- Arcesilaus, Greek philosopher and student of Plato on power and personal sovereignty
There's no two ways about it: The United States of America and its 50 state governments love putting people in prison. The U.S. has both the highest number of prisoners and the highest per capita incarceration rate in the modern world at 655 adults per 100,000. (It's worth noting that China's incarceration statistics are dubious, and they execute far more people than the United States. Indeed, the so-called People's Republic executes more people annually than the rest of the world combined.) Still, that's more than 2.2 million Americans in state and federal prisons as well as county jails. On top of those currently serving time, 4.7 million Americans were on parole in 2016, or about one in 56. These numbers do not include people on probation, which raises the number to one in 35. Nor does it include all of the Americans who have been arrested at one time or another, which is over 70 million – more than the population of France. For firearm owners in particular, the growth in this "prison-industrial complex" is troubling because felons are forbidden from owning firearms and ammunition under the 1968 Gun Control Act. As the number of laws has grown and the cultural shift for police has gone from a focus on keeping the peace to enforcing the law, more and more Americans are being stripped of their 2nd Amendment rights (not to mention other civil rights like voting – as of 2017, 6.1 million Americans cannot vote because of their criminal records). All told, eight percent of all Americans cannot own firearms because of a felony conviction. For American society as a whole, the prison-industrial complex has created a perverse incentive structure. Bad laws drive out respect for good laws because there are just so many laws (not to mention rules, regulations, and other prohibitions used by federal prosecutors to pin crimes on just about anyone). How did we get here? You can read the full article "Locked Up: How the Modern Prison-Industrial Complex Puts So Many Americans in Jail" at Ammo.com. For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners). Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs1776 Helpful Links:
- General George S. Patton
Any gun nut – er, "firearms enthusiast" – worth their salt has heard of the M1 Garand (it rhymes with "errand," by the way). This .30-06 semi-automatic rifle is one of the most iconic American firearms of all time, and was the standard-issue weapon for American infantry troops during World War II and the Korean War. Drill teams and honor guards continue to use this in the present day, such is its role as a symbol of the American military. Fewer, however, know about the life story of the man behind the weapon – John Garand, a Canadian-American engineer and weapons designer. Born one of a whopping 12 children on a Quebec farm, Garand's father relocated the entire family to Connecticut following the untimely death of the clan's mother in 1899. All six boys in the family had the official first name St. Jean le Baptiste, however, John Garand was the only one of them who used "Jean" as his first name. The other five used their middle names. The invention bug ran in the family, with several of his brothers sharing his penchant for innovation. Garand learned how to speak English while working in a textile mill sweeping floors. He later worked in a shooting gallery where he developed an interest in firearms, which, when combined with his naturally innovative nature and machining skills picked up in the textile mill, got him a job at a Providence, RI, tool-making company in 1909. In 1916, he relocated to New York City, where he continued working as a toolmaker, and practiced his rifle skills at shooting galleries on Broadway. You can read the full article "John Garand: The Forgotten History of the Man Who Invented the Iconic M1 Garand Rifle" at Ammo.com. For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners). Follow Sam Jacobs on Parler: https://parler.com/profile/SamJacobs1776/posts Helpful Links: ]]>
- Stacy Swimp, President of the Frederick Douglass Society
Every schoolchild knows that the Declaration of Independence declares that the basic equality of man is "self-evident." The United States Constitution enumerates what the inalienable rights only alluded to by the Declaration. An inalienable right is one that exists regardless of whether or not it is recognized by the state. For example, you have a right to free speech regardless of whether or not the Constitution recognizes it. Thus any restrictions on free speech are curbs of this pre-existing right, not an actual elimination of that right. One of them is the right to keep and bear arms. Another is the right to a speedy and public trial. However, particularly with the Second Amendment, there's long been a struggle between the ideals of America and the reality on the ground with regard to race. What's more, minorities in the United States are disproportionately the victims of violent crime. Both of these things together make it crucial to understand self defense and the Second Amendment from the perspective of race in America. Part of the problem is that, unlike European nations which grew organically, America is an invention of a handful of Englishmen. They founded the nation on a set of ideas and there has always been a tension between those ideas and the reality. This is, in some sense, unavoidable: reality will always have trouble living up to an ideal. A failure to live up to that ideal in the past according to terms established today doesn't make the entire project – or any specific part of it – worthless or suspect. Before we get into the meat of the matter, we should note that the American ideal has expanded the Second Amendment (and the rest of the Constitution for that matter) to de jure include all Americans. One can be skeptical of the notion of "progress" while seeing the moves to repeal race-based restrictions on firearms ownership as big steps in the right direction. Finally, it is worth noting – and we will do so at length later – that none of the racially-motivated laws on the books in America are uniquely American. Racism, in the sense employed by the average person not the expanded version used by left-wing ideologues, was not a uniquely American institution, but the norm throughout human history. You can read the full article "Gun Control and Racism: The Laws and Taxes Meant to Limit Minority Gun Ownership in America" at Ammo.com. For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners). Follow Sam Jacobs on Parler: https://parler.com/profile/SamJacobs1776/posts Helpful Links:]]>
]]>
"It's not obvious by any stretch of the imagination why postmodernism and Neo-Marxism or Marxism proper would be aligned because postmodernism is an anti-grand narrative philosophical movement and Marxism is a grand narrative. The fact that these two things seem to coexist in the same space needs some explanation, because it's a very tricky thing to get to the bottom of."
Because Cultural Marxism is ideologically distinct from postmodernism and deconstruction, we will not touch on either in this article, though they certainly have been influential on the international left. You can read the full article "Cultural Marxism's Origins: How the Disciples of an Obscure Italian Linguist Subverted America" at Ammo.com. For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners). Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45 Helpful Links: ]]>Andrew Marcantel is a criminal defense attorney with Attorneys for Freedom in Arizona. He identifies as an anarchist and is an experienced defender of Second Amendment rights in the trenches of the American courts. We had him on to talk about both the philosophical and practical aspects of Second Amendment rights in America today.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Andy Marcantel's Links:
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]]>Andrew Marcantel is a criminal defense attorney with Attorneys for Freedom in Arizona. He identifies as an anarchist and is an experienced defender of Second Amendment rights in the trenches of the American courts. We had him on to talk about both the philosophical and practical aspects of Second Amendment rights in America today.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Andy Marcantel's Links:
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]]>Mark Thornton is an economic historian and a senior fellow with the Mises Institute. While everyone knows a bit about slavery, few think about the economics of it. It is the contention of Thornton that slavery was not a profitable institution in the antebellum South and that its after effects continue to drive the industrial underdevelopment of the region today.
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For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>Mark Thornton is an economic historian and a senior fellow with the Mises Institute. While everyone knows a bit about slavery, few think about the economics of it. It is the contention of Thornton that slavery was not a profitable institution in the antebellum South and that its after effects continue to drive the industrial underdevelopment of the region today.
Mark's Links:
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For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>Jeremy Carl is a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute and a writer at The American Mind, as well as a number of other publications. He joined Sam to discuss the future of a fighting conservatism and the deep ideology of the hard left in America.
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For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>Jeremy Carl is a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute and a writer at The American Mind, as well as a number of other publications. He joined Sam to discuss the future of a fighting conservatism and the deep ideology of the hard left in America.
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For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>David Codrea is that rarest of creatures in the 21st century -- a skilled and principled investigative journalist, willing to overturn stones to find the truth underneath. It was his strong journalistic chops that made him instrumental in breaking the story that the world knows as "Operation Fast and Furious," a part of Project Gunrunner, an ATF policy of allowing illegal gun purchases to happen in a vain attempt to catch bigger fish that resulted in the death of a Border Patrol agent and countless others.
Sam had Mr. Codrea on The Resistance Library Podcast to talk about the importance of actual, principled journalism today, as well as how he broke the Fast and Furious Scandal to the broader world and the importance of digital security.
David's Links:
Helpful Links:
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>David Codrea is that rarest of creatures in the 21st century -- a skilled and principled investigative journalist, willing to overturn stones to find the truth underneath. It was his strong journalistic chops that made him instrumental in breaking the story that the world knows as "Operation Fast and Furious," a part of Project Gunrunner, an ATF policy of allowing illegal gun purchases to happen in a vain attempt to catch bigger fish that resulted in the death of a Border Patrol agent and countless others.
Sam had Mr. Codrea on The Resistance Library Podcast to talk about the importance of actual, principled journalism today, as well as how he broke the Fast and Furious Scandal to the broader world and the importance of digital security.
David's Links:
Helpful Links:
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>Matthew Larosiere is the Director of Legal Policy at the Firearms Policy Coalition and an unashamed supporter of the Second Amendment without exceptions. He is also an early adopter of the 3D printer, something that he has become very skilled at using to make full firearms, firearms components, and other pieces. He believes that 3D printed guns are not just a Second Amendment issue, but also a First Amendment issue. His position in the FPC brings him into close contact with breaking legal issues and emerging attacks on the Second Amendment.
Sam talked with Mr. Larosiere about the reaction of the Michigan Legislature to legally armed protesters, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's move to ban so-called "ghost guns" without due legal process and, of course, 3D printed guns and why they're so important -- and cool. For a full transcript of Sam's interview see below.
Matthew's Links:
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Transcript of Episode:
Sam Jacobs (32s):
Welcome back to the Resistance Library Podcast from Ammo.com. I'm your host, Sam Jacobs. And I am here today with Matthew Larosiere. Matthew Larosiere is the director of legal policy at the Firearms Policy Coalition. The first thing I'd like you to do is just kind of tell everyone who doesn't know what the Firearms Policy Coalition does. Just kind of give me the like nickel tour of what it is you guys do over there.
Matthew Larosiere:
Well, we are a 501c4 nonprofit, a grassroots advocacy organization.
So we engage in, you know, your ordinary advocacy. We also do direct lawsuits, research, you know, public information requests, basically where a full service gun rights group. We do everything from. So like my department is kind of like a think tank and grassroots department where we research different policy areas and what logic is behind them. And also the principles underlining, you know, our side of the issue, which is, you know, freedom.
But, but yeah, so we're a full service, no compromise gun rights organization. And that means, you know, we don't, there's no second amendment, but with us, I'm a, I'm a big fan of machine guns and light tanks. So that should tell you what you need to know.
Sam Jacobs:
Yeah. I, I, you know, it's funny because I instantly thought like, "Oh, so you're, you guys are cool with machine guns," as are we, so that's fine. We're very much on the same page. And I figured that we would be, but the language that you used was like, Oh yeah, they're so of course they want to repeal the 1986 gun control act, which...
Matthew Larosiere:
Uh...I'd go further. I've got a machine gun right here, actually. [machine gun sound] But why start with just FOPA, right? Why not go all the way back to GCA and NFA? It's all garbage.
Sam Jacobs:
Sure, sure. And you will find absolutely no disagreement from me there whatsoever. Do you mind telling us about your machine gun?
