2024 PDN Tour Recap

Welcome everybody to a slightly later than normal personal events, network training tour wrap up. This is something we do annually every year. At the end of the tour, our tour ended this year in September, September 22nd. That weekend was the last weekend that our instructors were traveling the world this year, mostly obviously around the US. Uh helping people be better prepared to defend themselves or others when they need to, getting better educated about some, some great products from our sponsors and their own products, their own equipment and gear that they bring.

Unfortunately, that same week later that week, uh where my new eastern headquarters is located in Western North Carolina, we were hit with uh a pretty devastating natural disaster. Uh My property myself, uh the factory of the arms, we were really came out almost unscathed compared to a lot of our neighbors. Um But it really did disrupt a lot of what we were doing then. Um A lot of us in that region and people from all around the region got very involved in the disaster recovery um Still going on. Uh Obviously, there are a lot of generous donations, we wanna thank everybody for the donations and the volunteer efforts and the support that our community and region uh have gotten over the last couple of months.

But that did disrupt our production schedule, as you might imagine here at PDN because I was spending uh time in our communities out there and not uh here in Minneapolis at PDN headquarters. So that's why we've had a delay on our 2024 PDN tour wrap up. So, uh I just wanted to, again, really shout out the appreciation that everybody in the region uh has for the support from uh our neighbors, um especially the neighbors that weren't as impacted right there, but also from all around the country and the world. And uh some of those inquiries did come in through PDN channels to see if uh those of us in the region were OK. Um I'll be talking about our instructors and I'm not the only instructor in that region that was affected.

Uh 2024 was a, was a big year uh for personal defense network. It was um literally our, our biggest year in, in a couple of different ways. We uh tied our number of uh contributing, collaborating, sponsor companies that were involved from the biggest year in the past. Um We had more instructors involved. Um We went to more different locations than we had in any other year.

And uh while we don't always get, you know, a complete head count I think we actually had more in person students this year uh than we did ever before so that the number of, of confirmed students is, is right around where it normally is. But I know there were a few classes that took place um seminar style classes, especially with guns for everyone um with some, some really good student turnout. Um um I'll start with Edgar. Edgar did Edgar Anion um is one of our instructors who works around the US and also in Mexico, um especially with the Spanish speaking community, but really with anyone interested in home defense, personal defense, defensive shooting and uh his classes were some of the, the most well attended this year, uh this year in the industry. It's been an interesting year.

Um It, it definitely like sales are down, the sales have been reported as being up slightly uh in the firearms industry and there were the other accessories and the equipment, the defensive tools that we use, uh that we track in our industry. Uh Things are a little bit up uh reporting for Q three Q four is looking pretty good, but it was a slow year and whenever there's a slow year, you know, we would normally expect to see it personal defense network that some of the companies in the industry um scale back. Um some of their, their marketing promotional educational efforts like we do here at PDN. Uh what we saw was actually, um just the opposite. Again.

We saw uh one of our largest years, one of our best years for collaborating companies, we work with some new companies. Um We worked with uh repeating companies that have been with us for years and, and been with some of them. Most years that we've done the tour were with us again. And uh the instructors, we, like I said, we also expanded our number of instructors. So um for us, uh looking around um some classes harder to fill than others.

Uh But generally speaking, the personal events, network community um that, that attends the classes, the places that host the classes that are incredibly important indoor outdoor ranges as well as other classroom facilities. Um We, we are again grateful um and really proud of the work that got done. Um I mentioned uh Edgar Antone just incidentally because I was talking about class attendance and he does such a good job of, of, of driving class attendance in, in his markets where he's active. Um But he's obviously not the only instructor that we worked with, you know, historically, if you go back in uh 10, 2012, in 1314, the first few years of the formalized personal events network training tour. Honestly, I was doing well over 50% of the classes myself.

Um Formally, we didn't really start adding other contributors and other contributing instructors at, at a significant level until around 2015 16. Um It was really a core group of people that were doing classes for the tour, mostly associated with my company. I ce training company. Uh I'm, I'm always happy. Uh, and, and, and to find out that I'm less than 50% or that even my company is involved in less than 50% of the classes.

And this year we were actually less than 25% of the classes. Um And that includes some other instructors that would work under the banner, including Edgar sometimes uh Derek uh pool, of course, uh Barack Kendrick, uh both leaders in the Intuit defensive shooting program. Um They have their own companies, uh respectively, echo five training and Berco training. Um Derek's out of Florida, Barrett's out of Louisiana and they both uh travel all around the country as well. Uh But any time we have uh more instructors, significantly more instructors that are contributors to PDN but not specifically associated with my company.

