Matter of Facts: Rebel's Raiders

[00:00:06] Welcome back to the Matter of Facts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify. Go check out our content at MWFPodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Raveli, Andrew, Nick are on the other side of the mic and here's your show.

[00:00:30] And welcome back to Matter of Facts Podcast. Nick is here. We have a guest in the studio who goes by the name Rebel because he's in witness protection. And Andrew is not here because he's afraid of ghosts. Yeah, friends. I was going to make a weird reference to Ghostbusters and be like who you're gonna call but I can't pull off off that kind of comic delivery. It's not in my deck of cards.

[00:00:56] That's okay because the joke I had about being a witness protection was a red dot joke so it's fine if we- Oh, that's a good one. Okay, now I have to hear it. What do you got? Here we go. This is something that I think Lucas Bakken would just find hilarious. Um, why was the iron sight and the red dot called into by the detective? Because they co-witnessed a murder. Oh, that's good. I like that.

[00:01:26] There's some 2A comedy for you. But that's funnier than anything any gun tuber has done on YouTube in the last 30 years. Just throwing it out there. That's actually pretty good. I like that. So here on the Matter of Facts podcast on a Wednesday afternoon, we have seen the collision between gun humor and dad jokes. Just right in front of everybody. Oh God, that's awful. That is peak. That is peak. Well, to be fair, I am a dad. So like I appreciate dad jokes. What is that? Okay, I have to have the question.

[00:01:53] May I think probably I um, I heard a political commentary Matt Walsh said this and I thought this was actually really good. He goes if you're a single guy like I am, I have no girlfriend, no wife, no kids, literally nothing. If any, the only thing that's not 18 about me is my age. And when I say that, I mean like there's like nothing going on. I literally like I do well with rebels Raiders and I have my own career on the side. When I go to a dealership. I don't know if anyone knows how expensive fucking cars are now.

[00:02:21] I'm like, I'm like, okay, it's like a $40,000 car is a Corolla. That's not even like that's not even something crazy, which is like nuts to me. But here's my question. When you say you're a dad, I didn't mean to cut you off. How do any of you afford to like eat? Because, because a $40,000 car is 600 bucks a month. Yep. And I'm like, and the salesman's like, I have three kids. I'm like, who buys from you Bill Gates. I don't understand how is anyone affording anything.

[00:02:52] So first of all, for the listeners who didn't catch it last week was the financial preparedness episode. But like me personally, I grew up in a family where like my dad bought his first new car a couple of months ago and he's retired. We've always bought used cars. We've always bought used things. We've always used things until they were functionally useless and worthless to destruction. We've always lived well below our means.

[00:03:19] We've always saved money like it's, you know, like it's a freaking funny, like it's a religious obligation. Like I just come from a financial background and a family background of like, you know, like things are going to get tough. Life's going to get tough. So when you have plenty, you don't spend it. You save it for when things go to hell in a handbasket. So me personally, like I've been in the, in the situation you're talking about what we're facing now with inflation, the cost of goods going up, wages going down or stagnant, yada, yada, yada.

[00:03:49] My family's been preparing for something like this for probably, I mean, we've been laying the groundwork for this for 10 years. Okay. Like even when, even when the bills were low and we were making decent money, it was still, we're getting ready for a rainy day because we're going to have one sooner or later. I mean, I graduated college in 2009 into, into that recession and it was sink or swim.

[00:04:12] So I drove a, I drove an at the time, 14 year old pickup truck that you had to add oil to every single time we filled up with gas. I worked 55, 60 hours a week to get through college. I ate peanut butter and half expired pork chops and red beans and rice seven days a week. Like we did, we had to do, you know, whatever your top priority is, that's where your money goes. And then everything else is just who gives a damn.

[00:04:40] Well, I mentioned Matt Walsh cause he made a good, I got sidetracked. Like I normally do. He had made a good point where he's saying, if you're single, like me, he goes, take over a dad's finances for a month. And then you'll realize how much money you do have. But I still go. And now it's funny. Cause you and I, you said you graduated college. I that's when I graduated high school was 0908. Right. So while you're supposed to have like this summer. Yeah. And I'm like, Oh, your rest of your life is now kicking off.

[00:05:10] And I'm like, I think my rest of my life might be pretty shitty. I don't know. Right. But my, my point is I actually live. I don't really have, I do well financially. I don't hand out financial advice because I'm a goat and I can live in the muck. I can live in nothing. Right. Most people aren't built to, to, uh, and I don't mean this as a badge of honor. Most people can't live in the level of misery that I do. Cause it's just like, they'll just kill themselves. Like I'm just out.

[00:05:39] Like there's no point. So I do wonder like how anyone is legitimately enjoying themselves. But, um, because I'm, I'm like, okay, well, I'm not, I don't know. Like, I don't know. Like, you know, my sister just did it recently. She went out and bought this expedition. I'm like, you don't have any fucking money. Well, I think that's exactly it. There is, is you, there are, there are, I hate when people do this and I hate doing

[00:06:06] it myself, but when you look at finances, there are people that pay attention to their finances really well and try to manage them. Well, there are people that don't pay attention to them at all and don't manage them at all. And of course there's a spectrum in between, but you definitely will see those people that are, they are redlining debt to the point where they are spending more than they make every month and just rapidly increasing unsecured lines of credit.

[00:06:34] And one of the ways they start that is with those really expensive car loans. Unfortunately. Yeah. But you think it's getting to the point as Americans, we wear the, with a, with a badge with a pride badge in the, in the actual literal sense, not the gay sense, but we wear it like that. But I also think I go, well, wait, like, just what you just said, Phil, where you're like, you know, when I was in college, I had to eat beans and, you know, walk 30 miles uphill in the snow and shit. Right. But I also go here, but close.

[00:07:03] I also go half one part of me, the American part likes that, but I also go. So can we work as a society to fix that? Like, could we work? But we go like, no, fuck. No, you got to suffer. I'm like, well, maybe because right now I go. Yeah. Ever since I came of age, has anyone ever not said times are tough? Has anyone ever been like, no, these are good. Everyone has been like, yeah, man, all I eat are frogs. I'm like, maybe we should stop with frogs.

[00:07:33] Maybe we should eat meat. I don't know. I guess that makes me a liberal. Well, but I will say this much, like to me, and this is, this has always been my spiel, mostly to people that are younger than me, when, when they, when we get to this subject, it's one of those situations where it's like, I had my time of austerity. I might have another one in the future. And when those times come, I, everything gets jettisoned. That isn't, you know, mission critical. I do what I have to do to take care of the family.

[00:08:00] I forgo any and all sources of comfort, fun or anything else because the priority is take care of the family and, you know, keep my head above water. And then when I have times of plenty, I don't immediately start buying expeditions and BMWs and stuff, or, you know, I say, okay, now's the time that I have extra. Now it's time to build the emergency fund. Now's the time to put, make extra car payments and get that off my head. Now it's always, to me, there, there's two parts to this.

[00:08:28] One part is, yeah, I hope that we as a society can come together to try to make things better for everybody. But within the existing system rebel, I also tell people, I'm like, this is, these, this is, these are, these are the cards. This is the hand I'm going to play it the best way. I know how, so that my individual circumstances are as good as I can make it. Given the cards we have. And within the cards we have, each individual household has the ability to make things much better and much worse.

[00:08:58] Like I told Nick the other day, like the first time I ever heard what a negative equity trade-in was, I was, I was shaking. I was, I, it, it made no sense to me how the SEC even allows that to be a thing in this country. That's when you turn in a car that you owe more than it's worth. Yeah. You try and trade it out, right? Yeah. Yeah. You, you, you take, you take the negative equity and you roll it into the next car loan. And that's how you wind up paying like $60,000 for a $20,000 car. Correct. When you do that a couple of times.

[00:09:25] And I mean, terms like negative equity really aren't helping on the Twitter conspiracy theory front. When someone's like, Oh no, that's negative equity. I'm like, okay, who at Goldman Sachs cranked that one out? Like, come on. Look. But in the name, but in the name of full disclosure, like my, my, my, my degree is in business finance economics. So like, that's the, that's the term, that's the, the technical term for it. So it's what I fall back on. But no, I get you. It's just a funny term. It's like a funny thing to call it. Like, Hey, I mean, it's kind of like, what was it? The CDS right.

[00:09:55] Collateralized debt obligations. Like, what does that mean? You're like, uh, well, yeah, we sold all your debt to other people. We're making a premium on like, you can do that. You can more or less. Right. What I'm saying is more or less on the, on the right track. I think. No, you're pretty right. I'm far off. Yeah. I mean, honestly, if you, if you, if you want the cliff notes version, you can just watch margin call and the big short, and then you'll probably hate banksters as much as I do after both of those movies. I, it's just like, when I, it's just weird to me. I don't.

[00:10:26] Well, anyways, sorry, that's me getting on my, cause I, I mean, that's me getting on my finance one, but then again, you know, also on the other part of it, I've done it before on Twitter. And I'm going to quote the guy I always quote is Lucas Bach. And he goes, people who want, he made a very good tweet. I think he was making fun of grand thumb, but he pulled out, he goes, people who want their followers physically strong, but financially weak are like pathetic or something to that effect. And I go, okay. But when's the last time you gave out financial advice?

[00:10:53] So then I go, okay, I'm going to give out financial advice. So I go everyone, you know, I posted a thing saying, okay, I even took, I even retweeted him. And then I said, get a Roth IRA. And here's a bunch of different ETFs. You can buy. And then all the comments were why buy ETF from the system is going to collapse tomorrow. I'm buying guns and lead. And I'm like, okay, well, it always goes down that route. Right. Right. Go like, you know, my dad, when he was my age, thought the world was going to end in 30 years. By the way, the branch Davidians, you want to know what they thought the world was going

[00:11:23] to end. They thought the world was going to end in 1993, by the way, they were pretty set on that date. Okay. I'm sure some of that. No, we're going to 94. But the end was the branch Davidians thought the world was going to end in the early nineties. They were pretty convinced, which is why they're all on the compound. Maybe I guess for some of them, it did, but the answer is they thought like the cataclysm was happening. So when it comes to, especially the tactical industry and the finance, which I guess maybe I'm a part of it. Yeah, you definitely are. We, well, yeah, I was talking about the problem.

[00:11:53] At least I go, I think, but I don't really think so. I only get into it. I go, we do sell the end quite a bit. We do sell the end in the tactical industry, right? We're going, you need the AK for, you need the AK for 200 meter firefights. And now your 20 inch barrel is actually for piercing, uh, using M855A1. So you can break level three plus plates. You're like, yeah, we are kind of marketing the end a little bit sometimes. So then we tell people to be financially sound and they go, why be financially sound?

[00:12:22] It's all coming to an end next week. Anyways. Right. You go, yeah, I did say that. Did not hold up. Well, I think that's the person, the difference in the perspective that me and Phil try to bring to this, uh, different than the, a lot of the traditional prepper YouTube people, prepper podcast people, me and Phil mostly don't talk about the end, like the end of the world or something, end of society. Most of what we try and get people ready for is in Phil's case hurricanes.

[00:12:49] In my case, blizzards, ice storms, and super sub freezing temperatures, uh, job loss, illness, anything like that that can hit us on a regular basis. Hell the COVID pandemic and the government overreaction to that. Yeah. I mean, the thing I usually tell people is I'm like, there's, there's such a thing as getting ready for the end of the world. And then there's such things getting ready for the end of your world. Cause like if my neighbor loses their job, that really doesn't have an immediate impact

[00:13:17] upon me or the fact that it sucks for my neighbor, but it could be a serious problem for them. So what I tend to focus on is, is I'm like, okay, within this umbrella of things that could threaten you and your family, there's this huge umbrella of things that can threaten you. And most of those things don't even involve like, you know, financial collapse, the end of world EMP nuclear weapons or any of that really kind of more esoteric low, you know, low likelihood stuff. It's like, it's two days till payday. I just blew my tire out.

[00:13:45] That could be a likelihood, high likelihood. And it can't be high impact if it stops you from getting to work. If that caused you to lose your job or cause you to miss money, you know, lose money and you need the money to get the tire fixed. I mean, it just all comes back to the idea that like, to your point about the tactical industry, trying to sell people stuff. I have consistently, like I've got, I frigging bought a friend of mine's night vision stuff, but I have consistently told people, if you don't have a fully funded, a fully funded

[00:14:12] emergency fund, if you don't have, if you have credit card debt, you need to pay all that off first before you start indulging in all the tactical nerd nonsense. Like there are better places to put five grand than in a helmet on your head to impress your friends. And if you owe five grand, it's 7% interest on a car, you should get rid of that first. And then you'll have lots of money to play around with your friends. You know, it's just, it's responsibility before flexing in my opinion.

[00:14:42] Can you imagine the, I mean, I'll say this earlier. I thought you were done, but the, the embarrassment of getting just robbed by one of admin, admins aardvarks, one of his militias while you're on your work to freeway, like, you know, they took a freeway overpass and they're just shaking everyone. Like, I always love that. Like the idea of like YouTubers having like militias and the coming collapse. And then you're just getting shaken

[00:15:06] down by admins aardvarks or botkin boys. Um, while you're on the freeway, like trying to get to work. Cause you know, you look at Syria, which is a very good example of the closest thing to like a state collapse. And I go, yeah, you know, you look at Aleppo and you hear about Aleppo and you hear about the fighting and the horrific combat that was happening street to street. But that was, I believe I could be wrong on the desk, the destination, but I think that was the Western part of Aleppo.

