Mental Health Matters SPECIAL EDITION!!! with WTTA's Mike Sodini

Ta-da! Just like that. Um, I don't know if I'm gonna edit this to have the fancy intro, intro, but hi everybody, welcome to Mental Health Matters. My name is Brooke Cheney and I have Mike Sadini over here from Walk the Talk America. Tonight we are in December, so we're going to do the year in review. And talk about some of the stuff that Walk the Talk America is gonna be doing in 2026. For those of you who are brand new, Walk the Talk America is this level— I like to call them a bridge because they are trying to bridge that gap from gun owners who are afraid to seek mental health and mental health professionals who aren't necessarily sure what to do about gun owners because they're not often from the gun world. Some of the stuff that, as a gun owner, I can talk to is that, yeah, on our sites, on our— when we go to buy our firearm, it says, are you— have you ever been diagnosed with mental illness? And that freaks most of us out because we don't want to be denied for our firearms. Then on the other side, when we're talking about the people who give care and they've never been around guns, and the only information they ever have is the school shooting narratives or the horrible things that occur with guns, which thankfully, as you and I both know, are the smallest, ittiest, bittiest amount of gun violence there is out there. But it helps to understand. And the thing I always tell my students and the people that I meet that are doctors, nurses, practitioners, all of that, Walk the Talk America actually offers educational credits for them and that sort of stuff. So I told Mike I'd give my high level what I think it is. Now, Mike, it's your turn.

Oh, well, thank you! Those are— that's great! It's always fun to watch people describe Walk the Talk America because Walk the Talk America does so much and I always feel like when I'm watching someone, especially when I'm standing in front of them like in person and they're talking to somebody else and they're like, "This is what he does!" I'm always like, "Okay, this is gonna be really interesting to see how they play it!" Because Walk the Talk America does so much in my opinion for every negative outcome of firearms and education that I would say like every one of my board members, if you ask every one of my board members, every one of them would tell you the most important thing Walk the Talk America does is this, and it would probably all be different, right? Some could say it's the free and anonymous mental health flyers that we put in boxes of guns like for Ruger and Armscor and High Point and Bersa, North American Arms, like the list goes on and on. But then others might say it's the trainings. Others might say it's the advocacy. Others might say it's what we do in the research community community now, you know, or our Kids to Kings program, which is our inner city youth violence prevention.

Oh, we definitely got to talk more about that because I do always forget about that. Always. I'm like, the kid. Yeah, that one too.

Yeah, that one is a— yeah, we definitely will talk about that one. That one's getting a lot of attention in a way that I think your listeners would be shocked, right? Because historically, when we look at we as the firearms community, the Second Amendment community, not the— not necessarily the person who just buys a gun for home protection and puts it in the safe and they never see it again, but the people that really feel strongly about the Second Amendment, like as we do. We, I feel like we historically have felt like we're never invited to the table. We're never allowed to express our ideas. In many cases, we didn't have many ideas, right? Like, because I think we were so browbeat, like, you know, like you get beaten down sometimes. You're just like, I can't be part of the solution if the people that are making decisions on the solution hate me. You know, or don't understand me. So it was really easy to kind of always default to pry it from my cold dead hands. We have a Second Amendment for a reason, right? I get that part, but now I feel like we're seeing this shift where the gun community is starting to come up with their own, the firearms community is starting to come up with their own solutions and pushing those things forward, and now people are actually listening. You know, that's something I'm very proud of with WTDA. You know, you talked about bridges. That's a bridge, right?

Right. When did you guys start?

The actual organization is 2018, which feels like a lifetime ago.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm just— I, so I should remember that. Do you know why?

Why?

Because Mental Health Matters started in October of 2018, was my first time that I did this show.

Wow.

And so Maybe I will remember it now.

Yeah, we were just— we started— we actually got the paperwork for the, the 501(c)(3) in July of that year. Yeah, so like, it's kind of crazy. Like, think about that. Like, think about there's these people like yourself and Walk Talk America and people like Kevin Dixie. Like, we all kind of started to take off at the same time around kind of what we were doing when it came to mental health and firearms. But see, like, that's what I was kind of saying. I think for a long time we kind of just were like, okay, no one else is going to solve these issues. We need to start talking about it and figuring out how to solve it ourselves.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I know for me that my first time I stepped out of my comfort zone and started talking about gun issues was 2011, and it was here in Hartford at the State Capitol. And it was against a 10-round mag ban because at that point in time I was a competitor. I traveled all over the country. Um, I was unaware of politics in like any form or shape, and, uh, I was that person who never paid any attention to the headlines of anything. Uh, I stopped watching the news in 2005. Because I was pregnant in 2005, and I realized that the news does nothing good for me. So what little information I had at the time was from news. So 2011, I get up, I go talk about the 10-round mag ban because I think what actually prevents violence? And there's not a single regulation out there that has ever stopped anyone from doing the bad thing. And mental health to me has always been, if we talk about mental health, we help reduce violence because violence is a breakdown of communication. And when we talk to people about how to deal with all of that stuff, we save lives just with that, to think there's an option. So, but sorry, I'm just like, I'm like, I started even longer ago than 2018 is all I was trying to say.

That's your advocacy work, right? Like that's, yeah. You know, that— so 10-round mag ban, all those things, I call it feel-good legislation.

Oh yeah, for sure!

A lot of people feel good about it, but they don't really understand that it does absolutely nothing. It's always interesting when people, like, since that was your, like, start, I'm kind of fascinated by it. Like, every time someone talks about a magazine capacity ban, I always ask them, like, what is your threshold for death? And it's a question that really screws them up because they're like, "What do you mean?" And I'm like, "Well, how many deaths are acceptable? Like, is it 7 kids? Is it 9 kids? Is it 10 kids? Is it 1 kid?" Like, people really don't think about that question enough. They— once again, I feel like they get emotionally attached to the fact that this is going to save lives and it would do absolutely nothing and that's the biggest issue with I guess feel-good legislation is gun owners know that it will absolutely do nothing to help prevent tragedy and I think we've always had kind of a tough time expressing that to others like when they say that, right? Or asking the right question that would make them think because every time I ask, like I said, there's not one person that has answered that question when I ask them that. It's almost like, it sinks everything and I don't do it for gotcha moments. I'm genuinely curious to see what is someone's threshold for death because I would rather put my energy away from a 10-round magazine ban and go into like something positive like there is and we could talk about this during the show but there are things that we could do that positive legislation that will save lives as opposed to legislation always being negative against a gun. To save lives.

Yeah. You know, it's a punitive measure versus a preventative measure. Um, without a doubt. And yeah, that, that threshold for death. And I mean, and here's the thing is like, because I'm here in Connecticut, um, I'll try to talk about this without falling apart, but Sandy Hook, my kids were 5 and 6 at the time, and I sat through 3 full days of legislation talks about all of the stuff that occurred. And the worst part to me was before we got into the Capitol and started talking about that was the day that it occurred. It absolutely made me sick to my stomach that people like Richard Blumenthal and Dick Murphy were up there. Sorry. Yeah, whatever. Senator Murphy were talking about gun control versus how do we help these families that are about to bury their own children. The fact that every time someone— something horrific happens like that, they immediately go to, we must fix this, versus how do we help all of these people who are suffering the greatest loss possible.

