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Wednesday, March 24, 2021

The Docent's Memo (3/24/2021)

VIDEO: "Some Thoughts on The Gun Community Screwing Each Other Over"--Mike B. (12 min.)
A commentary about the current firearm and ammo panic and outrageous prices we are seeing.

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping:

  • A new Defensive Pistolcraft post from Jon Low. I know I always say this, but its true: there is a lot of good stuff here--links to articles as well as commentary by Jon--so be sure to check it out. Topics include a recent post from Greg Ellifritz warning to not get involved in defending crimes that don't involve you because your first duty is to your family and yourself, a related article from Mike Ox and David Morris that you are on your own, some thoughts on keeping your firearms safe from children, learning to make yourself resistant to crime so you shouldn't have to resort to a firearm (i.e., resorting to a firearm suggests that you failed at avoidance or detection of a criminal), hits (not speed) save lives and faster hits do so quicker, getting the most from your practice, a detailed explanation of the problem with Serpa holsters and a lot more. I try and excerpt some advice from Jon, so this is the one I chose this week:
     My practice regime has not changed due to the national shortage of ammo.  (Because I haven't noticed the shortage.  Because I stockpile.)  Because I haven't noticed the shortage.  Because I visualize the operation ten times for every time I perform the operation dry, and I perform the operation dry ten times for every time I perform it on the range with live ammo.  So, I don't use much live ammo when I practice.  (I don't lose a lot of golf balls when I golf.)

     Most of my ammo expenditure is demonstrations for my students during classes.  I am a firm believer in dry and live fire demonstrations, if nothing else, for the tempo.  

     "Oh, that's how slow you're suppose to do that?"

     Yes, because shooting faster than you can think is a real problem.  In an IDPA or IPSC match it's just a penalty point, in combat it's shooting the wrong person.  In the shooting games, just about all the targets are shoot-targets with maybe one or two no-shoots.  In the real world, in the shopping mall or the church, just about everyone is a no-shoot with one (maybe two) shoot-targets.  

Heck, here is another one:

      I generally won't sell a pistol by itself.  I generally sell complete systems that I have thoroughly tested:  

1.  pistol (that has been made as reliable as possible and thoroughly tested; and so is "used"),

2.  holster (inside the waistband),

3.  belt (1.5 inches wide, laterally stiff, longitudinally flexible, continuously adjustable),

4.  magazine pouch (generally inside the waistband or at least inside the belt),

5.  flashlight (that generally fits in the pouch with the magazine or in its own pouch inside the belt), and

6.  a set of Perry suspenders that attach to the belt to help to distribute the weight and make wearing the rig more comfortable.  

7.  I will also sell them 1000 rounds of ammo at the same time if they want.  

Because some people don't know which ammo to buy and might go to the gun store and buy ammo that doesn't fit their chamber.  Don't laugh!  (Or worse, fits in their chamber but is the wrong length.)

8.  I will also sell them a complete cleaning kit and explain to them that they need to clean their pistol often.  Not cleaning regularly is akin to not feeding a pet.  The pet will die, the small fine springs in the pistol and magazine will rust and not function properly.  Some people never clean their guns.  If you're one of them, hang your head in shame and repent.  

     If you don't give the customer/student everything up front, they may never get everything right.  Giving/selling complete systems that work correctly together is the right thing to do.  

You can sign up for Jon's emails that have news about this classes and let you know when he has a new post. In this latest, Jon mentions that he lost his job. Include him in your prayers, and reach out if you think you can help or have employment resources to share. 

  • "5 Minutes and 145 Shots: Breaking Down the 1986 Miami Dade Shooting" by Luke C., The Firearm Blog. A very detailed article on the shooting. Interestingly, the 8 FBI agents were armed with two shotguns, four hi-cap 9 mm pistols, and 4 revolvers (2 of which were capable of shooting .357 Magnum). The perpetrators were armed with a Mini-14 rifle, a shotgun, a 9mm semi-auto pistol, and a .357 Magnum.  
In the end, approximately 145 shots were fired in just under 5 minutes, four were dead, and five were injured with only one agent escaping unscathed by the intense street combat (Agent Risner). Toxicology reports performed on both Matix and Platt showed that they had no drugs of any type in their system at the time of the shootout. In total, William Matix was killed after being shot a total of six times while Michael Plat was killed after being shot 12 times.

The more I read about this shooting, the less I believe that the fact that four of the agents were armed with 9mm handguns made any difference in the outcome. The main factors in favor of the criminals, Matix and Platt, was their military police training and that one of them had a rifle. The main factors against the agents was poor planning, one of the agents was out of the fight because he lost his sidearm before the fight even started, and poor situational awareness--overall, just poor training. I'm glad it motivated the FBI to better study the wounding effects of bullets, and create a standard that allowed ammunition manufacturers to develop better bullets. But the takeaway from this fight shouldn't have been "we need a 10 mm pistol" but "we need rifles" and "we need to train better".

