The MeatEater

This week, Brent's sharing his passion for baseball with some stories from his childhood. He has a special affinity for America's pastime, but his favorite part of it isn't the players - it's the game itself. The similarities he sees between life and baseball are close. You'll have to listen to see if you agree. Batter up! It's time for MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast.

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If you’ve spent any time in western terrain, you already know about the brutal climbs, long hours in the cold, or the moment you finally arrow a bull, only to realize you’re many miles from the truck with a few hundred pounds of meat on the ground.

That’s when fitness stops being a bonus and becomes a requirement. It’s not about six packs or max deadlifts. It’s about being more present, more capable, and more resilient when it counts. When you’re not winded from the hike, you’re more alert. When you’re not aching from the cold, you’re more patient. And when the opportunity finally shows up, you’re ready.

Let me point out what I’m not: I am not a professional hunter or marksman. I am, however, an avid outdoorsman with an insatiable desire to learn more about the craft. I am a CrossFit Games champion and the owner of CrossFit Mayhem, where we’ve helped thousands of people improve their fitness over the past decade and a half.

That being said, I’d like to paint a picture of how we approach fitness, and I’ll let you connect the dots on whether or not it will improve your hunting. Your fitness program is only successful if it prepares you for your goals. In the context of hunting, that means forging a body and mind equipped for everything the wild demands—not just lifting weights or running. Both play a part, but create limited results in isolation.

There are ten general physical skills that are widely accepted as defining a well-rounded athlete: cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. These skills and abilities all come into play in hunting scenarios, and if you’re missing even one of these, you’ll feel it in the field. Our goal is functional fitness that checks all those boxes—training that mimics real-world hunting challenges and meets them head-on. A deficiency in one is a hole in your game that could cost you greatly.

Carrying a full pack while navigating scree, post-holing through snow, crawling through swamp mud, and hauling out big game all rely on a cocktail of those physical capacities—endurance and stamina to press on, strength and power to manage loads, balance and coordination on uneven ground, flexibility and accuracy to draw back a bow or aim a rifle, and speed to make the move when game appears.

In the face of emergencies, the importance of our brand of fitness becomes even clearer. Forget yourself for a minute and imagine who you would most want by your side if things really go sideways. It’s cool that you can chew up miles, but can you clear the log that fell on your friend, ford the river that came up unexpectedly, or—God forbid—carry me out of danger?

In short, we want you prepared for anything. Because in my experience, “anything” is what I’ve encountered in the woods. We can build this fitness in the gym through constant and intentional variation that is oriented toward the hunt. This builds more physical resilience and the mental grit to know you can grind farther, push harder, and recover faster from discomfort.

On Western hunts, success isn’t handed to you—it’s earned one ridge at a time. Elk, mule deer, and other mountain game don’t hang out near trailheads. They live in the toughest country they can find, and if you want a crack at them, you’ve got to go where the animals go.

Fitness buys access to the places where mature animals hide. Without it, you’re forced to hunt where it’s easy to get to, which is also where everyone else is.

It’s humbling trying to keep up with guys who have lived at elevation their entire lives. You push through the timber, gain 2,000 feet before lunch, and then glass across another basin that looks even farther than the last. On more than one occasion, I’ve been told by guides that my ability to keep up and access untouched honey holes has given me more opportunities simply because other clients cannot make the push. The payoffs have been impossible to describe.

Even if you get there, being exhausted when the moment of truth arrives can ruin your shot. Your heart rate is spiked from the climb, your breathing is uneven, your legs are shaky, and you’ve got seconds to steady yourself and execute. Fitness helps calm the body under pressure, giving you the control to settle your pins or squeeze your trigger when it matters most.

Eastern whitetail hunting might not come with 2,000-foot climbs, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Success often hinges on quiet discipline, grit in the cold, the ability to endure long, motionless hours when nothing’s moving, and then spring to action when the time comes.

