March 28, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"EMPIRE vs Populist ASYMMETRIC WARFARE"--Black Pigeon Speaks (7 min.)

In this video, BPS addresses the argument, often heard from the left, that firearms in private hands could in no way challenge the might of the United States military. This has been repeated so many times among the left that it now informs their current belief that they could simply confiscate firearms without serious consequences. BPS looks to other conflicts in which the U.S. has been involved where there has been assymetric warfare, and U.S. forces have not faired so well. However, there is an important distinguishing factor that BPS does not discuss, and which I rarely hear discussed, which is that modern conventional and special forces have large logistical tails. And, in modern war, the logistical tail very much wags the dog. 

In all the wars the U.S. has fought over the last 200 years, this logistical tails has largely been free from attack; and certainly, the logistical roots (the factories, oil wells and refineries, farms, internal transportation and communications, electrical grid, etc.) have never been seriously threatened. An insurgency in the United States would mean that these logistical roots would be on the front lines, not thousands of miles from a battlefield. Similarly, the political and military leaders would not be safe, thousands of miles away with an ocean between them and the enemy--they, too, would be on the front lines. And an American insurgency would not be against uneducated peasants and herdsman, but against one of the most intelligent and educated peoples in the world. Just as the U.S. military did in World War II, such an insurgency would have access to insurance adjusters and engineers to pin-point the most vulnerable points in a factory or transportation network; it would have access to engineers, scientists and technicians for creating or using weapons. And, keep in mind, that the majority of the large military bases were originally sited where they are to assist in the occupation of the South following the Civil War--that means, today, that they are located deep in what would become enemy territory. 

• "Radio Terminology Every Prepper Should Know"--KA9OFF. Basic terms you should know so you can understand what you are reading about when you get to more advanced articles, or are reading information from a manufacturer, a review of a product, and so on. 
• "MOLLE and PALS Explained"--Baugo Blades. The author explains:

       First the terms; PALS stands for Pouch Attachment Ladder System that was developed for the military. This is the webbing you are seeing. The military standard for this webbing is horizontal rows of 1″ webbing, spaced 1″ apart, sewn to the item at 1.5″ intervals.

       The second term is again a military acronym- MOLLE; Modular Lightweight Load carrying Equipment. This is pronounced Molly like the girl’s name. The acronym says just what it is. The terms PALS and MOLLE are used interchangeably.

The author goes on to briefly discuss attaching items to a MOLLE system, including field expedient methods, and links to a video that goes into more detail.

• While we are the topic of some basics: "Mil Spec vs. Commercial Spec Buffer Tubes"--AR-15 for Noobs! The author writes:

       Mil-Spec: On the mil-spec buffer tube… the threads at the front are actually a larger diameter than the rest of the tube itself.  In manufacturing, a large tube is used and threads lathed as normal. Next, the rest of the tube must be milled down to the military specified diameter.  I’m guessing this step requires more work / precision… and costs more.

      Commercial-Spec:  In manufacturing, you begin with a tube that matches the final tube diameter.  The threads are cut into the front end with a lathe just like any other threaded pipe.  I imagine this to be just like the copper water pipe used in my house.  Cheap & simple.

The rear of the commercial tube is slightly slanted, as well.

• "The Ballistician: .416 Remington Magnum"--Shooting Times. This is a cartridge intended for hunting African game, including dangerous game. From the article:

        Remington introduced the .416 Remington Magnum in 1988. It was the first true dangerous-game cartridge developed by a major U.S. company since the .458 Winchester Magnum in 1956. There were big-bore wildcats and proprietary cartridges, but the big U.S. ammo companies seemed to let the British and mainland European ammo purveyors own that segment of the business. The .416 Rem. Mag. changed that.

         The .416 Rem. Mag. is simply the full-length .375 Holland & Holland case necked up to hold 0.416-inch-diameter bullets and with much of the H&H body taper removed. Pushing a 400-grain bullet to 2,400 fps and 5,100 ft-lbs of energy, the .416 Rem. Mag. delivered .416 Rigby performance in a cartridge that fit the abundance of affordable American bolt rifles with H&H boltface dimensions. Dimensionally, the .416 Rem. Mag. is similar to the wildcat .416 Hoffman that was developed in the 1970s.

         Prior to 1988, .416-caliber rifle cartridges existed, but they were little known in the U.S. The British had enjoyed the .416 Rigby, one of the finest dangerous-game cartridges, since 1911. And there were other British cartridges in that .40- to .45-caliber niche that were common in Africa: the .404 Jeffery, the .450/400 Nitro Express, and the .425 Westley Richards, for example. Many of the European cartridges required either a double rifle or a bolt gun built on the very pricey Magnum Mauser action, which limited their consumer appeal.

• "Boot Review: The LaCrosse Alpha Range"--Wide Open Spaces (H/t Baugo Blades). These boots are designed for ankle-deep wading. The body of the boot appears to be rubber, while the upper portion around your calves appears to be made of some other material--neoprene perhaps. The author rated them highly, and especially praised "an adjustable strap to secure the boot at the top, around your calf, with a neoprene gusset to 'fill the gap' no matter how big or small your calves are."
• "How can you tell the difference between a SWAT raid and a home invasion?"--Active Response Training. With both people posing as police in home invasions and the occasional rogue cop(s) that moonlight as robbers, this is something you need to know. Greg Ellifritz draws on his experience as a police officers to list certain factors that will distinguish an actual raid from a robbery. There are a multitude of factors, and Greg discusses each of them, so go read the whole thing.
• "Understanding Barrel Bedding"--Rifle Shooters Magazine. The author explains:

         Actually, “accuracy” can be looked at from two different perspectives: pure grouping ability and a rifle’s ability to maintain zero. The two are not the same. The former is the measure of how tight the average group measures, regardless of where on the target it is, while the latter is where our point of impact (POI) is relative to where we expect it to be. In a hunting rifle, consistent POI is more important that pure accuracy, and it’s primarily a function of the bedding.

