Episode 3 – Gunshot

Coming to you from the lab where we talk about guns, gear, training and everything in between riding shotgun as my co-host, Big Keith. I’m your host, Mike. And this is the gun experiment. How’s everybody doing? Welcome to The Gun Experiment Episode three this week, Keith and I talk to an up and coming amateur enemy fighter. Talk about three things every gun owner must buy and more.

I just want to remind everyone that we drop new episodes on the second and fourth Monday of every month. So be sure to subscribe to listen. And our guest today is a 24 year old mixed martial artist fighting at a beck in New York with an amateur record of five and one. Please welcome Andrew. Gunshot Geisler.

Andrew, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I have to say that I could probably run this podcast for 20 years. And in those 20 years, there will never be a more apropos nickname than your nickname for the show.

Wasn’t my attention, but just my luck.

So let’s talk a little about this nickname. First off, how did you get that nickname?

Well, usually, like when people pick a name for fighting, they try to do something with, like, alliteration. So they kind of like, repeat either the first or last name. So they like murder Mike or whatever it is that she had to pick something with a G. So I thought, like, gunshot was appropriate. OK.

Nice. I like it. So. So as far as the nickname goes right. Like I mean it’s, it’s, it’s worked out for you. Right. Like, I mean like you hit like a gunshot I guess kind of you’ve had a pretty, pretty good run. Yeah.

I had my first loss, my last fight. So it was it was a little bit of a hard pill to swallow. Keeps me up at night. Sometimes I think about it. But, you know, sure, amateur’s is all about experience. So you just grow from it and go forward. Right.

So now you’re a brownbill in Brazilian jujitsu and you also have a very strong foundation in Mutai. Correct. But, you know, and anybody who’s ever gotten into the fight game, they have to start at the bottom. Like, how did you get started? You start with jujitsu. You start with Mutai. Like, what happened?

Yeah. So actually, I started with jujitsu. Well, I like to go further back. My dad sucked me to doing like a taekwondo karate when I was really young, maybe seven or eight. And I, I despised it. I know he dragged me there every day and I was like, scarred from it. So fast forward, three or four years after I quit, I was probably around 11 or 12. My dad was like, try out jujitsu.

And I was like, no, it’s not happening. You’re not taking me back to karate. You know, I could I couldn’t differentiate at that time. I had no idea.

And I still can’t differentiate. And I’m almost 40 years old.

And yeah, it’s well, it’s something that a lot of people don’t have any knowledge on. But basically, you know, karate I think karate has its place. It’s good for kids who need, like discipline or things like that. You know, everything has its own place and values. But I think jujitsu is something you should put your kid in if you’re worried about them actually being able to defend themselves. It’s more basically the opposite of cry karate, everything on the feet.

You’re kind of punching, breaking wood and things like that. Jujitsu is when you could take that fight to the ground. You know how to control a fight, whether you’re in a down position or even off your back of your foot in a bad spot, how to kind of get back into a good spot or take advantage of this by the year end.

And they say that they say that ninety percent of all fights go to the ground eventually. So it’s a good skill to have, right?

Yeah. And then ninety nine percent of those people end up on the ground in that 90 percent of the fight. Have no idea what they’re doing. So if you’re able to capitalize on that, on that aspect of the fight, you know, you can really have a huge advantage.

Andrew, it sounds like it’s a little bit like the the only thing I’m able to compare what you just described is offense defense. Yeah, and like kind of like wrestling, you know, like it’s kind of the way I explain to people is like it’s like high school wrestling. If you take wrestling and you could add submission, which is kind of like any way to make someone tap out. It’s like a modified version of wrestling. The reason I feel like it’s so superior, like this is what I this is what I always tell people when they they ask me, oh, you know, maybe should I do striking or jujitsu.

And I say this, who’s the best boxer of all time? Everyone says, Floyd Mayweather, whether you like it or not, everyone knows he’s like the biggest name in boxing. Floyd Mayweather could go into a bar and someone could throw a punch and you just get a lucky punch and knock them out. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible. All right. Nobody nobody I don’t care who you are is going to get a lucky double take down rear naked choke you.

You’re either trained in that or you’re not. There’s no such thing to you.

You’re trained and you’re not.

And so obviously, Keith is sort of showing his hand a little bit. He doesn’t know much about this kind of stuff, but. Yeah, and you know, and you know way more than I do. But so, like a little historical context, back when the UFC started. Right. Like those early years, who Grace? I’m sort of like he was the king of the ring. Right.

And in the UFC for he went up in the finals against Dan seven and then seven, Keith was a like all star, like top of the heap wrestler. And he started the fight. He took Royce Gracie to the ground and he basically controlled the entire fight.

But back then, wrestlers didn’t know how to do submission’s. They only you correct me if I’m wrong here, Andrew, but wrestlers know how to take down.

They knew how to pin, but they didn’t have to do submission’s. You couldn’t end the fight and in the end we wound up nominate you.

Way to finish it. Right.

So is one of winning with I think was a triangle choke and that’s how the fight ended.

