I'm Travis Bader, and this is the
Silvercore Podcast.
Join me as I discuss matters related to
hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the
people in businesses that comprise the community.
If you're a new to Silvercore, be sure to
check out our website, www.silvercore.ca where
you can learn more about courses, services and
products that we offer as well as how you can
join the Silvercore Club, which includes 10 million
in north America, wide liability insurance,
which ensures you are properly covered during
your outdoor adventures.
One of the unique prospects of the
Silvercore Podcast is that it allows me to
share my connections within the outdoors
and firearms industry with our listeners
and provide a unique insight into the inner
workings of the industry.
Today, I have the pleasure of doing a swap
cast with someone who you've likely seen his
work, but yet might not know much about him.
Personally.
My guest today is a graduate from
France's prestigious Sorbonne university
with a master's in philosophy, anthropology,
and sociology.
He has accreditation from George Brown and
security intelligence, counter intelligence and
emergency management, and has worked as
reporter for Bloomberg the Globe and Mail.
And is the owner and editor of the
gun blog guts.
Welcome to the silver court gun blog.ca swap
cast, Nicolas Johnson,
Travis.
It's a real pleasure to be with you and
to be your guest.
And it gives me great pleasure also in
this swap cast to be interviewing you the
founder and owner of Silvercore and getting
to know more about you as a, as an individual
and as a businessman and so much more,
I guess, you know, to get things rolling here.
I'm curious about the gun blog.ca and sort of what
motivated you to get into such a niche industry.
This is taking me back though.
I love the question.
It's a simple question.
And you know that sometimes the simplest
questions are the hardest, because
I want to get back into the motivation.
I started it.
I went, I went live on January 4th, 2015, and
at the time, what really motivated me was what I
felt was, uh, an impact.
In the media, I was deep into self-defense
and concealed carry and or discrete carry
and personal protection in terms of like
philosophically, I've never had to do it,
but I was interested in those, those concepts
and learning the techniques and as a
gun owner, and I had recently got my firearm
license, my possession and acquisition
license in Canada, I'm based in Toronto.
And I just felt that there was an
incredible anti-gun bias in the media, in
politics, in policy.
And I want it to be a counter narrative, you
know, I wanted to start, uh, just basically give
an opinion that I felt was not being reflected
their perspective of a recreational
firearm user, who yeah.
I felt that perspective was not being reflected
and I wanted to offer, I wanted to offer it
interesting because that's honestly, that's
similar to why I started the Silvercore podcast.
I just look at an industry that has
such a social stigma behind it and a
negative social stigma.
And I want it to be able to provide a voice for
the industry and for, uh, firearms owners
and outdoor enthusiasts said basically just
shared their passion with others, which
normalizes the process of loving the outdoors
and what it entails and all that entails within
the firearms industry.
So I've, I've never gotten kind of
into the political realm or sphere.
Uh, not nearly to the degree that you have.
With the podcast, because I've always wanted to
showcase the positivity, or if we're going to
talk about something that somehow has negative
connotations, find a positive way to be able
to wrap it up or some sort of summation on it.
But do you find, do you find that you're
achieving what you're hoping to get out
of the gun blog in the last, what was
2015 you started?
Yeah.
So we're coming up to finishing
the seventh year.
It's a question.
Yeah.
And that's, that's also the key question.
Like, are you, are you achieving the dream that
you're asking me or am I achieving the objective?
Yeah.
Yes and no, I guess following that, that
was my conscious objective, but I like
a lot of projects.
There is a lot of other stuff that I realized
subsequently, oh, I'm also trying to do this.
And I'm also trying to do that.
I was also trying to hit play and discover
and have fun and, and practice this and learn
that the, the, it took me also several years
to get to what you just said, which is I want
to focus on the positive for a few years there.
I got really political and, and, um, it
almost became a very political, very policy
focused and very much focused on stopping the
aunties as opposed to promoting the beauty and
benefits of our side.
And I think there's much more powerful and much
more power, much more satisfaction talking
about the good stuff that you want to do versus
the bad stuff that your, your opponents are doing.
So have I achieved?
I believe I have achieved.
I believe I do offer a vocabulary, a way of
thinking a position, a stand for personal gun
ownership and a stand in the way of people
who want to eliminate personal gun ownership.
I believe I have advanced, obviously
there's still a lot of work to be done
that the, the, the fight's not over, but
I believe I have from, I believe I have raised
some consciousness and changed some minds
and gotten people to, to think differently
about the issue.
Let's say, Hmm.
You know, when I look at different firearms
forums and they have categories of different
topics, the politics section are typically the
ones that have the most amount of activity in it.
So from a editorial standpoint, writing about
things of a political nature for firearms, I
would think would be a sure-fire way to ensure
that you have maximum interest or engagement,
but it can also be an extremely negative arena
to be playing in as well.
So how do you kind of balance that dichotomy
between wanting to have the maximum engagement
and have those people kind of looking at
it and the fact that politics isn't always
the, uh, the most fun place to be, to be.
Yeah, I, I, I'm going to, um, I would like,
I w everything you're asking me, I want to ask
you back, so get ready.
It's coming.
Oh,
the, the, I think what I believe now is that
whatever niche you choose to go into, no matter
how micro that niche is, you will attract
the other people who are interested in that niche.
And I think that, yeah, so if you're, if you're
writing a blog focused on firearm politics
in Canada, or a video channel or a podcast or
whatever it is, if you're focused on gun politics
in Canada, you will find other people who
were attracted to that.
And you probably will alienate people who are
not interested in that.
And I found in my case, I don't know.
I think I got interested in the politics.
In fact, I've just gotten, I've just gone.
I'm just losing interest in the politics.
I'm so turned off by, by what's happening now.
And that I'm actually losing interest in
politics and get trying to move the blog in a
different direction, move what I do in a
different direction.
But the politics is also nasty.
It gets mean, and people have very
strong convictions.
And when I would talk about certain
topics, whether it was, uh, interviewing
the, the, the.
Manager of ships or Canada, or doing
something about, about hunting or a
competitive shooter.
There's not, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't get
a lot of, um, it doesn't get a lot of views.
Doesn't get a lot of attraction, but if I
write something about what the liberals are
up to lately, oh my God, people get really
excited and I get lots of emails back.
And the risk is, uh, I'm curious to hear also
your point of view, the risk is that, oh, that's
where I get the feedback.
That's where I get the validation.
So that's, that's kind of an incentive to
go in that direction.
And that's what that's, what's getting
the page views.
And if, if you're, you know, we like to get page
views or downloads or whatever your metric is
that you go in the way of your audience, you go,
you follow your audience to some extent, and it's
taken a lot of me heart.
Um, but we can discuss that more, but that's
yeah, so it got very political for a while
and I'm actually trying to move away from that.
And I have a paywall and I'm keeping the
political stuff.
Like I still care about politics and I still want
my, my members to know about what's happening
and they still want to know, but I'm putting
that behind the paywall.
So it's not, it's not front and center.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Well, I'd like to ask you, um, tell
me about Silvercore.
I, I, I'm realizing I'm embarrassed to
admit how little I know about this incredible
company that you run.
We're a small company out of the lower mainland
of BC and it started at around what I in 1994.
Providing basic firearm safety course training
to the general public.
And that was when the program first
came into play.
And I was still in high school and I, I
was working for a few different companies.
Uh, I was a general manager at an auction
house for a short bit.
I was working for an armor car company
and I've always been entrepreneurial minded.
You know, uh, first jobs I had was in
grade four grade five, I would perform magic
and kids birthday parties for other
kids' birthday parties.
Right.
And, or I would mow lawns for real estate agents
prior to their showings of their houses or even
working for let's say the armored car company.
I ended up taking a look at everything outside of
what my actual job role was because I tend to
get bored quite quickly and find other areas
that I can do work.
And I started with welding up their
hand trucks for them.
I had never welded a hand truck in my life, right.
Nor had I ever welded aluminum that thickness
before, but I, uh, talk them into giving
me a chance and that proceeded into the next
step, which was, well, he got all these guns
hanging on your wall.
You have people that come in and service
your vehicles on a regular basis.
What kind of maintenance program do you have
for your firearm?
And that sent me down to Springfield,
Massachusetts, and got trained up at the Smith
and Western academy and through the armor
school and started doing repair and maintenance
just for the company that I was working for.
And they had branches across BC and I started
doing more branches and then Alberta
and Saskatchewan and Manitoba and Ontario.
And then at one point I think almost every
single armored car company in BC, I was
doing their repair and maintenance for.
So I said, maybe I want to be a gunsmith.
I started up Silvercore gun works and was doing
the teaching on the side and started picking up a
work with law enforcement agencies they'll have
their own arbors on staff, but if they
needed extended work done that their armor didn't
have the tooling for, or the, the background
into being able to do and land on my table.
So, uh, around 2003, I, uh, I incorporated
Silvercore training.
I was doing silver court gun works as a
sole proprietorship before that and sort
of never looked back.
And today Silvercore is the leader in its field.
We are.
Yeah.
And that's, that's in Canada.
That's a pretty big, uh, like just from
what your website says, you do everything from
training, people who want to get their gun
license or their pal.
So the Canadian firearm safety course training
civilians, you also train police and
law enforcement and conservation officers.
You have the podcast, you have gunsmithing,
you have, what am I forgetting?
You know, and we do work with the courts.
So I'm a subject matter expert for
the courts, both, um, uh, crown counsel
and defense counsel.
And, um, the training is sort of the primary
crux of what we do.
Uh, and when you say, you know, leader in, in
the industry, we are, I, I, I carved out a niche
where there, when did not exist before in Canada.
Uh, but you know, it's like saying that
I'm president of the cracker factory, right?
It's a big fish in a small barrel it's I
it's nothing that I'd be getting too, uh, uh,
too excited over myself about, but it has allowed
me to explore new ways to be able to communicate
with people because all, all teaching is, is
basically conveying an idea to others in a way
that they're able to, uh, readily accept it.
And if it's, doesn't stand up to a challenge
and you have to take a look at what your idea
is that you're conveying, uh, whether it's, it's
a good idea or not.
And, uh, Or how you convey that information.
So, uh, yes, we are the leader in, in what we do.
We do firearms, repair and maintenance.
We do training programs for DFO ministry of
forests, um, uh, parks, um, armored car company.
So we do use of force and firearms training.
If you're going to be carrying a firearm
for the, uh, defense of your life or, or a
third party, somebody else, we provide that
training, um, mineral exploration industry,
uh cartographers and geological survey Canada.
I mean, we've got a lot of people that,
uh, use firearms for their employment
on a daily basis.
The film industry is a big one.
Do a lot of people in the lower mainland required,
just basic training and safety within the film.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's, it's huge.
I got ask.
Um, I think I first came across Silvercore when
I was a, for myself.
I was looking for who does, uh, I don't
like the name, but tactical or defensive
or protective training for civilians in Canada.
And there's tons of places in the
us, but I couldn't.
The list in Canada was very small and you were
one of the people who I thought was on that list.
That's, that's how I first came
across the name.
Silvercore.
And why is the, why is the market for civilian?
I don't know if you have a better name for
it, but I'll call it defensive, uh, civilian.
Well, first of all, there's very few
courses after the preliminary pal course,
the pal possession acquisition license.
After that, there are very few courses
that I've been able to find at all.
And when you talk about protection or defense,
it's like, there's almost nothing I'm curious to.
Why is that right?
I think there's a few reasons for that.
Like in Canada, particularly in the
states, firearms ownership is enshrined
in their, their right, their constitutional
rights, right.
Uh, in Canada, it's not considered a
right, but rather a privilege and firearms
owners are reminded on a routine basis that
this is a privilege that can be taken away.
Right.
And if you start talking about, um, you, you
say tactical training, well, that's always
something, even from the beginning of Silvercore
that stuck in the back of my head is something.
I didn't like the word or the connotation
of tactical.
Like it used to be back in the day, if
you wanted to sell a rifle, they would
put the word varmint.
This is a varmint rifle.
And the connotation behind that was that
you can shoot small objects or small game
at a far distance.
And it was very accurate.
I've got to get this environment and gun,
and that was a great marketing term and then
came tactical and they started just throwing
the word tactical behind everything.
Hey, we painted the black, it's now tactical.
Well, tactics got nothing to do with
what you purchase.
And it's got everything to do with how you
apply your mindset to a certain situation.
And tactics will change based on the
different situation you're going to be in.
And so I was always kind of shy about using that
marketing term, cause I didn't think it properly
relayed what we do that.
And when we're working with law enforcement
agencies, there is an overriding thought
that they don't want to be teaching tactics
to the general public.
They don't want to have the general public
knowing something that they do, which
can then in turn be used against them.
So we've got law enforcement, firearms
instructors, or work on staff and some feel very
strongly about this.
And my mindset on that has always been why don't
we just teach somebody how to use a firearm
proficiently and that can be applied to a
sporting situation, which is socially acceptable
here in Canada or.
Applied to a, um, a workplace situation,
which would in turn require somebody to
think about tactics.
If they're going to be using this firearm,
my thinking on, and I've, I've never agreed
with that mindset.
I don't want to teach tactics to the general
public because anybody who's got access to
the internet and can go onto YouTube, can
learn everything.
And more that the police are learning right now.
I mean, the information is out there.
And the other thought I always had was if the
tactics of a, an agency is going to deploy
in order to protect others or protect
themselves is such that it would fall apart.
If anybody else kind of knew or had an
inclination of what they're going to
do, maybe it's time to reassess that
tactics, those tactics.
And it's sort of like, um, it's sort of like
having a, an argument or a disagreement
with somebody.
If you've got your position and they've
got their position, or even, let's say you want
to negotiate to some sort of a, uh, common
ground having a whole bunch of tricks in your
back pocket doesn't necessarily mean that
you are going to be the big winner at the end
of the day, especially if that other person
learns those tricks.
And then you're back to it, mind you, if
you have a framework that everybody knows
about and they're were aware of, and they
know if this happens, we're going to do this.
They kind of know the process through it.
Um, it will allow.
Both of the people in the, in the dispute to
be able to more quickly come to a common ground.
I don't know if that's the best, um, analogy,
but you know, just talking here off the top
of my head, if we were in a tactical situation and
you were doing something that, uh, would elicit a
response from me, maybe you wouldn't do that.
Something knowing full well that the next
step is that response.
And maybe we can come to some sort of a resolution
that's more favorable.
I don't know, maybe a bit off topic,
but it's interesting as you're saying that
I'm thinking of vac.
So again, just it's, I'm going to be
perfectly upfront here.
I make no claims to be gun slinging,
whatever I've, uh, internet commando, or
armchair armchair, a commander, whatever
you want to call it.
A few hundred hours of, of what in the, in
the industry is called defensive training,
unforced on forests and judgment and, um,
and, uh, various drills and stuff that, that
you'd find in, in a, in a commercial school
available to civilians.
And I know that that for me, it was, it
really changed my life.
First of all, it opened me to concepts
and considerations that I never
would've thought of.
Cause that whole world was brand new to me.
And I find that it was also very humbling and I
got a guy who, you know, I've studied, uh, armed
and unarmed fighting.
And as I've gotten older and wiser, what really
has happened was I want to avoid the, the
principle of avoiding.
Has really, once you know, this stuff works,
you kind of like, you know, I'd rather do
anything at all possible to avoid using the
stuff because no one ends up there's no, no
one, there's no winner.
And I find that's part of the, the mindset, I
guess, beyond the, we love talking about the
gear and the tactics and running and gunning.
That's a lot of fun, but actually for me, what's
more, most interesting in my own discovery
has been how my mindset has shifted and, and
yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I've mostly
had to do that stuff in the United States
because that market, as far as what I've been
able to find, when I looked did not exist
in Canada and I get it.
And you know, in the United States, there's
also a, like I've set up before everyone and
their grandma owns a gun in the United States,
the firearms ownership doesn't hold the level
of, um, perceived.
I don't, I can't even think of the right word
or the, the perceived glory that it seems
to do in, in Canada.
Um, people go through a firearm safety
course, they get their firearms license.
They have criminal records checks, they
have background checks.
They, they now have special authorization
to go pick up a, a handgun, which they
can only use in certain places or a restricted
finding that they can use in certain places.
