June 24, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"8 Reasons Why the Ruger Mini-14 is Better Than the AR15"--The Firearms Blog (13 min.)

The title is a bit misleading. The author is not contending that the Mini-14 is necessarily a better rifle, overall. Rather, he notes 8 features or attributes of the Mini-14 in which he believes it excels over the AR. He also gives a bit of a history of the newer models where Ruger worked on making the Mini-14 more accurate than it had been. One thing I found puzzling, however, was the difficulty that the author had in removing magazines from the Mini-14. I have found that when using factory Ruger magazines, the magazines will easily drop free just by pressing the magazine release.

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping:

• First up, Active Response Training has a new Weekend Knowledge Dump. As always, a good selection of articles on firearms and self-defense. A couple in particular jumped out at me: an article entitled "The Myth of Perfect Situational Awareness," which seems self explanatory; and an article on the history of the .38 S&W cartridge, and the differences between it and the .38 Special. But check them all out.
• "HAM Advice From Warrior Capitalist"--Mason Dixon Tactical. This is a re-post of an article offering advice on how to prepare and obtain a HAM license.
• "Portrait of a bad shoot"--Vox Popoli. Vox Day comments on the acquittal of Officer Jeronimo Yanez for the shooting-death of Philando Castile, and, in particular, Yanez's claim that he feared for his life because he smelled marijuana smoke coming from the vehicle. Specifically, Yanez claimed: "if he’s, if he has the, the guts and the audacity to smoke marijuana in front of the five-year-old girl and risk her lungs and risk her life by giving her secondhand smoke and the front seat passenger doing the same thing then what, what care does he give about me...." If that is the criteria, then it is open season on cigarette smokers. In any event, Day writes:

Police must be held to a higher standard by the law, not so much to protect the public as to protect the police themselves as well as their standing with the public. A decline in discipline and accountability has never generated increased respect for the members of any organization.

• "Does Pointing Your Gun Up Affect Accuracy? ARDEC Study Reveals the Effect of Weapon Orientation on Ammunition Velocity and Consistency [NDIA 2017]"--Nathaniel F. at The Firearms Blog. The study "examined the effect of ullage (free space in a loaded round) and orientation on the consistency and velocity of small arms ammunition." He adds: "The findings of the study may not be exceptionally surprising – it turns out that rounds with more ullage are less consistent – but they are remarkable in how detailed they are." This is generally more of an issue in cartridges with longer cases (e.g., .38 Special and .357 Magnum) where the powder load does not fill, or mostly fill, the case capacity. Where this seems important, at least where I've heard, is in competition shooting where a competitor may seek to load a cartridge with the lowest possible recoil, but must still meet minimum power requirements for the competition. The orientation of the cartridges (tilted nose first) can sometimes dip a competitor on the edge of the envelope below the minimum. 
• "The Missile Type"--Guns Magazine. A primer on different types of bullets and for what they are used, the different sizes and types of bird shot and buck shot, and a look at cast bullets.
• "Shooter, Train Thyself"--Guns Magazine. Some advice for new shooters to take a shooting class, for more experienced shooters to seek out competition shooting (e.g., IDPA) if they want more of a challenge, and a shooting "drill" to increase your pistol marksmanship:

       Between beginners and blazing-fast blasters there’s “muddlers in the middle,” like me (and maybe you). Here’s my default drill which works with both long guns and handguns: Set up an array of cardboard torso targets; full-size, 2/3-size plus 10-inch and 5-inch mini-torsos. Set a shot-timer like the PACT Club Timer III to give you a starting beep and time elapsed at your last shot.

       Shoot singles or doubles on each of your multiple targets, at whatever speed is necessary to assure all “center hits.” Increase speed until you start dropping shots, then slow down and work up again. It’s simple, measurable and effective. Integrate reloading, movement, hitchin’ your britches or whatever. Keep records, just so’s you can chuff yourself up over your amazing improvement.

Remember that there is a trade-off between accuracy and speed, and you want a proper balance. While it is true that you can never miss fast enough to win a fight, tight groups mean nothing if you can't shoot them fast enough to matter. 

Other Stuff:

• Well, isn't this special. "1.4 million illegals working under stolen Social Security numbers"--Washington Times. From the article:

       Most illegal immigrants who pay taxes have stolen someone else’s legal identity, and the IRS doesn’t do a very good job of letting those American citizens and legal immigrants know they’re being impersonated, the tax agency’s inspector general said in a new report released Thursday.

       The theft creates major problems for the American citizens and legal foreign workers whose identities are stolen, and who have to deal with explaining money they never earned.

       But the IRS only manages to identify half of the potentially 1.4 million people likely affected by the fraud in 2015, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said in its report.