[00:15:36] The Eastern part was still going on like as a city, like there is like traffic and you had to go to work and you're like, Oh yeah. Well that you hear that in the background. Oh, that's just the rebels and the free Syrian army just having it out. And you're like, yeah, you're still going to it. You're still the Syria is still functioning as a country. You still got to go to work. Tim pool brings that up on his, on his show every now and again. Uh, they were in Egypt during the uprising there and they

[00:16:02] were eating at a, at a Western fast food restaurant, four or five blocks. If I recall correctly from where the fighting was right. So four or five blocks in one direction and you have a functional Western fast food chain. I don't remember which one it was and a civil war just down the street. Yep. I don't know if either of y'all have ever stumbled across a YouTube channel called modern survivalist.

[00:16:28] I want to say in the back of my head, the gentleman's name that runs his name is Fernando. He's originally from Venezuela and Andrew and I had him on this show a couple of years ago. That sounds really familiar. Yeah. And that I found to be a really interesting discussion because like he was literally describing the collapse of a country and he, he literally said it happens in slow motion. Like, you know, it's not as if one day there's civilization and the next day it's fighting in the streets. He said it,

[00:16:54] it's a slow progression. Like there's more and more lawlessness. There's more and more homelessness. There's more and more theft and property crimes and crimes against person. And he said, it's such a slow progression. Like it takes years to get to the point where most people would pull the plug and say, I'm not going to work anymore. It's time to hide behind the castle walls. But he said, but that doesn't happen immediately. Like there's a long period of time where you're still going to the grocery store and going to work. And just more and more often you're seeing burned out cars on the side of the street or shot of people

[00:17:23] on the side of the street. And it's, it, it was instructional for me because it was such a different environment to like the one that I saw in Iraq where we deployed into a country that we had all already stripped mine from the air. So like the whole country was broken, but it was broken when we found, when I found it that way in 2004, as opposed to what Fernando described, where it was like, he watched it happen in slow motion. And I think that's, that's what most of these modern

[00:17:48] conflicts have shown us. Like even in Ukraine, where on the Eastern side near the front, it's hell. And then the further away from the front you get, I don't want to say it's normal, but it's more normal. Yeah. That's hot. Ukrainian chicks need to stop posting videos of them partying in Kyiv. They really got it like for the war effort. They really got to calm that down. Well, I see that. I see that on Twitter to world war two though. What do you mean? In, in, in

[00:18:15] world war two, there were nightclubs and parties going on during the bombings, sometimes in the same shelters where people were hiding from the bombings. Yeah, that's true. But nobody in world war two was able to go on Twitter and say, Zolinski's a globalist cuck and he's stealing my money. And that's also true. And then you go, you have this hot Ukrainian chick on only fans party in Kyiv and they're using the air raid Simon as a background beat. And you go, maybe you should

[00:18:42] tone it down because Americans don't do well with nuance, right? Because what you just said is, which is what we're talking about is correct. Is you just said, well, yeah, the war is going on, but Americans in general, our mindset, which again goes in the tactical industry, we're kind of a hundred percent or nothing. We're not really good with the nuance. So we don't, we like, like you said, you go, we don't, a lot of people can't comprehend the civil war five blocks down, right? We're a Marvel movie.

[00:19:12] They don't have the life experience. They don't, they don't, they don't. And thank God they don't. But I also think it's part of how we, it's also how we talk and interact with our, like, well, there's a lot going on because as Americans, we see this with our like personal lives. Or, I mean, you know, the other day, my friend had mentioned this, if you go, okay, I'm trying to, I try to keep it coherent. Everything, everything in America has to be utterly insane.

[00:19:40] It does. Like the joke I make is I say, everything's either luxury or section eight. And maybe there's a, there's a financial economic system that's backing this up, but it's kind of like wild overlap of luxury section eight. Well, all of its government subsidized at a certain point, but I worked in a grocery store when I was in high school and the number of people that had leased high end luxury cars that were also on food stamps would blow your mind.

[00:20:08] I want, I just, my entire point is everyone needs to be insane. I mean, I use Hollywood movies as an example. I go, no one's producing predator anymore, right? It's either this massive over the top crazy Marvel movie, or it's some indie film that got cranked out for 30 bucks. And I'm like, is it, where's the middle in this? But then I, my, my, my point behind that is a reference to the average American psyche where we can't imagine.

[00:20:36] Like I said, you can't imagine whenever we talk about the, the tactical industry, you're right. You're like, Hey, uh, you know, you can just have a massive earthquake in your County and your County is screwed. And by the way, you're going to go on Tik TOK and people are be dancing in Los Angeles because you're now your County, you might have cannibals. Uh, it's probably your son, but you might have a cannibal breaking down your door in your County.

[00:21:01] But Hey, in New York, they're going to a nightclub because it doesn't affect them. But I don't think American, they just go, they just go, Oh, well, if there's cannibals at your door in your County, then that's the whole country. And I, I don't know. Um, like a very good example is remember what was, what was the more recent one that happened under Joe Biden? Um, it was all over Twitter where it was, it was in North Carolina.

[00:21:25] They had those, remember all the talk was saying that yes. Okay. They flooded it on purpose and there was strip mining and they were going to get, and then my favorite were all the big right wing Twitter accounts. It's like insurrection Barbie. We're saying there's going to be martial law declared across the whole country. Now, by the way, she spelled Marshall M a R S H a L L.

[00:21:46] Well, that is a Marshall. That is a Marshall, but I'm like, remember that event. If you're on right wing Twitter, the government was coming at any time to close the country down because what was happening in this area was now going to be across the nation. Now we know that didn't happen, but it's just the idea of the escalation going from like, Oh, it's in this County. Well, it's going to be the whole country in a day. I'm like, no, not really. Well, I think a lot of that's an outgrowth of the social media algorithms.

[00:22:16] That part's true too. Right. I also have a running theory besides that though. Go for it, Phil. Well, so I, I have kind of hypothesized that the, the, there's a social instrument here that is driving a lot of this behavior. And personally, I feel like now don't flame me for saying this, but I feel like the problem is that the average American does not have big enough problems. Hence we gravitate towards extremes in search of some perverse sense of excitement.

[00:22:42] Like as a perfect example, when I was deployed to Iraq, those of us that were in Iraq and Afghanistan and our families back home and friends were well aware of the war and were well aware of the effects it was having on those that were deployed in that area. And by the way, on the citizens that, you know, the local Iraqis who were stuck there in the middle of that hell with us, with the insurgents running wild, but the average American wasn't affected by it.

[00:23:09] The average American indulges in a rage bait because they're just look for some sense of excitement. And me personally, I couldn't have cared less about, you know, the politics behind the war and everything else while I was there. Cause my primary, my primary driver was I got to do my job. So I don't kill this poor SOB on this helicopter that I'm fixing. And I have to try to keep my head attached to my shoulders for the next 300 and something days. So I can go home.

[00:23:33] I had enough problems and enough worries in my daily life that I was not concerned about other things. But I think that the average person frankly, just hasn't had in, hasn't had a life or death situation. And as a result, they, they, they gravitate towards those things. Like they look for the emergency because it's the thing to get there. You know, it's the thing. Well, it definitely could. I think that's definitely a contributor. I mean, we are a very comfortable nation despite the problems that we're having.

[00:24:03] But I think that if you feel, I don't know how active you were on the internet back in the day, but I was pretty big into internet culture. What are you counting as back in the day, Nick? When, like, you know, when I was in high school and college. So like 2000, well, I graduated high school in 2008. So call it 2004 to like 2012. Jesus Christ, Nick. You graduated high school the year I got married. I know. Isn't it amazing?

[00:24:32] He's talking about the days of 8 Kun and the formation of 4chan. And we're talking, you know, Techistan. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I was there when the magic was written. Thank you for making me feel old as hell, by the way. I was, listen, I was around when a 9600 rate, you know, 9600 baud modem was like, ooh. Oh, sure. 1414 around. Everybody was really cooking.

[00:24:58] The point I'm getting to with this is that there was a period of time when everything was displayed in chronological order. It was always, well, reverse chronological order. Whatever was put up most recently, that was at the top of your feed, okay? Well, social media companies got a bit savvy and started trying to figure out how to keep people on there longer. And what did Facebook do? They started organizing based on engagement.

[00:25:25] And what gets the most engagement on the internet? Things that scare you or piss you off. Right. Things that are adorable. Puppies and kittens, because everybody likes puppies and kittens. Baby animals do really great on the internet. Things that make you angry and things that you think are going to affect you personally. So. I'm going to throw hot people in there, too. But I guess I mean, yeah. I mean, porn always wins. Porn always wins. It does. Yes, porn porn drives information technology.

[00:25:53] And it will be that way probably from now until the end of time. But what happened was people figured out that you could take writing articles in a certain way that you knew would upset a group of people. And the more groups of people you could upset with your article, the more likes, shares, follows you would get.

[00:26:15] And Facebook and the other social media companies algorithms were already driving traffic towards the things that were getting engagement, which hyper focused people on. At the time, it was police abuse, racism. For a little bit there, it was the. Ah, shoot. The stock market, the stock market protest.

[00:26:45] I can't remember. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street. Thank you. For a little while, it was Occupy Wall Street. And then articles started getting written about other things to try and drive people's attention away from that. That probably paid for by Wall Street bankers. Right. There's a whole conspiracy theory. They showed the use of Occupy Wall Street. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, racism just spikes in usage of words. Right. I'm not convinced that that theory is.

[00:27:14] I'm not convinced that that theory can be wrong, given how few people control a lot. What's more, if I were to talk about, if I were to talk about what Occupy was, some of it was just kooky Marxist crap. Oh, of course. Some of it was. It always, there's always. But if I start talking about that and the right wing thing, spear, spear things, you get acceptance online, but no acceptance in application.

[00:27:39] Because if I, because if I go on to, which I mean, I say, right, I'm right wing, but if I go on to this part of Twitter and then I go, they'll go. Yeah. Big pharma is enslaving you. Big food is putting poison in your food. And that, and I go. So then this side of Twitter loves Robert F. Kennedy. And I go, you know, Robert F. Kennedy was like literally try to run as a Democrat president.

[00:28:00] And then on top of that many times, and on top of that, Robert F. Kennedy has routinely spouted that he wants more government control to ban these things and ban companies. But then the other side of me has to then say, well, you need this to protect yourself from a government. And I go, so wait, one minute, one minute, I have to oscillate between big company is bad. Then I have to, then, then I have to say big company bad.

[00:28:27] Then I have to go, but actually a big company is bad. So big government need to stop big company, but big government also bad, but not only big government bad, big company can do no wrong. So I have to, I mean, I'm, I don't, I'm trying to cut back on the swearing. Chemotherapy, man. You can, I have to, I have to have 17 different cocks jug jam down my mouth at any given time.

[00:28:51] I mean, for fuck's sake, Donald Trump just went on fucking live television and pointed to, I believe I could be, who was it? The head of fucking, was it like someone, some investment group, black, white, someone who goes, oh, he made a lot of money on the tariff dip. He said that on television. He literally said that in a meeting like three days ago. Everybody, every economist was saying there was going to be a dip for the tariffs. Right.

[00:29:19] If you didn't talk to your investment company and say, hey, how can we take advantage of this? You're a fool. Correct. But president Trump is the populist guy who's talked about how all the companies are there to fuck you and how you need. And he's also the guy that has regularly said, look, I benefited from this system. I know the system is, is stacked in my favor. Right. Like, unfortunately, we have, we have, like Phil was saying earlier, we have the hand we were dealt.

[00:29:47] We have a government that is bloated and way overcomplicated and probably overregulates certain areas. Some areas, maybe not enough. Honestly, I don't know which ones, but we have to use the tools at hand to make the change we want. Right. And in this case, if it's getting literal poison out of our food, I think that's an acceptable use of government.

[00:30:13] I mean, I'm an old school, I would say an old school classical liberal in that I think the purpose of government is to protect the rights, property and lives of the citizenry. Those are the, those are the only legitimate purposes of government.

[00:30:33] And part of protecting the lives of people, I would say is preventing known poisons from being introduced to their food without their knowledge. You know what I mean? Like you can't put arsenic in bottled water and say, no, it's fine. It's just water. You got to list arsenic on the label, you know? Right. So those are the easy ones.

[00:30:55] And I know I brought that up, but then how do you get into the more insidious versions of you have BlackRock who then basically goes out and utilizes taxpayer dollars to subsidize risk and then claim that their massive capital is going. But you know, you're not. I'm not talking about like Elon Musk getting a loan. That's different. Government gives you a loan. You pay it back. We make the people, us make money.

[00:31:17] But then you have BlackRock that goes out and says, actually, no, since we're holding all this industry, since we're holding on to all these houses, we actually have insurance through Fannie Mae. Right. So actually all these can go away and the taxpayer will bail us out or the taxpayer subsidizes our risk. But then we make profit. Or I mean, even a good example is we talk about them buying out single family homes. And I go. Congrats. The government is doing a bad thing. I mean, all governments do bad things.

[00:31:44] But then what do we, how do we, how do I, how do I like, how do we change that notion of jumping into either one? So for a start. No, that's, that's the answer. Better representatives that will actually enforce the will of the people. Okay. Now you're about to, well, you two are about to make me out myself as the political homeless dissident that I am again.

