SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Concealed Coalition podcast where we talk safety, training, and responsibility of protecting what matters most without politics, fear mongering, or doom and gloom music. Today, our episode number one is sponsored by Kangaroo Carry Holsters. You can check out their two-in-one shoulder belly band holster at Kangaroo Carry.com. Now, like I mentioned, this is our first episode. So as we get kicked off, uh I've got two of my compadres uh here, Mr. Matt Wheeler and Yates Crawford. And we really wanted to go over today kind of why this podcast exists, uh, what we'd like to get out of this podcast, how it's going to uh pertain to our listeners and even a lot of our uh customers. So uh first of all, Matt, um, it's not in the script, but I'm gonna let you introduce uh yourself. So give us a little background on Mr. Matt Wheeler.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Yeah, what's up, everybody? Um happy to be here. It's exciting. The first time we're uh we're getting together and and and getting this thing kicked off. Um my name's Matt. I spent about five years in law enforcement. Um and I've been teaching for the last five, I guess. I just had a fifth year anniversary with Concealed Coalition. Uh, so been doing it here for a while. Um, and I absolutely love everything about my job and what I get to do. Best part is hanging out with students uh in a classroom setting and watching those light bulbs just flick on and and students start understanding how best to protect the people that they love.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Yeah, that's good. Mr. Yates Crawford decided to uh ditch out on us. I guess he didn't want to introduce himself. So we will move on as if it's not our first episode and we are professionals and we know what we're doing here. There we go. Um, but why does the podcast exist? So with Concealed Coalition, we train tens of thousands of students every year. Uh we're in the, I think last year was one of our best years. We did write around 35,000 students in person in classes. That means a butt in a seat with an instructor, uh, educating them and going through the concealed carry certification training. Uh online, we've we've done a few hundred thousand and we do a few hundred thousand every year. Uh every state's got its different requirements as to uh what qualification or what qualifies you to carry concealed permittless carry states. Some states require 16 hours of training, some eight, some six, uh four to six, and some require live fire, and some don't. So we go through overall a few hundred thousand students every year on multiple different platforms. Um, but we always hear questions in class. That's probably the the biggest uh thing for me, which I enjoy the most, is the questions from people who are new to the gun industry, maybe new to self-defense training, maybe trying to figure out how to protect what matters most to them, defend their family, and things like that. Uh the one question that we always get is where do I even start with firearms? That could be the purchasing of firearms, that could be what kind of training do I need to start out with? Uh, do I have to carry every day? I get that question a lot from people who come to a concealed carry class. Do I have to carry every day? We're going to be able to answer a lot of those questions through this podcast. What's legal? What's smart, and what's safe? Uh, one saying in our company is if it's not safe, it's not happening because safety is of the utmost importance, and nothing happens uh if it's not happening safely.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Uh questions would be here in the south. If it ain't safe, it ain't happening.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

