Kayleigh

Welcome to gun owners of America, state of the second podcast.

Kayleigh

I'm Kayleigh.

John

And I'm John.

John

And today we're joined by twelve Spies or Caleb.

John

Pleasure being on you today, my friend.

Caleb

I'm great.

Caleb

I'm great.

Caleb

Happy to be here.

Caleb

Thank you for having me on.

John

So let's get into it real quick.

John

A little bit about yourself, your background and who you are.

Caleb

Yeah, so I'm a photographer and videographer by trade.

Caleb

I got into the gun industry very late.

Caleb

It was actually during COVID and I already had a video photography background, but I decided to use those skills in this industry and now I've been able to work full time in this industry and I really enjoy it.

Caleb

I'm also a very strong second amendment advocate and I talk a lot about that on my YouTube channel, twelve spies.

Caleb

Very original.

Caleb

And I'm also a father.

Caleb

I have two kids.

Caleb

I have a wife that I've been married to for 16 years, and I'm an outspoken advocate of Christ and Kingdom.

Caleb

Also, the NFA is lame.

John

We can all agree on the NFA is lame.

John

So we're gonna start off with what we call our rapid fire questions.

John

I'm gonna give you five questions.

John

You gotta give me an answer as quick as you can.

Caleb

As quick as.

Caleb

Okay.

Caleb

I need a nasty ready something.

Caleb

Okay?

Caleb

Yeah.

John

Okay.

John

What is the most recent gun you bought?

Caleb

I bought a tink arms perune x 16 kit.

Caleb

So that's that slovenian gun.

Caleb

There's some forgotten weapons coverage on it.

Caleb

Also, polinar tactical covered them extensively, but it's basically a direct impingement slash piston hybrid gun.

Caleb

So it's kind of the slovenian scar, I guess you would call it.

John

Here we go.

John

What is your go to home defense gun?

Caleb

My go to home defense gun right now is a Strabog SP 45, a three.

Caleb

I like the subsonic capability.

Caleb

I've got a rugged obsidian 45 on it, but it doesn't have as much penetration as 300 blackout.

Caleb

People are gonna go crazy in the comments and be like, this guy's dumb.

Caleb

But I live in a neighborhood with a lot of children and I just don't want anything to overpenetrate, go through walls.

Caleb

I just wanna dump them in the target and have them stop.

John

All right, what's your EDC?

Caleb

My EDC fluctuates between I've got a lone wolf dusk 19, which is like a Glock gen three clone, but with really nice texturing and a more vertical grip on it.

Caleb

And I've got a holosun 509 t on top of it, and then I switch.

Caleb

Sometimes I carry an Rx defense gen two delta m.

Caleb

The m lays flatter, so I can conceal it better.

Caleb

So if I'm at church or if I'm, like, out around town and I don't want to print as much, I use that one.

Caleb

But if I want to shoot the best and I want to be comfortable just ripping and gripping, then I run the dusk.

John

All right, next one is pineapple on pizza.

Caleb

Yeah, yeah, I do like pineapple on pizza.

Caleb

I don't think it's sacrilege.

Caleb

I think it works, you know?

John

And then the last one is the most controversial question.

John

Are aliens real?

Caleb

I don't believe in aliens in the traditional sense.

Caleb

I believe in spiritual beings or trans dimensional beings.

Caleb

So I think there's something to paranormal activity or things that we perceive as aliens, but I don't believe that there is distant life.

Caleb

You know, the nearest star system is, like, what, 2.4 light years away?

Caleb

So you think, like, why would anybody go so far to see us when we're such a nutcase?

Caleb

Or Tim Walls would say, in knuckleheads.

Caleb

But I don't think that aliens are real in the traditional Sci-Fi sense that we think.

John

So that was our rapid fire baboom.

John

Now we're.

Caleb

How did I do, scormi?

John

About a 3.5.

Caleb

Ooh.

Caleb

Out of three.

John

Out of three.

John

Yeah.

Kayleigh

You lost him at Pineapple on pizza.

John

Yeah, you lost me on pineapple on pizza.

Caleb

Yeah.

Caleb

Well, sorry.

Caleb

You know, I guess we'll just.

Caleb

We should just shut it down now, you know, just see if ourselves control.

Caleb

Cause my answers after this are gonna be way worse than that, you know?

Caleb

So.

John

So you got into the fire space during COVID You start off with.

John

You've got that videography, photography background.

John

What equipment do you run?

John

Because we may have some, like, photography nerds out there who might want to know, like, what are you running?

John

Yeah, you make you.

John

You do, like, really, really awesome pictures.

John

Like, they're really high quality, really great pictures.

John

So what are you running on your camera setup?

Caleb

So I'm in a Sony ecosystem right now for photography.

Caleb

It's getting a little long in the tooth, but it still does what I need it to.

Caleb

I have a Sony a seven r three, which is very powerful, still very good today.

