Trace to work at a small company like ETS?
Eddie's view is that big ships turn slow, so the large companies he came from move at a crawl. A small company like Elite Tactical Systems stays agile and can develop a brand new magazine for a gun like the Echelon in the time a large company spends just on paperwork.
Do you really need to avoid leaving your magazines loaded, and how often should you change them out?
Eddie says the old advice to never leave magazines loaded no longer holds for mags made in roughly the last decade. Spring wear comes from cycling the magazine, not from sitting loaded, so leaving a modern mag loaded is fine.
Why is the magazine so often treated as an afterthought when a new gun is designed?
Tuning a magazine is what Eddie calls a dark art, and he estimates there are only about eight true magazine engineers in America. Many designers build the gun first and treat the mag as an afterthought, though the better approach is to build the gun around a mag that already works.
How does ETS test its magazines for quality?
ETS uses laser scanners that measure every critical dimension of a magazine. That lets the company track a bad batch, quarantine it, and keep it off the market.
What makes traveling across state lines with a firearm so complicated, and what hoops did Eddie and John have to jump through?
Patchwork state laws force gun owners into detours and uncertainty. Eddie routed a trip through Memphis to add an hour to his drive just to legally carry the gun and rounds he wanted, and John drove a U-Haul of guns through Illinois on edge the whole way before learning some restrictions only applied to residents.
What is national reciprocity and how would it change things for gun owners?
National reciprocity is the push to have a carry permit recognized across state lines, the way a driver's license is. Eddie argues it is disingenuous to hold a Second Amendment right and then have to figure out which inalienable rights you can exercise in each state you travel through.
How far do state rosters like California's go in rejecting firearms over small differences?
Eddie and the hosts call the rosters absurd, with states rejecting a gun over something as minor as a screw type or the color of a chamber flag. The episode frames this color-compliance gatekeeping as a way restrictive places normalize what they describe as tyranny.
Why does Kaylee say gun owners keep losing the language fight?
Kaylee argues the pro-gun side loses the battle of language by adopting the other side's terms, such as high capacity magazine and red flag law. She points out that a red flag law is really a gun confiscation order, and that caving to that wording cedes ground.
Chapters
- 00:00 — Welcome and rapid fire questions
- 05:23 — Ammo Squared sponsor break
- 06:15 — What ETS is and why Eddie joined
- 07:52 — How ETS got into translucent magazines
- 09:43 — Speed loaders, the number one seller
- 12:13 — The Omega hybrid mag and testing process
- 15:20 — Magazine myths: loaded mags and wear
- 19:00 — Why the magazine is the afterthought
- 24:49 — How many mags should a gun come with
- 26:00 — First time gun owners and training
- 36:20 — Soapbox: magazine bans and the language fight
- 41:38 — Traveling armed across state lines
- 50:21 — National reciprocity and Freedom Week
- 52:36 — State rosters and color compliance absurdity
- 1:00:18 — Wrap up, ETS links, and GOALS
About the guest
Eddie works at Elite Tactical Systems (ETS), where he has been for three years. He has worked in the firearms industry for about 20 years and previously worked at Remington, AOB, Timney, and Crimson Trace, where he was a product manager. He learned to shoot from his mother, who he says owns more than 300 guns. ETS is known for translucent polymer magazines, speed loaders, and the Omega hybrid metal-and-polymer magazine.
Key quotes
"The big saying that we had at the big companies was big ships turn slow." — Eddie
"It's a dark art tuning a magazine and getting a magazine to work properly." — Eddie
"People found that if you make a mag that works, build the gun around the mag." — Eddie
"A red flag law is a gun confiscation order, but we let them rebrand and repackage everything and then we cave and we use their language." — Kaylee
"I think it's incredibly disingenuous for us to have the Second Amendment and then have to figure out which of our inalienable rights we're allowed to execute in any state we travel through." — Eddie
Transcripts
Welcome to Gun Owners of America State of the second podcast.
Speaker A:I'm Kaylee.
Speaker B:And I'm John.
Speaker B:And today we're joined by Eddie from ets.
Speaker B:Eddie, how are you, my friend?
Speaker C:Doing awesome.
Speaker B:We are having way too much fun.
Speaker B:We've had some Oreos that were way too delicious.
Speaker B:So let's go ahead and get into the first segment, which is rapid fire questions.
Speaker B:We're going to ask you five questions.
Speaker B:You can answer them as quickly or slowly as you want.
Speaker B:We already know what is off the table.
Speaker B:So what is your favorite gun to shoot?
Speaker C:Honestly, this is probably going to be surprising to you guys.
Speaker C:I've got a pretty vast collection.
Speaker C:I've worked in the industry for about 20 years and I've hoarded and collected.
Speaker C:My Mom's got over 300 guns.
Speaker C:I've got less than her, but I've got a bunch.
Speaker C:So we're gun people.
Speaker C:My favorite gun to shoot is actually a sig Sauer P6.
Speaker C:I just, I've had it forever.
Speaker C:It was one of the first guns I bought at a, like used at a gun shop.
Speaker C:It was like a police trade in from West Germany or something like that when there was two Germanys.
Speaker C:And I can absolutely write my name with it.
Speaker C:Single stack, it's impossible to take the mag out.
Speaker C:You have to use the bottom mag release and yank the mag out.
Speaker C:Got a 17 pound trigger and it's what I learned on.
Speaker C:So I love it.
Speaker C:It's one of the.
Speaker C:If I'm grabbing a go bag to go shoot at the range, I grab it.
Speaker B:My first gun was the.
Speaker B:That I shot.
Speaker B:That was a handgun, was a variation of that, which was the 225.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I love that gun.
Speaker B:It's one of my favorite guns to.
Speaker C:Shoot, I think because of it being single stack.
Speaker C:And I'm a mag guy, obviously working with ets, but I think the fact that it's single stack makes it fit my hand better.
Speaker C:I don't have overly large hands.
Speaker C:And so that single stack Sig with the metal and the nice weight, it's a pleasure to shoot.
Speaker C:And I've always been able to kind of.
Speaker C:My joke was always I could write my name with it because I was just very accurate with it from the beginning.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:So what is the content creator you find yourself watching the most?
Speaker C:That's a good question.
Speaker C:I grew up when it started, when this whole Internet craze happened.
Speaker C:I was the nut and fancy guy and a Hickok.45 guy back in the day because that was, that was what there was.
Speaker C:And those guys were getting millions of hits.
Speaker C:You know, lately I've been watching a lot of stuff, but I watch a lot of the NRA stuff too.
Speaker C:Colin Noir makes a lot of great stuff and I like to watch his stuff.
Speaker C:So I'd probably say to him right now because I think he's doing it the right way, he's approaching it the right way.
Speaker C:He's very approachable to other people.
Speaker C:And I'm always trying to get new people into the shooting world.
Speaker C:And I think he's a real good way of doing that because he makes it seem very approachable.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like a scary thing of owning a gun for the first time.
Speaker C:He can.
Speaker C:He can walk you through it in a way that I don't think a lot of people do.
Speaker B:Trying to think which one I want to do.
Speaker B:Are you binge watching anything right now?
Speaker C:I'm rewatching Dexter.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:The sequel came out that.
Speaker C:Where he's younger.
Speaker C:So me and the wife, we watched that.
Speaker C:One of our first things we watched, we were dating, which is a terrible thing to watch when you're just dating someone is a serial killer show, but you learn a lot about someone.
Speaker C:But we watched Dexter together as like our.
Speaker C:One of our first things we binge watched together.
Speaker C:And so now there's a new one coming out, I guess next year.
Speaker C:But we watched all the sequels of that.
Speaker C:And so we're re watching that now because you can only watch Breaking Bad seven times.
Speaker C:And so I've hit the seven.
Speaker C:Only seven until they raise it to eight.
Speaker C:Then I'll.
Speaker C:Then I'll watch it an eighth time.
Speaker A:Oh, that was.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:My question, how do you take your coffee?
Speaker C:You know, cortado.
Speaker C:I like milk and double espresso.
Speaker C:So double espresso equal parts cold milk.
Speaker C:I don't like the steamed milk or hot milk.
Speaker C:No fuss, no sugar.
Speaker C:Trying to lose a little weight so I don't be.
Speaker C:So I can still fit into my.
Speaker C:My logo where so cut down on the sugar.
Speaker B:Last question we've got for you.
Speaker B:If you can make one movie with gunfighting in it more realistic, which one would it be?
Speaker C:John Wick.
Speaker C:I really felt like they left a lot on the table there.
Speaker C:No, I'm joking.
Speaker C:That was really amazing, to be honest with you.
Speaker C:I would probably say some of my favorite movies, like Lethal Weapon, stuff like that, I think that they could have done.
Speaker C:There were some things in that that were terrible, like errors.
Speaker C:If you're a gun guy, you're watching stuff, you're like, oh, don't do that or that gunshot nine times.
Speaker C:It's a six shot revolver.
