Reports of Christianity's Death May Be Premature

Rod Martin reports that "Christianity’s Decline in America Has Halted, and May Now Have Reversed." Martin offers two explanations:

    First, he believes that the decline was being led by people who didn't truly believe or were shaky in their faith who were leaving. But now that those types are mostly gone, the decline halted. He explains (bold in original):

    But why? Why would it stop? If the problem is that Christianity is outdated or offensive to our culture, why wouldn’t we continue to collapse?

    The answer is simple, as I’ve been telling you for decades. The people who were leaving Christianity were not leaving because conservatives were “mean,” or because Christians “lacked winsomeness,” or because the church failed to wrap historic orthodoxy in the therapeutic language of NPR. 

    They left because they were leftists. The belief system of the modern Democrat Party is anathema to the Christian faith.

    Or let me put that another way: the fakers have left.

    There’s no longer any benefit to your business, or to your personal prestige, that derives from pretending to be a Christian. There is no financial gain that comes from sitting on the second pew. To be a Christian today means you have to really mean it, or you just wouldn’t bother.

    And they don’t.

    So the half-believers left. The brunch Christians left. The “Jesus was a socialist community organizer” crowd left. The people who wanted the church to baptize abortion, transgenderism, Critical Race Theory, and every other fashionable madness of the age left.

    Second, Martin links the reversal to a growing number of young conservative men turning to Christianity. He notes: "Young conservative men helped drive the stabilization, and they may now be helping drive the reversal. They are embracing Christianity as part of a broader rejection of leftist ideology, secular despair, and the cultural war against masculinity itself." And it seems the numbers support this:

    Gallup’s newest data show a remarkable shift among young men ages 18–29. In 2024–25, 42 percent of young men said religion is “very important” in their lives, up from 28 percent just two years earlier. Young women, by contrast, remained roughly flat at about 30 percent. Gallup says young men now surpass young women on this measure by a statistically significant margin, a stunning reversal of the long-standing pattern in which young women were more religious than young men.

    Let’s put that in perspective. For the first time in 300 years, among young adults aged 18-24, the gender gap in religiosity has flipped. Historically, women have long been 15-20 percentage points more religious than men (which accounts for much of the church and the clergy’s feminization). But among Generation Z, those days are over.

    This is a very, very big deal.

    My LDS readers may be wondering about all this as it seems the LDS Church is still drifting left and embracing "social justice," DEI, and illegal immigration. For instance, the recent pronouncement allowing women to serve in Sunday School presidencies notwithstanding Paul's admonition in 1 Timothy 2:12. But looking at the statistics, you will see that the Church seems to be following the same trend lines as Christianity in general, albeit lagging by several years. This is illustrated by this article from April 21, 2026: "Why Latter-day Saints appear to be politically shifting to the left." The article explains that contrary to the general trend among Christian denominations, "[o]ver the last 18 years, [LDS] members moved 19 points to the left, according to a new report from the global analytics firm YouGov based on data from the Cooperative Election Survey." However, those members moving to the Left are less devout:

    ... When [Alex Bass, a data scientist] plotted the share of devout Latter-day Saints — those with the highest levels of religious practice, such as praying and attending church — and the share of Latter-day Saints who identify as Republican, they seem to be declining in tandem.

    Of course, correlation isn’t always causation. Bass said, however, the political beliefs of the different devoutness groups haven’t changed — devout members are firmly Republican, and cultural members are near the political center. Now, there are just more Latter-day Saints who are less devout and less Republican.
    
    The share of devout Latter-day Saints dropped from 52% in 2008-2012 to 39% in 2021-2025. Cultural members, those who attend church less than once a month, grew from 21% to 31%. 

And in going to Bass's blog, he reports that there is some data showing a resurgence in Church activity, but warns that "the limited data we have more likely suggests a retrenchment where those who remain are more likely to participate in all religious measures, but people are lost at the fringes." And in line with what Martin was saying, Bass notes: "Looking at party affiliation, in-line with the practice metrics and increasing 'devout' status, we see a rise in Republican Party affiliation. This again shows how strongly correlated these two things are!" 

    The correlation shouldn't be all that surprising. Church members were, prior to the 1970s, roughly split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, but as the Democrats moved ever leftward, the membership shifted to voting Republican. Given the current state of the Democratic party and its embrace of communist theories if not outright communism, it is notable that on July 3, 1936, the First Presidency of the Church issued a statement concerning communism that warned members that communism was anathema to both the teachings of the Church and to our Constitutional form of government, stating in part:

    Since Communism, established, would destroy our American Constitutional government, to support Communism is treasonable to our free institutions, and no patriotic American citizen may become either a Communist or supporter of Communism.

[snip]

    Furthermore, it is charged by universal report, which is not successfully contradicted or disproved, that Communism undertakes to control, if not indeed to proscribe the religious life of the people living within its jurisdiction, and that it even reaches its hand into the sanctity of the family circle itself, disrupting the normal relationship of parent and child, all in a manner unknown and unsanctioned under the Constitutional guarantees under which we in America live. Such interference would be contrary to the fundamental precepts of the Gospel and to the teachings and order of the Church. Communism being thus hostile to loyal American citizenship and incompatible with true Church membership, of necessity no loyal American citizen and no faithful Church member can be a Communist.    