Caleb

Anything that I can't make up for in sharpness, you know, there's AI denoising and sharpening that kind of cleans everything up after the fact.

Caleb

And then my main workhorse, because I mainly do video, is Sony FX three, which is awesome.

Caleb

I just shot a wedding on it two weeks ago in very low light, and I filmed it at 12,800 ISO, which is.

Caleb

It's a dual base ISO.

Caleb

And I wasn't sure how good it was gonna look, but it turned out awesome.

Caleb

I was really impressed with the output, so.

John

Yeah, and then you go to a lot of events, right?

John

You do a ton of different industry events.

Caleb

A decent amount.

John

A decent amount.

John

What has been your favorite industry event and why?

Caleb

I mean, I don't want to.

Caleb

I'm not trying to brown nose or anything, but the Goa event in Knoxville was definitely my favorite event of the year.

Caleb

I live in Tennessee.

Caleb

I really love Tennessee.

Caleb

I moved here from California.

Caleb

I'm originally from Minneapolis.

Caleb

So I've actually lived in two states that had governors that were in the movie predator.

Caleb

So you've got Arnold Schwarzenegger, and then you've got Jesse Ventura.

Caleb

And I lived in those states when both of those people were governors.

Caleb

So if any other actors from that become a governor in a state, I'm legally obligated to move there.

Caleb

So I don't want to get sued or anything, so.

Caleb

But, yeah, no, I thought the GOa event this year was really good.

Caleb

I mean, this year, it was the first year.

Caleb

I think it's.

Caleb

It's hard to put into words how well executed it was for a first time event of that scale.

Caleb

And there was a lot of camaraderie.

Caleb

I remember when you and I talked a while back, when you were first kind of pitching it, that it was an alternative to the NRA.

Caleb

And, you know, I've gone to the NRA show before.

Caleb

I'm not a huge fan of supporting them because there's so much corruption.

Caleb

And I just don't think that they have gun owners in mind.

Caleb

Or if they do, it's kind of a secondary objective.

Caleb

So it was really great to support Goa there and to get out with a bunch of gun owners and enthusiasts and companies.

Caleb

And I think East Tennessee has a phenomenal community when it comes to the second amendment.

Caleb

I mean, they're super tight.

Caleb

You've got Opie out there.

Caleb

They do their naughty at night.

Caleb

They do a lot of training, a lot of cool events.

Caleb

So I think that was the perfect place to have it like that.

Kayleigh

Well, we definitely appreciate that vote of confidence, and hopefully, if anyone's listening that didn't make it out to goals, we'll come to goals 2025.

Caleb

You have to.

Kayleigh

It was such a fun event for us to put on for our membership because we do everything for our members that we can, like we get up in the morning with this.

Kayleigh

We want to serve our membership.

Kayleigh

We want to protect the second amendment, but it all comes down to our grassroots advocacy, and that relies 100% on the grassroots activist.

Kayleigh

And so ahead of what is a very important election cycle for our country, ahead of a very important kind of junction in american history.

Kayleigh

We felt like it was the right time to celebrate our membership, celebrate the very hard fought battles that we've had to have, and have a rallying point with lots of training and lots of phenomenal companies and wonderful content creators like yourself where we could just celebrate our rights, celebrate the values that we hold dear, and kind of have a springboard, for lack of a better term, to go and kind of evangelize the next generation of gun owners.

Kayleigh

And whether you fall in the next generation or not is irrelevant.

Kayleigh

But the new gun owners that are coming into the space so.

John

Well, I mean, you brought up a good point.

John

You know, the new gun owners we, and I don't know if you saw this, Caleb, but I've been to a ton of shows.

John

This was a totally different demographic.

Caleb

Yes.

John

Than what a lot of people are used to.

John

And especially, it's just a big applause to our members who are really in the know.

John

I mean, a lot of people were saying they were getting great questions from our members.

John

A lot of people said that it wasn't just the same old guy who's like, you make what you make this little thing.

John

No, it was people actually asking about, you know, why you do this, what this is for, how, you know, oh, I've heard of your product already.

John

Did you see the same thing, Caleb on the show floor walking around?

Caleb

Yes.

Caleb

Yeah.

Caleb

And I saw, you know, there was people that were traveling from far and wide.

Caleb

There was just a very friendly, and it was very accessible.

Caleb

And I also felt like if you had come off the streets and you thought, man, you know, gun owners are nut heads and they're crazy.

Caleb

They're a bunch of white supremacists.

Caleb

I'm gonna go in here and I'm just gonna lay low and I'm just gonna, you know, watch the, watch the geese for a little bit.

Caleb

I think you would have had probably the best impression that the two a community can give, which is, like you said, just great people there.

Caleb

We had awesome presenters.

Caleb

I'm a big fan of John Lovella.

Caleb

I thought it was great that he was there running around.

Caleb

I ran into Isaac from T Rex arms.

