S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work
This channel confronts power, exposes institutional failure, and gives a platform to people willing to tell the truth when silence is easier and safer. We cover the stories the military, media, and influencers would rather bury, because reform does not happen without friction.
S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work
Guns and Mental Heath | Walk the Talk America - S.O.S. #251
The national fight about guns gets loud, tribal, and stuck—and meanwhile, the leading cause of firearm death in America happens quietly every day. We sit down with industry veteran and Walk The Talk America founder Michael Sodini to explore a different path: building trust between gun owners and clinicians, reducing stigma, and putting practical tools in people’s hands before crisis hits. No litmus tests. No lectures. Just programs that meet communities where they are.
Michael shares how a simple idea—free, anonymous mental health screenings placed inside gun boxes—opened doors that politics kept closed. We dig into why privacy matters for help-seeking, how cultural misunderstandings push gun owners away from care, and the clinician training WTTA built to bridge that gap. You’ll hear how a CEU-backed course in firearms cultural competence equips therapists to engage without judgment, and how a growing directory of pro–Second Amendment providers signals safety for clients on the fence about reaching out.
We also get specific about policy. Red flag laws might sound decisive, but they can create fear that keeps people from asking for help. Michael argues for targeted incentives that drive real behavior change: insurance breaks for shops that display prevention materials, legal protections for temporary offsite storage, and partnerships that make safe holds easy when life gets unstable. Plus, we spotlight Kids of Kings, a mentorship program that treats firearms like a martial art, links range time to grades and behavior, and introduces inner-city youth to engineering, competition, and leadership pathways.
If you’re tired of blame and hungry for solutions that save lives without sacrificing rights, this conversation offers a blueprint. Subscribe, share with a friend who cares about mental health or the Second Amendment, and leave a review with one idea you think we should scale next.
Stories of Service presents guests’ stories and opinions in their own words, reflecting their personal experiences and perspectives. While shared respectfully and authentically, the podcast does not independently verify all statements. Views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the host, producers, government agencies, or podcast affiliates.
Visit my website: https://thehello.llc/THERESACARPENTER
Read my writings on my blog: https://www.theresatapestries.com/
Listen to other episodes on my podcast: https://storiesofservice.buzzsprout.com
Watch episodes of my podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheresaCarpenter76
When people have conversations about firearms, a lot of times the conversation only shifts to whether or not we should own guns. And I believe, as my guest will today talk more about, that this conversation is so much bigger than should we take guns away from Americans. It comes down to a lot of the systemic issues that people are struggling with and how we work through those things. And the my guest today has a very unique organization that I had never heard of until I went to the military uh MCONT military conference. And he had a booth there. And I was blown away that there was an organization that existed for people who believe in owning firearms, but also believe in common sense legislation around mental health and the use of firearms. So to talk about these issues today, I have Michael Sodini. Michael, how are you doing today?
SPEAKER_02:I'm good. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the Stories of Service podcast, ordinary people who do extraordinary work. I'm the host of Stories of Service. And to get this episode started, as we always do, an introduction from my father, Charlie Pickard.
SPEAKER_00:From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents, we are inspiring others. By showing up as a vessel of service, we not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS Stories of Service, hosted by Teresa Carpenter, here from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.
SPEAKER_01:And for years, this conversation around firearms and mental health has been loud, polarized, and painfully unproductive. And what we find is people just talk past each other. The gun rights people are in one corner, and then we have the people that want to take away all the guns in another, and very few will listen to each side. So Michael Sodini, he decided to do something radically different. As the founder and CEO of Walk the Talk America, Michael has spent the last several years building bridges where others have only built walls. His work brings the firearms community and mental health professionals into the same room, and not to argue ideology, but to reduce harm and save lives through education, compassion, and cultural understanding. Before Walk the Talk America, Michael spent set 27 years inside the firearms industry as the president of Eagle Imports and a co-founder of Avidity Arms. That experience matters because he understands gun culture from the inside and not as a talking point, but as a lived reality. And it's precisely that credibility that allows him to have conversations that most people cannot. His work has taken him everywhere from gun shops to research conferences, from industry events to the Aspen Ideas Festival, and even to the White House. Along the way, Walk the Talk America has developed free and anonymous mental health screenings, clinician training programs that help providers better understand firearms culture and outreach efforts designed to reduce stigma around asking for help. And today we're going to talk about why the current national conversation keeps failing, what both sides consistently get wrong, and why progress starts with listening instead of lecturing. Michael will talk today about how that trust is built, why culture matters as much as policy, and how real solutions emerge when people stop assuming bad intent. Welcome again, Michael.
SPEAKER_02:I'm glad to be here. Thank you for that intro.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm honored to have you on. And this is such an important conversation and such a unique conversation that very few people, I believe, are willing to have. And that's why when I saw your organization, I was blown away that it even existed. And it's always wonderful to hear about people like yourself who are taking a different approach to a very hard issue. So, first off, as I always ask all my guests, I don't believe you come from a military background. So I'll just ask, where were you born and raised and what got you into the firearms industry?
SPEAKER_02:I was actually born and raised in New Jersey, but I lived all over the world. Um what got me through got me into the firearms industry was nepotism. Uh, I'm a third-generation firearms industry professional. I had um no military service background, and walk the talk America really speaks to uh people who have served or active duty military, and that's what kind of makes it unique. Um, what I'm most happy about, or or that I love the fact that um we do it through the gun, right? We don't we don't treat uh our veterans like they're this wounded duck that you know can't fend for themselves and they're hopeless. And it we basically talk about if you need help, you do it to the gun. And that's that's why I met you at MCON. MCON, um uh you know, the American Legion, Waco, like they basically saw that there's a need for an organization like mine, and they donated a booth, and um you know it speaks to everybody that's a gun owner, like that's that's the beauty of it. You don't have to be uh, you know, this person or a first responder. You could just be like, oh, I like what they do. So that's how I got into it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, as a mental health advocate and as a person who believes strongly in protecting the Second Amendment, your mission really spoke to me. And as I was talking to you that day in the boot at the booth and learning about some of your programs, I I was just amazed that this organization existed because this, like so many issues, it's not an either-or kind of issue. Either we take guns away or we let everyone who wants a gun have a gun, no matter how sick they are, no matter what problems they're suffering from. There has to be common sense uh policies around gun ownership. And so tell me a little bit about when you saw that an organization like Walk the Talk America needed to be formed. Like what were you seeing within the gun industry that were gaps in resources or services that propelled you to do this?
