Dumb Firearm Training

In "Dumbest Ways We Train with Firearms," Richard Mann has some cutting remarks about popular drills and procedures. For instance, about the immediate action drills to clear stoppages, Mann writes: "I’m sorry, but if you’re in a gunfight and your pistol stops working, the most likely cause is that it is out of ammo. The standard immediate action of, tap, rack, and ready, will not sort this problem." 

A more practical approach to dealing with a pistol that will not go bang—while you are in the middle of shooting at something to save your life—is not to conduct some sort of action that requires you to determine the precise cause of the failure. Just reload the pistol. And by reloading the pistol I mean, eject the magazine that is in it, insert a new magazine, and fully rack the slide. If the pistol is out of ammo, this will fix it. If it has a stoppage, this will most likely correct it. If it is a type-3 stoppage, you will likely have to pull the magazine from the handgun, but you’ll realize that when it does not eject.

He also has some harsh words about scanning after shooting a target.  

The Great Replacement: Funded By Your Tax Dollars

Funded by your tax dollars going to liberal religious institutions. From the New York Post: "Two Christian groups were paid $62M to resettle tens of thousands of Somalis in Minnesota." The article relates:

    Two church non-profits have taken in at least $62 million to build the Somali community in Minnesota — leading to the rise of Ilhan Omar and the fraud scandals that have gripped that state, The Post can reveal.

    Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services were at the forefront of reshaping the frigid Land of 10,000 Lakes thanks to generous government contracts stemming back generations.

    “This is a very big pile of government money and a whole bunch of different groups have come to get their own slice of it,” Parker Thayer, an immigration expert at the Washington, DC-based Capital Research Center, told The Post.

    He added the total money pouring into Minneapolis resettlement programs alone is “in the hundreds of millions.”

    He noted that since 2021, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the body overseeing Catholic Charities, has received $140 million in migrant resettlement contracts from the federal government.   

[snip]

    The two church groups have resettled an estimated 29,000 Somalians into Minnesota since 1993, collecting a reported $2,500 per refugee to cover costs like food, initial housing and social workers.

    The population today is over 100,000 in Minnesota according to data, thanks to chain migration (also known as “family reunification”) and the state’s generous welfare system, which became a magnet for Somalis, including those initially placed elsewhere in the US.

    “They picked Minnesota because it had extremely generous state social safety net policies and welfare programs, which of course made resettling refugees there easier,” Thayer said. “Refugees from Somalia then moved to Minnesota after they were resettled elsewhere, in places like South Dakota.

The article includes some history of Minnesota being a dumping ground, noting that after WWII many refugees were resettled into Minnesota; and, later, the Hmong of Vietnam--who had assisted the CIA in the Vietnam war--were also resettled in Minnesota. It makes you wonder if the Somali groups being resettled now were, similar to the Hmong, also those groups which worked with the CIA.

Related:

• "Ilhan Omar Was 37 When She Entered Congress. Soon, She Became 36"--PJ Media. 
• "Why does an American state have Somali gangs?"--Washington Examiner.
• "Yes, Somali Immigrants Commit More Crime Than Natives"--City Journal. 

The SPLC And Debanking: Then And Now

On August 15, 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center called "debanking" a "conspiracy theory". The SPLC's assertions did not age well. As reported by Yahoo! Finance: 

    The Comptroller of the Currency says the nation's nine largest banks denied financial services to customers based on their political, religious, or social beliefs, according to a regulatory review released Wednesday. 

 [snip]

    The federal banking watchdog determined that the banks' sweeping internal guidelines lacked objective, risk-based criteria, effectively shutting out legitimate customers and businesses based on ideological leanings rather than financial risk.

    The OCC said its findings reveal a systematic effort within the banking sector to restrict access for politically sensitive industries through both public and nonpublic policies.

    Federal regulators found that lenders restricted certain sectors' access to financial services, including oil and gas exploration; coal mining; firearms or ammunition manufacturing or distribution; construction or operation of detention facilities; and the manufacturing, distribution or online retail of tobacco or e-cigarettes.  

It is notable that, per this Life News article, the SPLC is indirectly implicated in "debanking" as at least some of the banking institutions relied on SPLC materials to discriminate against certain businesses. From the article:

    JPMorgan Chase’s WePay closed the account of a religious organization after it was designated an “extremist hate group” by the SPLC; internal notes described it as a “right wing religious conservative non profit with strong anti LGBTQ rhetoric.” WePay also closed an account used by a devout Christian to fund a legal challenge to anti-discrimination laws.