If it ain't safe, it ain't happening. Uh, how do I talk to my kids about guns? Man, that's so important. I am a father of five. Um and I think talking to kids about firearms is very important, kind of knocking out the curiosity of it, but not talking to them about it in a scary way, but just being very creative in how we communicate about firearms and about firearm safety to our kids. Uh, what's the right mindset to protect myself without living in fear? That's a massive question. I would say almost man, every class, uh, that question kind of comes up, and it's very important because the gun industry, man, has not changed a whole lot over my last 40 years on earth. And I think a lot of it's stuck in the old days. And when it comes to fear in firearms, there are a lot of instructors out there who just push the fear factor model of owning a firearm, carrying it every day, protecting your family. And I don't think it's anything that needs to be that fear needs to be pushed any more than media or any other platform is pushing fear uh around firearms. And so we take a completely different approach to it. It has nothing to do with with fear, it's the responsibility of it and always protecting what matters most. Uh, as Mr. Yates Crawford jumps back in here, he left us for a minute.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yates, I'm gonna let you now introduce yourself to our audience.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Hey folks, uh, my name is Yates Crawford. I'm the director of Business Development and Partnerships Force at Concealed Coalition. I've been here nearly five years and it's been a heck of a ride. And one thing I love about what we do at Concealed Coalition is we get to see and talk to what I call the everyday gun owner. Um, Jody may very well have mentioned it earlier, but we get to see the folks that are really just like us, right? Or we started at a very similar place. We we all began here in this, what I like to call safer living space, just simply wanting to find a way to protect ourselves, protect our loved ones. And it is uh something that makes our organization quite unique in that if you look around and you look at really marketing and all the things that exist out there to get folks into gun ranges and to purchase XYZ particular gun. I don't know about you guys, but for me, I feel like when we look at the people we serve, a lot of that stuff doesn't really resonate with me. So it's one thing I'm really passionate about and excited that we're able to do a concealed coalition with our nationwide reach is speak to and connect with, again, your everyday gun owner and provide them the tools and resources they need to figure out this path of what's important, what's not, and what do I need to do in order to be prepared for what likely is the worst day of their life if they ever find themselves in a use of force incident or commonly referred to as a self-defense incident. So I'm really excited that we're doing this, folks.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yeah, that leads uh right into that. This podcast exists to demystify firearms ownership and personal protection. It's non-political. So many times firearms get drawn into this political conversation. Owning a firearm has nothing to do with politics. And I think, again, for years, for years, owning a firearm has been associated with one side of politics, and it is not, it's simply about for us protecting what matters most. It's not fear-based. This podcast is not meant to be fear-based. We're not trying to uh push fear on anybody about owning a firearm or whether you choose to carry every day or whether you choose to get training. It is educational, it is practical, not tactical. This is a very practical approach to owning a firearm and protecting yourself and your family. It's meant to be funny and easy to listen to and listener-powered. We're gonna get a lot of questions. Again, Conceal Coalition Yates mentioned it. We're a nationwide concealed carry training company. We've got over 150 uh instructors out there teaching for us. Uh, a lot of these every weekend. We run, I would say, roughly 100 classes uh a week across the country. And these are instructors out there who are certified in many different areas, some law enforcement, some military, uh, some just instructors who are passionate about firearms. But more than anything for us, it's more about passion for people than it is passion for the firearm. Our trainings are focused more on how do I relate to students, not so much how do I educate you on every little piece of a firearm. Y'all, I don't know about y'all. I went to a lot of classes uh as we started this company in in 2018, and a lot of the classes literally had instructors up front saying, if you don't carry a 45 caliber, you shouldn't be carrying it all. And as someone who was raised around firearms, someone who's owned and shot a 45 caliber, to tell students that to me was just mind-blowing to hear an instructor tell that to students. Because we all know the difference in caliber and recoil and the size of someone's hand versus the size of the purse. There's so many different factors that go into what you should carry. So for one person to sit up there and tell me if you don't carry a 45, you shouldn't carry it all, it's like mind-blowing.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

