Gun Gripes #243: "Low Key Operators"

welcome back everybody this is Eric and chat with Iraq veteran 8888 today we've got another gun gripe episode for you and this one is gonna go down a very interesting philosophical rabbit hole so to speak is it a doozy it is a doozy and this is a concept we talk about all the time but we've never really made a gun gripe about it and that is we're just gonna call this everyman that everyday operator or Loki Loki operator all right what do we mean by Loki operator well this can go down some interesting rabbit holes but what we'll discuss here is the idea right that let's just say someone's car gets broken into or something happens right who is it usually right it's somebody that's got gun stickers on their car or some type of identifying sticker and it can go even further than that but the idea that in everyday life you're actually less of a target unless let's just say Loki you're more Loki when you just try to blend in and not make yourself appear that you're some tactical Ted or whatever I mean I should probably be in Starbucks right now yeah I mean look at Chad he looks like a hippie he's got long hair he's got his beanie on and his weirdo dr. Freeman glasses from half-life you know and he looks like he could be skateboarding somewhere and getting you know yelled at by the cops or whatever you know even if you look at me you know I've got a I've got a gun shirt on I've got a military hat so it's like oh well which one of these guys has a gun and we're looking at the two of us you'd probably think well maybe this guy does because he looks more military I mean I'm actually wearing like military breeches look at my my shoes or you know tactical looking I've got old-school German white breeches on Wow what kind of flexible steel but you probably be feeling that later I will I will I'll probably just pulled a hamstring I didn't realize but but anyway you know appearances are everything right when we look at everyday life you know you always are constantly profiling people whether you realize it or not or whether you will admit it or not and we go through life with this constant engagement that we have with the people around us right right okay so if you're single right you you're constantly thinking okay is this person someone that could be a potential partner for me and we're always engaging people in that way or if you're let's just say the mindset like I am I'm always looking around and thinking okay is someone a threat right so you you constantly go through these processes where you associate as either someone as a threat or they're not right and we have this checklist mentally that we either acknowledge or we don't but there's a certain list of things that we will associate with danger and what we won't right let's face it if you're sitting in the Mexican restaurant minding your own business and the gentleman walks in the door with an Obama t-shirt on you're probably not going to associate that guy as a gun owner or maybe as danger or whatever but if a guy walks in and he's got a tactical vest on and a khaki hat and he looks like an operator well then you're probably gonna think that dude might be an operator you know where might be someone who's carrying a firearm not to say that person is dangerous but in our mental checklist that we come up with in our minds there's always going to be that mental fact that all right that guy walked in the door okay where did he sit alright he's over there and then the whole time you're gonna be thinking all right he's there now see a threat probably not but what are you thinking you're already thinking all right this guy he's probably got a gun hey long as he's not doing anything wrong more power to him it's not wrong to carry a gun of course it's not I think the people that think that the most are people who aren't around guns that aren't gun owners that have the stigma that's kind of generated by the mainstream media and just their ignorance if we will say because that's kind of part of it but they just have the stigma against guns and they see somebody dress a certain way then they're automatically going to assume that that person might be a threat some underlying way I mean whether it's a direct threat or it's just oh they might have a gun guns can scare me and then they're just thinking about the entire time that or a restaurant or a store or whatever the case is Anna and Georgia here I know that there was a particular sort of crime spree that was going on and part of this crime spree involved a reflective sticker that the group of criminals would put on your vehicle if they identified that vehicle as potentially being a vehicle that had something valuable in especially firearms and it would be a small reflective sticker okay so what they would do is they would send the crew through the parking lot they were casing and a crew would walk through and kind of quickly shine a flashlight or look or if there was an identifying mark let's say it's a big old jacked-up redneck truck with NRA sticker on all right but you probably got a gun in your car so they would go and they would put a sticker on the vehicle and then after that crew left the actual print well they're all accomplices but then the guys would come in with these lights that they could shine and go there's a reflective sticker smash grab and chances are they're gonna get something now how did they know which cars to identify why put the sticker on certain car well you got stickers all over your vehicle NRA FAL on the back you know my family is a family of guns I mean don't get me wrong those stickers are funny and they're cool and we all love to be proud to be a gun owner look you get those you get a new gun or whatever you get a sticker with it's just like you know you get a new ID