August 31, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Personal Protection: Cap and Ball Revolvers"--Paul Harrell (10 min.)

It may be slower to switch cylinders than to use a speed loader in a modern revolver, or a to insert a magazine in a semi-auto, but it can be made to work -- and may be a valid option in jurisdictions where black powder firearms are permitted, but obtaining a modern handgun is difficult or impossible.

• Greg Ellifritz has his Weekend Knowledge Dump up at Active Response Training. Check it out.
• "FEAR AGGRESSION IN GUNFIGHTING"--Gabe Suarez. He first looks at the difference between predatory aggression and fear aggression in canines, noting the about the latter:

The little dog is afraid and if he was a human, we would say he was emotional, upset, and loudly acting out those emotions.  A fear aggressive dog is dangerous because he is unpredictable and uncontrollable and his fear will lead him to bite even if biting is not what is called for...and even then, those bites will be applied hesitantly and poorly.

In comparison:

The Predator does not show emotional arousal, or anger.  The Predator does not yell or posture and does not develop a relationship to or with his adversary.  He has a cool-minded determination to overcome and defeat the adversary.  The adversary is in fact, nothing more than a target.  The predator has a situational awareness and is planning his positioning and maneuver to take advantage of the environment at the time he launches his action.  The exchange is not a give and take as would be seen in a sparring match or a sporting event.  He moves decisively and with finality.  He has already decided to kill the adversary and is merely waiting for the visual or audible signal that justifies his launch. There is nothing defensive about his attitude once the signal has been recognized.

Saurez's concern is that too many of us--both police and the ordinary citizen--train and have the mindset of responding to an attack with fear aggression rather than the predatory mindset.

• "When Forensic Evidence Goes Bad"--The American Conservative. The author posits:

Forensic science is a fundamental tool of the criminal justice system. However, a growing number of scandals have illustrated that not everyone in this field is qualified or immune to systemic bias. And as research continues to develop, some forms of forensic science have been proven to be, well, unreliable.

The author then briefly discusses some of the scandals and unreliable evidence that is given far too much weight. One of these is bite mark analysis which is barely above astrology. And perhaps lie detectors have improved since, but there was a lot research in the 1990s showing that flipping a coin was just slightly more accurate than a lie detector at determining whether someone was telling the truth.

• "Fight The Freeze"--LDS Gunsite.  While we often talk about the adrenaline kicking us into fight or flight, the reality is that often the reaction to a sudden attack is to freeze like deer in the headlights. The author explains:

       The solution to the problem of freezing up is to do exactly what YOU are doing now… Start learning everything you can about self-defense and use “What-If” scenarios to mentally play out possible situations in your mind, decided in advance how you would like to respond to them. (Perhaps I should qualify this a bit and tell you to learn everything you can about legitimate self-defense and the science of performance. There is a lot of baloney out there masquerading as legitimate fighting advice).

       Training gives you confidence. You can’t fake confidence. So don’t try to fake your training. It comes with a price. That price is learning, training, and practice. It doesn’t matter what method you choose to defend yourself and your loved ones. This applies to all self-defense. 

• "How a Botched Study Fooled the World About the U.S. Share of Mass Public Shootings"--John Lott at Ammo Land. From the article:

       Lankford’s claim was that over the 47 years from 1966 to 2012, an enormous amount of the world’s mass public shooters — 31% — occurred in the United States. Lankford attributed this to America’s gun ownership.

       Lankford claims to have “complete” data on such shooters in 171 countries. However, because he has neither identified the cases nor their location nor even a complete description on how he put the cases together, it is impossible to replicate his findings.

* * *

       Lankford’s study reported that from 1966 to 2012, there were 90 public mass shooters in the United States and 202 in the rest of world. We find that Lankford’s data represent a gross undercount of foreign attacks. Our list contains 1,448 attacks and at least 3,081 shooters outside the United States over just the last 15 years of the period that Lankford examined. We find at least fifteen times more mass public shooters than Lankford in less than a third the number of years.

      Even when we use coding choices that are most charitable to Lankford, his 31 percent estimate of the US’s share of world mass public shooters is cut by over 95 percent.  By our count, the US makes up less than 1.43% of the mass public shooters, 2.11% of their murders, and 2.88% of their attacks. All these are much less than the US’s 4.6% share of the world population. Attacks in the US are not only less frequent than other countries, they are also much less deadly on average.

Lott has different article on the same topic published at the New York Post.

"Managing Unknown Contacts And Why We Do It"-- Active Self Protection (6-1/2 min.)

Correia uses a couple of unprovoked stabbing incidents to show the importance not only of situational awareness, but of managing our distance and orientation to a threat or attacker.

• "Argentina's central bank hikes rates to 60% as the currency collapses"--CNBC. That isn't raise interest rates by 60%, but to raise them to 60%. Even if it is sufficient to attract foreign investment, the costs of servicing the debt will be ruinous. 
• "Immigrants and Disease"--Townhall. From the article:

       The Immigration and Nationality Act mandates that all immigrants and refugees undergo a medical screening examination to determine whether they have an inadmissible health condition. ...

       But what about people who enter our country illegally? The CDC specifically cites the possibility of the cross-border movement of HIV, measles, pertussis, rubella, rabies, hepatitis A, influenza, tuberculosis, shigellosis and syphilis. Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent in South Texas, warned: "What's coming over into the U.S. could harm everyone. We are starting to see scabies, chickenpox, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections and different viruses." Some of the youngsters illegally entering our country are known to be carrying lice and suffering from various illnesses. Because there have been no medical examinations of undocumented immigrants, we have no idea how many are carrying infectious diseases that might endanger American children when these immigrants enter schools across our nation.

• "The Electric Briar In My Neck"--The American Conservative. The author notes that there are many people that suffer from legitimate chronic pain or serious pain from certain conditions that need prescription pain medication. The push to limit availability of opioids will cause millions more to suffer than it will help.

August 30, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Max Talk 036: Buddy Pair Fire & Movement: Assault"--Max Velocity Tactical (11 min.)

Discussion and demonstration.

• Grant Cunningham's Hump Day Reading List. He has links to articles on treating severe allergic reactions, female criminals, getting your kids prepared and more.
• "Terminal Ballistics as Viewed in a Morgue"--This is a 2006 archive of a forum discussion originally on the Smith & Wesson forum. I don't know the dates of the original forum discussion. Anyway, it has some people that have performed or assisted with autopsies discussing their observations of wounds left by different calibers of firearms. It is a long read, but interesting.
• "Beyond Bullets: Two Experts Give Us Their Input on Best Practices for Concealed Carry Medicine"--Recoil Magazine. Key point:

As stated above, the very bare minimum equipment I would carry would be a tourniquet and pair of nitrile gloves. If I could add to that, I would add a small pressure bandage and a hemostatic agent (QuikClot Combat Gauze or ChitoGauze) and a pair of compact chest seals. The difference in wounding patterns in civilian mass casualty/active shooter situations is different from military scenarios in that the wounding patterns in civilian settings are typically thoracic and cranial injuries. Those areas are typically protected with military personnel; thus, their injuries tend to be mainly dealing with the exposed extremities. However, our main emphasis remains on stopping the hemorrhage first and extremity injuries do still occur in the civilian populace, so our treatment algorithm remains unchanged.

Greg Reynolds at Instapundit has listed some of the items he is putting in a trauma kit, including links to the products on Amazon. Well worth checking out.

• When you have thousands of dollars to spend on a good revolver: "Gun Review: Korth Mongoose .357 Magnum"--Range365. MSRP is $3,499 for the base model which was tested, but it was extremely accurate, and "the Mongoose averaged just 2 pounds of trigger pull [in single action], while the double-action pull measured in at an average of 6 pounds, 5 ounces."
• "How safe is your area? A simple visual indicator of crime levels"--All Outdoor. A photo essay of the various uses of spikes fences and barbed wire in Europe to prevent crimes, versus the typical openness of an American home. The author also notes:

Back when I lived in the USSR, people who were burglarized were generally happy that the break-in happened in their absence. The well-founded fear was that a break-in of an occupied dwelling would turn into a beating, rape and, possibly, murder of the residents. In the US, a typical lament of those who do get burglarized is: “I wish we were home that evening!” Perhaps the lesser frequency of home invasions in the US relative to burglaries is because criminals try to avoid defensive gunfire delivered by residents. Surveys of prisoners confirm that theory.