    PNC denied a line of credit to a media company in part because an owner funded Christian conservative groups the SPLC had labeled hate groups. Wells Fargo pressured a payment processor to end service to a religious nonprofit over its views on same-sex marriage.

    These actions followed the circulation of a report titled “Bankrolling Bigotry: An Overview of the Online Funding Strategies of American Hate Groups.” The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network emailed it to leaders at major banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank.

    Drawing on Southern Poverty Law Center designations, the report falsely listed pro-life and Christian organizations—Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Counsel, the Family Research Council, the Ruth Institute, and the American College of Pediatricians—alongside white nationalist, white supremacist, and Holocaust denial groups. It urged platforms to restrict their access and recommended that Congress consider stripping them of tax-exempt status. 

And from a New York Post article about the OCC findings:

Banks regularly used hate group designations from the Southern Poverty Law Center to debank customers. The SPLC was indicted in April on federal fraud and money-laundering charges, with prosecutors alleging it defrauded donors of millions of dollars. FBI Director Kash Patel has described the non-profit as a “partisan smear machine.” 

Idaho's Proposition 1

The big political fight in Idaho's upcoming election will be Proposition 1 which will largely nullify Idaho's restrictions on abortion-on-demand. Idaho currently makes it a crime for a person (i.e., a doctor or other abortionist) to perform or attempt to perform an abortion except (i) during the first trimester of a pregnancy; or (ii) to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. The act does not make it illegal for a woman to obtain an abortion, however, which means she is free to go to another state. So really, all it makes illegal are abortions in the second and third trimesters except when to prevent the death of a pregnant woman.

    But this law has really pissed off liberal white women, particularly those who don't want a handicapped child or child with medical problems. For instance, this article at The 19th relates the following about one supporter of Proposition 1, Lisa Wirsching:

    On some days, it seems as if the campaign to overturn Idaho’s abortion ban has taken over Wirsching’s life. But just a year ago, this grandmother living outside of Boise would hardly have called herself a political woman. She supported abortion rights, she said, and mourned the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Still, she never thought the issue could shape her own life so intimately. 

    That changed when her youngest daughter, Abby Nichols, was pregnant with her first child.

    Near the end of her first trimester, Nichols learned her fetus had trisomy 18, a genetic anomaly that stunts development. Only 10 percent of babies born with the condition survive to their first birthday. When Nichols decided to end her pregnancy — which she felt would spare needless suffering — she couldn’t get help in Idaho. After contacting medical providers in Colorado and Washington, she finally found an appointment in Seattle. 

Note well, however, that Nichols learned about the condition in the first trimester and could have at that point obtained an abortion in Idaho. It's not clear from the article why she couldn't get help in Idaho--whether she waited too long to make a decision, her doctor refused to perform the abortion, or she wanted to keep the baby but her mother convinced her to have an abortion. 

    The article from The 19th suggests that this is wholly a homegrown effort, although it goes on to note that supporters of the proposition had received a $250,000 donation from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; and a few days ago the local Public Radio station reported that "[s]ince Sept. 1, Idahoans United for Women and Families has brought in nearly $2.5 million to support Proposition 1, according to state campaign finance records." That may not seem much for most states, but for a state with as small a population as Idaho, that is a lot of money. 

    But as with most things that are supported by liberals, the image they try to create are at odds with what they are actually pushing. You can read the text of Proposition 1 here, but a few points:

• It goes well beyond abortion and impacts all aspects of health care for women related to contraception, fertility treatment, prenatal and pregnancy care, childbirth, etc.  
• It creates a right of privacy which would extend to minors seeking care, meaning that parents could be left in the dark about any pregnancy care or abortion services provided to their children.
• Its definition of "reproductive health care" could probably be stretched to include transitioning children to a different sex.
• It allows abortion up to the point of "fetal viability" which is defined as the point when the physician determines that "the fetus has a significant likelihood of sustained survival outside of
  the uterus without extraordinary medical measures." What are "extraordinary medical measures"? It isn't defined, but my guess is that anything requiring serious NICU care would qualify. 

So, under Proposition 1, healthy babies could be aborted up to about 25 or 26 weeks (i.e., almost all of the way through the second trimester which ends at 27 weeks) and babies with severe medical issues potentially longer, perhaps even up to birth. 

    In other words, although the Left is framing the debate around women supposedly unable to get an abortion to deal with a medical emergency, the intent of the bill is to allow unrestricted abortion up to the beginning of the third trimester; and to keep knowledge of teen pregnancies from parents. 

