Firearms & Self-Defense:
- I hope that you all had a happy Independence Day. American Rifleman celebrated July 4 by reposting a few articles on, of course, the weapons used in the Revolutionary War:
- "Arms Of Independence: The Guns Of The American Revolution." As you can tell by the title, this is more of an overview, with an emphasis on the fowling pieces that probably were probably the more common arm at Lexington.
- "American Muskets Of The Revolution." A look at the military muskets used in the Revolution by American forces.
- "The American Longrifle." The American (aka, Kentucky or Pennsylvania) long rifle was a uniquely American creation that, while not as important as the musket, nevertheless played an important role in the Revolutionary War and turned the tide in one especially important battle that led to our receiving military aid from France.
- So I recently saw an article by Kat Ainsworth titled "380 ACP: Is It any Good for Self-Defense?" (Alternate site here). Well, it's better than a sharp stick, I thought to myself. But I went ahead and read it and came across this line:
According to the gunsmith and now-retired police Sergeant and US Army veteran Tim Crawford, his experiences made up his mind fast on the cartridge:
Never 380 ACP as a defensive round. I made a run one night on a guy who had been shot 7 times with a 380 ACP. It was a drug deal gone bad. [After being shot] the guy whooped the shooter’s a** and took his gun away from him. Made my mind up on it. And the guy lived.
Holy crap, Batman! That wouldn't happen with a *real* cartridge.
Before the call that changed Timothy Gramins’ life forever, he typically carried 47 rounds of handgun ammunition on his person while on duty.
Now, he carries 145, “every day, without fail.”
Gramins detailed the gunfight that caused the difference in a gripping presentation at the annual conference of the Assn. of SWAT Personnel-Wisconsin in 2012.
At the core of his desperate firefight was a murderous attacker who simply would not go down, even though he was shot 14 times with .45-cal. ammunition – six of those hits in supposedly fatal locations.
Oops. Maybe it can.
Alrighty, so is the .380 any good? It seems to depend on who you ask. As we saw above, some people are dead set against .380 even for a concealed carry piece. Conversely, others, like Mike V. (writing at Everyday Carry Concealed), Layne Simpson (writing at Shooting Times a few years back) and Richard Mann (writing at Shooting Illustrated in 2017) thought it was perfectly capable of being a good defensive round with modern bullet designs. Others are a bit more nuanced. In his article, "Colion Noir: Should You Carry The .380 For Defense?" (which I think was secretly a rebuttal to Ainsworth's article above), Jim Davis relates:
[Colion Noir] begins by explaining that, when he first came onto the gun scene, everyone told him to make his life fit around his gun. For some people, that’s fine, but not for Colion because although he loves guns, he does not want them to dictate his entire lifestyle.
He carries a Ruger LCP II for self-defense sometimes when he’s going to his mailbox which is “a bit of a ways” from his house. He has to walk to it and he does so at varying times, including after dark. He likes to keep his .380 Ruger by the door so it’s convenient for him to slip into his pants or the pocket of a hoodie and “Call it a day.” He doesn’t have to go and put a holster on or jump through hoops to go out the door. In short, it’s convenient. And after all, there are times when it’s just nice to have convenience.
That little .380 slipped into a pocket is a lot better than simply not carrying a pistol at all. It’s easy and fluidly fits Colion’s lifestyle. It works, and so he does it. I’ve done a similar thing with my .38 Airweight revolver; I might be running to the corner store and want to have something with me, so I slip the .38 into my pocket rather than gear up. I suspect that most of us who carry firearms have likely done something similar.
And:
Colion believes that at the end of the day, having a .380 is “better than nothing. Whether it’s a .22, a .380, a .44 Magnum, whatever the case may be, it’s going to be better than nothing.” He adds that the .380 has a good reputation as a self-defense gun, and he mentions that the former governor of Texas used a .380 to kill a coyote when it attacked his dog as he was jogging a few years back. “He got the gun that fits his lifestyle, he was going for a jog, he needed something small, and so he took his Ruger LCP. I’ve even done that.”
Colion Noir admits it is not ideal. “I’m not going to lie to you and say, ‘this is all you need’, because there are a couple things you have to think about too. There are always trade-offs…when I carry the LCP II in my pocket, I don’t have a round in the chamber because there’s nothing covering the trigger guard.” He explains that if he has to use the pistol, he must rack the slide when he draws it. As he said, definitely not ideal. Colion acknowledges that there are pocket holsters, but he does not use them because it adds too much bulk in his pocket. He admits it’s a trade-off and he will have to rack the slide to get a round in the chamber, and that’s just the reality of it.
