Jon Patton: Gun Collective, Firearm Industry & GunCon

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Liberty and Equipped Podcast I'm Greg Davis, founder of NeoMag. This podcast is about living boldly, using liberty for good and staying equipped in mindset, skill set and gear for whatever comes your way. Today's episode is ad free but it's made possible by NeoMag. We build innovative American made gear to help you stay better equipped. If you want to support the company and get great gear, head to theneomag.com or support us for free. Subscribe Leave a Review Share the Podcast we'd love to hear from you. You can email us@lifelibertyequip with1pmail.com also host with me today is Nate Hills and Tiberius Giblin. [00:00:40] Speaker C: Howdy ho good neighbor. [00:00:42] Speaker B: Hey guys. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Howdy, howdy. [00:00:44] Speaker B: And today we have a guest. Today's guest is a name that's become synonymous with honesty, innovation and forward momentum in the firearms industry. Jon Patton is the creator and host of the Gun Collective where for the past decade he's built a reputation for calling it like it is, delivering fast paced, no nonsense content that keeps both the audience and industry accountable. He's also the founder of Patent Media and Consulting, a company dedicated to helping brands in the firearms space actually show the world what makes their products great through high level media production, marketing strategy and a deep understanding of the industry. And if that's not enough, John is the driving force behind guncon, a curated, high caliber event that brings together manufacturers, engineers and leaders to showcase innovation, craftsmanship and the future of the industry in a hands on, immersive environment. At his core, John is a self proclaimed nerd. Cars, guns, science, you name it. But what really sets him apart is his commitment to integrity, education and pushing the industry forward through strong relationships and honest conversation. John, welcome to the show. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Thank you for that intro. Oh my gosh, you make me sound like I know what I'm doing. Wow, that's, you know, I, I, I read that and when you sent over the show notes and I'm like man, I sound like, like a pro and I don't feel like one ever. [00:02:09] Speaker B: You're, you're a pro in my heart John. [00:02:11] Speaker A: Well, thank you, thank you. Well, you've been here for a while. You and I go way, way, way back and like you were one of the first supporters of the Gun Collective and that's you and I, Greg, have known each other. We've had one of the longest relationships that I've had in the entire industry. So it's awesome to see how you guys have grown and succeeded over the years. Too. [00:02:33] Speaker B: I appreciate that. No, I think you are. You're the first industry person I can recall talking to. I remember being in my first room in my first basement and talking to you going, hey, I'm a brand new company. I have no money. How can you help me? And you did. So. Yeah. Yeah. We've been working together for a long time. We've shot a lot of sporting clays together. We've. You know, it's funny. I think that's the only. No, that's absolutely the truth. Absolutely the truth. But the funny thing is, even though we're in the gun industry, I think that's the only guns we've shot together is shooting clays. I don't think we've shot pistol or rifle or. [00:03:14] Speaker A: That's correct. Yeah. I don't think we've ever shot anything else together. But every time I see you, that's all I want to do is shoot sporting clays. [00:03:23] Speaker B: Oh, I was waiting for you. Every time I want to see it. Every time I see you, I want to shoot. [00:03:26] Speaker C: Just leave it at that. Every time I want to see you, I want to shoot you. [00:03:28] Speaker B: I want to shoot you. [00:03:29] Speaker C: Leave it there. [00:03:31] Speaker A: It's not that violent. Not yet. [00:03:35] Speaker B: So, yeah. We've known each other for a long time. It's been really cool to see you, John, grow and adapt. It's been cool, honestly. It's been cool to see you adapt to just how the industry has changed over the last 10 years, seeing how the gun Collective has changed, just what. What the Gun Collective has done for the industry. And we're actually kind of getting a little bit more of that later. Sure. [00:03:56] Speaker A: Really? [00:03:56] Speaker B: I kind of want to start out with just people getting to know you, you know, I know you. I think you're a pretty cool guy. [00:04:03] Speaker C: He's got a nice beard. [00:04:04] Speaker B: I think you're swell. Oh, he's got a beautiful beard, you [00:04:06] Speaker D: know, and a great laugh. I love John's laugh. [00:04:09] Speaker B: That's true. He's got that laugh that when you're. You can be a gun con where there's like a thousand people act into a room and when John laughs, you [00:04:15] Speaker A: will hear that laugh. [00:04:16] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:04:17] Speaker B: It cuts through the crowd. [00:04:19] Speaker C: That's great. [00:04:19] Speaker A: I mean, I have. There' something about the way I speak that cuts through everything. I'm loud and I know how to project where most people just don't. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. [00:04:33] Speaker A: It's like built in loudness. [00:04:35] Speaker C: She also have one of those ASMR voices that is just pleasant to listen to. [00:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:39] Speaker A: So I would Listen to. [00:04:40] Speaker B: That's good. [00:04:41] Speaker A: That's good. [00:04:42] Speaker B: I would listen to you read the phone book, John. That's how. That's how much I like your voice. [00:04:46] Speaker D: Do they still have phone books or [00:04:47] Speaker A: is that like online? That's. That's how, you know you're old. Like people. Kids, like your kids probably have never seen a phone book. Right. [00:04:59] Speaker B: You know what? [00:05:00] Speaker C: My kids haven't. [00:05:01] Speaker B: I. I think they have, but it's. I remember year, a few years ago, one just showed up on our porch. [00:05:06] Speaker C: They always did. [00:05:07] Speaker B: And we're just like, what? Yeah, but this is like recent. We all look at it like, what is this? And why is this here? [00:05:13] Speaker A: And it's way smaller than it used to be, too. [00:05:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:15] Speaker B: It was way thinner back in the day. They were. [00:05:17] Speaker C: Well, back in the day, you could tape it up and use. To shoot at and it would catch bullets. It was thick enough, so. [00:05:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:05:24] Speaker C: At least that's what I would do with them. [00:05:25] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:26] Speaker C: Because even by the time I was like, I remember phone books. But even by the time I was graduating high school, they weren't being used by any normal human beings. Just old people, older folks. Yeah. [00:05:39] Speaker B: So, yeah, I remember. I clearly remember being a kid getting my. Taking the phone off the wall. Let's attach my cord and looking in the phone book and dialing the number and. Yeah. [00:05:52] Speaker C: Yeah. You could always find. I could always find my mom. Because you could just follow the cord. Yeah. Of the phone to wherever she was because it was super long. It could go all over the house, but you just follow the cord. [00:06:03] Speaker B: Oh, there's Mom. [00:06:03] Speaker A: Yep. Right. And you also used to be able to do prank calls, which you definitely cannot do now. [00:06:08] Speaker C: Nope. Absolutely not. [00:06:09] Speaker A: It doesn't work anymore. It's no fun. The Jerky boys will live in infamy forever. [00:06:15] Speaker C: It's true. It's true. [00:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Good memories. [00:06:19] Speaker C: So we've established John's old. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm older than you though, right, John? [00:06:24] Speaker A: Pretty sure I'm 42. I have no idea. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Out. [00:06:28] Speaker B: I got you by a couple years. [00:06:29] Speaker C: Tib, you're. I'm just like a growing 36 year old. [00:06:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Youngest one here. [00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Tib's the. No, Tib's the oldest one here. Yeah, I'm the. I'm. It's not often that I'm middle. Yeah. [00:06:40] Speaker C: Slash bottom. [00:06:41] Speaker B: Middle, bottom, middle. That doesn't happen very often. [00:06:42] Speaker C: Nope. [00:06:43] Speaker B: So, thanks, guys. I appreciate having you on. [00:06:46] Speaker A: That's what we're here for. [00:06:49] Speaker B: So, John, tell us a little bit about. About you. Like, if You. What are three things? You're pick three things. What are three things that you would want people to know about you, About John, To. [00:06:59] Speaker A: Like if I was trying to describe myself to someone. Yeah. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Or just what are three. I don't know, three notable things about you that are important to nobody or you want the people to know about you? [00:07:11] Speaker A: What? I guess, like, if I would like to be remembered by something, it would be always wanting to laugh. Like just constantly trying to laugh about something because the world is full of horrors and trying to find ways to laugh about things that's very important to me. I also consider myself infinitely curious. I'm constantly trying to learn and just evolve my own thinking and understand the world around me so that I can, you know, process things and then potentially communicate that because I have. I believe that I have an ability to disseminate information that's complicated in a easier to understand manner than most people. And I. I don't know, everything comes down to me being just like jovial, loud, that, that sort of stuff. Just, I try to. I try to enjoy as much as I can. [00:08:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. I think you nailed yourself. Wait, you described yourself. Well, yeah, anyway, so you want to [00:08:23] Speaker C: roll with that one. [00:08:24] Speaker A: Sure. [00:08:28] Speaker B: So you do a lot of different things. I. I just. [00:08:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:30] Speaker B: Just from the, like a little thing I've read off there, you know, you have at least. At least right there. And I'm pretty sure you may even have a couple other things we can get into a little more lately. But those are kind of the main three things. But like, what does a normal day look like for you as you're trying to juggle all this? [00:08:45] Speaker A: There's no such thing. [00:08:46] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:47] Speaker A: I don't have normal days. My. You know, they say when you go to start your own business, you will never work more. Like, you know, if I had a job where I worked for a company, I would actually have, like, proper days off. [00:09:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:04] Speaker A: And even on my days off, like when I'm spending time with my lady, like, I'm still, you know, expecting myself to answer an email, answer a phone call, you know, hand handle the things that make the. The business work so that I can go back to relaxing for five minutes. You know what I mean? Like, I am, I am so I'm busier now than I've ever been in my life. Just between gun con and trying to build a better life for myself and build a family, it's just I am, I am very busy. Yeah. [00:09:47] Speaker C: Well, I mean, even, even just the, the building the family on Itself, like outside of work. And yeah, it's, that is plenty of work outside of working for yourself. And also not getting time off or not as getting as much time off as you would normally with a 9 to 5. The building, the family by itself is a whole job. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't know what I'm doing, you know, like, I don't, I don't know. [00:10:11] Speaker B: Say that again. [00:10:12] Speaker C: I said, do any of us, I don't think any of us. [00:10:13] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know. I feel like the biggest misconception that kids have is that adults know what they're doing. You know, like I, I had that realization. I, I remember when I started like full time content creation and I showed my dad a pretty big check and I was like. And you know, at the time it was, you know, game changing for me. Now I'm not sure that that same amount would fly, but it was a, it was a sizable check. And I'm like, look, this is real. And you know, he was, he was just flabbergasted. And I think that's just kind of how life is. Yeah, you just go as hard as you can and try. But I also think that a lot of people aren't equipped mentally to be able to take the risk that a lot of content creators take. Like, it's a huge risk. My job could disappear in a snap of a finger. When somebody gets a bug up their butt at, you know, one of these social media companies, it could really genuinely affect my income. And that's scary. But it's a risk I'm willing to take right now. [00:11:25] Speaker C: Well, one of the things that I feel like has changed a lot. You know, you've been doing this for 10 years, but, and I see you combating this in the comments on your social media all the time is like you're primarily, I think you correct me if I'm wrong, but you're still primarily on YouTube, right? That's where most of your content lives. [00:11:42] Speaker A: Well, I mean we're, we're everywhere and we've been everywhere for a long time. So it, it comes in waves and it shifts. Like I put a lot of focus on YouTube right now, but in the past I put a lot of focus on to Facebook. I have sure an audience of 730 some thousand followers on Facebook, which is more than on YouTube. It's a different platform altogether. I have 113,000. And I know these numbers because I looked at them earlier today. [00:12:12] Speaker C: You don't just have always memorized the background. [00:12:15] Speaker A: No that would be kind of neurotic. But I've got big audiences in all these places and we put content in all these various places. Like, my Rumble audience is growing. My X audience is growing. Because, you know, it's. I think this is a strategy that gets missed by a lot of creators. They focus on one platform only, and then, you know, if that goes away, that's it. That's all they've got. They build, you know, a huge Instagram following, and that's all they do. Like, well, what about the rest of the people that you're missing? [00:12:45] Speaker C: Yeah, well, what I was gonna say is, I can remember, though, multiple people saying, we'll get off YouTube and go to one of the other independent. [00:12:51] Speaker A: God's sake. [00:12:52] Speaker C: Well, but that's. [00:12:53] Speaker B: That's the. [00:12:53] Speaker C: That's the comment that I see you combating all the time, which is, well, why are you still on YouTube? They don't like us. They don't like, you know, gun people go to. I mean, you mentioned a couple, like, Rumble and that kind of stuff. It's like, yeah, well, we can do that, but we're not going to leave that space either right now. Because like you said, you've got a large audience there that enjoys your content and just to pick up and leave. [00:13:13] Speaker A: Not only that, but they're talking to me on the platform that they say they hate. [00:13:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:13:19] Speaker A: If you actually hated this and had any bit of guts, you'd bail. But if the audience is there, the creators have to be. It's a very big catch 22. [00:13:29] Speaker C: Right. [00:13:29] Speaker B: Like, you're proving the point of why I'm still here. Because. [00:13:32] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:32] Speaker B: You haven't left this platform. You're still here. That's why I have to be here, because everybody is still here. [00:13:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's a very strange thing. I. I don't know. I know YouTube has gone through iterations of being more strict or less strict or whatever. Same with Facebook. You know, like, my. My Facebook page has grown. Oh, my goodness, like 60, 70,000 in the last six months. [00:13:59] Speaker B: Wow, that's funny. [00:14:00] Speaker A: We're just. It was flatlined for years. [00:14:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, but we were just talking about. [00:14:05] Speaker A: Took off. [00:14:05] Speaker B: We were just talking about this in our meeting on Monday, actually yesterday. Michael, who runs our media, he's like. He's like, Instagram says YouTube's dead right now for us. [00:14:16] Speaker C: Not. [00:14:16] Speaker B: Not for. Yeah, just. Which, which. We've seen these. These spikes and valleys happen before. So it's. [00:14:23] Speaker A: But. [00:14:23] Speaker B: Sure, but, but. But right now, YouTube's dead. Instagram's doing okay, but Facebook is. Is going nuts. Whereas two months ago, we would have told you. Probably told you the opposite. [00:14:31] Speaker D: Opposite. [00:14:32] Speaker C: Well, I can remember, I think it was 2022 when our YouTube went crazy with just the shorts. People started paying attention to our shorts on YouTube. All of a sudden, shorts that had been on there for a year or two all of a sudden were gaining millions of views. Yeah. And it was out of nowhere. Yeah. We've just been doing what we'd always done, you know, consistently, and then it kind of blew up. Well, Facebook is apparently doing the same thing right now. [00:14:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's weird. [00:14:57] Speaker D: Strange. All right, John, getting out of working in the gun industry, what do you do away from firearms that you actually enjoy doing? [00:15:08] Speaker A: Okay. So number one is just spending time with my, my family, you know, like that. That is not something I get to do as much as I want. So that's a big deal. Beyond that, like, if I had a choice, doing something with my lady and my family, that would be great. Right. Sporting Clays. It, you know, it is a gun thing, but that's my favorite thing to do with a gun. And something car related. Like, those are kind of top tier for me. [00:15:44] Speaker C: When you say car related, what do you. What do you mean? [00:15:50] Speaker A: Well, it's kind of open. Like, I enjoy all of it. I used to have a fun car. I've got a van project that is seemingly unending, and I may never see my van again. [00:16:02] Speaker B: I was gonna ask about your van at some point here. [00:16:04] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. That's a disaster. So I'm supposed to get that back any day now. You know, I've been saying that you had it, right. Yeah, yeah. It's a whole thing. So the traveling, the van stuff, you know, any bit of horsepower. I enjoy rally racing, drag, you name it, I'm into it. If it's got an engine and something mechanical, sure. That sounds cool. Let's go. [00:16:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:34] Speaker C: Cool. [00:16:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:35] Speaker C: I mean that you, you fall on that line of times, Greg. Not always, but, like, you go in and out of that, enjoying all of that stuff. [00:16:42] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I love. I, I, unfortunately, I don't get to, like, own and work on that stuff, but I love watching it. I love, you know, honestly, most of the content that I consume on YouTube is probably car content. [00:16:54] Speaker A: Are you like a throttle house guy or where do you fall, man? [00:16:58] Speaker B: I follow a bunch of different ones. I still like following, you know, Hammond and those guys from. [00:17:06] Speaker A: Oh, sure, yeah. [00:17:07] Speaker B: You know, I, I like, I watch all that stuff as it comes out. And you Know, I like watching some of these channels. That was a car. Car something where they, I, I also think it's in Europe, but they, they [00:17:19] Speaker A: like to race different. [00:17:20] Speaker B: They'll race like a supercar next to a well car. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I watch a lot of that. So, yeah, I'll watch. I watch this. But anything I, I follow F1. Now the question. I watch and following that, I, I do love rallying. It's just so hard to find and follow and keep up with here. [00:17:39] Speaker A: Yeah, there, there was a time in like the early 2000s, mid-2000s, when that was a little more accessible. They would play WWRC races on ESPN and stuff on like Saturday mornings. That, that was like the heyday and it's just not the same anymore. At least watching the races, but doing that kind of stuff is a lot of fun. Yeah, driving any kind of car at horrendous speeds is fun. [00:18:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I've never driven them at horrendous speeds. I've ridden in them at horrendous speeds. [00:18:16] Speaker A: That's way worse. You want to drive. You want to drive. Being a passenger is just like, jesus, take the wheel. [00:18:22] Speaker C: Well, I did it with a professional car race. So, yeah, it was, I mean, there was still nerve wracking moments, but. But I felt pretty much safer. Yeah, Safe in his hands. [00:18:31] Speaker B: So we actually, and this is kind of a longer story. I'll skip the story, but. But we got to sponsor a local IMSA race team. [00:18:39] Speaker A: Oh, wow. That's cool. [00:18:40] Speaker B: Yeah, the main driver, Mark Michael McCann Jr. And his dad were customers. So again, it's kind of a, Kind of a cool long story, but we ended up sponsoring this team. Well, they had us come out to the track. The had us come out to mid Ohio and they had. [00:18:53] Speaker A: Mid Ohio is such a cool track. [00:18:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. Yeah. And it's 45 minutes away. [00:18:57] Speaker C: Yeah, Maybe not even quite that, but yeah. [00:19:00] Speaker B: And so they had us come out. They had, they had a Ferrari. They had a souped up gtr. They had, they have. [00:19:06] Speaker C: They didn't have the Porsche. One of their friends had the Porsche because there was a Porsche there. [00:19:11] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a Porsche. There was the. Honestly, the most fun thing is they had a. Actually, it wasn't them. It was somebody else that was there. Had an aerial atom. [00:19:19] Speaker A: I got to go around all the atom. [00:19:21] Speaker B: Oh, I got to go around the track. I got. I got to go around a track in an atom where you're like an inch off the ground, fully exposed, doing 100 some miles an hour down straights it was super fun, honestly. He barely slowed down in the turns because there's just so much grip. [00:19:34] Speaker A: You don't have to. [00:19:34] Speaker B: No. But yeah, that was super fun. That was the fastest I'd been, I think in the Ferrari. We hit 200 at least on that. On the main street. [00:19:42] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm trying to remember because he had asked me, he's like, what is the fastest that you've gone in a car? And I think at that point it had been like 120 or maybe it was like 100, I can't remember. Something like that. And he asked me what it was and I said, he goes, oh, we're gonna beat that today. And he slammed down on the accelerator. Away we went. It was great. Yeah, so a lot of fun. [00:20:04] Speaker B: I do love cars. I love going fast. I would love to drive. I know there's a. I know there's a rally school not too far within a couple hours of us here that I've heard about. [00:20:16] Speaker A: There's a place in New Hampshire right [00:20:19] Speaker D: across the street from Ridgeline, right? [00:20:21] Speaker A: Yeah, Ridgeline, which is one of the coolest training places in the northeast, is right next to o' Neal rally School, which is one of the best rally schools in the country. And last I checked, we have a, we all have a friend that does stuff with Ridgeline. I don't know if it's public information, so I won't share it. But yeah, that place is cool. Like just that, that the idea of being able to learn how to drive effectively and then also train with your gun right there. Sounds like a month long project. [00:20:53] Speaker D: They need like a joint class though, where you jump. [00:20:56] Speaker A: I would bet money they have that. [00:20:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that would be cool. [00:21:00] Speaker A: Take a Crown Vic off road or something. Oh my gosh. [00:21:04] Speaker B: So, John, it sounds like we need to all get together and go do this together and make content from it. [00:21:10] Speaker A: That sounds fun. [00:21:11] Speaker B: Let's do it. [00:21:12] Speaker A: Well, John, my band back. [00:21:16] Speaker C: So, John, we've kind of touched on, you know, what you do for a living. We touched some things you want to do for fun, but hypothetical for you. So if everything you're doing in the firearms industry suddenly went away, so the worst case scenario, we all talk about all of these media companies put the final hammer down on, on what we're doing. What would you pursue next? What would you want to build next from there? Would you continue pursuing media or would you change it up? [00:21:41] Speaker A: I think I'm built to share with the world. I think that's. I don't know if it is my ultimate calling. But I think I'm pretty, pretty darn good at it. And I would probably fall into some sort of science based content or car, you know, automotive content of some sort. I feel like that's where I would end up going. Just because that's already an interest of mine and I feel like I can already speak passionately about it. Like I have a favorite chemical compound. That's weird. [00:22:22] Speaker C: That is weird, John. [00:22:24] Speaker B: Nerd. [00:22:25] Speaker A: Oh, what is it? [00:22:26] Speaker D: We need to know. [00:22:27] Speaker A: Manganese heptoxide. [00:22:28] Speaker C: Why is it your favorite? [00:22:29] Speaker B: Sounds fun. [00:22:30] Speaker A: Because you touch it and it can explode. [00:22:33] Speaker C: Okay, that's pretty cool. [00:22:34] Speaker A: It's very, very unstable and therefore really, [00:22:37] Speaker C: really neat and potentially, you know, life threatening, but that's fine. [00:22:41] Speaker A: Potentially a huge problem, but still very, very cool. [00:22:44] Speaker C: Yeah, that is cool. How do you work with a compound that will explode if you touch it? That's the real question. [00:22:49] Speaker A: Gently. [00:22:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:50] Speaker A: I mean, very carefully. Very carefully. You need a fume hood or do it outside. [00:22:56] Speaker C: Yeah, fair enough. All right. We also have, we have a question we've asked a couple people. It's a difficult question. We wrestled with it. [00:23:04] Speaker B: I actually gave John a heads up on this one. So past couple guests, I've just dropped this, drop this on him and it usually turns into crickets. So I was like, with John, I'm going to give him a heads up and actually sounds like maybe you had this question before. [00:23:14] Speaker C: So go for it. [00:23:15] Speaker B: If you could live one day of your life again, not to change it, just to relive it, what would it be? [00:23:20] Speaker A: I wouldn't, I don't think I would do that. Because all of those things have compounded to make me who I am right now. And I wouldn't want to play with that. There are many moments I would like to change, but I don't think, I don't think I would change or I, I don't think, I don't think going back would gain me anything. [00:23:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that I think, you know, kind of. Yeah, it's just to kind of enjoy it again. Like if it was a. Because I'm assuming you want to go back and do something that was enjoyable, so. [00:24:00] Speaker C: No, I want to go back. [00:24:04] Speaker A: Well, there are days, you know, like, I get emotional. I would love to see my dad again. [00:24:08] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. [00:24:09] Speaker A: I would. But that, that's not really the point of that. Exercise is like, oh, what, what did you do that you loved? [00:24:18] Speaker C: Sure. [00:24:20] Speaker A: I mean, I would be like, oh, I, I shot clays with Greg. That was a great day. You know, we went out with Tony that was incredible. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Mm. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Let's do that again. Those are the kinds of things that come to my mind. But like, that, as an experiment, I feel like. I feel like so many people want to relive and change and modify and. And try and become something else. And I don't think that's what we're meant to do. I think we already have too much knowledge of the world. I think people are hyper fixated on other places. Like, I don't think people should. I don't think it's healthy for humans to be as famous as we are. You know, like these celebrities, once they reach a certain level of fame where the world shrinks, I think they lose their minds. Yeah. And I don't think it's a healthy place to be. And I don't. I don't know that going down a road like that. I know this is not really the point of that question, but, like, why? What? I don't. I don't. For me, I would rather soak up knowledge or, or try and become a better person through continued experience rather than past experience over again. Does that make sense? Sure. [00:25:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:34] Speaker D: Answer? [00:25:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:25:37] Speaker D: We got a couple quick fire questions for you. What firearm are you currently carrying? Not right this moment, just in general. [00:25:46] Speaker A: So I actually talked about this. Very funny. I talked about it this week on TGC News that it's going out this Wednesday. So this show goes out Wednesday. Anyway, I think it lines up like the same. Same day. I currently carry HK VP9. No optic. Very basic setup in a holster from a company that doesn't exist anymore. And I want to change that, but we have gone through so many good guns that I don't know where to go with it. Like, I haven't. I haven't landed on anything. I'm kind of thinking maybe like an Echelon 365 Canik somewhere in there. But. So there's VP9. And I use a. Either a core essentials belt or a groove life belt. And I also sometimes carry with the arrowhead tactical stuff. They have, like, sweatpants that have an inner belt that's got a. It's like a gun belt thing. [00:26:48] Speaker C: Yep. They're super comfy. [00:26:52] Speaker A: And I also, I have carried for a very long time Lehigh Defense Ammo, the Extreme Defender bullet in my guns because I know from firsthand experience that it is the best projectile on the market. [00:27:05] Speaker B: Nice. [00:27:06] Speaker A: It's funny. [00:27:07] Speaker D: He answered all the questions I was going to ask you. Gun, holster, ammo, and belt. And your name. You nailed all four of them. [00:27:14] Speaker A: I saw the show notes. [00:27:16] Speaker D: How did you know all that? [00:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw the show notes. I know where you're going with this. Come on. [00:27:21] Speaker D: All right, all right. Any. Any other favorite gear for. [00:27:26] Speaker A: For like edc? [00:27:27] Speaker B: Yeah, any picture. Anything else you can. [00:27:31] Speaker A: I like cheap pocket knives for opening boxes, but I've been carrying a tungsten carbide knife from a company called Olive Like. Like, you know, an olive that you would put in your drink. It's on a tree, those sorts of things. Olive oil. They make some really cool blades. And I got a folder from them, a folding pocket knife. It's quite large, but it has held up incredibly well. That tungsten carbide is incredible. And that's in my pocket every day. And I've got, you know, one of those kind of square wallets that stretches out. I don't know. That's. That's kind of it. I don't carry a lot of garbage in my pockets like some folks do. I do keep a med kit in the car and, you know, there are things that are accessible, but like on my person, I don't keep a ton of extra junk. [00:28:19] Speaker B: Gotcha. I'm just. [00:28:21] Speaker C: It was surprised you said the VP9. I don't know anyone that uses those anymore. I remember when they were like the hot new gun on the market that everyone thought was. I think again, it was one of the many Glock killers out there. But I don't think I know anyone that, that actually carries the VP9 anymore. Yeah, now I do. [00:28:43] Speaker A: I have carried it longer than I should. So I went from I carried an XDS45 for a long time, then I carried an HK45, the full size for a long time. And I really like the paddle mag release. I think it's faster than a button by a long shot for me. And so I stuck with the VP9. And I have other versions of a VP9 back here. [00:29:12] Speaker C: You don't have that many