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Gun Ownership for Non-Gun People
65 Plays2 months ago
Thinking about gun ownership but don't know the first thing about it? Wednesday Lee Friday talks with ammosexual J Grant (LOL) and martial artist Mel Hynes about how to choose the right gun for you, what training you should expect to do, the four pillars of gun safety, and why John Wick is so friggin' awesome. Also self-defense vs home protection, the NRA, survivalists, and a Mad Lib. Relevant Links:
A full transcript of this ep can be found here.
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Transcript
Introductions and New Format
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, where we talk with creatives about neurodivergence, trauma, addiction, and all the other things that impact and inform our art. Our goal is to show everyone that no matter what you're going through, you are not alone and you can make art about it.
00:00:34
Speaker
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday, Lee Friday. And in case you didn't know, we're actually diverging from our usual format of guest interviews and talking to panels of people on various issues that are going to be more important than ever in the coming months.
Gun Safety Misconceptions
00:00:54
Speaker
ah Today's issue is actually ah gun safety. And the reason that I wanted to do this episode is because a lot of my liberal friends who are staunch gun people, a lot of progressives, a lot of left-leaning independents are saying, I should get a gun. And the way that they talk about it is as if a gun is, you know, like a magical amulet that will keep them safe. And they're not talking about getting training. They're not talking about practicing or even I mean, you know, older ladies with carpal tunnel talking about wanting a nine millimeter, just things that don't really jive with
Guests Join: Mel Hines & Jay Grant
00:01:31
Speaker
reality. So on that note, I have with me, uh, Mel Hines, uh, who's been on the show before and Jay Grant who has not. And both of these folks know a whole lot more about guns than I do. So we're going to talk about it. Hey guys, welcome. Howdy, howdy. Hello again.
00:01:51
Speaker
It is awesome to have you both here. um So I wanna kinda start with, ah actually, why don't you guys talk a little bit about your own experiences with ah with guns and gun safety? Jay, you wanna go first? Sure. ah Something that people could check out online is for two years, Mel and I did a webcomic, specifically a romantic comedy set in a Dallas gun store where we used our lifelong knowledge and experience with guns to tell a story about a guy who works at a gun store. And there were a lot of guns in the comic. I grew up in a family had a subsistence farm out in the middle of nowhere. And firearms were something that we taught our children, including me, at a very young age, because they were necessary to keep the farm going.
00:02:47
Speaker
Mel? um So the name of the comic is Failure to Fire. I don't know if that got mentioned before. ah if People want to check it out. I grew up in a somewhat similar background. ah our We did not need to hunt for subsistence, but we did grow up kind of on a micro farm. And ah my father hunted for ah food on occasion, mostly deer. but we would I learned to use an air rifle to pick off squirrels and blue jays and moles and very tiny creatures that were kind of destroying our food. um yeah But I was taught that it that they were tools, first and foremost. They were not for fun. They were not toys. And there were very specific rules for safety, both for myself and for others, and to avoid cruelty to the animals.
00:03:46
Speaker
um because that was actually a big consideration for us.
NRA Shift and Gun Safety Debate
00:03:49
Speaker
So that's one of the reasons that I was really happy that you invited us to be on here because I think as James likes to say, ah you know, there are some critical rules for gun safety and that's the first things people should know if they're interested in it.
00:04:07
Speaker
absolutely yeah i there was no utility really to the gun use that i i did as a kid it was all about sportsmanship and we'd go shooting skeet there were hunters in my family i but was already kind of out of of gun gun activities by the time i was old enough to go on hunts with my family and i had younger brothers coming up so they were kind of the focus of of all that. But what I remember most about the and NRA, and we actually met Lloyd Mustin, like way, way back in the day, who was an old NRA president, and the the general mindset wasn't one of, hey, this is my right, and I'm going to do what I want. The general mindset was, you be safe with your guns and you follow all the rules or you will have no damn guns. And that is not what I get from, I don't want to say the most gun enthusiasts, but certainly the loudest ones. I was an NRA member for quite some time, and there was a massive shift in the and NRA's entire paradigm right around 2005, 2006, and I just stopped paying them any money.
00:05:19
Speaker
They used to be about gun safety. It was about educating, especially children. It was about educating people on responsibly owning a gun. And when that shift happened, it wasn't a small thing. It was fairly dramatic. And I was disgusted. It went from, as you said, it went from, hey, here's how to responsibly own a firearm. Here's when you should legally use it.
00:05:48
Speaker
And then it just turns out guns are cool and everyone should have a gun. And I ah walked away from it. Well, they were also very quiet about the murder of Philando Castile, which um I mean, he was a legal gun owner. He told the cop he had a gun and he was killed anyway. And one would think that the NRA would be very upset about that. And it was it was crickets. There was nothing from them on that.
00:06:18
Speaker
Nothing. Yeah. Yeah, so so let's get into just like a baseline question. Should everyone who wants a gun be able to have one? Should I take this one? Please. Okay. um By pure coincidence, this afternoon I was finishing up when you invited me on the show, when you invited us on the show, I was i do a YouTube video series for urban survivalists, people living in cities,
00:06:47
Speaker
Um, this will, the what the whole diatribe is probably going to come out in this interview, but I was literally right before joining us finishing up an episode where I answer that question and quite a few more. My answer to that is absolutely not. No, not everyone should have a gun. I do believe everyone should be educated on gun safety. And once they know what a firearm is.
00:07:16
Speaker
Should they wish to have a firearm? Yeah, absolutely. But there I'm a bit and using the term in its actual definition. I'm a little liberal when it comes to gun rights. I do believe that nonviolent felons should not be banned from owning firearms. I do believe that most households, like a chainsaw or fire extinguisher, should have one.
00:07:43
Speaker
but only if they know how to use it, when to use it, and how to keep it safe.
00:07:51
Speaker
That seems very reasonable. Mel, do you have anything to add? No, I fully agree. This is one of the things that we actually discussed before getting married. so We align on it pretty pretty much. Neither of us thinks that you know the anybody needs Fisher Price, baby's first nine millimeter.
00:08:11
Speaker
um but I think that his an analogy was pretty much perfect. Like a fire extinguisher, I think most households should have one, should have it safe against accidents or untrained people playing with it. And just in case of emergency, it and know it's like having a fire extinguisher or a fire blanket or an escape ladder from a second story window or something. It's one of those things that I don't think everyone should have it around and play with it and go, oh yeah, this is part of my lifestyle necessarily. But if you need it in case of emergency, it is good to know how to use it and not be fumbling as it were. Okay.
00:08:56
Speaker
and And would you agree, I didn't pull up stats in front of me, but it seems like accidental gun deaths, you can always almost always point to some form of of stupidity when those happen.
Non-Gun Defense Strategies
00:09:12
Speaker
you know the the the toddlers that but get the gun from mommy's purse or the, you know, just asinine things. There is this huge knowledge gap of like, yeah, it would be fine to have a gun. I mean, ah a stove in an oven cause just as many accidents in in the home as as guns do, you know, ladders even are are comparable. So Bathtubs. Yes. Yes. Well, the bathroom is like more dangerous than being on an airplane, they say. um This is why you never use the bathroom on an airplane. That's just double whammies.
00:09:48
Speaker
Well, I don't because they're too tiny for me, but that's that's another issue. um so So now that we, let' let's let's go back just a little bit. So now that we've determined that not everyone should have a gun, at least not until they're ready, what might be a better choice for personal defense or also like home defense?
00:10:10
Speaker
because those aren't the same. I mean, a rifle is is probably a good choice to protect someone in their home, but you're not going to walk down the street with a rifle in case someone decides to mug you. Mel? Well, I mean, it is Texas. So, you know, you could walk down the street with a rifle, but um let's see. Are we talking about ah specifically like for home defense ah before someone of gets the education to be safe with a gun? Are you talking about carrying down the street literally? You know, I kind of want to cover everything. I'll say like, I don't, and we don't keep a gun in our home, because I am too frequently suicidal to be safe with a gun in my home. That's just the straight up truth. that is the valid um concern But the last time someone wanted to come into my home that I did not want here,
00:11:06
Speaker
All I had to do was take the lid off a can of wasp spray and pointed at them and and they left, you know? And I don't know that that'll work every time, but, cause, cause, you know, they just, they like just wanted our stuff. It wasn't like they were here specifically to to hurt us cause they hate us. We don't really get that yet, but. Or sometimes if the person, uh, breaking into your home is altered.
00:11:32
Speaker
in certain ways they can see you as, oh, this is a threat to my life. And now I need to fight to the death to defend myself, even though ironically, they're the ones who are the attacker. So let's talk about personal self-defense. The people that think that- I'm going to let Emil run this first part in a way that I don't think anybody was expecting.
00:11:56
Speaker
I know she probably wasn't going to pimp herself like this, but Mel is one of the most accomplished martial artists I've ever met. So. Yeah. Yeah. Um, very, very much so. That's actually one of the reasons that I started learning martial arts, uh, when I was younger, because, uh, I was living in Northern California at the time, which is a very, uh, especially, you know, in the nineties, it was a very non gun owning kind of, uh,
00:12:26
Speaker
environment and society, as it were. And yeah, I had the typical thing of, oh, well, you know, keep a baseball bat next to your front door in case, you know, someone bangs on it in the middle of the night, keep a knife in your nightstand drawer in case someone tries to come through the window and things like that. And I got so anxious about everything, which is, you know, kind of my default state of being about the world in general, but it reasonable it was just one of those I thought about it and went, okay, what is a weapon that someone can't take away from me? Because that was one of the big things ah that's true. They say, you know, if you have a gun and you're not trained and you don't know how to use it, or how to get to it quickly, it very likely is going to become ah your attacker's weapon rather than yours ah very quickly, because they can take it away from you. But if you learn, train yourself in
00:13:22
Speaker
at least self-defense, not necessarily martial arts, or, you know, you don't need to, like, belt and krav maga or anything. But if you just take some self-defense classes of, hey, if someone comes up behind you, you know, while you're walking down the street and grabs your purse, grabs your hair, grabs your neck, what do you do in this situation just to disable them long enough to get away and get help? That's the important part. It's like, you don't need to dirty Harry on somebody. You just need to get out of the situation and prevent it from reoccurring immediately. You know, like get to a so place that's safe, that there's other people ah where you're not going to be pursued and re-engaged. So frankly, I think that's the best and easiest and depending on what kind of thing you study, the most fun ah way to protect yourself. And that can work both in a house and like you said, walk just walking down the street.
