S1E2 Exploring Mental Health Initiatives in the Firearms Industry with Michael Sodini of Walk the Talk America

Hi, welcome to the Arm Guarding Podcast, season one, episode two. Today we'll be joined by Mike Sudini from Walk the Talk America. Mike will be talking to us today about mental health and firearms and how we can help bridge the gap between issues regarding care for people that might be going through issues, but stay tuned, listen and hope you enjoy. Hi, and today's guest we have Michael Sudini from Walk the Talk America. How are you doing, michael?

I'm doing good. Man, I'm glad to be here. I know you're kicking off this show and I'm glad to be a part of it.

Well, you'll be our first guest that we have going live on the podcast and looking forward to the topic of Walk the Talk America, something real dear, I think, to my heart, and I think it will hit the cord with other people that listen that may not have heard about Walk the Talk America. So who is Michael Sudini and where does he come from?

So I'm a third generation firearms industry professional. I got into the firearms industry through nepotism. My family owned one of the largest importers of firearms in the US. So basically what we were for anyone in the listening audience that is not familiar with how firearms importation works is if you had a firearms company and let's say you were in Colombia or somewhere in Europe, right, and you had an interest in breaking the US market, you would find somebody like us, which was at the time called it was Eagle Imports and we used to import Bursa from Argentina, graham Power from Salahkiah and Metro Arms, which is American, classic Mac and SPS from the Philippines. So you would find somebody like us to basically do your importing, handle your sales, handle your customer service, your warranty. It's like a turnkey operation, right? You just sell it to us and we build your brand in the US and take care of everything else. So I got into the firearms industry not because I was interested in guns at all. I was basically told by my family, like it was an assumption, like you're coming to work with us. You know my grandfather, my unclehood, started this business, which actually played into my advantage when it came to what we're about to talk about today? Because not growing up around firearms? Because I did not grow up with a single mom in San Francisco and my family's company was in New Jersey right, probably two of the worst places to grow up if you're into firearms. So, anyways, got into the industry after college and literally learned on the fly, learned about firearms and rights and everything like on the job. So that's my background.

Well, to talk America is something that we were talking just before we started recording is something that I find is that missing link, that kind of breaks, that taboo subject that a lot of people are need assistance but are afraid to reach out because of that taboo and what could happen. So what? What is what?

