In This Hour:
-- Veteran TV network host John Stossel offers thoughts on why the media tends to be biased about gun issues.
-- Thoughts on using bifocal glasses for shooting and the option of a red dot sight.
-- What's it like to attend your first competiton shoot? One shooter describes how he was greeted.
Gun Talk 08.17.25 Hour 2
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
-- Veteran TV network host John Stossel offers thoughts on why the media tends to be biased about gun issues.
-- Thoughts on using bifocal glasses for shooting and the option of a red dot sight.
-- What's it like to attend your first competiton shoot? One shooter describes how he was greeted.
Gun Talk 08.17.25 Hour 2
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:14):
You know, when you talk about guns and the media,
I'm always amazed at the coverage or weird coverage we
get in the media. Now, I was thinking about who
can we get on to talk about what goes on
with the media and as it relates to guns, but
also just generally speaking, because I'm an old Jay school
guy and I'd look at what's going on in journalism
these days, it drives me crazy stuff. Thought who better
(00:35):
to do that than John Stossel, the guy who's been
like popping the balloons of pomposity and the craziness in
the media for many many years. John Stossel, thank you
for being here man. Nice to be here, all right.
So let me ask you. You have written about and
covered the media for many many years. You've also done
things on gun control and how one of the things
(00:55):
that you have done traditionally that I really appreciated is
basically the whole deal of everybody thinks this whatever this is,
but this is actually not true. And this is the
other thing. What got you started in wanting to kind
of peel things back and look at what's really going.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
On outside of gone. That's what got me started was
I was a consumer reporter and I was pointing out
how business cheats people. And my instinct, as a liberal
young reporter, was that government should fix that. But I
stayed on the beat, and I watched how the government
(01:34):
solutions made things more complicated and expensive, but didn't fix
any of the problems.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
They just added hurble.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
So I started questioning a lot of what the mainstream
media and my own liberal assumptions were, and I started
reading the conservative press, but I wasn't thrilled with them
because they seemed to want to go to war everywhere,
including in people's bedrooms. I eventually discovered Reason magazine, and oh,
(02:02):
I guess I'm a libertarian or whatever that is.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
I want limited government.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
And the gun issue came up because I was at
twenty twenty in New York City, and if you think
about it, most of the reporters in the media are
on the East Coast, and we grow up in a
world where, of course guns are a problem and need
more regulation. My producer at the time, though, was Maxim
lots on a. John Law Oh wow, no kidding eventually
(02:31):
introduced me to.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
You know, more guns, less time.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
It's a whole different concept, and it was quite the
head shifter. And I remember confronting Al Sharpton about what
would it be like if anybody could buy gun It
would be chaos.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
They'd be bought on the street.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
And I said, well, you know that's the law in
most places outside New York City and he had no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay, that's an interesting point. I ran did the same thing.
I was doing an interview some years ago with MSNBC
and they came down and did a whole piece. I
was talking to the producer from Manhattan, as you might expect,
and he said, well, I don't know anybody who owns guns.
And I said, well, I don't know anybody who doesn't
own guns. And I said, but here's the thing. I'll
guarantee you that if you were to actually ask the
(03:19):
people you know in New York, a lot of the
people you know own guns, but they don't feel free
to talk about it. He called me two weeks later,
he says, Tom, it's unbelievable. Half the people I know
owned guns, but I never knew that.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I don't believe half the people I know owned guns
and my ultra leftist world and they give a big
grief about everything. That's one thing I don't even bother
to fight about.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Now I got another fish to fry.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well exactly, so, all right, so let me ask you this.
You're right here in the heart of well actually the
center of media for the world, for the whole planet
in New York. What is it about the media that
drives the GM and is it a group think thing?
Is it peer pressure? I mean, we see the agendas there,
(04:07):
but when those of us who are not there, we
wonder how does that come about?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I'm not clear, and I ought to be. After these
years of making videos, I am still making them. By
the way, every Tuesday we release a new five minutes
or so video on stoscil TV.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
It's group think.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And I mean, you think about the world, the people
and why this is I don't know. But the people
who write for a living or just spent a lot
of time writing tend to lean left. Artists tend to
lean left. The people who build things tend to lean right.
I'm not sure why that is some kind of brain difference.
(04:49):
But without question, the carpenters, the home builders, some of
it's that they run up against all the stupid regulations
and that wakes them up to the problem.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Well, you're a school teacher. You're just collecting a.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Salary all the time, and you have no idea how
intrusive government regulations are. But they're definitely is a split
and the people who right lean left. And this is
why AI is a little dangerous. I love chat GPT,
I use it every day, but it pulls stuff from
the Internet, and the Internet is people who right, and
(05:23):
that goes left.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
No, that's an excellent point. Where is it getting its
information in the first place? And that information has already
been filtered as it gets poured into chat, GPT and AI.
That's a really interesting observation. Hadn't thought about it that way.
And you know, to your point about people who are
well maybe depended upon or expect the government to take
(05:44):
care of things. We see the same thing in the
gun worlds, Like okay, I've studied this. Actually the CDC
studied it. They said they couldn't find any gun control
law in the US that had ever reduced crime. And
of course we look at that go, yeah, well, that's
because criminals break the law. It seems simple to me,
but I don't know why that's not obvious everywhere.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I would bet you could study every law that was
supposed to do X, Y or z, and did they
accomplish their goal? I would doubt it, But they rarely
ask those questions. Mostly they just say, well, I don't
like this. There ought to be a law, and they
pass more laws, and no group of school kids ever
(06:23):
goes to the state capitol and ask the state legislator
you know what laws if you've repealed while you've been
in power. Now it's all about what laws did you
get passed.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
It's funny. I've always said, you know, I want to
ask every politician, namely the first five laws that you
would repeal, and everybody kind of looks at me, like,
what are you talking about. Well, no, because the laws
you pass actually don't do what you think they're going
to be doing. And then after they don't work, then
your response is, well, we just didn't go far enough.
We need more restrictive laws than we already have.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Over and over and over. It's like arterial sclerosis of laws.
And think about how well Germany and Japan did after
World War Two. They were the boom economies and the sixties,
and some of it's because they're Germans and Japanese people,
but I think a lot of it is that we
(07:17):
bombed up the smithereens and they had to start over
without all their old guilds and union rules and stupid
stuff that accumulate over time.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
All right, So first of all, let's tell people where
they can see what you do in these days, because
I mean, I know they know you from ABC and
all the things you've done. You've had this incredible career,
but you're still putting out the information. You're still trying
to puncture pumposity wherever you can find.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
It in short fun nuggets. John stossel dot com gets
you there, but you could just google stosciltv and you'll.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Get there too.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Sounds good, John Stostil, Thank you for your time. I
appreciate it. And it's always enlightening to take a look
at things from a little different perspective. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Thanks toime.
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Speaker 8 (10:05):
Hey guys, Max Michelle here, captain of the SIG Sour
Shooting Team. I just wanted to take a moment to
congratulate Tom on hitting thirty years on the air with
Gun Talk. It's an incredible accomplishment and well deserved. Tom
has always brought us the information that we wanted and
needed to know as it relates to the Second Amendment
or a gun enthusiast or anyone out there that's carrying
to protect our loved ones and our great nation. So Tom,
(10:28):
we thank you for these last thirty years and we
look forward to thirty more.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Buddy. You know, speaking of professional shooting teams, actually in
sig as well, our crew from Range Grady Studios, Chris
Rino and all of his instructors just spent an entire
week at the SIG Academy up in New Hampshire and
they went through the very rigorous and strict program of
(10:53):
the SIG Instructor class. They all came out with flying
colors that passed, they got their certification. They're all certified
as SIG instructors now, which they'll take that information come
back to range Ready Studios and of course they'll be
incorporating those skills that they just picked up and honed
(11:14):
and be able to use those for the classes. Oh oh,
and speaking of a new class just got announced like
two days ago and it's going to go really really fast.