yeah Ruger six hour yeah so you got all these stickers on the back of your vehicle and all it's like come on I mean could you make yourself an easier target I mean right look it's everybody's right to to put out there like what they stand for and everything that we're not saying that you can't do that heck but look you gotta be wise you got to be smart about you know how people present their themselves and and their modes of transport and things like that I mean I don't have anything on my vehicle anymore it's just real nonchalant and that's the way I like it because I don't want to draw attention to myself or my family yeah when we're out and about and I just think it's unnecessary attention there's some people that might even go as far as to put stickers on their vehicle that are completely opposite of being a gun guy you know so you think that a Prius or a Honda Civic with a coexist sticker on the back do you think they're gonna crack that that car open to find anything in there they might find something there they don't want to find right we're not gonna go down that rabbit hole because that's a certain uh well we're just gonna move on we're gonna give a quick shout out to Robby over it barely tactical because he has a lot of those those stickers like that that he advertises and I just think they're the funniest thing is like hey just stick these on your car everything twice about it yeah I mean really you know exactly owns kill yeah yeah I mean so I guess the point here is that appearances are everything right and and you sort of you know you have this aura about you that you create by how you let the world perceive you and I'm not saying don't be that guy just look at me the way I'm dressed today I'm that guy if somebody walks by me they're gonna think guys probably armed right if I see a person with a veteran hat on I'm gonna assume they're probably aren't right that's just I mean but I don't know the way I look at it probably armed right or at least owns a gun so I'm not saying don't you know we're who you are on your sleeve just be prepared for the consequences right so this sort of this entire video sort of spans from a story that I'd like to tell and and and I'm gonna be super super brief about it and I've told this story once already in a previous video so I'm gonna keep it super brief but what sort of spawned this way of thinking in my mind was an encounter that I actually had with Romanian special forces in Iraq in 2005 and inside of the inside of the you know the controlled area outside of by op Baghdad International Airport and we were getting ready to go out on a patrol or something we were doing and these are Romanian Special Forces guys pulled up beside us and proceeded to blare uh Tina Turner out of at the at a level that I believe was gonna blow the speakers in the little rat cars they were driving was it what's love guys love got to do with it by Tina Turner I don't never forget it I'll never forget it but we know we were staged up to leave and I think we were waiting on one of the one one three s to get fueled up and we had a little bit of time maybe 10 or 15 minutes to kill and we're all mounted up but I got out and was just kind of shooting the breeze of these dudes you know they were hanging out and they were getting ready to go on patrol and it was some Romanian Special Forces guys well they've taken these little just unassuming little beat up Honda's and Volkswagens and just really unassuming Terry vehicles no armoring on the vehicles but they had made very functional and meaningful upgrades to set vehicles to facilitate their plans okay well probably consider them downgrades really hey all right so they had you know the the clam shells on those doors are made out of plastic you know they're just molded right so they have taken the sections of doors and cut out spots to like stick their aks in on each side so there's like cutouts for their aks and that little aam d65 side folders you know with the little wooden grips on the front they had those in there and then they had some sections that were cut out to put hang grenades in and they'd actually made like little just duct tape bowls in there so they had cut it out and just made little duct-tape cups to stick their hand grenades in so that way you know you could roll down the window and you've got hand grenades you've got whatever you need and it's all accessible but it's not showing so if you're just looking in the vehicle they literally just had like a little cover to stick over it so if they're riding by someone just glancing and the vehicle wouldn't see the grenades and aks and you know they have browning hi-power stuffed in their pants I mean these guys were dressed completely nonchalant like civilians they were in civilian vehicles and they were being totally low-key and I was asking them hey you know and I don't this might be an opposite thing and I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes here but you know the whole idea is that by blending in okay you know the tactic is yeah we want to look like the enemy we don't want to look like you when they see you coming down the road they're gonna run and hide because you're pulling up in an armored vehicle the machine gun on top all dressed in uniforms but the way they were operating is yeah we want to look like the bad guys because we want to be able to pull right up to it and deal with business face-to-face hello up close personal and use their tactics against them so they were being everyday operators they're being common man common sense blending in style of operating which I mean it it makes a lot of sense was a very successful tactic for them so me alright this is kind of my my take on it or I win when I go out with my family all right we're going out to eat or something