Yeah. Listen, I feel you on that. I got to share something with you because you brought it up. So I'm at the National Harms Reduction, the research conference last week and they had this— I had to get out there early because ASU, they're putting together these panels and there was a lady in there. You never know who's like pro-gun, who's gun neutral and who's anti-gun. You just know, you know, you kind of got to feel it out and you can kind of tell by their language and tone. At one point, this lady, and I'm going to have her on the show. She— we have a good relationship. All the gun people were on their panel and the lady stands up and, you know, she's from Yale and I'm not going to identify her now. I'm going to just bring her on the show. But yeah, she says, do you guys ever talk to the parents of these victims? Do you ever talk to victims, period? And the way she said it, I interpreted it as she's angry, right? But I don't get emotional when people— like, because I'm like, obviously there's some kind of story that she has that has made her feel this way. And I was like, you know, I raised my hand. I'm like, I'm gonna politely disagree with your comment that we don't. I was like, I run a podcast called the Guns and Mental Health Podcast. We have everything from actual shooters on to victims, to suicide loss survivors, to people who attempted suicide and survived. We have people that are anti-gun, gun neutral, pro-gun, right? Like I go through my whole thing. Turns out she lost her daughter, Sandy Hook. And it was really interesting because when somebody loses their daughter or their son, their child, right? It's a zero-sum game arguing with them or talking to them about it. You immediately know, like, I, I'm never gonna be able to understand your pain. I, I have empathy for you, um, but I, I understand why you're angry, right? But here's, here's the, here's the thing, like, the more I got to know her, she's actually like gun neutral. She actually said, um, in the beginning I was helping a lot of the anti-gun organizations because they were pretending to be so friendly to me and like so sharing. And then she started realizing, she's like, they're hijacking my daughter's story to tell. It's my story, right? And you know, see, that's why it's a plot twist, right? Like, because at first I thought, okay, she's, she's an adversary, but she was just asking questions. Um, so I think it's going to make a fascinating, um, podcast episode because how often, A, do you get to talk to someone who can be neutral about it, right? Um, and then B, kind of see the inner workings of like why she distanced herself and she is her own person. Right. I'm not saying she's a pro-gun person either. Right. But to hear that story. So it's, and Bill Broussard from NSSF was actually in that meeting as well. Or, you know, and obviously he's from Connecticut and right around the corner.

And, oh yeah, there was a lot of picketing. We had to go see NSSF. Yeah. Yeah. Because it was right there in Newtown.

I mean, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's, you know, so it's even Bill, like, Bill's like you, like, Bill was emotional. She was bringing the emotion, right? Like, did she had the ultimate card, but like, Bill was emotional too, because he's like, it affected me, it was my community as well. Like, I'm never going to understand your pain. But, you know, so same thing I just saw with you, right? Like, yeah.

Oh, yeah. No, it's Sometimes I can talk about it and not fall apart. Other days, not so much. I'm going to blame the drugs currently because I broke my toe on Friday. So I'm on lots of painkillers. That's what I'm going with.

Yeah, that's it. You don't even have to explain yourself. It's tragic.

Yeah. And it's just so funny because actually those of us who cry a lot, we find ourselves explaining because we feel bad because most people feel uncomfortable for the people around us when we're crying. I'm used to crying all of the time. So over all sorts of things. But it is interesting because I know you and I also share another thing, which is some people in the gun community will say, why do you bother talking to them? Right. And them is all of the neutral to anti-gun people. And I can tell you from the copious amounts of hours I've spent up in Hartford at the Capitol that Uh, often the neutral and anti are often just uninformed.

100%.

And I know you've got a lot of experiences in that area when people like, oh, why'd you go there? Why'd you go there? And all of that. And I'm like, that's where you and I definitely have that in common, because I'm like, no, I've been to a Moms Demand Action meeting. And here in Connecticut. And there are the people that are there that are full of whatever the agenda actually is. And then there are the people there that truly want to make a difference. Uh, they're just not being shared the entire story. They're, they're, they're being given a piece of it. So, um, yeah, it's one of those things. There's always a shade of gray because it's just like You know, I never talk about Second Amendment because I'm always about violence prevention because my, my fantasy world is the anti-gun people and the pro-2A people drop both of those things and go towards actual anti-violence measures because then everyone wins versus us arguing over the things.

So, yeah, I agree. I think, I think a lot of it has to do with So it's funny, I have a good relationship with people at Moms Demand and Brady and Everytown and Giffords. Like, it's not that I'm a fan of anything that they really do, but they're like— I was talking to JJ at the research conference. JJ is from Brady and I've been on their podcast, you know. Where I think the firearms side is a little bit misinformed is some of the things that we actually say, they believe too., right? Like we all believe in responsible storage. We all believe in a time of crisis, someone shouldn't have access to their firearms. Now, where it differs sometimes is what they believe is the answer for that, right? But there are times when Brady is saying something about responsible storage and it sounds exactly like Walk the Talk America. It sounds exactly like any firearms instructor, right? But we just know that there's that but and the other stuff that they get involved in. You know, my thing is, is if we don't go and have these sessions where we're able to speak and speak up or even speak at their events, I mean, I, you know, I, what was it like 2021? Moms Demand brought me in to be a speaker at one of their events and I don't think they realized like how pro-gun I was, you know what I mean? Like, but it gave me a chance to talk to an audience who I knew was probably predominantly gun neutral. 'Cause it was at San Jose State College, right? So I was looking at it like, okay, this is chess. Like, you're gonna bring me there. I'm not gonna put you down, but I am gonna bring up feel-good legislation. I am gonna bring up ARs, you know, banning ARs isn't gonna do anything to stop gun violence. And then change the narrative for a bunch of people in the crowd, right? The kid who is like, well, I've never really talked to that. So that's where we gotta keep showing up and having these, conversations.

Absolutely. Um, all right, so we've got so many things to talk about. Um, let's talk about Kids to Kings, because like I said, it's like I saw you somewhere and you were talking about it, and I'm like, oh yeah, because like that's not something that's predominantly on the Walk the Talk, uh, web page when I go there. And so, because I'm always sending people to rementalhealthassessment@wtta.org/love. See, I got that because we've got wristbands. I should be wearing my wristband. I'm sorry, I'm not. I don't have advice. But yeah, so for those of you who are local, Mike will send me wristbands when I go out, and there are people that are very excited about getting the wristbands.. And it's just another resource that they offer for free. And that being said, I'm going to do a little plug here of please go to Walk Talk America and donate. Not that he knew I was going to say any of that, but we forget when we have these people that are out there advocating for stuff. Yeah. That everything costs money. It's like he gives them to me for free. I give them out for free, but it costs the organization money. So nothing is for free, just like NSSF has a ton of, suicide prevention stuff, and there's free stuff out there a lot. But yeah, so let's go to Kids to Kings.

Words. Yeah. And thank you for, thank you for saying that. And, and I just want everyone, your listeners, to know before I start talking about Kids to Kings, um, a lot of people ask me, where do you get your money from? And I am so proud to say strictly from the firearms industry. Like, I love actually saying that in front of crowds that are gun neutral and anti-gun because they always say like, we don't care. And if the person likes what Walk the Talk America is doing, they have to understand that it's funded by the people that you say don't care. You know that? So I love that. But anyways, Kids to Kings. Yeah, that's our— the reason why we don't push it forward on our main website is because it's a pilot program in Atlanta. So we just get inundated with people all over the country. We still do. Like we have the Instagram page. We get people all the time in Seattle or you know, California saying, "Hey, I'd like to enroll my kids into this." But basically, it's an inner city youth shooting sports program that introduces firearms and not just firearms. We don't just, it's not about shooting, but shooting is the, it's the tool. It's the fun thing, right? But introduces firearms to these kids in a healthy manner. The majority of these kids have never been introduced to firearms in a healthy manner. All of these kids have access to firearms even if they shouldn't, right? Like, we got that out of the way real early in the first class when we said, "How many of you have access to a firearm if you shouldn't?" And every kid raised their hands and the kids range from like 8 all the way up to 17, right? Like, there's a wide spectrum but what we wanted to do, especially in Atlanta because we have all the right instructors like the Kevin Dixies and you know, Devin Perkins and all the kids from Gorillas in the Mist and everybody that helps volunteers and we take these kids and we mentor them to be great adults, right? But also respect the firearms that they see in video games, that they hear about in songs, that they see in videos, right? And it's counterintuitive to a lot of people because They're not little white hunters from Wisconsin with the orange vest, right? Like, no, it's, it's, it's— that's the elephant in the room, right? Like, people have to face their bias and understand though. But if we, if we truly believe the Second Amendment is for everyone, which we do, um, these kids need the opportunity to understand that they too can be the next firearm instructor in their community. They too can own the next gun shop in their community. They too could go work at Ruger one day as an engineer. That's one of the coolest things, experiences, because they The SHOT Show was in Atlanta. I'm not— not SHOT Show, sorry.

