Speaker 1: The way these trends are headed, the way the and
Speaker 1: the direction technology pushes us in.
Speaker 2: Maybe what you're getting out in your question today is like,
Speaker 2: are we going to end up locked down by some
Speaker 2: like central authority or handful of big companies deciding how
Speaker 2: it goes?
Speaker 3: I'm Ryan Gresham and this this is Guntognation. This Guntognation
Speaker 3: is brought to you by Ruger, Vortex, Tipton, Range Ready,
Speaker 3: and Smith and Wesson. Hey, welcome into Guntognation Today. On Guntognation,
Speaker 3: we're going to talk the techie side of guns, both
Speaker 3: in the content that you consume online and and maybe
Speaker 3: some other stuff. Some some smart guys who've been in
Speaker 3: the tech world. They have a I guess we used to.
Speaker 4: Call it a blog. Huh.
Speaker 3: Chuck and Cream, We've got Kareem Shia, We've got Chuck Rossy.
Speaker 3: You guys are with open source defense, which I know
Speaker 3: we've had open source defense.
Speaker 4: We've had you on gun Talk Radio.
Speaker 3: I think you know Tom brings it up from time
Speaker 3: to time because there's some fun coverage and some good
Speaker 3: coverage there. But I mean, how would you describe what
Speaker 3: you guys are doing with open source defense and how
Speaker 3: did they get started.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, like the way we'd always put it is,
Speaker 2: our goal is to normalize gun culture. We have we
Speaker 2: all have the experience of being, you know, in the past,
Speaker 2: like the gun guy in some office in New York
Speaker 2: or San Francisco and finding this underground world.
Speaker 1: If people out there.
Speaker 2: Who just like sidle up to us in the office
Speaker 2: kitchen and say like, hey, I heard you, like I
Speaker 2: heard you have guns or know about guns or like shooting.
Speaker 3: Here you're holding Yeah, hey, exactly what to talk to
Speaker 3: you about guns?
Speaker 5: Yeah, stuck and yeah, like you know, like canny, tell
Speaker 5: me what's a buy or take me shooting or really
Speaker 5: what they're saying is like, can you make me feel
Speaker 5: comfortable being interested in this thing?
Speaker 2: Or can you make me feel that this is okay?
Speaker 3: It's funny because in certain cultures, Chuck, I mean, people
Speaker 3: feel like it is like this underground thing. You probably
Speaker 3: want to say to them, you know it's legal, right,
Speaker 3: it's okay.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Kareem kind of hit it there about this this
Speaker 6: conspiracy and what we found with OSD because we are
Speaker 6: I mean, we live in you know, we live in
Speaker 6: very blue areas, right coastal elitism at its best, at
Speaker 6: least we did when we started OSD, right, And so
Speaker 6: I don't know if you can appreciate it. You're in Louisiana, now,
Speaker 6: you've you've you've lived in probably more more red places
Speaker 6: where you don't even think about this, but you don't
Speaker 6: appreciate or a lot of your listeners are not going
Speaker 6: to appreciate how against it. It's just so far and
Speaker 6: just does not come up. Right. But then that that
Speaker 6: natural desire and attraction for guns and messing around with
Speaker 6: guns is always there. So we found so many what
Speaker 6: i'd call closeted gun enthusiasts or gun curious people in
Speaker 6: these blue kind of havens that it really gave us
Speaker 6: the kind of the impetus for Open Source Defense to
Speaker 6: be this place for you know, for for gun nuts
Speaker 6: as well as the gun curious. And that's what kind
Speaker 6: of established our brand was that we were you know,
Speaker 6: I'm going to just because I'm among friends here, or like, yeah,
Speaker 6: we want to get like I want I want machine
Speaker 6: guns through the mail, right, that's the end goal here, right.
Speaker 6: But but you know we don't have to lead with that, right,
Speaker 6: we can just be like, well, yeah, we work together,
Speaker 6: we're all in tech we have similar interests. And by
Speaker 6: the way, you're really interested in guns, and I can
Speaker 6: help you on board for that.
Speaker 3: As far as like our goals with gun talk, one
Speaker 3: of them is to make gun ownership unremarkable.
Speaker 4: It's like, it's not it's done a thing, you know.
Speaker 3: And also another thing, when you talk to folks who
Speaker 3: live in maybe a big area, a blue state, whatever
Speaker 3: it is, they may say, I don't know anybody who
Speaker 3: owns guns, and you're like, yes, you do, go ask,
Speaker 3: go ask, and then come back to me. And then
Speaker 3: like you know, weeks or months later they go, you
Speaker 3: know what, like like a third of the people I
Speaker 3: know own guns. I'm like, yeah, you just don't talk
Speaker 3: to each other about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah. I think the thing that's missing is you
Speaker 6: touched on this in your podcast a few weeks ago
Speaker 6: with your dad and talked about your grandfather and how
Speaker 6: he was out there taking all the celebrities and going
Speaker 6: on these big hunts and like all this cultural normal
Speaker 6: stuff that we lost and there needs to be And
Speaker 6: we've done a little bit of this with our ost
Speaker 6: off sites where we take our you know, we reach
Speaker 6: out to our mailing list and our subscribers and say like, Hey,
Speaker 6: we're gonna do arrange day in Austin. Hey, we're going
Speaker 6: to do arrange day in Silicon Valley in Santa Clara
Speaker 6: in northern California. Who wants to come? And we'll get
Speaker 6: like some vps and directors and and you know tech people.
