Welcome to Goa State of the second podcast.

My name is John and today we're joined by Michael Cox from Cox Arms.

Michael, how the heck are you today, my friend?

I'm good, buddy.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

Well, I appreciate you being on.

We've known each other for a few years now.

It's great.

We love supporting small businesses like yourself.

You guys are trying to grow, and it's great to see it.

So, Michael, go ahead and give who you are, a little backstory about yourself real quick, and then we're going to jump into this.

Okay?

So I'm just Michael Cox From Cox Arms USA.

We specialize in the AR15 platform currently.

You know, we.

We got into this thing because we were a brick and mortar dealer for about 15 years.

And, you know, every time that we would see a tragedy or whatever excuse, we would see the quality of the firearms that we were selling in our brick and mortar go down, but the prices would go up.

And on the last one, you know, when Covid hit, it got really bad, especially in the 15.

In the AR15 world, it became ridiculous where as a dealer, we couldn't even get the guns.

And when we did get the guns, we were paying retail to get them in the store and they would fall apart in a box.

You know what I mean?

So I just said, hey, look, you know, we can, we can do this better and we can give the customer what they actually pay for or more.

And that's kind of how it all came to be, man.

It just, it was a.

It was a deal out of just pure frustration of, you know, we're selling customers things that are just garbage, you know, and that's how we ended up here.

Yeah, I mean that.

I've heard your story a number of times and it is true.

You guys make some real high quality product.

I know you have a attention to detail that is way more than most.

Some may say that you're on the spectrum a little bit.

Your wife might say that, but probably.

But no, you.

You guys make a high quality product.

So we're going to get into this a little bit.

We're going to hop into a section.

But before I do that, we got to thank one of our sponsors.

So as a thank you for being on here, AC and Palmetto has sponsored our gift from.

For all our guests so that you will be getting a gift card from AAC and Palmetto here shortly after the show.

Awesome.

We'll get you all hooked up with that.

So again, thank you to Cameron and the people over at PSA for sponsoring the show and helping all our guests out with a nice little surprise.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

Over to you.

So we're going to hop into our first section.

That is rapid fire questions.

That's where I'm going to ask you five questions.

You answer them as quickly, as shortly or quickly or as long as you want to.

This.

This segment of the show is brought to you by Blackout coffee.

Check out Goa's no compromise blend from Blackout Coffee.

Get your caffeine addiction from Blackout coffee.

You can find them on our website.

As well as that blackout Coffee get.

Make sure to get that no Compromise roast.

It's really good.

So, Michael, I'm going to ask you five questions.

You answer them as quickly or as shortly as you want.

So let's go with what content do you watch most on YouTube?

Definitely gun content.

Yeah.

What is your EDC?

1911, I guess I'm, you know.

Yeah, sorry.

Single stack.

1911.

Four and a quarter.

I'm good to go.

You're good to go?

Yeah.

Do you like pineapple on pizza?

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's fine with me.

I don't care.

I'm a fat kid.

Whatever, man.

Just bring it.

If you could go back in time and change history, would you?

That's a good question.

I don't.

I don't have a good answer for that because, you know, off the cusp.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I want to change some things, but you don't know what the ripple effect would be.

So I don't have a solid answer for that.

That's a good answer, though.

I get a lot of yes or no's or some people are like, no, history is the way it is for the reason it is.

But it's a good answer.

What is your favorite patch or sticker you've gotten from a show.

Man?

Sounds like I'm sucking up if I answer this.

I love the save a pup from the GOA patch.

I sorry, man.

Yeah, I really dig that.

Let's not suck it up.

That's a great patch.

Everybody should love that patch.

Love that patch.

Yeah, I dig that patch.

Yeah.

No, that's one of my favorite patches.

I've had that patch before I worked for GOA and it has been a staple of everywhere I go is gets to save a pup patch.

Yeah, that's a good answer.

Well, that wraps up our rapid fire question.

Again.

Thank you to blackout Coffee for sponsoring that.

Make sure again to go to Goa or to Blackout Coffee to get that no Compromise roast.

Put a little bit of freedom into Your morning with the no Compromise roast from blackout coffee.

So let's talk a little bit about Cox Arms.

You guys make the AR15, but it's one of the best, highest quality AR15s I've ever put my hands on.

It competes with bigger names that are the same price as yours.

What attention to detail.

And why do you put such an attention to detail into all your rifles that you put out?

The.

The short answer is pretty simple.

For me.

It's, you know, they're fun, right?

I mean, you know, any shooting sport is fun, you know, but at the end of the day, for me personally, it's just a personal thing.

They're a tool, and it's meant to do one thing.

And I want to make sure that if you reach for my tool, the tool that.

That, you know, you get from us is it works.

And, you know, I hope the day never comes that I find out that somebody needed, you know, one of our weapons, and it doesn't work when it's supposed to.

I.

I don't know how I'd live with that.

So that's why it is the way it is.

Yeah.

I mean, first off, the.

The guns are beautiful.

You.

You hand Sarah coat.

All of them.

Yeah.

You do a lot of attention to detail.

And not only the Sarah coat.

I've seen your throwaway pile.

It's.

Yeah.

