From the description: "firearms trainer Ralph Mroz takes a critical look at the most commonly taught contact-distance shooting techniques".
VIDEO: "Extreme Close Quarters Shooting: A Critical Analysis of Contact-Distance Shooting Tactics (1999)" - SUPERTAPE Video Archive (57 min.)
Some longer or more involved reading:
In the case of our students who had to shoot in self-defense, the distances involved were:
Contact distance 4%
3-7 yards 91%
Beyond 7 yards 4%
The 3 shootings beyond 7 yards were at 15,17 and 22 yards, so some work at that sort of distance is needed, but not a lot.
... The Gun Control Act of 1968 still generally requires that handguns transferred between unlicensed individuals across state lines go through a Federal Firearms Licensee in the recipient’s state. What the USPS rule change does is remove the additional federal mailing prohibition that sat on top of that framework — a prohibition that applied even to fully lawful FFL-to-FFL shipments, FFL-to-customer shipments where permitted, and other transfers that were otherwise completely legal under the GCA but could not move through the Postal Service specifically.
In practical terms: an FFL shipping a handgun to another FFL for a customer transfer, a manufacturer shipping a pistol back to a customer after warranty service, or an individual shipping a handgun to a licensed dealer for consignment or sale — all of these transactions were legal under the GCA before April 2026, but could not use USPS. Now they can. The universe of handgun transactions that require an FFL has not changed. The shipping options available for those transactions have expanded significantly.
Criminals think in such selfish all or nothing terms because believing themselves omniscient and knowing everything, they sense no need to evaluate a situation at any length (unless casing out a place to commit a crime). For the criminal mind, just thinking something makes it so. If a person is certain of his omniscience and infallibility, he has no reason to engage in the rational mental processes that are necessary for making decisions, like defining the problem, establishing a realistic objective, suspending judgment, gathering facts, evaluating alternatives, and selecting a rational, thought-out solution. If criminals want something, they obtain it very quickly, one way or the other without rational decision-making and concern for their victims.
And then the switch from sympathy to guilt (Western societies are unique in being driven by guilt). This he does through these two sentences: "This incident, and countless other tragedies like it, is what inaction looks like. And for decades, both American political parties have been responsible for it." No, our country and our politicians were not the one's that told that woman to get into a trailer packed with dozens of other people, nor did we cause the accident. The woman did something stupid and suffered consequences.
Salazar continues: "As U.S. ambassador, I urgently and passionately made the argument to people in the White House and the halls of Congress that we needed to fix our border and find durable solutions. I warned Democrats that if we did not address this, it would contribute to defeat in the November 2024 elections. I’m sorry to say I was correct." Well, this seems reasonable. We need to fix the borders. But here is the reversal:
Trump was right that the border was broken and needed to be fixed. But his plan of enforcement, tearing families apart, terrorizing communities with mass ICE raids, and pitting nations against nations is not the solution.
In other words, he is saying that if you don't want illegals to remain here and believe they have to go back--because sending them back will require arrests--you are no better than a terrorist.
So at this point Salazar hopes the reader will be nodding his (or more likely, her) head in agreement, waiting with baited breath for Salazar to offer some reasonable solution. And that is?
I propose the creation of a New American Alliance, a North America where the borders, migration, and our nation's deep economic and cultural ties are fixed to create an untapped opportunity rather than a manufactured crisis. It is a truer expression of who we are as Americans—people who achieve greatness when we are united and when we work together toward common goals.
In other words, his idea of fixing the border is to simply do away with borders. Just let them all in and f*** all you lessor mortals that will actually have to live with the consequences.
And we have an example of this right now from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the North Africa coast, with the New York Post reporting:
An unprecedented wave of 60,000 illegal migrants from Africa has flooded the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, prompting Spain to deploy its military – as locals liken the invasion to an “apocalypse.”
Harrowing local media reports reveal residents and business owners in Ceuta – a Spanish territory located on the north African coast – are terrified to open their doors amid the rush of migrants, many of whom arrived wearing nothing but swimwear without a penny or possession to their name.
“Businesses closed. Shops shut because if you open a business, it gets overrun … We’re scared. The streets are packed. There are no measures in place. It’s every man for himself. They’re not giving us any help,” a terrified downtown restaurant owner who didn’t want to give their name told state-owned Spanish media outlet RTVE.
Visiting the Sacro Bosco (Italian for Sacred Grove), a 16th-century garden in Bomarzo, Italy, is no ordinary walk through the park. The seven-acre site’s sculpted monsters, open tombs and dramatic depictions of supernatural combatants make the experience more akin to braving a Renaissance version of a haunted house. Visitors can wander through a tilted building, run away from a giant gaping mouth and—if they manage to get past Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the gates of the underworld—descend into hell.
The Sacro Bosco’s colossal stone statues are frightening to behold. But what makes this garden extra eerie is that no one knows for sure why monsters haunt these woods. “No receipts, account books or commission documents survive to tell us about the Sacro Bosco’s creation,” says John Garton, an art historian at Clark University and the co-author of an upcoming book about the garden. Pier Francesco Orsini, the duke who commissioned the Sacro Bosco in the mid-1500s, left no explicit clues.
An interesting read and lots of photos.
You may have already seen the videos of the Spanish enclave of Ceuta being overwhelmed by 60,000 "refugees" bum rushing their way past fences and border guards--a figure that represents 70% of the native population of the city. The Spanish government says that half have already returned to Moroccan territory, but that still leaves 30,000 invaders. Plus, it is a proof of concept: that tens of thousands of unarmed military age men can overwhelm the border anytime they want.
The sudden arrival of so many migrants triggered chaos and a humanitarian crisis. Spain deployed its armed forces and additional police to restore order in Ceuta while security forces clashed with migrants on the Moroccan side of the border. At least 41 migrants died attempting the crossing.
They needed to have a few more zeros behind that.
Video footage early on Friday showed hundreds of migrants gathered on a hill overlooking Ceuta being dispersed with tear gas by Moroccan forces, while others continued to swim to the Spanish territory. But by Friday afternoon, most migrants were trying to leave Ceuta given the dire conditions there.
