Order of Man - Our Rights and Responsibilities of Gun Ownership

00:00:00.000 Gun ownership guys is such a polarizing subject. And with the increasing gun ownership in America,

00:00:05.120 combined with some of the tensions and frictions that we've been seeing between people,

00:00:09.520 I believe it's only going to become more so, but that said, gun ownership is a fundamental right.

00:00:14.640 It's protected of course, by the United States constitution, but that does not absolve us of the

00:00:19.960 responsibility that we as gun owners have to be safe. And then also to make ourselves proficient

00:00:24.720 with our firearms. Today, I'm joined by former Navy SEAL, Jeff Gonzalez to talk about both our rights

00:00:31.360 and responsibilities as gun owners. Now we also cover recommendations for new firearms owners,

00:00:37.200 how much time needs to be dedicated towards training, including training without even having

00:00:41.200 access to a range. That's important for a lot of us. Why the beginner's mindset will help you become

00:00:46.320 a more proficient gun owner and also metrics for improving your accuracy and effectiveness.

00:00:52.080 Should you need to use your firearm? You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest,

00:00:56.320 embrace your fears and boldly charge your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up

00:01:01.680 one more time. Every time you are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:01:08.800 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day.

00:01:14.240 And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today?

00:01:19.360 My name is Ryan Michler and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and the order of man

00:01:24.400 movement. I want to welcome you here. I want to welcome you back. I've got a very, very important

00:01:29.040 one today. And I think this one's probably going to be, I was going to say polarizing. I don't,

00:01:33.760 I actually don't know if it is. Most of the men listening are probably firearms owners or have a

00:01:39.920 desire to be. So this is going to help us become more proficient with using our firearms,

00:01:46.320 training with our firearms. And hopefully we'll never have to use these in, in the type of

00:01:50.800 situations in which we're referencing in this podcast, but I'd rather be prepared should that

00:01:55.200 day come and then, then not be prepared. And of course we, we know what might happen in that case.

00:02:02.160 So we'll get into it in just a minute. Before I do, I want to make a quick mention of our show

00:02:07.680 sponsors origin main. Now guys, you've heard me talk about origin for two years. These,

00:02:12.640 these guys aren't just sponsors. I say that every week, but it's more than that.

00:02:16.720 They're friends. I spend time with these guys. I know I'm intimately familiar with what they're

00:02:22.000 doing and how, how they run their business and the hopes and dreams and visions and ideas they have.

00:02:26.960 In fact, as we're recording this podcast, I'm holding two of origins, brand new knife series.

00:02:33.440 These things are heavyweight, heavy duty. I'm going to use these hunting this year. And it's pretty

00:02:39.680 interesting because I saw Pete Roberts, the founder of, of origin designing these before he

00:02:45.760 implemented them years later. So I'm holding them now. I know what these guys are all about.

00:02:49.840 And if you're looking for knives or you're looking for boots or denim or supplements,

00:02:56.080 then origins got you covered. I use all of their products. A lot of people ask if I'm an investor

00:03:01.120 or I'm connected with a company. The answer is no. I just really appreciate these guys. I like what

00:03:07.200 they're doing. And I'm a big supporter of everything they're all about. So if you're

00:03:12.320 interested in any of that stuff, I would check out their knife series. I would definitely check

00:03:16.000 out their boots. Obviously we're in, we're, we're in boot weather now. Then head to origin,

00:03:20.720 main.com origin, main.com. And when you check out, use the code order, because you're going to get

00:03:26.240 a discount when you do again, order. I keep doing that. It's origin main. There we go.

00:03:32.160 Origin, main.com use the code order at checkout. All right, guys, let me introduce you to my guest

00:03:37.840 today. His name is Jeff Gonzalez. As I said earlier, he's a former Navy seal and he's also

00:03:43.600 a firearms expert. Jeff is one of the most qualified men that I know on the subject of

00:03:50.320 responsible gun ownership. Not only is he a decorated and respected seal operator,

00:03:55.360 he's also the president of Trident concepts. He's also a member of NRA's training and education

00:04:00.640 committee. And over the past five years, he's really put a heavy emphasis on a concealed carry,

00:04:06.880 which he talks a lot about today and has used his years of combat experience and tactical

00:04:11.520 instruction to help law enforcement, military and armed citizens like you and I become more capable

00:04:17.760 and effective of defending ourselves and others with firearms. I hope you enjoy Jeff. What's up,

00:04:25.200 man. Thanks for joining me on the podcast. Hey man. It is great to be here. Thank you very much

00:04:29.280 for having me. Yeah. I think this is an important conversation. There's a lot of guys that ask

00:04:33.520 about, you know, concealed carry and what they should be carrying and what kind of training they

00:04:37.360 should be doing. And unfortunately, I wish this wasn't the case, but it seems to me like it's becoming

00:04:43.440 more and more necessary than it was even just two, three, five years ago.

00:04:50.320 Yeah. I mean, just the amount of new gun owners. So it's an interesting time period. That's for

00:04:55.360 sure. I mean, obviously with everything happening, but there's been a lot of folks that were like

00:04:58.560 agnostic about, about guns. They didn't really have a good or bad opinion of them. They were

00:05:03.520 right in the middle of the road. And with everything that's been happening, all the crazy, you know,

00:05:07.360 the stay at home, the shortage of resources, then the rioting, there's been a huge jump of

00:05:15.120 people that were like, yeah, I don't really have a choice. I don't have a really, you know,

00:05:18.800 positive, negative opinion of it, but now they're all like, I need to have a gun

00:05:22.160 and I need to start learning how to use it. So I think that was like an unintended,

00:05:26.640 I don't think the left was really thinking it was going to work out well, but it really worked

00:05:30.560 out well for us because a lot of those folks that were on the fence are now really diving into the

00:05:36.000 world. Yeah. I think it's important. You actually mentioned something you said, which I, which I like,

00:05:41.040 and I appreciate they said also that they need to get trained on it. It seems to me that there's a

00:05:45.440 lot of people who think that just because they own a tool like a firearm, for example,

00:05:48.960 that somehow they're, they're safer. In fact, I might argue that not only are they not safer,

00:05:54.000 just because they have it, they might actually subject themselves to greater danger if they're

00:05:57.040 not trained with it. Well, you know, you got the first off, just you got to respect the lethality

00:06:02.800 of the, of the weapon, just like any other power tool. You know, if you, if not used correctly,

00:06:06.880 it can cause injury or death. Right. And I, that's a big mental shift for a lot of people. They don't

00:06:14.320 really associate, I mean, some of them do, but I think a good majority of them don't really recognize

00:06:18.720 the destructive capabilities of the firearm. So we run into a lot of just accidents, things that

00:06:24.400 were avoidable had they followed just some very safe, simple safety rules, um, had a higher level

00:06:31.040 of respect for the firearm. Uh, so, you know, if, if we could have that happen, that would be huge,

00:06:37.120 because that's the last thing that we want is for anybody particularly new to this industry,

00:06:41.680 having an accident, injuring themselves or injuring a loved one. Right. And then to get to your point

00:06:46.240 about education, um, it is unfortunate that that is so, so many of the folks that are

00:06:52.800 looking to purchase a firearm, um, is that they just, I don't want to say that they don't

00:06:59.600 value training. I think what it was like, at least in my observations early on in the year, like in April,

00:07:06.720 when the stay at home orders came in play, we had huge surge of purchases. And what we were expecting

00:07:12.960 was like after the, the resource, you know, shortage pass and everybody was back to normal,

00:07:20.160 that a lot of those folks that bought guns were going to be like, you know what, I really am

00:07:23.360 second guessing this purchase. I think I should go ahead and get rid of it. And then the riots

00:07:29.360 happened. And so now all of a sudden people are like, wait a minute, maybe that wasn't such a bad

00:07:33.600 idea after all. So there's a lot of those folks that bought the firearm and they're just, they

00:07:38.640 wanted to have it just to have. And they're like, that was a big, big decision for them. I mean,

00:07:45.600 a lot of those folks, again, were agnostic and it's like, no, no, no, no. But now they had to

00:07:49.840 actually confront the fact that they needed a firearm and they're just getting comfortable with it. Like

00:07:55.440 the fact that they actually have a firearm in their home. Right. And that's taken some,

00:07:59.440 that's taken some adjusting for a lot of them to get used to it. I mean, I only did for me because

00:08:04.800 when, so when I grew up, I mean, firearms weren't a thing for us. There was no firearms in the house.

00:08:09.920 There was, you know, no, no exposure to firearms. I've, I never shot a firearm until I, I was probably

00:08:15.600 14, 15 years old. So that I remember that first time that I held a pistol, I was a scary thing,

00:08:24.060 right? Cause I just had, did not have that exposure to it. And I remember my stepfather,

00:08:28.000 me saying, I'm a little nervous. And he's like, good. You know, that's, that's the proper response.

00:08:33.120 If you aren't nervous about this, then there's something wrong. You should be nervous because

00:08:37.360 it is a very, like you said, powerful tool that can create some severe and, uh, life, life

00:08:44.560 consequences. Oh, it's so true. Like, I love that. You know, like that anxiety is good. That

00:08:51.920 nervousness is good because when it's properly channeled, it shows a degree of respect and,

00:08:57.280 uh, you know, maybe not respect, maybe, maybe more of caution. Like I need to be careful

00:09:04.960 about what I'm doing. I need to be paying attention. I need to know or understand what

00:09:08.320 I'm doing. I just don't want to be willy nilly. So I, I do think that's valuable. It also works very

00:09:13.680 well because if folks maintain that mindset, they will hopefully continue to treat the firearm, uh,

00:09:19.040 with the respect that it is, it is needed to be safe in their home because that's my biggest

00:09:24.080 safe and effective too. Right. Well, that's the thing. Like I talk about this from like

00:09:28.560 different tiers. So just to put it in perspective for a lot of folks that may not be paying attention.

00:09:35.200 Um, there's a recent study conducted that showed that right now, as of, I think the end of August,

00:09:42.080 uh, there are 5 million new gun owners. So 5 million people that hadn't owned a gun before

00:09:48.400 now own one as in just this year. Yes. Wow. That's a lot. Yeah. That's, that's a huge increase.

00:09:55.360 It's a monster. It's a huge monster. And so with those, and there's no way that I have to,

00:10:03.280 there's, there's nowhere I can point to say, okay, this is the ratio that you should think about,

00:10:08.160 but this is what my experience has shown me more than half of that 5 million bought the firearm and

00:10:13.760 maybe bought a box of ammunition and put all of that in a drawer, in a closet, in a footlocker of

00:10:20.480 some sort, you know, they just don't really have any intention of going out and using it.

