April 30, 2025 • 28 mins
What happens when you make all the right choices—and still lose everything? In this powerful episode of Gun Talk Nation, host Ryan Gresham sits down with Neil and Stephanie Weidner from Active Self Protection (ASP) to unpack real-life stories of self-defense, legal battles, and the brutal consequences that sometimes follow doing the “right” thing.
You’ll hear firsthand accounts of self-defense encounters gone sideways, including jaw-dropping analysis of viral videos like the infamous "snow shovel murder."
Key themes explored:
This Gun Talk Nation is brought to you by Vortex Optics, Range Ready Studios, and Ruger.
For more content, subscribe to Gun Talk at guntalktv.com, on Gun Talk's Roku, Apple TV, iOS app, Android app, or find Gun Talk on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, Instagram, X and guntalk.com. Listen to all Gun Talk Podcasts with Spreaker, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.
Copyright ©2025 Freefire Media, LLC
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
You’ll hear firsthand accounts of self-defense encounters gone sideways, including jaw-dropping analysis of viral videos like the infamous "snow shovel murder."
Key themes explored:
- Why good people hesitate—and how it can cost them
- The “My Bad 20” method to de-escalate road rage
- What millions of ASP video views reveal about human behavior in crisis
- How to mentally prepare BEFORE a violent encounter occurs
- The life-saving value of decision-making under stress (force-on-force training)
- Why building your personal “if-then” card catalog could save your life
This Gun Talk Nation is brought to you by Vortex Optics, Range Ready Studios, and Ruger.
For more content, subscribe to Gun Talk at guntalktv.com, on Gun Talk's Roku, Apple TV, iOS app, Android app, or find Gun Talk on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, Instagram, X and guntalk.com. Listen to all Gun Talk Podcasts with Spreaker, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.
Copyright ©2025 Freefire Media, LLC
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):
I did everything right, and I'm sitting in jail and
I've lost everything because you know, somebody didn't dot and
I here across it to.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Their steamrolled by the justice system or what. I'm Ryan
Gresham and this this is Guntognation. This Guntognation is brought
(00:28):
to you by Vortex range Ready and Ruger. Hey, welcome
into Guntognation. Today. On Guntognation, we're talking with Neil and
Stephanie Widner. Active Self Protection or is your fans call
it ASP? Yes, I know it's funny we abbreviate everything
these days, don't we, So act of self Protection? Probably
(00:50):
most people would say that's a YouTube channel, but I
know it's more than that these days. But we're gonna
go ahead, and we're not gonna start off with what
is act of self Protection? Let's let's start off with,
right off the top of your head, most memorable, craziest
video that you guys have talked about on the channel,
because that's what you do. You talk about real self
(01:13):
defenced scenario videos and evaluate them, right. Yeah, is there
one or probably more than one that stands out for you?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, there's a lot. Do you have one?
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Can you go from us. Well. The one that stands
out is the very first time that John had a
co host on with was Me was the snowshovel or
snow removal issue. The video out of somewhere in I
think Wisconsin where the neighbors, the neighbors across the alleyway,
somebody was throwing snow and the other one's driveway and
(01:44):
they it was an older couple that had a what
a eighteen year old special need son at home. We're
really riding the neighbor who had you know, I think
they threw the snow in his yard anyway, but then
they were just in his face and called him everything
in the book. He finally walks in the house, comes
back out with a gun, and they keep talking trash
(02:06):
to him till he starts shooting them.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
This is a clue. When you point a gun at
you don't talk trash for them.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, And you know, the memorable part of it is,
I mean, you just can't believe somebody would do that,
you know, But at the same time it happened, and
the reaction to the people of like, what are you
gonna shoot me? Are you gonna shoot me? And he'ays yeah,
and he starts shooting them, and after he unloads everything
out of his pistol, he goes back in the house
and comes back out with an ar and finishes them off.
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, just a straight up murder.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah. And I just happened to be in Phoenix stuff
and I live in South Dakota. John lives in Phoenix,
and I happened to be in Phoenix for some business stuff.
And he's like, Hey, come on and do this one
with me. And right before he said let's go, he
drops when they Oh, by the way, they've got a
special need son that's the same age as yours and John. Yeah,
and I'm like, so in the opening, my face is
(02:53):
weird and everybody's like, why is that guy smiling? And
I'm like I didn't know how to react at the
moment because it was so weird that that's one of
the biggest ones to me.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yeah. I don't know if mine is a specific video. Well,
it was a specific video. I don't remember which one
it was right now, but I was just watching the
channel at this point, not working for active self protection,
and I remember seeing a video and it was like
at a convenience store and everything was normal. And then
ten seconds later, everyone's lives was changed, you know. And
I just remember relating to that and thinking I could
(03:23):
just go in to your local, you know, stop and
go and get getting milk on my way home, and
my entire life could change that quickly because of a
defensive encounter. Whether you're victorious or whether you lose it,
it's going to change. And that was shocking enough to
me that I realized I needed to make some changes
and do some things, because being willing to die for
(03:46):
your family and for your children isn't even really a
very high bar of parenting. You know, we're all willing
to do that, sure, and that's great, but how does
that help your family?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Right?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
You know? So that was the video, whichever one it was,
I just remember sitting they're staring at it, going but
ten seconds ago everything was normal. So and it happens
so quickly.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
What it seems like if you watch all these there
would be some recurring themes, some some recurring lessons that
like humans are hard headed and maybe can't get their
crap together. I mean, what are some of the ones
that you seem to How do people keep screwing this up?
I mean, and I guess I'll also prep that with
(04:28):
like this also isn't always necessarily like the snowshovel thing.
I mean, off the bat, I would say, this isn't
like oh, the obvious bad guy doing a stop you
know at the at a e conference store, the old
stop and rob. This is like neighborers bickering.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I mean that kind of stuff is mind blowing to
me that people wouldn't let things get so out of
hand where they kill people or ruin their own lives.
I mean, so themes that you see that are recurring,
think that is.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
A big one. You see people getting involved in road
rage incidents quite a bit and just jawing with other people.
