The Docent's Memo (May 2, 2022)

 

VIDEO: "Revolvers Are The Answer"--CRS Firearms (9 min.)

This video is about when revolvers are the answer to physical limitations, with the author of the video using his brother, who is mostly limited to just using one arm, as an example. The author begins the video by describing the auto accident that led to his brother's disability, but bear with the author's story because it does have a point.

Firearms, Shooting & Self-Defense:

• New Defensive Pistol Craft post from April 27, 2022. Links to lots of good articles as well as good advice. Jon begins by noting, however:

    “Then Jesus said to His disciples, whoever does not have a sword should sell his coat and buy a sword.”– Book of Luke 22:36, New Life Version of the Bible

     Please note that this is not said by some prophet or apostle.  This is said by the Lord.  

     Please note that this is not a suggestion.  This is a command.  In the Marine Corps we are taught that anytime a commanding officer suggests a thing or asks you a thing, you should understand it to be a direct order.  Would you do any less for your Lord?  

I would add that the sword was the standard infantry weapon at that time. In other words, He was not suggesting something only suitable for self-defense from a thief such as a dagger, but a weapon intended for combat. A couple other points that Jon makes that I especially want to highlight:

    1.  The purpose of self-defense is to prevent your injury.  No law requires you to suffer the first blow before defending yourself.  If you allow your enemy to strike first, you will be down on the ground getting stomped to death, unable to defend yourself or your loved ones.  You must strike preemptively.  To be able to do this, you must be aware.  So, you must be able to recognize the pre-assault indicators.  (Take a class and read Greg Ellifritz' articles on pre-assault indicators at ActiveResponseTraining.net.)

     There are many documented incidents of a person being killed by a single punch.  You should document as many of these as you can.  And use them as justification for your preemptive strike.  You may need to help your attorney, because if you don't have a lot of money or a good self-defense insurance policy, you won't be able to afford a very good attorney.  In American, you get as much justice as you can afford.  

     2.  If you failed to avoid, evade, or escape the attack, the purpose of self-defense is to stop the attack before you get injured anymore.  

     We are shooting to immediately stop the attack, so that we don't get hurt anymore.  We are not shooting to kill.  Yes, the bad guy may die, but that was his decision, not yours.  You wouldn’t be shooting at him in the first place unless he forced you to.  The condition of the bad guy is incidental to your purpose of stopping the attack.   

Read the whole thing.

• Active Response Training's April 29, 2022, Weekend Knowledge Dump. For you revolver fans, Ellifritz links to a 2017 article from The Revolver Guy about the early speed loaders of the 1970s including two that have survived: the HKS and the Speedstrip; nevertheless, you will see design elements from others that have been incorporated in more modern models. Also, for you revolver fans, he has linked to an article from Lucky Gunner on the .38 Special. Another article to check out is one from The Tactical Wire that re-examines the post shooting "scan". To be honest, a lot of the people that perform a scan may look but they don't see--the act of scanning is just an appendage to whatever drill they are running--and so they fall victim to inattentional blindness.  An improvement on the scan, as the article explains, is for the armed defender to move or do something to improve his position, and gives some examples from different trainers. Greg has additional comments on this, writing:

    I really like the idea of “improving your position” instead of passively “scanning” after a shooting.  I also like Craig Douglas’ version of an after action scan that involves a hard movement in a 90- degree arc to change positions rather than staying rooted in place and looking behind you for additional threats.

    When I teach this in my force on force classes, I have my students ask three questions after they shoot (at) a bad guy?

“Did I hit him and is he out of the fight?”

“Does he have any friends I need to shoot?”

“How can I better my position?”

This “bettering” could be getting cover from the bad guy.  It could be running away.  It could be preparing yourself for police intervention.  There are almost always things the tactician can do to improve his position in some manner.

A lot more there, so be sure to check out the whole thing.

