Speaker 1: All right, Carl, welcome back to the show. How you
doing that doing well?
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I want you to know, apparently the word has gone
out that you are now the actual host of this
I've brought you on enough that there's apparently a dissidence
arguing for a coup. So I figure, you know what,
I can't let Carl get too powerful, right, so I
brought on another you too, Jay Burden, for the record,
Well good because I'm a dead man. Switch Carl with
all of the series of falsely manufactured images of you
at Little Saint James. So who knows, right if I
suddenly disappear and those pop out on the internet, I'll
figure out what happened. But in all seriousness, right, we
do have a guest, a friend of mine, Art Wolf.
Thanks for coming on, man, hey, thanks for having me. Yeah,
so this is gonna be a little bit different than
the normal live shows. It's gonna be a little bit
more topical. We're gonna touch on a couple things guests here.
As you know, he has a small FFL business, right,
and we're talking about one obviously the two a situation
in our state of Virginia, but also this kind of
assault on small businesses. Some of this is immediate and legislative.
Some of this is broader trends, things that make it
difficult for you know, normal middle class people to start
a business, right to do something pro social. And of
course I think you know, people are familiar with the
broad strokes of what happened electorally in Virginia. If not,
use Google you can figure it out, but I'll throw
it to you man, just as kind of a you know,
a broad overview of you know, what you do. And
then maybe if you could talk a little bit about
the you know, the legislative impact of this most recent election.
Speaker 3: Absolutely so, I'm a home based FFL dealer, and I
imagine a lot of your younger audience is probably already
familiar or with what that is. But for those of
them who are not familiar. So, when you want to
buy a gun, you could either go to a gun store,
so a brick and mortar store, commercially zoned building a
business with guns all over the wall and ten dollars
an hour employees running the counter. You go in, you
pick out a gun, and you buy it. Well, actually,
there's thousands of people around the country who have the
exact same licensing to sell guns and make guns that
these gun stores have, but instead of a commercially zoned
business a retail store, they'll actually run the business out
of their home. And there's really no difference administratively or
legally in the status of a home based FFL dealer.
So when it comes to the service we provide, it
tends to be a little bit more bespoke, a little
bit more tailored towards the clientele in the local community.
So you could have a home based FFL maybe out
in rural Virginia that really just has a kitchen countertop style,
you know, you go in, you fill out some paperwork,
and it's very casual. And then you might have a
home based FFL who maybe takes it to another level,
you know, maybe fortifies part of their home, plans to
have a much higher volume of business, and maybe has
a professionally formatted website with a catalog on it. And
then you have everything in between. But the key difference
is a home based FFL is really more for a
customer who knows exactly what they want and they want
no other bs, so they don't want to stand in line,
they don't want to you know, do paper forms that
take forever to fill out, And then you know, maybe
the employee isn't entirely competent, or they're distracted, or when
these customers are only using the business for a transfer,
maybe they just want somebody who receives the box notifies
the customer same day that it's ready for pickup, whereas
in a gun store they're too busy for that. Maybe
it takes five days before they even think to notify
the customer their guns ready for pickup. Well, for these
people who don't want all that bs, they don't want
all the fluff, They just want to pick up their
gun and get out of there, home based FFLs are
the perfect option for them. And so I started this
business in twenty nineteen. After doing a couple of transfers,
I actually myself went to a home based FFL and
I figured, you know what, I could do this a
little more efficiently. I could apply some of my real
world career experience, you know, maybe project management organizational skills,
and I could do this a little better. I I
could do it a little more efficiently, and maybe I
could have a nicer website. And so I just rolled
up my sleeves applied some of that true American grit.
I converted my garage into an office and a workshop
and replaced the garage door with the reinforced cinder block
wall with skiff rated steel doors, bought a bunch of
safes and.
Speaker 2: Just got to it.
Speaker 3: And then early on I started with WordPress sites, just
kind of exploring options that are low cost, and that
was a little rough. It's very difficult to have a
nice catalog unless it's being professionally managed by a serious
IT company. So eventually I started searching for software companies
that provide the service, and I landed on one that
does it specifically for gun businesses. It was very easy
to set up, so I eventually grew to have a
full on professional website with the catalog so customers could
order whatever they want from me.
Speaker 2: But the true.
Speaker 3: Bread and butter of the business is transfers. It's hey,
you know, it's great that you have a catalog and all,
but frankly, I just want to buy my suppressor. I
want to buy my gun from somewhere else. I found
a great deal, and I just want you to do
the transfer. And that's that's where I add the value.
I get people in and out the door anywhere from
seven to fifteen minutes usually, and I just do it
on a rolling basis, all by appointment, day in, day out,
and eventually grew to have a very good reputation as
a result. It's a key niche service and it fits
in really well in the area that I service, which
is northern Virginia.
Speaker 1: So two things there. One, you mentioned no skills from
your other career, and you know, knowing a bunch of
guys that do this, one of the things that I've
realized is for most of them, it's a second job, right,
It's a side hustle. It's something they do or supplement
their income. That's theirs. And one if you could speak
to that a little bit. And then two right, we're
going to talk about a lot of the you know,
the legislative issues you know that have cropped up in
this business. Why you're exiting it, and so bears mentioning
what are your customers like and are those the same
customers who tend to do bad things with firearms?
Speaker 3: Yes, so great point. So my customers are generally mid
to high income professionals. There are very few, let's just say,
troublemakers that make their way in and now, now why
is that, Well, it's because I guess partly the kinds
of people who are going to look for or a
home base FFEL in the first place, or maybe a
little bit more savvy about how guns even work, meaning
like the gun buying process even works. Whereas if you
have a brick and mortar store that's open to the public,
it's open to foot traffic, kind of any person can
just kind of wander in and say, oh, it's a
gun store. This is where I go to buy guns.
All my services are done by appointment only. Nobody is
ever welcome to just show up and walk in. So
I do have people. I have had people kind of
randomly show up thinking it's a gun store. And I
guess the fact that this is a single family home
in a quiet suburban neighborhood was not enough of a
hint that hey, this is not like a gun store
in that sense. But you know, there's ways around that.
You just kind of clearly list your business as FFL
services by appointment, don't call yourself a gun store, and
that kind of helps weed out the riff raff. But no,
all my customers, out of all of them, just to
give an idea the scale of the business of the
business that I do. I've had I've done transfers for
eight five hundred items over the past five to six years.