So then wrestlers and instead of guys had to start to learn how to finish a fight. And that’s where the whole world of me kind of started, correct, Andrew?

Yeah, correct. Yeah. Yeah. He kind of was like the the godfather of putting jujitsu on the map. He made everyone realize just how dominant the sport was, the way they were, smaller, stronger, faster than them. You could you could slow down with specific skill set. Yeah.

So let’s let’s go back to you were talking about taekwondo and then your father taking you. So a lot of time you talk about fighters and you talk about like a lot of them come from sort of like rough upbringings and whatnot, and they have no other choice and that they kind of find themselves into the world of boxing. That’s from what I understand. Not your story. Right. Like you were I think you played soccer or something or other.

You know, it’s funny you say that, actually, because I always I always say that to my dad. I’m like I feel like I’m like the misfit. And I’m you know, all these guys are like, yeah, I grew up in the hood, you know, I just I’m like, I don’t know, man. I have. I had my first car in the drive when I was 15 waiting for my permit like I was a spoiled kid.

But I was like, why can’t someone make it that just had all the right resources, my people behind them, you know, I don’t feel like it has to be. You know, this hard knock story, right, so speaking of sort of like these hard knock stories, I grew up in the era of Mike Tyson and the Iron Mike Bettis man on the planet.

I mean, he was just a spectacle in every which way. Right. And still is.

What are you talking about? Very, very true. It’s very true. Now he’s into weed farming, you know.

So Mike famously once said everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, but.

He also said that he was scared every time he stepped into the ring, so, Andrew, you’ve actually I’ve never stepped into a ring in that way, but you have. So can you relate to both of those feelings in those and those comments and kind of give us a little perspective?

I mean, anyone who tells you that they’re not afraid when they go out there is absolutely fine. And I don’t care who you are. I mean, you learn to deal with those nerves a lot better. My first fight, I had this thing growing up because I competed in jujitsu so much. I took I did my first competition when I was 13. I was 11 years ago. I probably competed in two or three hundred tournament sent. But I go out to do just a tournament and I don’t even feel anything.

It’s just like if you were to go play Wiffle ball in the backyard, you know. But I thought everyone was like, dude, you’re kind of like a serial killer vibe how you don’t have any emotions. And I remember being like, yeah, I don’t know, I don’t get nervous. And then I got my first fight and I was in the back room and I was like ten minutes out from my fight. And I just had like a panic attack.

And I was like, dude, what is happening to me? I’m never like this. But you realize, like the consequences, like when you go to geta tournament, like worst case scenario, this guy is way better than me, ATAP and then you thinking that you’re sitting in that back room, you’re like, what’s the worst case scenario? Like I get flatline knocked out in front of everyone that I just told to come here, you know, so.

Yeah, absolutely. And no one’s immune to them. So that’s the thing. Like I try to tell people now that I have a little bit of experience, I’ve had five or six fight people attack. Oh, I’m super nervous. And I’m like, it’s not a disadvantage to be nervous. People think in their head like, oh, I’m nervous. It’s everyone’s nervous. People think, oh, I have I’m at this disadvantage because I’m so nervous right now.

So I remember I talk to a lot of people in the locker room. I was like, hey, man, I’m like, that guy is equally as nervous. So it comes right back down to do you think you’re better than him? So if you have the skill set and you’ve prepared, there’s nothing to worry about because he’s equally nervous. So there’s no advantage or disadvantage of being nervous. Sometimes it’s a good thing to have a little bit of nerves, too.

You know, you want to be important to you and you want to, you know, want to go out there all lackadaisical and not putting forth the effort because you have no fears. All right, it’s interesting, I mean, like you would think that just the human element of it, right? I mean, the idea that someone could punch you in the face, like that’s never something you want to happen. And there’s always that chance, you know, there’s always a chance of something going wrong.

So I feel like it is normal. But, you know, there’s plenty of guys out there that they’re going to tell you they’re not scared.

That’s definitely, of course, definitely exists. Like I said, there’s there’s I’m not saying there’s no one that will say that. I want I’m telling you that they’re all lying to you. If you could see that they’re scared, everyone scared, maybe not even scared. But you’re you’re nervous. You know, you might think you’re going to win, but this could happen in the back of your mind. You know, you could be flatlined. You could be out cold, wake up not knowing what’s going on.

And that’s a scary thing. What’s scarier is we sign up for, you know, it’s not like someone forced me in there. I’ll give you a lot of credit.

Definitely. So speaking of of the outcomes of these fights, you you you mentioned earlier, but you are coming off your first loss in the rear, I believe it was to an arm bar, correct? Correct.

Yeah, it’s unfortunate. That’s my background. That’s my specialty is jujitsu. I had a really rough cut and I just got really super tired and fatigue in there. And I just remember, like, when you put me in that arm bar, I remember being like I’ve been in this position a thousand times from people that are superior to him as far as jujitsu skill. And I was like I just I had no energy to get it out. But he executed a really good game plan.

