Operator starter kit

Hey! You! Are you interested in taking tactical shooting classes but want to make sure you look the part? Luckily, the team here at Gun Nuts has invested entire minutes into creating this humorous post that is nothing more than thinly veiled Amazon product placement! However, if you follow our handy guide to looking like an operator, you’ll be ready to take your first Tactical Response class and look like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t!

Step 1: Get yourself a hat. Not just any hat, but it has to be a subdued color like black or brown with an American flag on it.

Now you’ll be able to keep the sun out of your eyes while also looking like you’re getting ready to deploy on a contract to Afghanistan.

Step 2: Shirts! Shirts are super important. Your choices here are simple: skin tight Under Armour or tactical polos. That’s it.

The trick is to buy several of the exact same color so it looks like you’re wearing the same shirt every single day. That’s the best way to blend it to the background and be the ultimate gray man. Bonus points if you buy the UA compression shirt and you’re the sort of body type that has no business wearing that.

Step 3: PANTS. Tactical. Cargo. Pants. More pockets is more better. You should definitely avoid things like the 5.11 Ridgeline pants because those aren’t tactical enough and just look like regular khakis. No son, you need to go FULL TACTICAL.

Once you get the pants, you need to stuff the pockets with every piece of crap imaginable, like flashlights, tourniquets, pressure bandages, .308 magazines (even if you don’t own a .308), spare pistol magazines, and more pockets inside your pockets. POCKETCEPTION

Step 4: BELT! Now you’re got all that stuff in your pockets, but your damn pants are falling off. You need a belt that’s strong enough to suspend a pickup from, in case it needs to pull double duty as an emergency rappelling line!

If you’re not rigging, you’re wrong.

Step 5: Boots! Remember, this is for a tactical class, so none of those Salmon or whatever special shoes that those dirty, dirty gamers wear. Just because they give you excellent traction in variable footing conditions doesn’t mean they’re TACTICAL enough for us! You need boots! WARRIOR BOOTS!

And nothing says “warrior” better than boots by Nike, a company with a storied tradition of making athletic shoes using child labor in the same 3rd World Countries you could have invaded if you’d actually enlisted!

Step 6: BUY ALL THE TACTICAL THINGS. At the minimum you’re going to need a plate carrier, a drop leg holster, a shemagh, and some hard knuckle gloves.


That should cover it. You might need some other stuff like ammo, ear protection, or eye protection, but that can wait until after you’ve got all the gucci gear so you can look cool. Sure, you’re going to have to eat nothing but ramen and cheap hot dogs for the next month because you blew all your money on tactical stuff, and you can’t actually afford to attend the class now, but who cares? Your new YouTube channel is going to be badass!

5 Comments

  1. Great stuff Caleb. This is what makes GunNuts awesome. This blog operates dynamically critical in blogging incidents with strategically tactical situational awereness, being aware…of what…I have no idea. Operators gonna operate and Costa’s gonna Costa!

  2. I’m signed up for a class in march. I had better dynamically reevaluate my priority matrix. I did not budget for a plate carrier. Thanks Gun Nuts Media!

  3. Awww, man! I just can’t be tacit-cool! I can’t stand a beard, so I shave every day. I actually have hair, even at 65. A lot of it is white, so I would stand out from the crowd and be a bullet magnet. Velcro on my sleeves snags everything in sight and makes that ripping sound, making me a bullet magnet. I have a bone spur on my ankle, so I can’t wear those high cool boots. I am 6’3″, so I guess that means I’m a slow speed, high drag elevator.

  4. Caleb,

    I’ve even seen the full tac get-up even at club level family steel matches. I get it. Please, beat this horse to death or let it come up for air and gallop off.

    Since we’re in “chimps ‘n feces” mode, you have to understand that anyone’s sacred cow can be gored. No matter your hobby, pursuit or pastime, there’s more than enough clownage to go around. I was at my local car dealership scheduling some service. As I was leaving, I noticed a really sick late model black-on-black Roush equipped 600+ hp Mustang in the main showroom. It had “Rickey and Rhonda Racer” written all over it. Strictly Walter Mitty stuff. Now one could argue that it still has practical value as transportation, the same as hats are hats, pants are pants and boots are boots (The plate carrier is more than offset by the 60K+ price tag of the car). None of it’s necessary but we want it don’t we. That’s the thing about clownage; It’s an equal opportunity affliction. How else could you sell fifty thousand dollar bass boats?

    Even sillier is believing that one is above and beyond it all. Unless the goal is “Clownage = Clickage”.

Comments are closed.