A Quick Run Around the Web (4/23/2020)

"Why You Won't Beat Multiple Opponents • Martial Arts Explored"--Martial Arts Journey (7 min.)

• "Wheelgun Wednesday: Throwback Smith & Wesson Model 10 .38 Special"--The Firearm Blog. Even though it was not called the Model 10 until 1957, the same basic firearm (under the guise of the Military and Police Model and Victory Model) was manufactured for decades prior. 
• "Why the .45 Might Be a Better Round Than the .44 for Big-Bore Revolvers"--Personal Defense World. The author's argument basically comes down to versatility: the .45 Colt can be downloaded to powder-puff cowboy action shooting loads or (with the right handgun or carbine) boosted to rival the .44 Magnum. In addition, if your revolver can accept .45 ACP (such as the Ruger Redhawk in .45 Colt/.45 ACP), you have a less expensive practice ammo than offered by .44 Special. 
• "One-Handed Shooting and Why You Should Learn How to Do It Efficiently"--Ballistic Magazine. The author warns:

       Self-defense situations have real-world obstacles. People, chairs, tables and lots of other things will be in the way that you must go around, over and through. Doors need to be opened or closed, and items need to be pushed aside when you’re making your way to the exit. Your family will need to be contained, and you may have to carry small children. Hopefully, you can keep your firearm holstered or rifle slung. But you most likely won’t be able to, so one hand will be occupied. You must clear clothing and draw with just one hand, and possibly re-holster your gun similarly. You might have to grab someone by their hand or shirt, or push people out of the way. Just think about it. You might have to cover an exit while holding open a door.

       Restaurant kitchens have those hanging plastic curtains that you might have to walk through and cannot see beyond. You will absolutely run into obstacles in such a crisis, and your balance won’t be perfect. You and everyone else in the area will be moving. The threat may be hunting you.

       As you can see, everything in the real world conspires to prevent you from obtaining a perfect two-handed grip, stance and sight picture. So, you should practice being able to shoot from less-than-ideal positions with just one hand rather than praying for divine intervention or expecting to “rise to the occasion.” In more than three decades of experience, I’ve found the former is out of your hands, and the latter is pure fantasy.

• Related: "One-Handed Shooting | Gunfighting"--Tactical Life. An excerpt:

      There are many situations in which a police officer or armed citizen may not have the opportunity to get two hands on the gun before needing to fire it multiple times. In fact, this reality has actually affected the firearms qualification requirements at many police departments. The specific requirement that I am referring to is known in many circles as close-quarters retention shooting. This is where the officer has to draw his or her pistol, pull it tight to his or her body and fire several rounds into a target that is just a few short feet away. This qualification simulates a startle response to a threat that is up close.

      But what about longer distances? What I have learned is that when a person is startled and this person does not already have their gun out, the tendency is to draw his or her gun and immediately drive it towards the threat while firing. The person who was startled then fires one or two shots one-handed before bringing their second hand to the gun, if they do so at all. Distance from the threat is usually not a factor when a person is shooting after being attacked. Their subconscious mind takes over, and they react to the threat presented.

       When speaking with those involved in a stressful situation, whether it is in training or a real-world event, it is not uncommon for the person who fired their gun one-handed to not even realize that he or she had done so. I have even seen participants argue that they never fired one-handed until they were shown video evidence. For a person who consistently trains and shoots two-handed, it is hard to comprehend that he or she would ever shoot one-handed under stress.

• Related: "3 Tips To Improve Your Weak Side Shooting"--Tactical Life. 

• I didn't know these were available to hand loaders until I read this article: "ARX Bullets Reloading Review and Ballistics Test"--Ammo Land. If you don't know anything about these rounds, the author explains:

       The ARX bullet is unique in a couple of ways. It has a design that twists in flight which is supposed to aid in its intended purpose. The lead-free bullet is injection molded made from copper and a high strength resin.

      It is a proprietary design, so we don’t know how the bullets are made nor the exact formula used. The 45 bullet weighs 114 grains at an advertised muzzle velocity of 1300 FPS, giving it over 400 FT LBS of muzzle energy. The target version weighs 138 grains as a comparison. One advantage of a lightweight bullet is reduced recoil which enables rapid follow up shots. They are frangible and gives about a foot of penetration in ballistic gel. Being frangible there should be no ricochet issues, making it safer for populated areas.

* * * 

      The ARX molded blades spin which will displace more material causing a larger cavity in the target. That will translate to better stopping power which it is intended for. 