Yeah, and Jody, if I could jump in for just a minute, one of the one of the key missions that we had kind of starting this company and and going out on this venture um was to change the face of firearms training. Um, I remember when I was first hired on, they took a bunch of us out to Houston at a hotel conference and center, and uh we had a great time together. But what I really what really stuck with me was when one of the owners, Chris, stood up there and he and he looked at us and he said, Our mission right now is to change the face of firearms training. I didn't know back then exactly what that would mean. And it it sounded great, but five years down the road in hindsight, looking at where the industry was and looking at where we are trying to take it, it's it's really encouraging because again, this as Jody mentioned, this industry, the this safer living space, um, used to be dominated by one side of a political aisle. And it's no longer the case at all. So you can't teach the same classes that you could teach back then. You can't say the same things that you could say back then. And understanding where your students are coming from and and the fact that there's a uh multitude of different backgrounds in your classroom, you now have the opportunity to bring people together over common interests, which is to protect the people that matter most to them. So change in the face of firearms training starts at the instructor level. It starts where instructors can stand in front of a group of people and not make anyone feel isolated, make everyone feel as though what they have in their life, the people that they have are worth protecting. And that's that's what's really exciting about what we've been able to do.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah, it it is. I remember being told at one point we first started this, and we were actually in in Houston at that event, and we were told, man, it's gonna take you five to six years to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. And we did it in six months. Uh, six months after that training, we were able to have classes nationwide. Uh, we were in 40 plus states in person, and it was absolutely amazing to see what everybody kind of pulled together uh and and did right with with our company. And I guess y'all introduced yourselves, but I didn't introduce myself, so everybody's like, who's this guy in the red shirt uh with the cool lion in the background? And my name is Jody Piku. Uh in 2018, uh my brother Chris and a couple of his business partners uh decided to go out onto the journey of conceal carry training, and uh they're very much uh online marketing uh geniuses, is what I would say, and uh asked me to come on board and help them build out some in-person training across the country. And so in 2018, uh I went on that journey starting in Florida, uh, kind of got some things working in Florida, and once they were working, it was kind of like, hey, where else can we do this? And then we started in Louisiana, uh, where we're based at, and then and then uh we're able to hire an amazing group of uh instructors to come on board with us, and we were able to build out a national uh training company. Uh, like I said, in six months we were we were in just about every state that you could uh run in-person or online classes for. And so it's been an exciting, fun ride. There's been a lot of ups and downs throughout this process, but I think all of us have learned a lot, and truly to see our instructors that we have with us and and to go look at our reviews that were what, like a 4.8, 4.9 on Site Jabber right now. Yeah, 4.8, right? It's it's yeah, it's it's just like you know, to really sit back and think, man, how do you manage to run this many classes with this many people with review with reviews this good? And it really goes to our instructors that we have in the field just being absolutely amazing at what they do. Again, I think we have a great group who all of us have taken a lot of time with. We've been out to their classes, we've seen them, uh, we've helped them, you know, in certain ways, they've helped us in certain ways. And so it's been a really good kind of uh back and forth with all of our instructors, but they really truly care more about the people than they do the firearm. And that's what I love the most. You can care about a gun, that's great, but if you don't care about the people sitting in front of you, then your message that you're trying to give them, it doesn't sink in. So that's been really good. Uh, some of what our podcast will not be, uh, again, it's not a political commentary show. Uh, this is no replacement for real life training. I think in-person training is very important. I think in today's world there are online resources out there that are great steps for training. Concealed Coalition has a university that has tons of content on it, it's all based on the adult learning theory, so it's very easy to uh watch two to three minute videos with a uh test after each video, which helps you recall the information that you just watched. I love to tell people in class, um, you know, YouTube doesn't count. And of course it's a joke is there there's great content on YouTube. There's great content, I think there's great training on YouTube. But my point in that is that we go through and we watch a really cool video that's 30 minutes long, and when we leave that video and someone says, Man, what did you learn? And you say, I don't know, dude, but that was a really cool video. That's not really training. If you can't recall it and you can't implement it, then I wouldn't really consider that training. And so finding the correct resources that are gonna give you the right information is very important.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

But this podcast does not count as training. Um no judgment.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

This is a no judgment podcast. I think all three of us have seen a lot of new gun owners come through over the past few years, and they've been a little nervous to maybe ask some questions, but it's so important that they do ask them. And it's not you're asking a question so we can embarrass you. I think that there's just so many, so much misinformation, number one, that's thrown around the gun industry, and that's because my great-great-grandpa told my grandpa something, or great-grandpa that told my grandpa something, that told my dad something that told me, and truth be told, 2025 is a different world than 1900, and we have to adapt to that again. There's no change in safety, but let's just say it, right? How many times have you been in a class and somebody said you shoot them outside, drag them inside?