Speaker 6: We even got Colleen Noir to come out and basically,
Speaker 6: which was funny because nobody knew who he was.
Speaker 4: They weren't like, We're like, oh my god.
Speaker 6: I'm like, oh my god, Gollen's gonna come to our
Speaker 6: our crappy, our little dinky shoot and he's gonna come flow.
Speaker 6: I'm blowing away and they're like, oh, that guy's pretty
Speaker 6: that guy's pretty good. Who's he? Right?
Speaker 3: So, guys, how do we how do we grow that
Speaker 3: gun culture? I mean, how do you guys approach it?
Speaker 1: I think it's one of.
Speaker 2: Those things like I love the word make it unremarkable,
Speaker 2: And the thing I always go to is, it's like
Speaker 2: anything else, it's only weird if you make it weird, kry, like,
Speaker 2: if you approach.
Speaker 1: It as like the way we.
Speaker 2: Are normalizing this is like I'm those going to treat
Speaker 2: it like it's normal and manifest that. I think that's
Speaker 2: the way to do it. Like we often forget, you know,
Speaker 2: if you have fifty.
Speaker 1: Guns and you've owned guns as long as you as
Speaker 1: long as you.
Speaker 2: Can remember, we forget how remarkable it is to somebody
Speaker 2: who does not own any guns and maybe hasn't.
Speaker 1: Seen one in real life.
Speaker 2: I had the I you know, grew up like going
Speaker 2: steat shooting once every couple of years or something.
Speaker 1: But that was my experience with guns.
Speaker 2: So I was lucky enough to buy my first gun
Speaker 2: in my mid twenties, so I have first hand experience
Speaker 2: of like how hyped people are when they buy their
Speaker 2: first gun.
Speaker 1: And like enter into this world.
Speaker 2: Just having it in your house and having it like
Speaker 2: store it away and then you get it out just
Speaker 2: look at it and you know, rack the slide and
Speaker 2: whatever like that is super exciting to somebody who has
Speaker 2: not done that before. And that doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: like negative or weird. It can be exciting in the
Speaker 2: same way that like, you know, buying a new set
Speaker 2: of golf clubs or something might be if you love golf.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think we like often we get into
Speaker 2: the politics or take someone to the range and start
Speaker 2: ranting about like like the wait time on this suppressor.
Speaker 2: Can you believe like this SVR the same as this,
Speaker 2: you know, sixteen inch gun.
Speaker 1: But it's a felony if you don't go through.
Speaker 2: The paperwork, and like there's so much baggage you can
Speaker 2: pile onto this. And I think instead for newbies, we
Speaker 2: need to just like let it breathe, like let it
Speaker 2: be the fun.
Speaker 1: Exciting thing that it is, yep.
Speaker 2: And then just shepherd them along the way and be
Speaker 2: there to answer questions when they have them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a good point.
Speaker 3: Is like kind of if you are trying to be
Speaker 3: and probably if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably
Speaker 3: a gun enthusiast most likely, and so you are the
Speaker 3: gun guy in your in your office. And but when
Speaker 3: we had two we had two people here last week
Speaker 3: for one of our classes that were from Seattle, and
Speaker 3: so they're they're like, yeah, we're kind of in the
Speaker 3: middle of it, and you can get that feeling of
Speaker 3: like no one is a gun person around me, but
Speaker 3: you know, probably staying away from politics, maybe staying away
Speaker 3: from the lingo. I mean, gosh, the lingo stuff, the
Speaker 3: jargon stuff with guns. It's like, yeah, I've got an
Speaker 3: ar tenants in seven six two by thirty nine. I
Speaker 3: put a three to nine on top of it. And
Speaker 3: you know somebody who's like, I'm interested, but I don't
Speaker 3: know what the hell you're talking about.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's on. You make a good point because like
Speaker 6: it's it's on. We're all gun nuts probably listening, and
Speaker 6: you know, certainly sitting at this table. It's we've been
Speaker 6: doing it for years. We have good knowledge. We have
Speaker 6: seen the evolution of how we do things and how
Speaker 6: we shoot and everything. It's you really have to step
Speaker 6: back if you're going to take someone and have an
Speaker 6: experience at the range and just just ease up. And
Speaker 6: I know it's hard because we're all quasi autistic about
Speaker 6: guns and just want to go full boar like this
Speaker 6: is my crazy hobby and you can do this and
Speaker 6: this is awesome and this and this and this, and
Speaker 6: it just takes you really have to make a concerted
Speaker 6: effort to take someone to the range in a very
Speaker 6: neutral and flat way. I mean, have them fun, get
Speaker 6: them safe, but don't worry about every little nuance of
Speaker 6: grip and stance and trigger and get them good fundamentals,
Speaker 6: but like, don't make it a chore and don't overdo
Speaker 6: the information overload that you're gonna feel like you want
Speaker 6: to give them. Just give them a taste.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, yeah, a little bit, a little taste and
Speaker 3: probably a little taste for any of us is a lot. Like, Man,
Speaker 3: I shot four guns today with this with my buddy
Speaker 3: who I work with, And I shot a nine, and
Speaker 3: I shot a twenty two, and I shot a rifle.