  • "The Service Revolver and How to Use It by Captain C. D. Tracy"--Loose Rounds. This is an excerpt from the introduction of the book named in the title. The article has a link to a PDF version of the book. The book, itself, was written after WWI to put down the lessons learned in the war for use of the handgun--and particularly the revolver--which proved itself invaluable when raiding enemy trenches. The source of the book is the Snub Gun Study Group which is trying to put together articles and resources for those interested in revolvers, generally, and snubbies in particular. The premiere issue of the electronic magazine (Spring 2021) is available at no cost in PDF here. They have an open invitation for submissions, so be sure to look around the site.
  • Speaking of revolvers: "Colt To Bring Back the Anaconda"--The Firearm Blog. The Anaconda was a .44 Magnum that bore a striking resemblance to the Python, but, as I understand it, used a different action from the Python. This article (ok, news release) indicates that "the 2021 Anaconda has been redesigned with a stronger frame and an oversized Python action". It will be available in 6 and 8 inch variants. 
  • "How to Master True Concealment with Everyday Carry" by Jeff Gonzales, Shooting Illustrated. Money quote: "When you are concealing, your goal is to not just to conceal the firearm and supporting equipment. You are also trying to conceal your intentions and capabilities."
  • "Features to Avoid When Buying an IWB Holster" by Greg Ellifritz, Active Response Training. First is ride height. "In general, the gun should ride at the minimal height that allows a proper shooting grip on the gun when in the holster." Second, construction (Greg advises against a hybrid construction). Third, watch for extra material around the trigger guard that may make it more difficult to draw the firearm. Fourth, sweat shields can make carrying more comfortable but make sure that they are too large which can decrease comfort and/or make it more difficult to draw. And fifth, make sure that the belt attachments keep the holster on the belt so it won't pull out when drawing--clips generally will not do this. 
    • Related: "The What & the Why: Holster Selection" by Doug Larson, Guns America. Key point, IMHO: "The holster protects the gun from debris or other items carried. It helps to keep the gun cleaner, free from lint and keeps the gun in the same place and orientation so that when it is drawn, it is where the user expects it to be." There is a lot of info here, so if you are thinking about picking up another holster, you might give it a read.
  • Shotguns aren't just for bird hunting: "Stoeger Coach Gun: Top-Selling Side-By-Side in 2020"--American Rifleman.
  • "M14 EBR: The Most Beautiful Battle Rifle In The World" by Chris Hernandez, The Mag Life. Hernandez loved lugging his spiffed up M14 around Afghanistan, but, ironically, never took a shot in combat with it. I wonder how he would have thought about it if he had been in a unit that saw more shooting. 
  • "Engaging Targets During Low Light and Darkness"--Bev Fitchett's Guns.
  • "Factors In Selecting A Long-Range Cartridge" by Philip Massaro, Gun Digest. As the author observes, "We’ve discovered that the high-BC bullets, which retain their energy so well at longer ranges, are key to hitting a target at extremely long ranges and that the biggest, most voluminous cartridges might not play such an important role." But many popular hunting and military cartridges are not designed to seat the longest bullets possible within the size of a magazine well. New cartridge offerings offer shorter cartridges that can seat bullets on the shanks rather than the ogive, making for good long range cartridges. The author discusses several such cartridges in addition to the 6.5 Creedmore.
  • "Defending Yourself Against Dog Attacks: Man Bites Dogs" by Molotov Mitchell, Recoil Magazine. Greg Ellifritz linked to this article recently, but given that hardly a week goes by without my coming across a story of a vicious dog attack, and the fact that you are much more likely to be attacked by a dog than a violent felon, I thought I would also link to this article. Plus, I've been slowly working on an article of my own concerning dog attacks, so this is a topic that interests me. Here are a few facts that I came across in my research:
    According to a 1997 Center For Disease Control (CDC) study, approximately 4.7 million dog bites occur in the United States each year, and 800,000 of those bites result in medical care. During the period 1979 through 1994, dog attacks resulted in 279 deaths of humans in the United States. A 2008 CDC study found that, between 2001 and 2003, some 4,521,300 persons were bitten each year, of which 885,000 (19%) required medical attention. Another study found that in 2008, about 316,200 emergency department (ED) visits involved a dog bite, "a rate of 103.9 visits per 100,000 population. Approximately 9,500 hospital stays involved a dog bite, a rate of 3.1 stays per 100,000 population." However, the number of dog bites resulting in hospitalization and death seem to be on the rise. The top three breeds that are most likely to bite are Chihuahuas, bull dogs, and pit bulls, respectively. However, the three top breeds most likely to kill a person (at least according to a study of deaths between 1979 and 1996) were the Pit Bull, the Rottweiler, and the German Shepard, respectively. 

       Unfortunately, most of the advice on defending yourself against a dog attack is very poor--I would categorize it on the same level as advising women to squirt lemon juice in the eyes of a rapist to make him give up the attack. The problem, as I see it, is that most "experts" giving advice are people that are (a) dog lovers who can't or won't admit that dogs are anything but angels and/or (b) don't really like people (a common fault of the hardcore animal lovers). Thus, much of the information is wrong or biased, and what is generally given is intended to protect the dog rather than allow the victim of an attack to escape unscathed. 