And I think we tend to project onto other people,
even the bad guys that there have the same motivations
that we do. And because I obviously wouldn't shoot someone
over snow or a fight, that they wouldn't either because
it's stupid, why would you do that? And they don't
(05:23):
have the same values. So your temper and the mouth
things like locking your car doors, that's another big one
that we just see over and over again. And I'll
let you give others, but I you know, we'll often
get a comment that's like, I feel like you're saying
some of these same things over and over. It's like, yeah,
that's a clue.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
That's a clue.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
But I'm sorry, guys. I know we keep repeating ourselves
in real but like, right, apparently we can keep to
having to remind people.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, well, you know, I think another big one is
that people just don't pay attention to their surroundings. And
so we see people walk in on a robbery going on,
we see a robbery start, and the people behind the
counter don't even know it, you know, because they're you know,
the big one is cell phones or everybody's stuck at
their nose in their phone and they're stuck with that,
or they're you know, they're just not ready for that.
(06:09):
They're not they're just not looking around, you know. And
and then of course you get the people that are like, well,
you just want everybody to you know, have their head
on a swovel on that and you can't live that way,
and you absolutely can't. But you know, to be curious
about the surroundings and what's going on in your immediate
you know world. That's not being paranoid, that's not head
on a swivel stuff. That's just like just paying the
(06:29):
slightest bit of attention. It's like, you don't cross the
street without looking both ways, So why are you walking
into a store without looking up to see who's there?
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
My dad hosts the radio show, and one thing he's
said before is being alert and being aware of your
surroundings doesn't mean that you're paranoid and you're in a
heightened anxiety state. It actually means like, wow, you're looking up.
You might see interesting things, you might see interesting people
and meet people and like look at those mountains. Oh look,
(06:58):
that's Dustin Hoffman right there. Like just being out of
your phone and out of your little bubble and just
look around because there's maybe like a bigger bubble.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
There absolutely is, and and we just see it over
and over where, you know, and in my life, I
see it all the time. You know. The thing that
probably one of my biggest pet peeves is walking through
any store and people just stop, you know, or an airport.
We travel a fair amount and you're walking through the
airport and somebody just stops and stares at their phone
in the middle of traffic, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
I get why road rage is a thing. And I
(07:31):
I you know, I I've never had a road rage
incident of my own, but I've seen a bunch of them.
I've been witnessed to a bunch of them, and of
course we see them on the channel all the time.
And it's just it's typically that one person who is
stuck in their own tiny little bubble that gets in
somebody's way and now now they've offended the wrong person,
and then that and then it just snowballs from there
and it just gets worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, the road rage thing is very prevalent these days. Boy,
It's like, guys, this isn't a contest. There's not winners
and losers while we're driving. We're just all trying to
get somewhere, right, But it's like people take it personally, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
They do. And I think you have to have this.
I mean, we're all quick to excuse our own traffic
faux pause. We all have a good reason when we're
speeding or when we've cut in front of somebody or whatever,
but sometimes it's really hard to extend that same grace
to someone else that well, maybe they didn't see me.
I'd done that before you in my blind.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Spot, Yes exactly. But if someone's driving slower than you,
they're an idiot. But if they're driving faster than you,
they're a mania. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Having the same pace as me. That's still frustrating.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Are near me?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, what's the problem. So, you know, we had one,
you know, another chance video on the channel that was
a road raided incident where somebody cut somebody off. The
other guy pulled up the light, flipped him the bird
and they went john back and forth. And that one
that was one that hit me pretty hard just because it,
you know, it just felt too familiar. And literally that afternoon,
(08:55):
I'm driving through traffic and I cut a guy off
accidentally and he pulls up to me at a light
and he flips me there and he was a big dude, yeah,
and he is flipping me the burden. He is Johnning
And I got my window up and I just I
robe my way on. I was like, hey, that was
my bad. I am sorry, I did not see you.
That was one hundred percent of my fault. It won't
happen again. Please accept my apology. And he's like yeah,
(09:16):
And then the thing turned green and he took off
and I tell you, and I'm like, yeah, you're right,
screw me. I'm an idiot because I want you In
that case, I was like, dude, I wasn't paying close
enough attention. I thought I could make it, but I
did cut you off. So you know, but I think
people are like, well, no, I have places to be too,
So me cutting you off, isn't. That's your problem, not mine.
And so that's as we have to swallow that a little.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
That's a good little superpower and uh and a safety
tool of let's go ahead and think about this before
you're in the situation, because it's hard to think clearly
when you're in something like that to say, yeah, man,
I suck. I'm I'm sorry. Like, let's let's drop the
ego ahead of time. When you when you're calm and
listening to the gun Talk Nation podcast, you can say,
all right, all right, So if this happens, I could
(09:57):
just tell this big guy or a little guy or whoever, like, yeah,
you're right, even if even if you're right, you're not
wrong or whatever, right, like you're right, I'm sorry, d
It's fine.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, I think was it was it Jack Lemons that
had that came up with My Bad twenty. Was that him?
So Jack Clemons is no longer with us and a
huge loss to our world at least. But he had
this thing that they called the My Bad twenty that
he carried around. And Jack was a giant, a literal giant,
don't know, did you ever meet now? A literal giant,
and he had this thing that, you know, my bad,
(10:30):
here's twenty bucks, I'll buy you a drink or I'll
buy you whatever bad And so I have my bad
twenty in the scenarirow. This morning, I handed my my
Bad twenty to the bad guy, like, hey, it's all yours, bud,
I'm sorry this was yeah, it was my bad. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
But thinking about those things in the call moments, I
think is so important. So you have kind of a
if then rolodex that you can go to and refer to.
So when you're standing in the middle of a defensive encounter,
yours or someone else's, you're not trying to decide am
I willing to get in third party encounters? Am I
willing to do this? Am I willing to do that?
Because you've thought through a lot of this stuff from
(11:03):
your living room, and that makes it. It just makes
it so much easier. You know where your lines are
and you can not have to think about that.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
You're creating that those lines in the sand. You guys
are in town because we're shooting some First Person Defender episodes,
the thing we put on YouTube. We had a guy
this morning who admittedly was kind of like got into
the scenario and when I mean, I don't know, maybe
I should draw my gun, shoot.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
The bad guy.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I don't know, but he was like he didn't have
any lines in the sand that he'd created in his mind.
And that's the time to do it in your in
your lazy boy sitting there, you know, chilling out on
a weekday night, not like in the middle of the shop.
And Rob, I mean, this is like and and and
what are those? And play it out? Play it out.
Don't don't play it out where it all goes perfectly,
(11:52):
play it out where you go. Okay, he says, give
me your car keys. Cool. I give him my car keys.
