::sigh::

This again.

I will once more state unequivocally:

1) TNVC does not and has never had any editorial control nor any authority to lock, block, ban, or delete any threads or users on this forum.

2) We did not ask, bring to anyone's attention, or otherwise have any involvement in the locking of the airsoft laser thread. I was actually following that thread periodically myself, and was as surprised as anyone else to see that it had been locked, and so was everyone else who has any involvement on this forum, all of whom I talked to this morning.

There's a certain number of you that are not going to believe me no matter what I say, I have no control over that.

Some of you may have been around long enough to remember before civilian use and ownership was the "tactical cool kid" thing to do, and was met with derision and confusion, even within the 2A community.

TNVC has always advocated to make the widest selection of the highest quality night vision products and the closest capabilities to those used by the most elite warfighters available to the widest range of customers--up to and including the civilian market.

We spearheaded the introduction of commercially available IR aiming lasers--are they the best available products of their class now, in 2023? No, but a decade ago there was nothing.

We spent years convincing L3 to approve their high performance BNVD family (AN/PVS-31A, BNVD-1531) for consumer sales, not to mention the release of the GPNVG which required DoD approval to sell commercially. Could you get these things on the "gray market," if you "knew a guy who knew a guy" prior? Sure. But we put in the legwork to ensure that we weren't selling you an "under the table" system, but one that had the full support, warranty, and transparency direct from the manufacturer.

We worked with Safran, a multi-billion Euro French aerospace company and parent company of Optics1 that does not even remotely understand the concept of U.S. commercial market to remove government restrictions on the ECOTI.

We brought MIL-SPEC SuperGain tubes to the market last year for the first time in any substantive quantity--which re-introduced a MAX FOM performance spec to TNVC's product line for the first time in years, which, we don't love, but the MAX FOM spec is a direct result of the nature of customers who are currently, actively in the process of fielding tubes above that spec threshold and tubes above that threshold are reserved until that fielding is complete.

That's just a few examples. Many of you may have noticed that I no longer spend as much time on ARFCOM as I used to. A good part of my day is spent working with, negotiating with, and convincing manufacturers to give the commercial market access to products on the 1-2, 3-5, and even 5-10 year DoD planning horizons, that the commercial market is a viable revenue source, that it's an avenue for test and evaluation and/or to capitalize on R&D ahead of government acquisition timelines, that commercial market penetration can influence DoD procurement. Needless to say, I don't do this for the approval of people on the internet. I do it, one, because I think the tech is cool as shit, as most of you do, and two, because I firmly believe, I know that Vic and everyone else at TNVC firmly believes, that U.S. civilians should have access to as much of the same capabilities as the government as humanly possible.

Beyond that, being blunt?

As many of you have pointed out, we can't sell NGALs, or 45 mW ATPIALs to everyone. Do I have my personal opinions about Chinese knock-offs and the wisdom of doing beta-testing and environmental testing in the continental U.S. for the PLA? Sure do.

But from a market standpoint? No, I don't and TNVC doesn't consider SomoGear or InvisibleSight or G&P Armory or FMA or whomever to be in the same market we are in. TNVC's name, reputation, and identity is based on providing the highest quality equipment direct from the manufacturer. You either want that or you don't. There are already many products out there on the commercial market that we have opted not to carry, and if it was about profit alone, we would almost certainly carry. We don't worry about the folks that buy the products that we choose not to carry, and we don't worry about folks that choose to buy knock-off lasers. Maybe there are other dealers that care. Other than hoping that consistent quality, education, and service will eventually lead some of those customers to our [virtual] door, we don't.

I'm responding here because once more, our name is being impugned by people who imagine that we are involved in some sort of grand conspiracy to keep equipment and capabilities out of people's hands. This thread has been ongoing for over six months. The one that got locked was almost a year and a half old. We may not be on ARFCOM as often as we've been in the past but you really think that if we were going to try to get the discussion "shut down" we would have waited this long?

Also, "manning up to FDA?"

