For Those Of You Carrying The TDI Knife

 

"Matthew's Fabrication TDI Knife Sheath"--Tier 1 Citizen (5 min.)

A quick refresher on how and when to use the knife in a gun grab situation and a review of how this sheath makes it easier to do so.

Armed & Styled On Using Handheld and Weapons Lights

The YouTuber Armed & Styled recently posted a couple videos on flashlights and weapon mounted lights and using them in defensive contexts. The first video is her going over the various terms used to describe brightness, intensity, etc., and a few basic considerations in using a light. The second video delves into the topic deeper with an interview of John Johnston of Ballistic Radio on using the handheld or weapon mounted light.

"What the heck is candela? Lumens? Photonic Barriers?? Why should YOU care?" (5 min.)

"Handheld and Weapon Mounted Light Tactics with John Johnston" (32 min.)

Bombs & Bants (Streamed 6/22/2022)

 

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 41" (42 min.)

Note that there were some audio issues at the beginning, so you will need to skip to about the 4 minute mark.

Review: African Safari Pith Helmet

I recently purchased an African Safari Pith Helmet from the Village Hat Shop for $49.95. Because I chose the slowest shipping method, there was no charge for shipping. It was three days before the helmet shipped and then it took another 4 or 5 days to arrive, which was fine. They offer faster shipping, at a price, if you prefer. 

    The price is actually pretty good on this item. I had intended to get one last summer, but the only seller that had them in stock was charging about twice as much. This year that seller was out of stock and a search brought up the Village Hat Shop. Obviously at this price, it is not a U.S. made item, but this and all the other pith helmets in stock were made in Vietnam. But the helmets I was looking at last year were also produced in Vietnam. 

    I would note that the Village Hat Shop sells different types of pith helmets, including the style issued to British troops during the colonial period, with colors (depending on the style) in either khaki or white. I went with a basic African Safari version because it wasn't as tall as the British pith helmet and had a broader brim, but also featured the green lining unlike some of the other styles of pith helmet. 

    So, the first thing to note about this helmet is that it is an actual pith helmet and not a reproduction "jungle hat" or some such made of cloth covered plastic and lacking the pith wood. That means that the hat is intended to be soaked in water so the wood will absorb water. The idea behind these helmets is to take advantage of evaporative cooling. That is, as the helmet heats from the sun and from your body heat, the warmer water evaporates leaving the cooler water molecules behind and lowering the temperature in the helmet and keeping you cool. This is assisted by the fact that the helmet has webbing to keep it up off your head to allow air to circulate; and by venting holes on the sides of the helmet and at the top of the helmet. Obviously, it works much better if there is some air movement and, as I discovered, even a slight breeze made a wonderful difference over dead air.

    The instructions on the web site indicate that the helmet should be inverted and placed in a bucket of water to absorb the water through the top (outside) of the helmet, and specifically warns against trying to fill the helmet from the inside. The reasons for this, I would suppose, is that it provides for better absorption of water; there are large holes in the sides of the helmets for circulating air, and so if you try just dumping water into the helmet, it is just going to run out anyway, before it has a chance to soak up any of the water. 

    I let mine soak for about 20 or 30 minutes before using it for a long walk, but I think that it really needed a longer period as the water seems to have fully evaporated after about 30 minutes or so.

    

    One of the nice features with this particular model is that it featured green colored lining which, as you may know, is much easier on the eyes in bright light (thus the "green rooms" used by actors to give them a break from bright stage lights). I've seen some pith helmets issued with tan or grey linings which are not going to be as easy on the eyes if there is a lot of glare. 

    You can also see in the photograph above the interior webbing intended to keep the helmet perched above your head and aid with air circulation. On each side you can see two air holes with aluminum grommets to let air in, and then an aluminum piece at the top where are the vents to allow air out. The head strap/sweat band is adjustable somewhat, using a piece of velcro tab. 

    The chin strap was a little disappointing. The website describes it as a composite leather, but it looks like a thin strip of vinyl or Naugahyde. I haven't tried it. The web site calls it decorative, but the buckle is serviceable, so I might give it a try when in the desert where it is typically windier than in town. 