SPEAKER_02:Well, first it's what I didn't see in the gun industry. Um, being that I I didn't grow up around guns, I grew up in a two of the worst places to grow up around guns. I grew up in San Francisco and you know, obviously uh the Jersey Shore. Um, so it just, you know, you weren't exposed to hunting and things like that. So I literally got in, like I said, mentioned earlier through nepotism. It was almost assumed that I was gonna go work for my family when I graduated college. And that's exactly what I did. And one of the things that I noticed about the firearms industry with not having um knowledge of how the how important the Second Amendment is, um, and also gun knowledge, I was kind of like a sponge. So I'd watch the arguments on both sides of the anti-gun side and the pro-gun side, and even the gun neutral side. Um, but what I wasn't seeing was the gun industry leaning into any of the negative outcomes of firearms. So, take for example, every year there's Shot Show, um, which will be happening next week in Vegas. Every year there's the NRA show. Every year that I would attend those shows, I'd had a booth. And it just seemed like one person that used to hang out at the booth would always disappear. And we'd always say, Oh, I wonder where Steve is. Like he's usually always at the NRA show and he always stops by and hangs out at the booth. And then you'd find out that Steve took his own life with the firearm. Um, we noticed that there was a lot of first responders, a lot of active duty military, and a lot of combat vets that gravitate towards the firearms industry, and suicide affects those communities at a disproportionate amount. So we thought it was a little odd, uh, me and a couple of my coworkers, you know, that we it's it's like, hey, this affects this community so much, but it's like we don't talk about it. And why didn't we talk about it? Because negative outcomes of firearms were always used against us, right? That's kind of how I saw the need uh that this had to exist because it affects us.
SPEAKER_01:Right. I love it. So basically, you were the one who was saying, wait a minute, there there is an issue here. It's not the firearm, but it's that a community within the firearms industry is disapportionately impacted by mental health issues due to, I mean, and and there's a lot of reasons for this. I I've thought about it even in the veteran community. Like, why are why do we talk about veteran suicide and veteran mental health or within the first responder community? And I can't speak as not being a first responder, but I can say as a lot of the people who join the military, sometimes you are joining the military because you're trying to get away from something. So you're trying to uh escape a bad situation. And so sometimes you don't necessarily have the greatest start in life to begin with, and then you get into the military and either a combat situation happens or you're you suffer in a toxic work environment, or something happens within your service that exasperates that trauma. So I believe that you were dealing with a very unique population that number one believed in the Second Amendment, wanted the right to bear arms. But then number two, just because of the dangerous nature of their job, and that's obviously goes for first responders as well, they will be impacted by the mental health issues. And so what happened when you tried to, I'm sure before you started your own organization, this is what we always do as advocates, you probably tried to go to the um NRA or you tried to go to some of these trade organizations and say, What are we doing to address this? Can we form a committee? Can we did you try that route first before you started your organization?
SPEAKER_02:Well, okay, so I'm gonna share a personal story. Um, the president of my company, my firearms company, and dear friend of mine took his own life with one of our firearms. Um, this is one of the people that uh used to notice, right? He used to notice he he we used to talk about suicide by firearm and how you know prevalent it was within our community, uh, the Second Amendment community. And um I uh, you know, I never would have expected it from him. Um, so you know, there's a part of you that that starts to think about like, yeah, our we sell firearms and sometimes they can be used in a negative way. Um, and what I wasn't seeing was so think about the alcohol industry, right? The alcohol industry got ahead of DUIs by leaning into it and coming up with solutions. I wasn't seeing solutions for any of these problems. I just kept hearing it's a mental health issue. You got to fix it, right? And and the origin story of Walk to Talk America in 2018 came from a uh a random dinner with a stranger where she was actually asking questions, like you know, she had two firearm guys at the table, so she's asking questions, saying, like, hey, I have no skin in the game, but what happens during a mass shooting? I was like, Everybody blames us, we blame mental health, and then nothing ever happens, right? And then she, yeah, she asked one question, changed my life. She's like, Well, you know, since you can't work with the mental health community on restriction, because you know, we had gone down that conversation path. She's like, How do you work with them on the things you can agree upon? And that was that yeah, that was like had such an impact on me because I was like, wait a second, there has to be mental health organizations that have answers to these problems. And I I just got to find it. So I would say I almost went outside of the firearms industry first to see if there was firearm industry friendly mental health organizations.
SPEAKER_01:Sure, sure. Right.
SPEAKER_02:You know, um, you know, you when you think of the NRA at that at that time, the NRA was going through a lot of problems. Um, it wasn't a good look to be to be affiliated with the NRA, so it was better for me to kind of go outside of it. And I think that's worked to my advantage, is that I'm from the firearms industry, but in the mental health community and behavioral health community, they don't see me as the NRA, right?
SPEAKER_01:If that makes sense, it does, it does.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I would say I went outside of the industry first to see if there was anybody, but I also didn't understand mental health. Um, for me to assume that they have the answers to the problems, they just needed funding. Um, in the beginning, I thought I could just big pharma my way out of it. I was just like, hey, if I you know, at that dinner, my national sales manager turned to me and he's like, You should donate a dollar a gun to mental health, right? And what does that mean? Like, okay, anyone can give money to mental health. Really, what made Walk the Talk America take off and go to the next level is I was forced when I found out that they did not have the answers for me that I was looking for to come up with our own creative programs inside the gun industry? So it's like anyone can add money to mental health. We're from the gun industry. How are we going to be different? And that's really what jumped it off. Like that was a jump off point.
