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Tuesday, April 7, 2020

A Quick Run Around The Web (4/7/2020)

"Rock Island Armory 1911 Review"--Paul Harrell (15 min.)
He tests the Rock Island model (which is based on the Series 70 design) against his modern Colt 1911 (which is a Series 80 design). (You can read about the differences here). He had about equal performance between the two pistols, but does describe the difference in safety features between the two design series. He also notes that the Rock Island did not like the HST hollow-point bullets, but fed everything else without a problem. That is really not too surprising to me, because HST is from Federal that gave us the Hydra-Shok, and the .45 ACP Hydra-Shok did not play too well with some firearms (I've even had problems with 9 mm Hydra-Shok). From my experience and observations, I think the problem was because of the size of the hollow-point cavity, and its sharp edges, meant it could catch on the roof of the chamber when feeding into the chamber. This could lead to a stoppage and, frequently, severe bullet setback. While not working with one brand of ammunition might be a deal breaker for some, I don't think its that big of an issue: just avoid that ammunition. What isn't clear from the video because Harrell didn't field strip the pistols, was whether the Rock Island used the finger-collet bushing introduced by Colt with the Series 70 or the solid piece bushing that Colt used before and after the Series 70.
  • "3D Printed Glock Backplates from Verex Tactical"--The Firearm Blog. Completely lacking in any practical purpose, but still very cool looking. What would be really awesome would be combining these with the Glock Gadget--that is, if the Gadget offered this type of plate on it.
  • A reader recommends the ThruNite TH20 Neutral White 520 Lumen CREE XP-L LED Headlamp Flashlight (currently $30 at Amazon) because it can use the ubiquitous AA battery. He warns that does not cast the light far enough for an activity like mountain biking where you can fast enough to outrun your light, but is great as a work light or for camping. 
  • "Ammunition supplies: it's a bit late . . ."--Bayou Renaissance Man. Peter Grant notes that demand for ammunition during the coronavirus panic is higher than right after Sandy Hook (which produced the great ammo shortage). He also predicts that this shortage may last just as long. There are a couple reasons to doubt that, in my opinion: first, part of the reason for the long shortage after Sandy Hook is that ammunition companies resisted adding new capacity. Now that extra capacity is there. Second, most regular shooters probably learned from the first panic and probably had a larger stash going into this new panic. 
  • "Why The Fitz?"--Revolver Guy. "Fitz" revolvers were so called after their creator, John Henry Fitzgerald, a New York State Trooper and police firearms instructor with a great deal of experience in handgun combatives. The handguns of the day--the 1930's--were not really designed for urban self-defense. Fitzgerald fixed that by taking the revolvers, bobbing the hammers, cutting the barrels down (while still retaining a sight) and--most distinguishable--removing the front part of the trigger guard to allow use with a gloved hand. The author explains:
        ...These guns had heavy double action triggers. They were being advocated to be shot at close ranges that we describe to day with fancy acronyms and initials. Essentially, the Fitz was meant to be deployed while entangled with an opponent during an attack or robbery.
           It was an era when men wore much different attire. Heavy, organic-fiber overcoats before our fancy synthetics and modern lightweight materials. Gloves were also made from thicker and stiffer materials, and were not like the thin material types we can make today. These guns were designed to be grasped in the pockets with possibly a gloved hand, lifted out by the triggers that had weights in excess of the gun and fired immediately upon clearing the pockets or the garment. Because of the cut triggers they could also be fired inside the pocket even with gloves. This is not like doing this with a modern striker trigger system. John Fitzgerald had leather holsters sewn in his coat pockets for these guns.
    • "POWER FOR YOUR HAM RADIO’S"--American Partisan. Running your radio off a deep cycle battery.
    • Welcome to the fold: "I’m One of Those Anti-Gun People Who Just Bought His First Firearm"--The Truth About Guns. The author describes herself: "I was not only against the ownership of AR-15s, I was in the minority of folks who thought all private gun ownership should be illegal. Fast forward to today: I own a GLOCK 19 Gen5." Good choice. The various forms of "I told you so" responses are counter-productive. We want to keep these new "converts" converted. Converts are often the best proselytizers. 
    • Beans, beans, the magical fruit... "Protein Preps"--Blue Collar Prepping. The author notes that:
      Whereas carbohydrates are a quick-burning fuel that can leave you feeling lethargic a few hours afterwards (aka the infamous "sugar crash") and fats provide a long-term but slow release of energy, protein is the happy medium of energy-producing food . Eating a steady amount of protein throughout the day will not only leave you feeling full and satisfied but also give you the energy needed to perform tasks without crashing out.
        The author then goes on to describe the difference between complete and incomplete protein foods, and has some handy charts on the protein content of different foods.
        • Related: "FGC-9 Released"--Impro Guns. From the description: "The FGC-9 is a 9mm semi automatic firearm which can be made using a $200 3D printer, some hardware store bits, airsoft toy spare parts, and a length of steel tubing for a barrel. It also uses a printable Glock 17 30rd magazine."
        • Sounds more like a trust exercise: "A USEFUL DRILL IS OFFERED"--Massad Ayoob. He calls it the Blind Swordsman Drill, which is literally nothing more than aiming at the target, fully closing both eyes, and then pulling the trigger with the eyes closed. Ayoob explains that it is:
                   ... a method that my students and I have found remarkably effective for improving trigger control.  When you do it, remember to hold the gun on target when you open your eyes: you want to see if the gun is returning naturally to point of aim.  For safety’s sake, always do it with someone there to keep an eye on things.  With your eyes closed, if you’re alone you won’t be able to see of someone or something gets between you and the target, or you and the backstop.
          • A couple articles from Shooting Sports USA on fine-tuning your shooting positions:
                Let's be clear, purchasing a gun is NOT the same as picking up a pizza. 

