Politics

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns Transcript

Dan Zimmerman, Managing Editor of TheTruthAboutGuns.com

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
Today I’m talking to Dan Zimmerman. He is the managing editor of the truth about guns blog website. It’s one of the biggest sites in the space. I’ve been a big fan and a reader for years now. And I’m really kind of excited to talk to him today. So Dan, welcome to the show. How are you?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
I’m good. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Rob McNealy
Well, I appreciate you taking the time out. I know you’re really really busy. We’ve been trying to get this together for a while now. And I’m glad to finally reach out to you. So and this is not BS. I actually have been reading your site for a long, long time. So and I am a fan. I’ve been a fanboy way before since I was doing podcasting. So it’s kind of like when you get to talk to your idols is like I feel like a little teen girl kind of excited. No, I’m serious. I really do like this. And I think I think there’s some interesting things we can get into today. But for the for the sake of the audience, I got a diverse audience. That’s not all generally gun related kind of people that you know, watch this show. Listen to the show. So tell us a little bit about the truth about guns.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
Truth about guns has been around almost 10 years, it’ll be 10 years and I think February. I’ve been with it for nine years and we get about one and a half to 2 million unique readers a month. Our most popular content is always has been gun reviews, but we handle and write about and comment on everything gun related. So we do a lot of politics, a lot of gun control a lot of gun culture, you know, hunting, gun nation type stuff, self defense tips and tricks we talk about personal defense uses, you know, the thousands of almost millions of personal defense situations that about firearms every year to find some gun uses so we do a little bit of everything in the firearms space.

Rob McNealy
kind of sounds like me on the show. I do a little bit of everything. So how did you get into this? I mean, what was your background? So you’ve been doing this nine years now, what were you doing before the you know, getting into the editing phase of your life?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
You know, before that I worked for a start up in the financial space and before that I was a financial guy, Reuters. I really didn’t. I came to guns later in life that most people didn’t really pick up a gun to the others about 30 or so, and then I got into it on I went on a vacation where they took us out and had us they launched some clothes and how to shoot shotguns Adam and I absolutely love that. That’s still my favorite thing in the world today to do to do with guns is shooting clays, love shooting trap and that type of thing. So I just got into it in wanted to learn more. So I started Googling around. And the truth about guns at that time was in its infancy. And I wrote to the guy who started Robert verado We started corresponding back and forth. And he asked me if I’d ever written anything. And I told him, I haven’t written anything, turn papers in college and that type of thing. So I started and he needed more help as the blog started to get bigger and bigger, and I just got more of an active role and it grew organically from there.

Rob McNealy
You know, it’s kind of interesting how you said, you got into guns kind of later in life. I had always been around guns, but I didn’t. I came from a hunting family. But I didn’t come from like a gun culture family. And I think there’s a significant difference between the two. And I think when I kind of kind of did that crossover was probably about 10 years ago. I’m 47. So my late 30s I started getting into the shooting side of it, not as much the hunting side of it and you know, I kind of just started delving into it as well, where I just started becoming a gun builder and I started learning about tweaking my own guns and doing my own trigger jobs and becoming like This home you know, home gunsmith kind of thing. And I think it’s interesting over the last 10 years that I’ve been in the gun space I’ve like I’ve learned just a ton and got me interested in making things and I kind of came at it from that point of view but I found it was like with a lot of people that kind of go from like, either not being around guns or just being you know, only mildly around guns. And then they become gun culture group. It’s almost like a religious conversion. Like once you’re in you’re like sucked in right?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
So as a converts that are that are the most most devoted.

Rob McNealy
And most annoying, usually. You know, it’s like, honey, I need another gun. No, you don’t? Yes, yes. Yes, I do. But you have an AR 15 but I don’t have it in I’ve only got it in four other calibers. Not this one. I know.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
You know, everybody’s got a snitch.

Rob McNealy
It was kind of funny. Just a couple months back I you know, I don’t I’m not a display guy. I don’t put all my guns out right but I made a gun rack that I us for my little my little work area. And I made all these little cutouts for the guns. It’s really kind of cool. I made it all on my CNC plasma table and stuff. And my wife’s like, how many guns do you have now? And I looked at her dangerous question. And you know, I don’t hide things from my wife, right? But I’ve had a lot of upgrades and you know, it is with all like 1020 twos and air fifteens are all modular. So when you do an upgrade, you got a spare trigger pack or, you know, whatever it is. And I looked at her stone cold and I said, I don’t know. She’s like, That’s not good. I think it is. So it was a it was a really interesting conversation. I’d like you know, I think I’ve almost been probably almost good. Now I’m finishing my last build, actually, I’m waiting on a Black Friday sale to get my maximum defense brace with the JP silent capture spring. So I’m hoping they’ll be a good sale on that because they’re not cheap. But that’s the last thing I need for my nine millimeter carbon crystal build that I’m doing right now. So I’d be came from done nerd, but I try to build one or two guns a year now just as a hobby Anyways, I’m getting off topic we’re talking about you know

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
It’s on topic it’s guns.

Rob McNealy
Exactly. So the you guys are really you dive in on a lot of subjects with you say you are different than say other online gun magazines and gun journals and gun blogs.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
Yeah, most of them actively avoid the political side of things. And you know, there’s people like, oh, firearms blog, which is just their motto is guns, not politics. And I understand that makes perfect sense. They were super strictly concentrate on that the gear, the guns that that type of thing and not not talking about the gun control and politics and all that kind of thing. We just take a more rounded approach there. There are other sites out there that do similar thing ameland does a similar thing to what we do. bearing arms really is doesn’t do the guarantee. They just talked mostly about politics side of guns, that type of thing. But, yeah, I mean, we just,we just have a hard time divorcing the politics and the culture, from the guns themselves. It’s all kind of one big ball, and individ sort of indivisible.

Rob McNealy
I absolutely agree. And it’s funny, because when we were launching our project, and we decided to focus on this space, so we as a team, with our test project had a lot of conversations about picking like this market to work in. And in before we made some hard decisions about that, you know, we had that conversation like it and and I’m an open guy, and I said, Look, this isn’t a unilateral decision. You know, if we get into this space, just going into the space will mean that we are now political, right? And usually with business, at least in my background, you know, I’ve always been taught if you’re an entrepreneur You know, you should be non political as much as possible, although that seems to be changing these days. I used to like it when I, when I didn’t know the politics of the companies I bought products from. But we had that conversation because even if I don’t want to be a political person, if you’re working around guns, other people will bring you into the political piece on.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
Yeah, it’s hard not to get drawn into it with the politics that swirl around the whole question of guns, the regulation. And in certainly in a presidential election year, and it’s it’s a it’s a constant topic of discussion.

Rob McNealy
Well, it’s a non stop, we’re going to take your guns away from you kind of event and things like it seems like it’s going to be going on probably through the end of the cycle over the next year. So I’m just kind of buckled up on this one. Um, so you’ve been in the space, you know, working in this space as a project company for nine years. How would you say the space is changed? You guys have grown the industry, the politics, what’s different now than when you started?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
There are more out there. There are more people jumping into some of these things. And technically, I guess those people are competition for us. But there’s I think there, there’s room out there for everybody. There are millions, you know, probably close to 100 million gun owners in this country. And know, the more of those people we can get involved and informed about the laws and the issues around firearms, the better. The more informed gun owners we have, the more people who are going to want to protect their rights and protect and preserve, defend and extends the right to keep and bear arms which is a good thing for everybody.

Rob McNealy
So what would you say the state of the gun world is right now? Are they in retreat? are we losing the battle? I mean, it seems like if you watch least any mainstream media out there, the stuff the big ones, you know, it’s all anti gun all the time. We’re going to take your guns away, we’re going to take your guns away, especially at the state level, there seems to be, you know, a push in some of the you know, the the normal corporate states. What’s, what do you think the state of affairs is right now?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
It’s very much a mixed bag. If you look over a longer timeline, if you look from the mid 80s to now, it’s definitely going the right way. In terms of more firearms freedom. Back then you had a tiny fraction of states that had shall issue laws in terms of concealed carry. I think we had back then we had one constitutional carry state, Vermont and over time I’m over the last generation we’ve gone from that to 49 states with concealed carry technically they’re 50. But Hawaii is a de facto, they don’t issue any permits and then they don’t have to have that. And we’re up to now depending on how you count either 16 or 17 constitutional carry states with the latest Oklahoma at the beginning of the month, which means no one who can legally possess a firearm needs a license to own it to carry it. They have it in their car anywhere they’re legally legally have a right to be they can carry a firearm personal or a private property restrictions accepted Of course.

Rob McNealy
Well, I think that’s that’s the way it was supposed to be. You know, they say that if you have to the government you know, regulating certain things And making you pay up for a permit and then giving you right back there just selling you the right you already had. And I think you know, I’m a big fan of constitutional carry though there there are advantages to being licensed and having the piece of paper when you’re traveling and things like that. But I think, you know, you hit on something interesting. It is a mixed bag, at least what I’m seeing I live in Utah, and Utah’s fairly gun friendly. We got a lot of great manufacturers and builders out here. But what I kind of how I kind of see it is that there’s a lot of movement in the states that are anti gun, they’re becoming more anti gun. And the states that tend to be more gun friendly are becoming more gun friendly. So it seems like there’s a bigger contrast and a bigger divide between some of those states. What would you say to that?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
I think that’s true. Like I said, if you look at it over time over that the last generation, or the greatest sort of sweep of history, things have gone toward more gun freedom, however, That doesn’t mean that there aren’t forces going the other way specifically, and in certain states, states like Oregon, Washington that used to be very gun friendly, are no longer so things are about to change drastically in Virginia. And then you’ve got states that have been anti gun for a long time. You got the California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, you know, the usual suspects that regulate guns very heavily and will only continue to do so. So yeah, I live.

Rob McNealy
I lived in Colorado for 12 years if we left literally 2012 so about seven years ago, just before the mag ban went into effect, or the mag limitation ban went into effect. Colorado’s gone downhill very quickly, on a lot of different issues. And that has me concerned because Colorado was an amazing place because it was very done for Really, very socially open to lots of different things, but you know, on economic issues, and then the gun issue, they’re fairly conservative and, and seeing, you know, Colorado go down very quickly. That’s been kind of sad because I really loved Colorado. I love living there. And I’m getting a little concerned about places now like salt lake and Boise of all things. You know, we moved a little further west, but in part of its immigration, and I don’t want to sound like those kind of people. But what’s happening is there seems to be a I mean, the numbers are accurate. I mean, most of the, you know, the immigrants coming out or filling in the states now, you know, like Denver, Boise, Salt Lake and Boise and Salt Lake every similar demographically. And what’s happening is most of these people are coming from California. It’s not even a stereotype but they really are coming from California.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
The migration from California has had significant effects on states that used to be very Gun friendly. And that’s exactly why you seen what’s happened in Oregon happen there to a certain extent, at a, like you said,Boise I just read an article, there was yesterday, Mayor of Boise was, I think, was running and one of his one of his campaign planks was to build the wall around it to keep the California California zone. How wasn’t specifically about guns was because they’ve driven they’re driven by property prices, and it’s gotten difficult to live there. You know, because they, you know, they move out of San Francisco or the or San Jose or Los Angeles and they can buy three houses for the price of whatever whatever they’re paying and came from.

Rob McNealy
So not not a stereotype on my part of my day job is I go to Boise and Twin Falls on a regular basis, like every month, and I’m actually in people’s houses as part of what I do. And it’s interesting that you would not I would say, half of the people that I’ve you know, dealt with are all from California, and they’re coming they’re literally going and building you know, Somewhere between a 300 and $500,000 brand new house from scratch with cash. And the stereotype is it’s literally two ex government. It’s always two ex government employees and they’re doubling down on their CalPERS. And they’re making like 200 grand a year. And they sell their million to house you know, million 10 house or whatever it is in, you know, San Francisco, they they move in now they’re like basically pushing up the property values. They have their like forever liquid because they basically have downsize their cost of living, but they have an amazing pension because of you know, CalPERS and things. And, and it does make a difference demographically, when you get so many people in fluxing at one time and they don’t absorb. And I think the one thing that’s interesting, someone pointed this out. It’s not that people don’t want people coming from somewhere else. The problem is, a lot of these people that are moving don’t understand. And I think they don’t understand the connection between the political policies and candidates. They supported in the past are the reason the standard of living the cost of living in their previous state is so high. Or, you know, and they don’t seem to understand the connection and how it and I think that’s the problem is that they really don’t get it. They’re like, Oh, we should build a new park here. And we should build a new stadium here. And it’s like, that all has a cost.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
It does. And that’s the big objection that so many people have to the influx of people from the east and the west coast. Is that they, they import their voting habits as well. And they bring the the so they’re basically they’re electing the same kinds of people who made the places that they’re coming from such difficult places to live and work and, and, you know, my my world, so inhospitable to the right to keep and bear arms.