NRA Show.

I was gonna say, really? When was that? NRA Show. The NRA Show was in Atlanta and it gave me the opportunity to bring our kids to the show. And I had our kids— Ruger rolled out the red carpet for them. I mean, gave them swag, everything. They all looked uniform because they were all wearing Ruger gear, but I was walking these kids to every single booth. I mean, Glock, Sig, everything, every single booth, having them talk to executives that would give them the time, time to talk to engineers, have them talk to competition shooters. These people were looking these kids in the face and saying, "You could come work here one day if you wanted to!" Right? Like, that stuff is life-changing! That's historically, if you look at the firearms industry, there is this belief that we're not very welcoming to others. And what better way to say that that's not true than have these young kids who will have this all burned. They're never going to forget the NRA show.

Yeah. And I mean, and that thing about not welcoming, it's just like every time, not every time, but for the past 10 years or so that I go and I give testimony, it's like almost every single time I will say, I wish you could come to a competition with me because it is the most welcoming. Everyone's excited to see you. See you. They're super happy that you've come to check out their sport or possibly join their sport. And it's just like, I wish I could bring some of these folks to an actual event. It's like, because nobody cares about anything. It's like, you have a gun, I have a gun, we're here to have fun. We do not care if you are a CIO, a CEO, a plumber, a jet pilot, a teacher, a doctor, a nurse. None of that matters when we're on the range. It is just like, well, yeah, people like, oh, it's so unwelcoming. And are there clubs you will go to where there's a bunch of snobs. Yeah, you will. Just like everything else. Right. But that's why, like, my school is called A Great Start is because I want you to come in knowing that if you need something from me that I can't offer, I know a guy or I might know a girl that can help you with that thing. And to me, that is totally our gun community is we are here to help. And just like you're saying about like pro-gun, anti-gun, you know, middle of the road, I'm like, there's shades of grays in all directions for all of that.

So it is pretty interesting. Well, and so it's a really interesting program in the sense that there have been many occasions where I'm talking to people that are in the anti-gun crowd and they'll blurt out something in front of everybody. They're like, is this really a good idea to be putting guns in these kids' hands? And I'm always like, what do you mean these kids, right? You got to be careful because you can almost back yourself into— your racism will display itself, right? Your bias will display itself. And I always bring up like the little white hunter from Wisconsin. Most people look at the little white hunter from Wisconsin and they're like, he knows how to handle a rifle, he's responsible, right? Like you don't even think twice. Now you see these kids and, and, and your mind might go somewhere else, but at the NRA shows, this is adorable. Like like I had all the kids and I would never say anything. I would just have us walk up to the booth of any, you know, of course if I had a relationship with already with the manufacturer, they know me, right? But like, I had them walk up and my kids would automatically all start, you know, handling the firearms and the way that my kids handle firearms, I know when people are watching them, they're going to be very impressed, right? And a couple— there's more than once where a person was like, what is this? And I would always joke around. I would always go, it's Different Strokes, right? Because I'm like the white guy with the black kids. There's like 15 of them, and it just— like, I'm in my suit, and literally like people laughing, and they're like, no, no, seriously, like, what is this? And I would tell them, and they're like, these kids handle guns better than 90% of the people in here. Right! You know what I mean? Like, and their children and it's like you watch their discipline and everything the way that they— not one muzzle flashes, you know, you go to these shows. Oh God! Yeah! I would get muzzle flashed all the time or you watch people to do something and you're just like, wow! They did it and I get it, the guns don't have firing pins and we all know that but it's still like, it's weird! We see it in movies and we freak out!

Right! So, just so we're clear for those of you who are not gun people, that are watching this. Muzzle flash is you get to see the muzzle of a firearm. And so it's, and you'll, you don't even have to go to a show. You can just walk into any gun store and you will see people who own guns who are not being as safe as they could be. Now, my friends who work in gun stores, they will tell you there is no actual safe direction there, but there is a safer direction than what you see a lot of people doing. And so, yeah, no, actually I'm working on a training program that's gonna be available online next year that just talks about 1 and 2, safe direction and finger discipline, and, and starting there for everyone before getting into any of the other stuff because people don't know and they don't understand. It's like, yeah, verifying a gun is empty prior to touching it, making sure you know where that index finger is. At all times. Those are the two things that, like, if that's— and I tell all my students here, I'm like, if I can teach you those two things, none of the rest of it matters. I mean, it does, but it's just like, that's kind of where we're trying to get started. But, and as someone who's serious about their training and watching and knowing— I used to be the clueless idiot who probably had my finger on the trigger all of the time, and I had no muzzle awareness ever. I get to come from that, ooh, I was a complete total idiot, but you know what? I didn't know 'cause no one had ever showed me, so.

[Speaker] Right, right, yeah. No, these kids, what I love about my kids is they correct each other. If one of them spots something, it's an immediate correction, but like they just don't, they don't. And I was lucky enough to be asked to be the keynote speaker at Rutgers a couple months ago. Not for Rutgers as a whole, but for their gun violence prevention summit that they have. And I thought that was the— it was so ironic to me that they were bringing in the gun guy, you know what I mean? To close the show and talk about unity, right? Like, I just love that. Like, we've kind of flipped this narrative around, but one of the— the biggest impacts that my presentation had was the Kids to Kings. I played a video and I played picture and video of them walking around the NRA show and you know, half the crowd was African American and there was a line of people that was just like super interested in the program because I don't think they've ever seen something be presented like that and Like, I'm actually working now with the city of Camden. Camden is talking about a program similar to this or they're trying to put together a program. Now, it's tough because it's New Jersey and you know, I told them, right? I was like, "The odds are stacked against you." But the lady who's spearheading this is like, "I want to try!" Because there are kids that literally get caught and they get a gun charge at 13, but it's not severe enough to where they won't have the ability to buy a gun when they're 18. I had never really thought about that and they're like, this is the perfect type of program for these kids because they're already into guns or that, you know, they have that curiosity or they've used one in a manner that's not responsible and maybe this could help bring them to it because once again, there is a mentorship aspect to this program. Like we have financial literacy, we tie the shooting part to their grades and their behavior. So if you get in trouble in school, you're not shooting that week. You're just picking up brass, you know, like those type of things. If you want to do the fun stuff, you know, you got to be responsible and you got to be a good kid. But I'm just really proud of it and I'm really proud of his sponsors, right? Once again, like everyone thinks gun companies don't care and Davidson's, Ruger, Armscor and Aguila, the ammo, have all stepped up to donate product and, you know, like the ammo. Ammo is expensive, you know, you go through a lot of it and I got to look these kids in the face and say that these companies donated this for you guys, not for Walk the Talk America. They donated it for Kids to Kings directly for this program. They could have easily just given me money or, you know, said, use it how you want, but they donated to these kids. I think that says a lot about those companies. Stepped up to help these kids that everyone would say the gun industry doesn't care about.

Right. Well, and I mean, and this is the thing is that as you start getting into any type of advocacy within the gun world, it's just like, yeah, there's a lot, lot, lot of misinformation. Like I said, I definitely had tons of stuff that was incorrect and I didn't know. I, and it's like one of those things, like, I know we've all seen that, that headline that says gun owners agree, whatever. And you and I would shake our heads like, that doesn't make sense. Right. But I used to be that gun owner. Right. Because in 2005, if you said 10-round mag ban for all guns, I'm like, eh, what does it matter? Because they're syllable in the gun. Who cares? And I was a gun owner, so I could say, I, I could be that gun owner agrees with 10-round mag ban. And it's just like, I didn't understand that a magazine ban is a gun ban. And then people are like, oh, they're not coming for your guns. I'm like, that's actually exactly what they're doing by doing these things. Because again, you and I both know there is no solid research that shows any of these stuff, any of the regulations has ever made a difference. Just like the 50 Kings. Yeah, it's addressing the children, addressing the awareness around firearms, right?