I've had maybe four thousand unique customers, so a lot
of repeat customers, but maybe four thousand unique individuals. And
I would say, if I had a kind of just guess,
I would say, ninety nine percent of them are totally cool,
could not give me any kind of bad vibes whatsoever.
And it was all just business, maybe a little small talk,
and they just come in and out and don't give
me any trouble out of that very large volume of transfers. Okay,
what can possibly go wrong? Well, somebody could commit a
crime with the gun that you, the FFL dealer transferred,
and then there's a follow up investigation with the state police.
But that's usually very simple. They show up, they say, hey,
we need the records for this guy, the firearm transaction record,
which is the form you fill out when you do
a firearm transfer, and in the state of Virginia, we
have a separate form for the background check. So you
simply provide those and then they can subpoena you as
a witness if necessary. So to put it in perspective,
with all the transfers that I've done, I've had maybe
ten to fifteen where I subsequently had to provide records
to the police, and I've had zero, well, I've been subpoenaed,
but none of them ever panned out where I actually
had to show up in court, So I've had zero
court appearances as a result. And at least one of
my customers did kind of a high profile thing. I
guess he was driving around speeding and shooting at cops,
which is pretty bad, and he was eventually apprehended I
believe in prison now. But even there, I mean, it
was kind of open and shut. I never had to
deal with anything. I imagine it's a lot worse for
brick and mortar stores just with the way their business
is set up, They're going to have a lot more
random people walking in, a lot more troublemakers, and a
lot more issues now on the side hustle angle. So
that's where maybe I'm lucky right this area, and the
service I provide really is for people who have money
to spend, so I'm more likely to make sales, and
you know, frankly, you know, wealthy wealthy people are just better.
I mean, they're polite, they're not penny pinching. They're not gonna,
you know, say, oh, well, you know I could buy
this from you, but if I spend an extra two
hours researching, I could save eight dollars if I go
with this other business, right, you'll have a lot less
of that. And again, they're generally know how to carry themselves.
They're respectful, they respect your time and your business, and
in return, I treat everybody very fairly. I'm very professional
and polite with everybody that I interact with, and I
think people appreciate that. You know, contrasted with a full
time brick and mortar gun business, where you know, there's
high costs, so the costs of the products are going
to be much higher when when you purchase them in store,
and then, like we covered earlier, the actual third party
transfer services they provide are not going to be as efficient.
And again, you're not interacting with the owner who's put
his heart and soul into the business directly. You're interacting
with a wage employee who you know, and there's there's
going to be varying degrees of competence there when you
deal with me. You're dealing with me only there's nobody else.
I know every aspect of this business. I've done thousands
of transfers, uh, and you know, I've kind of dealt
with all kinds of clients, with all kinds of different PaperWorks.
So generally, I'm going to be quick to know, Okay,
here's what you need in order to get this transfer done.
So when I say that I bring some outside experience
into this, I mean that can be a lot of things, right,
I mean there's a lot of things that go into
being a truly effective home based FFL servicing maybe mid
to higher end clients. Communication skills, organizational skills, Understanding a
thing or two about things like cloud computing, website design,
inventory management, data science. Right, so if you want to
sell guns these days, and we'll get into this, I'm
sure you have to understand data science. And then beyond that,
there's just a certain way to present yourself.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Everything's neat, orderly clean, and it's quiet, it's one on one,
it's personal, and.
Speaker 2: People like that.
Speaker 3: People will even pay a little bit more for that
kind of experience than they would just going to a
gun store.
Speaker 1: Well, and one of the things that you that you mentioned,
and we can we can speak on this briefly before
we get into the legislative angle, and we'll probably we'll
finally bring Carl back instead of just making him sit
in the podcast cup chair.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: But there's an interesting angle to which, you know, guys
like you, the sort of uh you know, middle level
right kind of small businessmen are being squeezed out right
by the firearms industry large. And obviously this certainly you know,
matters with proposed laws in Virginia massively expanding the sort
of law fair that can be uh you know, brought
to bear on guys like you, but also just on
the purchasing level right where everything has become very commoditized
and look like I'll be honest, I do this right.
If I'm looking for, you know, a certain item, I'm
smart enough to figure out what the UPC is, how
to look that up on Google and and you know,
find whoever's going to save me a marginal sixty cents.
Similar with you the FFL. And again there are you know,
large distributors. I'm sure you know them better than I do.
Who you know, because of economies of scale, can basically
win that game. Either you know, honestly or dishonestly. So
to what degree do you see there being sort of
a you know, high and low squeeze versus kind of
the mid sized businesses in that industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question.
Speaker 3: So let's let's start with the top down, right. So
I don't know if this is in good faith or
in bad faith, but the gun industry, right, if we're
going to make an archetype, they're pretending like it's still
the year in nineteen ninety seven. And the the supply
chain works as follows. We invest millions of dollars to
develop these guns. We make bulk sales to hopefully just
the government and the military and the police, because they
have tons of money to spend and they're going to
put in large orders and that keeps things simple for us. Oh,
by the way, there's also we're also in America, so
there's also big civilian markets. Let's make some sales there
as well. And the way that works is there's gun stores.
There are stores that have an inventory, and they have employees,
and they have costs, and people go to the gun
store to buy the guns. Uh, and that's about it.
And so they'll that that's sort of how they how
they set up the whole paradigm, and now inherent in that,
you know, if that, if that really were the way
things work, and there is no such thing as you know,
online sales and people understanding what UPC codes are and
understanding how to use UH search aggregators that you know,
find the lowest possible retail deals on those UPC codes.
You know, if it really did work in the traditional set, well,
then it would make sense to just establish an MSRP
and then what's called a minimum advertised price, which is
we the manufacturer will ban you and cut you off
from the wholesale distributors if you list any deal be
below this magic number for this product, okay. And the
ostensible reason for that is, well, we're trying to protect
the brick and mortar businesses. They have costs, they've made
investments to be a gun store, and it would be
it would be uncool of us to allow people to just,
you know, when all said and done, make a net
profit of eight dollars per item, but make the most
sales as a result and take advantage of that economy
of scale. So to put that in simple terms, the
industry is saying, hey, you know, we set these minimum
advertised prices and you can only list at this price,
and it's kind of expected that you should keep an inventory, right.