You're going to want to go to range Readystudios dot
com take a look at it. Like right now it is.
We're doing this with Cult and they're going to have
the entire Cult Professional Shooter team down there doing the instruction,
(11:38):
going to have Wyatt Gibson, are going to have the
Williams sisters who are so good. They're all going to
be there and they're going to be teaching a class
with nineteen eleven's and it's one of these amazing things
that Ryan has put together. So you get the class
right with this world class instruction, then you're going to
(11:58):
shoot this excellent cult nineteen eleven pistol, and all the
AMMO is provided at the end of the class. You're
going to get the holster, you're going to get the
mag pouch, you're going to get the pistol, You're going
to get the red Dot optic. It all comes with
the class. It's un believable. The value there, it's amazing.
(12:21):
I think I think there are only twelve slots, so
I expected to sell out in a week or so.
So I just remembering that. Speaking of nineteen eleven's I'm
on the way over here and I'm in Columbus, Nebraska
right now. When do we drive away with Friday and
we're driving from Omaha. I flew into Omaha, get a
rental car, driving over and we're going to go through Fremont.
(12:44):
And one of our relatives is from Fremont, grew up there,
and we thought, well, we'll stop at Freemont. Never been
there and we looked up so now there's a cool,
little old classic ice cream shop. We'll go over there
and stop there at the sweet shop. So we over
there and get a little dish of ice cream, and
as I to do, get my phone out. I'm get
the map program out and I do gun stores near me. Gee,
(13:05):
that's a surprise, right, because you never know there may
be something interesting around. Well, this time it was beyond
interesting because I'm looking at a list of gun stores
and one pops up and I went, what wait, what
is that the cylinder in Slide. I mean the famous
outfit that does all sorts of high end gunsmith thing.
(13:28):
It makes great parts for nineteen elevens and does work
on revolvers. And Bill Lothridge is the guy there, the
master pistol smith that's right here. Huh. I thought, well,
there's a phone number, I'll call him. So I called
and Bill answers. I said, Bill's Tom Gresham. I'm just
(13:48):
driving through town and would it be okay if I
came over there? He said, well, you know, we're not
really a retail operation, and I said yeah no. He said, yeah,
come on over, we'll do the tour. I'm ten blocks away.
Drive over there. I spent an hour with Bill Lothridge,
this master level pistolsmith, showed me their operation and Cylindard
Slide is iconic in the high quality work they do.
(14:10):
He showed me some pistols with the the level of
polishing and bluing on them, we're spectacular. It's like the
bluing is so deep you could fall into it like
a lake. It's just gorgeous. And some of the things
they're doing there. And so I took a few pictures
of him and I posted him online and he showed
(14:31):
me a couple of his favorite guns. But it was
just a great time to talk with the guy who's
been there and done that for many, many decades and
knows all the key people. So that was a just
one of those happenstance things that happened. You know, every
once in a while in your life, you go, wow,
I can't even believe that that happened. So, I mean,
(14:53):
that was that was a hoot and a half. Speaking
of pro shooters, we were talking about that up got
the news and this one caught me flat footed. Had
no idea what's going to happen. Julie Gollub, who has
been shooting for Smith and Wesson, I guess practically since
(15:13):
she got out of the Army, which she was on
the Army of Arxsmanship unit and competed in the Army.
The announcement came out that she is now going to
be shooting for Springfield Armory. Have no idea what precipitated
that or what happened or if she just got stolen,
but I mean, she has been so identified with Smith
and Wesson for all these years, and now what a
(15:37):
team she's going to be shooting with Rob Latham. And
of course Rob has won pretty much everything that could
be won out there in pistol shooting, and Julie just
keeps winning stuff. But both of them are world class ambassadors.
So that's going to be a really interesting team. So
watch that. I'm also seeing some teaser things popping up saying, hey,
(16:00):
there's something going to be coming out the end of
the month. We're gonna be doing something amazing, and yeah,
you never know if it's like a new color change
great or if it's actually something new and fabulous and wonderful.
So we'll see how that goes as well. Gonna be
kind of fun to watch that deal. Let's go to
line one and got to talk to Bobby out of Wisconsin. Hey, Bobby,
(16:21):
you're on gun Talk. What's up?
Speaker 9 (16:23):
Hey, Tom? Thank you for the thirty.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Years, Oh, thank you.
Speaker 9 (16:29):
So I recently started using a red dot and I
hear everybody talking about how to learn how to use it,
and I was having troubles, you know, trying to basically
get a muscle memory to where I can see that
red dot right away and right I'm like, well, this
(16:52):
isn't working. So I tried turning it out the lights
and doing it in the dark since I can see
the red dot a little bit better. And I found
that in the dark, I can see if you know,
if it's to one side or the other on the site.
You know, I can adjust. And after doing that ten
(17:13):
twenty times in the dark, you kind of developed that
muscle memory, and you turn on the lights and I
can actually bring it up and you know, get the
acquisition a lot faster now just by practicing in the dark.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
You know, that's one I had not heard before. I've
done the deal where you practice by starting out with
the dot on the target and then come back down
to the holster so that you start with the dot
on the target and you're kind of working it backwards here.
And we call it muscle memory, and people say, well,
there's no such thing. Well, you know what we're doing
is we're establishing what the feel is like, what does
(17:51):
it feel like to have the gun at the right
angle so you're actually seeing the dot as you push
it out in front of you. But I have never
heard of anybody doing that in the dark.
Speaker 9 (18:02):
Yeah, well I was. I was having trouble just lining
it up in the dark. You get that feel of
where the gun is in your hands and where you
need to be at when you're you know, ready, and
it just seemed to work, and I just thought I
had to share that with you guys.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That's pretty cool. So, uh, how is it at the range?
Are you finding that the dot is helping you? Yes?
Speaker 9 (18:33):
I haven't really got to practice a lot with it,
to tell you the truth, but just practicing it in
the house dry firing, doing that seems to be helping
a lot. As far as finding the red dot. Okay,
well you can do the red dot.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
So okay, Well, I was going to say. The other
thing you can do is, yeah, you can practice finding
the red dot, but also do your dry firing, so
you're pressing the trigger and you want that dot to
stay on the target after you press the trigger. It
really will help you work on your follow through and
a lot of people at the moment they press the
trigger to come off of the target like it's all over,
which means they're actually moving the gun slightly before it
(19:15):
goes off, giving up on it. But by keeping that
dot on the target after he goes click, you're working
on follow through and that's really worthwhile, yes sir, All right, well,
good deal. Hey, I appreciate the tip. That's cool. I
had not heard of that before. Thank you, sir. Here's
a good one out of Washington, d C. Believe or not,
(19:36):
the law abiding, law abiding residents in the nation's capital
are now able to obtain concealed carry permits in just
days instead of months, it says, following a streamlining effort
led by a President Donald Trump's Making DC Safe and
Beautiful task Force. This is a task force that was
(19:59):
put together by Executive orderback in March, and they've been
working with the Metropolitan Police Department, which the permitting system
there was just mired. Well, of course, there was no
incentive to make it happen in hurry, so it would
take months and months and months, and you can, in
fact get a carry permit in DC. It's just a pain. Well,
(20:19):
now instead of it taking months, it's averaging four and
a half days to get a concealed carry permit in Washington,
d C. So that is an amazing thing. So that's
one of the things that we're making progress on. And
then in Arkansas, the head of the Arkansas State Police
said last Thursday that guns should be allowed in state parks.
