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it sounds like someone's making tea or stirring sugar in
a coffee cup. That's that's nice. I have two professionals
here with me, car Doll and Jay Burden, and we're
going to talk about exactly what kind of guns and
equipment you need to survive, like, you know, when the
shit hits the fan? Right, Am I talking to the
right guys.
Speaker 2: For this, Yes? And if he use my affiliate links
down in the description below, you too, it can be
safe from whatever may come.
Speaker 1: My patriots.
Speaker 3: Supply there's a war for your mind.
Speaker 1: You know what I was thinking about before, you know,
right before we connected on this was.
Speaker 3: Just how I mean.
Speaker 1: I shoit on boomers all the time, but if you're
in quote unquote the gun community or you go to
gun shows, there's just a warm place in your heart
for these guys because you cannot help but experience them.
I know it has to be the same way with Burden,
because I know Burden lives in the South. Doll doesn't
look in the South. But I'm assuming it's the same thing.
Oh it is. Yeah, And some of these are the
most base, I mean some of the best. I mean, really,
the only World War Two memorabilia I've ever found at
gun shows was boomer was boomers who were just like
knew more than knew, way more than I knew. And
it's just amazing. Is that is that your experience?
Speaker 2: Well, there's a scene and it might be my favorite
scene unrelated to the plot in Carl Doll's book, where
the main character, after the plot is kind of wrapped up,
brings his you know, war trophies back to this whole
town and Pacific Northwest and goes to a gun store
to sell it, you know, just to get some cash
to you know, start his family or whatever. And that
scene where you know, it's it's the guy's having and
hauling and offering him just horribly undervalued prices, you know,
really obsessing about markings. When I read that, I was like, Carl,
you have been to a lot of gun shows, because
I have heard or been a part of this conversation
for decades, just over and over again.
Speaker 3: I and used to work tables. Yep.
Speaker 2: When I read that, I was like, yes, Carl has
been to a gun show. You couldn't have written it otherwise.
Speaker 3: And there's always the jovial, the jovial boomer like outdoorsman
who works at the gun shop just because he loves
talking about guns and trading. And then you have the
hard nosed, like money oriented guys who also have like
an obsession and something that they want to get. So yeah, absolutely, yeah,
no that's my that's my uh, that's my scene and
uh yes those there are many fans of the era
among that cohort, and they're very they're very generous with
with their knowledge and you know, letting you shoot crazy
stuff like if you go to if you go to
a range, if you belong to a range that has
like specialty shoots that that are regular scheduled and maybe
you're like, I don't care about black powder cartridge rifles.
I don't care, doesn't matter. Go to the range and
shoot like right before that. And then as all the
guys come, you'll get to see all their cool stuff
and they'll be like, hey, do you want to shoot
like a five thousand dollars rifle in forty five seventy
You know, here you go. So it's it's really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're very open and you know, ready to have
a conversation and you're not. You're not a serious gun
guy until you've heard a boomer utterer. The most famous
words you've ever heard, I know what I got.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like there's there's that, and then there's also
various Internet or various like pre internet tall tales about
the vaunted stopping powder of forty five ACP. And when
I say this, I mean literally the last time I
was at a gun store, I had a man who's
probably eighty uh miss explained to me or misremember the
entire story of John Moses Browning's life. And look, I'm
there for the ride, you know, It's like I'm having fun,
but he was. At one point we got to well,
they needed something to kill, like Maori tribesmen. I'm like,
I think those guys are from New Zealand, but like.
Speaker 3: Whatever, what was it I endorsed?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, all right, sure I would want to
kill them too, I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean, anyone who's ever seen anyone who's ever seen
a hakka dance endorses this idea.
Speaker 2: It's that exact lineup you've seen of the rugby team,
and then some guy with a Vietnam VET hat and
tall white sox just pulls up on a mobility scooter
and guns them down.
Speaker 3: Two World Wars. They all fall to hardball.
Speaker 1: Nine millimeter may kill the body. But the forty five
kills the soul.
Speaker 3: That's all right.
Speaker 2: I've been reliably informed by a recent US president that
nine millimeter will blow the lungs out of your body.
So lungs are slightly, I guess lower on the list
than the soul.
Speaker 1: But you know, I mean, I just feel like gun shows,
especially gun shows in the South, is that's just America.
When people are like, I wish we could go back
go to a gun show in the South, go.
Speaker 3: To a gun show. Yeah, it used to beg Yeah, yeah,
it used to be like that here too. It's just
the regulations have spiraled. But I'll never forget the first
time you bring someone to like a classic gun show
and they just they get the vibe and they look
at you and they just smile and they're like I
get it, Like I get I get why you do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go into there's a classic gun collectors organization down
here in Alabama. In order to become a member, you
have to have like two of them sign off for you,
two existing members sign off for you. It's real, you know,
secret stuff. It's not like you could just go to
a table at one of their shows to be like, hey,
can you sign this off for me. Sure, man, you
look like a good guy. Okay, yeah, sure, you feel
real important after that. But yeah, I've never really taken
anyone to a gun show who is like not in
the gun community. But for some reason Alabama, when you
go to a gun when you go to a classic
gun show, there are weapons from a particular mid century
European regime that are abundant here. And I would love
to see, like, you know, you take some normy there,
you know, some like left of center, no normy, you know,
not some like real shit lib or libtard, but some
like left of center Normian. See you know, the first
time they pick up, like, you know, a PO eight
and they see the markings on it and just to
see their face like what they would do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's it's that's a definite part of it.
The other thing I love, which I mean, there's certainly
that like you are in a specific culture, you must
conform to it. But is the other part of that,
which is the extreme like schizo boomer like political paraphernalia,
some of which you can just get for free, like
I've got it on my desk, like right below my
bike stand that I got at the last gun show
I went to, I guess in twenty twenty four, so
this was before the election, and there's just a guy
palming them, just handing them out to anyone. And it's
a fake gold coin in one of those little like
you know, I guess, commemorative sleeves and it just says
Donald Trump twenty twenty four, the Revenge Tour, and it's
got a photo of Donald Trump with his fist stuff
in the air. I love it. I think it's hilarious.
