Meme Lords and Machine Guns: A Conversation with Shawn Herrin from We Like Shooting

Kaylee: 00:00:00

Welcome to Gun Owners of America State of the second podcast.

Kaylee: 00:00:03

I'm Kaylee.

John: 00:00:03

And I'm John.

John: 00:00:04

And today we're joined by the man, the myth, the legend, the gun toting Coloradoan who is just the meme lord of all memelords.

John: 00:00:15

Sean Herron from We like shooting and dangerous freedom.

John: 00:00:18

How are you today, my friend?

Sean Herron: 00:00:20

I'm good, man.

Sean Herron: 00:00:21

I'm actually not a meme lord.

Sean Herron: 00:00:23

I just steal meme lords memes and post them because it drives massive traffic on Instagram.

John: 00:00:29

I feel like.

John: 00:00:31

No, I've seen a few memes from you.

Sean Herron: 00:00:34

I do make them.

Sean Herron: 00:00:35

I do.

John: 00:00:35

I've been in the back of a.

John: 00:00:37

Of a Jeep with you make.

John: 00:00:39

Putting.

John: 00:00:40

Putting boots on Biden's head.

Sean Herron: 00:00:43

That is true.

Sean Herron: 00:00:44

But the best part of that ride was making a rap song about Kurt.

John: 00:00:49

So we were on this long road trip from Arizona to Idaho and Sean came with us and he made a whole rap song in the back of the Jeep about Kurt.

John: 00:00:58

Yeah, it was the greatest hit.

John: 00:01:01

And then he lost it.

John: 00:01:02

And he found it.

John: 00:01:03

Yeah, he found it.

Sean Herron: 00:01:05

So the best part is it was in garage band.

Sean Herron: 00:01:07

Like, I did all the music, I did the vocal performance, everything in a, what, 11 hour jeep ride?

John: 00:01:12

Yes.

Kaylee: 00:01:12

Wow.

Sean Herron: 00:01:15

Great.

Sean Herron: 00:01:16

I mean, terrible.

Kaylee: 00:01:17

That is commitment.

Kaylee: 00:01:18

Well, I think, I think you owe it to all of the listeners to, you know, drop a link to where people, people can listen to this wonderful.

Kaylee: 00:01:28

Nobody wants to hear this wonderful song.

Sean Herron: 00:01:32

The music aspect of it is wonderful.

Sean Herron: 00:01:34

The.

Sean Herron: 00:01:35

The topic is probably not friendly for most audiences.

Sean Herron: 00:01:39

It's rated X.

Sean Herron: 00:01:42

Maybe just a hard R, I think.

Sean Herron: 00:01:46

Yeah, it's bad.

Sean Herron: 00:01:47

So bad.

John: 00:01:48

So, Sean, you've been.

John: 00:01:50

We're.

John: 00:01:50

We're best friends at this point.

John: 00:01:52

I think that's.

Sean Herron: 00:01:52

I mean, we basically are.

Sean Herron: 00:01:53

And we have been for a long time.

John: 00:01:54

Yes, for a very long time.

John: 00:01:56

Sean and I spent hours on the phone together talking about stuff.

John: 00:01:59

We actually talked about you earlier today in a podcast.

John: 00:02:04

We were talking about magazine restrictions and we're talking about how you and I bought the same exact gun and the gun shows up at your place with no, with one magazine because they forgot about it, but no magazines in it.

Sean Herron: 00:02:20

Yeah, it was unfortunate.

Sean Herron: 00:02:21

And the crazy thing is I have an ffl, so, like, I am legally allowed to have, you know, standard capacity magazines.

Sean Herron: 00:02:28

But it was, it was kind of a bummer.

Sean Herron: 00:02:30

But thankfully I had a bunch of the other ones.

Sean Herron: 00:02:32

But yeah, the mag capacity stuff in Colorado.

Sean Herron: 00:02:34

,: 2013

Sean Herron: 00:02:39

And here we are still 11 years later.

Kaylee: 00:02:41

God, Colorado is super.

Kaylee: 00:02:46

Interesting, because I think most people still conceptualize the west as this frontier and cowboy culture and very gun friendly.

Kaylee: 00:03:01

But Colorado has just become more and more progressively anti gun.

Kaylee: 00:03:07

And I know a lot of that centers around the cities.

Kaylee: 00:03:11

But from your perspective as someone from the state, is it an apathy that you think drives this from everyday gun owners or just not standing up and saying, hey, enough's enough?

Kaylee: 00:03:29

Or is it the city's going more and more woke and anti gun?

Kaylee: 00:03:37

Is it people moving to the state because it is gorgeous state to live?

Kaylee: 00:03:45

Is it kind of a mixture of things like what do you feel like is the pinpoint reason why such a traditionally pro gun state has really swung the other direction in the last 10 years?

Sean Herron: 00:03:58

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of all of the above, honestly.

Sean Herron: 00:04:01

So I live in Colorado Springs and if you look at a electoral map of Colorado, the, you know, it's a big U of A red and then a small strip of blue in the middle which is Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, and through really clever gerrymandering and just redistricting and changing all those, all those things, they've really got a hold on Colorado.

Sean Herron: 00:04:24

And I think that a lot of this stuff that happens is apathy.

Sean Herron: 00:04:28

But at the same time I think it's even more that we don't even realize that it happened, like even sometimes.

Sean Herron: 00:04:34

Now I'm like, what happened to this awesome state?

Sean Herron: 00:04:38

Because I live in Colorado Springs, city of about 600 000.

Sean Herron: 00:04:41

So not tiny by any means.

Sean Herron: 00:04:43

But here it's the same Colorado I've always lived in.

Sean Herron: 00:04:46

When I go to the mountains, it's the same Colorado I've always lived in.

Sean Herron: 00:04:49

I never go to Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins because they're all trash.

Sean Herron: 00:04:53

So I don't see that part of it.

Sean Herron: 00:04:55

And I think a lot of people feel just like me.

Sean Herron: 00:04:57

They don't even realize that A, standard capacity magazines are illegal and B, they don't realize what happened to our state until it's time for, you know, taxes or any of that stuff.

Sean Herron: 00:05:10

Or you go to Denver and get robbed or Denver is just trash.