Had two people got killed in Devil's Den State Park
(20:42):
last month. They didn't have anything way to protect themselves,
and in fact, it would be illegal for them to
carry in the state parks. So Colonel Mike Hager, he
was speaking to a legislative sub committee. He said limiting
guns doesn't lead to less crime. Believe or not. He
says this is ahead of the Arkansas State Police. He
(21:03):
tells the legislative committee limiting guns does not lead to
less crime. He said he was offering his opinion, not
speaking on behalf of the Department of Public Safety. He says, quote, Unfortunately,
we do deal with bad people who have weapons. The
more good people we have with weapons, the better off
(21:24):
we are. Well, there's some real common sense. Guns in
the hands of good people are helpful. They actually allow
good people to stop crime and more than that, to
simply protect themselves. You got this couple walking through a
state park and a guy comes up and kills them,
(21:44):
as simple as that. I remember I think he killed
him with a knife. You know, if either one of
them had a gun, they could have prevented them save
their lives. Good people with guns save lives. You can't
keep bad people from having guns because bad people, you
know what, criminals don't obey laws. Simple as that. So
(22:06):
what have you been shooting? And how are you preparing
mentally for a physical assault? Eight sixty six Talk gun?
All right back with you? We are open lines right now.
If you want to join me, I'm Tom Gresham. Our
(22:27):
number here is Tom Talk Gun. Couldn't be any easier
than that. And frankly, if you want to talk about
anything it has to do with guns, we're here. You
don't even have to like guns. You don't even have
to like gun owners. And I have found through the
years that I think some maybe not a lot, but
at least some of the resistance people say they don't
(22:49):
like guns. What they really saying is I don't like
gun owners. Okay, fine, I'll give you the floor call in,
I'll shut up. Let you have your safe fair enough.
Eight sixty six Talk gun or Tom Talk gun. Let's
see here you're let's go grab Steve online two out
of Pensacola. Hey, Steve, you're working with the prescription glasses here.
What's going on?
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Well?
Speaker 10 (23:10):
I was telling Michelle that one of the things that
I found that really enhanced my ability to shoot a
pistol is I've got my bifocal bifocals calibrated where the
reading part of the bifocal is set at undertip distance,
because I work at a computer all day long, and
that way I don't have to do the head bob thing.
(23:32):
And if I stand up and look down at the
paperwork on my desk, I can actually read it. And
then the second thing is I've got my bifocal line
set right to intersect the center of my pupil so
that I don't have to head bob to see distance
or close. All I have to do is with my
eyes up or down. And I find that doing that,
if I extend the pistol in my hand to shoot
(23:54):
at at target, for example, I don't have to you know,
throw my headway back to see the front site very clearly.
So those two things have really benefited me. And even
in little things like driving, I don't have to move
my head up and down to see the dashboard or
read it. I'm just looking with my eyes down and
then look my eyes back up at the road and
(24:14):
there you go. And it's worked out to be a
real practical.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now, see, if I understand what you're actually doing as
you're telling them, move the line up so you have
more bifocal at the bottom, so it's the line's a
little higher on the glasses than standard. Is that what
I'm hearing?
Speaker 10 (24:31):
Yes, absolutely that, and calibrating the bifocal portion to be
set where it's essentially for me, I've got long arms,
so it's about thirty five inch distance that I can
read things clearly, and it's you know, if I have
to read something you know, that's right in my nose,
you know, my face, then obviously I have to you know,
take the glasses down onto the bottom of my nose
(24:53):
to do that. But you know, the the up the
times that I would have to do that or like,
I can't even tell you when I had to do
that last time. But I think most of us find
that that working distance that's further away from your face
is probably the more practical one. But a lot of
the opticians they've got this thing in their head. Oh
you need bifocals, Yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Need to something said for eighteen inches or something else. Right, Yeah,
And you know, I've actually known people who have if
you had the right optometrist, just say, look, I'm going
to bring my pistol in. We're going to set up
the front site. And so okay, they're probably not going
to go with that a lot of places, but you
can measure that and say, okay, what is the distance
to my front site? And then you come in and say, okay,
(25:32):
I need to sudjusted to whatever that is thirty five
inches And they're going to go why and you say,
because that's how far my front side is, and that's
what I want. You know, That's just how it is.
Speaker 10 (25:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Now there's another thing you can do here when you're
out shooting, not like every day, but just if you
go to the rain and shooting, you can get yourself
glasses that has the bifocal at the top instead of
at the bottom. And that is an amazing thing.
Speaker 10 (26:00):
I had heard about that, and I discounted that because
then I'd have to have an extra set of glasses.
But I have to remember to take with me.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
That's all true. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 10 (26:10):
Yeah. And one of the things I mentioned that Michelle
is that, you know, in a self defense situation, if
you have to deploy your your firing real quickly, you know,
you want to be able to just do it intuitively
without having to like, okay, which which lens do I
need to look through? You know, I mean you're you're automatically.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, yeah, hold on, let me change my glasses, right.
Speaker 10 (26:29):
Yeah, hold on here, bud, don't go away, stand right there?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, now, okay, now, and look, I were by focals,
so I get that. One of the other things you
can do, and I think it really is the solution
to a lot of this in a self defense situation
is going with a red dot on your pistol. So
now we're not trying to focus on the front side
and the target out there. All we have to do
is just be able to look hard at the target
and the red red dot will be enough in focus
(26:55):
to be able to put the shots on target. And
I really think I've read an optic on your pistol
is the solution for that?
Speaker 6 (27:05):
Could be?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, So we're trying anyway, But look, I appreciate good information.
I appreciate the heads up on that. Let's grab Lyle
because I know he's driving right now and we're grabbing
before he gets out of range somewhere. Hey, Lyle, you're
on gun Talk. Talk to me. Oh, he already drove
out of range. I was afraid that what happened. But
(27:27):
we'll see. We can get him back at some point.
We'll get Lyle back. Well, you know what, we got
room for you if you want to join us right now,
we've got an open line because while dropped off eight
six six Talk Gun or Tom Talk Gun, we'll be
right back. Do you want to have a special rifle
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and comments I've gotten for people who say, you know,
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It's that gorgeous. By the way, if you want to
(30:50):
follow me over on x I am at gun Talk.
It's how they do it over there, and you can
follow me. I'm posting things all the time. I've got
news items, i have links to stories, things that you
may be missing, things you didn't hear about, things that
will make you the smartest person in the room when
it comes to all the gun stuff. So just follow me.
I am at gun Talk over there. Of course, you
can see all of our videos. Look on YouTube, actually
(31:14):
anywhere you get videos. If you look for gun talk
or gun talk media, you'll find videos everywhere we go,
we talk a little bit about, well actually a lot
about self defense. It is the number one reason that
people own guns, always has been in every survey I've
ever seen. And yet it's one of those yeah but things.
(31:35):
And yet I was going to say I fear, but
that's not correct. I know that people buy guns for
self defense and then somehow just hope that the gun
will save them without them doing anything about it. It's
like buying a set of tools in not knowing how
(31:58):
to use them, like buying a tire jack for your
car and having no idea what to do with it,
so when the time comes, you may not know how
to use it, or even worse, you don't even put
it in the car. So you've got it with you.
If you don't have it with you, you can't use it.
(32:20):
If you don't know what to do with it, you
won't know how to use it. And you don't have
to be some kind of trained up ninja person. You
don't have to be John Wick. You just have to
be comfortable and competent. What does that mean? You know
how to operate it. You pick it up, you can
put a magazine in, you can work the slide you
know how to do all of that without pointing the
(32:41):
muzzle at anybody or yourself. You know how to press
a trigger and hit a target. And it doesn't have
to be a target that's twenty five or fifty yards away.
It can be at the seven yards or three yards.
It could be close. But you do need to have
some level of familiarity and some training. Is a good
idea with that, But honestly, I think probably, and it
(33:08):
pains me to say this because I want everybody to
be a good shot, to be confident, but I actually
think that more important than that is the mental aspect
of it all, which is to say you have thought
through the scenarios, the possibilities of needing it and saying, Okay,
if I need this, this is what I will do,
and I will react, so that you don't have to wonder, Gee,
(33:29):
there's something going on there, I wonder what that is.
