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Hi, welcome to the Armed Guardian Podcast, season one, episode six.
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I'm your host, Brian, and today we'll be speaking with Sarah Albrecht from Hold My Guns.
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We'll find out what Hold My Guns is doing for the 2A community.
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So sit back, enjoy, and listen to today's episode.
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Hi, welcome to the Armed Guardian Podcast.
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Today we have Sarah Albrecht with us from Hold My Guns.
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She's going to discuss a few things about her organization, what they do, and how people can support and get involved with them.
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How are you doing today, Sarah?
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Thanks, Brian.
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I'm doing really well.
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It's fun to be on your podcast today.
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I appreciate it.
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Yeah, uh, I was I was really glad to be able to hook up with you uh as we spoke in the pre-show.
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Uh had Michael Sedini, uh, who's from Walk the Talk America, and uh mental health firearms uh always been something that's been passionate uh to me.
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Uh having been in law enforcement and in the military, uh I know that PTSD and and people go through things and it can affect everybody differently.
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So I will wanted to bring to light uh the subject of mental health firearms and safe storage and kind of incorporate it in this uh podcast.
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I do it in my training, and uh I thought that uh you'd be a perfect guest, and I'm thankful for Trampus Swanson for connecting us.
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Yes, Trampus is wonderful, and um, and and for anyone out there, check out his Arm Lifestyle magazine.
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It's really wonderful, and uh I I always look forward to each issue for that.
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And and uh anyone in the firearms community, check it out.
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It's cool.
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Trampus is great.
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Yeah, yeah, he is.
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We're we're gonna have him on as uh a guest uh for probably a couple topics, and one of the first ones I was I'm gonna talk to him about is that ARM Lifestyle magazine because I really, really like that, even though it is I I sometimes have an issue with uh the online readers and stuff, you know, trying to zoom it out and zoom it in and stuff.
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But uh I I really like his magazine, the content that he has, and then I'm talking gonna have Candace on for Girl and a Gun.
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And um awesome.
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Wow, see, you've got we we again like we were talking about the pre-show, we're just blessed with wonderful people in our community who actually care, and that's why I I love what we're doing with Hold My Guns, and I'm excited to share about that today.
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But really, it is about our community and ways that we can help people to connect.
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So um yeah, I uh I'm excited for you.
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I'm looking forward to those episodes, so I'll be be watching out for them.
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All right, if it sounds great, I appreciate the support on on this end also.
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Absolutely.
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So tell us a little bit about Sarah Albrecht.
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Who is Sarah?
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Well, I um thank you.
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I my name is Sarah.
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Joy Albrecht Joy is my middle name.
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My mother calls me by my whole name, but uh a lot of my friends do too.
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And I I think that's kind of endearing because at the at the right in my heart, I am joyful.
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I um I love the Lord.
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I've been married to my husband Tom for 24 years.
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We were both homeschooled and we homeschooled our five kids together, and I can't really call them kids anymore because they're 22 down to 17, and there are no twins in there.
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Um, but we have really enjoyed life and just we've had a lot of ups and downs in life, but at the same time, uh we we just appreciate God's faithfulness and the people that He's brought into our lives that have come alongside and encouraged us.
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And we have always been a family that kind of helps to support people in need, and um, we're the house that gets all of the the neighborhood kids that need a place to come by and have a snack and a hug and that kind of a thing.
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So um we've really just grown up um kind of together, which happens when you get married young and have kids young in a way that has just been um kind of our, I guess, our heart to to care about people.
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So I think that um naturally it kind of lends itself to hold my guns and and I'll share about that a little bit more.
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Um, but before I do that, another aspect of my life that I really value is that my dad is a Marine Corps veteran and he served in Vietnam.
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And so I have a heart for veterans.
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I have many family members who served um in wartime and in peacetime.
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And so we have a rich family heritage of um just having a love for our country and and a heart for service.
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And so I have a just a deep respect for our veterans and and you know, on the topic of suicide prevention, I always say the that treating veterans with respect is suicide prevention.
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And so I'm always mindful of the messaging that we send out that um, you know, whether it's talking about veterans, um, I always want to make sure that we're respectful.
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And when we're talking about um people who might be in crisis, I always think about just that they are people and we love them and um and that any of us can go through a really hard time in life.
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And so, you know, whether it's it's losing a loved one or going through a terrible accident or something like that, that is just that can really um throw quite a curveball.
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Um, the reality is that any of us could be in that situation.
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And so we just approach this with humility and genuine compassion.