00:10:25.040 Then, uh, out of the remaining, you know, half, there's a, like a half of that is interested and

00:10:31.760 they bought the gun and the ammo and they went and they shot the ammo and then they put it in the,

00:10:37.200 you know, drawer footlocker closet. And then below that, another half of that figure, they decided

00:10:44.240 that, you know what, bought a gun, bought the ammo, shot the gun. I think I'm going to get my license

00:10:48.480 to carry. I think I'm going to go out and actually get licensed so that I can carry this because now

00:10:52.800 things are a little crazy. And then the last little group, which is a smallest group is the

00:10:59.120 group that bought the gun, bought the ammo, shot the gun, got their license. And now we're like,

00:11:02.720 hmm, I need to learn more. I need to understand more about this. So, you know, it's just, it's,

00:11:09.120 it's basically, you know, a big net that was thrown out there. But, you know, my hope is that

00:11:13.580 smaller group of individuals that are interested in learning and getting better will grow, that

00:11:20.420 they'll tell their friends, that they'll tell their family, that they'll encourage other people

00:11:25.160 in their circles that, you know what, this is probably something that you should, you should

00:11:28.840 consider. So that's kind of what my hope is, is that we see that because right there, what we're

00:11:34.220 looking at is we're looking at an ideological shift. I mean, to be honest, you know, this is

00:11:38.920 not a trend anymore. We are well past the trend. You know, this is like, I mean, we've exhausted

00:11:45.200 resources as far as firearms are concerned. I don't know if people realize that, but there's like no

00:11:49.120 guns available right now. Yeah. Yeah. I was just at the, my local gun store and there's a handful,

00:11:54.560 I shouldn't say that, but there's like just a handful. I don't want to start a panic there

00:11:58.000 of firearms left available. And some of them are, you know, maybe some of the top are in

00:12:01.920 well-known brands and then the rest are just whatever you can get. And that's kind of where

00:12:05.820 we're at right now. Just the volume of purchasing craze that happened here over the last six months.

00:12:14.040 Yeah. I mean, I noticed this even just what it was years ago. I remember you couldn't even get

00:12:17.600 your hands on 22 for example. And so I think we're running into a similar situation. You know,

00:12:23.280 you have supply and demand, but that lags, right? It lags behind. And so the demand wasn't there.

00:12:29.480 The demand happened immediately. We didn't have the supply to be able to deal with it. And now

00:12:33.800 we're running into the supply issues on the back end of it. It'll all level itself out at some

00:12:38.900 point, but yeah, it's a scary time. If you are interested in purchasing a firearm and you can't

00:12:43.220 get your hands on one right now. It really is like all of a sudden think about just, so put it in

00:12:47.820 perspective in some sense for the, a lot of those folks that were in the middle of the road,

00:12:51.660 just the fact they had to, they had to start talking about, Oh, I'm, I need to go out and buy

00:12:55.720 a gun. And then they, they finally make that decision through, you know, through a lot of

00:13:00.280 rational thought, they finally, all right, I'm going to go out and buy a gun. And then they go out and

00:13:04.060 now they can't find anything. So it's like, it's so frustrating. I feel terrible for them because

00:13:08.000 you know, that, that wasn't an easy decision for them to make. That took some soul searching to

00:13:14.040 come up with that, that, that final decision. And then they make all that effort and now they really

00:13:18.720 can't find a lot. Now, every place is a little different. Some regions are doing better than

00:13:22.340 others, but in, in general across the board, I feel like it's, it's a difficult time. Like my,

00:13:30.760 my son just turned 21 legal age here to purchase his first handgun. And we've been, you know,

00:13:38.240 we've, we've been waiting to get it. You know, we've just got word. It's taken us like

00:13:41.560 six, seven weeks to finally get, get it in stock for us. So, yeah. So get on it now is what you're

00:13:49.960 saying. If you're interested even remotely in the next, you know, before the new year or even into

00:13:54.380 the first quarter of new year, you bet, you better start getting on it now. I couldn't, I couldn't

00:13:58.640 emphasize that enough. And here's the thing. It's a hard thing because a lot of these folks are coming

00:14:02.140 into this industry where they have no knowledge. They don't know what's right or wrong, what's good or

00:14:06.720 bad. And so my, my recommendation to them is number one, we're living, this time period is

00:14:13.040 unprecedented. So you might find a firearm that seems a little bit more pricier and it is pricier

00:14:18.440 because again, the, the, you know, law of supply and demand resources are in short supply. So it's

00:14:24.460 going to be a little bit pricier when you've like, if you make it to a gun store that has inventory and

00:14:30.940 you find a name brand product that you're interested in, my recommendation is don't try

00:14:36.640 to go and do bargain shopping someplace else. Don't try to do compare shopping. Don't try to

00:14:40.740 come home and think about it. It's going to be gone. It's going to be gone. I'm telling you,

00:14:45.960 it will be. You gotta, so, you know, if you've committed to it, like no pun intended, but when

00:14:51.560 you get there and you find that, that one that at least meets some sort of requirements for your

00:14:56.080 needs, then go ahead and pull the trigger and purchase the firearm. Right, right. And you can always

00:15:01.540 look and expand and change and tweak and things like that down the road when there's a larger supply,

00:15:05.600 but just making sure that you're prepared. You know, I think there's another disconnect people

00:15:08.900 have too. And, uh, you know, even, even me who has some, some training, not, not a lot, but some

00:15:15.780 firearms training, you know, I look at guys like yourself and those in the firearms industry, and you

00:15:21.740 see these guys and they're out at the range all day, every day, they're spending thousands and

00:15:25.400 thousands of dollars on different components of, of, of the, uh, firearm thousands of dollars and

00:15:32.520 thousands of rounds of ammunition. And the average citizen is thinking, uh, well, I've got a job and

00:15:40.440 I don't have thousands of dollars of disposable income and I don't have a range or property anywhere

00:15:46.920 near me. And so it's not only is it a frustration and purchasing the firearm, it's like, now what do

00:15:52.380 I do? And so they just buried in the drawer and they never use it because what do you do? Like

00:15:57.140 they don't have the access to the resources that, that maybe somebody else might.

00:16:01.500 It's true. And, and I sympathize with them because it's, it's, um, like I said, it's unprecedented

00:16:07.260 times. And my, my suggestion, my advice to those folks is, you know, um, we all have our own life

00:16:14.580 responsibilities that we have to manage every day. Um, and you know, this may not be a priority

00:16:20.720 at the moment. And I, and I can completely appreciate it because, you know, I mean,

00:16:24.940 just getting food on the table for a lot of people is, is, is a, is a challenge these days.

00:16:30.240 So try not to get too, you know, like don't, don't be, I guess the best way I can put it is

00:16:36.880 when you see something like that happening on YouTube, don't naturally assume that you don't

00:16:42.540 throw your hands up in the air and say, Oh crap, I can't do this because I don't have the time.

00:16:45.660 I don't have the treasure. I don't have the talent. It's, it's, it's like that all is time.

00:16:51.640 This is a, this is a marathon and not a sprint. You know, you're not going to, you're not going to

00:16:54.800 turn into a killer commando overnight because you watched a couple of YouTube videos. It's

00:16:58.000 people probably think they do. I have yet to seen it, but I mean,

00:17:03.420 no, I'm just saying, I think it's funny because people, and I think this is more generally true

00:17:08.480 for men is that we overestimate our abilities when it comes to picking up a firearm or self-defense

00:17:15.500 or emergency preparedness. So we think because we watched Rambo or because we played grand theft

00:17:21.160 auto when we were growing up that all of a sudden it's like, Oh, you just pick it up and

00:17:24.320 point it. And like you said, you're a commando now.

00:17:27.520 I got to share this one little story with you. It's hilarious. Since you mentioned grand theft auto.

00:17:32.280 I had a, I had a, I taught a class. I don't remember where it was at. And I had a fairly

00:17:36.360 young, young student, probably mid twenties. And they get done with the class and they, they did okay,

00:17:43.300 but they clearly didn't do as good as they were thinking. And at the end, you know, we're packing up,

00:17:48.380 we're leaving. And he comes up to me and he's like, man, I just wanted to tell you something.

00:17:52.720 I'm like, yeah, what's what you got? He's like, this was a lot harder than I thought it was going

00:17:56.860 to be. I did so well on video games. Like I thought this was going to be easy. I'm like,

00:18:03.180 I'm like a professional game player. And I suck at this in reality. I'm like,

00:18:09.380 that's a scary thing though, man. Like somebody to actually think that that's what I'm saying.

00:18:14.420 For somebody to actually think that and express that with sincerity, like they weren't joking.

00:18:20.980 That's a scary thing, man. There's a lot of people feeling that way.

00:18:26.160 I had to kind of like take a moment to like process that. I'm like, wow. And then I had to try to respond

00:18:31.860 in a, in a manner that was, you know, that wasn't going to crush his dreams, but at least

00:18:35.880 encourage him to keep going. And I was like, you know, it is, it's a, it's a technical skill that

00:18:40.440 requires, you know, practice. So, you know, I'm sure you didn't learn how to ride a bike by playing

00:18:44.940 a game that taught you how to ride a bike. So. Right. What, what would you recommend to somebody

00:18:48.920 who, who maybe they've purchased their first firearm or they're getting into it and they're

00:18:53.340 going to purchase a firearm as far as a time commitment on a, on a weekly basis or a monthly

00:18:59.960 basis for training and what sort of exercises can they engage in as it, as just an average,

00:19:07.920 you know, ordinary guy like myself, who's not at the range all day, every day.

00:19:11.720 Sure. I, first of all, that's a great question. I love that question. And, um, you know, as far as

00:19:17.280 a commitment is concerned, I feel like if you can, like, it's clear that we're not, we're in a time

00:19:23.580 period where ammo is also, um, difficult to get. So we have to figure out other ways that we can

00:19:28.780 practice and train. And there are some other tools out there. Uh, they're dummy rounds,

00:19:34.200 inert training rounds. You know, they're, they're designed to simulate loading and unloading and

00:19:38.020 functioning of the firearm without actually firing the firearm. I think that's a great investment.

