September 30, 2021 • 44 mins
We sit down with Paul, a reformed cop who volunteered as security for the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, about buying and training with firearms.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Uh, that was the introduction, I did it, Sophie. Sophie
is saying, that's an acceptable introduction. You know what podcast
this is. You clicked on it, so I don't need
to tell you the title. I don't need to say
who we are. I'm just going to dive right into
the fucking episode. No, I'm not. This is It Could
Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and uh
(00:26):
and what to maybe do to to arrest that and
do something better in its place, and uh, you know,
folks who are are regular listeners who listened to the
original scripted episodes of It Could Happen Here, the first
fifteen episodes, which I certainly recommend to everybody. Know that
one area in which I kind of separate from a
lot of particularly more liberal folks and even some folks
(00:49):
on the left is an embrace of the fact that
firearms are sometimes necessary tools, especially in times of collapse
when things get bad. Um. Now that said, we're also
not uh kind of gun culture people here. We try not, to,
for one thing, recommend that everybody necessarily pick up a gun.
There's a lot of people, perfectly nice people you shouldn't
(01:11):
have them who don't need to have them, you know,
if you're dealing with suicidal ideation or whatever. We're not.
The point is, we try to be very careful about
how we we talk about firearms as a potentially useful,
even potentially necessary tool in the times that we're in.
And today, since we're a few weeks into this, we've
covered producing food, We've covered some medical stuff. We've talked
(01:31):
about uh, community organizing, and a number of other things
that I think our priorities for most people before, you know,
getting strapped. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about
getting strapped. And my guest today is Paul. Paul, do
you want to kind of introduce your background in brief
so people know why why you're on here, Sure, Robert H.
I was in the Marine Corps and Infantry, and after
(01:54):
that I went to security consulting and then to the
Federal Protector of Service and finally the A T F
some of our funnest agencies. Yeah, all my favorite organizations there. Well,
they're better than the the what is it, the f
d A. Yeah, they beat the f d A. I
mean in terms of body count, they're certainly better than
(02:16):
the f d A. And what what do you do now,
Paul that you're you're you're out of that line of work. Uh, well,
I do two things. I got a day job at
disney World and then uh, the side gig is we
run a explosives and machine guns supply company, also body armor,
(02:38):
a handful of other things. But that's the big thing
is destructive devices. Yeah, and uh, you've you've got I
think experience that a lot of people, particularly on this
side of the political I'll lack you know. One of
the one of the downsides of kind of rejecting the
federal government in the military and all its forms, is
that there's a lot of people who may accept the
(03:00):
validity of being armed and don't really have much in
the way of practical training. And firearms are tools that
to use most efficausly do require training and practice. You
can't just um you can pick them up and be dangerous,
but not in a way that is particularly protective to
you in your community. Oh yeah, Um, so I wanted
(03:20):
to talk about kind of recommendations and and everything. We
talk about nothing. We're not talking in the context of
forming a militia or in the context of you know,
showing up with guns to to yell at people at
a protest. If that's the thing you're choosing to do,
that's a whole different ball game. We're talking about, um,
kind of responsibly arming yourself in your community in a
(03:42):
way that is not going to get you in legal trouble. Um,
it is also not going to endanger them. Because one
of the things you have to accept about firearms is that, um,
there's a risk you know, related to owning a firearm. Um.
Not just the risk that like you know, suicide risk
raises if you have a gun in the house, but
just if you don't use them properly. Even carrying a gun.
(04:02):
You know, it's not unheard of for people carrying guns
to have those weapons taken from them and used against them.
It happens to police, and it happens to armed citizens.
So it's it's a matter of um, you know. I
think when you accept that you're going to be armed,
there's something incumbent upon you to understand the risks of
being armed. And I guess that's kind of where I
(04:23):
want to start, Like, what are some of the big
pitfalls you see people uh fall into, Like um that
I think traditionally, training is supposed to help allay to
some degree. Uh well probably number one is uh grandpa's
gun in the closet that's been there for forty years unfired,
and somebody just picks it up and throw some ammo
(04:45):
in it to go huna deer, and you know it's
got a barrel obstruction or something that just blows up,
you know. Um. But number two and and the one
that can be mitigated by training rather than just general
uh not being stupid, because it's kind of stupid to
pick something up that's really old and just try to
shoot it. Is um, not shooting yourself, and when you
(05:10):
do go out to the range, not shooting other people,
and then not shooting people in your own home. Um,
you know you don't as much as you might want to, say,
defend your own home, do you want to shoot your
wife when she comes home at two thirty in the morning, uh,
(05:30):
after work and wakes you up. And there are ways
to mitigate that and and it's really easy and it's
really cheap. So yeah, let's let's let's start with some
of those. Just if you're if you're new too, if
you've decided I need a gun for whatever reason, you
purchase a gun. Um, you know, I think the most
basic first things are in terms of like actually making
(05:51):
that relatively safe. Is number one, knowing which which kind
of firearm to purchase, and number two, and these are
not in order of importance, these are both very important.
Number two is securing that weapon properly, as opposed to
just having it laying loose in the house, which is
never the best place. The best way to store a firearm,
is it. Um, Yeah, I mean I own a number
(06:15):
of personal firearms. Um. You know, I'm in my office
right now where I got a locked door where nobody
can get in, and I got a gun safe back
behind the monitors. Um. And you know I'm comfortable with that.
But if if it was in a place where kids
could get at it, you don't want to just stuff
it in, uh, in a sock in the closet, which
(06:37):
is actually what my mom did when I was a kid. Yeah,
I mean safe storage and I mean really being able
to identify your target is probably the biggest preventer of
like inter family accident, because I know, you know, we
do talk about safe storage kids and all that. But um,
back to the wife coming home. If you just put
(06:58):
a light on your gun, hundred dollar light, you can
look at the thing that you're shooting in the middle
of the night and uh, not shoot someone you don't
want to shoot. Yeah. I would go so far as
to say that, like if you've got a home defense
weapon without a light on it, Um, you don't fully
have a home defense weapon. No, no, yeah, you know, Um,
(07:20):
it's gonna be useless in roughly half of the situation.
And statistically, like if you're looking at when people are
actually tend to be endangered in their own homes, the
vast majority of the situations in which you might be
in danger. Um. When it comes to weapons selection, uh,
this is another area where like if you go on
maybe one of the worst places in the world to
have this discussion as Twitter, because everybody has the opinions
(07:42):
on Twitter. Um. I tend to say because I think
most people when they're looking for a first gun, if
they're if they're committed, just like thinking of personal defense,
they're going to go for like a lock or something.
And I think unless you're planning on carrying a gun,
And you can correct me if you disagree here, but
I tend to think a handgun again, unless you're intending
on carrying a concealed weapon is the last thing that
(08:03):
you should own as a gun owner. Um. I got
a mixed opinion on that. I mean, yeah, I think that, uh,
the handiness of a handgun can outweigh some of the issues.
I know you guys dealt with fires up there, we
have hurricanes. Um, being able to stick a handgun into
(08:27):
a backpack you know it can go a long way,
or being ab um, keep keep it on you in
your car because here were depend on state laws. Everything
you say depends on state laws. Yeah, there are states
where you can. Yeah. Yeah. If you're in California and
you're in one of the counties that it doesn't issue
(08:49):
a concealed carry of license like l A, it's really
hard to get one. From what I understand, you got
to get to San Berndino if you want to get
one of those. Yeah, I mean, first off, like tooth,
I got a short list of guns, and like two
thirds of the list illegal in California. They're they're not
on roster. But for what's most usable against our most handy,
it's probably a handgun. But if you're expecting a threat
(09:13):
more than like thirty feet away, have something other than
a handgun. Handguns they suck at hurting people, they suck
at killing people. They're they're ineffective. They're hard to use.
I mean, say thirty ft away. But if you're not
training regularly hitting something reliably in a stressful situation at
thirty with a hand it can be difficult. It's not easy. Yeah, um,
(09:36):
it's not easy, And I tend to recommend number one.
There are some options, like even if you're sticking with
a handgun, there are different kind of um like uh
options for that. Like I I'm a big advocate of
pistol caliber carbines, which is essentially the size of a
small rifle, so you can fit them easily in a backpack.
Every backpack I've owned, you can. You can stick something
(09:56):
like um like a Sazy scorpion in without much difficulty.
And because they're so When you're talking about what makes
a weapon easier to use, Number one of the number
one things is size. So the longer the barrel, the
more accurate it is. The heavier the gun, the less
recoil is a problem, the easier it is to use it.
