Stephen Gutowski 0:00 All these consoles top 1.3 million, the CDC turns back to gun research and an interview with john Foley of active self protection that no on this episode of the weekly reload, gave him poison, just for fun. All right, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Stephen Gutowski, I'm the host of the weekly reload podcast and the founder of the reload.com. This week, we have a number of big stories, I have my fellow contributing writer here, Jake fogelman, who is one of our top writers at the reload. Here to discuss the news of the week before we get into our interview with john Korea from active self protection, we're trying out a new format here of how to present the actual news update portion, I think it'll go a little bit smoother. It'll be a little bit more energy to it, hopefully, and maybe a better listening experience for everyone. But I think we'll start with Jake's story about the CDC director coming out and making a new commitment to millions of dollars worth of funding for gun research. Jake, can you tell us a little bit more about what the director said this week? Jake Fogleman 1:10 Sure. So yeah, CDC director, Rochelle will insky was on a exclusive interview with CNN. And she basically said that the CDC is going to make a concerted effort to dig into more gun violence research. In light of the rising crime statistics. She was very forthright about acknowledging the controversy associated with that. She said she really wants to include gun owners as part of it. And just have a group effort and digging into gun violence research, which she claims has been woefully under studied over the last couple of decades. Stephen Gutowski 1:47 Right, yeah. And obviously gun owners have a fairly legitimate reason to be skeptical of her claims. At this point, there. There is, in fact, a a specific reason that the funding for an CDC gun related research was effectively cut off. I mean, technically, it was only removed for for funds that would go towards promoting gun control. Now that created an atmosphere that, you know, opponents of the band claim that it created an atmosphere where there just wasn't any willingness by the CDC to fund gun research until you saw a lot less of it. But certainly not it didn't go away completely in that time period. And the problem was that prominent members of CDC leadership in the 1990s, were actively talking about cutting off or going after the concept of gun ownership in America, trying to make it like cigarette smoking, where it's, you know, dirty and banned, was, I believe the quote, or part of the quote, and which is something that I wrote about this week, in a members piece as well, talking about how the CDC needs to tread lightly in this area, if they really do want cooperation from gun owners, and don't just want to sow more dissension or more skepticism of the institution, which obviously is trying to deal with a global pandemic right now, which also, of course, raises questions about why the CDC director felt the need to do this interview at this time, especially when gun control organizations have been criticizing the President and the White House for not doing all of the initiatives that they had wanted them to. So you had that happen. And then you had the CDC director come out and make this proclamation. And obviously, it's fair for gun owners and gun rights activists to look at that situation and be very skeptical of what the CDC is actually going to do. But on that front, we do know already some of what they're putting this money towards, right? Jake Fogleman 4:14 Yeah, they were going to look at the root causes of gun violence, I think was their specific goal. Addressing why people choose to take up arms and commit crimes with guns specifically. So as of yet, they're not wading into the overtly political waters that they did back in the 90s. She made it a point to really emphasize that they want to find the causes of gun violence rather than how guns play a role in and other avenues of American life. Stephen Gutowski 4:43 Yeah, although there is one study that's been funded by the CDC that could potentially lead to an outcome or you know, a conclusion that is very controversial political, it has to do with the Studying local gun ownership rates and then comparing gun violence rates in those areas to other areas with different quote unquote gun gun safety policies, which oftentimes in that context means gun control laws. So we'll have to see how these studies actually turn out in the end. Certainly. Many of them are about gun violence interruption type programs or understanding, like you said, the root causes of gun violence. So it's not impossible to see legit, you know, legitimate dispassionate research come out of this funding Avenue. But, again, as I wrote in the members only piece, it's not necessarily something that is probably going to get a lot of gunners excited and make them feel comfortable with what the administration is doing here. Jake Fogleman 6:04 That's exactly right. And so, Stephen, you wrote a piece this week, talking about the August gun sales that just came out? Archie, tell us a little bit about that. Stephen Gutowski 6:15 Yeah, certainly. They just dropped the numbers this week actually came out very fast. Usually, the FBI takes couple days to process all the background checks and put out the numbers. And then the, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which analyzes the numbers is a trade group that represents, you know, gun businesses, gun retailers, takes them a while to go through the coding on these background check data to figure out which ones are actually gun sales and which ones are things like gun carry permits, so that they can put together their report on how many guns were actually sold in the month, but for August's that they came out on the first day of September. So Good job, everyone involved on the speed of that one. But the numbers are impressive, there is the second highest gun sales level that we've ever seen for August 2 only to 2020. That is down significantly from 2020. About, I believe it was 23%. But it still equates to 1.3 million guns sold just in the month of August, two Americans. So it's quite a lot. It also represents the continuation of a new trend, a new normal for gun sales, which is basically the second best ever, for 2021, second only to 2020. So you're seeing this plateau occur. Where, yes, the gun industry is no longer setting new records every month for gun sales. But they're just below those record numbers, they have not dipped down below 2019 numbers. In fact, 2021 is has almost through August, equal the full year of 2029, their 2019 gun sales, so they're still selling guns at an incredible rate. You've seen gun companies, rake in huge profits. In fact, their profits are only accelerating in the first half of 2021 at Ruger and Winchester has two major examples of that. So while we're seeing sales slowed down a little bit, the gun companies themselves have not slowed down at all. And I would expect that they're, you know, stock prices are probably going to benefit from that, in the short term at least. And this new level of gun sales settling out well above the 2016 to 2019 levels, and, frankly, the 2012 to 2016 levels before that, it likely means that more Americans are buying more guns, which is good news for the gun rights movement. And then of course for the gun companies. So we'd look to see how things are going to go from here to because we're actually coming up on the best season for gun sales. The Fall tends to see higher gun sales than any other time during the year outside of 2020 