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We have compassion on as a word on our our logo.
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It's kind of like a guide word.
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And a little bit more about me.
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Um, it's kind of funny.
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I actually have my my doula mug.
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You can't, there we go, in the filter.
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Um, doula is my superpower.
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That was a gift from one of my clients.
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I was a doula and childbirth educator for 11 years, and I specialized in helping clients who had experienced sexual trauma in the past, which, you know, if if anyone is um a parent or um or knows someone that is a parent and and knows someone that especially has been through some hard times, it can be a very um personal, difficult, challenging thing to go through to go through pregnancy and um postpartum and becoming a parent.
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And so it's just always my heart to help women who have been through a lot and I wanted to give them this a healing experience where they could really thrive.
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And so I love that job.
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And um I I guess um kind of leads me to hold my guns.
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And I um wasn't setting out to really start anything, but we lost an 18-year-old friend to suicide by firearm.
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And um, something I forgot to share was that I'm also a range safety officer, and I have um kids that grew up in shooting sports, and so they really love um liberty and they love shooting.
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And they came to me and they said, Um, you know, we love these things, but our friend is dead.
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And how do we help people in our community who might be silently struggling with things and um need a place to store firearms, get the guns out of the house, mom?
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How do we do that without being gun grabbers?
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And I thought about it really hard.
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And I was like, you know what?
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We we can solve this.
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Let's let's work on this.
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And we prayed about it and sought out one of the best firearms attorneys.
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Uh, I know I've I've met many more, so I don't want to say that there aren't others that are great, but truly, Joshua Prince on the East Coast, uh, he's phenomenal.
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And it's it's kind of funny, Brian, because when I first met him, the first question he asked me and he is, are you a gun grabber?
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And to give you an idea, like his office is like this uh renovated barn, and he has incredible firearms all over, just decorating his office.
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And it feels kind of like going into this kind of really cool bunker.
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And uh it's it's just a little bit intimidating.
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It was the first time I ever met him.
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And I was, but I was very passionate about this.
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I'm like, absolutely not.
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This I said, I really think this is an opportunity that we can take leadership in our community to help people who need storage, who might not have friends or family who are able to help with that.
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And I see it as a way to help preserve rights because if we can help people with giving them the tools to practice self-governance, I think that we have an opportunity to really push back on some of the legislative approaches that take away rights.
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So that's kind of how we got started with Hold My Guns.
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And that's a little bit about me.
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And I am very grateful for all of the life experiences that have led up to this point, um, the good ones and the heartache.
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And again, I I just humbly um serve in this way, and I hope that it inspires people to want to get involved and support our work and also to be that person that uh people who need a friend can talk to as well.
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Right.
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Yeah, because we never know when something's gonna pop up in our life that really devastates us or impacts us.
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And uh as I we've talked briefly in the pre-show, I've been in the law enforcement and I've seen the actual effects going through seeing someone do that, as well as the after effects.
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And um a lot of times, you know, we don't we may think we have things, quote, under control, but you know, we we really don't know.
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And that's where having people that like you guys, you know, especially if you feel yourself coming on to a situation where hey, I'm going into a deep hole and I don't may not need to have my gun with me, or you know, it may need to be stored for a period of time while I can we can get myself back together, or either, you know, um, whatever it is, a move or you know, uh whatever.
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And uh I just uh think that being able to have somebody to talk to, having options available, making sure our loved ones and our friends uh know about these things that are available out there to where you know that they see us tumbling that um they can hey you might want to you know go do this.
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Uh just like I went into work last night and uh my supervisor he said, Are you okay?
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You you look a little down, which I was tired.
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Uh you know, had a long weekend.
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Uh had a had see Friday I had a at my local gun club, I did a bullseye pistol shoot, which I uh evening shoot, which I uh ran, and then Saturday I had a uh next steps or a beginning firearms class that I taught in Jessup and then Sunday, of course getting back to work, and all we also had uh the opening uh firearms hunting season in Georgia uh Saturday.
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And uh we had the big what the the Lions Club big buck contest going on and uh it was just a busy weekend.
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Busy, right?
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All good things, but it can just kind of make you tired, like you said.
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And and so to have a friend just look out and be like, Are you doing okay?
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Like it, you know, it's like all right, I'll get you an extra cup of coffee or something, like that is uh sounds like you have a really great friend.
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And and he's a uh military veteran as well, so he's he kind of fits, feels no, he he knows that I'm military and law enforcement, and uh, he just he's got the same thoughts.