    The reason I like this article is because it gives solid advice on how to stop an attacking dog even if unarmed. And by "stop" I mean it in the same sense as when we talk about stopping a human attacker--causing sufficient bodily harm that the dog is unwilling or unable to continue the attack. A couple points I would add. If a dog is merely being threatening--barking and dancing around you--making yourself look as big as possible and waiving your arms may be a good tactic to try and scare the dog off; but if the dog is going for an attack, you need to bend the knees and hunker down so that you can take the rush of the dog without being knocked on your butt. Besides, that also puts you in a better position to punch the dog or grab it with your hands.

    The author explains what to do if the dog leaps at you (e.g., going for the throat), but let me add another which my father learned in the military and which he passed on to me, which is to grab the foreleg, throw the dog on its side while keeping a grip on the foreleg, pull the leg up (i.e., a sideways direction from the dog's body) tearing a bunch of important muscles and ligaments, and then stomp down as hard as you can at the junction of the foreleg and the body to crush the chest cavity. I've never had occasion to use it, but I have no doubts about its effectiveness. The author recommends not kicking at dogs, but I disagree if the dog is going low. Such attacks are typically biting attacks, and so a solid kick to the underside of the jaw, to the neck, or to the underside of the dog's body may dissuade it.

    Another thing I would point out is that dogs can sometimes be pretty good at avoiding a club or stick swung at them, but are generally terrible at avoiding a thrusting attack into the face, neck, or body. If you are concerned about dogs while walking, I would recommend a sturdy hardwood walking stick which can be used to fend off the dog (i.e., push or keep at distance) or as a striking weapon. Watch a couple videos on using a walking stick as a weapon so you know the best way to strike with one.

    I also like the author's closing remarks: "remember that if any animal, including a dog attacks you, it’s only using pure instinct. You have the added benefits of higher intelligence, tools, and training. You’re at the top of the food chain for a reason. So stay there!" As I've told my kids, a dog's only real weapon is biting with its mouth, whereas every part of a human is dangerous.

  • "Mass shootings aren’t growing more common – and evidence contradicts common stereotypes about the killers" by Christopher J. Ferguson (Professor of Psychology, Stetson University), The Conversation. The author of this 2019 article begins by dispelling a couple myths. First, there is no evidence of any connection between violent video games and mass shootings. Second, the media's reporting notwithstanding, mass shootings are not limited to white supremacists. Rather, the racial mix of mass shooters fairly closely match that of the population generally (although blacks are overrepresented among mass shooters while Hispanics are significantly underrepresented). Also, "[m]ost mass homicide perpetrators don’t proclaim any allegiance to a particular ideology at all." He goes on to discuss the role of mental illness, and my takeaway is that most mass shooters had mental health issues, but because only a minority of people with mental illnesses commit violent crimes, "focusing only on mental health is unlikely to put much of a dent in societal violence." Finally, as to whether such shootings are increasing, the author indicates: "using standard definitions, most data suggest that the prevalence of mass shootings has stayed fairly consistent over the past few decades."
  • "Murder Rate Remains Elevated as New Crime Reporting System Begins"--New York Times. From the article:
    The big increase in the murder rate in the United States in 2020 has carried over to 2021.

    A sample of 37 cities with data available for the first three months of this year shows murder up 18 percent relative to the same period last year.

    In the midst of a volatile period in crime, keeping track of trends has become especially important so that the police and local officials can tailor prevention policies.

    But as it happens, this year’s national crime release will be the last of its kind as the F.B.I. transitions to a crime reporting system that will affect the public’s ability to evaluate trends locally and nationally.

    On Monday, the F.B.I. released preliminary statistics showing a major increase in murder last year, with a 25 percent rise in agencies that reported quarterly data. The F.B.I. did not receive data from several cities with known big increases in murder like New York, Chicago and New Orleans, but cities of all sizes reported increases of greater than 20 percent.

The article goes on to report that the FBI will stop using the Summary Reporting System (S.R.S.) for developing its Uniform Crime Report because the SRS uses a hierarchy rule for reporting that only reports the highest level crime, thus omitting data on lower level crimes. For instance, if a burglar murdered a homeowner and stole his car, the murder would be reported via SRS, but not the burglary or auto theft. The FBI will instead be using the National Incident Based Response System (NIBRS) which allows up to 10 crimes to be assigned to each incident. The NIBRS has been around since 1988, but not used as part of the Uniform Crime Report. The problem, according to the article, is getting reporting agencies to switch from the SRS system to the NIBRS system. Also, "[a]nother reason it will be hard to compare crime statistics in 2021 with previous years is that eliminating the hierarchy rule will undoubtedly lead to an increase in the number of crimes reported."