And each one of these steps is a,
it's a barrier to firearms ownership.
But when you achieve these things, there's
some people who will look at that as look at how
special I am, because of all these things that
I'm able to achieve.
Y you don't tend to see that in the states.
Um, not, not when anyone can just go
out and purchase a firearm state-by-state
dependent, right.
Um, have the driver's license screen,
clean, uh, criminal record check.
So I think that leads to a very different
sort of mentality.
And then you, you couple that with the feeling
of always being under attack, whether it's
new laws that are coming through, or whether
it's part of a political platform, Hey, we're
going to ban whatever, uh, that the firearms
community in Canada has now worked very hard.
And the squeaky clean records, daily criminal
record background checks, and they've got
the proper training and they're very safe yet.
They're still feeling attacked.
And from my perception, anyways, it seems like
perhaps things are falling outside the locus
of control of the general firearms community.
So in turn, people will try and find ways
to regain that sense of control and that
can come through in your typical range.
The they call it range Nazis, right?
The people on the range who are, um, just so old
vicious and, uh, uh, rule oriented or they'll make
all of their own extra rules up, or they will,
uh, the community will start putting extra,
um, rules on top of WhatsApp's absolutely
needed because they're so afraid that if they
don't, they don't either a have control or B the
general public might turn around and, uh, view them
as, uh, not responsible and they'll end up
losing more privileges.
So it's, there is a different lifestyle and
mentality to firearms ownership in Canada.
That's for
sure.
And you're like, EV everything you surfing.
Oh my God, we've got our, I want to
comment on this.
I want to comment on that.
And, and I, I, I get what you're saying.
And so much of that, that range, Nazi-ism
the rules, the, oh, we got to do it this way.
Are there a lot of tacos for this?
Like, that's, that stuff drives me
absolutely nuts.
And it's one of the reasons I visited a
bunch of ranges to, to join and it's difficult.
Um, I don't agree with that and I don't really
want to be part of that.
And, and that mentality just blaming whatever,
just personal preference, it's prevalent and
it, I disagree with it and it doesn't sit
well with me and I'm trying to change it.
And the idea, for example, of a holster
course, you can't, you can't use a holster until
you pass our holster course after you've done
all these other things.
For me, I'm sure that the clubs that do that
have a reason to do that as a guy who's
not in the industry.
I'm speaking kind of speculatively here.
Maybe C assess the person.
Maybe they, maybe they're a SWOT, but you
know, maybe they're a SWAT guy who's been on
SWAT team for 15 years.
Maybe they know how to use a holster.
Maybe they don't need to sit in your class
for half a day and learn from someone who doesn't
actually, and whatever, you know, I hear you.
I hear you anyway, whatever.
Yeah, no, I hear ya.
Yeah, no, I'm all about having, uh, processes
in place to ensure that you can show
your due diligence and you've done things
safely, but they have to be open to reason.
Like what you say there, let's say somebody
is well accomplished or they're an ERT
member here in Canada.
Um, or there they've got all the qualifications
they need, but we live in such a litigious society.
And I think that the firearms community in
general is so afraid of having another rain
shutdown or losing these privileges that they'll
start making all of these new courses so that they
can meet their, uh, due diligence requirements,
their legal due diligence requirements,
and hopefully prevent further shutdown.
But as one firearms officer, uh, was in, uh,
actually the area, this is my podcast studio
is my old office and all the, all the staff
were on the outside there, he, he was doing
an inspection and he's talking about something
called I believe he mentioned it as normative
process and he says, Uh, referring to how
normative process is, how laws are created,
at least in his opinion.
And that's, I think a double-edged sword.
So from the firearms community side, if they
do things in a certain way all the time, then
it's easy enough for others to say, well,
this is how it's done.
And it's now a new requirement on you.
And I've seen that come up in legal proceedings.
I like in the order in council, uh, firearms,
prohibition hearings that are happening, the CFP
expert comes up and just essentially on a number
of items, this is how it's always been done,
or here's how people generally refer to it.
And in that case specifically, we're
talking about, um, variants and, um, he
was being pushed to define what a variant
is and basically leaning on what he feels the
firearms community usually calls it.
So it's a bit of a double-edged sword, but
in the same process, how that firearms officer
used it, and we're totally going on tangents
here, but how that firearms officer used it
was in regards to, um, some firearms that were
I considered deactivated.
And then they thought, well, maybe, maybe
not the activity.
Cause we have these new guidelines on what
deactivation is, which we're going to treat
as if it's a regulation or legislation.
Um, so maybe it was just called them disabled.
And I, at that time, the member of parliament
in our area, and she was a lawyer and she
says, um, tell you what, I'm bringing
this up with minister.
He tell the firearms program that this is
being discussed at the ministerial level.
And we're going to come up with some sort
of a, a, a reasonable conclusion on this.
So I mentioned that to the firearms officer
and the firearms officer says, and I quote, he
says, I don't give a fuck about what your member
of parliament says.
I don't give a fuck about what minister
Blaney says that they don't make the law.
We do.
I said, what, please do tell of course the
whole place has got video and audio through
it, and we're a security business, right?
And that's when he got in, he says, if we
keep doing things in a certain way, it's called
normative process, then the courts will lean
on that when there's any and ambiguity
between how to handle a case and say, how is
it normally handled?
And then that's how the laws are created.
Um, I did get an apology letter shortly
thereafter because everything is video
and audio recorded, but that was somewhere along
the line that firearms officer had picked up
that, uh, that terminal.
And there
is just so much, you say we're on a tangent, we're
down this rabbit hole, but I love this rabbit.
And what you just said for me, there is, there
is so much like it's such a rich, it encapsulates
so much about the words that we use and these
terms that are invented in Ottawa, that they
try to spread it.
And so many Canadian gun owners refer
to grandfathering.
What is not grandfathering or the
amnesty that there actually is not an
amnesty or a variant.
Um, the, or even the word phrase.
I did an article about this a couple years
ago at law abide.
Like we should not refer to law abiding,
and that's one of the things I'm trying to
achieve at the gun log, by changing the way
we speak and changing the words that we use,
we are changing how we think and how we think
about gun ownership.
And I'm to just pursue this thread a little bit
more of the I, if you're talking about, if you're
talking about Marie Smith's testimony last
year, too, in the federal court cases, Marie
Smith was one time was, was in charge of the,
the, um, the firearms reference to we invented
the firearms, orphan stable at the Canadian
farmers program and big force for confiscation
and prohibition.
I read through the transcript and it is mind
blowing how the, again, I, as a, as a resident
lay person, it just strikes me at is how this
is a government official and what he is doing.
We are, we've paid a salary all his life.
He is not working to clarify and inform.
Improve the situation he's working to
obfuscate and spread disinformation and hide
and be what's that thing where you, you don't
give a straight answer.
You're kind of dancing around and you're
shifting and trying obstruction, basically
obstructing the pros and people it's it's
it's I published this and I recommend anybody
if this is, if you care about this and you want
to see the workings of the guts of the former
head of the, um, the confiscation department
in the Canadian virus program, you've got to
read that Marie Smith testimony, you can go
to the gun blog.ca in Google, Marie Smith.
And, and, and I think it's available there or
through the federal court anyway, or contact me.
Um, can we switch
gears for a sec or for, I guess it's really
funny how quickly to people who are looking
to spread positivity and not talk about
politics, just jumped into a politic room.
It is funny, isn't it?
You know, do, as I say, not as I do, you got, it
takes effort.
We're human man.
We're human.
Uh, I, um, what is, what are you trying to
achieve with Silvercore in general and the
podcast in particular?
That is a very good question because
it changes, right?
It changes over time.
It evolves over time.
It's like anyone talking about a business plan.
Well, have you got your business plan together?
And a business plan is a fantastic place to start.
It gives you parameters.
It causes you to think about different things
that you may or may not have thought about.
But the second.
The rubber hits the road business plans
change like immediately.
So silver quarter is always been something
that like, like I said, I started in an area where
there was no structured business model doing
anything similar to what silver court did.
And just, can I just ask, when you
say that you mean in, in Southern BC or you
mean across Canada?
I mean, across Canada, like, I, I don't know of
any other organization that's working with
government agencies providing training as
well as the general public and firearms
repair and maintenance and, um, the, sort
of the breadth and idea of what we do.
There were people across Canada, obviously who
are teaching basic fire safety courses,
therefore those who would be teaching a use of
force courses or hunter education courses, or,
uh, but the totality of everything that we're
trying to put together.
And I mean, taking the firearm safety course out
of, out of the basement, out of the community
church or the community hall, uh, and putting
it into a professional environment, um, I,
I haven't seen across Canada at that time.
Uh, I have seen, I have seen it now.
Yeah.
Um, it's not like I invented the idea, but
I just sort of built on something that
was sort of already there and continue to
add these different pieces to it and find
ways that we can.
Bring value to both the end user, the client, the
student, the customer, as well as the, uh,
interesting part is do all of that while still
playing well with all the government agencies
and the regulatory bodies, which will have
differing views and opinions on how, how
any of these things should be conducted.
So it's been, it's been a very interesting
juggling experience, but originally the idea was
a Silvercore gun works and providing firearms,
repair and maintenance.
And I thought, you know, we'll go after the,
um, go after everybody.
Hey, you know, you want a gun barrel
cut and crowned chambered, threaded
bluing parkerizing um, any little the
trigger jobs done and any little thing that
you can kind of think of firearms related.
And I quickly found that that is not a
way that you're ever going to be able to
feed a family with it.
So with dealing with the general public, they
would quite often come in with a $100 firearm
that they bought at a gun show that they want to
look or function like a $1,000 firearm, but they
only want to put another $50 in it to get there.
And why not take it to the kid who's
doing gunsmithing?
Cause I was in my early twenties that, that.
And I was more than happy to do the work because
it gave me experience and like connections
and all the rest.
Uh, so that was sorta where Silvercore started.
And then I thought, you know, I really
enjoy training and I really enjoy
dealing with people.
Um, can I turn these courses that I'm
doing maybe once a month and a shut down
in the summertime doing the courses?
Can I turn this into a business?
The answer is yes and I have, but like I say,
not without the, uh, the challenges along the way.
So that was sort of the, the advent of all of
that through building a business in a niche
industry, you're going to get opposition
from all sides.
So you're going to get opposition from the
regulatory, uh, bodies.
Cause they're going to say, well, that's
not how it's done.
And I'd say, why not?
I've read through the regulations.
I've read through the legislation.
Why not?
And some people would clue in and they'd say,
yeah, you know what?
You're right.
Let's, let's play ball.
Uh, other people there's a, would be a little
bit more rigid in the thought process.
And they say, well, no, maybe that's
that whole Nirvana process thing again.
Right.
This is how it's always been done.
So I'd have to push really hard in order to.
Progression in those areas.
But on the same side, I would also find
those within the firearms community.
Some people were like, hoo, rah, go for it.
This is great.
Right.
Whereas others would push back and they'd
say, well, who, who is this kid?
Right.
He's not a police officer.
He's not military.
Uh, he's not an if six shooter, right?
Because that was sort of the process back then,
one of the more formal shooting, uh, disciplines
who is this guy to go in there and do this?
I mean, it should go to somebody else.
Who's done all of these things and sure, very
well could have, but nobody was pushing.
And I was, so it's been a, a learning process,
but thing is, as you start building up steam,
you start finding more and more people kind
of getting behind the idea and the concept.
And the end concept has always been to assist
the firearms community in Canada to reduce
barriers, to lawful firearms ownership.
And I know you, you're saying before, get
away from the whole legal gun owner, but
obviously having barriers in place to minimize
access to those who are of criminal intent.
I, I think is a really good idea.
But for those who are, has her stand before
law abiding individuals who are looking to use.
Firearms for an NIC Ukrainians here.
And I think I just, don't just on the
word findings.
That's all.
That's just, that's all.
But you, you can say what you want.
Okay.
Let me take a guess at why you say law abiding
because people who use a word law what's that?
So I don't use the phrase law abiding.
No, no.
Let me take a guess.
So why you don't want to say law abiding
because the second the laws are changed.
They're no longer law abiding.
Yes, yes.
And exactly.
So, yes, that's, that's a, that's
a big part of it.
The other idea.
So you focused on the law side.
The other side is the abide that
abiding implies.
I'm going to put it simply a master
slave relationship, the slave abides by
the masters rules.
And I want to restore the concept that we
don't abide by the law.
We make the law, we make the law indirectly by
electing politicians who act on our
behalf and so forth.
But we should, we should not be law abiding.
We should be law demanding or law making,
or, and then also get us to get a little deeper.
Why do we want to qualify ourselves at all?
The reason we want to qualify gun ownership
is because we're trying to appease the
aunties and make us an ice would say, just
call yourself a good, just stand up and call
yourself a gun owner.
Yeah.
I mean, if there's any distinction in
there, it would be the.
And that's it because anybody who's a gun
owner is obviously law abiding because
they've gone through the process or they're a
criminal because they've acquired a firearm
by some nefarious.
Well, I
would say, and that's also how in this cultural
moment that we are experiencing in, in
Canada, maybe the world, the debate, like we, the
world, I believe this, this, the regulatory
world we're down.
We're going down into the rabbit hole here.
Are you running up the regulatory world?
In my opinion, things are upside down backwards
and inside out, it used to be, in my view, you
would, a person would buy a gun in order to
protect themselves.
And public safety starts with personal safety.
If I can protect myself and my family and my
own, and we can protect our community and we
can protect our region and we can protect our
country from internal and external threats.
Well, then you have public safety.
You have personal safety, you have
national security, things are upside down.
Now in, in this world, we live in where
restrictions on the ability to protect
yourself is considered public safety.
So you disarm the public and you're calling
that public safety.
What?
I like some things.
So we've flipped that completely upside
down and gun owners.
The debate has shifted such that we feel
instead of just thinking, well, gun ownership is.
And there's this fringe element that does bad
things with guns and ammo, but we don't like
that's so fringe it's so marginal that it
needs to be maybe talked about and dealt with,
but that's not what gun ownership means to us.
The debate has so shifted to the paradigm
of crime and violence that the hunters,
the sport shooters, the collectors, the
investors, the craftsman, everybody feels that
they have to qualify.
Oh, I'm one of the good guys.
I'm not a bad guy.
And I'm trying to say, stop it.
Stop trying to qualify yourself and appease
the, the aunties and Regis re reclaim the
Greek claim, your ground, reclaim your ground and
just call yourself a hunter or a gun owner.
And you don't, you don't no one would think of
calling themselves.
Oh, I'm a law abiding driver.
Yes.
There are people who steal cars and crash
cars, or I'm old, I'm a law abiding chainsaw
user, or I'm a law abiding computer user.
You know, I'm, I'm a law abiding computer.
I'm a law abiding phone user.
I don't, I don't detonate bombs with my phone.
Like no one it's absurd.
And yet in, when it comes to gun ownership,
there's no other domain that I've ever come
across where someone uses the word law abiding.
Except when they're talking about themselves
as a gun owner, what the
heck is up with that?
I like that.
Well, I think that's got to do with just see
the social engineering over the last many
decades of firearms and how they're portrayed
in the media, which comes full circle to.
A fellow who worked for Bloomberg and for
the globe and mail, and now writes on it.
W what do you think about how firearms
are current, how they're being portrayed
and firearms owners are being portrayed
within the media.
Do you think that the media is abusing
its responsibility in how it reports?
Ooh,
that's a, that's a lot of questions.
That's a loaded question.
Yeah.
So, so the backhand re original, I love it.
I love it.
Travis, back to your original question of
why I founded, why I started writing about,
about gun culture and gun ownership, and because I
was responding to what I felt in the policy debate
and the political debate in the media discussion
was an unfair and a hostile representation
of firearm owners and, and what I believe and
what a lot of people I believe are wrong
and not realizing that journalism is activism,
that every modern newspaper TV program,
TV channel, uh, what else has radio channel.
Almost everyone basically was founded by someone
who was trying to promote or prevent social change,
whether it's the male or the Toronto star or
a pick, you pick any TV station, any media was
founded by somebody, an activist, pushing someone
pushing to prevent or promote social change.
