Gun & Prepping News #18

 Just some articles that caught my attention for one reason or another: 

• First up, Jon Low published a new Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter this past weekend. I want to publicly thank him for the shout-out as he shared a couple articles he had found through my humble blog and also mentioning my blog. Anyway, a few things that caught my attention:

•  Jon relates the following: "When I guarded the Federal Building in downtown Nashville, TN, we would shoot the qualification course of fire once a year (which determined seniority for shifts and such, so it was a big deal; of course, failure meant loss of your job).
  At a qualification, a security officer could not get her pistol out of her holster on the first shot of the course of fire.  The snap on the weapon retention strap had rusted and was stuck.  She had not unsnapped the strap since the last qualification a year ago.  How fortunate she learned in training rather than in combat." The lesson is that you need to examine your equipment regularly and maintain or replace it as appropriate.
  
• Jon links to a short video noting how Democrat party legislators in Virginia have stood in the way of bills that would enhance security at schools. Why? Jon explains:

Because they want the murders in the schools.  It advances their political agenda. ... They are not illogical.  They are not emotional.  They are cunning.  They are willing to sacrifice the lives of children to advance their goal of disarming the citizens, because it gives them more power.  Eventually they will be able to arrest, imprison, and execute their political enemies with impunity.  If you have any grasp of history, you know this to be true. 

•  Jon shares an email he received from Jeff L. Gonzales on movement and shooting and offering some tips on the same. So unless you intend on imitating a bump on a log during an armed encounter, be sure to check it out.
• And Jon offers up a training goal/standard:

      I have read magazine articles and internet articles and had persons ask me, "How good is good enough?"  In my opinion, being able to execute the hostage rescue drill, cold (without practice or warm up), on demand (when the enemy demands, without warning notice, without preparation), every time, would indicate a satisfactory level of competence.  

     [You don't need this level to usefully carry, because the vast majority of incidents are solved without a shot being fired.]  

     What is the hostage rescue drill?  From a range of about 5 yards, hiding behind cover, holding your pistol at a compressed ready position pointing down at the ground, step out from behind cover and ask the bad guy, "What do you want?".  When the bad guy starts to answer your question, shoot him in the crainio-ocular cavity (triangle formed by the eyes and nose) with your first shot.  

     Par time?  That depends.  If you are competent, the tachypsychia effect will warp time in your favor.  If you are incompetent, the tachypsychia effect will warp time in the bad guy's favor.  Sorry, that's reality.  

     In any disarming or hostage rescue scenario the technique is to get the bad guy to answer your question (so you have to get his attention), because talking is a high order intellectual activity.  Very difficult to talk and shoot or stab at the same time.  Answering a question is a complex high order intellectual activity.  Almost impossible to answer a question and shoot at the same time.  Which gives you time to execute your shot. 

It is my understanding that talking can add as much as half of a second to your reaction time.

• Next up is Greg Ellifritz's latest Weekend Knowledge Dump at Active Response Training. Some of the links that caught my eye:
• An article on the "Effectiveness of the Combat Application Tourniquet for Arterial Occlusion in Young Children." 
• A Tactical Wire piece on "Carry or Not?" which berates those who could carry a firearm but don't; Greg notes in this regard that he has noticed an increased number of police officers that do not carry a weapon when off-duty. If the issue is a matter of inconvenience, then the solution is perhaps a smaller pistol and different carry setup that is more convenient.
• A Shooting Illustrated article entitled "Handguns: A Too-Cool Tool?" which discusses problems that can crop up carrying an old or rare firearm. Greg, in this regard, specifically raises the issues of holsters. I've written on this topic before because it is surprisingly hard to find holsters for some models of handguns. Before I buy a handgun for concealed carry, I try to check first on holster availability having been burned on this issue when I first started carrying a concealed weapon. If it’s hard to find quality holsters, then I will cross it off my list. Greg also referenced an article called "The Holster Wardrobe" about the usefulness of having multiple holsters for the same firearm for different roles. I generally only have one holster for my range guns (those specifically for target shooting or hunting), but for those that I intend on carrying, I typically have at least two holsters. For one of my carry guns, I wound up with 5 different holsters for carrying in different ways or positions (although I typically only used two of them regularly). For another handgun, I have a couple of belt holsters, a shoulder holster (for concealed carry), and a chest rig (for hiking or hunting). 
  
• And there is more, so be sure to check it out.
• "Strategies That Burglars Use To Case Rural Houses"--Off The Grid News (h/t Active Response Training). An excerpt:

    Living out in the country often means much more privacy than in an urban or suburban household.  If your house is out of view of your neighbors, curtains can remain open and you can go about your business without any questions asked. Most of the time, being out of the prying eyes of busybody neighbors is a huge benefit to rural life.

    That lack of visibility, combined with an opioid crisis in many of the most rural populations, leads to a lot of opportunistic petty theft and burglary. On the rural email bulletin in my town, there’s a notice at least once a week that a house was burglarized. Thankfully, the attempts aren’t often sophisticated and they’re usually desperate attempts at a quick buck than well-though-out break ins.