I've kept it ever since. And like, especially if you're
I mean, if you are not a baby boomer, they
are so happy to have you there, Like the young
people care about.
Speaker 3: Guns, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: And if you know enough just to talk a little bit,
or you care about you know, anything that isn't you know,
brand new and plastic enough to ask questions, you could
be someone's best friend in like an hour. I highly
recommend it.
Speaker 3: So you mentioned you mentioned the paraphernalia guys I had.
One of my best friends is he He worked for
a guy who was like the Pacific Northwest edgy book
salesman at guns at gun shows, and he his he
made a living just doing the circuit in a multi
state area. And so when he retired from the business,
he gave my buddy like crates of nineties, eighties and
nineties books and then you know, half of it was
kind of worthless. But you know, what he ended up
doing is just putting together packages of you can have
one hundred manuals and I'll sell it to you for
twenty bucks. And so that he did that to clear
out the junk and then the really good stuff like
the palette and press stuff, or the the inter war
memoirs and things of that nature, or like the uh
Savatry Deva and that kind of tier of stuff. Like
he had a market for that, and it took him years,
but he ended up successfully doing it to where it
was kind of like worth his while. But he was
just at one point, like, you know, the gas of
driving this crap around forever probably you know, was barely
breaking even. And so it was clearly a sign of
love of the game.
Speaker 2: Well, and I don't operate a ton at stores anymore
because up until for like a four year period it
seems to have just been struck down. My state had
really draconian and confusing laws on private sales from around
I guess like twenty nineteen through like just a few
days ago, so it just wasn't really worth it, and
so I did most of the stuff online and sort
of buying and selling and wheeling and dealing is one
of the only ways you can continually own cool things
without driving yourself into the poorhouse. Because if you're just
straight buying new and keeping stuff, you can burn money
really really fast. But if you as you know, I
and others do sort of tweet it like a rental
system where it's like, would I own this for a
year for you know, one hundred dollars out of my
pocket or you know, maybe make a hundred dollars back,
you know, not crazy margins. You can kind of float
and continually try things out, and that doesn't mean the
collection doesn't grow over time, but you know that ability
to sort of you know, buy and trade is one
really fun lets you try stuff you wouldn't be able
to otherwise. And also it keeps it from being a
just a normally expensive instead of show we say, a
ruinously expensive hobby. I'm curious if you guys had the
same experience.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, so that I think one of the
ways that you do that is like someone's selling you know,
they have fifteen or sixteen guns on the table, and
you're like kind of interested in two. That's a really
good way to wheel and deal. And then you know,
using the doctor Mister J. Burden approach, you take the
optics off of it, or you take some accessory off
of it, and you either keep it and put it
on one of your other weapons, or you sell that
to kind of help finance the thing. Like I'll never forget.
A friend of mine was like, I got a guy
who's selling a glock twenty three which is forty caliber
and it has one of those I forget who made it,
but it was a fairly high end like laser grip
module that you pin in, you know, you you replace
two pins on the on the glock frame with slightly
longer pins. And I was like, what am I gonna
do with a stupid laser sight? And he's like, you
can get a hundred bucks for the laser site, and
I was like, oh, oh okay, so I can get
this you know, fairly decent gun for about you know,
two hundred and thirty five dollars and then I can
either convert it to nine or just have a forty
blaster for when that's all you can get, and so
you know that kind of you get into this logic,
and yes, you end up spending more money that way,
like upfront, but then it gives you a lot of
flexibility and it's really great for wheeling and dealing then
because you know a guy who's all in on forty
right just from going to these things, you know he'll
he has tons of forty Like I have a friend
who has thirty five thousand rounds of forty coups ammunition
and he's just like I bought I bought it when
it was like fifteen cents around and just was like,
I'm just going to go all in on this and
I'm just gonna have forty caliber pistols. You know, he
has a bigger collection now, he's in the industry now.
But you know there's a you'll meet a lot of
interesting people like that who are cool guys, and then
you always have someone that you can go to to
unload the stuff where you're like, eh, I don't want
to spend you know, by by the time doing this,
I'm spending more money than it's worth to me personally.
I'd rather have a nice you know, thousand dollars pistol
than like three of these, you know, three hundred and
fifty dollars pistols.
Speaker 1: So well, the good thing about like the gun show
circuit especially, you know a lot of people would be like, well,
you know, I don't really want to see the same
people the same tables at the gun show over and
over again. But the good thing about that is you
get their phone numbers. They find stuff, I'll call you first.
If you know you have something that they want, you know,
you you can negotiate with them. And it's just really
having being able to, like if you're looking for something
very specific, you know, something that may be antique or
something like that, having that kind of network and knowing
who likes what you know, Like there's this one table
where I know this guy just wants like made in
West Germany SIGs. So if I come across and made
in West Germany sig, I know he's going to be
willing to deal, you know, give me a higher trade
value on something that you know, if he has an
H and K or something I want, you know, we
may just be able to swap it evenly. Even though
he's he's going to turn around and sell that. So
it really is networking and you know, and then there
are stores you can get to know that where you know,
there's a pawn shop locally to me where I if
I want to get rid of something, I won't mind
losing a couple hundred dollars on it just because I
like him and he like does transfers for me for
literally nothing. Oh that's so yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's just.