Oh look somebody's getting hurt. Oh look they're coming over
to me. Oh look he's trying to rob me. Oh
look he's trying to break into my car. I wonder
what I should do. Now. All of that should have
been decided sometime in the past, whether it's a week ago,
a year ago, or a decade ago, I don't know,
but you decide that. So you already have your course
(33:50):
of action plotted out and you just have to say,
let's go do this thing. I mean, that's what it is. Hey,
let's go talk to Ken, that Boise, Idaho, and he's
online too. Hey, Ken, you're on gun talk talk to
me about red dots.
Speaker 11 (34:06):
Yes, sir, I'm seventy five years old and wearing bifocals
for at least thirty years, and quite frankly, when I
became dependent on red dots, it pretty much gave up
my pistol shooting. Three or four years ago, I bought
a P three sixty five with a Romeo zero on it,
(34:28):
and I took that sucker to the range and I said,
oh my god, I can shoot a handgun.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
It's back.
Speaker 11 (34:39):
And it's I think I have. I think I have
ten pistols now with red dots on them, and I
shoot three or four days a week at are a
wonderful independence at door shooting here in Meridian. So it's
brought back to joy pistol shooting for me. But one
thing I learned real quickly about being able to instinctive
(35:00):
you see that dot when you when you throw up
is to shoot with both eyes open. And that came
naturally to me because I'm a longtime shotgun clay target shooter,
so you know, I always shot my shotgun with both
eyes open, and when I shot my pistol that way,
it's just instinctive. If you pick up a gun and
(35:21):
you point it at the target, you know, just instinctively
pointed at the target when you're looking with both eyes,
it's like, oh, okay, there's the dot, and I never
have to hunt for it. I just like I say,
I just point my gun at the target while out
of the dots there.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
You know, Ken when you're talking and thought hit me
and it's I hadn't really thought about it this way exactly.
But when we're using iron sights, we pull our pistol
up and we look at the site we're looking for
the sight. And if you do that with your red dot,
it actually harms you. You're looking at the wrong place.
(36:00):
You need to be looking at the target and let
the red dot just intersect or intercept your vision. If
you are trying to stare at your pistol or stare
at the dot or stare at the site. Now you're
liable to have to wiggle the thing all around and
try to find the dot that slows you down. And
to your point is both eyes open, look at the
(36:23):
target and bring the gun up and let that dot
just kind of come into your view.
Speaker 11 (36:30):
Exactly. And the transition was, like I said, very easy
for me because you know, I've been shooting a shotgun
for years with both eyes open. I know some people
struggle with that, but having everything on one focal plane
at infinity life was good.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
There you go, Well, I appreciate that, sir, and had
a good shooting. I'm glad you have rediscovered pistol shooting
is good point. Yeah, there are a lot of people.
As you get older, you lose of course, you get
pressed before what you call press before you based on
the near sight of this, you can't see or the
not nearsighted far sighted this, I guess it would be.
(37:08):
You can't focus on the front side, you can't focus
up close. That's why we end up with reading glasses.
And for what happens is you can't see that front sight.
The sights are not sharp anymore. And it happens gradually
and you're going I'm just not a good shot anymore.
Now i can't see the front side. I guess my
pistol shooting days are over. Except that they're not. They
(37:29):
don't have to be. The red dot takes care of that,
It really does. Even if imagine this, even if the
red dot the dot itself, and it could be a
green dot or red dot whatever. But if the dot
ends up being a little blurry, do you care because
(37:51):
all you're trying to do is put the dot on
the target and then press the trigger without disturbing it,
so disturbing the sights, so that you're not pulling the
sights off the target, so that you're not disturbing the aim.
It's surely what we're talking about. So even if the
dot were a little fuzzy, you just put it on
(38:12):
the target and press the trigger. The bullet's going to
go where the dot is. It is as simple as that.
The bullet's going to go where the dot is. So
all you have to do is look at the target.
You don't have to focus. You know, we talk about
getting a hard focus on the front side, which is
what you do with ironsight, and you let the target
fuzz out, which is a weird thing. It's hard for
(38:32):
people to get that concept in their heads. But this way,
you just look at the target, get a hard focus
on the target, which, you know what, in a self
defense situation, that's what you're going to be doing. Anyway,
you're going to be looking at this person who's trying
to hurt you. There's no way you're not going to
look at that person. Put the dot on the person
and shoot them and make them stop trying to cut
your head off, and stick it on a stick and
(38:55):
carry it around. Okay, it's a simple concept that does
take a little bit of practice. But if you go
to the dot, you're gonna like it. Everybody does. This
(39:16):
one is big. This I mean kind of surprising, kind
of not I mean, we knew it was probably maybe
coming it. Well, it's the Ninth Circuit, so what do
you know, I mean, you never know what they're gonna do.
Right coming out of the Ninth Circuit in California, California
residents were limited to one gun a month, they said
(39:37):
thirty days. I call it the one gun a month
or gun rationing. So if you go in the store
and you find two guns you like, can't buy them.
You only get one and then you gotta wait thirty
days before you get another one. And that was the law,
and that was challenged in the courts, and it went
to the Ninth Circuit and we basically bounced back and forth.
(39:58):
But the upshot of it is, as of right now
they just I don't know they call it certify or
they approved it. It has now been ruled unconstitutional gun rationing.
Telling people you can only buy one gun a month
is unconstitutional. It violates the Second Amendment. Now a lot
(40:23):
of us would say, well, of course it does. I mean,
how can you ration a constitutional right. It's like saying
you could only write one letter to the editor a month,
or you can only have free speech once a month,
or you can only go to church once a month.
I mean, ridiculous on the face of it, right, except
(40:44):
that it's exactly the same thing. And I like to
equate Second Amendment in First Amendment. And it helps people
to understand where we are the way we feel about
the Second Amendment, which is it's a real right. It
is number two in the list of ten in the
Bill of Rights important and it's real and it's not
made up, and it's not a creation of the NRA
(41:06):
and it belongs there and it should not be treated
as a second class right. So you have the Ninth Circuit,
which historically has not been real kind to the Second Amendment, saying, oh, yeah,
the Second Amendment actually means something, and this restriction where
(41:30):
you limit guns you can only by one a month
is unconstitutional. Now they also ruled that the ammunition, the
background check on ammunition is unconstitutional. That's being appealed. It's
going to be taken up. They call it en banc
by the full court. There's a three judge panel ruled
(41:50):
and they're going to look at it. And I think
they're going to end up based on this case. I
think they're going to end up deciding that the requirements
for a background checked by AMMO in California also is unconstitutional.
There is something really interesting went on here, not just
(42:12):
in the Ninth Circuit, but across the country. Part of it,
maybe a lot of it, comes out of the Trump
administration and the Department of Justice and Pam Bondi and
Harmyt Dillon, who is the Assistant Attorney General in charge
of civil rights, and she's tackling Second Amendment cases as
(42:37):
part of that, treating the Second Amendment as a civil right.
You also have the Department of Justice deciding to not
appeal decisions on Second Amendment grounds where we have won
and the government says, well, we're going to appeal to
take it to the Supreme Court. Now they're coming in
(42:58):
from the Department of Justice and saying, you know, we're
not going to appeal that, We're just going to let
that ruling that's positive for gun rights stand. It is
a massive change in what's going on. It is a
sea change, if you will. It's in a completely different
environment from anything we have ever seen, honestly, as far
(43:21):
as far back as I can imagine, from a time
when the federal government said there really was no Second
Amendment right to own a gun and it was a
right for the National Guard of all things. It's a
new day and a lot of things going on here
and we're reaping the benefits of that. It's a great
(43:42):
time to be a gun owner. And I will tell
you I think it's only going to get better.