Rachid Sbihi, who leads a local workers association representing Civil Guard officers, described the situation as a “serious humanitarian crisis,” saying thousands of migrants, including unaccompanied children, were left sleeping in parks and on sidewalks, while others roamed the streets aimlessly.
“It’s chaotic,” Sbihi said.
The Spanish PM blamed trafficking gangs for organizing the assault. If so, who was being protected by the influx of huge crowds--lost in the shuffle, so to speak? A whole brigade of Iranians could have slipped into the enclave in that confusion--certainly smaller teams of special forces could have been snuck in.
VIDEO: "BREAKING: Migrants storm city border as national emergency requested"
Fox News (4 min.)
Mark Dice has a video montage showing Dr. Fauci contradictions and misinformation, as well as the useful idiots that believed his pronouncements. I am disappointed, however, that few people seem to be focusing on his statements in his diary that Covid would have lethality rates about that of seasonal flu, and then a short time later publicly stated that it would be ten times worse.
VIDEO: "Dr. Fauci is TOAST"
Mark Dice (17 min.)
I've previously discussed Peter Turchin's research and conclusions as to causes of civil war including his assertion of elite overproduction as one of the key factors underlying civil war. So I found this piece by Jared Gould to be interesting: "Degrees of Discontent: How Higher Education Created a Downwardly Mobile Elite." Gould explains:
In February 2010, evolutionary biologist and complexity
scientist Peter Turchin published an essay in Nature arguing that the
United States and Western Europe were headed toward a period of political instability.
He
pointed to widening inequality, stagnant wages, exploding public debt,
and an overproduction of college graduates with advanced degrees.
These trends, Turchin argued, had historically preceded periods of political turmoil.
As academics often do, many challenged his theory of history and questioned his methods; the New Statesman ran a piece in June 2023 dismissing Turchin’s prophecies as “empty.”
But Nate Silver’s recent essay, “The DSA Sweet Spot: Highly Educated, Downwardly Mobile,” brings renewed attention to Turchin’s warning about college graduate overproduction, or elite overproduction: the idea that societies become unstable when they produce more highly credentialed elites than there are elite positions for them to occupy.
Silver finds that the most reliably Democratic voting bloc in America consists of voters with postgraduate degrees earning between $30,000 and $60,000 a year. He notes that this is “very much also the sweet spot for the DSA” (Democratic Socialists of America).
[snip]
The [DSA]’s own membership survey, Silver notes, found that 80 percent of members age 25 or older hold at least a bachelor’s degree, while 45 percent report household incomes below $60,000—a modest income almost anywhere in the country and an especially difficult one to live on in high-cost metropolitan areas.
Those attracted to the DSA appear to be people whose credentials are misaligned with their economic outcomes. Its members are disproportionately rich in credentials yet occupy positions that fall short of the status and financial success their credentials were expected to deliver.
You can read Silver’s essay and make your own inferences, but what I infer from the data is that Turchin was right.
Rather than producing a prosperous professional class, American higher education has produced more graduates with elite aspirations than the economy has elite careers to offer. The result is a growing class of frustrated members of an overproduced elite.
And the reason we have such an oversaturation of such graduates is their desire to move beyond low status and low paying blue-collar jobs--jobs that are low paying because of another factor behind civil wars: the wealth pump. Specifically, the importation of large numbers of foreign workers and exporting of higher paying manufacturing jobs in order to drive down wages. And now, with the H1B program, the same is occurring to white collar workers and professionals.
In rebuttal to arguments against it, the host discusses why he liked using a vertical fore grip while in Special Forces.
VIDEO: "Entering the fray! Vertical Grips, worth it or worthless?"
Modern Tactical Shooting (17 min.)
Yuri Bezmenov: "Fauci Should Be in Jail, Not Georgetown." Excerpt:
Dr. Anthony Fauci committed crimes against humanity for ruining countless lives. He perjured himself lying about everything from the lab leak, school closures, and COVID mandates including the jab that never stopped the spread. Yesterday, he plead the fifth. In addition to his $400,000/year government pension and taxpayer-funded security, Dr. Anthony Fauci is now a Distinguished University Professor of “The Science” at Georgetown.
From Breitbart: "GOP Mayor in Utah Calls African Refugees the American West’s ‘New Pioneers’." Marsha Judkins is the RINO mayor of Provo, Utah--home to Brigham Young University. Her comments were made in relation to Pioneer Day celebrations:
Pioneer Day was initially founded to celebrate the Mormons who first populated Utah in large numbers, including LDS leader Brigham Young. But Judkins has refashioned Pioneer Day and is insisting that African migrants are Utah’s new pioneers.
In a message to Instagram, Judkins wrote that Utahans celebrate the day to “recognize those who journeyed west in search of religious freedom and the opportunity to build a better future free from persecution.”
But then she added, “We also recognize members of our refugee community who embody that same pioneer spirit, leaving behind familiar homes to begin new lives in a place they had never seen before.”
Mormon pioneers traveled into a wilderness and built farms, towns and cities. Refugees are not pioneers.
Another video on making nitrocellulose.
VIDEO: "How to Make Flash Paper - Magic Trick Fireballs (Nitrocellulose)"
NightHawkInLight (4 min.)
Wilder's latest piece is "If You Can’t Spot The Sucker At The Table . . . ." And when it comes to investing in the stock market, equities markets, etc., we--the common people--are the suckers. Wilder discusses several of the markets and investments that are legal scams, so be sure to reach the whole thing. One example is his discussion of investments in AI companies:
Nobody actually requires pension funds to buy speculative A.I. bets. But when the benchmark rate that the fund is trying to replicate is the S&P 500©, over half of that index is now A.I. Private credit and datacenter infrastructure funds are sold as “diversifiers.” The Aptly Named Larry Fink has been open about it and I’ve written about him before: a big chunk of the A.I. build-out is coming from “your savings accounts and pension accounts.”
If, or more likely when, the power plants never get built or the market discovers that no one really wants to pay a lot for A.I., the little guys eat it. We’ve seen this movie with mortgage-backed securities in 2008, but after 20 years, who isn’t up for a sequel?
And he concludes:
I guess I can stop pretending the game is neutral, because I could go on and on and on with more examples. To the big players, the Elons, Altmans, the Finks, we’re just liquidity and our retirement account is being used as their stack of chips.