Caleb

He's one of my favorite people in the industry because he has so much care and concern to communicate.

Caleb

You would think that he was a lawyer in another life because he takes language so seriously.

Caleb

So I think if you came off the streets and you had a chance to interact with those people or any of the companies that were on hand, that, yeah, you would have got the best impression of the second amendment you can, and you probably won't believe the lies about it after that unless you're really ignorant, so.

John

Well, the funny part is we did have one of the anti gun orgs show up, and the worst thing they said is that there were children's books.

John

I believe it was like they were nitpicking, like, oh, high point had Yeet Cannon, and then it was Yehuda from the Pew, Pew Jew and his children's books on how to get kids into guns and things like that.

John

And that was the worst thing they could come up with.

Caleb

Yeah, it was hilarious.

Caleb

Yeah, that's desperation at that point, I would say, but, you know, I really want everybody to want to get into firearms and I want it to be an appealing thing.

Caleb

So.

Kayleigh

Yeah, it was really fun to put on.

Kayleigh

And we won't stay on the topic of goals too much longer, but it's always very interesting to me from the behind the scenes of putting the show on to, like, actually seeing the show take place.

Kayleigh

And I was not expecting you bring up John Lovell.

Kayleigh

I was not expecting some of the breakout sessions to be as.

Kayleigh

As well attended as they are.

Kayleigh

Like, I don't know that.

Kayleigh

If you would have come to me and said, hey, the home schooling and introduction into the second amendment for kids, that breakout session is going to be standing room only.

Kayleigh

I don't know that I would have believed you.

Kayleigh

I would have thought, no, surely the content creator panel is going to be one of the bigger, the biggest ones.

Kayleigh

And it was.

Kayleigh

But I was shocked by how well attended the stop the bleed trainings were, how well attended the homeschooling panel was.

Kayleigh

The active shooter panel, where we had citizens that had been involved in being that good guy with the gun, sharing their stories.

Kayleigh

Those were standing room only breakout sessions.

Kayleigh

And I just, it blows my mind, the support that the members gave.

Kayleigh

Some of those that I thought would be, I mean, I thought they'd be well attended, but I did not think that it would be, like, wall to wall packed out.

Kayleigh

But it was really cool to see again, people hear me say this all the time, but thinking that the gun owner base is a monolith is incredibly dangerous.

Caleb

Yes.

Kayleigh

And, you know, even.

Kayleigh

Even people who know this, like, I preach this fact and even I, multiple times, was like, all right, you know, we'll have some people attend, but, you know, it's probably not gonna be, you know, one of the biggest draws.

Kayleigh

And I was proven wrong, which just shows you the diversity and the desire to know different things and to offer educational classes that fit people's needs differently, because it's not a monolith, and not everyone goes for one topic and not the other.

John

Yeah, well, and it was funny because when you and I were.

John

And I'm going to move on to something after this, but when you and I were setting up the talks and panels, we're like, oh, yeah, we'll put this person in this room, and this person, this room, and people will choose.

John

And the amount of people who stopped us were like, I wanted to go to both.

John

And that just showed.

John

Like, we thought our thought process was like, okay, well, half the people go here, half the people go there.

John

And the amount of people who were like, I wanted to go both.

John

And if you want to watch any of those or listen to any of those stream, they are up on the forum is up on YouTube, and the main stage is up on rumble.

John

So if you missed those things, go ahead and go do that.

John

Now it's time for the fun segment of the show, or my favorite segment of the show.

Caleb

I thought we were already having fun, so we are having fun.

John

Kaylee's favorite segment of the show.

John

Kaylee, go ahead and step up on that soapbox.

John

And let's go from the soapbox.

Kayleigh

Yeah.

Kayleigh

So from the soapbox, the kind of topic that is a burning, I guess, desire for everyone to know is about the wordsmithing of the left and their recreation of terminology.

Kayleigh

And one, it kind of gets your takes on things like red flag laws, gun confiscation orders, quote unquote, standard capacity magazine, high capacity magazines, and all of the.

Kayleigh

The creations of language that the left has interred upon us.

Caleb

Yeah.

Caleb

You know, it's interesting.

Caleb

My oldest sister in law got married recently.

Caleb

We had a lot of family in town, and not everybody's conservative.

Caleb

And I had a really wonderful conversation with someone that I respect and I love.

Caleb

They're more left leaning.

Caleb

And so they asked me some basic questions, and I was just surprised at the lack of education for something that's opposed.

Caleb

You don't even have to have a basic understanding of firearms, what they do or what they don't do to say that we should get rid of them entirely.

Caleb

And then people have a lot of misconceptions because of these word salads or deceptive language.

Caleb

One of the ones that I hate the most that gets quoted very often is that gun violence is the leading killer of children.

Caleb

And if you look at that study that was conducted with Johns Hopkins University, you know, it includes kids one to 19.

Caleb

A lot of it is gang violence.