They really pushed that, like keep an inventory, the more
you buy, the more you save, etc. Well, here's the
problem with that. Here's what happens when you, as a
home based FFL dealer or even a brick and mortar
gun store, try to keep an inventory. You're going to
spend tens of thousands of dollars on that inventory, and
then you're gonna sit on it and eventually sell it
at a loss. Now why is that. It's because it's
a game of whack a mole. Right, there's going to
be these small warehouse operations that crop up all over
the place, and they'll sneak in the products at a
lower price closer to what they're willing to make that's
under the minimum advertised pricing policy. Okay, now, once you're
on their radar. There's these software companies that I'm sure
approach the gun industry as consultants and they say, hey,
you know, there's all these dealers trying to list your
products below your policy, and our web crawlers scan for
these websites and these deals and flag them so that
you can keep these policies in place. And once you're
on that radar, you'll start getting these threatening emails if
you ever list anything below what's called MAP minimum advertised price.
So from the top, it's let's recap, right, Okay, you
want to be a gun dealer, great stock an inventory,
because any legitimate gun dealer would stock an inventory.
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't you?
Speaker 3: And also, don't you dare ever list anything below this price? Now,
here's what's unfair about that. When industry sells to wholesalers
and they make their bulk sales, they've already made their money,
so the transaction is complete now as far as they're concerned.
But when you buy guns as a dealer from a wholesaler,
there's still those manufacturers are still trying to control that
relationship with your customers and dictate to you what price
they're selling it at. Now again they're saying it's because, well,
we need to protect small businesses that have costs and
you can't undercut them. But here's the problem with that.
First of all, the margins are insane, right like, and
I'm going to pick on sig Sour. The most aggressive
MAP policy enforcers. It's like, I don't know for sure
how big the margin is from you know, manufacturing cost
a wholesale price, but wholesale to minimum advertise retail price
is like four or five hundred dollars. Now, what's the
service that's really being provided. Well, you're doing paperwork for people,
you're keeping an inventory, and you're selling the gun. So
it's completely unreasonable. And I suspect it's because they want
the downstream prices to remain high for two reasons. One,
I guess it helps their book so it helps it
helps them value their like their future production in like
you know, quarterly projections with shareholders. Or maybe it's having
your price, having your products priced highly maybe raises your
your profile with the public, makes you come across more
like a premium brand.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I'm sure those things come into play. But at the
end of the day, when when you're trying to be
a home based FFL dealer, you need to keep those
overhead costs low. You don't want to sit on an
inventory you don't want to buy you know, ten sig mpx's.
And then see all these other retailers who are under
the WebCrawler radar and you know, maybe selling them for
like thirty fifty sixty dollars on top. You know, you're
never going to make a sale because everyone's going to know,
actually we could get it for a lot less than you.
So you're stuck listing these expensive products at a very
high price, and you have to somehow thread that needle.
You have to communicate to people, well, actually we could
sell it for lower, but I can't tell you how
much until you reach out to me. Average online customer
isn't gonna bother. They're just gonna click somewhere else and
uh and buy somewhere else. So that would be the
top down squeeze uh. And then you know, from from
the other end, a lot of a lot of the
younger generation, I suspect, you know, they understand like you said,
they understand UPC codes, they know how to search gun
dot deals, they know how to find deals posted on Reddit.
They're maybe under the radar. And actually there's a retailers
who gained that system. They'll sell guns at a huge loss,
specifically just to build up their profile. And you know
they'll call it like an advertising cost. And then so
people on social media, let's say Reddit, they'll see those deals,
and then once that deal occurs, they will never buy
that same product, even at a price where you could
even make a slight profit, because it just it's been ingrained. Hey,
these things can sell for this low, why would you
ever pay a penny more? And we're talking under dealer cost.
So really the only way to have a viable business
model is the transfer services at the end of the day.
Now these are generalizations. You know, not all manufacturers are
the same. Some are more reasonable than others, and a
lot of times the margins will balance out in a
way that the price that you sell it at is
still very reasonable when you take into account that you're
also doing the transfer for free as part of the sale.
And that's sort of where it lands. But if you
try to open up a gun business, you will fail. Okay,
unless you have and this doesn't apply to people with
millions of dollars of investment backing. This doesn't apply to
people who already have some kind of major operations going on.
But if you're just a small time business person, unless
you have a range where you know, if you unless
you have some kind of other service that you bro
the table that people need, h Like, if you're an
expert ak builder or if you do Sarah coding. If
you're just trying to buy and sell guns as a
business model, you will fail. If you try to get
a commercially zoned property anywhere with any kind of in
any kind of area that has a substantial population density.
It's just it's just been gamed out. You know, your
local costs, uh and other like cost facility costs, overhead costs.
That's just going to ruin any possible margin you can
make because again you're being squeezed between industry and the
customer base.
Speaker 1: Well and to that point, right, it's squeezing out a
part of the market. It is both useful to customers, right,
they get a better product or better experience that isn't
directly trackable in dollars and cents.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: For instance, I was complaining to these guys about, you know,
not that long ago, when I went to do some
you know, an FA paperwork, I was stuck there for
two and a half hours. Right, it was a horrible experience.
I should have been in and out there in half
an hour at most, Right, But like, okay, fair enough,
that might have been the cheapest guy in town. But
it was a horrible experience. I wasted a ton of
time incidentally, right, Like, these are jobs for you know,
normal middle class, pro social people, right, people who are
interested in building something on their own, you know, providing
a service to their community, and again doing more than
kind of simply you know, their soulless corporate job, right,
actually building something. So I want to pivot slightly to
the new legislation, right, and some of this will be
hyper specific to Virginia. But I thought we'd bring Carl
on because look, man, I'm not trying to tell everyone
where you live, but you're behind enemy lines, right, you
have gone through a similar process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very recently.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think it might be good to talk about,
if you would, Carl, the gap between the stated and
revealed preference for these sort of you know, anti anti
two A laws, right, because the stated preference, like our
you know Bangladeshi ag art Wolf, is all about safety, right,
It's all about you know, scary you know, assault weapons,
which you know possess some in cell into a you know,
a murderous rage. But that's very different than what actually
is brought in. So I'll kick it to you, Carl,
and then maybe art Wolf and I can react afterwards.
