Ep. 159: After the Election: What Now for Canada's Firearms Community?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
With the recent federal electioncome and gone, I'm getting a lot
of people asking, what does thismean for gun owners in Canada?
That's the purpose of this episode.
I've sat down with Daniel Fritter ofCaliber Magazine and we detail some of
the thoughts of what we've been hearing.
We also recorded a 40 minuteprivate podcast, which is available
for Silver Court Club members.

(00:34):
If you're a Silver Court Club member, loginto the Silver Core website and you're
gonna find that you have a unique RSS feedfor a private podcast called The Outpost.
You can plug that into most podcastplayers and you'll get automatic
updates as it comes throughthrough your podcast provider.
If you're not a Silver Court Club member,consider checking it out, silver court.ca.

(00:56):
Now, let's get on with this episode.
Well, today's guest needs no introduction.
My friend Daniel Fritter, caliber Magazineis back again to share his ever eloquent
thoughts post-election and, uh, figured heand I would just sit down and chat about,
uh, the state of the industry where wesee things going, and, um, go from there.

(01:17):
Dan, thanks so much for coming back.
Hey, happy to be here.
I may not be quite as eloquent as, asalways through this cold medicine induced
haze that I'm currently in with thissinus infection, but, uh, I'll try.
Well, good for you forbraven it out and being here.
I know.
Uh, yeah, that's never fun.
You were planning to be here yesterdayand, uh, just couldn't do it.

(01:39):
Uh, heavy meds now.
So, uh, we'll just play it from there.
Yep.
So, uh, we had a, uh, an electiondidn't go the way I figured it would go.
Uh, I don't know about you if youpredicted it going in that direction.
I had a feeling, um, from whenKearney won, the polls did flip pretty
rapidly, and generally speaking,Canada's pollsters are pretty accurate.

(02:00):
So I was kind of operating underthe assumption that it was not
necessarily going to go the way we want.
I did have some hope that there mighthave been a surprise outcome, um, that
surprised the pollsters and whatnot,largely on the back of the millennial
vote, uh, it's a huge voting block.
It's the biggest one in Canada.
Now.
They had been polling pretty consistentlyas a demograph that was, uh, most

(02:25):
supportive of the conservatives,but they're also a demographic that
historically does not show up tovote like twice as many boomers
vote, as do young people typically.
So it was gonna be a case ofthe ability to get the vote out.
And then of course, as thecampaign continued and at the
winding down phases of it, we see.

(02:46):
Poly have going to places like Albertawhere, you know, as a conservative,
you, you kind of should think thoseare GIMs, so you shouldn't be wasting
your time there in the last week.
Um, but that was a pretty clearindicator that what they were
seeing internally was the same aswhat we were seeing externally.
So, um, yeah, good point.
Not the, not the result we wanted.
Certainly surprising, to be honest, themakeup is maximum chaos in terms of what

(03:07):
the House of Commons looks like right now.
Um, and with Kearney saying thathe doesn't want a formal agreement
with the NDP, that he wantseveryone to kind of work together.
I'm not sure how, what the, what this isgonna look like in the House of Commons.
And then of course, you know, I will saythe big surprise was Polly of not winning
his own seat was a bit of a shocker.
It's gonna be very interesting to seehow he manages to figure that out.

(03:30):
'cause he is currently the leaderof the Conservative party, but he
cannot be the official leader of theopposition without a, without a seat.
Uh, which presents some unique issues.
So we learned earlier today, Andrew Shearwill take that role on a temporary basis.
Interim.
Well, PEV seeks the by-election overthere in Alberta, which I mean, if

(03:50):
you ever wanted to see a conservativewriting, the one he is running in,
it's like 80% conservative voters.
It's like, I think it was like 40,000people voted for the conservative,
and like two people voted liberal.
So it's, it's about the safestyou could possibly imagine.
Uh, but it will beinteresting to navigate.
So it'll be interesting to seehow, how that party reacts to it.

(04:10):
Well, look, you know, you're waymore plugged in on the politics than
I am, but from, from my standpoint,I wasn't trusting the polls.
And I don't know if I'm too stuck inthe wrong algorithm on, uh, social
media or whatever it might be, butthe, uh, it looked like there was some
Tom Foolery going on in the polls.
Maybe there wasn't.
It looked like there's some Tom Foolerygoing on in EFS riding, what was it, 91

(04:35):
other candidates that put their name in.
The longest ballot initiative.
It's this really stupid protestgroup that thinks the best way to get
electoral reform is to have a ballotwith like a metric ton of people on it.
So the thing is like literally aslong as your arm, and it's kind
of like this is just a waste ofeveryone's time and effort is, it

(04:57):
is a uniquely stupid protest effort.
Like even, I don't care what youropinion of electoral reform is, this
methodology of protesting anything,it's like gluing your hand to a road.
It's just, this is no, you'renot winning over anyone.
You're not making an argument.
I mean, if anything, if you're tryingto get electoral form and, and then

(05:17):
you hand people ballots that arethree feet long, like this is where
elections happen, what you reallywanna do is, is make their process of
electing someone as painful as possible.
That's, it makes no sense.
I think though.
What everyone forgets in thatis that, and it's the same thing
with the writing redistribution.
'cause his writing also changed, right?

(05:38):
And absorbed an area thathad previously voted liberal.
But that area, although it had votedliberal also demographically, has been
broadly supportive of conservatives it.
So it's like, yes, the long ballotwas annoying and it's a fun thing to
talk about, but enough people frowned.
Bruce Fanjoy name.

(05:59):
Sure.
So Sure.
It's not like, you know, it's not likepeople were confused by these long bowels.
They're just a pain in the assfor all the electoral workers.
'cause you gotta fold it uplike 16 times to fit in the box.
Mm-hmm.
So it's not really a huge deal.
I think, you know, Fanjoy had beencampaigning in that riding for two years.
Hard, hard, like knocking on doorsand that's what wins elections.

(06:21):
That's why before the election whenI was saying, you gotta go volunteer.
'cause that's what actually winselections is, you know, the mere
presence of someone at your doorstep.
Even if you don't agree with theirpolitics, that they took the step to
come to your house, knock on your door.
'cause the only way a politiciancan really get ahold of you in a,
in a catchment zone, um, that movesthe needle in a very real way.

(06:45):
'cause people go, oh, he, hecares enough to come to my house.
He cared to talk about what were theissues and stuff and, and especially
when it's the candidate, when it'sa volunteer doing it on behalf of
a party, you're really just doingwhat's called Get Out the Vote.
So for those that don't know, this isgonna be a very quick little segment.
If you volunteer for a party on electionday or beforehand, and you're doing
what's called door knocking, which isthe, where everyone starts out, basically

(07:07):
you go to a bunch of people's housesand you say, how do you plan to vote?
And if they say conservative,you go, okay, tick box.
And you know their name andtheir address because of the
census data and elections Canada.
Then on elections, when the electionhappens, we don't know how people vote,
but parties do know who has voted.
So if it says, well, Daniel Fritters, he,we knocked on his door three months ago.

(07:29):
We knocked on his dooragain two months ago.
Both times he said he wasgonna vote conservative.
We got this sheet from the pollingplace, which they do every hour,
and every hour goes by and theygo, well, we haven't seen, we
haven't seen Dan Fritter vote yet.
Then they'll call youand they'll say, Hey Dan.
We, we noticed, you haven'tvoted yet, could we?
Do you want a ride?
How can we get you to do this?
But when it's the candidate and he'sdoing it for two or three years and

(07:52):
he's asking, what are your issues?
Yeah.
That's gonna convince a lot of people.
Like there will be people who aremotivated to get out and vote.
So I think, I think Fanjoy did somewhatironically what the Ford family has
done in Ontario of just connectedwith people in a way that worked.
Um, and I think like most of us,there's probably some truth in the

(08:12):
notion that Paulo took it for granted.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I could see that.
I mean, the way the polls were lookingpreviously, it was, it was gonna be
a blue wave, it was gonna be justa landslide for the conservatives.
Even our local, um, candidate herehad lunch with him, chatted with

(08:33):
him, and I mean, he says, you know,you don't, you don't count it until
it's hatched and all the rest.
But there was a real strong sense thateverybody knew where it was going and then
it didn't and he didn't get his position.
And I think that that notion of almost,I dunno if I should, I mean almost

(08:55):
maybe it's the correct word, but likealmost a sense of entitlement that
historically things have lined up.
You know, Canadians electgovernments a couple times,
three times, 10 years, basically.
Then they get rid of the old guy.
It's never a vote for the next one.
It's always, we wanna get ridof the previous one 'cause we've
run outta patients with them.
Yeah.
The polls had been swung to a massive,you know, 20% or more, uh, margin

(09:19):
between the conservatives and liberals.
It had been years of saying, we just wantan election, we just want an election.
'cause we knew the outcome.
Everyone, like under Trudeau, we, theoutcome and polls since have shown that
if Trudeau had not stepped down, theoutcome of the election would have been
what the polls look like in Decemberwith a massive conservative majority.
But I think there was a sense withinthe conservative party, and I don't know

(09:41):
this because I don't work with them, liketo be honest, but from watching it, the
sense was a certain degree of entitlementof not adapting, not understanding
that the conditions had changed.
The ballot box questionfor a lot of Canadians had
shifted towards Donald Trump.
Um, and I didn't see anyreactiveness on the part of the

(10:03):
conservative party initially.
And moreover, what really frustratedme, kind of more so was that what
I had seen from Pier P earlier onin his career as leader, going back
to three years, four years, he was.
He, he was presenting a far differentimage and option than he seemed to

(10:27):
during the campaign, during the election.
'cause I remember Pierre Pev doingvideos, talking about wood in his
house wearing flannel, which was very,it was dumb 'cause I don't go around
and stroke the beams of a house.
But to a degree it was, it was morerelatable to me and I think most Canadians
than a guy with slicked back hair, walkingaround in suits, constantly saying the

(10:51):
same things into the same microphones,taking four questions from, at any given
event, barring the media from the tour,like this was, on one hand he won the
leadership of the conservative party.
Kind of being the approachablebut experienced politician other
than during the election campaign.
It was like he turned intothis like, well, we're not

(11:11):
gonna let media on the plane.
We're not gonna take questionsfrom, you know, we're gonna kind
of denigrate journalists, likewe're gonna keep them outside.
Like, little things like if you'retrying to win over a country to win an
election, the media is a great tool.
Sure.
Podcasts and new mediais extremely effective.
But again, boomers who vote themost go to the good old fashioned

(11:33):
CB, C, and they read their news.
If you keep those journalists outsidein the cold in a pen, like literally a
little steel fenced in thing, and yousay, you guys gotta stay out here and you
can ask four questions, and we're gonnachoose who gets to ask the questions,
and it's probably not gonna be you.
Well, you've just pissed off a bunchof people with platforms like it,
it doesn't, it doesn't make sense.

