Sons of Liberty Gun Works " The Arsenal of the Republic"

Summary

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The TTPOA Podcast

Episode: Sons of Liberty Gun Works "The Arsenal of the Republic"
Date: December 6, 2025
Hosts: TTPOA Host Team (SWAT leaders, Texas)
Guests: Mike Mihalski (Founder, Sons of Liberty Gun Works), Nate Horvath (Partner, former Staccato CEO)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The TTPOA Podcast, recorded live at the 2025 TTPOA SWAT Conference, features a deep-dive conversation with the leadership of Sons of Liberty Gun Works (SOLGW). The discussion explores leadership, innovation, and culture in the small arms industry, particularly as it relates to law enforcement and first responders. Nate Horvath, formerly CEO of Staccato, joins for his first podcast as a new SOLGW partner, bringing a fresh perspective to the Sons of Liberty 2.0 era. The hosts and guests candidly tackle guns, agency partnerships, business philosophy, product evolution, regulatory challenges, and the unique Texas gun culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins, Growth & Partnership

• SOLGW’s Commitment to Law Enforcement:
  • Sons of Liberty’s tradition of attending TTPOA and making Texas a home base.
  • Mike describes their work ethic and persistent, "All In" approach.
    [01:15] "We’ve been to every tactical conference in the country, and TTPOA is the pinnacle… we’re Texas boys. We’re like, yeah, all in." – Mike
• Meet Nate Horvath:
  • Nate shares his background: Marine Corps infantry, business acumen from transforming STI into Staccato, and growing it from a niche player to over 1,600 LEO departments.
    [02:51] "When I started with STI, we had maybe a couple of law enforcement departments… when I left, over 1,600 departments using Staccatos." – Nate
  • The partnership is described as highly complementary, with Mike as the technical visionary and Nate providing operational scale and business structure.

2. Sons of Liberty 2.0 – The Evolution

• What is “2.0”?

  • Expansion of the brand, product lines, and internal culture — not a rebirth, but an evolution.
  • Welcoming high-level personnel (e.g., Scott Peterson, retired Army Marksmanship Unit) to enrich expertise and outreach.
  • Improving direct customer connection, especially with law enforcement and commercial markets.

• Cultural Consistency Amid Growth:

  • Both speakers stress the importance of never losing the "why," focusing on reliability, company ethos, and peer-to-peer reputation.

    [14:06] "I got into this business building guns in my garage because fucking, I wanted to build good guns for good people… our motto is the arsenal of the Republic." – Mike

  • Now ready to share previously undisclosed professional work, leaning into transparency and pride in their substantial agency relationships.

3. Reliability, Responsibility, and the Mark 1 Project

• Defining Reliability:
  • The non-negotiable requirement for equipment that works “all the time, not most of the time.”
    [17:10] "This piece of equipment, this life-saving piece of equipment, it has to work, you know, all the time, not most of the time." – Nate
• Mark 1 Rifle Project:

  • SOLGW’s latest, most advanced rifle, representing years of R&D, rapid prototyping, and problem solving.

  • Designed for integration with new tech (augmented optics, suppressed fire), sub-six pound, new materials and heat dissipation.

  • Emphasis on real-world operator feedback and iterative failure as essential to innovation.

    [21:58] "The Mark 1 is truly legitimately a next-gen system… a sub-six pound rifle that shoots like a competition gun but plows through adversity." – Mike

4. Industry Challenges & Regulatory Environment

• Shifts under the New Administration:
  • Less hostility from ATF and regulatory agencies compared to previous years, with less “zero tolerance” and clerical crackdowns on FFLs.
  • Financial and insurance pressures on the industry have eased, but vigilance remains necessary.
  • The small arms industry as a whole is experiencing a “renaissance”—companies must differentiate, focus on innovation, and move past “commodity” ARs.
• Market Trends & Resilience:
  • Major sales spikes during civil unrest and pandemic, followed by normalization.
  • SOLGW sees less slowdown than basic brands due to their focus on law enforcement and innovation.
  • The podcast explores the paradox of political uncertainty driving commercial booms but risking long-term industry viability.

5. Partnership with Law Enforcement & Company Culture

• Responsiveness and Relationship Focus:

  • SOLGW’s commitment to rapid support for officers who lose rifles to OIS or other agency needs.

  • Pride in word-of-mouth growth, with personal bonds between SOLGW, agencies, and officers.

    [62:08] "It's not transactional for us… we foster that. We've grown through word of mouth, through peer to peer recommendation." – Mike

• Approach to Product Development:

  • In-house triggers developed to ensure heavy hammer strikes and reliability, with ongoing refinement based on operator feedback.
  • Strategic decision not to chase budget market (e.g. $500 rifles), preferring quality over mass-market compromises.

6. American Gun Culture, Texas, and Societal Shifts

• Regional and Cultural Commentary:

  • Texas gun culture is distinct—deep roots, generational knowledge, and a sense of autonomy and readiness.
  • Rural realities demand self-reliance; responsiveness times make gun ownership practical, not just ideological.

• Industry and Social Responsibility:

  • The podcasters stress that guns are a tool, not a source of violence—"Man-made problem, not a gun-made problem."
  • Significant demographic shift: fastest-growing group of new gun owners are former anti-gun individuals.
  • Openness to all Americans: [44:38] "We are building world’s best shooting rifles for every American… I don’t care what color, gender, or what they think they are… As long as they’re responsible." – Nate

• The Power of Conversation:

  • Social media fosters division, but real-world, face-to-face dialogue builds understanding and erodes manufactured controversies.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• All In at TTPOA
  [01:14] Mike: “We pushed all in… TTPOA is the pinnacle, and we’re Texas boys. All in.”

• Reliability Above All
  [17:10] Nate: "This piece of equipment, this life saving piece of equipment, it has to work, you know, all the time. Not most of the time."

• Systems-Level Innovation
  [20:52] Mike: "The rifle was built and engineered from the ground up to accommodate new visual augmentation systems...a systems level approach to lethality."

• Word of Mouth Power
  [62:08] Mike: "We have grown through word of mouth, through peer-to-peer recommendation, and that is by far the most validating thing..."

• American Unity Over Politics
  [44:38] Nate: "We are building world’s best shooting rifles for every American… I don’t care what color, gender, or what they think they are… As long as they’re responsible."

• Rapid Failure, Real Problems
  [23:10] Mike: "I kind of threw myself into this one thing and just was able to rapidly fail...good ideas become really evident and apparent."

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Timestamps of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|----------------------------------------------| | 00:22 | SWAT conference intro, TTPOA’s growth | | 01:06 | Sons of Liberty Gun Works’ TTPOA history | | 02:16 | Nate’s background and joining Sons | | 04:10 | The origins of the partnership | | 09:46 | What is Sons of Liberty 2.0? | | 14:06 | The meaning of “Arsenal of the Republic” | | 17:10 | Reliability: “This thing has to work” | | 19:50 | The Mark 1 Project deep-dive | | 26:13 | Regulatory/market impacts of new administration | | 31:39 | Gun sales and political climate (industry context) | | 33:12 | Shifts in law enforcement morale | | 34:54 | Public rejection of “defund the police” | | 41:38 | On societal shifts—new demographics of owners| | 44:38 | Building rifles for all Americans, not political| | 49:25 | Texas gun culture and rural realities | | 55:16 | SOLGW’s OIS replacement policy, agency support | | 59:23 | SOLGW triggers and operator feedback | | 62:08 | The importance of relationships and word of mouth| | 64:52 | Upcoming technologies, what’s ahead for SOLGW| | 67:40 | Gratitude and sense of purpose (outro content)|

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The Future & Final Thoughts

• SOLGW looking ahead:
  Tech refreshes, incremental improvements, rollouts of the Mark 1 suite across product lines, and new developments specifically tailored for law enforcement, precision, and agency needs. Focus on sharing more about their work and educational content via YouTube and other platforms.
  [66:31] "You're almost rendering the bolt gun obsolete if you look at what can really be achieved once you start attacking those problems very deliberately." – Mike

• The Partnership Philosophy:
  Both guests reiterate their deep sense of duty to first responders and the broader American ideal of responsible firearm ownership. The company’s growth and philosophy reflect a commitment to serving those who serve and to honest, transparent advancement in the craft of arms making.