Tree stand hunters know the drill: pre-dawn hikes in, freezing fingers fumbling with gear, hours of dead silence, and then—out of nowhere—a mature buck steps into range. If your core is locked up from sitting too long, or your legs are asleep, or your mental edge has dulled from the cold, you’ve already lost your shot.

The cold is its own test. Sitting still in 20-degree weather for four or five hours demands both physical preparation and mental resilience. The better conditioned you are, the better your circulation, body control, and focus will be, which are all critical for reacting with precision when things finally happen fast.

Mobile hunters, too, face their own physical gauntlet. Hanging and hauling stands, dragging out deer through mud or thickets, or weaving quietly through the woods with a saddle and pack all day add up. Strength, balance, and stamina make the difference between frustration and effectiveness, and in some cases, life and death.

Let’s be clear: you don’t need to be an ultramarathoner or a former D1 athlete to benefit from fitness. You just need to start. The best training plan is the one that fits your life and moves you forward, because something is always better than nothing.

Hunting is the proving ground, not the gym. That means there’s no gold medal for crushing a workout if you can’t hike in or get a deer out. Fitness should build you up, not beat you down. For hunters, that might look like rucking instead of treadmills, deadlifts over bicep curls, and mobility work that helps you draw a bow or sit still comfortably when it’s cold and quiet.

Consistency and intent are what matter. Show up a few days a week. Focus on movements that mimic the demands of your hunt. Progress gradually. Stack enough of those days together, and you’ll be amazed where you can go—and what you can bring back. The fortunate side effects will be an overall improvement in your quality of life, regardless of what better means to you.

If you’re looking for a place to start, check us out at MayhemHunt.com. And stay tuned for more fitness articles that will help you better prepare for your hunts this fall.

I’m confident in saying that I have fairly well-trained bird dogs. They know the basics and can run multiple retrieves at the same time. My dogs are steady to the shot, and they listen really well. For me.

My daughters and my wife, their dogs aren’t quite as good. This is a real bummer, because they are the same dogs.

The thing about our modern bird dogs is that they are also house dogs, family dogs, and general pets all wrapped up in one package. This is great, but it can lead to some issues with their skills in the field. The most common involves a problem that an awful lot of bird dogs develop, and occasionally, can’t kick.

Quite a few years ago, I stepped into a slough in Nebraska with my Lab, Luna. A hunting buddy and his Lab followed us into that chunk of public dirt. Within a minute or two of us marching forward, the first rooster got up.

When Luna came running up to me with that ringneck in her mouth, I reached down and she placed him in my hand. That’s when a couple of other birds got up, so I instinctively dropped him and shot at another rooster.

When I looked down, he was gone, and it was total chaos to get her to try to reset on a retrieve she’d already finished. If you have a bird dog that delivers to hand, whether through force-fetch or however you got it there, that’s great. If that dog starts to spit dummies or birds early, for some reason, all of that hard work can be lost–and so can birds, if they are wounded but capable of running or flying.

The easiest way to facilitate this is to take a well-trained dog and start using tennis balls or a Chuck-it with them. For whatever reason, they figure out quickly that they can Hawk Tuah a ball out on the ground, and a lot of folks will pick it up and throw it again. This is a mixed-message situation that will carry over to the moments you absolutely don’t want them to not retrieve to hand. Be careful of this, because one member of your family not paying attention can unravel a lot of work.

When I run retrieving drills with my dogs, they almost always have to wait before I send them. It’s conditioned in them, and it’s something that is just natural for me. I just don’t like dogs that break.

My daughters and my wife don’t really care that much about steadiness. This can lead to inconsistency, and the tough part is, you don’t know where the lax rules on their part will invade your world. It might not be during a training session, but instead might be during the fall migration when the first wood ducks of the year are on the menu, or later when the greenheads start heading south.

If steadiness is important to you, then everyone needs to be on the same page. There’s no way around it, and the same goes for recall.

