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Monday, April 1, 2019

April 1, 2019 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Sticky Holsters/Remora: Just Say NO"--Active Self Protection Extra (14 min.)
In this video, John Correia rips on the pocket holsters from Sticky Holsters and Remora. He notes that the three basics for a decent holster is that it must cover the trigger, it must securely hold the firearm, and it must allow access to the firearm. I can't tell from the video if Correia is only meaning the specific holsters he mentions, or all pocket holsters. I've used the De Santis Nemesis holsters for several guns, and have liked them. They completely cover the trigger, and both the material and the design of the holster work fairly well at keeping the holster in your pocket when you draw. Of course, if all you consider is the holster by itself, pocket holsters don't meet the requirements that Correia mentions; after all, you could turn the holster upside down, and the firearm would simply fall out. But a pocket holster is not really the whole of the "holster": the pocket itself is part of the "holster". Some styles of cuts of the pocket on pair of slacks or jacket, or a shallow pocket, might not adequately secure the firearm. But even with physical activity, I have generally found that the De Santis holsters work (although the holster and gun can bounce around quite a bit in a loose pair of trousers if you are running). 

             U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez said the rule violates the Second Amendment and infringes upon citizens’ rights to defend themselves.
              “California’s law prohibiting acquisition and possession of magazines able to hold any more than 10 rounds places a severe restriction on the core right of self-defense of the home such that it amounts to a destruction of the right and is unconstitutional under any level of scrutiny,” he wrote in an 86-page decision.
               “California’s ban is far-reaching, absolute, and permanent. The ban on acquisition and possession on magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds, together with the substantial criminal penalties threatening a law-abiding, responsible, citizen who desires such magazines to protect hearth and home, imposes a burden on the constitutional right that this Court judges as severe,” he wrote.
                 Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee who serves on the bench for the Southern District of California, also wrote that California’s ban unfairly impacts a wide swath of the state’s gun owners, as many choose to use magazines containing over 10 rounds for their defense.
                   “The magazine ban arbitrarily selects 10 rounds as the magazine capacity over which possession is unlawful. … The ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American citizens for the lawful purpose of self-defense,” he ruled.
                     In Boston from 2010 to 2015, there were 221 gun homicides.
                      Research suggests that one change could have lowered that number by 40 percent: smaller bullets.
                Per the TTAG author, "The Times concludes, based on the JAMA study, that if all of Boston’s criminals used firearms chambered in .45 ACP, there’d be a 43% increase in homicides." The NYT also suggests that we would have been better off if people had stuck to the cheap--and small caliber--"Saturday Night Specials." 
                • But, if you like big calibers: "The Rossi R92 In .44 Magnum"--Business and Bullets. The Rossi R92 is, as you may have guessed from its designation, based on the Winchester 1892 lever action rifle. Unfortunately, from the author's perspective, Winchester does not produce the 1892 in .44 Magnum; but Rossi does, and for significantly less money than the Winchester rifle. The author likes the rifle, but does note that he had to clean up the action a bit. He also explains in detail why he prefers the light lever action carbine to an AR or AK style rifle, a lot of which has to do with the lighter weight of the Rossi and the fact that he doesn't have to mess with spare magazines. I also have a Rossi in .44 Magnum, and have liked it. The action on my was smooth, so I didn't work on it. However, I did have issues with cases sticking when shooting my admittedly "hot" hand loads, which I solved by polishing the chamber. I also replaced the plastic magazine tube follower with a stainless steel one from Steve's Gunz. 
                • "PREPARING FOR A WORST CASE SCENARIO: THE 10-WEEK PLAN" (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)--American Partisan. 
                • Part 1 is the author's introduction to survival prepping, laying out a very rough outline of the areas of preps that you need (first aid/medical training, food storage, survival, and tactics & weapons), and discussing possible worst case scenarios.
                • Part 2 starts to discuss prepping, including both skills you need and equipment. But first, the author discusses his belief that you are short on time, so you need to get started. Then he discusses the need to get into a physical training regimen, before moving onto acquiring your first weapon, and the one that he deems most important is the rifle. His recommendation is a mil-surp bolt action like the K-98 Mauser, or an AR-15. 