Matthew Larosiere:
This one here is a STEN Mk. II, you know, 1942 made at ENC company in England during the war. I've also got here a Chauchat 1915, a Costa Rican Breda, and Chatellerault light machine rifle.
Sam Jacobs (3m 0s):
It's funny because every guy that I know who has machine guns, like they're like potato chips, you can't get just one.
Matthew Larosiere (3m 4s):
No, it's impossible. And then also getting a pro tip is get weird ones like mine, because they're way cheaper.
Sam Jacobs:
Why is that?
Matthew Larosiere:
Because everybody wants an M 16, everybody wants a Thompson and you know, there's only so many on the registry, but then like, like a Breda is a seven millimeter, four shot burst rifle that no one's ever even heard of. So yeah, you'll get away with paying that what you might pay for, you know, a really nice semi auto rifle.
Sam Jacobs (3m 32s):
Well, that's good. I'm glad that you're helping our listeners to source their fully automatic machine guns. I, and I genuinely am. And also, you know, I was going to ask like, why we need the firearms policy coalition when we have the militant defenders of the Second Amendment at the NRA. That's a joke for anyone who's not picking it up.
Matthew Larosiere (3m 56s):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I know, you know, I don't talk about the Jones's, you know... they, they do all kinds of work. They've got, you know, there, there are things that everybody in this area has something to provide, but we provide zero compromise. You know, we don't negotiate with politicians, it's against our policy. And if you want somebody who isn't going to ever say, you know, Oh, well, it's just a bump stock.
That's us, we're behind, you know, a lot of litigation involving the bump stock ban, some of which is still active. So.
Sam Jacobs (4m 35s):
Which I think it was really cool because, you know, I think that you're right, that everyone, you know, that everyone has something offered in this sphere, you know, all joshing aside. But you know, the thing that I think is really cool about what you guys do and what I kind of fixated on when I was going, going through and researching for this episode was I love that you guys get down in the trenches of litigating this stuff. And so I was following kind of some back and forth you guys had with the attorney general of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, I saw that you had your Shapiro is a tyrant shirt on, in one of your videos.
And I think that people oftentimes fixate on what gets the headline, or what gets the press conference, or what gets the soundbite, but so much of what the Second Amendment, or rather defending the Second Amendment is about, is about, you know, a lot of this really unglamorous work in the trenches that no one ever gets, that you don't get, it's not very sexy, and you don't get the same recognition for it, but in some ways it's much more important.
And I think it's really cool that you guys do that.
Matthew Larosiere (5m 54s):
Right. And we also like the, so not just that, but we just get engaged, you know, I spend a lot of time talking to representatives and just trying to change the shape of the issue. Like, and so I've actually, I've got my Joshua Shapiro TEC-9 right here. You know, we like, you know, with the 3D printed guns, we wanted to make a big point about this. I've been in the maker space for some time.
And, you know, they're always talking about how all these illegal guns, illegal guns, you know, ghost gun, blah, blah, blah. And nobody's talking about how much of a First Amendment issue it is. So, you know, we have the freedom and like, you know, in my department, we have the ability to, we sat down and we designed, you know, with, with help from the community, a 3D printable TEC-9 receiver, that's got this politician's face all over it that says, you know, that it's a love letter to him.
And the point of it is it's to change the shape of the debate. We do a lot of stuff like that. So we put this out and the, I don't know if you've seen it, but it's like, you take one, look at this gun, it's hot pink, it's covered in little hearts. And, you know, it's got a politician's face on it. You sit there and look at me and tell me that's not First Amendment conduct. Right. So we're trying to do stuff like that to make sure we don't just cover the guns, but also the gun adjacent stuff, like, you know, First Amendment, right to build, right to associate, you know, all that stuff,
Sam Jacobs (7m 38s):
Which again, I think is really cool. And one of the things I liked about that weapon and just 3D printed guns in general is how so many of them come in these like tropical candy colors and, and they kind of weirdly subvert this whole, you know, "Ooh, it's a scary black rifle thing," which I think is cool. You know, it doesn't make them a better weapon or anything, but I just find it kind of interesting where that's, where a lot of it has gone.
I mean, of course like the 3D printed materials tend to kind of be a little more technicolor than what comes out of a factory. Anyway,
Matthew Larosiere (8m 18s):
You can get any color you want. It's a cultural thing. And I, I don't know how it took cold, but me, you know, nothing spurred me to do it, but I think it might just be because I'm a proud native Floridian, but I print out all my firearms receivers in teal and pink, which cause I consider those to be, you know, South Florida colors. And it just, it's just a thing we do, which is funny. I mean, they make black, they make gray, but we kinda like putting them out in these funny colors.
Sam Jacobs (8m 47s):
So this is a good segue to talk about 3D printed guns kind of in general, one thing that you had posted on your Twitter, it was either you or the FPC's account, but it is a common refrain that I hear when talking about 3D printed guns. And that is the technology just isn't there yet, which as somebody who's not, who's kind of interested in 3D guns, but isn't an expert on them by any means. This sounds wrong to me, but I don't, I can't explain why.
So what do people mean when they say that and why are they wrong?
Matthew Larosiere (9m 23s):
So it's, it's a noble lie that gets told in the mainstream media. And they're always sitting there saying, "Oh, well, you know," and, and like you often observe it on something, a source that you'd otherwise think to be friendly like, "Oh, well we don't need to worry about 3D printed firearms because the technology just isn't there. It's gonna blow up in your hand. You know, whatever." The, the fact is we are way further along than most people realize, especially in the United States where, you know, we have the receiver distinction and we're allowed to get barrels and, and, you know, all kinds of other parts delivered right to our houses, as we should. We're like way beyond the point of having really effective, repeatable, reliable equipment that's printed.
Like, you know, that TEC-9 thing that we made, that one I have here was printed with the cheapest pink PLA that I could find. It's got like $5 of plastic in it. And it has held up to hundreds of rounds without even a crack. So we're, we're there and we've got the FGC 9, which is significant because it's one of the first self-loading semi automatic firearms designs that uses virtually no, you know, what you'd call a gun parts.
Even the barrel, there's a 3D printable mandrel that lets you use, you know, a battery charger and some saltwater, you know, to simplify it, to cut the rifling on your own barre. You can build this stuff, you know, you can get into 3D printing firearm receivers with a $180 printer. So it's, it's really not this, you know, infant technology. It's, I mean, we're there, it's here.
Sam Jacobs (11m 17s):
Well, you know, in terms of the effectiveness of this technology, why is there this tendency on both sides of the Second Amendment debate? I hate to put it in those terms because I don't really actually think it is a debate. I think there's people who want it, people who want to infringe on your rights and people who don't want to infringe upon your rights. So maybe I should frame it more in those terms, but why do both of these sides kind of agree on this thing that's not really true,
Matthew Larosiere (11m 45s):
Right. So, you know, if I'm to play devil's advocate, if I'm to give them my best argument, I would say that a program people, you know, like, like you're saying, they want to just kind of poo poo it and say, "Oh, just forget about it for right now, you know, look over this thing over here." And what I find problematic with that argument is that it carries within it, the implicit suggestion that once the technology does get to that point, which it already has, then it will be okay to do something which, you know, rather than, you know, my perspective is this is awesome.
We live in the future, let's embrace this and everybody should have one. Whereas on the other side, I think they might, I think the best reason for the anti side to tell this noble lie is either, well, either one, they haven't done their research and they don't know. And so it could be that like, you know, the, the pro gun lie is, is working, or two that they want to say, let's get in and prevent this from happening. You know, we, we can stop it if we act now.
Whereas if they were to like recognize now that cat's out of the bag and these files are everywhere, but we're gonna make it illegal. It's kinda like, you know, why would we do anything about it at that point?
Sam Jacobs (13m 4s):
Right. And I totally agree with you. The framing on it is bad for pro-Second Amendment freedom people, because yeah, it's just, okay. So when, I mean, it's like when they, when they pivot to, well, why do you want to ban so-called assault rifles? Or why do you want to ban sec semi automatic rifles when most murders are committed with handguns? And it's like, you're just inviting them to then pivot the conversation to ban handguns.
Matthew Larosiere (13m 33s):
Yeah. And, and also like, even, Oh my God, this, you know, it reminds me of something that just triggers the ever loving hell out of me when they say, "No, no, it's not an assault rifle. It's a modern sporting rifle." Or like, whatever, like no, shut up. It's an assault rifle. I have the right to my assault rifle. It's like leave me alone.
Sam Jacobs (13m 54s):
Right. No, totally. I completely agree. So why, I mean, other than the kind of more general, Second Amendment issue, you know why do you personally champion 3D printed guns? Like what does this offer that something I can buy down at my local gun shop or Donald my local pawn shop, doesn't.
Matthew Larosiere (14m 20s):
The freedom to be anything like, you know, I've got a lot of store-bought guns, right. But that doesn't change my life. Having a 3D printer in my life, and I was a fairly early adopter. It just changed the way I looked at things. I don't know how many people in your audience or whether you are like know fabricating, but once you own a welding machine, it changes the way you look at the world and this the same, it's the same kind of thing, except it takes a lot less training and a lot less initial investment, you've got this thing now that can turn thoughts into reality.
So it's the future. A for why I champion it. I mean, it's, it's an intersection of my interests. You know, I'm a, I'm a gun rights attorney. And I also, I care about everything related to that. And the First Amendment is really important. And the First Amendment is what protects us, you know, and enables us to share this information because you know where to, you know, how to cut out a receiver, how to, you know, make your own firearms at home. That's all protected information that needs to be robustly recognized. If we decide that, "Oh, well, you know, 3D models are different because they're new and spooky. And so they can't be regulated." Well, what's the purpose of the First Amendment now.
Sam Jacobs (15m 51s):
And that's kind of the, I mean, that's the entire argument against assault rifles, or however you wish to term as like, you know, new and scary equals not conceivable by the people who wrote the Constitution equals not subject to the Constitution.
Matthew Larosiere (16m 9s):
I always like to imagine what Thomas Jefferson would say. If I handed him an AK-74.
Sam Jacobs (16m 15s):
He would say it was awesome.
Matthew Larosiere (16m 17s):
I was gonna say, I doubt, he'd be like, "Oh, this is horrible." He'd probably be like, "COOL! You don't even have to pack it. These things are... WHAT?!," you know, it'd be, he'd be blown away. He'd want 12 of them. Right.
Sam Jacobs (16m 30s):
Right, yeah. God. Yeah, wished we had these!
Matthew Larosiere (16m 32s):
Yeah. These are so cool, you can blow off so many red coats with this.
Sam Jacobs (16m 37s):
So, you can obviously, as with anything else, I ask you feel free to decline to answer this, but what's the craziest thing you've ever made with the 3D printer.
Matthew Larosiere (16m 46s):
The craziest? I mean, define craziest.
Sam Jacobs (16m 49s):
I'd rather let you define craziest, because it was interesting to me because you're like, you know, basically kind of saying like your imagination is the limit on this or whatever you can conceive of you can theoretically make. I mean, obviously, you know, there's some technological limits there's, there's limits of capable capability or, you know, whatever, but, you know, what's kind of like an example of you wanting something that you can't get off the shelf, but you would say, well, you know what? I can just make it.
