A Quick Run Around the Web (1/14/2020)

"Practical Drills for the Home Defense Shotgun"--Lucky Gunner Ammo (7 min.)

Article and transcript here.

• "Defensive Revolvers: Is it a Trend or Just a Fad?"--Shooting Illustrated. Sheriff Jim Wilson notes that there seems to be a growing interest in revolvers, marked by such disparate items as Kimber entering the revolver market and Colt returning to the revolver market, and his relating that "[a] custom holster maker recently told me that 70 percent of his orders are holsters for revolvers." He supposed that some of this renewed interest may be the passing of firearms from the boomers to younger generations, people having grown tired and jaded about polymer semi-auto pistols and wanting something new, and, he suggests, "[i]n my experience as an instructor, I have found that many people, especially novice shooters, find that the revolver is easy to shoot. It is, in fact, easy to shoot, but it is difficult to shoot well." 

      I, too, have noticed the trend toward more manufacturers of revolvers and more companies offering revolvers. Nevertheless, revolver sales are still well behind semi-automatics in sales. 

      I suspect that the primary market for revolvers is, on the one hand, the person who wants a dependable, easy to use, concealed carry weapon; and, on the other hand, the gun buff who wants something solid (i.e., metal rather than polymer), mechanically interesting and aesthetically pleasing. There is a lot more information out there about shooting statistics, and so part of me wonders if there are a statistically significant number of prospective purchasers that have realized that most shootings are 3 shots (or less) at 3 yards and over in 3 seconds or less. And while revolvers are generally more expensive than a semi-auto pistol for the initial purchase, this difference shrinks when you start to consider the cost of extra magazines. 

• "To Roll ’Em Or Not: The Economics of Reloading"--Recoil Magazine. I've noted before that there are significant start up costs to reloading, which require you to load quite a bit before you realize cost savings. This article delves deeper into that topic, and explains some of the nuances of if and when you might realize cost savings.
• "The History and Future of the Smith & Wesson Internal Lock"--Revolver Guy. The origin of the internal lock on S&W revolvers came out of a deal with the devil the Clinton Administration where S&W traded dismissal of certain lawsuits against it in exchange for adopting gun control measures requested by the gun grabbers. The subsequent Bush Administration decided it was not going to enforce the agreement, but S&W has, nevertheless, continued with using the internal lock on most of its revolver models. The author explores the origins of the lock, the problems with the lock (including which types of revolvers are most likely to suffer problems), and looks at whether S&W will eventually drop the lock (or, at the least, offer it as an option instead of making it mandatory). Spoiler: he believes that Colt entering the revolver market and the continued competition from other manufacturers will force S&W to ditch the internal lock due to its unpopularity among revolver shooters.
• "Holosun 507c | Praise the Sun"--Firearms Rack. This is a micro-red dot/reflex sight that uses both a battery and a solar cell, giving it up to 100,000 hours of use per battery according to the manufacturer. The author and others that he knows that have heavily used this product have all rated it highly as far as durability and reliability, and the author commends the crispness of the red dot that is projected. It has the same footprint as the Trijicon RMR. The author's closing thoughts:

The Holosun 507c has become my go-to recommendation for people looking to get into MRDS. It passes stress tests that are harder than anything I’d ever put my gear through. It is also the only MRDS that I have bought duplicates of. Finding the sweet spot between price and quality, the Holosun 507c is a fantastic choice for those wanting a red dot in their life.

• Related: "Review: Trijicon SRO Reflex Sight"--Shooting Sports USA. 

The Trijicon SRO (MSRP: $749, Trijicon.com) sight window is the same width as the RMR, but replaces that unit’s narrow rectangular window with a round window that provides a significant increase in vertical view. The round window measures 0.98 x 0.89 inches. The larger size gives the SRO a weight of 1.58 ounces, compared to the RMR weight of 1.2 ounces.

• "Updated version of Boyd’s Aerial Attack Study"--Tactical Professor. This is supposed to be a cleaner, easier to read version than the typical PDF floating around out there.
• Some more from the Tactical Professor: "Factors relevant to church shootings." The author believes that the focus so far has been too much on the ability to make the 15 yard head shot, and too little on the tactics. He offers up an outline of METT-TC analysis and links to resources/information.
• "What would happen in an apocalyptic blackout?"--BBC (h/t Peter Grant). The article begins: "As hospital patients in Venezuela found out earlier this year during a five-day nationwide blackout, power cuts can do more than just turn out the lights." It then goes on to examine the impact of a long-term power outage on the services that we take for granted.
• "No, Bugging Out Isn’t Always Ideal"--Beans, Bullets, Bandages & You. Absent an evacuation order, the author observes, bugging out will generally be a bad move. So the author wonders why bugging out seems an almost default reaction from preppers. I think I know the answer to that, which is that survivalism (prepping) in the 1980's was focused around a nuclear war scenario. 
• "7 Plants Whose Leaves You Can Use As Toilet Paper"--The Survival Blog. The author relates that "[a]ccording to an MIT report, most folks go through 20,805 sheets of toilet paper per year – that equals approximately 57 sheets of toilet paper every single day." The plants she discusses are: 1. Lamb’s Ear; 2. Mullei; 3. Thimbleberry; 4. Large Leaf Aster; 5. Corn Lily; 6. Pink Wild Pear; and 7. Blue Spur Flower.
• "Security Information Overload: From Panic to Apathy & the Remedy"--More Than Just Surviving. A look at some alarm and security systems and employing them to secure your home.
• "Timing…a Missing Component in Training"--Active Response Training. An excerpt:

       The students train with their firearms so much and think about their responses to attack scenarios so often that they are unable to recognize when it might be a better option to keep their gun holstered in the face of a criminal attack.  They go to their guns as a default response to any lethal force threat.  In general, that’s a great plan; but there are times  that call for a more modulated response.  Immediate violent resistance usually works to repel any criminal attack.  There are scenarios, however, where immediate violent resistance is more likely to get you killed.

* * *

       I see similar things happening to my students in advanced force-on-force scenarios.  Bad guy confronts the student with a gun.  Student draws own gun in response.  Student gets shot.  The scenario plays out in a similar form over and over again.  I don’t care if you are the best shooter in the world.  You can’t outdraw a trigger press.

In such situations, wait and look for another opportunity, or at least try to distract the attacker and/or conceal your attempt to draw your own weapon.

"Preparation for the Second Coming"--The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (17 min.)

• From Jan. 11: "Another 6.0-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Puerto Rico"--Breitbart.
• From Jan. 12: "Thousands flee as volcano erupts in the Philippines, Manila airport closed"--NBC News. 
• "Lebanese Hezbollah Chief Demands Revenge for Qasem Soleimani"--Breitbart. I'm sure the Democrats would do the same if they could: 

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, on Sunday called for attacks against American forces to avenge the death of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, whom he described as a friend to Shiite forces in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen as well as Lebanon.

• "How fragile is Iran’s regime?"--David P. Goldman at Asia Times. High costs combined with low incomes, the onset of demographic winter, economic sanctions, and more mean that the Iranian regime is in trouble: it could collapse or lash out. Goldman concludes:

Few countries have endured this level of deprivation outside of full war mobilization, and few have seen such a drastic decline in the number of births. The only modern comparison is Venezuela. Governments with a monopoly of economic resources and the willingness to kill significant numbers of their own citizens can stay in power for quite some time, but there seems no question that Iran’s regime is fragile and prone to destabilization.

• Related: "Iranian protesters refuse to walk on US, Israeli flags - watch"--Jerusalem Post. Antifa would do it in a heartbeat.

• "While you were focused on Soleimani, Israel became a natural gas superpower"--Legal Insurrection (h/t Instapundit). On December 31, 2019, Israel began pumping natural gas from the off-shore Leviathan natural gas field with an estimated reserves of 22 trillion cubic feet of gas. This is on top of production from the Tamar gas field.
• "Canals in Venice run DRY as 'exceptional' low tides drain the city just two months after near-record floods submerged it"--Daily Mail. So global warming wasn't drowning the city?
• Al Gore hardest hit: "No trend in hurricanes since 1970"--Behind the Black. Per the article: "A new study has found no trend, up or down, in hurricanes that made landfall since the 1970s, despite many global warming predictions that said the numbers of catastrophic hurricanes would increase."
• "Hide The Decline: How Climate Change Data Was Faked"--Miss Liberty. "In this short (20 minute) film, historian Dr. John Robson takes a chronological look at the original IPCC investigation into global temperature changes, revealing how it was compromised by a desire to reach a certain conclusion, with senior scientists deliberately downplaying contradictions in the underlying data in order to present a tidy narrative."
• "One Plus One Cellular Modification Gives Five Times the Anti-aging Effect in Worms"--Next Big Future. Scientists researching aging often experiment using a worm, C. elegans, "because it shares many of its genes with humans and because its short lifespan of only three to four weeks allows scientists to quickly assess the effects of genetic and environmental interventions to extend healthy lifespan." And certain genetic changes are well known to increase the lifespan of the worm. But in this research, the scientists decided to combine two lifespan enlarging processes, and got much more than expected:

The new research uses a double mutant in which the insulin signaling (IIS) and TOR pathways have been genetically altered. Because alteration of the IIS pathways yields a 100 percent increase in lifespan and alteration of the TOR pathway yields a 30 percent increase, the double mutant would be expected to live 130 percent longer. But instead, its lifespan was amplified by 500 percent.

My belief is that there are people alive today that will never die.

• Go woke, go broke: "Swedish Municipality That Took Too Many Migrants Faces Bankruptcy"--Breitbart. I've seen data from various European countries showing that high unemployment and welfare rates of the refugees and their offspring, as well as the increased crime, and it is readily apparent that the majority of the refugees are effectively parasites on the body politic.

