Life Liberty and the Pursuit
Welcome to the Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit podcast. Come join Eric and Matt who are freedom-loving, meat-eating, gun-shooting American guys as they discuss a broad spectrum of topics ranging from States' rights, culture, and the 2nd Amendment to scotch, bourbon, and cigars. Eric & Matt are both former US Army combat veterans who served together while deployed to Iraq during OIF III. Eric is most notable for his YouTube channel Iraqveteran8888 which has over 2.75 million subscribers currently as well as his outspoken and no-compromise stance regarding the 2nd amendment. Matt, founded Ballistic Ink, a branding and merchandising company that serviced 2A content creators and the firearms industry. He also is a partner of Alliance jiujitsu Roswell located in Roswell GA and trains daily and competes regularly. He is very passionate about the 2nd amendment and freedom. Come along for the ride!
Life Liberty and the Pursuit
LLP #120: Money Talks, Rights Walk: The NFA Edition
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In this provocative deep dive, hosts Eric and Matt peel back the curtain on the shadowy world of gun rights lobbying and its sometimes contradictory relationship with constitutional rights. What happens when the business interests of gun manufacturers clash with the principles of the Second Amendment? The discussion centers around recent developments with the Hearing Protection Act, where a curious compromise maintains registration requirements while removing the $200 tax stamp—raising questions about who truly benefits.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when examining the financial mechanics behind lobbying. With gun rights organizations spending a staggering $14.7 million in 2024 alone, we're forced to ask: what exactly are gun owners getting in return? Could some manufacturers and businesses actually prefer keeping suppressors on the NFA registry because it allows them to maintain higher prices and specialized services? The hosts break down how companies that have built entire business models around navigating NFA regulations might quietly oppose full deregulation.
Beyond the immediate policy battles, Eric and Matt explore the philosophical implications of lobbying as representation. When organizations claim to speak for millions of gun owners, politicians can conveniently ignore individual voices—creating a system where your rights are negotiated by third parties with their own agendas. The hosts distinguish between "access-based lobbying" (cultivating relationships through donations) and confrontational approaches (threatening to primary politicians who don't comply), explaining how both methods shape legislation.
Eric closes with a powerful personal statement about his refusal to accept money from any gun rights organization throughout his advocacy career—viewing his work not as a financial opportunity but as service to a constitutional cause. His approach highlights the tension between moving the chess pieces necessary to win political battles and maintaining the principled purity of the fight for Second Amendment freedoms.
Welcome back everybody. This is Eric and Matt and this is Life, liberty and the Pursuit, your beacon of freedom and the American way of life. Tune in every Monday for a new episode as we dive into the world of liberty and what makes our country great.
Speaker 2:All right boys and girls, welcome back. This is Eric and Matt here with LLP, your home for all things. Freedom in a world gone completely mad, full of debauchery, chaos and just downright damn craziness Crazy lobbyists.
Speaker 2:Yes, in the case of today's show, we're going to be discussing lobbying. Now, of course, you know us, we go off the rails on a lot of different concepts and discussions throughout the show, but we are going to eventually kind of focus on lobbying. What is lobbying? What does this accomplish? Is it good or bad? How should we look at this? And, primarily in the vein of the Second Amendment, when we look at these gun bills and we have these pro-gun lobby organizations that come in, anti-gun lobby organizations come in, what are they trying to accomplish? How do they accomplish their goals? What is the purpose of it all? How does it equate to you and I average everyday man? That's kind of what we really want to discuss and I think a lot of people are confused about the subject. We are going to dive into it and we're going to have a lot of fun with today's show and we're going to talk about our weeks and see how y'all are doing and I also typically every show y'all are doing and I also typically every show y'all.
Speaker 2:I just want to do some quick housekeeping here. Every show I typically will put out a tweet. So make sure you follow me on IRACVeteran8888 over on X slash Twitter. I always will put out an email saying hey, this is the subject for today's show, this is what we're talking about. I may give some context and I offer you guys a chance to provide your commentary and ask any questions. And while we're cutting the show, you're kind of interacting with the show. Even though I may not be responding on Twitter, we may read some of your tweets here on the show and respond to some of your questions and or comments. So make sure you're always checking the Twitter feed because you never know when we might be recording. I don't announce it, we just kind of throw it up there and you guys can get in on the conversation. So we will check in on some questions and answers.
Speaker 2:I've been promising that for a few shows We've gotten a little long-winded and had the subject matter was really deep to dive into. But I think today's show we're going to have a little time to get into some questions. So we will do that today. And a few folks have been asking about flights and such. We are going to get back into doing some of those. If you look at some of the older LLP content, we were doing some of the like whiskey flights and pepper flights and doing various foods and coffee. I really enjoy that type of stuff and, to give you just a quick little teaser, okay, I did get some Bankman cigars. Now I don't know if we're going to sit out there and try to smoke freaking five cigars in one sitting. I don't know how fun that would be, maybe for some of you, but I got a great selection of Bankmans here. I've always been kind of the kind of guy that I really do like the my Father Connecticut Great stick it's a great Connecticut. Really do like the my Father Connecticut.
Speaker 3:Great stick it's a great Connecticut.
Speaker 2:I do like the my Father Connecticut a lot and also I really like Padron cigars a lot. I mean it's a known thing that I'm a Padron junkie. I love the Gurkha rum cigars and cognac cigars. You know those are great. As many of you know, that was the particular cigar that the Navy SEALs celebrated with after they killed Bin Laden. They all had the Gurkha rum cigar. Anyway, I don't know if we're going to smoke five cigars in one sitting, but we definitely will give our thoughts on these bankmans. So we do have some flights on the way. We might bring in some guests and maybe have five of us sit here and then each person maybe give an opinion on what they think about each cigar.
Speaker 2:I think that's the way to do it yeah, because there's no way you're going to make it through five sticks in one city man, you for yourself, you would have a serious case of nicotine poisoning going all right look so it is a known fact.
Speaker 2:All right, I have quit drinking, quit smoking. I haven't had a drink in over three years and, uh, I will occasionally still have a cigar on on occasion, uh, special arrangement, special celebration with friends, something like that. Um, so some of the flights that we're doing, we may not really work with alcohol much, but if we do a little, taste is not the end of the world, so we may still do some alcohol flights, um, and we'll have some fun with that in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man uh, right now we're going to go ahead and give a shout out to the first sponsor of the show, and that is our friends at my patriot supply. Memorial day is more than just a long weekend. It's a time to remember those who sacrifice for our freedom and to make sure we're doing our part to protect what they fought for. For me, that means making sure my family's prepared for whatever comes next, and right now my Patriot Supply a company I personally trust is running their Memorial Day sale, and it's their biggest of the season. You can save up to 60% on the emergency gear that matters most Emergency food kits, water filtration, off-grid power systems and much more.
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Speaker 3:so I did. Um, you know, as you guys know, uh, we've talked about it before I own Alliance Jiu Jitsu in Roswell, Georgia. So we train Jiu Jitsu a lot, quite a bit. And also I wrestle. So my daughter wrestles at Morris Fitness in Alpharetta, Georgia, and I wrestle with Morris Fitness in Alpharettao, George. So I train there. They have an adult class. You know older adults that train on the weekends but I'm usually not able to catch that class.