(11:54):
Mm-hmm.
Like, and I think that's where I do getvery tired of the fact that it, 'cause I,
I won't say Carney was a whole lot better.
Mm. Um.
But we need politicians thatrealize they're supposed
to be winning people over.
You know, it's not this static.
I am me and you'll vote for me.
If you like me, it should be,I'm trying to win you over.
Um mm-hmm.
And I didn't see that very muchfrom the campaign, so it was,

(12:17):
it was honestly one of the mostdisappointing elections I've ever seen.
It was interesting objectively to watch,but disappointing from the perspective
of, um, not the outcome, which Ithink what most people are probably
thinking, when I say disappointing,I mean the campaigns sucked, period.
Mm. Like Mark Kearney brings in ananti-gun lobbyist to run for him.

(12:39):
Typically, lobbyists are not thesort of people that you want to
be politicians because mm-hmm.
Newsflash, they used tolobby the government, then
they become the government.
Mm-hmm.
There's a whole lot of room forconflict there, and it's kind
of, uh, it's just improper.
On the other hand, I was looking atthe conservative campaign, and this
is where like al kind of rant a bit.

(12:59):
They had two years to prepare for this.
They were saying, we want anelection, we want an election.
We want an election.
Then they finally get one and they'releft scrambling for candidates.
They're turfing out popular candidatesand parachuting in other people,
which just pisses everyone off.
They're, their campaignplatform is abbreviated.

(13:21):
It's, it's not well researched.
It's not well acknowledged.
And you kinda go like, what did, whathave you spent the last two years doing?
Like you can't just run on,we're gonna scrap the carbon tax.
Okay, well that's one thing.
What are you gonna do withhealthcare house price?
All of these key issues.
And there was no a disappointing campaign'cause no one presented any bold options.

(13:45):
We're going into an election with hugecrisis level issues like food pricing.
I. And not a single candidate steppedup and said, Hey, you know what?
Maybe if we stopped supplymanagement and flushing milk down
the drain, food could get cheaper.
No one even bothered.
It was just, no, we gotta, wegotta protect those Quebec votes.

(14:07):
We gotta keep supply management,you know, well, oh, we're facing
a potential invasion from America.
Here's A-T-F-S-A top-up like thisis, they're trying to sell us on
this existential fear that our,we're gonna lose our sovereignty
and, and no one offers anythingbetter than, you know, well, I guess
we'll, we'll hire like a thousandCBSA officers or something, maybe.

(14:30):
Mm-hmm.
You know, no one even bothers to mention,we'll fix procurement because like, I
guess they just have all given up on that.
But like, there's just no bold ideason offer from any of the parties.
Like it all just kind of seemedlike, you know, if the needle
is right here, you vote one way.
It'll go that way.
It'll.
You know, there was nothing.
It was just very lame.
And I think that's, that's also, Ithink partly why the conservatives lost.

(14:52):
I think they didn't, they didn'tdo enough to win people's votes.
I think they needed to do more, you know,yeah, we are going to cancel the gun bans
'cause it's a waste of $5 billion andthen we're gonna take that $5 billion that
would've gone to the gun ban and we'regonna spend it on mental health instead,
we're gonna build seven new hospitalsand cross, you know, do something
like, tell us what you're gonna build.
So the, this idea of fear-based politicshas been spotlight in media recently.

(15:19):
And I mean the liberal campaignwas fear-based politics as well.
We've gotta watch out 'causeTrump's gonna take over.
And what, why would it work for them inthis one and, and not the conservatives?
And how do we shift that perspective?
I think, I don't know if the, thisis where it gets tricky in politics.
'cause yet it's really easy to ascribevictories and losses to individual things

(15:42):
like fear-based politics or demographics.
When in reality, it's alwaysa combination of things.
And I think at the end of the day,this election was decided by the older
demographic that showed up to vote inbig numbers, in very safe areas that
the liberals were pretty established in.
And the fact that

(16:06):
neither of them put out what I would calla building style plan, like none of none
of 'em said, here's what we're gonna do.
This is gonna be somemassive stuff we're gonna do.
It was all fear based.
But the difference was that whensomeone who has the resume of
Mark Carney is running a machineto make you afraid, his resume.

(16:29):
Is a powerful tool for his team tothen lean on and go, look, we are
facing some seriously scary moments.
Look at this guy.
He's done all of these impressive things,so he's probably going to be capable
of handling this stuff in the future.
Whereas Paul Ev legitimately has, youknow, graduated, became a politician
as the, which is a valid skill andsomething that I think, again, if

(16:53):
the conservatives had been a littlebit more bold and simply said, what
we need right now is a politician.
We need someone who has experience inthe House of Commons and knows how to
work with people from all parties thathas lots of experience with this stuff.
That wouldn't have been a badthing, because politician is one
of those few jobs that you canonly get experienced by doing it.
There's no trainingschool for it or anything.

(17:13):
Right?
Mm-hmm.
They could have done that and said, youknow, this guy's an investment banker.
He's been a bureaucrat his whole life.
Like, he doesn't, he doesn't knowhow to make parties work together.
He doesn't know how to hold the balance ofpower together and keep a country going.
Like it's, it's very, it's like theytried to out Carney Carney, hence
why the suit thing bothered me.
'cause I really felt like that was likea physical manifestation of them being

(17:33):
like, well, we're gonna dress you up.
So you look like an investmentbanker that used to work at
Goldman Sachs and, but he's not.
Got it.
Got it.
He should have been that guy from thatCalgary Street that was raised by two
teachers, is what he should have been.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but I think it was just that ina, in, in a crisis, a people will
generally vote for the incumbent.
That's a known thing.

(17:54):
Uh, the 2021 election during mid covid isa great example of that, where it's just,
people just go, they just hunker down.
They don't wanna change anything.
You know, the world's scary enough.
More change is scarier.
Yeah.
The second thing is that, you know, the.
There was so much talkabout Kearney's resume.
He's done this, he's donethat, he's gone to Harvard.
You know, he, he can surely handleanything the world will throw at him.

(18:16):
I mean, Paul F should just stood up andsaid, look like you guys are being idiots.
If you think anyone can handleDonald Trump, you're idiots.
The guy is nuts.
Like it doesn't what hesays to you on a given day.
Totally.
You can't control it.
You know, like, you sure.
All we can control is their own country.
We should not elect someone becausewe're scared of Donald Trump.
'cause there's nothingthat we can do about him.

(18:38):
Well said.
So what does this mean going forward for,I see all the rifles in the background.
You run Caliber Magazine.
I run a training company in firearms.
The people listening to this are probablyinterested in what does it mean for
the guns, what's it mean for hunting?
What's it mean for, what'sthe future gonna look like?

(18:59):
I don't entirely know.
And I'm hesitant to speculatebecause we don't know.
And that was one thing that I'd saidearlier is there's, I've seen a lot
of speculation about they're gonnado this, they're gonna do that.
And um, if you don't know, thebest thing to do is just shut
your mouth because speculationtends to trend towards more fear.

(19:19):
Induction knowing very fewpeople speculate, oh, the
world's gonna get so much better.
'cause, you know, post nine11, it kind of just hasn't.
But I think overall, um, if I wereto speculate, I don't know if there,
the big question for me is what dewhat priority they'll place on this.

(19:40):
Because I did notice it during thecampaign, like, yes, they got Natalie
Provost to run, which seems likea really bad thing for gun owners.
Now I've also heard fromTracy Wilson actually that.
They're probably considering hermore for, um, an agricultural role.
'cause that's what her background is in.
It's what she does for theQuebec government is, is
agricultural science type stuff.

(20:01):
Um, so that's her professional experience.
And like, like I said earlier, if, ifshe's a, a lobbyist for guns installing
a lobbyist in the Ministry of PublicSafety, a lobbyist specifically who
lobbied public safety would be kindof a big red flag that even normal
journalists would go, Hey, this doesn't,this does not meet the sniff test.
Mm-hmm.
So they might actually keepher away from the gun issue.

(20:24):
Um, Mark Carney didn't know her name.
He didn't know what school she'd gone toor the shooting that she went through.
So that also tells you that hewas not associated with her.
Nomination.
Uh, she did put her name forwardto the liberal party and then
was made what's called acclaimedwhere they don't do an election.
They just say, yeah, youcan be the candidate.
Uh, that might have been somethingthat was decided by like Marco Ticino,

(20:45):
who is Carney's chief of staff oranyone within the liberal party.
Just when, yeah, she's gota name recognition out the
wazoo, she'll probably win.
Mm-hmm.
She gets us a third of theway there with her name alone.
Um, but if that's a bad thing, she's alsoa brand new MP with no experience, which
generally relegates you to the back bench.
Um.
They want some experience and they haveso much in that caucus right now to choose

(21:08):
from not only the want experience, butthe experienced guys get pissed when
someone else gets parachuted over them.
Sure.
Because a cabinet ministerial haveexperience, position comes with, well,
it's not just that, like you makelike a hundred and something thousand
more dollars as a cabinet minister.
Like normal mps make good money,but cabinet ministers make like 300
grand a year or something like that.

(21:28):
Like it's a, it's a significantbump and you get a huge staff,
so your job gets way easier too.
Mm-hmm.
So there's all these very real reasonsthat I don't know how prominent she'll be.
And then the other thing isthat I just don't think Carney
breezed right past the gun issue.
During the debate, they asked him flat outabout, you know, assault style firearms.
Like they laid it up on, it was likeT-ball, it was kinda like, okay, you could

(21:49):
knock us outta the park if you want to.
And he totally backed away and said,well, you know, like we have, we're
gonna reinvigorate the gun ban orwhatever he said of the buyback.
And then just kind of moved on to borderand that, and even in his first speech
afterwards, he didn't even mention.
Guns in his speech as thepart on public safety.
He mentioned border security, uh, x-raydog like, or, and drug stuff, uh, catching

(22:12):
smuggled guns was mentioned, but there wasno mention of getting, you know, assaults
now firearms off the street or something.
So I wonder if they have seen someindicator, be it internal polling or, you
know, uh, some studies or something thatare showing that maybe this isn't the vote

(22:33):
winning thing that it once was for them.
Um, interesting because I think theworld has kind of changed, like, like we
said, like with Poly F he didn't adapt.
The world has changed in, when Trudeauannounced this in 2020, everyone was
like going nuts over New Zealand's band.
Jaina Arden was seen as like a progressivegod amongst leaders because she had so

(22:53):
succinctly and immediately banned gunsafter the massacre there and, mm-hmm.
Trudeau was trying to get that, hencewhy our band looks so much like New
Zealand, hence why the New Zealandpolice actually consulted on it.
Yeah.
But I don't think, I think in theinterceding years it's changed.
We've seen growth in gun ownership.
There's more people with palstoday than there ever have been.