Speaker 3: Like that's a lot, especially if you've never shot a
Speaker 3: gun before.
Speaker 4: I mean, you guys have.
Speaker 3: You both have backgrounds in in the tech world, and
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting because sometimes for gun enthusiasm, the
Speaker 3: tech where we all use tech, every single person, even
Speaker 3: if you're you're low tech, you're still using it. And and
Speaker 3: it's kind of how we get our information now, it's
Speaker 3: how we do a lot of things. You guys are
Speaker 3: navigating that space in an area that's traditionally not it's
Speaker 3: just different politically, different, you know, culturally or whatever. Perhaps
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Speaker 3: the about page on open source defense dot com or
Speaker 3: substack dot substack dot com you can find over there
Speaker 3: substack it says we couldn't wait for a gun rights
Speaker 3: organization that matched our approach to show up, so we
Speaker 3: created our own open source defense. How do you guys
Speaker 3: pick the content that's on there?
Speaker 4: How do you approach that?
Speaker 2: It's a great question because it changes week to week.
Speaker 2: It's kind of it comes from a couple things, So
Speaker 2: what is in the news is often a big driver,
Speaker 2: and the general approaches take what is in the news
Speaker 2: and think about it for more than ten minutes. I
Speaker 2: think it's very easy and common to do kind of
Speaker 2: a typical reactive article about something. And that's and I
Speaker 2: don't even want to make that sound so bad, like
Speaker 2: probably somebody needs to be doing that, But I think
Speaker 2: it's interesting to get away from the politics of stuff
Speaker 2: and talk about, you know, how does this thing that
Speaker 2: we think applies to this you know, court case that
Speaker 2: came out or ATF ruling or you know, whatever whatever's
Speaker 2: happening in the news, how does.
Speaker 1: That apply to some broader.
Speaker 2: Themes that we've seen elsewhere in society that could help
Speaker 2: people connect dots where they don't think about guns necessarily.
Speaker 2: So thinking about we write a lot about stuff like
Speaker 2: administrative law and how you know that overlaps of the
Speaker 2: ATF and or even things that get away from law entirely.
Speaker 2: So we write about technology a lot, decentralization of technology, AI,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And that really embraces this idea that like
Speaker 2: guns are a technology. Right, Like the people who start
Speaker 2: tech companies today, if they lived in the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: they might have been like you know, Hire and Percy
Speaker 2: Maxim or something, or Samuel Colt or whoever, like those
Speaker 2: were the founders of their day. And so yeah, I
Speaker 2: think the big thing is like, how can we connect
Speaker 2: a dot that is not necessarily intuitive but kind of
Speaker 2: makes sense in retrospect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I like the one recently of the title
Speaker 3: is sig sour s you are on pointing the sig
Speaker 3: P three twenty eight your for more artery and then
Speaker 3: just obviously that's one that popped up in the news
Speaker 3: and is big. But you guys are you're you're covering
Speaker 3: gun right stuff. You're covering a little bit of everything, right, I.
Speaker 6: Mean the value. I mean, Kareem under sells himself. He's
Speaker 6: an excellent wordsmith and he is an excellent observer at
Speaker 6: like he says, at this higher level. So when you
Speaker 6: can divorce the organization. The way we set it up
Speaker 6: is we don't need to be like right up in
Speaker 6: front breaking news, like just jumping on the bandwagon. We
Speaker 6: have no other goals than to get our message out,
Speaker 6: so we can take time. We only published once a
Speaker 6: week on our on our substack, and we post on
Speaker 6: X a bit more frequently to kind of keep current.
Speaker 6: But and I would you know, use you all should
Speaker 6: subscribe to our newsletter at open Source defense dot com,
Speaker 6: which will lead you to the substack and the newsletter subscription,
Speaker 6: because you will not absolutely not get a more kind
Speaker 6: of thoughtful approach to thinking about the current gun things
Speaker 6: of the time of the day, of the week, of
Speaker 6: the month, then you will from us. Actually, I would
Speaker 6: say maybe the reload would be another good thought. Yeah,
Speaker 6: Steven's a great job. So there's not a lot of
Speaker 6: those sources. I mean, most of us are kind of
Speaker 6: inter reactive mode because we're getting beat up all the time.
Speaker 6: So it makes sense that we have people like kind
Speaker 6: of keeping up and they should, like Kareem says, we
Speaker 6: need that because the velocity of bad stuff happening and
Speaker 6: good stuff happening needs that immediacy. But that's a pain
Speaker 6: in the neck and it's a lot of work. We
Speaker 6: have day jobs. We want to we can afford to
Speaker 6: be a little bit more thoughtful and kind of back off.
