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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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1/2 (so far)

The Saga of Karl Kasarda

File under: Internet Drama

Dramatis personae:

Karl Kasarda is very real person with a significant internet presence, whom I have paid attention to since maybe 2015. He is (or has been) partners with Ian McCollum, who runs Forgotten Weapons, initially a website, mostly famous as a Youtube channel, and lately expanding to other social media platforms. If Forgotten Weapons is Ian's baby, InRangeTV is Karl's baby, though Karl has rarely (never?) made an appearance on FW, while Ian is (or used to be) a regular on IRTV.

Ian's focus is mostly on rifles and handguns, occasionally shotguns, and often military weapons. If it fires a brass cartridge, it's a potential Forgotten Weapon. While the focus is mainly on lesser known and rare weaponry, Ian won't hesitate to cover ubiquitous guns like the AR-15. He is also known as Gun Jesus for his long hair, mustache, and goatee, and his extensive research and authoritative takes on niche subjects.

Karl's competency is mostly based on competition shooting. He's a cerebral guy with a network security career, who has historically competed in "High Power" rifle disciplines, as well as "Cowboy Action Shooting". In the last 10 or 15 years, he has been a big promoter, host, and competitor in so-called 2 gun Action Challenge Matches, which are mostly defined in opposition to 3 gun competitions. There is plenty of history and internet words spillage regarding "2 gun vs 3 gun", but here's the gist: "3 gun" refers to rifle, pistol, shotgun, while "2 gun" omits the shotgun. "3 gun" as a discipline and community has a focus on precision without much physicality. "2 gun" as a discipline and community has a focus on effective shooting with lots of physicality (action challenge match).

Mostly within the last 5 years or so, InRangeTV has featured Russell Phagan, aka SinistralRifleman. He is a skilled 2GACM competitor, and good friend to Karl and Ian, who are all based out of Arizona (AFAIK). Russell works for KE Arms which manufactures firearms parts, largely for the AR-15 platform.

WWSD (What would Stoner do?)

In 2017, it was widely recognized in the American gun community that the AR-15 rifle (aka M16 or M4 in its military designation) (5.56mm ammunition, 16 inch barrel, gas operated, with a buttstock) is a pinnacle of engineering and design. It was designed by Eugene Stoner in the 1950s, as a scaled-down successor to the AR-10, which used a larger 30 caliber round (7.62 mm). It's pretty wild that here in 2023, the best all-purpose rifle for Americans was designed nearly 75 years ago. Have there been improvements along the way? Abso-fucking-lutely.

So now it's 2017, and what would Eugene Stoner do? Well, one of the unifying principles his early design was to use modern materials, like aluminum and polymer, to reduce weight for the same effectiveness. Polymer science was very primitive in 1950 before carbon fiber and modern epoxies. Both aluminum and steel production have become much more sophisticated, consistent, and reliable. Small parts tolerances have improved with CNC and modern milling machines.

I have a lot more to say here, but Karl and Ian came up with a modern "build" of an AR-15 rifle that uses carbon fiber and polymer along with modern metallurgy and design lessons learned from the last 75 years. Importantly, this design was based off of a polymer "lower receiver" for the AR-15, which is the item that the BATFE (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives) considers a firearm. The milspec lower receiver is a chunk of forged aluminum that is then machined or milled to its final dimensions.

There have been many attempts at polymer lower receivers throughout the years, essentially all of which have been failures in function, design, or sales. The WWSD 2017 design was based off the CAV-15 from GWACS, which is a one-piece polymer lower receiver which includes the grip and the buttstock. The milspec lower receiver does not include the grip or buttstock and instead provides attachment points. The so-called "monolithic" design of the CAV-15 gives it extra strength and reliability relative to other polymer lowers.

Then, in 2020, just before the COVID pandemic hit, we have a product called "WWSD 2020". Partnered with KE Arms, Russell Phagan's company, Karl and Ian want to produce WWSD AR-15 Rifles to sell for a profit. First of all, due to their following, there are thousands or millions of enthusiasts trying to buy CAV-15 polymer lowers, along with carbon fiber handguards, and pencil profile rifle barrels, and the suppliers cannot keep up with demand. Second of all, of course, let's "monetize" this following. No shade.

I have a lot more to say but I am running out of steam. I will augment this post within 12 hours.

2/2 (so far)

Note, this comment has been significantly updated and extended since first written (and replied to, sorry).

The fundamental difference between WWSD 2017 and WWSD 2020 is the monolithic polymer lower receiver, originally the GWACS CAV-15, and then later the KP-15 from KE Arms. The KP-15 is a successor design to the CAV-15 which had gone out of production (and with GWACS effectively dead as a business). While obviously inspired by the CAV-15 with similar features, it is a fresh redesign without reusing any specific design or feature from the CAV-15 while improving function with additional features (e.g. flared magwell). Extensive research and testing went into the production methods and polymer molds.

As KE Arms was ramping up production to meet the considerable demand for the monolithic polymer lower, two significant events occurred: GWACS sends a cease-and-desist to KE Arms over intellectual property concerns regarding the CAV-15, and a deal is struck with Brownells regarding marketing, distribution, and retail sales for the WWSD concept including both parts and complete rifles. KE Arms sues GWACS over the cease-and-desist, and GWACS countersues KE Arms as well as several related organizations and individuals. Kasarda is not named as a defendant but is deposed as a witness.