[00:32:09] Because like over the last 20 years, I've been everything from a fricking war hawk neocon to a small libertarian to a big old libertarian back to a small libertarian. Probably not libertarian anymore after the heroin thing. Don't, don't beat me to the punchline. I've been accused in the same conversation by the same person of being both a liberal and a conservative. I've been told I'm somewhat of a classical liberal, but not really.

[00:32:37] My issue is I, the first thing I have to say is that I, I don't personally believe that we live in a capital, in a capitalist society. Not anymore. We, well, we, but the problem is we haven't in any of our three lifetimes and probably most of our parents' lifetimes too. The truth of the matter is, is that the government has been picking winners and losers and manipulating the scales for decades upon decades upon decades. And they're still doing it today.

[00:33:05] And you just, you like rebel, you've just hit the nail on the head. They're still doing it to this day. The 2008 financial collapse. It's in the history books. There is no debating whatsoever what the mechanism was that caused it. It is beyond reproach. We literally studied in 2009 in my last semester of college, because it was happening in real time in front of us. And yet there's been zero attempt legislatively to have oversight via the SEC to prevent it from ever happening again. If anything, they've relaxed regulations since then.

[00:33:34] And by the way, that wasn't a Republican or Democrat. That's both parties that have had a hand in that. So what I'm looking at is a government that is wholeheartedly in favor of screwing the middle class down into further into poverty, elevating the wealthy, whether it be tech or whether it be manufacturing or biotech or pharma. It doesn't matter.

[00:33:59] And at the end of the day, yes, Nick, the perfect answer, the peaceful answer, the peaceful answer is we need better representation. Well, we do. That's the way our system works. That's the way our system works in theory. Yes. Unfortunately, it is wholly dependent upon two things. Honest elections, which we can debate whether we have or not. And it's based upon having a smart enough electorate to make that decision.

[00:34:27] And I'm not totally convinced after like 70 years of government schools, we have a smart enough electorate anymore. I think part of the purpose of government schools was to create a less intelligent electorate. Well, if it wasn't the purpose, it sure as hell worked. Hey, I judge a goal based on its outcome. Look, test scores have been dropping since the Department of Education became a thing across the board. Yeah.

[00:34:56] Good job, boys. Therein lies the piece, right? Because if you were to then say, well, let me hit everyone with a hard one. If you were then go, well, we need better reps. I go, okay. And you go, well, they have no problem destroying the middle class. I go, yeah, I know. Ocasio-Cortez fights against that all the time. Right? Then you go, well, whoa, hold on. And I go, well, yeah. But then there's the political you theory coming up, right? Now, there's a lot of Ocasio-Cortez I disagree with.

[00:35:23] But then when she comes out and says, hey, listen, you know, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, they don't mind all of these basic – they don't mind – what was the – I mean, fuck, it was a Tucker Carlson point, for God's sakes. But they go, they actually enjoy all the UBI and all that stuff because they know how to avoid taxes. They don't want to pay healthcare to their workers. They don't want to do that. So they come out with these left-wing causes. They wash their reputations with these left-wing fundraisers.

[00:35:52] Now they're all right-wing, apparently. But they wash their sheets in these left-wing causes. But then they go, well, they know because they can avoid taxes and shift the tax burden onto the middle class. For example, right now, no one likes taxes. But you go, yeah, if I'm making $300K a year or $300 million a year, my difference in tax bracket is like, what, 5% or 6%? And then you go, well, wait a minute. At $300K, 39% is a lot of fucking money.

[00:36:20] Now, when then you go, but at $300 million, if I'm paying, let's just say 42%, you go, yeah, it's still $150 million. True, $156 million, whatever it is. $156 million. But then the answer is, you know what I mean? I'm just making the number. It's still a larger number because you're making more money. But then you go, yeah, but if you're making $300 million, $150 million out of your pay is not the same as if I'm making $300,000 and the tax is only 3% different. But then you go, well, the tax goes into this shit area. You shouldn't pay taxes.

[00:36:49] And I go, listen, I have a plate carrier that's available for $240 and that's what you should be buying. It always goes back to that because I get mixed up too, right? Or I mean, you'd use a tactical industry. Buy this stuff for a tyrannical government. T-Rex arms website. The government has tyranny. Scroll to the bottom. My gear is used by elite special forces. Interesting. Interesting to put that on the website. Oh, here's my DUNS code. Yeah.

[00:37:19] Oh, I'm teaching a SWAT class this Saturday. Well, hold on. Wasn't that the people you were just talking about? Maybe I'm losing my mind, right? Well, some of them are the people you're talking about for sure. Right. So am I like completely – because I don't have any government contracts. So then when they go, well, I'm very compliant. And I go, very compliant for what? Well, for like a government contract. I go, the one you're talking about fighting back against, right?

[00:37:48] That's the one that you want to make sure – I mean, that's why I never heard about the NIJ either. Is you need plates to defend yourself from the government, okay? But you want the government to give you a rating that the plate is good enough to do it? Well, I think there is a little bit there that you may be oversimplifying. So the nice thing about the NIJ and about any of like the Barry compliant and stuff like that, it's a shorthand. And I think it's a useful shorthand. Okay. So NIJ compliant.

[00:38:17] Me and Phil can both say we've got level three plates or level four plates or yada, yada, yada, whatever the certification is. Because Phil knows and I know that if the lab is doing their job correctly, which let's assume that the lab is doing their job correctly, his level four plate and my level four plate probably perform about the same. Right. You can compare apples to apples. And I think that's a lot of why people start down that road.

[00:38:43] Eventually, though, I think that the nice, sexy, steady government paycheck is what they get addicted to. But the NIJ is a government institution. It is. It is a government institution. Now, the Barry compliant part, which I talk about with my gear, it doesn't really matter unless you're – I mean, you could maybe make some baseline cases for like NIR standards. But it's pretty much for government contracts, realistically. It is. Right. But then I go – so that's what it is. Like, yeah, there's some baseline to it.

[00:39:11] But by the way, I could use that logic about the California pistol roster. Right? Because the California pistol roster – Yeah, but that's a different thing. Well, hold on. Let me finish on this one. Because the California pistol roster then goes in. And I go, you want to know why? I actually – the good news is when you – you could use it this way. You could say, you're right. The intent behind that is to limit guns from coming in.

[00:39:33] But I go, well, the thing is the California pistol roster, what they do, for example, they go through and torture test these 10 – now, by the way, I'm not for the pistol roster. But you go, they torture test these 10 guns. And it has to have these features. Well, here's the thing. The only guns that can get through that test are good pistols. So on the shelves in California, you're only getting good stuff, really. And by the way, it's pretty much just Glock. But basically, that's what you find out.

[00:39:59] I was going to say, Glock isn't a high point on that list, which is not a bad pistol. But they make it through. So then I also go, well, for example, a loaded chamber – now, I think the magazine disconnect is dumb. But you go, a loaded chamber indicator. But the answer is the only way to actually kind of put a gun on the California shelf is actually the standards to get in are kind of high, right? So now, here's my point, though. My point behind that, though, is yes, inherently, that's an anti-constitutional thing, and I don't agree with it.

[00:40:28] And nor do I even agree with the actual outcomes of it. But my point is, though, for a group of people, for a group who talk about anti-government stuff, the government sure does seem to come up a bit. That's my overall – and you're right. There could be an oversimplification. And that's where I go – and this is my problem when I do on podcasts. I go A, B, C. Then I go, it could be A, it could be B, it could be C. There's nothing wrong with that. I think that where you're coming from is a good point.

[00:40:56] Like, yes, a lot of these gun tubers that – and I'm not going to go into names because I don't really watch much YouTube. A lot of these – Oh, that's fine. If you want to, you can. Man, I don't pay attention to it. But when I was, a lot of them were always, well, the government's coming to do this. The government's coming to do that. You're right. And they were selling to the government.

[00:41:19] Well, unfortunately, fortunately, however you want to look at it, the government's the big kid on the block with the unlimited paycheck. And a lot of these companies would not exist if it was not for government contracts. That's just what it comes down to. And maybe they're making a deal with the devil. I don't know. I don't think it's that – Well, I do wish more manufacturers would take the Ronnie Barrett approach, though, and basically say, You ban my product from civilians. F yourself.

[00:41:48] You can't have my stuff anymore. Yep. Like, to me – And then you sold the company to an Australian company. Yeah, I know. Look, I got to take my little wins where I can find them because it gives me a tiny little spark of optimism to get through my day. I'm just kidding. I'm just giving you shit. Yeah. I mean, well, but to be fair, like the guys from Phoenix Ammo up in Michigan did basically the same thing.

[00:42:11] When they got – when their local police department started screwing with them about y'all have to wear masks in your own building when it's not available to the public, no one could come in here to your manufacturing facility. They immediately canceled all ammunition orders to that police department and basically said, y'all are fining me, and I'm supplying you idiots ammo. Go get it somewhere else. Pay them. Now, Phoenix Ammunition also tweeted out about when Trump did the tariffs. He goes, trust the process.

[00:42:39] And I go, wait, so you want the government to subsidize your industry because you don't want foreign competition? See, the tariffs are a funny thing because, again, remember that whole conversation about like I've been on both sides of like – I've been on the – I don't want to say the pro-government. I've been on the extreme anti-government intervention side of opinions, and I've been on the more moderate side of this.

[00:43:03] And my only issue with tariffs is I don't like the idea of tariffs, but I also have to acknowledge in the same breath the fact that most of our trade partners have tariffs on our goods. So to me, it's kind of like I am emotionally at peace having the discussion about we should not have tariffs on imports. I am open to that, but that also means that they have to take their tariffs off. You know why a lot of them do have tariffs on our stuff because they're poor. Yeah. Well, yeah.

[00:43:31] So the reason why – so for example, if you look at Vietnam, right? So like for – here's a good one. There's like multiple because I – this one I kind of know. Sure. And for example, China. They do have tariffs to keep some U.S. products, usually automotive or a few things, out of the market. That part's true. Now, the second part though why no one really cares is because even if you could sell an F-150, you know what China will tell the people? Don't buy them.

[00:44:01] Yep. Right. So the reason why when it comes to like actual people who are keeping our stuff out of their markets, that does happen 100%. It usually in this authoritarian area that we're – probably the EU is a better comparison, not China, when it comes to trying to keep foreign competition out, which is usually your automotive stuff. For example, if you use like a Vietnam, the reason why they have a tariff on like U.S. goods at Vietnam – now, this has nothing to do with my production just because I saw it.

[00:44:28] But it's because the only people in Vietnam importing U.S. goods are essentially luxury retailers. And if you're importing it, you have the money, right? So when you – by the way, I'll answer this question from Raggle right here. When you import that luxury item for Vietnam – because if you're selling U.S. goods in Vietnam, it's going to be expensive and the only customers you have are going to be rich. So you're selling a luxury item, right?

[00:44:50] So now the government knows, well, if you are the one who is importing this piece right here, if you're the one importing this, right, we know you have cash. So we're going to get it from you. So a lot of it is not necessarily – in other countries, it's not necessarily trade protectionism as much as it is just a revenue because they know that person has the cash to give it to them. So now I want to answer if you don't mind me interrupting. Raggle, okay. So here's the thing.

[00:45:17] Would rather tariffs fund the government or income tax, right? The answer is you would want to say tariffs make sense, right? But the thing is no one has ever said they're going to get rid of the second one. Yeah. On top of which because they say it, right, Donald Trump comes out and talks shit and saying, I want to get rid of the – but I go, where is the bill? I believe he implied it. Yeah, he implied it.

[00:45:41] So now if you're someone like myself who makes the gear in Vietnam, right, if you just say, hey, listen, Rebel, we're going to put a 40% tariff on their imported gear from Vietnam, but you have no income tax. I would go, that's the cost of doing business. Right. Right? Okay. Then you go, well, if you don't want the tariff, right, then you make it here. I go, okay, but now the next part is if we say the tariff of replacing income tax as the current economy is, I go, so let's just say you do that.

[00:46:09] Let's say you put these tariff walls and now everything's made here. Who are you taxing? You have to go back to the income tax, right? Yeah. Because now the – let's just say, for example, the tariffs worked. They worked. They did. Everyone's making it here. Okay, well, now everything's more expensive. Okay. But let's say they worked. Then you have to go back to income taxes and the government needs to fund it. So the truth of the matter is I don't believe I will live long enough to see income tax done away within this country.

[00:46:38] And I would love to be proven wrong if anybody's out there listening. But I think there's a tiny, tiny insignificant chance but a much greater chance to get rid of income tax that we move to a non-progressive flat income tax. I think you're probably right.

[00:46:55] Like flat tax, no exemptions, no homestead exemption, no withholdings, no financial trickery, nothing that the ultra-rich get to get over on, nothing that the poor get to get over on because they don't pay income tax because yada, yada, yada. But everybody, like whatever the number is, if it's 10%, 15%, you make 100 grand. You owe the government X number $1,000. You can do away with the freaking IRS almost wholeheartedly because it ain't that hard to look at your income and how much you sent in.

[00:47:25] People's personnel and payroll systems from all entities are going to be able to digest that pretty simply and quickly because you made $100. You owe 10, 15, however much to the Fed and discussion. And I think that is a reasonable thing that might actually be able to be implemented. But the idea that we get away from income tax wholeheartedly, like as much as I would do backflips for it, I don't think I'll see it.

[00:47:50] It's not – it's political poison to anybody that does it. I mean it will be wildly popular for about five minutes until the government realizes they can't run the government. I mean hell, they can't run the government on what they tax right now. You think they're going to run the government on zero? No. That is – that is absolute – it is an absolute deliberate choice that they cannot run the government on the money that comes in on taxes right now. I was going to say it was by design, but I guess you could argue that's semantics.

