Latest Weekend Knowledge Dump ...

... from Active Response Training. While the blog's author, Greg Ellifritz, always has a good selection of articles, I sometimes skip over articles where the title or subject just don't pique my interest. But there was a lot in this week's collection even for someone as old and jaded as me. A selection:

• One of the articles is from Mind4Survival and includes advice on travelling to foreign countries with your family (including children). I think the author's rule requiring his kids to put away their electronic devices and ear buds while moving (i.e., walking or riding a bus or train) is good advice for everyone whether travelling or not. And the points on trying to learn a bit of the language is good. Just as you might not like hearing people conversing in a foreign language when you are in a grocery store, people in other countries are even less tolerant of it. 
• Greg links to a very detailed article on the rear naked choke hold published by GracieMag. 
• An article from Pistoltraining.com on "Red Dot Considerations". I typically skip over articles on pistol-mounted red dots because I don't have any handguns with red-dots. But if you are considering a red dot, the author shares the two models that have fared the best in heavy testing, and gives his recommendations on reticle types and sizes that have served him well in competition.
• Not all pistol qualification courses are relevant to the person carrying a concealed handgun, but the U.S. Air Marshal Pistol Qualification, described in a Mag Life article, certainly is.
• Greg has included in his post a link to an article from PewPewTactical on the history of the fighting shotgun that goes into more detail on the history of such weapons than I've seen in other articles on the subject. I have a book from Timothy Mullin entitled The Fighting Submachine Gun, Machine Pistol, and Shotgun: A Hands-on Evaluation in which he tests and provides his thoughts on submachine guns, machine pistols and combat shotguns. Although the combat shotgun section is short relative to the rest of the book, it is interesting because he tests some of the common shotguns that had been used in combat up to the time he wrote the book (I believe late 1990s). 
• For those of you interested in terminal ballistics, Greg has included an article from Bev Fitchett's guns on centerfire rifle wounds, which can be very gory when considering contact shots.
• Greg includes a few posts on the topics of civil unrest. One of these, on what criminals will be wearing, is just about using infrared LED lights actually attached to the hood of a hoodie to blind infrared security cameras. But the other two, from Paul Martin and Off Grid Survival, discuss the risk and triggers of civil unrest and surviving an economic collapse, respectively. Martin's article notes the political polarization and how it might influence someone to try and participate in protests or riots or take some other action. He warns (bold in original): 

And some free legal advice: if any of your "friends" suggests you participate in some illegal act as a form of protest, you can safely assume that individual is either a federal law enforcement officer or an asset of a federal law enforcement agency.  They are not your friend.  Please don't assume they are, even if you've known them for a long time.

Martin also includes links to a bunch of other articles he has written on the topic of civil unrest.

    I've noticed a few people write that it is unlikely that explosives will be widely used in a future era of civil unrest, unlike what we have seen in Middle Eastern conflicts. I disagree. For one thing, explosives have historically been widely used in terrorist attacks in the United States, both in the early 1900s by anarchists, and in the 1960s and '70s by various leftist groups. Although it is harder to legally obtain explosives now, that doesn't keep people from stealing or making explosives much as the IRA did during the Troubles. Included in Greg's post are a couple links to articles on blast injuries and their treatment. If you think wide spread social unrest is coming, you might want to also read up on what to do in event of a bomb attack, including first aid and medical considerations.