Leftists cannot abide Christianity and Christianity cannot abide Leftism. So eventually the Leftists, where they are unsuccessful in destroying a religious institution, will eventually leave. 

The North Hollywood Shootout And Its Impact On Law Enforcement

Occasionally an incident will happen that sends ripples through the law enforcement community. One that has received a lot of attention was the April 11, 1986, Miami Shootout between a couple bank robbers and the FBI that fundamentally changed our perceptions of what was acceptable performance from handgun ammo. It was from that shootout that the FBI studied handgun bullet effectiveness and developed the famous FBI standards on penetration and performance that still drive bullet design. 

    But another incident that was probably just as significant was the North Hollywood Shootout of February 28, 1997.  On that day, two bank robbers--Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu--walked out of a bank and immediately began a 44 minute shootout with police outside the bank which moved into an adjoining neighborhood. At the end of the shootout, over 1,600 rounds had been fired by the robbers and police; Phillips and Mătăsăreanu were mortally wounded; and 12 officers, 8 civilians had been wounded.

    The reason the shootout lasted 44 minutes was because of the equipment used by the robbers and the police. As a Guns America article on the shootout relates:

    [The robbers] each wore body armor bodged together from commercial Aramid components covering their chests, groins, shins, thighs, and forearms. Matasareanu included a steel strike plate in his ensemble to protect his vital organs. They had each sewed watches into the backs of their gloves and took phenobarbital to calm their nerves. ...

[snip]

    They had one Norinco Type 56 S-1 underfolder that had been illegally converted to full auto along with several Chinese-made 75 and 100-round drums. It is impossible to deploy an underfolding AK stock with a drum in place, but Larry Phillips still ran this weapon efficiently on full auto even with the stock folded.

[snip]

    The loadout included a Bushmaster XM15 Dissipator. The Dissipator featured standard M16A1 triangular handguards, a stubby16-inch barrel, and a collapsible stock along with a 100-round Beta C-mag. The Dissipator looks a little weird but illegally converted to full auto it was a formidable close combat tool. They also wielded a German HK91A3 with extended 30-round mags. These magazines were formed by welding two 20-round magazine bodies together.

Conversely, the responding officers were armed only with their issued 9mm pistols or .38 Special revolvers, with some having shotguns. The body armor used by the robbers made them nearly impervious to the officer's weapons. (Although some officers were authorized to obtain rifles from a nearby gun store, the sources I've read indicted that none of those weapons were put to use). Ultimately, though, the robbers were wounded. Phillips put a pistol below his chin but was shot in the neck. He died of his wounds. Mătăsăreanu bled to death from his wounds while police secured the area before allowing EMTs in to care for him. He had been shot 20 times below the waist. 

    As a Mag-Life article relates:

After reviewing the incident, the LAPD took a hard look at its response and how it could do better in the future. The Department took on the suspects with department-issued 9mm pistols, shotguns, and a few officers had rifles chambered in .223. It was decided that in addition to ongoing training for department-wide preparedness for any future incidents of this magnitude, officers would have the option to use .45 ACP pistols, AR-15s chambered in .223, and 12-gauge shotguns in addition to upgraded pistol ammunition options. Police vehicles were reportedly upgraded with Kevlar panels in the side to help protect officers from rounds. 

But it didn't just stop with the LAPD. This incident is generally credited with boosting the then-growing impetus across the nation to arm police officers with patrol rifles. For instance, a Police Magazine article on the shootout relates:

A month later, the chief of the Omaha (Neb.) Police Department asked its SWAT commander to write a position paper outlining the need and justification of arming our patrol personnel with intermediate (5.56x45mm) rifles. With the backing of the chief and a strong-willed deputy chief who always remembered the streets from where he came, the department graduated its first patrol rifle class in November of 1997.     

Sources:

• "North Hollywood shootout"--Wikipedia. 
• "Historical Shootouts: Lessons Learned and Their Impact on Training" by Jason Mosher, Safariland.
• "Guns of the North Hollywood Shootout: Life Imitates Art" by Will Dabbs, Guns America.
• "North Hollywood Shootout: 44 Minutes That Changed Law Enforcement" by Patti Miller, The Mag Life. 
• "How the North Hollywood Shootout Changed Patrol Arsenals" by Bob Parker, Police Magazine. 
• "20 years ago, a dramatic North Hollywood shootout changed the course of the LAPD and policing at large"--Los Angeles Times.  
• "Report to police commission on North Hollywood shootout"--LA Times.  
• "How the North Hollywood shootout changed policing" by Dana Bartholomew, Police 1. 
• "When Bank Robbery Went Wild: Remembering the North Hollywood Shootout"--The History Of Everything Blog. 

It's A Start...

• Update: "Justice Department indicts former FBI Director James Comey again"--New York Post. The NY Post article doesn't have any details about the charges, but another source indicates it may relate to Comey's 2025 social media post showing sea shells arranged to form "86 47" which was interpreted as a threat against Pres. Trump. 
• "Anthony Fauci adviser indicted by Department of Justice"--New York Post. Per the article, David Morens, who served as a senior advisor to Fauci, "has been charged with conspiracy against the United States; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal, or mutilation of records; and aiding and abetting." 