Sean Herron: 00:05:14

It is horrible.

Sean Herron: 00:05:15

I don't even go there if I don't have to.

Sean Herron: 00:05:17

But yeah, it's just a mixture of all the above.

Sean Herron: 00:05:19

Plus Colorado is so great and all the people that are leaving California and other states like that, they want to come here because it's so beautiful.

Sean Herron: 00:05:26

But then they bring their horrible politics with them.

Sean Herron: 00:05:28

So just a combination of all the above.

Sean Herron: 00:05:30

And I think people are starting to finally wake up.

Sean Herron: 00:05:33

But even now it's going to be tough to get it back.

Kaylee: 00:05:36

Yeah.

Kaylee: 00:05:37

And I know that everyone wants to look at things like lawsuits, and lawsuits can have tremendous capability when it comes to winning back and the restoration of rights.

Kaylee: 00:05:52

But the reality is, for most states, it is much easier to stop things before they start.

Kaylee: 00:06:01

You know, everyone kind of, you know, holds their breath when it comes to, oh, well, you know, you guys just make a slippery slope argument.

Kaylee: 00:06:08

You know, people will confuse that all the time.

Kaylee: 00:06:10

And it's like it's a slippery slope argument because it's a slippery slope.

Kaylee: 00:06:15

Some things are just reality.

Kaylee: 00:06:18

And people will generally accept a level of tyranny and then get adjusted to it.

Kaylee: 00:06:23

And they may get mad for a few minutes and then, you know, they'll move on because they don't have the luxury or the privilege of spending all day, all night, eat, sleep and breathing the Second Amendment, which we get to do every day, they've got to go to work and get through school and raise kids in all of these aspects.

Kaylee: 00:06:45

And it's why you have to pay attention when we send things to your email.

Kaylee: 00:06:51

And you have to pay attention when it's electives election season.

Kaylee: 00:06:55

And you have to pay attention to these things because it's so much easier to stop it when it's a concept of an idea or when it's first introduced than it is going through the court systems, which can take years, and then you're still not guaranteed a victory.

Sean Herron: 00:07:14

Yeah, 100%.

Sean Herron: 00:07:15

That's exactly.

Sean Herron: 00:07:16

It is.

Sean Herron: 00:07:17

,: 2013

Sean Herron: 00:07:26

And now with Bruin kind of guiding where things are going to go now, hopefully we will have another case.

Sean Herron: 00:07:33

But then even that one got derailed.

Sean Herron: 00:07:35

So now we're kind of back to the drawing board there, and it's just a disaster.

Sean Herron: 00:07:38

I know so many people in the gun world are like, well, okay, we lost.

Sean Herron: 00:07:42

Now we're going to get them in the court.

Sean Herron: 00:07:44

And here it's a decade, man.

Sean Herron: 00:07:46

Like, it should never get to that point.

Sean Herron: 00:07:48

Last year when they were trying to push an assault weapons ban through Colorado, I sat right here for 13 hours waiting to speak for 60 seconds.

Sean Herron: 00:07:55

And the average person can't do that.

Sean Herron: 00:07:57

Like, I get it.

Sean Herron: 00:07:58

They.

Sean Herron: 00:07:58

They have rigged and designed a system that is intended to stop people who have jobs and have lives and have families from participating in government.

Sean Herron: 00:08:07

And it's terrible.

Sean Herron: 00:08:08

And we need to figure out a way around that.

Sean Herron: 00:08:10

And the way around that, unfortunately, is to vote for it.

Sean Herron: 00:08:12

And the problem is we're so apathetic about voting these days that we just end up here over and over and over again.

Sean Herron: 00:08:18

I know you guys fight the fight every single day and it's just, it's rough.

Sean Herron: 00:08:21

Like once we lose and once we have to go to court, like it's a big crawl back to the top.

Kaylee: 00:08:27

And a costly one.

Kaylee: 00:08:29

You know, the flip side of that is not only is it slow, but it's, it's expensive and almost, I don't want to say worse because how do I want to phrase this?

Kaylee: 00:08:48

Precedent matters.

Kaylee: 00:08:50

And so you have to find the right case in the right district in the right scenario to set yourself up for as much success as humanly possible.

Kaylee: 00:09:03

Because if you allow the anti gunners and you just throw a lawsuit anywhere unless it's, you know, incredibly solid, you run the risk of not only losing the case, but then that sets the precedent, that that is the standard.

Kaylee: 00:09:21

And so when you go to fight it in another area now the anti gunners can go back to the previous case that you filed in a different area and say, but see, you know, we won here because, you know, you have to be so careful on these things.

Kaylee: 00:09:37

It's not as, it's not as easy.

Kaylee: 00:09:44

You know, the Staples commercial, like, it's not an easy button that we're just like, all right, click this and we got it fixed, guys.

Kaylee: 00:09:51

Like, don't worry, that's, that's not how the legal system works.

Kaylee: 00:09:57

I mean, just think about bump stocks and how long that fight took.

Kaylee: 00:10:05

And thankfully, you know, we, we ended up securing the victory.

Kaylee: 00:10:10

And those things are amazing.

Kaylee: 00:10:12

But that's a lot of time for a unserialized plastic piece which, by the way, didn't make bumps bump firing illegal.

Kaylee: 00:10:21

It just, it just was the bump stock that was illegal.

John: 00:10:24

Right.

Sean Herron: 00:10:24

And even though we ultimately came out on top there, the tough part is, is how many people destroyed their bump stocks, how many millions, tens of millions of dollars were lost while that all went on.

Sean Herron: 00:10:35

And okay, yeah, now we have this, this win later on.

Sean Herron: 00:10:39

But like, at that point, you know, the damage has been done.

Sean Herron: 00:10:43

And it's like I said earlier, it's so tough to crawl back from.

Sean Herron: 00:10:46

You know, they're gone.

Sean Herron: 00:10:47

You know, no one's really probably going to bring them to market again, maybe a little bit, but then they'll never hit the same way that they did that at once.

Sean Herron: 00:10:53

And to be honest, they're stupid.

Sean Herron: 00:10:54

But like, I fight for everything, no matter how stupid, because I I get it.

