Welcome to Gun Owners of America State of the second podcast.
KayleeI'm Kaylee.
JohnAnd I'm John.
JohnAnd today we're joined by the man, the myth, the legend, the gun toting Coloradoan who is just the meme lord of all memelords.
JohnSean Herron from We like shooting and dangerous freedom.
JohnHow are you today, my friend?
Sean HerronI'm good, man.
Sean HerronI'm actually not a meme lord.
Sean HerronI just steal meme lords memes and post them because it drives massive traffic on Instagram.
JohnI feel like.
JohnNo, I've seen a few memes from you.
Sean HerronI do make them.
Sean HerronI do.
JohnI've been in the back of a.
JohnOf a Jeep with you make.
JohnPutting.
JohnPutting boots on Biden's head.
Sean HerronThat is true.
Sean HerronBut the best part of that ride was making a rap song about Kurt.
JohnSo we were on this long road trip from Arizona to Idaho and Sean came with us and he made a whole rap song in the back of the Jeep about Kurt.
JohnYeah, it was the greatest hit.
JohnAnd then he lost it.
JohnAnd he found it.
JohnYeah, he found it.
Sean HerronSo the best part is it was in garage band.
Sean HerronLike, I did all the music, I did the vocal performance, everything in a, what, 11 hour jeep ride?
JohnYes.
KayleeWow.
Sean HerronGreat.
Sean HerronI mean, terrible.
KayleeThat is commitment.
KayleeWell, I think, I think you owe it to all of the listeners to, you know, drop a link to where people, people can listen to this wonderful.
KayleeNobody wants to hear this wonderful song.
Sean HerronThe music aspect of it is wonderful.
Sean HerronThe.
Sean HerronThe topic is probably not friendly for most audiences.
Sean HerronIt's rated X.
Sean HerronMaybe just a hard R, I think.
Sean HerronYeah, it's bad.
Sean HerronSo bad.
JohnSo, Sean, you've been.
JohnWe're.
JohnWe're best friends at this point.
JohnI think that's.
Sean HerronI mean, we basically are.
Sean HerronAnd we have been for a long time.
JohnYes, for a very long time.
JohnSean and I spent hours on the phone together talking about stuff.
JohnWe actually talked about you earlier today in a podcast.
JohnWe were talking about magazine restrictions and we're talking about how you and I bought the same exact gun and the gun shows up at your place with no, with one magazine because they forgot about it, but no magazines in it.
Sean HerronYeah, it was unfortunate.
Sean HerronAnd the crazy thing is I have an ffl, so, like, I am legally allowed to have, you know, standard capacity magazines.
Sean HerronBut it was, it was kind of a bummer.
Sean HerronBut thankfully I had a bunch of the other ones.
Sean HerronBut yeah, the mag capacity stuff in Colorado.
Sean HerronJuly 1, 2013 is the day that they did that to us.
Sean HerronAnd here we are still 11 years later.
KayleeGod, Colorado is super.
KayleeInteresting, because I think most people still conceptualize the west as this frontier and cowboy culture and very gun friendly.
KayleeBut Colorado has just become more and more progressively anti gun.
KayleeAnd I know a lot of that centers around the cities.
KayleeBut from your perspective as someone from the state, is it an apathy that you think drives this from everyday gun owners or just not standing up and saying, hey, enough's enough?
KayleeOr is it the city's going more and more woke and anti gun?
KayleeIs it people moving to the state because it is gorgeous state to live?
KayleeIs it kind of a mixture of things like what do you feel like is the pinpoint reason why such a traditionally pro gun state has really swung the other direction in the last 10 years?
Sean HerronYeah, I think it's a little bit of all of the above, honestly.
Sean HerronSo I live in Colorado Springs and if you look at a electoral map of Colorado, the, you know, it's a big U of A red and then a small strip of blue in the middle which is Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, and through really clever gerrymandering and just redistricting and changing all those, all those things, they've really got a hold on Colorado.
Sean HerronAnd I think that a lot of this stuff that happens is apathy.
Sean HerronBut at the same time I think it's even more that we don't even realize that it happened, like even sometimes.
Sean HerronNow I'm like, what happened to this awesome state?
Sean HerronBecause I live in Colorado Springs, city of about 600 000.
Sean HerronSo not tiny by any means.
Sean HerronBut here it's the same Colorado I've always lived in.
Sean HerronWhen I go to the mountains, it's the same Colorado I've always lived in.
Sean HerronI never go to Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins because they're all trash.
Sean HerronSo I don't see that part of it.
Sean HerronAnd I think a lot of people feel just like me.
Sean HerronThey don't even realize that A, standard capacity magazines are illegal and B, they don't realize what happened to our state until it's time for, you know, taxes or any of that stuff.
Sean HerronOr you go to Denver and get robbed or Denver is just trash.
Sean HerronIt is horrible.
Sean HerronI don't even go there if I don't have to.
Sean HerronBut yeah, it's just a mixture of all the above.