You got to get to the root cause. And many people don't know, like you said, you don't know what you don't know, right? So I don't, I think when I think the, there are politicians that know a 10-round, that's just feel-good legislation. So they're just going with it. The average person that believes in a 10-round ban, if you actually talk to them and you're able to kind of get through to them, I think you can walk them through. They just don't know. And they don't think they're actually harming anyone and anti-Second Amendment, right? So in their world, they don't understand that it's a slippery slope. We know that 10-round ban, magazine ban isn't going to save one more life. Like, we know that. So if that doesn't work, where's the next step you go? You naturally go to the next harsher ban. And that's where I think we have— sometimes we have trouble because we, we say, oh, you're just trying to ban guns. And they're like, no, but they don't even see it themselves. They have to be walked through like, no, you're—

you may be naive to what you're doing, but that's where you're going with this. Right. Well, and because I've been doing this for now 15 years, it can be said across the board, it's not even just guns, it's healthcare, it's 5 million other things. And it's just like, ah, there's this saying, you know, ignorance is bliss. And now that I'm in this arena, I'm like, ignorance is way bliss. Because in 2005, I didn't know any of this and I was way less frustrated by things. So, right. Yeah. There's that challenge. Um, how long is the Kids to Kings program? Is it like a camp?

Is it like— it's, it, it, it literally is, it's fluid. But like, for example, the last with the exception of last week, we had 6 weekends in a row. The kids, we have a connect through the charter schools there. So it's one of those things where we take on new kids all the time. Some, you know, 'cause parents gotta shuffle 'em and stuff like that. Some make it, some are staples, some are there every time. But what we're trying to do now is to have someone like Yale or Harvard come in and study this and now that we have a couple years experience, like we've never had a kid that's had a negative situation with a firearm, right? And that what I want is somebody from academia world to come study it so they can put their stamp, even though we know it works, their stamp means a lot more in society. This is the way it is, right? To show that this type of course could be duplicated somewhere else and also too, that it has validity. Like, I'm welcoming, like, I'm, you know, when the researchers have finally discovered this thing and I could see them kind of warming up to the idea, but I want full-blown study of the thing and I would love to get some real financial backing to it to where we can do some really big things with it because I think, you know, the next step is to get out of Atlanta and get to another city because we get those requests all the time.

No, right. And I mean, I will say that like back to Sandy Hook in 2014, I was, uh, contacted by like NBC or CBS, I forget which one. And they wanted to do, uh, research or a, a bit on kids who were educated around firearms versus kids that were not educated around firearms. And I politely declined just because been in the media often enough to know that they will tweak it to however they like. But the short version of that was the children who had firearms training, when they came across a firearm, even at 5 and 6 years old, they did not play with it. They went to get an adult. The kids who didn't have firearms training ended up picking up the gun, playing with it, not knowing what to do with it, and they were the ones who would cause an accident. I mean, and that was like a little newspaper thing, you know, it was, they did it down in Florida. But, um, so, yeah, it's, it's one of those things.

Yeah, I think a lot of that type of research— real quick before we jump to the next subject— I think a lot of that type of research gets— and then, and when we talk about the research conference coming up, that's one of the things I want to discuss is how researchers are so conditioned to only look for the negative in guns that they don't think about the positive. And I think when people want to do research about the positive, I don't think they get a lot of people to support them. You know what I mean? It's difficult. I think it's changing. I'm not going to sit here and say it's not because I know I've been in discussions with quite a few big players, but it's like us with suicide and negative outcomes of firearms. For years, we just didn't talk about it or we didn't mention it and it's slow-moving ship, and I think it's the same for them, right?

Yeah. Well, I mean, I was just going to say, this is our good segue into talking about all the research you guys have already been part of, stuff that's on the horizon, what's coming next. Um, because I know off camera you and I had the conversation about how when you're talking to researchers, you're helping them ask different questions.

Uh, so go on about that. Yeah, so You know, I was doing all these public speaking events like the Aspen Institute of Health. Like, I was speaking in places where, and you had mentioned it earlier, where I was getting these statistics like the 97% group. Like, people were actually firing off these statistics on stage in front of gun-neutral or, you know, majority gun-neutral crowds. And it was very—

All right, so hold on, hold on. Start back up. What is the 97% crowd?

Well, not Crowd. 97% is an organization that loves to spit out statistics like 7 out of 10 gun owners believe in red flag laws. Like, they do that all the time, right? So clearly they're anti-gun. They say they're not, but it is very frustrating because I would see statistics like this or people would spit out statistics like this and I'm like, where are you asking these questions and who are you asking them to? Like, maybe what, like gun owners in San Francisco? Like, I don't know, you know what I'm saying? Like, I could see some people— like I said, gun owners are not this monolithic group that all believe in the same thing. I mean, there are gun owners that believe in red flag laws and think they're a great idea. Like, I'm not going to deny that that doesn't exist, but the crowd that I run with, you know, which is like the NRA show and the SHOT Show, we could go down the aisle and 10 out of 10 people will say, "I do not believe in any gun laws!" Right? Like, it's unconstitutional! So, basically I got— I said, "I want to do my own research. I want to start asking Walk the Talk America supporters if they would fill out these questionnaires," and we did this a couple years ago and the very first questionnaire, we had like 250 people answer it and I was actually really impressed with that number because we asked some pretty, like, personal questions in terms of your firearm ownership and use. But I explained to people why I wanted it, because I wanted to politely push back against some of the people that I was on stage with when they would say this absurd number, and I could politely say, well, that's funny, our research shows this, right? Now, what happened was all the academic crowd and all the people that work in research, they crapped all over the research I did and the way I collected it, but that wasn't the point and I gave them that. I said, "This is done horribly and I would need your help. Like, you help me make it better!" Like, I was— come on! Well, they ignored it. Then the second time we did it, guns.com actually helped us promote the survey and we got 2,500 people. So then when I went back to a lot of the people I know in research and I was like, hey, I have this research that we did and we got 2,500 gun owners to take this thing. Then they were like, I want to see it.

Right? Like— Because now you've got a statistical amount that's more than 200.

Right. It just, it caught their eye. Right? And then when I started attending like the research conference, I've gone 2 years in a row, they invited me to speak. I was going to speak at the first one, and I did, which was great because the second one was so much better because people remembered me from the year before. And they were a lot warmer this year than they were, you know, the last year.

Probably because you weren't going to slam Second Amendment down their throats.

Right. They know, right? It's like, okay, let's talk about it, right? Let's talk about— because here's the thing, being that I been in this industry for so long and been on the, the, the business side of it. Yeah, all the way down to working a counter at a gun shop. There's really nothing that they can tell me that I don't know how the system works. So if they say something that's bizarre, I'll be like, wait, explain that to me because I'm not really sure what that means.

Like, oh wait, wait, are we talking about the gun show loophole perhaps?

I don't know.

Everything!

Like, well, so I go to these shows, like the research conferences, and I love to ask questions because if you ask questions pretty quickly, you can take someone's Jenga house down, you know what I mean? Because you can really know that they haven't really thought it through. So like one of the things that I was asking a lot of the researchers because I always hear this all the time is Indiana is responsible for Chicago, right? If it wasn't for Indiana's guns, Chicago wouldn't have this issue. So I'm like, has anyone done any research on how like Ohio and Kentucky have been so successful defending themselves against Indiana's guns? And they're like, well, what do you mean? And I'm like, you're saying that there's a pipeline to Chicago and it's causing all the violence and it's coming from Indiana. How are the neighboring states like, how come we haven't done research to say what are the neighboring states? Because in— and then they're like, they, you know, hamana, hamana, hamana. They don't know because they never thought about it. So I'm like, it's a myth. Like, yeah, there might be some bad actors, but it's a pipeline. And it's— so if it's a pipeline, it has to be turned on from both sides, right? So who are— who's doing it and who's, who's taking the guns up there and selling them? Like, we should be able to research that and figure that out pretty quick and shut it down. So I just love asking these questions And get— that's what the researchers need. They need someone to kind of get in their way and ask politely to have a discussion about it and not get angry.