Speaker 1: You know what it really when it comes down to it,
anybody in the gun community, you know's if you're really
into guns and you you like to trade in and
out of stuff, it's who you know and who you're
willing to deal with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean to that point, I was sort
of joking with my grandpa about this because you know,
he's the guy who got me and the guns, but
he's been doing the same thing for decades at this point,
and we were kind of joking about, you know, back
in the old forum days or now there's you know,
groups on Telegram or other places, and he's like, yeah,
you do enough deals with a guy and it's like,
I don't even think I know his first name, but
we've done like thousands of dollars worth of business. He
told me when his mom was six, So I sent
him a message. You know, it's like you develop these
weird connections, and it's super helpful because it sort of
provides a It provides a level of assurance that you
can't always get because it's like, well, even if I
don't know this seller, oh you know this guy from
this group, I know he vouches for it. So you
really do build a sort of social network in a
very kind of organic way. And look like I was
gonna say, even if you're not interested in guns, but
I think the people who are not interested in guns
turned off like fifteen minutes ago. But it is an
interesting model for a couple reasons, because one, you have
a group of people who are doing something the regime
doesn't really want you to do, Like there are a
lot of there's a lot of friction to doing this.
So you're sort of finding people who are operating at
the kind of edges of polite society but are still
good people. And you're learning how to right How do
you establish trust, how do you understand you know, okay,
what's someone interested in? How can we make a deal,
how can we do something you know mutually beneficiary because
the other thing you realize is that and this goes
to your point, Pete, they're often there are always times
where it's like, well I could maybe get five percent
more or five you know, I could get a little
bit extra, but I won't because I want to keep
this relationship. And comparing that to the kind of raw
open market, you know, just up on a listing, anyone
gets it, who gets it, it's a very different thing.
And I think if we're looking at a model of
you know, high trust society, that's an interesting way to
look at it because it's a group of people united
by a common purpose. But it depends on it depends
on a relatively high level of trust.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm overextended there, but I think there's something to it.
Speaker 3: No, there definitely is. And there's the other thing too
with doing everything online is that you're paying fees like
crazy because everything has sales tax. If you're in a
sales tax state or they're in a sales tax state,
you have, you know, commissions for the brokers. If it's
an auction, you have to do all this math in
your head at all times, and you know, sometimes it
works and it's really convenient, and then you have to
do a transfer. And so, as Pete pointed out, if
you do business with the same people a lot, like
you can get deals there or they'll do like two
transfers for you know, you know, thirty bucks instead of
you know, thirty each or something like that. Like you
work on it, you get these deals. You let them
profit off you and basically let them know that you
know that they're profiting off of you, and then they'll
meet you halfway unless they're just a complete mercenary. And
you just shouldn't do business with people like that. You
should do business with people who see it as a
as a social thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even like you know, some of the stores,
a couple of the stores I deal with, it's it
really is a social thing. I mean, look, they're making
they're looking to make money, sure, but if you hang
out in there. You know, there's one pawn shop that
I go to all the time. There's couch couches and
and chairs in there, and yeah, the owner, the owner
has his dad in there, and I mean they're just
telling stories and I'm just shutting up. I'm just listening
because you never know what kind of great story you're
going to listen to you.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So like the guy I was talking about who is
like really into made in made in West Germany SIGs.
This guy used to work for Homeland Security and he's
like got he's got stories.
Speaker 3: He's telling me stories.
Speaker 1: He's begging to come on the podcast to tell stories.
He's just like, you know, just a cool old dude.
And yeah, he puts together like he'll buy like like
polish sport eight k's and then fix them up with like,
you know, like furniture. He'll find rare furniture and stuff.
I mean, he's just having a good time. Sure he's
making money, but he really is having a good time.
And you know, I also have to feel for these
guys and love these guys a lot because also when
it comes to gun community, not everybody's like us. Not
everybody's respectful. They have to deal with some really crappy
people too, you know. And you can imagine I'm in
the South, and you know, you show up at a
gun show and you know, it can get multicultural, and
not everybody is going to have the same etiquette. Let's
put it that way. When it comes to weapons, or
when it comes to even you know, talking about price
or haggling price that we do. And yeah, I have
to give it to a lot of these guys because
they are putting up with some really shitty, really shitty
people all the time. And it really is a high
trust It is a a miniature version, like a microcosm
of a high trust society. And yeah, I've it's rare,
very rare that I've met someone at a gun show
who's selling, especially somebody boomerage, that I'm like, I just
got to get away from this guy, unless it's one
of those guys who will not stop talking unless you
cut them off, and you're like, dude, I gotta go
to the bathroom. Man, I'm sorry, I'll be back.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well it's maybe there's an article in here
how to talk to people for the criminally online, But
one of the best tactics is to just like, you know,
have a couple openers that you throw out right. This
works with everyone, but with gun stores like Far and Away,
the easiest way to break the ice is look around
for some sign like print it off, handwritten whatever that
explains a basic concept of human etiquette, like we won't
sell you a gun if you smell like alcohol or
weed something like that, and just ask the guy at
the counter. So what's the story with that sign? And
to your point, Pete, is in every case what you
and I would consider the bare minimum of just human decency.
You know that it is just too too high a hurdle.
So for example, right, I one of the my NFA dealer,
the guy I go to and I get a suppressor.
There's a pawn shop in the same strip, mall right,
they almost share a wall, and there's a big sign
that says if X y Z pawn shop denies you,
we will too. And he's like, yeah, I have the
sign up because twice a week some guy comes in,
goes to one store, comes back, he's a felon, decides
to go next door and acts surprised what I tell him,
it's the same system. It doesn't work, and so like
that's a stupid example, right, But the that lowest common
denominator is it is both worrying and a good way
to break the ice with other normal people who have
this same reaction that you know we do, just to
say wow, that's uh, that's not great. I don't think
people should act like that.
Speaker 3: As you can imagine my conversation starter is always like
I'm looking at stuff that other people aren't looking at,
like that the average guy my age is not looking
at or young.
Speaker 2: You come in sweaty and tweaking. You're like, hey, did
you have any thirty two ACP like.
Speaker 3: Scratching my neck?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, I but yeah, so I look at I always
come in and I'll look at like new revolvers, but
it's always carrier revolvers, and then I like migrate through
the used or I just ask him where's your used section?