00:14:20
Speaker
um But for ah for actual weapons, weapons, like I said before, a, you know, a baseball bat or, you know, a walking stick with a big heavy metal head on it that you just keep in a um but umbrella stand next to the door. You know, unassuming, highly fashionable. If someone comes to the door pretending to be a delivery person and then tries to force their way in, it's right there and you can break their arm or their nose or whatever.
00:14:51
Speaker
Um, and it doesn't take as much training, uh, as say a gun to be safe with, because, you know, if you have a, if you have a baseball bat, it's, there's only so much skill involved. Yeah.
00:15:07
Speaker
Right. so like Well, and you know, sometimes an attacker is counting, especially if they attack a woman, they're counting on us to not fight Zach. They're counting us on us to stand there and be frightened. So sometimes just making it clear that no man, you don't, you don't get my purse. You don't get, you know, whatever it is that you're after. You cannot have it. Going the Bobby Hill route.
00:15:33
Speaker
that' a pur oh yeah yeah No, that does that is something else I was trained as as a young person that was basically act crazier than them. And if they are just going like you said, like you were saying, if they were just trying to come in and get your stuff, and they're about to get some wasp right to the face. I got you I've reassessed my priorities for the day. This is no longer on my to do list. I'm out of here.
00:16:02
Speaker
So yeah, now it's definitely ah ah a decent tactic. James. Cool. Yeah. Um, one, there's a couple that I recommend often for people who either they're asking about buying a gun and I don't think they have, shall we say the mental acuity to be responsible with that firearm.
00:16:26
Speaker
Or people who just don't want a gun, but they do want a home defense, or they're put simply, they're not as physically able.
Self-Defense Tools & Training
00:16:37
Speaker
And I have two that I recommend to everybody. The first one's called a BOGA knife, B-O-G-A. It's called Back Off Getaway.
00:16:48
Speaker
It's not a big knife. It's going to be a neck knife or a clip to your pocket, very small, but razor sharp fixed blade knife. The idea of a Boga is if somebody grabs you or assaults you or is coming at you, this is a knife that you can in less than a second pull it out and hit them with it. You're going to slice them. You're not, you're not trying to kill them. You're not trying to cut off their head. You're not trying to be John Wick.
00:17:18
Speaker
just a cut will make an attacker feel it. And you need to be trained in like make the cut and push them back and run. They're unlikely to follow after you if you just scored a two inch gash in their forearm. Most attackers, as Mel said, they don't expect you to fight back. The other one. i think but couple that with a big loud no the other one that besides the baseball bat uh i do recommend a baseball bat a good solid metal one uh it's because there's very little training involved you can actually get baseball bat self-defense training it's a real thing but anybody who's over the age of five in this country has probably swung a baseball bat before and they it's it's a stick it's
00:18:16
Speaker
it's the year It's the result of 150,000 years of human history, like a club is still a very effective weapon. One that I would recommend for home defense, because unless you're in Texas or a similar open blade carry state, um one for specifically home defense that I have used is a machete. Oh my.
00:18:42
Speaker
You can get a machete at almost everywhere there, but you go to the sporting goods department in Walmart and they sell cheap machetes or you can go online. Yeah. Or a hardware store. I mean, you can get a machete almost anywhere. A machete is basically just a huge knife. I have been in a situation when I was in my heyday of punk rocking in Southern California at a party where a drunk dude Maybe you had more than just alcohol. Picked a fight with the host of the party. The host of the party pulled a gun and the drunk dude kept coming at him. Oh, geez. He was saying, oh, you're going to do shoot me? You're going to fucking shoot me? I don't know if we're allowed to curse on here. You are. OK, cool. He was coming at the host in front of me going, you know, what are you going to do? You fucking shoot me? Come on. I pulled the trigger. You pussy was basically his thing.
00:19:40
Speaker
And then a bunch of us grabbed the guy and hauled him out of there. About two months later, I was hosting a party and another guy, this guy had a beef with me. He'd been brought by a friend of a friend and he was starting to get aggro. I had a machete. It was just a basic 20 inch blade, cheap spring steel. I did keep it sharp because I mean, if you pull out a knife that big,
00:20:10
Speaker
people are going to think twice because everyone has cut themselves. Not everyone's been, most people have not been shot with a gun. They don't know what it feels like. So they, they have this bravado towards the concept, but everyone has cut themselves with a knife. And when they see a giant machete blade, they're not, they're going to think, how close do I want to get to try to grab that away from you?
00:20:38
Speaker
Also, what happens if that hits me in the face? right So my biggest one for home defense that I have recommended over and over over the decades, a machete. Get a good machete. It doesn't have to be super wicked looking or anything like that. But that has, ah it scares people if you pull one of those out and say, hey, you need to leave.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think I would assume things about any sort of per any person who would pull out a machete. That's that's going to give me ideas about the sort of person that they are. and And all of those ideas say I do not wish to engage physically with this person. So I have I have been in a lot of bar fight. I am I am not a martial artist at all. I i took two years of one martial art and failed out of it.
00:21:34
Speaker
I've been in a lot of bar fights. Mel is like, she's taken trophies at a statewide level in martial arts. I don't think either of us would attack somebody who pulled out a machete and was holding it in in front of them, even if it looked like they didn't know what they were doing. Yeah. I'm not going to close in on somebody who's wielding a 22 inch blade.
00:22:01
Speaker
Right. Well, that makes sense. So let's see, where do we wanna go from here? I guess, so we have some alternatives for guns. Now let's say that someone does, like you know a complete non-gun person, never owned a gun, never shot a gun, they'd like to go and purchase
Firearm Proficiency and Myths
00:22:23
Speaker
one. How long do we think it would be to go from no knowledge of guns to actually being competent, assuming standard intelligence?
00:22:35
Speaker
um Because I mean you're going to need i have some sort of structured training, right? It's not like you can just watch YouTube and have training. No, absolutely not. I wouldn't recommend anybody get their gun training off YouTube or the Internet. Oh, God. That's just that's just like a sequel to Jackass waiting to happen, I think. Right? Yeah. Firearms are their own thing. They're nothing like the movies or TV.
00:22:58
Speaker
They make a very loud sound. They do not react in any way that people are prepared for until they actually put their finger on the trigger for the first time. Your question is feeds back into what you started the show with. One of the reasons I was making the video that I'm going to put out tomorrow is because much like 2016,
00:23:22
Speaker
Every time my liberal friends, my Democrat friends, think shit's about to go sideways, they I've had 17 messages in the last 10 days of people saying, hey, what kind of gun should I get?
00:23:37
Speaker
And that's like if you knew somebody who'd never owned a car saying, what kind of car should I buy? And I'm just going to jump behind the wheel and drive down the freeway. Yeah, no, license no, thats that's not how any of this works. Right. um In my personal experience, and I've trained quite a few people in firearm safety, ah they have publicly recommended me, which is, I think, why I got 17 damn messages.
00:24:04
Speaker
um I would say once you have chosen a particular firearm, you fired it maybe at the range before buying, you've been through a class, you're still going to need at minimum, I'm just spitballing, probably a thousand rounds of ammo, however much however many visits to the range that is for you, you're going to need to put at least a thousand rounds through that gun to really get the feel for it.
00:24:34
Speaker
Every single firearm is different. And I've often said, it's going to be in the video on Monday. It is better to have a firearm that you know inside and out. You know how it shoots. You know how to clear a jam. You know how this gun operates very well. It's better to have that than any gun that you don't understand, that you don't know.
00:25:01
Speaker
Well, that makes sense. Oh, please go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say something that I personally recommend is ah since you're going to want to scope out a local gun range to get this practice in anyway, a lot of ranges have an option where you can come in and ask to basically rent a particular style and caliber of a gun and test it out without purchasing it and you can find out what you know what fits your hand what kind of a kickback can you handle. ah You know what what works with you, you know physically and just personally, and I think this can be a great.
00:25:44
Speaker
option for going in, especially for someone who has never fired a gun before and they have no idea. It's like, well, I don't know what's going to fit in my hand. I don't know how much kickback I can handle. I don't know if I feel recoil. Yeah. Yeah. pretty well Sorry. Recoil. ah clear ah But yeah, it it's just another, sorry, it's an inside joke from. It's a gun. Okay. Maybe this, maybe this fits into the podcast. It, it when it comes to discussing firearms, something that.
00:26:17
Speaker
Gunners as I call them and non-gunners get into friction about is the appropriate terminology. You have to take back its recoil. It's not a clip. It's a magazine unless it is an actual. I have two of these. If it is, if it is an actual gun that takes a clip, then yeah, that's a clip. But that and this will probably come up later in it, but like the entire argument about the term assault weapon It causes a lot of friction where I think people should be talking. You got to use the right terminology. Like words have meanings. So.
00:26:56
Speaker
Well, and I mean, that's fair, if only for clarity so that we all agree that we're talking about the same things. And I think politics actually makes that muddier because oh yeah typically like not, you know, present company excluded, but typically when people are going off about, oh, well, I don't have to listen to your opinion on guns because you've said, you know, you know, you didn't know the word armolite or, you know, whatever.
00:27:22
Speaker
And I mean, yes, there's a point to be made there. People should know what the hell they're talking about. But at the same time, we can't invalidate people's opinions because they're not necessarily enthusiasts about something and know like all the terminology. Because, you know, Republican men, they'd be wanting to control women's bodies, and yet they don't know a whole lot about women's bodies. You don't know what ovulation is.
00:27:49
Speaker
Right, it's like, okay, you you tell me where the G-spot is, and then we can discuss what we'll do with with ah anything happening in my uterus. Oh, do you know what a uterus is? You you don't, do you, sir? But I don't wanna get off on attention about that. At the same point. On the same point, I would point out, if you were talking to a Republican about drug laws, and they said, well, every time you go to inject those bong weeds,
00:28:17
Speaker
How are you gonna feel about them? How are you going to view their opinion? Well, yeah, that's that's absolutely true. But yes, ideally, when you discuss any topic, it is best to know enough about it to be using the best terminology. That is the best way to be taken seriously.
00:28:34
Speaker
And to basically answer your question, in my opinion, and I say this having i've owned a lot of guns and taught a lot of people on a lot of guns, I'd say it's not a time period. You have to put about a thousand rounds, a thousand bullets through that gun to really understand where's the bullet gonna hit? How's it gonna feel when I pull the trigger? How do I clean it? You know, that kind of thing.