Yeah, you know, actually, oh, that, that the very first time I went and testified, I literally had one of the senators come up to me afterwards who was the anti-gun side of things. And he said to me, Brooke, I truly appreciate the fact that you didn't come out and you weren't all accusatory and you were thoughtful about what you said and you didn't make me feel like I'm supposed to be the bad guy here. And I'm like, and that was one of the first times I testified. And, uh, at this point in time, he and I still chat from time to time. He's still a senator. Um, but it was just like, to me, that was very impactful that like a lot of people don't get it is like they walk into these places regardless whether you're talking to just someone who's anti-gun or whatever, but it's like you have your way and my way is right and your way is wrong. I'm like, who's going to listen to that ever? It's like, again, why as much as I have Second Amendment over my shoulder, I don't talk about it because it took me years to understand Second Amendment and why it's so important, all of that. And so I want to meet people where they're at, and their thing is, I don't want more children to die. And so, which is our thing, right? Right. It's just like, I'm like, yeah, we agree on these things. Why are we fighting over this?

Yeah, it's just how we get there. This is different, uh, how to solve it, right?

Yeah. And it's just like, there's no perfect solution. Oh, sort of back to your, your, your comment of what is your threshold for death? It's just like, here's that back to that Sandy Hook thing. It's like, on that Friday, the only thing anyone should have been talking about, in my personal opinion, is how can we help these families that have just suffered this horrible loss? That's it. Not whose fault is it, not how do we prevent this from happening, because here's the reality: humans will die. Like, statistically speaking, none of us are getting out alive. Some of us are going to die horrible, tragic deaths. Others are going to sleep, fall asleep in their bed and not wake up the next morning. But we're all going to die at some point in time. And I mean, this is the part where it's like, no, how do we support each other again? Oh wait, what are we talking about? Mental health. So it just is this circle. And I don't know, it's, it's wonderful that you're out there talking to these people from a different point of view.

Yeah, no, and thank you. The threshold for death is an interesting one because I, um, so like if 3 kids are shot and killed in a school, emotionally it affects us. But I get that same emotion when I read that like 3 kids died because of somebody driving drunk or they overdosed because of— yeah, but it doesn't, it doesn't pull the emotion out. It's weird. Firearms are a very unique thing that where it's the only thing that people blame the object. Like, if I bludgeon someone with a hammer, like, no one's brain ever says, well, we gotta think about this hammer thing now. That's so accessible, you can get a bunch of them at Home Depot.

And I'm not—

yeah, I'm not trying to belittle anything. I'm just saying it's, it's weird. It's odd how the brain, the human brain works. And it's odd how we as a society argue over this gun issue and what people believe. Like, people tell me all the time, they're like, if we had no guns, we wouldn't have any, you know, yeah, you still would because it was the illegal guns. But yeah, if we didn't have alcohol, we wouldn't have any, we'd have less drunk driving.

It's just natural. And what was it? The, you know, alcohol had been illegal. Yeah, Prohibition.

Yeah.

I don't know how long Prohibition lasted, but it was illegal. And more people died because it was illegal, because it became a smuggler's thing and gang wars and all of that sort of stuff. And it's just like back to the unintended consequences. But to your point about not banning the thing, I don't know if you know this because I was shocked by this, but the Boston bombing, Williams-Sonoma did actually take pressure cookers off of their shelves for like a month or two. Yeah. And so it was just like, but that is how some people's brains work. It's just like, I'm like, hmm, because here in Connecticut, we have some lots of anti-gun legislation. And one of the things is if you come to my house and you steal from me one of my guns, I'm now a felon. Right. And I'm like, what? What? Excuse me? I'm a victim of a crime and now I'm a felon. And it's just like, how, what, why are we? Yeah. So anyway, we won't go down there. We'll talk about research because that's way more fun.

Yeah. So the research conference, this year we came back to the research conference and I actually got a table at the research conference and we have a new program that's new for 2025. Really rolling it out in 2026 called ROOTS, which stands for Responsible Ownership Outreach Technology and Safety. And what we wanted to do, because safety products are the redheaded stepchild of the firearms industry and everybody I've said that to doesn't disagree. Like, they're like, yes, they are! You know what I mean? Like, it's like we know it, but there's reasons for it, right? A lot of the companies that make these great safety products are 1 or 2 SKUs, which, you know, distributors are going to ignore. Dealers are going to kind of ignore it. You know, some of them might have some, but rep groups especially are going to ignore it because you can't put the energy in selling when you have to sell like the whole line of, you know, Bersa or like High Point, right? Like you're not going to put energy into 1 SKU. So, so they naturally get ignored and safety's, just not as fun as actual guns. Like, I get it, right? I'm not delusional, but I thought if I can get all the safety companies to come under a conglomerate under Roots, I can bring them to all the places that I speak at, that I'm invited to speak at, or, you know, so like the research conference is a great one because in the research conference, there's a lot of academia, like a lot of researchers and a lot of behavioral health and healthcare in general, providers walking around that get these big grants that only think about cable locks because that's what they've been fed their whole— you know what I mean? Like, and we all know the joke with the cable locks is, where do they go? In the garbage, right? Yeah.

No, I'm not— or in a drawer in my classroom, right?

Right. And I'm not here to piss on cable locks, but let's face it, the message that comes with the cable lock is probably more important than the actual cable lock itself. Like, if I hand you a lock and I'm lock your gun up and walk away. But if I hand you a lock and then I start talking about suicide prevention, how to use this at a certain time, that becomes more important than the actual lock itself because now you're getting someone to think about a plan, right? But so, for example, one of the products that we were displaying— so Roots has right now 5 main characters, right? We have Boss Lock, Regal, Gun Alert, VeriSafety, and Kinesium. They all make fantastic products. They're all different. No two products are the same. Some of them have overlapping features, but it's just letting the people in the research community know that if you want to do some research on anything but just a standard cable lock, do it. But like, for example, this is Regal's biometric, um, cable lock. And we had this at the show, right? And people were blown away by this concept because they're so used to the key, right? And everyone knows that the key— your hand shaking, you're scared, you got to go find the key. And, and we just wanted to know that this is available and this opens in 2 seconds. And, um, there's a lot of features to this that are great. Kinesium makes a device that, that literally texts your phone instantly when your gun moves.

Like, no matter where you are— someone with that, they, they showed me their phone, like, look, my son told me he was going to go, you know, go trap shooting, and look, here it is.

Yeah, like, it's so— like, there's just these products out there that I wanted to introduce to the researchers. I also want to help them in the firearms industry. I think that if, if they come together and they add a menu of all the different things that are available, more shops would be apt to carry the stuff, because we all We don't know what we don't know. That's the theme, right? Like, and especially at the research conference, they didn't know this. So we have this table there, and we had people coming up and checking out all these cool products as they can understand, like, technology, safety, the messages that are coming with these products. And if you have these grants, let's, let's use this grant money to pay these companies that we constantly keep asking them to give away stuff for free. Right? Like, nobody asks— well, there's influencers that ask for free guns, but nobody's going up to Glock and saying, I need 50 free guns. But they will go up to Cannon Safe and say, I need 50 lockboxes and I'd like you to give them away for free. Like, we, for some reason, we're all conditioned to just ask safety companies to give stuff away for free because it's safety and it's supposed to better the world. But these people need to make money too. You know what I mean? So that's what, that was what I was doing at the research conference this year and building bridges, right? Strengthening those bridges, educating. I had numerous discussions with people at the bar or like, you know, sitting in the lobby of the conference that were asking me, how does it work? Like, you know, straw purchases were a big, big topic of conversation there. They kind of went away from red flag laws, I feel like, I feel like guys like me and Rob Pinkus and Bill Broussard and Kenny Barlow from Regal were, were, were part of that to get them to steer away from red flag laws. I'd like to see more research done on the negative effects of red flag laws instead of the positive ones, because people don't think how many people avoid care because of an ERPO or a red flag law.