And then they're like, what are you looking for? And
then there's always a million conversations going to be ready there,
and inevitably I'm going to see something that I didn't
go in there thinking that I was gonna, you know,
obsess over for the next couple months. But but I do.
Speaker 1: I love that I started this off by saying that
we're to talk about one subject, and we're probably not
going to get to that subject. Anyone who uh heard
me and Tom Lawongo do almost two hours on hockey
probably knows, uh probably knows what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: Well, let's actually let's get to it.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can talk about, you know, the the
high trust society and you know how this is its
own little culture and everything. But I don't know, is
is it? I know with Carl, but does it seem
to you? Do you ever meet anybody there who's like
like me or Carl? And maybe not so much like
JJ's a little more of it normy that you're looking for,
like really weird shit that everybody's like.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about? Well?
Speaker 1: Why why are you looking for a Walter pp Everybody
wants a Walther p p K. Why are you you know,
what are you doing here? Why would you expect to
find that here? But you know, gunshow those are the
are the place to go for weird stuff. It's very
rare that you'll go into a gun shop and find
something completely odd and out of the ordinary because they
just don't want that because it's not going to move.
Speaker 3: Unless it's an old shop and they have like a
cache of ammunition or something, or they buy a collection.
That's about the only only time you're definitely not going
to go into a shop that specializes or focuses on
new stuff and find anything cool and obscure, unless it's
like they're selling the surplus stuff from like century or
whatever and they just kind of have to get a
bash of random shit and see what sells.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well this is why neither you were. Neither Carl
or I or like Jay who goes in looking for
like an ati polymer ar and.
Speaker 2: A glock, I own neither one of those things. I'm
afflicted with them. See, And this is the thing Lee
makes fun of me for not just being normal and
buying glock. You guys make fun of me for being
too normal. I really can't win for losing here. But
to your point, I think one of the best resources,
not necessarily for buying, because again the fees are pretty bad,
but is proxy bid, right, which is one of those
like auction house aggregators. And to me it's fascinating because
it is you know, obviously you have you know, the
big ones like you know Rock Island, you know, a
couple of the other like major auction houses, but then
some very small ones. So if you just scroll by,
like okay, what what auctions are going up today, you'll
see all kinds of crazy stuff, like a big shipment
of which is relevant to a conversation you guys had
about a year and a half ago. A big shipment
of Warlord era Chinese mousers like fake just went up
and it's like, Okay, I don't really want to drop
five grand on this, but but I will one hundred percent.
Look at, you know, thirty five high definition photos that
some guy took with white gloves.
Speaker 3: And which fascinated right now.
Speaker 2: This was a while ago, but that's an example. I mean,
I think I may have sent you one or two
of them, Carl a few weeks ago. But things like
that where it's like those still go for sale, just
it seems to be not in brick and mortar as
at least much an There.
Speaker 3: Was an old kitchen table FFL guy that I knew
who was like eighty three, who he passed away like
two months after I did a transfer for a styre
pistol in like the early Oughts, and he let me
just like check out all this stuff. He had eleven
different guns that went through China. He had an Astra
nine hundred with Chinese markings like the broomy copy he had.
I don't think it was a Bestigui Ermanos, but it
was some other Spanish one that just at the time
I didn't know as much about that stuff. A bunch
of like thirty two's, and then he had a bunch
of the weird Chinese manufactured ones that are handmade, including
one of those is it Taku Naval Yard forty five
acp broomies. He had two of those actually, and he
had a huge Webley collection. And this is all stuff
that like he bought it when it was like dirt
cheap and like traded for it within a couple of years.
And then as soon as that first batch, which totally
shifts the landscape is gone, like the price of skyrocket,
because like people find out about him through these literally
couple hundred to couple thousand guns that come in and
then want them. So yeah, it's wild stuff.
Speaker 1: The only Chinese gun I have, right, I used to
have an SKS, obviously, I think every probably everyone's had
a Chinese SKS, but have the tokr off oh.
Speaker 2: Way to rub it in. By the time I was
old enough to buy them, they were like five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: Totally not by the way, just for everyone who's out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't buy don't buy a Like I'm looking on
gun broker right now, there's an Arinko matching serial number
Polytech SKS that they want fifteen hundred bucks. What yeah, yeah,
and my uh my buddy, the one I was talking
about who wants SIGs in with made in West Germany
on him, he has a he has a Polytech underfolder
new in box matching magazines. The magazines are in the
plastic and he asked like, I think he wants fifty
five hundred for it, And I told him, dude, I
paid less for my truck. I'm not doing There's no
way I would ever do that, but I have I
have a Chinese Tokera off in new inbox with matching magazines,
and I think I paid their injured bucks for it.
But in nine millimeter in my nine millimeters a luger
and it's a really smooth shooting U smooth shooting pistol.
But so, yeah, I mean we're we're about halfway into this.
Well let's talk about that, Like, so what are we
talking about?
Speaker 3: Like what is it?
Speaker 1: You're an AR fifteen, maybe a Delton and a Glock
nineteen for shit, hit Stefan?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 1: Where is that where you guys are going?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: And look here's maybe I have too much of an
economics brain when we talk about this, but here here's
the thing, right, You've got to understand that our guns tools, yes,
and we're dealing fundamentally with a relatively low probability event
that you are going to be in a reasonable fear
for your life and in a shooting. Right now, there's
there's context to this, which is, you know, what are
your assumptions about the future, you know, is your mind? Well,
you know, if I go out to my car and
the parking garage, you know, meth head Steve pops up
with a shive, am I going to be able to
defend myself?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: That's one thing? Are you thinking? Hey, look, you know
if Hurricane Katrina two happens, you know, I don't want
to be in a FEMA camp. You know, I want
to be able to, you know, kind of hunker down.
