Big Personal Update

Y'all might have noticed I haven't uploaded in a bit. There's a very simple reason: I don't have a camera right now. As for why, well...

Most of you know I've had a day job at FPC for the last few years. After much reflection on my personal happiness, mental health, and the ultimate impact I want to have, I parted ways with the organization amicably.

A minor detail that I had forgotten was that my recording equipment was actually property of the organization. So I had to send everything back. With help from some of you wonderful guys on the discord, I selected a new camera and have been working on getting my recording setup back operational. I've got almost all the pieces in place now, and I hope to finally have better color balance.

The past couple weeks have been rough in a lot of respects. I am excited for what the future holds for me, and I have some projects I want to share with y'all, but leaving a long-term job feels a lot like a breakup.

For the time being, I'm on my own. Transitioning to self-employment has been stressful, but in some ways, I feel like a huge weight has been raised off my shoulders.

I've also been a huge proponent of being open about mental health. Especially in the gun community, I feel a lot of us conceal our internal struggles, perhaps out of fear our rights may be adversely affected if we were open. Sometimes those concerns are reasonable, to be sure. I have struggled with depression ever since law school. I'm able to perform exceptionally well when I have a clear goal and can make tangible progress, but major life changes have a way of throwing me into a severe funk. This has been one such event. To get through it, I have been leaning heavily on personal projects where I can get tangible progress, like gun building.

I'll be uploading videos from some of those builds for y'all while I continue to rebuild my set. It's complicated by the fact that I have multiple clients whose FFLs have been put in jeopardy by the "zero tolerance" policy, I am finding myself having to travel more often than I would like to fight to keep these places in business and/or my criminal clients free from government cages.

tl;dr: I'm not with FPC anymore, I'm rebuilding my set, and I expect soon the time I gain from ending that relationship will allow me to produce content for Fuddbusters more regularly.

Thank you guys for being such incredible supporters and for believing in me. I am humbled and often feel I don't deserve it.

With love,
Matt