Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the GlockStore founder and CEO Lenny Magill in-studio to talk about the business-friendly climate in Tennessee and the unique Shoot270 range located at his facility in Nashville.
Leahy: We welcome to our studios, one year after his first appearance here with us, Lenny Magill, the founder and CEO of the GlockStore, on the web at glockstore.com, located here in Nashville at 1930 Air Lane Drive. Lenny, it’s so great to see you again.
Magill: Michael Patrick Leahy. I know it’s late for you because you’ve been here two hours already. It’s early for me, though. Thank you for being here. What a great time. Like you said, a year ago, we came in when we first opened our store.
We had our grand opening there. And this is now the one-year anniversary. We’re having a big party this Saturday.
Leahy: This Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. And our own Crom Carmichael will be there. He’ll give a talk about the Second Amendment. I won’t be there. I’ve got to go back for sort of a 50th high school anniversary.
Magill: You don’t look that old.
Leahy: Yeah. (Mock-politely) Thank you, Lenny. (Laughter)
Magill: Hey, if you come down to this event that we have at 1930 Air Lane Drive – real close to the airport, by the way – you can win a Glock just by showing up. Everybody gets a raffle ticket.
Come in, poke around a little bit, if you don’t want to stay the whole time, you can go home. You don’t have to be there to win. You do not have to be there to win. You just get the raffle ticket once you come in, and then we’ll call you if you’re not there. But we will give away a free gun.
Leahy: Yeah, it sounds just like an awful lot of fun. Of course, all of our listeners love to hear the story of the fact that you left California. You’ve moved your headquarters here to Nashville, Tennessee. Now you’ve been here for a year. How’s it going?
Magill: It’s going great, actually. We bought a house here four years ago. We bought the building three and a half years ago. It took a year and a half to build. We opened up a year ago. We love Tennessee. Honestly, it is just the most spectacular thing we’ve done.
I think several employees have come with us, and I think they love it as well. The state is so much more business-friendly. It’s so much more pleasant to just drive around, and there’s water and there are trees. It’s gorgeous. We love it.
Leahy: You got out of California, it seems to me, just in time. All of the sane people, it seems to me, have left California, including you and the GlockStore on the web at glockstore.com. But gosh, it’s getting worse.
Magill: The taxes certainly are a driving factor, but it’s really the environment. The social environment, just trying to live there, and it’s so … ‘woke.’ Come on now, hey, a man is a man. A woman is a woman. At the end of the day, I don’t think it’s that complicated.
And why make it more complicated? But the fact is, everybody we meet here in Tennessee, most of the people we meet are from California, and there’s a reason. Because California is just becoming crazy to live in. Look at the gas prices – $7 a gallon.
Leahy: Crazy!
Magill: You really don’t even realize it. To register your car, $600, $700, $800 versus here in Tennessee. Now, I just heard the other day from Governor Lee – I was at a meeting with him, a luncheon, and he said that Tennessee is the most fiscally sound state in America And there is no state tax. How do they do it? That’s the big question.
Leahy: Well, and, you know, one of the reasons is if you look at this, we had this big thing about 20 years ago. We had a governor who wanted to put a state income tax in. The people didn’t like it.
They had all these horn-honking events and stopped the state income tax. Now it’s in our constitution: no state income tax. And what happens? I think once they put in a state income tax and the state government gets the money, they don’t save it, they spend it!
Magill: That’s one of the reasons. And I think the government itself perpetuates itself and just grows and grows and grows and just needs more and more and more money. It’s really fascinating when you think about that, but how does the state of Tennessee, with a tiny portion of the revenues of the state of California, become more fiscally sound than California?
Leahy: Well, we can tell you we have a lot of people here with common sense and people with common sense move here. By the way, I’ve got to compliment you on this: I had never shot a gun in my life. And I went to training with Crom Carmichael. And you’re great people there.
It was fantastic. We went into the Shoot 270 training rooms, and I have to say, Crom is probably still a better shot than I am. Right. (Magill chuckles) And he’s in possession of the special Tennessee Star GlockStore gun that you provided. He won the contest. But it was terrific. I just learned an awful lot. I’ve still got a lot of ways to go, But I really appreciated that process.
Magill: That’s one of the things we do at our store here in Nashville is we have private individual shoot rooms instead of lanes. The concept is the shoot room itself allows you to shoot really one on one with a trainer.
And so you can learn so much more because other people aren’t shooting on the other side of you. You can shoot multiple targets in other mobile directions. It’s much more dynamic and you’re much more focused.
Leahy: I can personally attest to that because it was a great way for me to shoot a gun for the first time in my life.
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