                • Part 3 begins by discussing food preps, including a reminder that you will need at least 14 days of food with 1700 to 2000 calories per day (more if you are going to be doing a lot of work or movement on foot) for travel/bugging out purposes, and at least 6 months of food in your pantry. He then moves on to discuss storing and purifying water, as well as some basic first-aid/trauma kits.
                • Part 4 discusses transportation, maps, compasses versus GPS, and some other gear, before providing some concluding thoughts.
                Since this is just 4 articles, it is a pretty quick and dirty look at what basic preps. I don't agree with the author on everything. For instance, he recommends against GPS because in a national emergency, he believes that the government will reduce the accuracy to 100 meters. However, GPS used to be that for civilians and was still useful for people that were hiking or traveling off-road. I have also stated before why I agree with FerFal that your first gun purchase should be a handgun. But even if I don't agree with everything does not mean that it is a bad read--there are always ideas and tips you can pick up.
                         This widely held belief is based on the idea that, due to the stress of one’s life being in danger during a gunfight, it is best to utilize techniques based on gross motor movements because you will not have the dexterity or mental focus to perform tasks that require fine motor movements with your fingers.
                         While there is some merit to this methodology, the issue I have with it is, it ignores the fact that training and repetition do help give one the ability to accomplish tasks under stress.
                           This methodology of gross motor movements disregards how many shooting courses one may have attended, how much training one has, or how many repetitions of something one has done. When faced with danger, [it presumes that] one will automatically become a panic-stricken, window-licking idiot.
                              If that were truly the case, how have any Soldiers or law enforcement officers, aside from luck, survived their first gunfight? Another problem with the gross motor skill principle is it seems to be applied on a selective basis with no consistency. It applies for certain tasks requiring fine motor movements, but for other tasks requiring just as much fine motor movement, it does not.
                            He then questions why you have to rely on gross motor skills to release the slide by racking the slide because using fine motor skills to depress a slide release will get you killed, but no one has a problem with the fine motor skills used to pull the trigger or release the magazine. My understanding is that, historically, the fine versus gross motor skills primarily came up in shooting stances and reloads. Specifically, in the middle of the last century, the FBI and law enforcement generally had come up with a method of delivering fast, accurate shots from the hip, but it required multiple steps and near perfect alignment of the legs, hips, shoulders and arm--i.e., it was essentially impossible to perform under stress except for the expert. Thus, other stances 
                                  The author next discusses the power-stroke and slingshot methods of working the slide, before moving on the scanning left, right and rear. On the latter point, he remarks:
                                      I particularly loathe this next technique: After engaging a threat, one should then scan all around, looking left, right, and rear to ensure no more threats are present. The given reason is this helps one break out of the hyper focus one can have on a threat (commonly referred to as tunnel vision) and prepare one for the possibility of other threats coming from blind spots.
                                      But doing it all the time on the flat range, knowing nothing is there, it becomes more of a mind-numbing training scar than a practical technique. You can’t tell me shooters who scan after each drill or engagement or every couple of rounds do not get bored scanning for non-existent threats. This results in shooters not really looking and just going through the motions of scanning because it’s the “tactical” thing to do.
                                       What can make this worse, the shooter is actually training himself to look away from the threat automatically.
                                           I remember the pushback from some students (and most instructors) back in the day who wanted to know “What’s the benefit to my shooting to balance on one foot?  How does that pertain to a gunfight?”
                                            Okay, legit questions then, legit question now.
                                              As PM says here in a much more entertaining fashion, the purpose of his drill, and similar drills, is to develop and to exercise the ability to shoot decisively, i.e. quickly and accurately, while moving.  His point is that flat range training, especially amongst those who don’t have access to private ranges where you can easily run drills like this, doesn’t promote the use of the pistol while moving — and that every fight, gunfight or fist fight, involves movement.