• "Meet The Colt Trooper: Oft-Forgotten Workhorse Wheel Gun"--Guns.com. While we tend to focus on the "snake guns"--the Python, Cobra, Anaconda, etc.--the Trooper was probably the most widely used of Colt's .357 revolvers. It went through several different iterations, but in the mid-60s was properly the "poor man's Python" as it used essentially the same I-frame as the Python, featured the same grips, same cylinder, and same lockwork (although the finishing probably was not to same standards as the Python). 
• "How To Lighten Your SIG Sauer Trigger Pull For Cheap"--Ammo Land. If you have a Sig 220 line of handguns (e.g., P220, P226, P228, P229, etc.), this article explains how to switch out the mainspring to each up the weight of your trigger pull.
• "What’s the Best Handgun for Women?" by Kat Ainsworth, The Mag Life. The author explains that "[c]hoosing a gun isn’t about gender, it’s about size, fit, and skill." With that, she notes that the most basic point is how well the firearm points when presented by the person. She also raises these additional points:

• You shouldn’t be forced to adjust your grip to reach controls (safety, mag release).
• The distal pad/joint of your trigger finger should rest comfortably on the trigger.
• Your wrist and the palm of your hand shouldn’t be rotated or twisted away from the gun.
• You shouldn’t struggle to maintain a firm grip.
• Your hand shouldn’t be so much bigger than the gun that your fingers hang off the grip and it becomes awkward

These are all good points. But then the author asserts, based on these point, that "[i]t’s a myth that women, as a whole, benefit from using revolvers." 

    The average semi-auto, such as a Glock or Smith & Wesson M&P, are a bit more straightforward, and felt recoil is typically better mitigated. There’s also the fact that running revolvers requires different skills than shooting semi-autos, and it makes sense for a new shooter to learn the semi-auto platform first. This is partly a matter of opinion, but if you stop and think about it, it’s logical.

    If someone—anyone—wants to learn how to shoot on a revolver, that’s their choice. But forcing a revolver on someone isn’t great. Let shooters try different guns and decide for themselves. The “give the little lady a snubby 38 Special” mindset should stay in the past where it belongs.

    I think that this automatic rejection of revolvers is just as bad as the automatic assumption that a woman should be given a revolver. It reveals someone that is acting on, or reacting to, memes rather than thinking through the issue.

    Being conservative, I try to look at why certain practices or rules of thumb arose in the first place. The preeminence of revolvers for most of the 20th Century was grounded in certain realities, the primary two being: (1) up until fairly recently, revolvers really were more reliable than semi-auto handguns, not just because older semi-auto designs were less reliable, but also because factory ammunition was not as good as it is now; and (2) revolvers had (and I would argue still have) a much simpler manual of arms than a semi-auto. For someone that is not going to practice much, if any, with a firearm, or is going to throw it in purse or bag or a box on a closet shelf, these two points still have considerable weight. 

    One could, in addition, add that revolvers historically had more variety and more customizable of grips than semi-autos, even if that customization was taking a file and sandpaper to the wood stocks on the revolver. Since women had, on average, smaller hands in the past than today, it meant that for much of the 20th Century, women would have been more amenable to shooting revolvers with their generally smaller grips, as well as small caliber semi-autos, over the larger caliber semi-autos or thick "wonder-9s" of the 1980's and early 1990's. 

    And then, as the embedded video above discusses, grip or pinch strength, or other physical limitations, may drive a person to select a revolver over a semi-auto.  

• "Barrel 'Clocking' Issues"--Revolver Guy. If a barrel on a revolver is cross-threaded or cranked down too tight, it could result in the firearm shooting consistently to one side or another. Now what is Glock's excuse?

VIDEO: "The Massive Threat No One is Talking About"--City Prepping (17 min.)

With China locking down its largest cities due to anti-Covid policies, expect growing supply chain problems including shortages or simple unavailability of products. More proof that exporting manufacturing and unregulated free trade was a poor idea.

Prepping & Survival:

• "Five Tips To Modify A Zippo Lighter For Survival Fire Making"--Survival Common Sense. There is a lot to be said for the old Zippo lighter as a survival lighter. The author writes:

    I extensively field tested a Zippo several years ago. My Zippo was filled to the saturation point with lighter fluid, then checked out how many fires it would make before it failed. Over the next two days, the total number of lights was 974! (This is probably some indication of my social life!)