Caleb

And it was during the peak of COVID when kids were taken out of school.

Caleb

They didn't have any structure.

Caleb

They started getting on social media and talking a lot of trash.

Caleb

There's no context to the information whatsoever.

Caleb

And yet they keep running around and pushing this fear tactic that somehow guns are the leading killer of kids.

Caleb

People won't talk about how many people die from fentanyl every year.

Caleb

You know, and they.

Caleb

It just.

Caleb

It's incredibly frustrating.

Caleb

Language is very powerful, and if you can change it, you can change how people think or how they perceive reality.

Kayleigh

Yeah.

Kayleigh

And more to that point, it is the anti gunners on the left that primarily control media, and they're the ones that are shaping the narrative in a lot of ways.

Kayleigh

And then we find ourselves using that language that they are giving us.

Kayleigh

And what we fail to realize is every time we do that, every time we.

Kayleigh

We let the methodology go unnoticed when it comes to statistics or when we use things like red flag laws or even things like mass shooting, which puts the emphasis on the fact that it was a shot versus mass murder, which puts it on, like, the human value there, and that somebody was actually murdering people.

Kayleigh

People.

Kayleigh

You know, all of those things, those language devices, they matter, because when you allow the opposing side to be this primary pillar creation for your argument, you're immediately taking what could have been your position of strength, which is the 27 words penned in the Constitution, which is the fact that it is a constitutionally protected right, and you're actually giving up that ground and conceding to them that.

Kayleigh

Sure, we'll play with your terminology, and we will concede these things and then try to fight about, you know, how to best deal with them, versus calling out when the data is incorrect or calling out when the methodology is incorrect, or calling out when the words that they're using is manipulative.

Caleb

Extremely manipulative.

Caleb

Yeah.

Kayleigh

So I think.

Caleb

Sorry, go ahead.

Kayleigh

No, please.

Caleb

I was going to say, a perfect example of that is gun violence archives strongly petitioned the CDC to remove all statistics related to defensive uses of handguns.

Caleb

And they did.

Caleb

They took it down.

Caleb

I don't know if it's gone back up since then, but people, you know, think about how many gun deaths there are every year, and it's almost near what car traffic deaths are.

Caleb

And then you got to remove the statistics of, you know, usually around 60% of that is self inflicted, which is.

Caleb

That doesn't make it okay.

Caleb

But that's sad.

Caleb

You know, it's a terrible way to die, but that.

Caleb

That's not people just having hate against their fellow man and choosing a firearm as a means to kill them.

Caleb

But then you look at the defensive uses of handguns, and it's usually around like 2 million cases a year.

Caleb

Absolutely dwarfs any kind of.

Caleb

I mean, if you want to talk about a utilitarian society, you know, if we're looking for the maximum good, then their focus should be on those cases of defensive uses.

Caleb

Right.

Caleb

But if you control the conversation and you constantly steer it towards.

Caleb

It's kind of like a political opponent going after another one by just throwing empty accusations.

Caleb

Right.

Caleb

If all you focus on is the accusations and you're the opponent of that person and all you do is try, oh, no, I didn't.

Caleb

I didn't have inappropriate sexual relationships.

Caleb

And that's all you end up talking about because you're just trying to respond to just false accusations.

Caleb

Then that person has complete control over the conversation, and then they can go in the background and do whatever they want.

Caleb

I mean, a lot of this stuff is just thrown up on the wall so that the general public is distracted.

Caleb

And then they can go and pass laws that don't represent the will of the people, that don't actually represent public safety and then do ironic things like, you know, send a bunch of weapons to other countries that are not us to commit murder or, you know, whatever you call warfare.

John

Yeah, and we were talking about that yesterday and talking about how they're using our tax dollars against us.

Caleb

Yeah, absolutely.

John

So I'm going to let you sing the praises of that because you two were having a great conversation about that for a while, so go for it.

Caleb

Yeah.

Caleb

So, you know, our conversation we talked about a little bit yesterday.

Caleb

You look at the situation with disaster relief.

Caleb

You know, FEMA basically said they're out of money, and you look at what they've been spending their money on.

Caleb

In the last year, they spent $670 million helping illegal immigrants.

Caleb

And, look, if anybody wants to come to this country and find a better life, I can't fault them for doing that.

Caleb

I think this is the best country that's ever existed in history.

Caleb

But I think, again, if you enter the country illegally as your first act, then you're probably not going to respect the rest of the laws that are meant to maintain order and peace, liberty and justice.

Caleb

For all.

Caleb

So they're out of money.

Caleb

People are applying for $750 in groceries.

Caleb

And now I'm hearing that people are.

Caleb

There's a decent amount of people getting denied for that, too.

Caleb

And then in the same breath, they sent over $100 million to Lebanon.

Caleb

And it's insane to think, you know, we're sending weapons to one country who's using those weapons against another country, and then we're giving humanitarian aid to the country that is being.