SPEAKER_01:How was the gun industry responsive to find founding this organization? Did they see it as a threat or did they see it as, oh shoot, this is something we've needed for a while?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it was a lot tougher in 2018. I you know what I mean? Um, because guns and mental health were were mutually exclusive back then, they did not go together. Um, so kind of to tell you a quick story, the the the very first program that I came up with were the free and anonymous mental health screenings, right? I I found an organization that that had free and anonymous mental health screenings that went on paper to say that they are not going to be involved in the Second Amendment fight. It was the only it was Mental Health America, it was the only organization that I found that would take that stance to stay neutral. So when I started working with them and I found out they had the free and anonymous mental health screenings that I could have access to, um, I I thought, okay, like what if I were to put it in the box of all of my guns, all the gun companies that I represented. And I represented four major gun companies outside of the United States. I imported into the US, so I had uh you know rights to those names. I could do whatever I wanted in those boxes, and thank God I had foreign manufacturers in the beginning because I feel like as Americans, our freedom is so important to us. I feel like in other countries they they kind of like let freedom go.
SPEAKER_01:They have a more collective mindset, yes. Right. We have a more individual mindset, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And for them, like I knew it was easier just to be like, I want to put these in the boxes of your guns, and they're like, What is it? They already trust me, you know what I mean? I'm handling their sales, their marketing, all their stuff. Sure, sure. Free and anonymous mental health screenings for our customers because we want our customers to be healthy, right?
SPEAKER_01:And every one of them is like what was this the screening, like just so that I can picture it in my head. So this was uh let's say you you get this, you you're you're suffering and you have some mental health issues, and you open this gun box and there's this thing here, this card. Was it something that you could just go online and you could fill that out? And then if you scored in some like like if you took 10, I I know this from my own mental health questionnaires that I've done. So you would just click these boxes, and if you scored a certain score that was in a crisis, uh let's say what would happen? Would it just give you access to resources and like free like a 1-800 crisis line, or or how did that work?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it tells you basically where you fall. And uh so funny because the very first time that I took one, because I here's the thing: I am from a community where if you screw up once, it's over, right? If you get one person's gun rights taken away, or you feel like you've violated them, it's a wrap. There's no walk the talk America. So when I first got the uh the screening, I filled it out as if I were normal. I filled it out the way I was feeling that day. I filled it out again with the worst possible answers. And if you go on there, they have one for depression, anxiety, uh substance abuse, uh, schizophrenia, right? Like they have bipolar disorder, they have all these different screenings, but I had to go through it first to make sure that I didn't get a phone call or an email or something. Right, right.
SPEAKER_01:Someone's gonna come after me, or someone's gonna like look at my VPN or my what IP address, and then exactly take my gun because of the fact that I I I filled out this screening, sure.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So, so as I'm doing that, I and I I understand that they're not even they don't even ask about your firearms. I I thought that was really unique. Like, there's no question of like, do you have firearms in the house, right? Like, that's the biggest fear that people have, like, they don't understand it.
SPEAKER_01:Like, the I will tell you some not this is sort of a side thing, but you said the whole thing about do you have firearms? That is one of the things that really made me upset about the way the military approached suicide prevention. They did this whole thing about maybe one or two years ago about screening sailors for firearms. And I just it just upset me so much because it it doesn't get to the root cause analysis. The root cause analysis is what is going on with that sailor's family, what is going on in that sailor's workhorse, or what has happened in that sailor's childhood. And and none of none of that was was being addressed. It was, oh, well, let's just take away the firearms and then we'll solve the problem. And I just oh, but anyway, yeah. So you go through this uh questionnaire and you fill it out like you're having your worst day, and then what does it do?
SPEAKER_02:It just basically says it says, Look, you're in critical stage, you have high levels of this. We suggest you get help, and that's it. And now it's on you to kind of navigate that pathway, they'll give you some resources, right? Um, so I thought, okay, this is good. It is if I can just get gun owners to understand that guns and mental health can go together, and there is a way because there's a fear, like most people don't know where to start, especially in 2018 in the gun community. We didn't know where to start. So when I came up with the idea of putting it in the gun boxes, that was really another test. I was testing to see where this was gonna go. I didn't know at the time, I had to have a meeting with my my team to say we're gonna do this, we're gonna be the first gun companies to ever do this. I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know if the NRA is gonna come after us. I don't know if NSSF, which is National Shooting Sports Foundation, is gonna come after us. I don't know if our customers are gonna get angry. Like, I didn't know, you know what I mean? Like I do, I do.
SPEAKER_01:They could they could have seen this as very offensive.
SPEAKER_02:And right, why are you blaming the gun? Right, right. Why are you blaming? Um what was awesome was in the first six months, we were getting people from our our community. Hey, I just bought a bursa, bursa was one of our lines from Argentina. I just bought a bursa, it has this card in here. I just want to thank you guys for doing that. And they would literally start telling stories to we were not prepared for that because we're not mental health clinicians, we're just a gun company. So we're getting people calling the office, sharing whatever story they went through, but also being appreciative that somebody was finally addressing it. Um And that you know that warmed my heart, but then I knew I was ready to take it to the next step, which was start approaching other gun companies and seeing if I can get them to do it. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. And now you've tested it, and you were probably able to check with that mental health organization too to see how many people filled this out, how many. I mean, you were probably hopefully tracking and seeing some sort of stats of go ahead.
SPEAKER_02:We had track on that note, because you probably have some listeners that are like tracking, that's not good, right? Well, right.