SPEAKER_02 17:05

I was about to come on, how long thankfully, not as often as it used to.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

How long has that been going around? Like if people really say like, hey, this person or this person or my uncle or my dad, or somebody said, if I shoot them outside on my porch to drag them inside. And it's it's like, do you understand why they said and I don't know why they said it, they just tell me to do that. And so that right there is the dangerous conversations that are going around in our industry that people have said and have said and have said.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Here's another I got another one for you.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Bring it.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

I got another one for you that really drives me nuts is the truck gun. What's your favorite truck gun? And I'm just like, yeah, the one that's on my waistband, the one that's on my waistline. And that can be another conversation for another show, but it's it's all of these things like Jody was talking about that exist that are very, I wouldn't say old ways of thinking. It's actually dangerous. You know, we cover in class. Well, if you have to run back to a vehicle and secure a gun to protect yourself, well, you've you've now lost one of the five key elements of self-defense, which is imminence. You left, right? And so there's all of these things that exist, and I think it's just people trying to sell backpacks that are that are trying to talk people into getting truck guns. But hey, you know, that that is what it is. But um, I did want to drop too, we're gonna back up just a little bit. You know, Jody was talking about reviews earlier, and I didn't want to stop him, but it is really cool too. He talked about Site Jabber. You know, feel free to go out on Google, and if you've taken a class with us, leave a review there too. There's well over 5,000 reviews on Google right now and a 4.9 average rating, which I've always thought was really cool too. And we thank those folks for coming in and leaving those because as we all know, what are people more likely to do in this day and age? They're more likely to hop on the internet and leave a bad review so that that many people have been willing to go out there and express their excitement and their their their um good experiences with us. That's that's just really awesome to see. So we appreciate all of y'all for doing that.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah, it is it is great to see all that because bad reviews are easy. Good reviews take time and and intentional thought behind going to do it, and so we we really do appreciate all of those. Some of the things that you can expect on this podcast, number one is gonna be practical tips, uh, just for everyday people, not just gun people. Uh, this is not a tactical show. Said that earlier. We're gonna be very practical in our approach, the tips that we give. Um, the legal basics explained in what I'll say is human language. I apologize to any attorneys that are listening to this, but not all of us speak attorney, not all of us can read. Attorney, and we definitely can't write attorney. And so the legal basics that we're going to give are exactly that basics. Situational awareness lessons, which I think are very, very important. I think a lot of things can be avoided with just a little bit of practical situational awareness. Real questions submitted by listeners. Trust me, we have a list of those already coming in through our other platforms, but we want to know on these videos right here. Ask your questions and we're going to grab a few. We're going to try and answer a few questions that come in. We're going to bring in our instructors from across the country. These are going to be in different states from California to New York, Maryland, Illinois. I mean, all the states where we have our instructors, we're going to bring them on. We're going to talk about state-specific issues that are going on, uh, state-specific trainings, different types of trainings. Uh, we can even connect you if you're looking for any kind of in-person training outside of concealed carry classes. Be happy to connect you with some of our instructors out in the field. Uh, funny stories, these are probably my favorite. Uh, we've we've we've got a book of them of funny stories that have happened uh either in class or on the range uh or on the way traveling to classes. Uh just a little sneak peek. I'll tell you one of my best. I was teaching a class in Colorado. I've been in front of the class for three hours teaching, and finally this person on the front row uh writes in their concealed coalition book that everybody gets in class, and it just simply said your zipper. And I had taught for three hours, and nobody said anything about my zipper being down on my pants, and they waited until the end of class to tell me about it, and so I acknowledged it and stopped in class and just zipped the whole zipper up, and everybody started dying laughing, like, oh, he finally found out, and so that was uh that was really fun. Uh but we're gonna have updates on laws. Laws are changing every day, uh, potentially in states, reciprocity and things like that. Uh, and then it's family focused content. So I'm a I'm a father of five. Matt Matt's got young ones running around. Yates is gonna be working on it pretty soon.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Um I pretend to be a dad sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