Um I know that the mission is, is being fulfilled. I know that we're, we're doing the best we can to bring you the PDN audience. And obviously, people may have signed up for the class because of the range or because of the location or obviously because of the individual instructor, the best information we can across a wide variety of topics. Um So far, um The, the people I've mentioned, uh all of us uh pro primarily work on close quarters defensive shooting, whether it's uh the CFS program or, uh, defensive shooting fundamentals program that we did in collaboration with another one of our sponsors, uh, the United States Concealed Carry Association or, uh, the, the evolved intuitive defensive shooting program. Uh, having a core instructor group obviously associated with PDN that teaches those skills.

Uh, something we've been doing for since day one. It's been the core, core, core course, core class that we run, uh, is a live fire range course indoor or outdoor. Some of the other instructors that are a part of that program that were on the tour, Don Edwards with Green Line Tactical. Um, but his specialty, um, he really teaches more rifle courses than he does handguns. And, uh, just this week or I think he's just finishing up the, the night Ops summit.

I think it was uh last weekend, not uh in the tour per se. Um, but he is one of our tour instructors and that low light, no light specialty training that Green Line Tactical provides with the rest of his team. Um, with Don both to professionals, armed professionals, law enforcement, military, private security and civilians that have that equipment or have that interest. Um Keep in mind that, that, you know, he'd be really, he'd probably right now be looking at me like Rob, what's it have to do with the equipment? Um, because he does do a lot of really good training.

Um, low light, no light. That has nothing to do with the night vision or the thermal and some of that really high end gear that, that isn't inexpensive and maybe doesn't even always have an application in, in close quarters, personal defense or home defense. Um, he does do that training but he'll also teach you how to integrate, uh, a light source, that's a handheld light source, a weapon mounted light. Um, they do some really great stuff over there. Um, Alessandro Padavan, uh been with us, uh probably since day one of the tour.

I'm sure, I think he became an instructor with me and, and a good friend of mine. Um going back to, well over a decade by about 1516 years, um we met each other training uh through Tony Blauer and through his spear system uh program and he, his specialties um include close quarters, defensive shooting, but also um knife work. Um He does a lot of women's defense classes. Um He talks about not just, um I think, I think it's really important to distinguish what he does and of course, you can check out the videos and articles from all of these instructors at PDN. Uh not just talking about uh knife fighting per se as a martial art, but really practical defense with a knife with a blade um in close quarters.

And his, his program is, is uh very well regarded and I'm proud to have it included in the personal defense network training tour. Uh Jason cau is another guy who teaches with us, um, in the close quarters handgun program but teaches his own curriculum under Yote, uh, specifically around rifles. Um, he does some defensive carb stuff. Um, he taught that in Mexico. I pretty sure for the first time this year, um, with some of our hosts down there.

I know Edgar was down there helping him with translation duties and he was teaching defensive Carine. Uh, but he also teaches some really great long range rifle stuff, especially if that's a course you've been sort of curious about. Maybe it's just from a hunting standpoint, maybe from a, from a hobbyist standpoint. Um, obviously not a lot of personal defense network stuff on sniper rifle or long range precision rifle stuff. Um, but Wyotech does offer those classes and he does a great job getting people set up, um, especially if you've never taken one of those classes highly recommend.

Uh, you see what Jason is doing over there. Uh, Chris Gery is someone who, uh, doesn't do this full time. He's one of those guys that, um, at a very, very high level has, uh, defensive firearms training as an avocation. And one of the unique things about Chris is he spends at least as much time doing instructor development work and mentoring work as he does actually teaching the end user classes. Uh, Chris and I met through and he met kind of our team through the US CC A and through that defensive shooting fundamentals program, um he uh took those courses, took to those courses, took to the program and the methodology and that approach um and became really one of the top level instructors uh from, from all of the, the hundreds and hundreds of people that went through that program through us CC A Chris distinguished himself, um went up to a training counselor level and uh now is working uh privately and, and in collaboration with a lot of instructors to make sure that uh as many people as possible are as prepared as possible to help others be as prepared as possible with those defensive shooting skills.

Um So Chris is a really important part of our team um from, from an instructor development standpoint and at the training tour as well. Uh Jara Hutchins has also been uh part of the personal network training tour before she's been through our instructor development class. But she has a really a different approach to close quarter shooting and she really focuses on mentoring um small classes, new shooters. Um She does a lot of um women, well, woman to woman type training. Um One on one training uh out of Texas.