00:29:01
Speaker
So buying a gun does not make you instantly safe. And I don't say that to you guys because you guys know that. But man, I'm hearing from a lot of people that, that oh the you know, they're buying a gun as if it will keep them safe. I've had friends come to me with a brand new gun going, hey, you said we're going to go to the range today. And the very first thing that tells me, oh, wow, you don't know anything about this gun, but you're trying to learn that's good.
00:29:29
Speaker
they bring it in the brand new case and they haven't even taken it apart and cleaned it. They haven't lubricated it. They haven't oiled it up. That's important. Yeah. Like that is that is not even firearms 101. That's like baseline Boy Scouts know this. And then I have to okay we're not going to the rage yet. We're gonna we're gonna take an hour. We're gonna take this gun apart. We're gonna oil it up and make sure there's no you know bad manufacturing in it.
00:29:58
Speaker
We're going to put it back together and then we'll go to the rage. But buying a gun by itself, absolutely not. Like, no. Especially, sorry. I was saying, especially if someone's going to buy a gun, uh, put some bullets in it and stick it under their pillow, like a talisman, just like so that the, the, you know, the safety ferry will come in the night and, you know, keep them safe. And that's all they have to do. It's yeah.
00:30:28
Speaker
Well, and if we agree that guns are a tool, all tools require some training. I mean, owning a hammer, even if it's the perfect hammer for you, doesn't give you the knowledge to build something you know that's something. And even once you know intellectually how to build something, you don't know what it's really like until you actually get to the physical act of of building it. so Obviously, that's going to be just as true of guns. Now, another thing that I've heard a lot, and it it largely comes from conservatives, but it is considered a general American principle. The reason that we are supposed to be able to arm ourselves is in case we need to fight off a tyrannical government.
00:31:14
Speaker
pause for laughter. um But but what' how how does that strike your ear now hearing that and in the current climate? Mel, you want to go first? That is a loaded topic. Yeah, and obviously, we're not going to John Wick ourselves against like an invading army. We're not going to Red Dawn.
00:31:44
Speaker
as it were, for the most part. um I think we have more to fear from our own military should the new commander in chief. I mean, he's already ram to he's promised to send the military after protesters. And I have no doubt that that will happen. And then a bunch of 18-year-olds who just got out of basic will have to decide individually whether or not that is a lawful order. And I'm sure some will and some won't.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, i this is one where I think Mel and I are in disagreement because we um i have we have never served, but we have known very well quite a few people who have. um
00:32:24
Speaker
No, I am not worried about the military following an illegal order. Some of them might, but it's it is stamped into our um into our rules of engagement.
00:32:39
Speaker
into the military, American military itself, if you follow an illegal order and then you guys get busted, you're just as to blame as the person who gave the order. And every single branch of the US military down to the coast guard has an oath they take where they swear they will follow the constitution and the law.
00:33:04
Speaker
I'm not saying that's going to absolve them or keep anyone from acting badly, but um yeah were to if Trump were to order the National Guard, for instance, to round up 10 million citizens on based on their skin color, he's going to get a lot of pushback on that. But the Supreme Court just said the president can do pretty much whatever the hell he wants.
00:33:32
Speaker
And if an order comes directly from the president, it would be difficult for a military private ah to to say that, no, that's not a lawful order and I won't follow it. I mean, it's a hypothetical at this point, but nearly. They're trained in bootcamp. Do not follow an illegal order. But how is it an illegal order if the president said it and he's allowed to do whatever he wants?
00:33:58
Speaker
whatever he wants, that's in retrospect. That's if somebody press charges. if he gives an If he gives an order that is illegal with how the law stands today, it's still an illegal order. ah problem we He can be absolved. The problem we run into is the gray area of like the Japanese internment camps in World War II. If he says, oh, well,
00:34:25
Speaker
We have these 10,000 people who are suspected of you know being terrorists or illegals or insert ah term here. And I have just passed an executive order saying that we need to round them all up for questioning and yeah detainment for as long as it takes. This is a legal order.
00:34:50
Speaker
Go do it. I mean, I've told you about my family member who was in one of those camps. He was a shoemaker here in the 1940s, my father's uncle from Japan. And once they let him out of the camp, he sold everything he had left and moved back to Japan and never came here again. My point is that I think it may be less of a, Hey, he gave me a blatantly illegal order.
00:35:17
Speaker
I have to decide whether or not I'm going to do that. It comes down to the, what is the law now? Did he just change it? Is he talking out his butt? ah You know, what's the, you know, what is the actual legal and moral standing on the situation? And I've got 90 seconds to decide. And as Wednesday said, this is a fresh out of bootcamp 18 year olds. They may very likely just fall back to Well, I'm going to fall in with what everyone else is doing and I'll figure it out later. know i agree with you very much gee Yeah, so.
00:36:00
Speaker
realistically speaking, should Trump or or any commander in chief, like if we ever got like a different one after that, since the military after civilians, we aren't really gonna be able to defend ourselves in any meaningful way from the military, are we? Okay, I'm gonna i'm go ah jump in on this one. Please. um People seem to see the government especially a lot of my liberal friends. I am a liberal. yeah I am just not a Democrat. um I am so far left to the Democrats. I am proof that once you go far enough left, you get your guns back.
00:36:40
Speaker
um People see the government as this imaginary like monolith When it really comes down to is the federal government goes to the state government goes to the local government. If your local government decides to go fascist on you, and it could be because they got orders from the state gov, which got orders from the fed gov. Okay. That cascades down, but if it's just the local government, um,
00:37:14
Speaker
Texas cops have already multiple times had standoffs with properly armed citizens who held them at bay for a very long time, including one particular landowner outside of Austin, who's been holding his own against the sheriff's department for over 20 years now. Like they're not bringing in drones and tanks because this is a local level problem.
00:37:41
Speaker
He also is, as far as we know, just holing up on his 180 acre property, chilling out. you know He's a hardcore Rambo survivor type. He's got family there. And they just don't mess with him anymore because there were a couple of firefights. Now, if it comes up to the federal level, if you have actual feds, the federal government coming after you, my first assumption would be you did something you You fucked up. Like if they're actually sending drones and tanks after your ass. Yeah, ah I want to know. I'm not immediately going to side with that civilian. I'm going to be like, why are they sending drones and tanks after your ass? They're not going to like the they're not going to they're not going to mobilize the National Guard to go after a drag queen who read to kids.
00:38:38
Speaker
They're not. Unless they've got really good dirt on somebody. Yeah, exactly. Unless, you know, they're part of the they were involved in like Tinder shutting down during the RNC or Grindr. If a group of drag queens had decided to, I don't know, storm into a national parks office and take it over and declare themselves sovereign citizens. Yeah, you might be looking at a little more friction there. Well, I think, though, that The scenarios that you're describing but took place in ah in a sane world with sane people. And I'm sorry, but we don't have that now. I mean, Trump Trump is not a a well person. And I'm sure that they're going to actually twenty fifth amendment him by like February. But minus the minus the drag queens part, the Bundy family actually did that three years ago. They took over.
00:39:34
Speaker
Bureau of Land Management offices kicked out all the law enforcement offices officers and called it their own sovereign territory. And then the internet got involved in a whole bunch of people, FedEx and dildos, which was hilarious. They were asking for supplies and they got just stacks of dildos.
00:39:56
Speaker
You know, I'm um'm always in favor of of sending someone a bag of dicks. My business offers that, you know. um Well, so many people are like, oh, I wish I could tell my family what I think of them. Well, I will be happy to anonymously mail them a bag of dicks.
00:40:13
Speaker
You know, I can't necessarily conceive of the military shooting down protesters, but if you recall, ah Occupy Wall Street got pretty friggin' bloody, and it wasn't because the protesters were out of hand. You know, the the people that showed up in the riot gear were the violent ones. At the same time, on January 6th, Trump tried to activate the local National Guard to protect his horde of people.
00:40:42
Speaker
And the National Guard told him to go fuck himself.
00:40:48
Speaker
Well, and, you know, obviously I approve of that. Things are different now. He had lost at that point. He had lost and he was on his way out. And, you know, he was a lame duck. He's not a lame duck now. He's just an asshole, but he's an asshole with a whole lot of power and a bunch of apartheid guys surrounding him.
00:41:07
Speaker
letting them know that, like, no, the proles don't matter. The masses, as long as we have enough to work and take over, you know, all the all the immigrant jobs after we deport them. But but again, I don't I don't want a tangent. I really don't.
Real-Life Gun Use Experiences
00:41:22
Speaker
I don't want these episodes. I know it's just I don't I don't want to be another white person. I know we started with guns and then we turned into politics. Well, I think the short version, which I agree with James on, is basically Your your original question was, you know do you think that us arming and training ourselves will make a difference you know against you know fascist law enforcement, as it were? And I think that James summed it up by basically saying, on the federal level, no. On the local individual level, if it's just you know ah Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane coming out and harassing you for being a queer,
00:42:06
Speaker
Uh, then yes, you know, uh, you and several of your friends, uh, trained in arms. I mean, but didn't that I couldn't, I could beat up a school board. I'm sure of it. right You put those books back. I'm saying straight up. If, if we broke some new, let's just say handmaidens tale, weird law that was put in in 2026 saying you're not allowed to.
00:42:35
Speaker
I don't know, own a copy of the Quran and the cops showed up here. Maybe I'm, I'm, I'm pre, uh, maybe, maybe I'm giving myself evidence in the future to get arrested, but the cops showed up here for that. Oh, absolutely not. We're going in lockdown and, uh, good luck getting in boys.
00:42:56
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I love that. Love it. um Let's see. Oh, we were gonna talk personal anecdotes. Now, Jay, I'm actually aware that you have been in a situation where a gun was used for self-defense. We would love to hear about it. We would love to hear what you learned from it. yeah Okay, I've been in three. One of those I wasn't actually in. i was It was my parents.
00:43:26
Speaker
My mother, before she passed away, had a fairly decent online presence. And this is just a family story we all know because of the trauma it caused to everybody. ah Long story short, in 1974, my parents were living in Riverside, California when several very aggressive home invaders invaded their home.
00:43:56
Speaker
And they were basically threatening to kill them. And my mother used her 38 pistol, a revolver. And they ended up in court in wheelchairs. Oh my. And had they been successful, because they just brought big butcher knives, kitchen knives, had they been successful, I wouldn't be here.
