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Taking photos of Guns turned Business? (ft. Kill Flash Photography)
Description
State of the Second sits down with Jordan from Kill Flash Photography, an engineer turned firearms content creator who built a marketing business out of taking photos of guns. Jordan came up in the defense contracting world, decided he was being too technically minded, and bought a camera. He started an Instagram he never expected to run, since he hated Facebook and didn't even have a personal account before that. About five years later he shoots content and does marketing for a range of companies in the industry, and he has started his own mechanical design business to bring firearms accessory products to market. The company is Republic of Arizona Research, Razor for short.
Much of the conversation is about the people. Jordan and John met through content work, talked for hours by phone and message, and felt like old friends the first time they met in person at the GOA booth at SHOT Show. Jordan describes the 2A industry as people from very different backgrounds who hover around one centerpiece and find common ground. He credits a no-gatekeeping culture for his own start, where established creators shared camera settings, flash setups, and technique freely. When Meta's shadow banning and censorship hit, creators built a private collaboration group so they could share posts and lift each other up. Jordan's view: the only way anyone grows is together, high tides raise all ships.
The back half turns to policy. The hosts walk through GOA's recent California roster win that added guns like the Hellcat and the 365, the pistol brace injunctions, and the still-pending bump stock case, and they tie each one to real economic impact, citing a billion-plus dollars tied to pistol braces. Kaylee lays out her framework that culture sits upstream of politics, politics upstream of the industry, and the industry upstream of the individual gun owner, which is why creators fighting the culture war on platforms that don't want them there matters. They warn that gun control gets buried deep inside unrelated bills under a vote-now-read-later culture, praise GOA's Federal Affairs team for sifting through thousand-page bills, and push listeners to research candidates rather than vote by the letter next to a name. The episode closes with a call to pick up a camera, join the community, and use the 2024 election to be heard.
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Questions this episode answers
How did an engineer from the defense contracting world end up building a business taking photos of guns?
Jordan came up in defense contracting, decided he was too technically minded, and bought a camera to get more artistic. He started an Instagram he never expected to run, and about five years later he shoots content and does marketing for companies across the firearms industry.
Why does the firearms industry collaborate instead of treating each other as competition?
Jordan describes the Second Amendment community as people from very different backgrounds who gather around one centerpiece and find common ground. His view is that the only way anyone grows is together, a high tide that raises all ships.
How do firearms content creators handle Instagram and Meta censorship and shadow banning?
When Meta's shadow banning and censorship hit, creators built a private collaboration group to share posts and lift each other up. The idea is that supporting each other's content is how they keep growing on platforms that work against them.
What is the private creator group and why did creators build it?
It is a private collaboration group creators formed in response to Meta's shadow banning and censorship. Members share each other's posts and support one another so their content can still reach people despite platform suppression.