HS 226 – The Future of the Gun with Frank Miniter

Welcome to the Holistic Survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival show is your family's insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst scenario, you'll be ready. Welcome to Holistic Survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

It's my pleasure to welcome Frank Mineter to the show. He is the best selling author of the Ultimate Man Survival Guide and author of the new book, the Future of the Gun. Frank, welcome. How are you today?

Very well. Thanks for having me here.

Yeah, it's good to have you on the show. Just to give our listeners a sense of geography, where are you located?

I'm in upstate New York.

Oh, good. Whereabouts? That's where my family's from.

Oh, Dutchess County, Red Hook.

So tell us about your latest work, the Future of the Gun. That's your newest book, right?

Absolutely. You know, there's just so much misinformation out there on the gun issue and so much, of course, media bias. I thought it was time a real journalist, someone who actually understands guns, dug into what the future of the gun really is. So of course I had to start with our history of the gun. I started out historians at the Henry's National Fire Museum to find out to detail exactly how the progression has gone of our freedom's connection to the gun in America. That's always been there. So I go through that. But I also spent time with, oh, inner city gang members, believe it or not, find out where they get their guns and how do we then reduce gun crime. And actually asked a lot of gang members what they think of gun control and it was enlightening. They all told me it just doesn't work in more expressive ways than I can say here on air. But that's what they had to say.

Being a gang member, the inference is there that you're not following the law anyway, so why would gun laws matter to you?

No, they said, look, we can prey on the people now that's how it is because they're disarmed. That was in New York City hanging out with them. And yeah, that's true. And some actually offered to take me to places where they buy guns to show me how they get them and how easy and fluid that market is there. And I of course had to say no because that's a felony right there. But their perspective on that street was very interesting. It said a lot about guns and gun control. One former gang member actually pointed around the street to me and he said, look, let me show you what's going on here. This is a former gang member who has a felony conviction, can never own a gun again. And he says, look, see those stores over there? The shop owners in there should be the pillars of this society, but they're not because their guns are taken away, they're neutered. They're victims waiting to happen. Now look at Immortal. There's a cop, he should be the good guy on the street and he is, but unfortunately the street doesn't see him that way. And look over there. Yep, those are gang members. They have guns. They might not have a gun on them, but they can go and get a gun. They can come kill you. They're real power on the street. So who is that young guy coming up, the 14, 15 year old you're going to look up to? It's the guy who has real power on the streets. And I said, well, okay, find out, how do we change that? What do we do? I and he said, it's easy. You let my mother, who can pass a background check and spends every night by herself in this rough neighborhood, let her carry a gun if she wants to. Let those shop owners that can pass the background check carry concealed firearms if that's what they so desire. He said, you do that and then you'll change the power structure on the street. And suddenly the good guys will be able to step in and not just be passive observers or victims, but to be a real part of the solution. Now that was coming from a former gang member in New York City.

Wow, that's amazing. I think one of the reasons, Frank, that this gun thing is the way it is is you look at a place like Chicago, you know, one of the most dangerous places in the country for sure, if not the world. And they've got really strict gun control. Okay. They're disarming all the good citizens, as your gang member interviewee so rightly pointed out. The problem is that most of this gun violence in Chicago, I believe is gang on gang gun violence. And so the regular middle class person isn't really affected by it, at least not very often. And that's why they think gun control is good probably right, or what, what's going on? And you know, I try to think like what the Heck are these people thinking? You know, outlaws don't obey laws by definition, you know, so why would you expect them to be a gun control? Right.

But it's not just the murder rate that has gone up in Chicago. Other crime rate have gone up in Chicago. There are a lot of streets there that are economically impoverished and impoverished because a person who has money in his wallet won't go to those streets. And that's because of the situation that's created by the gun control in Chicago.

Oh, that's an interesting viewpoint. Expand on that if you would. I like that.