    When full of fluid, the Zippo worked immediately after a one-minute ice water bath. It came out the freezer overnight and fired on the second try. I sealed the hinge and opening with a piece of duct tape, and left it alone for a month, and it still fired.

Besides its ability to work when cold, the author notes that it can work with gasoline and is more durable (i.e., resistant to damage) than many other common lighter designs. My own, albeit, limited experience with the Zippo is that it is more resistant to the wind than common butane lighters, and if you don't have to keep a thumb pushing down on a button, slowly baking, if you need to keep the lighter going for more than a few seconds. 

    The downside to the Zippo, though, is that the fuel will evaporate over a period of just a few days unless you figure out some way to seal it. This was a surprise to me when I purchased my first Zippo lighter. Growing up in the Mormon household, no one smoked, so most of my knowledge of Zippo lighters came from an old Gilligan's Island episode where a Zippo lighter was described as the "eternal flame." Well, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but I really wasn't expecting the fuel to evaporate so fast, and initially thought that I had broken the lighter when I was filling it.  

    On that note, one of the hacks listed is to "Seal lighter with duct tape or a piece of bicycle tube: This will slow, but not stop evaporation." Other hacks have to do with carrying extra parts in the fuel compartment or replace some or all of the fuel reservoir stuffing with pure cotton to use a fire starter after the fuel has been used up.

• "Imodium’s Survival Applications: What It Is & Why Carry It Everywhere"--More Than Just Surviving. Because dehydration due to diarrhea is a common cause of death historically and in third world countries. The author expounds on this:

    I’m not exaggerating when I say this – if a disaster were to strike right this moment, besides assessing the situation, making sure my family is okay, grabbing my gear, and getting ready to bolt into action if necessary, I would 100% pre-emptively pop an Imodium.

    I’ve had my share of difficult times with contaminated food (looking at you, AYCE Korean BBQ), as I’m sure we have all had from time to time, and I know just how foolish it is to let random chance or bad luck with food affect my survival when popping a single, over-the-counter pill can pre-emptively nip the chances of me having diarrhea in the bud.

    For those of you who have no idea what the hell an Imodium is and why it seems to work such magic, Imodium (Loperamide) is a pill that works by slowing down your digestive system (gut movements) to an absurd degree. Practical applications – it makes stool altogether much less watery, even in the case of diarrhea, and also overall really decreases the number of bowel movements you would have to take – I’m talking a significant decrease here.

    I am personally regular as clockwork (too much information?) but when I opt to pop an Imodium for peace of mind, I can attest that it shuts down my digestive system for a solid 48 hr period.

• "Food Scarcity By Design"--The Captain's Journal. A look at the curious circumstance of a sitting president warning Americans that we face food shortages, and the multitude of fires at various food processing plants. And he cites the following from Michael Yon:

    My estimate: this will not be a two-year famine. Most famines go for roughly two years. The Great PanFaWar is shaping up to be a long hauler. Sometime in 2022, the famines will become obvious. By end of 2023, colossal. These will create enormous HOP: Human Osmotic Pressure to migrate. OGUS — the Occupying Government of United States — is expanding the Darien Pipeline through Darien Gap which can and likely will facilitate millions of Asians, Africans, and South Americans into United States. Europe did similar and suffers for it greatly now. Wrecking entire areas of Europe and causing Europeans to change their way of life. Watching their women get raped. Mass terror attacks. Priest decapitated in church. That sort of thing. Just reality. My currency is reality.

    While our economy and food supply collapses, OGUS has opened the floodgates to anyone. Many of these people come from highly predatory cultures. I’ve lived around the world. Spent more than half my life in more than 80 other countries. Some cultures are HIGHLY PREDATORY. I see many representatives of these cultures flooding into our country. They will be hungry on our streets. Many will rape our women and boys. These are just facts. I see it all the time downrange.

    You cannot run far enough away from this. We will fight, or we will lose. Those are our choices.