Okay, so walk, talk America. It's basically we are a organization that's homegrown from the firearms industry that looks for innovative ways to get people to help they need when they're in crisis, without fear of consequence. We figure out ways to work with people outside of the to a community. The second amendment community, the firearms industry and kind of cherry pick, the things that we we think will make a difference and then also has nothing to do with legislation. Right, because we believe that the answers are there. I feel like it's one in, and let me rewind for a second. Let me go back to kind of what sparked this. But it wasn't that. It wasn't the main reason why I started it, but in 2009, the president of my company, eagle Imports the one I was just talking about took it. The president's name is Bill Strongman. He took his life with one of our firearms and at that time, in 2009, suicide was not talked about in the firearms industry, and one of the main reasons was, I think we were all scared that things like that would be weaponized against us, or we knew it right. Anybody that's in the firearms community, whether you're a trainer, whether you want to gunshot we all know that any negative outcome is going to get used in that giant number that they throw out every year, right. So, and there was kind of this, this rhetoric from the NRA that was kind of like if you, you know, you can't trust mental health or just gun grabbers, you know, and it kind of made sense for everything that was going on back then. But I always wanted to do something that helped people, because one of the things that the president of the company at the time and I used to talk about and this is this you know, we can we can touch on this later, right, because usually people that talk about suicide or they notice something about suicide or you know mental health, they're in tune to it. So Bill and I used to talk about how crazy it was that the gun industry didn't really do anything to address mental health when we were losing the people that our industry holds near and dear to our hearts the most. And I'll give you an example of that. So we used to have a booth at Chacho and we used to have couches, right, like that was our. You know someone's been to Chacho, you know like everyone's just bouncing around booths and talking is it's kind of like a gun store If anyone goes in the gun store, he's called, like the, the barbershop, the white man's bar shop. Now it's everybody's barbershop, because now you have all different walks of life, right, you have the fastest growing shooters and minorities and women, right. So now it's everybody's barbershop. People will go into gun shops and just literally talk to the guy at the counter all day and people will. You know, customers will talk. It's a fun experience. It's kind of it's interesting to watch. But we used to have all kinds of people that would come through our booth every year and it was almost like we expected to see those faces again and again and again. And so many of them were, you know, former military active duty military first responders. Like I said, the people that are our industry absolutely stops and salutes, no matter what, and every year it seemed like we would lose one person and it would be like it's weird. So, you know, john didn't show up this year. I wonder where. I hope he's okay, right. And then you'd find out later like, hey, I don't know if you heard about John, but John took his own life and it was like all the One of those things where you're looking at this like, hey, we're not supposed to talk about this. We don't address it, we don't know how to, but it's something that affects our industry because obviously you know 22 a day, all those things that you heard back then it was kind of like I mean, why didn't we do something now? I didn't know what to do after Bill took his life. I didn't have the idea for Walk Talk America. Walk the Talk America was born from a conversation in 2018. So, cut to nine years later, when I met a complete stranger that asked a question. She was asking about what happens during a mass shooting and I basically told her the truth. I said everybody blames us, we blame mental health and nothing ever gets done because we can't work together, because the solutions that they have all deal with stuff that we can't accept Right, like infringing on rights and punishing people who actually do the right thing with a firearm, which is the vast majority of people that own firearms. And after I said that, she asked, one question completely changed my life. She was like, if you can't work with the mental health community on those things because of legislation, like what are the policies or what are the things that you can work on with them? Because I'm sure there are things you can work together on. And I thought about it and I was like I don't think we do, we don't. And that's how Walk the Talk America was born. It was from a chance conversation where someone asked a question and at the time I didn't even know if it was possible, but it's something I became obsessed with and then, one year later, I ended up selling Eagle Imports to do this full time because there was a need for this. People wanted this. So that's how Walk the Talk America came about, and we kind of get into the details as this conversation starts to flow about what we do. But that's how it started.

Yeah, I know gun grabbers and people blame guns for a lot of the incidences and all actuality. I've heard you've mentioned this before, but about two-thirds of the actual gun deaths are not from mass shootings or from suicide. Yeah, yeah.

That's a big number.

I've actually witnessed from my time at law enforcement the number of people that do take their lives to firearms, and a lot of time. It's something that it's not just something that people can maybe recognize. But a lot of it is life people going through life, the divorce, medical diagnosis that they are unprepared for, and financial, job related Everything that can pile on to an individual and weigh them down. We all handle stress and everything differently. For those of us with firearms, we need to be more vigilant, and for those that are around us, I think we need to be aware of the signs and how to help people and, like I said, that's one thing I love about your organization that you're able to go out and help people recognize mental health and guns is a serious topic and that we do have resources available out there that people can go to without the fear of having being labeled as a lunatic or whatever Someone who's not able to possess a gun and a lot of us, I think we would recognize hey, I'm not in the place that I need to be, I'm going to get family member or someone else to hold my guns, lock my guns up where legally they can. Of course, there are still some, I think, locations where that would be felony or against the law, and it's something that you can check with your local jurisdiction. But it's something that I think is very valuable and just getting us as individuals getting proactive laws, trying to get these exemptions as far as where somebody can, if they recognize they're doing the right thing or something good, that they're not penalized for trying to help save some.

