The A Better Way 2A Podcast

Madeline Crumling joins A Better Way 2A to talk about what happens when fine art, gunsmithing, and a willingness to build extremely questionable-looking firearms all collide.

Madeline is a gunsmith, master hand engraver, and founder of MC Weaponry. She talks about starting out in engineering before switching to fine art, finding a way to combine the artistic and mechanical sides of her brain, and eventually turning hand engraving into a full-time career.

We get into the absurd amount of work that goes into high-end engraved firearms, including projects that can take an entire month, gold inlays, heirloom guns, and why she still engraves everything by hand under a microscope.

Then there are the less respectable projects: guns made from scrap metal, a 1911 turned into a sci-fi monstrosity, a functioning Webley shaped like a fish, weird caliber conversions, and why guns don't always need to be practical to be worth making.

Madeline also talks about transitioning after already establishing herself in the firearms industry, the support she found from people she didn't necessarily expect, the surprisingly large queer and trans gun community, and what it's like being openly trans in an industry where simply existing can turn you into a lightning rod online.

It's a conversation about craftsmanship, creativity, gun culture, identity, and the underrated value of making something ridiculous simply because you can.

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger

Stephen Gutowski returns to A Better Way 2A to break down some of the biggest gun-policy stories happening right now.

We start with the Supreme Court’s decision to take up challenges to assault-weapons bans, including Connecticut’s law, what the case could mean for AR-15 restrictions around the country, why magazine bans are a separate question, and how years of litigation could finally reshape one of the longest-running fights in American gun politics.

We also get into why AR-15s occupy such an outsized place in both gun culture and the gun-control debate, what the data actually tells us about rifles and violent crime, and how media coverage can shape the public’s understanding of firearms.

Then we turn to the ATF’s proposed changes involving sex at birth on Form 4473, why trans gun owners and FFLs are concerned about how those rules could work in practice, and whether gun regulation is being pulled into a much larger culture-war fight.

Finally, Stephen gives his assessment of the Trump administration’s record on gun policy so far, including its Second Amendment lawsuits, ATF changes, personnel choices, conflicts within the administration, and the difference between looking narrowly at gun policy and taking a broader view of civil liberties.

Stephen is the founder and editor of The Reload and one of the country’s most dedicated reporters covering firearms, gun policy, and the courts.

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger

Tacticool GF returns to A Better Way 2A for the second time to catch up on what life looks like after YouTube. She talks about why TGF was always meant to be a finite project, stepping back from firearms as the center of her life, competitive shooting, backpacking, photography, music, and spending a lot less time online.

From there, the conversation gets into the changing demographics of gun culture, queer representation in shooting spaces, firearms policy affecting trans gun owners, protest culture and why Americans can be so reluctant to act offline, surveillance and the commodification of our personal data, economic anxiety, and what happens when crisis simply becomes the new normal. They close with a conversation about getting outside, protecting public land, and why TGF thinks building real community with people around you might be one of the most important things we can do right now.

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger

Robert “Edgar” Mills is back on the podcast for round two.

Edgar is a retired Green Beret, firearms instructor, owner of Osprey Shooting Solutions in Rome, Georgia, and host of the Junto Podcast. This time around, we get into what it actually means to believe the Second Amendment belongs to everyone, including people you disagree with politically.

We talk about ideological purity tests in the gun community, libertarianism, mutual aid, community responsibility, armed teachers, training standards, concealed carry, defensive gun use, why avoidance is one of the best forms of self-defense, and what you should actually do if you ever have to use a firearm to protect yourself.

Somehow we also end up on Che Guevara, William Tecumseh Sherman, communism, Dick Cheney, Disney World metal detectors, and why Jordan apparently made it through the Marines without learning how to swim or climb a rope.

Edgar is one of those people we don't agree with on everything, which is exactly why these conversations are worth having.

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger

Steve Bradshaw from Tractor Boy returns to the podcast for a conversation that moves between politics, military service, music, and the strange reality of trying to make sense of the world right now.

We talk about ICE, the war with Iran, government propaganda, political loyalty, social media, and why it has become so difficult to agree on even the basic facts of what is happening around us. Steve also reflects on his time in the Army, the lasting effects of PTSD, the fear veterans face when criticizing the government, and how songwriting has helped him process some of those experiences.

Later, we get into Tractor Boy’s new album, Midwest Loud, the stories behind songs like “Blue Harvester,” “Broken GWOTer,” “Hive Mind,” and “Now It Can Be Told,” and why heavy music is sometimes the best way to explain class, war, conspiracy culture, and everything else rattling around in your head.

We also settle on some practical advice for surviving modern life: lift weights, spend less time online, listen to Van Halen in your garage, and drink a beer with your neighbors.

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger

In this episode, we’re joined by James from Black Flag Civilian to talk about building stronger communities in a way that goes far beyond owning guns or waiting for politicians to save us.