For those of you who don’t have two 13-year-old daughters, I’ll let you in on a secret–they make noise almost nonstop. A lot of that noise is general words pointed in no specific direction, for no specific reason. When mixed with an old dog and a young dog, those words can blanket the world in nonsense.

Now, I’m not saying I don't talk like a total lunatic to my dogs, I absolutely do. But I also try not to give them commands that won’t work in the moment. I also try really hard not to give them commands that I don’t mean, because that sends the wrong message, real fast. An easy way to see this one play out is with recall.

I want to get my dogs’ attention and call them to me in one simple sequence of events. I don’t want to have to raise my voice or lose my shit over them ignoring me because they’ve been conditioned to do just that. Whoever spends time with your dogs should understand the importance of this because when we minimize the importance of commands, performance atrophies over time.

If you’re paying attention, all of these issues and many more can be tied to inconsistency in training. The more everyone in your family, or whomever might get their hands on your dog, works with you to train, the better you’ll be. It’s good for the dogs, and it’s good for you.

That’s ideal-scenario stuff, and doesn’t play out in real life though. The best you can do is train with your loved ones as much as possible, and try to make it clear how important your rules are for not just you, but the dog.

If they even meet you halfway, that’s a huge win, and your bird dog will be much better off for it.

As a high school kid, I spent most of my Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays at my grandparents. I had almost zero responsibilities and ample hunting time. When I wasn’t in the woods, I would thumb through stacks of Outdoor Life or Field & Stream that my grandfather hoarded over the years and kept in a wicker basket beside his recliner.

In the evenings, he would formulate the next day’s hunting plans for me and my cousins as we watched hunting shows. Most of these shows featured sprawling midwestern ag fields, big bucks, even bigger tower blinds, and, of course, the whispered interview and shout-out to the outfitter providing the hunt. It was completely foreign to the southern piney woods me and my family hunted, but we didn’t care. It fired us up, and those shows gave us the illusion that we were one food plot or carefully hung stand away from killing a wall-hanger.

Of course, our hunts never ended like those shows. It wasn’t until I hunted for several years that I finally realized that the hunting industry (specifically deer) is just that—an industry. Once you pull back the green curtain, you can’t ignore the man on the control board. While I recognize the irony of this article that comes from an outlet and brand that is part of the broader hunting industry, I also try my best to remain transparent and honest when it comes to writing about hunting, and that includes debunking some of the myths that a lot of hunting media wants (and needs) you to believe.

To highlight some of these industry “secrets,” I spoke with MeatEater’s Tony Peterson. Tony’s been in the business for several decades as a writer, editor, podcast host, and one heck of a deer hunter. He’s written hundreds of hunting articles over the years, many of which provide practical hunting advice that actually applies to the average hunter. Here are a few secrets he highlighted that the hunting industry won’t tell you.

Tony quickly made it clear that nothing replaces time in the woods. It was his first, emphatic point and one that overlaps all the others in this article.

“The Hunting industry doesn’t sell woodsmanship,” he said. “They want to sell quick-fix products. But the truth is, discipline and hard work kill deer. You have to spend a lot of time in the woods to find success.”

A nauseating amount of promising products line the shelves at sporting goods stores. While some of them can be helpful, most resemble late-night infomercial products. Manufacturers, show hosts, and even hunt influencers want you to believe that the products they tout directly lead to success. This just isn’t the case. If you can’t read and interpret basic deer sign, no amount of scents, food plot seed, camo patterns, or hunting tech will help you kill a deer, let alone a big buck.

Even the best-intended hunting advice can come across as tone deaf. As a young hunter, I took the tips and tactics from hunting shows and magazines to heart. While some of it was useful, a lot of it just didn’t apply to my situation, or it was downright bad advice.

I didn’t realize that a lot of this advice came from hunters who spent their time at ranches, with outfitters, or on media hunts. I’m not saying there’s no place for these types of settings. However, the popular advice that comes from hunters in these positions just doesn’t apply to most hunters.