00:19:42.120 You can go on Amazon and find those they're plastic. They're, they're consumable items. You,

00:19:46.360 you, you can learn how to load and unload your firemen in a very safe manner because they're

00:19:51.340 inert. They're not going to, there's, there's no, there's no risk of going bang. So like just

00:19:56.920 becoming more familiar with the operation of your firearm is like step one, like read

00:20:00.760 the manual and invest in some, uh, training, like those training rounds and then practice

00:20:06.980 loading, unloading, become familiar with all the features, the, you know, all the buttons

00:20:10.300 and levers that you have on your firearm so that you understand how that works. I mean,

00:20:13.080 that's something that you can do in the privacy of your home. You don't have to go to the range

00:20:16.840 to learn how to do all of that. And you probably don't want to because that's valuable time at the

00:20:20.720 range. You know, time, talents and treasures are always in, they're always restricted. So take the

00:20:25.340 opportunity, do that at home. And then there's a, there's a kind of like a format that's called

00:20:30.440 dry fire. And, and what dry fire is, you got live fire, which is where you're expending ammunition,

00:20:34.980 you're shooting ammunition and dry fire is where you're not. And what you're doing is you're going

00:20:40.060 through the motions. So it's like, if you were, if you were, um, like a lot of folks can relate to

00:20:46.280 this, you know, you might, you might have some Olympic lifting in your, in your background. And so

00:20:50.060 when you're starting off before you get to the heavy weights or your workout weights,

00:20:53.440 you probably are working with an empty bar and the empty bar is just designed to help

00:20:56.660 you learn the bar path, kind of remember all the, all the things, muscle memory, all that

00:21:00.840 kind of stuff. Exactly. Just trying to get the juices flowing. So dry fire is kind of the same

00:21:05.460 way. It's like you're working with an empty bar. You have no live ammunition of any sort.

00:21:08.620 And all you're doing is you're going through the various things with like the most basics,

00:21:11.980 like how to properly grip the gun. And then you go through site management, trigger management.

00:21:16.420 There's no recoil obviously, because the gun is not firing, but you can, you can still gain a lot

00:21:21.360 of value from that. And that's, again, that's free. That's something you can do in the privacy

00:21:24.380 of your own home. I do recommend that you follow the safety, the recommended, you know,

00:21:28.840 best practices for dry fire, which there's dozens of videos online that you can Google and find out

00:21:33.960 how to do it safely. And then if you can, if you can invest, I would say, if you can invest like

00:21:40.260 maybe once a week, if you can invest 10 or 15 minutes, that's, that's huge. I mean, there's nothing

00:21:46.260 stopping that, you know, that's like, that's easy. You know, you go start a cup of coffee and you go in there

00:21:50.720 and you, you start your safe, uh, safety protocol and you do your dry fire, you come back out,

00:21:54.640 your coffee's ready. So it's like, it's not like, it's a little bit easier than some might think

00:21:59.900 to work in the conditions that we have right now and get it, gain a lot of value. Because

00:22:04.400 once this passes us and you know, everything returns to normal, you will have invested a lot of,

00:22:10.860 a lot of time in actually covering some of the bases that you don't want to waste time at the range

00:22:15.600 doing like you can, you can do a lot of this on your own.

00:22:18.500 Or find yourself in a difficult circumstance and not be adequately prepared for it.

00:22:23.520 Right. And at the very least, you've had some, um, familiarity with the firearm because that's

00:22:27.620 another, like, that's another concern that folks have is like, they don't understand how the gun

00:22:32.900 works. They don't understand like all of the things. And that's where a lot of accidents happen

00:22:37.640 is because they're pushing the wrong button or pushing the wrong or moving the wrong lever.

00:22:40.840 It turns out that, you know, the gun goes bang. So the more familiar you are with that firearm,

00:22:45.260 the less likely you are to experience when one of those types of accidents. And that's,

00:22:49.880 that's a huge thing. So at the very least, if you learn how to properly load the firearm,

00:22:55.200 you know, if you, if you keep the firearm in your home for home defense, you know, there's a lot of

00:22:59.080 different thoughts on, do I keep it loaded? Do I keep it unloaded? Uh, do I keep it, you know,

00:23:04.120 secure in a, in a lockbox or do I keep it out and available? You know, there's a lot of thought

00:23:09.340 that needs to go into that. But at the very least, if you need to grab the firearm, load the firearm

00:23:13.960 in defensive life, you will at least have that information. And that, that kind of lowers that

00:23:18.620 anxiety level a little bit. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, I even think about when it comes to muscle

00:23:23.640 memory and I'm going to butcher this, but I, it's been a long time since, you know, I went through

00:23:27.580 like basic training and my, my rifle training, but it was like, you know, tap rack bang or whatever

00:23:32.020 it is. If you, you know, like these little, these little trigger points that help you remember,

00:23:36.240 okay, this is how I clear a jam. But if you don't have that stuff conditioned or trained,

00:23:40.920 you know, you're going to, what do I do? You're going to be looking at, you don't have time to

00:23:44.660 look at it. You don't have time to eject the magazine and figure and analyze everything.

00:23:48.400 You've got to make quick decisions. In fact, you don't want them to be decisions. You want them to

00:23:52.580 be reactions based on what you've trained. And, and, and that's what, that's why, you know,

00:23:56.680 everything from like, okay, well, what if I, uh, small capacity magazine, like what if I have a

00:24:00.680 small capacity, six rounds and I go through those six rounds, dry practicing, dry fire practicing,

00:24:05.720 loading the gun will help expedite that load, that reloading of the gun, if you will.

00:24:11.540 So that, you know, you're just that much ahead of the power curve. So, I mean,

00:24:15.120 like, yeah, it sucks. We don't have a lot of ammo. There's not a lot of, uh, range availability,

00:24:19.840 you know, ranges are becoming harder and harder, you know, um, uh, all sorts of craziness happening

00:24:24.560 there, but there's still a lot that everybody can do regardless of like my skill level. I still do a

00:24:30.900 lot of dry fire practice. And, you know, a lot of times people think or associate dry fire as like

00:24:35.460 beginner, like, Oh, it's only for the beginners. I'm, I'm not a beginner anymore. And man, that's

00:24:39.700 the biggest mistake that you can make because, you know, like you were saying, dry fire is so

00:24:44.620 incredibly valuable because it's helping us to, to really reinforce those neural pathways that create

00:24:51.560 that muscle memory that you're describing. And so when folks can get like ahead of the power

00:24:56.860 curve on some of that stuff, it's just going to make when they can go to the range that much more

00:25:02.140 valuable, you know, you're actually spending it. You're spending quality time there. Not that the,

00:25:07.880 the operation of the firearm isn't quality, but it's not something that requires you to be at the

00:25:11.520 range to do. Right. Yeah. And I like that you're talking about the fundamentals. I look at, uh,

00:25:16.580 professional baseball players as an example. You know, if you go to a game or you go to practice

00:25:20.620 or spring training, you're going to see these athletes, the pinnacle of their careers. And what are they

00:25:26.240 doing? They're taking soft toss. They're hitting off a tee. Like they're doing the exact same things

00:25:31.240 that my six-year-old son is doing as he's learning to play baseball. It's the fundamentals. It's the

00:25:36.060 principles. And you need to establish those and get so good at those so that you could excel in these

00:25:40.860 other areas. So it's a funny thing because I, I, I, I kind of joke about this a little bit. Like

00:25:46.960 there's, there's no such thing as advanced gunfight. Um, you know, and, and basically there's a,

00:25:52.160 there's a phrase, a mantra, if you will. Um, you know, the, the secret of winning is simple

00:25:57.620 master the fundamentals and then execute them faster than the bad guy. And that's really all

00:26:02.260 we're trying to do here. You know, the, the, like everybody wants to think that there's this high

00:26:06.680 speed killer commando stuff that they, they want to learn. And, and, you know, truth be told,

00:26:10.820 we spend a tremendous amount of time on accuracy fundamentals because that's what, that's what

00:26:18.020 wins fights is accuracy. It's, it's sure. It's important to be fast, but you can't shoot fast

00:26:24.020 enough to make up a miss. So the accuracy is the key component. And I think I saw a quote just the

00:26:29.700 other day and, and you know, quotes, you never know who to attribute them to, but I think it was

00:26:33.640 from wider is, is what it was attributed to. And he says, you know, fast is good, but, uh, you know,

00:26:38.820 accuracy is deadly, right? So it's very, yeah, it's, it's so true. And I tell that to everybody.

00:26:44.080 It's like accuracy, you know, rule supreme on the battlefield. That's what wins. That's what wins

00:26:48.840 gunfights is the accurate rounds on target. So, um, it's like those fundamentals, just the only thing

00:26:56.520 that changes, if people really wanted to dive into it, the only thing that changes is that when

00:27:01.200 you're watching like a competitive shooter or, or a really good veteran season operator, what you're

00:27:06.580 seeing, there's years and years of practicing the basics that they're just able to execute at such a

00:27:13.000 higher, higher speed than the average person, because it's instinctive. It's intuitive. They're

00:27:18.900 almost not even thinking it's like, so reflexive in a sense. And that's where speed comes into,

00:27:24.080 but, but without the basic foundation, without that, the, the principles that you described,

00:27:29.580 it just is sloppy. It's just sloppy. It's all over the place. And maybe, you know, you never really

00:27:34.440 want to be lucky in a gunfight. You want to be good. And then whatever luck you, you know,

00:27:39.040 you generate is awesome.

00:27:39.920 Yeah. I mean, you'll take it, right? You'll take it for sure, but you don't want to rely on it.

00:27:43.480 I don't want to be, I don't want to, I don't want to approach a gunfight thinking I'm lucky.

00:27:46.500 You know, I want to approach the gunfight knowing that I'm good.

00:27:48.940 I saw that you had these, uh, these little cards. Uh, I think they're just training cards.

00:27:53.720 Essentially. It's like a deck of cards. Is there a dry fire drills in those deck of cards or is that

00:27:58.360 all life fire stuff?

00:27:59.400 Absolutely is. No. So that's the, the take host training program is what you're describing. And yeah,

00:28:03.300 that's, that is, um, um, each of those. So that there's a, there's a pistol version,

00:28:07.720 a rifle version and a, there's a training tool out there called a cert pistol. And, uh, it's made

00:28:12.480 by a good friend of mine named Mike Hughes. Basically what it is. It's a, it's a, it looks

00:28:16.280 like a pistol frame that fires when you pull the trigger. It has a laser that is emitted. It's

00:28:19.540 great. Oh, right. I've seen them. Yeah. Not everybody needs one. Um, so the pistol and the

00:28:24.840 rifle versions are the most popular ones and they have four suits, just like a regular deck of cards.