I actually fought the fight before him that I won. I thought his coach and I beat his coach. They were able to kind of study, say this is what he’s going to do is what it feels like. He’s strong in this area. This is where you need to expose on him. And it was good for me, too, though, you know, like I said, I’m not getting paid right now. This is all experience. So then giving me a different look is something that challenges me.

And I go back to the drawing board. I actually started training harder than I ever had before after that loss. So it was really good. Unfortunately, all the stuff happened in the whole world kind of on pause right now. I just got my foot in the door working with some of the guys in the UFC. I was driving like three hours down to Jersey near Seaside Heights to work with some top level guys. And then everything kind of just got put on hold.

Yeah, after the fight, I mean, I had seen something you put up on social media, and I have to say, I mean, you may only be an amateur, but you mean you handled it like a pro. I mean, like the way that you took the loss was very impressive, you know?

I mean, you don’t make excuses. And you definitely looked at it like a growing experience, which I admire you for.

So, you know, yeah, it’s like I said, it is all for experience. It’s always easier said than done. I always said that after all my wins, I was like, win or lose. It’s all experience. And it’s easy to say that when you win, you know, it’s like, oh, yeah, I won to let me give a bunch of advice to the people that lost. So I didn’t want to be that guy that after all my fights, everyone I beat, I went to them.

I was like, hey, man, all experience. Don’t hang your head. Get right back into it. I mean, like, this means nothing. At the end of the day, when we go pro, we’re both going to be zero and zero. So if I said that to all these guys and then they see me lose and I’m throwing some temper tantrum in the ring, act like a sore loser, just not a good look, you know.

Yeah. Good. Good for you. You know what little I know? I mean, I’m definitely I can’t even say I know enough to be dangerous about this topic. But, you know, from what I understand, Andrew, when you take these losses, you kind of talk a little bit about it, that you you have to know that that’s sort of a weakness that you have to train for for your next fight. Right? Exactly.

Yeah. You know, so like, the area that I thought I was strongest in is where I actually got exposed. So sometimes, you know, you can’t get, you know, let your head get too big. I thought going into that fight, like, oh, he’s going to stay on the feet. So let me work all my striking. That’s how my whole camp was developing. My striking is I feel like that is a little bit further behind my grappling.

And I kind of ignored you know, it’s my coach actually said to me, I kind of abandoned the girl I brought to the dance. So I didn’t have the skill set in jujitsu. And it brought me to this high level where I was dominating all these fights. And then I just abandoned it because I was so worried about my weakness.

Didn’t keep diverse. Right. And yeah. Do do fat guys fight? Man, I’m a pretty big guy. So do you. Oh, yes, that makes me feel better. That’s the thing, they look like they’re fat, but they’re they’re actually in shape. They’re deceiving. That’s the thing about them. It’s not like, oh, they got up off the couch and said they want to fight. They look like they’re sitting on a couch, but they’re not AJR.

We’ve only met over this. I look like I sat on the couch.

OK, so, Andrew, I have to I have to tell you, Keith is a very competitive person by nature, and he is someone like once like so he just started golf and he went like balls to the wall, like I mean, like now you can’t get them off the golf course, you know.

Let me tell you about really not a good to pick up if you’re really competitive because it’s not easy.

Yeah, no, definitely.

I think he I think he found that out. But I mean, he. You approved the lottery.

Yeah. I just kind of you know, I am very competitive, as Mike said, but I’m realistic with my goals for the most part. So I just wanted to be better than most other people that I play with. You know, I’m never going to play with Tiger Woods. And I wasn’t really focusing on that. And I shaved like last season. I shaved like at my peak age of 20 strokes off and like, yeah, when you’re 20 strokes is is a lot, you know.

I mean. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I was shooting, you know, in the one high one teens to one twenty, which is absolutely atrocious.

And I’ve been on nine holes. No, 18 holes. OK, I’m pretty terrible. I can get it.

Thank you. And I did break a hundred on 18 holes, but by the end of the season last season. So that was like for me it was like probably the first time you won, you know, a match that was organized. I was like I was amped for like a month. Yeah. I carried me that carried me through the off season. But now I’m like, I’m going to suck again because I haven’t been swinging at this point.

At this point in the year, I probably would have played, you know, four or five rounds and I haven’t played well and exactly.

Yeah, I actually golf a lot last year, not so much this year because of, you know, I have covered the problem. I have a golf course. I’m the same way I’m really competitive and golf is so weird. Sometimes you keep going and you don’t improve. There’ll be days and you go the next time and you suck.

And I’m like, you know, understand, I always I gave I gave it up because I can’t I can’t deal with the ups and downs. You hit a perfect shot and then the very next hole, like, you know, you’re in the woods and it’s like, what the hell? I can’t do.

The thing I always say to people when I when I play, the thing I would say to people is, I can do this. Why can’t I do this?

I know you could swing that back club the exact same way you hit on the last one just slightly off on the ball and you scholder and it’s just going twenty two. You’re right. It’s a really it’s a rough game. Yeah. Yeah.