• "Beretta Px4 Compact Carry Review"--Lucky Gunner. The author switched to using this DA/SA firearm as his EDC. He writes:

      This variant is the brainchild of shooting instructor and Beretta consultant Ernest Langdon. Based on his recommendations, the Px4 Compact Carry takes advantage of some of the existing parts from Beretta’s catalog to improve the gun’s overall ergonomics and concealability. The wide ambidextrous slide-mounted safety levers have been replaced with low-profile “stealth” decock-only levers that sit nearly flush with the slide. Instead of a large ambi slide catch lever, it has a narrower left-side only lever. And in addition to the small magazine release found on the original Px4 Compact, the Compact Carry also comes with a medium and a large mag release, which can be installed for right or left-handed use. Inside the gun, you’ll find the Beretta competition trigger group installed, which reduces the weight of the single action trigger from about 5 pounds to 4 pounds.

      The only non-Beretta parts on this variant are the Ameriglo sights which include a bright orange front sight with a tritium insert and plain black rear sight. In the box with the pistol, you also get a set of Talon grip decals which you can apply to improve the gun’s grip texture. To distinguish the Compact Carry from the original, the slide has a Cerakote Sniper Grey finish, and in case you had any doubts about the overall value of this package, Beretta includes a third 15-round magazine.

• "Why it’s time to ditch small of back carry"--Guns.com. The article notes three primary reasons why small of the back carry is inadvisable: (1) it is slower and more awkward to draw from the middle of the back, (2) reholstering the weapon is similarly more difficult, and (3) any bending over will cause the weapon to print. Having tried this method of carry, I think that the authors have actually missed two of the biggest disadvantages: (a) if you have to sit for any length of time, it is extremely uncomfortable, and (b) if you get knocked over onto your back, or slip and fall onto your back, it increases the risk of a serious back injury. That aside, there are a couple of positive points to concealed carry. First, it allows you to carry a fairly large handgun that, with the right type of cover garment, can be very effectively concealed. I had a friend that worked as a clerk that was able to conceal a .44 Magnum revolver this way without any issues, under the long, untucked shirt that he wore. And that brings me to its second advantage: for someone that has to stand for a long time (such as the clerk at a convenience store or similar), it may be easier on the spine than carrying a gun one one side or the other of your body. I think that for a very narrow group of people--those standing for a workshift with little or no bending--may find this to be an effective method of carry. Otherwise, I would avoid it like the plague.

"Chinese Military Training for US Airstrikes"--China Uncensored (7 min.)

• "The Problem With China's Powerful Air Force"--Real Clear Defense. The author indicates that China hasn't been able to buy or steal the technology--including manufacturing acumen--to produce powerful and efficient jet engines. It isn't enough to copy the design, but there are significant metallurgical and manufacturing hurdles to overcome with producing some of the components, such as the turbines. Of course, if the Bushes and Clintons hadn't allowed the exported of our manufacturing base to China, the Chinese probably would be having problems with even simpler components.
• "Multidecadally resolved polarity oscillations during a geomagnetic excursion"--PNAS. The gist of this paper is that a magnetic pole reversal could occur over a period as short as between 100 to 200 years. Based on magnetic field strength and the movement of the magnetic pole, we are a bit over 100 years into the current reversal.
• "Targeting a brain mechanism could treat aggression"--Medical Xpress. From the article:

       "Deficits in fear learning are typically found in individuals with psychopathy and aggressive individuals showing different psychopathologies," Carmen Sandi points out. "These deficits have been hypothesized to promote antisocial behaviors, as they preclude individuals from learning from punishment and from following a normative socialization."

        Further examination of mice's brains showed that these behavioral alterations are due to problems with the neurons of the amygdala, the brain's center of emotional processing and emotional behavior. Specifically, the scientists found that the neurons of the amygdala in the knockout mice were largely unable to form new connections and showed impairments with glutamate neurotransmission, which transmits signals related to the processing of fear.

       With further molecular studies, the team was able to identify a deficiency of a neuron receptor in the amygdala as a key element for developing aggression. The receptor is called NMDA (this particular one is called GluN2B-containing NMDA) and is involved in the connectivity of neurons as well as the proper formation of fear memories.

       Armed with this discovery, the researchers proceeded to activate the NMDA receptor of the aggressive mice with a drug (D-cycloserine). The treatment was found to effectively reduce aggressive behavior as well as the associated low fear of the animals. Though a proof-of-concept at this stage, the finding opens up a potentially effective pharmaceutical target and treatment of aggression backed up by solid biological evidence.

Those of you that ascribe to r/K evolutionary psychology theory will immediately grasp the significance of this toward understanding the greater individual violence associated with the r-selected population.

• I wrote recently about how two refugees in Germany had stabbed one German to death and injured two others. So, what are the German police worried about? "Germany probes leak of arrest warrant after Chemnitz stabbing"--Reuters. Yes, the authorities are most concerned that details concerning the attackers--i.e., that they were Muslim refugees--were released to the public. Meanwhile, police in Chemnizt--the town where the stabbings occurred--are expecting more anti-immigration protests.
• "Britain’s Failed Weapons-Control Laws Show Why the Second Amendment Matters"--National Review. Most of the article describes the UK's current problems with knife crimes and its ineffectual attempts to outlaw knives or other items that could be used as weapons. The author concludes:

Today, there are no conditions under which English subjects may possess a suitable defensive arm in public. The English government prioritizes the safety of criminals over the safety of their victims. As England shows, the slippery slope of gun control doesn’t end with the confiscation of handguns, but with destruction of the right to self-defense itself.

• The color of crime: "Japanese north–south gradient in IQ predicts differences in stature, skin color, income, and homicide rate"--Science Direct. From the abstract:

Regional differences in IQ are estimated for 47 prefectures of Japan. IQ scores obtained from official achievement tests show a gradient from north to south. Latitudes correlate with height, IQ, and skin color at r = 0.70, 0.44, 0.47, respectively. IQ also correlates with height (0.52), skin color (0.42), income (0.51) after correction, less homicide rate (− 0.60), and less divorce (− 0.69) but not with fertility infant mortali'ty. The lower IQ in southern Japanese islands could be attributable to warmer climates with less cognitive demand for more than fifteen hundred years.

• And another: "Do pigmentation and the melanocortin system modulate aggression and sexuality in humans as they do in other animals?"--Science Direct. From the abstract:

We review animal studies that have found darker pigmented individuals average higher amounts of aggression and sexual activity than lighter pigmented individuals. We hypothesize that similar relationships between pigmentation, aggression, and sexuality occur in humans. We first review the literature on non-human animals and then review some of the correlates of melanin in people, including aggression and sexual activity. Both within human populations (e.g., siblings), and between populations (e.g., races, nations, states), studies find that darker pigmented people average higher levels of aggression and sexual activity (and also lower IQ). We conceptualize skin color as a multigenerational adaptation to differences in climate over the last 70,000 years as a result of “cold winters theory” and the “Out-of-Africa” model of human origins. 

• "America's hottest export? Sperm"--The Guardian. According to the article, the U.S. and the Netherlands are the big exporters of sperm. The article explains that the reason is that the U.S. and Netherlands have less regulation over sperm banks than other Northern European countries or Canada or Australia. But the author never seems to want to touch on the fact that the demand, even from other parts of the world, is for sperm from white donors. 
• "Pope Benedict confirms he disciplined McCarrick, sources claim"--Life News. The implication of this is that Pope Francis knew about McCarrick's crimes.

Has The Federalist Gone Mad?

        The Federalist is nominally supposed to be a magazine presenting a conservative viewpoint. However, I have begun to question that premise. I already commented the other day on an article that suggested that the murder of a young woman by an illegal alien was grounds for easing immigration restrictions. Today, we have an article on the current crises within the Catholic Church that argues that the Catholic Church's problems arise from its efforts to fight human nature!