Yeah, yeah, the unintended consequence is what you're talking about of these things, and that's so. In the beginning, like when I started this, I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I knew. After the first year, the first year of doing walk talk America, I was like, if it ends today and nothing else comes of this, at least I got the firearms industry thinking about mental health, right, because I feel like for so long it was kind of like there's so many good people in the 2A community, just like. I mean, take it for me like a guy who what? When I first got into the community, I was like I am nothing like these people because most, most time, I was hanging around with people that were talking about hunting, fishing, all these things that I never did growing up, right, like I'd never went shooting. I didn't have a dad who took me shooting. I had there was a learning curve that I had to hit, but what I did love about the 2A community in the firearms industry was how welcoming like they were and and how many like good, solid individuals there are in this industry. You know, just like everything, you have your clowns, but you know, overall it's kind of like when I would go back to my friends who didn't understand firearms and they didn't understand the industry they would. They would talk about the industry in a certain way, like oh, it's like the NRA is doing this or you know it's racist, or anything like that. And I was like no, it's really not. Like if you, if you actually hang out at an NRA show or you hang out at any kind of event like a shot show, it's like the what they're saying, like hey, people celebrate during a mass shooting, like I've never seen that, I've never seen that we, we hate that, right. And so for me, if walk to talk would have ended Just from that, just the fact that people were talking about mental health. But here we are, cut to right, like now we're in this position where I Think it's super important for our industry to lead the way on this. And, similar to how Alcohol got ahead of drunk driving, right, like nobody's blaming Johnny Walker when somebody gets behind the wheel and does something horrific, right. So for me to have the industry like step up and and have firearms trainers like yourself and Gun shop saying look you, you have to be prepared, as a gun owner, for everything. You have to be prepared for outside threats. You have to be prepared for this, you have to be, you have to have safety down right. Like all this stuff is a, we also have to have this key element of Firearms ownership, which is your mental game. It has to be your mental game, has to be up Everywhere, right like you. You have to know it, and it also extends to everybody else who is around you with that firearm In the house. So there's nothing wrong with being prepared where we talk. That's why we train, that's why we take courses. I think that's why we do it is to be prepared. So to have the preparation of the mental game to to say I May not be in crisis, I give, maybe I am like I don't know, like I'm not feeling too good because of the things that you said earlier. Right, maybe it's money issues, maybe you got family members fighting, you're just like I need to be on top of it as a gun owner and there's nothing wrong with that. And once we Like, accept that, once we take that all in and we're like, okay, we're doing the most. And believe me, I know it sounds crazy, but like I think right now the firearms industry is With the people that are actively involved in WTTA the Ruger's, the arms cores, the, the Canon safe, like the things that they're doing. It's so different than what the mental health community Can do because they don't have the reach we do. They don't have, they can't. You know, all they could do is say like, hey, we'd love for you to say this, it's all language right, and most of the time they don't know the language so they have to rely on us to know language. But us being proactive. Now we're gonna be taking serious on a national level With all the people that thought originally that we don't care or we don't do anything. You see what I mean. Like that's why it's why it's important for us to kind of take this and run with it. Don't let the government tell us what to do with it. Like show the government, we're already on top of it. Like you can't help us. You know what I mean. Like we got this so it's been kind of fun this last five years. You know it's a wild ride great, great.

I'm glad to see you know. I think what you're actually in Got the some of the people in the firearms industry manufacturer wise, ammo wise that are actually supporting you and impacting your by putting aren't they putting like labels, hard stuff and their yeah, so so that was the.