And part of the reason I’m bringing this up is because I have said to Keith, knowing his personality, I’m like, dude, you should try jujitsu like it would. I’m telling you, you would get sucked in. And at first he said to me is I sweat a lot.

I’m like, dude, everyone sweat. It’s funny. I was actually just talking to my girlfriend’s mom about how I, you know, when our gym reopens, you know, my lifestyle is so much different than everyone else. So she was like after this whole Koven thing, like life may never be the same for everyone I think is going to change. Kind of like after 9/11. No security would change. No one’s life was ever the same again after that.

And I was like, I can’t live in fear because I’m going to be people’s sweat in my mouth every day. Yeah, I’m like as close as you could possibly get to someone.

Yeah, there’s no mass that’s going to help that. No, exactly.

I have a friend who was he was kind of saying the same thing. And he’s like, you know, Mike, the day after the day after you, you know, they say you can go back out into the world. Are you going to go to the gym? And like, he thinks I just go to, like, gold, you know, he’s going to go to the gym and touch the bars. I’m like, no, I’m going to have some sweating all over me.

It’s like totally different, you know? Yeah. You go to the gym and you’re near someone that has it. You might not get it. You know, if you’re safe here, your hand sanitizer, you wash your hands. If you if you go to our gym and you make and you do any form contact with anyone at our gym, you’re getting there, you’re going to be as close as humanly possible. If someone are going to be hands on sweating each other.

Like if that person has it, you’re getting it.

You’re you’re not convincing, Keith, to do this, by the way. No, you’re not a good salesman.

So anyway, so let’s talk about let’s get back to the show for a second here. So, you know, the name of the show is the gun experiment. And that’s when I started this thing. You know, it’s about guns. But one of the things I said when I first started was I want to talk about a lot of different things.

And I feel like my philosophy is that the gun is just a tool and that the human is the weapon, that that is that it’s kind of how I look at it and jujitsu and fighting and things like that. I want because someone’s listening right now saying, like, this is a gun show.

Why are you bringing a guy from me? And the reason is because I think there’s a lot of crossover and I think that one is a perfect partner for the other, but. On top of that, you recently applied for your pistol permit and some people would say a man with your skill set doesn’t need a gun, but you’ve decided to go down there, not very knowledgeable then.

So so talk about the lobby. So you decided to get your your go for your pistol permit.

Tell me why where your head was at and and where this is like a big fear of mine. So I do. I spent my whole life training finding people. I feel so confident that if anyone walks up to me when I’m out or someone decides to road rage and pull over and out of the car, there’s no there’s really no chance unless they’re also trained that they’re going to beat me if I don’t care how big they are or anything like that.

But what if I walk up this car and if I was a gun on me because I don’t I don’t care who you are, how much time you spent training, how good your focus on points, a gun on you.

You’re dead faster than a speeding bullet.

That’s correct. I’m not even close. And it doesn’t matter if I was faster because, you know, that bullet hit to your done. It’s so simple that there’s no even comparing a human to a gun. So I can spend my whole life training. But, you know, I want to be able to guns a great neutralizer. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re on the other side of the trigger, you want to fight.

Right. And a lot of people like I have a friend who he absolutely hates guns. And him and I have these debates all the time.

And he goes, well, if a guy pulled a knife on you, what are you going to shoot him?

I’m like, yes, it seems like a good idea.

Yeah, I’m like, twenty, what is it, 21 feet. Right. This is a guy can cover 21 feet in like a second or something like that.

It’s, you know, unless they’re me, I guess everyone needs a little different, you know.

But the bottom line is you did decide to go for your pistol permit. How has that process been for you?

So if I could sum it up in one word, I would say nightmare. I mean, it’s why I’m pulling up my calendar right now. Hold on, missy.

So you live in New York, right? I do, yeah. I live in Dutchess County. OK, all right. So here we go. I went in on July, July 16th at twelve o’clock. They gave me my that was my interview when I went in. So I had already started the process before that. So we’re July.

So we got to let me get that. Let me just ask a couple on that interview you handed in your completed application, your money order, your fingerprints, everything. Right.

I talked to a detective all every idea you had, your references filled out, sign, notarized, all that stuff. And every person that I had signed as a reference was a pistol permitted person in the Hudson Valley in Dutchess County, because I was told that would look good as far as looking into those references, because those are people that they’ve already done checks on. Yeah. So I had three people with permits, all in Dutchess County as my references.

They told me within six months, you hear back from us, you know, five months go by. I start calling like someone. Give me a call back. I’m still going to check on the status. I really appreciate two or three days go by. Nothing. I was like, OK, let me try calling again. Now, we’re nine, nine months away, and I’ve probably left seven, eight voicemails with the detective, with the sheriff’s department, with the pistol section.

I’ve tried absolutely everything. No one will call me back and now forget it now since it’s out there. Yeah, I was going to say so.

Like, let’s let’s just stop like right there. Forget covid-19 like that is going to I don’t know what that’s going to do. They just go there. You were already if they over 90.

