April 19, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Why do revolver barrels point downwards?"

Bloke on the Range (6 min.)

Firearms and Self-Defense:

• "Weapons: The Case For Caseless"--Strategy Page. Caseless ammunition has been largely a pipe dream for the past 30 years or so. But, according to the article, "[t]he U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army agree they may have finally found a caseless ammunition design that will work reliably in combat and be much (37 percent) lighter than conventional 5.56mm ammo." However, while the caseless is still in development, the article reports that telescoped polymer cases ammunition may actually be ready for deployment. Right now, the only weapon that can use it is the relatively new LSAT (Lightweight Small Arms Technology) 5.56mm machine-gun.
• "Why fat MMA fighters can beat jacked/ripped fighters! A warning for street fights...."--SNAFU!.  Commenting on a video (which can be found at the link), Solomon observes that "Mass counts.  Fat boys if properly motivated can hit hard because they're fat!" Also, check out the comments.
• "American Eagle Introduces 6.8 SPC and 6.5 Grendel Varmint and Predator Loads"--The Tactical Wire.
• The MSM has been full of stories recently about some female SJW, Louise Rosealma, that got hit in the head by a man at the recent Berkeley protest and anti-fa attack. There is obviously a social/political side to this story, best summed up by Megan Fox at PJ Media, who writes:

       ... Does anyone see the irony in the social justice warriors complaining that a guy hit a girl? A girl who wants equality with men showed up at a Trump rally wearing weighted gloves, tried to punch a guy in the throat, and got laid out with one punch. For as long as I can remember, the feminists have told us they're exactly the same, if not better than men. So why are we supposed to be outraged that one of them got hit in the face by a man? Isn't that exactly what she wanted when she jumped into the fray and started swinging?

       These people confuse me. On one hand, Moldylocks wants to be considered an anarchist warrior, bragging that she would take "100 nazi scalps" on social media. And now she's whining to anyone who will listen that she's just a 94 lb. shrinking violet who landed in the hospital after getting her clock cleaned by a big bad boy. I can't muster any sympathy. I tried. Her GoFundMe page goes so far as to call her a "poor girl." Oh, give me a break! This girl knew exactly what she was doing joining Antifa at the Berkeley rally. She was there to fight "nazis." She said so.

But there are also lessons for those women who think that they are going to be able to stand toe-to-toe with men in a fight and win: it is just Hollywood movie magic. Dalrock discusses the latter issue in more detail in his article, "The terrible cost of make believe," in which he discusses several cases where women were severally injured when they attacked a man and he struck back. The irony of all of this, as Dalrock points out, is that the West is now pushing women into combat roles. 

• Get off the X: "17 Most Important Gunfight Stats: Backed By Data And Real World Experience"--Three Tier Tactical. (H/t The Firearms Blog). The author provides links to the studies or statistics on which he relies. Some of the statistics are based on police encounters, so they may not be fully applicable to a civilian using a weapon in self-defense. Some of the statistics:

• "If you stand still in a gunfight you have an 85% chance of being shot, and 51% chance of being shot in the torso."

• "If you move and shoot you have a 47% chance of being hit, with 11% chance of a torso shot."

• "Seeking cover and returning fire reduces your chance of being shot to 26% with a 6% torso hit rate."

• Because you will draw your gun and not use it more than you will draw and shoot: "Editor's Notebook: Presentation Practice"--The Tactical Wire. Tips on training to draw from your holster and present your weapon.
• Sometimes there is no reason for a violent crime: "'I beat her to let my emotions out': Chilling confession of man, 20, charged in jogger's killing who told police he was mad at people playing loud music in his house and 'just lost it' when she ran past him"--Daily Mail. According to the murderer, he was angry and wanted to hit someone when the jogger came by; and when she started fighting back, it just made him angrier.
• "Utility Gun: 7 Reasons to own a Winchester 9422 in 22LR"--Modern Survivalist. FerFal takes the position that because you are most likely to need a weapon for self-defense at short distances--inside you home, in your car, in a store--your first weapon should be a good handgun. Next, however, are utility weapons that can perform other mundane functions such as predator control, hunting various types of game, and so on. One of his recommendations (and the one discussed in his article) is a Winchester 9422, a lever action .22 that can load and shoot .22 Short, .22 Long, and .22 Long Rifle. His reasoning is that a manually operated rifle will be more reliable than a semi-auto, and the different ammunition gives you better opportunity to find ammunition when scrounging or trading.

       I don't know about other parts of the world, but my experience is that .22 Short and .22 Long is actually pretty rare, and so the odds of coming across those calibers does not justify having a rifle simply for the reason that you may be able to scrounge some of it, but not .22 Long Rifle. However, I would still support having a .22 that can use all three rounds. Why? For utility. The less powerful rounds, .22 Short and .22 Long, may actually be better for hunting small critters because the round is less likely to be a through and through, but dump more of its energy into what it hits. For important in my mind, however, is the sound level. Depending on the weapon, .22 Short or .22 Long (you will have to experiment) may be substantially less .22 Long Rifle. I have shot a .22 single-shot rifle using .22 Long where the report was less than you get from a typical BB gun. Something to think about in a SHTF situation.