00:44:23
Speaker
Anecdotally, the first time I ever had to use a gun was in Long Beach, California. I was living in a bad side of town, right? my Like my house faced a major throwaway, Bellflower Boulevard. One night I wake up at four in the morning to the sound of my living room window opening.
00:44:46
Speaker
And I was a little, what? And I just happened to have a pistol. I had a 357 Magnum. And I came in and there was a dude, like his waist was right at the windowsill. He was halfway into my living room. Didn't know the guy, didn't recognize him. Let's just say he looked like a tweaker to me, publicly a meth addict. And I cocked the pistol and pointed at him.
00:45:16
Speaker
And he, uh, his eyes got about the size of plates. And then he exited the way he had come in very fast to the point that I opened my front door to come out, to try to get a look at him. And I could see him booking it down the sidewalk about a hundred yards away. That dude did a, he just road-runnered. He was gone. I didn't fire. Well, in fact, to date, I've never fired a gun at a living human being.
00:45:47
Speaker
I think there are a lot of situations where just the sound of it cocking or particularly that cool sound that a rifle makes that sh you know, that scares that shit out of people. I do warn people about that. A gun is not a noisemaker. My home defense weapon, my personal ones by the bed is a 12 gauge. It's a pump action. Yes. Does that sound scare people if they're you know, invading a house and they hear the the shut check of a pump action. Yeah, absolutely. But I keep one in the pipe, as they call it. So I'm not making that noise. If there's a home invader, the first sound they might hear is the click as I disengage the safety. The next sound they hear, they probably won't even hear. They'll, they'll just be dead.
00:46:41
Speaker
Well, don't rob. if if if this No, this, this is actually something that ah that I've, I've talked in public about before. If the sound of a gun is enough to deter an invader or an attacker, then, and you don't want to go through the training to get knowledge about at firearms. Just download the wave file to your phone. no Wow. See how that goes for you.
00:47:11
Speaker
Yeah, you should be trained in a firearm. And if you just have it to make that chick chick noise, and are in no way prepared to fire it, then you might as well just download an mp3 to your phone. It's not a noisemaker. It's a weapon. Yeah, and I mean, that's, that's a very basic thing. Like don't point at anything that you don't want dead.
00:47:34
Speaker
don't even take it out unless you're taking it out to use it. You know, the the whole waving it around to intimidate people. I mean, it just, oh no, please go ahead. Well, you sent us the the ah preview of what we were going to be talking about. um The basic four gun rules are one that I can rip through real quick. Please. The first one is there's no such thing as an unloaded firearm. In my family, unloaded was a profane term and you could get actually punished for saying it.
00:48:07
Speaker
Guns exist in two states. They are loaded or disabled. A disabled firearm is one with its action locked open. You can see it it. If you were to put a bullet in it and pull the trigger, they mechanically cannot work. Every single gun can be disabled.
00:48:28
Speaker
Anything else, especially if it just is closed and locked, if it's ready to go, even if you just check to make sure there's no bullets in it whatsoever, treat it as loaded. Unloaded is profane. The second rule, keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire. And that includes while you're aiming. oh I do this to the point that I don't even pick up a Nerf gun and put my finger on the trigger.
00:48:57
Speaker
You can aim a weapon at an attacker without putting your finger on the trigger. That was so hard for me to learn as a kid, because as a kid, you just want to put your finger on the trigger so much, and it was really hard to get to train myself out of it. Movies and TV teach people that when you pick up a gun, yeah, put your finger on the trigger. That's like putting your foot on a gas pedal of a car immediately. Yeah. It's the only thing that can make the firearm go off. The only thing.
00:49:27
Speaker
Don't put your finger on the trigger. The third one, ah and always, always, visually identify your target and what is behind it. Bullets go through things, especially when it comes to live mammals.
00:49:47
Speaker
Bullets don't stop, it's not the movies, even hollow points don't just stop inside of a human body. They pass through and hit whatever's behind it. This also includes walls, especially in apartments. Yeah, well, any neighborhood.
00:50:06
Speaker
you are You are basically both ethically and legally, um you're on the hook for all the damage that any bullet you fire causes. That's a hard one for me to get to people, get through to people when I'm teaching them how to shoot. Well, people still think it's safe to fire into the air.
00:50:27
Speaker
and the fourth one is never ever point a loaded firearm and pointing is a human thing it it requires you holding it in your hand and pointing a gun never point a gun at anything a loaded gun at anything you're not willing to destroy yes that's simple and if if you follow and the reason those four holy rules i only realized this in my adulthood i was just taught this as a kid If you break any one of those rules at a time, you still can't have a firearms accident. You break two or more, that's when you end up on the news. Well, thank you for coming to my Ted. I was going to say ah that actually kind of ties into the one anecdote that I had, because I've never actually been involved in a gun incident. Fortunately, knock on wood.
00:51:22
Speaker
um However, I have had a couple of scares, uh, and one of them, you know, following those rules actually prevented any kind of incident from happening. Uh, the short version was, uh, I was home and asleep and, uh, heard, was awakened by the sound of, uh, sounded like somebody kicking in our sliding glass back door. So.
00:51:52
Speaker
mainly grabbed the pistol that I have in a lockbox under the bed um and was heading out into very carefully out in the living room, you you know, finger off the trigger, ah muzzle ready but not pointed directly at anything. And as it turned out, um the sound of someone kicking in a plate glass a sliding door can also be replicated by an obese cat deciding to jump onto a pinball machine at two in the morning and landing on the large plate of glass on top of it. So because I followed these rules, I did not shoot the cat um and everything was fine. But yeah, if I had not been following these rules and I'd come around the corner and he startled me like that, there could have been you know a tragic accident and there wasn't, so. All right.
00:52:50
Speaker
Yeah, to I I've never used a gun outside of a sportsman setting. I've been around people that used guns very irresponsibly. But when I was a kid, I thought, like, my grandfather would take us to shoot skeet, you know, and he had this big thing that was like a mousetrap. It looked like it was giant, and it would shoot the little clay. Yeah, it's a clay thrower. Yeah, and it was so awesome. And then, you know, all the adults would do it, and then the kids would get to go have their turn.
00:53:19
Speaker
And I think one time, out of all the times I shot, out I was probably nine or 10. One time I actually got a piece of the clay and I was so, so excited. And you know, you go around showing everybody the big bruise on your shoulder, like, look what a badass I am. I've been shooting all day. Oh yeah, just out at the range, whatever, at the Sportsman Club. Like I'm some kind of little gun enthusiast badass.
00:53:45
Speaker
But that's the thing is that the and NRA community, the Sportsman Club community, it used to be so welcoming. And if someone went there and said, I don't like guns, I'm afraid of guns, people wouldn't say get the hell out of here, you woke bitch. They would say, look, man, guns are fine, actually, you probably just need to know more. And then they would start teaching them things.
00:54:06
Speaker
And that's something that we could probably stand to get back to as a culture. Just the whole like, no, man, you're, you're maybe not an asshole. Maybe you're just not as well informed as you could be. Let us tell you some things. And we've gone so far away from that in the socio-political sphere for for good reason. I mean, there's, there's lots of reasons not to break bread with Trump people.
00:54:29
Speaker
But I think that reasonable people can agree on guns. And for the most part, they do. Like, it is a stereotype that liberals don't want anyone to have guns. Plenty of Progressive Zone guns. If I wasn't such a crazy pants, I would have one. But i've I've gotten in a few arguments with idiots online. What? You? I know.
00:54:52
Speaker
but they start, it's on gun forums and they're they like, well, I got more guns than you. I'm like, no, you don't guarantee you fucking don't. um But actually to circle back to what you were just saying, this is one of the things that when I say it's important to have experience with the firearm you choose. Had you as a teenager or a child shot skeet every day gotten really good at just nailing those clays out of the air. Awesome. Then you have mastered that shotgun. But if I were to hand you a Glock, right, you're starting at square one, you have not know how that firearm works. And that to me is one of the reasons it's important for if somebody wants a gun, you really, really need to get experienced and trained in it.
00:55:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, ah a Glock and a rifle, they're they're different tools. You know, they're as different as a hammer and a drill. They're just not the same. They don't do the thing the same way. So let's get into that. Let's get into how does someone know what gun is appropriate for them? Like, how do you decide? What what factors do you consider? How do you decide?
00:56:08
Speaker
I'm interested in seeing what Mel has to say here because mine literally is polished and I just put it in a video. So I was actually going to say I'm going to step away for a bathroom break for a second. So you start and I will come back in a second. OK. Well, um every time that my friends, especially my friends who've never fired a gun, come to me ask, oh, what kind of gun should I get?
00:56:34
Speaker
The very first one or out the gate that I just tell them no is any kind of handgun. Handguns are for a very specific use and that is home defense in very close quarters and self-defense also at very limited ranges. Nobody is John Wick.
00:56:59
Speaker
Nobody is going to pull off a 50 yard shot with a handgun in a stressful situation at all. Like that's just not a
Handguns and Home Defense Costs
00:57:10
Speaker
thing. That's Hollywood. That's TV. Would it make sense for me to carry a handgun in my purse for personal protection? Well, that comes back to training and disappointment again. Um, a handgun is good if your attacker is 15 yards or closer.
00:57:28
Speaker
Also, it comes down to, is it legal in your state? We live in Texas where after 2016, you can pretty much carry anything. You need a permit where I am. I'm in Michigan. Yeah, we we got rid of our permits. I daily carry a nine millimeter that I have learned. I have taken it to the range multiple times. I know how this gun functions, and it's a pocket-sized pistol. Wait, are you open open carrying that, or can you conceal carry that?
00:57:57
Speaker
No, we concealed carry with no permit in Texas. Oh, wow. Well, we were concealed carry up until 2016 and then they passed a bunch of laws saying, yeah, we don't have to do that anymore. Oh, good. um Actually, you did send that list of, let's just touch on that real quick. Open carry versus concealed carry. I am a very strong proponent of concealed carry. If you,
00:58:26
Speaker
but Like if you feel like you want to open carry a gun, yeah, great. Go on, show off to people what kind of gun you're carrying. It's more important to me that if anybody is trying to attack me, they don't know I have a gun. Yes. I very much agree.