(23:15):
I don't expect like for, foryour job, like I don't expect
that rate will decrease.
I think enrollment in PAL courseswill remain at the same level.
It is, if not higher.
Uh, because once you startseeing things taken away, people
get interested in getting it.
Like if there's a, you know, oh,the government could ban guns.
I should go get my pal now issomething that you hear from
people, they stop putting it off.

(23:38):
Yeah.
So, uh, in Australia when they banneda bunch of stuff after Port Arthur
10 years later, there were more gunsin the country than there ever were.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I saw that stat.
It's
people just adapt and I think that'swhat Canadian gun owners will do.
The people that used to shoot,you know, tack rifle stuff,
if they can't shoot those.

(23:59):
They will just shift to, you know,uh, rim fire precision or brutality
style matches where there's kind of aphysical component or they'll, they'll
find other com competitive venues,they'll find other things to switch to.
Um, I don't think hunters willbe overall impacted very much.
'cause I think that thus far what theliberals have tried to do is really avoid

(24:20):
targeting anything that could be conceivedas like a super popular hunting rifle.
So.
Mm. But that's a game wherewe get into the priorities.
'cause I think if they do end upprioritizing it, like if there's
a, if there is another prominentnews item involving a, a gun
in Canada, for example, yeah.
We could see them do what they promised todo, which was take a look at the existing

(24:40):
legislation around classification.
And what concerned me is, was.
The one time they talked aboutlegislation and the platform
was around classifications.
It's kinda like, well, legislation'sa, a big thing to move for the
government, like OICs and regulations.
It's like a couple forms.
The minister signs and it's all done.
Legislation.
You know, you get a small army of lawyers,you draft it, you gotta get it through

(25:03):
the house, the Senate, it's a big deal.
And if they do that, I think, andthis is what I don't wanna speculate
around 'cause I don't, I don't knowif this is gonna happen and I have
no idea if it's likely or unlikely.
But if they were to legislate aroundguns, IE make a law, I would expect what

(25:24):
they would do would take the definitionthat C 21 provided for bans on future
designs and make it retroactive.
So semi-automatic center fire riflewith an detachable magazine capable
of holding more than five rounds wouldjust become banned, not by name as they
currently are, but banned by legislation.
And then you would get into thingswhere like, does the browning

(25:46):
BAR have a detachable magazine?
I mean, technically the floorplate swings down, you pull it out.
Mm-hmm.
So it is, and then there are modelswhere it is just straight drop free
mag is the sks a detachable mag?
Well, the SKS D is so, and youcan convert all the other ones.
So I don't know how thatwould land, basically.
And that's why I don'tlike the speculation.

(26:07):
'cause it, it could happen,it could also not happen.
But also if you're gonna go down thatrabbit hole of fear of it could happen,
you arrive at all these other, wellwhat if this and what if that, that
it's impossible to know this stuff.
So it's kind of just wait and see.
I'm, I'm getting a bit of a sense ofoptimism actually listening to you here.

(26:27):
It sounds like you're not quite aspessimistic as I figured you'd be.
And from what I'm hearing through the, uh.
Uh, through the gun community, I'm gettinga lot of people calling up or emailing
and, and, uh, they're getting rid of theirguns and they're, they're quite upset
and they don't know what they can do.
But that's not the tone thatyou're projecting right now.
Yeah, I mean, I think I am not, Imean, I'm, I'm, I am a naturally

(26:52):
optimistic person who then triesto be even more optimistic.
So maybe I'm just naive 'cause I believewhat some people call that actually.
But I don't find a, I don'tfind purpose in pessimism.
There's a lot of bad stuffand I mean, if, if you want to
sell your guns, you go for it.
Someone will be there to buy them.
And I think that for everyperson that sells a gun, there

(27:12):
is someone there to buy it.
So it's kind of a, azero sum qualifier there.
If someone's like, oh, I'mgonna sell all my guns.
Okay, well, I'm sure you'll findsome to buy them, therefore, mm-hmm.
It's all the same, you know.
Um, I'm not that pessimistic,I suppose, because.

(27:33):
When, when the conservatives arelooking at winning and I've been
talking to them about all thisstuff and saying, Hey, you know, we
could really get some reform going.
I was told so many times by somany conservative people, well gun
owners are gonna have, be patient.
We've got a lot on our plate andthis is going back to like 2023.
It's like post covid, pre-Trump.

(27:53):
Now that sounds like adownright quaint existence.
So for the liberals, I, I expect that,uh, they have a lot on their plate.
Carney did not put a gunbuyback in his budget.
They are currently operating on thecaretaker convention, which is the,
the funding level the government gotlast year is what they get this year.
No new, no new programmatic spending.

(28:15):
I supe, I suspect that we will seemore come out once the budget numbers
start coming out, but I really don'tthink for the same reasons that
I've maintained for the entire time.
The gun buyback is suchan untenable thing.
I. Mm. And from Mark Kearney to goup there and go, oh, we're we're
gonna do the reinvigorated gunbuyback sounds really great because
the reasons why the gun buyback isuntenable are not known to many people.

(28:38):
You need to know that there are anunknown number of non-restricted
guns owned by people that they can'tidentify, that they have made illegal
and thus have an obligation to nowbuy back and provide compensation.
The government can't just go like,well, we, we said it, but we're
not gonna, we don't really carelike they have to do this now.

(28:59):
Mm-hmm.
They have created the responsibilitythat they must follow through, and
I think that's where it's kind of,I don't know if Carney will, perhaps
someone's gonna walk into an officein public safety at some point in
the next couple months, and they'regonna get handed a, a pa a book, a
transition book, and they're gonnago, okay, so we're gonna reinvigorate

(29:21):
this buyback and they're gonna openthe book and they're gonna go, oh.
Fuck, this is, this isnot, this is not good.
Why did we do this?
And it'll, we'll, 'cause it is just,it's, it's a rock and a hard place.
It's, there's no good o optionfor the government to do this.
They could do the air fifteens.
Sure.
But, and that's where I kind of wonderif it's just gonna be more of the same.

(29:45):
Um, I still think they'll probablyextend the amnesty too, because
the government always has anobligation to induce compliance.
Not, especially when there's no men.
There's no criminality intended by mostof the people that own these things.
So I. I'm sure there's legal statutes outthere that Ian and uncle could probably
cite, where like, you can't just make itillegal because then some lady who, her

(30:07):
husband passed away and he had an rinkone 14 and she finds it in the garage.
Well now she's, you know, obligatedto go to jail or something.
Like, that's not a, that's not theway that the legal system works here.
So they'll extend it and it'll justkeep getting kicked down the road.
And we will burn a metric ton ofmoney at the sacrificial altar of
liberal gun policies like we did withthe Long Gun Registry until someone

(30:27):
goes, the P is big enough, let's juststop and rewinds the whole thing.
Um, and I have some optimism in that,at least with Carney, he's, regardless
of his skill and ability, 'cause I haveno idea, he's had some very incredible
positions at jobs making tons of money.

(30:48):
But I don't know anything about money,so I don't really know what he does
or what the skills that involves.
Um.
I think he, we can say he's trying todistinguish himself from Justin Trudeau.
He is trying to create distance,the carbon tax, for example.
I do know that he is someonethat once defended the carbon
tax with full throat of defense.

(31:08):
He loved carbon taxes, um, as a greatway of reducing carbon emissions.
And his, the particular area thathe worked in was sustainability,
finance, and investment.
So like it's all very tied together ifhe's willing to, you know, sacrifice the
carbon tax, which is something he feltstrongly about, uh, it kind of feels

(31:31):
like everything's up in the air now.
Mm-hmm.
And maybe he sees what the bill islike, maybe he said, yeah, we'll
reinvigorate the gun buyback.
'cause you know, Marco Medico, hischief of staff champion the thing told
him this is gonna be the gun platform.
Or the people that are associatedwith the party that are pushing
the, the liberal party's gun policyforward was saying, yeah, we'll
just keep doing this, but, mm-hmm.
These are the same people thatalso defended the carbon tax

(31:53):
for the last however many years.
And then he looked at it and went,no, we're not doing this anymore.
Maybe he'll do the samething on the gun thing.
Maybe someone will finally handhim the estimates and go, it's
gonna cost somewhere between 2.6billion and $6 billion to do this,
and we're never gonna be done.
So we're gonna have to have theoffice open for the rest of time.
Because whenever someone finds one ofthese things, we're gonna have to have
someone there that can identify it,verify it, provide an accurate value.

(32:17):
Then we have to have a secondstring of people that if they want
to contest the value, they gottabe there with, you know, audits.
Oh, the condition is thisand this forever is mm-hmm.
Like literally forever.
Like it's, and this maybe he justlooks at that and goes like, kinda
like the carbon tax now this isnot, this is just not gonna work.
It's not winning.
Um, 'cause I also too, this is abit anecdotal, but I think everyone
thought it didn't matter where.

(32:40):
People were commenting during thecampaign, be it Reddit, Twitter,
YouTube, Facebook, on individualnews stories like CTV, comments,
sections, anytime the gun bans cameup, it was just universally despised.
Mm. There was no groundswell ofsupport everywhere it came up.
Media members were saying itdoesn't make sense commenters.

(33:04):
Like no one, no one thinks it makessense anymore 'cause it's, we've
had the five year free trial, freebeing a hundred million dollars.
But you know, in government talk, Iguess that's basically the same thing.
And everyone just sees more crime.
So it's like, I don'tsee anyone supporting it.
The only people that are staunchlysupporting it are people who, in
political terms would never votefor anyone but the liberals anyways.

(33:26):
So there is no more political capital tobe squeezed from this particular fruit.
The liberals could kill it tomorrowand lose exactly zero votes,
but gain potentially a majority.
And I think that's, you know, if, ifCarney's trying to distance himself
from Trudeau to set up his identity,he doesn't need to do that anymore.
To be quite honest.

(33:46):
He's one.
Mm-hmm.
He could just govern however he wantsto, but he is continuing to set us
different tone than Trudeau, which tellsyou he's, he likely understands that with
a minority and with the way the blockis, there's probably going to be another
election within the next two years.
Mm-hmm.
He wants that to be a majority.
So he's looking for theway to get more votes.

(34:07):
And like I said, with this particularpolicy, it is one where absolutely.
The only people that vote for theliberals because of gun bans will
vote for the liberals without gunbans because they're Who else?
They're, they're liberals.
Sure.
Like they're, that's, it's kinda likethe conservatives have always said,
if you like guns, you vote for us.
'cause we're the onlyparty that won't ban guns.
Mm-hmm.
So it's sort of, what are you gonna do?