where that was, there were so many other motivations, including COVID. And the writing and racial unrest, police relations, police brutality, led a lot of new people to gun stores at times where he would usually see a drop off in sales, you know, March and you know, June, we saw an increase, but this year has been closer to the traditional, you know, high sales in spring and then a drop off in the summer and then we will likely see much higher sales coming up here in the fall as we go The hunting season and holiday season where people buy guns for each other. How do you sleep Black Friday tends to be the biggest gun sales day of the year, like with a lot of other products out there, but I think it'll be interesting to watch just how high 2020 ones gun sales numbers are going to get. And you're going to see, as well, you know, as well as that positive effect on Gun Company, bottom lines and their stock prices, you're very likely to see continued shortages, as well of both guns and ammo moving forward, especially with the new ban from the administration on Russian imported ammunition. Jake Fogleman 10:41 Absolutely. And in your reporting, did you see anything that would indicate why we've seen such sustained levels of high sales? Obviously, you pointed to last year, with the rioting and the pandemic. It spurred a lot of people to buy guns, but you know, the pandemic has kind of waned? It's still around, obviously. But why do you think we still see the second highest gun? Yeah, numbers? Stephen Gutowski 11:02 I think that's actually really interesting question because like, we've seen a lot of the motivating factors from 2020 decrease, at the very least you've seen COVID is obviously still around in the Delta variant is obviously wreaking more havoc than I think anyone expected it to where we're getting terrible levels of disease throughout the country now. But people the initial shock of COVID has obviously worn off and people are more used to dealing with it now. So that motivation to run out to the gun store to buy a gun is not the same I would imagine today as it was in March 2020. And then you've also seen the writing from summer of 2020, dissipate as well. So a lot of those sort of unique motivating factors have gone away. But at the same time, you still have that political motivator. And the nssf. spokesperson, Mark Oliver told me basically this exact thing that, you know, President Joe Biden is pursuing a very aggressive gun control agenda, which would include all kinds of new bans on ownership of different kinds of guns. And in fact, as pushing through several executive actions, on things like pistol braces, and ghost gun, your so called ghost gun kits, you know, redefining the definition of what constitutes a firearm, things like that, which could have significant impact to millions of people. And that motivates people to buy to buy guns, they are concerned that be successful and getting what he wants, even though obviously, Congress is fairly deadlocked on this issue and unlikely to produce new legislation, there are things that the President can do and has done, again, with the mo ban, that drive people to want to buy guns, just in case, he's able to find some new way to get the guns that they want to buy. I mean, the the ammo ban really is perfect example that because most people didn't expect that to happen there. There wasn't like something that was talked about early on in his administration, or before he became president as a real possibility, it was something that they found, they could do, or at least found that they would like to try to do recently, and so that they put that into effect. And that's likely to drive up the sale of ammunition in the short term. So I think that's really the big motivator left is politics. And plus, he saw a lot of new people coming into the sport last year. So those people are probably some percentage of those people are probably buying more guns now and more ammunition, and that that's led to sustain demand as well. So it'll be interesting to see what happens going forward. But I wouldn't expect the demand to crater anytime soon, that's for sure. But I do have another members only piece talking about this new trend, the new normal for gun sales over at the reload, where if you join today, you actually will get not just access to those pieces. We mentioned the members only pieces, but you will get access to this podcast a day early. So make sure you head over to the reload comm and check us out, see what we see what's on offer. join the free newsletter, if you haven't already. That'll give you some insight into the kinds of pieces that Jake and I are writing. And if you support what we're doing, we're 100% reader funded independent publication. We rely on membership, sales to make the reloader a thing that continues. So go ahead and sign up today. But Next up, we've got john Korea from active self protection, we're here to talk to him. And then we have a new, another new segment where I interview one of the real members themselves to see what they're all about. See what some of the people who do subscribe, actually are like and we're hoping to continue that that sort of The segment going forward here. So also if you ever want to be on the podcast, feel free to email me respond to one of the members emails that goes out every Sunday and see if we can have you on. All right, we're here with john Korea from active self protection. JOHN, won't you introduce yourself to anyone who might not know who you are? Well, hi, I'm John Correia 15:22 john Korea from active self protection like you said, active self protection if you know me, you know me from YouTube, I run two YouTube channels the big one called active self protection where everyday people send me real life surveillance videos of defensive encounters, armed robberies, carjackings, muggings, home invasions, and I do after action reports on them for education. So every single day, seven days a week we post a new defensive encounter three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we post badge cams as well. So people understand what law enforcement encounters are. Those serve a dual purpose for training law enforcement officers as well as training the general public. second channel active self protection extra not quite as big big channel has around two and a half million subscribers. Second channels a little smaller, active self protection extra, we upload eight videos a week there where we teach good, sane, sober, moral, prudent people self defense. And we also do an instructor certification. We now have our own podcast we do live in person events, traveling teach all over the country. And I am kind of sort of known now as the john madden of on camera violence. Stephen Gutowski 16:28 Is that because you also look a little bit like john madden or, you know, I don't know if that's a compliment or not, but I'm just kidding. But no, I think you're I think that that's actually pretty good breakdown as far as like you do. You've run through these encounters in a way that like john madden used to do with is when you break down the plays on on Monday Night Football, but, uh, you know, I think that you have one of the best YouTube channels out there when it comes to guns, and certainly one of the most interesting and verifiable, maybe approaches to self defense training, because of the way that that you guys handle that and the class that you teach. Well, that's are based off of that sort of research. Well, yeah, John Correia 17:16 thank you it I started the videos because I was someone lifelong, not lifelong. I'm a 15 year martial artists. You