A Quick Run Around The Web (9/16/2020)

VIDEO: "How to shoot faster (With Mojo)"--Garand Thumb (28 min.)

Note that much of this is mental--identifying and using the proper cadence or rhythm for that weapon.

Self-Defense/Firearms/Prepping:

• First and foremost, if you haven't read through Greg Ellifritz's Weekend Knowledge Dump from this past weekend, you should put it on the top of your priority list as it is full of articles on topics you should consider as you prepare for our country's "best of times, worst of times" period. And by "full," I mean every single one. Topics include preparing for an urban uprising/insurrection, building stress-resilience prior to a traumatic event, dealing with people that may invite themselves to your house in the event of a disaster, a case-study of a late night visitor, the need to stockpile gun parts, room-clearing techniques, treating common eye-injuries, surviving poverty, losing the right to self-defense if you are the initial aggressor, saving money by purchasing LEO trade-in handguns, and more. 

    One of the links that Ellifritz provides is to an August 2015 robbery in a convenience store, where the perp attacked a customer in a convenience store. Normally I would make you go to Ellifritz's post for the link, but this is so important that I will provide the link (at least the link to the news story), which is here. The reason that I believe it so important is because I suspect that we will see more incidents of robberies of people or burglaries of buildings simply to acquire firearms.

    The first lesson here is the importance of situational awareness. The customer was so engrossed in what he was doing that he did not even realize that the attacker has stepped in close behind him. Ellifritz also posted a link to Mountain Guerrilla's analysis of the attack, which is very critical of the customer's situational awareness. I'll be more forgiving because when you are punching in the pin number to your debit card, or signing your name to a credit/debit card receipt, you are going to be focused on that task. But that should be a reminder that no one is going to be able to maintain situational awareness at all times, so you need to do spot checks as you go through your daily business. I would note that a lot of convenience stores and small shops will have a chime or similar if someone opens the door to enter the store, and you should train yourself to look up or around whenever you hear a chime. Maybe it would have made a difference in this case, and maybe not. Horrible as some people will think me to be for mentioning this, but given the crime statistics, the presence of a young black male should also be a sign to bump up your readiness for a possible crime.  

    The second lesson, and especially important to anyone of you that may openly carry a handgun, is that the criminal specifically targeted the customer's concealed handgun. Look at the video: the criminal walked up behind the customer and went straight for the gun. While it is possible that the firearm was printing and the decision to go for the gun was made in the store, my personal belief in watching what unfolded was that when the criminal entered the store, he did so with the intent to steal the firearm.  It may have been a case of bad luck or inadvertently displaying the weapon before entering the store, but this video shows the importance of good concealment and/or having a holster that incorporates good retention as well as knowing firearms retention skills.

    The third lesson is don't go chasing after an armed criminal. The criminal had already fired the weapon and fled with the weapon in hand. It was foolhardy for the customer to chase after the criminal as he (the criminal) could have turned and easily shot the customer. We see this happen in video footage from police chasing suspects, so don't think that it couldn't happen to you.

• While you are Active Response Training, check out Ellifritz's article on "Understanding Decisions to Burglarize from the Offender’s Perspective." Ellifritz takes a study on burglars and how and why they commit crimes and select targets which I had mentioned in an earlier post (and thank you to Greg for the shout-out!) and breaks it down and provides more context for the average reader, as well as summing up the relevant lessons to take from the article.  
• "Less Is More" by Marcus Wynne. Wynne's background (beyond being an operator/shooter and writer) is, as I understand it, using and applying neuro-cognitive training to subjects that traditionally have relied on physical training. In this article, he discusses a bit how he can take a complete novice and, in 10 minutes, bring them to the skill level necessary to engage a human attacker using a Simunitions or Airsoft pistol in an unscripted attack with pre-incident verbalization. As he explains, the key is to “Start where you want to end up.”

    If your goal is to train a human to use a pistol to protect themselves, does it make sense to start there?

    What might happen if you STARTED with shooting another human (with Airsoft or Simunitions)?

Read the whole thing. 

• Due to the current ammo (and reloading component) shortage, I was looking for loading data for .223 that used a different powder than what I normally used, and my reloading manuals didn't have the data I needed. I came across the information I needed at a web-site called Shooter's Reference. If you reload, it's worth checking out.
• "Bump Stocks Get New Life as Federal Court Agrees to Rehear Case"--Guns America. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has agreed to an en banc rehearing of a decision that upheld an ATF rule classifying bump stocks as machine guns. Except for the Ninth Circuit, an en banc hearing is one in which all the appellate judges for that Circuit participate. (The Ninth Circuit has too many judges to make it practicable, and so a panel of roughly half of the judges will hear a case en banc). The author believes that the Tenth Circuit has agreed to rehear the case because it presents the issue on how much deference should be given to an agency's interpretation of a statute. This doesn't mean that the Tenth Circuit will reverse it's prior decision. Having enough judges agree to a rehearing is not the same as having enough judges to prevail. And it's possible that the Tenth Circuit might use the opportunity to address the deference issue without ruling in favor of bump stocks (e.g., remanding the case to the district court with instructions on how much deference to give to the ATF's most recent interpretation of the applicable statute).
• "Earthquake Preparedness: How To Survive This Natural Disaster"--Survival Life. If you are like most Americans, you probably already have the biggest earthquake survival prep already taken care of because you probably live in a wood-framed or steel-framed building that has a lot of give in the event of an earthquake. But you may not have secured that bookcase so it doesn't fall on top of you. This article goes over some things to do to prepare for an earthquake, what to do during an earthquake, and what to do once the earthquake is over.
• "Start An Indoor Garden in Your Apartment"--Apartment Prepper. Some suggestions on indoor gardening including where to put the plants and arrange them.
• "Tube vs Mag Fed Shotguns – What Works?"--The Mag Life. The gist of the article, at least as I interpret it, is that magazine fed is great, but most shotgun designs are still based around tube-fed systems and that is what seems to be the most reliable. The author also mentions that if you keep your tube-fed shotgun topped off, the limitation on magazine size is not a major hindrance. Although I didn't notice it mentioned in this article, I have seen other articles mention incidents of higher capacity box magazines having enough spring pressure to start crushing or deforming shells leading to malfunctions. 
• "The Top 9 Things I Have Learned as a Professional Shooter"--Shooting Performance. The first tip is: "If everything is a priority, then nothing is." And by this, the author is essentially making the point of the old saying, "jack of all trades, master of none." The author explains:

... The hard truth is you need to decide what you want to do and then focus on that. I know many shooters who get division distracted. They switch from division to division, never really getting good at any one of them. And I know what you are thinking, that a good shooter should be able to perform well in any division. But the truth is that very few can. Even at the very top levels, most of the shooters that dominate, shoot one division for a period of time. So the question is, do you want to be average or even good at three or four things, or great at one. It’s your choice. ... 

Prepping is a topic that encourages us to be a Renaissance man, having knowledge and skill in a great number of subjects. But it is just not possible to be good at everything, and some (probably most) topics will take comprehensive training or schooling and lots of practice to become truly proficient. You can learn the basics of self-defense and self-defense/use of force law, learn to grow a garden, and learn CPR and First Aid, but you are not going to become a Marine or Ranger, a lawyer, a farmer, or a doctor by reading a few books or going to an occasional weekend class. 

• "Affordable All Purpose Rifle for the 21st Century: Savage’s 110 Scout"--Guns America. According to Jeff Cooper, the Scout Rifle was to be a 39-inch long rifle with a 19-inch barrel weighing seven pounds (including sling and optics) and shooting a cartridge capable of taking most large game. Savage's interpretation of the Scout Rifle has an MSRP of $819 and weighs in at 7.72 lbs without optics. It is available in 308 WIN, 223 REM, 338 FEDERAL, and 450 BUSHMASTER, according to the article. It takes 10-round AICS detachable box magazines. As I've said before, while I understand the romanticism behind the idea of the Scout Rifle, I'm not convinced of its practicality in a world of dependable semi-auto rifles. At the time that Cooper came up with his concept of the Scout Rifle, it essentially already existed in the form of the British Lee–Enfield No. 5 Mk I "Jungle Carbine" which Cooper would have known. The Jungle Carbine weighed in at just a hair over 7 lbs., fired from a 10-round magazine that could be reloaded with chargers, and was 39.5 inches long including an 18.8 inch barrel. It shot .303 Enfield which is more than adequate as a hunting cartridge. The only thing it lacked was a mount for optics. Just think how much effort and time would have been saved if Cooper had simply said he wanted a lighter Jungle Carbine mounting a forward optic.
• You Can't Stop The Signal: "Illegal PPK copies made in Vietnam"--Impro Guns. Very crude looking in that they appear to have been made at home and not in a machine shop.
• "Defense Against Mobs: An Interview with Massad Ayoob"--Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network. An excerpt:

    The terms [“rioters,” “mob” or “political protestors”], unfortunately, mean different things to different people, Gila. If you look at the dictionary, a mob is a crowd of people, usually a relatively large crowd, especially one that is disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence. Now, just within that definition you will see the term stretched here and there. Let’s say a rock star is being mobbed by his adoring fans and autograph seekers. It’s a mob of screaming fans, they appear to be disorderly, but there is no collective intent to harm. So, I am not sure that “mob,” as we use the word today, would apply to that correctly.

    Rioters are people causing tumultuous damage often accompanied by arson and looting, which is large scale theft.

    Finally, we have the protesters. In the ideal situation, protesters have gotten a license from the police department to march, the streets will be closed off for them, and they calmly do their march, maybe chanting slogans, and that would be the extent of it.

    Going back into the 18th century, it has been understood that as the law applies, a mob, essentially, is an organism all moving in the same direction with the same unlawful purpose, with a homicidal intent and usually, to some degree, a specific target. It has been said that just as every member of the mob shares the criminal and civil responsibility for damage caused by the mob, they also share the responsibility for the fear they have created in the victim who opens fire. Therefore, if you aimed at Rioter A but you hit Rioter B, too bad, a target is a target, and they started the fight, and they lost.

    The mob violence once was essentially geared to what since the 19th century has been called a lynch mob. What we are seeing here today is a different pattern of encounter.

Ayood went on to describe some cases where lethal force or the threat of lethal force was lawfully used against mobs, and then explains:

    Now, what you had in every one of those cases is the rule that a member of the mob shares the responsibility and therefore all share in the general jeopardy from the fear created in people who defend themselves against the mob. All of the members of the mob were there for a single, dedicated purpose of harming and killing certain people. That is the kind of lynch mob for which the rule was geared.

* * *

    What we are seeing that is different in the current 2020 situation is most aptly described by a friend of mine who is a very street-wise police supervisor in a major, high crime city. He said the difference this time is that the mob is not working with one mind, one purpose and one target. What we have is the Antifa types and the opportunistic looters basically seeding themselves in among those I would call the legitimate protesters–the people who are there in good conscience and good faith, to cause no physical harm to anyone and to voice what they believe is a very important concern.