Then he said, as all right, go get in the car.
Well maybe that's the line that I'm not getting in
any car. And it's like something that you can also
communicate to your kids. I've got kids it's like, you know,
(12:13):
you're not do't do not get in any car right
to tell my wife. I mean, they're like, get in
the car. We're gonna have it out right here wherever
we are. We'll not getting any car run by whatever
it is.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, And I think the you know, the the real
value in the videos that we have is that in
a lot of cases, our brain can't tell the difference,
you know, from between yeh, the virtual training and the
reality of it. Uh, And so you get a mental
rep of here's what happened to somebody else, and here's
the lessons that we can learn from that. And now
I've got a mental rep in my and now my
card catalog has one more thing that I can think
(12:47):
of as I'm trying to figure out what to do
in the moment. Because what we see is that, you know,
there's a huge cognitive load that happens in a self
defense in their issue in that do I draw my gun?
Do I not draw my gun? Where's he going with
a knife, what's he doing with this stuff? You know,
there's just so much going on. So if we can
lower the threshold of things that we can do automatically,
(13:08):
and we can then think through those other scenarios and
think through our card catalog and go, okay, here's a
here's a good idea. It's probably not going to be
the best idea, as witnessed your on your YouTube channel
all the time, but our brain goes and takes the best,
okayest idea that it has and implements it. And a
lot of times it's the wrong it's not the exact
right one, but it's usually a better one than if
(13:30):
you have to think of it on the spot. You know,
if you're in the moment trying to come up with
a solution. We see what we saw this morning where
I don't know what to do, and then we freeze
and we see that all the time.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And knowing you have options too, right, I mean, it's like,
well I didn't have any options. Well how about running
out the front door of the commune store. Oh I
could do that?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, yeah, you could do anything.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
You've run out the back door too, and all of
everything is in play, and that's in the real world,
especially right one of the things that probably you guys
have said, and we've said, you're in a restaurant. Another
option is running through the kitchen. Right, there is a
back door to every restaurant. There's a back door to
probably most stores in the mall. Yep, you could just
say I'm just coming over the counter.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Absolutely, And even as a as a third party bystander,
if you're not the one that the violence is being
directed at, it frustrates me to no end to see
people just kind of milling about while there are guns
and knives in play, and I think, I don't know
if they're just intensely watching or they're freezing up, but
you know, get get out, get out. So thinking through
those things ahead of time that if I see, you know,
(14:33):
a defensive encounter and I'm away from it, I'm either
going to get involved or I'm going to leave and
draw those lines in the sand as well.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, it's like, do you feel do you think you're
watching this through a screen? This is your life? This
is actually happening in front of you, right yeah?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
All right?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
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Shotgun enclosed micro red Dot. All right, so active self
protection one of the bigger channels when it comes to
the subject of self defense and guns and stuff. We
were talking about comments. I mean, it's the blessing and
the curse of YouTube. Ye thousands of comments, but I
think you probably hear have interesting comments. You probably have
(16:55):
interesting questions and perhaps even real life stories from viewers.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Right, Oh, for sure, we do.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
We get.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
That was one thing that I noticed really really early
on and drove me really early on to learn the
best that I could know. You know, you are always
continually learning and changing and growing. Teach the best that
you can. But it really matters what you're telling people
really matters. I remember vividly an email that I got
early on was from someone that they had been walking
(17:24):
and someone came out from between the shadows of the
houses and he said, and when I had a gun
pointed at my chest, I could hear your words, not
the time he meant John's words in my head telling
me what to do. And I just had to sit
there with a moment with kind of the awesomeness of
that responsibility, that when people's lives are on their line,
they're doing what you have told them to do, you
(17:45):
better be telling them right and constantly striving. And I
still get emails probably weekly from people ranging from hey,
I think I might have seen something and avoided it
all the way up to the gun to the chest,
and you know, they always want to say something along
the lines of thank you for saving my life or whatever.
It's like, No, first of all, you had a lot
(18:06):
of choices, and you could have chosen to listen not listen.
Learn you were the one put in that situation that
you saved your own life. I'm honored to have been
a resource for you. But you took advantage of those resources.
There are plenty of people that didn't, so so yeah,
that is one thing that continually pushes us to the
highest level of excellence we can we can attain because
(18:26):
for some people it's really gonna matter. At our conference,
we do a national conference every year, training conference. I
got an email from a gentleman on the way home.
He felt like he thwarted, and I think he did
from his description a carjacking as three in the morning,
on the way to the airport to get gas for
the rental car, and he had two cars come to
box him in, and he was able to jump the
curb and get out, something that maybe not everyone would
(18:48):
think about. You know, we don't always go to the exits,
and he went directly over the curb and took off.
And you know, so you're on your way home from
a training and you have to implement stuff right away.
So car yeah, yeah, just finding he had the intro,
it was all.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Right, Neil, is there a story or comments or questions
that stand out for you?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Well, so I am probably the main moderator on the
channel at this point. Now that kind of shifts from
time to time, So.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Probably talking to Neil.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, you're likely talking to me, even though you think
it's John. I know most of his one liners as well.
He stole most of his one liners from me and
some from stuff too, and he's got some great ones too.
But you know, so I talk with people on the
regular there, and you know the thing that comes up
over and over is, well, in this other video you
(19:36):
said this. So now you're contradicting yourself. Oh interesting, And
so then I have to go back and watch the
other video because I don't want to be gasoling into
an argument. I want to know. Oh wait a minute, no, okay,
So I go watch that video. Well, that was a
completely different scenario. That guy was a cop and has
a completely different mission than we do here. And so
I see that very commonly that people.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Want very hard want black and white.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, they want a one size fits all answer to
their problems, and they want to watch one video that's
going to solve all of their problems, and some people
do the other new one.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
I was just going to say, the nuance is really
where it's that we also do a lot of expert
witness work and just seeing everything that goes into it
and how things can vary and be viewed and seen
by so many different people. You have to understand nuance
and be willing to embrace that and that's really seems
like it's a challenge.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
It is, and you know, so the fun ones are
the ones that interact with you and tell you how
stupid you are and you're fat, you're ugly, your mom
is whatever, and then you actually engage with them and
they come around. Yeah, that's pretty rare. But about one
percent or less of people that watch actually comment. Typically
a comment probably eighty percent of that comes from a
(20:49):
negative emotion, and so they're like, you're wrong, and here's why.
