Glenn Jacobs started as a professional wrestler in the WWE. He began as Sir Isaac Yankem, an evil dentist, before becoming the monster known as Kane. Kane was known as the “Big Red Machine” and played the part of the Undertaker’s brother. He would savagely beat his opponents and would be feared by all. He would headline star-studded shows for years, feuding against the likes of the Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, and Triple H.
Even though Kane was world-famous and a household name, Glenn Jacobs wanted to do something different to give back to his community. After his wrestling career was over, he entered the world of politics and became the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee. He played a wrecking machine in the ring, but in real life, Mayor Jacobs cares about the people of his home county.
Mayor Jacobs believes in protecting the rights of the citizens of Knox County, including their God-given right to bear arms. He is a self-professed gun rights advocate and believes in the Second Amendment. I had a chance to meet him at the Gun Owners of America’ G.O.A.L.S event in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he spoke. We were able to arrange an interview for the AmmoLand News readers.
John: Thank you for the time. I think our audience would find your story fascinating because it is unique in the world of politics, except for a couple of politicians out there. Most don’t transition from professional wrestling into politics. My first question is, why did you decide to transition from professional wrestling to politics? You were rich and famous, but you went into politics, which is sometimes a selfless act.
Mayor Jacobs: Yeah, I’ve had a wonderful life. I grew up on a farm in Missouri. My family didn’t have a whole lot. From there, I’ve been very blessed to travel the world and see all sorts of stuff, do a lot of amazing things, and provide a life for my family that I wouldn’t have thought possible. When I think about all of that and the fact that it really shouldn’t be possible for someone like me to have done that, I think the reason that it is because we live in this place called America where you get opportunities.
You create your own opportunities. You have the liberty and the freedom to utilize your God-given skills, talents, and gifts, and that is very unique in this world. In fact, I would say that is American Exceptionalism, and that is what separates us from the rest of the world. So, having lived the life that I’ve lived and experienced the American dream firsthand, I just want to make sure that it goes on for another generation, especially for my kids and my grandkids. Or, as Reagan said, freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction. I just want to make sure that it’s not my generation that allows that to happen.
John: Did anything from wrestling help you with that transition?
Mayor Jacobs: Well, actually, there’s a lot of politics involved in the wrestling world as well. What I mean by that is just interpersonal relationships, interpersonal relationship skills, your ability to get along with other people to work as a team to collaborate, to persuade people, in some cases, that your idea is the best idea. So, you know, those are things that are not necessarily unique to wrestling. I mean, it’s almost every business or every organization is like that. But certainly, that was true in the wrestling world. Then you have things like lots of media training. I’m used to that. I’m used to speaking in public. So, some of those other things, as well, were able to help me.
Then also, one of the most important lessons is actually how people really react. A lot of times, I give people all these statistics and all this stuff, but people really react to stories, emotions, and feelings. You learn that in wrestling, you know, the goal in a wrestling match or a wrestling interview promo is to elicit a certain response from the audience. You do that by engagement and emotion.
I think that’s the same way when it comes to public policy; you can talk about all the stats, and those are obviously very important. But in the end, what people want to know is how this is going to affect me and what’s the story behind this? I think to wrestling. I was actually able to understand that intuitively, much more than I would have otherwise.
John: Last wrestling question, I promise. Would you ever consider returning to full-time professional wrestling?
Mayor Jacobs: Not really. I’m 57 years old. That’s a pretty hard gig. The schedule has lightened up since I was there. But still, those guys are out there traveling and performing a lot. The athleticism that’s on display is just unbelievable. So, no, I just don’t think that I could hang with this generation of WWE superstars. They’re just immensely, supremely, and physically talented. I just don’t think at this age that I could, at least full-time. I might be able to go out there and have a good match or two. I don’t think I could do it consistently like they do.
John: Maybe you can return as Sir Isaac Yankem.
Mayor Jacobs: I’m not going to do him again. No, not at all. No, I don’t want to do that one at all. Trust me.