“A lot of the hunting advice originates from hunters in privileged positions,” Tony said. “Most hunters should steer away from popular hunting advice, especially generalized statements. Those types of blanket whitetail strategies just don’t work.”

Tony noted that these blanket statements can prove more harmful than helpful. For instance, some of these statements include: not hunting early season mornings, saving your best spots for the right conditions, planting x number of food plots, and bucks are brainless during the rut, to name a few. He pointed out that tactics like waiting for the right conditions just don’t work for hunters on limited time or pressured ground, and that most hunters are better off taking a trial and error approach.

Along the lines of blanket statements and tactics, Tony also warned that hunters should be cautious of jumping on popular strategies, even if they’re coming from proven DIY hunters. He made a great point: A lot of people, with good intentions, are selling a style or strategy. Whether it’s the current mobile hunting trend, hunting from the ground, or targeting specific buck beds, these strategies only work within certain contexts.

For instance, Tony used targeting specific buck beds as an example. He pointed out that while this tactic can be super effective, it won’t help hunters who spend their time in the big woods. It’s not that hunters shouldn’t consider these tactics, but they should consider their hunting situation before adopting a certain style. While there are plenty of well-meaning hunt-fluencers showcasing their successful tactics, “You have to find a lane that works for you,” Tony said.

A lot of deer hunting media continues to pedal this “If you build it, they will come” idea, regarding food plots and big bucks. While food plots can provide a nutritional boost to a property, it’s hardly a guarantee that mature bucks will flock to them.

In fact, research shows that mature bucks don’t frequent food plots during shooting hours for most of the year anyway. Depending on your situation, you should probably consider whether food plots give you the best advantage anyway, especially if you want to shoot a mature buck.

Rather than building a grocery store for your local deer population, Tony insisted that observing and learning natural deer movement on the landscape will serve you better in the long run.

“Watching deer on the landscape, as long as you don’t mess it up, can help you level up,” he said. “I’ve killed a lot of deer by leaving things as natural as possible and then moving in for a setup.”

Essentially, Tony suggests finding the deer and hunting them where they’re at—not where you think they should be (i.e., in a brassica field). Of course, hunting deer in their natural patterns requires woodsmanship, and no amount of money can buy that.

Despite what you read or hear, successful hunting requires hard work. If I had to sum up Tony’s argument, it comes down to time in the woods.

“You have to put in work all season long,” he said. “From September to December, just get out as much as you can. Get to the woods earlier and sit later than you planned. I see a lot of deer activity outside the typical hunting hours. Trust me, they’re moving a lot more than we think.”

This week on the show I’m joined by my long-time cohost Dan Johnson to discuss the epiphanies, tactical changes, and philosophical shifts that have occurred as we have unexpectedly become middle-aged hunters.

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Steven Rinella talks with Apprentice Professional Hunter George Dodds.

Topics Discussed: Ginormous termite mounds; growing up on a ranch in Kenya; how elephants hate bees; the resident lions and leopards; Kenya's 1977 ban on hunting; 250-pound Nile Perch; the misery that tsetse flies unleash; the fashion combo of shorts and cute gaiters; what it takes to become a Professional Hunter in Tanzania; harvesting honey on the Luganzo Tongwe Game Reserve; eating Steve's Cape Buffalo; and more.

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In this episode, Jason sits down with Kyle and Steven Bradshaw, the innovators behind the Kyven Bugle Tube, the first truly collapsible, full-size bugle. They dive into the origins of the idea and the long road from prototype to full-scale production. Jason shares his perspective on recognizing a great idea when he sees one, and the humility it takes to partner with someone else and bring their vision to life. From design and production challenges and trade-offs to what the future holds for Kyven, this conversation is a must-listen for hunters, gear junkies, and creative minds alike.