Matthew Larosiere (17m 26s):
I, gotcha. Yeah. I, oh, in a single week. I printed out a, like, there was a little plastic piece that broke on my car's mirror. And instead of spending $300 to get the whole new mirror, I just, I took the piece with some calipers. I took some measurements. I designed the part, I printed it out. And then a couple of days after that, it was one of my coworkers' birthday. So I printed him a little octopus that had eight middle fingers being held up and he loved that.
And then, you know, a couple of weeks after that, I prototyped a fire control group housing for an old French carbine that used an AR-15 fire control group. Just, yeah. All of that in a couple of weeks.
Sam Jacobs (18m 13s):
It must really come in handy, especially because you talked about buying old, weird weapons and you also had a post that I thought was really funny, about a hundred year old European bolt action rifles. So I mean, I would imagine as somebody who is a collector of firearms, you know, even if you're not necessarily interested in printing a full weapon, for whatever reason, maybe you don't like how they look, maybe you just don't care. You don't want one, but it would seem like a 3D printer would really come in handy for even somebody who just collects old weapons that are, you know, like anything else that's going through that much stress is, is breaking down a lot and they can use a 3D printer to kind of extend the life.
Matthew Larosiere (18m 59s):
Right, yeah. There's all kinds of little ways that it can come in handy, you know, with restoration and preservation. And also, I mean, if you, and if you're into collecting old militaria, you're going to wind up with parts kits, you know, where the receivers are destroyed. There's been more than one time where I've just printed out the missing part. So I could have a display weapon.
Sam Jacobs (19m 26s):
And now I want to talk about what's going on in Michigan because it is a little old, but it still is crazy to me that they canceled their legislative session in response to the armed protestors who, you know, armed protesters is always another thing that's kind of like used as a scare word. But as you were saying before, like, so what, they're legally allowed to be, allowed is again, not the best word, but like they're exercising a constitutionally enumerated right in a way that's new and scary. Though I doubt it's new. And I also am skeptical to the degree to which it's actually scary and the degree to which it's, you know, a convenient way to act because it appears scary to outsiders. So can you kind of take us through like what happened in Michigan with those armed protests?
Matthew Larosiere (20m 23s):
Well, so basically, you know, you had the state government handed down a lot of very unaccountable orders, right? And the shutdown orders that were very wide reaching and people. And, you know, like, I, I actually like to refrain from talking about this kind of stuff, because there's this, there's this new orthodoxy that's developed where you're not allowed to question the shutdown orders at all. So without me saying anything on whether the shutdown owners were good or bad, there were a bunch of people who thought they were bad and they decided to protest, right.
They're protesting for their, you know, what they perceive as an assault on their livelihood, their way of life, et cetera, you know, without proper due process from the government. So basically you've got a group of people that are saying, "Hey, you're violating my rights." And you know, a group of them come just bearing arms peaceably. And so the media goes nuts, like says that these are armed right-wing blah, blah, blah. We're in, like, if you look at the pictures, there's, it's just a bunch of normal people.
And, and they make a blitz out of it. They shut down their session early. And I, you know, I don't know if they actually said it was for fear or if it was just like assumed it was, but then so of course the first thing they want to do now is take away the right of the people to carry arms in the state capital. So like that just seems, it just seems interesting to me, it's like, "Oh, they're mad at us for violating their rights. Why don't we take a right away that will fix it?"
Sam Jacobs (21m 59s):
Well, I mean, it would, but not in a good way. And it's interesting because we just recently did a podcast about Robert F. Williams, who, anybody who listening doesn't know, Robert F. Williams was a civil rights activist in the 1950s who responded to his community, being terrorized by the clan, by arming him and his comrades with weapons under the auspices of an NRA gun club.
And you should listen to our Robert F. Williams podcast about that. But one of the things we talk about in that podcast is the Mulford Act, which was passed by Governor Ronald Reagan, which always shocks people to, you know, which was one of the most sweeping gun control laws in the country at that time. And was specifically designed to prevent Black Panthers from protesting in a similar manner. But there's no, you know, I mean, there's no other right that you're not allowed to exercise within a hundred yards or whatever of the state house.
Matthew Larosiere (23m 9s):
And here's the other thing, right? So you have one of the most important core protected areas of the First Amendment is political assembly and political speech. So the fact that they're like, what they're basically saying is, "Okay, well, you can have your First Amendment right, and you can have your Second Amendment right. But not at the same time." So that's nonsense. There is no, it's like, they're acting like there's an "or" in between the First and Second Amendment. It's like, "Oh, you can talk or you can gun," you know, it's not, no we're allowed both and not, you know what I mean? It's not, you can't prohibit it. Is the best way to say it.
Sam Jacobs (23m 47s):
Yeah. And I mean, it's also, I don't want to, I generally try not to go too far down the, you know, aren't the Democratic party hypocrites kind of road because it's like, well, yeah. I mean, this is their whole thing is like freedom of speech is great when it helps our cause and not so great when it doesn't. And one of the things that we saw during the last presidential election, or at least in the aftermath of it was like, well, that's enough democracy and free speech for now.
We're going to kind of do what we can to, to shut all this down. But it still is astonishing to me, at least in some ways because I felt protests were good.
Matthew Larosiere (24m 30s):
Right. Well, they're good when you agree with them. So, I mean, I can, you know, that's a forgivable error you just made.
Sam Jacobs (24m 39s):
[Laughing] Right. What is, I mean, what kind of legal ground does the attorney general of Pennsylvania have to stand on with this ghost guns thing? Cause it sounds, I mean, I understand the whole, the whole way this works is they fly up a trial balloon and they see to what degree it works. But this one seems, really, this one seems really seems like a bit of a reach to me as a layman in and out, and, you know, an outsider and as much as I'm not an attorney, and I'm not, I'm in the trenches of, of this kind of litigation or legislation, like what kind of leg does he have to stand on if any, if any, or is it just a, you know, everyone's looking at the lockdown and I think I can slam this through kind of thing.
Matthew Larosiere (25m 24s):
Which thing are we talking about now?
Sam Jacobs (25m 27s):
The attorney general Josh Shapiro's, you know, reclassifying 80% receivers as firearms.
Matthew Larosiere (25m 36s):
So yeah, what he was doing there is trying to interpret police powers. Basically he was doing like a triple, like triple stuffed bad interpretation bingo, to like use this law to give him power to act here, which then enables him to reclassify this, you know, like it's, it was, it was a bunch of nonsense. And like, I mean, you know, very conveniently at this at the same time that Bloomberg had just pushed this new agenda. Of course, Josh Shapiro comes out with it, but no, it's, it's, it's a bunch of crap.
There was no vagueness in the law that justified his re-interpretation. And you know, this is, this has happened a while ago. And there were a lot of developments since, you know, he was prevented from engaging in that before.
Sam Jacobs (26m 31s):
And you guys got a temporary injunction against him, correct. Yeah. And then kind of what's the future of the, of the issue.
Matthew Larosiere (26m 41s):
Yeah, no, you, I mean, this, this might be to some of your listeners, but you're not supposed to just like make the law up, [Laughing] you know, especially when you're the Attorney General, you're supposed to, you know, faithfully read and enforce it, not just divine garbage into it. Well, the funny thing about this is, he tried to reinterpret Pennsylvania code which defined a firearm. And there's one little like, like skin tag on the definition, which is about readily convertible firearms.
And what this is really about is like a long time ago, back when the law was written, you could buy these starter guns, which were like sold as race starter guns, which were just like junky .25 caliber and .22 caliber pistols that had something shoved into the barrel and you'd unshove the barrel. So that's what it was really about. And so he, they tried to claim that, you know, a hunk of aluminum is readily convertible to a firearm.
In which case it's like, you know, what does that make the STEN gun then is every, you know, every exhaust pipe a sub machine gun now it's, it's just preposterous. There's no way to, like, there would be no way to rationally enforce something like that, you know, without it being unconstitutionally vague.
Sam Jacobs (28m 2s):
Do you know if there's any plans to, I mean, I'm presuming that Attorney General Shapiro is not just dropping it at, at this and that there'll be further action. Do you know anything about what's going to come down the pipe with that?
Matthew Larosiere (28m 20s):
Yeah. There's no real way to know. I, I can't assume that they're going to take it laying down, but you know, we'll just have to wait and see. I mean, of course I think we're right.
Sam Jacobs (28m 34s):
What do you think the future of 3D printed guns is, do you think that they're just kind of a niche thing for hobbyists and that kind of thing? Or do you think that they have a broader appeal?
Matthew Larosiere (28m 49s):
Let me tell you something, man, they've got a much broader appeal and I'm very excited to be working on some projects that are going to make some changes in this space. I wish I could say much more than that, but let me just give you an example. If you go on any of Hi-Point's social media, you'll see all anybody are doing are demanding that they sell parts kits. And that's because the guys in these 3D printing communities, and these are, I just want to stress, these young men are absolute heroes for our generation.
These guys are unbelievable. They work hours and hours and hours in between their real job on these collaborative efforts to design 3D printable frames, you know, for available firearms parts kits. And then they release them for free online just because they love freedom. And so they did that for the Hi-Point. And it's one of the better designs for 3D printing because, you know, you don't need, you don't need many moving parts.
You know, it's direct blowback. The demand for the parts kits was so high that now the parts kits cost more than the guns themselves. You just can't get them. So I think that tells you something. I think that tells you people, people want to be able to get a firearm and build it themselves. And you know, it's their right. There are so many people to where getting a firearm is just way too difficult for something as essential as it is.
Like, imagine if you live out in the middle of the country, your nearest transfer agent is an hour away, right? And that's a real thing for plenty of people. So you've got to get that gun ordered in, take time out of your schedule, go drive up there, pay that person a gatekeeper's fee, right? Why do that? What this is saying is not, you know, skip that mess. If you need a gun, you know, and, and it's legal for you to have it, order your parts and make it that's, that's the direction it's going in.
It's only getting better. There's all kinds of exciting projects. Every, you know, every week I see something new in these channels, we're in where we discuss the development. It's big. It's not, it's not just a little novelty. You know, this is, this is big stuff. These guys are developing ammunition that you can make at home. And I don't mean like, you know, like reloading, because I'm a reloader, I don't mean getting yourself some tightgroup and some primers and slapping it together.
No, I mean, homemade gunpowder, homemade priming compound, like that's how much these people are working to decentralize the industry on arms and just create a pro freedom world.
Sam Jacobs:
How does a homemade gunpowder work?
Matthew Larosiere (31m 52s):
Literally there is a group of chemists from all over the world that we're talking in this, you know, in this channel and they, they were comparing, you know, what chemicals can you, can you get in this country, this country, this country.