Most people go, oh, that's good.

No, you are very, very going, if this is not right, this isn't right.

And even to the smallest of blem.

Yeah.

You get rid of.

And that's something that a lot of companies.

And again, a lot of companies just don't do.

It's like, all right, well, I can get that out and get it out quickly.

You used to take the time and effort to go through every single piece, every single part.

Hand, check everything.

If you haven't shot one of his guns, you need to go shoot one.

They are probably the flattest shooting AR15s I've ever shot in my life.

I don't know what voodoo magic you've put into that, that.

Into that gun, but is crazy insane.

I met Michael.

Was it three years ago now?

Something like that.

You met Steve?

You met Steve?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mr.

Big Kid.

Yeah.

That's kind of how it all started, really, for us was Mr.

Big Kid, you know, he lived down the road from us, and he came in one day and it just kind of snowballed from there.

Yeah.

And he had one of your guns.

He brought it out to.

We went to the ring.

So one day brought it out, and he let us shoot it.

And I was like, that's insane.

Even it's got a little message on the inside where the bulk group goes back and forth.

It's the attention, the details on that.

But you guys started off.

And this is because I want to give your story, because it's a great story.

You started off as a brick and mortar in Queen Creek.

Yeah.

Arizona.

Arizona.

Yeah.

And to say that your shop was small in the back.

I remember coming over to see you guys, and you had the retail store in the front, and then we go in the back, and you had three or four machines back there running.

And you guys have kind of grown a little bit since then.

A little.

Not.

Not too crazy as far as, like, machines and stuff like that.

But, yeah, we needed more space and.

And, you know, just things like that.

So we have grown.

We are growing organically.

So it's, you know, it's not like that rapid fire overnight kind of, you know, sensation kind of thing, but it's good.

It's.

It hadn't been bad.

Yeah.

And so you've gotten.

You went from just an idea into this full process of.

Of building out all these rifles, building a company.

It.

What.

You sparked the idea from COVID and.

And the quality of guns going down, and you're just like, I'm gonna build a better gun.

Yeah.

It's not that hard, you know, it.

At the end of the day, it's not that hard.

And, yeah, I mean, I know that sometimes my scrap pile seems a little ridiculous, and it's.

It's ridiculous to me, too.

And the bigger companies are bigger companies because they probably don't do some of the dumb stuff I do, you know, which is throw away perfectly good product, you know, but for me, you know, in life, there's a lot of gray area, but there's.

To me, there's never gray area in right or wrong.

It's either right or it's wrong.

There is no in between.

And if I take your money from you, I need to know that at nighttime I can sleep because I did the best I could.

Does that mean that I'm perfect and nothing ever slips by?

Absolutely not.

We, you know, I screw up, I'm human.

But I think the bigger, more important part of that is, is how fast do you fix it?

You know, so if we have a problem, that's why we have our lifetime guarantee on it.

And, you know, there's a little bit of a caveat to that.

Right.

I have to be alive and be.

We have to Be in business.

But as long as I am and we're around, if you have one of our firearms, I don't care who broke it.

I don't care what the fault is.

I don't.

I just don't care, you know, oh, I ran a 300 blackout through my 556.

Just send it back.

I'll fix it.

You know, and to me, it's.

That's just the way things should be done.

Not necessarily the best financial decision to do it that way, but that is the way that I feel, you know, that I can sleep at night and.

And we do right by the customer.

Yeah.

I mean, we had a talk.

You said at one point that you would.

If somebody shot out their barrel, you'd replace it, and you'd hang that barrel on the wall, show how much people have shot your gun.

That's still.

I can't think of better advertisement.

Man, I honestly got.

I mean, I'm.

You know, hey, shoot it out.

Send it back to me.

I'll proudly put you a new barrel in there, and we'll put your picture up next to your barrel and pay homage to you every morning, you know, when we come into the shop, you know, so.

Because if you're out there shooting enough to shoot through the barrel and shoot the barrel out, we can't pay for that kind of advertising.

No.

You're looking at 30, 40,000 rounds.

Yeah.

So rock and roll, man.

I'll.

You deserve a new barrel.

And that.

That's what I appreciate about you.

You.

You're a very honest guy.

You're very truthworthy.

You.

You have your stance of what's right and wrong.

A lot of people will build a product and go, they got to get it out as fast as possible.

You take the time and the effort to go through every single thing, and people look at you, and I know we.

We've had this conversation, but we look at Michael, you got to get things out faster.

Michael, you got to do this.

Yeah.

We don't.

You don't fault.

You're gonna know if it's not right.

It's not right.

Yeah.

And that's.

That's something I'm.

I'm proud to say that I appreciate that about you, because a lot of people will go, I'm going to get the product out as fast as I can.

And you like, no, it's got to be right.

And if it's not right, you know, I don't want to.

It's your name on the gun.

It's not like it's Athena Arms.

Yeah.

But it's Cox Arms.

It's got your name on it, and you.

That is your, like, legacy, your stamp of approval.

And it is.

It's one of those things where not a lot of people would do that.

Yeah, we do get pushback on our wait times.

You know, our lead times are a little long, and I understand that.

