- [Announcer] "Defense News" is proudly sponsored
by Navy Federal Credit Union.
If you're a member of our nation's Armed Forces,
the Department of Defense, or if your family is,
we'd be proud to serve you, too.
On this episode of "Defense News Weekly,"
more from our recent trip to the MCON Conference
in Las Vegas.
First, we visit with a former UFC fighter
to hear about our involvement with We Defy,
an organization seeking to help veterans
find community through jiujitsu.
Plus, we hear from a company that began
in aerospace engineering and used those skills
to build precision firearms.
These aren't the rifles you qualified with in boot.
Finally, how has revenue from arms makers fared recently?
A new report looks at how the wars in Ukraine and Gaza
have impacted the defense industry.
We've got those stories and a lot more on tap,
so join us for the latest in news and analysis
from the Pentagon to the platoon
here on "Defense News Weekly."
(upbeat percussive music)
Welcome back to "Defense News Weekly."
Michelle Waterson-Gomez has had a long
and successful career in the ring,
competing at the highest levels of the UFC.
As a military spouse, she understands the importance
of community that many veterans find through martial arts.
At the recent MCON Conference,
Michelle spoke to us about her work with We Defy,
an organization that seeks to help veterans find support
through scholarships to join jujitsu schools.
Take a look.
(screen whooshing) (bright music)
- My name is Michelle Waterson-Gomez,
and I am here today at MCON,
and I will be teaching a seminar on the mats
at the We Defy station. (crowd applauding)
Have a wipe out!
(crowd laughing)
- [Attendee] I want to try!
- So the seminar today is gonna be a quick seminar.
We only have about an hour and a half,
so we're gonna just start with the basics.
Every fight starts standing,
so we're gonna start the fight standing,
and kind of teach you how to get in
on a good single-leg take down,
so a little bit of wrestling.
And then once we hit the mats,
we're gonna kind of show you what we're gonna do,
what are some different submissions that we can attack
once we hit the mats from that take-down?
(attendee speaking faintly) (bright music continues)
I've been doing martial arts for as long as I can remember,
since I was about 10 years old.
And then when I got old enough, I started fighting,
so I fought professionally for over 18 years.
I had my black belt in American Freestyle Karate.
I also have my black belt in Brazilian jiujitsu,
and I just absolutely love all things martial arts
because of what it's done for me in my life.
What brought me here is linking up
with a company called We Defy,
which is a nonprofit organization
that I'm really passionate about.
I am a military spouse,
I come from a military family,
and I really love and support our military
who serve now and who are veterans.
And I believe that there's a very, very strong correlation
between people in the military
and people who do martial arts,
because it's very singular focused, singular mindset,
and we bond through doing hard things.
And so what We Defy does is get veterans on the mats,
and I think it's a beautiful thing,
because a lot of times, veterans kind of lose their way
when they step away from the military.
They lose their brotherhood, they lose the structure.
They lose the comradery that they felt,
the discipline that they felt,
and in doing jiujitsu, you will find all of those things.
So anytime I get the chance to kind of share my love
and my passion with the rest of the world,
I'm jumping to the opportunity.
So what We Defy does is they sponsor veterans
to be sponsored athletes at jujitsu schools
in their community.
And so they have to vet the jujitsu school,
make sure that it's a legitimate school,
but it really does kind of give them a space
to lean into themselves,
to give them something to look forward to every day,
a community that they can grow with,
go and kind of just be themselves.
If you've ever been on the mats in jiujitsu,
you understand that you don't have to explain yourself
to anybody.
Nobody's gonna treat you any differently,
and that's what a lot of these veterans want.
They just wanted to be treated like a normal person,
to come in, they wanna get hard work in,
and they wanna sweat,
they wanna experience some type of adversity
that's gonna make them grow,
and they wanna do it with people
that they love and care about.
We Defy sponsors a athlete for an entire year.
They pay their tuition on a monthly basis,
they give them uniform,
and give them the head start that they need
on their jujitsu journey.