  [69:40] Nate: "We're privileged to help support in a small way, and we take it very seriously that what we do is to provide you with equipment, life-saving equipment that will not fail."

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Tone & Style: Friendly, passionate, “no BS” Texas honesty with a healthy dose of humor and seriousness about their mission.

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Podcast. A podcast for SWAT officers, military, and all first responders.

[C]

We'll be talking training, tactics and leadership.

[A]

With the best subject matter experts around.

[C]

Well, howdy, folks. Welcome to another edition of the TTPUA podcast.

[A]

We're.

[C]

We're coming to you from the kalahari at the 2025 SWAT conference. So pretty excited to be here. Matt, man, how you been?

[D]

Good, man.

[C]

Are you worn out yet?

[D]

I'm getting.

[C]

You're like, what day is it?

[D]

I got halfway through the floor already today, so, you know, we'll see. No, it's great, man. It's. It's. I think we said it's already over last year as far as the numbers of attendees and all that, so it's getting bigger and bigger, so, yeah, it's great, man. People want to come and train, so it's good.

[C]

Now, that is a good thing. I think it has a lot to do with now there's a stable foundation. It's here every year. There's dates already for the next five years already posted on the website and stuff like that. So I think that's good. So, man, they sexy gentlemen to my right, man, we got sons back with us. This is, what, the third or fourth year that we've done this podcast?

[A]

Yeah, I think this is the third year.

[C]

Third year. Yeah. So y' all came on board and really just said, hey, man, we want to do some with y'.

[D]

All.

[C]

Let's do it. And here you are.

[A]

Yeah, I know. We. We pushed All In. I mean, we. We've been to every, like, tactical conference and stuff in the country, and. And TTPOA is. Is the pinnacle, and we're like, this is also. We're Texas boys. We're like, yeah, all right. All In. We're going All In.

[D]

I like that.

[C]

That means a lot to me. And we've talked about over the years just.

Your desire and your work ethic of, like, don't take really no for an answer, which is good. Sometimes that rubs me the wrong way, but. Oh, well, I get done.

[A]

Yeah. Well, we've met some lifelong friends here, man. It's been. This is fun.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Well, good. Well, good. So you got some new things in. In the pipeline going on. So who's this man to your right up here? Who is this guy, man? He just walks in, and now we're doing a podcast with him.

[A]

So this is. This is the guy, I think, that is truly driving us into the futures. My good friend and business part, Nate Horvath. And I'll let Nate kind of explain where he's from. And how he got here.

[C]

Okay. All right, man.

[B]

Thanks, Mike. Thanks, guys, for. For having us. Good to be here. So let's see. For the past eight years or so, prior to kind of joining up with Mike earlier this year, I was running a business called Staccato.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Started. Started there, actually, when it was sti. Okay. And led. Really, the transformation. Led the team that performed the transformation of STI into Staccato and then the growth of Staccato from kind of where we started to. To where that business is today.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's. It was. It was an incredible ride and got us really involved into the law enforcement community there.

[A]

When.

[B]

When I started with sti, we had maybe a couple of. Of law enforcement departments.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And when I left, we had over 1600, you know, departments where staccatos were approved for use. So appreciate this community very much, and I'm excited to be with another brand that is equally supportive of our nation's law enforcement and veteran communities and active duty for all the military as well. So that's a little bit about. About kind of my background. Marine Corps, infantry, and before I went to school and all that. But that was that sort of ancient history at this point.

[C]

Yeah, I would definitely say I've been, I think, the region director for seven years now, somewhere around there. And from year one to now is who's carrying staccatos when they come in.

[A]

It's.

[C]

I mean, there's times where there's more probably Staccatos than probably Glock sometimes or half and half. And that's. That was never like that. It was like one guy would show up. I was like, oh, man, look at.

[A]

He's.

[C]

Oh, look at that. And then now it's.

[A]

It's.

[C]

It's so common. No one even says anything. So, yeah, y' all did a good job of pushing that out there and selling that. That product and stuff, so thank you.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

So kudos to you. So. All right. So what. What brought to, like, what happened here, man? Yeah, so bet lost or, like, what happened here?

[B]

I'll give my version. And Mike. And Mike. And maybe give his. But like he said, we've. We've known each other for a few years, have been friends. I've been shooting a son's rifle for a couple of years. And honestly, when Mike approached me about the opportunity, I couldn't have been more honored number one and more excited, number two, because I, you know, Sun's mission to build, really, the world's ultimate fighting rifle.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Resonates with me. And having firsthand experience with the product and also seeing the success that Sons has had both in the law enforcement and in government markets with their products being tested extensively and winning against others had me pretty excited about the opportunities in front of us. And so a lot of similarities to maybe back in the early days of. Of staccato and. But already with huge progress in the law enforcement market. So really, it's sort of the mission and philosophy resonated with me most. And then, you know, I like Mike a lot as a. As a partner and a teammate.

[D]

Thank you.

[B]

We. I think we got a few people. Yeah, we. We compliment each other, I think, pretty well. So we've been. We've been kind of, you know, kicking indoors already in the last month or two, and it's been great.

[C]

Yeah, I think that's in. Would. Would be important, obviously, been in law enforcement, so I'm kind of forced to hang out or work with people that I. That I didn't hire or they're maybe not my friends and everything, and. But when you have your own business, I mean, I think that's so important to work with people that. That you get along with, that. That are the same kind of mindset, but also can challenge you. And there's. There's a. There's something with, like, competition that's friendly and just someone having passion, and then two people going after something. I think that's. That means a lot, and it's energizing. It's cool to see that and stuff. So.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the having. Having common goals. And then, you know, what was it? Was it Warren Buffett or was. He was talking about Elon Musk one time, and he says, like, don't ever bet against the guy who overestimates himself. And so, you know, so when people have handed me tasks that seemed impossible, I'm like, I'll do it. I can do it. Then, you know, talking with Nate, he's like, yeah, let's go. Let's go do it. And that's. And that's. And that's. I mean, that's really rare. Nate brings a ton of strength to the. To the table that I don't have with, like, the true business acumen, the, you know, some of the things, like a much more sophisticated vision of, like, business scalability, like, you know, how to do that while maintaining QC and maintaining that. That core ethos that we have. And then, you know, I. As far as my technical knowledge on the rifles and kind of where we're driving into the future needing help managing that. And then we've been, you know, we have been successful in some DoD programs. We have been awarded some stuff that's pretty neat. I can't elaborate too much further. Yeah. Having someone help manage some of this stuff is critical.

So.

[C]

Yeah, I would think, too, you know, like, you have a passion for, hey, I want to build guns. I want to do this.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But there's all this other. That you have to do, and. And there's. There's that learning curve, and there's really putting the right people in there, or you think you have the right people in there, and then like, oh, that wasn't the right person. And just. I can't imagine that, like, what a huge undertaking that is. And it's all in your ass. It's all on your shoulders.

[A]

Well, yeah. I mean, getting from 0 to 1 is. Is a big. Is hard. Getting from 0 to anything is hard. You know, then there's certain levels to where. I mean, when you go from there to the next level, it's just a. You really need to know what you're doing. And I. I can openly admit I. On the business side, I just don't. And whenever, you know, Nate was interested in this, it's. It's kind of like I. I always joke. It's like getting the first round draft pick. I was like. I was like, really? Come here. Yeah, here we go. You know?

[C]

Yeah, no, that. That's. That's a good thing. Yeah, that's a good thing. So are you. So are you from Texas or. Or not?

[B]

Unfortunately, I'm from California.

[C]

Oh, look how long it took you to say that.

[D]

He knew that was not popular, but.

[B]

But have been. And then via there to. To Nevada. Was in Nevada for about 10 years.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Moving out here for. For SDI. We bought SDI in 2016, and then I'm. I moved out here in. In 2018.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Been in Texas since then. So I'm trying to adopt a state, and hopefully the state's willing to have me.

[A]

California is not a location. It's a state of mind. Right. So my boots on.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

So this mate is a Texan.

[C]

He's a Texan. You're not. I don't think you're Californian or Texas.

[A]

So you're good.

[C]

You're good. So you're about guns. So that's a good thing.

[D]

No.

