Guns, God, and Gaslighting: Why Honesty Matters

When a firearms controversy provokes deep reflection on institutional integrity, we discover uncomfortable truths about how organizations respond to criticism. This episode examines the troubling story of the Sig Sauer P320 pistol—a weapon linked to unexpected discharges including the recent death of an Air Force airman—and the company's defensive, gaslighting response that prioritized corporate reputation over customer safety.

But this isn't merely about firearms. The parallels to challenges within the Catholic Church are striking and profound. When confronted with legitimate concerns—whether about controversial liturgical practices or declining parish demographics—institutional defenders often employ identical tactics: dismissing critics as "grifters," labeling them "anti-Catholic," and refusing to acknowledge uncomfortable realities.

These defensive postures ultimately undermine the very credibility they seek to protect. When potential converts are given sanitized versions of Church realities only to discover the full picture after commitment, the result is often disillusionment and departure. The statistics regarding those who leave within years of completing OCIA (formerly RCIA) suggest the high cost of such approaches.

Christ identified Himself as "the way, the truth, and the life"—a profound reminder that truthfulness isn't optional for Christians, but essential to our identity. The Church, as Christ's spotless bride, doesn't require defenders who obscure reality. It needs witnesses confident enough in its divine foundations to acknowledge its human complexities.

"Present the church as it is," our host reminds us, "it's enough." This simple yet powerful statement captures the essence of authentic evangelization—one built on transparent truth rather than managed perception. The Church can withstand honest scrutiny precisely because its foundations are divine, even when its members are flawed. How might our witness change if we embraced this principle?

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to an Unusual Topic
• 2:05 The P320 Controversy Explained
• 8:45 Sig Sauer's Response and Statements
• 16:35 Personal Experience with Sig Firearms
• 22:17 Church Parallels: Honesty vs Gaslighting
• 28:50 The Cost of Deception in Faith
• 31:35 Conclusion: Truth Is Enough

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome everyone. We're going to be doing something a little differently today. I've had a topic rolling around in my mind for a little less than a week now and I figured I'd just come on and lay it out for you guys see what you guys thought. The topic itself it does apply to the church, but it kind of does so from an angle you probably wouldn't expect. So what are we going to be talking about today? We are going to be talking about this guy. Let me just make sure it's clear. Yep, it's clear. This is the Sig Sauer P320. Specifically, this version is the P320 AXG Legion. Now you might be wondering what does this have to do with the church? Well, and why are we talking about today?

Speaker 1: 0:58

Well, many of you any of you in the gun community, for sure, but a lot of you outside of that community have probably heard about the controversy surrounding this firearm. It's not a new issue in the gun community. Talk about it has kind of been rolling around for probably eight years or so now, but it just recently. That controversy has has expanded quite a bit. It's kind of escaped the silo of the gun community and now you have YouTubers like Charlie Any of you who know Charlie Moist Critical. He's talked about it. His videos got a few million views, so it's not just a controversy inside the gun community anymore.

Speaker 1: 1:49

But anyways, for those of you who don't know that this pistol, the 6-hour P320, was just recently involved in the death of a US Air Force airman, air Force Airmen. The airmen had the pistol in the. From what we've heard, from what we know so far, the investigation is currently ongoing. But the airmen had his sidearm, his six-hour P320. The Air Force, or the US military, has two designations for that gun it's an M17 for the longer barrel version and an M18 for the shorter barrel, but they're both P320s. Anyways, the airman had his sidearm in a holster, took his holster off, put his holster down on the table and the firearm discharged, shot him in the chest and killed him. And the firearm discharged, shot him in the chest and killed him.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Now, for those of you who don't know, it is not normal for a firearm to discharge inside of a holster, at least inside of a good holster. A firearm should never discharge when there's no input on the trigger. And inside of a good holster, um, let's see here, inside of a good holster, there's no way to get to the trigger, right. You can't get in, can't pull that trigger at all, so there should be no way to fire this firearm. But apparently this firearm was in a holster, was set down on a table and discharged into his chest. Like I said, that is no bueno. Firearms usually do not do that. The whole. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Well, in this case the gun did kill a person, so that's obviously a big red flag, right, and that's the story that has gotten this controversy, you know, out into the general public.

