November 10, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"How To Deal with Multiple Attackers! For real..."--Funker Tactical (16 min.)

Some advice and tactics for dealing with multiple attackers in a hand-to-hand situation. It you are outnumbered, the goal is to get them to leave off long enough that you can get away. Rather than fight all of them at once, you have to focus on one at a time, while maneuvering to keep others from flanking you. Not a good situation to be in. 

• A sobering headline: "Evacuees are turned away from overflowing shelters as more than 300,000 residents are told to leave their homes and unrelenting flames reduce entire California communities into ashes and nine are confirmed dead"--Daily Mail. The dead are in the Camp Fire in northern California, while the incidents of people being turned away from shelters is related to the fire around Malibu in southern California. The fire near Malibu has, according to the article, forced 300,000 to evacuate their homes, and photographs show bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway. And this: "When Paradise [in northern California] was evacuated, the order set off a desperate exodus in which many motorists got stuck in gridlocked traffic and abandoned their vehicles to flee on foot." 
• "Woolsey and Hill Fires: List of Evacuation Orders, Road Closures in L.A. and Ventura Counties on Saturday"--KTLA 5. The entire city of Malibu has been ordered to be evacuated.

From the Paradise Fire in northern California (Source)

Pacific Coastal Highway (source)

• "Big Wheel Keep on Turnin’: Running the Revolver for Self-Defense"--Guns America Blog. This is an excellent article hitting all the high points, and several of the finer points, of using a revolver. But, as the author cautions: "Don’t think you can learn to competently run a revolver–or any gun for that matter–by reading a book or an article or watching a video. There is no substitute for in-person instruction by a competent instructor. But the first step in learning is to realize that there are things you don’t know and that you need to know. Perhaps that’s the real value here." A short excerpt:

        Although a shooter should practice firing the revolver one handed with either hand, it is more effective to use a two hand hold. But that hold is a little different compared to a semi-auto. First, grip as high on the backstrap as possible to help control muzzle rise. And keep your fingers well behind the gap between the cylinder and the rear of the barrel. High-velocity hot gas is emitted from this gap with every round, and it can injure or even sever a finger.

       One grip technique is to lock the offhand thumb over the firing hand thumb. Another is to place the offhand thumb behind the backstrap on top of the firing hand. Still, another is to place the offhand thumb below the firing hand thumb along the frame. Just don’t get near the cylinder gap. You will make that mistake only once before you learn the lesson.

Since I shoot both revolver and semi-auto, I try and keep my grip on the revolver similar to that I would use on a semi-auto, so I when shooting a revolver, I don't cross the offhand thumb over the backstrap / base of the shooting hand. Some magnum revolver shooters use that method to help control recoil, but if you slip into that hold when using a semi-auto, the slide will strike the offhand thumb and probably induce a misfire besides injuring your thumb. Also, when I shoot a semi-auto, I don't place my offhand index finger around the front of the trigger guard, because to do the same on the revolver would invite burns from gas escaping between the cylinder and breach. 

• "3 Ways To Protect Your Homestead (That Don’t Involve A Gun)"--Off The Grid News. The three points are: (1) fencing, (2) security lighting, and (3) animals to warn or guard the property. While these are all good ideas, these are pretty much passive defenses which must be supplemented with active defenses in order to fully protect your home.
• "7 Ways to Protect Your Homestead"--Homestead Survival Site. This article adds additional passive defenses to include: (1) installing an alarm system, (2) using bullet proof windows or shatter resistant film to stop or slow someone's ability to access the structure by breaking a window, (3) install security cameras, which may act as deterrent, (4) create a safe room, (5) mount motion sensor controlled lights, (6) build an underground bunker (really, what the author means, I suspect, is a fall-out and/or storm shelter), (7) get a dog.
• "10 Home Security Measures You Should Take Now"--Survivalist Prepper. The author suggests the following: (1) first, evaluate your home for weaknesses, (2) keep your doors and windows locked and install the shatter resistant film to your windows, (3) install dummy security cameras, (4) install an alarm system, or even simple things like a bell over the door, (5) secure your perimeter by using motion controlled lights or a driveway sensor, (6) practice situational awareness, get to know your neighbors, and don't hide spare keys in obvious places, (7) don't brag about expensive purchases, (8) don't leave your garage door open or otherwise display belongings, (9) using adequate lighting around your house, and use timers for indoor lights, and (10) train everyone to implement security measures, such as making sure to lock doors, close garage doors, etc.
• "Complacency Kills: Why I chose CZ over Glock"--Loadout Room. The author thinks that Glock has been resting on its laurels, and discusses the features that led him to buy the CZ P09 and P07 pistols.
• "Detecting Hidden Cameras: A Basic Introduction To Counter Surveillance"--Schafer's Self-Defense Corner. 
• "Turn Your AR Lower into a Pistol Caliber Carbine: Stern Defense Conversion Kit"--Guns America Blog. A review of their magazine adapter as well as their upper, taking a particular look at their .45 ACP offering.
• Blue Collar Prepping reviews the Ka-Bar 9909 Spork/knife, and decides it isn't worth buying. Read the article if you want to the details.