[C]

It's so funny how many people we run into or talk with or know that are from California, and they're always like, california. But I'm But I'm not like those people and stuff like that. So it's. But it's always fun just to jab back and, and stuff like that. So even if you were the, the. The other side of California, I'd still welcome you and want to have a conversation with you. So I think that's kind of lost in the world too. Sometimes you're like, come on, let's. Let's talk about this ship and stuff. So I think that's good. So 2.0, Sons of Liberty 2.0 is coming out. What does that mean?

[A]

Man, it's a lot. I mean, there's a. It's. It's a kind of a. I'm not gonna say like a rebirth of the brand because, I mean, you know, we. We haven't really gone it. If anything, it's. There's an evolution of the product. There's an evolution of how we're approaching the market. There's an evolution of how we're interacting with clients. You know, again, like, you know, Nate, coming on, we have Scott Peterson, who we just picked up as director of a special program. He just recently retired from the army Marksmanship unit. Okay. I think he's actually been teaching some TTPOA classes.

[C]

Yeah, that name sounds familiar.

[A]

Yeah, I think he taught in Lubbock and I think he was going to teach here, but I mean, he's probably one of the scariest dudes you'll ever meet on a precision rifle.

[C]

Really?

[A]

That guy's an animal. But he's come in to help manage that. We have, you know, we got a guy named Chris Greenfield that's come in to help manage, like, the online, you know, kind of retail side that we've, I think, abandoned. We want a better, more direct connection with our clients, whether it's law enforcement or the commercial market. And then to. To see how the brand itself, like, the product is evolving. Sons of Liberty's always been known for hyper reliable rifles. Yeah, there's no. Even. Guys that might not like us will. Won't say, well, they're. I don't like them, but damn their guns run. You know, like, I'll take it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, there's more to just a hyper reliable rifle, you know, to make a truly good fighting rifle. And then you have form factors, form factor, weight, shootability, blah, blah, blah. There's all these other things that were, you know, like the Mark 1 project, you know, like, forced us to really learn, adopt, and like, going forward, we are, I believe, making the best rifles in the industry at this Point. I believe that. And there's actually some objective data to probably even support that. So that's a big part of 2.0. Nate, what else would you contribute to or what else do you think 2.0 is, man?

[B]

Yeah, no, Mike, I think you said it well. I think that 2.0 earlier, you're talking about going from 0 to 1 and going from 0 to 1 and then from 1 to 10, and then from 10 to 100. Each one of those steps in a company's growth and life cycle, there's a little bit of evolution that occurs for a company to continue to successfully scale and grow while maintaining authenticity to who you are as a brand and staying loyal to your customer base, the folks that have got you where. Where you are. So we're working really hard to be sure to hold on to who we are.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But continue to evolve and meet the market's needs and just get better every day. And I think 2.0 is. Is a. Is a big. Is. Is sort of. It's a demarcation. But honestly, you know, what we're doing is every day working to get better. And that's really sort of a philosophy that Mike's held for a long time and that we'll continue to Dr. And so that's sort of how I think about it for that.

[A]

Yeah. And another thing, too, is that we're going to really double down and lean into who we are. I mean, for the last eight years, we have not really discussed a lot of the professional work that we do. We just. We just haven't. I mean, like, you know, there is. There is some. There's a. There are some times where it's a. It's. It would be inappropriate to discuss some of the professional. Out of etiquette or out of. Hey, don't talk about this. There are those. There are those programs, you know, but there are a lot of things that we. We can. Like. I don't think people have the slightest clue how many. How many agencies and entities and just good guys across the country and now the world. Yeah. That we actually arm. And it's something that I don't know if it's been like, because we've been modest or because we're just trying to have, like, that professional etiquette. But now, at this point, as long as the entity is okay, like whether it's an agency or something global or whatever, it is, like, we want people to know what we've been up to. Yeah. I think people. Some. A lot of people that follow us wouldn't be surprised, but I guarantee there's some people that probably will, you know. Yeah. So we're just gonna lean into it. This is who we are, and we're proud to do it. And.

[C]

Yeah, and I think, too, is just, like, taking that next step or evolving into something else but still maintaining the identity who y' all are.

[A]

Like, absolutely.

[C]

I think if you lose that, then I don't really care what product you're putting out is like, man, that's just not who we anymore. That's a. Once you lose the culture, that's. That's a bad thing.

[A]

And that's. And that was one of the things that I loved. Talking with me is like, I think what attracted him to our company in the first place was the culture. It is the culture. I mean, I got into this business building guns in my garage because fucking, I want to. Want to build good guns for good people, man. And, you know, we. Our. Our company motto is the, you know, the arsenal of the Republic.

And that's. I mean, and that's. And, I mean, we're still very outspoken on those issues, and that's something that, you know, again, we're leaning into that. We're stepping on the gas and telling that story.

[C]

Yeah, no, that's good.

Yeah. And. And.

There'S such a huge responsibility that you have, like, because now I'm selling to an agency.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Like, this has to work. This has to, like, something breaks. We have to be able to get this. I mean, there's. There's a huge responsibility that. That I know y' all take serious and. But that means something to. To us as law enforcement, when we know that that's there and stuff. So I think that's a big thing.

[A]

From, like, the first year we came here, not. Not even as the title sponsor, but the first year we came as just vendors. Until now. You know, I was downstairs hanging out with the. With the crew at that little soiree we had.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Born primitive. Good. Good people are born primitive, by the way.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

To see a lot.

[C]

Nice looking marketing team, too. They walk around.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I noticed.

[C]

I was like, dang.

Man. Jacked.

[A]

So we. Yeah. So. But from the first year we came till now, like, the number of dudes that come up and, like, you know, come shake our hand, come talk to us and say, hey, we really appreciate what you did for the agency. We really appreciate this. And, like. And I hear all these stories from all over, because TCPOA has agencies from all over the country here. I mean, I think internationally, several yeah. And what's neat is that to come up and hear these stories of stuff that our company did for them, stuff I might not even be aware of. Like this didn't. This is the company culture that I'm talking about.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Like whatever thing that they felt like we went out of our way to help them with didn't even rise to the, to even knowing about it. So that's just. So our entire team has that philosophy of like going above and beyond and that's. And that's awesome. That's how you, you know, force multiply. Yeah. You know.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

One of the things that I thought was really notable when, when I came on board and started it and I took an armor course with, with, with Mike and saw the team and you know that one of the statements that Mike makes quite frequently and I won't, I won't use the actual words, but.

[C]

You can cuss on this show.

[B]

Well, it's, it's. The thing has to work.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And that is what he said from. For many, many years.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And everybody believes that at the company and they build the rifles that way.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like first and foremost this has to work.

[A]

Yeah. Right.

[B]

This piece of equipment, this life saving piece of equipment, it has to work, you know, all the time.

[A]

Not most of the time.

[C]

Now we got 80%, you know, it's a B. Yeah. No, but, but that, I mean when you say that this fucking thing has to work, like, I mean that, that drives home.

[A]

Yeah. Like that is it the first and foremost. Like. No, I don't care. Like the aesthetic, the all. Everything else. Even. Even though work, we work every day to make it lighter, more suitable, you know, more operate in even weirder conditions and environments, blah, blah. Ultimately all of that is never at the expense of reliability because I mean, fortunately, unfortunately depends on how you look at it. I suppose. If you're on the receiving and it's been unfortunate, then if you're on the defending yourself, it's been quite fortunate. But you know, our rifles are used often. Yeah. You know, for, for, you know, life saving, community savings, community protection kind of stuff. And there's no compromise. Yeah. I mean there's no, no trophy for second place.

[C]

No, no, no. For sure. And there's so many brands and so many and that. That space is huge. Like with just competitors. I can't imagine that. But you have to set yourself apart.

[A]

Well, when you, I think truthfully, when you get down to it, there's a very, very short list of companies who are actually building performance driven guns.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That are not, it's not about margin, it's not about, you know, just simply, you know, they're not just focused on growth. I mean you're actually, there's really a short list of companies and what's even, what's cool is that as you get into some of these other spaces and you're. You' tasked with solving other problems for other entities, the list gets real short of who's forward thinking, who's thinking about that, what the next, what the future of weapons is going to look like. And I'll tell you this, the next couple of years is going to be very exciting in the small arm space. There is a renaissance going on right now in what we're in the lethality of what these platforms are going to be able to do. And like I said, I mean you're what, maybe four companies in the entire space, I think that are truly attacking that. We happen to be one of them. We're, you know, that that's, I'm proud.