• "The FBI’s Briefing On The GOP Baseball Shooting Couldn’t Have Been More Bizarre"--Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist. Despite admitting that James Hodgkinson had a long history of ranting against Republicans, had a list of Republican Congressmen, had researched and reconnoitered the baseball field where the shooting took place, the FBI concluded that Hodgkinson had not planned his attack (which would clearly show the attack as a case of leftist terrorism) but that the attach was instead a spontaneous act--a consequence of anger management issues. 

The claim that tourists take pictures of a a completely unremarkable baseball field in a tiny neighborhood also seems odd, particularly when the pictures were taken a few days after The New York Times reported that Republican members of Congress practice baseball there with little security. 

In a related article, "Who Does The FBI Work For?", Ben Domenech cautions: 

Step back, though, and think on the institutional conclusions here. Considering how ludicrous the FBI’s conclusions are as it relates to an attack on the third ranking member of the House of Representatives, you might reconsider whether to trust the FBI’s conclusions in other areas, as well. And this is how our faith in institutions is degraded: steadily, gradually, with incident after incident where men in suits stand in front of microphones and make claims we know are not the whole truth.

• "Sea of sarin: North Korea’s chemical deterrent"--Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The article warns that North Korea would, in the event of military action against it, shell Seoul, South Korea, with artillery shells, including many carrying chemical weapons. The article notes:

By 2010, North Korea was estimated to possess 2,500 to 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, mostly sarin and the nerve agent VX. Furthermore, it is assumed that North Korean military doctrine treats chemical weapons as a natural aspect of the nation’s scheme of maneuver, and that chemical weapons would be used from the outset of hostilities. Chemical weapons are reportedly pre-deployed—with one out of three North Korean projectiles believed to be chemical. The February assassination of Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia with VX was undoubtedly a reminder to North Korea’s enemies of the chemical threat that Pyongyang poses.

•  We didn't start the fire: "After the ISIS War, a US-Russia Collision?"--Patrick J. Buchanan at The American Conservative. Buchanan writes:

       We are getting ever deeper into this six-year sectarian and civil war. And what we may be witnessing now are the opening shots of its next phase — the battle for control of the territory and population liberated by the fall of Raqqa and the death of the ISIS “caliphate.”

       The army of President Bashar Assad seeks to recapture as much lost territory as possible and they have the backing of Russia, Iranian troops, Shiite militia from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Hezbollah.

       Assad’s and his allied forces opposing ISIS are now colliding with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces opposing ISIS, which consist of Arab rebels and the Syrian Kurds of the PYD.

       But if America has decided to use its air power to shoot down Syrian planes attacking rebels we support, this could lead to a confrontation with Russia and a broader, more dangerous, and deadly war for the United States.

       How would we win such a war, without massive intervention?

       Is this where we are headed? Is this where we want to go?

I would say that it is where the globalists/ internationalists/ multi-nationalists want to go. In 2012, Obama mocked Romney for calling Russia a geo-political foe. Yet all we have heard throughout Hillary Clinton's campaign and the months subsequent is the threat that Russia posses. The New York Times reported, for instance, on October 20, 2016:

       Hillary Clinton made it abundantly clear Wednesday night that if she defeats Donald J. Trump next month she will enter the White House with the most contentious relationship with Russia of any president in more than three decades, and with a visceral, personal animus toward Vladimir V. Putin, its leader.

      “We haven’t seen a you-can’t-trust-these-guys tone like this since the days of Ronald Reagan,” said Stephen Sestanovich, who served in President Bill Clinton’s State Department and is the author of “Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama.” “But even that was more a systemic criticism of the Soviet Union. This is focused on Putin himself.”

       In a reversal of political roles, Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic candidate, is the one portraying Mr. Putin as America’s newest archenemy, whose underlings hack into her Brooklyn campaign headquarters, bomb Syrian civilians and threaten Ukraine and NATO allies in Europe. For a woman who presented a big red “reset” button to her Russian counterpart in March 2009 (with the word incorrectly translated into Russian), the change in tone was more striking than ever in her debate with Donald J. Trump.

       She, and the Obama White House, insist they were on the right course until Mr. Putin decided he had more to gain from reviving Cold War tensions than from a quarter-century effort to integrate with the West. Now, much of the Democratic foreign policy establishment has become as hawkish as Mrs. Clinton on the subject of Russia, a view that seems almost certain to outlast the campaign.

• "Incitement to Violence"--City Journal. Key point: "The daily repetition that President Trump is an illegitimate usurper who stole the election through collusion with foreign powers has been a hypnotic incantation in search of an Oswald: a siren call for an assassin."
• Game of thrones: "The Rise of Mohammed bin Salman"--American Interest. King Salman of Saudi Arabia has promoted his 31-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman, to be next in line to the throne.