                                                In the older video below, Super Dave Harrington demonstrates a moving while shooting exercise that many Error-Net types ridiculed — because they didn’t understand what they were seeing, and not just because they couldn’t spell proprioceptive to save their lives, guns or not.  SD is also demonstrating utilizing the pistol shooting skillset while moving.  SD, I believe, first came up with the analogy that a pistol gunfighter has to be like a football quarterback:  you have to access your weapon, get out, align it with a target that is also moving, and snap the shot at the exact second necessary for it to hit what you aim with.  All the time while ducking and bobbing and weaving to avoid getting clobbered by big sweaty dudes who crush humans for a living.
                                                 I like that analogy.
                                                    It’s like the difference between punching air, to punching a heavy bag, to punching a human who’s moving and punching you back.
                                                      So what these drills do is isolate the elements of knowing where you are in three-dimensional space (like a street) and how you are moving (direction, speed, stability), as well as training your TRANSITIONAL movements neurologically and physiologically (in your muscles, etc).
                                                  Read the whole thing (he has a square range drill for you to try), and check out the videos embedded in the article. Oh, and by the way, "proprioceptive" is an adjective meaning "relating to stimuli that are produced and perceived within an organism, especially those connected with the position and movement of the body." I had to look it up.
                                                           Firearm selection is a contentious topic online: each brand, action type, material, and caliber seems to have its disciples and prophets.  My recommendation for the shooter interested in personal protection (or, for that matter, competition), is that they should pick a gun.  ...  
                                                      ... When you’re at this point ..., focus all of your practice on that gun.  I’m not talking about the plinking you may do for fun, but rather the focused tasks you do at the range to measure and improve your shooting.
                                                              The generally cited virtues of carbon steel blades include ease of sharpening and ability to take a very keen edge. Actually, depending on its specific composition, carbon steel has better edge retention than might be expected, given how easy it is to sharpen. In addition, carbon steel is one of the toughest (i.e., most damage resistant) types of blade material.
                                                               Unfortunately, the biggest downfall of carbon steel is that it has little rust/corrosion resistance. Carbon steel blades have some desirable performance characteristics, but anyone who owns and uses them needs to be aware of a few simple things concerning how to care for them, in order to cope with their susceptibility to rusting.
                                                                 This article is an attempt to provide key tips on carbon steel blade care, focusing on preventing rust damage. The issue of patinas on carbon steel blades will also be addressed. Finally, an addendum is included with some thoughts on D2 steel, a special case among the steels that are the focus of this article.
                                                              He notes that "the key to preventing rust is to remove moisture from the blade as soon as possible, along with any residue from cleaning a game animal or fish, cutting live vegetation, or food preparation. Cleaning off such residue (hereafter simply 'gunk') is important, because it will hold moisture against the steel, plus the gunk itself may be corrosive." Also, "[i]f the knife is going into storage for awhile, a very light treatment of protectant is a good idea. My first choice is drugstore mineral oil, with a light vegetable oil (such as canola or olive oil) being a close second." Read the whole thing.
                                                              • "If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns!"

                                                                "Rifle Sling Storage Trick"--Warrior Poet Society (3-1/2 min.)

                                                                The chart above shows what happened when the Indo-Europeans show up [in Iberia]. Autosomal steppe ancestry goes from zero to ~40% [of the population on the X-chromosome], but on the Y-chromosome, it goes from zero to 100% over a few hundred years. 
                                                                • Evolution in action: "Many in Congo Do Not Believe Ebola Virus Is Real"--Voice of America. According to the article, "a recent study found that one out of four people questioned in eastern Congo last year do not believe the Ebola virus is real. Nearly half said they thought some people were making up the Ebola outbreak in order to gain money or power. Their beliefs are strengthened by the economic and political insecurity in the area."
                                                                • Not sure how this got past censors: "Schools lack a clear view of Asian and Pacific Islander discipline disparities, study finds"--Edsource. Although Asian students, overall, have less discipline issues than other groups, that generality does not hold up when you start digging down into sub-groups. The article reports:
                                                                        Students from Southeast Asian countries, like Vietnam and Cambodia, had suspension and expulsion rates that were 2 to 3 times higher than those from China, Japan and other East Asian countries, according to the study.