[C]

To say that, yeah, that, that is. Maybe one day I'll work on a lightsaber or something because I'm down for that.

[A]

That would be pretty right? That would be a cool attachment. That would be a pretty cool. Yeah.

[C]

When y' all get lightsabers, I am all on board with that one man. So that, that's good. So another note here, the MK1. What's that? Tell me about this.

[A]

Yeah, so the Mark Mark 1 is our newest rifle that spent a couple of years developing and testing and validating. And that rifle was selected for some, you know, for a pretty prestigious thing and we're very proud of that. But that again, that's, that's what I'm talking about like rolling everything into like the form factor, like for the operator, little things like does, does something snag here? Does, you know, can it be lighter? Does all of these things. You're, the rifle at this point is the clip on to the visual augmentation systems. So all of the other things you're adding to that weapon is a systems level approach to lethality. So if you're adding, you know, whether it be the newer kind of lasers and enablers coming out inline thermals, you know, doing that kind of stuff, you put that rifle and those other systems together and it, I mean you have a.

It'S, it's pretty hard to.

Fight against that. You know, when you have that systems level approach. And the rifle was built and designed and engineered from the ground up to accommodate those new visual augmentation systems. That are, that are coming and then also being very forward thinking on development of new ammunition type stuff like that. So the Mark one is that it's a sub six pound rifle that shoots like a competition gun but plows through pretty much any adversity. There is that, you know, very demanding precision requirements, novel materials, novel approach to things. I mean we had to, we went to private space companies to explore coding technologies and things like that on how to dissipate heat where you can actually lean. I mean you could, you can run that rifle hard burn through an entire loadout without having to set it down on a suppressed rifle, which is pretty hard for keeping the rifle cooler longer. So think like, like real problems. Like, like it did not. Like there was not a real effort to address some of that stuff I think until, you know, fairly recently.

[C]

So is this gun out, out where we can buy?

[A]

Yeah, right now this. It's. There's probably about 30, at least 30 maybe 40 T and Es out there around the country right now for different agencies that's open to the commercial market. There are multiple iterations of that rifle depending on what's most appropriate for you. Like there's all the way up to the like the most kind of cutting edge future thinking version of that gun down to like what is most appropriate for.

A serious armed citizen or, or SWAT officer. Whatever. There's something, whatever your hierarchy of needs are. We have the, we, we've developed the mark 1 is. I mean the mark 1 is, is a, is like a designator for a rifle, but it really is an entire suite of technology developed dependent on where that rifle might be fielded.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

It's a neat thing, dude.

[C]

Yeah, that's good.

So who was that, Was that you? Like hey, this is like. Or how did that come about? You said it's a special project or that that's.

[A]

Yeah. So I mean the Mark one started about two years ago or and.

I kind of, I kind of fell off the planet. I wasn't super active on social and I kind of, I kind of threw myself into this one thing and just was able to rapidly fail. And that, that really was. We. I would try this and fail, try this, fail, try this, fail. And being able to rapidly fail, you eventually start to weed out bad ideas and you and good ideas start to become really evident and apparent and then you're able to do that over and over and over again for every component. I mean down to a spring, down to like.

Some of the steels and stuff we're working on have never been fielded or used in the outside of the experimental space. And.

I mean, we destroyed, we destroyed a ton of trying to figure out how to make it work. So you go talk to a metallurgist who's a PhD in making, you know, we're inventing some kind of steel, but turning that steel into like something practically usable outside of his wheelhouse. And so, and I had to kind of help figure some of that stuff out and novel rifling and all this other kind of stuff. But when you, when you crack the nut, you're. It's, you are in, you are into the next gen. The Mark 1 is truly legitimately a next gen system for that.

[C]

That's good. Well, there, there you go. Another, another feather in your cap to put in there and stuff.

[A]

I'm just happy to like, reemerge from my cave. I'm like, oh, wow, two years has gone by. What's. What's happening?

[C]

Well, I remember a few years ago, I remember it was the first year we had the podcast with y'.

[A]

All.

[C]

You were, you were saying that when you're so busy selling guns because it's, it's such a profitable time frame and that you don't have time to design new things because you're always trying to get shipment out. You're always doing so you're like, okay, we kind of need some stuff to slow down so we can get to, you know, designing new things and stuff like that.

[A]

So, yeah, that, or like, in this case, it's changed my life, honestly. It's changed the way I've, I've learned more about the, I've learned more about rifles in the last two years than I have in the last 10. This is coming from a guy who's taught thousands of armor over the last couple years. Wow. And the, the. My approach to things now, the way I look at it and what it came down to was.

Someone legitimately asking to solve real problems and, and, and the solutions, they do not exist. There's no textbook to go and study or refer back to, like, how do you fix this problem? Like, you're, you're writing the book as you go. And, and so like I said, being able to rapidly fail. And then luckily I had a supportive enough team that kind of let me go a bit apeshit on, on the development, experimental destructive tests and stuff like that. And I was, I was very fortunate to kind of have a team that was very supportive to handle all of the other important Sons Liberty stuff and chase this rabbit all the way down the hole. Yeah. So good.

[C]

Well, Good.

This. This one of the questions that just kind of popped in my head.

So now there's a new administration in charge of the government. Has that helped with. With the firearms industry? Has that changed yet? Or has there been anything that y' all have seen or anything like that?

[A]

I'll take. I'll. I'll start this. And, you know, Nate, obviously, you know, chime in on this team. You know, under the previous administration, there was a clear and open hostility. Yes. The firearms industry, you know, there's some of the zero tolerance, like, you know, stupid policies from the atf where there were FFL revocations for clerical stuff, like the wrong date format. Thousands of small businesses like mom and pop shops, which is the backbone of an armed republic. Right. Is the mom and pop gun shop. A lot of those people suffer tremendously over, like, simple clerical stuff. There's no. There was no malicious intent. You know, they're not trying to sell guns to the cartel. You know, like.

[C]

And you're trying to fill out a government form.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

It's not. They're not easy.

[A]

And so it was. It was openly and deliberately hostile to those people. Banking was like, I had to talk to the Senate Banking Committee not long ago, like, specifically around, like, transactional things around guns, insurance issues, like, just the entire structure of finance around the firearm industry, which really.

I have. Luckily, I have, like, the powerhouse sitting next to me probably way into some of that. But that attitude has certainly been relaxed. There is different leadership at the ATF level. It does not feel as openly hostile. Now, have we seen it completely manifest into. You know what I hope. What I hope the attitude is like, it's. It's still a bit of a slow burn. I mean, I still think they're trying to, you know, figure out who's going to truly be leading that stuff, whatever. But if the ATF's job was to, you know, regulate an industry for the purpose of, like, not intentionally selling guns to terrorists or something like. Okay, that's. That sounds like it may be a worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars. You know, that's not how they've been used. That's not how. That's not how they've been employed for many, many years. So that's been helpful. Yeah. You have a couple, like, you know, Trump's, Donald Trump's son, Trump Jr. That guy's an avid and legit shooter. Like, he really is. I mean, that's not. That's not like a photo op. He's really into that stuff.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Tulsi Gabbard you know, is a friend of both of ours, Nate and myself. I mean, she shoots a son's Liberty rifle in the tack games, shoots a staccato pistol, you know, so, I mean, like, that's kind of cool when you're. Your DNI is, you know, a friend and customer of probably the two most outspoken gun companies in the industry.

[C]

Yeah, no, and. Right. I love it. It's Texas leading the way, you know. That's awesome.

[A]

There has been a sea change. Nate, what do you. What do you see coming, Finn?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, everything that you said, Mike, I would agree with. I think the other thing, the. So administration from a regulatory perspective, it's. It's a better environment. It's becoming a better environment on a daily basis. But what comes with that is we're still as an industry kind of coming off a peak buying peak from the civil unrest that we had during the COVID timeframe. And so unless you're doing something that is differentiated and is providing customers with a compelling reason to buy, certainly on the civilian side, you're seeing kind of smaller numbers. Right. So the overall industry is down to flat. But there are outliers within that industry where companies are outperforming based on products that they're bringing to market or within a specific market segment. You know, with sons in particular, you know, the growth that we've had in law enforcement has continued to be exceptional. And I think we'll, you know, based on what's in the pipeline, will continue to be. So you have some opportunities to continue to grow your business and. But you've got to be bringing product to market. That means something that is differentiated. To your point earlier, you know, I don't know if there's 50 AR companies or more, you know, but to Mike's valid point, there are a lot that are, you know, producing a what I would call a commodity product for that. And, you know, to survive in this type of an industry market, you've got to differentiate yourself.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is what we're doing.