Speaker 2: Great. So in some what we have seen in areas
that were very good on two A and TEL. Let's
just let's walk through a imaginary scenario. Imagine, if you will,
everyone out there, you have a actual contentious elections where
there's trading back and forth between Republicans and Democrats for dominance,
and you have a pretty substantial, like you know, what
we used to call blue dog democrat population where they're
pretty normal, you know, working people, generally white, you know,
with like hunting backgrounds and stuff. But you know, they're
let's say they're in a union type industry and or
that's dominated by a union, so they're they're members of
the unions, and they're like, yeah, it makes sense. You know,
I like having a union. There's good things about that.
And you know, they vote Democrat for you know, all
the all the old kind of classic normal reasons, and
they don't like a lot of the kind of stereotypical
things about conservative politicians, especially that some of the more
performative elements are like gat related stuff. Right as we
as we get into the more modern era, so what
eventually happens is that you know, elements those populations are
you know, the public face this like, this is the
base and that and this is what we're doing. We're
doing all this for you, for all these good thoughtful reasons,
but the actual political machine before too long, starts saying, well,
what we need to do is secure total victory forever
as as our primary condition, and then we can ram
everything down their throats that we want and we'll put
a nice face on it. But what we're really trying
to do is eliminate our position first of all, and
then punish the Chuds who oppose us. And so, you know,
the Chuds who oppose us like small arms, right, and
they don't actually bother people or cause problems with these weapons.
Our clients are the ones you know, buy and large
that fit that bucket, and so we will never acknowledge.
You know, it's not the eighties or the early nineties
where we're going to acknowledge that the problem is coming
from our client, you know, a small segment of our
client base. Instead, we're gonna we're going to scapegoat our
enemies for all these things. And they just oppose safety
and they don't really care, you know, they're willing to
sacrifice all the children in the world and really, what
they're doing is they're trying to uh set us up
for conditions of anarcho tyranny where uh, you know, they
legalize crime, uh and they outlaw the means self defense
or let's just say very carefully like opposition to same
right and opposition to to state policies as well as
enforcement of those state policies. Because again, you know, Don
Quavius with his Jay Burden approved Draco is not a problem,
even though he is the problem, right and and so
you know, defending yourself against him, we're going to send
the ag after you who might have your children, you know, murdered.
It's it's really, it's it's really quite insane. And when
you put it really at what the table stakes are,
they'll accuse you of making it up. But in reality,
that's the revealed preference. Like you don't get rid of
all the gun stores and then throw the guy out
on the street, you know, after he's arrested for attempted
murder like within two hours and then he kills someone
again and be like oopsies, that's been the case in
my state for about six years now. And so yes,
getting rid of all the gun shops, restricting the means
of self defense and let's say appropriate collective self defense
in the traditional sense. That goes back to a well
established background in our state, you know, from the early
settlement until let's say the nineteen twenties, Like that is
bad and real street crime isn't happening, but when it
happens to you, it's good. And if you defend yourself,
will crush you from the state level because like your
actual community and your sheriff might be opposed to that,
your sheriff who's elected by you and actually has to
deal with crime, like we've lately had actual sheriffs on
the street, like doing police work in a huge number
of jurisdictions because they one they have to because their
staffing has been so bad and keeping staff is really bad,
a real big problem for them. But they're in this
contentious relationship with the state government, particularly screeching females in
the legislature accordingly, and so it's this, it's this struggle,
and you really see it as a form of political warfare.
After some time passes and just the naked obvious again,
like you put it, revealed preference versus what their stated preferences.
Speaker 1: Well, and to that point, and obviously you know we're
still in very early in stages of yes, you know,
aggressive decline in my state. But we've seen that exact
same squeeze Ardwolf. I'll let you chime in in second.
But obviously you know the anti two A stuff has
been punishing and needlessly punitive, right, So for instance, you
know you have the you know, the sort of AWB
you would expect the most recent version would make it effectively, uh,
one year in prison for owning a magazine over twelve rounds.
That an odd number. I guess we're really passionate about
forty caliber blocks. But cool, I guess point is right again. Obviously,
this sort of needlessly punitive thing similarly restricting how much
land you have to have to shoot a gun. I mean, Artwolf.
You can think of guys with you know, at or
around five acres who shoot guns in a completely safe way,
or you know, might have some pests to take care of.
Well that's a crime. Now, you know, any number of
things that are relatively normal and in no way threatening
have been made crimes, whereas you know, there's no more
mandatory minimum for you know, burglary or rape or any
other number of crimes right, They're they're decriminalizing public vacrancy
like all of these sort of you know, an RC
tier any esque laws. I'll kick it to you, man,
if you think I've missed anything there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So first of all, I just want to say, Carl
summed it up perfectly, articulated it perfectly. That is exactly
what is starting to happen in Virginia now. So there's
really nothing I can add to that well put. But
what I will say is this. So first of all,
the mandate, so our new governor is miss Spamberger. She
was elected because Donald Trump and Elon Musk went directly
after federal employees and then by extension, federal contractors. There's
a massive population of federal employees and contractors in a
cluster around northern Virginia. So if you look at a
map of Virginia for those who don't know, the entire
state is quote unquote normal folk and then Richmond, Charlottesville
and Northern virgin are kind of blue cities. There might
be an oversimplification, but that's essentially what it is, right,
But they have the highest population density and then through
the electoral processes, they end up owning the entire state. Well,
so Trump and Doge pissed off the entire Northern Virginia
community by going after federal contractors and federal employees. And
then I think in parallel to that, the major election
platforms were running on affordability and abortion right, So you
know you're going to have all kinds of Democrat voters
in the state focused on these key issues, but maybe
less so you know, maybe only five to ten percent
of them actually think that we should reduce mandatory minimums
for violent crime, sexual crime, et cetera. You know, maybe
a lot of them own guns, and they own magazines
with more than ten round capacity. Well, it doesn't matter.
The Democrat party in the state has seized this election
victory on these key issues and now are using it
as an excuse to steam roll the entire population with
the most aggressive, extreme policies you can imagine. So I
won't cover them all, but the one that most directly
affects the gun industry, I would say, I won't read
the whole thing, but it's the title of the bill.
You know, it's proposed, it's still in committee, but we're
going to assume everything will get rubber stamped. Firearm firearm
industry members standards of responsible conduct COMMA civil liability, and
ultimately it provides that firearm industry members may not knowingly
or recklessly create, maintain, or contribute to a public nuisance
as defining the bill through the sale, manufacturing, etc. Of guns.