Morens, who served as a senior advisor to Fauci from 2006 to 2022, conducted official government business from a private email account and asked the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) FOIA liaison for tips on how to evade records requests, according to communications first exposed by The Post in May 2024.

The article also notes that Morens "oversaw a now-infamous grant from NIH to the Manhattan-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance beginning in 2014 that ended up funneling US taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research."

    “These allegations represent a profound abuse of trust at a time when the American people needed it most — during the height of a global pandemic,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.

    “As alleged in the indictment, Dr. Morens and his co-conspirators deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19. Government officials have a solemn duty to provide honest, well-grounded facts and advice in service of the public interest — not to advance their own personal or ideological agendas.”

 Not the "crimes against humanity" charges I'd been hoping for, but at least it is something.

• "FBI raids nearly two dozen Minnesota child care centers in fraud probe, including ‘Quality Learing Center’"--New York Post. The article relates: "The Trump administration estimates fraud in Minnesota alone at $19 billion, with dozens charged criminally."
• Update:  Minn. Gov. Tim Walz (D), who previously had called the fraud investigations "white supremacy" is now using the raids to tout that it shows he is tough on fraud. So even when he claims to be tough on fraud, he is a fraud. 
• "‘Multiple young men’ were allegedly drugged, raped at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, where ‘super predators’ roamed: report"--New York Post.  The article begins:

    “Multiple young men” were allegedly drugged and raped at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, according to an explosive new report that detailed harrowing accusations from murder to babies snatched from mothers at the pedophile’s New Mexico house of horrors.

    “A man actually claims that he met Jeffrey Epstein [and] was brought to the ranch, he was drugged,” US Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) told “60 Minutes Australia” in a Sunday segment, the Sun reported.

    “He describes in detail a scene in which multiple young men were raped at the ranch in front of him after he was drugged,” said Stansbury, a leading advocate for Epstein victims. 

• "Migrant caravan leaves southern Mexican city but many are no longer aiming for the US border"--AP. From the article:

    Hundreds of migrants, most of them from Haiti, left the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on foot Tuesday seeking better living conditions elsewhere in Mexico.

    Migrant caravans like the one that left Tapachula used to aim for the U.S. border. But many of the migrants leaving Tapachula on Tuesday said they had lost hope of making it to the U.S. due to the restrictions that the Trump administration has placed on asylum seekers.

    Instead, the migrants said they wanted to settle down in large Mexican cities, where they may be able to find work and file asylum claims. Some of the migrants said that they had been unable to get responses for asylum claims in Tapachula, despite spending months in the small city near Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

    “The United States is no longer an option for us” said Jerry Gabriel, a 29-year-old Haitian migrant. “We only want to make it to Mexico City, Monterrey, Tijuana or another place where we might be able to live.” 

 If Mexico lets them in, Mexico should keep them. 

Survival Lilly: Game Over For Germany

Survival Lilly has posted a follow up video to her one from last week describing how bleak things had become in Germany. In many ways, this video is even worse than the one from last week. She begins by sharing an article entitled "Germany's Economy At Point Of No Return". The basic thrust of the article is that German businesses are taking more in depreciation than they are spending on new equipment. In plain terms, it means that, overall, German businesses have stopped investing in new plants and equipment ... at least in Germany. The article goes on to note that NGOs (i.e., the freeloaders that live off government subsidies) are crowding out the real economy; and those businesses that can do so are moving out of Germany.  She also notes that since 2018, Germany's industrial sector has lost about1/5 (20%) of its production volume; and the government is reporting a 79% reduction in corporate tax revenue compared to last year, along with a 14% decline in income tax revenue. In short, as Lilly explains:

Once the continent's industrial engine, Germany has spent the last decade dismantling the foundations of its prosperity through energy and immigration policies driven more by ideology than evidence or good sense. The results have been rising costs, falling competitiveness, social disorder, and political backlash. 

In other words, Germany is undergoing "decolonization". 

    You might think that term simply means countries dispossessing themselves of colonies. But just as the term "anti-racism" actually means reverse racism, decolonization means a reverse colonization and destruction of the European peoples. That is, as Jean-Paul Sartre put it, "Our soil must be occupied by a formerly colonized people and we must starve of hunger." And to accomplish this, quoting from the introduction to The Camp Of The Saints, "[t]he First World must be taught to be ashamed of itself, to believe that its death will be its greatest gift to humanity." 

VIDEO: "Game over for Germany - Part 2"
Survival Lilly (14 min.)

VIDEO + Article: "What Effective Training Can Look Like With 100 Rounds"

The article is entitled "What Effective Training Can Look Like With 100 Rounds" from Achilles Heel Tactical. The article begins:

    I just got back from San Mateo County, California, where I was training some law enforcement, and one of the sergeants pulled me aside and pointed out a guy walking onto the range. He said, "Watch this, he's just going to mag dump." Sure enough, the guy ran three mags straight through the gun, back to back to back. The sergeant's question was fair: what training value is that guy actually getting?

    That's the conversation that led to the following video. If you've got 45 rounds on your belt and you're rotating ammo from duty to training, or you've got 100 rounds and a range day ahead of you, you might as well get something out of it. So I wanted to put together a session of 100 round pistol drills and show what you can actually accomplish with a restricted round count if you train with intent instead of just mag dumping. 