[C]

Yeah. This. Not just in. In Yalls industry, there's so many different industries from, you know, 2020, 2021, there was like just peak of just we're on the gas and we're making money. We're making money. And then that's not the case in the last year and a year and a half. And so it's been a. For all kinds of companies that I see, it's not, you know, just guns and things like that. So. But like you said, it. It is a. It's it's kind of a catch 22. You're like, well, we have more civil unrest, we sell more, but we don't really want that either because we fucking gotta live in this shit.

[A]

And this is a joke that we make. I mean, I'm sure anybody in the industry kind of knows exactly what I'm talking about. Like, you know, if. If the election would have gone a different way, gun sales would be at record highs.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But, you know, there is the chance that, like, the gun industry would be fundamentally over in like, five years with a couple of Supreme Court, you know, nominations, with, like, the enhancement of Operation Choke with cutting off funding, blah, blah, blah. Like, I would much rather take a commercial slowdown.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then. And then in a preserve our way of life generationally, than to try to, like, you know, cash in. In the short run. And then this place turns to. In a couple years.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So, no, I'll. I'll take this any day, man. And then brands like ours, Sons of Liberty is insulated. We don't see the same level of, like, slowdown, like your commodity brand scene. And then in this. In, like, in the work that we're doing for, you know, in other spaces. No, son's Liberty is kind of a. We're on a very different trajectory. Yeah. Part of why Nate's here is to help manage, well, that dog chasing the truck, you know, like, what happens when you catch it? Well, we're about to find out.

[C]

I love a good old country dog that chase damn cars like that. That's always a good thing. But, yeah, the. The whole.

Just thought process of just what you just said of, man, I gotta live in this, but also, this is my business, but, man, every day I gotta deal with this. You know, if we had a crazy administration that just, you know, what that could have been. Yeah. That is scary.

[A]

Let me ask you, from your perspective from the law enforcement side. I mean, like, so I work with. We work with, you know, hundreds of agencies, you know, every month, you know, in some form of capacity or something. There definitely seems to be a true morale shift. You know, they like. There is, you know, like, how do you see it? I mean, like, morale was quite bad.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, I mean, for 20. 20, 20, 20, 21. I mean, I know guys that were counting. The guys that had planned to stay on till 30, you know, were counting the damn minutes to 20, you know, like, it doesn't feel like that neither anymore.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

I don't know that. That's.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

I don't know. For me, Personally, what. I don't know. I, I don't think about that. What, what do you think on free for you? Because there's so many. There's. I just think there's so many for us, like I did.

I've been through what Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden. I think all, all those presidencies. I've been so. In 98 to now, when Trump first took office, that was the biggest shift ever saw that, that a president actually made in law enforcement with grants and really being proactive. And then all of a sudden 20, 20 hits and then we just get kicked in the stomach and, and so, and there, there's all that like you just said. And then all of a sudden even more.

Leaders, quote, leaders. I say that really loosely in police work, are leading by fear. They haven't changed yet. But you got someone in the country that's like this. We're, we're not being, being led by fear. So I don't think it's caught up yet. I haven't seen that yet. But that's, that's kind of my perspective on it. No, that, no, that's a deep question.

[A]

No, that makes, that makes perfect sense. I. What, what's awesome to me, what's encouraging, perhaps it's not necessarily like a Trump thing, but the fact that the country overwhelmingly. The people.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Stood up. And the fact that he won every swing state. He won every state that needed a fucking ID vote.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

You know, he won the popular vote. Right. And not to necessarily make this political. This isn't about Trump. The country, the people have rejected bad ideas. One of the top bad ideas they rejected was defund.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

You know, and like in. The people have spoken on, you know, what, what they want society to look like. And it's not a neutered police force. Right. You know what I mean? So that, to me, I hope is resonating and people feel like the, I hope officers feel the appreciation of like what the country overwhelmingly stood up and said.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, even if, even if it hasn't made it down to like the individual agency leadership sector yet.

People spoke.

[C]

And I think that's good to hear from like, you because sometimes I can get cynical about all that because I've been doing it for so long. I'm like, but it's good to have a, an outside perspective that's still involved in the law enforcement, but not in law enforcement, but deals with us all the time. So that's a good, it helps me being able to balance this out sometimes.

[A]

Well, that's I, I mean, I'm optimistic, man. It's gonna be interesting to see what the next couple years look like. But I, I promise you it's better than the alternative. I guarantee you that.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. No, what are you gonna say, man?

[D]

Well, you go back to 2016 when they, you know, that everybody thought that Hillary had a really good chance and the gun sales exploded.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And because everybody thought that she was going, going to win and he was going to get clamped down. Okay. These are not bad guys buying guns. These are responsible citizens. They're doing it the right way, and they were setting records. Trump wins. Come in, you have four years of regardless if you agree with him or not. You had some sustainability. And, you know, when, of course, Covet happened and all that. But it wasn't like all of a sudden, you know, the respectable gun owners, the ones that try and do it the right way, feared that their, you know, liberties were going to be infringed upon. Okay. So they were, they were confident on that. And you leveled off to a little bit, and then, and then 2020 happened, and then you start all over again and people panic. And it's not to say the panic because they feel like people say, well, civil unrest and all this, but what happened was, is that people wanted to exercise their Second Amendment right to purchase firearms. Okay. It is your right to do that as an American citizen. You should not be infringed. You know, it's not supposed to be infringed upon. And people, it was a referendum on their, what they were marching on, saying, you know, I didn't believe in this. And it's very clear with the Democrats and with not trying to be political, but with Hillary and even with Biden said they're all on attack on that. Okay. So again, it wasn't that police and I get asked this a lot. What do you think about the crime bills or what do you think about this? Look, I am not worried as a police officer as a whole, worried about responsible gun owners are doing it the right way. Okay. I'm not. Is there times out there where they're, they go, you know, they lose it and do all that? Yes. Yeah. But, you know, many guns we recover in Dallas every day in the. As a year as Dallas Watt a lot. All the time, you know, they're stolen out of Garland or Irving or, you know, we've had them out of California, whatever. We had a guy got caught with a stolen gun that was used in the murder in California that Nibbin picked up on. And it hit Mac and they were wanting to know who we found it with and all that. So those things travel. So police, in my mind, I'm not worried about the responsible people that are doing it the right way. Okay. Do you think that people are going to, you know, exercise their right and go bad? It can happen. Okay. More people get killed by drunk driving. Okay. I don't hear them trying to limit the amount of Toyotas that we're bringing in or whatever like this. So I hate when people try to make that correlation that you're producing firearms, therefore you're attributing to the crime rate. Like, I'm sorry that you put any gun down this table and just leave it here. It will not hurt anybody. It is a man made problem. It is not a gun made problem. Does that make sense? I think a lot of people try to correlate that because it's easy. Gun control is easy to draw people offsides. People want to do that. And, you know, no matter whether you make rifles, pistols, whatever ammunition, they've been, they've been under attack for the last 20 years. Okay? Right. They have been. You had a little bit of brief time in between different, different administrations, but it's not going to go away. I mean, they're always going to fight y'.

[A]

All.

[D]

You know, you all know that if you're going to be in this business, you got to realize that's, that's a lot of long haul. It's going to be that way for a long time.

[A]

It's kind of funny, maybe not in a haha way, but a bit ironic. So the Bruin case, you know, the Bruin decision was a big deal and it was, you know, looking at the, the courts were instructed at. The lower courts were instructed to, to look at, you know, gun legislation or just gun rulings on the, in the historical context. Right. How guns were historically regulated, like from the founders. And now whenever you have people arguing for gun restrictions, they're having to look for the historical context and how to do that if they're literally having to cite like the most racist and oppressive, like really like precedent. Yeah, because the gun, like gun storage laws, for instance, like gun storage laws were legitimately written so Native Americans and blacks could not like acquire guns. And so now whenever you, when you apply Bruin to this and like we're arguing that, you know, gun storage laws, you know, should not necessarily, you know, be enforced in this way, the people arguing that they should are having to reference the historical context of why gun storage laws ever existed in the first place. And I think it takes some giant balls.