                                                                          The study also found that rates for Pacific Islander subgroups — which include students from Hawaii, Guam, Samoa and other Pacific islands — were significantly higher than any of the Asian subgroups. 
                                                                               That foreign spook-turned-international political provocateur was none other than Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous and utterly debunked Steele dossier that ignited a domestic firestorm after it was briefed to president-elect Trump in January 2016 and subsequently published in full by BuzzFeed. His Russian benefactor at the time was Oleg Deripaska. His co-conspirator at DOJ was Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie Ohr received more than $40,000 for her work for Fusion GPS, the Clinton campaign-sponsored opposition research firm that just so happened to be working on behalf of Prevezon, a company owned by Russian billionaire Denis Katsyv, during the 2016 campaign.
                                                                               The curious Clinton campaign collusion connections don’t end there. Somehow it gets worse. The Russian attorney for Prevezon, which later settled charges of laundering money and violating sanctions in exchange for $5.9 million in fines paid to the DOJ, was none other than Natalia Veselnitskaya, who arranged the Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner, a meeting that was alleged to be proof-positive that the Trump campaign had illegally colluded with the Russians during the 2016 campaign.
                                                                                 Unlike the fabulist musings of Steele, who by his own admission colluded with Kremlin officials as he prepared and disseminated his anti-Trump dossier, the Clinton-Russian connections are not the delusions of a deranged conspiracy theorist. They are documented and verified facts which for some reason escaped the attention of the scores of journalists and investigators who purported to root out any and all instances of foreign collusion during the 2016 election.
                                                                          • Related: "The Tables Turn in Russian Collusion Hunt"--Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness. He goes through the list of people closely tied to the collusion story and discusses how they committed perjury or engaged in other potentially illegal conduct. For instance:
                                                                                   Former CIA Director John Brennan has admitted to lying under oath to Congress on two occasions. He may well face further legal exposure. When he lost his security clearance, he repeatedly lied that Trump was guilty of collusion, however that non-crime is defined. And as the Mueller probe wound down, Brennan with pseudo-authority and trumped-up hints of phony access to secret intelligence sources deceitfully assured the nation that Trump within days would face indictment—perhaps along with his family members.
                                                                                    Brennan in 2016 also reached out to foreign intelligence services, primary British and Australian, to surveille and entrap Trump aides, as a way of circumventing rules preventing CIA monitoring of American citizens. And he may well have also reverse-targeted Americans, under the guise of monitoring foreign nationals, in order to build a case of so-called Trump collusion.
                                                                                     Finally, Brennan testified to Congress in May 2017 that he had not been earlier aware of the dossier or its contents before the election, although in August 2016 it is almost certain that he had briefed Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on it in a spirited effort to have Reid pressure the FBI to keep or expand its counterintelligence investigation of Trump during the critical final weeks of the election.
                                                                                • "Edmonton stabbings: Four people hurt in 'random attacks'"--BBC. Police have arrested two suspects, but supposedly don't have a motive. Neither of the suspects have been identified, but one was described as African, which is at least suggestive that this might bear some relation to the Religion of Peace.
                                                                                Forty-two million seekers of citizenship or asylum are watching to determine exactly when and how is the best time to make the move. This suggests that open borders could potentially attract 42 million Latin Americans. A full 5 million who are planning to move in the next 12 months say they are moving to the U.S.
                                                                                The article also warns that "[b]usiness interests will rally to block Trump’s threat to shutter the border until Mexico helps stop the mass migration, which is being aided by new bus lines which ferry migrants up to the U.S. border."
                                                                                  One election after the next, we have seen how much the results of the US presidential vote impact not just the 50 states, but the rest of the planet too. And if the future of foreign countries is shaped to a significant extent by what goes on on US Election Day, shouldn’t they get a say in who gets to lead the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years?
                                                                                  The reverse--such as allowing Americans the right to participate in French elections--is a non-starter for the author, unless France were to gain the same economic and military power as the United States.