Ruger Guts Its Revolver Line

In addition to one or two models discontinued earlier this year, Ruger has announced it is discontinuing immediately or after the beginning of the new year an additional 19 models. Unfortunately, it sounds as though Ruger is gutting its revolver line up, with the video mentioning that Ruger is immediately discontinuing production of its LCR, SP101, GP100 and Bearcat revolvers; and, after the end of its 2026 production runs, discontinuing the Redhawk, Super Redhawk, Blackhawk, Super Blackhawk, Single-Series revolvers, and Vaquero revolvers. At that point, I believe that the only revolvers left in its line up will be the Wrangler and Super Wrangler revolvers. 

Ruger is also discontinuing some of its upper-end sporting rifles (the No. 1, 77-Series rifles, Hawkeye and Ruger Precision Rifle) and pistol caliber carbines.  

• See also "Ruger to Discontinue Several Major Models"--American Rifleman.

 As the cited article notes:

With this shift, Ruger's handgun product lines continuing into 2027 will consist of the company's LCP offerings, RXM, MAX-9, Security-380, Security-9, Ruger 5.7, Mark IV and 22 Charger. In its revolver line, Ruger will continue making its affordable Wrangler and Super Wrangler models. For rifles, remaining Ruger offerings will consist of the company's American Rifle and American Rimfire line, as well as the Ruger Precision Rimfire, Harrier, 10/22 and Mini-14 models. 

As for a reason, the Company indicates:

"These decisions reflect our review of consumer demand, evolving market preferences, manufacturing complexity and the long-term profitability of each product family," Clary said. "The goal is to focus our resources on the products consumers want most today while creating capacity for future product development and manufacturing modernization."

The producer/host of the video, below, floats the idea that most of the products--particularly the revolvers--take skilled workers that just might not be around anymore. Another issue might be declining sales, not helped by the fact that Ruger revolvers have become as expensive as offerings from other major players like S&W and Colt. And when you look at what remains in their lineup, it is primarily the budget and mid-price range offerings. If the Mini-14 had not seen a surge in popularity recently, I wonder if it would have been facing the chopping block as well. 

VIDEO: "Ruger Discontinues / Suspends Production of 20 Different Models..."
The Turkey's Opinion (10 min.)

Distance and Reaction Time

You all have heard of the Tueller drill. It presupposes an attacker armed with a knife rushing a defender with a holstered handgun. Through the drill, it was determined that the shortest distance the average police officer could draw his handgun and fire on the attacker was if the attacker was 21 feet. But what about shorter distances? 

    In "Understanding the distancing and reaction time continuum" by Brian K. LaMaster at Buckeye Firearms Association, the author notes that most attackers will probably be initiating an attack at 10 feet or less. "On the average," he relates, "reaction times can vary from .4 seconds to .8 seconds. This means you have very little time to perceive their movement and react to it. Alright, you have about three-fourths of a second to react to someone who is moving towards you at ten feet away. If your reaction time is one half to three-fourths of a second, that leaves you with little or no time to react!"

    Unfortunately, the author continues, lateral movement does not create as much additional space (and time) as you might think. He conducted some tests, the gist of which is that at distances closer than 21-feet, even when attempting to create space, the defender was generally able to react fast enough to draw his handgun. For instance, moving the attacker to a 10 foot distance from the defender:

... The attacker made the first move and within one second the attacker was on the victim and had cut him at least once. After that, we had the defender move laterally by sidestepping. About one-half second into the attacker's movement the defender started his lateral movement. On the average, the defender was only able to cover about four feet of ground. Moving laterally does not created distance away from the attacker fast enough in order to survive especially when using the sidestepping method of footwork. In some instances the defender drew their gun only after being cut multiple times by the attacker.

A more experienced gunman did better, able to get off at least one shot even with the attacker at 5-feet. This was because:

When moving laterally the defender used cross-stepping method of footwork which kept the defender ahead of the attacker and out of reach for the most part. The defender was able to create about ten feet of ground before finally getting cut. I might ad that for the most part the defender only received cuts on his free side arm since he was drawing and shooting one handed! All of this happened in just a little over one and one-half seconds and it took that long only because the defender was able to create so much distance by cross-stepping.

Also, the experienced attacker was familiar with pre-attack indicators which gave him an edge. 

    At 5-feet starting distance, none of the inexperienced defenders could even get their gun out and the experienced gunman could not get a shot off. The foregoing was in normal lighting conditions. In dim light, even if a handgun could be drawn, the defenders were not able to hit their target.

    What the experiments did show, however, is that if the defender resorted to unarmed combatives first in order to give them time to create distance, and then to drawing their firearm, they did much better. 

In short, responding with unarmed combatives [to a knife wielding attacker] will keep you in the fight longer than by going straight for your gun. Going straight for your gun most of the time is not going to be a wise idea. And, if you move laterally or other directions with a step-n-drag method of footwork, you will not create enough distance to survive!