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Speaker 2 (00:14):
You know, when you talk about guns and the media,
I'm always amazed at the coverage or weird coverage we
get in the media. Now, I was thinking about who
can we get on to talk about what goes on
with the media and as it relates to guns, but
also just generally speaking, because I'm an old Jay school
guy and I'd look at what's going on in journalism
these days, it drives me crazy stuff. Thought who better
(00:35):
to do that than John Stossel, the guy who's been
like popping the balloons of pomposity and the craziness in
the media for many many years. John Stossel, thank you
for being here man. Nice to be here, all right.
So let me ask you. You have written about and
covered the media for many many years. You've also done
things on gun control and how one of the things
(00:55):
that you have done traditionally that I really appreciated is
basically the whole deal of everybody thinks this whatever this is,
but this is actually not true. And this is the
other thing. What got you started in wanting to kind
of peel things back and look at what's really going.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
On outside of gone. That's what got me started was
I was a consumer reporter and I was pointing out
how business cheats people. And my instinct, as a liberal
young reporter, was that government should fix that. But I
stayed on the beat, and I watched how the government
(01:34):
solutions made things more complicated and expensive, but didn't fix
any of the problems.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
They just added hurble.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
So I started questioning a lot of what the mainstream
media and my own liberal assumptions were, and I started
reading the conservative press, but I wasn't thrilled with them
because they seemed to want to go to war everywhere,
including in people's bedrooms. I eventually discovered Reason magazine, and oh,
(02:02):
I guess I'm a libertarian or whatever that is.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
I want limited government.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
And the gun issue came up because I was at
twenty twenty in New York City, and if you think
about it, most of the reporters in the media are
on the East Coast, and we grow up in a
world where, of course guns are a problem and need
more regulation. My producer at the time, though, was Maxim
lots on a. John Law Oh wow, no kidding eventually
(02:31):
introduced me to.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
You know, more guns, less time.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
It's a whole different concept, and it was quite the
head shifter. And I remember confronting Al Sharpton about what
would it be like if anybody could buy gun It
would be chaos.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
They'd be bought on the street.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
And I said, well, you know that's the law in
most places outside New York City and he had no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay, that's an interesting point. I ran did the same thing.
I was doing an interview some years ago with MSNBC
and they came down and did a whole piece. I
was talking to the producer from Manhattan, as you might expect,
and he said, well, I don't know anybody who owns guns.
And I said, well, I don't know anybody who doesn't
own guns. And I said, but here's the thing. I'll
guarantee you that if you were to actually ask the
(03:19):
people you know in New York, a lot of the
people you know own guns, but they don't feel free
to talk about it. He called me two weeks later,
he says, Tom, it's unbelievable. Half the people I know
owned guns, but I never knew that.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I don't believe half the people I know owned guns
and my ultra leftist world and they give a big
grief about everything. That's one thing I don't even bother
to fight about.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Now I got another fish to fry.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well exactly, so, all right, so let me ask you this.
You're right here in the heart of well actually the
center of media for the world, for the whole planet
in New York. What is it about the media that
drives the GM and is it a group think thing?
Is it peer pressure? I mean, we see the agendas there,
(04:07):
but when those of us who are not there, we
wonder how does that come about?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I'm not clear, and I ought to be. After these
years of making videos, I am still making them. By
the way, every Tuesday we release a new five minutes
or so video on stoscil TV.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
It's group think.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And I mean, you think about the world, the people
and why this is I don't know. But the people
who write for a living or just spent a lot
of time writing tend to lean left. Artists tend to
lean left. The people who build things tend to lean right.
I'm not sure why that is some kind of brain difference.
(04:49):
But without question, the carpenters, the home builders, some of
it's that they run up against all the stupid regulations
and that wakes them up to the problem.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Well, you're a school teacher. You're just collecting a.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Salary all the time, and you have no idea how
intrusive government regulations are. But they're definitely is a split
and the people who right lean left. And this is
why AI is a little dangerous. I love chat GPT,
I use it every day, but it pulls stuff from
the Internet, and the Internet is people who right, and
(05:23):
that goes left.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
No, that's an excellent point. Where is it getting its
information in the first place? And that information has already
been filtered as it gets poured into chat, GPT and AI.
That's a really interesting observation. Hadn't thought about it that way.
And you know, to your point about people who are
well maybe depended upon or expect the government to take
(05:44):
care of things. We see the same thing in the
gun worlds, Like okay, I've studied this. Actually the CDC
studied it. They said they couldn't find any gun control
law in the US that had ever reduced crime. And
of course we look at that go, yeah, well, that's
because criminals break the law. It seems simple to me,
but I don't know why that's not obvious everywhere.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I would bet you could study every law that was
supposed to do X, Y or z, and did they
accomplish their goal? I would doubt it, But they rarely
ask those questions. Mostly they just say, well, I don't
like this. There ought to be a law, and they
pass more laws, and no group of school kids ever
(06:23):
goes to the state capitol and ask the state legislator
you know what laws if you've repealed while you've been
in power. Now it's all about what laws did you
get passed.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
It's funny. I've always said, you know, I want to
ask every politician, namely the first five laws that you
would repeal, and everybody kind of looks at me, like,
what are you talking about. Well, no, because the laws
you pass actually don't do what you think they're going
to be doing. And then after they don't work, then
your response is, well, we just didn't go far enough.
We need more restrictive laws than we already have.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Over and over and over. It's like arterial sclerosis of laws.
And think about how well Germany and Japan did after
World War Two. They were the boom economies and the sixties,
and some of it's because they're Germans and Japanese people,
but I think a lot of it is that we
(07:17):
bombed up the smithereens and they had to start over
without all their old guilds and union rules and stupid
stuff that accumulate over time.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
All right, So first of all, let's tell people where
they can see what you do in these days, because
I mean, I know they know you from ABC and
all the things you've done. You've had this incredible career,
but you're still putting out the information. You're still trying
to puncture pumposity wherever you can find.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
It in short fun nuggets. John stossel dot com gets
you there, but you could just google stosciltv and you'll.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Get there too.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Sounds good, John Stostil, Thank you for your time. I
appreciate it. And it's always enlightening to take a look
at things from a little different perspective. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Thanks toime.
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Speaker 8 (10:05):
Hey guys, Max Michelle here, captain of the SIG Sour
Shooting Team. I just wanted to take a moment to
congratulate Tom on hitting thirty years on the air with
Gun Talk. It's an incredible accomplishment and well deserved. Tom
has always brought us the information that we wanted and
needed to know as it relates to the Second Amendment
or a gun enthusiast or anyone out there that's carrying
to protect our loved ones and our great nation. So Tom,
(10:28):
we thank you for these last thirty years and we
look forward to thirty more.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Buddy. You know, speaking of professional shooting teams, actually in
sig as well, our crew from Range Grady Studios, Chris
Rino and all of his instructors just spent an entire
week at the SIG Academy up in New Hampshire and
they went through the very rigorous and strict program of
(10:53):
the SIG Instructor class. They all came out with flying
colors that passed, they got their certification. They're all certified
as SIG instructors now, which they'll take that information come
back to range Ready Studios and of course they'll be
incorporating those skills that they just picked up and honed
(11:14):
and be able to use those for the classes. Oh oh,
and speaking of a new class just got announced like
two days ago and it's going to go really really fast.
You're going to want to go to range Readystudios dot
com take a look at it. Like right now it is.