    My friend said the crowd today is not a mob; the crowd today is an ocean in which the predators swim, hide and are essentially effecting camouflage. They emerge out of the ocean to set fires to buildings, to violently assault people, and then to melt back into the protection of the crowd. They are using the crowd in the same way that Saddam Hussein used human shields: taking women and children and settling them in camps surrounding all the military bases during the Iraq war when he was afraid the Americans would obliterate his military bases.

    That changes things entirely in the 2020 riot situations. If you look at some of the discussion among the more militant people on certain forums and social media, you’ll find things like, “I will load my .308 with military ball so I can shoot through bad guys and get three of them with one shot.” One guy said he was going to load hard-cast hunting bullets in a .44 Magnum so he could get three rioters with one.

    You just want to slap those idiots in the head, because you do not know who is behind the guy who is attacking you. Maybe–and we have seen this happen–it is a legitimate protester trying to grab and pull him off of you and saying, “This is not what we are about!” Do you want to kill that person with an over penetrative bullet?

Ayoob then continues with discussion of the Reginald Denny beating during the Rodney King/LA riots. Ayoob believes that Denny would have been fully justified, if he had been armed, to shoot each of his assailants, but not the other people in the immediate area. He notes, in fact, that Denny was saved from certain death by the intervention of other blacks that were present. So, you don't know if that person coming up to you after you have been attacked may be someone coming to offer assistance. As to vehicles, Ayoob states:

If you are in a car, I have a couple of suggestions. In every case we have seen of someone driving out of it, we are seeing again and again people being charged for doing so, even though the people were blocking them illegally and they had very articulatable reason to believe they might be dragged out of that car and beaten if they didn’t. There is one thing none of them did, and I hope all of our members and readers get this: if you have got to drive out of a mob turn on your damned flashers and lay on your damned horn! These are universal signals of emergency traffic coming through and let that be seen on all of those dozens of iPhone videos: you were in emergency mode, trying to get out of the way, telling people, “Get out of the way, I am afraid.” 

Ayoob discusses other points, such as recommendations as to weapons (firearms and less-than-lethal) should you be caught in that situation, whether to draw or not, and other topics.Needless to say, read the whole thing.

• "Beyond the Tueller Drill" by Michael D. Janich at Police Magazine. The author explains:

What the Tueller Drill really teaches is that drawing and shooting alone are not going to save your life in a close-range encounter. In fact, the entire concept of going for your gun as an initial reaction is probably not the best way of ensuring your survival. Movement, the use of obstacles, and sound empty-hand tactics—applied properly—can all do more to keep you alive than a pure "gun-fu" response.

The article goes on to lay out some suggestions for a training regimen.

• "Product Review: the Magpul MOLLE Speedthreader"--Blue Collar Prepping. This product is intended to make it easier to thread straps through the loops on your MOLLE/PALS system. 
• "Don’t Do it Wrong! How to Properly Wear Body Armor"--Guns America. Although the article goes into the sizing of plates, discusses carriers, and so on, the primary point made in this article is similar to that I've seen in other articles on the same topic, which is making sure that your plate is adjusted to ride high enough to actually cover what is most important: 

    And most importantly, and usually the place where body armor is notoriously worn wrong, we want our ballistic plate to ride up high.  The top of your plate should cover your Super Sternal Notch (that little notch at the top of your sternum).  Behind that is your aortic arch.  You could be on the operating table surrounded by surgeons, and if that gets cut, you will bleed out.  We can test and see if our front plate is positioned correctly by tucking our chin.  Usually if you can dip your chin and touch the top edge of your plate, it is high enough.  Also, this is the placement while standing.  If it rides up while sitting, no worries, but when we are up and active, this is the height we want it.

    Our rear plate should largely mirror the placement of our front plate.  A way to go about that is feel at the base of your neck where a bone protrudes some, that is your C-7 vertebrae.  We want our rear plate about 1” below that.  That will give us the same coverage from behind as we receive from the front.

• "Skill Set: Common Issues" by Tiger McKee at Tactical Wire. McKee discusses common issues he sees with the groups attending training classes. Two issues he addresses are stance and footwork:

A big issue is the stance. Properly positioning the feet and legs, serves as the foundation for everything from there up. Without a good base nothing else is going to be efficient. Keep in mind there’s big difference between a fighting stance and a shooting stance. A fighting stance is aggressive, assists you in recovering from recoil – or a punch/shove – and permits you to move in any direction while shooting if required. The physical – an aggressive stance – will also affect the mental – your mindset. Just the act of acquiring a fighting stance mentally changes your attitude. “I’m ready to fight,” the body is telling the mind.

I have collected over the years some books on the fundamentals of shooting which teach either particular shooting stances or just state something to the effect that you should let your feet take care of themselves, depending on whether the author was writing to an audience that he perceived to be target shooters or hunters. None of them really discussed movement because they assumed that the shooter would be stationary when taking the shot. But as anyone that has participated in one of the fighting arts knows, stance and footwork are basic skills. Remember all the time moving forward and backward in your basic classes? There are two issues I can think of with using a fighting stance in a gun fight. First, a lot of people learn to shoot using an isosceles stance. Second, for those that use body armor, a fighting stance tends to tilt your body relative to a threat so there is a greater risk of being struck in the side.