The video is embedded in the article, but I've also embedded and linked to it before. The article is the transcript of the video, so it allows you to better review some of the points raised in the video. But here is the gist:

    We ended up at 107 rounds across the whole session. Trigger control at speed, 50/50s and doubles, graduation drill at 7, progressive return at 25, two static and two moving in four directions, a movement drill with hit factor scoring, and the DOPE drill to close it out.

    These 100 round pistol drills deliver more training value than most cops know what to do with, more than most civilians know where to start, and more than the military is doing on any given range day. It doesn't cost a lot of time or money. If you're willing to be honest about what you're seeing and feeling behind the gun, and do something about it, 100 rounds goes a long way. 

 VIDEO: "What Effective Training Can Look Like With 100 Rounds Or Less"
Achilles Heel Tactical (35 min.)

CT Dem Wants To Ban "Automated" Guns

From Breitbart: "Connecticut Democrat: Ban Guns That Can Be Converted ‘Into Semi or Fully Automated Weapons’." The article notes that "Connecticut state Rep. Bob Godfrey (D) spoke in favor of banning firearms that are 'too easily converted into semi or even fully automated weapons.'" You might think the law was to protect us from rogue AIs and their terminator drones and robots, but you would be wrong. It was just another ignorant politician demonstrating that he knows nothing about what he intends to ban.

    Godfrey was defending the convertible pistol ban, aka, the Glock ban, which the Connecticut House passed on Wednesday.

    CT Mirror reported that the ban “passed by a vote of 86-64, with all the House Republicans and 15 Democrats voting in opposition.”

    The Mirror noted that Godfrey defended the bill as it moved through the House. He admitted that Connecticut citizens have a right to own firearms for self-defense but hedged that admission by saying the state’s legislature has the ability to define which firearms constitute “defensive weapons.”

Reminds me of this meme:

 

Source: WRSA

Democrats Are Sick

It is being reported that, last Thursday on his late night show on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel gave his own speech mocking the White House Correspondence dinner in which he said: “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.” Two days later an assassin tried to rush into the dinner, shooting a Secret Service Agent in the process. 

I'm not saying that Kimmel was involved in planning or carrying out the assassination attempt--although I think the possibility should be investigated--but he clearly hoped that someone would do something. In essence, he sent out a request to all the Democrat wind-up toys.  

Meanwhile, although the would-be assassin penned a manifesto (or diatribe, if you prefer) on why he hates Trump that echoes mainstream Democrat talking points, prominent Democrats--including Barack Obama--claim we don't know the motive for the attack. Other Democrats are incensed that people have noticed that the gunman was a Democrat. But as Stephen Green writes:

    Dems, you have a problem.

    "The same week the New York Times published a cozy interview justifying the murder of people whose politics you don’t like, the same week we learned that the Unite the Right Charlottesville rally was funded by the Left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, President Trump survived his third assassination attempt," Batya Ungar-Sargon wrote on Sunday.

    "A recent YouGov poll says it all: 25% of very liberal Americans consider political violence justified—compared to 3% of very conservative Americans. Another 17% of liberal Americans say it’s justified, compared to just 6% of conservatives."

    The left has worked hard at normalizing political violence — and Allen's murderous intent is the left's new mainstream.     

Daniel Greenfield, writing at Frontpage Magazine, points out that the Democrats have become a party of assassins:

    But even while people are talking about Cole Tomas Allen becoming ‘radicalized’, there’s no evidence that he was ideologically radicalized. And it’s important for us to understand this.

    Unlike Thomas Crooks, the Butler assassin, Allen wasn’t quoting Mao about power coming from the barrel of a gun. Unlike Austin Tucker Martin, who was shot and killed while breaking into Mar-a-Lago while armed with a shotgun back in March (notably there are so many attempts to kill Trump that they quickly vanish from the media coverage) he didn’t go down a social media conspiracy rabbit hole (Martin was obsessed with conspiracies tying Trump to Epstein.)

    Allen and Routh’s views were generally those of mainstream liberal Democrats. They were no more extreme than your average MSNBC viewer. Probably even a smidgen more moderate.

    And they were probably no more radical than the average committed Democrat.

    The only difference between the two assassins and the rest of their political movement was that they didn’t just buy t-shirts calling for Trump’s murder (Amazon has a Google search result ‘Trump Dead Shirt’ to cash in on this trend) or put up ‘Is He Dead Yet’ signs on their lawns or confine themselves to fulminating on social media… they did something about it.

    That doesn’t make them more radical than the average Democrat. Just more serious.

[snip]

    This is not some grassroots phenomenon but the messaging from the top down of the party and its media apparatus. That’s why Allen’s views are entirely reflective of their rhetoric. He wasn’t a Marxist, a Communist or a Socialist… his views were those of the mainstream of his party. (The amount of distance between the Democrats and the Marxists of course is rapidly shrinking.)

    But Allen didn’t try to kill Trump and members of his administration officials in the name of socialized medicine, a command economy, the working class or any affirmative leftist cause.

    He did it because he had been brainwashed into believing he was stopping Hitler 2.0.

 And thus we come full circle back to Kimmel and others like him urging someone, anyone, to rid him of this turbulent president.  