guys back there. There's only one or two. [00:29:15] Speaker B: There's a couple back there. [00:29:16] Speaker A: There's a couple. There's some weird stuff. Like I. I've just started getting some that, that I'm like with this one right here. That is an AMT Automag 5. It's a 50 AE handgun that almost nobody has anymore. [00:29:32] Speaker C: You should definitely can carry that one. [00:29:34] Speaker D: Yeah. Yep, that should be the one. [00:29:36] Speaker A: It's. [00:29:36] Speaker D: It's gigantic. [00:29:38] Speaker A: Oh, no, sorry. That's the javelina that I'm pointing at. I look back there, that's the javelina, which is a 6 or 7 inch barrel, 10 mil 1911. [00:29:46] Speaker C: Even better. [00:29:47] Speaker B: Oh, I bet that thing's fun. [00:29:49] Speaker A: It's just some weird stuff. [00:29:51] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, there's probably fewer people that have shot more guns than, than you. It's part, it's part of your job. So to me, it's interesting that, that you landed on the, on the HK and you stayed on it. Just with all the guns you shot. I'm surprised that that's the one, that there's something else hasn't come up. You're like, oh, well, this has to go in my pants right now. [00:30:11] Speaker A: There have been plenty of guns that are better than the VP9. I just don't feel like going through the rigamarole of swapping it out. [00:30:18] Speaker C: I mean, I get it. [00:30:19] Speaker A: Like, that's it. It's just. It has nothing to do with how good I like my VP9. Right. Like, it's a. It's a good gun. I can shoot it pretty well. [00:30:26] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and you have a holster [00:30:28] Speaker A: that works way better. I just haven't swapped. [00:30:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it is. There is the benefit of, you know it, you're familiar with it, you have the equipment you need to carry it. So it's gonna do the job. Like it. That's the thing. Like, ultimately it's gonna do the job. So does it really matter to switch it out? I mean, again, you get to play with guns all the time. The one you carry doesn't have to be super sexy. [00:30:54] Speaker A: Right. I. I'm. I'm actively like, I've been looking for a new carry gun for like three years. I just haven't landed on one. [00:31:01] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Because every time we try a new one, I'm like, ah, well, maybe that's not the one. Maybe this one over here is better. I don't know. I don't know. We just. There's a review going out later today as of this recording of the Rost Martin RM1S comp. And that is actually the best subcompact that we've scored on our rating list of. Of all the things that one has done, the best out of all of the subcompacts. [00:31:27] Speaker B: It's the longest name. [00:31:28] Speaker C: I was gonna say that that's just a random name. [00:31:31] Speaker A: It's almost as bad as Smith and Wesson. Yeah, their. Their names are like Performance Center. M. No, M&P9. Rights reserved. Oh yeah, well, when M 2.0. Rights reserved. Blah blah blah blah, Metal this, that, the other. [00:31:52] Speaker C: But they even. They don't even name some of them well anymore. Like, I. None of them are I carry. I mean, Smith is. I like. I like Smith. It's no secret to anyone that knows who I am that I like Smith. But they don't name them, like, at least Glock. You have Glock 19. You have Glock 17. You can be very specific about it. I'm like, I carry an mp. And they're like, well, which one? I'm like, well, it's the. [00:32:14] Speaker A: They only made it on this one day. You're like a Corvette guy. [00:32:17] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. It's like, well, it's that one that they did the one time, and I got that. [00:32:20] Speaker A: I don't even have one color. [00:32:22] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's. It's. They aren't great about it. [00:32:26] Speaker A: It's. [00:32:26] Speaker C: That's. That's real. [00:32:28] Speaker B: I don't know of any gun company that really has the naming down, because I hate Glock's naming. [00:32:33] Speaker C: Yeah, they don't make any sense. [00:32:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:35] Speaker A: Not logical at all. [00:32:37] Speaker B: It's just they keep adding more. So you just keep adding more adjectives onto these. [00:32:42] Speaker C: The only one that makes sense for glock is the 17, because it's a 17 round. The only one that's the only one that has ever made any sense to me. And I don't think it has anything to do with the round count, but in my brain. Glock 17. 17 rounds. Makes sense. [00:32:53] Speaker B: Makes sense. [00:32:54] Speaker A: Well, there's also the Glock 40, which is a 10 mil. [00:32:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, 45. [00:32:58] Speaker A: The Glock 45 is a 9 mil. Yep. What? [00:33:01] Speaker C: That doesn't make any sense. [00:33:02] Speaker A: No, the Glock 22 is not a 22. [00:33:04] Speaker D: It's a 40. [00:33:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And the. The. What is it? I had a brain fart. The. And basically any of the numbers that they have are not what you would expect from them. The HK, what I was going to say is the HK45 is the model number. That's the model name. It's a. It's an H and K HK 45. That's confusing. And as I said, that's just a terrible name. [00:33:33] Speaker C: It's just bored. [00:33:33] Speaker B: Something we should do a whole. Do a whole episode just on gun names. Gun names. [00:33:37] Speaker C: Because that. [00:33:38] Speaker B: Like Cheetah. [00:33:39] Speaker A: All of them are bad. There's not. There's not. [00:33:41] Speaker B: A Cheetah should never be the name I would call. Good. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:43] Speaker C: The Beretta Cheetah. Yeah. Doesn't make sense. It's Brett A Cheetah adx. Yeah. [00:33:48] Speaker B: It's the worst. All right, moving on. [00:33:52] Speaker A: Moving on. [00:33:53] Speaker B: So I kind of want to get in about. I want to kind of talk about Business, all your businesses, you have a bunch of things that you like. [00:33:59] Speaker A: We can do that. [00:33:59] Speaker B: So what's the story behind. So the question I hear is actually kind of vague. So it's. The question is, what is the story behind how you started your business? Was a light bulb moment or more of a slow burn, I think. What. When I. This is. I'm thinking TGC is more what I'm thinking about here. But feel free to apply a question to any of the things you have going on. [00:34:19] Speaker A: So they were kind of all at the same time. So I had a channel before tgc. It was called Chaos three one one Clarity. It's still there. Like, there's a ton of old gun reviews on there. And that channel taught me a lot. I learned a lot about the gun industry. And at a certain point, I was actually ready to hang it up. I was about done because I hated the feeling of being sort of beholden to gun companies because at the time, the industry was a little bit less mature than it is now, and manufacturers were barking at me to, you know, get this video done. That it was not a good position to be in, and I was kind of sick of it. And then I had a call from a company here in Pennsylvania that was the sister company of Lehigh Defense, and they asked me to come do, like, a commercial or something for them. And in order to facilitate that, I had to have a business because, like, we're charging real money and, you know, like, all this sort of stuff. So that was patent, media and consulting. That was born in, like, January of 2015 or whatever, when it was around that time frame. Well, In February of 2015, the Gun Collective was born about two feet from where I'm currently sitting. Like, I had a whiteboard here. Like, right. Basically right where the camera is, I had a whiteboard that we, like, wrote down with. It was me and. And some friends, and I wrote down, you know, what the Gun Collective would be in this news program would be. And it was unlike anything the gun industry had at the time. And weirdly enough, it's kind of unlike anything that's still out there that I'm aware of. There's. We're still fairly unique. There might be one or two, but we're still fairly unique. [00:36:21] Speaker C: Let's say. Your approach is different for sure. [00:36:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:24] Speaker A: And there are, you know, lots of people do news, but, you know, like you said, we try to be different. So that was. That was kind of how TGC was born. And then we didn't launch TGC until June that year. So June of 2015 is when the first episode aired. I had sponsors lined up. I had test episodes. There are still episodes that are on YouTube that no one has seen because they're just private. Say what? [00:36:53] Speaker C: They're just private. The mark's private, so no one can see. [00:36:55] Speaker A: Yeah, well, they're not good. You know, it was like, let's show these to people. Let's get the feedback back and. And let's make sure that what we're going to deliver was pretty cool. And it went over really, really well. It grew really, really fast. And, you know, here we are 10 years and beyond. 10 years was June of 2025. So I mean, we're. We're in the. The next stages and I don't know. It's wild. [00:37:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:32] Speaker A: And then along the way. So a lot of people know that I do tgc, but there's also this whole other side where I've done. I mentioned Lehigh Defense. I did a lot of marketing and influencer marketing kind of stuff with them for them and help that brand grow. And that's how I got the experience with the projectiles. I saw everybody in the industry's bullets. We shot them through glass and steel and this and that. We. We tested them all. And for example, if you go back, like Military Arms channel, Iraq vet 8888 and some of the old videos where there was Lehigh ammo tested and there's slow mo video. I filmed the slow mo video. [00:38:09] Speaker C: Oh, cool. [00:38:10] Speaker A: I was behind the. The camera running that. So, like, it got me a lot of experience with some larger channels and how they operated their business and yada, yada, yada. Like that consulting side of the business has persisted and I'm still doing it. And then, you know, somewhere along the lines, I started doing what later became the TGC panel. Like the first one. I can't remember what year it was. [00:38:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I was there. [00:38:37] Speaker A: But it was like a YouTuber panel at NRA annual meeting. This was years and years and years ago. And then we ended up doing stuff like coinciding with where and when annual NRA annual meeting was. And then that is started to evolve and got get bigger and better. And then we had a company pull the rug out from under us during COVID And then, you know, we were talking to the title sponsor, which is Brownells at the time. And then Gun Con was born. Like, they were like, hey, do it here. So we were given a place to do Gun