So if you're a veteran interested in receiving
a scholarship from We Defy,
and starting your jujitsu journey,
go to the We Defy website, fill out the application,
and if you get that scholarship,
they'll be able to link you up with a affiliate school
in your community.
(screen whooshing)
- [Announcer] When we come back, we visit MCON's Range Day
to talk firearm safety, see a new modular handgun,
and discover what happens when a group
of aerospace engineers turn their talents
to building precision rifles.
Stay tuned.
(screen whooshing)
(upbeat percussive music)
(screen whooshing)
- [Announcer] Welcome back to "Defense News Weekly."
MCON's Range Day gives a wide array of vendors
an opportunity to connect with the veteran community.
This year, the organization Pause to Protect was on hand
to bring awareness to the importance
of safe firearm storage.
Service members often need to secure
their personal firearms offsite,
whether it be for a long deployment, PCS,
or during a mental health struggle.
That's where Pause to Protect steps in.
Check it out.
(screen whooshing)
- Hey, I'm Matt Wetenkamp (gun popping)
here at MCON 2025 Range Day,
and I'm here representing Pause to Protect.
Pause to Protect is a program,
it's funded by the Department of Defense
Suicide Prevention Office,
and we work with firearm businesses
around military installations around the country.
We provide them with funding and logistical support
so that they can provide secure out-of-home storage options
for active-duty military and their families in the area.
They can use it for kind of whatever works
for their business in their community,
anything from using (gun popping)
the funding to install locker systems within their facility
so people can come in and bring their firearms in,
and store them in the lockers there.
Some places, we'll use it to buy lock boxes
and safes in bulk, (gun popping)
and hand those out for free to anybody who needs them.
They can use it to cover their costs,
to provide free gunsmithing services with a 30-day hold,
to cover their costs (gun popping)
for taking the firearms onto their books
and storing 'em with their inventory.
So kind of whatever works for the different businesses,
we'll support them with whatever they want to do.
So having access to the most lethal means
in that moment of crisis has a lot to do
with what we see with the suicide number.
So typically, what we see with suicide,
it's a very impulsive act.
It's an impulsive act in a moment of crisis,
you know, the worst day of someone's life,
and having access to that tool
that is lethal (gun popping)
90-plus percent of the time rather than anything else
has a lot to do with those suicide numbers.
So in that moment of crisis,
if you have a place that you can take your gun,
to get it out of the home temporarily,
and it could be for any reason.
Obviously, it's funded by the Suicide Prevention Office,
so suicide prevention is our focus,
but it could be for anything.
It could be someone's going on deployment, they're moving,
they've got contractors and construction
going on at their home.
So if anybody ever needs to get guns out of the house
temporarily for any reason,
they can take them to one of these businesses
and store their guns there.
So what we're doing today, (guns popping)
we've got a stop box mounted to the table out there,
and we're timing folks,
and we'll see how long it takes them
to get the box open, (guns popping)
get the magazine inserted, and get rounds on target.
So two rounds (gun popping)
on two separate targets, so a total of four rounds.
How long does it take you to get the box open,
magazine inserted, and four rounds on target?
And the fastest time today is gonna win a free gun.
(gun popping)
The most common points of pushback that I will get
when talking about why you should keep your guns locked up
and secured at all times is if it's, you know,
they'll say, you know, "If it's locked up in a safe
or in a locked box,
then I don't have immediate access to it in an emergency.
There's a home break in, I need the access to that gun,
and I want access to it immediately."
And so what we're trying to demonstrate here today
is that you can access it quickly.
There's a lot of great options out there on the market,
from biometric stuff to something
like we're using today, (gun popping)
a stop box that uses no electronics whatsoever.
You can still access it extremely quickly.
Some of the times we're seeing today,
(gun popping) under five seconds
to open the box, magazine inserted,
and get four rounds down range.
If you have any questions about Pause to Protect
or what we're doing,
go to our website, pausetoprotect.org,
O-R-G. (gun popping)
Contact info there, resources, whatever you need.