Rob McNealy
So one of the things that I’ve seen out there with this, this California you know, California mindset because it is directly related to Silicon Valley, this anti gun mindset that’s been out there now, last summer, a big Silicon Valley company called Shopify band, you know, there are 4000 gun dealers from their platform and that’s like an online shopping cart software. And then this last summer, you know, you now had Salesforce which is amazing to me. But Salesforce com also banned the gun world and basically, you know, very overt they made a very big public Overture about how they do not support guns, and and then they fired a bunch of their customers. Again, as an entrepreneur, this is baffling to me. But, you know, one of the things that I’ve seen in the gun space is that it’s very hard to do business, especially online right now. You know, when it comes down to payment, digital payment methods, like PayPal and stripe and square, but, you know, the advertising piece is also interesting. A lot of these platforms like Facebook and Google and Twitter also ban gun related marketing from their platforms as part of their terms of service. If I were a gun retailer or someone in this space, how does how does a group or an organization like the truth about guns fit in? How can you help as an organization, the marketing when so much of this industry is prohibited from doing standard marketing?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
Well, I mean, of course, we take advertising, that’s what that’s what pays the bills. And we have documented a lot of these situations specifically, Shopify and, and others as, as they’ve happened. You know, there was the, the the let the public letter that about 100 or 150, CEOs of tech firms signed about 60 to 90 days ago, you know, calling for, I think an assault weapons ban or universal background checks, or maybe both of them I don’t remember. But you go back to the beginning. We’re talking said You know, one of the premises of You know, business used to be talking about the politics, you know, you’re only going to alienate part of your part of your customer base little seem to have any problem doing that seems to be they seem to be take pride in actually doing that and just associating themselves with a significant amount of their customers. And as you said, firing them. I think that we’re going to see more people coming in to fill that that void. I mean, there’s, you know, in terms of shopping carts and payment processing, there are options out there, there aren’t a lot of them yet, but there are some out there for for gun gun related businesses to to work with. As far as advertising, you know, turning to buy he can’t buy advertising on any of the big platforms. Google ads, Facebook Twitter under those will allow that there are other ways to do it, but the the electronic ghettoisation of the gun business and their customers has it’s been a story we’ve talked about we’ve covered for for years now, and I don’t see getting any better anytime soon.

Rob McNealy
You know, it’s very interesting to me that, you know, use the word ghetto ization and I think that’s a great you know, I think it’s a great description because the gun industry has been made into like this pariah now I and I’m gonna, you know, I’m going to, you know, kind of nuanced and say the lawful gun industry has been turned into a pariah

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
about criminals here we’re talking about you know, Miss Mr. Mrs. America owns a firearm, and likes to pawn on you know, every fall go out and get a deer, something like

Rob McNealy
that. And in to me It seems that, you know, trying to demonize so much of not only the general population, but to demonize, you know, a big part of American culture is is absolutely baffling to me, in light of history and things of that nature. and wonder, I just have to wonder, you know, you know, I don’t want to speculate, but I mean, there’s definitely, you know, it’s scary, where they I think, when I start speculating where I think some of this agenda comes from, but to demonize lawful gun owners and a lot of people don’t understand, you know, there’s a lot of this conflation between trying to make gun people being gun nuts or ammo, fetishes and all the you know, pejoratives they use against gun owners, but gun owners historically, are the most lawful people, their most peaceful, law abiding and charitable people on the planet demographically.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
Statistically, yeah, absolutely.

Rob McNealy
And to me, you know, the gunden is doing the United States is one of the most heavily regulated god you know, really Retail industries that there is in the United States. And to me, you know, for all these big companies to like, basically give this really super duper heavily regulated industry such a hard time just doesn’t make sense to me. Because to me, if you’re providing services to a billion dollar industry, or you could provide services $2 billion industry that basically has the government overseeing so much of that industry, it would actually be a safe bet, to do business with those people. You would think,

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
I think that a lot of the CEOs care more about the mutual admiration they get from their peers in signaling how strident and how anti gun they can be, than they do about their business. You look at somebody like an ED stack at Dick’s Sporting Goods, who by his own admission has hurt his business. The tune of about $250 million in revenue by dumping guns and hunting gear. He’s that’s a public company, he owns 60% of it or something like that he’s got a controlling interest, but it’s still a public country company still has a fiduciary duty to his shareholders. surprises have been sued. Maybe as I don’t know, those those kinds of suits don’t do don’t have very good prospects. But I mean, he did that. And he’s since written a book and it’s talking about running. I think once there was rumors of him running for president, I don’t think you then. But yeah, I think that a lot of these things are, in effect vanity projects for CEOs. I mean, it’s an overused term, but it’s basically virtue signaling for for those companies to tell the world how enlightened and progressive they are by marginal marginalizing. All the different Horrible aspects of society. And it’s I mean, it’s I think there’s a bigger symptom that’s a bigger sentence, not just gun or I mean,if anybody’s paying a paid attention to politics knows the polarization of this country left and right. And that’s only been exacerbated in recent years, the political tribal ization and the rhetoric rhetoric gets hotter and hotter. And I think that a lot of that is fueled by the internet and social media and people’s ability to communicate with like minded people and also with people on the other side of the issue. Whatever the issue may be,

Rob McNealy
So demographically speaking, you know, I’ve seen out there you know, there’s a lot of Boomer millennial hate that’s really popular, especially in social media these days. Where do you and you and there’s some money polls that I’ve seen that, you know, a lot of millennials aren’t really into the gun thing. In fact, and so what are you seeing out there about the millennials and and their kind of relationship with the gun world?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
Well, they’re more of them than you think there’s a term called gun culture 2.0 that was very popular for a long time. And these are the people that grew up playing Call of Duty and other first person shooter type games and probably know more about guns than I do, I will ever know, based on the level of detail and the options that are available in these games. For very, for the weapons that you can use use as you play and all the level of detail that’s that’s built into this these games. So you learn about these things. And then the next phases then once they shoot you shoot them, you know on their x xbox system. something done they want to actually the real thing. And so they try to go to a good arranges and read these guns and learn to shoot one thing that the gun the American gun culture has done a really poor job of is reaching out to these people and bringing them in and cultivating that and making them feel welcome. They’re out there. If you’ve ever been to some of the places, and Las Vegas machine gun Vegas or or some of those places where you can go and rent rent a machine machine guns in MP fives, fn skaars, whatever. And basically, you know, shoot money out the end of your gun, those places. And if you go to those places, most of the people who were there are younger people, a lot of foreigners to who come and you know, can’t wait to this. You know, try like all the crazy Americans But there are a lot of younger people there. So they’re out there people are, are there terms of hunting and bringing people up through hunting. Like dear old dad and grandpa dad is slowly diminishing over time. It’s been for a long time as there are a lot of efforts by groups like the nssf and others to bring more people along and bring a get new people into hunting. But that’s kind of an uphill, uphill battle.

Rob McNealy
You know, it’s interesting with the crypto world, which is the other part of what I’m involved with, you know, I’m in kind of got feet in two different worlds, the crypto world global, it’s not just, you know, United States thing, and a lot of our tough communities actually international and a lot of its in Asia. And it’s interesting because when we, you know, decided to rebrand and venture into this in focus on one target market, no pun intended. It was interesting the response from the people in Europe versus the Asians, you know, Americans you know, most people who are into crypto in the US are kind of already more into guns anyway. But the Europeans really they tended to frown on the gun peace a lot. And same as the Galster aliens, but then the Asians it’s interesting, I tend to really get excited about it, especially as Singapore Hong Kong and Korea and I started figuring out certain little checking this out and you know, I didn’t realize that they even though they basically can have any guns in any of those, you know, countries. They have these really big paintball and airsoft culture there. And a lot of it is being fueled in part by the anime you know, I call them cartoons but you know, people get mad if I call them cartoons, but I’m old enough that I’m funny enough that I can say their cartoons but the anime world is really it’s bringing you so like how the video game world is bringing millennials into guns. The anime world and the guns in the anime world are bringing the Asians and the guns. And it’s interesting because they have like some amazing tournaments like sponsored, you know, airsoft tournaments over there that are fascinating. And so when we started talking about tusken, talking about guns, you know, we had, like, we had to present it and basically convince our community that that was the good thing for our project. And it was always a good thing for me, because I’m a gun guy, but you know, it’s, it’s not just my project. It’s like, it’s a community project. So, but the it was interesting seeing the difference between the Europeans were like, poopoo, Asian, you know, poopoo guns are bad, guns are bad. And the Asians are like, thumbs up. And it was really interesting. And now that you’re seeing the stuff in Hong Kong right now, where they’re actually many respects more pro American than a lot of Americans are these days, and when it comes to freedom, and the founding fathers and things and I’ve said to more than one of I have some friends in Hong Kong, and I’ve said more than one time, you know, things would be very different if you guys had guns right now and they’re kind of wishing they did

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
We hear about all the time I actually have a correspondent in Hong Kong, whose son is photographer sent us a couple of batches of photographs that a son, it’s taken through the, through all the protests, they’re going on for what, two, three months now. And there is no shortage of people there who believe that if, if they, if they had the right to keep and bear arms, things would be very different. And they, you know, they they wave American flags, and they talk about gun rights. You know, that’s not something that’s going to happen anytime soon. But it’s interesting what you say about some of the people in the Asian countries who are living under the strictest anti gun regimes and some of the strictest in the world are the ones that are most most interested in firearms and the right to own them, much more so than people in Europe were. Yes. It’s really Directed you can own certain firearms if you want to, but it’s not nearly as as strict as it is in Asia.

Rob McNealy
And the end, but the culture thing is really baffling to me. You know, I always and I am putting myself out there because I do have lots of opinions but I always tell people we’re trying I think Trump’s trying to ban the wrong people coming to our country and they look at me and they go What do you mean? I go Who the hell invented all the socialism and communism shit, it was Europeans. Why are we letting go Why are we liking those guys they’re the ones that are the worst when it comes to that and I live in by the way I lived in Europe and I worked for both the Japanese company when I and I worked for a Swiss company in my past so I spent a lot of time in Europe and and unlike the other ones invented all this crap and then you want to import more of them. You know, you want you want to import these hard work in like, you know, you know more conservative people that want to just come here and work and and you know, your people are like, Oh, we want to get these white people from wherever And I’m like, have you been to Europe lately? Not working out over there. And every time we try to, you know, import that stuff here, it’s not working out for us either. I think we need to ban Europeans. That’s my point. I know people are gonna like that, but I think it’s the thing. They’re the ones that invented it. So. So you know, truth about guns, you guys, you do allow, if I say I had an idea, and I want to do a review, do you guys take submissions from you know, the audience and readers?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
Or do we always, we absolutely always have many welcome that anybody who would like to submit something and send it to the truth about guns at gmail. com and we’re happy to consider it. Gun review, editorial, you name it. We’re always happy to, to consider it and we’ve printed lots and lots and lots of customer content, or I’m sorry, reader content over the years.