This is just another point in what appears to be a constellation of problems that will tear societies and civilizations apart in a process that will echo the Bronze Age Collapse. Is it intentional? Well, as I and others have documented, the Left and many of the elites hold the belief that the only way to reform society to their liking is to tear down the old society. Thus, the attacks on the family unit on all fronts. While that is the social/cultural front, other fronts will include attacks on the economic and governmental systems.

    This is my viewpoint. Food, like any other commodity, will flow to where the money is to be made. We see this all the time in other countries experiencing economic collapse. FerFal described how, in Argentina, the countryside was actually one of the worst places to try and find food because the farm produce flowed into the cities. In Venezuela, price controls have made food impossible to find in supermarkets, but seems to be available on the black market and, of course, to the upper middle class and the wealthy. 

    On an international scale, the United States is an outlier: it is a wealthy country that also produces a surplus of food. That means that during a world wide food shortage with rising prices, food will still tend to flow into the United States. Even if major external food producing countries impose restrictions on food exports, the United States will have food. It will be more expensive, certain food items may disappear from shelves or become more expensive, and substitutions and adaptations will need to be made, but there will be food. A few other countries: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, etc., fall into this same category. If you have stored up food, you will even be in a position to ameliorate food inflation as you can fall back on food stores during price spikes or to supplement the food that you buy. 

    Other countries and regions will have a much tougher time. Europe, for instance, is a net food importer. Overall, though, it is a wealthier region of the world, and, similar to the United States, food will still tend to flow into Europe simply because it can pay for the food. However, Europeans will have to pay much more than if they had food independence. Perhaps Europe will be forced to abandon some of its "green/ecological" policies to feed its populations, but it will eventually happen.

    The most suffering will be in poor countries that are net importers of food. Absent government control, a sizable portion of food will still be exported while prices will drive food prices above that which can be afforded by the majority of the population. For instance, China has been buying up productive farm land all around the world, including sizable tracts in Africa. So, in a world wide food shortage, those tracts will be growing food to be exported to China rather than the African country in which the food is produced. Ditto for Saudi Arabia. It is in these poor, net importer countries that I expect that we will see the most social unrest. 

    All of what I've said about the United States goes out the window, however, if the welfare system in the United States collapses. I've long maintained that the "Zombie apocalypse" craze was a reflection of the fears of rabid inner-city populations exploding into violence that spreads into the countryside. You can't farm or raise livestock if hordes of "zombies" are destroying everything in their path.

• "Farm Crisis Hits Dakotas As Floods Delay Plantings, May Trigger US Food Shortage"--Zero Hedge. From the article: "Some farmers might not be able to plant until at least May as widespread above-average moisture, and widespread well below average temperatures inhibit farmers from working their fields."
• "Are Preppers Overreacting To Irrational Fears About SHTF?"--Modern Survival Blog. A discussion on whether preppers are too focused on the negative, particularly as to "black swan" events.
• "Sunspot sends off double flare, as solar activity ramps up"--Live Science. The article relates that an April 25, 2022, a double solar flare tiggered some radio blackouts over Asia and Australia. 

VIDEO: "Nova Astronomy in Upheaval | Predictions Come True"--Suspicious Observers (13 min.)

News & Headlines:

• For those of you that forgot, yesterday was May Day. Here in the United States, it is a celebration of spring. But for much of the world, it is a celebration of communism and socialism. "On May 1st, Remember The Horrors Of Communism And Socialism"--The Lid.

    May 1st is International Workers’ Day, also known as Labor Day in some countries, is a celebration of laborers and working classes promoted by the international labor movement, socialists, and communists. It occurs every year on the first of May. The day was chosen to honor rioters who killed seven policemen during the Haymarket affair and was promoted by the international communist or socialist movements, which during the 20th century killed at least 94 million people.

    That’s right, during the 20th-century, communism, and socialism murdered at least 94 million people. The reason for using both communism and socialism is they are both based on Karl Marx, are bloody, and many Communist regimes call themselves Socialist.