The LCP II is Colion’s “Going to the mailbox” gun; his “Sometimes I take it running” gun. He uses a different gun for going out, and yet another kind as his bedside gun. In short, it “depends on what your lifestyle requires”, and he uses different tools to suit the task that he has at hand. Seems like a sensible approach to me, picking the right tool for the right job. He admits that he knows people who carry the LCP .380 as their full-time defensive pistol because it fits their lifestyle.
“At the end of the day, what it boils down to is, a gun that you always carry with you all of the time is going to be better than the biggest gun that you leave at home.”
Jumping back to a 2014 article, Greg Ellifritz observed that with .380, you can get good penetration or decent expansion, but not both.
That’s why so many gun writers have labeled the .380 cartridge as “marginal” over the years. It meets some of our standards, but not all. It will probably work fine in the “average” gunfight. But if any barriers must be defeated, if your attacker is wearing heavy clothing, or if you have to take a cross body shot that penetrates the arm before reaching the vital organs, there is a much higher incidence of failure as compared to the standard “service caliber” weapons.
He also states that "[a]lthough the.380 ACP isn’t a ballistic powerhouse, I’m more worried about the reliability of the guns chambering this round than I am its lack of ballistic performance," and goes on to relate problems (and problem guns) he has encountered in the classes he teaches. And he ends his article with a quote from Dr. Gary Roberts' taken from a wound ballistics briefing for the FBI:
Many small, easily concealed semi-automatic pistols which are recommended for law enforcement backup or concealed carry use fire .380 ACP or smaller bullets. While these small caliber handgun bullets can produce fatal wounds, they are less likely to produce the rapid incapacitation necessary in law enforcement or self-defense situations.
Handguns chambered in .380 ACP are small, compact, and generally easy to carry. Unfortunately, testing has shown that they offer inadequate performance for self-defense and for law enforcement use whether on duty as a back-up weapon or for off duty carry. The terminal performance of .380 ACP JHP’s is often erratic, with inadequate penetration and inconsistent expansion being common problems, while .380 ACP FMJ’s offer adequate penetration, but no expansion. All of the .380 ACP JHP loads we have tested, including CorBon, Hornady, Federal, Remington, Speer, and Winchester exhibited inconsistent, unacceptable terminal performance for law enforcement back-up and off duty self-defense use due to inadequate penetration or inadequate expansion. Stick with FMJ for .380 ACP or better yet, don’t use it at all. The use of .380 ACP and smaller caliber weapons is really not acceptable for law enforcement use and most savvy agencies prohibit them. While both the .380 ACP and .38 spl can obviously be lethal; the .38 spl is more likely to incapacitate an attacker when used in a BUG role.
BUG–Infrequently used, but when needed, it must be 100% reliable because of the extreme emergency situation the user is dealing with. Generally secreted in pockets, ankle holsters, body armor holsters, etc… Often covered in lint, grime, and gunk. By their very nature, usually applied to the opponent in an up close and personal encounter, many times involving contact shots. A small .38 spl revolver is more reliable in these situations than a small .380 ACP pistol, especially with contact shots or if fired from a pocket.
Handguns, by their nature, are a trade-off between effectiveness and comfort/concealment. How far you are willing to go to achieve that comfort and/or concealment will probably dictate how small of a gun you will carry. For instance, I can't ever see myself carrying one of the tiny North American .22 revolvers for self-defense. I doubt I would ever use a .32 ACP pistol, for that matter. But I am perfectly willing to carry a small or compact sized .380 or a snub-nosed .38 Special.
- "The .357 Magnum: History & Performance." A nice overview of this cartridge including the author's pet hand load. Speaking of .357 Magnum, I finally took my Python out to shoot this past weekend. I'd been out shooting a few times since I purchased it, but just hadn't taken it out yet. For some reason I was reluctant to shoot it. I don't know if this was because it was such a beautifully finished revolver, I was afraid of being disappointed, guilt over having spent that much on handgun or some other reason. But it was an amazing revolver to shoot. My kids, who were shooting 15 and 17 round semi-autos where like (after shooting all 6 rounds): "Is that it?" Sigh.
- Larry Correia, author of the Monster Hunter books and a serious gun guy, lists his top 10 gun and defense related YouTube channels plus some honorable mentions. The 10 are:
- Langdon Tactical
- Modern Samurai Project
- Lucky Gunner – especially their Start Shooting Better videos
- PHLster – the best source for tips on how to carry concealed in a way that’s effective, fast, and comfortable.