00:28:30.220 One suit is about speed. One suit is about accuracy. One suit is about baselines. And then

00:28:35.560 one suit is about dry fire. And there's various dry fire drills. Some of which we've talked about,

00:28:39.840 um, in that, in that training program. And the beautiful thing about that training program is

00:28:44.280 that the reason why I created it was after classes, I would get students that would approach me and go,

00:28:49.420 Hey, um, Hey, what do I practice to stay good? What do I practice to get better? And they're looking

00:28:55.260 for drills. They're looking for something that they can do. And it's like, everybody's a little

00:28:59.060 different. So it's hard to give good advice across the board. So what I did was, um, my training

00:29:04.900 program is built around my performance. So I'll go and I'll shoot a cold assessment drill of some

00:29:10.440 sort, like no warmup, just pay how, you know, what, what can I do? And usually the drill is

00:29:16.160 somewhat comprehensive. So it evaluates a couple of different moving parts and then I'll look and

00:29:19.780 see, okay, well, I really sucked at this. And then I'll, I'll, I'll create my training program

00:29:24.480 to help work on that, what I suck that. And so, um, what I did was I took that training program

00:29:30.800 and I supplemented it into a deck of cards and it's hugely popular. I love how people are using

00:29:37.920 them. And they're, uh, the nice thing about it is it's scalable to your skill level. So you don't

00:29:41.800 have to worry about whether or not you're elite, uh, you know, advanced beginner shooters are going

00:29:46.940 to gain a lot from it because it's going to, the most valuable thing, particularly now with ammo being

00:29:51.140 so scarce is that you can create a training plan. So when you go to the range, every round you fire

00:29:56.780 is fired with a purpose, like everything counts. Yeah. Everyone counts. Exactly. And you can also

00:30:02.460 keep score cause it gives you the grading metrics that allow you to take that drill, whatever card,

00:30:08.400 you know, ace of spades, you shot it. It allows you to kind of figure out what your score is so

00:30:12.300 that you can document that, which I encourage people, if you're really looking at, you know,

00:30:15.800 anything that a value is measurable. So we want to measure our progress and track it over time.

00:30:20.580 And so you can keep that in your logbook. In fact, this earlier this morning, I was at the range

00:30:24.660 with my son and, and I had him create a training program and we went and we shot it and I kind

00:30:29.500 of gave him some tips on, you know, here's what you need to look at. Here's how you do this. And

00:30:32.740 I showed him how I track all my metrics so that I can kind of keep progress, keep track of my

00:30:37.000 progress. So it's funny. We're talking about this cause I literally just did this this morning

00:30:39.800 and it, it really helps folks to, especially folks that are, are new. It allows them to kind

00:30:46.920 of expand their knowledge base without really feeling intimidated by the industry and worried

00:30:53.000 about like, like, I don't know what I'm doing per se. It's okay. I mean, I didn't know. I tell

00:30:58.820 people this all the time. Like I did not know how to shoot very well for the very long time. It took

00:31:03.820 while, it took me a while to get to where I'm at. So I can sympathize with you as far as not knowing

00:31:09.480 everything, you know? I mean, you're, you shouldn't feel, I know it's easy for me to say this. You

00:31:16.080 shouldn't feel bad that you don't know everything and it's okay to not know everything. What

00:31:21.720 hopefully you do is you take that kind of drive that to want to know things that you want to go

00:31:27.320 out there and learn and you want to go out and discover and you want to go out and experience.

00:31:30.680 And that's, I think the training cards do a really good job of helping people to kind of

00:31:34.680 at least get started. You know, they'll, they'll carry you through, especially during this time

00:31:39.640 period. I didn't even realize that, but it's incredibly valuable right now. They'll carry you

00:31:43.740 through this time period very well. So just make your, um, what little, what limited ammo that you have

00:31:48.680 that much more valuable. Yeah. Like that, you know, and, and what you're talking about too,

00:31:53.260 when you're talking about going out and trying that thing and being out there is also dropping

00:31:57.560 the ego. And I know, again, this, this is very generally, I think more true for men than it is

00:32:02.520 for women is that we're driven by ego. So I don't want to go out there on the range with a seasoned

00:32:07.260 professional like yourself, because then I run the risk of looking foolish. Well, yeah, but that's

00:32:12.640 actually kind of the point. And it's the only way to get better is to go learn from somebody who is

00:32:18.560 far superior at that skill than you are. Man, I'll tell you what, like there, I've studied this

00:32:24.540 for a long time and I, there's, there's two fears, if you will, within the shooting industry.

00:32:28.940 Uh, there's a fear of not knowing and the fear of the unknown. The fear of the unknown is typically

00:32:33.940 more of a female kind of emotion. The fear, you know, the fear of the unknown, they're not sure what

00:32:38.600 to expect. And so therefore they're kind of hesitant. Right. And the fear of not knowing is,

00:32:43.880 uh, is mainly guys. Like there's a lot of guys that just, they don't want to look bad in front

00:32:48.740 of their peers. They don't want to embarrass themselves or be ridiculed or criticized.

00:32:53.720 And man, that is, that is, that is such a, it's tough because we see that a lot. And it,

00:32:59.900 it, unfortunately it hinders your growth. It really kind of stunts your growth. I mean,

00:33:04.940 I'm sure you've stepped into a CrossFit gym and, you know, a couple of them have, uh, you know,

00:33:09.220 like a big, bold banner over the door says, you know, leave your ego at the door.

00:33:15.860 Right. You know, and I try to tell people on like, when you're training,

00:33:18.920 don't compare yourself to somebody next to you. Don't compare yourself to me. Don't try to come

00:33:25.180 in there thinking that I've got to be better than the next guy next to me. The only thing you have to

00:33:28.900 do is you have to, you have to put the effort in to improve yourself. You're not in a competition

00:33:34.460 with anybody else on the line, unless it is a competition, but for the most part, you're just

00:33:39.680 there to try and learn. And you can turn that fear of not knowing into an asset. Like, um, I try

00:33:46.420 regularly to expose myself to things that I don't really know a lot about or understand.

00:33:51.820 And I do it in a lot of different ways. It's, it's, it's not as complicated as some people think,

00:33:56.840 you know, learn how to, you know, I don't know how to play a musical instrument. So I, I will

00:34:00.620 sometimes dabble in that and just try to figure out, okay, cause I'm more, I'm not interested so

00:34:05.080 much in learning to play the musical instrument. I'm interested in learning about the process of

00:34:10.680 learning to play the musical instrument. How, how can that, cause the way I look at it is that will

00:34:15.920 help me to be a better instructor by connecting better, more efficiently with the various students

00:34:21.440 that I get. Cause everybody learns differently. So if I can, if I can expand my learning base on how

00:34:26.380 I learn and what works for me, what works for other people is just helping me to be a better

00:34:30.900 instructor. But it is also very enriching. You kind of like, that's cool. I mean, I, you know,

00:34:37.280 it's like life is way too short to get stuck in one rut. You know, I, I prefer to try to tackle a lot

00:34:43.480 of new things. And most of the time I have more, more balls in the air that I can handle and plenty

00:34:49.540 of them get dropped. But, you know, I, I still try to, I just try to value the, the experience and

00:34:55.880 value what it's brought to me. What is it, what has it taught me? And I, I've always tried to get

00:34:59.680 across the students that fit, you know, failure is a gift. You want to be failing in our classes.

00:35:06.340 I encourage you to push yourself to the point where you are failing, as long as you're safe,

00:35:09.020 as you're doing it, pushing yourself to failure is incredibly valuable because it's, it's helping

00:35:14.580 you to establish new limits. It's pushing your boundaries. It's getting you like we had a saying

00:35:19.080 in the teams that, you know, get comfortable being uncomfortable. Right. And when you can appreciate

00:35:24.220 that and when you can push yourself past those boundaries, failure is no longer a bad thing.

00:35:28.540 You know, it's like, it's a good thing because you're pushing yourself. You want to figure out

00:35:33.060 how far, you know, you can go before you, the wheels come off. And like, I try to get that

00:35:39.580 through and, and, uh, you know, 70% successful. Some folks just, it's really hard for them to get to

00:35:44.860 that place, but others can really appreciate it because as soon as they get past that fear of failure,

00:35:50.140 it's like, I don't care anymore. Right. You know, and all of a sudden it's like this unlocks

00:35:54.580 everything. Exactly. It does. It's like a floodgate poof. It opens wide. And all of a sudden it's

00:35:59.640 like, Oh my God, all this information is coming right at me. It's hugely valuable, man. Let me

00:36:04.820 take a step away from the conversation for just a very quick minute. Obviously we've been talking a

00:36:09.500 lot about making yourself more battle ready with the use of firearms. Uh, and while that is a critical

00:36:14.360 component of protecting yourself and others, there's another equally demanding battle. And that's the one

00:36:19.180 with your mind. And after teaching men for years now, almost six years, uh, the systems

00:36:24.400 and skills that they need to know to thrive, uh, I've come to the conclusion that many men

00:36:30.480 simply don't have a plan for life. In other words, they're not even mentally prepared for

00:36:35.660 the battle they'll face. And that's where the 30 days to battle ready program comes in, in

00:36:40.400 this free 30 day course. I'm going to equip you with the exact strategies that I have used

00:36:47.000 and created over years of research and testing and real world application for maximizing your

00:36:52.700 readiness for whatever life has to throw at you and also thrive in the face of it. So

00:36:57.900 if you're ready to dive in and do more self-work over the next 30 days, then you potentially have

00:37:03.600 your entire life. Then join the 30 days to battle ready program and get started immediately.

00:37:08.480 You can do that at order of man.com slash battle ready again, order of man.com slash battle ready

00:37:15.180 do that after the show for now, we'll finish things up with Jeff.

00:37:19.900 I think, uh, for me is cause I've recognized this in myself and knowing where my ego is driving my

00:37:25.280 decisions and my behaviors. And one thing that has really flipped a switch for me is, and when I know

00:37:31.980 that I'm doing it right is when I'm asking a lot of questions. Like I've noticed people who don't

00:37:37.260 ask questions, either two things, they, they feel like they know it all or they don't want to look

00:37:42.900 stupid. It's so true. Both are a problem. Both are bad. And I tell, I tell, I tell, I try to tell

00:37:49.320 the students the best question that you can ask is why, why, why are you doing something? Why do you

00:37:54.880 have to do it this way? Why do you have to do that? Why are you doing this? Because if you can

00:37:59.100 understand the why that gives you buy-in and that buy-in is hugely valuable for a new student.