know, I'm, I'm a master firearms instructor as well, I've got 1100 hours or so in gun school. I love that I got all kinds of certifications, all that stuff. But but it started because I was in martial arts and studying with my son. And somebody sent me a video that I was like, like, have a real knife attack, like a real one. And I was watching it on my Blackberry. that'll tell you how old this is. And I was like, Whoa, and I took it to my martial arts school and showed my teacher and I was like, teacher, like, like, Professor, I don't know what to do here. And he was like, Okay, well, let's workshop an answer to that kind of attack. And we worked in class for an hour and a half. And I felt like, not that I had mastered it, but that I at least had something for that kind of thing. And I walked off the mats going, Wow, we actually used what happened to somebody in real life, to inform our training. And that right, there is evidence basis for training rather than, well, this is some way someone might attack, you know, here's how we see somebody do it in real life. So then I just started posting them and see, and here's an example. Here's an example. Here's an example. And after a while, we got 2000 some odd videos on the big channel. Now after a while you start to see real patterns emerge. And you see things that both the defensive training community firearms community, the martial arts community, things that they absolutely love that we never see in real life and other things that they don't really pay a lot of attention to. And yet we see all the time in real life. And so that just made us focus on what we were going to do. And that's why I call myself an evidence based defensive trainer. Stephen Gutowski 18:51 Yeah. And so what are the what are some of your biggest takeaways in that regard? Like, what are some of the biggest myths in self defense training out there? And what are some of the biggest real life things that you see in your work that don't get emphasized in in self defense training? John Correia 19:10 So the funny part is this one, okay, I'm a gun school junkie and a firearms trainer, right? So like, I want to get students in class. This is one of the ways that I get paid. And yet, I'm going to probably anger some training junkie friends with this. I see real people use firearms, as noisemakers as a rattlesnake rattle successfully all the time. So when people say why are you an absolutist john on the right to keep and bear arms? Shouldn't people have to have training you know, the reality is I see untrained people use firearms and not hit a thing I'm talking about they're basically doing an other guy's desk pop with the gun and it successfully Ward's off bad guys. And now I don't think that's a good thing because I you know, Obviously those bullets come to rest somewhere and that can endanger someone. But it almost never actually causes any harm. And yet it causes bad guys to scatter. And so when I say do I wish all people would get trained Absolutely, so that they have the best chance of immediately ending the threat. But you know what untrained people use guns all the time to and they use them very successfully, whether they hit anything or not. Stephen Gutowski 20:23 So carry your gun. Yeah. No, absolutely. And, you know, that actually comes up, I think fairly regularly in debates over permitless carry or constitutional carry. Texas just got it. Yeah, you see that a lot. And that was an issue in Texas, specifically, where you had some, you know, concealed carry trainers arguing that they shouldn't remove the requirement for a permit, because then you'd have untrained people carrying a gun. John Correia 20:52 This is exactly the argument they made in Arizona. So Arizona passed constitutional care in 2009, went into effect in July of 2010. And the two arguments from the one argument from the non gun crowd is there will be blood on the highways, right? You know that people were going to have gun fights in Walmart parking lots that never materialized. The other big opposition was from firearms trainers, and particularly CCW trainers who were like, no, this is what keeps people safe, which of course, I said, That's hogwash, right? I think that the funny part in Arizona at least, is that they cut a bunch of the DPS staff who was processing CCW permits when constitutional carry was enacted, thinking nobody's going to need a permit. Nobody wants a permit anymore. And the permit numbers actually went up after constitutional carry, because, number one, you get reciprocity. Number two, I think most people go Yeah, but I still want that education. Stephen Gutowski 21:45 And so certainly, you know, and obviously, like you said earlier, I don't think anyone out there advocates, even those who who want to see the repeal of permit requirements for for gun carry. I don't think anyone advocates that know that you shouldn't get training, you shouldn't be responsible. Obviously, you offer training directly to people. So you're clearly not of the mindset that people shouldn't get written, you know, training or be responsible for themselves something John Correia 22:14 the government should, bureaucracy should oversee that. And and the government never almost never does a good job of establishing standards and maintaining them. So it's the same thing that I tell people listen. Should you get training on responsibly practicing your right to free worship? Yeah, I think you should. Do I want the government overseeing and mandating that? Oh, sweet lord? No. Of course I should. Should my journalist friends get good training to be responsible journalists? Absolutely. Should the federal government or any government for that matter, oversee the licensure of journalists and and enact training standards? Heck, no. Stephen Gutowski 23:01 No? Yes, I am certainly in agreement with you there. And I frankly, I think a lot of journalists would view Second Amendment restrictions differently if they ever thought to compare it to first amendment strict restrictions. That and which is a lens that I commonly view this issue through, personally, but But yeah, you know, certainly, one of the things that interests me about active self protection, and especially the success of the main channel on YouTube, is your approach is basically entirely educational. Videos are not meant for entertainment, and in fact, many of them are, are rather hard to watch, obviously, because they involve real world violence, but how, you know, what, what would you attribute your success with growing that channel to when most popular gun channels on YouTube are really just straight up? entertainment, you know, something like demolition rancher, or any number of these other channels that feature you know, just different wacky things being done with guns, a lot of fun to watch, certainly, but very different from what you're doing. John Correia 24:16 It really is. I mean, I don't really consider the main active self protection channel, a gun channel, it is an education channel. So I say on YouTube, you can do two things you can either educate or you can entertain. It's best if you do both. I think that because no one else was doing what I was doing when I started doing and I really created a market segment with the narrated, you know, after action reports. So because of that, and I think I kind of have the market cornered there. I'm kind of a monopoly. I'm not I mean, it's a big internet, right? I mean, anybody can do that. I mean, I've heard people say this to me. Well, you know, john, anyone could do what you do. And my usual response to that is please, by all means, go for it. A couple of other