Sean Herron: 00:10:58

Like, I know that once they get rid of the stupid stuff, they come for the fun stuff.

John: 00:11:02

Couldn't agree more.

John: 00:11:03

Now, we really dove into this podcast from the beginning.

John: 00:11:07

Sean, why don't you introduce yourself to the people so they know who you are, other than me introducing you.

John: 00:11:14

So go ahead and tell a little bit about your background and what you do.

Sean Herron: 00:11:18

I don't know, man.

Sean Herron: 00:11:19

I do a podcast for a job, which feels like a very teenager thing to say.

Sean Herron: 00:11:25

It's almost like working at Chuck E.

Sean Herron: 00:11:26

Cheese.

Sean Herron: 00:11:27

I wear the mouse suit, and that's kind of what it is.

Sean Herron: 00:11:31

I started a podcast with a bunch of buddies 11 years ago, and at that time I was a software engineer and, you know, kicking butt and taking names and sitting in meetings and doing PowerPoints and writing code.

Sean Herron: 00:11:44

And then the podcast started to kind of like, take off on accident.

Sean Herron: 00:11:47

It wasn't a thing that I planned for or wanted to do.

Sean Herron: 00:11:50

The podcast is called we like Shooting.

Sean Herron: 00:11:51

And it just kind of took off.

Sean Herron: 00:11:54

And eventually I had to make a choice.

Sean Herron: 00:11:56

And so I decided to do the thing that let me shoot machine guns and touch giraffes and drive tanks instead of sitting behind a desk in a cubicle.

Sean Herron: 00:12:04

And I think I made the right choice.

Sean Herron: 00:12:05

It's.

Sean Herron: 00:12:05

It's been a lot of fun over the years.

Sean Herron: 00:12:07

I've done a ton of other stuff, but, you know, like, basically, I do a podcast for a job.

Sean Herron: 00:12:12

Yes, I know.

John: 00:12:14

And this is my favorite.

John: 00:12:15

We always talk about the.

John: 00:12:16

The on ramp to the second Amendment, and this is one of my favorite stories.

John: 00:12:22

How did you and your co host meet and.

John: 00:12:25

And such a.

John: 00:12:26

An eclectic group of people who also met together to join and do this podcast.

Sean Herron: 00:12:32

It is.

Sean Herron: 00:12:33

It is a weird thing.

Sean Herron: 00:12:34

So me and my buddy Aaron, we originally just.

Sean Herron: 00:12:37

I was getting into guns, and he was like, I'll get into guns too.

Sean Herron: 00:12:39

And so we started a website where we could post pictures of our guns, because I was a web developer, so that was very easy.

Sean Herron: 00:12:46

So we started posting pictures of our guns, and then we were like, well, maybe we'll, like, start an online magazine.

Sean Herron: 00:12:52

And then after about a couple weeks of that, we were like, oh, man, this is so much work.

Sean Herron: 00:12:57

We need to find some other people to help us out.

Sean Herron: 00:13:00

So we went to Reddit, and we literally just went and looked for people that were big mouths and had really strong opinions and were real jerks about telling you their opinions.

Sean Herron: 00:13:10

And we sent out queries to Jeremy.

Sean Herron: 00:13:13

He had posted a picture of an armory that he welded himself.

Sean Herron: 00:13:16

And so we said, hey, you want to write for a magazine.

Sean Herron: 00:13:19

And then Savage was our news correspondent.

Sean Herron: 00:13:23

Nick is like our master rifle builder out of Montana, but he's just a kid who was just really talented.

Sean Herron: 00:13:29

And all of them argued with us basically.

Sean Herron: 00:13:32

So we invited him and we started doing the podcast by accident.

Sean Herron: 00:13:35

But we, we just found all these real weirdos on Reddit back when it was not the cesspool that it is today.

John: 00:13:43

I mean, Jeremy, weirdo, that's like an understatement.

John: 00:13:47

I think.

Sean Herron: 00:13:50

All of us, all of us, like, what a weird, eclectic group that, you know, 11, maybe 12 years ago, because we didn't start the podcast right away, just suddenly like found each other.

Sean Herron: 00:14:00

And here we are this long later, still like buddies, friends, brothers, and doing the podcast every week.

Sean Herron: 00:14:08

It's.

Sean Herron: 00:14:08

It's pretty crazy.

John: 00:14:09

So after you guys did the podcast, you guys have been doing the podcast for a while.

John: 00:14:13

A couple years ago you bought.

John: 00:14:16

Well, it's been longer than a couple years.

John: 00:14:19

You bought the firearms.

John: 00:14:20

Seven years.

John: 00:14:23

You bought the Firearms Radio Network from Jake, who's the owner of Patriot Patch company, who makes awesome patches, by the way.

John: 00:14:31

But you bought the network.

John: 00:14:33

What made you buy the network and what did that process look like?

Sean Herron: 00:14:37

Man, I didn't want to buy the network.

Sean Herron: 00:14:40

A lot of everything I'll say today is by accident.

Sean Herron: 00:14:42

And it's true.

Sean Herron: 00:14:43

So we had gotten on the Firearms Radio Network at the beginning.

Sean Herron: 00:14:49

After a couple years, we became the number one downloaded show on the Firearms Radio Network.

Sean Herron: 00:14:53

And after about five years, Jake had just kind of had enough and didn't really want to run the network anymore.

Sean Herron: 00:14:58

So he offered it to me, I said no.

Sean Herron: 00:15:01

And then I started thinking about it after I talked to him and was like, what if somebody tries to boss me around?

Sean Herron: 00:15:07

Like, I can't.

Sean Herron: 00:15:07

I can't have that.

Sean Herron: 00:15:08

So I hit him back and took over the network.

Sean Herron: 00:15:11

And really over the last few years, I've spent a ton of time just trying to build it up and make it awesome, make it easy to post add technological advancements that nobody else really has, no other networks have, especially in the firearms space.

Sean Herron: 00:15:24

And I've really put thousands of hours into making it cool.

Sean Herron: 00:15:27

And again, just kind of by accident, just because I didn't want to be bossed around, is why this whole thing exists.

John: 00:15:33

And if you didn't know, you can listen to stay the second podcast on firearms radio network.