[00:48:20] Design, choice, however you want to say it. Well, we have to kill all the boomers. That's the only way to do it. We got to get rid of all of – Well, the wrong – I don't know that that will solve it because you have – No, I was joking. You have many generations of indoctrinated children who have spent age 6 to 18 in indoctrination centers eight hours a day, five days a week, being told that this is all what you need.

[00:48:49] You got to follow the line. You got to toe the system. Don't talk bad about Xbox Live like that. Come on. Xbox Live. If – my God. If some of the chats that occurred on Xbox Live were recorded and streamed to YouTube, you want to talk about canceled. That's my indoctrination center is Xbox Live. It's the COD lobbies. That's where I was indoctrinated. Exactly.

[00:49:14] But, you know, Phil, you know, I'd love to see a flat tax because that's actually fair. If I hold my breath, will you bring me an oxygen tank? Nope. Okay. Personally, I think Rebel's right. I don't see the income tax going away or going down. I see the tariffs increasing the tax burden to people. That said, I am in U.S. manufacturing.

[00:49:44] I build plastic injection molds for a living. Our quotes and POs have gone up dramatically since the tariffs officially went into effect. We are seeing companies that we have done work for for a couple of decades now calling us and emailing us saying, Hey, we got a customer that wants to launch a product, can't do it with a Chinese mold now. It's way too expensive. What can you guys do for us?

[00:50:14] Can't say tariffs don't work. I agree that for China. Yeah. You know, I mean, China has been deliberately artificially deflating its people's, the cost of labor in China for, God, 50 years now in order to steal industry from Western countries, steal intellectual property from Western countries,

[00:50:41] and try to boost themselves into a first world nation. They're failing at it. Every first world style city they build is abandoned. Yeah. Because no one there can afford to live there. And we really don't want to get into like human rights violations. Sure. Literal concentration camps where they harvest people's organs. Yeah. De facto slavery. Like, I don't know. You know, I had this discussion with somebody one time and even I got really, really super self-righteous about it.

[00:51:10] And I was like, you know, there's a part of me that wishes that we as a country would just cease all economic relationships with countries run by bad people to do bad things. But then in the same breath, I was like an awful lot. But then we would do business with literally freaking nobody because almost every country. Yeah. We don't have two hours to talk about all the stuff this country has done bad. I mean. I appreciate that, Rebel. No, I actually think I do.

[00:51:39] I do actually think you could utilize tariffs to target specific industries. I think you can. And I know I think I think what you said is right because I've done it where you go, OK, we're putting tariffs here. And now I don't work out of China at a choice because I actually have a conscious a little bit. So, for example, even my materials, none of my raw materials are out of China. So coming up, we're doing a multicam plate carrier. Right. You're speaking my language.

[00:52:03] Cry, everyone, just so everyone knows, Cry has a factory in China that's licensed, which is pretty much where all the multicam comes from. All the stuff. Because other companies will say they say, we have the official multicam and it's cheaper. You go, well, because Cry actually has a factory. I don't know when I say Cry has a factory. What I'm saying is there's a factory in China that is licensed by Cry to produce it. I do not go with it. A U.S. company cannot own a Chinese factory. I can promise you that.

[00:52:31] So there is a Chinese factory. The company owns the factory. Which has the official Cry license to do it. Now, the reason why they do that is because they don't care about it in China is because the American resellers, when you pay for the manufacturing and sell it in America, Cry doesn't give you a lawsuit for stealing the shit. For example, I detest China to the level where I didn't get that, even though my factory in Vietnam was like, you have to. I was like, no, I don't. They're like, well, what are you going to do? And I said, okay, I'm going to import the multicam from America.

[00:53:00] That's the only place I can get it. So I'm importing from America. My thing is, I actually agree with you that if you use structured layered tariffs and say, okay, hey, business owners. So over the next five years, we want you to start bringing this back. Here's the industries we want to bring back. We're going to start slowly. Like, hey, you have like a year of free to get what you need. And we're going to start slowly increasing tariffs. By the way, here, there's the stick.

[00:53:27] Now the carrot for every dollar you put into U.S. production, we're going to give you a tax benefit. Right. And then when you have a combined effort to then say, okay, here's the way the wind's blowing. By the way, this is a term for this. This is called good governance, by the way. This is what that's called. Well, it makes sense. And you put a carrot and a stick going towards a certain goal and say, okay, we want automotive, pharmaceutical, and whatever, rubber production. I don't know.

[00:53:57] I'm making the fucking shit up. But you go down the list and you list this in order to have a coherent plan for the country. Now, to be fair, and I'll criticize it, Donald Trump's plan was like five things. It was, no, we want them to lower their tariffs. Then we'll lower ours. Okay. So that's a free trade agreement. That's what you want. Well, also we'll bring back manufacturing. Well, wait, what? You just said you want a free trade agreement. Yeah. That also we'll use the payoff income tax. Wait, wait. So wait, what?

[00:54:25] So now you go online and then there's eight people arguing. And then by the way, to be fair to everyone listening, which is funny about Twitter, right? Or that the Trump tariffs didn't even last a day. He canceled them 13 hours into the day besides ones on China. But the rest of them, he got rid of almost all of them. Right. So then almost all of them. I know there's a few still around, but then I go, okay, so then what was that about? But then I go back to the film part where you go, yeah, so that's called having an economy that's rigged. And everyone knew that.

[00:54:54] And now they made a bunch of fucking money and you're a loser and you're fucked. And I go, well, okay. Well, look, it was that. Like it or not, we as a country elected Trump. And I think we all knew what we were getting. I voted for. Which was not necessarily a, yeah, I did too. It was not necessarily a coherent good government's person, but it wasn't Joe Biden and it wasn't Kamala Harris. So look. The joke I make is.

[00:55:23] Aren't going to happen. When he launched. Sorry, go ahead. Sorry. My apologies. No, that was it. That's all I had. Go for it. The joke I can tell my friends is that when he launched the original Terrace, which would have killed Rebels Raiders for sure. Right. I go, can you imagine my business under Kamala Harris? I'm like, well. True. You would have been making bank. Well, that's what I'm saying though. Right. But then I told my friends, I was like, dude, right now, no conspiracy theory.

[00:55:49] You can draw a line right from my business that Donald Trump killed my business with an order. Direct line. And in my head, I'm like, yeah, I'm still voting from third term when he runs for it. I'll still vote. Right. And my friend's like, yeah, he will. We all will. We all. Listen, I voted for Trump in 2020. I voted for him in this one. When he runs for a third term, every single person will vote for him. We all will. We don't care. We don't. We will. We said that. We say it now. I'll call it. Because then we'll be called cucks online.

[00:56:18] Then we'll cave and we'll do it. I mean, you can call me whatever you want. I don't care. I'm not going to call you that. I'm going to say I'll be called that on Twitter. I'm just saying there has been an amendment passed constitutionally that says the president gets two terms. The man has served a term and he has served a term and he is serving a term. That's two. I mean, pretty simple math to me. But wait a second. The boy don't get my vote anymore. You did go to public school. Are you sure? One plus one is two. It was before new math.

[00:56:49] Okay. My wife has tried to teach me. But they could also, they could undo that constitutional amendment. Sure. And if they undo the constitutional amendment, fair enough. It's gone through the system. I actually, I legit, I won't bet. This is a coward's bet. However, I would put like 30 bucks on them doing that. I would not. I'm not betting on that. You need two thirds of the states to ratify that.

[00:57:18] It's true. It's not going to happen. It's just, I'm sorry, but it's not going to happen, man. I will just. And I don't think it should happen. I will just say this much. I think we need more term limits, not less. Since we've wandered into discussion about Donald J. Trump and Kamala Harris and politics and everything. I keep saying it and he occasionally listens to his podcast and I keep, I'm not going to name drop him because I'm trying to protect the man from horrible. Yeah.

[00:57:47] Horrible public outcry. But like a good friend of mine, he, he and I, like we're both military veterans. We used to work together. We have a lot in common, but politically, socially, we have been like polar opposites for a lot of our relationship. He has never voted for a Republican in his entire life until this election. And like, I, this is the guy who, when Trump won the first time, he was a little concerned

[00:58:16] and I was like, dude, like take a deep breath. I don't think it's going to be like, you know, Handmaid's Tales and everything you're, you're hearing from your friend circle. I'd like, well, let's just realize Handmaid's Tale was supposed to be in Islamic country, right? I understand that, but stick with that. Really? And then when it's not about a Christian country, it's about an Islamic country. But then when 2020 happened and Joe Biden won, I got a phone call a week later, like, Hey, Phil, um, do you know how to assemble an AR-15?

[00:58:45] And I was like, define assemble. And he was like, like, I have a lower and I had a parts kit. I need to like assemble lower. And I was like, yeah, bring it on over. We'll smoke cigar and BS in the garage. And we're sitting there literally put, I'm showing him how to put this thing together, his first AR and, you know, from a box of parts. And he's, I was like, so, um, what'd you think about the election, dude? And he just looks at me and he says, I'm building a fricking rifle, ain't I? Okay.

[00:59:11] But then when 2024 came around, like he, he and I went out to the gun range together and hung out and caught up. We hadn't seen Jerry in a couple of years because life had just been weird. And, um, he told me, he said, dude, I really did not want to vote for Donald Trump. I really, really, really did not want to be this to be the election. I was going to vote for a Republican, but I had two choices. And one was a populace with a platform and the other one was nothing. Yeah.

[00:59:40] And I was like, I mean, yeah, when you put it that way, you kind of didn't have any choice. So I don't know. I, it's personally, to me, it's a damn shame. It is. It really is. That there wasn't a good choice. This is also why, again, I hope I live long enough, but I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not hold my breath. Even if some of my promises bring me an oxygen tank. I hope to God, I live long enough to see both the GOP and the DNC go down in flames.

[01:00:06] And we have like wild frigging elections where there's like 15 people running against each other, each with their own platform as like 15 independents. It would be the coolest thing in my universe. I would giggle about it the entire time. It would be fun. It would be one of the few times we actually talk about politics on the show. Cause most of the time we're just screaming about whichever government happens to be in charge at that moment. Cause they both do stupid things. They're all terrible. We hate them. But in that case, it would be fun to talk about politics for a change.

[01:00:35] Cause there'd be 15 people with their own ideas. But I just don't think we, I don't know how we get there. We have to get these huge monolithic parties to go away and there's too much fricking money tied up in them. Anyway, at some point I went on a political rant there. I never do that. That was day, man. You know what? That's what podcasts are for. We're supposed to rant about inane things.

[01:01:03] That's literally what we do on the show is rant about inane things. Whatever typically happens to cross our mind. I think you're about to ask me about my company. Well, yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah. One, one hour later. That's all right. But this is every podcast is like this. Like even on Seaburn, I was just like, he's like, yes, you have a company. I'm like, oh yeah, about that. Anyways. This is, this is on the rare occasion that I wind up on somebody else's podcast.

[01:01:32] It usually comes off the rails in the first 45 seconds. Good. It's just podcasting. But anyway, so I guess my question rebel is like, I know you said you wanted to like kind of state, you want to be Oz and stay behind the curtain. And I respect that. Like, do you want to talk about how you came into this line of work for a little bit? Yeah. By the way, when I say I want to stay behind the curtain. So everyone, I try, I wish I could make a more mysterious.

[01:01:59] I'm just ugly and I don't want to see it all the time. Bro, this beard is the only thing making me presentable on this show. Yeah. So I wear, I wear a bulk of auto, not out of a branding thing, but literally, because I just don't want to see my face. That's fair enough, man. I don't listen to our show because I don't like the sound of my own voice. There you go. So I think it's fine. The premise really came from the fact. Wow. Okay. Sorry, everyone. Hold on. You're good, man. Okay.

[01:02:28] I got hired at a company called Kani Pro Gear in 2017 because I applied to a Craigslist ad that said wanted air softers or people who like guns. That was it. That's so sketchy. I love it. So I went down to Long Beach because I was living in LA at the time and I went down to Long Beach and then the guy was like, well, this is for an account manager position. And I guess I thought I did well, but I guess I didn't do well for that position.

[01:02:55] But I started geeking out and talking about the Battle of Kani and the tactics of it and the Roman generals and Hannibal and they were switching off between the two Roman generals and one of them, then Hannibal attacked during a time when the hotheaded one was in charge and then they attacked. So I went over the whole Battle of Kani and he was impressed and said, this kid is fine. The kid was 27. He's like, this guy is fine. Let's get him in the warehouse.

[01:03:23] So I did when I got to the warehouse, I did what any millennial does. We all work really hard for no pay and we become so annoying. They just give you more work to get you out of their hair. So that's what I did. So I start off in the warehouse. Then I took over the warehouse. That was mine. Then I took over social media and then I built the, you know, the Kani Pro gear through there.

[01:03:50] We had ownership that didn't know what they were doing. A good, a good way to look at it is if you take the old school Kani Phalanx backpack, which was a very good backpack. And then you take my Rebels Raiders Phoenix, which is the spiritual successor to the Phalanx and a little bit of 511 there too. But it's a spiritual successor to the Phalanx. And you look at it and you go Phalanx. The Kani Phalanx was pretty good.