Caleb

Those weapons are used against.

Caleb

And yet we don't have any money for our people here at home.

Caleb

And in the same way, our justice system has become the same thing.

Caleb

Right.

Caleb

Whether it's a governor or a senator or a president goes after our constitutional rights or second Amendment rights, they can pass it through.

Caleb

They can work overtime on that.

Caleb

They're getting paid by our tax dollars.

Caleb

But when we want to go back and try to overturn it, and organizations like gun owners of America want to sue the ATF to try to reverse a law that they never had the authority to pass in the first place.

Caleb

It comes from what?

Caleb

It comes from your membership fees.

Caleb

It comes from money that you have to raise grassroots.

Caleb

It's not tax dollars.

Caleb

And so your own money's being used against you, and then you have to pay more money to get your rights back.

Caleb

I think that's just an extreme perversion of justice, and it would make our founding fathers sick.

Kayleigh

And I think more to that is the bureaucracy that has.

Kayleigh

Not only is it we're fighting against our own tax dollars, we're not even voting these people in.

Kayleigh

Like, at least not that it's justified, but at least if it's a governor or a senator doing these things or a president, you.

Kayleigh

You at least can vote them out of office.

Caleb

Right.

Kayleigh

I think even more egregiously is when you have a bloated bureaucracy that is going rogue, deciding, in the case of the.

Kayleigh

The pistol brace bands, that millions of gun owners would be felons overnight and.

Caleb

Wouldn'T even know it.

Kayleigh

Yeah.

Kayleigh

Yeah.

Kayleigh

That's the.

Kayleigh

The mind blowing part is how many people had no idea how close that they were to becoming a felon.

Kayleigh

And we have to fight those.

Kayleigh

And thankfully, Goa members, I always say we have the best membership in the world, and I truly believe it because we're always willing to fight and everyone is willing to donate so that we can continue these lawsuits and continue the fight in the courts and in Congress and at the state and local level.

Kayleigh

But ultimately, we're a fighting machine from grassroots activism.

Kayleigh

Yeah, but it's so much harder to fight these injustices when they're coming from a bureaucracy that believes that they can do whatever they want whenever they want and have free political reign to do so while having none of the accountability measures that someone who is elected has.

Caleb

Yeah, well, and how often do you see, like, a law get passed that didn't need approval by Congress, but to reverse that law, they need approval by Congress?

Caleb

I'm like, isn't that backwards?

Caleb

Shouldn't that be the other way around?

Caleb

But it seems more and more like the system is working against the people.

Caleb

It's being weaponized against political opponents.

Caleb

You see people who get off scot free for doing terrible things.

Caleb

I was really interested to see how they were going to handle the weapon charges against Hunter Biden because I'm a second amendment absolutionist.

Caleb

And I was like, I think that he should be able to possess a firearm.

Caleb

And, you know, his, he, you know, if he lies on a background check, yeah, that's dumb.

Caleb

But I wanted to see him have the best justice possible.

Caleb

And I saw there were multiple legal organizations like gun owners of America that offered him legal counsel.

Caleb

They're like, hey, we'll represent you in court because even though, you know, you hate our guts, we want to represent you and we want your gun rights to be preserved.

Caleb

And of course, all those offers were declined upon.

Caleb

So.

Kayleigh

Yeah, because you've got, in the case of someone like that, you've got a system that needs to be fixed.

Kayleigh

But by that same token, you also have a political class who believes that the rules don't apply to them and only should apply to everyday citizens.

Kayleigh

And so, you know, it's very frustrating, I think, to everyday gun owners, everyday Americans, when they see the rules for the but not for me mentality of the political elite.

Caleb

I think that can be summed up with, you know, Kamala Harris was on Oprah for a staged appearance.

Caleb

And near the end of it, she made the comment that if somebody came into her house that she would shoot them and then laughed about it.

Caleb

And I thought, what a, you know, here you are.

Caleb

You've built your whole identity on, you know, banning assault weapons.

Caleb

And, you know, when you look at the definitions or the language related to assault weapons, you know, semi automatic, high capacity magazine, it's not limited to rifles.

Caleb

I mean, they use the air 15 as opposed to poster child.

Caleb

But this kind of language would quickly overlap and bleed into things like even handguns because, you know, you look at Chicago demonizing Glock switches and trying to get Glock to recall every Glock ever made, which is insane.

Caleb

Chicago doesn't have a Glock switch problem.

Caleb

Chicago has a Chicago problem, and they're not trying to fix it.

Caleb

So when you hear someone like Kamala, you know, laughing about, yeah, I'd shoot.

Caleb

I'd shoot somebody and kill them if they came into my house.

Caleb

It really, to me, that was the embodiment of, you know, rules for thee, but not for me.

Caleb

I thought it was.

Caleb

I thought it was disgusting, honestly.

John

Well, it's funny.

John

The AR 15 has become this poster child for assault weapons ban.