Again, I'd say it's misguided to think that we haven't tried and don't continue to try to influence the situation. I would love to sell NGALs and "FP" ATPIALs to every member of this board, TNVC would not only make money hand-over-fist, but it would probably drive the market price down for everyone, do y'all really believe that agencies pay $5-6,000 for an NGAL? You buy that on the gray market, let me tell you, you're paying a lot in "tax" to grease palms and to take advantage of scarcity. But hey, that's supply and demand. When the PVS-31A "dropped" on the commercial market, the "market price" went from the $18K range for an unwarrantied, unserviceable system without spec sheets to $13.7K retail overnight, now with an extended warranty, a fully supported repair and spares program with L3Harris certified technicians, and spec sheets and even hand select options.

"Man up?" TNVC is a family-owned American company, our employees have families, many have served in various capacities or are still serving, have clearances, car payments, house payments, the whole shebang. We hate the FDA regs more than you do and have done and are doing everything we can to get around them. But we--I, am not going to risk those people and their livelihoods and families to score some points on Reddit so a stranger can feel good about owning a "FP" NGAL.

Take it for what you will, I'm sure the pot shots will continue.

~Augee

We're all human and I already admitted to having my own personal opinions on the matter.

Beyond that, I certainly won't claim that myself or TNVC representatives have always only been nothing but 100% professional on the forum, once again, we all sometimes let our frustrations and emotions get the better of us and sometimes we fall down. It's happened before, and I'm sure it'll happen again, but I'd like to think we try to keep our overall contributions in the net positive while trying to be as professional as possible.

~Augee

Sorry, gonna have to disagree here...ESPECIALLY the CADEX thread!! I was the 2nd to post from the OP.  I know the owners aof CADEX and was using their gear long before anyone else even knew about them here when they designed a few pieces of kit for TNVC. You may need to reread what I said.

OUT

Apparently my comment about “pot shots” is now what’s drawing ire and you know what? Maybe that was my frustration, so I’ll retract it.

You may not like the attitudes or personalities of those associated with TNVC on the forum. That’s fine. Personally I think there’s a difference between not liking particular individuals or even companies, and accusing a company of unfair business practices …while tacitly supporting unfair business practices (i.e., IP theft). You may not agree.

The thread that got locked was about IR lasers. This thread is about IR lasers. From a business standpoint, yes. We do care a little bit more about mounts that are freely and widely available from reputable and legitimate sources including ourselves, being knocked off and promoted to the enthusiast community. A community, by the way, that we all are and were a part of. We have “TNVC” as/in our usernames because that too is site policy, one of the most sacred ones, that we have to identify ourselves if there is even remotely a possibility that we might have a business interest in it as well. However we have no “forum procedure” or “official forum stances,” it’s not anyone’s job to post or participate on ARFCOM nor is it a formal “marketing function” in any way other than the press releases / announcements that are posted in our Industry Forum and / or promoted as Site News.

Regardless, I’ll reiterate once again:

While we may have our opinions both personal and organizational, and can bring things to the site staff’s attention, just like anyone else can we do not have any say in creating or enforcing the CoC beyond what any other member has. You may feel that the way some people express their opinions or being contacted and asked if you would delete a thread that either violated or was coming very close to violating the CoC (which you said you did voluntarily) is inappropriate and / or in poor taste, but again, that is not the same thing as wielding some sort of secret censorship power.

~Augee

Site staff has made their stance VERY clear in the past so please quit pretending this is a surprise when it happens and using the opportunity to blame TNVC for it.

This is exactly what I warned Diz about in a thread he made not long about a knock off Wilcox mount. This right here proves my point exactly.

Yes, the site admin’s stance on these products is in alignment with TNVC's thoughts on these products but so what?! There are a lot of people who share the same view on knock off products.

The idea that we have “motive” is ridiculous. Motive for what!?

These low cost devices are not a competitor to us. TNVC is not focused in that market segment. The type of customer who buys an expensive American laser such as the MAWL or RAID Xe is going to buy it regardless of these threads.