00:58:44
Speaker
But if you don't have 17 visible rifles when you go to Sonic to, you know, get a handshake. Honestly, I think those people are idiots. But that's why people think that liberals don't own guns because we don't make them our entire fashion aesthetic. You know, it's like, yeah, if I mean, it's like, I don't carry a gun, but I do carry a knife. I have a little Spyderco that comes with me everywhere I go.
00:59:08
Speaker
Right on. And it's great too. I love it. It's one of those combo blades. ah It's like one of my favorite things. But I don't like, well, I guess I just did, but normally I wouldn't advertise. that but edit editor Hello, podcast listener. Well, because the thing the thing about like these people walking around with the giant guns, I mean,
00:59:30
Speaker
you obviously want to look like a threat. Because yes, you are allowed to do that. But like, I'm allowed to walk around with a boa constrictor around my neck and floppy clouds to use like I'm allowed to do that. But I'm not because it's ridiculous. However, that would probably be more of a deterrent for people mugging you. crash It's true. You know what, when I first got my anaconda,
00:59:55
Speaker
I had a roommate. Yeah, I had a yellow anaconda. His name was Dante. He was dope as fuck. So when I but when i first got him, my roommate was very upset. She was a drag queen and...
01:00:06
Speaker
listening? Do you listen to my show? um But they they used to steal my laundry quarters. And so I'd go to do laundry and it's me like who doesn't drive, right? So I can't just go out and get quarters. My laundry quarters kept getting stolen. So I took all my quarters and put them in a Tupperware and put the Tupperware in the tank with the snake. yeah And then I always had laundry quarters. That's right on. It's a tale with a happy ending.
01:00:36
Speaker
but but But we digress. um Of course we do, podcast. That's how these go. So yeah, so we're back to to choosing and and and thinking probably not a handgun for most situations. Okay, if somebody wants personal defense,
01:00:57
Speaker
going out in public, I would say, yes, get a handgun, but Lord, you really need to be trained in how to shoot it. And also, much more importantly, when and why to shoot it. Because um even if it's a cut and dried, you're walking down the sidewalk, this dude runs up and tries to rape you. If you shoot him to death, you need to know how to react afterwards legally because you are in for a ah lot of legal expenses. Even if the cops show up and say, oh yeah, that was totally justified, no charges pressed, you are still going to have to pay for a lawyer.
01:01:45
Speaker
Yep. Well, and there's almost certainly going to be some kind of civil suit. ah Yep. his family is probably going to come back and paint him as somebody who, Oh no, the meth was just, you know, it was just something he only done that day. And, you know, just cause he was coming at you with a 12 inch butcher knife, doesn't mean you had to shoot him once.
01:02:09
Speaker
When it comes to handguns, a handgun is a great personal protection device to about 15 yards. Most of my liberal friends are a lot more worried about their home. And if you're doing a home, get a long gun, get a long gun with a buttstock. It can be a rifle. It can be a shotgun, but get a long gun because they're far more accurate and far more powerful.
01:02:39
Speaker
Well, that makes sense because again, it's about a deterrent, right? I mean, you don't necessarily want to kill someone. You just want them the hell out of your house, right? Or at the very least, if they refuse to get out of your house, you want to incapacitate them and keep them from doing you harm. It's the thing that I train people on every time and that I've done this so many times over the last nine years. Um,
01:03:09
Speaker
If somebody's like, well, I want something that i like I can shoot to kill. No, you don't want to shoot to kill. You're trying to shoot to stop. Stopping is when the bad person either runs away or just stops what they're doing. The the whole ah wing, someone in the leg or the shoulder thing, that's all Hollywood bullshit. You need a gun that if you shoot them, they will stop doing what they were doing that made you shoot them. That's it. Dying is stopping. I mean, on the far end of the spectrum, yes. Yeah, but so is wounding them or missing them entirely and they leave. Okay. You shoot to stop, not shoot to kill. In fact, you can get in a lot of trouble if you
01:04:02
Speaker
Do wing somebody and then decide okay i'm going to execute them now Uh, there have been multiple court cases in the last 20 years about this Sure sure Okay, let let me ask about cost now if you're talking about a long gun something for home defense. Um How much is Like what what is a reasonable amount that someone should spend we're talking about like new from a gun dealer and that subuse thing you found wherever Um, how much is like, what is suspiciously cheap? What is a reasonable price to pay? What is it? Cause I know that guns can be fantastically expensive, but it's like musical instruments. Like, yes, you can have some for shockingly low prices. They're not going to do what you want them to do. And if they do, they won't do it at a high scale level. I'm laughing because I know exactly the brand. James is supposed to go on, it is about to go on a but rant about.
01:05:01
Speaker
I'm not goingnna no um i'm gonna, I'm gonna do a very small rant. So ah you can get many firearms in America for remarkably cheap. um There's a company out of, I wanna say Michigan called High Point. I own three of these, I did not buy any of them. All of them were, somebody bought them, didn't like it, gave it to me.
01:05:28
Speaker
Two of them suck. One of them actually is really good. Um, but we're, we're talking about somebody, let's just say like somebody listening to this podcast is saying, well, I want a weapon that I'm going to get trained in. They're going to do everything right. What's a good price point for a gun? Surprisingly long guns brand new are usually cheaper than handguns. Okay.
01:05:59
Speaker
My recommendations are ah for a rifle. You can pick up a good home defense rifle for $300 to $400. Brand new. Okay. A shotgun you can get for $200 or more dollars. Brand freaking new. Now explain for people that don't know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun.
01:06:24
Speaker
It's in the name. Rifles. No, I mean, it's really it's literally in the name. Pistols and rifles have what's known as rifling. It's stripes of steel on the inside of the barrel that causes the bullet to spin. Shotguns are what's known as smoothbore. They have no rifling. There's no anything on the inside. It's just like it's like looking down a chunk of you know, fence post. It's smooth. Shotguns are smooth because they're supposed to be used at closer range. And if you fire a slug, the slug has rifling that picks up where the barrel does not. um A rifle on the other hand, it's going to have a twisted pattern like a corkscrew down the barrel that spins the bullet because much like throwing a football, when it spins, it's more accurate. It stays on target.
01:07:24
Speaker
Okay. See, we know about rifling because we all watch law and order. But I don't I don't know that people well, what what I recall is like I know we talk about TV and movies not being accurate. But the shotgun is the one that fills someone full of lead. Like it's it's you know, ah it's the little what point i every every gun term I ever learned has escaped my mind.
01:07:48
Speaker
but the buckshot in the cartridge, it just goes everywhere and just fucks your whole face up. It doesn't go everywhere. And this is something that I've had to prove to people who went out and bought a shotgun and got me to train them on it. Buckshot is not like the TVs and movie. It does not spread out even with, I'd have to get into chokes and all that. I am gonna tell Elmer Fudd that you said that.
01:08:13
Speaker
yeah Most home defense shotguns have no choke. It's what's known as open bore. And at 25 feet, those buckshot pellets spread out about four inches. At 50 feet, they spread out maybe eight. You can absolutely miss with a shotgun.
01:08:34
Speaker
Otherwise, skeet wouldn't be a thing. yeah Yeah. Like, oh, I just pulled the trigger and everything in the sky exploded. Yeah, it's not the AOE cloud of death that Hollywood often makes it out to be. But if I'm a bad shot, I mean, obviously I shouldn't be if I'm handling a gun, but let's say that I just never really get the hang of it. What what do I mean? Do I avoid guns altogether? Or is there something that will still allow me to defend my home effectively?
01:09:04
Speaker
I mean, I would tell that person to get a machete. like There's no getting around that shot placement matters. Shotguns do not just spread out and kill a whole room full of drug dealers at a time. um I would say, OK, what was the original question? If you're kind of what you're a bad shot, but. Yeah, a bad shot. ah Go to the range and be a better shot.
01:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that that certainly makes the most sense. That's like saying, I'm a bad driver. What kind of car should I get? Like, no. A tank, obviously. Well, yes. You should. Yeah, I think like any time that I've had a gun pointed at me, it made my hand shake real bad. So I would have to think if I'm in a situation where I'm trying to shoot a gun, even if I'm normally pretty good at it, my hands are going to be shaking pretty bad.
01:09:59
Speaker
that also comes back to something that i I cannot train anyone on, the military can and certain firearms instructors can. um People for the most part are not ready for what a gun in real life does to a human being. It isn't John Wick, they don't just take a shot and they don't just take a bullet and drop over dead.
01:10:24
Speaker
If you shoot somebody, they're probably going to, if you hit them badly, they're going to probably fall over and then they're going to bleed and scream and you will probably be traumatized. Not as badly as they are, but you will be traumatized. You're going to need therapy. Bullets don't just cleanly magically make somebody's life go out. You're punching a hole through somebody.
01:10:55
Speaker
That's something that that, that one is really one where I tell people you need to go to a, if you really think you're going to have to use this in self-defense against a human being, you need to go to a proper trainer who will train you for what happens when you shoot somebody. Cause they don't just fall over dead. They're going to yell. They're going to scream. They're going to cry. There's going to be a lot of bodily fluids everywhere.
01:11:21
Speaker
Well, I mean, it seems like it would be impossible to shoot, to to have to shoot anyone without winding up with PTSD yourself. I mean, whatever it is, it's going to be a trump traumatic incident. Yeah. I have, I have hunted many animals with firearms and I've never once shot a human being. I hope I live the rest of my life without having to do it because the animals alone, yeah, there were some ones in there that,
01:11:51
Speaker
Yeah, they left a mark on me. No, I'm sure, I'm sure. You know what? let's ah Let's lighten it up a little bit. Now, we we've said- Sure. We've said several times that TV and movies are mostly bullshit, but I'll bet both of you can think of a TV or movie gun scene or or event that is accurate. who Who's getting it right? Somebody must be getting it right.
01:12:19
Speaker
OK, Mel, you want to do this on three because I think we have the same answer on three. No, I'm I'm trying to think of one that's wholly accurate. But you go ahead. Oh, come on. and We watched these and you were like, oh, my God, everything is absolutely accurate.
01:12:37
Speaker
But it's not John Wick because like John Wick. I was going to say it seems like 100 percent. Yeah. I mean, the thing is that just because we're not John Wick doesn't mean John Wick isn't John Wick. I mean, we can all see him. He is clearly beating up a guy with a horse. The John Wick movies were written and directed by a dude who had done all the stunts for The Matrix. And this is a firearms master and martial arts master.