Speaker 3:So I asked the coach there. I was like, hey, can I just jump in with the high school and college kids? I mean, he said yes, that probably wasn't a good idea on my part. Those guys have gas tanks for days. Man, I got a black eye. Like, if you look, man, I have a black eye right here. It happens. It's just part of jiu-jitsu and wrestling. You know you get fingers to the face. You know you're doing a lot of hand fighting. I love the class. I wear a whoop band. If you guys wear their whoop bands, not an endorsement, but if you're serious about training. It gives you all your information biometrics, heart rate, which zone you're in, lasts for weeks, but it lets you know how many calories you burn. So immediately after that training session it's like, oh hey, guess what? You burn 1,480 calories in an hour and a half, and I wasn't even keeping up with them. I was kind of probably going like half speed, Um, cause I'm older.
Speaker 3:So for for you to go in there and burn 1,400 plus calories in an hour and a half while wrestling and getting beat up. Um, you could say I'm having a rough day. Yeah, I woke. I woke up pretty sore today, but you know we do that twice a week. We train jiu-jitsu, you know, two or three times a week and it's a pretty good, pretty good training regimen.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, okay. Well, as you can see, we've got a puppy in the studio here. This is, this is mona, our new, new European Doberman puppy.
Speaker 3:Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm doing some babysitting today. I'm a man of many talents. Not only do I have a podcast, but I also handle some babysitting on occasion. So mommy's upstairs trying to sleep, so we've got her in the studio here today and she's getting into everything, aren't you girl? But things have been good on my end.
Speaker 2:There's not really a whole lot to report other than just the same busyness and everything going on, and you know lot of people. It's kind of the talk right now, I mean, with everything going on with HPA. I know that was originally going to be the primary discussion of today's show was talking about the Hearing Protection Act, but as these shows come out, y'all, I'm just giving you an idea that you know. Sometimes we record these shows in advance and sometimes it can be as much as a couple of weeks before a show drops. So, as a result, I didn't really want to talk about stuff that's overly time sensitive, because I didn't really want people to get the wrong idea about what we're talking about, because some developments could still come in in regards to HPA.
Speaker 2:All I can really do about HPA is discuss it in the context of what's happening right now. So if you're listening on the show. Don't take this as gospel for what is going on at the precise moment. This is merely to draw some interest to the subject so that people know what's going on, and I'm going to put this girl down. She's getting angsty here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's very important, that we do prerecord some episodes and we don't want to put out, you know, old information, so we try to stay on top of it. And the HPA, or Hearing Protection Act, you know it's a very active situation, so things are changing day by day, so we just want to make sure we're correct.
Speaker 2:It's still going through the various committees, so just made it out of means and ways and, of course, it got an upvote to essentially where that's at right. Now and again, y'all look at the latest updates on what's going on with HPA. This information could be slightly a week or two old by the time you hear it, but I'm just trying to give you the context of what today's conversation is about. Does this lobbying somehow put us in a situation where we're all pulling against each other? And sometimes it might right.
Speaker 2:So what's going on with HPA originally was that the Hearing Protection Act essentially wants to remove suppressors from the NFA.
Speaker 2:Okay, which, at its face value, you're thinking okay, cool, you know, remove suppressors from the NFA and the whole idea would be that, all right, that's a building block to where, if we can take suppressors off of the National Firearms Act and remove the $200 tax stamp, remove the registration, then in theory, then we can go for short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and maybe even eventually machine guns and completely gut the NFA. The whole question is the constitutionality of the NFA right, the constitutionality of taxing a right. So it appears that some compromise has been reached on the situation concerning HPA, so they're going well, yeah, we're going to go ahead and progress HPA to the Rules Committee, but we're going to say that, instead of having the original language of the bill, we're going to say that, instead of, you know, having the original language of the bill, we're going to say that it's a zero tax, so zero dollar tax, no taxation anymore on suppressors, but you still have to register the suppressors. So there's still the registration.
Speaker 3:Uh, in there which is the one thing that everybody was trying to get rid of. Because, in actuality, if they remove the 200 let's say they they remove uh the items, the suppressors from uh needing to be registered that tax stamp. They're just going to add that onto the price of the suppressor. So they think that. So the 200 is the tax is archaic.
Speaker 3:You know $200 back in the 19, you know 30s and 40s was a significant amount of money. Now, not so much. So when, when you look at it, when you look at all I'm going to use EVs as an example when you look at, you know the tax credits that they're giving for vehicles, every single car company is adding the tax credit onto the price of the vehicle, knowing that the government is going to credit you back that amount of money. So when you go in and purchase a suppressor, if this passes, and they say, hey, there's no, no more $200 tax stamp, well, the companies know you're willing to pay the $200 on top of it, know you're willing to pay the $200 on top of it because you were willing to do it before. Why not just raise prices by $200, still collect the $200 on their end? Instead of giving it to the government, you're giving it to the company and then now you don't have to register, you can just buy it. It's just $200 more.
Speaker 2:That's a very good point. That wasn't necessarily the point that I was going to draw right out the gate, but I'm glad you did, because that saved me from having to even put my brain into that mode and think about it that way. But you're right, capitalism as a power is a superpower. Capitalism has brought more people out of poverty than any other type of system that there possibly could be. And part of capitalism is that, yes, you can sell something for whatever the market will bear.
Speaker 2:And the idea is that, okay, we've gone from removing some suppressors from the NFA completely the original intention of the HPA to now saying, well, you still have to register it, but there's no $200 fee. Who would benefit the most from that? Well, for one, $200 is not a lot of money to the government. So it's been a well-known fact that $200 tax stamp is nowhere near enough money to even justify the NFA existing as some sort of tax collection. Essentially, essentially, the best way to explain this is if, if they were going to raise the price of a tax stamp to 1930s dollars, ok, the tax stamp would have to be three or four thousand bucks to even match like what that money was back then.
Speaker 2:Now how pissed would people be if they had to buy a six hundred dollar suppressor and pay a four thousand dollar tax stamp. So they know that they can't increase the tax stamp to actually make it profitable for them in 1930s money. So they know they can't do that. Two, they know that the income, that the tax itself is unconstitutional because there are multiple Supreme Court cases that have already affirmed that you can't tax a right. So that's one issue they have. And then of course there are the constitutional ramifications right that the NFA is unconstitutional as it is anyway, right? So any sort of registration scheme, let's just say, is not consistent with the Second Amendment as it existed in 1791 when it was brought in. So you know, when we have the Bruin decision, what the Bruin decision upholds is that all laws must pass constitutional muster and they must pass the smell test of the Second Amendment in its day, in the 1790s, right?
Speaker 2:So in those days were there registration requirements? Were there requirements to pay fees to own a certain type of gun? Were there limitations on the type of firearm you could own? Were there limitations on what the features of that firearm could be? No Citizens had warships. They had letters of marquee.
