Gun & Prepping News #37

Just some gun and prepping related links that I thought interesting or useful: 

• "KelTec PR57 Review: 5.7mm Rotary Pistol Is Fast, Accurate, and Freaky Light"--Guns.com. I've read and watched a bunch of reviews of this pistol, now that it has made its way into the hands of various shooters. Like many of KelTec's products, it seems to be a crap shoot whether you get a great gun, an okay gun, or a lemon. This particular reviewer mostly liked what he saw. I think the concept has a lot of merit. The inability to quickly reload the weapon seems little enough of an issue since it carries 20 rounds and, as John Correia of Active Self Protection has pointed out, in watching the thousands upon thousands of videos of defensive shootings he has never seen a civilian shooter reload their weapon. 
• "An Israeli Soldier Shows Why ‘Israeli Carry’ Can Get You Killed"--Shooting News Weekly. If you don't already know, "Israeli carry" refers to carrying a semi-auto pistol with an empty chamber. He links to a video showing an incident from last year where an Israeli soldier in a cafe is attacked. It took the soldier 8 seconds to draw and rack the slide on his weapon. "And that was after he’d gotten away from the attacker, stood up, and drew his gun." Moreover, he was only able to do so because a bystander had helped wrestle the attacker away for a bit. The author notes:

    Criminal attacks almost always happen suddenly, without warning and on the attacker’s timeline. Not yours. If you’ve failed to recognize any pre-violence indicators and find yourself under attack, you have to react and respond quickly. Taking up valuable seconds to load a round in your defensive pistol can come at a very high price, up to and including your life.

    Not only that, but if you’re trying to fight off an attacker, you very well may not have your off-hand available to rack your slide. And if you access your gun and try to load it, and the bad guy sees what you’re doing, you’ll invariably find yourself defending that pistol in a high-stakes game of tug-of-war.

    Most of the time, if you ask people who carry with an empty chamber why they do so, they’ll answer with their feelings about how it’s safer or they’re just more comfortable that way. Running that through the universal translator, what they’re really saying that they aren’t confident in their ability to safely and effectively carry and handle their pistol.

    The answer to that is more or better training and practice. However, for a lot of men in particular, a combination of pride and their platinum Man Card doesn’t allow for asking for help in learning how to use a gun. 

• “Impalo-Car-Fu”--Tactical Wire. The author gives some thoughts, and an example or two, of using a car as a deadly weapon.
• "Ruger LC9s Pistol Review ~ Striker Fired Concealed Carry Pistol"--Ammo Land.  From the author's conclusion:

 In my opinion, the LC9s is a very nice compact, smooth, safe, accurate and reliable pistol for CC. The trigger press of about 5.2 pounds is excellent and it is sized right for my medium-sized hands with a narrow .90″ width for easy concealment. This press is one of the best of all my 9mms. The trigger stroke covers just over three-eighths of an inch and positively resets with the same distance of travel. The trigger and recoil are easy to handle and control, even if your hand strength is weak. For such a small gun, the accuracy is very good.

• "Are Adjustable Gas Blocks Necessary For a Suppressor?"--The Truth About Guns. The short answer is "yes and no". Most suppressor designs increase the amount of gas (the pressure) feeding back into the operating system. This can not only cause the system to operate faster, but literally beat the parts against each other causing excess wear and tear. The gas block can be used to moderate the amount of gas. But, if using an AR system, you can also reduce the velocity at which the bolt is running by changing the buffer weight and/or spring. This might not reduce the amount of gas going into your face but it will mitigate the other issues. 
• A story from the Korean War: "We Had a Week Off from Active Combat, So I Went Trout Fishing. I Got Pinned Down by a Sniper"--Outdoor Life. The sniper was camouflaged so well that the Marine could not spot him. Then the sniper's position was betrayed by a magpie. 
• "The Evolution of the Battle Rifle: From the FAL to Today’s AR-10"--Ammo Land. The author has some interesting facts, but he makes it sound like the development of the FAL, M-14, and AR-10 were serially, from one to the next, when much of the development was concurrent: these were all competing designs for the U.S. infantry rifle in the 1950s. The M-14 hearkened back to older designs; the FAL was a modern (for the 1950s) design; and the AR-10 was something very new and groundbreaking for its day. 
• Speaking of battle rifles: "Army’s New XM7 Rifle Ignites Debate on Ammunition Capacity"--Ammo Land.  The article, IMHO, details the arguments on either side of the debate. But it also looks at the new round--the 6.8×51 or .277 Fury--from a civilian perspective. And, as the author notes, "[f]or most civilian shooters, the 6.8×51mm round is overkill—literally and financially." 
• "Different Kinds Of Handguns, Explained"--The Firearm Blog.  Looking at the difference between revolvers and semi-auto pistols; double-action, single-action, and striker fired; and the size categories (full size, compact, and subcompact). 
• "Wired Re-Creates Assassin’s Pistol and Silencer"--Ammo Land. A commentary on gun laws:

    Writer Andy Greenberg at Wired.com has replicated the 3D-printed pistol and silencer used to assassinate UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City. The task took him several days and thousands of dollars worth of time, machinery, and parts. Greenberg does a credible job of explaining the process and the lengths he had to go through to do so legally.