John

But if you look at, you show somebody a mini 14, they're like, oh, no, no, that's fine wood furniture.

Caleb

Yeah, it's a hunting rifle.

John

Yeah, yeah, it's insane.

John

And we're touching on the topic of taxation and constitutional rights.

John

And one of the cases that was not too long ago that won in the Supreme Court was the Minneapolis Star case, where they were taxing them on paper and ink because they didn't like what they were saying.

John

And that could set a really big precedent for the second amendment because they got ruled in their favor that you can't tax a constitutionally given right.

John

So what do you think on that?

Caleb

I think that absolutely makes sense, because if you look at the second amendment, a lot of people miss out on, for instance, well regulated right.

Caleb

And I've heard so many people say, well regulated means well regulated by.

Caleb

Well regulated by the government.

Caleb

No, that would be completely counterintuitive.

Caleb

This is to keep the government in check.

Caleb

So what does a well regulated militia look like?

Caleb

That means that you have people training, you're capable, you're ready to roll.

Caleb

You have communication established.

Caleb

There's a sense of order.

Caleb

It's not just someone buying an AR 15, sticking it in the closet, and then sitting on their hands and being like, well, they ever come for me, I'm gonna get them good.

Caleb

So I think for the necessity of that, that means being, having ammunition, that means having firearms, that means having body armor.

Caleb

And all of those things cost money.

Caleb

So if you put a tax on those things, you're directly preventing or attempting to slow people's ability to obtain those items.

Caleb

The NFA is the same way.

Caleb

Right.

Caleb

When it was passed in 1934, that $200 tax stamp, if you use an inflation calculator, comes out to, like, $5,000 today.

Caleb

That is the only good thing about inflation, is that $200 seems like nothing.

Caleb

Now.

Caleb

I still think it's ridiculous, and it should absolutely get rid of the NFA, but those are costs of entry that were designed to be prohibitive of people getting access to things that should be otherwise protected by their constitutional rights.

Kayleigh

Absolutely.

Kayleigh

And we've seen this.

Kayleigh

A right delayed is a right denied.

Caleb

Absolutely.

Kayleigh

You know, it's obviously made famous through Martin Luther King Junior, and the fact that he was denied and delayed multiple times in getting that concealed carry permit, which ultimately not having the ability to protect himself caused him to lose his life.

Kayleigh

And no one wants to touch those kind of hard subjects, but those are the kind of subjects that we have to broach, because whether it is a tax stamp and you're waiting for, you know, a suppressor or whether it is, you know, during COVID you know, when you were just joining the firearms industry, you know, we were having to fight and sue in Pennsylvania.

Kayleigh

I know for sure was one of them.

Kayleigh

I think Virginia as well, where counties were just not issuing permits.

Caleb

Yeah.

Caleb

Just like a full service.

Kayleigh

Under the guise.

Kayleigh

Yeah, under the guise of.

Kayleigh

Oh, well, you know, we're public safety.

Kayleigh

We're in a public health crisis, and we had to sue on the premise of a right delayed as a right denied because you had rampant crime in many areas.

Kayleigh

You had many people needing and wanting a way to protect themselves.

Kayleigh

And the government was saying, no, actually, you don't need.

Kayleigh

You don't need that.

Caleb

It was all about control.

Caleb

Just a further measure of control.

Kayleigh

Exactly.

Kayleigh

And so it's so important that when we discuss these topics and we discuss the taxation of a constitutional right, we don't just look at the blatant overreach by the government in our second Amendment right.

Kayleigh

That's not how I want to word this, but you have to look at more than just the cost of the tax stamp.

Kayleigh

You also have to look at the waitlist that, that has created all of the additional hoops that gun owners have to go through for a constitutionally protected right.

Kayleigh

It isn't, the monetary side is one thing, and I'm not saying that it's a good thing, but it is just the tip of the iceberg on the harm that has been able to be caused to the second amendment for all of these years.

Caleb

Yeah, well, and then you see just a.

Caleb

Oh, go ahead.

Caleb

Go ahead, John.

John

No, you could go for it, I.

Caleb

Was going to say.

Caleb

And then you see those systems that, you know, are the, you know, designed for public safety.

Caleb

You know, they're not meant to be gun registries.

Caleb

They're not meant to be giant databases of who has what.

Caleb

And yet there's, you know, footage of people from the ATF going into the back of gun stores and taking pictures of their logs of, you know, who bought what, which is, you know, blatantly illegal.

Caleb

You look at Department of Homeland Security was formed entirely on the basis of spying on Americans.

Caleb

And Mayorkas has constantly overstepped his bounds.

Caleb

They bring him in all the time.

Caleb

Talk about an unelected official that has zero interest in helping Americans and has zero oversight, because it seems like every time you see him, they're like, hey, you're really not supposed to do this or spy on people in this way.

Caleb

Oh, I didn't know that.

Caleb

You know what excuse?