And they got together and they, you know, like this stuff is all magic to me, right? Like I'm a lawyer. I count on my fingers and I don't understand chemistry, but they figured out a formula to make repeatable, consistent powder, like smokeless powder. And you know, this isn't like grinding it out of a tree someplace like the olden olden days. This is pretty consistent smokeless powder. That's made with stuff that you can get anywhere. And they're going to be releasing that hopefully very soon.
Sam Jacobs:
It's, it's a very different world that we're moving into. And one of the things that I find most interesting about the people who kind of want to shut down the whole 3D printer thing is just, I don't know how realistically you could do it. You know, that's one of the things that's kind of most interesting to me about it is that we know basically the technologies, revolutionary technologies are kind of hard to stick back in the bottle, right? Like once it gets out, there's not really any way to shut it down and sure you can start throwing people in jail for it, but the actual technology will be there.
And that's kind of one of the main, perhaps the Achilles heel of the entire argument is that, you know, there's no reason to believe that anybody who's determined enough is going to not be able to leverage these technologies. I mean, it's the old, like when guns are outlawed only outlaws of guns thing, except now outlaws won't even need to like find a buyer. They'll just need to find the right bits and bobs and be able to put it together.
Matthew Larosiere (33m 46s):
Right. And, and I mean, that's what the FCG 9 is, which, I mean, you can look up online videos, that thing running, and it runs pretty good. And it's not made with any gun parts, you know, that can be made anywhere. And it's just, it's all about freedom. These guys, and by the way, you know, banning it or whatever, wouldn't make a difference because these guys are already operating anonymously. They assume, you know that because the US government isn't friendly to this, the US government doesn't want, you know, we've seen this with ongoing litigation involving Defense Distributed.
They don't want you posting the designs online. So these guys who are designing these, these guns and posting them online, they're already doing it quietly. They're already doing it under pseudonyms. And, and you know, it's not stopping the progress, but what I think it does show, and that's why this is like one of the main reasons I think these guys are heroes. Nobody knows their names. They put in all this time, they don't get a dollar. All they did is put freedom out there for other people.
And I think that, you know, I really hope that at some point in our country, we get to the point where we can, these guys can tell their names, you know, and we can celebrate these people because they're special.
Sam Jacobs (35m 11s):
Well, I want to thank you for joining us. Where can everybody find you on the internet?
Matthew Larosiere (35m 15s):
You can follow me on Twitter at MATTLAATLAW. It's MattLa At Law. We also post on FirearmsPolicy.org. I do a weekly update there that goes on YouTube and the Gun Policy Instagram and everything. So definitely check that product out. I, I really do like the weekly update, just kind of puts all of the, you know, legislative and legal gun law updates into one place for you.
Sam Jacobs (35m 38s):
It really is a great resource for anybody who wants to follow the kind of legislative and, and machinations that are coming after your Second Amendment rights again. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. And thanks to everybody who listened. If you would like to get some cheap ammunition for your non 3D printed guns, you can go to Ammo.com/podcast. I'm Sam Jacobs, and we'll see you next time.
]]>Matthew Larosiere is the Director of Legal Policy at the Firearms Policy Coalition and an unashamed supporter of the Second Amendment without exceptions. He is also an early adopter of the 3D printer, something that he has become very skilled at using to make full firearms, firearms components, and other pieces. He believes that 3D printed guns are not just a Second Amendment issue, but also a First Amendment issue. His position in the FPC brings him into close contact with breaking legal issues and emerging attacks on the Second Amendment.
Sam talked with Mr. Larosiere about the reaction of the Michigan Legislature to legally armed protesters, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's move to ban so-called "ghost guns" without due legal process and, of course, 3D printed guns and why they're so important -- and cool. For a full transcript of Sam's interview see below.
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Transcript of Episode:
Sam Jacobs (32s):
Welcome back to the Resistance Library Podcast from Ammo.com. I'm your host, Sam Jacobs. And I am here today with Matthew Larosiere. Matthew Larosiere is the director of legal policy at the Firearms Policy Coalition. The first thing I'd like you to do is just kind of tell everyone who doesn't know what the Firearms Policy Coalition does. Just kind of give me the like nickel tour of what it is you guys do over there.
Matthew Larosiere:
Well, we are a 501c4 nonprofit, a grassroots advocacy organization.
So we engage in, you know, your ordinary advocacy. We also do direct lawsuits, research, you know, public information requests, basically where a full service gun rights group. We do everything from. So like my department is kind of like a think tank and grassroots department where we research different policy areas and what logic is behind them. And also the principles underlining, you know, our side of the issue, which is, you know, freedom.
But, but yeah, so we're a full service, no compromise gun rights organization. And that means, you know, we don't, there's no second amendment, but with us, I'm a, I'm a big fan of machine guns and light tanks. So that should tell you what you need to know.
Sam Jacobs:
Yeah. I, I, you know, it's funny because I instantly thought like, "Oh, so you're, you guys are cool with machine guns," as are we, so that's fine. We're very much on the same page. And I figured that we would be, but the language that you used was like, Oh yeah, they're so of course they want to repeal the 1986 gun control act, which...
Matthew Larosiere:
Uh...I'd go further. I've got a machine gun right here, actually. [machine gun sound] But why start with just FOPA, right? Why not go all the way back to GCA and NFA? It's all garbage.
Sam Jacobs:
Sure, sure. And you will find absolutely no disagreement from me there whatsoever. Do you mind telling us about your machine gun?
Matthew Larosiere:
This one here is a STEN Mk. II, you know, 1942 made at ENC company in England during the war. I've also got here a Chauchat 1915, a Costa Rican Breda, and Chatellerault light machine rifle.
Sam Jacobs (3m 0s):
It's funny because every guy that I know who has machine guns, like they're like potato chips, you can't get just one.
Matthew Larosiere (3m 4s):
No, it's impossible. And then also getting a pro tip is get weird ones like mine, because they're way cheaper.
Sam Jacobs:
Why is that?
Matthew Larosiere:
Because everybody wants an M 16, everybody wants a Thompson and you know, there's only so many on the registry, but then like, like a Breda is a seven millimeter, four shot burst rifle that no one's ever even heard of. So yeah, you'll get away with paying that what you might pay for, you know, a really nice semi auto rifle.
Sam Jacobs (3m 32s):
Well, that's good. I'm glad that you're helping our listeners to source their fully automatic machine guns. I, and I genuinely am. And also, you know, I was going to ask like, why we need the firearms policy coalition when we have the militant defenders of the Second Amendment at the NRA. That's a joke for anyone who's not picking it up.
Matthew Larosiere (3m 56s):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I know, you know, I don't talk about the Jones's, you know... they, they do all kinds of work. They've got, you know, there, there are things that everybody in this area has something to provide, but we provide zero compromise. You know, we don't negotiate with politicians, it's against our policy. And if you want somebody who isn't going to ever say, you know, Oh, well, it's just a bump stock.
That's us, we're behind, you know, a lot of litigation involving the bump stock ban, some of which is still active. So.
Sam Jacobs (4m 35s):
Which I think it was really cool because, you know, I think that you're right, that everyone, you know, that everyone has something offered in this sphere, you know, all joshing aside. But you know, the thing that I think is really cool about what you guys do and what I kind of fixated on when I was going, going through and researching for this episode was I love that you guys get down in the trenches of litigating this stuff. And so I was following kind of some back and forth you guys had with the attorney general of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, I saw that you had your Shapiro is a tyrant shirt on, in one of your videos.
And I think that people oftentimes fixate on what gets the headline, or what gets the press conference, or what gets the soundbite, but so much of what the Second Amendment, or rather defending the Second Amendment is about, is about, you know, a lot of this really unglamorous work in the trenches that no one ever gets, that you don't get, it's not very sexy, and you don't get the same recognition for it, but in some ways it's much more important.
And I think it's really cool that you guys do that.
Matthew Larosiere (5m 54s):
Right. And we also like the, so not just that, but we just get engaged, you know, I spend a lot of time talking to representatives and just trying to change the shape of the issue. Like, and so I've actually, I've got my Joshua Shapiro TEC-9 right here. You know, we like, you know, with the 3D printed guns, we wanted to make a big point about this. I've been in the maker space for some time.
And, you know, they're always talking about how all these illegal guns, illegal guns, you know, ghost gun, blah, blah, blah. And nobody's talking about how much of a First Amendment issue it is. So, you know, we have the freedom and like, you know, in my department, we have the ability to, we sat down and we designed, you know, with, with help from the community, a 3D printable TEC-9 receiver, that's got this politician's face all over it that says, you know, that it's a love letter to him.
And the point of it is it's to change the shape of the debate. We do a lot of stuff like that. So we put this out and the, I don't know if you've seen it, but it's like, you take one, look at this gun, it's hot pink, it's covered in little hearts. And, you know, it's got a politician's face on it. You sit there and look at me and tell me that's not First Amendment conduct. Right. So we're trying to do stuff like that to make sure we don't just cover the guns, but also the gun adjacent stuff, like, you know, First Amendment, right to build, right to associate, you know, all that stuff,
Sam Jacobs (7m 38s):
Which again, I think is really cool. And one of the things I liked about that weapon and just 3D printed guns in general is how so many of them come in these like tropical candy colors and, and they kind of weirdly subvert this whole, you know, "Ooh, it's a scary black rifle thing," which I think is cool. You know, it doesn't make them a better weapon or anything, but I just find it kind of interesting where that's, where a lot of it has gone.
I mean, of course like the 3D printed materials tend to kind of be a little more technicolor than what comes out of a factory. Anyway,
Matthew Larosiere (8m 18s):
You can get any color you want. It's a cultural thing. And I, I don't know how it took cold, but me, you know, nothing spurred me to do it, but I think it might just be because I'm a proud native Floridian, but I print out all my firearms receivers in teal and pink, which cause I consider those to be, you know, South Florida colors. And it just, it's just a thing we do, which is funny. I mean, they make black, they make gray, but we kinda like putting them out in these funny colors.
Sam Jacobs (8m 47s):
So this is a good segue to talk about 3D printed guns kind of in general, one thing that you had posted on your Twitter, it was either you or the FPC's account, but it is a common refrain that I hear when talking about 3D printed guns. And that is the technology just isn't there yet, which as somebody who's not, who's kind of interested in 3D guns, but isn't an expert on them by any means. This sounds wrong to me, but I don't, I can't explain why.
So what do people mean when they say that and why are they wrong?
Matthew Larosiere (9m 23s):
So it's, it's a noble lie that gets told in the mainstream media. And they're always sitting there saying, "Oh, well, you know," and, and like you often observe it on something, a source that you'd otherwise think to be friendly like, "Oh, well we don't need to worry about 3D printed firearms because the technology just isn't there. It's gonna blow up in your hand. You know, whatever." The, the fact is we are way further along than most people realize, especially in the United States where, you know, we have the receiver distinction and we're allowed to get barrels and, and, you know, all kinds of other parts delivered right to our houses, as we should. We're like way beyond the point of having really effective, repeatable, reliable equipment that's printed.