No, and that's true. You're destroying based on that criminal element because you're allowing that criminal element to just stay there and be the only guy that's armed. Because they're also not prosecuting the bad guys. In 2012, when Chicago became the murder capital per capita of the U.S. they also had the lowest prosecution rate of federal gun crimes at the federal level. That's of all the other 60 jurisdictions high in the United States as it became the murder capital, the lowest number of prosecutions of gun crimes. They're not going out there and arresting those.

Why not? What's the reason behind that?

Because they're afraid of responding to something racial. If they arrest more people in those neighborhoods, then they're addressing more minorities to them. That by definition is racist because a higher percentage of minorities are getting arrested.

Unbelievable that, that political correctness just, you know, it just obscures the truth.

Killing people, literally killing people.

Unbelievable. Political correctness is deadly. There's your example.

Right. And actually, I found a real antidote to this thing. I spent time with a school teacher in Allentown, Pennsylvania to talk about him and the introduction to the future of the gun. And he's a black man who's. He runs a group called Camp Compass. It's for inner city kids. He brings them in, he checks all their grades and he helps them get their grades up. But as he does that, he teaches them how to shoot guns and use guns and go hunting. And that process of using the good gun culture then comes in and helps to change them. Because all those kids have seen in this inner city is the bad side of guns. It's just the gang member with that nine tucked away in his shorts. Suddenly they see good guns as something that can mature them, that if used appropriately and properly, that they're then responsible and good citizens themselves. And they feel a certain kind of strength from that over and over again. I was told by graduates of that program that it either saved their life or Kept them out of jail. And the friends of theirs that didn't go through this, a lot of them are dead or in jail for life.

I don't know that everybody will understand that. But it's interesting that when you teach gang members and bad people, you know, when they go to the military, for example, and they use weapons, when they learn martial arts and excel at it, when they use a gun to go hunting and they use it responsibly and they learn to respect it for the power it has, it's kind of a paradox even to me that that actually lessens crime, like you would think. I don't want these people learning martial arts. I don't want these people learning how to use a gun. It's bad enough as it is. Don't teach them. Can you comment on that? I mean, why is that?

Well, it creates a safer society when a good person has that power to basically just protect their own life. I mean, it's a natural basic right, but it's also a constitutional right.

Right, but I'm talking about a bad person, you know, a gang member.

You teach a gang member to shoot properly and that could. Well, you take them to the military, they tend not to go into that.

Bad area or an at risk youth or something like that.

Yeah, well, they're using that program to make them stand up as real individuals. You walk into the classroom and they're all inner city kids and mostly minorities. And they all stand up and they'll shake your hand and say, yes sir, a man to you. They're being taught a real sense of honor. And it's that honor, that real honor that's missing from that street. When you allow the power structure to be run by the criminal element of that neighborhood, that's what's happening. It's topsy turvy. So the only way to fix that is let the good person come in and be that good example. But it's interesting when you look at freedom this way because it expands further than that. In this book, I detail Americans relationship, but we've always had this relationship with the gun. And most people misunderstand this because this history just isn't taught of what this is. So I spent a bunch of time also with special Forces soldiers and talking to them about their experience at firearms. And some had grown up with guns and some hadn't. And some of the instructors, SEAL instructors and Green Beret instructors told me their job, and one put it really well, he said their job in those training facilities is to create country boys. They said they Spend most of their time teaching people to shoot who have no skills, didn't grow up using an AR15 or other type of firearm and so didn't have those skills already in them. It takes a long time to learn to shoot well and properly, especially at that level.

Tell us about your other findings.

Well, it's interesting. One chapter I wanted to answer the question, how has gun rights beaten the media? I think that's fascinating because most of the mainstream media for the last half century has been dead set against this individual right to bear arms. Yet we've been winning. And how.

Oh yeah, it's just like pervasive.

Yeah. Well, you start to look at it, you realize there are 100 million gun owners in this country and by themselves they're already a grassroots group. They're in hunting clubs and shooting clubs and they go off into shooting competitions all off the mainstream radar. But that's what they do. It's a practical right with them. It's a normal thing. And so when it comes time to vote that freedom, they realize how practical and real that right is. Whereas the elitist and the main, the big media outlets in the cities just don't understand what's going on in that country, what that connection is. And they're so insulated from it that they're not really seeing, they're not living in those rough neighborhoods in their own cities even. So they're just, they don't get that connection. They don't understand what America really is.