Speaker 6: Let those other guys do the heavy lift of the
Speaker 6: immediate stuff. Guys like you and you know, the more
Speaker 6: immediate media, the bigger media, and we can take the
Speaker 6: luxury of stepping back and thinking about it in bigger terms.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's it's great stuff. Sub stack.
Speaker 3: Do you guys find that that's a that's a good
Speaker 3: place as far as the gun content goes, I mean
Speaker 3: it's it's it's fairly, fairly freedom loving as far as
Speaker 3: the content goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can do content wise pretty much whatever you want.
Speaker 2: We have not come close to pushing the limits on substack,
Speaker 2: and our content generally is not edgy in that type
Speaker 2: of way. Maybe in other ways, but yeah, like a
Speaker 2: substack is an awesome platform. We're very happy with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 3: As far as looking for sources of information, we're kind
Speaker 3: of an interesting time, right because people kind of curate
Speaker 3: their news, they curate what's being fed to them. I mean,
Speaker 3: we have algorithms, right, But it's also like you.
Speaker 4: Can seek out these.
Speaker 3: New sources like a substack to say this is what
Speaker 3: I want, and I mean all la carte sort of
Speaker 3: pay for what you'd like to pay for, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is going to evolve. If you want to
Speaker 6: talk about technology and kind of where we're going, you're
Speaker 6: right that we've kind of we gravitate towards these news
Speaker 6: areas or these social areas that kind of agree with
Speaker 6: us that probably you know, we're all in our little bubbles,
Speaker 6: but I think but remember we're in the first iteration
Speaker 6: of social media and this reimaging of news and information.
Speaker 6: We're the first users. I'm like a gen X first
Speaker 6: user of this stuff. My kid who is around twenty four,
Speaker 6: which I guess is what gen Z. I guess like
Speaker 6: he's already he was born with this stuff, especially because
Speaker 6: his dad was working in tech in social media when
Speaker 6: he was you know, just right there. And it's amazing
Speaker 6: to see that he's already kind of evolved. So there's
Speaker 6: a business opportunity between kind of the AI that's more
Speaker 6: and more available and people's awareness that they don't want
Speaker 6: to be in their bubble, that there's an opportunity here
Speaker 6: for some sort of news aggregation or a more algorithmic approach,
Speaker 6: and not in a bad way, but a way to
Speaker 6: curate and filter and to get a little bit closer
Speaker 6: to reality through kind of AI models and curation through that, right,
Speaker 6: And I know I've seen the beginnings of a few
Speaker 6: of these, like these news aggregators and people who are
Speaker 6: purposely trying to go from more in the middle of
Speaker 6: the road and not load themselves up with with blue
Speaker 6: or red baggage. I think that's an opportunity because the
Speaker 6: amount of information exponentially going up, right, Uh, leveraging an
Speaker 6: AI system that can make sense of that is is inevitable.
Speaker 6: It's it's going to happen.
Speaker 4: Is that Is that good for the audience?
Speaker 3: I mean, because people get very you know, it's like
Speaker 3: I really want to use AI where and we use
Speaker 3: it for certain tasks I think everybody does, right, But
Speaker 3: then it's like they'll AI make stuff up, you know,
Speaker 3: AI kind of and you guys probably know a whole
Speaker 3: lot more about that than I do. I mean, being
Speaker 3: in that in that tech world. I mean, is there
Speaker 3: is there is there a reason for concern among gun
Speaker 3: culture people the growth of AI.
Speaker 6: It's I think it's less of a concern. I mean,
Speaker 6: I wouldn't say it's either good or bad. It's how
Speaker 6: you use it, right. It's like a gun. It's very powerful,
Speaker 6: it's new, and it's very you know, it should be
Speaker 6: accessible to people and you can do a lot of damage,
Speaker 6: and you can do a lot of good and you
Speaker 6: can even protect yourself and protect yourself from harm with
Speaker 6: it a gun and AI. So I would strive for
Speaker 6: people to keep an open mind. The things personally in
Speaker 6: Korean can you know, fill in here if I'm off base,
Speaker 6: But the things I worry about is I want more.
Speaker 6: I don't want AI to be crippled by guardrails and
Speaker 6: safety systems. I already saw what that did. We all
Speaker 6: did in social media, right, And so the hope is
Speaker 6: it's open enough that the systems that do that, like
Speaker 6: the classic Google Gemini fiasco right where they were just
Speaker 6: did silly images and like that stuff will fall well
Speaker 6: be less attractive and people be more tracked at the
Speaker 6: platforms that are open yep. Right, So the market will
Speaker 6: kind of drive us to a more open almost I
Speaker 6: don't know if we'll ever get to like a decentralized system,
Speaker 6: but at least an open system where the market can
Speaker 6: decide like I don't want coloration in my AI models.
Speaker 6: I don't want guardrails that completely restrict what I can
Speaker 6: what I can see kind of self correcting.
Speaker 4: I mean, we we kind of saw this a little bit.
Speaker 3: It's funny because it feels like we've gone to where
Speaker 3: these the media outlets have chosen a side and they're like,
Speaker 3: we're the we're the super conservative guys, We're the super
Speaker 3: not conservative guys or whatever.
Speaker 4: Right, and then and then we had I think.