There are over 100 illustrations, tables and charts to help you find the right variety for your yard or garden, identify pests and estimate yields so you know how many trees to plant. There are also “Rules of Thumb” inserted here and there in the text to highlight important points, such as “Asian pears are best ripened on the tree, then picked. A change in skin color from greenish to light brown or yellowish-green signals approaching ripening.” This contrasts with Domestic Pears, which are typically best picked green and fully ripened off of the tree.
  • "Best Bug Out Backpacks for Women" by Kyt Lyn Walken, The Prepper Journal. The author begins by discussing how individualized a backpack must be for the person getting it, and how changes to your weight and/or fitness and/or health conditions can change what works best. In other words, the pack that was perfect 10 years ago may no longer be a very good option. Also:
    Once you have considered your current physical condition and have accounted for any chronic physical debilitation, you can start to refine your focus of what you are really looking for in a bug out backpack. Generally speaking, bulky and tall men’s backpacks don’t work well for many women. I am 5’ 5” tall and 114 pounds.

    Typical men’s backpacks are much more cumbersome, and they do not allow you to fully raise your head because it is hitting the pack. This hurts your neck especially on steep slopes and makes seeing ahead of you more difficult. The poor visibility is exacerbated by the difficulty to get to your side pockets in an easy way on some backpacks. You necessarily must drop your pack on the ground before you can get what you need out of the pack.

    For this reason, I moved from a Tasmanian Tiger range pack MK II (100-liter capacity) to a Berghaus (Military line) Vulcan II Military Rucksack. These two backpacks have an opposite design.

She also provides a sample packing list and some recommendations as to specific packs.

  • "How to Prepare for the Threat of Garbage"--Food Storage Moms. The author observes that "[g]arbage is probably one of the biggest threats you will face during a long-term disaster or collapse." This is because if waste collection stops and the garbage accumulates, the frequency of diarrhea and respiratory infections, it will attract rodents and other pests, it will literally stink to high heaven, and there is the risk of toxic chemicals and water contamination. The rest of the article discusses ways of disposing of your garbage (and, no, dumping it in your neighbor's yard is not an option).
  • "30 Surprising Features On Common Things That Are Not Widely Known"--Bored Panda. Interesting read and, if you are like me, you will learn some handy tips and life hacks.
  • Something to keep in mind should we truly be without rule of law: "How six brothers - and their lions - terrorised a Libyan town" by Tim Whewell, BBC News. 
        They were the family from hell. For years, until last summer, the Kani brothers held a small Libyan town in their murderous grip, massacring men, women and children to maintain their authority. Now their crimes are slowly being uncovered.

        For seven months, workers in white chemical protection suits have been returning to the small agricultural town of Tarhuna, about an hour's drive south-east of the Libyan capital, Tripoli. They have marked out neat rectangles with red-and-white tape, across the fields of reddish-brown earth, and from these plots they have lifted 120 dead bodies, though large areas still remain untouched.

        "Every time I excavate a new dead body, I try to be as gentle as I can," says one of the workers, Wadah al-Keesh. "We believe that if you break a bone, his soul will feel it."

        Some appear to be the bodies of young fighters killed in battles around Tarhuna last summer, in the ninth year of Libya's on-off civil war. But many are of civilians - including women, and children as young as five - some bearing signs of torture.

        The graves are the gruesome legacy of a reign of terror, lasting nearly eight years, imposed on the town by a local family, the Kanis, and the militia they created.

    But they didn't start out as the local warlords:

        Piecing together the story of the brothers - Abdul-Khaliq, Mohammed, Muammar, Abdul-Rahim, Mohsen, Ali and Abdul-Adhim isn't easy. But what emerges from conversations with those who knew them is a terrifying tale of how a poor family took advantage of the chaos that engulfed Libya after its 2011 revolution against the dictator, Col Muammar Gaddafi - and came to rule their community through sheer ruthlessness.

        "Those seven brothers were rough people, without any manners. Their social status was zero," says Hamza Dila'ab, a trained lawyer and community activist, who remembers meeting them at weddings and funerals before 2011.

        "They were like a pack of hyenas when they were together. They swore and quarrelled. They could even hit one another with sticks."

        When the revolution broke out, most people in Tarhuna remained loyal to Gaddafi. The dictator had favoured the town, giving men from its leading families good jobs in his security forces. The Kanis were among the few who backed the revolutionaries - though not out of idealism, says Hamza Dila'ab, but because of a 30-year feud with some cousins, a family of Gaddafi supporters.

        In the turmoil after the toppling of Gaddafi, the brothers saw their chance.

        "The Kanis slowly, discreetly managed to get that family assassinated, one by one," says Hamza Dila'ab.

        But that set off a cycle of revenge that led to the murder, in 2012, of the second-youngest Kani, Ali.

        "Ali was this handsome young Kani brother, and when he died, they turned him into a legend," says Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at the Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands, who has researched the family's history.

        "The brothers decided to respond to his murder not just by finding the people responsible, and killing them. What they actually did was kill their entire families."

        The Kanis gradually took over and built up some existing military forces in the town, creating their own militia of several thousand fighters. Like most of the militias in Libya, it had access to state funds. And moving on from revenge, the remaining brothers used it to stamp their absolute authority on Tarhuna.

        "Their policy was to terrorise people for no other reason than to create fear. They killed for that reason alone. Anyone in Tarhuna who stood against them would die," says Hamza Dila'ab 

"Mini Camouflage Tests: U.S. OCP Spring-Time in Northern Wisconsin"--Mike B. (7 min.)
Multi-cam does pretty well.