SPEAKER_01:I guess not the word tracking, but more just how many people who responded and right landed on the page, click click-through rate, I guess is the word.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, click-through rate, absolutely, because that's really the only thing that is tracked on our end. Um, and people that's come actually, you know, it's funny you bring that up. It it's it's come to kind of hurt us um when it comes to grant funding and things like that, because everybody wants metrics, they want data, and we pride ourselves and have earned the trust of the gun community by kind of ignoring that and not tracking those data that those data points. People ask me all the time, how many lives uh do you think you've saved? And I'm like, I could tell you a million anecdotal stories of people that told me, Hey, you really helped me. I don't want to share this, but thank you. Um, but it's hard to track how many lives you saved, it's easier to track the other outcome.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I I agree, and I think that you have to look at every statistic with a skeptical eye because of academia. And uh, you also covered that in your podcast you were on three weeks ago. Academia is largely progressive, and I believe that who's ever funding a study and giving you a number, there is usually a ulterior motive to how they are collecting that data, and we have to be skeptical of that at the same time. But to your point, numbers are what are what drives grants, and so I can see where that can be difficult. So you are back to the story, you are you're getting these these cards in, you're you're starting to branch off into some of your US suppliers. And at this point, are you an organization or have you started it as an organization?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I started it as an organization. So I I I was up and running, and the most unique thing is um they told me it was gonna take months, and actually everything fell into place, like the stars aligned perfectly. Um, I I remember getting the the letter uh that said your official 501c3 the same day that mental health America had reached out to me because I had written them, I call it like the Jerry Maguire memo. Um talk about changing the world. And no, it was it was funny because I had I had a board member who was actually like I wrote this this long email about how we got to come together and change things and we can work together on stuff. And um, I remember showing it to one of my board members, and the board member was like, That's great, why don't you wait till we have a website and we actually have the 501c3 letter? And uh I just completely I hung up and I was like, hit send, you know, ignored it, sent it off, and that's really what kind of kicked the organization off because I, you know, they came back to me in mental health America and we're like, We're interested in meeting you. Can you fly to LA? And I was like, sure. I flew to LA, and when I got there, it was really interesting because I got there so early, I was nervous, and there was uh the the vice president Debbie Plotnik of Mental Health America was out front randomly. She's like, Who are you? And I was like, I'm the gun guy, the guy who wrote the email, and she's like, Oh, we didn't think you'd show up. We're happy you're here. And I, you know, just her saying that, I knew, like, all right, we got a lot of work to do because if you didn't think I was gonna show up, um, you know, you already have a perception of people from the gun community. I'm sure other people have tried this before and it failed, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Um, but sure that's that's kind of how I jumped off. But all of it was luck, even the name, like coming up with the name Walk the Talk America, when I thought of that, because I wanted to do something that was apolitical, like I didn't want to be in the I just wanted to work with people that want to help people. Like, I do not care. You can even hate guns, but love what I do, and you're all right with me, you know what I mean? As long as you support what I do, exactly. So I thought, walk the talk America. Like, if you're really about saving lives, you're gonna walk the talk, like you're not gonna get in the way or do something nonsensical, right? You're gonna try to save lives. And I remember thinking that can't be available, and it was available, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, I mean it's the perfect name, and it says exactly what it is you're trying to do for America. You're trying to actually do action to keep people safe while preserving their ability to protect themselves, and there's a lot to be said for that. And I think that you could have just stopped with the placards, you could have just that could have been the whole organization was just doing screenings and but then you grew and you started doing other things, correct?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, let me tell you something about growing. Like the worst part is when you start doing things and they they really resonate with people, and then like every year someone's like, What's new? And you're like, I am not I'm not a rock band, I am not a hip-hop group, like I'm not supposed to put out an album every year. Like, there's so much work to be done, and you're right, like the cards alone in the boxes of gun companies, and keep in mind that could have just been the whole thing, yeah. The whole thing, absolutely. I could have a full-time person going around and getting this. We get it on ammo boxes, we've gotten it in uh in numerous thousands of gun shops, uh, trainers, uh, Ruger, uh uh Bursa, High Point, Arms Corps. Like, I can just start rattling canic. I can just start North American.
SPEAKER_01:This could be this could be the entire nonprofit organization with just the screening.
SPEAKER_02:Just the screening. But um, what was cool is is being accepted and then kind of coming up with this idea, working with the mental health community, and then starting to see holes and then figuring out like what you can fix. So, um, in the beginning, when I first started, I could get on every gun podcast or gun show, like the gun community welcomed me. They they were curious, you know. Right. I couldn't get on a mental health podcast or a mental health show to save my life. And the very first person who actually brought me on their show, um, who is a med, he, you know, he had a show called Noggin Notes. His name's Jake Wiscursion. He's what one of the biggest board members I have, most actively involved board members I have. I remember I went on the show and he's like, I gotta tell you something. I'm uh I'm a clinician and I'm a concealed carry holder, but but we can't bring that up on air because he's like, My people they will they will ostracize me. Like, that's what he said. I remember thinking, like, oh wow, that sucks, but okay, like I'm just happy to be on the show.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, after I did the show and he started to hear like the mindset and what I was doing, he he reached out after and he was like, I I wanna I want to help. And I think the best way to help is joining forces with you. And he'll even joke around and said, like, I had to come out of the gun up gun-unning closet. Um, and that really took the organization to a completely different level because we had the first pro to a openly pro to a person with a platform who's a therapist.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, that's powerful.
SPEAKER_02:Calling out his own people, right? Saying you have blind spots when it comes to guns, you might be judgmental, you know, don't let your bias uh scare people away from getting help. So when he joined, it became this organization that had every component to it because we had the gun manufacturers, we had the distributors, we had the dealers, we had the support of the uh instructors, and then we had the community. Um, what we didn't have is somebody on that other side that would represent us and say, listen to these guys. So he joined, and then we created the first in the United States um cultural competence course for mental health clinicians and people that worked in behavioral health and healthcare in general, uh, where we would give them CEU credits uh for attending, and uh it took off and it was like program number two. Like it there was such a curiosity about it. Um, there's a lot of clinicians that that wanted to learn, which was uh encouraging, right? Um it was funny.
