August 23, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Overnight Pack Out"--Wilderness Outfitters (13 min.)

David Canterbury shows what he carries for a basic pack for camping overnight or for hunting. 

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping:

• "Night Sights, Lights and Lasers for Concealed-Carry Guns"--Shooting Illustrated. The author suggests night sights for a carry gun; a laser can be a plus if it is small and can be activated by grasping the grips--otherwise, you just won't have time to use it if you suddenly need to deploy your weapon. Weapon mounted lights are a different matter: the author cites to statistics kept by Tom Givens of his students, and of 60 some odd self-defense shootings, not a single one ever needed a flashlight. She isn't saying to not carry a flashlight, but that it won't be needed for threat identification. After all, your threat will identify itself; but if it is too dark for your to identify your threat, it is too dark for your threat to see you.

       She also makes a point of noting that, while there is a certain overlap between a person using a weapon for self-defense, a police officer, and a soldier, there are differences:

For instance, if you’re in a class with your wife or husband or business partner and the two of you are being taught how to move through a structure together while armed, that makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, if you, as a private citizen, are in a class where you’re stacked outside a doorway with a bunch of strangers preparing to practice clearing a room, you are auditing a class for a test you will probably never ever take and are there for the “entertrainment.”

• "Edible Insects"--Blue Collar Prepping. A primer on eating bugs when bugging out. The author discusses the why (gathering insects may be more efficient than hunting) and then moves into a discussion of general warning signs to avoid poisonous insects and a look at specific types of insects or critters (e.g. ants, grasshoppers, etc.) and any special precautions or preparation for each. For instance, slugs and snails need to be gutted; crickets are the most commonly eaten insect; scorpions are generally safe to eat once you've removed the stinger; etc.
• "Ken Onion Worksharp Review"--Everyday Carry. Worksharp makes electric sharpeners that use belts of various grits for grinding, sharpening, and honing knives and tools. The "Ken Onion" model is their "top of the line" model and can use accessories not available or that won't work on the more basic models. I have the basic model and have used it with success, although it can be problematic around the tip of a knife. The author of this piece reviews the Ken Onion model, including the grinder attachment (which won't work with other models), used for shaping blades on shovels, axes, and other tools (I've read that it works great for swords). The author of this piece writes:

       My concern, one that I had after reading up on the sharpener, was that the tips tended to round off when using the guide attachment.  ...  The guide attachment did, in fact, round the tips on a few knives.  ...

        The grinder attachment has no such problem, but it is significantly harder to use.  ...  But results from the grinder attachment, once you have learned the technique, are free of tip problems and quite sharp.  As between the two, I greatly prefer the grinder attachment.  I would go so far as to say that the regular Worksharp, while a fine and effective system for most people, wouldn't satisfy a true knife knut.  Members of the IKC should pony up for the Ken Onion version solely for the ability to use the grinder attachment.  

        It has taken me almost two months to get the technique down, sharpening quite a few knives each weekend.  I have also not yet worked my way up to extremely high end knives ... or difficult grinds ....  But I have expanded beyond the original lot of "test" blades.   

        The results are, simply put, amazing.  While you never get something for nothing, the ease of use, once you get the technique down, makes me feel like the Worksharp is breaking that maxim.  Its fast, easy, truly fun (for reasons I will detail below) and the results are powerfully effective. 

• Be wolves not rabbits: "Respond to Terrorism: Embrace the Hate"--Breach Bang Clear. In this op-ed, the author argues that we need to get over our indifference about terror attacks, and learn to hate those that carry out these attacks.  He observes that "[o]nce someone believes they’re justified in massacring innocent children as a means to reach heaven, they can’t be reasoned with. All we can do is kill them. And if we hate them, we can more easily kill them." To help us along, he includes photographs of the victims that the media does not show or heavily blurs out.
• Terminal ballistics: "The Chess Game of Ammo Type and Shot Placement"-- by Sydney Vail, MD. The author discusses the shortcomings of relying on tests using ballistic gel, and his own experiences with examining or treating people that have been shot. He writes:

       So we come back to the original question: Which ammunition has the best stopping power? I can’t answer that question. What I can say is that you should look for ammunition that reliably lives up to its claims of penetration and expansion but don’t believe that these two factors alone are related to stopping power.

        The ultimate stopping power rests with your training with your weapon system. Accurate hits in any reasonable caliber will “stop” a person if that person has experienced enough brain or spinal cord damage to interrupt regular neurologic impulses from reaching vital areas of the body or the person has hemorrhaged enough blood to lower his or her blood pressure where the brain no longer is able to function well. You can also stop a person if a major bone shatters after a bullet injures it, but does that stop the fight?

