State of the Second

State of the Second hosts John and Kaylee sit down with Zach Keane, Digital Content Manager at Rugged Suppressors, to talk through where the suppressor market is headed and what the next four years could hold. Zach explains what Rugged is known for, durable, reliable cans backed by an unconditional lifetime warranty that covers the can even if an owner shoots a hole through it on purpose, and how...

Jon Patton, founder of The Gun Collective (TGC), joins hosts John and Kaylee to talk about nine years of covering the firearms industry and what he thinks the industry keeps getting wrong. Patton has made YouTube videos since 2011 and built TGC into a go-to source for gun news, new product launches, and his blunt, often sarcastic takes. He explains why he says exactly what he thinks, even when it...

Tyler from Tundra Tactical joins hosts Kaylee and John on Gun Owners of America's State of the Second to talk about why so much firearms content feels the same, and what changed when comedy entered the space. Tyler runs Tundra Tactical full time and describes himself as a satirist who makes content poking fun at stereotypes in the gun industry. He went to school for audio engineering and want...

On this episode of State of the Second, host John sits down with Othais and Mae from C&Rsenal, the deep-research firearms channel known for hour-long documentary videos on World War I small arms. The conversation is a wide-ranging history dive rather than a policy debate. Othais explains how the show started: he picked up shooting after college with a Mosin M38, became a gun collector chasing...

Shawn Herrin from We Like Shooting joins State of the Second hosts John and Kaylee for a wide-ranging conversation that opens with old friendship stories and turns into a serious look at how gun rights are won and lost. Shawn lives in Colorado Springs and walks through how a state most people still picture as frontier and cowboy country has swung anti-gun over the last decade. He points to gerryma...

State of the Second hosts John and Kaylee sit down with Caleb, the photographer and videographer behind the YouTube channel Twelve Spies, for a conversation that moves from gear talk to the harder questions about gun rights in America. Caleb came into the firearms industry late, during COVID, bringing a video and photography background with him, and now works in the industry full time. After a rou...

John and Kaylee sit down with Robert from Tennessee Silencers in Seymour, East Tennessee, south of Knoxville. He calls his shop the biggest silencer sales place in Tennessee. It has an outdoor test range where customers can fire a suppressor on their own gun before buying, sells night vision, and rents machine guns. NFA items make up about 80% of the business. Robert lays out what the National Fir...

John Keys spent twelve years on active duty in the Marine Corps and another eight as a federal civilian marine before working as an executive at a broadcast media company in DC. For most of that time he was not a gun owner. As he tells hosts John and Kaylee, the bad examples he saw made him feel the responsibility of gun ownership was a challenge for the people around him, so he kept it out of his...

Ross Martin is one of the newest names in the firearms industry, and on this episode of State of the Second, co-founder Chris Toomer sits down with hosts John and Kaylee to explain how it got off the ground. Chris and his wife Stephanie, both working in the industry at the time, started shaping the idea around 2019 and 2020 as they watched a wave of new people come into the firearms space. After a...

Kurt from Blue Alpha Gear joins John and Kaylee to tell the story of how a complaint about an overpriced belt became a concealed carry and EDC company. Blue Alpha started in 2016 when Kurt and his business partner Jesse, who worked together as aircraft mechanics, wanted a side business. Kurt was frustrated with a belt he had bought from a top name brand: it was expensive, the shipping was overchar...

State of the Second hosts John and Kaylee sit down with Dan and Danielle, the husband-and-wife team behind Ammo Squared, to break down an ammo model that works nothing like the gun store. Ammo Squared started in their garage in 2015, right as the country was coming out of an ammo shortage. Dan, who was working in tech as a product marketer with a SaaS background, had a simple thought: what if you...

On this episode of GOA's State of the Second, host John sits down with Adam and Jared from SDS Imports to take apart the long-running stigma around Turkish-made firearms. Jared, the company's digital marketing manager, and Adam, the product manager who was calling in from a hot hotel room in Istanbul, walk through how a company that once carried a so-so reputation for imports turned thin...

Kelly came to firearms late and on purpose. She grew up in Clearwater, Florida, didn't grow up around guns, and her only early exposure was the wooden rifles her dad kept with a trigger lock. She got her carry permit in 2017 and then did nothing with it for years. What changed everything was March 27, 2023, the day of a school shooting in Nashville. She had friends with kids who went to schoo...