Range um and a pistol caliber carbine, you know, you
stick a light on that. That's a really good home
(10:18):
defense weapon. Oh absolutely, yeah, I mean especially uh people
will argue about the different types of magazines. But if
you buy one that takes a glock magazine and you
have a glock, you can build a full little load
out that's just takes all the same magazines. One is
more accurate. One is a handgun. UM, and you know,
(10:41):
all the same AMMO. You're not having to uh figure
out and read a bunch on on what kind of
AMMO you need and stuff like that. You just buy
one and it works for everything. Yeah, and when when
you're talking about AMMO, I think one of the most
important things, like especially if you're worried about a survival situation,
is availability UM, which is the nice thing about like
what we call the NATO calibers, and the NATO calibers
(11:03):
are nine millimeter seven six two by fifty one better
known as three O eight your grandpa's hunting rifle seven
UM or it's thirty six but whatever UM and then
five five six slash two to three and those are
the rounds that's like five six is the standard. That's
what's in your bog standard a r UM and so
(11:23):
almost no matter what happens, UM, including you know ammo crunches.
You will be able to find some amounts of those
calibers generally, and you're going to find a box of bullets.
They might not even own a gun and they got
a boxing nine millimeter. Yeah, everybody's got nine millionaire and UM,
so yeah, I think that the basics of like, um,
(11:45):
what to get if you're looking at kind of just
a basic defensive arm. Um, you know how to store
it safely? You know those kind of questions are important.
Um when it comes to training. Uh, what are some
of in your opinion, like the mistake that you see
people make when it comes to kind of of practicing
training with their weapon. Um, going to an n R
(12:07):
a basic like four hour class and thinking that you
are a god. Um, they're there are people who have
spent um five days a week going to classes and
doing training because there's practice and then there's training. Training
is where someone teaches you something. Uh, practices where you
(12:29):
go with what you're already taught. Right. Um, So there
there are people that spend all that time and there's
still not the best in the world. Um, there are
people who do a ton of practice. Jerry Micklock. You know,
I don't know if you've ever seen him shoot, but
he's uh, he's like the fastest gun in the world
or something like that. Um, his videos are crazy. Oh yeah, yeah,
(12:50):
I mean he'll he'll outshoot a full auto gunyah with
with revolvers and it's just like, you know, it's just
absolutely mind blowing. Um. But know he's like he's like
he's like Michael Jordan or something. You know, you just
get people who have almost it's just not natural ability. Um,
certainly married with a practicing but yeah, continue, if if
(13:12):
you had a fight a gunfight, which they really don't
happen that much, but if you had a gun fight
between um, a guy with a high point C nine
who had the cheapest, cheapest quote reliable handguns on the
face there. If if you had a guy with that
that had had paid five hundred dollars for a training
(13:33):
class over weekend and still went in uh, went to
the shooting range every week and practiced and um or
not even every week, just every month, and then did
dry fire drills once a month in his garage or whatever.
Versus a guy who went out and bought a Wilson
Combat three thousand dollar nineteen eleven but had only taken
the n R A class. I will bet on the
(13:55):
guy with the eight or the C nine all day long. Um,
even if he's only got one bullet, you know, yeah,
don't don't care. He'll win. And often like for all
of it, for all of the guys you see, you know,
within all of their tactical gear and whatnot, and their
spare mag's taking a three hundred rounds out. If you
actually look at most defensive shootings, Um, it's very common,
(14:18):
and I think like like three to five rounds, three
to five rounds generally closer than thirty feet, sometimes closer
than like ten or fifteen. It sits in my pocket
most of the time. It's nineteen. It's so tiny. Um,
it has more bullets than I'll ever need to gunfight. Probably.
(14:48):
I think I want to pivot from this point to um.
We started this by it introducing that you you spent
some time in the A t F, spent some time
in the FPS. I haven't had any personal interactions the
A t F, but I have met some FPS guys.
You know, I'm kind of curious, especially as because I
came in contact with you through your through your Twitter,
(15:10):
where you're you're very my personal Twitter. Yeah, and you're
you're quite politically active now, um, in a way that
I think is surprising people for someone with your background.
Are you comfortable with kind of tracing sort of the
broad strokes of your journey there, because I think that's instructive,
um for folks oh at FPS specifically, well, just kind
(15:30):
of what brought you from there to hear? Oh? Um,
So I got kind of uh, oh man, what what's
what's the word for when you just get uh? I
don't know. I just I got to a point I
showed up for for work at four thirty in the morning,
and I was literally shuffling through some some paperwork and
(15:54):
and was getting ready to file a warrant and just
kind of realized I didn't think that it needed to happen,
And you know, I talked to my supervising agent about it,
and um, was kind of told too bad, And and
I put in for some vacation time and ended up
(16:15):
putting in a resignation while I was on vacation. I
mean that that's the gist of how I became not
a cop. Yeah, And UM, I'm wondering, kind of what
do you think is there anything that kind of I
don't know what looks different to you now as you've
kind of left that behind. Was it like sort of um,
(16:36):
I'm guessing there's like a period like a goldfish, you know,
in a new bowl of of acclamation to to life
outside of being a cop um? Like what what were
the first kind of things that started to shift in
your perspective when you left that that thought space. I'll
tell you what, watching or reading whatever, an article or
(16:57):
a YouTube video, especially now that body cams are more
and more are prevalent. It is watching something, reading the
the press release, and going But that's that's not what happened.
Like I just watched it and and and going from
being able to justify it in your own mind and
literally argue with people and be a hundred percent convinced
(17:21):
like that was a good shoot. Um Castillo? What it was?
Philandro Castillo? Yeah, oh god? And he was. Man, if
you've if you've gotten lost track of this shooting in
between all the others. Filando was a black man, a
legal gun owner with a legal concealed carry permit, who
was pulled over with his girlfriend and child in a
(17:42):
car and hands on the wheel, told the officer he
had a gun uh, and got shot. Um, and it
did the thing you're supposed to do. Although now actually
since then you will get like some states will and
some training classes will recommend if it's not legally required
and you're carrying a gun, don't say anything for that reason.
But I mean, yeah, the command to not reach for
(18:05):
the gun to being shot multiple times in the chest
was like under two seconds. Um, So I mean, I
mean the decision was already made as soon as as
soon as he gave the command, the decision was made.
Here's what that brings me to in terms of a
question that's relevant to the topic of community self defensive potential,
community armed self defense, because that's not that is a
(18:28):
that is a cop problem, but that's not just a
cop problem. And what happened everybody problem in the chop
in the chairs in Seattle, the the autonomous zone is
evidence of that. You had this situation where people, after
nights and nights of mostly inaccurate warnings about proud boys
coming to attack, got amped up, they had guns, some
kids drove by in a car and they fucking shot
(18:49):
him to death. Um. And it is the same it's
the same mental thing happening. You don't have to have
a badge for that that mindset to infect, especially when
you're carrying a gun. Um, how do you, in your opinion,
fight back against that? Be fucking chill? Uh? You know,
like like honestly, Um, if you were a teenager, which
(19:16):
we grew up in almost the same place you're from, plain, Oh,
I'm from Capel, so I would have argued with you
about them being the same place when I was. But
they're the same place. Yeah, they're absolutely the same place.
Yeah one has uh one has uh woot dot com
and the other one has raytheon so you know, and
(19:38):
a bunch of hospitals. Um. But uh, you and I
grew up in the same time, same place, same types
of schools. How many times did you see in like
high school or even middle school, just a guy hit
on a girl and then the girl's boyfriend comes over
(19:59):
and just start fighting him, like like like the guy
had no reason to know, he didn't know he was
doing anything wrong. Um. And I'm not suggesting, I'm sorry.
What I'm pointing out is that, Um, it's almost ingrained
in us at a societal level to react violently to
(20:23):
maintain like our personal position. And if that means that
I'm in my neighborhood and I don't recognize someone, it
may seem like violence is the right way to go.
That's actually what what you're doing when like what's it
called Karen ng you know where you call somebody the
black kid yelled, uh selling water bottles or whatever. UM.
(20:45):
I know that was one in New York where the
police came and harassed you know, some like twelve year
old black kids because they were selling water bottles. Um.
It's the same thing. I mean, you know in that case,
you're not personally doing the violence, You're just calling somebody
else to do it for you. UM. Because you know,
the police are kind of violence, violence, of monopoly and
all that. Yeah. Yeah, And that's U. One of the
(21:11):
most I think important things about that is the idea
of UM violence is like when you when you're willing
to accept violence to kind of maintain your your your
social position or something. UM. And I think that has
a huge amount to do with with the kind of
violence you see UM at protests with like we've had
you know, protests quote unquote security here in Portland, people
(21:33):
kind of declaring themselves security and what does that mean
shooting other kids with guns for graffiti, Like, but it is,
it is a matter for it's they're not doing it
to protect anybody. They're doing it because they've declared themselves security.
Somebody doesn't listen to what they say and their ego
is hurt. It's the same thing that again cops do.
