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I'm a "gun guy", AMA

A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:

Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.

I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.

Technical questions

Gun control proposals for feasibility

Industry

Training

Wacky opinions

General geekery

Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173

https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE

https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xVh4CjbgK7s

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0IK2RUxVq3A

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If you have consumed any of his content how legit is Paull Harrel?

Who are some of your favorite firearm youtubers?

From watching him a while, dude seems fairly legit.

I've been watching a fair amount of guntube recently, and it seems to me that while there's pretty clearly a fair whiff of the grift going on, it seems to me that a lot of the major channels are actually engaging in a pretty interesting semi-organized strategy of public outreach, attempting to raise the public profile and image of the gun community in the minds of the general public. There's a pretty wide range of content styles, but after a while one begins to percieve a sort of gradient between the fun/silliness end of guys like Demo Ranch up through the much more serious channels engaging with the serious aspects of perfecting technique or engaging with life-and-death tactical and legal questions involved in actual gunfights. From what I've seen, Paul Harrel seems middling-far into the serious end of things. Still sorta in the general interest category in terms of presentation, but focusing on more serious questions and situations.

If you're looking for more information, what sorta content are you interested in? mag-dumps into trash? History and technical info? Shooting skills? Amusement vs learnings?

I've only seen a couple of his vids, but he seemed non-crazy.