(34:29):
And that's why I say, I think a lotof gun owners should probably get
out there and start talking to theirmps, especially if they're liberals.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
No, that's very wise.
And I, I agree with you.
I think the can's gonna get kicked downthe road history, history would show.
That's typically what happens.
It just gets kicked down further andfurther hoping people forget about it.

(34:49):
It gets a little less on the radar,barring a shooting or some massacre
or something in the news that comesup, whether it's in our country
or not, uh, firearms related.
That's, that's usually the impetusthat will get something moving
again, in a, in an anti-gun way ormore regulatory, uh, restrictions.

(35:10):
Barring that.
I see you getting kickeddown the road further,
but I think we're gonna reach an intersectat some point here where, you know, for,
for a long time now, headlines aroundguns and crime have generally been
bad for the gun community, resultingin more bans, this sort of stuff.
But I think we've reached a bit ofa, a, I think we've already reached

(35:31):
a bit of an inflection point.
It's just whether, how long it takes topercolate to the surface and to Ottawa
where, like when I got my gun license fromSilver Corps, like 20 whatever years ago.
Mm-hmm.
If you, if you were to go into the guncommunity on, at the time, the only way to

(35:52):
talk to the gun community was on Canadiangun nuts, which was to, to date it.
Like when that was the only place.
Yeah.
If you mentioned defensiveuse of a gun, you would be.
You wouldn't just beridiculed, you'd be railroaded.
Sure.
There'd be guys beinglike, you can't say that.
Get GTFO, mute this guy.
Block the con, delete that.

(36:12):
Like they would lose theirminds over the notion of that.
Mm-hmm.
If you went to a gun club and youmentioned defensive use of a gun, at that
time, gun owners themselves would lookat you like you'd run a third eyeball
and go, no, you can't do that here.
That's not what we have guns for.
You got your license, youknow what you understand?
You can only own them for recreationalshooting, hunting, and collecting.
Those are the only three valid reasonsyou cannot have a gun for self-defense.

(36:34):
That was the overwhelming rhetoricfrom within the gun community.
Hmm.
That is absolutely not the case today.
Like mm-hmm.
At all.
It is now common.
To talk about home defense,talk about defensive gun uses.
We are seeing defensive uses offirearms occurring with what would

(36:57):
be considered by 20 year ago.
Metrics.
Shocking regularity.
Like there were like twocases for like 10 years.
There were huge newsbecause it was so uncommon.
It was so abstract.
It was so rare that like a Canadian washaving his house firebombed and he shot
his pistol in the air twice to scare theintruders away was breaking news like

(37:20):
people were following that court case.
It was a huge story.
Now, like it happens and I don'teven notice, like people be like,
oh, did you hear about this guy thathis, he was having his truck stolen?
I'm like, no.
Oh yeah, he came out with a shotgun.
I, I had no idea.
'cause it happens so frequently now, andI think that's where this intersection of.
And it's, it's almost ironic if it wasn'tso depressing that I've said for a long

(37:44):
time, there's, there has been for, upuntil now, I suppose, no incentive for
the liberals to stop crime because thepolicies that they also use to leverage
votes being gun stuff rely on crime.
If there were no mass shootings, theycouldn't use gun politics to win votes.
It just, it wouldn't work.
Mm. So they, they kind of don't,there's, like I said, I don't think

(38:08):
they want to, but there's also nomotivation for them to stop gun crime.
It takes away a, a pretty big cudgel thatthey've always carried, but it's almost
like they've let it fester for so long bytilting at gun bans and gun owners instead
of the actual causes that now so manypeople are seeing so many stories about.

(38:29):
Crime, really bad crime.
Like here in Colonna, there's astory that came out two days ago, and
this is the perfect example 'causethere's so many examples of it.
It was the headline was somethinglike Woman who Shot, brother in
head, released on time served.
Okay.
It is, it's as simple as that.
People are reading thesethings and going, Jesus.

(38:52):
She shot her brother in the headwith a shotgun and she's out
a couple years later on time.
Served any, yeah, there werecircumstances around it.
There wasn't like, one of them was asaint and the other one was the devil.
They were, they're arguing overdrugs, but like they're still people.
Mm. And I think that's whereeven liberals are starting to go.

(39:12):
Those are still people, and yetthey're people that constitute
risk to me and my family.
Mm-hmm.
And they're just being let out.
They are committing thesecrimes over and over again.
We're hearing always about these,whatever, it's the, what's the term?
The offenders that doa metric ton of crimes.
There's like eight guys in colon thathave done like 300 crimes like a month.
Right.
Under tying up all of the resources andit's, it's such a common thing that it's

(39:36):
now resulting in more people getting gunlicenses because they don't feel secure.
Like this growth that we've seenin people with gun licenses.
I think a large portion, I would loveto do a poll on it someday, but I, I
would argue a lot of the people thatare getting gun licenses now, a lot
of this current surge is people whoare concerned for their security.

(39:58):
'cause let's, hundred percent.
It's not like they're going into ips.
I
a hundred percent.
It's a safety security driver and that.
Uh, from what I've seen is two fronts.
One's gonna be personal safety,just like you articulated.
And the other one's going to be, uh, theidea that if everything goes sideways,
they still want to be able to get food.

(40:19):
They wanna learn how to hunt.
Like the,
the reality of that self-sufficiencyis a lot more self-sufficiency.
The idea of being self-sufficient.
And more and more people are coming injust for that a lot more, uh, women and
bringing their kids in and families thatare coming in that are getting firearms
because of what they consume in the media.

(40:42):
And the idea that there is so muchuncertainty and, um, how unsafe
it is in the world right now.
I mean, the reality is welive in a pretty safe time.
I mean, it's, it's pretty damn, Ithink it's safer than it's, if you
look at the polls and it has beenin a ever really, but that's not
what people see on an ongoing basis.

(41:04):
Um.
So, yeah.
Why they're getting thelicense a hundred percent.
It's because they fear for their safetyand they want to be self-sufficient.
Well, and I think too, like
the stats scan data shows that,generally speaking, there's more
crime than there ever has been.
Now, the last 10 years has beena pretty reasonable tick upwards

(41:28):
and a lot more crime of a seriousnature, which results in the violent
crime index number coming up.
But the, the rate of peoplereporting crimes has gone way down.
Um, not way down, but it's gone down.
So we're getting fartheraway from good outcomes.
Uh, 'cause when you see thecrime rate going up, like 30%

(41:48):
of crime is reported in Canada.
That's it.
The other 60% just goes unreported.
Now
in terms of what is reported, generallyspeaking, crimes like homicides.
Are reported because it's hardto cover up the fact, not fact
that someone is now missing.
Right.
Um mm-hmm.
But other crimes like assaults, sexualassaults, and obviously property crime,

(42:10):
theft of a bike and stuff like thatare less reported because they're
not noticeable and people just moveon with their lives a lot of times.
Mm-hmm.
Um, the rate of reporting has gone down,the clearance rate has gone down as well.
You can see all the saskcan does all this stuff.
Um, so we are seeing lesscrimes reported than victims.

(42:31):
So they, what they do is theycompare the general census that
they do with the crimes that arereported to the federal courts.
So they'll do the general census,say, Hey, have you been the victim
of a violent crime in the last year?
Or whatever.
Right.
And then they'll compare that statto how many people actually reported
a violent crime the year prior.

(42:51):
And they'll say, okay, well 30%of the people who've reported
the crime to the police.
60% said they were victims ofviolent crime on our census.
So they, it's referred to basicallyas a victim versus crime comparison.
Sure.
Um, yeah, it makes sense.
So we have a lot morevictims than we do crimes.
The gap is growing, the rates atwhich we are solving these crimes

(43:15):
is going down, but at the same time,stats, Canada's reported crime rate
has gone up by percentage points,like 10% or more in various areas.
Um, so things are getting worse.
And I think too, it's younger peoplespecifically because a lot of the
victimization of crime heavily, heavilyimpacts people at lower income levels

(43:40):
because they have to live in Sure.
More dangerous areas and stuff.
Right.
Well, if you're a 65-year-old whobought your home in 1985 and you've
marched your way up the propertyladder, you probably don't live in a
very dangerous neighborhood anymore.
Mm. And that's why I think you're gettinga lot of young people coming out while
we're seeing the growth, especiallyamongst young people and getting gun
licenses, is that they are also thepopulation that is most influenced

(44:03):
by these increases in crime rates.
'cause they are the onesconfronting these crimes.
They maybe they can't afforda car, so they get a bike.
Well, bikes are stolen all the damn time.
Do you report it?
'cause it's a bike?
No, the cops aren't gonna do anything.
That's right.
So, and that sort of mentality leadsto, well if the cops, if I can't trust
the cops to find my bike, what happensif something more serious happens?

(44:25):
Mm-hmm.
I should probably then get a gun.
And where I think the intersectwill happen is eventually this
liberal mentality of, oh, we'llkick the can down the road.
Maybe a bad shootinghappens at some point.
A bad crime is going to happen.
If this trajectorycontinues, it's inevitable.
If crime keeps rising, eventually abad crime will happen and Canadians
will turn around and instead of saying,govern us harder, daddy, they'll go.

(44:50):
Why can't I get something tostop it from happening to me?
Mm-hmm.
That will be the shift is they willhave just given up hope that the
system, the authorities, the courtscan stop these things and they'll
say, I need to have that right myself.
Uh, nothing else.
You obviously can't provide it.
If you won't provide me with the safetyand security that me and my family need,

(45:11):
then you cannot deny me getting thesecurity that me and my family need.
And that's why I say it is inevitablebecause that's just how the world works.
Like people will not continue toaccept a less safe area, less safe
for their kids in Intuity, constantlyallowing the responsibility of safety
to be downloaded to an authority.

(45:33):
A court system.
A jail system that does notseem to be capable of it.
Like you wouldn't hire ataxi with a broken engine.
It, it's just one of thoselike, I need to get there.
Well, my engine's broken, well.
I guess I'll have to walk 'causeI'm not just gonna sit in the
back of your cab while you,
I I, I see that tipping pointfurther on down the road though.

(45:54):
Um, a fair bit further.
I think there would have to be a lot ofcivil unrest and a lot of, um, people
grabbing a pair essentially to stand upand start, um, um, recognizing the amount
of agency that they have as an individualto be able to affect their own destiny.
And I think that's something for along period of time that's been, uh,

(46:18):
intentionally, uh, taken from people.
Whether that's through schoolsystems, whether that's through
media, whether it's, whateverit might be through legislation.
You can't defend yourself.
Don't you worry we have thepolice, I'll take care of you.
You know, seconds count.
The police are minutes away.
Is is how the saying always goes?