Sean HerronPlus Colorado is so great and all the people that are leaving California and other states like that, they want to come here because it's so beautiful.
Sean HerronBut then they bring their horrible politics with them.
Sean HerronSo just a combination of all the above.
Sean HerronAnd I think people are starting to finally wake up.
Sean HerronBut even now it's going to be tough to get it back.
KayleeYeah.
KayleeAnd I know that everyone wants to look at things like lawsuits, and lawsuits can have tremendous capability when it comes to winning back and the restoration of rights.
KayleeBut the reality is, for most states, it is much easier to stop things before they start.
KayleeYou know, everyone kind of, you know, holds their breath when it comes to, oh, well, you know, you guys just make a slippery slope argument.
KayleeYou know, people will confuse that all the time.
KayleeAnd it's like it's a slippery slope argument because it's a slippery slope.
KayleeSome things are just reality.
KayleeAnd people will generally accept a level of tyranny and then get adjusted to it.
KayleeAnd they may get mad for a few minutes and then, you know, they'll move on because they don't have the luxury or the privilege of spending all day, all night, eat, sleep and breathing the Second Amendment, which we get to do every day, they've got to go to work and get through school and raise kids in all of these aspects.
KayleeAnd it's why you have to pay attention when we send things to your email.
KayleeAnd you have to pay attention when it's electives election season.
KayleeAnd you have to pay attention to these things because it's so much easier to stop it when it's a concept of an idea or when it's first introduced than it is going through the court systems, which can take years, and then you're still not guaranteed a victory.
Sean HerronYeah, 100%.
Sean HerronThat's exactly.
Sean HerronIt is.
Sean HerronYou know, like I said July 1, 2013, and here we are in 2024, we've lost a case, went to the Colorado Supreme Court, lost there, which seems just outrageous.
Sean HerronAnd now with Bruin kind of guiding where things are going to go now, hopefully we will have another case.
Sean HerronBut then even that one got derailed.
Sean HerronSo now we're kind of back to the drawing board there, and it's just a disaster.
Sean HerronI know so many people in the gun world are like, well, okay, we lost.
Sean HerronNow we're going to get them in the court.
Sean HerronAnd here it's a decade, man.
Sean HerronLike, it should never get to that point.
Sean HerronLast year when they were trying to push an assault weapons ban through Colorado, I sat right here for 13 hours waiting to speak for 60 seconds.
Sean HerronAnd the average person can't do that.
Sean HerronLike, I get it.
Sean HerronThey.
Sean HerronThey have rigged and designed a system that is intended to stop people who have jobs and have lives and have families from participating in government.
Sean HerronAnd it's terrible.
Sean HerronAnd we need to figure out a way around that.
Sean HerronAnd the way around that, unfortunately, is to vote for it.
Sean HerronAnd the problem is we're so apathetic about voting these days that we just end up here over and over and over again.
Sean HerronI know you guys fight the fight every single day and it's just, it's rough.
Sean HerronLike once we lose and once we have to go to court, like it's a big crawl back to the top.
KayleeAnd a costly one.
KayleeYou know, the flip side of that is not only is it slow, but it's, it's expensive and almost, I don't want to say worse because how do I want to phrase this?
KayleePrecedent matters.
KayleeAnd so you have to find the right case in the right district in the right scenario to set yourself up for as much success as humanly possible.
KayleeBecause if you allow the anti gunners and you just throw a lawsuit anywhere unless it's, you know, incredibly solid, you run the risk of not only losing the case, but then that sets the precedent, that that is the standard.
KayleeAnd so when you go to fight it in another area now the anti gunners can go back to the previous case that you filed in a different area and say, but see, you know, we won here because, you know, you have to be so careful on these things.
KayleeIt's not as, it's not as easy.
KayleeYou know, the Staples commercial, like, it's not an easy button that we're just like, all right, click this and we got it fixed, guys.
KayleeLike, don't worry, that's, that's not how the legal system works.
KayleeI mean, just think about bump stocks and how long that fight took.
KayleeAnd thankfully, you know, we, we ended up securing the victory.
KayleeAnd those things are amazing.
KayleeBut that's a lot of time for a unserialized plastic piece which, by the way, didn't make bumps bump firing illegal.
KayleeIt just, it just was the bump stock that was illegal.
JohnRight.
Sean HerronAnd even though we ultimately came out on top there, the tough part is, is how many people destroyed their bump stocks, how many millions, tens of millions of dollars were lost while that all went on.
Sean HerronAnd okay, yeah, now we have this, this win later on.
Sean HerronBut like, at that point, you know, the damage has been done.
Sean HerronAnd it's like I said earlier, it's so tough to crawl back from.
Sean HerronYou know, they're gone.
Sean HerronYou know, no one's really probably going to bring them to market again, maybe a little bit, but then they'll never hit the same way that they did that at once.
Sean HerronAnd to be honest, they're stupid.
Sean HerronBut like, I fight for everything, no matter how stupid, because I I get it.