Speaker 3: It was Jeff Bezos who who owns The Washington Post
Speaker 3: said we're not endorsing a candidate for president, And it
Speaker 3: was kind of funny as he said that and went, well,
Speaker 3: it's probably good for business. But also it did make
Speaker 3: a point of like, wait a minute, why are we
Speaker 3: endorsing a candidate. We're just supposed to be covering this stuff.
Speaker 3: He said this, He said this, This is what happened.
Speaker 3: It's neither good or bad. It is just what happened. Okay,
Speaker 3: But we've gotten so far away from that, maybe that
Speaker 3: maybe we're swinging back towards that.
Speaker 1: I think we are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think generally when we think about the
Speaker 2: way these trends are headed, the way the and the
Speaker 2: direction technology pushes us in, maybe what you were getting
Speaker 2: out of your question with AI is like, are we
Speaker 2: going to end up locked down by some like central
Speaker 2: authority or handful of some you know, big companies deciding
Speaker 2: how it goes.
Speaker 1: Peter Thiel had this quote a while ago.
Speaker 2: That, like I think it was AI is authoritarian and
Speaker 2: crypto is like freedom loving or some some I don't
Speaker 2: know if those were his exact terms with this idea
Speaker 2: that like crypto is a decentralizing force and AI is
Speaker 2: this like centralizing authoritarian force. I think actually, like, fortunately,
Speaker 2: that is not the way it is headed. Like I
Speaker 2: think it's it's like we see with guns, it's like
Speaker 2: we see with software technology generally, Like generally, the answer
Speaker 2: when something is going wrong with the technology is you
Speaker 2: innovate your way out. You don't ban your way out
Speaker 2: or restrict.
Speaker 1: Your way out. And so like AI.
Speaker 2: You know, I think two years ago, I fear like, Okay,
Speaker 2: you're going to have a handful of companies would lock
Speaker 2: this thing down and it's you know, going to be
Speaker 2: everything's going to be covered in, everything's going to be nerved.
Speaker 1: Actually, now you have.
Speaker 2: Like super powerful open source models that you can do
Speaker 2: whatever you want with that are way more powerful than
Speaker 2: the best models from the best companies, even like a
Speaker 2: year or two ago. And that's only going to accelerate.
Speaker 2: So I think, my hopefully not naive views, I think
Speaker 2: we actually don't have much to worry about there in
Speaker 2: the long run, is it.
Speaker 3: I wonder if there's a way for somebody who wants
Speaker 3: to community kate the two AM message, how would you
Speaker 3: recommend they use AI? Or is there is there kind
Speaker 3: of like hey, here are some here's a couple ideas
Speaker 3: for you that might be helpful.
Speaker 6: I think the the models, Uh, there's a couple of
Speaker 6: things there. So there's the more open models like deep
Speaker 6: seek and GROC who are more like less seem less
Speaker 6: biased to me, so you can get like they'll they'll
Speaker 6: get more information that's going to be more neutral on
Speaker 6: those subjects. But like the thing you're missing here and
Speaker 6: right now is a little too technical, I couldn't I
Speaker 6: could walk you through it, but you can build an
Speaker 6: AI model on your laptop. It's all. There's enough open
Speaker 6: source stuff out there where you can get the training data.
Speaker 6: You can feed in your own training to think about
Speaker 6: like you, you, of all people right would know this,
Speaker 6: like the body of work in book form of like
Speaker 6: all the old hunts stuff, all the old masters of
Speaker 6: the gun craft, all the evolution, all that data can
Speaker 6: be fed into you're that they'll be lapped up in
Speaker 6: front of you can be fed in the model you know, train.
Speaker 6: We'll spend a couple grand to train it off site,
Speaker 6: but then well we'll get those models and you can
Speaker 6: build the gun talk LLM, you know yourself. And it's
Speaker 6: going to be the Second Amendment Authority on History, intent
Speaker 6: and eventually deduction on like what this all means, and
Speaker 6: for God's sakes, it's going to like be like, well,
Speaker 6: can you improve on this design that was from nineteen
Speaker 6: oh nine by this man called John Browning. It'll say like,
Speaker 6: oh yeah, if you just move this here and do
Speaker 6: that there, you can you can get rid of five
Speaker 6: hard parts and make it more reliable.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: So yeah, absolutely, I think that genie is out of
Speaker 6: the bottle. We just need smart people to you know,
Speaker 6: to just make it more accessible to more people.
Speaker 3: Well, and as you guys kind of indicate, there are
Speaker 3: gun lovers everywhere with different skill sets and and you know,
Speaker 3: they may not live in rural Louisiana. They may have
Speaker 3: a background in tech or engineering or whatever that might be,
Speaker 3: or they're willing to jump in. I think that's the
Speaker 3: kind of the point I want to talk about Open
Speaker 3: Source Defense Capital.
Speaker 4: What is this and what have you guys got working?
Speaker 1: This is the investing arm of OSD.