State of the Second sits down with TC from Smoky Mountain Knife Works and Smoky Mountain Guns and Ammo, recorded in Gatlinburg, Tennessee ahead of GOA's convention in Knoxville. TC traces an unlikely path into the industry. He grew up on a cattle farm in South Alabama, saved his money all year as a kid to visit the world's largest knife store once a year, met Chuck Buck there at nine, th...

Patriot Mobile's Scott Corburn joins State of the Second hosts Kaylee and John to explain how a cell phone provider can be a tool for defending Second Amendment rights. Founded a little over 10 years ago by founder and CEO Glenn Story, Patriot Mobile was built to give back to Christian conservative causes after Story saw a competitor on the left funding efforts against gun rights. Scott puts...

State of the Second hosts Kaylee and John sit down with Opie of Opie in the Smokies for a wide-ranging conversation that starts with patches and ends on the fight for the Second Amendment. Opie walks through his path from a Glock 17 and an Uncle Mike's holster to a full-time presence in the firearms world. A patch side hustle, including the Trump Train design and a money patch where one rando...

State of the Second 1x46 brings on competitive shooter, instructor, and firearms writer Kenzie for a conversation about how to actually get into the gun industry and the shooting sports. Hosts John and Kaylee open from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where they're prepping for GOA's convention in Knoxville this August. Kenzie shares her path: she grew up around guns and hunting, joined the rifle...

Josh from Black Diamond Guns and Gear joins hosts Kaylee and John for a wide-ranging conversation about building a firearms YouTube channel from nothing, how welcoming the gun community is, and why budget guns matter. Josh tells the origin story of Black Diamond, which started around 2017 when he was making holsters under Black Diamond Holsters and the other Josh (Small Josh) suggested they try Yo...

State of the Second host John sits down with Tony and Ryan from Vertx, the tactical bag and apparel brand whose parent company, Flying Cross, has been making first responder and law enforcement uniforms for more than 180 years. The conversation traces how Vertx grew out of that uniform business: after 9/11, one of the three-letter agencies asked the company to build low-visibility gear so people d...

Brownells turns 85 this year, and CEO Pete Brownell joined State of the Second hosts Kaylee and John to walk through how a 1939 gunsmithing supply company became one of the longest-running family businesses in the firearms industry. Pete is third generation. His grandfather started the company as Brownell's Gun Mart, writing how-to articles for NRA publications and stocking the Smith & We...

In this episode of Gun Owners of America's State of the Second, hosts Kaylee and John sit down in East Tennessee with Mike Darter, founder and CEO of CCW Safe, to talk through what actually happens after a self-defense incident and why a plan matters before you ever carry. Mike spent 20 years in law enforcement, and the company grew out of a shooting he was involved in on a raid that left two...

Jared from Guns & Gadgets joins John and Kaylee on State of the Second to trace how a part-time YouTube hobby became one of the first full-time Second Amendment news channels. He grew up poor in a housing project, spent 24 years in law enforcement including a stint as a cop in New Orleans, and started filming holster reviews on an iPhone 4S while recovering from shoulder surgery. When Massachu...

Gun Owners of America's State of the Second sits down in a cabin in East Tennessee, looking out at the Great Smoky Mountains, with firearms YouTuber Johnny B of 180SecondIdeas, the creator behind the Drama Llama and Spicy Friday bits. Hosts Kaylee and John trace his path from a terrible 2016 holster review shot on a laptop camera to a full-time presence in the 2A space, then dig into why the...

Dustin from Cole-TAC joins John and Kaylee on State of the Second to talk through a question the firearms industry keeps circling: does "Made in America" still matter when imported goods are cheaper and faster to get? Dustin started the company with his wife in their spare bedroom in New Hampshire in 2015, almost by accident. He bought a suppressor cover, destroyed it the first day out,...

State of the Second sits down with Brandon, the CEO and founder of Silencer Central, to walk through how the largest suppressor dealer in the country got started and why buying a can is easier now than it has ever been. Brandon explains that the company began in 2005 after he moved to South Dakota, started shooting prairie dogs, and bought a suppressor to make the long drives worthwhile. A pharmac...