we're going to show and whatever the case might be you know I don't wear a gun shirt out I'm usually don't wear a gun hat most of the time I mean I might wear hats as a loophole on it you know maybe but we'll go out and none of our vehicles have gum stickers or anything like that on there I'm typically carry everywhere I go I usually carry a backpack wherever I go what's funny is this is actually an AR 500 armored backpack that I saved from our recent test so both roof I've got medical supplies in here I've got a ham radio in here few other little knickknacks and goodies and stuffs and tools I mean but nobody would assume that that's got anything unrelated to a school kid or something like that in like a college kid or whatever the case might be are just a unassuming backpack that you're just toting around you carry stuff in you know but nonchalant it's not a big tactical backpack okay so we go out I'll go in the restaurant took my backpack with me we'll sit down with the kids and stuff I always face the door you know I mean you'd never never ever sit in a restaurant or some public place and not face the door to see who's coming in and out and you just be observant you go to the gas station just observe and see thing is when you're dressed real low-key just like everybody else you're not really showing your colors okay you you can just be out there you can just observe and just kind of keep your head on a swivel and stuff and not be real obvious about it I mean if you're out there you're like tactical Ted and he really you know like waiting for something to have you drawing attention I mean it's just stupidity I mean uh it's just it acts me sometimes just to see folks and the way that they present themselves out in public it's quite irritating you know to gun owners as a whole but it's just not smart however but anyways however anyways one thing I'll say is look man you do you you do you write you do you you are you were you only walk around with a drop leg holster a camo pants you know a tactical vest I'll armor look do your thing man look do you a drop leg holster is at least a holster well we're not gonna go in that and look we're not we don't want this video to turn into gun snobbery either look your gun guy you do you brother-sister you do you you bu but what I'm saying is the whole concept is video and these are things that I have personally observed on the battlefield right I'm trying to share a little a little wisdom something I that I picked up a long time ago it feels like forever ago it feels like a lifetime ago but it was your old okay but just a second just the same I think it's important that that people understand that the real world is the real world and if you wanna if you want to blend in and coexist in that real world then you have to sort of conform to what it is and now if everyone's walking around dressed like that well then by all means blend right in but if everyone's walking around just being nonchalant normal within if you want to observe those people and have them not react to you then maybe blending in with them as a good way and that's not to say that there's people just sitting around you know looking for a threat but it's important to be able to perceive a threat and know what is threatening and to happen to to perceive that and kind of see it coming before they know that you know they don't know that they know whatever my big thing I mean that's the thing my big thing is I think okay like element of surprise like I want to be that unassuming person that no one's gonna look at and think oh he's not a threat but you know if the need arises yeah just like John Lovell says I mean just because you're wearing something normal that mean you're not dangerous person no that's not capable of danger and I can't tell you how many times I've been dressed nonchalantly and walk into like a courthouse for instance or something to have to go through the metal detector and have that and you can tell you know the profile on you right and have them go yeah come on whatever and not even take me seriously well why am i any different than anybody else because I didn't look the part they don't know who I am as a person they don't know like Who I am what I've done what I know and it's not to say that I mean I'm not like dangerous to anybody that's not what I'm saying but what I'm saying is we constantly profile everyone around us whether or not you admit it or whether or not you even realize you're doing it life is a constant state of profiling right okay look at nature all right a deer is walking along a path and a deer comes across a snake all right well that snake he's gonna pound his feet at it and make a snake go away he doesn't want to hurt the snake he just wants the snake out of his way so we can continue walking down the path I've been hunting before and seeing deer stomping little critters to make them go away well do you think that the deer also don't know hey that's a venomous snake okay I should probably stay away from that right like yeah I might bash my feet at him but for the most part you know what I'm gonna I'm not gonna mess with mr. snake we don't want to bother him but what if nature could go all right well I'm a full time event venomous snake instead of me looking like a venomous snake I'm just gonna like paint myself black so they think I'm not harmful right so it's it's the same type of thing nature profiles right I mean nature knows where danger is where is it what's dangerous to him and what isn't dangerous to him and human beings are the same way to say that we don't profile is to simply deny your nature we all profile we all judge people whether we realize it or not yeah it's just part of you know how we're wired right and there's a lot of fear culture that gets ingrained in our society