We're doing this with Cult and they're going to have
the entire Cult Professional Shooter team down there doing the instruction,
(11:38):
going to have Wyatt Gibson, are going to have the
Williams sisters who are so good. They're all going to
be there and they're going to be teaching a class
with nineteen eleven's and it's one of these amazing things
that Ryan has put together. So you get the class
right with this world class instruction, then you're going to
(11:58):
shoot this excellent cult nineteen eleven pistol, and all the
AMMO is provided at the end of the class. You're
going to get the holster, you're going to get the
mag pouch, you're going to get the pistol, You're going
to get the red Dot optic. It all comes with
the class. It's un believable. The value there, it's amazing.
(12:21):
I think I think there are only twelve slots, so
I expected to sell out in a week or so.
So I just remembering that. Speaking of nineteen eleven's I'm
on the way over here and I'm in Columbus, Nebraska
right now. When do we drive away with Friday and
we're driving from Omaha. I flew into Omaha, get a
rental car, driving over and we're going to go through Fremont.
(12:44):
And one of our relatives is from Fremont, grew up there,
and we thought, well, we'll stop at Freemont. Never been
there and we looked up so now there's a cool,
little old classic ice cream shop. We'll go over there
and stop there at the sweet shop. So we over
there and get a little dish of ice cream, and
as I to do, get my phone out. I'm get
the map program out and I do gun stores near me. Gee,
(13:05):
that's a surprise, right, because you never know there may
be something interesting around. Well, this time it was beyond
interesting because I'm looking at a list of gun stores
and one pops up and I went, what wait, what
is that the cylinder in Slide. I mean the famous
outfit that does all sorts of high end gunsmith thing.
(13:28):
It makes great parts for nineteen elevens and does work
on revolvers. And Bill Lothridge is the guy there, the
master pistol smith that's right here. Huh. I thought, well,
there's a phone number, I'll call him. So I called
and Bill answers. I said, Bill's Tom Gresham. I'm just
(13:48):
driving through town and would it be okay if I
came over there? He said, well, you know, we're not
really a retail operation, and I said yeah no. He said, yeah,
come on over, we'll do the tour. I'm ten blocks away.
Drive over there. I spent an hour with Bill Lothridge,
this master level pistolsmith, showed me their operation and Cylindard
Slide is iconic in the high quality work they do.
(14:10):
He showed me some pistols with the the level of
polishing and bluing on them, we're spectacular. It's like the
bluing is so deep you could fall into it like
a lake. It's just gorgeous. And some of the things
they're doing there. And so I took a few pictures
of him and I posted him online and he showed
(14:31):
me a couple of his favorite guns. But it was
just a great time to talk with the guy who's
been there and done that for many, many decades and
knows all the key people. So that was a just
one of those happenstance things that happened. You know, every
once in a while in your life, you go, wow,
I can't even believe that that happened. So, I mean,
(14:53):
that was that was a hoot and a half. Speaking
of pro shooters, we were talking about that up got
the news and this one caught me flat footed. Had
no idea what's going to happen. Julie Gollub, who has
been shooting for Smith and Wesson, I guess practically since
(15:13):
she got out of the Army, which she was on
the Army of Arxsmanship unit and competed in the Army.
The announcement came out that she is now going to
be shooting for Springfield Armory. Have no idea what precipitated
that or what happened or if she just got stolen,
but I mean, she has been so identified with Smith
and Wesson for all these years, and now what a
(15:37):
team she's going to be shooting with Rob Latham. And
of course Rob has won pretty much everything that could
be won out there in pistol shooting, and Julie just
keeps winning stuff. But both of them are world class ambassadors.
So that's going to be a really interesting team. So
watch that. I'm also seeing some teaser things popping up saying, hey,
(16:00):
there's something going to be coming out the end of
the month. We're gonna be doing something amazing, and yeah,
you never know if it's like a new color change
great or if it's actually something new and fabulous and wonderful.
So we'll see how that goes as well. Gonna be
kind of fun to watch that deal. Let's go to
line one and got to talk to Bobby out of Wisconsin. Hey, Bobby,
(16:21):
you're on gun Talk. What's up?
Speaker 9 (16:23):
Hey, Tom? Thank you for the thirty.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Years, Oh, thank you.
Speaker 9 (16:29):
So I recently started using a red dot and I
hear everybody talking about how to learn how to use it,
and I was having troubles, you know, trying to basically
get a muscle memory to where I can see that
red dot right away and right I'm like, well, this
(16:52):
isn't working. So I tried turning it out the lights
and doing it in the dark since I can see
the red dot a little bit better. And I found
that in the dark, I can see if you know,
if it's to one side or the other on the site.
You know, I can adjust. And after doing that ten
(17:13):
twenty times in the dark, you kind of developed that
muscle memory, and you turn on the lights and I
can actually bring it up and you know, get the
acquisition a lot faster now just by practicing in the dark.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
You know, that's one I had not heard before. I've
done the deal where you practice by starting out with
the dot on the target and then come back down
to the holster so that you start with the dot
on the target and you're kind of working it backwards here.
And we call it muscle memory, and people say, well,
there's no such thing. Well, you know what we're doing
is we're establishing what the feel is like, what does
(17:51):
it feel like to have the gun at the right
angle so you're actually seeing the dot as you push
it out in front of you. But I have never
heard of anybody doing that in the dark.
Speaker 9 (18:02):
Yeah, well I was. I was having trouble just lining
it up in the dark. You get that feel of
where the gun is in your hands and where you
need to be at when you're you know, ready, and
it just seemed to work, and I just thought I
had to share that with you guys.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That's pretty cool. So, uh, how is it at the range?
Are you finding that the dot is helping you? Yes?
Speaker 9 (18:33):
I haven't really got to practice a lot with it,
to tell you the truth, but just practicing it in
the house dry firing, doing that seems to be helping
a lot. As far as finding the red dot. Okay,
well you can do the red dot.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
So okay, Well, I was going to say. The other
thing you can do is, yeah, you can practice finding
the red dot, but also do your dry firing, so
you're pressing the trigger and you want that dot to
stay on the target after you press the trigger. It
really will help you work on your follow through and
a lot of people at the moment they press the
trigger to come off of the target like it's all over,
which means they're actually moving the gun slightly before it
(19:15):
goes off, giving up on it. But by keeping that
dot on the target after he goes click, you're working
on follow through and that's really worthwhile, yes sir, All right, well,
good deal. Hey, I appreciate the tip. That's cool. I
had not heard of that before. Thank you, sir. Here's
a good one out of Washington, d C. Believe or not,
(19:36):
the law abiding, law abiding residents in the nation's capital
are now able to obtain concealed carry permits in just
days instead of months, it says, following a streamlining effort
led by a President Donald Trump's Making DC Safe and
Beautiful task Force. This is a task force that was
(19:59):
put together by Executive orderback in March, and they've been
working with the Metropolitan Police Department, which the permitting system
there was just mired. Well, of course, there was no
incentive to make it happen in hurry, so it would
take months and months and months, and you can, in
fact get a carry permit in DC. It's just a pain. Well,
(20:19):
now instead of it taking months, it's averaging four and
a half days to get a concealed carry permit in Washington,
d C. So that is an amazing thing. So that's
one of the things that we're making progress on. And
then in Arkansas, the head of the Arkansas State Police
said last Thursday that guns should be allowed in state parks.
Had two people got killed in Devil's Den State Park
(20:42):
last month. They didn't have anything way to protect themselves,
and in fact, it would be illegal for them to
carry in the state parks. So Colonel Mike Hager, he
was speaking to a legislative sub committee. He said limiting
guns doesn't lead to less crime. Believe or not. He
says this is ahead of the Arkansas State Police. He
(21:03):
tells the legislative committee limiting guns does not lead to
less crime. He said he was offering his opinion, not
speaking on behalf of the Department of Public Safety. He says, quote, Unfortunately,
we do deal with bad people who have weapons. The
more good people we have with weapons, the better off
(21:24):
we are. Well, there's some real common sense. Guns in
the hands of good people are helpful. They actually allow
good people to stop crime and more than that, to
simply protect themselves. You got this couple walking through a
state park and a guy comes up and kills them,
(21:44):
as simple as that. I remember I think he killed
him with a knife. You know, if either one of
them had a gun, they could have prevented them save
their lives. Good people with guns save lives. You can't
keep bad people from having guns because bad people, you
know what, criminals don't obey laws. Simple as that. So
(22:06):
what have you been shooting? And how are you preparing
mentally for a physical assault? Eight sixty six Talk gun?