The bulk of the article is the author's experience with different loads and the performance he achieved. My experience with these is limited. I picked up a box of the .45 ACP when it was being marketed under the Ruger brand to use as a possible self-defense round in a 1911 old enough that it wasn't designed to feed hollowpoint. My reasoning was that the round nose profile mimicking full metal jacket rounds would cycle reliably. It cycled and shot well with the limited testing I did, but since I had no way of gauging terminal ballistics and I rarely carried that weapon, I never bought more than the one box I used for testing. Now that I know it can be handloaded, I may look into it again.

• Related: "Tested: The Polycase ARX Bullet"--American Rifleman. 

• Related: "FLUTED AMMO: GREAT OR GIMMIK?"--Guns Magazine.

• Related: "Ammo Quest: PolyCase ARX Inceptor in .380 ACP and 9mm"--The Truth About Guns.

• Related: "Review: NOVX Ammunition"--Shooting Illustrated. This is a competing design to the ARX.

• "Food Storage Basics Part 1; Preparing to Store"--American Preppers Network. Some words of advice:

      Storing food is one thing, but storing the right food for your family is a totally different issue. I cannot hand you a list and tell you to go buy all of this and store it and your family will eat great. It does not work that way.

      Only store what you eat regularly and what you eat now. Do not waste your time buying a case of sardines because they are on sale if your family refuses to eat them today. A shortage in your food supply is not going to be an instant notification for your taste buds to suddenly decide sardines are not so bad.  In fact, the situation is already going to be stressful enough; you do not want to add to it by trying to gag down a food you hate.

      There is another very good reason you do not want to suddenly start introducing new foods to your family members, young and old. There is an actual medical condition known as appetite fatigue that can cause some nasty side effects.  Side effects you do not want to be dealing with in a situation where things are already bad. I am talking about nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.  Not a pretty picture.

The best bet is to store what you actually use now for the short run, but slowly introduce your family to items that can be stored long term. Some, like rice and bean dishes, may take awhile to get used to; most everyone, however, likes homemade bread fresh from the oven.

• "Canning 101 — Pickles, fruits, jams, jellies, etc."--Backwoods Home Magazine. This article discusses foods that can be canned using a cold pack canner (aka, a water bath canner) and provides some recipes. 
• "Pork Prep: How to Process Wild Hog from Field to Table"--Real World Survivor. 
• "Still Think You Can Live in a Bunker?"--Rethink Survival. If you have been stuck in your home due to a quarantine and found yourself going stir-crazy, imagine having to spend a couple weeks in a small and/or improvised fallout shelter. Says the author:

      But, for the rest of us who might have to survive in a traditional fallout shelter or something like it, could you really? I’d suggest it would be harder than most people realize. After all, I’ve been stuck at home which has two levels with multiple rooms and plenty of space for my family and we’re all getting antsy. Plus, I’ve been able to go outside everyday for a walk and to play basketball with my youngest son most days when the weather is decent.

     Now imagine living in a space that’s at least ten times smaller than a traditional suburban house, unable to go outside for weeks or months on end, with no sunlight, and very little privacy. And that’s to say nothing for just how “on top of each other” you must be all day long. It must be quite unpleasant for sure.

      No doubt, if you had a legitimate reason to take shelter, such as to survive the fallout from radiation, then you likely have no choice and should just suck it up. I get that. But not everyone would. Maybe some in your family couldn’t hack things as well as you can or for as long, then what will you do? I’d imagine a lot of this depends on your mindset going in and, more importantly, on the type of person you are, in general.

I actually thought about this issue when I read James Wesley Rawles' first novel, Patriots, and the strict, cramped conditions his fictional survival group was living under and thought to myself that surely one or more of them would have snapped and murdered someone else.

• "Will the Coronavirus Make Regular People More Prepper Minded?"--More Than Just Surviving. The author believes that for people that are already prepping, it may move their prepping up a notch or two, and that there will be some people that will start to prepare. I believe there will always be the grasshoppers, however.
• "Food security 101" (Part 1) (Part 2) -- Backwoods Home Magazine. Part 1 is a look at some simple methods to begin stocking up food as well as an introductory look at preserving foods. The second part looks at putting together simple meal or serving kits that allow you to quickly prepare foods, offering several example recipes.
• The failure of gun control laws: "Police have 'good idea' guns used in N.S. [Canada] mass shooting were not licensed"--The Province. The killer, who was able to get close to his victims because he was dressed in a police uniform and driving a police car, is now alleged to have somehow obtained his weapons notwithstanding Canada's strict gun control laws. The article reports:

      Chief Supt. Chris Leather said Wednesday that “we have a fairly good idea that, in Canada at least, he didn’t have a firearms acquisition certificate.”