You know who is most affected are the enterprising small American companies who are indeed trying to make lower cost lasers.

I’m sure some folks will keep posting these threads as bait threads to create drama.

Take up your issue with the site staff. Regardless of what you believe we did or didn’t do, this isn’t our website.

Perpetuating rumors and making accusations against TNVC based on things we’ve said on the forum is not proof that we are responsible.

Speaking for myself, yes, I have expressed my opinion about knockoff products. Not that it matters but FYSA I have held anti-counterfeit opinions before joining TNVC.

Consider this - does it not make sense that TNVC staff would advocate on this forum for companies that they distribute for who are directly affected by counterfeit or IP theft?

Perhaps our personal emotions about this bleeds over when we do. Myself, I’ll apologize for that if I came across like a dick but no f’n way am I going to apologize for something that I didn’t do.

I'm not going to respond to everything that's been brought up in the last few replies here, not because I can't, not because I don't want to, but because this thread has already gone far astray and the last thing I want to see happen is for the mods or staff to again, take notice, decide that this thread has gone off course, and then lock it, which will inevitably lead to us once again being blamed for censoring dissent.

That being said, I'm not sure why it's being brought up that we are a Main Site Sponsor as if that's some sort of "gotcha"--that little identifier is there because we're required to identify ourselves. We've never claimed that the Site Staff may not be inclined to act to protect our interests or even ask for our opinions or advice and certain topics, granted, this is not usually for things like forum moderation or code of conduct issues--it's usually for things like advertising and outreach, but at the end of the day, we're their customers same as many of you are ours, and good businesses take care of their customers, but the customers don't make decisions about the business's policy. Could we pull our ad dollars and go elsewhere? Sure, and there is already a line formed of businesses ready to cut a check the moment ARFCOM says there's an opening for one of the four main site sponsorships.  

Beyond that, I think the analogy @Diz made is actually rather apt:

"the gods of arfcom didn't hear your cries, and decide to intervene."

You can cry and plead and pray to the gods or God all you want, but you can't make them do anything. Nor can we write the commandments (CoC) nor can we make anyone else violate them.

We can complain about and report CoC violations if we see them same as anyone else can--like I know some of you (royal "you," not talking about anyone specific) have about us, which I know, because I've gotten the occasional stern talking too and hand slap and we've had our own share of temp-locks over it.

However, no one here asked for the airsoft laser thread to be shut down. Is it possible that Site Staff saw our comment--from over two weeks before the thread got locked, reviewed the thread and decided it violated the CoC and shut it down? Sure is.

Finally, Diz, I'm glad you brought up the SnipersHide thing.

The guy who accused us of getting him shut down because he was hacking Wilcox RAPTARs (which we did not have anything to do with) soon thereafter revealed himself to be a special sort of unhinged and went on to have an epic meltdown all on his own about how the "NV establishment" was out to get him, and ended up getting himself banned as well, after which the site owner apologized to us and asked us to return (we haven't--uploading his public post as an image to avoid a CoC violation myself by linking to another discussion site):  



But few notice and remember that--all they remember is the stink of the accusation and the whiff of scandal and impropriety that lingers, which is sometimes why we take accusations, sometimes bordering on slanderous and libelous very seriously and can even get pretty ticked off about it, causing us to respond strongly, maybe sometimes too strongly to it.

I will close with this:

Again, I'm sure that many of you have further responses you could add or will have feelings about what I just posted. I don't need to have the last word, but I am asking that you try to make it brief and quickly return to the topic at hand and keep this thread on topic to keep it from being locked as well--I am going to try to avoid posting in this thread again. My PMs and e-mail are always open as well, or if you absolutely must, start a new thread so that this one doesn't get locked.

I will be requesting a meeting with the Site Staff and owners next week to discuss the interpretations of the CoC and see if there is a way to stay within those bounds without too much stifling of the free and open exchange of information. I have some ideas of my own.

In the meantime, to those of you who are or who are celebrating with your own, Happy Father's Day, and please try to enjoy what remains of your weekends.

~Augee