March 2, 2017--A Quick Run Around the Web

"Choosing the Wrong Handgun"--Lucky Gunner Ammo 

Some factors or attributes that indicate a handgun that would be

a poor choice for a defensive handgun and/or a new shooter (6-1/2 min.). 

These include choosing a caliber too large/powerful for the size of

handgun (e.g., a magnum snub-nosed revolver), ignoring the shooter's hand size when selecting

a handgun, and choosing a handgun solely on price.

Firearms/Prepping:

• "Cross Draw Holsters"--Active Response Training. Greg Ellifritz goes over the pros (including ease of draw from a sitting position) and the cons (easy for an attacker to grab your weapon) of using a cross draw holster. I would note that this method originated back when men wore their belts about their waists, not their hips, making strong-side holsters impractical.
• "Gear Review: CMC AK Elite Trigger (Curved, Flat, and Traditional AK Shoes)"--The Truth About Guns. A review of three trigger offerings for the AK (including a drop-in trigger group) that will, hopefully, provide a better trigger. I have used a standard Arsenal trigger group in the past and found them to be very good triggers (I use a brass brush attachment in a Dremel tool to clean/polish the parts before installation); much better than the standard AR trigger.
• I had noted the other day a company that was releasing M-LOK and K-Mod front hand guards for the HK-91 rifles, and now see another company is releasing a collapsible stock system for HK-91s: "The new Spuhr G3/MP5/HK33/53 Stock Assembly"--The Firearms Blog.
• "First Look: Mossberg 590 Shockwave Non-NFA Firearm"--Gun Digest. A 14-inch barrel and a birds-head pistol grip makes for a short and handy weapon. The Firearms Blog had looked at this weapon a month or two ago. I would note that Gabe Suarez has been blogging quite a bit over the past couple of months about shotguns, including shotguns similar to the Shockwave (which Suarez refers to variously as a "pistol grip shotgun," "the Stakeout Shotgun" or "Battle Axe"). He even sells a model based on the Remington 870. Anyway, he has some articles concerning the use of such weapons:

• "Pistol Grip Shotguns - The Alternative PDW"

• "Shooting The Pistol Grip Only Shotgun"

• "Using The Stakeout Shotgun"--some additional lessons learned on shooting or employing the weapon.

• "The Stakeout 12 Ga In Pictures"--some photos of one with compensator holes in the barrel (which, in my opinion, is a no-no on a weapon intended to be used in dim light or at night).

• "How To: Addressing Common AR Malfunctions"--Gun Digest.
• "Top 3 ‘Must-Haves’ For Carrying Outside-the-Waistband"--The Truth About Guns: (1) a slim, body-hugging holster; (2) a short-handled, thin-handled gun; and (3) an undershirt (the author recommends a specific brand, if you are interested).
• "The Origins Of Invention: Industry Among Primitive Peoples"--No Tech Magazine. This is apparently an HTML version of a book by Otis T. Mason and published in 1895. It looks at various primitive or low-tech technologies employed by various peoples around the world at that time, including simple machines, pottery making, stone working, taming animals, etc. (Update: you can also download the book in various formats here).

Other Stuff:

• "Cloud People And Ground People"--The Arts Mechanical. The disconnect between the elites and the rest of us.
• "ISIS just pledged to attack China — here's why"--Foreign Policy via Business Insider. ISIS suddenly just realized how badly China is treating its Muslim minorities.
• In my last post, I mentioned an article entitled "The Ageless and the Useless" which discussed a future where, because of AI and robotics, where would be large numbers of economically useless people. I had noted that it was not unlikely that the elites would attempt to reduce or eliminate the population of such "useless" people. Which brings me to the article by M. Land at the Black Pigeon Speaks blog entitled: "Urban Warfare? Future Migrant Megacities." Noting that the population of Africa is predicted to explode to 4 billion over the next century, that the elites cannot be ignorant of the harm caused by mass immigration or the lack of public support for mass immigration, and yet the elites are still pushing for mass immigration, Land has arrived at a disturbing explanation. After discounting common reasoning for allowing immigration--to bolster populations and work-forces, to provide a reliable voting base for liberals, etc.--Land suggests:

       The number one reason for the migrant crisis is most likely to spark a war on the European continent, as well as in the Middle East. The end goal? Population reduction, as well as profit, and control of oil resources. The same end goal as the last two world wars. 60 million people died in World War II and the US became a global superpower.

       Why not hit the reset button and start the cycle over?

• Proof that the United State is more civilized than Germany or Sweden--protecting the public from violent predators:

• (United States): "'He's a monster... I hope he dies and rots in jail': Mother addresses man who kidnapped and raped her 2-year-old daughter after he's sentenced to 55 years in prison"--Daily Mail.