John: 00:15:38

Exactly.

Kaylee: 00:15:38

Firearmsradio.net so obviously owning the Firearms Radio Network, you are not only a big two way advocate, but you're also a big free speech advocate.

Kaylee: 00:15:54

How has that Been kind of transitioning from you posting a podcast to platform and creating a space for others to be able to share their thoughts and opinions.

Kaylee: 00:16:09

And, you know, the shows that you've chosen to curate on.

Kaylee: 00:16:14

On the network.

Sean Herron: 00:16:15

Yeah, I'll be honest, it was, for me, it was never really necessarily about.

Sean Herron: 00:16:24

We as freedom people are probably one of the most held down, held back, and perpetrated against groups.

Sean Herron: 00:16:33

And in recent memory, like, I'm not trying to demean what others have gone through in our history, but over the last decade, it's gotten pretty bad for us.

Sean Herron: 00:16:42

And so I never wanted to have like, this big firearms radio network to feel cool about anything.

Sean Herron: 00:16:49

I always wanted just to have it so me and the homies would have a place where we could talk about stuff and not have to worry about getting shut down all the time.

Sean Herron: 00:16:56

And it turns into this, you know, those personal selfish desires kind of turn into this big platform where a lot of people can speak their mind, say their piece, and not have to worry about big tech shutting us down.

Sean Herron: 00:17:09

And, like, I have contingency plans because obviously we do use portions.

Sean Herron: 00:17:13

But the best thing about podcasts is it's really hard to shut them down.

Sean Herron: 00:17:16

It's, you know, just a fundamental technology that the Internet's built off of with RSS feeds, so it's tough to shut it down.

Sean Herron: 00:17:23

And it was kind of, uh.

Sean Herron: 00:17:25

I listened to podcasts when I first started this, but they were all tech podcasts.

Sean Herron: 00:17:29

And it.

Sean Herron: 00:17:30

It just really has become this thing that is really hard to squelch, really hard to.

Sean Herron: 00:17:35

To silence.

Sean Herron: 00:17:37

And it has been awesome to kind of realize throughout the.

Sean Herron: 00:17:40

Throughout the time that I've been doing it, how important it is for all of our voices to be heard.

John: 00:17:45

Well, you.

John: 00:17:46

You talk about big tech shutting you down.

John: 00:17:48

Uh, I can count at least on all my fingers and toes the times you've been kicked off YouTube for doing something that they didn't like on a live stream, and you've now completely switched to Rumble for the most part.

John: 00:18:02

So what's that been like?

Sean Herron: 00:18:05

Yeah, we.

Sean Herron: 00:18:06

We've been kind of old school because we've been around so long.

Sean Herron: 00:18:10

We've been kicked, stabbed, prodded, and beat down by just about every major tech platform there is.

Sean Herron: 00:18:16

I have had my Amazon storage shut down at one point, just no explanation.

Sean Herron: 00:18:22

I've had our Facebook page, 200,000 people just deleted overnight.

Sean Herron: 00:18:27

We've lost five or six YouTube channels.

Sean Herron: 00:18:31

And now lately, YouTube has a rule.

Sean Herron: 00:18:35

I violate that rule at every opportunity because it's a dumb rule.

Sean Herron: 00:18:38

It's about Live streaming, you're not allowed to touch a gun during a live stream.

Sean Herron: 00:18:42

Which they do it because they don't want mass killers to live stream stuff and they want the ability in their community standards to shut that down quickly.

Sean Herron: 00:18:49

But for me, just trying to show off a gun, they're also like, oh, no, that's a violation of the standards.

Sean Herron: 00:18:54

And so they kick us off and delete our video and it just doesn't matter.

Sean Herron: 00:18:58

I don't care.

Sean Herron: 00:18:59

Rumble has really started to become a thing that I think is going to be pretty cool overall.

Sean Herron: 00:19:05

We.

Sean Herron: 00:19:06

After the last time I got, we got kicked off YouTube, I talked to the guys over at Rumble and I was like, you know what?

Sean Herron: 00:19:14

Yeah, I'll invest.

Sean Herron: 00:19:15

I'll, I'll put time, effort and energy into building our Rumble presence.

Sean Herron: 00:19:18

And, you know, now we're getting tons of traffic over there.

Sean Herron: 00:19:21

So it's been, it's been really good.

Sean Herron: 00:19:23

I think it still has a ton of room to grow.

Sean Herron: 00:19:25

And I think people are just sick of being suppressed.

Sean Herron: 00:19:28

And not just us, like weed people, cigarette people, alcohol people, like everyone.

Sean Herron: 00:19:34

Everyone's getting shut down on these platforms because advertisers don't like it.

Sean Herron: 00:19:37

And it's.

Sean Herron: 00:19:38

I'm just kind of sick of it.

Sean Herron: 00:19:39

So Rumble is kind of a no holds barred, free for all, and I'm here for it.

John: 00:19:44

Well, yeah, I mean, I've watched, I'm an avid watcher and listener of the we like shooting podcast.

John: 00:19:51

First time caller.

John: 00:19:55

But yeah, I've, I've seen, I was always watching it on YouTube and you guys were averaging like 90 to 100 people on a live stream on YouTube.

John: 00:20:05

And then I happen hop in the Rumble the one night and there's like a thousand people watching you on Rumble.

John: 00:20:12

And just the.

John: 00:20:13

That number growth was insane.

John: 00:20:15

And I, I know people were commenting like other people who have been watching for a while were like, wow, there's a lot more people in here than normal.

Sean Herron: 00:20:24

Yeah, for sure.

Sean Herron: 00:20:25

Our audio downloads through the podcast are 99.9% of our traffic.

Sean Herron: 00:20:30

And the video wasn't a ton.

Sean Herron: 00:20:33

But now that we've converted to Rumble, we went from, you know, hundreds of views on YouTube to 60, 70, 80, 90, 100,000 on Rumble.

Sean Herron: 00:20:39

And it's, it's been super cool to open up to this new audience and just to have a bunch of people.

Sean Herron: 00:20:44

And I can see it in our download stats that that video growth is driving our audio download stats, which is the one, the number that I truly care about.