And especially in, you know, today I'm a little older.

I didn't grow up with the Internet and, you know, like that instant gratification kind of thing.

So it's probably not as bad for me as it is for some, But I do get it, you know, guys, and especially, you know, if you're paying a few thousand dollars for a gun, you want it and you want it now, and I get that.

I really do, but there's only so much I can do.

And, you know, like I said, if.

If it's not right, it's not right.

And I would rather you wait an extra couple of weeks, you know, to get your gun and know that I did my best to give you that gun as opposed to hurrying up and satisfying your need to be, you know, satisfied right now.

But I'm not 100% sure.

You know, I really.

I could have filed that a little better.

I could have done this a little better.

Things like that.

That's the way it is.

Yeah.

I mean, guys, I've.

I've never had an AR so tight.

I've never had an AR that doesn't shake or rattle.

That.

That's the quality you're getting with Michael's guns.

They're.

They.

They're built and they're tight, and they don't rattle and they don't shake and they shoot flat, and it's.

That's insane.

So you started off with your.

Your billet rifle series, which is what you first did.

Now we're.

You launched the emr.

Yeah.

And what if for people who are listening to this, who might not, what is the emr?

The EMR stands for every man's rifle.

And it's our, you know, our.

Our kind of a.

It's not an entry level by any means, and it's not really a budget friendly.

It's just a solid foundation Gu.

You know, and are there things in it that you could, if you wanted to, you know, upgrade it?

Yeah, sure.

But the fundamentals of what you would normally, you know, if you buy a 500, 300, $800 rifle, you know, the things that.

That most people would do, you know, charging handle, trigger hand guard, you know, things like that we've already included those things, right?

So you got an Ambi safety, you got Ambi charging, you've got a high end or a higher end bulk carrier group already in it.

The trigger is phenomenal for that price point gun.

So if you, if a guy didn't want to do anything, and Covid's a good example of this.

You know, we had our brick and mortar store and we had people walking in, lines of people, literally lines.

We had never had lines in our store before.

And we had lines of people buying guns during COVID and it was nothing to get.

Three a day.

Two, three a day of people going, I can't believe I'm buying a gun.

I don't like guns.

I just never thought I would have a gun.

So you're going to have those people, right, that realize that, hey, the government's not coming to save you.

You know, at the end of the day, it's all on you.

So if you wanted to buy our foundation gun, you know, the emr, and you never wanted to do anything to it, just leave it alone.

It's good, it's a solid foundation gun.

You, you don't need to do anything else to it.

And it's at a price point that we feel is more than fair for what you're getting.

But it, eventually a guy, if, if they stay in the shooting world, you know, and they kind of take to it and they just stay with it, you know, all of us end up in the 2000, $3000 price tag eventually.

Right?

Now, maybe you didn't buy, you didn't spend all that on one gun right out of the gate, but I promise you, once you add up all the parts you bought, you ended up there.

Yeah.

Oh, trust me, you, you end up there real fast.

Yeah, real fast.

So once you go, you go trigger, handguard, charging handle, barrel, it happens real quick.

And you know, we, we've talked about this before where when you start doing that and you kind of piecemeal your gun together, sometimes you'll run into problems where there's tolerance issues.

All of us, if anyone's manufacturing an AR15, I don't care who it is or what their brand is, we're all manufacturing to a set of specs.

Each one of us decides what specs in there.

We're going to stay on the fat end of it or we're going to stay on the small end of it.

Are we going to push the limits on one end or the other?

And, you know, so if you buy a bolt carrier group from this guy and a bolt, or I'm sorry, a barrel from someone else.

And your buddy John did it and it works phenomenal in his gun.

But I put it in my gun, it doesn't work so good, you know, and people will very quickly decide that, oh, that molecular group is garbage or that that barrel is garbage or whatever.

And that's usually not the case.

Usually what it is is it's just a tolerance stacking issue where those two particular parts don't play nice, you know.

So for us having the higher end gun, obviously we're machining to our tolerances.

On our emr, which is an eleven hundred dollar gun, we're machining to our tolerances so we don't have to worry about it so much.

Yeah.

And that's, that's something people don't understand.

We talked a couple, a couple weeks ago with somebody, we're talking about AR10.

So we're like, there's no standardization in the AR10 and people don't understand that there is.

Your, your bolt might be on the high end and your barrel might be on the high end and you're going to have tolerance stacking issues.

Well, if your bolts on the high end and your barrel's on the low end, then you might not have those issues.

And once you get those issues, you go out.

It's that it's this piece's fault or it's that piece of fault where really what it is is just color and stacking.

Yeah.

And I used to run into that all the time where people call in and go, I've got issues with this and that.

And well, you might have to try this, you might have to try that.

Yeah.

So.

And that, and that's a hard pill for some people to swallow, you know, if they're not in the, if they're not in that world.

And, and they're definitely not in the machining type world.

That's a hard pill to swallow because, hey, I paid you X amount of money and, and it worked in my buddy's gun and I got one, it doesn't work in my gun, you know, and you come to find out they have either, you know, different uppers or they have a, you know, a different barrel or whatever.