It's this, it's a human mindset. It's not just a
(21:53):
a cop mindset. And um, I think you when you're
talking about like, I think there's a couple of things.
Number One, if you're going to be armed and if
you're going to be armed in the community self defense role,
one of the things you have to accept is that
like you're not as a person who is armed and
cares about the defense of your community, you're not a
separate thing from them. I think that's one of the
(22:14):
areas where which policing goes wrong. May view yourselves as separate. Yeah,
and I know you guys have a big problem with that. Um,
we do here too. I live in a metro and
our metro police, like them, don't even live in the county. Yeah,
they all go the same here. Yeah. Yeah, they don't
(22:35):
even not just the city, they don't live in the
whole county. Um. And that's despite they get a living
allowance if they'll live in the city, and there's a
bunch of if they live in the city, they get
a take home car. There's a bunch of incentives to
try and get people to live here, and they still
won't do it. They want to go live in the
(22:56):
next sheriff over the next county where yeah, we have
a very vocal share off the next county. Odor who's
who's really racist? And all that ship? And I yeah,
I think if you're if you're talking about like the
potential of of again of like armed community self defense, Um,
you almost I almost would prefer phrasing it differently, community
(23:21):
self defense, you know, um, which should be the entire community. Yeah, yeah,
community And you're not the gun isn't what you are.
You're not you're not security. You're not self defense because
you're armed your self defense because you're a member of
the community. And if you personally choose to be armed,
(23:42):
that is an option that is expanded to you specifically
because you're armed. But it doesn't change fun. It shouldn't
change what you are. And if it does, there's a
phrase that I think is really useful. Um, the finger
pulls the trigger and if you want to avoid or
the trigger pulls the finger. Sorry. And it's this idea
that when you show up armed, and you're showing up
(24:02):
armed as someone like your purpose there is to be armed,
you're at at heavy risk of the weapon guiding your responses. Um.
And that's the most important thing in any circumstance to
avoid if you're carrying a weapon. If if you've got
a hammer, everything's a nail. Ye. Well, and and uh,
(24:23):
the last twenty years we've had kind of a with
the War on Terror. You've seen a proliferation in media
around um, making Navy Seals and all that ship look
really really really cool. Uh, every other movie is about that,
even though like really they're just drunk guys who yell
(24:44):
at people a lot and who occasionally commit murder to
protect Or was that was that the Seals? Was that
the Green Berets who killed that guy to protected drug trafficking? Greg?
I mean probably both? Oh you know that that was
the Green Berets in North Carolina? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean and it crosses all all borders. Um. But
one thing that's come out of that is we we've
(25:06):
started to call those guys operators. Right, So you've gone
from a gun being a tool that someone trains there
to use too, they are merely an operator of a
weapons system. Um. And it it's kind of dehumanizing like
it it allows you to get out of the thought
(25:27):
on that. Um, it's exactly what you were talking about.
Where where the triggers really pulling the finger at that point? Um? Yeah,
And it's it's I think there's a number of I
don't know, there's a number of tactics and more than
we can get through, and that we'll be talking with
some other community to self defense people at some point
in the near future about this, because this is a
(25:48):
big topic, right, and it's not one I haven't seen
anyone do it super well yet in the United States
like we anytime you have kind of persistent right wingers
do every once in a while. Yeah, yeah, they take
over BLM land. Yeah yeah, but then they die. I
forgot about that. Yeah they did get killed. Um. And
(26:10):
I think that it's it's a it's a really messy
topic because of you know, what you brought up is
a valid point. All the everything that all the kind
of social baggage there is around weaponry in this in
this country and in our in our culture, this kind
of like worship of the gun. And if you think
like the left is any more immune to that than
(26:33):
the right, you're wrong. You see the same you know,
toxic behavior all around. You have to be extremely cognizant
of it, even if you know it's something at the
risk board. There is UM. Weapons in general have a
mental impact on us carrying them. UM, And there is
there is a level of just like being around weaponry
that is entrancing. It's it's a human thing. You know,
(26:53):
we make weapons, it's we're tool using apes and weapons
are some of the first tools that we made that
that are responsible for why you know, we get to
tell the dogs and the cats what to do. UM.
And you have to you have to really approach being
armed from a standpoint of rejecting a lot of that
(27:13):
if you're going to do it responsibly. I mean, among
other things, the idea that you might have to use
a gun UM has to be you're you're very close
to your worst nightmare. UM, because it would be it
would be if you ever actually had to use one. UM.
At minimum, you're talking like when you actually look at
like legal self defense shoots you're talking minimum the next
(27:35):
if you kill somebody, at least minimum, the next year
of your life is dealing with the legal consequences of that. Sure,
and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah, I mean,
if you're having if if IF IF file, if charges
get filed, you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars for
like a capital defense case, if not millions. Yeah, And
(27:58):
and that's in you know there. There's one of the
gun YouTubers that I like to push people towards it
for this kind of stuff, as a guy named Paul
Harrold who was certainly more on the conservative side, but
who actually killed somebody in a self defense and went
through the whole legal process afterwards. And he has a
couple of videos where he talks about it and he
gives I think pretty good advice on that that is
(28:20):
that is completely without ego because it was a nightmare
for him. It was the worst experience of his life,
which is what it's going to be if you ever
have to use a gun, and that should be like,
that should be the top of your that should be
the top of your mindset. You know, I've been in
this situation a couple of times at protests where like
someone pulls a knife and starts lunging at people and
I have a gun and I'm fifteen feet away, And
(28:42):
I never drew in part because it never quite crossed
that line for me, and I knew that giving people
the chance to de escalate was vastly more important than
um introducing a second weapon to the situation immediately. And
if things had gone different, perhaps I would feel differently
about my choices in that moment. But um, they didn't
(29:04):
and nobody got hurt. And that's always the best case scenario,
even if it's somebody you really dislike who is who
is threatening people with a weapon. I swear that happened
up in Olympia like two weeks ago. Yeah, well the
shooting in Olympia, which was a guy named Tiny who
got shot. Um, and there's video of it. It's absolutely
not a legally justified shoot for sure. Like, yeah, he
(29:29):
was he was like forty ft away, you know. Um, yeah,
but he's really tall. He is big, he is I
think that counts for something. He was tall, he was tall,
he was chasing them, he was armed. Um. Not making
a moral case here. I think legally they would have
had a trouble. Had they stayed around. Now, of course
they've got I believe they've been arrested at this point.
(29:51):
Oh have they? I just heard it, didn't think so,
so sorry. I don't mean to crash it for a second.
I think I saw our our best friend Andy post
something about it three days ago. Three I must have
missed this. Yeah, okay, so they did. They did arrest
the guy. Yeah, and it's you know, it's another thing
(30:14):
if you, um, if you feel if if you're involved
in like a shooting that you feel is a justified
legal shooting. Um, you don't. You don't leave the scene. Uh.
And in fact, one of the better videos you'll get
on like what to Do and uh, this guy's life
has gone to ship because of the political nature of
the shooting. But the guy in um in Denver who
(30:35):
shot that dude at a protest, the pinker, I'll tell you,
you know, no, no matter what you want to say
about whether or not it was a good shoot, yeah
that that he dropped that fucking guy, he dropped head
down on his knees. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.
You know, again, the court case is not settled out,
(30:57):
so I don't know if that guy's story is going
to end happily. But in terms of if you want
to not get shot yourself and you want to have
the maximum chance of defending yourself if you have to
shoot somebody in a situation that's legally justified. What that
guy did after the shoot is how to handle it, um,
And I mean the evidence for that is he did
not get shot. And obviously your mileage with that's going
(31:17):
to vary depending on your skin color. Uh. Yeah, that's
a big factor. Yeah, in terms of actual training, people
can like pay for if they if they want to
(31:37):
take that step, which I think is a good idea. Um,
who do you do? You do you have kind of
like broad recommendations for how people can know if something's
you know, because there's this is certainly a space where
there's a lot of grifters and whatnot. Um. Yeah, I
mean most of the beginner level uh how to fight
(31:58):
with a gun are two to three days long. Like that.
That's a good starting point is the fact that you're
going to pay probably three to five hundred dollars per day, um,
and it's going to be multiple days long. You can't
because you're going from a baseline you know, they know
(32:20):
you already know how to point and shoot a gun,
but they're going to go up for everything on how
to draw, how to move, how to reload. Um, you're
gonna have some classroom time going over their specific safety
instructions and stuff like that. Um. But anything you can
do in one day or four hours or forty rounds
(32:41):
or whatever, it isn't going to cut it. Um. You
need to go get something, and you need to listen
because they're going to ask you to do things that
might not be the way you want to do it.