And so to come and have a conversation with those
folks that they come around is maybe the most rewarding.
And I just had another one here this week that
the guy I don't remember the exact details, but I
took a screenshot of it and said it to John
and Steph and I'm like, look, I got one. I
won one. Finally you're right. Yeah, well it was it
(21:10):
was a fine you're right, and thank you. I had
never considered that, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And so they don't. And look, we are in this
world all the time. This is your your full time gig,
and most people have other things to do in their life.
They're not thinking about this stuff all the time. So
it's like Look, it's not that I'm like an expert,
but I just spend a lot of time on this
and you don't because you have a real job doing
whatever you do. I got a question for you. I
(21:37):
think one of the positives about of a lot of
this type of content that you guys do and others
do is people understanding the seriousness of a gun in
a self defense scenario and using your going to protect yourself. However,
do you think that has created a reluctance on people's
(22:00):
part to protect themselves, a hesitancy that could get them hurt.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I think that there's a real strong possibility of that.
I think good people generally want to do good things,
and we want to be cautious and careful. Every time
you're in a defensive encounter, I feel like there's so
much that could go wrong, and it's hard because you
want to make people aware of what's being put on
the line if they decide to engage, or you know,
(22:26):
if I have a chance to comply, I have a
chance to fight all of these things. I want them
to know the decision they're making. But the last thing
I want them to do is hesitate, because we can
we can fight the fight at the end if we
need to. We can work things out legally if we
need to. I want them to be hesitant to do
stupid things, sure, you know, And that's the challenge is
(22:46):
because we all think we're the hero in our own story.
That's another fairly regular message that we'll get is someone
sending their own video and I'm watching it, going, my god,
what have you done?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know you're the best?
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Something I did just committed aggravated a song. Share that, yeah,
and they have no idea. So that's really a challenge.
You don't know who you're talking to. But I do
worry that that good people are more reluctant to defend
themselves than they should be. I don't know, do you.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I think that you know, we see it over and
over that people take an extra step to engage, you know,
that they take a little bit longer too, And I
think it's out of care and out of worry about
you know, Am I going to have that one da
that decides to throw the book at me? Because all
we ever hear the horror stories, you rarely hear of
the part where they, you know, the cop scoops up
your gun, puts it in your Ulcer for you, taps
you on the shoulder and says, good job. You just
(23:40):
don't hear those stories they happen, but you hear the
horror stories of well, you know, I did everything right
and I'm sitting in jail and have lost everything because
you know, somebody didn't dot and I here across it
to their justice system. Yeah, and so yeah, I do that.
That is something that is something that comes to mind
from time to time. And as I watching some of
(24:00):
these videos, you see it play out, day in and out.
And so our channel has about forty five hundred videos
on the main channel right now. That's out of about
fifty thousand that we've had submitted to us. And so
we've seen a lot more. And there's some that you know,
they're not there's not a real great lesson there, or
this is just insanely too golory to put on YouTube,
(24:21):
or something along those lines. So we've seen the gamut
of of you know, from the real easy stuff to
the really really difficult stuff. But we try to find
ones that have some nuance to show people here's how
you can survive, and here's some of the go indicators,
you know, and one of the things that John has
come up with recently is you know, we do a
lot of training with the four Science guys and they
talk about human performance and you know, looking for ghost
(24:44):
signals if a bad guy's got a gun out and
that kind of thing, and you know, if he shows
you his ear and you have a one and a
half second draw, you can probably get in the fight
and very likely win. Now you're not guaranteed to win,
but you're ahead of him in the fight because it
will take him that long to respond to you.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And you got to use that in your scenario yesterday.
You knew when the eyes moved offline, you didn't have
very long but knowing what your draw was and the
fact that his eyes went offline for just a second
got you guys shooting at the same time.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Basically, Yeah, and so those are you know, But I
think back to your question. The thing that we do
see is I think people typically pause because there's this
normalcy bias that this isn't really happening. Is this really
what's going on?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Is am I about to have to shoot somebody?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah? And I told you that I had one of
those years back where I was going, oh my gosh,
I'm about to have to shoot somebody, right, And it
didn't and it ended up turning out to not be anything.
But it was just all felt like it was building
to like, holy crap, this is about to happen. And
then I started sweating, going, oh, like, could you think
because people will watch this, people listen to our stuff
(25:47):
or whatever, it's like, oh yeah, you know my favorite
is I mean, if it's in my house, I'm shooting him.
You're like, oh, yeah, that's the guy that actually maybe
needs to hesitate exactly think through this well.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And that's the thing. I feel like people often have
a very difficult tim being creative and flexible and what
their defensive and scenarios might look like. We all think
it's going to be directed at us and not a
third party. We all think it's going to be a
very clear bad guy and not a family member or
a woman or a child or any of these things.
And these are things that you have to think through
(26:19):
because I would say, rarely are the do the encounters
look like what people have probably envisioned in their heads,
And so it just takes a moment.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I think over the years, we've probably met thousands now
of people that have been in a scenario, you know,
so for the NRA and one of us is speaking there. Afterwards,
you get the people come up and they're like, yeah,
I had this happen or that happened, or thank you
for that, you know, and there's fans too, so and
those are always fun conversations. But when you get the
one that's like, I had this happen, I have never
(26:50):
heard anybody say, well, my self defense scenario went exactly
like I planned, right, it was. You know, it's always
I had no clue. You know. I was in my
grandson's house and somebody broke in and started toaf ab
him kind of thing. Uh, you know, and I had
not planned for that. However, I was able to react
to it and and and and save him through this.
But uh, you know, we hear some of the crazy
(27:11):
horror stories of folks out.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
There, drunk guy ending up in the wrong house or something.
You know, I don't want to shoot that guy if
I don't have to, And if you do want to,
that's that's a lot. Either you don't either you have
some really serious issues or you don't understand our legal system,
because it's crushing sometimes even when you are perfectly correct.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Absolutely, Well, guys, I guess we should go out there
and do some more training and do some more force
and force to attack somebody so attacked. That is so
fun be attacked and get attacked. I mean, the learning
right from force and force amazing. Great.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, you know, I didn't know what to expect coming here.