Or are you preparing for some kind of you know,
Mad max X esque situation, you know, or the poles swap,
you know, the seas rise five thousand feet and it's
you know, a major shakeup. Well one, those are completely
different situations. And also, like, depending on your level of prepping,
weapons are a relatively small part of that. Like, if
you're really prepping for the end, Like we've got to
talk about water and food production in medicine, and yeah, sure,
like weapons are part of it, but it's a relatively
small part of it, so I think that's that's relevant.
So let's assume that you are, you know, a guy
like us. You know, you're primarily interested in immediate physical
security and kind of light unrest like a Summer of
Floyd type of thing where you know, even in Milwaukee,
if you if you speed down you know, the main
drag during the day, you'll get arrested. So a slight
loss of you know, control, but nothing crazy. Well, to
be honest, man like, yeah, sure, maybe a Delton plastic
ar and a you know, one hundred and eighty dollars
high point with you know sits on both sides. Okay,
it's not great, you know, you can certainly do better,
but you really don't need to go much further than that.
And I say this as an enthusiast who spent quite
a lot more than that on guns. The floor of
acceptable you know, has never been easier to achieve. Like
you can get a perfectly serviceable AR and compact nine
millimeters strike or fired handgun all in for less than
a grand both and both of them will work fine.
Will they be the nicest thing, will they be the
most capable?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: But will they clear you over that if I am
an immediate fear of my life, I have something to
remedy that situation. Yes, And so I don't know that's
a very boring answer, but I think from a pure
functionality standpoint, that is the correct one.
Speaker 1: Would you like any more boring answer, Well, let me
just let me just throw this out there. So yeah,
I mean there's a lot of people I've been around
a lot of boomers who have like really really expensive
like nineteen eleven barbecue guns, and these are people that
just have too much money to deal with. But if
you don't have that much money, don't be looking for
If you have, like say you have three grand that
you want to put towards this literally get proficient on
one rifle and one handgun and put the rest into AMMO.
That's what's most important. And AMMO in the worst of situations,
which I don't think is going to happen. And but
who the hell knows in this world AMMO can be
it will be currency, so you know, but also that
AMMO in a situation like we're describing, will just become
somebody else's if you're not networking and you don't have
people that you're working with, and you're just out there
on an island thinking that you're going to get up
on your roof with your you know, Century threeh eight
whatever it is that you paid six hundred bucks for
and hold off, you know thirty guys who have some
training and are basically getting you just bought Ammo for them,
ding ding.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like organization and other guys is a way bigger,
like force multiplier than marginal increases to your capability, right, Like,
the difference between a you know, let's just say one
hundred dollars and a five hundred dollars red dot is
not equal to having a second guy or to having
a fourth or a tenth And look, man like, nice
stuff is nice. I enjoy buying expensive things because I
like it, and that's perfectly okay. But I think it's
important to justify or to clarify why you own something
like there's multiple kinds of cool as a you know,
veteran og gun, tu bird nut and fancy told us, right,
there's the the this is for a use cool. I
need a gun to shoot geese, Okay, well, I probably
want something with a longer barrel and you know, can
accept you know, double magnum shells or something like that.
I don't know anything about hunting geese, but is what
I see people do. Okay, that's cool, you're doing something
for a job, and then there is I just like it. It's fun.
I think it's neat and is it practical? Sure? Like
I own a crappy double barreled side by side shotgun,
just like the one Doc Holiday uses. It's given to me.
Is it technically practical? Yes? I could one hundred percent
when presented with a you know, disappearing television, pull both
triggers and that guy would stop running away with my television.
That would work. But let's be honest, I like it
because I get to pretend to be a cowboy at
the range. Like that's why it's fun, you know, And
there's nothing wrong with that. But I think it's important
to realize, like why you own something, and following down
the rabbit hole of you know, xyz, additional thing to
buy will be the thing that makes you safe and
okay and take away your anxiety. Is like, I mean,
that's pure consumers. Now, I don't want to say that
to play the just as good game, to say, well,
you know, three eighty is just as good as nine mil.
And honestly, three eighty is basically thirty two ACP, which
is basically and then you get to the point where
you're like, twenty two is the same as forty five,
you know, because you have just kind of rounded up
in a number of agreeable ways. That's not my point
at all. There is better or worse, and better guns
are easier to use, right, and that's to be honest.
What matters right your effective ability to use the weapon.
But I think a lot of people get wrapped up
in that because it's fun to talk about, because it's
fun to buy things and make them your own. But
that is not really prepping. That's gun collecting, which is
a separate, a separate activity and one I engage in,
but it is a different thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what I would say the most important thing is
is standardize within your group. And then the other aspect
of that is any weapon that you select, it doesn't
matter how good it is. You have to be able
to acquire spares, spare parts, those high wear parts. Of course,
obviously you have to be able to get all the
springs for it. Because springs wear out, little parts wear out,
you have to be able to work on it. So
that's one of the advantages of like a glock, for example,
a glock seventeen or a glock nineteen is extremely easy
to learn how to work on it, and parts are
just ubiquitous to the point where there's a lot of
aftermarket parts that you should just avoid. Right. People love
participating in tolerance stacking, where they, you know, do all
this crazy aftermarket stuff and you can get away with
it until you can't write. So so for example, like
J loves cz pistols, I love cz pistols, it requires
a slightly higher level of skill to work on your
CZ pistol than a glock, for example, like AR Fifteen's
one of the reasons they're so popular is that anybody
can go through the steps to learn how to work
wrench on them themselves. Like you can do it. I mean,
you're probably going to mess something up if you're not
like super mechanically inclined, or you don't know some of
the tricks yet when you're first starting out, but probably
someone in your group or someone nearby can actually work
on it. So like Pete said, you get a good
decent pistol, Like a carry gun is different than a
like survival pistol. Maybe, right, Like, you're probably just fine
using the same thing I happen to, like thirty two's
for some of the like small game stuff and for
just planking because I reload them and everything like that.
