February 3, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Organization of a Basic Patrol and Establishing a Patrol Base"

OE TSC G&V (11 min.)

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping:

• TGIF: Another "Weekend Knowledge Dump" from Active Response Training. A few of the cited articles will be familiar to you, but most of the others are new ones you will want to check out. One in particular stood out to me, which is "Surviving Haiti – What I Learned About Prepping And Urban Survival" from Be Survival. The author was an ex-pat who worked in or around Port-au-Prince, the erstwhile capital of Haiti. First thing to note is that the author was in a true grid-down, WROL situation as, according to his description, most of the city looks like it did right after the 2010 earthquake. Second, the author describes his preps: everything from his everyday carry gear, what he kept in a go-bag, and discusses the importance of situational awareness and being in good physical shape.
• "Why I Abandoned the AR-15"--Load Out Room (h/t Captain's Journal). This article was written by an ex-USAF engineer that spent a lot of time overseas. He decided, after leaving military service, to dump the AR in favor of the AK. I think that there are good arguments for both systems, and the advantages of one over the other under particular circumstances is rapidly shrinking as more accessories and better made parts become available for the AK. The author's decision, however, has me scratching my head a bit. 

       He asserts (correctly, IMHO) that the AR is more maintenance intensive than the AK, including small parts that can break (extractor O-ring, anyone) or be lost. If he had left it there, I would have put this article down to just another "AR vs. AK" argument and skipped it by. But the author then went on to explain that his primary reason for dropping the AR was the large number of parts, especially non-military standard parts, available in the market place. Apparently, he is afraid that if, after the SHTF, he lost or broke something on his AR, he might not be able to find a usable replacement part. But, on the other hand, he thought that the AK presented sufficient standardization that he could scavenge parts without worry.

       I hate to break it to the author of that Load Out Room piece, but as someone that has built both weapons (including multiple AKs), I can tell you that you are probably more likely having problems with swapping parts from one random AK to another, than from one AR to another. Sure, the basic trigger parts are generally interchangeable (unless you use a single-hook system and have scrounged a double-hook system). But even if you are limiting yourself to AKs manufactured by the Soviet Union, there are numerous variants: the original AK-47, the modified AK-47 using a milled receiver, the AKM, the AK-74 and its variants (in which we are talking about an entire different cartridge). And then you need to consider the variants produced from different countries: fixed stock, side-folding stocks, underfolding stocks, with corresponding different receivers. And manufacturing tolerances! There is a reason why Russian, East German and Polish kits are in higher demand than parts kits from Egypt or Romania. And then consider that there are now a lot of civilian parts and options out there for the AK. Putting the author's argument back to square one.    

• "How to Turn 12 Everyday Items Into Improvised Weapons"--The Art of Manliness. Hit them with your coffee cup, choke them with your belt, stab them with a pen, ... the list goes on and on.
• Speaking of belts: "Galco Dress Gunbelt"--Tactical Wire.
• "Hexmag Will Soon Make Polymer Pistol Mags"--Kit Up! Hexmag will soon be releasing Glock 17 magazines to compete with Magpul's offerings. However, the MSRP is a bit higher. I've never used Hexmag products--any good?
• "Teaching By Humiliation In The Gun Community" (Part 1) (Part 2)--Captain's Journal. The Captain observes that humiliating or berating a new or inexperienced shooter at the gun range or a class is counterproductive and a good way to create an enemy of the Second Amendment and the shooting sports; civilian classes and shooting ranges are not boot camp or basic training, and if you act like they are, you are just being an a**-hole.
• "Go Ahead and Use That Radio Without a License"--Security and Self-Reliance. I think the author meant the title in a "go ahead and make my day" sense. The author notes that a person can generally get away with using MURS and CB radios without a license (and, I would presume, most small two-way radios or "walkie-talkies"), but notes that the FCC will investigate and hand out fines when people start amplifying the signals or interfering with other signals (especially commercial, police, or other special use frequencies). The author includes several recent examples of FCC violations resulting in financial penalties or criminal sentences.