John: All right. You recently spoke at the Gun Owners of America’s G.O.A.L.S event in Knoxville. Why did you choose to appear there?
Mayor Jacobs: Yeah, I’m a big gun rights advocate myself. I believe that Gun Owners of America is an extremely important organization because they do stand up for gun rights, and they are no compromise. All too often, what happens is you have the slippery slope where we do this thing, and it’ll be fine. Next thing you know, it just keeps on going and going and going. You’re sitting there, and you’ve completely lost all of your rights. You can see that happening throughout history. It’s happened in this country, unfortunately, in some cases as well. So, I do think that it’s important you have organizations like Gun Owners of America that are willing to plant a flag and say this is where it is. This is what we stand for. And we’re not going to compromise on these things.
John: Did you see anything there that you were interested in at the show?
Mayor Jacobs: Sure, man. It was neat just to see all the stuff. Obviously, there’s going to be firearms and all sorts of different equipment and accessories, but I also want to see some training that was available there. It was really cool, too. Like you had this one company that was there; they had Fannie packs and bags that had a body armor plate in them, which I thought was really cool. I’m also a big Shadow Systems guy. It’s neat to be able to see them and also the Nine Line people were there as well. That was kind of neat for me, too, being able to see some of the people whose products I use or podcasts I listen to. Just actually seeing them and getting to talk to them is pretty cool. It’s neat also to see the Smith & Wesson booth there and to realize that a lot of those firearms are made 15 minutes away in Maryville, Tennessee.
John: You carry a Shadow Systems, don’t you?
Mayor Jacobs: Yeah, it’s funny too. I got mine before they had all these new names and models. Mine’s just an MR920, and I guess they now have an MR920L and this and that and so on. People are always like, which one do you have? I’m like, “I think it’s this one, but they have quite a few new models and variations.”
John: What does the Second Amendment mean to you?
Mayor Jacobs: So, for me, the Second Amendment is, as George Washington is credited with saying, “it’s the teeth of the Bill of Rights.” I call it the ‘break glass in case of an emergency clause’ in the Constitution. Without the Second Amendment, the rest of the Bill of Rights would just be words on paper. That’s part of the reason that America has stayed free. In contrast, you have a lot of countries around the world, and they’ve got beautiful constitutions that very articulately outline the rights of their people. But then you realize you actually don’t have those rights because the people have no way of backing it up.
The Second Amendment—that’s what we’ve always had in this country—is that ultimately, sovereignty in America rests with the people because here, the government trusts us with firearms and with our ability to defend ourselves, and that is not the case in many other places around the world. The government does not trust people with those rights, frankly, because they want to oppress them. So, the Second Amendment keeps us free.
John: The Trace, which is an anti-gun publication funded by Everytown, harped on your “break glass in case of an emergency” statement. I don’t know if you saw that or not.
Mayor Jacobs: Yeah, I didn’t. I mean, it’s true. Hopefully, we never break the glass, but just having that deterrent there is important. I think it has actually kept us free and kept bad things from happening in this country because, you know, ultimately, any individual who thinks, “Oh my gosh. I can go in there and do this to the American people.” You’re going to find out very quickly. You can’t.
I would remind everyone, too, that every genocide that has occurred around the world is preceded by the disarmament of the target group. All these things that happen, it’s really naive to think, “This could never happen in America.” There’s a reason it doesn’t happen here. A large part of that reason is that we have a Second Amendment, and we’re not going to allow that to happen. However, if we don’t have the tools to defend ourselves, then that’s when those things do happen. And you can see that play itself out in history time and time and time and time again. So, I would argue that many of the anti-gun crowd are actually very naive in their thinking. You know, they think that gun owners are terrible, bad people. No, gun owners are good people who protect us from terrible, bad people, frankly.
John: I 100% agree. What do you think the biggest threat to our gun rights is right now?