Caleb

I didn't know that doesn't even work in my kids, because my kids, even though they're five and six, they don't get to use the excuse.

Caleb

I didn't know I couldn't do that.

Caleb

Because they are independent thinkers.

Caleb

I expect them to use their moral compass and to use their limited time on this earth to be able to determine whether something is right or wrong.

Caleb

And so I would expect someone like Mayorkas, who's been in this business for a while now, to be able to know whether or not spying on Americans and buying information from Google to spy in Americans is a good use of our tax dollars.

Kayleigh

Yeah.

Kayleigh

And, you know, it wasn't very long ago that Goa and GoF, our sister organization, through the Freedom of Information act, uncovered that the ATF was illegally keeping billions of out of business records.

Kayleigh

And, you know, they're not.

Kayleigh

Those are supposed to be destroyed after a certain, certain number of time.

Kayleigh

But through the Freedom of Information act, we were able to uncover that that wasn't actually happening.

Kayleigh

And, you know, those things are very important for us as gun owners, us as citizens to know.

Kayleigh

And that's why the work that, you know, Goa and Gof, I find very important.

Kayleigh

And it's one of the reasons why I enjoy coming to work every day, is because I know that we're doing the right thing.

Kayleigh

And you can't.

Kayleigh

If sunlight is the best disinfectant, you have to have the resources and the manpower to find what needs to be exposed to the light.

Kayleigh

And thankfully, Freedom Information acts still work, and we're still able to uncover those things.

Kayleigh

But it's not a good thing to uncover.

Caleb

Yeah, well, there's a famous quote, and I can't remember who said it, but it's that the government should know nothing about you and you should know everything about them.

Caleb

And yet it's the other way around.

Caleb

Right?

Caleb

Our government is veiled in secrecy.

Caleb

People think that people that are pro big government.

Caleb

Yes, daddy, take my rights away.

Caleb

They fawn over politicians and treat them like celebrities, when, in fact, they're supposed to be public servants.

Caleb

They're not supposed to be making millions and millions of dollars.

Caleb

And we should know everything that they're doing while they're at their job, and we should know a bit about what they do in their personal life, because if someone is participating in illegal activities, if they're harming children, if they're going against the very laws that they impose, like mask laws during COVID I want them out of office because they can't be trusted.

Caleb

And yet we have launched all of these taxpayer funded campaigns to gather as much information about the american people and give it to organizations, three letter organizations that they can use against us.

Caleb

And then you end up with things like, Catholics are on the FBI watch list because they're intolerant towards transgender people, which is just insane.

Caleb

I think when you talk about perversion of justice, you talk about what this country was founded on, which is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that if you don't get liberty, you'd rather have death.

Caleb

We've just become this people that's very comfortable with not having liberty, and we're just really, really, really scared of death.

Caleb

Maybe that's just because, as a society, we've moved away from a belief in God or that there's anything after this life.

Caleb

And so it's just.

Caleb

It's just yolo, you know, I gotta.

Caleb

I gotta preserve whatever I have now as much comfort and, you know, buying crap I don't need as I possibly can to fill the hole.

John

Yeah, I mean, that's well said.

John

You know, we talked about constitutional given rights, and if I don't mention this, Alexey might come after me.

John

West Virginia has no tax on firearms and ammunition because it's a constitutionally protected right.

John

How do we get that for every state?

John

How do we grow that.

John

That push?

Kayleigh

And that's like, to note that Tennessee got rid of their privilege tax due.

John

Did they?

Caleb

Well, hey, are we gonna get.

Caleb

Are we gonna get refunded on those taxes?

Kayleigh

I wish.

Caleb

I want to back tax on that.

John

You know, and we brought.

John

We bring up this perversion of power, too.

John

And, you know, I'm a history nerd.

John

And, you know, my plane trip last week was just watching a three part documentary on George Washington, which just tells you how much fun I had on the plane.

John

It was fantastic, by the way.

John

But even if you look back in our history, the founding fathers were not dumb, especially George.

John

And a lot of people give him a lot of hate.

John

But he said most, if you look back at history, most revolutions fall back into some sort of monarchy or dictatorship because there's somebody who rises to power, they take the power, they go, he didn't even want to serve as president.

John

No, the man did not want to be, but he knew that he had to.

John

And then he tried to make him.

John

Yeah, they tried to make him king.

John

And he went two terms and was like, I'm done.

John

I'm gonna go live my life out.

John

Cause that's what I wanna do.

John

Because I've served this country from the time he arrived, you know, from the french and indian war into the revolution into his presidency, the poor man didn't even get to enjoy his retirement.

John

He was like, what, six months or a year later he passed away.

Kayleigh

Yeah, well, I think you're hitting at a broader point.

Kayleigh

We used to have a political class that understood that they are civil servants and that they are employed by the american people.

Kayleigh

And now we have a political class that is self servant in many cases.

