Build Something Worth Fighting For

There’s a lot of unrest tonight. Looks like the minority part of those mostly-peaceful protests has reached your area. At least, that’s what the reporter says as he dodges incoming projectiles.

You’re sitting in the home office right above your shop. The fact of the matter is that you have power to resist the storm outside, but not omnipotence. You’re nearly asleep. Ultimately this is a matter of endurance.

Suddenly there’s a loud crash of shattered glass below you. You wake up. But the unrest remains. And the alarm just went off in the shop downstairs. 

Looks like this one is more than just a bad dream. A large crowd of hooligans outside is engaging in a mix of violence, destruction and small-scale publicity stunts as they use new iPhones to record their righteous resistance against the privileged. They’re mostly wearing dark clothes with masks and kneepads with a smattering of riot gear amongst the most serious.

It’s hard to hear them over the alarm, but they’re shouting something in unison, and you have a hunch it’s not “Let’s Go Brandon.” The blare continues in your shop below.

You grab your fundamentals–your shoes, your G19, and now recently, your armor, the Invictus with A2s and an IFAK–and head downstairs. You’d wait for reinforcements if you could, but you know that a Free Man must be his own first responder.

You briefly pray for God's protection as you descend the stairs and open the door to the shop, where you see two hooligans scrambling out with a TV and sound equipment. Another brandishes a baseball bat. “Small shop windows don’t stand a chance”, he must have uttered to himself during his prep that night.

“Halt! Stop!”, you tell them. An armed, mostly-peaceful protester from outside enters the building and stands between you and the looters. He shouts back and fires at you with pistol held high and sideways–a true Hollywood devotee. Bang bang bang bang! Clearly not a trained operator. But the adrenaline is immense. You fire back. Pop. pop.

The armed hooligan falls. The others make a run for it. No TV time for them. You call 911 and report the incident. There’s no way in Chicago that they’re going to do anything about it, but you want the record there. You tell them that, if the man survives, you would like to press charges.

Watching from the cover of the front desk, you wait for the mostly-peaceful protest–or riot, if you like old-fashioned wording–to pass. Hours later, a surreal quiet looms over the area as damaged buildings line the streets, fragile and bare. The armed hooligan has long been dead. The chance of saving him was never worth the risk of him fighting back or getting support as you treat him, so you left it at that. He took two shots to center mass and expired shortly thereafter. You give the kindly second responders another call: you have a body for them to dispose of.

Later, you take the armor off; it’s literally a weight off your shoulders, but certainly not as much as you expected. The slimmer A2 design was good for the 99% of the time when you were not getting shot. The cummerbund also distributed the weight more evenly across your body. 

Then you notice the holes in the carrier. Looks like, even with his terrible technique, the hooligan had landed two shots, one at the top of the plate and another near the bottom. Yet you hadn’t noticed in the moment; from the FragLock to the Steel to the Trauma Pad, it appears each section did its job.

You know this has just begun. The legal battle might be trouble. But at least you’ll be there to fight it, and your shop and inventory are largely intact. Your family still has its provider.

And it looks like you had yours as well. The Lord preserved you through this trial. You look out again at the ghostly street, ravaged structures on all sides.

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The carrier is principally made of 500D Cordura Nylon, a weave that we find balances strength and flexibility well. The shoulder straps and pull tabs are made of a grippy and deceptively strong Hypalon® to contribute to its sleek design. The laminated Nylon cummerbund gives you a customized fit that also accommodates our padded side plate pouches.

Try it yourself: the Invictus Bundle, which includes the Carrier + Heritage Plates, is currently on sale for $177.60. That’s 58% off. Our A2 Bundle is also on sale for a high-grade lightweight steel option.

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