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Thursday, January 12, 2017

January 12, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"What is a Brush Gun?"--Iraqveteran8888. The author of this video first discusses what traditionally constitutes a "brush gun"--a large bore rifle firing a heavy, flat or round-nose bullet--and then tests a few different calibers by firing through about 15 yards of heavy brush toward a steel plate set about 50 yards in the distance. The result seemed to prove the concept of a brush gun: light bullets, such as from .22 LR and 5.56 NATO were deflected or started tumbling as they struck brush, resulting in some misses; the same for a .308 he fired; but the heavier calibers such a .444 Marlin and .45-70 actually cut through sizable branches to still strike the target pretty much where aimed. For a brush gun, heavy and slow seems to be the key.


Firearms/Self-Defense:
  • Some more on using shotguns for self-defense and/or combat:
  • "The Role and Mission of the Combat Shotgun" (Part 1) (Part 2)--Gabe Suarez. He notes, in the beginning to Part 1:
     The shotgun has been around the world of gunfighting for hundreds of years.  Its conceptual use was well known by those who founded this nation as well as by those who tamed the west. 
         ... It is best used in close range conflicts where, either alone or together, the speed of the event, the number of  adversaries, or the lighting conditions present, would preclude the use of traditional marksmanship based methods.
           The best gunfighters in history knew this, accepted it, and did very well with the shotgun.
             In recent times, there have been those who sought to extent [sic] the shotgun’s role outside of this close range envelope and attempt to force it into other roles. 
               ...  I think the Modern Technique desire to turn the shotgun into a rifle is ill-advised. I think trying to turn a special-situation weapon into a weapon for all-seasons will detract from the special-situation utility, yet fail to meet the versatility that [is] provided by other weapons, such as a true assault rifle.
          I have accumulated confirmed incidents in which people have been shot “center mass” up to 55 times with 9mm JHP ammunition (the subject was hit 106 times, but 55 of those hits were ruled by the coroner to be each lethal in and of themselves) before he went down. During training at the FBI Academy, we were told of a case in which agents shot a bank robber 65 times with 9mm, .223 and 00 buckshot - he survived! These are not rare cases. They happen quite often.
          He also adds:
          If a gunfight ever comes your way, your attacker may fall to a hit to the liver, and he may not. He may fall to two or three hits to the kidneys, intestines or spleen, but he may not. He will certainly be in bad health. He likely will not survive, but what he does for the next several seconds to a few minutes is not guaranteed because you hit him “center mass.”
          Read the whole thing as it is a lengthy article, and the author discusses, at length, some techniques and such to practice.

          Other Stuff:
          • Trump promised to drain the swamp, and the swamp is fighting back:
          • And there will be consequences:
               What is going on here is blindingly obvious. Intelligence agencies–again, I think this means the CIA, although the NSA could also be involved–are creating “news” in order to discredit the incoming Trump administration. Just as the report on Russian hacking that they delivered last week was 100% politics and 0% security, the attachment to that report that created today’s news stories had no purpose other than to legitimize the spreading of unsourced, and almost certainly false, slanders against the president-elect.

                 Many people do not realize that the CIA has been a liberal organization, generally associated with the Democratic Party, since its founding. For the agency to intervene in this manner to try to discredit a nascent Republican administration is shocking, but not entirely surprising.
            • Glenn Reynolds comments: "This is good news for Trump, sort of, but overall it’s really bad news, since it means that both journalism and the intelligence community are both more politicized, and less competent, than even I thought. Sweet Jesus, these people are terrible."
            He accidentally located it with expensive forensics software. So basically the Best Buy guy was either running expensive forensics software given to him by the government on every computer he encountered, or he was told to do it to this one specifically, which immediately makes me wonder if the computer problem that sent the computer to the repair center to begin with was engineered as part of a much larger operation to take this guy out. 
            • "Police Investigating Possible Bias-Related Assault At Shopping Center"--CBS Denver. According to the article, "[e]arly Friday morning, two African-American men sexually assaulted the woman outside the shopping center. Police say the victim, who is white, didn’t know the attackers. During the assault, the men yelled racial slurs at the woman before fleeing the scene."
                   Demonstrations have occurred in 28 of Mexico's 32 states. Numerous gasoline stations have gone up in flames. So far, six people have died in protest-related violence. Some 1,500 have been arrested for various crimes, to include rioting and looting.
                     A Mexican retail group reported that 350 businesses in 10 states had been "sacked" by thieves. Several thousand other businesses have closed, fearing assault by protestors.
                • "No drama, King Obama"--Aeon Magazine. An article that much of Obama's behavior can be explained by his Javanese background and how their kings were expected to act.
                • "2016: A hard rain"--The Fifth Wave. 2016 was a turning point for the West as the elite lost control of the narrative and lost the public's trust. The author writes:
                     ... Governing elites have lost control of the information sphere, and stand naked before the public. In fear and loathing, under the pretext of managing utopian programs, they have withdrawn ever higher into hierarchies they have made ever steeper. In a very real sense, the public isn’t alienated from government: it’s the other way around. Once this move is made, politicians are hostage to real-world outcomes – and having promised “solutions” to intractable social and economic conditions, they can only deliver failure.
                     Elite failure sets the agenda for an informed public. Officeholders, bureaucrats, elections, the whole creaking machinery of democratic governance, bleed out authority. At length a tipping-point arrives, and the storm breaks.
                     We can watch this dynamic at work on the potent issue of illegal immigration. At street level, where the elites rarely show, immigration is experienced as a failure of border control. Possibly a million undocumented persons enter the US each year. Refugees are pouring into Europe in ever larger numbers. Much of the public feels that the migrant tide threatens their jobs, safety, and culture. They expect the government to intervene and stop the influx. 
                     But on this question government has ascended an astronomical distance away from the governed. Ruling elites absolve themselves of any responsibility for border control, and treat illegal immigration as a test of moral purity. Angela Merkel invited a million predominantly Muslim refugees into Germany and, by extension, the EU. Embracing immigration was a “humanitarian duty,” she asserted. Opposition was judged by its most immoderate voices, those of “rightwing extremists and neo-Nazis.” It was from similar moral heights that Hillary Clinton famously dismissed “half” of Trump supporters as “a basket of deplorables…racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it.” 
                     Even to entertain a second point of view was considered abhorrent. The subject was taboo, and governments sometimes invoked “hate speech” laws to silence wayward opinions. In December 2016, Gert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Dutch Freedom Party, was convicted of inciting “discrimination and group offense.” Wilders had asked his audience whether they wanted “fewer Moroccans.”
                     From the perspective of a mutinous public, government could not stop the immigrant flood and would not speak to its profound concerns about the consequences. It was distance and failure all around. The sense of abandonment generated powerful political energies, motivating many to strike at the elites with whatever weapons were at hand. Trump and Brexit, opposed by every established institution, were two such weapons. Marine Le Pen and the National Front may soon serve a similar function in France. As for Gert Wilders, his conviction made him the most popular politician in the Netherlands – where he may well become the next prime minister. 
                     For the political and media elites, this was beyond astounding. They thought they had imposed a silence, where the crash of thunder was deafening. Distance had sustained the illusion that they – the guardian class, perched high on the power pyramid – were still in command of the information sphere.
                 Read the whole thing.

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