John: 00:20:52

So we're talking about podcasts.

John: 00:20:55

You know, everybody A lot of people have talked about video in the gun industry.

John: 00:21:00

It's always been like, review videos and this advertising and that advertisement.

John: 00:21:04

But you.

John: 00:21:06

Your main focus is on the podcasting side.

John: 00:21:09

Why is podcasting so important to this industry?

John: 00:21:12

And seeing that growth and what is it, you know, what benefits does it have to advertisers?

Sean Herron: 00:21:19

Yeah, that's something that I spend a lot of time thinking about.

Sean Herron: 00:21:24

We never pioneered anything in podcast advertising.

Sean Herron: 00:21:29

I stole it from tech podcasts from a decade ago.

Sean Herron: 00:21:32

But I think, and studies seem to bear out the fact that because of the mechanism by which we deliver our content, meaning someone has headphones on, earbuds in, and they're at the gym, they're driving in their car, they're sitting there with us alone, whispering our sweet nothings into their ear, speaking of freedom and firearms.

Sean Herron: 00:21:56

And just because of the intimacy of that, I think that people remember it even more.

Sean Herron: 00:22:02

And we don't necessarily do ad reads as much as we just talk about our experiences with the products that we.

Sean Herron: 00:22:07

That we choose to represent.

Sean Herron: 00:22:09

So it just.

Sean Herron: 00:22:11

It's like a natural extension of the conversation, just in general.

Sean Herron: 00:22:14

And because people are generally focused or alone listening to our voices, they feel a part of it.

Sean Herron: 00:22:21

And because we have a lot of fun, they have a lot of fun.

Sean Herron: 00:22:24

And because we do our ads the way that we do, I think it just generally provides a ton of value, in my opinion.

Sean Herron: 00:22:31

And it seems to bear out, like we.

Sean Herron: 00:22:32

We get really good reports back from all of our advertisers on.

Sean Herron: 00:22:35

On how the podcasting advertising works.

John: 00:22:37

Well, and I think you're absolutely right.

John: 00:22:39

I mean, being able to grab somebody's attention and focus for more than five minutes has always been a pain.

John: 00:22:46

And we.

John: 00:22:46

We see this a lot with YouTube, average numbers and things like that.

John: 00:22:50

But being able to capture them in the car or at the gym while they're focused and they're listening to it is always a good thing.

John: 00:22:58

Now, you've been doing this for 11 years, and there's been a lot of memorable moments that us as the fans have shared with you.

John: 00:23:06

What are.

John: 00:23:06

Can you give me a top five memorable moments from.

John: 00:23:09

We like shooting from over the years?

Sean Herron: 00:23:13

Let's see, top five happened pretty early on back in the day.

Sean Herron: 00:23:19

We kind of randomly just had random people join, and we had this dude who hated we like shooting join us.

Sean Herron: 00:23:26

And just, you know, having him speak, and it turned in exactly what you think it would.

Sean Herron: 00:23:30

He just wanted attention, and so we gave him the attention.

Sean Herron: 00:23:34

But we had a lady named Lil who was a fantastic long Range rifle shooter, and he started disrespecting her.

Sean Herron: 00:23:41

And so I shut him down and kicked him off and said, nope, you're not going to talk through her like that on my watch.

Sean Herron: 00:23:48

And so I'm going chronologically, not necessarily order of impact, but I think that was.

Sean Herron: 00:23:54

That was a moment where I was like, okay, yeah, we can choose what's going to be said here.

Sean Herron: 00:23:58

And we have the ultimate power to just kick people off if we don't like what they're saying.

Sean Herron: 00:24:03

So not only was that a good moment for me, it also made me realize that with that power, we can never abuse it and we have to let people talk.

Sean Herron: 00:24:13

Which brings us to our next which.

Sean Herron: 00:24:15

Do you guys remember Voda?

John: 00:24:16

Yes, I was going to bring up Voda.

Sean Herron: 00:24:18

Yeah, that was.

Sean Herron: 00:24:19

That was an interesting one.

Sean Herron: 00:24:22

He was a firearms trainer that maybe shouldn't have been a firearms trainer, in my opinion.

Sean Herron: 00:24:28

And he did a lot of things on the Internet that raised a lot of eyebrows.

Sean Herron: 00:24:31

And so he came on our podcast and we were talking to him, and we're trying to give him an open, open opportunity to.

Sean Herron: 00:24:37

To speak his.

Sean Herron: 00:24:38

To speak his mind and talk about where he was coming from.

Sean Herron: 00:24:41

At one point, we had just kind of had enough of his nonsense, and my co host, Nick, he.

Sean Herron: 00:24:46

He turned to me and he's like, okay, I've had enough.

Sean Herron: 00:24:48

Can I.

Sean Herron: 00:24:49

Can I do it?

Sean Herron: 00:24:50

I was like, yep.

Sean Herron: 00:24:51

So he just dropped the hammer and called him out for all of his nonsense.

Sean Herron: 00:24:54

And it was, in my opinion, really well done.

Sean Herron: 00:24:56

It was respectful, but it really slapped down the nonsense.

Sean Herron: 00:25:00

And I thought it was a great moment.

Sean Herron: 00:25:03

We had Ed's manifesto on the show, and he told a story of his friend Yaramilo and a donkey show in Mexico.

Sean Herron: 00:25:14

And it was just like a really impactful moment on the show.

Sean Herron: 00:25:18

I still hear about it to this day.

Sean Herron: 00:25:19

It was years ago, just hilarious.

Sean Herron: 00:25:22

We were all just dying, laughing, crying, couldn't talk.

Sean Herron: 00:25:25

It was.

Sean Herron: 00:25:26

It was pretty great.

Sean Herron: 00:25:28

You're definitely looking for episode 171 in this line of questioning.

Sean Herron: 00:25:34

So I was going through a rough time in my life, and, you know, one of the things that we do is drink alcohol on the show and, you know, just have fun hanging with our buddies.

Sean Herron: 00:25:44

Well, I drank too much alcohol.

Sean Herron: 00:25:47

Way too much.

Sean Herron: 00:25:48

I don't actually remember episode 171, but I hear that it was just an absolute cluster.