The cards are the same.
The edge is not.
Don’t be the sucker.
As the video makes clear, don't try this at home.
VIDEO: "Making Gun Cotton"
SpiritedMaker (13 min.)
One of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's plan is for city-owned grocery stores that will supposedly offer prices 30% below retail prices on a core basket of goods. The stores will be operated by one or more grocery chains, but subsidized by the City. The current plan is to open five of these stores in the poorest neighborhoods in the five boroughs--areas that are currently served by mom-and-pop run bodegas. Consequently, and this is what proves Mamdami's communist bona-fides, "Taxpayers will subsidize Big Grocery to help put mom & pop bodegas out of business, and make the city's poorest residents more dependent on Big Government than ever."
From the Asahi Shimbun: "7.1 magnitude quake leads to casualties, fires in Kumamoto."
A major earthquake that registered a maximum seismic intensity of 7 rocked Kumamoto Prefecture at 4:27 p.m. on July 28, causing casualties, damaging or destroying infrastructure and disrupting transportation.
Tsunami warnings were issued for the Ariake and Yatsushiro Sea areas, but they were lifted at 6:10 p.m.
The Japan Meteorological Agency reported the hypocenter of the quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1, was at a shallow depth of about 10 kilometers.
The main quake was followed by a series of aftershocks, including one with an intensity of lower 5 at 4:29 p.m., and two more with intensities of 4 at 4:39 p.m. and 4:59 p.m.
The maximum intensity of 7 was recorded in Uki city and Hikawa town in Kumamoto Prefecture.
An intensity of upper 6 was felt in Kumamoto city’s Minami Ward as well as in the cities of Yatsushiro and Uto, and the towns of Misato and Mashiki.
There was damage to some buildings, including a shopping mall that suffered a partial collapse, and roads and at least one bridge. The Daily Mail has more photographs of the damage. Several people died in the mall collapse, but I haven't seen any real estimates as to the number of dead or injured. My guess is that it will be a fairly small number due to the building codes which take into account the earthquake risk.
Everyone probably has that can or box of food that somehow got pushed to the dark corner of a pantry or cupboard that, when you pull it out, you wonder if it is any good. This is particular true for preppers as we tend to store more food for longer periods of time than most people. So this article from MarthaStewart.com may be helpful: "The Most Dangerous Expired Pantry Staples, According to Food Safety Experts."
The article has specific advice as to certain items: powdered baby formula, damaged or bulging canned goods, flour, cooking oil, spices and dried beans. But as far as general advice, the article goes on to recommend:
Regardless of the printed date, certain warning signs should always send food straight to the trash. “There are several warning signs you should never ignore,” Okegbe says. She recommends watching for:
“The condition of the food and its packaging matters ,” Okegbe says. “If the packaging is compromised or the food looks, smells, or feels unusual, it’s best not to take the risk.”
And trust your nose.
Reading through WRSA yesterday, I noticed that Matt Bracken believes that, with the recent attack by Ukraine on an Iranian freighter in the Caspian Sea, we are already in another world war. It is something worth considering. I will say that while I don't believe we are quite there--after all, we aren't trading missiles with Russia--but it could easily slide that way.
One of the reasons I don't think we are there yet is because the public statements from Ukraine tie the attack on the Iranian vessel to Ukraine's war with Russia rather than as an extension of the U.S. conflict with Iran. CNBC reports:
Iran summoned a Ukrainian diplomat in Tehran on Sunday to protest an attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, as the war in the Middle East threatened to overlap with the Ukraine conflict.
Iran said the attack left one sailor dead and injured several others. The country’s foreign ministry complained to Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran early on Sunday and “conveyed Iran’s strong protest over the ‘hostile and criminal act.’” Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
In a post on X highlighting Ukraine’s attacks on distant Russian targets, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that his country’s forces “also achieved very strong results with long‑range strikes in the Caspian Sea – including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship.”
Russia has long used Iranian-designed Shahed drones in its war on Ukraine, a weapon that analysts sometimes refer to as “the poor man’s cruise missile.”
But it is not necessarily as simple as Ukraine striking Iranian shipping as a means of interdicting Iranian shipments of war material to Russia. From Fortune Magazine:
Hamidreza Azizi, an Iran expert at the think tank SWP Berlin, ran through different interpretations of Ukraine’s strike on the Iranian ship.
One is that Ukraine wants to demonstrate its value as a partner to the U.S., which supplies vital weapons like Patriot air-defense interceptors, adding that the operation couldn’t have happened without a green light from Washington and other Western partners, he explained on X.
Another view is that Israel and the U.S. asked Ukraine to pressure Iran on their behalf amid concerns that any attacks they make on Iranian infrastructure would trigger retaliation against regional economic assets.
A third interpretation is that Ukraine’s attack was in response to Houthi rebels threatening ships in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which Saudi Arabia has relied on to export its oil and bypass the Strait of Hormuz. [Ed: Ukraine entered into a security agreement with Saudi Arabia in March].
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is another vital shipping chokepoint, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The Iran-backed Houthis hit two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea this past week, causing Saudi Arabia to strike the Yemeni port city of Hodeida.
“In other words, the Caspian front, together with the Indian Ocean — where the United States has imposed a maritime blockade on Iran — is now intended to complete a ring of economic and military pressure around the country,” Azizi wrote.
He added that Iran is also worried Ukrainian intelligence services may support ethnic insurgent groups against Tehran, similar to Kyiv’s approach in Syria against the Assad regime.
To respond to Ukraine’s involvement, Iran could launch its own direct attacks against Ukraine-linked vessels in other sea lanes or against Ukrainian infrastructure. Tehran could also recognize Crimea and the Donbas as parts of Russian territory.
“In any case, what is clear is that Iran’s war is becoming increasingly intertwined with two other conflicts: the Saudi-Houthi confrontation and the Russia-Ukraine war,” Azizi warned. “With each passing day, the war is evolving into an increasingly complex, multidimensional, and international conflict.”
A video teaching WWII style combatives.
VIDEO: "Fight Like Your Grandad DVD"
Tommy Moore: Bartitsu Lab, Boxing & Gutterfighting (1 hr. 47 min.)
