August 1, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Inverters: How Do They Work?" (7 min.)

• "WHAT IS “COVER” IN YOUR HOME AND WILL IT STOP A RIFLE ROUND? LETS FIND OUT."--Loose Rounds. The author had an old abandoned home, still with some furniture and appliances, and decided to shoot it up with a few different calibers and types of bullets. Some of the results might surprise you. First of all, pretty much nothing but a bookcase (with books) and a clothes dryer stopped all test rounds. This is probably what most of you expected. But what was surprising is that the .223 was much better at penetration than 7.62x39. The latter was not only stopped by what stopped the .223, but also stopped by the refrigerator. Of course, the interior walls were no barrier to the bullets. 

       I would comment on this, however, which is that most of these tests are performed shooting at the wall(s) from a 90 degree angle. A shallow angle would result in the bullets hitting the studs and other framing, which would reduce penetration and/or change the bullet path. I would like to see a test like this because if you have to use your firearm, it may very well be shooting down a hallway with rooms to either side, where a miss will result in the bullet striking the wall at a shallow angle.

• "The Carjacker Beatdown"--Active Response Training. An erstwhile carjacker attempted to heist a car with a women and kids in it. He crashed into a telephone pole and bystanders decided to have their way with him, dragging him from the car and giving him an educational beatdown. Greg Elifritz has some good commentary on certain points, such as why get the guy out of the car if you can get the mother and kids out and take the keys; using a neck crank to make it easier to pull the guy out; and some advice on how to "break" the guy down so he stays down. He also suggests staying on the guy after police arrive so it is easier for the police to put handcuffs on the perpetrator; although I live in a community where the police shoot first and ask questions later, so I don't know how safe that is. (E.g.: I had a classmate in college that was a nurse who tried to assist someone that had fallen from a window at a crowded bar; even as he was rendering aid, the police tackled him, handcuffed him, then jerked him around with the cuffs, so he had long scabs and bruises along both forearms a few days later when I saw him. And, yes, bystanders were attempting to explain that he was just assisting, and he had identified himself as a nurse). 

     However, I thought this was interesting because it shows how so many violent criminals really aren't human:

 Look at the suspect when the cop stands him up at the 2:50 mark.  He has just carjacked a woman and child, crashed their car, and fought both the citizens who detained him and the police officer.  Look at his face.  A disgusting smirk is all we see.  He doesn’t care one bit for the victims he terrorized.  That’s something that every good person needs to understand…a predatory criminal couldn’t care less about you or your children.  He doesn’t care about anything except getting what he wants without getting caught or feeling pain.  If you think that moral or rational appeals will be successful against these folks, you are wrong.  It’s almost as if they are from another universe.  Don’t assume that they will operate by any moral code with which you are familiar.  These psychopaths don’t care about ANYTHING!  If they have to hurt you to get what they want, they won’t hesitate for a moment.

• "Military Terms of the Modern Era"--This is an online dictionary of military terms, in case you are trying to puzzle out what some acronym means, or the difference between a battalion and a division.
• "The Dangers of Backing Up… QUICKLY!"--Handgun Combatives. The author discusses situations where you may well have to turn your back on a threat. From the article:

      The fact of the matter is you can’t run backwards!  By run I mean move quickly, at a speed that will help save your life if bullets are in bound. Yes, it is possible to move to the rear at a controlled speed, but if moving as fast as humanely possible to create distance is the goal, then trying to move quickly backwards will result in a fall and falling in a gunfight can prove fatal.

       Moving to the rear in a controlled fashion can be accomplished two ways. The first is a “step and drag” technique that has the shooter step back with one foot and then drag the trailing foot into place. The second is a “shuffle step” in which the feet are kept in contact with the ground and shifted back and forth…neither will allow for the development of rapid speed…the type of speed needed to get from place to place as fast a humanly possible.

* * *

     Moving rapidly to the rear does not allow for this natural shift of the center of gravity between the feet.  ... Since the feet and toes are not pointed in the direction of said movement, the ass over rides the feet and the combatant falls. 

      During rapid rearward movement, the typical person will have 3 to 4 steps before they run the risk of falling. ...

      ... If moving quickly is more important than moving in a controlled fashion, you may have to turn your back in order to create distance, move to cover or gain a position of advantage to continue the fight.

• "Derp Debunked: Retiring Two Cherished Myths About Guns"--ITS Tactical. The first myth is that you need to keep your firearm squeaky clean:

       ... the zealous, detail strip and white glove-clean treatment that some shooters administer to their guns do nothing more than accelerate wear and breakage. Yes, really.

       Due to enshrining absolute cleanliness as a virtue and the removal of every trace of residue as a holy mandate, some shooters won’t stop attacking their guns after even a day at the range with more and more aggressive brushes, scrapers, chemicals and cleansers until they’re operating theater clean. A few wayward souls even get after their guns with the infamous Dremel or other motorized tools. This is totally unnecessary for nominal function and this constant cleaning and disassembly harms the gun by eroding tolerances, thinning or breaching surface coatings and even wearing away the surface hardening of working parts.

"Doomsday Marauders"--Jerome NKy Preparedness (4 min.)

"As long as my neighbors have food, I have food." A frank discussion about those "preppers" who plan on taking their neighbors' food and supplies.

• Paging Jackson Galaxy: "Oregon woman finds mountain lion napping in her home: 'This is wild'"--Fox News. I've seen a lot of comments about this incident, but thought I would throw in my 2 cents. The basic background is that the woman found a mountain lion asleep in her house. Rather than disturb the mountain lion and attempt to scare or drive it out of her house, she opted to use some cat body language. 