as people right we're taught to hate this person or be fearful of this person because of how they look or how they dress or whatever and there's all these stereotypes that we unfortunately play into in our society and one could argue that the stereotype of a guy in military clothing is the same stereotype that surround a gentleman wearing a man dress and a you know a garb or a rabbi or priest wearing a priest garb or whatever or or hating a person because he's wearing a two-pot shirt for no reason like that guy might be just as humble and awesome as you are but we create these stereotypes that unfortunately follow us around in Honus and there's there's unfortunately no way around them they get ingrained into our society and grained into our way of thought so I guess the only point I'm trying to make in this video is don't be this reowww type be nonchalant but if you know you do you be you but just understand if you're you and you wear that on your sleeve be prepared for what people might react to yeah in Maori so that we knew this is gonna be kind of a tough video going into coz like you're not trying to be offensive to anybody no no no folks are free to do whatever they want but we've had personal experiences Eric's had some overseas I've had civilian you know experiences and such and then we've got some friend of ours or friends of ours that have had vehicles broken into because they you know had items guns too late and inside the vehicle like a big patch panel and stuff with a bunch of gun patches on it it's like okay well you got stickers on the outside you got big patches inside you got tactical bags laying out in plain sight okay you probably got guns in here we're gonna break in your vehicle and steal it so one of the biggest things just don't make yourself you know a victim or don't let yourself become a victim in that way try to take all the precautions necessary to just avoid that in the first place and by doing that you probably avoid 99.9% of all altercations that might even happen in your lifetime yeah you know it's just if you try to if you make yourself a target then I mean you're making yourself a target look you know I can't tell you how many times and there won't reason I know this it's because I'm just observant I'm very observant we're not out I'm about I try to pay attention and things right I can't tell you how many times I've been waltzing through a parking lot back to my vehicle and I look and you know and not I'm not a bad person but sometimes I'll just look in people's cars as I'm walking by I can't help I'm just observing because the thing is you don't know if the little kid got left in the vehicle when it's hot like I just try to think okay what if someone left their dog getting like I'm always thinking of all the scenarios okay what if the little kid got lifting car what if the dog got left in the car and so I can't tell you how many times I've seen a firearm in plain view not covered up now I'm not a cruel person I would never break in someone's vehicle but I'm thinking like brother cover your stuff up like and it almost makes me want to like wait there until he gets back and go hey dude like I just observe this now and another thing I do and this is sort of a maybe a difference in logic what people think this is just me when I visit a retail establishment Prime early large retail establishments I always parked my vehicle way on the on the extreme side of the parking lot I don't put my vehicle in in line of sight of the front door or main drivers if there's a back door or a side door that can be entered to go into establishment I always take the side door and always make sure when I go in that I look and see where the exits are because if some crap does go down and it's something you're not even a party to you have no idea what's going on and you hear like something going on near the entrance well ain't going towards entrance I'm going out that side door I go to my vehicle get my long gun I'm not gonna you know to mean I want to have a easy and nonchalant escape route honestly that could be a whole separate video just on I'm talking about just preparedness just out about just normal yeah normal everyday things like how can you be more prepared right now right and that's part of it so another very very brief instance I'll give you and I'm gonna let you guys get back today I know this video has been long but I think it's important that people really consider these things right and I don't want to you know tell tales out of school or talk out of turn here but there's one instance where and I can't even really pin down where in the world this was or what war it was during but it was in one of the Middle Eastern countries okay and there was some horrible war going on and I want to even say that it was sort of a civil war right like warring factions one of those type of things where you're just a civilian caught in the middle of all those horrible things going on in your country and there's nothing you can really do about it but you know you live there it's your home right these things are happening to your neighbors happening to people down the street it was a story of a gentleman that survived a civil war in this country that lasted over two years that might have even been like in Czechoslovakia or somewhere like that I can't remember exactly where or Serbia you know during that whole thing you Kozlov you and all anyway I'm talking out of turn here please don't take it the wrong way but it was an instance where this gentleman wrote in his memoirs later that the way he survived all of this stuff all these citizens of this this nation were barring up their houses and fortifying everything and they were collecting food and supplies and putting them in a really centralized area and we're locking