01:13:04
Speaker
And the first time we watched John Wick together, both of us, especially Mel, because of her, uh, martial arts training, we're watching this movie going, wow. This is, this is real. The, there's no magical gun that just never runs out of bullets. Nobody what did like John. It's not like John Wick never fucks up. He fucks up in the movies and then he corrects. Mm-hmm.
01:13:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm not like an action fan per se. ah An action movie has to be a pretty high quality to get my interest. And I cannot take my eyes off John Wick. And that's one of the reasons like, I don't know, have you watched on YouTube any of the Keanu Reeves training videos? Oh, absolutely. It is thought they were fucking incredible.
01:13:50
Speaker
You know, it also made me wonder what who are these weird three people who over the last five years have broken into his house while he was home. Right? Seems like an extremely elaborate suicide attempt, but it really does. Yeah, you might as well kidnap Liam Nason's daughter. I mean, what would you mean? The level of detail they put into the movies. I remember the first time Mel was watching John Wiggum. Mel has done a lot of martial arts.
01:14:17
Speaker
And she had me pausing the movie like every 15 seconds going, wait, hold on. I know what the with that style is. And then he's mixing it with this style. And Mel, you elaborate because I don't know all these stuff. I mean, I can't remember the exact details. But yeah, it was a very interesting ah and exciting thing to watch, because most of the time when you see martial arts and action movies, especially when guns are involved, like, you know, the whole gun kata thing that's kind of gotten popular.
01:14:47
Speaker
Oh, it's, it's like, you can kind of see the, the P of reality buried under the 17 mattresses of special effects, as it were, and, and, and choreography. But this one, I was sitting going, no, no, they actually just took two valid, ah two or three valid things and melded them together. And yeah, it's not perfect And it's probably a little more flamboyant than anyone in real life would do. But this is effective as hell. And I'm taking notes, you know, kind of situation. So that was a really refreshing and kind of exhilarating watch for me. ne Another one. um
01:15:36
Speaker
Hold on. I mean, I have to Google it. The one that we were watching it. God, this is like 16 years ago. ah
01:15:45
Speaker
Hold on. Equilibrium. There was a movie where collateral. Mm hmm. 2004 collateral Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox. Wait, is that the one where Tom Cruise is a bad guy? It is a hit. He's a hit man who has kidnapped a taxi gra right driver to drive him around. Tom Cruise's actual depiction of how he used close combat firearms It took my breath away. Like it was so perfectly done. Like this is above and beyond any training I've had. Like this is realistic. This is how you would actually effectively use a firearm for self-defense or ah as he did several times, actual offense. That's amazing. Yeah, I mean,
01:16:38
Speaker
When I was a kid, it was the time when TV was considered the height of realism because they started counting how many guns they fired, like how many times they fired on Starsky and Hutch before they had to reload.
01:16:52
Speaker
And at the time that was considered a very big deal, like a very, mean a huge leap toward, well, because you remember like TV in the sixties, people would get shot and then like clutch their belly and fall forward. Like they there was no, right know it was, it was actually, isn't everybody knows what I'm referencing. When I say, do you feel lucky punk? Like, and that said Hollywood has basically turned as we've said a couple of times in this podcast, Hollywood has turned guns into this imaginary talisman that just makes you a bad-ass and you'll kill all the bad dudes and all the bad things will be done because you have a gun. And I really want people to get away from that because guns are real. They're a real They're a real tool. You don't just, owning a gun does not make you into John Wick.
01:17:48
Speaker
Which is a shame because it'd be neat if there was more John Wicks, but they'd have to really be John Wicks. And that's something else that I- I'm against that. No, I don't want that many puppies to die. Well, yeah. well Fewer Theon Greyjoys and more more John Wicks.
01:18:04
Speaker
but um The idea that people that like having a gun enables you to be a hero in, you know, like a mass shooting or oh, absolutely stopping some kind of altercation. Well, then what we're running into now is people that think they're rushing in to be the hero and the cop doesn't know the difference and they end up dying. yeah Oh, yeah. Yeah. We got Kyle Rittenhouse out there.
01:18:30
Speaker
Fuck that guy. yeah um No, it's something that when people, I'm i teaching them how to carry a pistol responsibly, I do often point out at the Colorado theater shooting, there were two different members of the audience who were concealed carrying. They had licenses, they had loaded pistols in their pockets.
01:18:54
Speaker
And they did exactly what you are supposed to do. And that is you're not going to be the hero. You're not going to rush the gunman. You're going to use your gun to make sure the aisle is clear and then get the hell out of there. Yep. That's what they did. They never fired a shot against the guy. And a bunch of the public bleeped up and was like, well, why didn't you John Wick him?
01:19:18
Speaker
It's like, dude, you're talking about 50 year old men. Well, because there's no vantage point, there's no cover. You're just like in a place with a bunch of people. No, it's it's completely irresponsible carrying a firearm. If you're carrying a firearm for personal offense, and it's usually going to be a pistol. The first thing I always tell people is, well, from now on, you're going to lose every fight at a bar, every fight at a party.
01:19:43
Speaker
If somebody's getting in your face, you're going to back up and walk away because you are carrying a deadly weapon and they don't know that. And second, you don't carry a firearm so you can be a hero. You carry a firearm to defend your life. Well, I don't know how many people realize that that's actually a sociopathic fantasy to want to be in some kind of horrible situation so you can rush in and save everybody.
01:20:10
Speaker
main characters. Everybody wants to be that cop at Fort Hood who came in and killed the shooter, not knowing that that cop immediately retired and had to do years of therapy. Yeah, yeah, very much so.
01:20:23
Speaker
um Okay, so I'm just looking over my notes here making sure. Alright, so we're going to actually talk about some common mistakes that new gun owners make, and you know why you should not make them and I think one of the biggest ones is improper storage of guns and ammo.
Responsible Gun Storage
01:20:44
Speaker
um Do you guys, you guys don't have kids in your house, but I'm sure you're you're still- Not anymore. Emanately responsible. That was a really ominous answer, James. Not anymore. Oh. Don't check the rose bush. The kid has come up and moved away. so We had kids and guns and now we just have the guns. My answer might actually shock you a little bit. um I'm not a fan.
01:21:14
Speaker
of, uh, required trigger locks. I'm, I'm not even a fan of gun safes. And let me, let me, let me, uh, anecdote this one. In my family at the age of five, you are taught what a gun is. You are given, you are, you are handed one and taught how to use it, when to use it, what it does.
01:21:40
Speaker
In my family, going back for at least four generations that I traced back, they did this. And this is a big family. They had a lot of kids. They kept their guns loaded and in a closet with no safe, no trigger locks. Every kid knew where those guns were. And I was one of those generations and we didn't fuck with them because we knew what a gun was and what it does and when to use it.
01:22:10
Speaker
You know, pull it out to show your friends of, you know, her, her chugging out. I got a gun. I would say that if you have a house with unruly children. Or visitors. Yeah. you Or visit or unruly visitors or unruly roommates. Yeah, you probably want to lock your guns up, put them in a gun safe.
01:22:33
Speaker
That's a real good idea. There's a common narrative of, well, you know, most shooters, they got their guns from a house where they broke in and they it was unlocked. That's not true at all. No, i yeah, it's not. I did a lot of research into this.
01:22:51
Speaker
and the reality is most mass shooters, at least since 2013, which is where I did my data set, ah they bought their guns legally. Yeah, no, that i'm within that's still true. The last numbers I pulled up were from 2022 and it's still predominantly legal gun owners. Yeah, they buy the gun within 72 hours and it's usually a nine millimeter handgun, not an AR-15.
01:23:18
Speaker
Air 15s count for less than all of the data sets I did year by year since 2013. Air 15s and similar rifles, let's just say the AK-47 is similar. I'm sure somebody who knows guns who's listening to this podcast, can be like it's not the same at all. But they count for less than 12 percent of mass shooting. well No, it's really more of a special occasion gun.
01:23:45
Speaker
yeah Oh, yeah, absolutely. With that one out for the for your quince an area. um No, it's the vast, vast majority of mass shootings are done with a legally purchased nine millimeter handgun. It's easy to conceal. You can walk into your workplace. Nobody knows it's in your backpack.
01:24:09
Speaker
And with double stack pistols being what they are, yeah you can walk in there with, you got 22 rounds per magazine. Just unload on that manager and then everybody else. um When it comes to safely storing guns, I am not a fan of locking it up because that would be like putting your fire extinguisher under lock and key.
01:24:36
Speaker
Well, I mean, I I under I understand that theoretically, it it really doesn't take very long to engage a ah fingerprint lock and get your gun out. Honestly, no I would will lock horns on that one. fuck those Oh, if I go ahead now saying um we do have a gun safe where we keep the majority of our rifles locked in. um And I do have a not a fingerprint, but a push button.
01:25:07
Speaker
ah handgun handgun safe that I keep under my side of the bed. And one of the reasons I got this was when the kid was little ah say, yes, they were trained in safety, the way that James and I were as kids, you know, this is not a toy, you do not touch it. and all All of that drilled in. However, I still ah wanted to keep mine safe. And it is instead of like said, instead of fingerprint, it's push button.
01:25:37
Speaker
But because of the configuration, it has like over 10,000 possible combinations to open it. But since I have it memorized, I can literally do it in a third of a second backwards in the dark with one hand. So, and I practiced. So it's a matter of, yes, technically it's locked away, but it takes less time for me to open that safe now than it would for me to pull open a bedside drawer to get to it. So.
01:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean that, I would think that that would just be part of like your, your general gun training is getting it quickly out of the safe. And honestly, I don't think you're supposed to store your gun loaded, but if it was in a lock safe, I would be perfectly comfortable keeping it in there loaded.
01:26:26
Speaker
and I mean, you can store a gun safely loaded because going back to those four rules, I'm not even kidding. The engineering of most modern firearms, the only thing that makes you go bang is putting your finger on the trigger. That's it. Nothing. You can drop it. You can throw it off a fucking building. It's not going to go off. um I, on the other hand, keep my ah home defense weapon behind a window curtain.
01:26:56
Speaker
And I mounted magnets to the wall. So I have a loaded 12 gauge next to the bed that should the need arise, I can just grab it and go. But the curtain has a combination on it. So, you know. Yeah, I got to sweep it aside. like One of those steel reinforced curtains you keep hearing about. It's just a bedroom curtain. And that's just it. Concealment is a way to keep people from knowing you have a firearm.