Uh but she does travel around and do a lot of other courses, courses as well. That's a big part of the personal events network training tour. Um Generally all the courses that are listed on the tour are travel courses for the instructors and why do we do it that way? It's because we want you to know that we really are trying to bring these courses to as many people as possible. Um, so it's important that if you're watching this and any of these instructors sound interesting to you or you've seen the videos or you thought, you know, what's it take to host, uh, training to our class, reach out to any one of us, um reach out to personal defense network directly through the customer service, hit us up in the chats that are going on.

Uh maybe just send a customer service a note um or just, just again, direct directly, reach out to any of the instructors. Uh If you know any of us, if you've trained with any of us, we can make the introduction to those others as well. Um And I think it's great when we have, you know, 345678 days of training in a row hosted at a facility. Um because it gives me a chance as an instructor who's there teaching for two or three days to also then become a student and jump in with some of these other instructors, uh Maggie Mordaunt and Ken Ortega, uh Homeland Personal Protection. Um HPP, they work out of Las Vegas, Nevada, but they travel all over the country and now they also travel internationally teaching skills.

Um They have both been through instructor development courses with many members of the PDN team and they have developed their own approach. Um, again, not just to close quarter shooting, but also home defense, um, and all kinds of preparation including medical, um, entry level skills and, and home defense skills, barricading home, developing home defense plans, developing personal defense plans for outside of the home. Um And again, those range skills, the all important range skills if you, uh look them up out of Vegas and you look at some of the contributions they've made here at Personal defense Network. Uh I think you'll find that they're, they're a pretty amazing team. Um husband and wife team, they've been doing this for a long time, another team that's been doing this for a long time, but only recently become a husband and wife team.

Um And congratulations uh to them for sure from the PDN family. Um Ryan Hoover and Amber Hoover, uh Ryan and Amber are out of North Carolina. Um They were a little bit east of the damage but uh their, their whole uh fit to fight Republic, uh Their, their team did a lot to help the community and they're, they're very aware of what was going on uh sort of just down the road uh in, in uh both of our home states now. Uh But they are um an incredibly dynamic duo of instructors who I think is really important with, with uh both Amber and Ryan and with, and, and Maggie to say this is not. Um I think if you go back to two or three generations ago in the training, two or three decades ago, in the training community, there were a lot of husband and wife teams that only taught together.

And I, and I would say that there was probably a pretty good lot level distinguished between one member of the team or the other in any given class. Uh But Ken and Maggie teach separately and they do not have to be teaching together. Same can be said for Ryan and Amber, they stand alone as independent instructors. And I don't want anybody to think that, uh you know, if only one of them is at the class, you're only getting half the class, they, they are incredibly capable of teaching a variety of skills. And in many cases, they're not just overlapping in what they're teaching when they're teaching as a team, they really are teaching separate, distinct specialty areas.

Um So Ryan and Amber specialize in extreme close quarters. Um A lot of grappling um striking uh improvised tools. Um They, they do integrate firearms into their programs, but that's not really their sole focus. Um They really are working on a skill set that most of the other instructors that I've mentioned don't have um the overlap with some of the extreme close quarters, stuff that I do. Certainly Alessandro uh teaches those classes as well.

Uh But if you're looking for something, maybe that isn't as firearm centric. Uh the go to instructors on the personal events net network training tour for a couple of years. Uh That's been Ryan and Amber in the Fit to Fight Republic doing some, some incredible work. Um Notice so far, I think every one of the firearms instructors I've mentioned are aligned uh specifically with, with my programs, my curriculum and, and in cases like, uh you know, Alessandro and Derek and Barrett, they've been in Chris Guery, they've been incredibly involved in the evolution of the programs that we teach under our banner. Uh Kevin Dixie is an instructor who's also incredibly skilled and incredibly capable, awesome work.

He does all over the country helping people be better prepared to defend themselves or others. Um He runs a conference for people who are um new to the firearms community or maybe new to instructing where he wants to help them not only um build their own skills, personally help others build skills, but also their businesses. Um So he's doing a lot of important work and he is one that uh really has a completely different approach in terms of the curriculum that he teaches. So, you know, if you were to take a pistol class from, from Derek and a pistol class from Kevin, you're probably gonna do a lot of different things, all of course, culminating in, in you being better prepared to defend yourself if you needed to um with that handgun or with that rifle. Um, but he, he comes to that problem with a different set of experiences, different instructor development path, um, and teaches some different skills on the range.

