VIDEO: Using A Handgun With A Flashlight

Massad Ayoob goes over using a handheld flashlight with a handgun--the various techniques, the pros and cons, and bit of history. He also demonstrates these with the old, heavy police flashlights where appropriate which makes me glad for the smaller lights (although I understand that the old police flashlights made good impact weapons).   

While some may question the need for these skills when we have weapon mounted lights available, Ayoob points out that there are still many handguns around that don't have rails for mounting lights, that lights are generally too bulky to include on concealed carry pistols, and you shouldn't be using your weapon mounted light to conduct searches.  

 VIDEO: "How to Use a Light and a Gun Together"
Massad Ayoob - Facts and Firearms (14 min.)

Downsides of Mandatory Evacuations

Greg Ellifritz highlights a couple issues with mandatory evacuations in the face of a bomb threat in his article, "Two Contemporary Training Issues to Ponder." His focus is a recent evacuation at a Tennessee high school after it received a bomb threat. The students were--per standard practice--evacuated to a nearby football field where there was no shade, where they sat (or stood) for nearly an hour. Twenty-one students had to be treated for a heat injury, with 3 students in critical condition. 

The first point that Greg raises is the rise in the number of people--and this is something he's noticed in classes he teaches--that suffer from heat injuries in warm weather, which he attributes to a few causes including lack of acclimation to heat due to our air conditioned world. 

The second point is his belief (and one held by security experts) that not every bomb threat deserves evacuation. In fact, he notes, there is probably a greater risk of someone planting a bomb in the rally point for the evacuees than trying to sneak it into a high school (particularly nowadays where entrance to a school is more tightly controlled than in the past). 

Anyway, an interesting read, so check out the whole thing.  

Gov't No Like Spicy Talk!

 An article at The Truth About Guns discusses the federal prosecution of a YouTuber going under the nom-de-plume "Dugan Ashley" in part because Ashley published videos on how to make explosives and some terrorist supposedly used them (although even that is questionable) to make an explosive device that failed to explode. There is, of course, no evidence that Ashley knew the terrorist or had ever directly communicated with him. As the author of the article points out, the issue here is: "Can the government treat publicly posted technical videos as a felony because a terrorist later downloaded them?"

So the government is now going to say what we can and can't say? If some assassin learned a bit about shooting from a YouTube video or article, is that YouTuber going to face prosecution? What if our hypothetical assassin attended a shooting class? Is the instructor now criminally liable? Because that is where a case like this leads should the government prevail. 

And let's be honest. The whole purpose of this prosecution is to chill speech. It is the inevitable result of living in police state. 

Leftist Urge War On The Streets

From Jonathan Turley: "'You Better Get Ready for … War': Socialists Call for 'War in the Streets' and the End of Capitalism." Turley writes:

    “You better get ready for … war.” Across the country, radicals are openly planning for the next stage of their movement, and notably, the Democratic establishment is not part of their plans. Despite the talk of a “Big Tent Party,” socialists are riding high on a surge of support and talking purges and revolution.

    In Chicago, radicals gathered for a conference on Marxism during what many view as the heyday of socialism in the United States. The Democratic Socialists of America is now larger and more powerful than at any time in our history. Socialist candidates are winning elections across the country as Democratic establishment figures from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to Gov. Gavin Newsom pander to the movement.

    Speakers in Chicago used the conference to push supporters to the next stage in the movement, including some openly calling for violence and the end to capitalism.

    University of California Santa Barbara History Professor Butch Ware said Democrats “must be destroyed” and urged attendees to be ready for “war in the streets.” Notably, in postings on X, Ware has said that candidates such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed are too restrained and are being pushed by the establishment “to contain radicalism.”

    The professor “of Africa and Islam” whose faculty page is appropriately found under “bware” is the latest radical to dismiss the “Big Tent Party” rhetoric of establishment figures like Schumer. He declared, “The Democrats cannot be reasoned with. They must be destroyed.” There is little subtlety in the message, Ware has explained: “You cannot call yourself a revolutionary and not be talking about training with weapons.” 