01:27:30
Speaker
um At the same time, as Mel noted, we keep most of our firearms in the safe. And that's not for safety reasons. That's because they cost a lot of money. Well, and you know, like, like weed used to be, it's one of those stupid little things that cops can hassle you about it if they want to. And it's typically better not to give the cops a reason to be able to hassle you. So sure, safe by all means, we're all being safe with our safes. I mean, this could be a segue to something I wanted to interject in here. Um, one of the problems that I think your audience will understand,
01:28:12
Speaker
I'm not talking down to anybody, is gun laws and drug laws in the United States are very similar in that they were written by idiots who have no idea how these things work. Well, I think gun laws were written for like muskets initially and then guns advanced a lot. oh No, there was there was the 1995 assault weapons ban that was so ineffective that when it came up for expiration under Obama, it was like no Democrats wanted to renew it because they realized this law, that this entire set of laws was stupid. It did not lower gun violence in America. It did not lower school shootings. And the assault weapons ban was,
01:29:05
Speaker
dumb it was It was written by people who quite honestly, I've i've read this law this this set of laws. It's almost a novel. I've read it over and over again. I'm like, you people have never touched a gun in your life. it's just It is literally the same as Texas marijuana laws.
01:29:25
Speaker
Oh, but marijuana, it'll make you rape your dog and kill your grandma. Well, they do put it on par with things like heroin and cocaine, which, yes. When you inject those bong weeds, your eyeballs fall out and you eat your grandma, so. Well, my grandmother shouldn't be that delicious. I can't help that. And to me, that's just as dumb as saying, well, the AR-15 was designed to blow children's legs off.
01:29:53
Speaker
No, it's not. it's That's a fucking rule. I'd love to meet the engine. That's a you problem. By all means. yeah But the AWB was passed with a strong Democrat majority in Washington at the time. And if you read it, if you know anything about guns, this was written by people who had no idea how guns work.
01:30:20
Speaker
they like Oh yeah, well, we'll outlaw the AK-47. Oh, the SKS carbine. That's still, that's a hunting rifle. They fire the same bullet. They're both semi-automatic. They literally fire the same bullet. It's, no. And then when the AWB came up for, ah came up for a renewment, Obama's administration looked at how popular it was, which it wasn't, and was like, uh, it didn't actually do anything. Okay.
01:30:50
Speaker
Well, the argument for that was supposed to be that it gets guns that do that, you know, the the so well, there's there's semi auto because normal people can't own automatic rifles. Right. So you can, but you got to get a tax stamp and an FBI background check.
01:31:08
Speaker
Okay, okay. So, so yeah, so the thinking is to keep those guns away from regular people because regular people don't have need of them, which I think brings up an important point.
Gun Laws and Rights Discussion
01:31:20
Speaker
Now, we agree that the right to own firearms is guaranteed in the Constitution.
01:31:27
Speaker
but should that mean any firearm for any person who is is qualified to own a gun? Now, I know people have, ah you know there's a lot of different ways to feel about that. you know As a citizen who lives in the world, there's a whole lot of people that I don't want to have, like you know like something with ah with a bump stock, for example, that's gonna make it real easy to shoot more in a short amount of time.
01:31:53
Speaker
It doesn't make sense to me. I think anybody that has done domestic violence and actually been convicted of it or pled guilty to it, shouldn't get a gun, at least for a while. Get your shit straight first. I 100% agree on that. Well, and we know that domestic violence is a predictor for mass shootings. Like we know that now.
01:32:12
Speaker
um I alluded to this earlier. In 2018, I was in a online argument And I decided, you know what, I'm going to do my own research. And by that, I'm not saying like, I'm going to do my own research about vaccines and listen to Dr. Oz. I actually went to FBI data and looked up mass shootings from 2013 onward. I did not expect the data that I found and it actually changed my mind about certain gun control laws. Um, full auto. It's, it it scares people because they've seen it in Hollywood.
01:32:52
Speaker
The reality is most, and by that I mean the vast, vast, virtually non-existent on the other side, the vast majority of firearms crimes in America have nothing to do with full auto. Right. Like it it like the hall the North Hollywood shootout was the exception proving the rule that most firearms crimes, it has they're done with nine millimeter handguns.
01:33:19
Speaker
um i actually have and oh god This goes into what they call the loopholes. For instance, my survival rifle, the one that I would grab if society collapsed, and I grab, it's a 22 that I put a binary trigger on. It is not a machine gun. It goes bang when I pull the trigger. It also goes bang when I release the trigger. So, it's a 22.
01:33:51
Speaker
I can empty a 25 round magazine of it. I have a video of this. I can empty a 25 round magazine of it in like eight seconds. Does that turn it into a machine gun? No, I fired those. They don't operate the same way. It's not about how fast you can fire. It's not about even size of bullet.
01:34:17
Speaker
And this is where I lose all the right wingers listening to this going, her, okay, we got a we got a liberal here who's pro gun. I believe that we should have a 21 day waiting period on all handgun purchases. Yeah, absolutely. All of them. Well, but what if you need a gun right now? Get a shotgun. For what? I mean. Yeah, that's the question. What do you mean so urgently?
01:34:46
Speaker
Okay, let's say a gal is getting stalked by a dude, like he has come to her work, he's come to her home, he wants to rape and murder her. See, the thing about that, the police should expedite that under that circumstance. That is a viable reason to go to the police and say, this is, I need you to waive the 21 days. There should be a mechanism for that. If there is a reason to not wait a full- You get a shotgun?
01:35:15
Speaker
Well, but we which is more accurate and more powerful for home defense. We've determined that you can't walk down the street with a shotgun. You know, if if there's a stalker, that's a little different. But agreed. Yeah, I mean, you know, and also, yeah, I'm not going to touch on my views about the cops.
01:35:37
Speaker
No, no, we want we want people to listen. But I would imagine that we're all of one mind on cops. I have never in my life called police to help me and been helped by them. They've never improved a situation with their their presence or general coppishness ever.
01:35:56
Speaker
So although I will say that in an occasions when I dealt with police as a a criminal, I think being a middle class looking white lady, that everybody was very polite and professional with me. So. Oh, yeah. You obviously look like you could afford a lawyer. Fooled ya. But I'll tell you what. But but once I started hanging out with H, um I was actually, we we had, we were having an animated discussion and I turned around and walked in the other direction and a cop car like pulled up immediately to ask if I was all right. good And for those of you who don't know, my husband is, according to Michael Moore's movie, the most terrifying person on the planet. He is a black man over six feet.
01:36:42
Speaker
So yeah, we were actually pulled over once in a cab because they thought that maybe we robbed the Hollywood video store. And I was the manager of the Hollywood video store. I was coming home in a cab and they pulled us over. It was an inside job, you see. And you hijacked a cab to get away from the scene of the crime. That's the best way to cover your tracks. And the thing is, at the time, the uniform at Hollywood Video was like a white blouse with a neon vest over it and a bow tie, which like, if I became a- Yeah, see, I'm stylish. Exactly. 23 Skidoo. No, I would-
01:37:30
Speaker
I would definitely wear a bow tie if I started robbing places. No question. I would be the bow tie robber. Yes. Oh, the bozo band, it's struck again. That's right. She come for your DVD. She. Yeah, yeah. Make make with the laser discs.
01:37:51
Speaker
oh but I don't know what that is, it's 1929. Yes, 1929 laser discs, they were printed on wax. Oh yeah, can can I see the Jack Dempsey fight?
01:38:05
Speaker
yeah Jesus. All right, what's your next question? So we're we're we're talking about common common mistakes that that new go gun owners sometimes
Gun Training and Community
01:38:15
Speaker
make. ah We talked about trigger discipline um ah training. Now we we talked about this a little bit, but like, is there a substitute for going to the range and and working with someone experienced? Is there any way to get that experience without getting that experience?
01:38:32
Speaker
Yeah, ah find your this isn't even a joke. It's going to sound like a joke. It's not a joke. If you're an American, you know, a gun nut. There's someone in your social circle that you you're like, oh, that's that gun nut. That's the guy who's like, you know, he's an amosexual. He's totally into his guns. If you're breaking into firearms ownership, man,
01:38:58
Speaker
Get that guy to take you out to a range. You don't need to pay an instructor at the range. He's probably gonna go no more than the instructor. I mean, this is technically still going to arrange with an instructor. It's just a hump. And he might might not need an appointment. um Or two. He might know a ranch or some private property, and this is actually important to me. I take people to ranges, but at ranges, you're only allowed to shoot paper.
01:39:26
Speaker
I believe it's important to show people a reactive target like a beer can, a beer bottle, a pumpkin. Show them what their bullet actually does to more than paper, because when you're shooting at paper, you're just putting holes in it. What? Show them the real damage that a bullet does. And in lieu of being able to afford a ballistic stomach, because they are kind of pricey, we have found that ah milk jugs full of jello stuffed into old clothing. That's what the militia guys do. They fill up jugs with stuff. That's what we do. Well, you know, we're in Michigan. We have a lot of militia here. When I was writing The Finster Effect, there were a couple different militia guys that like showed me their militia wares. And I don't know if you've read like in the back of that book, there was a guy that wanted me to call him Rusty Shackleford because that's Dale Gribble's fake name from King of the Hill.
01:40:22
Speaker
right on is he Because they were all like, don't put my name in that thing. Nobody can, I'm like, of course I'm not going to out you guys. Y'all are out loud and proud, but yet not somehow with your malicious stuff. But yeah, if you're in in Michigan.
01:40:36
Speaker
talking to not those like fake ass. We're kidnapping the governor militia guys, but like actual militia guys. They were not fake ass. They were a real militia. Let's not move that goalpost. They were a militia. real Just not one we agree with. I know they were cosplaying as a as a militia. Real militias have supplies and training and a bunch of shit that these these guys were like glamping militia there. I used to buy weed from one of those guys. So militia flash mob is what you're saying.
01:41:08
Speaker
We're doing the militia dance so that it ends with kidnapping the governor. No, but, but yeah, that I mean, but that is like, I think an important point is the difference between like real militias and like hateful separatists with lots of guns. They're different guys. And one of the things you may find as a liberal is that when you try to go to gun ranges or talk to gun people,
01:41:33
Speaker
they may strenuously disagree with you socio politically. So you'll want to be able to like, you'll want to take some time and set some boundaries and some guidelines of things like, you know, what are you prepared to listen to? What are you not prepared to listen to? Because You know, that's that's just a thing that people will want to be ready for because right now it is rough to interact with Maca people and they're goddamn everywhere. I agree with you. I think that like of the upcoming holiday season, if you and your gun owning acquaintance is going to be training you, you can set a very firm, no political discussion boundary at the beginning of the session and just carry on from there, hopefully.