Speaker 1: 3:55

But this issue has been kind of rolling around in the gun community for quite a while. The gun itself was I don't know exactly when it was first developed, let's just say about 10 years ago, and it was entered into the military's trials for a new sidearm Prior to the Sig 320,. The military, since, I think, the late 80s, had been using the Beretta 92, and they called it the DM9. So this, let me make sure it's clear this is the newest version of that gun, the Beretta M9A4. So this is kind of the evolution of what the military had been using and this was actually Beretta's entries into those same trials. Glock was also involved. They had their 19X, so you had big names in the firearm world.

Speaker 1: 4:55

You know submitting entries to be the military's new sidearm, and the 6-hour P320 was chosen and it came into the military as the M17 and M18, and I think around 2017, so about seven years ago, and at that time there was stories of the gun going off when dropped. So we call that that it's not drop-safe. Now there have been a lot of firearms throughout time that aren't drop safe the old 1911s that were carried by the military since well, since 1911, they largely weren't drop safe. You know, a lot of old school revolvers aren't drop safe. A lot of new, brand new, high end, super expensive 2011s aren't drop safe. New, brand new, high-end, super expensive 2011s aren't drop safe.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Um, but a gun like the sig, the p320 and many other modern striker fired guns are drop safe and this gun was supposed to be drop safe and it wasn't. It was going off when dropped from certain heights, at certain angles, and Sig Sauer at first kind of denied it. Right, no matter how many videos came out of the gun going off when dropped, they weren't really taking responsibility, but it was hard to refute, right, it was repeatable, it was happening often and, like I said, uh, but it was hard to refute, right, it was repeatable, it was happening often and, like I said, there was all these videos coming out of it happening. So SIG came out with their voluntary upgrade program. They didn't recall all the pistols, right, it wasn't mandatory. You could voluntarily send your pistol back to them and they would upgrade it, change a couple other parts and make it drop-safe. And then their guns that they were producing.

Speaker 1: 6:54

From then on, they made rolling changes to the design, to the production, to make the new guns drop-safe, guns, drop safe. Now, six hour does this with a lot of their guns? Um, they make, uh, what the new six hour, six hour usa does this to a lot of their guns. They make rolling changes. Um, they did this with a piece, a different model, that came out around the same time. Um, instead of saying this is the new version, with these new parts, they will, just as they're, you know, in the middle of a production run, make changes and you don't know. You know which version your gun has, which version your gun is really. Um, you can make a good guess based on when you bought it and what the serial number is.

Speaker 1: 7:46

But anyway, so they, they corrected that drop safe issue, but then there were more stories, you know, coming out of the gun going off, you know, in holsters, uh, not being dropped, not, you know, trigger not being pulled, anything like that gun going off in holsters. Now, because this gun, like I said, this gun was adopted by the military, by all the branches of the military. Because of that, when that happens, when the military adopts a new firearm, a lot of time you have a lot of different law enforcement agencies across the country who also adopt it. You have a lot of different law enforcement agencies across the country who also adopt it. So, um, I don't have the full list, but, um, a lot of police departments, ice, uh, a lot of departments across the country adopted the p320 since, you know, after the military adopted it and also because the military adopted and because police uh agencies it. It was a very popular consumer, you know, consumer firearm too. So millions of these things have been made. I think they think it's like possibly 5 million Very, very popular firearm.

Speaker 1: 9:00

But stories started coming out of guns going off and holsters. There's videos of police of the of the firearm discharging as a police officer puts it back into a holster, things like that. We have body cam footage. So this new issue of unintentional discharges, that new issue kind of started snowballing within the gun community. But 6-Hour, once again didn't take any. They didn't own it in any way. Matter of fact. Anytime they would say anything about it, it was, you know, along the lines that this is one of the most tested firearms in history, one of the safest firearms in history, blah, blah, blah. It was really a bunch of gaslighting. Matter of fact.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Up in March of this year they released a public statement. Let me see if I can pull it up real quick. Okay, I have it pulled up, I'm going to read through it Now once again. You're probably asking yourself why are we talking about this on a Catholic channel? How does this apply to the church, to Catholicism? And we're getting there, trust me, we're almost there. But let me just read you this statement that came out, I think, like March 7th or something. It came out March of this year, prior to this Air Force Airman being shot. So let me pull it up and let me read it real quick for you. Okay, the truth about the P320. No-transcript.

Speaker 1: 11:00

Recently, anti-gun groups, members of the mainstream media, trial attorneys and other uninformed and agenda-driven parties have launched attacks on one of Sig Sauer's most trusted, most tested, most popular products that the P320 can fire without a trigger pull. They have no evidence, no data and no empirical testing to support any of their claims. They instead choose to misrepresent clear, negligent discharges as a design problem. I don't need to read all of it here. Let's see here. I don't need to read all of it here. Let's see here. The rhetoric is high and we can no longer stay silent.