[C]

Oh, man.

[A]

To cite.

[C]

To cite that.

[A]

Yeah, to cite, like. Well, you know, it's technically okay because, you know, in 1842, you know, I'm like, like, bro, balls on you.

[C]

Wow, man. Yeah, that. That's. That's. That's entering what these politicians or these activists will. Will do just to.

[A]

For.

[C]

Because it's a gun.

[D]

Like, it's so easy to draw people offside. You say gun control, and then right down the table, it splits. You're not going to bring those people back.

[A]

The good news is, man, like, during COVID during. During the George Floyd bullshit and during COVID I sold guns to. To moms Demand action. Like, like, legitimately that this is true. Because I had been on, like, debate stages with them. Like, you know, we go to universities and have, like these conversations and stuff. I. In the green room, when you're done, you know.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Fighting, you know, on stage, you talk about soccer, kids and, you know, like, that I was the only gun guy they knew. And so whenever, like, covet happened and they thought that there was going to be a huge decrease services and, you know, like, they wanted to defend their toilet paper roll. I was the. I was the only gun guy they knew. And so they're. Mike, when I want to buy a gun and like, no one asked me for the gun that held the least amount of bullets. Like, no, no. I was like, do you have something of like, a real low magazine capacity? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a flintlock. And so I was like, yeah, man. You know. Yeah.

[D]

I would just say when it became real. Real for them. And for some people, you know, that was, you know, you know, for my generation. Never had lived through anything like that. Like Kobe, that was all new. So it became real for a lot of people that, like, I'm not prepared in whatever manner they will feel like their level response should be. They're not prepared for it.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And so then what was their. One of their first inclinations? I need a firearm.

[A]

Yeah. I'm not gonna be the only one. I might call the sack without one, dude.

[D]

And I was like, I promise you, I will not be the one that runs out of bullets first. Yeah. So. But yeah, but when it comes down to survivability, like, you want to survive, you want to live, you want to take care of your family. It's amazing where they'll cross over party lines or they'll. Like you said, they're like, hey. They're like trying to whisper to you because it's like they're like there's some kind of shame to it, but that was not going on here in Texas as a whole. So.

[A]

Yeah, even currently right now, the fastest growing demographic of gun owners are people that have historically been anti gun. Whatever demographic you might picture that is historically kind of anti gun. That is the fastest growing demographic of gun buyers right now. Which is fine because what you end up seeing is this loss of enthusiasm to oppose you. Gun control is really, I think, kind of a manufactured topic at this point. Much like, you know, I have never, I have some pretty hardcore left leaning friends. My wife and I had dinner with a couple that, you know, still wear a mask. Right. Yeah. You know, and I, and being that I have like virtually no shame, I all ask them like, you know, questions like, how do you feel about a man boxing a woman? You know, like, I've never met anyone that's like, that's, that's a good idea. Like, that's a completely manufactured cause. Yeah. That's not like a grassroots kind of cause. Right. Yeah, I believe that neither is gun control at this point. I don't think, like, if you were to ask the top 10 most important issues to a Democratic voter, guns is not in that. Yeah. So, you know, anyways, just to, just to tag on.

[B]

I mean, I think one of the things that's, that's great about, about this industry and about what we're doing is that it's not political, you know. Right. We are, we are building world's best shooting rifles for every American. And you know, I don't care what that American, what color that American is, what gender that American is, what gender they think they are or want to claim. I don't, it doesn't matter to me. They're as Americans, as long as they're legally and acquiring the firearm and they're responsible gun owners, that that's their right. That, that is a constitutional freedom. That's a beauty of being an American and living in America. And I think that's one of the best things that we do as this industry. And I think people don't necessarily realize it, but the folks who are in this industry, we're out there to help people protect their liberties, protect their families.

[D]

I think the quickest way to get somebody to do something is tell them not to do it. Like your kids don't do that. That's the first thing they do. When you are grown, you know, adult, that's responsible. That is making your own way. You're not gonna allow people come in There and push on you in. And when. And what's happened is I think Covid really just. Just changed the whole deck. And it woke a lot of people. It did a lot of people up. And whether they wanted admit or not, they had to look back and go, the way I was rolling is not going to work now. And things have changed. And it's on a lot of. For us, not just guns. It's a lot of fronts. And now this. Everything's kind of come full circle. There you go. I would. I did not feel like I had the same protections or the stability that I had before, for whatever reason. And again, it was that in that primal, you know, thought was I need to be able to take care of myself. And we as a society have moved to mechanical, you know, weapons to do that versus, you know, a spear, you know, or ax or something like that. And so what it is. So that's why you see that. That I think, I think that's a lot of it.

[A]

And this, what Nate said is true though. Like, you know, we fundamentally, as like Americans and people who take the Constitution very, very seriously, we defend speech even though speech we don't like. Yeah, you know, like, you know, that, that's the. That is, it's the first one for a reason. You know, the guns. You know, I believe in an American citizen's right to own a gun, regardless of your politics. You know, like, that is the. If you're, if you're gonna be. It's best to play it straight down the middle. Like, this is what the, the founder's intent was. And I think if you have, it's probably best to not deviate from that.

[D]

So those that are trying to suppress or trying to influence your way or usually not going to line up on your side, you know, and there's a reason for that. They're doing that so well, I think.

[C]

Just, just having a conversation, like you said, of asking, well, what do you think about this topic? What do you think about this topic? That's, to me, that's how you influence people. That's how you build common ground and things like that. That's. That's why someone would reach out to you go, hey, Mike, I need a gun. Because there was some common ground they saw, oh, you know what? Yeah, he's a gun dude. But there's more to it than just being, quote, a gun dude.

[A]

Yeah, he's a parent. He's a human.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

But the other thing too is people also get, I think, very hyper focused on social media being Some type of legit, legitimate sounding board. And it's, oh, geez, if you sit at an airport bar and talk to the guy next to you, you have no idea what his background or whatever is, but you could probably get through a pretty friendly conversation. And that's kind of how the real world operates, right? You know, like if, if everybody had to have these conversations in person, it'd be a lot more civil than, you know, the anonymous, you know, commenter on X or something, you know.

[D]

Oh yeah, there's no doubt. Well, traveling around the country as y' all do, you know, as I was. Well, a lot of people ask about Texas. Like to them we're looking after the wild, wild west. And they want to know, like they just think everybody wears a six gun. And you know, it's like because they just, they see us differently than a lot of other states just because of the way it's, it's an attitude, it's a, it's the way we do business, the way we do things. And whether the manufacturers here or not, you know, Dixons have their guns, you know, and you hear a lot of stuff about likewell, like Texas would never be invaded, you know, because we don't need anybody else. Whether we do or not, the point is the well regulated militia, you know, you know, you have a well armed citizenry. I think that matters here. Like it is deep in our roots from, you know, from being our own republic at one time before, you know, Texas and everything like that. And I just think people here just, they appreciate that, that and it's just rooted in what we do.

[C]

No, because just that whole like Texans have that just attitude of we're, we're our own country. Like that means something. Like we're Texas. Like that just means something. And like you go out to the rural parts, once you got these big cities, you go to these small towns and there's still guys riding around with pickup trucks with gun racks. And I'm like, that's America.

[D]

I know guys that are ready right now to go, go. Yeah, they won't. They, they're ready for division. They're stacked up, mags ready to go, four wheel drive. They're like, they've been waiting for years. Yeah, they're ready. So like, bring it on. They want to, they want to go do that. Yeah.

[C]

I mean, and, and to me it's like, it's like, I love that. I mean that's, that's the way I was raised and, and stuff. But I love going to a small town Dairy Queen and seeing the guys in there, and there's boots and jeans and that's their truck, and there's the, you know, the, the rack in the. And the gun and stuff, and that's just. That's just life. But, I mean, you go to these parts of Texas, if you don't have a gun, I don't know what you do. Because if trouble is coming to your house, no one is around in these counties. I mean, no one is. It's crazy to me. I'm like, so people lose sight of that, that live in Philadelphia that are wanting guns banned. You're like, wait a minute. Go out to West Texas or South Texas and see how fast we.

[A]

Response time is, like 30 minutes. Like, you know, loving Texas. You know, there's a lizard in a tumbleweed.

[C]

Yeah.