So it's just one of those things, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, and again you, you brought up Covid and the number of people came in who were like, I'm never going to be a gun buyer now I want a gun.

It's just, we saw that something upwards of 20 or 30 million new gun owners just over, over Covid.

And the big thing that I want to get out to the people who are new gun owners or people who are, or current gun owners and watching this is, you know, we did a few months ago at the time of this releasing, we won the election.

We got the House and we got the Senate and most of the time when we get those, we got the House, the Senate, the presidency.

We got everything and our, and us as a gun owners, and we go, oh, phew, okay, we don't have the Dems in.

They're not going to do gun control.

Or we can just sit back, sit back and relax.

Well, now's the time to be vocal about it.

You got to get out there, you got to go talk.

You got to pressure.

We literally have, if you think about it, in, in real time space, we got a year.

It's not two.

Because the Senate race, midterm Senate race, you got a year.

Yeah.

Because after that first year into the second year, they're already prepping for their Senate race.

Yeah.

So now's the time to get with your, your senator, your congressman, your everybody and go, this is what we want.

This is what we want.

Keep bugging them and that now is the time to do that because if you don't do that, nothing's going to get done and then there's a chance in two years we lose the Senate.

So yeah, I think it's very important to kind of stay on top of it.

I also understand that it's very difficult to stay on top of it because we all have lives, we all got things going on.

I choose to, to throw our hat in the ring with, with GOA and, and kind of, you know, g way won me over because a lot of things that they do that I don't have to do the footwork, they've already done it.

You know, they do the call to actions on the website.

They just shoot me an email, hey, here's what's going on.

I can read it, I can look at it and go, yeah, that sounds good.

Sign the petition.

You know what I mean?

So it is, it is very important to stay kind of, you know, vigilant and stay in the fight.

Don't, don't just think, oh, well, now we have the, you know, the three ring circus and everything's going to be okay.

Because we all know that's not the case.

Yeah.

And, and you brought up a good point with our email alerts.

Not only that, but if you want to get in contact with your senator and Congressman, we do have a form on our website.

You can go in there, it takes 30 seconds to fill out.

You go and fill out, you put in your zip code, it'll pull up your senator and Congressman.

You could.

It's a pre filled out form already letter that you just sign your name to and boom.

Yeah, or you can change it.

If you don't really, you know, you want to word it yourself, you can do that too and send it off like that.

So yeah, I mean it's, that's been helpful for me personally because I, you know, I just don't have the amount of hours in the daytime to go hunt down a lot of stuff, you know, like everybody else, you know, trying to run a family and a business and a house and everything else, you know, it just, it takes a lot.

So with being able to go onto the website and just click a few buttons, I'm good to go.

Got to keep it simple now.

Absolutely.

Well, that goes into our next segment and that is from the soapbox.

That's where we talk about policy.

Our biggest frustration gripes with the ATF and politicians.

All the above.

This segment is brought to you by Patriot Mobile.

Use code GOA at Patriot Mobile to get one month free.

Patriot Mobile has, is a freedom based mobile service for your cell phone.

They run on the same networks as the large carriers but you can choose where you're at to get better service between all their availability of networks that they got.

So go to Patriot Mobile, use code GOA again for one month free Again.

Thank you to Patriot Mobile for doing that.

So Michael, this is your chance to get step up on your soapbox and kind of give a spicy hot topic.

So what, what's your from the soapbox?

From you.

We don't have enough time.

We do not have enough time.

I got so many things, I, you know, I just don't know where to start.

I mean, you know, you can talk about the ATF or we can talk about social media as a whole or you know, whatever you want to talk about.

All the above.

I love it all.

Just you love it all.

I want to hear your spice.

This is your chance to be spicy, my friend.

So how about I'll give you, I'll give you the ATF spice and then I'll give you, I'll give you the social media spice.

How's that?

Perfect.

So my soapbox for the ATF is I think that it's a obviously an unnecessary bloated government agency.

I feel we don't need them simply because we got your local Law enforcement, we got state law enforcement, we got the FBI.

We just, we just don't need them, you know, but they're there.

And I don't believe they're ever going to go away because the government never shrinks itself down, you know, it's just a fallacy.

It'll never happen.

So, you know, being on both sides of this, being on the brick and mortar side and then being on the, you know, manufacturer side, we've seen kind of both sides of it, and for the most part, it's pretty much the same.

The thing that they really kind of chaps me about the atf, is their holier than thou attitude.

You know, the.

If your eyes and T's aren't crossed and dotted and all that nonsense, we're potentially going to shut you down.

But we can lose all the guns we want, you know, and nobody does anything about it.

We don't hold anybody's feet to the fire.

No one gets in trouble.

But we're willing to shut down businesses that, you know, have been in business for 50 years, you know, and they're generational, right?

I mean, you've got grandpa, dad, mom, grandson, son, the whole nine yards working in this family.

And they'll come in and shut it down over paperwork, violations.

And to me, the atf, when you, when you first get on with them, depending on your ioi, but typically they're real big about, oh, we'll work with you, we'll work with you, you know, and, and for the most part, some of them will.

Some of the iois.

And that, that's the trick.

You gotta, you have to find the IOIs that you can deal with, and you have to keep their, their number on speed dial.