From CBS News: "Colorado River reservoirs hit record lows as Trump administration threatens major cuts." From the article:
A deepening water crisis in the Western United States has reached an impasse as disagreement among affected states is grinding progress to a halt, and the well of potential solutions is close to running dry.
The nation's two largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell on the Colorado River — have fallen to their lowest levels on record. It's a moment of reckoning in the drought-stricken West as seven states can't agree on how to share the rapidly shrinking water supply.
The Colorado River is a lifeline for the region, and it's the line dividing the upper basin states, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, and the lower basin states, California, Arizona and Nevada.
[snip]
After years of failed negotiations between the states, the Trump administration is now poised to impose sweeping cuts.
California, Arizona and Nevada have offered to cut their use by about 1.6 million acre-feet, or roughly 500 billion gallons, a year for the next two years.
However, federal officials who control the water flow are considering cuts nearly twice that amount. The major cuts would likely mean higher costs for cities trying to secure water, tighter restrictions on outdoor water and significant changes for farmers who use the majority of the river's supply.
Some more cultural enrichment news coming out of Europe:
The host of this YouTube channel had an unintentional discharge when drawing a handgun from an appendix holster. Looking at the holster, it appears that the pistol was only partially drawn when it discharged. He has no idea how it happened. In the comments, he indicates that it was a.40 S&W Glock 23 and an FDO Industries IWB Kydex Holster. He also indicates that the "[s]hot happened on the draw, not the reholster," and "[a]ll internals including the trigger are stock. Only mods to the firearm were a rear sight replacement and front mounted flashlight." It seems to me that one of the common factors to many of these accidents is a holster designed for a weapon mounted light.
The host also comments:
Probably will not carry appendix again. Probably will also not carry loaded again, unless the pistol has a safety or is a double action. I do think these would have helped prevent this.
I don't know if I'll conceal carry striker fired again.
Yes. This probably would not have happened with a DA/SA pistol.
VIDEO: "I lost a testicle to an accidental discharge."
North Wind Aerial (14 min.)
Louis Awerbuck passed away in 2014. Massad Ayoob wrote about him:
A master with pistol, revolver, and every kind of long gun, he was particularly noted for teaching the defensive use of the shotgun. His trademark was innovative shooting scenarios that duplicated real-world difficulties in which firearms had to be employed to protect the innocent. Awerbuck was one of the great trainers in his field, but more than that, he was a thinker. He understood better than most that in the word “gunfight,” the operative syllable was not “gun.”
The video below is a training video from Awerbuck on using a shotgun for combat including an overview of shotguns and shotgun ammunition, using a shotgun with sling, transition to a handgun, range drills, ready positions, dealing with multiple targets, and more.
VIDEO: "Louis Awerbuck - Combat Shotgun"
LASER BEARD (1 hr. 35 min.)
Some links that may be of interest:
Combat marksmanship (CMMS) is the ability to place lethal precision fire on a threat target in all environments under the stress of combat in order to reduce a threat to a point that it is no longer viable.
CMMS principles differ from those of marksmanship (MMS) because with the former, an enemy is either actively firing at you or has just been firing at you. In the latter, the Gunfighter has all the time to make a shot count. In CMMS, the Gunfighter has limited time to perceive a threat and then eliminate the threat. That time is literally the rest of their life.
He goes on to discuss topics of preparedness, mental rehearsal, determination, passion, and speed in order to achieve violence of action:
Violence of action is the execution of actions with surprisingly overwhelming force. It is a culmination of all the passion, determination and speed needed to realize victory. When faced with violence of action the assailant must reevaluate the situation. Violence of action also diminishes the bravado of the assailant and increases the bravery of the Gunfighter. Violence of action is the one aspect that criminals use to surprise victims and totally dominate the situation. By dominating the situation, they control the victim. The Gunfighter must use all the aspects of the combat mindset to be the one that dominates the situation, eliminates any threats with the appropriate level of force and be prepared to go to that level of force. Thereby controlling the situation and being victorious.
I recommend that most people wanting to be one-gun hunters focus on .30-caliber cartridges. Those can handle 180-grain to 200-grain bullets for black bears and big nondangerous game like elk and moose, where lighter, smaller-diameter bullets may be less effective.
However, he does recommend larger calibers for dangerous game (e.g., brown bear).
AR-10 rifles are a lot of things, but “lightweight” typically isn’t one of them. That is, until the Ruger SFAR was released. But since that rifle is being discontinued, and the guns were somewhat scarce as it is, I thought I’d try my hand at building a lightweight AR-10 and getting it even lighter, if possible. I wanted to stay within a reasonable budget, though. That said, I observed diminishing returns in weight versus cost—it could be lighter by shaving off a few ounces (maybe as much as half a pound depending on the optic you pick), but it would be ridiculously expensive.
The first part focuses on the lower receiver, while the future part 2 will focus on the upper (including optic) and part 3 will cover tuning the rifle. The author used a Nemo Arms receiver set that is made of "billet 7075-T6 aluminum, it’s skeletonized in some places and has lightening cuts in others, minimizing weight." When I built mine, I used a Roam lower receiver made of magnesium which is listed as having a weight of 7.3 ounces. (I also used a Roam upper).
Related:
Quick Answer: Yes, the AR-10 is an excellent hunting rifle. It is most effective for medium to large game like whitetail deer, feral hogs, and elk due to its semi-automatic action and chambering in powerful cartridges like .308 Winchester and 6.5 Creedmoor.
The weight race for AR platform receivers just shifted, and this is of interest for anyone who’s running & gunning a lot. 1791 Industries is introducing its LiteRaider line of ultra-lightweight uppers and lowers built from Metal Matrix Composite, a material engineered to sit 33 percent lighter than aluminum while matching the strength profile of 7075-T6. That's not a marketing-thin claim; it's built on an actual material science play, one that could reshape how builders approach the sub-eight-pound rifle conversation.
... Most of those ultralight rifles carry price tags north of $2,000, often $3,000 or more, before a scope ever touches the rail. The Howa Superlite in 6.5 Creedmoor breaks that pattern. At a street price that is typically under $1,000, you can easily build a complete rifle-and-optic package that comes in well under the price of other ultralight rifles. After putting rounds downrange from 100 yards out to 750 yards, it’s clear this mountain rifle backs up the affordable price tag with real performance.