Not unexpected as this is exactly what Leftists did in the 1960s and '70s, carrying out protests, stoking riots, and conducting extensive terrorist bombing campaigns. But it won't be too many years before the Muslims are talking about destroying the Communists in the Democrat Party.  

AfD Election Win Scares Leftists

From USA Today: "Far-right election win leaves Germany's leader Merz shaken." German Chancellor Friedrich Merz leads the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a major so-called "conservative" political party in Germany. So why is the Alternative for Germany party considered "far right"? Perhaps I'm missing something, but as best as I can tell, it is because they put Germans and Germany first. Thus, they want to deport illegal aliens and refugees, end support for Ukraine, and patch things up with Russia so Germany can once again enjoy low energy prices. Conversely, Merz hardly sounds conservative with his tax and spend mentality:

Merz, whose own approval ratings have sunk to record lows, faces more state elections in the coming weeks and into next year, though he hopes his mix of reforms and higher spending in some areas will revive growth in Europe's largest economy.  

The Brookings Institute delves more into why the AfD cannot be allowed to succeed, noting:

Many of its proposals would be familiar to MAGA voters: segregation or deportation of refugees, abolition of funding for public broadcasters, total overhaul of schools and law enforcement, no more wind farms, rollback of LGBTQ+ rights, rejection of historical guilt, overtures to Russia.  

Worst of all, it has condemned the Bauhaus school of design--an early brutalist form of architecture popular in Germany in the 1920s and early '30s. Other strikes against the AfD are that its leaders favor "policies of low taxes, welfare cuts and privatization" and its two main leaders are an economist and a businessman, respectively. In other words, as far as I can tell, the AfD is considered "far right" because it doesn't support communism or communism-lite. 

More: "Germany’s Merz shocked by far-right state election triumph but doubles down on unpopular reforms"--AP.

VIDEO: Arguments Against An Ambi AR

The producer of this video raises some safety and other practical considerations as to why you should eschew products that attempt to make your AR ambidextrous.  

 VIDEO: "You Don’t Need An Ambi AR15"
Arms For Thought (9 min.)

Public Service Announcement On The Importance Of Camo

From an article published by Borderland Beat:

    The thing about cover and concealment is that you have to camouflage every inch of your body. It doesn’t just apply to your fighting position. In all probability that’s what made it so easy for the Chapiza to locate and neutralize a novice enforcer from the Grupo Flechas. 

    That single shot to the head, not only took him out all at once but also caved in a part of his face in the process. Was he an undertrained shooter made to believe that his organization had the upper hand here, or a weekend warrior with no common sense?

Gun Safety And A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

The Guardian has an article entitled "I own six guns. Here’s how to talk to conservatives about firearms" by Meredith Dean. Well, in response to Ms. Dean, I would suggest that she first learn what are guns, for her count of six "guns" included two B.B. "guns" which aren't firearms under federal law. Her family's other guns are two shotguns and two .22 rifles. This is a woman that may possess a few firearms but doesn't really know anything about firearms.

    Second, she needs to get her facts straight. She states that "firearms are the leading cause of death among American children and teenagers, killing 2,581 children under 18 in 2023 alone." Here is what she is concealing: according to the CDC, drowning is the leading cause of death for children 1-4, and the second leading cause of death after motor vehicle accidents for children 5-14.  It is harder to find data just on 15-17 year old death rates, but this article indicates that if you cap "children" at 17 or under, the number one cause of death is motor vehicle accidents. And the National Safety Council states on its website:

According to the latest data available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the number of teen motor-vehicle occupant deaths in 2024 totaled 2,565, down 5.4% from 2,714 in 2023. Motor-vehicle crashes continue to be the number one cause of preventable death for U.S. teens. NHTSA also estimates that the total number of deaths among teens ages 13 to 19 (including pedestrian and bicycle incidents) was 2,899 in 2024, averaging eight deaths per day. 

I don't know where Ms. Dean got her facts, but she is wrong about firearms being the leading cause of death of children ages 17 and younger. 

