One thing that’s for sure, there’s a ton of content out there on the Second Amendment, guns, gun related things, accessories, and general “gunstuff”. Something that’s popular with several different creators is the ability to do live stream podcasting. This gives the creators an opportunity to interact with their audience in real time. One of the issues we have as consumers of information and advocates, is sifting through all the noise to get to the good stuff. One popular channel that happens to produce quality material, GunStuff TV, just had their GunStuff LIVE content banned from Facebook.
I’ve watched a good bit of GunStuff TV’s live programming, and I have to say I’ve never seen anything offensive or put out that would cause me to say “Hey, those guys are gonna get banned over there.” Rather than that, I always found the founder and host of GunStuff TV, Christopher Swainheart, to be level headed, pragmatic, and professional in all of his broadcasts. Swainheart’s co-hosts, Scott Kiefner, a former Marine machine-gunner and sniper, and competitive shooter Ursula Williams, who has a law enforcement background, both complement Swainhart and any guests they have quite well.
For Facebook to ban GunStuff TV’s live programming is absurd. We’re not talking about “blow it up” kind of programming. As a matter of fact, Swainhart is quite a Renaissance man, with a background in music and visual arts. From behind the lens as a filmmaker, he’s traveled the world filming and producing material for clients, and he has an extensive portfolio of still photography. Swainhart is the founding member of a Brass Quintet named Queen City Brass, dating back to 1979. You know, the type of producer Facebook should be down with banning from going live. A real wild man.
The notice came to me in an email on July 24th.
GunStuff LIVE now banned on Facebook
For the past 2 weeks we heard from many of you that you could not find GunStuff LIVE in your Facebook feed. It is now official, after 700 live streams and 140 Thursday shows, Facebook has banned GunStuff LIVE. (FYI YouTube banned GunStuff LIVE years ago.)
Many of you have already joined Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube. It’s easy:
Sign up for a free account here
Subscribe to the GunStuffTV channel here
Win free stuff just by watching Thursdays at 2pm ET
This is not the first time we’ve seen big tech crackdown on Second Amendment related content. Earlier this year I reported on Olympian Gabby Franco being potentially shadow banned by Youtube, and content creator Texas Gun Vault reporting of demonetization. In March, Olympian Lanny Barnes, aka Lanny Oakley, reported that TikToc banned her content, and in May of 2021 Yehuda Remer, also known as “The Pew Pew Jew” talked to me about META banning posts concerning his then newly released book.
The big tech oligarchs have made their hatred and disdain for anything gun related known, and unfortunately GunStuff TV Live got caught in their crosshairs.
I had a chance to catch up with Swainhart the other day to talk about this issue. I asked him about GunStuff TV and what they’re all about, he said that, “Our mission is to arm America one law abiding citizen at a time.” Through his efforts with the live streams and his work at GunStuff TV, he’s been working to destigmatize gun ownership. Swainhart told me that a couple of broadcasts ago, he got a notice from Facebook after a show alerting him they’re blocking it from the feed, that it will not be available later, and when he checked it was in fact removed. The last show they streamed, Swainhart said he got another similar notice, but that one basically said they’ll be deleting the entire account if he keeps on streaming. He explained further:
“They say they say you’ll have an opportunity to, you know, defend yourself or whatever…contest this, but we follow all the instructions we can. It says okay, there’s supposed to be a button to contest this, or whatever. And it’s gone. It’s missing. There’s no way to appeal it. And so we’re just gone from Facebook, our Thursday show live. Now, we’re still into social media, I’m hoping we’ll put out pictures and so forth or little snippets.” – Christopher Swainhart
Swainhart is a veteran of big tech censorship, with Youtube having axed their live streams over a year ago. The difference he explained was that over at Youtube, they were able to interact with a human and get some guidance, “they actually provided a rationale and there was a discourse, you know? We could talk to them so forth via email or a control panel or whatever. And they said, The problem was their particular circumstance, they saw people doing things with firearms live and they were afraid that’s a security risk. Say someone wanted to do some harm with a firearm and broadcast it live. So there was dialogue….”
Some of the sad irony here is that Swainhart’s company GunStuff TV did produce and distribute a documentary film on Operation Chokepoint. The theme of cancellation of firearm related companies is running rampant throughout the firearm and related industry. Swainhart noted about the film:
“A lot of people don’t really know about Operation Chokepoint. And we didn’t find out until years ago, this is several years back when Obama was president. We were actively applying for some credit card processing and once they found out, we were in the firearms business, they said ‘Oh no. You’re high risk.’ And so ‘what do you mean we’re high risk? People have been doing firearm business for years. They’re small businesses.’ ‘Oh, no, you’re the same category as online bookies, and houses of prostitution, and so forth.’ You know, I had no idea what you’re talking about. So we did some research, and we heard about Operation Chokepoint.” – Christopher Swainhart
The full documentary on Operation Chokepoint Swainhart said is on Youtube, or in an embed on their homepage HERE.
The continued challenges that firearm industry members must meet and overcome are getting out of control. It’s a sad state of affairs that GunStuff TV and Swainhart must endure through these roadblocks when trying to exercise their First and Second Amendment protected rights. As long as big tech keeps getting a pass on playing arbitrator of truth, this kind of stuff is going to continue. You can check out GunStuff TV on their homepage, and from there, find all their socials as well as sign up for their newsletter.
To listen in on my full converation with Swainhart, check out the embed below or by clicking HERE.