Rob McNealy
You know, and I think that’s one of the things I really liked about gun culture. You know, Even just in my own my own journey of learning about guns, and then learning the technical aspects about them is that the gun world is full of people that really want to help other people learn. And it’s a really tight community, that if if you’re not a jerk, you know, because you know how it is, with online forums, there’s always trolls and things. But if you really are genuinely trying to learn something, the community is really, really supportive and inclusive, and I really am excited about that. And that’s why I’m here even like, you know, you guys are a big publication in this space. And it’s nice to see that you guys too are part of that community where you know, you help get the word out if people are willing to, you know, produce good content and share and that’s really good. I’m glad you guys are there. I think it’s important.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
Well, thanks. I found the same thing that the gun industry and the people in it and gun owners in general are just amazingly nice people. If you go to the range and you need some help with your gun, you can’t figure it out or it’s jamming your somebody’s always willing to help as long as You’re not doing something unsafe. And being a jerk people there just couldn’t be nicer and more willing to help you out and, you know, bring you along and educate you if that’s what you’re looking for. And people in the gun industry as well or just surprisingly, not not even surprising anymore. They’re just an amazingly nice people. almost without exception,

Rob McNealy
That that has been my experience too. And it’s funny and it goes back to the, you know, the media and the portrayal of people especially it’s the people in the coastal cities, it seems to be the worst at this, but when they try to, like, you know, come up with this caricature of like what a gun owner is. It’s just not anything close to reality. How they describe them in it, it’s obvious that they have just don’t have any direct experience or they’re deliberately trying to malign people but you know, it’s just not how it is gun, the gun people out there that I know one Some of the most talented people when it comes to things like machining and making things and you know ballistics and things, but they’re generally helpful people and say that these people are all these you know rabid like Rambo kind of types that that stereotype I don’t actually ever see that.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
No, I’m sure it’s out there. I mean just like any group we’ve we’ve got a group of 100 million people on firearms, you’re going to get some people on the fringes, you’re going to get some people who you’re not going to get along with but by and large, as you said earlier, statistically, gun owners are the most law abiding and the easiest to get along with people. There are period. You mentioned the media, I love the thing pieces of people that every once in a while, we’ll go on safari to the flyover country and try to figure out who these people are that own guns and carry firearms on daily basis and could actually make it back Washington or, or New York after their their expedition and write about these things with, you know, with you can tell that they’re just the dark their jaw dropped when they found these people and can turn out these people are actually very nice, very accommodating and you know, they weren’t as a citizen militia members are on ammo sexuals they’re not married to their sisters or anything like that these are normal everyday Americans that own firearms and just want to be able to hunt to protect their family, to to compete, all the things that you do with people do with firearms, and they just don’t want anyone to tell them that they can’t do it and that they have to sell their guns back to anyone because that just isn’t going to happen.

Rob McNealy
I don’t think so. Dan, we’re running out of time here. I’ve really enjoyed talking today with you and I hope that In the future, we can do this more on a regular basis. You’re more than welcome to if you you know come back on the show if you got anything interesting to tell about or anything you need to report that our audience would be interested in, you know, you just let me know. So where can people find out more?

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
At www that truth about guns calm were there every day of the year we publish anywhere from six to 10 times a day depending on what’s going on. And we were of course on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and we welcome your participation anytime.

Rob McNealy
Thank you so much.

Dan Zimmerman – TheTruthAboutGuns.com
Thanks for having me.

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Interview Transcript

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author Transcript

Zuby Udezue - UK based rapper, author, and artist.

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
Today I am really excited because we are talking to zoobi. He is a very popular rapper out of the UK. And he just finished up a lengthy nine week trip to the United States. And he’s kind of an interesting guy. He is not typical of what I think you would think of when you think of a hip hop or rap artist. So like to welcome the show. Zuby, how are you today?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
I’m very well, thank you. How you doing?

Rob McNealy
Great. I do appreciate taking the time. Are you recovered? Now? It seemed like you had a pretty big whirlwind trip to the US.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Yeah, I wouldn’t go as far as saying I’m recovered, but I’d say that I’m recovering.

Rob McNealy
Well, that’s good. Did you have a good time?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Yeah, it was amazing. Absolutely incredible trip. life changing. Was that the first time you’ve been to the States? No, I’ve been to the states five times before, but it was my first time going in 10 years. And it was also the first time going for career purposes. So I managed to really make the most of it. I never been out there for Along with the exception of New York City, all the cities that I visited I’d never actually been to before. So that was all brand new.

Rob McNealy
So what did you think? So what did you learn on your trip about American culture head going to all the cities?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Well, firstly, I learned that it’s probably easier to view the USA almost like a continent more than just a single country in some ways, because the variances between the states and cities are so big. First of all, you know, you’ve got the different time zones, which you don’t have somewhere like the UK or most other countries, you’ve got different climates, very big range of temperature and different types of weather, range of different laws, cultures, accents, type types of people. Everything is a everything’s pretty different depending on where you go. I mean, even the difference between, you know, going from somewhere like San Francisco to Dallas and then to Atlanta, and then to DC and then to New York. They’re all really different. So I guess I learned, I mean, I already knew that I wouldn’t say I learned it. But I saw just how far an extent the places vary from city to city and state to state. I also learned that a lot of people don’t know who I am, which I didn’t necessarily expect. I had a lot of incidents where I was in, you know, various places in public in the different cities and had people come up to me and recognize me or thank me for my work or very, you know, just say that they like what I do. And that’s, I mean, that’s something I get from time to time in the UK, depending on where I am, because I get people who recognize me for my music, but I’m to be in places that I’d never been to before. And to have that happen. It was it really showed me the impact that I’m having not just locally, but on a on an international level. So that was really, really encouraging. So yeah, those are a couple of things.

Rob McNealy
fame is an interesting thing. I’m not quite famous, but I know a lot of Famous people and and and that rise in getting accustomed to it you know it’s kind of like it’s like from what they’ve told me is you have to like kind of grow into it because you’re not used to it at first I used to live in Ireland I actually studied over there and worked over there you know long time ago probably before you’re born at this point but I was you know it’s kind of interesting you know and I’ve honestly you know, Ireland’s a lot smaller than you know, the republic’s a lot smaller than the UK but it’s like when I tried to explain to my friends that were Irish that had never been to the United States. I said, No offense, this is not me being you know, kind of like this ugly American but your entire country smaller than my state. And we have like 50 more of them in mind. You know, I originally came from Michigan. The Detroit area is where I grew up. I live out Western and Utah now Salt Lake City, Utah, and what you know, and they get like a kind of offended and they said you really don’t understand until you like really come to our country. The United States is not a homogeneous Is coral culture it’s not a homogeneous continent, it is very dirt that’s iconic. But you know what I’m saying? It’s a country and it’s very different all the way around. And I always like to see people’s perspectives that you know, spend time here to see Yo, holy crap. Yeah, it’s not there isn’t just like this one TV stereotypical American thing, right? There’s very, very big differences between the different states and even within a state. On top of that, you know, Texas is very different between, you know, Houston and Dallas. Even people. Yeah, I didn’t I didn’t

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
get to I didn’t make it out to Houston, unfortunately, but I went to Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth.

Rob McNealy
What was your Do you have a favorite or do you want to not say didn’t love the place you go? What was your favorite place?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
My favorite state would have been Texas, probably. Just in general. But um, I liked most of the cities I visited in terms of like, it depends on what level in terms of opportunities and Just cool stuff happening. Like the most cool stuff happened in Los Angeles, but I would probably not want to live there. For example, I think places like Nashville and Austin and Dallas and Fort Worth are a lot more livable than la than New York and San Francisco. But um, it really depends on what you’re after. I mean, I went there primarily to do a bunch of interviews and add podcast invitations and just opportunities for all the stuff that I do. So I primarily hit some of the major cities I didn’t make it out to all of them. I would certainly like to in the future, but um, yeah, I guess. Asking favorite is is kind of a tricky one. But I did really like Texas there. I just felt like, I like the vibe there. I like the people. I think I’m on that wavelength. In some ways. Texas is one of those places to be honest. I kind of liked it before I’d ever been to it. I know a lot of people from there. I know quite a bit about the state and stuff like that and it always just dropped Me in some way that I didn’t really want to visit because I always seem to, whenever I meet people from Texas, I always seem to like them and get on with them and be on some similar wavelength. So I found the same thing when I was out there for a couple of weeks.

Rob McNealy
Well, I think you hit on something, it’s really interesting that you went and did a lot of interviews, and you got on some really major ones, I mean, Joe Rogan, and some of these other you know, big conservative podcasts and, and that’s one of the things that really intrigued me, you know, about you is, you know, okay, you got this English guy, right. So, usually off the bat, you know, English guys are going to typically be more on the American spectrum, at least politically a little more left leaning, and then, you know, you know, you’re black or person of color, and typically, then that’s also going to be generally by American standards, they tend to lean a little more left, and then you’re in hip hop in rap, and that also tends to be very left leaning, but you’re not.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
You know, all those things. You said, I don’t even know if that’s really the case.

Rob McNealy
Fair enough.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Think that way? I don’t think it’s really the case.

Rob McNealy
It certainly it certainly seems that way.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
It does seem that way. Yeah, for a lot of reasons. And then it might lean that way in some aspects, but in a lot of other ways. I don’t really think it does. I just think that illusion.

Rob McNealy
And so but the illusions prevalent, it’s out there. So you went on a lot of these really conservative talk shows and, you know, so I guess I just need to get this out there. Are you a republican? I’m not even American. I know. Um, but are you? I bet you would consider yourself a conservative politically, at least on some stuff. Sure.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
I don’t label myself what people want to label me. I don’t mind. I don’t personally label myself because well for a whole bunch of reasons. Because people have different meanings and interpretations and presumptions that come with certain labels. So I prefer to let anybody else label me if people want to know my certain views on certain things. I’m happy to explain them and express the epistemology behind my thinking and my conclusions. But um, yeah, I’m not I don’t mind being called a conservative, I don’t mind being called libertarian, I probably don’t mind being called a traditional or classical liberal. I mean, depending on who you talk to all these labels can be quite quite different things. I mean, even the definitions between you know, liberal and conservative even between the UK and the US, there’s, there’s quite a bit a bit of a variance. So yeah, I mean, if I were in the USA, I would certainly be more along the lines of Republicans on most issues. But I generally just, you know, from from thing to thing, issue to issue. I, you know, I’m not I’m not sort of totally down one line or the other and I don’t, I don’t believe most people are. I think that’s just kind of the binary thinking and sort of Thinking that can occur when there’s only two sort of viable options, then people seem okay, they need to either totally aligned down this way or totally aligned down that way. But I mean some acid on Joe Rogan, right? I said, it’s funny because we live in a time where people are saying that politics is binary, but gender is a spectrum, right? So yeah, I think the whole idea that it’s either left or right, or red or blue, is, yeah, people talk a lot about social constructs. I do think that’s kind of a genuine social construct. So I certainly lean conservative on some issues. I would also lean certainly in the not in this sort of weird hyper woke progressive, leftist sense, liberal, but in terms of like the normal liberal sense. I’m also a liberal on certain issues. It just depends on what it is and what I think makes sense and what I think is moral and ethical and correct and also what

Rob McNealy
works. You know, I think that’s a good point what works and what doesn’t. I mean, you’re not shy about your political views on anything. In fact, you can be very controversial, you know, things you post on Twitter and things. And I mean, you even reference in conservative icon Jordan Peterson in your music. So you definitely bring politics up. And they tend to be by a lot of people’s standards more right wing at least the United States. Do you think that helps or hurts your career in any way?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Seems to have helped. If I’m going by, by the past 365 days, I’d certainly say it’s helped. I mean, I’m not someone whose politics have changed significantly. I mean, I put out my first album in 2006. And even before I was making music, my views have not shifted much I’ve probably shifted on maybe like two or three issues in the past 15 years. And I’m not even someone who I don’t know i a lot of people view me through a political lens. But I think I’m only interested in politics kind of on the high level, the big idea level, I’m not really so interested in it on the party level. So that’s why you won’t see me tweeting a lot about like specific parties or specific politicians or even breaks it and stuff like that. But the nitty gritty of it kind of bores me, but the overarching ideas and ideals that runs alongside culture and morality and psychology, and religion and other stuff that I think is a lot more interesting. And it’s hard to talk about some of those aspects of society and humanity, either as individuals or as groups without it, crossing over into politics, that’s just kind of natural.

Rob McNealy
So from a high level, do you think culture at least Western culture is going the right direction right now? What this whole woke thing and no,

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
it’s No.