It's amazing that guns have stood up to the mainstream media, to this attitude that every time there's a shooting, you know, it's, oh, it's the guns. You know, they never blame the prescription drugs. The media never covers that because guess who's sponsoring the TV show, right? There is real evidence that all of these shooters are taking these antidepressant drugs and, you know, cocktails of this stuff. And it causes all kinds of weird, scary behavior. But you never hear that. You don't hear much about the violent video games. You don't hear much at all about the violence in the movies and on television. It's always the gun's fault.

That's very well put. They blame the gun, not the bad guy. And that right there is the issue that's the problem. And as long as they're allowed to continue doing that, that's how we get things like the so called universal background check, which of course a criminal is not going to submit themselves to. If Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg and those billionaires really want to do something. Why don't they help the National Shooting Sports foundation in their Fix NICS program? Or they're trying to get those mental health records, the person who's really found criminally insane by a court of law, to have those records put into that database so they can't buy a firearm because that's what they're doing right now. The NSSF is running around state by state lobbying to get those mental health records, those ones who actually been found insane by court of law. Those records will be put into the national instant background check system. You don't hear about that. They're having success. A bunch of states actually weren't putting any in. And the NSSF has convinced them, well, you need to do this. This is important. We need to stop. Because the people who commit those mass murders are almost always have real mental. So we need to stop that. Well, that's a real solution that you'd think that those billionaires would be behind, but they're not.

But yet Bill Gates, I'm sure, has bodyguards who carry guns. You know, this is the problem. It's always this elitist mentality. You see Senator Dianne Feinstein in the Socialist Republic of California, you know, coming out against guns and wanting all sorts of gun control, yet she herself carries a pistol in her purse. The hypocrisy here is just amazing.

Exactly right. They're apart and they're above. And you know, I've interviewed a bunch of journalists like in this book. I interviewed one of the founders of cnn, Jim Shepard, who now does a shooting wire. Now he's completely. He was never anti gun, but he just was kind of not into the issue for a long time until he came. Once he left CNN and he left other things that he started. He started the shooting war. I said, you know what, I get it now. And I grew up with guns and I went away for a long time. Now I really get it. And he describes in the book, I go into this, that mentality that changed CNN over those years and turned it into what it became. And I also spent time with Stephen Hunter. He was a Washington Post writer, Pilcher Prize winning Washington Post writer, of course, written a lot of great novels, but he's always been pro gun. Well, he grew up in houses actually anti gun, but he became pro gun over time and now he's very pro gun, shoots every day. But having him actually diagnose those newsrooms and the way the media sees this issue is very interesting.

I think another issue with guns is that Americans, well, I guess more so now than ever. But overall, I think Americans generally don't feel that the government will ever become any real threat to our freedom yet. You know, it's like boiling a frog. They're just doing it so slowly. They don't think that. God, you know, Americans will never need guns to protect themselves against their own government like in other countries. I mean, gosh, in Iran a couple of years ago, if they had guns, the country would be under new management. Okay? You saw the government just shooting into crowds and just murdering people, defenseless people. I don't think anybody here believes that could really happen.

Well, I think some people do, but that's not a. It's also a scary idea to talk about, you know, and that's a last resort thing. But I did have recently a conversation with a guy from England, and I do talk about this in the book a little bit, but he was boasting about how great his country is because he's a citizen of the world and they don't have guns anymore. And even though I. I talked to Scotland Yard a lot about the crime they do have on the streets, and the criminals in London still have guns and that still more and more. The cops in England used to boast that they didn't carry guns. More and more they have to carry guns because of that emboldened criminal element, because the people are no longer part of the solution. But he was very proud of the idea. So I reminded him that in World War II, the NRA actually started a gun drive to rearm the UK because they'd been mostly disarmed by that point, and sent thousands of guns over, personal arms over. And then, of course, our military sent millions more. And how we rearmed them and got them ready before they were possibly looked like they were going to be invaded by Germany. I told them, you know, we'll be there again. We'll help you next time you need us.