Other Stuff:

• The religion of peace strikes again: "Louvre 'attacker' was Egyptian: Machete-wielding man shot five times after attacking French soldiers outside Paris museum 'had been in the country for just over a week'"--Daily Mail.
• And again: "REVEALED: TWO mosques reported Muslim convert's 'radicalization' to Homeland Security and FBI months before he 'killed transit officer'"--Daily Mail. This has to do with the killing of Scott Von Lanken, 56, a security contractor working for Denver's Regional Transportation District.
• Diversity is our strength: "Germans rush to buy illegal firearms and GRENADES to 'protect themselves from migrants' "--Daily Mail. Although it is now shut down, there apparently was a German web-site that was selling weapons and ammunition directly to Germans wanting to be armed.
• "Bracken: The CHOWM Must Die! The Rise Of True Progressive Identity Politics"--Western Rifle Shooters Association. Bracken discusses how Christian Heterosexual White Men (CHOWM) are the "Jew"-equivalents for the newest bunch of fascists. Imagine how much worse it would have been if Hillary had won the election.

• Related: "Shocking moment two men viciously attacked a Trump supporter while he walked to class in Berkeley less than 24 hours after riots forced a lockdown at the elite school"--Daily Mail. As I see more of these attacks and riots, I think that the neo-brownshirts are laying the foundation for someone to claim that he or she justifiably feared for his or her life when attacked by one.

• Related: "Hispanic Ethno-Nationalists Try To Cover Their Tracks"--Front Page Magazine. Trying to disguise their racist roots, history and goals, La Raza ("the Race") is now calling themselves the NCLR (for National Council of La Raza). Because no one will care what the abbreviation means.

• "OPEC’s Cuts Aren’t Working (Yet)"--American Interest. "... OPEC is, in fact, cutting production according to plan, but prices are staying relatively flat—Brent crude prices have stayed in the low- to mid-$50 range since early December." Why? Because OPEC cuts are being offset by increased U.S. production. The author expects that the OPEC reductions will eventually outpace increases in U.S. production, but I don't think OPEC can reduce production enough to make a difference: remember from several weeks ago an article I linked to that indicated that were oil to reach $60 per barrel, it would become economical to extract shale oil from the Green River Formation.
• "GOP lawmakers offer bill to repeal law restricting churches' political activity"--The Hill. The bill would allow non-profits to publicly state support for political candidates (the so-called "Johnson Amendment". Of course, the law never applied when a church supported a Democrat candidate, so the real opposition are from those afraid it will help Republicans. Of course, to the liberals, such a proposal will literally (in their minds) destroy our democratic form of government. 
• "Never, ever, accept refugees"--Vox Popoli. I've stated before that Europe's failure to stem immigration now will result in either Europe being overrun by immigrants from Africa and the Middle-East and the destruction of Western Civilization in Europe, or will require Europe to resort to much harsher methods of expelling the immigrants and stopping new ones. Machine gunning a few boats loaded with refugees now will save millions of lives later. 

       And that is the thrust of Vox's piece. He begins by noting how in the 4th Century, Rome took pity on Visigoth refugees fleeing an invasion by the Huns. Once safely inside the Roman border, the Visigoths promptly turned on the Romans. So, as Vox sums it up, "instead of the Goths being slaughtered and enslaved by the Huns, the Romans were slaughtered, their towns were destroyed, and their lands were laid waste." The Romans tried to stop the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople. The Roman legions were defeated: "The battle of Adrianople was the most fearful defeat suffered by a Roman army since Cannæ, a slaughter to which it is aptly compared by the contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus. The army of the East was almost annihilated, and was never reorganized again on the old Roman lines." The final result?

       Only six years after permitting hundreds of thousands of poor desperate refugees to cross the river and reach the safety of Roman lands, the Emperor Valens and fifty thousand of his best soldiers were dead at their hands. Seventeen years later, Alaric the Goth ruled over the north, and "wandered far and wide, from the Danube to the gates of Constantinople, and from Constantinople to Greece, ransoming or sacking every town in his way till the Goths were gorged with plunder."

       38 years after the Goths crossed the Danube, Alaric the Goth sacked Rome itself. ...

In short, Vox's advice to Europe: "sink the damn ships." And my advice to the American people: build the damn wall and build it fast.

• This is probably preaching to the choir, but nonetheless: "Why Abortion Kills A Person Even If You Don’t Think The Unborn Are People Yet"--American Conservative. Key point:

Much of the argumentation about abortion lies in the question of whether the fetus is a person. It would seem that if it is not a person, then it is not murder to destroy it. But if it is a person, then it is murder to destroy it. ... I contend that whether the fetus is a person at any given moment of pregnancy is a non-issue, since, whatever it is now, it will, in fact, become a person. Therefore, to abort the fetus now is to annihilate the person that fetus would have naturally become.

• A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "Scientists have turned cooking oil into a material 200 times stronger than steel"--Science Alert. According to the article, researchers have figured out how to make graphene out of soybean oil, opening up the possibility of being able to mass produce the stuff at low costs.