Rob McNealy
Why Why do you think?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Absolutely not? Not even not as not a smidgen?

Rob McNealy
Where’s it going? Where are we going? I guess that’s the question because I have my own opinions. And I don’t think I disagree with you on that many things, either. But where do you think we’re headed right now with the current state of affairs in the West?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Well, I think a lot of people are trying to drive it off a cliff. And, and I think that it’s important for the moderate and sensible people to do that part to contain that. That’s one of the reasons why in the past year, it seems like to a lot of people, it seems like I’ve suddenly become a lot more vocal and outspoken. And that’s why because there comes a stage where you can’t really just sit back and acquiesce and just just watch because the people who are a lot of people who I think are trying to push things in the wrong direction, they’re not going to shut up. They’re very loud. They’re a bold, they’re very vocal. So you need people who are more reasonable and more logical and more rational. Have a better grasp on certain things, or at least an alternative opinion, to also be able to have that conversation and to join up. And if you see something that’s going on out there, whether that’s in your school, your workplace, online offline, and you see something is going in a really bad direction in in either in either way, in any direction, then it’s important to, you know, not just shut up and let it happen, because that’s how bad things take place. Right? So it’s important to sort of balance that out and to make sure that the communication channels stay open. That’s why I love podcasts. That’s why I love being able to have these discussions with people because, you know, as long as people are talking, they’re not they’re not fighting. That’s why I don’t like the idea of censorship. I don’t like the sort of D platforming or the silencing of voices on social media, all that kind of stuff. I mean, that concerns me because all that was going to do is polarize people further People think it’s a solution because it might look like a solution in the short term. But in the long term, I do think that’s going to create far more problems than it’s going to potentially solve. And I don’t think a lot of people have the foresight, nor the understanding of historic history nor human psychology to really get why that’s the case. They think that if you kind of take someone off Twitter that that person no longer exists or their ideas no longer exist and stuff like that. And what is likely to happen in reality is by ostracizing that person and completely excluding them from the conversation. You know, firstly, I’m not sure if that’s moral or or ethical or even legal in some cases, but then, you know, you’re you’re kind of pushing them into the hands of people who are potentially a lot more extreme and would love to get their hands on someone who feels like society or these platforms or whatever has ostracize them. And, you know, I’d rather I’d rather have bad ideas out in the open And then have them hidden in silence. Because if an idea is really bad, or it’s really unethical or it really doesn’t have any support, then you don’t need to fear it being you shouldn’t fear it being voiced. Because as long as you have people who are willing to push back against it, then you can just expose that idea for, for what it is. That’s the way I look at it.

Rob McNealy
Well, they say sunshine is the best disinfectant. You know, and and I don’t know who said that, but I do believe that to be the case. And I think, with this outrage culture and it in the thing is, is, you know, I’m an American, and this outrage culture is getting really scary to me, you know, where we just want to, you know, shut somebody down and take away their rights. And, you know, and, you know, obviously, polls can be a little dubious at times, but, you know, the polls seem to be indicating that a lot of at least on the millennial side, support, you know, getting rid of the First Amendment, and of course, they all hate the Second Amendment, but, And that, to me is just I kind of blamed Government education has been a complete failure. We don’t teach critical thinking we don’t teach, you know, logic and rhetoric and we don’t teach, you know, history. And I think you touched on this a little bit. You know, that gets into a little bit about this anger call. I think it’s almost like our culture has been deliberately the keep stoking this anger in our society right now, at least in the States. This since this last political. The last since Trump came to office over the last couple of years. You know, I’m 47. And so I’ve been through a lot of administrative, you know, changes in presidential campaign elections over my life. And the one thing that we saw that was different, what’s different about the Trump presidency, and I’m not a fan of Trump Personally, I didn’t vote for him. But what I think is interesting is that typically after you have a changing with administration, people are, you know, a little butthurt and disappointed for a week or two. After that election happens. It’s never had, it’s never not been butthurt since he got elected, it’s never died down. It’s Seems like it keeps festering and as much and it’s funny because I think he’s just as a noxious as you know, is that I think he’s completely obnoxious and I can understand why he what he says pisses people off. But if you actually look at what he votes for, and I’m a big believer that I hate politicians, what they say don’t like what they say, Don’t listen to what they say, I look at what they do, what laws do they sign, what power do they actually change and enact? And really from one president to the another, the the really important policies really don’t change very much, but yet the rhetoric around it does. And if you look at what Trump does, he’s not really done anything very much different than the Obama administration. He keeps doubling down on the debt and things like that. Those are the things that I care about what do they actually do? But and so this anger is interesting and a lot of times that anger spills over into culture and and one of the things about what I think is interesting about your music is that you know, your your music isn’t angry. It seems like no, no, not at all. You really push a really positive message, I think in a more of an empowering message, which is kind of different than what a lot of hip hop artists are really doing. And why why do you focus on the positive? Well, I mean, it seems like if so many people in that in this industry in this genre of music are more negative. Why are you a positive guy?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Well, because I am a positive guy naturally. And also there’s so much negativity out there that why would I want to contribute to that more? That’s not what people need people need encouragement. People need positivity people need to be feel emboldened and empowered to improve themselves to go after their dreams to be better people for themselves, for their families, for society, everything like that. So why would I want to go and preach murder, death kill, and all this stuff when I can put out a positive message? I mean, I’ve only got so many only got so many words to work within a song So if I can make a song that’s going to make you feel aggressive and want to go in, you know, I don’t wanna make music that people commit drive bys to keep it real. You know, firstly, that doesn’t, that’s not my background, right? I want to make music with people set gym records to I want to make music that people feel inspired to, I don’t know, go out and get a new job or be successful or start a business or whatever it is, man, anything, anything positive even just to just to believe in themselves a little bit more. There’s so much negativity out there in the world, not just in music, but in general, man. There’s so much negativity out there. You turn on the news, you know, the What do they say if it bleeds, it leads, right? news is just constant fear, fear, fear, fear mongering. So I don’t watch the news. I don’t I don’t want to TV. I don’t read newspapers. It’s just negativity, negativity, negativity, fear, fright, like awful stuff, and it never ends. It’s the same even in entertainment in lots of music. Not all music, but in some music And you know, it’s just, yeah, I mean, and life life is a balance. But like I say, there’s so much negative out there already. And I feel that the negative currently outweighs the positive. So, I don’t want to I’m not interested in my legacy being someone who contributed just more negativity into the world. So from the very beginning, I was like, Okay, I’m not gonna, I’m not going to take that path. I’m not going to rap about that song. I’m not going to rap about those topics. I’m not going to put my put profanity in my music. I’m not going to use the N word in my music, all that stuff. I mean, firstly, that’s not who I am in real life, and I’m not going to fabricate to pretend I’m something in my music, that I’m not in reality, you can go back and listen to all my songs over the last 13 years. everything I’m saying is, everything you’ll hear there is consistent with what I’m saying. Now, that’s never that’s never changed. So yeah, I mean, those are the main reasons so a combination of you know, my own background, how I was raised my own personality, my own message, my mission with what I’m trying to achieve with my music. I say my goal is to, I want my words to have a positive impact on over 10 million people. So through through my music, through my interviews through my podcast, public speaking anything I do, I want to be able to die and say cool, you know, there’s 10 million people on earth, or more, who, if you say zoobi to them, they’ll be like, Okay, cool. Yeah, I like that guy, or he had some kind of positive impact or motivation or inspiration in my life. That’s really where my head’s at. That’s what my heart is.

Rob McNealy
So in preparing for this interview, which actually believe it or not, I did. You know, I was listening to some of your songs, right? I wanted to get a feel for it. And I was listening to perseverance and I was listening to glory. And it was I said to my wife, you know, I was listening to she’s like, what are you listening to? I’m like, I’m going to talk to this guy. I want to see what he’s saying. And I’m like, his rap is different. And and it’s funny because I got some and I actually am old school. So I actually have NWA and Eminem and stuff, you know, in my own music library, and I said, his rap Reminds me of like, self help hip hop.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
No. Yeah.

Rob McNealy
You know, seriously, and I go, this is kind of interesting because it wasn’t like, I got wrapped, I got little kids. And I’m like, I can’t even list them out in rap albums in my house, right? Because I don’t want my kids here and some of that NWA stuff, right? Old. Easy, right? But I said, you know, it’s interesting that, you know, you’re kind of, you’re breaking a mold as far as I can see. I mean, and I’m not going to be I’m not going to try to be as I’m not the super hip hop guy, right? I just, I’m into all sorts of things. But you know, you are breaking a mold. There’s not a lot of hip hop artists that are really kind of focusing on that positive. And you know, I don’t know keeping it pG 13, so to speak. So do you and I respect that right? You are doing something different when I’m talking to you and not try and talk some other guy because I can’t stand a lot of the guys out there that are just mumble rapping around. And and so the question I would have for you, do you think that breaking that mold actually is helping your career or do you think It would hinder it like, has anybody ever come up to you and said, Hey, if you get a little more raw on this thing will sign you and you’ll get bigger? Or do you think that you know you’re going on the path that you want to end with the trajectory that you want? Because you’re breaking a mold?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Yeah, man, I’m someone who. I’m not someone who sacrifices, my principles and my ethics for short term gain in anything. That’s just not how I roll. I’m not someone who, who bends to appease other people. You’re asking before about some of my some of my socio political views, you ask about my music with everything. I’m consistent with who I truly am. And if my goal were to just make a lot of money, or simply become famous, or whatever, there’s other things I would be doing if my goal were to maximize my income. I wouldn’t have left a job as a management consultant to become a professional musician independently, right? Whenever Someone says I’m in it from I’m like, Are you insane? Like I would have been, like, you know, I took a huge pay cut to become a full time musician. But in the long term with the way my vision is and with what my goal is, it’s like, yeah, this is the path that I need to I need to walk. And it might take a while for the world to kind of get it. But I’m not going to change my entire message or even my entire genre or type of music or something to whatever might be currently popular on the radio for six months, just to try to win over some people who aren’t really my real fans anyway, I figured by just by being myself, by being true to myself, both in my music outside of my music, on social media or whatever, not everybody’s gonna like it. And I’m happy with not everybody liking what I do or not even liking me that took me you know, a little bit of time to accept and kind of get used to because when you first start out in music, you kind of want everybody to like you, and you don’t want to rock the boat too much because you don’t want unsettled people or polarized people or anything like that, but as I’ve gotten older, as I’ve gotten more experienced as I’ve gained a better understanding of what it is that I myself believe in, and what I’m not willing to compromise on, or waver on or whatever. And as I felt more emboldened to, and felt it more necessary to voice some of that, what’s happened is my audience has grown 1520 x this year, since February, I’ve gained hundreds of thousands of fans just this year. And that came from me just continuing to be authentic. So I haven’t changed. It’s just that you know, it took it took a while for the world to come around to it and for the message to be particularly powerful. Right, a lot of the stuff I say, I think, you know, whether that’s in interviews or that’s on social media or whatever, I think a lot of it would have been considered. I feel the same way. You mentioned Jordan Peterson earlier. I feel the Same way about him. Right? I think a lot of the stuff he says, you know, 15 years ago would have been considered common sense, or maybe a little bit mundane or banal or something. It’s like, yeah, of course, you should clean your room and work on yourself first. But in 2018 2019, these messages have become somewhat lost in modern Western society. So it’s necessary, again, to say some stuff, which may almost seem obvious, and, you know, and seem common sensical. And there are so many people who are afraid to say that stuff, right. And so by someone being willing to stick their neck out and say some of the things that other people aren’t willing to not for the sake of being controversial, or causing problems or just trolling or triggering people or whatever, you know, with an actual reason behind it, then I found a lot of people gravitate to that because a lot of people feel like they can’t speak up or they can’t necessarily articulate things in The way they’d like to be able to one thing i a comment I get a lot now, both in real life and online is people kind of saying, Man, you you say things in a way that I feel or I agree with, but I can’t. I can’t articulate and express them in the way that you are able to. And really that’s what I’m that’s what writing music is even about. Being a songwriter. If you had asked me what makes a good, a good songwriter, or a good rapper, I’d say it’s someone who’s able to articulate things in a way that people relate to and connect with, in a way that most people can. Comedians do the same thing, right? They take stuff that’s I mean, that’s what that’s the funniest comedy when it stuff that you you’ve kind of thought that way when you felt that thing before, but you wouldn’t have been able to put it together in the way that comedian did.