everything up and trying to like move vehicles and make like vehicle Corral's to fight off the people that are trying to hurt him and those were always people that were made a target well why because they looked at a hard target and they go oh well something in there is worth protecting they must have resources ammunition guns food something that I need right this guy's literally did nothing he just left his home quite normal left his windows open left his door unlocked left his little Corral open and someone would just go by and go well this dude obviously has nothing worth taking because this guy obviously isn't worried about anyone entering his home he said he went the entire two years of this that this unrest was happening without a single incident because he simply just didn't make himself a hard-target by being such a soft target it invert n't Lee made him a non important target so you have to be careful how hard you make yourself look too so it's it's sort of a song and dance of just being completely nonchalant and blending in so maybe some food for thought not to say that that's not a an instance that would occur here in our country or anything but just know that sometimes having you know the the total 110 percent security measure may make you look a little more desirable to go after because then someone may go oh well there's something here obviously worth protecting indeed anyway again be being nonchalant every day gentlemen a modern gentleman all right just be you but no matter what you do be you do you we're not saying change up what you're doing all we're trying to do is give you a little bit of perspective hopefully some life experience that might make some of you sort of uh you know think a little bit about the way you look at the world and the real world around you and the way you interact in it and that's what today's video is meant to be low-key operators and many tangents well but what the thing is hopefully this helps somebody and look one more thing before we go and this is just a thought that popped into my mind and it's really important I think these ideas are completely passive non aggressive I'm not saying be a pacifist but they are passive right you don't have to be pro-gun you don't have to own a gun to be passive if you if you want to be passive right so it's like you know you don't have to own a gun the own body armor to own a backpack with body armor inserts in it that's a completely passive way you can protect yourself see everybody tries to look at this entire situation like oh they're gonna be the macho operator gun guy Hey look your gun owner awesome I'm a gun owner he's a gun owner it's awesome to know how to use firearms Hey look I'll be honest you know I used to be that like tactical Ted I used to wear you know tactical pants like 511 pants and t-shirts and tactical belts and stuff like that but nowadays like I cover that stuff up I wear jeans you know I just don't put a lot of stock in that hate change things you know dank pockets well I know but yeah let's walk here the backpack lots of pockets well but you know I don't know look the reason I'm talking about this is because I'm guilty of it myself yep yeah and I still am guilty you know I you know I wear tru-spec pants I wear 511 pants I wear you know surplice survival vests I wear surplice you know military codes military hats you know I fit that I fit that stereotype that's why we're making this video so you know it's definitely something to think about and again I want to push home the fact that it is important I believe that we you know not polarize the issue and make this only a gun person type of thing because you know again we with our videos we really want to bring people that are neutral or even anti over to our side and I believe the way that that you know occurs is by just providing good common sense information that can apply to a lot of people like I said you you don't even have to be a gun person to embrace that type of idea right to just kind of blend in and sort of be everyday you know you know what I mean every everyday low go low key operator you know that can come in a lot different form you might operate a honda pilot well you you may also be the kind of guy who you know maybe you're your you're ready to go when it comes to medical preparedness but you don't want to you know maybe you're a off-duty EMT or firefighter but you don't want to put all those stickers on your vehicle and because a lot of people may go oh well this person's EMT or firefighters are probably a gun guy too so it's like there's always two stereo stereotyping that goes on right if I'm gonna assume that a guy who's a firefighter is probably armed probably a gun guy I'm gonna assume that a guy with a police sticker on his vehicles probably a gun guy at least enough to own a gun I'm gonna assume that a EMT guy is a gun guy so you can be that EMT dude like the the EMT version of a gun dude where you know you're like skinny medic and you've got like every you know you can treat you know 20 people you know out of your vehicle at one time at one time but you may want to be nonchalant about it you may not want everybody knowing that you're that guy yeah there's nothing wrong with there being you know multiple ways that that thing can occur you know there's some people that are doctors lawyers right and those gentlemen might have a doctor sticker or lawyers off the sticker on the vehicle well what else are you doing well lawyers and doctors generally make a lot of money so if you're a thief in your case in a parking lot again stereotyping well a doctor must make good money well guys got a doctor sticker you know blah blah blah MD what a medical tag on this vehicle well dudes probably got something valuable in his vehicle so see it's not just firearms