    It’s always quick theft of small items. Inside the house, the medicine cabinet has been rifled through, and any small electronics that were in sight have been taken. Gas cans and chainsaws are often taken, too.

    How does it happen so often? Persistence and a plausible excuse to come to your door.

The plausible excuses include posing as a door-to-door salesman (e.g.: teens selling candy or someone claiming to selling security systems that will offer to inspect yours for free, etc.), pretending to be a repairman looking for a house or address, or even accusing you of having stolen an item (e.g., a cell phone) that they have tracked to your home and demanding entrance to look for it. Not included, and probably still a favorite even in this era of cell phones, is someone claiming they need to use a phone for one sympathetic reason or another.

• Some firearm history: "'Hitler's Buzz Saw:' Wartime Assessments Of The German MG42 Machine Gun"--American Rifleman. The article begins:

    The Maschinengewehr 42, more commonly called the MG42, was Germany’s final development in its longstanding “universal machine gun” concept. It was also the beginning of a GI nightmare and a significant challenge to America’s machine gun design priorities.

    For American combat troops, the MG42 was a deadly problem, from their first encounters with the gun in Tunisia to the last day of the war in Europe. While its predecessor, the MG34, cycled fast at about 900 rounds per minute, the MG42 fired even faster, averaging about 1,200 rounds per minute. The cartridges go off so fast that individual shots cannot be distinguished and bursts sound more like a zipper or tearing cloth. The audible effect was particularly intimidating, as the GIs knew there were more rounds than they could count coming their way.

• Negative outcomes: "British woman, 67, is shot dead during wild boar hunt in France 'by companion holding rifle backwards over his shoulder'." Carrying a rifle so that it rests on your shoulder at or near horizontal to the ground can be comfortable, but it should only be employed by the person last in a line or column because of this very risk. Also, keep your finger off the trigger! I suspect that not only was the hunter whose firearm discharged carrying it over the shoulder, but upside down so that he could more quickly bring it into play. Carried right side up, the hand is naturally at the top of the comb of the stock and away from the trigger, but upside down, the hand will be at or near the grip ... and the trigger.
• "How to Lower Your Risk of Becoming a Target"--USA Carry. The article notes that the factors affecting your risk of being assaulted or robbed include:

•     Age
•     Geographical location
•     Obvious signs of prosperity
•     Physical condition
•     Personal habits
•     Gender

Some of these can't be changed (e.g., age or gender), but some things are well within our control. One of the points highlighted in the article by virtue of the photograph for the article is having firearms related stickers on your car. My father, for instance, liked to prominently display an NRA window sticker on his pickup. I see a lot of people about who have window stickers from various firearms or hunting related manufacturers; or, around here, a popular one showing the outline of Idaho (which looks like a pistol when tilted on its side) with small trees (instead of bullets) being shot out of the state's panhandle/barrel. I have never displayed a gun related sticker on my car. I believe that it should be a surprise when a criminal discovers that someone has a firearm. I certainly don't want to be advertising "come rob me because I own firearms". 

• "Best Big Bore Quiet Thumper: Horandy’s New 338 ARC Vs. 300 BLACKOUT Vs. 8.6 BLACKOUT"--Recoil Magazine. The article basically lauds the advantages of the 338 ARC for someone interested in hunting while using a sound suppressor. The 338 ARC, as its name suggests, takes a .338 bullet and stuffs it into a modified 6.5 Grendel case. Because of the heavier bullet, when shooting subsonic loads, the 338 ARC has almost twice the energy at 200 yards as does the .300 BLK. It also offers superior performance for hunting medium game when shooting supersonic because, again, it is using a heavier bullet, according to the author. On the other hand, while it can fit in the AR platform, it will need a special bolt, different magazines, the round is fairly new and more expensive. The article does not compare the two out of different length barrels (e.g., using a short or pistol length barrel of 7.5 to 11 inches).
  

    Just looking over the data, it seems that the 338 ARC is a good suppressed round for the hunter--especially if that hunter wants something to shoot from an AR or mini-action platform--but is not necessarily a superior cartridge for a defensive weapon, especially within 200 yards.

• More: "A Closer Look At 338 ARC"--Gun Digest. 

• "Korean War Era Ammo: Even Stored Under Sub-Optimal Conditions, Every Round Fired Almost 70 Years Later" by John Boch, The Truth About Guns. Key bit:

    Ammunition typically doesn’t go bad unless it’s exposed to oil contamination. Corrosive environments (such as being near an ocean), extreme heat, or perpetual high humidity take many decades to meaningfully erode the reliability of loaded ammo. 

 

    For those of us who store ammo in ammo cans, they do a nice job protecting cartridges from moisture and other issues.

    This past weekend’s experience again proved that ammo will last longer than most people will, even when stored poorly. So don’t be afraid of firing factory-loaded ammo that has a “born on” date older than you on a headstamp.