Gun & Prepping News #78

Some links that may be of interest:

• "INTERESTING STUDY FROM THE FBI" by Mossad Ayoob. Writing this past January 2026:

    ... A recent study of justifiable homicides by the FBI shows that nationwide, law-abiding armed citizens have been killing more violent criminals than the nation’s law enforcement community.

    Why? Because the citizen is right there when the deadly attack on him or her takes place, and the waiting time for lawful armed response is essentially zero. Remember, homicide is justifiable only in situations of immediate, otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm…meaning that every dead criminal is potentially one or more innocent lives saved.

He also links to the study. 

• "CMP Begins Selling Reclaimed 1903A3 Springfield Rifles"--The Firearm Blog. Due to the shortage of remaining serviceable rifles, the CMP has turned to using receivers from guns rendered unfirable (such as for drill rifles) and restored them to shooting condition. 

The CMP has done extensive testing to make sure the reclaimed actions are safe to use in these guns. Those original actions are mated to new production barrels and stocks to create shootable rifles once again. These 1903A3 Springfield rifles retail for $1050, plus $35 for shipping and handling. Purchasers cannot pick the manufacturer; these are strictly sent out “luck of the draw.”

• "Lake City Strike Enters Week Three—Here’s What It Means"--The Truth About Guns. Although the plant is primarily tasked to produce small arms ammunition for the military, Olin Winchester which has the contract to run the plant, is permitted to sell any excess production to the public. Thus, it is "the source of an estimated 30% of the .223/5.56 sold on the American civilian market". Consequently, we should expect 5.56 ammo to both go up in price and become more scarce.  
• "TFB Review: Glock 17 Gen6 - First 1,000 Rounds"--The Firearm Blog.  The author used the handgun straight out of the box in a two day introduction to practical shooting course:

    The course was a two-day introduction to practical shooting (IPSC basic course, which is mandatory in some countries), designed specifically for beginners. It covered the full spectrum of fundamental skills: basic accuracy drills, static reloads, emergency reloads, strong-hand-only shooting, weak-hand-only shooting, and shooting on the move. Exactly the kind of curriculum that puts a pistol through its paces in ways a static bench test never can. 

    Normally, such a course requires about 400-600 rounds to complete, depending on the maturity of the individual(s). Of the 1,200 rounds fired with this pistol, 900 were fired indoors using GECO's Lead Round Nose Copper-Plated 9mm Luger, 8.0g / 124gr.

    The remaining 300 rounds or so were Hornady Critical Defense FTX 115gr, which we saved for a dedicated accuracy and V0 chronograph session at 25 meters. More on those results in a separate article, but the short version: accuracy was excellent and there were zero malfunctions with the Hornady ammunition.  

• "Review: Assembling an AR-15 Lower Receiver"--American Rifleman. Building a lower receiver for an AR-15 to be chambered in .338 ARC for controlling feral hogs, the author looks at some parts to ensure superior accuracy over the stock mil-spec AR but still be handy in the field. The main parts he discusses are (i) an Aero Precision M4E1 lower receiver, (ii) a Magpul MOE+ grip and DT-PR adjustable stock, (iii) a CMMG lower parts kit but replacing the trigger group with a Wilson Combat TR-TTU Tactical Trigger Unit. The author closes:

Are these parts the best/most expensive/recommended by the guy you know at the range who’s always weighing in? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve tested them in previous builds and have found them all to perform exactly as advertised/just how I like it, so that’s what I use. That’s not saying that less-expensive options should automatically be discarded; with the exception of the trigger, which is still far from the most expensive one out there, most of the parts chosen for this are decidedly middle-of-the-road but fully functional. 

• "A vz. 61 Skorpion For Less: The Titus Arms TA61"--American Rifleman.  The reason it is less (about $600 or so) is because the company uses an "in-house 3D-printed, carbon-fiber fill nylon lower" which costs less and, as a byproduct, also makes the pistol lighter. However, you can't just use any .32 ACP ammo in this, but need something a bit hotter to ensure reliable function: 7.65 mm Browning (European specification) loads using a 73-grain full-metal jacket bullets velocities of 984 to 1043 fps. "The two loads in this class that the company recommends are available from Fiocchi USA and Sellier & Bellot (S&B). Geco Ammunition also offers a suitable load."
• "Before The Webley"--Guns Magazine. A history of revolver and ammunition developments that led to the development of the Webley revolver. 
• Some more history: "Fudd Friday: The Highs And Lows Of The Winchester Model 1200"--The Firearm Blog.  The Winchester Model 12 was revered as a shotgun because of its hand fitting and high quality. But it was also expensive. The Model 1200 was intended to be less expensive to compete with the Remington 870. 
• "Reloading 6mm ARC for Varmints"--Guns & Ammo. The author is using Hornady 75 GR. V-MAX bullets and, interestingly to me, using 31.5 grains of Hornady LeverEvolution powder. 
• "Colt King Cobra Target .22 LR Review: 3-Inch Model Accuracy & Range Test"--Lucky Gunner. An excerpt:

    The .22 LR version of the Colt King Cobra came out in 2022. This is their one and only rimfire model, but they do offer it in five different barrel lengths. This one is the 3-inch model because, as we’ve already established in our last video, 3-inch revolvers are objectively the best. But if you’re one of the poor unenlightened souls who objected to that comment, you can also have it with a 2-inch, 4.25-inch, 6-inch, or even 8-inch barrel. That’s more barrel length options than any other .22 revolver on the market.