    Going around the helmet so you can view it from all sides:

    As you can see, it seems pretty well put together.

    I tested it on a recent weekend. We've been having unusually cool weather this month, so temperatures were only in the upper 70s. The hat worked well for about 30 minutes, with the evaporative cooling in a brief but brisk breeze making me wonder about taking it off because my head got so cold. But after the water had evaporated, it basically turned into a normal sunhat, albeit with a bit better air circulation. As I mentioned above, I think that soaking it longer initially might help. I may also try the initial soak and then periodically stop and splash some water into the interior to see if that might help refill the hat, so to speak.

    I didn't see any discoloration in the fabric after soaking and using the hat. I'm sure that if I were using natural sources of water there would be some natural discoloration develop. 

    In conclusion, the helmet seems of good quality for the price and works as intended. Although it may not be the height of fashion, it was originally intended as a piece of practical headwear and that is my intention with using it.

Is Mental Illness Really A Major Issue In Mass Shootings?

Right now with the gun grabbers gleefully contemplating different ways to limit your right to self-defense, the focus has shifted to red flag laws and background checks that include health records; the idea being that the mentally ill are more likely to become mass shooters or something like that.

    But is it true?

    In the article, "Blaming mass shootings on the nation's mental health crisis is 'harmful', advocates say" it notes that "a 2018 report of the FBI on the characteristics of active shooters found that only 25% of shooters from 2000-2013 had confirmed mental illness." Also (brackets in original):

    According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. experience mental illness, defined as a condition that affects a person's thinking, feeling or mood, each year, approximately 52.9 million Americans. In 2020, 1 in 10 young adults, between the ages of 18 and 25, were found to experience serious mental illness.

    With millions of Americans grappling with mental health challenges, doctors and public health experts, interviewed by ABC News, questioned whether it would be feasible to rely on the nation's current mental health infrastructure to stop would-be shooters.

    “The notion of blaming this on the mentally ill is an intentionally disingenuous scapegoating of people who have enough problems already -- that they don't need to be insulted by politicians who were looking for a way to avoid a more complicated discussion,” Dvoskin said.

    Those who live with mental illness are 10 times more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators, he added.

    “Very few of these mass shooters have had a diagnosed mental disorder of any kind. That doesn't mean that they were doing fine. I think the better rhetoric to use [instead of] mentally ill is people who are in crisis. Anybody who's in a crisis of despair or rage… that doesn't mean they're going to shoot anybody but they ought to get help,” Dvoskin said.

Other sources indicate that 26% of adults suffer from a mental illness. In short, then, active shooters appear to have no higher an incidence of mental illness than the general populace. 

    In 2018, Active Self Protection published an article by Ron Borsch, a retired police officer and trainer, on "Profiling An Active Killer." He points out near the beginning of his article that it is hard to pin down the motivation for such shooters.

Their motives can be as complicated as they are. Some surviving active killers have described a real or imagined wrong done to them, have claimed they were bullied or picked on.  Others may have been bullies themselves. Typically, all were selfish and over-reactive. These actual and or self-perceived nobodies, desiring recognition for notoriety as a “somebody”, often default to Rapid Mass Murder© for a significant body-count eerily similar to playing violent types of video games, with special fascination for the Columbine video game.

Borsch delves into the video game angle much more, noting a Secret Service study of perpetrators of school shootings (a sub-set of mass shootings or killings) showing that only 12% were attracted to violent video games. Borsch didn't use "only" but I do because a 2008 report from Pew indicated that two-thirds of video gamer played video games with violence in them. Also:

More than 90 percent of games rated E10+, Teen, or Mature have some kind of violent imagery, and “that violence is often portrayed as justified, fun, and without negative consequences,” write researchers Douglas Gentile and Craig Anderson, of Iowa State University.

The study Borsch cites actually shows a stronger correlation with liking violent books and films, but that was still only 24% and 27% respectively. So, in reality, school shooters appear less interested in violent video games than youths in general.