Or like, I teach out in New Mexico. There is nothing in south part of New Mexico, man. It's. I, I, it's just. And that's where people lose it for me. I'm like, man, everybody has their own, like, situation that they're having to deal with because of whatever environment they're in and stuff, so. But no, I think y' all do a good job of being able to balance that and be able to confront some hard topics and not shy away from them and stuff. Because at the end of the day, y' all don't want to see your weapon used in some type of incident. I mean, no. No gun maker does. But, like, like you said, Matt, it wasn't the gun. It was the person that was behind that gun that was doing the damage and, and stuff, so.

[D]

Well, think back to New Orleans, New Year's Eve.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

The guy, crazy guy driving down, and he was in a Ford pickup truck.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Are we gonna go. We're gonna go after Ford because they built that truck. No, no, it was not their intent. But again, it's. It is an easy way to draw people off sides because, you know, there are people that hire on with us. They've never fired a firearm until they in the academy.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

There's nothing wrong with that. But to me, that living here my whole life, that's just unimaginable. Yeah, but, you know, for some people, that is. So you're dealing with people that have no context, no, you know, experience with a firearm, because all they've been told are dangerous. They're bad. Like, I can put my Glock right here, and nobody ever touches it. It'll never hurt anything.

[A]

I think Texas does have a bit of an advantage there, like, specifically for law enforcement. Like, by the time. Mo. A lot of guys, I mean, not all. Right, not all, but like, most, most folks by the time they get there. So like, to an academy or they get to someplace like firearms are not completely unfamiliar. I'm not saying this is true across the board. I'm saying, but if you take the averages, I have worked in states where, you know, firearms ownership unfortunately has been generationally lost. You're three and four generations from when firearms were like, part of the culture.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And you can clearly see the aptitude for use of firearms very, very low to where, you know, it's, it's, it's concerning, you know, And I, I, I, you don't typically see that here. I mean, by, I mean, you talk about seeing a suppressed rifle in some places that have never heard it or seen it or whatever, whatever here, you know, like, your uncle's got 10 of them. This is, you know, it's not, but, but it does have an impact. You know, if you, Again, this is what is so important. You, if once you have generationally lost that, it's, I think it's virtually impossible to get it back because, you know, you, you, you don't even remember what it was like when it was a part of your culture.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So, I mean, thank God for Texas on that. I think that it makes a bit of a difference.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, for your great granddad's shotgun or his deer rifle or something that's passed.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

I mean, that, those, those are special things. Or his, you know, his pistol that he had in the army or whatever the case may be. I mean, that, that, that, that's a special thing to, to, to have. And, and, and that, and that, that's a good thing. Like, I mean, it goes back to even getting your gun back from an ois. Like, that means something. Like, that's a special thing.

[A]

Thing.

[C]

And that's okay. You're not loony, you're not weird. Like, that's, that's the tool that did the job that you needed to have it that day.

[A]

Yeah. Like, I mean.

Yeah. And like I said, we, you know, our policy on that stuff. You know, how we know what we do. We talked about it last time, and yeah, I mean, that's.

As true or more true today than it's, than it's ever been, at least the way we look at that. And yeah, it's, it's a, it's a tool. You know, it's a fire extinguisher. You know, I'd certainly not want to be the guy that neither one, it didn't have it.

[B]

I think a lot of people, not probably listeners to this podcast, but the general population, they don't, they don't understand that if an officer's in a, an officer involved shooting that they're going to lose their, that weapon happen.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And they're, they're not going to have it. And guess what? The, the department doesn't have a whole bunch of spares sitting around. And so for, for most, unless someone else is stepping up, you know, this officers now don't have a patrol rifle.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. And so that's one of the things that, that Mike and the Suns team have been doing for, for a while is just making sure that, that. Yeah. Since day one, you, you, if your rifle's gone, we're, you're getting another one.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

From us. Well, with everything you had on it, suppressor, optic, etc.

[C]

Yeah. Or even go back to just the guy who. His department doesn't cover that for him, but he worked his ass off doing some part time jobs to get this rifle individual. Yeah. And he bought it and then like, oh man, like what? I don't get this gun back. Like it's gone for me. What am I, you know, I don't have this money to go back and replace that. I mean.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Traveling around the country, teaching those classes, seeing some of the stuff that dudes would bring to class to, you know, that's their patrol rifle. I'm like, what, What?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What in the were you thinking? Well, I'm gonna use it. I might have to lose it. I'm like, that's a terrible, terrible reason. We'll fix that. Like, so I bought it on Amazon.

[C]

Pieced it together of some. The cheapest parts I could find.

[A]

I will tell you man, we, we do pull. I mean I see all the time in all the places I travel. We pull airsoft parts off of guns all the time. Man. If you find like a, like a really nice, you know, quality branded charging handle and it's $8, man, you might want to ask why. You know, or when you're doing your magpul sights melt to the gun, I'm like, yeah, I bet you those weren't real.

[C]

Yeah, that was the real polymer and stuff. So. No, that, that, that's good. So how many, how many le like agencies are y' all with now? Is y' all even have that number or.

[B]

It's.

[A]

I mean it's in the hundreds, but north of 300. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's north of 300. I mean but that's like actually the agency having issued like a purchase official like on letterhead, you know. And then as far as where we're approved, I mean it's obviously yeah. Significantly more than that. But I mean at this point where we are one of these, we are becoming. Because I want to, I want to, you know, we are becoming one of like the kind of staple, kind of go to brands that you know, are, that's going to be considered by an agency that gives a. Now granted, dude, we, if, if a department is looking for $500 rifles, unfortunately like we just got the people. Well we don't build that gun. Yeah, I mean like, you know, it's not, it's not because you know we're, we're like arbitrarily trying to, you know, the right materials cost more money. The right level of give a shit costs more money. Like the right techniques, the right test fire rejection race. So but if an agency like in their leadership and their, if they give a. And there's going to be budget for quality equipment, I guarantee you we're on the short list of someone they're going to be looking at. And interestingly enough, and we found this, this was kind of a bit of a wake up call as part of how we're going to market different in 2.0 for part of the 2.0 initiative. We're actually much better known in the professional space really we are in the like commercial space. What's amazing is that if you're a serious, a serious end user in the military or you're a SWAT officer or you're someone who takes that craft very seriously and you look at weapons as like the right kind of tool. Believe it or not, the percentage of people that were known by, by those people is significantly higher than like the general gun buying public, which is typically not the case. Usually it's kind of the opposite. Yeah, the inverse. So we want to reach out and actually really go out to market and start talking more to the, to the general consumers and getting our name out there. But if your agency cares and you know they're looking for good quality equipment, there's a pretty short list of companies they're going to be looking at it and we are becoming like, you know, one of the. Well, let's, let's call those dudes and that's awesome. I'm happy to hear that.

[C]

Now are y' all making yalls own triggers for that or y' all using someone else's triggers?

[A]

We have a, we have A, a two stage trigger that we developed that is very, very good. And again, my philosophy on how to build a fighting weapon, one of the four pillars of reliability is a heavy hammer strike to ensure primary detonation. Right. And so we wanted to make a good work trigger that had, that was fast, had a good, clean, positive, fast reset, but also a very heavy hammer strike. We have a trigger for that and like, honestly we're working to develop kind of like the next gen version of that right now because again, like Nate was saying, getting better every day, evolving. And then you get end user operator feedback and you take that seriously. Like, I mean, I don't take the feedback from Instagram, like, you know, from, you know.

Whoever, some anonymous whatever account like this. Yeah, I don't know about that. Yeah, but like when you have someone who's competent saying like, hey man, you know, it would be really cool. Is like this, for this reason, like. Yeah, okay, let's get, let's, let's call, let's call the engineers. Yeah, let's, let's see what we can do, you know.

[C]

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Some of these people on the Internet, I'm like, dude, shut up. Like.

[A]

It has like, like it doesn't bother. I mean we get a ton of love, yet it's a ton of. Or whatever. I mean that is not indicative of who the, of really who like.

What the market looks like. The Internet's kind of a toxic place, you know.

[B]

Well, yeah, I mean, listen, law enforcement officers and departments are generally not providing us their, their feedback via Instagram.

[C]

No, no.

[A]

Or the DOD or anybody else. Right.

[C]

You know, like, yeah, the jack me off underscore 4968, you know who, like, who that dude?