    This is a King Cobra which means it’s built on the beefier magnum version of the Cobra frame. And the “Target” designation means it has an adjustable rear sight and a fiber optic front sight. They’ve also given the .22 model the vent rib cutouts on the barrel, which you do not see on the .357 version. With that and the full underlug, it kind of looks like a junior Python.    

He thought it had the best trigger of any .22 revolver on the market and the accuracy was very good--at 25 yards his 5-shot groups averaged between 1.1 and 1.5 inches depending on the ammo used.  

• "Ruger Super Wrangler Optics Mount By Skinner Sights"--Guns Magazine. It is a Picatinny mount that requires the removal of the front and rear sights, so it stretches from the back of the handgun up to the front of the barrel, so plenty of room for handgun scope.  
• "DIY Long Term Targets"--GAT Daily.  An article on using stable mats to make your own "forever targets". 
• "The Best Ways to Organize Ammo on Your Plate Carrier"--Tactical Gear Blog.  An excerpt:

    Placement determines how naturally and quickly you can access your magazines under stress. For right-handed shooters, your primary magazine pouch should be positioned on the support side furthest to your left, so your support hand can reach it without interfering with your firing grip or rifle position. From there, additional magazines are arranged sequentially toward the centerline. Number your magazines left to right, with Magazine 1 being your first reload source on the support side.

    If you are running both a plate carrier and a battle belt, exhaust your battle belt magazines first before transitioning to the plate carrier. This keeps your heavier, body-mounted load intact longer and reduces fatigue from upper-body weight early in an engagement. On the plate carrier itself, the sequencing reverses: from a battle-belt start, it works inward from the furthest point on the support side, toward the centerline.

    Consistent positioning also means your hands instinctively find the right pouch, even in low light or under cognitive load. A setup you can navigate without looking is one you can rely on in the field. If you are still dialing in your carrier fit before configuring pouches, start with our guide on how to wear a plate carrier. Correct plate height and cummerbund tension are the baseline; everything else is built around. According to U.S. Army doctrine on individual equipment, tactical performance under stress is directly tied to how well trained and predictable a soldier’s equipment layout is.

• For my Idaho readers: "New law limits technology when it comes to hunting big game animals in Idaho"--KIVI News 6. Per the article, from August 30 to December 31 of each year, those hunting birds and big game (other than wolves and mountain lions) will be prohibited from using thermal imaging, night vision, drones, or transmitting trail cameras. However, there is, as always, a de facto exemption for farmers and ranchers as the law doesn't apply to monitoring livestock or private property. Per the article, the law also "eliminated the ban on using technology for retrieving game and monitoring traps". 
• And for background: "Why Trail Cameras Are at the Center of a Heated Debate"--Petersen's Hunting.  
• "Five Common Mistakes People Make When Checking for Ticks"--Life Hacker.  Tips on spotting and getting rid of ticks that you might pick up in the field or even in a park or your backyard. Probably the best advice is to simply take a shower within a short time of getting home--it allows you to more easily spot the ticks and may even wash off ones you miss. 
• "Practical Prepping – Are You Focused on What’s Important?"--The Prepper Journal.  The author has some thoughts on keeping in mind the potential for having to bug out when prepping, including the following bit:

The decisions you make, on a day to day basis, have survival implications.  Perhaps you’ve opted for an under-the-sink water filter, instead of a filtered pitcher.  That’s great for now, but if you have to bug out, you won’t be taking your installed water filter with you.  If you stay in your home, but city water no longer flows, the installed water filter will be of no value to you.  That’s not to say you shouldn’t install a water filter, but if you have to choose between the two, a filtered pitcher is a better choice from a survival standpoint.

• "Prepping 101: Mini-Alcohol Gas Stove"--Tactical Hermit.  
• "U.S. Farmers Are Facing Two Historic Catastrophes At The Same Time In 2026"--SHTF Blog. Those are (i) higher fertilizer prices due to increased oil prices; and (ii) drought because of lower than normal snow fall.
• "FIFO Can Organizer: Best First In, First Out Can Storage Racks"--Modern Survival Blog. This is to help avoid digging around in your cupboard and finding 10 year cans of Ravioli stuck in the back.
• "How to Use Super Glue for First Aid"--Organic Prepper.  

    Super glue is one of the greatest inventions. It will bond almost anything. Army Medics and Navy Corpsman were the first to ever use it in the field,  during the Vietnam War. They glued more patients back together than they sewed. Placing a standard interrupted suture for every stitch you make two new wounds – two new avenues of infection. Super glues eliminated that route of infection.

    You can use super glue when you have a cut. Deep or shallow, it doesn’t matter – you need to protect it from infection. Sealing the wound is your best bet. Why should you worry about a tiny cut? In the SHTF world, more people will die of infection than major trauma. Why? Because no matter how much people like me preach about diet and washing hands, its human nature to find 5000 more important things to do when you’re trying to survive.