You might say, yeah, that's not the way my dad
taught me how to reload a handgun. Um. A good
(33:01):
example is actually, UM tactical response in Tennessee. They a
lot of people hate them, but they have a very
specific way that they say, everyone reloads this way in
our class. You know, you put it in and you
sling shot the slide. Um, And the people argue and go, well,
I want to just press the button. Well the button
is cool and all, but we want you to sling
(33:22):
shot the slide. Just do it for this class. Um. Sorry,
I got a little off topic there, No, no, no,
that that's a good point too, because I mean just
go in and listen. Um, And you don't have to
take everything away. You take what you saw as good
usable information and merge that with what you already know,
(33:44):
maybe throw away some of what you already know when
you've got this ball a goo that you can work
with for practice. Um. Yeah, yeah, and yeah it is.
And to that point when you're talking about like training,
one of the differences between handguns and rifles, Like all
all shooting, as always there's a degree of perishable nous
to it, but shooting a handgun is a much more
(34:06):
perishable skill than shooting a rifle. Um. And it's it's
so if you're going to be armed with a handgun, UM,
it really behooves you to take to train, you know,
because you're only as good as how often you've been
out there, really um and having a stay a good foundation,
like taking some real professional classes will help a lot
(34:27):
in that as opposed to just kind of going out
to the range every now and again. But yeah, um,
let's talk at the s the last little bit of
this here about kind of the gun that's always on
the tip of everybody's tongue when you start talking about
being armed and armed self defenses you know the A
R platform. Um, it's a gun with a lot of baggage,
(34:48):
a tremendous amount of cultural baggage, and it's it has
become vastly more than just a firearm in our culture.
Um what a what? What do you what? Are kind of?
Because I am a big advoc kit of people who
who are open to being armed getting an A R platform.
I think it's a great gun to learn. I mean
it goes yeah, it goes bang really well almost every time,
(35:11):
as long as it's from a reputable manufacturer. Um, despite
what some people say, they're very reliable. Um, they're easy
to clean. Literally as long as you keep them lubricated,
even in the field, you keep it lubricated, it will
just just keep banging out rounds. Um. It functions in
(35:32):
you know, we talked about this during the episodes on
like you know, food storage in and whatnot. Like, where
there's a there's the there's the cheap version. I like
stuff where there's there's the cheap version that works, and
there's the expensive version that works. And you you have
that with an A R. You can get a very
inexpensive are and you can you can replace every part
(35:52):
of that are over the next five years and have
a six thousand dollar gun. I I did um minor
price checking last night because I was like, you know,
I haven't checked the price the retail prices on stuff, right,
so in like your your budget tier normal price that
that's out right Now, you've got like a Ruber a
R five five six. There's seven hundred bucks. That's that's
(36:13):
dirt cheap and it's gonna go bang just the same gun. Yeah.
I have a friend who who's who's a r is
a five five six and they're very solid. Yeah, they
just they go bang every time. You're not going to
break up. Um. I mean, as long as you don't
use it like a baseball bat, you're not going to
break up, especially now that the Russian steelcase dammo has
been banned. But then like the the other end of
(36:37):
the spectrum is you got a sick right, Yeah, I've
got a couple. Okay, So you know what the rattler is.
Oh yeah, that's a fun one. I do not own
a rattler, but they are they are cute, do you
know how much? Well, for first off, the rattler, it's
a short, bare old five five six. It's not really
(36:58):
an air of fifteen, but technically it kind of is
um and it's well, how about this, how much do
you think that the Rattler costs? Right now, don't don't
go look just just techs would be my guess. Now
(37:19):
it's uh now, I actually put it in my category
of honorable mentioned slash meme because it's kind of a
meme gun. Uh. It's so tiny, um, but I don't
want to get shot with it. But that's kind of
the spread we were talking about, which is, you know,
you can get a seven hundred dollar gun and it'll
go bang the exact same way as the rattler. Um,
(37:41):
it fires the same bullet um, and you can build
up to something not like a Rattler, but you can
build up to um a bunch of Novesky parts. You
can throw a bunch of Novesky parts into that ruger
lower and upper that you bought and build a really
awesome gun that will be you know, ninety nine percent reliable. Yeah, yeah,
(38:05):
and you can uh, you know, I think generally if
you're buying like a again, you're you're getting kind of
a bargain basement. Are one of the first things that
that it's going to behoove you to replaces the optics.
You know, it'll probably start with iron sights. But these
don't even come with anything. Yeah, usually they come with
nothing on them, and you have to stick the irons
or you stick a reflex site. There's a whole world
(38:27):
of um of optics, and I think one of the
actually one of the websites I recommend people check into
if you're looking and kind of reading up on this
and and doing your due diligence is Pew pew tactical um.
They do not written from like a super you know,
chetty or whatever. Like you get a lot of very
political gun websites that may have some good information but
(38:48):
are frustrating to read. They're not that way. They're written
you know, four people who are not super aggro about guns,
but who are are are interested in guns, and you
can find really good reviews on stuff. But as a
general rule, modern optics beat iron sights every day of
the like they prefer I I and I do in
some on my a case, I vastly prefer using irons,
but that would never be the weapon I would pick
(39:10):
if I was in a situation where I needed a weapon.
You know, yeah, I mean I think everyone should learn
how to use iron sights, absolutely. But if I can
hand someone a four and fifty dollar aim point pro
which which is uh the budget version of a high
(39:31):
end optic, if I can put a four optic with
the mountain everything onto a rifle and just go, hey,
just just put the dot on what you want to shoot,
You're done. Um. Now, there's a lot that goes past that,
but we got rid of the entire proper site alignment
and all that. They just got to put the dot
(39:52):
on the box and squeeze. Yeah. Yeah, I mean even
even the Marine Corps, famous for for fielding marks my
has gone we're going to switch over to optic based training. Yeah,
they're just I mean you look at even guys in
like Idlib Province, which is like one of the rebel
provinces in Syria that's been persistently under siege for most
(40:13):
of the last decade. Um, they're all using fancy optics
now like that generally alten Ali Baba versions of like
brand optics. But it does the trick, you know. I mean,
it's a it's a sig Romeo that never got the
role market for cig on, yeah exactly, And they paid
a hundred bucks instead of four fifty. Yeah. Um, alright, well,
(40:34):
I think that's most of what we can responsibly get through.
I do want to end on the caveat we started
with this with, which is that UM deciding whether or not.
And I we advocate, uh, firearms is an option both
as a legal option and something that can be for
your community and for you as an individual potentially practical.
(40:56):
I don't blanket advise people to buy guns. I think
in many case ass it's going to be counterproductive. I
think you should not own a firearm. Again, if you're
someone who struggles with suicidal ideation, they they can be
a very dangerous thing to have in your home. If
that's something that that you battle with. I do think
that they can be owned and used very responsibly. In
(41:17):
addition to I think shooting can be a really enjoyable pastime. Um.
And I think more than anything, when a whole bunch
of people who are talking about killing you all have guns,
it can behoove you to own a firearm as well
if you're a member of one of those communities. So
please don't take any of this. As Robert Evans says,
everyone go buy a gun. But if you're going to
(41:37):
buy a gun, there's there's a right way and a
responsible way to go about it, and there's you know,
picking up a random twelve gauge and shoving it under
your bed, which is no more shotguns for home defense.
Yeah they're not, they're not ideal. Um yeah, I mean
we can, we can talk about over penetration and stuff,
(41:58):
but yeah, I mean just being able to move lead
in a direction. They're very bad at it. Yeah, um yeah, yeah,
they they're they're not they're not. I mean again, something
like uh an a R or a pistol caliber carbine
is in a lot of situations going to be a
(42:18):
much more practical and and have less risk of hitting
stuff you don't want to hit necessarily. Get the high point? Um,
yeat the Yeah they eat cannon. Well we'll discuss that
on our whole episode of about high points. So you've
shot yourself in the dick the high points story. All right, Well, um,
(42:43):
do you wanna Paul, you've got any got anything to
plug before we roll out here? Uh, give food to
homeless people, well houseless, houseless I think is yeah. Um,
And if you're in an area with a based d
S A join the d s I and then with
out the ships. That's what's happening here in Orlando. Um,
(43:06):
but yeah, embrace anarchy. Well, I'm Robert Evans, this is
gonna podcast and uh and remember as we sail out,
there's a reason the episode talking about guns came after
the episodes talking about storing and growing food. Robert Evans here,
(43:30):
and I wanted to ask for your help. There is
a Portland area woman Ruby to Mimi. She's an Arabic
interpreter and a Palestinian liberation activist, and she is trying
to save her home at the moment. She's got to
go fund me. If you go to save Ruba's house,
are you be a on go fund Me? You'll find it.
Save Ruby's house on go fund Me. You've got a
few bucks. Um, she could really use it again, save
(43:52):
Ruba's house. Are you be a at go fund Me? Thanks?
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone
Media from our podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our
website cool zone Media dot com, or check us out
on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it
could Happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone media dot
(44:12):
com slash Sources thanks for listening.
