OSD 100: The machine that builds the machine
Allow me to reintroduce myself.
Happy 100th edition of this newsletter. For a nice round number like that, it was fitting that this week saw our most-shared Twitter thread ever:
The Twitter thread goes into detail on the honestly-very-clever approach of the screenshotted email, and Colion Noir and Mrgunsngear have already posted their own thoughts about it. The various gun subreddits picked up on our post.
The thing to add now is a simple reminder: this sort of reputational blackmail is utterly commonplace at publications of every size. And it’s easy to pull off in private — but it’s much harder in broad daylight. So if you or your company ever receive an email like this, send it to us. We can shine a light on it.
The next 100 issues
For the past couple weeks, we’ve been beating the drum about our mission: “Create the infrastructure for gun rights: build the TCP/IP layer of the gun rights stack.”
For those of you who are new to OSD, our ultimate goal is secure defense rights for everybody, with a friendly, culture-war-free approach — we want to make gun rights something that anybody can be proud to be associated with. And building great infrastructure is critical if we’re going to get there.
That’s what we’re going to be focused on for the next 100 issues, and we need your help. We want to lay down the foundational infrastructure — technical, social, financial, the whole thing — that the new generation of awesome gun startups and content creators can build on.
Who’s doing cool stuff along these lines? If you are building something cool or know somebody who is, reply to this email and let’s talk. Could be a startup that’s already underway, or just a good idea. If you have a demonstrable ability to execute, we want to talk to you.
See you at OSD 200, and at every week from here to there. Let’s get it.
This week’s links
At-risk platforms
“I am not a soldier, but I have been trained to kill”
A journalist takes a tactical training course. Despite the sensationalistic headline and subhead, the article itself is actually quite good until the last few paragraphs. At that point it veers off into some fairly strained innuendo about racist groups and unlawful violence, but there’s also a completely avoidable problem here: the journalist was put into a training scenario that was far too advanced, and arguably pretty dangerous.
When you’re training a newbie, remember: priority number one is safety. Priority number two is fun — by their standards of fun, not yours. Always do the work to nail both of those.
”Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalizes rule requiring large banks to provide fair access to bank services, capital, and credit”
As far as guns are concerned, the first-order effect of this administrative ruling is to prohibit large banks from denying service to gun-related companies, unless such denial is driven by a specific financial concern that would also apply to any other business. It’ll be interesting to see what the second-order effects are.
CZ is about to buy Colt
A promising step towards the recovery of a legendary brand.
Magpul FDC-9
✨ Synthwave vibes ✨
OSD office hours
If you’re a new gun owner, thinking about becoming one, or know someone who is, come to OSD office hours. It’s a free 30-minute video call with an OSD team member to ask any and all your questions.
Merch and support
We’ve got merch that you’re going to love. Check it out and get some.
Also, if you like this newsletter, you can support OSD instantly on our Buy Me a Coffee page. It’s a dead-simple way to kick in a few bucks to help us keep growing fast.