That was the first. So here's the fun part about what we're talking about. When I first started the organization I'm grabbing a card to show you, to show the listeners but when I saw a first order organization I want to take the easy way out like in my head I was like we'll raise money in the firearms industry and we'll donate it to mental health. And when I first started I didn't. I didn't even know if there was a mental health organization. That was gonna listen to me because you know, you know how people think about us, right, like you know, they have these like preconceived notions and just whatever. You know, we're stigmatized. We had our industry is stigmatized, just like mental health anyway. So I ended up connecting with mental health America and you know the idea in the beginning was hey look, I'm gonna donate money, I'm gonna go to the Ruger's and I'm gonna go to the arms cores, I'm gonna go to the verses and I'm gonna get them to donate money and we're gonna donate to you and you're gonna solve the problem, like you're gonna fix the problem. And originally I was kind of aiming towards what can we do to stop mass shootings? And this is actually a really important part of our conversation today for people to understand, because sometimes people are like Well, why are you focusing on the gun? Well, number one, I focus on the gun because I'm from the gun industry. If I worked in the rope industry, I'd probably focus on ropes, right, but I'm in the gun industry. But we all seem to think that there is a way to stop mass shooters Right, we, and there are things there. They. Obviously. This goes beyond just mass shooters. There are things you can identify in people. But it really is finding a needle in a haystack because, for as much as these mass shooters have shown a particular behavior that you could point to, just like gun owners, you could point to a million examples of people that had that same behavior and never shot up a grocery store or school, right? So when I first started, the whole idea was, hey, I'm gonna give you all this money, you're gonna run out there and figure out how we end this and we're all gonna work together. Well, I learned real fast that they didn't have the answers and Everybody and the mental health side Epidemiologists, like all these people were just like hey, listen, you have to slow down, focus on suicide prevention. And I was like that's great, I want to do suicide prevention too, but I really want to do mass shooters. So we're going to do it all. And there's like no, no, no, no, laser focus on suicide prevention, because it is the one thing that you guys can actually make a dent in Right. And at first I couldn't understand it. I was like, make it make sense for me. And there's like fighting the next mass shooters, the needle and haystack. And I said, ok, well, explain that to me. And I remember it was Dr Jeffery Swanson out of North Carolina. Yeah, he's a leader in epidemiology. And basically it was like you could take a gun and hand it to 10 people that have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and he's like they'll go their whole life without doing anything to anybody, even themselves. And he's like you could come home one day after a really tough day at work, find your wife in bed with your best friend and snap, and he's like needle and haystack. And I was like, damn, he's right, right. But like with suicide prevention, if we can be on the forefront of giving our customers or our students right the information and the resources to where they could stay on top of it or get help when they want it and, like I said before, that's that's the cherry on the top, just the fact that you're letting your students know or your customers know that you're making it OK to talk about mental health or think about your mental health Like. Take, for example, ruger or Arms Core. Arms Core is a perfect example of people who put it. Put the the screening on the side of the box, and this is an example. This is a card. It's kind of tough to see, but this is a card that that Ruger and Bersa and Arms Core they put in all the boxes of their guns and it basically says you know mental health, it's OK to talk about it. You know we're from the firearms industry. Take a free and anonymous mental health screening. Stay on top of your mental health. I can't stress enough how important it is to stay on top of it. Screenings aren't just for people who are in crisis. You don't have to be like, well, I feel wonderful, I don't need a screening. It's good to take the screening, even if you feel great right, because you need to see where you're at. And the screenings are free and anonymous, which is gun owners we love especially the anonymous part. You don't have to give them any information, because we partner with Mental Health America on this. They don't ask you about firearms at all, so there's nothing in there that asks you about your guns or anything like that. It's just what. It's the different categories of what you want to do. Whether that's I want to, I think I might be depressed, I think I might be suffering from anxiety, I think I might have ADHD, right, so you, you can go on there and take those. And that was the first step. That was the first step of getting the industry and the the fine and I know I'm a little long winded on this, but I, like, I love talking about it. But, like the first, I didn't know at first. I didn't know how the industry reacted to this right, because one of the biggest fears I had as someone who owned a gun company was I didn't want, like the NRA or NSSF, being like Mike, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing here? Like you're walking a very fine line and I kept putting them in my guns, which was the guns that Eagle imports and I had. Thank God I had these foreign manufacturers who, you know, they I don't, you know, they're not in touch with what we do as much. So they were kind of like what is it? I'm like free and anonymous mental health screenings for our customers so they can stay on top of their mental health and be good. We want our customers to be good, right, and they're just like yeah, yeah, yeah, so you could do it. So we're putting a card in the box and I'm waiting Like I waited like three months just to see what type of reaction, because I didn't know if there was going to be a negative reaction. I didn't know if customers are going to call and be like what are you doing. And it was a complete opposite. We were getting so many customers that were calling and they're like hey, you put this in the box. You know, I just bought a Bersa and it's inside the box. Thank you, like I really appreciate you doing that, right. And then I was like, oh, this is cool. It's like good PR for us. You know what I mean. So then it graduated and I started. Just I was like, okay, nothing's happened. I'm not on the NRAs, like what are you doing list? I started walking around at Chacho to my friends, like my peers that I grew up with in this industry, like Martin from Arms Core or Charlie Brown from high point, you know MKS. And I was just like hey, can you put this in your box? And they're like what is it? Free and anonymous mental health screenings? And I'm like, pause, wait, see what they're like. That's a really good idea. Yeah, we can do that. I was like damn, it's that easy, right, it's just it's, I feel like as an industry and that includes everything from firearms trainers to I feel like we always wanted to do something, but we just didn't know how to fit into it.