Like, you know, that TEC-9 thing that we made, that one I have here was printed with the cheapest pink PLA that I could find. It's got like $5 of plastic in it. And it has held up to hundreds of rounds without even a crack. So we're, we're there and we've got the FGC 9, which is significant because it's one of the first self-loading semi automatic firearms designs that uses virtually no, you know, what you'd call a gun parts.
Even the barrel, there's a 3D printable mandrel that lets you use, you know, a battery charger and some saltwater, you know, to simplify it, to cut the rifling on your own barre. You can build this stuff, you know, you can get into 3D printing firearm receivers with a $180 printer. So it's, it's really not this, you know, infant technology. It's, I mean, we're there, it's here.
Sam Jacobs (11m 17s):
Well, you know, in terms of the effectiveness of this technology, why is there this tendency on both sides of the Second Amendment debate? I hate to put it in those terms because I don't really actually think it is a debate. I think there's people who want it, people who want to infringe on your rights and people who don't want to infringe upon your rights. So maybe I should frame it more in those terms, but why do both of these sides kind of agree on this thing that's not really true,
Matthew Larosiere (11m 45s):
Right. So, you know, if I'm to play devil's advocate, if I'm to give them my best argument, I would say that a program people, you know, like, like you're saying, they want to just kind of poo poo it and say, "Oh, just forget about it for right now, you know, look over this thing over here." And what I find problematic with that argument is that it carries within it, the implicit suggestion that once the technology does get to that point, which it already has, then it will be okay to do something which, you know, rather than, you know, my perspective is this is awesome.
We live in the future, let's embrace this and everybody should have one. Whereas on the other side, I think they might, I think the best reason for the anti side to tell this noble lie is either, well, either one, they haven't done their research and they don't know. And so it could be that like, you know, the, the pro gun lie is, is working, or two that they want to say, let's get in and prevent this from happening. You know, we, we can stop it if we act now.
Whereas if they were to like recognize now that cat's out of the bag and these files are everywhere, but we're gonna make it illegal. It's kinda like, you know, why would we do anything about it at that point?
Sam Jacobs (13m 4s):
Right. And I totally agree with you. The framing on it is bad for pro-Second Amendment freedom people, because yeah, it's just, okay. So when, I mean, it's like when they, when they pivot to, well, why do you want to ban so-called assault rifles? Or why do you want to ban sec semi automatic rifles when most murders are committed with handguns? And it's like, you're just inviting them to then pivot the conversation to ban handguns.
Matthew Larosiere (13m 33s):
Yeah. And, and also like, even, Oh my God, this, you know, it reminds me of something that just triggers the ever loving hell out of me when they say, "No, no, it's not an assault rifle. It's a modern sporting rifle." Or like, whatever, like no, shut up. It's an assault rifle. I have the right to my assault rifle. It's like leave me alone.
Sam Jacobs (13m 54s):
Right. No, totally. I completely agree. So why, I mean, other than the kind of more general, Second Amendment issue, you know why do you personally champion 3D printed guns? Like what does this offer that something I can buy down at my local gun shop or Donald my local pawn shop, doesn't.
Matthew Larosiere (14m 20s):
The freedom to be anything like, you know, I've got a lot of store-bought guns, right. But that doesn't change my life. Having a 3D printer in my life, and I was a fairly early adopter. It just changed the way I looked at things. I don't know how many people in your audience or whether you are like know fabricating, but once you own a welding machine, it changes the way you look at the world and this the same, it's the same kind of thing, except it takes a lot less training and a lot less initial investment, you've got this thing now that can turn thoughts into reality.
So it's the future. A for why I champion it. I mean, it's, it's an intersection of my interests. You know, I'm a, I'm a gun rights attorney. And I also, I care about everything related to that. And the First Amendment is really important. And the First Amendment is what protects us, you know, and enables us to share this information because you know where to, you know, how to cut out a receiver, how to, you know, make your own firearms at home. That's all protected information that needs to be robustly recognized. If we decide that, "Oh, well, you know, 3D models are different because they're new and spooky. And so they can't be regulated." Well, what's the purpose of the First Amendment now.
Sam Jacobs (15m 51s):
And that's kind of the, I mean, that's the entire argument against assault rifles, or however you wish to term as like, you know, new and scary equals not conceivable by the people who wrote the Constitution equals not subject to the Constitution.
Matthew Larosiere (16m 9s):
I always like to imagine what Thomas Jefferson would say. If I handed him an AK-74.
Sam Jacobs (16m 15s):
He would say it was awesome.
Matthew Larosiere (16m 17s):
I was gonna say, I doubt, he'd be like, "Oh, this is horrible." He'd probably be like, "COOL! You don't even have to pack it. These things are... WHAT?!," you know, it'd be, he'd be blown away. He'd want 12 of them. Right.
Sam Jacobs (16m 30s):
Right, yeah. God. Yeah, wished we had these!
Matthew Larosiere (16m 32s):
Yeah. These are so cool, you can blow off so many red coats with this.
Sam Jacobs (16m 37s):
So, you can obviously, as with anything else, I ask you feel free to decline to answer this, but what's the craziest thing you've ever made with the 3D printer.
Matthew Larosiere (16m 46s):
The craziest? I mean, define craziest.
Sam Jacobs (16m 49s):
I'd rather let you define craziest, because it was interesting to me because you're like, you know, basically kind of saying like your imagination is the limit on this or whatever you can conceive of you can theoretically make. I mean, obviously, you know, there's some technological limits there's, there's limits of capable capability or, you know, whatever, but, you know, what's kind of like an example of you wanting something that you can't get off the shelf, but you would say, well, you know what? I can just make it.
Matthew Larosiere (17m 26s):
I, gotcha. Yeah. I, oh, in a single week. I printed out a, like, there was a little plastic piece that broke on my car's mirror. And instead of spending $300 to get the whole new mirror, I just, I took the piece with some calipers. I took some measurements. I designed the part, I printed it out. And then a couple of days after that, it was one of my coworkers' birthday. So I printed him a little octopus that had eight middle fingers being held up and he loved that.
And then, you know, a couple of weeks after that, I prototyped a fire control group housing for an old French carbine that used an AR-15 fire control group. Just, yeah. All of that in a couple of weeks.
Sam Jacobs (18m 13s):
It must really come in handy, especially because you talked about buying old, weird weapons and you also had a post that I thought was really funny, about a hundred year old European bolt action rifles. So I mean, I would imagine as somebody who is a collector of firearms, you know, even if you're not necessarily interested in printing a full weapon, for whatever reason, maybe you don't like how they look, maybe you just don't care. You don't want one, but it would seem like a 3D printer would really come in handy for even somebody who just collects old weapons that are, you know, like anything else that's going through that much stress is, is breaking down a lot and they can use a 3D printer to kind of extend the life.
Matthew Larosiere (18m 59s):
Right, yeah. There's all kinds of little ways that it can come in handy, you know, with restoration and preservation. And also, I mean, if you, and if you're into collecting old militaria, you're going to wind up with parts kits, you know, where the receivers are destroyed. There's been more than one time where I've just printed out the missing part. So I could have a display weapon.
Sam Jacobs (19m 26s):
And now I want to talk about what's going on in Michigan because it is a little old, but it still is crazy to me that they canceled their legislative session in response to the armed protestors who, you know, armed protesters is always another thing that's kind of like used as a scare word. But as you were saying before, like, so what, they're legally allowed to be, allowed is again, not the best word, but like they're exercising a constitutionally enumerated right in a way that's new and scary. Though I doubt it's new. And I also am skeptical to the degree to which it's actually scary and the degree to which it's, you know, a convenient way to act because it appears scary to outsiders. So can you kind of take us through like what happened in Michigan with those armed protests?
Matthew Larosiere (20m 23s):
Well, so basically, you know, you had the state government handed down a lot of very unaccountable orders, right? And the shutdown orders that were very wide reaching and people. And, you know, like, I, I actually like to refrain from talking about this kind of stuff, because there's this, there's this new orthodoxy that's developed where you're not allowed to question the shutdown orders at all. So without me saying anything on whether the shutdown owners were good or bad, there were a bunch of people who thought they were bad and they decided to protest, right.
They're protesting for their, you know, what they perceive as an assault on their livelihood, their way of life, et cetera, you know, without proper due process from the government. So basically you've got a group of people that are saying, "Hey, you're violating my rights." And you know, a group of them come just bearing arms peaceably. And so the media goes nuts, like says that these are armed right-wing blah, blah, blah. We're in, like, if you look at the pictures, there's, it's just a bunch of normal people.
And, and they make a blitz out of it. They shut down their session early. And I, you know, I don't know if they actually said it was for fear or if it was just like assumed it was, but then so of course the first thing they want to do now is take away the right of the people to carry arms in the state capital. So like that just seems, it just seems interesting to me, it's like, "Oh, they're mad at us for violating their rights. Why don't we take a right away that will fix it?"
Sam Jacobs (21m 59s):
Well, I mean, it would, but not in a good way. And it's interesting because we just recently did a podcast about Robert F. Williams, who, anybody who listening doesn't know, Robert F. Williams was a civil rights activist in the 1950s who responded to his community, being terrorized by the clan, by arming him and his comrades with weapons under the auspices of an NRA gun club.
And you should listen to our Robert F. Williams podcast about that. But one of the things we talk about in that podcast is the Mulford Act, which was passed by Governor Ronald Reagan, which always shocks people to, you know, which was one of the most sweeping gun control laws in the country at that time. And was specifically designed to prevent Black Panthers from protesting in a similar manner. But there's no, you know, I mean, there's no other right that you're not allowed to exercise within a hundred yards or whatever of the state house.
Matthew Larosiere (23m 9s):
And here's the other thing, right? So you have one of the most important core protected areas of the First Amendment is political assembly and political speech. So the fact that they're like, what they're basically saying is, "Okay, well, you can have your First Amendment right, and you can have your Second Amendment right. But not at the same time." So that's nonsense. There is no, it's like, they're acting like there's an "or" in between the First and Second Amendment. It's like, "Oh, you can talk or you can gun," you know, it's not, no we're allowed both and not, you know what I mean? It's not, you can't prohibit it. Is the best way to say it.
Sam Jacobs (23m 47s):
Yeah. And I mean, it's also, I don't want to, I generally try not to go too far down the, you know, aren't the Democratic party hypocrites kind of road because it's like, well, yeah. I mean, this is their whole thing is like freedom of speech is great when it helps our cause and not so great when it doesn't. And one of the things that we saw during the last presidential election, or at least in the aftermath of it was like, well, that's enough democracy and free speech for now.
We're going to kind of do what we can to, to shut all this down. But it still is astonishing to me, at least in some ways because I felt protests were good.
Matthew Larosiere (24m 30s):
Right. Well, they're good when you agree with them. So, I mean, I can, you know, that's a forgivable error you just made.