• "Clothing: My Organized Approach"--Beans, Bullets, Bandages & You. The author had moved to warmer climes and so decided to incorporate pocket carry into his concealed carry regime. He discusses some of the clothing options he has found, including jeans and slacks from a small company called CCW Breakaways which has designed their products for pocket carry.
• "Is it possible to live an off-grid lifestyle through a motorhome?"--Alpha Survivalist. The author notes that living in a motorhome gives you a certain amount of independence from public utilities and public infrastructure, but also the freedom to travel. If after reading this article the topic interests you, a group of preppers has authored a book called Locusts on the Horizon (Amazon link) that goes into significant detail on a prepping plan based around living in a trailer or motorhome. And the reason given for living in a motorhome is to allow you to move around to where jobs are located.
• Ask yourself why the Democrats are so fixated on banning defensive rifles: "'Weapons of war have no place in our communities': Biden calls for 'gun control' less than 24 hours after two LA County sheriff's were critically wounded in ambush while they sat in squad car"--Daily Mail. Per the article,  Biden claimed after reports of the shooting that "We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines." The two deputies were shot with a handgun, and there is no evidence that a high-capacity magazine was used. 
• Heh. Love this headline: "VP hopeful Kamala Harris- who says she supports defunding police - is seen in Miami being protected by dozens of cops as well as a Secret Service agent carrying an assault rifle, a weapon she's vowed to ban"--Daily Mail. 
• FYI: SOG Knives is hosting "Observations With...", a series of free online seminars with preparedness experts who will explore the importance of being prepared and situationally aware. The first webinar is scheduled for the evening of September 23, and will feature Jason Harper, founder of Preparation Concierge. You can sign up here.

VIDEO: "45 ACP for Couger and Bear Defense"--Paul Harrell (24 min.)

Short take: of the ammunition tested, the best for use against a large animal appears to be standard 230 grain FMJ

Civil Unrest: 

• "The Democrats May Not Be Able to Concede" by Shadi Hamid. While the article is cast as an examination of why Democrats may not be happy about a Trump win, and how they may react, it's real purpose is to provide general instructions to the insurgency. First, the CYA disclaimer:

As someone who has argued against catastrophism—I don’t believe Donald Trump is a fascist or a dictator in the making, and I don’t believe America is a failed state—I find myself truly worried about only one scenario: that Trump will win reelection and Democrats and others on the left will be unwilling, even unable, to accept the result.

    Second, is the threat:

A loss by Joe Biden under these circumstances is the worst case not because Trump will destroy America (he can’t), but because it is the outcome most likely to undermine faith in democracy, resulting in more of the social unrest and street battles that cities including Portland, Oregon, and Seattle have seen in recent months. For this reason, strictly law-and-order Republicans who have responded in dismay to scenes of rioting and looting have an interest in Biden winning—even if they could never bring themselves to vote for him.

In other words, if you want to see the rioting and looting stop, you must not vote for Trump.

    Next is the moral justification for insurrection: that a Trump win would prove that the system of democracy is corrupted. "If Democrats can’t beat a candidate as unpopular as Trump during a devastating pandemic and a massive economic contraction," Hamid exclaims, "then are they even capable of winning presidential elections anymore?" The Democrats were shocked and disappointed with the 2016 election, Hamid writes. "How could so many of their fellow Americans side with a racist and a fabulist, someone so callous and seemingly without empathy? It was easier to think that those Americans had been lackeys, manipulated and deceived, or that they simply hadn’t understood what was best for them." But, he warns, if Trump were to win this time around, it "will fuel disillusion not just with the election outcome but with the electoral system." Moreover, according to Hamid, Biden is clearly the better candidate for unifying Americans because he "is a conventional Democrat, representing the center of the Democratic Party. If Biden, of all people, is beyond the pale, then so is half the country."

    Finally, a more explicit threat that if Biden doesn't win, America will burn:

    Accepting the things that never should have happened [i.e., a Trump victory] is far more difficult. A certain kind of cognitive dissonance—the gap between what is and what should be—can fuel revolutionary sentiment, and not just in a fluffy, radical-chic kind of way. In such situations, acting outside the political process, including through nonpeaceful means, becomes more attractive, not necessarily out of hope but out of despair.

    This distance between what a society should be and the tragedy of what it actually becomes is less of a problem in democracies, because democracies are supposed to be responsive to voters’ demands and grievances. But they aren’t always. The gap will grow larger under a Trump presidency than a Biden one, and this has implications for mass unrest and political violence across American cities. For democracy to work, the losers of elections need to believe that they can win the next time around. Otherwise their incentives to play the spoiler increase. A breakdown of democracy is always a possibility, but the country is more resilient than it may seem, and consolidated democracies seldom break down in any circumstance. That said, this is one of those propositions that is better left untested.

• "Thinking ahead during the current Insurgency"--Tactical Professor. Short version: curiosity killed the cat. Slightly longer version:

If you hear gunfire, don’t go outside to watch or video it. Think ahead about the most bullet resistant places in your home. The bathtub, which hopefully is iron, is an example. Even if it’s not iron, it is at least surrounded and supported by structural members. Rehearse a sheltering plan ahead of time. Make sure your loved ones understand it; they might have to use it when you’re not there. It might look something like this:

• If and when you hear shooting outside, gather your loved ones and take them to that sheltered place.
• Take your equipment, including your phone, with you when you take shelter.
• Don’t let strangers into your home after an incident.
• Call the POlice and report the gunfire outside.

• "Arson arrests made across the west coast as fires rage on"--Law Enforcement Today. Given that the official stance, as communicated by the FBI, is that the arsonists are not connected to Antifa or BLM, the article is clear to state that all the reporter knows is that "[a] number of wildfires in Washington, Oregon, and California are now being considered arson, and several arsonists are already in jail – while there are more on the run, we’re told." And:

    On Wednesday, September 10, 2020, Troopers in Puyallup, Washington said they arrested a 36-year-old Puyallup man caught setting a fire in the brush. This was along State Route 167 in Puyallup in the median of SR 167 at Meridian.

    The fire started to spread, but the Puyallup Police closed the northbound ramp on the highway. He told troopers he was looking for a camera. They still took the suspect to jail.