      In "The Catholic Church Is Losing Its War On Human Nature", Robert Tracinski makes two arguments to support his contention it is losing the war on human nature, and specifically, addressing the root causes of the current pedophile and homosexual scandals to hit the Church. First, he argues that the Church's "attempt to suppress human sexuality," and more particularly, requiring priests to be celibate, is warping priests. He writes:

 More specifically, when you try to repress sexuality, it tends to come out sideways. Those who have no concept of a healthy sexuality will tend to develop an unhealthy sexuality. Hence the concentration within the church hierarchy of men with a sexual preference for children and teenage boys.

But we have no statistics on what percentage of the Catholic clergy is homosexual, or if they formed their homosexual attraction after becoming priests. What we are presented with, instead, is a cabal that assisted one another in obtaining power in order to advance their predations and protect them from consequences. That, in and of itself, is not proof that celibacy leads to "an unhealthy sexuality." Conversely, Hollywood stars and executives certainly are not celibate, yet it would be hard to argue that they present an example of "healthy" sexuality. If anything, unhealthy sexuality appears to be a consequence of someone who has to go to greater and greater lengths to get a dopamine hit from their sexual activity.

        While I don't believe that there is any doctrinal support in the scriptures of the practice of celibacy, the scriptures do demand a certain amount of self control when it comes to sexuality which some could view as repressing sexuality. Thus, I see Tracinski's argument as indirectly attacking more general rules on morality and chastity.

       Tracinski's second argument addresses the Catholic Church's claim to authority. He states, in this regard:

       One other factor virtually ensures the corruption of the whole organization: the Catholic conception of its institutional authority. The distinguishing feature of the Catholic Church, and its central conflict with Protestantism, is the idea that it is not merely the ideas and values of Christianity that are necessary for man’s salvation, but the institution itself.

        Priests in the Catholic Church are not merely men who have studied religion or distinguished themselves by their example of virtuous behavior. They are supposed to enjoy a special metaphysical status as God’s representatives on Earth, acting in persona Christi, “in the person of Christ,” and according to the Vatican II conference, “partak[ing] of the function of Christ the sole mediator” between man and God.

        Yes, well, clearly that’s not working out. And how could it possibly work out? The Catholic Church is attempting to invest a literally god-like, otherworldly infallibility in an earthly institution run by fallible and corruptible men. So of course this organization will attract and promote the kind of men who like to wield power while being shielded from scrutiny. This is the fundamental problem of making an institution synonymous with an idea and of equating devotion to that idea with devotion to specific people.

He continues:

But the Catholic Church, by asserting its authority as the literal voice of God on Earth, calls on its followers to suppress their private judgment and cultivate a habit of mental obedience. Back to Vatican II: “religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium,” that is, the religious authorities. This is what makes believers into a “flock,” that is, into sheep ready to be preyed upon by a wolf in priests’ clothing.

       I'm not going to pretend to be knowledgeable about the details of the Catholic Church's doctrine on this matter. My general understanding is that the priests are supposed to act as an intermediary between God and man, or to intercede with God on behalf of someone, premised on special authority ("keys") given to Peter and, from thence, passed on through the ordination of the priests. (The LDS Church asserts a somewhat similar claim to priesthood authority and power, although we believe--I believe--that the priesthood authority had been taken from the earth and later restored through the ordination of Joseph Smith). It is not the institution that is necessary for salvation, but the ordinances and rites (together with faith and a whole lot of God's grace!). Christ said we must all be baptized with the water and the spirit, but it is also clear that not just anyone can assume the authority to baptize or confer the Holy Spirit. (See, e.g., Acts 8 and 19 and the events described in those chapters).

      Tracinski's stratagem is to attack the Catholic Church's claim to authority by substituting the institution for the priesthood authority. In essence, he suggests that the evil is not within the evil men who infiltrated the organization, but that the real evil is the claim to authority; that the fault is not with the men who went rogue, or those that covered it up, but with the idea that anyone could possess special authority from God. Obviously, that someone acts with the authority of God takes some degree of faith, so Tracinski then turns to attack the idea of faith. He takes the position that it is axiomatic that reason must displace faith because, otherwise, "we will be guided by authority figures who have given us little reason to think they deserve that kind of trust." He adds:

Traditions and institutions may have value, but that value has to be judged by our own thinking. To follow them in the absence of rational scrutiny, or in defiance of rational doubt, is to let yourself be led to an unknown end by men whose character you refuse to investigate. History provides plenty of examples, both religious and secular, of how this leads to grief.

If Tracinski is so ready to throw traditions and institutions under the bus because of the acts of a small cabal, then he is, by definition, not a conservative.

       In any event, I reject Tracinski's assumption that reason must trump faith. Religion is an act of faith. It cannot be otherwise (unless you have been shown the divine such that there can be no doubt--and God help the Judas that has seen and yet rejects or turns away). But faith and reason need not be mutually exclusive. The Lord didn't teach us to blindly accept anyone that professed to teach in his name, but to beware the wolf in sheep's clothing. He chastised the Jewish leaders of his day because they had seen the evidence of the coming of the Messiah, but could not (or would not) piece it together to reach the obvious conclusion. He expects us to use reason and intelligence in the practice of our faith, but reason and intelligence does not, and cannot, replace faith.

       It is also important not to confuse the agent for the master, especially where the servant acts in derogation of the master's will. The fault here is not that of the Catholic faith (which has clear stances on moral issues) or God, but of the persons who acted as wolves or failed in their duty to guard the flock against the wolves.

Update (Aug. 30, 2018): Some of you may question why I, a member of the Mormon church, would write a post to defend the Catholic church. The Catholic church has, whatever its faults or mistakes, been one of the greatest forces for good on this earth for over a thousand years and, for that reason, deserves defense against modernists. Mostly, though, my intent is to defend someone's faith in Christ against an author that I see as trying to undermine that faith. And if that faith in Christ is intertwined with the Catholic church, then so be it, I will defend the Catholic church. What I don't want see happen is someone become disgusted by the actions of evil men that happen to be in positions of authority in the Catholic church, and, by turning away from the Catholic church, thereby turn away from Christ.

TruePundit's Revenge Against The FBI

       Yesterday, I suggested that the FBI was a rogue agency. Obviously, it is not a new thought--the FBI has long engaged in questionable activities, which have been a staple of fiction, conspiracy theory, and Congressional investigations for decades. My favorite Nero Wolfe novel, and I think the best of them all, is The Doorbell Rang which pits Wolfe and his assistant against a corrupt FBI--and they come out on top because they are able to blackmail the agency. The Agency had picked on the wrong person and paid a (small) price.

      Which brings me to a bold statement from True Pundit: "FBI Raid Thomas Paine’s House, Point Guns At His Young Children; How an Award-Winning Reporter Became Thomas Paine." The author, Michael D. Moore (who has been writing under the pseudonym, Thomas Paine) has revealed that he is about to publish a book that will spill the beans on a lot of FBI dirt. He started his career in journalism, even being nominated for a Pulitzer, but was recruited into investigative work--one of the early firms, similar to Fusion GPS, that mixed former intelligence and law enforcement with former investigative journalists. And he apparently did well, working for both government agencies and big businesses. But then the FBI decided to pick on the wrong guy. He relates:

       I can say with certainty, my decision to journey back into journalism was made after the FBI pointed guns at the heads of my wife and children. I knew that first morning (the FBI actually raided my home twice and pointed guns at my family twice) when federal agents raided our home one definitive thing was going to unfold: 

These bastards — and their bosses — were going to pay for violating my family. My kids. My home. One way or the other, I would have the last word. As I have throughout my life and career. And I was going to have to go back into journalism to even the score. 

      I always win. You’ll learn that about me in the coming days and weeks, if you haven’t already learned as a reader of True Pundit. In fact, I already have won. The FBI learned it too. And I have much more to teach the Bureau if it decides it hasn’t been taught enough. True Pundit has broken dozens of key FBI scoops in two years and look at the Bureau. It is in shambles. No one in the media even comes close to our work.

Read the whole thing.

(H/t Anonymous Conservative)

August 29, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

".357 Sig: What's the Point?"--Lucky Gunner Ammo (8 min.)