Uh, that was the introduction, I did it, Sophie. Sophie
is saying, that's an acceptable introduction. You know what podcast
this is. You clicked on it, so I don't need
to tell you the title. I don't need to say
who we are. I'm just going to dive right into
the fucking episode. No, I'm not. This is It Could
Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and uh
(00:26):
and what to maybe do to to arrest that and
do something better in its place, and uh, you know,
folks who are are regular listeners who listened to the
original scripted episodes of It Could Happen Here, the first
fifteen episodes, which I certainly recommend to everybody. Know that
one area in which I kind of separate from a
lot of particularly more liberal folks and even some folks
(00:49):
on the left is an embrace of the fact that
firearms are sometimes necessary tools, especially in times of collapse
when things get bad. Um. Now that said, we're also
not uh kind of gun culture people here. We try not, to,
for one thing, recommend that everybody necessarily pick up a gun.
There's a lot of people, perfectly nice people you shouldn't
(01:11):
have them who don't need to have them, you know,
if you're dealing with suicidal ideation or whatever. We're not.
The point is, we try to be very careful about
how we we talk about firearms as a potentially useful,
even potentially necessary tool in the times that we're in.
And today, since we're a few weeks into this, we've
covered producing food, We've covered some medical stuff. We've talked
(01:31):
about uh, community organizing, and a number of other things
that I think our priorities for most people before, you know,
getting strapped. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about
getting strapped. And my guest today is Paul. Paul, do
you want to kind of introduce your background in brief
so people know why why you're on here, Sure, Robert H.
I was in the Marine Corps and Infantry, and after
(01:54):
that I went to security consulting and then to the
Federal Protector of Service and finally the A T F
some of our funnest agencies. Yeah, all my favorite organizations there. Well,
they're better than the the what is it, the f
d A. Yeah, they beat the f d A. I
mean in terms of body count, they're certainly better than
(02:16):
the f d A. And what what do you do now,
Paul that you're you're you're out of that line of work. Uh, well,
I do two things. I got a day job at
disney World and then uh, the side gig is we
run a explosives and machine guns supply company, also body armor,
(02:38):
a handful of other things. But that's the big thing
is destructive devices. Yeah, and uh, you've you've got I
think experience that a lot of people, particularly on this
side of the political I'll lack you know. One of
the one of the downsides of kind of rejecting the
federal government in the military and all its forms, is
that there's a lot of people who may accept the
(03:00):
validity of being armed and don't really have much in
the way of practical training. And firearms are tools that
to use most efficausly do require training and practice. You
can't just um you can pick them up and be dangerous,
but not in a way that is particularly protective to
you in your community. Oh yeah, Um, so I wanted
(03:20):
to talk about kind of recommendations and and everything. We
talk about nothing. We're not talking in the context of
forming a militia or in the context of you know,
showing up with guns to to yell at people at
a protest. If that's the thing you're choosing to do,
that's a whole different ball game. We're talking about, um,
kind of responsibly arming yourself in your community in a
(03:42):
way that is not going to get you in legal trouble. Um,
it is also not going to endanger them. Because one
of the things you have to accept about firearms is that, um,
there's a risk you know, related to owning a firearm. Um.
Not just the risk that like you know, suicide risk
raises if you have a gun in the house, but
just if you don't use them properly. Even carrying a gun.
(04:02):
You know, it's not unheard of for people carrying guns
to have those weapons taken from them and used against them.
It happens to police, and it happens to armed citizens.
So it's it's a matter of um, you know. I
think when you accept that you're going to be armed,
there's something incumbent upon you to understand the risks of
being armed. And I guess that's kind of where I
(04:23):
want to start, Like, what are some of the big
pitfalls you see people uh fall into, Like um that
I think traditionally, training is supposed to help allay to
some degree. Uh well probably number one is uh grandpa's
gun in the closet that's been there for forty years unfired,
and somebody just picks it up and throw some ammo
(04:45):
in it to go huna deer, and you know it's
got a barrel obstruction or something that just blows up,
you know. Um. But number two and and the one
that can be mitigated by training rather than just general
uh not being stupid, because it's kind of stupid to
pick something up that's really old and just try to
shoot it. Is um, not shooting yourself, and when you
(05:10):
do go out to the range, not shooting other people,
and then not shooting people in your own home. Um,
you know you don't as much as you might want to, say,
defend your own home, do you want to shoot your
wife when she comes home at two thirty in the morning, uh,
(05:30):
after work and wakes you up. And there are ways
to mitigate that and and it's really easy and it's
really cheap. So yeah, let's let's let's start with some
of those. Just if you're if you're new too, if
you've decided I need a gun for whatever reason, you
purchase a gun. Um, you know, I think the most
basic first things are in terms of like actually making
(05:51):
that relatively safe. Is number one, knowing which which kind
of firearm to purchase, and number two, and these are
not in order of importance, these are both very important.
Number two is securing that weapon properly, as opposed to
just having it laying loose in the house, which is
never the best place. The best way to store a firearm,
is it. Um, Yeah, I mean I own a number
(06:15):
of personal firearms. Um. You know, I'm in my office
right now where I got a locked door where nobody
can get in, and I got a gun safe back
behind the monitors. Um. And you know I'm comfortable with that.
But if if it was in a place where kids
could get at it, you don't want to just stuff
it in, uh, in a sock in the closet, which
(06:37):
is actually what my mom did when I was a kid. Yeah,
I mean safe storage and I mean really being able
to identify your target is probably the biggest preventer of
like inter family accident, because I know, you know, we
do talk about safe storage kids and all that. But um,
back to the wife coming home. If you just put
(06:58):
a light on your gun, hundred dollar light, you can
look at the thing that you're shooting in the middle
of the night and uh, not shoot someone you don't
want to shoot. Yeah. I would go so far as
to say that, like if you've got a home defense
weapon without a light on it, Um, you don't fully
have a home defense weapon. No, no, yeah, you know, Um,
(07:20):
it's gonna be useless in roughly half of the situation.
And statistically, like if you're looking at when people are
actually tend to be endangered in their own homes, the
vast majority of the situations in which you might be
in danger. Um. When it comes to weapons selection, uh,
this is another area where like if you go on
maybe one of the worst places in the world to
have this discussion as Twitter, because everybody has the opinions
(07:42):
on Twitter. Um. I tend to say because I think
most people when they're looking for a first gun, if
they're if they're committed, just like thinking of personal defense,
they're going to go for like a lock or something.
And I think unless you're planning on carrying a gun,
And you can correct me if you disagree here, but
I tend to think a handgun again, unless you're intending
on carrying a concealed weapon is the last thing that
(08:03):
you should own as a gun owner. Um. I got
a mixed opinion on that. I mean, yeah, I think that, uh,
the handiness of a handgun can outweigh some of the issues.
I know you guys dealt with fires up there, we
have hurricanes. Um, being able to stick a handgun into
(08:27):
a backpack you know it can go a long way,
or being ab um, keep keep it on you in
your car because here were depend on state laws. Everything
you say depends on state laws. Yeah, there are states
where you can. Yeah. Yeah. If you're in California and
you're in one of the counties that it doesn't issue
(08:49):
a concealed carry of license like l A, it's really
hard to get one. From what I understand, you got
to get to San Berndino if you want to get
one of those. Yeah, I mean, first off, like tooth,
I got a short list of guns, and like two
thirds of the list illegal in California. They're they're not
on roster. But for what's most usable against our most handy,
it's probably a handgun. But if you're expecting a threat
(09:13):
more than like thirty feet away, have something other than
a handgun. Handguns they suck at hurting people, they suck
at killing people. They're they're ineffective. They're hard to use.
I mean, say thirty ft away. But if you're not
training regularly hitting something reliably in a stressful situation at
thirty with a hand it can be difficult. It's not easy. Yeah, um,
(09:36):
it's not easy, And I tend to recommend number one.
There are some options, like even if you're sticking with
a handgun, there are different kind of um like uh
options for that. Like I I'm a big advocate of
pistol caliber carbines, which is essentially the size of a
small rifle, so you can fit them easily in a backpack.
Every backpack I've owned, you can. You can stick something
(09:56):
like um like a Sazy scorpion in without much difficulty.
And because they're so When you're talking about what makes
a weapon easier to use, Number one of the number
one things is size. So the longer the barrel, the
more accurate it is. The heavier the gun, the less
recoil is a problem, the easier it is to use it.