Sam Jacobs (24m 39s):
[Laughing] Right. What is, I mean, what kind of legal ground does the attorney general of Pennsylvania have to stand on with this ghost guns thing? Cause it sounds, I mean, I understand the whole, the whole way this works is they fly up a trial balloon and they see to what degree it works. But this one seems, really, this one seems really seems like a bit of a reach to me as a layman in and out, and, you know, an outsider and as much as I'm not an attorney, and I'm not, I'm in the trenches of, of this kind of litigation or legislation, like what kind of leg does he have to stand on if any, if any, or is it just a, you know, everyone's looking at the lockdown and I think I can slam this through kind of thing.
Matthew Larosiere (25m 24s):
Which thing are we talking about now?
Sam Jacobs (25m 27s):
The attorney general Josh Shapiro's, you know, reclassifying 80% receivers as firearms.
Matthew Larosiere (25m 36s):
So yeah, what he was doing there is trying to interpret police powers. Basically he was doing like a triple, like triple stuffed bad interpretation bingo, to like use this law to give him power to act here, which then enables him to reclassify this, you know, like it's, it was, it was a bunch of nonsense. And like, I mean, you know, very conveniently at this at the same time that Bloomberg had just pushed this new agenda. Of course, Josh Shapiro comes out with it, but no, it's, it's, it's a bunch of crap.
There was no vagueness in the law that justified his re-interpretation. And you know, this is, this has happened a while ago. And there were a lot of developments since, you know, he was prevented from engaging in that before.
Sam Jacobs (26m 31s):
And you guys got a temporary injunction against him, correct. Yeah. And then kind of what's the future of the, of the issue.
Matthew Larosiere (26m 41s):
Yeah, no, you, I mean, this, this might be to some of your listeners, but you're not supposed to just like make the law up, [Laughing] you know, especially when you're the Attorney General, you're supposed to, you know, faithfully read and enforce it, not just divine garbage into it. Well, the funny thing about this is, he tried to reinterpret Pennsylvania code which defined a firearm. And there's one little like, like skin tag on the definition, which is about readily convertible firearms.
And what this is really about is like a long time ago, back when the law was written, you could buy these starter guns, which were like sold as race starter guns, which were just like junky .25 caliber and .22 caliber pistols that had something shoved into the barrel and you'd unshove the barrel. So that's what it was really about. And so he, they tried to claim that, you know, a hunk of aluminum is readily convertible to a firearm.
In which case it's like, you know, what does that make the STEN gun then is every, you know, every exhaust pipe a sub machine gun now it's, it's just preposterous. There's no way to, like, there would be no way to rationally enforce something like that, you know, without it being unconstitutionally vague.
Sam Jacobs (28m 2s):
Do you know if there's any plans to, I mean, I'm presuming that Attorney General Shapiro is not just dropping it at, at this and that there'll be further action. Do you know anything about what's going to come down the pipe with that?
Matthew Larosiere (28m 20s):
Yeah. There's no real way to know. I, I can't assume that they're going to take it laying down, but you know, we'll just have to wait and see. I mean, of course I think we're right.
Sam Jacobs (28m 34s):
What do you think the future of 3D printed guns is, do you think that they're just kind of a niche thing for hobbyists and that kind of thing? Or do you think that they have a broader appeal?
Matthew Larosiere (28m 49s):
Let me tell you something, man, they've got a much broader appeal and I'm very excited to be working on some projects that are going to make some changes in this space. I wish I could say much more than that, but let me just give you an example. If you go on any of Hi-Point's social media, you'll see all anybody are doing are demanding that they sell parts kits. And that's because the guys in these 3D printing communities, and these are, I just want to stress, these young men are absolute heroes for our generation.
These guys are unbelievable. They work hours and hours and hours in between their real job on these collaborative efforts to design 3D printable frames, you know, for available firearms parts kits. And then they release them for free online just because they love freedom. And so they did that for the Hi-Point. And it's one of the better designs for 3D printing because, you know, you don't need, you don't need many moving parts.
You know, it's direct blowback. The demand for the parts kits was so high that now the parts kits cost more than the guns themselves. You just can't get them. So I think that tells you something. I think that tells you people, people want to be able to get a firearm and build it themselves. And you know, it's their right. There are so many people to where getting a firearm is just way too difficult for something as essential as it is.
Like, imagine if you live out in the middle of the country, your nearest transfer agent is an hour away, right? And that's a real thing for plenty of people. So you've got to get that gun ordered in, take time out of your schedule, go drive up there, pay that person a gatekeeper's fee, right? Why do that? What this is saying is not, you know, skip that mess. If you need a gun, you know, and, and it's legal for you to have it, order your parts and make it that's, that's the direction it's going in.
It's only getting better. There's all kinds of exciting projects. Every, you know, every week I see something new in these channels, we're in where we discuss the development. It's big. It's not, it's not just a little novelty. You know, this is, this is big stuff. These guys are developing ammunition that you can make at home. And I don't mean like, you know, like reloading, because I'm a reloader, I don't mean getting yourself some tightgroup and some primers and slapping it together.
No, I mean, homemade gunpowder, homemade priming compound, like that's how much these people are working to decentralize the industry on arms and just create a pro freedom world.
Sam Jacobs:
How does a homemade gunpowder work?
Matthew Larosiere (31m 52s):
Literally there is a group of chemists from all over the world that we're talking in this, you know, in this channel and they, they were comparing, you know, what chemicals can you, can you get in this country, this country, this country.
And they got together and they, you know, like this stuff is all magic to me, right? Like I'm a lawyer. I count on my fingers and I don't understand chemistry, but they figured out a formula to make repeatable, consistent powder, like smokeless powder. And you know, this isn't like grinding it out of a tree someplace like the olden olden days. This is pretty consistent smokeless powder. That's made with stuff that you can get anywhere. And they're going to be releasing that hopefully very soon.
Sam Jacobs:
It's, it's a very different world that we're moving into. And one of the things that I find most interesting about the people who kind of want to shut down the whole 3D printer thing is just, I don't know how realistically you could do it. You know, that's one of the things that's kind of most interesting to me about it is that we know basically the technologies, revolutionary technologies are kind of hard to stick back in the bottle, right? Like once it gets out, there's not really any way to shut it down and sure you can start throwing people in jail for it, but the actual technology will be there.
And that's kind of one of the main, perhaps the Achilles heel of the entire argument is that, you know, there's no reason to believe that anybody who's determined enough is going to not be able to leverage these technologies. I mean, it's the old, like when guns are outlawed only outlaws of guns thing, except now outlaws won't even need to like find a buyer. They'll just need to find the right bits and bobs and be able to put it together.
Matthew Larosiere (33m 46s):
Right. And, and I mean, that's what the FCG 9 is, which, I mean, you can look up online videos, that thing running, and it runs pretty good. And it's not made with any gun parts, you know, that can be made anywhere. And it's just, it's all about freedom. These guys, and by the way, you know, banning it or whatever, wouldn't make a difference because these guys are already operating anonymously. They assume, you know that because the US government isn't friendly to this, the US government doesn't want, you know, we've seen this with ongoing litigation involving Defense Distributed.
They don't want you posting the designs online. So these guys who are designing these, these guns and posting them online, they're already doing it quietly. They're already doing it under pseudonyms. And, and you know, it's not stopping the progress, but what I think it does show, and that's why this is like one of the main reasons I think these guys are heroes. Nobody knows their names. They put in all this time, they don't get a dollar. All they did is put freedom out there for other people.
And I think that, you know, I really hope that at some point in our country, we get to the point where we can, these guys can tell their names, you know, and we can celebrate these people because they're special.
Sam Jacobs (35m 11s):
Well, I want to thank you for joining us. Where can everybody find you on the internet?
Matthew Larosiere (35m 15s):
You can follow me on Twitter at MATTLAATLAW. It's MattLa At Law. We also post on FirearmsPolicy.org. I do a weekly update there that goes on YouTube and the Gun Policy Instagram and everything. So definitely check that product out. I, I really do like the weekly update, just kind of puts all of the, you know, legislative and legal gun law updates into one place for you.
Sam Jacobs (35m 38s):
It really is a great resource for anybody who wants to follow the kind of legislative and, and machinations that are coming after your Second Amendment rights again. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. And thanks to everybody who listened. If you would like to get some cheap ammunition for your non 3D printed guns, you can go to Ammo.com/podcast. I'm Sam Jacobs, and we'll see you next time.
]]>We discussed the upcoming election with Niño as well as the role that Big Tech censorship will play in it. We also discussed what the proper role of government is in protecting the right of citizens to speak online, with social media acting as a de facto public square for the 21st Century. His insights on matter are trenchant and, perhaps most importantly, unorthodox. This is definitely a "must listen" episode of The Resistance Library Podcast.
Jose's Links:
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]]>We discussed the upcoming election with Niño as well as the role that Big Tech censorship will play in it. We also discussed what the proper role of government is in protecting the right of citizens to speak online, with social media acting as a de facto public square for the 21st Century. His insights on matter are trenchant and, perhaps most importantly, unorthodox. This is definitely a "must listen" episode of The Resistance Library Podcast.
Jose's Links:
Other Helpful Links:
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>Mr. Rucker is the Editor-in-Chief of NOQ Report, a conservative news site. Sam had him on the show to discuss the wave of urban unrest sweeping the nation, where it comes from and what might be next.
JD Rucker's Links:
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]]>Mr. Rucker is the Editor-in-Chief of NOQ Report, a conservative news site. Sam had him on the show to discuss the wave of urban unrest sweeping the nation, where it comes from and what might be next.
JD Rucker's Links:
Other Helpful Links:
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>NC Scout is a Senior Editor at The American Partisan as well as the owner of Brushbeater Training and Consulting. He is a former infantry scout and sergeant of an elite Army reconnaissance unit, boasting combat tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq. His courses go far beyond what is taught in most survival skills courses, sharing the secrets that elite military units use to stay alive in the toughest of situations.
Scout joined us during the height of the Coronavirus lockdown to discuss how a man of action such as himself is weathering the isolation. In the course of events we discussed 1978 war flick The Wild Geese, the true life account of "Mad" Mike Hoare, a man whose life story is the type that couldn't have possibly been dreamt up by a Hollywood studio executive. We also touch on the life of mercenaries in general and the limited possibilities for adventure in the life of modern man.
NC Scout's Links:
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]]>NC Scout is a Senior Editor at The American Partisan as well as the owner of Brushbeater Training and Consulting. He is a former infantry scout and sergeant of an elite Army reconnaissance unit, boasting combat tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq. His courses go far beyond what is taught in most survival skills courses, sharing the secrets that elite military units use to stay alive in the toughest of situations.
Scout joined us during the height of the Coronavirus lockdown to discuss how a man of action such as himself is weathering the isolation. In the course of events we discussed 1978 war flick The Wild Geese, the true life account of "Mad" Mike Hoare, a man whose life story is the type that couldn't have possibly been dreamt up by a Hollywood studio executive. We also touch on the life of mercenaries in general and the limited possibilities for adventure in the life of modern man.
NC Scout's Links:
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For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>Kyle Anzalone is the Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com, News Editor at The Libertarian Institute and Host of the Foreign Policy Focus podcast. His news roundups are essential, providing you with hard news stories that often slip through the cracks of the mainstream corporate media, which operates much more as a sort of ongoing political gossip column than anything else.