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Uh, you know, he's I want to make sure you're okay, you know, watch out.
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I've got your six, uh, you know, watching out for you and stuff, which was was very thoughtful, I thought.
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But yeah, we just don't know when something's gonna happen.
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Uh and we may not even realize it, but a lot of times our facial and body language uh speaks tons where we don't see that we're projecting it, but other people pick up on it real quickly.
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Exactly.
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And um I I think that people uh have sometimes because I I also teach QPR suicide prevention in the firearms community, and I think that people have this idea of you know, oh, like this person's in crisis or that person's in crisis.
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And uh I wish that more people realize that it's it's just kind of like all the little things that can add up sometimes, and it's not it's it is a multifaceted um risk that can happen, but at the same time, it doesn't mean we have to go around being you know hyper-vigilant of, you know, are you okay all the time?
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And and the key is just to be familiar with the people around us and know their know each other's baselines.
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You know, we all shoot together, so we're already kind of like out in the range and and looking around and like, okay, like how are you doing today?
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And you know, there's just just kind of that friendliness, um, which I love in our firearms community, but that means that we have a tremendous opportunity to just be real with people and um and and in a way that we can trust the people around us, which you know, again, if you're I I always want for people to be um aware of who they're sharing personal information with.
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We live in that kind of culture, but something I find about the beauty of our community is that people who have shared values have an understanding of, you know, life's ups and downs and and each other's wishes for how do I want to handle difficult days, right?
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And so it's it's in the context of wanting to preserve rights and being respectful, but also really valuing life.
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We carry firearms to protect the people around us, to protect our family members, to protect ourselves because we value life.
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So it fits in beautifully to have a real conversation.
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We always talking about um, you know, what do we do if there's a bad guy in a parking lot type thing?
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But, you know, we really also need to examine our own life situations and and what's going on in our home as part of our situational awareness too.
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And that's what really helps us to be uh good at self-defense too, making sure that that our own minds and our own lives are in order in a way that um prioritizes things and that we are able to get rest as much as we can and and um being part of that lifestyle is if we have to take seriously carrying a firearm.
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So all of these things come into play.
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We do have a personal safety plan that's free that people can check out, and it basically outlines like this is these are the things that I care about.
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Here are my preferred resources.
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Here's what I want to do with my firearms if I ever need to store them.
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And um, so having that plan helps people to be in the driver's seat and not just along for the ride.
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It helps people to practice self-governance.
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So um, yeah, I realized, Brian, we never really talked about what Hold My Guns does.
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We kind of jumped in.
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So if you don't mind, I'd love to share.
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So yeah, Hold My Guns is a 501c3 nonprofit, and we which is important because we have a lot of friends that are doing more uh 501c4 work where it's more um legislative advocacy and things like that.
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So um, but as a 501c3, we're we're focused on community efforts.
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And uh we were we got our official uh status as a nonprofit in 2020 during SHOT Show.
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We got a letter from um our email from our attorney, and it's like, wow, this is official, it's really cool.
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Um, just kind of a neat, neat way that we found out about that, that it was official.
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And what we do is we partner with gun shops across the United States who and we we provide through them voluntary firearm storage, no questions asked during times of need.
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And you know, we talked a little bit about um more of a mental health need, which actually only makes up a small fraction of our storage.
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A lot of people use our service because they're moving and they don't want firearms sitting in a hotel room or in their car, um, but you know, while they're they're waiting to settle on their new house.
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People use our service if they're being deployed or if they're gonna be away for an extended business trip.
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People use our service if they're going into a housing shelter, whether it's um for homelessness or if someone is going into a domestic violence shelter and you can't take firearms with you oftentimes in those situations.
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So that empowers people to not have to choose between their personal security and getting into a safe shelter.
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So um there are many uses.
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People have used our service if they have a foster child in the home, and um, you know, there's there's some guidance around that, especially if the foster child is at risk.
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Or if someone in the home becomes a prohibited person and it's like you don't want to kick out your son or daughter or your spouse, and and you temporarily need to get firearms out of the home for those reasons.
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And I want to underscore that it might not be the gun owner who's having a hard time or going through things.
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It might be a household member or someone that is um frequently over at the house.
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And some people don't store all of their firearms.
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Some people just store, you know, the ones that that might be more like around the house when the grandkids come over, but they still have their um more like personal defense firearm at, you know, close by.
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So our goal is to support gun owners and provide the service, knowing that not everyone has friends or family who can help.
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And I'm just really uh encouraged to see how it really has come alongside of people in a way that they can practice self-governance.