Rob McNealy
It’s funny, I have a really dark sense of humor, very sarcastic, and I’ve actually been I’m looking at doing some funny kind of stand up stuff and some of the stuff my wife just looks at me, she’s like, you can’t say that in public. And I’m like, but they’re all thinking it too. Yeah. You know, and, and I think, you know, they say, you know, you know, tell people the truth, that’s great, but make sure you make them laugh or they’re gonna kill you. Right, you know, and I think that’s where we are right now. And, and, and I’m very, I don’t care anymore where I am. I mean, I say stuff on Twitter that gets me pissed off or people pissed off at me because, you know, I’m, you know, it’s when it goes on on most social issues. I’m very liberal on how I think government should interact with people. But I think personally, I live a very conservative life I just, you know, I’m like friends, I think people if they want to do drugs, do drugs, but on the other hand, I think it’s a bad idea. So I tell my kids not to do drugs, but I don’t think the state being involved with that helps the situation in fact that usually creates more problems and you know, and the one thing that’s interesting like it’s all on assault this election cycle, and I think it’s because so much of the American me is I don’t know straight up communist at this point I don’t know how to define it. But I’m pretty much everybody on the left running for president is communist is all I can see. And I know a lot of and I don’t see that, you know, I read history I just finished a book about the finish war and I just finished a book about called bread famine, which talks about, you know, what happened to Ukraine during the Soviet empire and, and so I read history, right. It’s not like, you know, and and it’s funny in even if you read gulag archipelago, which I definitely if you can get through it. It’s a really enlightening book. Yeah. About a third of the way through Volume One or two.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
I’ve actually I’ve actually got the, the like, I guess you’d call it abridged version where they’re, they’ve put the whole thing together. So I’m actually listening to it as an audio book.

Rob McNealy
Yeah. And and it’s it’s lengthy, but the length, it’s interesting, because, you know, when I started reading that and listening to the language and how people were You know, basically the recounting of how the propaganda was in the Soviet Union. And then you just turn on CNN, and and listen to any of these people running for office. And it’s literally saying the same thing. And they’re demonizing cool locks. These billionaires are the coolest, but the fact is, when they when they say billionaire, they mean anyone making $200,000 a year. That’s a cool lock. And it’s funny because it’s the same playbook, almost verbatim. It’s not even unique. But we don’t even teach history in this country. So people don’t even know any different that this is all this is just a repeat. It’s a rerun. It’s a

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
do you do you think that people saying it even know that it’s a rerun? I don’t think so.

Rob McNealy
I would say, Well, I would say like the Bernie Sanders type absolutely does because he spent time in the Soviet Union. So I think he probably does. And I think he’s probably a true believer. I think some of the other ones are just, they’re just pawns trying to get power and they’ll say whatever they’re told to say by their handlers. But I think the The thing that kind of scares me right now is that these kids are like, you know, anywhere from you know, 20 to 30 seems to be, you know, they’re just, they’re just espousing this, this communism, this this socialism, and that they’re all victims. And it’s funny and I just say look, I you know, I’m not a billionaire like I’m not a rich Dude, you know, but I can say that if you’re going to blame your life’s failures, it’s not these those fault or it’s not, you know, Bill Gates fault you’re struggling.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
It’s not they’ve made they’ve made life better for you in fact,

Rob McNealy
uh, yeah, it’s always people on their iPhones on Twitter on their Microsoft computer in their court dynamic, you know, and and part of that just, they’re young. I mean, I get it, but you know, I grew up poor so I know what that looks like and and really in and I just posted a tweet earlier today that talked a little bit like look, I grew up poor, my parents made bad decisions with money. I was raised to be financially illiterate. I didn’t understand personal management, personal finances. And you know, but I never blamed anybody else. I blamed my parents when I was angry and young. But sure, I didn’t blame rich people. I said, You know, I wanted to learn from them because I wanted back then I said, hey, look, I don’t why knew even when I was in high school, I don’t want to have my life like it is right now. And what do I need to do to get better? And I looked for mentors to help me and I looked for books, and I read books on personal finance and small business and, and, and where I am today is a much different, you know, standard of living, though, and I grew up with, and it was because I made it and it was hard. It was hard. And as it’s supposed to be. I think it is I don’t think he I don’t think you’d become strong. Growing up being a victim. I think. In the end, the thing is when people and this is where politicians I think are pretty smart, is that if they make people that are failures, or people that are struggling, and I don’t mean that in a negative way, I mean, everyone fails. I’ve failed more than I’ve been successful in my life, but you got it but going back to your song, perseverance And this one I like that song is that you got to keep getting back up, you got to keep doing it. And, you know, you’re an overnight success, like 15 years in the making. You know what I’m saying? It’s like, it’s like, how many and I’m gonna bet, you know, without even knowing all the stuff you went through how many times were probably people told you why are you quitting your job did me musician, I’m gonna bet you had people like question that decision process. You know, and I’ve had people do the same thing when I wanted to be an entrepreneur, right? It’s like, well, how, you know, how can you just not have a paycheck every week? You know that that and I’m like, Look, you know, I don’t want to be a slave to a paycheck. Sure. Because if you if you get a paycheck, that’s all you’re going to make. Why would you limit yourself?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
It’s always lonely. I mean, I always feel some kind of bond between artists and entrepreneurs. Because it’s a it’s a lonely path, you know, because that’s only a relatively small percentage of the population. It’s always it’s always going to be a minority and it probably should be. But there are so many things people go through. Whether it’s starting a business, or doing something creative, whether that’s acting, singing, being a rapper, or doing both of them combined as I do, and yeah, there are certain things that are. It’s hard to explain to someone else who isn’t also, or hasn’t also been on that same kind of journey. I mean, it’s just it’s a whole different mentality. The highs are higher, the lows are lower. And just having that ultimate feeling of Yeah, man, this is this is totally on me. I mean, any success I get cool, like I’m taking the I’m taking credit for that. You didn’t make.

Rob McNealy
A friend of mine just got his first Ferrari. Now it’s not even new Ferrari. He was a use Ferrari, but he’s an entrepreneur, him and his wife I’ve known for a long time. They started their business 1516 years ago now. They now currently employ over 60 people they created 60 jobs, they pay a barber minimum wage. And some of the jobs are like entry level non skilled kind of jobs. He just bought his first Ferrari. Like, it wasn’t even that much, you know, considering what a new Ferrari can cost. And it’s funny when he posted pictures of it and I said, Dude, virtual high five, but he was surprised at how many people were negative about that. And we’re like shooting I’m like, Dude, that guy I cuz I help I worked in his store with him. And when he was younger, and they only had one star nine, three retail locations and, and I literally was in there when he was helping putting in his floors, because he’s putting in his own floors for his store. I mean, and you’re like, Dude, this guy worked his ass off 5060 hundred hours a week for like a decade before they really started making money. And now they’ve created jobs for people that wouldn’t have had him otherwise. And now to celebrate he’s got enough money that he can make cash for you know, it’s not even that expensive a car but less than 100 grand. Yeah, and the people is funny and sad at the same time. How many people would shit on that?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Yeah, it’s um, it doesn’t surprise me anymore. You know, it does not surprise me. I mean, again, I’ve been doing music since 2006. And one reason I’ve been able to be so resilient, and I guess astute in some ways this year, for people who are kind of seeing me for the first time is, it’s like, this isn’t new. It’s just the volumes gone up. Right? Like I’ve been dealing with, both on the love side and on the hate side, right having people, whether that’s people recognize you in public or want your autograph or hating on you on some internet forum or talking smack on you on YouTube or social media, like I’ve been dealing like, it’s been more this year than ever before. But I’ve had that slow build of over a decade to get used to it. And with what I’ve seen, it’s like, it doesn’t matter. I mean, you’ve got two different types of people you’ve got, you have celebrators and you have haters, and that’s what it is like, you can have someone who, like I love seeing other people succeed. When I see someone else succeed, if I see someone post online, like Yeah, I just did this, whether it’s I just hit a million views on My YouTube channel, I just, I just released my hundredth podcast episode. I just got promoted at work, I just started a business Whatever. I’m in there, congratulations, man, well done like love it love it. It inspires me. I’m like awesome. Other people are succeeding, you have other people. And I don’t even know what the split is the other this might even be the majority, who see someone else have some kind of success or some sign of looking like success. And their immediate emotional reaction is not the thing well done for that person. If they can do it, I can do it. Their thought is either jealousy or envy, or a feeling that somehow by that person succeeding, instead of taking it as inspiration, this is coming back to that whole billionaire thing, right? It comes from this idea of, you know, you have people who think that life is zero sum, so by someone else succeeding, they then can’t succeed, whereas it’s the opposite like people aren’t. People are not poor because billionaires exists like people have this idea. And it’s a it’s a, it’s a scarily prevalent idea because people don’t understand economics, that people are poor, because the billionaires are just hoarding all the wealth, right? There’s just X amount of money in the world and the nonsense, these people are just hoarding it, and so no one else can get it. And so all we need to do is like, take it off them by force or whatever. And it’s like, no, that’s not how it works, right? Bill Gates having a billion dollars, takes nothing away from me. In fact, quite the opposite, right. Like, there’s nothing stopping me from also earning you know, if I if I were capable of and I had the right idea, whatever, I can also earn a billion dollars. But you know, it’s not it’s not like having Okay, you can only have this many and it’s going to stop. So people don’t understand that the pie is always growing. And so as a result of that, I think that I mean, it might be some kind of primal instincts because some things I guess are zero so if you’ve got a certain amount of food, okay to say an actual pipe people talk about piece of the pie if you have an actual pie You have eight people, and someone literally does eat half of it, then you’ve only got half left for the other seven people. So like, that’s like, Hey, man, that’s not cool. But that’s not how the economy or money or success

Rob McNealy
because other people can make size of theirs.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Exactly. Exactly. You can keep making pies. Yeah,

Rob McNealy
so I was gonna say, you know, one of the things I think that a lot of people miss, and the zero sum game kind of thing is that there’s a there’s an infinite resource that no one ever talks about. And that’s human creativity and ingenuity is unlimited. We can solve most of our problems. And you know what, you don’t even need most people to really be focused on that I have this kind of magic number mind brain that, you know, my experience is 3% of anybody as the one that’s doing everything, you know, 3% of the big creators 3% of the big thinkers 3% of the ones that are really changing the world. 97% are along for the ride typically, but You bet. So to me, I don’t even care if 97% I care about helping those 3% make all the difference. And the difference is the infinite creativity. I just saw a little clip from Bezos, like he’s the the late phases and Bill Gates are the big bad guys did your because politicians are kind of pulling them out. Right. But it was interesting is it was a clip from 97. Right? And so it was like, Amazon was like three years old. And dude, the guy was smart. Right? And, you know, you go look, and he basically I put a post on my Twitter a couple days ago. And it was like looking at, you know, why he wanted, you know, online store because he saw the trend. He knew that this is going to be a big thing. I want to do internet stuff. He didn’t go into the bookstore because he had a passion for books. He picked the books because it had the most number of titles in one industry that would affect so many other industries. So it was the great place to start. And most people don’t know this, but especially these kids that are all communists and they’re 20 years old. Is that They were a bookstore for like six or seven years. And all they did is books until they, you know, they are not but it was the 90s, early 2000. A lot of people don’t even know that anymore. They’re like, Oh, Amazon’s and everything like, no, they started and got traction in one industry. And then they went to the next industry, they disrupted books and then disrupted music. And most people don’t know that. And so it’s like, but he had a plan. And he’s like, This clip is amazing. You should go take a look at it, because it just says, look, we picked this this and this is why we did this. And it’s like, Dude, that guy didn’t get rich by accident. He didn’t inherit his money. He was freaking smart. And he used the creativity and that was one of the biggest employers on the planet. And and so it’s like, okay, he just didn’t fall into it. And and people who don’t understand these things are ridiculous. But I know we’re getting close on time. You know, I want to hit on one of the things back to this whole concept of perseverance and and being, you know, that overlap between artists and entrepreneurs. You’ve recently released an E book, and it’s called zombies. Strong advice. zoobi Guide for fitness for everybody. So tell me a little bit of what made you write a book? And then tell me a little bit about what it what it’s about.