You know, hey, I have a question about this.

I have a question about that.

Because if you're just calling the onesie twosies in the field office, they're not going to answer your question.

And if they do answer your question, they damn sure aren't going to put it in writing, you know, because they're real big about don't put anything in writing.

Now, if they get anything from you, it's in writing.

But for them, they won't give you anything.

They won't give you.

Wait, they won't give you anything in writing if you ask them the question?

Absolutely not.

So you can't.

So, for example, let's just say you get.

You got a question for the atf.

Yeah.

You call your ioi, he gives you an answer over the phone.

You go, can I get you that in Email?

Yeah.

And I go, no, chances are you're not getting it.

And then you come, somebody comes in from the ATF and goes, hey, why'd you do this?

And you're like, well, so and so told me, where's the proof?

You don't have any.

And that, that's.

Yeah.

And that's, that's, that is on purpose.

That's 100% on purpose.

Because they do not want to be beholden to anything that they say to you.

And that the biggest issue that I have with them, other than the holier than thou, you know, it's okay for us to lose things, it's okay for us not to have paperwork.

Right, that's acceptable.

But if you do it, we'll close you down or potentially.

Right.

And so besides that, it's their, their lack of, of training that really, really gets under my skin.

Because, you know, over the 15 years or so that we've been in the business having to deal with the ATF, we've had, you know, different IOI's, and for the most part, to be fair, we've had some really solid ones.

Really solid guys, you know, and most of them are ex military of some sort.

Most of them, the ones that you really run into problems with are the ones that have never been in the gun business, don't understand the gun business.

But somebody has given them this power and they come in there and they just go ballistic.

And they do all kinds of crazy things.

And the training, you know, you can ask1IOI, you know, during your inspection, hey, you know, what about this?

Or they reprimand you and they give you a little slap on the hand, say, hey, look, I know you've been doing it like that.

This isn't right.

I want you to do it like this.

This.

Okay, not a problem, I'll do it like that.

But then when you get your next IOI out, because usually they rotate them, you don't ever really get the same one.

They'll tell you, well, why are you doing it like this?

Well, because my last inspection, I was told I had to do it like that.

Oh, that's ridiculous.

You don't have to do it like that.

Or that's wrong, don't do it like that.

You know, and it's like, well, wait a minute though, you guys told me to do it like that.

And then it goes back to.

You have anything riding?

Nope.

So that's nuts.

The way it is though, and their lack of consistent training, it causes a lot of these issues.

If they had just A straight across the board training, but they don't usually what they'll do is they'll, you know, I'm an ioi, I serve some time, whatever, you know, I've done my, my field duties or whatever, they'll pull me and send me to the training unit and then I go train.

But the way I've been doing it in the field, you know, the way I was trained to do it, I teach that.

But then you go later and then you teach the way you've been, you know, taught to do it.

And they're different.

So then you end up with this conflict of that's not how it's supposed to be done, you know, so that's kind of my, my biggest gripe about them.

Well, I did have a question for you guys and I don't think I've ever asked you this, but being that you guys are on a border state during Fast and Furious, do you have any ATF officers come in and say just transfer it to somebody?

Anything shady?

We had a few questionable things, but nothing directly that we could tie to that.

No, our, our biggest thing with that was with the Fast and the Furious was after that happened, Obama and them said, you know, put a lot of pressure on the financial institutions.

So they called loans and they closed accounts.

You know, oh, you're in the gun business and it didn't matter what it was, you're in the gun business.

We're closing you down, you know, as far as the banking.

So, yeah, I mean we, every now and then you'd have something come in, but you know, if you, if you're doing it long enough, you kind of start picking up on a few things and you're, you know, just your normal average guy or woman comes in and starts talking to you about things and it's just kind of a normal conversation.

Right.

But then every now and then you'd get one and you're like, this is just off nothing.

It doesn't feel right, it doesn't sound right.

There's something just really goofy.

And then at that point you just decide, I'm not selling them anything, I'm not transferring them anything, I'm not selling them anything.

I'm just not going to deal with it.

Now most of the time maybe that's just being paranoid, but I'd rather be paranoid and keep my business than give them any ammunition to put me out of business, you know.

Do they call anything on, on you for loans wise?

We, yeah, as a matter of fact, I had Washington Mutual for about 15 years or something.

And then Chase bought them out.

And then when Chase got pressure from the, from, you know, the administration to start calling all the gun shops and closing up their loans and whatnot like that.

Yeah, we got caught up in that.

And they closed not only our business loans, they closed all our personal accounts as well.

You know, said, no, they didn't do business with us anymore.

So wait a minute.

They closed your business accounts and your.

Yeah, yeah.

So if my name or anything was attached to it, it got closed, and it was just because we were in.

The gum business because you're.

You're doing something that's a constitutionally given right.

They closed both your personal and business loans.

Yep.

That's insane.

All the accounts, anything that was on account got closed.

That's.

That does that.

So here's my biggest issue with that.

We talk about the, the.

We've.

We've talked about the ATF and their zero tolerance policy, that they're going after FFLs for small mistakes.

And you.

You brought up the iOS.

It's different between each one.