All right back with you? We are open lines right now.
If you want to join me, I'm Tom Gresham. Our
(22:27):
number here is Tom Talk Gun. Couldn't be any easier
than that. And frankly, if you want to talk about
anything it has to do with guns, we're here. You
don't even have to like guns. You don't even have
to like gun owners. And I have found through the
years that I think some maybe not a lot, but
at least some of the resistance people say they don't
(22:49):
like guns. What they really saying is I don't like
gun owners. Okay, fine, I'll give you the floor call in,
I'll shut up. Let you have your safe fair enough.
Eight sixty six Talk gun or Tom Talk gun. Let's
see here you're let's go grab Steve online two out
of Pensacola. Hey, Steve, you're working with the prescription glasses here.
What's going on?
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Well?
Speaker 10 (23:10):
I was telling Michelle that one of the things that
I found that really enhanced my ability to shoot a
pistol is I've got my bifocal bifocals calibrated where the
reading part of the bifocal is set at undertip distance,
because I work at a computer all day long, and
that way I don't have to do the head bob thing.
(23:32):
And if I stand up and look down at the
paperwork on my desk, I can actually read it. And
then the second thing is I've got my bifocal line
set right to intersect the center of my pupil so
that I don't have to head bob to see distance
or close. All I have to do is with my
eyes up or down. And I find that doing that,
if I extend the pistol in my hand to shoot
(23:54):
at at target, for example, I don't have to you know,
throw my headway back to see the front site very clearly.
So those two things have really benefited me. And even
in little things like driving, I don't have to move
my head up and down to see the dashboard or
read it. I'm just looking with my eyes down and
then look my eyes back up at the road and
(24:14):
there you go. And it's worked out to be a
real practical.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now, see, if I understand what you're actually doing as
you're telling them, move the line up so you have
more bifocal at the bottom, so it's the line's a
little higher on the glasses than standard. Is that what
I'm hearing?
Speaker 10 (24:31):
Yes, absolutely that, and calibrating the bifocal portion to be
set where it's essentially for me, I've got long arms,
so it's about thirty five inch distance that I can
read things clearly, and it's you know, if I have
to read something you know, that's right in my nose,
you know, my face, then obviously I have to you know,
take the glasses down onto the bottom of my nose
(24:53):
to do that. But you know, the the up the
times that I would have to do that or like,
I can't even tell you when I had to do
that last time. But I think most of us find
that that working distance that's further away from your face
is probably the more practical one. But a lot of
the opticians they've got this thing in their head. Oh
you need bifocals, Yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Need to something said for eighteen inches or something else. Right, Yeah,
And you know, I've actually known people who have if
you had the right optometrist, just say, look, I'm going
to bring my pistol in. We're going to set up
the front site. And so okay, they're probably not going
to go with that a lot of places, but you
can measure that and say, okay, what is the distance
to my front site? And then you come in and say, okay,
(25:32):
I need to sudjusted to whatever that is thirty five
inches And they're going to go why and you say,
because that's how far my front side is, and that's
what I want. You know, That's just how it is.
Speaker 10 (25:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Now there's another thing you can do here when you're
out shooting, not like every day, but just if you
go to the rain and shooting, you can get yourself
glasses that has the bifocal at the top instead of
at the bottom. And that is an amazing thing.
Speaker 10 (26:00):
I had heard about that, and I discounted that because
then I'd have to have an extra set of glasses.
But I have to remember to take with me.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
That's all true. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 10 (26:10):
Yeah. And one of the things I mentioned that Michelle
is that, you know, in a self defense situation, if
you have to deploy your your firing real quickly, you know,
you want to be able to just do it intuitively
without having to like, okay, which which lens do I
need to look through? You know, I mean you're you're automatically.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, yeah, hold on, let me change my glasses, right.
Speaker 10 (26:29):
Yeah, hold on here, bud, don't go away, stand right there?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, now, okay, now, and look, I were by focals,
so I get that. One of the other things you
can do, and I think it really is the solution
to a lot of this in a self defense situation
is going with a red dot on your pistol. So
now we're not trying to focus on the front side
and the target out there. All we have to do
is just be able to look hard at the target
and the red red dot will be enough in focus
(26:55):
to be able to put the shots on target. And
I really think I've read an optic on your pistol
is the solution for that?
Speaker 6 (27:05):
Could be?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, So we're trying anyway, But look, I appreciate good information.
I appreciate the heads up on that. Let's grab Lyle
because I know he's driving right now and we're grabbing
before he gets out of range somewhere. Hey, Lyle, you're
on gun Talk. Talk to me. Oh, he already drove
out of range. I was afraid that what happened. But
(27:27):
we'll see. We can get him back at some point.
We'll get Lyle back. Well, you know what, we got
room for you if you want to join us right now,
we've got an open line because while dropped off eight
six six Talk Gun or Tom Talk Gun, we'll be
right back. Do you want to have a special rifle
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These are going quickly. Get your g t thirty gun
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Got just posted Hey gun talk, He says, I just
got my g T thirty. Like everyone else, I'm surprised
how good looking it is. All the employees at the
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and comments I've gotten for people who say, you know,
they expect it to be a good rifle. This is
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a general purpose, do everything rifle. But everybody says, I
just did not expect how good looking it is. It
is stunning. It's a spectacular looking rifle, and it really is.
It's that gorgeous. By the way, if you want to
(30:50):
follow me over on x I am at gun Talk.
It's how they do it over there, and you can
follow me. I'm posting things all the time. I've got
news items, i have links to stories, things that you
may be missing, things you didn't hear about, things that
will make you the smartest person in the room when
it comes to all the gun stuff. So just follow me.
I am at gun Talk over there. Of course, you
can see all of our videos. Look on YouTube, actually
(31:14):
anywhere you get videos. If you look for gun talk
or gun talk media, you'll find videos everywhere we go,
we talk a little bit about, well actually a lot
about self defense. It is the number one reason that
people own guns, always has been in every survey I've
ever seen. And yet it's one of those yeah but things.
(31:35):
And yet I was going to say I fear, but
that's not correct. I know that people buy guns for
self defense and then somehow just hope that the gun
will save them without them doing anything about it. It's
like buying a set of tools in not knowing how
(31:58):
to use them, like buying a tire jack for your
car and having no idea what to do with it,
so when the time comes, you may not know how
to use it, or even worse, you don't even put
it in the car. So you've got it with you.
If you don't have it with you, you can't use it.
(32:20):
If you don't know what to do with it, you
won't know how to use it. And you don't have
to be some kind of trained up ninja person. You
don't have to be John Wick. You just have to
be comfortable and competent. What does that mean? You know
how to operate it. You pick it up, you can
put a magazine in, you can work the slide you
know how to do all of that without pointing the
(32:41):
muzzle at anybody or yourself. You know how to press
a trigger and hit a target. And it doesn't have
to be a target that's twenty five or fifty yards away.
It can be at the seven yards or three yards.
It could be close. But you do need to have
some level of familiarity and some training. Is a good
idea with that, But honestly, I think probably, and it
(33:08):
pains me to say this because I want everybody to
be a good shot, to be confident, but I actually
think that more important than that is the mental aspect
of it all, which is to say you have thought
through the scenarios, the possibilities of needing it and saying, Okay,
if I need this, this is what I will do,
and I will react, so that you don't have to wonder, Gee,
(33:29):
there's something going on there, I wonder what that is.