SPEAKER_01:People who own firearms or people that are peop advocates for owning firearms, or I think people who want to know, and you said it in that show that I was listening to earlier today. There are people that want to know that they don't have to rely on someone else to take care of them and to keep their family safe, to keep their to to protect their property. And I think that there is something to be said for that. There's a protection mindset that happens in within that community, and that community needs support, it needs community, it needs people around to support, and that's where mental health comes in. Because you do need those clinicians, you do need those experts to who understand how to identify particular mental health diagnostics. They understand the difference between somebody who's anxious or somebody who is has schizophrenia or bipolar or something more extreme. And so I think that it's so important for them to be a part of the conversation around gun ownership because it's ultimately just going to make gun owners safer because they have access to those resources and it's destigmatized to seek help for issues. I mean, I was just talking to a guy the other day, retired Navy SEAL. He's part of the organization that I'm volunteering with for this race coming up, and he was just casually talking about a conversation with his therapist. And I thought, wow, that is so refreshing to hear someone just say it in a cast. I mean, I see I see a therapist myself who I I've formed a wonderful rapport with uh here in Ocean Springs. And I saw her as I was retiring, and now I'm still seeing her um every few weeks. And I think there's nothing wrong with that. And let's even go beyond that. I think there's something that should be normalized about that. And I think that that's what what it sounds like, what what your organization is helping to facilitate.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's really demystifying for the gun side. I think the best part about it is a couple things, demystifying the counseling process for for gun owners and also helping guiding them through the process, who can do what in what state, right? Also having a directory of pro to a mental health clinicians. And if your listeners are like, well, what does that mean to you? Like, what does that mean? So, for example, if I feel like I'm suffering from anxiety and I'm like, I'm gonna go out to the range and pop off a thousand rounds because it calms me down. Right. There are a lot of yeah, a lot of people don't understand like lead therapy is a real thing, right? Like this person suffering from anxiety or this person might be depressed, but taking away their firearm might make it worse, right? Like, let you know, you have to you have to feel out the situation and understand the gun owner mindset. Um, but the second thing that I'm proud of is that I feel like for the gun side, for the 2A side, for that community, we finally gave gun owners an opportunity to feel good about promoting mental health without compromising on their philosophy about firearm ownership, right? So historically, if you think about hey, I want to support suicide prevention or mental health, you had to support somebody who didn't necessarily align with your belief system when it came to the Second Amendment. They might believe in things like red flag laws or ERPOs or um believe in transfer laws where you don't, but you also don't want to see people die and you don't want to see people suffer. Um, but historically you kind of had to kind of just donate your money or your energy into organizations that don't feel the same way you do. And we finally gave people that to where you could walk up to a crowd of people that may be in pain because there was some sort of school shooting and have discussions with them about what the firearms industry is doing to combat these negative outcomes of firearms. Um, yeah, you know, it's it's it's something unique. Whereas before the industry always had to say it's a mental health problem, right? Right, like you guys gotta fix it. Now it's like, look what the gun industry is doing to get ahead of this, and they're doing it better than you, right?
SPEAKER_01:And and and I mean, we want to be part of the solution. I think that's the ultimate outcome that everybody wants, is that we want everyone at the table to work together, and it doesn't have to be an either-or issue, as I was saying earlier, it doesn't have to be take the guns away or give everybody who wants one a firearm. So tell me a little bit about the trends in the industry. I'm just curious, since like if you go back 10, 15 years, has gun ownership become more respect generally speaking, more restrictive, less restrictive? How has been the the legislative fight over the years? I mean, it it seems like every you know couple years we're gonna have a school shooting, and after the school shooting, everybody's gonna talk about taking all the guns away, and then and then what is what happens? I mean, you've probably seen this cycle over and over and over again. So I'm just curious from your perspective, is it one of those things where there's just this knee-jerk reaction and then things just sort of go back to a certain homeostasis, or has gun restriction, gun ownership become more restrictive, more restrictive, more restrictive? So I'm just curious your thoughts.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, I think it's uh it varies by state, right? So you look at states like Washington State and Colorado, and you've seen some massive restriction happen there, and then you look at states like Arizona, where they it's become less restrictive, but you've also seen suicide come down, right? Like what so and the reason why I mentioned suicide is that's our gun issue in the United States. Um, I know a lot of people uh are concerned about their children, as you should be, right? But mass shootings are uh we have a Venn diagram that I use when I speak in public places, and you have to be careful, right? Because you don't want to downplay mass shootings of any kind, you don't want to downplay inner city violence, you don't want to downplay any of that. And I I never will, but just to put it into perspective, and we'll get back to I'll swing back to the legislation thing in a second. Um down the street is Mandalay Bay, right? Um, everybody knows what happened there October one, right? Mandalay Bay. Uh, you know, we lost 59 people.
SPEAKER_01:I I don't say say what happened.
SPEAKER_02:So October one, uh the Route One concert in Mandalay Bay, a shooter got up and shot into oh that's right, yes, music festival. I remember this is one of the worst mass shooting that we've ever had, um, which accounted for 59 people that day, you know, died. Wow, 59 is a lot, right? We lose 73 to 76 people a day suicide by firearm. So suicide, we have a think about that. We have over a mandala-based shooting every day that the media doesn't publicize, it doesn't sell ad space.
SPEAKER_01:No, in fact, suicides don't even get media coverage. I re I know this because even in the military, when someone kills themselves, it's it's intentionally not put in the news.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so so so kind of a like going back to the legislation thing, I'm not into feel-good legislation that won't move the needle on what the main problem is with firearms, right? Um, I feel like politicians come up with wacky um legislation like ERPO laws or you know, the red flag laws. And the red flag laws for my audience, those are laws that say, in your words, it basically uh they're laws that say this person is not uh this person is a threat to themselves or others, and we need to take their guns from them. We need to take away their guns, not their knives, not their medication, not their car. We just want to take the guns.
SPEAKER_01:And it does not provide any mental health resources or any treatment. It's just does just take away the guns. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:It does, it does not. Uh, there's not a red flag law right now that provides help for you. It just basically says, we need to take that firearm from your house, and then you're gonna have a hearing in a couple weeks. Most of them, I don't want to talk about red flag laws like they're all the same. Sure, they can be different from state to state. There are some red flag red flag laws that I think are better. If you're gonna have a bad law, I want it to be as best as it can be. Um, but generally speaking, it it it's you'll have a hearing, and if the court decides that you shouldn't have your guns, you lose them for a year, and you can go back there and spend a bunch of money and hire a bunch of lawyers and try to fight those things.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:But the for the listening audience, I don't want I don't want you to think what I'm saying is everybody should have their guns at all times, right? But when it comes to red flag laws, I want people to understand the other side of the red flag law. We don't want to make laws that scare people out of getting help. And red flag laws can do that. They can literally make someone a they can make it a barrier to entry where someone says, I'm not feeling so good, I'm not feeling so hot, but I don't want to go talk to somebody if you live in states like New York or Colorado, where clinicians can enact those things. Um, you know, people aren't gonna get the help they want. And I think about all the people that contact Walk Talk America and say, like, I want to get help, uh, but I I I need to navigate through this because we do have a red flag law here.