But then we talk about financial institutions, and they're just trying to find ways to close gun stores.

Absolutely.

And by closing gun stores, you know, we've.

I've talked about.

We've talked about it on the show before.

Is the brick and mortar gun stores.

I'm not talking about, like, big box store retailers.

I'm talking about brick and mortar.

Like you.

Yeah.

Mom and pop.

Mom and pop is the lifeblood of the industry.

It's where people start off and get into this and do this.

And those are the shops you can go to and have conversations and learn stuff.

And, you know, I've been to some of the old mom and pop shops where there's still a pot of coffee in the corner, and there's three guys that.

That's all they do all day.

They go down to the gun shop, they drink coffee, they sit around and talk all day.

And that's how it used to be.

And that was.

I've been to those shops.

I've sat in those shops.

I've.

I've enjoyed my time at the shops because you learn from the old timers, you learn from the, the young guys, you got the guys behind the counter.

It becomes friends and family.

And they're trying to shut those down.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's ridiculous.

It.

It's only because unlike, you know, the like.

Like you said, the mom and pop shops, they're making enough money to get by or live comfortably, barely.

Yeah.

And the brick and mortars, they've got enough lawyers to.

The big brick and mortars.

Big box stores have enough lawyers, incorporate entities behind them that they can just go, yeah, yeah.

And you see those stories all the time where, you know, the ATF will raid some big store and it's quickly shut down.

Not the store, the raid.

You know, it's like, no, no, no, no.

You pack up and you boys go home.

But if they raid, you know, mom and pops.

You know, mom, pops going out of business.

You know, that's insane.

I mean, listen, a lot of people see the attack on the gun shops from the ATF and gun control by shutting down.

I mean, we've seen it in the past.

We were talking to somebody that cities are now suing gun shops out of business as public health nuisances.

Yeah.

And public, you know, nuisances.

It's insane to think that they can just sue rights away or take rights away because, you know, how hard is it for.

And we've seen the big box stores bend a knee and.

But for the.

If the big.

So you shut down all this mom and pops, right?

And then the big box store in the area just goes, you know what?

I'm gonna bend my knee.

I'm gonna pull everything.

Yeah, the big W pulls all their.

The guns off the wall, you know.

Yeah.

Then where do people get their.

Their stuff from?

Well, but that, you know, that's typically by design, right?

It's.

I'm not taking your rights away.

Yeah.

I didn't say you couldn't own a gun, but I'll make it so hard for you to even find a gun.

I get what I want anyway, but I didn't have to.

I didn't have to take your second amendment from you.

I didn't have to write any laws.

I didn't have to do anything fancy.

I just make it so expensive for you that you can't defend yourself.

You give up anyway, you know, because at the end of the day, we all have a breaking point, right?

You're like, hey, I got wife, I got kids.

I got this, I got that.

I can't just sit around and fight the government all day.

They got all the money they need, you know, so.

And, you know, one of the tactics they use is they suck up your bank account.

They close it so you can't even get to your funds to defend yourself.

And.

And that's typically how they do it, you know, get their gun control without having to change any laws.

And that's the sad part.

It's just insane to go, you know, and You're, I mean, you're right.

They're, they're making it so hard, so costly.

And, and the pain with the ffls.

I mean, we were talking to, talking to a friend the other day.

He just got his ffl, he's a content creator and he had done the atf, came to go do his paperwork to get them all signed up and get his FFL going.

And they're like, well, you've done 90 transfers in the last year.

We're going to come talk to you anyways.

Yeah, cool.

I like guns.

I do content creation.

What were we going to talk about?

Yeah, well, you did 90, 44, 73.

So I can do as many as I want.

Where's the, where's the law that says I can't do it?

And that goes into the whole, you know, they, they claim they don't have a registry and, and maybe.

And I think some of that's some word play, right?

Oh, we don't have a registry and nonsense.

You don't, because I've been around long enough to, to where they wanted everything on paper, Right.

All every transaction you did was written down.

And when the digital books came around, they didn't want, when it first happened, they didn't want you messing with a digital book, they wanted it in paper.

But then somebody over there, you know, one of the computery kind of guys said, hey, wait a minute.

If we have them upload everything to the cloud, I can get it for you.

You know, I'll make your book.

Don't worry about it.

It's not a registry.

It's just a way maybe you could look up John.

Because John's done 90 transfers.

You can just look at that if you wanted to, without any war, without anything.

You're just hitting some buttons, right?

I'm just, oh, well, yeah, give me, give me, give me anybody with this name that lives in this town, you know, in this little area and give me all that information, you know, so do I have proof that they do it like that?

No, but I know they do it like that just because I'm not stupid.

Oh, you know, we know they.

We had.

Working at a shop in Ohio and we had a, an audit book.

You Normado.

And the guy comes up with two of our best customers.

These guys are just die hard gun guys.

Yeah.

Form stacks about this high.

They buy a lot.

Yeah, but that's all they do.

That's their hobby.

They had three of them, three of these stacks of these guys who buy all these guns.

They're like, we're taking these.

No, you're not.

These are not supposed to leave.

Well, these guys did a bunch of transfers.