Because it's not right Right.

Yeah, almost, like we couldn't right, like we thought it was mutually exclusive. You can't have guns and you can't talk about mental health or suicide prevention Like they're mutually exclusive. They're not like we totally can and it could come from us. It's actually better coming from us because you know and this is what I say when I speak in front of you know, anyone that's from the outside, the mental health side or the healthcare provider side I'm like the industry. If you walk around our industry, everybody. There was a time when I felt like I was the only one who didn't serve the country, like at the shot show. You know what I'm saying. Like everybody, like everybody that works in the industry, like they all had served or they were all for a first responder at some point in their life, and I was kind of like, damn, I'm like the only one in the right. So first responders and vets and active duty military, they gravitate towards our community. Right, it's a natural fit, like you, right? Yeah, right, so you know when? That, when I saw that and and I was kind of like who are they going to listen to People, listen to the groups that they trust, right, skateboarders or surfers have their own community and I thought we're no different. The gun industry is just like a Star Wars freak that goes to a convention right, like we trust the information is going to be passed by our people. So that's why it's so important for us to do it Not mental health like we work with mental health, but we do it as the community.

Yeah, I think this is part of the missing lane, like we've called for. That was needed because the fear of. I don't want to be labeled as someone being mental assistance, mental health assistance, but I got this issue and I think it shows that us, as firearms owners, distributors and everything that, hey, we do care about this topic and we're wanting to know. We're not wanting to push it off just on somebody else. We're wanting to get involved and help better everybody's lifestyle. You know, keep everybody safe. I think it's a very, very good thing that you're doing with this because it shows that we do care. We care about individuals, we're not pushing it off, and I know, listening to a prior podcast I've made a comment that the organization that you partnered with finding someone in the mental health industry that was gun-duty I've been playing the gun where I think that was a key also is finding that great partnership that you have with Ryder kind of partner and push this. I really like that. It shows your heart, that you're out there serving both sides and trying to bring them together. Let's try to solve this.