Speaker C:I didn't see him reload.
Speaker C:You know, those kind of things.
Speaker C:Some of that stuff I think I would redo.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm with you on that.
Speaker B:The one that got me recently, I was watching.
Speaker B:I don't see, I don't even remember the name of it, but it was a World War II movie.
Speaker B:And they had the modern Army Academy West Point logo on their uniforms with this, the black knight with the sword.
Speaker B:And they were using German guns.
Speaker B:And I just shut it right off.
Speaker C:You know, a long time ago, me and one of my best friends who I'll leave nameless because he's still in this industry, we got in this huge argument.
Speaker C:We saw the movie Eraser because we had never seen it.
Speaker C:It's a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger and he gives someone a certain gun and he hands it to this lady who's in protection and she fires that gun what must be 36 times.
Speaker C:And it's a Derringer.22 revolver.
Speaker C:The black Widow, the folding where it folds into the grip.
Speaker C:And he doesn't give her any ammo yet the entire movie.
Speaker C:She's able to lay down an absolute suppressive fire with this single single action.
Speaker C:I might add.22 revolver.
Speaker C:Like just.
Speaker C:I love the, the Hollywood magic there.
Speaker C:Self loading gun.
Speaker B:So magic.
Speaker B:I wish I need like six of those.
Speaker C:That would be great marketing if that, if that gun had infinite ammo.
Speaker B:Kaylee, like most Americans, you have a savings account, right?
Speaker A:I do.
Speaker B:Do you have an ammo savings account?
Speaker A:I also do.
Speaker B:And is that through Ammo Squared?
Speaker A:It is, and I've had it for over two years.
Speaker B:Ammo Squared is the only website where you can purchase ammo a little bit at a time and then get it shipped directly to your door.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:I have a little bit of money that goes in every month and then I can divide what percentage of that money is used for what calibers of ammo and then all of a sudden hit a thousand rounds and it gets shipped to my door.
Speaker B:Well, what if I don't want one of the 70 calibers they have available?
Speaker A:You get to pick and choose and you can even adjust the mounts so that you can hit your target goals faster.
Speaker B:Well, what if I don't want that ammo anymore?
Speaker B:Can I switch it?
Speaker B:Can I get my money back?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:It's really easy.
Speaker A:And I always like to see the graph fill up at the end of every month.
Speaker B:So where do I go to get such an awesome service?
Speaker A:Go to ammo squared.com get it.
Speaker B:Now start your ammo savings account@ Ammo squared.com.
Speaker B:What got you at ETS?
Speaker B:Tell us what ETS is.
Speaker B:What do you guys do, all that fun stuff.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:So like I said, I'd been in the industry for a while, 21st year, so my career can drink now.
Speaker C:But I'd worked at a lot of different big giant companies like Remington.
Speaker C:Can I mention brands?
Speaker C:I worked at Remington.
Speaker C:I worked at aob, Timney, Crimson Trace as they were merging together with aob.
Speaker C:And I've always known the large company, the big.
Speaker C:We have a huge support structure and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker C:And I never really worked at a very small company.
Speaker C:And so ETS from a manpower and resources, really small company.
Speaker C:And it was a challenge that I had always kind of wanted to see.
Speaker C:Do you want to take a little bit more control?
Speaker C:The big saying that we had at the big companies was big ships turn slow, meaning if you have a good idea or you need to develop something or the market's telling you to do something, it takes a while to do that.
Speaker C:And the neat thing about small ships or small companies is that they can be very agile.
Speaker C:And so I was excited when I heard about stuff that they were doing that they were working on.
Speaker C:I met with the owners and they said I was talking about new product development.
Speaker C:For one example, I was a product manager and.
Speaker C:And if I had an idea for a new product, we had to write a proposal and had it vetted by six people and go through an improvement process.
Speaker C:And then the engineers would look at it and they would review it for process capability.
Speaker C:And then they would determine whether or not we wanted to make it or not, then do a survey and an AB study.
Speaker C:And we're talking at this point, we're six, eight weeks in the road for wanting to change the camo pattern on an 870 shotgun.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:At ETS, we could say we want to make a brand new magazine for a new gun that comes out like a echelon or something like that.
Speaker C:And we can come out with that mag and the same time it takes us just to get the paperwork done at a big company.
Speaker C:So that was exciting.
Speaker C:They're very innovative.
Speaker C:They're like I said again, agile, innovative.
Speaker C:They're always trying to make the best.
Speaker C:They're constantly reinventing products.
Speaker C:We have Gen 1, twos, threes of a lot of our products because of that, because they're always trying to continually improve.
Speaker C:And I love that about the culture of that company.
Speaker C:So ETS has been a great Company.
Speaker C:I've been here three years now and wouldn't change anything.
Speaker B:So what made ETS go into the magazine game instead of anything else in the industry?
Speaker C:The two owners, the two founders, I should say, they love the idea of trying to make something better.
Speaker C:And this is an interesting story.
Speaker C:So they wanted to be in the industry.
Speaker C:They knew they wanted to do something in the gun world.
Speaker C:And Eddie's a, not me.
Speaker C:Eddie, two EDS are better than one.
Speaker C:That's the old joke, we're a two headed dragon.
Speaker C:But Eddie said, I want to make the best magazine.
Speaker C:I think I can do something there.
Speaker C:I don't like this about a magazine.
Speaker C:I don't like that about this magazine.
Speaker C:So he wanted to make something better.
Speaker C:And so when he started developing the magazines, this is an interesting thing.
Speaker C:So we're famous for making translucent magazines.
Speaker C:There's a lot of advantages to being able to see your round count, the type of ammo you're using for training.
Speaker C:Let's say you want to say, oh, is that my hollow points or is that half full?
Speaker C:Or is it full?
Speaker C:Is this ball ammo?
Speaker C:Is this simunition?
Speaker C:That's one of the great advantages of the clear.
Speaker C:But when they were developing it, he wasn't looking for clear.
Speaker C:They didn't even know they wanted to make a translucent mag.
Speaker C:It was the strongest polymer commercially available at the time.
Speaker C:And so he, you know, explored making mags out of it.
Speaker C:And it was just a byproduct.
Speaker C:And it was funny that the byproduct is what you know, the engineering of the geometry of the mag and the thickness and the wall density and the round count and you know, the ability, like people don't realize, but all of our mags have a Glock baseplate.
Speaker C:So like, even if it's a Sigmag or an M and P mag, you can use Glock accessories in the bottom like base plates, poles, that kind of stuff, weights plus twos.
Speaker C:So he developed a mag and he was like, it's clear when people are going to like that.
Speaker C:And then they realized all the ancillary benefits of doing that and it kind of exploded.
Speaker C:But it's funny too that you say that because, or ask that because our number one selling product isn't a magazine.
Speaker C:And that surprises everyone when I tell them that ETS number one selling product is not a magazine, it's our speed loaders.
Speaker C:So we make the world's fastest Speed loaders are the ones that you've seen the videos, I'm sure, whether you can strip the rounds right out of the box, push the plunger in and load your mags ten rounds at a time.
Speaker C:And I would say two to one.
Speaker C:They outsell our best selling magazine and we sell lots of magazines.
Speaker C:But that is a super convenient little range tool.
Speaker C:So if you don't have one, I brought one to give you guys.
Speaker C:I always, I hand them out like a tooth fairy.
Speaker B:Now the, the mag loaders is something I use.
Speaker B:I love the mag loaders and I've heard the stories of, of the translucent polymer being stronger because once you add dyes and stuff to it, it starts losing its rigidity, modifiers and things like that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So how did the, what was the first mag you made?
Speaker B:Was it Glock or did it go into ar?
Speaker C:So the first mag they made was ar and they very quickly after that made Glock magazines, something we're really good at.
Speaker C:So as we talk about later, you know, these new Omega mags, the reason we launched the Glock mag first, not just because it's one of the most prolific platforms, but it was something we really knew a lot about.
Speaker C:We knew the geometries of it.
Speaker C:We knew, you know, through trial and error of being of a mag company.
Speaker C:We had 10 years of kind of legacy or tribal knowledge, if you will, on making a Glock mag.
Speaker C:So we launched it with that.
Speaker C:We've come up with other ones since then, but, you know, now we make mags for pretty much in the clear polymer.
Speaker C:We make mag for every gun you can make a polymer mag out of.
Speaker C:And that's an interesting point too because you can't make every mag out of polymer.
Speaker C:We've talked about this before, but like the thinness, the wall thinness and a lot of magazines prevent it from being, you know, conducive working with polymer.
Speaker C:That's why we came out with metal feed lipped mags.
Speaker C:Wasn't so much for the feed lips.
Speaker C:It was because the thicknesses that you deal with and the flex like, you know, people talk about drop free.
Speaker C:Pistol mags notoriously don't drop free.
Speaker C:Even the steel magazines swell when they're fully loaded.
Speaker C:There's a ton of forces you wouldn't realize pushing out of the mag, which makes it swell.
