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Friday, February 15, 2019

February 15, 2019 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"44 Special"--Paul Harrell (25 min.)
The basic take away from this video is that the .44 Special is ... well ... not that special. It has lackluster velocity resulting in poor expansions even from some high quality ammunition, is hard to find, and is expensive. While Harrell discusses various reasons why someone might still choose .44 Special over more effective calibers, he misses the one I hear the most: what if you live in a jurisdiction that doesn't allow expanding bullets--the larger diameter bullets allow for larger holes. Given the resurgence of interest in the .45 Colt, it might be a better revolver self-defense option if you are limited to non-expanding bullets. Shooting Illustrated also has a take on the .44 Special.

  • TGIF: Active Response Training's Weekend Knowledge Dump for this week. Lots of good articles, as always. A few that jumped out where links to a drill for concealed carriers (the 5-5-5 drill: drawing from concealment and shooting 5 shots into a playing card at 5 yards inside of 5 seconds); an article discussing concealed carry in really cold temperatures ("CCW for non-sissys"); a police officer's account of providing some street justice to a man that raped a 14 year old girl ("The Day I Had to Chose Between Fighting Evil... or Being a Cop"); and a new blog ("Gun Curious") that is intended to provide information to people that are not people of the gun, but are interested in learning more.
  • While you are at Greg Ellifritz' site, check out his article, "The Asian Bistro Active Killer Attack." Ellifritz gives some advice on what to do if an active shooter begins his assault outside a building, but shooting into the building. First step: lock the doors and get away from windows.
  • "SBR Ammo Buyer’s Guide"--Recoil Magazine. Those of you running a 5.56 SBR or pistol may be interested in this article. The author does ballistic tests of five different defensive loads out of a 10.8-inch AR. From my perspective, the best combination of expansion and penetration from the rounds tested seemed to be from the Federal 62gr Fusion MSR. It penetrated close to 20-inches, which is a bit much, but had better expansion.
  • On the subject of short barrels: "38 Snub Vs. .357 Snub"--The Snubnose Files. The author notes that even when compared to "hot" .38 Special +P loads, the .357 Magnum provides significant more power out of a snub nosed revolver. Now, whether you want the flash, noise and recoil is different issue.
  • Related: "Making the J-Frame .38 Snub Work"--The Snubnose Files. The author gives some detailed advice on getting the most out of a snubnosed revolver. Quick summary, however:
  • If you are new to the snubby, or haven't shot yours in a while, start your practice at short range. (I recommend this for anyone new to shooting handguns).
  • Don't shoot beyond your individual fatigue limits.
  • Use realistically sized targets at realistic ranges.
  • Shoot regularly (and, I would add, dry-fire regularly).
  • Shoot ammunition you can handle (this is likely where the .357 v. .38 may come into play). 
  • Practice reloading (not just at the range, but also using Snap-Caps at home).
  • Make sure your firearm fits you (e.g., change grips if necessary--I really like Ergo's Delta Grip).
  • After you have achieved some proficiency, then shoot beyond your comfort zone.
  • Shoot in different ways (e.g., one-handed, from different positions, etc.).
Read the whole article--it's worth it.
            A person with a strong dominant eye will usually find it easier to maintain visual attention on the sights with both eyes open when using the dominant eye than a person who is either co-dominant or has a minimal differential in eye dominance.
             The person who has a low dominance factor usually has to limit the visual input to the eye not in line with the sights by squinting, closing or otherwise occluding the amount of light and visual information being inputted. This helps to prevent conflict between the two eyes as to what visual information is primary in being processed by the brain.
      Beyond its journey from a local street to a transnational power-seeking gang, the overlapping ideological themes and cultural narratives underlying Mara Salvatrucha’s evolution have been built upon a foundation of Satanism, occultism, brutality and torture, and rampant criminality. While some gang cliques and their members are still primarily secular in their orientation and view Satanism and occultism from more of an ideological perspective many others embrace a violent magico-religious cosmology in a sense becoming ‘true believers’ that now adhere to amoral or even evil spiritual values that invite sacrifice and torture.    
      • "Survival Gear Review: Burley COHO XC Bike Trailer"--Survival Cache. This is a single wheel bike trailer designed for mountain biking. Cargo capacity is rated at 70 lbs. It also comes with a kickstand that can keep both the trailer and the bike upright. The author writes:
      The real test of the COHO XC was a fiery ride down a winding single track with all 70 liters of cargo space filled with bug out gear.  On its own, the COHO XC performed splendidly. And compared to other past trailer designs, the COHO XC demonstrated what is possible when design evolution is set free to do its job. The Burley COHO XC and I took a few three mile descents over varied terrain and hairpin turns. Even through mud and dropoffs, the COHO XC performed flawlessly. During the first run, I noticed the quick release attaching the yoke to the frame had loosened, but adding a little more tightness, it never loosened up again.
                Gen. Townsend’s recommendation for preparing for operations in dense urban areas includes not only training the ability to fight in cities, but also to better understanding their “flow.”
                 Flow is the movement of people, resources, information, or things in and out of a city through a network of lines and systems similar to the blood stream, nervous system of a living organism. Some urban experts believe a city’s social infrastructure is more important than its physical infrastructure.
                  But understanding the social infrastructure, demography, governance, economics, power hierarchies, and security systems of how a city works goes beyond Army capabilities and tactics for urban combat. It requires a formal educational program provided by experts. That is exactly what study groups and urban scholars such as Alice Hills and Michael Evans have recommended for a long time. Hills has gone as far as to say that the military’s lack of understanding of how cities work and their human architectures will lead to strategic incoherence and operational failure.
                      He said he first heard pine needles rustling behind him on the West Ridge Trail. He turned and he said “One of my worst fears was confirmed” — it was a mountain lion that was about 10 feet away.
                        Kauffman raised his hands and yelled at the creature but it was to no avail. The lion then leaped at him and “latched onto” his wrist with its jaws.
                         “It was going up towards my face so I threw up my hands to kind of block my face, at which point it grabbed onto my hand and wrist and from there it started to claw at my face and neck. And that’s when kind of my fear response turned into more of a fight response,” Kauffman said.
                           As man and mountain lion engaged in battle, the two fell off the south side of the trail, “From there it was just a wrestling match.”