Speaker 2:Back then they could literally have a warship with cannons and all the most advanced field guns of the day, whatever they wanted, and they could literally ride around and carry out piracy against enemies of the United States and keep everything that they found out there. Privateers, they were privateers, so we were all literally mercenaries, okay, and it's just so wild to think that you know we've gone from a group of people who you know, to think that you know we've gone from a group of people who you know we we get things done to. Now we're sitting here going over the, we're heeing, hauling over registration right. Think about how dumb that is where the founding fathers alive now they would be like what in the hell are y'all even talking about? This has nothing to do with the original intention of why this, you know, was put in place, why this right is here. So not only does the NFA infringe on your rights in terms of being taxed for a right, it also infringes on the very spirit of what the second amendment is meant to accomplish in the first place.
Speaker 3:You know it's funny.
Speaker 3:You brought that up because the first thing that popped into my head was there's a key and peel skit about, but they made one about the second amendment, where they're writing the constitution and they're writing the second amendment and the guy pulls out like two uzis and he's like what, if you know, he's a time traveler. It was just like this whole hilarious skit where he shows how you know how devastating the modern firearms have become, and he was like you wouldn't write this if you know you could in the future they could do become. And he was like you wouldn't write this, if you know you could in the future they could do this. And he just like sprays the whole room with uzis but then like it's almost like a back to the future moment where he disappears and he's like, oh, yes, I succeeded. But then it comes back and then like everybody has machine guns and they're like, oh, this is amazing. They're like completely backfired because they saw how awesome it was and they specifically wrote it in there for that reason and that's what would happen.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, if you show george washington an m60, he would be like, yeah, we're, we're writing that, we're putting it on the flag yep, they would put it on the flag american man.
Speaker 3:Come on, that's the way it is exactly. Yep before.
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Speaker 3:Absolutely, Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, again, now let's talk about the lobbying component of this whole situation. This is where some of the let's just say the dirty pool starts to come out. Okay, and again, the last thing I would ever wanna do is start pointing fingers or naming people or trying to make a big deal about anything. But recently, okay, goa, they just put out this tweet. In fact, I think it was this morning or yesterday. Now, mind you, today's date y'all is May 15th. So this is you know, by the time you're seeing this, this podcast is going to be a little longer in the tooth than when we recorded it. So bear in mind I'm working with information that is available to me at the present time. Please remember that I'm not trying to put out anything outdated, but I certainly want to, you know, kind of give my thoughts on some of this stuff, and the thoughts and the ideas are almost as important as what's going on. I mean, how you approach a problem, how you solve a problem and how you see what's really happening, the long game that is in play. That is how you figure out how in the world you're going to make the best of this situation. All right, so they put out a tweet the other day and they were talking about how a bunch of manufacturers signed on to a letter to Congress saying that you know, we do not support these revisions to the HPA, that we want the hpa sent through in its original form, we want to remove suppressors from the nfa, etc. Etc. Including several suppressor companies, you know, etc. Etc. Certain retailers, gun companies, industry partners, so on and so forth. All right, hurrah, good thing. Okay, eric pratt shared that and we got that out there and and that does show some solidarity between manufacturers and and the citizens who use those products. But it is also concerning because there's a lot of dang suppressor companies that are missing off that list, which would indicate that, okay, well, maybe they just didn't get the memo about signing on with goa or possibly they don't support.
Speaker 2:Support what these lobbyists are trying to accomplish. Now, you know GOA, nra, all of these folks, nagr, you know Dudley and them. They all do good work in their own ways. But lobbying is this kind of weird. Kind of weird. It's weird when we look at it from the perspective of average people who see it kind of like for what it is, but what it actually accomplishes is kind of two different things. So I've talked about lobbying in some other videos and some of my opinions on lobbying and I will give some opinions in today's show, of course. But it seems that at face value, it seems that at face value, okay, at face value, lobbying is essentially, you know, going to a politician and kind of bribing them, like in a way, you're, you're, you're sort of gaining that influence from them somehow okay.
Speaker 2:if it comes down to, I don't know, is it contributions to a certain you know cause they're trying to to deal with? Is it direct cash payments? Is it you? Is it contributions to a certain cause they're trying to deal with? Is it direct cash payments, is it just? Hey, we want our issue to be your issue and we want you to see our way on this issue. And then they're essentially donating money to sort of gain the ear of a person. And lobbying in practice is more like that. It's like you know, these people are not just going to give someone an audience. What you eating there. No, put that down. All right, put that down.
Speaker 2:Lobbying essentially is in practice, you know, these politicians are not just going to go and listen to any Joe Blow person off the street, are not just going to go and listen to any Joe Blow person off the street. Right, you know their influence and their ear comes at a cost. You have to be someone, and, all right, how do you be someone In their eyes? Well, you have to represent some sort of lobbying group, someone who looks at the collective interests of a great block of people. So if someone like let's use GOA, for example, which you know, I like Eric and Aiden and the whole crew over there. They're good people, okay, and so what they may do is they may come to the table and go well, hey, we represent here's a good example. We represent I don't know how many, let's say 300,000 or 350,000 or 400,000 gun owners. Like you know, we represent whatever their numbers is. Hey, we represent a million gun owners, however many it is. When you look at a group like the NRA, if they come and they say, well, we have 2 million, 3 million, 4 million, however many million members, then that gives them the clout to come and say our group has the influence of all these people and we represent the common interests of all these people. So therefore, you should listen to us on this particular issue, okay, and our weight, the weight of our word, is the word. It is the word of gun owners. So you essentially become the representative of all gun owners in the whole country.
Speaker 2:So the politicians can simply just look the other way and pretend that all the actual gun owners don't exist, and they can. Simply. The face of gun owners to them is that lobbying group, and that's a scary thing to think that your rights could literally be in the hands of people who might have some ulterior motive that is not in line with your goals. That is not in line with your goals. Now, the idea is that obviously they're supposed to have boards of directors and trustees and they're supposed to have their own internal ways of deciding what the members actually want. And then they go and they take those desires to Washington and they lobby with the money that you donate.
Speaker 2:That's kind of the overall idea and on paper it sounds fruitful, it sounds good and in some cases, to be fair, it is good right, lobbying does get some things that we do want. I mean, look at all the states that are constitutional carry. Now, that's all a direct result of lobbying. Okay, look at some of the things, such as Bruin. I mean there are many things that we have brought to light and brought to the table from effective lobbying. So I'm not here to paint lobbying as some ineffective tool for accomplishing the job. But, matt, what we also have to discuss is how does lobbying, how can it also stab us in the back sometimes? How could lobbying stab us in the back in the case of?