Well, and the other thing, my, my simple answer to any red flag law has nothing to do with the legality of it is like, If I am in crisis and I am going to cause harm to myself, I don't need you to take my guns away. I need you to help me. I need help. Yeah, I need actual help because it's just like, you didn't take away all the drugs in my house. You didn't take away all the knives in my house. You didn't take away all the poisons in my house.

You didn't take the garage door off.

Yeah, it's just like, yeah, it's like, I'm like, no, you didn't take my car keys away because, oh, I think probably already knows, but in research for suicide, they are starting to finally tabulate suicide by car. And so now police officers, when they come to a car accident, that there's no braking action prior to the crash, they are now putting those more into the suicide areas. So, you know, in the next 5 or 10 years, we'll see more stats on that. Because yours truly, when I was a teenager, and I was suicidal, that's exactly how I was going to do it, because I didn't want anyone to know that I did it.

Yeah, that's a— I'm glad you brought that up because Jake Whiskershen, who is the other half of WTDA face-wise, um, has been saying the suicide by car thing for years. Yeah, uh, I mean, and he— I mean, when I first met him in 2018, he would, he would talk about suicide by car, but no one ever really talks about that. But yeah, you can't red flag somebody show up to a really bad situation, say, I need your property, specifically your guns, and then be like, good luck out there, Brooke. Yeah, I hope you get better, right? Like, we need to have more provisions in there for A, legal defense, right? And B, how do you help someone that's in crisis, right? Like, I'm not going to be one of those guys that say a red flag law hasn't saved a life. Like, I'm sure it has, right? But like you said, if you need to be red flagged, I don't want you driving anymore, like, until you're better.

And also, you need to take my Drano away. Yeah, like, it's not that one. It's not that simple. There's sort of like violence. I mean, it becomes the onion, right? It's like violence. We want to address that and stop that long before. Someone has a firearm in their hands. Right. And that's why I'm like, having looked at all the FBI stats over a 20-year period, because I'm a stat geek that way, violence with firearms is actually the smallest percentage of violent crime in America over the course of 20 years. And it's just like, so we're— they are addressing the smallest amount of violence that they possibly can. Versus looking at the bigger picture of what do we do to prevent violence. And this is where I'm like, the data is out there. And that's the part that sickens me the most is that it's like the data is there. The FBI, the CIA, the police departments, the gang violence, all of it. It's just like, it's about what you're doing with Kids to Kings. It's about teaching that responsibility, building that community, giving them something to shoot for. People who are in hard places. And it's just like the simple solution to violence based on lots and lots of reports is you and I have to treat each other like a human being and understand it's okay to not agree.

No, you're 100% right though. It's hard work though. Right. And that's the thing that like politicians don't have time. Like they have to pretend they're doing something. Right. And no one wants to see like, Hey, I'm going to build something that if I'm a politician, I'm going to help you build something that I'm not even going to get credit for because I'm already going to be gone by the time that this thing actually— because it needs 4 or 5 years, right? Like Walk the Talk America, it's wild when I think about where I started and where it's at now, right? And I tell people all the time, like, if you're not willing to go broke and literally do crazy things to make money to keep something that is a dream alive, like for at least the first 3 to 5 years, don't do it. Like go get a paper route, like do something else. Like, but you're saying it's root cause mitigation, which sometimes means working harder and it's easier just to be like, well, ban it. You know what I mean? Like, and everybody will praise me, but it really won't save anybody. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's, um, I don't know. You know, that's what I'm trying to make the researchers understand is like, there's so much stuff that we could research that could actually get something good done. There's so much positive legislation. I know like some of your listeners are going to be like, well, positive legislation, like give me an example of that. I'll give you an example. Like Gala True from the Armory Project out of Louisiana was getting gun shops to join her group that offers safe storage to anybody who needs it, right? No questions asked. You can just drop off a firearm. Well, most of the gun shops wanted to participate but declined, and the biggest issue they had was, we don't know if we give the gun back too soon, will we be held responsible? Like, you know, we don't want to be sued. We don't want to go out. So Gala, being the forward thinker that she is, went and got legislation passed that took away, you know, that piece of it. So a gun shop cannot be held liable for doing the right thing and trying to help somebody. That's positive legislation that whether you're anti-gun or you're pro-gun or gun neutral, you should be able to get behind legislation that would force insurance companies to give breaks to gun shops on their business insurance if they participated in suicide prevention training, like a lot of them already do, right? But you should be rewarded when you're doing the right thing. I mean, we have all this money that we waste other places. Let's, you know, let's, let's start putting it back in the gun shop owners or gun shop project.

I mean, here, here in Connecticut, we tried to get past that we at least would get a tax credit for spending money on gun storage devices. Right. I made an initial— like, here in Connecticut, we have the opposite law that just got passed in 2023, where if I'm a gun shop and I sell you a gun and then you cause harm with the gun, here in Connecticut, you can get sued, I can get sued, the gun manufacturer can get sued. The ammo company can get sued. So I'm glad somewhere it's going in the opposite direction of that. Yeah. But I mean, so there is good stuff and that's the other part is like, you know, when you're talking about the stats of the 250 or so that you got the first time you sent out your survey, it's like most gun owners just wanna be left alone and don't wanna share a lot of info. We're just like, I'll take care of me, you take care of you. I don't need to share anything with you. And so it is harder, I find, for us to get more people to become involved because it's just like, eh, it'll all work out. And now that I've been in it for as long as I have, I'm like, no, it's really not. You need to step up and do something in your community to help. On a positive, back to positive gun legislation here in Connecticut, no less, I believe it was 2018 or '19, they did actually pass that there is a school curriculum here in Connecticut that can be taught in public schools. So akin to-ish your, your Kids Are Kings, because we know that children who are educated around firearms are safer around firearms. Same with the idea of D.A.R.E. Kids who are, you know, educated about the downfalls of drugs are more likely to not try. And same with, you know, alcohol as well. So it's just like, there is positive legislation here in Connecticut, even from time to time.

Even if that's, that's, that's good to hear. Now they gotta use it.

Yeah. Well, see, that's the thing is like now bringing that to a, a board of education and getting them to put that into the curriculum. That's where you and I, Connecticut residents, I'm talking to you, have to go and talk to them. And say, hey, look, cannot get past this law. Here is the actual education platform. All we have to do is find a way to put it into the curriculum.

Yeah, we have, with Kids to Kings, we have so many parents that contact us and they'll flat out say like, I hate guns, but I want my son or my daughter to go through this program because they understand the importance of like, just take for example, like one in the chamber, how many people don't understand that, right? I needed that. I mean, my first time firing a gun was a negligent discharge because I didn't understand that just taking the magazine out was enough. It was locked and loaded. It was ready to go and I shot a hole in the lawn. You know what I mean? Like, if I would have known about one in the chamber, that would have never happened and you know, I was probably like 14, 15. You know, like it's important. Why wouldn't you want your kid to know those things. You might guess.

It's just, I've got multiple color dummy rounds specifically for that, for teaching that because it's just like, I took the magazine out, is the gun empty? Uh, yeah. And I'm like, what color did I put in there? What was on top? And you know, so yeah. It, and again, like I said, I was the person who didn't know any of that when I started also.

So for a long time. Back to, back to your original point real quick about like kind of like bridging the gap and being able to educate the, you know, people that are on the research side. A lot of these researchers, they're just conditioned. They, they want to learn. And I think that, that, that's very hopeful. Like, I feel like a lot of them are like, okay, sit me down and help me, and then we work together. But it takes time to build that trust, you know what I mean? Um, so it's so important, like, what you do and what I do to continue to branch out and literally be like, look, here's my card, here's my number. I know how all of this works. I, you can call me. It's not like I'm gonna, I may disagree with you on what you're trying to accomplish, but I want, I want you to be able to ask me, why would gun owners hate this? Or why do you think this is feel-good legislation? Like, why do you think this is going to help anybody? If we have to be able to continue to have those conversations, because if you keep showing up and you're consistent and people know that you have a good heart and you have the same goal, which is to end negative outcomes of firearms, right? And kids not dying and all those things. Even adults not dying, right? Like everybody, right? Then they're going to feel that sincerity, you know what I mean? And it's like, we can speak on anything to, you know, how difficult it is for gun shops to be, you know, we're asking a lot of gun shop employees these days. We're asking them for straw purchases, customer service, like, you know, it's a barbershop in there. Like, everyone's just sitting in there talking, you know what I mean? It is the way that it is and then you want them to be mental health experts and look for suicide cues? Like, these guys, the turnover rate in gun shops is huge. These guys don't make that much money, you know? It's not, you know, like, There's other ways that we can handle this, but at least we're able to tell them how this stuff works and where, you know, things might get complicated with what they want.

