A Quick Run Around the Web (2/22/2020)

"2006 Seattle Urban Survival Story featuring Cody Lundin" (7 min.)

Includes some good survival advice, particularly about water and food.

• First off, be sure to check out Greg Ellifritz's Weekend Knowledge Dump for this week. Links to articles and videos on the best types of pepper spray, body language and pre-assault behavior, responding to airway obstructions, different ways to reload an AK, and more.
• Also, Grant Cunningham had a new Hump Day Reading List this past Wednesday.
• "JWT: The Guns I Used in Combat in Afghanistan"--The Truth About Guns. The author discusses the weapons he carried or used in combat and his thoughts about each. One of the interesting points he makes is that because he was constantly armed and carried an M4 and/or Beretta M9 as he performed many different tasks, he didn't actually associate them with combat. In fact, he notes, most of the actual combat was done by the people armed with machine guns (his favorite being the M2 Browning .50), not rifles. He continues:

They [the M4 and M9] weren’t even my most important tool. After spending some time in actual combat, I learned that my radio was a far more useful, and far more deadly tool than my individual weapons. In fact, many of the guys I worked with eventually dropped a magazine or two so that they could carry more batteries for their radio.

He also had no complaints or concerns regarding the reliability of his M4.

• "Concealed Carry Corner: Watching For Bullet Setback"--The Firearm Blog. Bullet setback refers to a bullet being pushed back into the case further than it is normally seated. It can happen suddenly, such as when you have a failure to feed; or slowly over time if you are constantly ejecting a cartridge and then re-chambering it such as unloading and loading a concealed carry weapon. The problem is that if the bullet is seated too far into the case, it raises the pressure in the cartridge, possibly to dangerous levels. I've had (and seen others have) instances where a bullet is pushed so far in that it is essentially sitting loose in the casing. And I've seen instances where people will just pull the bullet out until its tight and just shoot it. Don't do that! Just dispose of the cartridge. 

As far as the cycling issue, I think the easiest way to deal with the issue is to simply not cycle the ammo repeatedly. That means, leaving your concealed carry weapon loaded at night rather than unloading each night and reloading it each morning. If that is not an option, when reloading the weapon, consider manually putting a round in the chamber with the slide locked back so the cartridge is already aligned properly, let the slide slam shut, engage the safety/decock the weapon if needed, put in your magazine, and be on your way. And, as the author notes, be sure to replace your carry ammo with new ammo every few months or so.

• Latest coronavirus figures are 77,985 confirmed cases worldwide, including 2,362 fatalities. Cases in South Korea are shooting up, with 430 confirmed cases after more than 220 new infections were reported in 24 hours. And it continues to spread in the Middle-East with Iran now closing schools and cultural centers as the Iranian government reports having 5 deaths attributed to the illness, with the cited article reporting that "[b]ased on official figures, nearly 18 percent of those infected with the new coronavirus in Iran have died, compared with little more than three percent in China." Towns in northeast Italy have also closed public places and businesses to prevent the spread of the virus.  (See also "Northern Italy closes schools and suspends gatherings as coronavirus cases mount" from ABC News which notes that many of the new cases are people that have not traveled to China, meaning it is spreading on its own). On top of all of this, Chinese researchers are now saying that some "recovered" patients could still be infectious. And, the Business Insider reports, "The biggest breakdown yet of novel coronavirus cases suggests that 80% are mild. Some patients never show symptoms."

       There seems to be some disagreement as to the source of the coronavirus, although the open-air seafood market is increasingly being ruled out. Reported outbreaks in Chinese prisons has led to speculation that the epidemic may "have started from the cramped prison system, possibly at internment facilities in Xinjiang." The Global Times reports that "[a] new study by Chinese researchers indicates the novel coronavirus may have begun human-to-human transmission in late November from a place other than the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan." That means that the virus had been circulating for far longer than previously believed. This seems consistent with warnings from a Chinese provincial government that the virus may have up to a 27 day incubation period. But, increasingly, the evidence is mounting that the virus actually did originate in a Chinese bio-warfare laboratory in Wuhan. From the New York Post:

      At an emergency meeting in Beijing held last Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke about the need to contain the coronavirus and set up a system to prevent similar epidemics in the future.

     A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place “to protect the people’s health,” Xi said, because lab safety is a “national security” issue.

     Xi didn’t actually admit that the coronavirus now devastating large swathes of China had escaped from one of the country’s bioresearch labs. But the very next day, evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what happened, as the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive entitled: “Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus.”

       Read that again. It sure sounds like China has a problem keeping dangerous pathogens in test tubes where they belong, doesn’t it? And just how many “microbiology labs” are there in China that handle “advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus”?

     It turns out that in all of China there is only one. And this one is located in the Chinese city of Wuhan that just happens to be . . . the epicenter of the epidemic.

     That’s right. China’s only Level 4 microbiology lab that is equipped to handle deadly coronaviruses, called the National Biosafety Laboratory, is part of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The article also notes that "the People’s Liberation Army’s top expert in biological warfare, a Maj. Gen. Chen Wei, was dispatched to Wuhan at the end of January to help with the effort to contain the outbreak." But, perhaps most damnably, it has been learned that "[s]ome Chinese researchers are in the habit of selling their laboratory animals to street vendors after they have finished experimenting on them." 

