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Tuesday, March 6, 2018

March 6, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Could This Be THE ONE? Federal 38spl 130gr HST gel test"--TFB TV (8 min.)
The Federal ammunition tested here appears to be a hollow-point bullet completely sunk into the cartridge mouth similar to a wadcutter. The test was out of a sub 2-inch barrel S&W J-Frame revolver. There was good penetration and expansion in both bare gel and through the heavy fabric (layered denim). The author even took it a step further and cooled the handgun and ammunition to try and capture the performance (less muzzle velocity) from a cold gun and ammo, and still had pretty good penetration and expansion.


  • A new Woodpile Report is up.
  • Don't do reviews like this: "3 low-profile, high-performance 9mm brands you should know"--Guns.com. The author ostensibly reviews 9 mm ammunition from Precision Delta, Allegiance Ammunition, and Team Never Quit. The first was a hollow point ammunition, while the latter two are frangible rounds. However, there is no real information on the performance of the rounds. The author says they are really great for self-defense or competition, but only follows this up with comments like she has never had the ammunition fail her when shooting competitively. Well, that is all well and good, but that doesn't tell us anything about the effectiveness of the ammunition for self-defense. 
         For instance, the author seems to assume that the Precision Delta would be good for self-defense based solely on it being hollow point ammunition. However, the fact that it is hollow-point does not mean that it is good for self-defense. For instance, Hornady manufactures a 115 grain HAP 9mm round that is a hollow-point bullet intended for competition or practice--it is a copy of their XTP bullets, but without the folds and a cannelure that make the XTP expand effectively for terminal performance. HAP is for punching holes in paper or shooting steel, while XTP is self-defense. While the HAP rounds are hollow points, they will pretty much perform like hard-ball in a body.   
        The author similarly provides no real information or discussion on frangible ammunition. Instead, we get comments like this concerning the Allegiance Ammunition round: "The company doesn’t provide muzzle velocity information, and I don’t’ have a chronograph, but they claim it’s a low-recoil round. What I do know is it’s never failed for me." The market seems to cycle through frangible ammunition every once in a while. What shooter from the 1990s doesn't remember the Glaser Safety Slugs, which used compressed lead shot in a high velocity bullet. It was very impressive on water jugs (and looks impressive striking bare gel), but the low penetration against gel makes it really iffy as a defensive round, especially if the person was wearing heavy clothing. Long ago, I used to have my first round in my night-stand gun be a Glaser to minimize the possibility of the first round going through a wall, but the follow up rounds all as regular hollow point defensive loads. I don't do that anymore because I want to be sure of the effectiveness of all the rounds I use; and because Glaser was so expensive, I couldn't afford to test it out in my firearm for reliability issues. The real niche for frangible rounds today is to allow close in shooting of a steel targets.
  • "DIY AR-15 Build: Muzzle Device Installation"--ITS Tactical. The article briefly discusses the differences between a muzzle break and a flash hider, then goes to the meat of the topic: the differences between crush washers, peel washers, and locking nuts for securing a muzzle device. He also discussed an issue he had with getting proper alignment (timing) of one of his muzzle devices using a crush washer, and solved the problem by pre-crushing the washer a bit. 
  • If you don't follow the Suspicious Observers YouTube channel, you are missing out on important information concerning solar weather and its impact on both seismicity and weather on Earth, as well as possible health problems. And while it may come across as fringe science, the reality is that a lot of research of late has been bearing out the theories and premises used by the Suspicious Observers. For instance, I would direct your attention to an article, entitled "NASA: Cosmic rays hitting Earth are ‘bad and getting worse’" at Watts Up With That and which discusses a paper recently published in the Journal of Space Weather. Most of the article is about how the Sun going into a solar minimum is allowing larger numbers of cosmic rays strike the Earth, raising the risk to astronauts in low earth orbit. But there are also a greater number of cosmic rays reaching the surface. The author conclusion is the most interesting, however, as it reports effects which Suspicious Observers has been predicting and arguing for years:
        How does this affect us? Cosmic rays penetrate commercial airlines, dosing passengers and flight crews so much that pilots are classified by the International Commission on Radiological Protection as occupational radiation workers. Some research shows that cosmic rays can seed clouds and trigger lightning, potentially altering weather and climate. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias in the general population.
            Cosmic rays will intensify even more in the years ahead as the sun plunges toward what may be the deepest Solar Minimum in more than a century.
            The Democrat plan was to have their safest politicians push for gun control, have it shut down by Republicans, and then go into the midterms invigorating their base’s amygdala-anger by blaming the Republicans for no gun control happening. Enraged and motivated, Democrat turnout would have been sky-high.