Sean Herron: 00:25:54

So I hear about that one a lot.

Sean Herron: 00:25:55

I've never listened, but it was terrible and, you know, not my finest moment, I'll admit.

Sean Herron: 00:26:00

And, John, I go for the Fifth one.

Sean Herron: 00:26:01

I go, what do you think?

Sean Herron: 00:26:03

What did I miss?

John: 00:26:05

Oh, I mean, the one with Maria was pretty good.

John: 00:26:10

That was funny.

Sean Herron: 00:26:12

Oh, yeah, the.

Sean Herron: 00:26:13

Yeah, Dremel.

Sean Herron: 00:26:14

Yeah.

Sean Herron: 00:26:14

Yeah, I remember which one.

John: 00:26:16

And then.

Sean Herron: 00:26:19

Yeah, some of them I just can't talk about.

Sean Herron: 00:26:21

I'm like, I can't say that on your podcast.

John: 00:26:23

Yeah, the 171 was probably the.

John: 00:26:27

The best.

John: 00:26:28

Because you gave up.

Sean Herron: 00:26:29

Yeah.

Sean Herron: 00:26:29

There was one where we did it live in Vegas and I fell down the stairs coming back from the bathroom.

Sean Herron: 00:26:35

That was.

Sean Herron: 00:26:35

That was one.

Sean Herron: 00:26:36

Anyway, yeah, our podcast is a little bit more Howard Stern than Fox News, and as you can tell from that, greatest hits.

Sean Herron: 00:26:44

It's slightly embarrassing because I'm a grown man.

Sean Herron: 00:26:46

I shouldn't be acting like this, but I do.

John: 00:26:48

But.

John: 00:26:48

Yeah, but the best part about being friends with you in the podcast, and this kind of goes into the community that you've built and that we've built as Goa.

John: 00:26:58

And as you know, you and I have known each other for such a long time.

John: 00:27:03

The amount of stories of us hanging out, the monster can and Washington, the stealing of Cones, the Jeremy and Daniel defense, the list goes on and on.

John: 00:27:20

And that's what this whole.

John: 00:27:22

And again, if it wasn't for the 2A and us being in this 2A, we built this culture and friendship of, you know, because of guns, because of this.

John: 00:27:32

We have this community that we all get to hang out in and have fun.

John: 00:27:36

And then the.

John: 00:27:40

The words are not coming to my mouth.

Sean Herron: 00:27:42

Camaraderie.

John: 00:27:43

Thank you.

John: 00:27:43

Camaraderie.

John: 00:27:44

There it goes.

John: 00:27:46

And friendship that we have that.

John: 00:27:49

I don't think that would have been possible without the 2A.

Sean Herron: 00:27:51

Oh, yeah.

Sean Herron: 00:27:52

100.

Sean Herron: 00:27:53

Yeah.

Sean Herron: 00:27:53

I would still be a software developer, just, you know, hanging out, chilling in my cube.

John: 00:27:59

Yeah.

Sean Herron: 00:28:00

And, yeah, two ways enrich my life in ways that I can never even.

Sean Herron: 00:28:04

Never even articulate.

Sean Herron: 00:28:06

Honestly.

Sean Herron: 00:28:06

It's just been such a wonderful thing.

Sean Herron: 00:28:08

And the people that I've met are some of the people that I'm closest to in my entire life.

Sean Herron: 00:28:11

So it's.

Sean Herron: 00:28:12

It's.

Sean Herron: 00:28:12

It's special, and it's a great, special community full of people that I would trust my life to.

John: 00:28:18

Now.

Kaylee: 00:28:18

That's awesome.

Kaylee: 00:28:19

Now we just crossed over the.

Kaylee: 00:28:22

The halfway mark on this podcast.

Kaylee: 00:28:25

And that means that it is time for our from the Surface Soap Box segment where we tackle one of the more controversial issues happening within the Second Amendment community and get your hot takes and all of the spice and all that comes with being on your soapbox.

Kaylee: 00:28:49

So the topic that we're tackling this week is gun owners and hunters apathy.

Kaylee: 00:28:57

At the time that we're filming this, it is before the election.

Kaylee: 00:29:01

I'm not quite sure when this episode is going to be released, but kind of take us through your hot takes.

Sean Herron: 00:29:09

Yeah, I've actually been going off on tangents lately on this.

Sean Herron: 00:29:14

It's a really concerning thing.

Sean Herron: 00:29:17

And I think that a lot of people feel disenfranchised, disenchanted with the system.

Sean Herron: 00:29:23

I think that they feel like their vote doesn't matter.

Sean Herron: 00:29:26

And in some cases, they're right.

Sean Herron: 00:29:28

And they just, you know, people are like, oh, I got to go to work.

Sean Herron: 00:29:31

I can't take the time to do that.

Sean Herron: 00:29:33

And there's got to be some tough love.

Sean Herron: 00:29:37

Like, people like that are the first people to complain online when something happens that they don't like.

Sean Herron: 00:29:43

e mag ban here in Colorado in: 2013

Sean Herron: 00:29:47

If it was different, if it was today, I would fight tooth and nail to the end.

Sean Herron: 00:29:52

But here we are because of, you know, my lack of.

Sean Herron: 00:29:58

I don't know, because of my lack of passion about the topic.

Sean Herron: 00:30:01

You know, I could have inspired maybe some other people.

Sean Herron: 00:30:04

So on my show recently, I've been talking very much about, if you don't vote, then you should probably just shut up.

Sean Herron: 00:30:11

If you don't vote, I'm embarrassed of you.

Sean Herron: 00:30:14

Like, there is going to be a president selected.

Sean Herron: 00:30:16

You don't have to like either one of them, but one of them is going to be selected.

Sean Herron: 00:30:20

You might as well pick one that probably identifies a little better with some of your values than the other.

Sean Herron: 00:30:24

I'm not saying who to vote for.

Sean Herron: 00:30:26

I'm just saying if you don't vote, you're an embarrassment.

Sean Herron: 00:30:28

If you don't vote, you don't get to talk later.

Sean Herron: 00:30:31

If you don't vote.

