A Quick Run Around the Web -- July 6, 2018

"The .380 ACP Sucks" by Nutnfancy (29 min.)

What the author means is that it sucks compared to something like a 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP. But the video is not so much about terminal ballistics, but discussing how big should you go on a carry gun, when you should go small, and where .380 pistols fit into the whole thing. Size and weight are big issues for a carry pistol, especially when carrying all of the time. As the the author notes, most "compact" 9 mm pistols aren't really all that compact, and so a "sub-compact" or "micro" sized pistol may be the way to go--especially for a firearm that you have on you all of the time: shopping, watching TV, fixing meals, etc. Such firearms have to so comfortable that you will never be tempted to not carry them. And a tiny .380 may be the ticket.

• TGIF! Another Weekend Knowledge Dump from Active Response Training. Check out the linked articles and Greg's comments about each.
• Speaking of .380 ....  I was reading a review about Federal's HST in .380 the other day, that criticized it based on some ballistic gel testing, and, in particular how it failed to expand if the tip became clogged with cloth. It caught my attention because I had seem some recent videos of the .380 HST round that showed excellent expansion even through what would be considered heavy clothing. But then a difference came to mind. The lack of expansion was through clothing and into gel. However, the good expansion was through clothing, through pork ribs, and then into gel or some other medium. A couple take-aways: (1) if you decide to use .380 HST, don't go for the gut shot, but shoot them in the chest; and (2) is there other ammunition out there where performance varies if it has to go through ribs as opposed to just the standard ballistic gel tests?
• Gabe Suarez should feel vindicated by this: "Houston PD: Pistol Red Dot Sights Approved For Duty Use"--The Firearm Blog. There are some training requirements and restrictions on the equipment. In the latter regard, the red dot system must be one of the following: Trijicon, Leupold, Sig Sauer, Burris, Vortex, or Shield. 
• "Stopping Power: What It Is and Why You Shouldn’t Care"--The Truth About Guns. Money quote: “It doesn’t matter. What is important is the gun itself, how it feels in the hand as well as your ability to manage it and shoot it accurately.”
• "Most Important Aspects of Selecting a Handgun for Self-Defense: Fit and Function"--Guns America Blog. The author reasons: "The most important quality a handgun must have is portability.  If you will not carry it with you (for most of us, that means concealed) you may as well bring a rifle.  This makes small handguns valuable."
• "AR Basics: Under Gassed? Check Your Gas Rings"--Gun Digest. Besides a visual inspection, here is a simple test:

The traditional field test for the gas rings is to remove the bolt carriage group, pull the bolt head full forward, and stand the assembly upright on the bolt head. If the bolt head supports the bolt carrier without it sliding down, your gas rings are likely serviceable. If not, replace them. 

• Something that was obvious to anyone with two brain-cells to rub together: "Marine experiment finds women get injured more frequently, shoot less accurately than men"--Washington Post. From the article:

        The Marine Corps’ research will serve as fodder for those who are against fully integrating women. It found that all-male squads, teams and crews demonstrated better performance on 93 of 134 tasks evaluated (69 percent) than units with women in them. Units comprising all men also were faster than units with women while completing tactical movements in combat situations, especially in units with large “crew-served” weapons like heavy machine guns and mortars, the study found.

        Infantry squads comprising men only also had better accuracy than squads with women in them, with “a notable difference between genders for every individual weapons system” used by infantry rifleman units. They include the M4 carbine, the M27 infantry automatic rifle (IAR) and the M203, a single-shot grenade launcher mounted to rifles, the study found.

       The research also found that male Marines who have not received infantry training were still more accurate using firearms than women who have. And in removing wounded troops from the battlefield, there “were notable differences in execution times between all-male and gender-integrated groups,” with the exception being when a single person—”most often a male Marine” — carried someone away, the study found.

Also:

The gender-integrated unit’s assessment also found that 40.5 percent of women participating suffered some form of musculoskeletal injury, while 18.8 percent of men did. Twenty-one women lost time in the unit due to injuries, 19 of whom suffered injuries to their lower extremities. Of those, 16 women were injured while while carrying heavy loads in an organized movement, like a march, the study found.

You can read the executive summary to the report here.