Yeah, they're our best customers.

All right, we'll.

We'll be in contact with them.

And they left.

One of them was a lieutenant for the Columbus pd.

Yeah.

And he gets a call from the atf.

This is one of my favorite stories, because I love how he did this.

Gets a call from the atf.

Hey, we need you to come downtown, come talk to us.

All right, I'll be there.

Shows up in a squad car, calls the officer.

Yeah, I'm here.

Okay.

Where are you?

Out front.

Come meet me out front.

I don't know where I'm going.

Come meet me out front.

Out front.

He's got the squad car there.

ATF officer goes, okay, well, can I.

What can I do for you?

He goes, you can turn around.

You know, you broke the law.

You're not supposed to take those forms.

You're not supposed to do anything with that.

You know better than that.

So we're gonna play this game.

Either you're gonna go with me in the squad car, I'm gonna arrest you, or we can drop this right now and you can go back in your office.

And ATF officer goes, we're done here by.

Yeah, have a nice day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They don't like it when you do stuff like that, but I don't know, man.

That's.

That's kind of where we're at on.

That it's definitely the rules for thee and not for me kind of mentality.

Yeah.

And that's that holier than thou thing.

And that.

That definitely bothers me greatly, you know, so.

So we got.

We got about 10 more minutes.

You want to touch on your social media?

Sure, yeah, we can touch on social media.

Yeah, we could do it.

We can sp.

Yeah.

What do you want?

How do you want to go with that?

Whatever you.

Oh, well, I mean, as far as the social media thing goes, and we've all seen it, you know.

Now, look, if you partake in, you know, recreational drugs, that's on you.

That.

It doesn't affect me.

As long as you, you know, don't bother me, I don't really care.

You know, do what you want to do.

Right.

But.

So as of today, right, Marijuana is federally illegal.

Yeah, federally.

Okay.

And it's also not a constitutional right, you know, for you to get high.

It's just not.

I guess you may be somebody screaming, yo.

Yes.

Yeah, I can.

Okay, fine, you can get high.

I don't Care.

But I'm not allowed as a.

As a gun manufacturer or dealer.

I'm not allowed to advertise on these social media platforms, right?

I can't.

I can't boost a post on Instagram or YouTube or any of that kind of stuff.

I can't do it.

But I don't know, what, maybe 12, 18 months ago, I started getting ads for weed.

You know, I was like, oh, you know, I got these THC gummies and, you know, now you can sit around, get high.

So I'm not really up to date on my drug.

Language.

Language, right.

But I'm like, well, wait a minute, that's federally illegal.

So how is it that they're able to advertise, but I'm not allowed to advertise?

So I have a federally legal business, right?

But I can't advertise, but these guys can.

It makes no sense to me, and it makes me absolutely bonkers.

And I'm not real, you know, I'm not like the first guy to go, oh, well, the government needs to do X, Y or Z.

But in this particular situation, for everybody across the board, because to me, it's discrimination, right?

It's.

You can't not rent your house to somebody because of their race, their creed or whatever, right?

You can't do it legally.

So why is it that they're allowed to say, well, we.

We don't like your business.

You know, us, blue hair, sitting in here in the, you know, office in San Francisco or whatever, we don't like your business, so you can't advertise.

And even with Instagram, I've even gone to the mat with Instagram and said, you know, if we wanted to advertise, just like Cerakote, right?

Hey, we'll paint your.

Your firearm for you in their whatever.

What do they call it there?

Yeah, terms of service.

I went and dug it up.

It says right here, yeah, I can do this.

It says right here, I can do this.

Can't do guns, can't do knives, can't do, blah, blah, blah.

But I can advertise this part of it, and I'd send it to them and they'd run it up their flagpole, supposedly, and nothing would ever happen.

They would.

They would always just shut me down, say, now you can't do it.

So it doesn't really matter if you can or you can't.

It depends on who's in the office and whether or not they want you to do it or not.

But it drives me absolutely bonkers that the discrimination against Firearm dealers and manufacturers is allowed to happen.

And I don't care who's in office.

I don't care, you know, if they're Democrat or Republican and independent.

I don't really care.

The issue is, is, is you have this happening to American businesses and no one's doing a damn thing about it.

But if I want to advertise my weed, that's fine.

That's insane.

And you're absolutely right.

You know, federally, weed is illegal.

It's all, it's all been pushed back to the states.

And even at the state level, if the federal government wants to go in, they can go and just go, okay, cool.

This is our cash now.

Yeah, but the Second Amendment is like, it's a constitutionally given right.

Yeah.

And for them to just go.

And we've seen it, we've heard it from people like, yeah, it's in your terms of service.

Like, I can't do this.

This, but I can do this.

Well, no, you can't.

Well, it says right here.

It's.

I got into an argument with TikTok at one point about something.

I got into argument with Instagram about something my favorite.

It's.

It's even funnier.

Like YouTube.

I know content guys will save their, their monetization fighting until the weekend because they know it's some guy in India who doesn't care and just hits a button.

Yeah, that's good with me.

And goes, It's.

It all depends on who you get and where they stand.

And that's insane.

If you're going to have company policies in terms of service, you should be able.

They should follow it.