Lucky Gunner has added ballistic gelatin tests that include self-defense loads for the .357 Sig. This video discusses the cartridge, a bit of its history, and, most importantly, the results from the ballistic tests. The title of the video comes from the fact that the results were comparable to what you would see from a 9 mm, begging the question of whether there is any advantage to using .357 Sig over 9 mm. To understand the test results, you have to keep in mind that a bullet will begin to rapidly decelerate once it hits the block of gelatin. If the bullet expands, it increases the frontal surface area which further acts to decelerate the bullet (sort of like a plane or drag racer opening a 'chute to help with braking). The advantage I would expect from .357 Sig would be threefold. First, the higher velocity should help ensure expansion of the bullet in the first place. Second, the higher velocity should allow for better penetration of bone or barriers. Third, if you ascribe to Michael Courtney and Amy Courtney's "ballistic pressure wave" theory, there should be a greater pressure wave transmitted through the vascular system due to the greater loss of energy as the bullet slows down. Of course, you have to balance this against higher cost, lower magazine capacity, greater wear and tear on a firearm, recoil and ability to make follow-up shots, etc. 

• "Are Guns From The Past Better Than Today’s?"--The Truth About Guns. An interesting discussion, but it is very subjective. Basically, it comes down to the fact that older firearms were generally the product of a fair amount of hand work by a craftsman, whereas modern manufacturing techniques have largely eliminated the need for the hand work. Also, there is the aesthetic element, such as the nice bluing applied to older handguns, versus a practicality approach to modern weapons.
• Speaking of classic designs: "Smith and Wesson Model 10 Overview"--The Survivalist Blog. The roots of the Model 10 can be traced back to 1899, but it is still produced and sold. What we would recognize as a Model 10 was originally the Military and Police model, which was also used as the "Victory" model of WWII, before being re-designated as the Model 10. According to the article, it is the most widely built and adopted revolver in the world.
•  "US CALIBER .30 M2 AP ACCURACY"--Loose Rounds. So, when the .30-06 was first introduced into service (the M1 round), it used a 174 grain bullet which gave very good accuracy and longer range. However, the military decided to switch to a lighter 150 grain bullet (the M2) which is what we were using upon entering WWII. It was, however, not as accurate. Tthe military also distributed an armor piercing round (M2 AP) which used a bullet of 165 to 168 grains, and, because it was more accurate, began to be used as the standard round for all purposes.
• "Plan For The Worst- Preparing for Abduction and Restraint"--Active Response Training. Ellifritz notes that "[i]f you believe you are going to be restrained, it’s time to act.  People who get tied up or zip tied lose just about every conceivable option.  Those who get restrained don’t fare very well afterwards." But if you get tied up, you should have a knife you can reach with either hand to cut yourself loose. The most common material for tying someone up, he relates, is duck-tape, although zip ties are becoming more popular. You can break standard zip ties, but the ones specifically designed for police use will need to be cut.
• "Why Root Causes Matter"--Liberal Gun Club. A good article debunking several of the primary talking points used by anti-gunners, but explaining that firearms are not the root causes of the problems anti-gunners purportedly want to solve.
• "Controlled Round Feed Rifles vs Push Feed Rifles"--Shooting Times. Most military bolt-action rifles and designs based on them (e.g. the Mauser design) used a controlled round feed (CRF) system where the bolt positively grips and holds the rounds throughout the feeding cycle. Thus you could, if necessary, work the bolt and loads rounds with the rifle canted onto its side or even upside-down. Push feed rifles do not do this, but merely push the cartridge into the chamber. But they are easier (read: less expensive) to make, and are found on most bolt action hunting rifles. Anyway, this is an interesting article for those who want to know the differences between the two systems.
• "Hunters: The time to check your gear is NOW"--The Firearm Blog. The author relates:

If there was a major theme I saw while gunsmithing and working behind the counter in a local gun store, it was that every year the day after opening day of any hunting season, we would be hit with an influx of crestfallen and stressed customers.  Their woes ranged from lost tags to loose scopes or broken firearms.  The items they sought were often magazines for rifles (they’d lost their only one), scope covers, slings, and the most frustrating item of all: a box of ammo that they’d zeroed their rifle for but run out of.  Some even forgot to purchase a license or tag before the season started.  Many of these hunters discovered these SNAFUS only when they put on their blaze orange and started to head out the door.  Worse yet, some had things go wrong in the field.

He also gives a list of things to check before you hit the forests and fields.

• Chicken!

• "Intro to Raising Chickens"--Survival Magazine. 

• "Choosing the Right Chickens"--Survival Magazine. 

• "Chickens: The most valuable animal on the homestead"--Backwoods Home Magazine.

"Linux Mint 19 For Windows Users"--Explaining Computers (22 min.)

I haven't messed around with Linux for several years now. This version appears to be very easy to set up and operate for even those without a technical background in computers, and offers heightened security over what you find in Windows--at least as to what information is shared with the developer. I couldn't tell if this was a straight up version of Linux from the Ubuntu developers or not. I noticed when the author was loading his system, many of the files incorporated Ubuntu into the name, but I think this is just a different GUI set up over the Ubuntu flavor of Linux.

• "SOURCES: CHINA HACKED HILLARY CLINTON’S PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER"--The Daily Caller. Per the article, "The Chinese firm obtained Clinton’s emails in real time as she sent and received communications and documents through her personal server, according to the sources, who said the hacking was conducted as part of an intelligence operation." So, does this have anything to do with how the Chinese were able to roll up America's espionage network? And did Clinton choose to use a private server for the express purpose of making it easy for foreign governments to access the information? 
• South Africa is taking steps to make sure that the Afrikaners can't oppose the confiscation of land: "South Africa Calls for 300,000 Gun Owners to Turn Over Their Weapons"--Gunpowder Magazine (h/t Instapundit).
• "There’s no risk-free amount of alcohol, population-level study finds"--Ars Technica. In other words, this is not a personal assessment, but statistical: "For the study, hundreds of researchers collaborated to lump together 3,992 estimates for relative risks of alcohol drinking. That is to say, they combined estimates of how drinking increases a person’s risk of a particular potential harm—such as being injured in a drunken accident or developing throat cancer—relative to someone who does not drink or drinks less." 
• They're lying to you: "The School Shootings That Weren't"--NPR. The author of this piece has uncovered another bit of government sponsored propaganda:

       This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, "nearly 240 schools ... reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting." The number is far higher than most other estimates.

       But NPR reached out to every one of those schools repeatedly over the course of three months and found that more than two-thirds of these reported incidents never happened. Child Trends, a nonpartisan nonprofit research organization, assisted NPR in analyzing data from the government's Civil Rights Data Collection.

      We were able to confirm just 11 reported incidents, either directly with schools or through media reports.

      In 161 cases, schools or districts attested that no incident took place or couldn't confirm one. In at least four cases, we found, something did happen, but it didn't meet the government's parameters for a shooting. About a quarter of schools didn't respond to our inquiries.

The Dept. of Education statistic was not a mathematical error, but suggests active misfeasance.

•  "Brazil sends troops to Venezuela border as President warns thousands fleeing the socialist state's economic collapse 'threaten the whole continent'"--Daily Mail. From the article:

      Brazil is sending armed forces to keep order at the Venezuelan border as thousands continue to flee the South American country amid economic collapse and food shortages.   

      Brazil's President Michel Temer blamed socialist President Nicolas Maduro for the migration crisis, calling it a 'threat to the whole South American continent'.

      Temer has today signed a decree to deploy troops to the border state of Roraima, saying their aim is to keeping order and ensuring the safety of immigrants.

If Hillary had won, they would all be coming here. And voting for someone like Chavez or Maduro.