Okay.
So I'm journalism equals activism.
Right now we have big media, which is hostile
to gun ownership.
The way they cover it, it's it's we
could get good.
You know, what are the, what are
the clues of that?
Well, the language that they use, the concepts
that they use, they'll have entire articles
talking about what the prohibitionists want.
And they'll talk about the, the activist for
this and the Polish politician for that.
And they will use the terms of the prohibition.
They'll exactly.
Copy the terms from the press release of the
prohibitionist government or the prohibitionist
associations.
And normally in journalism, one of
the principles, one of the principles, core
principles is give the opposing view.
Yes.
If you're writing a story about X, okay.
Write about X and write about the people who
are, who have that point of view, but also show
that that's not the only point of view and
give the opposing view.
It gets get off balance or some type of a
contrarian opinion, but they don't, they will
not go to, anyone will let, whether it's a
hunter, whether it's an association to give the
point of view of that opposes prohibition.
So we have a hostile.
And at the moment, a hostile government.
And I forget your question.
No,
I mean, where you're going with that is
interesting because I, I'm not convinced that
everybody within the media is approaching it
from a hostile situation, but I think that people
are predisposed to naturally just go to w
w how you speak about firearms is this certain
way with, which is where the gun blog.ca and where
the Silvercore podcast?
Uh, it sounds like both of our efforts
are aligned in what we're trying to do.
My thinking behind the Silvercore podcast is,
you know, if we can just talk about openly and
honestly about different aspects of firearms,
ownership, or hunting or angling or whatever,
it might be things that I'm interested in, uh,
without even getting into the discussion.
Like you say, I never actually put two and
two together with the whole law abiding portion
of trying to defend your position without
even getting in that defensive position.
Um, maybe S my small efforts and your large
efforts, you're the gun blog.ca will,
will permeate into the consciousness of others.
And how we talk about.
I don't know.
Do you, do you think you think it well, or do
we, do we have to hammer people over the head?
Well, it's one of the, one of the
questions I wanted to ask you to follow up.
What you were saying earlier was what keeps
you going with all the challenges, whether it's
legal or administrative or regulatory or business
or personal, whatever, what keeps you going?
And I'll answer first is the, like, when I think
of everyday, I think of throwing in the towel or
almost every day, I think of throwing in the towel
because it's not moving fast enough and who
cares and it's too small.
It's not whatever blah, blah, blah
excuses and reasons.
And then someone will, will write me an email
and say, thank you.
You've you've, uh, I'm thinking of, um, of Ron,
Ron, if you're watching this, he S he said,
I want him to try to remember his exact words.
Thank you for helping me think freedom again, I
get an email like that, and I say, yes, okay.
This guy gets it.
Maybe I want to reach tens of
millions, but okay.
Maybe for now, I'm only reaching hundreds or
thousands or tens of thousands, but there
are people who get it.
And when you have these anyway, so that's the
feedback that, that's what keeps me going when,
in terms of permeating.
And I would say, even raising consciousness
and helping people think differently about this
stuff, but I just want to tag a footnote here.
If I could.
I don't really in terms of the media, I want to,
you know, my colleagues in, in, in media, I,
as you said, it in the introduction, I worked
as a journalist for, for, for more than a
decade at Bloomberg.
And that's where I learned to what, you
know, the, the, the trade of journalism.
I thought I see now what I was doing
in a completely different light.
I was not writing about guns.
I was writing about a stock, the stock
market, basically.
And I thought that at the end of the day, when
I published my story, I thought that I was
telling the truth or some version of the truth.
And now as, as a journalist, I thought,
yeah, I'd covered.
I, I told the story and now I real, I
think journalists act in good faith.
I was acting in good faith, trying to
accurately portray the, present the facts and
present whatever the issue was to the best
of my ability and with quotes and the experts
and whoever tell my story in a way in good faith.
And I believe most journalists are acting
in good faith when they publish the story, or,
um, so they, I think it's a case of systemic
bias over the last couple of years, we've
talked a lot about systemic bias as regards
to race or sexuality.
There is at this moment, a systemic
bias in reporting about gun ownership.
And I'm also, I don't publish this, but
I've got a lot of conversations with
journalists behind the scenes, into interviewing
them and educating them and informing them and,
and to, to try to change.
And obviously I'm perfectly up front.
I have a systemic bias, uh, pro gun bias.
That gun ownership is normal.
And I'm, I think that between, I
think you do too.
And I think that's what I think that's
what you're trying to do with the podcast.
We have, we are two little voices and
there's a few other, uh, media voices like pro
gun voices in Canada.
I don't, I think we can get away with having our
bias because in front of us going the other way
is, is it's an elephant versus a mouse versus
a mouse situation.
Mm.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I, I've never tried to take the, obviously
my you're right.
My bias is pro firearm pro firearm
for responsible individuals, right.
For people who should have firearms, I don't
think everyone's got a God-given right
to own a firearm.
I think there's certain actions that people
can make throughout their lifetime.
They can start putting restrictions on those,
uh, those sort of, uh, endeavors, but from a,
and I'm kind of, uh, my brain's kind of going off
in a couple of different areas at the moment.
Good.
But I do agree that there is a, uh, a systemic bias
within the media, but I've never approached
the Silvercore podcast is trying to be pro firearm.
I simply have approached it as,
by trying to be pro positivity, pro passion,
just show is mind blowing cause, okay.
Wow.
That's that's you.
We'll just try and show people what's out there.
And for me, from a very selfish standpoint,
for me to be able to enjoy what I do, because
when you spend X number of years, that I have
trying to build within a, a, a niche industry.
And I find myself in fights and with
government agencies just to try and push
the business forward, like some super
logical things that would just make sense.
And it's a process of, um, I guess being
told no over and over again, or same within
the firearms community, there are those within
the firearms community that would just revel
in tearing down others.
I think any business industry is like that.
There's always going to be cutthroat aspects to
it, but I would think within the firearms
community, there should be an overwhelming, um,
thought process that goes towards how does
this benefit long-term how does this benefit
my business, longterm, which in turn means,
how does it benefit the firearms community?
How does it benefit the general public?
If everyone's benefiting long-term, then you've
got a, a sustainable viable business plan.
And I think some people get caught up
in the moment and are looking for the quick
buck or how they can.
Uh, how they say tear one, person's
building down to make their building
look, look taller.
So there's, um, again, I'm trying to piece
together a couple of different thoughts
on this one, but I realize I'm going a
little bit off topic.
Um, I guess to back up a little bit to your
question about, um, what is it that drives
me in the industry?
What is it that keeps you going?
Um, I, I think some people would say that,
uh, I revel in the fight and I would say they're
wrong, but I think some people from an outside
perspective would say, oh my God, that guy
just doesn't give up.
And he keeps he's in a position and he'll
just keep pushing and pushing and pushing.
Uh, other people would say that I am a sort
of pie in the sky, altruistic in my, in
my concepts and ideas.
And I'm, I'm not sure if that's entirely true.
I enjoy the process for me, the process of
creating something and building something is
very, very enjoyable.
Seeing that process through the completion
is very enjoyable.
And once you come to completion on one
thing, how do you regain that process?
Like that whole journey?
When everyone says it's not the destination,
it's a journey.
I enjoy the process of building.
And I realized that there's going to be a
lot of challenges in what I'm trying to build,
but that's where the enjoyment also comes.
So that, that, that I guess, would be
how I would describe what keeps me going.
It's the process.
Cause I'm just, now my brain is processing
is processing.
You are, I think entrepreneurs in general.
And in particular, we tend to forget all the
skills that are required.
So you have your, your I'm going to call it
a technical skill.
Uh, in terms of gunsmithing PR I presume
we've never met face to face, so I've never,
we've never seen each other on a range.
As far as I know.
Uh, I I'm in Toronto, you're in, you're
near Vancouver.
Um, I presume you have some technical skill
with regards to firearms and, uh, hitting, put
it, putting bullets on the target and stuff.
You also have skill in terms of founding
a business and creating a business.
You have skill in terms of training people, you
have skilled in terms of technical skill related
to building a podcast studio and the tech,
you know, publishing it and getting it
out there and having a tens of thousands.
Maybe you want to tell the exact number of, uh,
a huge, uh, relative, you know, huge audience
for an independent media.
And I'm thinking what kind of a guy would
would, and there's all sorts of you're, you're
a parent, you're a dad, you're a husband, you're
you, you've got all these areas of, uh, I see a
builder, a guy who has you can't achieve that.
I don't think without having surmounted some
pretty big obstacles and people throwing
you some, some pretty slippery banana peels,
uh, legally, uh, business wise, personally,
that the attacks.
I'm sure on in chat forums about people who
trying to take you down.
And it's interesting to hear you say that
it's, that you're, you know, it's the
process of building that keeps you going.
It is, and it's, I don't know.
It's, uh, entrepreneurs tend to have very
short memories to the difficulties that
they've encountered.
It's been my experience anyways, and tend to
be very, um, optimistic in nature for a glass
is half full because if they're always glass is
half empty, they probably wouldn't have started
the endeavor to begin with and you bring up
parenting and there might be a little bit of an
analogy or a crossover between all of this.
You know, I think back to when my first
child was born, my daughter was born.
My wife was in labor for, I think it was
27 hours and it was a tough pregnancy, um,
or a tough birthing.
The, we had a midwife, but we opted to have
a hospital birth and things bragged on way
longer than they really should have probably
because the midwife is and wanting to have a
very natural process.
And, um, when you're in the, uh, when you're in
the hospital, everyone's calm, cool and collected.
Everything's normal.
Everything's natural.
Even if it isn't, they all say, Hey,
this is normal.
This is natural.
And.
When things started to kind of go
sideways during the birthing process.
And they had to call in some experts to come in.
And I remember this, um, this woman, the
obstetrician comes on in, and she's got a forceps
and suction cup, and then they decide, Hey,
we're going to, um, I, we think the umbilical
cord is wrapped, so we're going to cut
the umbilical cord.
So they do, and they still can't
get my daughter out.
And she looks over at her helper.
And at this time, you know, things aren't
right, because it goes from a few people in the
room to a whole bunch of people in that room and
people are yelling and running around and the,
she looks at her helper and she tells her, help
her start pushing on her belly and her helper.
I guess didn't like the tone that she
used, put your hands down at her side.
And just like, like you don't tell me what to do.
And I looked over at her and I looked at
the obstetrician, the obstetrician looked at
me like, what the hell?
Right.
And so I just, I jumped in there and I put my
forearm on her rib cage, found where the belly
is and tried squeezing my daughter out, like
a tube of toothpaste or daughter comes out.
She is not been breathing for some time, no one
bill court, no blood.
Right.
And I remember, I thought, for sure,
my daughter was dead and I remember
feeling so bad, lying.
I thought to my wife and saying, when my
daughter came out, said, she's, she's fine.
She's fine.
It's all good.
Right.
Um, and then after a long period of time, I heard
my daughter make a noise and my first thought was
alright, that's awesome.
She's breathing.
And then my second thought was maybe a
little bit selfishly.
Um, oh no, she's breathing.
That was a long time to not have oxygen for, is
she going to be okay.
Um, despite that ordeal and despite the
difficulties and the pain and the issues that my
wife had to go through, the midwife looked at my
wife afterwards and says, do you think you'd ever
want to do that again?
And my wife's first response was
absolutely yes.
In a heartbeat.
And it's amazing how quickly you will forget
all the difficulties and the pain and
the issues that you go through in life.
If the reward is great enough, my daughter
turned out fine.
She's getting straight A's.
She wants to be a doctor.
She dances almost every single day.
We were very, very fortunate in that
whole process.
But I look at that and I think to a very small
degree in entrepreneurial ship, it's sort of
a similar process.
If the reward is great enough to the
entrepreneur, if you're doing something that
you think is worthwhile for yourself, for your
family and for others, then you'll continue
to push through despite all of those different.
Um, I'm, I'm,
I'm very moved by what you just shared because I
had, my son was born this year and he's fine, but
it was not an easy birth.
And, um, I hope one day I can talk about it as
easily as you seem to be.
And, um, I just thought, yeah, it's not easy.
I'm sorry.
I don't know why I'm losing it here.
No, it's not easy is because we care about the
things that are important to us and those things
like really the business, everything that I do, I
do it for an end goal.
And my end goal is so that I have something
that I can be able to provide to my family.
And hopefully in the process, I'm able to
do something that, that helps the community
from a very early age.
I've told my children, you could throw a match
in our house and burn everything to the ground,
not telling them to do that, but the whole house
could be burnt down.
Everything that I've ever worked hard for to own
or achieve could be gone.
And I really truly, and honestly could care
less provided everybody in the family is safe
because we can rebuild as an entrepreneur.
You've built a business in a heartbeat.
You could build this on again.
It's been a struggle.
I'm sure for you to build it to where it is now,
but if your business was torn to the ground
right now today, I bet you, it wouldn't take
you more than a week to replicate the model that
you've already built.
I hope I hope I'm.
Yeah.
I mean, I hope so, but I, again, I think
the being apparent, um, has completely
reset my priorities and I never, I never
thought I'd be a dad.
I never expected it.
And I never knew I was capable of this much
love and vulnerability.
And it's funny, like I got to put my son
in a totally a and now my family, my
woman, my, our, our family in a totally.
Yeah.
Like it's, it just, it just resets, um, all my
priorities and I, and I, and I didn't know
this about you, Travis.
I didn't know any of what you're just discovering.
Right.
Where, um, and I, um, I'm really thankful that
you shared what you said.
Well, how, how do you define success?
If I always ask you, what, what is
success for you?
How would you define that?
It's something that I used to worry about
a lot and kind of something I don't really
care about anymore.
I think success for me has to do with things
like, well, what I would consider failure is
let's say I forget that, um, I get all victimy
and, oh, this sucks.
And that I didn't like the way that happened and
this, uh, when I, when I kind of get complainy
and blamey, that is I would consider unsuccess.
So I, I guess I would consider success
when I remember.
That in any given situation, I have
choice personal choice.
And that's what I'm also trying to share with,
with the, the community of, of gun owners, that
we have choice that we are powerful, that
we can, you know, the response ability we can
choose how we respond to any situation.
So what is success is when I remember, I guess
it has to do with the kind of person I am
being and whether it's in the professional
domain, whether it's, um,
when I'm living with my son and my son is
doing something that I find annoying, let's
say he's a baby and he's acting like a baby.
And he's screaming at two o'clock in the morning.
And I get frustrated.
I consider I'd want to be a better man.
And I consider it a success when I, when I
stay cool and I can stay loving and kind to this
little baby and to my, my fellow citizen, my fellow
man, my, my fellow, my neighbors on this planet.
Um, that's how I consider it, what I
define as success.
Oh my gosh.
And we can, like, I love seeing the, you know,
when, when the numbers in my bank account
go up, that's great.
When I achieve something, when I publish something
that, uh, that I didn't think I could publish.
That's great.
But that's yeah.
When you, when, anytime I achieve something or
help someone else achieve something that we didn't
know, we could do, I consider that a success.
Yes.
It's interesting for me how that kind of comes
second to, I don't know if the right word for it
is personal or, or the, yeah, I guess the, the,
the kind of person I'm being when I like the
person I'm being, I would consider that a success.
How about you?
I think a fantastic.
Uh, I'm going to take the easy way out on
that one, but it's something I do believe
in it's Earl Nightingale has a definition of
success, which is the progressive realization
of a worthy ideal.
So it's not the person who's made millions
and has achieved the pinnacle of whatever
it is in their career, but it's the person
who's made millions and they've enjoyed
the process doing it.
They've achieved the pinnacle and they're
doing it because they loved you.
Or it's a person who isn't making millions.
It's the janitor who gets up for work every day and
is looking for new ways that they can make the
place better and do their job in a better way.
If whatever that were the ideal, it's a
teacher who just loves communicating and
teaching with the kids and seeing them progress.
So that progressive realization of a
worthy ideal to me is what success is.
And then you have, I have to always take a
look and just sort of check myself for what
is my worthy ideal, what were the ideals
on my working towards?
Because we quite often have numerous worthy
ideals that we have out, uh, that we're
working towards.