Well, and it's, it's, and I appreciate that, thank you. It's been really interesting because one of the things and I've said this in other shows, but it's really true One of the things that used to drive me crazy about just anything is, like when I had employees that would like come to me and they'd point out problems and they had like zero solutions, like, yeah, there's a problem back there and it's like, yeah, I know, you know, I could see it, but it's like I don't care if it's a silly solution, and I feel like that's the one thing. We as an industry that's where I get critical of us we always kind of lacked that well, it's a mental health thing, there's nothing we can do, right, like we almost defaulted to that and it's kind of like, well, there is something we can do and we figured that out. Like we've now figured out that we could do a lot and, like I said, it is almost the point where I think we've figured it out and we've gone, we've transcended beyond what the mental health community can offer us. They can offer I'm not saying they can't offer things right, just the screenings alone that they do is brilliant. But, like I said, we have the reach, we have everything. So now we're better equipped to bridge the gap with people that don't see eye to eye with us. And I'll give you an example of that. A couple months ago I was invited to speak at the Aspen Institute of Health Festival, which is a very like heavy hitter, mostly center left crew group of people that deal with anything that's in healthcare, so it's not just guns or anything like that, right, it's everything that deals with healthcare. So I was invited to be one of their guest speakers, which was an honor in itself. I was the very first person from the firearms industry to be asked to speak there and I was amongst all different types of speakers, everyone from, like Dr Fauci to Chelsea Clinton to think, from BlackRock, Like there's all these different walks of life speaking at this event, and I was treated with the utmost respect. But really, going into that situation, I knew that I could win that crowd over because they tried to warn me, they were scared for me. It's cute because he said numerous times, I had numerous people who were like, hey, listen, this crowd is not necessarily like sometimes guns is kind of a triggering thing for them. So they didn't realize like I do this all day in my sleep Like it's fine, I'm better. Sometimes. I'm better in front of the non two a crowd than I am in front of the two a crowd, because the crowd tends to be kind of stuck in her ways, whereas the non two a crowd it's like once I show them as an industry what we're doing and going back to that, we've transcended past just the talking points like mental health awareness and all those things that are important but really is like what are you doing? You're advocating, but you're not really doing anything. Once I get the crowd or the people to see what we do, they're drawn in by it. Like they're like, oh my God, like I never even thought about that, like mental health screening flyers in the boxes of the guns. And you guys are doing that. And I'm like, yes, like Ruger is doing that, you know. So then what happens is, once they see that we're providing solutions, they back off their stance a little bit, because I felt like many people for many years the gun grabbers and we're like, okay, if you don't want to do legislation, what do we do? And we're like I don't know, it's a mental health thing Right now. Now we're at least saying, okay, let me show you what to do. Right, you want me to tell you what to do? You can't do what we do, but we'll show you how good we do it. Okay, right. So for me, when that happens, when the, when the barrier breaks down and they're ready to listen and accept information, now we've really bridged the gap, because they're like okay, this is cool, I get, I see where they're going with this. Now, I'm listening, and we talked about earlier barriers to entry, right, so, one of the things that came out of the Aspen Institute thing because one, I was on a panel and they asked about red flag loss and, of course, the two mental health people, the two healthcare people, they were like, red flag is great, you know they and I'm like I live in a different world than these two. Right, I'm not saying they're wrong. Like I'm not saying they're wrong. Like there's probably times when a red flag is has stopped somebody, if that somebody has admitted like I was going to kill myself. Right, like, like there are, there are outliers, there are anecdotal stories we can all tell on things. But I was like I live in a world where red flag laws probably cost people their lives because they're afraid to go get help. Right, and there's a potential consequence of being afraid to go get help. And it was crazy because, like the crowd there's so many people came up to me after because I wanted to chat or talk. They're like I never thought about that red flag laws in that way, because I always thought it was you guys going. I want to arm everybody Right and just being stubborn and I'm like no see, I live in a world where one to two people contact me a week and they're like I I want to go get help, but I'm afraid to because of this Like law in Florida or this. You know what do I do? How do I do this? So, the unintentional consequences that, like you said, now we have a spot at the table where people doesn't mean they're going to change the laws. So, listening, you know, transfer laws, the fact that, like in Nevada, where I'm sitting right now, if you come to my house and I don't look so good, like because my wife just left me, or something like that, I can't even give you my gun. Wow, you know what I mean. Like that has to change. We might not be able to get rid of transfer laws, but we can totally navigate them with now that we can come to the table and say this is the issue with that. And many times this is the other crazy thing A lot of times these people that have never thought about it from that lens, because they're not in our shoes, right, you know. So it's important to bring them into our world and not necessarily be combative. You know, it is what it is.