• "Did Germany Win The 100-Year War?"--Victor Davis Hansen at the Hoover Institution. How we demark the beginning and end of wars if very subjective. For instance, smaller wars often are part of larger and longer conflicts, which is why we refer to the 30-Years War or the Hundred Years War. It is also not clear cut when wars end. Although WWII's ending is generally associated with the formal surrender of German and Japan, respectively, certain portions of the conflict continued into the 1950s. Arguments have been made, including by such as Winston Churchill, that World War I and World War II were actually a single conflict with a space to allow the combatants to recover their strength. Hansen goes further and suggests that "the birth of a united German state in 1871 was a century-long checkered project, aimed at consolidating German power and eventually adjudicating Europe from Berlin," and, therefore, "a subsequent 100 Years War started around 1914 and wound down after 2018—and that all the horrific ups and downs in between were detours to victory." 
• Keep Hansen's general argument in mind as your consider this piece: "Chicago 1968: The Night the Democratic Party Died"--National Review. The riots occurred on August 28, 1968. The author has this to say:

       ... This was America’s privileged white youth attacking the police and shouting “f*** the pigs,” and even threatening to put LSD in the Chicago water supply. But in the glare of TV camera lights as liberals watched their youngsters being beaten by working-class cops, a new media paradigm was born. Left-wing rioters, black or white, urban poor or Harvard grads, became “protesters”; their violence would be downplayed or ignored while underscoring the justice of their cause. At the same time, the police now became the villains of any confrontation, to be portrayed as having a tendency to overact violently to challenges to their authority — and to the oppressive system they defend. A direct ideological line runs from that night to Black Lives Matter a half century later.

        More immediate was the damage the riots, and their negative coverage, did to the Democrats. They destroyed Humphrey’s chances in the 1968 election, and Richard Nixon won instead. But the damage ran deeper. Humphrey would be the last Democratic presidential nominee to represent the values of Truman and JFK: compassionate big government at home, and resolute anti-Communism abroad. Instead, a new Democratic party was born, one that increasingly reflected the radical views of the Chicago protesters: that America, not Communism, was the real force for evil that needed to be contained and transformed. That Democratic party would nominate George McGovern in its 1972 convention and become a party obsessed with social justice, identity politics, and America’s past sins — essentially the party it is today. Meanwhile mainstream Democratic voters began their flight to the Republican party, “Reagan Democrats” who would enable the GOP to win four of the next five presidential elections and who later became the foot soldiers of the Trump insurgency.

       In the end, the main ideological battle lines of American politics were drawn that night, and the shadow of Grant Park still hangs over all of us 50 years later.

It could be argued that the Second Civil War began that August. Although the Frankfort School had already begun its long march through the institutions, and we had certainly seen race riots begin earlier, August 1968 ushered in nearly a decade of extremists bombings and other terrorism. "The 1970s underground wasn’t small. It was hundreds of people becoming urban guerrillas. Bombing buildings: the Pentagon, the Capitol, courthouses, restaurants, corporations. Robbing banks. Assassinating police. People really thought that revolution was imminent, and thought violence would bring it about." The last couple of decades may have seen that war transition to a cold civil war, but it was still there, being fought in the schools and universities, courts, executive boardrooms, and government agencies. But, for the first time, the Left is feeling real push back, which raises the question of whether this cold civil war might, again, go hot.

• Secret combinations: "New Report Exposes Global Warming ‘Law Enforcement for Rent’"--Lifezette. The author warns: "Deep-pocketed global warming activists have been pouring big bucks into attorneys general’s offices to pay for lawyers to advance their agenda and use the powers of the law to take actions they never could achieve alone, according to a new report." The article further relates:

       Environmental activists spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year in an attempt to discredit global warming “deniers,” according to the report. That eye-popping total emerges from a public records request by CEI that produced an email from an aide to California Gov. Jerry Brown last year to staff members of the governors of Washington and New York states.

        The email made a pitch for asking private donors to underwrite a $50 million annual campaign to set up an off-the-books network of “support functions” to promote the global warming policy of a handful of progressive governors.

       “Before you gasp,” the Brown aide wrote, “please note that foundations are currently spending over $1 billion a year on climate work.”

       A chunk of that $1 billion, according to the CEI report, goes to pass-through entities that allow donors to directly fund prosecutors assigned to specific work that attorneys general do not have the staff to perform.

• Another Red Pill Truth supported by science: "'Daddy's girls' are less likely to be lonely as they grow up – but their relationships with their mothers have no effect"--Daily Mail. The article explains: 

       Daughters who have a close relationship with their fathers are better able to cope with feelings of isolation when they reach primary-school age than little girls who do not have a close bond with their dads, a study found.

       Study author Professor Xin Feng, from Ohio State University, said: 'The bond between fathers and daughters is very important. We found that closeness between fathers and daughters tends to protect daughters and help them transition out of loneliness faster.'

      'Daddy's girls' are thought to be less at risk of loneliness due to them looking to their fathers for help and protection during challenging times, such as starting school.

August 28, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around The Web

"NO SILENCERS for Home Defense"--John Lovell (7-1/2 min.)

I generally try and provide links to videos presenting good advice, rather than bad advice, but in this case I decided to make an exception. Lovell's basic argument is one that you have heard before, but in a different form: "You should get a shotgun because racking the slide will scare off a burglar." Except, in this case, Lovell has formulated it as: "You shouldn't use a silencer because the extra 30 or 40 decibels when you shoot will scare off a burglar." And, according to Lovell, if you suffer permanent hearing damage as a result, it is a small price to pay.  

• It's Tuesday which means that there is a new Woodpile Report for your reading pleasure. In addition to the summaries and links to articles, Ol' Remus discusses what would happen in the event of a national disaster, including:

       Old vendettas will be settled, chains of revenge for revenge will begin. City utilities will fail, sewage and garbage and corpses will contribute to unchecked disease . An exposed light at night will be worth your life. Enclaves will attack enclaves no less destitute than themselves. The naturally homicidal, suddenly unconstrained, will prey singly and in groups. Some uniformed enforcers of defunct martial law will go rogue.

       Long time readers know survivalism is summed up in my Most Excellent and Inviolable Rule One: Stay away from crowds. There's nothing in this for the survivalist. Serial gunfights and derring-do are not the key to survival. The survivalist removes himself from this pointless maelstrom, ready to defend himself and others, but aware the hard work of preparation is not over. The long term is still ahead and there's plenty of room for things to get worse. And worse they will get.

• Have you ever gotten to the range and realized that you forgot to pack the ammunition for one of your firearms? "Make Ready Procedure"--The Firearm Blog. Short version: "The gear is an important facet, but ensuring everything is positioned, running properly, has batteries, is properly loaded or even that you remembered to bring it can be an issue. Following a proper Make Ready Procedure can help you avoid many potential problems." 
• "Traditional Double Action Autopistols for CCW Carry"--Active Response Training. Greg Ellifritz has noted a recent trend back toward DA/SA handguns for concealed carry, which he sees as a result of better triggers and the growing popularity of appendix carry. He notes that first pull of the trigger in double-action could be an issue, but generally not that important. 

The bigger training issue was managing the TDA [traditional double-action] auto’s decocking lever. Teaching a student when to decock while the pistol was still in hand was harder than teaching the double action trigger pull. Getting students to remember to decock before holstering while under a lot of stress was hard work.  When the stress levels increased, I had lots of cops trying to holster cocked TDA pistols.

• Speaking of DA/SA pistols: "Underrated Carry Wonder: Beretta PX4 Compact Carry"--SWAT Magazine.
• "PENETRATION TESTING AND USING A CAR AS COVER PART 1&2"--Loose Rounds. As would be expected, the trunk area of an auto was not very good cover from either pistol or rifle rounds; front doors were better (probably because of all the mechanisms in a door), but still not reliable at stopping rounds. Interestingly, 5.56 seemed to do better than 7.62x39 at penetrating the vehicle body.
• "What Happens After A Self-Defense Shooting?"--Alien Gear Holsters. The author suggests that:

       The first thing you should do in the wake of a defensive shooting is call 911, if you hadn't prior to that point. Alert the authorities to what happened and wait for them to arrive. When they'll arrive depends entirely on response times and availability, but usually will only take a few minutes. 

       There are some best practices when comes to speaking to dispatch. Most importantly, stick to the facts. The line is recorded, so anything you say to them can (and/or will) be used later. Only state that what has happened, your name and location.

Remember that the recording starts as soon as you dial 911, not when it is answered. So watch what you say to others while you wait for the 911 operator to pick up. The author goes on to discuss interaction with the police, questioning, points leading up to trial, and other aspects of the aftermath. Also remember that sticking to the facts includes not just affirmatively telling the truth, but also avoiding speculation. If you don't know something or are unsure, don't try to fill in the blanks.

