Anyway he was showing me his tactical gear (plate carrier/body armor, battle belt, mag pouches, holster etc) he even has a tactical ballistic helmet and NVG. He was asking if I had body armor for me and mom. I do have an old kevlar vest I had when I was in LE but that's about it.
After inventorying my ammo and mags I decided I needed some more mag pouches to hold AR mags so I was looking around on line and ran across Tacticon Armory who was having a 66% off spring clearance sale. I picked up a couple mag pouches pretty cheap. They seemed to be pretty decent quality when I got them so I went back and noticed that had some of their plate carriers for 66% off as well. I ordered one and an equipment belt and received them this week. I did not order the plates, just the carrier.
Overall they seem to be pretty good quality. The carrier is by no means top of the line and with 2/3rds off it was very reasonably priced as was the belt.
So the idea is if SHTF you can just slip the carrier over your clothes and be protected, not to mention having mags and other gear attached. Still trying to decide what, if any, ballistic plates to get.
Seems like a good idea until you realize I've been prepping since Carter was elected president and the SHTF has not happened yet. Other than using my generator 2 or 3 times in short term power outages we've never been attacked by zombies, mutants, commies, looters, space aliens, cannibals and any combinations of those.
So I feel a little silly gearing up but I guess I can rationalize it in that people use these as weight vests for training. I'm back in the gym doing cardio and lifting weights. I've also starting jogging (first time in 30 years) a little bit on the treadmill now that I have two good (metal) knees. When the weather gets nicer I'll start walking and perhaps jogging outside, maybe with my new weight vest.
Alas, the struggle for relevance is real.