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Deep within Nepal, nestled against the Tibetan border, five Nepali men stood over a hobbled yak in a stone corral. I watched from my second-story room in the overlooking guest house. The beast struggled on its side, its horns cutting the dirt as its head violently swung back and forth. After about fifteen seconds, everything went silent, and the slaughterer pulled a ten-inch Kukri sword from its heart. Staggered by the events, I grabbed my camera, bribery cigarettes, and ran to the action.

Peering over the stone wall, I snapped photos, though the camera shutter felt intrusive and inappropriate. With a smile, the oldest man in the corral saw my curiosity and waved me in. "Namaste," I said while ducking under the wooden door frame. Again, the man smiled in response, this time pointing to the yak, mimicking a pushing motion. He wanted to flip the yak on its back, and it was all hands on deck to budge the brute.

I continued to ask questions in English while rocking the animal as if it were a car stuck in snow, but with no response. They either couldn't speak English or pretended not to, hoping I would go silent so they could work in peace. In any case, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a joke when a neighbor's cow ran into the corral by accident. I looked at the youngest butcher, threw my arms up, and yelled AHHHHHHH, pretending to be the horrified cow.

The low-hanging fruit of a joke seemed to bust up any tension among us, and they began to work. The slaughter of a yak may be rare, but this certainly wasn't their first rodeo. In unison, the men removed the hooves, set them aside, and ran a blade from bow to stern. With the skin now bisected, one of the Nepali pulled out a piece of webbing and fed it through slits in the hide.

They pulled on the skin using the straps as grips while another man struck the woolly pelt with the backside of the hatchet. Inch by inch, he chopped the hide from the lifeless carcass. The rhythmic swinging of the axe ended abruptly, and one man snipped a piece of wool from the hide. He then fed the eight inches of black hair through a knitting-sized needle and began to stitch the meat afflicted by the mortal wound caused by the Kukri. It was a strange practice, but the need for the needle was strictly utilitarian as they did not want any blood to spill onto the dirt.

Once the mini-surgery was complete, they began to slice. A rusty blade slit the abdominal wall open, and when it hit ribs they began to hack at the brisket ferociously. Bits of blood and muscle misted the workers as they fought to expose the organs.

With the internals now accessible, a small hand entered the cavity, and out came a mess of congealed blood. The old man smiled at me and popped the viscous mess into his mouth. The look on my face must have entertained him, as he was now smiling larger than ever with blood-stained teeth. He reached back down into the cavern of the yak and grabbed another handful, extending it in my direction. Feeling the peer pressure and not being one to turn down food, I obliged.

Still smiling with blood smeared across his face, he waited until I joined the club. It tastes just as you would think: hot and messy with a touch of iron. The roughly five gallons collected were to be mixed with the organs and stuffed back into the intestines to become sausage.

It was smooth sailing from this point on. The legs were separated from the carcass, and the workers assumed their respective roles. Each leg met its maker on the wooden tree stump used as a chopping block. With a cigarette dangling from his mouth, the man wielding a cleaver chopped each piece of meat into four sections. The finished cuts were laid carefully on the yak's hide in four separate piles. Each mound represented one of the families participating in the slaughter.

Evenhandedness turned out to be the most contentious aspect of the day. Restricted by my camera viewfinder, I missed what set off the screaming. Leaning against the wall stood an old lady, unsatisfied with the meat in her pile. She barked at her husband while holding a mound of congealed blood in her hand. Halfway through the argument, she reached down and ate a handful without pausing in her outburst. The argument became much more threatening as blood sprayed between her teeth in the direction of her marital adversary. The passionate scene eventually ended when the portions were equalized, again assuming the supervisor role.

The sun eventually hit its halfway mark in the sky, and it was time to rejoice. The post-mortem celebration was sparked with a cigarette. Smoked drained from their noses while smiling at the family members entering the corral, carrying food and a mysterious liquid.