Sean HerronLike, I know that once they get rid of the stupid stuff, they come for the fun stuff.
JohnCouldn't agree more.
JohnNow, we really dove into this podcast from the beginning.
JohnSean, why don't you introduce yourself to the people so they know who you are, other than me introducing you.
JohnSo go ahead and tell a little bit about your background and what you do.
Sean HerronI don't know, man.
Sean HerronI do a podcast for a job, which feels like a very teenager thing to say.
Sean HerronIt's almost like working at Chuck E.
Sean HerronCheese.
Sean HerronI wear the mouse suit, and that's kind of what it is.
Sean HerronI started a podcast with a bunch of buddies 11 years ago, and at that time I was a software engineer and, you know, kicking butt and taking names and sitting in meetings and doing PowerPoints and writing code.
Sean HerronAnd then the podcast started to kind of like, take off on accident.
Sean HerronIt wasn't a thing that I planned for or wanted to do.
Sean HerronThe podcast is called we like Shooting.
Sean HerronAnd it just kind of took off.
Sean HerronAnd eventually I had to make a choice.
Sean HerronAnd so I decided to do the thing that let me shoot machine guns and touch giraffes and drive tanks instead of sitting behind a desk in a cubicle.
Sean HerronAnd I think I made the right choice.
Sean HerronIt's.
Sean HerronIt's been a lot of fun over the years.
Sean HerronI've done a ton of other stuff, but, you know, like, basically, I do a podcast for a job.
Sean HerronYes, I know.
JohnAnd this is my favorite.
JohnWe always talk about the.
JohnThe on ramp to the second Amendment, and this is one of my favorite stories.
JohnHow did you and your co host meet and.
JohnAnd such a.
JohnAn eclectic group of people who also met together to join and do this podcast.
Sean HerronIt is.
Sean HerronIt is a weird thing.
Sean HerronSo me and my buddy Aaron, we originally just.
Sean HerronI was getting into guns, and he was like, I'll get into guns too.
Sean HerronAnd so we started a website where we could post pictures of our guns, because I was a web developer, so that was very easy.
Sean HerronSo we started posting pictures of our guns, and then we were like, well, maybe we'll, like, start an online magazine.
Sean HerronAnd then after about a couple weeks of that, we were like, oh, man, this is so much work.
Sean HerronWe need to find some other people to help us out.
Sean HerronSo we went to Reddit, and we literally just went and looked for people that were big mouths and had really strong opinions and were real jerks about telling you their opinions.
Sean HerronAnd we sent out queries to Jeremy.
Sean HerronHe had posted a picture of an armory that he welded himself.
Sean HerronAnd so we said, hey, you want to write for a magazine.
Sean HerronAnd then Savage was our news correspondent.
Sean HerronNick is like our master rifle builder out of Montana, but he's just a kid who was just really talented.
Sean HerronAnd all of them argued with us basically.
Sean HerronSo we invited him and we started doing the podcast by accident.
Sean HerronBut we, we just found all these real weirdos on Reddit back when it was not the cesspool that it is today.
JohnI mean, Jeremy, weirdo, that's like an understatement.
JohnI think.
Sean HerronAll of us, all of us, like, what a weird, eclectic group that, you know, 11, maybe 12 years ago, because we didn't start the podcast right away, just suddenly like found each other.
Sean HerronAnd here we are this long later, still like buddies, friends, brothers, and doing the podcast every week.
Sean HerronIt's.
Sean HerronIt's pretty crazy.
JohnSo after you guys did the podcast, you guys have been doing the podcast for a while.
JohnA couple years ago you bought.
JohnWell, it's been longer than a couple years.
JohnYou bought the firearms.
JohnSeven years.
JohnYou bought the Firearms Radio Network from Jake, who's the owner of Patriot Patch company, who makes awesome patches, by the way.
JohnBut you bought the network.
JohnWhat made you buy the network and what did that process look like?
Sean HerronMan, I didn't want to buy the network.
Sean HerronA lot of everything I'll say today is by accident.
Sean HerronAnd it's true.
Sean HerronSo we had gotten on the Firearms Radio Network at the beginning.
Sean HerronAfter a couple years, we became the number one downloaded show on the Firearms Radio Network.
Sean HerronAnd after about five years, Jake had just kind of had enough and didn't really want to run the network anymore.
Sean HerronSo he offered it to me, I said no.
Sean HerronAnd then I started thinking about it after I talked to him and was like, what if somebody tries to boss me around?
Sean HerronLike, I can't.
Sean HerronI can't have that.
Sean HerronSo I hit him back and took over the network.
Sean HerronAnd really over the last few years, I've spent a ton of time just trying to build it up and make it awesome, make it easy to post add technological advancements that nobody else really has, no other networks have, especially in the firearms space.
Sean HerronAnd I've really put thousands of hours into making it cool.
Sean HerronAnd again, just kind of by accident, just because I didn't want to be bossed around, is why this whole thing exists.
JohnAnd if you didn't know, you can listen to stay the second podcast on firearms radio network.