sections. Right. And I think that the secret sauce of the active self protection channel is not the on camera violence. Certainly I have some viewers who just like violence snuff, you know that that exists. But I think it's my approach to self defense, I try to really encourage good sane, sober moral prudence in people and, and it's a an evidence base, but it's also a, a moral bent to be the good person and to give good practical advice. I don't I don't beat the drum for any particular tactic or technique, though I when I see things that that work all the time I go, this is a good technique, you want to use that technique if you're in that spot, because it works. And you watch it work here, you watch it don't work here. And that's why we don't do that. But I think the other part of that is I don't, I don't beat a political drum at all on ask. I believe the Second Amendment is a civil right. It's for all people, and it should be a political. And so I don't, I don't force team and I don't bundle ideas. And I think that that's also a big selling point. It is kind of funny, a lot of people think they understand and know my political positions and my understanding of the world, they probably know less than they think and bring malady. And, and I will say this, and I'll beat this drum till the day is done. Self Defense is a human right. And I don't care if all you and I have in common as a life to defend. You have the right to defend your life. And if somebody threatens that I'm on your side. Stephen Gutowski 26:33 Yeah, no, certainly, that's another aspect I wanted to talk about. With with your approach to how you guys run the business over there. As this Yeah, very apolitical. I was you know, big, big tent, I guess you could you could say, yeah, sort of approach, which is pretty unique. I mean, I suppose like a lot of the big entertainment side gun channels like like demolition ranch again, like, you know, they're not necessarily very political either. But I think you you guys go out of your way to cultivate a community that is more about, you know, the free exchange of thought, and that is true, you try. In my experience, we are watching guys on Facebook or on on YouTube, you try to eliminate sort of trolling? And, you know, obviously, I've only saw that number of people be banned for their idiocy, man, Holy Moses. Yeah. So why do you take that approach? And why do you think it works? Well, John Correia 27:36 I think that it's already a polarized enough issue, in terms of the right to keep and bear arms. And, you know, we're talking about real violence here. And so so people's lives are at stake. It's already serious enough. We don't need to add things like racism and misogyny, we don't need to add things like bundling political positions, you know, everybody right now has a political position on COVID. I asked has no position on that, because no matter what your position is on that, so your your right to self defense, and your need to protect yourself exists. And so I didn't do an awful lot of coverage of riots. In terms of Riot survival. My number one thing is don't get involved in riot, right. And with the view that we've seen, here's a few techniques to get the heck out of there. But I'm not going to teach you how to have a clubs and bats and sticks fight with the other side, you know, I'm just not the answer is run like heck. And I think we've done that, because so my core, my background is education, right? So I was a vocational pastor for 14 years. And I taught college and graduate school for nine. And so as a college educator, it's not all that different than a journalist, right? He is a college educator, you are really trying not to instill your values and ideas. You're trying to teach students not what to think but how to think. And you're trying to expose them to ideas, a broad swath of ideas. So then that way, that's that's education, not indoctrination. And I take that seriously, like I know you do as a journalist. And so in that educational vein, I'm not trying to indoctrinate although I'll say you know, I think the evidence points towards a robust right to keep and bear arms which is why I'm for that and, and all the secondary issues are what they are. And I think that good people who are good, sane, sober, moral, prudent people can disagree about a lot. And so I want to help all the folks who want to protect themselves in their their loved ones. And, but people can feel very alienated if they get forced to on other issues. And that goes a lot of different ways. So I mean, I've got folks from the far right wing fundamentalist Christian homeschooling, you know, Like, as far right as you could possibly imagine, all the way over to far lefties who are, you know, way Big Black Lives Matter supporters and and I go listen, we all have the right to keep and bear arms and I'll sit down dinner with any idea. And personally honestly, if I'm allowed to speak freely from my own personal convictions on this, I think that that was how Jesus lived his life, you know, he had disciples who were both Levi the tax collector and Simon the Zealot who's rabidly anti Rome. And so if Jesus could have those guys in among his disciples, then I can, I can do that in my business. Stephen Gutowski 30:43 Yeah, certainly. And, you know, I think that's another area where we share some some similarity, you know, obviously, I was, I was brought up in the church and went to Christian school and, you know, evangelical Christian and, and, you know, I take the same things from my experience in Christianity, that that you do in this regard, and often the same approach and how I run my business, the reload, right, I mean, but I think a lot of what you guys are doing, gives me the confidence that I can do something similar with with the reload and trying to make it something more sober and serious and less alienating for people. But I do think that that is swims upstream a bit in the gun culture, especially online, but even the mass gun culture, especially when it comes to gun rights, you see a lot of groups out there, whether it's, you know, the NRA, or gun owners of America, or whoever trying to, you know, and this is to certain degrees, some groups are, are less committed to this than others, but it's often they're trying to sell you an entire identity, rather than a single, you know, principle dealing with gun rights. And that's become more of a trend and, you know, it's not limited to the gun areas, you see this with the ACLU as well, isn't talked about in the past, you know, supposed to be about a civil liberties, protecting civil liberties, but really, they become more of a, you know, progressive liberal identity group that is, you know, this is started on the left with, or at least was talked about on the left, prominently with intersectionality, where you're supposed to not just believe in abortion rights or, or, you know, gun control, but you're supposed to combine those two separate issues. And then combine those with all the other issues that the left, you know, that that American liberalism holds, dear. And now you're seeing a lot of that on the right as well. Not that Yeah, not that that's new, but it's, it seems to be increasingly polarized and, and this makes its way into movements as well, with how closely they associate with the political party that their issue is favored by. So the NRA, for instance, obviously, he's endorsed fewer and fewer democrats over the years, and more and more Republicans to the point where it was, you know, basically indistinguishable from the Trump campaign in 2016, and 2020, which meant embracing, you know, quite a lot of