"CAROL OF THE HARPS (Harp Twins) Camille and Kennerly" (4-1/2 min.). Carol of the Bells played on harps.

• The police cannot save you: "Six Un-Armed Off-Duty Police Inside Bar during Thousand Oaks Shooting"--Ammo Land.
• There are many ways to disenfranchise voters. While I tend to focus on the importation of immigrants to supplement liberal voting blocs and supplant conservatives, we also see various attempts to trick voters into not voting, or, increasingly, outright voter fraud. And in that regard, the Democrats have doubled down on voter fraud to win the Senate elections in Florida and Arizona. What is happening in Florida--in Broward County (funny how that name keeps popping up)--is particularly egregious. The Anonymous Conservative has a pretty comprehensive list of news articles and commentary on the topic, but I would like to add a few more:

• "Dozens of mail-in ballots sitting in Miami distribution center: report"--The Hill. What the headline was supposed to say was that there were dozens of boxes of ballots containing hundreds or, perhaps, thousands of mail in ballots.

• "Broward County Is An Embarrassment, And The Potential For A Stolen Florida Election Is Real"--The Federalist. 

• "Yes, Democrats Are Trying To Steal The Election In Florida"--The Federalist. From the article: 

         State law requires that all early and by-mail votes be tabulated within 30 minutes of the polls closing, but three days later, Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes still refuses to specify how many people voted, how many ballots have been tabulated, and how many are left to count.

        Since Tuesday, 80,000 new votes have mysteriously turned up in Broward County and another 15,000 in Palm Beach County. These newly discovered ballots have been “breaking almost 3-to-1 in favor of Democrats,” narrowing the margin between these two candidates to likely force a recount after Saturday’s noon deadline requiring all counties to turn over election results to the state Division of Elections.

• "Mid-term elections 2018: Florida orders recount of votes"--BBC. The Florida Secretary of State has ordered recounts of the votes for both the senatorial and gubernatorial elections.

      As preppers, we should be particular concerned about such instances beyond the outrage we might feel because this is how governmental legitimacy is destroyed. If the choice is between bullets and the ballot box, destroying the ballot box is lunacy, yet that is what is currently happening in Florida. Once a government loses its legitimacy, the force of law quickly evaporates because, let's face it, governments have to rely on people willingness to respect laws and obey officials--there just aren't enough police to enforce compliance at all times and all places.

        Once things start to break down, the end can come stunningly fast. As long-time readers probably know, I have been following The Great War channel on You Tube, which has been offering a week-by-week account of World War I.  It is amazing at how quickly the Central Powers collapsed once the collapse began. In the summer of 1918, although it was evident that the Central Powers would not win, there was no guarantee that they would be quickly defeated either. Yet in a matter of weeks in the fall of 1918, Austria-Hungary began to rupture, with troops deserting the front lines to return to regions and cities that were beginning to declare their independence; Bulgaria similarly saw its army melt away, even with German troops in the line with them; with Bulgaria out of the war, the Allies suddenly had a path opened to attacking Istanbul, resulting in the capitulation of the Ottoman Empire before any such advance could even be made. And as for Germany, with its allies in the East melting away, German troops likewise began to leave; in the West, German moral was so low that any successful breach of the front lines saw troops surrendering in droves; and within Germany, popular uprisings (mostly communist in origin) meant that certain cities were essentially in open revolt against the central government; and these same revolts spread to the navy so that naval personnel refused to obey orders. 

        What we are seeing is from the left over the last couple of years is a rejection of our system in favor of anything necessary to win. Don't get me wrong, elections have always been dirty. But there was always a certain respect for the system. Now it is a naked fight for dominance, without any regard to the future and the peaceful transfer of power.