Sam got together with Anzalone to discuss some of the current foreign and domestic issues including: Was Justin Amash a serious candidate for the Libertarian Party Presidential nomination or just seeking to raise his profile? What will the consequences of escalating tensions between the United States and China be? This plus how the state has used regulatory schemes to ensnare ordinary Americans during the Wuhan Coronavirus lockdown.
Kyle's Links:
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For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
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]]>Kyle Anzalone is the Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com, News Editor at The Libertarian Institute and Host of the Foreign Policy Focus podcast. His news roundups are essential, providing you with hard news stories that often slip through the cracks of the mainstream corporate media, which operates much more as a sort of ongoing political gossip column than anything else.
Sam got together with Anzalone to discuss some of the current foreign and domestic issues including: Was Justin Amash a serious candidate for the Libertarian Party Presidential nomination or just seeking to raise his profile? What will the consequences of escalating tensions between the United States and China be? This plus how the state has used regulatory schemes to ensnare ordinary Americans during the Wuhan Coronavirus lockdown.
Kyle's Links:
Helpful Links:
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>Vincent Cefalu is best known as the primary whistleblower who exposed Operation Fast and Furious and Project Gunrunner to the American public - but that's not how he wants to be remembered. Cefalu is a curious figure, one who strongly believes in the mission of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and for reasons that are not easily dismissed by the same canned arguments we've all spouted at one time or another. A humble figure, he's ready to provide credit to the other, lesser-known whistleblowers of the ATF.
Sam talked with Mr. Cefalu about his history working with the ATF, his role in exposing arguably the biggest scandal of the Obama Administration and his memoir, Ratsnakes, which is an account of his several decades long career with the ATF with scant mention of the high-profile scandal that he helped to break.
Vincent's Links:
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]]>Vincent Cefalu is best known as the primary whistleblower who exposed Operation Fast and Furious and Project Gunrunner to the American public - but that's not how he wants to be remembered. Cefalu is a curious figure, one who strongly believes in the mission of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and for reasons that are not easily dismissed by the same canned arguments we've all spouted at one time or another. A humble figure, he's ready to provide credit to the other, lesser-known whistleblowers of the ATF.
Sam talked with Mr. Cefalu about his history working with the ATF, his role in exposing arguably the biggest scandal of the Obama Administration and his memoir, Ratsnakes, which is an account of his several decades long career with the ATF with scant mention of the high-profile scandal that he helped to break.
Vincent's Links:
Helpful Links:
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
]]>For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Helpful Links: ]]>
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
"If we wanted to be serious about evidence, we might compare where blacks stood a hundred years after the end of slavery with where they stood after 30 years of the liberal welfare state. In other words, we could compare hard evidence on 'the legacy of slavery' with hard evidence on the legacy of liberals."
You can read Sam's full article "Black America Before LBJ: How the Welfare State Inadvertently Helped Ruin Black Communities" in Ammo.com's Resistance Library.For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Helpful Links: ]]>If you're under the age of 40 and you're listening to this, chances are very good that your interest in the liberty movement was sparked by three-time presidential candidate and veteran Texas Congressman Ron Paul. Paul inspired an entire generation of Libertarians, Constitutionalists and limited-government Conservatives with his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.
It might surprise you to learn that Paul is not originally from Texas, but Pittsburgh, where he was born to a dairy farmer and his wife. He graduated from Gettysburg State College in 1957, with a degree in biology. He earned his medical degree from Duke's School of Medicine in 1961. From 1963 to 1965, he was a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force, before moving over to the Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968. Upon discharge, he relocated to Texas to start a private practice in obstetrics and gynecology.
While he had been reading Austrian economics and Libertarian political philosophy for years beforehand, he finally decided to run for Congress when President Richard Nixon took the nation off of the gold standard in 1971. He lost his first attempt at public office in 1974, but won a special election in 1976, losing the regular election later that year by a mere 300 votes. He defeated his opponent in 1978, serving until 1985, then again from 1997 to 2013.
Read Sam's full article on Ron Paul at Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
If you're under the age of 40 and you're listening to this, chances are very good that your interest in the liberty movement was sparked by three-time presidential candidate and veteran Texas Congressman Ron Paul. Paul inspired an entire generation of Libertarians, Constitutionalists and limited-government Conservatives with his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.
It might surprise you to learn that Paul is not originally from Texas, but Pittsburgh, where he was born to a dairy farmer and his wife. He graduated from Gettysburg State College in 1957, with a degree in biology. He earned his medical degree from Duke's School of Medicine in 1961. From 1963 to 1965, he was a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force, before moving over to the Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968. Upon discharge, he relocated to Texas to start a private practice in obstetrics and gynecology.
While he had been reading Austrian economics and Libertarian political philosophy for years beforehand, he finally decided to run for Congress when President Richard Nixon took the nation off of the gold standard in 1971. He lost his first attempt at public office in 1974, but won a special election in 1976, losing the regular election later that year by a mere 300 votes. He defeated his opponent in 1978, serving until 1985, then again from 1997 to 2013.
Read Sam's full article on Ron Paul at Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Helpful Links: ]]>
The United States of America can take pride in a number of things, among them arguably the two greatest cultural and scientific achievements of human history: The moon landing and atomic power. It is the latter that we will focus on in this episode, the unleashing of the power of the atom, for good and for ill.
America was the first nation to split the atom and applied it immediately to the war effort. It was not for a lack of trying on the part of America's rivals: Germany famously had their own nuclear program. Less well known is that the Empire of Japan was also looking for a way to weaponize the primal forces of nature.
But America got there first. And their ability to do so not only changed the course of the Second World War, it also changed the course of human history. For the first time ever, mankind has the ability to wipe away human life as we know it at the push of a button. On the other hand, we also have a clean, reliable fuel source that could outstrip all existing sources, if the political will were there.
This is the story of how America unleashed and harnessed the power of nuclear fission, for better or for worse. To learn more check out Sam's article at Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
The United States of America can take pride in a number of things, among them arguably the two greatest cultural and scientific achievements of human history: The moon landing and atomic power. It is the latter that we will focus on in this episode, the unleashing of the power of the atom, for good and for ill.
America was the first nation to split the atom and applied it immediately to the war effort. It was not for a lack of trying on the part of America's rivals: Germany famously had their own nuclear program. Less well known is that the Empire of Japan was also looking for a way to weaponize the primal forces of nature.
But America got there first. And their ability to do so not only changed the course of the Second World War, it also changed the course of human history. For the first time ever, mankind has the ability to wipe away human life as we know it at the push of a button. On the other hand, we also have a clean, reliable fuel source that could outstrip all existing sources, if the political will were there.
This is the story of how America unleashed and harnessed the power of nuclear fission, for better or for worse. To learn more check out Sam's article at Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Helpful Links: ]]>
While Henry doesn't have the same household recognition as Sam Colt or Smith & Wesson, Benjamin Tyler Henry is a towering figure in the world of ammunition and firearms – and those in the know, know. Henry invented the eponymous Henry rifle, which was the world's first repeating revolver that actually worked.
Henry was born in Claremont, New Hampshire in 1821, to one of the most prominent families in the area. His grandfather, Colonel Benjamin Tyler, had been the town's first millwright, who founded several successful mills in the town and invented the wry-fly water wheel. One of his cousins, James Tyler, likewise continued in the innovative spirit of their shared grandfather by perfecting this water-wheel design, creating much of the prosperity that visited the town during the early years of the Industrial Revolution, but allowing paper and textile mills to spring up throughout the town using the power of this perfected design.
At a young age, he became an apprentice gunsmith, working his way up to the foreman at Robins & Lawrence Arms Company of Windsor, Vermont. It was here that he worked with Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson on the volitional repeater, which would eventually become the Henry rifle.
o learn more about Henry, read Sam's article at Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
While Henry doesn't have the same household recognition as Sam Colt or Smith & Wesson, Benjamin Tyler Henry is a towering figure in the world of ammunition and firearms – and those in the know, know. Henry invented the eponymous Henry rifle, which was the world's first repeating revolver that actually worked.
Henry was born in Claremont, New Hampshire in 1821, to one of the most prominent families in the area. His grandfather, Colonel Benjamin Tyler, had been the town's first millwright, who founded several successful mills in the town and invented the wry-fly water wheel. One of his cousins, James Tyler, likewise continued in the innovative spirit of their shared grandfather by perfecting this water-wheel design, creating much of the prosperity that visited the town during the early years of the Industrial Revolution, but allowing paper and textile mills to spring up throughout the town using the power of this perfected design.
At a young age, he became an apprentice gunsmith, working his way up to the foreman at Robins & Lawrence Arms Company of Windsor, Vermont. It was here that he worked with Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson on the volitional repeater, which would eventually become the Henry rifle.
Sam explains what made Henry's repeating mechanism so disruptive and the two discuss the role it played in the Civil War. Sam talks about Henry's complicated partnerships with other firearm greats, including Smith, Wesson, and Winchester. To learn more about Henry, read Sam's article at Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Helpful Links: ]]>
After the American revolver, there is simply no other handgun in the world that is as easily recognizable as the Luger pistol. The Pistole Parabellum is it's official name, but to virtually anyone, the weapon is simply the "Luger." Georg Luger designed this iconic weapon, as well as the ammunition with which the Luger is loaded – the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge.
While the weapon is largely associated with Germany, Luger was, in fact, born in the Austrian Empire in 1849, in a city just over the border from modern-day Italy. His father, a surgeon, moved the family to Italy not long after Luger's birth where the elder Luger taught at the local university. Luger, however, completed his education in Austria, and then went onto Vienna, where he studied at what is today the prestigious Vienna Business School.
In October 1867, he volunteered for military service as a reserve cadet. His superior officers immediately noticed his excellent marksmanship. They sent him to the Austro-Hungarian Military Firearms School at Camp Bruckneudorf, where he was quickly charged with training marksmanship to other cadets. It was here that he first became interested in automatic loading systems.
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
While the weapon is largely associated with Germany, Luger was, in fact, born in the Austrian Empire in 1849, in a city just over the border from modern-day Italy. His father, a surgeon, moved the family to Italy not long after Luger's birth where the elder Luger taught at the local university. Luger, however, completed his education in Austria, and then went onto Vienna, where he studied at what is today the prestigious Vienna Business School.
In October 1867, he volunteered for military service as a reserve cadet. His superior officers immediately noticed his excellent marksmanship. They sent him to the Austro-Hungarian Military Firearms School at Camp Bruckneudorf, where he was quickly charged with training marksmanship to other cadets. It was here that he first became interested in automatic loading systems.
If you want to learn more about Georg Luger, check out Sam's article at Ammo.com's Resistance Library. For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Helpful links: ]]>There's really no two ways about it: They don't make them like Elmer Keith anymore. He was known for wearing big Stetson hats, smoking big cigars, and hunting big game with handguns long before anyone else did. In Keith's day, handgun rounds were either big and slow or fast and small. Confronted with this kind of ballistics market, Keith sought to make bigger rounds go faster. This is how Keith became the father of the magnum cartridges that we use today: the .357, the .41 and the .44.