And I mean, and this is that, that look back thing a little bit too, is that pretty much there hasn't been a mass shooting of any kind where someone didn't go back and look. It's like, oh, look at all these red flags that this person had. And the challenge is, is they don't understand. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there that the cops are aware of, have all the exact same red flags, and nothing bad ever happens. Right? How did they miss that? I'm like, because this is one of hundreds of thousands that have the exact same scenario. And, you know, that's, that's back to the acceptance that bad things are going to happen. But we can do everything we can to, A, prevent them as best we can.. But when they happen, work on the healing side of it, not on the blaming side of it. There was a horrible event a couple months ago in New York City. Dude got killed by MRI machine because he got into a door that he was supposed to be locked. And the, you know, he basically got decapitated by his own necklace. And it's just like, and I'm talking, I'm in an MRI machine at the time when I'm talking about this. And the lady's like, yeah, now that's our black swan event. And now we have to change all of the protocols across the entire country and all of this. I'm like, so you're telling me that out of the hundreds of thousands of MRIs that are done safely on a daily basis, because less than 0.0001% of them failed miserably, you're going to change the regs for everything? They're like, yep. And I'm like, oof. That's a lot, a lot for one bad thing having occurred. Like, so zero tolerance. And I'm like, that just seems statistically improbable that you could ever get to a point where you have that.

But yeah, it, what, like, it's, it's the same thing with like waiting periods. Like I always say, like there's, there's hundreds of thousands of like guns sold and literally like You want to make waiting periods for a very small number, you know what I mean? To try to prevent this. Now, I'm not going to say a waiting period couldn't work for somebody who's in crisis, but you don't necessarily just do it for one person when it's an overall thing, right? That's why we got to get better at it. I think we got to have more information about suicide and, you know, more hope and kind of get upstream to try to prevent the— unpredictable. But like, it's, it's really fascinating how, like I said, it goes back to me talking about the hammers, or like, you know, you change it for one thing, or a very small population, that's, that's not, you're not fixing anything, you're still gonna not get to the root cause of that person's crisis, or, you know, what's going on in their head.

Yeah, I mean, and that just is like, long ago and far away, when I was in college, the best course I ever took was statistics. Because back in the '80s and '90s, I used to love reading Time magazine. And you'd open up Time magazine and there'd almost always be some kind of chart or something that showed you the percentage of something. And it's like, ooh, this is interesting. This is interesting. And then you go to college and they teach you about statistics. And it's just like, oh, ask questions like, what is the sample size? Like your 200 versus your 2,500, right? That's a much more significant sample size. And then it's like, well, what was the question? Was it, is red your favorite color? Or did they ask, what is your favorite color?

Right?

And just like all these little picky things. So it's just like, huh, back to the research you're getting into. It's like, yeah, the question they ask makes a huge difference on the outcome of what's going to happen.

Definitely sway statisticians. Yeah. Yeah. It, it, I'm learning a lot and, and what I didn't understand is like, there's so much money in, in that side of things. Not that I'm saying I'm going for money, but I'm, I'm kind of blown away at how much money is spent on research. And I'm always like, wow, you spent this much on, on that? Like, you know, we got 2,500 people to take our, our survey for free. Like, you did, you know what I mean? We had some help from our friends, but like, like, you know, it's just wild. It's wild what they analyze. And sometimes, you know, back to the original point, like, of what you were saying about they'll get fascinated, like, with ghost guns. Like, they'll get fascinated by ghost guns, and then you look at, like, the actual number of people that have died from ghost guns, and you're like, that's not a lot at all.

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, but if you say that to anyone who doesn't understand, like, what percentages actually mean, it's just I mean, like, you and I both know the rifle thing. It's just like there is less than a 0.0001 in how many people are killed with these rifles that everyone is so excited about banning. And I'm like, when Clinton had his 10-year mag ban, uh, and I'm very sad I lost the report, but I read a report and it said prior to the mag ban, the number was small enough that there was no way to tell statistically— what is that word— statistically important or something to be able to tell if there's a plus or minus on it because it was already too small of a number. So it's just like, we need to do impact and not, well, feel good. Yay, we did something. Sorry, I hate saying did something. It's like, that's my PTSD now.

We gotta do something. I'm like, do something. I always tell people, Walk Talk America is that when they said, "We got to do something." The AR thing is very interesting. Every time the AR ban comes up, whether I'm in like a breakout session or something, I always ask one question. I was like, "Does anyone in here know what the worst school shooting was and what the firearm was that was used?" And no one's been able to get it. On the outside of the gun side, right? You know, which is Virginia Tech and the kid used Glocks. So it's just like that shows you right there that banning an AR is not going to stop this, you know, and you could be just, you could be the deadliest with just your Glocks. You know what I mean? Just two Glocks. Like it's, but see, we have to be able to politely put that information out there just to make people think. And if we're not in that room, we're not going to be able to do it because they're just going to run with that narrative and no one's going to correct them and raise their hand and be like, hey, does anyone know in here? Because you got to show them the blind spot, right? Like, okay, now that you know that, then what? If you just double down, you're like, I don't care, then you're showing your true colors. But if you actually care, then you're like, okay, we have a huge problem then, you know?

Yeah. No, in the beginning when I go up to Hartford, I would wear Nothing gun-related whatsoever. I would go sit at the table with all the moms, you know, Moms Demand Action, and we'd sit there, we'd be having a lovely conversation, and then one of the pertinent questions for whatever we were there for that day would come up. And then it was entertaining, sort of, and disheartening a little. Um, like, you could tell that when they asked me, oh, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, I'm a firearms instructor, or I'm a competitive shooter. Because in the beginning, I just had— it was a competitive shooter. Like, huh. And you could tell the kid, the people at the table who just hated guns and hated me for having anything to do with guns, regardless of who I am or what I stood for or any of that. And it was the ones that didn't have that immediately sour milk look on their faces are the ones who would actually listen. And be like, huh, I never thought of it that way. So yeah, there's never an all or nothing, but yeah, we have to be in the room to have the conversation.

Yeah, so much nuance in the conversation. You, you need time, you need to be able to sit there, you know, and you, and you got to be able to like detach yourself emotionally from, I'm about to hear some really dumb shit, but I'm gonna attempt to not laugh too hard.

Or too much. No, no facepalm.

Try not to facepalm. At the, at the, at the Rutgers conference that I was at, it was funny. There was one time we were in a breakout session and they kept the— some— I knew some of the people in there, so they kept pointing at me for my opinion on it. And I said to the group, I was like, look, I don't want to say too much because I have a speech coming up at 4 that you guys are all going to be attending and I don't want to give most of my speech away about like what we do, but Brady and Moms Demand, they had representatives and the guy from Brady, he introduced himself when we were going around the room as a survivor of gun violence. So, I already knew, okay, like if there's anyone who hates guns, it might be you. You might have that, you know, you might have a good excuse, right? But it was funny because at one point I was talking, I said, the firearms industry are going— they're going to be the leaders in this space in the next 2 years, meaning suicide prevention and better mental health for gun owners. And the guy from Brady goes, "Do you have any evidence or proof that that's even happening?" And I was like, "Wait till 4 o'clock!" And the cool thing about it was, and I give him credit for this, after he came up to me and he was like, this is all really cool. I didn't know it existed and, you know, thank you for opening my eyes to it. Now, I may not have changed his mind on how he feels about firearms, but, you know, he was man enough to come up and actually say like, this, this is really special that this is going on. And he had like no idea that Ruger was putting up free and anonymous mental health screenings in the boxes of the guns and things like that. So you got to have the conversation and you got to be able to politely play with the other people's ideas.