Speaker C:And in the polymer, obviously it's exacerbated because it's more flexible in metal.
Speaker C:So we did that for a lot of those reasons.
Speaker C:The drop free, the geometry, the metal feed lips, which wear a lot better than the polymer feed lips wear.
Speaker C:But yeah, we now make, you know, MP5 Mags, Scorpion Mags, Smith Wesson, MMP HK MP5, HK VP9, 320 Mags.
Speaker C:We make Mags for most of the most popular guns.
Speaker C:There are all the glock, every glock family.
Speaker C:Mag, 10 millimeter, 40, 45, 9.
Speaker B:Speaking of which, you have one of these awesome things, the omega mag.
Speaker B:What got you guys into binding the polymer and the metal together so you know, this.
Speaker C:It's not like it's never been done before, having a hybrid technology.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like, there's other camp companies like Lancer has been famous for doing the metal kind of a chassis that snaps onto their magazine, and it makes it stronger by doing so and gives it the wear resistance of metal.
Speaker C:But what got us doing it was, number one, we felt like we were just about at the limit of what we can make mags for purely out of polymer because of those things.
Speaker C:We talked about the swelling, this and that.
Speaker C:The other thing is the rigidity, durability of steel.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:We had to do it.
Speaker C:But we also are an injection molder.
Speaker C:That's what we know.
Speaker C:We know injection molding.
Speaker C:So we didn't design a magazine to where you snap apart on or that it could be ever separated.
Speaker C:We designed it knowing that we wanted it to be homogenized from the beginning.
Speaker C:So, like through holes, like.
Speaker C:So a lot of the patents and stuff are on how we designed it, how we manufacture it.
Speaker C:But basically, when they're.
Speaker C:Once you mold the metal and polymer together, they're one piece.
Speaker C:And so we like that about it.
Speaker C:It makes it stronger, it's more unitized.
Speaker B:Being a magazine company, how do you go about making sure that you put out the best product?
Speaker B:Because you're basically the ammo's the fuel.
Speaker B:You're.
Speaker B:You're the fuel cell.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker B:So how do you go about testing?
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:You come up with a new product, you got to make sure it works right.
Speaker B:You make sure you got all the geometries right.
Speaker B:What does that testing process look like from start to finish?
Speaker C:You know, that's an incredibly good question.
Speaker C:So with polymer products, tolerances come up, Right.
Speaker C:Things cool.
Speaker C:A lot of our mags, we have to heat up to 700 degrees when we're molding them.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So when you do that, there's a cooling process.
Speaker C:Well, it's just like you bake that cookie and you watch it rise up and then you.
Speaker C:I like food and like cookies.
Speaker C:We ate a lot of Post Malone's cookies earlier.
Speaker C:But it's like a cookie in that it rises and then it shrinks.
Speaker C:They have different shrink rates, and you can control that by the cooling you use the method you use, the fixturing you use and things like that.
Speaker C:But we have very high standards for testing throughout the day.
Speaker C:So first of all, like, we test the first mag we make against the prints.
Speaker C:We have extremely high tech.
Speaker C:I can't give away some of the secret sauce, but basically, it scans the magazines, and we're constantly pulling samples, measuring at the bench, measuring during assembly, measuring at where it's manufactured out of the press.
Speaker C:We measure multiple times throughout the day against the prints.
Speaker C:And we have SOPs in place that are just like the best manufacturers in the world of, you know, any component, but far more than most magazine companies use.
Speaker C:So we do have.
Speaker C:It looks like a disco room.
Speaker C:They joke there's a rave party going on, but there's all this.
Speaker C:There's this laser scanner that's shooting all these laser beams.
Speaker C:And like, if you watch in the factory, like, there's this crazy thing going on.
Speaker C:You think there's a party in a.
Speaker C:In a dark room.
Speaker C:That's our laser scanning every critical dimension and then logging it.
Speaker C:So let's say we see, you know, that there's the last mag of the day is not good.
Speaker C:We can tell about what time something happened or something different or contaminants, like you said, colorants.
Speaker C:But like, let's say dirt or debris or regrind or something got into the magazines that we didn't want, and they started making it weaker or dimensionally different.
Speaker C:We can track exactly when it happened, quarantine it, stop it from happening, and go back and make sure that none of those hit the market.
Speaker A:Well, that level of precision is as amazing.
Speaker B:We talk about magazines.
Speaker B:You know, what, what do you.
Speaker B:What do you recommend to change out magazines?
Speaker B:How long?
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:Let's go into some of the mess.
Speaker B:So let' I want to go into that because this is fun and we haven't done it yet.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker B:Myth number one, don't leave your magazines loaded.
Speaker B:Myth number two, how often should you change your magazines out?
Speaker B:And then myth number three, or do you consider the magazine a wearable throwaway item to be swapped in and out?
Speaker C:So incredibly good questions and incredibly good that you called them myths.
Speaker C:Yes, because those things were true for a long time.
Speaker C:The springs that they use the steel, they use the type of metal.
Speaker C:And there's a million different kinds of wire.
Speaker C:It's wire at the end of the day that they use to make springs.
Speaker C:And some of them take a set differently than other ones.
Speaker C:And there's good springs and bad springs.
Speaker C:I will say this.
Speaker C:You know, I'm here to promote ets, obviously, but the industry at large has embraced the better metals and the better wires and the better springs.
Speaker C:So a lot of those myths about don't leave your mags loaded.
Speaker C:If you've got a magazine made, let's say, in the last 10 years or so, that's no longer the case.
Speaker C:And many of them can take thousands and thousands of cycles.
Speaker C:We call that a cycle of being loaded and unloaded.
Speaker C:That's where you wear out a spring is cycling.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:It's not so much keeping it loaded.
Speaker C:And so even brand new magazines, it used to be a thing where it was very difficult to load a new magazine.
Speaker C:We've all experienced that, like that last round.
Speaker C:It's just to get that last one in because that spring hasn't relaxed yet.
Speaker C:It hasn't taken a set yet.
Speaker C:Well, a lot of that doesn't happen.
Speaker C:There used to be whole fixtures in factories to set magazines into set springs to get them a little relaxed before you put them in.
Speaker C:The other thing too, is just manufacturing has come such a far away somewhere.
Speaker C:It was years ago that the repeatability of the springs, like if you pulled 10 springs when I worked at Company X for magazine tubes and you held them together, I mean, there would be variances in difference, you know, lengths, significant lengths.
Speaker C:That's not a case anymore.
Speaker C:So I would say the loading the mags thing, you know, you can leave your mags loaded a lot longer than you probably think.
Speaker C:In fact, load your mags.
Speaker C:I'd rather you had them ready.
Speaker C:Number two, the myth about like, well, the wear item part.
Speaker C:Let's talk about that for a second.
Speaker C:On certain magazines, there are wear places to look for, like the inside of the feed lips and things like that.
Speaker C:The more you shoot, if we, if we ever truly shot our guns as much as we say we shoot our guns, we probably all would wear out a lot more mags than we do.
Speaker C:But, you know, we're talking tens of thousands of rounds in many cases can go through a magazine before you start seeing that wear.
Speaker C:And it depends on the type of rounds, type of ammo.
Speaker C:Ammo is dirty.
Speaker C:There's a lot of, like, rounds that have a lot of carbon that will deposit inside of the mags.
Speaker C:One of the reasons we did the metal also was lubricity.
Speaker C:So on.
Speaker C:On you don't see it without a clear mag, but with our mag, you see everything.
Speaker C:So you see the way that the springs would, you know, people see our spring and go, oh, that's weird.
Speaker C:Well, it's how every spring Looks if you could see through every mag, but you don't.
Speaker C:So people go, oh, your spring is weird.
Speaker C:No, mine is the only mag you can see the spring on.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But the carbon that you see inside of our mags, it tells you when to clean your mag.
Speaker C:You talk about it being a wear item.
Speaker C:It's an item that needs to be serviced and a lot of people don't do it.
Speaker C:I'm going to be the first to admit, until I worked at ets I have never cleaned a magazine.
Speaker C:I've taken them apart because it's fun to see how they work, but I've never taken one apart to clean it like, but there are people that do and those people are, you know, on a list.
Speaker C:But you should clean your mags and you'd be amazed if you run a patch through your mag how dirty it is because a lot of the fouling and stuff as you're firing your gun gets into the magazine and so it will make them run sluggish.
Speaker C:It's amazing.
Speaker C: super tight tolerances, think: Speaker C:If you cleaned it, it probably would work.
Speaker C:So that dispels some of those myths.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The other thing I want to ask you is as an industry we, we focus a lot on the features of the gun, right?
Speaker B:We focus on, well, they did this and this and this and a couple guns have come out that where the magazine seems to be the afterthought because it's like, oh, we, we came to this point and now we're at like oh, we gotta do this magazine, we'll find the cheapest way to do it or we'll do this.
Speaker B:Why is the, the thing that makes the gun run and feeds in the rounds, it kind of seems to be this afterthought.