                      * * *

                               Eventually he was able to pin it to the ground and suffocate the animal.
                                “I was hoping that I could kind of get in a few hits on it and then convince it to scram but it was still really aggressive the whole time and really latched onto my wrist and didn’t release until the moment it finally suffocated,” said Kauffman.

                          "Lesson from History: Transgender Mania is Sign of Cultural Collapse - Camille Paglia"--Gravitahn (7 min.). I've set the link to start at the relevant part, which is about 4:09.

                          A senior White House official familiar with the plan to get money beyond the congressional funding told ABC News $1.375 billion would come from the spending bill Congress passed Thursday; $600 million would come from the Treasury Department's drug forfeiture fund; $2.5 billion would come from the Pentagon's drug interdiction program; and through an emergency declaration: $3.5 billion from the Pentagon's military construction budget.
                                    “From an originalist Constitution point of view, Congress probably shouldn’t have ever delegated this kind of power to the president in the first place, so they may be having second thoughts about having done that,” said John Eastman, a Chapman University law professor and former Justice Department official. “But the notion that this president shouldn’t be able to use powers that every other president has used, I think that’s just not a good use of the rule of law.”
                                     Once an emergency is declared, there are various other laws that allow the president to divert funds for any construction that “requires the use of the armed forces” or “may require” using the military. Other provisions make money available for construction related to drug interdiction.
                              • Unfortunately, Congress is spending like there is no tomorrow: "Ignoring America’s Abyss of Debt"--The American Conservative. The author warns that "[t]he national debt just topped $22 trillion for the first time ever," and "[t]he debt-to-GDP ratio has more than doubled in less than 20 years, rising from 33 percent in 2000 to 78 percent today. Within 10 years, it will reach 93 percent, the highest level since just after World War II."
                              • "As The Russia Hoax Begins To Unravel, The Gaslighting Begins"--The Federalist. Those in the main stream media are beginning to distance themselves from the Russia Collusion story. The article continues:
                                     This is unsurprising. The Russia hoax is crumbling and people can’t run away fast enough. We’ve seen signs from the very beginning that many of the people who promoted the Trump-Russia collusion smear have always known it was a hoax. These signs have been in plain sight. ... 
                              * * *
                                      On May 19, 2017, FBI agent Peter Strzok wrote FBI lawyer (and his paramour) Lisa Page his assessment of the Trump-Russia collusion accusations after nearly a year-long investigation: “There’s no big there there.” In June 2017, the following month, CNN’s Van Jones was secretly recorded saying, “The Russia thing is just a big nothingburger. There’s nothing there you can do.”
                                       Bob Woodward of Watergate fame has been saying for some time that there’s no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. Michael Isakoff of Yahoo news, who did some of the early Trump-Russia reporting, has admitted that many of the Trump-Russia claims are “likely false.”
                                Read the whole thing.
                                • "Europe, Please Wake Up"--George Soros writing in Project Syndicate. Soros is worried that people that love their countries and don't want to see their countries transformed into third-world countries may win key elections. He complains:
                                The next inflection point will be the elections for the European Parliament in May 2019. Unfortunately, anti-European forces will enjoy a competitive advantage in the balloting. There are several reasons for this, including the outdated party system that prevails in most European countries, the practical impossibility of treaty change, and the lack of legal tools for disciplining member states that violate the principles on which the European Union was founded. The EU can impose the acquis communautaire (the body of European Union law) on applicant countries, but lacks sufficient capacity to enforce member states’ compliance.
                                In other words, Soros believes that the EU needs a strong central government that can force the individual members states to kneel. He is particularly concerned about Germany, explaining:
                                         The EU’s dominant country is Germany, and the dominant political alliance in Germany – between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Bavaria-based Christian Social Union (CSU) – has become unsustainable. The alliance worked as long as there was no significant party in Bavaria to the right of the CSU. That changed with the rise of the extremist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). In last September’s länder elections, the CSU’s result was its worst in over six decades, and the AfD entered the Bavarian Parliament for the first time.
                                           The AfD’s rise removed the raison d’être of the CDU-CSU alliance. But that alliance cannot be broken up without triggering new elections that neither Germany nor Europe can afford. As it is, the current ruling coalition cannot be as robustly pro-European as it would be without the AfD threatening its right flank.
                                    To sum up, the voters may not vote the way he wants, and its a major concern. (H/t Anonymous Conservative).
                                    • More fake news: "Sources: Police investigating whether Jussie Smollett staged attack with help of others, allegedly being written off 'Empire'"--ABC 7 Chicago. Smollett, a black gay actor, had claimed that he was attacked on a late night munchies run to a Subway sandwich store a few blocks from his apartment. He claims that when returning from the shop, he was set upon by two attackers that spouted pro-Trump comments, poured some mysterious substance all over him, and tied a noose around his neck. Amazingly, however, surveillance video showed that he was able to keep hold of his Subway footlong and still had it in hand when he returned to his apartment. He also kept the noose around his neck for the approximately 45 minutes it took for police arrived. However, he has been less than forthcoming with his telephone records. The article reports:
                                            Multiple sources have told ABC7 Eyewitness News that police are investigating whether Smollett and the two men staged the attack allegedly because Smollett was being written off of "Empire."
                                              A source familiar with the investigation told the ABC7 I-Team that Smollett failed to appear for an interview with detectives earlier Thursday, but has since spoken with police.
                                               Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson contacted ABC7 to say they are continuing to treat Smollett as a victim and the investigation remains ongoing.
                                                Chicago police told ABC News, "Police are investigating whether the two individuals committed the attack - or whether the attack happened at all."
                                          • The collapsing narrative: "Social Engineering Doesn’t Work? Blame the Genes"--The American Conservative. A review of a couple of books that argue that many of the factors that tend to govern how we act, or how successful we may be, are controlled, at least in party, by genes. For example: 
                                          When it comes to psychological traits such as intelligence, personality, and schizophrenia, the upshot is that the latter is closer to the truth: typically, about half of the “variance” is explained by genes, while far less of it, sometimes none, is explained by the shared environment.
                                          Also, shocking as it may be, there are genetic differences between men and women.
                                          • "Indiana Jones Isn’t Wrong—The Nazis’ Fascination With The Occult Was Very Real"--The Federalist. A review of Eric Kurlander’s book Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich. What people forget is that educated Westerners were heavily interested in the occult in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries--it wasn't something limited to the Nazis. 
                                          • A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "New AI fake text generator may be too dangerous to release, say creators"--The Guardian. Most of the article attempts to explain that the creators are concerned about how such an AI would be used. But buried deep in the article is the more likely explanation: "As it is trained on the internet, it is not hard to encourage it to generate bigoted text, conspiracy theories and so on." Past AI projects have not fared well because they (the AIs) tend to racist and/or sexist. (H/t Anonymous Conservative).
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                                          Weekend Reading -- A New Weekend Knowledge Dump

                                          Greg Ellifritz has posted a new Weekend Knowledge Dump at his Active Response Training blog . Before I discuss some of his links, I want to ...