March 25, 2019--A Quick Run Around The Web

"witnessed a robbery today NO MORE SINGLE STACK CCW FOR ME"--Zadrian (11 min.)

I just came across this 2014 video. The video producer ("Zadrian") relates how he saw a robbery that involved 5 or 6 perps after the getaway driver showed up. The basic facts is that he and his girlfriend had just left a restaurant and gotten into their car when they saw a group of young black men approach the restaurant, go inside and apparently steal wallets or smart phones and fled. As they fled, they accosted another customer sitting at an outside table and tried to take her cell phone as well. Zadrian decided to follow the perps (who were on foot at this point) with his car, while calling 911. He finally drove past them to allay suspicion and watched them duck behind a dumpster to hide. So he parked and turned off his lights to see what happened. Shortly thereafter, a vehicle pulled up, and the whole group drove off. Zadrian took this incident as a demonstration that he was undergunned with a single stack 9 mm, and determined that he was going to need to carry a Glock 19.

While I can't fault Zadrian for believing that he might need more rounds on hand, I think it is a mistake to base your defensive needs on a single incident. A data point of one does not provide you much information. Beyond that, however, if he believed that the perps were potentially dangerous, why did he follow them? It should be a basic rule of self-defense to not go chasing after a perp ... especially, as in this case, where no one was injured and Zadrian did not know if they were armed.

• "SURRENDERING YOUR BUMPSTOCK UNDER PROTEST ON MARCH 25, 2019 (IF NECESSARY) – BUMP-STOCK REDEMPTION DAY!"--Prince Law Offices.
• "Gaining the Defensive Advantage in a Home Invasion"--Sheriff Jim Wilson at Shooting Illustrated. Key point:

The smart move in [home invasion] incidents is not to go hunting through your house. Instead, you arm yourself, roll off the opposite side of the bed—using it for cover—and make them come to you. This also gives you time for you or your spouse to call 911 and get help on the way. It also gives you time to determine if this really is a home invasion or a situation similar to what I outlined in the beginning of this article. In short, while it’s not something that Rambo might do, it is a technique that gives you just about all of the advantages that are available to you. Just as we did in that force-on-force exercise, the chances of beating the bad guys goes way up in your favor.

Of course, none of this matters if you aren't alerted to someone breaking in. Lock your doors and windows. Get an alarm system or a yappy dog. Strengthen your doors and/or install security doors. 

• "AN INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY"--Tiger McKee at American Handgunner. He observes:

The best way to avoid trouble is to simply pay attention. Watch the people around you since 90 percent or more of our communication is non-verbal. Learn how to read body language to understand what people are “saying.” Large groups of people also have non-verbal ways of communicating. Reading individuals and groups isn’t as difficult as it sounds, and we’ll discuss this, more specifics and some great resources in the future.

• "Military presents plan to manufacture replica of 50-caliber Barrett"--Mexico News Daily. The Mexican military figures that they can make their own copies of the Barrett M82s for $3,700 a piece, or a 73% savings over purchasing the weapons from Barrett.
• "Book Review: Heavy Laden: Union Veterans, Psychological Illness, and Suicide"--Strategy Page.

        Veterans of the Civil War were perhaps the first to draw attention to the possible psychological consequences of combat. At the time, veterans with psychological problems, including criminality, alcoholism and addiction, violent behavior, and suicide were attributed to “nervous trouble”, “nostalgia”, “soldier’s heart”, and other vaguely defined conditions which are now known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

       In this work, the authors, respectively the Senior Fellow and the Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, devoted to the advancement of persons with disabilities, examine the effects of the war on a sampling of Union veterans, both black and white, with particular attention to the suicides now recognized as a frequent result of PTSD.

       Their results, bolstered by an impressive mass of statistics, indicate that veterans had a notably higher suicide rate than men in the same social cohorts who had not served. Moreover, men who had been injured in combat or who had undergone the ordeal of being prisoners of war were even more likely to commit suicide than veterans who had been wounded or imprisoned.