                The dealer must physically obtain ID, run a background check, observe the buyer. The buyer likely handles several firearms before making a purchasing decision. 
                   The procedure for determining the PF for any load is a simple mathematical formula: Multiply the bullet's weight by its velocity over a chronograph (which will be used at major matches) and divide the resulting figure by 1000.
                    That figure will be the PF for that load, regardless of the caliber. If that figure meets, or exceeds, the required minimum PF for the gun division or game being played it's legal. If not, a shooter can be disqualified from the match.
                The article goes on to discuss the power factor requirements for different competitions, and offers some suggestions on handloads that meet the power factor requirement but with reduced recoil.
                • "How to Think and Act Fast as a Defensive Shooter"--Shooting Illustrated. The title is somewhat of a misnomer. The article discusses the fact that you need to be able to quickly access your gun and put shots downrange ... but not so fast that you fail to identify the target and figure out if he/she poses a threat, and not shoot faster than you can aim. It does not really discuss how you do this, leaving you with only this pithy advice: "... a fellow should divest himself of all unnecessary thought and movements. Learn to quickly spot trouble and have a defensive plan that can be put into practice quickly. Once the shooting starts, time is not your friend."
                "How to Sew a Simple Face Mask Tutorial"--Sew Yeah (14 min.)

                       An economy with plenty of liquidity and weeks of pent-up demand ought to bounce back almost as quickly as it sank -- like a big kid on a trampoline. Sharp economic downturns are usually followed by equally sharp recoveries. The 1981-82 and 1991 recessions come to mind.

                      What made the Great Depression and the Great Recession alike were anemic recoveries that took seemingly forever. As I noted back in March [VIP link]:

                When Franklin Delano Roosevelt came into office pledging to end the Great Depression, he and Congress simmered up a party-size bowl of alphabet soup agencies to micromanage the business, wages, prices, and employment. The result? A couple of left-leaning UCLA economists were forced to conclude that FDR's New Deal actually lengthened the Great Depression by seven years.
                Coming into office on the heels of the 2007-08 financial panic (caused in no small part by Washington meddling in the mortgage markets), President Barack Obama indulged in a flurry of lawmaking and micromanagement unseen since FDR. As a result, Obama's recovery was the slowest since FDR's. In some ways -- Washington's addictions to spending and debt are the worst examples -- we're still dealing with the hangover from Obama's reaction to the Great Recession.

                     But back to [St Louis Federal Reserve Bank Chairman James] Bullard on Face the Nation. Asked if there "will be somehow just a switch that flips on and the economy will come back roaring," Bullard said:
                Well, I think it can be done. Whether it will be done depends on execution. I thought Congress did a great thing in passing their bill. I thought it was appropriately sized for this situation. The object is to keep everybody whole during the period when you're asking people to not go to their jobs and not go to the shops and - and basically not participate in the economy.
                      This is no bailout for big banks like we saw during the Great Recession. If anything, Congress is following the Fifth Amendment. The Fifth states that private property cannot "be taken for public use, without just compensation." If your labor isn't your property, then what is? If stopping a pandemic isn't public use, then what is? Relief checks aren't enough in my opinion, but they do represent at least some small amount of compensation for government orders to stay home and not work.