Speaker C:So I'll tell you, I wasn't expecting that question.
Speaker C:Yes, it's an incredibly good question.
Speaker C:And I'll tell you the reason why.
Speaker C:Having worked at many gun manufacturers, working at a magazine manufacturer, I will tell you that oftentimes the magazine is the hardest part to make.
Speaker C:Many product launches I've seen where they have an in house proprietary mag.
Speaker C:That is the thing that's that engineers spend months trying to tune.
Speaker C:It's a dark art tuning a magazine and getting a magazine to work properly.
Speaker C:People think you shove rounds into it and it brings them up to where it needs to and it's going to shove them in the gun.
Speaker C:It's so much more to that.
Speaker C:The geometries, the forces, the, when it's under recoil.
Speaker C:There's so many things that affect a magazine that we don't think about while we're thinking about all those other ergonomic things that are on the outside that are external parts of the gun.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So magazines, I think something that we've seen interestingly happen.
Speaker C:I know we talked about this earlier today, but something we saw at shot show this year was the more standardization of magazines, right?
Speaker C:So like if you want to make a modern sporting rifle now, you just about have to use an AR mag, right?
Speaker C:I mean, it's a bullpuppet, it's an ar, it's a non ar.
Speaker C:You're almost, you know, think about all the guns coming out of Israel.
Speaker C:They all use the AR mag now, right.
Speaker C:And same thing Poland, you know, Ukraine, everywhere that they're designing new modern sporting or modern or battle rifles, they standardized well this year, look at how many guns take a Glock magazine, which is good for us, don't get me wrong, because we're the strongest, you know, in making aftermarket Glock magazines.
Speaker C:But people found that if you make a mag that works, build the gun around the mag.
Speaker C:So I think that's something we're seeing more now.
Speaker C:If you look through minor John's or your gun room and saw how many different magazines there were, how nice would it be if there was only two, right?
Speaker C:Obviously with big calibers and stuff like that, you need something different.
Speaker C:But pistols, I think there is a movement towards standardization of mags.
Speaker C:I think Glock is one because it is a really good magazine.
Speaker C:It's a very reliable magazine.
Speaker C:The geometries have proven themselves out.
Speaker C:So I think, you know, that's, that's part of it.
Speaker C:But there have been a lot of really great guns out there that never succeeded.
Speaker C:And I'm thinking In the last 20 years, I know of at least a dozen great guns with a proprietary mag that had it had a more proven mag or had they started with an existing mag, it would be successful.
Speaker C:And I'll say this, I'm not going to give away too much secret sauce.
Speaker C:You can Google this, it's worth a Google.
Speaker C:But there's a major gun maker that everyone realized about 12, 18 months ago that their mag was compatible and interchangeable with another major gun maker.
Speaker C:And they were like, why is that?
Speaker C:Well, it's because that other gun maker that they copied that magazine from has been making very successfully.
Speaker C:It's a metal magazine.
Speaker C:It's not a Glock magazine.
Speaker C:It's an all metal mag.
Speaker C:Has been extremely successful with making mags.
Speaker C:And so they did that.
Speaker C:They said there's a mag that works.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker C:Is it patented?
Speaker C:This, this, this?
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:Okay, let's use that Mac and then start from there.
Speaker C:That way mag's not the issue.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:The other thing I've noticed, CZ Max.
Speaker C:So look how many guns are coming with CZ pattern mags.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:What is it, the 01 and the model 9 millimeter.
Speaker C:I can't think of the model right now, but it's extremely prolific.
Speaker C:And a lot of the guns we saw at shot show that looked nothing like a cz.
Speaker C:We're running a CZ magazine.
Speaker C:So I think part of it's the aftermarket availability of those mags.
Speaker C:They're very available and they're very affordable and they work.
Speaker C:So a mag absolutely is a critical part.
Speaker C:We just ignore it.
Speaker C:You know, it's like.
Speaker C:It's like thinking about your car and saying, everything's important to my car.
Speaker C:But not the clutch, right?
Speaker C:Or the, you know, something like that.
Speaker C:The shocks don't matter, right?
Speaker C:They do.
Speaker C:They really matter.
Speaker B:Well, I mean, we've seen over the last couple years there's been some major launches.
Speaker B:And after the launch, all of a sudden guns have problems and they're trying to figure out what the issues are.
Speaker B:And it comes down to one of two things.
Speaker B:Either a, there's something wrong internally with a barrel or something.
Speaker B:The, the specs were off.
Speaker B:Somebody went sammy chambering instead of something else.
Speaker C:Maxes and stuff.
Speaker C:Gassing.
Speaker B:Or it's a magazine issue.
Speaker B:And that's what, that's why I wanted to ask you that because, you know, we see.
Speaker B:It seems to be like that.
Speaker B:That part is like an afterthought.
Speaker B:Like, hey, I don't wanna.
Speaker B:We're just going to grab the cheapest mag we can get and get in.
Speaker C:I think that there's something to that.
Speaker C:So I would say just a little peek behind the curtain of the mag world.
Speaker C:There are probably eight guys in America, eight engineers that are truly magazine engineers.
Speaker C:And that's.
Speaker C:That's crazy when you think about the number of engineers that are gun engineers.
Speaker C:We're talking tens of thousands of guys who have been part of designing a gun.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's a little bit of a dark art.
Speaker C:It's not the sexy part of the gun.
Speaker C:It generally is an afterthought.
Speaker C:I think in a lot of cases.
Speaker C:And I Think it shows when it's an afterthought.
Speaker C:And a lot of people want proprietary, right?
Speaker C:Like, it's nice to be able to say everything on this is mine, especially if you think it's gonna be very successful, because then you get to sell all the magazines.
Speaker C:You know, if it's Ed.
Speaker C:If it's Ed Mazzio making an Ed Mazio gun, right?
Speaker C:And I want.
Speaker C:And I make the magazines.
Speaker C:You're gonna buy aftermarket magazines from me, more than likely, right?
Speaker C:If I'm the only one that makes it or if it's a little bit different.
Speaker C:And I think we all.
Speaker C:I'm not gonna point fingers, but there's several guns that have just launched with proprietary mags that do work, but it's kind of a pain in the booty because you're talking 60, 70, $80 magazines when.
Speaker C:If they had used what easily could have been a Glock magazine or an AR magazine, readily available for what, $9.99.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker B:All right, I'm going to ask both of you this question because I know my answer to this.
Speaker B:I want to pick both your brains.
Speaker B:How many mags should a gun come with?
Speaker C:None.
Speaker C:They should all.
Speaker C:You should buy all your mags aftermarket from Etsy.
Speaker A:No smoking.
Speaker A:Like a true sellsword.
Speaker C:You know, I think that for the longest time, the Glock, again, we'll go back to them.
Speaker C:They've done a lot of things right.
Speaker C:They do some things wrong.
Speaker C:But two magazines was what came with most guns, and then duty guns came with three.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:What we have seen is because a lot of these companies want to show value adds in tough markets, the one thing that people easily.
Speaker C:You can do, right.
Speaker C:Rather than throw an optic on it or some other accessory, they add extra mags.
Speaker C:And so there's been almost a war, like an arms race, if you will, pun intended to putting five mags with guns.
Speaker C:Or if you buy it now, there's a rebate, turn in and get three extra mags.
Speaker C:You know, stuff like that.
Speaker C:So I think that's interesting.
Speaker C:I think it's a good question.
Speaker C:I think that probably the standard has always been two.
Speaker C:What I think it should come with.
Speaker C:I mean, probably two.
Speaker C:And then I think that if you own a gun that you don't have at least five mags for, we can't be friends.
Speaker C:And three of those mags should become.
Speaker A:For me, I really like that question because, you know, we deal a lot at GOA with how do we bring people into the Second Amendment community?
Speaker A:How do we build that on ramp and for first time gun owners, when you're looking at the investment into purchasing a gun for the first time and you're like, well, I need to do, I need a range bag, I need eyes, I need ears, I need the firearm, I need ammo.
Speaker A:It can get very overwhelming.
Speaker A:And so I think it's a good thing that you are seeing those rebates and things.
Speaker A:And we are educating people on buying aftermarket magazines because there's not a lot of education for people who are just getting into the firearms space and especially on the female side, because, how do I put this nicely?
Speaker A:For many, many, many years, we magazines were irrelevant to us because we were only shown revolvers.
Speaker A:And so there has been no, this is the recommended amount.
Speaker A:Like you should try and maybe this is something that you want to upgrade.
Speaker A:And here are speed loaders.
Speaker A:I remember the first time I was way into firearm ownership when someone showed me a speed loader for the first time.
Speaker A:I was like, what?
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:No one, no one ever thought that this was something I would need to know because I was 21 when I bought my first gun.
Speaker A:My, my dad only owned a shotgun and revolver.
Speaker A:I'm pretty sure that's still all he owns, is the standard issue for Tennessee.
