November 7, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Remington .357 mag 158gr SJHP revolver Gel Test Review"--TFB (7 min.)

This, or similar loads, are popular for .357 Magnum. This test showed good expansion and excellent penetration (perhaps even a bit of over penetration), which is why the .357 is a good defensive round.

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping:

• "Nebraska and Louisiana Ban Concealed Carry in Church"--The Truth About Guns. Citing the Concealedcarry.org article I noted the other day, this article summarizes the laws concerning concealed carry in churches. 

        For my LDS readers in Utah, I would note the following from the Utah Department of Public Safety: "The concealed firearm permit allows an individual to carry a firearm fully loaded and concealed.  The permit also allows an individual to carry a firearm into public schools. Permit holders can not carry a firearm into federal or state restricted areas i.e. any airport secured area, federal facilities, courts, correctional & mental health facilities, law enforcement secured areas, a house of worship or private residence where notice given and/or posted, any secured area in which firearms are prohibited and notice posted, or otherwise prohibited by state of federal law." (Underline added). Moreover, the LDS Church has provided notice to the Department of Public Safety that it prohibits firearms in its houses of worship. 

• Related: "Sutherland Springs 'Good Guy with a Gun' Stephen Willeford: 'I Got My AR-15 Out of My Safe . . .' [Video]"--The Truth About Guns. Note that Willeford did not keep any loaded magazines for his rifle, and had to load a magazine as he walked/ran to the church.

• Related: "Former NRA Instructor Used AR-15 To Shoot Texas Church Gunman As He Was Reloading His Weapon"--Weasel Zippers.

• "‘Ebola’ outbreak DECLARED amid Black Death comeback – and this virus is UNTREATABLE"--The Daily Star. The virus is the Marburg virus, which causes a hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, and the outbreak is in Uganda. However, there have only been a few reported cases. Something to keep an eye on.
• "Skill Set: Take the Hit"--The Tactical Wire. A short article in the need to be able to take a hit or a wound and still keep fighting. The author notes:

Through research you learn that the vast majority of people who are shot survive. The human body can take an enormous amount of punishment and still keep ticking. I know several people who were shot and didn't even realize they were hit until after the fight was over. Then there were some who received relatively minor injuries, went into shock, quit and died.

And like many good trainers out there, he recommends that if you take a martial arts or unarmed self-defense class, you take one that involves contact sparring. 

• "Mumps Is Making a Comeback, Even Among the Vaccinated"--Fortune. From the article:

        The New York Times reports that mumps outbreaks are on the rise, with more than 6,000 cases of mumps reported in the United States last year. That’s the highest number of mumps cases reported in the past 10 years. For some perspective, in 2010 the number of cases was down to the hundreds.

        Most of the recent cases have occurred in outbreaks. A large outbreak in Arkansas, for instance, affected primarily 18-22-year-olds. The majority of those that were infected had received the mumps vaccine when they were children.

• "Hepatitis A outbreak continues to grow, but more slowly"--The San Diego Union. Based on the numbers, health authorities may have gotten the outbreak under control. This outbreak, you might remember, has mostly been in the homeless population and largely a problem because of homeless relieving themselves in areas with foot traffic.
• "NEW: Ruger SP101 Wheelgun Chambered In 9mm"--The Firearms Blog. Another article noting that Ruger has released a 9 mm revolver. In this one, however, the author asks readers why a revolver in 9 mm instead of another caliber. I can think of a couple of reasons off the top of my head: compatibility with ammunition used in other firearms, and loading with moon clips which is even faster than speed loaders.
• "Review: Ruger LCR .327 Federal Magnum"--Guns & Ammo. Another new wheel-gun from Ruger. Because it uses the .327 Mag., it can fit 6 rounds in a cylinder that normally would only be able to accommodate 5 rounds of .38 Special.

Other Stuff:

• A new Woodpile Report.
• Another leftist terrorist: "Man who wanted to 'kill all white police' is arrested at the White House and had even 'checked in' on Facebook alerting the Secret Service"--Daily Mail. The man, Michael Arega, had posted rants calling for the killing of President Trump. Interestingly, I looked through several articles on this incident and none described Arega's race. I linked to this article because it was the only article I found that showed a photograph of Arega who, as might be expected based on the threats, is black.
• "Three decades of terror: Animated graphic shows the time and location of every attack across the globe for the last 30 years"--Daily Mail. Samuel P. Huntington, in his book The Clash of Civilizations, described Islam as having bloody borders. The animated graphic in this story makes that abundantly clear. Although it includes terrorist attacks in Norther Ireland and from some communist groups in South America, the attacks marked on the map do a very good job of delineating the borders between Dār al-Islam (abode of Islam) and Dār al-Ḥarb (abode of war--i.e., where non-Muslims dwell).
• I think the sex harassment shaming has jumped the shark: "'This is disgusting': Model, 27, under fire after asking Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard, 14, to 'hit her up' in four years"--Daily Mail. In four years, Wolfhard would have been 18--an adult. While the idea of a 31 year old woman going on a date with an 18 year old man would be unusual, I'm not sure it qualifies as "disgusting."
• "IS IT OK TO BE WHITE?" Apparently not if you attend Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Powerline notes that, after signs saying that it is OK to be white where posted around the college, students reacted with horror because, in their words, the signs represented hate and conflicted with the goal of achieving diversity. The article goes on to indicate that these signs were also appearing at other colleges and universities, and was a campaign thought up by 4Chan, probably for the purpose of showing that white people are discriminated against. Given the reaction, their campaign is working.
• "THE DREAM AND THE NIGHTMARE"--Claremont Review of Books. A review of a couple of books that examine the future of Europe. From the article:

         Two new books reach the gloomy conclusion that, whatever its past prospects, Europe’s future is likely to be bleak and turbulent. The continent, in short, is going to the dogs. All that remains to be decided is the identity of the dogs, and here the two authors differ.

         James Kirchick is a neoconservative American journalist who has been reporting from Europe for almost a decade (we were colleagues at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty). In The End of Europe, he portrays a continent plagued by a long list of overlapping problems: the weakening of the political center and the mainstream parties, the rise of populism, the United Kingdom’s Brexit vote and its potential to weaken European unity, the Euro crisis, the threat from a revanchist Russia, a failing commitment to liberal democracy, the growing appeal of Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism, an aversion to a robust foreign policy and a corresponding unwillingness to spend money on defense, a disturbing rise in anti-Semitism in western Europe (even more than in eastern Europe), and a migrant crisis that at times resembles a non-military invasion by predominantly young Middle Eastern and African men who are also largely Muslim. These crises interact with each other to produce a more general crisis of political, moral, institutional, and even civilizational self-confidence. And—what especially matters to America—they weaken Europe as a strategic and economic partner for Washington in global affairs.

         Douglas Murray, a conservative British writer and deputy editor of the London Spectator, would accept most of Kirchick’s analysis—Brexit is an exception—and would sympathize with his robust candor. Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe shows, however, that, like the hedgehog to Kirchick’s fox, he knows one big thing: the migration crisis is far more dangerous than all the others. It poses an urgent existential threat to Europe’s future, and how it happened suggests that neither the European Union nor national governments have much of a clue how to resolve it. 

As to the migration crises, Murray answers the question of why European leaders welcomed the flood of immigrants in the first instance:

How could this happen? Murray’s initial answer is that it happened because we told ourselves lies to justify each stage of the process. There aren’t many migrants and it’s no big deal; that argument showed an unawareness of the demographic truth that large percentage increases in small numbers add up to a lot quickly. (Think compound interest.) They contribute more to the economy and the welfare state than they receive; in fact immigration does not raise a nation’s per capita income and it imposes heavy net fiscal costs on national and local treasuries. They will rescue the welfare state and pay for our old age; in fact migration provides little or no alleviation of social security costs (see previous point) and because migrants have children too, it increases them long term. They make our dull societies more diverse and thus more exciting; but many people like home to be familiar and comfortable, and cultural change can be destructive as well as vibrant. They’ll soon assimilate to our liberal values. Really? How soon? For how long should we be prepared to accept a rise in rapes or restrictions on free speech as a price worth paying for those better restaurants? And what if the newcomers don’t assimilate but demand that the “native” community does so instead by, for instance, demanding sharia or blasphemy laws? Recent British governments have shown themselves not unwilling to move in such directions. Given population trends, as Murray points out, they will have stronger incentives to do so in the future.

And Murray concludes that the resentment against immigrants and the changes it is making to the culture are what is driving the current "populist" movement. The review is an interesting read and worth your time.

• Related: "Refugee centers in Germany suffer near daily attacks"--Deutsche Welle. The article reports: "Fresh data from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Agency (BKA) obtained by German daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung shows that there have been 211 attacks on refugee homes throughout Germany in the first nine months of the year, plus an additional 15 incidents up to October 23."

• "We Didn't Beat ISIS, It's Here"--Sultan Knish. Daniel Greenfield notes: "We’re not just fighting a bunch of ragged terrorists. We’re fighting against the sense of manifest destiny of a large Muslim population, not just in Iraq and Syria, but in London, Paris and every state in America."