SPEAKER_01:What about all the people that don't call Walk Talk America and that just say, All right, I'm at stage two, but I'm gonna white knuckle it, and then they go to stage three, then they go to stage four because they're too afraid that someone's gonna take away their gun, so they don't get help.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we have to understand that sometimes these laws they're meant for that worst case scenario, but uh they can scare or prevent people from getting help. All the researchers, all they do is talk about all the lives these laws have saved. I've talked to three people in in the past that have been red flagged, all three of them said they shouldn't have been red flagged. Right, like they're like, No, that that was somebody who said that about me, you know. So you think about people who have bias against gun owners, sure.
SPEAKER_01:And and if somebody has an extra grind or they want to weaponize something. Something that doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Yeah. So you know, it's it's so feel good legislation is not what I'm after. I'm actually like what I support is legislation that would promote um responsible gun ownership. So for like one example of that is what if we were to to give gun shops a break on their their business insurance, right? Like the insurance for their shop, if they promote suicide prevention material and resources. And like I, you know, it's like getting a break on your insurance when you put a uh fence around a pool. Like, why not incentivize people in the gun community to actually start addressing these things and talking about these things? I would I would love legislation that would that would support that. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Or or or have a partnership with a community organization for for gun owners that's support group focused or peer peer-to-peer support group. I mean, that we have that in at the VA. There's PTSD support groups. Why can't there be support groups for gun owners? I mean, everybody, in my view, needs people, especially in this social media driven world. We need more in-person and more community organizations at the grassroots level. And what if gun shops were part of the solution to bring together people for camaraderie or for cookouts for, you know, some sort of a weekly lecture, a talk, a series, you know, where you brought in a lecture, you know, someone to come in and do a guest speaking. I mean, maybe some gun shops do something like that, but those kinds of programs, if there were a way to incentivize those programs, I do think that there would be interest in that.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Yeah. Even funding gun shops to be able to store people's gun in a time of crisis without sure of consequence, right? Like safe storage. And they we're starting to see that, right? Like, so for example, there's a there's an organization that Walk to Talk America works closely with called the Armory Project out of Louisiana, and they have an amazing program, a network of gun shops that will hold your guns in a time of crisis, no questions asked. Um, when she Gala True, the person who started the organization, when she was going around in the beginning a few years ago, trying to get gun shops to uh to participate, a lot of gun shops were saying no. And their biggest issue for saying no is they didn't want to take on the liability of taking someone's guns in and then possibly giving them back too soon. Well, Gala was so forward-thinking that she went out and got legislation passed in the state of Louisiana that said gun shops cannot be held liable for helping you. And uh that's the that's the type of forward thinking and legislation that the gun community needs. We don't need you can lose your gun rights or we need to ban um ARs because they're dangerous, which is the equivalent of saying, like, I can solve drunk driving by banning red sports cars. You know what I mean? Like it's nonsensical legislation that won't save one more life. And I understand that people don't want to think about these things, they don't want to really research them, they don't want to dive too deep. So they look for talking points, and a lot of time they get their talking points from people that are anti-gun. So they're gonna just tell you something to get you to believe a certain way, and you're gonna think, oh, I solve gun violence because I voted for this law, you know, for banning this firearm, which doesn't, I mean, hands, you know, for the audience that members that know guns, hands and feet kill more people than ARs, which is wild to me. Like literally, hands and feet. If you look at the FBI statistics on death, they kill more than rifles, right?
SPEAKER_01:You mean that people kill each other more with their fists and more with just fighting than they do with guns, is what you're saying.
SPEAKER_02:Right, not gun, not guns, handguns completely different. Okay, AR-15s. But when you look at the media, what do they want to ban? They want to ban the AR-15. That's why I said earlier, if you if I told you I could solve drunk driving and you were like, Oh, I gotta listen to Mike. He seems like he knows what he's talking about. This is gonna be amazing, what he says. And I say, by banning red sports cars, you're gonna get the law.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. Because you say there aren't that many people who are driving, uh, not all the people who are drunk are driving obviously red sports cars. And I do have to give it to the the the uh there is one organization, I think it's called Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And uh, full disclosure, in 2014, I myself got a DUI, and I remember I uh one of my required courses that I had to go through for my DUI. Get your, you know, I you have a suspended license, but if you go through all these classes, close courses, is I had to go through a mothers against drunk driving course. Now I got that waived because I had a class within the military that I went through. But I thought to myself at the time, I'm like, wow, MAD must have done some gotten some kind of a agreement with the Department of Motor Vehicles to have their course be the course. So so that just shows you like there, there are these, and I mean, I'm I don't know what kind of controversy MA has one way or the other. I think I've heard a little bit about that, but well, my point, my overall point by just sharing that story is to say there are ways for organizations to partner and to be part of the solution when these things happen. And I'm curious, um, how has been the reception on the mental health side been since you've been doing this? Some so for 2018 to 2025, have you had more mental health organizations come to the table?