                                                                                  • The collapse of complex societies: "The government is now a check-writing, wealth-redistribution machine that costs trillions"--USA Today. The author points out that "70 percent of everything the federal government will spend this year will amount to writing checks to benefit individuals. That's up from 28 percent in 1968 and 50 percent in 1991. At $3.2 trillion, these federal money transfers will equal the entire economies of Canada and Mexico combined." He goes on to explain:
                                                                                            This year, the government will collect a little more than $3.4 trillion in revenue. It will hand all but $200 billion of that back in the form of direct payments to individuals or for services on their behalf.
                                                                                             It will then borrow nearly $1 trillion to pay for everything else the government does — military, roads, parks, environmental protection, law enforcement, research, education.
                                                                                               This amounts to a vast, and largely unheralded, shift in the role of government — from one that focuses on things like national defense and basic services to one that functions as an enormous wealth transfer engine. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Who would object to the government shifting money from the wealthy to the less fortunate?
                                                                                               Except that's not what happens. What's remarkable, in fact, is how little of all this money goes to the poor and downtrodden.
                                                                                                  Just $102 billion of that $3.2 trillion will go to provide food and nutrition assistance money to the needy, and only $196 billion on other public assistance programs. Direct payments to help offset the cost of education, training and employment services will add up to only $77 billion. 
                                                                                                        Although opioid-related deaths are driven mainly by heroin and black-market fentanyl, you would not know that from most of the press coverage, which emphasizes pain medication prescribed to patients who become addicted, overdose, and die. This narrative is “fake news.”
                                                                                                         Just 30 percent of opioid-related deaths in 2017 involved commonly prescribed pain pills, and most of those cases also involved other drugs. People who die after taking these drugs typically did not become addicted in the course of medical treatment. They tend to be polydrug users with histories of substance abuse and psychological problems.
                                                                                                           Contrary to what you may have read or see on TV, addiction is rare among people who take opioids for pain. In a 2018 study of about 569,000 patients who received opioids after surgery, for example, just 1 percent of their medical records included diagnostic codes related to “opioid misuse.” According to federal survey data, “pain reliever use disorder” occurs in 2 percent of Americans who take prescription opioids each year, including non-medical users as well as bona fide patients.
                                                                                                            “The current battle against fentanyl as a street drug has little or nothing to do with American medical practice,” writes Harvard-trained anesthesiologist Richard Novak. “Most of the fentanyl found on the streets is not diverted from hospitals, but rather is sourced from China and Mexico.”
                                                                                                      Read the whole thing.
                                                                                                              The "exquisitely-preserved" fossils, some of which are of fish with hot glass in their gills, were found in North Dakota's Hell Creek Formation and are thought to have formed after an asteroid slammed into Mexico, causing flaming debris to rain onto the ground, according to a press release from the University of Kansas.
                                                                                                                The fossils offer the first-ever "detailed snapshot of the terrible moments right after the Chicxulub impact — the most cataclysmic event known to have befallen life on Earth," the release states.
                                                                                                          • More: A lot more! "The Day The Dinosaurs Died"--New Yorker. A much lengthier piece describing the debate over whether the meteor impact was what actually killed off the dinosaurs, and the specific discovery of the fossilized fish and what made the fossils so special.
                                                                                                          • A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "F-35: What The Pilots Say"--Air & Space. A lot of discussion of the stealth capabilities, the electronic sensors, and the avionics ... especially the avionics. For example, one pilot reported:
                                                                                                            Lots of people want me to make the comparison between the Harrier and the F-35, but it is chalk and cheese. Whereas I don’t want fleet pilots to be thinking about how the F-35 is flying or responding, I’ll tell you that was pretty much all I was doing in the Harrier. I equate it to a unicycle. You have to continuously pedal; keep moving something, whether it’s your left hand, your right hand, your feet. F-35, you just sit there and go hands free and it will stay exactly where you’ve put it. Flying an F-35 to an aircraft carrier is an absolute pleasure, as opposed to a Harrier, which frankly can be borderline terrifying.
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