(screen whooshing)
- [Announcer] Up next, Stellar Arms started out
as a group of aerospace engineers
with a passion for firearms.
See what happens when you bring that level of expertise
to milling precision AR rifles.
(screen whooshing)
- How you guys doing?
Scott Melton with Stellar Arms.
We're out here at MCON 2025's Range Day.
We're out here showcasing our products.
Right here with me today,
I'm holding our Specialist, which is a 13.9 AR.
We're a manufacturer, small manufacturer,
out of Lincoln, Nebraska.
Our roots and our start of our company
was born in aerospace,
building parts for SpaceX, (gun popping)
NASA,
we do contracts for, like, Department of Nuclear Energy,
stuff like that.
(gun popping) doing a lot of one-off,
really special parts.
And so we have a passion for firearms,
so about 15 years ago, (gun popping)
we started doing some custom ones,
and over those 15 years, we've evolved,
and now, we've gotten to a point
where we're actually launching some lines
and a lot of special releases.
You know, one of the things about us
is coming out of that aerospace roots, you know,
we build it like, you know, how an airplane built,
so we've gotten really tight tolerances.
Every single rifle is built by one armer.
That means it gets all the parts or the machining,
you know, everything gets anodized, coated,
whatever that may be,
and one armer puts this together,
puts it together from start to finish,
checks all the systems, function checks,
and does test firing on it.
So a lot of passion and pride goes into building these,
so we're excited to be out here
and sharing this with the MCON family.
With the tight tolerances that we're using,
our same kind of aerospace standards, you know,
the mate between the upper (gun popping)
and lower is really important for accuracy
and the functionality of the weapon.
So with all that made really tight,
it makes sure that it's
a reliable weapon, (gun popping)
and and stays on target.
So with all of our rifles, we guarantee MOA accuracy,
which is a high-precision accuracy for an AR platform.
(group chattering faintly) We actually have
this very same gun, this 13.9,
have a guy that's shooting it out to 1,200 meters
and staying on target.
A couple of the other features we have with ours
that are unique and proprietary to us
is our charging handle,
and this is called our throttle charging handle,
so it has really oversized
levers on it, (levers clicking)
so it's really easy to grab,
especially if you have gloves on,
like you see here with the LPVO,
optics sometimes get in the way of general charging handles.
And then this one actually has in here
is a gas management system.
So when shooting suppressed,
you build a lot of back pressure up,
that gas can get blown back in your face.
So we have some porting within the charging handle
that takes that gas and blows it out past the chamber here,
so diverting all of that gas forward
and away from the shooter,
giving a much better shooting experience.
This particular one here is chambered in 5.56,
but we do make the same in 6mm ARC.
We have .300 Blackout models,
and, like, an eight-inch short, great for home defense.
Then we also have the .22 ARC and a couple
different calibers. (gun popping)
We also have, beyond what I'm holding here today,
the Specialist,
we have our technician, which is a 16-inch,
a little bit longer,
and then we also offer a 11.5,"
same style grip as this,
(gun popping)
with a pistol brace on it, so it is legally a pistol.
One of the other features we have on our Specialist
is the ambi bolt release.
So we have our ambi controls for our safety here,
and they are 45 degrees,
so as you can see, real quick, (switch clicking)
so you don't have that full 90 degrees all the way over,
so it is an ambi.
We also have our ambi bolt release.
So for us right-handed guys, as you go to load a mag
versus having to put your thumb up here and hand up here,
so the mag goes in, (parts clicking)
and we simply can release the bolt there.
(gun popping) So a lot quicker reloads,
keeping it on target,
less focused on other parts of the weapon.
(upbeat music)
Like I was saying, you know, we put a lot of pride
and passion in what we build, (gun popping)
and we back that up with a warranty.
So we have a limited lifetime warranty,
so anything goes on with this rifle,
you get a hold of us, send it back, we will fix it.
You wear a barrel out, we're gonna fix it.
So we put a lot of pride in what we do,
and we back what we say in that, so.