Do they all kind of go towards a sort
of a guiding light?
Like if my worthy ideal is in my business to be
able to reach X amount of people or make X amount
of money or take on a new challenge or whatever it
is does I can do that.
And I know I will, whatever.
Uh, what editor an individual wants to
put their mind to, they will be able to achieve.
Um, but how much effort is that going to take?
And when you get to that end objective, and you
look around, did the ends justify the means,
did you have to give up on other worthy ideals
in order to do that?
So for me, it's constantly taking
a look at what my worthy ideal is.
And do I still consider that to be
the worthy ideal?
I would like to take that as an invitation
to talk about what I think was one of, if not
the darkest period of your business, when you
were, I'm going to use the word under attack by
the lead by, well, I'll let you tell the story.
Do you want to talk about that?
Uh, in any way you want either the
situation itself or how
the, what you're talking about?
W w O w what are you talking about?
Nicholas?
I have no idea.
If you want to talk about, I'm going to put
you on the hot seat.
Yeah, well, I don't I'm okay.
I'm going to you, you were, my understanding
is that you were, you, you F you were attacked
essentially by someone you trusted, who then
turned around and attacked you, uh, using
the legal industry, using the regulatory industry,
using their connections and drag the courts.
And, and I imagine that was a tough time for you.
I'm curious if you want to talk about
what happened and get the details, right.
That I don't know.
And also.
Did you, how, what kept you committed to pursuing
your worthy ideal to get you through it?
That's, it's an interesting one and I
pretty sure I know what you're talking about.
And unfortunately I'm not a hundred percent
sure because I've lived the life where I've been
under attack more than once in a fairly big
way, by those who I've trusted or those who are
within the industry, who I've brought into the
industry and trained and set them up and had them,
uh, accredited only to have them turn around
and try and, uh, hurt my business in order to try
and promote theirs or to take from my business in
order to promote there.
So, um, it is unfortunate, but then
again, I look at it and I say, it's probably life.
I it's probably any industry.
At one point, I would say, oh, there's
a gun industry.
I tell ya.
But any industry where you're pushing and
making advances, there's going to be the optics
of, uh, either real or perceived money and
power, money, and power or money or power.
And those are, tend to be the two major things
that cause issues or problems in people's
lives that I've observed where if there's
no money coming in.
To a business.
People can do some pretty strange things, right?
People can get a little squirrely and sometimes
it's a real good test of their, their ethics and
their moral character.
When there's lots of money coming in, watch
out, that's where the real test happens.
Number one, number two power, whether they're
real or perceived.
If people have a perception of some
loftier, a place that they'd like to be able
to get to, that can cause people to do some
really squirrely things.
So I think what, you're one of the ones that
you may be referring to dates back to
about May 16th, 2008.
So that's going back there.
There's the nod.
I see.
So that's, I'm on the right track.
Um, so that goes back a little bit.
That's, that's a bit of a wormhole that I'm sure
at some point I will talk about in totality, I've
had reporters, uh, speak to me on portions of it.
I've had, uh, publishers asked to be able
to publish a story.
I've actually cuddled.
Uh, he, a lawyer who says he'd like to write the
book on it, the lawyer who actually dealt with
the, uh, uh, the whole instance there, but that
was a, a pretty dark day for me and for the, for
the industry in general.
And I fought back against the man for six years,
uh, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8 years.
Was it eight years and I'll have to do
the math, but I fought back for some time.
You can't see it, but over the, my right
shoulder here, there's a, um, an apology letter
that was drafted by the RCMP, a very rare apology
letter for what they did.
Uh, and there was a undisclosed
settlement amount.
And it was interesting because I didn't
settle until I walked into the courtroom.
I remember we had after so many years of going
through a process of just corruption and
malfeasance by government officials that as
opposed to turning around and saying, we
messed up, we're sorry.
We made a mistake.
Let's limit the, uh, the costs now and
figure out how we can get through this.
They took a different approach and they said,
let's double down.
Let's see if we can run this person
out of business.
They came up, they did an appraisal of my house.
They did an appraisal of my business.
They did an appraisal of my family's house
and they said, here's how much money we think
you can get to fight.
It'd be much cheaper if you just sign on
the dotted line, just this little letter that
says, you're sorry, you get everything back.
We'll drop, everything's gone.
And I said, you know, I'll sell everything.
I'll live in a cardboard box.
My wife and kids might not be too happy with me,
but no point in my life.
Am I ever going to admit to you any
sort of wrongdoing that I never did?
If I did something wrong, I'd be in a heartbeat
up there saying, Hey, sounds like a good deal.
So walked into the courtroom.
And, uh, it was funny because it's went
up to, um, the, the head of the RCMP.
And I remember the, it was just an odd, odd
negotiation practice, uh, like a couple days before
that we're supposed to be going to court and
calling them to task.
And the department of justice says,
how will you just give us a number?
Just, just tell us what you want.
And then we'll throw numbers back and
forth and, and we'll figure something out.
We don't have to go to court.
I'm sorry.
This is after what, let me, let me, eight years.
It was eight years after eight years.
You want to just do this little back and
forth number game?
Nope.
Sorry.
Right.
And I had originally come up with a number
which was, um, uh, on the higher end, but
I said, guys, tell you what we can bring
that number down.
How about you provide me with an apology letter
for what you did a couple of days before they start
this negotiation process.
And it was funny cause I remember they said, well,
the number we're looking at here, we're going to
have to get this approved by Robert Paulson who,
uh, always sticks in the back of my neck.
My commission RCMP at the time.
Right.
Robert Paulson was the commissioner of the RCMP,
but always pretty hard.
Anyway, it was, um, yeah, the corruption
was high level.
Um, the, what was it?
Fight club.
His name is Robert Paulson.
It's a C always a stuck in the back
of my head anyways.
They said, well, we're going to have
to wake them up.
I said, well, go ahead, wake them up.
Right.
I don't care.
Right.
They're playing this goofy game
back and forth.
And finally I said, forget it.
I'm going to see you in court.
We'll just go for the high number.
Forget the apology letter.
Well, as it ended, I got the number and the
apology letter I walked into the courtroom
department of justice says I've never met
anybody with your level of brinkmanship.
And I said, first off, I didn't even understand
what that word meant.
I figured it out when he said it, but I'd never
heard the word before, but, uh, I said, you
have to understand there was no break for me.
I was already over, you might've had a break,
but I was all in, um, in the end, oh, in the DOJ
and the separate people had their own lawyers,
their lawyers came up.
I want to shake your hand.
Travis, kind of like no hard feelings when he
had over in the corner.
He didn't want anything to do with that.
Two of them wanted to shake my hand, which
I had no interest in, um, that dollar amount
that the government came up with really, in
hindsight, even though I was holding their feet
to the fire on that one, not only could have I
got a lot more, I'm sure.
Um, it means absolutely nothing to me, that
apology letter, which I was willing to
throw out and just go for, Hey, that's it.
I'm going to stick it to you.
That apology letter means so much more.
You don't have to stand up and say, well, he
had good lawyers or is it a technicality or
no, it's very clear.
They fucked up and they've taken
accountability for it.
And that in a nutshell is the, um, kind of defines
me and my character.
What means more to me than money is
your reputation.
And as much as I'd like to say, you know, you
should never care what other people think.
Uh, I've just come to realize that's part
of my personality.
I do care.
I care about how I'm perceived when
I'm out there.
So, um, yeah, that was a long-winded way
of talking about the story without actually
saying anything really so that others can,
uh, they can Google it.
They can look in the newspapers.
I was front page of the newspaper in our
province and the sun.
And, uh, then they can read a boat if they
dig down a little bit further, they'll going
to see the apology letter and they're going to see
criminal charges against the, uh, uh, one of the
law enforcement officers.
And then he was convicted.
And I mean, it's a, it's a difficult thing
for me to be able to speak to without going
down that rabbit hole.
So it's something that.
I'm sure.
At some point we'll be spoken about in
greater detail, maybe the audience would be
interested in hearing it and they can let me
know, but if I'm going to do that, it can't
just be for the purposes of complaining or for
the purposes of just pointing fingers at the
people who did wrongdoing and how the system
essentially, rather than looking bad, would
prefer to support them and try and push somebody
out of the business.
Um, it's gotta be from a positive perspective
and when I can get my head wrapped around
a way to do that.
Yeah.
We'll talk about it.
Well, if I can help in any way I'm here,
um, selfishly, I want to know the story,
but also I also, I struggled with something
I struggle with.
Um, it's, it's, it's really easy to
complain and blame and point fingers.
And I, it's fun to do for 10 minutes,
but I want to, I want my contribution to
be bigger than that.
Um, and I think you do too, and that's why
I'm I'm I don't think, I don't see you as a
guy who, uh, um, who also, who likes to
bathes and complaining and finger pointing
and blaming others for what happens to them.
You know, you don't, you don't strike me as
someone who, who rebels in the victim mindset.
You can do that and it's easy to do.
And it particularly in our industry, it's
really easy to adopt that victim mindset.
Cause it's just a part of the.
Our culture, unfortunately, that
just, it stems a big, great back to the
language that we use of, Hey, I'm sorry.
I'm Canadian or law abiding firearms owner.
Each one of those with subconsciously
is going into that whole victim mindset.
But on the other side of that, I might not even
be the best person to tell that story, even
though I know it in and out, and I know all
the different nuances, because there are some
parts of that story that are incredibly important
to me that just might be boring to others, right.
And might not be important to others.
And there's so many different tangents to
it over eight years.
I mean, we had people playing silly bugger
games of driving by and taking pictures.
My wife was in the house in, in a marked vehicle
and, um, go to the, uh, police department
logic complaint.
It was just like harassment tactics.
And, um, department says, Nope, nobody
was ever in that area.
No, we don't have a record of that.
I said, well, you know, I know the person who
installed the radios in your car and you've cars.
You have GPS, you can pull it up.
Nope, Nope, Nope.
So finally, after all of that, I said, okay, in
a few, but a month, the process of them doing
their investigation and coming back.
Absolutely.
Okay.
I didn't mention, I also have cameras on
the house and, and here's the vehicle.
Oops.
Okay.
And they had to backtrack and here's
pictures of it.
He pictures of the officers doing, I mean,
there's all these little tangents of areas I go
off with your eight years of, um, intimidation and,
um, bullying tactics by, uh, by an organization
that most Canadians are brought up to believe
is there to protect them and has their
best interests in mind.
And by and large, a lot of them do.
But when some decide to go rogue, it's
interesting how the masses or the, uh,
organization will circle its wagons in order
to sort of protect themselves again, like
I say, bit of a rabbit hole and I'm probably
not the best person to tell the full story
w I'm going to, you are the best person to tell
it from your point of view, you are the best
person to give you how you live through it and
pursue it through it.
Do you, um, do you think that this was,
I'm trying to get to the question, um, do you
think that this was an action by two rogue slime
balls or, and that the system is still good?
Or do you think the system is right?
Um, you know, that's a good question.
So I, yeah, there is some slime balls.
Uh, none of them got what I feel they should have
gotten at the end of it.
Even the one who was criminally charged,
didn't get what I felt would be appropriate,
but Hey, that's a system that's in place.
Um, there's going to be like any occupation.
The majority of people are lazy.
Really humans are lazy.
We're creatures, animals are lazy.
It's why we have game trails, right?
Because they, they find an easy way to walk
and they create a trail and that's, you know,
it's easier, right?
It's easy to go through.
So by and large people will take the easy way
to get their job done.
And there's going to be those small percentage
that are just going above and beyond and
doing a fantastic job.
And there's going to be that small percentage
who are on the opposite side of that spectrum.
So I don't think, I think it's just a process of
human nature for the most part, whether the
system is messed up.
Well, I think the system is human nature.
I think people are going to protect if you and
I belong to a club and somebody in the club does
something that's offside.
Uh, we might say, well, but we know that person.
And they're a good person.
They're just like me.
Well, maybe they're not just like you, but you
would be, you'd have a cognitive bias towards
possibly wishing to protect that individual
to protect the good name of the club or
whatever it might be.
Right.
And I think that's where, uh, Whole organizations
can be pegged as bad.
Whereas like this one involved the RCMP, I
don't think the RCMP as a full organization is bad.
I think they're not without their problems,
but I think they got a hell of a lot of really
good people there, but it still stems down to man.
I got a job to do.
I do it day in, day out.
I want to go home safe to my family.
Am I going to go above and beyond it
really put my neck out there, whether that be
physical risk, whether that be political
risk, that job acts.
If I step up and say something, uh, or am
I just going to find a way to be able to get to
this and, and be able to continue helping people?
Cause I'm a good person.
I want to help people and I can find
another way to do it.
I, I think, um, the process has taught
me who, uh, who your friends are.
I think it's taught me that.
Well, there are some people out there who
would, most people would want to cover
their own butt and protect themselves.
Um, if just keeping their mouth shut was the easy
way and they could make sure they're protected
most would take that.
But it also surprised me that there were some
that just came out of the woodwork who owed
me nothing who I didn't know who stood up and
put their careers on the line in order to say what
they knew to be true.
So that was, um, you know, it's, it goes
down to the whole.
Is, are people inherently good?
Are people inherently bad?
Um,
you also spoke a couple of months ago as an
expert witness in one of the federal court
cases, uh, to, to stop the mass criminalization
of, of May, 2020.
What led you to do that?
Like you think don't, you have enough on
your plate right now?
What, what led you to be allow yourself?
It's a pretty grueling process as well to
be cross-examined and, um, what led you
to say yes to that?
To have to file a testimony, um, filing an
affidavit and agree to be
cross-examined.
I was asked even if that's the shorts or
in the long answer to that would be, uh,
I, I don't find it a grueling process of, of
being cross-examined.
I've been cross-examined on numerous occasions
for, in the consulting work that I do.
If I know something to be true and I can back that
up, I will speak to that.
It's easy.
And if I want to use liberal speak, you know,
you speak your truth.
Not that you want to say that, because
that would imply that there's another truth.
So you speak the truth.
You just tell what you know, to be true.
And as a subject matter expert, it's my job
to be providing the courts with information
so they can make the best possible decision.
I've worked on some cases as a subject matter
expert at the provincial level, at the federal
level, uh, Where I've gone in, I've provided
my information and it was completely contrary
to those who had hired me, what they would
like to be able to hear.
But that's, that's the, the risk, I guess, that
they go in, uh, they were hoping to have
me say one thing, but that wasn't the truth.
And if you're going to employ me to provide
information, I'll provide exactly what I see to be
true and quantify why.
Um, I remember another one where I provided
all the information and the other side lied and
clearly lied and I was astounded and it was
just a bit of a, uh, an eye-opener for me.
Uh, you know, the individual actually, uh,
not personally, but you know, the individual,
um, I'm not gonna mention the name on here.
Um, and I should say, you know of, and, um,
it, if you give your testimony in court and
you were already done and you've given your
information, you can sit in and watch the
other side if you want.
So I did, if you haven't given your testimony,
you got to sit out and while the other
side gives her stuff, I gave my testimony.
I watched the other side, this guy had no idea
that everything I said, essentially supported
their line of thinking.
I didn't say anything, but took a position
where they had to misrepresent the truth.
Do you use legal speak.
Uh, to try and get his point across in the end.
It really didn't matter because regardless of
what was right or wrong in that particular
court case, it was, did the government follow
the proper process.
When coming up with the end conclusion again, eye
opening for me, they can come up with a completely
erroneous conclusion, but if they can show
that they followed the right process, they
took step one, step two, step three, as
they're supposed to.
And they come up to their maybe a
predetermined conclusion, which is completely
contrary to what all the facts would say.
It's okay.
That conclusion stands because they followed
the process and that's how that legal process is
designed to approach it.
So, um, yeah, it's always a learning experience.
Why would I put myself out there because I know
something to be true.
I'll share that if the courts agree with
me, so be it, if they don't agree with me.
So being really, I've got to try and divest
myself emotionally from that whole process, I'm
not trying to argue a stance or a position.
I'm just providing them with information, which
I know to be true.
And now I'm, I'm thinking that sounds pretty
common sense to me.