Speaker A:So like, that just wasn't a part of, you know, my introduction into the firearms industry.
Speaker A:And so I do think, you know, it's one of those things that doesn't get talked about, but the education on buying additional magazines.
Speaker A:What company should you look for?
Speaker A:The fact that speed loaders exist for first time gun owners, and we're continuing to see this massive surge of that demographic in adding to the second amendment community.
Speaker C:So I think you brought up some really incredible stuff.
Speaker C:I just wanted to hit on one thing you said.
Speaker C:So it's interesting some of the points you made and I love, very insightful.
Speaker C:Number one, it actually pivots into the magazine thing and the speedloader thing.
Speaker C:Obviously I want to talk about those things, but, you know, how many mags do you need if you're able to load a mag in seconds?
Speaker C:So if you're at the range, you know, do you need five magazines if you can reload the three in a matter of seconds?
Speaker C:Probably not.
Speaker C:Then there's another thing about the whole home defense thing or bugging out community.
Speaker C:And so that is another component of it.
Speaker C:But I do find it interesting you mentioned the demographic, the female demographic.
Speaker C:I learned how to shoot from a girl.
Speaker C:My mom's got, like I said earlier in the interview, more guns than any 12 Kentuckians, apparently.
Speaker C:Or 30 maybe.
Speaker C:I don't know if they only have two, but she taught me everything from revolvers, handguns, rifles, shotguns, et cetera.
Speaker C:But a lot of people have reduced dexterity.
Speaker C:So the speed loaders, not just for doing it quickly.
Speaker C:And if you're sitting at the range and you're struggling to load rounds, it's not a fun experience.
Speaker C:It's an unpleasurable experience.
Speaker C:It wears out your thumbs if you're a dude.
Speaker C:I mean, we won't admit this to you, like sub.
Speaker C:I'm glad we're not recording this, but, you know, we probably both have the same scars on our thumbs from loading magazines.
Speaker C:And speed loaders are not just about loading mags fast.
Speaker C:They are a mechanical advantage.
Speaker C:So get one, you know, regardless of the speed facet of it.
Speaker C:But yeah, it makes it a more pleasurable shooting experience.
Speaker C:And not just ladies, because I'm not saying the ladies have reduced dexterity.
Speaker C:My mom's 6 foot tall and rides a motorcycle, so she's pretty dexterous and tough.
Speaker C:But times telephone poles for a living.
Speaker C:But what I would say too is like, older people, people who reduce dexterity, arthritis, people just not able to use their hands the same way disabled people.
Speaker C:The speed loaders make shooting accessible to those people.
Speaker C:It's not something you think about immediately is the speed loader makes it an accessibility tool.
Speaker C:But it is an accessibility tool as well.
Speaker C:So you need the answer to your question.
Speaker C:Ten magazines, all from ETS and an ETS speed loader.
Speaker C:Now that you made me think about it.
Speaker B:But how many mags should guns come with?
Speaker B:You never answered.
Speaker A:Two to three.
Speaker A:I think is.
Speaker A:Is good.
Speaker B:Three is a rule.
Speaker B:I'm making it to industry standard right now.
Speaker B:Three.
Speaker B:Three mags.
Speaker C:You know, honestly, three is good.
Speaker C:I'll tell you the reason why.
Speaker C:Let's just say your standard loadout, right, you're carrying a mag in a mag holder.
Speaker C:You've got one in the gun and you've got another one, you know, somewhere at ready reach or close reach, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker C:And you should cycle through, you should run them through like we talked about, shooting your magazines and cycling through them, making sure your equipment works, you know, and redundancy, right?
Speaker C:One is none.
Speaker C:Two is one.
Speaker C:So in your.
Speaker C:In your case, three is two.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:I hate when I get one magazine.
Speaker C:That was the worst.
Speaker C:That is the worst.
Speaker B:That is the worst.
Speaker B:Like two.
Speaker B:I like.
Speaker C:You know where the camera's at, you know where you are, manufacturer.
Speaker C:Shoot your gun with one magazine.
Speaker C:And when we're talking to you Right now.
Speaker B:Yeah, I get it though.
Speaker B:I understand why companies ship with one magazine.
Speaker B:They're trying to keep the price point down.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:That's many cases with the reason is.
Speaker B:But you could partner up with ETFs and get more magazines.
Speaker C:Hey, we are, we're open for, for OEM opportunities for sure.
Speaker B:There we go.
Speaker C:We can, we can, we can value add all day long.
Speaker C:So I do agree with you and especially on the.
Speaker C:It seems like.
Speaker C:And John, I'll say this.
Speaker C:The guns where magazines are the hardest to find in the aftermarket are the ones who typically come with one.
Speaker C:And so it's like a, it's a paradox.
Speaker B:You know, I got a gun what a year ago, came with one magazine.
Speaker B:I've been looking for magazines for a year so I can get at least one more or at least two more.
Speaker B:Love the gun.
Speaker B:Shoots fantastic.
Speaker B:Still can't find the magazine.
Speaker B:And if I do find the magazine, they're like $40 because they're proprietary and they only come through that company and that's where ETS comes in.
Speaker B:So they should bank magazines for it.
Speaker B:But it's as a gun owner like Kaylee said to piggyback off of her as a new gun owner it can be very overwhelming.
Speaker B:And to get the value add or get those mail in rebates to have multiple magazines, it just takes something off your list.
Speaker B:I mean you're looking at a new gun owner.
Speaker B:You're probably going to spend anywhere between five and a thousand dollars once you get set up.
Speaker B:Between ammo and eyes and ears and range bag and holster and range time and all that stuff.
Speaker A:I think that is wildly low the 500 side of that scale.
Speaker B:I mean if you buy like a two by high point,.
Speaker A:I mean just think about like, I mean even if you just went with like cheap like gear like the ammo alone, like you're going yeah, the ammo like you're, you're.
Speaker C:One of the things I'll say and I think I'll put my, my firearms manufacturing hat back on for a second.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:One of the biggest struggles we had and challenges we had is because we know there's an emerging community of first time gun buyers of female shooters.
Speaker C:But mostly just in the last we've seen post Covid is first time gun owners.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And one of the things that I think I challenge you guys at GOA with and everyone in this advocacy world for guns is trying to get those people to actually go out and shoot their guns.
Speaker C:Because here's the deal, like people who were terrified of a Gun got a little bit less scared of it when the world was a really scary place, right?
Speaker C:For Covid, they bought that first gun.
Speaker C:And I hear time and time again the stories of I went out and shot it.
Speaker C:Because first thing I always tell is get training, go to a range, get some training, take a class.
Speaker C:If nothing else, watch content online, learn about your gun, right?
Speaker C:Get to get comfortable and familiar with it because it's more dangerous to you than it is as a tool to help you defend yourself if you don't know anything about it, right?
Speaker C:So one of the things I was going to say put my gun manufacturer hat back on.
Speaker C:One of the reasons why we would do things like those rebates and those mail ins to get freebies was literally to capture the information about the demographics of people.
Speaker C:So, like, if you sent in your thing questionnaire to get your three free mags or your two free mags, we can then engage with you as a manufacturer, talk to you, you know, send you information, and kind of bring you into the community.
Speaker C:So I think that's one of the tools that they use with those, some of those campaigns.
Speaker B:But I think you hit it on the nail on the head is get out and go shoot and train.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:I've never told this story on here, but it's one of my favorite stories is a.
Speaker B:An elderly woman came in, her husband had just passed, unfortunately, and this is when I was working behind the gun counter.
Speaker B:And she's like, hey, I need a gun for home defense.
Speaker B:My.
Speaker B:My husband bought this from here seven years ago.
Speaker B:I don't know how to use it.
Speaker B:It was a shotgun.
Speaker B:I don't know how to use it.
Speaker B:I don't feel comfortable using it.
Speaker B:So I get to talk to her.
Speaker B:She pulls it out.
Speaker B:It was put back together wrong.
Speaker B:So even if it was needed to be used, it wasn't fired.
Speaker B:And I go, did this ever get shot?
Speaker B:She goes, no, it's been sitting in the corner.
Speaker B:He bought it and it was sitting loaded in the corner with birdshot for the last 10 years.
Speaker B:And I was like, okay, I'll get you through.
Speaker B:Walk her through the process.
Speaker B:Hand her over.
Speaker B:We had a local trainer handed a card.
Speaker B:She came back later.
Speaker B:Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker B:I learned so much.
Speaker B:I appreciate it.
Speaker B:And it's things like that where again, there's all these new time gun owners.
Speaker B:I really encourage you to go out and get that training because you don't know what you don't know until you go and actually use the product.
Speaker B:And that's It's a big thing.
Speaker B:It's going out and getting the training.
Speaker B:And we were talking with a company earlier on the podcast, that Fellowship of Firearms and getting together as a group of people, find like minded individuals, find people.
Speaker B:There's tons of new trainers out there who are very welcoming, which I applaud because we've gone from the, the old boys society to now this more welcoming, encouraging community.