Mayor Jacobs: It’s politicians. And that’s just it, you know, and too many politicians who won’t stand on their principles, you know, and again, you know, think that, oh, God, if we’ll just do this and it’ll be fine, and people are clamoring for this, and it’ll be fine without realizing that we’re back on that slippery slope and skating towards a place that we don’t want to go. So, it’s the politicians. Congress has completely shirked its responsibility to write laws. This is true not only in gun rights but in other areas as well. So, you literally have the ATF just making things up, which is unconstitutional and not how things are supposed to work. Congress is supposed to be the one that does that.
John: Yeah, I 100% agree. They’ve been losing a lot of court cases lately, though. So that’s a good thing. Knox County is a Second Amendment sanctuary. Why is that important in our current political climate?
Mayor Jacobs: Well, it just says we value the Second Amendment here in Knox County. We understand what it’s all about. It’s our flag in the ground saying that we will protect our people’s rights to keep their arms as a Second Amendment sanctuary. Unfortunately, the opposite is true in more and more places around the country.
This isn’t just about the Second Amendment. This is about the entire Bill of Rights. You know, “We don’t like what you say. So, we’re going to tell Facebook that you should be censored.” I mean, unfortunately, the First Amendment is under attack as well. But in this case, it is, you know, again, more than anything. It’s a political statement. Oh, that’s good. How do we expand the Second Amendment community? Bring more people in? One of the most important things is how we carry ourselves as gun owners. When people realize that you’re just the average person, like when I go to the gun range, everybody’s always great, friendly, and cool.
I think the more of that is helping people understand we’re not monsters. You know, we’re part of the community. What we want to do is actually make the community safer, right? So, I think just so much of it is communication. And again, making a good impression on people. Obviously, there are some folks that just aren’t going to listen. But I’ll tell you, I’ve been to different events. There have been protesters at various events that I have been to. The way the protesters carry themselves and how they act, even if I didn’t agree with the folks that I’m there with, I would much prefer to be around them than I would the people that are acting like just complete jerks.
I just think that’s vitally important, as is how we carry ourselves. When people look at us, they go, “Oh, wow, that’s the kind of person I want to be. Oh, you like guns. Why do you like guns? Oh, I get it now.” When you explain it from that, you know, when you can become friends with people, it’s a lot easier to talk about things than when they perceive you as being an enemy for whatever reason, or just, you know, some of them they’ve ever talked to, or they have these preconceived notions about you.
John: Yeah, in my personal opinion, most of us agree on where we want to end up, but most of us disagree on how to get there.
Mayor Jacobs: Yeah, that’s very true. In politics, there are many good people, and we have different opinions. It would be great if we could concentrate more on how we get where we want to go and be able to talk about that, as opposed to nowadays where it’s like, well, you don’t agree with me, you’re a bad person. Well, no, not necessarily. We just disagree on this.
John: Exactly. What do you think the future holds for gun rights for us?
Mayor Jacobs: Actually, right now, things are looking pretty good. As you mentioned, there are a number of court cases that have really solidified the idea, I think correctly, that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. That’s a good thing that things are going well in court. We’ll see what happens depending on who wins the presidency and Congress in November to see if that continues as far as making those gains or if there’s new legislation written that is counter to that. Right now, things actually look better than they have, I would say, for quite a while. Most of it is because of the victories that we’re seeing in the courtroom.
John: If you look at our gun rights that we have gotten back since, like the late 90s. In the late 90s, there was an assault weapons ban; most states were “may issue,” but now most states are permitless carry. So, it looks like we did get a lot of rights back. The final question of how free the I’ll let you go kind of your busy man is, is there anything else you want the readers to know?
Mayor Jacobs: I just want to thank everyone, and especially GOA, for coming to Knoxville. It was a great event, and we were thrilled to host the G.O.A.L.S conference. To me, gun owners are patriots. I think that when I talk with gun owners, they understand what all this stuff is about, they understand why the Constitution is so important, and they understand why the Bill of Rights is so important.
So, I just want to thank everyone for what they do to ensure that freedom endures for another generation.
John: All right, well, thank you so much.
Mayor Jacobs: Thank you so much. Take care. Bye.
About John Crump
Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
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