- Active Self Protection – about 30,000 videos of actual gun fights.
- Tim Herron
- Pat Mac
- Demonstrated Concepts LLC
- Paul Gomez
- Shiv Works
A few are new to me, so I guess I have some new channels to check out.
Prepping & Survival:
- While you probably associate Greg Ellifritz and his blog, Active Response Training, with firearms and self-defense, he also writes and links to topics related to prepping including first aid and treating wounds. From his latest Weekend Knowledge Dump, a few articles he found that fall into the latter category:
- "Backcountry Emergencies: Managing Sprains, Strains and Breaks" by Doc Rader, Imminent Threat Solutions.
- "After March and before Prolonged Field Care" by MechMedic, American Partisan. As you probably know, MARCH is a mnemonic for Massive Hemorrhage, Airway, Respiration, Circulation, Hypothermia Prevention. After MARCH, the next is E-PAWS-B for Eyes, Pain, Antibiotics, Wounds, Splinting and Burns.
- And for a more general prepping topic: "Common Blade Shapes and Their Uses" by Alex Cole, The Shooter's Log.
- "Has the US ALREADY spiraled into recession? Real-time Federal Reserve economic growth tracker suggests country is now in a slump amid soaring inflation and spiking interest rates." This had already unofficially leaked, but now the Atlanta Fed has publicly released its figures:
While many economist believed a recession would hit next year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Gross Domestic Product (GPD) tracker recorded a 2.1 percent drop following an abysmal end to the second fiscal quarter on Thursday.Coupled with a fall of 1.6 percent in the first quarter, the drops fit within the definition of a recession, a period of economic decline across the board identified by a fall in GPD over two successive quarters.
Inflation, high energy prices, and collapsing supply chains can do that.
- When I was in junior high school, I once mentioned to my mother how much I liked a banana-strawberry flavored yogurt she had recently added to our groceries. And so, thinking she was being nice to me, for the next two years, she packed banana-strawberry yogurt in my lunch until one day I had enough and told her "no more!" because I had grown so sick of it. Even now, writing about it makes me slightly ill. But that brings me to this article from Modern Survival Blog: "Appetite Fatigue From Inadequate Survival Food Storage." The author discusses the downside to a basic food storage plan like rice and beans (or, I would add, the old "basic five" plan that was popular in the LDS church a few decades past) and how to diversify your food storage to avoid getting sick to death of eating the same stuff day in and day out.
- China's economic woes continue to worsen. Even using China's official numbers economic growth is expected to slow to 4.3% in 2022 according to the World Bank, and well below the government's target of about 5.5%. One of the outward sign of this are small banks that have stopped depositors from withdrawing money to prevent bank runs (and the Chinese government punishing the depositors for protesting). But it runs much deeper than this. Xi Jinping has pursued a policy of zero Covid requiring infected cities and provinces to completely shutdown if any positive cases of Covid are found. This has resulted in major cities, most recently Shanghai, still being shut down even after the West finally realized that shutdowns were politically and economically unsustainable. It is not without its consequences. Charles Schwab reports:
The most dramatic of these recent lockdowns saw tens of millions of people confined to their homes in Shanghai during April. Data to be reported this week on April's retail sales in China is expected to show a drop of -7.5% from a year ago. But there may be even worse news. China reported a steep drop in tourist spending for the five-day Labor Day national holiday in early May. Tourist spending was down 43% from the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.The Caixin Services Purchasing Managers' Index, a closely watched indicator of the services sector of China's economy, plunged to 36.2 in April from 42 in March (below 50 indicates contraction). The impact is considerable, as the services sector accounts for more than half of China's GDP and over 40% of the country's employment. While the extent of the contraction was not as severe as the nationwide lockdown during the initial outbreak in February 2020, the sudden drop is beyond a normal cyclical fluctuation. With China's manufacturing sector also shrinking last month, it appears that the world's second-biggest economy may have gotten smaller in April.
Also, per Bloomberg:
In April, China’s jobless rate among 16- to 24-year-olds, a group that includes new college graduates, climbed to a record 18.2%. That’s three times as high as the national urban unemployment rate in China, and more than the 7.9% for the same cohort in the US.