JohnExactly.
KayleeFirearmsradio.net so obviously owning the Firearms Radio Network, you are not only a big two way advocate, but you're also a big free speech advocate.
KayleeHow has that Been kind of transitioning from you posting a podcast to platform and creating a space for others to be able to share their thoughts and opinions.
KayleeAnd, you know, the shows that you've chosen to curate on.
KayleeOn the network.
Sean HerronYeah, I'll be honest, it was, for me, it was never really necessarily about.
Sean HerronWe as freedom people are probably one of the most held down, held back, and perpetrated against groups.
Sean HerronAnd in recent memory, like, I'm not trying to demean what others have gone through in our history, but over the last decade, it's gotten pretty bad for us.
Sean HerronAnd so I never wanted to have like, this big firearms radio network to feel cool about anything.
Sean HerronI always wanted just to have it so me and the homies would have a place where we could talk about stuff and not have to worry about getting shut down all the time.
Sean HerronAnd it turns into this, you know, those personal selfish desires kind of turn into this big platform where a lot of people can speak their mind, say their piece, and not have to worry about big tech shutting us down.
Sean HerronAnd, like, I have contingency plans because obviously we do use portions.
Sean HerronBut the best thing about podcasts is it's really hard to shut them down.
Sean HerronIt's, you know, just a fundamental technology that the Internet's built off of with RSS feeds, so it's tough to shut it down.
Sean HerronAnd it was kind of, uh.
Sean HerronI listened to podcasts when I first started this, but they were all tech podcasts.
Sean HerronAnd it.
Sean HerronIt just really has become this thing that is really hard to squelch, really hard to.
Sean HerronTo silence.
Sean HerronAnd it has been awesome to kind of realize throughout the.
Sean HerronThroughout the time that I've been doing it, how important it is for all of our voices to be heard.
JohnWell, you.
JohnYou talk about big tech shutting you down.
JohnUh, I can count at least on all my fingers and toes the times you've been kicked off YouTube for doing something that they didn't like on a live stream, and you've now completely switched to Rumble for the most part.
JohnSo what's that been like?
Sean HerronYeah, we.
Sean HerronWe've been kind of old school because we've been around so long.
Sean HerronWe've been kicked, stabbed, prodded, and beat down by just about every major tech platform there is.
Sean HerronI have had my Amazon storage shut down at one point, just no explanation.
Sean HerronI've had our Facebook page, 200,000 people just deleted overnight.
Sean HerronWe've lost five or six YouTube channels.
Sean HerronAnd now lately, YouTube has a rule.
Sean HerronI violate that rule at every opportunity because it's a dumb rule.
Sean HerronIt's about Live streaming, you're not allowed to touch a gun during a live stream.
Sean HerronWhich they do it because they don't want mass killers to live stream stuff and they want the ability in their community standards to shut that down quickly.
Sean HerronBut for me, just trying to show off a gun, they're also like, oh, no, that's a violation of the standards.
Sean HerronAnd so they kick us off and delete our video and it just doesn't matter.
Sean HerronI don't care.
Sean HerronRumble has really started to become a thing that I think is going to be pretty cool overall.
Sean HerronWe.
Sean HerronAfter the last time I got, we got kicked off YouTube, I talked to the guys over at Rumble and I was like, you know what?
Sean HerronYeah, I'll invest.
Sean HerronI'll, I'll put time, effort and energy into building our Rumble presence.
Sean HerronAnd, you know, now we're getting tons of traffic over there.
Sean HerronSo it's been, it's been really good.
Sean HerronI think it still has a ton of room to grow.
Sean HerronAnd I think people are just sick of being suppressed.
Sean HerronAnd not just us, like weed people, cigarette people, alcohol people, like everyone.
Sean HerronEveryone's getting shut down on these platforms because advertisers don't like it.
Sean HerronAnd it's.
Sean HerronI'm just kind of sick of it.
Sean HerronSo Rumble is kind of a no holds barred, free for all, and I'm here for it.
JohnWell, yeah, I mean, I've watched, I'm an avid watcher and listener of the we like shooting podcast.
JohnFirst time caller.
JohnBut yeah, I've, I've seen, I was always watching it on YouTube and you guys were averaging like 90 to 100 people on a live stream on YouTube.
JohnAnd then I happen hop in the Rumble the one night and there's like a thousand people watching you on Rumble.
JohnAnd just the.
JohnThat number growth was insane.
JohnAnd I, I know people were commenting like other people who have been watching for a while were like, wow, there's a lot more people in here than normal.
Sean HerronYeah, for sure.
Sean HerronOur audio downloads through the podcast are 99.9% of our traffic.
Sean HerronAnd the video wasn't a ton.
Sean HerronBut now that we've converted to Rumble, we went from, you know, hundreds of views on YouTube to 60, 70, 80, 90, 100,000 on Rumble.
Sean HerronAnd it's, it's been super cool to open up to this new audience and just to have a bunch of people.