    Another arson suspect was arrested in Spokane after allegedly starting multiple fires.

    Christine Comello,36, was arrested after allegedly starting multiple fires in Spokane on Monday. Officer Mohondro arrived on the scene where he witnessed some grass and a palette outside of a commercial business on fire. There was reasonable evidence the fire was started by a human and not lightning or telephone poles.

    Mohondro spotted another fire a few blocks away. This was next to an old oil drum under a tree. This could cause the fire to explode into something much larger. The Spokane Fire Department responded and extinguished the fire.

    More units arrived in the area and detained Comello. She originally lied about her name, but it was discovered she had a warrant for her arrest.

    Witnesses identified her as the arsonist. As a result she was booked for 2nd degree arson, 1st degree arson and burglary.

    A federal law enforcement source shared with Law Enforcement Today that the feds are looking into whether some of the cases are linked together… and warn there could be more “attacks”.

(Ellipses in original). 

• Related: "Antifa Claims To Have Ignited The Fires Burning America"--The Captain's Journal.
• Related: "BLM Activist Arrested For Allegedly Setting Fires In Washington State That Became A Massive Wildfire…"--Weasel Zippers.
• Related: "Clackamas County deputy placed on leave after video captures him blaming antifa for putting ‘lives at stake’ in wildfires"--The Oregonian. 
• Related: "Authorities arrest 4 people on arson charges in deadly and massive California, Oregon, and Washington wildfires"--The Blaze.

    California authorities arrested suspect Anita Esquivel for allegedly intentionally setting fires along U.S. 101. She was booked into the Monterey County Jail on arson charges.

    Oregon authorities also arrested Michael Jarrod Bakkela, who lived in the woods of Oregon on two counts of arson, 15 counts of criminal mischief, and 14 counts of reckless endangerment.

    Oregon Live reports that Bakkela is reportedly responsible for setting one of two major wildfires in the state, which has killed dozens and displaced hundreds.

    Oregon State Fire Marshal's office spokesperson Rich Tyler added that the fire Bakkela reportedly set is considered to be one of two origins of the Almeda fire.

    Jackson County Sheriff's Office PIO Mike Moran told ABC News that the fire has caused "significant damage."

    "There are numerous homes, many of which are burnt completely, some are just heavily damaged, that are part of the 15 counts of criminal mischief," he said.

    According to Oregon Live, authorities have told area residents to prepare for a "mass fatality incident" due to the fires.

    Washington authorities arrested two unrelated suspects who reportedly set small fires in the brush in two different areas of freeway.

• Related: "Man arrested after admitting he used Molotov cocktail to start brush fire in Portland"--KATU 2. The perp in this case is 45-year-old Domingo Lopez, Jr. According to the article, "Lopez was booked in the Multnomah County Detention Center on charges of reckless burning and second-degree disorderly conduct. He was released and arrested again Monday morning for allegedly starting six more small fires."
• Related: "Armed Oregon Residents Set Up Roadblocks After A Fire Was Ignited Intentionally, Police Say"--Daily Caller. Anyone thinking of bugging out should pay attention to this article. The piece reports that roadblocks were set up in East Multnomah County by armed residents that demanded to see identification of drivers coming into the area. It is silent about whether non-residents were turned away.
• Related: "‘You loot, we shoot’: Oregon homeowners post warnings amid wildfire evacuations"--New York Post.
• "Urban Criminal Gangs in the Civil War to Come" by Gouverneur Morris at Letters From Flyover Country. Morris contends that the reports that gangsters in Chicago may target police officers for execution should worry all Americans living in large urban areas.

    Chicago is still the third largest city in the US and the home base of past President Barack Obama. Votes counted in Chicago have played decisive roles in past Presidential elections as well. “Chicago Rules” are a byword for determining political outcomes through fraud, bribery, and violence.

    Chicago has actually reverted to gang rule in the last twenty years. Although murders in Chicago seemed to level off in the 2005-2010 period, the percentage of murders attributable to gangs actually went up significantly. Nearly two thirds of murders in Chicago are committed by gang members.

    This has happened because of the close working relationship between gang leaders and many Chicago aldermen and City Hall functionaries. Major gangs have enjoyed substantial if not complete official protection from the Chicago police and prosecutors for at least twenty years.

    The single best account of how this works was provided in Chicago magazine in a cover story entitled Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance. Replete with detailed neighborhood maps of gang territories and specific criminals in working relationships with specific aldermen (an alderman is a Chicago city councilman), the article is a goldmine of information. Unsurprisingly, gang territories correlate strongly with the number of murders committed in those territories.

    Chicago has many gangs but most members belong to one of just half a dozen or so large gangs. Even people outside of Chicago are sometimes familiar with names such as the Gangster Disciples, Black Disciples, Black P Stones, Vice Lords, and Latin Kings. Collectively, these gangs have between 70,000 and 125,000 members, or 6 to 10 times the size of the 12,000 member Chicago Police Department.

The warnings came from Chicago, but it appears that this may have been what happened in Compton, California, with the targeted shooting of two LA deputy sheriffs by a black man while the deputies sat in their patrol cars. The incident was captured on video, which is included at the link. As the article notes, "Compton is part of notorious 'South Central Los Angeles'.  The hostile relationship between police and the residents and gang members in the area goes back generations." The article adds:

But the Sheriff’s Department has had a long history of trouble in the City of Compton.  It is alleged by community activists that within the Sheriff’s Department — which has a large Latino component — there is an “assassination” squad who get special tattoos after killing a reputed gang member, justified or not.

After the shootings, BLM protesters celebrated outside the hospital where the deputies were taken, chanting "We hope they die," and blocked entrances to the hospital.

