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