      While they uncovered these grim statistics, Logue and Blanck also found that veterans were more likely to be unmarried or have marital problems, more frequently suffered insanity commitments, and even were relatively less wealthy than non-veterans, though oddly African-American veterans appear to have been somewhat more prosperous than black non-veterans.

• "Ancient, Unknown Strain of Plague Found in 5,000-Year-Old Tomb in Sweden"--Live Science. An article from a few months back. The article reports:

         In a nearly 5,000-year-old tomb in Sweden, researchers have discovered the oldest-known strain of the notorious bacterium Yersinia pestis — the microbe responsible for humanity's perhaps most-feared contagion: the plague.

        The finding suggests that the germ may have devastated settlements across Europe at the end of the Stone Age in what may have been the first major pandemic of human history. It could also rewrite some of what we know of ancient European history.

• "Entertainment After SHTF"--Modern Survival Blog. The author points out that after a significant disaster, "[p]ersistent stress nibbles away at the mind, corroding reason and morale until a perfectly normal person is rendered a perfect basket-case, unpredictable and not much good to anyone. Games and other activities are excellent for both bonding and stress relief during rest times. The social value of all kinds of simple games should not be underestimated, as this little bit of fun and normalcy can go a long way toward maintaining group cohesion and morale." It will be a necessity for children or those that can't physically work at cleaning up or other physical tasks. The standard fall back is, of course, card games, board games, and various pen and paper games (e.g., hang-man or tic-tac-toe). While the author notes that board games can be a problem to use during a bug out, there are travel versions of games available that can be set up and played in the small space of a car. Also, if you can keep electronic devices charged, you can play some electronic games. Party games like charades can also be fun. Over the long term, physical sports will become popular, like baseball (other other forms of stick ball), soccer, football, etc. I also would throw in the favorite of my younger self--paper and pencil role playing games.
• "A History of Cane Self-Defense in America: 1798-1930"--Martial Arts New York. From the lede:

During the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, America could be a dangerous place, and knowledge of self-defense was often necessary for use in both urban and rural environments. To those ends, fencing masters and instructors often modified and applied fencing techniques to the cane or walking stick, creating their own systems of self-defense. This article proposes to look at various methods of cane defense, taught by fencing masters and instructors, that were specifically intended for practical use in self-defense encounters in the everyday world.

A long read, but interesting.

• Salon magazine proposed to start going after bolt-action rifles: "Assault rifles are insane: New Zealand came to its senses and banned them. When will we?"--Lucian K. Truscott IV at Salon Magazine (h/t The Truth About Guns). In the midst of his rant about "assault rifles," the author takes note of a certain bolt action rifle intended for long range shooting:

       ... The experts in “tactical” firearms at Tactical Life magazine are telling you that this Scorpio rifle, with its “AR-style pistol grip, an infinitely adjustable folding stock and an octagonal handguard with removable rails … chambered in .300 Norma Magnum … sport[ing] a match-grade 26-inch, AISI 416R barrel lapped for accuracy and capped with a large three-chamber muzzle brake” is “insane.” And according to them, it’s just the thing you want for “long range, soft target” shooting.

      Take a minute and look at all the military-speak gun-culture nomenclature babble they slap down: “match-grade” and “muzzle brake” and “infinitely adjustable folding stock” and all the rest of that crap. That’s the way they market guns like the “Scorpion,” and you know what it is? It’s insane.

      OK, their use of “insane” is a kind of gun-lover-hipster-speak, and the Scorpio isn’t a semiautomatic assault rifle.... But it’s the same style of weapon, with the same style aluminum stock and ventilated “rails” alongside its barrel, and it’s got capabilities far in excess of what would be necessary for  any sort of legitimate civilian usage. “Loaded up with the faster 230-grain Berger round, I got hits on a 3-by-3-inch steel target at 2,000 yards,” the reviewer boasted. That is 1.13 miles, folks. This guy claims he hit a target about the size of your forehead from over a mile away. 

        Who the hell needs to hit something, anything, from over a mile away? I’ll tell you who: an Army or Marine sniper, that’s who. They’re selling military-grade rifles to the general public. That’s what this sniper rifle is, and that’s what all the various iterations of the AR-15 style assault rifles are. Military-grade killing machines. ...