Speaker B:So at that note, Kaylee, we're at your favorite part of the show.
Speaker A:Yes, yes, it is time for our segment from the Soapbox.
Speaker A:It's the time that we get to be a little bit spicier, tackle the topics of the day and take some hot takes.
Speaker A:So who wants to go first?
Speaker B:What is your spicy topic of the day?
Speaker C:You know, I'm watching a lot of what's going on in the different circuit courts in the states and the magazine bans.
Speaker C:I think it's incredibly disingenuous for us to have the Second Amendment and then have to figure out which of our inalienable rights we're allowed to execute in any state we travel through.
Speaker C:I told you the story earlier that when I used to have to go to Columbia, Missouri for aob, I would chart my route through Memphis, of all places, so that I added an hour to my trip just so that I could carry my gun with me and the rounds that I wanted to use.
Speaker C:Because even the rounds I was, you know, hollow points were not allowed in Illinois at the time.
Speaker C:I don't know if that's still the case.
Speaker C:But, you know, those I think that we need, we have the Bruin decision.
Speaker C:We've got some Supreme Court, you know, precedents, and then we've still got states kind of going rogue, limiting magazine capacities, which is very near and dear to my heart.
Speaker C:Obviously 15 states where you are required to use a, what we call low capacity magazine, if the manufacturer makes it with a 17 round magazine, that's a standard capacity magazine.
Speaker C:And a lot of that's important because that's the verbiage that they use is in common use.
Speaker C:Well, of course, if it comes with it, it's in common use, you know, but that's, I think that's one of the big things we're watching.
Speaker C:We saw something very unprecedented.
Speaker C:I know you guys consume a lot of media, but did you see where the circuit judge made a video explaining why that I believe.
Speaker C:I can't remember if it's 11th Circuit, so I may have said the wrong circuit, but they just heard a case in California and they, you know, they upheld their state's magazine bans and a lot of the weapons bans there.
Speaker C:And he literally tore it apart.
Speaker C:And this is the first time a judge has ever made a video for his, you know, it's called closing arguments or, you know, basically where he explained dissenting.
Speaker C:His dissenting arguments.
Speaker C:He videotaped it.
Speaker C:And that's a, that's a media form that's very consumable.
Speaker C:Like, who's gonna read 12 pages deep into a law brief?
Speaker C:Nobody.
Speaker C:But now that it's on YouTube, you know, everybody can.
Speaker C:It's, it's.
Speaker C:People are seeing that the judges are having these conversations.
Speaker C:I think it's an interesting time given what's going on in the government right now.
Speaker C:And there's a, there's a shift and there's a, there's a very much pro freedom shift, I think happening.
Speaker C:Hopefully it carries over to a lot of these state laws.
Speaker C:So that's the spicy thing for me.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:If you want to see that video real quick, that video, we retweeted it.
Speaker B:So it is up on the.
Speaker B:I want to say it's on go.
Speaker B:It may be on gof isn't gof.
Speaker B:It's on the GOF Twitter.
Speaker B:So if you want to watch that.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, I, I think it's incredible.
Speaker A:And this is one of the things that for people on the pro gun side as a whole, we have not done a great job of and that is fighting the battle of language.
Speaker A:And what I mean by that is we often adopt what the anti gunners say about us and then we're playing.
Speaker C:On their term assault weapon.
Speaker A:Assault weapon, red flag laws, high capacity magazines.
Speaker A:What.
Speaker A:What does any of that mean?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:A red flag law is a gun confiscation order, but we let them rebrand and repackage everything and then we cave and we use their language.
Speaker A:And the problem with that is their language is deceptive.
Speaker A:And so for an, an average person or someone who is, you know, kind of gun agnostic or the people in the middle who maybe would like to have a firearm but haven't made that jump yet, or that new gun owner's block that we've been talking a lot about, they hear things like high capacity magazines and they don't understand it, but they're like, well, that.
Speaker A:Well, that's what they said.
Speaker A:So that, that must be bad.
Speaker A:Or, or.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, I guess I agree with that.
Speaker A:That seems like, you know, they always tout that line of this is just common sense gun control.
Speaker A:No, it's not.
Speaker A:We have the second amendment.
Speaker A:It is an Infringement on our rights.
Speaker A:And if we let them win the battle of controlling the narrative, controlling the language, the language, if it's.
Speaker A:Has significant implications on our ability to educate our own side.
Speaker C:It's designed to create an, elicit, an emotional response.
Speaker C:You know, like I always force myself to not use those words as much as possible.
Speaker C:Like my modern sporting rifle has a standard capacity magazine and a laser scope.
Speaker C:I made that last part of.
Speaker C:There was actually a law many years ago in Virginia banning laser scopes.
Speaker C:And they had to figure out what that was because they didn't know, because that's how uneducated a lot of the lawmakers are or people in politics are about firearms.
Speaker C:They just don't.
Speaker C:And they use those words, those vernaculars, like you said, that are designed to make them scarier or less approachable or less welcoming.
Speaker C:And we do, we are guilty of that in the gun community of using those words, you know, assault rifle and things like that.
Speaker C:People don't know the difference in AR being armor light rifle versus assault rifle.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like that.
Speaker C:We should be screaming that every time somebody says it.
Speaker C:We should be like, no, it's not what it stands for.
Speaker B:Well, I mean, you brought up a great point.
Speaker B:Going through Illinois when I, when I moved from Ohio to Arizona, I had to drive through Illinois with a large U Haul full of guns.
Speaker B:And I butt puckered all the way through the two hours of driving through that state because being the fear of stop first, stopping in Indiana, unloading everything, driving across Illinois, butt puckered going all the way into Missouri because I knew I didn't want to stop for gas or anything just in case, get all the way to Missouri, reload everything, get back in the car, go.
Speaker B:It's just such a pain.
Speaker B:And then even most recently and a couple years ago, the understanding of the laws, I had a trip to Colorado and Colorado has their, their magazine ban.
Speaker B:I believe it's a 15 round limit.
Speaker B:And so I'm sitting there going, okay, well what guns can I bring with me?
Speaker B:What gun can I bring with me?
Speaker B:I know I have reciprocity, I can go in.
Speaker B:And I get there understanding all the laws.
Speaker B:I get there and I talk to our friend Sean Herron who, who lives in Colorado.
Speaker B:He's like, oh, dude, it only affects Colorado residents.
Speaker B:You could have brought whatever you wanted.
Speaker C:Yeah, there's some interstate commerce clause laws and things like that that allow you to.
Speaker C:As long as you, I think it depends on your destination and like passing through this.
Speaker C:But even the rules of when you're passing through, like I did Learn ultimately that I could have drove through Illinois with my guns, but.
Speaker C:But I would have had to disassemble them, lock them in a separate case or a separate compartment of the vehicle, which at the time I had a van, so there was no separate compartment.
Speaker C:And also keep the ammunition separate, unload all the magazines, the hoops that you have to go through.
Speaker C:And every state's different.
Speaker C:I know the Eastern seaboard's got a lot of that.
Speaker C:Maryland has got some very arcane laws.
Speaker C:Obviously, they exposed a while back that there was an issue where they were running license plates and they could tell whether or not people, I guess, had concealed carry permits or.
Speaker C:That was the rumor at least.
Speaker C:You know, people were terrified to drive through those states.
Speaker C:They would go around them just to.
Speaker C:Just to avoid that because they were trying to, you know, protect themselves or protect their family on a road trip.
Speaker B:Yeah, because I know Ohio, at least the.
Speaker B:Your concealed carry license is tied to your license plate.
Speaker B:So when they run your license plate, it'll scream concealed carry holder.
Speaker C:And they know.
Speaker B:They know immediately before they even come up to the car.
Speaker B:But it's things like that as gun owners.
Speaker B:I mean, think about it.
Speaker B:Our office is in Virginia.
Speaker B:We can have whatever we want, but our team goes to DC a lot even then.
Speaker B:Like, what if you have something you're not supposed to have in the car being from.
Speaker C:I mean, we've seen it with celebrities even.
Speaker C:There was a guy who had hollow point ammunition, one of the basketball players, an NBA player, and he.
Speaker C:There was a felony charge to have hollow point ammunition.
Speaker C:I mean, that's a defensive round.
Speaker C:That's what it's designed for.
Speaker B:You know, just dracanian laws.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And one of the things that I think is important, and we've spoken a lot about this, but people start accepting the tyranny that they're used to.
Speaker A:And when it comes to places like D.C. places that are super restrictive, it's harder sometimes for.
Speaker A:I'm gonna rephrase that.
Speaker A:Gosh, this is the second time I'm doing this.
Speaker A:You're gonna think about it.
Speaker C:It's the frog in the pot analogy, really.
Speaker C:I mean, it's that you don't notice the boiling water until it's too hot.
Speaker C:If you're in.
Speaker C:If it slowly comes ratcheted up.
Speaker C:But, you know, if somebody from a free state goes there and they say, this is.