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, yes. Is it like it's I almost it was easier for in the beginning to actually speak to behavioral health and mental health uh over I would say my people, uh, my people at the beginning were very tough. Like once they once I said guns and mental health, they were like, stop blaming the gun, right? They just jump jump to that conclusion, not realizing no, no, I'm one of you, trust me. Um, with when it came to the behavioral health side, even the anti-gun side, like I have lots of stories of of the anti-gun side like coming up to me after they see me at a speaking event, and they're just like, Yeah, you know, we hate guns, but like I love what you guys are doing because it's something so different. Yeah, it is. It's it's it's not it's nice to be respected and loved. Like, I I will say that like we get caught up in a lot of fighting, all this stuff, you know, and a lot of people think like, oh, Mike's out there and he's really giving it to these groups. And I'm like, No, I'm not doing that. I'm I'm showing what we can do, and you may you talked about solutions earlier. When I used to run my gun company, what drove me nuts was when people would come and point out a problem without giving a solution. It could be a stupid solution, but I needed something, like, say something. Like, what is your solution? And I feel like kind of the rest of the world was looking at the gun industry saying, Okay, if we can't restrict your rights, then what's your solution to this? And I felt like as gun people, we were always kind of like, it's a mental health issue, right? Like now it's like, okay, the expectation level of me from behavioral health and healthcare and and research is going to be so low. They're gonna expect that I'm gonna go up there and say it's a mental health issue and then say second amendment pride from a cold dead hands, right? I guarantee you that's what all of them think I'm gonna do. When I go up there and I start talking about all of our different programs, I start talking about our inner city um uh youth shooting sports program, like Kids of Kings.
SPEAKER_01:Um, our yeah, that was a really interesting program to learn about at your booth. Can you just very briefly explain that program?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so uh historically, when you look at inner city youth, the gun industry, and I would say all of behavioral health has always we've kind of ignored it, and behavioral health has always said, no, don't you can't, guns are bad, stay away from them, right? Um, we all know that inner cities get plagued with violence, but most of the time the violence is also from these kids not having any direction or understanding firearms. So we lean into it, we use the firearm like a martial arts. So we have a pilot program in Atlanta uh where you know these kids get mentorship from people in the firearms community. Um, and what's great about that is um a lot of these kids have never been introduced to firearms in a healthy manner. It's always been through a video game, um, could be a video, could be a movie, could be a cousin who needs his firearm because he's on the block, like whatever the reason.
SPEAKER_01:It could be somebody on the streets, yep.
SPEAKER_02:Just kind of the streets, right? Like we we we don't care. What we want you to under what we want you to have is knowledge. We want to make it so that you can identify a firearm and you know if it's loaded, if there's one in the chamber, you know how to responsibly use one, you could teach your friends how to responsibly use one because all these kids have access to it, even though they shouldn't. Um, and and we don't just hand them guns. Like, that's I don't want the listeners to think like, no, there's a there's a uh a financial literacy component that we add to it, there's life skills that we add to it. We tie the ability to shoot to their grades and their behavior. So if you're not shooting, you know, you're not acting right or you're not performing well, you're not shooting, you're cleaning up, right? And and we have had not had one issue with a kid that's come through our program. And it's a little counterintuitive for people, it's really interesting. Um, there are many people that work, especially in behavioral health, that they they they show their racist colors, like they don't realize they have a racist blind spot. So I've literally seen this happen when I'm speaking at an event and I show them a video about kids the kings, and they'll raise their hand, there's always one that says, Is this a good idea to be putting guns in these kids' hands? And I'm like, What do you mean, these kids? Yeah, yeah, like it happens all the time. And then I'm like, wait a minute, you don't have a problem with a little white hunter in an orange vest. Why do you have a problem with these kids on the screen? And I see them, they're like, Oh my god, I just swam to the racist part of the pool, I have to get out of this.
SPEAKER_01:Like these kids deserve knowledge about responsible gun ownership, they do, they deserve to know what their rights are about firearms in a responsible and lawful way.
SPEAKER_02:As we think about it, I took the my kids because the NRA show was in Atlanta last year, and I took my kids to the show. I had all my kids there, I was walking them around to booths. I mean, we're talking walking them around to the Glock booth, the Ruger booth. I was introducing them to engineers, I was introducing them to owners of these companies, presidents of these major gun companies, competition shooters, right? Everybody that works in a fire looking at these kids in the face, saying, Are you into guns? If you really like this, you could be the next competition shooter, you could be the next firearms engineer at Bruger, you could be the next gun shop owner in your community, you could be the next instructor in your community. Guns aren't bad.
SPEAKER_01:And no, and they're also an investment. That's something too people don't really talk about. Um, I can tell you this because we have a lot of firearms, and they tend to go up in value during certain times of the year and down in value at other times of or other years. And so they're they're they are they are useful for a a lot of reasons. And I believe that we were given a constitution for a reason. We were founded upon certain principles, those principles have stayed the course from 1776 to today, and we ought to understand those rights under the constitution. It's not about taking away those rights, just like the First Amendment, it's not about taking away the freedom of speech, it's about people having proper and respectful conversations with their speech. And I feel the same way about the Second Amendment as I do the first when it comes to this issue. It is about using these laws in a way that they were intended by our founding fathers. And I think that what you're doing is outstanding, Michael. And I wish that every single person who is listening is taking a look at this issue and really seriously considering what the outcomes could be if we all work together on a solution to this problem. Because I do believe that mental health is a community issue too. It is an issue from a sense of when someone feels hopeless, because I I've I always say I was never suicidal, but I I also can say there were moments where I didn't want to wake up the next day. So I suppose that made me suicidal, but or actually not moments, but weeks on end, sometimes months. And it's a it's a horrible feeling to feel alone and to think that you have nobody and to think that you have no community. And so for you to establish an organization that helps in that, that that's truly remarkable. What are some of the other uh initiatives or some of the other hopes that you have for the program?
SPEAKER_02:Well, so uh one of the initiatives that we have is a firearms instructor um curriculum that you can basically plug and play into your own curriculum for CCW classes. That's very popular. Um, there are states that are starting to make uh mental health and suicide prevention uh a requirement, you know, in training. And um instead of like seeing that as a bad thing because you're forcing us to do it, like we understand, we're just gonna make our own curriculum, right? Because a lot of instructors were going to states and saying, hey, I'm a firearms instructor. What do you want me to talk about? And the states were like birds who want to fly south, but don't know why. They're just like, we don't know, just incorporate suicide prevention, better mental health. So we decided to make that program. Um, I think it's really cool. We have another program called Roots, which stands for Responsible Ownership Outreach Technology and Safety, where we shine a light on safety products from the firearms industry into the academic world because a lot of uh people don't know that there's more than just safes and uh, you know, trigger guard locks, right? Cable locks. Um, you know, there's a lot of great technology out there that allows you to have access to your firearm, but uh, you know, speed and uh efficiency come together with these products. So we're shining lights on those companies. Uh, there's a lot of people out there that have grants, researchers that have grants that want to study these things. They don't know they exist, right? Because they're not in gun world. So we we like to say that we have something for every negative outcome of a firearm when we do.