        Stopping power is a marketing tool and should be dropped from our discussions of ballistic performance until such time as ammunition effectiveness is measured by more means than just the results of gelatin and barrier tests. When ammunition companies or regulatory agencies begin to use computer simulations, simulant tests, animal models, autopsy results, and trauma surgeon operation reports with hospital summaries to determine the effectiveness of their products, then we will know which ammunition can be labeled as having the “best stopping power.” And this claim will be based on scientific data rather than incomplete ballistic testing.

Read the whole thing.

Other Stuff:

• Doing stupid things, in stupid places, with stupid people: "News hosts shocked into near-silence as Trump protester is shot in GROIN with a tear gas canister as police open up on crowds after Phoenix rally"--Daily Mail.
• "The Trans Juggernaut Wants Your Kids, And Public Schools Are Just The Beginning"--The Federalist. The author explains that the transgender movement is focusing on children because:

       They are vulnerable and impressionable, prepuberty pose better as either sex and therefore look less terrifying than adult transgenders, and once locked into the trans body morph will never truly be able to escape. Devastated people are prime candidates for exploitation by their pretend advocates. Also, locking in trans-policies now is a way to preclude debate before more extensive data and personal experience can fuel the inevitable backlash.

        Of course this is bad for kids, but it’s not about kids. They’re just pawns, as usual. It’s about politics. Pushing transgenderism not only destabilizes a key component of a child’s identity but also contributes to early sexualization that is linked with mental illness and risky behaviors. Early exposure to and lack of clear parental direction about sex is also linked with increased gender confusion, which is precisely what we’re seeing as clinics for cutting and pasting children’s hormones and body parts explode inside a media environment that glamorizes this form of child abuse.

• Related: "School Board Under Fire After ‘Transgender Reveal’ Leaves Students Confused About Who They Are"--The Daily Caller. The article reports that "Angry parents gathered Monday night to protest a California teacher that read transgender books to her kindergarteners and encouraged a clothes-changing demonstration, saying it was inappropriate to vividly portray transgenderism to such young children."

• Coming soon to a sanctuary city near you: "U.S. warns citizens about traveling to Mexico's Cancun and Los Cabos as violence surges"--Los Angeles Times. From the article:

       For years, both regions were largely insulated from the drug war violence that has engulfed other parts of Mexico, but this year they have each seen a major uptick in killings.

       There have been deadly gun battles in downtown Cancun, and in January, five people were killed at a nightclub in nearby Playa del Carmen. In Los Cabos, a municipality on the Pacific Coast that includes the cities of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, three people were shot to death this month at the entrance to a popular beach.

• Cyber alert: The AccuWeather app has been caught sending location data to Reveal Mobile (a firm that provides location data to advertisers) even if the share location is off. You might want to remove the app.
• "Democratic Former Senator Finally Says What Left Is Thinking: All Republicans Are Nazis"--The Federalist. And if the Left believes all Republicans and conservatives are Nazis it provides the necessary justification to do anything necessary to destroy Republicans and other conservatives.
• Counter-intelligence: "Agents for the Okhrana"--Gates of Vienna. The Okhrana was the secret police under the Czar prior to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The article explores long standing rumors and theories that Stalin, known for his many escapes from the Okhrana, was actually a double-agent. (Although not mentioned in the article, the Russian Interior Minister in 1916-17, Aleksandr Protopopov, was pursuing a plan for allowing Russia to reach a separate peace with Germany without alienating France and Britain. His plan was essentially to foment enough unrest in Russia that it would have to bring its troops home to put down a revolution, so it would make sense that the Okhrana might have been working to place agents provocateur within the Bolsheviks and other radical groups).  In any event, the article segues into how government agents infiltrate groups and, often, try and manipulate the groups (e.g., the new guy that is pushing a group of guys complaining about the government into doing something highly illegal and dangerous), and discusses ways to detect such infiltration, including using counter-intelligent techniques. The author explains, for instance:

        Counterintelligence is the systematic, patient process of discovering who the infiltrators are and then neutralizing them. And by “neutralizing”, I don’t mean killing — read the history of the KGB, and you’ll learn that killing a planted agent was the least-desired option. A double agent was far more useful to the KGB than a corpse. And an agent that had been made, but didn’t realize it, could be used to funnel disinformation back to the enemy, among other things.

        These are subtle, dangerous games. But for groups that want to be truly effective, they are absolutely necessary.

Matt Bracken commented on this article, and recommended a book called “The Dirty War” by Martin Dillon, about the “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, providing real life examples of how this infiltration and counter-intelligence works.