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
Yeah, sure. So I’ve been training for actually longer than I’ve been been rapping, I’ve been going to the gym since I was like 15 years old, started off not really knowing what I was doing and then stumbling my way along and really working out what I was doing. Maybe when I was my 919 or so or my early 20s and making good progress, you know, getting stronger, improving my physique, honing, my diet, everything like that. And I wanted to basically write a book that would be a simple and concise guide to what people need to know about mindset, nutrition and training. So for it’s primarily aimed at beginner to intermediate level, whether people want to build muscle, burn fat, gain, weight, lose weight, eat better, feel better, trained better. So it’s a it’s a relatively short book. It’s under 100 pages. And I wanted to just lay it out in simple layman’s terms of this is what you need to know and do away with the stuff that you don’t need to know. There’s so much confusing, conflicting information and misinformation out there. And nutrition and training are two topics, which are actually relatively simple once you really understand the basics. So I wanted to lay out the basics for people in a way that they can really understand it, and take that and essentially run with it for life. It’s the book that I wish someone had given me when I was 15. And just said, Look, just read this, understand these principles. Don’t get sucked into all the nonsense and do this. And if you’re consistent with it, and you work hard, you will achieve whatever goal you are aiming at in terms of your physique and your health and your strength and so on. So that’s really what strong advice is. So I put it out there as an E book initially, and you know, sold sold well. And then lots of people started asking me for physical copies. So I did a physical run in August, which sold out in a couple of weeks time. So those All went and now as we record this, we’re approaching Christmas in seven weeks. So I’m currently doing the next pre order for the physical books. And I’ve also recorded the audiobook version when I was in Nashville. And there will be an audiobook version coming as well. In the next couple of weeks. I narrated it myself. I’m a rapper, so I figured I had to. So yeah, so it’ll be available on ebook, physical and audio book. So yeah, that is strong advice, newbies guide to fitness for everybody.

Rob McNealy
Where can I get the book?

Zuby Udezue – Rapper and Author
The book is available on my website, Team zoobi.com. And if you go to if you wanted to get the physical copy right now the best place to look is just if you go on my Twitter at zoobi music zUv why music, then? I’ve currently got the physical book preorder available there. I will put it on my website as well. That’s a good reminder. But I’m at the moment for the E book. Yeah, Team zoobi calm and the physical. You can get that via the link on my Twitter.

Rob McNealy
Zuby have had a really great conversation with you today and I do appreciate your time and you know, I’ve really enjoyed your message and I think what you’re putting out there is really good positive stuff and I want you to keep up with it, man, you’re doing some really killer stuff. I appreciate it man. Thank you.

Episode Links

Audio Interview
Video Interview
Interview Transcript

Owen York, State of the Union Transcript

Owen York, Founder of Gun Industry Marketplace

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
Hey guys, today I am talking to Owen York. Once again, he is with gun industry marketplace. And we’re going to just kind of talk about what’s going on the gun industry. It’s getting toward the end of the year, and they do kind of end the year recap about what’s going on in the industry. So I want to welcome back to the show. How are you today? Hey, good, how you doing? I’m good. So what do you been up to?

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Well, lots of lots of work busy, busy over here.

Rob McNealy
It’s been a little crazy here too. So you’ve been on the show before and so you’re kind of like a return. Guest but For the people who are kind of new to the podcast, because we’ve been growing kind of give a little bit of background tell us like, what do you do? And how did you get involved with the gun industry?

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Yeah, well, if I would do a quick recap, I would say, I had an earlier professional career where I sort of grew up with, you know, high tech, and then I sort of evolved into public safety and defense and those sort of markets. And so I have a lot of high tech background, terms of sales, marketing, business development, especially right. And then about five and a half years ago, I entered into firearms. And so now I’ve been in that business for five and a half years to several, you know, kind of endeavors that evolved into what we have, which is called the gun industry marketplace. And the short, short, the short and sweet about what the gun industry marketplaces is, it’s sort of a growing and evolving hub for the firearms industry. And so we’re connected to all sorts of different companies of all shapes and sizes. Huge in the US, as you can imagine, but also, our international market is growing a lot. In fact, over the summer grew three to 7%, somewhere in there just over the summer, which is interesting. And so what we do is we, you know, we help these companies promote their names, their brands, their products, their services. And originally it started as a sort of kind of like a b2b endeavor. But it’s since expanded to, you know, the average shooter, you know, the consumer. So that’s kind of cool, because I think they like it because they sort of get to see things that they don’t normally get to see all the time because, you know, not everyone has the marketing budgets of you know, Ruger Smith Smith and Wesson. So they like that. It’s different stuff. It’s cool stuff. But also law enforcement has really kind of taken to this for so it’s just kind of an interesting thing. It’s sort of evolved into this like One Stop location for the industry. And I mean, it’s growing and the new categories every month. So it’s, it’s cool. It’s cool. It’s but I’d say at the end of the day, it’s kind of like a, it’s a real kind of like marketing, advertising and sort of make connections platform for the industry where it’s like, all in one place. So that’s kind of a recap of what we do.

Rob McNealy
Very cool. And for a lot of people that may, you know, not be in the United States or what have you is that not because the legalities are from a regulatory standpoint, but just from politics. It’s actually kind of challenging for lawful gun retailers to market even though the firearms industry is actually constitutionally protected in the United States. And it’s a huge you know, very well regulated, tested, yeah, protected, but, but one of the things about the gun industry is that they’re treated like a leper when it comes to market. on, you know, like social platforms and Google and things like that and and it’s very difficult for lawful gun retailers and supporting accessory manufacturers and things to actually get their products into the market because of that. And so I think that’s where what you’re doing on with, you know, gun industry marketplace is actually a real big service is because you have to kind of go outside those channels when you’re in this space.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
You have to, you know, basically I kind of prepared some, some notes and and one of the things we do every year is we do a survey, we call it state of the industry, state of the firearms industry. And this survey, this market research is everybody. All right now, not everybody obviously, does it but the snapshot of the industry, these could be manufacturers that you know, tier one tier two tier three manufacturers service providers, your you know, your local ffls gunsmiths gun ranges. You know, Anybody who’s instructors, anybody who actually is in the industry, we send this out to and so we get a very nice snapshot of what’s occurred. And also as kind of a preface to it, it’s, it’s also confidential. So somebody can tell us who they are if they like, but, you know, we want real answers. You know, we want to get the the meat of what’s, what really occurred. So we get some very interesting answers to this and just kind of following what you said. Yeah, that’s a big deal this year. What do you were you were just referring to so it’s, it’s kind of a nice segue into some of these results.

Rob McNealy
So tell me what would be one of the highlights what’s what did happen this year?

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Well, I mean, it’s probably no surprise anybody who’s working in the industry, but you know, they refer to it as the as the Trump slump. So that’s definitely still occurring. I’d say You know, there’s some there’s some gems out there who are doing good. There’s a couple of companies who I know who are doing really well and even expanded, but I would say for the most part 2019 was terrible, especially the summer.

Rob McNealy
I don’t want to explain that. What is the Trump slump?

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Well, let’s put it this way. You had Obama who was in office, and he was the best gun salesman probably in history. Every time that guy would open his mouth, people would go and buy more guns and ammo, you name it. I mean, it was just it was a feeding frenzy. And I think the only person who probably could have given Obama a run for his money would have been Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and the threat of Hillary as President. I mean, it was a feeding frenzy. And so you had manufacturers who were just pumping the stuff out as fast as they can make it retails. I mean, it was just buying selling you name it was just going on like crazy. But then when Trump one here you have somebody was, you know, more or less friendly to the industry and the Second Amendment, and overnight, everything changed. It’s just simple supply and demand. There was a huge surplus of inventory with the manufacturers and the distributors and the retailers. And the demand just went out the bottom overnight. And so now what you have occurring is a market correction. You know, you had new retail, there’s new online stores, everybody wants to get into the gun industry, and they’re selling and, and so the whole industry just kind of went like this. But then the demand dropped. And so now it’s like contracting. So it’s, it was bloated, it was a balloon, sort of like the real estate market and await and so that’s what’s occurring is a huge market correction. And so that’s really the list of other things occurring was I’ll get into a little bit but that’s what the Trump slump is, is that just the demand has dropped out the bottom and you have the entire industry really sort of returning back to business. As usual as a, you know, as a sporting industry or supporting certain markets, like law enforcement, things like that. So that’s that’s the Trump slump. But the first real point is that 2019 sucked. There’s, there’s no way around it. I mean, again, there’s a few gems out there, but, you know, there’s, there’s dealers who’ve been going out of business. And I don’t want to make this too general. You know, there are, you know, some of the guys who’ve been around for 20 or 30 years, you know, they’re still around, they’re still kicking, there’s not everybody shutting the doors, but there’s enough is worthy of note of how many companies went out of business. And even with the distributors. This has been going on for the last two years now. You know, the shutting the doors, you know, there’s there’s big ones, there’s medium ones. I know that one or two that have went bankrupt, I know some that are, you know, consolidating. So it’s pretty fascinating man. There’s a huge flux going on in the business right now. So that’s another like the first real highlight, you know,

Rob McNealy
and I’d like to point out just, you know, throw my two cents in there is that what’s happening is not that there’s a lot, you know, a loss of interest in guns or firearms. What happened is that during the Obama administration, because of the fear that you know, his anti gun rhetoric instilled in people, the industry basically expanded its capacity massively to meet that demand. And once Trump got into office, the demand basically went back down to pre Obama levels and and now that’s correcting because you had a big expansion and now it’s just that the people are stocked up and and I tell people that people are feel people are more like conservatives are more confident and comfortable with their gun rights when a republican isn’t office versus when a democrat is now I don’t necessarily think that’s smart because Republic given lots of gun control, too. But that’s the general perception I see out there among, you know, concerned.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Well, sure, yeah. It’s swings back and forth. I mean, it’s a big, big cycle to go. Conservatives, liberals, and, you know, I don’t I don’t buy into the two party system myself. I’m not I’m not one of those guys. I feel like it’s all the same Master, you know, so I don’t buy into that. But I do buy into the swings, like, I feel like it’s definitely a controlled thing. Like, all right, let’s go. Let’s go make these guys happy. All right. Let’s make these guys happy. But underneath, there’s still that underlying agenda. I think maybe I think it’s a little different. Now, last couple of years. There’s some interesting things going on, which is a whole different conversation, but just, you know, in regards to firearms, it’s, in fact, I’ll bring up this next point because it’s kind of a good segue. One of the biggest problems this year. Aside from all we need more sales, you know, like we need more sales, we need more customers, blah, blah, blah. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s a given based on what we are saying. But what I was noticing a lot and this this I saw this last year too, but even more this year, and it’s not going to come as a huge surprise, but this whole media circus, you know, these anti gun anti Second Amendment campaigns, there’s more taxes, there’s more regulations, there’s more government, there’s more new legislation, these politicians. The kickback is even as big this year, and the demand for change is bigger this year, which, you know, isn’t a huge surprise if you’re paying attention to what’s going on. But like, for example, there’s a new, just this one little tidbit. I know in the state of Illinois, there was a new tax dealers, right. And I don’t have all the specifics, but there’s some new tax and dealers where now they have to pay another 1500 dollars a year. You know, which for some of these smaller dealers, it’s another 1500 bucks, you know, so it’s more suppression, but that’s probably the number one thing that I see out there right now, that’s being reported to me from all facets of the industry is just it, they’re getting very tired. The demand for change is huge on end to the point where people are starting to look for legal support, which I also find interesting. You know, they’re looking for legal support, like straight up attorneys. You know, and here’s where I think your There’s your nras and you’re going to have those of America going like, take note guys. I’m sure they’ve got their work cut out for them. But, you know, I think we’re going to start to see even more new Second Amendment groups cropping up To meet the demand.

Rob McNealy
So what do you mean by they’re seeking more legal support? Who’s seeking more legal support?