Like a thirty two caliber revolver light small handy, like
that's different than like a carry gun in an urban
setting or like in like bear country. Right, So you
have all these different considerations, but practically you're gonna be
better served being like I'm not going to get a scar,
you know, because of my crippling video game addiction in
the aughts and teens. I'm going to get an AR
fifteen because I'm not going to be shooting past three
hundred yards. You know, this is just a four example.
Maybe you will.
Speaker 2: That's about to say, is this a veiled criticism?
Speaker 3: No, not at all, not at all, even though terrain wise,
I probably well, I don't know, it depends. There's plenty
of scenarios where you have long range. I'm just saying
that the average person doesn't have to spend twenty five
hundred dollars on a rifle unless they really want to,
and so that if you have like three grand, you're
going to be fine spending a grand on a good
AR fifteen. Like get a good quality AR fifteen. There's
a bunch of guides out there online. Optics are really helpful,
especially as you get older, even if it's non magnified.
You know, being able to focus like a one x
prism will make you be able to shoot way better
versus like a red dot, especially if you have like
an astigmatism. You know, there's all these different things that
are considerations, but like decent quality stuff that you can
take care of yourself and that you can feed so
with you know, stockpiling ammo. If you want to learn
to reload, that's just another way of exploring the hobby
aspect of it, or like the hunting aspect of it,
doing specialty rounds for more affordable cost, or just making
it cheaper to shoot so you shoot more and then
you spend the same or more money than you did
before you reloaded. Like it's you can't really fool yourself.
There's like this cycle thing that takes place. Although I
will say that reloading like non bird shot shells like
buckshot and slugs is economically feasible to do. You can
do it with really simple equipment and actually save save
money that way while tailoring loads to your gun. But
other than that, like you know, you're going to be
buying stuff over the counter. So yeah, those are the
things that you should really worry about. You don't have
to go ham. There's this crazy book Gosh, what's the
name of the guy's name? He wrote like like survival firearms.
He was a I think he was an author who's
I think he was from California, and then he moved
to like the the Rouge River Valley some might say
Rogue River Valley in southern Oregon and he just he
wrote like he would give these lists of like here's
thirty five survival firearms, and it's just the most absurd
craft you can imagine, because how is that surviving? That's
just gun collecting and like using specialty guns for hunting
instead of like being versatile. So you know, that's that's
unnecessary unless you just do it. But remember the group
is what matters. And so when the old I in
your you know, the divorcee who has you know, three
hundred rifles and one hundred and fifty thousand rounds of
ammunition you know in your community is basically arming the militia.
And you know he will he will smile as he
hands those rifles out right.
Speaker 1: Well, you're talking about Keith Jacobs. Oh No, published by
Should Hit s h t F Survival Publications.
Speaker 3: This is older, this is like seventies. Okay, he has
a real here.
Speaker 1: Here's what I was going to say too, is is
that really keep it simple for those of us who've
ever been on gun forums, and one of the biggest
gun forums in the in the country is well in
the South is Outdoors Trader. They're out of Georgia.
Speaker 3: When you don't always have.
Speaker 1: To tell people exactly what you're building or what you have,
unless you are immune to listening to gun autism, that
will drive you mad. Like if you build your fifth
a R and you decide you're going to have a
you know it's the barrel is going to be the
outer barrel is going to be stainless steel. If you
tell somebody that, they're going to tell you that in
a shit hits the Fan scenario, the enemy is going
to be able to see the sun glaring off of
that barrel. So you should immediately remove that barrel and
cut it into pieces. Just just beware of that because
there are a lot of guys on those forums who,
you know, maybe we're in the shit in the military.
There are also a lot of guys who were probably
manning a desk in the military, and they're going to
tell you exactly what you need to basically prepare yourself
if you're living in say the Ozarks, and you're going
to end up spending ten thousand dollars on a rifle
and have an a cog on top of it and
with a magnifier, and you've just been you've been struck
by a gun autism guy, and believe me, they are
out there and they're waiting for you. So smooth criminal
as it were. Yeah, that's where I was going with that.
Speaker 3: But I mean J knows this.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I do. This is I think an interesting
point because I think people need to look at preparedness
sort of in a like a pyramid structure of severity
and likelihood. So you know, okay, let's just look, let's
just use the kind of monopoly of violence, right to
what degree is there a monopoly of violence? The kind
of George Floyd example is kind of the base of
that pyramid. You know, there is a slight loss of violence,
but if you and your boys go you know, running
around with you know, plate carriers and ars, you're still
going to get arrested. Right, So you can look at
that and say, okay, well, I should probably have something
I can conceal on me, you know, whether that's a
handgun or something you stick in a bag, that is
more likely to happen than a true full lot apocalypse.
We go up, you know, one step to the kind
of Cique Katrina example, where there is you know, very
long I mean relatively long term punctuated loss of monopoly
on violence. Sure, you know, you still live in a
country called America, and there are other places in America
where that you know, it's life is normal, but where
you are is a problem. So okay, maybe that's the
time when you need you know, a rifle or something
like that. But to make the jump of well, you know,
I'll go up to the next level to like some
sort of you know, Bosnian Civil war. So I need
to you know, get a belt fed, and you know
all that kind of stuff. It's like well and and
food and friends and look, you know, I'm not a
huge prepper. You know, I have a sensible amount of stuff.
But I think that for many people it is a
mix of you know, justifying personal consumer habits, which is
certainly there, but also it is the I know better
than everyone else, you know, I have found the secret formula,
and when the world comes apart, I will be justified.
I will revealed to be right, and I will, you know,
slam the doors on my can asshole while they all,
you know, scrabble and beg for me to help them.
And I don't want to overly psychologize it, but I
think it's important to say, like, yeah, sure it's important
to be prepared, but it is important to be prepared
first for the most likely occurrence, the thing that is
most likely to affect you and your family, instead of
you know, kind of your niche boutique in theory about
the end. It's just something I've I've observed having been
in this culture for a large portion of my life.