Sean HerronAnd I can see it in our download stats that that video growth is driving our audio download stats, which is the one, the number that I truly care about.
JohnSo we're talking about podcasts.
JohnYou know, everybody A lot of people have talked about video in the gun industry.
JohnIt's always been like, review videos and this advertising and that advertisement.
JohnBut you.
JohnYour main focus is on the podcasting side.
JohnWhy is podcasting so important to this industry?
JohnAnd seeing that growth and what is it, you know, what benefits does it have to advertisers?
Sean HerronYeah, that's something that I spend a lot of time thinking about.
Sean HerronWe never pioneered anything in podcast advertising.
Sean HerronI stole it from tech podcasts from a decade ago.
Sean HerronBut I think, and studies seem to bear out the fact that because of the mechanism by which we deliver our content, meaning someone has headphones on, earbuds in, and they're at the gym, they're driving in their car, they're sitting there with us alone, whispering our sweet nothings into their ear, speaking of freedom and firearms.
Sean HerronAnd just because of the intimacy of that, I think that people remember it even more.
Sean HerronAnd we don't necessarily do ad reads as much as we just talk about our experiences with the products that we.
Sean HerronThat we choose to represent.
Sean HerronSo it just.
Sean HerronIt's like a natural extension of the conversation, just in general.
Sean HerronAnd because people are generally focused or alone listening to our voices, they feel a part of it.
Sean HerronAnd because we have a lot of fun, they have a lot of fun.
Sean HerronAnd because we do our ads the way that we do, I think it just generally provides a ton of value, in my opinion.
Sean HerronAnd it seems to bear out, like we.
Sean HerronWe get really good reports back from all of our advertisers on.
Sean HerronOn how the podcasting advertising works.
JohnWell, and I think you're absolutely right.
JohnI mean, being able to grab somebody's attention and focus for more than five minutes has always been a pain.
JohnAnd we.
JohnWe see this a lot with YouTube, average numbers and things like that.
JohnBut being able to capture them in the car or at the gym while they're focused and they're listening to it is always a good thing.
JohnNow, you've been doing this for 11 years, and there's been a lot of memorable moments that us as the fans have shared with you.
JohnWhat are.
JohnCan you give me a top five memorable moments from.
JohnWe like shooting from over the years?
Sean HerronLet's see, top five happened pretty early on back in the day.
Sean HerronWe kind of randomly just had random people join, and we had this dude who hated we like shooting join us.
Sean HerronAnd just, you know, having him speak, and it turned in exactly what you think it would.
Sean HerronHe just wanted attention, and so we gave him the attention.
Sean HerronBut we had a lady named Lil who was a fantastic long Range rifle shooter, and he started disrespecting her.
Sean HerronAnd so I shut him down and kicked him off and said, nope, you're not going to talk through her like that on my watch.
Sean HerronAnd so I'm going chronologically, not necessarily order of impact, but I think that was.
Sean HerronThat was a moment where I was like, okay, yeah, we can choose what's going to be said here.
Sean HerronAnd we have the ultimate power to just kick people off if we don't like what they're saying.
Sean HerronSo not only was that a good moment for me, it also made me realize that with that power, we can never abuse it and we have to let people talk.
Sean HerronWhich brings us to our next which.
Sean HerronDo you guys remember Voda?
JohnYes, I was going to bring up Voda.
Sean HerronYeah, that was.
Sean HerronThat was an interesting one.
Sean HerronHe was a firearms trainer that maybe shouldn't have been a firearms trainer, in my opinion.
Sean HerronAnd he did a lot of things on the Internet that raised a lot of eyebrows.
Sean HerronAnd so he came on our podcast and we were talking to him, and we're trying to give him an open, open opportunity to.
Sean HerronTo speak his.
Sean HerronTo speak his mind and talk about where he was coming from.
Sean HerronAt one point, we had just kind of had enough of his nonsense, and my co host, Nick, he.
Sean HerronHe turned to me and he's like, okay, I've had enough.
Sean HerronCan I.
Sean HerronCan I do it?
Sean HerronI was like, yep.
Sean HerronSo he just dropped the hammer and called him out for all of his nonsense.
Sean HerronAnd it was, in my opinion, really well done.
Sean HerronIt was respectful, but it really slapped down the nonsense.
Sean HerronAnd I thought it was a great moment.
Sean HerronWe had Ed's manifesto on the show, and he told a story of his friend Yaramilo and a donkey show in Mexico.
Sean HerronAnd it was just like a really impactful moment on the show.
Sean HerronI still hear about it to this day.
Sean HerronIt was years ago, just hilarious.
Sean HerronWe were all just dying, laughing, crying, couldn't talk.
Sean HerronIt was.
Sean HerronIt was pretty great.
Sean HerronYou're definitely looking for episode 171 in this line of questioning.
Sean HerronSo I was going through a rough time in my life, and, you know, one of the things that we do is drink alcohol on the show and, you know, just have fun hanging with our buddies.
Sean HerronWell, I drank too much alcohol.