Range um and a pistol caliber carbine, you know, you
stick a light on that. That's a really good home
(10:18):
defense weapon. Oh absolutely, yeah, I mean especially uh people
will argue about the different types of magazines. But if
you buy one that takes a glock magazine and you
have a glock, you can build a full little load
out that's just takes all the same magazines. One is
more accurate. One is a handgun. UM, and you know,
(10:41):
all the same AMMO. You're not having to uh figure
out and read a bunch on on what kind of
AMMO you need and stuff like that. You just buy
one and it works for everything. Yeah, and when when
you're talking about AMMO, I think one of the most
important things, like especially if you're worried about a survival situation,
is availability UM, which is the nice thing about like
what we call the NATO calibers, and the NATO calibers
(11:03):
are nine millimeter seven six two by fifty one better
known as three O eight your grandpa's hunting rifle seven
UM or it's thirty six but whatever UM and then
five five six slash two to three and those are
the rounds that's like five six is the standard. That's
what's in your bog standard a r UM and so
(11:23):
almost no matter what happens, UM, including you know ammo crunches.
You will be able to find some amounts of those
calibers generally, and you're going to find a box of bullets.
They might not even own a gun and they got
a boxing nine millimeter. Yeah, everybody's got nine millionaire and UM,
so yeah, I think that the basics of like, um,
(11:45):
what to get if you're looking at kind of just
a basic defensive arm. Um, you know how to store
it safely? You know those kind of questions are important.
Um when it comes to training. Uh, what are some
of in your opinion, like the mistake that you see
people make when it comes to kind of of practicing
training with their weapon. Um, going to an n R
(12:07):
a basic like four hour class and thinking that you
are a god. Um, they're there are people who have
spent um five days a week going to classes and
doing training because there's practice and then there's training. Training
is where someone teaches you something. Uh, practices where you
(12:29):
go with what you're already taught. Right. Um, So there
there are people that spend all that time and there's
still not the best in the world. Um, there are
people who do a ton of practice. Jerry Micklock. You know,
I don't know if you've ever seen him shoot, but
he's uh, he's like the fastest gun in the world
or something like that. Um, his videos are crazy. Oh yeah, yeah,
(12:50):
I mean he'll he'll outshoot a full auto gunyah with
with revolvers and it's just like, you know, it's just
absolutely mind blowing. Um. But know he's like he's like
he's like Michael Jordan or something. You know, you just
get people who have almost it's just not natural ability. Um,
certainly married with a practicing but yeah, continue, if if
(13:12):
you had a fight a gunfight, which they really don't
happen that much, but if you had a gun fight
between um, a guy with a high point C nine
who had the cheapest, cheapest quote reliable handguns on the
face there. If if you had a guy with that
that had had paid five hundred dollars for a training
(13:33):
class over weekend and still went in uh, went to
the shooting range every week and practiced and um or
not even every week, just every month, and then did
dry fire drills once a month in his garage or whatever.
Versus a guy who went out and bought a Wilson
Combat three thousand dollar nineteen eleven but had only taken
the n R A class. I will bet on the
(13:55):
guy with the eight or the C nine all day long. Um,
even if he's only got one bullet, you know, yeah,
don't don't care. He'll win. And often like for all
of it, for all of the guys you see, you know,
within all of their tactical gear and whatnot, and their
spare mag's taking a three hundred rounds out. If you
actually look at most defensive shootings, Um, it's very common,
(14:18):
and I think like like three to five rounds, three
to five rounds generally closer than thirty feet, sometimes closer
than like ten or fifteen. It sits in my pocket
most of the time. It's nineteen. It's so tiny. Um,
it has more bullets than I'll ever need to gunfight. Probably.
(14:48):
I think I want to pivot from this point to um.
We started this by it introducing that you you spent
some time in the A t F, spent some time
in the FPS. I haven't had any personal interactions the
A t F, but I have met some FPS guys.
You know, I'm kind of curious, especially as because I
came in contact with you through your through your Twitter,
(15:10):
where you're you're very my personal Twitter. Yeah, and you're
you're quite politically active now, um, in a way that
I think is surprising people for someone with your background.
Are you comfortable with kind of tracing sort of the
broad strokes of your journey there, because I think that's instructive,
um for folks oh at FPS specifically, well, just kind
(15:30):
of what brought you from there to hear? Oh? Um,
So I got kind of uh, oh man, what what's
what's the word for when you just get uh? I
don't know. I just I got to a point I
showed up for for work at four thirty in the morning,
and I was literally shuffling through some some paperwork and
(15:54):
and was getting ready to file a warrant and just
kind of realized I didn't think that it needed to happen,
And you know, I talked to my supervising agent about it,
and um, was kind of told too bad, And and
I put in for some vacation time and ended up
(16:15):
putting in a resignation while I was on vacation. I
mean that that's the gist of how I became not
a cop. Yeah, And UM, I'm wondering, kind of what
do you think is there anything that kind of I
don't know what looks different to you now as you've
kind of left that behind. Was it like sort of um,
(16:36):
I'm guessing there's like a period like a goldfish, you know,
in a new bowl of of acclamation to to life
outside of being a cop um? Like what what were
the first kind of things that started to shift in
your perspective when you left that that thought space. I'll
tell you what, watching or reading whatever, an article or
(16:57):
a YouTube video, especially now that body cams are more
and more are prevalent. It is watching something, reading the
the press release, and going But that's that's not what happened.
Like I just watched it and and and going from
being able to justify it in your own mind and
literally argue with people and be a hundred percent convinced
(17:21):
like that was a good shoot. Um Castillo? What it was?
Philandro Castillo? Yeah, oh god? And he was. Man, if
you've if you've gotten lost track of this shooting in
between all the others. Filando was a black man, a
legal gun owner with a legal concealed carry permit, who
was pulled over with his girlfriend and child in a
(17:42):
car and hands on the wheel, told the officer he
had a gun uh, and got shot. Um, and it
did the thing you're supposed to do. Although now actually
since then you will get like some states will and
some training classes will recommend if it's not legally required
and you're carrying a gun, don't say anything for that reason.
But I mean, yeah, the command to not reach for
(18:05):
the gun to being shot multiple times in the chest
was like under two seconds. Um, So I mean, I
mean the decision was already made as soon as as
soon as he gave the command, the decision was made.
Here's what that brings me to in terms of a
question that's relevant to the topic of community self defensive potential,
community armed self defense, because that's not that is a
(18:28):
that is a cop problem, but that's not just a
cop problem. And what happened everybody problem in the chop
in the chairs in Seattle, the the autonomous zone is
evidence of that. You had this situation where people, after
nights and nights of mostly inaccurate warnings about proud boys
coming to attack, got amped up, they had guns, some
kids drove by in a car and they fucking shot
(18:49):
him to death. Um. And it is the same it's
the same mental thing happening. You don't have to have
a badge for that that mindset to infect, especially when
you're carrying a gun. Um, how do you, in your opinion,
fight back against that? Be fucking chill? Uh? You know,
like like honestly, Um, if you were a teenager, which
(19:16):
we grew up in almost the same place you're from, plain, Oh,
I'm from Capel, so I would have argued with you
about them being the same place when I was. But
they're the same place. Yeah, they're absolutely the same place.
Yeah one has uh one has uh woot dot com
and the other one has raytheon so you know, and
(19:38):
a bunch of hospitals. Um. But uh, you and I
grew up in the same time, same place, same types
of schools. How many times did you see in like
high school or even middle school, just a guy hit
on a girl and then the girl's boyfriend comes over
(19:59):
and just start fighting him, like like like the guy
had no reason to know, he didn't know he was
doing anything wrong. Um. And I'm not suggesting, I'm sorry.
What I'm pointing out is that, Um, it's almost ingrained
in us at a societal level to react violently to
(20:23):
maintain like our personal position. And if that means that
I'm in my neighborhood and I don't recognize someone, it
may seem like violence is the right way to go.
That's actually what what you're doing when like what's it
called Karen ng you know where you call somebody the
black kid yelled, uh selling water bottles or whatever. UM.
(20:45):
I know that was one in New York where the
police came and harassed you know, some like twelve year
old black kids because they were selling water bottles. Um.
It's the same thing. I mean, you know in that case,
you're not personally doing the violence, You're just calling somebody
else to do it for you. UM. Because you know,
the police are kind of violence, violence, of monopoly and
all that. Yeah. Yeah, And that's U. One of the
(21:11):
most I think important things about that is the idea
of UM violence is like when you when you're willing
to accept violence to kind of maintain your your your
social position or something. UM. And I think that has
a huge amount to do with with the kind of
violence you see UM at protests with like we've had
you know, protests quote unquote security here in Portland, people
(21:33):
kind of declaring themselves security and what does that mean
shooting other kids with guns for graffiti, Like, but it is,
it is a matter for it's they're not doing it
to protect anybody. They're doing it because they've declared themselves security.
Somebody doesn't listen to what they say and their ego
is hurt. It's the same thing that again cops do.
It's this, it's a human mindset. It's not just a
(21:53):
a cop mindset. And um, I think you when you're
talking about like, I think there's a couple of things.