Speaker 3:HPA. You know that's a great question and I think you raise a very valid point is that when you are members of these groups, you're paying dues, you're donating, and they're using that money for partially, for lobbying, and you don't know what their interests are. They could be very well lobbying for gun rights, to fight for your rights, but at the same time, they could also be using that for let's not say nefarious reasons, but maybe reasons that you don't align on, or they're willing to make compromises and certain things to get their end result. Um, just like, it's still politics, guys. Politics is, for lack of a better term, dirty. You have to play the game. Nobody goes into Washington and stays clean. I don't believe it. There's nothing you can say to me that will tell me that every single politician is willing to, you know, toe the line on their own moral values Because at some point in time, they're willing to turn their head to get what they want, or to pass a law that they want, or to get their constituents on their side to make sure they're still reelected, which is and I know this is off subject, but which is why term limits are so, so important. If you had term limits, that would solve a lot of those issues.
Speaker 3:But to go back to what you were saying, eric, about lobbying groups, I pulled the data for 2024 from open secrets and if you guys aren't familiar, open secrets has all of your, your government data on pretty much how the money is being spent. And on 2024, there were 50 total lobbyists. This is for a single. These are for single issue gun rights lobbies. All right, 50 lobbyists, 11 total clients. So there's 11 groups that utilized lobbyists for gun rights and the amount that they spent. No surprise. Number one NSSF. They spent $6.9 million 2024. Goa came in second place $2.4 million. Nra 2 million. National Association of Gun Rights 1 million. Citizens Committee for Right and Keep and Bear Arms 408,000. So this is where we start to see a drastic drop off in amount of money that was used for lobbyists. So, those top 4 millions, everything below that, 000, you know. So we're going down to like 200 000, all the way down to the number 11, which is quite surprising, I might add, because I thought they might have done. Actually, you know, it's not surprising how I think about it, because they're a team of lawyers, they do their own stuff. Uh, fpc they spent twenty thousand dollars 2024. But now that I think about it, they all do their own legal work, so it makes sense. A lot of these companies don't have like legal teams in place. They're hiring that out. So got it, um, but you know, a total of $14.7 million over the course of 2024.
Speaker 3:Now what did you ask yourself this, guys? What did we gain in 2024? For $14.7 million in lobbying fees? How much of that money went to buying tables at a senator or house of representatives table for one of their dinners to fundraise? How many tables did they buy, like three, four tables at, you know, $10,000 a piece? How many of those went to getting you know gifts or trips or whatnot you know, just to get the ear of the congressman, just to get into a position where that lobbyist can sit next to that senator or congressman or house rep and say, hey, why don't we do this? And then them say, nah, thanks for the trip to Colorado for skiing. I appreciate it. Have a nice day. That's what I think of when I see this, because I didn't see anything huge come out of 2024 that would warrant that much money being spent on gun rights.
Speaker 2:Okay. So there's some things to unpack. One is you brought up a really good point when you mentioned that, yes, in many cases there are some underlying ulterior motives that some of these gun rights organizations may have up their sleeve. Right For one, if we have complete constitutional Second Amendment, as we know it, the gun rights organizations are no longer a factor, like they no longer have a job or a purpose. Now I know that a lot of them would love to just work themselves out of a job completely and restore things to its constitutional muster, and that's fine, right, we all want that, I think to some degree. Right, so there is that factor, but I think it's a minimal factor. Fine, right, we all want that, I think to some degree. Right, so there is that factor, but I think it's a minimal factor, right? I think that the other thing to consider is that many of these people will say, okay, well, people want xyz I'm trying to keep her from getting into everything, that girl. So people want xyz. They want, okay, for instance, let's look at the hearing protection actions. That's the talk right now. Um, so, all right, we want suppressors removed from the, from the nfa. So, of course, like you, if you go as a lobbyist and you're talking about. Things are going on.
Speaker 2:There might be people, there may be components within the second amendment community, within the manufacturers community, that do not want the HPA to go through as it's written Now. Let's just say the Republicans may be under tremendous political pressure from our side of the camp to do something for gun rights, not just status quo. Right, you're asking about that $14 million. That $14 million could just be status quo. That could be, so that nothing advances anti-gun, or that it at least gets shelved, or there's tremendous pressure put against the anti-gunners, who also have their own lobbyists who are trying to put anti-gun bills through. So, at what point do the anti-gunners outspend the pro-gunners? Well, what do they have to do? Do they go? Well, since the antis are outspending the pro-gunners? Well, what do they have to do? Do they go? Well, since the antis are spending out the pro, outspending the pro gunners? Well, therefore, now we're just going to be anti-gun, because that's the convenient measure for us to have. That is going to you know, I don't know gain us the most money or whatever.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's quite so cut and dry. I think that you know a lot of companies, for instance, will donate to both Democrat and Republican PACs going into election, many companies have gotten into a lot of trouble for donating to Democrats and you think, well, why would you donate to Democrats? Well, if you look at it from just a strictly business point of view, do you really not want to have some form of lobbying power with those people? If they do get elected? What if you live in a primarily Democrat-controlled area and you're a gun manufacturer? And what if you don't donate to those people? Then if you have an issue, if you have something you need to bring to light, are they even going to have you in their office at all if you didn't do something? So it's like the smooth brain result is that people will go well, you're anti-gun because you donated to Democrats. Don't get me wrong. I get it Like I don't want them scumbags to have a single dollar in my money. But you also have to understand that it's a giant game of chess and you know sometimes you have to think three moves ahead. And if you know dang well that a Democrat is going to get elected in the area, you know if you have Democrat representatives, you know you at least stand a little bit of a chance to bring a grievance to the table. That is a legitimate grievance if you've done some part to. You know, support their effort, even if you didn't really want to support them. So the game of chess as it involves with this stuff, is that you know you have to be in with all of them, and that's the thing that's so crappy about it.
Speaker 2:But getting back to what you were talking about before, is that sometimes in the Second Amendment world with the manufacturers, there might actually be some 2A manufacturers that are going against the HPA as written. They don't want suppressors off the registry. Well, why would that be? What would be their underlying purpose for not wanting suppressors to be on the registry? Well, for one, it is a luxury item that they can charge a lot of money for.
Speaker 2:As you brought up that point earlier, nfa items, you know, have this allure of being, you know, cool and they have a justification for charging a lot of money for a product that, quite frankly, if a suppressor was an over-the-counter item, some of these people that are making these super high-end suppressors now, they're still going to have their clients that buy the super high-end suppressor. Don't get me wrong. But if you remove suppressors from the NFA completely and there's no registration, regardless of the tax that has to be paid. You're going to have manufacturers popping up making $150 .22 suppressors and every single person who buys a Walther P22 or a Smith Wesson M&P compact pistol with a threaded barrel, every one of those people are going to be walking out with that add-on, with that suppressor, and for them they're just buying a muzzle device. It would be no different than buying a muzzle device for your favorite AR or a brake for your favorite AR.
Speaker 3:Well, think about the, think about the oil, the, the oil filter knife. Right, you could just go to the shop and buy the actual adapter and just screw oil filter on.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 2:So so the the the kind of issue for some of these manufacturers is it's going to essentially price some of the manufacturers completely out of the competition. That's a good point. Now, look, okay, let's look at Huxworks. All right, listen, there's some drama going on with Huxworks right now. Okay, because they just secured a contract with the ATF to provide them with suppressors. They're flow-throughs, right, flow-throughs right. Okay, whatever, I like Huxworks suppressors.