Speaker 1: 11:51

While lawsuits run their course in clickbait farming engagement, hacking grifters continue their campaign to hijack the truth for profit. Enough is enough. Industry, take notice. What's happening today at a six hour with the anti-gun mob and their lawfare tactics will happen tomorrow at another firearm manufacturer and then another Today for six hour. It ends Okay.

Speaker 1: 12:21

So that was their statement. That was a load of gaslighting, right? I mean, all it was was gaslighting ad hominem attacks against anyone who has questioned the safety of the P320, right? Saying that they're grifters, that they're part of the anti-gun mob, when most of these guys are firearm guys, right? So instead of like owning up or even saying, hey, we're investigating, you know potential issues? Um, you know we, we care about safety, we're looking into it, um, instead of anything like that. They are, they go on the offensive, they they attack, they gaslight. They basically are calling anyone who says questions like anything about the P-320, a liar, a grifter.

Speaker 1: 13:15

And, like I said, that was in March and then now I think it was a week, week and a half ago the news came out about this airman dying and because of that, the Air Force Global Strike Group discontinued well, not discontinued, they paused use of the P-320. So basically, they're not allowing any of their personnel to use the P-320 until the investigation is complete. Since then, you have multiple firearm training companies banning use of the P320 in courses and training courses. Ranges are not allowing people with the P320 to use it on their range. So things are just getting worse and worse for Sig Sauer.

Speaker 1: 14:09

And when the airman was killed, they came out with another statement that said that they're offering assistance to the Air Force in the investigation. It was a much better statement. Once again, it didn't accept any responsibility. It was a much better statement and once again it didn't accept any responsibility, but it did say that they are helping the Air Force look into it. And then, just a day or two ago, they released one other statement. Let me see if I can find that Okay, I have the most recent statement. This was July 29th. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I'll read portions of it here.

Speaker 1: 14:46

So towards the beginning they start with the P320 pistol is one of the safest, most advanced pistols in the world, meeting and exceeding all industry safety standards. Design has been thirdly tested and validated by the US military and law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels. Let's go towards the end here. It talks about what they call inaccurate reports of negligent or unintentional discharges. So they say following several of these inaccurate reports, a number of ranges, training providers and training facilities made the reactionary decision to ban the P320 and its use in their facilities. We are actively working to provide these individuals with accurate information along with a detailed understanding of the P320 and its safety features are impacted by a P320 range or training provider ban. We urge you to reach out to SIG customer service and snitch I mean so we can clarify any misinformation and provide the truth.

Speaker 1: 15:55

The P320 cannot under any circumstances discharge without the trigger first being moved to the rear. This has been verified through extensive, exhaustive testing. Uh, as with any gun, the p320 will discharge if the trigger is pulled to the rear. Um, yeah, so that's basically that, okay, so, so that's the controversy. That house that is how thig is responding to it, and what the heck does this have to do with the church? Well, okay, so, yeah, I, I own a p320 and I actually just recently bought it. You might be wondering why would I just recently buy one, with this controversy? That's because, well, this gun is going to be a piece of history in a good way or a bad way. This gun is going down in history. So it's kind of a cool piece of future history to own.

Speaker 1: 16:56

Um, but I would never, ever carry that thing, right? I? I actually, um, won't even chamber around into the thing. It's just not worth worth it, right? I, I don't need it. It's not my carry gun, uh, I'm not gonna have it around home for self-defense. It's gonna sit in that safe because one day in the future it's gonna be a piece of history, um, but, uh, I have other six-hour pistols, uh, and rifles, um, I actually have have long light sig, uh, firearms, you know.

Speaker 1: 17:32

So, uh, so, like this, this was my carry gun for quite a while. This is a six hour p365. Um, really kind of a revolutionary. Well, not revolutionary, but uh, um, forward thinking pistol design that came out around the time of the P three 20. Uh, this is my second P three 65. Um, my, my first. I I've had my wife carry. Um, it's been a great pistol. I've never had any issues with it. It's never. I've never had a single malfunction at all, even and I'm no failure to feed, no failure to eject, nothing. Really it's been really reliable for me, really comfortable pistol to carry. All in all, great pistol. You know I also have a sig p2.

Speaker 1: 18:22

This, this is the 938. Okay, that one's clear. Yeah, the p938, really small, little nine millimeter carry gun, little you know. I have a pocket holster for it. Um, great little little carry gun, you know, and a pair of shorts or something like that.