The author goes on to provide directions (including photos) and recommendations as to what glue to use and which to avoid.

• Some prepping related e-books: "Index of /pdf/Books/Survival/Self-Reliance/Emergency_Preparedness/". 

See The Violence Inherent In The Leftism: Another Assassination Attempt

    As you undoubtedly already know, yesterday evening, a gunman tried to rush by security and burst into the Washington Hilton ballroom where the White House Correspondents' Dinner (WHCD) was being held. This is the first WHCD which President Trump attended as President. The gunman opened fire, striking a Secret Service agent, but reports indicate that the agent was uninjured because of his Kevlar vest. 

    The shooter was identified as 31-year old  Cole Allen of Torrance, Calif., who apparently worked as a teacher at C2 Education, a tutoring and test prep company. Considering that he graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, this seems rather a step down. 

    Records also showed that he had donated to the Kamala Harris campaign in 2020. The photographs show that he is a POC. Per the Post's article, "[h]e was part of a group called 'The Wide Awakes' and is believed to have attended a 'No Kings' protest in California, where he attended college and worked as a teacher." Presumably "The Wide Awakes" is in reference to this group which uses the Illuminati eye symbol. (The historic "Wide Awakes" group were young militant Republicans opposed to slavery). 

    Per the DC Police, Allen was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives as he ran into that checkpoint. According to a manifesto Allen sent to family members just minutes before his attack, his attention was to kill "Administration officials (not including [FBI Director Kash] Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest" and would go through whomever he needed to get to his targets (he believed anyone attending the dinner was complicit), yet also states that he selected buckshot rounds instead of slugs in order to minimize casualties due to over penetration from the slugs.  He apparently was triggered by Trumps opposition to illegal immigration and drug cartels. 

More: 

• "Read White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman Cole Allen’s full anti-Trump manifesto"--New York Post.

RPG Saturday: Aftermath!

 

(Source: Fantasy Games Unlimited)

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned one of the early table-top role playing games that my friends I played when I was a kid was a post-apocalypse RPG called Gamma World. It was fun, but had a rather fantastic setting far in the future with characters and monsters having physical mutations and mental or psychic powers that essentially replaces magic in a traditional fantasy system. But my friends and I were interested in something more realistic and more relatable. Thus I eventually picked up a game entitled  Aftermath! published by Fantasy Games Unlimited. (Also available for sale as a PDF download here). Even after I got rid of most of my RPGs after I got married, this is one that I held on to. Fortunately, this game is still being published, albeit as a single book and not a boxed set. 

[Note: if you prefer a video to my lengthy written review, I've included a couple videos below that also review or discuss the game]. 

    When I bought it, the box set of the game came with three rule books: (i) "Basic Rules" covering character creation, combat and damage, time and movement, barriers, acid and fire, etc.; (ii) "Survivors of the Aftermath" covering character skills, firearms, explosives, gear and equipment, vehicles, bartering, and survival; and (iii) "The World of the Aftermath" which covers ideas for an Aftermath! campaign including different types of disasters, creating ruined cities and living communities, searching and foraging, hazards of the environment, animals, technology, tactical battles and large scale conflict, and, in a nod to common books and movies about a post-apocalypse world, limited rules on mutations. In addition to the rule books, the game came with a fold out quick reference/game master screen with commonly used tables, a character sheet on card stock suitable for copying, a very short introductory adventure titled "Survive!" and a small cardstock sheet with printed squares of people, tables, and so on, to use used as markers on a board or battle mat.

    The game was authored in the 1980's, and reflects the fears of nuclear war from that time. Although the game contains rules and ideas for alternative settings and disasters, it was written with the assumption of a large scale nuclear war destroying world civilization sometime in the 1990's, and the story for the players (the "campaign") beginning approximately 20 years later: enough time for larger settlements and communities to have sprung up, but short enough that the war would still be fresh in people's memories and, more importantly for purposes of the game, there would be plenty of opportunities to scavenge equipment and materials from the ruins. Nevertheless, the rules also provided ideas for what they termed the "200 years after" campaign where the destruction from the war was much greater and it has started to shift from history to legend. Alternatively, it would be easy to change the game setting to something immediately following an apocalyptic event--or even starting slightly before an apocalypse such as in the novel Lucifer's Hammer. 

    All role-playing games are a "model" of the real world to a greater or lessor extent. What set Aftermath! apart from other role-playing games was its attempt to be as realistic and accurate as possible within the confines of a role-playing game. In that regard, it attempts to accurately model the accuracy and lethality of firearms, the impact of disease and starvation, character development, and even the technology. On the latter point, there are certain concessions in order to make the game more interesting. First, because the "apocalypse" was to take place a decade or more in the future from the time the game was made, the authors made certain assumptions or predictions as to what technology would be like, including a few that they freely admit were to make the game more dramatic: they postulated advances in robotics and computers that, for the most part, still lie in the realm of science fiction; they postulated the development of preservation techniques that would allow food and equipment to be still salvageable 20 years later; they include some miracle medicines; and they postulated dramatic increases in the availability and use of solar power to, in effect, make electricity "salvageable". 