Speaker 2:People say what they want, but they make a fantastic suppressor. They're great. Okay, I can't hate the technology just because of a few decisions that the company might make. And look, huxworks has always been really good to us. They've always been pretty cool. They're generally a pretty based company. I mean, hey, if, if somebody wants to buy a ton of suppressors, who cares? In their mind, they're just, they're capitalists. They want to make money like anyone else. I don't hate them for that purpose. But let's look at Huxworks, for an example. And again, I feel like I'm getting on to my stepchild or something when I talk about certain companies, because that's the last thing I would ever want to do. I mean, I love their products. Okay, I'm not trying talk crap about anybody, but Huxworks, for instance.
Speaker 2:You know, if suppressors were removed from the NFA. A company like Huxworks, you know they're kind of like the H and K of suppressors, you know what I mean. Did she go? Yeah, she's chewing on a wire. Oh, she's chewing. Okay, sorry, we've got it. We have a dog incident that we're clearing up here in the studio. We don't want to want her to chew something up.
Speaker 2:But yeah, what would happen if we remove suppressors from the NFA? You know Huxworks is kind of the H and K of suppressors. They're high end, they're nice, they're, you know, they're super upper end flow through, like they're good construction, good quality materials, everything like that. So you know, would that cause that company to see a downward spike in sales because they were removed from the NFA completely? It could if some other manufacturer comes in and offers a very similar product for half the price. But see, that's capitalism at work, right. So could they offer the same quality product as Huxworks for half the money? Well, it's not going to be the same quality, not going to be the same materials, construction, engineering, it's not going to be the same product, it's not going to be Huxworks.
Speaker 2:But would someone come in and ultimately offer some form of competitively priced flow-through can? That would be maybe even half the price of a Huxworks? Possibly, yes, so would Huxworks. Let's just and I'm not calling them out and saying that they're doing this, but I'm just, I'm trying to paint a picture here that drives my point home Would Huxworks have some underlying reason to not support the HPA? In that case? If, in their mind, they thought a scenario like that would play out and were indeed true, then they may not actually support the HPA.
Speaker 2:And that could not only be Huxworks, matt. That could be a variety of other companies. All right, what about companies like Silencer Central, or someone who, or Silencer Shop or any of these other silencer places that they have spent a lot of money on these kiosks and this whole fingerprinting operation? And they have a ton of money wrapped up in this whole fingerprinting operation to streamline the process and make it easier for someone to purchase a suppressor? Well, yes, they're streamlining the process, yes, they're making it easier, but what does it involve, matt? Registration? Okay, it involves paying the tax stamp. It involves registering the item. If you remove suppressors from the registry, those companies, essentially, are going out of business. Now do you think for one second that those people support the HPA?
Speaker 2:No, Now they say publicly that they support it, but do they really? Where's the money changing hands? Where's the influence changing hands? All I'm saying is lobbying is great. You know, there's nothing wrong with lobbying, but it can be a double edged sword.
Speaker 2:And just because all of us, all of us people yeah sure, do we want suppressors off the NFA? You're damn right, we do. Do we want to have to tell the government or ask permission from the government to own something? Hell, no, we don't. Do we want to have to tell the government or ask permission from the government to own something? Hell no, we don't. Do we want to pay $200? Hell no, we don't. We don't want any of them people in our business. But the truth of enterprise and capitalism and business is that there are people who do not care essentially about your rights. At the end of the day, they care about staying in business and they're working within the confines of an existing system that they make money off of. And if that system goes away or changes or completely just disappears, now there's no angle they have anymore. And if you think for one second those people support the hba, I've got a bridge to sell you it's, it's very, it's a very true statement.
Speaker 3:I'm not hating them, no, but you're just calling a duck a duck when your entire business revolves around manufacturing suppressors, R&D, and that's your lifeline, You're going to try to protect it Right. And a lot of these companies, they do more than just suppressors. Some companies that's all they do. And if I were them, you know, in my as a business person, you're like, well you know, if this goes through, like you said, Eric, you're going to have, you know, Jim Bob in his garage creating suppressors, selling them for half the cost. Not that that's a bad thing and again, like you said, it's not the the same quality.
Speaker 3:But not everybody wants that. You know, 1400 can. They don't like that. They're not going to use it to the full potential, they're just buying it because that's what's required at the time. There's. There's not really any other competition. But now you have the opportunity. Hey, I can go and buy this 250 can as a range toy. I can put it it on. I'm not taking it through, you know, austere conditions, I'm not putting it through mud, I'm just taking it to the range. I want to pop off a couple of rounds in the backyard without, you know, bothering my neighbor, whatever. Now they have that option and you're going to the bigger companies would see a drop in guaranteed.
Speaker 2:They would see a drop in sales yeah, I mean the competition is going to go out the roof. Oh yeah, if suppressors are not terribly hard to make you know and you know, realistically, guys, they're not terribly hard to make they're not now. Now look to be fair. Like those hook works flow throughs that you know they are very nice suppressors and and that's different technology.
Speaker 3:So that's what I was referring to. Like you have companies like that is their bread and butter. They're R&Ding new technology Because think about like baffles, like the whole, like baffle system, k baffles and whatnot it really hasn't changed like over the course of time. And then you have like the flow through, like that's a pretty recent development and it works really well.
Speaker 2:You're not getting gas back in the face every time, especially if you're shooting full auto.
Speaker 3:I mean the camera angle still good. No, I'll fix it all. Right, you're good, go ahead, continue, man. Um, yeah, guys, so like that, that flow through technology. It's pretty recent and it is really good technology. I have a full auto, uh, integrally suppressed, uh, ar. And when you shoot that thing full auto, it's not flow through, obviously it's older technology you're getting kicked back with a ton of gas in the face and it it stings, your eyes sting after a couple, couple magazines. You don't want to deal with it. So I can see why these companies wouldn't want that.
Speaker 3:Now to take that one step further, eric, not just suppressors, and I wanted to touch on there's another act going through because they separated it the short act. So the short act deals specifically with short barrel shotguns, short barreled rifles. So they kind of separated that um. So now you have two, two things going through for you know approval. So just keep an eye out for both of those guys. You have the hpa and you have the short act, short act, um.
Speaker 3:But to take it one step further, about the nA, not just suppressors, but let's just say machine guns, right, everybody has this grand idea. They're like oh, I want machine guns off the registry. I do too. That's great and I would love it. That's not magically going to drop the price of machine guns. You go on Gun Broker right now and you'll see a pre-80s Mac-10 for transferable $10,000. Or more or more, $10,000 or more for a three pieces of sheet metal stamped together with a crude firing mechanism on the inside. Ask me how? I know, because we have one. So I mean, it's one of the most crude machine guns you can ever get. All right, $10,000.
Speaker 3:And only good for getting in a gunfight in a phone booth. The phone booth man, I love it. But let's just say the NFA was abolished and now you could buy and sell machine guns. You could buy new machine guns. That price and the barrier to entry is going to be the same, and that's going to drive people wild For some time. Well, think about this. The market price has been set. Gun manufacturers and private sellers know what you're willing to pay for a machine gun. Just because you don't have to register it anymore doesn't mean they're not.