Speaker 2: I mean what we found from running the newsletter, Instagram,
Speaker 2: Twitter for years. From Chuck's like very extensive contacts in
Speaker 2: his long career at Meta, like kind of being the
Speaker 2: liaison between Meta and the firearms industry. We talked to
Speaker 2: tons of founders and executives of you know, tiny companies
Speaker 2: making ten grand a year as a side project, to
Speaker 2: companies doing hundreds of millions in revenue, and like to
Speaker 2: a person across that whole spectrum.
Speaker 1: When we look at.
Speaker 2: What we can take for granted in the tech space
Speaker 2: for startups in terms of like support for like funding, advice, expertise, hiring,
Speaker 2: like all of those things that make an ecosystem thrive
Speaker 2: are just absent in the firearm space.
Speaker 1: And I think, like, if.
Speaker 2: You believe in gun rights, if you want the future
Speaker 2: of the Second Amendment to be strong, that's a huge
Speaker 2: problem because the products have to be really good and
Speaker 2: we need really smart people building companies in this space.
Speaker 2: So I think there's like a couple forces that help.
Speaker 2: One is just technology the Internet. If you are in
Speaker 2: rural Louisiana, I think you have way more options today
Speaker 2: for how can you like create something valuable and get
Speaker 2: that out into the world. And that's we're starting to
Speaker 2: see that, like kind of like cool startups from people
Speaker 2: who value gun rights and want to build a company
Speaker 2: around that. We're seeing more and more of that. And
Speaker 2: then the other thing is we want to just like
Speaker 2: make a mafia for founders in the space, like get
Speaker 2: them funding, get them advice, help them with hiring, and
Speaker 2: I want them to be able to take for granted
Speaker 2: all the same things that tech founders can take for
Speaker 2: granted in terms of like an ecosystem that's there to
Speaker 2: help them thrive.
Speaker 1: So that's OSD Capital.
Speaker 2: We're like doing investing basically and also just helping companies
Speaker 2: with like advice, expertise, hiring, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Well sometimes like the venture capital world, and we hear
Speaker 3: about it a lot in tech and it's become it's
Speaker 3: become almost the judgment of a company perhaps and I
Speaker 3: see it when you when you read business magazines, inc.
Speaker 4: Or whatever.
Speaker 3: Right it's like, well, they've got this much funding this
Speaker 3: and for a lot of people.
Speaker 4: That go, are they making any money? Like do they
Speaker 4: have a product?
Speaker 3: Like is it just like let's see if we can
Speaker 3: do something before we run out of all the investors' money.
Speaker 4: Like that's part of it, right, Like but but for sure.
Speaker 3: But then we're also in a world where if you're
Speaker 3: in e comm and you could be a flashlight company whatever,
Speaker 3: and you sell direct to consumer on your website, you
Speaker 3: are judged against Amazon, and it's completely unfair. But it's like,
Speaker 3: what do you mean you don't have free two day shipping?
Speaker 3: What do you mean I can't cart all this stuff
Speaker 3: together or whatever? These things are where it's like we're
Speaker 3: all judged against this really cool stuff that perhaps maybe
Speaker 3: Amazon's not the perfect example, but like couldn't be created
Speaker 3: without some pretty hefty funding and you know, being able
Speaker 3: to hire the right people and systems in place.
Speaker 4: I mean, is that right?
Speaker 6: Some it's interesting, You're right in that it's hard in
Speaker 6: like a street consumer space. So if you're building a widget,
Speaker 6: you do have to consider Amazon. I will say that
Speaker 6: you know, Amazon, like every other social platform and commerce platform,
Speaker 6: does not like our stuff, so we almost have I
Speaker 6: want to call in an advantage that we can't get
Speaker 6: on there and that they do have to go to
Speaker 6: your to your site. So yeah, the widget part is hard.
Speaker 6: So we we have looked at a few things that
Speaker 6: are a few companies, entrepreneurs and startups that are building
Speaker 6: physical things. They're a challenge also because the space needs
Speaker 6: that needs to be something that really grows the space
Speaker 6: because the we need more shooters, more people interested in
Speaker 6: this stuff. But there's plenty of stuff in other services.
Speaker 6: Like one of our big first investments is something that
Speaker 6: is an ad network for it's actually not even a network,
Speaker 6: it's a it's a platform, a programmatic ad platform for two,
Speaker 6: a stuff that's completely happy to run your ad for
Speaker 6: your new gun, your AMMO, your accessories, anything. And that
Speaker 6: is growing very rapidly with a good set of publishers
Speaker 6: and a good set of advertisers because there's just millions
Speaker 6: upon millions, about millions of dollars locked up in all
Speaker 6: the companies that you talk to and that we're familiar
Speaker 6: with that absolutely cannot advertise on any social platform. They
Speaker 6: are not welcome. Right, So, like there's a couple green
Speaker 6: field areas like that where regular industry and regular consumerism
Speaker 6: is shut out anything sporting goods or too I related.
Speaker 6: We need startups in that space to pick it up.
Speaker 6: And that could be a commerce site, could be like
Speaker 6: banking and card processing. And yes it's complicated because it's
Speaker 6: a multi tiered stack there, but like all these things
Speaker 6: can be can be taken a run at So we
Speaker 6: want to help enable you know, companies to do that.