(46:40):
I think.
I think we have a lot of.
Timid individuals who don't understandhow much power that they actually have.
And that's one of the things that I, likeyou and I were asked to do a chat for the
National Firearms Association recently fortheir A GM, and that's something that's
always been on the back burner that I tryto help people with is just understand

(47:04):
what the rules are, understand what you'reable to actually do in effect, in a legal
way, in order to push things further
for the benefit of yourself, yourfamily, and those around you.
It's not gonna be somebody elsewho makes these things happen.
You're not gonna rely on anorganization, have given you some
money and it's all gonna happen.

(47:24):
You're not gonna rely on the police.
Okay, the government's got thepolice in here and now I'm safe.
Right?
At some point people are going tohave to be, I think, pushed into a
position where they start standing upand I, and I see that slowly happening.
I mean, there's a saying too that, Ican't remember what the exact wording
is, but it's basically like, you know,very slowly then all of a sudden is

(47:45):
how change usually seems to occur alot of times is it's, it's incremental.
It's incremental, it's incremental, andthen suddenly a tipping point is breached.
And it's whoosh.
You know, it's, we'veseen it all so many times.
Um, I mean, the us, the housing crisis,everyone knew it was a bubble, knew it's
a bubble, oh, it's gonna be a bubble,it's gonna, then it bursts and it's, oh
yeah, that was a bubble and now it's agiant recession, and that sort of thing.

(48:08):
I think, um, it could happen on an, ona more evolutionary standard of just,
you know, okay, well things are gettingworse and police can't protect me.
But I think what will more likelyhappen, especially given today's media
makeup and the, the way politics worksis, is you reach these moments in

(48:28):
time that are like a perfect push pullopportunity wherein something happens.
Uh, in, in this context for, forthe hypothetical, say there's some
terrible crime that someone couldhave prevented if they'd had a gun.
And there's some sort of key pieceof clear evidence that if this person
had been armed, they would have donesomething outstanding, phenomenal, saved

(48:51):
a bunch of people, something like that.
Um,
with that clarity, politiciansthen get the license, the political
license to entertain the notionthat we need to move forward.
And it inspires peopleto push for that change.
And you get that push pull where youget a massive uprising in people,

(49:12):
but it won't be, uh, it, it won't bebecause Statistics Canada releases
a report and people just keep going.
Yeah.
Things are getting worse and worse.
And at this point, with thatnumber, that's the thing
that we need to now pursue.
It'll be some really emotionallymotivating event that will
provide people with enough.

(49:33):
Yeah.
Emotional motivation to push forwardand go, that can never happen again.
We need to do whatever we can toprevent that from ever happening again.
And politicians will look at itand go, there is a critical mass
of support for this process.
It may be historically speaking, notsomething that we wanted to touch with
the 10 foot pole, but we are recognizinga moment of zeitgeist in social, I guess

(49:57):
engineering at this point was what we'retalking about is sure they'll see that
and they will be able to pull towards it.
And the combination is usually whatresults in, in wholesale change.
Um.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, good example would be that moviethat Al Gore did that really inspired
the whole climate change discussion.
Mm. The movie comes out, peoplewatch it, it's emotional 'cause it's

(50:18):
got animals dying and everyone seesthe sad looking polar bear on the
ice flow that's starving to death.
And they go, wow, we, wecan't let this happen.
And that gives people the incentiveand the politicians respond to it.
And you get that, that kind of.
Cooperative effort.
I don't know what thatlooks like in Canada.
I also don't know as well becausethere's, I feel like there are,

(50:40):
there's two Canadas at this point.
There's, there's like my parents Canada,and then there's me and my brother's
Canada, and they're not the same country.
Hmm.
Because you will never convincemy parents that things are worse
today than they were in 1985.
Like, you can't even convince themthat houses are more expensive.
I've had that debate.
It didn't go well.
Um, sure.

(51:01):
When you try and have thesediscussions, they just, Nope, nope.
It was tough for us too.
The interest rates really high and youkinda go, well, you know, interest rates
and principle are two different things.
Like, would you rather have areally huge principle and a low
interest rate, or like a really lowprinciple and a huge interest rate?
I, I know which I would prefer.
Um mm-hmm.
It's not the one I've gotunfortunately, but, uh mm-hmm.

(51:21):
I think that if you can't convincepeople of, of these basic facts that.
Younger people are confrontingin a very, like daily basis.
Uh, you're dealing with, with a, sucha general generational divide as I'm
not sure the closest that I can comewith, uh, for a comparator would be
like Americans in the sixties with thehippie movement in the Vietnam War.

(51:45):
Sure.
War, drugs, Reagan, that whole period.
But that whole period was also oneof extreme violence in the us like
multiple presidential assassinationefforts, some that were successful,
multiple, like Martin LutherKing, the Black Panthers bombings.
Like it was, it was a phenomenally, peopledo not realize how the sixties in America

(52:09):
was an exceptionally violent period oftime because of that generational divide.
And I think Canada is goingto have to confront that.
And that's where I start to go.
You know, it's really easy to say, well,I think Canada's really far away from
accepting firearms and self-defense as.
An innate Right.
Well, we're also the only country whereforeign diplomat's ever been executed.

(52:30):
The FLQ did it.
We have that history with theMohawk Nation of Armed Insurrection.
We have the FLQ bombingthings in Montreal.
Like these are not, thisis not ancient history.
Like my mom moved out of Quebecduring the War Measures Act
there because of the bombings.
Mm-hmm.
Like this is recent stuff.

(52:51):
Um, and unless this is where I dohope, like this is one of those cases
where I hope Mark Carney can do better,some politician needs to do better
because of that gap keeps growing.
If that misunderstanding between thegenerations continues to grow, uh, we
will reach a point where the violence thatwas born out in the sixties in America,

(53:12):
or the race riots and all the otherthings that were largely generational.
'cause young people didn't have a problemwith integration, their parents did.
Mm-hmm.
If, if.
Kids today are going,I can't afford a home.
'cause they're way too expensive and theirparents are going, it was hard for us too.
It was just as expensive.
You're gonna start to see people do thingsthat will become the inciting moments.

(53:35):
That could be the emotional push thatwill make a politician go, Hey look,
the young generation seems really upset.
The sound of explosions indicatesthat we should be, and they're
also the largest voting block.
So maybe what we should do is listento them and start making some changes.
Um, and those changes are, Iagree that it's down the road.
I don't think it's as far downthe road as most people think.

(53:58):
Um, and I don't know where thechange will take us, because some
of these things can go very far.
Some of them can be somewhat moreincremental, but they, I think there
will be much larger changes thanmost Canadians are used to seeing.
I agree with a lot ofwhat you said there and.
One of the things that you touchedon was the zeitgeist, you know,

(54:18):
the spirit of the times, whichis the literal translation of it.
And I, so I just got back fromMontreal when I was over there.
I dropped by one of the local gun stores.
I talked to Dante, uh,or sorry, not Dante.
I talked to Rudy at Dante's, uh, sportingGoods and had a really good chat with him.

(54:40):
And he comes in, he says,Trav, you come over here.
I, I don't show this to manypeople, but take a look at this.
And he opens up his booksand he says, look at this.
Here's how long I've been running for.
I mark all the months, all the years,how it goes up and how it goes down.
And I correlate what'shappening at the time.
You know what other gun stores atthis point right here, when this thing

(55:02):
happened politically, they shut down.
I didn't, here's what I did.
And he talks about how he pivoted.
And any good entrepreneurand business person.
He can find a way to make apivot within their business.
Like I walk in his business, it's a gunstore, but it's also got like higher
end kitchen equipment in there too.
I don't know if you've ever beenthere, but uh, and his wife's got

(55:24):
all her stuff and the son's a chefand he is got a kitchen next door.
And I'm like, it's a pretty coolfamily operation they got going and
it didn't happen just by a accident.
It's a longstandingongoing family operation.
But you know, I get something from that.
What I get from it is there'salways gonna be winners and
there's always gonna be losers.
Losers will whine, well, what happened?

(55:44):
Well, it was 2008 and there's a recession.
So if it wasn't for them, mybusiness would've thrived.
There's a lot of businesses thatdid thrive in that time because
they pivoted and they adapted.
And I look at this in a similar way.
What can individuals do?
What can businesses do?
Businesses can adapt.
I mean, there's a lot of differentways and ideas that a business

(56:04):
can actually, uh, use currentlegislation in order to be successful.
It's the individual portion that Ithink I'd like to touch on a little
bit, because a lot of people willlisten to you talk by self included.
I'll listen to what you have to say andthe holy crap, you're well informed.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
Right?

(56:24):
And people will then sit back andwait, okay, I guess we'll just wait
and see what happens, when willthis spirit of the times happen?
But individually, we have a lot of power.
We've got a lot of ability toinfluence that spirit of the times.
And I, I think of DanielBofski, you know Daniel, um.

(56:46):
He called me up many years back.
I'd love to have him on the podcast if hecould get his microphone figured out too.
But, uh, called me up manyyears ago and says, Trav.
I'm a silver Court club member andI'm having a hard time getting my, uh,
authorization to transport a restrictedfirearm and my restricted firearms
license renewed here in Ontario.

(57:09):
I, they say I have to belong to agun club arranged, I belong to the
Silver gu, silver Court Gun Club,and you are an RCMP approved club.
So I started helping him and he is,I think he's an accountant by trade,
so he is meticulous in his approach.
He's not a lawyer, but what he did is hemade a legal issue out of it, one person,

(57:29):
and he pushed the issue into the courts.
I think when he went to the courts, heended up getting another club membership
through Silverdale, if I'm not mistaken,and, uh, used that as an expedience
point so that they couldn't argue thefact that Silver Court is a federal club
and this one's now a provincial club.

(57:49):
But he pushed it and pushed itand pushed it and came back with
a somewhat favorable result.
The judge says, yes, ChrisWyatt, current head of OOPP and,
and, uh, head of the Ontario.
Um, firearms office there.
You issue him his license.
He, you have to issue him hislicense and give him his at TT.

(58:11):
So Daniel left all happy.
Chris Wyatt says, yeah, not a problem.
We'll do that.
We've got this court order andthen tells Daniel, not a problem.
We'll, we're gonna issue yourat t as soon as you, uh, show
us your, your club membership inthe way that we want to see it.
Daniel says, hold on a second.
That's not what I said.
That's not what the court said.
Took him back and he lost on the appeal.

(58:32):
But a byproduct of that oneindividual's efforts was that that
province removed the requirementto belong to a gun club or a range.
They changed how they approachthings 'cause they didn't want that.
Pushed further.
And I'm not saying the courtsare the proper mechanism for
individuals to move through.