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Well, you know, like, for example, you know, every time there’s a win in the government for, you know, the second amendment when like, you know, another constitutional carry state, or we’ve made inroads towards that, you know, the sort of, you know, I guess you could say, the liberal agenda, or the anti gun agenda, or whatever you want to term it. I feel like it’s almost a free for all they’re like submitting bills left and right. federal, state, local. And I almost feel like touch slinging these things. And oh, and just kind of taken whatever sticks, you know, like some of them are passing. And then there’s like this little thing that passes over here. And so it’s hard to keep up with, you know, like in terms of sheer volume, and so that’s kind of what I’m gleaning out of here is you know, Like, I know, there was companies were moving to Nevada from California. They were just jumping ship. And now I’ve started to see reports of people jumping, going like I’m out of Nevada, it’s too close to California, we’re going to Idaho. Which is, you know, so there’s there’s definitely a, there’s more of an exodus going to be occurring from these, these states. But you know, there needs to be more legal support, more lobbying support. And if the big dogs on the block can handle it like the NRA and the gunners of America, and there’s some other ones out there, too. That’s why I think there’s there’s a demand occurring right now, more so than ever. And you’re going to start to see some more action there just to handle the sheer volume, you know.

Rob McNealy
Yeah, I think what we’re seeing with artists project and talking to retailers, it’s there’s a lot Fear kind of trepidation out there on what will happen, especially by companies that are in states that are not gun friendly or appeared like they’re going to become gun friendly. Right. And, and, and there’s all sorts of pressures going on, you know, with with retailers. You know, there’s their political pressure. There’s protests, there’s, you know, there’s all these crazy additional hoops and regulations and taxes. But, you know, on top of that, you’re getting the the corporate pressure coming on to these companies are refusing to do business with lawful regulated gun retailers. And you’re now totally, you know, yeah,

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
well, it’s funny like the next points on here, I’m going to give you a few more bullet points, because if you see the sort of perfect storm that’s being created here, we kind of touched on this before a little bit, but like, for example, so we have the government side That was, you know, people were complaining about it last year, but this year, it’s way more. It’s affecting, you know, it’s having an effect. Plus, we’re coupled with the Trump slump. Plus, you know, summers are usually slow in the industry anyway. So you have a slow summer and top of a slow industry on top of the legal stuff plus we still have increased. How do you want to call it? censorship will call it really are discrimination is another one. So you have increased censorship and discrimination from companies like Amazon, eBay, PayPal, the social media giants, you know, like, telling you rob, I won’t be surprised if one day you see Facebook, slash Instagram go, Okay, if you have done anything by I won’t be surprised in the least bit. So you have that occurring. And there’s demand, you know, these companies, they want it, they want to connect to the consumer, the public, but they can’t because of the increased depression, the banking, you know, and this is what I think you’ll find that particularly interesting and the finance sort of money side of it. There’s also there’s still a strangulation of the industry occurring there. Now, that’s what’s happening over the last couple of years especially, and I’ve seen and heard less reports of it this year, but it is still occurring. In fact, I just heard of one yesterday. But there’s this is what I have seen as needed as of this year is companies, Stephen, stay in business need money. Obviously, they need financing. They’re looking for partnerships. And this is where you’re going to be seeing further. You know, what’s the word like? There’s a lot of…

Rob McNealy
Consolidation?

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
..and that’s the word Thank you consolidation already occurring. You know, you’ve seen a lot last year too, there’s good there’s more coming, and it’s in there and it’s being asked for just a kind of a float. So financing partnerships are needed. Didn’t want it, but even down into investors, buddy, right, right down to the local place down to the point of sale and merchant processing. You know, these guys are having trouble finding good reputable companies with good rates that are second amendment friendly, that won’t drop them, you know, which is what I think is kind of interesting about what you’re doing with tusken the future like the, you know, there’s a solution in there somewhere, you know. So, I mean, you could see the sort of perfect storm that’s been created.You know?

Rob McNealy
Well, I, you know, on one part, you know, I’d love nothing more to be successful with our project, right. That’s, we all want to be successful. But, you know, I don’t find joy that the industry is suffering. You know, when I came into this project, because we love the industry, and we’re big believers in the industry, and we see that the industry is struggling and we see You know, potential solution to that. And in fact, you know, decentralized finance and things, you know, and some of these other things that are coming out of blockchain, not just what we’re doing with task, but you know, there’s other things coming in the future that I think might actually save some of those other things and be other solutions for the industry itself. Now, you were talking about finance, like, for instance, that can cover things like if someone wants to build a gun range, or build a big gun store that you know, caters to a certain market. There you have a hard time finding people to finance those projects, like totally fall. So there’s going to be your businesses like you’re talking about your business financing, but also the the financing for consumers, you know, that they can finance a consumers purchase. So I’ll just throw that in there. Both of those are what I’m talking about, just to make sure it’s clear.

Yes, indeed. And I think that’s some of the pressure now that’s coming becoming from the political side, the anti gun World is now becoming ever more vocal about Visa and MasterCard, people just using debit cards to buy purchases with their own money. And I think I believe that’s going to be stepped up. And I think it’s going to take over, I only think that’s going to increase. And they’ll be very fascinating when the networks like Visa and MasterCard themselves decide that they’re not going to allow these kinds of transactions to occur.

And I do it will not shock me in the least bit.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
You know, I mean, how, in one of these, I was just reading it this morning, one of the survey results like I said, the tabulations are fully done, but I’ve got enough but one of them I mean, PayPal over and over was in here and then one it was like we should sue Pay Pal and, and they’re just you know, they just won’t accept it. And you’re like, Well, I mean, I that’s I guess that’s a different conversation because it is a private company. I guess they can do whatever they want. But if this were any other industry or anything else, like the discrimination question, would be huge.

Rob McNealy
Well, there are about seven industries that are in that same boat, right? Whereas with PayPal, for instance, when we looked at markets that have a recognized problem with normal banking and financing, right, we did a market segmentation we did some research and, and all there’s about seven industries that have a problem that’s recognized right now. And they’re all distasteful to somebody. So that could be things like cannabis, that can be things like pornography, it could be things like prostitution and gambling, and, you know, refugees and immigrants, remittances, you know, payday lenders, things like that, though, and guns and things like that. Now, you know, it’s funny, because if you’re a conservative, you probably don’t like any of those things, except for one of them. Right.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
I know. That’s, that’s the funny thing is they’re all considered and termed high risk markets, except, you know, there’s only one that’s protected by the US. constitution. You know, like, there’s one that’s written into the senior laws of the land that all the states agreed to, and it wasn’t weed. Well, you know, I find that interesting, like so. But yeah, totally like, you know, I know the conservative crowd is, I would say as a main is not into those other high risk markets, you know, not right. Yeah. You know, I mean, so it’s it’s too bad that it gets grouped in with those when it’s you know, if you know, the industry like you were it like, it’s a very friendly close knit, family oriented sporting industry. So it’s really too bad that it whoops then gets grouped in with other things that it doesn’t need to be.

Rob McNealy
Well, I think, you know, when I come to Nashville, we should have a long conversation about freedom and what that looks like and, and this is where social conservatives and you know, it’s hard to talk about guns without getting into politics, but this is where social conservatives and allies We kind of missed the boat. Right? Right. As I say, I live a very, you know, personally, I am very, I live a very social conservative life personally, you know, but I also realize that if we want a free society, that what that requires of me as an individual is that to realize and understand and be okay with other people will make decisions and choices about their lives that I wouldn’t like or agree with. And I need to be okay with that. Because the alternative is, is a big government that then can has the power to do whatever it wants. So, on one hand, you know, a lot of people hate the fact that people use the courts to sue everybody out of Oblivion, and then until it affects them, right, and then they say, Well, you know, this private company doesn’t want to do business with us, so we need to sue that. Well. It’s private company, right? You know, on one hand, you know, and and I’m just poking fun here, and I’m not anti conservative or anything, but you’ll see, you know, people conservatives that want to be able to denied service based on you know, they don’t want to bake the cake. Right, you know, but on the same token if someone wants to reverse that, and now they do want to force somebody to bake the payment processing. Right, right. So this is where it gets, you know, we got to be consistent. And again, people are very libertarian when it comes to themselves, but not necessarily other people. And so, and to me, I’m okay with PayPal denying anybody they want i because I believe it’s freedom of association, a private company.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
That’s why I have mixed opinions myself where I want and I don’t like it, but it’s a you know, it’s a bad company. I don’t want anyone telling me what to do with my business. I’ll tell you that, you know, and I so I feel like I can respect the right of somebody else. But you know, like, I love using Dick’s Sporting Goods as an example but you know, like, or Walmart or any of these other ones who kind of hopped on board and the you know, Sort of withdrawing from the firearms industry, even if it just if they don’t want to get sued, whatever it is, you know, let the free market work on them. That’s what I believe. Like, I don’t want anyone tell me what to do with my business. So if I make a really bad decision and decide to alienate, you know, quarter of my customers or clients, oh, hey, it’s gonna hurt my pocketbook. You know, it’s gonna hurt our bank account. So I, it’s I go, you know, that’s, that’s a very powerful message to send to any corporation. Like, I’ll never shop at a Dick’s Sporting Goods again, you know, have have fun. And I’m just one guy. And I know there’s a ton out there and that’s a ton of money. And that’s going to be the biggest point. So that’s, that’s why I believe in letting you know, hey, you want to run your business that way it’s your business or, you know, the shareholders. They want to go into agreement on something, find the free markets going to do its job.

Rob McNealy
I agree. And I think part of it is is that you should vote with your dollars and friends. Not only do I not shop at Dick’s Sporting Goods anymore, because they are anti gun, but I won’t use Uber lift anymore, because they also recently signed on to a letter that, you know, was very anti gun a couple months ago when those hundred plus CEOs of major companies wanted more gun control over and left for both signatories to that, and I won’t use those services. And you know, that’s and that’s a big inconvenience for me for traveling to other cities. And in fact, recently, I was traveling to Las Vegas, and I had to figure out a ride to get somewhere because I won’t download those apps. They were removed from my I canceled my accounts and remove those apps. And so now, it makes it a little harder for me, but I do vote by principles. But I also think when you have private companies making these political decisions, that also opens the door for innovation, and I believe this is one of those things that can drive what we’re doing. So I believe if you close the door in one place in the market, another opportunity opens. And I think this is what’s going to drive the adoption of decentralized projects where we get trusted banks, quote, unquote, out of the loop. Now, wouldn’t it be nice that you don’t have to go through Visa and MasterCard, to do business or you don’t have to go through a PayPal to do business because there’s other systems that are decentralized and don’t have a central control that’s in the middle making those political decisions, and

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
I’m watching for some behind that the less What can I say less regulations, decentralization. I mean, you know, I even this morning was paying a fee for my company, and I’m kind of like, why am I paying a fee for this? I feel like, you know, the founding fathers would roll over in their graves if they saw some of the taxes and regulation like it is completely not what this place was intended to be. And I you know, it wasn’t even a lot of money but the fact that I even had to do it like I have to check for this one stupid little thing that has nothing to do with the government. And I was like, so I, you know, I mean, the push definitely needs to go in that direction. And it’s in being hugely demanded right now.