So what that means is essentially, hey, you know, have
you in any way, shape or form been affected by
any kind of a gun crime. Great file suit and
our judicial industry will help you punish the gun industry
with lawsuits that essentially increases your liability risk. And even
if you win these cases, with these frivolous lawsuits, you
know you're you're out tens of thousands of dollars. So
the processes of the punishment, I would say that's the
real death sentence for the gun industry in Virginia. The
only thing that's going to be left is major big
box stores that can afford the increased costs and risk
to continue to continue operating. It's going to reduce access
to home based ffils. Obviously, guns are going to cost more.
They're adding sales tax to guns, which makes it virtually
impossible to compete with out of state retailers. But then
beyond that, I did want to touch on the attitudes
of the Democrat voters. Right, So many of my customers
are Democrats, and they have assault weapons. They have very cool,
expensive assault weapons that they love, and they have huge
collections of them. And they have many, many, many magazines
in their possession that have capacities more than ten rounds.
So you might wonder, well, gee, if this is so
important to you, and you've invested all this money in
this hobby and pastime of yours, how can you possibly
you know, actively vote for this to happen. And it
just boils down to cognitive dissonance and denial. And you know, look,
like I said, I'm polite to everybody. I'm professional, right,
I don't grill people like, hey, you know you voted Democrat, Well,
how do you like that? No, but I do kind
of say, hey, you know, what are your thoughts in
some of these bills? And it's universally just denial and
cognitive dissonance or just changing the subject. Right, Oh well,
you know the governor is going to veto this.
Speaker 2: She's not.
Speaker 3: Oh well, you know they're just doing this to appeal
to their radical base, but they have no intention of
actually getting these pasts. I mean, you know, you wouldn't
believe the level of denial here. The point is, there
is no actual mandate for any of this stuff. Again,
it's government jobs, it's abortion, and it's affordability or just
not liking Trump and sticking it to the current administration
at the federal level. It is the average person doesn't
want any of this stuff, and it's basically getting rammed
through because, as Carl put it, they want total victory.
They want to remove any form of opposition. So now
they're going to redistrict everything so it'll be like maybe
one Republican senator at the state level moving forward. And
they want to punish the chuds for you know, there
are dangerous hobbies. That's really what it boils down. Dude,
It's a form of class warfare. I'm sorry, I think
you're on mute.
Speaker 1: Incredibly professional podcaster. Uh look, if you guys and I
decided to sit around and maybe the beverage or two
and solve the problem of gun violence right this pandemic,
there are things that could be done, right. You know,
I see another guy who worked as an FFL in
chat talking about you know, straw purchases, and I mean, look, man,
I've seen these happen, right, you know, I've seen a
rather you know, well built young woman there with her boyfriend,
you know, where he's picking everything out at the pawn shop.
Like you don't be a genius.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Similarly, if you would, if you had really committed to
the idea of you know, banning things to make this
go away, well, you know, you wouldn't be going after
three thousand dollars Belgian rifles and you know expensive stuff, right,
because very few people who you know knock over liquor
stores have you know, four or five grand for you know,
cool stuff. Right. Generally it's you know, cheap garbage. Not
saying we should, but clearly right it is what you
said Ardwolf, right, it is we don't like the chuds,
make them go away. And also you know this plays
well in suburban white women, right, that's another part of
it as well. So Carl, I'm curious, right if you
could kind of you know, share your experience for someone
who's you know, gone through this, how did first the
chuds react to you know, these sort of you know,
aggressive bills. And also, you know, how does this kind
of prototypical you know, liberal gun owner react Because if
I remember correctly, you were sharing a story in a
very good episode of Thomas's show, You and Andy Edwards,
where you know, you were talking about, you know, driving
through the middle of nowhere and you know, coming upon
you know, kind of your prototypical you know, Pacific Northwest hippie,
you know, armed trapesing through the woods and you know,
long hair of bearded. Yeah, passled all over right. Just
obviously an amusing anecdote, but I'm curious to get your
thoughts on that.
Speaker 2: Well, So here's here's a really important thing that that
people forget about a lot of the times is a
huge amount of the push for gun control. Uh. You know,
there's different eras of gun control, and and like if
if you were to go on on Twitter, the platform
stupidly renamed x whatever you want to call it, right now,
someone will tell you nobody has tried to outlaw private
firearms ownership. That that's never happened in your delusional and
it's like no, if if you look at the all
of the uh, the various gun control organizations and the
stuff that they talked about throughout the twentieth century, their
goal was total disarmament, total civilian disarmament. Like uh Feinstein
talked about it all the time, you know, Chukshuma, like
all those people. They've been very candid about it, but
then they always put on a different public face. And
in the sixties it was very brazen and it I
will point out that the NFA, the reason we have
the short barreled rifle short barrel shotgun is because originally
handguns were included in the National Farms Act of nineteen
thirty four that was dropped for because it was just untenable.
So anyhow, when we think about this and the different
people that are talking about this, a lot of the
people pushing for the most egregious forms of gun control
right now in these state legislatures are relatively recent immigrants
from let's say India or Bangladesh or Pakistan. It's incredibly common.
And I'm not saying that they're the first people who've
ever pushed for gun control. That's not what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is gun control is incredibly Gun control
against the American population is incredibly popular for those people,
and if you've ever let's say, encountered them in political
discussions online, you would understand why. And the thing to
understand about the places that they come from is that
gun laws are for other people, and they break the law.
That's just the way other cultures work in the vast
majority of cases, like you have strict gun control, but
like their political parties will have weapons and then they
will arm themselves around the time of elections, let's say.
And it's incredibly common around the world. Your leopard skin
looks lovely, by the way, mister Burden, it looks really cool.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So I've just decided to adapt to our
new environment and so set myself up as sort of
a you know, anial ruler esque figure. So I think
I will start paying for some uh, you know, someone
to fan me. Uh you know during these it's it.
I haven't quite figured out all the details, but uh yeah,
I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Carl a few a few more suggestions. So yes, a
nice fan, uh, some some sort of you know palm
fan leaf in the background or fan palm whatever they
call them, a spear, a cowskin shield, uh, and then
the draco goes in front of it. So anyway, actually, well, yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually have a cowskin shield somewhere around there from
my great grandfather's adventuring I'll see if I was still
in decent shape.
Speaker 2: That's wonderful. So so the way that it actually plays
out as these restrictions happen is that one the chuds
all rush to buy something that they want to get.