00:38:03.500 So when I'm talking to, um, like I, and I would tell people like, if you can't understand the why

00:38:10.200 it's going to be hard for you to accept that. It's going to be hard for you to appreciate what

00:38:14.440 it is that you're learning. You're going through the motions in other words, and that's not a bad

00:38:18.500 thing. I'm not going to, I'm not going to diss that, but when you, you can really appreciate the

00:38:23.580 why it's going to be far more valuable because that it's what you're learning is going to mean

00:38:29.340 something. It's going to have value to you. And you want to think it also, I think knowing the

00:38:34.120 why will also help you bend the rules a little bit, or, or maybe a better way to say it would be

00:38:40.440 to, uh, adapt, uh, to become a little bit more creative because you know why you're doing something.

00:38:48.500 So you can start to see, okay, well, this would be an exception to that rule or in this particular

00:38:53.920 scenario. We do it that way, but that won't work because of X, Y, and Z. So I'm going to have to do

00:38:59.020 it a different way. So it allows you to be more creative and more effective in a multiple, you

00:39:05.280 know, multiple scenarios and prospects you might be up against. I can't remember. Um, like, I can't

00:39:11.740 remember. I was going to a class. I was, I was a young frog man and I was in this class. And I remember

00:39:16.720 that the instructor was getting really annoyed with me because I didn't understand a lot of the stuff.

00:39:21.740 And I kept asking a lot of questions like, why, why, why, why? And he took it as an affront.

00:39:26.700 Like he thought that I was being disrespectful or a jerk or something. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

00:39:32.680 And I remember at the end of the day, like second, third day, I mean, that stuff was just going over

00:39:38.500 my head. It was like, it was like bomb shit. Yeah. And I'm like, uh, it's just a fire hose of

00:39:44.400 information. And yes, exactly. Exactly. And like my sea daddy, he, um, he kind of like

00:39:51.780 really, um, set me on the right path. And he was like, if you can't come back to the command and

00:39:58.120 brief me on why you did that, why you did this, then, then you failed. You know, if you can't take

00:40:06.500 this, if you can't bring that information back to us, the collective and share that information and

00:40:11.100 understand the why so that you can share the why with us, then you failed. And I was like,

00:40:16.780 Ooh, I don't want to fail you. So there is, there was that word back then, like as a young

00:40:19.820 frog man, I would do anything to avoid failing, whatever it was. And so if I didn't understand

00:40:25.300 it, absolutely. I would sit there and ask the why. And so at the end of like the second or third day,

00:40:29.860 the guy pulls me aside, uh, like at a break and he's like, he's, he's, he's perturbed obviously.

00:40:35.600 And you know, I'm, I'm young. I'm like early mid twenties ish kind of thing. And, and I'm just

00:40:42.580 like, like Jojo, the monkey boy, like, tell me, tell me, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more.

00:40:46.940 Like, and he kind of got on me and I, and I was like, I was put off by it. I was like, I don't

00:40:53.300 understand. It does not compute. I'm supposed to understand everything you're supposed to like

00:40:57.240 your job, your job. The only reason why you're, you know, you exist right now is to improve my

00:41:02.620 lethality on the battlefield. That's it. Like I need to understand the why. And if you can't give

00:41:07.380 it to me, then somebody else has to. And I remember like I said, I mentioned to him, I mentioned it to

00:41:12.960 him. Like, um, if I can't take this information back to my command and share it, then I'm, I'm no

00:41:19.720 good to my, I'm no good to my teammates. And he kind of took a step back and like, like I was getting

00:41:28.580 worried, like, Oh shit, he's not going to share anymore. He's not going to take his toys and go

00:41:32.880 home. And I was like, Oh shit, I can't go back to the command and not know what the hell I'm doing.

00:41:37.800 And, um, so he kind of like had a change of heart after I took the time, after he took the time to

00:41:42.820 pull me aside. And after I explained to him, Hey man, I truly don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

00:41:47.340 And that's why I'm asking these questions because I don't get it. It's not like I'm trying to be mean to

00:41:51.900 you. I really don't get it. And I need to understand this because if I can't share, if I can't,

00:41:56.640 if I can't explain this to my guys, they're never going to send me out to another school

00:42:00.240 again. I'll never get to go to any cool stuff. I'll never get to be, I'll never be, I'll never

00:42:05.300 be trusted to be able to improve the collective. And that's a, you never want that. Nobody ever

00:42:11.740 wants that. So he was open to sharing then afterwards, once he understood what was going

00:42:16.420 on. He did. Uh, he still, he would kind of like, like he would say something and then he'd

00:42:20.980 kind of give me the eye, like, don't ask, you know, like every now and then he'd be like,

00:42:24.720 yeah, don't, don't, don't. Yeah, exactly. So it tempered me a little bit, but he also

00:42:29.460 was a little more understanding. Well, I think it's a good point too. And that we, if we are

00:42:35.080 asking why that, that we also have a responsibility to ensure that we're doing it tactfully. So it

00:42:40.240 doesn't come across as confrontational or challenging that it genuinely comes across as inquisitive.

00:42:45.680 Like I've got an example. I remember being in a job interview and it wasn't even like an

00:42:50.980 interview. The guy was interrogating me and I was so put off. I'm like, I don't even want to work

00:42:54.700 for this guy. And I don't know if he was being that way, if he was in a bad mood or that was his

00:42:59.580 interview style or, you know, something, or there's just some miscommunication, but it was a huge put

00:43:05.000 off. And, and I just was no longer interested in working with the guy because he came across like a

00:43:09.720 jerk. So I think it is important that yes, be inquisitive, but also have some self-awareness

00:43:15.580 as to how you're coming across. And are you being a know-it-all and trying to like get somebody,

00:43:21.220 or are you genuinely, genuinely curious about what it is you're learning?

00:43:24.900 And, and that, that was probably my takeaway from that school was like, I just assumed that

00:43:32.680 everybody, that that was okay. Like, this is how it's done. Like, cause I'm, I'm somewhat new and, um,

00:43:40.700 like I kind of took away from it kind of, I would say that it kind of curtailed, um, my exuberance

00:43:50.680 for asking questions. It did. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, but what I also did was I made sure

00:43:58.800 that the questions that I needed to ask were pertinent and that I couldn't find the answers

00:44:03.740 out myself. Right. So, you know, there was a give and take there. I kind of, I toned back

00:44:09.600 the number, the volume of questions. And then the questions that I did ask, I made sure that

00:44:13.840 I couldn't answer them myself. They were the right ones. Yeah, for sure. Exactly.

00:44:17.900 I want to go back to what you were talking about with your deck of cards. Yeah. You, you had mentioned

00:44:22.220 the four, the four suits. So dry fire, speed, accuracy, and then you said baselines. I'm not

00:44:27.380 familiar with that term. So, so what are you referring to when you say that?

00:44:30.080 Yeah. So baselines is like, um, the best way to explain it is what is your, um, what it takes

00:44:36.880 for you to, to complete a task per, you know, two standard. So for instance, the way that

00:44:41.760 baselines work is like a lot of times people will come up with their own part-time. Like

00:44:45.500 you, you go online and you see a drill and you say, Oh, it's got a two second part-time

00:44:48.560 and people feel like, Oh, I got to make that put two second part-time. Well, you know, the

00:44:52.340 reality is maybe that part-time is not suited for you. So what we have to do. Yeah. That's

00:44:55.800 like the, that's like the best of the best or the highest standard or something like

00:44:59.120 that. Okay. Yeah. And I, and I was, I was also telling my son, I was like, listen, they

00:45:02.120 did that about six times before they finally got it just the way they want to show it on

00:45:05.900 social media. So don't, don't think, don't think that was like out of the gate, but what

00:45:10.020 a baseline is, is like, um, and I, I learned this through the, um, through the fitness industry

00:45:16.100 of sorts. And we, we started doing this, uh, way, way back in the day. And what, what it

00:45:21.920 basically amounts to is let's just take a drill, like a one round drill to an eight inch

00:45:26.880 target from the seven yard line. Right. So what, what is the time that it takes for you

00:45:33.700 to, to complete that task? Right. Now, a lot of times what happens is, uh, the way we

00:45:39.220 do it is that you'll shoot that drill, right? So one round from the ready position, you know,

00:45:43.300 have a timer, start the time or the timer goes, you fire that drill, whatever the time

00:45:48.060 was. The only way that time counts is if you hit the eight inch target, right? If you didn't

00:45:52.700 hit the eight inch target, then no matter how fast that time was, it doesn't count because

00:45:55.660 you missed. Nothing counts. Right. Exactly. Seven repetitions. You'll have seven times

00:46:03.860 basically. Now you get three mulligans. So you're, you're allowed to go up to 10 because

00:46:09.160 if you go past 10, you're no longer evaluating your core skill. You're actually training,

00:46:13.940 right? You've kind of, you've moved past that cold condition when you just walk onto the

00:46:18.300 fire line. What am I capable of? And now you're kind of like warmed up. You're actually

00:46:21.420 trained. So 10 is 10 repetitions is the max. You get three mulligans. So if you miss, let's

00:46:26.320 just say the second shot you fired, you missed, well, you still get, you know, you have three

00:46:30.520 mulligans. So you got two left in the bank. And the goal is for you to try to shoot as

00:46:35.000 fast as you can guarantee the hits. And that's a mantra that I tell people on the firing line.

00:46:39.120 You know, I don't want you to go fast. I want you to go as fast as you can guarantee the

00:46:43.540 hits. And that's a big, that's a subtle difference, but it's a major difference on the firing line.

00:46:47.920 And so you'll shoot those seven baseline times. And what you'll do is you'll take the fastest

00:46:53.100 and the slowest and you'll get rid of them. Okay. And then you'll average out the remaining

00:46:56.460 five. And let's just say that the remaining five tells us that, you know, they average out to 2.27

00:47:03.140 seconds. So 2.27 seconds is the exact amount of time that it takes for you to fire one round

00:47:09.180 at the seven yard line to an eight inch target. That's exactly how much time it takes for you to do

00:47:13.560 it. And so what we do is we take those baselines and we can, we can flex those baselines. So I tell

00:47:19.360 people that anytime you step up to the firing line, if I put 2.27 seconds on the timer and I hit the

00:47:24.060 button, you need to be able to make that shot because that's what a baseline is. That's your

00:47:27.460 baseline. And it's, and it sounds like it's individual to, to you. Exactly. Just the standard

00:47:32.380 across the board. No, it's that. And that's because like, when you go to the, like, again, I use a lot

00:47:37.780 of fitness orientations. Like you go to a CrossFit gym, you're probably not going to be able to do RX.