And I'm thinking of what separates, I view that
as sticking your neck out, because I believe
there is lots of people who would probably
have the same views or very similar views to
you, but the reason we know your name and the
reason you were called in as a, as an expert
witness is because there's something.
That separates you from all those other people.
And I'm thinking any, any of us who stick, I'm
going to call, you know, stick our necks out.
Uh, as the summary of creative business
puts them, it says yes, when he's called
to, to step forward and speak publicly.
And I'm just wondering what separates people
like us from the people who keep quiet and,
um, there's people who keep quiet and don't
do what they're told.
I'm thinking of the people who keep quiet
and do what they're told.
Those are the people who really scare me.
Yeah.
That is scary.
I agree.
And I think, I think people just have to
pick their battles.
Right.
Um, it's probably stuff that you would think
of personally from a personal standpoint,
uh, that I don't see you reporting on because
it's just, where are your efforts best quit.
Right.
Um, so on, on the firearms side, you
know, people would refer to me as a gun guy.
I've never thought of myself as a gun person.
You know, I've been shooting since I've
been four years old.
I got my first rifle when I was five, a little 22
Stevens took down into two pieces would fit my
backpack, custom stock on it to fit my small
frame, short barrel and, um, shot competitively,
uh, as a preteen and through my teenage years.
And
That's just one aspect.
It's like, it's like saying, ah, I don't know.
Um, I mean, there's so many other aspects to
everybody's personality and character and
to be a gun guy, I enjoy the process.
I enjoy building.
I enjoy looking at the, um, the structure
that's in place, which I think is beneficial
to the courts.
When I, I look at it perhaps from a
different perspective.
Um, yeah, but when it comes down to
the question about sticking your neck out,
maybe it comes, maybe it's the same thing.
It's I remember a, um, I crown, uh, counsel
in, in one case and I want to shake your hand.
I really respect what you've done,
blah, blah, blah.
Right.
And, um, it's got nothing to do with respect.
It's got nothing to do with brinkmanship.
I think when you're in a position, you
just act accordingly.
I think there are some true heroes out there
that do heroic things on a daily basis.
And sometimes people are putting extraordinary
circumstances and they just react and
people are like, oh, that person's a hero.
The person who says no, no, no, I'm not,
I'm not, I'm not right.
I think it basically comes down to, um,
some chance and just, um, the, the position
that you're in.
So I don't think I'm, I don't feel like
I'm sticking my neck out there when I'm
doing these things.
So.
But I do know full well that when you're
running a business, there are consequences
to, uh, alienating the civil servants who,
uh, administrate the business, governments
will come and go with the civil servants
they remain in place.
So it's, um, it's interesting.
I'm just thinking about this also in the context
of the, I don't like the idea of heroes, because
I think we all play a role and one person's,
you know, you're my hero.
I was like, no, I'm just, just doing a job and
you don't know whatever I switched it could, we
can that there could be another wormhole, but
the, um, the people who stand up in, especially
in this, in this current socio cultural,
political, legislative thing that we have going
on in Canada at the moment, it strikes me
that out of 2.2 million licensed individuals
and a couple of hundred thousand directly
targeted by the may 20, 20 mass criminalization
and, um, hundreds, maybe thousands of businesses.
So few people, so few of us, I'm going to call
that the community of us.
So few of us have said a word to say,
hang on a second.
This, this, this isn't right.
Or, or donated a dollar.
Um, it strikes me again that some people do stand
up and some people don't.
I get pick picking your battles.
You also, as something else.
The concept of gun ownership, I think,
and I hesitate saying this because I don't
know enough about the shooting community, if
there is such a thing, but I think that gun
ownership, isn't really a thing that binds that
there's something, when you said you're not a gun
guy that kind of tick.
Oh yeah.
Well, because there's gun owners who believe
like everybody else in society, we are
all over the map in terms of our religious,
political, social, cultural, whatever,
how we identify that.
I wonder if one of the reasons we don't
see unity is that gun ownership, isn't really
a thing that unifies and there are within
the shooting community.
I don't, I think that I think the big, dirty
secret of the shooting community is that there
is no shooting community, but that'll be for
another day that there are gun owners who want
the mass criminalization.
And there are gun owners who voted for
the, for the regime currently in charge
because they wanted the suppression of certain
types of firearm owners.
And of course there's other, I mean there,
well, I'll let you play with that for awhile.
Well, that's very interesting about the
idea of no community, no firearms community
would, would that same hold true for let's
say, I dunno, scuba diving or snowboarding.
Interesting.
I, and the reason, the reason I use those two
as specific examples, as opposed to let's
say baseball or.
Hockey, um, because firearms tends
to be a fairly individualistic activity.
And the shooting of firearms is you
pulling the trigger or pressing the trigger
on, on a firearm.
It says, you, your gun and your fire as a
half cock would say he gets into his bubble.
Right?
And I think that in general, it will
attract those types of people who are
more individual minded and not necessarily
community minded, those who wish to hunt.
Well, you know, you'll go out in a hunting
party or hunting group to increase your successes
and your odds, right.
But, uh, you're also a type of person who
would be able to, um, S self be self-sufficient
and sustain yourself.
There's those in the firearms community who
are into first aid and being a prepper and
all of these things that are very kind
of individualistic in nature.
And I remember as teaching I'm one of few
master instructors in British Columbia and of
the master instructors.
I'm the only one that I'm aware of that
pushes very hard to make new instructors.
Quite often, I've caught in flack
from other firearms instructors in the
province saying, Travis, what are you doing?
We've got a closed market.
Look at all the money that we can make if
they all come to me for whatever reason.
And I've always looked at that as short sighted.
If you offer a quality product, if you provide
a quality service, you're going to have the
clients, the students and the customers.
And if you don't well, that's what competition's
good for is good for pushing things forward,
making them better and getting rid of the ones
who aren't doing a great job as firearms owners.
We want to be able to own firearms and be accepted
as a firearms owner, as a hunter, as w w whatever
it might be, but you're not going to do that.
If you don't have others that are willing to
voice, like you say, um, because we all
know that out of a hundred, maybe one or
two will be out there really, really doing it.
Right.
So I British Columbia had a moratorium on
making new instructors.
They said, that's it.
We're not making any new instructors.
And so I actually launched, I think
it's called a judicial review is the process
I went through.
Um, it might've been something else anyways,
uh, went down the process a little bit,
and then a lawyer finally turned around and says,
you know, it's really odd in this sector.
There is no legislative framework to compel
the firearms officer to actually do their
job in that respect.
Um, this is untenable, so backed up and took
a different approach on that and was able
to successfully.
Um, compel the firearms program to start
making new instructors.
So we had a big batch of new instructors come on
through the classroom.
And I just did a poll out of all these people who
are firearms owners who wanted to be instructors.
And I said, Hey, what do you guys do
for your hobbies?
I, one guy who was big into scuba diving,
another person who was into skydiving,
another person who was great into IPSec, sick
and out of the entire class, only one person
put their hand up.
And they said, I like hockey.
I play hockey.
And that person was a friend of mine
who actually owns a, um, uh, a firearms
business already.
I owned the range Langley here in Langley, but
by and large, those who are, I found attracted
to firearms from more than just a, I need it
for hunting, or I need it for, uh, employment.
If they're attracted to the idea of firearms,
ownership for sport or for the mechanical
workings of them, what we're collecting,
they're going to be individualistic.
So you might be onto something there.
When you say your perception is, is that
there isn't a community.
Cause I could argue the, I could argue the
opposite side to that, but it all depends
on how we wanted to find what community is
interest.
Yeah, we liked to.
Yeah.
And also, I don't want to feed our opponents
too much emo here, but
yeah, honestly, again, that just comes down
to the point of if we're feeding them ammo
and it falls short, then we've got to
adjust our approach.
We should be able to talk openly and honestly,
about anything that we do and you should be able
to hold a candle to that
yeah.
To share.
Um, yeah, absolutely.
I agree with that.
I'm
I'd like to, uh, I'd like to talk either today
or another day, but I'd like, I really love to
talk to you about how you produce your podcast
and what goes into it and, and everything like
how you, you want to do that now or do you want
to do that another time?
Hey, we're here, we're talking and
you know what?
I think this sort of information is valuable
because other people can take a look at this.
Cause I also have questions about you
as a journalist of how you approach
different situations.
This is valuable because the listener might
say, you know what?
I could do a bot.
I could do a podcast.
I can write a blog.
It's really not that difficult.
And nothing in life really is difficult.
Is all about putting one foot in front of the
other and just doing it.
Right.
Um, I think fear is the biggest thing that
tends to hold people back, whether that's
fear of failure or fear of rejection or, or, or
whatever it might be.
And the second that you frame that.
Sort of network.
He, you take a look at it for what it really is.
All fear in my opinion, is, is, um,
the anticipation of what might happen
or what might come.
And if you take a look at that and you
just anticipate it differently, what if
you're successful?
What if you do well, right?
Or if you can approach that fear process,
let's say you're jumping out of a plane and
you're parachuting.
Oh, I'm so scared.
I can't do it.
Well, are you scared?
Are you excited?
Right.
So some of these little mental mind tricks, I
think can help people in, in overcoming
the trepidation of putting their name
behind an article that they write or getting
their voice out there.
So for me, from the podcast perspective, I
looked at it like, who am I to have a podcast?
Right?
I'm just some guy who has a business and
the lower mainland.
And he's
got some interesting things have happened
in my background, but you know, interesting
things happen to everybody who am I
really to have a podcast.
And it was actually my friend who, um, who
owns the range, who came up one day and he
said, Travis, you got to start a podcast.
You got to start a, um, immediate company.
And he got to the end.
He had all these different reasons why?
And I did what I typically do.
Okay.
Why not?
Let me give it a shot.
If I suck at it, I can always do something else.
Right.
Who was just on my, on my other computer here.
I should have done this research beforehand.
Who was your first, um, who, who was episode one?
Uh, that would have been Paul Ballard
and Nick Bolton.
So Paul Ballard and Nick Bolton, they're
both very good friends of mine known him for a
long time, both retired Vancouver police.
And I think it was two hillbillies from
Chilliwack is what I named the podcast.
No idea where to start with this kind of stuff.
I was recording it on a single track, which
meant every time that one person coughed, he
couldn't edit that out.
Uh, it was all on, on one track.
Now I do most of my recording multitrack
and whenever possible, so that you can make
sure you can make those cuts and do it in a way
that it's, um, uh, not cutting everybody else.
So when I first started it, I was so concerned
about sounding stupid.
Now I realize I can sound stupid, but
people can have short memories, right?
So, uh, uh, within all the stupidity, there's
sometimes going to be, uh, areas, right?
Don't sound stupid.
Uh, I would go in and edit the podcast.
I have one individual, um, should I name them?
Uh, I don't even know if I told him this, but
when he talks and he's been on the podcast
a few times, so that kind of narrows it down
every single time he says something, he goes
before he says something, you hear a little,
little, little kind of T click and he can see
that in the wave form.
And so I'd go through and edit every.
Out as I went on through or someone coughed and
edited out now I tend to leave the majority
of everything in.
I find it reduces the editing process greatly.
It adds a sense of realism.
It's not a highly, highly polished product.
And, uh, unless of course something happens.
And afterwards, like I had one individual, he
says, you know, that joke I told halfway through,
if my wife heard that joke, she'd kill me.
Can you take that joke out?
Sure.
Not a problem.
So that's, that's about the extent of the
editing, but I do now.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
I, how long have you been doing the podcast?
Uh, started in it's only about two years.
Uh, so yeah, two years ago I started it.
So I went on and
I slowly pre pre COVID, like, um, so just, just
before COVID you started.
Okay.
Because I wonder I started before COVID
I wonder if also the, like the, the, um,
the fashion or the accessibility has shifted
between a polished product now with COVID
everybody's used to zoom calls and, and seeing
record like, uh, live to tape that we put up with
coughs and sneezes and what used to be con you
know, basically raw we're now more comfortable and
more accepting of the audio is not quite right.
The sound of image of whatever, the
bit rate we're like.
Okay.
It's kind of fashionable to do live and imperfect.
I think live and imperfect.
It's been Fastenal for a lot longer.
And I think people are just starting to kind
of get on the idea that, hold on a second,
we start putting out these polished products
because everything out there was just polished
productions from large organizations and you
start to gloss over and people feel that there's
a sense of reality when they see that it's not
from the same sort of polished background.
I think that, um, general conversation tends to
be lacking in some, a lot of people's lives
and podcasts appeal to the idea of being able
to sit in and listen to a conversation that's
going on, that they might not have thought
about having or with people that they didn't
have the ability to have the conversation with.
Um, I think podcasts are, uh, the, the metrics that
show that they're still gaining in popularity,
but also the, uh, they're getting diluted because
more and more people are getting into them.
For me, it's a challenge.
Uh, I've got ADHD.
I've, uh, for me to stay on topic and string
together information in a way and, and,
and talk through these sort of things like
my head's going a mile a minute, and I want
to talk about so many different things, um,
that I, that I enjoy the challenge of doing this.
I enjoy spreading the positivity and it's,
um, It's a way to be able to reframe some of
the negative things and aspects that happened
throughout just building your business and life
in general, because I think most people
are negatively biased, myself included, and
you'll tend to go towards the negative and
look at the negative.
And there is negativity in the
firearms community.
If we call it a community, there
is naked Vivity and firearms businesses.
There are some really, really slimy stuff that
kind of goes on, but in the same breath,
there's some great people out there doing some
really great things.
And it's all about where we decide.
We want to spend that attention.
So for me, the podcast is reaching out to
others who have shown.
They want to share that attention in
the same direction.
Are you achieving, are you achieving that same
question you asked me a little while ago.
Are you achieving your goals?
Uh, well the goal always wants to
spread positivity.
So from the, from the standpoint of what
I'm being able to put out, absolutely.
Is there any noticeable change within the
community that, that, uh, that I'd see?
Well, I don't want to, I don't want to say that
I'm, uh, I'd like to be a leader for change
in the community, but I'd like to be able to
offer a different way for people to consume, uh, or
maybe just think about.
Issues that are happening within, within our
industry and maybe without even talking
about the negative stuff.
So I would feel that yes, I'm achieving it.
Uh, every week that goes by we're, uh, gaining
more subscribers and more listeners, you
know, just like with what you're doing.
Uh, it's the people, if they like what they're
listening to, they're going to share it for me.
I, the biggest compliment is if somebody else
is going to share it, if they want to share
it on Instagram or on Facebook or with their
friends to an email and they just say, look it,
I listened to this say, you should listen to
this part right here.
Cause I listened to it.
The whole thing that, um, that's the
biggest compliment.
And yeah, I do feel that we are affecting
some small change in how things are approached
and in the process of me finding my own voice,
because I'm still finding my voice on this podcast.
I am slowly bringing to light some issues that
have happened within the community that are in
the firearms world, at the firearms industry or
that continue to happen.
And I think the more people that are aware
and start seeing it will stop accepting that
and they will in turn, start looking for ways
that we can support each other and work together.
So I do see that, um, to some degree
and I can say personally, That you have affected
me and influenced me and shaped me.
And now that's going to radiate to the people
I communicate with.
So if you're wondering about, are you
having any influence?
Well, I'm going to hear to say yes, at least
a plus one over here.
Um, well, I, I really do appreciate that.
You know, from a journalistic perspective,
I don't have a journalist background.
I have, I've never wanted the podcast to
be, uh, me interviewing somebody else.
I've, uh, I remember I did with the Vancouver
police a number of years ago, they invited
me in to do the, uh, the Reid technique.
I did their, uh, beginner, intermediate
and advanced interview and interrogation
courses with them, which is kind of cool.
Um, so I've my formal training in interviewing
and interrogating would just be through
a police interview and interrogation.
So through their systems, as well as through a
couple of others, that process is not one
that I've ever really wanted to apply to
this, to the podcast.
And I've always wanted, it's more of a, just
a back and forth exchange of ideas.
It's difficult to get there.
Uh, some people are more, um, comfortable in
front of the camera, in front of the microphone
and able to, to do that.
And I don't blame them because even myself in
front of the mic, in front of the camera,
you'll notice, I'll stop.