    With that aside, Borsch then moves on to listing off a constellation of factors. As Borsch points out, it is a mistake to focus on just one factor, “… but the truth of the matter is that there is never one cause. There is a cocktail of multiple causes coming together… And so no matter what single thing we focus on… not one of them is sufficient to cause aggression. But when you start putting them together, aggression becomes pretty predictable”.  This is similar to a doctor diagnosing a disease. That is, if you were looking at a constellation of symptoms of a disease, for instance, a doctor would not diagnose you as having a particular disease if you only suffered one or even a few of the symptoms. Rather, you would need to show all or almost all of the symptoms. 

    The factors (symptoms) Borsch lists include: (i) numerous unstable or troubling symptoms, possibly a mental illness diagnosis; (ii) is an oddball and typically avoided by his peers; (iii) immature (i.e., under 25 years old); (iv) planner, preparer and researcher of prior mass shooting events; (iv) close in age to his victims; (v) suicidal; (vi) an interest in violent video games; (vii) white male; (viii) cowardly; (ix) access to weapons. 

    The white male factor is interesting. It's not that blacks don't commit mass shootings--they are overrepresented in fact--but they don't tend to shoot up schools. But I would point out that blacks on average test as having a much higher self-image and self-assurance than the average white person. It might help explain why young black males are more likely to be involved in violence but less likely to be involved in a school shooting.

    Going through this, though, we only see two factors directly linked to mental health: the unstable or troubling personality (including possible mental health diagnosis) and the suicidal ideations. That means that seven of the factors are unrelated to mental health issues. So Borsch's article would seem to indicate that mental health, alone, is a poor predictor of a mass shooter. 

    In what I believe is a more recent article from Active Response Training, Greg Ellifritz reviewed an FBI study on "Pre-Attack Behaviors of Active Shooters in the United States from 2000-2013". One of the points Ellifritz makes is:

Only 25% of killers had been previously diagnosed with a mental illness.  There may certainly be some un-diagnosed mental problems among the remaining killers, but this statistic really shoots down the idea that psychiatric drugs are causing all of these shootings.

As I noted above, that is the same incidence of mental illness as within the general population.

    In conclusion, given the research on this matter, I would be suspicious of anyone that emphasizes mental health as a sole trait or even one of the more important traits predictive of a mass shooter; and I would be especially suspicious of anyone claiming that a person's mental health status should be used to determine whether a person should be permitted to buy or own a firearm. The law currently requires that a person be adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution and that is probably as far as we should go with trying to link mental health and gun ownership.

Whether To Carry An Extra Magazine

 

VIDEO: "A Rebuttal To Mas Ayoob's Video On Carrying A Reload"--Active Self Protection Extra (20 min.)

    Earlier today, John Correia dropped a video on the issue of whether you need to carry an extra magazine for your carry weapon. His original video on the topic is here in which he explains why he doesn't carry a spare magazine, which essentially boils down to (i) the average citizen does not need to carry a spare magazine and (ii) there are other things (flashlight, pepper spray, a mini-IFAC) he would rather carry. Coincidently or not, Massad Ayoob released a video just days later on why you should carry an extra magazine (video here). Thus, Correaia's latest video is a rebuttal to Ayoob's video and probably better explains some of his ideas in the first video.

    As an initial note, Correia's video generated comment beyond just that from Ayoob. Greg Ellifritz, for instance, commented:

    At one point in my life, I never left home without a full sized gun and at least one spare magazine.  Now I’m less dogmatic about that.  As your skill levels and cognition about the combative arts improve, I truly believe one can do fine work with a gun that has limited capacity. 

    Shooting lots of bullets is a tactic.  If I’m carrying a small gun, that tactic is no longer available.  I’d best find an alternate tactic instead.  The true tactician is aware of his abilities and limitations.  He/she chooses tactics that compliment the weapon he is carrying.