Predictably, Nepalis crave only one dish called Dal Bhat, which consists of rice, lentil soup, curry, and, in this case, dried yak. Each simple ingredient stands alone on the plate and is combined when consumed. It's unavoidable, flavorful, and hearty. Following tradition, I squatted down and began mixing the lentil soup into the rice with my fingers. The cheerful old man poured me a cup of cloudy liquid from the mystery thermos. "Raksi," he shouted while motioning for me to drink. I took a sip and damn-near fell off my imaginary horse as the homemade booze torched my insides. I assume the lingering yak spirit felt some form of justice.

With most of the work behind us, we moved on to less-attractive jobs. This included cleaning the intestines in a creek nearby, throwing some yak bits to the street dogs, and preparing the meat for transport. One family member at a time would enter the corral, load up a bamboo basket called a doko, and brace the weight of the haul on their foreheads with a plastic strap. Although it looks uncomfortable, the practice has proven itself with the hordes of porters who attack Mt. Everest annually.

The corral was now empty, the only evidence of what transpired was a feral cat gnawing on a piece of intestine in the corner.

Absolutely nothing considered edible was wasted. The organs, blood, meat, bones, hide, and head had all been hauled to their respective houses. I shook hands with the butchers, thanking each one of them. The last person I thanked was the old man. He looked back and answered with that familiar smile. Although the rice wine had washed the blood from his teeth, his grin remained a beacon of happiness on this day of death.

These Nepalis living in one of the world's most remote regions have lessons for all of us hunters. Butchering the year's meat should be a family affair, full of laughter, food, and possibly hooch. The old lady who looked like Dracula reminds us that greed has no place on the cutting table. And when in doubt, take a cleaver or machete to large muscle groups to ensure the bone stays out of the trash can. Meat has meant life for the human species and the late yak proves this sentiment belongs to every culture, including the Buddhist.

While public land advocates celebrated the elimination of Mike Lee’s contribution to the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, gun owners cheered a different provision that could pave the way for total deregulation of suppressors and short-barreled firearms.

Congress passed–and the president approved–the elimination of the $200 tax stamp on suppressors, rifles with barrels less than 16 inches, shotguns with barrels less than 18 inches, and “any other weapon,” a category of restricted firearms that does not easily fit in the other two categories. The tax remains on machine guns and destructive devices regulated under the National Firearms Act.

Gun rights groups praised the move as a big step towards deregulating suppressors and treating them as any other firearm accessory.

“When President Trump signs the One Big Beautiful Bill–which will eliminate the excise tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs–he will have delivered the biggest blow to the National Firearms Act since its passage nearly a century ago,” the American Suppressor Association, the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation said in a joint statement.

The National Firearms Act (NFA) was passed by Congress in 1934 and was designed to restrict access to firearms and accessories ostensibly used by gangs.

Gun rights advocates have been working for decades to repeal or de-fang the NFA, especially for suppressors, which can be purchased off the shelf in many other countries. The Hearing Protection Act (HPA) was introduced in 2015 and would have made purchasing a suppressor as simple as purchasing a firearm.

That legislation failed to gain traction until, as we reported in May, a portion of the Hearing Protection Act was added to the budget reconciliation bill. This section would have removed suppressors and short-barreled firearms from the NFA, and it passed the U.S. House. But while the Senate parliamentarian nixed that provision as failing to comply with reconciliation rules, she allowed the tax reduction to remain.

As a result, those registering a suppressor or a short-barreled firearm after January 1, 2026, will no longer be required to fork over that extra $200. They will still be required to go through the usual process of submitting forms, fingerprints, and passing a background check, but they will no longer have the added burden of sending more money to the government.

Brandon Maddox, founder and CEO of Silencer Central, told us that eliminating that $200 tax burden will definitely result in increased demand for gun mufflers.

“When we run sales, we typically see a threefold increase. With the tax stamp going away, you’ll see a big uptake,” Maddox said.