ideas and even beyond, like the political stuff, like getting into, you know, enter a country or something like that, where you like, it's more about appealing to a certain demographic or a certain identity group, rather than anyone who might agree with the mission to defend gun rights, or in my case, to report on gun issues or in your case to, you know, offer self defense training. So I do think there's a bit of swimming upstream there. Like, is that how you see it as well? Am I being too pessimistic on it, you know, is the overall culture you know, John Correia 34:09 what's that, that you know, colloquialism that in? In matters of preference, swim with the current of matters of principle stand like a rock, you know? Is it swimming upstream? I do think some, but I also think listen in my, my little libertarian heart says you do you boo, and I'm okay. If you want to be full right side, you know, mogga hat wearing Trump folk, okay, that's fine, if that's what you believe in great. I also have friends who are part of liberal gun owners. You know, Laura Smith, the president of liberal gun owners is is a friend and I've had dinner with her and Sarah Hartman, you know, Minnesota gun owners caucus who is definitely a politically left of center. A friend of mine, I have done events for Army quality. And, you know, people have asked me, john, would you train a Muslim? Not only what I have, and I would I don't that doesn't, you know, I don't make those kind of things. And it is a little countercultural. But the other side of it is, you know, when, when something like that the NRA went full in on the culture word. I looked at that and said, Man, look at all these people that we are, that we want a robust, right to keep and bear arms, we're not going to keep that by force teaming. We're just not. We have to be willing to big tented a little bit. And I joke is a lowercase l libertarian. I'm all kind of live and let live. Because libertarians tend to be kooky and weird. And, you know, I like libertarianism, but I pretty much hate libertarians. And, but, you know, we joke for you folks on the right, you got to accept the gays in the weed, you know, and for you folks, on the left, you got to accept free enterprise and guns, like, you know, and like, we can live together and it'll be fine. And, and so I do think it's a little bit but but man, you'd be surprised to Steven, I get for every person who says you know that that I'm not right wing enough. I get 10 people who say man, thank you for for making your channel a place that I feel welcomed. And we show these videos literally all over the world. So YouTube is a a worldwide entity. And so I'm speaking not just to Americans, I'm speaking to the world. And so from that perspective, I also want people all around the world to see an example of an American who is a good, sane, sober, moral, prudent person, who they can relate to. Stephen Gutowski 36:45 Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I don't want to get sometimes talking about this stuff, or like, holding, holding yourself up as like a counterculture. Like, whatever, it's a bit, definitely can come across as too dramatic. You know, you know, I think that, but I think it's true to some degree, John Correia 37:04 you know, I mean, so I lead my business now, you know, we have something over 3 million total social following. So I'm an influencer. And those purrs. I hate that phrase, by the way. I'm a I'm a trusted advisor. You know, I was, again, a vocational pastor for 14 years worked in management was in the military. So I've been doing leadership training since I was young, in reality, and, and the job of a leader is to lead and leadership is not bullying, leadership is not, you know, telling people, what they have to do is instead I think, you know, I love that the idea of the Seth Godin idea of opening people's minds to what could be an influencing of, you know, giving this idea of saying, okay, leaders have to be willing to provide an example that people want to follow. And, and so that's what my goal is, is just to not be that guy that goes, Well, you have to do this thing and get exactly like me, but to say, you know, how about if we thought this way? Could we can we be compassionate? Could we be caring? You know, can we understand everyone and and that's that paraphrase of Aristotle, right? It's the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. And yeah, that's a paraphrase. It's not an actual quote. But to do that, I think takes is what we're called to do. So that's what I'm trying to do. Stephen Gutowski 38:31 Yeah, certainly. And I think that the calculation that is that play with, with how some groups will try to or publications or YouTube channels, it's not just about, you know, the NRA, or what any of these gun groups, there's this, you see this across the board on, you know, at gun publications, and at, you know, gun channels on YouTube, as well, like, it's a common tactic to appeal to your core audiences, sense of identity, whether or not that has anything to do with the issue of gun rights. John Correia 39:09 Particularly because that's how they fundraise, right? When you're in organizations that they, whether that's, hey, we have to sell a product. So we're a for profit company, or we have to get donations because we're a nonprofit, like the NRA, appealing to your core base makes you money. And then that we live in a time that that flying the tribal flag, and the tribal purity flag says, you know, everyone has to get like me and we support each other. And quite frankly, as evangelical Christians, we've been doing a very significant job of this since the Moral Majority in the 70s. I don't find that helpful. I find much more use in a book like James Davis and hunters to change the world where we build a dense networks that reach beyond our borders and invite people we're bridge builders, not gatekeepers. So it does cost me money. I'll tell you that It costs me crazy money not to appeal to the base, I could I definitely understand as a YouTuber, if when you make videos that appeal to the base, they share them, they watch them, they applaud them, they leave you approbation, you make money on that because advertisers take out on that stuff. I joke on my big channel, if I wanted to really grow it, I would never show a negative outcome, I would never show a good person getting mugged. I would never show somebody getting hurt. I would just show nothing but good guy shoots bad guy. I would just do that again. And again, I'd make way more money. Stephen Gutowski 40:33 I think so. I mean, this is where this is where I guess the the, the rub is like, that is what a lot of people have decided is the case. But to me, you know, I wonder if? Well, for one, everyone's decided that this case, so everyone's doing already. So there's no there's there's plenty of competition for people, you know, if you just want to have your opinions scream back in your face, right without any challenge whatsoever. And then to like, at some point, you're going to alienate not only people who don't agree with your point of view, but also like people who agree with you, but aren't you know, incredulous, I don't want to be associated with all the other stuff well, and don't just don't want to be like fed Bs, or at least, like, manipulated basically, that they you know, that they want to hear the full story. I think at some point you turn those people off to and so you've cut out, you know, a large percentage of people from that the group that you could ever reach with your message or your your business or your your product? John Correia 41:43 Well, I