Speaker 3: So are you guys in this in this OSD capital,
Speaker 3: are you looking obviously you're looking for companies to help fund,
Speaker 3: but are you also are you looking for investors or
Speaker 3: is it more of looking for these these opportunities to support.
Speaker 2: I think, I mean the biggest thing is okay, kind
Speaker 2: of what you mentioned, going back to what you mentioned
Speaker 2: of like you look at tech companies and it's like
Speaker 2: what are you making money?
Speaker 1: Or like where's where is all of this investment going?
Speaker 1: And that's that's a very valid observation.
Speaker 2: Yet it's profitable because every so often a company ends
Speaker 2: up being worth one hundred billion dollars and that will
Speaker 2: pay for a lot of a lot of wasted money
Speaker 2: in other companies, right, and so that industry ends up
Speaker 2: being profitable. I think the core thing that we are
Speaker 2: looking to solve here and like if we make this work,
Speaker 2: this is this is where the success hinges like investors
Speaker 2: will come if you know, on their own, if if
Speaker 2: this is solid, is like, can this be done in
Speaker 2: a way that scale?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 2: Like we can't if a company is making a cool
Speaker 2: widget like maybe you know, whatever, some accessory for ars
Speaker 2: or something, but the ceiling for that company is it's
Speaker 2: maybe going to sell like a million dollars a year
Speaker 2: and be run profitably and be a great business for
Speaker 2: the founder, Like that's awesome, that's that's a really cool company.
Speaker 2: That's great for the founder. But that is not a
Speaker 2: company that you can invest in right as an investor
Speaker 2: because you're there's not gonna be much return and there's
Speaker 2: certainly not going to be enough return to pay for
Speaker 2: all the companies that don't work out.
Speaker 1: And so that's the key things.
Speaker 2: That we want to see in this space is company
Speaker 2: that can scale dramatically and can grow fifty x, one
Speaker 2: hundred x, and I think ten years ago that would
Speaker 2: have been very few and far between. But we're seeing
Speaker 2: to your other point about like well, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're making flashlights, or you're just in a race to
Speaker 2: the bottom on Amazon with Chinese manufacturers, or we're seeing
Speaker 2: is the companies that can scale and can get around
Speaker 2: that are kind of playing a different game. So like,
Speaker 2: look at you know, companies from the past five or
Speaker 2: ten years that have done really well, Like you know,
Speaker 2: we're friends with the t Rex Arms folks and Filster
Speaker 2: and filter Holsters and Feroh concepts, and you know, there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of these companies that I think are doing
Speaker 2: a really great job building a brand, building a business
Speaker 2: on their own terms. They sell in on platforms in
Speaker 2: places that they choose to sell and they can demand
Speaker 2: that value. They can kind of opt out of a
Speaker 2: race to the bottom because they've built a following and
Speaker 2: they make great products. And so I think that that's
Speaker 2: the key thing, is like steep finding companies and cultivating
Speaker 2: an ecosystem work at where companies play a different game
Speaker 2: that can that they can win on their own terms
Speaker 2: and get to like real scale that that is investible.
Speaker 3: And do you think that that it sounds like you've
Speaker 3: got one that's kind of a kind of a service
Speaker 3: software service type of thing. Is it we're such a
Speaker 3: physical product industry, you know?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 3: Is it physical products or is there something else? I mean,
Speaker 3: where do you think the opportunities might lie.
Speaker 1: I think it's.
Speaker 2: Both right, Like it's there's physical products for sure, like
Speaker 2: the companies I just mentioned, I'll make physical products. But
Speaker 2: one thing we're seeing a lot, and we talked about
Speaker 2: this with a bunch of people, is that there's it
Speaker 2: feels like there's this kind of swirling storm around like
Speaker 2: three D printing drones, radios AI and you know, is
Speaker 2: that like a drone perimeter security system for your house.
Speaker 1: I don't know, is it like some new advents and radios.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what that is, but whatever it is, like,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it's going to involve both software and
Speaker 2: some physical good and probably the two of those working
Speaker 2: really closely together.
Speaker 3: And I mean, what you guys are saying is there
Speaker 3: are these companies that exist have great potential to scale,
Speaker 3: but they don't have access to that seed capital to
Speaker 3: help them get there.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, It's it's more than that. It's so they're
Speaker 6: playing on hard mode across the board. So first of all,
Speaker 6: if you have there's a million vcs out there. My
Speaker 6: wife is a is a engineer and she's got a
Speaker 6: working on a startup with a friend that just goes
Speaker 6: off and like and if you're an entrepreneur, you know
Speaker 6: this deal. You have a pitch deck, it's a twelve
Speaker 6: minute deck. You got to get through it, and you
Speaker 6: want to apply to like a bunch of vcs. Well,
Speaker 6: they they wrote an engine that goes out and helps
Speaker 6: with this. And just by you know how many vcs
Speaker 6: they have in the database so far, it's over six
Speaker 6: six thousand, almost eight thousands, So you could literally apply
Speaker 6: to eight thousand vcs if youll as just vcs that
Speaker 6: it's not even angel groups or other forms of capital.