But I don’t think most people using a shotgun defensively will ever need to reload. I’ve looked, and I can’t find a single example of a civilian defensive shotgun encounter that required a reload. Even John Correia of ASP hasn’t seen a civilian defensive encounter that required a reload across the entire spectrum of civilian defensive firearms use.
KelTec completely reworked its original P50 concept, replacing the awkward top-loading design with a drop-free magazine, machined receiver and far more practical controls. We put the new KP50 through a high-volume range session, with and without a suppressor, to find out whether the unusual 5.7x28mm pistol is more than a novelty.
The review is very detailed--much more than most firearms reviews. However, the conclusion is:
The KP50 is not for everyone, and KelTec clearly did not design it to be.
It is heavier and larger than a conventional handgun. It lacks a last-round bolt hold-open, and its unusual internal arrangement requires the shooter to learn a different manual of arms.
Ammunition cost will also discourage casual shooters from treating it like a rimfire plinker, no matter how mild the recoil feels. A 50-round box costs us $29, so it’s not ridiculously expensive but also not cheap like 22 LR.
Within those limitations, however, the KP50 is a remarkably successful redesign.
The new bottom-loading magazine corrects the original P50’s most awkward feature. The machined construction feels substantial. The folding brace, flat magazine orientation and uninterrupted top rail produce a compact package that is easy to configure and transport. Recoil is almost nonexistent, practical accuracy is excellent and the 9.6-inch barrel produces a meaningful increase in velocity compared with shorter 5.7mm pistols.
Most importantly, the KP50 is enjoyable to shoot.
That may sound like faint praise, but it is not. Firearms do not always need to imitate existing service weapons or satisfy a narrowly defined tactical requirement. There is still room in the market for a well-built, mechanically interesting gun that is accurate, reliable under reasonable conditions, and genuinely fun on the range.
The KP50 is strange, but it is not strange merely for the sake of attracting attention. Its unusual shape follows an unusual mechanical solution: fitting 50 or 100 rounds of 5.7x28mm into a compact firearm without hanging a large magazine underneath it.
KelTec took an intriguing but awkward concept and turned it into a much more mature platform. The KP50 remains unmistakably KelTec, but this time the unconventional engineering is paired with unexpectedly good execution.
It was in response to the demands of obstinate frontiersmen that the famous Kentucky model evolved. It hit its stride by about 1730 but underwent steady change for many years. Most rifles were built to the buyer’s specifications or according to the maker’s latest experiments, and the resulting new ideas were eagerly seized upon by competing smiths. For this reason, surviving examples show wide variations in detail.
No frontiersman wanted to carry a heavy weapon on his long treks in the wilderness. The weight was steadily reduced until the average Kentucky hunting rifle weighed between 9 and 10 pounds. (Those made for match shooting averaged about 19 pounds.) Similarly, using a large-caliber rifle meant that the lone pioneer had to carry a heavy load of bullets. So the caliber was reduced from the .65 and .70 common in Europe to about .45. The pound of lead that once yielded sixteen .70 bullets now gave forty-eight .45 balls — three times as many shots.
Simultaneously the front sight was enlarged and the trigger guard strengthened while it was stripped of its old bulk. But probably the most distinctive change came in the barrel, which on previous rifles had been uniformly short and heavy.
Now it was lengthened, ranging in the early Kentucky models from 51 to 77 inches, or up to more than triple the length of the average big-game rifle of today. This meant that less powder was needed than before, because it burned cleaner. In the opinion of several authorities, this long barrel which gave great accuracy at the same time that it deadened the noise of the firing was the main factor in the success of the Kentucky rifle.
Coupled with this was the novel “patch” method of loading invented by some unsung genius. Thanks largely to this discovery, rifles could be reloaded in one fourth the time it took before, and eventually backwoodsmen were getting off their second shot in less than half a minute after the first.
Health officials are tracking another outbreak of the 'explosive diarrhea' parasite as the disease runs rampant across the US.
The FDA said 72 people had been infected with cyclosporiasis, a disease transmitted by food or water contaminated with human feces, in a separate cluster than the one with thousands of suspected cases potentially linked to lettuce and Taco Bell.
... Another myth about prepping is that people think that that means that you have to have a whole room dedicated to stacks of toilet paper and rice and spaghetti sauce. Absolutely not. You just need to think carefully about how you live in order to learn how to manage your space.
In the living room in the corner, I had a white freezer, which looked absolutely ridiculous. So I applied wallpaper to it, and I think it looks really cute. The things that I keep in there are varied. I keep several different types of meat. I have some uncooked, and then I have some that are cooked and sliced and that I’ve cooked and ready to go, and I’ve packaged them. We have vegetables, we have pasta, and we have soup. We have pot pies and extra bottles of water because in the event of a blackout, our food will stay colder longer because we have the frozen bottles of water in there. If we get an injury and I need to place something cold on our leg or on our back, we could use that.
The rule of thumb is that harder alloy compositions last much longer but they don’t produce as many sparks from a typical strike. That’s because less material is physically being consumed.
Conversely, your softer alloy blends produce a much larger and more intense shower of sparks but they wear out much quicker due to greater consumption.
A selection of articles showcasing the benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion:
Nationwide, at least 1.5 million white-collar jobs are held by non-immigrant foreign contract workers, most of whom arrived via the H-1B program. The universities’ foreign scientists get their work permits via the controversial H-1B, J-1, and Optional Practical Training programs.
The science sweatshops financially exclude roughly 50 percent of young American technology and science graduates. The Americans, unlike most foreign students from poor countries, need to get well-paid 9-to-5 jobs to pay off their college debt, live a normal life, get married, and have kids.
One side result is large-scale discrimination against non-white Americans in favor of Asian migrants.
Amid this replacement migration, foreigners on visas now comprise more than 40 percent of the PhD students in the hard sciences, and roughly 25 percent of students in “applied life sciences,” the Kratsios report says. This critical population includes many students from China and India who bring their own national loyalties and home-country economic ties with them.