    For those interested in "space opera" or "fantasy" elements, they provided pointers for disasters that might encompass those elements--an alien invasion, high tech elements, or a disaster caused by magic and fantasy monsters returning--and they try to include rules to cover some of the popular post-apocalypse books and movies extant at the time. Moreover, there are rules for mutations, and science fiction devices like laser weapons, science fiction type armor, and robots, if you want a more futuristic setting.  

    There are also rules on diseases and poisons (addressing even different vectors for diseases), the strength of barriers (even recognizing the difference between cover and concealment), extremely detailed rules on firearms (including step-by-step on how to load a black powder muzzle loading arm), explosives and fragmentation, vehicles and accidents, food and water, and electricity and technology. (While I haven't read it, there apparently was a supplement to update the technology which was published in 2008).

    Just a couple examples on some of the details that were put into the game. In a section on animals, it includes a list of the "usefulness of animals" including a percentage of mass that is edible (e.g., 75% for a cockroach versus 33% for a human), the number of "man-days" of rations, and chance of contamination. I don't know how accurate the table is, but it shows that the authors put a lot of effort and thought into the details. It also has details on the effect of nuclear weapons (including health effects from certain levels of radiation exposure--200 REM, 500 REM, 750 REM, and 1000 REM) and chemical weapons. It has rules on hunting, gathering, bartering, and foraging and scavenging.

    Of course, some of the details could be dangerous to someone relying on them. For instance, the rules notes the following about ammonium nitrate explosives:

The fertlizer is sold in 25 kg sacks, which should be soaked in kerosene (kerosene is not the correct material) and allowed to dry. Use of a fulminating primer (see below) will set it off. Extreme heat will cause it to ignite and burn, but not explosively. It is otherwise completely stable. 

A simple chemical treatment with a substance so common we are not really sure we should mention it will turn any ammoniated nitrate fertilizer into a very efficient explosive.

(Emphasis in original). A couple obvious problems, one not dangerous, but the other definitely so.

    First, the authors do not mention that the fertilizer prills are larger and have thicker coatings which make it better for fertilizer but less effective for explosives. (Thus the reason why the British in Northern Ireland used the sound of coffee grinders to track down explosives labs). Of course, they can't be blamed for holding this detail back since the game was marketed to kids and we obviously don't want kids trying to mix up a recipe like this.

    The second major problem is actually more dangerous--stating that kerosene won't work--because it can. The Atlas book on Explosives and Rock Blasting states:

In the early 1950s, it was discovered that No. 2 diesel fuel oil, when mixed with prills at the level of 5.5 - 6.0% by weight, produced a practical and inexpensive blasting agent. This optimum ratio provides the best explosive performance and fewest postblast toxic fumes. (It is important to stress that only No. 2 fuel oil should be used. No. 1 fuel oil, kerosene, and gasoline must not be used. These fuels will not improve performance. However, these fuels will increase the hazard of vapor explosion because of their volatility and low flash point. The use of crude or crankcase oil is also unacceptable  These, too, may contain volatile impurities and may also include gritty particles that could increase sensitivity.)

(Emphasis in original). Why should this matter? Well, as noted, the game was marketed to teens, and I'm sure that there is some teen, somewhere, that may give it a go notwithstanding the instructions that kerosene is the wrong ingredient, and actually wind up with something more likely to spontaneously detonate than if they had used the right ingredients.

 

The first page of the two page flow chart on the combat rules.

The downside to all of the detail and attempt to be realistic is that the rules are complicated. For instance, the combat rules are so complicated that the authors included a two-page flowchart to help the game master and players. Frankly, this game really needs to have some aspects set into a spreadsheet or computer program. But as I was putting this review together, I discovered that some of this has been done for those interested. The publisher, FGU, offers a computerized character generator for $19.95; and this website appears to offer some automated tools as well. 

 

     There were also various adventures and settings written for the game. For instance, the two I purchased (the covers shown above) are set in Australia. The first is an adventure where the characters were volunteers for a cryogenic sleep experiment that wake up 20 years after a world war and an invasion of Australia. There are a lot of science fiction elements to this adventure, including armed robots. 

    The second book is a campaign setting rather than a particular adventure, detailing the Sydney, Australia, area with an explanation of different parts of the city and environs as well as fictional settlements and factions that have sprung up among the survivors. And for those who are fans of the move, Omega Man, the supplement includes the "vampires" from that movie. 

    There were other adventures and settings created, including one setting of the Chicago area. 

    The downside of this game is that it is often too complicated and, therefore, too slow. We often abandoned much of the combat rules. The authors of the game did so as well: they subsequently came out with a couple of games using the same basic system, but with simplified rules (Bushido an adventure game set in medieval Japan and Daredevils which was a 1930s pulp adventure game with an Indiana Jones vibe). But if you wanted something that could potentially model a post-apocalypse world, this would be one of the best for that purpose. Frankly, though, if I were to try and use this game again, I would use this rule set mostly as a reference and use a somewhat simpler character and combat rules like those from Merc, which I reviewed last week.

    Here are a couple of video reviews of the game as well.

 VIDEO: "Aftermath! (Fantasy Games Unlimited, 1981) – The Most Complex Post-Holocaust RPG Ever? | Retro RPG" -- RPGGamer (24 min.)

 

VIDEO: "1. GM's Guide: Why the Aftermath! TTRPG"
Marv Conn (18 min.)