Kayleigh

And they consider themselves to be a leader.

Kayleigh

They're not looking to their constituency to tell them what direction that they should be going.

Kayleigh

They're not looking to their constituency for advice on what is going to make your life better because they have decided that they know everything.

Kayleigh

And that is, I think, a really difficult thing for us as citizens to understand is it is our job to hold them accountable.

Kayleigh

And that means making phone calls, that means sending emails, that means showing up to gold lobby days or to town halls.

Kayleigh

You know, it's, you know, right when we're filming this podcast, it is right before the election.

Caleb

Yeah.

Caleb

Early election or early voting starts in my town, I think tomorrow.

Kayleigh

Yeah.

Kayleigh

And so it's so important that when the political class is out there and they're doing all of their campaign stops, that you show up, and not to be disrespectful, but to engage with them and say, hey, we've got some serious issues with how you're treating the constitution.

Kayleigh

Hey, we need to be looking at, you know, getting suppressors out of the NFA.

Kayleigh

We need to be looking at completely abolishing the NFA.

Kayleigh

We need to be looking at these proactive approaches to restore our rights.

Kayleigh

And then if we have to be on the defensive on what they need to do to protect our rights as well.

Kayleigh

But if we don't hold them accountable throughout the year, we can't just expect that they're going to magically wake up after another election and be like, you know what?

Kayleigh

I think I need to start doing the right thing.

Kayleigh

They're only going to know that when we let them know and we show them that, hey, no, your power really does come from us.

Kayleigh

And if you don't do the right things, I'm not voting for you, and you will lose power.

Kayleigh

And because that's really fundamentally the only thing that a politician cares about is are they going to remain in power, stay in power.

Kayleigh

And that's kind of the whole philosophy of Goa, is empowering the grassroots, giving the tools that you need to be successful.

Kayleigh

It's why we have a phenomenal legal team and a phenomenal state and local affairs and federal affairs who read the bills, who break it down, who send you the digestible version, takes 30 seconds to send an email.

Kayleigh

If you're a slow typer, maybe a minute and a half to your representative and say, hey, you know, this is what we, what we're expecting of you.

Kayleigh

And if you have the time to make a five minute phone call, even better.

Kayleigh

And if you have even more time and you can go to a town hall, even better.

Kayleigh

But you have to do something because if we do nothing, then they're going to continue to walk all over our rights because we're not telling them how to vote.

Caleb

Yeah, I mean, I think that shows just how important communication is if you, you know, I've been doing some work recently with groups like Trigger Hill, which is an app that's launching soon for Second Amendment freedom of speech.

Caleb

Because you look at YouTube, you know, they keep constantly restricting information.

Caleb

And if you want to, if you want to learn about gun rights, if you want to learn about what you can do to mobilize an effort to maintain our gun rights, that's not content that gets recommended unless you're really on there a lot.

Caleb

And you know, they could, I think what really looms over us is that they could pull the plug at any minute and then there would go the majority of our education.

Caleb

You know, it's like knowing something bad is going to happen and you just hope it's not going to be tomorrow.

Caleb

But I think people are very satiated today.

Caleb

People are very comfortable, there's a lot of entertainment available and pornography is free.

Caleb

And you know, that's part of the marxist movement is just to keep people satiated.

Caleb

And then they won't care or notice when their rights are being taken away.

John

Well said.

John

Well, we gotta wrap this up.

John

I appreciate you, Caleb, for being on, so go ahead.

John

And if you could shout out all your socials where people can find you.

Caleb

Yeah, so you can find me at twelve.

Caleb

Spies on YouTube.

Caleb

On Instagram.

Caleb

I'm one, two underscore spies.

Caleb

And I would just say I'm always gonna make a strong advocacy for homeschooling.

Caleb

The best way that you can impart and your beliefs on the next generation is to have a bunch of kids and teach them the way that they should go.

Caleb

Our birth rate in the United States is under two, which means each household is producing less offspring than what they started with.

Caleb

So the people that are going to take control, the people that are going to have the dominant belief system, are the ones that have a lot of kids and educate them themselves.

Caleb

And I would also just say, as a country, we need to go back to having a Christ centered belief system.

Caleb

A lot of our justice system is founded on the Ten Commandments.

Caleb

And if we lose sight of what rights were given to us by God and not by government, I think that's the greatest thing the government tries to do, is they try to convince you that they're God.

Caleb

I think that the second amendment is a gateway to distrust in the government.

Caleb

And if you distrust the government and you don't believe that they have your best interest, then you're going to start taking personal responsibility for your safety, for educating your.

Caleb

Your kids, for providing for yourself instead of taking a handout.

Caleb

So I don't think there's any bigger fight that we can participate in right now than for the Second Amendment.

John

Very well said.

John

Well, guys, thank you for listening today.

John

Make sure to go check Caleb out.

John

Twelve spies.

John

And have a great rest of your day.

Caleb

Thanks, guys.