    In any event, after she insults our intelligence about what is a gun and misstates the leading cause of death for children, Ms. Dean writes:

But decades of polarization have made it near impossible to agree on even the simplest measures. Liberals caricature gun owners as uneducated rednecks or reckless young men stockpiling AR-15s; gun owners see liberals as bleeding hearts determined to confiscate their weapons. But keeping guns away from children seemed like the one place where we might meet.   

She then references the Gun Aware Program, intended to distribute gun locks, and her own organization, Community Works. According to Dean, "the goal of Community Works is not to overcome, or try to change, rural culture. It’s about understanding, respecting and learning to live alongside our conservative rural neighbors." In other words, she inveigles her way into the hearts and homes of her conservative neighbors by finding common cause on small things in order to build trust and, thereby, disarm their defenses as to more progressive ideas. She concludes:

    I’d like to think we’ve learned something in 150 years: that by working together across lines of geography, race, class, party and even guns, we might build a more equitable future.

    For myself, after handing out scores of gun locks to my neighbors, I’ll be donating half our guns to a local effort called Groceries Not Guns, and safely storing the others using my brand new locks. 

But her true intentions are revealed by her use of insider terms like "equitable" (which is an anti-white term) and supporting the anti-gun group Groceries Not Guns--a creation of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. 

Wilder: New Civil War 2.0 Weather Report

John Wilder has a new Civil War 2.0 Weather Report. This edition is a threat assessment: essentially, the advantages and disadvantages between the two sides were civil war to break out between red and blue regions of the country. The Red side is obviously at a disadvantage as to man power, industry, medicine, and other vital infrastructure, but it has the advantage of having lots of gun owners, veterans, and control over the food supply. I suspect that cohesion will be important to victory and it is less clear who has the advantage here. Wilder writes, on this point:

    Red Force coheres around land, faith networks, veterans’ organizations, and distrust of coastal institutions.  It fractures around personalities and between libertarian, populist, and traditional-conservative currents.
    
    Blue Force coheres through bureaucracies, universities, city governments, and remaining national media.  It fractures among socialists, corporate liberals, and identity factions the moment scarcity arrives.

But I believe that a Red Force would face additional fractures including, but not limited to, the large number of Hispanics living in rural areas as farm and agricultural laborers, farmers and businessmen dependent on federal subsidies and/or out-of-state trade, and the large number of liberals and progressives that also live in Red areas (even if they are not a majority). 

    Wilder also looks at some of the largest metro areas in the U.S. and the primary difficulties they would face if electricity was lost and food supplies interrupted. He splits these into areas that are most likely to quickly collapse and those that might be able to hold on. While Wilder does not discuss it, I would expect that the large metro areas would use force to obtain food and restore electricity and water that had been cut off. 

    Since this analysis is from the perspective of a fictional Chinese analysis of a potential civil war in the U.S., Wilder goes on to also discuss the "best" outcome from China's perspective; but he also looks at the impact on our neighbors and allies.  

    In addition to the foregoing, Wilder also has his standard monthly analysis of the factors that would predict wide spread civil unrest or civil war, so be sure to read the whole thing.  

Gun & Prepping News #97

Some links that may be of interest: 

• "Practical Pistol Practice"--Tactical Anatomy Systems. As the author notes, firearms practice is tradeoff between the very real costs of ammunition versus the benefit obtained from a lot of shooting. Therefore, he presents a practice/training regime for the handgun incorporating a mixture of dry fire, using a .22 pistol, and a 50-round practice drill shooting your larger caliber defensive pistol. The author uses dry fire both to practice basic pistol skills between range sessions and as part of his warm up at the range. Then he moves on to the .22 pistol to work on pure pistol skills: grip, stance, sight picture, trigger press, and follow-through, writing: "I like to fire 3 to 5 sets of 10 rounds, slow fire, at 7-10 yards. Each successive target will show a slightly tighter group. Your last target will typically be quite a bit better. At this point, you’re warmed up." Finally, he recommends:

Pick a good 50-round practice drill. A 50-round practice drill every week will benefit you far, far more than a 200-round practice drill once per month. Frequency of training has been proven to be far more effective than total time/ammo spent in training. As for which 50-round drill you should use, there’s a plethora of recommendations out there. This morning, I did a quick googly search for “50-round practice drills” and got pages and pages of recommendations. Pick one, and use it. Most of the time nowadays, when I go to the range I start with my dry fire warmup, then usually a 22 rimfire warmup, then I do one of the many 50-round practice plans that are available online. I’ve used a bunch of different 50-round drills over the years and they all have their strong points, so if you rotate through different ones you’ll find yourself working on more pistol skills than if you stick with a single program. 