      Instead of properly disposing of infected animals by cremation, as the law requires, they sell them on the side to make a little extra cash. Or, in some cases, a lot of extra cash. One Beijing researcher, now in jail, made a million dollars selling his monkeys and rats on the live animal market, where they eventually wound up in someone’s stomach.

     Also fueling suspicions about SARS-CoV-2’s origins is the series of increasingly lame excuses offered by the Chinese authorities as people began to sicken and die.

     They first blamed a seafood market not far from the Institute of Virology, even though the first documented cases of Covid-19 (the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2) involved people who had never set foot there. Then they pointed to snakes, bats and even a cute little scaly anteater called a pangolin as the source of the virus.

      I don’t buy any of this. It turns out that snakes don’t carry coronaviruses and that bats aren’t sold at a seafood market. Neither are pangolins, for that matter, an endangered species valued for their scales as much as for their meat.

     The evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 research being carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

• More airport security theater: "No US coronavirus cases were caught by airport temperature checks. "--CNN.

"The Best .32 ACP Ammo for Concealed Carry"--Lucky Gunner (7 min.)

Short take: for the .32 ACP, just pick a quality FMJ round.

• As the Democrats like to remind us, mass shootings only happen in America: "8 Dead, 5 Wounded in 2 Apparently Related Shootings in Hanau, Germany"--The Truth About Guns.
• Heh: "Another HUGE Impeachment Backfire – In Year Of Impeachment More Guns Were Bought Than Any Other Time in US History"--Right Journalism. The article relates:

       The Washington Times reported that 28.3 million checks were run on the FBI’s National Instant Check System last year. That included over 2.9 million in December, the month House Democrats voted to impeach the president on a party-line vote.

      According to FBI data on NICS checks, the previous record for a year was 27.5 million in 2016.

• "Bills to limit gun magazines and restrict gun sales fail in Washington Legislature"--King 5 News.
• This may provide a clue as to why Bloomberg jumped into the presidential race is so willing to spend hundreds of million in ads: "WSJ: Wages Are Rising, so Government Must Quickly Expand Immigration"--Breitbart. Quoting from the Wall Street Journal article:

      “Corporate profits have been declining as employers increase wages to hire scarce blue-collar workers … corporate profits could soon drop to historic lows, which could reduce business investment and GDP growth,” says the editorial board’s complaint, titled “America’s Disappearing Workers.”

       “Maybe the only short-term fix is to increase legal immigration—unless Americans want to see their living standards decline and more jobs exported,” the editorial concluded.

Yet there is no historical precedent for the WSJ's argument. The first half of the 19th Century, and the period from the 1940s through the 1960s saw tight restrictions against immigration and higher relative wages, with resulting social stability and prosperity. Conversely, open immigration such as in the latter 19th Century and early 20th Century, and after 1970, resulted in stagnant or falling wages and standards of living, social unrest, and a relative lack of innovation given the inroads that the Japanese and, later, the Chinese made into manufacturing and technology markets.

• "Globalist Magazine: Less Migration Makes Americans Richer, Economy Stronger"--Breitbart. Contra to the WSJ, The Economist magazine reports that "[l]Lower migration is driving up blue collar wages, and those extra wages are stabilizing the U.S. economy." This is an unmitigated disaster for the elites, so, of course, the Washington Post says elites must choose our next President, by giving elites more control over the nomination process. 
• Imitation is the highest form of flattery: "UK to close door to non-English speakers and unskilled workers"--The Guardian. 
• "Report: Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Stopping Anchor Baby Schemes"--Breitbart. 

       President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy at the United States-Mexico border is ensuring pregnant migrants are not using their court dates in the U.S. to then deliver their children on American soil, thus securing them birthright citizenship.

      Currently, Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy has made sure that southern border crossers claiming asylum are returned to Mexico or their native Central American country while they await their asylum hearings in the U.S. The policy has prevented mass fraud where illegal aliens are released into the interior of the U.S. only to never show up for their asylum hearings and never leave the country.

• The decline and fall of the West, cont.: "Greek and Latin are hard: Oxford classics faculty proposes dropping Homer and Virgil from required curriculum so female students will do better on the tests"--Stupid Girl (h/t Instapundit). Quoting from Oxford's student newspaper:

      This proposal forms part of a series of reforms aimed to modernise the first stage of the Classics degree, known as Moderations (Mods), which take place during Hilary term of second year for all students taking Classics courses across the university.

      The Mods course, which is assessed by a set of ten exams at the end of Hilary, has been increasingly criticised in recent years, due to the attainment gaps found between male and female candidates, as well as between candidates who have studied Latin and/or Greek to A-Level (Course I) and those who have not (Course II).

      The removal of Virgil and Homer papers, which take up two out of the ten Mods papers, have been marketed as a move that will reduce the attainment gaps and thus improve access to the subject.

• Brave New World: "Heartbroken Dad Of Trans Teen Breaks Gag To Beg For End Of ‘State-Sponsored Child Abuse’"--The Federalist. A Canadian court decided that at ripe of age 14, his daughter could decide to transition to a male and start on testosterone therapy. The father relates:

“I had a perfectly healthy child a year ago, and that perfectly healthy child has been altered and destroyed for absolutely no good reason,” Rob said in an exclusive interview. “She can never go back to being a girl in the healthy body that she should have had. She’s going to forever have a lower voice. She’ll forever have to shave because of facial hair. She won’t be able to have children…”