I'd watched a few episodes and I knew what it
was about, but I didn't know what, you know, what
I was going to be doing here. Uh, this has
been a blast for me. And I mean, if anybody ever,
I know you guys do some like casting call stuff
like that, if you get the chance, get in on
this because it's great training. It'll be a great experience
for you. And it's a.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Decision making training that's so difficult to find. There's plenty
of marksmanship training, this is how you should a gun,
but finding something that helps you make those decisions and
build those files and does it well. I mean, you
may find some scenario training, but like I was saying
this morning, sometimes it's not terribly good, and so to
find good scenario training is rough. And if you're not
able to do something like that, you can learn a
(28:25):
lot just from watching and putting yourself in those scenarios.
Watch these episodes and you know, maybe pause the video
at some places. What would I have done here? What
is happening? What do I see? And those are the
kinds of trainings that are really valuable and really hard
to find.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Awesome, Neil Stephanie, thank you very much, thanks for having
us for act of self protection. I would tell you
guys to watch their channel, but you probably already do so,
thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Gun Tognation.
I did everything right, and I'm sitting in jail and
I've lost everything because you know, somebody didn't dot and
I here across it to.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Their steamrolled by the justice system or what. I'm Ryan
Gresham and this this is Guntognation. This Guntognation is brought
(00:28):
to you by Vortex range Ready and Ruger. Hey, welcome
into Guntognation. Today. On Guntognation, we're talking with Neil and
Stephanie Widner. Active Self Protection or is your fans call
it ASP? Yes, I know it's funny we abbreviate everything
these days, don't we, So act of self Protection? Probably
(00:50):
most people would say that's a YouTube channel, but I
know it's more than that these days. But we're gonna
go ahead, and we're not gonna start off with what
is act of self Protection? Let's let's start off with,
right off the top of your head, most memorable, craziest
video that you guys have talked about on the channel,
because that's what you do. You talk about real self
(01:13):
defenced scenario videos and evaluate them, right. Yeah, is there
one or probably more than one that stands out for you?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, there's a lot. Do you have one?
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Can you go from us. Well. The one that stands
out is the very first time that John had a
co host on with was Me was the snowshovel or
snow removal issue. The video out of somewhere in I
think Wisconsin where the neighbors, the neighbors across the alleyway,
somebody was throwing snow and the other one's driveway and
(01:44):
they it was an older couple that had a what
a eighteen year old special need son at home. We're
really riding the neighbor who had you know, I think
they threw the snow in his yard anyway, but then
they were just in his face and called him everything
in the book. He finally walks in the house, comes
back out with a gun, and they keep talking trash
(02:06):
to him till he starts shooting them.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
This is a clue. When you point a gun at
you don't talk trash for them.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, And you know, the memorable part of it is,
I mean, you just can't believe somebody would do that,
you know, But at the same time it happened, and
the reaction to the people of like, what are you
gonna shoot me? Are you gonna shoot me? And he'ays yeah,
and he starts shooting them, and after he unloads everything
out of his pistol, he goes back in the house
and comes back out with an ar and finishes them off.
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, just a straight up murder.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah. And I just happened to be in Phoenix stuff
and I live in South Dakota. John lives in Phoenix,
and I happened to be in Phoenix for some business stuff.
And he's like, Hey, come on and do this one
with me. And right before he said let's go, he
drops when they Oh, by the way, they've got a
special need son that's the same age as yours and John. Yeah,
and I'm like, so in the opening, my face is
(02:53):
weird and everybody's like, why is that guy smiling? And
I'm like I didn't know how to react at the
moment because it was so weird that that's one of
the biggest ones to me.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yeah. I don't know if mine is a specific video. Well,
it was a specific video. I don't remember which one
it was right now, but I was just watching the
channel at this point, not working for active self protection,
and I remember seeing a video and it was like
at a convenience store and everything was normal. And then
ten seconds later, everyone's lives was changed, you know. And
I just remember relating to that and thinking I could
(03:23):
just go in to your local, you know, stop and
go and get getting milk on my way home, and
my entire life could change that quickly because of a
defensive encounter. Whether you're victorious or whether you lose it,
it's going to change. And that was shocking enough to
me that I realized I needed to make some changes
and do some things, because being willing to die for
(03:46):
your family and for your children isn't even really a
very high bar of parenting. You know, we're all willing
to do that, sure, and that's great, but how does
that help your family?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Right?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
You know? So that was the video, whichever one it was,
I just remember sitting they're staring at it, going but
ten seconds ago everything was normal. So and it happens
so quickly.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
What it seems like if you watch all these there
would be some recurring themes, some some recurring lessons that
like humans are hard headed and maybe can't get their
crap together. I mean, what are some of the ones
that you seem to How do people keep screwing this up?
I mean, and I guess I'll also prep that with
(04:28):
like this also isn't always necessarily like the snowshovel thing.
I mean, off the bat, I would say, this isn't
like oh, the obvious bad guy doing a stop you
know at the at a e conference store, the old
stop and rob. This is like neighborers bickering.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I mean that kind of stuff is mind blowing to
me that people wouldn't let things get so out of
hand where they kill people or ruin their own lives.
I mean, so themes that you see that are recurring,
think that is.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
A big one. You see people getting involved in road
rage incidents quite a bit and just jawing with other people.
And I think we tend to project onto other people,
even the bad guys that there have the same motivations
that we do. And because I obviously wouldn't shoot someone
over snow or a fight, that they wouldn't either because
it's stupid, why would you do that? And they don't
(05:23):
have the same values. So your temper and the mouth
things like locking your car doors, that's another big one
that we just see over and over again. And I'll
let you give others, but I you know, we'll often
get a comment that's like, I feel like you're saying
some of these same things over and over. It's like, yeah,
that's a clue.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
That's a clue.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
But I'm sorry, guys. I know we keep repeating ourselves
in real but like, right, apparently we can keep to
having to remind people.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, well, you know, I think another big one is
that people just don't pay attention to their surroundings. And
so we see people walk in on a robbery going on,
we see a robbery start, and the people behind the
counter don't even know it, you know, because they're you know,
the big one is cell phones or everybody's stuck at
their nose in their phone and they're stuck with that,
or they're you know, they're just not ready for that.
(06:09):
They're not they're just not looking around, you know. And
and then of course you get the people that are like, well,
you just want everybody to you know, have their head
on a swovel on that and you can't live that way,
and you absolutely can't. But you know, to be curious
about the surroundings and what's going on in your immediate
you know world. That's not being paranoid, that's not head
on a swivel stuff. That's just like just paying the
(06:29):
slightest bit of attention. It's like, you don't cross the
street without looking both ways, So why are you walking
into a store without looking up to see who's there?