Sean HerronWay too much.
Sean HerronI don't actually remember episode 171, but I hear that it was just an absolute cluster.
Sean HerronSo I hear about that one a lot.
Sean HerronI've never listened, but it was terrible and, you know, not my finest moment, I'll admit.
Sean HerronAnd, John, I go for the Fifth one.
Sean HerronI go, what do you think?
Sean HerronWhat did I miss?
JohnOh, I mean, the one with Maria was pretty good.
JohnThat was funny.
Sean HerronOh, yeah, the.
Sean HerronYeah, Dremel.
Sean HerronYeah.
Sean HerronYeah, I remember which one.
JohnAnd then.
Sean HerronYeah, some of them I just can't talk about.
Sean HerronI'm like, I can't say that on your podcast.
JohnYeah, the 171 was probably the.
JohnThe best.
JohnBecause you gave up.
Sean HerronYeah.
Sean HerronThere was one where we did it live in Vegas and I fell down the stairs coming back from the bathroom.
Sean HerronThat was.
Sean HerronThat was one.
Sean HerronAnyway, yeah, our podcast is a little bit more Howard Stern than Fox News, and as you can tell from that, greatest hits.
Sean HerronIt's slightly embarrassing because I'm a grown man.
Sean HerronI shouldn't be acting like this, but I do.
JohnBut.
JohnYeah, but the best part about being friends with you in the podcast, and this kind of goes into the community that you've built and that we've built as Goa.
JohnAnd as you know, you and I have known each other for such a long time.
JohnThe amount of stories of us hanging out, the monster can and Washington, the stealing of Cones, the Jeremy and Daniel defense, the list goes on and on.
JohnAnd that's what this whole.
JohnAnd again, if it wasn't for the 2A and us being in this 2A, we built this culture and friendship of, you know, because of guns, because of this.
JohnWe have this community that we all get to hang out in and have fun.
JohnAnd then the.
JohnThe words are not coming to my mouth.
Sean HerronCamaraderie.
JohnThank you.
JohnCamaraderie.
JohnThere it goes.
JohnAnd friendship that we have that.
JohnI don't think that would have been possible without the 2A.
Sean HerronOh, yeah.
Sean Herron100.
Sean HerronYeah.
Sean HerronI would still be a software developer, just, you know, hanging out, chilling in my cube.
JohnYeah.
Sean HerronAnd, yeah, two ways enrich my life in ways that I can never even.
Sean HerronNever even articulate.
Sean HerronHonestly.
Sean HerronIt's just been such a wonderful thing.
Sean HerronAnd the people that I've met are some of the people that I'm closest to in my entire life.
Sean HerronSo it's.
Sean HerronIt's.
Sean HerronIt's special, and it's a great, special community full of people that I would trust my life to.
JohnNow.
KayleeThat's awesome.
KayleeNow we just crossed over the.
KayleeThe halfway mark on this podcast.
KayleeAnd that means that it is time for our from the Surface Soap Box segment where we tackle one of the more controversial issues happening within the Second Amendment community and get your hot takes and all of the spice and all that comes with being on your soapbox.
KayleeSo the topic that we're tackling this week is gun owners and hunters apathy.
KayleeAt the time that we're filming this, it is before the election.
KayleeI'm not quite sure when this episode is going to be released, but kind of take us through your hot takes.
Sean HerronYeah, I've actually been going off on tangents lately on this.
Sean HerronIt's a really concerning thing.
Sean HerronAnd I think that a lot of people feel disenfranchised, disenchanted with the system.
Sean HerronI think that they feel like their vote doesn't matter.
Sean HerronAnd in some cases, they're right.
Sean HerronAnd they just, you know, people are like, oh, I got to go to work.
Sean HerronI can't take the time to do that.
Sean HerronAnd there's got to be some tough love.
Sean HerronLike, people like that are the first people to complain online when something happens that they don't like.
Sean HerronYou know, I didn't fight hard enough for the mag ban here in Colorado in 2013.
Sean HerronIf it was different, if it was today, I would fight tooth and nail to the end.
Sean HerronBut here we are because of, you know, my lack of.
Sean HerronI don't know, because of my lack of passion about the topic.
Sean HerronYou know, I could have inspired maybe some other people.
Sean HerronSo on my show recently, I've been talking very much about, if you don't vote, then you should probably just shut up.
Sean HerronIf you don't vote, I'm embarrassed of you.
Sean HerronLike, there is going to be a president selected.
Sean HerronYou don't have to like either one of them, but one of them is going to be selected.
Sean HerronYou might as well pick one that probably identifies a little better with some of your values than the other.
Sean HerronI'm not saying who to vote for.
Sean HerronI'm just saying if you don't vote, you're an embarrassment.
Sean HerronIf you don't vote, you don't get to talk later.
Sean HerronIf you don't vote.
Sean HerronAnd if some of your friends don't vote, like, maybe think about who you're friends with, because they are absolutely the ones who will sit down, sign a petition, talk crap on the Internet.