There’s plenty of theories in New York that it’s just going to they’re just going to use this as an excuse to just stop it for a while. Yeah, well well, let’s just say I got a gun now.

Not even like a shotgun, nothing. They stop the next checks, so you can’t do it. You can’t do anything.

No, it’s still doing those. Yeah. Yes.

Oh, so there’s a couple of things. There’s a couple of things that I do want to talk about. So hold on. Let me let me kind of like get us back on on track here, because first off, if covid-19 had not happened, let’s just say that this was normal times. I’d like to think I’d like to think that you would have gotten it.

OK, let’s just assume you got it. But like to think that. But I’m not confident because I was nine months out of the market and I was able to actually get through one day to someone and I said, hey, can you tell me what’s going on? As I was, I denied. I don’t I have no criminal background, nothing. The only thing I can think of is I was like, you know, my application under my job occupation.

I say, my fighter. I’m a young kid. I’m covered in tattoos. Maybe they don’t want me to have a gun, and that’s fine. But I was like, I want someone to tell me. And they were like, no, no, you your thing says pending. You haven’t been denied at all. Right, OK, come on. I’ll send you through the detective and I left him a voicemail. Never heard back from that.

That was three or four months ago and I’ve left seven. A voicemail, so I don’t know what more can do, but this happened and now everyone is suddenly want the gun and everyone believes that they should have guns again, but not slowing down the process for people like me who who wanted one far before any of us have happened.

So that makes me want to talk a little bit about gun laws, because so first off, the Constitution, the Second Amendment says that gun ownership is a right. It’s not a privilege. It’s not a driver’s license. It’s a it’s a right, not a privilege. OK, so that’s first off.

Now, with that said, I do think reasonable laws and there are some people in the second American that would hang me up right now, but I think that reasonable laws are fine. Do you feel like there’s people who would say, oh, we’re here to wait nine months? Like, that’s that’s more than reasonable. Do you feel that that’s reasonable?

Here’s my issue. I have no problem. If they told me, hey, you’re not going to get it for two years as long as you keep a clean record. I just want to hear something just I’m not like I need a gun on my way.

You want to clear expectations set. You want to know what the rules are.

And I’m not saying, hey, I applied for a gun I don’t have the next day, but that’s just that’s even worse. I think. I don’t want everyone having a gun than I can about it. Shouldn’t bother doing the research. But I mean, give me a call back when I call you four months ago, seven times.

Why don’t you be the same for everybody, right? Someone else got it in six months, wires, years. Nine months. Right.

Some people tell me. Oh, yeah, really? I got it in four months. They call me back early. I was like, awesome. That’s good for you. I’m I’m sitting on nine, ten months, but I can’t get a callback. Just let me know if you don’t if you want the Naimi. Fine, let me know. I just want to know what’s happening at this point. Right. Like any, any news.

So that brings me to my next question in the meantime, because who knows when this is going to happen with all the stuff with the virus and stuff, but have you thought about a rifle or a shotgun just in terms of having something to kind of get proficient and comfortable shooting? And if so, if that’s something that you’re interested in? Keithan, I might be able to guide you down the right path for that. Maybe you can.

It’s I’ve tried absolutely everything. I got to the point where I was like, you know what? Especially with times like this, I was scared people were going to start rioting or things like that, that I could do all the training I want. Someone comes into my house in my house and has a gun. What am I going to do? Give them everything?

I own it. We’ll talk after that. We’ll talk after the show. But I mean, Keith, maybe we can come up with a couple of ideas. Maybe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just just and just to clarify a little bit, because we’ve touched on a little bit. I’m not sure what you had heard about the next check. It did get overloaded in the first the first week or so of the pandemic, but it’s back up and running. I mean, I purchased the rifle very recently and had had no problems at all, walked in and filled out my next check with my rifle. So the hard part right now is inventory.

You kind of touched down a tenth of.

That’s what I was going to say. I think I decided that I was going to go for a rifle or shotgun a little bit too late. Yeah, I went to Wal-Mart all because what happened was they sold out of all the gun shops. The only thing they had was like super expensive sports.

Shotguns that were like nine hundred dollars, savage shotguns. I was like, I’m not doing I was looking for like a small little home wrecker, like two or three shotgun, but they sold, they sold out and then they shut down all the gun shops. When they shut down shops, they said the guns weren’t essential. So all of them went out. And I was like, all right, let me check Wal-Mart dicks. But they’re all sold completely wiped out.

I checked all the time. There’s nothing. So it’s like nothing I can really do. Yeah, we might like Mike said, we’ll catch up with you after and we’ll we’ll talk a little bit, but we both know a couple of people that maybe still have some inventory. Awesome. Yeah, I appreciate it.

So, Andrew, where can people find you online social media, if they’re looking to become fans of the gun shop, where where can they go?