00:47:41.480 You're not doing what the games athletes are doing. I'm, there's no way I'm going to be able

00:47:44.460 to do that. So I've got to scale it down to my ability. Exactly. So, and some people scale up,

00:47:50.280 some people scale down. It just depends. But what we do with that time. So 2.27 seconds is my kind

00:47:55.620 of like, um, like I'm, it's, it's how I keep myself honest. So I'm going to, the next time I go to the

00:48:01.040 range, um, you know, I'm going to put 2.27 seconds on the timer and I'm just going to shoot that. And as long

00:48:06.420 as I am making that part time and I'm getting my hits and it's valid, you know, it's good.

00:48:13.080 And, and after I've done that for a while, what I will do is I will take that 2.27 seconds

00:48:18.100 and maybe I'll try to fire two rounds. If I get, you know, can I, can I actually, you know,

00:48:24.460 get that too? Cause I know I can guarantee one. Yeah, exactly. And maybe, maybe the time is an

00:48:29.600 issue. Maybe, maybe there's no way I can get two rounds in that 2.27 seconds. So now what I'll do

00:48:34.260 is I'll step back to the seven yard or I'm sorry, to the 10 yard line. So I moved from the seven to

00:48:38.680 the 10, add a little bit of distance. And then if I feel like, you know what, that's still not good

00:48:43.280 enough. 2.27 seconds. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go from an eight inch target zone to a

00:48:46.680 six inch target zone. Can I still make those baselines in that? A lot of variables you can

00:48:50.340 change here. It is, but, but you were, you're working from a known, you know, this is what you're

00:48:56.040 capable of. It's like a scientific method. You got to have that standard, right? It's so true. I mean,

00:49:00.540 I'm a, I geek out on stuff like that because metrics are metrics drive everything that we do

00:49:06.280 in the, in my training industry, at least. I've got a, uh, I've got my notepad here. My, my, uh,

00:49:12.560 my battle planner. A lot of the guys that listen know, but that first line right there is that

00:49:16.760 which is measured improves. So true. It's like, how can you, whether it's your bank account, your

00:49:22.000 firing speed, your accuracy, your weight, your whatever, if you're not measuring it, it's not going

00:49:27.280 to get better. Or even if it does get better, you can't replicate it because you don't know how it

00:49:31.720 improved. So it's gotta, so that's the thing. It's gotta be, it's gotta be measurable to start

00:49:36.900 with observable and then repeatable. And those are, that's what baselines do for you is you've

00:49:41.980 measured your performance and there it's observable. So I can actually watch you do this and I can say,

00:49:46.740 yep. And then it's, if it's not repeatable, that's what baselines are all about. It's about

00:49:51.600 your ability. That's why we take that collection of seven, we discard the fastest and the slowest,

00:49:55.440 and we average out the, the middle ground there because that's what you were able to

00:49:59.440 repeat. Right. And once we have that time, now we can use that time to do a lot of things.

00:50:05.000 And, and what I tell people is like, you know, once you've done that baseline drill,

00:50:08.860 um, hold onto it for like about, you know, like depending on how many times you go to the range

00:50:14.380 and how many rounds that you fire, you might hold that for like three months, six months,

00:50:17.680 maybe even a year before you retest. And now let me do this baseline again. Let's see if I've

00:50:23.120 improved because hopefully you, you know, if you have a training regime,

00:50:27.480 there's a goal at the end, which is to improve your performance. So how do I know? Well,

00:50:31.840 I have this known my baseline for that one round drill at the seven,

00:50:35.660 six months later, I'm going to do it again. And now instead of 2.27 seconds, I'm like 1.9,

00:50:40.420 1.90. So clearly I can see the improvement. The drills are helping you, right? Yes, exactly.

00:50:47.420 And now you're able to track your progress over time and you're able to actually see what's like,

00:50:53.620 you, you, you have a way to measure what's working, what's not working. Like if you try

00:50:57.840 something on the internet and you're like, okay, I'm going to go out and try this baseline drill

00:51:00.720 or I'm going to go out and do this video, whatever the video had me do. I'll go back

00:51:04.240 and shoot my baseline up. That didn't work. That didn't help. Or yes, it did. I'm awesome.

00:51:07.840 Let's keep going. It just gives you a way to, because without that known, without a start point,

00:51:13.860 you're just spinning your wheels. You really don't have any real good place to go.

00:51:18.220 Right. So I love doing baselines. They're not easy because like I said, you got to shoot them cold.

00:51:23.660 Um, you like this, it varies between people that you talk to. Um, I say that you can, uh, you can

00:51:33.000 shoot a baseline every week. Like as long as there's a week, seven days in between each baseline,

00:51:37.720 you're not, um, it becomes, it's not invalid, right? If you do a baseline on, on Monday,

00:51:44.860 didn't know the baseline on Wednesday, didn't know the baseline on Friday. You're, you're not

00:51:48.020 really, you know, it's there's, they're too close in the frequency to be genuine, like piggybacking

00:51:54.640 on each other. Right. So, yeah, because you're hopefully in, in that short of a turnaround,

00:51:58.940 a 24 or 48 hour turnaround, hopefully you'd be able to improve it just because you did it yesterday.

00:52:04.340 Exactly. That should be, and you're absolutely right. You should. So we don't want to measure

00:52:08.880 what we want to measure is your cold board performance. What can you do without a warmup?

00:52:12.600 What can you do with that? Because that's the most valuable information. And so if you do a baseline

00:52:17.680 like once a week or more, like once every two weeks, whatever it is, um, you know, you can,

00:52:23.360 and that was just one example. Like you could do, uh, you could do a two round drill from the five,

00:52:29.480 you can do a five round drill from the 25 yard line, you know, baselines are unlimited. You can,

00:52:34.200 sure. The sky is the limit there in that case. And I, I usually keep about two dozen baselines

00:52:39.880 on, on tap. And so what I'll do is like probably once a quarter for me at this point, because I,

00:52:46.160 I've documented so many, it's not, like I said, it's not easy to document those baselines, but I've

00:52:49.980 documented them over, you know, a decade or more and I'll just pick one and I'll like go in and I'll

00:52:57.180 just reshoot it. And if it's, if it's, if it's updated, great. If it's not updated, well, I probably

00:53:01.740 know there's an area that I need to work. Right. I haven't been, I've been working on that.

00:53:05.840 That's why I like those cards is because I think it's the same phenomenon when, when a guy's like,

00:53:09.960 okay, I want to go to the gym and they're all hopped up the night before. And then they wake

00:53:13.440 up and they're like, yeah, I don't know. Cause, cause they don't really know what they're going

00:53:16.940 to do. They don't have a workout. Sounds like you're into CrossFit, which is one of the benefits

00:53:21.600 of CrossFit for the average fitness person is that you don't have to program your workouts.

00:53:27.340 You just go in, there's a wad, you know, and you do the workout of the day and you don't

00:53:31.380 have to think about that. And it's the same thing here. Like for me, you know, if I wanted

00:53:35.280 to go out and train, whether it's live or dry fire, like, I don't know what to do. I don't

00:53:41.220 know. Just, you know, and I'll make something up that is, is, or is not effective.

00:53:45.580 It's true. And it's like part of the, part of the problem that I saw in the industry was

00:53:51.920 lack of planning, lack of like creating a strategy for how to improve. Like whether

00:53:57.520 whatever, whatever, whatever fitness genre you subscribe to, you know, there's usually

00:54:06.000 an inroad to get into a goal process. Right. And so having a training plan is fundamental

00:54:15.040 towards seeing that improvement. And a lot of times, especially as a new shooter, you really

00:54:20.200 just don't know how to create a training plan. So what I love about those cards, here's

00:54:24.080 another great example. Let's just say you have a hundred rounds. So you got two boxes

00:54:27.280 of ammo. Each of those cards has a cumulative round count on them. So this card is 20 rounds.

00:54:33.040 This card is 30, this card is 25. And so you can just collect the cards and total them up

00:54:39.300 to a hundred rounds. Now you've got a, you've got a training plan without having to put a lot

00:54:43.240 of thought into it. You just go to the, go to the range, you shoot each of these cards

00:54:46.860 and that's a hundred rounds, but not a hundred rounds fired, fired kind of recklessly fired

00:54:51.760 with purpose. You have, you have a, with intentionality. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I like

00:54:55.340 that. I want to shift gears. Um, I want to talk a little bit about philosophy. You know,

00:55:00.200 one of the things that you mentioned, cause I want to get into just collective philosophy

00:55:03.480 with the nation. I want to talk a little bit about that, but I also want to talk about your

00:55:06.880 philosophy that you mentioned earlier as to two things you mentioned, uh, keeping your

00:55:13.020 firearms loaded or unloaded and having them secured under lock and key or combo or having

00:55:19.800 them out in the open. I'd like to hear your philosophy on those, those couple of things.

00:55:23.040 And I'm sure there's some variables there, but I would like to hear your stance.

00:55:26.360 So it's a great question. Um, and it's about, it's an important question because of what's

00:55:30.520 happening right now in the country. Um, first thing that I would say is that you need to know

00:55:34.580 the law here in the state of Texas. Um, they consider a child to be anybody under the age

00:55:39.980 of 16, I'm sorry, under the age of 18. So 17 and below. And what that means is that if

00:55:46.740 you left a firearm unattended, um, and it was accessible by a child, you would be breaking

00:55:53.020 the law. Right. So know the law first. Uh, second is what is the, like, what is the,

00:55:59.760 like the requirement? Like, are you in a war torn part? Like, are you living in Portland right

00:56:04.920 now? I mean, if you are, maybe you want to probably keep it loaded because there's just

00:56:10.500 some crazy stuff happening. So you gotta value, you gotta evaluate your needs. Um, is the threat

00:56:15.920 high? Is the threat low? Um, if it's, you know, if it's high, then the, the, the, the common

00:56:23.080 sense answer would be that I probably want that loaded. Cause that's one less thing that I have

00:56:26.520 to do. Right.

00:56:27.600 If it's low, maybe I don't need it loaded. I'm not saying that you couldn't still have

00:56:32.520 it loaded, but maybe you don't really have a real need to load it. Then after that, we

00:56:37.720 talk about, um, locked or, you know, out in the open unlocked again, you know, know the

00:56:45.220 law. If you have small children or children visit your home, then it's probably not a good

00:56:49.260 idea to keep it unlocked. You definitely want to keep it secure. And these days you'd be surprised

00:56:55.300 at some of the new lock boxes that are out there. They've got some super sophisticated

00:56:58.680 with all sorts of features on them. Um, like, like literally, you know, everything from

00:57:04.260 the, you know, the biometric thumbprint to, um, there's, there's one that you can actually

00:57:09.120 operate off of your phone. You can actually, you know, hit a button on your phone and unlock

00:57:12.960 it for family member or whatnot. They have motion sensors and lights and all sorts of stuff

00:57:18.000 in there. So, I mean, they've gotten pretty sophisticated with some of these lock boxes. So

00:57:21.560 like, you know, the, the, and they're not that pricey. And to me, you know, being able

00:57:26.880 to secure the firearm is probably very, it's, it's a, especially for all of the new firearms

00:57:31.460 owners that are out there right now, that's probably weighing heavy on their mind. You

00:57:35.040 know, they brought a gun into their home. They're a little nervous about that. And so

00:57:38.580 the best thing that they could do is secure the firearm in a way that makes them feel comfortable

00:57:42.700 with their current situation that they have, whether they have children or no children.