      It is illegal to own a gun without the proper licence, which federal legislation formally refers to as a possession and acquisition licence.

So, not only did the vaunted gun control laws prevent the killer from getting his weapons, but all that licensing, background checks, interviews, and record keeping cannot even verify whether the weapons (the description of which have still not been released) were purchased legally--"a fairly good idea" is the best they can offer. It's pretty obvious that gun control laws are worse than useless and should be abandoned.

"OUT OF SHADOWS" (1 hr. 18 min.)

A look at what Anonymous Conservative terms "the Cabel".

• Speaking of the Cabel: "Declassified Info: DOJ, FBI Knew Trump Surveillance Was Based On Russian Disinformation"--The Federalist.

      On Friday, the Department of Justice released newly declassified information from an inspector general report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse, revealing for the first time that the FBI had received information indicating the Christopher Steele dossier contained Russian disinformation. The newly unredacted portions of the IG’s report also confirmed there was no “network of sources” backing up Steele’s reporting.

      While both revelations provide further fodder for attacking the Carter Page surveillance proceedings, the significance is much greater: These facts establish the FBI used Russia’s meddling with the 2016 election as a pretext to investigate Donald Trump and the special counsel’s office was complicit in this ploy.

(Underline added).

• Related: "Declassified Horowitz Footnotes Show Obama Officials Knew Steele Dossier Was Russian Disinformation Designed To Target Trump"--Sara Carter. More details. Read the whole thing.

• "Prosecutor reveals how one teenage girl was grilled by 11 barristers for six days and called a liar - but refused to back down and laid bare the horror of Asian rape gangs"--Daily Mail. 
• Its a big club, but you're not a member: "Bad Bankers Are How Big Business Beats Small Business, But Congress Can Fix It"--The Federalist.

      There are reasons major companies got massive loans from the Senate’s “small business” bailout while thousands of small businesses that applied the first day funds were available were told there was no money left. Who is to blame, however, is more complicated.

     Imagine bankers who won’t deliver you taxpayer assistance unless you already owe them money. Imagine bankers who will put you at the back of the line so that franchises worth hundreds of millions or even a billion dollars can get the aid first. Imagine a law our leaders passed allowing it. Now understand that what you’ve just imagined appears to be exactly what has happened.

• "The Democrats Totally Want A Depression"--Town Hall. From the lede:

If the Malevolent Donkey Party was actively seeking to plunge the country into an economic tailspin, while still maintaining some level of deniability to the credulous suckers out there, exactly what would it be doing differently? It would be pretty much doing exactly what it is doing right now – shilling for the bat-gobbling ChiComs, delaying needed assistance to keep America working, and generally trying to keep us all locked in the dark in perpetuity.

• "A Killer Enterprise: How One of Big Pharma's Most Corrupt Companies Plans to Corner the Covid-19 Cure Market"--Unz Review. The company, BioPort (now called Emergent Biosolutions), has only survived so long because it has a monopoly on the manufacture of anthrax vaccine enabled by the close ties between senior defense officials and the company's top brass. Nevertheless, poor business decisions and scandals were about to drag the company under when, like a miracle, their services were required:

While BioPort seemingly faced imminent ruin from these and other scandals in August 2001, the 2001 anthrax attacks that followed a month later came at just the right time for the company, as demand for their anthrax vaccine soon skyrocketed, resulting in new lucrative government contracts. Their license was also quickly renewed thanks to intervention from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) despite many of the problems with its production facility persisting.

Note that it has never been determined who spread the anthrax in 2001.

• "Early peek at data on Gilead coronavirus drug suggests patients are responding to treatment"--Stat Magazine. Per the article:

Remdesivir was one of the first medicines identified as having the potential to impact SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19, in lab tests. The entire world has been waiting for results from Gilead’s clinical trials, and positive results would likely lead to fast approvals by the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies. If safe and effective, it could become the first approved treatment against the disease.

If you really want to go down the rabbit hole, here is an article that claims that Gilead Biosciences is partnered with Wuxi Pharmaceuticals (Wuxi AppTec) which is owned by George Soros (who has at least twice before owned major stakes in Gilead). Wuxi AppTec, which provides validated research including in vitro (HTS, SAR screening support) and in vivo disease models in cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic and infectious diseases, just happens to be located in Wuhan, China. 