And if I can, if I can make some recommendations
to you all, if you already have like ars and
aks and like an f al or whatever, and you
know handguns, just buy magazines because the magazine restriction is
what really eats into you. And if you have a
restriction where you'll still be able to buy some variant
of a gun that you want to get, but the
magazines are going to be a problem, and you know
you're going to buy it the next couple of years.
Buy the magazines. And when Carl Doll tells you to
buy magazines, I'm saying, like, buy at least like ten
magazines for a rifle and at least six magazines for
a pistol. That's just that's just how I think. Then
you look at the ammunition restrictions, YadA YadA. If you
already have stuff that you can work with, there's there's
ways around things. But the truth is is that people
just violate these laws all the time the people that
push them, and like if you were to go to,
for example, a a store run by a Bangladeshi person
who voted for for this individual in Virginia who's pushing
these documents, he has illegal firearms that were brought in
from out of state because he doesn't follow the laws.
Like that. That's just the way that it works. And
people get busted for that stuff around here all the time.
So like people really need to change their their point
of their their frame of mind about the way that
people follow or violate the laws. And they'll they're pushing
these laws to control you, not themselves, and uh, they
just they just ignore the law. So I know, I'm
kind of rambling here. What what what really happens though,
is that you will you will have How how do
you fight back against this stuff? One there's uh, there's
the legal means and the the other one is not
illegal means. But it's more like public rallies and things
like that to draw attention to things, and you know
where you see successes, like for example, Oregon had a
very broad gun control law put into place that was
a little too broad, and actual implementation of the the
rules by were put onto the counties, and then the
counties actually ended up suing over it, and the lawsuit
it basically required some additional laws to be pushed through,
which again with total control by the Democratic Party because
again they implement mail and voting, et cetera, so that
they can and then also broad like motor voter type
registration rules where it's up to the state and and
and it requires the FEDS to come in and clean
up the voter rolls, you know or not? Right, we
just had like a million fake or dead registrations removed.
That is more than Like all of these things are
always more than enough to sway elections because what happens
is that the actual party machines at the county level
just stuffed the ballot box to get the results that
they want. And then then the state level would never
question it because they're controlled by the same party. So
that's the future of Virginia if you guys can't stop
it or have a severe federal intervention, which is hopefully
what will happen. But then you also have the you
guys had the rallies around eight years ago, eight to
ten years ago where gun owners were coming out and
basically doing good patrol in front of the Capitol, which
can be effective, but that's only if you have a
responsive legislature, in which case, you know, you don't. And
my guess is that that would as as a right winger,
my my belief is that would not be tolerated now
and and in fact it would probably be a big problem.
But you know, so that becomes a I wouldn't recommend it,
but do what you got to do kind of a situation,
because it's a waste of time around here to do
that stuff. So it's all done in the courts, legislature
and then finding little niches that allow you to work
around them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that that's that's sort of an
interesting thing as well. A lot of the people I
see the most disturbed by this, and who knows, or
maybe this is a cope, but uh, I have.
Speaker 2: Sort of.
Speaker 1: I'm cultivating an air of detachment, right, you know, like
the Trump Buddha statue. Right, I have done all I
can do, and yet you know, this is what it is.
But I think a large part of the reason you see,
you know, conservatives so deeply upset about this, like some
of it's very legitimate, right, their home is being ruined.
I get that, But I think another part of it
is that they haven't really figured out yet that the
government isn't theirs, you know, that this thing is not
run for their benefit. And I wonder if that's part
of the freak out we're seeing from kind of the
you know, the good hearted boomer cons. Do you think
I'm correct their art Wolfer? Am I missing something? Yes? One?
Speaker 3: So once again, yeah, Carl's really just articulated everything perfectly.
So first of all, this speaks to a much much,
much deeper, more fundamental issue of what this country even is.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So it's this is not a good faith disagreement between
I would say, even between countrymen.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Let you know, I don't want to paint the past
as as having you know, I don't want to look
through rose colored glasses at the past, right, But I
don't know. I get the sense that prior generations were
they were all Americans. Maybe some were more progressive than others,
but they they fundamentally agreed on more things. And yes,
I mean they did push. I mean they banned alcohol,
and they tried to ban all kinds of things that
didn't end up going through. Back in eighteen thirty four.
But I would say to a greater degree the country
was more unified and people were less alienated than they
are now. And so I could see how in the
past one might think, Oh, these these democrats, they're so stupid.
You know, we just got to engage in more debates
and win them over and eventually, you know, it's like, uh,
well Buckley kind of approach, like we got to just
be respectable and lead by example, and and surely they'll
come around our way of seeing things. Uh, it's this
is not the case at all. This is not a
good faith disagreement. Uh, this is not based on ignorance.
In fact, it's quite the opposite. They have all kinds
of these legislators, have all kinds of bug men just
doing industry research on their behalf and really feeding them,
Like how how do you most effectively screw with your
average gun owner, both in direct ways just you know,
broadside attacks on things like owning assault weapons, owning magazines,
but also all these peripheral ways like banning concealed carrying parks,
and and I guess what I would really want to ask,
Let's say a system believer, is you know, is it
just ignorance when you have a trifecta of number one
reducing mandatory minimums on violent crimes, number two reducing legal
gun ownership and access to guns by you know, messing
with the industry, and then number three removing qualified immunity
from police, meaning all the competent, effective police officers are
just going to leave the state and go find jobs
and other departments. You know, what possible reason would you
have for wanting these three things to come together?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And so unfortunately our state is full of both global
conservatives and global democrats who still see this as, oh,
you know, it'll sort of sort itself out in the courts.
I mean, yes, we did have you know, the Chud
parade in Richmond recently. I think the turnout wasn't nearly
as good as it was a few years prior when
there was another attempt. Things are different now, they hold
a solid majority, there was a blue wave. They're redistricting
to prevent either the house, state house, state Senate, or
governorship from ever becoming Republican again. So there will never
be a barrier again. And they want it all. This
is not and yeah, you know, yes, of course we
have the court system in place, But here's the problem, right,
those things take years to resolve themselves.
Speaker 2: So if I pass, yeah, fifty.
