June 14, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"3 Common GUN CONTROL MYTHS Debunked"--The Philosopher (8 min.)

Self-Defense/Prepping/Firearms:

• Grant Cunningham's "Hump-Day Reading List" for this week.
• "Gay Americans are arming themselves to stay alive"--The New York Post. The Pulse Nightclub shooting really has them spooked--at least, that is what is referred to as a motivator in this article. And homosexuals should be spooked. Conservative Christians may look upon homosexuality as a sin, but it is the Muslims that are throwing homosexuals off roofs, shooting them, etc.
• The left is getting more emboldened in its threats of physical violence: "Threats of violence against conservatives, from President Trump to me"--Ronald R. Cherry at American Thinker. The author has had his property vandalized, including killing and cutting down trees, and even had the head (just the head) of a skunk left on his front porch.
• "How Long Will Your Handloads Survive?"--Shooting Times. A long time if stored in a dry environment. I have handloads given me by my father-in-law, which were loaded by his father sometime back in the 1950s which still shoot fine. I have mil-surplus ammunition loaded decades ago that shoot just fine. Similarly, I have powder and primers that I inherited from my father that are still good to use even after 20 or more years. And that is what the author of this article reports from his experience. 
• "Hunting Your Best When Weather Is At It’s Worst: Tips for Success"--Guns America Blog. The author offers 7 tips. The first two are related directly to hunting success: having scope covers to protect lenses from getting wet, and having cleaning cloths to clean wet lenses on scopes or binoculars. The other points mostly have to do with keeping yourself warm and comfortable.
• "Crank it: Freeplay Indigo Plus"--Dreaming of Sunsets Over Ochre Dunes. A review of the Freeplay Indigo lantern, which has a solar panel and crank charging capabilities. It can also be charged via a micro-USB connection, although the author says that it takes about 8 hours to fully charge the lantern. The lantern, in turn, can be used to charge other small electronic devices.
• "Spray and Pray, Revolvers and the mighty M1 Garand"--Total Survivalist Blog. Apparently there is a segment of the survivalist/prepping community that believes that clip fed magazine rifles are superior to those that use detachable box magazines, based on the theory that the lower magazine capacity and slower reload will encourage the user to be more careful in their shooting and refrain from "spray and pray." The author of this post attempts to disabuse people of that notion. I have to agree with many of his points. The author also notes:

There is also a layer of economic resentment or jealousy in any of these discussions. The economic classism in American society does not vanish in gun/ preparedness culture. Some folks feel compelled to say their choice, made mostly for economic reasons, is better to feel good about it. Instead of saying "I know its not ideal but its what I can afford" guys have to somehow try to justify it being a better choice. 

I agree. The SKS, for example, is a viable option, especially in a jurisdiction that restricts the use of detachable magazines and/or limits magazine capacity. Even at prices greatly inflated over what they were originally selling for, it is cheaper than other semi-automatic defensive rifles. But being viable is not the same as being optimal. 

       In the end, though, most defensive shootings are not going to come down to the largest magazines or how quickly a reload can be performed. 

As a final thought despite spending however many words and an hour or so of my time guns really don't matter that much. If you look at realistic defensive shootings guns don't matter that much. It matters that a person has a loaded gun, can get that gun into play and shoot it accurately in a timely manner. Somewhere after that it matters what kind of gun the person has. 

Other Stuff:

• Juxtaposition this!

• "Georgia man, 38, who raped and impregnated a 12-year-old before she gave birth to a stillborn baby is jailed for 25 years"--Daily Mail.

• "No jail for police officer who had child with 15-year-old"--NJ.com.

• Immigrants Welcome! "Plot to carry out biological attack using RICIN is foiled in Germany"--Daily Mail. The article reports:

       A 29-year-old Tunisian, identified only as Sief Allah H, was arrested on Wednesday before a search took place in his apartment in Cologne.

       Investigators say he started procuring material online including seeds needed for the creation of ricin in mid-May. They said he succeeded in creating the toxin this month and investigators found it in the search of his flat. 