Related: But what about someone armed with a firearm? "Get to cover? A requiem for common sense." by Aaron Cowan. A good discussion of what is or is not cover (along with illustrations) with an emphases on what cover is offered by different parts of a vehicle.

House Dems Announce How They Will Screw Us Over If They Win

From the AP: "House Democrats plan a first 100-days agenda if they sweep to power in midterm elections." Per the article:

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to become House speaker if the party wins power, said the Democrats will be united “right out of the gate” on reinstating Affordable Care Act tax breaks [i.e., effectively subsidies for health insurers], reversing Republican Medicaid cuts [i.e., taxpayer funded health care for illegals], holding votes against the Iran war [i.e., posturing for the press] and undoing President Donald Trump’s tariff regime [i.e., helping out China and making it cheaper to ship jobs overseas]. 

Point Nemo

An interesting piece at Atlas Obscura entitled "The Most Remote Place on Earth Has Space Junk and a Sea Monster." The most remote place--i.e., the farthest point from any dry land--is called Point Nemo and is located in the South Pacific at 48°52.6’S 123°23.6’W. Because it is so remote, it became a favorite place for Russia and a few other countries to use as a crash site for decommissioned satellites and such, including the Russian Mir space station. Thus, the reference to space junk in the title. 

    And the sea monster reference? That has to do with Cthulhu and the fictional sunken city of R’lyeh. From the article:

    Decades before Point Nemo was named, and before satellites started raining down, H.P. Lovecraft used these lonely waters as the setting for R’lyeh, a “nightmare corpse city (…) built in measureless eons beyond history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars”.

    In The Call of Cthulhu (1928), R’lyeh is described as “a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror … loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours”.

    The sunken city is the prison of the giant monster Cthulhu, part octopus, part human, part dragon: “There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults”. His followers pray for his regeneration, repeating the phrase: Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn (“In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”).

    Remarkably, Lovecraft placed his lost city at 47°9′S 126°43′W, just 205 miles (330 km) away from Point Nemo. August Derleth, co-creator of the Cthulhu Mythos, placed Rlyeh at 49°51′S 128°34′W, also in the general neighborhood. Clearly, both were looking for the furthest place from land, but without the benefit of modern satellites and computing. 

Watergate As A CIA Operation

An interesting piece at American Greatness--"Long-Concealed Facts Exonerate Nixon and Require Sanctioning the Unethical Prosecution"--discusses the evidence that Nixon and his campaign staff did not know about or authorize the Watergate break ins, but that it was a CIA operation (which, frankly, ties in neatly with the Washington Post pushing the narrative that Nixon had ordered the break in). The key bits:

    The prosecution and the Senate had ample evidence that Watergate was primarily a CIA operation designed to gain ostensible authority for its prostitute-taping program. Howard Hunt was an undercover CIA agent who, in his criminal Watergate trial, was prepared to offer a “CIA defense,” which he pursued until pleading guilty at the urging of John Dean, Nixon’s White House Counsel, who turned state’s evidence.

    The prosecutors were well aware of this defense, while another CIA operative, burglary leader James McCord, told his Metropolitan Police friend on the morning of the burglary that this had been a CIA operation.

    Republican Senator Howard Baker published a detailed, persuasive 43-page, unpublicized minority report on July 2, 1974, detailing CIA participation in the burglary, but the Washington Post’s reporting of it concealed its findings, and the highly publicized 1,250-page Watergate Committee Report (also known as the Ervin Report), prepared by the Democrat majority, ignored this key evidence.

And:

    While the prosecution and congressional investigations premised the break-in as a campaign operation gone wrong, it was, beyond a doubt, about wiretapping prostitutes and their visiting Democrat johns.

    The Washington Post has been overheated in its rhetoric denying this incontrovertible fact, but this strenuous denial only shows its guilt for this gross concealment.

The question then becomes, why was the CIA interested in wiretapping the prostitutes visited by Democrat officials and politicians? The logical answer would be to collect compromising information about those politicians that the CIA could use to "persuade" those politicians. Really, not much different than what it is theorized that Epstein was doing. 

UK: 4 In 5 Jobs Go To Migrants

From The Telegraph (via Yahoo): "Migrants taking four in five new jobs." An excerpt:

    The analysis by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) found that the number of jobs recorded through PAYE increased by about 3.7 million between 2014 and the end of 2025.

    Just 734,000 of the increase was accounted for by British nationals taking the jobs. EU nationals represented a further 408,000, while the number of jobs held by non-EU nationals increased by around 2.5 million.