Other Stuff:

• "U.S. Border Officials Suspected of Working with Drug Smugglers, Says Border Patrol Council President"--Breitbart. Reportedly, as a result, a 40 mile section of border was left completely unpatrolled. 
• "Some 10,000 Venezuelan passports and other documents were issued to Middle Easterners"--Miami Herald. The majority of the passports and visas were granted in the Venezuelan Consulate in Damascus, Syria.
• "Iraqi unit backed by US and Australian advisers hit with mustard gas in second chemical attack by ISIS in two days as government forces close in on jihadis in Mosul"--Daily Mail. From the article:

       Six soldiers suffered breathing problems and another 19 were forced to seek treatment after ISIS militants launched the gas attack against the US-backed unit in the city of Mosul, northern Iraq.

       It is the second chemical attack against the Iraqi troop in two days, after an officer with the anti-terrorism unit said ISIS fired a rocket loaded with chlorine at the al-Abar neighborhood in western Mosul.

• Related: "MIT expert claims latest chemical weapons attack in Syria was staged"--International Business Times (via Yahoo). (Warning: video plays automatically). According to the article, the expert "concluded that the US government's report does not provide any 'concrete' evidence that Assad was responsible, adding it was more likely that the attack was perpetrated by players on the ground." One of the several points is that a "shell" that allegedly delivered the sarin gas appears to have been laid on the ground and an explosive detonated atop it, rather than exploding as a shell would. 

• "What's Behind the Violence in Ecatepec, Mexico City's Sprawling Suburb?"--Insight Crime. Murder rates are now about 33 per 100,000. The author blames it, not on the large cartels, but because of fights and turf wars from smaller gangs operating in the city.
• But it has worked so well for us: "China Fails to Break Its Addiction"--American Interest. According to the article, "China posted its best quarterly growth figures since 2015, defying the gloomier expectations of economic analysts." However, as the author goes on to explain, this is all based on easy credit and increasing property prices.
• "Misreading Putin"--J.R. Nyquist. Putin's own answers in interviews and other statements show him not to be a nationalist or anti-communist, but a strident communist and ant-Christian. Nyquist goes on:

       A man who refuses to bury Lenin cannot be a nationalist. And further proof of this is found in Putin’s foreign policy; for it cannot be denied that Putin supports communist regimes everywhere. Putin supports Angola, where the communist government won its civil war with Russian help. Putin supports China and North Korea where Russia has sent advanced weaponry and military scientists. What sort of nationalism is it, then, that arms communist states? A 2014 Xinhua News report out of Managua states, “Nicaragua modernizes military fleet with Russia’s help.” The ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, under Daniel Ortega, pretends to be a social democratic party. But the Sandinistas have always been Marxist-Leninists. And the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, was also a Marxist-Leninist – while pretending to be a left-of-center populist. In fact, many communist leaders have pretended to be something other than communist. Go as far back as you please: Mao pretended to be “an agrarian reformer.” Stalin was our “Uncle Joe.” We have been told, time and time again, that Ho Chi Minh and Castro were only communists because the evil Americans pushed them into Russia’s arms – yet another lie.

       How quickly we forget the deceptions of the past. In country after country, on continent after continent, communist power is building. It is arming. And we are completely blind. We do not think there are communists anywhere. Our pundits, our “experts,” our strategists, have been fooled. Let’s not mince words. When the price of this is ultimately paid, and the dead are counted, and the material losses can no longer be reckoned, mankind itself will view the current malpractice of our writers and experts as unforgivable.

• "Meet The Men Who Fought Hitler — And Fought Dirty"--The Federalist. A review Giles Milton's Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Churchill backed a group, called Baker Street, whose sole purpose was to engage in assassinations and sabotage. And he had to contend with those who opposed the operation of such a group because they thought that the war should be fought in a gentlemanly manner. I suppose Churchill learned from World War 1 (and, in particular, his fiasco at Gallipoli) that war is serious business, not a game.
• "China Snubbing OPEC Oil"--American Interest. China apparently has no desire to be a slave to the whims of the Middle-East (although with over 50% of its oil imports coming from OPEC countries...well...), and consequently has diversified its oil imports from other sources. The largest alternate sources are Russia, Oman and Brazil, but it has also increased purchases from West Africa, the UK, and the United States.
• "Teen accidentally helps discover lost 16th-century civilization in Kansas"--New York Post. The Spaniards recorded a battle in 1601 with a Native American city, called Etzanoa, in what is today Kansas. The Spaniards estimated that the city had a population of 20,000, and would take two or three days to walk through all of it. Cannonballs were recently discovered at a site called Arkansas City (near the Kansas-Oklahoma border south of Wichita), which seem to confirm that it was the city referred to by the Spaniards.