And, he also adds that not all rifles benefit from a free floated barrel:

         Generally speaking, the thinner the barrel, the more likely it is to group best with some dampening pressure being exerted by the stock. The easiest way to produce this dynamic on a production scale is to hog out the bottom of the barrel channel about 1/8 inch deeper than necessary to a point about one inch from the fore-end tip where a raised band of material is left remaining. It is this raised portion of the channel that is the only contact between the barrel and stock. When the forward guard screw is cinched up, the stock is actually bowed inward, and that is what produces the tension against the barrel.

          Dampening barrel pressure can also be exerted the entire length of the barrel channel, but to accomplish that you must have perfect surface contact the entire length of the forearm, and that can only be achieved through glass bedding, something no production rifle-maker does. Some, however, do apply epoxy to the recoil-lug area of some select models.

Read the whole thing.

• For the left's elites, it is always "guns for me, but not thee": "Rapper Who Performed at ‘March for Our Lives’ Previously Pled Guilty to Gun Crime"--Washington Free Beacon. His crime was, while in California, carrying an unlicensed concealed weapon in his car for self-defense.
• The wages of sin socialism: "In Venezuela, hungry child gangs use machetes to fight for ‘quality’ garbage"--Miami Herald. Fighting over the most edible garbage.
• The retreat of civilization: "Talk about crime and societal breakdown . . ."--Bayou Renaissance Man. The author discusses his shock and dismay upon reading about a recent train derailment in South Africa caused by thieves that stole a section of track. Metal thieves abound in this previously developed nation. I wonder what could have changed in recent decades to cause the decline of South Africa?
• So the local newspaper, The Idaho Statesman (a liberal rag) ran an op-ed originally published in the Miami Herald entitled "May the Parkland kids forgive us for failing them so miserably" and written by Leonard Pitts Jr. The piece is essentially a series of misrepresentations and obfuscations about the March for Life, characterizing it as something wholly organized by some of the high school survivors. It is an example of propaganda at its finest. Especially galling is the author complaint that when an article came out about a puppy dying in an overhead bin on a United flight, Congress acted quickly to protect puppies, but has yet to address the Florida shooting by passing laws to protect school children; and giving the impression that Congress has never passed laws restricting or regulating firearms, their possession on or near school grounds, or that there are no other laws  prohibiting murder, aggravated battery or aggravated assault. 
• A friendly reminder that Mexico has strict laws governing the ownership of firearms: "Guanajuato: 8 Dead, 24 Wounded in Palenque Massacre"--Borderland Beat. On March 21, 2018, gunmen broke into a hall where a cock fight was being hosted, killing 8 and wounding 22 (there were 24 wounded, but two later died from their wounds). This is what the left wants to import into the United States even as they disarm Americans.

• Related: "Tourists in Acapulco drive past burned and carved-up corpses of drugs cartel victims as gang violence takes over the former holiday destination of the rich and famous"--Daily Mail.

• Creeping Sharia: "Raising My Kids to Be Unapologetic American Muslims"--The Atlantic. The mother than penned this article is, in brief, teaching her kids to be "in their faces" about Islam. She writes (underline added):

When first-generation or immigrant Muslims were growing up in the 1980s and ’90s, the focus was on assimilating as much as possible while trying privately to hold onto culture and faith. Then, in the years immediately following 9/11, kids who were coming of age received a different kind of messaging, a particular mix of pressures: to condemn terrorism, express their patriotism, and sometimes downplay their Muslimness. Today, for my kids, with 9/11 more than 15 years in the past, they are facing something wholly new: an era when it’s encouraged to be unapologetically Muslim while at the same time staking claim to their Americanness.

So, it was problematic that her kids condemn terrorism; it was problematic that her kids be patriotic. So what does it mean then to "claim their Americanness"? Given that this does not, per the author, include patriotism or assimilation, the logical conclusion is that it means an attitude that "we own this country now."

        The author continues by pointing out that her children face a, so far nonexistent, backlash for being Muslim. To support her claim, she cites to the murder of Nabra Hassanen in June 2017:

The police called it road rage. Many Muslims cried hate crime. And, many of us wondered what the journalist Hannah Allam articulated in her Buzzfeed article about Nabra’s funeral: “What kind of America is this … where a teenage girl can be brutalized on her way to the mosque with a group of friends?”

Let me answer that question: A nation that allows mass immigration. Hassanen was raped and murdered by a "Dreamer": Darwin Martinez Torres, an illegal alien from El Salvador who was 22 at the time, and who is thought to have been a member of MS-13.

• "'Empty' Amazon was densely populated, researchers find"--Cosmos Magazine. Another article observing that the Amazon was not a wilderness untouched by human hand prior to the modern age, but was, in fact, home to large and sophisticated settlements.
• No kidding: "Why US healthcare is more expensive than all other wealthy nations - but life expectancy is the LOWEST"--Daily Mail. The article indicates that "[t]he Harvard team found physician salaries and service prices are some of the main reasons why American's pay more for health care than their peers." Don't forget the high salaries for top hospital administrators and the high cost of health insurance. 
• Steve Sailor reviews Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past by Harvard geneticist David Reich. Reich has been one of the leading researchers using DNA evidence to track the origins and migrations of pre-historic peoples, and this book summarizes the findings in that field. 
• "It's getting a little squirrelly at the coast"--The San Diego Tribune. Feeding squirrels results in more squirrels, that are more aggressive in begging (or stealing) food. Hey, there is a reason why Squirrel Girl can defeat some of the mightiest super-villains such  Dr. Doom and Thanos.