I'm sure it doesn't escape Truscott that the Second Amendment isn't about hunting. It is about defense, including defense against an oppressive or corrupt government. That is why Truscott hates it.

• Free download: "The Medical Implications of Nuclear War"--The National Academies Press. Please not that this is a 37 Mb pdf file.

"Why Johnny Can't Think"--Bill Whittle (7-1/2 min.)

• The mountain turned out to not even be a mole hill: "Mueller report: Collusion by the news media, not Donald Trump, but don't expect apologies"--Glenn Reynolds writing at USA Today. 

       After two years of hype, special counsel Robert Mueller has reported to Attorney General William Barr that there was no “collusion,” as Donald Trump would put it, between Trump or the Trump presidential campaign and the Russians regarding the 2016 election. 

      There will be no new indictments from Mueller beyond the few already issued, none of which charges a U.S. person with anything related to collusion. This is a big disappointment to the people in politics and the press who were openly hoping to see Trump, and his family, kicked out of the White House and thrown into jail.

• When you come at the king, you best not miss: "Trump team turns tables after Mueller report, calls for investigation into probe's origin"--Fox News. The article reports that:

        Trump himself slammed the probe as an “illegal takedown,” as he called Mueller’s report a “complete exoneration” and said it was a “shame” his presidency had to deal with the investigation for two years.

       “Hopefully somebody is going to look at the other side,” Trump said. “This was an illegal takedown that failed and hopefully somebody is going to be looking at the other side.”

• More: "Kimberley Strassel: Mueller's investigation is done. Now dig into the real scandal -- missteps of Comey, FBI"--Fox News. Discussing the investigation, Strassel writes: "None of this should ever have happened absent highly compelling evidence—from the start—of wrongdoing. Yet from what we know, the FBI operated on the basis of an overheard conversation of third-tier campaign aide George Papadopoulos, as well as a wild 'dossier' financed by the rival presidential campaign. Mr. Mueller’s no-collusion finding amounts to a judgment that there never was any evidence. The Papadopoulos claim was thin, the dossier a fabrication."

• Mexico is already seeing record murder rates this year: "At 4,826 in first two months, homicide numbers continue to break records"--Mexico News Daily. From the article:

         A total of 4,826 intentional homicide cases were reported in the two-month period, according to the National Public Security System (SNSP), an increase of 14% compared to January and February of last year when there were 4,234 cases.


       Compared to the first two months of earlier years of the previous government’s six-year term, the increase is even greater: the number of homicides in January and February of 2019 is almost 30% higher than the same period of 2017, 65% higher than 2016 and 89% above the 2015 figure.

Lest you think it is just murders, the article also reports that "kidnappings were up 80% to 270 cases and extortion rose by 58% to 1,414 cases." And there is this:

       The centerpiece of the government’s strategy to combat the high levels of crime is the creation of a national guard, which has now been approved by both houses of Congress and legislatures of all 32 states.


      The new security force is expected to be made up initially of around 80,000 members but Public Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo has said that he hopes its size will swell to 150,000 by the end of the year as a result of intense recruitment.

• Immigration is a subsidy for the rich: "White House Economic Staffers Suggest No Need for More Immigrant Workers"--Breitbart. From the article:

      Overall, in 2019, the U.S. government will allow at least two million new foreign workers into the United States to compete for the starter jobs sought by the latest wave of four million U.S. graduates. The new migrants also undermine the 24 million other Americans and the roughly three million legal immigrants who have joined the workforce since 2014.

      This federal policy of using legal and illegal migration to boost economic growth for investors shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors by flooding the market with cheap white-collar graduates and blue-collar foreign labor.

       This cheap labor economic policy forces Americans to compete even for low wage jobs, it widens wealth gaps, reduces high tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans... .

• "Our Founders’ Common Sense Understanding of Equality"--Real Clear Books. An excerpt:

      Early on in his review, Anton addresses the question of how we are to understand the claim in the Declaration of Independence that we are all equal. In what way are we equal? After all, we are certainly not equal in intelligence, strength, beauty, or virtue; we do not all have the same gifts and talents.