So, uh, I think that's something that I'm proud of and I think it's important to mention also as a uh descriptor to what the person fence network training tour is. It's not just, uh what Rob would teach or, or what Rob has, uh, certified other people to teach. There's a lot going on there. Um, I'm, I, there's a chance and I'm not gonna say every time but a couple of times in these wrap ups, I have forgotten to mention somebody. I think I got everybody on our list again.

Uh, we've got a lot of instructors doing a lot of great stuff and I, it just occurred to me who I forgot Clint Macro. I do think I mentioned Trigger Pressers Union earlier. Um, and that is Clint Macro and he's out of Western Pennsylvania. Um, he's another one, that was with us, uh, during the defense of shooting fundamentals, uh, era at, at US CC. Um, but he was with me a long time before that and he's been an instructor for a long time before we even met.

Um, he teaches, I think Clint probably has more instructor certifications than anybody else on our whole, uh, instructor tour team. And why is that? It's because he is, uh, a little bit of a junkie when it comes to being prepared to help others. And the best way we can do that at some level, it becomes teaching others to teach. And Clint really is, uh, an incredible little, uh, mentor and incredible educator and, uh, he does some great instructor development work, not just in the defensive circles, he does some like black powder stuff and recreational shooting stuff with NR A instructor certs and things like that.

So, uh Clint travels again around the country. He now works with the US CC A also um helping other people and, and working with partner ranges to, to uh provide classes of all kinds. Um So Clint with Trigger Pressers Union. Um I think he's the only one that may have missed in that first go round. Uh We can't have a tour when we could have a tour.

We, we wouldn't have a tour the way that we, we've developed it over the last uh over a decade without our sponsors, without our, our collaborating company, product sponsors now because we're, we're doing this live on several different platforms. I don't have any guns, live guns out on the table. Um Obviously we're not handling any of those because we want as many people to, to find out that the PDN tour is going on as possible. We want as many people who were participating classes or hosted classes uh to be able to see this and share this live and, and not have to worry about it getting cut off or sanctioned in any way. Um, so, uh, I'm gonna talk about these companies.

We don't all have all their products represented out here for, for some obvious reasons, I guess with that disclaimer. Um, but some of them are, are shown here. Um, I think I have one of the patches out here. Um, if you participated in a tour this year, you might have got a patch, a T shirt sticker. Um, every year we try to give out something that, uh, gives people a little to and remember their class by.

Um, and also because the classes aren't, uh, product demonstrations or they aren't commercials, they aren't, uh, you know, just a series of, ok, everybody come up here and let's all shoot some freedom ammunition and let's all use our site mark optic and let's all train some with our laser replica, the, uh, cert pistol. And that's really not what you're gonna get. When you come to these classes, you're gonna get the classes where it's appropriate and where it's helpful and where it might be a nice fun experience even for the students to get their hands on some equipment that they wouldn't otherwise have been exposed to or to learn about some equipment that they haven't seen before. Like the, the features of the, the M spec, uh, when it comes to the, the site mark, um, site mark is a, is a relatively new brand when it comes to defensive pistol optics, it's not one that I see on the ranges a lot. Um So they make a great partner for the personal defense ne network uh training tour because it's a quality product.

It definitely has an apple for a lot of our students. And we get to teach students about what they offer and how it works and they get a chance to, you know, take one of our canno handguns again, kick a rapidly growing uh product line in the US. Um, really established itself as a go to firearm choice, a very affordable, reliable firearm choice here in the US over the last many years. Um, but most of their guns are larger guns and, and I think they probably have at least as much of a following in competition shooting as else. Um, they have some, some home defense size guns that are amazing like their, their whole meta line.

Um, the older line, the first line of guns they came in with had some full size guns and some medium size guns. I know there are some people who concealed carry those guns this year, they introduced a Meta MC nine L and MC nine LS. Unfortunately, those guns didn't get out until the end of the tour. So, uh, most of you who were tour students saw us featuring the Meta, the full size guns more appropriate for home defense. Um, but next year, um, we'll be sure to have the L and the LS and I really like the LS.

In fact, you're gonna see some review videos, some range experience videos with both of those guns coming up uh here at uh Personal defense Network last year, the original MC nine, which was a very kind of a typical 19 nineties two thousands subcompact gun. Um shorten the barrel, shorten the grip, uh standard width type gun. Uh was the one that we featured. Uh we found that our students really appreciated the full size home defense guns and we went back to the Meta this year. Uh But now that we're going to the Meta with the MC nine L and especially the MC nine L.