    With personal advice from an acknowledged 3D gun printing expert, a serious budget from Wired, and a licensed silencer manufacturer, Greenberg succeeded in the State of Louisiana. The action took place in Louisiana because much would have been illegal under New York State law. Taking the gun back to New York State would also have been illegal. ... 

The author goes on to note that it would been easier (and less expensive) for the killer to have purchased a weapon on the black market or steal one. So why go to the trouble? The author believes it was to promote gun control:

This would make the murder serve double-duty: increase scrutiny of insurance companies through terror, and promote gun control at the same time.  As a Leftist, “social justice” activist, it is not surprising the assassin would want to push gun control. 

• "As Deportations Rise, The U.S. Is On Track For The Lowest Murder Rate On Record"--The Federalist. John R. Lott begins:

    Murder rates are plummeting. While we still have more than half a year to go, Kash Patel, the FBI’s director, says that the U.S. is on track to have the lowest murder rate ever. The current record low occurred in 2014 when the FBI reported a murder rate of 4.45 per 100,000.

    The question is: why? Law enforcement matters, but it is probably also that Trump is deporting criminal illegal aliens. 

• A story from Brazil: "Boy, two, accidentally kills his mother with his father's gun while playing with it in front of them"--Daily Mail. Several lessons here including don't leave a loaded firearm out on a table where a young child is playing. 
• "Fruit Tree Not Fruiting? SCARE it into Making Fruit!"--David the Good. He had previously shared a story of a friend who, trying to get an avocado tree to grow, threatened the tree and it worked. A reader related that it is a common belief in the Middle-East:

"... they have this custom where if a tree will not produce fruit, they threaten it. You are supposed to go up to the tree with a friend, and talk about how angry you are that the tree will not produce fruit, and how you are going to cut it down. You bring along a knife or some other sharp object with you, and as you tell your friend that you are going to cut the tree down because it does not give you any fruit, you begin to stab at the tree. Your friend stops you and says no, do not kill the tree, give it a chance and see if it produces fruit this next season before you cut it down. They said if you do this, the tree will always produce a nice crop of fruit the next season. I actually did this with my friend on a tree that’s in his yard that wasn’t producing, I think it actually worked.”  

For my LDS readers, you might compare the account above with that in the parable of the olive tree in the Book of Mormon. 

• "Preppers: What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do"--The Organic Prepper. First of all, the author suggests that you stop "doom-scrolling" to help your mental health. Second, rather than focus on a specific disaster scenario, she recommends general preparedness with an emphasis on the seven pillars of preparedness, being:

•     Pillar One: Water
•     Pillar Two: Shelter
•     Pillar Three: Fire
•     Pillar Four: Food
•     Pillar Five: Signaling | Communication
•     Pillar Six: Medical | Hygiene
•     Pillar Seven: Personal Safety

Third, she recommends that you do productive things related to the pillars or financial security, many of which don't cost money. The article has a long list of examples. Finally, the author recommends just doing something. Pick something and work on that rather than staying stuck on trying to figure out what needs to be done first. There is a term in computer science called "thrashing" where a computer system spends an excessive amount of time swapping data between memory (RAM) and disk storage (virtual memory) to the detriment of productive work. Trying to figure out what to do without getting anything done, or trying to get too many things done at once such that nothing actually gets finished reminds me of the term "thrashing". 

• "Why were we so skinny in the 1960s? Nutritionist reveals slimming secrets of the past"--Daily Mail. The article lists four factors contributing to obesity today: (i) a decline in consuming fresh, home cooked meals; (ii) larger portion sizes; (iii) people are less active (people had more active, physical work back then); and (iv) lack of sleep. 
• "How a Shipwrecked Crew Survived 10 Days Lost at Sea"--Outside (via Get Pocket).  From the lede:

    On November 25, 2019, Chris Carney and his two-man crew, Pete Brown and Jun “Sumi” Sumiyama, set off from Japan on their way to Hawaii in a 42-foot sailboat, the Coco-Haz III. They had four weeks to cross the world’s largest ocean. The boat’s owner, a retired Japanese dentist, needed the trip done in a hurry—he’d lose a boat slip he’d rented if it didn’t arrive in time. Carney didn’t think they would make it on schedule, even if everything went right. But things went far worse than he imagined when two catastrophes left them stranded in the middle of the sea.

    Here is Carney’s story, as told to Outside. 

 You will note when reading the article that the biggest challenge facing the men was keeping up their morale. 

• "Some sections of New Orleans' flood walls sinking at rate of nearly 2 inches per year, study finds"--CBS News. 
• "US Doomsday prepper reveals his fallout shelter stocked with survival gear amid fears of WWIII"--Daily Mail. Key takeaway is that the prepper interviewed for the article recommended 30 to 90 days worth of food. Anyway, an interesting look at one man's take on preparations. 
• "Expert reveals only two places that would be safe in a nuclear war"--Daily Mail. Not just the war, but the aftermath including a nuclear winter. The expert indicates that Australia and New Zealand would be the best places for survival explaining that not only are they unlikely to be targeted, but they are less likely to be impacted by fallout and are about the only two regions where sustainable agriculture will continue.