An illegal alien released into the United States by the Biden administration is now accused of raping a 6-year-old girl at a daycare in Sacramento, California, a sanctuary jurisdiction.
Last year, illegal alien Gokhan Bagci of Turkey was arrested by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged a detainer against Bagci that same day.
According to police, in July 2025, Bagci was working at the Mather Childcare Center when he allegedly lured a 6-year-old girl into a closet pretending to play hide-and-seek with her. Once in the closet, police allege that Bagci sexually assaulted her.
Following the sexual assault, police allege Bagci took the girl into a bathroom where he raped her. Police have said there may be more child victims.
Javier Cereque-Perez, an illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested by ICE and FBI agents before being turned over to the Fishers Police Department to face two counts of attempted rape, one count of sexual misconduct with a minor, and one count of sexual battery.
Vasilios Papapitsios noticed a scaly, itchy rash on their buttocks after a shower on March 13, which raised alarm bells for the long-time STI awareness advocate. Papapitsios, a South Carolina resident who uses they/he pronouns, usually stays up to date on the latest on sexual health news. He had been reading about an emerging sexually transmitted illness (STI) just a few weeks prior: a fungal infection, with the largest known cluster of cases reported in Minneapolis in July 2025, colloquially called TMVII.
"I just showed up [at my local health clinic] and said, 'I think I have a fungal infection that's a new STI,'" Papapitsios tells Them. "They didn't even know what I was talking about. My doctor had to look it up."
[snip]
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Infection (CDC), TMVII is a fungal infection that can spread through sexual contact, but also by sharing towels and linens or any skin-to-skin touch. Patients and experts alike are concerned about the lack of response to TMVII, given that most of its cases have presented in men who have sex with men. The U.S. government has a track record of mishandling, ignoring, and actively cutting research funding of infectious diseases that disproportionately impact queer people. Coupled with the fact that it can take weeks to run a test for TMVII, some experts are concerned that the fungal infection has silently been spreading to epidemic proportions without intervention.
Khalid Satary, 54, was cuffed in the Middle East on Monday after more than three years on the lam for allegedly orchestrating a scheme to defraud Medicare of over $547 million, the US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday.
Officials say Deepak Kumar, 31, illegally picked up the cargo in Pennsylvania on June 25, then drove off with the toxic compound.
Tungsten oxide powder is used in armor-piercing bullets, ceramics, lasers, optical products, and high-tech windows, according to the New York Post.
After the theft was reported to police, investigators used a Flock camera system to track Kumar’s semi and the vehicle was located in Indiana traveling on Interstate 70 near Greenfield.
Charles Eric Medina, 31, was arrested on manslaughter charges for fatally striking Rapp, a 26-year-old up-and-coming featherweight fighter, with his car while she was cycling with her boyfriend, Will Pollalis, in Brazos County, Texas, on Saturday.
Fourth of July descended into mayhem across parts of Southern California as unruly crowds overwhelmed packed-out fireworks displays, looted stores, ignited fires and saw cops charge on horseback.
The worst unrest erupted in Newport Beach, where Independence Day revelers poured into Orange County, choking traffic and triggering a police response as disorder spread near the pier.
Authorities ultimately shut down businesses from the Newport Pier to Pacific Coast Highway as officers moved in to restore order.
Hasan Piker, the leftist influencer, has millions of followers across Twitch, YouTube, and other platforms. And so it is not without interest that he has described Mao as “one of the great leaders of this world” and that, when challenged about this, he conceded that “there was a lot of f***ing excesses, let’s be real, but. . . .”
Ah yes, there is always a “but.”
The “but” in this case was that “the People’s Republic of China would not exist without Mao Zedong.”
True enough. Then again there were tens of millions of Chinese who would have existed for quite a bit longer were it not for Mao or his republic. And many of those did not meet their deaths because of yet another catastrophic communist “reform,” but because they were, in one way or another, murdered.
Reminder: Hasan Doğan Piker is the son of Turkish immigrants.
Questions are being raised over how the daughter of a congresswoman landed a $411,000-a-year council job over three other candidates who reportedly scored better than her in interviews.
Erica Lee Carter, 46, the daughter of late Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, was appointed as the Harris County Administrator earlier this year in a hotly contested hiring process with over 400 applicants.
The role is one of the best paid government jobs in Harris County, which covers over five million people including the city of Houston, with applications coming from CEOs and politicians across the country.
Civil rights groups in New York have released a report demanding reparations for black residents, arguing that decades of deliberate racial inequality must be amended.
The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) released a report last week titled, The Other New York: The Legacy of Slavery and the Case for Reparations Now.
Federal Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz said New York’s overblown $110 billion spending on medical bills is sickening — as he claimed Chinese crime syndicates are ripping off the Empire State.
The TV doctor-turned-Trump administration official, blasted New York’s Medicaid program as rife with fraud in an interview Sunday as he outlined an alleged scheme that included millions of dollars in fraudulent medical bills.
“Social safety net programs are being defrauded. They’re being hurt oftentimes by foreign governments or foreign-run criminal syndicate organizations,” Oz, administrator of the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said Sunday on 77 WABC ‘s the “Cats Roundtable” program.
The three videos below all pertain to an incident where a man, dressed all in black, walked into an LDS church somewhere in Utah with a revolver (unloaded as it turned out) and sat down in the foyer. The building was evacuated and police arrived and arrested the man without incident. If you just want the bare bones facts, I would recommend skipping the first two videos and go straight to the third video.
The first video is the host of the "Send Me" YouTube channel interviewing someone that was attending church when the incident occurred, and describes what happened.
The second video is a follow-up to the first video, with the host of the "Send Me" channel explaining why he did not provide information as to the location where this incident occurred and why there weren't any news reports.
The third video, from the Christian Warrior channel, provides commentary and analysis from someone who has helped train church security teams, albeit for other churches and not the LDS church; and, in fact, he is not affiliated with the LDS church.
As far as I can tell from my own interactions with other members, as well as comments I've read or heard, the Church's policy prohibiting the carrying of concealed carry weapons (unless a current LEO) seems to be largely ignored by those who regularly carry firearms. Individual bishops can try and organize a security team, but it would necessarily need to be current law enforcement officers per the policy. Not all congregations ("wards") have active LEOs; and some law enforcement organizations prohibit their officers or agents from participating in such teams. So, essentially you are on your own until police arrive, which is what the Church's active shooter training film basically tells you.