Speaker 3: Gun laws all at once or whatever, you know, let's
not even say fifty, let's say five five really really
effective anti gun laws. How long is it going to
take for those things to weave their way through, you know,
through our court system. Even if we win one per year,
that's just five years for them to pass even more
laws that are going to have to go through the courts. Right,
So it's just a fundamentally it's an unfair paradigm. It's
stacked in the left's favor, and I don't really see
any effective way of changing it. So it is very
much like, yeah, I think all you have left is
the Buddhist statue approach. And I guess what most directly
affects people is you are going to see a change
in your day to day life. And by the time
that change arrives, it'll be too late. Now, people who
are a little bit more savvy or maybe understand or
maybe i'd say they're a little more realistic about the
way politics works, right, and maybe we're a little bit
more terminally online looking at videos about crimes and and
civil unrest in other places. We kind of know what's coming, right,
We're gonna have tent cities full of drug addicts. I
have a you know, And you know what's so tragic
about this is I love Virginia, right. I love everything
from the geography, I love the climate, and I love Virginians.
And I also love what Virginia represents historically. And I
love my home. I put my heart and soul into
creating a home here for my family. I don't want
to leave. But what's going to happen is I have
this beautiful creek near my home where you could take
a nice, you know, three or four mile walk, and
in the heart of northern Virginia, you can't even see
a building. You see nothing but trees and a trail
and a creek. I love taking my dogs there. Well,
how long before we get Ms thirteen gang bangers hanging
out there? How long before we have drug addicts hanging
out there who are going to be increasingly bold in
approaching your family when you're not there. And guess what.
There's signs at the entrances to at all the entrances
to this park and trail, as there are in many
other places in Virginia that say no firearms allowed. There's
a picture of a Bretta pistol with a big, you know,
line through it, and it says having a valid concealed
carry permit is is not an exception to this rule.
So it just kind of they're really screaming at you
with a bullhorn. We don't like you, we don't care
if you die, we don't want you to be able
to protect yourself, and we don't want and we're going
to remove any barriers to the criminal element in society
from victimizing you. I don't understand how that's still not
enough for I would say, a critical mass of voters.
They still very much believe that. Well, you know, this
is just an honest disagreement. It's politics. It is what
it is. But it'll sort itself out. I don't see
it that way.
Speaker 1: It's a it's an extraordinarily grim situation, to be perfectly honest.
We have a few super chats, just a couple very generous.
The first which I don't know if I can read
really much of this at all, but Cordy YYZ asked me,
is this like a BBL for Final Fantasy fans? Confused?
But I'll take your money. So here's my money bi
monthly donation to the Distant Right NPR. Any any plans
to expand to Canada. Well, no, for any number of reasons, right,
but I do appreciate the donation nonetheless. And then Arthur
and Kelly, a very good substacker, asked any action so
far from the NRA and other two A groups against
proposed Virginia legislation beside more fundraising emails. I haven't seen
a thing, Ardwolf, have you noticed anything on that front?
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be GOA and other groups that do do
this kind of stuff is specialize that all what you've
seen locally.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, effectively, a large part of this
is that you know, nothing's really been signed. These are
moving through committee. So I hate to side with those
sort of organizations who I view as largely feckless. But
to be honest, what are they going to do?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Like? Literally, what are they going to do?
Speaker 3: What can they do? What can they do?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 3: Well, even if even after the laws pass, right that
there's even if the Supreme Court steps in on you know,
one or two of these key issues and resolves it,
it doesn't matter right, they have the power at the
state level. Right, didn't the Supreme Court pass bruin Can
you get a concealed kerry permit today in New York City?
I still think they they found a way to prevent
that from happening.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: If the state wants to make life miserable for law
abiding taxpayers, they will, and no amount of favorable court
rulings is going to change that. The point is they're
in power, and they don't like you, and they want
to make you miserable, and then you, as the opposition
or the dissidentce you basically have to decide, Okay, am
I just going to continue to live here in my
home that I love and just take more precautions and
just suffer through it? Or am I going to leave?
Those really are your two options? Ultimately?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, look, I mean I am here for the
long haul one way or the other. So I guess
I've made my choice. Other people are free to make theirs,
but we are fast approaching on time. Ard Wolf, I
guess you really don't have anything to promote. I see
you on sub stacks sometimes, but I just kind of
in my comments. Is there anything you want to direct
people towards well.
Speaker 3: I guess if you want to get a firearm transferred
or purchase something within the next three months, you could
visit Ardwolfsolutions dot Com and browsear catalog. But other than that, hey,
you know, it's it's ultimately a sin to fall into despair, right,
there is a sin of despair. You you have to
have faith. You have to believe that ultimately, good, honest
people will prevail. And and that's where I'm at. I
don't I don't have any easy answers. I don't even
have any practical advice, but just ultimately this is wrong
and it can't continue, and there it will, and eventually
we will find a way to just be able to
live normal, decent lives. I don't have an answer as
to how exactly that will happen, only that I have
faith and certainty that it will ultimately happen.
Speaker 1: I'll kick it to Carl, who will tell you to
buy book. You should buy book. But we've had two
more super chats to come in. Feel free to keep
sending them. I will take your money and read your
questions for as long as you want to keep it up.
H zh zh nash. One before Trump became president, libertarians
asked Trump to pardon a guy who ran a drug website.
Trump pardoned that person. What did gun rights groups asked
Trump to do before he became president, If they did anything,
I am not aware of it.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 1: I would say that might be a slightly unfair characterization
of the Silk Road guy. I don't view him entirely
that negatively. Russ Albert, but a note for another day. Oh, great,
pilled Ending. I didn't know what FFLs were, Okay, I
see the joke now, trying to be funny. Did you
hear that Toronto police will not comply with a national gunban?
I did not hear that the Canadians are a very,
very weird situation, because again, Canada is not a real
country anymore. Sorry to break this to you. Canada exists
in opposition to the American political establishment. Okay, in opposition.
They exist in relation to the American political establishment. So,
for instance, you guys got a gunman because of American
domestic politics. Sorry about that. That sucks, doesn't make sense,
seems to be incredibly punitive, But you know what, at
least guys on reservations still have clapped out Chinese sks is,
But yeah, I hope that. I hope the Toronto Police
helps you all out because clearly you need it. Carl relinks.
Where can people find.
Speaker 2: You Carl Dahl dot substack dot com or buy book
on Amazon actually two books, Faction and Faction with your Crusaders.
Thanks for having me, I really I am a big
fan of the home based FFL. It is, in my experience,
almost always a much more wonderful experience than dealing with
a retailer unless you have like a really good one.