And I'll think like, how will this be perceived
if I say it, even when we talked about
range Nazis earlier, I'm like, do I want
to use the Nazi word?
Right.
Um, but for you, you've clearly done a lot of
research in just speaking with you before and
how you approach this.
What is your process?
If you're going to write an article or
you're going to speak with somebody, what is
your process for, uh, preparing for that?
And what do you typically hope the outcome will be?
So for a guy who hasn't studied journalism and
here in journalistic interviewing techniques,
let me tell you you're doing a really good job.
No, seriously, seriously.
That's that's again, a very, very w what I
mean by that is, it's a, it's a simple question.
And it's also a deep question.
It's very, it's going to be difficult to answer.
It's going to lead to, uh, uh, it
opens a potentially rich response.
And the response is that it depends.
Sometimes I'm in bed.
I remember, gosh, how many times I'm in bed
looking through my.
Twitter, which I don't do anymore, by the way.
But, uh, I'm thinking I grumbled this
something angers me and I write a blog
post and out of anger.
And in 30 minutes I write my thoughts are grumble,
grumble, grumble, Trudeau verus are the liberals
that are grumbled, grumble, grumble,
and knock it out.
And so anger is the motivator.
And I don't, I just want to just kind of, um,
I guess more of a gut thing other times, and
that's, that's done and dusted in a, in a short
period, let's call it an hour and other times
it's, it can take months, uh, an article I wrote
several years ago about, I think the headline
was how statistics, Canada shapes, gun
politics and perceptions.
And that took months to research and I've
data analysis and a Q and a was text with
statistics, Canada and other experts, uh, across
the country and hours and hours and hours
and hours of research and fact checking.
So, and what do I hope to achieve?
Well, sometimes it's, um, I hope to achieve,
I'm curious about this topic and it's a personal
blog, so I get to write whatever the heck I want.
And if you like it, read it.
If you don't like it, do go, go listen to
the Silvercore podcast.
Um, but sometimes it's pure.
It's, it's always motivated by curiosity
is something I'm curious about something.
I think my readers or the community would be
curious about or want to know or a little
bit, sometimes it's a little bit you, you
guys should know about.
And this has flown under the radar.
I think this was important.
I think you should know.
I want to put it on your radar and yeah, so it's
a mix of personal read.
It's a mix of news.
A lot of it is kind of newsy and a lot of
it is I do apply the, the standards that I
took to the best of my ability that I learned at
Bloomberg about factual and links I offer my
own analysis of, but I always provide links to
my data, to the original document, whether it's
a press release, whether it's a, a report.
So I do try to respect the, the values of
transparency and accountability,
um, and a mix.
And a lot of times it's, it's trying
to transparency is a big motivator.
Actually, the, I want, I believe a little bit like
what you said earlier, you want it, you want
it to bring the pal courses, the pal courses
out of the basements.
I want to do that too about genuine
owning community.
And I remember one kind of example of that when
I started the blog in 2015, I wondered how many
pal holders pal holders are there in Canada.
What's the number.
I couldn't find it.
Right.
And it took months.
And when you know where to look, it's,
it's, it's in the RCMP annual report.
When you know where to look, it
takes five seconds.
Right?
But no one was talking about it.
No one was mentioning it.
And I was the first to the best of my knowledge.
I in, I believe it was 2015 released
in 2016 that the.
Exceeded 2 million for the first time.
And I, I wrote an article, um, something
about gun license over that, um, exceeds 2
million for first time or reaches record or
something like that.
And so I want transparency.
I want people to know about this.
I want to bring gun ownership out of the
woodwork, out of the basement, out of the,
the, um, the dark, not the dark alleys, but I
mean, I want to get it out of the door, but
also the metaphorically speaking, I want it, I
want to shine a light and, you know, be a
proud gun owner and talk about it openly.
And it's not a sin.
It doesn't, it's not immoral.
It's, it's a good thing.
It's we, its values of responsibility
and sportsmanship and nature conservation and
camaraderie and all these incredible, beautiful
values that we, that we are ambassadors for.
I hope.
And yeah, so it's a desire for transparency
and pride and, and getting out of the,
get out of the shadows.
One of my other, I think most important articles
was how quiet gun owners become former gun owners.
And I, the quiet, the fact that we, we, a
lot of people like what you were saying
earlier, your we want to be a closed society.
Hush, hush don't make any waves.
Don't tell anybody what we're up to stay out of.
The media, I think is the best.
If you, if that's your strategy, then your
extension extinction is on the way.
Keeping quiet in today's world.
The best way to go extinct is to keep quiet.
And I think you're on the right track with
the, with the gun blog and with these
podcasts that you're doing in the video cast.
And, uh, because in the same breath, if you
want to get that message out, anybody who would
be maybe contrary or want to, um, attack you,
so to say would have a much more difficult
time knowing that you have a platform with
X amount of people who follow you and watch
you on a regular basis.
So I, I think, um, if they had to also anyway,
um, like if you look at the study and
it feeds twist some Twitter feeds, I mean,
yeah, who's the day.
It depends.
The aunties used me as the lightning rod
as one of the targets.
Oh, look what the gun law.
But you're talking about the people,
the, the, the, the CFOs or the police or
the regulators you're talking about that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So far as far as I know, um, I don't, I'm not
aware of any attacks.
The worst attacks have come from, from
the gun owning the shooting community.
Those are the nastiest violence, personal
attacks have come from the shooting community,
the, the aunties
they hurt the most, you know, they,
well, yeah, they're, they're also, they also
surprised me the most.
And, um, but I'm not aware of anyone in
the regulatory or legal or, uh, policing
community that is seeking to undermine.
I am aware of people in the shooting community,
what I would call the shooting community,
who are working to undermine me.
And I've seen that and I see a time and again,
and it's so unfortunate and it, it just comes
down to the same in a building down to make
their building bigger.
I don't know if it's just a deep seated inadequacy
or jealousy that somebody would have, because
from my perspective, if somebody wants to do
the exact same thing I'm doing, I'll help them.
Yeah.
And I have, and I have countless times train
people up as instructors, train people up, show
them how I conduct my business, show
them how we're even on the podcast here.
There's numerous people that I've had come in.
Some people have taken me up on it.
If you want to start your own podcast, I've got all
the equipment, I've got a studio, I've got a room.
Right.
Of course that's not an open offer to everybody.
Those are people that who have already vetted in
our, um, uh, primarily past guests have
been all my podcasts.
And I find that you tend to, for me, uh, a closer
relationship, because you really get to intimately
know somebody over, over this period of time.
But, um, yeah, I think there's always
going to be haters.
Right.
And I guess what, I've come to you.
So you've been in the business, I'm going to,
you know, two or three decades at this stage.
I mean, I'm a newbie.
I've only been around since 2015 doing this.
And what I've found though, I'm curious
if, if, if like, I feel like I'm coming, I'm
getting to where you are, which is that.
Yeah, it's a big, it's a big, it's a big family.
And just like, you can disagree
with uncle Harry.
You can disagree with this organization
or that individual.
It doesn't mean we're gonna agree on
everything all the time.
We can still be respectful and okay, you
do your thing over there.
I'm going to do my thing over here.
I don't have to dump on you.
You don't have to dump on me.
That's um, yeah, I, I tried it.
I, I probably have dumped on people in
the community and I probably regret it, but
I do my done my best not to and stay United.
Um, it doesn't mean it doesn't mean
we love you all.
It doesn't mean we all have to love each other,
but we can still be, we can at least avoid
dumping on each other.
You know, I remember a number of years
ago, a, uh, this is going back a fair bit.
So he, a fellows wants to be an instructor.
There's a group of them.
They wanted to come through and do a, uh,
instructor level course.
And I, um, was teaching a, uh, a course said,
okay, we want to come in and you can shadow
with it myself and another instructor.
And, uh, this guy says, well, you know, I, I
don't have a vehicle.
Can you give me a ride in?
Okay, no problem.
Where are you at?
And, okay, so he takes a bus, comes to a location,
pick them up, driving, man, drive him back.
Back and forth again, next day, provide them
with lesson plans, trailing syllabuses
stuff that wasn't being provided by
the firearms program.
Things of how I, how I would put together
the, um, uh, the course, basically
just a cookie cutter.
If you want to get it going, here you go.
Afterwards.
This fellow says I don't really have any money
because I never accepted payment at the get go.
And I probably should have, uh, can I
just work it off?
Can I just keep working with you?
I'm like, I don't know.
I hummed it out a little bit and like, like, no,
no, you should pay it.
And it was only like, I didn't think I charged
them that we're going back 20 years or so.
I think it charged them like a hundred bucks or
something like nothing and nothing for beat.
Right.
For setting somebody up for a great success
in the industry.
And then he comes by with his firearm.
Can you cut and crown my, uh, my bureau for me.
Yeah.
Not a problem.
Do it for free of charge.
Can you help me find some deactivated or
disabled firearms yet?
Not a problem.
We'll get you set up.
Cause they had the contract.
There's two businesses.
One was, um, Murray Charlton.
It was, uh, who at the time was the owner of
MD charletons and myself who had the contract for
all seized firearms from the police for disabling,
for firearm safety course instruction.
Oh, problem gets you set up and I'm in the back
of hunter sporting goods, which is no longer.
Helped a, uh, a fellow.
I know who actually I met him in army cadet camp
and lived with me for a while and, uh, helped him
out and had a couple of gun stores till a point
he took over and owned a hundred sporting goods
and I'm in the back.
And I see this other instructor who had
trained up and had my cards out at the front of
Hunter's sporting goods.
And somebody comes in and they're looking
to take a course and they pick up the card
and I'm sitting there and I'm watching, he
doesn't know I'm there.
And this guy says, no, you don't want
to go see them.
Yeah.
Travis guy, he's no good.
You got to come to me.
And he spends the entire time as, as opposed
to saying why he's so great, which I think
would be fantastic.
Have anybody emphasize the points of why
you are great.
Don't spend the time emphasizing why the
other person, in your opinion, isn't great.
And I'm sitting there thinking like, holy
Crow, like I bent over backwards to set you
up only to have you out there bad on me.
And I see this.
And then when the May 16th, 2008 stuff went
down, which will probably be a conversation
at a later date.
Um, I get to read things that he's written.
Cause somebody supplied me.
Back-end, uh, information they're getting from
the, the forums.
And it is astonishing what some people will do
or say in order to just try and give themselves a
leg up at the expense of anybody else out there.
So I don't think there's ever going to
be a lack of haters in our industry or any
industry, but I think.
Oh for myself personally, I've got to be a lot
more diligent about, um, allowing myself to be,
um, taken advantage of where my good intentions
be used against me by those of intention.
So as you're building yourself up and you're
probably seeing similar kind of things, um, it's
probably changing your approach to how you,
how you report and how you put your blogs out.
I don't know.
Yeah.
And I think also what I hear a bit like,
um, underneath what you're saying is the
it's besides what we do publicly on, on, on air,
on microphone, on video in our businesses and so
forth is how we change as men, as individuals.
And, and I think it, yeah, it's reflect
especially now.
And that was apparent.
Uh, what are the kinds of values I want to
demonstrate because I I'm learning kids.
Don't listen, they copy.
Um, what are the values that I want to model
for my, for my son?
And one of those is that, okay, do you know
you can, every cliche in the book that the
dogs will bark, but the caravan moves on, or
if you stop to throw rocks at every dog that
barks, you will never reach your destination.
I think that one's Winston Churchill,
um, that we have to stay focused and
stuff will happen.
And that's that's noise and stay focused
on, on, you know, signal, follow the
signal, not the noise.
I like that.
That's
funny.
Follow the sound on that, the noise and
be, be also, I think I I'm guessing, uh, that
what, uh, w I'm I'm guessing that you've,
I'm, I'm guessing that you would share this
sentiment, but I should ask the question.
I've learned a lot to be my own compass and to
trust my own compass and to, and to listen and
to hear my own compass.
And it used to be, oh, what should I
do when I look to others a lot more for
validation or direction.
And now it's a much more trusting of my own inner
compass and learning to, uh, to accept that,
you know, real easy hack on all of that
for people maybe.
So people are raised without a moral
compass, right.
Um, is just lean on the fact that
you're a father.
So I find when you say that, um, I think people
are really ready and willing to be able to
disappoint themselves.
Right.
Hey, did you work out today?
Right?
Uh, I've got no problem sitting on the couch,
maybe playing, playing a video game or sleeping
in later, but if you have to disappoint
somebody else, right?
Yeah.
Is there somebody who's waiting for
you at the gym?
You're probably more likely to show up and
how I conduct myself is if I do this,
whether anybody knows or not, how would my
children think about me?
If they did find that out?
How would my wife think about me?
How do I want to be.
Regardless of people ever find out or not.
I want to conduct myself in a way where they
would be proud of me.
So I find that a very simple life hack for when
you're making decisions.
And oftentimes if it's a difficult
decision, it's probably the right decision.
So I love the, the pride angle and I I'm
proud to say it because a while back I would
have said, oh, that's, you know, kind of
egotistical in vain.
And what do you care?
What other P and L you know, what
do you care about?
And I said, okay, use it.
It's a Jedi mind trick.
I'm a proud vain.
You get just a gold, whatever.
I'm going to use it to my advantage.
I care about how I look and I care about
what my wife and my kid think about me.
And absolutely you got it.
Okay.
I like the life hack.
Yeah.
I use use the, uh, and also I think,
but I think there is something deeper,
which is your identity.
I'm, I'm the type of guy who am I?
The type of guy who misses my appointments
and my commitments, or am I, am I the type
of guy who respects my appointments
and my commitments?
It can be very powerful.
Very much so.
Well, we've, we've talked about a lot of
different things here.
We never did get into that one rabbit hole
that you wanted to get in about the podcast
later.
Do you want to
do that?
No.
Okay.
How do you,
how do you, um, decide, walk me through your
process for the part for a plus, let's say
a podcast episode.
Uh, all depends.
All depends on who I'm going to be
having on as a guest.
I mean, sometimes I will approach it more
from a, um, maybe fly by the seat of your pants.
I don't, I don't like to say that.
Cause I always do research.
I always have some ideas.
I I'll write down different things that
I'd like to have if I get stuck in the conversation
and I don't quite know where to go, I've got
different things like I've in front of me, I've
got Alec Baldwin rust.
There's one thing that completely off topic.
Right.
But it's something that is a, uh,
a talking point.
Um,
yeah, I've got
a bit of an interest.
There you go.
So I'll have the, I'll have an intro.
So I know where to start.
Cause I find that to be the most difficult
thing in the podcast.
How do you start the conversation?
And I don't listen to podcasts.
I, once in a while, I'll hear tidbits from some,
but I'm not the type of person to sit down and
listen to a full long form podcasts because
I don't have the time.
If I'm in my vehicle, I'm driving to go
hunting, let's say or go surfing or I'm going
to be gone for awhile.
Uh, sure.
Not a problem.
I'll listen to a book or a podcast, but I, my
office is a 10 minute walk from my house.
My studio is a 10 minute drive from my house.
It doesn't give me a lot of time to
listen to a podcast.
So unless I'm doing some woodworking in the shop
or I'm in the middle shop in the back here, maybe
I'll put something on in the background to live.
Um, I don't I've approached the podcast
from a, um, intentionally ignorant standpoint.
I don't know if that's good or bad, but I didn't
want to be like every other podcast and maybe
I ended up like it.
I don't know.
Um, but I wanted to be able to provide something
that was unique to me.
And I figured the best way to do that would be
just without inundating myself to try and be
like everybody else.
Do you pick your guests?
My guests approach you
both.
So we got, we got both sides.
I mean, I'm, I'm super flattered when someone
approaches me, uh, there have been some podcasts
that will never see the light of day and not
because they were a bad podcast, but because
I've got respect from the guests who came on there
and I, I didn't feel that they came across in
the best possible way.
And it didn't, it didn't go in line with the
bringing the positivity and the, the core values
of what I would like to be able to put through on
this Silvercore podcast.
Um, I've got one, I'll be recording next week with
just a fantastic fellow who is, um, extremely
well accomplished.
He's been on past podcasts.
People will hear about them again.
So I won't be given that one away, but,
uh, uh, gave me a message last night.