Si think people are really gonna uh be interested in what that gun has to offer. So, so kick um site mark, I mentioned freedom, uh munitions, freedom, munitions is a company that we were really proud to, to bring on to the tour a couple of years ago. Uh because they're sort of a comeback story in the industry. Um They were very, very popular for a period of time, uh became less popular for, for any number of reasons for a few years, new ownership, new factory, new approach, uh new focus on quality control and reliability. And we have had some incredible experiences.

Well, all the experiences I've had with them have been really positive and a lot of students they'll come to the class with a gun that isn't working great. And sometimes it's maintenance. Very, very rarely. Is it the gun? Very rare rarely.

Is it the modern firearm itself? Sometimes it's the, the shooter, it's the platform, it's the, the unsupported platform failure or something like that. The way they're loading on the way they're manipulating the gun the way they're hitting the levers and buttons. And of course, that's why they're there in the class. But when it's not the shooter, that doesn't know how to use the gun properly as much as anything else, it's the ammunition and that's why it's great that our instructors have a, a supply of, of freedom that's with them that they can say, hey, you know, let's load your magazine up with some, some of this and see if that runs the gun and in all cases I'm aware of, uh that gun has run for all of our students, for all of our, that ammo has run in all of our defensive guns, our demo guns for all the students, um for all the shooters.

And there have been a few occasions where I've been able to say, yeah, the, the, the especially if it's remanufactured, reload type stuff that they brought to class, try some of this and that builds their confidence in, in their own ability, it builds the students confidence in their equipment. And uh even if we can't supply enough ammunition for the whole class, at least they know Hey, that works. And they have a go to source now for training ammunition and uh freedom does actually have some hollow point. Um They have, um, a hollow point that's more of a competition, hollow point for consistency and, and point of impact and like that design. But they also have a defensive line and we've tested their defensive line in tests and I've done some gel demos in some of the live fire classes as well.

Um And it's been really impressive and, and, and very affordable. So take a look at what they have to offer. Um Along with everybody else, I mentioned the cert pistol. Um Next level training is, is one of two companies that with us on the tour this year that if, if they haven't been here every year, they've been here just about every year. Um Next level training, um Incredible bunch of guys and they have been doing more and more over the last year.

Um If you go take a look at their social media, take a look at their website, um the, the cert pistol and the cert stick, the, the rifle, the long gun that uh you put this into the shell that you can set up and accessorize just like your, your home defense A R to get your, your laser practice, your dry fire, non live fire environment training in. Um They've been incredibly valuable tools for instructors for students. Um really put a high level of value in the quality of those tools and they've evolved the shapes and the sizes and the, the different guns that they replicate. Um and this holsters that they'll fit into. But um they've been doing more and more training as well.

You know, Mike Hughes, the founder of the company has a really strong competition shooting background. I'm really big into sports science and the, the big brain stuff about how they help people develop the mechanical shooting skills. But I've been seeing even more practical application stuff coming out of their team. So next level training, um take a look at what they have to offer and especially if you're looking for anything in that non live fire, uh practice environment, the, you know, p practice moving with the gun, getting the gun out of the holster, getting the gun back into the holster, um practicing on the trigger mechanics, things like that cert pistol outstanding, you know, can't really get better um from the training point of view and they're durable, they stand up to a lot of abuse. Um You can see this one is, is uh sightless because we, we in a lot of our extreme close quarters, we're teaching weapon retention, things like that.

We use this pistol because it works in the holster fits the gun, this fits in the hand the same way. But when we're talking about trying to retain it or, or the role players trying to take it away, we pull the sites off it. They also have models that will accept, uh, the red dots now as well. And they even have a little red dot simulator if you don't wanna put a real red dot on it. But it gives you that box and the size and the shape.

Um, so cert pistols, compact, full size, um, really good stuff there. Speaking of holsters a couple of times. G code Holsters. it was their second year with us on the tour. Um That's one of the companies I was really happy to have, have come on board.

Um For a number of years we worked with another company that, that I also have been very close with. Um, but we are category exclusive in the tour. And uh even though I've been good friends with Scott and then had, uh held his holsters in high regard, had a bunch of his holsters recommended people consider his holsters. Um There wasn't a space for them on the personal events network training tour until a couple of years ago. Um, and was real excited to have them join us and they've been with us for two years.

Um Another uh returning customer who's, who's product again. We don't have any of the real firearms out here on the table, but Nemo Arms, um Nemo makes um incredibly high end quality durable, reliable A RS. You know, they're, they're sort of known for their, their 300 win mag you know, super long range, super powerful A Rs, uh the Nemo Omen. Um It's one of my favorite uh guns in my collection. I love shooting that thing.