(58:53):
They're expensive, they move slow, andmost often history has shown you're
not gonna get a favorable result.
However, how we comport ourselves,how we help control the dialogue so
that the truth is getting out thereis something that's, that we're able
to do easier and easier through onlineblogs, through podcasts like this,

(59:15):
through talking with your neighbor.
And that's the piece of the puzzle that Ithink I would like to touch on further is
what can the masses the many do to helpaffect a bit of a change in a way that's
gonna be positive for them, at least inthis one regard in the firearms arena.

(59:36):
It's an interesting question.
Um, 'cause it, it also brings upsomething that I've thought about
in the, the days after the election.
You know, comparing a game to thoseold CGN days where gun owners in
Canada had like literally one webforum, uh, as this kind of solitary

(59:57):
platform upon which to have thesediscussions and share ideas and whatnot.
We now have so many tools at ourdisposal that, although especially in
the last five years, we've been hitpretty hard by regulatory changes.
We as a community havealso never been stronger.
Uh, all of the organizationshave grown tremendously.

(01:00:18):
We even grew a third organization likein, in the interceding years, we've, we've
gotten more organized than ever before.
Our gun clubs have an easiertime getting ahold of us.
There's, there's a much bigger networkof gun owners and it's created a much
more informed gun owner in general.
Um, I. W way back when we weretrying to get rid of the Long Gun

(01:00:42):
Registry, I would go to gun clubsand I would hand out pamphlets.
'cause I was that guy.
This is before Caliber.
This was when Harper still had aminority and we were trying to get it
Jack Layton's, NDP, to come on board.
And the pamphlets were super simple.
It was just basically like, this is whyI want get rid of the Long Gun Registry.
You know, go contactyour MP sort of thing.
And I would say at the time, probablyabout 50% or more of the gun owners

(01:01:06):
that I would talk to would tell methat the Long Gun Registry was a great
tool because it helped the policecatch criminals because they could
get the ballistics off of the bulletand then run it through the registry.
And like then the guy from CSIcomes along and takes his sunglasses
off and he goes, it's that guy.
And I was like, that's not, I eventuallyrealized you can't convince these people.
'cause I kept being like, that'snot how any of this works.

(01:01:28):
Um, right.
But they were grosslymisinformed to be blunt.
Hmm.
That's not such a case these days.
Like when you go to the gun ranges andyou talk to people, you find people that
are quite aware of the bans and the effectthat they're going to have and stuff.
But at the same time, it's, it'screated this neural network of great

(01:01:49):
intelligence coming across the community.
It has also absolved everyone of personal responsibility
because back then we didn't have.
You know, there were organizations andyou could call them, you could pick
up the phone, you could talk to, youknow, the CSSA, the NFA, eventually
the CCFR, but like, they weren'tplaces that you could just post a
comment, fire, and forget, right.

(01:02:11):
You know, activism.
Um, and because you had to get onthe phone, no one really bothered.
So it was kind of just more a case of,well, the, the organizations would tell
you, go meet with your mp, go do this.
We're doing a phonedrive, that sort of thing.
And there would be very real, like24 hour phone drives where gun owners
would just, everyone's gonna call theirmp and over the next 24 hours, the
liberal party's phones would ring offthe hooks and everyone would get really

(01:02:32):
frustrated and remember that everyonewould go on Cgn and be like, man, so
and so-and-so's voicemail inbox is full.
Ha ha like jokes on him.
And like everyone enjoyed it.
That's what we need to get back todoing now, is I think the liberal
party has seen on a macro scale.
From, from the fact that, and I'mbasing this solely on the fact that

(01:02:53):
like, it doesn't seem like peoplereally want the gun ban anymore.
Like when I do an interview with the CBCand even they're like, yeah, this gun ban
doesn't really seem like it makes sense.
Um, that's, that's kind of evidencethat like there's no media outlet
that's overly supportive of this exceptfor like maybe the ones in Montreal.
Hmm.
Now you need to apply the pressure.
If they are aware that this is no longera winning policy for them, they will not

(01:03:16):
change it unless they have incentive todo so, or they're being pushed to do so.
If it's such a pain in the ass,then they go, we're, we know that
we can gain votes by losing this.
And also too, these people arebeing a giant pain in my ass.
That's when they will start to actuallypush things through the cabinet
table and say, yeah, you know what?
We could probably just find a compromiseand what that would probably look like.

(01:03:40):
And I'm not saying this is what I want.
'cause I would just like it all togo away and we could just go back
to the way things were, which iswhat I think what most people want.
But there is, you know, within therealm of politics, that's unlikely
to happen to just completely, Imean even with the carbon tax, Mark
Carney reduced the rate to zero.
He did not get rid of the legislation.
Right, right, right.
What they could do is goup, we'll grandfather them.
You can still use 'em, you cankeep 'em, we'll go back to the

(01:04:02):
way the ban was sold to you.
You can keep them, you can usethem, but you can't sell them.
Okay, fine.
That's even, that's easier towalk back down the road because
now it's an incremental thing.
A future conservative governmentcould come along and go like, well,
everyone can keep them and use them.
It's silly that they can't sell them.
Let's just make them legal again.
Right.
It moves us closer to what we want.

(01:04:22):
Um, and I think that's where gunowners just need to take the personal
responsibility and say, look like.
I know a lot of people are intimidated bytheir MP because the constant media cycle
and the way things are portrayed, theyseem like people who, like, for example,
Mark Carney is someone's MP in Neon.

(01:04:43):
He's just their member of Parliament.
Mm-hmm.
The guy does have anincredibly advanced resume.
You have every right in the world to sitin his office, not be rude, but tell him
your gun policy is absolutely retarded.
Like, you should just stop this.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Like you, you know nothing about ourexisting gun laws that you made this
law because you would've known thisis impossible to do because you don't

(01:05:05):
know where any of these guns are.
You can tell him you're gonna burnmoney in perpetuity 'cause you
don't know where the guns are.
And you have no legal avenue to makethe people give them to you right away.
And even if you could, you stillwouldn't know who has them.
So you would never knowif you got them all.
Like there's no, there's no way to tickthe box that says gun buyback complete.
It's literally impossible.
No one knows how many thereare, so they can never go.

(01:05:28):
We've got them all.
So it's.
It is just programmed forever.
You have every right to sit and tellhim that even though he's got Bank
of England on his resume and Bankof Canada, like you have that right?
And that means that every MP hasthe obligation to listen to you.
So if you're a gun owner, I think thatyour obligation as a gun owner to the rest

(01:05:51):
of you know, your kids, your community,is to go down and just meet with your mp.
Don't email them, don't dosomething that they can ignore.
Say, I want to sit down andhave a meeting with you.
There is policy that is dramaticallyimpacting my life and I, I intend
to speak with you about it.
And again, don't be rude,don't be derogatory.

(01:06:12):
But you can absolutely saythis is, this is stupid.
It is beyond the realm of stupidity.
And the best thing youcan do is roll it back.
I. Because I, I think likethat's, and that's the thing
that everyone's just gotta do.
I've done it.
I've done it with mps and MLAs 'cause Iget involved in some provincial stuff too.
And it's quite satisfying.
And to be honest, you get moredone in a 15 minute meeting with

(01:06:34):
an elected representative thanyou do in three months of emails.
'cause they'll never read the email.
Eventually.
Like we can do the big email massdrive thing that floods the inbox,
which gives them the impressionof volume, which is really good.
We can tie up their phone lines for aday, which is good for the same reason.
But the best thing is to bethe constituent that steps up,

(01:06:55):
confronts them, and goes yourlike hugely impacting my life.
It has impacted my lifefor the last five years.
Please stop.
It's not benefiting anyone.
I think that's, it's as simple as that.
There's no, we can do lots ofother stuff, but that's all
secondary and tertiary things.
The first thing is to just,they're your member of parliament.

(01:07:17):
You pay a metric buttload in taxes,as we all just figured out recently.
You know, you fill out those CRA formswhen you send it off and look at all
the money that you gave to the CRAguess who's getting some of that?
Your mp?
Mm-hmm.
Make them earn it, like mm-hmm.
You've paid them.
Why not get some value out of it?
Right.
Like it's, it's pretty simple.

(01:07:39):
And resources like this.
People listen to the podcast,people reading your magazine.
We'll help them approach your MPin, in a more articulate way, in a
way where they can, 'cause there'sgonna be emotion and it's hard to
separate emotion when you come up tosomething like this emotion from fact.
And sometimes maybe it's not thebest to separate the emotion from the

(01:07:59):
fact, because if you try to fight anemotional argument with simply Facts,
well that doesn't really work too well.
But there is a way that individualscan comport themselves, how they can
couch a letter, how they can, uh, meetwith an MP and, uh, stay on point.
And that's the area that I thinkthat the gun organizations could

(01:08:19):
be of real value is in talkingto their membership and saying.
Okay, let's have anaccountability, uh, check.
Who here has talked totheir, their local mp?
How did it go?
What worked, what didn't?
Here's some tools that you canbring in when you talk and some
talking points that you can go off.
They're not all gonna be the sameif everyone comes in and says the
exact same thing over and over again.

(01:08:41):
Okay.
They're like, yeah, yeah.
I heard this one when Bob came in last,or when Jane came in, she said the
same thing, but here's some issues.
Pick the one that you find is mostimportant to you within it, and here's
some, here's some fodder, here'ssome facts that can go behind it,
or ways that you can approach it.
I think that would be an effectiveway for the gun organizations to
help her help mobilize people.

(01:09:04):
Oh, for sure.
And I think that's the, like froma top down and bottom up approach.
If, if you, me, Joe, gun owner isat the bottom, best thing you can
do is just reach up to your mp.
It's the, the best sphereyou could influence.
So do that.
But from the, the top down,the organizations, um.
I mean, there's nothing stopping them frommaking appointments for their members.

(01:09:25):
Like they could, you know, they,they could do an accountability
check where they could just go, doyou wanna make us, do you want us
to make an appointment with your mp?
Yes.
No, they know your name.
They know your address.
So they could then just go,hi, we represent so and so
at Blobbity blah riding.
He would like to have a meeting with you.
When would you like to schedule it?
And then they just email themember and go, okay, well you're
meeting with your MP at this time.

(01:09:45):
You know, does that work for you?
That's brilliant, Dan.
Just do it.
That's brilliant.
Or, and then go to, you could,you could download that as well.
'cause one thing that I will, I willcriticize our gun organizations for one
thing, and that is quite a few of them,or I guess all of them, to be honest.
It's not that many of them, but theyall, uh, I'm not saying that they
exclusively focus on members, but theyalmost exclusively focus on members.