[A]

Like.

[D]

Well, I think if you carry the gun and you need it professional level and there's a problem and look, any company there can be, you know. Yeah, yeah, you're going to reach back out to them, go, hey, I need this. This is the issue. Going through Instagram is not going to fix your problems.

[A]

No.

[D]

So whether it be the site, the light or the weapon itself, you're going to call that manufacturer or your rep, whoever it is, and go, hey, had this problem. Yeah, yeah, we're hard on gear. Like we're right, like it happens, you know, it just, you know, and you just, just reach out. So yeah, I don't think it's gonna be through Instagram.

[A]

No.

[C]

And I think those departments that are, hey, we, we are, we have yalls guns and we have, you know, we bought 200 of them or whatever the case may be. There is a relationship that they. They now with y'. All. Hey, hey, Mike, we have this. Or Nate, dude, this is happening with us. Or hey, we're looking in. Can we do this with this gun? I mean, there's a personal. There's a. There's a. A bond of this is we're the seller, you're the buyer. But we also want a partnership with this.

[A]

Yeah. It's not transactional for us. This isn't like a purchase. And then, you know, you go on down the road like this. It's a relationship. And we, We. We foster that. And I, I will say the thing that I'm most proud about our company is. I know this. Cause we, We've. We've never really had like a true marketing budget and we've never really had that stuff. We have grown through word of mouth, through peer to peer recommendation, and that is by far the most validating thing that you can have. And then normally when. When we land into an area, we land a county or a city or a state or something that we're, you know, we're working with, you can just see the ripple effect. And we end up usually taking over that geographic region through peer to peer recommendation. And like, that is by far. You cannot replicate that with any brochure. Sure, dude.

[C]

No.

[A]

You just can't. No.

[B]

And honestly, it's the best. I mean, that is the best way to go to market in the law enforcement space. Because, you know, cops don't trust anybody. No, they definitely don't trust a sales guy.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And so, you know, they, they need to see it. Right. Experience it and hear it from the colleagues and, and the agencies that they do trust. And then. And then they. And then even then they're going to test it themselves.

[C]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it helps walk it in with that cool ass shirt. You know, that's always a. That's always a staple, man. That's my favorite shirt of all the vendors and companies out there. I'll just. That's just a badass.

[A]

Yeah. So it's out there, man. A lot of them probably. I mean, you know, the. I think for like some of the stuff we're doing, like the stripes on the rifles, you know, it's like, it's clean, it. It's on brand. It is the battle flag of the original Sons Liberty. Historically, it means the things that we all believe. Believe in the thing that like the, the concepts and like the, the. The things we all, I think, hold most dear. That, you know, the foundation of the. The country, the principles. That's what it means.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and. And so that's, you know, I think people can be proud of that.

[C]

Yeah, no, for sure. What Matt didn't realize is that, you know, the Sons of Liberty, we're going to have our own podcast rifle that they're gonna, you know, endorse us with. You didn't know that.

[A]

We're just unaware. That's right. You're the 12th caller. Yeah.

[C]

Mark.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Official TTA podcast rifle. So. All right, so what.

[A]

What.

[C]

What's in the future? What do y' all have that you're like, we can't talk about, but we can kind of tease it. Little fluff job or. Or what's this time next year when you come back with us? What, what. What are. What are you. What's going to be out there?

[A]

Well, Nate, you got anything you want to. You have any plans for?

[C]

He's like, wait a minute.

No, we told we weren't going to talk about this.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, Mike, that's all you, brother.

[A]

No. So we are rapidly and meaningfully developing a lot of new tech. Yeah, the brand is going through a bit of a tech refresh right now. Again, some of the stuff we learned on the Mark 1 project is going to trickle down into a lot of the other systems that we build, and then you're going to see, like, meaningful but incremental improvements across all of that. Like, standardization of the A5 across everything that we do. Like, that's something we're implementing right now. You know, we're. We're leading the. We're in. We're in the driver's seat right now, or we're at the very cutting edge of, like, new barrel tech that's happening. It's part of, like, the renaissance period I talked about for the industry, where things are going. We're at the front of that. You're going to start seeing that stuff come out. And like I said, the Mark one was. It's. Yeah, it's a rifle designator right now, but it was a suite of technology developed, you know, for a lot of different things. So the, you know, you might see Mark ones in different calibers, you might see Mark ones very tailored for specific type of, you know, mission requirements. You know, looking at stuff like that, you know, re approaching how we're looking at precision rifles, looking at some of the, like, heavier guns. I mean, I honestly think that if I'm not going to let too much out of the bag, so I have to Be careful. But the way we're looking at your precision gas guns at this point, and I'm talking like a complete rethinking of how that rifle operates and what we're expecting it to do.

I mean, for medium range gas gun worker or medium range target engagement, you're almost rendering the bolt gun obsolete if you look at what can really be achieved once you start attacking those problems very deliberately. So there's some neat stuff coming. I mean, I hope people are following. By the way, we, I forgot to mention this part of 2.0 is that we're actually putting some real effort finally into explaining the program, the projects we're working on, the technology, the, the, the. Some of the new things we're doing. So I would, I would tell people, like, we have neglected YouTube for years and years. Go to YouTube and actually start. That's where we're able to go into depth on like the why and then really explain this stuff. And for the folks that are interested, then, you know, it'll. It'll make sense to them pretty quick what, what we're doing and like what the future is going to look like. It's exciting stuff, dude. Good.

[C]

Well, I know we all will knock it out of the park and, and next time when we, when we come back to this, there'll be some exciting things that y' all will be able to talk about that, that, that y' all put out this year and stuff.

[A]

Yeah. And by the way, I'm very grateful, man, once again every year for letting us be a part of this. You know, it's to us, it's an honor to support ttpoa. You know, it is the hometown Texas. You know, it's is. And the friendships and the relationships and the business that we do here is, you know, is huge. And it's. I'm. Again, thanks for letting us be a part of it, dude.

[C]

Yes, sir. Well, we couldn't do it without you. Truly. We couldn't do without our sponsors and stuff. So we truly thank you for that. So I know Matt, and our paycheck that we get every week is just. It's amazing. It has so many zeros. No ones.

[D]

Mine's lost in the mail.

[A]

It's like, man, I have to remind, I'm gonna be careful because, like, you.

[C]

Know.

[A]

We, we try not to. We, Nate and myself.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Try not to make any kind of interesting demands or requests because we know, like, this is a true volunteer force. You're here because you love what you do, you believe in what you do. Nobody's here, like to cash in on something. This is really to help people become better at their craft.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Just add to that. I mean, because it's not said enough, we truly believe that what you. What y' all do, what every law enforcement officer does, is truly the hardest job in the world. I mean, it truly is. It's what you all do every single day. Cannot thank you enough for it. You know, we're. We're privileged to be able to help support in a small way, and we take it very seriously that what we do is to provide you with equipment, life saving equipment that will not fail.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because, I mean, you guys got too many other things to do to worry about that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Thank you for. Thank you for. For that and what y' all do and appreciate your audience does every, every day.

[A]

Thank you.

[C]

Like I said, even going back to that, like, it's a partnership. Like, we got to have the equ. We got to have reliable equipment, good equipment. And so.

[D]

Well, yeah, I appreciate it. And just like any business, the ones that are good at it is your passion for it.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And so whether you're making things or you're, you know, for like Brandon and I, you know, when you're in law enforcement, not to say that I'm the best or anything, but like, you try to be really good at your job. You have a passion for it. And so that is, you know, that's because you're not doing it for the money. You know, we're not doing it. We're not doing it because of recognition or glory like that. You. You do it because you think it matters.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And when you. When you do it because you think it matters, you're just gonna put a.

[C]

Good product out there.

[D]

So that's what, That's. That's what I believe in.

[A]

There's an easier way to earn a dollar than what either of us all do.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, like, you have to kind of really, really believe in it.

[C]

I know in my career after law enforcement, I need to do something that actually makes me really good money, but I still, I don't have any skills to do that. So I'm like, I'm stuck here. So I'm like, man, forever broke. Yeah. All right. Right. So. All right, well, it was always a pleasure to sit down and talk with you, Nate. It was good meeting you and stuff. So y' all have a kick ass conference and look forward to seeing you around. So. All right, y' all train hard and stay safe out there, guys.