Uh Love shooting it way out there. Um Not in home defense territory. Uh But their battle light rifle is the rifle that we featured for a couple of years. Um on the tour, um It's a really high end, really high quality rifle, but they now have the Mongoose. Now, the Mongoose was, was delayed, um, for a whole bunch of understandable reasons getting to the market.

Um It was not with us on the tour this year. Um We hope Nemo comes back next year as our tour long gun and the long gun that you will see me feature and probably some of other instructors will be the nine millimeter um PDW. Uh It's a short barreled, it's a pistol configuration with a brace. Um It would make a great home defense option, close quarters, personal defense option in nine millimeter. Um It's just a really well thought out, well evolved, very ergonomic, very usable, very easy to shoot, fun to shoot if I may uh firearm, uh the nine millimeter mongoose from Nemo.

Um But again, their support as a tour sponsor focused mostly on the battle light rifle over the last couple of years has been great. Um And they're definitely a company you wanna, you wanna take a look at, um, especially as they start to expand their product line, um and get even more creative. Uh Another company that, that came back with those two companies, I'm gonna talk about sort of together because, because they are together, Cape Gun Works and Rapid Fire Radio. Uh as a, as a, a media company, essentially, right? We started producing DVD S, we produce videos, we publish articles, we do live events, we uh sell opportunities for people to come in and look at what we're offering them in terms of reporting on equipment and gear.

And it might seem weird that we would have a media company as one of our tour collaborators as a sponsor. But of course, we want to reach as many people as possible with the news about what we're doing um with the news about what PDN is and especially with our instructors, um getting their messages out and outside of people who are looking for training, um letting people know the training even exists is one of the reasons we work with rapid fire radio. They spend a lot of time on gun rights issues. Uh, the politics of firearms, um news of the day, things of current topical interest to the firearms community. And uh what we try to do during the tour is, is every couple weeks or so.

Have one of our tour instructors join Rapid Fire Radio to give an update, not just about the tour in general, but more information about what they teach. As individuals where they've been, what they've been up to. Um like I said, we've been um international now for a couple of years. Um This year during the tour, I taught in Puerto Rico for the first time. Um We had uh courses scheduled in Guam for the first time.

And uh we have, this was the second year we were doing courses down in Mexico um for people that are interested in better prepared to defend themselves or others. Um Inside the home, outside the home, obviously, the rules are different in different places. Um But really excited about being able to, to go out into the world even bigger than the US. And in some cases, our sponsors and our partners, they, they don't export their products. They, they can't get their products into that country.

But rapid fire radio, that's one that absolutely reaches around the world. So we're proud to be associated with them and they are headquarters. But uh at Cape Gun Works and Cape Gun Works is owned by Rapid Fire Radio's host, Toby. Toby. Leary.

Toby is also an instructor. Um He's not one of our tour instructors, but he's a great instructor and his partner Brendan and the whole team at Cape Gun Works are incredible, but we don't focus on them as a sponsor as a range um or as a retail facility. They are an online retailer as well. Um So Cape Gun Works uh expanded a couple of years go into offering uh products and services and even you can order firearms, it'll be shipped to your FFL from their website. So check out Cape Gun works.com.

Um, importantly, most of the equipment that you see us using on the tour. Um All of those companies obviously have a, a good reason to partner up with our online retailer. Cape Gun Works and uh, if you haven't checked them out, take a look. Um If you're obviously, if you're in Massachusetts, if you're in Rhode Island, you're in Connecticut, amazing shop, amazing Range facility. If you're, if you're visiting the, the Cape or anywhere around Boston is only a couple hour drive.

Go down there. It, it's, it's a great part of the country to check out. Maybe not this week. Weather might be a little, little cold out there this week, but especially in the summer, spring or fall, you're, you're in that area. Um Check out what they're doing at Cape Gun works any time of year, anywhere around the country and in some cases around the world, you can do your shopping at uh Cape Gun works.com.

Um Our newest sponsor on the tour is Hi, Viz. Um Hi, Viz has the Fast dot The H three system. Um You've seen me do some videos on that. We were able to take that uh Fast dot system out on to the ranges and let people experience it. You know, that was actually um one of the most talked about products in the training community at shot show this year.