Speaker 2:They're going to take less money for it but if they open it up to where anyone can just make their own machine guns, such such as in the same ways, you can cut your own barrel down on your own sbr you can cut your own shotgun barrel down.
Speaker 2:so if, if we wind up doing away with the nfa and it's just like, hey, whatever you want to do, then people just make their own machine guns. Now, where that is absolutely positively true is on the collectible stuff. Now, is an old Maxim or Vickers still going to be a really expensive gun? Well, yeah, because there's not going to make any more of those things, right? So there's going to be certain classics that, by virtue of the parts not being out there, they're not available anymore, unless someone comes up and decides to manufacture those things, which, of course, the market will always dictate what people will do with their money Right.
Speaker 2:People want a brand new made 1919. Someone will come out and make a 1919 like Ohio Ordinance right.
Speaker 3:They already make a lot of that type of stuff, so it would not be hard for them to go ahead and turn around and just make a full auto version.
Speaker 2:They make some really interesting fire. Yes, they have that car and imagine each bar.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the 30 yacht six. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:So what is old is always new again.
Speaker 2:Yes, and and I really do like that company. They've got some cool stuff going on. Come here, girl, you getting bored? So to piggyback on what you're talking about with the NFA and everything like that, is that with HPA, okay, we have this watered down version where, well, we won't have the $200 tax stamp, but we'll include the registration. You still have to have the registration. So, politically, what does that accomplish?
Speaker 2:Well, again, again, listen, don't kill the messenger, y'all. I'm not saying I agree with them changing up the circumstances under which hpa could theoretically get passed. This is still not even out of the rules committee yet, so it hasn't even gone to the house floor for a vote. As of the time I'm making this video, today is the 15th y'all, so there's still some time to change language, and it could change by the time this podcast drops. Just keep that in mind. So we're going back in time here, guys. This is a week or so ago, two weeks ago. All right, could the language change? Yes, it could change, but as it sits right now, ok, as it stands, it appears that there's some compromise on the table, right? Well, what is it? And in the view of the politician, what does this compromise accomplish? One in their head again. This isn't me. This is me speaking theoretically about what these people may have going through their heads right now. For one, they go. Well, gun owners should be happy, they're saving $200 and they don't have to pay for a tax stamp anymore. That very well may be true for some. Right In their mind they may be going. Well, the manufacturers who are coming to us behind closed doors and saying they're unhappy about the registry being taken out of there for suppressors and you know they don't want to be painted as anti-gun or painted as tyrants or painted as anything other than just business people. But let's face it, they have some concerns over suppressors being removed from the NFA because it's going to absolutely disrupt and therefore even maybe possibly bankrupt their entire business model. So it's making those people happy because it's keeping the registry.
Speaker 2:And then three, you know the Republicans get some clean hands and they can say well, see, look we, we did something for gun owners, but did they really do anything? They really didn't. They know that the tax stamp is unconstitutional. So they're actually protecting themselves by passing this legislation to remove the tax stamp, because that's actually preventing that section of the NFA from being challenged, at least in the meantime possibly being challenged in the Supreme Court. Imagine the $200 tax stamp goes to the Supreme Court and they go hey, we're going to look at the constitutionality of taxing a right under the guise of the firearms stuff.
Speaker 2:And imagine that the Supreme Court goes our way on that and they say well, wait a minute, y'all All right, brewing brewing here. Okay, for one, you can't have a registry. You know, we've already tried to tell the ATF you cannot maintain a registry on normal Title I stuff. Well then, why are we doing our NFA stuff? Two, there was nothing in place early on that passes a smell test. That would lend us to think that some registry is even constitutional to begin with anyway.
Speaker 2:And then, third, the $200 tax stamp is unconstitutional anyway.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, y'all we've already said that here, here, here and here, like in three or four different cases, we've already said that you can't do this.
Speaker 2:So they don't want that to go to the Supreme Court, they do not want that case to be made before the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2:So the Republicans, as much as we want to think that they're all pro-gun and this sort of thing, I mean, look, they can tell you they're pro-gun all day long.
Speaker 2:But this is also a way for them to kind of cleverly cover their ass. Well, to keep this out of the Supreme Court because, trust me, they do not want this whole NFA thing going for the Supreme Court, because they know if it goes our way it's going to set forth a very large constitutional bubble for them. To overcome that future administrations like all right, if we have a mostly anti-gun administration and they want to pass a bunch of anti-gun crap, they're going to have a much more difficult time getting it through a smell test. That involves hey, the $200 tax stamp's unconstitutional. The NFA is unconstitutional, you know, hey, here are multiple courts who verify that the AR-15 and variants of modern guns are protected by the Constitution. So once you have all these things in place in the court, it really does landlock any future anti-gun efforts, especially under the Bruin standard, that could ever take place. So I think there's a greater ploy in place than we might even see.
Speaker 3:I agree, and it's not just Republicans but it's also Democrats. So I'm just going to use this as a quick example, and this isn't really the NFA, but firearms and gun control in general. So you know, eric, Washington DC is one of the most locked down fire anti-gun places in America. The police, the Capitol police and the regular police, have to turn their firearms in after their shift. So they get to the police station and they draw the firearms and then when they get off their shift, they turn their firearms in. That, to me, is crazy. But with that said, you definitely can't take firearms into the Capitol building. All right.
Speaker 3:And what happened? New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, his assistant slash driver this happened a couple of months ago and you haven't heard hardly anything about it. This happened a couple months ago and you haven't heard hardly anything about it. Cory Booker's assistant slash driver brought a firearm concealed carry into the Capitol building, got caught with a concealed firearm. What happened? Nothing. One or two news stories. Slap on the wrist. Man, if that was a normal citizen, you'd be in prison right now.
Speaker 3:And to think that the double standard that there is for you know the quote senators and lawmakers compared to your American citizen, it's insane to think that someone can, can, be, can have such a double standard applied and there's no outrage. I don't see any of the you know, you know gun lobbyists. I don't see any of the you know, uh, gun groups saying hey, what's going on with this? Why are we not making a bigger deal out of this? That was a prime example of what we could do to say hey, rules for thee, but not for me, but we did not take advantage of it in any sort, and that's just a great example, in my opinion, on how the differences between what those that we put into government to represent our interests treat are treated versus us, the, the average american that has to live under the tyrannical rule of said government bro, it's so true that, like when we have control of the ship, it's like we do nothing with it.
Speaker 2:Yep, we don't even try to move the gears of government we just go up status quo.
Speaker 3:Here we are. You know, imagine if that was a republican. Oh no, dude, they would have.
