Okay there’s a little bit of a reason. It’s not the one you might be thinking of though. Plus, these other bags are sick and you should check ’em out.

Okay, let’s settle this once and for all. No, Peak Design did not identify the CEO shooter and TikTok heartthrob Luigi Mangione to the police using serial number information from his backpack. The CEO, Peter Dering, told the New York Times that he reached out to the police to inform them that the then-unidentified shooter was wearing a discontinued Peak Design bag in widely available surveillance footage. That’s still a fact worth considering though, if you’re in the market for slick camera accessories and have reason to be concerned about your privacy.

That reason should not be crime-related, though. There are plenty of valid non-crime reasons you might be picky about when considering which camera accessories you might choose to buy. For instance, this recent bit of business has me a little concerned about carrying my camera around in my Peak Design gear — which, I will admit, is my favorite camera gear.

I’m a journalist, and I shot photos at the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland back in 2020. I don’t often cover that kind of event anymore, but if I did, I would now be concerned about my easily-identifiable Peak Design gear showing up in surveillance footage. Cops aren’t like, the coolest people in the world, and (in case you haven’t heard) they sometimes retaliate against the press. Not to mention, Federal law enforcement officers had a bad habit of snatching people off the street in unmarked cars during those protests.