You've got a lot of things available through Walk to Talk America that people can go to actually straight on the website. I know a couple of things that I noticed that I'm grateful for. That you have are some of the resources that you have, like your free screenings and your directory, where you can put in your location and actually find somebody that's partnered with Walk to Talk America and the mental health organization you're with to to work on trying to help them overcome or get through whatever struggle they're going through. Do you want to elaborate on any of those or maybe some of the other resources that you have on your website?

Yeah, absolutely One of the things that I'm really proud of as a whole of the organization. Obviously it's like me talking about my child. So it's like, take what I say with a grain of salt, because I'm never going to say anything about my kid, but one of the things that we kicked off at Walk to Talk America was a cultural competence course for mental health clinicians, and we had decided because I had found a mental health clinician named Jake Wiskershin who was super pro-gun, but he walked in this world of his profession where it was kind of a no-no to be pro-gun, and for a long time Jake was like I can't like. The first time I met Jake I was on one of his podcasts. He had a mental health podcast and I was so excited because he was the first person on the mental health side that had brought me on. I had been doing the rounds of all the firearms industry podcasts and radio shows, but getting on. Jake's show is called Noggin, though, and it was really exciting because he was bringing me in, and I remember the first time we talked he said listen, I got to tell you something before we go on air. I'm a gun owner and I have my CCW, but listen, we cannot talk about it. And I was like, okay, that's cool, right, but cut to Jake and I. He starts to become more involved in WTT after he hears about what we're doing. So we had come up with this idea to start a cultural competence course for mental health clinicians that will give them CEU credits, continuing education credits so every year you have to get so many credits towards their license and we thought this is a great way to educate people that don't understand us and we could show them about our fear. And so the course took off and it became this thing where we were like, oh my God, we have to keep throwing these things. And then COVID hit. Because we used to do it in person, we brought it online and it just soared from there. I thought it was going to be the death of it. I was like who's going to sit through three hours? But I didn't realize that I think a lot of people don't want to actually come into a classroom or a shooting range. You might want to learn at home. The greatest thing about this course is that you could take it as your own leisure and you don't necessarily have to come out of it. The expectation level is not that you're going to be all like super gung-ho about firearms, but you're just going to get a different perspective. And it worked like a charm we would get all kinds of feedback. There are so many people that would say this is an example. This is an anecdotal. But one person I remember, because it really touched me, had written when I was anti-gun when I came into the course and now I'm gunned and I was like that's exactly where I want you to go. So the evolution of that eventually, because we became this resource for people, we're calling and we don't do actually any. You can't call walk the talk America. If you're in crisis, we will help you, we will try to find someone for you to talk to, but we're not licensed, we can't do that. So you know I was getting calls and getting people emailing me that we're doing the thing where they're just like hey, like I got somebody who's in trouble, or this and this and that and you have anybody in your area. So about a month ago, Jake and I were like we need to start our own national directory. We need to get clinicians who are not afraid to come out and say like I own a gun or I'm pro 2a, Right, Because every if you look at mental health clinicians or people that work in any kind of healthcare, there are categories Like if you go, if you go to psychology today and you look up, you know, just put up, put in your zip code, there are literally like groups that there are people, clinicians that specialize in, like airline pilots or like moms, right, and so our whole thing is is why can't we have culturally competent and firearms or pro 2nd amendment, whatever right, Like? And that's what we're building now and we feel like this, this network that we're building. You know, ideally what we want is we want to have at least one person just to start off as one person. You know every state, but I think we have like 15 states right now. I Want one, Jake whiskersian, right, I want one person. I could be available. But this is the start and I think once we have this network of Clinicians that kind of speak our language and every one of these clinicians, by the way. We don't just let anybody on there. Okay, you have to go through the course. You could either take the free one or you could take the one where you pay for it and you're guaranteed to get your CEU. Some states recognize it, some don't, like in Nevada. If you take the free one, you could just submit it to the, the state licensing board and they'll give you your CEU's. Other states we don't. We're not sure, but we took care of that angle by partnering with a company that will let you pay. We, we actually pay half the fee, right, so, like, you, encourage that. So you get CEU credits for like $25, I said into the course. But they all come through the course. So when they're there, when they're listed on directory, you know it's somebody that is, it's culturally kind, is not just somebody who's like yeah, I don't care, you know, like I don't care, if you're in the guns, like you can still come to me. No, they, they know, they know like what we're talking. So you know, I'm excited about that. I think it's to me, once we get this thing really often run in and going To me, it's like a small little army of people who are going to be representing us that can kind of do both things right. They can walk in that health space and then obviously come right into the firearm space and they understand the complexities and nuance, everything that that we go through as firearms owners. So that's what that's all about.