Fast forward to 2023. Due to COVID and legal interference, the production ramp-up for the KP-15 takes longer than expected, but the lowers are now produced in significant quantity, available from both Brownells and KE Arms directly. However, forum drama is about to upset the apple cart once again.

I wasn't aware of the forum drama or any of its basis until Karl himself posted to the InRangeTV subreddit, seeking consolation for what he felt were unfair attacks on him. The basis for the forum drama, as I was to find out, was mostly Karl's own social media posting, often under his InRangeTV brand. I was mostly just watching the YouTube channel, which had a pretty strict focus on guns, 2 Gun Action Challenge Match stuff, and occasional forays into First and Second Amendment issues and advocacy, along with complaints about Youtube content policies. The social media posting, mainly Instagram, was a different beast entirely.

One Father's Day, Karl posted:

Happy Father's Day!

Personally, I have chosen to not add more of us to this overpopulated planet as my gift to humanity. I highly recommend a vasectomy. Additionally, as a person of entirely Scandinavian descent, I am assisting with the extinction of the white race.

~Karl

Now, there is obviously some attempt at humor, here. Still, I find it pretty offensive and abhorrent. I love my dad, and it's largely because of him that I am comfortable with guns, gun safety, basic carpentry, basic mechanic skills, motorcycles, etc. To take something like Father's Day and twist it into a sick joke just rubs me the wrong way. Still, I have very thick skin and am pretty much a free speech absolutist, so Karl is welcome to hold and express these views. I just find the holder of such views to be disgusting.

He got a pretty negative reaction to this post, and tried to play it off as "just a joke" and not any sort of self loathing or promotion of genocide; it's not anti-white but anti-racist. Yet in the very same post and reply chain, he complains about white fragility. I find it very hard to square this circle. While I struggle to find the humor in the Father's Day post, there is a very obvious butt of the "joke". It's a troll post that targets white people in an attempt to expose white fragility (which he clearly admits).

A later post:

"DEATH to all who stand in the way of freedom for queer people"

This is pretty clearly a call to murder people, which Karl and his buddies attempt to deny. And which freedoms, exactly, are we talking about, Karl?

There is a lot more of this stuff, all posted by Karl to social media, going very much against the grain of American gun culture. As people started to notice this, compilations of Karl's material were posted to ar15.com forums. As the drama was blowing up, Brownells backed completely out of the WWSD deal, which Karl had some stake (5% of something, I forget) in.

I have some thoughts about what is motivating all this drama, which I will save for a further comment.

I'm not sure how much I should say here as I generally try to keep my internet persona's separate for OPSEC reasons and this is coming dangerously close to crossing the streams but...

...I would feel remiss if I didn't bring it up. When GWACS when out of business KE arms bought up the tooling along with several former GWACS employees with the intent of restarting production of polymer lowers. Meanwhile the rumor is that the GWACS name and IP was bought by some progressive culture warrior with the intent of undermining the opposition and that the cease and desist letter was effectively culture-war motivated. This had the effect of drawing in additional "combatants" from outside the immediate 2A legal and Southwest competitive shooting communities (parallels to jihad in the ME are left as an exercise to the reader). The ensuing drama (both internet and legal) in turn lead to Ian catching a lot of flak from Karl and the John Brown Gun Club for "Associating With"/"Failing to Denounce 'Nazis' and 'Far Right Agitators'" like Mike Jones, the Volokh Conspiracy, and Administrative Results (who TBF between the Obi-Wan-Nairobi aesthetic and making his handle a play on "Executive Outcomes" kind of invites those associations) but even so.

Edit to add: TLDR a bunch of people on the internet lashed-out out at Ian and in response a bunch of people showed up to defend him which in turn lead Karl and a bunch of others to lash out in response leading to the dynamic described in the OP, "Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight." This in turn lead to a number of arguments within ARFCOM's mod-mail that ended with an agreement on all sides to lock the thread and walk away.

The ensuing drama (both internet and legal) in turn lead to Ian catching a lot of flak from Karl and the John Brown Gun Club for "Associating With"/"Failing to Denounce 'Nazis' and 'Far Right Agitators'" like Mike Jones, the Volokh Conspiracy, and Administrative Results (who TBF between the Obi-Wan-Nairobi aesthetic and making his handle a play on "Executive Outcomes" kind of invites those associations) but even so.

This explains a lot. Also there is good info here: https://old.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/sltls3/forgotten_weaponsheadstamp_controversy_summary/

Edit Edit to add. This is not intended as a call but I seem to recall @ymeskhout having ties of some sort to JBGC and I wonder if he's got any insight on this front.

I was, but haven't had any involvement at all since I resigned in late 2018. I'm not familiar with the names in this thread, nor do I really understand the "controversy", except that everyone loves Gun Jesus.

I second that emotion. I definitely recall JBGC affiliation from reddit comments and maybe B&R podcast. I like hearing Yassine's takes, even when I have some quibbles.