    Per the detailed analysis in “The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression” (which should be required reading by every student in America), the number of deaths caused by Communism and Socialism was estimated at 94,360,000, broken down as follows:

• USSR — 20 million
• China — 65 million
• Vietnam — 1 million
• North Korea — 2 million
• Cambodia — 2 million
• Eastern Europe — 1 million
• Latin America — 150,000
• Africa — 1.7 million
• Afghanistan — 1.5 million
• Communist and Socialist movements, parties not in power — 10,000

These estimates were made twenty-five years ago, in 1997. Imagine how some of the socialist and communist regimes have added to their total since (and some believe the estimates are too conservative). And let’s not forget the full name of Hitler’s Nazi party was; Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National-Socialist German Workers’ Party).

    Despite Nazism’s big-government policies and control of businesses and the economy, most liberal writers vehemently oppose the idea that Nazism is socialist. B\ut [sic] in his tome, “In the Lost Literature of Socialism, “historian George Watson presents a compelling case that Hitler spoke like an anti-Socialist in public but admitted he was a socialist in private. Sounds like a modern politician. 

• Speaking of communism/socialism: "Authorities now fencing in buildings in Shanghai to stop people from leaving"--Hot Air. 
• The Great Reset: "Swapping meat and dairy for INSECT protein and 'cultured' milk could reduce global warming, water and land use by over 80%, study claims"--Daily Mail. 
• More Great Reset: "WSJ: Russia Preparing for Global Conflict With US, West"--News Max.

    The U.S. and some allies, increasingly seeing an opportunity to contain Russia's possible imperial ambitions, have increased military assistance to Ukraine. In response, Moscow has been preparing the Russian population for a potential larger war.

    The Kremlin has been using the May 9th celebrations, which commemorate the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, to draw parallels between World War II and the invasion of Ukraine.

    The building of a narrative of Russia as the victim of the West and the need to defend the country, is gaining momentum, according to the Journal.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that "[T]he forces that have always pursued a policy of containing Russia … they do not want such a huge and independent country that is too big for their ideas. They believe it endangers them simply by the fact of its existence, although this is far from reality. It is they who endanger the world."

    Putin threatened any country that intervenes with retaliatory strikes, saying that Russia has "all the tools for this, such that no one [else] can boast of."

    Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday that "[Y]ou have a nation the size of Russia with a nuclear arsenal their size and capability and a leader that is clearly as belligerent as Vladimir Putin, we have to take seriously the escalatory rhetoric that he and his leaders have been using lately. It would be — as irresponsible as it is for him to use that rhetoric, it would be equally irresponsible for us not to take it seriously. And so we do."

    President Biden requested $33 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine last week.

• Related: "Russia Is Now Openly Discussing NUKING London, Berlin, and Paris"--The NOQ Report. This is the line that I find interesting: 

Zhuravlev – “Since we’re talking about these weapons, the question is can they shoot it down? This missile can’t be intercepted. Their abilities are limited. They say they can shoot it down – we’ll see about that.”

This isn't the first time we have seen this type of comment--that the U.S. and its allies won't be able to shoot down Russian ICBMs. The Russians appear to have a very real fear that the U.S. can intercept and destroy ICBMs. The most likely candidate is the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System which was successfully tested in November 2020.  

• The internet of things goes to war: "Russians plunder $5M farm vehicles from Ukraine -- to find they've been remotely disabled"--CNN. According to the article, the ones that have actually been removed from Ukraine were tracked (via their onboard GPS) to Chechnya. 
• "Russia has been 'forced to merge depleted units into new battalions in Ukraine after up to 25,000 soldiers were killed in failed advance on Kiev', UK says"--The Daily Mail. A largely childless Russia will find it hard to replace troops. Again, however hard it is for Russia, it will be a much greater problem should China go to war.
• Once is an an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is enemy action. But six times? "SIX Russian businessmen die 'by suicide' within three months: Four oligarchs and two directors at oil giant Gazprom 'have taken their own lives' in spate of deaths among Russia's elite since Purtin [sic] invaded Ukraine"--Daily Mail.  
• Politicians all over the world failed by their own people: "Swedish PM says integration of immigrants has failed, fueled gang crime"--Yahoo. The Swedish PM is not saying that attempting to bring alien and hostile populations into Sweden has been a failure, but the Swedish people have failed in doing more to integrate the invaders. 