• For the firearms history buff: "The Smith & Wesson Victory .38 – A Cop Gun Goes to War (#1 – Allied Small Arms WWII)"--Gun America Blog.
• Yesterday was the anniversary of the 1883 Krakatoa eruption/explosion. "Average summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere dropped by about 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit in the year that followed. It is said that temperatures did not return to normal until five years later."

"What Deer See and Other Whitetail Research Part 1"--Sportsman Channel (9-1/2 min.)

This is an introduction, and then begins discussing the field of view and night vision of deer.

"What Deer See and Other Whitetail Research Part 2"--Sportsman Channel (9-1/2 min.)

This continues by discussing what colors deer see, and their ability to discern movement.

• "Ebola: a clear and present danger, if it gets here"--Bayou Renaissance Man. Peter Grant quotes extensively from an article by Aesop about how unprepared the United States is for an Ebola outbreak happening here, noting how poorly handled were the few cases that showed up on our doors several years ago. As for Canada and Mexico:

      Canada has zero BL-IV beds, AFAIK. But hey, free health care! Just like in Ebola clinics in the African bush. Should work out great for them.

       Mexico has...wait, you're shitting me, right? Mexico has what you'd expect Mexico to have: a corrupt government, and an overabundance of expendable and illiterate peones. No points for guessing who'll handle clean-up there. Then take the disease home to papi y los niños, Tío Juan and Tía Julietta, y los viejos. Who will cheerfully and unknowingly spread it to all their friends, and pretty soon, you solved the immigration problem by erasing everyone from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, except maybe some lucky isolated Indians in the deep Amazon rainforest. ¡Viva!

Be sure to read the comments as well.

• And a couple more from Aesop:

• "And The Hits Just Keep On Coming"--Raconteur Report. The primary point from this article is that the Ebola outbreak is in a war torn area of the Congo controlled by Islamic rebels and the people have been beating and driving off health care workers that have tried to convince them to practice safer burial practices. He writes:

So, just like with the ignorant tribal jackholes in West African nations in 2014, this is going to take months to try and get a handle on, not days nor even weeks, by which time it will multiply by several orders of magnitude, like it does, to hundreds and thousands of cases, even with a vaccine, and cross one or two international borders, and so on, and so on, and so on. And it's already off to the races now.

He is predicting that we may well have to resort to military action to contain this one because of it being situated in a war zone.

• "Nothing (Good) To See Here"--Raconteur Report. In this post, Aesop notes that the death rate is being understated in the media. He explains:

       The death rate isn't the number dead now vs. the number infected now.

       Ebola isn't a lightning bolt.

       In 2014, Duncan, with first-world ICU care, took 10 days to die.

      He'd been sick several days before that.

      In Africa, a week, or two, or more between obvious infection, and death, is not uncommon.

       So if you're going to be honest, look at how many cases they had 21 days ago (that time span being the rough average of 5-42 days between contraction and appearance of Ebola) and how many dead people they have now.

       21 days ago, there were 76 cases. Today, there are 72 dead.

       That's a CFR of 95%.

• "South Africa withdraws white farmland redistribution bill six days after Trump warned he was closely studying the situation"--Daily Mail. 
• Wheels within wheels: "Las Vegas Shooter’s Girlfriend Reportedly Listed FBI As Place Of Employment"--The Captain's Journal. I know that the application doesn't prove anything--she could have written whatever she wanted--but the article indicates that the FBI is clamming up about this. Given all that we have learned over the past several years about surveillance by intelligence agencies, the gun running scandals, the attempts by senior FBI officials to remove Pres. Trump, and disturbing stories, such as this, linking the FBI to mass shootings and terror events, we should consider whether the FBI and other government agencies have gone rogue.
• "Bombshell: FEC Records Indicate Hillary Campaign Illegally Laundered $84 Million"--The Federalist. "Laundered" is not the right word. What happened is that she bypassed campaign finance laws limiting contributions by claiming contributions went to state parties when, in fact, they went directly to the Hillary Victory Fund (HVF). 
• "The Murder Of Mollie Tibbetts Is Reason To Loosen Immigration Laws, Not Restrict Them"--The Federalist. The cuckservative in this case is John Daniel Davidson who, apparently with a straight face, argues that Tibbetts, who was murdered by an illegal alien, wouldn't have been murdered if the perpetrator had been here legally, or something like that. By the same logic, door deadbolt locks cause burglaries because if we just let criminals come into our houses, it wouldn't be a crime.

• Related: "Illegal Alien Accused of Murdering Mollie Tibbetts Has an Anchor Baby"--Breitbart. How special. Also this: "The illegal alien lived in a region of Iowa that was surrounded by sanctuary cities." Note well that Davidson claimed that illegal immigration is a victim-less crime, but "[t]he illegal alien used a stolen or fake ID and fraudulent Social Security card to work in Iowa."

• "Burglary Tourism: Chilean Criminal Gangs Fly to UK to Raid Homes"--Breitbart (h/t Anonymous Conservative). The gangs fly into the UK where they are provided cars and burner phones, and a list of targets. The article mentions that they may be active in other countries, including Spain and the U.S. 
• Reparations: This article from The Anatomically Correct Banana points out that we (the United States) have spent $22 trillion in this country on various aid and welfare programs, and that $2 trillion have been provided to Africa over the last 50 years. All without anything to show for it. Imagine what that money could have done if invested in something useful or not even taxed or borrowed in the first place. If you are looking for an explanation why American infrastructure is crumbling, or why our manned space program regressed from its heights in the early 1970's, this is a good place to start.
• There will be war: "The Original Sin"--The Z Blog. Key point:

If all the problems of the world are due to white racism, and all other efforts failed, it is only logical and moral to get rid of white people, or at least make them sub-citizens. If the problems persist, then killing off the whites is not just the right thing to do, it is the only thing that can be done.

• Related: "Decline in the Fall (or Late Summer, Anyway): by Fred Gibbon"--Fred Reed. I think that Fred has finally come around to the fact that Mexican immigration may not be a net positive:

To begin with, America is no longer a country. It is a set of special interests occupying the same place: Corporations, races, ethnicities, faiths, ideologies, foreign agents pretending to be Americans, all at each other’s throats. No cure is possible.

And:

Americans no longer have a shared identity, a common culture to hold them together. In 1950 America was overwhelmingly white, European, and Christian. How deeply one believed was not the point. Christianity was a matrix binding all, as Catholicism is in Latin America. Today Christianity is like marijuana–tolerated, barely legal, but better not to get caught. Whites are reviled by those of lesser capacity and, weirdly, by themselves. What do we now have in common? Almost nothing. This will not change before some strange looming denouement befalls us.

• The swamp in action: "Michael Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis reveals HE was the anonymous source of CNN's Trump Tower story - and 'mistakenly' said the president had prior knowledge of the notorious meeting"--Daily Mail. 
• The peasants are revolting: "German far-right protesters clash with leftists after Chemnitz stabbing"--Reuters (h/t Anonymous Conservative). See also this article from the BBC. The basic story is that a German man was stabbed to death and two others were injured by two refugees, one Iraqi and the other Syrian. Rumors indicated that the stabbing may have been when the Germans attempted to stop the refugees from sexually harassing a woman. The result was a protest by 5,000 "far-right" Germans, which was opposed by 1,000 leftists and police.

Up On The Soap Box: The LDS Church's Position On Utah's Medical Marijuana Initiative

        I was disappointed to see the Church release a statement opposing the Utah Medical Marijuana initiative. Not so much because of the Church standing opposed to it--I expected that. No, it was because the statement was not a position statement from Church leaders, but a poorly reasoned legal memorandum from the KIRTON McCONKIE law firm in Salt Lake City. I'm offended not just by the poor legal writing exhibited in the memorandum, but because the use of the memorandum is supposed to present an aura of objectivity where none exists.