I understand why the Church has done this even if I disagree with the policy: many of the Church policies are driven by its risk management and legal departments. In this case, the Church faces less legal exposure by leaving the flock defenseless than if it permitted members to be armed or allowed security teams to be formed.
But even if the Church did authorize teams, there are some practical considerations that would make it difficult to secure the buildings from someone getting in: that there is no single "main entrance". The typical LDS church building in the United States will have two "main" entrances on either side of the chapel and one or more "main" entrances at the rear of the building; and larger buildings will have additional entrances. For instance, up until recently I attended church at a building that had 8 entrances. Not all of these will be unlocked for activities during the week, but all will be unlocked on Sundays.
In addition to the aforementioned entrances, there will be one or more additional outside doors that will typically be locked--generally an outside door to the kitchen and possibly additional access or emergency exit doors depending on the design and layout of the building and code requirements.
These design considerations are because, on Sunday, there will typically be two or more wards (i.e., congregations) meeting in the same building plus people coming and going to other meetings for specific organizations (e.g., choir) or that have appointments with leaders. In short, the buildings are not designed for security; they are designed for easy ingress and egress.
VIDEO: "EVACUATE! - Gunman in LDS Chapel"
Send Me (20 min.)
VIDEO: "UPDATE - Gunman at the LDS Chapel"
Send Me (16 min.)
VIDEO: "Armed Man Walked Into A Packed Church And Nobody Stopped Him"
Christian Warrior (19 min.)
MPR News reports: "Rochester jury finds woman who hurled racial slurs at a Black child on a playground guilty." Guilty of what? One count of disorderly conduct toward Sharmake Omar, the man who filmed her; but she was acquitted on a second charge of disorderly conduct for her conduct toward the kid that stole her baby's food. "She was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine, was placed on probation and ordered to complete community service," the article relates. Since she isn't facing jail time unless she violates probation, it is doubtful she will appeal the case, which is probably what the judge is counting on since the conviction rests on very shaky Constitutional grounds as this article from FIRE explains: "Shiloh Hendrix’s conviction can’t be squared with the First Amendment."
Unless the trial record contains some critical fact absent from public reporting, that conviction cannot stand under the First Amendment.
The video merely shows a heated verbal exchange between Hendrix and Omar. No threats. No violence. Nothing beyond words. However much offense they caused, that simply does not justify the government imprisoning, fining, or otherwise punishing the speaker. A public argument does not become a crime because a speaker used a particular word.
The jury reportedly was instructed on the quaint “fighting words” doctrine. Although still technically an exception to the First Amendment, the Supreme Court recently threw cold water on “fighting words,” observing it “has not upheld a conviction under the fighting-words doctrine in 80 years.” That case was 1942’s Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, involving a man who had choice words for a police officer. It’s a good thing the fighting-words exception has been sharply limited and arguably erased by the Court’s subsequent speech-protective decisions. Violent individuals shouldn’t have a veto over what others can say.
Even if the “fighting words” doctrine still has a pulse, it’s very hard to see how it applies to Hendrix’s comments. The doctrine is, at most, confined to a tiny category of face-to-face insults that, under the circumstances, are likely to provoke an immediate violent reaction. But courts have made clear that even the most taboo racial slurs are not fighting words per se. And, as the video shows, Omar solicited Hendrix — who was walking away while carrying her child — to repeat the slur so he could capture it on video and shame her. She did so and then continued walking away. Nothing about the interaction suggests Hendrix’s words were likely to provoke an immediate violent response.
What this case is really about is punishing an uppity white woman. If the races had been reversed and she had been calling out "cracker" at a white kid, the prosecutor would have laughed at the mere suggestion that a criminal offense had occurred.
But perhaps the deeper lesson here is that we need to deport people like Omar. The kid's father obviously wasn't that upset about the incident. So why was Omar following a white woman around in a park and filming her? Had he been filming her before this incident? Or did he manufacture this whole incident in order to make money (he has raised over $40,000 on SpotFund)?
Some longer or more involved reading:
“For the working class to govern, we need a new political system. End political corruption and legalized bribery: get rid of lobbyists, dark money, and Citizens United, and publicly finance all elections. Abolish the Electoral College. Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.
Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate.”
The article explores what each of the elements of this communist wish-list entails, together with this warning:
Our republic was created to tame the appetites of would-be autocrats, making tyranny unlikely, if not impossible to implement. Communists, by contrast, consolidate power.
Lenin, for one, was notoriously unwilling to share power. He led a small faction of the Russian Social Democratic and Labor Party—Democratic Socialists’ presumed namesake—called Bolsheviks, or the majority. He labeled his opponents, usually in the majority, Mensheviks, as being those in the minority and it stuck. It’s not that his ideas weren’t attractive to the majority of socialists—they weren’t—but the future dictator deliberately cobbled together a cell of dedicated yes-men.
Even after the coup, Lenin was unwilling to share power with fellow socialists which earned him criticism from old school Bolsheviks like Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev and the famed socialist writer Maxim Gorky. He survived an assassination attempt by the Socialist Revolutionary party member Fanny Kaplan who felt that the mastermind of the government takeover betrayed the revolution.
After Lenin’s passing, Stalin placed his henchmen in local party cells and purged the opposition, starting with Lenin’s acolytes like Mikhail Bukharin, Kamenev and Zinoviev and the sometimes acolyte Lev Trotsky. Successive waves of repressions followed. By these and other methods, the population of the Soviet Union was successfully terrorized into obedience.
Reading this about the DSA brings to mind the famous quote from Rafał Gan-Ganowicz, a Polish anti-communist activist, mercenary, and writer. When a journalist asked him what it felt like to take a human life, he replied: "I wouldn't know, I've only killed communists."
China Uncensored's latest video returns to the topic of China's demographic collapse evidenced by the dramatic decline in the number of pre-schools and kindergartens, as well as some discussion of failed efforts by the CCP to increase birth rates. His thinking on why the Chinese refuse to have more children tracks my thoughts on the general decline in fertility rates: children have become a luxury that most young people can't or won't pay for.