                       And as Bullard noted, "There's nothing wrong with the economy itself. The economy was actually doing quite well going into this health situation." If Washington can manage not to insert itself into the recovery, we ought to get right back to where we were before coronavirus in short order. The Democrat-controlled House is going to have a very strong itch to hobble the economy with a progressive wishlist of crap legislation, but the GOP-held Senate and White House ought to put the kibosh on any such nonsense.
                       “Everyone that has been involved in the H1-B program … has skirted the rules to stay in the United States,” said one lobbyist. “These companies do not want to have to fire these [H-1B] workers and send them back home — they want to hold them here” so they can grab jobs in the recovery, he said.
                          Labor Department officials declined to provide any information about the NASSCOM lobbying and declined to say if the agency would help businesses change the paperwork that allows fired H-1Bs to stay in the United States. The Indian report did not say if the NASSCOM lobbyists met with Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia.
                            As part of our 2019 investigation into the incidents in the Navy’s 7th Fleet, its largest overseas presence, ProPublica found repeated instances of frontline commanders warning superiors of risks the fleet was facing—a lack of training, exhausted crews, deteriorating ships and equipment. Those warnings, all sent through the normal chain of command, were met with indifference.
                             Disaster in the fleet struck in June 2017, after the USS Fitzgerald, a destroyer, collided with a cargo ship in the Sea of Japan. Two months later, a second destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, collided with an oil tanker in the Singapore Strait. The two accidents cost the Navy 17 sailors—the biggest loss of life in maritime collisions in more than 40 years.
                                Navy investigations laid blame on nearly the entire chain of command in the 7th Fleet, punishing commanders and sailors for failing to properly train and equip its crews and ships.
                                 Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the head of the 7th Fleet, was fired. Vice Adm. Thomas Rowden, who oversaw training, was forced from his job. Cmdr. Bryce Benson, captain of the Fitzgerald, was recommended for court-martial.
                                   But ProPublica reported that all three men had repeatedly tried to warn higher-ups of dangerous safety issues in the vaunted fleet, based at Yokosuka, Japan. They argued to their superiors that the Navy was running ships in the 7th Fleet too hard, too fast. Their warnings were dismissed.
                              It raises the same moral dilemma explored in The Caine Mutiny: whether a subordinate is justified in bypassing the chain of command when lives are at risk. 
                              • Related: "Acting Navy Secretary Modly resigns"--Task and Purpose. "Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly resigned Tuesday after traveling nearly 8,000 miles to Guam to berate thousands of sailors on Monday, later saying he stood 'by every word,' and then subsequently apologizing for the remarks within the span of about eight hours." 
                                       Beijing authorities mobilized the Chinese diaspora to help buy up goods. “Keep on buying while sending back to China [medical supplies], and try your best to buy as much as possible,” read one article posted on the official website of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s United Front Work Department, an agency dedicated to spreading the regime’s agenda inside and outside China. In the West, United Front organizations are usually Chinese student unions at colleges and universities, Chinese chambers of commerce, and Chinese associations.
                                        The United Front encouraged all overseas Chinese to follow in the association’s footsteps to buy up all available medical materials and send them back to China.
                                          The article explained that overseas Chinese in the United States, Canada, UK, Argentina, Australia, United Arab Emirates, and Seychelles have already bought up goods in the tons.
                                           Some overseas Chinese organizations in those countries buy from local manufacturers and major wholesalers directly, such as DuPont. Others buy from whatever retailers they can find, according to the article.
                                             The groups then hired Chinese and international shipping companies to transport the goods, such as FedEx and SF Express. The United Front also encouraged Chinese nationals to purchase goods and transport them in their personal luggage when they travel back to China.
                                                “The best way to counter disinformation, in my opinion, is the good news story that actually exists,” Ortagus said at a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.
                                                  “We often forget that the American people remain the single most generous bloc of people around the world.”
                                                    Support our independent journalism and donate a 'Coffee' now.
                                                      In early February, U.S. nonprofits and companies donated 17.8 tons of medical supplies to China, a shipment that was facilitated by the State Department.
                                                        The United States’s contributions to international organizations vital to global COVID-19 response efforts have also dwarfed Chinese contributions, Ortagus pointed out.
                                                          For instance, U.S. contributions to the World Health Organization, the body coordinating the global response to the crisis, in 2019 exceeded $400 million, almost double the second largest member state contribution. In contrast, China contributed $44 million, according to a press release by the department.
                                                            “We are by far the largest contributors to organizations like the UN Children’s Fund and the World Food Program because we believe in effective multilateralism that is focused on helping those in need, not scoring political points,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in the release.
                                                              The United States also contributed more than $700 million in 2019 to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), another organization providing aid to the Chinese people amid the outbreak. China, meanwhile, contributed $16 million that year.
                                                                Last week, the State Department announced the United States has made available nearly $274 million in emergency health and humanitarian funding to help at-risk countries with responding to the pandemic.
                                                                 When American provides assistance “it does so out of goodwill,” Ortagus said. “There’s no nefarious intentions behind that aid.”
                                                                   Meanwhile, the Chinese regime’s humanitarian efforts in the crisis have recently come under scrutiny as several countries returned faulty medical equipment, such as masks and test kits, purchased from Chinese manufacturers. Others have criticized such measures as a means for Beijing and Chinese businesses to enhance its influence across Europe.