    Andersson said she wanted to introduce local youth crime boards where social services and police could collaborate. She also proposed tools to make sure that youths stayed in schools and off the streets without the consent of parents.

    "Integration has been too poor at the same time as we have had a large immigration. Society has been too weak, resources for the police and social services have been too weak," she said.

She reminds me of the U.S. President in Mars Attacks!  who believed that peaceful negotiations were the key notwithstanding how many times the invading Martians killed anyone and everyone they could.

• Trust the experts: "21 times more deaths after Covid vaccination in Germany than with all other vaccines combined in the last 20 years"--Rio Times. 
• "Arctic Sea Ice Stabilizes, No Trend Reduction In More Than 10 Years As Solar Cycle Starts Off Weakly"--Watts Up With That. 

    The Copernicus program offers very interesting data on Arctic ice.

    While sea ice has been declining off the Greenland Sea (east of the island), the Chucki Sea (eastern Siberia) shows a very different trend in sea ice extent over the past year. Such deviations have occurred repeatedly since the year 2000.

    Overall, the 2021 extent was very close to the 1991-2020 mean and well above the lowest value in 2012 and also above what was recorded in the year 2020.

Since we are looking for signs of fresh water being dumped into the Atlantic and causing the Atlantic Meridional Overturn Current (AMOC) to decline or shut down, the amount of sea ice off Siberia is probably not relevant. 

• Secret combinations are real: "Secretive Soros-funded group works behind the scenes with Biden admin on policy, documents show"--Yahoo. An excerpt:

    A secretive group backed by millions of dollars from liberal billionaire George Soros is working behind the scenes with President Biden's administration to shape policy, documents reviewed by Fox News show.

    Governing for Impact (GFI), the veiled group, boasts in internal memos of implementing more than 20 of its regulatory agenda items as it works to reverse Trump-era deregulations by zeroing in on education, environmental, health care, housing and labor issues.

    "Open Society is proud to support Governing for Impact's efforts to protect American workers, consumers, patients, students and the environment through policy reform," Tom Perriello, executive director of Soros' Open Society Foundations, told Fox News Digital.

    "Their work gives voice to people often overlooked in a regulatory environment too often dominated by corporate interests," he continued. "Our support for Governing for Impact's work is publicly available on our website and we are transparent about our enthusiasm for their victories for American workers and families."

    GFI, however, works to remain secretive. It is invisible to internet search engines like Google (an unrelated "Govern for Impact" is the only group that appears in a search). No news reports or press releases appear on its existence outside of a mention of its related action fund in a previous Fox News article on the $1.6 billion Arabella Advisors-managed dark money network, to which it is attached.

    But as the group attempted to conceal its operations, it sought talent on Harvard Law School's website, which was discoverable. The posting, which no longer appears on the site, was for legal policy internships.

    The Harvard advert said the group was established to prepare the Biden administration for a "transformative governance" and that it had produced "more than 60 in-depth, shovel-ready regulatory recommendations" for dozens of federal agencies.

Read the whole thing.

• Make stupid decisions and suffer the consequences: "Wealthy Chicago homeowners hire armed off-duty cops to stamp out carjackings and robberies as out of control crime spikes by up to 86%"--Daily Mail. 

    Wealthy Chicago suburbs are hiring private security details of armed off-duty cops to patrol their streets as crime soars up to 86 per cent in some neighborhoods.

    At least five neighborhoods north of Chicago have have hired or plan to hire patrols, including Lincoln Park, Bucktown, and Lakeview.

    The patrols consist of off-duty cops patrolling the neighborhoods in marked cars equipped with advanced surveillance and communications tools.

Interestingly, Chicago has had Democrats as mayors since 1927. Biden won Chicago with more than 82 percent of the vote including the neighborhoods listed above which overwhelmingly voted in favor of Biden in the last election. I wonder how many supported BLM and Antifa and favored defunding the police.