01:42:17
Speaker
Yep. Yep. Maybe it's confirmation bias, but most of the gun nuts, like my level gun nuts, we don't care about politics. If somebody's interested in learning how to safely shoot a firearm, we are all about it. We're like, Oh yeah. Awesome. Okay. I don't, like I don't care what your, I don't care. It comes back to the guns, always comes back to the guns.
01:42:42
Speaker
Um, I would point out that last time I checked, uh, one of my favorite ranges where I teach people the cheapest in-house, uh, firearms instructor is going to run about $75 an hour. Okay. You reach out to your local gun nut, cause they'll do it for fucking free. Yep.
01:43:05
Speaker
it's It's fun to teach people how to shoot and it doesn't come down to killing anything It doesn't come down to Rambo tactics or any bullshit. It comes down to everyone feels that Incredible joy when you put a bullet on a target 50 yards out for the first time and You see like I was that accurate. Holy shit.
01:43:29
Speaker
That's amazing. That's a thrill. That's like, you know, first time somebody rides a motorcycle over 60 miles an hour. It's just awesome. I know how to use this. And your local gun, your friend who you consider like, oh, shit, that guy's he's got he's got an amount of guns. It makes me wonder, like, what the hell he's up to. That's the dude that is going to teach you how to properly fucking shoot.
01:43:55
Speaker
Right on, yeah. I might be that guy. Hint, hint. Now I need for you guys to do this instead of me, even though I kind of know the answer to this, but like I do hear from people that say I can't get to a range, but I'll bet I can set up a target.
01:44:14
Speaker
in my home or in my backyard in in a city where other people are wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong you're wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong bullets do not stop in drywall bullets do not stop in planks of backyard fence bullets travel also that's usually a felony yeah don't do that like Ask around find somebody who's got a farm outside of city limits in most states in the nation It is legal to go outside of city limits to a farm and do whatever the hell you want with a gun Yeah, and if somebody's got a dry creek bed or something, it's like oh look here's an earth berm You don't have to worry about a stray bullet going miles down the road killing somebody's cow so
01:45:08
Speaker
Yeah, and you'll find probably that the two match up that gun nut that you know. Oh, he's already he already knows several places you guys can go to shoot legally. Yeah, the do not do this shit in your house or backyard for God's sake. That's. You know, where would it be flame to where where would it be safe to set off my flamethrower? I know my backyard. No, no, no.
01:45:35
Speaker
No, obviously your neighbor's backyard. Come on now, i have some consideration. And um this to this touches back on what you were saying before also Wednesday with the whole, oh, it's okay. I'm just firing it up in the air. It won't hit anything. No. Well, and as we pointed out, you are responsible for anything that comes out of your gun. So ah people also pretty much know that they need ear protection indoors when they're firing. Do you need it outside too?
01:46:06
Speaker
Yes, eye and ear protection every single time. um We are, oh, we're not supposed to use that N word. We are um rigorous really strict. We are rigorous when we take people shooting. Everyone has to have eye and ear protection. I actually have to write this second lifelong tinnitus because in the farm community, we didn't really care about those things when I was younger.
01:46:34
Speaker
I got a ringing in my ears and I thought everybody had it. And no, it was caused not just the guns. I also went to a lot of loud concerts, a lot of loud nightclubs. ah Protect your ears and eyes like that's important. And guns are loud. They're very, very fucking loud. um I will say that they make now fairly inexpensively and you can get them at Wal-Mart or just about anywhere.
01:47:02
Speaker
um the ear protection that actually has a tiny built-in microphone that ah basically ah funnels ambient sound and voices and everything in so you can just speak normally. You're not having to what at each other constantly outdoors. But when something exceeds a certain decibel level, such as a gunshot, it cuts off just long enough for the shot.
01:47:33
Speaker
And so you can still hear and speak normally. You're not, you know, at a disadvantage or in danger or anything like that. And I find those to be a lot more, I'm trying to think of the word, uh, easy for people to get used to than the old school, Hey, just wad up this you know piece of foam rubber and stick it in your ear. And now you're deaf. ah so yeah Well, I mean, how many, Mel, how many times have you seen me start a shooting instruction outing?
01:48:03
Speaker
with the words, I'm yelling at you. I'm not angry at you. I'm just yelling at you to make sure you can hear me. Exactly. I'm just saying that the these types of ear protection that are out there now, and they're, like I said, they're fairly cheap. I want to say they're like, what, 15, 20 bucks? Yeah. The last pair I picked up with, last pair I picked up was $19. So they're very accessible at this point. And I think they make shooting and or wearing the ear pro a lot more accessible for people because they're not having to deal with the being muffled and, you know, Oh my gosh, I can't deal with this. It's so annoying. I'm going to take them out so I can hear and then forget to put them back in. and Well, and if you're investing in a gun for your safety, investing in the protection equipment is, I mean, it's the same thing. I mean, you're investing in your safety. There's no need, no need to take an unnecessary risk, like not wearing proper protection.
01:48:59
Speaker
Right. I mean, I'm a craft. I have to use the protection for just for crafts. So, you know, if if you have to use your gun in a moment of emergency, chances are you're not going to put on hearing protection. Yeah, it's going to be really freaking loud. And ah there's a whole thing that our roommate could my meta could tell about. ah You probably will only hear the first shot and then your ears go into shock.
01:49:27
Speaker
and you won't hear any of the follow up ones. Guns are that loud. They're louder than a 747 engine. But man, if you're if you're going out and doing those thousand rounds, protect your hearing. Yes. Is there anything that we did not bring up that either of you wanted to bring up? Because I think we covered a wide range of things. But is there anything that we left out that's important?
01:49:54
Speaker
trying to think, thinking back through the video I'm doing. We'll have a link to that in the description, so people can- Oh yeah, oh yeah, no. And that's just it. I want people to understand my channel, and I even say it in the video I'm about to publish.
Beyond Guns: Survival Skills
01:50:10
Speaker
I don't believe that guns should be linked to survivalism. Survivalism, you can survive most things without a gun. And by that I mean virtually everything.
01:50:24
Speaker
I have interviewed people who've been through social collapses, through actual civil wars, who never owned a gun. They came out the other side just fine. Because guns are a very America centric thing. We are, we are programmed from birth due to our media that, you know, guns save the day every time in all these movies, all these TV shows, guns save the day. And that's stupid.
01:50:54
Speaker
like learn how to build a fire, learn how to like- Can food. Purify water. Yep. How to remove human waste from your living area safely. That's a hell of a lot more important. Yep, yep.
Mad Libs Fun and Future Topics
01:51:09
Speaker
Right on. Well, guys, it's time for the Mad Lib. Are you ready for this?
01:51:13
Speaker
OK, how does this work? How do Mad Libs work? Well, I don't know. No, I know how Mad Libs work. I've never done it with two people answering before. So that's. Oh, wow. Really? i want yes see this Yeah. See, this is a this is a party game for us. So we we usually just go around in a circle. So I'm going to do the writing, obviously, because I have the book. So, Mel, you start with an adjective. Adjective.
01:51:34
Speaker
ah See, here's the irony is I was an English major and I always get adjectives and adverbs mixed up when I have when i get called on the spot. Adjectives are for for nouns and adverbs are for verbs. Yep. So adjective ah fluffy. All right, Jay, I need a plural noun. Biscuits.
01:52:00
Speaker
And well, a noun. A noun, a pistol.
01:52:07
Speaker
Keep it on point, yeah. Jay, another noun? um Aardvark, oh boy. And Mel, another adjective.
01:52:21
Speaker
ah
01:52:24
Speaker
Velvety. We're gonna have a fluffy biscuit velvety aardvark. All right, so Jay, plural noun. Socks. Mel, noun.
01:52:39
Speaker
Skull. Yay, I need a verb in the past tense. Withered. And Mel, another adjective.
01:52:55
Speaker
yeah Granulated. Granulated, nice. Jay, I need an adjective from you. Green. green Mel a noun.
01:53:13
Speaker
Glove. Jay a part of the body plural. Toes. All right. This is called a ghastly ghost story. Oh boy. Oh boy. What?
01:53:30
Speaker
One dark and fluffy night, I had a sleepover party with seven biscuits at my family's old Victorian pistol at the edge of town.
01:53:42
Speaker
I was the first person- Haven't we all done that? Haven't we? It's just a universal thing. It was back in college. Experimenting. I was the first person in the house to fall asleep, and in the middle of the aardvark, I was startled awake by a velvety sound coming from the attic. Oh, is what, Mel Tourmay? Is that the velvet guy?
01:54:08
Speaker
I couldn't stop my socks from shaking as I slipped into a skull, withered upstairs, and opened the door to the attic.
01:54:20
Speaker
haven't we all withered upstairs? In a skull. well Dorian Gray certainly has. Out of nowhere, a granulated figure in a pale white glove with long green hair flew past me. Terrified, I screamed at the top of my toes.
01:54:43
Speaker
Haven't we all done that? The Haunting with Michael Jackson. Okay. It's so so relatable. he's mad yeah i You guys, I am so glad that you both could be here to do this. I think this was a really productive conversation and I hope that people got something out of it. I hope to because I'm drunk. Oh, nice.
01:55:04
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not, but i this was a blast. I got drunk while doing this. Yeah, I got progressively more high from the... And I can always tell during the edit, I'm like, wow, I'm really high at this point. Smoking those weed bong drugs. You injecting those weeds? Believe me, it was less funny during the sobriety episode. Oh, boy. Well, you know,
01:55:29
Speaker
Anyway, do do do those who can't do teach um So so yeah, so we're gonna be back, you know whenever these air like next week um We're gonna have some episodes about Trans rights and name changes and getting your legalities in order. We're gonna be talking to some teachers about some education issues. So Catch up with us. We are gonna be doing a couple of more shows about vulnerable populations and how we can help In the meantime, massive thanks to Mel and Jay for being here. Please do support us on Ko-fi, where we are sometimes hilarious horror, who supports the mentally-odcast. Bye, guys! Thanks! Thank you! Peace out!