Rob McNealy
Yeah, I think ultimately, market decisions will drive innovation. And so if people want to be political, that’s their choice. Now, I, I’m old enough to remember when I didn’t know the political affiliations of the companies I did business with when I was growing up. And even when I was in business school, they said, don’t be political, you know, you’re going to alienate your customers and customers are, you know, good thing and, and, and, and I get, you know, with the gun space is political. So I understand that trade off that I’m dealing with in this space. And so I know that I have to basically there’s a line in the sand when you’re willing to be gun friendly or be focused on supporting an industry that has a problem in this space because it is distasteful to some people. But I also think Now that that is what we’re dealing with in the United States, where companies are drawing lines in the sand that this will drive innovation, and I I’m excited. Yeah.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
I it’s funny. I had a, you know, I had the viewpoint was, you know, when I was younger, I didn’t know all the politics. I didn’t even read my constitution what, you know, other people paid attention in their high school government classes or even understood what the hell they were hearing. No, they didn’t, you know, you know, so it’s, it is interesting, like, I used to have that opinion, it is politics when my politics i used to keep it out of business. And then people weren’t so touchy about it. It wasn’t so vicious, you know. Now, you know, I mean, yeah, for one being in the firearms space, you you’ve chosen one side. I mean, this is sort of hard to say like a political there. With the exception that like I said earlier, like the two party system, I don’t prescribe to subscribe to any of that stuff. I don’t affiliate myself with any party I have. I don’t feel like That’s, I don’t know, anywhere in the Constitution, it talks about parties. You know, I don’t like that stuff at all. I think we need to make that go the way of the dinosaur. But, you know, so I can kind of say that stuff. And then in terms of, I don’t know, I sort of consider firearms, it’s too bad that it’s getting the, the precedents getting and how touchy it is. But I it’s a niche market, just like any other sport, you know, you’re a basketball fan, you’re, you know, hockey fan, or, you know, you’re into archery. I mean, these are niche markets. So I mean, it’s, it’s, I don’t know, it’s not political, and it’s just being made political, you know, in terms of the industry, I should say, you know, other than the, again, the second amendment is written in there, and it’s in there for a reason and it’s not so I mean, yeah, of course, it’s so you can protect your family, but it’s, that’s not the real reason that these guys wrote it into the Constitution, like That’s what I think some people don’t, who haven’t read their history or don’t know their history. You know, if you go back and look like Well, okay, well, why? Why are firearms in the senior law of the land? Why did they do that, and you only need to look back from where they came from and what they were handling and realize, you know, had to do with oppressive government, you know, but unless you read your history, you’re like, oh, cool, you know, have a gun and protect my family. And that’s what it’s all about. And you’re like, No, no, that’s not what it’s there for, you know?

Rob McNealy
Well, I think if you want to look at a contemporary example, look at Hong Kong right now.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Fascinating, right?

Rob McNealy
And to me, if those people had firearms, they would not be getting beaten in the streets.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Dude. Well, it blows me away. Rob, like I see in America protests waving the you know, this communist flag, you know, with the the sickle on the hammer, and that’s in the states and then you go over to, you know, China well, Hong Kong right. And and they’re waving the American flag. Is that amazing?

Rob McNealy
Well, you know, it’s ironic that this morning I actually had a conference call to the Ukraine with an exchange that we might be doing business with. And I find it’s interesting talking to Eastern Europeans and Asians versus Americans and Western Europeans. It and what I’m finding is that actually Asians are really pro gun like especially say in like Hong Kong and Japan where they really can’t even own guns. They’re very pro gun, and Eastern Europeans are very pro gun. It’s the western Europeans and the Americans that now have this weird anti gun thing happening. I don’t know what happened to the west. I always tell people to when we talk about banning, you know, immigrants and things like that, but they always say well what the Europeans and I’m like, you know what the Europeans are the ones that invented socialism and invented communism. Okay, so if you want to like ban a certain group of people from coming here maybe it’s the people that invented that garbage in the first place, maybe start there you know..

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
What, and even then like, you know, I agree with you know, immigration in that it should be not stopped. I mean, people come to this country for a reason no, but it should be monitored. There should be rules. I do agree with that. We It can’t just be a free for all, you know.

Rob McNealy
But it’s been commies I start there. Let’s Yeah,

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
I mean, you know, but the the interesting thing, though, is like there’s people who come to this country, who appreciate it more than the people who were born here, who may grieve gotten soft over the generations like they know. They know what this place is. And they compare it to their home. Like an interesting factoid about Nashville that I didn’t know was there was until I moved here is there’s a, a large Kurdish population here. And they were refugees from whenever that was in, I think, was early 90s, or something like that. And I’ve talked to some of these people, and I, one of them was a neighbor of mine, and they’re very, they get it, and they really appreciate the freedoms that they have here that they didn’t have, where they were absurd of being, you know, run out and murdered. You know, and so, I guarantee you the commie flag waving portlander that I saw and was watching. If their life was in danger from the government that they you know, like if they were being run out of there. homes and areas. It would be a very different story. They wouldn’t be buying into the propaganda, which is what it is, you know, and I and there’s one thing you said that I like make comment down to the, you know how anti gun America’s that’s not true. There’s a percentage. There’s a percentage there’s there’s definitely a group, but I would still be willing to defend that the large percentage of Americans are, you know, pro firearms pro constitution, you know, it’s, I don’t buy the mainstream media’s reports, poll or anything like that. I go, who did you pull? I’ve never been pulled. And in my 40 years of existence, I’ve never received one survey or one poll from any of you guys. Like who you ask it. You know, I could go poll right now. Like, I can go call 50 people who I know we’re all firearms friendly and have one set of answers. Or I could go you know, and do you know, major city and walk around where it’s a little more liberal and get 50 sets of other answers doesn’t make it a correct survey.

Rob McNealy
You know, true and and and i and i agree with that. I mean, it’s poll taking is very partisan regardless and an inexact science, but I can tell you through what I’m doing with crypto, I’m traveling a lot, and I’m going to go to California go to New York to go, you know, all over the country. And I definitely see a big difference from people that grew up. And you know, in, you know, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and call, you know, California. The people in those places now, never were exposed to guns growing up, largely. And I think that’s a big deal. And I just saw an article this morning about people, you know, surprisingly, you know, that people that are exposed to guns, don’t fear them as much. But I think the problem is a lot of people like in New York City or some of these places where basically guns are essentially outlawed. They’re not growing up around them so they don’t even understand the culture and they and everything they know about guns is either from the media it’s either from the movies or it’s from the news and or and and that’s both usually propaganda on both sides too. Right and I think so.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
I grew up and I was a boy scout we shot the 22 rifle slowly it was no big deal.

Rob McNealy
Nobody here nobody cared in but you know I’m also a Gen X or so you know, I think it’s different now and look at the Boy Scouts are dying as an organization to so you gotta take that a good segue me there’s fewer Boy Scouts now.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
So I was just reading there are there’s a set of girls, I think it was in Indiana who opened their own Boy Scout troop, but it’s all girls and like, isn’t that just the Girl Scouts?

No, it’s not actually, you know, I’m going to say an unpopular opinion. I actually support that. Yeah. And you know why? This because there’s so here’s Think about this, and I was a boy scout too. I didn’t get my Eagle back. I close. That was a life scout. But here’s the thing. There’s no equivalent The Girl Scouts to becoming an Eagle Scout. And there are societal benefits to being an Eagle Scout. Like for instance, if you’re an Eagle Scout, you start you go to basic training the army you’d be hearing from day one. You know, for instance, you can get scholarships for college, it’s considered something you would hire on, it’s a hiring bullet point. So and the Girl Scouts don’t have an equivalent and on top of that the Girl Scouts don’t really focus on the outdoor activity part of scouting like the Boy Scouts do. And in fact, you know, it’s interesting, I live in Utah and the churches basically was at one point the the LDS church was like the biggest, like every church had its own truth that was kind of a church and the church has ended that relationship and they’re they’re weaning themselves off that relationship right now. But my I would love for my my one daughter who’s of age to be a Boy Scout, because I think they learned

It’s interesting. I didn’t know those details because like in terms of this whole thing, Gender garbage with fully I think that’s crap. I that actually makes sense in terms of, I guess you would just eliminate it and just call it scouts

Rob McNealy
Right now. And that is how it is in other countries too, by the way, they were they’ve actually had the thing. The Girl Scouts, though and getting getting political is that the Girl Scouts are very political to very left wing. And so, and I and, you know, I want my kids to be very accurate. My I have four kids, two girls, two boys, and I want them all to have both vocational skills, survival skill, shooting skills, and stem based academic skills. And so to me, that’s important and I would love there to be, you know, a good scouting program that my girls and my boys could all learn the same skills. You know, and and, you know, we’re going to we’re going to look at that, but it’s just one of those things that you know, lots of people don’t look at it like that, because, you know, if you’re an Eagle Scout, though there are societal benefits and

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
What is the data in the media? Well, you just said that whole point. It’s a very good point when it’s a reported that in the media people be like, Hey, I could see that because you’re telling me and I go, yeah, I could see that I can. I think that’s actually great. If there was just a scouting program for kids, period. That’s great. Because you’re right, if it’s a if the programs aren’t comparable, but just pushing it for the sake of this whole genders lame, yeah, I’m like, Okay, guys, like enough. You know..

Rob McNealy
and, and, and I think part of the boyscout problem, I know a lot of scout leaders. And so and I think part of the problem is as well as that the Boy Scouts are losing membership radically. And I think that’s part of the problem, too. Now, don’t get me wrong. I do believe there’s a lot of crazy people that just want to file lawsuits to be jerks right there is trying to push a point and that drives some of this too. So, you know, the world is not a black and white place as much as I want it to be. Now, life would be so much simpler if it wasn’t for people. Right. So what else have you What else are you seeing in your numbers in your survey so far?

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
I got it. A few more points I can that are kind of interesting. You know, there was there was quite a bit of bad like, you know, we’re going to there’s more closures coming. That’s coming, we’re going to see more big small ones. It’s not done yet. And there’s been a lot the last couple years. There’s similar things that I see every year that are still occurring that they’ll probably always occur like the brick and mortars versus the buying power of the big box retailers, the internet giants, you know, that’s occurring. You know, Hey, can you guys the manufacturers, can you guys enforce your map pricing? That’s always a big one that I hear every year, the shrinking margins I hear every year. So that hasn’t changed. That’s continued. A positive note was, you know, Black Friday, I think the whole Black Friday weekend was good this year. In fact, I think it was number two in terms of records. Nice was over like 200,000 federal background checks. So we know at least 200,000 firearms sold. So that was kind of cool. So There was there’s an uptick there. That was positive.And I think another interesting thing I did see, which I wasn’t totally sure of, because I get mixed reports on this, but I had people throwing in, you know, go Trump 2020. You know, there was there was kind of a lot. So there’s still, I think the, as a whole, and, again, these are sort of general it’s not every single person. These are just kind of highlights that I took note of. But I it still appears that Trump is very much supported by the industry, at least for the most part, from what we could see. But I In summary, you know, there’s the I’d say the senior things that I could really tell you are the discrimination. And all what I said the media, the government regulations, all that stuff. That’s still huge in the tech companies. You know, the strangulation of the market is still occurring? And, and I would Oh, I want to give one shout out again, I don’t know who said this, but just somebody did say, the best part of their 2019 was the gun industry marketplace, and they said keep it up. So, whoever you are, thanks for that.

Rob McNealy
So, you know, question strangulation now, we do have merchant processing that’s still out there. So, R is the current merchant processing, what would be the strangulation part of that I do know that there are gun friendly, you know, merchant processing services out there. Is it just not are they not adequate to meet the demand right now?

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Um, some are, some are, you know, but like, for example, I was talking to a dealer yesterday, and he was making a switch from one who was a firearms friendly payment. processor but the rates were just this is a local dealer nice company but small you know so it just not affordable you know they’re not getting he wasn’t getting the benefits of maybe a larger supported payment processing company that I don’t know so just price out a little bit what kind of rates are they getting? I don’t know the specifics of the rates I just know he was leaving one who I’m not gonna say who it is but I know who it is and he’s making a move to another one which was a new name for me which I think is a local or regional company so new to my radar anyway

Rob McNealy
Well, you know, it’s good to hear what’s going on the industry and and that’s what I really like you as a respected stores because you know, you your got your ear to the street out there. So where can people find out more?

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Well, we’re let’s see, we don’t really publish this. You know, I usually okay. So, but you know, if they want to find us, we’re just gun industry marketplace calm. And the one the one final point that I’d like to just kind of get out there for anyone listening here is, you know if you really want to help the firearms industry right now, like the thing that I would probably tell you to do as of December 2019, just go buy a gun, go buy another one. You know, if a lot of people did that right now, it would, it would just like help move, move things a little bit more. So, go buy guns, man, exercise your exercise. You’re right. That’s what I would tell people to do to help right now.

Rob McNealy
I can’t think of better advice. Thank you somuch for coming on today.

Owen York – Gun Industry Marketplace
Thanks for having me. Again, Rob.

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