• Related: "Exclusive: Memo Reveals How GOP Governors are Pitching Refugee Resettlement to Opponents"--Breitbart. From the article:

      Refugee contractors have a vested interest in making sure as many refugees are resettled across the U.S. as possible because their annual federally funded budgets are contingent on the number of refugees they resettle. Those refugee contractors include:

Church World Service (CWS), Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC), Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), International Rescue Committee (IRC), U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and World Relief Corporation (WR).

      Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to the latest research. Over the course of five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.

• Muslim outreach: "Illinois: Muslim slashes tires of 19 cars at churches, explains he did it because he doesn’t like Christians"--Jihad Watch. While I tend to point a finger at Islam for its hatred of Christians, there is another factor at play here as well: migrants coming from countries where there are immediate consequences for destroying another's property to a country (the U.S., U.K., etc.) where people are barely allowed to defend themselves, let alone their property. To them, it is as if there are no consequences to committing crimes, and so they do.

• Related: "EPIDEMIC OF ‘NIGHTMARISH’ CRIB VANDALISM HITS ITALY"--Church Militant. An unprecedented number of cases of vandalism against nativity scenes in Italy, particularly against figures of the baby Jesus.

• Religion of Peace: "Queens woman who plotted to use bomb in US terror attack sentenced to 15 years"--ABC News. "Queens woman"? Her name is Asia Siddiqui and she is from Saudi Arabia.
• Antigunners being protected by big men with guns: "Inside the ‘Secret Service of Hollywood’ That Guards Stars Like Post Malone and Jennifer Lopez"--Daily Beast. An article about "the Force Protection Agency, a paramilitary squadron of ex-Navy Seals, former cops, and current service members who call themselves, without irony, 'The Secret Service of Hollywood.'"
• "Human Bodies Have Steadily Grown Colder Over The Past Century, Evidence Shows"--Science Alert. A century ago, the average body temperature of an adult really was 98.6 degrees F (37 C). Not so anymore: "Men born in the 2000s, for example, were 0.59 degrees Celsius cooler than those born in the early 1800s, representing a steady decline of 0.03 degrees Celsius per decade." And "[t]he drop was similar for women, with a drop of 0.32 degrees Celsius since the 1890s." Thus, the average for a man is now 97.5 F. 
• A few days ago, I cited to an article that mentioned that DeBeers was planning on opening a facility to manufacture artificial diamonds in Oregon. I didn't think of it at the time, but afterward started wondering why DeBeers, which has done everything it can think of to stifle the artificial diamond industry, would suddenly change tactics. I think this article explains why: "Made-in-China diamonds ready to rock global market"--RT. The article reports that "Chinese companies have mastered the technologies to manufacture them en masse within a short period of time. The products are practically indistinguishable from those mined from earth." The article goes on to note that China has produced industrial diamonds for decades for use in abrasives, but is now going to shift it production to include jewelry. And DeBeers sudden course change makes sense.
• "Why The Left Can’t Handle Reality"--Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. John observes all of the areas where the Left simply cannot bear reality: believing that women are as physically strong as men; men can become women (and vice versa); killing a human fetus is okay, but killing an animal is horrendous; "Sex with anyone or anything anytime is sacred and must be celebrated under every circumstance." And he realizes it is because Leftism has become a religion to its adherents: 

When voting for Hillary, the Left was not making a vote for a political leader; they were voting for a religious leader, a prophet.  It was even in her slogan, “I’m with Her.”  It wasn’t about Hillary being with the people, it was about Hillary being their religious leader.

And it is this religiousness that drives the Left to make things like Christianity, marriage, family, etc., profane. Read the whole thing.

• Speaking of ignoring reality: "Race: So Much More Than Skin Color"--Jim Goad at Taki's Magazine. The article explores the physical differences between races. For example:

       With blacks comprising only 13% of the population but accounting for 75% of NBA players and two-thirds of NFL players, trying to somehow blame this all on “white racism” makes one look ridiculous. And “skin color” can’t possibly explain such absurd levels of athletic over-performance.

      What, then, might explain it? Is it possible that there are factors more reasonable and less emotion-laden than the phantom demon of “racism”?

      Perish the thought that the main reason blacks dominate running competitions is related to innate genetic differences in their navel placement, bone density, leg length, hip width, testosterone, thigh thickness, and percentage of fast-twitch muscle. And don’t pause for a moment to consider that their relative lack of success in swimming, as well as a much higher propensity toward drowning, is related to their heightened bone density relative to whites.

     These explanations seem perfectly logical and devoid of “hatred,” no?

• "General Motors shocks nearly 1,000 temp workers with full-time promotions; Ford promotes 592"--Yahoo Finance.
• For you cryptography and mathematics hobbyists: "Cracking RSA — A Challenge Generator"--Medium.