Support whoever is actually good in your area for you
provides a good experience, help keep them in business. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I will say that is a great message, one that
I largely agree with. But there is a genuine benefit
to being the most upstanding customer at a horrible hole
in the wall pawn shop because you will get social
treatment like you would not believe. It is the firearms
equivalent of having a koolie to fan you down while
you podcast in front of your leopard skin. It's an
experience I wouldn't recommend for everyone, but you know, there's
an upside to the true low end of the market
as well. One more Nope, shoot, I can't Big Ben
I can't put that up. Sorry, exact X comment on
from on why it's not a federal climb to employ
or rent to illegals with ten k per incident fine,
millions would self deport within six months. I mean that's true.
If that or the law, and if it were enforced,
millions of people would leave. However, no one actually wants that.
And when I say no one, I don't mean like
you and I X or anyone here. No one wants
that because, as we found out with you know, the
conservative conservative luminary brill and Hollyhand, renting to illegal immigrants
is a phenomenal business model, right, both on the small
scale for people you know, slum lords, and also for
right large you know, institutional investors. Basically right, Yeah, the
JR Bazaar has a more direct answer, but similarly with
UH employment, it's the same thing, right, There are a
lot of industries that depend on that, and there there
simply isn't the money to make it happen. To be honest,
I'll kick it to you guys if you have other
thoughts on that, I'm.
Speaker 3: Just nodding my head furiously in agreement. It's that simple.
If they if the system wanted these people to self support.
They would make it so that they would self deport.
A system is what it does. It's that simple. What
what are the effects of the current policies. That's what
the system wants.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, that I will say that I have
seen locally and like flagrant, flagrantly abusive businesses have been
cracked down on in places not nearly enough, not nearly enough.
Can I tell one super quick home story.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm unemployed. Well what do you have to do?
Speaker 2: We have several things in common, mister Verdon. So it's
it's funny. The very first home FFL transfer I did
was very interesting. The the gentleman running the business was
part of of my state gun club, and they would
run gun shows through the club just so that they
could put some guidelines in that that kept the tourist
G two c ati ar pistol and draco buyer demographic
away from us. Yeah, colloquially anyway. And so I descended
into this house in a neighborhood that my grandparents lived
in and were driven out of in the fifties by
a demographic change that had caused problems for their oldest child.
And this this fellow had been living there for more
than sixty years, and he had sixty years of junk
in the basement, like newspapers stacked to the ceiling that
we like walked down this little narrow area. And then
there was like seven elaborate train sets set up, which
was really cool. And then he just had like sheet
metal gunlockers that all of the guns were in, and
we did the paperwork and it went pretty smoothly. And
he had the biggest collection of broom handle mousers, strange
Chinese like Warlord pistols, and then Ingless high powers. He
had every variant of English high Power as well as
every variant of Webley that I've ever seen in my life.
He had at least twenty four Webley's, So I got
to play with all those things very carefully while he
did the paperwork on a Styre M forty for me.
Speaker 3: Well on that note, and that is the archetypal home
based fl But I actually have a humbist FFL customer story. So,
like I said, ninety nine percent of my customers are
all totally cool. So I read and this is actually recent.
I had a very old chiropractor by a seek Camp
thirty two caliber pistol a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 2: Interesting and how depressed is he is?
Speaker 1: Easy, he like laf for a way out.
Speaker 3: And so he had already been, you know, over, He's
been through the process. He knows where my location is.
He's sat in the chair in my office directly in
front of me. And then two weeks later he comes back,
and in the interim, I had taken down the sign
off my door because I'm in the process of shutting down.
Of course, he takes the last time slot and is late,
and then pulls his car up in the driveway, and
I guess he notices the sign is gone, and that
confused the shit out of him, and he left, came
back another twenty minutes later, so he's ultra late. Comes
in and of course, as an entitled boomer, just has
cops in attitude. But whatever, I sit him down, get
through the process, only to realize, sure enough, we can't
even transfer the gun because there's a one handgun per
thirty day limit. So anyway, he leaves, and I think
while he was pissing me off, me being professional and polite,
I was trying to tell him to fuck off politely.
So I told him, hey, you know in the future
you might be better served going somewhere else, meaning a
gun store, so I don't have to deal with you,
and he subsequently, I just want to read what he
wrote last night when I had a very difficult time
trying to locate your business due to poor illumination and
the fact that you removed your sign. You mentioned you
were going out of business. I agree that it would
be preferable, safer, and more compliant than trying to run
a quasi gunshop out of your basement. And so I'm
interested in purchasing your business.
Speaker 2: And he made me an offer.
Speaker 3: It really blew me away. But that's the worst case
example of who you're going to run into, aside from
the g TWOC buyers as a home based FFL. So
if you're planning on starting an FFL business, just grow
a thick skin, because you are going to get insulted
by the boy class.
Speaker 1: It's funny you bring that up, because this actually is.
There's a Branziski in chat telling a story very similar
to one I experienced about a guy you're trying to
break in and steal from an FFL. So during a
brief period last year, I would call it a kind
of like early onset Alzheimer's. I thought I was a
SIG two two nine guy found out I was not
very quickly, but I picked one of these up, you know,
police surplus. I think I paid three hundred bucks for it.
You're not a bad deal. Right when I was doing
the paperwork, the police comment, and you know, they're talking
to the owner. So I'm, you know, not trying to
eat drop. But after they leave, I ask, and this
is a you know, one of those indoor ranges right
where you can rent guns or whatever. And apparently this
aspiring astrophysicist had rented a gun, put it in his
book bag and just left and then robbed a store
with it. And as I'm sure you're aware of both
Carl and Ardwolf here, you have to win. You rent
a gun at a gun store, show them your ID.
So he had, you know, skated, he'd gotten out of
the you know, the store he'd knocked over, and the police,
you know, kind of putting two and two together, figured like,
oh wait a minute, you know this is what happened.
We got called about it. You know that this gun
was stolen. The guy with a gun that matched the
same description robbed a store, right, it really show up,
get a photocopy of his driver's license and leave and
apprehensive within fifteen minutes, point being, it was an astonishingly
stupid crime, right, like really just not our best and brightest.
So point is you you hear interesting stuff when you
go to small businesses. But guys, I'm gonna have to run.
It was great speaking to both of you. Again, deeply
sorry obviously to all my Virginians. Not my idea, but
nonetheless here we are.
Speaker 2: Keep you eyes.
Speaker 1: Thank y'all so much. Yeah, yeah, really, keep your head up. Well,
thanks guys, I appreciate it everyone at home. As Carl said,
keep your head up,