He he pretends to be a bad uh dad. Um but each episode we're gonna feature new questions. So questions sent in by you, questions sent in from students in class, because I do believe when one person asks a question, a lot of times other people may have the same question, they're just not asking it. Um, questions about carry laws, training, gear, situational awareness, home defense, uh what class to take first. That's a whole episode that we have planned as far as where should I start my journey, what's the best place to start uh my journey for learning what it takes to protect what matters most, uh, or even you know, in the gun space. And uh a little light humor. We're gonna try and bring a little light humor uh onto the show as well. So, again, this is our first episode. We're gonna we're gonna try and post these uh pretty often on our uh YouTube channel here. You can check out all of our classes at concealcoalition.com. We've got a zip code lander on there that's that's pretty sweet. You type in your zip code and it's gonna bring up all the classes that are in your area. We have uh opportunity in some states that allow you to take classes online instead of actually showing up and sitting in a classroom for four to eight hours. You can actually take that classroom portion online and then show up for a live fire, uh, which we have all over the country in those states with instructors show up, do the fun part, which is the the shooting part with the instructor, uh, and they'll give you your certification on there as well. We have mul uh multi-state reciprocity certifications that we can give out. Uh, we've got a store, concealcoalition.com. At the bottom there, you'll see uh our store option. We've got some pretty sweet uh range bags, gun cleaning kits. We've got a range starter kit for those of you who are kind of just starting on your journey and go on there and range bag, everything, dude. And it's good stuff, right? It's great stuff. I have the first gun bag that we ever bought as a sample. I still have it with all of my range gear in it in my closet, and it's still put together. Um, there's a story that goes along with that bag later, but um we'll we'll cover that story later.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

But yeah, to your point, I I got a gun bag when I went to Houston about five, well, almost exactly five years ago now. And uh I I use it for everything. I've used it for uh going camping, going hiking, taking work trips, carrying it on the plane, um, going to the range, all of it. And it's still kicking and it's still it's still working just fine. Um, so I mean they they last as far as it's a hundred percent worth the investment.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Yeah, yeah, my mine's still holding up that mine's still holding up that I received when I first came on, too. I mean, it's it's a good bag. A lot of a lot of places stuff stuff all your necessities in, a lot of pockets.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah, a lot of pockets. It can hold uh quite a few farms if you're going to the range. It's um, you know, and we've got uh, like I said, the whole starter kit. It's got the the safety glasses, hearing protection, gun cleaning, mat, gun cleaning kit, things like that. We're continually adding to the store. We actually just added a uh easy loader because one of the biggest things uh when you go to the range, anytime you're you're you're trying to fill a magazine, it's annoying. All right, my thumbs are are raw, and so it took a lot of filling magazines to get my thumbs like that. But man, the easy loaders are a great thing to have uh with you. So go check out our range pro kit on the concealed coalition store. Uh to wrap up, you know, just to just to let you know how um how lighthearted this podcast is gonna be. Uh, I wanted to tell just a very quick example of a student who came into the class, uh, my last class that I taught, just in Wichita, Kansas. Uh, they bought a holster on Amazon, and they came in and the packaging was still on the holster, and when they put it on, they put it on upside down. And in that moment, right, we can laugh at that, but it wasn't it wasn't a laughing moment for us. It's a teaching moment. And we were able to educate the person on the holster that they purchased, the goods, the bads about it, how to properly wear it. Uh, so it's very, very basic. When I say basic, I mean from I just bought my first holster, I just bought my first firearm. I've never been to the range. I mean, I would I would probably say 30 to 40 percent of the students that I've personally been through who uh have just bought a firearm. It was their first time shooting it at the range at the live fire qualification, which I absolutely love to be able to help somebody out from the start of their journey because I it's it's frustrating when people come into class and they've they've gone to other classes before, and those instructors maybe have just kind of feared, you know, instilled the fear in them of carrying the firearm and just letting people know it's okay as long as it's safe, and we're gonna help you walk through that journey. So as we wrap this up again, our sponsor for this is Kangaroo Carry Holsters. Go check them out. They got some new inventory coming in, kangaroo Carry.com. They're gonna have uh their new shoulder holster, which is actually convertible to wear as a belly band as well. They've been in business since 1996 making holsters that are 100% made right here in the USA. Uh, and so thank you guys for watching the first episode. Um, make sure you stay safe, stay trained, and as always, protect what matters most.