[01:04:20] Very good pack. And then you go, but it did have an identity crisis. It didn't know what it wanted to be. It was kind of this weird EDC pack that's also a duty pack. It was kind of all over the place. You look at the Phoenix, then you go, oh shit, this is a hardcore duty pack. This guy really built a really good duty pack. Now you could use it for EDC, but it's a duty pack and it's a salt pack. So if you look at my gear, which a lot of it comes from Kani, you go, oh, but this is focused and good. Now, will I make an EDC pack?

[01:04:50] Yeah, of course. I'll make an EDC pack. That's cool for EDC. It'll be good. But the issue was Kani was unfocused and had people who were not interested in tactical gear. Okay. So with that part being said, when 2020 hit, while everyone else was able to triple their business, we did much more business, but it didn't mean anything for the company because we weren't set up for it. We had a bunch of EDC bags and stuff that really people wanted to pay 30 bucks for.

[01:05:17] So also the company was unbelievably top heavy. We had investors. We had a CEO paying himself a hundred K a year. The COO never gave himself a raise, but realistically, it probably could have just been him and me doing all the work. We would have been, then it would have been fine. But the point is the investors pulled out saying, we're not going to pay for this anymore. They pulled out and it was over. It all went okay with me. They're like, hey, you got to go. It's kind of over. And then it ended, period. So I was like, okay, no harm. It is.

[01:05:47] And by the way, I'm still talking on the laptop and I actually have a new monitor now, but I literally am talking on the laptop. The label printer is a label printer. But anyways, so with that part being said, I was jobless for a year or so. And thank God I have, I have great boomer parents who have a big, huge retirement mansion. So I rent a room from them. So there you go. So boomer boomers win. And that it's through their good graces that even have a life. So thank you to them.

[01:06:17] Both that part being said, yeah, I was, I got a job. And then out of random, I was talking to the old, my old boss and he's like, oh yeah, we have a container of can I pro gear stuff. I was like, what? Like, yeah, we have a whole 40 foot container full of gear. I was like, what, what do you mean? But we're out of business. What the fuck? And I'm like, okay, so what's in there? All the, all the shit. Nobody wants like pouches. He's like, oh no, the Legion, the Optio. I'm like, oh, that's the shit people want it. So he's like, yeah. And I'm like, okay. So then he's like, I'll sell it to you. And I was like, fuck. So I formed an LLC.

[01:06:47] I bought it. And then I had the, the container delivered site. I mean, I knew the, when I say site unseen, it's true, but it's also not true because I knew all the gear that was in there and I knew what it all was. Right. You just didn't necessarily know like quantities and everything. Yeah. They gave me a number, but the answer was I didn't see that container, but I knew what was in there because I'd sold the gear for last year. So I knew what it was. So they delivered it. Then I turned, I tripled my initial investment, like a 300% ROI.

[01:07:14] And then I met the current owner of my factory at shot show. Hilariously enough. I tell everyone how useless shot show is, but I met the guy. He owns a factory. I tell everyone why I go, go ahead. It's called the saying. And what I loved about it was it was a South Korean owned company. So it wasn't like one of those companies that say, Hey, we'll make it in China, but we're still Chinese owned. We just go out of Vietnam. It's like, no, I'm a South Korean company and we manufacture out of Vietnam. And they're the same company that does Victor gear, Victor's gear.

[01:07:45] Victor's familiar with them. I am. Yeah. You know, Victor. Yeah. And then they also do another company, which is called elite survival gear. Um, which actually is good stuff, but it's all very 2000 G watt. It's not very new. So, and Victor and Victor's gear is pretty good, but a little odd. Cause it's a little more European. So it's like their gear choices are a little strange. And then I told the factory owner, I was like, Hey Richard, can we do spiritists? But you.

[01:08:15] And he goes, yeah. I go good. That's what we're doing right now. To be honest, I probably didn't say spirit. I think I said somebody else, but the answer was, can we do good? But you, can I come to you with the new tactical stuff with laser cut Molly with quick adjust slings, not this. Then I'm like, and I'm going to give you my own designs and I need good shit. Cause you can, I know you can make it good. Right. But we're doing new designs. Can you do that? He's like, yeah, we can do all that. So I said, okay, that's what we're going to do.

[01:08:42] So then I came to the conclusion of, I wanted to do more tactical gear. Now there's a little bit more of a personal story that ties into here. If you go back a little bit earlier, my father was during the 1990s LA riots. Now my dad and I share the same predisposition with gear. We like guns. We're into them, right? I'm not on our slash tactical gear all day discussing the finer pellets of Velcro. I don't care. So when I went to all these hype beast America, and I'm going to call them hype beast,

[01:09:12] say that I'm saying that they're not give me shit. It's fine. But I went to all these American companies that, in my opinion, they overcharge. Maybe they don't. Maybe that, that manufacturing is there. So maybe my opinion's incorrect. I think the stuff is too expensive for what it is. But the point is a lot of their gear is proprietary. A lot of their gear is expensive. Another piece going back. I'm, I know I'm all over the place, but I remember I ordered from T-Rex arms for their black Friday sale. And I ordered like 800 bucks with a nylon.

[01:09:40] Now, when I order 800 dollars with a nylon, I'm like, dude, that better be delivered. Like you better, if I'm ordering 800 dollars worth of nylon from your fucking website, when that package gets delivered, I need, you need to have the world's strongest man deliver it because it's this massive box full of nylon. Like the UPS driver needs to have a, a medical hernia trying to put that box in my house. If I'm ordering 800 bucks worth of nylon. Yeah. Ammo delivery should come on a hand cart. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[01:10:09] Like 800, like about this button to G, right? I got a medium sized fucking, you know, a media, like a box that was about the size of a large, uh, what's a large international mailer from USPS. Hmm. Right. And I pull out the AC one. I'm like, what is what I paid? How much for all this? Right. And then you go, okay, back to my dad's story about in the nineties is, you know, um, he

[01:10:35] wasn't, he wouldn't have a lot of money and he was like, okay, so all I have is my Ithaca model 37 and a 1911. And then the rides kick off and he has to run to the car with me underneath his arm. And he has to run to the car literally to avoid the place. Uh, if you guys know at the time there's an old school store, uh, similar to target called fedco, which it's funny because he said that now, but fedco was literally just a target style. Yeah. And my, my apartment complex that I used to live in was right across the street and it's famous for burning down.

[01:11:05] Right. That they'd burn it down during the riots. Right. So my dad had to run out with literally me and my sister. And all he had was basically the shit that he grabbed from the gun store junk bin because he didn't know anything. Right. It was just like, whatever this was the year back then. Tactical gear was, you know, a shotgun bandolier and maybe some surplus stuff from his time. Malice rigs, something like that. Yeah. So my goal was I'm looking at it going, dude, there's people like you go on these websites and whatever people don't give me shit for it. That's fine.

[01:11:35] I go, these, these tactical gear websites are nothing more than fashion show and fetish rolled into one. In my opinion, they're complicated because you don't know what goes with what in my, in my opinion, you have to have an, you have to go on, you know, you have to have a dissertation. You have to go on Reddit for nine hours to figure out what flap works. And then on top of that, it's expensive. So I said, I know how to do this. I can get this all together. I can do it morally.

[01:12:04] So I went to overseas manufacturing for sure. I never have denied that. Never lied about it. I literally, I don't even put it on my website. I say made in Vietnam, which means it will love you long time. I literally put that. Which do love that joke, by the way. It's on the website. I don't, I don't just say imported. I tell everyone what it is. Right. And I said, but here's what I can do. I can number one, make it ethically. So I went to a manufacturer that pays with the good wage that uses good conditions. That was legit, was a legit factory world.

[01:12:32] You know, the, the, I can't remember the exact trade commission that checks it to make sure that there's nothing wrong going on there. So I did, and I paid extra for it. And then I said, I want to get good gear to people. How do I get it at a good price? Very easy. The same way we can fix the American economy. I simply make less money. That's it. That's the secret. The secret is I went to a good factory. By the way, my, uh, my reviews speak for themselves. I have a trend.

[01:12:59] I have a diamond transparency rating from judge.me. And I also have a gold now authenticity. Cause I think a few people weren't verified, but I'll make sure that their stuff gets cross referenced Shopify. So I have high rigs for both judge and me, which you can't pay for independent. And I have hundreds of five-star reviews, even on the plate carrier itself, by the way, and I'm not talking shit. Shaw concepts. Has like a hundred five-star reviews on their plate. And they've had their, I'm not talking shit about Shaw at all. I like them. I'm saying is they've been out for like five years.

[01:13:28] I go, I have a hundred five-star reviews in like four months with my gear. Now, again, I'm not talking shit about Shaw. What I'm saying is people like the gear. So, and I paid for it. So, and I paid for it. I paid premium top dollar to make sure that the gear is not only made ethically, but good. And you can look at the reviews and check it. And then, like I said, I just set my, I don't even pay myself out of the company. I have another job. And again, my, my fabulous parents allow, I have the upper middle-class privilege for sure due to the success of my parents.

[01:13:57] One hundred percent. So a lot of things that other people would probably have to strive for, I just don't, I don't have any bills or anything. They don't pay for anything. But the point is I've always been able to have cheap access to rent, which is the big one. And they gave me a good education. I didn't have to pay for a high school. I paid for my own college. So that part being said, I simply just don't pay myself for rebels Raiders very little. I think maybe a few K I think I, okay. I think I did my hair transplant. I think rebels Raiders paid for that. I was like 5k. That was my, I did a hair transplant in my head.

[01:14:27] So I don't, you know, completely want to blow my brains out. I don't look in the mirror. But even then, even then that's not really. Cause I, I got them. I put money into the company anyway. So even then not really, but yeah. So I simply just don't pay myself. That's really it. And I charge less. So I just set my margins to the bare minimum of survivability for the company. And then I put the gear out. So I do have one question about it though. Yeah. You know, I, I'm a manufacturing guy. So this is going to be a manufacturing question. Uh huh.

[01:14:55] How do you verify the quality of your gear that's coming in? Cause yes, it's made overseas. It's made in a quality factory. You've met the guy that owns the factory. That's all well and good. Yes. Do you QC each piece of gear as it comes in? I do now. So originally, no. What I did was I trusted them. Okay. They sent me the samples. They, now the thing is they're expensive, right? Yeah. Cause other people come to me and go, whoa, like you should be paying less.

[01:15:24] I'm like, no, I get what you pay for. A lot of the times you do. Sometimes you do get ripped off, but generally speaking, that phrase exists for a reason. And I, so the first one was they send you a sample and then I go, you guys can do this. Right. And then they go, oh yeah, we can do it. And I go, okay. And then I just trust them to send it in. Then at that point you kind of have to pucker up. Now what did happen, which I've made completely public and people were fine with it. I had one QC issue. I had one, which was the tabs on the placard.

[01:15:53] Then I have, it comes, the Vakarian comes with three magazine retention tabs and they didn't sew the tab in at the top correctly. So it popped out. Now the cool part was because it's a dual band design, okay, it has two fucking pair of cords. It still works just fine. It's just, it was just extra retention for two. So the second that happened, I did a Facebook post. I did an email and Instagram post and the Twitter post saying, Hey, check your tabs.

[01:16:20] And I actually now just got the, they just redid a thousand of them for me. I don't know if they were affected, but they redid a thousand of them for me. And then, um, I have them here. I got to send them out this weekend. I got to do another email about that. But then after that one, I said, okay, I don't trust any of you. So I hired a British imperialist to now overdo this QC process. So he goes with his accent and then he basically beats them over the head and whips them and, you know, beats the shit out of them and threatens to tear up them and threaten to kill them. No, he doesn't do that. He's great. He's fine.

[01:16:50] But you know, what I did was I hired a designer contractor and now he's there to go over each one. Okay. So you, you, you've got a third party QC process. I was just curious because I, you know, I don't do any importing of products. Um, Oh, it's a pucker factor of ability. I can only imagine because I know the like, hell man. I fuck up at work sometimes. And sometimes the quality of work I output is not what I am capable of for whatever reason.

[01:17:20] Everybody has a bad day. I was just curious how you handled it because I've never done any importing. I was, I was, this is my first time importing. Right. I don't know how to talk to women and I'm like sitting here doing bond buying and importing. So I'm like, I'm like, when I say, I know a lot of people say this, but when I go like, dude, listen, I'm just some guy. I am literally just some fucking guy. Right. Like, I'm like, I'm, I'm the guy who like, I'm like, dude, I met Travis Haley and I'm like, Oh, Hey man.

[01:17:49] He's like, you can get away from me now. I'm like, okay, I get it. Yeah. It's fine. I'm like, I am a guy, but yeah. All right. I would, I wouldn't be, by the way, I'm not saying Travis Haley is a dick. He's just like, who the fuck is this dude walking up to me? Well, yeah. Like we all would be, we all would be. So I'm not saying he's a dick or anything, but what I'm going is I'm literally like in the grand thumb doesn't take my phone calls. Okay. Nobody does. All right. Um, so I mean, even I got invited to donut operators. He invited me out to the range day event. When I got there, I had such bad imposter syndrome.

[01:18:19] I literally ran to the port-a-shitter and was looking at flights home. I'm like, I gotta get the fuck out of here. Everyone here is hot and successful and I gotta get the fuck out of here. By the way, that is a point, which I think is like really funny about the traffic industry because everyone has like a media career, which means you're probably good looking to be in front of the camera. So all these guys are talking about like, you know, they're all sitting there with their battle belts talking about the end of the world. And I'm like, go play volleyball shirtless. What are you talking about? What are you, what you're all like, this is like an Under Armour commercial. What are you talking about anyways?