Okay, good. So if somebody wanted to find out more about wealth and talk America or contact you or the, the company of what's, where would they find out about you?

First and foremost, our website. You know WTTA org. There's a lot of information on there to digest and go through. But walk talk America org or WTTA org, if you're on social media, it's at walk the talk us and that's the platforms. We're on our Facebook, instagram and Twitter. So at walk the US and if you have any questions you can email us or send us a message. We always have somebody monitoring something you know. So we're on top of it and we're pretty responsive and we're there to answer any of your questions you have. Or even if you want to share a story, right Like there's, there's been advocacy that we've done Through someone reaching out to us saying, hey, did you know about this or this is a problem, and then we can kind of that's the other beauty of having a good relationship with mental health America Is pretty much, if I spot something that isn't really it goes against the Mental health America way, right like it's the ties is mental health, or there's somebody who's being screwed over, who lost their rights, we can kind of be an advocate for them if they tell us the story, because we could share those stories with Mental health America and the other organizations that we work with and kind of point out like hey, don't be a hypocrite, this is what you told us. You know, here's a perfect example. So sometimes you know, bills get shot down right. You know, we bring it to people's attention that normally wouldn't look at it.

Okay, well, I appreciate your time this afternoon and you know, talking about Walk the talk, america like said it's something that I've fell in love with and I put in all of my firearms classes and it's I'm thankful for, for your, your, your heart, and you know what you're doing for the firearms community and the mental health community Trying to bridge them together to where we can meet in the middle and try to. We probably won't ever solve it completely, but at least we've got a firm ground to where we can start working on and trying to Minimize any effects that are out there.

So yeah, thank you, thank you, Thank you for the sport and thank you for the kind words and and and really thank you for Incorporating, like you, incorporating that into to the people that you educate. That says a lot too, and and it's super important because People are gonna respect you and if you're not afraid to talk about it and you make them aware of it, then they know it's okay as firearms owners, you know, I mean. So, yeah, I think it's great.

Okay, one thing I didn't go on the warning you about beforehand. What's, what's your hobby or your relief from from life? When? What do you find enjoyment away from the stress of the everyday routine?

Who's a good question? Uh, does it ever not get stressful?

no I.

Have a beautiful family very supportive of what I do. As a matter of fact, like when I get done off here, I'm actually gonna be interviewed by my daughter who's doing a class project on walk to talk America, uh so so it's really like putting my my attention into my family. I got Beautiful kids. I got beautiful dogs. You know it's really staying focused, but, honestly, walk to talk America is to me like it's bigger than just a job. It's just become a way of life for me. So it's like helping others, um, which I indirectly or directly do on a daily basis. That that kind of is my therapy.

You know okay.

Yeah cool.

Well, thank you for sharing that and if I'll put all that contact information in the show notes for the podcast and I've hope, if anybody has any questions or anything, feel free to reach out to Michael or even myself and we'll get you in contact with them. But thank you, michael, for your time and I hope you have a wonderful interview with your daughter.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast Publishers. Its billiards or any other information to this podcast is only medical, legal or by Angelic lights. The Billions is no responsibility for the liability loss or damage caused by the use of innovation. This podcast listeners are advised so will qualify Professional before making any decision based on the information in this podcast.