• Related: "Outrage as NAACP chapter president says there is 'no such thing as blue lives' following the ambush shooting of two LA deputies and claims 'your career is a choice, my blackness is not'"--Daily Mail. The man in question, Talbert Swan, is a Pentecostal bishop and heads a Massachusetts NAACP group.
• Related: "L.A. county city manager uses Malcolm X's controversial 'chickens come home to roost' quote to describe shooting of two cops in Compton, saying the neighborhood is 'plagued by deputy gangs'"--Daily Mail. The person in question is Lynwood, California's city manager Jose Ometeotl.
• While we are on the topic of corruption in Chicago, Second City Cop reports that two sitting Cook County circuit judges and three retired judges are partners in an investment company with attorneys including indicted Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th). 
• "Violent protests erupt outside precinct in support of knifeman Pennsylvania cops shot dead after he charged at officer with a huge blade: Had stabbed four people in past year"--Daily Mail. (See also this Washington Examiner article). However, the Daily Mail reported today that the protests had quieted down quite a bit after the news started reporting that the dead guy had a history of stabbing people.
• "Q&A: The Marriage Vows of the American Elite - A conversation with Benjamin Ginsberg" by David Samuels at Tablet Magazine. A candid discussion of racial politics and whether the current political violence is a sign of inter-elite competition à la Peter Turchin. Samuels expresses the general topic thusly:

What interests me is that virtually overnight, the entire American elite class, which also comprises the directorships of the 100 largest corporations in America, has enthusiastically embraced the movement that, for lack of a better word, we can call woke-ism. Among the components of their new belief system is their ritual obeisance to the slogan “Black Lives Matter”—the display of which is now mandatory at sporting events, on public buildings, on the websites of large foundations and on strollers in Park Slope. The speed of this embrace might seem to throw into question the underlying premise of woke-ism, which is that America is a country dominated by “white supremacists”—when in fact America is a country ruled by people who enthusiastically embrace the demands of woke-ism at warp speed.

Samuels also suggests that "what we are seeing now is a version of what we saw in the Gilded Age—namely the familiar historical process by which the old institutionally grounded elites consummate their marriage with fabulously wealthy upstarts."

 

    Ginsberg thinks that suggestion has merit, but believes the explanation may be more prosaic: 

    Yes, that explanation has considerable merit. Remember, of course, that these enormous multinational corporations engage in tax arbitrage and pay virtually no taxes in the United States. I think Apple pays its taxes in the Republic of Ireland where it has negotiated a 0.005% tax rate. As a result, they can afford to espouse virtuous policies in the U.S. since someone else will pay for them.

    But part of what’s happening today is much more mundane. Namely that groups within the Democratic Party have seized on police shootings of Black men as a way of exciting Black voters to turn out for the 2020 election. They are tending to their base, by pushing the usual symbolic buttons, in the absence of any kind of real solutions to the problems of our inner cities over which they’ve presided for the past half-century.

 But he also agrees that:

[T]here is a kind of interesting elite consolidation under way in the U.S. that does parallel the events of the late 19th century. We have a fabulously wealthy new elite, namely tech billionaires and related folks. The established monied classes in the United States need to incorporate these people, and they’re being incorporated around a kind of woke agenda, just as the elites of the late 19th century were incorporated around a Christian agenda of social do-gooding.

It's a long, but interesting read.

• Related: (World's smallest violin playing) "I’m a millionaire and it’s really hard being rich" by Kirsten Fleming. Fleming and her husband, David, are rich because they "worked in the early ’90s at Microsoft, where they learned about the joys of stock options. Then, in 1997, David left the computer giant to join a little-known online book company called Amazon before it went public." Consequently, the two "earned tens of millions of dollars in the tech world before the ages of 35, and suddenly found themselves in an elite tax bracket without a manual on how to navigate the potential pitfalls of isolation and strained social relationships." "Today, she and her husband are philanthropists living in the Bay Area. David is currently the CEO of Worldreader, which provides a free digital library of books to people living in developing nations." Poking around the World Reader website, which apparently did not like my browser, the project is clearly aimed at the brown countries: Africa, Latin America, a couple countries in Central Asia, and India and South East Asia. Live in Romania or Estonia? Tough luck. Also, a lot of the offerings seem to be race and social justice books.

VIDEO: "Budget Comms Setup vs Gucci Comms Setup"--Hoplopfheil (10 min.)

Per the description: "Explaining and comparing two comms setups for civilian radios. A budget setup using a shoulder mic and standard electronic hearing protection, versus a nicer setup using a Peltor ComTac headset and Nexus push-to-talk."

Miscellany: 

• "Federal Court Rules Pennsylvania's Lockdown Order Unconstitutional"--Reason.com (h/t Instapundit). 

While those restrictions were "well-intentioned," wrote U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV, "good intentions toward a laudable end are not alone enough to uphold governmental action against a constitutional challenge. Indeed, the greatest threats to our system of constitutional liberties may arise when the ends are laudable and the intent is good—especially in time of emergency."

• "U.S. hospitals have turned down about a third of their allocated supplies of the COVID-19 drug remdesivir since July as need for the costly antiviral wanes, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed on Friday."--Reuters. 
• Sure they did.... "Mueller’s Team Members ‘Accidentally’ Wiped Phones Clean of Data"--Breitbart. I could believe one phone, maybe two if I were being generous, but 27?
• "Why White Lives Don’t Matter"--The Other McCain. An excerpt:

Nobody cares how many white suspects get shot by cops. And I mean absolutely nobody cares. Certainly no black person has ever bothered to investigate how often the police shoot white suspects, but white people don’t care, either. Like, if I got pulled over by cops tomorrow and became belligerent when they tried to arrest me, nobody would care if this resulted in me being shot to death. My own family wouldn’t really care. My friends would be like, “He probably had it coming. He was always an idiot.”