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
My dad hosts the radio show, and one thing he's
said before is being alert and being aware of your
surroundings doesn't mean that you're paranoid and you're in a
heightened anxiety state. It actually means like, wow, you're looking up.
You might see interesting things, you might see interesting people
and meet people and like look at those mountains. Oh look,
(06:58):
that's Dustin Hoffman right there. Like just being out of
your phone and out of your little bubble and just
look around because there's maybe like a bigger bubble.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
There absolutely is, and and we just see it over
and over where, you know, and in my life, I
see it all the time. You know. The thing that
probably one of my biggest pet peeves is walking through
any store and people just stop, you know, or an airport.
We travel a fair amount and you're walking through the
airport and somebody just stops and stares at their phone
in the middle of traffic, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
I get why road rage is a thing. And I
(07:31):
I you know, I I've never had a road rage
incident of my own, but I've seen a bunch of them.
I've been witnessed to a bunch of them, and of
course we see them on the channel all the time.
And it's just it's typically that one person who is
stuck in their own tiny little bubble that gets in
somebody's way and now now they've offended the wrong person,
and then that and then it just snowballs from there
and it just gets worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, the road rage thing is very prevalent these days. Boy,
It's like, guys, this isn't a contest. There's not winners
and losers while we're driving. We're just all trying to
get somewhere, right, But it's like people take it personally, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
They do. And I think you have to have this.
I mean, we're all quick to excuse our own traffic
faux pause. We all have a good reason when we're
speeding or when we've cut in front of somebody or whatever,
but sometimes it's really hard to extend that same grace
to someone else that well, maybe they didn't see me.
I'd done that before you in my blind.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Spot, Yes exactly. But if someone's driving slower than you,
they're an idiot. But if they're driving faster than you,
they're a mania. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Having the same pace as me. That's still frustrating.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Are near me?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, what's the problem. So, you know, we had one,
you know, another chance video on the channel that was
a road raided incident where somebody cut somebody off. The
other guy pulled up the light, flipped him the bird
and they went john back and forth. And that one
that was one that hit me pretty hard just because it,
you know, it just felt too familiar. And literally that afternoon,
(08:55):
I'm driving through traffic and I cut a guy off
accidentally and he pulls up to me at a light
and he flips me there and he was a big dude, yeah,
and he is flipping me the burden. He is Johnning
And I got my window up and I just I
robe my way on. I was like, hey, that was
my bad. I am sorry, I did not see you.
That was one hundred percent of my fault. It won't
happen again. Please accept my apology. And he's like yeah,
(09:16):
And then the thing turned green and he took off
and I tell you, and I'm like, yeah, you're right,
screw me. I'm an idiot because I want you In
that case, I was like, dude, I wasn't paying close
enough attention. I thought I could make it, but I
did cut you off. So you know, but I think
people are like, well, no, I have places to be too,
So me cutting you off, isn't. That's your problem, not mine.
And so that's as we have to swallow that a little.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
That's a good little superpower and uh and a safety
tool of let's go ahead and think about this before
you're in the situation, because it's hard to think clearly
when you're in something like that to say, yeah, man,
I suck. I'm I'm sorry. Like, let's let's drop the
ego ahead of time. When you when you're calm and
listening to the gun Talk Nation podcast, you can say,
all right, all right, So if this happens, I could
(09:57):
just tell this big guy or a little guy or whoever, like, yeah,
you're right, even if even if you're right, you're not
wrong or whatever, right, like you're right, I'm sorry, d
It's fine.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, I think was it was it Jack Lemons that
had that came up with My Bad twenty. Was that him?
So Jack Clemons is no longer with us and a
huge loss to our world at least. But he had
this thing that they called the My Bad twenty that
he carried around. And Jack was a giant, a literal giant,
don't know, did you ever meet now? A literal giant,
and he had this thing that, you know, my bad,
(10:30):
here's twenty bucks, I'll buy you a drink or I'll
buy you whatever bad And so I have my bad
twenty in the scenarirow. This morning, I handed my my
Bad twenty to the bad guy, like, hey, it's all yours, bud,
I'm sorry this was yeah, it was my bad. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
But thinking about those things in the call moments, I
think is so important. So you have kind of a
if then rolodex that you can go to and refer to.
So when you're standing in the middle of a defensive encounter,
yours or someone else's, you're not trying to decide am
I willing to get in third party encounters? Am I
willing to do this? Am I willing to do that?
Because you've thought through a lot of this stuff from
(11:03):
your living room, and that makes it. It just makes
it so much easier. You know where your lines are
and you can not have to think about that.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
You're creating that those lines in the sand. You guys
are in town because we're shooting some First Person Defender episodes,
the thing we put on YouTube. We had a guy
this morning who admittedly was kind of like got into
the scenario and when I mean, I don't know, maybe
I should draw my gun, shoot.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
The bad guy.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I don't know, but he was like he didn't have
any lines in the sand that he'd created in his mind.
And that's the time to do it in your in
your lazy boy sitting there, you know, chilling out on
a weekday night, not like in the middle of the shop.
And Rob, I mean, this is like and and and
what are those? And play it out? Play it out.
Don't don't play it out where it all goes perfectly,
(11:52):
play it out where you go. Okay, he says, give
me your car keys. Cool. I give him my car keys.
Then he said, as all right, go get in the car.
Well maybe that's the line that I'm not getting in
any car. And it's like something that you can also
communicate to your kids. I've got kids it's like, you know,
(12:13):
you're not do't do not get in any car right
to tell my wife. I mean, they're like, get in
the car. We're gonna have it out right here wherever
we are. We'll not getting any car run by whatever
it is.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, And I think the you know, the the real
value in the videos that we have is that in
a lot of cases, our brain can't tell the difference,
you know, from between yeh, the virtual training and the
reality of it. Uh, And so you get a mental
rep of here's what happened to somebody else, and here's
the lessons that we can learn from that. And now
I've got a mental rep in my and now my
card catalog has one more thing that I can think
(12:47):
of as I'm trying to figure out what to do
in the moment. Because what we see is that, you know,
there's a huge cognitive load that happens in a self
defense in their issue in that do I draw my gun?
