#170
Jill McDaniel
Mom At Arms, The DC Project
Jill McDaniel is someone I’ve been following for awhile. Since she’s a DC Project gal, I already knew that she may be up for being on the show. I had a course scheduled in Virginia and I reached out to her to see how far she was from the class. Lynchburg, VA wasn’t too far so we set up a time and date to film a show.
Growing up in rural southern Virginia, she’s always been around firearms. Her father was a police officer and worked about a half hour from their home. He instilled in his family that they were going to learn to shoot and handle firearms since worked that far away. She learned on a BB gun and rifle before she started on handguns.
In 2016 with the Clinton/Trump election is when she started to get active on social media and paying attention to the politics of firearms and Rights. This was the first time she saw and heard gun control ads and Moms Demand Action (MDA). She took to Twitter, where she usually crap-talks about sports, and found Shannon Watts. She discovered Watts was lying and she wanted to get involved to stop the lies. That’s when she started blogging and wanted to challenge what the MDA were putting out there. So she purchased the Mom At Arms domain name.
She asked for contributors to the website. She’s got about 10-15 people that write for the site when they’re able to. The objective of the site is to find out and get the word out about what is going on across the country. Most of her writers are female and are DV survivors, crime victims, or self defense oriented people. The success of the site has become bigger than she thought it would be.
Mom At Arms does have informants and moles! There are some writers who ‘sneak’ into MDA meetings and pretend to be a ‘red shirt’ just to find out what they’re up to. These ‘spies’ do get booted out of meetings if they get discovered. Jill herself has been kicked off a zoom when a red shirt did some research into her.
Already friends with Mary Callison (#050), Rebecca Schmoe (#158), and their group One Million Moms Against Gun Control, Jill was learning about the DCP. There was a VA director, but she needed to step down. Dianna Muller (RSWC #059 & #164) asked Jill to be the VA director. With her experience as an instructor, running her own blog, and fighting with Watts, she was more than ready. Through the DCP, she also works with the Virginia Citizens Defense League in being a cheerleader, promoter, and supporter.
Jill is also a USCCA certified instructor and really enjoys teaching situational awareness courses. Paying attention to your surroundings is really the basis for staying out of gun fights and bad situations.
Having several of the DCP ladies on the show, I’ve really come to have a lot of respect for the group and for the ladies individually. They’re all doing many things at the state and national level. Jill isn’t any different. She’s got the Mom At Arms website and all it’s social media. She’s doing things in VA. And she’s been blocked by Shannon Watts! Which is a cool badge to wear. You’ll find all of her socials down below!
Favorite quotes:
“…when you speak about guns, we’ve instilled at birth.”
“I learned how to shoot with a BB gun and a deck of cards.”
“It’s become something bigger than I thought it would ever be.”
“We knew the 2A sanctuary stuff was about to take flight, and we wanted to make it concrete in some way.”
“We focus on the Rights, we focus on the Constitution.”
Mom At Arms Website
https://www.mom-at-arms.com/
Mom At Arms/USCCA
https://training.usconcealedcarry.com/instructor/7aae0872-7ac7-11eb-a776-02420a0001fb
Mom At Arms Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/momatarms
Mom At Arms Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/mom_at_arms/
Mom At Arms Twitter
https://twitter.com/mom_at_arms
The DC Project
https://www.dcproject.info/
Second Amendment Foundation
https://secure.anedot.com/saf/donate?sc=RidingShotgun
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
https://www.ccrkba.org/
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Dennis McCurdy
Author, Speaker, Firewalker
http://www.find-away.com/
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