I’m not too big on social media other than Instagram. So Instagram probably your best bet. I actually found a lot of people. If I was like, hey, man, I sent your friend request on Facebook like two months ago, I’m like, yeah, well, I haven’t been on a year and a half or so, but Instagram probably the best way. And it’s it’s just my name, it’s Andrew and RW and my last name Geisler g i s l e r and there’s a second r the N so it’s Andriukaitis.

They were two hours. Awesome.

Awesome. So anybody look into that is an MMO fan looking to see up and comers. Go check them out. Now Andrew, we have a little tradition on this show. We play a little game with new guests called Running Gun. And since you’re not fully immersed into the gun world yet, I took a little bit of mercy on you. And I made a TaylorMade version of this for you.

Oh, yeah, done it.

So I’m going to ask you a question and you just answer with the first thing that comes to your mind. All right, let’s do it. All right. What were your first gunby? Or probably a shotgun, to be honest. At this rate, if if if I can actually get my parent probably maybe like a 1911.

Wow. Going going big. At the looking at wrestling, jujitsu or moiety. Jujitsu, if you can have a drink with one person living or dead, who would it be? McGregor. Rifle, pistol shot, rifle, pistol or shotgun rifle, favorite submission. Can I say not the arm bar? I just thought you look like more. Favorite hobby, not me, related playing the piano. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Teleport all hell breaks loose. Use your head or your fists. What do you mean you had is in my brain and my people or one thing.

I initially thought he meant as a weapon to yeah, I would like to leave the city and take enough damage to my career.

Brains are brawn, let’s put it that way. We’ll go brains. All right. Is it better to be loved or feared? Love, you’re the worst scenario imaginable. Who do you want to have your back other than your girlfriend? My coach. The scary would that coach would be Mike Palladino. I agree, he’s a scary man, scary man.

All right, man, you did an awesome job with Running Gun and the first ever made version of running gun safety regulation modification.

Glad you made it.

So we are going to change gears here and we are going to pretend that someone out there, maybe it’s Andrew, maybe it’s someone else buys their first gun, first one ever. Now what? What are the top three things you should buy after you buy the gun? So, Andrew, you don’t have one yet. And I don’t know if you’ve even done enough research, but is there anything that you think would be a good purchase after the gun?

I’m actually looking into getting some things that I think I would need after the gun, before the gun, because of the shitty situation I’ve been kind of put in. OK, so I’m looking into getting a safe. OK, that’s a that’s an awesome and awesome purchase, that’s my first pick. All right.

And oddly enough, that was my first pick. So, yeah, I think that a safe word, I had put a lockbox, especially if it’s a pistol.

You know, you want something small, but if you’re going to have it, you got to secure it, right? I mean, that’s the bottom line.

Exactly. And, you know, I live with my brother and my parents, and they might not be as knowledgeable on guns as me telling someone, you know, going through into my room and maybe mess around something that they really shouldn’t be here. So as a false confidence. But I think they know what they’re doing and I don’t know, falls on my hands. So awesome.

I like the responsibility here. You’ll be a good advocate for the Second Amendment. Thank you. So did you have others or is that kind of like just where your brain kind of shut off and there’s a lot with guns, so maybe you kind of put a hold on it?

It’s like I’ve talked to you about this in the past. I’m actually worried. You know, the reason I got interested in guns before this happened is my lack of knowledge made me fearful of them. So I just kind of just because I come from a jujitsu world, I think it’s kind of a similar mindset is a big fear people have is because they don’t know about it. You know, people come in and they finally try and they fall in love with it.

So I think I was really fearful of guns because I knew nothing about them. So my logic was more. If I learn about them, I won’t be afraid of them anymore. All right.

That’s fair. So, Keith, what’s your second? Must have after you buy the gun.

You know me. I like to tinker a little bit. And, you know, I think, as you pointed out, these are tools and, you know, a good cleaning kit, the same way that you would have some precision tools or, you know, things to take care of your car or something like that. You need you need to have those things for for a weapon as well. Awesome.

Yeah. For me, I mean, if you’re going with a handgun and I think a lot of people say, hey, I want a handgun, and that’s their first purchase for a gun, you need to have a good and I want to stress the word good, a good holster and a good specific gun belt. And by the way, for years I just used an old leather belt and then one day I bought a gun belt. And man, what a difference.

You don’t understand until you have one. Um, a different world.

You guys need a belt. But as big guys, we need the belt and suspenders.

Yeah. So I say good holster, something that basically is going to keep the trigger guard covered, something that is going to stay in place. So when you go to draw, it’s in the same place every time, you know, and and ultimately it’s going to keep you safe and keep you able to draw quickly and efficiently. And the belt kind of goes in hand with that. Yeah. Puts number three.

Oh, sorry. Sorry. Go ahead, go through the list first.

So Keith, what’s your number three safety glasses and your protection.

Awesome. I love it. Any recommendations. Anything you’ve used. I mean honestly I’ve used from the cheapest of the cheapest and you know, absolutely upgraded all the time. The main goal here is that you need those things to be able to practice with it, to be proficient with it. And, you know, when you’re usually training and you’re usually practicing, you’re in close quarters and you know, it can get loud. There might be other people with you shooting larger calibers.