• "‘She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity—A Review" by Gregory Cochran at Quillette. From the review:

The real problem with this book is that, to Zimmer and many other people, genetics itself is the enemy. The facts, not the discipline, particularly in how they apply to humans. We now know that everything is heritable, to varying degrees  — and the more that life is determined or influenced by genetics, the less blank the slate, the less that can be accomplished by egalitarian social policies (or by aristocratic social policies, for that matter). The facts of genetics are caltrops on the road to a ‘just’ society. Zimmer is moderately fair-minded, usually mentioning both criticism of genetic claims and the response to that criticism — but he still gives the impression of wishing these claims had never been made and dislikes scientists who discovered unpleasant truths.

• I saw a link to this the other day at Western Rifle Shooters: "The Age of Aquarius"--The Anatomically Correct Banana. From the essay, a succinct summary of the situation:

We stand on the precipice of an extinction-level event, an apocalyptic scenario that would plunge this planet into a new Dark Age with the destruction of Western civilization. In becoming the world’s run-off drain, the West has decided to forgo being a civilization and instead become the world’s largest charitable organization; I’m not sure Charles Martel or John III Sobieski faced down the Saracen hordes with visions of Christendom devolving into a mandatorily-financed UNICEF, but here we are. The mother from Niger with eight children she can’t feed is readily excused for abhorrent decision-making but the taxed-to-death family-of-three in suburban America don their sackcloth and ashes and repent for the Original Sin of Whiteness—that most wicked of forces which, we are reminded every day, must be purged from this earth for there to be true salvation.

• Related: "GENIUS OR FOLLY?"--American Partisan. The author relates: "I spoke with an older gentleman this past week who quite soberly confided ‘there is no doubt in my mind I lived during the zenith of American society, and no one your age or younger will ever experience anything like it.’"

• The government was more concerned about it back then: "JFK on the Dangers of Americans Getting Soft"--The Art of Manliness. This is originally from a 1960 Sports Illustrated article:

       Beginning more than 2,500 years ago, from all quarters of the Greek world men thronged every four years to the sacred grove of Olympia, under the shadow of Mount Cronus, to compete in the most famous athletic contests of history—the Olympian games.

       During the contest a sacred truce was observed among all the states of Greece as the best athletes of the Western world competed in boxing and foot races, wrestling and chariot races for the wreath of wild olive which was the prize of victory. When the winners returned to their home cities to lay the Olympian crown in the chief temples they were greeted as heroes and received rich rewards. For the Greeks prized physical excellence and athletic skills among man’s greatest goals and among the prime foundations of a vigorous state.

       Thus the same civilizations which produced some of our highest achievements of philosophy and drama, government and art, also gave us a belief in the importance of physical soundness which has become a part of Western tradition; from the mens sana in corpore sano of the Romans to the British belief that the playing fields of Eaton brought victory on the battlefields of Europe. This knowledge, the knowledge that the physical well-being of the citizen is an important foundation for the vigor and vitality of all the activities of the nation, is as old as Western civilization itself. But it is a knowledge which today, in America, we are in danger of forgetting.

       The first indication of a decline in the physical strength and ability of young Americans became apparent among United States soldiers in the early stages of the Korean War. The second came when figures were released showing that almost one out of every two young Americans was being rejected by Selective Service as mentally, morally or physically unfit. But the most startling demonstration of the general physical decline of American youth came when Dr. Hans Kraus and Dr. Sonja Weber revealed the results of 15 years of research centering in the Posture Clinic of New York’s Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital — results of physical fitness tests given to 4,264 children in this country and 2,870 children in Austria, Italy and Switzerland.

      The findings showed that despite our unparalleled standard of living, despite our good food and our many playgrounds, despite our emphasis on school athletics, American youth lagged far behind Europeans in physical fitness. Six tests for muscular strength and flexibility were given; 57.9% of the American children failed one or more of these tests, while only 8.7% of the European youngsters failed.

Read the whole thing. 

• Communism in action: "Human heads sold at the market stall for cannibals: Haunting images show Russian peasants selling body parts during 1920s famine that forced families to eat their relatives"--Daily Mail. 
• The dangers of monoculture: "Bananas are on the brink of EXTINCTION as devastating tropical disease spreads across crops worldwide, researchers warn"--Daily Mail. 
• "Solar minimum and ENSO prediction"--Watts Up With That. The author reports: "Two solar physicists, Robert Leamon from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Scott McIntosh from the High Altitude Observatory at Boulder, CO, have made an interesting observation that links changes in solar activity with changes in the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)."