00:57:45.960 Um, and also being able to look, I mean, that's important for sure. But then when you need

00:57:51.360 it, you have to be able to access it. So there's this balancing act of, you know, it's like,

00:57:56.360 how do you, and I think that's even something you probably ought to consider training as well

00:58:01.100 as like, you're at 2am, you hear somebody breaking into your house, train that.

00:58:05.900 So the, the, the, the second, the last part to the, the commentary was going to be with

00:58:12.300 however, whatever method, like, let's just say you keep it unloaded. Well, you need to

00:58:15.900 practice how to charge the weapon to get it into operational readiness. That needs to be

00:58:20.620 part of your routine. Uh, if you have a lockbox, you need to practice how to open the lockbox

00:58:27.000 in a very quick manner. And you might want to practice it not just in daytime, but at night.

00:58:31.660 Um, most of the, you know, if you're looking at a home invasion, um, you know, they, they

00:58:37.440 don't, there's not like, I'm not saying that time is not critical, but it's not like you're

00:58:43.160 out in the open mano a mano with another person. You know, you generally have some sort of barrier

00:58:47.740 between you and like your front door or your bedroom door or something that buys you enough

00:58:51.940 time to actually, um, access said firearm. Um, if the firearm is located next to the bed,

00:58:57.560 that makes it a little bit easier. If it's located in a master closet, you know, that's a

00:59:00.620 little bit more challenging. So where we, what we talk about is like, rehearse this,

00:59:04.420 like, like how long will it take for you to get from your bed to the master closet to get

00:59:09.220 the firearm and then get out. And, and, and at least what we call strong pointing, which

00:59:13.680 is, you know, you, um, you use the best, you know, master bedroom door, excuse me, as

00:59:19.680 like your threshold. Like, I'm not going to, like, I don't have a need or reason to go out

00:59:23.760 into my home to inspect, to see what happened. I heard the glass breaking. I heard voices

00:59:28.060 outside there. And, you know, the first thing I'm doing is, is probably breaking out that

00:59:31.280 firearm and holding security, if you will, on the door and calling the police, right?

00:59:36.800 They're much more equipped. They're much better equipped to go ahead and manage that. But

00:59:39.820 let's just say you're in Portland where like response time was like 90 minutes. So clearly

00:59:44.360 that's not going to work for you. So you got to, you got to, you got to value all of this.

00:59:48.860 That's why I'm saying you got to really take in the big picture and understand what are

00:59:52.100 some of these variables that I need to have a plan for? Like, uh, maybe I, maybe I call the

00:59:56.700 police at least notify them that I have, you know, intruders in my home and you know, what's

01:00:02.060 their advice? The police tell me, uh, well, you know, we won't be there for 90 minutes.

01:00:06.660 Okay. I'm on my own.

01:00:08.900 Well, I think in addition to that, and so this goes back to what we were saying earlier,

01:00:12.100 you know, where people think just because they have a gun, they're protected. It's like,

01:00:15.020 you know, like you might want to have some other layers in there. Uh, you know, dogs, for example.

01:00:20.660 Okay. I'm not going to rely on my dog to stop an intruder, but it's going to slow one down,

01:00:25.880 even if it's just barking. Right. So then, and then the, and then you have, um, alarm systems,

01:00:31.340 you know, even if it's just a localized alarm system where it's not going somewhere, just being

01:00:36.640 able to hit a siren and that thing come on, that's going to deter a lot of people from entering into

01:00:41.880 your house and buys you some time. Should you need to escalate the situation? It's so true that,

01:00:47.060 I mean, all sorts of things that, you know, like there's, there's a lot of things that you can do to,

01:00:51.500 um, what we call harden, harden your home for, you know, for kind of help reduce the possibility,

01:00:58.480 you know, everything from, uh, you know, motion sensing lights on the outside,

01:01:02.820 cleaning up the vegetation around your home. Um, you know, nowadays you can go down to Best Buy

01:01:08.300 or even Target and buy do it yourself security camera systems that allow you to monitor inside,

01:01:14.260 outside. Um, you know, uh, like you said, a pet, an animal, a dog that they're great. I love the

01:01:21.040 siren. I think the siren is a good thing. You put that siren outside in the main common area

01:01:24.500 because that thing is loud and it hurts, you know, that's actually, you're out there. It's

01:01:29.440 painful. It's like, it's like a smoke detector going off in the middle of the night when you're

01:01:32.420 asleep. That's like uncomfortable. Yeah. You don't want anything to do with that.

01:01:36.000 No. So there's a lot of things that you can do. And you know, like the bottom line is that you have

01:01:41.820 to really evaluate your situation. Uh, like, am I in an apartment complex or am I in a home?

01:01:46.960 And you know, you also have to evaluate your, your situation. Do I have children? Like if I had

01:01:51.660 children, most, most home, the luck, the structure, the structural layout of most homes

01:01:55.860 puts the kids' bedrooms on the opposite side of the master bedroom. So if somebody were to break in

01:02:00.860 through the front door, then you're pretty much committed to trying to at least get to your

01:02:05.840 children's room so that you can at least protect, you know, at least know that you have your family

01:02:09.940 all on one side of the house. So you might have to move from your master bedroom to the kid's room

01:02:14.440 in strong point there as opposed to strong point in your master bedroom. You know, like if you live

01:02:18.520 on the second deck or the second floor, that's awesome. You got, you got the stairs, you know,

01:02:22.440 all you got to do is just move to the stairwell, hold the stairwell, let them, you know, I hate to

01:02:25.420 say it, but you let them ransack the first deck and you just hold the stairs. And if they, you know,

01:02:30.440 if they pursue up the stairs, it's, it's a, it's a pretty bad situation because you've got,

01:02:34.500 you know, you've got, you got the high ground, you've got a lot of other things working for you.

01:02:38.600 So high ground, you've got the dark, you've got home field advantage.

01:02:41.000 Just bring it on. You got it all. Let's do this. Yeah. So, you know, and home defense is one of

01:02:46.140 these things that's, um, it's a constantly evolving, like anything else is constantly

01:02:51.080 evolving, right? Technology is evolving. You know, we've got these cool things like the lock boxes

01:02:54.600 that are, you know, super advanced. We've got security systems, do it yourself type that you

01:02:59.040 don't have to rely on, you know, like a security system come out there. I mean, I do think it's

01:03:03.000 valuable to have a, um, um, like at least something whether, and one of the simplest things that we talk

01:03:10.060 about is like hardening your front door. Like, like if you're front, if you can harden your

01:03:14.380 front door, you know, most of the time you're looking at like, like three quarter inch long

01:03:18.880 screws in there. Yeah. If you can change those, if you haven't installed a deadbolt, man, that's

01:03:23.440 number one. I don't know why you wouldn't have a deadbolt on your front and back door. Things

01:03:27.360 like that are super important. Um, probably one of the scarier things is how do you handle an

01:03:33.020 unsolicited knock at the door? Right. And, and like, I have had a lot of people experience this

01:03:40.660 where it's late at night. Uh, well, let's not say it's late. Let's say it's eight o'clock. So that's

01:03:45.320 kind of like, all right, nobody should really be coming to my house at eight o'clock. Right. Like

01:03:49.200 you need to establish what do you consider to be appropriate versus not appropriate. And then you

01:03:54.180 also have, if you have kids, you really have to be careful about this because you need to make sure

01:03:59.180 that the children know that when, once it's dark, you don't open the door anymore. Yeah.

01:04:03.420 That's mom and dad's job. Mom and dad will go and open the door. Kids don't open the door during

01:04:07.220 nighttime hours. Now they probably shouldn't open the door anyhow, but at least that's what I tell

01:04:11.140 my kids. You, there's no reason one of my children should ever open the door for anybody.

01:04:15.300 Exactly. And then, um, you know, like, so if it's unsolicited, my recommendation is like,

01:04:22.580 turn on the outside lights, try to view who it is through windows. Peepholes are great,

01:04:27.240 but I try to get a different viewpoint from like a side window or window that has a vantage point to

01:04:31.420 the, to the door there. So you can see who's out there, look at, see the numbers, like how many

01:04:36.320 people are out there. If there's more than one, there's really not a reason for you to probably,

01:04:39.700 you know, open the door. Cause once you crack the threshold of your door, you make it really hard

01:04:44.280 to defend. Right. Once you've opened that door, uh, the, because the door pushes in, it's a lot

01:04:50.280 harder for you to stop versus, you know, keeping the door closed. And there's nothing wrong with

01:04:55.720 talking to somebody through the door. You know what I mean? You can ask questions like who is it

01:04:59.980 and what do you want and come back during the day or whatever the case might be. And the thing that I

01:05:05.400 tell people is the reason why I'm providing those commands or those instructions is I want to see how

01:05:10.240 they react. So if, for instance, if I tell, if I, if I yelled through the door, who is it? And I get

01:05:17.480 like some, you know, Oh, it's Bob, Bob, who Bob, you know, that tells me right away that I'm not

01:05:24.600 going to open the door. Exactly. Yeah. You know, if it, if it's like, Hey, it's George,

01:05:29.100 your neighbor, um, I'm locked out of the house. Can I, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a

01:05:32.960 little different, you know, but if, if you, if they don't pass that first kind of like interrogative

01:05:37.880 question, who is it? That's probably all you need to know to say, I'm not opening this door.

01:05:43.440 Exactly. And then you just, you know, I mean, just go back to what you're doing because that's all you

01:05:49.060 have to do. You don't have to stay there and talk to them through the door. Once you feel like,

01:05:52.920 okay, that's it. I'm done. Hey, that's it. Good night. Have a good night. And go back to

01:05:57.000 whatever you do. I think people believe they're obligated to answer the phone and open the door.