History has just proven over and over again that what I like to say. I mean, I'll tell you a funny thing. I was on a date once, and I was at the movies, and we were watching that spoof movie, I think it's called the whole 10 yards or the whole 9 yards or something like that. And, you know, these mobsters with their guns. And I whisper over to my date and I go, oh, I have the same gun as the guy was holding in the movie. And she goes, I hate guns. And I. And I lean back over to her and I say, yeah, guns cause freedom.

That's. That's one of the interesting side effects about guns, they cause freedom because they, they, they are the ultimate. You would think that the liberal left would see that, you know, that they preach about equality and equal rights. Guns are the only thing that can level the playing field between a little old lady and a big strapping gangster or a, or a group of gang gangsters. You know, guns are the ultimate inequality. You know, they, they level the playing field. That little old lady is just as powerful as that big gangster who might be attacking or killing or, you know, robbing her or whatever. You just don't hear. The media just doesn't cover when, when guns are used for good use to protect people, you know, they only cover the negative side. It's amazing. Every day probably, you know, I mean, I had John Lott on the show before More Guns, Less Crime and a few other books on the subject. And, you know, guns are being used to protect people in legitimate circumstances. And you don't hear any of these stories.

No, they don't make the media. And John is doing a great job. And he's a friend, and I just spoke to him recently and he got an article published for a student who's at Dartmouth College and she's being stalked aggressively by a guy who's known to be a very dangerous individual. And she wants to carry a gun on that campus to protect herself and, and the university won't let her do it. She's a little blonde girl from California and she's now disarmed and a victim waiting to happen. She's scared.

What else would you like to say on the gun issue then? I'd like to just briefly ask you about the survival guy before we wrap it up.

Yeah. The only big part of the book we haven't jumped into is I also spend a lot of time with the firearms makers, a lot of the R and D departments actually. Let me come in to look at how they're pushing their gun technologically. And fascinating what's going on there. They're using, I mean, just in the last few years, they're starting to use a computer program called SolidWorks where they can actually build these guns. And actually, it's interesting. They can build a gun right there on the computer screen, test fire on the computer screen, and test all the stress points and everything of that firearm to see if it'll handle this caliber, this much steel. What's interesting about that is they're beginning to take different technologies from other sectors and put them into guns. So the gun is essentially a 19th century invention perfected in the 20th century that's now about to take this big leap forward. And when you talk about this, people always worry about smart guns. And there's good reason to worry about smart guns. A lot of the anti gun groups see it as a way to mandate a certain unproven technology and therefore ban all the guns now available, which is a real threat. But there's a lot more going on than just that. The tracking point scope and so on. That's going on as you're getting the technologically marry a digital optic with a trigger system. When that happens, things really start to change and the whole dynamic of what a gun can do.

Right. So that'll have like a fingerprint sensor. Right?

A smart gun does that. Tracking point scope doesn't. Yeah, smart gun, right. There's a couple out there. There's a Kodiak Arms has the Intelligun, which is. Right. That's what uses the biometric scanner on the grip of a 1911 pistol. It's actually conversion kit for a 1911 so that within one second if it reads your finger and says, okay, you've programmed yourself in to be approved and it unlocks the gun. But it's a battery inside of your gun. And not a lot of gun owners understandably want to take a device designed to save their life and put a battery in it.

I know, I know. Yeah. You know, I would just be so afraid that that wouldn't work. You know, like the one time in your life when you might actually need the gun desperately. I would just be so afraid that that would fail.

But let the market figure it out. Because there are certain places where I can understand why that would be something you would try a prison guard, for example. I mean that's a real place where a gun could be taken away from somebody. I could say, okay, that may be someplace where you try to apply that. Or I might make some school boards more comfortable with having a gun inside the classroom. I'd rather just the concealed caricombet owner was able to carry. But if that makes the school board feel better, then at least that there's that gun there to protect our children.