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We have to have the tools to be able to do that.
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And the fact that it's coming from within our own community, with um coming from trusted FFLs that care about their customers, it's a service that they can offer that that genuinely is making a difference.
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Right.
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Very, great.
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So how does Hold My Guns make the difference in with the community and with the uh industry?
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Well, I I kind of touched on a little bit, but it's making a difference because it is helping people to make life-affirming choices and to practice self-governance.
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And I think that's really key.
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I do have a lot of friends who are more in the um, I should say, like public health space.
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And a lot of people talk about firearm storage from a public health perspective.
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And I think coming from the firearms community, we have a liberty-based perspective that is, you know, we certainly care about things that are involving um health.
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And so I don't want to minimize that aspect of it.
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But what we care about is um the preservation of rights and liberty and what does a lifestyle of liberty look like.
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And when you have a public health approach, sometimes you have people in charge with very different views on liberty and on firearms, and they are writing policies that you know might on one hand seem like, oh, we really care about people, but when you start to get into, you know, um where's where are the strings attached, and you learn that they're involved with um gun control groups who um have used firearm safety as a euphemism for, you know, um confiscating firearms or red flag laws or um, you know, trying to ban firearms or that sort of a thing, and calling that a public health approach.
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Um, I'm really leery of that.
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I think people in our community are too.
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So one of the ways that um we can make a difference is to actually be helping people and putting the ball in their court, but providing the tools for them to be able to do that.
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So I think we have a unique opportunity here to take leadership in our community and and say, like, not that we don't care about the health of the public, but we never want a public health approach to be weaponized to create laws that take away our our rights that are preserved by the Second Amendment.
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Right.
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And and something I I've I've also noticed uh or have found out, you know, being in Georgia, that we kind of pretty uh are conservative as far as uh firearms and the transfer storage uh carrying.
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Um but you've got some states that you have to go through backgrounds, you have to have a uh card or you have to have remote permission to be able to store a firearm on a home.
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And uh that's where I see your organization being uh extremely helpful for someone that may be going through a situation that they just can't give a a relative or friend their firearm to hold for them without in some of those states being charged with a crime.
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And uh I I'm just grateful for the things that you're you're putting in place trying and trying to expand your partners to storage partners to where it's gonna it'll be more accessible for for people to do that, getting the word out.
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Exactly.
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And I I do want to just touch on something that you mentioned because we're working with federal firearms licensees, they are required to do a transfer because the firearms they they they're transferring temporary possession.
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The gun owner is still the owner, but it goes in like a consignment or consignment return process.
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So because it goes into the acquisition and disposition log book, it does have to go into that book, but it's make model serial number and the person, the owner's contact information is the only information that's in there.
00:22:50.240 --> 00:23:07.200
Um, and that, but that being said, and because again, you're working in a regulated space, so it's a similar process as that consignment, consignment return, but we can also store non-serialized critical parts like a barrel or a firing pin, or even an accessory like a key to a gun lock.
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:09.680
So there are a lot of options there.
00:23:10.079 --> 00:23:16.400
And um, if the FFL that we're working with has a locker service, that's another option.
00:23:16.720 --> 00:23:23.200
Because in that case, the gun owner would simply be renting the locker and storing their items in there.
00:23:23.440 --> 00:23:26.319
The FFL is not touching them or logging them.
00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:37.440
And yet it is at a location that if something were to happen, that they still had the ability to transfer firearms, which is important because again, life can be weird.
00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:47.599
And you don't know, like if you end up in the hospital and you know, you need to transfer them to a non-prohibited third party because you know, for whatever reason, like things happen.
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:56.240
So that's why we work with um if if there if there is a locker service involved, they have to be attached to an FFL for that reason.
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:05.279
But it is um, you know, an opportunity that people have to store a firearm or just a part, depending on what their needs are.
00:24:05.440 --> 00:24:13.359
And I agree with you, like, you know, every state, like you said, has different um laws for what a transfer looks like.
00:24:13.519 --> 00:24:15.279
Sometimes there is a waiting period.
00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:21.599
Our Washington state partner, and I believe our Massachusetts one as well, has to work around waiting periods.
00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:27.279
But that being said, we've had an opportunity to kind of push back on some of those things and and challenge that.
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:38.480
Like, you know, what just to say, like, how are these pieces of legislation and this gun control, how is it creating an obstacle perhaps for people who need the service?