On the other end, China is seeing deaths outpace births. The Rhodium Group published a paper earlier this year that predicts that China's population will decline by more than 60 million people in the next decade--roughly the population of France. The report goes on to note that:
The headlines are bad, the regional breakdown is worse. The country’s most developed provinces are seeing falling populations, which will impact overall consumption and the future productivity of the labor force. The impact on household consumption is obvious, but the larger problem for Beijing may be the hit to social security funds. The fiscal subsidy to social security funds rose to a record 2.9 trillion yuan last year, or 10.1% of general budget spending, and appears set to rise in the future.
It also states:
The drop in China’s birth rate in the 2020s has been shocking, even in the context of continuous declines since 2018. The ratio of new births to total population reached only 0.563% last year, compared to 1.199% a decade ago in 2015. The total of 7.92 million new births for the full year was the lowest level since 7.57 million in 1939, when China’s population was closer to 400-500 million people.
Admittedly, the number of women of child-bearing age has declined by 13% over the past decade to 213.7 million, but new births more than halved over the same interval. This reflects changes in behavior and preferences, as policy is now pro-natalist and has been far less restrictive since 2016, when the one-child policy was formally abandoned.
Chinese citizens’ decisions to marry and have children later in life are the main reasons behind the collapse in new births. The average age of people married rose to 34 years old in 2024, from 32.4 in 2018. As a result, the number of marriages declined by 40% from 2018 levels to only 6.1 million in 2024 (Figure 2). The average age of women bearing children increased to 30.1 years old in 2024, from 28.4 in 2018. These trends correlate well with additional education and economic advancements in other countries, and these factors are likely having an effect in China as well.
Another more recent factor that may be depressing births is the change in employment conditions. Alongside weaker economic growth, more workers have shifted to the gig economy, which does not provide security nor stable incomes. Additional discussions of potential AI-related job losses may be contributing to popular insecurity and uncertainty, which feed back into the birth rate as well. Social phenomena such as “lying flat,” “letting it rot,” or other societal trends developing within China’s youth also may be contributing to reductions in stable relationships and willingness to have children.
It doesn't help that China is an atheistic country as there is a strong correlation between religiosity and birth rates. (See also, "China’s Population Decline – The Impact on Business, the Economy, and Labor Markets" from China-Briefing).
China faces its own pension crises as well because of fewer workers to support a growing population of retirees. The Diplomat goes over this in a Feb. 11, 2026, article entitled "As China Ages, a Pension Crisis Looms." A key point:
By 2040, roughly 402 million people in China are expected to be over the age of 60, more than a quarter of the population. By comparison, the total population of the United States is expected to reach around 379 million by that time. This shift marks a turning point for China, signaling the erosion of its long-standing advantage in abundant and affordable labor while presenting a formidable financial challenge in caring for an aging society.
These demographic pressures prompted China to begin a gradual adjustment of its statutory retirement age in 2025, the first such change in more than seven decades. The retirement age for men will gradually increase from 60 to 63 over a 15-year period while the retirement age for women will rise from 55 to 58, with adjustments varying by occupation. While delaying retirement may ease fiscal strain, it does little to alter the underlying demographic arithmetic driving the crisis.
VIDEO: "China's Population is Collapsing"
China Uncensored (7 min.)
Zero Hedge reported on some comments from Israel's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich--the second most powerful cabinet member according to the article--with the article relating (bold in original):
“The State of Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between Iran and the United States," far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a session at the Katif Conference for National Responsibility, which endorses Jewish settlement in Palestinian territories. "The current situation is the best one for us.”
[snip]
In his latest remarks, Smotrich candidly acknowledged that Israel and the United States have different goals vis a vis Iran, but said America's continued military engagement furthers the Israeli agenda. “[We] must remember that the ultimate goal of Israel, and not necessarily the United States, is to undermine and weaken the regime in Iran – to the point of overthrowing it,” Smotrich said.
Disregarding the widespread victimization of innocents that the strategy entails, Smotrich said destruction of Iran's economy will help precipitate the Iranian government's collapse. "Currently, inflation in Iran is at 85 percent, food inflation of over 134 percent in a total of four months, and the Iranian rial is trading at an exchange rate of 1.9 million to the dollar - and it's going up." He then reiterated that "the current situation is good for us, and there's no point in pushing ourselves inward."
That might work if the economic collapse was not clearly the result of outside agents; but, as Germany and Japan illustrated during WWII, economic woes will not spark a rebellion when there is a clear enemy to blame.
The article also recounts comments from an Israeli journalist opining that Israel staying out of the fight makes it less of a target for Iranian attacks, allowing daily life to continue and saving the country billions of shekels for air operations or interceptions of incoming missiles.
Larry C. Johnson at Sonar21 suggests another reason for Israel pulling back is because both of its oil refineries were damaged earlier in the conflict and now Israel faces a shortage of diesel and jet fuel; and any further damage to the refineries would severely limit Israel's ability to continue military operations in Gaza or Lebanon. And yet another source, quoting the Wall Street Journal, indicates that the U.S., under pressure from Arab states, asked Israel to sit out the war in hopes that doing so will keep Iran from striking more of the Arab states' energy infrastructure, and make it politically easier for those states to join in attacks against Iran.
I think this is a good example of the maxim "countries do not have friends, only interests". Israel's interests were to (i) destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities, which the United States has pretty much already done for it; and (ii) eliminate the Palestinians, which is easier to do if (a) the United States is distracted with Iran and (b) Israel can concentrate its efforts on Gaza and Lebanon. Besides, it increasingly appears that we are moving toward having boots on the ground in Iran; and there was no way that Israel was ever going to be part of that effort if for no other reason then it would outrage Muslims around the world. The best we can hope for is a limited invasion to capture the territory adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz, followed by an extended occupation of that territory by a coalition of Arab states.
The question that needs to be asked is what are the United States' interests? I would say that our interests are limited to keeping open the Gulf of Arabia and the Strait of Hormuz to the free transit of oil, which was the situation before the war but is now impossible because of the war. And the reason we are in this situation is because our leaders lost sight of our interests and/or believed that Israel's interests were the same as ours.
