When interviewing someone whom everyone paying attention has seen and heard, and likely already has an opinion about, you can’t help but pause. First, because people will either like or dislike the interview based on what they already think of the famous person. But also, and more importantly, because it is too easy to get caught in the mental trap that you’re suddenly speaking with a person you’ve listened to for years.
So, to get by all that, I went right to the topic we talk about here, which doesn’t come up much in his interviews and speeches.
“I hear you have a lot of guns, Tucker.”
Tucker laughed. It was the laugh that we hear every time he is in front of a microphone. It is not a nervous laugh—like, say, the one Kamala Harris used between word salads—but a laugh that says he likes being surprised in conversation.
As he rolled into the question, I found listening to Tucker’s easy laugh, his seamlessly upbeat tone and his nonstop tell-it-like-it-is perspective matched exactly what I had expected, as this is how he always is on camera. And then, as he talked about his bird dogs, his shotguns, his ARs and his pistols, I appreciated that Tucker is such a successful media personality that he doesn’t fear the woke cancel-culture warriors, nor the chattering class of pundits in Washington, D.C., nor the late-night comedy-show hosts who would all condemn what he was telling me. Tucker is clearly his own man. (He has, in fact, mentioned on stages—indeed, many times recently—that he is carrying concealed.)
And it isn’t that Tucker is now so famous and wealthy that he doesn’t care what he says. No, that’s another type altogether—loose cannons don’t last. Instead, listening to him, prodding him with questions, made me think that Tucker cares. He is not just a critic of the ruling class, though he is certainly that. Rather, I find him to be a curious opinion journalist who really cares about America and her future. He has publicly changed some of his opinions—which I find to be a trait of a thinking person—and any of us might disagree with any of his specific views (I sure do), but I don’t find it debatable that he wants the best for America and our freedom.
He is a journalist with decades of experience—not that this is a great marker of honesty. But it is worth noting that he once wrote for Esquire, GQ and The New York Times, back when such publications would have a conservative like him in their pages. He also starred on CNN’s long-since defunct but groundbreaking show “Crossfire” and, more recently, he had Fox News’ biggest show. He is now running the Tucker Carlson Network. In all of this, it is no big secret what he thinks, as his evolving thoughts are out there for anyone to hear, so perhaps it is how he thinks and the joy in his laugh and words that keep so many listening.
“The American media encourage conformity to their politics, but they’ve followed their narratives right into nonsense,” said Tucker. “They pretend that riots that are useful to their politics are peaceful demonstrations, even when we can all see the flames and smoke. They tell us all cops are bad guys, even though we would all call 911 in an emergency. And then, given all they’ve done, these same media members are surprised when millions and millions of Americans buy guns for self-defense.”
His tone was so buoyant, I laughed. He laughed, too, and he kept going with no filter I could discern.
So, I asked how gun owners can bust through the oppressive mainstream-media narratives.
“Trigger time with good instruction changes people. It wakes them up to what a physical right the Second Amendment is.”
—Tucker Carlson
“Well, look,” said Tucker, “too many gun owners are reluctant to talk about being gun owners. Don’t be. Proudly tell anyone who will listen; even if they won’t listen, tell them you enjoy your Second Amendment rights. Say it with a smile. Be sincere. And then tell them why. I introduce people to shooting all the time. When they hit the target, they always smile. It’s fun. It’s empowering. Knowing how to shoot can save your life. Why should we be shy about that?”
Though Tucker understandably wouldn’t want me to reveal where he lives, I can say his summer property is rural; so rural, in fact, that he has multiple gun ranges on his property.
“It took me two days with a chainsaw to build the first range on my property,” said Tucker. “Now we have a bunch!”
He then talked about his love for rifles chambered in pistol cartridges and how he buys ammo by the pallet. At times, he has been annoyed (like every other serious shooter) with how hard it can be to get ammunition.
“I know it’s not a conspiracy,” he said. “I’ve talked to ammo makers. I know it’s a supply-and-demand thing, but it can be frustrating.”
When I shifted again to how we might get the mainstream media to be at least a little honest about guns, he was incredulous. “They’re not going to change,” he said. “They’ve had too much success shaping the narrative to get what they want. They want power. They have a good bit of it now. They’re not going to stop.”
I asked if maybe, just maybe, all these new gun owners—many of whom are people who buy the Left’s newspapers and watch their cable shows—might force the mainstream media to be a little more honest about Second Amendment issues.
“Nope,” he said. “They are not going to have an honest discussion on this topic. They’re frauds. They’re completely disingenuous. You can’t have an honest dialogue with a purely dishonest party.
“They don’t care that, what, less than 3% of homicides involve some type of rifle and that semi-automatic rifles are some small sliver of that miniscule percentage,” said Tucker. “If they did, they’d be after semi-automatic pistols. And they are and will be—but first they see AR-type rifles as the easiest to ban, so they’re starting there. They’ve done that before, after all. Then they’ll come for another category and another. And they don’t care that the real way to stop bad guys with guns is to go after the bad guys. They don’t care. What they want is control.”