Number One, if you're going to be armed and if
you're going to be armed in the community self defense role,
one of the things you have to accept is that
like you're not as a person who is armed and
cares about the defense of your community, you're not a
separate thing from them. I think that's one of the
(22:14):
areas where which policing goes wrong. May view yourselves as separate. Yeah,
and I know you guys have a big problem with that. Um,
we do here too. I live in a metro and
our metro police, like them, don't even live in the county. Yeah,
they all go the same here. Yeah. Yeah, they don't
(22:35):
even not just the city, they don't live in the
whole county. Um. And that's despite they get a living
allowance if they'll live in the city, and there's a
bunch of if they live in the city, they get
a take home car. There's a bunch of incentives to
try and get people to live here, and they still
won't do it. They want to go live in the
(22:56):
next sheriff over the next county where yeah, we have
a very vocal share off the next county. Odor who's
who's really racist? And all that ship? And I yeah,
I think if you're if you're talking about like the
potential of of again of like armed community self defense, Um,
you almost I almost would prefer phrasing it differently, community
(23:21):
self defense, you know, um, which should be the entire community. Yeah, yeah,
community And you're not the gun isn't what you are.
You're not you're not security. You're not self defense because
you're armed your self defense because you're a member of
the community. And if you personally choose to be armed,
(23:42):
that is an option that is expanded to you specifically
because you're armed. But it doesn't change fun. It shouldn't
change what you are. And if it does, there's a
phrase that I think is really useful. Um, the finger
pulls the trigger and if you want to avoid or
the trigger pulls the finger. Sorry. And it's this idea
that when you show up armed, and you're showing up
(24:02):
armed as someone like your purpose there is to be armed,
you're at at heavy risk of the weapon guiding your responses. Um.
And that's the most important thing in any circumstance to
avoid if you're carrying a weapon. If if you've got
a hammer, everything's a nail. Ye. Well, and and uh,
(24:23):
the last twenty years we've had kind of a with
the War on Terror. You've seen a proliferation in media
around um, making Navy Seals and all that ship look
really really really cool. Uh, every other movie is about that,
even though like really they're just drunk guys who yell
(24:44):
at people a lot and who occasionally commit murder to
protect Or was that was that the Seals? Was that
the Green Berets who killed that guy to protected drug trafficking? Greg?
I mean probably both? Oh you know that that was
the Green Berets in North Carolina? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean and it crosses all all borders. Um. But
one thing that's come out of that is we we've
(25:06):
started to call those guys operators. Right, So you've gone
from a gun being a tool that someone trains there
to use too, they are merely an operator of a
weapons system. Um. And it it's kind of dehumanizing like
it it allows you to get out of the thought
(25:27):
on that. Um, it's exactly what you were talking about.
Where where the triggers really pulling the finger at that point? Um? Yeah,
And it's it's I think there's a number of I
don't know, there's a number of tactics and more than
we can get through, and that we'll be talking with
some other community to self defense people at some point
in the near future about this, because this is a
(25:48):
big topic, right, and it's not one I haven't seen
anyone do it super well yet in the United States
like we anytime you have kind of persistent right wingers
do every once in a while. Yeah, yeah, they take
over BLM land. Yeah yeah, but then they die. I
forgot about that. Yeah they did get killed. Um. And
(26:10):
I think that it's it's a it's a really messy
topic because of you know, what you brought up is
a valid point. All the everything that all the kind
of social baggage there is around weaponry in this in
this country and in our in our culture, this kind
of like worship of the gun. And if you think
like the left is any more immune to that than
(26:33):
the right, you're wrong. You see the same you know,
toxic behavior all around. You have to be extremely cognizant
of it, even if you know it's something at the
risk board. There is UM. Weapons in general have a
mental impact on us carrying them. UM, And there is
there is a level of just like being around weaponry
that is entrancing. It's it's a human thing. You know,
(26:53):
we make weapons, it's we're tool using apes and weapons
are some of the first tools that we made that
that are responsible for why you know, we get to
tell the dogs and the cats what to do. UM.
And you have to you have to really approach being
armed from a standpoint of rejecting a lot of that
(27:13):
if you're going to do it responsibly. I mean, among
other things, the idea that you might have to use
a gun UM has to be you're you're very close
to your worst nightmare. UM, because it would be it
would be if you ever actually had to use one. UM.
At minimum, you're talking like when you actually look at
like legal self defense shoots you're talking minimum the next
(27:35):
if you kill somebody, at least minimum, the next year
of your life is dealing with the legal consequences of that. Sure,
and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah, I mean,
if you're having if if IF IF file, if charges
get filed, you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars for
like a capital defense case, if not millions. Yeah, And
(27:58):
and that's in you know there. There's one of the
gun YouTubers that I like to push people towards it
for this kind of stuff, as a guy named Paul
Harrold who was certainly more on the conservative side, but
who actually killed somebody in a self defense and went
through the whole legal process afterwards. And he has a
couple of videos where he talks about it and he
gives I think pretty good advice on that that is
(28:20):
that is completely without ego because it was a nightmare
for him. It was the worst experience of his life,
which is what it's going to be if you ever
have to use a gun, and that should be like,
that should be the top of your that should be
the top of your mindset. You know, I've been in
this situation a couple of times at protests where like
someone pulls a knife and starts lunging at people and
I have a gun and I'm fifteen feet away, And
(28:42):
I never drew in part because it never quite crossed
that line for me, and I knew that giving people
the chance to de escalate was vastly more important than
um introducing a second weapon to the situation immediately. And
if things had gone different, perhaps I would feel differently
about my choices in that moment. But um, they didn't
(29:04):
and nobody got hurt. And that's always the best case scenario,
even if it's somebody you really dislike who is who
is threatening people with a weapon. I swear that happened
up in Olympia like two weeks ago. Yeah, well the
shooting in Olympia, which was a guy named Tiny who
got shot. Um, and there's video of it. It's absolutely
not a legally justified shoot for sure. Like, yeah, he
(29:29):
was he was like forty ft away, you know. Um, yeah,
but he's really tall. He is big, he is I
think that counts for something. He was tall, he was tall,
he was chasing them, he was armed. Um. Not making
a moral case here. I think legally they would have
had a trouble. Had they stayed around. Now, of course
they've got I believe they've been arrested at this point.
(29:51):
Oh have they? I just heard it, didn't think so,
so sorry. I don't mean to crash it for a second.
I think I saw our our best friend Andy post
something about it three days ago. Three I must have
missed this. Yeah, okay, so they did. They did arrest
the guy. Yeah, and it's you know, it's another thing
(30:14):
if you, um, if you feel if if you're involved
in like a shooting that you feel is a justified
legal shooting. Um, you don't. You don't leave the scene. Uh.
And in fact, one of the better videos you'll get
on like what to Do and uh, this guy's life
has gone to ship because of the political nature of
the shooting. But the guy in um in Denver who
(30:35):
shot that dude at a protest, the pinker, I'll tell you,
you know, no, no matter what you want to say
about whether or not it was a good shoot, yeah
that that he dropped that fucking guy, he dropped head
down on his knees. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.
You know, again, the court case is not settled out,
(30:57):
so I don't know if that guy's story is going
to end happily. But in terms of if you want
to not get shot yourself and you want to have
the maximum chance of defending yourself if you have to
shoot somebody in a situation that's legally justified. What that
guy did after the shoot is how to handle it, um,
And I mean the evidence for that is he did
not get shot. And obviously your mileage with that's going
(31:17):
to vary depending on your skin color. Uh. Yeah, that's
a big factor. Yeah, in terms of actual training, people
can like pay for if they if they want to
(31:37):
take that step, which I think is a good idea. Um,
who do you do? You do you have kind of
like broad recommendations for how people can know if something's
you know, because there's this is certainly a space where
there's a lot of grifters and whatnot. Um. Yeah, I
mean most of the beginner level uh how to fight
(31:58):
with a gun are two to three days long. Like that.
That's a good starting point is the fact that you're
going to pay probably three to five hundred dollars per day, um,
and it's going to be multiple days long. You can't
because you're going from a baseline you know, they know
(32:20):
you already know how to point and shoot a gun,
but they're going to go up for everything on how
to draw, how to move, how to reload. Um, you're
gonna have some classroom time going over their specific safety
instructions and stuff like that. Um. But anything you can
do in one day or four hours or forty rounds
(32:41):
or whatever, it isn't going to cut it. Um. You
need to go get something, and you need to listen
because they're going to ask you to do things that
might not be the way you want to do it.