Sean HerronAnd it's just, I've had enough of it.
Sean HerronI've gotten a ton of messages from people lately that are like, oh, well, I was one of those guys.
Sean HerronAnd, you know, listening to you lambast me has.
Sean HerronHas kind of changed my theory.
Sean HerronAnd they're sending me their ballots now showing me that they voted.
Sean HerronAnd I think that's awesome.
Sean HerronI think that bullying is kind of a thing that we might need to bring back a little bit, especially for people who choose not to vote, because, you know they're going to they're going to be loud later, but don't let them.
Sean HerronIf you know somebody who doesn't vote, try to get them to vote.
Sean HerronI think it's really super important.
Sean HerronAnd if they don't, just bully them until they do.
KayleeWell, I think the apathy within gun ownership when it comes to advocacy, when it comes to voting is for a lot of people who live in conservative states, this false security of, oh, it's, they're not going to come after me.
KayleeThey're not going to come after, you know, you hear this argument, I think primarily unfortunately in the hunting space, you know, oh, well, you know, that doesn't apply to me.
KayleeThat's for the people who are purchasing body armor and want to have, you know, xyz.
KayleeBut we've seen more and more egregious steps by the federal government from the Department of the Interior wanting to do a lead ammo ban or the changing of funding to completely remove hunter education classes from the school, completely demolishing the on ramp for many people to get involved with the second amendment and have any kind of baseline safety training and capacity to understand, hey, I, this is my constitutionally protected right.
KayleeThis is my first introduction to this and the flip side of allowing these attacks.
KayleeAnd thankfully so far we've been successful in thwarting these attacks, but they're just getting more aggressive.
KayleeAnd so if you're sitting back and you think, oh well, you know, it's not going to happen to my little section of the gun owners universe that I live in, or I'm safe, maybe you are, but what about your children or your grandchildren?
KayleeWhat about the next generation of gun owners?
KayleeWhat about the people who aren't fortunate enough to live in a, you know, a red state with good gun laws that just passed constitutional carry?
KayleeYou know, your vote has an impact outside of just the president or the vice president, you know, especially if you live in a state with a Senate race that is, you know, closing in on the gap.
KayleeYou know, it's not just about you.
KayleeIt's about making sure that we have a Senate that is going to secure the filibuster so that we have another way to kill things.
KayleeIt's securing the Senate so that we get good pro gun constitutionalist conservative judges that are going to be instrumental in fighting things like the quote unquote high capacity magazine bans in Colorado or California.
KayleeAnd so you might be looking at these things going, well, you know, it doesn't really impact me or maybe I can sit on the fence, but it's way More than just the presidency that is, you know, on the line for gun owners.
KayleeThe second amendment is on the ballot.
KayleeAnd that's not a campaign slogan.
KayleeThat's not, that's not a, that is a public service announcement.
KayleeThere are so many things, especially, especially this time with the Senate up for grabs that are mandatory for us as gun owners to win.
KayleeYou know, it's incumbent upon us as individuals.
Sean HerronYeah, the saying I don't even, I won't do it justice.
Sean HerronBut you know, when they came for the bum stocks, it didn't affect me, so I didn't participate.
Sean HerronAnd then when they came for the they are 15s, well, I just hunt and I don't participate.
Sean HerronWell here now in Colorado, we have a proposition on the ballot that out of state woke conservationists want to take away our ability to hunt mountain lions here in Colorado, which is a thing that we do to keep the ecosystem healthy.
Sean HerronAnd you know that it hurts their feelings so they are trying to outlaw it.
Sean HerronAnd a lot of them are not even from here in state.
Sean HerronSo you know, now because the hunters didn't stick up for those other things.
Sean HerronNow the, now the hunters are under the gun and I think we all just need to understand that if it shoots a projectile, we need to fight for it.
Sean HerronIf there's any kind of freedom whatsoever, we need to fight for it.
Sean HerronIt's, it's huge and it's important.
Sean HerronAnd if we don't figure out how to make time, then we should just shut up because, you know, later is too late.
Sean HerronNow is the time, take action.
Sean HerronAnd if not, just you're an embarrassment, I gotta say.
JohnI mean that's, that's well said.
JohnI mean you, you and I have talked in depth and you've brought it up in the past about living in our echo chamber.
JohnIt seems like now it's, it's really important for us to get out of our echo chamber and look at it and go, okay, this is what this is election.
JohnNot this, not just this election, but every election means.
JohnAnd not only are you, are we looking at it from a one vote thing, but we also have to look at it like this is our constitutional given rights that could be taken away.
JohnAnd you put it best, you know, the bump stop got taken away.
JohnWhat's next?
JohnAnd we always, we always give this inch and push this goal line further and further.
JohnWe talk, we've talked about this in the past where we push, we learn, okay, yeah, we'll give them this or yeah, we give them this and then it takes us years to Fight back to where we just started, from now.
JohnAnd I know, you know, I've said it before, and I'm going to say it again.