(01:10:09):
Mm-hmm.
And good organizations don't do that Good.
What good organizations dois they user members to speak
for everyone in that area.
Mm-hmm.
Um.
There are, for example, a greatexample would be the Royal
Automobile Club in England.
Their membership is like, like,like you gotta, you gotta have some

(01:10:31):
money to be in that club, right?
But they try and advance all drivers.
They not just their members.
And I think that's where the gunorganizations could make a lot of progress
is saying to their members like, look,yeah, we're gonna do this for you.
We'll make appointments for you, butwe're also gonna reach out to all of
the gun clubs members are not, andwe're gonna offer them the same service.

(01:10:55):
Mm-hmm.
Because A, they get moremembers who just make sense.
But also two, it's, it's, Idon't know why it is, but yeah,
they're so focused on just kindof working with their memberships
and not getting out beyond that.
Um, that I think would also be a reallygood step for them 'cause it would
amplify their voices quite a lot.
'cause right now they kind of justpurport to speak for the people

(01:11:16):
who have paid them the annual fee.
Mm-hmm.
But they, there's nothing stopping themfrom expanding out into a much broader
perspective and saying, yeah, we have,you know, 40,000 members, but because of
the work we do with people who are notmembers, we can now kind of com purport

(01:11:36):
to speak for all gun owners, you know?
Um, and I think especially with the,the hunters and stuff that's, that
would be something that would be quiteeffective if they were to, you know,
perhaps I don't, and this is beyond mylike stuff, but like they could work
with BC Wildlife Federation or Offa, um,to kind of bridge a gap and recognize

(01:11:57):
like, we're gonna spend some money.
On these wildlife federations onsome of the stuff they're doing.
'cause we support what they'redoing and, and we think our members
do too, that would then give themthat, that credibility that when
they approach government they go,yeah, we do, we have 40,000 members.
We represent people like the BCWFmembership, offa membership sport
shooters, like much broader in scope.

(01:12:19):
So I'd like to see them do that.
But I think also to really,like I said previously, some,
some straight up tactical stuff.
'cause I've not seen a ton of actionablework, like from any of 'em going, okay, so
here's, so we sent out this thing askingand we made, you know, 25,000 appointments

(01:12:43):
between members and our, their mps.
We did that and I would go, wow, likeI'm, I'm guessing what half of the
people forgot the appointment existed anddidn't go to the meeting with their mp.
But that's life.
But you still got half of those.
Which is better than the zerothat we're currently getting.
Um.
Mm-hmm.
But they really are, they'renot, I don't see them using
their members in the same way.

(01:13:04):
It is, it does seem to be a bit moreof the, you pay us and we'll represent
you instead of you're a member of ourorganization and we're gonna give you the
tools and empower you to do the advocacythat we are also doing on a macro scale.
Yeah.
The using of members, I've seen someof the organizations essentially

(01:13:24):
weaponize their members, but more in arecruitment driving fashion as opposed to,
or in a negative way where they putout some information and knowing full
well that it's going to result inlike a cavalcade of brigade comments
or angry emails to people mm-hmm.
That don't.
Really deserve it.
Like, you know, there, there was, there'sbeen a few cases of that where it's

(01:13:46):
like, you know, someone's just tryingto do a job and I don't like it, I don't
like the result of what they're doing,but like, it's just their nine to five.
Mm-hmm.
They don't need to beinundated with hatred over it.
Um, and it's tactically not sound.
And in the long term too, it's just, itdoesn't benefit advocacy organizations.

(01:14:06):
They never benefit from,from destruction, ever.
Like Right.
You look at Ducks Unlimited and, andthe really successful organizations
over the years, doctors the Borders,like they build things, they build
better things than they previously had.
Uh, and it's never done bytearing down other entities.
It's always throughcollaboration and support.
Um, and you just don't see that's,I hope we need, I hope we see more

(01:14:30):
of that in the next little bit.
I'm not optimistic.
I, I think that's a strong,
I think it's a strong indicatorthat people can be looking at.
I mean, I. People want to saviorpeople want somebody to come
in and say, it's gonna be okay.
I give you the my money, they're gonnago out, they're gonna do their thing.
I've done my part, we're gonna be fixed.
That seems to be the sentiment andthat's reinforced by some of the

(01:14:53):
organizations, uh, through the fear-based,if you don't donate, we're doomed.
Right?
More, more money, then we can do things.
But, you know, I've had the chance topeek behind the curtains on some of the
organizations and some of the wildlifeorganizations and these different
groups and seeing how they try and, uh,mesh together to reach a unified goal.

(01:15:19):
And a lot of egos get involved.
You know, it always comes down to thesame things, money and power or perception
of money and perception of power.
And it seemed, I, I think membersshould be demanding a higher level of
transparency from where their money isgoing within an organization and how
the efforts are being actually used.
Not in an anecdotal where we are sotransparent parent and anyone can

(01:15:43):
ask for things, but in an actualway where it's, it's tangible
where you can actually see it.
And if you wanted the, uh, the thingsthat are being, they say they're being
transparent about, they're out in theopen because I, I think, I think we have
something here in Canada that can be quitesuccessful, but we have to change the
conversation and we have to change thisparadigm that we're stuck in of infighting

(01:16:07):
and, uh, people abro getting controlto a, just to a third party to solve
their issues for them and walking away.
Yeah, it's, um, I, I wanna say it'skind of, it's, it's bizarre, uh, for me.
'cause like, I'm not naturally that way,but I mean, even if, like, even being

(01:16:30):
involved on a low, low level, like on agun club board, like how I was president
here of a club in Kelowna for a whileand, you know, I guess I think I've said
it before and I don't know if it's ashocker to the people listening, but like,
I don't really shoot for fun anymore.
It stopped being fun some time ago.
This is my job now.
Um, I think that's a bit of a, uh,a strength when it comes to me doing

(01:16:53):
media stuff because I, if someone'slike, you love guns, they're like, no,
I actually really love motorcycles.
But you were close.
Um, they're both loud, I suppose.
Um, I feel passionately aboutguns and I feel very passionately
about the policy around them.
To me, they're more about what firearmsand how a country handles them, what
it says about the country and how it.

(01:17:13):
How it feels about its own citizens.
So they're hugely important.
I don't want to, you know,I'm, I'm not walking it back.
I'm saying they're hugelyimportant, but it's work for me.
Sure.
So when I was running the gunclub, I kind of fell into it.
So I moved to Kelownalike eight years ago.
I think I've told you the story,but it was kind of comical.
Chris Weber here who works at Weberand Mark and Gunsmith, he's the
Weber part, in case anyone's curious,um, he, I've known him before.

(01:17:37):
He's a very tall, large, kindof grumpy German guy, and.
When I moved up here, I went to ashop, we chatted, we hung out, had
lunch, you know, he's like, Hey,you should come out to the, the Joe
Rich Club Ag GM, and I went off.
I mean, sure, why not?
That sounds like the club that I'll join.
I'll, I'll go pay my money, goto the club, go to the Ag gm.
There's like 12 people in the room.

(01:17:58):
The president basically goes, well,we have like three grand of the bank.
We'll be broke next month.
Uh, I'm not gonna be president again.
Who wants to be president?
And no one stuck their hand up.
And I'm sitting there going,what the hell have I gotten in?
Okay.
And then eventually they did the onecall, two call, then the third call.
Chris goes, I, I nominate Daniel Fritter.
And they're like, I hadnever been on the property.
I'd never even seen the club.
I had paid for a membershiplike two weeks prior.

(01:18:20):
Everyone turns around in the room,looks at me, and I'm like, I don't
know who any of these people are.
Like, I don't, I don't even knowwhere this frigging place is.
I know it's up Highway 33.
That's it.
So like, I fall into thisposition and it went really well.
But what I learned was that.
I think when I was in a lot ofthose meetings, my only goal was

(01:18:41):
to build a shooting facility forpeople in the Okanagan period.
Hmm.
I don't shoot for fun, so I don't reallycare if it's the 300 meter range, the a
hundred meter range, the 50 meter range.
It was, which range dopeople use the most?
That's the one we shouldspend the money on right now.
Hmm.
That attitude is unfortunatelynot super common.
No.

(01:19:01):
Because as every gun member knows there'sbeen involved in a gun club, there'll
be people that go, well, I really likeshooting at 300, so we should invest
all of our money in the 300 meter range.
There's no collectivism, there's nosense of we're here for the people down
the road, or we're here for the otherperson before the before ourselves.
And I think that's wherepeople need to be asking their

(01:19:25):
organizations like, are you if
is what you're doing for yourorganization or is it for gun owners?
Period.
Mm-hmm.
Is it looking to grow your organization?
Which is, it is a very noble goal 'causeorganizations do need to have memberships
and be big to have a good voice, but theyalso need to be putting as much or more

(01:19:48):
effort into initiatives that move theball forward for gun owners in real ways.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and I think that's the onewhere it's, you don't, there there
are things, they're all doing it.
'cause again, I'm sure there will bepeople that hear this and think, I'm
speaking of individual organizations.
They all do this.
They all do it.

(01:20:08):
It's true.
They all do it in varying ways.
Like every organization has at timesdone a phenomenal job of something
that is great for gun owners.
They have all done stuff that isextremely self-serving at other times.
'cause nothing is perfect and that's life.
But what people and gun owners need to dois push for more and better and say, look
like we do deserve organizations that do.

(01:20:32):
Not just well or better than the otherorganization, but do properly good work.
There are a ton of gunowners in this country.
There is a, there's a lot.
And I think the fact that none of ourgun organizations have ever gotten really
huge memberships, even though there aremillions of gun owners in the country,
which are very accessible, is largelybecause they're, they're not, they're not

(01:20:54):
doing the things of reaching out to otherorganizations, meshing with them so that
they can expand their own sort of reach.
Um, and, and I guess their own, I'mtrying to think of the word, but
like basically what they represent.
It's almost like they've all becomehyper distilled into these very small
organizations that represent veryspecific things about gun ownership.

(01:21:17):
Maybe it's mm-hmm.
That they represent, you know, aregional area or they represent, you
know, and I guess it's their name, butshooting sports, you know, there'll be
organizations where it's like everyonethinks that's what they represent.
Like the CSSA Canadian ShootingSports Association grew out of
the Ontario Handgun Association.
So you get a regional tie and then youget a specific tie to pistol shooting that

(01:21:38):
grows into a shooting sports association,which they represent gun owners of
every strike with their membership.
But like, you know, the name is, issomething that people kind of go there
for shooting sports, other organizationsthat are a bit more on the rights side
of things, which comes with a wholepolitical set of problems for advocacy.