Speaker 1: 18:45

Once again, I mean this design, I think is at least as old as me, something like that. Uh, it's a 1911 style design kind of, not exactly, but pretty close, single action only. All in all, I mean the. The design more or less has been around for 100 years. Once again, really reliable. Never had an issue with it.

Speaker 1: 19:08

I also have a say P220. This design is older than me, this is in 10 millimeter. It's one of my preferred like carry guns for the woods. Once again, super reliable design, you know. But both the uh, the 938 and the 220 were designed by, you know, the old six hour uh, you know the old swiss west german six hour as opposed to the new SIG USA. So we're actually a completely different company originally. Really well-tested designs, super reliable.

Speaker 1: 19:56

I'm not. I don't know if I'm carrying any of them anymore Right Now, even though I've not had any problems with them. And two of those three other pistols were designed by the old Sig Sauer. The fact is, all of them were made by the new Sig USA and clearly there's issues with the P320, either in its design or with its manufacturer. We're not really sure which right now. It could be a mixture of both, but anyways, even though they've been reliable, who knows who knows at this point.

Speaker 1: 20:31

And one thing I do know is something does happen. Sig Sauer, sure as heck, isn't going to stand behind their product. They're not going to be there to help me, they're going to be there to gaslight me. Yeah, and even if, you know, I might still carry some of these, you know the, like I said, the 220 is my, one of my preferred, you know, woods guns because of the you know, the 10 millimeter. So I'm not saying I'm never going to carry them again, but I'm not, I'm not ever going to suggest to anyone else to buy a SIG product ever again, because the company clearly, clearly doesn't care about their customers. It cares more about their bottom line than anything and I just I can't, I can't recommend that to anyone else, whether it's for their safety or just to you know, just kind of vindictively against SIG because of the way they treat people, kind of vindictively against SIG because of the way they treat people. So SIG Sauer is more or less like completely soured in my mind. Right, that whole name brand is kind of corrupted at this point and this is happening through. I mean I don't know if they survived this right. I mean they might have to recall all 5 million of these guns. The military contracts might get canceled. You know, I don't know, but that brand is.

Speaker 1: 22:02

It means something else now than what it did, and how this applies to the church is is just in the way it's. All what it comes down to is is honesty, right, and owning up to, to criticisms and issues that do exist, and we've talked about this a little on the channel recently. But you know, you know the church, the church isn't perfect. Yes, she is the spotless bride of Christ, but she is also an institution run by, you know, here on earth, by humans, very corrupt humans, right? So there are real issues in the church and when someone raises these issues, these criticisms, we cannot just gaslight them, we cannot just attack them with ad hominems. We have to acknowledge the truth for what it is, right.

Speaker 1: 23:12

So when someone brings up the issue of Pachamama, right, whether or not that statue, that figure, was intended to be the Virgin Mary or was intended to be an Incan demon, whether or not the people surrounding it in the weird little circle in the garden with all the other little pagan stuff, whether or not they were intending to pray to the Blessed Virgin or to Mother Earth, we have to acknowledge it looks bad, right. We have to acknowledge that this was maybe not prudent, right. We can't just say this is a hoax. We can't just say this is taylor marshall grifting, this is the trads, this is the you know, the anti-catholic trads grifting, right. Who does that sound like right? I mean, and I'm basically talking about pope respecter here, among others, but but largely him.

Speaker 1: 24:18

That's the exact language sig used, calling out all the people concerned about a gun shooting people. How does that look? How did how did that look? For sake, that looked pretty bad now, yes, it was before an airman was killed. Largely most of that language came up before that airman was killed, but people had been injured, numerous people had been injured. And what do they do? They came up calling them grifters, calling them anti-gun, the anti-gun mob.

Speaker 1: 24:54

Right, that's exactly that's the exact same method of someone saying you know that this, that pachamama is a, is a grifting hoax. It wasn a hoax. We all saw it with our own two eyes Right Now. Sure we can, you know, if we want to have a discussion about what intentions were, you know, sure we can talk about that, but we can't just call it a hoax. It did happen, we all saw it happen. So let's have an honest discussion about the criticisms.

Speaker 1: 25:32

Same thing with demographics, right, and we're actually going to have a discussion and debate on the demographic health of the church in a few days here on this channel. But when we talk about the demographic health of the church and how there are so many parishes outside of big cities that are going to be dead here in the next 10 years, 10, 15 years, right, I mean it is going to be a large number of parishes. We need to have a discussion about that and instead of people saying, oh, that's not true, my, my parish in New York city, on Staten Island, has 19,000 registered members. How could your parish in the middle of nowhere possibly be dying? No, catholicism is completely healthy. Don't, don't fricking, gaslight me, guy. Come on now.