                                                                      This is not the first time that China-made tests for the Chinese coronavirus have proven faulty. Late last month, Spain, the country with the second-highest number of fatalities and the highest number of cases in Europe, bought thousands of faulty antibody testing kits from China’s Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology. Chinese authorities claimed that Spain had purchased the tests, which were EU-certified, from a supplier that was not recommended by the Chinese state.
                                                                       Turkey also found some Chinese testing kits to be substandard, with the margin of error too high and giving false-negatives while the Netherlands recalled 600,000 faulty masks made in China.
                                                                    Congress should pass legislation stripping the Chinese government of sovereign immunity to lawsuits for COVID-19 damage in the United States. China should be stripped of its leadership roles in international organizations. And finally, Taiwan — a nation that has handled the outbreak better than almost any other nation, but has been excluded from the World Health Organization because its membership would offend the Chinese government — deserves membership in WHO, and full diplomatic recognition from the United States, and the rest of the world.
                                                                      China needs to lose its most favored trade status and be kicked out of the WTO.
                                                                      • Earlier, because Africa was so lagging any other continent for outbreaks, there was some discussion of whether Sub-Saharan Africans perhaps had heightened immunity. I certainly posted more than a few articles on the idea. But it appears to have been wrong: "In Chicago, 70% of COVID-19 Deaths Are Black"--WBEZ Chicago. The article observes:
                                                                        The majority of the black COVID-19 patients who died had underlying health conditions including respiratory problems and diabetes. Eighty-one percent of them had hypertension, or high blood pressure, diabetes or both.
                                                                          Black Americans disproportionately suffer from obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure.
                                                                                   As of Friday morning, African Americans made up almost half of Milwaukee County’s 945 cases and 81% of its 27 deaths in a county whose population is 26% black. Milwaukee is one of the few places in the United States that is tracking the racial breakdown of people who have been infected by the novel coronavirus, offering a glimpse at the disproportionate destruction it is inflicting on black communities nationwide.
                                                                                    In Michigan, where the state’s population is 14% black, African Americans made up 35% of cases and 40% of deaths as of Friday morning. Detroit, where a majority of residents are black, has emerged as a hot spot with a high death toll. As has New Orleans. Louisiana has not published case breakdowns by race, but 40% of the state’s deaths have happened in Orleans Parish, where the majority of residents are black.
                                                                                      Illinois and North Carolina are two of the few areas publishing statistics on COVID-19 cases by race, and their data shows a disproportionate number of African Americans were infected.
                                                                                       “It will be unimaginable pretty soon,” said Dr. Celia J. Maxwell, an infectious disease physician and associate dean at Howard University College of Medicine, a school and hospital in Washington dedicated to the education and care of the black community. “And anything that comes around is going to be worse in our patients. Period. Many of our patients have so many problems, but this is kind of like the nail in the coffin.”
                                                                                          A leaked French diplomatic note has claimed that outbreaks of Chinese coronavirus in Africa could lead to the collapse of regimes in various countries across the continent.
                                                                                           Currently, coronavirus cases across Africa remain low in comparison to Europe, North America, and Asia, but experts predict that a severe outbreak of the disease could have catastrophic effects.
                                                                                             The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs diplomatic note, which was obtained by the Agence Ecofin news agency,  states that some African states have health systems that would be “saturated automatically”.
                                                                                               The note goes on to states that elderly African leaders are at serious risk and if they become infected, it could lead to severe political instability in countries ruled by political strongmen.
                                                                                                  The coronavirus pandemic could narrow one gaping inequality in Africa, where some heads of state and other elite jet off to Europe or Asia for health care unavailable in their nations. As countries including their own impose dramatic travel restrictions, they might have to take their chances at home.
                                                                                                   For years, leaders from Benin to Zimbabwe have received medical care abroad while their own poorly funded health systems limp from crisis to crisis. Several presidents, including ones from Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia, have died overseas.
                                                                                                     The practice is so notorious that a South African health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, a few years ago scolded, “We are the only continent that has its leaders seeking medical services outside the continent, outside our territory. We must be ashamed.”
                                                                                                       Now a wave of global travel restrictions threatens to block that option for a cadre of aging African leaders. More than 30 of Africa’s 57 international airports have closed or severely limited flights, the U.S. State Department says. At times, flight trackers have shown the continent’s skies nearly empty.
                                                                                                                                           If left for too long without being powered down, swathes of data can accumulate in the software and wreak havoc with the information displayed to pilots. 
                                                                                                                                           This could lead to incorrect data on airspeed, altitude and attitude being shown on primary displays, making it harder for pilots to maintain the safe flight and landing of the plane, according to the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).
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