Con. And here we are. This is year five of Gun Con. And we still got all the other things going on. [00:39:24] Speaker B: That's kind of crazy. [00:39:25] Speaker A: It's been a long, twisty road. [00:39:27] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. It's, it's, it's kind of neat to hear how they're all, how they're all connected. Just. Oh, yeah, it goes from one one to the next. Yeah, that's interesting. [00:39:36] Speaker D: Leads to the next opportunity. [00:39:39] Speaker C: Well, and John, we know. So again, we just established you've been here for, you've been in the industry. Now we're pushing the 11th year. Well, technically more than that, with the, the channel you had prior to the Gun collective and everything. [00:39:50] Speaker A: Yeah, my first gun video was like 2012, I think, something like that. [00:39:54] Speaker C: So you've been in the space for. Well over. Well, that would put you almost at 15 years. You're, you're closing in on 15 years. [00:40:01] Speaker A: It's been a long time. It's been a long time. [00:40:04] Speaker C: And we know, especially when it comes to media and social, to social media and content consistency is a big part of it, which means you're constantly having to create content, find new things. So what keeps you from burning out doing this along the way? [00:40:20] Speaker A: Nothing. Nothing. Laughing. I see the energy drink in front of them. [00:40:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Monster and laughing. [00:40:29] Speaker A: This, this is a no sweetener energy drink. This tastes like battery acid. [00:40:35] Speaker C: Oh, wonderful. [00:40:36] Speaker B: They all taste like battery acid in the acid. [00:40:38] Speaker A: I don't care. This is, this is more about not taking in as much junk and still getting some energy because I'm not a huge coffee drinker. But I mean, the thing that carries it through is still the passion for it underneath. And that waves, you know, that, that really just ebbs and flows over time. Someday. Some weeks I just don't feel like doing it and other weeks I'm like, really excited about something new that's coming out. And I also get like a dopamine hit from my own content when we're doing new stuff, you know, like, I get, I get excited about new stuff. I've always been that way. Like, oh, what's the latest and greatest? What's the coolest thing out there? I used to follow, like, before I started making content, I used to follow blogs like Gizmodo and whatever. There was a car, one that was very similar to that. Jalopnik. That's what it was. [00:41:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:36] Speaker A: So like, I used to follow those and, and really got excited about all the new stuff. And that's always been something that has carried on. And now that I have a lot of experience, I feel like I can speak authentically about that. And it's also rewarding to be able to share some of that information. But like I'm burnt out all the time. I'm constantly burnt out. This is the most stress I've ever been under in my entire life. You know, I have, I have felt the weight of the world trying to run multiple businesses and all of that kind of stuff because that's the way it is. But if you want to, you know, push and grow something unique and special for yourself, you have to do that. [00:42:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:25] Speaker A: There is no easy route. [00:42:27] Speaker B: I was talking to somebody recently and we were talking about this because this question kind of came up to me as well and I'm like, I feel like at this point I kind of burnt out is the norm. Like you're just. It's throwing kindling on the burnt pile is what is at this point. Right. Like we've been doing the same thing for a decade now or trying to do the. And trying to, you know, I have to constantly try to come up with, with more ideas and try to adapt to the market and to customers and social media and all this stuff like that and. But honestly, I think that's part of what keeps us interesting too is, is, is try. Is if we didn't have to adapt, we'd get too comfortable. And then I think you get burnt out from being too comfortable. So. But I was saying, I really think it's burnt out is the norm now. It's just, what else can we throw into this to keep that fire going? [00:43:23] Speaker C: You're staying crispy all the time. [00:43:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Always crispy. [00:43:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:27] Speaker A: I feel, I feel very, very similar to that. Yeah. [00:43:31] Speaker D: So, John, I've watched your channel for a very long time. Back in the day when you used to shoot drywall with different shotgun loads. [00:43:38] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [00:43:39] Speaker D: That was the time I saw your channel a long time ago. And I always appreciated how it was kind of, no nonsense. You, you spoke your mind, you called out what you thought and I always appreciated that. [00:43:50] Speaker A: How do you balance? [00:43:52] Speaker D: You know, obviously we need to be honest as YouTubers and tell people what we think and the problems. And you still have maintaining relationships in a smallish industry. How have you balanced that? Because when I first started making videos that was hard for me to do. [00:44:08] Speaker A: I have pissed off a lot of people. [00:44:12] Speaker D: It comes down to. [00:44:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, at this point in my career, I think people accept and come to me because they want the no BS answer. You know, they don't. They know that I am unlikely to softball them. So I think that's why people have Come to respect if they're, if that's a word I can use, I don't know because I don't know what they're really feeling. But I think that's why people come to me is to get that straight up answer. But I, I, I'll give you an example. I was on the phone with a company yesterday with a product that did not perform like intended or like I expected. And they were like, you know, can, can we redo that project? And I was like, no, unless you change something, no, we're not going to do it. Yeah, you know, like that kind of direct and respectful answer is how I think that has worked out for me. And yes, I know for a fact that people have made false claims about me. I remember hearing a rumor and I never was able to substantiate this, but there was companies that have said that like I've purposely modified their guns to make them not work or you know, I'm saying things maliciously and that's just, that's never been the case. Because I would rather all the guns be awesome. Yeah, I would rather that. But you know, nobody wins in a scenario where the content creator is lying. Nobody wins from that. Well, I was gonna say there's a reason to do it. [00:45:57] Speaker C: The, the nice thing about this, even if something fails, everything's pushing innovation. So it goes back to keeping you excited because something new is coming. You know, it goes back to what you were talking about before. If everything just worked all the time, always like exactly how it was intended, it was perfect every time, there wouldn't be as much innovation. I don't think, because somebody's mistake pushes somebody to figure out how to do it better. So it's almost better that not everything works perfectly every single time. Because somebody that's going to push somebody to change something. [00:46:32] Speaker A: Hopefully that's not always the case. [00:46:34] Speaker C: Well, not, not for the, necessarily for the company that, you know, you discover the problem with. But maybe there's a customer that, or consumer that purchases that item and it doesn't work as intended. So that pushes them to the next step. I mean that's, that's how you were born. [00:46:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's kind of how the NeoMag [00:46:49] Speaker C: was born, was there was nothing on the market that did the thing and you created something that did it. So hopefully when people are running into these issues, it will push them to fix it in whatever form that is, regardless whether the company that has the issue or it's a consumer, that it pushes innovation forward. [00:47:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:07] Speaker A: And you know, like I. I even will catch crap from my own audience about certain stances that I've taken. For example, the magazines. Yeah, I took a. I took a hard stance. I was like, you know what? These guns are more expensive than they've ever been. Why are all guns coming with. Some guns come with one magazine and the guns, like 8, $900. Get out of here. Get out of here. That is crazy. Crazy. Especially when the Mag costs like $4 to make. most. Yep, at most. That's like on the high end of cost to make a magazine. That's crazy talk. So I went on this tirade and I said, look, these guns got to come with more magazines. And you know what's happening in the industry. We're seeing it change. Y. Yeah, I've. I had gun companies call me and go, hey, we put extra mags in the box now. Because you had been saying that, which is good. [00:48:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:03] Speaker A: What a simple thing, what I wanted. [00:48:07] Speaker B: Thank you. It seems like such a jerk, no brainer thing, honestly, what it makes me think is that these gun companies aren't. Aren't actually gun people to send one magazine with a gun. They have to. They don't. They don't understand what this thing's for and what you're supposed to do with it. [00:48:26] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I mean, I think I can remember when I was growing up, my dad's perspective on almost any of his semi auto, anything, rifle or pistol was. It had to have at least four mags. So everything he had had at least four mags. I actually, my first pistol was a Beretta 92 that I bought off of him, and I think I got 15 mags with it Now. He was also in the military, so he'd gotten issued. Well, he acquired some. [00:48:53] Speaker B: Acquired, you know, through that. [00:48:56] Speaker C: That period of time, but still, he'd bought more over time. And so when I got that gun, I had 15 mags. I'm like, I'm never gonna need. And in any scenario, 15 mags. But it was nice to have, you know, and it wasn't brand new to me. Like, it wasn't a brand new pistol. Not coming from Beretta. With 15, it was coming from. From my dad. But getting any gun and only getting a mag is just. [00:49:19] Speaker D: It's sad. [00:49:20] Speaker C: Hurts my feelings. [00:49:21] Speaker A: The audience has said things like, oh, well, I already own an AR15. I don't need another magazine. And I'm like, it's never been about need. No, it's about adding more value to the package. [00:49:33] Speaker C: Right. [00:49:34] Speaker A: Like, if you're gonna charge me fifteen hundred dollars for a basic, you know, one and a half MOA AR15. You're gonna charge me fifteen hundred dollars for that? Put three freaking two dollars magazines. Because I know they're not paying a ton for these. No, you know, like I know what this stuff costs. I know what it costs. And that rifle may be more in the box. [00:49:58] Speaker B: That rifle might be somebody's first rifle. [00:49:59] Speaker C: Yeah. So give them, give them the tools they need. Right there. [00:50:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:04] Speaker A: It's just asinine. And I think, I think the change is starting to come around. I think more and more companies are starting to get it through public shaming and I'm here for it. [00:50:17] Speaker B: So I, I think one of the things that's, that's helping. I noticed the last, last few guns that I've got, the magazines that come in the box are no longer made by the manufacturer. They're. They're working with Mech Meccar. Yeah. They're working with these companies. [00:50:31] Speaker A: What's the other one? [00:50:34] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a bunch of them. You know, magpul this, you're starting to see that more. So these gun companies are getting wise. Oh yeah. We don't have to custom make these magazines anymore. We can use these mass generic made. [00:50:47] Speaker C: But even, even if it's specific to the gun, we can rely on somebody else's manufacturing to create it. Which is. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Or alternate plan, use an existing magazine that is known to work. For example, the Iwi masada slim uses cz75 mags. [00:51:04] Speaker C: I don't know that. Interesting. Yeah, well, but I mean even like [00:51:08] Speaker A: that's a great, great way to handle it. [00:51:10] Speaker C: Well, so we just got a pistol from OA Defense and it came with four mags. I think three or four. [00:51:18] Speaker B: It came with three and I. And they were. Are they magpul? [00:51:21] Speaker C: They were magpul mags. But I mean it uses three. [00:51:23] Speaker B: 320 metal. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Magic. 320 pattern. [00:51:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:25] Speaker B: 320. Yeah. It does seem like that the new norm is to either use Glock or 320 mags. And now that nobody wants 320s, there's plenty of 320 mags. [00:51:33] Speaker C: It's true. [00:51:34] Speaker B: So pretty cool. So with that said, what do you think that, that gun companies are not doing right in their marketing these days? I'm sure that's a loaded question. Sure. You could go on for hours about this. [00:51:50] Speaker A: Okay, where do we start? First off, 99% of the industry has terrible websites. Just terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. They'll launch a product through an email blast. You go to the website to learn more information, nothing that the product does not exist. Then you go to their social media. It's a completely different, it's like these, these things don't talk across, which is just pathetic because these are multi, multi million dollar corporations that I'm, that I'm referencing. So that's a big deal. I think understanding and caring about their customer is lacking in a lot of places. And, and those two things have to go hand in hand. It can't just be like, I understand this person and I don't give a crap about them. Like you have to actually care. And I think, you know, at the, the higher levels of the, at least the publicly traded companies and I don't think there's enough gun guys in leadership roles at the larger brands. I think they are CEOs only not gun guys. [00:52:56] Speaker C: Yeah, they're just, they're just businessmen. Yeah, it's absolutely, I mean if you look at like you said, the publicly traded stuff, the circle of higher executive CEO type folks, it's a small circle and they're all inner trading, if that makes sense. Right. Like you leave one place from being a CEO, you go to another one and it doesn't even have to be within the same industry. It's not inherently a bad thing, but it does affect marketing. It does affect caring for your customer. They're just looking at who's the next best person to help us move the business in a direction. But not how do we best take care of our customer when we bring in that new chief executive. [00:53:36] Speaker A: It's something that has carried my business for years, is offering value. Right. Value first will continue to bring dollars behind it. Because if you put out a valuable product and you stand by that product and you continue to produce good products and innovate, then you can lean on that instead of going, look, we painted it a different color. Yeah, why isn't the marketing working? We painted it a different color. Why won't people buy this one? [00:54:04] Speaker C: Right. [00:54:04] Speaker A: That's the nonsense that I hate. There is one more thing that I think is very important and I'm sure you guys have seen this. Almost every gun company or gun adjacent company has a revolving door on their marketing department. These people rotate around to different companies. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've emailed a person and somebody else responds at the company, hey, that person no longer works here. I got your email somehow. And sometimes it just goes flat, like it just goes into the ether. And then I hear, you know, a couple weeks later from that other Person that I was trying to contact. Oh, I'm over here at so and so Company now. Constantly. It's all the time. All the time and I don't know. Go ahead, Steve. [00:54:53] Speaker D: No, I was say the joke is same black polo, different logo on it. [00:54:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like spot on. Spot on. So like when, when these gun companies are pushing these marketing directives from people that don't know how to market, like it always comes from the top down. I always. Leadership is the problem in 99% of these issues. That is hurting the industry as a whole. That's hurting the industry as a whole. [00:55:24] Speaker B: Very true. Kind of looking beyond this in the next three to five years, where do you see the biggest opportunity or the biggest threat to firearms? Media and marketing [00:55:40] Speaker A: threat. In what way? Like outside threat or what do we, you know. [00:55:45] Speaker B: Yeah, let's go outside there. [00:55:47] Speaker A: So outside is. Is the platforms. [00:55:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:50] Speaker A: That's besides nonsensical laws being an issue. I mean that gives us stuff to talk about. [00:56:00] Speaker B: But [00:56:02] Speaker A: the platforms are going to continually be a problem because they're not run by people that care about rights. They don't care about rights. They care about money. That's it. Number one, far and away money. Because they're all publicly traded. They're all tech bros. And none of them care about people or money or they. Excuse me. They only care about money. Right. [00:56:26] Speaker B: So what do you think the biggest opportunity is? [00:56:28] Speaker A: Opportunity. [00:56:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:31] Speaker A: I don't know. I really don't. I. I think there is always opportunity to create new content and I think, I think there's a distinct lack of certain types of gun content. There's a distinct lack, but I don't know that anybody. Like we've. We've had 80 different iterations of Demo Ranch at this point. [00:56:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:00] Speaker A: Like we don't need another. Shoot the thing. Look at what happens. Content. We don't need more of that. It happens all that. Like every year there's some new channel that's trying to do that and usually they do. Okay. But like if I talk about like the health of the industry, that's not it. That's not helpful. I mean it's helpful in that it may expose new people to firearms. [00:57:22] Speaker C: But yeah. It's just, it's just entertainment. [00:57:25] Speaker A: A weird way. [00:57:26] Speaker C: Yeah. What I think we need to bring more back. It was a thing. It's not a thing anymore. Is more fake Russians. [00:57:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:57:33] Speaker C: Shooting things. I'm just saying that's an aspect of the industry that's gone now. That makes me very sad. [00:57:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Bring back. [00:57:42] Speaker D: I think One opportunity, it's not really the marketing side is making sure your state level grassroots pro gun groups are locked in and ready to go. Like we see it all the time here in Rhode Islands. Constantly a threat. Look at Virginia. You know, they went from like a couple years ago, they had some problems, it's been really quiet. Now all of a sudden they're like losing everything and their governor is just unhinged when it comes to the second amendment. So making sure that state level groups are, you know, locked and loaded, so to speak. [00:58:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I think being able to coach those sorts of groups on how to deal with media is, is something that could be a valuable thing. The challenge is a lot of those groups are run by fuds and also have zero media experience and no money. So like they don't want to hear you. They think they're doing everything right. And then if you're like, hey, I, you know, this would be valuable to you to interface with so and so like they're just not interested in that. A lot of the state level groups are not forward thinking. So in that way getting involved and, and taking part could be a big deal for some content creators out there. [00:58:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:58:59] Speaker A: And showcasing that. [00:59:00] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. [00:59:01] Speaker B: Yeah. I actually had to unfollow one of our local kind of gun groups, whatever, just because it, it was, it's constantly. The sky is falling, send us money. That's. [00:59:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh yeah. [00:59:14] Speaker B: It's just. Yeah. I'm like, I don't believe you anymore. Because if what you said was true two weeks ago, we would, when we'd [00:59:20] Speaker C: all be, we'd all be arrested or going to war back and shot in the back of the head. [00:59:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't believe. [00:59:26] Speaker A: I would love to hear who that is because I think I have an idea. I think I have an idea. But we can talk about that another time. But I think that's a great point, Steve, in terms of content and stuff. I think finding with the rise of AI content and the slope that is being generated, I mean just fake, straight up, fake videos entirely. You know, like these guns are coming this year and it's just completely AI generated in like October. These are the best guns in 2026. Somehow in October of 2025 makes no sense. But people will click on it, right? Like they figure out how to manipulate people into clicking on this stuff. Being the opposite of that and being a genuine human connection and being more open, honest and communicative. I think that will be the thing that separates people and being good storytellers while doing