Jon Low also had some comments on the video, questions Correia's statistics (Correia says he has viewed over 40,000 videos of gun uses and never seen one where a civilian used a reload) because the videos represent a subset of gun fights short enough to be interesting. But he also pointed out:

     Carrying an extra magazine is for clearing malfunctions.  Reloading is not significant, because running out of ammunition is not significant.  Just because John has not seen reloads in his videos, doesn't mean anything.  If you've taken classes or taught classes, you've seen lots of malfunctions that require another magazine.  And that was in the pristine conditions of training.  In combat, it is much worse.  

This was apparently a point raised by Ayoob as well. 

    My only comment concerning the original video actually was in response to issue of carrying an extra magazine in case of a damaged magazine was to not use training magazines for carry. Specifically, I wrote:

This is why I have recommended in the past that you don't practice with your carry magazines, especially any drills or practice which involves dumping the magazine into the dirt or onto the floor. Yes, function test those magazines, but otherwise treat them like babies because it is too easy to bend a magazine lip or get dirt or a pebble in the magazine.  Have a separate set of magazines for practice. 

Correia makes the exact same point in his most recent video.

    But in watching this latest video from Correia, I want to focus on another point he makes. We all know by now that the majority of civilian gun fights are three shots in three seconds at three yards or less. Ayoob asserts in his video that civilians should prepare not for the "average" but for the outlier events, citing to a couple civilian defensive gun fights (in the U.S.) where the defenders shot 11 and 17 rounds, respectively. Ayoob then notes that if you were in a similar situation and only carrying a handgun with 7-rounds and no extra magazine you could be in world of hurt. This, Ayoob argues, justifies carrying an extra magazine. 

    Correia's response is don't carry a pistol with only 7 rounds. That is, even accepting the possibility of a high round count of 11 or even 17 rounds, modern designs offer 15 or 17 round magazines obviating the need for an extra magazine even in the high round count situation. Moreover, new designs allow for 15 round magazines even in the small carry pistols. 

    I think it is a valid rebuttal to Ayoob's argument. Especially given Correia's point of wanting to carry other EDC items. I haven't had the opportunity (thank goodness) to offer first aid in the wake of an accident, but I frequently use a flashlight and my pocket knife (which uses a pocket clip). The knife gets used daily and the mini-flashlight that I carry in my pocket (which is actually better than the full sized lights of my youth) is probably used at least 3 or 4 times per week, even if for nothing more than lighting a darkened corner of a back shelf or such. While mine is attached to a key ring, a small tactical flashlight would probably be a better choice; and that would represent something more carried on a belt (in a pouch) or clipped inside a pocket--the same places you would carry an extra magazine. 

    Anyway, good points and counter-points all around and lot to chew on. 

Bombs & Bants (Streamed June 15, 2022)

 

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 40" (44 min.)

I wasn't able to sit in on this episode. I wish had been off hunting dinosaurs or handing out long range missiles as John suggested, but it was much more mundane: I was assisting with a church activity, helping supervise a group of youths (including two of my own kids) at a shooting range.

    Although I didn't attend the podcast, I have a few comments:

I have to concur with Mrs. Wilder's comments about Biden never having been raised in a household during comparable price spikes in gasoline. Biden was born in 1942. But if you look at the linked graph from the Department of Energy tracking gas prices from 1929 through 2011, you will see that gas prices barely rose in price during the whole time Biden was a youth (1942-1962). In fact, in real dollars, gas prices declined during that period. Moreover, adjusted into current dollars, gas was the equivalent of $2 or less during Biden's youth. Prices, I would note, that we never saw during Obama's presidency, and haven't seen since January 2020 when Biden was installed as President.

    Should have used Biden as a really slow AI, although I'm not sure Biden could pass the Turing test.

    I very much enjoy Dexter's Laboratory! But looking at the photograph of the dog man or whatever, the head is so far above the shoulders that it is obviously a mask/hood--a very badly designed one, to boot.

New Bombs & Bants (Streamed 6/8/2022)

 

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 39" (46 min.)

And like a bad penny, I'm back for this week's episode. Warning: this episode tries to be more positive and upbeat than our usual fare. 

New Bombs & Bants (Streamed 6/1/2022)

 

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 38" (36 min.)

I wasn't able to attend last night's podcast so its safe.