It says, uh, it's been too long.
It really liked to be on the podcast
and he's done tons of different podcasts.
Very well.
And, um, oh, I'll take it for what it is.
He says, you know, out of all the podcasts
that I've been on, I look forward to
yours the most.
And so that's, um, um, I, I value that highly.
Yeah.
So, so, uh, I will try and find people
who have extraordinary life experiences.
Uh, there's been suggestions that have
come up for some people who've done some pretty
neat things, but I just don't have any idea in
my head of how I'll be able to talk with them.
And until I can get that figured out, I
don't, I don't ask them to be a guest.
Um,
Hmm.
How long does it take you from prep
to recording, to editing, to publishing?
Uh, some are really quick, uh, most aren't.
So as I go through a podcast, I will,
uh, record it.
So we've been talking for a while.
I think this is my longest podcast yet.
Um, oh, I'll record it.
And then if I'm really on the ball, I will edit it
right shortly afterwards, while everything's still
fresh in my memory.
And if there are long extended pauses, then
for the listeners sake, cause I value
the listeners time.
I figured they're going to be spending their
time listening to me.
I want to provide them with something
as educational or entertaining.
And I'll, I'll take out some of the long pauses
or let's say somebody had to use a washroom
halfway everyday.
Obviously we edit all that stuff out, but
I do my best now not to go over it with a
white glove treatment, not taking out all
the ums and AHS and ticks and all the rest.
Um, So I can get through one in a
day, but oftentimes it'll be longer.
Uh, because now that we have video, I've got
to do color grading.
I've learned premier pro and Adobe audition,
and then you gotta make, um, I, I run it through
and to do a complete transcript of everything
that we've talked about, um, for SEO and I run
it into, uh, YouTube.
And so you have to make thumbnails and
Photoshop and, uh, then do a bit of a writeup
and post it up on the, your podcast provider.
And then you're constantly looking at
different areas where you can pick up feeds and
then I'll get on to read it in different forums.
If I think it's going to bring value to the
people, I don't want to be the guys out
there just shamelessly plugging myself.
But if I can actually add some value to a
conversation, then I will submit it on
these different places just to try and get
some more exposure.
So it's, um, uh, it's not a swift endeavor.
Mind you I've done a podcast with
another fellow he's.
Um, first one that I was ever on was his podcast
and he will record it and it's up bang it's
up, that's it flaws and all, and he says it
adds a realism to it.
Maybe there's something to be said there.
I don't know that maybe the guests
can let me know
that the listeners maybe.
Recording live is, is, is how I've been
doing it lately.
That's my preferred approach.
Yeah.
Listeners do tell, tell, tell Travis, uh,
um, what you think the, is this, would it be
fair to say that this podcast that we're
doing now of, of your podcast is the one where
you've spoken the most?
Uh, probably yes.
Yeah.
There was one other I did with the,
you do a lot of listening.
I noticed
I do.
If a person wants to talk, I'm going to let
them talk because I can, if I wanted to, I can
turn the mic on myself and I don't have to have
anybody in the room and I can talk all I want.
But if I've asked somebody to come in
and they're using their time to share their
passion with others, I want to hear what
they have to say.
It's I, it's not an ego thing for me.
I don't, I don't particularly enjoy
listening to my voice, but I enjoy the process
of creating something.
And if I can watch that grow, uh, and
others get value out of it, then I like that.
So that's why I do a
lot of listening.
Uh, I'm getting the impression that
you like to empower people, is that fair?
I tend to, yes.
And that can the process of empowering
other people.
The difficult part is finding the right
people to spend your time and energy.
Um, In earlier years, I would help
everybody else.
Everyone.
I can just help them out and do what I can because
I find value in being of assistance to others.
And I mean, you can analyze that any which
way you want to from the positive to the negative
sides, but, um, um, in empowering other people
to be able to have their own voice and get the
message out there is also a bleed off on that.
If they have something that's worthwhile,
hopefully others will share it.
I don't monetize a podcast.
I have zero intentions of ever
monetizing a podcast.
But what it does is it is a another area
where people can hear more about what
Silvercore is about.
It used to be, in my opinion, businesses
would talk about the Royal we, oh, we're
getting to it shortly.
And our team is looking at, and, um, these
are our friends of our team or whatever it is
that they want to put out on social media
or in their messaging.
When in fact it's one person in their
basement typing on their computer, right.
Nothing wrong with that.
But I think that people, the general public is
tired of the we, and they want to know the
individual behind it.
If they're going to support a business and
there's other businesses out there that they could
support, why would they choose your business over
somebody else's maybe it's price, maybe it's
because their values align with your own.
Maybe the offer a secure superior product, or
it's better availability or accessibility or
whatever it might be.
But by providing this voice, it's got that
double-edged sword of the positive of people
getting to know what Silvercore is about
because Silvercore is my business.
So by default, it's going to have, share
my, my core attributes, but it's also going to
alienate some people too.
So, you know, I just take the good with the bad.
How did you choose the name?
Silvercore.
Super easy.
Actually, my grandfather was a police
officer, detective Vancouver police.
His name was silver Armando.
My other grandfather was Cornelius Bader.
He's an entrepreneur and he, uh, had a
very successful, uh, bakery that he had.
He re he owned about a city block down by the
Croatian cultural center.
And he used to talk about how they're
were bigger than dad's oatmeal cookies.
But anyways, I just took silver in core and
it just cold core, a little bit different.
Did a little port man do, and I got silver car.
Beautiful.
Have, have you ever thought of doing
them or maybe you do?
I haven't seen it.
The Travis Bader show where you do get to where
you're not interviewing a guest, but you are giving
your rent, whatever your view on things,
a solo, basically you in front of the camera
ever thought of that.
Uh, no I haven't.
And I don't know if there'd be an
appetite for it again.
Maybe the listeners can let me know, but I've.
Uh, never been the type, despite being the one
who's would be in front of a class teaching and
at the ego portion of all of that has never been
the motivator for me.
I would watch people teach and it's, uh,
a trick that I will tell my instructors
as well that I use.
And if it works for them, great, maybe
they want to borrow it.
But so often I find people when they teach
will stand up in the front of the class
and they will, uh, spew information and
they'll throw it out and they'll see what
catches, um, they'll go through the PowerPoint.
They'll show the different slides we'll
have have little breaks, but if you take yourself
out of the equation and you know, I know
one instructor and he's probably right.
He says, you know, all good instructors
should have ego.
And from the standpoint of like, you care enough
about whether your classes thinks of you,
that you want to put on a pro quality product,
I totally agree, but I will, as opposed to, uh,
teaching a course, I am, I treat my class like
they're an individual, the entire class as
if they're one person, one person that has
a bunch of different questions that has
different personalities, that there's different
ways that I have to approach that one person.
But for me, teaching is a very personable process.
And with the end result of them leaving and
not needing me, them leaving and being more
competent in whatever it was that they had before.
And if they're able to be better than me.
I take that as a compliment, that I was
able to help them on the process to some degree
or another where they can do even better.
So it's never been an ego process for
me and for the Travis speeder showed us,
give, give your views.
Number one, I don't know if I'd have enough
to talk about, right.
Um, but number two, I'm I do tend to shy away from
the camera and the mic.
It's weird.
When we talk about, I was talking with, uh, Brad
Brooks who's, as I say it, I seen it, he sit
here yapping for the last couple of hours, right.
Uh, Brad works, he owns our galley and
uh, he says, um, that he's an introvert.
And he said, you'd be surprised at how
many people in the industry are introverts.
Um, and I'm like, well, hold on a second.
So he's got an awesome, uh, you go
to go check out Brad Brooks, his business,
awesome business, go check out his, uh,
uh, YouTube channel.
And he does like fantastic cinematography
filmography showing him up in the mountains,
doing his thing from a very personal
kind of connection.
And he says, you know, and he lists
off a number of other names in the industry
that are well known.
Some people through the mediator, cruise
someone other crews.
And he says, you know, all these people,
when we talk there were introverts.
And I said, well, I don't know.
I guess I can't be an introvert because, you
know, I got the camera and the mic and all the
rest, he says, well, let me ask you this.
If you're in a group of people, does
that charge you.
Or do you leave drained afterwards?
And I said, huh, interesting way
to look at that.
Cause it doesn't charge me up.
I find, I give a lot of myself when
I interact with the class, I'll be drained
when I, I enjoy it.
I enjoy the process of helping them, but
going out to parties or public areas I'm
drained and prime example of that is like going
to shot show, forget it, not my favorite
place to be right.
Too many people, too much stuff going on.
I'll go there if I have to.
But uh, uh, I guess maybe by that definition,
I'm an introvert.
Interesting.
Cause I I'm, I'm back to, I I'm, I would
love to, uh, see the Travis theater show if
that, uh, if that ever happens, I support it.
But also it's the, um, I think that it's, I
don't, and I don't view it as a selfish thing.
It can be, it can be an ego trip.
Look at me, look at me, but I don't think that's
how the, the YouTube personalities that say
that, that I follow.
That's not, I don't think their motivator.
I think, um, I think it's in line with what you
were saying that they have an approach or a
view or an angle or, or a skill or an expertise
that they're sharing.
And I know for myself that I.
Um, you teach what you need to learn.
It's through the sharing and through
the expression that I discover.
Oh, I don't, I don't know what I think till I hear
what I say and it helps me to refine and, and I,
sometimes I hear myself stay stuff that I, that
surprises me or that I, when it comes out of my
head, I was like, I don't actually believe that.
So it's, uh, I guess you, the, the fact that,
yeah, you have a lot to someone like you and
you in particular, you have a lot to offer.
And, um, and it, I don't see it as actually a
selfish or, um, vanity.
It doesn't have, it can be a vanity project
and maybe that's okay, but it doesn't have
to be a vanity project.
Well, I might have to rethink my approach
or my, my, how I, uh, view that whole thing.
I, I guess at this point, I'm at the stage where
I don't even know how to take that first step in
doing it and as stupid as that sounds, and it
was kind of like when I started Silvercore, like
what's the first step I'm like, okay, I'm going
to be a businessman.
I guess I need business cards.
Right.
So go out and get myself some business cards.
I'll probably need a logo.
So I make that little swirly logo.
Right.
Um, I, I know others, they got business
bank accounts at the Royal bank of Canada.
That's what I need.
I had no idea how to build a business.
I did no background.
I had nobody to show me the process.
And, um, in hindsight, looking at it,
what's taken me so many years to build.
I could rebuild next week.
Cause it, it really is easy once, you know?
So when you talk about doing a solo show for
somebody who's talking on a podcast anyways, um, I
haven't even put my head to what that would look
like or how you do it.
Okay.
Cause,
cause for it's interesting.
I think, you know, things are easy once you know
how to do it and they're impossible or difficult,
but it's like, you like, you, you, you got the
microphone, you've got the camera, you sit in
front of the microphone in front of the camera,
you press record.
And you, you say what's on your mind
is one way to do it is one way to do it.
Other people write a script that they feed
into a teleprompter and like there's a,
like a thousand ways, a thousand ways to do it.
And I, by the way, I'm, I know I'm not, I'm not,
it's not my place to, to pressure you, we're
telling you what to do.
I'm just expressing curiosity.
And uh, and uh, yeah, I would support that
project if, uh, if you
ever do it from a, from a standpoint of if, if
the industry or people had questions that they
wanted answers, I'd be happy to sit down
and go through them.
And, uh, rather than rehearse and look
through and try and, uh, come up with the
best possible answer.
Just give them the oddest answer that
I have at that time and be able to touch
back on a later base.
Yep.
And not, I could see that as a very viable way
to, uh, to approach it.
But for me to actively have to search out,
like, what do I want to talk about this week?
Where do I want to go with this?
Um, Might be like at the end of the day, there's
only so many hours.
So it'd be a reallocation of other duties
that I'm, that I'm currently looking at.
Um, Hmm.
Interesting.
And now it's occurring to me that you get that
you get to express your values, your beliefs
in the classroom, in the podcast.
And in other venues, you don't need a
separate show to do it.
You have other channels where you can get it
done in a different way.
Maybe,
you know, the, the difficulty with being
a business owner.
So we've got about a little over,
over 20 people.
I work with Silvercore and, uh, w admin staff
and instructors, and, um, that as you grow
your business, despite the fact that you love
what it is you do, you tend to do less
of what it is that you originally started doing.
So I'm still in the classroom.
I'll still help out and make sure you keep
the instructor number.
And I'm training the new instructors as a master
instructor, but the day to day instruction and
teaching, if I were to put myself into that
role, which I love doing would be a disservice to
my coworkers who require the business to expand
and to, to move forward.
So, uh, who wants to, just to the typical
thing that you get bigger and bigger,
and he stopped doing the one thing that you
originally started doing, have you found that in
your, uh, in your realm there as you've been.
No, I have not.
And I've tried to as my, like my beacon,
uh, do I love, what do I love this?
And to not do this stuff I don't love
doing and to stay focused on this stuff.
I do love doing and that's um, yeah, that's
partly out of, um, to do as much as possible.
I focus on doing this stuff.
I love.
So it hasn't, uh, it, yeah, it,
so what's to stop you from throwing in
the towel the second you don't love it,
that's it?
Yeah.
Um, I'm not sure how to, I'm not sure if there's
a single answer a little bit might be, like I
said, there was the, the feedback from the,
my, the audience, the readers, the viewers,
the listeners that say you, you know, thank
you for whatever, some kind of validation or
feedback or something that tells me that I'm
having an impact on them.
Uh, sometimes it's also, I have to remind
myself, like, do a little bit of soul digging.
It's all searching.
And remember why I'm doing this.
I'm not doing this because it's easy.
I'm doing it because it's important or at
least important to me.
Right.
Or it goes, it goes beyond me.
And I think also, maybe it's about showing
up in a PR, you know, uh, someone said, I,
I, I can't remember whose quote this is,
but, uh, amateurs do it when they feel like
it professionals do it because it's their job.
There's, there's a bit of that going on.
It's eight o'clock it's it's this is not
my case, but yeah, it's, I'm doing.
I'm showing up for, for, to do this, uh,
this profession, maybe also a commitment
that I'm, that this commitment to, to, to
be like, I love comfort.
I'm also willing to be uncomfortable.
So maybe my commitment to the mission is,
uh, stronger than my commitment to be
lazy or comfortable.
Yeah.
See, I don't like comfort.
I don't think, I think we, no, I don't.
I think we're naturally drawn towards comfort,
but the second that you start feeling
comfortable, that doesn't feel right with me.
I think most
people are like, yeah, well, I see.
So it's the thing, like it's, it's I like, I
am more looking for.
That's a really interesting, um, I'm
going to kind of play with that for a sec.
I love being comfortable.
Like if have someone says, do you want a bed
of feathers or a bed of nails, I'll go with
the bed of feathers.
But sometimes there's a higher value,
which is learning.
Well, I'd like to experience, you
know, I've seen these yogis, they lie
in a bed of nails.
Maybe I'd like to try that and just to see what
it's like, or, um, I will sleep in, uh, in, in my
car instead of going to the hotel because there's
some other value that it's, whether it's to
be a nature or cause I'm feeling cheap that day,
or I want to push onto my destination or whatever.
Yes.
Comfort is not my main.
You know, speaking to the bed thing, it's
funny as a teenager, I had a water bed and
that was when water beds were all fallen
out of Vogue and nobody wanted them anymore.
So you got to, I got a free waterbed from
somewhere and they have a little heating
pad at the bottom of it that keeps up the
water inside the bed.
So it's about body temperature.
Otherwise your hot or cold thing is
body temperature.
If you're a degree higher or a degree lower, you're
going to feel really hot or really cold.
And a thing was always cold or hot.
And it was just, it was never the idea of it as
a kid was like, awesome.
But the reality wasn't.
So I drained the whole thing through the whole
thing out my window, and then in a burning it.
And, uh, I slept on the floor for, for years
and I don't sleep on the floor anymore.
But, um, the process of the, um, of seeking
comfort, like I get that people work jobs
because they seek, um, a lifestyle where they'll
be able to sustain themselves comfortably.
And I think that's a little bit different from
comfort seeking nature.