But it all depends on the person and their personal beliefs.

Yeah.

Instead of over the company beliefs.

And they'll go and argue with you because they believe you're wrong and they're right.

It's.

Yeah.

And I, I've also gotten them back from, from Instagram saying that, you know, well, we did this because when you run it up the flagpole and tell them, hey, you know, no, you guys are wrong.

I'm right.

Here's why.

You'll get, you know, a little message back from them.

And it says something to the degree of you did something that is he, you know, illegal or controlled in, you know, X, Y and Z, and we follow world policies or some, some nonsense like that.

And I'm like, well, okay, that's all fine and everything.

If China, you know, if it's illegal to own a gun in China, fine.

Just don't show my content in China.

And I don't really give a damn anyway.

However, you're an American company and you do business in America, so you need to follow our Constitution and our beliefs, not what somebody else in some other damn country.

That makes no difference to anybody, especially in the firearms world.

I don't care what another country allows or doesn't allow.

You're an American company doing business in America with Americans, so deal with it.

You know what I mean?

Well, that's my thing.

I, I laugh every time they, they do this.

We.

I've had conversations with YouTube and I've talked to people who've had conversations with YouTube and, and even Instagram and stuff like that.

They claim, like, oh, we.

We can't control where the content is shown or we can't control where the advertising goes to.

Yeah, you can.

Yeah, you can.

You just don't want to.

Yeah, like think about it.

If YouTube goes tomorrow and goes to you and goes, hey, for a thousand dollars, I'll run 30 of your ads on the Top Gun content.

Yeah, okay, cool.

I'm in.

Yeah, but they, they claim, oh, no, we can't figure out where to.

The ads are just organically put on different things.

We can't subjugate them by content.

I go, what do you mean you can't subjugate it by content?

That's ridiculous.

You.

Yes, you can.

You can do that.

You just choose not to.

Yeah, they absolutely can.

Same thing with this.

I know, like Instagram and stuff for, for Instagram and Meta.

When you pay for an advertisement, you can go by zip code.

An area they don't want to.

Oh, no.

Well, you.

You're right.

But since we have this world policy.

Mm, no, this is where I want to advertise at.

Oh, well, our world policy says other.

That's ridiculous.

Well, it's also the amount of money that they get from the other countries and if they want to do business in those other countries, you know, I.

E.

China, you know, they're.

They're going to bend the knee to those countries, you know, and like TikTok for instance, Chinese company, right?

They're owned by China.

Whether you like it or not, the TikTok that they feed our kids here, right, is not the same TikTok that the Chinese kids are watching.

You know, the, the tick tock that those kids are getting are.

Is educational and, and, you know, wholesome, if you will.

Whereas the stuff we get is stupid dances and ignorant stuff and kids eating Tide Pods, you know, so it.

We have got to get our stuff together and realize that we're not playing on level playing ground number one.

And number two, these other countries that they're bending the knee to don't like us.

They don't want us.

They don't believe in anything we believe in.

However, they're paying them enough money for them to say okay, this is how I want to do things.

Yeah.

And that's blows my mind.

It does.

It's just crazy to think that.

Yeah.

I'm speech.

I've lost of words on this nonsense.

Well now that we've.

We've gotten our heated spiciness out.

Michael, I appreciate you again for being on.

Go ahead and plug away on where people can find you social media website, all that other fun stuff.

Yeah.

They can just go to coxarmsusa.com will get you to the website Cox Arms USA get you like our Instagram and things like that.

So you can plug that away.

Yeah, we're just.

We're excited to be here.

We're happy that y'all had us.

And as a matter of fact I think we've put together a little dealer packet for any of the GOA members that are dealers.

We have like a little special dealer packet specifically for them.

So yeah, we're, we're.

We're happy man.

Anything we can do to help out the community, we're.

We're willing to do it.

Yeah.

If you are a GOA caliber club or GOA member who is a dealer, go ahead and reach out to Michael.

Take advantage of that package.

These guns are very well made.

They're going to do well for you guys.

Highly.

Highly.

Well, I'm getting a single for your wife.

Where are you at on X?

I have no idea.

Same thing.

I told the exact same thing.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

You know the social media stuff is.

Is not my.

Not my wheelhouse.

It's not your cup of tea.

You know, it's fine.

You like to sit in the back row.

I know, I know cuz I've been to the show.

He likes to sit in the back room and get his drawings all his.

Yeah.

Get my.

Get my crayons out and.

Yeah.

Have lunch and draw pretty pictures.

Yeah, he's.

He is eating the crayons.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Orange is my favorite.

Before anybody says anything, Michael is a marine so.

Oh yeah, we gotta.

We gotta make that cr.

Eater.

Cr.

We just had.

There's some coffee downstairs I gotta show you guys.

Is really good crayon eater coffee.

Oh it's really good.

The.

He was on here Cameron from Devil Dog Concepts.

That's his coffee brand.

But yeah.

Again, Michael, I appreciate you being on, taking the time to come out here and, and talk to us.

Absolutely.

Guys, make sure to, like, share, subscribe, hit the little bell for notification, leave a five star review on all podcasting hosts and we'll see you on the next one.