• "What I Learned at 5.7x28mm Summer Camp"--Shooting Illustrated.  The author relates his experience with different weapons and different loadings, including shooting into bare ballistic gel.
• "The Concealed Carry Trap--Are You Caught In It?"--Shooting Performance. The gist of this article is that newly minted concealed carry license holders are often like a 16 or 17 year old with a brand new driver's license: they have the basic training and knowledge, but not really enough to be trusted on their own; and, worse, the lack of experience means that they don't know what they don't know. The answer of course--this being from a training company--is to get more training. But you also need to practice techniques (frankly, the limited practice you get in a course is not going to be enough to truly learn a technique) and you need to study self-defense law, the social dynamics of violence, methods to de-escalate, and so on. There are plenty of videos and books out there written for the civilian self-defender, so take advantage of them.
  
• "District Court Judge Rules Ban on Machinegun Ownership Unconstitutional Under Bruen"--Shooting News. This is from a federal court in Mississippi. The judge didn't like the outcome, but felt compelled to follow the law. And, in this case, while the government had demonstrated that machine guns are dangerous, he noted that they had not shown that machine guns were unusual given the number in private hands in the United States. We'll see if the feds decide to appeal the decision or limit its impact by letting it be.
• "Six Basic Knife Techniques Everyone Should Know"--Life Hacker. How to slice, plank, rough chop, dice, mince, and roll cut your way to delicious meals.
• "Emergency Prepping: 10 Survival Uses for Sugar"--Late Prepper. The uses covered include:

1. Accessible source of energy
2. Natural food preservative. 
   
3. First aid for wounds
4. Emergency hydration
5. Excellent barter item
6. Bait for insect traps
7. Fermentation fuel
8. Natural exfoliant
9. Energy source for animals
10. Fertilizer substitute

• "What’s the White Stuff on Cheese?"--Mental Floss (via Get Pocket). 

The white stuff seen on cheddar is typically calcium lactate, which is the result of lactic acid interacting with calcium. When cheese has more water content, the lactate isn’t visible. As cheese ages, some of the moisture moves to the surface, and the lactate moves with it. When that water ebbs, the lactate remains behind and can appear as powdery, crystal-like particles on the surface of the cheese. 

• "Saltwater flooding is a serious fire threat for EVs and other devices with lithium-ion batteries"--The Conversation. The article discusses at length the fire hazard posed by lithium-ion batteries that have been submerged, and the chemistry to explain the process of a thermal runaway (how and why they ignite) and why salt water is particularly dangerous, before moving to some tips:

    Electric cars are still very safe to drive and own in most circumstances. However, during extreme situations like hurricanes and flooding, it is very important to keep EV battery packs from becoming submerged in water, particularly saltwater. The same is true for other products that contain lithium-ion batteries.

    For EVs, this means evacuating cars out of the affected zone or parking them on high ground before flooding occurs. Smaller objects, like e-bikes and power tools, can be moved to upper floors of buildings or stored on high shelves.

    If you own an EV that has been submerged in water for hours to days, particularly in saltwater, public safety experts recommend treating it as a fire hazard and placing it on open ground away from other valuable property. Do not attempt to charge or operate it. Contact the manufacturer for an inspection to assess battery damage.

    Often, a flooded electric vehicle will need to be towed away for further inspection. However, since thermal runaway can occur well after submersion, the car should not be moved until it has been professionally assessed.

• "Inside $300M members-only luxury doomsday bunker with AI-powered medical suites and indoor pools"--New York Post. "Due to open in the summer of 2026," the article relates, "the high-end underground fortress"--named the “Aerie”--"will provide a 5-star survivalist experience to those lucky few who are willing to fork out $20 million for a single membership, of which there are only 625 available." The first of these bunkers will be built in Virginia, just outside of Washington D.C. "The decision to base the first Aerie bunker in Virginia was, according to Al, purely 'strategic,' and was not in any way motivated by the changing political landscape, but rather a desire to offer those who are able to afford membership a convenient place in which to do so." It sounds more sci-fi than realistic, but perhaps that what life is like for the super-rich.
• I know this is off-topic, but ... "Bitcoin millionaire hides $2M in treasures across US — then leaves mysterious clues on how to find them"--New York Post. From the lede:

    More than $2 million in hidden treasure is up for grabs after an entrepreneur hid five chests full of loot and valuables across the United States — and left a book full of clues to help hunters find them.

    Jon Collins-Black — who made a fortune in Bitcoin investing — spent the last few years assembling a cache of valuable items ranging from shipwreck-salvaged gold doubloons to rare Pokémon cards, all for the purpose of stashing them in secret locations for treasure hunters to unearth.

    Collins-Black has paired the journey with a book of clues, “There’s Treasure Inside,” which is filled with puzzles and maps, and all the clues needed to discover the location of the treasure chests.

I guess it could be an excuse to practice orienteering skills.