[01:18:48] So when it comes to importing, one of the things, which, which is kind of going back to my like California pistol argument in a way. When, because through my experience at Kanai, I know what they're bad at overseas and I know what they're good at overseas. There's a few features that you can do with American manufacturing that they can pull off because they use, because I'll say it this way.

[01:19:15] When you have a weak design, American manufacturing can actually make it okay because they use better thread or a better standard to do it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. It does. That's understandable. Yeah. Yeah. For example, the side of, um, on a backpack, the side elastic, right? They'll like, if you have like a mesh side with an elastic band in America, in America, road,

[01:19:45] fork, you know, in America, because it's expensive to manufacture, they only use the good elastic because that's the only one, it's the only time it's worth it. So when you have that on an American made bag, because the American manufacturer will only use the good elastic because it's expensive to make in America. So you use the expensive materials anyways, because there's no point in cheaping out because they're already paying. Yeah. Because the additional cost is so minimal at that point. Right. Does it matter?

[01:20:12] In Vietnam, they try and save every cent they can. They'll lie to you. So in America, you go, all we use is bond three thread. Because if you just pointed out, you're like, the cost is so minimal. You use the bond three thread. You use the good thread because the point of the American. So it costs more time to do it twice than it would to pay with the extra thread. Yeah. Perfect. Exactly. So when you go to Vietnam though, they go, oh no, we'll use the glossy thread because it's just as good. So then what you have to do is you have to catch them and say, no, no, no, no, no.

[01:20:42] I use another term, but I don't want to repeat it because I get very angry and very bad on the factory. That's why I actually had a higher max. He's actually the nice guy because I'll go full animal mother in that chat room. I'll go crazy. They have to get to kick me out. It gets pretty offensive very quickly. They'll go, oh no, we'll use a glossy thread because it's just as good. Then you go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that thread. You have to use the bond 30 thread.

[01:21:10] And no, you're going to have to take the cry stitching. You're going to have to double reinforce it. They go, no, you don't need to do it. Then you go, yes. So the reason that behind my babbling is when you find the features they're good at, for example, the plate carrier construction, you can look at my Vicarion rock solid, right? Rock fucking solid. Look at, you can bring up the reviews too. It's there. If you look at it, there's like here, here's a very good example. Can you scroll up on the big one?

[01:21:40] Like if you click, yeah. So if you look at it, I made sure like on the actual, on the actual like inserts, you go, okay, do a double stitch down the middle. So, you know, you can cut what you can basically do is you can create your designs to ensure that they can't fuck it up. Does that make sense? Oh, sure. Yeah. Even with the crappier thread, it's still stronger than it needs to be. Exactly. So then right now, here's the part. Now I don't use a crappy thread. What most people don't do, right?

[01:22:10] Is I then spend the extra money to make it the correct way where my quality comes from. And the answer is you just get more money. Now, for example, there is one item that here's, here's where I bite myself in the ass. There is one item that is the first time I've tried out a foreign manufacturer creating. Guess what item it is? I mentioned it earlier. Was it the backpack?

[01:22:36] No, the item that I, the only thing I've never had another manufacturer make that I trusted them was the pull tabs. Yeah. Right. And guess what's the one item they fucked up? Pull tabs. The pull tabs. Now, when you look at this design, right? So here's a good, so look at this design. It's actually pretty good. If you do the stitching in the middle on the square, you're fine. You're fine. It works brilliantly. And the new ones they sent me do.

[01:23:04] But you can see because this is not, this is the people who are doing it, right? You, the people who are doing it aren't probably paying attention. They're doing it really fast to get it done. You go, yeah. But if, with this design, if you short the cord by like a centimeter, they're going to miss the stitch and it'll pop out. Right. Because you're in there trying to knock out your order so fast. So inherently, that right there lends itself to a mistake to happen. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. So then my view.

[01:23:34] If I can offer an analogy, it's almost, it's almost like the, the, the frigging gun related autism I always get into about the AK, the Aptomite, Heschenkoff. It's not that it's a revolutionary weapon. It's that it was a design that was simple enough to be made by apes in a cave. Right. And like that, I think that's what you're alluding to is the fact that if you design it a certain way, there's a greater margin for error. That's tolerable versus if you design it this way, as long as it's made exactly perfect, it's fine.

[01:24:04] But you get a little bit outside the, the guide rails and things come apart real fast. Right. And so this is why this gear was a challenge for them because usually again, there's inherent to the design. They usually would create G watt era, 2003 Eagle industry stuff, which was very similar.

[01:24:51] Sure. Is I'm going to put a little tab above the square and then I'm going to run the cord through it and tie it off. That way, that makes sense. That way there is no way they could have the sewer who's probably smoking while he does this. Right. And he's trying to eat a crab apple and he's sitting there doing this together, trying to make it really fast. That by the way, it's not sweatshop. Like I said, it's, they did just have a higher operational. They do. They have a higher operational tempo. Sure.

[01:25:19] But I've worked in production manufacturing, man. I get it. You always try to do it as fast as possible. Right. Because the more, the faster you get it through, the more money the company makes, the more likely it is you can get a raise. Exactly. So that's really what it is. So then we look at this, I go, okay, I have to, by the way, if you look at it, like they completely like fucked up the fucking placement of the rebels. Readers. Like it's good for branding, but I'm like, okay, God, did you have to put it on the front of the fucking plate carrier?

[01:25:48] Like you could have just like hit it behind the thing. No one really cares. But I'm like, if you look at the, if you look at the H harness, it's like on the top. I'm like, okay, put it on the inside. Like, why would you do that? So, but again, at the end of the day, no one really cares. It's on the backs. It doesn't really show up. It's not that big a deal. And if someone really hated it, they can just pop it off. Right. Right. Um, but the answer is, yeah, when you're doing, when you're doing overseas manufacturing, you do have to AK-ify a little bit. You have to build it.

[01:26:16] Now I only have limited experience with us manufacturing. Um, they're a little bit better at the advanced stuff. Uh, they are a little bit better with the advanced stuff when it comes to like, like I said, like the elastic. So when you look at my designs moving, you'll, you look at the backpack, like take it, bring up the backpack. You'll go. Yeah. There's like no failure points on it at all. Like there's really nothing to go wrong. When you look at it, there's like, I mean, if you, you can scroll down to the individual

[01:26:46] features, you'll go. So there's really, uh, like, I don't know what could rip. Like it would have to be a, it would have to be a hard line stitch to rip because like even the helmet carry right there, right. It it's detachable. The, even let's say the paracords break. Well, guess what? There's loops. You can just get a new paracord and run it through. Right. There's really, so when you, which I just have to say is a, is a critically underappreciated

[01:27:12] thing is when you make stuff that is easy to field repair, you're by the way, coming from a person who has like frigging Bubba fucked so much frigging like old Vietnam era nonsense by so, you know, converting it over to like buckles and Velcro and just tactical tailoring stuff just for fun to see if I can make it work. It is so fricking under, underappreciated when something breaks and that doesn't mean you have to throw it in the trash. You can actually be like, Oh, I can fix this.

[01:27:41] You know, like, you know, a little bit of paracord or a little bit of a shock cord and I can just put it back the way it was before. And it's like a lot of that. I, I, if you look at my zipper pulls, I specifically went, actually, I hate to say it like this, but I specifically went the cheaper route, even though they wanted to put me onto rubberized ones because that is a pair of paracord tied off. It'll never break. Yeah. Right. So then you can, that's one thing I pull off a lot of my backpacks is those stupid fucking

[01:28:11] rubberized zipper pulls that break all the goddamn time. And then you have the goddamn time. So then it doesn't look at, so it looks a little more basic, but it's actually a cheaper option. But I go, but that cheaper option is the more effective one because it lasts forever. I will take reliable over expensive any day. Well, and the difference is it's the cheaper option, but most manufacturers would say cheaper option, more margin. You're saying cheaper option, more durable, easier to field repair.

[01:28:41] And then you pass the savings to the customer. A hundred percent. So if you, on top of which it's funny, cause you mentioned the field repairs. Number one, for anyone listening, I include the warranty is a lifetime warranty, but on top of that, right. And that's a real thing is I'm still here. And by the way, I can prove that even when can I close down, I even said the pictures, I'm honoring can I warranties. That's not even my company. I have nothing to do with the company. I was just an employee there.

[01:29:09] So if someone has a can I issue, I've already given out some people who had a phalanx or even a legion issue. I gave them a Phoenix in exchange for their issues and moving forward, I'm going to get a repair facility. Then I can repair other can I stuff. But as you said, when it comes to this stuff, I actually built this, even the Vicarian, the backpacker is not as much, but even the Vicarian. Number one, I built everything to be nothing's proprietary. Every single buckle on there is removable, by the way.

[01:29:36] So even the buckles that if you look at it, that are attached to the back of the backpack, number one, you can actually move that female buckle up to the where the the pass throughs are, but every buckle is removable. I don't even use Duraflex buckles. I use Wujan plastics, which are they say they're stronger. It's the same thing, but they're out of South Korea. They're not out of China. So again, not even the buckles are out of China. And with that part being said, everything is built on there to standardized mole rows

[01:30:05] and the plate carrier, especially I made sure of this. Nothing of any of my gear is proprietary. So if you look at the Wujan plastic buckle that I use that one right there, those, the top swift clips, right? Right. Wujan plastic specifically made a swift clip that's called their universal stealth. It was designed to fit the other industries and Duraflex's male buckles. So I use buckles.

[01:30:31] They look an awful lot like the, uh, the ITW clips, the ITW nexus, right? So they're built on the same geometry as the ITW nexus. So all the buckles that I use, and if you look on the back of the H harness, you see the open ended is removable. All the buckles that I use, you can't get a hundred percent, but I went with the highest compatibility buckle and the strongest strength buckle that I could use for all my gear.

[01:30:57] That way, if you ever wanted to clip in a Haley rig, a Haley DC three pack, a cry precision, uh, placard, all of it should work out the back. Fantastic. Can I just say, and I'm, I'm totally piggybacking off something that I saw you point out on Instagram recently, but I think it bears pointing out because it speaks to exactly what you were talking about. Kind of like your original viewpoint for how to package this gear, how to market it, how to sell it.

[01:31:27] All of this stuff comes in a box for 240 bucks, which like me having played around in the tactical world for a while, and then even worse than night vision world, which is another level of fricking autism. And, you know, like spent eight hours searching for him, looking for a simple fricking answer for anything. But the fact that you get all of this and it all works together and it all works with almost everybody else's gear for $240 is fricking stupid in the best possible way I can, I can express.

[01:31:56] And the good news is if you look on the upper right-hand corner, so to be completely fair, if you look on this right-hand side right here, so you have the plate carrier, cummerbund worth retention, shoulder pads, single stage placard, five, five, six insert, seven, six, two insert, three retention tabs, tourniquet holder. Now on the right-hand side, the delete key is underneath the placard. It comes with a delete key so you can instantly run a micro rig. You have the H harness. So if you give me a favor, can you zoom in on the right side right there? Yeah. Click the picture.

[01:32:25] So there is your H harness and there's your waist strap for the micro rig. And then by the way, there's a delete key. There's a delete key on the back of the placard that you don't see here. Now, if you look right here, see this little H wallet? If you pop off the waist strap, you can take your cummerbund off. Now imagine, imagine the cummerbund and you run it through the wallet. Then you attach the front of your cummerbund to your placard. You now have a ready rig. Oh, okay.

[01:32:54] So you can run that like an Alice rig or basically a chest rig essentially. So you have your micro flight rig in the front. You just have your single stage placard inserts, whatever. Then you could literally run your cummerbund. So now you can run your cummerbund. So you can run your same plate carrier setup minus the plates as a belt rig right off the bat, or it's basically just a chest rig. It's all it is. It's just a chest rig utilizing your cummerbund to adapt. So you have three magazines and has two. So you can actually have three. I did seven magazines.

[01:33:22] Let's say, sorry, no, six magazines on your person. Three, one, two, six magazines, one radio, IFAC, knife, and all running off the same one. So it's basically just short of a standard chest rig by one magazine. One mag or now if you double up the placards, you're done. But the answer is you can run a micro rig or that off of that immediately.

[01:33:46] And on top of which I couldn't get it to integrate with the phoenix because it wasn't really right. But I specifically also made sure that on the phoenix, if you go back to the phoenix here, this is where like, I should talk about this more often than my stupid politics. Scroll down. Scroll down a little bit further for me, please. Take a look at the shoulder straps on the bed there when it's in the back of the truck.

[01:34:16] Hang on. I think I went too far. No, no, you're good. Look all the way down. Look all the way down. There we go. Okay. See, now go down to the shoulder straps. If you notice, I don't do the same toilet seat harness that everybody else does. What I actually did is I took the Marine Corps FILB, the Fieldby Assault Pack, and I measured it. Then I actually literally went through chat GPT and measured the average length of a man utilizing the FBI ballistic gel tests. This is where I get completely autism.

[01:34:46] And I saw that the average length of the shoulder blades in the back is eight centimeters on the back. So what I did was I made that eight centimeters. Oh, okay. What that means is, and there's no connecting piece. Now that sound, you're like, okay, what does that mean exactly? Well, what that means is that backpack is actually built for you to be wearing a plate carrier while you put it on. So it's extended. Was that?