        They are still investigating how the suspect planned to use the toxin, but said he was working on an attack in Germany. 

• Of course: "Famed Stanford prison experiment that 'showed how we are all naturally inclined to abuse power' was based on LIES and FAKERY, shocking expose claims"--Daily Mail. Another important social science experiment from the 1960's and 70's era that is debunked. I think it is safe to dismiss the conclusions of all major social science experiments from that era. Cheating, lying, and just plain poor science seems to have been the rule.
• "First human case of plague in Idaho since 1992 confirmed in Elmore County child"--The Idaho Statesman. Although unmentioned in the article, Fish & Game officials have found plague in populations of ground squirrels in the area south and east of Boise, including Elmore County where this boy lives, for the past several years. The lesson should be: don't touch dead ground squirrels. 
• "No Coke, no Pepsi: Bottlers leave Mexican city hit by crime"--AP (via Yahoo). The affected city is Ciudad Altamirano. The bottlers left because they didn't want to pay protection to the local criminal gangs.
• On Tuesday I had noted a UK study showing that average IQ among students were decreasing, which I indirectly associated with increased immigration. Vox Day discusses the topic in his article and video: "Darkstream: you can't escape the stupid." He observes:

       ... IQs have in risen in every decade since World War II, but have now begun to fall again. I have to say the trends started by those born after 1975 is worrying, and of course, they come up with all kinds of reasons and yet the word immigration is never mentioned, but here's what is kind of shocking. The level, the extent to which they calculate is this fall in IQ equates to about seven points per generation!

         Okay this is bordering on the catastrophic. If US IQs have fallen seven points per generation since 1975, we've got nearly two generations there so instead of a five-point decline we are talking about a decline of as much as fourteen points! And you know, this is a catastrophe! This is why you're seeing a decline in the basic functionality of United States society and of a number of the European societies,  because people simply are not fundamentally as able to to function in a modern society. They simply can't do the basic tasks that their fathers and their great-grandfathers did, and so you know, this is what you are going to experience and you can't get away from it. You cannot escape it.

• SJW's destroy everything: "No, 'Star Wars' Isn't Failing Because Of Hateful Trolls. It's Failing Because Kathleen Kennedy Has Done A Garbage Job."--Daily Wire. The media narrative explaining the failure of the Solo movie has been "Star Wars fatigue"--that the most recent movies were released too closely together. Never mind that the Marvel movies have been released even closer together without any sign of viewer "fatigue." But what is good for the masses isn't necessarily good enough for those that have been following the issue more closely. Thus, an alternative narrative has started to circulate blaming "toxic fans" for the problems rather than the people that actually produced the films. But as the author of this article points out, "Calling your audience a bunch of deplorables didn’t work well for Hillary Clinton; it’s not going to work well for Disney, either." The author continues:

Why all this effort to blame the fans for the series’ troubles? Because we must never – ever, under any circumstances – blame Kathleen Kennedy. Kennedy, you see, is woke. The Lucasfilm story group is entirely female. Their goal, according to The New York Times: “They wanted to tell beautiful stories, fulfill the expectations of loyal fans and create meaningful female characters.” The Times gushes, “Today, the Lucasfilm story group is a diverse outlier in Hollywood: five of its members are people of color, and the team includes four women and seven men. … A new, unpublished analysis of Star Wars films shows striking progress in their representation of gender and race.”

Thus, the fan favorite characters not only had to be killed off, but their legacy destroyed as well.

• "People get income for doing stuff, and they get income for owning stuff. Increasingly the latter. And the ownership share of income goes to a small slice of households that own almost all the stuff."--from "Capital’s Share of Income Is Way Higher than You Think" at Naked Capitalism. 
• Something to think about: "Some Australian Aboriginal figurative paintings in the Kimberley and the Northern Territory, known as Lightning Figures, show remarkable resemblance to strange atmospheric phenomena, such as Red Sprites (upper-atmospheric optical phenomena associated with thunderstorms), which sometimes can be perceived with the naked eye in those parts of the continent. I argue that some ancient markings can be related in a consistent way to real perceived atmospheric phenomena."