that most gun content is. Is not that right now, like most gun content creators are not good storytellers and, you know, sucks to suck, but get better at it. I mean, like, that's the unfortunate thing [01:00:40] Speaker C: I was gonna say. I actually think that sets us up to. To transition to the next thing, John, which is being a genuine human dynamite. Right. What is the event that you've created where people can meet these genuine humans behind the media? [01:00:53] Speaker A: That was a dynamite segue. [01:00:56] Speaker B: Got it. [01:00:57] Speaker D: Nailed it. [01:00:57] Speaker A: I did not. I did not plan that. It just happened that way. I'm very excited that we did that. [01:01:01] Speaker B: We're just naturally like it. [01:01:04] Speaker A: Gun con is unlike 99% of other gun events because it is built around the central, like tent pole of the whole thing is relationships. [01:01:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:01:18] Speaker A: We are. We are out there to build a better community, industry, etc. Through stronger relationships. If sales happen, cool. If business happens, cool. The core of it is relationships. Do you want me to, like, expand on that? [01:01:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So explain Gun Con. So, okay. To people who have no idea, like, hey, John, I just met you, I don't know who you are. And what's this gun. [01:01:47] Speaker C: What is this gun content you do? [01:01:49] Speaker A: So we bring together this year, it's happening on June 20th in Niles, Ohio, but we bring together over 50 companies in the gun industry. They come out to show off their latest and greatest right. And at the same time, we bring in a whole bunch of content creators. Some that you know, some that you may want to know. Right. Of all different walks of life, we have some bilingual channels. We've got people that are primarily pistol, primarily rifle guys. All types. We represent all types there. And then we also sell a limited amount of tickets to the public. And on top of that, everyone that walks through the door gets a Gun Con T shirt. You get your lunch as part of your ticket, and we give away every year like 40 or $50,000 worth of stuff. [01:02:36] Speaker B: So much stuff. [01:02:36] Speaker A: I make all of the brands give stuff way because it makes this event just better. We have live Q and A panels. Like, for example, the 2A panel is the top creators in that space, as well as the heads of the top second amendment advocacy groups, Second Amendment foundation, goa, nra, ILA and frack. And we're also working on getting somebody from the American Suppressor Association. [01:03:02] Speaker C: Oh, cool. [01:03:02] Speaker A: Like, that's the. That's the one panel. Then we have our next gen creator panel, which are more like up and coming creators that are either newer to the game, maybe haven't been in it as long, or have as big of audiences, things like that. Those people also deserve a voice. And then we have the elite panel, which is guys that have been doing it a long time, maybe have big audiences, have been around a while, have a lot of experience. And this year we're also. Johnny B. Is coming back. He's making a triumphant return to host a game show. We're gonna try that out for the first time. That's going to be a riot. [01:03:35] Speaker B: That'd be perfect. [01:03:36] Speaker A: And there's so many things. We've got a kids area this year. We've got a bunch of new companies showing up this year and a bunch of new releases that are going to come out. It's, it's like absolutely jam packed. Oh, and we, we're now currently, we're currently sold out of these. But we sold VIP tickets for the first time ever. They sold out in advance day. And that was an opportunity to get access to what is the media range day. So all those new products that you see the media testing, we're going to bring in some people from the public to participate in that. [01:04:12] Speaker B: Great idea. [01:04:13] Speaker C: I was gonna say that that is absolutely an awesome idea. I know so many people that would have jumped into that. Obviously, like you said, you already sold it out, so it went well. Well done. But so many people would be like, well, do I get to go shoot the guns? Like, well, not. Not really. [01:04:27] Speaker B: It can't really just open it up to everybody. [01:04:29] Speaker C: But that's pretty sweet that you gave people the opportunity to do that. Like you opened the opportunity. That's pretty cool. [01:04:35] Speaker A: We've been asked for years to have that and I was always very much against it because we couldn't figure out a way to make it make sense. [01:04:45] Speaker C: Sure. [01:04:45] Speaker A: You know, without being a logistical nightmare. But we found a way and we're gonna try it out this year. Hopefully it works out because if that's the case, then we'll make it bigger next year. [01:04:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:55] Speaker A: Because if we sold out in a day, like people want it, you know. [01:05:00] Speaker C: Well, I mean, they don't get the [01:05:01] Speaker D: opportunity to go to the range and shoot all those guns and have their favorite, you know, gun troopers there with them. That's a nice. [01:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And, and you know, for the people that may have missed out on the VIP tickets coming to the event and putting hands on and meeting these companies, like, we don't do the big trade show booths that you might see at some of these other events. We don't do that because I think it's a giant waste of money. I hate that Kind of stuff. Like, I am the opposite of corporate. So when you come to these events, you could see this huge company right next to a brand new startup in a similar size space showing off their latest and greatest and trying to build a relationship with you as an enthusiast. That's awesome. That's the way this should be. [01:05:42] Speaker C: Well, and I think a lot of people also appreciate the fact that they get to meet their favorite YouTuber. Like, it goes back to that, that genuine human connection. You actually go get to walk up and shake their hands like, hey, man, I've been watching you for years. I'm a big fan of your content. Really appreciate you being here, you know, that kind of stuff. [01:05:58] Speaker B: Be able to come and do that tonight. You can come, come, come talk to me. Come and meet Nate. [01:06:02] Speaker C: I only hide in the back corner of the booth. So you actually have to come into our booth to talk to me. [01:06:07] Speaker D: My first Gun Con, somebody asked me to, to sign their shirt. And I was like, why? He's like, I want you to sign it. I was like, why do you want [01:06:16] Speaker A: me to sign your shirt? [01:06:17] Speaker D: Like, you trying to get my signature? I was, like, skeptical of it. He's like, no, I love your channel. [01:06:21] Speaker A: I was like, oh, I know you, right? [01:06:24] Speaker B: I do do that. [01:06:27] Speaker C: I do YouTube. [01:06:28] Speaker B: That's right. [01:06:29] Speaker C: People watch me. That's a big deal. [01:06:32] Speaker B: So, John, you and I talk about, talk about this like every year. And I think it's important for people to know what goes into this event because like you said, this is a unique event and some of the things that you make must have things for the show. So what are some of those things that create challenges every year that are so important for you to do it at Gun Con? [01:07:00] Speaker A: Okay. So the venue has to allow people to carry. That's number one with a bullet, Pun intended. That's challenging in a lot of areas. We, we need. I think allowing people to buy VIP tickets has shown some light on this, but we need a big range. Like, when you come out to the range, it needs to be massive. Yeah, just absolutely massive. Because of the brands that we have. We have to have enough like, like in terms of just logistical stuff, There has to be enough parking. There has to be an airport nearby. There has to be hotels. We have to have food because we feed, you know, thousands of people. And it has to feel like a neighborhood barbecue. It cannot be an event where you show up and there's no food except the, you know, the convention space where they're charging you $80 for a hamburger. That's Terrible. I hate that. [01:08:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:08:01] Speaker A: So, like, all of the things that irritate me as an attendee for these various events, I try to crush and make that not a problem. I, I have said a few times my job is to make it easier for people to support the event. [01:08:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:08:16] Speaker A: That's what my role is in this. Does that make sense? [01:08:19] Speaker C: 100%. [01:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:21] Speaker C: John, go ahead. [01:08:23] Speaker A: Oh, God. [01:08:23] Speaker D: No, no, no. [01:08:24] Speaker C: I was gonna say, John, just give, give people an insight. How big is the team? So you're obviously heading it up, but how big is your team? And I'm gonna put quotes on it that help you organize Gun Con. [01:08:36] Speaker A: Okay, here's the part that makes me laugh. So on the day, like at GUN Con, we will have, I don't know, six to ten people, probably. [01:08:48] Speaker B: Yep. [01:08:49] Speaker A: Roughly. You know, there's, there's people that don't necessarily jump in until like that week. And that's not, that's just because I, I can't afford to pay that many people. Like, this is a lean, lean thing. So generally speaking, it's two of us. [01:09:03] Speaker C: Yep. [01:09:04] Speaker A: It's me and Cody. Cody does a lot of the logistical back end stuff and I talk to 100 of the brands, 100 of the creators, and try to also sell tickets and arrange a lot of the stuff. Like, it's not, this is not a small team. So when, when I see these other events, these other like big events, and I'm like, you had how many people do this with you and you still managed to screw XYZ up? Like, come on. [01:09:33] Speaker C: Right? [01:09:34] Speaker A: Come on. Run circles around that with that same budget. [01:09:37] Speaker C: Well, that's, that's why I wanted people to understand this is not a huge corporate thing with a, you know, it's independent company backing it. It's you. I mean, and Cody. Cody's a part of it. I love Cody. Cody's great, but it's not a huge thing. This is, this is like you said, it is back backyard barbecue with your favorite brands and YouTubers. It's great. [01:09:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:57] Speaker A: I'll give you. This is a little bit inside baseball, but I think it's, it's worth mentioning if, if I don't get like a title sponsor, if, if we're not able to get somebody on board to do that, guess who funds that? Me. [01:10:13] Speaker C: Right? [01:10:15] Speaker A: I. I am the one that has to put up the dollars to make the. And the event's gonna happen, you know, like, it's gonna, I'm gonna make it happen. It's just like if, if