Speaker 2:Well, you'd still be in the news right now so we're going to take a moment to give a shout out to another one of our show sponsors and look y'all, this is a company. I really love these guys. I believe in what they're doing, I love their freaking products and I think you will too. When it comes to gear that can handle anything, there's no better choice than Undertak. Designed for and tested by an elite special forces team in Africa's harshest conditions, Undertak is made to perform when it matters most, Whether you're navigating through terrain or just tackling your day. Their underwear, socks and shirts keep you dry, comfortable and mission ready. Made from premium materials like Modol there's is 50 more moisture wicking than cotton. Under tack offers tactical performance that goes beyond the basics from the ultra comfortable boxer briefs to the american made battle weave merino socks. You'll feel the difference, and your boys will too. Don't forget the hoodies and edc t-shirts rugged enough for anything, yet comfortable enough for everyday carry.
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Speaker 3:No, it is great. Great products, great company.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you, you've got to try those freaking underwear y'all. Do you think that I would be making a freaking ad about underwear if I didn't like what they did? Come on, y'all Buy some of the dang underwear. Do your boy solid and it helps the show as well. Great group of people. We're going to take a couple questions real quick. I know we still have a few minutes on the show here, all right, so I'm tuning into Twitter here. We've got a few comments here. Dissident Media says is this a new podcast? If you ever need guests to talk about grassroots lobbying, the guys at Defend the Guard are excellent, okay.
Speaker 3:Speak of the devil.
Speaker 2:Good deal and I appreciate that comment. That's great. So to answer the question, no, this is not a new podcast. Llp has been around for some time. We are in our 119th episode.
Speaker 2:I think this is episode 119, if I'm not mistaken. So we're 119 episodes in. So we've been doing this a while. Matt and I did take a break from doing the podcast because he got really busy with the Jiu-Jitsu Academy getting it up and running, and now it's doing great. I'm in a position where we're ready to get back. We're bringing the podcast back. Appreciate that comment there.
Speaker 2:Dissident Media is also a follower of mine over on Twitter. They have a great Twitter page as well. Check them out at Diss media. All right, great group of folks there. I follow them as well. Uh, jp mogan, seven, I'm sorry, nine, seven, nine four. Two says yes, have you reconsidered your stance on the sikhs and the Marine Corps now that you are woke on the Jews? Whew, wow, what a question. But hey, I'm not scared. Look, I'll go there. I consider the Sikhs to be a very morally pure group of people. I've never had a problem with any of them. Every Sikh I've ever met has always been a fair person. You know just. I mean just because a Marine wants to wear a turban.
Speaker 3:I just I mean just because a marine wants to wear a turban. I ain't got a problem with that, do you matt? No, not at all. As long as they do their job, guys, there's. There's exemptions and profiles for everything. Way before there was a headgear, you know. Exemption for religious reasons. Religious, religious exemptions and profiles were probably one of the normal things in the military. What wasn't normal was like a shaving profile or like a no pt profile?
Speaker 3:all right, I would. I would probably have something worse to say about those guys than a Sikh that is seeking a religious exemption for wearing a turban look guys, I will tell you this to people in the military it doesn doesn't freaking matter.
Speaker 2:There might be a small silent minority that has an issue with a Marine wearing a turban versus the traditional headwear. The truth is, I think society just looks at it as some talking point that they can just point a finger and say, oh look at this, this is woke, it's whatever. The truth is, as long as that Marine does his freaking job, I don't care what head gear he wears. I'll tell you what if I'm bleeding out on the damn battlefield and someone wants to carry me off the battlefield, if the guy's got a freaking turban on, hey, as long as he can carry my gargantuan butt off the battlefield, hey, he can wear whatever he wants, I don't care that's right uh, good question.
Speaker 2:He thought I wasn't gonna answer that one, I don't care. Yeah, I have my criticisms about israel. I'm not gonna lie about that. Kyle wilson says that lobbying behind closed doors is legal. But if you want to pay someone for sex, you have to film it and put it on the internet for it to be legal, or at least make the offer.
Speaker 3:So that way they don't. So they don't arrest you oh my god, oh man, uh.
Speaker 2:Garbage. Underscore three zero zero says are we back on to gun gripes or do you have a different podcast? Well, guys, we've always had lop uh and I haven't cut a lot of other shows on the channel. I've been kind of busy with some other things. Well, basically just life. Okay, I've been living life and for the last 17 years I've been producing this YouTube channel religiously and, quite frankly, I'm taking a little time to, you know, take care of some things in the house, clean up, just enjoy life a little bit. It's been a long road. I mean, 17 years is a long time. Put out content Now. With that being said, I have a ton of stuff coming up, including more gun gripes, five guns, range videos, et cetera. I just got to get my butt back in gear and get back in the field. That's the motivation I'm getting there, y'all, okay. One more question here We'll wrap up the show.
Speaker 2:Curtis Woodard at Curtin C. Lobbying is fundamental to government of by and for the people. It's just that the people don't have the time and the inclination to lobby on their own behalf. That leaves the field open to those who can pay others to lobby for them. The people, by and large abdicated, good point.
Speaker 3:You know, I think it's a very good point. I think you know the big part of people being against lobbyists is not that they're against lobbying. It is necessary because someone has to tell the lawmakers what the word on the street is, because they are so far removed from what's actually going on. You're talking about guys that have drivers. When you hear lawmakers, congressmen, house reps talking about oh, how much is a gallon of milk? They wouldn't know how much a gallon of milk is. They wouldn't know how much eggs cost. They're getting fed that information, so they do need lobbyists to keep them up to date.
Speaker 3:The thing that people don't understand or they aren't aware of is that and I have the data here from Open Secrets 46% of lobbyists are former lawmakers that worked in the building alongside the congressman, so they are within that. They're using their existing influence to make more money, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But when you stay in that business and there's no term limits for those congressmen or lawmakers, then it becomes a reciprocating loop of hey, this guy, he worked as an aide for one year, he has the relationship of that lawmaker, and then that lawmaker keeps getting reelected term after term after term, and they're just creating a long-term job for themselves versus hey, if we just put in term limits, then you would have to have turnover with the lobbyists, because the lobbyists wouldn't be able to stay there for 10 years and milk that short relationship they have with those lawmakers Bro that is such a great point.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you brought it up in today's show because that's one area that Thomas Massey and I have maybe respectfully disagreed on here and there. But I am coming around on Thomas Massey's view of term limits. Thomas Massey, his view is that, well, if we have term limits, you never know what boogeyman's there. You don't know who's there. So if we have a revolving door of people now you're having to constantly rediscover who's who, where their allegiances lie, and by the time you figure out who's who, they're gone, they fly the coop and then there's some other person in there who could be a scumbag. They could be better. How do you know?
Speaker 2:But that's what the people wanted, though that's what the people voted for, I know, but at least if you have the same people, there's a relationship there between the lobbyists, between the congressmen. You have a voting record. And that was Massey's point was that if we don't have term limits, at least you have a record of consistency. You know what that person's moral code is by being able to analyze their votes, by being able to analyze their stock trades, which is a whole other podcast, which is a whole other podcast, which is a whole other thing, y'all A whole other thing.
Speaker 2:Nancy, we're listening to you now. Okay, Basically, if you just trade like Nancy, you're going to be rich. They have a bot that publishes her trades Right.