• Conversely, Ron Unz lays out his case that the pandemic was a biowarfare attack by the United States against China and Iran that had unexpected blowback when it infected the rest of the world: "American Pravda: Our Coronavirus Catastrophe as Biowarfare Blowback?"--Unz Review.

• Related: "A Viral Pandemic or A Crime Scene?"--Unz Review. 

• Of mice and men: "Starving rats are resorting to war and cannibalism to survive coronavirus lockdown"--New York Post. A shortage of discarded food from restaurants and eateries has made the rats of New York very aggressive:

“It’s just like we’ve seen in the history of mankind, where people try to take over lands . . . and fight to the death, literally, for who’s going to conquer that land,” Bobby Corrigan, a rodentologist who specializes in urban vermin, told NBC News. “A new ‘army’ of rats comes in, and whichever army has the strongest rats is going to conquer that area. When you’re really, really hungry, you’re not going to act the same — you’re going to act very bad, usually.”

• Must ... control ... the ... schadenfreude.... "The Coronavirus Comes to Afghanistan"--Sultan Knish. Afghans streaming in from Iran have brought the coronavirus with them. And, according to the article, the Taliban are so scared that not only have they stopped killing medical aid workers, but are encouraging people to actually pay attention to those aid workers. 
• "CORONA RIOTS Riots and looting in Cape Town as Africa suffers 1,000 coronavirus deaths"--The Sun. From the lede: "UNREST broke out in parts of South Africa amid chronic food shortages sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. Looters raided shops, attacked each other, the army and police after breaching one of the strictest lockdowns in the world."

• Related: "‘Instead of Coronavirus, the Hunger Will Kill Us.’ A Global Food Crisis Looms."--New York Times. "The coronavirus pandemic has brought hunger to millions of people around the world. National lockdowns and social distancing measures are drying up work and incomes, and are likely to disrupt agricultural production and supply routes — leaving millions to worry how they will get enough to eat."

The article continues:

       This hunger crisis, experts say, is global and caused by a multitude of factors linked to the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing interruption of the economic order: the sudden loss in income for countless millions who were already living hand-to-mouth; the collapse in oil prices; widespread shortages of hard currency from tourism drying up; overseas workers not having earnings to send home; and ongoing problems like climate change, violence, population dislocations and humanitarian disasters.

     Already, from Honduras to South Africa to India, protests and looting have broken out amid frustrations from lockdowns and worries about hunger. With classes shut down, over 368 million children have lost the nutritious meals and snacks they normally receive in school.

     There is no shortage of food globally, or mass starvation from the pandemic — yet. But logistical problems in planting, harvesting and transporting food will leave poor countries exposed in the coming months, especially those reliant on imports, said Johan Swinnen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.

     While the system of food distribution and retailing in rich nations is organized and automated, he said, systems in developing countries are “labor intensive,” making “these supply chains much more vulnerable to Covid-19 and social distancing regulations.”

     Yet even if there is no major surge in food prices, the food security situation for poor people is likely to deteriorate significantly worldwide. This is especially true for economies like Sudan and Zimbabwe that were struggling before the outbreak, or those like Iran that have increasingly used oil revenues to finance critical goods like food and medicine.

      In Venezuela, the pandemic could deal a devastating blow to millions already living in the world’s largest economic collapse outside wartime.

• Resistance in the United States is still muted ... for now: 

• "Protests show 'two Americas' — those who lost their jobs and those still getting paid"--Glenn Reynolds at USA Today. And, he adds, "the America still getting paid is, so far, not showing a whole lot of sympathy for the America that isn’t."

• "Protests banned at capitol, on state property in California"--The Hill. So much for petitioning the socialist government in California. 

• This is when the real riots will begin: "Massive layoffs and pay cuts are likely coming to state and local governments as federal aid goes elsewhere"--CNBC. And other reports indicate that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has no interest in bailing out states in order to preserve their public union pension plans.

• "Americans Getting Restless Under the Government COVID Boot"--PJ Media. A roundup of some of the protest and resistance movements popping up across the United States.

• The Houston Police Department pushes back: "Harris County Democratic Judge Lina Hidalgo: I Decree That All Subjects Wear Masks. HPD Union: GET STUFFED!"--Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog.

• "Anti-Lockdown Protests Grow With Some Protestors Showing Up Well-Armed"--The Truth About Guns.

• "Police Have Started Revolting Against Draconian Coronavirus Edicts From Local Tyrants"--The Federalist. 

• "New York state rescinds DNR order for cardiac patients amid coronavirus crisis"--Fox News. Paramedics were ignoring the order anyway.