Sean Herron: 00:30:32

And if some of your friends don't vote, like, maybe think about who you're friends with, because they are absolutely the ones who will sit down, sign a petition, talk crap on the Internet.

Sean Herron: 00:30:41

And it's just, I've had enough of it.

Sean Herron: 00:30:43

I've gotten a ton of messages from people lately that are like, oh, well, I was one of those guys.

Sean Herron: 00:30:49

And, you know, listening to you lambast me has.

Sean Herron: 00:30:53

Has kind of changed my theory.

Sean Herron: 00:30:54

And they're sending me their ballots now showing me that they voted.

Sean Herron: 00:30:56

And I think that's awesome.

Sean Herron: 00:30:57

I think that bullying is kind of a thing that we might need to bring back a little bit, especially for people who choose not to vote, because, you know they're going to they're going to be loud later, but don't let them.

Sean Herron: 00:31:05

If you know somebody who doesn't vote, try to get them to vote.

Sean Herron: 00:31:08

I think it's really super important.

Sean Herron: 00:31:10

And if they don't, just bully them until they do.

Kaylee: 00:31:13

Well, I think the apathy within gun ownership when it comes to advocacy, when it comes to voting is for a lot of people who live in conservative states, this false security of, oh, it's, they're not going to come after me.

Kaylee: 00:31:35

They're not going to come after, you know, you hear this argument, I think primarily unfortunately in the hunting space, you know, oh, well, you know, that doesn't apply to me.

Kaylee: 00:31:47

That's for the people who are purchasing body armor and want to have, you know, xyz.

Kaylee: 00:31:56

But we've seen more and more egregious steps by the federal government from the Department of the Interior wanting to do a lead ammo ban or the changing of funding to completely remove hunter education classes from the school, completely demolishing the on ramp for many people to get involved with the second amendment and have any kind of baseline safety training and capacity to understand, hey, I, this is my constitutionally protected right.

Kaylee: 00:32:35

This is my first introduction to this and the flip side of allowing these attacks.

Kaylee: 00:32:44

And thankfully so far we've been successful in thwarting these attacks, but they're just getting more aggressive.

Kaylee: 00:32:52

And so if you're sitting back and you think, oh well, you know, it's not going to happen to my little section of the gun owners universe that I live in, or I'm safe, maybe you are, but what about your children or your grandchildren?

Kaylee: 00:33:11

What about the next generation of gun owners?

Kaylee: 00:33:14

What about the people who aren't fortunate enough to live in a, you know, a red state with good gun laws that just passed constitutional carry?

Kaylee: 00:33:25

You know, your vote has an impact outside of just the president or the vice president, you know, especially if you live in a state with a Senate race that is, you know, closing in on the gap.

Kaylee: 00:33:44

You know, it's not just about you.

Kaylee: 00:33:47

It's about making sure that we have a Senate that is going to secure the filibuster so that we have another way to kill things.

Kaylee: 00:33:58

It's securing the Senate so that we get good pro gun constitutionalist conservative judges that are going to be instrumental in fighting things like the quote unquote high capacity magazine bans in Colorado or California.

Kaylee: 00:34:18

And so you might be looking at these things going, well, you know, it doesn't really impact me or maybe I can sit on the fence, but it's way More than just the presidency that is, you know, on the line for gun owners.

Kaylee: 00:34:31

The second amendment is on the ballot.

Kaylee: 00:34:33

And that's not a campaign slogan.

Kaylee: 00:34:36

That's not, that's not a, that is a public service announcement.

Kaylee: 00:34:41

There are so many things, especially, especially this time with the Senate up for grabs that are mandatory for us as gun owners to win.

Kaylee: 00:34:49

You know, it's incumbent upon us as individuals.

Sean Herron: 00:34:54

Yeah, the saying I don't even, I won't do it justice.

Sean Herron: 00:34:58

But you know, when they came for the bum stocks, it didn't affect me, so I didn't participate.

Sean Herron: 00:35:02

And then when they came for the they are 15s, well, I just hunt and I don't participate.

Sean Herron: 00:35:07

Well here now in Colorado, we have a proposition on the ballot that out of state woke conservationists want to take away our ability to hunt mountain lions here in Colorado, which is a thing that we do to keep the ecosystem healthy.

Sean Herron: 00:35:18

And you know that it hurts their feelings so they are trying to outlaw it.

Sean Herron: 00:35:22

And a lot of them are not even from here in state.

Sean Herron: 00:35:24

So you know, now because the hunters didn't stick up for those other things.

Sean Herron: 00:35:29

Now the, now the hunters are under the gun and I think we all just need to understand that if it shoots a projectile, we need to fight for it.

Sean Herron: 00:35:36

If there's any kind of freedom whatsoever, we need to fight for it.

Sean Herron: 00:35:38

It's, it's huge and it's important.

Sean Herron: 00:35:41

And if we don't figure out how to make time, then we should just shut up because, you know, later is too late.

Sean Herron: 00:35:47

Now is the time, take action.

Sean Herron: 00:35:49

And if not, just you're an embarrassment, I gotta say.

John: 00:35:53

I mean that's, that's well said.

John: 00:35:55

I mean you, you and I have talked in depth and you've brought it up in the past about living in our echo chamber.

John: 00:36:01

It seems like now it's, it's really important for us to get out of our echo chamber and look at it and go, okay, this is what this is election.

John: 00:36:11

Not this, not just this election, but every election means.

John: 00:36:15

And not only are you, are we looking at it from a one vote thing, but we also have to look at it like this is our constitutional given rights that could be taken away.

John: 00:36:26

And you put it best, you know, the bump stop got taken away.

John: 00:36:29

What's next?

John: 00:36:30

And we always, we always give this inch and push this goal line further and further.

John: 00:36:34

We talk, we've talked about this in the past where we push, we learn, okay, yeah, we'll give them this or yeah, we give them this and then it takes us years to Fight back to where we just started, from now.

John: 00:36:46

And I know, you know, I've said it before, and I'm going to say it again.

John: 00:36:51

The Dems are really good at one thing, and that's pushing, pushing, pushing and being the loudest person in the room.

John: 00:36:57

And conservatives, we are, as conservatives, we are very quiet and we just want to be left alone and we.