• "Homeowner’s Gun Stops Intruder Where the Law Failed"--Shooting News Weekly. Key bit: "The residents woke up to a stranger in their home. The homeowner did the adult thing: he armed himself and when Xavier confronted him, the homeowner changed the intruder’s preferred pronouns to was/were." 
• "Know How: Understanding and Obtaining a Cold-Bore Zero"--American Hunter. Barrel temperature can effect where a bullet strikes. And since you first shot will be from a cold barrel, you need to know where that bullet will land. 
• "Revolver Malfunctions and Stoppages"--Revolver Guy. Revolvers are more dependable than semi-autos in the sense that they are more immune to neglect, poor grip, or poor ammo, but that does not mean that they cannot malfunction. The article covers some of the more common malfunctions and breakages that can occur with a revolver including broken springs, broken firing pins, a broken or worn hand (the part that actually turns the cylinder), worn ratchets, a broken or worn cylinder stop (the part that aligns the cylinder with the barrel), and more. Along the way, he provides information on diagnosing problems, cleaning and lubrication, and other trouble shooting. 
• Some firearm history: "The Hand Cannon: The First Handheld Firearm"--American Rifleman. An excerpt:

One of the more striking details in the segment comes from American Rifleman Executive Editor Evan Brune, who pointed out that many surviving hand cannons share a bore diameter in the .75-to-.78-caliber range—a size established in the 1330s and 1340s that persisted as a near-standard all the way into the early 19th century. That’s roughly 500 years of continuity in a dimension that was arrived at by medieval metalworkers without the benefit of ballistic science. It suggests that the practical limits of what a person can hold and fire were understood early and changed slowly. 

• And some new technology: "The Problem with Pressures: A +Peak Revolution?"--American Hunter. The Peak Alloy cases are a type of steel case that can handle significantly higher pressures than traditional brass cases, but without resorting to hybrid designs such as used by the military for the 6.8 mm. Moreover, assuming you're not trying to use it in an older rifle with inferior metallurgy, it can offer that performance out of existing rifles. However, it is currently only offered for the 7mm Backcountry and 6.5 Creedmoor.

The elevated pressure limits will certainly increase the demands on the rifles receiver, and that was probably a big factor in choosing the popular 6.5 Creedmoor as the first cartridge to receive the +Peak treatment, as the vast majority of rifles so chambered are of relatively new construction, and have the stronger metallurgy associated with the 21st century.  

• "Unrivaled Upgrades: Competition-Bred AR Parts for the Rest of Us"--The Truth About Guns. These do not appear to be competition parts, per se, but parts that were influenced by what Unrivaled learned from making competition parts.
• "PSA JAKL-10 .308 Review – A Modern Battle Rifle?"--Ammo Land. A long stroke pistol design that uses an AR-10 style lower, and a stock similar to the ACR. The author notes:

Good open-tip match-grade ammo would undoubtedly tighten those groups further, but even a 2.25 MOA group isn’t bad at all. I think you could run it as a DMR, but it would probably function best as a battle rifle. This isn’t due to inherent accuracy limitations, but rather to the inherent characteristics of the long-stroke gas piston system, which is where the gun truly excels. 