• The Left's fascinated with destroying children:
• "Gov. Gavin Newsom Signs Bill Reducing Penalties for Sodomy with Minors"--Breitbart.
• "Netflix under fire for film critics say contains child pornography"--Fox News. This isn't about the Cuties movie, but is another one: the Argentinian film Desire. 
• "Tulsi Gabbard Condemns Netflix for Releasing ‘Cuties’: ‘Child Porn’ That ‘Will Whet the Appetite of Pedophiles & Fuel Child Sex Trafficking’"--Breitbart.
• "Slate calls people being offended by pedophilia 'creepy'!"--Not The Bee.
• "New Adult Netflix Cartoon 'Hoops' Sexualizes Minors With Porn and Prostitutes"--Newsbusters.
• On a related topic, the U.S. Marshal's Service has been busy lately with rescuing children that have been kidnapped or otherwise disappeared into human trafficking networks. PJ Media reports that "U.S. Marshals Service Reveals Majority of Rescued Sex-Trafficked Children Came From Foster Care." And by majority, they mean a super-majority.
• Creepy Joe Biden is at it again. Anonymous Conservative reports:

Joe tries to pander to a Hispanic audience by walking up to the podium and playing a Hispanic song he had on his phone, to show he is just like them. Literally the Spanish lyrics to the song translate to, “I want to breathe on your neck slowly/ Let me say things in your ear/let me trespass your danger zones.”

• Oops! "Trump campaign uses stock pictures of RUSSIAN fighter jets and AK-74 assault rifles in campaign advert to 'Support Our Troops'"--Daily Mail.
• This looks promising: "The FTC is 'preparing possible antitrust lawsuit against Facebook' after a year of investigating whether the social media giant is stifling competition through acquisition"--Daily Mail. A reminder that Americans have traditionally favored free markets over capitalism when the two come into conflict.
• Consequences: "‘Cuties’ Backlash Led Netflix U.S. Cancellations to Spike Nearly Eightfold, Analytics Firm Says"--Variety.
• Another green fail: "Residents shun Chinese 'vertical forest' housing project because the trees meant to revolutionize urban living have attracted plagues of mosquitos"--Daily Mail.
• "How Cultural Marxism Is Grinding Christianity Down" by John Eidson writing at American Thinker. From the article:

... Known as the father of cultural Marxism, 20th-century Italian communist Antonio Gramsci summarized his stratagem for dismantling Christian nations thusly:

Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity.  Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.

Gramsci referred to his stratagem as "the long march through the institutions," infiltrating a society's cultural institutions and gradually supplanting their traditional values and principles with communism.  Operating via stealth and deception, Gramsci's disciples in this country have diligently labored to grind down every cultural institution in America, including its predominant religion, Christianity.

• Diversity is not a strength: "Between Balkanization and Miscegenation" by Marko Vojnov at American Renaissance.

    Take it from someone who grew up in the Balkans — diversity is not a strength. I was born at the start of the Yugoslav Wars, and was only a few months old when my Serbian family fled Muslim-occupied Bosnia, seeking refuge in the first place that would have us — Venezuela. ...

* * *

    When the wars in the Balkans finally ended, my family decided to head back. The artificial state Yugoslavia was no more, and as Serbs, my family went to the new nation of Serbia. That was the whole point of the wars, after all: segregation — Croats got Croatia, Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) got Bosnia, Serbs got Serbia, and so on. The conflict and strife of the 1990s and early 2000s was horrific. Hundreds of thousands of people died, and many more displaced. The economic toll is probably unquantifiably high, and the whole world now views the entire region as backwards and unstable. But the truth of the matter is that on some level, the conflict we had was inevitable. The cleavages, grievances, and disdain between the various combatant groups had origins stretching back centuries. Even 50 years of harsh Communist rule — which did everything possible to erase the region’s cultural and religious heterogeneity — could not erase the hatreds burned into each demographic group’s collective memory.

    Diversity does not work. Its failure in the Balkans was so pronounced, protracted, and bloody, that it birthed a new word for the failure of multiculturalism: balkanization. Ironically, twenty years later the Balkans are a peaceful place — thanks to the collapse of an artificial and diverse country, and the rise of several homogeneous nations in its place. ...

I suspect that one of the reasons that Europe, generally speaking, has seen such a long period of peace following World War II was the forced resettlement of ethnic groups back to their homelands by the Allies in the post-war period; e.g., Germans were forced back to Germany even if they and their families had lived in other countries for generations, and the same for other ethnic groups.  

• "Second mass grave of people tortured and killed by a religious sect is uncovered in Panama where the remains of seven victims of another group were discovered earlier this year"--Daily Mail.

    Authorities in Panama have discovered a new mass grave in a remote area where in January they found the remains of seven people that police believe were tortured and killed by a religious sect.

    Prosecutors said Monday they believe a different sect is responsible for the new mass grave, however.

    The state prosecutor's office said investigators were supervising the exhumation of skeletal remains from the site in the indigenous Ngabe Bugle region, 350 kilometers (210 miles) north of the capital.

    'At this time it is not possible to determine either the sex or the number of people' found in the grave, Azael Tugri, a public prosecutor in the indigenous district of Nurum, told local media.

• I love spooky stories: "The Frightening Secrets of India’s Most Popular Temple: What exactly lies behind the unsealed and dangerous Vault B that is scaring everybody?" by Mythili the dreamer at Medium. The answer is probably a horde of Rakshasa. The structure in question is the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, which historically was under the guardianship of the Kings of the Travancore Royal Family until it passed into the hands of the Indian government. The temple was opened in 2011 by the Indian government, according to the article, revealing six massive sealed underground vaults, labeled A to F. 