definitely agree with you. I think it's a short term versus long game focus, you know, when you play long ball, you know, you're always looking at this is no different than business, do you see so many companies that the senior leadership will do something that's actually deleterious to the company in order to boost their quarterly so that their stock price goes up, and as they sell or whatever, they make more money based on that. And, you know, there any of your bonuses are based on on that, rather than the overall health of the company. And the long term success of the company, so, but okay, you'll make that short term money, but long term, you're not setting yourself up for health, I prefer to do to play the long game, Stephen Gutowski 42:22 right? Because like your example, right, like, yeah, I'm sure that for those of your audience, who are watching, because they have an ideological investment into the idea of armed self defense, right, someone someone like myself press perhaps right. You know, there's plenty of people who do millions and millions of people. You know, yeah, it would be easier to sell them a video that's just about, you know, somebody who's was successful in defending themselves. And they're much more likely to share a video like that, perhaps, then a video that where you see the consequences of somebody who failed, even if they did try, which is, you know, real life is you're never going to have 100% success rate with anything. And but at the same time, if you did that strategy, right, if you just posted those videos all the time and never talked about the downsides, or the potential risks involved with arm self defense, or, you know, not even just armed self defense, but all all sorts of things. Then eventually, people, you know, there would be a lot of people who your reputation will become somebody who's not truthful that you only talk about the positive side is same thing with with me at the reload, right? If I only ever posted about the times when the gun rights side wins a court case, or passes a law that, that gun rights advocates like, you know, sure, I could get people maybe to share that stuff more often. Although, you know, even then, you know, I just think that being leaving out all the other stuff, the times when they lose court cases or a law passes, that they didn't want to pass, like, eventually people will realize that that's what I'm doing. And won't take me seriously. And he may agree, I agree on a certain core of people who would, you know, it's the old Lincoln saying, right? You can fool some of the people all the all the time, you can pull all the people some of the time but you can't pull all the people all the time. And that's, I think the dilemma that you get into with a lot of partisan like heavily polarized or heavily ideological media. motivations are like, outlets that that focus on putting forth a, a heavily partisan point of view is like, yes, you can still have you still be able to get a significant number of people, you probably still run a business off of just as you clearly you can the people do it all the time, it's just that the potential reach of that business is much smaller. Now, I think, you know, this is where the calculation comes in is like, it seems like groups like the ACLU or, or the NRA, or, or, you know, media outlets that have have catered heavily towards one political ideology or another, they've, they've made a calculation that they can get more money out of that core group of people than can out of that broader group of people by operating the way that they do, but my question is whether or not that's actually true in the long term. And it's like, I look at places like ASP, and it to me stands out as an example of somewhere that that can have much more success doing things the way that you do it in the long term. John Correia 46:04 I think so. And I think, you know, also, what's your end goal, right, like, so a lot of people that own a business, well, what's the purpose of your business purpose, the business to make money, so that you can feed your family to your life, I didn't start ask With that in mind, I started out to educate people, it was totally a side gig, just a passion project that then started making a little bit of money, and I ended up taking it full time. But that wasn't, you know, it was never supposed to be a business that supported my family. And so when you're when your goal is education, or when your goal is information and knowledge transfer, well, then as long as you stay true to the mission, then you're going to take that broader perspective, in my opinion. And with that in mind, I think if you do that, then you'll be taken care of, you know, it's like any good business, right? Any good business, if your focus is on we got to make money, you're going to struggle, in my opinion, you're gonna you're going to be limiting. If instead it's no, we're here to to make a product that's really good for people. And if we make a great product and put it out there in the market and market it, well, then we'll do okay. Yeah. And that's, I think, I mean, I don't know what the place now we're, I've got 14 employees that get paid every month. So I think we're doing okay, Stephen Gutowski 47:12 right, right. And there's not a lot of YouTube channels that have that, frankly, even the most successful ones, John Correia 47:17 I would guess there's something on the order of five to 7000 youtubers in America who make a full time living at it, there's, there's probably that many tops would be my guess, here in the US. So, you know, there's only 9000 or 10,000 channels worldwide that have over a million subscribers. So, you know, having that is is a big stewardship, in my opinion. And it makes me responsible for using a while, Stephen Gutowski 47:45 certainly, and most of those YouTubers who make a living at it also don't have like, an actual staff built around them, either. They can't necessarily they can support themselves, and maybe even, you know, do quite well, at that point. But But you found a way with your approach that lets you not only support yourself, but but entire company. John Correia 48:06 Well, and I can't I mean, I have a staff because I could never do the work. I mean, you know, we put out 18 videos a week, I could never do that on my own. I don't have the number of hours in the day that would let me do that. We we have a training arm, we run an instructor certification. We have live events, we, you know, Nope. Not a chance. So I have to have those folks. There. Their input is non negotiable. So Stephen Gutowski 48:34 yeah, I just think it shows that your approaches is working for sure. I mean, I think there's evidence to that point. Yeah. And speaking of which, you have a new podcast. Do we get started? Yes. That, that I'm actually part of. Yes. I'm excited to have you want it to Yeah, it's great. You know, I mean, it's it's just sort of a partnership. I'm not getting paid or anything, but it's but it's I think it's wonderful to have to be able to bring your audience some of the reporting that we're doing over the reload. I'm John Correia 49:07 excited to have you I think so the purpose of the podcast, we decided, I mean, I'm personally not a huge podcast listener. I'm usually making YouTube videos right but I know a lot of people are people love that long form content. And and so my my good friend, Mike Wilber is literally my oldest friend. I've known him for 20 years or more. And Mike just retired from federal service. And he was an interrogator basically, which is really the same word as interviewer right. And so there's a lot of podcasts out there