it's not just that community it's all things right some people earn lots of money well you don't want the advertiser the whole world that you're you know got lots of money you might have something valuable in your vehicle that you don't want messed with all of those things come to play I mean these videos always still stemmed from like one little idea like we were just talking about the subject the other day and like yeah they make a pretty good gun gripe and we just come and film it and then the thoughts just kind of roll out so sorry guys if you sat here this long sorry but you know seriously though people can hate people can hate on us for what we're saying this video but it's the dang truth okay you know I hate saying like okay I'm not gonna wear like a gun shirt out in public but I don't I don't wear like gun shirts and stuff like that out and something just real low-key that you really have to be a gun person to actually know what it means whatever the case is but uh you know normally if you if anybody sees myself and my family out in public I mean we're just gonna look like everybody else yeah and that's the way I like it and I think it's a real smart and observant thing to do it is and like you said you don't have to be a gun person you don't to carry a gun every day to just get your face out of your phone and just observe the world around you it's that's one thing that really ticks me off is just seeing so many folks out there I mean things are going on right in front of them and this is what's going on yeah you know this is in the world I mean you know you don't have to light guns to be observant no we all need to observe the world around us and kind of you know have an idea what's going on I think things would go a lot further for us now I will say I am a gun shirt guy where I wear guns hurts everywhere but I also kind of look at it like look people probably know who I am you know what I mean my face is plastered everywhere so it's not like I'm fooling anybody so I yeah I wear gunshots I don't care you know uh it just depends it's a situational thing what it is if I'm going to take my wife to a nice restaurant for a meal or something yeah I'll wear some jeans and maybe a button-up shirt that doesn't have guns on it but you better believe I'm still carrying a gun I mean it doesn't mean anything right and I may wear a different hat or no or no hat right so the thing is that it's all situational and it all really depends on what situation you're gonna find yourself in if you're going to your buddy's barbecue at his house well then by all means wear whatever but I guess that's all we're trying to say is uh be observant guys I mean beyond everything the other courts around observe it be observant and be willing and able to blend in yeah you know this could go into a lot of different details that we're not going to discuss in this video I mean I carry multiple sets of clothes my vehicle is the same you never know if you need to change shirts make yourself look different I'll wear up to take different hats yeah because you just never know if you need to be able to blend in I'm not saying that there's anything you know damning or horrible about that but just be prepared to blend in oh yeah it'd be a chameleon among people it's not gonna rain storm you get soaking wet you don't getting your vehicle with what clothes on I mean simple is that or you're on the side of the road and there's some stranded person and for whatever reason they need a blanket or they need a you know a poncho or they need a shirt you never know there might be some way you can help someone - so I always try to be more prepared than less I mean this is going into a completely different idea now look it happened look at me the other day okay we were it was cold and this was this was last winter I believe it's been a minute but it's the old it had meant cold Georgia it was cold and there was a wreck on the side of the road and this young lady was standing out there shivering and I go to Walmart and I buy those like cheap flannel blankets for like a dollar - they're real cheap especially you catch them on sale and get them for like two or three dollars and I keep about five or six of them suckers in my truck and I stopped I pulled over on the side of the road grab one of those blankets and gave her a blanket three bucks all I mean what's three dollars you know what I mean because someone might need blanket it may not be you might be somebody you can help so always try to be a chameleon among people and I guess that's all we're trying to say all right guys thanks for watching today's video I know this one was long but maybe this put some some mind nuggets in there for you to kind of chew on and think about okay be open-minded guys that's all we're trying to ask so have a great day thanks for watching many more on the way definitely want to take a moment to thank all of our patreon supporters all the folks who purchase Mankins all the folks who purchase t-shirts over on ballistic inc all the funds we earn off of those videos go right back into supporting our channel if you'd love what we do and you'd like to support us those are the most direct ways to do so so thank you very much for watching today have a good one keep your head on swivel we'll see you next time see you guys [Music]

Channel: Iraqveteran8888

Views: 180,914

Rating: 4.9148331 out of 5

Keywords: iraqveteran8888, iv8888, ar15, ar, ar-15, ar 15, 2a, freedom, liberty, gun rights, gun control, top 5 guns, top 5, meltdown, guns, gunsmithing, gun gripes, life liberty and the pursuit, low key operators, everyday operator, operator, every day carry, low key, CCW, Concealed carry, gun gripe

Id: 6etUL_-C3GY

Length: 33min 1sec (1981 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020