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.