Speaker 3: So I found it. It's mel Tappin'. He published a book,
this book Survival Guns, in nineteen seventy six. His recommendation
is literally twenty nine plus guns to be quote, properly
prepared during a survival situation, but is just nuts and
there's huge amounts of repetition, like you know, m one
a rifle. But then he explores all the other thirty
calibers because they're real, real calibers and you have to
have a nineteen eleven and forty five ACP you know,
very dated stuff. And it's just like that stuff is
like that's pretty absurd, and what what he's really talking
about is like, uh, and it's four hundred and eighty pages.
So what he's doing is he's nerding out about guns
and like gun accessories and making it sound like you
need that to like quote unquote survive. That's pretty goofy.
Like I I think like you could do you can
easily make the argument that you can get away with
like five guns on the on the high end. And
the fact that people don't think about this that practical
like moving around having a pistol, uh is is goofy.
So here's an here's an example of that. You know
what I've I've talked about like, uh, you know stuff
people I know who did stuff in other countries. And
one of these fellows, for example, was doing work where
he was essentially going in and out of like semi
hostile area, and he had a silenced twenty two pistol. Well,
you had a twenty two automatic with a removable suppressor,
and then the muzzle thread had an extension for mounting
the suppressor so that when you looked at it, you
didn't see the thread threaded areas sticking out of this
like fairly short twenty two automatic, because you know, that's
a big indicator. It's a suppressor. And so he could
carry this thing basically in a pocket or stash it anywhere.
And then he had this small suppressor for it, and
he carried a fragmentation grenade as well as well as
just a utility knife. But that was his like standard
load out. And the idea was, well, it's not perfect,
but I can actually carry it, I can hide it.
It might pass a crappy search. I can stuff if
I popped the slide off and disassemble it just right
and put it in with like photography kit, you know,
I can get away with my I work for like
Time magazine as a nature photographer cover right there. There's
all these different ways that you have to think about
this stuff, and like walking around like Jay said, with
a plate carrier or a chest rig and a full
size rifle, like a lot of the time is the
exact opposite of what you want to be doing if
you have to go into town, you know, because if
you think about it, people running around in the woods
is a big problem. And frankly, if you live in
a rural area and you have a community of organized guys,
one of your biggest problems is going to be randos.
Just like I'm driving into the woods to survive. You know,
It's like that is not a plan and you are
not welcome unless like there's someone in this community that
can vouch for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the uh, the whole idea of oh the this
person from the city. Now this person from the city
may originally have been from from a rural area knows
how to take care of themselves. But yeah, that is
something to consider when you are in a rural area
that you know, if if something really bad happens, you're
going to have to deal with people infiltrating. You may
also people, you know, if you live in like I
live in an agricultural area, so I'm talking about chicken houses,
cattle things like that. People may get the idea, Oh,
if I need to feed myself, that's where I need
to go. That's something you have to watch for. But
that's another thing about community is you know, who do
you have around you?
Speaker 3: Who do you know?
Speaker 1: Who can you you know, like Mike Shelby talks about
the Area study, doing an area study to know, Like
immediately when I heard about the Area Study and I
started looking into it, the first thing I thought was, Okay,
I know what my community is like, and of how
to get into my community. What how many roads are
there into my town? And where are the bridges? Because
if somebody has to drive over a bridge to get
into my town and that bridge is not functioning, you
know that's I mean, and that sounds like retarded, but
you know that's like your worst case scenario is like
you do not want hordes of friggin sub continentals and
you know, subcontinentals that may have been or you know,
people who may have been whose families may have been
imported a few hundred years ago, who are not friendly
to two people whose skin is lighter than theirs, you
may want to be able to prevent them from getting
in you.
Speaker 3: Know, bridges and mountain passes are your friend.
Speaker 1: And the you know. Then you also have to deal
with the fact that if you live like in the South,
there are already people here who maybe you know historically
have have an extra grind. Well, how do you deal
with them immediately? I mean, these are things that just
take into consideration. And when it comes down to it,
the longer you're I think, the longer you're in the
gun community. And I know we have to cut this
because Carl has to go, but I think the longer
you're in the gun community, you start to realize guns
are not your primary concern when it comes to the
kind of scenarios we're talking about the people.
Speaker 3: It's the people. It's the people.
Speaker 1: Around you and what you know, what resources you know
you have in your area that you can tap into.
Speaker 2: Well, and it's two. You're completely correct, Pete. The point
is you need to be able to affect a localized
monopoly on violence. So you need to have something because otherwise,
you know, you are inviting yourself to victimized.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: But getting from like zero to one is the operative
part there. Having something, you know, something that is you know,
capable and reliable and can be repaired and dependent on
is what matters. But as we've said over and over again,
going from one to five, going from one to forty,
that pales in comparison with the other you know, kind
of like less sexy, less interesting things. And you know
a large part of that is determining like okay, as
you guys have said, you know what, where do you
live or are the things around you? Assuming you're in
an urban place, well, how do you do you think
you should leave? If so to where? When is the
time to pull the ripcord? Where are you going? Who
are you going to? Like all of these things are
you know, real and relevant things to mention?
Speaker 3: Are you bugging?
Speaker 1: Are you bugging? Are you bugging out? Or are you
bugging in?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you used to read on you know, every
forum ten years ago, right, talking about that. But it's
it's something to think about because the point of prepping
is to have a plan. And if the plan is
just well, I've got mine in your you know, one
point eight acre you know, suburban lot, it's like, well, okay,
like do you really for how long? You know, like
it's and I say this as someone who's not you know,
who's not one of these you know, the bombs are
coming kind of guys. But to say, like, if you are,
you know, weigh that with appropriate seriousness, I think is
how I should conclude that thought.