Speaker C:By the way, guys, the water's boiling.
Speaker C:You guys are.
Speaker C:You're not defending yourself.
Speaker C:And it's the.
Speaker C:It's the.
Speaker C:It's the states and the Cities with the highest crime that have the strictest gun laws.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:But more importantly than that is, you know, you look at a place like D.C. that's where our lawmakers are.
Speaker A:You know, how many lawyers have actually gone or.
Speaker A:Well, I guess lawyers do, but how many politicians have actually gone through the process of getting their concealed carry permit in D.C. how many of them have accepted, you know, being disarmed as a member of Congress?
Speaker A:Well, if you are in that place and you're.
Speaker A:And you get comfortable with, well, I can't have a firearm and it's a lot of hoops to jump through.
Speaker A:I'm not going to deal with that.
Speaker A:Well, those are the people that are making decisions on the Second Amendment.
Speaker A:And so we have to be even louder because you're not just advocating for your Second Amendment rights to the good old boys in Tennessee or any of the pro gun states.
Speaker A:You have to remind those legislatures that just because they're spending their time in D.C. doesn't mean that they don't represent you and your values because start stuff can start sounding normal to them that if they were in their state full time would sound ridiculous to them.
Speaker A:And so we can't allow ourselves to accept that level of tyranny and we can't allow our politicians to forget that they serve their people and they need to be listening to us and therefore we can't stay silent.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's the problem with the silent majority is that nobody listens to the silence.
Speaker C:You know, if you're not complaining, if you're not the squeaky wheel, you're not going to get the grease, as they say.
Speaker C:Use all my old euphemisms.
Speaker C:But I think you're right and I think a lot of people have become a little complacent.
Speaker C:I come from a state that was heavily red, has turned a little purple and now it's blowing up originally into where I lived for the longest time.
Speaker C:And people are mad, but they're mad.
Speaker C:They're talking to each other.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like if me and John, if you change the rules here where we're at today in South Carolina and made it stricter and stricter and stricter, me and him would complain to each other and we would drink a beer and be mad.
Speaker C:But we're not the ones that need to change the laws.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:We need to be talking to the people who actually are.
Speaker C:And I understand people have to get elected.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So they have to be able to say this and that.
Speaker C:I know silencers was a big issue in North Carolina where sheriffs not every county was the same.
Speaker C:So sheriffs used to have to sign off on your form for the silencer if you were an elected official.
Speaker C:They found that it was significantly less likely you would sign than you were appointed.
Speaker C:Because if you're appointed, you're not worried about running for reelection.
Speaker C:Nobody can throw the number of signatures you've put against you in a campaign or a slur or an ad because you don't have to run for anything.
Speaker C:But where the sheriffs, even hyper conservative pro gun sheriffs, where they were elected, they did not like to sign the paperwork because it was a statistic that could be used against them.
Speaker C:Look at all these machine guns or form threes or class.
Speaker C:Whatever items you've signed could be used as a weapon against them.
Speaker C:So they wouldn't do it.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, Kaylee, you brought up a good point about the politicians in D.C. before I started at Goa, I was kind of like that where I was very apple because I was traveling to a lot of free states.
Speaker B:Most of our events and things like that for the industry are in pretty free states.
Speaker B:I think the most restrictive we go to is Vegas recently.
Speaker B:Recently.
Speaker B:But most of them are in free states.
Speaker B:And as I started traveling more my first week at Goa, we were in D.C. and we went downtown and you looked at me before we left the office and go, do you got a pocket knife on you?
Speaker B:I'm like, yeah, I always have a pocket knife on me.
Speaker B:Why wouldn't I?
Speaker B:Well you can't have that in dc.
Speaker B:Well, I don't know better, like I, like I would know that.
Speaker B:Like that's an everyday thing.
Speaker B:It's wallet, keys, knife.
Speaker A:And then I think it was how long is it?
Speaker A:Because I don't remember what the rules are anymore because I don't live there anymore.
Speaker A:But yeah, you have to be so hyper vigilant of everything.
Speaker A:And even, even if like you don't have a firearm in your car and you don't have like each, each round like can be a felony.
Speaker A:If you have like an empty magazine, that can be a felony.
Speaker A:Even if you have like no other components at all in your possession, that one thing is a felony.
Speaker A:And so it's like you have to.
Speaker A:D.C. is just wild.
Speaker C:Well, we had somebody mention to us the other day that you could have a trunk full of loaded 10 round magazines in his state, but you couldn't have one 11 round magazine.
Speaker C:So you could have 110 rounds loaded in your trunk, no problem.
Speaker C:You have one 11 round magazine, you're in big trouble.
Speaker C:And some States just this going back to magazine.
Speaker C:This is a little magazine oddity, you know.
Speaker C:You guys know the Glock 26 and the Glock 27?
Speaker C:Well like years ago they had to make a revision, as my understanding, to the Glock 27 because you could put 9 millimeter rounds in it and fit one extra round.
Speaker C:And it violated certain states laws because it was able to be, it was a plus one, you know, at that point, wasn't designed for that, wasn't meant to do that.
Speaker C:The little holes in the back to tell you how many rounds you got, didn't line up.
Speaker C:But that's how desperate people are to exercise their, you know, freedom and to defend themselves.
Speaker B:So that's where things like the National Reciprocity Bill come into effect.
Speaker B:And Kaylee, I want you to dive into it because you're smarter than I am and more legalese go for it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So basically national reciprocity is you get to carry firearms in all 50 states because guess what?
Speaker A:The Second Amendment applies to all 50 states whether a anti gun legislature and an anti gun governor want to believe it does or not.
Speaker A:And so the reciprocity allows for so many people, everyday citizens, to be able to carry lawfully in different states.
Speaker A:And so if you think of places like New York, New Jersey, California, places that have reciprocity with no one or close to no one, I mean this would be a massive improvement for every gun owner.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because at the end of the day these major gun control states, they still have massive populations of people who want to own guns or do own guns.
Speaker A:I think it shocks people that live in a pro gun state to realize how big the market for firearms are in places like California.
Speaker A:And it's because there are pro gun people.
Speaker A:But again, going back to your point, often they're the silent majority and silence is not going to move the needle.
Speaker C:This hits home for us in a very direct way.
Speaker C:So you guys recall a couple years ago there was what they called Freedom Week and there's been states where there was a temporary suspension of magazine bans or this is and that bans during Freedom Week as many of you guys have come to call it.
Speaker C:We were getting million dollar POS multiple times per day for that entire week and sold through every single one of those units.
Speaker C:And that was literally just opening up the freedoms that are completely accessible to most of the states in just a handful of states that are draconian in their loss.
Speaker C:So I'm excited to hear and see you guys supporting that and I would love to see a national reciprocity Well,.
Speaker B:I want to bring this up because you've had to deal with this from the manufacturing side, and I've had to deal with it from the manufacturing side.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:And I don't.
Speaker B:I don't know if you know about this, Kelly, but, like, if I want a gun to go into, say, Maryland or any of the very strict gun control states, I have to send every time there's a revision, a new model.
Speaker B:If it's a color, change the rosters.
Speaker B:Not even like I changed the safety or this is a new model, I changed the color of the frame.
Speaker B:I have to send one to Maryland and New York and all of them so they can review it and go, yep, you're approved or denied.
Speaker B:The amount of gun.
Speaker B:I think at one point it was.
Speaker B:You had to send five examples.
Speaker C:Yeah, it depends on each state.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's absolutely crazy that some of the things they have to do.
Speaker C:I'll give you the best example that I can think of.
Speaker C:We were talking about the old Sigs earlier.
Speaker C:I Talked about my P6, the 230, the Sig 230, and the Sig 232.
Speaker C:Do you guys know the difference between those two firearms?
Speaker C:So obviously the 230 originally being made overseas, but I believe the.232 still might be made overseas, might be made in Exeter, I'm not sure.
Speaker C:But the difference was a hexagonal screw on the grip versus a slotted screw in the grip.
Speaker C:And they were able to get one approved by California, but not the other.
Speaker C:They are identical in every other molecular way known to man.
Speaker C:They're in function, in form and capacity, in sights, in in everything.
Speaker C:The way they.
Speaker C:They function, they are identical except for the screw is a hexagonal screw versus a slotted screw.
Speaker C:One's legal, one's not.
Speaker B:So our partner, good friends of our, Ross Martin, they awesome company by the awesome company.
Speaker B:Chris was working with Sam Paretti's, our team over in California, to get their guns on the roster.
Speaker B:This is how strict California is.
Speaker B:They got denied because their chamber flag that they have to put into the loaded chamber indicator, the little flag that pops up because it was green in color to match their color scheme.
Speaker B:They got denied because they want it.
Speaker B:Red followed everything.
Speaker B:It's got a color on it, everything.
Speaker B:No, we.
Speaker B:We don't like that because it's not red.
Speaker B:And so they had to redo it, send it over because it was red and they got approved on the roster.