JohnThe Dems are really good at one thing, and that's pushing, pushing, pushing and being the loudest person in the room.
JohnAnd conservatives, we are, as conservatives, we are very quiet and we just want to be left alone and we.
JohnTo have our freedoms.
JohnNow is the time for us to go.
JohnNah, that's enough.
Sean HerronYeah, yeah, I hear all the time they're like, well, they're always just constantly pushing and.
Sean HerronWell, it's.
Sean HerronNow's not the time to push for, you know, constitutional carry across the United States.
Sean HerronNo, it is time.
Sean HerronPush everything.
Sean HerronPush every single possible case that you can afford to push, because that's what they're doing.
Sean HerronAnd eventually, you know, I, I always live by the motto that if you say something enough, it becomes true.
Sean HerronAnd that's exactly what they are doing and what they have done.
Sean HerronAnd we need to fight back just as much and fight for every inch and introduce every nonsense thing that we could think of just to constantly keep it all tied up and keep it in the public zeitgeist and make sure people are talking about it.
KayleeYeah.
KayleeAnd that's kind of speaking back to our core philosophy at Goa of being no compromise.
KayleeIt sounds like we're being rude.
KayleeWe're not.
KayleeIt's understanding that your right does not come from the government.
KayleeIt is constitutionally protected and therefore they can't take it away.
KayleeAnd when you understand that and you understand the 27 words that were penned by our founders protecting that right and knowing that they didn't mince it, and when you take all of that into consideration and you understand that we have the high ground, we have the resolution to defend our protected right.
KayleeAnd so you can't just roll over and capitulate and give them this or give them that, you have to be fighting vigilantly and at every level.
KayleeI think that we've seen that victory can come from this.
KayleeBecause if you go back to the Second Amendment sanctuary ordinances, which were those county, state, local municipalities, and you see where we started with those, when Virginia wanted to pass that massive gun control and all of those.
KayleeWhat was that shot show it was happening simultaneously.
KayleeIt's the vcdl and GOA has been a part of it for many years.
KayleeLobby day in Virginia.
KayleeAnd it was 21.
Kaylee20.
KayleeYeah, 20.
Kaylee21.
KayleeAnd so right after that, you had the Second Amendment sanctuary ordinances, and they went all across the country.
KayleeYou can still go on our Website, download a template.
KayleeIf your county doesn't have one, go ahead and get it passed.
KayleeIt's actually very easy to do and we all of the instructions are there.
KayleeI promise you're going to be great.
KayleeBut you go and you get it passed.
KayleeAnd then we saw that turn into constitutional carry and second amendment preservation acts all across the country.
KayleeAnd now you have the momentum working in gun owners favor to where we have over 50% of the country is now in a constitutional carry state, some form of permitless carry.
KayleeAnd we're going to continue to fight for more of those.
KayleeBut again, it all started because we stopped that baseline apathy and we got involved as the grassroots and then it's been more and more and more people jumping on board and that's what it's going to take to achieve victory, especially long term victory.
JohnAlso you just said we have the high ground in front of a bunch of Star wars nerds.
JohnSo that's all I can think about for last I listen to all that fair.
JohnWe are Obi Wan.
JohnWe have the high ground.
Sean HerronExactly.
Sean HerronExactly.
Sean HerronBut yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Sean HerronI didn't even know that you guys had that template for the sanctuary state.
Sean HerronThat is super cool.
Sean HerronAnd you know what?
Sean HerronAll the people who hate all the things that we stand for, they're out there sitting around all day thinking of ways that they, they can, you know, infringe upon our rights.
Sean HerronI think that, you know, if you have some spare time, think of ways to, to strengthen our rights.
Sean HerronThey.
Sean HerronThey choose to destroy.
Sean HerronWe just want to build.
JohnWell said.
JohnWell, we are at the 45 minute mark so we're going to go ahead and wrap this up.
JohnSean, go ahead and plug away socials.
JohnWhere do people find you all the above?
Sean HerronOh man, you can just search for we like shooting anywhere and it'll come up.
Sean HerronSubscribe to the podcast, listen to it.
Sean HerronIt's fun.
Sean HerronBut you can find all the best gun podcasts outdoors podcasts@farmarsradio.net and that's that.
Sean HerronThat's pretty much it.
Sean HerronJust.
Sean HerronYeah, we like shooting anywhere.
Sean HerronYou'll find it right there.
JohnI'm gonna let you do the outro.
JohnYou do your outro.
JohnCuz it's one of the best outros.
JohnI don't think Haley's heard it.
JohnSo go ahead and do your outro for we like shooting.
Sean HerronI mean just genuinely.
Sean HerronI say it all the time because I want it to stick in people's head.
Sean HerronIt's nothing that I wrote.
Sean HerronIt's just something that I co opted and stole like the memes, and that's that we should always choose dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.
JohnAwesome.
JohnWell, thank you guys for watching.
JohnMake sure to, like, share and subscribe.
JohnAnd like Sean said, have a great rest of your day.