Keith was perhaps most associated with the .44 magnum, with which he could dispatch a mule deer at 600 yards. He was also a prolific wildcatter of both pistol and rifle rounds, who was always looking for ways to make big rounds bigger. Indeed, Keith was very vocal about his distaste for smaller rounds, and would even express it to contemporaries such as Jack O'Connor who championed the 270 Winchester.
Keith was born and raised in Hardin, Missouri, right on the Western frontier, and had the opportunity to meet many gunfighters and Civil War veterans. He claimed, in fact, that it was the town barber, a former gunfighter, who taught him how to shoot using linoleum in back of the shop.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
Keith was perhaps most associated with the .44 magnum, with which he could dispatch a mule deer at 600 yards. He was also a prolific wildcatter of both pistol and rifle rounds, who was always looking for ways to make big rounds bigger. Indeed, Keith was very vocal about his distaste for smaller rounds, and would even express it to contemporaries such as Jack O'Connor who championed the 270 Winchester.
Keith was born and raised in Hardin, Missouri, right on the Western frontier, and had the opportunity to meet many gunfighters and Civil War veterans. He claimed, in fact, that it was the town barber, a former gunfighter, who taught him how to shoot using linoleum in back of the shop.
To learn more about Elmer Keith and his role in America's obsession with wheel guns, to read Sam's article at Ammo.com's Resistance Library.For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45
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t's unlikely that there is a single federal alphabet organization less popular among the readership of this website than the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. These are the people who gave us both the Siege at Ruby Ridge and the Siege of Waco. What's more, they may well be engaged in an entirely unconstitutional exercise: monitoring and patrolling the gun ownership of law-abiding citizens.
There's also a solid case to be made that the ATF is a rogue organization, the most corrupt of the federal alphabet agencies. This can be seen through a number of scandals beginning with Ruby Ridge, threading through the siege at Mount Carmel in Waco, and continuing to the notorious "Fast and Furious" scandal.
While firearms owners, weapons enthusiasts and Second Amendment advocates might have a special bone to pick with the ATF, we believe that all freedom-loving Americans should be concerned about the overreach, lawlessness and lack of accountability in this organization. Roman poet Juvenal once posed an important (and famous) question about powerful justice officers: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?" – Who is to guard the guardians?
All told, there are over 20,000 firearms laws and regulations on the books at the state and federal level. Many of these contradict each other or are written with a lot of room for interpretation. Gun owners and gun dealers are easy prey for a corrupt and lawless federal agency that wants to twist its arms outside the bounds of the law.
It's also worth considering what overreach and lack of accountability other federal organizations are responsible for that we don't know about, simply because they do not have the same spotlight on them as the ATF – a reminder that the scandals mentioned above are just the ones that we know about.
Check out more of Sam's articles on the ATF, Waco, Ruby Ridge and Operation Fast and Furious at Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
There's also a solid case to be made that the ATF is a rogue organization, the most corrupt of the federal alphabet agencies. This can be seen through a number of scandals beginning with Ruby Ridge, threading through the siege at Mount Carmel in Waco, and continuing to the notorious "Fast and Furious" scandal.
While firearms owners, weapons enthusiasts and Second Amendment advocates might have a special bone to pick with the ATF, we believe that all freedom-loving Americans should be concerned about the overreach, lawlessness and lack of accountability in this organization. Roman poet Juvenal once posed an important (and famous) question about powerful justice officers: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?" – Who is to guard the guardians?
All told, there are over 20,000 firearms laws and regulations on the books at the state and federal level. Many of these contradict each other or are written with a lot of room for interpretation. Gun owners and gun dealers are easy prey for a corrupt and lawless federal agency that wants to twist its arms outside the bounds of the law.
It's also worth considering what overreach and lack of accountability other federal organizations are responsible for that we don't know about, simply because they do not have the same spotlight on them as the ATF – a reminder that the scandals mentioned above are just the ones that we know about.
Check out more of Sam's articles on the ATF, Waco, Ruby Ridge and Operation Fast and Furious at Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Follow Sam Jacobs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamJacobs45 Helpful Links:Edward "Butch" O'Hare was the Navy's first flying ace, a World War II hero whose name would have been commonly known at the time, but has sadly faded out of view for most Americans. With severely limited ammunition supplies, he was able to shoot down five Japanese bombers, which is how he became the first Naval recipient of the Medal of Honor during the Second World War.
But this was not his only brush with world history: His father, known around Chicago as "Easy Eddie," was Al Capone's high-powered attorney. Easy Eddie was so prized by Capone that he wasn't just paid a handsome salary – he was also kept in the lap of luxury in a house the size of an entire Chicago city block filled with servants.
Easy Eddie lavished the young Butch with gifts. But he was also concerned with his education and moral upbringing – the latter of which changed Easy Eddie's entire life, when he ultimately decided to testify against Capone in open court. Needless to say, this didn't end well for Eddie Senior: His life ended in a hail of bullets on the streets of Chicago.
This was an important moment in the life of Butch. It was here that he learned the true meaning of courage from his father. And he would carry this with him into the air when he fought the Japanese during World War II.
He also picked up his love of aviation from his father. The elder O'Hare caught the bug toward the end of his career as Capone's attorney. He once hitched a ride with Charles Lindbergh, and took the yoke on commercial flights whenever the opportunity presented itself. Sometimes he would let young Butch take the controls.
If you want to know more, check out Sam's article on Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Helpful Links:
]]>Edward "Butch" O'Hare was the Navy's first flying ace, a World War II hero whose name would have been commonly known at the time, but has sadly faded out of view for most Americans. With severely limited ammunition supplies, he was able to shoot down five Japanese bombers, which is how he became the first Naval recipient of the Medal of Honor during the Second World War.
But this was not his only brush with world history: His father, known around Chicago as "Easy Eddie," was Al Capone's high-powered attorney. Easy Eddie was so prized by Capone that he wasn't just paid a handsome salary – he was also kept in the lap of luxury in a house the size of an entire Chicago city block filled with servants.
Easy Eddie lavished the young Butch with gifts. But he was also concerned with his education and moral upbringing – the latter of which changed Easy Eddie's entire life, when he ultimately decided to testify against Capone in open court. Needless to say, this didn't end well for Eddie Senior: His life ended in a hail of bullets on the streets of Chicago.
This was an important moment in the life of Butch. It was here that he learned the true meaning of courage from his father. And he would carry this with him into the air when he fought the Japanese during World War II.
He also picked up his love of aviation from his father. The elder O'Hare caught the bug toward the end of his career as Capone's attorney. He once hitched a ride with Charles Lindbergh, and took the yoke on commercial flights whenever the opportunity presented itself. Sometimes he would let young Butch take the controls.
If you want to know more, check out Sam's article on Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Helpful Links:
]]>It's important to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the siege of Waco, just as it is important to do so with the siege of Ruby Ridge or the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. With every event, it is important to stick to the facts and what can be extrapolated from them to make the strongest argument about what went wrong and why, and what could be done differently in the future.
Molly and Sam share their opinions on David Koresh, the ATF, overreach of the federal government, and what, if anything, could have prevented this massacre.
If you want to know more, check out Sam's article on Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Helpful Links:
]]>It's important to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the siege of Waco, just as it is important to do so with the siege of Ruby Ridge or the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. With every event, it is important to stick to the facts and what can be extrapolated from them to make the strongest argument about what went wrong and why, and what could be done differently in the future.
Molly and Sam share their opinions on David Koresh, the ATF, overreach of the federal government, and what, if anything, could have prevented this massacre.
If you want to know more, check out Sam's article on Ammo.com's Resistance Library.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Helpful Links:
]]>Revisionist history books tell us that the "Wild West" was an anarchic period of time that was not conducive to human prosperity. Images of a Hobbesian nightmare – a life that is brutish and short – are ingrained in our consciousness thanks to decades of public schooling and violent images on the silver screen which are light on actual history and heavy on creative license.
However, individuals who believe in liberty and developing their critical thinking faculties should be skeptical of most mainstream narratives regarding history, especially American history. After all, these narratives by and large have been created by Hollywood, a legacy institution that has historically advanced politically correct content with the support of Washington in order to perpetuate the cultural status quo.
When the curtain of political correctness that's been draped over this particular period of history is pulled back, we see a much more nuanced picture of the American Frontier. In fact, research by historians such as Peter J. Hill, Richard Shenkman, Roger D. McGrath, Terry Anderson, and W. Eugene Holland shows that this period was rather indicative of a "not so wild, Wild West."
On this week's show Brian and Sam talk about the true history of the American frontier.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Helpful Links:
Revisionist history books tell us that the "Wild West" was an anarchic period of time that was not conducive to human prosperity. Images of a Hobbesian nightmare – a life that is brutish and short – are ingrained in our consciousness thanks to decades of public schooling and violent images on the silver screen which are light on actual history and heavy on creative license.
However, individuals who believe in liberty and developing their critical thinking faculties should be skeptical of most mainstream narratives regarding history, especially American history. After all, these narratives by and large have been created by Hollywood, a legacy institution that has historically advanced politically correct content with the support of Washington in order to perpetuate the cultural status quo.
When the curtain of political correctness that's been draped over this particular period of history is pulled back, we see a much more nuanced picture of the American Frontier. In fact, research by historians such as Peter J. Hill, Richard Shenkman, Roger D. McGrath, Terry Anderson, and W. Eugene Holland shows that this period was rather indicative of a "not so wild, Wild West."
On this week's show Brian and Sam talk about the true history of the American frontier.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Helpful Links:
It was Lincoln who set the day as the last Thursday in November. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt changed the day between 1939 and 1941, which was highly controversial. The days were called "Franksgiving." Roosevelt changed the date because retailers communicated to him through the Retail Dry Goods Association and the Secretary of Commerce, that the late date of Thanksgiving that year (the last day of November) might negatively impact retail sales. It was considered bad form to put up Christmas decorations or put on Christmas sales before Thanksgiving.
If only we still lived in such times.
Listen to Brian and Sam talk more about the traditions that lead to Thanksgiving, "Franksgiving," and what's up with modern-day Thanksgiving detractors.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Helpful Links:
It was Lincoln who set the day as the last Thursday in November. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt changed the day between 1939 and 1941, which was highly controversial. The days were called "Franksgiving." Roosevelt changed the date because retailers communicated to him through the Retail Dry Goods Association and the Secretary of Commerce, that the late date of Thanksgiving that year (the last day of November) might negatively impact retail sales. It was considered bad form to put up Christmas decorations or put on Christmas sales before Thanksgiving.
If only we still lived in such times.
Listen to Brian and Sam talk more about the traditions that lead to Thanksgiving, "Franksgiving," and what's up with modern-day Thanksgiving detractors.
For $20 off your $200 purchase, go to https://ammo.com/podcast (a special deal for our listeners).
Helpful Links:
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