• "Meridian [Idaho] woman arrested during protest after refusing to leave a closed playground"--KTVB. (Warning: auto-play video). A larger protest followed at the Meridian City Hall. Although not related in this article, the playground portion of the public park had been marked off with "caution tape" to keep people from using the playground equipment. The tape had been torn down when officers arrived. They put up new tape before leaving, but that, too, was quickly torn down.

• "Reason, Emergencies, and Self-Government"--Angelo Codevilla at American Greatness. Or why the technocrats have no Constitutional or moral right to jail America. 
• "America Is Paying the Price for the NYC SuperSpreader"--American Greatness. New York and New Jersey are responsible for half of the coronavirus cases in the United States. "So while Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio desperately scramble to contain the outbreak they not only failed to prevent but perpetuated with some of their public statements as the virus took hold, the rest of the country is being punished for their arrogance, incompetence, and petulance."

• Related: "If Half the Country's COVID Deaths Were in Montana, Would New York Shut Down?"--Dennis Prager at PJ Media. 

• "Nearly all NYC coronavirus patients had underlying health conditions, study finds"--Disrn. 

Hypertension was the most common ailment, affecting 53% of coronavirus patients. Another 42% of patients who had a body mass index on file were obese and 32% of all patients had diabetes. Data from 2,634 patients who either died or were discharged from the hospital showed that 12% were on ventilators and that 88% of those on ventilators died.

• "The Coming End of The United States"--Wilder, Wealthy & Wise. John Wilder discusses the general cycles of civilizations and empires and applies it to the United States. An excerpt:

      With the Empire past its peak, the wealth is used to create decadence.  Focus is on material goods, and religion declines across the Empire.  Since the focus is on wealth, the welfare state forms – Romans had bread and circuses, we have EBT and Netflix®.  Historically, foreign peoples from across the Empire stream towards the original culture.  Why?  Again, the focus is on material goods and not a cohesive society.  Why would a Greek want to leave Greece for Rome?  ...

     And as the focus grows on material goods, the originality of the goods disappears.  Art becomes a cynical mechanism of control and a means to harvest cash.  The remake of the original is remade or rebooted to once again drag the culture for profits.  ...

     An example of that is Spain after the conquest of the New World.  Spain found itself with immense wealth in gold.  How much wealth?  So much that the Spaniards decided that they didn’t want to do the day-to-day things in life, and drew workers in from all across Europe to Do The Jobs Spaniards Wouldn’t Do.  So much gold flew into Europe that it changed the exchange rate and wrecked the market for gold.  After a century of such luxury, the Spaniards ceased to be the conquistadors that boldly conquered a continent with grit and bravado and became a culture that complained when the Dutch help didn’t peel the grapes correctly.

     As an example, in one park I found a cannon seized from a Spanish warship during the Spanish-American War.  I looked at the engraving on the cannon – it was beautiful.  But this cannon, taken from the Spanish in 1898, was actually forged in 1780 or so.  The United States was using cannon that were state of the art and sophisticated, with more than a century of technological advances on the Spanish.

• Related: "Rich people doing chores for first time: ‘It’s been a complete shock’"--New York Post. From the article:

      This is especially an issue for those who live in apartment buildings. Every top building in the city has banned personal staff and reduced building workers to the bare minimum — usually just the doorman and super.

      “That stay-at-home mom who has a housekeeper and chef has had to let them go. Now they’re doing the diapers, putting the kids to sleep and making dinner,” says Philip Scheinfeld, a broker at Compass who grew up in a prominent Upper East Side building. “I’m sure Bravo would love to start filming these ladies. It would make a great show.”

     Left on their own for the first time, bosses are learning exactly what the hell it is that their employees do.

The really wealthy, however, are not going without--they are just making their help go without:

      Peter Mahler, the head of a private staffing agency, tells the Wall Street Journal that roughly 40 percent of his clients are quarantining with staff and paying them top dollar to do so — typically a 30 percent pay bump. Martha Stewart is reportedly isolating with her driver, housekeeper and gardener at her Bedford mansion.

      “A lot of these high net worth individuals have in-person housekeepers, cleaning ladies and chefs still in their homes,” says an Upper East Sider who is hiding out in Amagansett. “If they let the housekeeper go home for the weekend, they could contract the virus and bring it back. So people who have live-in help are keeping them there. If staff do say, ‘Hey, we want to go back to our families,’ the answer is, ‘Fine, but you can’t come back until this is over.’ So people are having to make a decision: ‘Do I want to see my family, or do I want to continue to work and make money?’ It’s tough.”