Studio: Daniel Shaw & John McGregor
Category: Training
What It Is
A couple of gun experts talk to other gun experts/law enforcement/military about issues related to . . . guns.
Technical Details
Episodes tend to run thirty to fifty minutes or so. The show hasn’t posted a new episode since July of 2015; the iTunes page has the archive going all the way back to episode 28 in 2010. For earlier episodes, hit up the still functional website.
What About It
I gave this one my “five-episode” test a while back and kept waiting to write-up a review in order that I would be able to post this review at a time when they’re hadn’t been a really horrible shooting in the news recently. Then I realized that America, so there will always be a really horrible shooting in the news recently, so let’s just write the darn thing. I’ll say that the hosts here are . . . not crazy. I mean, this is becoming high praise when you talk about people who love guns or love to talk about them. These two guys have military/law enforcement backgrounds and they come at their hobby from a rational direction. There isn’t anything here for someone who isn’t already a gun fanatic really; this is a niche podcast that never tries to be anything else. Though, as a dedicated non-gun-nut, it was heartening to hear these guys talk rationally and reasonably, occasionally even about gun rights. In one episode, one of the hosts made a really impassioned speech for gun safety and argued that owning a gun didn’t indicate that you loved the Second Amendment; being safe with a gun did. I’ll paraphrase, but he basically said that to be careless or sloppy with a gun was to disrespect the Second Amendment. You might say that this is hardly the worst thing about being careless with a gun and the hosts here would definitely agree with you, but this is an argument for responsibility that is carefully calibrated (pardon the pun) toward gun rights people. And I’m fine with the message of gun safety and responsibility being directed at gun owners in a way that’s specifically crafted for them. I will say that the guests are not always as reasonable or rational as the hosts; there was one episode in particular where the guest on the phone seemed to be your basic loon, but the host actually kind of pushed back on a couple of points and reiterated that he didn’t agree with everything the guest said at the end of the episode and pointed out a couple of places where he thought the guest went a bit off the rails. The show will occasionally rub a gun control person the wrong way, but, on the whole, as a guy who’s very ambivalent about the right to bear arms, I found this show to steer clear of the lunatic fringe and be a show that stressed safety, responsibility and, even, controlling access to guns to those who can handle them. Still, it was never particularly entertaining and certainly didn’t transcend its subject in the way that some niche podcasts do.
2 stars.
Essential If
You’re a gun owner leaning toward building a bunker.
Avoid Like the Plague If
The only place you like loud bangs is in a hairdo.
Best Entry Point
I guess I would recommend The Absolutes of Firearm Safety as an episode that gun owners need to hear and implement and non-gun owners need to hear in order to understand that all gun owners are not lunatics.