And, you know, you just want to protect your you know, you’re hearing in your eyes during those times. And then, you know, if if you ever need it, you’ll be prepared.

Yeah. And I have to say, I know guys who I you know, I don’t need only shoot a twenty two. I don’t need your protection. Listen, I have a little bit of tinnitus from just accidental people shooting when I didn’t know they were going to shoot. And it sucks when you when you can’t sleep at night because your ears are ringing. Believe me, you’ll wish you were your protection. So definitely. Keith, awesome suggestion.

Sounds like a similar problem in my life. People are somewhere in your protection. Well, that’s a problem. But some of them, like I should have worn headgear. Do you have any do you have any cauliflower, Andrew? It’s minimal.

I’ve drained out most of it. I get in my inner ear, not on the outside, OK, you know, but it’s it’s something that you you wish you took care of. When you start feeling some people like it, they’re like, oh, it’s like a badge of honor, like your time in my life. My girlfriend doesn’t like it.

So and that is the number one most important thing you have with your girlfriend because.

All right. So my number three will wrap it up. And I think this is a good overall is training.

And Andrew, you kind of you sound like you’re responsible, but, you know, the person that gets the gun, they stick it in the nightstand in Keith, you said it best you day. The first shot I’m going to take is the only one I’m going to need. And it’s ridiculous. Like go out, train, find someone good and learn how to run that gun properly and see the confidence to just to know that if the situation to actually arise, you can put that gun in your door.

But if you never shot it and your adrenaline’s rushing and something’s going south, it’s just like jujitsu. You know, when you’re in a bad spot, say you’re in a fight, you need that repetition like you’ve been through that same scenario. You could do it in your sleep, you could do it half conscious, you know, when you’re hit, but when your adrenaline rush and things are going south, you can fire that gun. You haven’t taken the repetitions that you need.

You’re not going to do in the moment. Right.

So this episode together, I mean, they’d be like me going buying boxing gloves and saying, I’m just going to go in the ring and just fight.

Yeah, no, no training needed. So so, yeah, we kind of we kind of went down like our harlene here. But you know what? I figured we kind of make it interesting. And if someone wanted to get into me or even just some self-defense and learn how to kind of handle themselves a little bit, how would you recommend they get started with that?

So, like I said, jujitsu is offered to all levels. I feel like a lot of people are afraid. I’m actually the manager of our gym and so people will call me if they’re interested or we actually have it set up so that anyone who fills out an online form goes directly to my phone. I deal with a lot of the people that are interested in the program and I feel like a lot of people, they call me and I try to be overly friendly because a lot of people are intimidated when they call them.

Imagine, you know, like they expect someone to pick up the phone. Like what? You know, like they don’t understand that. It’s not like you go in there and you’ve got a survival of the fittest your way into the gym. So a lot of people think like if they have no experience, that they’re going to just be completely out of place. So our our program starts as fundamental onramp program. So 90 percent of people that come to the gym have no experience.

And that’s perfectly fine. There’s no problem with that. That’s why we have a design the way we do to have a fundamental class, the intermediate and advanced. If it’s something that you’re interested in doing, you want to defend yourself. You want to get in shape. You want to meet people. Some people do it just for the social aspect.

You can come into the gym or locator beacon and you get started with learning just fundamental movements, you know, basic submission’s and you work your way up from there and you would recommend jiujitsu over striking to start or vice versa.

It also depends on your goals, like say you’re going in just for fitness. You want to you want to lose weight. You some people sweat really hard doing the striking program because a lot of it’s like cardio based. So, you know, that might be more for them. Someone who’s worried about maybe we have someone who’s a CEO and they come in with like like I want to defend myself. I’m not going to recommend striking to them. I don’t want them there in the gym so they can really control situation, not doing any damage using jujitsu.

I’m not going to teach them my tai chi, although I to defend himself so they can just go out and fight people. It’s great, great advice, and you’re right, I guess that there’s not like a one size fits all, so that’s good. Yeah, I mean, personally, like I said, I started with jujitsu. So I know I know its value. I’ve used it as a competitive aspect, but I’ve seen people use it who have people who are slightly autistic, have ADHD.

People want to get in shape, want to meet people. I think jujitsu is universal. It’s not bad for anyone.

Awesome. So our listeners are out there and they read or heard our list. They’re free to go. They’re going to experiment on Facebook and Instagram and tell us what they thought of our list of things they should buy after the gun. Or if they don’t agree, tell us what their ideas are. I’d love to hear it.

Well, I think it’s tough for the boys to sit around this issue.

This is a segment where we talk about something other than guns and sorry, Andrew, it’s not going to be about jujitsu or either of you guys.

So I have the perfect balance here. On one side of me, I have Keith, who is a huge car enthusiast. On the other side of me, I have Andrew who is not so into cars. So today’s topic is driving a manual transmission.

OK, so manual transmission in this day and age somewhat defunct.

You don’t really need it. I mean, we have automatics, we have cars that can basically drive themselves.