       The logic and reasoning in the memorandum is atrocious. For instance, the author of the memorandum complains that the initiative does not require a prescription, yet notes that the medical marijuana card would need to be requested by a doctor and is only good for 6 months ... which sounds pretty much like a prescription to me. Perhaps the real issue is that the marijuana will be sold by dispensaries rather than through corporate owned pharmacies. Other points are just silly, such as the argument that felons would be eligible for medical marijuana cards--as if doctors routinely withhold pain medications from felons. ("Sorry that your leg was crushed in an accident, but we can't give you anything for the pain because you are a felon. Here, have a stick to bite down on."). Or complaints that a doctor can give you a prescription after only a single visit--you know, like when you go into an emergency room or emergency care clinic with strep throat and the doctor gives you a prescription without making you come back two or three more times.

       I am also disappointed because this statement and memorandum is yet another piece of evidence that Church policy is being guided by lawyers and risk managers.

       It is also doctrinally unsound. While a prohibition on recreational use of marijuana could be supported by reference to extent scripture, there are no doctrinal grounds for opposing the use of medical marijuana. The Word of Wisdom (D&C 89) specifically states that "And again, verily I say unto you, all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man—Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving." (D&C 89:10-11). Some may object that marijuana is not an herb (i.e., a seasoning), but it is clear from the context that by "herb," the Lord is taking a more general use of the word to indicate herbage or herbaceous plants. This can be seen by reference to verse 8 which refers to tobacco as an herb even though it is not used to season food. And marijuana is an herbaceous plant.

       Finally, it should be noted that the Church leaders are not infallible when it comes to matters of law and public policy. For instance, the Church was a strong supporter of prohibition, which had such a corrosive effect on the Constitution and empowered organized crime, while doing virtually nothing to restrict access to alcoholic beverages. The Church has also lent its support to laws giving special employment and housing rights to homosexuals (by restricting the common citizen's right to not associate) and has been supportive of policies that encourage illegal immigration.

      In short, the Church seems to have wasted both Church funds and our time by obtaining this memorandum from a law firm and posting it for us to read.

August 27, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Bully Uses A Chokehold To Rob Victim"--Active Self Protection (5 min.)

This is an interesting video. Not because the victim was completely clueless as to his surroundings--we see that enough in these videos. No, it is because of the care taken by the mugger to not seriously injure the victim. Initially, the mugger uses a pistol to threaten to the victim, but when the victim resists, the mugger ditches the pistol and instead puts the victim in a choke hold and chokes him out. Do you know how to get out of a choke hold? Do you have a backup option, such as a knife or other weapon you could access?

• If you haven't seen this already, check out last week's Weekend Knowledge Dump from Greg Ellifritz. Lots of good articles, but one in particular that he links to has valuable information for anyone that carries a concealed handgun: what to do with your pistol when using a public restroom. I shared some ideas about this awhile back, but the author of the article cited by Ellifritz has a couple of ideas I hadn't considered. Check it out.
• While you are at Active Response Training, take a look at Ellifritz's article on "Using the .22 for Self Defense." In it, he explains why the .22 is not a very good choice for a self-defense handgun despite his research showing that it generally took fewer shots from a .22 to get an attacker to stop his or her attack. Part of the problem is that .22 will not reliably penetrate to vitals and doesn't make large enough holes to lead to extensive blood loss. As Ellifritz notes in his article: "I had a doctor in my class last weekend who told me about a patient he treated who had eight .22 bullets under his scalp and none had penetrated into his brain!  The patient was conscious, alert, and asking for a beer!"

        Let me note that with handguns, shot placement is of key importance because of the relative lack of power compared to rifle bullets (although even rifle shooters rely on shot placement for clean kills). To focus on shot placement to the exclusion of other attributes is a mistake, however. Penetration is important, and penetration is generally a function of momentum (yes, bullet shape, materials, etc., also affect penetration, but I'm just speaking generally). Momentum = mass * velocity. So, all other things being equal, a heavier bullet will penetrate further than a lightweight bullet; or a high velocity bullet will penetrate better than a slower moving bullet. The .22 has neither of these in its favor. So if you can handle more recoil or carry something larger than a .22, than do so. If a .22 is all you have, it can be made to work, but it is not optimal.

• Grrl Power: "Violence By Women"--MacYoung's Musings. Marc MacYoung makes some observations of women increasingly initiating physical violence. Some questions that he raises as to violence perpetrated by women:

        There are two important considerations here. One is we must ask ourselves how many women are using this ‘you can’t hit me back’ idea as a free pass to physically attack and verbally/ emotionally abuse men? In fact, we can ask if they are aggressing while relying on men not hitting. This especially in light of, if the woman loses at the physical, how often will she run to the authorities to get the man punished for hitting back? 

        Two is we must ask if this inherently unjust double standard is prompting men –especially young men– to just say, “Fuggit” and treat women just like they would another man? If you hit him, he’ll hit you right back, just as hard as he would another man. If that last is the case, it becomes a matter of ‘when?’ Will he hit you that hard after the first strike? Or will take multiple hits –and the pain they cause– before he either loses patience or realizes you’re trying to throw him a beating and defends himself? 

       Or are men ‘supposed to’ submit and just take the beating? This is where the rise in the numbers of women attacking strangers becomes an issue. In a domestic relationship, men typically put up with such violence. Often because it’s limited to one or two strikes (incidentally this includes when he thought he was ‘being funny’). It’s when unchecked anger goes into beating mode that men will typically hit back. Having said that, this forbearance does not mean women’s attacks are not legally prosecutable ‘assaults’ or that they do not cause pain to the man. (Incidentally I’m not talking about male abusers. They only make up a small percentage of ‘domestic violence’ as do female abusers. Mostly I’m talking about couples fighting. Which, contrary to the narrative makes up the supermajority of ‘domestic violence.’ But you don’t run national campaigns or get funding on the low numbers of actual abusers. 

One of the comments asked for some studies or statistics to back up MacYoung's observations, to which I replied, although the links are mostly concerned with domestic violence. Some additional resources:

• "Can Women be as Violent as Men?"--Psychology Today. Key point: "Women are more likely to pick fights with their husbands, they are quicker to escalate verbal aggression, and are as likely to use physical aggression as men."

• "Women are more violent, says study"--The Independent. 

• "Why Girls Are Getting More Violent"--ABC News. 

• "Are U.S. Girls Becoming More Violent?"--PRB. This article notes: "The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports note the female percentage of total juvenile assault arrests jumped from 21 percent to 32 percent between 1990 and 2003. And the U.S. female juvenile assault rate rose from about 200 for every 100,000 girls to 750 between 1980 and 2003." (Footnote omitted).

• "Extensive Research: Women Initiate Domestic Violence More than Men, Men Under-report It."--Ali Shahrestani. Summarizing some research.

The question is why the rise in statistics. One researcher, cited in the PRB article, contends that the increase is largely illusory, and only the result of more incidents being reported or prosecuted. But others refer to surveys that seem to indicate growing levels of violence. I suspect that MacYoung is correct: that women are becoming more public with their violence and abuse, including increasing violence toward strangers. 

• "Various Thoughts on Preparedness"--Total Survivalist Blog. Applying the law of diminishing marginal utility to prepping: 

       Lets say a person sees some risks and decides to get prepared. They get a couple weeks of shelf stable ready to eat (crackers, peanut butter, canned soup, poptarts, etc), a couple water jugs and a filter, a few boxes of batteries for their flashlights and some extra ammo for whatever guns they have. They take $1,000 cash out of savings and keep it at home. This person is now prepared for the vast majority, say 80% of events. 

      Say they take it a bit further, push the food to 2 months. Buy a military pattern rifle and a case of ammo. A generator for when the power goes out. Put a bit of money into silver. Get some bug out stuff together. Now they are ready for like 90% of events. Rough math says we are at a few thousand dollars here. 

      Getting ready for the other 10% of events is going to be a lot more expensive. It is also going to have significantly more impact on your normal life. The really funny part is that for the other 10% of events the preparations people are making are generally for the wrong thing. 

      When war/ pestilence, etc come to your area GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! You don't need to be buying pallets of surplus razor wire, you need to make sure that your passports are current. 

• "Lott: 7.14% of Americans Have Carry Licenses, Up 273% Since 2007"--The Truth About Guns.
• "ATF Data Undercuts Claim Gun-Controlled Cities Get Guns from Surrounding States"--Breitbart. The article reports that "the ATF was asked to trace the origin of 8,600 guns from [Baltimore] crime scenes last year. The federal agency was able 'to determine where nearly 5,900 of the firearms were sold,' and nearly half of those firearms were purchased in Maryland." The article also notes that "the firearms were bought an average of 12 years before the crime or reason for the trace." 

