Renderer Removed When Scene Started

Hey there, so I currently am trying to set up a function for the player to change the skin of their gun model to preset ones. I have the renderer for the model set in the inspector but when I press the play button, it's removed. I can re-add it with no issues and it will work the whole play session. Does anyone know why it might be doing this?

Here is some of the code attached to the gun:

 public Texture redText;
 public Texture blueText;
 
 public Renderer rend;
 
 void Start () {
 rend = GetComponent<Renderer>();
 }
 
 if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Tab))
         {
             rend.material.mainTexture = redText;
         }
 
         if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.C))
         {
             rend.material.mainTexture = blueText;
         }

Basically I'm pretty stumped on this one, it seems like it's just a glitch but who knows.