November 12, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"HOW TO—Prepare for Hard Times with Food Storage" (3 min.)

A personal story of how food storage helped out after a job loss.

• Two more fires have broken out in Southern California. And a couple looters dressed as Forest Service workers were arrested. 
• Starline Brass is offering a free to download guide to the 6.5 Creedmore, including history, ballistics, reloading information, use in hunting, etc. 
• An overview of IDPA rules regarding optics and lasers from Shooting Illustrated. Two primary points. First, these are for a new (provisional) division which may not be available with all clubs. Two, the optic must mount directly to the slide via a cutout, not via something that fits into the dovetail for the rear sight.
• "Fortifying Suburbs And Communities After SHTF"--Urban Survival Site. The author discusses various ways to add walls to a neighborhood or town, such as overturning cars and linking them together with cables, using timber, or using earth or sand filled bags. This is more of a brain storming article, because there a lot of issues that go into building fortifications, including evaluating your possible threats. The reason we no longer see keeps or walls is because firearms and explosives have made them largely irrelevant. The first to go where the high walls; development in firearms led to firearms that could quickly batter down high walls. Thus, in the 18th and 19th Century, forts were built using low walls that were either very thick themselves, or backed by earthen ramparts. Explosives forced the fortresses ever deeper into the ground, such as we see with the Maginot Line built by the French prior to World War II, and modern underground shelters. If you are only facing small arms fire, you don't need a deep, hardened concrete shelter, or the trenches and sand-bag emplacements of the last major wars. But you do need something that will actually provide cover against small-arms ammunition. You also need a cleared zone to allow a clear line of fire on enemies that might try to overrun your walls or use incendiary type weapons. Barbed wire and stakes can be used to create obstacles to hinder easy access. Concrete "Jersey" barriers used for highways make great walls and barriers and can stop most vehicles and small arms fire. 
• "ASP Agent Concealable Baton: The Name Says it All"--The Loadout Room. An article on the usefulness of ASP's smallest collapsible batons--the Agent series--which have a collapsed length ranging from about 6 inches to 9 inches depending on the exact model, and include a pocket clip. 
• Peter Grant, over at Bayou Renaissance Man, has had a police acquaintance warning of an increased number of crazed druggies using synthetic marijuana (aka "spice"). Much like reports of PCP back in the 1980s and 90s, people high on spice can be difficult to stop with handguns or less lethal weapons. His officer friend is recommending that people carrying small concealed  carry type pistols drop the medium caliber rounds (.380, 9 mm, .38 Special, and .357 Mag.) and go with larger caliber rounds (.44 Special or .45 ACP), or carry a full size pistol for the medium calibers.
• Don't stick your elbow out when punching: "Breaking The Punching Arm"--Schafer's Self-Defense Corner. 
• "M1 Garand: America’s Original Battle Rifle"--Gun Digest. A quick look at this iconic weapon.
• "6 Things That Can Happen During Martial Law: Your Survival Is All That Will Matter In That Time, And It Will Not Be An Easy Effort"--Next Preppers. Of the six things, one that we have increasingly seen in the wake of major disasters is the confiscation or restrictions on gun rights. Curfews are also common when there is a major disaster or social unrest. The author has suggested that we might see property (real or personal property) seized. Most states allow the confiscation of property in the face of an emergency, although the person must still be compensated for the taking. The difference in an emergency versus other takings by government is that in an emergency, the government can skip all the niceties of due process before seizing the property, with any hearings on the matter to be held later.

         The author also mentions possible arrests, but the primary point of this is that you may see habeas corpus suspended. Technically, this is refers to a writ that a court can issue requiring you to be brought before the court. More practically, it represents the right to have charges promptly be filed against you and to be brought before a judge.  In other words, if habeas corpus is suspended, you could be incarcerated and simply sit in jail without any judicial recourse.

