February 20, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Knife Fights - BE AWARE OF LIES"--Metatron. In many countries, homicides involving knives far exceeds that caused by firearms (the description of the video gives, for instance, some crime statistics from Australia). The author gives some good advice on a knife attack (including that it is not going to be a dual as is often taught in martial arts classes) and some suggestions for people in Europe (Metatron is in Italy) for knife defense and carrying a weapon.

Firearms and Prepping:

• "Going it Alone… Some Things To Consider"--SHTF School. The author discusses the downsides to attempting to survive post-SHTF on your own, including: the lack of social and emotional support that comes with being part of a family or group; the need for greater mobility because the single person will have to move on more frequently than a group; the greater skill set required by someone on their own versus sharing skills and experience among a group; and being more vulnerable because you are on your own.
• "The Yemen Raid and False Narratives About Non-Lethal Weapons"--Guerrilla Approach. "When a commando enters a room (typically under low light conditions) he must immediately exercise target discrimination and positively identify whether any inhabitants pose a threat. If he identifies a civilian, his decision making process does not automatically proceed to the retrieval of a non-lethal weapons because he must still be prepared to engage armed and armored hostiles."
• "The Life-Changing Magic of Doomsday Prepping"--GQ. A "prepster" article from GQ, of all places. However, the author makes a valid point about prepping: it can be therapeutic for some people:

My BOB organizes my anxiety; it gives shape and focus to my dread. It reminds me not to take things for granted, and underlines the difference between necessities and luxuries. Assembling its contents inspires confidence and a renewed appreciation of the can opener. There are humbling moments as well, like glancing around my apartment and realizing I don’t know how anything works. 

• "South Korean M1s And M1 Carbines Becoming Available?"--Captain's Journal. Smith reports that Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming has submitted a bill that would repatriate approximately 1,000,000 M1 Garand rifles and M1 Carbines that had been loaned to South Korea.
• "Modern Personal Defense Weapon Calibers 004: The 7.5x27mm FK Brno"--The Firearms Blog. Nathaniel F. takes a look at a fairly new caliber--one that I only became aware about very recently--that has potential use in a personal defense weapon.
• "What is Armor Piercing Ammunition?"--The Firearms Blog. The author explains why Norinco steel core 7.62x39 ammo, which is actually not very good at penetrating rifle rated body armor, is considered armor-piercing (it is because of the steel core), but all copper ammunition that is good at piercing armor is not armor piercing. Yet another federal gun law that should go into the dust-bin of history.
• "The Data Driven AR15: Or Why the Best AR15’s are Data Driven"--The Modern Rifleman. Basically, the author argues for basing decisions on what to purchase based on data (systematic testing and statistical comparisons) over general impressions or limited testing (see "The Fallacy of Reviews – Sample Size of One" from The Firearms Blog). He also discusses specific tests undertaken by the military or private concerns on collapsible stock systems, receivers, barrels and triggers, and conclusions that can be drawn from those tests or statistics. For instance, the best collapsible stock system from the DOD tests was the Vltor A5 telescoping stock which outperformed the standard A2 stock for reliability and performance; records from Henderson Defense (a large gun range in Los Vegas) that indicate that upper receivers just don't wear out (suggesting that all the special coatings offered may not be worth the extra cost); and testing from The Truth About Guns on drop-in triggers that showed that the Elftman Tactical Elf-Match / Tactical Trigger to be the best in terms of take up, break, creep, and reset.
• "ALL NEW from Heizer!! Or Is It?"--Breach Bang Clear. Heizer has released a new incarnation of the Bayard 1908 pocket pistol--a small semi-auto pistol that featured a recoil spring over the barrel to reduce muzzle flip. The new version is offered in .45 ACP, however.
• "New Campaign Seeks to End Use of Black Targets at Gun Ranges"--PJ Media. The group, No More Black Targets, believes that the use of black silhouette targets trains shooters to shoot black men, even though studies show that police, for instance, are less likely to shoot a black suspect versus a white suspect. 

Other Stuff:

• Weasel Zippers reports on a "NY Catholic Church Holding Lessons To Promote Islam As A Religion Of Peace…"  According to the source article, the organizers of the classes claims that violence is limited to only a small percentage of Muslims ("if you were offered a bowl of Skittles knowing that one was poisoned, which one would you eat?"). Putting lie to the foregoing, in related news, Weasel Zippers had linked to an article from the Independent reporting that "Iranian Morality Police Beat And Detain 14-Year-Old Girl For Wearing Ripped Jeans…".
• "Songs of worship: Why we sing to the Lord"--The Conversation. 
• "The Fight for Washington"--Richard Fernandez. In a fight between Pres. Trump and the Deep State, progressives would prefer the Deep State win.
• "The Oroville Dam disaster is yet another example of California’s decline"--Victor Davis Hansen. He writes:

       ... California is eating its seed corn.

       State lawmakers spend their time obsessing over minutia: a prohibition against free grocery bags and rules against disturbing bobcats. When they do turn their attention to development, they tend to pick projects that serve urban rather than rural populations — for example, that boondoggle of a bullet train whose costs keep climbing even as the project falls years behind schedule.

       The crisis at Oroville is a third act in the state’s history: One majestic generation built great dams, a second enjoyed them while they aged, and a third fiddles as they now erode.

• "Astonishing geomagnetic spike hit the ancient kingdom of Judah"--Ars Technica. According to the article, a similar spike today would destroy the electrical grid. Interestingly, this 8th Century spike, and a similar 10th Century spike, were localized rather than global.
• "California and the End of White America"--The Unz Report. A look at what multiculturalism and identity politics has wrought and what will be:

A future America in which both whites and all other ethnic groups see themselves as minorities will be far different from our traditional majority-white/minority-black society. Since the 1960′s, the deepening ideological decay of the American melting pot, especially among the journalists and intellectuals who shape our thoughts, has transformed our official self-image from that of a nation of individuals living in a common culture into that of a nation of groups arrayed against one another in an ethnic spoils system. Multiculturalism and “diversity” thoroughly dominate our nation’s schools and politics and public discourse, encouraging minorities to exercise influence through the mobilization of ethnic or racial grievance. Under this framework, the rise of a similar ethnic-grievance movement among America’s emerging white minority is likely, perhaps inevitable.

•  "Turok of the North"--West Hunter. Bill Gate's and Neil Turok's search for an African Einstein isn't going very well:

       Recently a paper by Justin Sandefur came up with a way of calibrating the results of a math test taken by a number of African countries that don’t participate in PISA and other international assessments – from overlapping questions, and from a few countries that took both. So now we have fairly good estimates of the math proficiency of those poorly-reported African countries [Mauritius, Kenya, Seychelles, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Botswana, Uganda, South Africa, Zanzibar, Lesotho, Malawi,Zambia, and Namibia]

       Average pupils score below the fifth percentile for most developed countries.

• Heartiste notes that the establishment is in such a tizzy that the mask is beginning to slip, exposing their deepest fear. He points to a New York Times editorial by the Times' own Editorial Board, on "Breaking the Anti-Immigration Fever." Amidst the hand-wringing over illegal aliens being threatened with deportation, they ask: "Where could the demonizing and dehumanizing of the foreign born lead but to a whiter America?" Of course, this is the deepest fear of the establishment since their future power relies on them replacing the current electorate with one that favors socialism.