Oh look somebody's getting hurt. Oh look they're coming over
to me. Oh look he's trying to rob me. Oh
look he's trying to break into my car. I wonder
what I should do. Now. All of that should have
been decided sometime in the past, whether it's a week ago,
a year ago, or a decade ago, I don't know,
but you decide that. So you already have your course
(33:50):
of action plotted out and you just have to say,
let's go do this thing. I mean, that's what it is. Hey,
let's go talk to Ken, that Boise, Idaho, and he's
online too. Hey, Ken, you're on gun talk talk to
me about red dots.
Speaker 11 (34:06):
Yes, sir, I'm seventy five years old and wearing bifocals
for at least thirty years, and quite frankly, when I
became dependent on red dots, it pretty much gave up
my pistol shooting. Three or four years ago, I bought
a P three sixty five with a Romeo zero on it,
(34:28):
and I took that sucker to the range and I said,
oh my god, I can shoot a handgun.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
It's back.
Speaker 11 (34:39):
And it's I think I have. I think I have
ten pistols now with red dots on them, and I
shoot three or four days a week at are a
wonderful independence at door shooting here in Meridian. So it's
brought back to joy pistol shooting for me. But one
thing I learned real quickly about being able to instinctive
(35:00):
you see that dot when you when you throw up
is to shoot with both eyes open. And that came
naturally to me because I'm a longtime shotgun clay target shooter,
so you know, I always shot my shotgun with both
eyes open, and when I shot my pistol that way,
it's just instinctive. If you pick up a gun and
(35:21):
you point it at the target, you know, just instinctively
pointed at the target when you're looking with both eyes,
it's like, oh, okay, there's the dot, and I never
have to hunt for it. I just like I say,
I just point my gun at the target while out
of the dots there.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
You know, Ken when you're talking and thought hit me
and it's I hadn't really thought about it this way exactly.
But when we're using iron sights, we pull our pistol
up and we look at the site we're looking for
the sight. And if you do that with your red dot,
it actually harms you. You're looking at the wrong place.
(36:00):
You need to be looking at the target and let
the red dot just intersect or intercept your vision. If
you are trying to stare at your pistol or stare
at the dot or stare at the site. Now you're
liable to have to wiggle the thing all around and
try to find the dot that slows you down. And
to your point is both eyes open, look at the
(36:23):
target and bring the gun up and let that dot
just kind of come into your view.
Speaker 11 (36:30):
Exactly. And the transition was, like I said, very easy
for me because you know, I've been shooting a shotgun
for years with both eyes open. I know some people
struggle with that, but having everything on one focal plane
at infinity life was good.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
There you go, Well, I appreciate that, sir, and had
a good shooting. I'm glad you have rediscovered pistol shooting
is good point. Yeah, there are a lot of people.
As you get older, you lose of course, you get
pressed before what you call press before you based on
the near sight of this, you can't see or the
not nearsighted far sighted this, I guess it would be.
(37:08):
You can't focus on the front side, you can't focus
up close. That's why we end up with reading glasses.
And for what happens is you can't see that front sight.
The sights are not sharp anymore. And it happens gradually
and you're going I'm just not a good shot anymore.
Now i can't see the front side. I guess my
pistol shooting days are over. Except that they're not. They
(37:29):
don't have to be. The red dot takes care of that,
It really does. Even if imagine this, even if the
red dot the dot itself, and it could be a
green dot or red dot whatever. But if the dot
ends up being a little blurry, do you care because
(37:51):
all you're trying to do is put the dot on
the target and then press the trigger without disturbing it,
so disturbing the sights, so that you're not pulling the
sights off the target, so that you're not disturbing the aim.
It's surely what we're talking about. So even if the
dot were a little fuzzy, you just put it on
(38:12):
the target and press the trigger. The bullet's going to
go where the dot is. It is as simple as that.
The bullet's going to go where the dot is. So
all you have to do is look at the target.
You don't have to focus. You know, we talk about
getting a hard focus on the front side, which is
what you do with ironsight, and you let the target
fuzz out, which is a weird thing. It's hard for
(38:32):
people to get that concept in their heads. But this way,
you just look at the target, get a hard focus
on the target, which, you know what, in a self
defense situation, that's what you're going to be doing. Anyway,
you're going to be looking at this person who's trying
to hurt you. There's no way you're not going to
look at that person. Put the dot on the person
and shoot them and make them stop trying to cut
your head off, and stick it on a stick and
(38:55):
carry it around. Okay, it's a simple concept that does
take a little bit of practice. But if you go
to the dot, you're gonna like it. Everybody does. This
(39:16):
one is big. This I mean kind of surprising, kind
of not I mean, we knew it was probably maybe
coming it. Well, it's the Ninth Circuit, so what do
you know, I mean, you never know what they're gonna do.
Right coming out of the Ninth Circuit in California, California
residents were limited to one gun a month, they said
(39:37):
thirty days. I call it the one gun a month
or gun rationing. So if you go in the store
and you find two guns you like, can't buy them.
You only get one and then you gotta wait thirty
days before you get another one. And that was the law,
and that was challenged in the courts, and it went
to the Ninth Circuit and we basically bounced back and forth.
(39:58):
But the upshot of it is, as of right now
they just I don't know they call it certify or
they approved it. It has now been ruled unconstitutional gun rationing.
Telling people you can only buy one gun a month
is unconstitutional. It violates the Second Amendment. Now a lot
(40:23):
of us would say, well, of course it does. I mean,
how can you ration a constitutional right. It's like saying
you could only write one letter to the editor a month,
or you can only have free speech once a month,
or you can only go to church once a month.
I mean, ridiculous on the face of it, right, except
(40:44):
that it's exactly the same thing. And I like to
equate Second Amendment in First Amendment. And it helps people
to understand where we are the way we feel about
the Second Amendment, which is it's a real right. It
is number two in the list of ten in the
Bill of Rights important and it's real and it's not
made up, and it's not a creation of the NRA
(41:06):
and it belongs there and it should not be treated
as a second class right. So you have the Ninth Circuit,
which historically has not been real kind to the Second Amendment, saying, oh, yeah,
the Second Amendment actually means something, and this restriction where
(41:30):
you limit guns you can only by one a month
is unconstitutional. Now they also ruled that the ammunition, the
background check on ammunition is unconstitutional. That's being appealed. It's
going to be taken up. They call it en banc
by the full court. There's a three judge panel ruled
(41:50):
and they're going to look at it. And I think
they're going to end up based on this case. I
think they're going to end up deciding that the requirements
for a background checked by AMMO in California also is unconstitutional.
There is something really interesting went on here, not just
(42:12):
in the Ninth Circuit, but across the country. Part of it,
maybe a lot of it, comes out of the Trump
administration and the Department of Justice and Pam Bondi and
Harmyt Dillon, who is the Assistant Attorney General in charge
of civil rights, and she's tackling Second Amendment cases as
(42:37):
part of that, treating the Second Amendment as a civil right.
You also have the Department of Justice deciding to not
appeal decisions on Second Amendment grounds where we have won
and the government says, well, we're going to appeal to
take it to the Supreme Court. Now they're coming in
(42:58):
from the Department of Justice and saying, you know, we're
not going to appeal that, We're just going to let
that ruling that's positive for gun rights stand. It is
a massive change in what's going on. It is a
sea change, if you will. It's in a completely different
environment from anything we have ever seen, honestly, as far
(43:21):
as far back as I can imagine, from a time
when the federal government said there really was no Second
Amendment right to own a gun and it was a
right for the National Guard of all things. It's a
new day and a lot of things going on here
and we're reaping the benefits of that. It's a great
(43:42):
time to be a gun owner. And I will tell
you I think it's only going to get better.
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