VIDEO: "REVEALED! Why Israeli Soldiers wear 'Chef Hats'"--Agilite (2 min.)
I've ordered one of these, so I'll do a review once I get it and have a chance to try it out.

The Coming Civil War:

    When you are at the table with some of the top criminal profilers in the world, talking about industrial scale election fraud, you do more listening than talking.  And the listening was interesting.  The profilers have zero interest in U.S. elections.  Two of them did not vote and had unflattering opinions about both presidential candidates.  Their comments were most insightful because they saw the current questions about election fraud so differently than the American media.

    To them, 2020 election fraud was an industrial level crime.  It was of such magnitude that it moved from the category of an election crime to a sovereign crime.

    Sovereign crime.  It does have a ring to it.

    Sovereign crime is not something we see a lot of in America as our governmental institutions are generally not organized to commit, support or hide a crime. 

    Most Americans have never seen an organized crime take place, in plain view, supported by or covered up by governmental institutions.  But it happens all the time around the world, even in some countries that are quite Westernized.

    Sovereign crime means your government was a participant, active or passive, enabling vote fraud. 

    Governors and secretaries of state refusing to cleanse voter rolls, refusing to check signatures for mail-in ballots – even during recounts, changing the voting rules weeks before an election, qualifies as your government messing with your vote.

    The national government refusing to investigate the most egregious examples of voter fraud like hundreds of thousands of more ballots than voters in several states, that is a pretty good indicator that they are passive participants in industrial level vote fraud. 

    The refusal of the FBI to fully investigate Jesse Morgan’s truck with the hundreds of thousands of ballots going from New York to Pennsylvania – yet dispatching agents to a NASCAR location to investigate a garage pull-down they hoped was a noose – well, that’s a good indicator, too.

    Wait, we’re not done here.

    The United States Postal Service managers telling employees to backdate ballots so they could be counted illegally.  Does that sound like your government – sovereign government – participating in vote fraud?

    Our team noted that this might be the first time in American history that the government from the states to the national to its agencies coordinated to either fake the vote or hide the faking.

    Our profilers comfortably said the 2020 election fraud was on such a scale that it was impossible for the major law enforcement agencies to not have known about it in advance. 

    Governmental law enforcement either actively engaged in the fraud, which is impossible to prove, or knowingly acquiesced after the fact. 

    Pretty clearly, the evidence is piling up that the FBI had zero interest in trucks with ballots crossing state lines, ballots being shredded in Maricopa County, tens of thousands of ballots received before being mailed and all sorts of other clues any competent law enforcement agency would at least investigate.

    The conversation did not go where I expected it. 

    There was no interest on our profilers’ part in doing investigation of massive voter fraud.  They felt it was so obvious and the current work being done by citizens and published on hard-to-find blogs was state-of-the-art and no further investigations would find much more. Their comments were striking because they said the data easily available showed the election fraud patterns had two very alarming characteristics: It was not the first time this was tried, and it will be performed again, at scale, in the next election.

Read the whole thing. 

  • The triumph of multiculturalism: "No More Cakes and Ale" by David Solway, The Pipeline. Solway begins with the predictions that due to the Covid lockdowns and restrictions, we will never see a return to "normal"--at least as how "normal" was defined before the lockdowns and mask mandates. But, he contends, there is more afoot: "It is perhaps even more alarming that many people don’t seem to care that their world is collapsing, an attitude that only hastens the collapse. They no longer believe in their culture, their nation, and the formative values of the Judeo-Christian West, having succumbed to civilizational fatigue." Or, as Spengler would have characterized it, our civilization has entered the depths of winter. Solway continues (bold added):

    Indeed, there seems at times to be a masochistic contentment with the prospect of the end of normal civilized life. A community is being created, writes Charles Murray in Coming Apart, characterized by “weak social capital” where “the small daily pleasures of friendly exchange with neighbors and storekeepers dry up,” and the quality of life markedly decays.

    And people are buying into it. One detects a certain frivolity of mind, the readiness and even eagerness to capitulate to a prevailing orthodoxy, in effect, a superficiality of thought, a dwindling of intellectual range, a loathing for the things we ignorantly take for granted and a perverse desire to see them taken from us.

I don't know if Murray was conscious of it or not, since I have not read his book, but the "weak social capital" sounds like Robert Putnam's discovery that multiethnic communities have lower social capital than homogenous ones. Solway continues with a description of "wokeness":

We live in a decaying culture, fueled by resentment “against the great achievements of our civilization’s past,” which we can no longer emulate. Lacking the “high ideals” of our forefathers, who rebuke us for our moral and intellectual degradation, “we lash out at those older generations for the distance they have left between ideal and reality.” Despairing of retrieval, we create a wasteland, reducing everything to rubble out of petty spite and a deep sense of personal inadequacy.

And, Solway contends, people will be happy with this. Read the whole thing.

VIDEO: "Afghanistan sits on $3 trillion in minerals"--Caspian Report (16 min.). China is in the best position to exploit these resources.