certain things don't come Together, I'm going to be the one paying out of my own pocket to make sure that that event goes off. And I don't want anybody else to make it their responsibility because it's mine. [01:10:40] Speaker D: Yeah. All right, let us, let us see a little bit behind the curtain. How the, how the magic. And what is the future of Gun Con? If you had your way, how. What would you like the future of gun content to be? [01:10:55] Speaker A: It really depends on how the industry is able to continue to support it because the industry does a lot of the lift financially. Like, yeah, we sell tickets, but they don't necessarily carry the weight of the event. So growing, growing that way, we're going to try to bounce around to different areas of the country. You know, we've been in Ohio for two years. We were in Iowa for three years. I don't know what area we're going to end up in next, but we're going to continue to look at these other areas of the country and try and reach even more new people every time. So that's, that's kind of that. I would love to grow it in a meaningful way, in a thoughtful way without trying to be like, I don't want it to end up as shot show. I don't want that. Because I think shot show sucks. I don't think the nssf. I don't think the NSSF gives about gun owners. [01:11:53] Speaker D: Greg agrees. [01:11:54] Speaker A: Yeah, like, I don't think they care at all about gun owners. I think they care about putting money in their bank account and that's it. Because when, you know, like, pushed, they don't necessarily stand up for the rights of individuals and that, you know, yes, they are an industry group, yada, yada, yada. But when like pistol braces were a problem, you didn't see them standing up. And that was the thing carrying the industry at the time. So I don't want that to happen. I donate a whole bunch of money every year to make sure that the industry continues to move forward. Like, there are things that I want guncon to continue to be, and that is sort of a guiding light for what is possible in the industry and sort of a backbone type must go to event for relationships and for community. [01:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there really is a. A ton of value. So I'm just looking, I'm just looking here. It's $60. Like you said, you get a T shirt, you get lunch. That's. That alone is unheard of. I've never been. [01:12:59] Speaker C: Oh, I mean, there's no oh. [01:13:01] Speaker A: So not only that, but there's codes, like, there's discount codes for a bunch of the creators. Well, and then, like. [01:13:08] Speaker C: And then you also give, like you said you gave away at the end. $50,000. [01:13:12] Speaker B: Yes. Bunch of stuff to give away. There's panels to listen to. There's gonna be a game show with Johnny B. That's going to be entertaining. There's a bunch of brands, and the owners and creators of those brands are. Are there. Yeah. And I know it's a lot to put in one day for somebody and. And if you are traveling, you know, come and explore Ohio. Come and stay in another day. There's not a whole lot. [01:13:34] Speaker A: Niles. [01:13:35] Speaker B: Ohio. To do, but you aren't too far from Cleveland. [01:13:38] Speaker A: You're an hour from Cleveland and you're an hour from Pittsburgh. [01:13:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:13:42] Speaker A: Go to Pittsburgh. [01:13:43] Speaker C: I was gonna say go to Pittsburgh. [01:13:47] Speaker B: Beautiful city. [01:13:50] Speaker A: So from far away. [01:13:52] Speaker B: Yeah. I just want to vote. Keep. Keep having it in Ohio. I appreciate. I appreciate. [01:13:58] Speaker D: Oh, come to Rhode Island. That's a great idea. [01:14:00] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [01:14:01] Speaker A: Hey, that's another thing, you know, we've been asked lobster the event. Lobster. Lobster. [01:14:07] Speaker C: I'm just saying if we go up to New England, we get some clam chowder and some lobster rolls. [01:14:11] Speaker B: You can't bring any guns or suppressors, but we can. Whatever. [01:14:13] Speaker C: That's fine for lobsters. Worth it. [01:14:16] Speaker D: No gun con. [01:14:18] Speaker A: So this is something that I've had to come to terms with is like, we can't have gun con in a place that doesn't support guns because it has an economic impact on the area of. Of a substantial amount. Like, we. We hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hotel rooms, rental cars, airports, food, all kinds of miscellaneous things. We have an economic impact. So I don't want that money to go into an area that doesn't support guns. [01:14:49] Speaker C: That makes sense. [01:14:50] Speaker A: So that's why we're in Ohio. That's why we were in Iowa, and why I'm going to continue to look for places that are pro gun. I don't know if New England will ever happen because again, we need a range that is within, like an hour of a major airport. That's not. That's not common. [01:15:08] Speaker D: No. [01:15:09] Speaker A: In the North. [01:15:09] Speaker C: That's actually a big ask. [01:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:11] Speaker C: For sure. [01:15:11] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. So like, or something. [01:15:14] Speaker D: That's the only option. [01:15:16] Speaker A: Right. And. And I don't think that's. I don't think they're gonna allow that because of reasons. So we get asked all the time, hey, man, why don't you do it in so and so, like Florida and Texas and North Carolina. And this and that. Like, we need all of these things to all come together all at once or it can't work. [01:15:34] Speaker C: Right. [01:15:35] Speaker A: It can't work as it is. You know, some variation of the event might, but I don't know, man. I just want this to be something that is meaningful long term. Because how many events have we seen come and go that were just weak sauce? [01:15:50] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:15:51] Speaker A: You know, thanks. And I want that. [01:15:53] Speaker B: And there's very few events who I think actually care about the things that you care about. You know, about being in a town, a city, whatever that actually cares about. [01:16:04] Speaker C: Yep. [01:16:05] Speaker B: About freedom and. [01:16:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:16:07] Speaker B: Carry and firearms, stuff like that. [01:16:08] Speaker C: Well, and also giving access. Yeah, I think that's a big part of it is giving access to the every man. I don't know, whatever you want to call it. Like, it's not. It's not industry secret. [01:16:18] Speaker A: Oh. [01:16:19] Speaker C: Only the industry can show up. Like, anyone can come. And that's, I think, pretty awesome. [01:16:24] Speaker B: So people can go to guncon.net correct? Yep, that's right. Still plenty of tickets left. Yep. Awesome. 60 bucks. And you know, flights. Well, say flight flying right now is a little rough, but hopefully things get figured out before this and flight better [01:16:42] Speaker A: be good by then. [01:16:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I hope so, I hope so, I hope so. But go book your hotel that they're actually. Actually the area this is in is actually not bad. It's a. It's a nice little area there and you're not far. [01:16:55] Speaker A: So it's. It's in a shopping complex that is one of the largest in the United States. [01:17:01] Speaker C: Oh, cool. [01:17:02] Speaker A: There are four hotels within walking distance. There is endless amounts of parking. I mean, like, there's so many food places, you know, like, you want it, it's there. We have. There's a minor league baseball stadium out back. There's so much opportunity to have a good time. [01:17:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Amish country isn't too far away there if you want to go get some. It's true. Get some nice Amish country. [01:17:23] Speaker C: John, I do have one critical question. Is the building air conditioned? [01:17:30] Speaker B: That is the question. Yes. [01:17:31] Speaker C: Because, yes, it was slightly toasty last year. A little bit of swast going on the whole time. Not gonna lie. [01:17:37] Speaker A: So I don't know, the day prior to the show when we were in there, AC was fine. And I don't know if it was overwhelmed or if it got shut off or if there were problems because the venue just did not want to support the event at that point, which is incredibly frustrating. But, yeah, it did get warm. Yeah. Last year we had some bumps and you know, I've talked about that. [01:18:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:18:03] Speaker A: And we, we have tried to smooth out all of those things, like our check in, we got a new check in process. There's like behind the scenes things that are not necessarily, you know, quote unquote sexy about the event, but we're trying to make sure that the end user has a better experience. [01:18:19] Speaker C: Yeah, well, like I said, I just want air conditioning. That's, that's all. That's all. I think, honestly, I think the, the building was too old to, to support a good AC with all those people in it, if I'm being honest with you. I think that was the problem. [01:18:31] Speaker A: But maybe I'm not, I'm not sure what exactly it was. I don't know. [01:18:35] Speaker C: But as long as we got ac, I'm good to go. [01:18:37] Speaker B: Yep. Though, trust me, when John first told me about this, that was my first question. Let's come back. Well, we're excited for this. It's, we've been, we've been there, I think, every year. [01:18:49] Speaker A: Yes, you have. [01:18:50] Speaker B: So we're looking forward to being back for year five and it does keep getting, getting better every year. [01:18:55] Speaker C: It's great. [01:18:56] Speaker B: And forward to it again this year. So thanks for letting us be a part of it. Thanks for coming on the podcast today. So okay, sure, we can get me. [01:19:04] Speaker A: Come on and yap for whatever, however long this ends up being like. I appreciate the opportunity. I appreciate you guys all personally and hope hopefully we all have a excellent year. [01:19:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. [01:19:20] Speaker C: Very good. [01:19:21] Speaker B: All right, [01:19:25] Speaker C: thanks for tuning in to Life Liberty and equipped. If today's conversation challenged you, encouraged you, or helped you get more equipped to pursue your mission, share it with a friend. Drop a comment and leave us a review. [01:19:36] Speaker B: Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. Leave a review. What takes a few seconds to help turns into more opportunities to reach new people. [01:19:46] Speaker D: And if you're not already part of the NeoMag Insiders club, now is the time. Get early access to NeoMag gear, exclusive content and front row seats to everything we're building. Go to the neomag.com to sign up. Until next time, live, boldly stand for liberty and stay equipped. [01:20:05] Speaker C: See you soon. [01:20:06] Speaker A: Bye. [01:20:07] Speaker B: See you.