It was serious enough that, at the end of May, "Premier Li Keqiang, China’s titular second-in-command behind President Xi Jinping, made an extraordinary plea to as many as 170,000 local officials about the urgent need to stimulate a now-shrinking economy." But, as the article points out, it is unlikely that local officials will heed Keqiang's plea:
For one thing, Bill Bishop, a China political expert who writes the Sinocism newsletter, points out that the People’s Daily—the Communist Party’s mouthpiece—only gave a small mention to Li’s speech on its front page May 26, below larger pieces about Xi that featured photos of the paramount leader (three, to be exact).For another, analysts at research firm Trivium China observed “there was an elephant in the vast but virtual room at Wednesday’s emergency meeting on the economy—the stringent Covid containment strategy that’s brought China’s economy to its knees.”Three weeks before Li’s extraordinary address, the Communist Party’s top leadership panel doubled down on Covid-zero. The Politburo Standing Committee pledged to “fight against any speech that distorts, questions or rejects our country’s Covid-control policy.”Finally, Li’s entreaties for provincial, municipal and rural leaders to fast-track infrastructure projects and do whatever else it takes to boost employment and restore growth were missing one key ingredient: money. He effectively told his audience they’re on their own, because Beijing won’t be opening up its coffers any further to give financial support.Xi has made clear that his success in containing the virus and avoiding the mass deaths seen in other major countries is the legacy he’s riding on heading to the party’s leadership conclave later this year.That leaves little hope for Li’s appeals.
It also appears that China's future is not as bright as many assume. Scott Lincicome, writing at the Cato Institute, notes that China's domestic productivity growth has stagnated, growth of new firms has declined, it has entered a period of demographic decline, its debt situation has worsened, "increasing by $2.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2022 alone," and property developers continue to default on loans. On the latter point, Lincicome relates:
Defaults in the sector “continue at a record pace.” As noted in a recent Carnegie Endowment report, Chinese debt might not be a problem if it were still supporting productive endeavors like consumption and business investment like it did between 1970 and the mid‐2000s, but today it’s generally not: “China’s surging debt burden is a function of nonproductive investment” (thanks, industrial policy!), and “[t]here is increasingly a consensus in Beijing that China’s excessive reliance on surging debt in recent years has made the country’s growth model unsustainable.” However, the report concludes by noting that Chinese policymakers aren’t yet willing to accept the economic costs—mainly, much lower economic growth—of shifting away from this model. So expect more distortions and continued malinvestment in the months ahead.
And here is the crux of it:
Based on these and other factors, an excellent new Lowy Institute report sees China experiencing a major growth slowdown in the coming years and never reaching U.S. levels of development: “China would still become the world’s largest economy, but it would never enjoy a meaningful lead over the US and would remain far less prosperous and productive per person even by mid‐century.”
And this pessimism came before what’s inarguably been the biggest and most troublesome development in China since last year: the utter catastrophe of President Xi Jinping’s seemingly religious commitment to a “Covid Zero” strategy, even as the virus became far more contagious (and less controllable) and as mass‐closures of Shanghai, Beijing and other major urban centers caused China’s economy to stall out, if not shrink altogether.
Read the whole thing.
- "Russian troops abandon Ukraine’s strategic Snake Island." Possession of the island made it easier for Russian forces to threaten shipping using the port at Odessa. From the article:
Ukraine’s southern military command insisted that Russian forces had evacuated from Snake Island — also known as Zmiinyi Island — in two speedboats following a sustained Ukrainian operation involving missile and artillery units.Russia’s defense ministry also confirmed that Russian troops had withdrawn from the Black Sea outpost — but claimed it was a “goodwill gesture” because troops had fulfilled their assigned tasks.
The Russian ministry added that the move showed Russia wasn’t impeding United Nation efforts to organize a humanitarian corridor to export grain and agriculture out of Ukraine.
Whatever the reason for the Russians leaving the island, it will be good to get grain shipments flowing again.
- "Depopulation: Vaccine Edition." Vox Day rounds up news of dramatic drops in birth rates from vaxxed populations, including a 10% decline in live births in Germany and 23.24% in Taiwan between 2021 and 2022.
- The science is settled: "Liberals are more likely to be maladjusted wet blankets: Here’s the proof" by Eddie Scarry, New York Post. An excerpt:
- More Lefty craziness:
Scholars at the University of Florida and University of Toronto published an extensive study in 2011 titled in part “Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals, But Why?” That paper was based on yet several other studies surveying the attitudes of American adults on life and how those lined up with their political ideologies.The authors found that “conservatism was positively related to life satisfaction . . . and even after controlling for participants’ age, gender, and family income level . . . conservatives are indeed happier than liberals.” Surveyed students who were more likely to cite personal responsibility and conscientiousness as dominant factors in their lives tended to self-identify as politically conservative and also tended to exude “a more positive outlook and stronger feelings of self-worth, as indicated by greater optimism and self-esteem as well as lower depression and depressive symptomology.”Rather than communicate like normal adults who can hear each other out and, at minimum, reach an understanding of differences, the immediate impulse of liberals is fight or flight. For liberals, political disagreements aren’t opportunities to learn or engage. To the contrary, they see those disputes as reasons to shrink their social circles, withdraw from family and silo themselves with others who will say only things that affirm their nasty predispositions and won’t disrupt their weird mentality.