Miscellany: 

    CNN is reporting that the shooter had purchased an AR style pistol with an arm brace 6 days before the shooting--just a few days before a judge issued a ruling striking down Boulder's ban on "assault weapons". In another coincidence, the shooting came just as it appears that anti-gun legislation was going to stall in the Senate. I don't know if this shooting will change any votes--many of the Senators probably remember the figurative bloodbath that followed passage of the 1994 AWB that led to Democrats loosing both the House and the Senate in the mid-term elections. Of course, we have suddenly seen a lot of old-guard Republican politicians announce that they will be retiring, so maybe they won't care.

    But with faux-President Biden discussing options available to him by executive order, I would not be surprised to see a renewed effort from the ATF to ban arm braces. 

I don’t own an AR-15, and neither does anyone in my family. They are dangerous toys, not tools like my father’s ancient 30-06 rifle or my widowed mother-in-law’s pistol, which she legally purchased for self-defense. The AR-15 and numerous copycat weapons are a hobby for man-children, who congregate on online forums to brag about spending thousands of dollars on modifications for their weapons and on so-called “tactical” gear that they wear for the same reason my daughters put on princess costumes.

He then backs this up with a single obscure reference to someone advertising what appears to be a thermal imaging scope, as if that has any special relevance to the AR.  

    He continues:

It goes without saying that the vast majority of AR-15 enthusiasts are law-abiding citizens who have no intention to commit murder. Which is why banning AR-15s should be a no-brainer. No one’s hobby matters more than another person’s life.

Then why not ban doctors and hospitals? He does know that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States, doesn't he? After all, no one's health matters more than another person's life. And what about other hobbies and property that cause deaths at much higher rates than firearms such as cars, swimming pools, playing football, consuming alcohol or using tobacco, etc.?

    The reality is that we, both as a society and as individuals, constantly weigh the risk of harm and find some loss of life acceptable or elevate the worth of certain individuals over others. For instance, using the doctor and hospital example, society has determined that the value provided by doctors and hospitals is worth the risk of medical errors that lead to death or permanent injury. Essentially, we are trading the health and wellbeing of one group of people--those that benefit from medical care--over that of a relatively smaller group of people that are victims of medical malpractice. Similarly, the whole concept of self-defense is based around the life of a crime victim being worth more than that of the perpetrator of a violent crime. It is where a society adopts a position of equivalency of the value of the two (the criminal and the victim) that self-defense is most restricted.

    Another failed argument: 

Second Amendment absolutists will no doubt respond that the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution. True, but how far does this right extend? Surely not to missile launchers or fighter jets. 

Well, actually, it does extend to missile launchers and fighter jets. As I've noted before, at the time the Constitution was drafted investors would regularly build or outfit warships to act as privateers; and even regular merchant vessels typically were armed with cannon. Local militia were often armed with field pieces as well. You can't argue that a ship with 28 × 12-pound smoothbore, 6 × 18-pound smoothbore, and 8 × 9-pound smoothbore cannon was needed for hunting or to chase off a burglar.

    But, back to the subject of the article, what relevance do missile launchers and fighter jets have to the AR semi-auto rifle or pistol? The Second Amendment clearly extends to personal weapons and that is the subject of this matter. Walther  just wants to exclude certain of those personal weapons because he doesn't like them.

    And this doozy:

AR-15s aren’t necessary for self-defense or hunting. Beyond hobbyism, the only purposes for owning such weapons are terrorism and insurrection.

Firearms aren't necessary for self-defense or hunting, either. Buy yourself a nice sword and learn to use a crossbow. But I don't read anything in the Second Amendment that limits its application to self-defense, hunting, or only what is necessary for either activity. As for terrorism and insurrection, both pre-date and are independent of firearms. I'm sure that the Tutsis hacked to death by machetes in the Rwandan genocide were no less terrified because the Hutus were not using "assault weapons."

    Besides, Walther is being disingenuous. I'm sure that if a gang of 6 violent criminals broke into his home, all armed and having murderous intent, and he had the option, Walther would immediately choose an AR with a 30 round magazine over his father's 4-round .30-06 rifle, his widowed mother-in-law’s pistol, or his "deer slayer" shotgun.

    Finally, the boomer shows through:

Bottom line: These weapons are associated with atomized young men and a poisonous cult of violence. 

I'm not young. My father-in-law is in his late 70's. We both own AR-15s. Many of my friends and relatives in their 40's, 50's, and 60's also own ARs. The AR is one of the best selling hunting and target rifles. The only people that associated it with atomized young men and a poisonous cult of violence are delusional people like Walther.

    Walther is a particularly vile anti-gun shill who obviously is not a gun guy, and suffers from normalcy bias and projection, reasoning that just because he has never wanted or needed an AR-15 there is no valid reason for anyone else to own one, nor will there be any valid reason for one in the future. As he states, "It has been more than a century since we were a nation of citizen-soldiers ready to take up arms on behalf of our republic at a moment’s notice," so, of course, the need will never arise again.