about about gun training, and there's trainers, talking to trainers, those are a dime a dozen. There's bunches of those. But there's nobody out there doing interviews of real life, people who've been in real life defensive encounters, and those folks are very hard to come by, in fact, but I, of course have this built in audience that that's what they do. They send me their videos. Now I get emails every week of people. This was me. And maybe not every week but but pretty regular. Yeah. And I get emails from people, john, you saved my life. Whoa, I didn't save your life, you saved your life. Tell me what happened. And so letting those folks tell those stories, and hearing the stories, of course, betting them, right, making sure that it's not somebody that's just blowing wind. But I find that I'm like, man, those are compelling stories of real life. And so we decided to start a podcast and and so far, it's, you know, I'm willing to invest in it. And, and I, I'm excited for it. We just launched our third episode. So it's a baby right now. But we've got some great episodes coming up of real people involved in some real hairy stuff. And and I think having you on there with the latest on here's what's going on in the Second Amendment world and with with firearm stuff, I think, is also a great way for people to get that. So I'm excited to start it and bring it to market. Stephen Gutowski 50:58 Yeah, no, I think it's gone really well. So far. You know, I'm the same as you and that, you know, I don't listen to a lot of podcast myself. But I put on the second episode. So you're on their very first episode, obviously, skip that one, because you know, who wants to, because who wants to hear me? Just kidding. But, but, you know, listening to that second episode, you know, I put it onto, oh, I want to let's see how my segment went, you know, but, but obviously, you know, as I went, as I started to listen to the interview, of the person who had survived a self defense encounter, like, it just became so engrossing that I couldn't stop listening to it. And so I listened to the entire hour long podcast, even though I didn't intend to, just to see how I sounded on there, you know, just because the content was so good. This The, the interview was so good. And the story was so compelling that I couldn't stop listening to it. You know, and I couldn't say that. It's true. John Correia 51:58 I think who when you recognize that that says James Guthrie and his self defense encounter, we we narrate it, and it's on the main channel, so you can see it, and this is what happened. And then you can hear about it from the first person perspective. And that just amplifies the learning experience and makes it so much more real. And so I really think it's unique and super great job of interviewing. Stephen Gutowski 52:23 Oh, absolutely. He's he's done an amazing job so far, especially for someone just starting out with interviewing, like, he's got a knack for it, for sure. And I think that it's gonna be a big podcast, and I have Yeah, that's what I would take away from is like, I listened to the whole thing. And I don't listen to a lot of podcasts. Other than, than, of course, this one, which everyone should listen to every week, but but, you know, that really hooked me an answer. Like, I think that's going to be a big deal. For me, doing something like that. Yo, Rosie, here we go. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, so how can people find more? more of you more of active self protection? How can they sign up for like a class or something like that if they want to get involved? John Correia 53:09 So obviously, you find us on YouTube, right? Two big channels, active self protection, or active self protection extra. Find us there 18 videos a week to help you as a better be a better self defender. We have a Facebook page, I have an Instagram, I suck at Twitter, I do have a Twitter, but I'm terrible at it. Don't Don't follow me on Twitter, just know. And you find us there, you find that the podcast is on all major platforms now. So Apple, Spotify, all those if you want to find out where we're going to be in when you go on our website, active self protection, calm, we have a training schedule up there. Obviously, the current pandemic has wrecked everything was supposed to be tomorrow, you know, in fact, we were supposed to be in Houston, and that got canceled. And our next big training event is our national conference, which is a charity event, three days of training at the end of September in Manhattan, Kansas, all to benefit the Flint Hills foster team camp to find out all about that on our website as well. So and that lists where we'll be when we're doing live stuff, and where you can find us. Stephen Gutowski 54:10 And I highly recommend it. I actually have to make it out to one of these trainings, because I really want to try the class. Like, Oh, come on, man. Last September, we're gonna have to put we're gonna have to set something up for sure. But and maybe I'll write about it for the reload, too. That could be interesting for people I think. But all right, well, we really appreciate you coming on and talking with us, given you given us some of your time to the audience can better understand what you guys are doing over there. I thought was really interesting, you know, some of the stuff that that you do differently from everyone else. We actually have a an interview with one of the reload members coming up after this. So make sure you guys stick around to hear that as a new segment. We're going to try out and and I am reload number two, so you got to go, Hey, hey, look, if john Korea is a member, you guys should all be members. I get the email. Hey, hey, we appreciate the support any anything we can get independent, you know, reader funded organization here, so, so we are grateful for anyone who's who's willing to help. keep us going. But thank you for coming on. And we will hopefully talk to you again real soon. Thanks so much for having me, Steven. All right, I'm here with member Cal Davis. We're doing a new segment on the podcast, where we just we talked to some of the reload members and get a little insight into who's subscribing and why and what they're like. Thanks for joining us Cal. Can you just tell people a little bit about yourself? Unknown Speaker 55:41 Oh, thank you for having me. Yeah, happy to be here. Yeah, my name is Cal Davis, I am happy to be in the, you know, reload community, enjoy getting the emails and the voice of reason, a little bit of independent voice of reason. That's not out there. Of course, firearms enthusiast, NRA, instructor, business owner, and family man, and common sense enthusiast. And so part of that all of those things, I think, probably resonate with your listeners, readers rather. Stephen Gutowski 56:16 So that's kind of where I'm in. I imagine a lot of our readers are probably like you, in the sense that, you know, they own guns, they like guns, maybe they work in the industry in some way. And, but they're looking for maybe a little bit more original reporting a little more of a calm, sober demeanor. Is that is that kind of what drew you to subscribe? Unknown Speaker 56:41 Absolutely. Again, I joked about the common sense approach, but it's a matter of, you know, being a responsible, you know, gun owner, which involves not only, you know, safely owning a gun, but responsibly representing you other gun owners. And yeah, a calm, you know, reasonable, you know, approached owning guns, you know, like, like, has been said 100 times, you know, gun ownership is, is our right, but by the same token, our responsibility and