Do I not draw my gun? Where's he going with
a knife, what's he doing with this stuff? You know,
there's just so much going on. So if we can
lower the threshold of things that we can do automatically,
(13:08):
and we can then think through those other scenarios and
think through our card catalog and go, okay, here's a
here's a good idea. It's probably not going to be
the best idea, as witnessed your on your YouTube channel
all the time, but our brain goes and takes the best,
okayest idea that it has and implements it. And a
lot of times it's the wrong it's not the exact
right one, but it's usually a better one than if
(13:30):
you have to think of it on the spot. You know,
if you're in the moment trying to come up with
a solution. We see what we saw this morning where
I don't know what to do, and then we freeze
and we see that all the time.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And knowing you have options too, right, I mean, it's like,
well I didn't have any options. Well how about running
out the front door of the commune store. Oh I
could do that?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, yeah, you could do anything.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
You've run out the back door too, and all of
everything is in play, and that's in the real world,
especially right one of the things that probably you guys
have said, and we've said, you're in a restaurant. Another
option is running through the kitchen. Right, there is a
back door to every restaurant. There's a back door to
probably most stores in the mall. Yep, you could just
say I'm just coming over the counter.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Absolutely, And even as a as a third party bystander,
if you're not the one that the violence is being
directed at, it frustrates me to no end to see
people just kind of milling about while there are guns
and knives in play, and I think, I don't know
if they're just intensely watching or they're freezing up, but
you know, get get out, get out. So thinking through
those things ahead of time that if I see, you know,
(14:33):
a defensive encounter and I'm away from it, I'm either
going to get involved or I'm going to leave and
draw those lines in the sand as well.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, it's like, do you feel do you think you're
watching this through a screen? This is your life? This
is actually happening in front of you, right yeah?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
All right?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Do you guys have millions of subscribers and views and stuff.
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Shotgun enclosed micro red Dot. All right, so active self
protection one of the bigger channels when it comes to
the subject of self defense and guns and stuff. We
were talking about comments. I mean, it's the blessing and
the curse of YouTube. Ye thousands of comments, but I
think you probably hear have interesting comments. You probably have
(16:55):
interesting questions and perhaps even real life stories from viewers.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Right, Oh, for sure, we do.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
We get.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
That was one thing that I noticed really really early
on and drove me really early on to learn the
best that I could know. You know, you are always
continually learning and changing and growing. Teach the best that
you can. But it really matters what you're telling people
really matters. I remember vividly an email that I got
early on was from someone that they had been walking
(17:24):
and someone came out from between the shadows of the
houses and he said, and when I had a gun
pointed at my chest, I could hear your words, not
the time he meant John's words in my head telling
me what to do. And I just had to sit
there with a moment with kind of the awesomeness of
that responsibility, that when people's lives are on their line,
they're doing what you have told them to do, you
(17:45):
better be telling them right and constantly striving. And I
still get emails probably weekly from people ranging from hey,
I think I might have seen something and avoided it
all the way up to the gun to the chest,
and you know, they always want to say something along
the lines of thank you for saving my life or whatever.
It's like, No, first of all, you had a lot
(18:06):
of choices, and you could have chosen to listen not listen.
Learn you were the one put in that situation that
you saved your own life. I'm honored to have been
a resource for you. But you took advantage of those resources.
There are plenty of people that didn't, so so yeah,
that is one thing that continually pushes us to the
highest level of excellence we can we can attain because
(18:26):
for some people it's really gonna matter. At our conference,
we do a national conference every year, training conference. I
got an email from a gentleman on the way home.
He felt like he thwarted, and I think he did
from his description a carjacking as three in the morning,
on the way to the airport to get gas for
the rental car, and he had two cars come to
box him in, and he was able to jump the
curb and get out, something that maybe not everyone would
(18:48):
think about. You know, we don't always go to the exits,
and he went directly over the curb and took off.
And you know, so you're on your way home from
a training and you have to implement stuff right away.
So car yeah, yeah, just finding he had the intro,
it was all.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Right, Neil, is there a story or comments or questions
that stand out for you?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Well, so I am probably the main moderator on the
channel at this point. Now that kind of shifts from
time to time, So.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Probably talking to Neil.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, you're likely talking to me, even though you think
it's John. I know most of his one liners as well.
He stole most of his one liners from me and
some from stuff too, and he's got some great ones too.
But you know, so I talk with people on the
regular there, and you know the thing that comes up
over and over is, well, in this other video you
(19:36):
said this. So now you're contradicting yourself. Oh interesting, And
so then I have to go back and watch the
other video because I don't want to be gasoling into
an argument. I want to know. Oh wait a minute, no, okay,
So I go watch that video. Well, that was a
completely different scenario. That guy was a cop and has
a completely different mission than we do here. And so
I see that very commonly that people.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Want very hard want black and white.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, they want a one size fits all answer to
their problems, and they want to watch one video that's
going to solve all of their problems, and some people
do the other new one.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
I was just going to say, the nuance is really
where it's that we also do a lot of expert
witness work and just seeing everything that goes into it
and how things can vary and be viewed and seen
by so many different people. You have to understand nuance
and be willing to embrace that and that's really seems
like it's a challenge.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
It is, and you know, so the fun ones are
the ones that interact with you and tell you how
stupid you are and you're fat, you're ugly, your mom
is whatever, and then you actually engage with them and
they come around. Yeah, that's pretty rare. But about one
percent or less of people that watch actually comment. Typically
a comment probably eighty percent of that comes from a
(20:49):
negative emotion, and so they're like, you're wrong, and here's why.
And so to come and have a conversation with those
folks that they come around is maybe the most rewarding.
And I just had another one here this week that
the guy I don't remember the exact details, but I
took a screenshot of it and said it to John
and Steph and I'm like, look, I got one. I
won one. Finally you're right. Yeah, well it was it
(21:10):
was a fine you're right, and thank you. I had
never considered that, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And so they don't. And look, we are in this
world all the time. This is your your full time gig,
and most people have other things to do in their life.
They're not thinking about this stuff all the time. So
it's like Look, it's not that I'm like an expert,
but I just spend a lot of time on this
and you don't because you have a real job doing
whatever you do. I got a question for you. I
(21:37):
think one of the positives about of a lot of
this type of content that you guys do and others
do is people understanding the seriousness of a gun in
a self defense scenario and using your going to protect yourself. However,
do you think that has created a reluctance on people's
(22:00):
part to protect themselves, a hesitancy that could get them hurt.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I think that there's a real strong possibility of that.