    Vaults A, C, D, E, and F contained an insanely vast trove of treasure far beyond perhaps anyone’s expectations. The multiple chambers contained more than $20 billion in treasures. These include idols made of solid gold, gold coins from around the world, and necklaces and costumes studded with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds.

    As a member of the government committee who was sent to oversee the project said later.

    “I looked into the black vault, and I saw an amazing sight like stars shimmering in the sky on a moonless night. Diamonds and other precious stones flashed, reflecting the faint light coming from the open door. Most of the treasures were stacked in wooden chests, but eventually, the wood had turned into rubbish. Precious stones and gold simply lay in piles on the dusty floor. They were not really arranged systematically. There were baskets, some earthen pots, some copper pots, and in all these things, these things were kept. It was a magnificent experience. There are no words to describe it. I have never seen anything like this.”

    But the search stopped when the team came across the seemingly impenetrable “Vault B.”

    The Travancore royal family strongly objected this time and opposed the opening of this particular vault citing that it would be disrespectful to the temple’s central deity and could lead to widespread catastrophe for not only the Indian people but possibly the entire world. Interestingly, only the doors of Vault B are adorned with stone-carved images of ferocious serpents guarding its mysterious contents.

    And according to legends, the door is impossible to open by any earthly means. It is said to be sealed by a mystical spell that could only be undone by the one who had cast it or an equally powerful priest.

    And anyone who tries to forcefully open the door will unleash an unimaginable catastrophe. Indeed, many of the original committee members who were tasked with trying to open the vault have met with freak accidents and misfortune, further strengthening the idea that the vault is cursed.

    The vault remains unopened to this day.

• "Two 'spooky apparitions are spotted running across the road in front of petrified driver' at Gettysburg Civil War site where 50,000 soldiers lost their lives in 1863"--Daily Mail. Reminds me of the camouflage used by the Predator in the classic movie of the same name.
• "Experts stumped after killer whales attack sailing boats near Spain"--New York Post. The whales have been ramming the vessels, damaged several or pushed them around, although the article only mentions one human injury. A scientist that studies orcas in the area believes it may be the same pod involved in all of the incidents.
• "The weird space that lies outside our Solar System"--BBC Future. With the Voyager spacecraft having left the heliosphere, we are getting information about the space at the boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space. "And they have revealed that beyond the boundaries of our solar system lies an invisible region of chaotic, frothing activity."

“When you look at different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, that area of space is very different from the blackness we perceive with our eyes,” says Michele Bannister, an astronomer at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, who studies the outer reaches of the Solar System. “Magnetic fields are fighting and pushing and tied up with each other. The image you should have is like the plunge pool under Niagara Falls.”

• "A Church Impotent"--Social Pathologist. The author examines the central thesis of Leon Podles' book, The Church Impotent, which is that men have left the Church (I believe the author is referring to Christianity in general and not a specific church) because the Church has become feminized. More specifically, Podles argues:

As the Church became more and more feminized, the predominance of feminine emotions encouraged both mystics and the theologians who counseled them to attempt a subtle change in Christianity to make it conform more to the desires of the feminine heart. A change of emphasis here, a neglect of inconvenient Scripture there, and soon a religion takes a shape that, though difficult to distinguish from the Christianity of the Gospels, somehow has a quite different effect.

The Social Pathologist disagrees, writing: "The lack of men in the Church should be a sign that there is something wrong with men or there is something wrong in the Church. Podles should be commended for recognising this, the problem is that he gets the specifics wrong. The problem isn't the feminisation of Christianity [but] is its slow conversion into a Buddhist equivalent." That is, "[t]he Church is not so much feminised as it is quietistic and passive.  The feminisation follows the Quietism as women seem to enjoy this modality of religious practice." 

• The biggest news story that has largely been ignored is Trump's success in brokering peace deals in the Middle-East: successes that constantly eluded the best and brightest for decades. Fox News reports:

    The deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and Israel and Bahrain, involve the exchanging of ambassadors, establishment of embassies and co-operation on a range of fronts -- including trade, security and tourism. The agreements, known as the "Abraham Accords" also allow Muslims to visit Islamic holy sites in Israel. Trump said the deals would form "the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region."

    Earlier in the Oval Office, Trump said "we’re very far down the road with about five additional countries." He declined to name the countries he is speaking with and later said it could be "five or six" other countries.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of both the UAE and Bahrain were present to sign the deals at the ceremony. Trump signed onto each one as a witness. The leaders also signed a separate trilateral declaration of peace.

The other countries expected to join the peace accord include Saudi Arabia. Trump had earlier successfully negotiated a peace deal between Kosovo and Serbia, which agreement included a recognition of Israel by Kosovo, and vice versa. As a consequence, Trump has now received two nominations to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which has infuriated the Left. 

    These peace deals are interesting because one of the prerequisites to wars of the last days is that Israel be dwelling in safety. Ezekiel 38 and 39 describe the Battle of Gog and Magog which is generally accepted to be the battle of Armageddon. The passages of interest for our present discussion are in Chapter 38, verses 8-12: 

After many days thou [Gog] shalt be visited: in the latter years thou [Gog] shalt come into the land [Israel] that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they [Israel] shall dwell safely all of them. Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee. Thus saith the Lord God; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, [t]o take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations [the Jews], which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. 

(Underline and brackets added). The underlined portions indicate that Israel will be completely unprepared for hostilities, thinking themselves safe from attack. And the reason for such feelings of safety? Probably because of peace treaties with surrounding countries.