[01:35:15] I don't think anybody else has gone that route. I mean, unless you have like a pack that's meant to be like attached to the plate carrier, but that's freaking annoying from a person who's worn a plate carrier. Yeah, those flat packs are a giant pain in the ass. Okay. But coming from a person who's worn a plate carrier in a frigging Humvee driving through the frigging desert for a full frigging day, there is a less than 0% chance you're going to have any amount of fun with a backpack on top of a plate carrier. And that thing chokes the shit out of you and the whole thing. Anybody wants to argue that point, line up.

[01:35:46] So, I mean, I was in the Marine Corps. I don't know. I don't mention that. I was in 0331 in the Marine Corps. Oh, nice. So with that part being said, this backpack has an internal frame in that piece right there. Oh, no. You're sitting there. And by the way, if you don't even know more, you want to go more into it. I took the internal frame from a 511 one and measured it. And then I went through. And then I, by the way, that gold level authenticity pisses me off because I had diamonds.

[01:36:12] But I have, because people, when they do that, when they submit the review, it doesn't match with Shopify. So that things I'm like paying for the review. It doesn't think that. It just doesn't verify them. So I have to go into Judge Me and have to verify each individual one. But look, it has all five-star reviews. Anyways. So I actually took the 511's frame. And I kept saying, well, this thing digs into you.

[01:36:37] So then I had a special augmentation of neoprene plastic. I know you guys like neoprene plastic. But I basically put, essentially, when they made that plastic for me, Woojin made it. They put in, essentially, I'm going to say it wrong. It's not neoprene. But they softened it. So I lessened it from 7 millimeters to 5 millimeters. And then I trimmed the edges to fit the back of your ass. So what it does. So it's not digging in at the top of your belt like the 511 packs do. Exactly.

[01:37:07] And if you look, if you look right there on the shoulder strap separation, I actually had them don't cut the pad straight on, the very top of it. I actually had them cut the pad at it, which is why you see how it's out at an angle like that. I had them cut the pad at an angle. So that way, when you actually are wearing a helmet and you have the battery pack on, you can lean all the way back and you can touch the back of your head to the back of that backpack. Nice. You know, you're going to make everybody else that makes this kind of stuff look really

[01:37:35] stupid for not thinking of this stuff right. I mean, you want to know something great? You want to hear, I'll give you my one flaw. You want to know what they didn't do? They didn't make the front sternum strap detachable. It's in there. So throw the thing in the trash. To hell with it. You can take a pair of pad and cut a hole in the back and that's fine. By the way, not only do I offer a lifetime warranty, my warranty also includes field repairs. It does not. So not field repairs, field additions.

[01:38:05] So for example, a guy, Mike Von Steuben, he took his plate carrier and he took the H harness and then he put a Velcro field on the part that you wear. And then he actually made, he put a, he sewed a Velcro field on there and then he made a Molle panel. So that way he had an admin panel on it. And then he actually sewed in two male clips into his Vicarian cummerbund. That way he could attach his plate carrier to it.

[01:38:31] So on the Vicarian plate carrier cummerbund, on the stitch line, he added two new male clips his wife did on the cummerbund, right? Where all the stretch happens. So right there on this exact line, he added a new stitch line in there with male clips so he can attach a backpack while he had it on. I don't know why you'd want to do that, but that's what he wanted to do. So he put all the weight onto his cummerbund, which I was like- Onto the elastic.

[01:38:58] I was like, okay, he's going to fucking, I was like, dude, I'm like, dude, he's going to rip the fucking thing. And he was in the mountains for, from February, from April 5th to the 12th. Not a single issue. Nice. Not one. And he's like, I love it. It was great. And it held up fantastically. So he also wrote a four-star review, which pissed me off because he was like, he loved it. And he's like, but he, but I'm like, Mike, you know me. He's like, yeah, but I can't put a side sappy plate. And I'm like, it's not fucking for that. But anyway.

[01:39:28] But I digress. So it looks like someone dropped out. Oh, I think Phil might've hit the wrong button there. He'll be back in a minute. So I digress from that. But there is the autism. Oh, I even get into the fucking med kit. You're here. I went to the med. Oh, there you are, Phil. What happens when Phil gets a little too crazy with the buttons and- Don't push the wrong button. Can you go to the med kit real quick? I think he accidentally closed that out. I should go over the sling, but I'll be honest. It's a two-point sling.

[01:39:58] The main thing about my sling is a two-point sling. The throw is reversible. Here's my entire point with this sling. It's a two-point padded sling that I sold for $25. How did I sell it for $25? I didn't make any money on it. That's how I sold it for $25. Because I wanted people to not spend $70 on a fucking sling. Yeah, I always thought $70 was way too much for a sling. By the way, you can check the reviews. There's 79 five-star reviews on that. So, okay, here's the cool part. Again, this is I'll go over what? A mistake?

[01:40:27] Then I'll tell you how I fixed it. So they did not- Again, this is the overseas production. Vietnam, not China. They did not listen to me, and they did a fixed- If you can scroll up a little bit. They did a- Scroll up. Up. It's okay. My military up. It's okay. They did a fixed strap. So what I sent- I told everyone that what they can simply do is cut one end, and I sent out a keeper. That way you can run it through the keeper, and now it's just a normal top strap.

[01:40:57] So this is a standard- This is the apothecary med bag. It's a pretty standard rapid deploy for medical bag, right? But what I did if you scroll down a little bit. So essentially, you can pop the sling off. Now you can. I included the part in there for people to do- I have a video on Instagram. You can do a quick edit, and you can make it. But if you scroll down, I'll show you a cool feature. It is also a placard. Oh. That's dope. So now here's the cool part.

[01:41:25] It's a placard that you can pop off and put it on your plate carrier. So for people who have a plate carrier in their car, they can have two mags, their first aid kit, maybe a radio in there, something like that, right? For your active shooter response kit. So then when you have the plate bag in your car, and you respond to some cocksucker shooting the place up, and you put them down, you can now just have that. You can throw this over here. It comes with a waist strap. You can throw this over. You can throw this over your shoulder and go. Or you can slap this on. If you're a cop, you can slap this on to your fucking plate carrier and go.

[01:41:55] So now even cooler, if you scroll back up for a second, if you could go to the top, go to the top. It's a little, there you go. So click on the main image there, please. So scroll down a little bit. You'll notice there's a clip. Now see where the, go up just a little bit. Right there, you see the clips, right? So it's okay. It's all right. You can remove the sling. So it's removable. If you want to, here's the crazy part.

[01:42:21] The Vicarian comes with two extra female buckles. You could take the buckles from the Vicarian and I'd put it on the sling up here. And then you can attach that, this, the thing that it comes with, and you can attach that into those two male buckles. So now you have a quick detached sling if you wanted to. Now, even more so these buckles, they work on the plate carrier. They also work on the H harness. So you can put the H harness in here.

[01:42:49] Then, you know, the H harness, you know how, when you do a micro rig, you run it around underneath your armpit. Then you run to the two tabs on the side of the placard. Well, you see where the magazine tie-ins are? Yeah. To the left, there's empty molle rows. You know what those molle rows are for? You can attach the H harness into the top of that. And then the thigh strap is, I made it extra wide. You can run this as a waist strap. And the waist strap from the Vicarian fits on this too. So now you can run this as an independent chest rig if you have the Vicarian.

[01:43:19] As well. So you're like, what the what? No, no, no. So what you've done is not only made every bit of this extraordinarily modular with everybody else's stuff, but you've also inadvertently created your own little ecosystem where all of your stuff melds together. Yes. Probably as a byproduct of the fact that it's also universal because if it works with everybody else's stuff, by definition, it works with all of your own stuff too.

[01:43:49] Yes. So the next one, I even got a little pissed. I didn't do it just right. The next one is not going to have the Sony. It's just going to be the two buckles on the other side. And then it's just going to be like, hey, listen, you're going to come up with it. But my next one is this is the crazy part is I'm going to try to simplify this. This is going to be a standalone rifle sling as well when it comes. Oh, so what you'll be able to do is you have this. Nice. I'm also going to put on the interior in here is going to be all Velcro.

[01:44:17] So you could put your magazine inserts in this as well. Nice. So you can run it as a placard and then you can put your magazine inserts in there. And then the top sling is going to be simple, but it's going to be, by the way, by the way, modern two point slings are pretty freaking, I'm just going to put a slider. So now you're going to have a two point sling that you can adjust really quickly and tighten it to your body. Right. Or you can pop it off and it will double up as a rifle. Does that make sense? Does it? Yeah, it does. It's, it's.

[01:44:48] And the rifle sling, by the way, I'm not going to raise the price. So it's going to stay at that price. So then with that, you could say you have a rapid deploy medical kit that you could throw on in an active shooter situation. Then you could throw it on your plate carrier when you're a cop, or even if you have one for active shooter situation. And then on top of which, once you pop the top pot off, it will double up as your rifle sling. So you can have your rifle in your car. You grab this. You can attach it to your plate carrier.

[01:45:15] Then put that, that sling from that on your rifle and go. The answer is, is anyone actually going to do that? No, but it sounds really cool when I talk about it. So there you go. You're going to make a lot of your competitors look really, really stupid. Yeah. The only issue I'm having with the rifle sling is it's going to be a little short. That's not, I'm having an issue with that. It's a little hard to get to make a little longer. But yeah, that's going to, that the top strap will be, it'll be, it'll be rudimentary. But it's going to, you guys know the blue force gear. Yep.

[01:45:44] It's going to be that, but with thin nylon. That's all it's going to be. Oh, okay. So just a little lighter, a lighter weight version of that. Basically. So it's going to be. A very serviceable sling. Yeah. Is it going to be go carry a 240 for three? No, I'm not going to, I'm not going to bill it as that. No. But I'm going to go, yeah, in an active shooting situation, you could pop this off. You can have it on you and use it, or you could pop it off mount your plate carrier. And then you could, since you're probably have your right, your, your rifle in your car and

[01:46:12] you're, you're standing around, you could use that, put that as a sling for your rifle. And it's all that. Now, if you wanted a padded sling, you get the gizmo glider. Now you have a dedicated padded sling, which is just the cool part is it come with keepers. So if you do on the gizmo glider sling, the keepers that it has, what you can do is you wrap them a certain way so you can keep your sling tight to your rifle. It's on my gizmo glider. You can take a look at it. Under some of the rebel's raiders gear there. It's not changing my screen. Oh yeah. The gizmo glider. Does it, do I have the keepers as a picture?

[01:46:42] If you scroll down, I don't know if I had them. I don't see the keepers. Is it? I don't, I probably didn't put it on. Wait. No, I didn't put it on there. Does he have it down there? The key, they're just two elastic bands. And what they allow you to do is that you could basically keep your rifle. You can keep your sling parallel with your rifle. And I sold it to both Marines. So you can keep your sling just parallel to your rifle. A bunch of Marines are using it right now on the off sprays because they don't have your shit flopping everywhere.

[01:47:11] And what the keepers allow you to do, but it's not like super secret. They're just, they're just little elastic with a little slide lock. Yeah. What allows you to do is. When you pull on it, it opens up. Yeah. When you pull on it, the keepers will stay on your sling. Yeah. But then you can just throw the sling over your shoulder. Now the next phase for this one, the only thing I got pissed with the rebels Raider, with the gizmo glider was I couldn't get a cheap mounting option. Now these are open ended, so you can mount it to whatever you want. But people are like, well, I want like a paraclip or a QD swivel, but all the shit overseas

[01:47:41] is cheap. And the QD swing swivels that are good cost just as much as the sling. So what I'm going to make is I have, um, I have keepers. Like, like it's basically a little tab that has paracord. That's going to come with the next version. That way you can run the paracord. Um, imagine, um, remember the old school three point slings, Phil, you know what I'm talking about. Where they have a bandage those things to the furthest corner of my brain. Thanks for reminding me. Remember how they would mount?

[01:48:08] Remember how they had a pair of a pair of paracord that you drew. And then it just had a plastic little, basically a slot that you could put anything through. Yep. The next gizmo glider will come with those. That way you can mount the sling to, I mean, right now you can mount it to anything, but you're not going to require any mounts out of the box. You can put it anywhere. But this version is, this version is still, I mean, it's fucking amazing. It was, I mean, I'm all sold out, but it was $25 for a sling that is patting. Yeah.

[01:48:36] So somebody earlier commented and we do have to address the elephant in the room. All of your shit is sold out. Yes. So everyone in America likes cheap things. They love it. Right? So my gear is cheap. Not just cheap, but cheap and freaking forward thinking and good. I mean, let's not undersell it. When I say cheap, it's by price, right? It's not the reviews. By the way, this might be the greatest marketing thing ever. As I actually did this stuff, none of this stuff actually sold at this price.

[01:49:05] At this price, it's still pretty good, but people got it on sale because I did a launch sale. But now I have all these reviews to back me up. So maybe it worked or maybe not. But the answer is being in stock will always be a problem because my margins to get them out, it's just every cent goes back into production. So for every one plate carrier I sell, I can only make basically one more off the profits. So it's going to be a slower burn to keep myself in stock. Because like I said, if I sell 1,000 plate carriers, that means I can make 2,000.

[01:49:36] Maybe. Kind of. Right? So if I sell 2,000 plate carriers, then I can make 4. Now I can make 4, then I can make 8. Now I make 8, I can make 16. But the answer is it's going to be a slow burn with my stock. Number one, because I talk too much. But number two, it's just my margins that go all the way back in. They're just not high enough to then turn one plate carrier sale into three. Sure.