Maddox is concerned that the seven-month gap between when the law was signed and when it takes effect will cause would-be buyers to stay on the sidelines until January 1. Then, the pent-up demand will skyrocket and could make it difficult for some manufacturers to keep up.

“Most of us are not as busy right now because everyone’s on the sidelines waiting for that tax stamp to go away. It’s hard to have a lot of resources to invest in to get ready for it,” he said. “What I’m hearing is, most people are struggling to sell anything, so they’re not going to have a ton of money to go invest in making three times the product to have sitting on the shelf. The theory is, there could be some scarcity when the law goes through.”

It’s possible the Department of Justice will step in and make some kind of special provision to eliminate that tax between now and January.

“They’re looking into it to see if they can legally do that,” Maddox said. “That shows me that folks in the White House are looking after the consumer, which is perfect.”

But if they don’t, and there’s a specific suppressor you want between now and the first half of next year, it might be worth ponying up the $200 to get what you need in a timely manner.

Eliminating the tax is a step towards deregulation, but gun rights advocates have their sights set on a bigger prize. One day before President Trump signed the budget bill, a coalition of Second Amendment groups and gunmakers filed a federal lawsuit to eliminate the NFA entirely.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to dismantle one of the most abusive federal gun control laws on the books,” said Erich Pratt, Senior Vice President of Gun Owners of America (GOA), in a press release announcing the suit. “With the tax struck down by Congress, the rest of the NFA is standing on air. We’re ready to take this fight to the courts and finally end the federal registry once and for all.”

The suit argues that when Congress took the tax from $200 to $0, they eliminated the constitutional justification for the rest of the regulations on suppressors and SBRs. In 1937, the Supreme Court ruled that the NFA was constitutional under Congress’s Article I power to tax. Without a tax on those items, the lawsuit claims, Congress has no authority to impose restrictions that verify the tax has been paid.

The case in question, Sonzinsky v. United States, was about the NFA tax on the firearm dealer, not the consumer. But GOA lawyers argue that the same principles should apply.

And they’re not the only ones filing a lawsuit. The NRA has joined with the American Suppressor Association, the Firearms Policy, and the Second Amendment Foundation to file a separate suit along the same lines.

“The unconstitutional registration requirement for the items—which has historically been justified as necessary to prove that the tax had been paid—remains intact. The NRA and its allies will aim to eliminate this registration scheme in their new lawsuit, while continuing to fight for legislation dismantling the NFA entirely,” the NRA said in a statement.

Maddox supports these lawsuits even though, if they’re successful, consumers will no longer need one of Silencer Central’s main services: making the purchasing process easier and more convenient.

“We’re fine with that. We’d lean into the product,” he said, referring to Silencer Central’s line of suppressors. “I’m optimistic about the lawsuit. I think it makes sense, and I can’t really see a downside.”

Maddox does hope gun rights groups continue to pursue both the legal challenges and the Hearing Protection Act. One of the benefits of the HPA is that it includes a preemption clause that nullifies state laws that impose taxes or registration requirements to own a suppressor. But winning a lawsuit would bring no such projections.

“If this case wins tomorrow, then there are quite a few states where suppressors would be unlawful,” Maddox said.

That’s because, according to Maddox, about 16 states have laws on the books that make owning a suppressor illegal if it is not purchased under the NFA. If the courts strike down the NFA, states will have to pass legislation legalizing suppressors under the new regulatory structure. The problem is, that process could take years, and some states might decide not to do so.

“Some of the blue states are saying, if the NFA goes away, then we’ll make them illegal here. It’s another part of the equation that people will have to work on,” Maddox said.

The good news–or the bad news, depending on your perspective–is that these lawsuits will likely take years to work their way through the court system. In the meantime, states can decide how they want to approach suppressor ownership in light of the NFA’s demise.

In this week's interview episode, Cal and Jordan chats with Chris Wittman, co-founder of Captains for Clean water, to talk about one of the biggest threats to the Florida Everglades: rock mines built by the sugar industry.

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