And that was the same after the speech where you had people around the corner waiting to talk to you guys, right?

Yeah, it happens every time. It's like, it happens every time. And it's not— I don't think it has anything to do with, um, how special I think what we're doing is. I think it has more to do is these people have never heard of anything like this, you know. They've never heard of the firearms issue. Firearms industry does a horrible job talking about the good we do. We've never been like that as a whole. Like, we don't even— even our conservation efforts with land is something that most people don't know, that the firearms industry is responsible with the TTB tax. You know, like, like, there's so much— yeah, we don't beat our chest about any of this stuff.

I have a student who's a PETA person, you know, people are— eat tasty animals— no, sorry, um, but like totally anti-hunting. I'm like, this is the thing people don't understand. It's like hunters are the strongest conservationists out there. Are there bad hunters that are idiots that shouldn't? Yeah. Are there bad drivers on the road that also shouldn't? Also yes. You can't control everything, but it's just like the bright spotlight that says, look at all the good we do with— whether you're talking Pittman or any of the other stuff, it's just like we support so much that people don't realize. And when they're going off on us, it's just like, Oh yeah, horrible story. So I won't end on that. Just like, it could be another conversation. But yes, gun industry and like conservationists and all of that sort of stuff. It's like, we don't say, ooh, look at what I did. Ooh, look at what I did. And, and it's hard for us because we're just doing what we do because we do really care. Like you said, yeah, there's a ton of money in research. Are you going after the research because there's a ton of money in it? No, but you're building that bridge so the folks have all of this money can help the people who are really trying to do the things that make it better. And, you know, it'd be lovely to help everybody the best that we can.

Yeah, 100%. I, for me, WTCA, I just wanted to give hope to gun owners. Like, it's hard for us to— after people are grieving because of a school shooting, it was always tough for us to be able to sit down at that table and feel like we had something to offer, especially when people are highly emotional. Because back in the day, basically all we did have to offer was it's a mental health issue and mental health's got to fix it, right? Like, it was kind of like that type of thing. But now being able to sit down and being like, well, here's what we do to try to prevent these things. Here's the, you know, it just, I don't want people Historically, when you wanted to support mental health and suicide prevention, you usually had to support an organization or a movement that philosophically didn't believe in your Second Amendment rights at its core, right? Like they might be, "We're okay with the Second Amendment, but we believe in red flag laws," or "We believe that not everyone should," you know, like that type of thing. But always kills them. Yeah, always a but. But, but, but. And we don't have that. There's no but at Walk the Talk America. This is what we think the solutions are to solve the negative outcomes of firearms. And people shouldn't be infringed or should they shouldn't lose their gun rights forever, you know, unless you do obviously something awful.

Yes. But those are other laws. That's not— it's like Second Amendment should not be illegal. However, killing people, yes, is still illegal. We're not for any of that. It's the yes, if you do something that causes harm to those around you, then yes, you do lose it. Just like felons aren't supposed to. Yeah, the thing I always cry about— felons are not allowed to vote. However, felons can run for office. Back to our regulations, how much sense they make.

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of bizarre stuff.

So yeah, it's like I tell people, like, you know, those folks who say it's okay, I have nothing to hide, I'm like, you've never been part of our judicial system, have you? You don't understand how the regulations work, do you? So But all right, sir. Well, I know that you said you've got 2 hours. We got to one in a little bit more than that. And so start off with what happened in 2025. We got to hear about that. What's going forward in 2026? I'm looking forward to seeing more stuff with Roots. What else do you want to talk about? Like, I mean, I did touch on— I'm going to remind those of you who just are watching the end of this, go to Walk Talk America. Please consider donating at least a little bit, a cup of coffee, whatever you can, even if all you do is go to Walk Talk America and share that out so someone else can know about it. What else is there to ask people, tell people about, get excited about for 2026? Because this will probably air in December of 2025, but it might not come out until January.

We're not sure. Okay. Well, yeah, look, I just want people to understand that it's there. And like I said, it's the first no-compromise-on-your-rights mental health organization that suicide prevention, we're on the forefront. A lot of the stuff we're doing, like I said, no one's ever seen before. Nobody thought it could get done, right? You know, 10 years ago, I bet you almost 100% of people said Ruger would never put a suicide prevention mental health flyer in the boxes of their guns. And we're doing it. We're getting there. And Walk the Talk America plays a huge role in that, right? Because we can be, guns and mental health go together. They're not mutually exclusive. So I want everyone to know that everything we do is for free, right? So all of our resources on our website, you as a gun owner or you as someone who wants to be involved, maybe you're not a gun owner, but you understand it, you're culturally competent, can go and use our resources and not feel dirty about it, not feel like you're backing somebody that doesn't believe 100% the same way you do. And just keep checking out the cool stuff we do. Sign up for our newsletter. You know, I was in 2 documentaries this year. It'll be interesting to see. I feel very positive about those documentaries just from the reaction of the crew and what we were doing. There's a lot of stuff as a gun owner or someone who believes in the Second that you could be very proud of, of what we do because I represent you. I represent the firearms industry and the gun owner. Like, that's what I do for— when I get on stage and I talk, I say I'm here to represent the firearms industry. I make that very clear and I throw that down immediately so everyone in the room understands, right? So just go to the website, WTTA.org, or find us on social media @WalkTheTalkUS on LinkedIn, Facebook, X, and Instagram. That's where we're most active. And just check us out and there's something for you there.

All right, well, thank you very much. And yeah, see, because I'm in Zoom and not StreamYard, I'm like, I don't have all the buttons I normally do. Where are my buttons? I'm like, I don't know. Um, so yeah, so, well, thank you for all of your time, uh, all your efforts, all your flying all over the countryside and then some. Let me know next time you're in New England, maybe, you know, I get to catch up with you live and in person. Yeah, that would be great. Are you going to SHOT Show this year?

I know Jake is not. SHOT Show is literally 20 minutes away from my house, so I will— oh, all right, never mind.

I will always be at SHOT Show. There is that. There is that. You had 20 minutes. That— yeah, you have no excuse. So, right, um, for those of you who are gonna go SHOT Show in January, I will definitely air this before then. Uh, go, you know, you'll find him in his— are you gonna wear your Green Lantern shirt there as well?

You will find me at the show. Everyone always says like Oh, you're always in a suit. And I'm like, no, I'm only in a suit at these specific events. But that's the only time I see you. Every time I'm in a Green Lantern shirt. No, I will, I will be there. But I'm very approachable. And the rest of the Walk the Talk America team is too. So if you're at SHOT Show and you see me in the hallway, please stop me. Let's have a discussion about guns and mental health and, you know, whatever.

You got questions. You never know. He might have a cool sticker on him because that, the front of his shirt is also a sticker.

I saw it. It's right behind you.

I love that.

Oh, yes.

Wait.

Oh, yeah. Wait, wait, wait.

Hold on. Hold on. Let me go get it. Let me go there. There it is. It's under the Veterans Crisis Line.

Well, hold on, hold on. There it is. There's that Guns and Mental Health. I saw that. That's one of the first things I noticed.

It was right behind your shoulder. Well, you know, it's with a second. It's over here a little bit because this always moves because it just depends on the day.

Yeah.

Thank you for representing. Oh, you know, it's like I got you guys. I got to make someone's day better because I don't know if you ever heard of Hillbilly Up, but he's got a show. Actually, it comes on after this. At 10 o'clock. Um, and, uh, his thing is guns, beer, and mental health or something like that. I should know better, but— oh yeah, guns, beer, and therapy. There we go. That's what his— I like that. Um, so yeah, but anyway, all right, well, thanks again. Yep, thank you. You who, uh, whatever, tuned in, watched this replay or live, uh, by all means leave a like, comment, subscribe, all those things. I will try to have the links to all of the different social medias that Mike talked about. And other than that, have a great night.