      The Declaration teaches that all men are created equal. But do we today understand equality as the Founders did? 

      In his book, West presents Harry Jaffa’s explanation of the Founders’ declaration that all men are created equal.  Anton puts the Jaffa/West account like this:

“The idea is elegantly simple: all men are by nature equally free and independent. Nature has not—as she has, for example, in the case of certain social insects—delineated some members of the human species as natural rulers and others as natural workers or slaves.”

This account will be familiar to any reader of Jaffa’s work. Because it was a favorite of Jaffa’s it shows up again and again in slightly different versions in his writings. Here is one: 

“The queen bee is marked out by nature for her function in the hive.  Human queens (or kings) are not so marked.  Their rule is conventional, not natural.  As we have seen Jefferson say, human beings are not born with saddles on their backs, and others booted and spurred to ride them.” 

Jaffa’s now iconic account of equality is true and important, and a tenet of my own civic faith. The claim can even be made that it has established a reasonably secure beachhead on the vast continent of America’s forgetting of the thinking of the American founders.

• Secret combinations: "Baltimore Bookgate Continues: Where Are All The Books?"--Hot Air. Mayor Catherine Pugh (D), supposedly “sold” 100,000 copies of her self-published children’s book, Healthy Holly, to the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS)  to be distributed to hospitals and schools in the city. Pugh was to receive $500,000 for the books. A tiny problem has cropped up: no one knows where the books are, or if they were even published. And there is this:

Bear with me here, because the details get even worse. First of all, 100,000 copies of a twenty page, self-published children’s book is a ridiculous number. As the Sun notes, the first run of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States was 50,000. (Yes, they printed many more later, but only after the demand was established.) The entire population of the city of Baltimore is just over 600,000 and census estimates show that less than 7% of them are in the target age group for a book like this. That means there are roughly 42,000 kids living in the region. The original order would have been enough for every child in that age bracket to have two copies of the same book.

• You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you: "Twelve French Churches Attacked, Vandalized in One Week"--Breitbart. From the article:

      A dozen Catholic churches have been desecrated across France over the period of one week in an egregious case of anti-Christian vandalism.

      The recent spate of church profanations has puzzled both police and ecclesiastical leaders, who have mostly remained silent as the violations have spread up and down France.

     Last Sunday, marauders set fire to the church of Saint-Sulpice — one of Paris’ largest and most important churches — shortly after the twelve-o’clock Mass.

The article adds that, on average, two Christian churches are profaned every day in France.

• A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "Unstoppable Stealth: Why F-22s, F-35 and New B-21 Bombers Should All Be Feared"--The National Interest. From the article:

        While there is broad agreement that these newer air defenses do make it harder for stealth platforms to remain fully undetected, there are a variety of reasons why actually destroying a stealth platform - and completing the entire “kill chain” - will remain extremely difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish, according to a former 3-Star Air Force weapons developer.

        “Bi-static radar can help detect low observable aircraft. However, to intercept a stealth aircraft requires transfer of detection from a large acquisition radar to a much smaller interceptor radar either on an aircraft or a missile that can track—or maintain continuous “lock-on” of the low observable aircraft. When you transfer track from an acquisition radar to a weapons interceptor necessary to engage at longer ranges than the stealth aircraft can detect and fire at the interceptor, that dramatically reduces the probability of the stealth aircraft being engaged. Detection is not what it is all about, you have an entire kill chain where every element must be successful to intercept and destroy a low-observable aircraft,” Ret. Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told Warrior Maven in an interview

        Deptula explained that moving beyond a ground-based radar with a very large aperture to a much smaller “engagement” radar presents substantial challenges for attackers.

       “Even if a radar can detect, it now has to track, and when it transfers that data to engage it will have to shoot a missile using much smaller radar than that used for detection. Also, fusing of the interceptor weapon can be affected by low observability technology,” Deptula said. “At every level, low observability decreases the probability of successful intercept.”