• "Old (Un)reliable: Finding a Magazine that Works for Your 1911"--American Rifleman. Some advice to a reader that is having issues with certain types of rounds not feeding reliably. Thus, there is a discussion of magazine maintenance and different types of followers for specific types of bullet profiles. 
• "Magpul’s Modified Coyote Brown"--The Truth About Guns.  A new color that is slightly darker than its usual Flat Dark Earth. 
• "IEDs Found in the Carson National Forest"--American Rifleman. A warning that it isn't just aggressive animals that hikers and hunters need to watch out for. The article mentions the destructive devices found in Carson National Forest in New Mexico, the risk of running across pot plantations and meth labs, and that "[o]n July 16, 2026, two female U.S. Forest Service biologists were kidnapped and held hostage on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest." 
•  The return of the pen light: "The Streamlight Wedge SL: EDC Done Right"--The Truth About Guns. This is about the size and shape of a partially used carpenter's pencil, so it carries flat in the pocket. It features three output settings: 50 lumens on Low, 100 lumens on High, and a 500-lumen THRO mode. It is rechargeable. As the author notes, "not every flashlight needs to be tactical. Tactical lights today produce ridiculous amounts of light. That’s great if you’re searching a backyard, clearing a building, or trying to identify someone at a distance. ... [But] [f]or most day-to-day tasks, all of that light can be too much." I carry an old Olight EOS that I have on my key chain for my EDC flashlight--it uses a single AAA and it twists to come on. Not tactical but it does 90% of the things for which I need a flashlight. It would be nice to have something with more throw at times. But I continue with my old, beat up EOS because it is easy to have on me (I almost always have my keys) and not something I'm likely to forget. 
• "Six Days to Anarchy: Silent Weapons for Urban Collapse"--The Truth About Guns.  The author argues for three silenced weapons: a .300 BLK carbine/SBR, a duty pistol, and a .22 pistol. But what caught my attention was the hypothesized cause of collapse:

     Six days.

    That’s the timeline investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen lays out in Biological Warfare: A Scenario for a biological incident to move from outbreak to anarchy and insurrection.

    Not six months. Not six weeks.

    Six days.

    Jacobsen recently discussed that scenario on the Shawn Ryan Show, and one of the more interesting things she brought up wasn’t simply how deadly a biological weapon could be. It’s what happens when fear of infection begins to break down the systems we normally depend on.

     According to Jacobsen, declassified government material repeatedly raises the concern that fear of infection could send the United States spiraling into “anarchy and insurrection.” In the scenario she constructed from her reporting, it takes less than a week to get there.

    Most of us tend to think about preparedness as something with a little runway. You see the storm coming. You watch things getting worse. Then you make a few last-minute runs for food, water, batteries, fuel, medicine, and whatever else you should have bought months ago.
    
    Six days doesn’t give you much of that.

    If something capable of causing that level of disruption ever happened, there probably isn’t going to be time to get your shit together once it starts.

    You either did it beforehand, or you didn’t.

But the fear of the epidemic was the key reason for collapse under the scenario:

     Jacobsen boils a biological threat down to three basic questions: How does it spread? How deadly is it? And is there a medical countermeasure?

    Now imagine nobody has reliable answers.

    People don’t know who is infected. They don’t know exactly how the pathogen spreads. They don’t know whether the information coming from the government is accurate. They don’t know whether there is enough medicine to go around.

    Later in the interview, Jacobsen walks through a scenario involving a limited supply of a perceived medical countermeasure and a population desperate to get it. Law enforcement and first responders face the same exposure risks as everyone else; government resources are stretched thin, and thousands of people are trying to get their hands on something they believe could save their families.

    At that point, you don’t just have a biological emergency.

    You have scared, desperate people competing for limited resources. 

The article links to the video of the interview as well as a video from Garand Thumb on urban collapse and operating in an urban collapse as well as containing more details on his reasoning for each type of silenced weapon, why 6 days is not enough time to prepare, and the importance of keeping a low profile.

• "Retired cop shares inexpensive items everyone should keep in their home to save them from intruders"--Daily Mail. Recommendations to have door braces, door wedge alarms, carrying pepper spray and a personal alarm when walking or jogging, a faraday bag to protect someone copying the signal from your car fob (but also keep the fob near your bed so you can set off the alarm if you have an intruder); as well as a recommending that single women purchase a pair of used, sort of beat up men's work boots, to put outside the door of a house or apartment (remembering to bring them in at times and move them around) to make it look like a man lived in the residence.