We get into mutual aid, community defense, healthy masculinity, the failures of performative activism, and why real political power comes from people organizing and taking care of one another. James also explains why he makes preparedness content using normal working-class language instead of burying useful ideas under political theory and activist jargon.

We also talk about gun violence, anti-Zionism, electoral politics, creating left-wing cultural spaces for men, letting people grow beyond their past beliefs, ADHD, supportive wives, camouflage, radios, and why Darn Tough socks may be the greatest quality-of-life improvement you can make.

Find Black Flag Civilian on YouTube and support his work through SubscribeStar.

Support A Better Way 2A on Patreon for additional episodes and access to our Discord community.

Donate to RAINN

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger

This one was super rad! Spose is a rapper from Maine, an independent artist, a dad, and the guy a lot of people first heard from “I’m Awesome.” His new EP, The American Flag Is a Red Flag, is a much sharper political turn, with songs like A World Without Billionaires and Open Their Wallets connecting with people who are sick of pretending everything is fine.

We got into political rap, capitalism, class war, being an independent artist, why America keeps pushing people toward desperation, and how his views on guns changed from “nobody needs these” to realizing the state should not be the only one with power.

We also talked about fatherhood, therapy, masculinity, public life, online weirdos, self defense, Palestine, war, Tom MacDonald catching strays, and why most normal people want the same basic things: safety, dignity, and a future for their kids.

We can't thank him enough for coming on!

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger

We sat down with Dr. Butch Ware, the Green Party's 2024 vice presidential candidate and current candidate for governor of California. He's a tenured historian at UC Santa Barbara, half of a hip hop duo, a lifelong partisan of the black self-defense tradition, and the kind of politician you basically never see anymore because he's not on anybody's payroll.

Butch converted to Islam at 15 after reading Malcolm X's autobiography in one night. He grew up in and out of public housing in DC when it was the murder capital of the world. He's running for governor with zero corporate or PAC money, got kicked off the primary ballot over a technicality, and is fighting it in court right now. The establishment moved on him because his coalition looks like nothing they've seen before and that scares them.

This conversation went way beyond guns. We talked about why both parties serve the same donors and how he proved it by converting a Trump-voting couple into Green Party organizers on a 45 minute plane ride. We got into the black self-defense tradition going all the way back to maroon communities and slave resistance, why Malcolm said self-defense isn't violence but intelligence, and the fact that even King and SNCC were armed while practicing nonviolent direct action as a strategy. He broke down why California's strict gun laws haven't done anything to reduce violence and what actually works. And he wants to repeal the Mulford Act as governor.

The man quoted Malcolm, King, Fannie Lou Hamer, OutKast, and the Prophet Muhammad's cousin Ali in the same conversation. We need him back.

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger

We sat down with Jarrett Sleeper and this one went way longer than planned because we could not stop talking. Jarrett is an actor, a jiu jitsu black belt with about 20 years on the mats, a shooter, and a guy who thinks about violence and identity more deeply than pretty much anyone we've had on this show. He also has ADHD so between the two of us this conversation went everywhere.

We got into why honest conversations about guns are so hard to have, the LARP that lives inside all of us and why nobody's actually John Browning their way out of this, what it feels like to hold a gun for the first time when you didn't grow up around them, why assault weapon bans don't actually do what people think they do and who they really end up hurting, treating shooting like a martial art instead of a static range hobby, the spiritual weight of living in a country built on violence it never answered for, why community trumps ideology most of the time, the DMV for guns idea and why it would work in a perfect world but not this one, and his motto "the real deal or nothing" and what that actually means when your morality gets tested for real.

This is one of those episodes where we didn't agree on everything but we were thinking out loud together the whole time. If you've ever felt stuck between wanting the world to be less violent and also wanting to be capable of violence when it matters, this one's for you.

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger

We brought Brian Recker on the show because a ton of people were curious about his views on guns and the Second Amendment. Brian's a former Marine officer, a father, a self-described stubborn Christian, and the author of a book about why the concept of hell is a toxic doctrine. He also doesn't own a gun and favors common sense gun control. So we knew this one was going to be interesting.

What we got was one of the best conversations we've had on this show. We got into the myth of redemptive violence and why Christians keep backing every American war, John Brown and whether violent resistance can ever be justified, how the Second Amendment was never designed to protect Black people or marginalized communities, the killing of Alex Pretti and the hypocrisy of conservatives who support gun rights until the wrong person is armed, arming trans communities and why Brian sees beauty in marginalized people exercising their rights even though he personally chooses nonviolence, the militarization of police and how you can draw a direct line from fugitive slave patrols to modern law enforcement, and why the left has a massive messaging problem that keeps alienating the exact people it should be reaching.

Brian came in not agreeing with us on a lot and we didn't agree with him on everything either, but we had an actual conversation about it without anybody feeling like an enemy. That's the whole point of the show and this episode is a perfect example of it.

Brian's book: Hell Bent

If you want to support the show, head to our Patreon for exclusive merch, extra content, and to help us build a more inclusive gun community.

Edited by Matthew Boerger