            The planners based the plan on certain metrics they assumed were stable. Uber-leftists in safe districts could be relied on to push for aggressive gun control. Republicans and Trump could be relied on to shut it all down. And mildly rightist Democrats could then be told to support the gun control tepidly, with the assurance nothing would happen to anger their rural districts and motivate their opposition to turn out.

             The plan began exactly as conceived, the Democrats even rolled out a plethora of teens to push vocally for the gun control which stood no chance. Media spun up a storm, to raise amygdala-anger at the failure that was to come.

             And then up popped Trump, the chaos President, saying he wanted to go even further, and this was a Democrat opportunity to do all sorts of gun control, with his support. He even wanted to abandon due process, and seize guns first, and worry about rights later.

            What does the left say to that? Now if they push for the gun control and get it, they lose their rural districts. If they don’t push for it and don’t get it, they demoralize their base and crush their turnout. Democrat leader’s amygdala-fear is rising, because they have no idea of the parameters of Trump’s response to anything.

            And in the process Trump appears ultra-moderate and independent to the lemmings in the nation who only watch things cursorily, while the left is less motivated to turn out to oppose him because their amygdala-anger at him is plunging.

          The Democrat response? Kill everything themselves and shut it all down.
    Some of those areas where Los Zetas operated include lakes in Mexico and Texas such as Falcon and Amistad–which are believed to be the untimely resting places of hundreds of victims. Mexican authorities have carried out searches for bodies in the Mexican sides. 
      CNN, in a story citing an anonymous U.S. government official, cast doubt on the possibility that this weapon was anywhere near operational. That individual added that the “United States had observed a small number of Russian tests of its nuclear-powered cruise missile and seen them all crash.” Fox News said its own sources indicated the same thing, that the weapon was in the research and development phase and that at least one had crashed during testing in the arctic.
        Russia and China are extremely spooked by the possibility of the U.S. having a missile defense system. It makes me wonder what they (Russia and China) know that we (U.S. citizens) don't.
                 Chicago-area police are fighting a losing battle to stop gun battles from erupting during gang members’ funerals as street gangs have kicked up their bloody warfare to yet another degree.
                    Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart called a meeting of local politicians, religious leaders, funeral home owners, and others to discuss measures to safeguard mourners and to try and craft policies to stop the growing number of attacks between rival gangs during funerals, Fox News reported.
            • A blast from the past: "Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans"--Buzz Feed. This 2013 article discusses why Democrats generally, and Obama in particular, love spying on U.S. citizens. From the article:
                      For most bigwig Democrats in Washington, D.C., the last 48 hours has delivered news of the worst kind — a flood of new information that has washed away any lingering doubts about where President Obama and his party stand on civil liberties, full stop.
                        Glenn Greenwald's exposure of the NSA's massive domestic spy program has revealed the entire caste of current Democratic leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security.
                        "Everyone should just calm down," Senator Harry Reid said yesterday, inhaling slowly.
                           That's right: don't panic.
                              The very topic of Democratic two-facedness on civil liberties is one of the most important issues that Greenwald has covered. Many of those Dems — including the sitting President Barack Obama, Senator Carl Levin, and Secretary of State John Kerry — have now become the stewards and enhancers of programs that appear to dwarf any of the spying scandals that broke during the Bush years, the very same scandals they used as wedge issues to win elections in the Congressional elections 2006 and the presidential primary of 2007-2008.
                        Read the whole thing. Remember.
