Riding Shotgun With Charlie: RSWC #138 John Crump

RSWC #138 John Crump

Feb 8, 2022

Riding Shotgun With Charlie

#138

John Crump

Black Swan Media

John Crump is one of those content creators that is just about everywhere. Our paths must have crossed somewhere. Regardless, John was up for being on the show when I made a trip to Virginia. He says he does his shows from his mother’s basement. She was nice enough to offer me some cookies and milk.

John, often known as Crump, or even Crumpy, has lots of things going on. He tells us that he grew up in a house full of Democrats and he was the only Constitutionalist in the family. So he’s been consistent throughout. Once he gets into something, he’s ALL in. When he got into firearms, he ended up starting one gun store and buying another just to have the inventory. He submitted something to Ammoland and it was published. The next week, he sent another article to them and that was published. Then a third the next week. Eventually, Ammoland just said John should write for them.

He’s got his hand in some other content, too. He’s got a daily YouTube channel, John Crump Live. There’s a variety of guests and topics, covering just about anything that is firearm or freedom related. Then there’s John Crump News. Like the title says, it’s where he puts out news of what’s going on. He’s also helping other content creators, too. Folks like DLD After Dark, Flying Rich, Trench Work Chronicles, Shooting Gallery New England (RSWC #106), and 2A EDU. Plus he creates t-shirts and patches. All of this is under the Black Swan Media brand. There’s a story behind Black Swan Media that he shares with us. One of the things that keeps John going is being an insomniac and not sleeping much.

John also tells us a bit about buying firearms in Virginia. He also talks about his connection to Gun Owners of America (GOA) and their involvement with Virginia Citizens Defense League. I was a little surprised that an 18 year old can buy a handgun and carry it openly. Much of northern Virginia is ‘occupied territory’ and the rest of Virginia is ‘free America’ as I often call regions like these.

With all of the interviews he’s done, he did a compilation of sorts. He took some transcripts of the best interviews and turned it into a book called Speaking With Giants. Some of the interviewees are RSWC passengers! Stephen Willeford (#088), Anthony Colandro (#003 & 025), Sarah Joy Albrecht (#092), Rhonda Ezell (#037), Michael Sodini (# 067). But there’s others, too. Willes Lee, Maj Toure, Tim Kennedy, and more. The proceeds from the book went to help John’s sick niece. The proceeds still get donated.

John also gets into telling us about his favorite guest, Tony Simon (#041). He said the conversation went from “Karens” to how we got to socialism and it only took 4 hours!

John had some great quotes, which you’ll find below. I really enjoyed him talking about learning about yourself when you interview someone. And how the interviewee also learns something about themselves when they’re guests on a show. I learn something from all of my passengers and I think its a good thing about taking folks Riding Shotgun.

Favorite quotes:

“I believe we should live within the Constitution and everything else is infringement.”

“When I go to sleep, I’m writing in my head. So when I wake up, I have an article usually pre-written in my head.”

“You learn a little bit about yourself when you talk to someone.”

“Life isn’t easy because it’s not meant to be easy. Anything that’s worth something is hard.”

Timestamp

00:00 Intro

01:20 John Crump

01:45 Beginnings

02:21 Constitutionalist & growing up

05:03 Engineering of firearms

06:19 VA info & GOA