00:24:38.640 --> 00:25:00.960
And it's kind of changing the way people think about firearms storage, which is really exciting, I think, because if you can help people understand accessibility and to realize that some of the very pieces of legislation that were intended to help people are actually hindering people with the majority of firearms-related deaths being suicides.
00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:09.200
Um, I think it's it's it's given a unique opportunity to help people to think through is this really the path that we want to go?
00:25:09.359 --> 00:25:12.240
Because we're making it hard for people to get the help that they need.
00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:24.240
So and again, we don't just store for um mental health situations, but that seems to be the one that a lot of folks um refer um people who care about these things to hold my guns.
00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:26.480
So it's a it's a good talking point.
00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:27.279
Okay.
00:25:27.839 --> 00:25:35.279
Well, no, we've talked a little bit about the the reasoning and uh you know the partners and everything.
00:25:35.599 --> 00:25:39.039
How do you uh vet your storage partners?
00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:53.039
What's their process if uh someone says, hey, I would like to be involved in this, but uh you know, how do you guys go through making sure that they're legitimately doing what they're wanting to do and not something in disguise?
00:25:54.079 --> 00:26:05.039
Well, a good thing is that they are coming from our community and they are they care about providing firearms for people and selling firearms and training people.
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:16.000
And so it's not like um we're just you know going to someone that set up a building somewhere and said, like, I'll take your guns.
00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:18.640
Um they're they're people from within our own community.
00:26:18.799 --> 00:26:28.880
So I like already the self-selecting audience that we have are um people who care about making sure people are are armed.
00:26:29.039 --> 00:26:30.400
And so I love that.
00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:32.880
But we do go the extra mile.
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:38.400
We do our homework on the um FFLs that reach out to us.
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:47.039
We look to see what their customer service rating is like, knowing that people can use the service for a variety of different reasons.
00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:53.680
We don't want to work with FFLs that have like a one-star review where people say, I if I could give them zero stars, I would.
00:26:53.759 --> 00:26:54.960
This was terrible, you know?
00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:56.880
So we look for good customer service.
00:26:57.039 --> 00:27:07.279
It's always a bonus if they have training at their at their location because it shows that they care about education and they care about their customers.
00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:19.519
We require that our FFL partners have general liability insurance so that if anything were to happen to that firearm, that it would be covered by insurance, like if it gets scratched or broken.
00:27:19.599 --> 00:27:23.039
I mean, firearms are investments, so we care about that.
00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:33.680
There is part of that process is that they have to go through um our board and our board reviews, all the information they provide.
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:35.920
We have a questionnaire, which you can find.
00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:39.359
Our social media is hold my guns org.
00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:51.119
And if you look in the link tree in the bio, there is a form for FFLs who are interested to uh let us know that they were interested in exploring to become a storage partner.
00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:53.279
So we asked some questions there.
00:27:53.599 --> 00:28:05.920
We prefer to work with a retail location just for safety purposes, although we do have a few partners who uh operate out of their homes but out of like a separate business area in their home.
00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:10.000
And so we have to take things into consideration like that as well.
00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:27.759
Um and I think the the biggest obstacle that we have right now is that because each state has nuanced laws, we have to ensure that the transfer process outlined in our contract is compliant.
00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:33.279
And so the process right now, we're working on streamlining it as we're growing.
00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:49.440
But the process is for an FFL that is um from a state where we don't already have a contract, that they work with an attorney and help to fill in the specific transfer process so that it's transparent for the customer to be aware of.
00:28:49.599 --> 00:28:51.200
That's our biggest bottleneck.
00:28:51.359 --> 00:28:57.359
And because we're so small, we haven't been able to really um offset the cost for that.
00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:13.519
And so all of our FFL partners uh so far have paid all their own attorney fees to help create that compliant contract and write a letter to review it and say this is compliant with our um my cat's knocking over the light.
00:29:13.599 --> 00:29:14.480
There we go.
00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:26.000
Um, but anyway, that they have graciously helped to cover those fees to um to show that their contract is compliant through an attorney license in their state.
00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:30.640
Um what we would love to see, and I'm I'm so sorry I'm laughing.
00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:35.519
My my cat Marcy, like literally just climbed up on my lap and knocked over the light.
00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:36.480
These things happen.
00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:40.240
Um she's interested in something else now, is Cat's ARB.
00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:41.839
So forgive me for a second there.
00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:43.279
I was like, what's happening?
00:29:43.519 --> 00:29:56.559
Um, but what we'd love to see is to be proactive about that and address this bottleneck as we get more funding to be able to proactively go out and have contracts that are compliant in all 50 states.