Speaker 1: 26:30

Number one anyone who's ever seen the parish registry knows you cannot go by the parish registry for how many people are in that parish? Okay, parish registries are about as accurate as like voter rolls and Democrat run cities. Got a lot of dead people on there. You got a lot of people on there who registered just so they could have their marriage there or a child's baptism there, and it hasn't been there since. I mean, you got people there who have on that registry, who have moved.

Speaker 1: 27:02

I, I, no matter how many times I've tried to contact these parishes, still get the weekly donation envelopes. For, like the last two or three parishes I've been registered member at and I've moved away from, I'm still on their registry, even though I've told them hey, I've moved, they don't update their registry, I'm still on there, so we can't use. You know, great, your parish has 19,000 registered members. That's great. I guarantee less than 30% of those go to Mass every week. Right, and, like I said, that's a parish in the middle of New York City. I'll tell you one thing parishes outside of big cities, they're dying. They are, they really are. The parish I'm, the local parish here, has already been combined right from two smaller parishes who could not sustain themselves on their own. So they combined into one.

Speaker 1: 28:02

And this parish might be a little different because it's a tourist area. So in the summer the church is full, it is, but in the winter it's largely empty. Right, and those that are there, 75% are over the age of 60. So in 10, 15 years, this, yeah, this parish might still be around due to the tourist crowd. Sure, but other parishes in like-sized cities, towns, they're not going to be around.

Speaker 1: 28:34

And we just have to acknowledge reality for what it is. Right, it does no one any good to not own up to the truth, right, and this is so true when it comes to talking to people possibly interested in the church. Right, when they come to us and they're interested, but they have concerns about certain things. We cannot swipe those things under the rug. We cannot try to hide them and gaslight people into saying no, no, no, you this, there really is no concern or criticism here, you know. No, we have to be honest because because if we do try to hide it under the rug, if we do swipe it under the rug, try to gaslight someone, yeah, they, they might accept it then and they might sure they might come into the church. But what's going to happen when they realize they were lied to? Do you really care about their soul when you lie to them? How are they going to feel about that?

Speaker 1: 29:45

I think we hear and I don't know, no one knows exactly how accurate it is, but we do know that a large number of people who come into RCIA, ocia, whatever it's called now, who come into the church, leave shortly after, whether it's a year, two years, three years. What the percentage is, you know, people have thrown out like 50% leave within a year. That's probably not accurate. It's probably 30% after two or three years. And yeah, a large number of those who do come into OCIA and leave, they probably were there just to convert, to get married right, something like that. That's true, but I think a good portion could be people who are gaslit into forgetting about criticisms or concerns that they had, who came into the church then but then realized later or saw later that they were lied to, that whatever problem they were concerned about was swept under the rug. And then not only will they leave, they will even be very anti-Catholic at that point, right?

Speaker 1: 31:02

Or what happens when you gaslight someone, say under Francis, who comes into the church under Francis, you gaslight him about Francis being the most based pope ever. Oh and Francis really, really, you know, really is super orthodox about gay marriage and this and that so forth. But then they come in and they realize just how much of a problem there really was in that papacy. What's the best case scenario? At that point they become a sette, right? I mean, you know Jesus, you know our blessed Lord said that he is the way, the truth and the life. He is the truth. He does not want you to gaslight people just to get them into the church. He does not want you to lie, to deceive, to sweep things under the rugs. The church can stand on its own. It can stand as it is. It does not need you to lie about it. It does not need you to gaslight people about it. Present it as it is, it is enough. Right? If you really believe it's the spotless bride of Christ, you don't need to lie to people about it. Just be honest, otherwise you are going to sour people on the church forever, just like Sig Sauer is doing with their products.

Speaker 1: 32:33

Now, was this video made just so I could talk about guns? Yeah, probably. That's probably why I took like a week of rolling around in my head, because I had to figure out how I could somehow talk about guns on the channel. Because I had to figure out how I could somehow talk about guns on the channel. But I do think there's a legitimate point to be made there. Just be honest. Present the church as it is, it's enough. I promise you it really is. You really don't have to lie about the bride of Christ to get people to see what it is. So that's what I have for you today, guys. If the guns bored you, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but I hope you all have a good day and I'll see you later.