(screen whooshing)
- [Announcer] Archon Firearms is a fairly new name
in the industry.
At MCON, they showcase the new modular handgun.
(screen whooshing) (bright music)
(gun popping)
- Hi, I am Kyle Yoshimura,
head armer over at Archon Firearms, over here at MCON 2025,
showcasing the Archon Type B Gen 2 Pistol.
Archon firearms is located (gun popping)
here in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The new features with the Gen 2 are gonna be
the modular grip system,
and it also is optic cut ready,
RMS, RMR, and ACRO-ready slides.
The gun features our patented locking block system,
the AF-Speedlock.
This allows the barrel (guns popping)
to sit as low as possible in the gun.
Actually, the the lowest bore axis in the industry
as far as striker-fired handguns go.
And I'm happy to get the release of the Gen 2 here
to you guys for the civilian market,
and also aimed at, you know,
law enforcement military as well.
(guns popping)
So this is the Archon Type B Gen 2 here today.
They're all optic-ready, (guns popping faintly)
And this is also showcasing our modular grip assembly here.
As you can see, we've got three different sizes
we can go between here.
It's all user serviceable.
Just push out a couple pins,
and you can change it to the size
or texture that you would like.
So instead of producing three different grip sizes,
the idea was you can have all three
in one gun, essentially. (guns popping faintly)
So this is the gun and the full-size configuration here.
By adding or removing these sections here,
you can go between the subcompact size here,
the compact, and the full size.
The grip is user serviceable
by adding or removing (gun popping)
these sections here,
and just pushing out a roll pin,
you can configure it yourself.
The pistol comes with all (gun popping)
the pieces necessary to go between
these three different grip sizes
and one of each size magazine,
so the subcompact, compact, and full-size magazine.
(gun popping)
(screen whooshing)
- [Announcer] When we come back, the latest tips
from our expert on securing your financial future.
Don't go away.
(screen whooshing) (upbeat percussive music)
(screen whooshing)
- [Announcer] Welcome back.
On this episode of "Money Minute,"
Jeanette Mack from Navy Federal Credit Union is back
with her latest tips on how you can prepare
for a bright financial future.
(screen whooshing)
- As the year winds down, it's the perfect time
to give your business finances a fresh look, why?
Because a little year-end prep can make tax season smoother
and set you up for a winning start next year.
First, get those expense records in order.
Whether you use a filing system or accounting software,
organizing now saves you stress later,
especially at tax time,
and helps you spot where your money's really going.
Next, review your profit and loss statements.
Compare what you earn to what you spent.
Is there room for a last-minute performance boost?
Maybe you can pay off a bill or invest in supplies
before the year closes?
If you sell products, take inventory.
Knowing what's on your shelves and what assets you own
helps you plan smarter for the months ahead.
Don't forget your liabilities.
Think accounts payable, credit cards, and loans.
Managing debt keeps your business strong
and ready for growth.
Finally, use what you've learned to review your tax strategy
and set new goals.
The efforts you put in now can mean fewer surprises later
and a stronger start to the new year.
(screen whooshing)
- [Announcer] To get more coverage of military
and defense topics,
slip into that ghillie suit and hide out for a while
with militarytimes.com and defensenews.com.
And to be the most up-to-date intelligence officer
in the business,
sign up for our "Early Bird Brief," compiled each morning,
bringing you the most recent headlines.
And if social media is where you collect
open-source intelligence,
follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and X,
and for you Gen Z troops, we're on TikTok,
so go follow us there as well.
When we come back, our "Defense Dollar" segment returns
with the latest from the military contracting world.
Stay tuned.
(screen whooshing)
(upbeat percussive music)
(screen whooshing)
- [Announcer] Welcome back.
On this week's edition of "Defense Dollars,"
we check out a new report examining the revenue
of the world's biggest defense companies,
and learn how global conflict has affected them.
Check it out.
(screen whooshing)
- Welcome to "Defense dollars,"
a weekly update on the defense and aerospace markets
around the world,
and what's making the numbers move.