Speaker 3:yeah, Follow Unusual.
Speaker 2:Wells on Twitter. They have a bunch of great like unusual bubbles of the market that will certainly point you in some really interesting rabbit holes, if you will.
Speaker 2:So check it out. Unusual Whales on Twitter. And a quick shout out before we sign off on today's show Make sure you go and check out the Twitter page. I engage in some spicy commentary over there, but I do love engaging with the audience on Twitter. You can also field your comments and suggestions for the show for LLP over on the IRAC Veteran 8888 Twitter page. Many of you know as well, we post this podcast in video form over on IRAC Veteran 8888 tentatively by 9 Eastern time every Monday. Sometimes I forget to upload the show. I apologize, I'm kind of like. I'm kind of like the dude right. So it's like you know, sometimes I get a little, a little bit, uh, procrastinating on on on trying to throw a reminder to you.
Speaker 3:I'm like Sunday night I'm like hey, yeah, hey, man that show.
Speaker 2:But anyway, um, it's been great. I've enjoyed today's show and I think we went down some really interesting um areas that are thought-provoking. Maybe some of you have your thoughts about lobbying. There are some things that weren't discussed in the show that I really wanted to touch on. We just didn't have enough time.
Speaker 2:Closing remark about lobbying is that there are essentially two basic types of lobbying within the gun industry. Okay, one is what I call I mean I don't know who coined the term, maybe I coined the term or whoever did but let's just say one is access-based. One is, hey, we go to the country club and do all the crazy ass kissing with these people and therefore we're going to try to be buddy-buddy with them and that's how we're going to get our influence. There's the access-based type of lobbying and then there's the we're going to primary your ass into oblivion type of lobbying. So each of the lobbyists and of course you look at people at FPC they're going to have the lawsuit machine going burr. Right, the printer's going burr. What do they mean by that? All right, that's not access-based, that's hey, we're going to just sue your ass into oblivion-based. So you're going to just actively sue the crap out of them. They're going to be buddy-buddy with them and try to be friends with them and have that sort of relationship, or they're going to go to them and say, hi, well, look, you know we're cool, but just know that if you don't do what we want, we're going to, we're going to lobby, we're going to push our members to vote your ass out. Come, come, you know, midterms or November. So that's how the lobbying, all of those arms, become part of a greater machine that affects how these bills either progress or they don't. Sometimes they lie dead on the floor.
Speaker 2:So I just, I guess, want to end this podcast today's show by saying that all of the lobbying groups, no matter who they are, they all serve a pretty essential role to the overall process of how things work. I would suggest, you know, supporting all of them, as much as it pains me to say this, because I have some issues with the NRA. I have not always agreed with the NRA, okay, but if you got a few extra bucks to support all of them, join GOA, join NRA, join, you know, fpc, join Dudley over there, nagr. They're all great people, they all have their own little tactic and all of it equates to what I view as an overall pretty effective method for closing in on the enemy and getting what we need to get done on Capitol Hill. Now I'll end by saying this and again, not to grandstand or anything I've never accepted a single dollar from a gun rights organization.
Speaker 2:I've never accepted a bit of pay. I was the Georgia State Director for GOA for a couple of years. I've recently stepped down from that position. I've had my issues with the NRA over the years. I have never accepted a single dollar from a gun rights organization for anything. I refuse to take money from a gun rights organization for any reason at all, whether it's employment, whether it's engagement, whether it's for getting signups for them.
Speaker 2:Whatever the case may be, my heart has always been in the fight of the Second Amendment and nothing more. I do not view the undergoing of lobbying or the undergoing of being involved with a gun rights organization. I don't view it as a money-making apparatus. I view it as a service that I provide, that I lend the ear of my viewership to the goals of those gun rights organizations in order to positively move the needle in the direction it needs to go in to change the culture of gun ownership. That's what I care about.
Speaker 2:I care about winning the game, I don't care about. Okay, maybe, in moving logistics, win wars right, that's what they say. Logistics win wars, not soldiers. By moving the chess pieces on the board where we need to move them to accomplish the goal. Yeah, some money's going to change hands. That's logistics, the logistics of moving the chess pieces to trap the anti-gunners and get our checkmate right. In the moving of those chess pieces there's going to be some money changing hands.
Speaker 2:I don't care about the money changing hands, that's not. I don't care about that. I don't want their damn money. I don't want the members money. I want to checkmate the king. I want to. I want to win the war. That's what I care about and I want the most rapid way for that to occur. And in my mind, if I take no money, if I accept no paycheck, that's my way of contributing what I can contribute to the greater cause at hand. So take it for what you will. That's my view. It may not be everyone's view, but that's the way I look at it. Anything else before we go? Matt, no, man, that was a bombshell to end the show on.
Speaker 3:But I mean, I'm just glad you know the viewers have been absolutely amazing Guys. The comments have been very supportive. I know that Eric and I took almost close to two years off just to get right. You know, you got to refresh, you got to get your life right before you can start back and we decided that whenever we come back and we start the show, we're going to be able to dedicate much more time to it. You know, a little bit more production value, and we've succeeded. We've done, I think, eric, you've done a great job of you know, getting everything here set up. Um, and the conversations have been great, man, like today was. It was a great conversation and hopefully, you know, the listeners enjoy it and it's just something for you guys to to munch on while you're working. A lot of you guys tell us this is what gets you through your work day. Uh, I'm glad that you choose to listen to us because you know we're just in the end. We're just two guys having a conversation about probably what you're thinking about.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:One last little housekeeping before we go that I thought about here is that with the show and everything like that, you know we are trying our best to get some more guests. I know some people have been asking about when we're going to bring guests in. I am still doing some work here on the studio. If you want to drop a super thanks and drop a few bucks, I'm not going to complain about some war bucks in the war chest. You know we do have sponsors on the show that help with that as well, but pretty much I am dumping every dang dollar on this show that I make back into production. I'm buying more lighting soon.
Speaker 2:I know there are a few folks been asking about lighting the mics. Audio I think is really good, so let me know if you guys like the quality of the audio, does everything sound good? Always let us know. Give us all the feedback We'd love to know, like how's the video look, how's the audio sound, how's the lighting look Like? I know those things may not matter, but to me they matter. I want things to look right and let me know what type of guests you want to see. You know and look it's not only going to be just gun people. We're going to bring a bunch of random people in to join in on the conversation. So I'm so ready to get this studio like the way I want it. I see it finished in my head and it's like I'm so ready to get it done. Man, it's going to be great. Yeah, man, this is going to be the ultimate hangout room.
Speaker 3:It's going to be awesome.
Speaker 2:It's going to change a bit.
Speaker 1:You're going to notice some difference, but it's going to be dope Right on All right man Well, have a good week, matt and we thanks for listening to life, liberty and pursuit. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe on apple podcasts, spotify and anywhere else podcasts are found. Be sure to leave us a five-star review. We'd really appreciate that you can support us over on ballistic inc by picking yourself up some merch and remember guys, dangerous freedom. Have a good one.