SPEAKER_01:That's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02:I think one of the biggest things that I I can honestly tell you is um our consulting work. Like I didn't realize that I was going to be called upon by suicide prevention organizations or mental health organizations that just want to understand this better and learn. And, you know, that's what it was really about is bridging the gap. And uh we built those bridges.
SPEAKER_01:I love it, Michael. And and your work is a is a model for so many things. Like when I think about, you know, I'm I'm working a lot of issues now with them as an advocate for military justice, and it it's frustrating in in terms of uh in terms of sex crimes. We have the people who are on the military sexual trauma side, and then we have the men who who say they've been falsely accused. And I believe that those two groups are both victims, and there has to be a way to, but it's very similar to this situation that you're talking about, but just in another context, where both people are feeling like there needs to be reform or there needs to be something, but the two groups can't come together. And I believe that one day, just like in your situation, how you're having the mental health groups coming together with the gun rights advocates, one day we're going to be able to bridge the gap between the men who have been falsely accused with the people who are legitimate victims of a sexual crime because they are both victims. And I think that in this case, there needs to be that same kind of collaboration. And you're and you're you're absolutely doing that. And I think that's wonderful. You found a gap within your industry and you filled it. And that's something that we all should be trying to do in our own respective areas. So as we close out this call, tell us a little bit about more where people can find you and if they have more information, if they want more information.
SPEAKER_02:Sure, you can find us on uh most all social media platforms at at walkthetalkus. I would say LinkedIn and um Facebook and Instagram, Twitter are our strongest. You could also go to WTTA.org, that's our website, or walkthetalkamerica.org and check out all the resources that we have. I just want to tell everyone everything we do is free. Okay, there's no services, there's no subscriptions, there's nothing like that. Um, how we are funded is by the firearms industry. So if it wasn't for companies like Ruger and um, you know, distributors like Lipsy's and things like that, uh, we wouldn't exist. So I don't want people thinking that we take money from people that might have agendas. We have total support from the firearms industry, and why that's important is that people think the firearms industry doesn't care. Well, if they didn't care, they wouldn't be funding me. Trust me, it's hard to ask for money and and get no return on investment, except is is this your full-time like you're are you able to do this now full time? Wow, yeah, it's actually yeah, they so I I went first two years was self-funded. I got to a point where I burned through all my life savings. I had a discussion with my wife. I was like, do I want to continue? I was driving Uber, like driving to make this work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like that's it's a that's mad passion.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the hardest part, like I know we're up against it, but you know, in 2019, I made it to the White House. I'm running out of money. You know, I'm actually helping prevent the suicide prevent uh prevention program for the military. I'm working with the VA at the time. The hit the head of suicide prevention was this guy, Matt Miller. I go home to Vegas and I'm working Uber. Every person that I drive around would ask, hey man, do you enjoy driving Uber? And I always wanted to answer, no, I'm actually gonna drop you off and kill my high school guidance counselor when we're done. Like, like that's how I wanted to answer. Yeah, the crazy part is I would tell them about this organization and what I was trying to do, and everybody loved it, everybody loved it, and I couldn't tell them that I was just at the White House because they would be like, I had an Uber driver who's batshit crazy.
SPEAKER_01:Although, although I have had Uber drivers tell me, like I had a guy who told me he was like a bodyguard for Michael Jackson, so that was in Vegas, actually. And and yeah, he told me he used to be one of Michael Jackson's bodyguards, and he's and it might be true, but we probably were like one nine driver. But but no, he was awesome though, and he gave me a bunch of great food suggestions and we had a wonderful conversation. But you meet some of the most interesting people who drive for Uber and 100, and you meet interesting passengers.
SPEAKER_02:And it's not a knock on Uber. I'm just telling you, if you want to make something work, you better be ready to sacrifice a minimum of three years if you truly believe in what you're doing. If not, go get a paper wrap. Like, seriously. You know what I mean? Like I mean that with love. Like, you know, people ask me all the time. I'm like, there are times when I'm like, what am I doing?
SPEAKER_01:I know. I feel the same way about podcasting. Believe me. There are times I'm like, oh my God, I've done this for five years and I'm still this tiny little podcaster, but that's okay. I I love doing it and I get to tell stories like yours. And it's so rewarding. I keep telling my husband I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna slow down. And then those are always on the days that I get a call, like I did today, and I get this amazing story that pops in my lap, and I'm like, oh, I have to tell that story. I have to. So I know exactly how you feel. I think it's wonderful that you were able to get that opportunity to do this full time. You're obviously the man for the job, and uh you are living your passion, even though I know it can be probably sometimes just you know, you're you're pushing, you're pushing up against a system uh that has never had something. So when you're the first of something, it it can be very difficult. So I really admire what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, and thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, absolutely. I'll meet you backstage to say goodbye as I go full screen. All right, guys, that's a wrap. Two shows this week. Got two more shows next week. Next week is going to be an amazing, amazing lineup. I've got Asad, um Genk Khan. He is the author of Betrayal of Command. So he was one of the first on the ground marine infantry in Afghanistan. His book was incredible, blew me away, learned a lot about what really went on uh during those early, early uh months uh when we were on the ground in Afghanistan. And then on Thursday, I'm having Jennifer Barnhill, and she has a book that I'm reading through right now about the stories you are never told about military service from the perspective of the families and the spouses. Very, very eye opening. She is a journalist, so I can't wait to share some of her research with you. So, as I always do to end these calls, please take care of yourselves, please take care of each other, and enjoy the rest of your evening. Bye bye now.