- "'These people belong in jail!' Fury erupts over video of little girl being led by strutting drag queen with exposed breasts."
- "British climate activists deflate more than 40 tires on SUVs in NYC's Upper East Side and leave leaflets saying 'your gas guzzler kills': Group warns more cities will be struck in the coming weeks." So brave! Why don't they try that in Harlem.
- "Minority teachers at Oregon school: Eye-rolling is ‘harmful,’ based on white supremacy."
- "Oregon Health Officials Delayed a Meeting Because 'Urgency Is a White Supremacy Value'." Apparently the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) was referencing an anti-white website that blasted "urgency" because it took time away from POC contemplating their butt-hurt at having to live around whites and comport with the standards of an industrialized society.
- You might find this humorous: The Denver Democratic Part had originally planned a July 4th activity to burn the American flag, but cancelled it because it would be harmful to the environment.
- Nuke it from orbit; it's the only way to be sure: "The Assault on Children’s Psyches: California’s ethnic-studies curriculum is fueling a mental-health crisis among teenagers." Leor Sapir, writing at City Journal, relates and explains:
Patricia (a pseudonym) is the mother of a teenage girl who in recent years has come to identify as transgender. She lives in California, considers herself progressive, votes Democrat, and leads a group for parents of children with rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)—that is, youth who suddenly experience distress with their bodies and believe that undergoing medical “transition” will make them whole again. When I spoke to her recently, she recounted how her daughter’s at-first-lesbian and then trans identity emerged in response to feelings of shame about being white.I have since spoken to more than a dozen ROGD parents and parent-group leaders who tell a similar story. Their schools compulsively tell their children how awful it is to be white, how white people enjoy unearned “privilege,” how they benefit from “systems” put in place by and for white people for the sole purpose of oppressing “people of color.” Plagued by guilt, the children—almost all of them girls—rush to the sanctuary of “LGBTQ+” identity. Once there, they are catapulted into hero status. According to Patricia, some teachers at her daughter’s school are more forgiving toward “queer” and “trans” kids who hand in their homework late.The students, especially the girls, absorb this messaging. They are acutely sensitive to how identity affects their social status and academic fortunes. They want the warmth that comes with queer/trans identity, but above all they don’t want to be thought of as vicious oppressors. Lacking maturity and self-confidence, they fail to put “anti-racist” indoctrination in its proper context. They do not appreciate its ahistorical, anti-intellectual, and anti-humanist foundations, nor are they aware of the incentives leading teachers and administrators to foist it on them. Being white is not something these teenagers can escape, but they can mitigate its social costs by declaring themselves part of an oppressed group.
- Some people are too stupid to be parents: "Murder by malnutrition: Vegan mother is found guilty over death of 18-month-old son who weighed just 17lb when he died after being fed diet of only raw fruit and vegetables." The article also notes that "[t]he couple also had a three-year-old and a five-year-old who were severely malnourished." It seems we see a couple of these stories each year, about some idiot who places the lives of animals above their own children and, for that reason, won't feed them the foods they need for proper development and growth resulting in death. What does the Bible have to say about such people?
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; ... commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
1 Timothy 4:1 and 3. Take note that the foregoing scripture is not talking about the church in Paul's days, but "in the latter times"--i.e., our time. Thus, this scripture has nothing to do with whether to eat meat that had been sacrificed at pagan temples as some suggest. Also, it isn't being vegan that is the sin, but commanding others to be vegan. In other words, you can be vegan if you want, but don't force others to do so, especially children who need the fats, proteins, and amino acids for proper development and growth.
- We live in a sci-fi world: "In development: A synthetic foam that heals chronic wounds by suppressing inflammation and spurring blood vessel growth." Healing sprays used to be quite the trope in older science fiction works.
Bored of food? I had the same thing for lunch every time I had lunch in high school - ham and cheese sandwich. The problem was yogurt . . . ugh.
ReplyDeleteI've had other foods that I had so often as a kid that it was years--decades in the case of tater-tots--before I could eat them again. But that particular flavor of yogurt still makes me cringe just thinking about it.
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