Speaker C:There's a huge industry too, just by the way, going back to what you were saying originally about the different colors and stuff, there's a giant cottage industry in states like California of the cerakoters and the dippers.
Speaker C:I worked briefly at a distributor that specialized.
Speaker C:It was a Northeastern distributor.
Speaker C:So they specialize in a lot of compliance states.
Speaker C:And this goes back to using the vernacular that we talk about.
Speaker C:We get acceptable calling it compliant.
Speaker C:But the compliant states, the 15 states that have all these limitations, extra limitations, we would see that if a gun got approved on their roster, next thing you know, there was 8,000 camo patterns on that gun.
Speaker C:Or I even remember the most famously, there was a ear of corn, airbrushed version of a Glock 26.
Speaker C:And I thought to myself, please, God, if I ever get into a gunfight, don't let the other guy have the ear of corn gun.
Speaker C:I just don't think I could handle the humiliation of being shot with an ear of corn.
Speaker C:But, you know, that's the thing.
Speaker C:I mean, because they're so limited in what they can have in scope, that there's like.
Speaker C:That they have to find a way to get a little bit.
Speaker C:You know, we all want something different.
Speaker C:We all want to customize our firearm.
Speaker C:They're not even allowed to have different paint until they.
Speaker C:Unless it enters the state first.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker C:You know, some of that kind of stuff, it's crazy.
Speaker A:It is just insane to me when.
Speaker A:When you just stop and, like, look at all of it, and you're just.
Speaker A:There's so.
Speaker A:There's so many.
Speaker A:How do I want to phrase this?
Speaker A:Illogical is the nicest way that I can say it, but it is.
Speaker A:These laws are so illogical in so many ways.
Speaker A:And I think almost all of the.
Speaker A:We were just talking about the other day, you gave, like, the broomstick example that you walk through where it's like, all right, well, you know, let's say a gun is a broomstick, and if it's 2 inches shorter now, it's an illegal broomstick unless you pay a tax stamp and get approved.
Speaker A:And you just look at things like color changes and the laws around a color variation, and you're like, this is mental.
Speaker C:Well, it goes back to the argument we made many years ago.
Speaker C:I was in a room with a bunch of guys talking about compliance.
Speaker C:We had a really good lawyer that was a very pro gun lawyer talking about compliance.
Speaker C:And they were explaining that the reason you couldn't have a vertical foregrip on a pistol is because it makes it easier to control, more accurate, more dangerous.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:By having that vertical foregrip, it's more stable and now it's more accurate.
Speaker C:And so I guess the argument for the folks that didn't want it was that they want the gun to be less accurate.
Speaker C:And I'm like, well, do you really want firearms to be less accurate and be more dangerous?
Speaker C:I mean, that's talking about negligence things, but just the crazy draconian laws that we've got.
Speaker C:A rifle can be 16 and a shotgun can be 18 or vice versa.
Speaker C:You know, the length thing, I mean.
Speaker C:But a pistol is completely legal, but it's this big and hold the same amount of rounds or more than either one of those previous examples.
Speaker C:It is.
Speaker C:It's not all based on science.
Speaker C:It's based on opinions and scary looking things.
Speaker C:And there was a famous thing where Nancy Pelosi, years ago, and yes, I will talk about her on film, was given a catalog of guns and they said, circle the ones you should ban and circle the ones that are.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Well, she famously circled a mini 14 with a side folding and polymer stock, and she didn't circle the mini 14 with a side folding wooden stock forend, because wooden guns aren't dangerous and polymer guns are.
Speaker C:And so she said, this one is the one we want to ban, but we don't want to ban this one.
Speaker C:Same exact gun, different forend.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Color.
Speaker B:You brought up the foregrip.
Speaker B:It makes me laugh because it's like cool vertical foregrip bad.
Speaker B:No, but 45, you're good.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:45 Degrees.
Speaker B:Yeah, you put a little cut on that.
Speaker B:45, It's perfect.
Speaker C:Nobody commits crime with a 45 degree foregrip.
Speaker C:Yeah, people commit crimes with a vertical foregrip.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:90 Degrees is that angle where you can no longer control and restrain yourself from committing crime.
Speaker C:It's hysterical.
Speaker C:To your point.
Speaker C:I mean, it really is.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's like they don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker A:It's because they don't.
Speaker B:I know though.
Speaker B:Did you not hear the sarcasm?
Speaker A:No, I know.
Speaker A:I just, you know, some people listen.
Speaker A:There are many people that have said, like, commented on the videos and were like, how did you not know that that was sarcasm?
Speaker A:So, you know, just making.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Just the notes for anybody that fully auto laser scopes.
Speaker C:I mean, yeah, I want a fully semi automatic.
Speaker B:Fully semi automatic.
Speaker B:Did you know an AR15 weighs as much as 50 shipping boxes?
Speaker B:They're so heavy.
Speaker A:Dude, I am Hulk.
Speaker B:You are Hulk.
Speaker A:If that's how much it weighs, then I. I am a beast.
Speaker A:Like, we're gonna, we're gonna start what is.
Speaker A:What is that?
Speaker A:Those competitions.
Speaker A:Strongman.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Every gun owner is just like automatically entered.
Speaker C:I'm just glad we got past the bayonet lugs because, you know, honestly, I didn't feel safe if I couldn't, you know, lock and load my bayonet.
Speaker C:I am so.
Speaker B:You didn't know you're supposed to charge with those?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:How about the.
Speaker C:I gotta be honest, I.
Speaker C:What is more terrifying than being charged with a bayonet?
Speaker B:I mean, listen, if it was up.
Speaker B:If it was up to the anti gun politicians, we would all have 50 caliber muskets that are super inaccurate and the grape shot cannon at the top of the stairs.
Speaker A:So I disagree with you.
Speaker A:We wouldn't have anything.
Speaker B:I know, but this is me making fun of them.
Speaker C:I would put a 45 degree angle grip on my musket.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:With an eotech on the top.
Speaker C:With an eotech.
Speaker C:Fully automatic laser scope.
Speaker B:All right, we're getting the wrap up sign from the editor.
Speaker B:Eddie.
Speaker C:Where can people find ETS www.etsgroup us is our website.
Speaker C:We're also on Instagram, we're on Facebook.
Speaker C:We tweet.
Speaker C:I'm told I don't have a tweeterer, but was it X?
Speaker C:Now we're on all the platforms and we encourage you to come out and check out our new products.
Speaker C:We've got a lot of exciting stuff coming.
Speaker C:We've got some huge stuff that I wish I could tell, but I know that John would tell people because he's a tattletale.
Speaker C:I'm kidding.
Speaker B:He's one time that happened.
Speaker C:But no, we do have some really exciting stuff happening at ets.
Speaker C:It's an exciting time for us as a company.
Speaker C:Check out the Omega mags.
Speaker C:They really are incredible.
Speaker C:In our opinion, the best pistol mag that's ever been made for a lot of good reasons.
Speaker B:Before we go, Eddie, there's a gift for you on the table.
Speaker B:This is our gift for our guest from AAC Ammo and Palmetto State Armory.
Speaker B:They'll get you it after the show and everything.
Speaker B:But again, we want to thank Palmetto State Armory and AAC Ammo for sponsoring our gift for our guests.
Speaker B:Great for this season they have done that.
Speaker B:Really appreciate them doing that.
Speaker B:So every guest gets this awesome gift.
Speaker B:Guys, make sure to come to goals.
Speaker B:August 9th and 10th in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Speaker B:You can see ETS there.
Speaker B:They will be there.
Speaker B:You may see Eddie.
Speaker B:You can poke fun at them.
Speaker B:We do.
Speaker B:It's fun.
Speaker C:It's a great show.
Speaker C:It's one of the best shows we've done.
Speaker C:Last year when we did it, couldn't be happier.
Speaker C:It was absolutely executed with perfection.
Speaker C:It was a world class show.
Speaker C:Tons of content, the speakers, everything was amazing.
Speaker B:Super excited for this year.
Speaker B:Why people keep saying nice things about us.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:It warms my heart.
Speaker B:It warms our heart.
Speaker B:What does that say about us?
Speaker C:I mean, it's the little things for guys like me.
Speaker C:I mean, you guys had the paperwork for me to be able to park my truck in the parking lot waiting for me.
Speaker C:When I walked in, I was like, what else are you gonna give me a Post Malone cookie?
Speaker C:Was I walk in.
Speaker C:I mean, this is amazing.
Speaker C:Like most shows don't do that, make notes.
Speaker A:Post Malone cookies.
Speaker C:They're so good people.
Speaker C:Try them.
Speaker B:All right, guys, make sure to like, share.
Speaker B:Subscribe Hit the little bell for notifications again go to gunnars.org goals to sign up for goals, we will be in Knoxville, Tennessee August 9th and 10th.
Speaker B:Again, be at goals.
Speaker B:Be in Knoxville.
Speaker B:We will see, hopefully see you guys there and we'll catch you on the next one.