Um In 2024 we got our hands on it in uh mid I think we were starting to do some product development um testing for them and then do some video reviews and those were shown for the first time I think publicly around the time of shot show when the formal product announcement was made. And the fast dot is pretty neat. Um If you haven't seen it again, kind of when this is over or when you're done watching it, go, look at uh my review and my range activity with it. We also have another video coming out where I talk about how, um, even just the having the rear sight alone, uh green means go and it can be a very, very fast way to confirm your alignment, you know, you get alignment by presenting the gun but confirming your alignment in your field of vision over a target, um, with the fast dot System, front and rear sites and they now offer that sight set for the cannis. So regardless of whether it's the, the MC or the, the meta SF line, uh you're gonna see uh more Cannis with more Fast Dot Systems from Hi Vis uh, very excited about that.

Uh The last company I'm gonna talk about is another company that's been with us forever. I think I've probably mentioned them a few times because we so many of our instructors are affiliated with them. I know so many of our members rely on them uh to be better prepared for the aftermath. Uh The fight three, as we say the aftermath of a defensive gun use. And that is US CC A and Delta defense.

Um They are a company that primarily is focused on providing uh financial support for that legal aftermath. But they also, and this is why I love working with them, why I've worked with them for, for so long. Going all the way back to uh 2004, I think was when I first got a membership with them, uh training, training and education, they set out as a mission. Um and, and not just a marketing mission or a sales mission, but as a, a true mission to support what they're doing, to help people be better prepared, they wanted people to be trained. And that's why I was really proud to help them develop uh their first live fire handgun training program, the defensive shooting fundamentals program.

You know, we published a couple of books together, uh over a decade ago, 1213 years ago, we did the uh counter Ambush program. It was the first distance education box set that they did. Um, and I, I wrote that with them and uh as I said earlier, most of our instructors are affiliated with them in one way or another and several of them teach their programs. Now, they have a lot of different programs they offer. It's not just, uh, the defensive shooting fundamentals program.

They have another, uh, handgun program that they've recently launched that gets into some more of the mechanical kind of traditional, um, range shooting skills, which obviously also then contribute to being prepared for defense. They have a car being program, they rolled out, they have their classroom seminar sessions to support, uh, people who are new to this environment, um who are taking their first class, um concealed carry home defense fundamentals class. They've got books on, on mass shooter, they've got books on medical stuff. Um uh Be Beth Alcazar wrote a great book for women interested in getting into a defensive shooting uh and addressing some of these specific concerns that they have. Um So, so ancillary to their primary business piece, uh what they do in the training world, I think is really important.

It's really appreciated and we're really proud to have them um with us as a, a sponsor again, this is where I have to think. Did I hit them all? I don't have a list of them around here. I'm not seeing any notifications. Uh You know, I'm not seeing any notifications because I just looked over there and saw that the Voltech Quick Access Safe is on that table and not right here where I was gonna put it earlier.

So, uh that, that's OK. The product you guys know what it looks like. The Voltech, quick access safe. Um I can't say enough about that company in terms of the technology, I just saw that they were on Fox and Friends last week. Uh Believe it or not, they were there.

Uh They were on the table. It was uh I think there was maybe one or two other companies on there but the quick access safe that they showed a piece, a really important piece about responsible firearm storage um was a Voltech um sitting there, I was kind of scanning the channels and saw it there and I was really glad to see them getting that kind of exposure. Um The Voltech Safe Family uh is, is an incredible, all right. Go ahead. Yeah, you can hand it to me because that one, I gotta show you that this one is, is their newest, latest greatest.

It's the one that, that um a lot of people actually had it plugged in over there because this was our demo one and uh it was off charge and it didn't make it into uh the joys of live video. Um But this, this is the volt tech that a lot of people been talking about the most over the last year or two. because it is so clandestine, right? It can kind of be left anywhere you can turn it on. So you have the clock feature, you, you know what temperature is.

Um It does all the charging. Um It, it's just such a cool, uh, low profile unit that does allow quick access to a defensive firearm. And there's plenty of different options from Voltech. They've got the RS series. That's the full, it holds your A R.

There aren't a lot of options out there for quick access or biometric access to a defensive long gun. The RS series from Voltech does that. Um, they've got the mid size series which we've obviously reviewed and then we've got the, uh life pod and the life pod is, is another one that, that you've seen probably more than any other from our tour instructors. Uh, because they all have had opportunities to get their hands on kind of the full line. But because we're traveling, it's the life pod that makes sense, uh, most of the time.