Speaker 1: All right, let's end this with we can do this
real quick so Carl can get out of here. If
you're just talking about for purely for safety's sake, recommend
one rifle brand and one handgun brand each of you.
Speaker 2: Uh, here's what I will recommend. Ar fifteen brands are
kind of fake, not to say that they don't exist,
but you your best bet if you're poor is to
buy a separate what they call an upper and lower.
There's some tax reasons for that. You're saving yourself a
couple hundred bucks. Putting them together is dead nuts easy.
You just clip them together. So find a fully finished
lower arrow and Aero Precision is still technically in business.
Speaker 3: For how long.
Speaker 2: Who knows. You can get their stuff on fire sale.
They make very competent, capable lowers. They work, even PSA
on the extreme budget end. They make lowers that work.
You might have to go through it and check everything's tightened,
but it'll be fine. As far as uppers. You can
go to a company like Ballistic Advantage. They're not fancy.
They work great. If you're looking for something a little
bit spend year, but you can depend on basically forever
BCM Bravo Company Manufacturing. They are the goo to This
exact recipe will be recommended to you on every forum
on the internet, not because it's interesting, but because it
is a great place to start. If you like it, great,
you keep it. If not, you'll know why you don't
like it. You can change that in the future. As
far as the operative options to look for, get no options.
Sixteen inch barrel, mid length gas. You will never think
about it again. It will work great. Do not listen
to autismos. As far as a handgun, get something in
kind of the compact range, like fifteen rounds. You can
use it as a bedside gun. You can conceal carry it.
As far as brand man, the patents on glocks are
running out, so you can get not a glock from
tons of different companies. Literally go to a gun store,
find something that fits your hand, write down what gun
that is, and then go on the internet and find
the best deal you can. Dude, as long as it's
from a company you've heard of, it's not going to
be bad. Like really like bad guns don't really exist
anymore from reputable companies. I know there are exceptions, but like, dude,
it's a boring answer, but like you'll find some then you're.
Speaker 3: Like I, I overall agree there are there are some
states with now have magazine restrictions and things of that
nature that will be part of your calculus when when
you're looking at h at guns. Uh. The other the
one thing I will say regarding that element is that
you know, magazines can be acquired, uh, you know the glock.
You know, standard capacity magazine is not something that's hard
to find. Uh. There there are ways to do that theoretically,
and you might move in the future, and it'd be
kind of goofy to dive into a paradigm you know
that is made irrelevant, you know, by by moving. But
that is something that you have to consider. Overall, though
I agree completely with Jay on the on the rifle,
uh the rifle argument, like you don't you don't have
to go nuts. I would also say that there I'll
go out of my way to say that a pump
shotgun as a defensive weapon is vastly overrated unless it's
you know, not just a sporter that you're chopping down
like that was like twenty five years ago. That was
the recommendation. You can get a perfectly good over the counter,
like decent defensive shotgun. But I honestly think in AR
fifteen is way more, way more relevant and useful and
easier to shoot for the average person. A lot of
people get twelve gages and find out that oh, like
the stock is too long and it knocks the hell
out of me, or they don't really understand the ammunition
and it's extremely expensive and they're not going to actually
practice with it, so you know, and it isn't a
magical death ray. It's you still have to aim. So yeah, yeah,
I agree overall with Jay, Like handgun almost almost doesn't matter.
As long as it's a current make like nine milimeter automatic,
I think you're probably fine.
Speaker 2: Pretty much. Anything that costs between three hundred and five
hundred dollars is nine millimeter, is in a compact size,
is functionally it's the same gun like, not literally, but
from your for your purposes as a beginner, doesn't matter.
Just find one you think is neat and you want
to shoot. That'll get you through the wanting to learn
how to use it. Phase.
Speaker 3: And if you're a weirdo and you want like a
VZ sixty one Scorpion semi automatic or something, just go
for it. That's fine. That's fine too.
Speaker 1: I would say, like if you if you want to
stay in the budget range of like an AR like
the Smith and West N M and P series is fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go up if you want to go you know,
if you want to double that Cult sixty nine to twenty,
kind of hard to go wrong with that handgun. I mean,
I think, like Jay said, glock knockoffs everywhere. If you
want to get a glock, I mean that the magazines
are cheap as hell. If you want to go a
little higher end like H and K USP Compact nine
millimeter or the p cz.
Speaker 2: P Tense, they just redid the line. The old ones
are like three hundred bucks for very very good, brand
new handguns.
Speaker 3: They have extremely good triggers for a striker fired pistol.
So yeah, that's a good idea. Also, police surplus is
another consideration if you go online. To Pete's point, like
I wouldn't buy a cult like a new cult AR,
I just wouldn't do it, But like a police surplus
cult ar is probably totally fine, and the prices are
extremely reasonable, Like you can get a nice one for
six or seven hundred dollars plus fees.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I see, I see.
Speaker 2: It's probably haunted if you get one that's beat up.
Speaker 1: I see like used rock rivers for like five hundred
bucks at gun shows now, so oh yeah you can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and these are all ubiquitous now. It's not like
the old days where like only only cult was making ars,
plus like Olympic Arms or like one or two other
weirdo companies. So it's they're just everywhere now. So might
as well I'll.
Speaker 1: Let you guys go, I know, Carlos to get out
of here, do plugs real quick, Carl go first.
Speaker 3: Uh carldall dot substack dot com, k A r L
d A h L dot substack dot com. That's where
I put my articles, effort posts linked to my books
and uh links to podcasts. Thanks man, of course, mister bird.
Speaker 2: Sure you can find me on the Jay Burden Show.
Carl and I have sort of an informal running live
show once a week or so. You can check that
out if you want more gun autism. But Jay Burden
Show hour long interviews five days a week. You can
find those. I mean, I'll be honest anywhere you listen
to podcasts. But thanks for having me on PETE.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, of course, and thanks for doing this
last minute guys. I just thought it would be be
a fun idea, so take care yep.