I think good people generally want to do good things,
and we want to be cautious and careful. Every time
you're in a defensive encounter, I feel like there's so
much that could go wrong, and it's hard because you
want to make people aware of what's being put on
the line if they decide to engage, or you know,
(22:26):
if I have a chance to comply, I have a
chance to fight all of these things. I want them
to know the decision they're making. But the last thing
I want them to do is hesitate, because we can
we can fight the fight at the end if we
need to. We can work things out legally if we
need to. I want them to be hesitant to do
stupid things, sure, you know, And that's the challenge is
(22:46):
because we all think we're the hero in our own story.
That's another fairly regular message that we'll get is someone
sending their own video and I'm watching it, going, my god,
what have you done?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know you're the best?
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Something I did just committed aggravated a song. Share that, yeah,
and they have no idea. So that's really a challenge.
You don't know who you're talking to. But I do
worry that that good people are more reluctant to defend
themselves than they should be. I don't know, do you.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I think that you know, we see it over and
over that people take an extra step to engage, you know,
that they take a little bit longer too, And I
think it's out of care and out of worry about
you know, Am I going to have that one da
that decides to throw the book at me? Because all
we ever hear the horror stories, you rarely hear of
the part where they, you know, the cop scoops up
your gun, puts it in your Ulcer for you, taps
you on the shoulder and says, good job. You just
(23:40):
don't hear those stories they happen, but you hear the
horror stories of well, you know, I did everything right
and I'm sitting in jail and have lost everything because
you know, somebody didn't dot and I here across it
to their justice system. Yeah, and so yeah, I do that.
That is something that is something that comes to mind
from time to time. And as I watching some of
(24:00):
these videos, you see it play out, day in and out.
And so our channel has about forty five hundred videos
on the main channel right now. That's out of about
fifty thousand that we've had submitted to us. And so
we've seen a lot more. And there's some that you know,
they're not there's not a real great lesson there, or
this is just insanely too golory to put on YouTube,
(24:21):
or something along those lines. So we've seen the gamut
of of you know, from the real easy stuff to
the really really difficult stuff. But we try to find
ones that have some nuance to show people here's how
you can survive, and here's some of the go indicators,
you know, and one of the things that John has
come up with recently is you know, we do a
lot of training with the four Science guys and they
talk about human performance and you know, looking for ghost
(24:44):
signals if a bad guy's got a gun out and
that kind of thing, and you know, if he shows
you his ear and you have a one and a
half second draw, you can probably get in the fight
and very likely win. Now you're not guaranteed to win,
but you're ahead of him in the fight because it
will take him that long to respond to you.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And you got to use that in your scenario yesterday.
You knew when the eyes moved offline, you didn't have
very long but knowing what your draw was and the
fact that his eyes went offline for just a second
got you guys shooting at the same time.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Basically, Yeah, and so those are you know, But I
think back to your question. The thing that we do
see is I think people typically pause because there's this
normalcy bias that this isn't really happening. Is this really
what's going on?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Is am I about to have to shoot somebody?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah? And I told you that I had one of
those years back where I was going, oh my gosh,
I'm about to have to shoot somebody, right, And it
didn't and it ended up turning out to not be anything.
But it was just all felt like it was building
to like, holy crap, this is about to happen. And
then I started sweating, going, oh, like, could you think
because people will watch this, people listen to our stuff
(25:47):
or whatever, it's like, oh yeah, you know my favorite
is I mean, if it's in my house, I'm shooting him.
You're like, oh, yeah, that's the guy that actually maybe
needs to hesitate exactly think through this well.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And that's the thing. I feel like people often have
a very difficult tim being creative and flexible and what
their defensive and scenarios might look like. We all think
it's going to be directed at us and not a
third party. We all think it's going to be a
very clear bad guy and not a family member or
a woman or a child or any of these things.
And these are things that you have to think through
(26:19):
because I would say, rarely are the do the encounters
look like what people have probably envisioned in their heads,
And so it just takes a moment.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I think over the years, we've probably met thousands now
of people that have been in a scenario, you know,
so for the NRA and one of us is speaking there. Afterwards,
you get the people come up and they're like, yeah,
I had this happen or that happened, or thank you
for that, you know, and there's fans too, so and
those are always fun conversations. But when you get the
one that's like, I had this happen, I have never
(26:50):
heard anybody say, well, my self defense scenario went exactly
like I planned, right, it was. You know, it's always
I had no clue. You know. I was in my
grandson's house and somebody broke in and started toaf ab
him kind of thing. Uh, you know, and I had
not planned for that. However, I was able to react
to it and and and and save him through this.
But uh, you know, we hear some of the crazy
(27:11):
horror stories of folks out.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
There, drunk guy ending up in the wrong house or something.
You know, I don't want to shoot that guy if
I don't have to, And if you do want to,
that's that's a lot. Either you don't either you have
some really serious issues or you don't understand our legal system,
because it's crushing sometimes even when you are perfectly correct.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Absolutely, Well, guys, I guess we should go out there
and do some more training and do some more force
and force to attack somebody so attacked. That is so
fun be attacked and get attacked. I mean, the learning
right from force and force amazing. Great.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, you know, I didn't know what to expect coming here.
I'd watched a few episodes and I knew what it
was about, but I didn't know what, you know, what
I was going to be doing here. Uh, this has
been a blast for me. And I mean, if anybody ever,
I know you guys do some like casting call stuff
like that, if you get the chance, get in on
this because it's great training. It'll be a great experience
for you. And it's a.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Decision making training that's so difficult to find. There's plenty
of marksmanship training, this is how you should a gun,
but finding something that helps you make those decisions and
build those files and does it well. I mean, you
may find some scenario training, but like I was saying
this morning, sometimes it's not terribly good, and so to
find good scenario training is rough. And if you're not
able to do something like that, you can learn a
(28:25):
lot just from watching and putting yourself in those scenarios.
Watch these episodes and you know, maybe pause the video
at some places. What would I have done here? What
is happening? What do I see? And those are the
kinds of trainings that are really valuable and really hard
to find.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Awesome, Neil Stephanie, thank you very much, thanks for having
us for act of self protection. I would tell you
guys to watch their channel, but you probably already do so,
thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Gun Tognation.
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