And in fact, when I flew in, uh, here this morning, uh, from, uh, uh, the conference, I was at a conference in Seattle. I flew in here this morning and I was traveling with my, my life pod. So, uh, really important company and, uh, didn't mean to overlook them, did mean to have this out here to show, uh, show off our, our allegiance with them and our support of them. Um, if you're looking for something so many people, um, you know, just for a second, let's talk about the, the other side of that coin, right? One of the things that we're trying to educate people about is the responsibilities that come with the exercise of their rights, their, their right to be better prepared, their right to own and carry firearms, the stage firearms in their home or workplace.

Um, we also have an obligation to be responsible about the way we do that. And uh we know that suicide is the, by far, uh the vast majority of some years, it's up to 70% of the most recent data. It's, it's usually 55 to 60% of the deaths involving firearms every year. Um Are suicide. Um Obviously, that's our community, that's gun owners, that's veterans, that's first responders.

Um There's lots and lots of good reasons to have guns in your home a lot and lots of good reasons to have quick access to guns, to be prepared to defend yourself and the people you care about. Uh But there's also something to be said about keeping that gun locked up, especially when it comes to the other family members that may not be trained in the responsible use, uh that may be dealing with their own, their own struggles and, and maybe it's not appropriate for them to have immediate access to firearms. And, you know, when you have these things, that person and may become, you, you may be the person who's in a temporary situation of crisis or angst. Uh You know, I, I was, I was using an example, I don't carry a gun when I drink. So there, there's even times when I choose pretty regularly to separate myself willingly from firearms and then lock the guns up and I don't need the guns right now when I'm going out to have a few drinks or having friends over for a few drinks, things like that.

Uh, but there are much more serious times, um, when I might consider saying, ok, I've got the safe, but I'm gonna take my fingerprint out. I'm gonna reset the safe and, and put somebody else to let them program it, let them put the code in there. Maybe they're gonna pro program in a numeric code that I'm not gonna have. Um, but if I were barricade and I, I text call, whatever, hey, I've got a, a situation I'm gonna need access to this, but I was lucid and, and it was appropriate, they might then give me the code and, and Voltech takes responsible storage, obviously, very seriously. We do as well and we're proud to partner with them, uh, on the personal fence network training tour.

So I think we've gone a little bit over the 30 minutes. I was actually challenged by the team. Is, are you sure you can do this one in 30 minutes? And I thought my, my fast paced New Jersey, uh tone would, would get us through it, but it didn't, um I haven't even had a chance to talk about all the incredible venues. Uh But what you can do is you can go to PDN Training tour.com and, and see some of the classes.

Um you, you learn about all of the instructors, learn about all of the uh sponsor uh collaborators that we had in their product lines and, and sort of what they have to offer, not only the products that we featured, but the other things that they have in those lines, um because these are all incredible companies, as I said, category exclusive, but we're also exclusive to. There's a lot of companies that could show up with maybe a lot of money and say, hey, we want, we want you to tell people about our product. Uh We, we, we would pass and we have passed on some companies, these are companies that offer real value in their products or their services to our community and we take our community very seriously. Um We really appreciate you if you're a subscriber to the free newsletter at PDN. And maybe that's why you're watching this.

You got the, that said we were going live, uh maybe you're just a visitor, maybe you just, just you're scrolling and you found this video, maybe you just found personal events, network.com and a search engine, you know, query about uh being better prepared or holsters or ammunition, something like that. Um I do encourage you to at least sign up uh a as a, a free newsletter recipient and find out what we're doing. Um if you, you're interested in becoming a premium member or even reaching the gold level of membership. And we actually did two exclusive lives uh this week for our gold level members where they get to do interactive Q and A and, and uh stay very engaged in what we're doing and they can even request um in depth Q and A s in our live sessions uh for the next time or the next quarter. Um So, so take a look at what we're offering really important that you look at what these companies are offering because they support our tour.

Um We do make some, some funding available to all of our instructors to uh be able to help them with their travel expenses and things like that. It lets us go to places where the classes may be smaller. It lets us go to places where they haven't hosted classes before and they may not get a big turnout. It lets us do more classes in a year like this where the whole industry and, and just economically, we were all struggling um because of the work that they're doing to support the work that we're doing to provide services to those of you who want to be better prepared to defend yourself or others when necessary. Um So if you can check out our instructors join us, uh in 2025 we'll be announcing uh the plans for that tour uh towards the end of January beginning of February.

As always, that tour will start in March and go through September 6 months of training all around the world. Um, probably end up with another 150 classes being on the schedule and another dozen, 15, maybe even we'll get close to 20 instructors this year. Thank you for watching. And, uh please share this resource and the resources that all these companies and instructors uh have to offer with those that you care about.