so, you know, that's kind of where, where I stand on that, and I like to support anybody that has that, that same view, you know, where it's a calm, responsible ownership and not a, you know, exaggeration or, you know, any of the the other media outlets that tend to, you know, overdo things. Stephen Gutowski 57:30 Yeah, or or just be completely misinformed about guns. Unknown Speaker 57:34 Well, yeah, those are the easy ones, right? You know, anybody that you know, we all know about our, you know, our 50 round, aka clips that go into our blocks and those types of things. Those are the easy pickings, but sometimes the, the less, the more subtle ones are just as damaging because they're even a little more believable. From you know, some of the people just a little bit in my experience with my business, we deal with a lot of new gun owners or people that have never owned a gun and are thinking about owning a gun. And it's amazing the information that gets to them, or how little accurate information gets to them and so, like you take, you know, a calm reasonable approach, common sense and just facts goes a long way to the public that isn't even gun owners yet. Stephen Gutowski 58:23 Right? Right. And so how did you get into to gun ownership what what was it Have you always been a gun owner did you grow up around guns what what was it for you? Unknown Speaker 58:32 I did I had the benefit of growing up you know, my father always had you know, a firearm, you know, for just yet a 16 gauge bolt action shotgun which is the first which isn't that common. So that'll wake you up as a 10 year old and so we did we had the fortune of that we had a place to shoot and just grew up with that as a safety you know, very safety conscious but always grew up shooting you know, little 22 rifles and on throughout was able to when I got older then you know, purchase more guns and enjoy the shooting sports from sporting clays to a little bit of precision shooting at distance of opportunity to shoot out a distance and head some some of that and then some of the pistol I'm an NRA pistol you know firearms instructor and do that you know, as well. Yeah. And so it was great you know, it's uh, even though you think you know a lot you grew up around guns you own you know, guns and even to the point of teaching my son You know, the, you know, how to shoot the safety and that type of thing. It's it's great to learn from other instructors. So taking the class and then teaching you know, learning how to teach the you get the different opinions and it's great to be part of a community because you don't know what you don't know. And it's been that NRA class was the instructor class specifically was was excellent. And again, good instructor. good information. So that's kind of my my background. I am in a business now, like I said, not commercial, but we do a virtual range. And so that is a great opportunity to BB moto is responsible gun ownership and, and it's more of an education piece. And so we pride ourselves in being a training facility first. And so that's where we've taken kind of NRA safety stance in the education piece. And it's really low barrier to entry. There's no real guns. So it's not scary, or intimidating for somebody that's trying to figure out and get some answers or see what what shooting sports are all about. Stephen Gutowski 1:00:38 Wow, that's interesting. So what, what's the name of the business? And you say you get a lot of first time gunners coming through there. What's that? What's that experience been like? Unknown Speaker 1:00:47 Yeah, so the name is engaged virtual range. It's a virtual range, no headgear, it's just sim guns, like a certain pistol, you other resetting triggers, and then some co2 to simulate recoil. And then you're shooting at a screen that has an image and the laser, you know, reads that and then comes back, a golf simulator. But for firearms is kind of the short elevator speech. new owners, you know, there's a lot of people went out and bought a gun, and didn't know what to do with that gun didn't even know how to bring it home safely. It's sitting locked in a box somewhere. And so they are afraid to take it out and shoot it, they don't know where to shoot it, they don't know how to shoot it. They don't know anything about the rules. You know, here in Ohio, you know, different rules. A lot of people thought about signing up for our CCW course, which is a state course to be able to carry with the intent of learning how to shoot or learning about guns. And that's really not the right format. So we had a lot of people that came to us, before that we did a class, you know, intro to gun ownership. And, you know, it's why do you want to own a gun? You know, why did you buy, you know, a 22 pistol? What is your why, you know, do you want to teach your son how to shoot your daughter how to shoot, you know, do you want to protect your home, do you want to protect yourself out in public, you know, and then try to match that up, you know, what makes sense for you. And as part of that class, we give them a chance to just do some shooting with just our, our nerf pistols in the co2 recoil. And we got a great feedback, people really appreciate the chance to come out in a an environment like that gets some solid information, you know, nothing, you know, pushed one way or the other. And then actually, you know, shoot and see what it's like to shoot even a sim gun. And several people were, after taking that course decided that they weren't ready for gun ownership, which is great. They come back, get more comfortable, you know, figure out what they really want, what they don't want. And then a lot of people to that and then got their CCW. And they came to us afterwards for some situational training to practice to really learn, you know, to get more proficient with safe firearm handling and that type of thing. Stephen Gutowski 1:02:57 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially right now with the MS shortage. Imagine, you're probably seeing a lot of people you might not otherwise see with the with the dry fire exercises saving on ammo. So that's good. Yeah, this is really fascinating. business model, you know, this is not sponsored, maybe, maybe we should have you want to bring up. But I do think that's a really, really fascinating. New is not that obviously cert training and dry fire train has been around for a long time. But these sort of simulator style. facilities that like what you're running are relatively new, the last, you know, decade or so, you've seen more than pop up around the country. And I would imagine that's only going to accelerate from here. But we really appreciate you coming on to have a quick chat and give us some insight from one of the reload readers one of the members. If you guys want to be a member you can join today over at the reload calm but we're planning to do this segment more in the future. So really appreciate you coming on callin. And hope to hear from more reload members real soon on the podcast. Thanks. Great. Thank you so much for having me. Well, hey, that was a fun segment. I think we're gonna do that more often. I enjoyed talking with the actual reload members. And I think probably try to have more people on in the future. So make sure you get your membership so you can be potentially but I think that's it for this week's episode of the weekly knew that podcast. I'm your host Jamie desk and I will see you again next week. I gave him poison just for fun. I had one friend now there's none on a the devil Ryan broke so many bones but none of them were ever my own army Bo's Transcribed by https://otter.ai