And if I find myself in a position where I'm kind
of comfort seeking, I'll have to assess myself,
like, why is that?
Is it because I'm in.
And I need to actually rest myself so that I
can, I can get better.
Okay.
That's that now seems objective oriented.
Otherwise I will seek the more difficult
path or the more, the less comfortable path
because I find otherwise I'm just not, I don't
feel like I'm growing.
Maybe it's a weird psychological thing,
but the, the feeling of growth, uh, requires
me to be outside of my comfort zone.
And that's again, an interesting thing.
Like it's, it's it, there are lots of people
don't run marathons.
They don't climb mountains.
They don't swim across the, they
don't do triathlons because it's easy.
It's a lot easier to eat potato chips and drink
beer and pizza, but some people do it anyway.
And I think there's another thing
that separates what's separate.
What separates the people who do from
the people who don't.
That's an interesting one.
They don't have the answer.
Yeah.
I honestly, I think it's the people who
will actually write it down and think
themselves through and take a look at how the
next step might be.
So when you talk about having a, uh, it's, uh,
the Travis Bader, uh, podcast, uh, the doer
we'll take that next step and start saying,
what does that look like?
Um, and start trying to path, plot that
path out to see if the end result is desired.
I mean, there's no shortage of good
ideas out there.
You go to any bar and sit around and listening
to all the great ideas that people have.
And I remember that as a teenager and
early twenties, and we're sitting in the
bar and people say, I want to do this,
or I want to do that.
And at the time I take out my Palm pilot either
I'd have a pen and paper around until, um, uh, my
girlfriend at the time now wife, uh, her sister
gave me a Palm pilot and I'd mark all of these
things down and then I'd ask them, are you going
to do anything with that?
That was a great idea.
Are you going to do anything with it?
Or if I came up with something, I write it
on down the next day.
When you wake up, you take a look, do
they still look like good ideas now that
we're not in the dim dark bar drinking?
And if so, which one do I want to start
working on first?
And that was, I think that's kind
of what separates most of the doers
and the dreamers is.
Who's going to take that next step.
It's so interesting.
It's topical for me personally, I was
with my, with my wife, uh, kind of thought
thought bubble.
Like if you, if you have, if you say you
want to do something and you haven't acted
on it within timeframe, X, I'm going to say, you
know, within say three weeks, you probably don't
really want to do it.
Like, if, if something, if you say it's more
of a wish or wouldn't it be nice if, but
it's not a deep desire.
I I'm playing with that concept because I know
for myself, my deep desires, I usually get
them done or, or usually start work on them, work,
achieving them instantly.
And so I'm now using the, if you haven't,
if you haven't taken action on this in three
weeks, you probably don't really want to do it
that much.
That's such an easy way to declutter too.
Isn't it?
And it's yeah.
Yeah.
And I like your idea to look and look at it.
The light look at your ideas in
the light of day.
Are they?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think there are lazy people really, for
the most part, I think they're unmotivated
people, but I don't really think people
are inherently lazy.
Well, I don't know.
You look at some kid who's, uh, not wanting
to do, to do their schoolwork, but man,
they sure want to play video games all day.
Well, maybe they're motivated to play
video games, meet.
Maybe they're actually doing something they're,
they're doing something with their time.
So if there's a way to, uh, speak to what
motivates an individual and from your, and I
perspective, if we take a look at what it is
that drives us or what motivates us to, in
order to take the next step, um, when we're
feeling lazy and I got my, for those that are
listening and doing my air brackets here, just
find out why is it?
Because it just doesn't properly motivate
you at the time, because the second he
light that spark and he finds something
that motivates you.
Okay.
You're on it and you're not, you're not sleeping.
He might not be eating, just working
on these things.
I find anyways, I remember when I was
learning the machining and working as a
gunsmithing and, uh, she was my fiance at the
time now wife, right.
Girlfriend, fiance, wife, and, uh, would
come into the shop and she had bring me lunch.
Okay.
And I put it on the side and she's
a chef by trade.
So it was probably something really
good, but I'm working on this and okay.
I go over and I eat it.
And next thing I know there she is.
She's bringing me dinner.
Oh, okay.
Still working away.
And then she comes in and said, okay,
I'm going to bed now.
Okay.
I'm still working away.
And next morning would come around and be
like, Jesus, three, four o'clock in the morning.
I better get some sleep.
But when you're motivated, that's how a
person tends to respond.
Hopefully people have better boundaries
and control over that motivation
when they do it.
But, um, and that's coming from somebody
who like I got straight F's in grade seven.
I got kicked out of when I went to five
different high schools.
Um, school never motivated me.
It doesn't mean I was a lazy person.
So I don't think from that perspective of my
life perspective, I don't think that, um, people
tend to be on average, lazy, just undermining.
And I
that's a very, again, so much, you've said
so much in that, in that anecdote, in that
story, that, that I would love to dive into it.
I'm just going to share one thing though, that I
took to, to like add to that, that alignment, the
word alignment is what's coming is that when we,
when that time with your, with your then girlfriend
and she's, she's, she's bought into your project,
whatever it was, you were doing, you were doing
your thing and you know, the law of attraction,
she was helping you and supporting you,
brought you dinner and didn't have any
whatever she was, she was fully on board and you
were staying up to three and w we have energy.
Like the, when we, I believe when we
are aligned, the universe helps us.
Then we have energy and resources and attract
people and good thing, miracles, basically,
uh, when we're aligned, getting into the
zone, I think what you talked about to me,
it's like that flow.
Yeah, absolutely.
A state of flow of, of being in the zone.
Amen.
Hello.
And people talk about the, the law of
attraction, or do we live in the matrix?
We create our own kind of destiny and to a
degree perhaps, but I think there's a, uh, a
natural proclivity of the brain to be able to
reform things that have happened so that you can
look back and say this happened because, right.
So, um, I think we will naturally either a find
ourselves in situations where we attract certain.
Or we ended up writing them off or B um, we will
turn around afterwards or the benefit of
hindsight and say, see, that's why it happened
because ABC and D, because it's always
easy to be able to, to reframe these things.
It's.
Um, but that's a totally different tangent
and again, I've yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's
one that I always no surprise, totally
agree with that we have incredible minds that
are able to rebuild our narrative and, and,
and, uh, I think it's an important, uh, if we can
master that, um, it can be an important skill.
Yeah.
I definitely think so.
Do you work towards mastering that
I'm actually going a little bit, the other
way at the moment in, in get to put it simply put
taking out because, and, and like, uh, someone
did something because, well, I don't know the,
because there's no way to actually know that
because they might say that their motivation was
X, Y, or Z, but there's no way to actually verify
that, but we can stick.
I it's a more factual so-and-so yelled at
someone like, let's say dad yells at sign.
Okay.
Well, there's a man making loud noises
with his mouth in the presence of this
young, young kid that is yelling at his son
because, well, there's a.
1,000,001 potential reasons because of
some childhood thing.
Cause he had a bad day at work.
Cause the son did something the father
thinks deserves rebuke.
You can, you can, you can write a story, basically.
We're trying to get what I'm saying, get it.
Um, I'm trying to eliminate the story,
eliminate the narrative as much as, uh, interest
as much as practicable.
So you eliminate the story.
Yeah.
And that, that will help deal with situations
as they come up and help help you reframe
the situation to a more action reaction.
And if I didn't like the reaction, then
I just change it.
Yeah.
I would say response.
Yeah.
Okay.
Action response.
So example, when I ran as a political
candidate, I thought there was someone who I
thought was on my team.
I thought they would be on my team and I kept
making a story that they were trying to undermine
me and oh, they're doing this because
I invented reasons.
And later years later, actually I took away this
story and just realized, saw it from a completely
different point of view.
And if I had remained factual and so-and-so
is doing such and trying to essentially,
I invented a reason, I invented it because
to connect the dots.
And I think now in hindsight I was wrong.
And um, by I think the ability to create
a story and create a narrative is, is a very
powerful thing, but like power, it can be used.
For stuff that makes us happy and stuff that
makes us miserable.
So you got to, it's got it's the power to
wield with, with care.
Hm.
Yo I, I, a hundred percent believe we
create our own lives.
We are 100% responsible for everything
that happens to us.
And that's kinda the key to happiness, right?
Like if, if everything that's happening to
you is because of that, because, because that
person's nasty or because the government did
this and it ties into firearms owners, right?
Because ABC and D you know, it's completely
within anyone's power to be able to make that
change for themselves.
Now, whether that's massive political change.
So that now firearms owners are permitted to
have all these firearms that were no longer,
uh, accepted due to the OIC, or I don't
know, move to a country where you can have it.
I mean, those are very acceptable options.
One's going to be a lot easier than the other,
but we 100% control everything that happens
to us and what we allow to happen to us.
And sometimes it's difficult.
I find to get your head out of the, what you were
saying before, sort of the victim mentality,
that things are happening because, and sort of
elevate it to, to that.
So that's
interesting.
And I'm again, no surprise are, I'm
agreeing with what you're saying.
Like it's, it's my, my soul brother here.
I'm even looking at the it's the two us also.
Uh, the, in the victim mindset in the gun
community, nice segue by bringing you back
to guns, like Trudeau is doing this to us,
or the liberals are doing this to us.
And I would say that's where the it's those last
two words with a victim.
And whether you, where you reveal your mic,
where the person, the speaker would
reveal their victim mindset, so-and-so
said such and such or so-and-so is working
towards such and such.
And the beauty of being a human being
on this planet at this time is you get to
choose your response.
So he's not doing it to you.
They're not doing it to you.
You, they are, they are doing what they are
doing and you get to do whatever the heck you
want.
That is the ultimate power.
Do you know who Victor Frankel is?
So the man's search for meaning
you got it.
So what happened to him?
He was put in concentration camps,
friends, and family, all around them or dying
under the, uh, uh, Nazi regime and, uh, viewing
atrocities everywhere.
Right?
And he approached this from an analytical
perspective and he says, well, why is
this person who's been stripped down naked,
starved, and beaten and treated poorly?
Why is.
Smiling at the moment, or why is he actually
laughing where this person beside them,
they can't even get out of their bed.
They're so beside themselves, right.
They're experiencing the exact same
situation, but how is that person finding
joy in this otherwise joyless situation?
And of course his famous book man's search for
meaning and out of all of this stuff that he went
through in a very kind of pragmatic, analytical
approach of looking at all of these things,
he came out saying, you know, what do we
actually have that we can affect in our own life?
And I think his quote was the one thing that you
can't take for me is a way I choose to respond
to what you do to me.
The last of life's great freedoms is one's
ability to choose our own attitude in any
given situation or any given circumstance one
or the other there.
Um, but really at the end of the day, that
is the last thing.
When you are stripped and everything taken
from you, and you've got zero control over what
you have around you.
And this applies to the firearms community.
When they start feeling like things are outside
the locus of their control, they have the
ability and we all have the ability to affect
how we choose to respond.
And it's, it's rather empowering.
And I think that's would be one thing that
the community could probably as a whole, uh,
ponder and look at ways that they can respond,
that would benefit.
Personally and the community in general.
Yeah.
And it's, I didn't realize, I didn't
know that quote from, from Franklin.
I read that, uh, I think the F it, the
first time it must've been high school.
Um, but it's a remarried, isn't very powerful
book and I, yeah, if we cannot always, we
can mostly not control our circumstances.
We can certainly control our response
or shape our response to our circumstances.
And this as a, as a new father, I
get this every day.
Yeah.
I got a screaming kid.
I can, and I can still be happy.
Or I got a, I got a kid who woke me up
five times last night.
I can be, oh, you know, I'm tired and
sleepy, or I can, I can still be kind and
loving and energetic, even though I didn't
sleep much last night.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
People would wake up in the morning.
Well, I'm grumpy.
Why?
Well, because I'm tired and well, cause
it's the morning.
I'm always grumpy in the mornings.
Um, and it's not a way to go through like why.
Right.
I get it.
You got, it's hard to break out of these
systems and routines that we, we tend to get
into, I guess, you know, again, getting off topic
a bit, but we, we choose our reality and then
we make our reality.
So you choose at the end of the day.
Do you want to be happy?
That's a very simple question.
Do you want to be happy?
And the answer should be.
I think for most people.
Yes.
Not, yes.
And or if this happens, it's a simple one.
Yes.
I'd like to be happy.
Are you happy?
And then introspectively take a look at that.
If the answer's no.
Then what is it in your response that you
can change an order to be happy about that?
I don't know how that ties into the
gun world, but, um,
I think it ties, I'm going to try, attempt to
link here that it ties into what w something
that we believe or choose to believe that
we choose to be a force for I'll call it good,
positive, joy, happiness.
We want to be on that side of the equation
rather than on the blaming and complaining
and whining and that side of the equation.
Yeah.
I think also it's we were part of it is
maybe in response to what we see in the
gun world that we see.
There's a lot of negativity and nastiness,
and I'm including myself in that I've
been there, done.
That probably will again, but I, I like it better
when I'm doing the fun, joyful building up.
So I think it relates to the gun world
by, by both what we, what we are doing as.
Leaders or, or forces in the gun world and
perhaps what, um, we're calling out a little bit,
our, our, our colleagues and peers who aren't.
Yeah, I like that.
You know, and as well, I guess when you, when
you look at the, because the, you were talking
about wow, for those taking the firearms,
because he doesn't like me feel they're liberals,
uh, they're ABCD.
Well, maybe it's just because they want to
get elected again, and they can use this
as sort of a divisive platform, so they can
paint their opponent into a certain position.
And they just think it would be politically
advantageous and they could care less about
your firearms if you own them or not,
because there's more than enough to be able
to look at a statistic sheet is same as URI.
It
could be, it could be simple electoral,
electoral politics.
It could be nothing to do with principals or,
uh, maybe.
But does that change it for people how they
want to approach now?
Like if they look at it and just say, well,
maybe, maybe all the passion that I have
against it against them is misplaced where I
would rather, like, if they want more votes,
there's other ways they can achieve that.
Maybe we just approach this from a different
angle and show them how they can get garner
more, more votes.
And that's a really, again, that also hits
close to home because for, for several months,
maybe even a couple of years around bill C 71,
I would look at my own page and it was very.
It was like a liberal, every, every headline
had liberal or Trudeau or gun ban or something.
It was like, wait, am I, am I, I spending so
much energy criticizing the other team instead
of talking about the joys of my team.
And he, so I didn't like didn't like that.
And I, I don't actually let me rephrase that.
I'm looking for a way to, to be that
force for positivity.
And we have this reality, this political reality,
we have this policy reality at the moment.
How do we, uh, how do I personalize it?
How do I be a force for positivity?
What's positive here.
And I think, I think the clue might be in the
mindset in remembering that we have the power
to make or break any policy that politicians
and regulators, they can do whatever they want.
We have the power to say yes or no, because
we're the ones like, if we all just say no,
well, we break that.
We break the firearm program overnight.
Like it's, it's that easy.
Most people say, yes, it really is.
If we choose to say no, it's done it collapses.
Yeah.
Very good point.
Yeah.
Just say, no, I like that a lot.
You know, there, there are the things that are
on the, on the, uh, back of my head that I figured
I could throw it, but it's going to take us
down yet another tangent.
And I'm looking at the time, let's end it there.
And.
Unless there's anything more that you'd like
to be able to get out or say, Travis,
the, what I would like to say is in preparing
for this, uh, you lit me up and when
you're talking about empowering and enabling,
those are the kinds of the keywords that
I associate with you.
You, uh, before this interview and in this
conversation, it's a bit, it's a huge
all over the place.
And I find it, um, you've lit me up and
you've inspired me.
And, uh, I'm looking for like, I'm now looking
forward to doing a whole bunch of other stuff.
So it's put an absolute treat and I cannot
thank you enough, a huge, huge thank you
for having initiated this conversation,
Nicholas.
Likewise, I really enjoyed the conversation.
I'm looking forward to future conversations
and for the listeners, anyone who's made it this
far, please check out the gun blog.ca tons of
great content on there.
Thank you very much for being on the Silvercore
podcast and the gun blog.ca swamped.
Thank
you, Travis Bader of Silvercore CA top-notch
firearms training and for law enforcement
individuals check out Silvercore CA.