• (Germany): "'How can this be?!' Mum's heartbreak as migrant, who assaulted girl, 6, gets soft sentence"--Express. The sentence? 20-months, suspended. 

• (Sweden): "Syrian Immigrant Rapes Two Underage Swedish Girls, Gets Away With Two-Month Sentence"--Gatestone Europe.

It is becoming increasingly clear that countries like Sweden and Germany have become failed states, incapable of providing the basic services of government: securing the borders or protecting the citizens. Underlying the idea of the modern state was an agreement between the citizens and the state as to the use of force: that is, the state (the Leviathan) obtained a monopoly on the use of force in exchange for protecting its citizens. The EU and many of its members have broken this deal.

• Life among the savages: "Chicago journalists sent to report on a Swedish 'no-go zone' after Trump's allegations that the country is dangerous are 'given a police escort and told to leave for their own safety' as they attract masked thugs while filming in broad daylight"--Daily Mail.
• The wages of sin socialism: "Venezuela is down to its last $10 billion"--CNN Money. The number cited is Venezuela's reserves of foreign currency, including gold. According to the article, Venezuela has $7.5 billion in foreign debt that will come due this year. Also: "According to the country's recently released 2016 financial report, about $7.7 billion of its remaining $10.5 billion of reserves is in gold. To make debt payments in the past year, Venezuela shipped gold to Switzerland."
• "'Tsunami of sewage spills' in Tijuana fouls U.S. beaches, may have been intentional"--Los Angeles Times. According to the article, Mexico is making repairs to sewer lines in Tijuana, and rather than attempt to capture or otherwise prevent sewage from dumping into the sea, it just simply did nothing--and without any warnings to the U.S. or California officials.
• "‘False Documents’"--Victor Davis Hanson. "[T]he idea that illegal immigrants who assume false identities or lie on government documents thereby commit minor infractions is, well, outrageous." Hanson explains:

       “False documents” do not imply a misspelled middle name or a day or two off the correct date of birth, or some sort of innocuous pseudonym. No, they involve the deliberate creation of a false identity, sometimes at the expense of a real person, and often with accompanying fraudulent Social Security numbers and photo identifications — crimes that both foul up the bureaucracy for law-abiding citizens, facilitate other crimes, and are the sort of felonies that most Americans would lose their jobs over and face either jail time or stiff fines. And often they are the second crimes — following not “law-abiding” behavior but the initial crime of entering and residing in the United States unlawfully.

        The WSJ’s editors some time should wake up and find a wrecked car sitting on their property (that went off the road and airborne and did thousands of dollars of damage), the driver having fled and the registration on the abandoned vehicle proving to be a “false document,” or better yet, discovering that one’s check-routing number was printed on “false document” checks to facilitate theft of thousands of dollars, or having someone speed off after hitting your mailbox only to find from sheriffs that the license-plate numbers revealed a “false document” identity, or going to a market in the San Joaquin Valley while the person ahead of you tries four EBT cards in succession under “false document” names before one is found to have a positive balance, or waiting in line in a doctor’s office as the receptionist politely explains to the person ahead of you that the health card presented has a name that does not match the driver’s license presented. The use of “false documents” is not an end game or mere infraction, but rather the doorway to all sorts of subsequent falsification and fraud that does enormous damage both to the system in general and to individuals in particular.

• Welcome to the real world: "Hill Gets Steeper For China’s Manufacturing Economy"--American Interest. From the article: "Outsourcing devastated the American middle class while creating a Chinese middle class. Now, the same forces are challenging China’s economic stability with the added pressure posed by more advanced automation."
• r-selection at work: "Dysgenic trend in educational attainment in Iceland"--Dieneke's Anthropology Blog. The decline in educational attainment would necessarily indicate a decline in I.Q.
• "Terrorism Is Not The Only Reason To Be Skeptical Of Muslim Immigration"--The Federalist. From the article:

But “not a terrorist” cannot be our standard for potential immigrants. That one has refrained from donning a suicide vest is a paltry indicator of character. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists, but we know from survey data that many do sympathize with Jihadists. More importantly, an even larger number hold beliefs that many Americans, on both right and left, would consider incompatible with a free society.

•  Some rabbits are more dangerous than others: "Is North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un Spiraling Into Insanity?"--Anonymous Conservative.

As he deteriorates, I would expect that his ever more erratic behavior will increase the chances that China will decide to stage a coup and take him out, if they have not already begun to, just to reduce a major source of potential instability. With NK’s history of sending special forces over the border to execute missions in South Korea, and now their projection of actual WMDs into other nations to kill people under Chinese protection, Jong-Un growing even more unstable could become quite a problem if not addressed sooner rather than later. And he appears to be growing less stable.