         I'm sure that I've had readers stop reading my blog or never come back because, they think, I focus too much on politics. But when we are talking about the loss of law and order or collapse of civilization, we are discussing politics! Imagine that you were a prepper in Yugoslavia prior to its breakup, and you concerned yourself only with the risks of earthquakes, flooding, a solar flare, or other natural disasters, and ignored the changing political landscape within your own country. You would have been ignoring the biggest threat to your existence.  

• "This Is a Fight to the Finish"--Patrick Buchanan at The American Conservative. He writes:

          For two years, Trump has been under a cloud of unproven allegations and suspicion that he and top campaign officials colluded with Vladimir Putin’s Russia to thieve and publish the emails of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

        It is past time for Mueller to prove these charges or concede he has a busted flush, wrap up his investigation and go home.

        And now, in T.S. Eliot’s words, Trump appears to have found “the strength to force the moment to its crisis.”

        His attitude toward Mueller’s probe is taking on the aspect of Andrew Jackson’s attitude toward Nicholas Biddle’s Second Bank of the United States: It’s “trying to kill me, but I will kill it.”

       Trump has been warned by congressional Democrats that if he in any way impedes the work of Mueller’s office, he risks impeachment.

       Well, let’s find out.

       If the House Judiciary Committee of incoming chairman Jerrold Nadler wishes to impeach Trump for forcing Mueller to fish or cut bait, Trump’s allies should broaden the debate to the real motivation here of the defeated establishment: It detests the man the American people chose to lead their country and thus wants to use its political and cultural power to effect his removal.

He continues:

       And just how much division can this democracy stand?

       We know what the left thinks of Trump’s “base.”

       Hillary Clinton told us. Half his supporters, she said, are a “basket of deplorables” who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.” Lately, America’s populist right has been called fascist and neo-Nazi.

      How can the left “unite” with people like that? Why should the left not try to drive such “racists” out of power by any means necessary?

      This is the thinking that bred antifa.

      As for those on the right—as they watch the left disparage the old heroes, tear down their monuments, purge Christianity from their public schools—they have come to conclude that their enemies are at root anti-Christian and anti-American.

      How do we unify a nation where the opposing camps believe this?

• Heading to California, the soft underbelly of the United States and the state most likely to undermine efforts by the feds to stop the invaders from crossing the border: "Caravan migrants leave Mexico City en masse, headed for U.S.-Mexico border"--Los Angeles Times. From the article:

         Thousands of Central Americans left Mexico City on Saturday bound for the U.S.-Mexico border, marking the latest stage in the journey of the migrant caravan that President Trump has labeled an invasion.

      Having already traversed a broad swath of Central America and southern Mexico, the migrants embarked on a long trip to what many said was their destination — the Mexican border city of Tijuana, across from San Diego, some 1,700 miles to the northwest.

• An attitude of entitlement: "US navy ship ignored sinking migrants' cries for help, say survivors"--The Guardian. The article reports: "The USS Trenton rescued 42 people after the dinghy sank on 12 June, but survivors allege that the cruiser had earlier ignored their cries for help, failing to avert a disaster in which 76 people died." The Navy claims that the survivors are wrong, and that the Trenton was not in the area prior to when it started to rescue survivors of the capsized dinghy. Whatever the truth of the matter, the migrants feel wronged because the incident upset their expectation that the first ship that hove into view would pick them up and transfer them to Europe.
• "Fed Risks Backlash Reining in Economy Congress Wants to Rev Up"--Bloomberg. The original purpose of the Fed was to provide a backup to infuse cash to banks suffering a bank run, not to control the economy.
• "How the 5 Fingers Got Their Names"--Mental Floss. Well, I already knew why the middle finger got its name.
• "Build Your Own Enigma Cipher Machine"--IEEE Spectrum. This article discusses "a hardware kit that duplicates the physical operation of the Enigma’s keyboard, display, and plugboard while replacing the rotating metal discs at the machine’s heart with an Arduino Mega microcontroller." 
• Par for the course: "NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars Is Rolling (and Drilling) Again"--Space.com. It's primary computer had gone offline in mid-September, requiring technicians to switch to a secondary computer to operate the rover. Oh, and my golfing reference is because it just completed drilling its 18th hole.