John: 00:37:02

To have our freedoms.

John: 00:37:03

Now is the time for us to go.

John: 00:37:05

Nah, that's enough.

Sean Herron: 00:37:07

Yeah, yeah, I hear all the time they're like, well, they're always just constantly pushing and.

Sean Herron: 00:37:11

Well, it's.

Sean Herron: 00:37:12

Now's not the time to push for, you know, constitutional carry across the United States.

Sean Herron: 00:37:16

No, it is time.

Sean Herron: 00:37:17

Push everything.

Sean Herron: 00:37:17

Push every single possible case that you can afford to push, because that's what they're doing.

Sean Herron: 00:37:22

And eventually, you know, I, I always live by the motto that if you say something enough, it becomes true.

Sean Herron: 00:37:28

And that's exactly what they are doing and what they have done.

Sean Herron: 00:37:30

And we need to fight back just as much and fight for every inch and introduce every nonsense thing that we could think of just to constantly keep it all tied up and keep it in the public zeitgeist and make sure people are talking about it.

Kaylee: 00:37:42

Yeah.

Kaylee: 00:37:43

And that's kind of speaking back to our core philosophy at Goa of being no compromise.

Kaylee: 00:37:49

It sounds like we're being rude.

Kaylee: 00:37:53

We're not.

Kaylee: 00:37:54

It's understanding that your right does not come from the government.

Kaylee: 00:37:58

It is constitutionally protected and therefore they can't take it away.

Kaylee: 00:38:04

And when you understand that and you understand the 27 words that were penned by our founders protecting that right and knowing that they didn't mince it, and when you take all of that into consideration and you understand that we have the high ground, we have the resolution to defend our protected right.

Kaylee: 00:38:28

And so you can't just roll over and capitulate and give them this or give them that, you have to be fighting vigilantly and at every level.

Kaylee: 00:38:42

I think that we've seen that victory can come from this.

Kaylee: 00:38:47

Because if you go back to the Second Amendment sanctuary ordinances, which were those county, state, local municipalities, and you see where we started with those, when Virginia wanted to pass that massive gun control and all of those.

Kaylee: 00:39:07

What was that shot show it was happening simultaneously.

Kaylee: 00:39:11

It's the vcdl and GOA has been a part of it for many years.

Kaylee: 00:39:16

Lobby day in Virginia.

Kaylee: 00:39:17

And it was 21.

Kaylee: 00:39:18

20.

Kaylee: 00:39:19

Yeah, 20.

Kaylee: 00:39:20

21.

Kaylee: 00:39:20

And so right after that, you had the Second Amendment sanctuary ordinances, and they went all across the country.

Kaylee: 00:39:27

You can still go on our Website, download a template.

Kaylee: 00:39:30

If your county doesn't have one, go ahead and get it passed.

Kaylee: 00:39:35

It's actually very easy to do and we all of the instructions are there.

Kaylee: 00:39:41

I promise you're going to be great.

Kaylee: 00:39:44

But you go and you get it passed.

Kaylee: 00:39:46

And then we saw that turn into constitutional carry and second amendment preservation acts all across the country.

Kaylee: 00:39:55

And now you have the momentum working in gun owners favor to where we have over 50% of the country is now in a constitutional carry state, some form of permitless carry.

Kaylee: 00:40:08

And we're going to continue to fight for more of those.

Kaylee: 00:40:12

But again, it all started because we stopped that baseline apathy and we got involved as the grassroots and then it's been more and more and more people jumping on board and that's what it's going to take to achieve victory, especially long term victory.

John: 00:40:35

Also you just said we have the high ground in front of a bunch of Star wars nerds.

John: 00:40:40

So that's all I can think about for last I listen to all that fair.

John: 00:40:45

We are Obi Wan.

John: 00:40:46

We have the high ground.

Sean Herron: 00:40:48

Exactly.

Sean Herron: 00:40:50

Exactly.

Sean Herron: 00:40:51

But yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

Sean Herron: 00:40:52

I didn't even know that you guys had that template for the sanctuary state.

Sean Herron: 00:40:55

That is super cool.

Sean Herron: 00:40:56

And you know what?

Sean Herron: 00:40:58

All the people who hate all the things that we stand for, they're out there sitting around all day thinking of ways that they, they can, you know, infringe upon our rights.

Sean Herron: 00:41:07

I think that, you know, if you have some spare time, think of ways to, to strengthen our rights.

Sean Herron: 00:41:13

They.

Sean Herron: 00:41:13

They choose to destroy.

Sean Herron: 00:41:14

We just want to build.

John: 00:41:17

Well said.

John: 00:41:17

Well, we are at the 45 minute mark so we're going to go ahead and wrap this up.

John: 00:41:23

Sean, go ahead and plug away socials.

John: 00:41:26

Where do people find you all the above?

Sean Herron: 00:41:29

Oh man, you can just search for we like shooting anywhere and it'll come up.

Sean Herron: 00:41:33

Subscribe to the podcast, listen to it.

Sean Herron: 00:41:35

It's fun.

Sean Herron: 00:41:35

But you can find all the best gun podcasts outdoors podcasts@farmarsradio.net and that's that.

Sean Herron: 00:41:42

That's pretty much it.

Sean Herron: 00:41:43

Just.

Sean Herron: 00:41:43

Yeah, we like shooting anywhere.

Sean Herron: 00:41:45

You'll find it right there.

John: 00:41:47

I'm gonna let you do the outro.

John: 00:41:49

You do your outro.

John: 00:41:50

Cuz it's one of the best outros.

John: 00:41:51

I don't think Haley's heard it.

John: 00:41:52

So go ahead and do your outro for we like shooting.

Sean Herron: 00:41:55

I mean just genuinely.

Sean Herron: 00:41:57

I say it all the time because I want it to stick in people's head.

Sean Herron: 00:41:59

It's nothing that I wrote.

Sean Herron: 00:42:00

It's just something that I co opted and stole like the memes, and that's that we should always choose dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

John: 00:42:08

Awesome.

John: 00:42:09

Well, thank you guys for watching.

John: 00:42:10

Make sure to, like, share and subscribe.

John: 00:42:12

And like Sean said, have a great rest of your day.