Changing the Definition of Your Rights (ft. Guns & Gadgets)

Jared from Guns & Gadgets joins John and Kaylee on State of the Second to trace how a part-time YouTube hobby became one of the first full-time Second Amendment news channels. He grew up poor in a housing project, spent 24 years in law enforcement including a stint as a cop in New Orleans, and started filming holster reviews on an iPhone 4S while recovering from shoulder surgery. When Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey reinterpreted the state's assault weapons ban in 2016, his law and political videos drew ten times the views of anything else he had made. That demand, plus a network of contacts in government who feed him information, turned the channel into a near-daily operation built on getting people accurate news whether it's good, bad, ugly, or indifferent. Most of the conversation is a practical guide to activism. Jared and Kaylee make the case that public comment periods actually work, pointing to the Green Tip ammo ban and the Congressional Review Act vote on pistol braces as wins driven by individual gun owners. They explain why a personal, one or two line comment carries far more weight than a mass-submitted form letter, and why showing up to office hours, lobby days, and local events beats sending an email alone. The throughline is responsibility: a gun rights activist takes personal responsibility not only in the use of their firearms but in the defense of their right to own them, and the people, not the lobby, are the ones who fix things. They cover the broader fight too: state-level red flag pushes, ATF redefinitions, social media pages getting taken down with no explanation, and the slow pace of a system the founders deliberately built to move slowly. Kaylee argues the deepest battle is over language itself, with the anti-gun side redefining rights as government-granted privileges, which is why education at the dinner table and on college campuses matters. The episode closes on GOALS, the Gun Owners Advocacy and Leadership Summit coming to the Knoxville area in August, where Jared will speak on the main stage and on panels, and a plug for Blackout Coffee's No Compromise blend, which donates two dollars per product to GOA. Questions this episode answers How did Guns & Gadgets grow from holster reviews into a full-time Second Amendment news channel? Jared started filming holster reviews on an iPhone 4S while recovering from shoulder surgery. When Massachusetts reinterpreted its assault weapons ban in 2016, his law and political videos drew ten times the views of anything else, and that demand turned the channel into a near-daily news operation. Do public comments to the ATF actually change anything? Yes. Jared points to the Green Tip ammo ban and the Congressional Review Act vote on pistol braces as wins driven by individual gun owners submitting comments during the public comment periods. What is the most effective way for an individual to influence their elected representatives? Show up in person. Jared argues that attending office hours, lobby days, and local events carries more weight than sending an email alone, since representatives are employees the people can hold accountable directly. Why does a personal comment carry more weight than a mass-submitted form letter? A short, personal comment of one or two lines reads as a real individual voice, while hundreds of thousands of copies of the identical form letter mostly signal that people are upset rather than adding distinct weight to the record. What was the real point of the Congressional Review Act vote on pistol braces? Jared cites it as evidence that public pressure works. He credits the Congressional Review Act vote on the pistol brace rule as a win driven by individual gun owners engaging the process rather than leaving the fight to a lobby. Why does the activist's case rest on personal responsibility? As Kaylee frames it, a gun rights activist takes personal responsibility not only in the use of their firearms but in the defense of their right to own them, which is why the people, not the lobby, are the ones who fix things. Why does Kaylee say the deepest fight is over language itself? She argues the anti-gun side is redefining rights as government-granted privileges, trying to turn citizens into subjects, which is why education at the dinner table and on college campuses matters. What is the Gun Owners Action Leadership Summit and what can attendees expect in Knoxville? GOALS is the Gun Owners Action Leadership Summit, a Gun Owners of America event coming to the Knoxville area in August where Jared will speak on the main stage and on panels. Chapters 00:00 — Welcome from the mountains of Tennessee 00:38 — Jared's origin story and 24 years as a cop 01:43 — Starting the channel and the 2016 Massachusetts turning point 03:29 — How he sources and prioritizes the news 05:02 — How police culture has changed 06:56 — Communities policing their own and the COVID gun ownership surge 09:32 — Picking a candidate by their voting record 11:35 — Tough conversations to grow the movement 20:50 — Why ATF comments matter and the form-letter problem 26:59 — Combating overreach at the state level 30:51 — A slow system, court wins, and supporting the groups 38:19 — Bruin, constitutional carry, and crime data 42:48 — Educating children and the fight over language 51:04 — GOALS in Knoxville and Blackout Coffee About the guest Jared runs Guns & Gadgets, where he covers Second Amendment news and tries to educate people on their rights whether it's good, bad, ugly, or indifferent. He grew up poor in a housing project, which drove him into law enforcement, and worked as a police officer for 24 years, starting in 1997, including time as a cop in New Orleans. He started his channel while recovering from shoulder surgery, filming an early holster review on an iPhone 4S held by his oldest son. He previously lived in Massachusetts and now lives in Tennessee, having moved about a year before this recording. He is also one of the owners of Blackout Coffee, which sells a No Compromise blend that donates two dollars per product to Gun Owners of America. He tries to publish two videos a day. [VERIFY guest full name] Key quotes "I think whatever happens in state X will move to state Y if we don't pay attention and fight." — Jared "They're just our employees, you know, they're nobody, they put their pants on just like us." — Jared "If it's 300,000 of the exact same comment, it really doesn't have a lot of value other than there's a lot of people that are up, you know, in a tizzy about it." — Jared "A gun rights activist is someone who takes personal responsibility, not only in the use of their firearms, but in the defense of their right to own them." — Kaylee "designed this system to be slow so that you didn't lose your rights fast with an administration change." — Jared "They want us to be subjects and not citizens." — Kaylee "When this country started, it was we the people and in order to get this country where we want it, it's still we the people." — Jared