September 11, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Pistol fighting off your back"--Tactical Rifleman (3 min.)

How to get back up during a gun fight if you fall or are knocked on your butt.

• "The Best .38 Special Defensive Ammunition"--Active Response Training. Ellifritz begins by explaining why .357 Magnum is not really the best option out of a snub-nosed revolver--mostly because the increased velocity is minimal, but the increased blast and recoil is not. He then discusses different types of ammunition and their performance (and since expansion is iffy from a snub-nosed revolver, he suggests that you may want to look at mild recoiling wad-cutters). However, contrary to a lot of what you may see or hear, he notes that firing +P rounds from a modern aluminum framed revolver will NOT stretch the frame:

There is some concern about “+P” rounds hastening the wear in older aluminum framed revolvers.  It’s possible, but not likely.  The NYPD firearms training unit ran 5000 rounds through an airweight .38 Smith and Wesson revolver.  There was no measurable wear on the gun.  It did not blow up, shoot out of time, or have the frame stretched by firing the higher pressure rounds. 

• Speaking of snub-nosed revolvers: "Running the Snub – Recoil Management"--Tactical Professor. He decided to do a test, running some drills, to compare the snub against other firearms. He concluded:

The end result of this test seems to be that snubs are about 10% harder to shoot at typical Personal Protection distances than full sized revolvers or Striker Fired Autoloaders. In terms of being able to manage recoil, the choice of boot grip or full size stocks, given the same material, for the snub does not seem to make a significant difference. There may be a difference between smooth stocks and rubber, which bears testing at another time.

Although not tested by the author, my personal experience is that Ergo's Delta Grip makes a marked difference in recovery, and I would recommend them to anyone that carries a snubby.

• "CLASSIC PISTOLS - BERETTA 92"--Gabe Suarez. The advantages he lists include superb accuracy and that the slide design eliminates many of the more common malfunctions.
• "August NICS Background Checks Another New Record"--The Truth About Guns. Highest August numbers since the NICS was started in 1998.
• "X Marks the Spot – Search Codes That Matter to Preppers"--The Prepper Journal. We've all seen news video or photographs following a natural disaster showing houses with codes spray painted on doors or exterior walls by first responders. This article describes the different codes in common use and what they mean. A good read for all you preppers.

"Musha Jump Drive"--AsteronX (13 min.)

A look at another type of faster-than-light travel that might be possible under current physics.

• "Most Nutrition Research Is Bunk"--Reason.com. I saw a funny quote recently that was along this same vein. It was something like: "The less I eat like the food pyramid, the less I look like the food pyramid." Anyway, from the article:

Government nutrition advice based on decades of "research" by nutrition epidemiologists has now been shown to be mostly unwarranted scaremongering, writes Stanford University statistician John P.A. Ioannidis, who has been at the forefront of criticizing the misuse and abuse of statistics to justify the publication of shoddy and just plain wrong research in numerous disciplines.

• It's an invasion: "Assaults on ICE, Border Patrol surge as illegal immigrants get more violent"--Washington Times. The article reports:

       Assaults on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents reached a decade high in 2017, and assaults on Border Patrol agents also have surged in recent years, according to government numbers that seem to support agents’ claims that immigrants living in the U.S. illegally increasingly are looking to fight rather than flee.

       The new numbers, reported by Homeland Security’s inspector general, could even be underselling the problem, investigators said, because the government doesn’t do a good job of tracking incidents, and agents and officers don’t always report them properly.

We need something more like the trenches on the Western Front during WWI.

• Immigration has consequences, including disenfranchisement: "Exclusive – Mo Brooks: Likely 15M Illegal Aliens in U.S., Giving Blue States 20 Additional Congressional Seats"--Breitbart. Money quote: "We’re probably in the neighborhood of about 15 million illegal aliens in America now. 15 million comes out to roughly 20 congressional seats and 20 electoral college votes." This is why Democrats fight so hard to have the Census include illegals.
• You may have already seen this odd story: "Sunspot Observatory closed due to security issue"--Alamogordo Daily News. Staff were evacuated from the National Sunspot Observatory for undisclosed reasons, and the FBI is not saying why. "'But for the FBI to get involved that quick and be so secretive about it, there was a lot of stuff going on up there,' [Sheriff] House said. 'There was a Blackhawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything.'"

• Related: "Closure of National Solar Observatory remains shrouded in secrecy"--KVIA News. Among other things, this story also reports that a post office nearby was also evacuated and closed until further notice. 

Sounds like somebody sent something nasty through the mail to the observatory.

• "Investigators Remain Tight-Lipped Over Santa Monica Mountains Homicides"--Malibu Times. A string of homicides and shootings have people wondering if there is a serial killer. 
• Diversity is strength: "31 people charged with sexual abuse of five girls in the Huddersfield area"--The Huddersfield Examiner. All 31 suspects have Muslim names.
• "Study: Divorce May Be Contagious"--CBS Philly. "Researchers found that a person is 75 percent more likely to become divorced if a friend has divorced. And that’s not all. If a friend of a friend is divorced, a person’s odds of getting a divorce increases 33 percent."
• "How To Hide Your House From Google Maps"--Mike's Gear Reviews. The procedures for getting Google to blur out your house on street view.
• "China outlaws large underground Protestant church in Beijing"--Reuters. The reason, according to the article, is that the church "rejected requests from authorities to install closed-circuit television cameras in the building."