VIDEO: "Sword carrying laws of the medieval period: MEDIEVAL MISCONCEPTIONS"--Shadiversity (19 min.). Weapon control laws have historically been rare among the European peoples.
The pests are more than just a mere nuisance. Mice are known to make nests in hay, where their feces can cause illness and even death in livestock that ingest it. They’re known to carry and spread leptospirosis, a potentially fatal bacterial disease that can cause everything from meningitis to liver failure, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

They also eat grain and other food stuffs. 

    Many countries around the world see China not as a friend but as a threat, due to its internal and international actions. When the Coronavirus pandemic hit the world, many people speculated that it's a new bioweapon developed by the Chinese authorities. Now, another claim has emerged that says, China is collecting DNA samples of people from the US and other countries to wipe out certain ethnic and racial groups.

    The horrific allegation has been made by the well-known writer Gordon Chang, who is the author of the 2001 book called 'The Coming Collapse of China'. He told Fox News that during the Coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ruled country continued to grow the DNA database and China is using its COVID-19 vaccine as leverage for information on the Americans.

    "What they're doing is they are saying: 'We'll get this vaccine to you but we need to complete our trials so we're going to use your population as the test. If you don't participate in these trials, you're not getting the Chinese vaccines,'" Chang added.
  • "Setting The Bar Low" by Jeff Carter, Points and Figures. The author worries that the opportunity to create wealth--to become wealthy--is declining in the United States.
    My biggest worry in the US is that the opportunity to build wealth is dropping.  It’s not dropping due to anything except terrible public policy.  Covid lockdown policy ensured that we saw the largest transfer of wealth from small business to big business we have ever seen.  But, it’s not just a dumb policy like lockdown.
 
    It really goes back to a few things.  The first is education.  The US government-run education system totally sucks.  It’s more concerned with force-feeding social justice and socialism than it is teaching math.  ... Parents are waking up to the fact that government-run schools and the teacher’s unions that run them aren’t there for the children.

    The second is family life in the US.  Kids do better when they come from two-parent families.  The data is clear.  We are seeing more and more people have kids without getting married.  Many single-parent families.  I saw an article where a tax professor said it was racist to have a better tax treatment of married people than unmarried people.  There is a glaring reason.  Society does better with intact nuclear families.  Tax policy is a small marginal nod to that undisputed fact.  If there is anywhere the science is settled it’s there.

    The other factor is risk-taking.  Kids today are totally uneducated about taking risk.  They want everything to be safe.  Others want all the accolades and all the titles with the money that comes with it instead of doing the hard work it takes to earn it and get there.  ...

    When you start with nothing you have less fear. ... 

    'There are a lot more sightings than have been made public,' [John] Ratcliffe told Fox News.  

    'Some of those have been declassified.

    'And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain. 

    'Movements that are hard to replicate that we don't have the technology for. Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.' 

    Ratcliffe told host Maria Bartiromo that the sightings of 'unidentified aerial phenomena' had been observed all around the world.

    'When we talk about sightings, the other thing I will tell you is, it's not just a pilot or just a satellite, or some intelligence collection,' Ratcliffe said.

    'Usually we have multiple sensors that are picking up these things, and some of these are unexplained phenomenon, and there is actually quite a few more than have been made public.'

    The government was, in December, given a 180-day deadline to disclose what it knew, meaning that the report should be out before June 1.

    During an appearance on "Fox & Friends," Elizondo, the former Director of ATTIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) said that the United States government applied the same methodology used in terrorism intel operations in regards to UFO’s and found that they are not only "real," but the information surrounding them is "compelling."

    The Pentagon has presented three potential theories on the origin of UFOs.

    The first "highly unlikely" theory purports that UFOs are secret U.S. technology that has flown under the radar due to a lack of communication between government agencies.

    The second theory speculates that UFOs are "foreign adversarial" technology created without the intelligence of the U.S. government.

    "This would be a huge intelligence failure of [the United States] because we’ve been technologically leapfrogged," said Elizondo.

    Elizondo stopped short of concluding that UFOs could be alien technology when discussing the third and final theory.

    "If it’s not ours and it’s not [another country] well, then it’s someone or something     else."

    Elizondo also outlined the five "unique observables" that help to distinguish UFOs from other identifiable aerospace technology.

    These characteristics include; instantaneous acceleration, hypersonic velocity, low observability, trans medium travel (the ability to operate in various environments), and positive lift, in which you have vehicles that can fly without the apparent need for control surfaces, wings, or even engines.

    For the last two years, the Department of Defense’s newly revamped “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force” (or UAPTF) has been busy briefing lawmakers, Intelligence Community stakeholders, and the highest levels of the U.S. military on encounters with what they say are mysterious airborne objects that defy conventional explanations. 

    Along with classified briefings, multiple senior U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the matter say two classified intelligence reports on UAP have been widely distributed to the U.S. intelligence community. Numerous sources from various government agencies told The Debrief that these reports include clear photographic evidence of UAP. The reports also explicitly state that the task force is considering the possibility that these unidentified objects could, as stated by one source from the U.S. intelligence community, be operated by “intelligences of unknown origin.” 