       Taylor made a noise to wake the feline, but then “gazed lovingly into her eyes, and communicated using feline-speak eye blinking to calm her,” she wrote.

       “It was amazing to realize that this worked. I gazed lovingly then blinked hard and then she did it back,” Taylor continued, adding that the cat then went back to sleep. “She clearly felt safe and she showed no inclination to leave."

Later the cat woke up and left to avoid having to hear the woman playing a drum. A lot of people have criticized the woman, but given the situation, it was probably as good as any other solution. Jackson Galaxy hosts (or hosted) a program called "My Cat From Hell" where he helps people deal with problem cats, and as he has explained, the slow blink is a means by which cats communicate that they are not a threat. If you give a slow blink to the cat and the cat responds, it means that they are calm and also recognize or acknowledge that you are not a threat. So, in this case, the woman's slow blinking helped keep the cat calm.

• True-colors: "Koch-Backed CATO Institute: ‘Time for the U.S. to Have Open Borders’"--Breitbart. From the article:

In an op-ed for USA Today, the Cato Institute’s Director of Economic Studies, Jeffrey Miron, says the U.S. “has nothing to fear, and much to gain, from open borders,” saying that Americans should “forget” about putting a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigration.

• Nothing to fear from open borders: "Frightening moment seven masked illegal immigrants storm a jewelry store in a Texas mall, sparking fears of a mass shooting"--Daily Mail. It reports:

       The men, who range in age from 22 to 43, stormed  Deutsch & Deutsch at La Plaza Mall in McAllen on Saturday at around 1pm where they smashed the store's cabinets to try to grab merchandise.

      Videos of the attempted robbery circulated on social media afterwards.  They showed the men wearing masks on their faces and wielding guns at customers in the store.

• We're from the government and we're here to help: "'This is a horror movie scenario': Homeowner, 73, accidentally killed by police had shot naked home intruder who was trying to drown his 11-year-old grandson in a bathtub"--Daily Mail. From the article:

      Several family and neighbors had called 911, including Black's wife Jeanette, who gave dispatchers a very specific description of her husband and what he was wearing.

      Police arrived and the stepson was in the bathroom with the child and Jeannette was outside on the phone, speaking to 911 dispatch, when they heard gunshots.

     Black was standing in his living room when he was hit by gunfire, Rathod said.

The intruder was naked, so it shouldn't have been too hard for the police to tell who was who.

• Only the police are skilled enough to carry firearms: "'Drop the knife!': Dramatic video shows LAPD officers fatally shooting a man and the woman he was holding hostage at knifepoint"--Daily Mail. According to the article, "Cops fired nearly 20 times and killed both Perez and Tollison." Looking at the video, which shows the perpetrator practically standing clear of the hostage, I would guess that the majority--at least 90%--of civilian concealed carry holders could have killed the perpetrator with one shot and no injury to the woman.
• Draining the swamp: "Federal prosecutors said to be investigating lobbyist Tony Podesta after special counsel referral"--CNBC. Also under investigation is former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., and former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig. Interestingly, the case was referred to prosecutors in New York, which suggests to me that some stock or securities shenanigans may have been going on.
• "FISA documents reveal FBI collusion"--Boston Herald. From the article:

       [T]he bulk of the information that formed the basis for the FISA warrant applications was the “dossier” of allegations about Donald Trump’s activities in Russia. This dossier was provided to the FBI by British spy Christopher Steele. Steele was hired during the 2016 presidential campaign by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, who was paid by Hillary Clinton’s law firm Perkins Coie, who was paid by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. The allegations were scandalous and completely unverified, in violation of federal statutes and FISA court rules.

       In other words, the FBI used oppo research paid for by the Democrats as justification for government spying on a political opponent and other Americans.

• "MH370 Was ‘Manipulated’ Off Course to Its End, Report Says"--Bloomberg. The article relates:

It’s difficult to attribute the change in course to any system failure, according to the report released Monday. “It is more likely that such maneuvers are due to the systems being manipulated,” the report said.

In other words, the pilot did it.

• "South Africa to change constitution to legalize taking away white farmers' land"--RT. From the article:

       South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the ruling African National Congress must initiate a parliamentary process to enshrine in the constitution a proposed amendment, paving the way for land grabs without compensation.

      Ramaphosa, who vowed to return the lands owned by the white farmers since the 1600s to the country's black population after he assumed office in February this year, said on Tuesday that the ANC would introduce a constitutional amendment in parliament.

There is a certain irony here because the majority blacks in South Africa are not descended from the original inhabitants. Rather, it was the minority Saan that occupied the land at the time of colonization. The black majority are Buntu that entered the land from the north at the same time European settlers were pushing from the South. And a great deal of the blacks are actually descended from workers brought into South Africa after the end of the colonial period. 

• Drawing blanks: So far, every experiment devised to detect dark matter has come up empty (although scientists are discovering that there is a lot more normal matter out there than previously believed). The same seems to be happening with dark energy as this article, entitled "No sign of Symmetrons" explains. Even the models which dark energy is intended to explain are under question, as recent measurements have shown a difference in galactic expansion measured by the Hubble constant (based on the red shift of stars moving away from us) and measured by looking at the cosmic background radiation. Dark matter is pretty much debunked and dark energy looks to be on the way to the dustbin of history as well. These theories will hang on until their strongest proponents retire or die, but we should start to see a shift in the coming few years.