(01:22:00):
That's troublesome, but like.
There's no, like, as much as they'revilified and as much as they have
huge problems related to money andpower, the nras program is huge.
Like when you go through what theNRA does from legal battles at state
levels to their Junior Eagle programor whatever it's called, for like Kids

(01:22:22):
Gun safety, Eddie, Eddie Eagle, it isa wide range of stuff that they do that
supports gun owners that are maybe notNRA members, period like, but that's
what allows them to be the NRA if.
If a gun organization Canada wantsto truly be the NRA of Canada,
they need to do those things.
They need to go to school boardsin remote areas and say, Hey, look,

(01:22:45):
we have a program for gun safety.
You are in a rural area.
Gun ownership is a very high rate here.
We can send someone along that can do thisto your grade 12 class that can show them
that if they come across the gun, how tohandle it safely, what to do, et cetera.
You know?
Mm-hmm.
We have this, we've got it throughba we, we've talked to the advisors,

(01:23:07):
we've got people to sign off on it.
We've got the pediatrician signaturehere, it's best practice has been
followed, et cetera, et cetera.
Do the necessary steps toget a school board to Yes.
On that, while also taking a court caseto a judge while also trying to get people
to make appointments with their mps.
Like that's, that's whatthey should be doing.
Um, but,

(01:23:29):
you know, and you know how simple that is.
Like a lot of these thingscan be, can be automated.
I mean, if you want to have appointmentswith nps, you can leverage AI in order
to organize schedules, calendars, callouts, emails, whatever it might be.
Like these are really simple initiativesthat, that can move the needle.
Yeah.
I mean.
You could automate the whole thing.

(01:23:50):
We used to have the email machine that,I can't remember who made it, but uh,
there was a system where he would do,like, you wanted to email your mp, you
pressed on a button and it just, like, itwas, again, this is going back to cg, you
pressed on a button and it just openedyour email client into your MP and it was
like you just write whatever you want orread a form letter that you just copy.
And it's stuff like that where there couldjust be a portal where like maybe they

(01:24:10):
make the appointment for you or maybe theyjust send you a link with a button and
you click on it and voila, there's a formletter in your email client or you copy
paste it in of, hi, I'd like to meet withyou, what time is available, et cetera.
You know, and it is really,really easy stuff to do.
Um, I struggle with it as well fromthe perspective that, you know, the
organizations are the only people thatcan rely on volunteers to do this.

(01:24:32):
The rest of us have to pay people.
So, right.
It'd be when, when you can have volunteersthat are doing this stuff for you on a
volunteer basis, which it's, I don't saythat to denigrate it 'cause it's awesome.
Like that's what makesthis system work, right?
Yes.
But it's also what drivesfurther volunteerism.
If some guy mm-hmm.
Is, oh, well I can do codeand, and computer programming.
I can make a website for you thatwill automate people clicking

(01:24:56):
on the link, figuring out where,you know, accept your location.
Yes, this is where I am.
This is your mp.
Fire off the email.
If they see the number of emails goingthrough that system, they're satisfied.
They go, that was good work.
And now they're more likely to volunteer.
They tell their friends and that's howthe organizations blossom in really
organic ways compared to, you know, thekind of just beat you over the face.

(01:25:18):
Donate, donate, donate, uh,thing, which, you know, I'm
pretty exhausted with personally.
A hundred percent.
Um.
That was one of the things on my checklistthat I wanted to touch on without pointing
fingers at anyone in in particular.
'cause like you say, we could do that.
They've done good, they've donebad, but we can all do better.

(01:25:39):
Uh, the biggest thing though is theindividuals and their ability to hold
their organizations accountable and whatthey can actually do to affect change.
And number one on my list I put togetherhere was get politically literate.
And you're one of the morepolitically literate people I know.
Like subscribe to Caliber Meg,listen to you got a YouTube channel.

(01:26:01):
Listen to the podcast that we do together.
They tend to do quite well.
I ask the stupid questions, you come backwith an articulate answer as to great.
So we we can figure these things out.
Um, normalizing firearms ownership.
That's another thing I put down there.
Um, you know, don't, don't take the bait.
Why does anyone need to know?
Own a gun.
Maybe just flip the script,change the conversation.

(01:26:23):
There's, there's no reason why we can't.
Firearms ownership is normal.
It, it just is, it's likecar ownership is normal.
Um, it's how we talk about it and how we,uh, comport ourself that quote unquote
normalizes it in the, in the public eye.

(01:26:45):
I've got a whole list of things here.
I think maybe what I'll do isI'll point form them off and
we can talk about that after.
In the, uh, in the Silver Core clubs, uh,we've got a private podcast through there.
And, um, just, just a quick pointform, people can look at that
if they, they're interested.
Is there anything else that weshould be talking about that
we haven't talked about so far?

(01:27:06):
I think the one thing that I would say,since you mentioned that thing about,
you know, who needs a gun, and it kind oftriggered something in me, 'cause that's
a pretty triggering phrase these days.
But sure.
That people should like,think about these things.
It sounds dumb, but justthink about these things.
Don't just parrot back the commentsthat you've heard other people say,

(01:27:26):
like you're an individual person.
And unfortunately because Canadais 40 million people in the
States is like 440 million people.
Our media space, be it on socialmedia or on any streaming service or
TV or whatever, however you consumeyour media, is hugely influenced
by the US culture, which I thinkis, uh, I don't like it personally.

(01:27:49):
Not that I don't like Americanculture, but I don't like that
Canadian culture has been so subsumedby American culture and in few areas.
Is that more true than gun culture?
'cause although Canadians did, you know,a few years ago, going back like the 20
years ago, they, they had a weird attitudearound guns and were kind of misinformed.

(01:28:10):
There was a unique Canadian gun culture.
We, we shot things like visa at 50 eights.
We really proud of the fact that we gotto divorces before the Americans did.
Um, right.
A lot of Canadians were proud of thefact, like when I say that at some
point we'll probably reach a, anintersection where gun ownership and
public safety, IE like a crime happensand people see it as a reason to

(01:28:32):
own a gun rather than not own a gun.
Unless the trajectorychanges, we will get there.
I don't like that.
I actually liked it better whenCanadians could go, you don't need
a gun for self-defense becausecrime here was so uncommon.
That was a great thing.
Um, it, it sounds great tocarry a gun for self-defense.
It sounds super cool and badass.
It sounds like John Wick.
Then you realize it's fivepounds you gotta carry around

(01:28:52):
on a sweaty day in July.
It's not mm-hmm.
It's not that awesome inthe reality of things.
No.
It's better if you don't need to sit down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like it's, it's just, it'sbetter if you don't need to.
So I think it's, Canadiansthink about our own gun culture.
So when someone says, well,why do you need a gun?
A, one of the biggest problems withus gun culture is it's combative.

(01:29:16):
Because it comes from thatdefensive perspective, and it's a
bilateral system with two parties,so it's naturally compatible.
You have one party that doesn't likeguns, one's that does hates guns, one's
that like guns, and they just fight.
And a lot of the talking points thatyou see around guns are engineered
around that combative perspective.
Canada is getting that way, butI would really prefer it didn't.

(01:29:39):
So try and find common ground with people.
If someone's saying like,well, why do you need a gun?
We'll start to, instead of, okay,so they have an issue with guns.
So if you bring up gun stuff,you're, well, why do you need wine?
Well, A, you sound likea dickhead, first of all.
Yeah, because like, yeah, yeah.
No one likes that.
But B, ignore the gun entirely.
Say, well, I do you think we, we shouldlegislate around perceptions of necessity.

(01:30:00):
Mm. Is that a great thingfor a country to do?
Because now you're intolegislative fairness and mm-hmm.
And basic citizenship and you know,why does one person's perception
of necessity mean it shouldbe illegal and someone else's?
Doesn't it?
It allows you to find commonground where if you both go, Hey,
it seems fair that if I think issomething is unnecessary, I probably
shouldn't be able to make it illegal.

(01:30:21):
And if you think something is unnecessary,then you probably shouldn't as well.
Well, now you're at a common groundwhere you can say, well, so, so
if I don't need a gun, who cares?
It's not important.
Necessity is not anissue around legislation.
We don't legislate around need.
Right.
Find ways to say yes,
but guns are only made to kill people.
Right.
Well,
they aren't though.

(01:30:42):
But that, that's, that getsinto the combative stuff
where you say, well, right.
Why do you think guns are made to kill?
Well, because they canshoot a lot of people.
Well, that's a person that does that.
The guy who engineers thegun just designs it to shoot.
No one can engineer agun to shoot someone.
It would have to have legs,it would be the Terminator.
And no one's made that yet.
But, you know, give youElon Musk some time.

(01:31:03):
Like it's, it's once you start to stopgoing at the bait, stop taking the bait
and swallowing it so deeply and startactually picking apart some of the stuff.
It sounds like pedantics and not alot of people have the patience for
it, so most people just go, yeah,whatever, and move on with their day.
But some people will hear you out andit can change a lot of perceptions.

(01:31:24):
Like, you know, way back to thebeginning of this conversation.
Did we get the election result we wanted?
No.
Did we get the electionresult we wanted yet?
No.
But that doesn't meanwe won't down the road.
Mm-hmm.
Like you change one word, the wholesentence means a different thing.
And I think where that's.
What gun owners kind of have to startdoing is thinking about this stuff
pragmatically, thinking about itfrom their own perspective, thinking

(01:31:47):
about it from the Canadian side ofthings, and tell people, look, we
never had American style gun laws.
That's why we don't havea lot of mass shootings.
What I want to see is that wedon't get American style gun laws
wherein they have been weaponizedby political parties for gain.
That's what I don't want.
Mm. I think most peoplewould agree with that, so.
Mm-hmm.
And, and even most anti-gun peoplewould agree with that sentiment.

(01:32:09):
So it's kind of, you know.
Yeah.
Did you, do you remember alot of shootings in 2008?
No, and we had Canadian gun laws.
I could buy an AR 15, like most peoplewill kind of go, oh yeah, that's
weird, you know, then you hit 'em withyour dad could buy a machine gun, a
Canadian tire and see what they do.
But, you know, that doesn't always work.

(01:32:30):
We could go right back
to like 1962 and it'd be great.
Daniel, thank you so much.
I really enjoyed chatting with you.
Um, always a breath of fresh air.
Always learn somethingwhen I talk with you.
And for the listeners, of course, there'sgonna be links in the description to your
website where they can subscribe to teCaliber Bank, social media, all the rest.

(01:32:53):
Um, and if they had questions, ifthey have, uh, thoughts or ideas on
anything that's been covered in here.
Throw it in the comments.
I read every single one of them.
I'm sure you do as well, Dan.
Yep.
Dan, thanks so much.
Thank you.

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Ep. 159: After the Election: What Now for Canada's Firearms Community?

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