    Significantly, a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general and head of RAND corporation’s Space Enterprise Initiative has — for the first time — gone on record to discuss some of the most likely explanations for UAP. His responses were surprising.

    In June, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s FY2021 Intelligence Authorization Act contained an intriguing section titled “Advanced Aerial Threats.” In its inclusion, the committee gave an eye-opening official hint that the government has taken UFOs seriously in recent history by offering its support for the “efforts of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force at the Office of Naval Intelligence.” The Intelligence Committee additionally requested an unclassified report detailing the analysis of “UAP” or “Anomalous Aerial Vehicles.” 

    Though already acknowledged by the Intelligence Committee, the Pentagon formally acknowledged in mid-August that they had established a task force looking into UAP. In a press announcement, the Office of the Secretary of Defense stated, “the UAPTF’s mission will be to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.” According to the release, authority for the task force was approved by the Department of Defenses’s (DoD) chief operating officer, Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist. 

    The summer news of the establishment of the UAPTF seemingly suggests — for the first time since the shuttering of Project Blue Book, the Air Force’s official investigations into UFOs, in 1969 — that the Pentagon is now taking the subject of UFOs seriously. 

    However, an internal email obtained by The Debrief shows that almost one year before the DoD’s announcement, the highest levels of the U.S. military were already being briefed on UAP. 

And another bit:

    Overwhelmingly, everyone The Debrief spoke with said the most striking feature of the recently released UAPTF intelligence position report was the inclusion of a new and “extremely clear” photograph of an unidentifiable triangular aircraft.

    The photograph, which is said to have also been taken from inside the cockpit of a military fighter jet, depicted an apparent aerospace vehicle described as a large equilateral triangle with rounded or “blunted” edges and large, perfectly spherical white “lights” in each corner. Officials who had seen it said the image was captured in 2019 by an F/A-18 fighter pilot. 

    Two officials that received the report said the photo was taken after the triangular craft emerged from the ocean and began to ascend straight upwards at a 90-degree angle. It was indicated that this event occurred off the eastern coast of the United States. Several other sources confirmed the photo’s existence; however, they declined to provide any further specifics of the incident. 

    Officials who read the recent report say it primarily focused on “Unidentified Submersible Phenomena,” or unidentified “transmedium” vehicles capable of operating both underwater and in the air. 

    The three officials we spoke with said the report suggested the UAP Task Force appears to be concerned that the objects being termed as UAP may be originating from within the world’s oceans. Strange as this may sound, the idea of “USOs,” or “unidentified submersible objects,” is not something exclusive to the current UAPTF. 

    I used to have a great deal of interest in the UFO phenomena notwithstanding the fact that I'd never seen anything I couldn't explain (although one took a couple weeks before I was able to figure out what it probably was). But then I came across a book (and I forget the title and have long since got rid of my small library on the topic) that was one of the most detailed I'd read when it came to interviewing and publishing the information about those that had experienced close encounters--specifically abductions and missing time. There was a common thread in these accounts which was that nearly all of the people had been dabbling in one way or another in the occult, even those that professed to be Christian. Thus, my belief is that close encounters are sleep terrors and/or demonic in nature. This seems supported by the accounts of similar abductions by goblins, dwarfs and fairies from the Middle-Ages and Renaissance where the goblins, etc., would become quite distraught if they were reminded of the fact that because they were not "sons of Adam," they were not saved, and were fearful of the invocation of the name of Christ.

   I suspect that most of the genuine sightings of unknown aircraft or seacraft involve military tests. Many of the UFO sightings in the late 1940s involved testing of Nazi rockets by both the Soviets and the Western Allies, the most famous being a series of UFO sightings over Norway and Sweden following the war which were later revealed to be from tests of captured V-2 rockets. The Cash-Landrum Incident clearly involved a U.S. Air Force experimental nuclear powered craft of some sort.

    There are some genuine puzzles, though, such as the "foo fighters" seen during World War II in both major theaters, and by pilots of both sides. The Allies thought that they were experimental craft of the Axis powers, and the Axis powers thought them to be experimental craft flown by the Allies. I believe that they were probably some form of electrostatic or plasma phenomena, but their absence after the war (or, at least, absence from reporting by news outlets) is notable. But I also suspect that there were Nazi secret weapons projects which either evaded Operation Paperclip and its Soviet counterpart or have simply not been revealed.

    Another set of incidents that always interested me was the great airship scare of the late 1800s. The majority of these reports are probably made up. Apparently liar's clubs were a thing back then and newspapers would compete by coming up with the most incredible stories, similar to the tabloids of today. But it is possible that someone could have secretly developed a dirigible or rigid airship of some sort and been testing it. After all, the first dirigible was flown in 1852, observation balloons were used in the Civil War, and many of the descriptions of the air ships closely match those of Zeppelins, the first of which was flown in 1900. 

    All that being said, the biggest objection to UFOs being of extra-terrestrial origin in the past has been Relativity limiting an object's speed to no more than the speed-of-light. With theories now being proposed that get around that through warping of space time and taking advantage of the fact that space-time can move or expand at greater than light speed, that objection is increasingly moot. 

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Weekend Reading--A Knowledge Dump and More

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