• "Should Cops Carry Guns Off-Duty While Drinking Alcohol?" As you may have heard, the shooting in Thousand Oaks CA was at a bar where there were several off-duty police officers, raising the issue of why those officers were not armed. Greg Ellifritz can't answer that question, but he explores the issue of whether officers going to a bar should be armed. He also refers to his article from October 2017 discussing a couple methods of how to get weapons into a non-permissive environment. In the latter article, his focus was on getting weapons into places that had a rather basic and perfunctory security check: a simple pat-down and a magnetic wand. In the first situation, he simply made sure to conceal the weapons in his groin area where he knew a minimum wage security guard is not going to touch. In the second, he wore a large metal belt-buckle with the weapon tucked behind it, so that when he was wanded, he simply lifted his shirt to show the guard what the guard already suspected--a large belt-buckle--and was waved through.
• FerFal thinks that preppers would be better off with an AK variant rather than an AR variant. The primary reason he gives is that "[o]ne gun fouls and cooks a layer of carbon inside itself with every shot, the other does not." He also cites to a 2011 article from the Mad Ogre blog where the author recites all of his problems with the AR, although his reasoning against the AR is, primarily, that it has too fine of tolerances and, therefore, needs too much maintenance and cleaning. I too have had issues with other people's ARs in the past--some of the issues was with parts from different manufacturers that didn't like one another, and, in another case, was running 5.56 ammunition in a .223 gun (with the result that primers would pop out and fall into the trigger group). I also had some teething pains with an AR before I got the proper weight buffer figured out. But I also had teething problems with a new AK because of the cheap Russian steel cases sticking to the chamber of a new barrel, and had another AK that stopped working because the stock screws had loosened and the resultant play was enough to mess up the cycling. So the AK is not infallible.

         Looking through the comments by the Mad Ogre, I suspect the problem he had was not that the weapon was not sufficiently clean, but that it was not sufficiently lubed. ARs must be well-lubed to run reliably, even, contrary to conventional wisdom, when using them in dry, dusty environments. The M1 Garand was issued with a small grease pot and special oil applicator to keep it lubricated, and anyone carrying an AR might want to consider carrying similar items suitable to the AR.

"FG42 vs M1 Garand: 2-Gun Action Match"--Forgotten Weapons (13 min.)

The detachable box magazine and larger magazine capacity gave the FG42 a decided advantage over the M1 Garand.

•  61% of Democrats say Republicans are racists, bigots or sexists. Let that sink in. Nazis Liberals really believe that Jews conservatives are intolerable and evil. 
• "UN Member States: Migration Is a Human Right"--Gatestone Institute. UN member states are expected to approve the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in a meeting in December in Morocco. The Compact declares that migration is a human right. And guess which countries pushed the agreement? Sweden and ... wait for it ... Mexico. Meanwhile, Mexico has redirected the migrant caravan to cross at the border between Tijuana and California, although it lengthen's the trip the caravan must make by 1,000 miles. The change is believed to be so that Mexico doesn't suffer the embarrassment of having the caravan members kidnapped for ransom or executed by drug cartels for not paying up. Also, Mexico rightly believes California will offer better welfare benefits to caravan members. And Mexico definitely doesn't want the caravan to stop in Mexico. In a bit of cultural enrichment even before they reach the border, however, The Daily Mail reports that "76 members of the LGBT community break away and arrive to Tijuana on private buses ahead of everyone else, after claiming they were being discriminated against and denied food and water by fellow migrants." You can't make this stuff up.
• The universe is sending us a message. National Geographic reports that a bubbling pool of mud is on the move across California, and no one knows why. 
• "‘It’s OK to Be White’ posters are back … and again campus officials, students go nuts." But absolute crickets when it comes to posters at U.C. Davis telling whites to get out of America and go back to Europe. Well, actually not too surprising, since research has shown that if whites are reminded that they are being replaced they get worried about it, and liberals definitely don't want that (whites getting worried, that is). 
• "Home intruder bleeds to death after cutting himself on broken window"--NY Post. Because the dead man was Hispanic, he wasn't a "burglar," but a "home intruder."
• And the opposite of nationalism is .... This past weekend, France's president called for a real European army to protect Europe from the United States. Today, France's finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, called for the creation of a European Empire. 
• Pleeeaaase give us money! "Ebola outbreak Congo: ‘WORST in Congo’s history’ 319 cases - 198 dead as disease SPREADS"--The Express.
• One of the reasons I don't like slasher movies is because no matter what is done to it, the psycho killer never dies, but keeps coming back. 
• Speaking of movies, I decided to watch A Bridge Too Far this past weekend, which I had not watched since I was a kid. I rather wish I hadn't bothered. For those that aren't familiar with it, it was a movie about Operation Market Garden during World War II. Although considered a classic today, and featuring many of the top stars of the day, it wasn't well received at the time. Made in 1977, and like many of its contemporary war movies, it is not really about history or heroism, but instead is about duplicitous and vain-glory upper command (in this case, General Montgomery and his immediate underlings) and the utter futility of war. But it was too heavy handed in the treatment of the material which made it rather ridiculous and melodramatic.  The worst was a scene showing British wounded huddling in the basement of a house that is being used as the headquarters of one of the British units. Suddenly, out of nowhere--literally nowhere--there is the sound of a machine gun and one of the wounded men is riddled by bullets and dies. No one around the man reacts. I burst out laughing.