"Paris is a Sh*thole"--Paul Joseph Watson (13 min.) 

Parisians no longer have to travel to Africa to experience the smells, garbage, and human excrement of an African town. 

• Diversity is strength: "Nearly One in Three Crimes In Italy Committed By Foreigners"--Breitbart.
• Like most of you, I find the current crises striking the Catholic Church to be horrifying. However, it is important to remember that this crises is not just a pedophile scandal, but also involves abuse or rape of seminarians by homosexual priests. By sheltering practicing homosexuals within their ranks, without requiring or even expecting repentance, the Catholic leadership set the stage for the growth of a tumor resulting in all that is happening. Some articles for more reading:

• "It's a Gay Scandal Too"--Andrew Klavan at PJ Media. Klavan observes: "But — as with the open secret abuse scandal that lurks just beneath the surface in Hollywood — most of the victims in the church are not children but under-age adolescent males. That is not pedophilia. That is homosexual rape."

• And right on cue: "US priest speaks up for Church's gay 'parish pariahs'"--Daily Mail. From the article:

        Gay people in the Catholic Church are sometimes "treated like dirt", according to a priest invited by the Vatican to address a conference on families in Dublin on Thursday ahead of a visit by Pope Francis.

        US Jesuit priest James Martin preaches openness towards gay Roman Catholics -- in the face of some traditionalists who have tried to shut him down.

• "Vatican Bombshell: McCarrick Conspiracy Uncovered!"--American Conservative. Rod Dreher writes:

       Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who served at the papal nuncio (that is, Vatican ambassador) to the United States from 2011-2016, has dropped an atomic bomb on Francis’s papacy, charging that “corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy.”

       In a lengthy statement, Vigano says that Francis has known for years about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual abuse, but brought him into the pontifical inner circle anyway, and sent him around the world on papal missions.

       In fact, says Vigano, the Roman curia has known about McCarrick since the year 2000, but McCarrick was protected by gay supporters honeycombed throughout the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI ordered McCarrick out of public ministry in 2009 or 2010, but McCarrick, abetted by powerful gay allies in the Curia, defied Benedict.

• "Pope To US Church: You’re On Your Own"--American Conservative. Pope Francis signals that he has no intention of removing any bishops.
• "Why Don’t the Priests Blow the Whistle?"--Fr. Palka at Epiphany of Our Lord Catholic Church. He writes, in part:

 One question that was asked after last week’s homily was, “Why don’t ‘good’ priests and ‘good’ bishops blow the whistle on the abusive priests and bishops?” Many people still don’t (I believe most priests still don’t) understand just how evil the active homosexual or homosexual activist (AH/HA from here on out) priests and bishops are. Not understanding the extent of their depravity and wrongly thinking that they are simply “normal” men who just struggle with their sexual desires and sometimes might fail to remain chaste but are really, truly repentant when it happens and strive to “confess my sins, do penance and amend my life, amen”, they cannot possibly grasp the hellish depths to which the AH/HA clergy will go to persecute, lambaste, punish, humiliate and blackmail anyone who stands in their way or threatens their way of life. Let me be clear. The AH/HA priests and bishops treat their sexual mortal sin as if it is a “good” and a God-given good at that (if they even believe in God, something of which I am very doubtful, at least in the Catholic understanding of Who God is). Nay, more than “a” good, they are convinced that it is “the” good. They will go to any, repeat, any length to force others to engage in it, to accept it, or to, at the very least, ignore it and pretend that it doesn’t exist or that it is not harmful enough to mention or try to eradicate. They do not struggle with their disordered sexual desires as so many others do but rather revel in them. 

The author goes on to discuss how "the Lavender Mafia" gets its information to blackmail priests.

• Speaking of scandals and secret combinations: "Despite Comey Assurances, Vast Bulk of Weiner Laptop Emails Were Never Examined"--Real Clear Investigations. You'll see many familiar names in this cover-up by senior FBI and DoJ officials to protect Hillary Clinton: McCabe, Comey, Strzok, Page. And the end result was that hundreds of thousands of emails were never examined; no one questioned how Weiner's laptop came to contain classified materials. And:

       A final mystery remains: Where is the Weiner laptop today?

       The whistleblower agent in New York said that he was “instructed” by superiors to delete the image of the laptop hard drive he had copied onto his work station, and to “wipe” all of the Clinton-related emails clean from his computer.

       But he said he believes the FBI “retained" possession of the actual machine, and that the evidence on the device was preserved.

       The last reported whereabouts of the laptop was the Quantico lab. However, the unusually restrictive search warrant Strzok and his team drafted appeared to remand the laptop back into the custody of Abedin and Weiner upon the closing of the case.

       “If the government determines that the subject laptop is no longer necessary to retrieve and preserve the data on the device,” the document states on its final page, “the government will return the subject laptop."

       Wherever its location, somewhere out there is a treasure trove of evidence involving potentially serious federal crimes -- including espionage, foreign influence-peddling and obstruction of justice -- that has never been properly or fully examined by law enforcement authorities.

• "South Africa’s Julius Malema: Trump’s Right, We’re Coming for White Farmers"--Breitbart. From the article:

“Through land expropriation, we are forcing white people to share the land which was gained through a crime against the humanity of black and African people,” Malema said in a press conference, referring to the racist land policies of colonialism and apartheid.

Of course, Malema wants to seize the land for the benefit of the Bantu majority, and has no intention of turning it over to people that inhabited the land when the first Afrikaners arrived: the Khoi-Khoi and San. 

• Related: "The 4 black lies about land in South Africa. Bantu (black Africans) DO NOT have default right to land."--SA-News. 

• Related: "How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa"--Ars Technica. From the article:

There are over a billion people in Africa, and nearly a quarter of them speak languages from the Bantu family. Bantu speakers occupy regions from the rainforests of central Africa to the savannah of East Africa and dry climates of the south. And they occupied all of that territory in less than 4,000 years despite the fact that Africa had been teeming with humans for tens of thousands of years.

• "Archaeologists explore a rural field in Kansas, and a lost city emerges"--Los Angeles Times. The ruins were found in Arkansas City, Kansas. From the article:

       Using freshly translated documents written by the Spanish conquistadors more than 400 years ago and an array of high-tech equipment, Blakeslee located what he believes to be the lost city of Etzanoa, home to perhaps 20,000 people between 1450 and 1700.

       They lived in thatched, beehive-shaped houses that ran for at least five miles along the bluffs and banks of the Walnut and Arkansas rivers. Blakeslee says the site is the second-largest ancient settlement in the country after Cahokia in Illinois.

• "Excavation Of Ancient Chinese City Reveals Pyramid And Human Sacrifices That Could Rewrite History"--IFL Science. The article reports:

       Once mistaken for the Great Wall of China, archeologists have unearthed an ancient city complete with a 70-meter (230-foot) pyramid, decapitated heads, and a bounty of precious gems.

       The 4,300-year-old stone city is now named Shimao, although its ancient name is unknown. At 400 hectares, the city was not only the largest walled settlement of its time, it was also among the largest urban settlement in the world – and its discovery challenges commonly held beliefs about how Chinese civilization emerged.

      Shimao is found in a region often been described in Chinese histories as a home to "barbarians". While little is known about the ancient city, its grandeur and intricacy suggest it was once politically and economically important in the region. The buildings were quarried from nearby sandstone whose extraction, transportation, and use were labor-intensive and sophisticated.

      Take the pyramid palace built in the center of the town, for starters. Built around 2300 BC, the 11-story structure was reinforced with stone buttresses and defensive walls. Found in the walls of the pyramid and in nearly every stone structure are jade insets, tools, and other decorations.

      Walk outside and you’ll find yourself in a large, open plaza that was probably used for ritual or political purposes. The pyramid is visible from everywhere within the settlement, from the smaller homes to the storage and garbage deposits. The palace likely served as a symbol of power for the city’s elites, as well as a space for artisanal or industrial craft production.