                                  Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse are crowding into cities and makeshift camps in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and throughout the region, the largest mass emigration in modern Latin American history. The resulting friction mirrors that in nations from the U.S., where immigration pervades the national debate, to Germany, where war refugees have upended politics, to Italy, where an anti-migrant party made stunning gains Sunday.
                                    In Panama, the sympathy that greeted early arrivals from Venezuela, many wealthy professionals, is giving way to fear and resentment of the poor and desperate. It is evinced by outbreaks of nationalistic insults, harassment and even violence. ...
                                     ... Almost 2 million Venezuelans are living outside the country.
                                        About half a million are in Colombia alone, and they are arriving at the rate of about 100,000 per month. President Juan Manuel Santos said the influx is perhaps his country’s most serious problem. He’s tightened visa rules and deployed troops to patrol informal border crossings. Alejandro Ordonez, a conservative presidential candidate, has tried to capitalize, saying that many Venezuelans are involved in “criminal structures” and calling on the government to protect jobs for Colombian workers.
                                Not surprisingly, the largest backlash is in countries where the illegal aliens from Venezuela are taking jobs from the locals. 
                                          A former senior Peace Corps official agreed to cooperate with any law enforcement investigations surrounding a scheme that funneled millions of Department of State dollars to a nonprofit founded and run by former Secretary of State John Kerry’s daughter, recently published court documents show.
                                           Warren “Buck” Buckingham agreed to cooperate as a condition of an agreement with the Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney’s Office that would keep him from facing prosecution for a related illegal lobbying charge, court documents filed Thursday and made public Tuesday show.
                                    The article also notes that "John Kerry’s State Department hired Buckingham as a consultant soon after the former Peace Corps official helped Vanessa’s nonprofit secure its first contract."
                                    • Duh: "CATO: Illegal Immigrants More Likely to Commit Crimes than Ones Who Came Legally"--Breitbart. If they are willing to enter the country illegally, they have already demonstrated a propensity to commit crimes. Add to that the fact that they will then need to obtain one or more identities (usually stolen) to work and play here. Then they have to avoid attention, so if they get in a car accident they will be more likely to flee the scene. It is just a massive snowball that keeps rolling and getting bigger. Anyway, the article indicates that "Cato’s charts show that illegal immigrants are nearly 300 percent more likely to be convicted of a crime in Texas than a legal immigrant," and over 5 times more likely to commit a rape or murder than a legal immigrant.
                                    • "Shooting Down Gun Control Memes"--Sultan Knish. Greenfield (who is Jewish) stands in stark contrast to Rabbi Eric Yoffie, to whose anti-gun article I cited the other day. After discussing specific responses to certain anti-gun arguments, Greenfield goes on to write:
                                              Gun control isn’t a policy. It’s a moral panic. Like prohibition, it’s a xenophobic reaction to a different culture that shares the same country with them. Guns have come to embody a rural conservative culture in the minds of urban leftists the way that alcohol once embodied foreign immigrants to prohibition activists and the way that drugs represented urban decadence to rural America. 
                                                 It’s why the “common sense solution” talk quickly gives way to broad denunciations of a “national gun culture”, of “white privilege”, of rural folk “clinging to their bibles and guns”, of American militarism and toxic masculinity, and of all the things for which guns are merely a symbol to the leftists who hate them. 
                                                  A cultural critique is very different than a common sense solution. It isn’t guns that the left wants to ban. It’s people. It was never really about banning guns. It was always about the culture war.
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                                                                    Bombs & Bants Episode 149

                                                                     My "2 minutes of gun talk in 1 minute" segment was somewhat scrambled, so let me summarize the point I was trying to make. I was ...