01:06:01.460 It's like, you're not obligated to, to operate on somebody else's schedule or their time or their

01:06:07.040 desires. So true. Like one of the hardest thing is to say no. Yes. And I tell people that you have to

01:06:15.400 become, it's, it's uncomfortable, especially as humans, good natured humans. It's very hard for us to

01:06:22.760 say no. Nobody wants to say no. Like particularly women, like there's a great book. It's a fantastic

01:06:28.800 book. I recommend just about everybody, not just women read, which is Gavin DeBecker's book,

01:06:34.400 The Gift of Fear. Oh, The Gift of Fear. Right. Sure. Love that book. And it, and there was,

01:06:38.060 there was, there was a chapter devoted to this, the, the ability to say no. And like, for me,

01:06:44.800 like being able, like, I'm a nice guy and I have no problems, you know, helping out where I can,

01:06:51.600 but I make that choice on my own. I don't, I don't, I'm not going to be forced to help somebody

01:06:57.280 because that's what they're trying to get me to do. Exactly. So like that's, and that, that means

01:07:03.200 you have to get comfortable saying no. Somebody walks up to you and ask you, um, what time is it?

01:07:08.100 You know, it seems like it's a very benign question, but a lot of times the pre, what

01:07:14.860 precedes a sucker punch or a tackle or a haymaker is a distraction. Right. And so while you're looking

01:07:24.120 at your watch to see what time it is, you know, all of a sudden, you know, that's when the, that's

01:07:29.080 when the guy cold cocks you, that's when he tackles you, that's when whatever. And you've lost

01:07:33.880 the initiative in that sense. So, you know, I tell people, it's like, Hey, you know, if, if you feel

01:07:37.840 uncomfortable, then respect that, right. Respect that instinct that you have and tell one thing

01:07:44.560 that, uh, well, I was going to say one thing that I've, I've learned or done in the past is just a

01:07:49.000 disruption, right? They're trying to disrupt you. So you disrupt them. So I ha I was in Vegas and, uh,

01:07:53.640 my son and I had rented this, uh, this exotic car just cause I wanted to have some fun with him.

01:07:59.200 And so we did this and we pulled into the gas station and I noticed this guy who, you know,

01:08:03.140 maybe he was homeless or he just didn't look clean. He, he, there was something off, right?

01:08:08.240 So he starts walking directly towards me. He gets about 15 yards away. And I, and he was looking

01:08:13.640 at me. I said, stop. And he's like, what? And he's like, I just wanted to ask for, I wanted to ask

01:08:20.120 for, uh, for some food. I said, that's fine. You stop right there and you go ahead and ask whatever

01:08:25.520 it is you need. Uh, can, can, can you give me some money? I need some food. I said, no, I won't give

01:08:30.140 you money, but if you go put something up on the register in the gas station of food,

01:08:35.360 I will pay for it for you. Nice. Sure enough. That's, and it ended up working out, you know,

01:08:40.440 probably that's all he needed, but I'm not willing to risk, especially with my son there,

01:08:44.940 whether or not he's, he's wanting to steal the car or injure me or hurt my son. I'm not playing that

01:08:49.580 game. And I think a lot of people aren't willing to do that because they're worried about hurting

01:08:54.900 people's feelings. I don't give a shit about your feelings. I care about my life and the life and

01:09:00.000 the livelihood of, and well-being of my son at the time. I'm telling you, it's a hard, it's a hard

01:09:05.800 thing to deal with because in, at our core, we are nice people. We're, we're, we're good natured and

01:09:11.140 people will take advantage of that. And it's unfortunate that that's where we've evolved as a,

01:09:15.340 as a culture, as a community, as a society, but that's where that's, that's the truth. You have to

01:09:20.000 accept it. And I, and I tell people that all the time. It's like, you know, uh, creating your own

01:09:25.200 table. Like, that's a great example. Something short and sweet. Stop. Don't come any closer.

01:09:30.720 Um, mine is like, if somebody asked me, what time is it? Um, can I have some, can I have some money

01:09:35.700 for food? Uh, can you buy me this? It, my response is always the same. No, thank you. No. And thank you.

01:09:41.680 Like no pause. Thank you. And that's like a dismissive. Thank you. Like, yep, that's it. It's over.

01:09:47.040 It's done. Exactly. And it's important that you not engage that you, because that's the next step

01:09:53.100 that they will look for is to create the con, the confrontation through conversation kind of thing.

01:09:57.740 And so my recommendation is, is to, is to break away. Like you did, it was good. It was an excellent

01:10:02.760 example. It was very well thought out and easy, right. And it maintained your, your proximity to

01:10:08.420 your kid without being exposed to an unknown. Like, like a lot of times what I tell people is like,

01:10:15.580 you're, you're looking over here, you're focused on what's happening here and you don't see what's

01:10:21.400 happening here. Right. I understand that, that there's something else right here that they're

01:10:25.980 working in, you know, uh, like team effort or there's more than one or, you know, you're just

01:10:33.060 so focused on that person that you don't see the bigger picture what's around you. So something like

01:10:37.480 stop and having them stay at a, at a, at a comfortable distance away from you. Great. It's awesome.

01:10:42.020 Right. Because here's the thing. Anytime, just like with that scenario at the door, right. If I ask

01:10:47.620 him, who is it? And I get any kind of not, if I don't get the answer I'm looking for, I know at

01:10:53.440 that point they're non-compliant. And once I know that somebody is non-compliant, I'm not going to

01:10:57.680 waste my time trying to encourage them to become compliant. I'm disengaging at that moment. There's

01:11:01.240 no point in me doing anything at that point. It's like, well, I need to do it. Yeah. It's not like

01:11:06.300 they're going to start engaging in some sort of intellectually honest, you know, discussion with

01:11:10.340 you or, or, or hash the scenario out. Like they've already proven they're not willing to go down that,

01:11:14.960 that, that route. Yeah. That's so true. Well, Jeff, this has been fascinating. I like this stuff. I

01:11:20.100 could talk about this stuff all day long. It's very important, you know, for men to consider,

01:11:23.940 you know, just not just firearms, but some of the scenarios that we're talking about now to keep

01:11:27.220 yourself and the people that you love safe. Yeah. I'm sure we could talk about being safe in vehicles,

01:11:32.740 which is now something that's even more important than it ever was, but I'm going to encourage the

01:11:37.500 guys to go connect with you and learn more about what you're doing. Cause that would be awesome for

01:11:41.140 the sake of time. I hear you. I love it. And you're right. I could do the same thing. I geek out on

01:11:45.120 this stuff. So it's, it's a great format to introduce the subject and then the folks can kind

01:11:50.420 of pursue things on their own. Yeah. Do you want to let the guys know? I mean, we talked a lot about

01:11:54.860 that deck of cards, but I know you've got other programs, you've got other courses and you've got

01:11:58.380 other materials. So where do those guys go to get access to that stuff? Um, great

01:12:02.580 question as well. So one thing I want to put out is for a lot of the new gun owners or folks that

01:12:07.100 are just kind of, um, wading into this industry, a helpful format is the, um, I partnered with

01:12:13.820 Brownells. Brownells is a very, uh, well, well-known, well-respected group within the industry, uh, to do a

01:12:20.220 video series for the first time gun owner, new, new purchaser, uh, called daily defense. So you can,

01:12:26.740 you can see that off of my YouTube channel, off of, um, Brownells YouTube channel, but it's really

01:12:31.000 important as far as like breaking the ice for a lot of people, like giving them some material to

01:12:36.900 start to digest and get them comfortable moving forward. So that would be one big thing that I

01:12:42.200 would put out there. I totally, totally spaced that during the conversation. Um, there's a lot

01:12:47.180 of training classes that folks can look, we travel all over the country doing training classes, you

01:12:51.240 know, all over the place. Uh, we're, we're a little short this year, not this year, but this time of year,

01:12:56.820 because we do a lot of our government classes at the end of the year. Uh, so there's only like one

01:13:01.020 or two open enrollment classes still folks can go to my website to check out the schedule. Um, they

01:13:05.720 can, the best thing to do is actually go to the website because all my social media links are

01:13:09.060 there. So try to concepts.com is the website. You can find out where you can go to our pro shop to

01:13:14.960 get the training cards. You can go to our class schedule. We'll see what other classes we have

01:13:17.980 available. So, um, a couple more, like more, there's, there's also all the blogs. Like I think,

01:13:24.800 um, I'm up to about 600 plus blogs on the website. Yeah. So if you had a question over

01:13:30.400 there, yeah. If you had a question, you can go and do a search and probably find the answer

01:13:33.780 pretty easily. And then of course there's a YouTube channel where you can go watch a lot

01:13:36.840 of videos. Excellent. Well, we'll sync it all up for the guys. Hey, I just want to tell you,

01:13:40.500 I really appreciate you. I mean, your service to the country as a seal, uh, what, what you're

01:13:44.520 doing now and equipping people with what they need to be able to protect themselves is

01:13:48.440 important. And, uh, I value what you're doing and really appreciate your time joining us.

01:13:52.280 It was my pleasure. It was great to get to know you. I really appreciate it. I look forward to

01:13:55.820 watching your content develop over time. Thanks, Jeff. My pleasure.

01:14:00.540 There you go. Gentlemen, my conversation with the one and only Jeff Gonzalez. I hope you enjoyed that

01:14:06.180 one. And I hope you're walking away with a little bit more knowledge and how to use these tools. And

01:14:11.660 that's what firearms are. They're tools to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe to hunt, to do the

01:14:16.360 things that we do with them. But again, we have a responsibility to use them correctly and to be

01:14:20.140 proficient with these things. Uh, owning a firearm is not enough. You need to train with the thing.

01:14:25.800 And I can think of no better man to go to and look into than Jeff. Uh, we talked a lot about his,

01:14:30.860 uh, his card series that we talked about on the podcast. Definitely go check that out as well as

01:14:36.040 his blog posts and training and videos and everything else that he's going, I got going on.

01:14:41.220 Uh, and then connect with both of both of us on social media, on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook,

01:14:45.280 wherever you're doing the social media thing. Let me know what you thought about the podcast.

01:14:48.360 Also, if you would please just share it, take a screenshot of your phone, uh, with you listening

01:14:53.800 to this podcast, share it in an Instagram story on Facebook or wherever, uh, that goes a long way

01:14:58.560 in promoting the visibility of this movement to reclaim and redeem and restore masculinity in this

01:15:04.640 society that seems to be increasingly dismissive of it. Okay. That's all I've got for you today.

01:15:10.200 We're going to be back next to us. See, not next week, tomorrow, tomorrow for our ask me anything.

01:15:15.620 And then of course, on Friday for the Friday field notes, but until then, go out there,

01:15:19.620 take action and become a man. You are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man

01:15:24.140 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

01:15:28.900 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - October 20, 2020

Our Rights and Responsibilities of Gun Ownership ｜ JEFF GONZALES

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