There is certainly a lack of reporting on what happens in the roughest neighborhoods in Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore and so on almost every night; instead, the mainstream media just wants to talk about suing gun manufacturers and gun stores and about more ways to control the law-abiding populace. When I noted this, Tucker said, “Right, watch what they’re doing; how they’re intentionally misleading people. They’re intentionally blaming guns, not criminals, to get their way. They don’t care that their preferred policies are getting people killed. They’re not acting in good faith.”
I didn’t ask how Tucker, a man from California who spent so much of his career inside the Washington, D.C., beltway, knows this, as I’ve interviewed him before for America’s 1st Freedom (find it on A1F.com). The short answer is his father put an emphasis on making sure his kids knew how to shoot and that a good part of his youth was spent in the country.
Instead, I quipped, “If only those media members knew how much fun shooting is.”
“Exactly,” said Tucker, “it’s fun. There is this little steel chipmunk on one of my ranges. When someone hits it, they always whoop. It’s kind of a test. The women I teach are almost always much faster at hitting the targets than the men. I think this is because women will admit they don’t know how to shoot and then will actually listen to instruction. A lot of the men, however, get sheepish. They don’t want to admit they don’t know how to shoot. They should be embarrassed, too. Every man should know how to shoot, so I don’t mind embarrassing them. In any case, experience on the range—trigger time with good instruction—changes people. It wakes them up to what a physical right our Second Amendment is.”
Tucker then argued that changing the political landscape with regard to the Second Amendment is all about grassroots outreach. “Just keep talking about being a Second Amendment advocate,” said Tucker. “Be proud. Talk about how empowering it is. We need even more shooting competitions. We need a robust NRA that’s out there attracting new people to fun days at the range.”
I mentioned the tens of thousands of NRA instructors people can find at nrainstructors.org and the many NRA-sponsored competitions people can find at competitions.nra.org, and he agreed, but said, “We don’t hear about that enough.”
Which again brings us back to how difficult it is to bust through the mainstream media and Big Tech’s control of much of the national conversation. Again, Tucker countered with the reality that the mainstream media’s almost-complete censorship of Second Amendment-related issues isn’t going to change. They’re repeatedly censoring facts they find politically inconvenient and falsely claiming America’s more than 100-million gun owners are a problem that needs to be solved, but he believes the truth is nonetheless getting out.
Tucker explained that we’re in a culture war, thanks to this dishonesty and censorship from the Left, but he only sees them winning if gun owners mollify their beliefs, hide them away and try to “just get along” in this too often ionically charged “politically correct” atmosphere.
“You can’t back down to these people,” said Tucker. “You can’t despair. Freedom is a good thing. Say it, live it. When those men I mentioned show me they clearly don’t know how to shoot, I give them positive instruction, keep them safe and push them. Before long, they get over their insecurity and hit a target. They learn and grow and leave the range better men. Women leave feeling stronger. Guns are the great equalizer, after all.”
Tucker is certain that individual exposure to this right is how freedom will continue to win. We likely can’t change the ideology of CNN pundits, Washington Post reporters and so on, as they aren’t open to honest discussion, but we can embarrass them with the upbeat truth, says Tucker. And, besides, the media landscape is hardly what it was back when a few networks and some urban papers controlled almost the entire conversation. Even the speech stranglehold of the Big Tech companies was busted up when Elon Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it as X.
To give more perspective on this issue, Tucker said, “Nothing is more dishonest than gun control. Most policy debates aren’t like that. You might deeply dislike taxes, for example, but you can still acknowledge it’s fair to charge people for the services they receive from government. The other side isn’t crazy—they’ve just arrived at a different number than you did. Gun control is not like that. Gun control is entirely fraudulent. Joe Biden, for example, claimed guns cause violence. That’s the core claim, and it is a lie. It’s provably untrue. The places in this country that have the most guns and the loosest controls on those guns also tend to have the least gun violence and the fewest killings. That’s the bottom line.
“Anyone who tries to restrict your legally owned firearms is not trying to make America safer,” he said. “The point is to disarm you and strip you of your autonomy, your power, your right to self-defense. Gun control is not about guns. Gun control is about who controls America. Is it the population, as in a democracy, or does all control go to a small group of authoritarians, as in an oligarchy? Those are the stakes in the gun-control debate.”
So, Tucker said, counter their fake narratives by being open about being a gun owner and an NRA member. Don’t be like the guy who confronted Tucker in a fly-fishing shop in Montana. This man turned on his phone’s video camera, got in Tucker’s face and said, “You are the worst human being known to mankind … .” Tucker kept his composure in the quiet shop and told this activist that he was trying to shop with his family.
That man behaved like a spoiled, angry child. The Left applauded him for being a woke warrior. Tucker, however, did what almost any American gun owner would do. He was strong but polite. He was the mature person in the room.
Tucker knows that when he debates a Leftist who, for example, wants to ban and confiscate every gun that everyday Americans own, he is not going to sway that person, but that’s okay, because it’s the millions watching who really matter. And now, in this new age with President Donald Trump (R) back in the White House, the opportunities to show the millions of new gun owners (and the millions who could and should be gun owners) how to carry and talk about their freedom are multiplying.