You know, Frank, I mean, on the school subject, you know, this just. It's so worth mentioning. We'd be remiss if we didn't just discuss that for a quick moment here. It is crazy to me. I mean psychotic. These laws that say you can't have a gun within a thousand feet of a school when it's like putting up a sign, come and do a mass shooting here. If you're nuts, you know we're unarmed. Why do you think these shooters go to schools? Movie theaters that don't have that, have signs all over that say no firearms even in a place when it's legal to carry a firearm. It's just so nonsensical. I don't get it.

Well, they're victim zones. And one thing that's not talked about enough is okay, usually there's mental health issues for the individuals that do that. But they're also the biggest wimps in the world. They're looking for victims they can go and dominate because of whatever issues have gone on in their life and other psychological issues they have. It's the wimpiest possible thing you could do. And yet that's what they do. And the only way to protect that is not to have this so called bubble that's a gun free zone or just the victim zone. And let good people carry guns if they so desire.

Good points, Frank. Give out your website. And before you do that, what is a tracking scope? I never asked you that. We talked about the fingerprint reader.

Yeah, the tracking point scope. I mean it's the company's tracking point. And it's interesting. They're actually the digital optic that's on a rifle. There's an AR and there's a bolt action rifles, they have it on that. You zoom in using the digital optics. You're not looking through the scope, you're actually looking at a video recorder. You're looking over great distance. Say zoom in 1,000 yards away and you tag a spot on a target. It can be a moving target, it could be a game animal. The scope will actually follow that tag actively. And when you pull the trigger, the gun won't go off until everything is perfectly in line. And that's bullet drop and windage. You have to dial in windage and many other factors that sensors the scope has to say, okay, when the trigger is pulled, that's exactly aligned so that bullet hits that exact point in that great distance. So there are some people that are afraid of that because an amateur can suddenly shoot long distances. And that's actually not true.

They'd suddenly be a pro potentially, right? Or no.

Yeah, but when you look at the technical reasons behind it, and I spend much time with some former special forces snipers on it, that's true and not true. It's a deep topic to go into. But just figuring windage out on bullock, especially at extreme long ranges, it's really an art because it's not usually a constant thing. It's changing in canyons and sunlight and fade and many other factors affecting that wind. So it takes an experienced eye to see, okay, here's where the wind is really going to push this bullet. And people don't realize often how far a bullet will get pushed just at 500 yards. I mean often a 30 yard 6 could easily be pushed 3ft at 500 yards. If you go to 1000 yards, it just becomes just a very long distance depending on the conditions. And that takes a guy with some experience. It's actually not true, but it's very interesting that when you take it to that level, you're beginning to open up this whole sci fi area where you can do so many different things with. I mean, just use your imagination with what that gun now becomes capable of as that technology advances.

Give out your website. Tell people where they can find out more.

Yeah, it's Frank miniature.com youm can read a lot of my articles at Forbes.com, just type in my name. And I do write a lot on the gun issue there.

Let's spell your last name. It's Frank. And then M I N-I-T-E-R.com right?

Right.

Okay. Fantastic. Well, Frank Miniature, thank you so much for joining us today and keep getting the word out about this. It's a very important topic. We've just seen through and throughout geography around the U.S. the data is just overwhelming. People should be allowed to have guns. It's crazy any other way. So thank you for getting the word out about this.

Good to talk to you.

What's great about the shows you'll find on jasonhartman.com is that if you want to learn how to finance your next big real estate deal, there's a show for that. If you want to learn more about food storage and the best way to keep those onions from smelling up everything else, there's a show for that. If you honestly want to know more about business ethics, there's a show for that. And if you just want to get away from it all and need to know something about world travel, there's even a show for that. Yep, there's a show for just about anything only from jasonhartman.com or type in Jason Hartman in the iTunes store.

Thank you for joining us today for the holistic survival show protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Be sure to listen to our creating wealth show which focuses on exploiting the financial and wealth creation opportunities in today's economy. Learn more at www.jasonhartman.com or search Jason Hartman on itunes. This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company offering very general guidelines and information. Opinions of guests are their own and none of the content should be considered individual advice. If you require personalized advice, please consult an appropriate professional information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.