Our Guests: Ashley Hlebinsky

About Ashley Hlebinsky

Ashley Hlebinsky is one of the foremost authorities on firearms and ammunition history in the world. Through The Gun Code, LLC, Hlebinsky serves as a consultant, overseeing history-related projects around the world.

She co-founded and serves as the Executive Director of the University of Wyoming College of Law’s Firearms Research Center, where she recently received nearly $1million from the U.S. Department of Education. Additionally, she is a Founding Member of the Centre for the Study of Arms History in the UK and serves on the editorial board of Armax: The Journal of Contemporary Arms.

Hlebinsky has worked with other non-profits, such as the Smithsonian Institution, the National Park Service, Los Angeles Police Museum, National Museum of Law Enforcement and Organized Crime (The Mob Museum), and Houston Museum of Natural Science. Currently, she is building a new firearms museum in Manitoba, Canada. For a decade, Hlebinsky worked for and ran the most prominent firearms museum in the world, the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. During her tenure, she oversaw the full-scale $12million renovation of the museum, which reopened in 2019.

In addition to non-profits, Hlebinsky has worked with and advised for-profit companies such as Hindman Auctions, Colt CZ Group, Ruger, Staccato Firearms, Dillon Precision, and Daniel Defense. She has also been an expert witness in nearly 30 civil and criminal cases in the US and Canada.

Hlebinsky is a notable public figure, formerly co-hosting a show on the Discovery Channel and currently appearing on Outdoor Channel’s Gun Stories with Joe Mantegna (11 seasons) and Fox Nation’s Wanted: Dead or Alive with Sean Hannity. She has been an on-air personality, producer, and/or writer for networks such as National Geographic, History, Travel, Public Broadcasting Service, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and National Public Radio. In addition, she is a regular contributor for the popular podcast, Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb, which receives 8million downloads a month. She has been published over 200 times in popular and academic outlets.

Outside of her historical work, Hlebinsky is a mental health advocate, serving on the Board of Walk the Talk America, an organization that works with clinicians to better understand gun owners and reduce stigmas surrounding mental illness in the gun community, and Warrior Dog Spirit Foundation, a new organization that works to pair first responders with service dogs.