Speaker 6: So there's a plenty out there. But like if you
Speaker 6: go there and say, like I have a really cool
Speaker 6: new and this is one of the people we talked
Speaker 6: to is doing quite well, I have a new cool
Speaker 6: simulation gun that makes it so you don't have to
Speaker 6: use UTM or simmunitions, which you're got all sorts of
Speaker 6: hosted issues. It's super realistic. M four works perfectly like
Speaker 6: you would but you can run it, you know, with
Speaker 6: no effectively a mega airsoft kind of thing that looked
Speaker 6: much better, and that's like a reasonable thing. And it's
Speaker 6: not even a freaking gun. It's not even doesn't count
Speaker 6: as a gun. They couldn't, you know. They can't get
Speaker 6: funding from any VC group or anything, so like even
Speaker 6: benign stuff like that is problematic. So they're not access
Speaker 6: to capital. And then the whole host of click cream
Speaker 6: was saying like, if you're y Dobinator, which is an
Speaker 6: incubator for software, you have access to mentorship, you have
Speaker 6: access to tools, you have access to networks, and like
Speaker 6: all sorts of events and conferences, and you have business
Speaker 6: tools out there these guys can't even use the business
Speaker 6: tools that are out there for entrepreneurs, like, oh, we
Speaker 6: can't accept you build a gun widget. You know, you
Speaker 6: can't be on our platform. And it's something that manages
Speaker 6: like bookkeeping right or streamlines your operations. It's like we
Speaker 6: ran into this just starting the fund right, we couldn't.
Speaker 6: We got thrown off one platform to manage our three
Speaker 6: million dollar fund saying like okay, you're going to take
Speaker 6: a chunk of our money and like you know, let's
Speaker 6: get set up. And they're like, no, you do gun stuff.
Speaker 6: We're gonna have to You're not gonna can't be on
Speaker 6: our platform for raising money. Wow. It's just that's how
Speaker 6: bad it is.
Speaker 3: Well, and also you think just kind of bigger picture
Speaker 3: long term. I know you guys have probably thought of
Speaker 3: like if we're advancing gun rights, growing the gun culture,
Speaker 3: normalizing it, making gun ownership unremarkable. The more you see
Speaker 3: these companies grow from a ten million dollar company to
Speaker 3: one hundred million dollar company and they are reaching a
Speaker 3: lot of people with their message, whether it's a service
Speaker 3: thing or a product thing, it's like going, yeah, this
Speaker 3: is completely normal. People shoot guns, people protect themselves, all
Speaker 3: that stuff, right, It's just if we can grow those
Speaker 3: companies to be household names.
Speaker 4: And talked about maybe in more broad.
Speaker 3: Conversations just around people's daily lives. I mean that's good
Speaker 3: for gun.
Speaker 2: Rights, absolutely, yeah, I think that is essential for gun rights.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I don't want to be negative that big little little
Speaker 6: rant I gave there are cracks in this facade, Like
Speaker 6: it's been this way for a while, but I will
Speaker 6: say I mean, certainly because of maybe more recent events
Speaker 6: and election results and things like, there are cracks facade now.
Speaker 6: So we're talking like we have people potential LPs limited
Speaker 6: partners in the fund who are coming from industries that
Speaker 6: if I told you who they were executives at, you'd
Speaker 6: be like, you're kidding, right, So those those cracks and services,
Speaker 6: those cracks in the investors who want to come in
Speaker 6: are absolutely starting to show. And just for those of capital.
Speaker 6: There's two takeaways I want people to have here. One
Speaker 6: on the entrepreneur side. If any of your listeners have
Speaker 6: or know of people who are doing interesting things, innovative
Speaker 6: things in this space, we absolutely want to talk to you.
Speaker 6: They can through our website. There's an email fund at
Speaker 6: Opensource Defense dot com. We'd love to talk to entrepreneurs
Speaker 6: we can. We're a friendly place you can at least
Speaker 6: go through your pitch deck, even though for if it's
Speaker 6: not right for us, we're happy to help you and
Speaker 6: act as mentors and connectors as far as networking. And
Speaker 6: then if you're an investor, if you have capital that
Speaker 6: you want to deploy. You're what's called an accredited investor,
Speaker 6: and you have capital you want to deploy, we are
Speaker 6: a place that you can consider, like, I want to
Speaker 6: help you know, I want to find opportunities in this space.
Speaker 6: No one else is going to take your money but us,
Speaker 6: and we are probably the best well connected people to
Speaker 6: deploy it into this space right now. Wow, So those
Speaker 6: are two asks. So entrepreneurs and investors, if they're interested,
Speaker 6: they should get ahold of us.
Speaker 4: That's fantastic, that's awesome. Well thanks guys. This has been fun.
Speaker 3: You guys are doing some really really innovative stuff and
Speaker 3: probably pulling some folks out of the woodwork, so to speak.
Speaker 3: That we're like, oh it's safe to come out. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's okay. We're friends here.
Speaker 1: That's the idea.
Speaker 6: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: Well that's it for us, guys, go check them out
Speaker 3: opensource defence dot com. Chuck Kareem, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: That's it for us and we will see you next
Speaker 3: time on gun dog Nation.