You might say, yeah, that's not the way my dad
taught me how to reload a handgun. Um. A good
(33:01):
example is actually, UM tactical response in Tennessee. They a
lot of people hate them, but they have a very
specific way that they say, everyone reloads this way in
our class. You know, you put it in and you
sling shot the slide. Um, And the people argue and go, well,
I want to just press the button. Well the button
is cool and all, but we want you to sling
(33:22):
shot the slide. Just do it for this class. Um. Sorry,
I got a little off topic there, No, no, no,
that that's a good point too, because I mean just
go in and listen. Um, And you don't have to
take everything away. You take what you saw as good
usable information and merge that with what you already know,
(33:44):
maybe throw away some of what you already know when
you've got this ball a goo that you can work
with for practice. Um. Yeah, yeah, and yeah it is.
And to that point when you're talking about like training,
one of the differences between handguns and rifles, Like all
all shooting, as always there's a degree of perishable nous
to it, but shooting a handgun is a much more
(34:06):
perishable skill than shooting a rifle. Um. And it's it's
so if you're going to be armed with a handgun, UM,
it really behooves you to take to train, you know,
because you're only as good as how often you've been
out there, really um and having a stay a good foundation,
like taking some real professional classes will help a lot
(34:27):
in that as opposed to just kind of going out
to the range every now and again. But yeah, um,
let's talk at the s the last little bit of
this here about kind of the gun that's always on
the tip of everybody's tongue when you start talking about
being armed and armed self defenses you know the A
R platform. Um, it's a gun with a lot of baggage,
(34:48):
a tremendous amount of cultural baggage, and it's it has
become vastly more than just a firearm in our culture.
Um what a what? What do you what? Are kind of?
Because I am a big advoc kit of people who
who are open to being armed getting an A R platform.
I think it's a great gun to learn. I mean
it goes yeah, it goes bang really well almost every time,
(35:11):
as long as it's from a reputable manufacturer. Um, despite
what some people say, they're very reliable. Um, they're easy
to clean. Literally as long as you keep them lubricated,
even in the field, you keep it lubricated, it will
just just keep banging out rounds. Um. It functions in
(35:32):
you know, we talked about this during the episodes on
like you know, food storage in and whatnot. Like, where
there's a there's the there's the cheap version. I like
stuff where there's there's the cheap version that works, and
there's the expensive version that works. And you you have
that with an A R. You can get a very
inexpensive are and you can you can replace every part
(35:52):
of that are over the next five years and have
a six thousand dollar gun. I I did um minor
price checking last night because I was like, you know,
I haven't checked the price the retail prices on stuff, right,
so in like your your budget tier normal price that
that's out right Now, you've got like a Ruber a
R five five six. There's seven hundred bucks. That's that's
(36:13):
dirt cheap and it's gonna go bang just the same gun. Yeah.
I have a friend who who's who's a r is
a five five six and they're very solid. Yeah, they
just they go bang every time. You're not going to
break up. Um. I mean, as long as you don't
use it like a baseball bat, you're not going to
break up, especially now that the Russian steelcase dammo has
been banned. But then like the the other end of
(36:37):
the spectrum is you got a sick right, Yeah, I've
got a couple. Okay, So you know what the rattler is.
Oh yeah, that's a fun one. I do not own
a rattler, but they are they are cute, do you
know how much? Well, for first off, the rattler, it's
a short, bare old five five six. It's not really
(36:58):
an air of fifteen, but technically it kind of is
um and it's well, how about this, how much do
you think that the Rattler costs? Right now, don't don't
go look just just techs would be my guess. Now
(37:19):
it's uh now, I actually put it in my category
of honorable mentioned slash meme because it's kind of a
meme gun. Uh. It's so tiny, um, but I don't
want to get shot with it. But that's kind of
the spread we were talking about, which is, you know,
you can get a seven hundred dollar gun and it'll
go bang the exact same way as the rattler. Um,
(37:41):
it fires the same bullet um, and you can build
up to something not like a Rattler, but you can
build up to um a bunch of Novesky parts. You
can throw a bunch of Novesky parts into that ruger
lower and upper that you bought and build a really
awesome gun that will be you know, ninety nine percent reliable. Yeah, yeah,
(38:05):
and you can uh, you know, I think generally if
you're buying like a again, you're you're getting kind of
a bargain basement. Are one of the first things that
that it's going to behoove you to replaces the optics.
You know, it'll probably start with iron sights. But these
don't even come with anything. Yeah, usually they come with
nothing on them, and you have to stick the irons
or you stick a reflex site. There's a whole world
(38:27):
of um of optics, and I think one of the
actually one of the websites I recommend people check into
if you're looking and kind of reading up on this
and and doing your due diligence is Pew pew tactical um.
They do not written from like a super you know,
chetty or whatever. Like you get a lot of very
political gun websites that may have some good information but
(38:48):
are frustrating to read. They're not that way. They're written
you know, four people who are not super aggro about guns,
but who are are are interested in guns, and you
can find really good reviews on stuff. But as a
general rule, modern optics beat iron sights every day of
the like they prefer I I and I do in
some on my a case, I vastly prefer using irons,
but that would never be the weapon I would pick
(39:10):
if I was in a situation where I needed a weapon.
You know, yeah, I mean I think everyone should learn
how to use iron sights, absolutely. But if I can
hand someone a four and fifty dollar aim point pro
which which is uh the budget version of a high
(39:31):
end optic, if I can put a four optic with
the mountain everything onto a rifle and just go, hey,
just just put the dot on what you want to shoot,
You're done. Um. Now, there's a lot that goes past that,
but we got rid of the entire proper site alignment
and all that. They just got to put the dot
(39:52):
on the box and squeeze. Yeah. Yeah, I mean even
even the Marine Corps, famous for for fielding marks my
has gone we're going to switch over to optic based training. Yeah,
they're just I mean you look at even guys in
like Idlib Province, which is like one of the rebel
provinces in Syria that's been persistently under siege for most
(40:13):
of the last decade. Um, they're all using fancy optics
now like that generally alten Ali Baba versions of like
brand optics. But it does the trick, you know. I mean,
it's a it's a sig Romeo that never got the
role market for cig on, yeah exactly, And they paid
a hundred bucks instead of four fifty. Yeah. Um, alright, well,
(40:34):
I think that's most of what we can responsibly get through.
I do want to end on the caveat we started
with this with, which is that UM deciding whether or not.
And I we advocate, uh, firearms is an option both
as a legal option and something that can be for
your community and for you as an individual potentially practical.
(40:56):
I don't blanket advise people to buy guns. I think
in many case ass it's going to be counterproductive. I
think you should not own a firearm. Again, if you're
someone who struggles with suicidal ideation, they they can be
a very dangerous thing to have in your home. If
that's something that that you battle with. I do think
that they can be owned and used very responsibly. In
(41:17):
addition to I think shooting can be a really enjoyable pastime. Um.
And I think more than anything, when a whole bunch
of people who are talking about killing you all have guns,
it can behoove you to own a firearm as well
if you're a member of one of those communities. So
please don't take any of this. As Robert Evans says,
everyone go buy a gun. But if you're going to
(41:37):
buy a gun, there's there's a right way and a
responsible way to go about it, and there's you know,
picking up a random twelve gauge and shoving it under
your bed, which is no more shotguns for home defense.
Yeah they're not, they're not ideal. Um yeah, I mean
we can, we can talk about over penetration and stuff,
(41:58):
but yeah, I mean just being able to move lead
in a direction. They're very bad at it. Yeah, um yeah, yeah,
they they're they're not they're not. I mean again, something
like uh an a R or a pistol caliber carbine
is in a lot of situations going to be a
(42:18):
much more practical and and have less risk of hitting
stuff you don't want to hit necessarily. Get the high point? Um,
yeat the Yeah they eat cannon. Well we'll discuss that
on our whole episode of about high points. So you've
shot yourself in the dick the high points story. All right, Well, um,
(42:43):
do you wanna Paul, you've got any got anything to
plug before we roll out here? Uh, give food to
homeless people, well houseless, houseless I think is yeah. Um,
And if you're in an area with a based d
S A join the d s I and then with
out the ships. That's what's happening here in Orlando. Um,
(43:06):
but yeah, embrace anarchy. Well, I'm Robert Evans, this is
gonna podcast and uh and remember as we sail out,
there's a reason the episode talking about guns came after
the episodes talking about storing and growing food. Robert Evans here,
(43:30):
and I wanted to ask for your help. There is
a Portland area woman Ruby to Mimi. She's an Arabic
interpreter and a Palestinian liberation activist, and she is trying
to save her home at the moment. She's got to
go fund me. If you go to save Ruba's house,
are you be a on go fund Me? You'll find it.
Save Ruby's house on go fund Me. You've got a
few bucks. Um, she could really use it again, save
(43:52):
Ruba's house. Are you be a at go fund Me? Thanks?
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone
Media from our podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our
website cool zone Media dot com, or check us out
on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it
could Happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone media dot
(44:12):
com slash Sources thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!