[01:50:00] But from the guy with the business degree, the type of scaling you're talking about is sustainable for a new startup. Because you and I both know there's a lot of people out there. They try to outgrow what they're capable of very, very quickly because they want to get to the big number at the end of the rainbow. And what you're talking about where it's like I sell the stuff, I make the money, I get another run, and I scale up.

[01:50:24] But whether it's 1 to 2 or 1.5 to 1 or whatever, that level of scale is sustainable, especially with good marketing and good ground game, which sounds like you have. I've got to increase it, yes. I've been lacking the responses to people because I've just been fucking tired with work. Well, I'm going to be real honest with you. As soon as I realized you'd sold out, I was already kicking myself an ass for freaking missing out because I'm in the market for a plate carrier.

[01:50:50] And when I saw what you were putting out, I was like, Jesus Christ, why hasn't somebody else done this yet? And the next one, and I'm not raising the price, I don't know for sure on multicam. I may have to raise the price simply because it's just more expensive. Yeah, but for the drip, it's worth it. We're talking like $15. But what I'm going to promise everybody is with multicam, if I can take it, I can take it.

[01:51:16] But I'm only going to raise the price on the cost, not on how much I can make. So if it costs me 15 more bucks to make, I'm making a promise right now, you can hold me to it. If it costs me 15 more bucks to make versus the plane carrier, then the price is just going to be $15 difference. I'm not going to do 15 plus the cost. I'm just going to do literally whatever I pay on the multicam on that one. The next one is the next version. OD Green, yes. I have Ranger Green, not OD. Okay, now for the sake of context, I know who Raggle is.

[01:51:46] I met him in real life. He doesn't live far from me, and OD Green is the vibe down here. It is the color of choice. That's the one. Well, we're in South Louisiana, so it's swamps and woods around here. Is OD and Ranger that different? Not to me. Okay. I don't see color that well, man. But I like to piss off the tactical autists by mixing and matching like 14 different shades of FTE just to see them have a stroke. It's hilarious to me. So I have M81 Woodland on the way, and here's the good news.

[01:52:15] Nobody asked for this, but I'm doing it to shut up everybody. I am also – I have a custom one, which I can upload. No one else does this. Guaranteed. No one else. I actually copied the NATO specs, which are actually a little more stringent for NIR material. Oh.

[01:53:01] Oh. I'm not raising the price on that at all. Well, I mean, at this stage, if you had to raise the price to cover the cost of manufacturing, like, I think your customer base would understand that. Yeah, that's a reasonable thing to do. Well, not just that, but, like, what you're offering for the level of price you're offering it, even if you had to jack up the prices 10% or 15% to cover the cost of tariffs or increased production costs or material costs or whatever, it's still disruptive.

[01:53:26] Because it's so much forward thinking, and it's so much stuff for such a low price. Like, you have so much – I personally think the price is too high. But see, the funny part of this is – I mean, I paid more for just my bare Ares Armored Derma 10 years ago. Yes. Look, there's a reason why I've sewed so much of my own crap over the years, and it's because I hate spending money. That's true.

[01:53:55] I spend money on things I can't make myself, which is why there's a PBS-14 on the shelf. But if I can make one of those, I probably would have tried my hand at it no matter how ugly it was. By the power of 3D printing. I'd like to actually talk to you about that, Phil, because my original goal, which just wasn't possible – but to be honest, it's actually true. It's actually not true.

[01:54:14] My original goal was that kit for $200, the backpack for $165, the sling for $45, and the med bag was $45. So the med bag I did, the backpack I actually did the launch set, which everyone bought it for $135. So I was $30 over my goal. The plate carrier I sold at launch was $215, but it had free shipping.

[01:54:44] So if it was $200, it would have been $15 shipping, which would have meant I did meet my goal of getting that thing to $200. Right now, it has to sit there. When I look at those prices, to be fair, I go, it needs to be cheaper. I need it to be offensively cheap. That's my goal. It already is there. It is offensively cheap. Yeah. My goal is I want – I'm trying to get it where I go like – well, people already do it now. And they go, how do you make money? And I go, I don't.

[01:55:13] So my goal with the gear is to keep producing it. I want – maybe in the very beginning to build it up, I want to be like – and Phil is not going to like this number. But I'm like – I'm talking like – I'm trying to get it down where my books are like right at 20% ROI. Like right there. I'm like – That's hard. That's a tight line. Yeah. That's my insane goal. My insane goal is like right on it.

[01:55:42] But let me just offer you this spot of advice from a person who's run and had shut down multiple home businesses over the years. Don't ever let perfect be the enemy of pretty damn good. Because you don't get your margin down to 20%. The fact that that is a goal is going to drive you in the direction you want to go in so that like you feel personally good about what you're doing.

[01:56:08] And if you never get it to 20%, it's like if you aim for the moon, you're going to hit the horizon type of situation. You know what I'm saying? Like you're doing the exact opposite of what every other manufacturer does where it's like how high can I get the margin?

[01:56:23] And I'm looking at your gear like the margin between where you're at and what the market we know will tolerate because of what it tolerates from every other manufacturer is so extreme that if you had to come up on the price a little bit to cover the cost of manufacturing and not cut your own throat or sell it at a loss, you have tons of margin to do that. And by insisting that, to quote you from Instagram, like I don't dunk on the pores, I supply them.

[01:56:50] But by continually trying to drive the price down for the level of quality, I don't see how you screw this up unless you just really try. Well, I appreciate it. With that being said, I appreciate that a lot. I have to get going because my family's waiting for me to go to dinner. We're going to Red Lobster. But so the key point to all this, though, is many people say, you know, they go, oh, I go on here. I try and be the person that I want to be. Right.

[01:57:19] I go, no, I don't want to try to be anybody else because God knows I'd fail at that. Right. I go what I want. What I want to do is make sure that people don't run into the hardships that I ran into. Or I should say not me. I should say like something like my dad ran into. What I don't want is someone who can't defend themselves. And I'm going to say this very clearly because in the very beginning, I wish wash.

[01:57:44] But you have failed liberal cock sucking policy, which starts a fucking riot away from my house. And my dad, which is, again, that's where my right wing comes from, which I throw out some Medicare for all facts every once in a while. But I go back and forth sometimes on that level. But God, I really got to stop doing that. I got to stay on track because I throw out little tidbits.

[01:58:09] My point is we have systemic failure that can happen that will put you in harm's way. My goal of Rebels Raiders is always to be not my dad, but to ensure that actually better. I wanted my dad equipped in the 90s when he needed it. And what I did want him to say was I can't afford to protect literally not not metaphorically. I cannot afford to protect myself and my family because this shit's too high.

[01:58:37] And the shit that's good is too expensive. Yeah. Right. I would agree. So now there's a little bit of fun in that, but the answer was because if Rebels Raiders was around when my dad was right. And if he's at the gun store when he bought that Ithaca and said, well, I wanted a tactical vest. And the gun store guy says, hey, you know what? Go to rebelsraiders.com. Post me. No.com didn't exist at the time. But you go, hey, post, go and go. Right. When someone gets a new gun and they go, what's because, you know, this is the problem. This is what PSA did with their saber. Right. You go. Yes.

[01:59:07] What AR should I get? You go. Okay. Go to Bravo company for the hand guard, but then go over here to pop up PP poopoo for the bolt. Then go over here for the charging handle. But then, so PSA said, no, actually come to us with the saber. It's everything. Yup. That's what I want for the gear. You go on other people's gear manufacturer. I'm not talking shit explicitly, but you go on there and then you're confused. I want you to go. And someone said, I just bought a rifle. What? You go, go, go, go to Rebels Raiders website. Yeah. He has a sling, a backpack, a plate carrier. That's a chest rig and a micro rig. And he has a medical kit.

[01:59:37] You are literally just about as, as issued almost. I'm still working on getting it there as a Marine or army infantryman. That is your central, central issuing facility. The gear you get is actually, people would say it's not basic. It's actually pretty cutting edge. It's actually pretty good. And it's quality. You can come to that guy anytime you want. Should you have an issue? You probably won't. But if you do, it's a lifetime warranty and it's good. And you're done. Get off, get offline and get on the range. Right.

[02:00:06] Or in this case, right. Get off the, get offline and get on the range. Or in this case, you have the, is it right? This is where I say this. I go, you have the plate carrier where it should be in your garage. Because if you know what I mean by that, because if you're actually wearing your plate carrier, like you're getting shot at, that means society is crumbling. Right. So when I say in your garage, I'm not saying don't train with it. What I'm saying is that you have that stuff ready. You have your sling on and guess what?

[02:00:31] My, the goal of that, which actually happened is when you buy from me, I want you to forget that you did it. Right. Like I went to, Oh yeah, I don't remember. Oh yeah. Oh shit. Yeah. I bought all this gear because when you buy the $500 aim point RDS, you're going to remember that. You're going to go, fuck. Red dot was 500 bucks. Right. I have. Sorry. I mean, for me, you're going to, I want you to forget you purchased it because it's not that because you're like, Oh yeah. 200 bucks for all that. That's nothing. So yeah, I do have to get going, but please finish off.

[02:01:01] That was my final. I've just got one question that I'm going to punch you out of here so you can go eat red lobster. Yes. Any idea roughly when you're going to restock? Summer. Summer. Okay. I am. I am going to be bird dogging and pestering the shit out of you in a couple of months. Just FYI. So two parts to that real quick. So what's happening is because Donald Trump, I don't, I should probably don't get political on it, but again, I wrote it for Donald Trump. So whatever. Donald Trump put in the tariffs.

[02:01:30] The original ones killed it. I wasn't that upset because I really didn't think they were going to last to be honest. And the way, the, what he put in there China, but I don't work out of China. So I don't give a shit. The original ones, I was like, it's not going to last. It's just not. And I was correct. Honestly, I was the original tariffs didn't last literally 13 hours. Right. I know there's still some in place right now, but the actual big, huge reciprocal 48% on Vietnam tariffs didn't last. In 90 days, I can't get the gear in.

[02:01:57] However, I, because Vietnam looks like they're ready to play ball. I'm a suspecting by that time, those tariffs aren't going to be there. I'm good. I'm just guessing. I, I, maybe you guys can tell me, no, I don't think so. I'm guessing by that as well as we do, man. Judging by the tea leaves I'm going, I don't, because again, the original ones didn't last literally a whole day. So I'm going, even right now, if I imported it today, it'd be, I think there's like an extra 10% tariff. It'd be annoying, but whatever. It would just be, right.

[02:02:27] It'd just be less money, but I can do it. If the tariff plan stays the same as right now, I can do it. It's no problem. It's just extra, but it's annoying. But with that part being said, I'm going to YOLO it because what I don't want to do is I don't want to, whatever. If the tariff come in, I just pay them. And then I say, Hey, listen, here's a tariff. I raised the price and then, then whatever it is what it is. So there is the, um, there is my conundrum. I was going to wait until the tariff policy was clear, but then I said, you're not getting that.

[02:02:56] So fuck it. So I'm going to YOLO it. I have enough money to buy a house, uh, in Arizona, uh, which is a state that should be firebomb, but that's besides the thing. But, uh, sorry. The entire state, you guys been to Phoenix, Arizona. It's horrible. But, um, but, uh, anyways, I'm going to YOLO it and just do it. And the other answer is rebel is a real goat and his friend is gizmo. And that's why I have goats because I have pet goats.

[02:03:25] I do make them wear the tactical gear. Um, they do not like it whatsoever, but it's very funny. And, um, goats are amazing. And yes, I do donate to rest. We've saved two goat farms. Uh, since me taking over any social media for can I, we just saved one in fucking Christmas, but we literally had a, literally did a Christmas legitimately. Like a developer was going to buy their land and build condos on it. And like, they put a tax bill. So then we got the goat gang, which I adore the goat gang.

[02:03:53] That's the people who buy and follow me. They really, they really stepped it up and they got the money raised for the goat. So we've saved two separate goat charities from, from government overreach. I'm not even fucking kidding you. Like literally paid their tax bill so that they kept their farm. I'm talking grapes of wrath shit and both happened during Christmas. Now I'm not going to get laid by some hot chick. God forbid that happens. But, um, so, uh, yeah, we've got, we've got goat. We just raised a thousand dollars for the fucking old goats home.

[02:04:23] We got their hay bill covered every single time I put a charity bar up, it gets covered. So with that being said, we've got more goats to save. Yes, I have goats. Yes. They're hilarious. More gears on the way. Please make sure to sign up for the, um, sign up for the in-stock notifications. And on future podcasts, I'll do much more autistic gear rundowns as opposed to talking about my lame center, right politics that nobody cares that it's lukewarm and no one gives a shit about. Hey man, that is how podcasts go.

[02:04:53] Right. I'm just, I'm just, I'm gonna, um, I'm who's the one you guys all love? Who's the one that everybody loves so much? Dave Smith. I'll just, I'll just copy him. I'll just say, there you go. There you go. Everyone, you guys all love him, right? He's on every podcast all the time. I don't know. I do apologize. I gotta, I gotta, my, my family had to wait cause they, they wanted to go. So yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll cut it off here. Good then. My blog. Thank you so much guys for having me on. I really appreciate it.

[02:05:23] I could go on for another seven hours, but I gotta go eat. So absolutely. All right. Matter of fact, this podcast is going to go out the door links. Links are in the show description to rebel Raiders stuff. Come and harass him on social media and tell him to hurry the hell up and get his gear imported so we can all buy it. And we'll talk to you all another week. Bye everybody. Good night.