Let's dive in.
First up, we know it's 2025,
but how did defense companies fare last year,
and what can it tell us about the future?
A new report from the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute found that conflict
in Ukraine and Gaza,
and many countries' decision to increase
their defense spending pushed up profits in this sector.
"The world's largest arms-producing country
saw a 5.9% increase in revenue in 2024," the institute said,
that according to a report from the AP.
Much of that revenue was earned
by companies based in the US and Europe,
though companies around the globe saw rises.
A notable exception was China,
where arms industry issues led to a slight decrease.
In all, US and European countries
earned close to $500 billion in revenue,
fueled by the perceived threat to NATO nations by Russia.
Speaking of Russia, the two companies
in the institute's list (person shouting)
also saw increases driven by the war
that despite international sanctions on Russian firms.
Arms revenue also grew in the Middle East,
led by Israeli companies,
as that country fought a war in Gaza.
"In total, the 100 largest arms-producing company revenues
totaled $679 billion in 2024," the SIPRI's report says.
- How'd you like it? (screen whooshing)
- So that was 2024,
but how are major defense companies faring recently?
While a lot of the heavy hitters, your Boeing,
RTX, Lockheeds, and the like have all seen
rising stock prices throughout the year,
recent world events have taken a bite
out of profits. (group chattering)
The reason?
Talks brokered by the United States
between Ukraine and Russia point to a possible resolution,
pulling down possible future arm sales from recent highs.
- We have fully engaged in negotiations,
and we are only stepping up our efforts.
Our team is now looking ahead
to next very important meetings.
Today, Ukraine is closer to peace than ever before,
and there is a real, real chance.
(crowd applauding)
- Earlier this week, many of the US' top defense companies
saw their stock prices dip into the red,
and where they go from here is anyone's guess.
In November, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
said the Pentagon would radically reform
its acquisition process,
changing the fundamentals of how it procures
military systems going forward.
- We must wage an all-out campaign
to streamline the pentagon's process
to unshackle our people from unproductive work,
and to shift our resources from the bureaucracy
to the battlefield.
- Over in the shipbuilding sector,
things were a little more mixed
for Italian company, Fincantieri.
The military ship-maker holds the contract
for four new ships in the US Navy's
Constellation-class frigate program,
but in late November, the secretary of the Navy
announced he was canceling the new line of vessels.
The US Navy had, at one time, eyed buying as many
as 20 of the new ships,
and two that are already half-built will be completed.
In a statement, Fincantieri said it expected new business
to come its way from the Navy to make up for the losses.
- Today, I can announce the first major public action
in this reshaping,
a strategic shift away from the Constellation-class
frigate program.
The Navy and our industry partners
have reached a comprehensive framework
that terminates, for the Navy's convenience,
the last four ships of the class,
which have not begun construction.
- And how has the news impacted
Fincantieri's market status?
Well, as of this week, the company's stock price
was still up more than 150% for the year,
and has only lost about 60 cents per share
since the November 25th announcement,
dipping from $20 to just under $19.50.
(screen whooshing) Finally, quick alert
for those deep in military tech,
and following the Pentagon's emerging needs,
the Marines are looking for a new GPS landing system
meant for far-flung battlefields.
According to the Naval Air Systems Command,
which kicked off the exploratory process
for the system recently,
the capability needs to be able to fit
inside one of the Marines' most used aircraft
and be rugged enough to handle austere conditions.
That lines up with a system made by Collins Aerospace,
owned by RTX, formerly Raytheon,
called the Expeditionary Joint Precision Approach
Landing System, which is a mouthful,
to describe a GPS system designed to make aircraft landing
simpler and safer,
one to watch if you're looking at opportunities
in the defense sector.
And that wraps up your "Defense Dollars" for this week.
Join us on cheddar.com and defensenews.com
for more stories like those.
(screen whooshing)
- [Announcer] Well, that's all the time we have
in this episode.
Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next week.
(dramatic percussive music)