I’ve never done an automatic, but I even took my road test on a manual car. Good for you.

Wow. All right.

So I guess the first thing I want to know is what do you guys think? Like, should everybody know how to drive a stick?

I think so. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they’re not they they’re called standard transmissions for a reason. They used to be standard. They’re they’re no longer standard. But I mean, in today’s world, you know, it is dying. It’s not something that is common anymore. You know, they are not the fastest. If you’re if you’re talking about speed, you know, if we’re going to stay on that level for a moment, they’re not the fastest in today’s world.

You can certainly have, you know, most fast super cars are dual clutch, semiautomatic kind of situations that they’re manual, but the clutches are all automatic and do anything. But in my opinion, you know, running through gears is the purest form of driving, you know. Yeah, I I’m a very fortunate person to have been able to drive, you know, amazing cars in my lifetime. I’ve driven things from. You know, classic muscle cars to, you know, super cars, and they are just they’re just a blast to drive in the manual form.

I don’t care if I’m faster or not. I just enjoy driving the more I own a manual Mustang late model and I literally will get anything and just go run through the gears for maybe three or four or five miles. I know you hear me and come home and put it away and have a smile on my face for a couple of days.

I actually had twenty sixteen, six lines of 15. Yeah.

So I have very similar car. Mike asked me if I like cars and to be honest, I love cars. I have you lied to me. No, I have a civic essi right now.

Six feet all my cars. I like the sporty cars, the fast ones but I’m not knowledgeable so I didn’t want to tell you. Yes. And then you asked me questions out for so and you totally hoodwinked me.

I thought I was to get the guy. I don’t give a shit about cars and then the woman who loves pussy. You totally just ruined the show. Andrew. Thank you.

I remember like someone asked me, I had the reason I got rid of the Mustang was one that was really bad on gas and I was driving a lot. But also people would ask me, they saw a car like that pull up and they start asking me questions about it. And I just felt so dumb. When people ask, I don’t know how much horsepower, the front wheel drive, I don’t know how to answer your question.

So I was like, you know, I don’t know much about them, but I do I do like getting in a sports car and Floren it.

Well, I’ll give you I’ll give you my spectrum. I have that fifteen Mustang that I bought brand new and I don’t drive it very much these days. The first year and a half I had it, I drove it every day but and then my everyday driver is a nineteen ninety five Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. It’s like riding on my couch. I love it. And you know I think I bring down the property values and like in my neighborhood, but everybody knows I’m coming when I drive it.

So my take on the manual transmission on the stick is this. So when I got my driver’s license, my father, my father’s a very like, cautious man. And he was like, oh, why take on the extra responsibility learning that parleyed, like learn how to just drive and then down the road you could you could learn how to drive a stick. So I think it was up to him. I would have never, ever learned. But I wanted a Jeep Wrangler and.

Anybody who’s the guy knows you got to get one with a stick, you don’t drive those things automatics. I know some will disagree, but real job guys get it. And I wanted it with a stick. And I basically taught myself no one ever taught me how to drive when I just got in it and figured it out myself, drove it home from the dealership, figured it out.

But my take on the manual transmission is you seriously drove that thing home from the dealership, not knowing how to drive a manual.

I mean, I had kind of I have taken friends, cars and stuff, so I kind of knew how. OK, so that’s amazing. If you know. Yeah, I had driven maybe a stick once or twice in my life other than OK, just like goofing around in friends.

Fair enough. Fair enough. So fairly new, you know. Very new. Yeah.

But I knew the concept of it, you know, and I can figure it out.

But my thing is this, you know, like again the gun experiment, like I just feel like you should just know how to do a lot of things.

You know, I, I admire the quote unquote Renaissance man, like the guy that can do a lot of different things and feel like that’s just one of those things. Like someone says, hey, could you do me a favor? Because you move by car and like, do you want to be the guy that’s like, oh, sorry, I don’t drive.

I don’t ever want to be that guy. I don’t ever want to be that guy. I was I went to a wedding before this whole wedding non wedding deal was around and I drove up my Mustang was with my wife and I had the windows open. And as I pulled up, I heard the valet go, I don’t know how to drive a stick. And I got I was like, don’t worry. I’m parking it myself.

And I’m not the guy you want to pass the keys to. You know, I think definitely not.

So I know that this episode was a little different than some of our other ones, you know, would be.

And there was a lot of talk about fighting in May, but it’s called the gun experiment for a reason. And I think, you know, if you’re going to carry a gun, I think having these other sort of fallbacks are very, very handy.

And Andrew, I want to thank you for sort of bringing your expertize and for also being very open minded about shooting and gun ownership. And you’re a great guests and thank you for coming on.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Great to meet you, Andrew. Yeah, you too.

If you’re listening out there, make sure you check them out on Instagram. And if you like this episode, you can support the show by hitting subscribe and share buttons. And of course, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, on Facebook, at the gun experiment so we can keep the conversation going. Keith, Andrew, thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for.

Of course.